Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

Here's a link for you all:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Whit es_to_lose_jobs_to_ethnic_minorities_und er_UK_law/articleshow/3169018.cms

I can't imagine this leading to a more integrated workplace. It seems to me that it'll end up dividing workplaces further, as women and minorities receive preferential treatment for jobs and promotions.

Saw this on the news earlier, over here in the UK the Government is passing a new equality bill which includes legislation to promote 'positive' discrimination in favour of women and ethnic minorities, in order to boost representation of these groups in many top areas.

What the hell? I know there's been a leaning toward this sort of thing, but never at my most cynical did I imagine they'd outright legislate this.
Firstly, this artificial tampering is every bit as unfair as the perceived imbalance it means to negate. Does it matter if a particular company doesn't have ethnic percentages accurately mirroring the community? Does it matter if there are currently less women in a particular branch of government?
Workers employed by a company are there to do a job; they are not there to represent their portion of the community. Self-interest alone dictates that companies will employ those from the applicant pool who are most able to do the job. If this means that there are a few less blacks than you might expect in department X of company Y, then what of it?
The simple fact of the matter is, discrimination based on a person's attributes not relating to their suitability for a role is unfair, it is stupid, and it is damaging.
Sorry, I've not found any good links for this just yet, I'll keep my eye out.

At 6/26/08 05:59 AM, Durin413 wrote: How about this. The man has until 2 weeks prior to the latest possible legal abortion date OR 1 month after being informed of the pregnancy, whichever occurs later (possibly after child-birth) to decide whether or not he wants to financially abort the child (and thereby give up all rights to it). Proof of informing the man would require a contract, or something else that needs to be signed by the potential father, and than notarized. In the event that a woman claims that the man refused to acknowledge the pregnancy, the police will have the power to bring forth the acknowledgment to the man, in a manner similar to reading someone their miranda rights. If the man wishes to contest whether or not he is the father, he may undergo a DNA test. If found that he is not the father, than the man is free to go. If he is the father, he still has to fit within the time limit (in the event that the contest CANNOT (not because the father wants to delay it) occur at least 2 weeks before deadline, additional time would be granted for the man to decide if he is indeed the father (up to 1 week).

The deadline of 2 weeks before abortion potential gives the woman the ability to react, wheras the 1 month after learning makes sure the man doesnt get unexpectedly shafted.

I like the thinking here, the principle of the matter ensures choice on both sides. You'd probably need to think through every concievable situation before implementing though; try to make the policies as tight as possible to minimise one party's ability to screw the other one over.
To contribute, a friend of mine is going through an awkward situation with his ex, where she's essentially trying to sue for child support on a child that he's certain isn't his (as in, he wasn't in the country during the time the kid could have been conceived in). He's got the right to a paternity test before child support can declare the kid his, but other than that the power's completely with her. It's especially frustrating watching how a lot of people side with her, just because "hurrrrr deadbeat dad flaking on responsibility hurrrr". No-one seems to acknowledge the possibility that the woman could be bullshitting as well.

If minors under the age limit are able to access alcohol, thats a separate issue, and tightening restrictions on age-checking and such are in order (here in the UK shops are now careful to keep an eye on groups of youths who separate and allow a few overage people to buy their alcohol for them - if they see someone associating with people who look to be under 18, then the whole group is IDed before a sale). The fact of the matter is that there is no reason to deny someone alcohol who has already been granted every other major right of adult life.

Grammer, you claim that marriage is an inherently religious institution and so should be bound by religious law. While I would dispute that on the grounds that usage defines meaning, so marriage in a legal context should be considered separate from marriage in a legal context, I will suggest the following compromise:

Define ANY legal acknowledgement of an intimate relationship between a couple as a 'Civil Union'.
Define 'marriage' as ONLY the religious ceremony of acknowledging an intimate relationship between a couple, WITHOUT the legal aspects.

This way, the sanctity of marriage as a religious institution can be preserved, while not singling out homosexual couples for different treatment in a legal context. Any couple who wish to have legal acknowledgement of their relationship goes to the government; any couple wishing to have their relationship declared before God goes to a church (whether said church permits the marriage is down to them).

At 2/12/08 07:22 PM, Earfetish wrote:

At 2/12/08 03:07 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote: There's plenty of reason to protest against the Catholic chuch.

Of course there are. More than Scientology.

I don't see why that idea is outlandish but Scientology are fair game.

I don't think you've made nearly as deep research as you claim you have. Go here. Take your pick of reasons to disapprove of Scientology.

Don't see why any of those make Scientology worse than any of the three monotheisms. More deaths due to them than Scientology. Seriously, the arguments aren't overly compelling, and I've heard them all.

Yes, Scientology is bad. But there are worse religions.

