Of what benefit today is a couple that does produce offspring? Is that what marriage is about? Maybe then people who keep popping out kids while living off welfare shouldn't be allowed to marry either...
When has a US church been mandated to perform any ceremony, homosexual, heterosexual or otherwise?? I know pastors who will not marry two heterosexual people with different beliefs. And this is perfectly fine, it's his right not to, they can go elsewhere!
What does it mean to force a church to recognize a non-traditional pairing? Making such a marriage legal does not force any church to recognize or condone it. Pastors, priests, etc... will still be able to preach their beliefs as much as they want. That is the first amendment! What I would hope they would do is keep it to preaching about homosexuality in general and not go harass specific individuals Westbro Baptist style. Of course, if they do then anyone present will reject whatever they have to say guaranteed b/c they will all look like asses.
Making a form of marriage legal or illegal is about marriage law and recognition of marriage within the secular government. It does not involve churches in any way. It also does not affect heterosexual marriages and families. Not unless one partner is actually gay and hiding it but is more tempted to come out when gay marriage is legal. In such a case that marriage has serious problems anyway which need to be dealt with.
What such law does affect is taxes and health care. It means homosexual couples cannot file joint tax returns. In many companies it means they cannot get health care for their partners. In others however it actually makes getting health care easier. I knew a guy in a place I used to work who went through 3 partners in a year. Each time he simply went to HR and got his new boyfriend health benefits. Later, after I left that job I had to pay out of pocket even though I was engaged to my current wife who still works at that company. I couldn't get any insurance until it was official. I suppose it's 6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of the other. I know the guy from my old job is happy to see gay marriage illegal b/c of this. On the other hand, in a less progressive company it could mean not being able to afford medicine.
If, (speaking hypothetically)... homosexuality is a sin does it really mean homosexuals shouldn't get insurance? Does it mean they should pay higher taxes? How many heterosexuals don't just have some other habitual sin?
We assume that alien civilizations will be like us in part I think because we are all we know. Humanity is the only example we have of what is possible. However, we have all of humanity to use as an example for what alien civilizations might be like, not just our own local neighborhoods. There are still many places on Earth where people are still struggling for basic survival. If here in the first world we become too pre-occupied with our pleasure to maintain ourselves I'm sure the people of the third world will happily take our place and we will fall into theirs. Actually.. come to think of it.. it kind of looks like that is what is happening. Maybe it is cyclical...
If Alien civilizations are so similar to ours as to resemble the conjectures in this article they will probably be similar enough to have their own third world too.
For me it's a DIY thing. It feels good to use something you built yourself. For some people it's about emergency preparedness or community service. It's also a nice way to chat, if your friends are into it, or if you make friends that are then talking on the local repeater can be a great way to kill time during a commute. Sure, you can call a friend with a cellphone, maybe you can use twice the minutes and 2-way calling to talk to two but how about 5 or 10 at a time? There's also competitions some people enjoy and all sorts of other stuff. Not necessarily every aspect of it is for everyone but there is an aspect for just about anyone.
I don't know for certain about these two Rovers but if it's like other NASA hardware there are two computers and a very basic system that is supposed to automatically switch to the backup if the primary doesn't respond for a while. Just only update one of the computers at a time and you are ok.
How unfortunate. In a place as drought prone and environmentally obsessed as California should there really be a rule requiring LIVE ground cover? On the other hand these people didn't do a very good job replacing it. I'm sure it's possible to make it look nice w/o grass. After this experience the city will be more resistant to change though.
Hah, you're right, my mistake. I RTFA but didn't VTFP. I guess I scrolled right past to get to the text.
It is pretty sparse. I could go on about that being their right but they did have the opportunity to look into the rules before they moved there I am sure. I looked into our neighborhood's rules pretty hard before I agreed to buy the house.
I do wonder if it looks so bad from ground level. The picture seems to have been taken from the roof of a car or something. I bet that fence blocks the view better than it appears in the picture. It doesn't sound like anything is written into the rule about it being ok so long as they block the view though. Also, they certainly could have chosen a better fence for that job.
