TFA says you're wrong; it says it's no more harmful than caffiene.

I've seen a Catholic School kind of like this: Holy Family Academy in Woodburn, OR. It was NOT run by the archdiocese, but by some RadTrad parents, and ended up with a pretty good curriculum. It did have a religious aspect- but it also taught Latin to 7th and 8th graders and the 8th Graders had to learn the Summa Theologicae, in the original Latin.

Did you even read the link you posted?, that flight never crashed, it just lost power to all 4 engines for about 15 mins, but they eventually started up again.

Well the second group also has a tendency to only pay attention to tangible things, which causes a problem.

This is essentially the argument over legalized drugs (the intelligent one, not the one where "we can tax a $100 trillion industry!" that's going to be a $50 million industry when the shit's legal). One side says these are evil, harmful, addictive things that destroy lives; the other says (get this-- it's great) people will manage themselves fine while addicted to crack, and will get professional help and have doctors write prescriptions, and use their drugs responsibly.

The reality comes in two stages. First, people will get prescribed 40mg twice a day of something like Ecstacy (or probably something more recreational, life-taylored, like "okay, take ONE of these on Saturday Night at the club"). They will then proceed to abuse their prescriptions (people do this already with prescription meds) to get high... well, higher. Then they'll get locked out because of abuse as their doctor refuses to write more prescription. Then they'll hit the street for illegal drugs... again....

Second, now that we're back where we started, we have to change the assumptions: prescription/doctors were for SALE, but you're legally allowed to ACQUIRE AND USE whatever you want. So stage 2 starts. Society drifts. Everyone is always impaired. Moral and ethical bases shift. This has a real impact on the effectiveness of the work force, on education, on everything.

But this is all very fuzzy; importantly, it's just as fuzzy as "everything will be fine." Read this again: the hypothesis that legalizing drugs will result in a Utopian Paradise or even in a complete null operation (i.e. no change) is JUST AS CRAZY as assuming the whole world will slowly fall apart, if not more so (because we know drugs are addictive and make your behavior less rational, so this is more likely a bad thing in the long run). Those arguing for legalized drugs universally like to ignore ALL of this, since it's all (by definition) conjecture (yes, even if it's 100% accurate; you have to PROVE it first, scientifically, for it to be a valid known-factual argument).

The argument over sex is actually more interesting. If you don't have dogmatic sexual restrictions (sex before marriage is a crime and/or draws severe social stigma that totally fucks up your life), society's morals drift. Society will then eventually stabilize at a point where you can just walk up to anyone and suggest fucking, and get it right there; sex flows freely, about as easy as hugs and handshakes. It's a slow, multi-generational process; but you can only stabilize on one side or the other, as there is no way to acknowledge casual sex as NOT horrendously evil without giving the logical conclusion that it's perfectly fine to be a lecher or a slut (note: I've known some really slutty girls that were both responsible and good people, very respectful and intelligent... I've known bitches and idiot dickwhores too; I don't judge people on their sexual promiscuity).

These are the fun, not-quite-philosophical considerations that loom over these ugly philosophical battles. Yes, we mostly care for some weird concept of "morals" and "ethics" and some sort of "idealism" we follow; but the impacts are real, in both directions.

As long as you continue to feed your nicotine addiction, you will never be able to break yourself away from these crutches.

Uhuh.

So?

Honestly, I don't get American culture. There's this utterly ridiculous obsession with drug dependence, even when the drugs are completely harmless. Hell, even patients undergoing end-of-life palliative care sometimes refuse to take pain killers for fear of dependence. It's ridiculous!

Honestly, *who cares* if these people are addicted to some drug, so long as the drug itself causes no negative health effects? Does it make them less productive members of society? No. Does it create an undo burden on the healthcare system? No. Does it hurt them in any way, save that they blow a little extra money to maintain the addiction? No! So who gives a shit?

The only reason to oppose devices like this is because you believe you have some higher moral standard that other people should aspire to. And quite frankly? You can shove that standard straight up your ass, because it's none of your damn business what these people choose to put in their bodies.

Actually, law here (USA) DOES.

Fair-use rights do not, true, but you might want to look into the casual-sharing provisions of the US No Electronic Theft Act.

It allows me, as an individual, to copy and distribute up to $1000 retail value of media within any given six month period, provided I do not obligate the recipient(s) to give me anything in return for my largess. That makes P2P file sharing illegal, since I am receiving bits of copyrighted files in return for other bits of copyrighted files, but casual sharing among friends is clearly defined and specifically exempted from criminal prosecution.

17 U.S.C. 506

But it is a likely choice for those who have the pdf creation software, are familiar with using it, and want the flexibility of a single form that can be: printed blank and filled out on paper; filled out on screen then printed; or filled out and submitted online.

Oh I'm quite familiar with that. the GP however made it sound like nobody had ever though of the idea of providing programs with incentives to learn and completely misses the problem that unless you make it so survival is not a concern to a program.

Has anyone else noticed this new banner at the top of Slashdot?

It's funny that as much railing on Facebook that is done on Slashdot that Slashdot is advertising for people to become fans of them on Facebook.

And when copyright terms are extended, it is also an attack on centuries of legal thought. The sole purpose of copyright is to enrich the public domain by promoting the publishing of art and sciences by granting a limited monopoly on distribution. Extending the term of that copyright is a direct attack on that sole purpose, while "piracy" is merely an attack on the method of promotion.

Copyright law is a misnomer, it is really copyright restriction. We all have a right to copy anything we want, this is a natural right inherent in our humanity. It is as natural as our freedom to think, speak, walk or defend ourselves. Copyright law restricts that right temporarily, so that in time we will have a richer and deeper culture to share in the future. The extension of copyright for profit is theft of the highest order, it is stealing from every man, woman and child in existence and leaves humanity as a whole poorer.

Exactly...

Yes, but I shouldn’t have to choose between “death” and “destroy engine”. Were they all out of cake?

The failsafe to prevent the car from being shifted into neutral should not be disabled. Rather, it should kill the throttle, then shift into neutral. Even then you need a failsafe to prevent this from happening when someone accidentally hits the shift lever while driving.

Yah Know.... I never really liked when computers switched to this method with the ATX revolution, Sometimes you still have to reach around and pull the plug. Sometimes it can take a minute or two.

I'd hate for this to happen in a life or death scenario. As mentioned above a hard off ala old AT cases just seams safer.

You mean like Transmission, a BitTorrent client? Or Samba, a set of tools for sharing files in a way compatible with Windows? Or Ubuntu One, which allows users to back up files to a 2 GB online space (or, in a future version, across the local network) and share some of these backed-up files? All of these are included with the Ubuntu distribution of GNU/Linux, and both are "P2P" software.

I don’t disagree, but I wasn’t talking about them.