...you have it pretty good? The quality of life is improving (throughout the world)? What, do you think we can only be happy when we're loudly whining, and that contentment is just a prison of complacency? Do you think that things are better when we have nothing left to lose but our lives? Yeah, I'm sure that's what's happening: the Government (ooooooooh!) is just fattening you up so Dubya can declare himself Supreme Lord of Earth, and can stand on your bare back and whip you for the shear sadistic pleasure it gives him.
Cute quote, but it also works in vice-versa. Think about it from the point of view of someone who is more concerned with security than liberty. The more freedoms we give ourselves, the more insecure the country becomes. Fighting crime becomes harder, tracking terrorists becomes harder (both can disappear in a sea of anonymity), businesses feel less inclined to invest in a market where the consumer is king and the companies are slaves. The people start to lose some of their protected freedoms, not by draconian government legislation, but by paralysis by fear, lack of proper enforcement, and lack of quality facilities to exercise certain freedoms. For example of the latter, the movies industry would become really, really anaemic if copyrights were to be abolished in favour of the right to copy, which would severely curtail said right since very little new material would be produced. Basically, in order to maintain your freedoms, you need a stable and secure base on which to build them on.
That said, this arrest is a step out of line. I'd have prefered the mandated back-door option if it didn't compromise the anonymity so much. It's a tricky situation indeed...
loath both democrats and republicans. I don't have minor issues with the candidates; I have large ideological divides with all of them. I am pretty sure I am not alone.
No, but I think you'll be lonely. There's plenty of people who don't share a large ideological divide, and the fact that the main political candidates' policies aren't compatible with yours likely means that a majority of people don't agree with you. After all, a politician wouldn't be very good at his job if he didn't do what the people want, right?
You can even simply hand in a blank ballot. If more people were to do this, than there would start to be noticeable discrepancies between the number of people who voted, and the number of people who voted for one of the two choices. Make this discrepancy large enough, and you might start turning heads. Politicians would see groups of people who are pissed, but not so apathetic that they won't vote.
OK, let's say for argument's sake that you succeed in rallying people to "vote no" at the next elections, and you manage to get a million or two to do so, that doesn't mean that politicians will start pandering to you. In doing so, they'd probably alienate larger sections of the electorate. Also, a group like that won't have uniform opinions, so it isn't really possible to pander to you.
I've just noticed something myself. Your account number is in the 1000000+ range, and you've made only 8 comments (at the time of my reading). Exactly what time period are you referring to when you say "Slashdot has really gone backwards"?
You are first and foremost responsible for your own safety, but you should do the best to secure the safety of other drivers as well. This is the core of issue. The law just tries to force people's behaviour and if the law is alcohol == fine then that is pretty childish IMO
It's true everyone is different, and everything (illegal or not) affects everyone's ability to drive differently. That said, that can't be enforced by law. It's either everyone or no-one gets the restrictions, so the government has to find the "best fit" driving guidelines. They've determined that the average man can be devastatingly affected by large amounts of alcohol in his system, and so they've applied a limit that can be enforced. Some people may not be dangerous at that point, but that's not the point. The point is that next to no-one will be dangerous because of alcohol if they stick within the limit. It's the same with cell phones, BJs, being stoned, listening to music: if there are enough people who can't drive safely with those factors in play, then they become illegal for everyone. There really isn't another way, because forcing you to be responsible (any more than absolutely necessary) for other stranger's safety is unfair to them. You might think that you're cool to drive despite the fact that you are S M A S H E D. Is it fair to put other people at risk for your poor, drunken judgement?
and even dangerous because there WILL be times where you will have alcohol in your blood and have to drive.and even dangerous because there WILL be times where you will have alcohol in your blood and have to drive. What if your kid suddenly becomes ill? What if an accident happens? There are tons of scenarios possible while you had one glass of wine with your dinner (according to some diets a very healthy way of living). According to your extreme limit you're not allowed to drive. Had you driven with one glass of one in your blood before you'd be a safe driver; have you never done this before you're less safe, and with stress like in the mentioned examples surely the risks of driving are higher.
My guidelines (which is not so coincidentally the government's guidelines here in Australia) are not an "extreme limit". I was merely saying that if you are going out drinking (the "good night out"), you probably shouldn't drive. It's fine from a legal and safety perspective to have a glass of wine while you're out, possibly two if you know your metabolism. That's not "extreme", that's a rule of thumb that errs on the side of caution. If there is an emergency, you need to wing it. You need to weigh up the risks of driving in your current state, factoring in that you may get caught by the police, that you may injure yourself and others, and make a decision whether or not to wait for a taxi. Hopefully you won't make a stupid decision, like driving when you clearly are not fit to.
