Amazing how corporations will justify whatever they want.
Because people are not given a choice but to work in less space, they therefore say that they don't need it or want it.
Question: did they ask the workers (really ask them...anonymously)?.02
-JJS
You know, sometimes I think we lose sight of the fact that companies exist to make money. They want to get the most value out of you they can as cheaply as they can. We want to get the best wages we can for a given amount of work - how is that any different? The floorspace you take up is part of your cost to the company. Maybe the smaller cube will let them afford better raises next year, or maybe let them not lay people off. I personally milked the tech boom for all it was worth. Maybe this is more of a "correction". From what I hear, shortly before I entered the workforce, programmers often worked in a big room with a grid of desks and file cabinets. Cubicles were an improvement because you actually had walls. Don't get me wrong, you all have every right to complain, but I don't think this equates to companies being evil.
a majority of the land mass in the U.S. is difficult to give proper broadband to since there such low population density over such a large area
I agree that it is difficult to supply broadband to the few people living in the middle of nowhere, but they don't have much of an effect on the statistics precisely because there aren't very many of them. The USA is actually slightly more urbanized than South Korea. Stop with the excuses already.
Why do the ISPs need an excuse? Are the ISPs are in collusion with each other? Is broadband is a right? The ISPs want to make money. If fiber to the home was a money making proposition, I think the ISPs would be all over it. If there's anything besides lack of demand holding them back now, it's probably a reluctance to invest in building out capacity during a recession. Now some will respond that the government should step in and help, but really, if the business experts don't think it's the right time to invest in something, why does it make sense for the government to do it? Actually, maybe the businesses are waiting around to see if the government will let them build out with other people's money.
Mate of mine is a lefty, but used his mouse in a right hand configuration. He just positioned the mouse in his hand so his left index finger was over the left mouse button, and moved it between the two buttons as needed.
Six months ago I switched it for him. His immediate reaction was "Oh wow that's much better!"
He wants a technical job in IT.
I'm a lefty, and I just press the LMB with my middle finger and RMB with index finger. I suppose that might sound weird to a "righty". So I imagine on this caps-lock-less keyboard someone will just create a soft caps lock key (press shift twice quickly, or hold shift down for a second, or somesuch).
Imagine that you are on Planet X when you hear what happened to Earth. That's why.
Honestly, I don't follow you. What if X was the one hit by the asteroid. Any individual presumably has about the same chance of dying in a global cataclysm either way. I guess that's what I'm getting at - we all pretty much agree that we value individuals, and society as a collection of individuals, but do we value our species itself as it's own entity? If so, why?
First of all, it's never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket. By spreading the human race among several planets/space stations you lower the chance of humanity being wiped out by a large meteor or other catastrophe.
Pardon me if I wax philosophical, but if the entire human race was wiped out... so what? Let's say there were people on Earth and Planet X, 6.7 billion people on each. Now say an asteroid wipes out everyone on Earth. Is the scenario where planet X exists better than a the scenario without it just because there are still people somewhere else? It's still 6.7 billion lives lost. Why does it matter so much that there are still some people somewhere?
Phone lines work in a power outage.
your caps suggest you don't know this.
Yes, phone lines carry their own power and if you actually have a plain old corded telephone you may be able to use it in a power outage. I have been able to do this. Then again, if both your power and phone come in on overhead lines, one falling tree limb could take out both.
the reason is that some religious people are trying to undermine logic and science in the vain hope that this will bolster both their arguments and their followers. For simplicity, let's say there are two positions here. One relies on evidence and experiment to draw conclusions about the world. The other, in the absence of evidence, relies on faith to believe in an invisible being while simultaneously trying to undermine the ideas of reason, logic and experimentation _in_general_. Who deserves our support?
While I agree that religion doesn't make people evil, I do think that the conviction that one has the support of a deity, that one's friends are _good_ and one's enemies _evil_ is a very good way to get people to do terrible things. This is (in my opinion, incontrovertibly) one of the consequences of religious belief in some people, and the reason why I think the world would be better off without religion. In summary, religion encourages one more "them and us" style of thinking.
