It helps to keep agents of the government like the FBI, ATF, and WTF off of our property.
That is the reason its in our constitution.
Yup, that worked great at Ruby Ridge, didn't it. They fought back the corrupt government, the FBI backed down, and everyone lived happily ever after. The second amendment did it's job.
That, or the FBI shot them all to death and got away with it. I can't remember. Maybe I'm thinking of Waco.
In my country there is talk about what I believe is the absolutely stupid and nasty move of prohiting prisoners from voting.
If a person is unable to make the right decision when presented with the question, "Should I rob this bank or not?", then how can you even consider that they'd make a good decision when asked, "Which candidate should run the country?"
Besides, the vast majority of prisoners would vote for the [L|l]iberal/left-wing party, because conservatives are notoriously tough on crime. It's pointless. Just assume that all prisoners would vote for the party on the left, if they weren't such psychotic social degenerates incapable of functioning in a civilized society.
No, the parent is right. "Boxen" is trendy and stupid. It comes from pluralizing "ox" (the livestock), but neglects to consider the convention of other words. For example, the plural of "fox" is "foxes," not "foxen." The plural of "pox" is "poxes." Actually, even the word "box" itself is supposed to be pluralized as "boxes." Have you ever heard anyone outside of the geek-clique say, "Hey Jim, hand me those boxen over there, would you?"
It's a trendy way for geeks with self-esteem issues to be trendy in a cult-humour sort of way, and feel like they belong in some sort of elite club that misuses words. Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and every other dictionary I checked all pluralize "box" as "boxes," and not a single one of them included any reference to an alternate pluralization ending in 'n'.
2bad we cant decide what we vote about.... u cant vote on whether or not 2 keep the fbi now can u? voting is not freedom its just keeping us happy...
If you're not intelligent enough to properly formulate and punctuate a simple statement, then why should we regard your opinions with any value at all? Writing like you do makes you look sloppy and (sorry to say it) stupid.
Save the 1337-5p34k for ICQ, where someone's on the other end impatiently waiting for your response. When writing for a messageboard like Slashdot, I strongly suggest you take the extra 30 seconds and make your comment legible and coherent. There's no rush.
Of course, voting's compulsory here in Australia, which is a Very Good Thing.
Have you ever heard the saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink?" This can be re-expressed as, "you can force a citizen to vote, but you can't force him to make an informed vote."
Mandatory voting is a terrible, terrible idea. People who are ignorant, apathetic, and uninformed end up casting random votes that dillute the results. In the best case, they "guess" correctly, and pick a good candidate. At worst, they pick a terrible candidate, and their vote effectively "cancels out" the vote of someone who actually took the time to get educated on the issues, watch the debates, and cast an informed vote.
Leave the voting to the people who actually pay attention to what the candidates stand for. Forcing people to vote when they know absolutely nothing about the candidates and the issues does not lead to some kind of perfect democratic utopia, but rather renders the government little more than a popularity contest, or who can generate the most name recognition.
Last time I checked, there is no clause in the Constitution saying anything about how old you have to be to qualify for the First Amendment.
Uh, it doesn't say anything about "age" in the second amendment either, but are you going to say these kids should be allowed to carry guns, too? Certain commonsense restrictions need to be applied to all the clauses of the Constitution, whether it's punshing people for falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or requiring gun owners to be at least 16. Use your head.
Why should corporate profits leap by huge percentages while employee salaries do not?
Because during the years when revenues drop, those same employees will fight like hell against taking a corresponding pay cut. Are you really sure you want to tie salaries directly to revenues?
I realized that the sick-claw was not a knife, but was rather more like the claw of a cat. Cats use their claws to pierce and hold prey, not to disembowel
When an RFID-school-pass, GPS-cell-phone, or junk-food-in-schools story appears, the thread are dominated by comments denouncing the Orwellian tools, calling for parents to butt-out. Yet, in threads like this one, when the shoe is on the other foot, the comments swing the other way, with almost no one blaming the violent games themselves, and instead demanding that the parents take responsibility and get more involved.
