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Christian Science Monitor Putting OSS at the Helm
Jane Walker writes to tell us that the Christian Science Monitor is becoming quite the proponent of open source. The aggressive nature of OSS was a large part of what drew CIO Curtiss Edge into the fold, it seems. From the article: "But beyond the tangibles like open source code it was the community that made a convert of Edge. Behind all the open code, it was the forums and flexibility that were the driving forces he believes breeds better developers than those that toil away with proprietary code. Open source software makes developers more aggressive and more apt to go out into the communities that exist around the software to find solutions to their problems, Edge said, rather than holding on some proprietary help desk line while tech support looks up the answer."
Open Source rules.
Can I get an amen?
barack to the future?
To be fair this can happen in open source world as well (well, in the so called "commercial open source world"). But, overall, in general probability of fixing an issue quickly is higher when using open source software.
Amen!
While the Christian Science Monitor was founded by the Christian Science movement (about as far from Bible-thumping Fundamentalism as you can get), for at least the past four decades it has been a general, highly respectable news source with no religious slant.
Now instead of telling my boss that our issue has been escalated to level 2 support I can say "I won't have an answer until Elm0 in #L1nuxd00dz recovers from his caffine induced tirade about how LISP is more elegant that PERL".
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Definitely, open-source advocates must have splitted personalities.
Duh. My sn is "Zaphod" for Buddha's sake! ;-)
barack to the future?
You forgot to mention the old Homestead practice of community Barn Raisings. -- Probably the nicest pre-computing analogy to Open Source.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
when i read the Christian science monitor people glance at the title and knee jerk immediately, 'what the hell are you reading that for?'
Just in case you have not had an encounter with the CSM before, it's not some religious orientated 'intelligent theory' spouting mouth piece of the far right. It's one of the most respected newspapers around, has a league of its own reporters rather than relying on wire services like most other papers, has won many awards for fantastic journalism, often reports on cutting edge science that would make the conservative far right weep, and also often reports on stories that the rest of the press skip over for not being sexy enough.
AND, they're low on cash and have been in the red for some time, how about splashing out on a subscription?
For example,
The community of believers were of one heart and one mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather, everything was held in common. With power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great respect was paid to them all; nor was there anyone needy among them, for all who owned property or houses sold them and lay them at the feet of the apostles to be distributed to everyone according to his need. (Acts 4:32-35; see also 2:42-47 So it's a fallacy that Christianity is incompatible with the Left. Rich man, camel, needle's eye, heaven, anyone?
Open-source advocates were being known as Communists (Left), and now the same group of people become Christians (Right)?
:)
I am NOT a communist, but still support OSS.
I'm not such a big Christian either, I mean, I grew up in a catholic family but I'm not a strong believer. Still, I don't like proprietary software.
I'm not leftwing (even though here in Europe right and left are somehow different than in the USA)
All in all, the real point is: what on earth has to do the OSS dispute with political, or worse, religious issues?
You can make good money out of OSS, and I'm pretty sure Jesus would have kicked out the Temple both Steve Ballmer or the Red Hat CEO
My 2 cents.
640KB of virtualized ram will be enough for everybody
Was your question "What does the man command do?"
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
(Dials 911) Cop: Hello, how can I help you?
Me: I dont know, some slashdotter thinks I am in danger.
Cop: OK what is the problem?
Me: Not sure...Some religious leaders say Open Source is better.
Cop: What is Open Source.
Me: It is a movement led by Stallman, Linus, Alan Cox, Jens Exboe and many more.
Cop: Ok... Dont worry, cops are on the way to arrest all of them.
hilarious
I was about to make some comment about how that logic says that I like AOL because I have an internet connection, but I just couldn't pull it off. So it must indeed be that a religious body is endorsing the devil. I can assure you full adoption by December 21, 2012.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I have heard (and wikipedia confirms) that at the request of the founder, there is always at least one religious article per issue. I cannot comment on the quality of their general articles (though I've heard they've done some good stuff) or the quality/tone of their mandated daily religious article, but you can't really say that they have "no religious slant" if they are, in fact, going out of their way to run at least one religious article per issue.
It should be noted that the Devil is pretty much limited to Western religions.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
....for at least the past four decades it has been a general, highly respectable news source with no religious slant.
In other words, a once Godly and Respectable publication has been overrun by terro-communists!!!
May the Maths Be with you!
Nonsense. Many Eastern religions have the same concept, from Mara in Buddhism to Akuma in Shintoism.
Ok, I messed up. I admit that I misread Wikipedia and barfed out bad information.
Sorry.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
Gives a new meaning to "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", doesn't it!
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
And God Said to Noah "Thou shal build an ARK-ive so that I may have a back up copy of everything that I have created." And so, Noah made back up. He back up two of everything.
