Well, that's what I get for not RTFA'ing. However, had I, the same argument can be adapted to gems such as (quoting from Wikipedia because I am lazy at the moment):
"He also testified that materialism, the philosophy that only matter exists, is "a belief system, no less a belief system than is intelligent design."
A statement like that shows that you can take the creationism out of the creationist, but not the mindset that led to it. If anything, he is smart enough not to adopt the most easily disproved position, in favor of sneakier ones like "you can't prove religion is false so our positions as just as valid." Of course, again this is me going off Wikipedia having not watched the rather long video yet. He might be a fine and reasonable man... yet something tells me that isn't to be expected.
...but debating these people only give them credibility they do not deserve. The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it, because their reasons for believing in it it are not the same as ours are for believing evolution. It is not out of an attempt to explain nature and the universe, but an egotistical need to be above it. Being descended from primates is offensive to them because they see the sum of humanity as being a jumble of biological components, rather than our arts and sciences. No wonder: religion has usually opposed arts and sciences until they gained enough traction to threaten the religion itself should it resist further.
It's time for religion to be closed out from the scientific debate altogether. "Faith" has no place in a field based on empirical evidence and doubt. Creationism doesn't even deserve a title as a discredited theory, it belongs with mythology like Atlantis and elves, and should rightly be laughed at with impunity.
Sure it is. It still is half as responsive as 3 was for me (on older hardware, even), feels clunky and unpolished, and still has not returned some of the features I used KDE 3 for. KDE 4 is a step backwards towards Windows, not a step forward, and I am certain that KDE 5 will be worse.
The value of US money is backed by its government, banking institutions, and the physical & economic resources it is tied to. Bitcoin is tied to nothing but artificial scarcity, hence is unstable by comparison. You might not like it, but the very "establishment" is what backs bank notes.
You realize that no serious organization and no serious individual will ever use an unstable currency, I hope? Even the "Gold Standard" libertards gets that.
It really is the ultimate geek fantasy project: a completely open ended, sky-is-the-limit, world political structure changing, disruptive open source software technology.
If bitcoin is the best we have come up with in that direction, I wouldn't be too ready to storm the Bastille. Bitcoin has been shown to have unstable value and to be economically unsound. But hey, using it is "sticking it to the man" so keep on putting your money into something with absolutely no backing or stability. You might be making money now, but like all gambling, eventually you'll lose.
The process of neglecting your most committed supporters to appeal to people who don't like you anyway has backfired for both parties at least once. Ralph Nader and the Tea Party are both examples of why you shouldn't take your extreme base for granted. That's not even getting into how they are the ones most likely to be funding your campaign, although these days it is mostly billionaires doing that.
Flat taxes are nearly universally understood by economists and anyone who understands basic mathematics as harmful to lower classes while a dream to the rich. This is not changed by how many exclusions are given to the poorest of the poor: at SOME POINT, someone is going to have to pay more to make up the difference. Under a flat tax, that is NEVER the people with the most to spare.
This is Pennsylvania. As someone who lived in Pittsburgh, I can tell you with certainty that 400 hours to dismantle a bridge of any size is so optimistic it is borderline idealism. Realistically, the state would fund a 10-year project to dismantle the bridge; and 10 years later, it would still be there. However, they would have placed copious amounts of those brightly colored road work barrels and numbers of signs threatening higher fines on the unused road...
Funny how in the last discussion on a topic like this, something about a rule against photos in a mall in Scotland, the concensus seemed to be that you have the right to take photos...
As much as I dislike Google and surveillance society, this is neither surveillance nor shocking. There is nothing that will be shown that you could not see on your own going into the store. I don't really see how in this case you having the right to take and presumably distribute photos is any different than Google doing so. Yes, they are a company and not a person, but that distinction only matters in some cases. If Google doesn't have the right to, you won't pretty damn soon yourself. Think about that.
Is it a little scary that there might be a database of interiors of buildings? Maybe; but on the other hand, almost no one seems to bat an eye at the millions of surveillance cameras that take and stream video to who knows where (other than Youtube. Funny how that works). I don't really see how static photos is in any way shocking when that is the norm. I suppose things are only scary if they are new and scary, something that just shows intellectual laziness.
Sure they're Apple haters, and you're not an Apple fanboi? Reality gets skewed a bit once you drink the flavor-aid... but I have to say, your post is a new extreme.
