Bleargh...

[silveradept]

...I'm tired. The eight-hour shifts take their toll on you. At least I had entertaining conversation and jokes to keep my spirits up for the lulls in between work. Managed to get into a parts-of-speech alliteration battle, which was fun.

Detailed information on the Sept. 11th attacks is now available, thanks to the National Security Archive's successful Freedom of Information Act request. Now there's some source analysis to do - maybe we can get a better picture of what really happened.

Mother prostitutes her daughter because of fear of losing her boyfriend. Mom offers her daughter, boyfriend takes her up on it, and the kid seems perfectly happy to go along with it. Were the kid of the age of consent, there would probably be a little less fuss about it. Especially since the kid would have been able to agree to it - I don't know whether the contract would have brought out a prostitution charge or not.

How one could create the United States of Israel - I think that the idea of the U.S. of I is a bit of a misnomer. It seems more like a checklist for creating an Imperial colony out of another nation - making a banana republic in the Mideast. Which isn't going to happen, really. As much as people might think of Israel as a U.S. puppet, they're not. Nor will they ever be. With the way things are going, I might almost conjecture the reverse, that the U.S. is dancing to Israel's tune. (See how well that sits with people who think we're the greatest country in the world because we can push everybody else around.)

Once again, we prove that the government does not have a sense of humor. Especially when there are terrists around. They'd probably take an article like "Routing Around the Problem", which provides examples of how one could theoretically get things on a plane (if one were that determined to do so), in a very serious manner. Which it is, I suppose, but I would expect them to over-react and start trying to pull off the "masks" of wrinkled peoples.

In the "Oh, yay" department, U.S. Passports will now contain smart chips, despite security issues. I'd really rather they ironed the bugs out and were sure, and could get that independently confirmed, before they include it. Encryption's nice, but unless these things somehow can use super-strong encryption all on their own, then it won't do much. And someone could theoretically steal the decryption key (or something like it) by hanging around those places where the smart chip would react.

Averaging Gradius - taking runs through one level and seeing how they all play out. By doing so, it actually reveals some interesting material about the game itself and the styles of the people playing it. Wonder how that would work with an FPS like Quake.

Making the power of propaganda/advertising work for you, or "magick for materialists". It uses the principle of the Big Lie to bring about a truth. Isn't that fun? Lying to yourself until you believe it, and then it becomes true.

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Woo, my passport does'nt expire for 9 more years, I'm good. Might I reccomend applying for your passport now, before these new changes go into effect?


The woman selling her daughter is an intersting tale. I realize they arrested the woman for doing it, but the kid signed the contract too. And if a parent signs a contract with a minor, it's binding, so I wonder if her lawyer will try to go that route? I don't think she should be able to get away with it, but I'm sure there is a lawyer out there who will try to get her off on the fact that she gave "parental consent". But really, if you're THAT worried that your boyfried will go elsewhere because you are recouperating in the hospital, maybe you ought to examine the realtionship a bit closer.

I'm not really sure what good it does to the public to read the FAA flight path information from 9/11. I mean, yay for not keeping it a secret, but who really wants to read that stuff at this stage? Speaking of 9/11 and all that - I was at the craft store today and beleive it or not they have scrapbook stickers for NYC trips that include a puffy sticker that says "Ground Zero" on it in a funky font (reminded me of acidic, if youhave that one). i just don't think I could ever scrapbook something like Ground Zero and then use a sticker about it. Wait, wait. someone entered scrapbook pages of ground zero (http://www.scrapstop.com/layouts.php?op=layoutdetails&layout=1231&user=1855&cat=&mode=&start=0) in a contest. I was trying to find the sticker to link you to...found it. (http://www.joann.com/catalog.jhtml?CATID=95022&PRODID=168377)

I can think of a lot of ways to try to smuggle things onto a plane, but I'm not sure about being able to get away with it. I mean, if airport officials aren't afraid to ask Aretha Franklin to strip down to her bra at security, what's to say they wouldn't start strip searching "suspicious" people?

[rimspace.livejournal.com]

Wonder how that would work with an FPS like Quake.

Actually, I'm not at all sure it'd be as tricky as the article makes out it'd be to do it for most FPS games - if only because, when you strip everything away, they're mostly linear affairs with a constrained set of resources ay your disposal - it's more complex than something like Gradius because you theoretically have 3 dimensions rather than 2, but I still think it'd be possible to at least obtain some information from studying the methods several players use to get past a section of the game.

