Slashback: Agenda, Reproduction, Aesthetics

Lots of updates, amplifications and followups in tonight's Slashback. Clones are on the way, the Agenda Linux-based PDA isn't quite dead, Gates' testimony is online, (surprize!) Hollings' so-called privacy bill could have a very different upshot, and much much more. Read on below for the details.

I can't be dead -- I still have batteries! Bill Kendrick writes: "Just when you thought the first Linux-based PDA was dead and gone, someone announces a compatible version, the STVR3 from Softfield Technologies (who actually did the hardware design for the original AgendaVR3). Only $105 for the 8MB, and $135 for a new 16MB version. Not bad if you want a bash prompt in your pocket, and can't afford the $500 for a Zaurus!"

De gustibus non est disputandum. An Anonymous Coward writes: "Mosfet has posted a reply to Bart Decrem's interview regarding Bart's comments on KDE and its looks. Mosfet explains how KDE has a very elegant system for users and developers using the flexibility of C++ and Qt, which creates a more consistent look and feel. He makes many good points that developers and users often disregard when considering desktop environments and their toolkits. Good read, expecially for those who participate in the 'Desktop Wars.'"

Borrowed at gunpoint, but spent much more freely. blankmange writes: "CNet is carrying a followup to a story that was posted here not too long ago. The State of California apparently ordered too many licenses for Oracle's database software: 'A top official in California Gov. Gray Davis' administration has resigned in a growing controversy over a $95 million software contract with Oracle. Barry Keene, director of the state's Department of General Services, quit after a highly critical state audit said the contract--awarded without competitive bids and for software that is little used--could cost taxpayers $41 million.' Sounds like there may be more resignations and a further investigation."

I wish Gary Trudeau would run a few strips skewering these presumptuous bureaucrat wastrels, prodigal even by the standards of the public trough.

Welcome to my secret underground lair. ceswiedler writes: "Salon is running a story that Sen. Hollings' new Online Personal Privacy Act 'would place a congressional stamp of approval on precisely the kinds of practices that purveyors of spyware are eager to engage in.' The writer is particularly concered with the 'nonsensitive' information clause, which is 'a huge gaping loophole' for companies like KaZaA and Brilliant Digital."

Science greatly ups my odds of reproducing. Transcendent writes: "I just recently read an article at SpaceDaily about how there are three women due to give birth to clones. Italian Professor, Severino Antinori, told reporters that two of the women were from the former Soviet Rebublic, and one from an Islamic country. They're keeping specific details from the public, but it's still a huge shake to an ever-changing legal, scientific, and moral society."

A bedtime story for very, very bad children. tulare writes: "Microsoft is hosting Bill Gates' written testimony online. At 42,000 words, it's not neccessarily light reading, but to their credit, it is nicely indexed. Probably a must-read." Also good for European insomniacs to start boring through.

Lobby your library. Lots of readers inquired where they could find copies of The Computer and the Skateboard . Filmmaker Paul David writes: "DVD copies of this movie will be ready to ship in mid-may. The Cinema Guild website will be e-commerce ready by June 1. If you would like to order a copy before June 1, The Cinema Guild will take your order over the phone: (800) 723-5522 or (212) 685-6242. dvds for home use are $59.95. vhs copies (for home use) are available for $79.95."

Comments

Is it just me, or..

[Bowie J. Poag]

Does "Sharp Zaurus" sound like something a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger would have?

Cheers,

Re:Is it just me, or..

[DarkZero]

My first thought: A Mega Man X villain.

"Storm Eagle! Volt Catfish! SHARP ZAURUS!!!"

Hollings

[Alien54]

I sort of was suspicious that Hollings, the man who would give us the SSSSSSSSSSSCA (how ever many S's that is) would suddenly introduce a bill that would make sense to technologists.

So I'm feeling redeemed that someone found a "gotcha" in the fine print of the new bill.

Re:Hollings

[jhines]

He should have the non-private information in his life posted to the 'net, then he can see and feel the effects of his proposed legislation.

After a few questions at a press conference about his personal shopping habits, he should wise up fairly quickly.

Re:California get shafted

[AmigaAvenger]

Umm, California didn't get shafted, California happily gave it self the ready and willing shaft. (Must like they have done with their recent power situation...) Being the largest state is an advantage, only if you aren't a Californian...

Gates is delusional

[Anonymous Coward]

I was at Microcenter today. In the clearance section of the book department were stacks of Gates's book Business @ the Speed of Thought -- two bucks a pop and no takers. I wonder who the F**K thought up that corny title. It probably was an MS think tank composed of 100K/year MBAs.

But for his money, why anyone would care about Gates's thoughts on anything is beyond me. He is sort of like a third world despot with a couple nuclear weapons. If it weren't for the weapons, no one would give a flying F**K what he had to say. I'm mean, hey, it's not like Gates is an Einstein. Say what you will about Richard Stallman, people listen to RMS for his provocative ideas, not because he wields some great financial power.

Privacy

[EricBoyd]

Privacy is one of those issues where you should watch what people do, not what they say. Everyone *says* they value their privacy online and off. But almost everyone also gives away their privacy for the smallest benefit - like 5% discounts at your local grocery store, in exchange for them tracking everything you ever buy from them...

I'm convinced that until people actually start acting the way they talk, privacy online and offline will continue to get worse.

**If you value your privacy, don't give it up for small discounts, or extra convenience, or anything!**

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

Re:Privacy

[fahrvergnugen]

**If you value your privacy, don't give it up for small discounts, or extra convenience, or anything!**

Or even better, just lie to them.

When my grocery store raised the prices 10% and then offered me a 5% discount if I'd get a membership card, I just lied on the application. According to my card, my 20something white male self is actually a 60-year-old black mother of 6 grown children named Frieda.

