This thing looks pretty sweet... I want to download it and play with it once I'm no longer stuck on the Win2k boxes at work.:)
But does anybody know if they support any sort of multihead? They list the Matrox G400 (which is dual-head) as a supported card... anybody played with this?
Well, relativity tells us that there's no such thing as a 'fixed point'. Objects' position and speed can only be described in terms of other objects. (Check out the Michaelson-Morley experiment for a demonstration of this.)
With about 30 machines dedicated to "research" surely one of those already perform the job well.
With all due respect, I don't think you really know what you're talking about. The amounts of data involved in these simulations is simply mind-boggling. And no matter how many points you simulate, and how many time-steps it runs over, it's still only a simulation. The way to get a more accurate simulation is to increase the number of data elements being simulated and decrease the amount of time between 'steps'.
Basically, you might be running a sim for weeks (or longer) to be able to accurately simulate the first half-second of a nuclear explosion. Trust me when I tell you that they want the biggest, fastest computer your money can buy:) It's never enough.
Most consumer-grade crypto is pretty trivial compared to these problems, and the
(percieved) need to simulate nuclear explosions is probably greater than the need to break your PGP code and see where the last place you boffed the boss's wife was.
Incidentally, contrary to what some other people were saying, these big beasts are very useful to certain types of research outside of cryptography. Astronomy, for instance.
Paragraph 7 of the Magistrate's June 16, 1999 Order prohibited ApolloMedia from discussing not only the details of the government's investigation and the content of the order with anyone until authorized by the court, but also the very existence of the order and its application.
Does this bother anyone else? I didn't even think this was *legal*! I know that if I were involved in this sort of case, I'd want as much publicity as possible... this is scary.
I've always felt that hacking and 'magic' overlap so much because they're both difficult and confusing ways to view the world:)
Seriously, though... given the correlation between SciFi/Fantasy fans and hackers (and why is that? That's another topic entirely), I think it's pretty self-evident. Think about it. Wizards make strange sounds and gestures that Mere Mortals can't possibly comprehend, and *poof!* Something amazing occurs. Hackers type strange things that Mere Mortals can't possibly comprehend, and *poof!* The machine does something amazing.
Plus, computers are complex entities. Borrowing a meme from ESR, it's much easier sometimes to imagine that a computer is a sentient (and sometimes malevolent) being, with its own thoughts, desires, fears, and motives... and that we can never quite know what all those motives are.
I know that when my code fails to compile even though the changes I've made should work perfectly, I've done something wrong. But we hate thinking that our mistakes are our own fault:) It's much easier to believe that the computer is angry at me for something, and needs to be appeased (usually by swearing vehemently). I know that deep down, it's all ones and zeroes, all just electrons zipping around through semiconductors. But still I always keep a few broken ICs next to my Yoda PEZ dispenser, to scare away the evil spirits lurking inside the case. (Not to mention the hex inverter hung above my door...)
How this relates to Real World religion is kinda unclear to me... I know that personally, traditional Western religions seem too arbitrary and internally inconsistent to me to be of much value. Perhaps that has something to do with it -- spending our lives working on devices that are by definition perfectly consistent (we hope) tends to lead us to feel that God(s) wouldn't be any less. *shrug*
I dunno. Zen just "feels right" sometimes. But then there are the days that I truly *am* a Discordian...
Letting the government run health care effectively
So who thinks the government can run health care effectively?:P
(Yes, I know, it's out of context. But that's how it wrapped on my screen, and I had to read it through three times to parse it correctly -- I was so shocked at the thought of anyone thinking the government could run anything effectively:)
So we (that is, parents) should physically monitor our children 24/7?
Whoops, sorry. Forgot that when I asked parents to take responsibility for their children that it meant they had to watch over them constantly. Because everyone knows you can't expect them to *raise* the child, instilling it with a sense of right and wrong. No, if you don't want your child looking at pron, you have to make it impossible for him to do so. After all, it's not the child looking at the pron, it's Society.
Perhaps you are suggesting we give the baby the choice to eat steak so the man, too, can eat it?
Precisely the opposite of the point I was trying to make. What is right for one person is not right for another. Trying to force a baby to eat steak would have the same result as forcing a man to drink only milk - starvation. The point is that no one should tell me I can't have access to information because that information upsets someone else.
