You've proven the case for multimedia on the Web. Not Flash.
Think of the level of citizen journalism, all the articles and ideas, that Microsoft Word has enabled. Therefore, we should all store and distribute.doc files instead of an open standard.
There's a difference: There are actually decent open alternatives to Microsoft Word. This isn't really the case with Flash.
Coalition governments seem to have a nasty tendency to break those coalitions, because they're not truly one government. They're parties agreeing to cooperate, under current circumstances, in a power sharing deal. I have long considered this to be one of the most delicate forms of democracy, only suitable for a fledgling government trying to find a final form.
I live in Switzerland and we have the so-called "concordance system", which Wikipedia quite accurately describes as "consensus: the government must reach a compromise, even though it is composed of antagonistic parties". In other words, we're big on coalitions.
Switzerland is one of the countries with the longest histories of democracy, is considered one of the most democratic countries if the world -- the most democratic, by many -- as well as one of the most stable, peaceful and prosperous. And we're finding that what you call a form of democracy "only suitable for a fledgling government" has been serving us quite nicely for quite a while.
Seriously, it's surprising how much people will harp on about how democracy should or should not be, without even taking a look at the systems already out there. If you want to find out what true democracy looks like -- or as close as you can get to it -- take a look at the Swiss system.
Funny, I was talking to someone about this just the other week, and from all I know, radiation hormesis is pretty widely discredited. Wikipedia (not the most credible source, I know, but it's 6 AM and I can't be bothered lookin for something else) has this to say:
Although a few papers have been published supporting the theory of radiation hormesis, scientific consensus has now developed against the theory.
Radiation hormesis has been rejected by both the United States National Research Council (part of the National Academy of Sciences)[1] and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (a body commissioned by the United States Congress).[2]
The BBC documentary mentioned by the GP is probably "Chernobyl's nuclear nightmare", out of the "Horizon" series. From what I've heard, it's sort of dubious in its reporting and a little wonky in its science, though.
Of course, IANANP, so anyone, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (and you know better).
I thought Linus was just an engineer and didn't care much about the politics or market share of Linux... just in writing goog code; and preferring GPL2 to GPL3? So why should we care to read his views on topics that do not interest him?
The EEE PC from Asus shows the extents to which vested interests will go in ensuring drivers for display, ACPI, wifi etc. will be DRM-ridden binaries... and Linus hasn't had much to say about these things.
Maybe if he cared about the future of Linux so much, he would try and make as much of it GPL3 as he could?
A good engineer may not care about market share or politics, but who said a good engineer doesn't care about the quality, flexibility and real-world usage of something he's spent more than a decade working on? And which engineer in his right mind wouldn't be happy and proud of his life's work being a huge success?
This is not about politics, and this story has absolutely nothing to do with licensing, so let's not drag that dead horse up again. Sure, it's a valid debate, but there's a place and time for it, and this isn't it.
Ah, good point, I hadn't taken that into consideration -- now it makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up.
I work in web development, so I do have to deal with servers once in a while, but I generally write code and leave the actual server setup and administration to other people (other than my very basic local installation of Apache), so yes, you're right, I am definitely first and foremost a desktop user.
I'll refine my statement then: I'd happily recommend PCLOS to anyone looking for a solid, modern desktop system!
Mandriva's repos are actually rather larger than PCLOS'. PCLOS drops a few thousand packages that are in MDV.
Really? That surprises me. I can't remember the last time I wanted to install something and it wasn't in the PCLOS repos. And as far as I know, PCLOS was actually born out of a project by Texstar (the main PCLOS developer) to provide non-official repositories with additional packages for the Mandriva community...
Maybe my information is outdated...? But whatever the case is, PCLOS still provides me with the best desktop experience I've had on any system, and right now, I'd still recommend it to anyone.
My problem with it was package availability, especially when it's popularity began to slide. I ended up running cooker to try to keep up to date and try packages that were not available as stable. Switching to Mepis, based on Ubuntu, solved that for me. The management tools are not as good or as complete as the drake tools, but they are generally sufficient. I can't say though that I recall desktop usability being a strength of Ubunutu's. It's for everyone, as in many languages and affordable to all. If Mandriva gives you what you need, VERY COOL! If something isn't there, doesn't work, or isn't being kept up to date, a switch to Ubuntu will probably solve the problem.
