it's a pretty big country to hold with an iron fist.
exactly - does china really have a future as a single big country? - with th south-east booming and leaving other areas (esp. the inland) far behind, with many different languages spoken, and with simply such a diverse country can the place really hold together?
it seems we in 'th west' are as guilty of supporting th monolithic view of china, (which makes it easier for th authoritarian regime to maintain their illusion of power), with our tendency to think all chinese speak th same language, are of th same ethnic stock, etc. etc.
reading this article reminds me of ideas and philosophies expressed and explored by robert prisig (mostly in lila, his follow up book to zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance) and by buckminster fuller in his various books
fuller in that scarcity is an outmoded mind-think and that through technological sophistication and a focus on life-enabling tech rather than life-destroying tech (i.e. military) we can attain abundance for all
pirsig in his idea of increasing static levels of morality - per se - atomic -> biological -> social -> intellectual
importantly pirsig explicitly and fuller implicitly showed that it is wrongheaded to attack the levels below (and especially the most recent level below) as they have their own intrinsic morality and have provided th foundations for th new transcendent expression
so i like how in th article th interviewee also stresses how capitilism has enabled th new emergent mind-think to emerge - and will keep enabling it
th moral of th story is not to get ideological and see it as a struggle between capitalism and gpl-society - it is only a struggle if we perceive it as such and if by our arrogance we engender resentment
- one does not stand in front of a lion and proclaim loudly how one is fundamentally more evolved than it does one? - no, one simply takes precautions not to arouse a lion's interest and keep out of harms way knowing that th lion has it's place too
perhaps this is th lesson th romans were trying to teach the christians?:)
the paper buried in a link halfway through this long winded submission probably deserved to be submitted as a/. story by itself - i quote below the first paragraph of the abstract so as to pique yr interest into reading further (or at least to download the paper with an intention to read later as i have done (-: )
"The emergence of GNU/Linux as a viable alternative to the Windows
operating system and of the Apache webserver software as the leading web server
have focused wide attention on the phenomenon of free or open source software.
Most of the attention to the economic aspects of the phenomenon has been focused on
the question of incentives--why, it is asked, would anyone invest effort in a
productive enterprise in whose fruits they do not claim proprietary rights of
exclusion--and has been devoted to studying this phenomenon solely in the context of
software development. In this paper I expand consideration of the policy implications
of the apparent success of free software in two ways. First, I suggest that the
phenomenon has broad implications throughout the information, knowledge, and
culture economy, well beyond software development. Second, I suggest reasons to
think that peer production may outperform market-based production in some
information production activities."
i found your point that users judge speed of operation of cli versus gui subjectively very interesting and i can imagine that it is true
this point could lead on to an interesting discussion of the true nature of time - is it objective or subjective...?
however yr point led me to thinking - do people who prefer cli like it because of the way in which they must exercise their brain to use it - specifically the verbal and literate parts of their brain that chomsky argues are inherent to human behaviour? (at least that's what i've been told is chomsky's argument)
and thus perhaps they are justifying their preference for cli over gui on the wrong basis - that of speed of operation - rather than for the reason that they feel more intelligent in their use and conversation with the computer through the command line interface?
...as opposed to feeling like some regressive pre-language instinct ape-level user with the 'point and grunt' mode of operation?
try sitting on the floor in a half-lotus position with the keyboard on a small box and the monitor on a coffee table at eye height - for me this is a perfect solution
after a while you'll be able to manage a full lotus position for extended amounts of time and you'll find ppl complimenting you on yr well-muscled back:)
The AURORA launch system is offered by Asia Pacific Space Centre (APSC) to commercial users worldwide. AURORA is a Russian designed and manufactured system that will be launched from the APSC spaceport on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
With launch from Christmas Island, several flight corridors for AURORA have been identified illustrating the safe nature of the overflight paths and hardware jettison drop zones.
