Sounds about right. The responsible bankers we all know and love, lending out money to buy Blackberry.

Keep up the good work, bankers!

The entire tech industry has known for years that this was a sinking ship. If these people made no efforts to get out of it, then it is their own fault for finding themselves in the situation they soon face. There is absolutely nothing wrong with people who share's the GP's opinion.

I'll be happy when they die, so old people, especially executives (read: decision makers with my employer) will stop asking about them or suggesting we keep buying and using their crummy products (I'm looking at you, Blackberry Desktop Software).

Speaking as an Android & Linux user, I can tell you that Android, in your words, "looks like crap and sucks battery down" because it comes pre-loaded with tons of useless shit, most of which can't be uninstalled (without great effort). It's the same reason that brand new Windows PCs run more sluggish than they should - greedy assholes paying to have their shit on your new PC by default. It doesn't mean that Android as a whole is terrible, and if that's your viewpoint, you are sadly misinformed.

Slashdot is a .org.

Perhaps that was poor wording on my part. All I was trying to state was that if we were to believe girlintraining any more than we are to believe wikipedia, I simply wanted her to back up her claims that Whitman was "normal". Now that she has provided citations from medical experts to make her case, I applaud her efforts. But people are entitled to their own opinion, and she failed to sway mine. Speaking of that,...

I think it is fair at this point that we agree to disagree. Nature vs. Nurture may not be settled scientifically, but since I am entitled to my opinion, I'm going to keep believing that nurture has a profound impact on human beings. To me, the Whitman story reinforces that point. If you wish to believe I am wrong, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, too.

Again, poor choice of words on my part, and for that I apologize. My intention was to post a somewhat neutral position, but my last sentence certainly didn't help that cause.

It's funny, this is what prompted me to reply to you this time, too. People need to stop putting so much emphasis on the "Godwin card". Why is it that people's brains just shut down the minute Hitler or Nazi's come into an argument? I will concede that it is abused, but that doesn't mean any argument should be dismissed the moment it makes an appearance. People can carefully play that card without unraveling their own argument, and it seems to be your belief that this isn't the case is what makes these arguments break down. I was only trying to say that a person's life, or karma, if you will, can't be boiled down to a couple of sentences about their life. In this case I think I did play it carefully. Would my point really be any different if I had picked another example? And if I had chosen one much less well known, my point wouldn't have gotten across with anyone who had never heard of them and had to run off to Wikipedia to find out what I was talking about. (which incidentally is what led both of us to find out just who the hell this Whitman guy was in the first place...)

Wow. Your post reads so far past what I was attempting to say that I don't even know what you're talking about anymore. I'm not here to argue about how we treated people in America pre-1865, and I'm not here to make blatent generalizations about poor people. Please don't put words in my mouth.

All I am here to argue about is in my humble opinion, it is clear that Charles Whitman did have a lot of exposure to violence, especially at an early age, and that *likely* contributed to his actions. Nothing more, nothing less.

Please see my latest reply to girlintraining and note how I point out that this issue isn't as black-and-white as either of you make it out to be.

That's odd; I don't think I conveyed either of those things. I have no idea where you got that impression.

I think the biggest failure in your reasoning is that we are arguing a black-and-white point here. This is most certainly not the case. There are many shades of grey as to the opinion of what caused Whitman to do what he did.

Since I chose to reply to your earlier post, you seem to be under the impression that I don't agree with everything you said, and that is just not the case. The only point you made that I take issue to is being able to call Whitman "a perfectly normal man". I don't dispute any of your claims that the tumor *may* have played a role in his violent impulses, and the Wikipedia article agrees with this assessment too. Furthermore, I would doubt any doctor in 1966 would be able to state as definitive fact whether or not the tumor played a role in his actions. It seems to me that the Connally Commission's purpose was to "right the wrong" of the previous medical examiner stating that there was no way the tumor did play a role. A responsible scientist would have to accept that we just don't know enough about the brain, or at least we didn't in 1966, and be forced to state their opinion in uncertain terms, which is precisely what the Connally Commission did; Wikipedia states that the tumor "conceivably could have had an influence on Whitman's actions."

