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Basically the story was about a hacker Wizard(not lotr type) who could root your system whenever you went online, and you wouldn't be aware of it. This guy would then use info from your computer to kill you.

Now I here XP can give up System control simply by having you go online!

The Simpsons, albeit a cartoon show, often offers social commentary and true philosophical views. A book that I recently read is The Simpsons and Philosophy, which goes into great detail about how different philosophers would interpret the characters of OFF (Our Favorite Family--abbreviation used a lot in alt.tv.simpsons).

For example, maybe Maggie is just being silent to be silent, or maybe that silence could be interpreted as a social protest. Sartre would certainly think so, anyway.

My point is simply that this show goes far beyond what it appears to be on the surface. Plain & Simple, anything that stimulates your mind and provokes positive thoughtstreams is not waste; to call it that shows how much you truly still have to learn.

Reminds me a lot of the Total Perspective Vortex from Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Life imitating art (loosly). DNA, I think would have been plesantly amused to see this.

Reminds me a lot of the Total Perspective Vortex from Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Life imitating art (loosly). DNA, I think would have been plesantly amused to see this.

I had given up on seeing this happen, as technology seemed to pass it by. But now it looks like Niven's work still holds water. And he pinpointed the military application.

Too bad Dream Park is out of print and hard to find. It's not on par with True Names, but is interesting from a 'how they saw it' viewpoint.

My cubemate got me a 2002 Easy Origami Daily Boxed Calendar. It's printed on origami paper and every day gives you a different origami to fold (you're supposed to use yesteray's paper to fold today's project, but I might just buy a separate supply of paper - not sure yet). It gives you exactly what you want from a daily calendar - a minute of fun to kick start your morning without derailing the rest of the day.

Only problem I had was that I folded the thank you note in the "baby in a cradle" pattern to commemerate my "new time wasting project" (the origami). She mistook it and thought my wife and I were expecting...

Only problem I had was that I folded the thank you note in the "baby in a cradle" pattern to commemerate my "new time wasting project" (the origami). She mistook it and thought my wife and I were expecting...

Personally, I feel no need for strife to make life interesting. The challenge of my latest programming project and the excitement of may extracurricular activities makes for a happily interesting life.

Indeed, thats why I recommend everyone to read The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering it's still a classic treatise on running projects, if you havent read it I suggest ou do, if you're a poor student, get it from the library, just read it okay?

take a look at Growing a Business, by Paul Hawkin.

While it's not specific to the tech industry, it's an excellent discussion of how to make money without being miserable about what you're doing or feeling that you're "selling out."

If you can't afford the nine buck for Vincent Bugliosi's The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, you can always read the original article on which it is based (online). The points are unassailable, demonstrated by the fact that no GOP apologist has be able to refute it. They can't -- facts are facts. The best they can muster is to roll their eyes and whine "Get over it."

No. We won't "get over it" just to placate a clutch of putrid rightwing shysters. After attempting to villify Clinton for damn near a decade, they paid no attention to those of us who said: "He won the election, get over it." (Isn't irony ironic?) How it must gall these intellectual munkins to have their pseudo-patrotic blustering exposed as simple partisan braying. They judge everyone else's patriotism by the size of the flag they wave, yet they have no problem wiping their asses with the constitution as long as it benefits their candidate. Shrub cannot realistically be removed from office, but we can make sure he's a one-termer and is always followed by a footnote tagging him as "illegitimate".

Shrub was not elected, he was coronated. We had a coup d'etat. The supreme court handed him the election by stopping the recount, instead of sending it back to the state (as they should have). They didn't do that because Bush would have lost. Absolute worst case scenario, it would have been thrown into the House -- which is EXACTLY what the constitution provides for.

If you REALLY doubt this, ask yourself the following question: Can you imagine, in your wildest carck-induced dreams, that the Supreme Court would have stopped the election if it had benefitted Al Gore?

Amazon's disclosure could provide hard data for Linux proponents who have long argued that the open-source software can save corporations money over the Microsoft alternative. A Microsoft representative, however, warned that short-term savings seen by Amazon could turn into a long-term increase in costs.

... my first thought was that amazon's "long-term increase in costs" was going to come not from an inadequacy of linux, but rather by bill gates snatching up barnes-n-noble with a few billion of his pocket change and cutting off amazon's air supply... more realistically, look for a news item like this one in the coming months:

Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan denied today that the software giant was responsible for a series of errors that has cost online reseller Amazon millions in freight charges and plenty of ill will from thousands of its customers. "Microsoft competes vigorously and fairly. We are sorry that Amazon has chosen to compete in the courtroom rather than through innovation in the marketplace. We look forward to making our case at trial," Cullinan said.

Amazon charges that in the most recent upgrade to Microsoft's popular Internet Explorer browser, new "Autodecide" and "Autopurchase" features are adding unwanted items to Amazon customers' virtual shopping carts. In one alleged case, a purchaser who had sought to buy only a Smashmouth CD from Amazon.com ended up with $600 worth of Microsoft Press titles charged to her VISA account. In another case, a man received a dozen copies of Bill Gates' book Business @ The Speed of Thought with his Dr. Doolittle II video purchase.