[silveradept]

Plus, the ability of those kinds of games to record machinima demos, along with speedrun movies like Quake done Quick(er) (with a Vengeance) that show off some ways of really exploiting speed, you could probably get a very interesting average.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) When you turn the sexual responsibility of the child over to the parents/guardians, what else do you expect? *disgust*

[silveradept]

Responsibiilty, really. And there will always be people who aren't responsible enough to run their own lives, much less care for another's. So there will be stories like these happening. I just hope they're always few and far between. I fear that they aren't.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Responsibility goes both ways. If you're responsible for your own wellfare, then it means that you're free to do what you want with it, and people can't interfere to save you from yourself. If you're responsible for a thing you do, then you're the one that chooses whether or not you do it. Once you claim that someone can't be responsible for that action, once you give that responsibility to a different person, that person is then the one with the freedom to decide when and how it should be done. It's basic slavery, justified by the aid in living given and moralisations about age and experience required for responsibility. Without the agreement that someone can help another, deal with another, but not steal the freedoms of another and claim justification without the need to ask forgiveness later, all you have is raw injustice. That ugliness results is no surprise.

[silveradept]

And for those who truly can't handle their own responsibility, or started their lives in such a state? What then? The arbitrary age of adulthood confers responsibility, whether one is truly capable of it or not. Is it part of one's responsibility to know whether one is responsible or not?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Ideally, yes. Assuming one's ward's responsibilities may be a necessary evil... hah, listen to me. 'necessary evil'. No. Leave all humans to themselves, let only the strongest survive... that could work, even from infancy.

But I can see why it doesn't. Anyway, help is needed, but... restriction. That's the difficult part. *sighs*

*taps fingers on keyboard without pressing keys, meditatively*

If someone willingly hands their responsibilities to another, then let them. If someone refuses to do so, then others have no justifiable right to take their freedoms from them by force. While communication is impossible, it can be forgiven for someone else to take that person's responsibilities without consent. That is not to say that it will be forgiven, but it can be forgiven.

If a person is able to communicate and refuses to hand over their responsibilities, then even if they can't 'handle' them, if they are willing to at least bear them, then let them.

'And it harm none, do what thou wilt.', first and foremost to oneself. I reserve the right to be harmlessly weird. I reserve the right to kill myself. I have no right to infringe on another's freedoms, to take on another's responsibilities, without consent. If someone does not give consent for others to assume that person's responsibilities, they have no right to interfere with even self-destruction. They may do so anyway, but that doesn't make it any less wrong. If the person in question forgives them their tresspass at a later time, that excuses it, but in the case of a person of sound mind who is adamant, without knowing the outcome it cannot be excused.

(Strange thing: plug 'adamant' into Google, and in the middle of the page is a section titled 'See results for: dictionary'.)

Responsibility is not something that one is capable of, that one passes or fails at. You speak of it being conferred, but there's nothing 'conferred' that has not be stolen in the first place. Responsibility for oneself and/or one's actions is simply the freedom to do as one wishes and live with the consequences [Edit: or not, as the case may be: just to suffer the consequences, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, or of any sort], cases where others are disadvantaged by this aside.

All of the (applicable) above also applies to sexual conduct, assuming that any other participants are consenting.


That said, most of it is idealism about how a society's legal system would work in practice. The truth is, everyone already has these rights, these responsibilities, but society pretends that they don't, and so takes action against those who don't deserve it because of what they've said. I personally think the whole system is crocked, but in the meantime until I get the chance to do something about it it relieves anger for me to rage a little about its hypocrisy.

Forget the 'harm none'... that's just a societal construct, and not even applicable to the current state of the world. The responsibility to do as you choose and suffer whatever consequences result (*goes back and edits earlier phrase* Though 'suffer' is used, the consequences being 'pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, or of any sort'.): that's something is wholly a part of existence that it cannot be separated from it. To state it is a tautology. To state otherwise is ridiculous, or trapped within a blinkered box of human making.

Those who try to worm their way out of their own responsibility for their choices are contemptible.

But, I'm straying off-topic.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) At the most basic level, though, we're all just floating atoms. Anything built upon that is nothing but sophistry, and it's tricky to keep from slipping between the levels.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

as a side, I really dislike kids who say stuff like "Ok, I'm 18. i'm an adult! Treat me like one!" uhm, no. Being treated like an adult is something you *earn*

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, there are cases like this that go one all the time. I think I studied a good two dozen or so cases where the mother basically pimped out her daughter so she'd have money, or so she wouldn't lose her boyfreind...or even dad's pimping their girls out to their friends for a little extra money. Some people are just idiots and ought to not be parents at all.