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Comment Laws for slavery (Score 3, Insightful) 92

I’d argue that slavery wasn’t “legal because nobody banned it.” It was legal because there were explicit laws that created, defined, and enforced the institution.

There were statutes specifying who could be held as slaves, rules that the child of an enslaved woman was automatically a slave, procedures for manumission, regulations on how slaves could be bought, sold, punished, or inherited, and laws requiring that escaped slaves be returned. That’s not a legal vacuum, that’s a full legal framework.

It’s similar to how segregation laws later forced discrimination on people who might not have engaged in it otherwise. The state wasn’t passively allowing something; it was actively mandating and structuring it.

Slavery existed because the law built and maintained it, not because the law failed to forbid it.

Comment Re:Please don't (Score 1) 21

I remember those days where it would warn if there was any scripting at all, rather than look for dangerous commands first.
Just as a thought, not bothering if the script cannot reach outside of the document itself. Functions that access other files or documents, email functionality, and such triggering the warning instead would have been more effective.

Comment Re:What did he expect? (Score 3, Insightful) 91

> The premise of a device having "one job" again is the position of a luddite.

No, it's the position of being anti-enshitification.

A refrigerator's main function is to keep food cold. That's the reason you buy a refrigerator. If putting a screen on a TV actually had a demonstrable benefit to that purpose then fine; but it doesn't. It actually has no objective benefit whatsoever, and the increased complexity not only increases cost but also reduces reliability. That's literally the definition of enshitification.

If having a computer screen in your kitchen, mounted to your fridge, is that useful... get a tablet and mount it to the fridge. Not only would that be cheaper, but if the tablet fails it doesn't make the refrigerator scrap metal and vice-versa and you can upgrade one without throwing out the other. Bonus is you can take the table off the fridge and put it where you need it.

I have a leatherman multitool that I keep on me whenever I'm out of the house. It does a lot of things, but it does none of those things as good as a dedicated single-purpose tool of the same kind. It's a good knife but it will never be as good as an actual knife. It's a good pair of pliers but it will never be as good as a proper pair of pliers. It's a decent screwdriver but I will always reach for a normal proper screwdriver if there's one available. Does it make me a luddite to not want a single item that does all things kinda shitty instead of many items that each do their one thing well?

=Smidge=

Comment Re:The fusion delusion strikes again (Score 2) 42

While it is an enormous problem, possibly the most significant, we know how to shield against radiation, but it's going to take mass in the form of hydrogen-rich molecules like water or polyethylene (as examples). To solve that problem we are either going to have to make launches a lot cheaper, or figure out how to do it all in orbit.

It's at the edge of our technological capacity to produce such a spacecraft now, so the barrier is economic. That's a massive barrier, but in theory we definitely could, if we put a significant percentage of GDP of the wealthiest nations towards the project, produce a spacecraft that keep astronauts alive and relatively protected from ionizing radiation both on the journey and while on Mars.

As to your general assholery, I guess everyone has to have an outlet, though why Slashdot is a bit mysterious.

Comment Re: The Mac Pro died in 2019 (Score 1) 90

"Apple has never offered a product that justified a large chassis. It used to be lots of slots, hard drives and other storage that justified it. Macs have never been about that"

I see you don't remember the 68k Macs OR the PPC Macs. Apple offered machines with lots of slots ever since the Macintosh II line. HTH.

Comment Re:Is anyone surprised? (Score 4, Informative) 84

They gave the Chinese government access to Chinese user's data years ago. They don't seem to have an issue with governments gaining warrantless access to their systems.

Chinese law doesn't require a warrant for such access and it may be done in secrecy (i.e. without informing the user) if necessary to perform duties. The problem with Apple in China isn't that they aren't following the law, it's that they are and the law is openly fascist.

Comment uh (Score 3, Funny) 22

"The tool won't be used for evaluation purposes, but is designed to provide a better estimate of employee workloads."

Yeah, specific employees.

Anyway, this is a good point, people can only stare at a screen for so long, unless they're playing video games. Obviously they need to gamify trading. I mean, more than they already have

Comment Re:How about we verify the moderators here? (Score 1) 75

Seems to be evidence that your joke is too true to be funny.

That is exactly the space I am always trying to inhabit. Sometimes I even get there.

Or how about a higher tax rate if the profits are based on proven lies?

Taxing bad behavior is just another variation of the evil bit, or vice versa I suppose.

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