One of those courses is driving with special glasses which are similar to having drank 8 glasses of beer.
Is that it? What about the lowered reaction time? What about the loss of mental capacity to solve complex problems? Surely the impaired vision isn't considered to be drinking's worst effect on driving?
I understood your point, and in most cases I'd agree with you. The law should be written very clearly and precisely. Imprecise laws basically mean that whether or not you are guilty is determined by how much your lawyer costs. That said, the laws are clearly written. They don't say "if the person is too drunk to drive..." or whatever, they say "if the person blows over [insert regional hard limit here] BAC...". However the response of people should not be "Am I over the limit?" or "How many drinks can I have and get away with it?" or even "I wanna know exactly how accurate these breathalysers are!" It should be more like "I should probably order a taxi". In a way, this breathalyser stuff is beside the point. It detracts from the original message of the law which is don't drink and drive.
I don't want this to sound like a personal attack, because I'm sure you just haven't carried this logic through to all the edge cases. Let me point out the flaw in your argument: drink how much, and over what interval?
You've just pointed out why an arbitrary limit is enforced: so that you have benefit of the doubt. It's not so hard. After a certain number of drinks, after a certain time period, it's probably safe to drive. If you want more information, google it. There are plenty of informal studies out there that have tested the effects of drinking over time, and I'm sure some of them factor food. But as a rule of thumb, wait at least until the morning after, maybe more if you were particularly smashed. Perhaps consider purchasing a breathalyser if rules of thumb make you nervous.
In short, it's about as much of a flaw as scientists telling the population to eat less or go out in the sun more. It's all about moderation, and knowing exactly how much to moderate by.
Not being American, I have no idea what the problem with Open Access/PRISM is. It took me a while, but I finally managed to get to the heart of PRISM's complaint:
Recently, there have been legislative and regulatory efforts to compel not-for-profit and commercial journals to surrender to the Federal government a large number of published articles that scholarly journals have paid to peer review, publish, promote, archive and distribute. Mrs. Schroeder stressed that government interference in scientific publishing would force journals to give away their intellectual property and weaken the copyright protections that motivate journal publishers to make the enormous investments in content and infrastructure needed to ensure widespread access to journal articles. It would jeopardize the financial viability of the journals that conduct peer review, placing the entire scholarly communication process at risk.
So the problem is that the US government is undermining the copyrights of publishers in order to give scientific results to the public. That's essentially it, right?
I can understand that the publishers need to have the financial incentive to publish scientific papers, and that government giving public access to such documents would hurt the publishers. Is the government paying the publishers for these papers? If not, why not? Perhaps there needs to be a publicly funded scientific journal?
We, as individuals, are subject to, and expected to abide by the law. It's bad enough that they have so many laws it's literally impossible to know all the ones that apply to you. Now you want to make it even harder making it so that even if you know the law and abide by it, you can still get in trouble?
I agree that arbitrary enforcement breeds contempt, but this issue is very simple: drink or drive, not both.
I'm sorry, but this is no joking matter! It's estimated that over 10,000 points of karma are lost a year to drink-/.-posting. Ordinary, everyday nerds like you have lost face with their peers. They feel inadequate as their karma drops from Excellent to Good in the face of all the other Excellent nerds. It's been known for some particularly disgraced nerds to quit/. and start posting regularly on digg. That's right, it's not so funny now, is it?
Wow, you love making a huge argument out of "implied statements" and assumptions, don't ya?
Not really. I just objected to you neglecting to mention that alcohol actually does impair driving skills. It's so easy for people to neglect that fact, paint the police as money-grubbing lazy revenue-raisers, when they are, more often than not, just trying to help society. Sorry if I got the wrong impression, or if I made a strawman out of you. I do that sometimes with things I'm passionate about.
I'm just saying that the argument that a vehicle moving at 60 km/hr is only dangerous when the person in control of the vehicle is drunk is a fallacy and the fact that we're only willing to accept that cars are dangerous when there is alcohol involved is a hypocritical.
Oh I absolutely agree with you on that one. Cars are dangerous, no doubt about it, and I think people tend to forget that.
Inherently, driving a vehicle is the dangerous activity.. drink driving just gives people an acceptable scapegoat.
You realise of course that by saying that, you are denying by omission that drinking negatively affects driving skills, right? And you must also realise what a load of BS such an implied statement would be? Finally, you also realise that the "scapegoat" here is not DUI, but "revenue raising"? Think about it. People know the law, people know that it's dangerous to drive after drinking (instead of getting a taxi or something). If they get caught, naturally it isn't their fault for committing the crime, rather the policeman's fault for trying to raise revenue (read: doing the job that we the taxpayers pay them to do). Perhaps if you object to police raising revenue off drink drivers, perhaps you should stop drink driving, and start encouraging friends to do the same.
