Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 September 5

= September 5 =

Help me find the US Federal Financial Aid's fine print.
I tried looking, and was under the impression that it would be a 5-10+-page sea of text, but have found no such pages so far. This would not only concern the federal student loans, but also the Pell and other federal grants (SEOG, et al.) from the US Department of Education.

If I can find and pore through the fine print of their forms of financial aid, I could find some clauses that may make a difference. But I just need to find the official fine print, which a simple Google search couldn't produce.

And why is this fine print so elusive anyway? Hopefully I can settle the issue for the last time. --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:4071:ECB9:F7C6:D053 (talk) 00:21, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Would anyone like to contribute to my talk page?
I recently posted a new topic on my talk page called Waiting for responses. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Keeby101#Waiting_for_responses... I do not know exactly where else to turn. I hope I am not bothering anyone asking this question, but I do need help! Regards. Keeby101 (talk) 05:54, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I know what you mean. I also get fed up with the lack of responses to queries or suggestions I post on talk pages.  I advise you to just be bold and make your changes. --Viennese Waltz 07:39, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Your own talk page is for others to talk to you. So posting a question on your own talk page is talking to yourself.  The place to find enthusiasts for a topic is a project page.  So I suggest you ask on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology. But articles on sloths sound fine to me. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:51, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * He didn't post a question on his own talk page, he posted it at Talk:Sasanian Empire. --Viennese Waltz 09:05, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Should I go to WikiProject Former countries or WikiProject Iran for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sasanian_Empire#Recommendations_to_Map_workshop_team ? Keeby101 (talk) 13:42, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You could check which one is more active based on the recent comments on the talk page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:13, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Would anyone like to help reach a consensus on the Sasanian Empire talk page?
I am not spamming here. I should have gone here on regards to this topic in the first place. I hope this is the right place to ask this question. Recently I have posted a new topic on the Sasanian Empire talk page on regards to the map in the infobox. (I also posted on the talk pages of other users who visit the talk page of the article to try to get a response from them. Until I realized that I unwittingly was spamming. In all honesty I had no idea what I was doing and I was getting desperate. I went here having no where else to turn to.) :(

I made a request on the Map Workshop for the cartographers to make a new map of the Sasanian Empire in this format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chasaren.jpg. Further details about this topic are on the Sasanian Empire talk page. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sasanian_Empire#Recommendations_to_Map_workshop_team

Would anyone like to contribute to the topic? You can either agree or disagree with the recommendations that have been proposed. Regards. :) Keeby101 (talk) 06:08, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Nevermind. Already been told what to do about this on the topic above.. :) Keeby101 (talk) 13:58, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Wages
There is a part time job, and it's 4 hours a week for 34 weeks a year. The salary is £13,500 (pro rata). The pro rata bit confuses me. I looked at our article on it, but I'm still not really sure. If I work for one year, is it:

£13500/(34weeks*4hours) = £99/hour

(£13500/52weeksayear*4hours)*(34weeks) = £65/hour

(£13500/52weeksayear*40usualworkingweek) = £6.5/hour   ?