For the record, another good distro to try in situations like these is PCLinuxOS -- it's originally based on Mandriva, so it includes many of the Mandriva management tools, but has incredibly comprehensive package repositories of its own (easily accessible through Synaptic) and the best hardware support out of any distro I've tried. The community is generally also very helpful and friendly. Style-wise, the default theme is a little tacky IMHO, but that's certainly no show-stopper.
(I'm not associated with the PCLinuxOS project, by the way -- just a happy user.)
Do you know the origin of the word "responsibility"? Here, I'll break it down for you: response-ability. That certainly equates with "freedom" for me. Because you can only have the ability to respond if you are free to react to something.
Freedom: "I may do XXX."
Responsibility: "I must do XXX."
"I may do XXX" != "I must do XXX".
And who might you or some politico be to define what happiness is to me ?
Nobody. But I think most people do like the thought of affordable healthcare, of their children getting a good education, of being cared for in their old age, of being able to make use of good public infrastructure, of an environmentally sound economy, and so on, and so on. Of course the role of the state should not be to make people happy or to run everyone's life, it should be about providing the basic necessary framework that people need to build their own lives and find their own happiness as they choose. I believe the role of the state should be limited, but there are some things that you simply can't responsibly leave to the free market or sheer human kindness.
And, as I said in my original posting, if you don't want any such benefits, you're always free to refuse them.
No, for real, let's just throw in the garbage the whole fucking Western philosophical and political tradition. It sure looks like Western democracies like the US, UK and Germany are very inclined towards that. 1984 is coming, it's just a little late.
Since the renaissance, the Western philosophical and political tradition has, step by step, more and more, come to be first and foremost a humanitarian, socially conscious one -- more so than the philosophical and political tradition in most other places. Throwing it all away -- that's exactly what you'd be doing by removing all the real-life benefits we're creating for ourselves in favour of some very theoretical ideology that has never managed to work or stay around long whenever history came close to it.
Also, about 1984: In the 1930s and 1940s, Germany was the nazi state. East Germany was basically a satellite state of the Soviet Union up to the end of the 1980s. The UK used to have a huge empire heavily involved in slave trade. And you think they're turning into 1984 *now*?! Of course things could be going better, and our systems do seem a bit broken right now, but on the other hand, we're generally wealthier and more socially liberal than ever. I acknowledge there are problems that need to be taken care of, to claim that these states are becoming completely totalitarian, un-democratic police states -- sorry, but that's just whining. Why don't you go live in North Korea or Myanmar a bit, if you really want to find out what police states are like? Should be a valuable lesson.
What we have here is a clear lase of well-intentioned socialist braindead politicos limiting civil liberties.
It is unbelievable what state we have come to after 911. Everything is a fucking excuse. Now, in England, they are banning "kinky" sex sites. Wow! The West is resembling the East more and more, huh?
It's not a case of "well-intentioned socialist braindead politicos" limiting civil liberties, it's a case of "politician in gathering-popular-support mode" limiting civil liberties. There is nothing socialist about what this guy is doing, and people from the entire political spectrum do it nowadays. In fact, it's the right-wingers do it the most, and not the lefties. So stop blaming every little thing on "socialism" when the subject of the matter has nothing to do with socialism and doesn't even involve any socialism in any which way whatsoever.
The nature of socialism is that the state takes responsibility for the care of it's citizens. Which is fine, until you recognise one thing.
Freedom and responsibility are the same thing.
No. They're not. Freedom requires you to take responsibility, so they go hand in hand -- but they are most certainly not the same thing.
The Labour party are fundamentally a socialist party and Labour party MPs are basically socialist. Well meaning, but the inevitable result is the removal of freedom.
If you take responsibility, you inevitably removing the freedom of the individual. It cannot be escaped.
The Labour party may have socialist roots, but nowadays it's a center-left social democratic party. And I doubt that many of its members see themselves as "fundamentally socialist".