I am completely tired of Jobs stories. This is worse than the usual Apple fanboyism; it seems anything at all even remotely related to Steve-baby gets on the front page, no matter how irrelevant or pointless. Look at how many stories there are about the marketing mogul Jobs (sorry, no time to count), and how many there are about REAL computer pioneers like John McCarthy (1) and Dennis Ritchie (also 1).
Slashdot has fallen far when someone like you can be modded up for whining about "Apple haters" not likely a Jobs-a-day story, while ignoring actually important people and their contributions. You make me sick.
You assume environmentalists don't want meltdowns. The ones I saw, when Fukushima was melting down, seemed happier than had they won the lottery. Some people want to be right so bad they can't see past their own narrow mindset.
It isn't about if nuclear is safe or not, nuclear is confusing to them, and the unknown is always scary. It doesn't help that the vast majority would rather humanity go back to the stone age - what's a few billion dead due to starvation and exposure, if we're "green"?
Ah. The Google shill (your posting record shows some extreme bias... kind of makes it hard to take you seriously) claiming that one opinion is fact and the other is fiction. Nice.
What about the fact that probably around the size of membership of Facebook have Google accounts that could easily be extended to Google+ accounts... but aren't? Those 40 million users are, I would bet, almost entirely people who were already using Google products, be it Gmail or Android, both of which are tied (maybe even locked) in. The fact that you can convince 40 million of your existing users to use your product doesn't say a whole damn lot about the viability of your product. In fact, it suggests that even your fans are nonplussed by it.
But then, I am probably wrong. We all know Wave revolutionized the internet, and this seems so similar!
They already squandered the publicity and marketing that existed around the launch. In the process, they pissed off many users and made even more suspicious. There is no chance to recover after the major blunders they have made. Google+ is dead now, just like wave, and Google will admit it eventually. The best thing they can do is try to contain that failure so it doesn't spill over into their other, successful services, especially Gmail.
When it comes to terrorists, it's more about the definition, and the view that simply being classed that way makes you sub-human. But then, you can say the same for many of the examples I gave. Hint: there were no real witches at Salem.
Society needs witches to hunt. First case I can think of was the Christians, then the pagans, then Jews, then Muslims, then "witches", then anarchists, then gays, then communists, then terrorists, now pedophiles. Sadly, it probably won't ever end. Humans have a tendency to want to kill the one who is "different" which often leads them to counter-productive activities, which quite often do nothing to harm the group they intend to. And it seems we can always find someone irreconcilably different, no matter how many greater differences have in the past been overcome, when we are at a loss for one.
It is possible to not break relativity, but go faster than the speed of light. It all comes down to how speed is defined - and it turns out that relativity has a fairly narrow definition.
A few of the tea party are also there. Does that mean they're radical right wingers and communists at the same time?
Even if they were, what does that change? Can they not be partially (or entirely) right? To attack a movement because of a few people involved in it is simply ad hominem. Especially since, as I illustrated above, you can criticize any large movement people as including some specific group of people. That's how movements of thousands of people work.
I agree with the gp: stop the fucking fear mongering. You're as bad as Faux News. I get that you're afraid of change and big mobs of people in the streets might threaten your bottom line (of course, it probably exists only in your dreams, but whatever). However, these people are getting together to do something to save the country. You're whining about them being communists on slashdot. Get a fucking life.
Voting is cheap. Doing something, even if it is only showing you physically support a cause by standing around in a park, is harder and more effective. But hey, keep living in a fantasy world where all you need to do is cast a vote and you are absolved of all responsibility to your fellow man and to morality in general. You're a huge part of the problem.
Nice straw man. Notice the comma at the end there that seems floating in space? That's because you purposely misquoted me, lacking any real argument except the canned one, "business does as it needs to [wants]."
So tell me how pissing off your customers, no matter what demographic they might be, helps, when the people you're targeting don't even notice you're doing it?
Schemes like DRM are not necessary, because they are targeted at people whom they inherently have no effect on. Hence, they only lower the value of the product to those who do buy it. Not good economics, but I guess it's fairly complicated because you don't seem to understand it.
Anyway, I thought the whole purpose of free enterprise was to provide better products. Obviously, you would agree that's not working, and seem to think it can't work, so maybe we need to look at interventionism or even statism for a solution. Of course, I suspect you don't think that, but at least it follows from what you said. Now, your diatribe about my post...
That is simply another knee-jerk reaction to the situation, that does not at all address my post. You still claim slashdot bias though, as all the people who fail to back up their arguments do these days.