When Noah was finished and everything was backed up, GOD INSTALLED LINUX! (*angles signing "HALELUJAH!"*) As God wiped away all the JPG's of Angelina Jolie on his harddrive, God though of a brilliant idea to create a flightless black and white bird that had it's own exclusive land that would be way COOLER that Eden. (Eden was a pain in the butt to maintain anyway. Between that Adam and Eve thing, kicking them out, and the cost of Fertilzer, and letting some Iraqi people rent the place and calling it Mesopotamia). This land would be easier to maintain because everything there would be frozen.
When He was done installing the fifth disc of the Linux distro, completing setup, and running yum to install any other RPMS that were not installed on the distro discs, God said "Let there be a land of ice and snow so that my latest creation may live in harmony far away from all the other things that I have made." And so it was. He called this land "Antartica" and the creatures he created were called "penguins".
Then God reinstalled most of the files he had and told Noah "If anyone ask what happen, say there was a great flood." "But what about the uber-believers oh, Lord! The take everything literally for the they think they need You to be responsible for there lives, draw stregth from, and condem all the people they call 'science nerds'?"
And God said onto Noah "F*** those Biblethumpers! I'm tired! I'm going to go listen to some Zep* and watch the penguins." You'll probably destroy yourselves over dumb crap that is about Me but I don't want to be any part of your problems. Besides, nerds rule. Only a nerd would have the ablity to use AI and bring stuff to life."
This made Noah a little said, so to make him cheer up a bit God then stated "However, in case there is a big emergency, give Me a holler."
(*="On the eighth day, God created Led Zeplin. He grabed a beer, then he rested.")
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
How about reading the damned paper before you make an ass out of yourself? Any decent scientist would.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Point 1 is already messed up.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I certainly have noticed a large number of christians in my local Linux Users Group. Someone posted a question on the list about software for some religious purpose (hymns dissemination contrary to the wishes of the RIAA? congregation monitoring? can't remember really) and they all came out of the woodwork. I was surprised about the number of active church goers. Perhaps I am just jaundiced by boarding school forcing me to go to church, but in my "other than geek" life I know no one who goes to church!
BSD can't die now! Christians have experience bringing things back that everyone believes dead.
They're putting their faith in OSS!
[ducking]
Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!
-- Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, iuva.
I have to agree; I get most of my news from Google News, and I usually select a couple of stories pertaining to a certain topic. I happened upon some write-ups from the CSM, and they almost always were very informed, pretty much unbiased and clearly and concisely written, even on hot-button issues like stem cell research. Not at all what I expected from a publication with "Christian" in the name (no offense meant to religious people, but the special brand of Christianity that seems to have the loudest voice in America these days does show evidence of a neanderthal mindset).
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Well, duh! Everyone knows Christians are huge proponents of 'Intelligent Design'!
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
You say that as if communist idealism is a bad thing.
I'm guessing you're an American?
The ideals behind Communism are brilliant and worthy of striving for: From each according to their ability; for each according to their need.
They're certainly a lot better than the ideals of capitalism: I got mine and screw everyone else.
I think the claim that OSS developers are more "aggressive" in seeking solutions is without merit. I mainly develop using proprietary software, and I'm plenty aggressive. I've used the help desk to get technical support maybe once or twice in my (long) career. How aggressive do you need to be to use Google or MSDN? Not very.
And, furthermore, isn't tech support one of the foundations of the OSS business model? Give away the software and hope people will pay for help, right? I guess the people at CSM won't use Red Hat.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
In the amount of time it took you type all of your responses, you could have gone to the CSM web site and seen whether or not they fit your preconception (er, misconception). They run a single column every day in the Op/Ed section that deals in some way with spiritual matters, and that's it. Almost every newspaper in the US runs at the very least a Bible Quote somewhere on the Op/Ed pages, and the majority of daily papers in this country do carry a religious section, even if only in the Sunday edition, so the column in the CSM isn't terribly out of place (and quite frankly, it's usually fairly nonreligious, but nonetheless it's relegated to the Op/Ed pages where biased commentary belongs).
As an athiest, I can assure you the presence of that one column doesn't somehow "taint" the rest of the newspaper. Quite frankly, the CSM is one of the best, if not THE best, newspapers currently published in the United States, in terms of objectivity, comprehensive coverage of vital issues, and reporting of straightforward facts. You will never see a front page story about Angelina Jolie's baby, or any other nonsense that most American "newspapers" cover, but you will find in-depth reporting from corners of the globe everyone else is ignoring. You'll find original coverage that doesn't rely on republishing the same tired wire reports everyone else is cribbing from, and you'll see rather penetrating journalism that should make every other newspaper's Washington bureau filled with syncophants (of both parties) hang their heads in shame.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
It has some kind of slant. All media does.
Did someone say I AM?
...
