Thread: So what are your plans for the next 70 years...?

  1. #16
    The superhaterodyne twomers's Avatar
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    Well, the beauty of law (and the most awful thing about it), is that "the law is an ass" and its meaning is down to the interpretation of whoever reads it. Lawyer A reads paragraph B and gets interprets C, while a similarly minded lawyer reads B and sees D. If you pay someone enough they can argue anything for you in court. While I don't agree with what he did (and I don't doubt that he put a friendly spin on the story), and assuming we have the whole story (which for 13 months work seems unlikely), it seems harsh. Like everything (sexism, racism etc), the actual existance and strength of the act itself is decided upon by the victim.

    If the law was a program there would be multiple definition errors all over the place.

  2. #17
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fordy View Post
    >>turn a blind eye to the mounting threat as the UK is today

    How did you come to that conclusion?
    I suspect he used this.

  3. #18
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Oh! That was precious, medievalelks.
    Just the frame of mind you folks need over there. More ruling through fear. As if you didn't have enough of that for the past 8 years. I'm pretty sure the next administration - in case McCain doesn't make it, which seems to be the case - is not going to be kind to terrorist activity either. But you seem to think otherwise. No doubt fitting of your desire for more of the same, since you feel more secure today than you did 8 years ago, don't you? Now that you have more terrorist activity in the world than ever before in world history, and USA citizens face more hatred today and anti-American BS than ever before in their history.

    Good luck then. Don't forget to cast you vote.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  4. #19
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    At this point I think Hitler could win the presidency with Pol Pot as his running mate. Their campaign slogan coudl be 'We will kill everyone that might be a terrorist'. Which of ocurse is everyone.

    Terrorism isnt like a wolf at the door, its like roaches in your cubbard's. Yes, its your house and you can do whatever you want, but if you throw your trash in the corner, it will attract roaches. You can certainly kill them, poison them, do a million things to reduce their occurance, but until you remove the conditions that produce them in the first place, you will always have roaches.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Oh! That was precious, medievalelks.
    Just the frame of mind you folks need over there. More ruling through fear. As if you didn't have enough of that for the past 8 years. I'm pretty sure the next administration - in case McCain doesn't make it, which seems to be the case - is not going to be kind to terrorist activity either. But you seem to think otherwise.
    I've seen it with 8 years of Clinton. Try to blow up the WTC? Fine, we'll try you in court and reveal to bin Laden how we caught you and others with our surveillance methods, and who else we're looking for. Nice work.

    And by the way, the US and US interests abroad have gone longer without a terrorist attack than any time in recent history. So, terrorism is down here, where the effort is being made.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fordy View Post
    >>turn a blind eye to the mounting threat as the UK is today

    How did you come to that conclusion?
    I find this report disturbing:

    http://www.cnsnews.com/public/conten...x?RsrcID=33182

  7. #22
    &TH of undefined behavior Fordy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by medievalelks View Post
    And that means we are turning a blind eye to terrorism...?

    LOL, you havent got a clue...

  8. #23
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by medievalelks View Post
    Stoped reading at the word POLL you shoudl have too. POLL == opinion of a random or not so random sample of society.

  9. #24
    Dr Dipshi++ mike_g's Avatar
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    Regardless of the extradition thing, the sentence alone is an example of where American law is going wrong. There seems to be this notion that by endlessly increasing the punishment for crime crime will be deterred.

    The problem with that is that if you are a hacker then logic would dictate that you may as well be a murderer while you're at it. Personally I'd rather fry in the chair then spend the rest of my life in jail.

    And, how much is it going to cost to keep this guy locked up?

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    Stoped reading at the word POLL you shoudl have too. POLL == opinion of a random or not so random sample of society.
    I think that's an oversimplification of polling, which can be good or bad depending on the method used.

  11. #26
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by medievalelks View Post
    I think that's an oversimplification of polling, which can be good or bad depending on the method used.
    Poll's are dubious at best in any serious discussion. There arent enough muslim students in any university to make a statistically significant sampling. The accuracy of a poll is inversly proportional to the percentage of the population you didn't sample. Even if they sampeld 100&#37; of the population it is still an opinion.
    Last edited by abachler; 07-30-2008 at 03:49 PM.

  12. #27
    and the Hat of Guessing tabstop's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    Even if they sampeld 100% of the population it is still an opinion.
    But -- the point is to find the opinions of the people. What kind of point are you trying to make here -- people don't know their own minds?

    And 600 people = +/- 4 percentage points, regardless of the actual number in the population. (Or more to the point: we are 95% confident that the true proportion of students holding those ideas are within four percentage points from the numbers given.)

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    Even if they sampeld 100% of the population it is still an opinion.
    Right, the poll question asked their opinions on matters of religiously justified murder. So, they got opinions.

  14. #29
    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by medievalelks View Post
    Right, the poll question asked their opinions on matters of religiously justified murder. So, they got opinions.
    Which has nothing to do with 'Extremism Among Muslim Students'.

    How is extremism defined, where the questions loaded, where the responses truthful, i.e. was the setting conducive to serious responses or was it one of those off the cuff sidewalk interviews? Was it scientifically conducted using double blind methods?


    Sorry, but you need to stop reading after the word POLL. If it was a serious study it owudl be called a study, not a poll.

  15. #30
    and the Hat of Guessing tabstop's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by abachler View Post
    Which has nothing to do with 'Extremism Among Muslim Students'.

    How is extremism defined, where the questions loaded, where the responses truthful, i.e. was the setting conducive to serious responses or was it one of those off the cuff sidewalk interviews? Was it scientifically conducted using double blind methods?


    Sorry, but you need to stop reading after the word POLL. If it was a serious study it owudl be called a study, not a poll.
    Double blind methods?! For a poll?? Do you even know what these words mean? (Hint: The answer is no, unless you can think of a way to get meaningful answers when you are not even telling the subjects what the questions are.) (Edit: Or I suppose you can waste some questions by giving half your respondents a completely bogus survey. But I don't see how that helps either.)
    Last edited by tabstop; 07-31-2008 at 10:37 AM.

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