Basically, I don't know if I would actually get 13,500 a year, or if that's calculated only if it were a normal working week or something. Thanks 143.210.206.217 (talk) 07:20, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The last one is how I would interpret it, and also it is more likely for an unqualified job and just above to the UK minimum wage per hour for over 21s (£6.31). --Lgriot (talk) 07:37, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks! I only applied for the job because of the wonderfully high wage of £99 an hour, but then I realised later that maybe that's not how it works. Thanks again 143.210.206.217 (talk) 07:41, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I make it to be £6.50 an hour, based on 40 hours x 50 weeks = £13,500.DOR (HK) (talk) 08:00, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, "pro rata" is widely used in UK Local Government to make the salary sound much bigger than it really is. The quoted salary is what you would get if you worked full-time.  At worst-case (based on a 40-hour week and 52.142857 weeks in a year) it is equivalent to only £6.47 (and a farthing) per hour.  You would, however, by law, be entitled to "pro-rata" paid holiday (defined by contract with a legal minimum) which improves the rate per actual hour worked.    D b f i r s   13:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * UK holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks paid leave per year (up to 28 days if you work more than days a week), which includes any bank holidays (i.e. if you would normally be scheduled to work all bank holidays, but the office is shut, you get 21 days).  As a rough estimate, it adds a bit over 10% to the hourly wage. MChesterMC (talk) 14:52, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Does the nature of the work make it seem likely that they'd be paying £99 or £65/hour? Those kinds of part time jobs would be something like a specialist consultant on a high-risk project requiring a ton of qualifications and skills and the short hours would imply brief consultations on difficult technical matters with someone else doing the actual grunt work.  It's more common for those kinds of jobs to either be a fixed total contract amount - or to be paid by the hour without any specific number of hours assigned (although, perhaps with a minimum and maximum amount).  But if this is a mid- to low-skilled job then the £6.50/hour interpretation seems much more reasonable. SteveBaker (talk) 15:37, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * A week's work would bring in £26, less some tax (and maybe NI). It is a little above the adult minimum wage of £6.19/hour in the UK.  Astronaut (talk) 19:33, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Tax would be payabale only if you had another better-paying job or declared income, and there would be no NI on such a low-paying part-time job. Our article on minimum wage has last year's figure.  I'll update it to this year's £6.31.    D b f i r s   20:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your answers! It's just a part time job at University. And £99/hour sounds like a lot, but I reasoned that maybe £13.5k is the minimum the University pays people, regardless of the job or working hours, as that's a basic amount someone could live off for a year. But you were all correct in that it is just the £6.50/hour, so I cancelled the interview. Thanks :) 86.17.119.120 (talk) 00:53, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Centre for Aviation (CAPA) question
I'm a frequent visitor to the website of an aviation think-thank called Centre for Aviation or CAPA. One thing I've noticed is that the tone of several of their analyses seem to favor low-cost carriers, and that several analyses of theirs about LCCs seem to lean towards being positive while their analyses about legacy carriers tend to seem to sound neutral to negative (of course not all of their analyses are like that, but many of the analyses I've read seem to be like that). Knowing the current economic conditions, I'm aware that LCCs usually perform better financially than legacy carriers, but why does it seem, based on my readings of their analyses, that the site seems to write more favorably about LCCs than legacy carriers and even seems to support the former? 125.212.121.16 (talk) 11:45, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It's hard to know what's in people's minds - and "bias" is often in the eyes of the beholder (as anyone who has edited controversial articles on Wikipedia will attest!). "Follow the Money" is a good mantra here.  I would ask yourself who funds this think-tank.  Is it perhaps funded by LCC's or some other special-interest group?  (I don't know - but it's the first thing I'd ask when suspecting bias.) SteveBaker (talk) 15:28, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Reliable source
Working on an article and hit on this Bono has tinnitus, which has a reference http://members.fortunecity.com/nrbq1/tinnitus.html. I wanted to make sure that was a reliable source. Thanks. Miss Bono  [zootalk]  15:03, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Not remotely!


 * I just tried your link and it doesn't work. "members.fortunecity.com" seems to be uncontactable (http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com confirms that).  That may be a temporary situation - but we try to avoid linking to unreliable sites because that makes it hard for our readers to verify that we represented the information correctly. (FortuneCity switched from a free web hosting service to a paid hosting model - and also changed it's name to "Dotster" - it's very possible that the "nrbq1" site that you're referring to has "gone away" or moved to a new URL because of that.)


 * The WP:RS "Reliable Sources" guideline is the bible here - you should read it carefully. It says "...self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable."...and something on a free hosting service like FortuneCity has to be regarded with deep suspicion.


 * You should probably contact the person who wrote that page where they got their information - perhaps you can track this back to it's source.