just to fill you in on some background information about the australian territory of christmas island (i lived there for two years as a child in the late 70s)
first : christmas islands only makes sense if you are referring to the two christmas islands on the planet - which belong to two different nation states and are located in two different oceans - the one belonging to australia is in the indian ocean, the other one (belonging to the us i think?) is in the pacific ocean - they are often confused - the pacific ocean one was the site of some nuclear testing at one stage
location of australian christmas island - basically about 300 km due south of the indonesian island of java (no bad java jokes please) - roughly about 10 degrees south of the equator (or the same lattitude as the most northern tip of australia at cape york several thousand km to the east) - longitude i can't recall but it is west of all the australian landmass
population peaked at about 2000 people during the glory days of phosphate mining (see below) - now about 500 i think
it is a small and quite isolated island - most interestingly it is one of the few inhabitable places on the earth that never had an indigenous human population - with the result that it has a remarkably unique fauna and flora - many endemic species - there were no mammals native to the island and the floor of the jungle forest is kept remarkably clean by thousand of scavenging land crabs
it has been a haven for bird life over many thousands of years and the result of this is a huge amount of fossilised bird shit which was for many years the one economic resource of the island - mining for phosphate - a valuable agricultural fertiliser
however the island was mostly mined out by the mid-eighties and the australian government has been looking for other things to do with the island - the woefully unimaginative idea they came up with first was to sell a casino license for the island (why, oh why not ecotourism??) - the casino was subsequently built and the plan was to attract 'high rollers' from indonesia - but i think it failed some years back
a large part of the island is protected as a national park - it might even be listed as world heritage i'm not sure - so if they go ahead building a space port (prob on some of the mined out moonlandscape-like part of the island) - they will need to be very careful with the development so as to cause minimal disruption of the remaining mostly untouched highly unique natural environment - but i would be somewhat optimistic this could be achieved
(sorry if this is somewhat rushed and contains no links - suffering from the slashdot imperative to post before the story loses focus)
Anyone with any experience with the W3C's own web browser Amaya? Current release is at 3.21 but they have announced they will be releasing 4.0 this week. From what I have read it seems extremely interesting - maybe not as your full time browser but perhaps worth having to play around with. I'm waiting to dip my toe in till this new release comes along - but interested to hear from ppl who already have some experience with it - thanks.
from the Dictionary of Foreign Words in English by John Ayto :
flâneur
French flâner means 'stroll around idly or aimlessly', and its derivative flâneur has come to denote an 'idler' or 'loafer', 'someone who passes his time in aimless amusement'. English began to use the word in the mid-19th century, and it has also taken over the related flânerie 'idling, lounging'. It has even, semi-facetiously, coined a verb from it, variously flâné or flane : 'In Paris, in London I have been a happy flâneur; I have flânéd in New York and Washington and most of the great cities of Europe' (H.G. Wells, Apropos of Dolores, 1938). The ultimate source of the French work is Old Norse flana 'wander about'.
If you are a happy idler, you may enjoy a collection of writings on idling called The Idler's Companion : An Anthology of Lazy Literature. Writers selected include Samuel Johnson, Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Miles Davis, Will Self, Rimbaud and more
In response to people saying : "sick of these people who want IP for free"
We all invest in IP by giving it space in our brain - if you played a game as a kid you invested in that game. A passive input sure, but that was the only role open.
People who want to spin money from IP are basically no better than drug dealers in my opinion - hook them, and then keep pulling in the cash.
IP is a nonsense term. No man is an island. We all create together - we should all share together.
Nice writing oGMo - can you suggest some good sites to visit or books to read on this kind of thinking? Couse i know of bertrand meyer - but what else is good? If you can suggest some sources it would be appreciated - email to solferino@start.com.au or just reply on slashdot - thanks
btw have you checked out the Oberon operating system ? - has implemented some of what you say i think
astrology valuable as another mind-frame
on
Geek Horoscopes
·
· Score: 1
well, found the geek astrology dissapointing - yes, meant to be funny but not however I'm wondering are there many geeks out there like me who enjoy using astrology as another mindset - good astrology as a poetic and symbolic tool to relate your life to - I find when I read astrology it forces me out of locked mindsets I have about myself and about people around me - this is full astrology stuff of course - with proper planetary analysis and so on - reading a description of yourself or others really can force you to challenge your thinking - is that how I (he/she) really am (are)? - even if you don't agree the thought process prompted can be valuable any similar feelings?
I've ordered two visor deluxes by phone from Australia. I was told I have to provide a shipping address inside the U.S. so I left that field free for the time being. Does anyone know if there are any companies that provide a U.S. shipping address and will then forward the goods to countries overseas? Or is there some other solution? Thanks in advance.
