I suppose I can kind of see where you are coming from with that situation. I've always read that one as more being the fact that they had no interest in justice being done, but were rather simply trying to trip Jesus up so he exposed them for where there hearts really were. I guess my issue is not so much the application of Levitican law (as I do think that large portions of it were more focused on trying to give Israel the best chance possible of measuring up to perfection (even though it was impossible from the start)) Paul still makes it very clear, and Jesus seems to support, that the law was good. Though I suppose that your argument still works then because the law would be correct that if you were not deserving of death, it would be good to kill someone who is not. Which actually now that I think about it (I'm writing as I'm thinking here) that actually makes a lot of sense since really it is saying what would be necessary for someone to stay perfect (just like God could not be near sin without destroying the sinful, neither could anyone who is perfect.)
Ok, I'll yield the point on the Levitican examples as potentially only being applicable to keep the community pure. That is largely what my understanding of Levitican law has been revolving around lately anyway and it just made more sense as we were talking here. Basically I see Israel as the case study in human imperfection. God took his chosen people, started with the best parentage he could find, provided them with everything they could justly want or need, gave them rules to follow to keep themselves pure and basically stacked the deck in favor of them being able to follow God in every way possible, and still none of them could.
Interesting that the second digit is frequently 2. I would have really expected it to be a 9 and would have expected it to switch to 2 and 0 for first and second over the next few decades.
Oh, another thought. On the whole right of government to kill thing. Levitican law told the Israelites to kill people for many sins. If your primary reason for saying that killing is wrong in all cases is the 10 commandments prohibition of killing, then it would be wrong in any situation and it would be God's job to carry out the penalty of death, not that of the Israelites, but as it was, this killing was not included as morally wrong under the 10 commandments version of not killing (which in many cases is translated as murder, which is very different from killing) though I'm not enough of a Hebrew scholar to get in to which translation is more appropriate. The situation seems to support that killing by the government is not considered killing under the 10 commandment's prohibition. Is there some other prohibition that you can point to?
Oops, forgot part of the hypothetical situation, what if it is one person about to kill multiple people. If you are able to save those individuals by killing the one person, is it moral (say a suicide bomber that you can only stop them by killing them.) In either case, it is ultimately up to God to save either the bomber or the victims' souls, but unless I get an awfully strong conviction that I shouldn't kill the bomber, I would take the shot in a heartbeat and I don't think I would ever feel I did the wrong thing. I do think it would take a toll in it's own way, but I do not think it would be do to any guilt or feeling that I did the wrong thing.
"but I'm not so sure I could refrain from killing to protect my children, even though it would be wrong." Why is it that you feel this would be wrong? Do you feel that we are not permitted to protect others who are innocent? I'm very interested what your view is on a situation where you have two individuals who you do not know the state of either of their hearts and one is about to kill the other. Do you feel it is moral to save the victim at the cost of the life of the aggressor who could be depriving them of the opportunity to accept forgiveness before they die?
"The condemned murderer knows the exact time he's going to die" Not really relevant to the discussion, but it is worth pointing out that they could die prior to being executed as well.
"When I tell Christians that Timothy McVeigh is probably in heaven, I have yet to meet a single one who isn't appalled at the idea." You can make that "You have met at least a single one who isn't appalled by the idea." I sincerely hope that he did repent of what he did and if he did I have complete faith that he is in heaven now. I would also suggest that Osama Bin Laden or similar individuals might make an even better example. If he had repented to God and stopped what he was doing and surrendered I would have expected him to still pay the civil penalty for his actions, but I believe that he would have gone to heaven if he had repented and at least think that I would have been able to even be friends with him given the opportunity if he was genuinely repentant. (After all Paul was effectively the Bin Laden of his day when he was Saul and he went on to be one of the pivotal leaders of the early church.) The flip side of that is that I would still not see his repentance as removing his civil penalty at all.
