You are betting on the assumption that these aliens have no interests of their own to defend. For all you know when they offer to drop you on your very own rock you are becoming the pawn of their interstellar politics -- "Hands off Planet Dune! We just claimed it for our interstellar zoo, as protected by Section A3.D3R.U342@@ of interstellar code. I DARE you to drop gravitron bombs! The Spice must flow!"
Here's an idea. Write (or type and print out) a letter to your senators and representatives and to Mr. Obama (and I guess McCain if you think he's got a snowball's chance) and tell them how important you think this is.
If you work in the tech sector, tell them that too. Super double extra bonus points if you hold a legit patent. Or heck, if you hold an illegitimate patent for defensive reasons.
Yea, that's a great idea! It worked out fantastically for the recent FISA law...
You never get around to explaining why Mac users never have the same problems.
Do you really want an explanation of why Mac users don't have the same problems as PC users, or even *nix users? How about why CP/M users have different problems than TRS-80 users?
After I RTFA, IMO it's not such a bad thing. In trying to make their attack so ambiguous that it can withstand constitutional scrutiny, the ID folks have opened a can of worms they haven't fully thought through. And so, since it is the law, I suggest, like judo, you use your opponent's momentum against them.
As a basic concept, teaching open mindedness is a good thing. This law can be used to instruct students how to discern science from pseudo-science or just plain crap.
Instead of using the flexibility the law allows you to teach ID, discuss the merits of Pastafarianism as it relates to ID, and to evolution. Which theories can be tested? Which have withstood the test of time? Do any of them have empirical evidence?
In the end, I don't think a science teacher should be afraid of a debate between ID and evolution. It might be somewhat of an irritating waste of time, but it can also be an opportunity to teach the scientific method.
The founding fathers didn't put anything in the BOR regarding breathing air or drinking water either.
Some essential liberties are so breathtakingly obvious they should never need to be included. In any event, remember that rights not specifically granted are reserved for the states and the people.
I'm not sure what's scarier... that people like you justify grave impositions on basic human rights by saying "well, it's not guaranteed in the constitution..." or that the question comes up at all.
Absolutely... so long as the pool of eligible citizens includes passing some sort of IQ test, some sort of ethics test, etc. that sort for basic job requirements.
IMO GWB has given us a proper demonstration of what happens when stupid people get elected to high office.
If it were up to me, I'd keep the requirements really, really basic: no felonies, IQ > ~100, knowledge of ethics, age > 35... that's about it.
Use some variant of this method to select all office holders for any public service from dog catcher to president. Every citizen is obliged to serve once and only once in their lifetime at each level (local, state, federal). The intent of the founding fathers was to have citizen legislators, never a career politician.
Given current medical technology, is there a clearinghouse of life extension practices that can be consumed by laypeople? i.e. purge free radicals, etc.
That's called a man in the middle attack. If the transmissions were based on public key cryptography, then the root or public certs would need to be compromised for this to work; MITM attacks can be defeated by securing the two endpoints of the transaction... i.e., in your scenario, V communicates directly/securely with C.
Seriously, if you had the chance to put an eight million ton starship in orbit in exchange for one random death, would you say no? The chance to set up a self-sustaining moonbase in one move? To visit the entire solar system in short order?
a) Have you WATCHED that vid? I threw up a little in my mouth. I lost count of the number of times I rolled by eyes at such amazing displays of stupidity. That anchor had a negative IQ.
So anyone who disagrees with you politically is either stupid or uneducated?
How is it you can take a factual assertion (" Plenty of studies have shown a correlation between education levels and political views..."), retort with a irrelevancy (GP mentioned nothing about those who disagree with him politically being stupid), and expect it to be an effective argument? Wait, are you that Foxnews anchor?
After all, you seem to have this expectation that the average corporation can even pronounce "ethical responsibility", much less have any of it around the place.
Where do you get off suggesting that consumers have any sort of rights? That they are anything more than worker-sheep, there for the sole purpose of making the rich richer? The nerve of some people.
In my understanding, you're correct, but you aren't taking it to the logical conclusion.
In any community of bacteria, there exist mutants; some of these mutations give an advantage in certain situations, i.e. being bathed in a toxic substance.
When this happens, non-resistant brethren are wiped about, giving the resistant bacteria less competition in the community and better chances to procreate.
Of course life would form... it just wouldn't be life as we know it. Articles like that confuse cause and effect.
Life as we know if is the effect; the cause is the universe being the way it is.