Given that in either case, the comments are almost unanimous (and among the more popular, as threads go), this suggests that it is largely the same crowd in both cases. Otherwise, there would be a relatively even split of pro/con posts in both types of threads. If it is as you say it is, then where are all the "parent-blamers" when the thread is dominated by posts criticising GPS-tracked cell phones? And where are all the "parent defenders" when threads like this pop up, and the comments are all of the same theme (that is, that "the parents should take more responsibility for their kids"). No one seems to be disagreeing. But if you were the story were to suggest a parent secretly search their kid's room for marijuana, suddenly the thread would be overwhelmed by posts demanding that the parents butt-out and "let kids be kids."
It is a PARENTAL problem and should be dealt with as such. Parents should take fracking responsibility for raising their children and when their children become delusional, homicidal maniacs they should CONTINUE to take responsibility since it was THEIR parenting techniques that helped little Johnny become what he is today.
The problem with people like you, however, is that you so quickly flip-flop when the parents do try and monitor/control their kids behaviour. It's people like you who scream "1984!" at any suggestion of a GPS-enabled cell phone that parents can track, or RFID school passes that make sure kids are in class, or any other tools created to help parents do exactly what you (at least for now) are demanding parents do.
This happens every single time a thread like this comes up on Slashdot. If it's a story about video games making kids violent, or snack food making kids fat, people like you cry for the parents to step up and do something. But if it's a story about schools banning snack foods, or cyber-cafes banning GTA, then the same people come out screaming for liberty for the 12 year olds, and demanding that the parents butt-out.
Make up your damn minds. You can't have it both ways. Do you think perhaps that the real solution isn't quite as black-and-white as the zealots portray it to be? That maybe there's some sort of middle ground that's not being explored here?
Consumer Reports famously doesn't have ads. I also don't think I've seen an ad in national geographic.
I should have addressed Consumer Reports, as a couple other posters have mentioned it. I'm not sure it counts, as it's somewhat of a special case. The whole point of Consumer Reports is to provide unbiased product review information, and their credibility would be harmed by accepting ad revenue. In order to maintain an air of impartiality, they have to decline ad revenue.
"National Geographic," on the other hand, if you are correct, is a great example that I was not aware of. I've only skimmed over them occassionally while waiting in doctors' offices, and I never noticed the absense of ads. Good call.
Did you bother to research your claim at all? In particular, I'm thinking of Birds & Blooms and Pennsylvania Magazine.
Settle down there, bud. Just because I've never heard of your obscure little, low-circulation hobby magazine doesn't mean I didn't do "any research at all." I was talking about widely circulated, mainstream publications. If I can't walk into my local convenience store and pick it up off the shelf, then I don't think it's fair to count it.
I prefer small publications which are capable of subsisting on their subscriptions alone
Really? Name one. Do these even exist anymore? My modest command of trivia is suggesting to me that MAD magazine was the very last such publication to subsist entirely on subscription revenue, and even they finally caved in a few years ago and began including ads in their publications. To the best of my knowledge, there simply aren't any large-scale periodicals that are capable of existing solely on subscription revenue anymore.
So maybe that answers your question "Why do people spend money on magazines that contain ads?" Because they all do. Ad-free magazines simply do not exist anymore. There aren't any. Not one single one. Prove me wrong.
That's all well and good, but the truth of the matter nowadays is that both parents want to work. Our parents did a good job raising us, telling us that if we want to make something of ourselves, we have to go to college. So we did. Both men and women. Then, in university, we met the person who would eventually become our spouse. After college, they both wanted jobs, to put this new, expensive education to work. After all, they're young, educated, enthusiastic, and unemcumbered by kids. So they both get great jobs, and buy a nice big house and each drive a BMW SUV.
A few years later, they want kids. Being used to getting what they want, they proceed to spawn. However, neither of them want to work, being new-age, enlightened folks. "Why should I automatically have to stay home? This is 2005, for cryin' out loud," says the woman. "Well, I'm not quitting my job," says the man, "I make more than you. It makes sense for me to keep working." They crunch the numbers and realize that they both must keep working, in order to continue being able to afford gassing up their BMW SUVs and heating/cooling their 3000 sq. ft. mansion.
