Viewing profile — derleth

> Cocaine and other opiates Cocaine is not an opiate.

Infectious disease was a huge killer of children.

But then we'd have to retrain programmers to nix the maximum password length rules, which would likely require a massive overhaul of a few databases. (Wait for it... )

Once again, it's the people who don't know how, or don't even know it can be done, who suffer. Those people are the customers Adobe wants, and they're the only ones being hurt by t…

> And need I remind you again about IP laws? Not relevant. This doesn't ban content, just the reproduction of specific works. > So, Australia has the principle of being able to ban…

> If your son (or anyone) understands variables, assignment and adding them together, they fundamentally understand Algebra. A more important part of algebra is symbol manipulation…

> the law does not specifically mention Islam and it does not prohibit, as you have misrepresented, "dressing up as a Muslim" Ah, but it bans something that it just so happens only…

None of this is relevant. You can't argue the actual points, so you descend to irrelevancies.

> BULL and SHIT. In Australia, there is no routine pixellation of middle fingers, likewise pixellating the mouth of someone swearing. We don't ban whole works. Australia does. > He…

> The argument for this law is not grounded in any religious objection, as I understand it Wow. This is monumentally dishonest, especially given how the law came to be and how it's…

OK, to begin with, Australia still bans things. This is something the USA grew out of decades ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Australia It's insane. Also, there are…

I note you didn't respond to the fact it's illegal to dress as a Muslim in some places in Europe but it's legal everywhere in the USA.

Robust free speech protections, ability to rough it in a country that's still in the first world, and the ability to enter industries that don't exist to the same extent elsewhere.…

Right, because a whole country is TexaFlorida and all the inhabitants are Duck Dynasty Honey Boo Boo.

The categorical imperative is strictly weaker: It's possible to use the veil of ignorance to argue against positions nobody is insisting must be made universal. For example, "In th…

> Vim did win the war; there's still nothing better. GNU Emacs is much better. It's easier to use and easier to extend.

Predicting food shortages, particularly of meat, was commonplace then, and increasingly common through the 1970s. Housing shortages were another theme, as was endless billowing tor…

How often do the programmers around here need binary arithmetic? Not very often, I'd wager. Even the people who do low-level programming use logic and decimal arithmetic more than …

> for most of the 90's the concern was underpopulation Heh. When the birth rate is much above replacement, we worry about overpopulation. AND THAT'S TERRIBLE. When the birth rate i…

> x86 is a modern architecture It's a modern ISA, implemented by modern microarchitectures.

And what do you think caused the social change? Did you notice that it came about after the laws were put in place? The laws didn't come from nowhere, but they certainly had an imp…

> These days kids barely know who Donald Duck or Mickey are. Ignoring the fact this is likely false, this has nothing to do with copyright. It's a matter of trademark law, and Disn…

We don't need your sexism and racism.

You can brow-beat, I asked nicely.

The government doesn't care about your rifles. Not even your semi-automatic ones with sights and stocks and lasers and so on. They barely even care about a well-trained militia ful…