A few years ago, when the current Pope first came in, there were a lot of people (especially on the intertubes) mocking him, particularly comparing him to the Emperor from Star Wars. Did the Catholic Church lash out? No.
To contrast, when Scientology critic Keith Henson posted a joke over at alt.religion.scientology about blowing up CoS members with a "Tom Cruise missile", he was sent to jail for what was very clearly a pun.
This is one of the main reasons fuelling the protests against the Scientology Organisation. They have a well-documented history of litigation (often frivolous in nature), with the aim of achieving "victory" by breaking their opponent financially or emotionally. The link is from a dedicated critic site, but it does contain direct court documents and such from various cases.
Then of course there's the family-ruining disconnection policy, or their array of other anti-critic tactics brought under the Fair Game policy, or their infiltration and corruption of government institutes.
It doesn't matter what Scientologists believe, or whether their beliefs are more or less crazy than any other religion. The simple fact remains, the organisation itself is a dangerous and secretive group that need to be exposed as the criminals they are, for the safety of the people in Scientology as much as the safety of those not yet affected.

And with regard to the actions of Anonymous before these protests, does it really matter? Anonymous isn't a group or club you can join. You can't "join" in Anonymous, only "participate". Ideas and suggestions are put forward; if people decide the idea is good, they act on it. If not, they take no part in that action. The group as a whole is guided by general consensus. I grant you, the tactics in use in the first few days after this Scientology stuff kicked off, the DDoSing and such, is shady at best, but these actions served to draw Scientology to the attention of a lot of people, many of whom flocked to the movement. Once Wise Beard Man weighed in on the new movement, the majority shifted to legitimate tactics, such as the global protests. It doesn't matter what people using the name may have done in the past, what matters is what the people using the name are doing now. The Anonymous that came out in force on the 10th isn't the same Anonymous that raided Habbo. The movement is far bigger than the chans.

http://www.youfoundthecard.com/ for more information

An environmentalist’s handbook
A guide to global warming

So you think you’re ready for your first protest march? Why not, you say, you’ve got everything they said you’d need: standard issue Greenpeace t-shirt, protest banners, a repertoire of chant slogans (I hope you’ve been practicing) and a stack of bottles full of petrol (purely to keep such a ghastly pollutant away from the atmosphere, you understand). But you’ll need a little extra if you really plan to aid the Grand Cause of bringing humanity closer to perfect enlightenment.

You see, not everyone who hears
your rhetoric will be instantly swayed
to your cause. Some will even choose
to argue against you (the filthy
blasphemers). If you’re not careful, this can catch you off-balance (don’t worry though – most budding activists go into shock at the sight of opposition) but with the help of this Guide you’ll be fully prepared to argue your case against even the toughest opposition. Without further ado, lets go through some of the main points you can bring up.

IPCC
The UN-commissioned Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was conceived as the end-all of knowledge on global warming. As its unthinkable that a government-sponsored agency could ever be wrong, we can accept their august conclusions as canonical fact. The holy writ that constitutes their report tells us that “there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activity”.
This is a perfect put-down to any upstart. We all know how high accredited facts rate on the list of argumentative techniques, and who could argue with a group of people who are the top dogs in the field? I mean, who could believe that such an agency would ever print anything beyond pure scientific fact? Of course, there were two on the panel who objected at the content, but

Consensus
Another truly masterful argument is the well-documented consensus in the scientific community, which stand behind the accepted theory of global warming. As we’ve already seen, it is unimaginable that any agreement between so many of the world’s greatest minds could be wrong, so anyone trying to argue against you on that point can safely be ignored.
Of course, there are always rumours of dissention, or harder to argue against (and so more common) suppressed dissention, among scientists. The views and information available on this are murky and sometimes contradictory, so let me clear it up for you: while it may be true that a few are so foolish as to contradict their colleagues on this matter, they are inevitably found to be unsuitable for a career in modern science. And as for the latter argument, it is insane to suggest that any scientist would consider anything other than stating the pure facts of their findings. After all, what reason would men funded by government agencies or political lobbyists ever have for telling anything but the truth?

CO2’s effectiveness as a greenhouse gas
Unbelievable as it may sound, some are so desperate to meet their own agendas as to call into question the extent to which carbon dioxide is a part of the greenhouse effect. Questioning scientific tenets (which, I may add, have been known for almost a century) is, as we all know, complete fallacy. I personally wouldn’t recommend worrying too much about this particular brand of argument, as it won’t be too long before the noble people in the somewhat murky “relevant authorities” shield us from the bullshit of these lying little Galileos, as they’ve done in the past.
While on the subject of fallacious pseudoscience, its worth mentioning the “alternative” explanations this sort will have you believe. They would explain climate change with volcanic activity, or variations in the behaviour of the sun. Even that the climate change we’ve observed is, in fact, completely natural and unavoidable. If you do a little background reading on anyone using this sort of argument, chances are you’ll find links of a financial nature to oil companies or related industry, because no-one would attempt such an
obvious cop-out to try and dodge this issue. Top scientific research facilities, provided with the very best government funding, have shown us that CO2 in the atmosphere keeps heat trapped, and that increasing CO2 will increase this effect, and it is insane to suggest otherwise.