I wonder why the middle is so empty. Maybe they wanted to be able to walk on it? Those plants don't look very resilient to being stepped on. Or maybe they are being cheap. I bet those plants cost more than grass. If the rule just says it must be landscaped then why not just some pea gravel? Then again, I guess that's what they probably thought about the woodchips.
I remember some other article linked here on Slashdot a while back. I'm guessing maybe last summer? I don't remember if it was talking about the actual critical machines themselves or just ones on the same network. Either way is bad.
Then again, I just read the article with the statements from our new "Cyber War Czar". He actually says the insecure power grid computers are a myth. That's refreshing, non-FUD regarding computers from a member of our government? Maybe it isn't so bad after all. I still don't trust them though.
Right you are. Bad coding comes out the same in any language. Maybe it's just my own personal experience but it seems to me that I run into far more crashed sites on ASP though then any of the others.
Maybe it's more because the fly by night learn to program in week type of classes tend to focus on Microsoft platforms. Or maybe it's because.NET encourages programmers to use DataSets for everything in place of actual Object oriented programming where the objects have methods and properties that represent something real. (Much easier to debug and/or extend) Or maybe it's easier to find cheap.NET outsourcing to India and other places with high percentages of those fly by night class graduates.
Or maybe I've just had a string of bad coincidences with ASP based websites.
There's actually a very good reason for this. The market doesn't build for geeks anymore. Once upon a time computers were a very geeky thing (make no mistake, that's what an iPhone is... a computer). Products where actually marketed with us in mind.
We are still here. As a potential market we still exist but no one cares because now there are so many more 'regular' users. In comparison companies don't see us as worth marketing to.
That's actually ok. There's a long history of geeks 'hacking' standard consumer devices and making them do new things. Sometimes this even results in new products for the 'normal' users. We can deal with that. Things are changing though. Manufacturers are becoming protective of their platforms. They are adding roadblocks to keep us from customizing our own stuff. Sure an iPhone can be jailbroken today but what if there isn't a bug in the next version we can exploit to do that? What if the iPhone puts the more open phones out of business? They sure seem popular enough. What if other manufacturers see the success of the iPhone and emulate them, closed nature and all? There could be nothing left for us. That's what we are really concerned about, not the 'normal' users.
It's not just the geeks that lose out if this happens. Like I said earlier, our tinkering does often lead to new features for the next generation of 'normal' user products. It's not that the iPhone doesn't do a lot of cool things today, it's that it might not do anything better tomorrow. I don't think ranting on Slashdot will do much to enlighten the public about this but it's probably about as useful as anything else we can do.
But what if Apple bans something you do want tomorrow? It's not like people bought the iPhone knowing Apple wasn't going to allow WiFi finders and then complained about it. I just can't imagine paying money for a device that someone else still controls like that. To each their own I guess.. or is that to each Apple's?
There are two things a leader in the middle east cannot do. Show support for Israel and show support for the US. We are not liked in that part of the world. A leader who appears to give in with no fight to our demands (and the UN inspections were our demands) will not last. He will be seen as weak at best, possibly a traitor. He would be attacked from within his own country and possible from his neighbors as well. Such a leader would not last.
Saddam was playing a balancing game. He was letting inspectors in now and then but never quite letting them see everything they wanted to see. When he started to approach the tollerance level of the UN he would give in a bit and there was an inspection. Then the game begins anew. That's just how it worked. I don't think he was actually going to make WMDs any time soon. If he did the result would be exactly what actually happened, he is dead and his sons are too. He was evil but not stupid. Saddam's mistake was that the tolerance level of George Bush and a Dick Cheney with dollar signs in his eyes is much less than that of the UN and he didn't account for it.
Slashdot Mirror
nay! We've been at that for years already and what has it gained us?
I think he has a poor vocabulary and means 'about', not 'on behalf'. I hope he isn't an English major.
If you truly are an ex-Muslim perhaps you can enlighten us by expanding upon your reasoning rather than just relying on a repeated expletive.
Of what benefit today is a couple that does produce offspring? Is that what marriage is about? Maybe then people who keep popping out kids while living off welfare shouldn't be allowed to marry either...