On the live by the sword die by the sword thing, that is Matt. 26:52. I don't disagree with that statement but I also don't interpret it as specifically a condemnation of it, but rather a warning that Peter did not understand fully the consequence of his action. There is no statement made on the morality of the situation but rather that a sacrifice is made in doing so. Also, Jesus benefits from the ability to see Peter's motives which we lack the ability to see. Personally, from my convictions, I know that defense of the innocent is an extremely high priority for me. I would never take a life I did not have to, but if I was in a situation where I could save someone's life but it would require taking the life of someone attacking them (or probably myself as well) then I do not believe I would hesitate to do so. I expect it would exact a toll on me, as your example from your uncle showed. I do not claim it to be a pleasant thing or without a profound impact, but I also do not have any conviction what so ever that it is morally wrong in defense of the life of others.
"I'm no longer conflicted about my role" Good, glad to hear it. That was my primary concern in responding to you. Otherwise, while it is an interesting discussion, even if we disagree, I'm glad you follow your convictions. It doesn't seem we disagree on any critical issues, I just really wanted to make sure you weren't being driven by false guilt since I know many people who are from other situations in their life.
"Everybody has to die" Except Enoch;) (Gen 5:24 if for some reason you aren't familiar with that one, but I'd guess you are.)
Yes, but you are ignoring the civil consequences side of the equation. The idea of civil law is that of responsibility. If you do thing a) you get treatment b). So don't do thing A. You can make an argument that they won't have an opportunity to seek forgiveness, but the Bible is also clear that God will call those who he will call regardless of our actions. (We can't make or break someone's salvation.) Also, the idea that you have to repent prior to your death is really a bit of a dogma. I'm not sure that I disagree with it, but find me a verse anywhere in the Bible that states that after your physical death, you are not able to repent. My understanding of this has recently been refining to the point of people are either rebellious against God and will not turn even given a full revelation of God's sovereignty and justice or they are responsive to God seeking a restored relationship and repent and accept God re-establishing the broken relationship (through Christ).
As eivind pointed out, the PB a second is raw data. The LHC utilizes 2 layers of in hardware filtering and another layer of software filtering (as I recall from a while back at least) in order to trim the data down to a quasi-reasonable data stream that can be effectively stored and analysed.
I understand what you are saying and I agree about the point of loving our enemies. I didn't fully complete the logic, but my full logic of it is that we are not the judge of our enemies because we are not any better and have no grounds to judge them. That said, God also established governments [Rom. 13:1; Prov. 8:15,16] and gave authority to the leaders of governments beyond what individuals have. Jesus said nothing to lead me to believe that this had changed under the new testament. He in fact kind of confirmed it is still true with verses such as Matt. 22:21. (Give to Ceaser what is Ceaser's (in response to a question about paying taxes to Rome)).
Governments are given the authority to form civil law and setup punishments for it. The idea of death as a penalty carried out by government as a result of violating a civil law was never spoken against in the Bible. Neither was the idea that war is wrong or murder. The nation of Israel was frequently instructed by God to go to war. The Bible makes it clear that the character of God and right and wrong is unchanging, so how can it be ok for God to instruct one people to go to war but then say it is outside the legitimate authority of nation states to decide to go to war without being morally wrong?
It is also worth noting that when Peter cut off the ear of the servant, the reason given was that it was time for Jesus to be taken, not that it was wrong to defend yourself. (For that matter, if Jesus believed that self defense was wrong, why did he even permit Peter to be carrying a sword in the first place?) [John 18:10-11]
I understand that you have convictions about this and am not encouraging you to go against them, but I wanted to offer food for thought as it sounds like you may still feel guilty for your involvement with the Air Force during Vietnam, and I do not believe that guilt is from God, but rather conviction and if you are feeling guilt that won't leave you despite repentant for what you feel convicted of, then I would challenge that your guilt and conviction is not from God. I would also challenge that you did nothing wrong in Vietnam even if you had been directly involved in killing within the duties of a soldier. Even if the reasons for going in to the conflict were wrong, the Bible is fairly clear that it is the leaders that are held accountable for that since the individuals can not know what the reason the leader has are and it is within that leader's Biblically established authority to give the direction to go to war.
One final parting thought is that my main criterion for evaluating situations has been this, is it something that is being done out of personal feelings and desires or something that is being done as a cause and effect of violating the law of the established government. Both the government and God have authority to make rules. God is solely responsible for punishing those who violate his rules and the government is solely responsible for punishing those who violate its rules. As long as I am not taking action against others for my own reasons, but simply in service to the government (a death row executioner, a soldier, a police officers, etc) and make very sure that my reasons for doing it are simply and only to follow and enforce the civil law, then I am not doing wrong as it is within Biblically established authority and justice.