Alarmist nature of global warming
When all attempts at pseudoscience have failed, an anti-climate-change supporter may try to win the argument by quoting the allegedly alarmist nature of global warming. This is unique in the arguments that we’ve looked at, in that you’re allowed to acknowledge that to an extent, its true. Every committed environmentalist, after all, has a duty to ensure that the world’s environment is preserved as it has been, and this task has to be achieved in the face of ignorance, stupidity and laziness on many fronts, by any means necessary. With the world in danger, isn’t a little alarmism justified?

You never know, they may buy it.

--------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------

A little article I wrote for an English assignment. Feedback/opinions/arguments welcome

This isn't strictly a programming question per se, but does anyone know of a program that lets you see any and all programs running on your PC that take up bandwidth, and how much bandwidth they take up.
I'm thinking specifically of reducing the amount of latency in online games, as I'm sure there's stuff on my PC slowing me down (I do the obvious stuff, like not running Limewire or MSN at the same time).

At 10/23/06 08:34 AM, Camarohusky wrote: Ha! A 14 year old, who looks and dresses like that, from a failiure high school wanting to change because she wanted to learn? Bitch, please. It's like saying a white kid in Crenshaw wanted to change groups because the 4 Latinos he got paried with didn't speak English. Bullshit. That girl was being racist and EVERYONE HERE KNOWS IT. Granted, that comment didn't deserve a night in jail, more of just a smack in the face.

I think it speaks volumes for your attitude that you accuse her of racism because she "looks and dresses like that".
At worst, she should have recieved a reprisal from the school itself. And that's only if she was actually racist or otherwise abusive in her requests. The idea of a "group discussion" where only one person understands anything you're saying is pure ridiculous.

I have a thought ... instead of arguing the rights, wrongs and economics of the business, why not shut the whole thing down? Start some employment initiative to get the hookers into real jobs, and the whole thing'd fall apart.

While this may not completely destroy the prostitution industry, it would, I think, have a serious impact. I've never come across hookers and the like, but the trade came up in History class when we were studying the Liberal reforms of 1906 onward, and from what I understand the vast majority of them are in it only because they need the money ("they work the streets or they starve" is the way it was put). Could anyone honestly imagine all that many people selling themselves if they didn't have to? Give them an alternative, some sort of employment, and end the thing.

Its ok, the damn thing's decided to work now. I've put my navigation bar (the only part of the site I actually wanted borders for anyways) into a seperate layout table, so I can put text into the main layout table (set at border 0) without it messing up now.

The site will be here, but there's nothing of the layout I've been working on up there yet. It's just the old, tackier stuff at the mo.
Thanx for the help

At 10/24/05 04:05 PM, IWantSomeCookies wrote: Surely, is the table border="0" then you don't need to set the cell's border as 0 as its already defined in the table tag, or am I missing something here?

The point is, as soon as I change it to border 1, the text entry into layout cells messes up. When I return it to border 0, its fine

At 10/22/05 11:57 AM, Pilot-Doofy wrote: Use quotes, border="0". I think HTML should render it anyway but that's the only thing I noticed that was "wrong" with the code. Just try it and report back.

I didn't enter this to the code, I put it in the Layout Table Properties box. Thanx anyways tho...

At 10/22/05 11:06 AM, Icehowl wrote: Please correct me now if I understood your question wrong.

Seems like your table/cell expands to a appopriate width to fit the text. Thats why you should use static table/cell width.

Static...I assume you mean fixed width? I'm pretty sure thats what I use...
This is mad.....

At 10/22/05 10:19 AM, blah569 wrote: If I'm not mistaken, this goes in the programing forum :).

Isn't it in the programming forum?

Sorry to ask such a stupid questin, but...

Recently, I've been designing a site in Dreamweaver. When I type text into a border = 0 table, it all works fine, but when I type into a cell on a border = 1 table, it either:
a) spreads across two lines, then expands as necessary (text wrap on)
b) spreads across one line, expanding as necessary (no text wrap)

What am I doing wrong here? Surely text should wrap onto multiple lines (as it does when I work in a border = 0 table)?

Thanks for the info, but its not really relevant to me as I have a command-line version.
Sorry 'bout the Microsoft slur, just for future referance NEVER take me seriously if I badmouth a company or program, I very rarely mean it. I was mainly trying to avoid OMFG MICROSOFT SUX!!!! comments through that.

