I believe it is a reference to the popular TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The show's main theme is that Sunnydale (Buffy's place of residence) is located above a "Hellmouth" - a concentration of demonic energy.
The subtheme is the fact that Buffy and her 2 close friends don't fit in and are tormented a bit by the "cool" people at school.
Exactly. If any of you have gone to "W"'s web site and read his stand on the issues, you'll know that this is a very appropriate, timely question. George W. plans on establishing a cabinet position for matters of faith. It is my belief that this position, if filled by a Bush appointee, would be strongly Christian-centric, promoting Bush's idea of morality, Bush's idea of Christianity, Bush's idea of religion.
Now, I'm not denouncing typically-Christian values (whatever you may consider them to be)...my wife is on the ordination path in the Methodist Church, after all! So, obviously, I have some tolerance for "Christian values". But I really don't feel that such a post belongs in government. Since it would be virtually impossible to manage such a position in an unbiased manner, government should not be involved in promoting religion.
The question is a valid one and, unfortunately, looks like it is going to be glossed over in this lovely forum of ours.
(and just for the record, I know it sounds from this post that I probably back Gore, but I don't. Frankly, as a person, I like Bush more, but his conservatism frightens me. I really don't back any of the candidates - none have impressed me to this point)
No - it's not.
(Non-technical || non-programmer) != clueless
As a programmer, I love the CLI (I frequently do most of my work in a gnome-terminal using vi), but I can also appreciate a good GUI. The largest segment of users out there are not clueless, they simply use applications without caring about what goes on behind the scenes. I wouldn't call that clueless. I would just say that they're clued in to a different skillset than we are. That's that challege that we, as programmers, must face when we're designing programs and interfaces for Non-technical/non-programmer types out there. And no, that doesn't mean dumbing down functionality...it just means making high-powered functionality easy to access. Two VERY different things.
I am generally quite wary of moves like this that Microsoft makes, but how can this be a Bad Thing? Embrace and Extend is your argument??? Embrace and Extend what exactly? Their own.NET framework? Hell - it's their framework - let them extend that all they want. They can't do anything to "extend" linux itself simply by allowing the porting of their.NET to the platform.
All they're really doing is saying that Linux is a platform that could benefit from having the.NET framework available to it...yes of course, behind the scenes they're saying that they can only benefit from having the.NET framework available to Linux developers...but either way, I can't see how a linux port of.NET will hurt our community.
One of the main concerns many people have about switching over to linux is the lack of solid, useable, apps. Allowing developers to work with.NET for linux will make that less and less of a valid argument.
And I resent your suggestion that GUI fans are clueless users. I'm a fan of a good GUI, but I can compile a new kernel about as quickly as anyone. Sure, I may choose to work out of Gnome 75% of the time, and you may choose to work at a command line prompt 90% of the time...that's the beauty of Linux - we can both do that with the same OS.
Some of us might want.NET for the very reasons that I detail above. Let those of us who do accept it with open arms. We don't all need to go about our computing in the same way. Thankfully, There Is More Than One Way To Do It.
...I'm going to play devil's advocate here, though. I agree with everything you said, but I'm curious: what's wrong with banning sites that detail home bombmaking? or banning sites that detail other terrorist-type activities?
This example is different, because I'm not talking about offensive material...and I have to say, I'm not at all against "filtering" this type of material. There's offensive and then there's dangerous. "Offensive" material to my soon-to-be future wife (1 week away!!!) is not offensive to me. But, I don't think it should be banned if it upsets or offends her...she can make the decision not to view the material. I guess I draw the line at information that could cause serious bodily harm or death if misused. Why would a high school student need to learn how to make bombs in their basement?
you're right - I should have been more precise with my wording - I apologize.
It should have read something along the lines of "...since we don't have an inexhaustable supply of fossil fuels, and since, by all conservative estimates, our rate of usage (expanding along with population growth) exceeds the rate that we believe fossil fuels are created, alternative energy research is very important."
I can't find my source (from a college economics course) right now, but if you really want me to, I will give you source material info (title, author, publisher, year, etc) that has estimates about resource usage and population growth - email me. I'm sure I can dig up more than one source.
exactly - Katz's article is completely subjective and unimportant. How many of our lives are currently affected by computers? How many of our lives are currently affected by high-speed gene sequencers?
I'm not downplaying the imporance of gene research at all, but is it really suprising that we don't know who this guy is? No - the average american doesn't need to care about it. If I run up to some schmoe on the street and ask him who Larry Wall is, I'm not likely to get a correct answer...but Larry Wall's work has been extremely important to me and that's why I know who he is. But then again, I also don't know the names of people who are working on the computer languages that I may use in the future. Sure, we may benefit from gene research in the future, but not presently.