Also, if I am defending others, I do not see a Biblical issue with killing someone if necessary. I have no ability to know which of those people are more likely to accept Christ, so I see it as a responsibility to try to defend the victim with whatever the minimal amount of force necessary is to ensure their safety. It gets trickier in personal defense as I know where I am going and I'm not sure that I would be willing to use lethal force in my own defense, but I know that I would have no problem using anything short of lethal force in defense of my life or if I thought that allowing myself to be killed would result in danger to others.
Ah, it is nice to see that my impression of you as a security professional was correct. I got about half way through my response to him before realizing he was misreading your post as being an external attacker rather than a cryptographic attacker. Hopefully between your clarification and mine it will make sense to him now.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but, using your own terminology, you are the clueless idiot (or at least failed at reading comprehension). I'm a professional software developer that graduated from a top computer science school in the country and specialized in security. FuzzyFuzzyFungus was completely correct in what he was saying, and I believe you may have misinterpreted what he was saying. From your response, it seems you are seeing the reference to attackers as referring to someone trying to compromise an end user's device to the end user's harm. From my read however, it appears that FuzzyFuzzyFungus is a knowledgeable about security (perhaps a professional even) who would refer to the actual attempt to jailbreak or bypass a secure system (such as DRM) as an attacker. Not against the individual device, but rather the system that "protects" it.
I suggest you re-read his post through that lens and see that he is a) not defending apple but simply explaining why they would take the action to try to protect what they feel they need to protect for their business interests rather than the interests of consumers and b) is not an apple fan boy at all (at least from his information provided). I hope you will then consider apologizing to him as your attack was very personal and appears completely unwarranted and immature. If you still don't understand something from his post, I would be happy to explain it to you as long as you ask for clarification in a respectful manner.
Oh also, while I agree that the TSA is a horrible waste of resources and is going about security in completely the wrong way, I have to disagree completely on the whole thing about DHS. The military is not allowed (for good reason) to operate on US soil. Intelligence gathering is the ONLY means to successfully prevent attacks and the original purpose of the DHS (not as it stands now, but as it was originally intended on paper at least) was to facilitate information sharing between intelligence gathering agencies with differing jurisdictions. This is a vital and significant need, just the implementation has been horribly misguided by an overbearing bureaucracy and fear mongering.
If DHS stuck to just facilitating exchange of information between agencies and each agency stayed within its proper legal and constitutional bounds, there would be no reason to have issues with DHS and it would be a great benefit.
While I agree with you that there are many individuals who call themselves Christian that are not in the US, I would challenge some of your examples. I'm not sure why you brought the death penalty thing in to the discussion, but I do not believe it to be inconsistent. Jesus' teachings were fairly clear that there was a difference between personal justice and governance. If someone was to murder my loved ones, I would forgive them, but unless they were to be repentant of what they did, I would not want them to legally be given the option to kill again. I might not personally wish to see the death penalty for them, but I wouldn't want to tell someone else they can't have that if the court finds it just. The point of the whole loving your enemies thing is the idea that we are not judge over those who wrong us. (God is ultimately the judge) but he never said anything that would remove the government's authority to have legal consequences for an action, including death.
If you think of the death penalty as vengeance, then I agree with you it should not be, but if you consider it as a disincentive for taking an action or a legal consequence for that action, then I do not see it being inconsistent with Biblical teaching. That said, I don't personally have strong opinions on either side of it, if the majority wanted to get rid of the death penalty I'm fine with that and if the majority wanted it, then I'm fine with that too. I don't think I would ever care to see someone who wronged me in such a way as to get the death penalty executed.
I have to call bullshit on this article. 14% of technical support calls were related to hardware faults, but it says nothing of the per capita rates of technical service calls. I find it far more likely that either a) android is far more easy to deal with issues yourself or b) used by a more technical user base. Either of these situations would result in less calls related to software issues, which would make the % of support calls that are hardware related go up significantly. Until they release information about the ratio of hardware calls to devices, this is nothing but a bullshit article.