"Autodecide and Autopurchase are two innovative new features that we innovated in the new Explorer upgrade," said Cullinan. "We added these innovative functions in response to overwhelming customer demand for innovation." He added that "we have compelling video evidence that the Amazon.com website is not fully compliant with W3C standards. Microsoft cannot be held responsible for any incompatibilities between our innovative Explorer browsers and Amazon's noncompliant site. Amazon's charges are completely baseless and without substance, and we think that we will win on the merits of this case."

No one from Amazon could be found for comment. Police are investigating their disappearance.

My opinion? Fukuyama would be correct if people actually did act rationally. But, having grown up among many fundamentalists (of the good, Christian variety :-), I know that people will often do things against their own best interests in the name of their religions, their cultures, and their personal identities. It's not even clear that there is any apparent march toward traditional, western rationality - look at how quickly things devolved in Yugoslavia.

Today, there are enough cultural (Notice how that word starts with "cult"? Same Greek root!) differences and irrationality about to make Huntington's thesis look more believable at this time.

Hitler was not elected, though it is a common misconception. The executive in Germany under the Weimar Republic was split between President (Paul von Hindenburg in its later years) and Chancellor. Neither was directly elected, and the President simply appointed the Chancellor (his office was modeled after the Kaiser). The Nazis never--even in a mock election after banning left-wing parties--took over 40% of the vote.

So how did Hitler come to power? In the early 30's, Conservative politicians were worried about the rise of the Social Democratic Party (that's right, the party in power in Germany RIGHT NOW) and formed an alliance with Hitler's National Socialists, who were much more popular than the Conservatives. It was assumed that a Conservative such as Franz von Papen would be Chancellor. Hitler, however, demanded he be Chancellor for his support. The vast majority of the Cabinet were Conservatives, so they thought it wouldn't be too bad having a Nazi Chancellor. Hitler seized power after the Reichstag fire, when they voted him special "emergency powers"--getting us back to the importance of the bill just passed by Congress.

For more info on Germany in the 30s, get a book by Dietrich Orlow.

The short version: Writing a large software system is like nailing jelly to a wall.

The long version:

Show me a client who knows what they want before they ask for it.

Show me a client who won't change their mind after you've started building.

Show me a client who accepts that the "state of the art" will rocket along independently of the development of this current system.

Show me a client whose business practices don't change - even slightly - in six months.

Show me a client who will pay up the full price of development to the agreed-upon specification, when it takes nine to twelve months to get the system fully developed to that original specification.

Show me a client who is willing to wait for the system to slowly grow over 12 months, as my development team releases features as they are ready.

Show me a client who is willing to believe that a system isn't ready to go the moment it's plugged in and switched on.

Show me a client who is prepared to pay up to 20% of the development cost of the software every year just to maintain it - cleaning up the rough bits, polishing the interface, optimising the flow of data, updating the system to take into account new legislation, business practice or monetary units.

Then...

Show me programmers who can spell.

Show me programmers who have professional pride.

Show me programmers who can do what the System Architect tells them to (and only what the SA tells them to).

Show me programmers who can write neat maintainable code, instead of trying to out-hack Duff's Device.

Show me programmers and architects who are willing to review each others work, without taking criticism personally.

Show me technical staff who can speak English in lay terms.

Show me programmers who are happy to maintain another programmer's code in the same style as the original programmer.

Show me programmers who are happy to write their code (semantically as well as syntactically) to an external specification.

Then and only then do I have half a chance of delivering software that doesn't have bugs or mis-features in it.

The even longer version: Go read this book (it's been reviewed on Slashdot by Jason Bennett).

While the idea has the power of lucidity, it's not clear whether it can be implemented effectively. The development of autonomic responses in complex animals developed over millions of years using sexual reproduction as a means of pruning less viable branches while introducing sufficient variation to ensure species-level survival.

At the organism level, autonomy is accomplished through a combination of neural, hormonal, and physiological responses to external stimuli and internal state changes. How many proteins and hormones, etc are required for this? How many combinations of signals are there? Clearly the number of combinations is large enough to be considered "countless". That an organism as complex as a human being works at all is an impressive feat of biochemical integration and regulation.

"...we don't really need... sentient machines and androids programmed to love and laugh -- to overcome the largest obstacle standing in our way."

That's an assumption which remains to be validated! How does IBM know that it's not the other way around? Perhaps love and laughter (i.e. higher emotions) are a natural and inevitable byproduct of the ultimate expression of the ideas of autonomy. Put another way, it may be possible to provide some sort of low-level homeostasis without emotions, but the maximum expression of those concepts might lead to a deeper philosophical awareness. At that point, look for IBM's business systems to call in sick with "mental health days" once in a while.

Richard Powers' novel Galatea 2.2 was an interesting examination of the relationship between self-awareness, emotion, and intelligence.

[...] dig into the Federalist Papers. There is alot of ideas packed in there about how to run organizations and talk of the human condition. These topics are valueable. As well as the discusion techniques you learn in class and dealing with other classmates. Hamilton, Jay, and Madison are serious thinkers. You can learn alot from them.

As someone who is reading TFP right now, I cannot agree more. Even knowing that our gov't run public school system doesn't teach us half of what we need to know about gov't, the Constitution, and so forth, I've been amazed. TFP is good stuff, people.