Why else would they take two legal activities like drinking alcohol and driving, and make it criminal. Yes, I understand people get hurt by drivers under influence. But lets be real and compare it to teens getting into accidents, senior citizens getting into accidents, sleep deprived individuals getting into accidents, etc.
Teens have restrictions placed on them to help prevent accidents. Plus, some of them won't have driven before, and they have to learn sometimes, right? Senior citizens also have restrictions placed upon them. Here in Australia, they have to have medical checkups and renew their license frequently (as frequently as a year if they're particularly old). Sleep deprivation can't really be enforced unfortunately, but I know the Australian government is financing a significant advertising campaign against driver fatigue, plus they are setting up "driver reviver" places, where you get free cups of tea. The aim is to allow yourself some rest, and to get some caffeine into you.
I might also add that driving is not a legal activity. It's licensed by the government. It's licensed because it's dangerous, and for the good of you and everyone else on the roads (or even just walking on the footpaths), we need to be confident in your driving ability. And drinking impairs your driving ability. So many drivers seem to think that driving is their given right when it really isn't, and that causes many problems.
PS People who drink and get into accidents should be prosecuted as if they had reckless intent.
It's all well and good to force people to take responsibility for their actions after they sober up and the disaster has already happened. The measures against DUI are preventative. We don't actually want accidents to happen. It's not that we don't care what happens, as long as we have someone to crucify at the end, it's that we don't want accidents to happen. People who are drinking may not be able to make a rational decision as to whether to drive or not, so no matter how smashed they are, no matter how much responsibility we foist upon them, some will decide to drive.
I know I'm going to be torn apart limb by limb by the modders out there, but yes, you're right. The hard limit isn't really the point. Do you think people are suddenly dangerous over 0.05 (or whatever the limit is in your neck of the woods)? The point is that you've been drinking before you've been driving, and you really shouldn't have been doing that. That's what the law is intended to do: to stop you from driving after good night out. It's negligent, it's potentially dangerous, and it sets a bad example for others. If you're really only 0.04, the limit's 0.05, and you read over it, I'm sorry that such a miscarriage of justice happened. However, it really wasn't a good idea to drive in the first place, now was it?
If by "broke a few windows", you mean placed software on the disc the guy bought, and made the disc auto-run said software, provided the guy didn't hold down shift, or fiddled with a few options, or ripped the CD, or ran a different OS, then yes, Sony "broke a few windows".
Ugly, cluttered UI that sticks out like a sore thumb no matter what OS you use, and it's closed source. Other than that, nothing really. It's a pretty solid browser.
As a corporate apologist, that's not what I'd say. That'd just be wrong. No, the real issue is that piracy is partially responsible for these measures being taken, and at least some of the blame needs to rest with the consumer. If they don't want this crap surrounding their entertainment, they can stop pirating, or help others stop pirating. Also, a good boycott never hurt anyone. Well, except for the odd company, their employees, shareholders, etc.
Both sides mock each other. If you surround yourself in lefties, you're bound to hear some mockery of the right (and vice-versa). Conservatives mock people too. They are, after all, human beings.
I'm not so convinced the system is as broken as you and so many others believe it is. I think the US citizens have still got quite a lot of power, and could easily fix all the government's problems if they wanted to. It's just that they have an apathetic population, so they get an apathetic government. The system works.:(
Hmm. I don't think that's enough to explain the Libertarian-Nerd correlation. Anything can seem logical in a subjective field like politics if you come in with the right preconceived notions. Hell, even Christianity can seem logical, if you come into it believing God exists, and that his influence is above and beyond logic.
No, it seems more logical that nerds, as a result of being outcasts in their formative years, learn to celebrate their differences. To do that though, you need as many liberties as possible, using ones that others wouldn't necessarily use. The more liberties, the greater diversity allowed by society. The greater diversity, the more nerds feel at home.
Slashdot Mirror
...you have it pretty good? The quality of life is improving (throughout the world)? What, do you think we can only be happy when we're loudly whining, and that contentment is just a prison of complacency? Do you think that things are better when we have nothing left to lose but our lives? Yeah, I'm sure that's what's happening: the Government (ooooooooh!) is just fattening you up so Dubya can declare himself Supreme Lord of Earth, and can stand on your bare back and whip you for the shear sadistic pleasure it gives him.