The best way to sabatoge that kind of invasive system is to simply feed it bad data. Enough bad data in the database, and it becomes useless for predicting the buying habits of my demographic.

Re:Privacy

[MrHat]

The Grocery Store Card HOWTO
April, 2002

1. Visit the store at the busiest time of day. At least around here, that's 5:30pm or so. Right after work, but before everyone goes home to sit on the couch, drink whisky, and generally get 'tore up'.
2. Pick up a loaf of bread or similar staple food.
3. Find the line whose length appears to be increasing the fastest. Typically, these are the 'express lanes'. They're not 'express' (nor really even 'lanes'), but people seem to think they're quicker.
4. When you get to the very front of the line, ensure there's a line of angry customers wrapped all the way into the next aisle.
5. As the total pops up, tell the cashier: "The manager told me you have those cards at this register." Point at the bread. "I need one for this." Glare back through the large line.
6. Watch as the cashier succumbs to peer pressure and gives you a card from the stack in the bottom of his drawer. Not like he wanted your personal information anyway.

I've done this on several occasions. In the stores that have the automatic cashier machines, you can cut out the barcode and just carry it. Give cards away to your friends, tape them to telephone poles, whatever floats your boat.

Then delight in the fact that you've won, at least for the time being.

Re:Privacy

[quokka70]

According to my card, my 20something white male self is actually a 60-year-old black mother of 6 grown children named Frieda.

Why would anyone name all 6 of their children Frieda?

Re:Privacy

[Phroggy]

Everyone *says* they value their privacy online and off. But almost everyone also gives away their privacy for the smallest benefit - like 5% discounts at your local grocery store, in exchange for them tracking everything you ever buy from them...

When I give information to Safeway, I know exactly what information I'm giving them, I know they're tracking my purchases, and I know that if I don't want them to track a particular purchase, I can simply not use my card.

What I don't know is whether Safeway might sell my personal information to a third party, without my awareness or consent. I'd like for this to be illegal unless I opt in.

Aside from that though, I WANT Safeway to track my purchases. I want them to see what I buy. I know that the people collecting this data don't really care about me personally, I'm just a statistic - but I have no objection to being a statistic for them. What are they going to do, use my shopping habits to make my food more expensive? I don't think so.

It's like the paranoia people have with targeted TV commercials. If targeted ads mean I see more commercials for IBM and Apple and Jack in the Box and Attack of the Clones, and I don't have to see commercials for tampons, I'm all for it. If tracking my purchases enables Safeway to sell me more of the food I want for less money, great.

Re:Privacy

[EvlG]

In fact, that is why I shop at Albertson's, because they don't have that damn club card.


It's coming. A year ago, Alberton's here in Dallas was all "Club card savings without the card!".

Fast forward one year. Now its "Albertson's Preferred Savings Card: a better way to save!"

The first time I went into the store and saw the card, I left immediately. I haven't purchased anything there since.

Raising the prices to get my personal information amounts to extortion, and I won't stand for it. Not to mention that even with the preferred club savings, the price is still above what it was before on many items.

Re:Privacy

[Darth_Burrito]

Hmmm Krogers (midwest grocery) gave me 2 cards and 2 keychains. Let's see, one for my friend in Columbus, one for my sister in Dayton, two for me in Huntsville. That's odd on tuesday all he got was fruit/veggies/morning star hamburgers. On Wednesday he came back for 10 pepperoni and sausage frozen pizzas and 4-12 packs of cherry seven up. On Wednesday he came in for Milk, OJ, Bread, Lunch meat, hot peppers, and cheese. Hey, where does this guy live?

Re:Privacy

[zulux]

Why would anyone name all 6 of their children Frieda?

They all have diferent last names.

Re:Privacy

[Gulthek]

Exactly! The above post is right on the money. In spite of what any paranoid people might *like* to think, they should realize that they are simply not that important. No, not even to your local grocery store. Just another datapoint. Datapoints are good, lots of datapoints are necessary but in no way individually interesting.

Re:Privacy

[zeno_2]

I can make those steps much quicker..

I just go to the supermarket (this has worked at every place that has those cards) and when you get in line, and they ask if you have a 'club card' or whatever, pretend to look for it, and then tell them that you don't have it on you. 3 out of the 4 supermarkets that i go to will ALWAYS use a card they have at the register. The other one (safeway) uses a phone number, so I just enter my mom's phone number and I get the discounts.

This has happened to me time and time again, and it works everytime. The cashiers really don't want to have to do anything extra, so its easier for them to use their own cards or a dummy card to get you thru.

Re:Privacy

[rgmoore]

But they can still link the club card to you via the info on your credit/debit card.

So pay cash. It's not that hard, you know, and if you keep your receipt you can still have records of your spending habits. If you really value your privacy, cash is definitely the way to go.

Re:Privacy

[mcrbids]

Lying doesn't work. All that does is not allow them to trace anything to you personally.

What makes you think they care about you?

What they are looking for with these cards is associations like:

1. People who buy Reddenbocker's popcorn prefer Brand X Ice Cream
   
2. People who buy generic milk do/don't buy generic soda.
   
3. What do people buy when they just run in for a gallon of milk?
   

They *MIGHT* pay attention to the racial/ethnic information you filled out, but knowing its accuracy is going to be *alot* lower than the computerized records of what was bought, they'd give alot less credence.

here is an article coving a study to determine relationships like these.

This information is used for product placement, promotional offers, and in negotiating contracts with suppliers.

The ethnic information, though less accurate, is still going to be accurate enough to sway decisions for advertising and promotion...

Re:Privacy

[cosyne]

5% discounts at your local grocery store

Or find one of the grocery stores that will link a phone number to the card, like the Vons and Ralphs chains is CA. Make up a number, or use the store's phone number, the microsoft piracy tip line, whatever. Then post it online, like so: 858 336 2714, and explain that it should work at ralphs, vons, safeway, pavilions, and some affiliated stores.