*Does a Yahweh jig*
*Looks awkward and goes back to his corner*
I read CSM articles from time to time and find them reasonably well balanced.
Christians are not, in general, a bunch of intolerant anti-intellectuals.
Liberals promote tolerance, not big government and immorality.
The neo-cons smear them both.
Want to really get to the Christian far right? Refer them to this Chapter
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Unless those articles are about Christian Science zealots refusing medical attention to the sick and dying.
Here's a CSM article on the Schiavo case. Judge for yourself.
Real Christians are typically well read and well thougt out individuals.
GP made no such generalization.
Liberal == Communist
An apt paraphrasal of the neo-con smear to which gp refers.
It should be noted that the Devil is pretty much limited to Western religions.
I think you mean "middle eastern" religions.
Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Mecca and Medinah are all in the middle east.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
True, Real Christians are typically well read and well thougt out individuals.
"Real Christians" are typically just like everyone else. As a group, they're generally neither better nor worse read than the average.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I don't know about Europe, but I know in comparison to Canada, the 'left' American party (Democrats) is still right of our right party, the Conservatives.
ND
This statement is forty-five characters long.
I wrote a JE about this: Free Markets do not require Self-Interest.
Wikileaks, no DNS
It's only logically, they both go around trying to force their beliefs on everyone else and RMS does resemble Jesus in that unwashed crazy way.
Yes, USA, where the ignorant (that's you) can choose not to listen to people because of a LABEL. If you were as progressive as you think you are, you might actually RTFA and find out it's not a religious publication.
Smooth you.
He's an atheist.
"I haven't ever read it myself, but..."
Internet discourse in a nutshell.
In journalism there are two kinds of hot stories. Stories of Interest: "Alligator Eats Toddler" and Stories of Importance "Racist Attacks Swell Across Russia." The best stories, of course, combine both elements. The Monitor never sinks to reporting mere Stories of Interest.
The good things said about this paper are all true. I have whittled down my daily RSS to a few choice streams. Slashdot, of course, included and The Christian Science Monitor.
And check out the daily spiritual op/ed item. Generally ecumenical and illuminating. Spiritual and not religious.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
New here?
Politically, the question is about people's right to control their own property. Completely control. Seeing a human-readable version of the code running on their machines is necessary to assert control over them.
Religiousistically -- or better, morally -- the question is about the definition of property, esp. "intellectual property", and whether it has any moral weight.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Did he say "go ye therefore and license this knowledge to all nations; here's a DRM-protected version." Anyone read the Gospel's EULA?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
True, and Liberals are neither tolerant or in favor of small government or have real values that the majority of Americans hold. There are fringes on both sides but it seems to me that the lefts fringe is more abusive and mean spirited.
Exactly. For research papers the first time I read an article from their website I saw it was the Christian Science Monitor and wasnt sure about it. Then I verified the facts and realized it was the best article I had. There was a continous theme in papers I worked on, the CSM was always very well written and extremely accurate and a great resource. The name throws you at first but in reality it is a great respectable place for real journalism.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Actually that article is well written and doesnt have much bias with good quotes from both sides and examines the issue. It basically is looking at the legal side of the issue and even goes so far as to say it probably wouldnt hold up.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I think Edge and Bono should stick to music and stay out of politics. Er.. wait.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
You'll find original coverage that doesn't rely on republishing the same tired wire reports everyone else is cribbing from, and you'll see rather penetrating journalism that should make every other newspaper's Washington bureau filled with syncophants (of both parties) hang their heads in shame.
Now that gets you an Amen, brother.
You forgot to mention the part where the government forced them to do that. I'm sure that's in there, right? That's not just something supporting charity that you took out of context to try to support socialism, I'm positive about that.
yeah commies are left vs. christians are right like 185 degrees is left vs. 175 degrees is right. Anyways the Christian Science Monitor isn't a religious publication, it's a news publication that's highly respected for its unbiassed and in depth reporting. The church sort of said "thou shalt not only not lie, thou shalt not shy away from news that is unflatering for us or anyone nor shall you spin the news so that people will come to conclusions not supported by the facts".
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
And I'm only partially baiting flames here...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The entire US political spectrum is skewed (significantly) to the right. What the US refers to as "left" (ie: the Democrats) most (if not all) of the rest of the developed world refers to as "centre-right". What the US refers to as "right" (ie: the Republicans) most (if not all) of the rest of the developed world refers to as "far-right, gun-crazy religious nuts".
When an American calls someone "far right wing", you know they're talking about some seriously messed up people. Probably race supremists or "chain the women to the kitchen"-style religious fundies.
Note that this is right and left wing from a (mostly) social perspective. Fiscally - with the exception of favouring big tax cuts for high income earners - even the "right wing" governments are pretty "left wing" in their approach to economic issues, pretty much across the (developed) world.