Kids are inevitably born, and a minimum-wage, immigrant nanny is hired, or the kid is shipped off to daycare, where he/she learns questionable value and is largely emotionally devoid of the individual attention he/she needs and deserves. But mom and dad, still working 8 - 10 hour days, only have to deal with Junior for a few hours a day, so they don't notice that Junior is starting to resent them. Feeling guilty, they buy him whatever he wants (after all, they're still "rich" enough to do so). Junior wants a cell phone. "It'll let us reach him wherever he is," the parents reason, and buy him the phone. Junior wants a car. "It'll free us from having to shuttle him around all the time," reason the parents. Junior wants GTA3. "It'll keep him out of our hair for a few hours a day," say the parents.
So junior, having been raised by an immigrant with poor english and questionable credentials, learns to entertain himself, and finds that he can spend a very large amount of time hanging out with his friends doing whatever, and his parents won't nag him about it. He doesn't really like (or know) his parents anyway. Eventually, they get divorced. Junior plays GTA4 with his buddies in his basement while his parents are at work, and they laugh every time they run over a hooker. Then they go out under the deck behind the house and smoke a joint. Mom and Dad won't be home for hours anyway.
Almost all polticians are out to appease the voters, not solve problems.
Is that the fault of the politicians appeasing their consituents, or the voters who value style over substance? You can't blame the politicians for playing the game. They have to work within the system the people have constructed, or they won't be rewarded with subsequent terms.
Extra extra! Read all about it! Children likely to have less rigid morality than adults! Children may or may not understand concept of intellectual property! Extra, Extra!
A 29 year old counts as a "child?" Woo hoo! Maybe I'm not so old after all!
Regarding the last point, the actual figures were 6%, as opposed to 2% of the general population. With a poll base of only 2,043 individuals, and an error range of 3.1 percentage points plus or minus, one can seriously question the validity of this last statistic.
Unless one steps back and gives it the sniff test. Think about it. Are you really trying to deny that kids shoplift more than adults? Do you really think that a gainfully employed 32-year old is more likely to shoplift than a 16 year old?
Call attention to the math, sure, but on the face of it, the conclusion still makes sense. It's pretty obvious to me that 16 year olds shoplift more than 40 year olds. Also, they throw more tantrums, get in more fights, and just generally do a lot more "kid stuff" than your average 40 year old.
In a related story, researches have discovered that new home construction costs practically nothing at all, as the wood was taken from trees that were growing there anyway. Wood costs nothing to fabricate, as mother nature provides it for free (given enough time). The foundation is poured from concrete, which is just rocks, sand, and water, all of which are freely available. Thus, new home construction is 100% profit.
So is this an easy way of unlocking the doors of a car? Sounds a bit insecure to me.
You think that's insecure, check this out: The only thing between a thief and your stereo is a pane of glass! All they need is a rock or something heavy, and they can easily get into your car and take anything they want! And get this: This works on ANY MODEL OF CAR!No car is immune to this kind of attack!
Can you believe such an easy-to-bypass security system exists in every single car model on the road?
</SARCASM>
My point: If people are willing to damage the vehicle they are attacking, then no system will completely protect you. The safety afforded by having the airbag active all the time is no more of a security "loophole" than relying on glass to deter thieves.
Not quite. As a policy, MAD discouraged pre-emptive strikes, as you acknowledged. However, the reason this policy was necessary was because everyone implicitly reserved a "first-strike" doctrine in their military policies. Therefore, MAD was necessary to discouarage people from using the "first-strike" tactic. Without a pre-emptive clause in their policies, MAD would have been unnecessary. The fact that countries are still "reserving the right" to first-strike necessessitates the MAD policy again, and threatens to revive the cold war. The US is merely being overtly explicit in their reservation of a "first-strike" policy.
Slashdot Mirror
It helps to keep agents of the government like the FBI, ATF, and WTF off of our property.
That is the reason its in our constitution.
Yup, that worked great at Ruby Ridge, didn't it. They fought back the corrupt government, the FBI backed down, and everyone lived happily ever after. The second amendment did it's job.
That, or the FBI shot them all to death and got away with it. I can't remember. Maybe I'm thinking of Waco.