Re:Privacy

[singularity]

You are missing an importat point on this one - the type of informaiton you mention does not need a card following multiple purchases to do.

In addition, the type of information you mention *does not really invade your privacy*.

I did something else to further confuse the grocery people. In addition to lying, I gave out my extra cards to some people I know. They are not good friends, even, but do live in the same area I do so they use the same store I do.

It would be very difficult for the store to find a decent pattern in our purchasing.

I moved last fall. My current card is one that I found on the ground outside the store. I do not know who it belongs to.

Re:Privacy

[Peter Harris]

Their profiles will become more and more useless if they see "me" buying things in four different states, sometimes a woman other times a man.

It is illegal in most states to purchase either a woman or a man. Or were they senators?

Re:Privacy

[John Hasler]

"The best way to sabatoge that kind of invasive system is to simply feed it bad data."

The best way to sabatoge that kind of invasive system is to simply take your business elsewhere.

And it isn't your grocery store. It is the shareholder's grocery store.

Re:Privacy

[Grab]

I refer you to the story about cloning above... ;-)

Grab.

Re:Privacy

[FacePlant]

I don't care how much info the grocery store tracks about me. If I save a buck a gallon on milk, amortized across three small children, that's a lot of money.

Now apply that to other groceries.

Sometimes it is a special value like the other night when out for maple syrup and paper napkins, I found milk discounted to 1.28/gal (limit 3). Thats's a 1.21 savings per gal. The $3.63 buys me two venti coffees and S*bucks on my way to work.

Sometimes it is the difference between food being overpriced and reasonable. At that point, I get annoyed at the card system. Chciken, or milk should be affordable to everybody, not just card holders.

So the store knows that I buy lots of milk, and often I buy Juicy-Juice, or Gogurt. Big deal. What does it cost me? Nothing. And I get those useless coupons at checkout-time, trying to entice me to buy Dole brand lettuce in a bag instead of FreshExpress brand lettuce in bag.

Sometimes they even give me coupons for stuff I buy.

Conclusions: Supermarket cards good. Fire bad.

Re:Privacy

[56ker]

Is Frieda a mispelling of Freda - or is it deliberately a made-up name?

Yep, it's late

[rbeattie]

2:26 a.m. here in Madrid, Spain by my clock (which is always a bit fast). The fact that I'm even CONSIDERING reading Bill Gates testimony says to me that I need to go take a pill and go to bed.

Slashdot: The nightime sleep remedy.

-Russ

Something is rotten in Denmark, err, Ontario.

[thesolo]

From the Softfield website:
We accept PayPal and Money Order payments for all our products, parts and services. Please contact vr3@softfield.com with the items you wish to purchase.

Does that seem very shady to anyone else? Maybe I'm just overly paranoid, but whenever a company only accepts money orders and/or paypal, it makes me a little wary. Plus there is not one mention of an "ST VR3" on their site, just a picture of a VR3 "H2O" model.

Personally, I think I'll pass and see if anyone else is brave enough to order and actually gets their PDA. Something about the combination of Paypal and the low low price tag make me cautious.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants an Agenda VR3 and wants to be assured that they will receive it, Agenda Germany is still taking orders! Check out their site here (http://www.agendacomputing.de)

Re:Something is rotten in Denmark, err, Ontario.

[JabberWokky]

...uhhh... and which company *makes* the VR3s for Agenda? Softfield. That's why they are also selling all the component parts for the unit as seperate items (you can email them and order just about any little fiddling bit, and they have prices listed for the screen, the case, etc.)

It looks like most wholesale/manufacturers who dabble in direct sales... if you order low run chipsets or oddball components, this is pretty standard. If you approach them with a $5 million order, they'll handle you differently... like Agenda. I'm not worried about the unit itself, but I don't expect much support. On the other hand, the niftiest thing is that the sync CD only supports Linux. Anybody else notice that?

--
Evan

argh...

[Iamthefallen]

Also good for European insomniacs to start boring through.

Aaargh, damn you slashdot, damn you!
This will now be my 3rd pot of coffee today...local time: closing in on 2.30am

Re:California get shafted

[TedCheshireAcad]

Re-elect Gov. Davis:

You think things are bad now? Just give us four more years!

Hollings bill doesn't go far enough...

[curunir]

It seems that if anyone should get how to deal with people's personal data, it should be someone who cares deeply about protecting the content industry.

Simply put, my private data *is* property in the same way that N'Sync's newest crapfest is property. When I give my information to a company, it is analogous to the record label selling an N'Sync CD. I have given my information to them and they have limited rights as to what they can do with it. If they sell my data to another company, it's piracy in the same manner as if a consumer were to rip a cd and AIM it to his/her friend.

I'm always amazed at the amount of corporate types who will rant about people pirating music/software/other content yet defend a company's right to use my private information however they choose. I'm also surprised by the number of people (much of the /. crowd, I'd imagine) who believe that there isn't anything wrong with trading copyrighted oggs/mp3s but will blast a company for doing something nasty with people's personal data.

Pick one or the other. I'll take privacy.

Ugly Icons

[rgmoore]

Is it just me, or is this whole thing about KDE being ugly a tempest in a teapot? I thought that it was quite clear from Mr. Decrem's comments that his biggest objection to KDE was that the icons were ugly, not that the software itself was in any way bad. He specifically said that he thought that KDE could improve itself a lot just by making the icons prettier. I'm inclined to agree, and I'll even admit that one reason that I chose (and since have stuck with) GNOME over KDE was that I thought that KDE just wasn't aesthetically pleasing. Is there really a need to write an elaborate reply article just to answer the complaint that the icons could use some work?