I believe that was his point. In it's day, getting a computer to do something was fun. Now since stuff just works, it is now more fun to just use established services without ever having to learn the technology. If facebook could only be accessed by telnet, we'd have no problem getting young people to know technology.
I would challenge people to figure out who I am, but seeing as I have the URL of my name and have my screen name that I use everywhere on the internet plastered all over it and I'm more than half the top page of Google results for the name I use, my real name, and my screen name, I'm really kinda thinking it wouldn't be too hard... I guess my view has always been that if I'm willing to say it on the internet, then I'm willing to say it in public and I could really care less if people know who I am. If I really wanted to be anonymous for something there are still plenty of ways to do that, but assuming you are anonymous on the internet unless you go to lengths to ensure you are is stupid and has been for some time.
Except the whole point is this guy isn't really a criminal, just desperate. He probably wouldn't hurt someone because he isn't morally bankrupt, otherwise he would have done more on the off chance he might not get caught.
My understanding was that the new rates only apply to new contracts. You are grandfathered in to unlimited under your current contract terms, just beware the next time you get an upgrade or make any changes that require changing your contract.
The difference is that the untouchable circles in Russia and China, you never hear about. They aren't dumb about advertising their successes and this can make it very easy for a company to not acknowledge it either (or maybe not even notice). It's also a lot easier to target consumers than companies. Attack a company and you may get customer information, but they are more likely to notice and take necessary actions to limit damage. That isn't the case with the little old lady that clicks the link to remove the viruses from her computer and has her life savings quietly removed from her bank account.
Maybe it's changed in the last two years, but when I bought a laptop at Best Buy (they actually had the best deal around) all they had left was one with Geek Squad stuff already installed. Since I didn't need or want the software, they simply changed the SKU for me and asked me to remove the software.
That wasn't my read of the patent. My read was that it picks the actual type of file to send based on client capabilities. While this is an interesting (though I would hardly say innovative) idea, I don't see how it has anything to do with BitTorrent.
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I suppose I can kind of see where you are coming from with that situation. I've always read that one as more being the fact that they had no interest in justice being done, but were rather simply trying to trip Jesus up so he exposed them for where there hearts really were. I guess my issue is not so much the application of Levitican law (as I do think that large portions of it were more focused on trying to give Israel the best chance possible of measuring up to perfection (even though it was impossible from the start)) Paul still makes it very clear, and Jesus seems to support, that the law was good. Though I suppose that your argument still works then because the law would be correct that if you were not deserving of death, it would be good to kill someone who is not. Which actually now that I think about it (I'm writing as I'm thinking here) that actually makes a lot of sense since really it is saying what would be necessary for someone to stay perfect (just like God could not be near sin without destroying the sinful, neither could anyone who is perfect.)
Ok, I'll yield the point on the Levitican examples as potentially only being applicable to keep the community pure. That is largely what my understanding of Levitican law has been revolving around lately anyway and it just made more sense as we were talking here. Basically I see Israel as the case study in human imperfection. God took his chosen people, started with the best parentage he could find, provided them with everything they could justly want or need, gave them rules to follow to keep themselves pure and basically stacked the deck in favor of them being able to follow God in every way possible, and still none of them could.
Interesting that the second digit is frequently 2. I would have really expected it to be a 9 and would have expected it to switch to 2 and 0 for first and second over the next few decades.
Oh, another thought. On the whole right of government to kill thing. Levitican law told the Israelites to kill people for many sins. If your primary reason for saying that killing is wrong in all cases is the 10 commandments prohibition of killing, then it would be wrong in any situation and it would be God's job to carry out the penalty of death, not that of the Israelites, but as it was, this killing was not included as morally wrong under the 10 commandments version of not killing (which in many cases is translated as murder, which is very different from killing) though I'm not enough of a Hebrew scholar to get in to which translation is more appropriate. The situation seems to support that killing by the government is not considered killing under the 10 commandment's prohibition. Is there some other prohibition that you can point to?
Oops, forgot part of the hypothetical situation, what if it is one person about to kill multiple people. If you are able to save those individuals by killing the one person, is it moral (say a suicide bomber that you can only stop them by killing them.) In either case, it is ultimately up to God to save either the bomber or the victims' souls, but unless I get an awfully strong conviction that I shouldn't kill the bomber, I would take the shot in a heartbeat and I don't think I would ever feel I did the wrong thing. I do think it would take a toll in it's own way, but I do not think it would be do to any guilt or feeling that I did the wrong thing.