Slashdot Mirror
it's a pretty big country to hold with an iron fist.
exactly - does china really have a future as a single big country? - with th south-east booming and leaving other areas (esp. the inland) far behind, with many different languages spoken, and with simply such a diverse country can the place really hold together?
it seems we in 'th west' are as guilty of supporting th monolithic view of china, (which makes it easier for th authoritarian regime to maintain their illusion of power), with our tendency to think all chinese speak th same language, are of th same ethnic stock, etc. etc.
recently in th market to buy a new printer to run under linux i found linuxprinting.org very useful
site features :
a quite considerable database of printers and their suitability to printing under linux,
general discussion of each vendor's track record and present level of support of free software compatability,
good information on th various ways to get printing happening under linux,
and more...
thanks for this valuable list - i'm disappointed that this comment didn't get modded up
arctic parsed better than antarctic (a clumsy word) and i just presumed you had penguins in the northern hemisphere as well
- later i thought to check, realised my error and knew i'd be picked up by the slashdot crowd straight away
more on-topic, here's a link to the linuxbios homepage
reading this article reminds me of ideas and philosophies expressed and explored by robert prisig (mostly in lila, his follow up book to zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance) and by buckminster fuller in his various books
fuller in that scarcity is an outmoded mind-think and that through technological sophistication and a focus on life-enabling tech rather than life-destroying tech (i.e. military) we can attain abundance for all
pirsig in his idea of increasing static levels of morality - per se - atomic -> biological -> social -> intellectual
importantly pirsig explicitly and fuller implicitly showed that it is wrongheaded to attack the levels below (and especially the most recent level below) as they have their own intrinsic morality and have provided th foundations for th new transcendent expression
so i like how in th article th interviewee also stresses how capitilism has enabled th new emergent mind-think to emerge - and will keep enabling it
th moral of th story is not to get ideological and see it as a struggle between capitalism and gpl-society - it is only a struggle if we perceive it as such and if by our arrogance we engender resentment
- one does not stand in front of a lion and proclaim loudly how one is fundamentally more evolved than it does one? - no, one simply takes precautions not to arouse a lion's interest and keep out of harms way knowing that th lion has it's place too
perhaps this is th lesson th romans were trying to teach the christians? :)
the paper buried in a link halfway through this long winded submission probably deserved to be submitted as a /. story by itself - i quote below the first paragraph of the abstract so as to pique yr interest into reading further (or at least to download the paper with an intention to read later as i have done (-: )
"The emergence of GNU/Linux as a viable alternative to the Windows
operating system and of the Apache webserver software as the leading web server
have focused wide attention on the phenomenon of free or open source software.
Most of the attention to the economic aspects of the phenomenon has been focused on
the question of incentives--why, it is asked, would anyone invest effort in a
productive enterprise in whose fruits they do not claim proprietary rights of
exclusion--and has been devoted to studying this phenomenon solely in the context of
software development. In this paper I expand consideration of the policy implications
of the apparent success of free software in two ways. First, I suggest that the
phenomenon has broad implications throughout the information, knowledge, and
culture economy, well beyond software development. Second, I suggest reasons to
think that peer production may outperform market-based production in some
information production activities."
i found your point that users judge speed of operation of cli versus gui subjectively very interesting and i can imagine that it is true
this point could lead on to an interesting discussion of the true nature of time - is it objective or subjective...?
however yr point led me to thinking - do people who prefer cli like it because of the way in which they must exercise their brain to use it - specifically the verbal and literate parts of their brain that chomsky argues are inherent to human behaviour? (at least that's what i've been told is chomsky's argument)
and thus perhaps they are justifying their preference for cli over gui on the wrong basis - that of speed of operation - rather than for the reason that they feel more intelligent in their use and conversation with the computer through the command line interface?
...as opposed to feeling like some regressive pre-language instinct ape-level user with the 'point and grunt' mode of operation?
my take is any chair is a bad chair
try sitting on the floor in a half-lotus position with the keyboard on a small box and the monitor on a coffee table at eye height - for me this is a perfect solution
after a while you'll be able to manage a full lotus position for extended amounts of time and you'll find ppl complimenting you on yr well-muscled back :)
cheers
... of the consortium behind the development of a rocket launching facility on .cx
from the site
Aurora Launch System Summary
The AURORA launch system is offered by Asia Pacific Space Centre (APSC) to commercial users worldwide. AURORA is a Russian designed and manufactured system that will be launched from the APSC spaceport on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
Typical Flight Paths
With launch from Christmas Island, several flight corridors for AURORA have been identified illustrating the safe nature of the overflight paths and hardware jettison drop zones.
