6001

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Pandemic Alert!

« on: October 11, 2014, 05:02:19 AM »

Aren't bacteria part of the immune system?

Of course not. It's all vitamin C.

6002

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: October 10, 2014, 03:46:10 AM »

Agnostics don't believe in God, but they also don't believe in the absence of God. Atheists subscribe to the belief that God does not exist, in addition to not holding the belief that God exists.

Yeah, no. This is a common mistake propagated by religious people, possibly because it lets them use convenient tactics like "but you can't prove that there is no god!"

Atheism is the rejection of the belief in the existence of any deities, but it does not make any assertion about the non-existence of gods either. A person holds the belief or makes the claim that no deities exist is an antitheist, or a gnostic atheist.

An agnostic is a person who acknowledges that they cannot be certain of their position on theism, as there is no real evidence to conclude god or no god, while a gnostic would make a claim that they know their position is correct. An agnostic may be a theist, atheist, or antitheist (or anything else).

(A)gnosticism is essentially independent of (a)theism.

6003

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Anime thread

« on: October 07, 2014, 07:43:44 PM »

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (usually translated as So Long, Mr. Despair, at least when it comes to the anime) is pretty much the only animu you'll ever need to watch. (´・ω・`)

6004

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Explain AWT Please

« on: October 04, 2014, 09:06:32 PM »

Well, I've given several chances to stop the "wall of text" replies. I see that you've only worsened your responses. I'm sorry to say that your meaningless ramblings don't earn my further attention.

I'm going to have to ask you to keep your posts on topic. Asking a number of pretentious questions and then complaining that you don't like long, thorough answers is something that should go on your personal blog. If you'd like to start one, the Livejournal community often assumes a style similar to yours, so you may find yourself at home.

Please bear in mind that, much like with your other "this should go on your blog" threads, we will be moving this to AR unless you start taking your own thread seriously.

6005

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: October 04, 2014, 09:03:31 PM »

And it appears that the Moderators tend to  be a little sensitive on this forum when it comes to perceived insults.

Sensitive? We've literally ignored your shit for months.

6006

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: October 02, 2014, 10:14:31 AM »

2 days is a bit soft, isn't it?

If it doesn't work, subsequent bans will get bigger.

6007

Technology & Information / Re: Introducing Windows 10

« on: October 02, 2014, 10:06:32 AM »

Still doesn't beat the jump from 3.11 to 95.

Now that they've adopted Chrome's rapid release schedule, we'll get to see what happens after they've hit 94 pretty soon.

6008

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Ask a Jew anything.

« on: October 02, 2014, 10:00:58 AM »

My only response to that is, go fuck yourself. If the UN wasn't such a hypocritical fucking joke that needed to be abolished straightaway, Israel would be judged in the right 90% of the time. I used your much vaunted international law to prove a point, and make you look stupid, and I succeeded. Ultimately, I believe that the UN and the ICC should be abolished and their buildings incinerated, preferably with the members still in them. So like I said, go fuck yourself.

Hey, Yaakov, remember this?

Yaakov, please keep the personal insults out of your posts. You're welcome to think that Thork/Saddam/everyone is a terrible sub-human, and you're welcome to express these views in Angry Ranting and Complete Nonsense, but this is not something that will be allowed in the upper fora. You've been warned about this before by Junker and you've clearly ignored it, so next time we're gonna have to start handing out short bans.

I'm sorry, but I feel that we've already pushed the line quite far by being so patient with you. Two-day ban it is.

6009

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Secure Connections

« on: October 01, 2014, 04:13:23 PM »

Let's just hope that the notorious hacker 4chan doesn't hack us in the meantime.

But I'm already here.

6010

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Responsible suicide

« on: September 29, 2014, 05:50:42 PM »

Can we please try to stay on topic? This thread is not about whether or not suicide is right, or whether or not it should be committed. The topic is: given that a person is committing suicide, what could they do to diminish the impact of it?

6011

Technology & Information / Re: Glad I don't have a Linux thingy

« on: September 28, 2014, 05:31:56 AM »

Arguably, the bug is that function imports are a thing. The idea that you can have code automagically imported from data, especially data as unpredictable as the environment, is just wrong, and I'm not aware of anybody ever actually making use of it. The correct fix would be to remove that functionality entirely; yes, it's an API change, but it's such a broken API that this is one of the very rare cases where that would be appropriate.

See, I'm in two minds about that. I'm also unaware of anyone actually using this functionality, but I'm always wary of removing something that's already there. Because of that, I wouldn't necessarily call it "the correct fix", but rather "a very reasonable trade-off".

6012

Technology & Information / Re: Glad I don't have a Linux thingy

« on: September 28, 2014, 04:43:56 AM »

Also, I just noticed this wonderful piece of FUD in Arse Technica's article:

As a result, the attacker can run programs with the same level of access as the part of the system launching a bash shell. And in the case of a web server, that's practically the same level of access as an administrator, giving the attacker a way to gain full control of the targeted system.