In my country there is talk about what I believe is the absolutely stupid and nasty move of prohiting prisoners from voting.
If a person is unable to make the right decision when presented with the question, "Should I rob this bank or not?", then how can you even consider that they'd make a good decision when asked, "Which candidate should run the country?"
Besides, the vast majority of prisoners would vote for the [L|l]iberal/left-wing party, because conservatives are notoriously tough on crime. It's pointless. Just assume that all prisoners would vote for the party on the left, if they weren't such psychotic social degenerates incapable of functioning in a civilized society.
No, the parent is right. "Boxen" is trendy and stupid. It comes from
pluralizing "ox" (the livestock), but neglects to consider the convention of other words. For example, the plural of "fox" is "foxes," not "foxen." The plural of "pox" is "poxes." Actually, even the word "box" itself is supposed to be pluralized as "boxes." Have you ever heard anyone outside of the geek-clique say, "Hey Jim, hand me those boxen over there, would you?"
It's a trendy way for geeks with self-esteem issues to be trendy in a cult-humour sort of way, and feel like they belong in some sort of elite club that misuses words. Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and every other dictionary I checked all pluralize "box" as "boxes," and not a single one of them included any reference to an alternate pluralization ending in 'n'.
2bad we cant decide what we vote about.... u cant vote on whether or not 2 keep the fbi now can u? voting is not freedom its just keeping us happy...
If you're not intelligent enough to properly formulate and punctuate a simple statement, then why should we regard your opinions with any value at all? Writing like you do makes you look sloppy and (sorry to say it) stupid.
Save the 1337-5p34k for ICQ, where someone's on the other end impatiently waiting for your response. When writing for a messageboard like Slashdot, I strongly suggest you take the extra 30 seconds and make your comment legible and coherent. There's no rush.
Of course, voting's compulsory here in Australia, which is a Very Good Thing.
Have you ever heard the saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink?" This can be re-expressed as, "you can force a citizen to vote, but you can't force him to make an informed vote."
Mandatory voting is a terrible, terrible idea. People who are ignorant, apathetic, and uninformed end up casting random votes that dillute the results. In the best case, they "guess" correctly, and pick a good candidate. At worst, they pick a terrible candidate, and their vote effectively "cancels out" the vote of someone who actually took the time to get educated on the issues, watch the debates, and cast an informed vote.
Leave the voting to the people who actually pay attention to what the candidates stand for. Forcing people to vote when they know absolutely nothing about the candidates and the issues does not lead to some kind of perfect democratic utopia, but rather renders the government little more than a popularity contest, or who can generate the most name recognition.
Last time I checked, there is no clause in the Constitution saying anything about how old you have to be to qualify for the First Amendment.
Uh, it doesn't say anything about "age" in the second amendment either, but are you going to say these kids should be allowed to carry guns, too? Certain commonsense restrictions need to be applied to all the clauses of the Constitution, whether it's punshing people for falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or requiring gun owners to be at least 16. Use your head.
Why should corporate profits leap by huge percentages while employee salaries do not?
Because during the years when revenues drop, those same employees will fight like hell against taking a corresponding pay cut. Are you really sure you want to tie salaries directly to revenues?
I want my taxes to do something good, not make people dumber. I don't even own a TV to begin with.
You're the guy!
I realized that the sick-claw was not a knife, but was rather more like the claw of a cat. Cats use their claws to pierce and hold prey, not to disembowel
Sounds like my ex-wife.
*buh-dum-ching!*
When an RFID-school-pass, GPS-cell-phone, or junk-food-in-schools story appears, the thread are dominated by comments denouncing the Orwellian tools, calling for parents to butt-out. Yet, in threads like this one, when the shoe is on the other foot, the comments swing the other way, with almost no one blaming the violent games themselves, and instead demanding that the parents take responsibility and get more involved.
Given that in either case, the comments are almost unanimous (and among the more popular, as threads go), this suggests that it is largely the same crowd in both cases. Otherwise, there would be a relatively even split of pro/con posts in both types of threads. If it is as you say it is, then where are all the "parent-blamers" when the thread is dominated by posts criticising GPS-tracked cell phones? And where are all the "parent defenders" when threads like this pop up, and the comments are all of the same theme (that is, that "the parents should take more responsibility for their kids"). No one seems to be disagreeing. But if you were the story were to suggest a parent secretly search their kid's room for marijuana, suddenly the thread would be overwhelmed by posts demanding that the parents butt-out and "let kids be kids."