Yes, those athiests, Agnostics , or polythiests (romans, greeks, chinese, hindus, early middle east where civilization sprang from) never did much for us.
OTH, the christians have a long history of good research, teaching and education.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And as to the fruits of the conservatives, take a look at the new wells being dug in Colorado and the law that was recently passed which gave an exemption to EPA quality WRT oil/gas drilling in colorado only (very heavy pollution). Likewise, look at Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and most of the recent south American Elections. Or examine the number of very wealthy executives in country club prisons today and those that are not yet. Check the outlandeous debt that was ran up in the 80's and now (both times from "hard core" republicans who profess responsibility, but do the opposite). Finally, witness this admin with its treason, lies, and cowardess.
There are LOADS of examples of failures on both sides. It is not related to philosophy. BTW, in Denver, MLK is a nice home area.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The only problem with that analogy is that if I am a newcomer to the town, I can walk right up to the barn, pull out my screwdriver, and rip off the door. Then I can take it home and build a new barn around that door.
Might not go over so well with the owner.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. - Douglas Adams
Odd. I see more of that on the right side of the coin, rather than the left. I guess it depends on where you are coming from. Being the registered libertarian, I have noticed that it is under republican admins that I see growing gov, growing debts (excluding poppa bush), gov. interference in our personal life, increased spying, failures with the gov, but still it grows with no responsiblility taken(9/11, columbia, challenger, katrina, etc.), invasion of other countries, worse economies, increasing corruption(treason, lies, cowardess, bribes, payoffs, possible rigged elections, clamping of witnesses (sibel edmunds)), etc.
Or perhaps we read different stats and information.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm abusive and mean spirited, you insensitive clod!
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
No, you can copy the door's design and then make one of your own just like it. ANd the barn's owner will be just fine with that.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Nothing, Curtis Edge who the article is about, is the CIO of a newpaper named, The Christian Science Monitor and all of the anti-christian buffoons are spasming in key-jerk bigotry because the word Christian is in the name of a newspaper and it happens to be based in the United States. It would be like saying that some company that the vatican owns stock in is a tool of some unnamed catholic conspiracy. The CSM newspaper and the Christian Science Church are editorialy independent.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Initially, the advisors of the founder of CSM were afraid that the "Christian" in the title would throw of secular readers, but it was a requirement of the founder of the publication, Mary Baker Eddy. When I first heard about this magazine, I thought it was some front for Creationist arguments against creation or something of the sort. But once I read the articles, I found them to be very well balanced, devoid of sensationalism, and very informative. But the "Christian" in the name puzzled me, because I didn't really find anything pertaining to Christianity or anything overtly religious. So finally I looked up this Wikipedia article, which explains it nicely.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Neither of the two words in your nick seem to exist. Google and dictiony.com finds neither. I'm guessing you meant to write magniloquent for the second one, but no idea for the first.
OED:
liberal ('lIb&schwa.r&schwa.l), a. and sb. Forms: 4-5 liberale, (5 libral), 4-7
liberall(e, 5-6 lyberal(l, 4- liberal. [a. OFr. liberal (Fr. liberal) = Sp.,
Pg. liberal, Ital. liberale, ad. L. liberalis pertaining to a free man, f.
liber free.]
1 Originally, the distinctive epithet of those `arts' or `sciences' (see ART
7) that were considered `worthy of a free man'; opposed to servile or
mechanical. In later use, of condition, pursuits, occupations: Pertaining to
or suitable to persons of superior social station; `becoming a gentleman'
(J.). Now rare, exc. of education, culture, etc.,
2 a Free in bestowing; bountiful, generous, open-hearted.
3 a Free from restraint; free in speech or action.
4 a Free from narrow prejudice; open-minded, candid.
5 Of political opinions: Favourable to constitutional changes and legal or
administrative reforms tending in the direction of freedom or democracy.
Actually, I think CSM itself is more eloquent:
r .html
http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/about_the_monito
There is nothing conservative about neo-cons. Another term they've co-opted. They are radicals.
You seem to be confusing Theory and Practice.
The original post was obviously intended to be a funny.
Have you been online long? If you have, remember the "unix is god" vs. "no windows is god" vs. "no macintosh is god" flamewars that come up repeatedly here, Usenet, and just about any other tech board? Some people carry the OS to a whole new level, and rather than looking at an operating system as a tool for problem solving, but almost seem to absolutely worship the software?