Also, if you get cancer and the state pays for your healthcare, which one of your freedoms is being removed? You remove the freedom of the individual by allowing him to do less and less stuff, not by failing to leave him completely on his own with every single one of his problems. Socially conscious thought isn't about controlling every single aspect of the individual's life, as you make it seem. It's about recognising that a prosperous, stable and fair society must be built on prosperous, reasonably happy people. And then it's about recognising that this simply can't happen if you just leave everyone to their own devices and refuse to offer any help to anyone for ideological reasons. People who need society's help mostly don't need it out of their own irresponsibility, but because of circumstances out of their control.
The idea is that there are situations in life that you can't master all by yourself, no matter how incredibly responsible you are. And in those cases, you should be able to turn to society for help, and with that help become a productive, valuable member of society again soon. Both profit, the individual and his society. But if you don't want that, you're still free to refuse society's help. There's no law against crawling into a corner and dying of some disease on your own. At least you'll have preserved your freedom (in some strange way which I don't understand).
Never mind the fact that this proposal has nothing to do with any particularly "socialist" attitude. The conservatives would be just as happy to propose the same stupid thing.
Go on. Just try to tell me the conservatives are socialist.
Something else to note. Liberalism, concerned with the freedom of the individual is fundamentally incompatible with the left, with socialism. The term "liberal left" is an oxymoron, a fundamental misunderstanding of what being liberal means.
Hmm, geeeee, d'ya think the "liberal" might be referring to "socially liberal" here, as opposed to "Christian conservative"? There's more than one aspect in which you can be "liberal".
But I'm sure liberalism would fit in better with the fag-hatin', anti-abortion born-again-Christian right wing.
Designing an intuitive user interface that your grandmother can use without assistance requires a LOT of attention to detail and is much more complicated than what you've described.
For comparatively complex tasks like word processing, e-mail and web-browsing... perhaps. But for a system that is only used for answering simple questions? You only need a "yes" button, a "no" button, a number pad and a text-only screen for that. You'd have to try pretty hard to make *that* interface overly complex. It's about as complex as your average standard-issue fixline telephone. If that's still too hard, issue some documentation to voters beforehand. Shouldn't take much more than a page.
Do the people really choose a person to rule? No, they pick the rich guy they hate the least. Its not perfect, but its probably the closest thing we'll get to a real democracy.
I beg to differ. I'm a citizen of Switzerland, and here we have a direct democracy. Meaning:
We elect no president per se, as in, no one guy who is seen as being "in charge" of the country -- we elect federal councils ("Bundesrat") with several members to each, all of which are in charge of different areas of government but can also make decisions as a unity (through debate and internal voting).
Things the government cannot reach a conclusive decision on are put to public vote in the form of a "yes/no" question, and the public gets to decide.
The government must publically announce all its planned actions, and anyone is free to collect signatures against anything the government does. If you can get a sufficient amount of signatures, the planned action must be put to public vote, and again, it's the people that decide.
We have very strong regional governments, so most day-to-day political decisions are made for each region individually, not forced upon people by the federal government.
We have a choice of more than two significant political parties.
There are strong (but not unreasonable) laws in place limiting the influence of lobbyists and big business upon the government. Of course, big business can still influence politics, but in order to do so, they have to convince the people who will actually be affected, not some random politician.
This entire system forces politicians to stay in close dialogue with the public, so things like a government minister updating his personal blog every day are absolutely no rarity.
This system has worked extremely well for us for decades and decades, and continues to do so every day. There is nothing about this system that limits its feasibility to Switzerland per se, so I find your assessment that "this is the closest we're ever going to get to democracy" a little... short-sighted.
I like Suse. I've used it for years. I use OpenSuse and hope it will keep itself clear of that but I'm looking for alternatives. Ubuntu has a chance but anything that puts GNOME first is crap. I don't like Mono or the rest of Miguel's M$ fan-boyism. I don't want M$ crap in my life and haven't had it there for years.
Perhaps PCLinuxOS might be to your liking, it's KDE-centric and generally receives very good reviews. I use it as my main OS myself, and I've always been very happy with it. It's definitely the best distro I've used.