Re:Ugly Icons

[hdparm]

I don't think it's only icons. Overall, Gnome looks much smoother and easier on eye (just a personal feeling, of course). However, since the release of KDE3, combination that works best for me is Eggplant look (Gnome) + 'Slick' icons (KDE3).

Great for us South Pacific insomniacs, although we're not going to check 42000 words of nicely indexed WG the 3rd's bullshit

Re:Ugly Icons

[pcardoso]

KDE should default to *everything* cool.

Good Icons, window decoration, styles, fonts, everything, at the expense of more memory and cpu usage. A bit like windows, really, but simple and elegant, like windows 2000, not garish and irritating like XP.

Like me, those who know how to change their desktop to look prettier, also know how to make it faster and with less eye-candy. The opposite is not always true, no matter how simple it can be done.

I really like my kde3 desktop with Ikons and the Keramik style. It's gorgeous just to look at. It's not very fast, or snappy like windows2k feels on the same computer, but it's very beautiful, and nevermind that this is just release 3.0. I expect the same speed improvements as those that followed the 2.0 release.

I really want the desktop icons to cast shadows on the desktop, a bit like Ximian Gnome does. I'm a coder and I would make it myself, but where to start in all those kde/qt source files?

Re:Ugly Icons

[rgmoore]

KDE should default to *everything* cool.

Exactly! Everyone seems to accept that there are prettier looking icon sets out there than the current defaults. Just change to a better looking set and the problem is solved. You could do this very easily at zero performance cost, as long as the new icons were the same size and graphics type as the current butt ugly set.

Good Icons, window decoration, styles, fonts, everything, at the expense of more memory and cpu usage. A bit like windows, really, but simple and elegant, like windows 2000, not garish and irritating like XP.

I'm not sure if I'd describe Win2000 as simple and elegant, though I think that the icons are a distinct improvement from the old NT set. The menus fading in instead of appearing is simply obnoxious. It looks cool the first time it happens, but after than it just slows me down waiting for the menu to show up. Turning menu fading off is the second thing I do with Win2000 when I start working on a new box, after setting the file manager to sane settings (classic style, open folders in the same window, show hidden files, always show extensions, use the toolbar, show full path, detail view).

Re:Ugly Icons

[zenyu]

I like KDE, I'd probably prefer coding in it since it's C++ instead of C. But Gnome is just much more pleasing to the eye; Even more so with Ximian.

Probably the coolest thing for KDE is the Liquid theme, but even with that it just feels like the whole thing lacks polish.

I still install KDE whenever a major version comes out. At some point I'm sure it will pass some milestone like Mozilla 0.9.8 or Mandrake 7.2 where I'll start recommending it to new users.

I shoulda just said, "me too" huh?

Re:Ugly Icons

[Paul Komarek]

I think that part of the reason I turn in revulsion from KDE is that it stirs horrid memories of CDE. CDE was but ugly, and when I'm reminded of CDE, the latent CDE-trauma that scarred my brain makes the world look ugly. Thankfully, KDE is the only thing that reminds me of CDE.

Similar symptoms can be observed every time I see mwm or a clone.

-Paul Komarek

PDA news requirements

[DarkHelmet]

In the words of a friend of mine, you can't mention the words Linux Portable Device without some knob saying how awesome it would be to have a "Beowolf Cluster of These".

When they make Linux clusters out of cellular phones, that'll worry me. You could destroy a building by programming 15000 portable devices to beep at the same time.

Just remember that the power to do so is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

Re:California get shafted

[rossz]

You are a moron of the highest order.

The facts about illegal aliens.

They take shit jobs no one else wants, e.g. backbreaking farm work. They pay taxes (taken out before they get paid), but never file for refunds (which most would be entitled to if they did file). They don't use medicare and such, because they are afraid they will get deported if they do. The same is true for all the other "freebies" that you mention.

If illegal aliens disappeared form California, vegetables would rot in the fields, grocery prices would skyrocket, and the economy would probably be crippled.

We need them. They need us.

Until you spend a season picking artichokes in the central coast, you can just shut the fuck up, you racist asshole.

Go ahead, moderate me down. I don't care.

RMS is also delusional

[The Evil Beaver]

Reading the various documents by Stallman, I've come to the conclusion that he's every bit as delusional as Gates. To Gates' tinpot dictator, RMS makes a great Marxist revolutionary, but his tactics are flawed by petty things like the GPL.

The GNU General Public License, to put it in one word, sucks. Much better licenses exist, ranging from the Mozilla Public License to the University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License. Because of Stallman's inane "demand" (we'll call it) to use nothing but the GPL, or to assign all IP rights to his Free Software Foundation, he scares away many of those thinking that open source might be the solution they're looking for.

It is perhaps best for the Open Source Revolution (if it still is a revolution) that both Microsoft (with Bill Gates) and the FSF (with Stallman) go away and never return.

I *LOVE* Americans!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's BAN human cloning. It's immoral.
But let's pump trailer park trash FULL OF FERTILITY DRUGS and watch them pop out septuplets and call it a MIRACLE.

ALLELUJAH!!!!

Just what we need!

[deadhammer]

Science greatly ups my odds of reproducing

That's just great! We're already running 6 billion, by 2021 there'll be 7. That's what we really need: More people.

Why can't we just work with what we got?

Re:Just what we need!

[gregfortune]

Why can't we just work with what we got?

Have you taken a look around....
ah, never mind ;o)

Re:Just what we need!

[Hard_Code]

"That's what we really need: More people."

Not just that, but *clones of Slashdot readers*.

... Damn..

[Fixer]

This is what happens when fucked up notions of morality get in the way of science. I would so DEARLY love to know how they have overcome the various aging issues with current (public) cloning techniques. But of course, in the current climate, were the researchers to step forward, their careers (and possibly their lives) would be over.

