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From Slashdot | Report Suggests That Nanny State Might Actually Not Be For the Best

Re:I’m all for protecting childrens (Score:5, Insightful)

by Idiomatick (976696) on Friday March 28, @04:29PM (#22898408)

Agreed w/ almost every word. BUT swear words exist for a reason. You need a way to be rude in society. If someone is a real jerk to you being able to say “fuck off asshole” gives it weight. If there were no swear-words or they were used without notice they could not serve this purpose.

Exactly. (Score:5, Funny)

by ZombieRoboNinja (905329) on Friday March 28, @05:46PM (#22899546)

We’re protecting the swear words, not the kids.

If we have six-year-olds running around saying “fuck” willy-nilly, all that does is ruin the shock value of a perfectly good swear word. At that point you might as well be saying “boink.”

“Oh yeah, boink me harder, baby.”

“If Johnson doesn’t get that report in by Tuesday the whole department is boinked!”

Now where’s the fun in that? We’d just have to come up with a NEW swear word so horrifying that no child would be able to pronounce it without immediately being swallowed by the jaws of Hell, and honestly, I don’t really feel like digging that far into the Windows API documentation.

From Slashdot | Scientology’s Credibility Questioned Over Video Channel

Re:Yea, and some well know atheists.. (Score:4, Informative)

by d34thm0nk3y (653414) on Friday March 28, @03:47PM (#22897744)

The fact is that none of these pagan religion concepts existed before 100AD. There is no written historical account for these concepts before this time (such as mithras was born of a virgin, or osiris was ressurected). All pagan religions reference these concepts in written history after the birth of Christ.

They were talking about the sacrament of communion as far back as 2500 BC: (from Wikipedia)

Since the ancient Nilotics believed that humans were whatever they eat, this sacrament was, by extension, able to make them celestial and immortal. The doctrine of the eucharist ultimately has its roots in prehistoric (symbolic) cannibalism, whose practitioners believed that the virtues and powers of the eaten would thus be absorbed by the eater. This phenomenon has been described throughout the world.

One of the oldest of the Pyramid Texts is the Unas[14] from the 6th Dynasty (circa 2500 BC). It shows that the original ideology of Egypt commingled with Osirian concepts. Although ultimately given a high place in heaven by order of Osiris, Unas is at first an enemy of the gods and his ancestors, whom he hunts, lassoes, kills, cooks, and eats so that their powers may become his own. This was written at a time when the eating of parents and gods was a laudable ceremony, and this emphasizes how hard it must have been to stamp out the older order of cannibalism. “He eats men, he feeds on the gods…he cooks them in his fiery cauldrons. He eats their words of power, he swallows their spirits…. He eats the wisdom of every god, his period of life is eternity…. Their soul is in his body, their spirits are within him.” A parallel passage is found in the Pyramid Text of Pepi II, who is said to have “seizeth those who are a follower of Set…he breaketh their heads, he cutteth off their haunches, he teareth out their intestines, he diggeth out their hearts, he drinketh copiously of their blood!” (line 531, ff). Although crude, this was a core concept, the conviction that one could receive immortality by eating the flesh and blood of a god who had died.

Re:Scientology is the quintessential religion (Score:5, Insightful)

by eclectic4 (665330) on Friday March 28, @03:39PM (#22897568)

True:

When Dionysus turned water into wine, we understand that as a myth.

When Romulus is described as the Son of God, born of a virgin, we understand that as a myth.

When Vespatian’s spittle healed a blind man, we understand that as a myth.

When Apollonius of Tyana raised a girl from death, we understand that as a myth.

etc… etc… etc… Jesus was just a guy that had Pagan mythological stories thrown on his name decades after his death to start a religion. Nothing more.

From Slashdot | Computers May Thwart 2010 Census

1% error (Score:3, Insightful)

by Red Jesus (962106) on Wednesday March 26, @04:05PM (#22873228)

He also said the computers actually are easy to use, with a failure rate of less than 1 percent when tested in the field.

One percent of three hundred million is three million.

Re:1% error (Score:5, Insightful)

by eepok (545733) on Wednesday March 26, @04:21PM (#22873446)
Homepage

Ya, people are really bad when it comes to big numbers. I was a part of a research study as an undergraduate with the following premise:

You’re on a jury for a murder case with the scenario that a tan/brown man seen running away from a murder scene on a college campus. There was not enough of the attacker’s DNA at the scene, but they were able to extract a DNA derivative that has matched that of a tan man in custody. Given that this derivative has a 99.9% successful rate, do you feel comfortable convicting the man in custody.