Encryption is but one small detail in a sea of problems. Before a solution can be found, we must understand the problem--something the folks in government aren't very good at, especially when the problem is technical and scientific. This country has several very major problems, with deep roots. An easy-to-grasp example manifests itself in airline security (a common subject of conversation nowadays). The problem is twofold: first, public education in this country quite frankly sucks, and secondly, most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them.

The public education system in this country teaches students how to read, write and do arithmetic, but these are really just side-effects of the underlying agenda: teaching students, starting in kindergarden, to follow directions. I clearly remember getting points off my math homework for figuring out the answer a different, shorter way--points were taken off even when I had the correct answer! On one occasion, the teacher specifically told me that I hadn't followed directions, which is supposedly more important than the answer. On another occasion, a teacher admitted to me that when she studied to become a teacher, she was taught that teachers assign homework to their students not to exercise their new knowledge, but to see which ones do the homework and turn it in on time--another way of following directions. While I agree that homework (or any work) should be delivered on time, I believe that the results should be considered more important. Take a look at The Matrix: Mr. Anderson is expected to be at his desk on time every day--they don't care if he delivers results as long as he follows directions. There is an important pattern here...

The government spends way too much time and money writing long, cumbersome, complicated rules and regulations, to regulate things down to the smallest imaginable details. For example, someone once said that the entire Constitution is roughly 1/12 the length of a bill regulating the sale of cabbage. OSHA makes up workplace rules that make industrial work all but impossible. (This is more true in large corporate factories, where more time is spent filling out paperwork than actually accomplishing any work.) And finally (this one is the saddest--or the most amusing, depending on your point of view), a guy on 60 Minutes said that the FAA defines exactly what threats the security rent-a-cops are supposed to look for. One is a bomb, which is defined as an otherwise empty bag containing a bundle of dynamite with a big analog clock stuck on the side. (And I suppose they can only get you for this if you're wearing a black mask and a zorro-style hat.)

Coming back to the subject, the purpose of the past two paragraphs was to show you that first, the educational system (the government) teaches you to follow directions, and then, they compose mountains of directions covering every possible subject. The problem with this approach is that you can't code every possible combination beforehand--you have to figure out a pattern and come up with guidelines. The human mind has the capability (and beyond) to think on its own, in real time.

I mentioned above that "most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them," and haven't talked about that yet. This is one of the biggest reasons we have such a bloated and expensive government. There are government programs in place for everything, even for deciding what can be considered fine art and what can't. I heard a fine example of this on the radio last night--a guy called one of those talk-radio shows and suggested that the government should install solar panelling on all the buildings in our country so we won't be so dependant on the middle east for oil. Why does he expect the government to do this for him? If he wants solar panels on his house, then he should buy them and put them there! The government has no business placing solar cells on anybody's roof. This is the second part of a huge problem that starts in our education system--a colossal number of people in this country think the government should share in their personal problems.

I believe the government should spend less time and taxpayer money sticking their noses in our business. Instead, they should spend more of that fiat dough on improving the education system. This doesn't mean putting more Dells or iMacs in schools--if it were up to me, students would be required to handwrite their reports in cursive. It's an important but forgotten part of education called penmanship. An improved education system is one where students are taught, from day one, to think on their feet, in real-time. Don't follow the directions--make up the directions, and then follow them. Learn about priviledges and responsibility--and learn to accept responsibility for your actions and inactions. (Most folks currently expect the government to take responsibility for their actions or lack thereof.) Learn to do math the teacher's way, and then figure out faster and better ways to do problems (and present these to your peers in class). Learn to read between the lines and not believe everything you read, see and hear. Do these suggestions seem obvious? Why, then, aren't they being carried out? Why do so many of us have sloppy, incoherent handwriting? Why do students, when asked a difficult question, expect the teacher to know the answer? Why doesn't anybody in this country take responsibility for their actions? Why do we have defective policies in place for decades (and follow these policies), instead of proactively analysing the situation and finding a better way? Why do so many people believe every word the media tells them? (Including the claim that tools which can be used for evil will pervert the minds of those who possess them, much like the One Ring.) Don't pretend these problems don't exist--they are very real and very dangerous.

Education isn't limited to public schools, by the way. Our airline security, stewardesses, pilots and janitors should receive an education in psychology, body language and self defense, instead of regulations nobody reads that describe a Wile E. Coyote-style bomb. This rule applies across the board, yet training is only the beginning--the real training is in learning how to learn and think out of the box, all the time.

The following books (off the top of my head) contain some real insight, and should be mandatory reading for all employees of the government: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey--for its discussion of principle versus character, among other things; Out of the Crisis , by W. Edwards Deming; Nuts! by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg; and finally, The Pursuit of Wow! , by Tom Peters.

The problems with encryption, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and all other defective policies will work themselves out once people stop following directions and start using their brains.

Encryption is but one small detail in a sea of problems. Before a solution can be found, we must understand the problem--something the folks in government aren't very good at, especially when the problem is technical and scientific. This country has several very major problems, with deep roots. An easy-to-grasp example manifests itself in airline security (a common subject of conversation nowadays). The problem is twofold: first, public education in this country quite frankly sucks, and secondly, most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them.