Why on earth do people freak so badly over this concept? A clone (theoretically) is no different than an identical twin. It is a fetus until birth, and thence a person. Done. Are identical twins truly identical people? No. Could this offer tremendous hope for both stem cell research and infertility? Yes.

I do not buy objections based on religion. I do not buy objections based on overpopulation.

So what's the big freaking deal?

Re:... Damn..

[s390]

Why on earth do people freak so badly over this concept? A clone (theoretically) is no different than an identical twin.

Let me put this in perspective for you. Research with animal clones has shown them to be less hardy, prone to obsedity and other syndromes, and overall less healthy and shorter-lived. Now, ask yourself if you would really want to do this to... yourself. I personally think its unethical to do this even with animals. Even animals deserve dignity.

How would _you_ like to be a clone? Imagine growing up knowing, or finding out later, that you're a replicant, and your death-clock is ticking faster than others'. Haven't you ever seen Blade Runner? I think outlaw researchers cloning humans should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity (their "products"), placed against a wall, and shot.

Re:... Damn..

[gregfortune]

Let's say, for instance, that someone wanted to produce an army of blond haired blue eyed men to take over the world... Now, the biggest problem is getting the army built and to do that, children must be born. That could take a long time if you just used the population of one country (ie, the country struggling for dominance). But now let's suppose that you could offer to feed the women of an impoverished country if they agreed to carry a baby for nine months. Poof, population explosion.

Or, let's say that the wealthy would like clones made of themselves and then when the clone reached a certain age, say 25, they would be killed and their bodies harvest for doner organs. By your own admission, these clones are real functioning people, but they could be in a situation where they are raised like cattle rather than like people. Don't believe me? Consider this, money talks, period.

And the possible scenerios go on and on...

Of course, it will probably happen and we can only hope that some kind of equal rights law gets passed someday, but even that probably won't prevent discrimination.

Re:... Damn..

[NearlyHeadless]

Let me put this in perspective for you. Research with animal clones has shown them to be less hardy, prone to obsedity and other syndromes, and overall less healthy and shorter-lived.

This is true, but lawmakers seem intent on banning cloning permanently, even if the problems with it are solved. Many are even against therapeutic cloning, which doesn't involve creating a new person at all, just cell cultures.

How would _you_ like to be a clone? Imagine growing up knowing, or finding out later, that you're a replicant.

I've read about adopted children who find out later in life that they are twins. Mostly they seem intent on finding their twin. I haven't heard about it being traumatic.

Re:... Damn..

[jdavidb]

The reasons you have cited are why my personal code of ethics causes me to oppose cloning with current technology. However, none of those issues is necessarily going to be an issue forever as the technology improves. I would like to convince people that there's nothing inherently immoral or evil about cloning, as long as it is done humanely. i.e., you don't clone a person and use them for spare parts or slave labor, and you don't do it if the effects you cited occur. Also, you don't create a batch of babies (embryos), select a few, and kill the rest. I support any effort to socially legitimize cloning once those obstacles are overcome. The question is, can we do research to move past those obstacles without utilizing the faulty cloning technology we have today and creating "prototypes" that will be subject to the conditions you cited?

Re:... Damn..

[Fixer]

It may be your opinion that it doesn't create a "new person", but how about looking at it from a scientific point of view instead of a religious/philosophical one? "Therapeutic" cloning creates a new human being, not "just cell cultures". All humans, at all stages of development, deserve basic dignity and rights.

Oh, really? Fascinating. On the one hand, you say we should maintain a scientific mindset, and then you foul it all up with notions of "basic dignity and rights". Show me a 'scientific' argument for dignity and rights, and I'll show you a philosophic statement.

To put this another way, what you are saying is that each and every cell of our bodies, because it could theoretically become it's own person, deserves all of the protections and rights afforded to full human beings. Great idea! No, seriously. Next time someone's DNA is used against them in a court case, one could then bring charges of mass murder against the lab that performs the testing.

Your position is neat, but untenable. Personhood is not a question of embodiment, or at least, it shouldn't be. I mean, the first Aliens we meet and we can legally (try to) enslave them. Riiiight.

Re:... Damn..

[gregfortune]

But in reality, they are looking for ways to grow single organs

Of course, but that does away with the need for full scale cloning for organ transplant. So what really is the purpose? Just because we can? Sorry, I'm too cynical to buy that one.

Re:... Damn..

[autopr0n]

Let's say, for instance, that someone wanted to produce an army of blond haired blue eyed men to take over the world... Now, the biggest problem is getting the army built and to do that, children must be born. That could take a long time if you just used the population of one country (ie, the country struggling for dominance). But now let's suppose that you could offer to feed the women of an impoverished country if they agreed to carry a baby for nine months. Poof, population explosion.

Um, the technology to do that has existed for centuries, it's called 'selective breeding' Using selective breeding on humans is called 'eugenics' and was fassionable in the 1930's, especialy in germany. What's your point.

If you're willing to forgo blond hair and blue eyes, you can build an army with traits that actualy matter just by choosing a few good donor men and a resonable number of 'good' (geneticaly) women to be impregnated by them (say 1 to 20). You can get a huge number of kids from just one dude

Or, let's say that the wealthy would like clones made of themselves and then when the clone reached a certain age, say 25, they would be killed and their bodies harvest for doner organs. By your own admission, these clones are real functioning people, but they could be in a situation where they are raised like cattle rather than like people. Don't believe me? Consider this, money talks, period.

A person might use there computer to pirate a DVD, lets ban computers!

A person might use their penis to rape someone, lets ban penii!

Or, we could be sensible and ban whatever it is thats actualy wrong, rather then an enabler.

Re:... Damn..

[Saeger]

Also, you don't create a batch of babies (embryos), select a few, and kill the rest.

in vitro fertilization of genetically selected embryos already happens with current technology. What's so immoral about selecting healthy genes over diseased ones? In fact, I'd argue that it'd be immoral to knowingly allow a non-sentient-clump-of-diseased-cells to develop into a miserable human.