It is a PARENTAL problem and should be dealt with as such. Parents should take fracking responsibility for raising their children and when their children become delusional, homicidal maniacs they should CONTINUE to take responsibility since it was THEIR parenting techniques that helped little Johnny become what he is today.
The problem with people like you, however, is that you so quickly flip-flop when the parents do try and monitor/control their kids behaviour. It's people like you who scream "1984!" at any suggestion of a GPS-enabled cell phone that parents can track, or RFID school passes that make sure kids are in class, or any other tools created to help parents do exactly what you (at least for now) are demanding parents do.
This happens every single time a thread like this comes up on Slashdot. If it's a story about video games making kids violent, or snack food making kids fat, people like you cry for the parents to step up and do something. But if it's a story about schools banning snack foods, or cyber-cafes banning GTA, then the same people come out screaming for liberty for the 12 year olds, and demanding that the parents butt-out.
Make up your damn minds. You can't have it both ways. Do you think perhaps that the real solution isn't quite as black-and-white as the zealots portray it to be? That maybe there's some sort of middle ground that's not being explored here?
You say that in UNIX is not multiuser? And UNIX is using INI-like-files for something like 30 years and it just works...
I'm sorry, but did you just use the words "UNIX" and "it just works" in the same sentence? With a straight face?
Consumer Reports famously doesn't have ads. I also don't think I've seen an ad in national geographic.
I should have addressed Consumer Reports, as a couple other posters have mentioned it. I'm not sure it counts, as it's somewhat of a special case. The whole point of Consumer Reports is to provide unbiased product review information, and their credibility would be harmed by accepting ad revenue. In order to maintain an air of impartiality, they have to decline ad revenue.
"National Geographic," on the other hand, if you are correct, is a great example that I was not aware of. I've only skimmed over them occassionally while waiting in doctors' offices, and I never noticed the absense of ads. Good call.
Did you bother to research your claim at all? In particular, I'm thinking of Birds & Blooms and Pennsylvania Magazine.
Settle down there, bud. Just because I've never heard of your obscure little, low-circulation hobby magazine doesn't mean I didn't do "any research at all." I was talking about widely circulated, mainstream publications. If I can't walk into my local convenience store and pick it up off the shelf, then I don't think it's fair to count it.
Magazines shouldn't have any. If a magazine costs 20 bucks a month, why should they have to use ads?
I can't be certain, but I think it has to do with the same reason my cable bill is $80 a month, but all my TV channels still have ads.
I prefer small publications which are capable of subsisting on their subscriptions alone
Really? Name one. Do these even exist anymore? My modest command of trivia is suggesting to me that MAD magazine was the very last such publication to subsist entirely on subscription revenue, and even they finally caved in a few years ago and began including ads in their publications. To the best of my knowledge, there simply aren't any large-scale periodicals that are capable of existing solely on subscription revenue anymore.
So maybe that answers your question "Why do people spend money on magazines that contain ads?" Because they all do. Ad-free magazines simply do not exist anymore. There aren't any. Not one single one. Prove me wrong.
However, neither of them want to quit work, being new-age, enlightened folks.
Minor typo, big difference in meaning.
That's all well and good, but the truth of the matter nowadays is that both parents want to work. Our parents did a good job raising us, telling us that if we want to make something of ourselves, we have to go to college. So we did. Both men and women. Then, in university, we met the person who would eventually become our spouse. After college, they both wanted jobs, to put this new, expensive education to work. After all, they're young, educated, enthusiastic, and unemcumbered by kids. So they both get great jobs, and buy a nice big house and each drive a BMW SUV.
A few years later, they want kids. Being used to getting what they want, they proceed to spawn. However, neither of them want to work, being new-age, enlightened folks. "Why should I automatically have to stay home? This is 2005, for cryin' out loud," says the woman. "Well, I'm not quitting my job," says the man, "I make more than you. It makes sense for me to keep working." They crunch the numbers and realize that they both must keep working, in order to continue being able to afford gassing up their BMW SUVs and heating/cooling their 3000 sq. ft. mansion.