"but I'm not so sure I could refrain from killing to protect my children, even though it would be wrong."
Why is it that you feel this would be wrong? Do you feel that we are not permitted to protect others who are innocent? I'm very interested what your view is on a situation where you have two individuals who you do not know the state of either of their hearts and one is about to kill the other. Do you feel it is moral to save the victim at the cost of the life of the aggressor who could be depriving them of the opportunity to accept forgiveness before they die?
"The condemned murderer knows the exact time he's going to die"
Not really relevant to the discussion, but it is worth pointing out that they could die prior to being executed as well.
"When I tell Christians that Timothy McVeigh is probably in heaven, I have yet to meet a single one who isn't appalled at the idea."
You can make that "You have met at least a single one who isn't appalled by the idea." I sincerely hope that he did repent of what he did and if he did I have complete faith that he is in heaven now. I would also suggest that Osama Bin Laden or similar individuals might make an even better example. If he had repented to God and stopped what he was doing and surrendered I would have expected him to still pay the civil penalty for his actions, but I believe that he would have gone to heaven if he had repented and at least think that I would have been able to even be friends with him given the opportunity if he was genuinely repentant. (After all Paul was effectively the Bin Laden of his day when he was Saul and he went on to be one of the pivotal leaders of the early church.) The flip side of that is that I would still not see his repentance as removing his civil penalty at all.
On the live by the sword die by the sword thing, that is Matt. 26:52. I don't disagree with that statement but I also don't interpret it as specifically a condemnation of it, but rather a warning that Peter did not understand fully the consequence of his action. There is no statement made on the morality of the situation but rather that a sacrifice is made in doing so. Also, Jesus benefits from the ability to see Peter's motives which we lack the ability to see. Personally, from my convictions, I know that defense of the innocent is an extremely high priority for me. I would never take a life I did not have to, but if I was in a situation where I could save someone's life but it would require taking the life of someone attacking them (or probably myself as well) then I do not believe I would hesitate to do so. I expect it would exact a toll on me, as your example from your uncle showed. I do not claim it to be a pleasant thing or without a profound impact, but I also do not have any conviction what so ever that it is morally wrong in defense of the life of others.
"I'm no longer conflicted about my role"
Good, glad to hear it. That was my primary concern in responding to you. Otherwise, while it is an interesting discussion, even if we disagree, I'm glad you follow your convictions. It doesn't seem we disagree on any critical issues, I just really wanted to make sure you weren't being driven by false guilt since I know many people who are from other situations in their life.
"Everybody has to die" ;) (Gen 5:24 if for some reason you aren't familiar with that one, but I'd guess you are.)
Except Enoch
Yes, but you are ignoring the civil consequences side of the equation. The idea of civil law is that of responsibility. If you do thing a) you get treatment b). So don't do thing A. You can make an argument that they won't have an opportunity to seek forgiveness, but the Bible is also clear that God will call those who he will call regardless of our actions. (We can't make or break someone's salvation.) Also, the idea that you have to repent prior to your death is really a bit of a dogma. I'm not sure that I disagree with it, but find me a verse anywhere in the Bible that states that after your physical death, you are not able to repent. My understanding of this has recently been refining to the point of people are either rebellious against God and will not turn even given a full revelation of God's sovereignty and justice or they are responsive to God seeking a restored relationship and repent and accept God re-establishing the broken relationship (through Christ).
As eivind pointed out, the PB a second is raw data. The LHC utilizes 2 layers of in hardware filtering and another layer of software filtering (as I recall from a while back at least) in order to trim the data down to a quasi-reasonable data stream that can be effectively stored and analysed.
I understand what you are saying and I agree about the point of loving our enemies. I didn't fully complete the logic, but my full logic of it is that we are not the judge of our enemies because we are not any better and have no grounds to judge them. That said, God also established governments [Rom. 13:1; Prov. 8:15,16] and gave authority to the leaders of governments beyond what individuals have. Jesus said nothing to lead me to believe that this had changed under the new testament. He in fact kind of confirmed it is still true with verses such as Matt. 22:21. (Give to Ceaser what is Ceaser's (in response to a question about paying taxes to Rome)).