 * More importantly, you're describing a medical condition of a living person and Wikipedia is very strict about biographical articles about living persons. (See the WP:BLP guidlines). Saying things that might imply that Bono's hearing is imperfect and therefore his musical ability might be degraded could easily be construed as an attack on him.  That would place Wikipedia (and yourself) in a dangerous legal situation if that information were not VERY carefully attributed.  On that basis, I don't think you can mention this without extremely solid references - and preferably more than one of them.  What you have here seems far, far too flimsy for that.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

No Steve, I didn't add it, it's more like I wanted to remove it from the first time I saw it!. Read Tinnitis. I don't want to get into troubles. Please help!  Miss Bono  [zootalk]  16:06, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Then you should Be Bold - remove the entry immediately with a "SEE TALK PAGE!" edit summary - then on the talk page, explain that the only reference to this fact has "gone away" - and that without a valid reference, this entry was a clear breach of WP:BLP - so you removed it until a reliable source can be found. SteveBaker (talk) 16:53, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I removed the entry... and in the edit summary I added unreliable source. I am going to add something at the talk page.   Miss Bono  [zootalk]  17:04, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I was able to dig up the original article on "The Wayback Machine" - it's a long list of individuals whom it claims have tinnitus - but in most cases, it makes the claim without references - and has a generic "sources: websites, news, radio, newspapers, newsgroups, magazines, published interviews, alt.support.tinnitus, talk radio, ATA, tinnitus discussion forums, tinnitus support message board " statement - which pretty much amounts to "we heard this someplace - don't remember where"! So it's certainly not a good source.  However, of Bono, it says "Bono - U2 lead singer, he even sings about it in his lyrics. Bono derived his name from a hearing aid store in his hometown of Dublin, Ireland which had a sign that read 'Bonavox Hearing Aids'."...and as backup says: "U2 - Staring At The Sun - ...There's an insect in your ear, if you scratch it won't disappear, its gonna itch and burn and sting, you wanna see what the scratching brings...waves that leave me out of reach, breaking on your back like a beach, will we ever live in peace? as those that can't do, often have to preach, to the ones, staring at the sun..."...but (a) this hardly constitutes a concise description of tinnitus, (b) it isn't clear that Bono wrote that lyric, (c) it's not clear that it was autobiographical in nature, and (d) tinnitus is frequently temporary in nature - and he might no longer have this condition.


 * There is always a risk with sites like that: It's perfectly possible that they got their information from the very Wikipedia article we're trying to find sources for - which means that there is a circular dependency and nobody has solid information! This could easily have been a fan of Bono's hearing those song lyrics and putting 2 and 2 together to make 5.  That said, it's perfectly possible (perhaps even likely) that this is a true fact - but if we don't know for sure then (especially in the case of WP:BLP) we must err on the side of saying nothing.