The public education system in this country teaches students how to read, write and do arithmetic, but these are really just side-effects of the underlying agenda: teaching students, starting in kindergarden, to follow directions. I clearly remember getting points off my math homework for figuring out the answer a different, shorter way--points were taken off even when I had the correct answer! On one occasion, the teacher specifically told me that I hadn't followed directions, which is supposedly more important than the answer. On another occasion, a teacher admitted to me that when she studied to become a teacher, she was taught that teachers assign homework to their students not to exercise their new knowledge, but to see which ones do the homework and turn it in on time--another way of following directions. While I agree that homework (or any work) should be delivered on time, I believe that the results should be considered more important. Take a look at The Matrix: Mr. Anderson is expected to be at his desk on time every day--they don't care if he delivers results as long as he follows directions. There is an important pattern here...

The government spends way too much time and money writing long, cumbersome, complicated rules and regulations, to regulate things down to the smallest imaginable details. For example, someone once said that the entire Constitution is roughly 1/12 the length of a bill regulating the sale of cabbage. OSHA makes up workplace rules that make industrial work all but impossible. (This is more true in large corporate factories, where more time is spent filling out paperwork than actually accomplishing any work.) And finally (this one is the saddest--or the most amusing, depending on your point of view), a guy on 60 Minutes said that the FAA defines exactly what threats the security rent-a-cops are supposed to look for. One is a bomb, which is defined as an otherwise empty bag containing a bundle of dynamite with a big analog clock stuck on the side. (And I suppose they can only get you for this if you're wearing a black mask and a zorro-style hat.)

Coming back to the subject, the purpose of the past two paragraphs was to show you that first, the educational system (the government) teaches you to follow directions, and then, they compose mountains of directions covering every possible subject. The problem with this approach is that you can't code every possible combination beforehand--you have to figure out a pattern and come up with guidelines. The human mind has the capability (and beyond) to think on its own, in real time.

I mentioned above that "most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them," and haven't talked about that yet. This is one of the biggest reasons we have such a bloated and expensive government. There are government programs in place for everything, even for deciding what can be considered fine art and what can't. I heard a fine example of this on the radio last night--a guy called one of those talk-radio shows and suggested that the government should install solar panelling on all the buildings in our country so we won't be so dependant on the middle east for oil. Why does he expect the government to do this for him? If he wants solar panels on his house, then he should buy them and put them there! The government has no business placing solar cells on anybody's roof. This is the second part of a huge problem that starts in our education system--a colossal number of people in this country think the government should share in their personal problems.

I believe the government should spend less time and taxpayer money sticking their noses in our business. Instead, they should spend more of that fiat dough on improving the education system. This doesn't mean putting more Dells or iMacs in schools--if it were up to me, students would be required to handwrite their reports in cursive. It's an important but forgotten part of education called penmanship. An improved education system is one where students are taught, from day one, to think on their feet, in real-time. Don't follow the directions--make up the directions, and then follow them. Learn about priviledges and responsibility--and learn to accept responsibility for your actions and inactions. (Most folks currently expect the government to take responsibility for their actions or lack thereof.) Learn to do math the teacher's way, and then figure out faster and better ways to do problems (and present these to your peers in class). Learn to read between the lines and not believe everything you read, see and hear. Do these suggestions seem obvious? Why, then, aren't they being carried out? Why do so many of us have sloppy, incoherent handwriting? Why do students, when asked a difficult question, expect the teacher to know the answer? Why doesn't anybody in this country take responsibility for their actions? Why do we have defective policies in place for decades (and follow these policies), instead of proactively analysing the situation and finding a better way? Why do so many people believe every word the media tells them? (Including the claim that tools which can be used for evil will pervert the minds of those who possess them, much like the One Ring.) Don't pretend these problems don't exist--they are very real and very dangerous.

Education isn't limited to public schools, by the way. Our airline security, stewardesses, pilots and janitors should receive an education in psychology, body language and self defense, instead of regulations nobody reads that describe a Wile E. Coyote-style bomb. This rule applies across the board, yet training is only the beginning--the real training is in learning how to learn and think out of the box, all the time.

The following books (off the top of my head) contain some real insight, and should be mandatory reading for all employees of the government: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey--for its discussion of principle versus character, among other things; Out of the Crisis , by W. Edwards Deming; Nuts! by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg; and finally, The Pursuit of Wow! , by Tom Peters.

The problems with encryption, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and all other defective policies will work themselves out once people stop following directions and start using their brains.

Encryption is but one small detail in a sea of problems. Before a solution can be found, we must understand the problem--something the folks in government aren't very good at, especially when the problem is technical and scientific. This country has several very major problems, with deep roots. An easy-to-grasp example manifests itself in airline security (a common subject of conversation nowadays). The problem is twofold: first, public education in this country quite frankly sucks, and secondly, most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them.