got some links now :
cia world factbook on christmas island
christmas island tourism authority - has some good pictures and good location map
cached google story showing maybe some competition from brazil
austrlain space research institute site currently showing top new story of some sort of formal agreement being jointly signed by russian and australian governments
just to fill you in on some background information about the australian territory of christmas island (i lived there for two years as a child in the late 70s)
first : christmas islands only makes sense if you are referring to the two christmas islands on the planet - which belong to two different nation states and are located in two different oceans - the one belonging to australia is in the indian ocean, the other one (belonging to the us i think?) is in the pacific ocean - they are often confused - the pacific ocean one was the site of some nuclear testing at one stage
location of australian christmas island - basically about 300 km due south of the indonesian island of java (no bad java jokes please) - roughly about 10 degrees south of the equator (or the same lattitude as the most northern tip of australia at cape york several thousand km to the east) - longitude i can't recall but it is west of all the australian landmass
population peaked at about 2000 people during the glory days of phosphate mining (see below) - now about 500 i think
it is a small and quite isolated island - most interestingly it is one of the few inhabitable places on the earth that never had an indigenous human population - with the result that it has a remarkably unique fauna and flora - many endemic species - there were no mammals native to the island and the floor of the jungle forest is kept remarkably clean by thousand of scavenging land crabs
it has been a haven for bird life over many thousands of years and the result of this is a huge amount of fossilised bird shit which was for many years the one economic resource of the island - mining for phosphate - a valuable agricultural fertiliser
however the island was mostly mined out by the mid-eighties and the australian government has been looking for other things to do with the island - the woefully unimaginative idea they came up with first was to sell a casino license for the island (why, oh why not ecotourism??) - the casino was subsequently built and the plan was to attract 'high rollers' from indonesia - but i think it failed some years back
a large part of the island is protected as a national park - it might even be listed as world heritage i'm not sure - so if they go ahead building a space port (prob on some of the mined out moonlandscape-like part of the island) - they will need to be very careful with the development so as to cause minimal disruption of the remaining mostly untouched highly unique natural environment - but i would be somewhat optimistic this could be achieved
(sorry if this is somewhat rushed and contains no links - suffering from the slashdot imperative to post before the story loses focus)
Anyone with any experience with the W3C's own web browser Amaya? Current release is at 3.21 but they have announced they will be releasing 4.0 this week. From what I have read it seems extremely interesting - maybe not as your full time browser but perhaps worth having to play around with. I'm waiting to dip my toe in till this new release comes along - but interested to hear from ppl who already have some experience with it - thanks.
from the Dictionary of Foreign Words in English by John Ayto :
flâneur
French flâner means 'stroll around idly or aimlessly', and its derivative flâneur has come to denote an 'idler' or 'loafer', 'someone who passes his time in aimless amusement'. English began to use the word in the mid-19th century, and it has also taken over the related flânerie 'idling, lounging'. It has even, semi-facetiously, coined a verb from it, variously flâné or flane : 'In Paris, in London I have been a happy flâneur; I have flânéd in New York and Washington and most of the great cities of Europe' (H.G. Wells, Apropos of Dolores, 1938). The ultimate source of the French work is Old Norse flana 'wander about'.
If you are a happy idler, you may enjoy a collection of writings on idling called The Idler's Companion : An Anthology of Lazy Literature. Writers selected include Samuel Johnson, Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Miles Davis, Will Self, Rimbaud and more
We all invest in IP by giving it space in our brain - if you played a game as a kid you invested in that game. A passive input sure, but that was the only role open.
People who want to spin money from IP are basically no better than drug dealers in my opinion - hook them, and then keep pulling in the cash.
IP is a nonsense term. No man is an island. We all create together - we should all share together.
Not yet released as open-source but very close to being - we are assured - and the beta version is already free to download.
Not that I've had any experience with it yet - anyone who has used both it and either postie or mysql like to comment?
btw have you checked out the Oberon operating system ? - has implemented some of what you say i think
well, found the geek astrology dissapointing - yes, meant to be funny but not however I'm wondering are there many geeks out there like me who enjoy using astrology as another mindset - good astrology as a poetic and symbolic tool to relate your life to - I find when I read astrology it forces me out of locked mindsets I have about myself and about people around me - this is full astrology stuff of course - with proper planetary analysis and so on - reading a description of yourself or others really can force you to challenge your thinking - is that how I (he/she) really am (are)? - even if you don't agree the thought process prompted can be valuable any similar feelings?
I've ordered two visor deluxes by phone from Australia. I was told I have to provide a shipping address inside the U.S. so I left that field free for the time being. Does anyone know if there are any companies that provide a U.S. shipping address and will then forward the goods to countries overseas? Or is there some other solution? Thanks in advance.