Governments are given the authority to form civil law and setup punishments for it. The idea of death as a penalty carried out by government as a result of violating a civil law was never spoken against in the Bible. Neither was the idea that war is wrong or murder. The nation of Israel was frequently instructed by God to go to war. The Bible makes it clear that the character of God and right and wrong is unchanging, so how can it be ok for God to instruct one people to go to war but then say it is outside the legitimate authority of nation states to decide to go to war without being morally wrong?
It is also worth noting that when Peter cut off the ear of the servant, the reason given was that it was time for Jesus to be taken, not that it was wrong to defend yourself. (For that matter, if Jesus believed that self defense was wrong, why did he even permit Peter to be carrying a sword in the first place?) [John 18:10-11]
I understand that you have convictions about this and am not encouraging you to go against them, but I wanted to offer food for thought as it sounds like you may still feel guilty for your involvement with the Air Force during Vietnam, and I do not believe that guilt is from God, but rather conviction and if you are feeling guilt that won't leave you despite repentant for what you feel convicted of, then I would challenge that your guilt and conviction is not from God. I would also challenge that you did nothing wrong in Vietnam even if you had been directly involved in killing within the duties of a soldier. Even if the reasons for going in to the conflict were wrong, the Bible is fairly clear that it is the leaders that are held accountable for that since the individuals can not know what the reason the leader has are and it is within that leader's Biblically established authority to give the direction to go to war.
One final parting thought is that my main criterion for evaluating situations has been this, is it something that is being done out of personal feelings and desires or something that is being done as a cause and effect of violating the law of the established government. Both the government and God have authority to make rules. God is solely responsible for punishing those who violate his rules and the government is solely responsible for punishing those who violate its rules. As long as I am not taking action against others for my own reasons, but simply in service to the government (a death row executioner, a soldier, a police officers, etc) and make very sure that my reasons for doing it are simply and only to follow and enforce the civil law, then I am not doing wrong as it is within Biblically established authority and justice.
Also, if I am defending others, I do not see a Biblical issue with killing someone if necessary. I have no ability to know which of those people are more likely to accept Christ, so I see it as a responsibility to try to defend the victim with whatever the minimal amount of force necessary is to ensure their safety. It gets trickier in personal defense as I know where I am going and I'm not sure that I would be willing to use lethal force in my own defense, but I know that I would have no problem using anything short of lethal force in defense of my life or if I thought that allowing myself to be killed would result in danger to others.
The key in all these situat
"If you do follow standards then it doesn't matter which browser you use. " Oh if only that always held true...
Ah, it is nice to see that my impression of you as a security professional was correct. I got about half way through my response to him before realizing he was misreading your post as being an external attacker rather than a cryptographic attacker. Hopefully between your clarification and mine it will make sense to him now.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but, using your own terminology, you are the clueless idiot (or at least failed at reading comprehension). I'm a professional software developer that graduated from a top computer science school in the country and specialized in security. FuzzyFuzzyFungus was completely correct in what he was saying, and I believe you may have misinterpreted what he was saying. From your response, it seems you are seeing the reference to attackers as referring to someone trying to compromise an end user's device to the end user's harm. From my read however, it appears that FuzzyFuzzyFungus is a knowledgeable about security (perhaps a professional even) who would refer to the actual attempt to jailbreak or bypass a secure system (such as DRM) as an attacker. Not against the individual device, but rather the system that "protects" it.
I suggest you re-read his post through that lens and see that he is a) not defending apple but simply explaining why they would take the action to try to protect what they feel they need to protect for their business interests rather than the interests of consumers and b) is not an apple fan boy at all (at least from his information provided). I hope you will then consider apologizing to him as your attack was very personal and appears completely unwarranted and immature. If you still don't understand something from his post, I would be happy to explain it to you as long as you ask for clarification in a respectful manner.
Oh also, while I agree that the TSA is a horrible waste of resources and is going about security in completely the wrong way, I have to disagree completely on the whole thing about DHS. The military is not allowed (for good reason) to operate on US soil. Intelligence gathering is the ONLY means to successfully prevent attacks and the original purpose of the DHS (not as it stands now, but as it was originally intended on paper at least) was to facilitate information sharing between intelligence gathering agencies with differing jurisdictions. This is a vital and significant need, just the implementation has been horribly misguided by an overbearing bureaucracy and fear mongering.