I was the only one in my group of 12 to say “No, I will not convict based on this evidence.” No one else understood that 0.1% = 1/1000. Nor did they realize that our university alone had 20,000+ people on the campus at any time let alone that it was in the middle of a city of 200,000+.

Most people know what “fifty” is. Many know what “one hundred” is. Few understand what “one thousand” is. Too few understand the effects of millions, billions, and trillions.
There’s no way I’d convict with a 0.1% error, there’s no way I’d accept a 1% error in the business of millions.

From Slashdot | How To Communicate Science to a Polarized US Audience

Re:Science of Political Agenda? (Score:5, Insightful)

by UncHellMatt (790153) on Thursday March 20, @12:29PM (#22807706)

Well, the information may in fact be pervasive, however getting someone to look at it, accept it or even be willing to discuss it is another matter altogether.

Case in point, I met someone who was a die hard “believer” who was attempting to get me to “believe”. Yes, he actually believed (or so he claimed) that the world was created by a god about 6000 years ago. He said that the tools used today to carbon date objects were “flawed” and that “scientists simply made machines that looked like they did something [he didn't get it when I asked if they go "PING!"... go figure], but all they did was churn out answers the scientists want”, and that mankind couldn’t measure the speed of light (after I’d pointed out that we could easily find objects in the sky well over 6k light years away, and if they were in fact several million/billion light years away, how could the light be reaching us if the universe were only 6k years old?). I explained that he himself could measure the speed of light with rather simply tools, and suggested he look into the methods used by folks like Armand Fizeau. Needless to say, the guy just said “No, I don’t need to. It’s all in the Bible.”

What I’m getting at is that you can’t communicate to some people, regardless of how good your data is, your evidence, or your argument. If a person flat out refuses to hear counter to their belief because of “faith”, there is nothing you can do. Faith is, after all, accepting something as fact which observation and evidence prove to be false.

“If a person walks on water, they’ll sink.”

“No, the Bible said Christ did.”

“OK, if a person can, and you’ve got faith, the Charles is right over there. Knock yourself out.”

“I’m not Christ!”

“No shit. You’re no Einstein, either.”

Re:Science of Political Agenda? (Score:5, Insightful)

by amRadioHed (463061) on Thursday March 20, @12:57PM (#22808128)

Correction, accepting something as fact despite a lack of evidence is faith. Accepting something as fact despite evidence to the contrary is foolishness.

Too many Christians can’t get that right but one of those traits the Bible commends while the other is harshly criticized.

From Slashdot | Should Scientists Date People Who Believe Astrology?

Sure, provided they are hot (Score:5, Insightful)

by Registered Coward v2 (447531) on Monday March 10, @09:40AM (#22699910)

But rememeber, you can fix a lot of things but you cant fix stupid

Re:Sure, provided they are hot (Score:5, Insightful)

by sm62704 (957197) on Monday March 10, @09:44AM (#22699998)
Homepage Journal

You can’t fix stupid but you CAN fix ignorant. Thinking someone is stupid because they believe something patently false is stupid.

Ahh… (Score:5, Insightful)

by nickos (91443) on Monday March 10, @09:47AM (#22700054)

so is disregarding someone because of their spiritual beliefs

There’s your problem - a growing number of people are realising it’s fine to disregard someone if they believe in supernatural nonsense. Especially if they’re beliefs include doing nasty things to women, homosexuals and non-believers.

Astrology != Spirituality or Religion (Score:5, Informative)

by glpierce (731733) on Monday March 10, @09:48AM (#22700056)
Homepage

Astrology differs from most religion and “spirituality” in one very important way (especially to scientists): It is testable. While there is no way to prove or disprove most spiritual things (including the existence of any god or the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God), we know that astrology is 100% wrong. It has been studied scientifically (because it makes testable predictions and claims), and the results always come back the same.

Try this page for a start:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html [badastronomy.com]

From Slashdot | Game Developers Should Ignore Software Pirates

Copy protection works for software … (Score:5, Insightful)

by AHumbleOpinion (546848) on Friday March 21, @01:06AM (#22816088)
Homepage

Copy protection works for software. The error that most people seem to be making is thinking that if it doesn’t stop everyone it failed. That is not true. Reznor’s argument is only partially correct, only higher level pirates can not be converted. Lower level pirates can be, and they are more numerous. This also means that the most intrusive and questionable anti-piracy methods do not need to be used.