(To head off any future purposefully obtuse misinterpretations of my words, this doesn't necessarily mean that I should have the right to look at your credit report -- just that I should be able to see published information, whether it offends you, destroys a child's fragile little mind (horrors! Little Johnny might learn that men and women are *different*! Think of the scars that could cause!) or can be used to cause harm. Actions can be crime; information never.)
Ahh, yes. One of my favourite ways of avoiding having to deal with a problem. "If I look a bit, I can find a bigger problem." And then there's one just a bit bigger than that. Pretty soon, you've managed to inflate the problem so that it's so big you can't do anything about it, and then you feel perfectly justified in saying "There's nothing I can do - this is a global problem."
Just because the guy down the street doesn't have a pair of shoes doesn't mean that I shouldn't get the nail out of the sole of mine. Let's take care of the problems that affect us, and that we can deal with first. Then we can worry about the rest of the world.
I think you'll find that Deja's terms and conditions, along with the public nature of Usenet... give them the right to make "cosmetic" changes like this.
The point is that they are applying those 'terms and conditions' to people who have not accepted them. If I published a book with everything you've ever written, but changed your words around slightly here and there to favor the other products made by my company, and then attached an EULA to the book that said "By reading this, you give me the right to change the original author's words", it's not gonna fly.
you own copyright, but your messages are in the public domain, by definition, it's an implicit permission to copy
Copy, yes. Modify, no. Even in the public domain, the author retains certain rights. Just because you park your car on a public street doesn't give anyone the right to come along and paint it a different color. That's what Deja is doing - changing my property without my permission.
Jon Katz said We're supposed to hate Magento, but there isn't anything particularly hateful about him. He's trying to save his species from what he believes from personal experience is a possible Holocaust-style extinction.
I didn't hate Magneto either, so I guess in that respect, I'm with you. But I thought that was exactly why he made such a good bad guy. You didn't like what he was doing, but you could sympathise with why he was doing it. It was obvious that he didn't see himself as evil, just as he saw Xavier as weak and frightened. Even the way in which he carried out his plan showed that he thought of himself as righteous: he wasn't going to kill anyone, just bring them to his side permanently.
Education should be about how to think, not what to think.
If your high school was like this, please tell me where it is so I can move there -- I want my children to get an education.
Seriously, I have never yet had an educational experience in a school. Rote memorization and regurgitation is apparently the only thing that teachers know how to do.
And it's getting worse. In my home state of West Virginia (thank God I made it out of there in time), the schools are phasing out AP (Advanced Placement, courses at a higher level than normal high school classes) classes and replacing them with 'School to Work'. This is things like keyboarding, secretarial training... vocational training. Forget teaching how to think -- we can teach how to use a cash register. Much better.
That sort of thing both encourages and frightens me. It's great because as one of the few people able to think for himself, I can probably make a decent living in the future ("In the land of the blind..."). It's frightening because I might want to have children myself one day.
Ah well... at least it'll be a clean world with plenty of meter-readers to go 'round...
Okay, serious question here. I don't know how many times I've heard the word 'eugenics' used as a synonym for 'evil'. Quite frankly, I've never figured out why. The closest I've ever gotten to a meaningful response ("It just is" is not meaningful) was something to the effect of "Hitler did it! Hitler was evil!! Oooooooohhhhhh!" or some such. (Post hoc ergo propter hoc, and that's being generous to the argument and assuming that Hitler == evil.)
So anyway, what exactly is wrong with weeding out certain genes? Throughout his above diatribe about the evils of everything since the discovery of fire above, Mr. Katz seems to think that any form of genetic manipulation of humans is a sin. Why? If I had the genes for multiple sclerosis, as an example, I would be quite happy to have them replaced or repaired in my child. Admittedly, attempting to make a conformist, pacifist, or whatever before birth is appalling -- but show me the gene for 'obeys blindly'. I think you'll find it's a bit harder than you think. (Ahh, the old 'nature vs. nurture' debate rears its ugly head!)
Finally, as a completely unrelated side-note... Mr. Katz, for someone who conciously tries to be as counter-culture as possible, you sometimes fail miserably. As nearly as I can tell, instead of making sane, logical points about why the US is unqualified to posess scientific knowledge, you simply went randomly US-bashing because it's fashionable. Just because everyone else is vocal about hating the United States doesn't mean you have to say it too -- if you want to attack the 'States, at least come up with a reason or two. (Hint: capitalism != US government. Surprisingly, there *are* other capitalist economies out there and they (*gasp*) have advertising!! Horrors! The US has polluted the world!)