If DHS stuck to just facilitating exchange of information between agencies and each agency stayed within its proper legal and constitutional bounds, there would be no reason to have issues with DHS and it would be a great benefit.
While I agree with you that there are many individuals who call themselves Christian that are not in the US, I would challenge some of your examples. I'm not sure why you brought the death penalty thing in to the discussion, but I do not believe it to be inconsistent. Jesus' teachings were fairly clear that there was a difference between personal justice and governance. If someone was to murder my loved ones, I would forgive them, but unless they were to be repentant of what they did, I would not want them to legally be given the option to kill again. I might not personally wish to see the death penalty for them, but I wouldn't want to tell someone else they can't have that if the court finds it just. The point of the whole loving your enemies thing is the idea that we are not judge over those who wrong us. (God is ultimately the judge) but he never said anything that would remove the government's authority to have legal consequences for an action, including death.
If you think of the death penalty as vengeance, then I agree with you it should not be, but if you consider it as a disincentive for taking an action or a legal consequence for that action, then I do not see it being inconsistent with Biblical teaching. That said, I don't personally have strong opinions on either side of it, if the majority wanted to get rid of the death penalty I'm fine with that and if the majority wanted it, then I'm fine with that too. I don't think I would ever care to see someone who wronged me in such a way as to get the death penalty executed.
RIM I'm sure has a lot of software related support questions, that would probably be the reason for their low % of hardware based support calls.
I have to call bullshit on this article. 14% of technical support calls were related to hardware faults, but it says nothing of the per capita rates of technical service calls. I find it far more likely that either a) android is far more easy to deal with issues yourself or b) used by a more technical user base. Either of these situations would result in less calls related to software issues, which would make the % of support calls that are hardware related go up significantly. Until they release information about the ratio of hardware calls to devices, this is nothing but a bullshit article.
I believe that was his point. In it's day, getting a computer to do something was fun. Now since stuff just works, it is now more fun to just use established services without ever having to learn the technology. If facebook could only be accessed by telnet, we'd have no problem getting young people to know technology.
I would challenge people to figure out who I am, but seeing as I have the URL of my name and have my screen name that I use everywhere on the internet plastered all over it and I'm more than half the top page of Google results for the name I use, my real name, and my screen name, I'm really kinda thinking it wouldn't be too hard... I guess my view has always been that if I'm willing to say it on the internet, then I'm willing to say it in public and I could really care less if people know who I am. If I really wanted to be anonymous for something there are still plenty of ways to do that, but assuming you are anonymous on the internet unless you go to lengths to ensure you are is stupid and has been for some time.
Except the whole point is this guy isn't really a criminal, just desperate. He probably wouldn't hurt someone because he isn't morally bankrupt, otherwise he would have done more on the off chance he might not get caught.
My understanding was that the new rates only apply to new contracts. You are grandfathered in to unlimited under your current contract terms, just beware the next time you get an upgrade or make any changes that require changing your contract.
The difference is that the untouchable circles in Russia and China, you never hear about. They aren't dumb about advertising their successes and this can make it very easy for a company to not acknowledge it either (or maybe not even notice). It's also a lot easier to target consumers than companies. Attack a company and you may get customer information, but they are more likely to notice and take necessary actions to limit damage. That isn't the case with the little old lady that clicks the link to remove the viruses from her computer and has her life savings quietly removed from her bank account.
Better idea, nothing says you can't blame BOTH!
Well see, since Best Buy's Geek Squad is actually a sales force, they aren't actually geeks so it isn't a descriptive mark... /s
Maybe it's changed in the last two years, but when I bought a laptop at Best Buy (they actually had the best deal around) all they had left was one with Geek Squad stuff already installed. Since I didn't need or want the software, they simply changed the SKU for me and asked me to remove the software.
And shoot lasers?
That wasn't my read of the patent. My read was that it picks the actual type of file to send based on client capabilities. While this is an interesting (though I would hardly say innovative) idea, I don't see how it has anything to do with BitTorrent.