Mac users are notorious for this BTW: my graphic designer loves, LOVES everything Apple puts out, and refuses to believe statistics on early G5 tower failures and on powerbook or iMac failures. Why? Because Apple computers are cool - they're "beautiful" and even though something may take 3x as many clicks to accomplish, it's pleasing to the eyes. He sees nothing wrong with the fact that his old Mac could not boot from a HDD without Apple's own firmware. He thinks it's good for Apple that they did that. He's certainly entitled to his opinion, but he leaves all objectivity behind when it comes to picking a product. With that said, Apple does make some incredible products, but they have also made some real duds, and some diehard Mac fans (like him) refuse to admit that. In fact it's become a bit of a running joke at the office - "If it's not Apple, it's CRAP."
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Or, in other words...the "Christian Right" is neither.
I am an atheist but I can clearly see that there is a wopper of a contradiction in your position: if they were true Christians, they would not posess any property, as the Bible clearly states: "everything was held in common". Therefore no need for the Christian government to force them to do anything, they do it themselves. Then of course if they did not do it, they were not true Christians, and so they would run afoul of the Christian community. Ergo the only conclusion that can be reached out of this is that anyone who claims to be a Christian and hoards wealth at the same time is a bald-faced liar. But then, of course, this has been obvious to anyone who cared to look for just about two millenia.
My advice to the greedertarians of various stripes: lay off of Christianity, pick some other voodoo religion which is actually compatible with your goals. Worship Mammon or something. But do not pretend to be Christians or believe in any of the Christianity's tenets.
While the Christian Science Monitor was founded by the Christian Science movement (about as far from Bible-thumping Fundamentalism as you can get)
"Christian Scientists" often refuse modern medical treatment in favor of their brand of faith healing. I'd say that puts them about as far out on in extremist territory as anyone. Sure the issues aren't the same, but christian scientists and fundamentalists are pretty much the same when it comes to the willingness to put faith before facts.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
> There are fringes on both sides but it seems to me that the lefts fringe is more abusive and mean spirited.
The fringe on the left rubs crystals, ohms their chakras, and sings kumbaya for universal harmony.
The fringe on the right wants gays and atheists stripped of citizenship.
I guess your surrey has an entirely different fringe on its top.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I think the windows support model is much better;
1. pay $1500.00 for A+ course,
2. pay $1500.00 for MCSE course,
3. memorise click pathes to fix anything!
4. install service pack
5. React in Horror as all the memorised click pathes have change; wash, rinse, repeat
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Say, I hear bagpipes. Does anyone else hear bagpipes?
When pursuing my (definition of) good, I need not advance your (definition of) good, although it will frequently be a side-effect, or else the result of trade (I advance your good if you advance mine).
As an example, let's say my good is "The Greatest Freedom of the Greatest Number", and your good is "The Greatest Happiness...". We are going to agree upon many things, and will find it advantageous to cooperate most of the time. In particular, we are going to "screw" the interests of the racist, who would himself be willing to harm his immediate biological interests for his ideal (preference within society for those who have a particular combination of seven or so genes that determine skin colour).
Socialisms are not the advance of superior values: they are defined by "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat"; whatever you consider superior, the population will have some who are superior to it, and some who are inferior. Arguably individualism and trade allows a diversity of values to manifest themselves through social 'bio'-diversity; any single measure (even if 'democratic') is going to score those who don't naturally align themselves with those values (say Christians in an Agnostic population) less highly, and render the good delivered to society less manifold.
Capitalism is a system of ownership and trade; it is not quite the same in conception as free markets where the emphasis is upon naturalness, rather than property (consider intellectual property), but individualistic trading to advance differing values is no more necessarily 'grasping' than the official is necessarily blind and doctrinare in a socialistic system.
The ideal in capitalism is that people have the freedom to further their values (which they get to choose, influenced by varied pasts and significant events so as to produce diversity). The ideal in socialism is that people agree on values and further them as a unity, rather than through plural trade.
'Greed' is not an ideal of capitalism, but is only one of a number of possible measures of 'good'. Greed is simply a very narrow one, but it is certainly not a necessary one. It is not even desperately well-defined...
Wikileaks, no DNS
"No, you can copy the door's design and then make one of your own just like it. ANd the barn's owner will be just fine with that."
And they might even help you with the tough parts!
InfoWorld ran an short piece on Chris Edge and his use of open source at the Christian Science Monitor earlier this year. It was part of a larger package focusing on a variety of businesses and how they use open source.
Breakfast served all day!
Is the lag in receiving the new really a bad thing? You can get the headlines from the New York Times, BBC, or whatever, but magazines like Time are very popular for providing longer, focused articles. The problem I've found is that Time tends to be ridiculously sensational and painfully short on hard facts because flashy graphics, rhetoric, and sob stories are more exciting.
I'd noticed that the CSM articles linked off of Slashdot in the past have been very good, but I never thought too much about the publication before. After reading all the positive comments of subscribers, I went ahead and ordered a trial issue. If I like what I see, I'll definitely buy a paper subscription.
there is a wopper of a contradiction in your position: if they were true Christians, they would not posess any property, as the Bible clearly states: "everything was held in common"
Well, not really. Those were disciples, not all Christians. Anyway, I believe that Jesus would smite anyone who tried to get him involved in politics right in the taint.