When has a US church been mandated to perform any ceremony, homosexual, heterosexual or otherwise?? I know pastors who will not marry two heterosexual people with different beliefs. And this is perfectly fine, it's his right not to, they can go elsewhere! What does it mean to force a church to recognize a non-traditional pairing? Making such a marriage legal does not force any church to recognize or condone it. Pastors, priests, etc... will still be able to preach their beliefs as much as they want. That is the first amendment! What I would hope they would do is keep it to preaching about homosexuality in general and not go harass specific individuals Westbro Baptist style. Of course, if they do then anyone present will reject whatever they have to say guaranteed b/c they will all look like asses. Making a form of marriage legal or illegal is about marriage law and recognition of marriage within the secular government. It does not involve churches in any way. It also does not affect heterosexual marriages and families. Not unless one partner is actually gay and hiding it but is more tempted to come out when gay marriage is legal. In such a case that marriage has serious problems anyway which need to be dealt with. What such law does affect is taxes and health care. It means homosexual couples cannot file joint tax returns. In many companies it means they cannot get health care for their partners. In others however it actually makes getting health care easier. I knew a guy in a place I used to work who went through 3 partners in a year. Each time he simply went to HR and got his new boyfriend health benefits. Later, after I left that job I had to pay out of pocket even though I was engaged to my current wife who still works at that company. I couldn't get any insurance until it was official. I suppose it's 6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of the other. I know the guy from my old job is happy to see gay marriage illegal b/c of this. On the other hand, in a less progressive company it could mean not being able to afford medicine. If, (speaking hypothetically)... homosexuality is a sin does it really mean homosexuals shouldn't get insurance? Does it mean they should pay higher taxes? How many heterosexuals don't just have some other habitual sin?
Better take care of that! Otherwise when a terrorist dies he might get you and 9 of your friends!
He wasn't addressing mainstream Muslims. He was addressing "techno-savvy hard-line Muslim[s]".
No, it will make new 1080p screens unavailable. As a side effect though it would make cheap used 1080p screens available for a while.
I think they would have a better shot at getting their 70 virgins here on a Slashdot forum. Actually, I'm sure there are much more than 70 here.
Oh, I thought that was large women!
We assume that alien civilizations will be like us in part I think because we are all we know. Humanity is the only example we have of what is possible. However, we have all of humanity to use as an example for what alien civilizations might be like, not just our own local neighborhoods. There are still many places on Earth where people are still struggling for basic survival. If here in the first world we become too pre-occupied with our pleasure to maintain ourselves I'm sure the people of the third world will happily take our place and we will fall into theirs. Actually.. come to think of it.. it kind of looks like that is what is happening. Maybe it is cyclical... If Alien civilizations are so similar to ours as to resemble the conjectures in this article they will probably be similar enough to have their own third world too.
For me it's a DIY thing. It feels good to use something you built yourself. For some people it's about emergency preparedness or community service. It's also a nice way to chat, if your friends are into it, or if you make friends that are then talking on the local repeater can be a great way to kill time during a commute. Sure, you can call a friend with a cellphone, maybe you can use twice the minutes and 2-way calling to talk to two but how about 5 or 10 at a time? There's also competitions some people enjoy and all sorts of other stuff. Not necessarily every aspect of it is for everyone but there is an aspect for just about anyone.
Are you sure? I think the contents of a truck engine might be more palatable.
Quantum association
Too bad neither has a reprap on board
I don't know for certain about these two Rovers but if it's like other NASA hardware there are two computers and a very basic system that is supposed to automatically switch to the backup if the primary doesn't respond for a while. Just only update one of the computers at a time and you are ok.
I don't think many teens are going to get together for that BEFORE school. Not when they could be sleeping in. That's an after school activity.
Nevermind it says live ground cover.
How unfortunate. In a place as drought prone and environmentally obsessed as California should there really be a rule requiring LIVE ground cover? On the other hand these people didn't do a very good job replacing it. I'm sure it's possible to make it look nice w/o grass. After this experience the city will be more resistant to change though.
Hah, you're right, my mistake. I RTFA but didn't VTFP. I guess I scrolled right past to get to the text.