Katz, in order for Americans to keep up-to-date on what you think is important, they would have to read the same journals and magazines and web sites that you do.
Katz - do you know the names of the pioneers in the field of alternate energy? Probably not...amazing, really, because in a few years, fossil fuels are going to run out and, as far as I'm concerned, that's a really important field of research.
Self-important judgemental jackass. Not everybody needs to care about the same things that you do. And those of us who don't are not "wrong" or somehow less intelligent or less morally-concerned than you are. We just lead different lives.
But, we don't really know if this was a 3 point rating scale, a 5 point, or a 10 point...(if it was a 3-point scale, then the %s are the same)
That aside, also interesting to note is that, according to what I believe came from the census projection in 1999, 30.4% of Americans are 18-34, while only 16.5% are 65+.
So, even if that was just a 3-point rating scale and the percentages work out to no significant difference, the base for ea. age group is different. There are almost twice as many 18-34 year olds as there are 65+, so even if the % is the same, there are twice as many people "Somewhat to Extremely Stressed".
...and then if we broke it down by gender and by employment status...and maybe even ethnicity...or income, we may even find other interesting facts out. Hell, we may even find that it's not age, but income that makes the real difference...
I knew that career in market research would pay off. It allowed me to write a somewhat-intelligent post to/.
I think the answer is simple...Technology just isn't good enough *yet* for us to turn over all of our work to computers. Instead of having computers that can make decisions for us, we can automate a lot more and require that humans need to make more decisions about more work, but do less of the work for each task. Pump funding into AI research...
Let's see...we split up into three companies...how does this recitfy the situation: 1) Applications company still has monopoly on office-suite software 2) OS company still has monopoly on desktop OS's 3) IE company...well, that one just dies. Solution 2: Open up the document formats and form an industry-wide document format standards committee that decides the file type formats for word processing, spreadsheet, etc... that will level the playing field when it comes to applications producing files w/compatible format. Rather than using word because everyone uses it, consumers now use the product that best suits their needs...and saves in a common format. Now, about the OS monopoly...well, I have absolutely no idea what a good solution is there. Sure, you can open the source, but I don't think that would do any good...nor would just splitting the company up.
...I wonder if the people that are getting these computers from their companies are the people that:
a) couldn't afford it in the first place b) would benefit the most from having improved access
Don't get me wrong, I think this is an absolutely great idea. However, in a time when the gap between the haves and the have-nots is at an absolute high, universal access to educational materials is VERY important. Will a few companies dishing out PC's and net access solve this problem? Probably not...and this is definitely NOT universal access. Universal access will come when everybody, regardless of race, age, or socio-economic status gets internet services provided for free in their household.
Right now, we're most likely helping out the people who already have jobs and have children who are in school, probably getting a decent education and most likely have PC/internet access at their schools. We're helping the people who don't need to be helped...but isn't that way it always is in this country?
The place where I work will probably be getting rid of our NT boxes and replacing them with OS X as soon as Maya is out.
Why??? If we know next to nothing about the OS's functionality in a network, why would someone make that decision now, pre-release? Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate here, because we all know the networking superiority that *BSD has over NT in many areas...but it seems to be a bit early to make that decision.
If it were my decision, I'd wait until a few people make mistakes doing what you're thinking about and learning from their mistakes, rather than making the mistakes myself...
Bottom line: embrace progress or be steamrolled by it.
Well, I prefer "Bottom line: embrace progress embracing ethics" a little more.
I don't disagree with you...corporations have fscked up the world through the consumer and vice-versa. But, you can have progress AND corporate ethics at the same time...you don't need to sacrifice the quality of living for technological advancement.
...great. They're offering people the opportunity to have their business cards and/or a personal message deposited on the moon. Wonderful way to mark the first commercial space venture...dumping a load of paper on earth's only natural satellite...
...and yes, I do detect some foreshadowing here...as if commerce hasn't fscked up our own planet enough, it's time to branch out and fsck up the entire solar system.
Exactly...a lot of people point out that you need root access to do serious system damage to a linux box...so this leads us to use a non-su account for our everyday work. But, if I use "jack" as my login to do all my work, then "jack" is the owner of all of my files...granted, "jack" shouldn't be able to do anything serious to the system, but how hard is it for any of us to write a script that does this in the background:
1) cd / 2) [read in all directories and their children and put paths to files owned by jack in an array] 3) loop through array and rm files owned by jack
What's even scarier is that this little 3-step killer can be easily embedded in an otherwise-useful looking perl script and do some serious damage.