Your positing of sef-interest as primal is no more than faith. It cannot be true, as the reward comes too late (after the act), so the reward cannot induce the act.
We are complex entities, and we have a hand in wireing ourselves; motivation is a harnessable drive, but we have some control over how it drives us. That is: we can structure our motivation. In addition, complexes of ideas have a hold on us, and themselves direct ("subvert") our interests.
What is our self-interest? Our happiness? Our genes? Our freedom? Our values?
If it is the last, then we have nothing to fear of 'self'-interest, but people usually mean something more synonymous with 'greed' when they talk of self-interest, and not something that will do others good. For the sake of argument, I will define greed as the excessive consumption of finite resources, although that leaves open what one means by 'excessive'. Still: the intent is fairly clear.
BTW socialism isn't about concepts being 'socially defined', but is rather a doctrine of the centralisation of will (not necessarily through government: consider political correctness), thus socialism is about uniformity. A system of property will tend to be evolved in the first instance, so that instead of resulting from a centralisation of will, it comes from below, and is recognised, rather than imposed by majority will.
I am not saying this in order to say that I am uncritically in favour of property; I am not, but it is clear that property is not a form of socialism, although it is a restriction of freedom though first social norms, and then through law.
My view is that both pure socialism and capitalism suck. I have anarchic tendencies myself, close to those of the classical anarchists (ie. I'm neither a syndicalist, nor a capitalist), although I do not believe that anarchism is tenable in our present state of society. Neither capitalism, nor socialism bring freedom.
What I do believe, though, is that faith in our perfect selfishness is just about the most harmful and prevalent ideology that we hold today. It is worse than just about any political system, and allows the worst political systems to become truely barbaric.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Ah, I see. Damn those mus-com infiltrators! Or where they agents of Buddha?
Then everybody gets smitten, surely, as religion, philosophy, economics and politics are all inextricably linked together. One cannot have a religious movement which does not impact politics in some major way and vice versa. In fact, most religions place demands on their followers which are directly political. Even secular governance is by definition impacted by religion as it seeks to be neutral towards multiple religions all at once, thus having to navigate carefuly between these various camps. The only way you could have a complete separation of religion and politics is in a state composed exclusively of atheists (and the definition of atheism here is the "weak" type where the scientific method leads one to believe that the existence of a super-being-creator-of-the-universe, or even the validity of a question of necessity of such a being for the universe to exist, is at this point indeterminate. This to be contrasted with the "strong" type of atheism, i.e. the assumption of a proof-positive non-existence of such a thing in spite of the lack of scientific evidence one way or another, which is in itself a form of religious conviction).
All those Linux users are just a bunch of damn hippies!
For those of you who dread the thought of a pile of newspaper accumulating on your doorstep, the Monitor does a Treeless Edition, also.
Breakfast served all day!
Canon R.M. Stallman, prophet of the church of Linus the Baptist, created in the fifth century*. *Although this is disputed, some people say (Church of SCO Intelligent Design) it was made earlier.
--- Duey Finster http://www.dueyfinster.com
It's a common scenario in my world. I'll be coding a difficult algorithm and I find myself asking "How would Jesus code this line?" Of course, the answer is always the same /.
That would make a great email client for them!
It must suck to be as dumb as you are.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The open source equivalent is that you can walk up, take a digital 3D snapshot of my barn and go home and put up an instant copy... You can then take your screwdriver, rip off the door and design a better one.
If I like your new door, then I can take a snapshot of it and use that snapshot to replace my door with your new and improved model ... and if lots of people like your new door, it will quickly become the community standard.
In other words, the biggest difference in the analogy is that, as the digital community learns to build a better barn everybody is able to benefit from the improvement at relatively low cost.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
There are simply so many misunderstandings here I hardly know where to begin.
All truth really rests on axioms, and axioms are matters of faith.
The synod which created the Biblical canon was only formalizing the informal situation which had already existed for a couple of hundred years. Furthermore, even if you think that the canonical texts are unreliable, they are nonetheless much, much more worthy of being taken seriously then the ones that were left out of the canon. Any introduction to the gospels published by a reputable academic press (i.e. no DaVinci Code crackpottery) will show this.
Then you doubt mainstream philosophy of religion. See Swinburne's Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford University Press, 1992). Swinburne is a critical thinker, who has long been respected (even by his atheist colleagues) for creating elegant and strong arguments. He should be exactly the sort of figure you'd want to engage. If you're sincere, that is. Instead, I just think you like to rant here about how religion is evil.