IMO, Human life begins with a conscience -- which a few cells certainly don't have the capacity for -- and not at conception, and not at Trimester 3, and not even at birth (*gasp*). A baby doesn't recognize itself in the mirror until about 18 months, but I wouldn't advocate "selecting" newborns because of the much much much stronger empathy factor for anothers life at this point. I'm not a psychopath ya know. :)

(btw, you should change your sig, the /. blackout is over.)
--

Re:California get shafted

[Tetravus]

Hey, I live on the Central Coast (and am an economics student)
This guy's right. It's the free market at work.

"If illegal aliens disappeared form California, vegetables would rot in the fields, grocery prices would skyrocket, and the economy would probably be crippled.

We need them. They need us."

End of argument.

Re:California get shafted

[madeye the younger]

We need them because of what, exactly? To temporarily conceal the fact that the economy you refer to is unbalanced? I'm not a big fan of bandaids on a sucking chest wound, even when there's alot of ready bandaids.

We don't need them. We need to make those jobs they're being exploited for into NON-shit jobs, and realize the standard of living we're taking for granted costs more than we thought.

I'm critically ambivalent

[Eponymous, Showered]

Probably a must-read.

That's a screaming endorsement. I'm critically ambivalent about whether to follow it. I'm bristling with excitement that it may be somewhat non-boring.

Softfield cutting Agenda out?

[CamelTrader]

Visit the Agenda page. Now click on the "BUY IT!" button. You will see that the VR3 retailing for $250.00. Another note at the bottoms warns you "available after June 1, 2001".

So, is Softfield doing their own thing with this? Or has Agenda kicked the bucket and forgotten to update their web page?

[QVC GUY]: How can the savings be THIS PHENOMENAL?? how can Softfield undercut Agenda by nearly ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS??

Anyone know?

Re:Softfield cutting Agenda out?

[Jay Carlson]

Probably because agendacomputing.com is a ghost site, not actually belonging to a functioning US company.

For you Boy Scouts out there: Please don't go pestering the web hosting company. There's useful stuff around in various staff member home directories. I think it's all been mirrored now, but still.

If you bring down the site, I will personally stand outside your house with a megaphone, and appropriate gesutures, shouting:

"IMAGINE A BEOWULF CLUSTER OF THIS!"

Re:Softfield cutting Agenda out?

[marxmarv]

The price of a piece of consumer electronics is ideally roughly 3x the time and materials that went into the assembly (not counting engineering time, overhead, etc.). You can shave some costs by using or modifying an existing design and Linux port, using offshore R&D talent, and using cheaper materials (wasn't there a flash shortage not too far back?). Looks to me like Softfield is doing all three.

-jhp

Re:California get shafted

[Hard_Code]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=31710&cid=34 33 482
We need them because of what, exactly? To temporarily conceal the fact that the economy you refer to is unbalanced? I'm not a big fan of bandaids on a sucking chest wound, even when there's alot of ready bandaids.

We don't need them. We need to make those jobs they're being exploited for into NON-shit jobs, and realize the standard of living we're taking for granted costs more than we thought.

I think both the main post, and this response are good points, and not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Need Undocumentados? Propaganda!

[cmholm]

More facts about illegal aliens:

1) The kids are filling schools to the bursting point, requiring more support than their parents indirectly paid taxes begin to cover.

2) Since they avoid the medical system as long as possible, they eventually cram the emergency rooms and increase the system's budget deficits.

3) They artificially drive down the going price for labor in an ever expanding sphere of occupations. I don't see many artichokes in bulk mail shops, fast food joints, non-ag warehouses, or janitorial operations, to name a few. They ARE good workers, and that's just the point. Af_Americans were a pretty good labor value when THEY were bought and sold, too. By your logic, if wholesale chattel slavery keeps the lettuce from rotting, it's a good deal.

4) They take pressure away from the fat cats in Mexico and Central America to do much about their own inequities.

5) Sure, if you ripped every last undocumented worker out of their job tomorrow, it'd screw things up. If I ripped every open border apologist out of their job, it'd screw things up too. When's the last time a labor market changed overnight? Right, never. The economy would adjust, probably for the better.

Take your racial bull-baiting somewhere else. You want a reconquesta? Then give Mexico back to los indios.

VR3 as a network tester

[Kunta Kinte]

As soon as the VR3 gets ethernet ( the page says june ) I think I'll get one.

Good network testers run for well over $500+, and their not even that hot That's why I still carry a laptop around

A VR3, software like, tcpdump, slightly modified nic driver ( maybe, for an attempt at diagnosising hardware faults ), ping, traceroute, portmap, arp. Would be better than most of the testers I'm seeing right now. All for $150+price of NIC.

The only issue is text entry. I don't think it would be all that bad, if a menu is made available to the user. So the user can click on "broadcast discovery", to discovery host by an ethernet broadcast, arp, then dns ( maybe ), or the user can store a list of known host. For people with small networks, or particularly troublesome servers, that would work well.

640K Memory

[chuckw]

At 42,000 words, it's not neccessarily light reading, but to their credit, it is nicely indexed.

Well it's good to know that his speech will fit in 640K of memory...

Re:640K Memory

[Ian Peon]

Probably not if it were saved in Word format...

Re: Gates Testimony highlights, part one [long!]

[Black Parrot]

> 94. We work to enable interoperability because the market demands it. Proof of our success is provided by the large number of products that interoperate with Windows today, including server software from Sun and Novell and, of course, tens of thousands of Web sites that run on various versions of UNIX and are accessible from Windows-based PCs.

Gee, isn't that a high standard for "interoperability"! I mean, wow, you can view Web pages served from other operating systems, woo-hoo.

Don't Forget...