Sorry, nvidia. We have to punish you for not being exactly like us. You have a good point there. And I'm sure that if I messed up and started selling a piece of software that also included a DLL from, say, Microsoft Office, that Microsoft would politely ask me to stop. And that they'd accept as a response "Well, I won't take it out of this release, and I'll keep on selling it just the way it is. But I promise that I'll get around to writing my own code sometime and stop using yours. Really." Sure.... that would happen. While I'm not saying that we should drag the FSF and some lawyers in here, try to remember that if the shoe were on the other foot, it would be a bloody mess.
But in a hundred years time people will look back at the "internet revolution" and compare it to the "far bigger" changes occuring to them and their society. It's all a matter of perspective.
Hmmm... I don't know. I agree with you in principle, but there *are* certain events that we look back on and see as fairly large changes. I would argue that the Industrial Revolution, for example, is pretty similar to the 'Internet Revolution'. It's a dramatic change that, while not occurring overnight, still changes society dramatically in a brief period.
Other people have made the point about the 'Net being the modern analogue to the printing press, and I'm sure still others will beat that point into the ground, so I won't mention it here;)
You see, if you need to put a human inside the exo-droid, you need to keep that guy/gal alive ! That will mean you need to put in life-supporting systems, like air-circulation, temperature control, shock-absorbing devices, water and all the other kind of things. You even need to have two bags - one for urine, the ohter one for feces - so that human doesn't need to come out of the thing too often.
Not necessarily... the proposal doesn't say anything about it being a completely self-contained environment. Think of a cage (or something like the aforementioned "Aliens" suit) with some extra armour wrapped around it... at worst it might require a few cooling fans and a built-in canteen. (Remember - 4 to 24 hours in the suit is all the proposal asks for)
This is an example of retarded Anonymous Cowards. The link points to www.scoobydoo.com.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Re:I thought it was free software?
on
Giving Back
·
· Score: 1
so why should i pay 4 it? i mean, it is free, right?
Right! That's the beauty of it. If you don't want to pay for it, don't. If you feel that free software hasn't done anything beneficial for you, then hey, no sweat - you didn't have to pay anything for it and you're free to just dump it. On the other hand, if you feel that it's helped you, then you're more than welcome (not required) to give something back to the community.
And that's really the important part - nobody is really talking about sending money to the people who wrote the software you're using. They don't expect to be payed back - if anything, they want you to pay it 'forward'. You can do this by donating money if you want, but a better way is to donate yourself. If you can write code, write some good software and give it away so that everyone can benefit like you did. If you can't code, maybe you can simply help other people use the same software that you're enjoying - write a FAQ or HOWTO, or just give your email address to a newbie and help them as they need it.
That's what the 'spirit of free software' is, as sappy as it sounds. (And I'll admit, it does sound like something you'd hear about in a cartoon around Christmas.) I know that I wouldn't be where I am now if someone hadn't helped me get into Linux about 5 years ago, and it makes me happy that I can now write software and give it away to the same community that helped me then.
Just try it for a bit - you might be surprised at how nice it really feels.
"...almost anything ending in `x' may form plurals in `-xen'... But note that `Unixen' and `Twenexen' are never used; it has been suggested that this is because `-ix' and `-ex' are Latin singular endings that attract a Latinate plural."
You have power over the existence or nonexistence of the organism, and then doing nothing is just a decision to condemn it to nonexistence.
Hmmm... by this definition of a god, *I* am a god. I have the power to bring an organism into existence (by having sex). I also have the power *not* to bring said organism into existence (through birth control or simply abstaining from sex).
Sorry, try again... I don't think this is a valid argument in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
- Edit - Preferences - Navigator - Internet Search.
- Set default search engine to 'Google'.
- Type your query into the URL bar.
- Click search.
And I won't even charge a one-time feeThis thing looks pretty sweet... I want to download it and play with it once I'm no longer stuck on the Win2k boxes at work. :)
But does anybody know if they support any sort of multihead? They list the Matrox G400 (which is dual-head) as a supported card... anybody played with this?