The Church existed before the Bible, as the Church was founded in AD 33 and the first texts (Paul's epistles) are from over a decade later. Therefore, there is a check on the Bible. If you've read the deconstructionists, then you would understand the value of having a source of interpretation so the text doesn't stand alone.
When a good percentage of humanity believes in an invisible man in the sky, you have to admit one of two things. Either a good percentage of humanity is crazy, or believing in an invisible man in the sky is not as crazy as you'd first believe.
Ignoring the fact that the sine is actually a function of real numbers, and the angular definition is a small application of it... does this mean that you do not recognize any action as morally wrong? If you do, then what is a morally-wrong action if it's not sin?
Amen brother. So we're not the only group with very vocal yet very stupid people in our ranks.
Remember that if someone's using an idea to boost themselves, be it a religious doctrine or a scientific theory, it usually means they're not smart enough to accomplish anything by themselves, without the benefit of the ideology. (Yes, this applies to most of the medieval popes. I agree there too.)
The Christian faith suggests you should have no wealth and should share everything. God gave people the free will to do different but at no point does the Bible suggest it is fine to hoard wealth. It's another of the Bibles little games, free will for those who want to go to hell, the rest a strict rule book. Those who don't believe this aren't practicing Christians.
Rights of smokers on one hand. Rights not to die of second hand smoke from lung cancer* on the other.
*which despite a lot of 'science' from tobacco company sponsored studies has more evidence now than ever. The growing mountain of evidence is why many countries are now banning it in public when they didn't 30 years ago.
I'm a subscriber, and a strong atheist. I tend to skip the religion article. The rest of the paper is, IMHO, some of the best reporting out there. Don't let the name fool you.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
... that in the 1800's they probably named the paper "Christian Science Monitor" to try and reconcile some Christians and "blasphemous science", to show that follow science and not give up Christian ideals and beliefs. Now, it probably serves as a bridge in the opposite direction, demonstrating to "rational" people that Christianity doesn't mean giving up science.
Either a good percentage of humanity is crazy, or believing in an invisible man in the sky is not as crazy as you'd first believe.
Considering that very few people who believe in the invisible man in the sky can actually agree on some basic facts about him (even those of the same denomination can have radically different beliefs about the nature, power, disposition, and rules of God) I'd say that the "he doesn't exist" opinion has more support. Even if you disagree with this line of reasoning, majority means nothing. At one point in time the majority of humanity believed all kinds of blatantly false things (geocentric universe.) People STILL believe the stupidest things, like being cold will give you a cold (I'm in Florida, and I get sick most often in the summer. I guess that must means that down here, being hot makes you get colds! Or maybe it could just be that being indoors--often to escape the brutal heat/cold depending on the season and where you live--puts you in close proximity to other people and thus increases your chances of getting sick. Naaaaaaaaaaaaah, couldn't be, popular "wisdom" must be right!)
does this mean that you do not recognize any action as morally wrong?
Objectively morally wrong? No, there is no such thing as objective morality. Subjectively, I have my own personal morality, but 'sin' is a strictly religious concept with connotations that I absolutely do not recognize. In particular:
1. Original sin is bullshit. I am not responsible for the crimes of my ancestors.
2. Sin places little or no emphasis on immortal inactions. See the Isaac Asimov short story Little Lost Robot for details as to why this is an extremely bad thing.
3. Most Christians hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and created everything in existence. If this is true, then every sin ever committed is a direct foreseeable result of his actions, because he knew exactly what was going to happen with the fruit and the snake before he even bothered breathing life into Adam. At that moment he even knew that I'd be sitting here now denying Jesus and blaspheming his name--he knew that billions of years in the future (oh sorry--"5000 years") my mind would refuse to accept Christianity; my "faith" wasn't strong enough. Yet, he created me. He holds the entire history of time omnisciently and deterministically in his mind. Therefore, I don't see how any of this can possibly be my fault. Don't give me "that's the great mystery!" horseshit. Free will and absolute power/absolute knowledge(determinism) by the sole creator of the everything universe are simply not compatible. At best my will is just an extension of his.
How can this be? Surely you won't mind if I say that because I have such awesome genes, it's my duty to help the species by spreading them, and I go and rape whomever I like, then. After all, it's not morally wrong according to me. (And if you say the babies may not appear or survive or be raised well, perhaps I should kidnap attractive women and keep them as concubines. Anyway, that's what ancient kings did, so it must be okay.)
I can appreciate if you have your own personal ethical code, but you have to be able to say there are certain actions that are wrong for anyone to do.