No system damage, but on a production machine, system files are not the only valuable files that may or may not be able to be restored from a backup.
I hadn't thought about it quite like that. While dialog boxes in Windows are not limited to error messages, maybe they should be.
...and you're right, I run Gnome on my PC at home, and the only dialog box message that I get regularly (that I ignore) is the one that tells me I'm running the Gnome File Manager as root and that I could damage my system if I'm not careful.
Users have become so numb to the pop-up dialog "Click Yes/OK to continue" that they are no longer a fully effective tool in GUI design. Time to think up something that will not provoke a knee-jerk reaction every time it pops up. I admit it, when I'm in a hurry, I click "OK" as soon as I see it, too.
...yep, if we're ever going to travel REAL fast in space, we need them inertial dampeners I keep hearing about every Wed. night on Voyager...or else, when the ship decelerated, we'd all go splat on the forward walls of the ship...either that, or (if we were strapped in), our internal organs would do the same thing on the insides of our bodies.
lots of good ideas can be found in science fiction...lets hope some of them can become reality
so what??? I wouldn't blame them for using it, Excel is a good product. I use good products. I use Linux at home, and I use Excel at work. If it wasn't a good product, I wouldn't use it. If Linux wasn't a good product, how many of us would use it? Personally, I'm a little tired of people bashing products because they're made by MS...bash them for their bugs -- fine -- but not just because they're made by MS.
"lobbyists run the country" yadda yadda yadda...it sounds like a lecture from my freshman economics classes (in 1993). No, none of Katz's latest rant is new...it's pretty much on target, but it's not new...
...but let me clarify: you oppose corportations "circumventing government regulation", but you are in favor of consumers doing so? (from yesterday's discussion about teens _stealing_ Metallica's music, using Napster as a conduit) Odd contradiction...
another example - so we'll get all pissed off when someone violates the GPL (circumventing regulation), but we support copyright violations (circumventing regulation) when it comes to consumers stealing music from artists. Hypocrites!...figure out which side of the fence you want to sit on!
Slashdot Mirror
I believe it is a reference to the popular TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The show's main theme is that Sunnydale (Buffy's place of residence) is located above a "Hellmouth" - a concentration of demonic energy.
The subtheme is the fact that Buffy and her 2 close friends don't fit in and are tormented a bit by the "cool" people at school.
So, you can see the connection I made...
Please, correct me if I'm wrong...
Exactly. If any of you have gone to "W"'s web site and read his stand on the issues, you'll know that this is a very appropriate, timely question. George W. plans on establishing a cabinet position for matters of faith. It is my belief that this position, if filled by a Bush appointee, would be strongly Christian-centric, promoting Bush's idea of morality, Bush's idea of Christianity, Bush's idea of religion.
Now, I'm not denouncing typically-Christian values (whatever you may consider them to be)...my wife is on the ordination path in the Methodist Church, after all! So, obviously, I have some tolerance for "Christian values". But I really don't feel that such a post belongs in government. Since it would be virtually impossible to manage such a position in an unbiased manner, government should not be involved in promoting religion.
The question is a valid one and, unfortunately, looks like it is going to be glossed over in this lovely forum of ours.
(and just for the record, I know it sounds from this post that I probably back Gore, but I don't. Frankly, as a person, I like Bush more, but his conservatism frightens me. I really don't back any of the candidates - none have impressed me to this point)
No - it's not. (Non-technical || non-programmer) != clueless As a programmer, I love the CLI (I frequently do most of my work in a gnome-terminal using vi), but I can also appreciate a good GUI. The largest segment of users out there are not clueless, they simply use applications without caring about what goes on behind the scenes. I wouldn't call that clueless. I would just say that they're clued in to a different skillset than we are. That's that challege that we, as programmers, must face when we're designing programs and interfaces for Non-technical/non-programmer types out there. And no, that doesn't mean dumbing down functionality...it just means making high-powered functionality easy to access. Two VERY different things.
I am generally quite wary of moves like this that Microsoft makes, but how can this be a Bad Thing? Embrace and Extend is your argument??? Embrace and Extend what exactly? Their own .NET framework? Hell - it's their framework - let them extend that all they want. They can't do anything to "extend" linux itself simply by allowing the porting of their .NET to the platform.
.NET framework available to it...yes of course, behind the scenes they're saying that they can only benefit from having the .NET framework available to Linux developers...but either way, I can't see how a linux port of .NET will hurt our community.
.NET for linux will make that less and less of a valid argument.
.NET for the very reasons that I detail above. Let those of us who do accept it with open arms. We don't all need to go about our computing in the same way. Thankfully, There Is More Than One Way To Do It.