Cute quote, but it also works in vice-versa. Think about it from the point of view of someone who is more concerned with security than liberty. The more freedoms we give ourselves, the more insecure the country becomes. Fighting crime becomes harder, tracking terrorists becomes harder (both can disappear in a sea of anonymity), businesses feel less inclined to invest in a market where the consumer is king and the companies are slaves. The people start to lose some of their protected freedoms, not by draconian government legislation, but by paralysis by fear, lack of proper enforcement, and lack of quality facilities to exercise certain freedoms. For example of the latter, the movies industry would become really, really anaemic if copyrights were to be abolished in favour of the right to copy, which would severely curtail said right since very little new material would be produced. Basically, in order to maintain your freedoms, you need a stable and secure base on which to build them on.
That said, this arrest is a step out of line. I'd have prefered the mandated back-door option if it didn't compromise the anonymity so much. It's a tricky situation indeed...
I've just noticed something myself. Your account number is in the 1000000+ range, and you've made only 8 comments (at the time of my reading). Exactly what time period are you referring to when you say "Slashdot has really gone backwards"?
I understood your point, and in most cases I'd agree with you. The law should be written very clearly and precisely. Imprecise laws basically mean that whether or not you are guilty is determined by how much your lawyer costs. That said, the laws are clearly written. They don't say "if the person is too drunk to drive..." or whatever, they say "if the person blows over [insert regional hard limit here] BAC...". However the response of people should not be "Am I over the limit?" or "How many drinks can I have and get away with it?" or even "I wanna know exactly how accurate these breathalysers are!" It should be more like "I should probably order a taxi". In a way, this breathalyser stuff is beside the point. It detracts from the original message of the law which is don't drink and drive.
In short, it's about as much of a flaw as scientists telling the population to eat less or go out in the sun more. It's all about moderation, and knowing exactly how much to moderate by.
I tried that once, but the fuckers took it down!
I can understand that the publishers need to have the financial incentive to publish scientific papers, and that government giving public access to such documents would hurt the publishers. Is the government paying the publishers for these papers? If not, why not? Perhaps there needs to be a publicly funded scientific journal?
I'm sorry, but this is no joking matter! It's estimated that over 10,000 points of karma are lost a year to drink-/.-posting. Ordinary, everyday nerds like you have lost face with their peers. They feel inadequate as their karma drops from Excellent to Good in the face of all the other Excellent nerds. It's been known for some particularly disgraced nerds to quit /. and start posting regularly on digg. That's right, it's not so funny now, is it?
I might also add that driving is not a legal activity. It's licensed by the government. It's licensed because it's dangerous, and for the good of you and everyone else on the roads (or even just walking on the footpaths), we need to be confident in your driving ability. And drinking impairs your driving ability. So many drivers seem to think that driving is their given right when it really isn't, and that causes many problems.It's all well and good to force people to take responsibility for their actions after they sober up and the disaster has already happened. The measures against DUI are preventative. We don't actually want accidents to happen. It's not that we don't care what happens, as long as we have someone to crucify at the end, it's that we don't want accidents to happen. People who are drinking may not be able to make a rational decision as to whether to drive or not, so no matter how smashed they are, no matter how much responsibility we foist upon them, some will decide to drive.
If by "broke a few windows", you mean placed software on the disc the guy bought, and made the disc auto-run said software, provided the guy didn't hold down shift, or fiddled with a few options, or ripped the CD, or ran a different OS, then yes, Sony "broke a few windows".
As a corporate apologist, that's not what I'd say. That'd just be wrong. No, the real issue is that piracy is partially responsible for these measures being taken, and at least some of the blame needs to rest with the consumer. If they don't want this crap surrounding their entertainment, they can stop pirating, or help others stop pirating. Also, a good boycott never hurt anyone. Well, except for the odd company, their employees, shareholders, etc.
Yup. People want a government, but they just don't like paying for it.
... where religion is persecuted with religious fervour.
Both sides mock each other. If you surround yourself in lefties, you're bound to hear some mockery of the right (and vice-versa). Conservatives mock people too. They are, after all, human beings.
I'm not so convinced the system is as broken as you and so many others believe it is. I think the US citizens have still got quite a lot of power, and could easily fix all the government's problems if they wanted to. It's just that they have an apathetic population, so they get an apathetic government. The system works. :(
Hmm. I don't think that's enough to explain the Libertarian-Nerd correlation. Anything can seem logical in a subjective field like politics if you come in with the right preconceived notions. Hell, even Christianity can seem logical, if you come into it believing God exists, and that his influence is above and beyond logic.
No, it seems more logical that nerds, as a result of being outcasts in their formative years, learn to celebrate their differences. To do that though, you need as many liberties as possible, using ones that others wouldn't necessarily use. The more liberties, the greater diversity allowed by society. The greater diversity, the more nerds feel at home.