One of my favourite quotes is by Charlotte Bronte: "conventionality is not morality".
Regarding "them and us" thinking - that may be true of some religions, but Jesus preached to bless your enemies and pray for those who persecuted you. He said that to people who were under Roman occupation. Christianity also teaches that no man is "good". to show mercy and not judge because God has shown you mercy rather than judgment.You are right, I can't claim that religion hasn't led people to do terrible things, but I wonder what our conventional morality would be today without the strong influence of Christianity in western culture. You say that religion produces crusaders and terrorists, but it also produces support groups, homeless shelters, and many other good things. Belief in a deity has helped many people overcome alcohol addiction and other problems. You may say you can have all that without religion, but you can also have terrorists and atrocities without religion.
On an unrelated note - what the heck is "conventionality"? Was the word "convention" not long enough? It's like when people say "utilize" rather than "use".
Yours is actually a religious attitude, just an atheistic one
Suggesting that atheism is a religion is like saying that bald is a hair color.
This boils down to semantics based on how you define the word "religious". One definition of religion could be "belief system" and not necessarily involve a god or gods. It wouldn't make sense to say bald was a hair color, but it might make sense to call it a hair style. I guess in that analogy agnostics just never look in the mirror:-)
Breaking 3" of pine boards is not all that impressive to me. I know a guy who can break 4 boards (no spacers) with a kick. I'm sure there are people who can do that without the exoskeleton. It's still pretty impressive to me from an engineering standpoint, and I'm not really questioning the claim that it increases the strength 17x, I just don't think it was a very good demo. For breaking stuff, speed is very important, and this thing didn't look like it made him faster. Maybe they should have had him crush something or lift something instead.
Science is amoral. Science doesn't tell us not to kill people to harvest organs, not to experiment on prisoners of war, not to kill off the unproductive members of society or undesirable societies. On the contrary, science could arguably supply logical reasons to do all those things. It's people's morals - often based on or at least supported by what you blithely dismiss as "fiction" - that stop us from doing those sorts of things.
Never let you sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Statements like these are basically derived from science and logic. Religion, on the other hand, has often contradicted both of these.
I think both of those statements are from science *fiction*. The first one I don't understand (I haven't read the book). Why would doing what is right go AGAINST your morals? Sounds more like some kind of "ends justifies the means" thing to me. The second comment I disagree with, too. I don't believe numbers factor into morality much. So yeah, if those are your morals, I guess my belief system does make me less moral in your eyes.
Assuming you're referring primarily to the mandate... You're no more forced to purchase health insurance than you are forced to purchase an energy efficient air conditioner every year. If you don't purchase an energy efficient air conditioner you will have to pay taxes on the income you would have otherwise gotten a credit for. Now the same will be said for health care. I'm opposed to it too, but the language people use to describe it is outlandish.
That's not the best analogy. I don't have to buy an air conditioner AT ALL. My understanding is that at some point, there will be fines for not carrying health insurance.
Not necessarily. I am a religious fundamentalist, and science is all well and good in my book, to a point. And by to a point, I mean "this is what we've been able to prove thus far".
Whereas the former seeks the better philosophy of "we've been unable to prove anything so far, but here's a story pulled out of the collective asses of village elders 3000 years ago; let's go on and pretend it's true, and let's ignore all of the horrible acts that have resulted from pretending that fiction is fact."
Oy.
Science is amoral. Science doesn't tell us not to kill people to harvest organs, not to experiment on prisoners of war, not to kill off the unproductive members of society or undesirable societies. On the contrary, science could arguably supply logical reasons to do all those things. It's people's morals - often based on or at least supported by what you blithely dismiss as "fiction" - that stop us from doing those sorts of things.
People are swayed because they aren't experts in these subjects, so they have to listen to someone. Who they listen to depends largely on their political biases, so they end up having those biases reinforced. One has to really go looking for relatively unbiased sources, and that takes time and a certain amount of learning on top of it just so that you can know enough to know whether that source is full of crap or not. Now multiply that by all the issues out there, some of which are huge, like health care, and the average person just doesn't have nearly enough time to figure out what the truth is on any subject, even if they are inclined to do so. Many people don't even try, but just stick with whatever pundits are on "their team" essentially. It's just a bloodsport then.