All they're really doing is saying that Linux is a platform that could benefit from having the
One of the main concerns many people have about switching over to linux is the lack of solid, useable, apps. Allowing developers to work with
And I resent your suggestion that GUI fans are clueless users. I'm a fan of a good GUI, but I can compile a new kernel about as quickly as anyone. Sure, I may choose to work out of Gnome 75% of the time, and you may choose to work at a command line prompt 90% of the time...that's the beauty of Linux - we can both do that with the same OS.
Some of us might want
ha! but why assume I was talking about porn? (I wasn't - she's not offended by it) ...but porn isn't the only thing that may offend some people.
nicely put -
...I'm going to play devil's advocate here, though. I agree with everything you said, but I'm curious: what's wrong with banning sites that detail home bombmaking? or banning sites that detail other terrorist-type activities?
This example is different, because I'm not talking about offensive material...and I have to say, I'm not at all against "filtering" this type of material. There's offensive and then there's dangerous. "Offensive" material to my soon-to-be future wife (1 week away!!!) is not offensive to me. But, I don't think it should be banned if it upsets or offends her...she can make the decision not to view the material. I guess I draw the line at information that could cause serious bodily harm or death if misused. Why would a high school student need to learn how to make bombs in their basement?
you're right - I should have been more precise with my wording - I apologize.
It should have read something along the lines of "...since we don't have an inexhaustable supply of fossil fuels, and since, by all conservative estimates, our rate of usage (expanding along with population growth) exceeds the rate that we believe fossil fuels are created, alternative energy research is very important."
I can't find my source (from a college economics course) right now, but if you really want me to, I will give you source material info (title, author, publisher, year, etc) that has estimates about resource usage and population growth - email me. I'm sure I can dig up more than one source.
exactly - Katz's article is completely subjective and unimportant. How many of our lives are currently affected by computers? How many of our lives are currently affected by high-speed gene sequencers?
I'm not downplaying the imporance of gene research at all, but is it really suprising that we don't know who this guy is? No - the average american doesn't need to care about it. If I run up to some schmoe on the street and ask him who Larry Wall is, I'm not likely to get a correct answer...but Larry Wall's work has been extremely important to me and that's why I know who he is. But then again, I also don't know the names of people who are working on the computer languages that I may use in the future. Sure, we may benefit from gene research in the future, but not presently.
Katz, in order for Americans to keep up-to-date on what you think is important, they would have to read the same journals and magazines and web sites that you do.
Katz - do you know the names of the pioneers in the field of alternate energy? Probably not...amazing, really, because in a few years, fossil fuels are going to run out and, as far as I'm concerned, that's a really important field of research.
Self-important judgemental jackass. Not everybody needs to care about the same things that you do. And those of us who don't are not "wrong" or somehow less intelligent or less morally-concerned than you are. We just lead different lives.
quite correct...
/.
But, we don't really know if this was a 3 point rating scale, a 5 point, or a 10 point...(if it was a 3-point scale, then the %s are the same)
That aside, also interesting to note is that, according to what I believe came from the census projection in 1999, 30.4% of Americans are 18-34, while only 16.5% are 65+.
So, even if that was just a 3-point rating scale and the percentages work out to no significant difference, the base for ea. age group is different. There are almost twice as many 18-34 year olds as there are 65+, so even if the % is the same, there are twice as many people "Somewhat to Extremely Stressed".
...and then if we broke it down by gender and by employment status...and maybe even ethnicity...or income, we may even find other interesting facts out. Hell, we may even find that it's not age, but income that makes the real difference...
I knew that career in market research would pay off. It allowed me to write a somewhat-intelligent post to
I think the answer is simple...Technology just isn't good enough *yet* for us to turn over all of our work to computers. Instead of having computers that can make decisions for us, we can automate a lot more and require that humans need to make more decisions about more work, but do less of the work for each task. Pump funding into AI research...
either by the solution first, or use lynx ;)
;)
why would I want to visit a porn site using lynx???
...any theories about the material moving inwards? Secondary explosions? Fascinating, really...
Let's see...we split up into three companies...how does this recitfy the situation: 1) Applications company still has monopoly on office-suite software 2) OS company still has monopoly on desktop OS's 3) IE company...well, that one just dies. Solution 2: Open up the document formats and form an industry-wide document format standards committee that decides the file type formats for word processing, spreadsheet, etc... that will level the playing field when it comes to applications producing files w/compatible format. Rather than using word because everyone uses it, consumers now use the product that best suits their needs...and saves in a common format. Now, about the OS monopoly...well, I have absolutely no idea what a good solution is there. Sure, you can open the source, but I don't think that would do any good...nor would just splitting the company up.