How about you read what I wrote, stupid. Did I claim MS Reader was uncrackable?
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Well, relativity tells us that there's no such thing as a 'fixed point'. Objects' position and speed can only be described in terms of other objects. (Check out the Michaelson-Morley experiment for a demonstration of this.)
With about 30 machines dedicated to "research" surely one of those already perform the job well.
:) It's never enough.
With all due respect, I don't think you really know what you're talking about. The amounts of data involved in these simulations is simply mind-boggling. And no matter how many points you simulate, and how many time-steps it runs over, it's still only a simulation. The way to get a more accurate simulation is to increase the number of data elements being simulated and decrease the amount of time between 'steps'.
Basically, you might be running a sim for weeks (or longer) to be able to accurately simulate the first half-second of a nuclear explosion. Trust me when I tell you that they want the biggest, fastest computer your money can buy
Most consumer-grade crypto is pretty trivial compared to these problems, and the (percieved) need to simulate nuclear explosions is probably greater than the need to break your PGP code and see where the last place you boffed the boss's wife was.
Incidentally, contrary to what some other people were saying, these big beasts are very useful to certain types of research outside of cryptography. Astronomy, for instance.
It will be interesting to see the /. crew's reaction to this... how 'bout it, Taco, Hemos, et al? :)
Paragraph 7 of the Magistrate's June 16, 1999 Order prohibited ApolloMedia from discussing not only the details of the government's investigation and the content of the order with anyone until authorized by the court, but also the very existence of the order and its application.
Does this bother anyone else? I didn't even think this was *legal*! I know that if I were involved in this sort of case, I'd want as much publicity as possible... this is scary.
I've always felt that hacking and 'magic' overlap so much because they're both difficult and confusing ways to view the world :)
:) It's much easier to believe that the computer is angry at me for something, and needs to be appeased (usually by swearing vehemently). I know that deep down, it's all ones and zeroes, all just electrons zipping around through semiconductors. But still I always keep a few broken ICs next to my Yoda PEZ dispenser, to scare away the evil spirits lurking inside the case. (Not to mention the hex inverter hung above my door...)
Seriously, though... given the correlation between SciFi/Fantasy fans and hackers (and why is that? That's another topic entirely), I think it's pretty self-evident. Think about it. Wizards make strange sounds and gestures that Mere Mortals can't possibly comprehend, and *poof!* Something amazing occurs. Hackers type strange things that Mere Mortals can't possibly comprehend, and *poof!* The machine does something amazing.
Plus, computers are complex entities. Borrowing a meme from ESR, it's much easier sometimes to imagine that a computer is a sentient (and sometimes malevolent) being, with its own thoughts, desires, fears, and motives... and that we can never quite know what all those motives are.
I know that when my code fails to compile even though the changes I've made should work perfectly, I've done something wrong. But we hate thinking that our mistakes are our own fault
How this relates to Real World religion is kinda unclear to me... I know that personally, traditional Western religions seem too arbitrary and internally inconsistent to me to be of much value. Perhaps that has something to do with it -- spending our lives working on devices that are by definition perfectly consistent (we hope) tends to lead us to feel that God(s) wouldn't be any less. *shrug*
I dunno. Zen just "feels right" sometimes. But then there are the days that I truly *am* a Discordian...
Letting the government run health care effectively
:P
:)
So who thinks the government can run health care effectively?
(Yes, I know, it's out of context. But that's how it wrapped on my screen, and I had to read it through three times to parse it correctly -- I was so shocked at the thought of anyone thinking the government could run anything effectively
So we (that is, parents) should physically monitor our children 24/7?
Whoops, sorry. Forgot that when I asked parents to take responsibility for their children that it meant they had to watch over them constantly. Because everyone knows you can't expect them to *raise* the child, instilling it with a sense of right and wrong. No, if you don't want your child looking at pron, you have to make it impossible for him to do so. After all, it's not the child looking at the pron, it's Society.
Perhaps you are suggesting we give the baby the choice to eat steak so the man, too, can eat it?
Precisely the opposite of the point I was trying to make. What is right for one person is not right for another. Trying to force a baby to eat steak would have the same result as forcing a man to drink only milk - starvation. The point is that no one should tell me I can't have access to information because that information upsets someone else.