The public education system in this country teaches students how to read, write and do arithmetic, but these are really just side-effects of the underlying agenda: teaching students, starting in kindergarden, to follow directions. I clearly remember getting points off my math homework for figuring out the answer a different, shorter way--points were taken off even when I had the correct answer! On one occasion, the teacher specifically told me that I hadn't followed directions, which is supposedly more important than the answer. On another occasion, a teacher admitted to me that when she studied to become a teacher, she was taught that teachers assign homework to their students not to exercise their new knowledge, but to see which ones do the homework and turn it in on time--another way of following directions. While I agree that homework (or any work) should be delivered on time, I believe that the results should be considered more important. Take a look at The Matrix: Mr. Anderson is expected to be at his desk on time every day--they don't care if he delivers results as long as he follows directions. There is an important pattern here...

The government spends way too much time and money writing long, cumbersome, complicated rules and regulations, to regulate things down to the smallest imaginable details. For example, someone once said that the entire Constitution is roughly 1/12 the length of a bill regulating the sale of cabbage. OSHA makes up workplace rules that make industrial work all but impossible. (This is more true in large corporate factories, where more time is spent filling out paperwork than actually accomplishing any work.) And finally (this one is the saddest--or the most amusing, depending on your point of view), a guy on 60 Minutes said that the FAA defines exactly what threats the security rent-a-cops are supposed to look for. One is a bomb, which is defined as an otherwise empty bag containing a bundle of dynamite with a big analog clock stuck on the side. (And I suppose they can only get you for this if you're wearing a black mask and a zorro-style hat.)

Coming back to the subject, the purpose of the past two paragraphs was to show you that first, the educational system (the government) teaches you to follow directions, and then, they compose mountains of directions covering every possible subject. The problem with this approach is that you can't code every possible combination beforehand--you have to figure out a pattern and come up with guidelines. The human mind has the capability (and beyond) to think on its own, in real time.

I mentioned above that "most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them," and haven't talked about that yet. This is one of the biggest reasons we have such a bloated and expensive government. There are government programs in place for everything, even for deciding what can be considered fine art and what can't. I heard a fine example of this on the radio last night--a guy called one of those talk-radio shows and suggested that the government should install solar panelling on all the buildings in our country so we won't be so dependant on the middle east for oil. Why does he expect the government to do this for him? If he wants solar panels on his house, then he should buy them and put them there! The government has no business placing solar cells on anybody's roof. This is the second part of a huge problem that starts in our education system--a colossal number of people in this country think the government should share in their personal problems.

I believe the government should spend less time and taxpayer money sticking their noses in our business. Instead, they should spend more of that fiat dough on improving the education system. This doesn't mean putting more Dells or iMacs in schools--if it were up to me, students would be required to handwrite their reports in cursive. It's an important but forgotten part of education called penmanship. An improved education system is one where students are taught, from day one, to think on their feet, in real-time. Don't follow the directions--make up the directions, and then follow them. Learn about priviledges and responsibility--and learn to accept responsibility for your actions and inactions. (Most folks currently expect the government to take responsibility for their actions or lack thereof.) Learn to do math the teacher's way, and then figure out faster and better ways to do problems (and present these to your peers in class). Learn to read between the lines and not believe everything you read, see and hear. Do these suggestions seem obvious? Why, then, aren't they being carried out? Why do so many of us have sloppy, incoherent handwriting? Why do students, when asked a difficult question, expect the teacher to know the answer? Why doesn't anybody in this country take responsibility for their actions? Why do we have defective policies in place for decades (and follow these policies), instead of proactively analysing the situation and finding a better way? Why do so many people believe every word the media tells them? (Including the claim that tools which can be used for evil will pervert the minds of those who possess them, much like the One Ring.) Don't pretend these problems don't exist--they are very real and very dangerous.

Education isn't limited to public schools, by the way. Our airline security, stewardesses, pilots and janitors should receive an education in psychology, body language and self defense, instead of regulations nobody reads that describe a Wile E. Coyote-style bomb. This rule applies across the board, yet training is only the beginning--the real training is in learning how to learn and think out of the box, all the time.

The following books (off the top of my head) contain some real insight, and should be mandatory reading for all employees of the government: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey--for its discussion of principle versus character, among other things; Out of the Crisis , by W. Edwards Deming; Nuts! by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg; and finally, The Pursuit of Wow! , by Tom Peters.

The problems with encryption, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and all other defective policies will work themselves out once people stop following directions and start using their brains.

Encryption is but one small detail in a sea of problems. Before a solution can be found, we must understand the problem--something the folks in government aren't very good at, especially when the problem is technical and scientific. This country has several very major problems, with deep roots. An easy-to-grasp example manifests itself in airline security (a common subject of conversation nowadays). The problem is twofold: first, public education in this country quite frankly sucks, and secondly, most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them.

The public education system in this country teaches students how to read, write and do arithmetic, but these are really just side-effects of the underlying agenda: teaching students, starting in kindergarden, to follow directions. I clearly remember getting points off my math homework for figuring out the answer a different, shorter way--points were taken off even when I had the correct answer! On one occasion, the teacher specifically told me that I hadn't followed directions, which is supposedly more important than the answer. On another occasion, a teacher admitted to me that when she studied to become a teacher, she was taught that teachers assign homework to their students not to exercise their new knowledge, but to see which ones do the homework and turn it in on time--another way of following directions. While I agree that homework (or any work) should be delivered on time, I believe that the results should be considered more important. Take a look at The Matrix: Mr. Anderson is expected to be at his desk on time every day--they don't care if he delivers results as long as he follows directions. There is an important pattern here...