So tell me how pissing off your customers, no matter what demographic they might be, helps, when the people you're targeting don't even notice you're doing it? Because I'd love to see whatever insane logic you can come up with for that.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, that's what I get for not RTFA'ing. However, had I, the same argument can be adapted to gems such as (quoting from Wikipedia because I am lazy at the moment):
"He also testified that materialism, the philosophy that only matter exists, is "a belief system, no less a belief system than is intelligent design."
A statement like that shows that you can take the creationism out of the creationist, but not the mindset that led to it. If anything, he is smart enough not to adopt the most easily disproved position, in favor of sneakier ones like "you can't prove religion is false so our positions as just as valid." Of course, again this is me going off Wikipedia having not watched the rather long video yet. He might be a fine and reasonable man... yet something tells me that isn't to be expected.
...but debating these people only give them credibility they do not deserve. The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it, because their reasons for believing in it it are not the same as ours are for believing evolution. It is not out of an attempt to explain nature and the universe, but an egotistical need to be above it. Being descended from primates is offensive to them because they see the sum of humanity as being a jumble of biological components, rather than our arts and sciences. No wonder: religion has usually opposed arts and sciences until they gained enough traction to threaten the religion itself should it resist further.
It's time for religion to be closed out from the scientific debate altogether. "Faith" has no place in a field based on empirical evidence and doubt. Creationism doesn't even deserve a title as a discredited theory, it belongs with mythology like Atlantis and elves, and should rightly be laughed at with impunity.
Sure it is. It still is half as responsive as 3 was for me (on older hardware, even), feels clunky and unpolished, and still has not returned some of the features I used KDE 3 for. KDE 4 is a step backwards towards Windows, not a step forward, and I am certain that KDE 5 will be worse.
The value of US money is backed by its government, banking institutions, and the physical & economic resources it is tied to. Bitcoin is tied to nothing but artificial scarcity, hence is unstable by comparison. You might not like it, but the very "establishment" is what backs bank notes.
You realize that no serious organization and no serious individual will ever use an unstable currency, I hope? Even the "Gold Standard" libertards gets that.
"We're removing ourselves from a cultural organization that promotes a culture we disagree with."
A culture "we" disagree with? I bet you wonder why people hate the United States...
He could be shorting the market. I don't know if anyone offers shorting bitcoins yet, but I kind of expect there to be eventually.
If bitcoin is the best we have come up with in that direction, I wouldn't be too ready to storm the Bastille. Bitcoin has been shown to have unstable value and to be economically unsound. But hey, using it is "sticking it to the man" so keep on putting your money into something with absolutely no backing or stability. You might be making money now, but like all gambling, eventually you'll lose.
The process of neglecting your most committed supporters to appeal to people who don't like you anyway has backfired for both parties at least once. Ralph Nader and the Tea Party are both examples of why you shouldn't take your extreme base for granted. That's not even getting into how they are the ones most likely to be funding your campaign, although these days it is mostly billionaires doing that.
Flat taxes are nearly universally understood by economists and anyone who understands basic mathematics as harmful to lower classes while a dream to the rich. This is not changed by how many exclusions are given to the poorest of the poor: at SOME POINT, someone is going to have to pay more to make up the difference. Under a flat tax, that is NEVER the people with the most to spare.
This is Pennsylvania. As someone who lived in Pittsburgh, I can tell you with certainty that 400 hours to dismantle a bridge of any size is so optimistic it is borderline idealism. Realistically, the state would fund a 10-year project to dismantle the bridge; and 10 years later, it would still be there. However, they would have placed copious amounts of those brightly colored road work barrels and numbers of signs threatening higher fines on the unused road...
Funny how in the last discussion on a topic like this, something about a rule against photos in a mall in Scotland, the concensus seemed to be that you have the right to take photos...
As much as I dislike Google and surveillance society, this is neither surveillance nor shocking. There is nothing that will be shown that you could not see on your own going into the store. I don't really see how in this case you having the right to take and presumably distribute photos is any different than Google doing so. Yes, they are a company and not a person, but that distinction only matters in some cases. If Google doesn't have the right to, you won't pretty damn soon yourself. Think about that.
Is it a little scary that there might be a database of interiors of buildings? Maybe; but on the other hand, almost no one seems to bat an eye at the millions of surveillance cameras that take and stream video to who knows where (other than Youtube. Funny how that works). I don't really see how static photos is in any way shocking when that is the norm. I suppose things are only scary if they are new and scary, something that just shows intellectual laziness.
Sure they're Apple haters, and you're not an Apple fanboi? Reality gets skewed a bit once you drink the flavor-aid... but I have to say, your post is a new extreme.
