Comment Re:Can we just call it... (Score 1) 163
To be fair, it is harder to read posts broken up that way. There's a reason most modern discussion software has eliminated non-parent post titles.
To be fair, it is harder to read posts broken up that way. There's a reason most modern discussion software has eliminated non-parent post titles.
Thankfully, browser vendors realize that a key event can be as volitional as a mouse event (or a touch event). Keyboard control is an accessibility feature. You can't engineer network-enabled software completely away from potential for abuse without severely limiting its function. The abuse ultimately has to be stopped by social pressure.
That said, there are opportunities for engineered **improvement** without destroying keyboard accessibility. A lot of browser restrictions already depend on certain kinds of volitional action to be invoked (think built-in popup blockers). I could imagine a solution where an attempt to access network resources as a result of key events prompts the user for permission, either temporarily or on a whitelist, even per "action" (e.g. form or field identity).
Note that some keyboard accessibility is available without any JavaScript (as it should be) and should *never* be curtailed. Particularly the use of keys to press buttons or submit forms.
Root juice.
And while we're being pedantic... yes, it's beer. Starch -> sugar + yeast -> fermentation = beer.
Beer has been made from malted barley, wheat, rice, corn, buckwheat, quinoa, sorghum, even non-starch sugar sources like honey, sugar cane, beet sugar and chestnuts, not to mention (gasp) fruits. Frankly the only sane reason wine, mead and cider are distinct from beer is tautological: they have their own names. The same is true of sake.
The use of herbal adjuncts (like hops) was developed as a method of preservation, and as additive flavoring (and sometimes for real or perceived psychoactive properties).
Beer is extremely loosely defined (notwithstanding Reinheitsgebot). Have a beer, loosen up, and educate yourself!
This comment brought to you by beer.
LOL the folks who wrote in support of tin pot dictators around the world (so long as they weren't US-backed)? No thanks.
In the richest country in the world, people have cheap gadgets and are slaves to the transportation they inevitably need to get to work? That's empowerment? Say it ain't so.
Also, I wouldn't call corner stores with fritos and gummy worms access to food.
Leaving aside the numerous ways radical political change can be achieved for a second... communism is incompatible with human nature? You mean, the classless and stateless arrangement that characterized the vast majority of human history? Not to sugar-coat "primitive communism", which certainly had plenty of ills that stood to be cured, but you couldn't be further from the mark. States—feudal and then merchant-capitalist and then capitalist—have continually been imposed. There's a reason that all of these "advancements" have been resisted everywhere they're evangelized at the end of a weapon.
Now, could communism be achieved without force and mass murder? (It's best to note that force is not necessarily the same thing as mass murder.) Certainly, why not? Scarcely any of the blood shed carving out the social democratic features of the primarily wealthy countries has been on the hands of the people seeking those features. There's no reason to believe the same course can't be followed indefinitely. While this course has certainly suffered setbacks, the overwhelming majority of people favor it. It's only the vast accumulation of power in the hands of a tiny elite that is holding it back, and now the only real weapon available to them is the erosion of democracy (now who's engaged in force?).
Be that as it may, most of the history of radical change is characterized by violence. If communism were to be achieved by force, the worst other revolutions could claim is that it failed to rise above their own moral character specifically in terms of means.
I don't want you to take this to mean that I think a violent communist revolution is desirable or even excusable (I'm not even exactly an advocate of communism, full disclosure). But for fuck's sake, let's at least be honest—about human history, about "human nature", and about the long storied history of political upheaval.
They didn't live in caves.
Note that I'm not endorsing DRM in web standards, just trying to steer the conversation away from logical error.
standardize the Web to be "accessible to all users (despite differences in culture, education, ability, resources, and physical limitations)" [...] The reason for DRM's existence is to limit web content to those users who have the money (resources) to pay for it.
Now wait a second. The standards are about web features and behavior, not about content. The idea is that anyone with any web-capable device (standards-compliant) can access the same web content the same way. You don't need DRM to implement a resource barrier to content, many much older web standards make this possible. In order to answer the question of whether DRM creates a subclass of web users who need additional resources in order to consume the content is to take it out of a paywall scenario; in other words, if YouTube implemented the DRM standard, would some of its existing public users need to spend additional resources while others would not? (I don't know the answer to this question, but it's still important to ask the correct question.)
racists on both sides of the fence, i.e. your KKK member and Al Sharpton types
Because people like Al Sharpton have committed centuries of murder, terrorism, torture and destruction of basic human and civil rights? Oh, wait, they're not alike at all.
Men have to be extra careful and guarded when talking around female co-workers because we have no idea how they might react and what will be taken as offensive.
This is an example of one of the most absurd corollaries to "feminism is the radical notion that women are people" that I've encountered. In one sentence, you've expressed essentially a perfect caricature of the modern butthurt reactionary antifeminist. Let's unpack it, in order:
- I speak for all men.
- The presence of women as peers is dangerous.
- All women behave identically.
- Everything every man says or does is beyond reproach.
- Women are emotionally capricious.
- No woman's feelings are valid.
- Men are incapable of understanding and learning from reactions to their behavior.
- Women's expressions of their experiences are equivalent to assault on the men who caused those experiences in the first place.
- Men are defenseless.
Actually, that was eye-opening. Honestly. And in a weird way, I now kind of agree with at least part of the "men's rights" movement: entitled men, afraid their undeserved privilege is at risk of society leaving them behind, have raised a generation of terrified emasculated man-babies who have forgotten how to be strong. For thousands of years, women have been subjected to torture, rape and slavery so that men could create a society of children who crumble at the first sign of back talk!
Man up and treat women like people! It takes far more strength, courage and—dare I say—balls to experience empathy than to exhibit this sort of whiny flailing half-formed emotional outburst.
(Note: I apologize for my use of ageist language in this rant. It was only for impact to the intended audience. Most children are far more emotionally secure and mature than that audience.)
What remains to be demonstrated is the actual harm done by this evolution of language, without begging the question.
To be fair, the display is probably 1/3 to 1/2 the price.
Speak for yourself!
None of those examples reduce anyone's ability to communicate clearly. Except possibly yours, as myself may have missed your point.
Pascal is not a high-level language. -- Steven Feiner