* Posts by Charles 9

16605 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Kentucky gov: Violent video games, not guns, to blame for Florida school massacre

Charles 9

Re: Violent culture, not guns, causes violence.

Hollywood produces what America wants. After all they need box office returns to satisfy their investors for fiduciary duty.

Charles 9

Re: "Yes. BECAUSE of the police, which can be turned against the population"

An episode of Adam-12 actually featured a legally-purchased, road-certified TANK. I'll look it up later.

Charles 9

Re: Reality Check

Gasoline and a match...

Fuel oil and fertilizer...

The family car...

A box cutter in an airliner...

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Charles 9

Re: Two year waiting period, anyone?

"Way to miss the point dumb ass, is alcohols main purpose to kill things?"

YES! It's a POISON. People literally make themselves SICK with it...AND LOVE IT! And let's not start on all the trouble that comes with reduced inhibitions and so on...

Yet the 1920's PROVED people would rather turn their backs on their country than on their vice.

Charles 9

An Egypt Air was deliberately crashed with all killed and nothing happened afterward...AFTER 9/11. Why? Not much you can do when the killer was the PILOT.

Shoe Bomber? I'll raise you an Underwear Bomber and an A-hole Bomber.

And what about those recent deliberate crowd rams using cars and trucks?

Charles 9

Re: hmm

Uh, what about Sandy Hook? That gun was STOLEN.

Charles 9

Re: Prescription drugs

What evidence? I would think wanton disregard for your fellow man (antisocial behavior) is ITSELF a mental illness.

Charles 9

Re: I have a cunning plan my Lord

You mean WE'LL reap it, you mean. I mean the whirlwind that'll result from millions of dead-ended people with nothing left to lose.

Charles 9

Re: Homicide

Thing is, if the gun wasn't there, would the homicides just shift to other means. That's why I mentioned the high suicide rates in low-gun countries like Japan. They just jump in front of trains, jump off buildings, or poison themselves instead.

Charles 9

Re: This is what the US has chosen

Thus the paramilitaries to counter them.

Charles 9

Re: Shooter games

"Many European countries - particularly those that had colonial empires. Immigrant communities usually preserve the traditions and cultural outlook of their original country for at least a couple of generations."

But many have been insulated by the influence of the colonizers (creating a common ground) whereas many of the immigrants to the US came directly, keeping most of their cultures intact, raising the potential for culture shock.

Charles 9

Re: I have a cunning plan my Lord

"Draining the NRA bank-balance is the intention, even the gun-nuts don't have unlimited pockets."

Yes they do. It's called fundraisers. Combine this with a "cold, dead fingers" mentality, and people will sooner bankrupt themselves than give up their arms for fear the government will oppress them.

Charles 9

Re: Kentucky governor and Trump

Except he's been a New Yorker all his life. Calling a New Yorker a Kentuckian is like calling a Doberman a Shih Tsu.

Charles 9

Re: An Australian perspective

They'd rather have anarchy than the police state. Remember that America was founded on DISTRUST of government, and it idolizes freedom and rebellion. The Mountain Men, Dixieland Pride, and so on. Combine that with more culture clash than anywhere else, and you basically have an ammo dump.

Charles 9

Re: The AR-15 has been available for sale to the public since 1964

You'd have thought violence would've come sooner given games like Cannon Fodder, Wolfenstein 3D, Blake Stone, and Doom had been around for longer than that (and note, the former three featured human targets and blood and guts).

Charles 9

Re: This is what the US has chosen

IOW, forced into a choice, Americans prefer Anarchy to the Police State, especially given recent examples like Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the "martial law" seizures following Katrina.

Charles 9

Over the counter supplies can still allow for Molotov cocktails, fertilizer bombs, even homemade guns. That gene's well out of the bottle. Remember, the worst nonmilitary massacres in US history didn't use guns.

Charles 9

Politicians have been DIRECTLY targeted in the past (some killed like two of the Kennedys) with little to show for it.

Charles 9

Re: Guns should be almost totally banned

Because home invasions frequently present cornering situations, especially if the resident is being deliberately targeted as for a rape. This also tends to present knife-in-a-gun-fight situations where lack of parity tends to mean you lose.

Charles 9

Re: Shooter games

Where else but the US do you see so many different cultures butting heads with each other? I recall that the biggest chunk of homicides in the US are criminal-on-criminal: related to gang wars between rivals disagreeing over culture or fighting for turf. Take them and the suicides away, neither of which are going to go away even if you take the guns away, and the end result isn't as bleak as it looks.

Charles 9

Re: Legislation can save lives.

Put it this way. It would seem, to most Americans, if one or the other extreme is inevitable long-term, they would prefer "every man for himself" anarchy to the "papers, please" police state. Plus, there are still plenty who remember the Cold War.

Charles 9

Re: Guns should be almost totally banned

"But, for example, the laws recognise that no typical citizen should be allowed a handgun."

What about "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away"?

Charles 9

Re: Not this again...

Show us one where a recent rampager couldn't have been influenced by video games...because he or she never had access to them. THAT will be the only way they're convinced.

Charles 9

Re: The Supreme Court is to blame

But any with as large of diverse a population? Saying your country can do it better is one thing, but can you say that while managing some 400 million people at once? As I recall, only India and China have larger total populations, and neither I would consider shining models of government.

Charles 9

Re: Suicides...

And if that life happened to be a breadwinner on whom others depended? No one lives in isolation, you know?

Charles 9

Re: Two year waiting period, anyone?

But which is worse? Alcohol-related deaths or the Anarchy drawn by Prohibition?

Charles 9

Re: Same games played elsewhere

Ever thought it really IS the former combined with building resentment? Which in other countries would be vented by, say, joining an extremist group that's easier to reach there than here?