The government spends way too much time and money writing long, cumbersome, complicated rules and regulations, to regulate things down to the smallest imaginable details. For example, someone once said that the entire Constitution is roughly 1/12 the length of a bill regulating the sale of cabbage. OSHA makes up workplace rules that make industrial work all but impossible. (This is more true in large corporate factories, where more time is spent filling out paperwork than actually accomplishing any work.) And finally (this one is the saddest--or the most amusing, depending on your point of view), a guy on 60 Minutes said that the FAA defines exactly what threats the security rent-a-cops are supposed to look for. One is a bomb, which is defined as an otherwise empty bag containing a bundle of dynamite with a big analog clock stuck on the side. (And I suppose they can only get you for this if you're wearing a black mask and a zorro-style hat.)

Coming back to the subject, the purpose of the past two paragraphs was to show you that first, the educational system (the government) teaches you to follow directions, and then, they compose mountains of directions covering every possible subject. The problem with this approach is that you can't code every possible combination beforehand--you have to figure out a pattern and come up with guidelines. The human mind has the capability (and beyond) to think on its own, in real time.

I mentioned above that "most people in this country expect the government to solve their problems for them," and haven't talked about that yet. This is one of the biggest reasons we have such a bloated and expensive government. There are government programs in place for everything, even for deciding what can be considered fine art and what can't. I heard a fine example of this on the radio last night--a guy called one of those talk-radio shows and suggested that the government should install solar panelling on all the buildings in our country so we won't be so dependant on the middle east for oil. Why does he expect the government to do this for him? If he wants solar panels on his house, then he should buy them and put them there! The government has no business placing solar cells on anybody's roof. This is the second part of a huge problem that starts in our education system--a colossal number of people in this country think the government should share in their personal problems.

I believe the government should spend less time and taxpayer money sticking their noses in our business. Instead, they should spend more of that fiat dough on improving the education system. This doesn't mean putting more Dells or iMacs in schools--if it were up to me, students would be required to handwrite their reports in cursive. It's an important but forgotten part of education called penmanship. An improved education system is one where students are taught, from day one, to think on their feet, in real-time. Don't follow the directions--make up the directions, and then follow them. Learn about priviledges and responsibility--and learn to accept responsibility for your actions and inactions. (Most folks currently expect the government to take responsibility for their actions or lack thereof.) Learn to do math the teacher's way, and then figure out faster and better ways to do problems (and present these to your peers in class). Learn to read between the lines and not believe everything you read, see and hear. Do these suggestions seem obvious? Why, then, aren't they being carried out? Why do so many of us have sloppy, incoherent handwriting? Why do students, when asked a difficult question, expect the teacher to know the answer? Why doesn't anybody in this country take responsibility for their actions? Why do we have defective policies in place for decades (and follow these policies), instead of proactively analysing the situation and finding a better way? Why do so many people believe every word the media tells them? (Including the claim that tools which can be used for evil will pervert the minds of those who possess them, much like the One Ring.) Don't pretend these problems don't exist--they are very real and very dangerous.

Education isn't limited to public schools, by the way. Our airline security, stewardesses, pilots and janitors should receive an education in psychology, body language and self defense, instead of regulations nobody reads that describe a Wile E. Coyote-style bomb. This rule applies across the board, yet training is only the beginning--the real training is in learning how to learn and think out of the box, all the time.

The following books (off the top of my head) contain some real insight, and should be mandatory reading for all employees of the government: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey--for its discussion of principle versus character, among other things; Out of the Crisis , by W. Edwards Deming; Nuts! by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg; and finally, The Pursuit of Wow! , by Tom Peters.

The problems with encryption, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and all other defective policies will work themselves out once people stop following directions and start using their brains.

Book recommendation:
Allen Steele, Orbital Decay. A fine book. I also recommended his other works to anyone reading this article. Its mostly blue-collar in space. Orbital Decay deals mainly with construction workers putting up solar power satellites. And some recreational growing in space. And a communications-snooping spy satellite called Big Ear.

Orbital Decay. Barnes n' Noble link, no referral.

Good point. Only slightly off-topic, may I recommend the book Prophet by Frank Peretti. Religious agenda aside, it is a good look at how the media (in this case a local news station) can bury a story that doesn't fit their bias.

It never ceases to amaze me how those who claim to be most christian, often display the most contrary (to the actual teachings of christ) behaviour. This is what drove me away.

You are not alone. Far from it, in fact.

You may be interested in this book: Why Christianity Must Change Or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. It's been written just for people like you, my family, and most of my friends who are believers. I haven't read it yet, but my parents have, and I'm planning on doing so.

I remember a few years ago, when my mother was an Elder at her local Presbyterian church. This lasted until the more fundamentalist elements of the church organized and essentially staged a takeover of the church leadership, to ensure that their vision of the Bible was the one the church espoused, causing my family and others to be all but ostracized. And my hometown church wasn't alone; across the country, fundamentalist Christians have done the same thing in moderate and liberal churches, since no views are compatible with their mindsets but their own.