[Greyfox]

To trade that card out with like-minded folks every so often. That'll further mangle the data in the database, leaving them with no idea what the hell the person regitered to the card is actually into.

Re:Don't Forget...

[the_quark]

I remember I was working at PGP when those cards first really hit. Obviously there were a lot of people there who thought about privacy. :) I remember someone there (heck, might even have been me) had the idea that, much like the "cypherpunks" login with the "cypherpunks" password (which, if you didn't know, is registered in many "registration only" sites, allowing you to login without actually bothering to register), we needed a cypherpunks phone number at Safeway. That way, we could say, "650-555-1212" and get the 5% discount. For those of you who don't know about Safeway, you can enter your phone number as a "key" to get the discount. You can also tell the clerk your phone number, if you're too stupid to type it on the pad, and I've always enjoyed being there at 2AM and seeing the tall, leggy blonde announce her phone number for all to hear.

I then started thinking about the reports that computer was going spit out, because the vast majority of people who would do that are male programmer types (with a handful of women). "Bob! Look at this guy! Last week he purchased 372 liters of Mountain Dew, 27 frozen pizzas, 39 copies of Playboy and one box of Maxi Pads!"

During this time I militantly refused to get such a card and give up my privacy for something as minor as a 5% discount. However, my wife went ahead and applied, but somehow managed to get our phone number wrong. I remember at one point I was buying some beer that was like $2 off per six pack, or something ridiculous. At that time, they were really pushing the cards, and, unless you were willing to be very rude, you got in this catch-22, where, if you told the clerks you didn't have a card, they'd hassle you about how stupid you were being for not saving $6 on the 3 six packs you were buying, or, if you said you left your card at home, they'd hassle you about giving them your phone number.

Anyway, this clerk asked me if I had a card. "Yes, but it's not with me." She wanted to know the number. I gave her my number (obfuscated for this story as 650-555-3940). She punched it in, no such account. She said, "Let me try another one, maybe someone typod it." She typed a number, and the discount popped up. "Good call," said. "What was the number?" "650-555-3949," she said. "Are you Mr. Ngzrschy?" "Nope!" I said. "Thanks!"

Ever since then I've used that number. The name is very difficult to pronounce, and the clerks usually try it one way, then another, then ask, "Did I get that name right?" I always say, "Absolutely!"

GWBush's children are clones

[Russ Nelson]

Imagine, our president's wife, having given birth to clones! Twenty one years ago, they were conceived in secret, without any public oversight! Our own president, experimenting with clones. The shock, the horror, the shame of it. Conservatives must be stewing in their juices.
-russ

low-end Linux PDA is good, but...

[j09824]

Grayscale and 66MHz are fine, and the form factor is great. But it needs an SD slot and a standard serial port (or Bluetooth) to be really useful. Can that be so expensive to add? Of course, slightly higher resolution would be nice, too.

Re:low-end Linux PDA is good, but...

[j09824]

Sorry, I meant USB, not serial. It does have a standard serial port, of course.

Re:low-end Linux PDA is good, but...

[JabberWokky]

Yup - and it's getting a USB interface too (probably a dongle, but that's a total guess based on how I think this company is thinking). Click on "purchase" or some such page - somewhere in there it lists a few peripherals that are coming soon.

--
Evan

My conversation with Mosfet on this issue

[Ilan Volow]

Here's something that more or less reinforces what you say. About a year ago on slashdot, I was (rightly) complaining about some of the usability problems in KDE. A user named "Duley" (guess who) had a few unintelligent things to say on the matter. I'm pretty sure it was mosfet, because of the identical "we've xmlified things so there are no usability problems" argument. If this "Duley" fellow was someone other than Mosfet, I apologize to Mosfet for the case of mistaken identity. I used to post under the name Ukab the Great, if this illeviates any confusion over the user names

My first post:

KDE is a wanna-be (Score:2) by Ukab the Great on Friday May 25, @12:23PM (#198349) [Alter Relationship] (User #87152 Info)

If KDE really wanted to improve their interface, they should make those tiny little toolbar buttons a lot bigger by adding labels. When you increase the size of a target (aka control aka widget), the user can access it faster (something we in the UI industry call Fitts' law). Right now, KDE has billions of tiny buttons that aren't very forthcoming as to what they do (a problem alleviated by a label) and that have crappy access times as a result of their tinyness. Just like all those buttons in M$ office. I guarantee you that few users if any ever use the toolbar buttons in word or excel because they're esoteric and have no speed advantage. Another problem with KDE is lack of progressive disclosure, which is the concept of putting the most simple, basic options at the top-level of an interface, and then giving the user the option of digging down to a more complex level if needed. KDE doesn't do this. They throw 18 billion menu entries, buttons, and other controls straight at the user. When this happens, users will feel completely overwhelmed and won't know where to begin in using program. Just looking at Konqueror makes my head spin. I'm not bashing KDE for adding a good advanced feature like gesturing, but this seems to be just one more instance in a trend that desktop environments have followed as of late: adding cool, trendy, buzzword-compliant technologies but then completely blowing it the most basic and fundamental UI design principles.

Mosfet response

Your a wanna-be (feature's already there) (Score:3) by Duley on Friday May 25, @12:35PM (#198415) [Alter Relationship] (User #455053 Info)

Erm, try right clicking on the toolbar handle and this is what you get: Text Position->Icons Only, Text Only, Text aside icons, Text under icons. There are your labels. Been here ever since KDE2.0 development first started. You can also select icon size and got a selection of small, medium, and large. As for "progressive disclosure", I don't see this problem but if you do almost all of the menus and toolbars are constructed out of XML. Edit them if you think you can do better and post it to the KDE mailing lists (or the application author).