I love how so many people on slashdot talk as if there's this huge intelligence gap between them and "most people". If "most people" aren't discerning enough to sort out the truth and the issues before voting, then you may as well give up on democracy. No amount of law is going to fix that, especially considering the laws would have to be created by the legislators that "most people" elect.
Now don't get me wrong, I think there's a huge laziness / apathy problem (and I include myself in that, I could certainly have done more research on the local races this time around), but I don't think it's a problem of ability.
From the article, it sounds like the honeypot was only discovered after the REAL botnet was pwned. I don't see any claim that it worked. The article says potential targets of the honeypot were researchers and competitors. I suspect the primary target was competitors. The researchers surely know they are likely being monitored and to treat anything they find with suspicion.
This was the most expensive midterm election cycle ever, even adjusting for inflation. And you can bet grandma wasn't the one forking over the dough. The corporate paymasters are going to be expecting(and almost certainly will get) a huge ROI for their investments.
I'm getting tired of that complaint. The people vote. Each CEO gets exactly the same say that you or I do. If people are swayed by corporate funded campaign trickery, then it's really the people's fault, not the corporations. I'm republican but don't think I'm saying this just because "my side" won. I'm thinking of how all the ballot issues I voted "no" on passed, and wondering how much of a factor were the misleading ads that were run about them. My son, who is approaching voting age, heard one of these radio ads and told me he didn't understand exactly what the issue was. I told him they don't really want you to understand, they just want everyone to remember "Yes on 3".
The story about Kodos was a good one about taking "the needs of the many outweighing the needs of a few" too far.
I'm glad someone said this. I would add that "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is a socialist statement and always bothered me. In the context of the movie it made sense. Sacrifice for the greater good can be noble/heroic when it is voluntary. When it is forced...
How can someone who pointlessly risks his life when he has responsibilities to a wife and child be called a hero?
I'm not comfortable deciding what is "pointless" for someone else. I wonder what his wife and child thought of it? Some would say that sending men to the moon was a pointless risk.
I guess it depends on your definition of liberal. Most self-proclaimed liberals I know are not very open to other views. The open-mindedness they are interested in is MY open mindedness to THEIR ideas.
...
I can't speak to your personal experiences, but which party is it in which it has become common to denounce long-standing members, whose policy positions were long accepted by the party, as "__ In Name Only"?
So, you think that conservative republicans need to be more accepting of liberal republicans? touche. I didn't claim conservatives were more open minded than liberals. I was just challenging the assumption that liberals are in general more open-minded than conservatives.
It's interesting how much money schools are willing to pay for things besides teacher salaries. My kids (in a small, not-particularly-wealthy town) have smart boards in all the classrooms. I mean, sure, they're very useful, but how much does that setup cost per year vs a chalkboard, I wonder?
well, its a effective way to get everyones fingerprints on record, whether theyve commited a crime or not. its basically a way to sqeeze a great big brick over everyones privacy. and it also primes people to be more accepting of giving up biometric data for a government database.
Well, some say that is and has always been the goal of public schooling - it gives the ruling class a chance to mold their young citizens' minds.
It is the life experience of being open to other points of view, the additional knowledge gained, that makes you more likely to be liberal.
I guess it depends on your definition of liberal. Most self-proclaimed liberals I know are not very open to other views. The open-mindedness they are interested in is MY open mindedness to THEIR ideas.
I also don't like the comment about 'curing liberalism'. I admit that's the first thing I thought, too, and I'm sure it was meant in jest, but this recent trend of linking everything to a gene - the "gay" gene, the "smart" gene, the "religious" gene, and now the "liberal" gene. Every time I hear a new one, I wonder how long before someone will use it to justify some kind of "cleansing".
Slashdot Mirror
Amazing how corporations will justify whatever they want.
Because people are not given a choice but to work in less space, they therefore say that they don't need it or want it.