Charles 9

Re: Numbers

"Suicidal people need help, not guns! I think Politifact are spot on, the whole point is saving lives, take away guns and you save lives, fact - it works everywhere else, why would it not work in the US ?"

Oh? South Korea is #2 on the list of per capita suicides (the list INCLUDES the Third World). Japan is #11. Both have strict gun controls. The US? Middle of the pack.

Don't look at the weapon. Look at the user.

Charles 9

Re: (X|Y|Z) (is|are) the cause of (A|B|C)

Bet you some of them reject the treatment and BECOME omnicidal maniacs due to it. IOW you simply can't win.

Charles 9

Re: Erm, what about...

Just means no farmer's been. Ray enough to imitate Oklahoma City yet. But there's no way to stop it given all the materials needed are tools of the farming trade (and the fertilizer WAS denatured then; they REnatured it, however).

Like I said, don't look at the weapon; look at the user. After all, Japan and South Korea have terrible suicide rates IN SPITE of strict gun controls.

Charles 9

Let's see. The Unabomber, the infamous Gangs of New York, not to mention all the knife attacks that fall under the radar. I'm picking my fights, and I'm saying don't look at the weapon, look at the user.

Charles 9

Not necessarily. Where there's a will, there's a way. Remember, Oklahoma City and Bath Township both used materials readily available to any farmer.

Hate to ruin your day, but... Boffins cook up fresh Meltdown, Spectre CPU design flaw exploits

Charles 9

Re: Fix C: Disable JavaScript

But isn't that exactly how they get you in drive-by attacks, poisoning "trusted" sites?

Charles 9

Re: Oh that's just great

"There can be no greater benefit to society than banishing ignorance."

Ever heard the phrase, "There are some things Man was not meant to know"?

Reinforcement learning woes, robot doggos, Amazon's homegrown AI chips, and more

Charles 9

Let me put it this way. Without a hands-on tutor, would a HUMAN who has never seen a hammer before get it right first time?

Charles 9

But maybe the robot has "preconceptions" of its own. It's "hands" may be harder but they're still probably too delicate to drive a nail directly. It either needs to use the hammer or possess some alternate implement.

Arrrgh! Put down the crisps! 'Ultra-processed' foods linked to cancer!

Charles 9

Re: I can understand why highly processed food correlates with some increased cancer risk.

They'll have to be QUICK, too, as some people have to eat on the run. Time is money to them, and they have bills to pay.

Charles 9

Re: Web surevy

Oh, like the "Panda B" test?

PS. Have to wonder if anyone's dared to make a drug named Panda B just to throw a wrench into those surveys...

Charles 9

"Just don't try that in a Dutch oven."

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a kind of bread you could make in a Dutch oven. Depends on the recipe and the specifics of the pot.

Charles 9

20 minutes is a lot to a person working a crapload just to pay the bills. To them, 5 minutes is a lot, let alone 20, especially when they're running red lights to get to the C-store for that last beer before lockdown because it's the only moment in your day you can buy it, and you need it to get those precious few hours of sleep before the cycle begins all over again. I'm reminded of that lyric, "Stolen moments of your life were all you had to give."

Bloke sues Microsoft: Give me $600m – or my copy of Windows 7 back

Charles 9

"I think a halfway decent lawyer could actually make the case that Microsoft violated the law"

Applicable question being, "WHAT law?"

Charles 9

Re: Whaddya mean: "suffice to say"??????

There's no such thing as "inherently secure" because there's no such thing as "secure," full stop. Even formally-proven software has scope limits (seL4, for example, breaks its proof if DMA is enabled). Man is imperfect, meaning anything made BY man is imperfect (even well-behaved software can trigger a hardware fault, intentionally or not).

Charles 9

Re: KB2952664 rears ugly head again

I'm waiting for them to include GWX or Big Brother in a Critical update, forcing a Morton's Fork on everyone: either submit or be pwned.

Charles 9

For a long time, they've been of the mind that Linux users are trying to secretly run cheats. Basically a case of they can't vouch for the environment since the kernel may not be pristine. This may have changed more recently, but in many instances playing games on WINE is a serious case of YMMV, especially if the game is newer.

FCC inspector general sticks corruption probe into chairman Ajit Pai amid $4bn media merger

Charles 9

Re: Boiling point

Except this time around the hat's only been rising gradually, allowing people to get used to it the way a frog gets used to a slowly-heating pot.

Charles 9

And I take it a direct suit against the FCC or Pai personally won't go anywhere?

We already give up our privacy to use phones, why not with cars too?

Charles 9

Re: TripTax.com - how to speed up traffic on the cheap

It DOES need infrastructure in the form of the tax-farmers. How do you keep them honest, for example? Remember, NOTHING that is done by man can EVER be made simple for the simple reason that people CHEAT. It's human nature.

Waddawewant? Free video codecs! When do we... oh, look, the last MPEG-2 patent expired!

Charles 9

Re: Fees

USB3 adds two dedicated high-speed data lines to the spec. I think he's saying the protocol to use those data lines is based on the Firewire spec.

Yes, Assange, we'll still nick you for skipping bail, rules court

Charles 9

No, because they could read through the application and realize the US is lying through its teeth, meaning ANY attempt to extradite Assange, based on their own words, is going to be political by default. Plus, about the only charge they could realistically pin on Assange is espionage (which is again potential capital). IOW, you're claiming Sweden is stupid.

Huawei claims national security is used as plausible excuse for 'protectionism'

Charles 9

Re: National Security - Protectionism

It's also a simple fact of life that few people actually have skills to do it themselves properly. Meaning you're forced into trusting someone in a world where few can be trusted. Very shaky ground there, especially if you're SO paranoid you're in DTA Mode.