(For the record: I am not involved with the PCLinuxOS project, just a happy user spreading the good news...:) )
Yep. The computer.
And that runs what? Yup, software.
If that is not important, well, I don't know of many things that could possibly be.
Well... A huge political mess in the middle East, a losing war, widespread violation of human rights, a pretty broken educational system, religious fundamentalists trying to undermine science, global warming, the threat of terrorism, national debt, endangered civil rights, incompetent or corrupt leadership everywhere you look, national debt, a seriously lacking social system... Would this do for starters?
And as I already pointed out in my original posting, I'm not saying that software patents are not a real problem -- I'm just saying there's no way you're going to be able to sell it to voters as a top issue.
I do agree with you. I did say "not directly" rather than "not at all". But I suppose putting it the way I did does come across as a bit of an understatement.
Did not the United States declared independence specifically to end this sort of long-distance pick-pocketing?
What we have is a great opportunity for a Lessig or a Moglen to lead a peaceful overthrow of a sorry state of affairs.
The software patent issue needs to be driven to the front of 2008 election politics.
Disclaimer: I am not an American, so this doesn't affect me directly, but here's my two Euro-cents anyway...
I consider the software patent issue an important one -- like the majority of people here on Slashdot, I imagine. But even so, I am certain there must be dozens and dozens of more pressing and more important issues facing the US -- civil rights, the social system, education, the environment, the war in Iraq... Do you think that the average citizen will ever let himself be convinced that software patents are a major issue? To most people, it's a mere legal technicality that is rarely even heard of -- much less cared about -- outside of IT or business environments.
I can't see anyone building a successful political platform on top of software patents. As much as I am against them, it just seems too trivial compared to the issues on most people's minds.
Maybe someone could create an online jigsaw puzzle game, and let the internet people reassemble those docs.
Yes, because bored people surfing could re-assemble documents much faster and more reliably than computers ever will. And let's not forget that the entire internet should be able to freely read detailed documentation on the private lives of ordinary people, many of which are still alive today. Perfect idea!
The real problem is the industry was entirely constructed on what is no longer a valid premise; that recording and duplicating quality music was expensive. And the labels have tried to make their money in different ways, mostly at the expense of the stupid bands who sign their livelihoods away for half a million dollars up front (you try organizing a nationwide tour for half a million $$ and see what you have left at the end.) The recording industry will soon die, and eventually the only survivors will be the indie bands singing for the love of music. They'll end up as 21st century minstrels wandering from pub to pub, settling for a meager income and drinks on the house, regardless of their talent.
Utter nonsense. Even if the recording industry as we know it comes crashing down, (some) people still want to hear professionally recorded music, talented people will still be able to find a big fan base, there's still money to be made from big concerts and tours (even if it does take a big investment to get it all on the road), merchandise still sells, advertising contracts still make artists money. Selling CDs isn't the only source of revenue in the music business. Not to mention the fact that even today, lots of people who have a choice between illegally downloading music and buying on iTunes happily choose iTunes.
Today's music industry may be failing, but there will be a new music industry of some sort to replace it. It's not just going away. If all car manufacturers we have today were to go bankrupt at the same time, do you think everybody would just go back to horses?
You won't be seeing your starving 21st century minstrels anytime soon -- or at least not any more than we already have.
How can it claim to redefine ANY philosophy if its aim is merely a rehash of the tired Windows 95 interface? Come on, a "start" menu?!
I understand the need to make switchers feel at home, and that's great for an "easy Linux" standpoint, but don't try to shove some "revolution" bullshit down our throats at the same time.