No. It doesn't. If you run your web server as root, you have much more serious problems to deal with than "shellshock". I find it funny that Parsifal had already mentioned this before we saw the article:

Best case scenario, they get in via a web server (you don't run your web server as root, right?)

6013

Technology & Information / Re: Glad I don't have a Linux thingy

« on: September 28, 2014, 04:36:51 AM »

A new category of bugs in shells? It's not like the shell is something no one ever used, ever. I can understand one bug flying under the radar, but a whole category seems like a bit much.

No, it doesn't. This is generally how security vulnerabilities work. Someone comes up with a brand new approach that no one else thought of, and, to everyone's surprise, it turns out that no one else thought of it.

6014

Technology & Information / Re: Glad I don't have a Linux thingy

« on: September 28, 2014, 03:44:49 AM »

Are you sure about that?

Norihiro Tanaka, a Japanese open-source developer, noted the problem in an e-mail to the bug-bash list today. By using an environmental variable called cat—the same name as a Unix utility that can concatenate files—he was able to bypass the fixes in the latest bash patch and pass through executable commands.

Yes, I'm quite sure that the original bug has been fixed. The fact that other bugs exist is irrelevant.

We've discovered a new category of potential bugs in shells. Yes, you're gonna see a couple of them. If you're going to think they're one and the same bug, chances are you have more serious security problems than bash.

6015

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Responsible suicide

« on: September 27, 2014, 08:53:24 AM »

I find it interesting that I'm actually more concerned about the practical ramifications of my suicide than emotional ones.

I'm concerned about both. I don't really separate them in my mind, so I don't think of one as more problematic than the other.

6016

Technology & Information / Re: Glad I don't have a Linux thingy

« on: September 26, 2014, 05:55:05 AM »

Us Windows people will just sit on the side lines and see how this one plays out.

Got fixed in hours. Also was hardly serious to begin with. Another victory for freedom!

Also, I am now ultra safe:

6017

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Responsible suicide

« on: September 26, 2014, 05:52:36 AM »

To those of you who argue about the rationality of such a decision: I do personally agree that it's irrational. It's usually emotion-driven, sometimes fueled by instability, and rarely by a careful analysis of pros and cons. Of course, exceptions to that exist (and are probably more numerous than they get credit for), but it's a fair enough generalisation to make.

That said, western society currently claims to believe in a person's freedom to make their own decisions, rational or not. Because of that, I don't think we should focus on preventing suicide, but merely on ensuring that it doesn't screw with other people. Now, I'm fully aware that this approach has many fundamental flaws and couldn't be implemented as-is. If it were, we'd probably see chains of suicide, with one person discovering the other and, in the heat of the moment, also committing suicide. I certainly don't have all the answers here, but I do firmly believe that "it's irrational" is not a showstopper.

Many thanks to those who weighed in on the subject so far. While reading more (which, admittedly, is mostly restricted to shitty niche blogs, since the subject turns out to be somewhat taboo), I discovered a point of contention: suicide notes. Some argued that they should be thorough in explaining one's decision and trying to make sure that nobody's left with haunting questions and a feeling of self-blame; others suggested that such a note may be read by people long after one's death and bring back some haunting or traumatising memories. I'm not sure where I stand on that, but I think I'd be leaning towards the long and thorough note.

6018

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Responsible suicide

« on: September 25, 2014, 07:09:51 AM »

Why is this in complete nonsense?

I didn't quite know where to put this. I went for CN because we expect people not to post here unless they accept that they may end up being offended. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious.

6019

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Responsible suicide

« on: September 25, 2014, 05:10:20 AM »

I don't think any rational person wants to kill themself. We all inherently know there's nothing after this. No matter what made up bullshit you want to believe to make yourself feel better. Why would one choose nothing over, say, video games? C'mon now. That's just silly.

I agree that it's an irrational decision for one to make. That said, people make irrational decisions all the time.

Does life insurance cover suicide? Sirus question.

It varies between companies. Many won't cover it at all, some won't cover it if it happens shortly after getting a policy.

6020

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Responsible suicide

« on: September 25, 2014, 04:48:51 AM »

Before I begin, please note that this thread is gonna be pretty grim. It will likely contain content that some may find particularly offensive or "triggering". If you suspect you might be one of those people, I'd like to suggest you move along.

I'll cut the crap. It is my personal belief that a person has the right to end their lives if they so desire. No one else should have a say on that person's decision unless the person in question specifically welcomes it. This, however, raises a number of issues. It would be selfish to think that one's suicide doesn't affect their immediate environment. It means work for some, potential trauma for others, and is generally messy and unelegant. Some people will be left with questions, others might blame themselves needlessly.

So, FES, what would you do to minimise the impact of your suicide?