While I tend to believe in intelligent design, a) I realize it is implicitly unprovable, so b) I keep it to myself. As opposed to evolution, which is merely incredibly difficult to prove (to the level of sentience, and opposed to bacterial evolution, or the bird's beak finding).
Anyway, intelligent design and evolution aren't mutually exclusive anyway, any more than faith and science are mutually exclusive. Why is it impossible that an intelligent designer such as FSM created the universe in the big bang and it was so perfect that billions of years later it evolved life exactly according to said intelligent designers wishes, without one bit of intervention along the way?
In the end, it doesn't matter, because it can't be proven.
The P and GP points of view are not mutualy exclusive, on either major point.
While I agree with the point of view that law enforcement is a civilian function, the military still need to train for cyberwar, and much of the hardware in use by law enforcement today is a direct result of military reasarch. It seems reasonable to me to conclude that in time this research will provide benefits to law enforcement.
Also, I think it would be less inflammatory to simply state that in a given attack, as network selectivity increases, total population decreases. With experience and various models, a commander should be able to dial in with relative accuracy the impact of a given attack.
I ran WM for a while, and now I have an iPhone. They both crash/lock up relatively often (2-3 times a week).
The iPhone UI kicks WM all over the playground. WM has more features I'd like to have (like, say, 3rd party applications!).
Interestingly enough, my justification for buying a phone with WM was that I wanted to be able to write apps for it. In 3 years, I never did. So much for that justification (for me anyway)
There's a big difference between being silent and being thought the fool and opening your mouth and removing all doubt.
(Don't mean to insult you; it just sounded like an old Chinese proverb I know).
Slashdot Mirror
You are betting on the assumption that these aliens have no interests of their own to defend. For all you know when they offer to drop you on your very own rock you are becoming the pawn of their interstellar politics -- "Hands off Planet Dune! We just claimed it for our interstellar zoo, as protected by Section A3.D3R.U342@@ of interstellar code. I DARE you to drop gravitron bombs! The Spice must flow!"
Here's an idea. Write (or type and print out) a letter to your senators and representatives and to Mr. Obama (and I guess McCain if you think he's got a snowball's chance) and tell them how important you think this is.
If you work in the tech sector, tell them that too. Super double extra bonus points if you hold a legit patent. Or heck, if you hold an illegitimate patent for defensive reasons.
Yea, that's a great idea! It worked out fantastically for the recent FISA law...
You never get around to explaining why Mac users never have the same problems.
Do you really want an explanation of why Mac users don't have the same problems as PC users, or even *nix users? How about why CP/M users have different problems than TRS-80 users?
After I RTFA, IMO it's not such a bad thing. In trying to make their attack so ambiguous that it can withstand constitutional scrutiny, the ID folks have opened a can of worms they haven't fully thought through. And so, since it is the law, I suggest, like judo, you use your opponent's momentum against them.
As a basic concept, teaching open mindedness is a good thing. This law can be used to instruct students how to discern science from pseudo-science or just plain crap.
Instead of using the flexibility the law allows you to teach ID, discuss the merits of Pastafarianism as it relates to ID, and to evolution. Which theories can be tested? Which have withstood the test of time? Do any of them have empirical evidence?
In the end, I don't think a science teacher should be afraid of a debate between ID and evolution. It might be somewhat of an irritating waste of time, but it can also be an opportunity to teach the scientific method.
Hey, with Jack out of the picture, someone has to step up to the plate at Crazy Bastard Memorial Field.
Build it, and they will come.
The founding fathers didn't put anything in the BOR regarding breathing air or drinking water either.
Some essential liberties are so breathtakingly obvious they should never need to be included. In any event, remember that rights not specifically granted are reserved for the states and the people.
I'm not sure what's scarier... that people like you justify grave impositions on basic human rights by saying "well, it's not guaranteed in the constitution..." or that the question comes up at all.
Absolutely... so long as the pool of eligible citizens includes passing some sort of IQ test, some sort of ethics test, etc. that sort for basic job requirements.
IMO GWB has given us a proper demonstration of what happens when stupid people get elected to high office.
If it were up to me, I'd keep the requirements really, really basic: no felonies, IQ > ~100, knowledge of ethics, age > 35... that's about it.
Use some variant of this method to select all office holders for any public service from dog catcher to president. Every citizen is obliged to serve once and only once in their lifetime at each level (local, state, federal). The intent of the founding fathers was to have citizen legislators, never a career politician.