Even ignoring the fact that half of the "catechism" of the Roman Catholic Church is a holdover from exploitative doctrines of the Dark Ages, original sin through Adam, as referenced in the Bible is used in parallel with original forgiveness through Jesus. It allows people to acknowledge the truth that humans are not inherently perfect creatures, and then supposes that this imperfection inherited through Adam. But if this imperfection could inherit to the physical descendants of Adam, then salvation could inherit through the adoptive children of God. Recognizing either original sin or universal eligibility for salvation, without recognizing the other, is incomplete. So no, you are not responsible for the crimes of your ancestors. You ought to be responsible for your inherent sinfulness, but God - who created the concept of sin - has himself absolved you of that responsibility. (Of course you are responsible for your own actual sins, but not for original sin.)
I'm not sure why you say that. In the Bible there are plenty of examples of inaction being considered sin. The most obvious is the story of David lusting after Bathsheba, sending her husband Uriah into the forefront of the line, and ordering the commander not to aid him in order that he may be killed. Another is God killing the priest Eli as well as his sons because his sons (though not himself) were godless and desecrating the sacrifices. "I'm bringing judgment on his family for good. He knew what was going on, that his sons were desecrating God's name and God's place, and he did nothing to stop them." (1 Samuel 3:13, The Message translation). If there's a sin of omission, this is the perfect example.
As you said, i'm not going to mention the "eternal mystery" phrase. Even the Presbyterian doctrine of the elect doesn't make much sense to me. (If you're elect, why should you want to do good? Either you will or you won't. And if there's no free will there's no responsibility for sin.) But imagine that you were creating, say, a video game with extremely advanced AI - sentient enough to understand that they are created AIs. Wouldn't you somewhat want them to know of your existence? And if you were so proud of your AIs, would you program them to acknowledge your existence, or hope that they (i.e., the sentient algorithm) would discover you themselves? If they're forced to acknowledge and worship you, then there's no honesty in the worship now, is there?
You
But the process of calculation is equivalent to the process of running them, so in a sense you don't know what's going to happen until it actually does.
Then I'm not truly omniscient, whereas the Christian god supposedly is. I would further argue that omnipotence cannot truly exist without omniscience. What is absolute power without the ability to foresee the consequences of your actions? You could even inadvertently bring about your own downfall and lose your power (e.g. the AI becomes so intelligent it starts to spread and declare war on humanity a la Skynet.) Power is focused ability, not accidental or incompetent ability. If God didn't know what was going to happen, then he couldn't have made any predictions at all. Satan might repent tomorrow, the antiChrist might grow up to be a hippie, and one of the three wise men might have decided to slit baby Jesus's little throat.
I'm not sure why you say that. In the Bible there are plenty of examples of inaction being considered sin.
Your specific examples aside, I'm talking about the overall themes of and the most popular applications of Christian morality, not necessarily specific interpretations of certain Old Testiment stories (you can 'prove' just about any point you want by quoting select Old Testiment passages.)
I'm not saying that passive morality doesn't exist, it's just that it's 1000x weaker than active morality. The vast majority of Christians would much rather fight evil than try to do good. To understand this, just look at some mortality figures. 850,000+ Americans die each year from stroke and heart attack, 550,000+ from cancer, 100,000+ from smoking-related respiratory diseases (not including lung cancer, stroke, or heart attack), 70,000+ from diabetes, 60,000+ from pneumonia, and 60,000+ from car accidents. There are a few extremely simple ways we could reduce these numbers drastically, yet they are not taken because there is no clear cut bad guy to fight. People don't have a problem with "Thou shalt not kill"--we spend billions on law enforcement (around 10,000 American deaths a year from murder) and well over a trillion on fighting terrorism (2,500 deaths in ONE year. A couple hundred deaths more from all other years combined.) But "Preserve life"--that's a concept that flies right over the head of most Christians. We spend many orders of magnitude less on problems that kill and maim and cause misery to hundreds of thousands of people each year. We "pass the buck", we shirk responsibility, we shy away from taking drastic action if there's any chance at all that the action could in any way negatively affect someone whom we perceive as being 'innocent' (when in reality even the most horrific 'bad guys' are at least in some way created by their environment.) Great monoliths of evil and human suffering are built by groups of individuals, each of which has committed only a tiny portion of evil, and so we let it slide and we do not condemn anyone for their apathy except in the most extreme of circumstances.
Compare that to a system of morality where allowing someone to die (when you have the ability to stop it--clearly, one cannot be everywhere at once) is equivalent to killing them yourself. There's something to be said for freedom, obviously (including the freedom to fuck up your own health) but that's not to say that we couldn't come up with some pretty drastic solutions while still preserving individual freedoms. If nothing else, we could spend over a trillion dollars on medical research instead of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Homeland Security. But... we could also force the tobacco industry to adopt better cigarette filters, prosecute parents for child endangerment if they continually feed their obese kids extremely unhealthy foods (I work with the mentally handicapped, and I've seen several horrific examples of this including a mother who was furious that her EXTREMELY fat daughter was losing weight because we were--gasp!--feeding her proper portions of healthy food. She