 * So, yeah - not a good reference. SteveBaker (talk) 19:21, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh, I have just checked information for that song in the book U2 by U2 and Bono doesn't state that it is autobiog. I knew there was something wrong with that reference. Thank you very much Steve, I owe you another one!  Miss Bono  [zootalk]  19:26, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Opening hours for public toilets on the edge of Hyde Park
Are these public toilets on the edge of Hyde Park in London open 24 hours a day, and if not, what time do they close? I'm taking part in an overnight sponsored walk in a few weeks; there isn't a scheduled toilet stop for about 7 miles, but we do go right past this. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 16:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If it is a large event, the organisers might rent some Portaloos. Astronaut (talk) 19:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * According to this site (which is also available as a phone app) those particular toilets are open 10am to 6pm every day.--Shantavira|feed me 19:34, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Presumably the park has some trees? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:26, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what's gone wrong with you, Bugs, expressing the Republican notion that government is your servant, rather than the Democrat notion that you are the government's. If there's a stream along the route I would guess common law allows one to squat in it.  Although I also assume Brits pay taxes not to have to squat, and probably also pay taxes to defray the cost of their own arrest if they do so squat. μηδείς (talk) 03:29, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If you mean "Are we prepared to pay a small pittance to ensure that streams running though our public parkland do not become open sewers?" then the answer is an emphatic "Yes" - because we have a long enough social memory to know what London was like before we had those laws! See Tragedy of the commons for some background in why these kinds of social policy are needed. SteveBaker (talk) 14:06, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It is not OK to pollute a watercourse in a Royal Park.--Shantavira|feed me 11:10, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That's statutory law, not common law. Common sense mandates that public urinals be made available where public urination is undesirable. People regularly dumping their chamberpots in the street is slightly different from peeing in the stream in extremis. μηδείς (talk) 19:50, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not acceptable in the Serpentine, or generally in Britain. You have to nip into a pub or hold it in till you get home. "Arrest the pest who pissed so pointedly in that public place, pleaded the peeved pedestrians." (Bard of Salford) Itsmejudith (talk) 20:01, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * As I'm sure Medeis knows, the distinction between statutory law and common law in that way is a concept entirely invented for the astounding conspiracy theory often known as Freeman on the Land. I am delighted to see we have an article. 86.164.30.45 (talk) 20:17, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I should also point out that, under English law, public urination constitutes the offence of "outraging public decency" at common law. See Charlie Gilmour. Tevildo (talk) 23:41, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * We don't have an article on Charlie Gilmour? Hmm.  See this BBC article, then. Tevildo (talk) 23:43, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The fact that one can be charged with indecency if one acts indecently would not preclude a defense that one hid oneself well to do as nature called after hours in a place to which one had right of access. Indeed, one might bring suit against the municipality for not providing one with facilities.  It's entirely possible the magistrate's goal will be to bring in as much fine revenue as possible, rather than doing justice.  That's apolitical fact, not a legal principle. μηδείς (talk) 01:16, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you mean "apolitical fact" or "a political fact"? These mean opposite things. Should I not be assuming a parallel construction here? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:18, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The second. I saw the error, but figured my meaning was obvious and not worth re-editing, what with my itchy finger.  Not that I mind you asking. μηδείς (talk) 23:44, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, while I am at it, I once got an unjustified ticket for disorderly conduct. When I went to the court in Manhattan to contest it, there was an interesting procedure.  The judge called you up, charged you with disorderly conduct, public indecency, public urination, or with possession of marijuana or an open container of liquor.  If you pled guilty you were found guilty and charged $15.  If you pled innocent you were found guilty and charged $50.  The arresting officer in my case was a no-show, and I was denied the chance to plead not guilty. μηδείς (talk) 23:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * More of that curious American justice. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:58, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that Hyde Park itself is not open 24 hours a day - "5:00 am until midnight" according to the Royal Parks website. Alansplodge (talk) 08:13, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

A Wikipedian dies
How guys do you know when a Wikipedia has died? Like User:AaronSw.  Miss Bono  [zootalk]  19:46, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Generally, we don't. Someone may notify the community and those who have edited closely with them may also find out somehow. I those instances are rare. Editors come and go all the time; whether from death, disillusionment or distraction.Nanonic (talk) 20:18, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * thanks for the answer Nanonic.   Miss Bono  [zootalk]  20:22, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * See Deceased Wikipedians.—Wavelength (talk) 21:07, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Depending on how you count them, there are about 90,000 "active" Wikipedians - about half of whom are on English Wikipedia. With a typical US/UK/Australia death rate - we'd expect between 5 and 10 deaths per thousand per year - so there are probably 250 to 500 deaths of English-language wikipedians each year.  Deceased Wikipedians lists just a handful for each year...which isn't even scratching the surface.  There is a real problem around every online community in this regard.  Who closes facebook accounts?  Where do the rights to access Kindle books or iTunes songs go?  YouTube videos?  It will take a while for the world to come up with new approaches to this. SteveBaker (talk) 22:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * User:Franamax passed away and was memorialized here, but not at the link Wavelength gave. μηδείς (talk) 03:25, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * He's there—penultimate entry for 2012. Deor (talk) 08:04, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * A little quibble, Steve—those typical death rates likely include a high proportion of older people, whereas the Wikipedia population tends to be younger and more economically comfortable. So I would expect a lower death rate among Wikipedians. --BDD (talk) 04:30, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there are other considerations - 85% of Wikipedians are men - and we live less long than women, increasing the death rate. We also have that factor of two difference between the death rates in various english-speaking countries so you'd also have to factor in the percentage of each age/sex in each country, for which we don't have data. I'd also bet we have more couch-potatoes and fewer health nuts than the national average.  So it's a horribly complicated subject and basically, we just don't know.  Accept that this as the back-of-envelope calculation it's intended to be.  The point is that Wikipedians die (very roughly) every day.  It's not by any means the rare occurance that some might suspect - and without doubt our memorial page only credits perhaps 1% of active editors who died. SteveBaker (talk) 13:30, 7 September 2013 (UTC)