(To head off any future purposefully obtuse misinterpretations of my words, this doesn't necessarily mean that I should have the right to look at your credit report -- just that I should be able to see published information, whether it offends you, destroys a child's fragile little mind (horrors! Little Johnny might learn that men and women are *different*! Think of the scars that could cause!) or can be used to cause harm. Actions can be crime; information never.)
Ahh, yes. One of my favourite ways of avoiding having to deal with a problem. "If I look a bit, I can find a bigger problem." And then there's one just a bit bigger than that. Pretty soon, you've managed to inflate the problem so that it's so big you can't do anything about it, and then you feel perfectly justified in saying "There's nothing I can do - this is a global problem."
Just because the guy down the street doesn't have a pair of shoes doesn't mean that I shouldn't get the nail out of the sole of mine. Let's take care of the problems that affect us, and that we can deal with first. Then we can worry about the rest of the world.
Should an 10 year-old be given free reign to puruse hard-core pornography?
No. But should the library be responsible for the child? No. That's the parents' job.
Is it really bad to limit these internet access if it will protect a child?
Is it really so bad to tell a grown man he can only have milk because the baby can't chew steak?
I think you'll find that Deja's terms and conditions, along with the public nature of Usenet... give them the right to make "cosmetic" changes like this.
The point is that they are applying those 'terms and conditions' to people who have not accepted them. If I published a book with everything you've ever written, but changed your words around slightly here and there to favor the other products made by my company, and then attached an EULA to the book that said "By reading this, you give me the right to change the original author's words", it's not gonna fly.
you own copyright, but your messages are in the public domain, by definition, it's an implicit permission to copy
Copy, yes. Modify, no. Even in the public domain, the author retains certain rights. Just because you park your car on a public street doesn't give anyone the right to come along and paint it a different color. That's what Deja is doing - changing my property without my permission.
[possible mild spoilers ahead]
Jon Katz said We're supposed to hate Magento, but there isn't anything particularly hateful about him. He's trying to save his species from what he believes from personal experience is a possible Holocaust-style extinction.
I didn't hate Magneto either, so I guess in that respect, I'm with you. But I thought that was exactly why he made such a good bad guy. You didn't like what he was doing, but you could sympathise with why he was doing it. It was obvious that he didn't see himself as evil, just as he saw Xavier as weak and frightened. Even the way in which he carried out his plan showed that he thought of himself as righteous: he wasn't going to kill anyone, just bring them to his side permanently.
Education should be about how to think, not what to think.
If your high school was like this, please tell me where it is so I can move there -- I want my children to get an education.
Seriously, I have never yet had an educational experience in a school. Rote memorization and regurgitation is apparently the only thing that teachers know how to do.
And it's getting worse. In my home state of West Virginia (thank God I made it out of there in time), the schools are phasing out AP (Advanced Placement, courses at a higher level than normal high school classes) classes and replacing them with 'School to Work'. This is things like keyboarding, secretarial training... vocational training. Forget teaching how to think -- we can teach how to use a cash register. Much better.
That sort of thing both encourages and frightens me. It's great because as one of the few people able to think for himself, I can probably make a decent living in the future ("In the land of the blind..."). It's frightening because I might want to have children myself one day.
Ah well... at least it'll be a clean world with plenty of meter-readers to go 'round...
Okay, serious question here. I don't know how many times I've heard the word 'eugenics' used as a synonym for 'evil'. Quite frankly, I've never figured out why. The closest I've ever gotten to a meaningful response ("It just is" is not meaningful) was something to the effect of "Hitler did it! Hitler was evil!! Oooooooohhhhhh!" or some such. (Post hoc ergo propter hoc, and that's being generous to the argument and assuming that Hitler == evil.)
So anyway, what exactly is wrong with weeding out certain genes? Throughout his above diatribe about the evils of everything since the discovery of fire above, Mr. Katz seems to think that any form of genetic manipulation of humans is a sin. Why? If I had the genes for multiple sclerosis, as an example, I would be quite happy to have them replaced or repaired in my child. Admittedly, attempting to make a conformist, pacifist, or whatever before birth is appalling -- but show me the gene for 'obeys blindly'. I think you'll find it's a bit harder than you think. (Ahh, the old 'nature vs. nurture' debate rears its ugly head!)