Question: did they ask the workers (really ask them...anonymously)? .02
-JJS
You know, sometimes I think we lose sight of the fact that companies exist to make money. They want to get the most value out of you they can as cheaply as they can. We want to get the best wages we can for a given amount of work - how is that any different? The floorspace you take up is part of your cost to the company. Maybe the smaller cube will let them afford better raises next year, or maybe let them not lay people off. I personally milked the tech boom for all it was worth. Maybe this is more of a "correction". From what I hear, shortly before I entered the workforce, programmers often worked in a big room with a grid of desks and file cabinets. Cubicles were an improvement because you actually had walls. Don't get me wrong, you all have every right to complain, but I don't think this equates to companies being evil.
I agree that it is difficult to supply broadband to the few people living in the middle of nowhere, but they don't have much of an effect on the statistics precisely because there aren't very many of them. The USA is actually slightly more urbanized than South Korea. Stop with the excuses already.
Why do the ISPs need an excuse? Are the ISPs are in collusion with each other? Is broadband is a right? The ISPs want to make money. If fiber to the home was a money making proposition, I think the ISPs would be all over it. If there's anything besides lack of demand holding them back now, it's probably a reluctance to invest in building out capacity during a recession. Now some will respond that the government should step in and help, but really, if the business experts don't think it's the right time to invest in something, why does it make sense for the government to do it? Actually, maybe the businesses are waiting around to see if the government will let them build out with other people's money.
Mate of mine is a lefty, but used his mouse in a right hand configuration. He just positioned the mouse in his hand so his left index finger was over the left mouse button, and moved it between the two buttons as needed. Six months ago I switched it for him. His immediate reaction was "Oh wow that's much better!" He wants a technical job in IT.
I'm a lefty, and I just press the LMB with my middle finger and RMB with index finger. I suppose that might sound weird to a "righty". So I imagine on this caps-lock-less keyboard someone will just create a soft caps lock key (press shift twice quickly, or hold shift down for a second, or somesuch).
Imagine that you are on Planet X when you hear what happened to Earth. That's why.
Honestly, I don't follow you. What if X was the one hit by the asteroid. Any individual presumably has about the same chance of dying in a global cataclysm either way. I guess that's what I'm getting at - we all pretty much agree that we value individuals, and society as a collection of individuals, but do we value our species itself as it's own entity? If so, why?
First of all, it's never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket. By spreading the human race among several planets/space stations you lower the chance of humanity being wiped out by a large meteor or other catastrophe.
Pardon me if I wax philosophical, but if the entire human race was wiped out ... so what? Let's say there were people on Earth and Planet X, 6.7 billion people on each. Now say an asteroid wipes out everyone on Earth. Is the scenario where planet X exists better than a the scenario without it just because there are still people somewhere else? It's still 6.7 billion lives lost. Why does it matter so much that there are still some people somewhere?
Good old copper landlines still work just fine without power.
More accurately, if you're on a copper line then you get all the power you need for free right from the phone company.
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to "steal" this power - i.e. use it for something other than their phone. Maybe a phone/space heater.
Phone lines work in a power outage. your caps suggest you don't know this.
Yes, phone lines carry their own power and if you actually have a plain old corded telephone you may be able to use it in a power outage. I have been able to do this. Then again, if both your power and phone come in on overhead lines, one falling tree limb could take out both.
the reason is that some religious people are trying to undermine logic and science in the vain hope that this will bolster both their arguments and their followers. For simplicity, let's say there are two positions here. One relies on evidence and experiment to draw conclusions about the world. The other, in the absence of evidence, relies on faith to believe in an invisible being while simultaneously trying to undermine the ideas of reason, logic and experimentation _in_general_. Who deserves our support? While I agree that religion doesn't make people evil, I do think that the conviction that one has the support of a deity, that one's friends are _good_ and one's enemies _evil_ is a very good way to get people to do terrible things. This is (in my opinion, incontrovertibly) one of the consequences of religious belief in some people, and the reason why I think the world would be better off without religion. In summary, religion encourages one more "them and us" style of thinking. One of my favourite quotes is by Charlotte Bronte: "conventionality is not morality".