I agree with your criticism -- looks pretty much like a standard KDE desktop to me. At the same time, though, I wouldn't call the Windows 95 interface "tired". Basically, it works. It gives you an instant overview over what you're currently doing (taskbar) and gives you quick access to all open windows, even ones that are hidden. It allows you to open your favourite applications in one click (quick launcher). It gives inexperienced users who are looking for a certain functionality a place to look that quickly becomes familiar, is always easy to find and instantly accessible and works (start button). The entire bar gives you your entire essential "system controls" all in one place and does so without wasting much space. As a bonus, it gives you the time (and date, on KDE) at one glance. Also, the vast majority of computer users already know how to use it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Before anyone tears into me -- I freely admit there is room for improvement. And yes, completely inexperienced users sometimes do take a moment to get the exact purpose of, or difference between quick launcher, taskbar and system tray. But still, all in all, it's a pretty solid interface. Personally, I've never been convinced by attempts to redesign the interface. I don't like the Gnome interface because it spreads things that ought to be in one place all over the screen without serious gains in usability, and keeps me from just flicking my cursor to the upper right and clicking if I want to close a window, which is a small detail, but annoying to me. I don't like the OSX interface too much, either -- again, it spreads out stuff that might just as well be in one place, letting every window keep its menu bar to itself makes more sense to me*, and putting open and closed programmes next to each other as big colourful icons might look nice, but also feels seriously cluttered and a lot less structured to me. I admit I don't use Macs much these days, so maybe I'm overlooking something, but from what I have seen, I'm not terribly impressed.
Most attempts at redesigning the desktop interface that I've seen may have a lower learning curve than the Windows 95 one, but they also seem to limit the user more once he gets beyond the level of an absolute beginner. And a computer just isn't a typewriter. No matter how simplified the interface is, you *are* going to have to put at least a little effort into learning how to use it. That's a basic fact that we might as well accept.
If someone can come up with a better interface without losing functionality, I'm up for it. But why should an interface be "tired" and need to be re-designed completely just because it's been around for a long time?
---
* Yes, I know that Apple's menu bar at the top came before Windows style menu bars. I learned to use computers on an old Macintosh SE with Mac OS 6.0.7.
[...] it does not follow that any individual man who is a victim of male violence is somehow complicit in his own victimization simply by virtue of being male [...]
I don't disagree with you there, in fact I think you're quite correct. Personally, I believe that any victimisation is wrong in the same way, regardless of the victim's gender. But what I do disagree with is your assessment that mentally assigning more significance to female victimisation than to male victimisation is somehow on a level with racism.
The former is a mistake that is very easily made due to the reasons I mentioned in my previous posting, and doesn't necessarily imply complete ignorance or bad intentions. Racism, on the other hand, pretty much does.
Understanding a social problem helps a lot in solving it. Insulting the people who are unwittingly a part of the problem without necessarily meaning to cause harm -- not so much.
With the Youtube clone these companies are trying to build, it's not an issue of coolness, it's an issue of content. I'd say that 95% of Youtube users don't come to Youtube because it's so cool, but simply because they can get the content they want there -- music videos, clips or episodes from TV programmes, and so on.
Even if this new website turns out to be the most dull, boring, embarrassing, wannabe piece of marketing crap ever devised: If you can watch enough free clips from the Daily Show on there without too much hassle, people *will* use it.
This is not to say that violence against females is acceptable. It is obviously not. But any time I hear anyone decrying "violence against women" as being particularly bad I have to wonder if they think violence against men is OK? Or at least not so particularly bad?
Well, you mentioned one potential reason higher up in your posting -- males are less likely to report sexual violence commited against them than females, so we hear about it less and don't assign as much significance to it.
Another reason why we hear (and thus think) about violence against women more is because women -- or, the emancipation movement -- needed to do a *lot* of talking for the injustices carried out against them even to be acknowledged.
If they are even remotely decent and humane it certainly cannot be the fact that most violence is committed by men, because it is also the case that, for example, in the United States most violence is committed by black people, and there is a word for people who think that that fact makes violence against black people OK.
Completely ignoring whether it is that fact or not, there's something in your statement that I have to disagree with. There is no inherent difference between black and white other than a superficial one (skin colour) and in some cases also an artificial one (culture). But there is a fundamental and important difference between men and women: Men impregnate, women get pregnant. Since reproduction is one of the most basic instincts a human being has, this does have an effect on thought and behaviour.
Hormonal differences also need to be considered. Men have more testosterone and are thus generally more prone to aggressive behaviour. And men are generally raised to be more aggressive than women (although less so then they used to be).
