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Comment Alpha children wear grey (Score 1) 366

Genetically modifying such genes is unlikely to happen any time soon

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta.

Comment Re:Story title needs a warning! (Score 4, Insightful) 274

I didn't realize she was under-age when I saw the headline. A few quick Google searches later, and I'd unwittingly accessed what counts as child porn.

Serious, Slashdot editors, this title needs a fix to include a warning, like instantly.

The title does not need fixing.
Your idiotic laws do. Like instantly.

Comment Re:These stories make me feel sick to my stomach (Score 1) 462

I hate stuff like this. I hate it because it is crooked and evil. I hate it because there is very little recourse for the average citizen to make against an attack like this.

But you won't do anything to stop it.

Contact your congress reps, local and federal. Try to get them to change the law. What is happening in these stories should be illegal.

They won't do anything to stop it either.

Comment Re:Lua[0]? (Score 1) 729

It is recent computer scientists that started

Not "computer scientists". Just C programmers. The first two languages designed, Fortran and Cobol, start at 1. Algol('68) and all the languages descended from or influenced by it let the programmer set the starting bound (this includes Ada, Pascal and all the other Wirth languages).

Pretty much every language that uses 0 as the only allowable starting index is either descended from C, or borrowed large amounts of its syntax from it. (Some BASICs use 0, but that language is so egregiously unstandardized that its tough to say anything about it with certainty).

That's because C does not have arrays, they are just syntactic sugar for pointers. array[index] is another way of writing *(pointer + offset)
Therefore: a[5] == *(a+5) == *(5+a) == 5[a]

Comment Re:Null Terminated Strings (Score 1) 729

I believe none of you actually programmed in C. A string terminated by \0 can be represented by a single pointer and an have any length. You can also easily let the string keep growing (until the allocated memory is finished.) That is the epitome of KISS. If you use an 8 byte character at the beginning then you are limited to a string length of 255. A structure with a length and a string pointer (or a character array) is much more complex and that would reflect in more complex library functions.

Some of us have been programming in C for 3 decades and have gained some sense of perspective. While the choice of using null-termination vs. explicit size may have been the correct one given the '60s and '70s state of the art, it is a poor one today.

Null-terminated strings have several serious deficiencies:
They cannot be used to store binary data, requiring another, redundant set of functions (with separate lengths)
Similarly, they cannot be used to store UTF-16
They are less efficient. In order to find the length of the string, get it's last character(s) or append to it, you must traverse it. If the string is long, parts of it may reside on pages that have been swapped out and touching them will trigger expensive IO operations.

There is a reason that every OO library uses a length+data for string objects

Comment Re:How is this not conspiracy to commit fraud? (Score 1) 182

Nobody is directly profiting from these actions.

Direct profiting is not a part of a definition of fraud.

Fraud

A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.

Fraud is commonly understood as dishonesty calculated for advantage. A person who is dishonest may be called a fraud. In the U.S. legal system, fraud is a specific offense with certain features.

Fraud must be proved by showing that the defendant's actions involved five separate elements: (1) a false statement of a material fact,(2) knowledge on the part of the defendant that the statement is untrue, (3) intent on the part of the defendant to deceive the alleged victim, (4) justifiable reliance by the alleged victim on the statement, and (5) injury to the alleged victim as a result.

These elements contain nuances that are not all easily proved. First, not all false statements are fraudulent. To be fraudulent, a false statement must relate to a material fact. It should also substantially affect a person's decision to enter into a contract or pursue a certain course of action. A false statement of fact that does not bear on the disputed transaction will not be considered fraudulent.

Second, the defendant must know that the statement is untrue. A statement of fact that is simply mistaken is not fraudulent. To be fraudulent, a false statement must be made with intent to deceive the victim. This is perhaps the easiest element to prove, once falsity and materiality are proved, because most material false statements are designed to mislead.

Third, the false statement must be made with the intent to deprive the victim of some legal right.

Fourth, the victim's reliance on the false statement must be reasonable. Reliance on a patently absurd false statement generally will not give rise to fraud; however, people who are especially gullible, superstitious, or ignorant or who are illiterate may recover damages for fraud if the defendant knew and took advantage of their condition.

Finally, the false statement must cause the victim some injury that leaves her or him in a worse position than she or he was in before the fraud.

-- http://legal-dictionary.thefre...

Comment Re:Sigh (Score 1) 748

Sorry, being forced to "tolerate" someone is, for me, functionally indistinct from being forced to approve of them. I will not sit by idly and let disgusting bullshit happen just because it's now politically correct to do so.

That's OK, as long as you don't complain when somebody bigger/stronger/better-armed/better-connected considers your behaviour to be "disgusting bullshit" and will not sit idly and let it happen.

It's up to us to resist it with all our strength, and acknowledging and king of tolerance for the enemy's ideology goes against that. Liberalism is a disease and must be fought as such.

See above. Some day you will find yourself on the receiving side. And when that day comes (and it will), just remember that you have defined the rules of engagement and don't run crying to "Liberal" organizations to protect you.

Comment Re:Potheads assemble! (Score 1) 178

A while ago I spent some time in a mental facility and one of the patients there was that unlucky 1 in 700,000 who was vulnerable to the psychotic effects that marijuana could cause.

As compared to:

As many as 600,000 Canadians (1 - 2% of the overall population) are thought to be at risk of anaphylaxis stemming from food and insect allergy.
-- http://www.aaia.ca/en/anaphyla...

So what's you point exactly? That marijuana is approximately 10,000 times safer than food?

Comment Re:Where? (Score 1) 232

For example, the killing of the Jews in the 3rd Reich was legal.

No, it wasn't.

Crimes against Jews -- especially those committed by officials of the state -- were ignored by people who were responsible for enforcing the laws in Nazi Germany but at no point did the Nazis change the criminal code to say: "by the way, you totally can kill all the Jews you want".

As if selective prosecution is not prevalent in the US...

Comment Re:It's tinfoil time! (Score 1) 232

Kinda funny, then, that bankrupt regimes with 1980s era electronics are orders of magnitude better at this "oppression" thing than our own high-tech governments.

The US government has it's citizens barely able to control their bowels due to unfounded fear of terrorism. Dissidents are corralled into "free speech zones" or simply ignored. Everyone is being watched - what they do online, where they go (phone tracking), who they communicate with. The government actively monitors and attempts to disrupt dissent online via operations against sites such as Slashdot. What little protection US citizens have in law is easily bypassed by having foreign partners such as GCHQ operate against them on the NSA's behalf. There are secret courts designed to prevent proper oversight and scrutiny.

There is little difference between the two main parties, and the people with the real power don't change even when they do. Americans have very little real democratic influence.

The US has outdone all those oppressive regimes and most of its citizens don't even realize what has happened. Rather than an unstable, overtly violent system of control the US has found a way to almost completely subdue the population without the risk of being overthrown.

Mod parent up please, this opinion deserves higher visibility.

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