Regarding "them and us" thinking - that may be true of some religions, but Jesus preached to bless your enemies and pray for those who persecuted you. He said that to people who were under Roman occupation. Christianity also teaches that no man is "good". to show mercy and not judge because God has shown you mercy rather than judgment.You are right, I can't claim that religion hasn't led people to do terrible things, but I wonder what our conventional morality would be today without the strong influence of Christianity in western culture. You say that religion produces crusaders and terrorists, but it also produces support groups, homeless shelters, and many other good things. Belief in a deity has helped many people overcome alcohol addiction and other problems. You may say you can have all that without religion, but you can also have terrorists and atrocities without religion.
On an unrelated note - what the heck is "conventionality"? Was the word "convention" not long enough? It's like when people say "utilize" rather than "use".
Yours is actually a religious attitude, just an atheistic one
Suggesting that atheism is a religion is like saying that bald is a hair color.
This boils down to semantics based on how you define the word "religious". One definition of religion could be "belief system" and not necessarily involve a god or gods. It wouldn't make sense to say bald was a hair color, but it might make sense to call it a hair style. I guess in that analogy agnostics just never look in the mirror :-)
Breaking 3" of pine boards is not all that impressive to me. I know a guy who can break 4 boards (no spacers) with a kick. I'm sure there are people who can do that without the exoskeleton. It's still pretty impressive to me from an engineering standpoint, and I'm not really questioning the claim that it increases the strength 17x, I just don't think it was a very good demo. For breaking stuff, speed is very important, and this thing didn't look like it made him faster. Maybe they should have had him crush something or lift something instead.
Science is amoral. Science doesn't tell us not to kill people to harvest organs, not to experiment on prisoners of war, not to kill off the unproductive members of society or undesirable societies. On the contrary, science could arguably supply logical reasons to do all those things. It's people's morals - often based on or at least supported by what you blithely dismiss as "fiction" - that stop us from doing those sorts of things.
Never let you sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Statements like these are basically derived from science and logic. Religion, on the other hand, has often contradicted both of these.
I think both of those statements are from science *fiction*. The first one I don't understand (I haven't read the book). Why would doing what is right go AGAINST your morals? Sounds more like some kind of "ends justifies the means" thing to me. The second comment I disagree with, too. I don't believe numbers factor into morality much. So yeah, if those are your morals, I guess my belief system does make me less moral in your eyes.
... aluminum heat sink underwear and fly mounted cooling fan. I'll leave the liquid cooling jokes for others.
Assuming you're referring primarily to the mandate... You're no more forced to purchase health insurance than you are forced to purchase an energy efficient air conditioner every year. If you don't purchase an energy efficient air conditioner you will have to pay taxes on the income you would have otherwise gotten a credit for. Now the same will be said for health care. I'm opposed to it too, but the language people use to describe it is outlandish.
That's not the best analogy. I don't have to buy an air conditioner AT ALL. My understanding is that at some point, there will be fines for not carrying health insurance.
Not necessarily. I am a religious fundamentalist, and science is all well and good in my book, to a point. And by to a point, I mean "this is what we've been able to prove thus far".
Whereas the former seeks the better philosophy of "we've been unable to prove anything so far, but here's a story pulled out of the collective asses of village elders 3000 years ago; let's go on and pretend it's true, and let's ignore all of the horrible acts that have resulted from pretending that fiction is fact."
Oy.
Science is amoral. Science doesn't tell us not to kill people to harvest organs, not to experiment on prisoners of war, not to kill off the unproductive members of society or undesirable societies. On the contrary, science could arguably supply logical reasons to do all those things. It's people's morals - often based on or at least supported by what you blithely dismiss as "fiction" - that stop us from doing those sorts of things.
People are swayed because they aren't experts in these subjects, so they have to listen to someone. Who they listen to depends largely on their political biases, so they end up having those biases reinforced. One has to really go looking for relatively unbiased sources, and that takes time and a certain amount of learning on top of it just so that you can know enough to know whether that source is full of crap or not. Now multiply that by all the issues out there, some of which are huge, like health care, and the average person just doesn't have nearly enough time to figure out what the truth is on any subject, even if they are inclined to do so. Many people don't even try, but just stick with whatever pundits are on "their team" essentially. It's just a bloodsport then.