On numerous gaming forums over the years I have witnessed a recurring story. Kiddies saying: I burned a copy of my friend’s disc and it didn’t work so I went out and bought my own. Copy protection worked.

On a larger scale I am familiar with selling academic software in a university bookstore. I’ve seen required software sell 1/15th of what the required textbooks sold, software that was initially released without copy protection. The developer then added some copy protection, simple and easily defeated copy protection, a package that is known and had pre-existing cracks. It worked, the next quarter’s sales of the required software was nearly in line with required textbooks. Copy protection worked. I’d like to add that this was in a university environment, no shortage of people with the technical knowledge to crack the discs for someone else. Also, these were pretty inexpensive software packages, the textbooks came with coupons reducing the price to about $30.

Most pirates will pirate software if it is trivially easy to do so, regardless of a low price. If you erect some sort of barrier a large number of these will buy.

Trying to stop all piracy is futile. But not using simple non-intrusives copy protection does cost sales. There is an optimal point balancing protection and incompatibility, and it is not zero protection.

From Slashdot | IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth

Completely disagree (Score:5, Interesting)

by pavera (320634) on Monday March 10, @12:26PM (#22702796)
Journal

Sure there may not be a shortage of IT resumes on monster… But there sure is a shortage of people who can back up their resumes with actual demonstrated work/skill.

We are offering market wage, and we are hiring entry level people, maybe 1 in 30 of the people we interview actually demonstrates the minimum of critical thinking and problem solving skills needed to be a decent software developer. Our interviews are not concentrated on any one platform, we have stuff in foxpro, java, python, php, c++ and c#… So our interviews are focused on critical thinking and problem solving. We have a couple basic problem solving questions and 2 algorithm questions which we routinely ask.. This is stuff I learned in high school, or my 2nd year algorithms class in college. People who are professing CS degrees and 0-5 years experience are routinely getting these questions wrong.

Even the few people we have hired over the last 3-6 months have been disappointing in their ability to a) learn new languages, b) learn and follow best practices, c) demonstrate real troubleshooting/bug fixing skills. C is probably my biggest pet peeve, as a manager I don’t know how many times in the last 6 months I’ve had to go to a programmers system when they say “I’m getting this error and I don’t know what it means” and the error message very clearly lays out the problem, the line it is occurring on, etc…

Either CS degrees are seriously lacking in rigor since I participated ~ 8 years ago, or they are just rubber stamping people that shouldn’t be passing the classes.

From Slashdot | State Lawmaker Wants To Ban Anonymous Posting Online

Re:how about passing laws that have some… (Score:5, Insightful)

by Maxo-Texas (864189) on Monday March 10, @01:49PM (#22704486)

Among the larger financial supporters of the coalition against drugs in america

Tobacco Companies
Alcohol Companies
Private Prison Companies

We incarcerate more people than china.
We strip away a very particular group of people’s voting rights through selective drug law enforcement.
We have double the drug use of Amsterdam (where drug use is legal).

Re:how about passing laws that have some… (Score:5, Insightful)

by Maxo-Texas (864189) on Monday March 10, @02:19PM (#22705062)

I agree that it is off-topic (tho it was technically a tangent to the Ayn Rand comment) but not intended as flamebait.

I just recently saw a movie on the drug war and it was pretty upsetting (including fairly substantial and substantiated evidence) that the CIA under reagan (who I voted for) ran cocaine into america to support their revolution in central america.

The bits about private prisons was very disturbing. I’ve known for quite a while that we imprison people in the US at a higher rate than the rest of the world.

But to see an LA policeman relating how the CIA contacted him to ignore selected drug lords in an open public meetings (and to see the CIA director’s obvious distress) was pretty shocking to me so I guess it was waiting to spew out somewhere.

It pulled no punches– drug users were shocking dregs in some cases. But so are extreme alcohol and tobacco users.

We have so many bad laws related to this area- and now that they are tying “any drug sales == support for terror” they are able to ignore civil rights at increasing levels.

Then you get some cheesehead like this guy wanting to ban the equivalent of posting anonymous hand bills and it is extremely irritating.