 * In AaronSw's case, his prosecution and suicide was also a very high-profile subject. If you're not familiar with him, here's our article: Aaron Swartz. I don&#39;t have a name (talk) 11:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I read the article yesterday, and I tried to understand his actions. He was a great person.  Miss Bono  [zootalk]  13:41, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I actually met him at a conference once - he was a fascinating guy. His one stupid mistake of hacking that machine meant that he was facing a 50 year prison term (which might as well be a life-sentence when you're in your 30's) and a million dollar fine...I think that in his situation, I'd have killed myself too.  The judicial system's reaction to hacking is totally out of all proportion to the magnitude of the crime.  A couple of years in jail without access to computers and a modest fine would be plenty to deter and punish people like this.  SteveBaker (talk) 13:30, 7 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Death and the Internet contains an interesting list of policies from different sites about how they deal with the death of a user. It says of Wikipedia: "Users who have made at least several hundred edits or are otherwise known for substantial contributions to Wikipedia can be noted at a central memorial page. Wikipedia user pages are ordinarily fully edit-protected after the user has died, to prevent vandalism." - but there is no indication of any way to know that it's happened.  This is perfectly reasonable because people leave all the time - and generally just abandon their accounts.  Wikipedia doesn't delete unused accounts - so they just accumulate.  If someone dies, either a friend or relative needs to communicate this fact to the admins - or perhaps a frequent or notable contributor may be missed by other editors when they suddenly vanish without an explanation of some kind.  In those situations, it's likely that someone here would send a personal email ("What's up?  Haven't heard from you for a while?  Is everything OK?") - and you'd hope that the survivors of the deceased person would be monitoring the email stream and handling such requests for information.
 * However, not all Wikipedians check the box to allow people to email them - and since everyone is encouraged to password-protect their accounts, it might be quite difficult for other family members to get access to their Wikipedia accounts or read that email - so even that isn't guaranteed.
 * Ideally, heavy Internet users should provide a means for family members to handle that - and perhaps to express their wishes for their accounts after their death. Sadly, I don't think many people have done that - and perhaps we should? SteveBaker (talk) 13:56, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I found out about Franamax after his sister told me. She knew we both edited Wikipedia. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 15:47, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Pictures of Swartz masked and unmasked, breaking into the MIT computer lab to steal millions of dollars worth of data are publicly available, as is discussion of his instability. Knowing people who have died (rather than killed themselves) for less, I don't think we need to be erecting yet another memorial.  I agree the charges against him carried ridiculous penalties--no one in the blasphemous NSA or the congress will suffer for their much greater crimes.  But one simply should not do the crime if not willing to serve the crime. μηδείς (talk) 00:18, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It's all in the interpretation. That "mask" is quite clearly a white bicycle helmet!  Was he hiding his face - or is this a still image clipped from a video where he was just in the act of removing his helmet?  The fact that he was shown "unmasked" later in the same video suggests that he wasn't trying to hide his identity from the cameras.  Did he break into that cabinet that "to steal millions of dollars worth of data" - or "to download JSTOR articles that can be freely downloaded by anyone with a JSTOR account" (eg any student at MIT or any of at the 100 Wikipedians - who were granted free JSTOR accounts)?   I'm betting he just entered that (unlocked) server room to get a higher bandwidth hard-wired connection than he could from the public WiFi in the room next door where he had a perfect right to be!  Hardly a masked thug breaking into a secure area to steal millions of dollars.  Was it unwise?  Yeah - definitely.  But 35 years in jail, a $1M fine, confiscation of all of his computers, hounded into suicide?  Hell no!  