Thanks for all the great replies, you've been a lot of help.
I've now got a few good tutorials, along with a compiler and DirectX.
One problem I have run into is how to run the compiler. I downloaded the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler (I know its Microsoft but I decided I should get the one most compatible with my OS) and, basically, I dont know how to work it. I tried looking through all the documentation provided, it provided a lot of options and tools but no direct compilation commands. I also tried reading through the white papers provided with the samples, they each had a command line to compile the relevant sample source code. I tried each in turn, none worked. It said something about a 'fatal error' and not being able to locate or open the source code. Finally, I downloaded the full documentation from the Microsoft site, but the installer didn't work.
Does anyone know where I am going wrong? Help on using the compiler would be great.

I was just thinking the other day about looking into how to design and produce basic PC games (more along the lines of CD-ROM strategy games than Flash-based).
Does anyone konw what kind of software/scripting languages I would/might need to look into.
Links and/or advice would be much appreciated.

At 8/11/05 03:01 PM, deadafterall wrote: HA HA HA HAAA!!!
you know it's acctually been proven that violent video games train you to be violent. I know it's obvious, but it shoots down any argument that violent video games don't encourage violent behavior.

I don't buy it...

At 8/2/05 10:16 PM, Jess42882 wrote: Dreamweaver puts the path to the image on your computer in the image path (so that you can view the image while you're still working on it in the editor) instead of the url for your website, so you have to change that everytime you upload your files so that you can see them on the site to http://www.yoursite.com/filename.gif instead of something like C:/My Documents/blah blah/imagename.gif

Wouldn't it be a relative path? It certainly looks like one, but that could just be me. I'll try this idea neways, tho, thanx

At 8/2/05 10:48 AM, Afro_Ninja wrote: There may be a problem with your file path in the img tag. What do your img tags look like?

Say what? The filepath from the cell to the image? It looks just like how I assume a normal one would. Heres a pic of the file properties

At 8/2/05 11:10 AM, Inglor wrote: Replace all the '\' with '/' s
the server uses the oppisite type of slashes then your home computer.

hope this helps :)

The file path already has '/'s. I also tried changing it to '\' just in case, but it still don't work

Essentially, my problem is this:
At the top of every page of a website designed in Dreamweaver, I've got a couple of images, imported from a directory in my local site folder. However, when I upload to my remote site, the images are no longer there. I've uploaded the images themselves, in the same directory structure as the one in my local folder, but they refuse to load on the pages.
What am I doing wrong, and how can I remedy this problem?

For the Flash project I'm currently working on, I need a good musician to create the theme tune. I've got the lyrics for it (it's a very pathetic spoof of another theme tune) but I need someone skilled to record it, maybe with some music to go with it.
If anyone's interested, please email me and I'll send back details of what I want.
Cheers

Personally, I think that if someone commits a crime (a major one, such as murder) we should give them one chance (and all the support we can give them) to make up for it, and try to ensure that they won't reoffend. If they then break our trust and do reoffend, kill them. And none of this lethal injection nonsense, a good bit of rope is much more cost-effective.

Before I get started...
As a true spiffing Englishman, I can confidently say that the whole French-bashing thing is a bit of a joke, the British way of dealing with attacks. We don't really hate you guys, we're just having a laugh. Same with the Americans (I've wound up more than one ignorant American tourist with a spiffing-English accent...). Anyways...

Is it just me, or could these attacks be some kind of warning? We know from 9-11 and Madrid that they are capable of more than this. Perhaps it's nothing more than a foretaster?

Basically, I'm working on a Flash project that includes a fair degree of lightsabre combat. I've been through NG search and Flashkit.com, but all I've found is the ignition effect. Does anyone know where I can find other effects? (I'm thinking along the lines of lightsabre switch off, swishing, laser fire, sabre-sabre clashes, etc)

So if I import the audio into the timeline, set the keyframes it's to be between and set it to 'stream' it'll not export the rest?
Would I need to include a Stop All Sounds action?

In the Newgrounds 'Audio Compression' tips, it recommends not using an entire song if you can help it. Does anyone know of any software that allows you to extract clips from a sound file (eg extracting part of a song) or something to that effect? Thanx in advance

At 4/10/05 09:31 AM, specimen56 wrote: Gah, bloody royals... I can't see how anyone can be more fit to be the head of a country than another due to their parentage...
But they do bring a lot of tourism into the country, and they could easily unite a lot of people under one cause if they tried...
Anyways, the Monarchy still has all the power that they ever had, but they don't have the authority to use that power- I believe the last Queen to refuse a bill passed by the government was beheaded...

The Queen could use any and all of the authority that the royal family has ever had...jowever, she couldnt get her decisions enforced unless public opinion backed her