Ilan's counter response to Mosfet A problem with your arguement--sane defaults (Score:2) by Ukab the Great on Friday May 25, @05:55PM (#198350) [Alter Relationship] (User #87152 Info)

"But you can customize it" people say "But if you dig deep enough into the configuration, you can change it" people say Such are the ideas that hold linux from the desktop. Many users starting off will do neither, and shouldn't be expected to try to improve things that should have been improved to begin with. If there's something in an interface that is supposed to be done (e.g. labeling toolbar buttons) and makes an interface more usable, it should be the default.

Mosfet's counter response

What you want, I don't (Score:1) by Duley on Friday May 25, @08:07PM (#198414) [Alter Relationship] (User #455053 Info)

First of all, I'd hardly call right clicking on the toolbar having to "dig deep...into the configuration". It's not like KDE is making you edit text files or anything. You can also select it in the KDE Control Center under the "Style" entry. There are plenty of places to set this - have you really even used KDE? As for what should be default, *you* think labels make toolbars easier to use, I think it wastes screen real estate (I have a lot of windows open at any given time). *I* wouldn't want it to be default, but you do. They both have good points, but it's certainly not something that you could say "this definitely should be one way". So what can we do but make them both available, choose a sensible default, and let users choose. For me, that's medium sized icons with no labels like most UI's. You feel differently. *Shrug*, KDE allows you to do whatever you like. You'll always get flamed no matter what defaults you choose... if we did it your way people would complain "KDE's toolbars are huge!" and I'd be telling them to right click on them and set what they want ;-) As for the menus, they are fine for me. If you don't like them it doesn't require any programming skill to change their order. Do things your way and suggest to people to change them. This is open development, your not stuck with anything you don't like.

WTF are you talking about?

[autopr0n]

Yes, there are many non-Jews that were killed, far more than Jews, but at the same time there's like a 500:1 ratio of non-Jew to Jew

If by '500:1' you mean '3:2', then maybe. A lot of people died in the hollocaust, the gypsies were also singled out for slaughter, as were gays.

If you mean the war in general, I think it would be about 1:10 jew:non-jew (60 million killed, 6 million jews killed)

oops.

[autopr0n]

Hrm, I can't seem to read. I still think 500:1 is a bit much though, if that were the case then there would have been 3 billion people in europe.

ESR!??!

[autopr0n]

WTF!?

ESR might be more practical then RMS, but he's also a self-agrandizing wanker who's main goal in life is to make money and feel important. You can keep your sleazebag, politicaly retarded 'leader' to yourself.

Reconquesta?

[autopr0n]

Do you think we deported all the mexican when we conqured that land?

Or what?

America is not defined by the color of it's citizens. You are a racist if you belive that reconqesta BS.

Okay...

[autopr0n]

Well, technicaly I agree with you. Cloning shouldn't be done now because of all the problems associated with it (namely telomere(sp?) shortening)

However, there is no reason to think that those problems will exist in the future. If we could be assured resonable success rate (at or higher the success rate for natural birth) how would you feel about cloning then? (for instance, if we coudld do it with chimps)

Re:Okay...

[Saeger]

When (not if) we work out the kinks, I'd feel the point of cloning is almost moot.

You see, I'm one of those transhumanist "whackos" who thinks that our minds will evolve out of our frail bodies, and that the exponentional march of progress will allow us to do it by 2050. Cloning a mind is another topic... :)
--

What?

[autopr0n]

You don't know what the hell your talking about therapeutic cloning does not, by definition, create a whole person. thearaputic cloning is like generating new hearts and livers and stuff in test tubes (well, really big ones)

heh

[inKubus]

Of course now you're going to be getting coupons for AfroSheen from the printer.

Eengles

[inKubus]

The only problem I have with these workers is their inability to speak English, and their unwillingness to get their kids to speak English/learn much of anything in school. Then they have 5 kids per family.

I like being able to communicate with the people I work with. I don't want to learn spanish either. but I guess that is the only solution, since they aren't going to change for America. That's ok, America has a long history of absorbing other cultures into it's own, this is just one more.

So learn spanish, teach your new amigo linux (even a child can operate it), and soon he'll be learning english to read the man pages.

Dunno. It's late, I'm coffeed up, and my mouth is dry.

Cheers.

One problem with the reasoning above

[alispguru]

What are they going to do, use my shopping habits to make my food more expensive? I don't think so.

Actually, that's exactly what they might do. Don't forget, the ultimate reason for all this data gathering is for the gatherers to keep more of the customers' money. They could do it by tracking your purchases and showing you ads for similar stuff. They could also do it by noticing that you buy the same product at different stores for different prices, so it's safe to raise the price on that product.

Safeway is a business; it's not your friend.

Ask yourself this...

[BeBoxer]

Who would like to know more about your buying habits? I'll tell you one person who would love to know what you buy at the grocery store. Your insurance provider. Let see... buys a lot of beer, better raise his auto insurance rates. Buys a lot of red meat and junk food. Better raise his health insurance rates. Buys cold medicine instead of going to the doctor, maybe we can lower his rates. Oops. Buying condoms. That's risky. Better raise his rates instead.

The grocery store itself probably couldn't care less about your buying habits. They aren't collecting the personal information for themselves. They are collecting it so they can sell it to other people who do care. And they are not giving you a discount. It's just offsetting other price increases. That's why I don't shop at the stores that do this. Some stores don't feel the need to overcharge people who care about their privacy, and those are the stores I shop at. In a capitalist society, your dollar is your vote. Vote wisely!

No

[autopr0n]

Bonobos chimps do engage in lots of gay sex, but I'm not aware of any other kind that does. Human society is a lot more like that of the Bonobos, but I wouldn't really say it always was.

Anyway, Homosexually is most certainly 'against evolution' Gay people can't have kids. My point isn't that being gay is "wrong" from a moral standpoint, only that evolution shouldn't be taken as any kind of moral compass.