Finally, as a completely unrelated side-note... Mr. Katz, for someone who conciously tries to be as counter-culture as possible, you sometimes fail miserably. As nearly as I can tell, instead of making sane, logical points about why the US is unqualified to posess scientific knowledge, you simply went randomly US-bashing because it's fashionable. Just because everyone else is vocal about hating the United States doesn't mean you have to say it too -- if you want to attack the 'States, at least come up with a reason or two. (Hint: capitalism != US government. Surprisingly, there *are* other capitalist economies out there and they (*gasp*) have advertising!! Horrors! The US has polluted the world!)
Sorry, nvidia. We have to punish you for not being exactly like us. You have a good point there. And I'm sure that if I messed up and started selling a piece of software that also included a DLL from, say, Microsoft Office, that Microsoft would politely ask me to stop. And that they'd accept as a response "Well, I won't take it out of this release, and I'll keep on selling it just the way it is. But I promise that I'll get around to writing my own code sometime and stop using yours. Really." Sure.... that would happen. While I'm not saying that we should drag the FSF and some lawyers in here, try to remember that if the shoe were on the other foot, it would be a bloody mess.
FWIW, FWIW == "For What It's Worth"
HTH, HAND.
:P
But in a hundred years time people will look back at the "internet revolution" and compare it to the "far bigger" changes occuring to them and their society. It's all a matter of perspective.
;)
Hmmm... I don't know. I agree with you in principle, but there *are* certain events that we look back on and see as fairly large changes. I would argue that the Industrial Revolution, for example, is pretty similar to the 'Internet Revolution'. It's a dramatic change that, while not occurring overnight, still changes society dramatically in a brief period.
Other people have made the point about the 'Net being the modern analogue to the printing press, and I'm sure still others will beat that point into the ground, so I won't mention it here
Yes... if only everyone would work for whirled peas...
You see, if you need to put a human inside the exo-droid, you need to keep that guy/gal alive ! That will mean you need to put in life-supporting systems, like air-circulation, temperature control, shock-absorbing devices, water and all the other kind of things. You even need to have two bags - one for urine, the ohter one for feces - so that human doesn't need to come out of the thing too often.
Not necessarily... the proposal doesn't say anything about it being a completely self-contained environment. Think of a cage (or something like the aforementioned "Aliens" suit) with some extra armour wrapped around it... at worst it might require a few cooling fans and a built-in canteen. (Remember - 4 to 24 hours in the suit is all the proposal asks for)
This is an example of retarded Anonymous Cowards. The link points to www.scoobydoo.com.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
so why should i pay 4 it? i mean, it is free, right?
Right! That's the beauty of it. If you don't want to pay for it, don't. If you feel that free software hasn't done anything beneficial for you, then hey, no sweat - you didn't have to pay anything for it and you're free to just dump it. On the other hand, if you feel that it's helped you, then you're more than welcome (not required) to give something back to the community.
And that's really the important part - nobody is really talking about sending money to the people who wrote the software you're using. They don't expect to be payed back - if anything, they want you to pay it 'forward'. You can do this by donating money if you want, but a better way is to donate yourself. If you can write code, write some good software and give it away so that everyone can benefit like you did. If you can't code, maybe you can simply help other people use the same software that you're enjoying - write a FAQ or HOWTO, or just give your email address to a newbie and help them as they need it.
That's what the 'spirit of free software' is, as sappy as it sounds. (And I'll admit, it does sound like something you'd hear about in a cartoon around Christmas.) I know that I wouldn't be where I am now if someone hadn't helped me get into Linux about 5 years ago, and it makes me happy that I can now write software and give it away to the same community that helped me then.
Just try it for a bit - you might be surprised at how nice it really feels.
From The Hacker Jargon File:
"...almost anything ending in `x' may form plurals in `-xen'... But note that `Unixen' and `Twenexen' are never used; it has been suggested that this is because `-ix' and `-ex' are Latin singular endings that attract a Latinate plural."
You have power over the existence or nonexistence of the organism, and then doing nothing is just a decision to condemn it to nonexistence.
Hmmm... by this definition of a god, *I* am a god. I have the power to bring an organism into existence (by having sex). I also have the power *not* to bring said organism into existence (through birth control or simply abstaining from sex).
Sorry, try again... I don't think this is a valid argument in this case.