I can't even be sure that you were implying this, but people should know that the fact that scientific research in nessecarily tied into "profit" is NOT because all scientists are inherently greedy (although I can't say about Craig Venter, to be sure...)
I am a research biologist working right now at a NON-PROFIT research organization, and I will tell you that the costs of research are so enormous and prohibitive that government funding NEVER covers it, even in such "sexy" useful fields as genomics. For example, the cost of creating and keeping a colony of research mice for a year often runs as high as $60,000 or more for each laboratory, which consists of a principal investigator, maybe a couple of post docs, some technicians and (cheap) graduate students. This does not include salaries, rent on lab space, equipment cost (both initial and maintainence - average maintainance contract over $5,000/year per machine) reagent cost, computers, software, etc, etc. Therefore kissing up to corporate monies, or BECOMING coporate monies, as Craig Venter has done, is almost always neccassary, but not because the biologists are trying to make it that way.
People like Venter that establish their own biotech companies to make the big bucks should not immediately be villified either; as the process of becoming a research scientist is often as hard or harder (and time-consuming) as becoming a medical doctor, and most of us don't mind that they get the big bucks because we know they've worked hard and continue to do so. However, staying in non-profit academic research, while often more respected, does not get you any sort of equivalent job security (unless you can fight your way to tenure) or salary. Most of the people here that do create something new and patentable WANT to patent it, often for the money, but again I don't think that wanting to be rewarded for your work in a capitalist society is neccesarily evil.
This is not to say that I think scientists SHOULD be patenting sequences that they have no current use for, and do not even know yet whether they are introns ("throw-away" or structural parts of the chromosomes) or exons (genes), let alone what they do. If you come up with a novel assay, procedure, or something else with a gene you have sequenced, fine - patent that use. But patenting sequences themselves (that you have not personally created, which can be done) is 'patently' (ha!) deplorable.
I certainly don't EVER consider things I say on a cellular phone to be gauranteed, private communication...
I think that the point that the original poster was trying to make is that it is ridiculous and big-brother-scary to outright ban an entire section of the electromagnetic spectrum to your average consumer unless he uses proprietary technology to listen to it. I mean, why when most people hear about this law they don't care about any cellular phone company operators who just like to sit and listen in to their conversations for voyeuristic or incriminating purposes? I'm just saying I don't trust those people any more (any probably in some cases even less, I mean does YOUR cell phone company seem like it cares about you in the least??) than your average joe with a multi-freq. scanner, scanning through the spectrum and listening for interesting things.
I am going to try very hard not to flame you, but what you've said on this matter:
Anyone who thinks that abuse groups are the crux of this issue is deluding themselves. Firstly, the notion of bearing your soul and your abuse to a group of strangers is ridiculous in itself. These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
really offends me.
First, my offtopic rant: how many psychology majors did you know at your school, if you have attended college? I can tell you that at my school, some exceptions aside, the psych majors were the craziest bunch there. Not wild-crazy, insane-crazy. I'm sure that most of them were not insane to the point of trying to get medication for it or whatever, but you know those people whose eyes just don't have a calm, sane look in them? Those people who do way more than a usual amount of "normal insane"-type things like becoming totally obsessive about *blank*, say totally strange things in the course of normal conversation, do drugs and then have "tripping fits" where they claim their mind is breaking or something (and then take lots of shrooms the next weekend anyway), or set up strange schemes to manipulate others or get attention? I found that our psych department, aside from being the easiest major to graduate from (which almost everyone thought, not just me) was FULL of these people. I think it's because if you are a little wacked, the concept of being wacked is extremely interesting to you. One of my best friends was also a psych major, and she was very common-sensical and kind and SANE, but the vast majority of these people I WOULD NEVER WANT TO TRY TO TELL ME HOW TO BE MENTALLY HEALTHY!!!