When I was in college, the most you'd have gotten for doing something that would have been a stern talking to by the Dean of Computing. SteveBaker (talk) 14:35, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Without wanting to get in to this sensitive discussion too much, it's worth remembering that although the headline maximum penalty may have been widely touted by both sides of the case, as per our article and AFAIK it's never been disputed that no one in the case ever seriously suggested the maximum penalty as a possiblity (and from what I can tell, nor did informed independent commentators no matter who they supported). It isn't of course uncommon that the maximum possible penalty can be quite high compared to what may be resonable for a certain case since the law may be intended to cover a variety of circumstances (and the question of how to appropriately legislate whether with a broad law and a wide range of penalties or a series of narrower laws is I presume not always a simple one with obviously greater complexity to having more laws but greater risk of abuse or unfairness from having too much discretion and unclarity) although maximum penalties for many things seem very high in the US to me anyway.
 * According to our article, the penalty being consider in that case if it went to trial was a 7 year jail term which may still seem excessive to many but is quite different from 35 years. By comparison (4 or) 6 months was offered for a guilty plea. Such a wide disparity is controversial as our article mention as it seems to place high pressure on the defendant to plead guilty which they were reluctant to do apparently at least partially because they felt they didn't deserve to be labelled a felon or possibly face jail time (which is obviously their right).
 * While much criticism some of it likely deserved has been put on the hands of the prosecutors and those supporting the case, you also have to wonder whether the pressure from people on the other side to 'fight an unjust law/case' etc didn't help given the magnitude (fair or not) of what they were facing and perhaps the difficulties that created reconciling their world view with that of the converse.
 * As for Wnt's point below, it's worth remembering that for every cause célèbre, there's often probably 10 or even 100 more that few people have ever heard of but involve losely similar circumstances simply without the high publicity. Which can be good since as suggested it may not have been good for the person's mental state in this case and in some cases the publicity may make a prosecutor or whoever wanting to use it as an example or unwilling to compromise. Or can be bad e.g. if there really was a $1 million fine here which I don't think was ever proposed, it seems he could have gotten a fair amount of help with it, and someone without the publicity would be much more on their own; and in some cases it may also mean there is less help offered and recognition of the unresonableness or unfairness or the case. Either way the main point is just because it's the only one you're aware of doesn't mean it's unique (thats one reason to aim for fair laws and a good system).
 * Nil Einne (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that attitude is outdated. We see all too often that people are randomly picked out for these huge and unjustifiable prosecutions (Justin Carter, for example).  There is no real moral or even that much of an operational difference between that kind of a law and the kind that is enforced by other governments against people like Salman Rushdie or Theo van Gogh.  In these days, everything from law to war has entered the supersymmetric state of terrorism.  When we look at editorials like the American politicans and newspapers calling for the death of Assad or Snowden, we realize how mainstream terrorism really is, and how irrelevant anything else has become to the political process.  Where it gets interesting, however, is that occasionally an angry protest from government reminds us that terrorism can be non-violent, indeed legal, yet still be just as effective, and indeed, just as deadly. Wnt (talk) 06:37, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

A thousand years from now there are people interested in digital archeology who are reading this very thread. They can easily see when each of us here made their final contribution. If you accept eternalism, then these people in the future are as real as we are today. So, from their perspective we are long dead and burried, but from our perspective they have yet to be born. Both perspectives are equally real, there doesn't exist a "real absolute now" that points out which perspective is real and which is not. Count Iblis (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2013 (UTC)