Anyhow... I tend to go on about this since it's pretty dear to my heart, but it's true. Modern Christian fundamentalists really are the new Pharisees.

And where does "Farmer Giles of Ham" fit in?!!!


damn lameness filter, now I've gotta insert a troll here. Fuck you taco!

According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as InfoWorld reports, Western intelligence services knew for months that exactly this sort of attack by hijacked airplanes against highly symbolic targets was planned. Why was airport security not tightened? Why were there no fighters at hair-trigger readiness to be scrambled? As a patriot, I have to hope that the FAZ report is disinformation. But I also recall the claim by some historians that our intelligence services at the time knew Pearl Harbor was coming, and allowed it to get us into the war.

Bullshit. Have the Jews created concentration camps, herded millions of Palestinians into them, and tortured them to death?

I don't have statistics/specifics, but yes, they have created camps for palestinians, restricted them to/from geographical areas, and tortured them to death. How much of a report you get of that depends on the news media you read, or what you
look for.

A very good book on the subject is Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour. It's good because not only does it give insight into the Palestinian perspective, but doesn't have a tone of hatred towards the Israelis, and Chacour would rather fight the status quo with Gandhi-esque tactics and by building schools and churches than by blowing things up. You can find some of the specifics from there.

Are the Palestinians on the brink of extinction? Hell no.

Were the Jews? No.... it was threatened, and was in the process of horribly being carried out, but fortunately, there were those in Germany who were either barely complicit or resisting somewhat.

Not all that different in Israel, except the balance of power within the state shifts more frequently and Israel has never been as relatively powerful as WWII Germany.

Bottom line: suffering attrocities as an ethnicity doesn't give you a green card to do whatever you like to the world, and even if it did, Israel redeemed it a long time ago. The only way for anyone to win at this point in the middle east is to work for everyone to win.

Is Tolkien's Letters published under Christopher Tolkien as well?

It's listed as 'JRRT with Christopher Tolkein'. It is (very marginally) edited. [barnesandnoble.com] sell the book, and display quotes from several of the letters.

If you like Book of Lost Tales, you'll probably also like Unfinished Tales

I read Unfinished Tales before I had the chance to read Lost Tales ;) It's published as 'edited by Christopher Tolkien'.

In addition to his wonderful fiction, Tolkien was a linguist and an expert on Anglo-Saxon languages. A collection of his lectures, aptly entitled The Monsters and the Critics, reviewed here includes one "On Translating Beowulf."
And no collection of Tolkiena would be complete without Letters from Father Christmas, a collection of letters Tolkien wrote to his kids over the years beginning in the 1930s. They were painstakingly illustrated, down to the North Pole postage stamps. You can see his style develop over the years, from straightforward tales of mishaps at the North Pole, often including a clumsy polar bear, to escalating wars between armies of trolls and dwarves.

• A larger picture of the cover [Amazon].
  
  
• A Table of Contents [Barnes & Noble]
  
  
• Some Samples [Tolkien Online]
  

Jesus. Why are so many prominant coders such fucking egomaniacal loons?

Read The Inmates Are Running The Asylum for one answer to that question. The very same characteristics that make some coders excel at their craft tend to lead them to unshakable convictions.

I've searched long and hard for a good book to recommend to newbies. This one is EXCELLENT. It shows you how to do most of the things necessary to make Linux work for you, not just as a cool thing to brag to your nerd friends about. It also goes a step further and explains a few things that those people who learn best by "putting it to use" like install/config Apache and using BIND, etc. No, I'm not the author or affiliated, but if you're looking for a good book to get you from "just knowing how to install Linux", this is a good book.

Anyone know of any other good starter books?

Wow - and I just started reading The Diamond Age this week.

Writing Solid Code: Microsoft's Techniques for Developing Bug-Free C Programs
Steve Maguire
ISBN: 1556155514
Publisher: Microsoft Press

Available on bn.com


--BEGIN SIG BLOCK--
I'd rather be trolling for goatse.cx.

I have a blind friend who owns a speech synthesis card. Getting the "book" out of encrypted format would allow him to use other tools to extract the text and have the machine read it aloud for him.

According to Barnes & Noble's eBook comparison page, you can get spoken text from Adobe's reader with the book publisher's permission (under "Cool Features").

If you want a REALLY good book to read, I'd suggest taking a look at The Unix Philosiphy by Mike Gancarz. It's a rather consise book on why Unix is the way it is, and (unintententionally) demonstrates why Unix will never be a mainstream entity. People want apps that can do most anything, don't want to mess with low-level detail and just plain want it to do stuff withougt caring how it's done. Unix is almost the complete opposite of those desires.

If someone's going to allow submission of a review for a 2+ year old 'How-to config' book they should review this 9+ year old "Why is it the way it is" book. This one has been a great read so far.

Another very good FDL'ed book is the "GNU automake, autoconf and libtool" book written by Gary V. Vaughan, Ben Elliston, Tom Tromey and Ian Lance Taylor.

This book has helped me a lot in understanding the interaction between automake, autoconf, and libtool. The GNU manual for these tools are excellent, but the book does a great job in showing how the three interaction. I'd say this is a must read for beginning outsource programmers.