Kids are inevitably born, and a minimum-wage, immigrant nanny is hired, or the kid is shipped off to daycare, where he/she learns questionable value and is largely emotionally devoid of the individual attention he/she needs and deserves. But mom and dad, still working 8 - 10 hour days, only have to deal with Junior for a few hours a day, so they don't notice that Junior is starting to resent them. Feeling guilty, they buy him whatever he wants (after all, they're still "rich" enough to do so). Junior wants a cell phone. "It'll let us reach him wherever he is," the parents reason, and buy him the phone. Junior wants a car. "It'll free us from having to shuttle him around all the time," reason the parents. Junior wants GTA3. "It'll keep him out of our hair for a few hours a day," say the parents.
So junior, having been raised by an immigrant with poor english and questionable credentials, learns to entertain himself, and finds that he can spend a very large amount of time hanging out with his friends doing whatever, and his parents won't nag him about it. He doesn't really like (or know) his parents anyway. Eventually, they get divorced. Junior plays GTA4 with his buddies in his basement while his parents are at work, and they laugh every time they run over a hooker. Then they go out under the deck behind the house and smoke a joint. Mom and Dad won't be home for hours anyway.
Welcome to 2005.
Almost all polticians are out to appease the voters, not solve problems.
Is that the fault of the politicians appeasing their consituents, or the voters who value style over substance? You can't blame the politicians for playing the game. They have to work within the system the people have constructed, or they won't be rewarded with subsequent terms.
On the other hand, Canadians are free to borrow any music CD they want from a friend, and make their own copy, perfectly legally. You can't omit that.
Extra extra! Read all about it! Children likely to have less rigid morality than adults! Children may or may not understand concept of intellectual property! Extra, Extra!
A 29 year old counts as a "child?" Woo hoo! Maybe I'm not so old after all!
Regarding the last point, the actual figures were 6%, as opposed to 2% of the general population. With a poll base of only 2,043 individuals, and an error range of 3.1 percentage points plus or minus, one can seriously question the validity of this last statistic.
Unless one steps back and gives it the sniff test. Think about it. Are you really trying to deny that kids shoplift more than adults? Do you really think that a gainfully employed 32-year old is more likely to shoplift than a 16 year old?
Call attention to the math, sure, but on the face of it, the conclusion still makes sense. It's pretty obvious to me that 16 year olds shoplift more than 40 year olds. Also, they throw more tantrums, get in more fights, and just generally do a lot more "kid stuff" than your average 40 year old.
In a related story, researches have discovered that new home construction costs practically nothing at all, as the wood was taken from trees that were growing there anyway. Wood costs nothing to fabricate, as mother nature provides it for free (given enough time). The foundation is poured from concrete, which is just rocks, sand, and water, all of which are freely available. Thus, new home construction is 100% profit.
So is this an easy way of unlocking the doors of a car? Sounds a bit insecure to me.
You think that's insecure, check this out: The only thing between a thief and your stereo is a pane of glass! All they need is a rock or something heavy, and they can easily get into your car and take anything they want! And get this: This works on ANY MODEL OF CAR! No car is immune to this kind of attack!
Can you believe such an easy-to-bypass security system exists in every single car model on the road?
</SARCASM>
My point: If people are willing to damage the vehicle they are attacking, then no system will completely protect you. The safety afforded by having the airbag active all the time is no more of a security "loophole" than relying on glass to deter thieves.
Not quite. As a policy, MAD discouraged pre-emptive strikes, as you acknowledged. However, the reason this policy was necessary was because everyone implicitly reserved a "first-strike" doctrine in their military policies. Therefore, MAD was necessary to discouarage people from using the "first-strike" tactic. Without a pre-emptive clause in their policies, MAD would have been unnecessary. The fact that countries are still "reserving the right" to first-strike necessessitates the MAD policy again, and threatens to revive the cold war. The US is merely being overtly explicit in their reservation of a "first-strike" policy.