The definition of a "perfectly normal man" varies from region to region, and changes over time, as Zynder points out. I assert that Whitman was not a "perfectly normal man", at least not by the standards of my region in this time period. I didn't grow up in America, and I wasn't subjected to the "gun culture" that seems to come with being an American. But again, in that Wikipedia article, Whitman's father makes the following statement:

In my region, this would be considered an early exposure to violence. I believe that if you're taught to use a gun at a young age, you shouldn't be taking the lives of innocent animals unless you intend to eat them for survival. Call me a peace lovin' hippie if you will, but this act demonstrates a lack of empathy for other living beings, and that, I would classify as not "normal".

But again, I must stress that this could be considered normal to someone living in another region, who perhaps grew up in America, in the "gun culture". The definition for a "normal" person is subjective.

On a side note, I have seen many of your posts on /. and quite often they are very informative and insightful. But I think a lot of people take issue with the way you refute their counterpoints by putting words in our mouths. For instance, in your reply to Zynder, you state:

I certainly do not feel threatened, and nowhere in my previous post did I even allude to that. Please don't put words in my mouth.

Further to that point, I certainly do believe it is entirely possible that a brain condition could strike anyone at any time and cause them to do very irrational things, like Whitman here. I just think your Whitman example is of someone who was predisposed to violence, and his predisposal to violence *may* have played a role in his actions, too.

Lastly,

That's great. You found one medical expert who agrees with you. Bravo, good for you. But to make a statement like this just shows a childish approach to the argument and paints it as black-and-white. Surely you can see that there are shades of grey to this argument...?

It is very difficult for you to make a statement like this with your proof being a few sentences about a person's life. For instance, I could say that Hitler was an artist, who had an accomplished military career, as well as a career in politics (which must mean he was popular, right?)

Now I really hate to go Godwin so quickly on this, but looking through that Wikipedia article makes it fairly clear that his father was abusive, and he joined the military to get away from him. These two facts scream "predisposition to violence" to me, and I think most other rational thinking people.

And before you try to tell me that the Wikipedia article "undoubtedly is sensationalist garbage", I'm afraid I have to point out that the burden of proof lies with you. Wikipedia is crowdsourced, so many people had to agree what they could post about this guy as fact, and disputed facts are typically mentioned in the "talk" section of the page, which makes no mention of any doubt surrounding the basic facts about his father. Your comment, on the other hand, is your own statement of belief. Why should I believe that your side of the story carries more weight than what many knowledgeable people have to say on the matter?

My last car (a Saturn) had P-R-N-D-3-2. The manual said that "3" is every gear except 4, and was good for "trips in town where the vehicle does not exceed 70 km/h", and "2" was every gear except 1. I always thought that was a little strange.

I would mod you up if I had points. I never tried to figure this out because every time I use alt+tab, I'm doing so in a hurry and results on win7 seem unexpected to me. Now I have an idea of what's going on.

What is very strange is that Win+tab seems to conform to its own order. You would think they would apply consistency between the two functions, since they are so similar, but perhaps Microsoft can't even agree on the right way to do it.

And if everyone on the planet shared their wealth, there would be no poor people.

Seriously, do you honestly believe that "everyone using an ad-blocker" is even feasible? I'm pretty certain that in your lifetime, there's zero chance that every dumb jock, grandmother, and all other technologically inept people are going to go out and install an ad-blocker on all of their computers, phones, tablets and whatever else. Saying that you aren't going to do it because bad things would happen if everybody did it is stupid, when there is no possible chance that everyone will do it.

There are plenty of suckers among my friends that still complain about having to skip the ad video on Youtube, despite the fact that I have told them several times that there are easy ways of getting rid of all those ads for good. It's not that the people without ad-blockers are unaware of their existence, some of them just couldn't be bothered with doing something about it, and you don't sound like one of those people.

Agreed. Here in Alberta, Canada, we just passed a "Distracted Driver" law last year. There are heavy fines for anyone caught using their cellphone (or other device) while behind the wheel, grooming, or eating anything that would be considered a "meal" and not a "snack".

Since it is already banned in cars for drivers here, it led me to vote "What's wrong with texting?", because I think the other options are just silly attempts at oppression of freedom.

I would hope that you'd have to put your phone in "listen" mode before it would detect such a signal.

It's not the fact that this feature doesn't exist that he has a right to complain about. It is the fact that he complained about this missing feature and they responded to say that it was a popular feature request and they would implement it in the near future. More than a decade goes by, and still no feature. If what he said was true, that makes them liars.

Most cars that use normal keys also have a steering lock built in when the key is removed. So, if you ripped the key out, best case scenario, you'd get the engine to turn off. Worst case scenario, you'd be unable to steer the vehicle.