It could also be said that since men are generally stronger and larger than women, they have more opportunity to be aggressively dominant over the other gender. And finally, it's also a primarily male instinct to impregnate as many women as possible, in order to ensure diverse genes in offspring. Females also have this instinct, but it's less distinct with them, and manifests itself in a different way.
Racism is idiotic because it's not based on fact, whereas there are real reasons to perceive the actions of men and women differently. I don't think you can compare the two.
I very strongly believe that men and women should be equal in rights, respect, opportunities, payment and social status. I don't think that one gender is somehow worth more than the other. But anyone who suggests that men and women are generally equal is, in my eyes, overlooking some important facts.
Slashdot Mirror
You've proven the case for multimedia on the Web. Not Flash.
Think of the level of citizen journalism, all the articles and ideas, that Microsoft Word has enabled. Therefore, we should all store and distribute .doc files instead of an open standard.
There's a difference: There are actually decent open alternatives to Microsoft Word. This isn't really the case with Flash.
Switzerland is one of the countries with the longest histories of democracy, is considered one of the most democratic countries if the world -- the most democratic, by many -- as well as one of the most stable, peaceful and prosperous. And we're finding that what you call a form of democracy "only suitable for a fledgling government" has been serving us quite nicely for quite a while.
Seriously, it's surprising how much people will harp on about how democracy should or should not be, without even taking a look at the systems already out there. If you want to find out what true democracy looks like -- or as close as you can get to it -- take a look at the Swiss system.
Of course, IANANP, so anyone, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (and you know better).
This is not about politics, and this story has absolutely nothing to do with licensing, so let's not drag that dead horse up again. Sure, it's a valid debate, but there's a place and time for it, and this isn't it.
...I still don't get it. Could somebody re-phrase that as a car analogy, please?
Ah, good point, I hadn't taken that into consideration -- now it makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up.
I work in web development, so I do have to deal with servers once in a while, but I generally write code and leave the actual server setup and administration to other people (other than my very basic local installation of Apache), so yes, you're right, I am definitely first and foremost a desktop user.
I'll refine my statement then: I'd happily recommend PCLOS to anyone looking for a solid, modern desktop system!
Maybe my information is outdated...? But whatever the case is, PCLOS still provides me with the best desktop experience I've had on any system, and right now, I'd still recommend it to anyone.
(I'm not associated with the PCLinuxOS project, by the way -- just a happy user.)
Responsibility: "I must do XXX."
"I may do XXX" != "I must do XXX".
Nobody. But I think most people do like the thought of affordable healthcare, of their children getting a good education, of being cared for in their old age, of being able to make use of good public infrastructure, of an environmentally sound economy, and so on, and so on. Of course the role of the state should not be to make people happy or to run everyone's life, it should be about providing the basic necessary framework that people need to build their own lives and find their own happiness as they choose. I believe the role of the state should be limited, but there are some things that you simply can't responsibly leave to the free market or sheer human kindness.
And, as I said in my original posting, if you don't want any such benefits, you're always free to refuse them.
Since the renaissance, the Western philosophical and political tradition has, step by step, more and more, come to be first and foremost a humanitarian, socially conscious one -- more so than the philosophical and political tradition in most other places. Throwing it all away -- that's exactly what you'd be doing by removing all the real-life benefits we're creating for ourselves in favour of some very theoretical ideology that has never managed to work or stay around long whenever history came close to it.
Also, about 1984: In the 1930s and 1940s, Germany was the nazi state. East Germany was basically a satellite state of the Soviet Union up to the end of the 1980s. The UK used to have a huge empire heavily involved in slave trade. And you think they're turning into 1984 *now*?! Of course things could be going better, and our systems do seem a bit broken right now, but on the other hand, we're generally wealthier and more socially liberal than ever. I acknowledge there are problems that need to be taken care of, to claim that these states are becoming completely totalitarian, un-democratic police states -- sorry, but that's just whining. Why don't you go live in North Korea or Myanmar a bit, if you really want to find out what police states are like? Should be a valuable lesson. It's not a case of "well-intentioned socialist braindead politicos" limiting civil liberties, it's a case of "politician in gathering-popular-support mode" limiting civil liberties. There is nothing socialist about what this guy is doing, and people from the entire political spectrum do it nowadays. In fact, it's the right-wingers do it the most, and not the lefties. So stop blaming every little thing on "socialism" when the subject of the matter has nothing to do with socialism and doesn't even involve any socialism in any which way whatsoever.