Given current medical technology, is there a clearinghouse of life extension practices that can be consumed by laypeople? i.e. purge free radicals, etc.
That's called a man in the middle attack. If the transmissions were based on public key cryptography, then the root or public certs would need to be compromised for this to work; MITM attacks can be defeated by securing the two endpoints of the transaction... i.e., in your scenario, V communicates directly/securely with C.
Or they could, like, ditch all their work done so far, fork wine and make the new OS run on top of linux+wine, possibly off a sqlite-based WinFS ;)
...and /. readers would STILL hate Microsoft!
Seriously, if you had the chance to put an eight million ton starship in orbit in exchange for one random death, would you say no? The chance to set up a self-sustaining moonbase in one move? To visit the entire solar system in short order?
Yes, but what if it was your death?
a) Have you WATCHED that vid? I threw up a little in my mouth. I lost count of the number of times I rolled by eyes at such amazing displays of stupidity. That anchor had a negative IQ.
So anyone who disagrees with you politically is either stupid or uneducated?
How is it you can take a factual assertion (" Plenty of studies have shown a correlation between education levels and political views..."), retort with a irrelevancy (GP mentioned nothing about those who disagree with him politically being stupid), and expect it to be an effective argument? Wait, are you that Foxnews anchor?
And HOPEFULLY somebody will say something on topic within the first hundred posts.
Yes, but C# goes to 11!
42.
Who the hell modded parent troll? That's the funniest thing I've read on /. in weeks.
If someone pissed in yer coffee this morning and you must be cruel, at least mod it offtopic.
Those damn parks cluttering up the shore! Someone should pave those over like a good American.
You must be new here (to America I mean).
After all, you seem to have this expectation that the average corporation can even pronounce "ethical responsibility", much less have any of it around the place.
Where do you get off suggesting that consumers have any sort of rights? That they are anything more than worker-sheep, there for the sole purpose of making the rich richer? The nerve of some people.
</sarcasm>The question of what else could cause it is irrelevant. What is relevant is that is DID happen.
In any event, you cannot prove a falsehood.
P.s. I too, would be very impressed to see a giraffe evolved from a petrie dish. But that isn't my bar for acceptance of a theory.
In my understanding, you're correct, but you aren't taking it to the logical conclusion.
In any community of bacteria, there exist mutants; some of these mutations give an advantage in certain situations, i.e. being bathed in a toxic substance.
When this happens, non-resistant brethren are wiped about, giving the resistant bacteria less competition in the community and better chances to procreate.
It's essentially a filtering process.
Of course life would form... it just wouldn't be life as we know it. Articles like that confuse cause and effect.
Life as we know if is the effect; the cause is the universe being the way it is.
While I tend to believe in intelligent design, a) I realize it is implicitly unprovable, so b) I keep it to myself. As opposed to evolution, which is merely incredibly difficult to prove (to the level of sentience, and opposed to bacterial evolution, or the bird's beak finding).
Anyway, intelligent design and evolution aren't mutually exclusive anyway, any more than faith and science are mutually exclusive. Why is it impossible that an intelligent designer such as FSM created the universe in the big bang and it was so perfect that billions of years later it evolved life exactly according to said intelligent designers wishes, without one bit of intervention along the way?
In the end, it doesn't matter, because it can't be proven.
The P and GP points of view are not mutualy exclusive, on either major point.
While I agree with the point of view that law enforcement is a civilian function, the military still need to train for cyberwar, and much of the hardware in use by law enforcement today is a direct result of military reasarch. It seems reasonable to me to conclude that in time this research will provide benefits to law enforcement.
Also, I think it would be less inflammatory to simply state that in a given attack, as network selectivity increases, total population decreases. With experience and various models, a commander should be able to dial in with relative accuracy the impact of a given attack.
I ran WM for a while, and now I have an iPhone. They both crash/lock up relatively often (2-3 times a week).
The iPhone UI kicks WM all over the playground. WM has more features I'd like to have (like, say, 3rd party applications!).
Interestingly enough, my justification for buying a phone with WM was that I wanted to be able to write apps for it. In 3 years, I never did. So much for that justification (for me anyway)
There's a big difference between being silent and being thought the fool and opening your mouth and removing all doubt.
(Don't mean to insult you; it just sounded like an old Chinese proverb I know).
This is why women stay away from IT... because the alpha nerds are always getting into pissing contents about grammar and punctuation and such.