I am completely tired of Jobs stories. This is worse than the usual Apple fanboyism; it seems anything at all even remotely related to Steve-baby gets on the front page, no matter how irrelevant or pointless. Look at how many stories there are about the marketing mogul Jobs (sorry, no time to count), and how many there are about REAL computer pioneers like John McCarthy (1) and Dennis Ritchie (also 1).
Slashdot has fallen far when someone like you can be modded up for whining about "Apple haters" not likely a Jobs-a-day story, while ignoring actually important people and their contributions. You make me sick.
You assume environmentalists don't want meltdowns. The ones I saw, when Fukushima was melting down, seemed happier than had they won the lottery. Some people want to be right so bad they can't see past their own narrow mindset.
It isn't about if nuclear is safe or not, nuclear is confusing to them, and the unknown is always scary. It doesn't help that the vast majority would rather humanity go back to the stone age - what's a few billion dead due to starvation and exposure, if we're "green"?
You must be afraid of Gnomes! You aren't making an effort to prove they exist.
Ah. The Google shill (your posting record shows some extreme bias... kind of makes it hard to take you seriously) claiming that one opinion is fact and the other is fiction. Nice.
What about the fact that probably around the size of membership of Facebook have Google accounts that could easily be extended to Google+ accounts... but aren't? Those 40 million users are, I would bet, almost entirely people who were already using Google products, be it Gmail or Android, both of which are tied (maybe even locked) in. The fact that you can convince 40 million of your existing users to use your product doesn't say a whole damn lot about the viability of your product. In fact, it suggests that even your fans are nonplussed by it.
But then, I am probably wrong. We all know Wave revolutionized the internet, and this seems so similar!
They already squandered the publicity and marketing that existed around the launch. In the process, they pissed off many users and made even more suspicious. There is no chance to recover after the major blunders they have made. Google+ is dead now, just like wave, and Google will admit it eventually. The best thing they can do is try to contain that failure so it doesn't spill over into their other, successful services, especially Gmail.
When it comes to terrorists, it's more about the definition, and the view that simply being classed that way makes you sub-human. But then, you can say the same for many of the examples I gave. Hint: there were no real witches at Salem.
WWIII could end our economic problems. Will someone please think of the children and invade Italy?
Society needs witches to hunt. First case I can think of was the Christians, then the pagans, then Jews, then Muslims, then "witches", then anarchists, then gays, then communists, then terrorists, now pedophiles. Sadly, it probably won't ever end. Humans have a tendency to want to kill the one who is "different" which often leads them to counter-productive activities, which quite often do nothing to harm the group they intend to. And it seems we can always find someone irreconcilably different, no matter how many greater differences have in the past been overcome, when we are at a loss for one.
It is possible to not break relativity, but go faster than the speed of light. It all comes down to how speed is defined - and it turns out that relativity has a fairly narrow definition.
A few of the tea party are also there. Does that mean they're radical right wingers and communists at the same time?
Even if they were, what does that change? Can they not be partially (or entirely) right? To attack a movement because of a few people involved in it is simply ad hominem. Especially since, as I illustrated above, you can criticize any large movement people as including some specific group of people. That's how movements of thousands of people work.
I agree with the gp: stop the fucking fear mongering. You're as bad as Faux News. I get that you're afraid of change and big mobs of people in the streets might threaten your bottom line (of course, it probably exists only in your dreams, but whatever). However, these people are getting together to do something to save the country. You're whining about them being communists on slashdot. Get a fucking life.
Voting is cheap. Doing something, even if it is only showing you physically support a cause by standing around in a park, is harder and more effective. But hey, keep living in a fantasy world where all you need to do is cast a vote and you are absolved of all responsibility to your fellow man and to morality in general. You're a huge part of the problem.
Schemes like DRM are not necessary, because they are targeted at people whom they inherently have no effect on. Hence, they only lower the value of the product to those who do buy it. Not good economics, but I guess it's fairly complicated because you don't seem to understand it.
Anyway, I thought the whole purpose of free enterprise was to provide better products. Obviously, you would agree that's not working, and seem to think it can't work, so maybe we need to look at interventionism or even statism for a solution. Of course, I suspect you don't think that, but at least it follows from what you said. Now, your diatribe about my post...
That is simply another knee-jerk reaction to the situation, that does not at all address my post. You still claim slashdot bias though, as all the people who fail to back up their arguments do these days.
So tell me how pissing off your customers, no matter what demographic they might be, helps, when the people you're targeting don't even notice you're doing it? Because I'd love to see whatever insane logic you can come up with for that.