It is pretty sparse. I could go on about that being their right but they did have the opportunity to look into the rules before they moved there I am sure. I looked into our neighborhood's rules pretty hard before I agreed to buy the house.
I do wonder if it looks so bad from ground level. The picture seems to have been taken from the roof of a car or something. I bet that fence blocks the view better than it appears in the picture. It doesn't sound like anything is written into the rule about it being ok so long as they block the view though. Also, they certainly could have chosen a better fence for that job.
I wonder why the middle is so empty. Maybe they wanted to be able to walk on it? Those plants don't look very resilient to being stepped on. Or maybe they are being cheap. I bet those plants cost more than grass. If the rule just says it must be landscaped then why not just some pea gravel? Then again, I guess that's what they probably thought about the woodchips.
I remember some other article linked here on Slashdot a while back. I'm guessing maybe last summer? I don't remember if it was talking about the actual critical machines themselves or just ones on the same network. Either way is bad.
Then again, I just read the article with the statements from our new "Cyber War Czar". He actually says the insecure power grid computers are a myth. That's refreshing, non-FUD regarding computers from a member of our government? Maybe it isn't so bad after all. I still don't trust them though.
Right you are. Bad coding comes out the same in any language. Maybe it's just my own personal experience but it seems to me that I run into far more crashed sites on ASP though then any of the others.
.NET encourages programmers to use DataSets for everything in place of actual Object oriented programming where the objects have methods and properties that represent something real. (Much easier to debug and/or extend) Or maybe it's easier to find cheap .NET outsourcing to India and other places with high percentages of those fly by night class graduates.
Maybe it's more because the fly by night learn to program in week type of classes tend to focus on Microsoft platforms. Or maybe it's because
Or maybe I've just had a string of bad coincidences with ASP based websites.
Was that you?!?
There's actually a very good reason for this. The market doesn't build for geeks anymore. Once upon a time computers were a very geeky thing (make no mistake, that's what an iPhone is... a computer). Products where actually marketed with us in mind.
We are still here. As a potential market we still exist but no one cares because now there are so many more 'regular' users. In comparison companies don't see us as worth marketing to.
That's actually ok. There's a long history of geeks 'hacking' standard consumer devices and making them do new things. Sometimes this even results in new products for the 'normal' users. We can deal with that. Things are changing though. Manufacturers are becoming protective of their platforms. They are adding roadblocks to keep us from customizing our own stuff. Sure an iPhone can be jailbroken today but what if there isn't a bug in the next version we can exploit to do that? What if the iPhone puts the more open phones out of business? They sure seem popular enough. What if other manufacturers see the success of the iPhone and emulate them, closed nature and all? There could be nothing left for us. That's what we are really concerned about, not the 'normal' users.
It's not just the geeks that lose out if this happens. Like I said earlier, our tinkering does often lead to new features for the next generation of 'normal' user products. It's not that the iPhone doesn't do a lot of cool things today, it's that it might not do anything better tomorrow. I don't think ranting on Slashdot will do much to enlighten the public about this but it's probably about as useful as anything else we can do.
But what if Apple bans something you do want tomorrow? It's not like people bought the iPhone knowing Apple wasn't going to allow WiFi finders and then complained about it. I just can't imagine paying money for a device that someone else still controls like that. To each their own I guess.. or is that to each Apple's?
As for the UN inspections...
There are two things a leader in the middle east cannot do. Show support for Israel and show support for the US. We are not liked in that part of the world. A leader who appears to give in with no fight to our demands (and the UN inspections were our demands) will not last. He will be seen as weak at best, possibly a traitor. He would be attacked from within his own country and possible from his neighbors as well. Such a leader would not last.
Saddam was playing a balancing game. He was letting inspectors in now and then but never quite letting them see everything they wanted to see. When he started to approach the tollerance level of the UN he would give in a bit and there was an inspection. Then the game begins anew. That's just how it worked. I don't think he was actually going to make WMDs any time soon. If he did the result would be exactly what actually happened, he is dead and his sons are too. He was evil but not stupid. Saddam's mistake was that the tolerance level of George Bush and a Dick Cheney with dollar signs in his eyes is much less than that of the UN and he didn't account for it.