...I wonder if the people that are getting these computers from their companies are the people that:
a) couldn't afford it in the first place
b) would benefit the most from having improved access
Don't get me wrong, I think this is an absolutely great idea. However, in a time when the gap between the haves and the have-nots is at an absolute high, universal access to educational materials is VERY important. Will a few companies dishing out PC's and net access solve this problem? Probably not...and this is definitely NOT universal access. Universal access will come when everybody, regardless of race, age, or socio-economic status gets internet services provided for free in their household.
Right now, we're most likely helping out the people who already have jobs and have children who are in school, probably getting a decent education and most likely have PC/internet access at their schools. We're helping the people who don't need to be helped...but isn't that way it always is in this country?
The place where I work will probably be getting rid of our NT boxes and replacing them with OS X as soon as Maya is out.
Why??? If we know next to nothing about the OS's functionality in a network, why would someone make that decision now, pre-release? Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate here, because we all know the networking superiority that *BSD has over NT in many areas...but it seems to be a bit early to make that decision.
If it were my decision, I'd wait until a few people make mistakes doing what you're thinking about and learning from their mistakes, rather than making the mistakes myself...
too bad...that cute paper clip was the only thing I actually LIKED about MS products
Bottom line: embrace progress or be steamrolled by it.
Well, I prefer "Bottom line: embrace progress embracing ethics" a little more.
I don't disagree with you...corporations have fscked up the world through the consumer and vice-versa. But, you can have progress AND corporate ethics at the same time...you don't need to sacrifice the quality of living for technological advancement.
...great. They're offering people the opportunity to have their business cards and/or a personal message deposited on the moon. Wonderful way to mark the first commercial space venture...dumping a load of paper on earth's only natural satellite...
...and yes, I do detect some foreshadowing here...as if commerce hasn't fscked up our own planet enough, it's time to branch out and fsck up the entire solar system.
Exactly...a lot of people point out that you need root access to do serious system damage to a linux box...so this leads us to use a non-su account for our everyday work. But, if I use "jack" as my login to do all my work, then "jack" is the owner of all of my files...granted, "jack" shouldn't be able to do anything serious to the system, but how hard is it for any of us to write a script that does this in the background:
1) cd /
2) [read in all directories and their children and put paths to files owned by jack in an array]
3) loop through array and rm files owned by jack
What's even scarier is that this little 3-step killer can be easily embedded in an otherwise-useful looking perl script and do some serious damage.
No system damage, but on a production machine, system files are not the only valuable files that may or may not be able to be restored from a backup.
I hadn't thought about it quite like that. While dialog boxes in Windows are not limited to error messages, maybe they should be.
...and you're right, I run Gnome on my PC at home, and the only dialog box message that I get regularly (that I ignore) is the one that tells me I'm running the Gnome File Manager as root and that I could damage my system if I'm not careful.
Users have become so numb to the pop-up dialog "Click Yes/OK to continue" that they are no longer a fully effective tool in GUI design. Time to think up something that will not provoke a knee-jerk reaction every time it pops up. I admit it, when I'm in a hurry, I click "OK" as soon as I see it, too.
...yep, if we're ever going to travel REAL fast in space, we need them inertial dampeners I keep hearing about every Wed. night on Voyager...or else, when the ship decelerated, we'd all go splat on the forward walls of the ship...either that, or (if we were strapped in), our internal organs would do the same thing on the insides of our bodies.
lots of good ideas can be found in science fiction...lets hope some of them can become reality
so what??? I wouldn't blame them for using it, Excel is a good product. I use good products. I use Linux at home, and I use Excel at work. If it wasn't a good product, I wouldn't use it. If Linux wasn't a good product, how many of us would use it? Personally, I'm a little tired of people bashing products because they're made by MS...bash them for their bugs -- fine -- but not just because they're made by MS.
people look at you REAL funny when you laugh this hard at your desk...
nice job
"lobbyists run the country" yadda yadda yadda...it sounds like a lecture from my freshman economics classes (in 1993). No, none of Katz's latest rant is new...it's pretty much on target, but it's not new...
...figure out which side of the fence you want to sit on!
...but let me clarify: you oppose corportations "circumventing government regulation", but you are in favor of consumers doing so? (from yesterday's discussion about teens _stealing_ Metallica's music, using Napster as a conduit) Odd contradiction...
another example - so we'll get all pissed off when someone violates the GPL (circumventing regulation), but we support copyright violations (circumventing regulation) when it comes to consumers stealing music from artists. Hypocrites!