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Comment Re:True Justice (Score 1) 694

So long as humans are being tried and put up for justice, humans administer justice, humans define justice, and/or humans exist, I can guarantee this will absolutely never happen.

You are correct, but does that make it any less of a good goal? Should we not worry about corruption because there will always be corrupt people? Should we not try to help the poor because there will always be poor? If you simply give in to defeatism, you will always be defeated. To give up on living justly is to give into the worst forms of evil.

Comment True Justice (Score 1) 694

I think Asaph put it best:

“How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked?
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” (Psalm 82:2-4)

The most important thing that our nation needs at this point is true justice without partiality toward the rich, the powerful, and the connected. We need the laws that we do have to be enforced with fairness and impartiality. Given the name of your party, this should be your central focus.

Comment Home School Group (Score 0) 701

Are there any home school groups in your area? Getting involved in a local home school group is a great way to get materials and resources that you don't personally have. Many groups offer courses in subjects like Chemistry for all of the families in the area in addition to group activities like choir or sports. Even smaller towns are likely to have some sort of home school group if you look for it.

Also, are you sure he doesn't read as well as his peers, or does he just not read as well as you remember kids his age reading? From my experience, if he is not reading as well as his public educated peers, there is something very wrong. My boys are home-schooled, and while they started a little "slow" for the first year due to the different approach, they rapidly moved beyond the level of most public school kids and are now pretty advanced for their age. Reading in public schools (or the lack thereof) is a joke with close to half of the students graduating not being able to read. This skill is far more important than any other because it is through reading that you can learn virtually anything else. Make sure that is a priority.

Comment Re:Who cares (Score 1) 191

I have not played with the iPhone much, but compared to the Android, I would choose WebOS hands down. I love the interface and the multitasking abilities. It is my hope that open sourcing WebOS will give it some new life, because I really would like to see the OS continue. It holds a lot of promise, and I would hate to see the UI ideas go away.

Disclaimer: I am an HP employee, but I have no connection with the WebOS or TouchPad team at all. I was able to get a hold of a TouchPad through the employee fire sale, but other than that, I come at it as simply another user.

Comment Re:Easy to do (Score 0) 302

I meant to say that it leads to increased demand. The pervasiveness of pornography only works to fuel the problem, and as men (and women) grow accustomed to instant gratification (not to mention a taste for deviant behavior that most partners would not willingly do), they will turn to prostitution to meet their perceived need. As there are not enough people willing to perform to meet the demand, the market for sex slavery is born.

Comment Re:Easy to do (Score 0) 302

Yes, child pornography is illegal, but pornography itself leads to demand which fuels sex trafficking (both for women and children) as you can see from the statistics cited.

Also, there are many states currently where the only person who is convicted in the case of under-aged prostitution is the victim -- the young girl. For example, Texas just recently passed a law finally making it a prosecutable offense for pimping an under-aged girl. Before that bill was passed, the pimp would not have faced any charges.

And just because a law is on the books doesn't mean it is enforced. While the number of sex traffickers being convicted is growing, the vast majority of cases have yet to be prosecuted.

Comment Re:Easy to do (Score 3, Informative) 302

Actually a bigger dent (and one that would be extremely unpopular... especially on slashdot) would be to put an end to pornography. The correlation between sex trafficking and pornography is very strong as pornography fuels desire for the real thing. For example, you can read this article for references to many government and private studies linking the two. This interview with a government official who specialized in sex trafficking was also very interesting.

The statistics of sex trafficking in America are disturbing. There are an estimated 300,000 sex trafficking victims in the United States alone. Half of them are children (under the age of 18) and 90% of them are American citizens. The average age of entry into prostitution is 13 with an average lifespan once being trafficked of only 7 years. The average girl caught in sex trafficking is dead before she is even legally allowed to drink.

This is an important issue to me. I even wrote a song on the subject and have started speaking out about this problem to raise awareness. If you start to look into this world, prepare to be very disturbed by what you see.

Comment Children (Score 1) 344

My clocks took a mild effort, but that is not the real challenge. The real challenge is to get five young boys to figure out that they can sleep in an extra hour now. So far? No such luck. All five were up and running at 5 AM this morning.

Comment Working Remotely (Score 1) 292

I live in Texas, so ordinarily a major snowstorm in the northeast would have no impact on my personal life. However, I also work remotely with an office in Connecticut that has lost power with no estimate for recovery as of yet. While many of the servers are hosted off-site, some of the critical systems are shut down for the duration. At least half of the people on the project are without power and/or Internet making design meetings impossible. So... definitely impacted at work, but life goes on here at home.

Comment Re:Easy (Score 1) 515

The claim is made for Michigan, but it has proven true for Bozeman, MT some years. The first day upon waking up in Bozeman, there was an inch of snow on the ground. That was August 23rd. A few years later we had another inch of snow... on July 3rd! We even had an 18 inch blizzard on flag day, June 14th. That is what comes from living up north over four thousand feet above sea level (of course, it is much worse when you actually live in the mountains). While snow in the summer is not necessarily "normal", you truly never know what kind of weather any one month will bring.

Games

Submission + - Gamers Decode AIDS Protein In Just 3 Weeks (huffingtonpost.com)

Khomar writes: Now you have a justification for all of those late nights playing online computer games.

A 15-year-old AIDS problem was recently solved in just three weeks using a new online game site that allows users to contribute in decoding complex proteins. Fold.it users incredibly modeled the enzyme, Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV) retroviral protease, in a manner that matched crystalline structures observed by scientists.


Comment Not the First (Score 1) 277

While I am certain the religious content of this video will not be liked by many on Slashdot, it should be noted that this is not the first time this idea was used -- to mimic social media to explain history. In my opinion, the video was far more creative in the telling of its story as well. It creatively shows the story of Christmas with great insight and thoughtfulness.

A Social Network Christmas

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