For the record, I do agree it's pretty sad.
The Labour party may have socialist roots, but nowadays it's a center-left social democratic party. And I doubt that many of its members see themselves as "fundamentally socialist".
Also, if you get cancer and the state pays for your healthcare, which one of your freedoms is being removed? You remove the freedom of the individual by allowing him to do less and less stuff, not by failing to leave him completely on his own with every single one of his problems. Socially conscious thought isn't about controlling every single aspect of the individual's life, as you make it seem. It's about recognising that a prosperous, stable and fair society must be built on prosperous, reasonably happy people. And then it's about recognising that this simply can't happen if you just leave everyone to their own devices and refuse to offer any help to anyone for ideological reasons. People who need society's help mostly don't need it out of their own irresponsibility, but because of circumstances out of their control.
The idea is that there are situations in life that you can't master all by yourself, no matter how incredibly responsible you are. And in those cases, you should be able to turn to society for help, and with that help become a productive, valuable member of society again soon. Both profit, the individual and his society. But if you don't want that, you're still free to refuse society's help. There's no law against crawling into a corner and dying of some disease on your own. At least you'll have preserved your freedom (in some strange way which I don't understand).
Never mind the fact that this proposal has nothing to do with any particularly "socialist" attitude. The conservatives would be just as happy to propose the same stupid thing.
Go on. Just try to tell me the conservatives are socialist.
Hmm, geeeee, d'ya think the "liberal" might be referring to "socially liberal" here, as opposed to "Christian conservative"? There's more than one aspect in which you can be "liberal".
But I'm sure liberalism would fit in better with the fag-hatin', anti-abortion born-again-Christian right wing.
You're free to make full use of your civil liberties... You're just not allowed to talk about it.
How comforting that today's politicians don't even understand what freedom is.
Don't we have hippies for that?
David Brin predicted exactly this in his novel "Earth", which was published, IIRC, in the late 1980s...
- We elect no president per se, as in, no one guy who is seen as being "in charge" of the country -- we elect federal councils ("Bundesrat") with several members to each, all of which are in charge of different areas of government but can also make decisions as a unity (through debate and internal voting).
- Things the government cannot reach a conclusive decision on are put to public vote in the form of a "yes/no" question, and the public gets to decide.
- The government must publically announce all its planned actions, and anyone is free to collect signatures against anything the government does. If you can get a sufficient amount of signatures, the planned action must be put to public vote, and again, it's the people that decide.
- We have very strong regional governments, so most day-to-day political decisions are made for each region individually, not forced upon people by the federal government.
- We have a choice of more than two significant political parties.
- There are strong (but not unreasonable) laws in place limiting the influence of lobbyists and big business upon the government. Of course, big business can still influence politics, but in order to do so, they have to convince the people who will actually be affected, not some random politician.
- This entire system forces politicians to stay in close dialogue with the public, so things like a government minister updating his personal blog every day are absolutely no rarity.
This system has worked extremely well for us for decades and decades, and continues to do so every day. There is nothing about this system that limits its feasibility to Switzerland per se, so I find your assessment that "this is the closest we're ever going to get to democracy" a little... short-sighted.(For the record: I am not involved with the PCLinuxOS project, just a happy user spreading the good news...
And as I already pointed out in my original posting, I'm not saying that software patents are not a real problem -- I'm just saying there's no way you're going to be able to sell it to voters as a top issue.
I do agree with you. I did say "not directly" rather than "not at all". But I suppose putting it the way I did does come across as a bit of an understatement.
I consider the software patent issue an important one -- like the majority of people here on Slashdot, I imagine. But even so, I am certain there must be dozens and dozens of more pressing and more important issues facing the US -- civil rights, the social system, education, the environment, the war in Iraq... Do you think that the average citizen will ever let himself be convinced that software patents are a major issue? To most people, it's a mere legal technicality that is rarely even heard of -- much less cared about -- outside of IT or business environments.