From Slashdot | Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution

Doonsbury had the right idea (Score:5, Insightful)

by jollyreaper (513215) on Tuesday March 04, @01:30PM (#22637808)

Doctor: Before I give you this injection, I have to ask you an important question: do you believe in evolution?

Patient: Of course not! Why do you ask?

Doctor: You see, I have this flu shot here. If you believe in evolution, you will accept that the flu bug is constantly changing and evolving, thus your immune system will not recognize it and you’ll come down with the flu. With this shot, your immune system will be up to date on the latest strain.

Patient: And if I don’t believe in evolution?

Doctor: You’ve already had the flu once, therefore you’ll never catch it again.

Patient: But that’s not…that’s not…true?

Doctor: As a liberal and scientist, I would never want to force another person to accept my own views and beliefs, even if they happen to be manifestly correct.

Or to put it another way:

adventurer #1: I do not believe there is a bear in that cave.
[mauling, violence, blood]
adventurer #2: So you say. But your disbelief seems not to have dissuaded the bear.

Re:Science != Teleology (Score:5, Informative)

by Dmala (752610) on Tuesday March 04, @01:35PM (#22637914)

What I can’t understand is how this is even a debate for public schools. I went to a Catholic school through junior high and there wasn’t even a discussion about this. We were taught about evolution in science class, *and* in religion class we were taught that the creation stories were not meant to be taken literally.

From Slashdot | Google Street a Slice of Dystopian Future?

I used it in a class. (Score:5, Interesting)

by Ralph Spoilsport (673134)
on Tuesday March 04, @02:30PM (#22639038)
Journal

The lecture went “hahaha - we all know know about surveillance, right??? So, let’s pretend I’m tired of living here and I want to move back home. let’s look at realtor.com - I’ll need a place to live. Oh look - a nice house in the neighbourhood I want. Cool. click on that, and oh - look - the interior of the place is photographed. Nice kitchen - big bathroom. Ugly carpet, but I can change that. And that credenza? Urp - that’ll have to go. But that’s OK. Now - let’s see what the neighbourhood is like. Excellent. Google Street goes right by the place. so we’ll enter the address and look wher ewe are. Oh - we’re right in front of the building. nice - and look! The PEOPLE ARE MOVING OUT OF THE HOUSE. There’s the moving van parked right in front. Excellent! And there’s the neighbour - I recognise him because I used to live around the block from here back in the late 90s. Cool…”

At this point the class (a mass lecture of 150) got quiet…

“Oh, and look in his window! See that lamp? The guy who lived upstairs from me used to own that, and he gave to the guy who lives there. I remember that - it’s a nice lamp and it was a great day. We all sat around drinking beer. Oh - just like the guy down on the corner over there.”

We zoom down the street to the corner.

“Yeah - I recognise him - lousy stupid drunk. Really bad attitude. Never liked him.”

“So that was fun, wasn’t it kids? Dropping in on their lives, looking into their homes? Nice. so, now let’s open up a new tab and I’ll type in http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php [opentopia.com] and look here - links to CCTs we can look through. Excellent. Click on this one, and look - we get CONTROLS- we can move and zoom the camera. Looks like we’re in some university, similar to this one, but it looks like a very different time zone. Hhhhm… Let’s zoom in on those kids over there. Look - one of them is picking his nose. Pig…”

The class got REALLY QUIET…

“And now, let’s type in a some search criteria, like “inurl: view/index.shtml?videos=one” and look - an entire list of open cameras. Let’s look at this one. Cool. People working in a call centre in Argentina. WORK YOU LOSERS! WORK!!! WORK HARDER!!! MAKE ME RICH!!! Hahaha! funny isn’t it?”

No one laughed. People were squirming as we went from one private scene to another.

“OK - so today we’re going to watch portions of some hollywood entertainment fodder. It’s called “The Truman Show”.”

They watched it with new eyes. They were guilty. They had sinned. We had gone from “isn’t this interesting” to the “global panopticon” with a visceral sense of what surveillance really is as we watched people work, scratch themselves, goof off, pick their noses, BE HUMAN BEINGS.

RESIST THE SURVEILLANCE STATE. TAKE YOUR SPACE BACK FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE INDUSTRY.

It’s not that Google Street is evil, it’s not that a CCT in an airport is evil. It’s not that a CCT in a parking lot is evil. But in aggregate, it is evil, and Google is not helping.

RS