The hardcopy's ISBN is 1578701902 and can be found at bn.com

~=Keelor

Another aspect of products that are thriving in a time of information glut: speed. James Glick has a really good book on the subject, called Faster which I recommend reading.

Really? In what market does Microsoft hold a monopoly? Operating systems? Browsers? Evil? Hardly. If someone is a monopoly that means that it has no competitors in the market in question; that is, if you have a product belonging to that market, you must have obtained it from the monopoly........Given the definition, does Microsoft hold a monopoly in any market? No. To disprove this, I need only examine my network ...

You must have not been alive when DOS was the only operating systerm. Microsoft was enough of monopoly to snuff out caldera's DRDOS. Evidently they felt guilty enough to pay 150 million for what they did This antitrust case is DejaVu all over again, They did this by introducing an incompatibility in DOS according to Undocumented DOS that had no technical reason whatsoever other than to break DRDOS compatibility with Windows 3.1/DOS. DRDOS had a real chance for market penetration - it's just that MS would not allow it to be installed by OEMs. More detail here

The proof is simple and direct. The conclusion is the only one possible. Microsoft holds no monopoly in any market.

The proof is simple and direct. You are wrong. Pull your head out of the sand. The world doesn't revolve around you and your 6 pc mini-network.

And after the fall of rome, it took humanity a millenium to get back to the point they were at before rome started becoming corrupt. I sincerely hope we're not in for such a waste of time yet again.

cross-reference:
Asimov's Foundation Series
Miller's Canticle For Liebowitz
David's Lament for Saul and Jonathan also seems appropriate, since America [and Rome] had much of beauty that will be [and was] lost to the human race.

And after the fall of rome, it took humanity a millenium to get back to the point they were at before rome started becoming corrupt. I sincerely hope we're not in for such a waste of time yet again.

cross-reference:
Asimov's Foundation Series
Miller's Canticle For Liebowitz
David's Lament for Saul and Jonathan also seems appropriate, since America [and Rome] had much of beauty that will be [and was] lost to the human race.

Interesting reasoning. However, I must disagree. A comment can be brief and insightful. For proof look at Rochefoucauld's Maximes

...razor thin margins in the personal computer hardware industry. Remember IBM has pulled out of the retail PC.

Last I checked, VA was aiming for a server market where the margins are *not* razor thin. In fact, if you go here you'll see that they only sell servers and NAS devices. Also, IBM did not pull out of the personal computer hardware industry. They pulled out of the *retail* market. They still sell personal computers direct. I fail to see how you can cite IBM pulling out of the retail PC market, but remaining in the direct only PC market as justification for VA pulling out of the direct only server market.

This guy traces America's lag in technological development (pre-colonization, that is) to: - the lack of domesticable crops; - the N-S orientation of the continent; - the lack of useful domesticable animals. The latter also account for America being devoid of human viruses (someone mentionned smallpox. why didn't they have an equivalent?). So if this theory is correct (and it's been around for a long time), the humans colonizing America doomed themselves by overexploiting their land. Not that other colonizers behaved differently, but the local animals, evolving along with humans for a much longer time had a better chance. Now, you say the human specie is vastly superior to anything else on the planet. Correct. Significantly, we can thing about the consequences of our actions. Now for more than years. I believe pharmaceutical firms still have people foraging new molecules in plants or animals. We still need nature around. So it might be a good idea not to mess things up too much. Which is why nuclear plants are a Good Thing.

The book Mindstorms:Children Computers and Powerful Ideas by Seymour Papert, while somewhat dated (it was written in 1980), says a lot about teaching computers to children. Papert was a student of Jean Piaget who was a pioneer in developmental psychology. The Mindstorms software uses the Logo language and there is a bunch of Lego hardware being made for it now. It's cool stuff.

I posted about Global Dreams last week and in in the interests of fairness posted the links for all three sites. Amazon, BN or FatBrain

Amazon, BN or FatBrain

I may even be doing a book review on it.

--

Barnes & Noble allows you to ship a book to an address of your choosing, gift-wrapped. Probably Amazon does that too. I don't know for sure because I don't do business with them.

Another book featuring a space elevator is "Jumping Off the Planet", by David Gerrold. Lots of great stuff about the economy, social impacts, etc of the "Beanstalk".

I don't know this for sure, because I have never had a chance to read them myself, but who here has read The Art of Computer Programming?

According to Barnes & Noble's summary, some of it is about "information structures-the representation of information inside a computer, the structural relationships between data elements and how to deal with them efficiently." Representing things is expressive, you convey information not only through what you represent, but how you represent it. Compare a poem to a story as two means of representation. Completely different forms can express completely different meanings. The Supreme Court has ruled that anything that is expressive is free speech, from draft card burning to singing to writing. A program is a means of representing and computer information. The way you do that representing is expressive. Especially if computer programming is an art.

On a slightly different note (at least a different angle of the same problem), what about the cases Bernstein V. USDOJ and Peter D. Junger v. William Daley, United States Secretary of Commerce, et al.? Both are Circuit Court of Appeals cases, ninth and sixth, respectively. Both cases say code is free speech. Junger v. Daley is especially good, here is Slashdot's coverage of the case. Read it, it will give you a nice warm feeling inside in light of all the bad news.