I can't see anyone building a successful political platform on top of software patents. As much as I am against them, it just seems too trivial compared to the issues on most people's minds.
Today's music industry may be failing, but there will be a new music industry of some sort to replace it. It's not just going away. If all car manufacturers we have today were to go bankrupt at the same time, do you think everybody would just go back to horses?
You won't be seeing your starving 21st century minstrels anytime soon -- or at least not any more than we already have.
Before anyone tears into me -- I freely admit there is room for improvement. And yes, completely inexperienced users sometimes do take a moment to get the exact purpose of, or difference between quick launcher, taskbar and system tray. But still, all in all, it's a pretty solid interface. Personally, I've never been convinced by attempts to redesign the interface. I don't like the Gnome interface because it spreads things that ought to be in one place all over the screen without serious gains in usability, and keeps me from just flicking my cursor to the upper right and clicking if I want to close a window, which is a small detail, but annoying to me. I don't like the OSX interface too much, either -- again, it spreads out stuff that might just as well be in one place, letting every window keep its menu bar to itself makes more sense to me*, and putting open and closed programmes next to each other as big colourful icons might look nice, but also feels seriously cluttered and a lot less structured to me. I admit I don't use Macs much these days, so maybe I'm overlooking something, but from what I have seen, I'm not terribly impressed.
Most attempts at redesigning the desktop interface that I've seen may have a lower learning curve than the Windows 95 one, but they also seem to limit the user more once he gets beyond the level of an absolute beginner. And a computer just isn't a typewriter. No matter how simplified the interface is, you *are* going to have to put at least a little effort into learning how to use it. That's a basic fact that we might as well accept.
If someone can come up with a better interface without losing functionality, I'm up for it. But why should an interface be "tired" and need to be re-designed completely just because it's been around for a long time?
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* Yes, I know that Apple's menu bar at the top came before Windows style menu bars. I learned to use computers on an old Macintosh SE with Mac OS 6.0.7.
The former is a mistake that is very easily made due to the reasons I mentioned in my previous posting, and doesn't necessarily imply complete ignorance or bad intentions. Racism, on the other hand, pretty much does.
Understanding a social problem helps a lot in solving it. Insulting the people who are unwittingly a part of the problem without necessarily meaning to cause harm -- not so much.
With the Youtube clone these companies are trying to build, it's not an issue of coolness, it's an issue of content. I'd say that 95% of Youtube users don't come to Youtube because it's so cool, but simply because they can get the content they want there -- music videos, clips or episodes from TV programmes, and so on.
Even if this new website turns out to be the most dull, boring, embarrassing, wannabe piece of marketing crap ever devised: If you can watch enough free clips from the Daily Show on there without too much hassle, people *will* use it.
Another reason why we hear (and thus think) about violence against women more is because women -- or, the emancipation movement -- needed to do a *lot* of talking for the injustices carried out against them even to be acknowledged. Completely ignoring whether it is that fact or not, there's something in your statement that I have to disagree with. There is no inherent difference between black and white other than a superficial one (skin colour) and in some cases also an artificial one (culture). But there is a fundamental and important difference between men and women: Men impregnate, women get pregnant. Since reproduction is one of the most basic instincts a human being has, this does have an effect on thought and behaviour.
Hormonal differences also need to be considered. Men have more testosterone and are thus generally more prone to aggressive behaviour. And men are generally raised to be more aggressive than women (although less so then they used to be).
It could also be said that since men are generally stronger and larger than women, they have more opportunity to be aggressively dominant over the other gender. And finally, it's also a primarily male instinct to impregnate as many women as possible, in order to ensure diverse genes in offspring. Females also have this instinct, but it's less distinct with them, and manifests itself in a different way.
Racism is idiotic because it's not based on fact, whereas there are real reasons to perceive the actions of men and women differently. I don't think you can compare the two.
I very strongly believe that men and women should be equal in rights, respect, opportunities, payment and social status. I don't think that one gender is somehow worth more than the other. But anyone who suggests that men and women are generally equal is, in my eyes, overlooking some important facts.