I love how so many people on slashdot talk as if there's this huge intelligence gap between them and "most people". If "most people" aren't discerning enough to sort out the truth and the issues before voting, then you may as well give up on democracy. No amount of law is going to fix that, especially considering the laws would have to be created by the legislators that "most people" elect.
Now don't get me wrong, I think there's a huge laziness / apathy problem (and I include myself in that, I could certainly have done more research on the local races this time around), but I don't think it's a problem of ability.
From the article, it sounds like the honeypot was only discovered after the REAL botnet was pwned. I don't see any claim that it worked. The article says potential targets of the honeypot were researchers and competitors. I suspect the primary target was competitors. The researchers surely know they are likely being monitored and to treat anything they find with suspicion.
This was the most expensive midterm election cycle ever, even adjusting for inflation. And you can bet grandma wasn't the one forking over the dough. The corporate paymasters are going to be expecting(and almost certainly will get) a huge ROI for their investments.
I'm getting tired of that complaint. The people vote. Each CEO gets exactly the same say that you or I do. If people are swayed by corporate funded campaign trickery, then it's really the people's fault, not the corporations. I'm republican but don't think I'm saying this just because "my side" won. I'm thinking of how all the ballot issues I voted "no" on passed, and wondering how much of a factor were the misleading ads that were run about them. My son, who is approaching voting age, heard one of these radio ads and told me he didn't understand exactly what the issue was. I told him they don't really want you to understand, they just want everyone to remember "Yes on 3".
The story about Kodos was a good one about taking "the needs of the many outweighing the needs of a few" too far.
I'm glad someone said this. I would add that "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is a socialist statement and always bothered me. In the context of the movie it made sense. Sacrifice for the greater good can be noble/heroic when it is voluntary. When it is forced ...
it's not like there is a history or recent invasion so your grandparents can keep the tension going through family/tribal stories
Doesn't the Korean War count as recent?
How can someone who pointlessly risks his life when he has responsibilities to a wife and child be called a hero?
I'm not comfortable deciding what is "pointless" for someone else. I wonder what his wife and child thought of it? Some would say that sending men to the moon was a pointless risk.
I guess it depends on your definition of liberal. Most self-proclaimed liberals I know are not very open to other views. The open-mindedness they are interested in is MY open mindedness to THEIR ideas.
...
I can't speak to your personal experiences, but which party is it in which it has become common to denounce long-standing members, whose policy positions were long accepted by the party, as "__ In Name Only"?
So, you think that conservative republicans need to be more accepting of liberal republicans? touche. I didn't claim conservatives were more open minded than liberals. I was just challenging the assumption that liberals are in general more open-minded than conservatives.
It's interesting how much money schools are willing to pay for things besides teacher salaries. My kids (in a small, not-particularly-wealthy town) have smart boards in all the classrooms. I mean, sure, they're very useful, but how much does that setup cost per year vs a chalkboard, I wonder?
well, its a effective way to get everyones fingerprints on record, whether theyve commited a crime or not. its basically a way to sqeeze a great big brick over everyones privacy. and it also primes people to be more accepting of giving up biometric data for a government database.
Well, some say that is and has always been the goal of public schooling - it gives the ruling class a chance to mold their young citizens' minds.
It is the life experience of being open to other points of view, the additional knowledge gained, that makes you more likely to be liberal.
I guess it depends on your definition of liberal. Most self-proclaimed liberals I know are not very open to other views. The open-mindedness they are interested in is MY open mindedness to THEIR ideas.
I also don't like the comment about 'curing liberalism'. I admit that's the first thing I thought, too, and I'm sure it was meant in jest, but this recent trend of linking everything to a gene - the "gay" gene, the "smart" gene, the "religious" gene, and now the "liberal" gene. Every time I hear a new one, I wonder how long before someone will use it to justify some kind of "cleansing".
The computer isn't going to die if it doesn't get the right path, the bee might. Death is a remarkably strong motivator to be efficient.
Don't tell my boss.