lidmith

Terrorism is pretty much about murdering people. If you're talking about the motive for terrorism though, I didn't mention it, so I don't know why you would try to contradict me on something I never mentioned.

Also, what are people like me? And what is a proper reaction to an organized attempt to kill civilians in your country? I do not suggest that the US took the proper course of action, btw.

I don't know, how much goes into transportation in the US? I mean, aside from the vehicles, including researching new tech for safety, advertising those features, law enforcement of safe driving laws, DMV money, roadwork, and whatever else goes into it. It seems like a lot to me.

Another thing to think about is that maybe we're hitting the safety cap in automobiles. Maybe the cost of making things more safe nowadays is just way too high. It could be that the cost of going after some terrorists is even higher, but we might not have been so sure at the time.

Also, the problem with ignoring people who set out to murder you is that it shows an unwillingness to do so. It might prompt other would be killers to attack. A car, on the other hand, isn't going to notice all the accidents happening, and choose to crash because of them.

TY, I'll bookmark that as well for when I finish the other one.

Thanks, I was interested in an Awk learning resource, and this looks like exactly what I would want.

Calling facebook a utility is silly. Utilities are services which require the building of infrastructure, with few or no alternatives, and often which are granted a government monopoly for building said infrastructure.

Facebook is a website to post some crap on. There are thousands of such sites, they weren't granted a monopoly, and they didn't build infrastructure.

I'm all for freedom of speech, and I think that the picture of Mohammad day is a celebration of that, and not wrong (do not liken making fun of crazy people to racism, it's not the same thing, and the draw Mohammad day event is specifically a protest against violent reprisals towards those who expressed their freedom of speech). However, Facebook is not a public forum, it's not government property, and it's not a utility. It is a privately owned website, and they can remove whatever they damn well please.

In essence, it comes down to government use of power. Private companies may discriminate based on beliefs, because the positions they offer are not created by use of force, whereas all government positions are.

Put in a concrete, extreme example, consider if all teaching positions across the US required a statement of belief (say, in god). This would clearly be a violation of the establishment clause (really, tied to freedom of speech, but you could make another example that is more closely linked to the current situation). However, if some private catholic school required its teachers to believe in god, that would not be a violation, because the constitution binds the government, not private individuals or groups.

So, in a clear answer to your question, "why should it in this case?", it should because the constitution is a set of rules for the government to act upon, not for private companies.

I have to disagree with "I don't agree, though, that this is a violation of his free speech rights. He can still speak."

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you have vocal cords. It means you are free from reprisal for your speech. This was a government appointment, and the story says that the DOE confirmed that the reason for his removal was because of his writings. So, the DOE punished him, by removing him from this appointment, based on his writings.

Maybe it effects his ability to work with them, and they should be removed.

I don't like homophobia, though I do agree with him on diversity (based on what the article showed): that we should focus on people's merits, and not their race, for college admissions and jobs.

However, it's my understanding that he only wrote this stuff on his blog; that he wasn't preaching about it at work, or in this scientist group.

If some scientist is too effected by the personal writings of this guy on his blog that they are unable to work with him, then that scientist should leave the group. Moreover, for someone to be removed from a government position based on his personal beliefs, expressed on his personal web site, is very clearly a violation of freedom of speech.

To put it another way, suppose someone on the team believed that women should have the right to vote, and this offended the sensibilities of other members of the group. Should that person have been removed?

Just because his ideas are wrong, doesn't make them any of our business, or the government's, or that groups'.

Hmm, it seems we can only nest three times. (edit) nevermind, I either missed the reply button when looking for it, or it wasn't there before, but I see I can nest further (end edit)

Anyways, I have a couple of ideas kicking around in my skull. Right now I'm trying to get some work so I can fund them with my salary though. One idea relies on ads for money, because no one in their right mind would pay for such a simple service. The other two are direct sales things.

Also, after reading the article, I became curious about which "fucking awesome" products the author (you?) is selling. I didn't see any links on the page to them.

While I understand that they do tailor their ads to the information in your email, it was my (perhaps naive) understanding that the particulars of your emails were not used outside of determining those ads. Am I wrong in this?

Hehe, I figured it wasn't actually feces, but the picture plus title put me off a bit :)

also, the picture was gross

Hmm, on the whole monetization thing, there are a lot of good services that people (myself, anyways) would not pay money for. Twitter, Gmail, others. Figuring out how to monetize in a way other than "sell your product to your customer" is a real problem for such services.

Btw, I have never clicked on a google ad. Not once. I also now have adblock installed. Monetizing useful but free services is a tough problem, not to be dismissed.

Even supposing that it was sexual innuendo, that doesn't mean he was hitting on her. Straight men and women have conversations filled with sexual innuendo all the time.

This is amazing. I think it may be situations like these that let some people dismiss actual sexual harassment. When you include completely innocent activities in sexual harassment, it damages the view of what sexual harassment really is (though he was cleared of any sexual harassment, he was still punished for it).

I have to imagine that this incident will harm the female colleague's reputation, which, if the story is accurate, it should.

You'd think medical scientists would be a bit more mature about sex.

I didn't read it (I don't have an iPhone, and I would carry a wallet even if I did), but when I read the title of this submission, I imagined a box that compressed your iPhone into the shape of a credit card.

Then I looked at the name of the site it linked too..

If I have an interesting conversation with a friend, and we're discussing something, I will remember it pretty well.

If I am listening to a professor read through a lecture, with little to no interaction from the students, I am not as likely to remember it as if I had read it from a book.

Yes, a very nice read.

Ugh. I really enjoyed the happy feel of Love Hina, by Ken Akamatsu (and also the music in the anime), so I bought a bunch of Negima (same author). I read through a few, and realized the sexual content was growing more explicit, while the girls seemed to be growing younger. I was like, what the hell? The worst is, I bought them on amazon, so even if I burn them, it's recorded that I bought them.

Aside from the sexual weirdness of the comic, it's really just not too interesting. I think there are too many characters, and way too much focus on magic. Love Hina was nice because it could focus on a few characters, and the fantasy bits were much less prevalent.

Hmm, when Jobs expands the FCC and has them control all the content we have access to, some people might complain about it. I expect his response would be: "If you want porn, go to Another Country"

Really, I don't care too much about Apple restricting their customers freedom, because people can choose not to use their products. What I think is loathsome is when they try to argue that jailbreaking is illegal. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreakin...

Basically, Apple's position is that it's not your computer. No blog post about quality of content for the user can get around this. I also haven't read anything which addressed the fact that Apple could have an app store of approved content, while allowing their customers who use Apple's computers to install unapproved apps.

Such an anti-freedom outlook (we must restrict your freedom for your own good) seems like a terrible quality for an American president.

This is an excellent view. The books are there to read, the art is there to view. College can motivate a person who is interested in grades, but not someone interested in the subject. You do lose out on the professor reading a book to you, but you could just read it yourself. Also, the professor isn't there to answer your questions, but, you might ask them via email. Some professors might feel delighted to discuss their subject with a genuinely interested party, rather than a grade seeker.

I think the most important thing you miss out on is the ease of finding peers to discuss the subject with. My degree was in math and physics, and, while I didn't talk to many people about physics (which I feel I don't know very well, btw), I had a good friend in math, and we would often hang out and discuss it. We took a lot of the same classes together (even outside of math), because we got so much out of our discussions.