Now back on topic: I think that your personal views on who "needs" to be anonymous are clouding the issue for you. Forget about sexual abuse victims and porn-access and whether you think that YOU would ever need to be anonymous on the internet. Don't you just think that, just as it should be within your rights to walk down a public street anonymously (where there is a chance that you could commit a crime at any moment but most likely would not), that it SHOULD be within your rights to enter the forum of the internet anonymously, regardless of the reason why?
I don't have an anonymous web account, nor do I really want one. But I do want the RIGHT to have one. There's a difference...
Alkaiser, I think that you should (get exp. points, that is) except I don't think that this guy considers himself either slayed or a troll in the first place.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've been reading this little back and forth, but to tell the truth, it's been the most interesting (in a Soap-serial-melrose place-type-way) that I've seen all day.
At first I thought that the FBI agent or whatever he is was joking, but now I truly wonder. Your psycology intrigues me, An. Cow. Are you playing a role playing game? (You seem to be making stuff up as you go...) Are you schizophrenic or have other mental problems? (You do realize that nothing you say makes much sense, don't you?) Or are you actually driven to the brink of madness by agents and spies and SS people and whatnot chasing after you?
Or are you an ex-boyfriend of mine? At first I thought that he was a truly independant thinker who saw deep into society's ills, but later realized that he had severe emotional problems and actually depended on his myriad of conspiracy theories and rants about "the average stupid asleep American" to escape from his unfavorable reality. Needless to say I dumped him, mostly because he was a prime jerk, but also because I suspected him of going off the deep end in just this manner. If it is you, do you still obsessively listen to that song about "the little box-es/on the hill-side/ and they're all made out of ticky-tacky/and they all look just the same"? (100 repetitions of that song be enough to drive anyone loony, believe me, whether or not you listened to it while reading Noam Chomsky over and over again.) In any case, I think you might feel better if you just BREATHE DEEPLY for a second. Whoever else may or may not be, us leftist Nazi slashdot robots are not out to GET YOU.
Anyway, I guess I'll go back to taking some more of those drugs that "make me think life is one great big happy open source pile of warm crap". Actually, I seem to be running out. Do you know where to get any, Alkaiser? (wink,wink)
Every cat I've ever had responds to its name (9 cats). And both of my cats that I have now will actually come when you call them by name, without the help of food or bribes - and to their own name, too, not the other cat's. Well, at least 85% of the time, but if they are feeling pissy or lazy they always do turn their head and blink, just like the robot.
In fact, most dog lovers/catphobes claim that they would have liked cats more if they had known my cats as a child, because they are very friendly and intelligent. I think it's great that they are trying to improve AI by moving up from a dog to a cat. It seems like it would be much harder to simulate or code for cat-like stimulus response, which is often subtle and follows a certain complex reasoning of its own, rather than dogs, which I have found in personal experience to be much more predictable and overtly command-oriented.
Don't get me wrong - I've had a fair number of dogs, too, and I've loved them all. Their social behavior is essentially more cooperative than cats, but only the very smartest dogs I've ever met seem even as intelligent as average cats to me. And, the smart dogs are often "cat-like" in behavior as well, being less prone to do any trick or command at the drop of a hat just because you ask them to.
We must move forwards, not backwards, upwards, not forwards, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. - Klinn-ton
There are so many things wrong with this statement I don't where to begin.
Maggie is the smartest character on the show. Lisa is very intelligent, but sometimes gets carried away with all of her enviro-feminist-vegetarian leanings. Maggie acts (with the possible exception of Marge) like the oldest, wisest character on the show. Any part that involves her I automatically love, and not just because she's so cute. Think about how great she was when:
-she gives Homer her pacifier because he doesn't have a beer and then magicallyu produces another one from behind her back -Bart fed her coffee ice cream and she was so wired that she climbed the shower curtains, etc. -she dances (remember when Homer's Mom comes back and notes that "the spirit of the sixties is still alive in you kids" and Maggie is dancing with 'Ban the Bottle' written across her chest, Laugh In style?) I could go on but I won't. And besides, the show doesn't need anything to "sustain" it - its true fan base is both extremely large, loyal, untiring, and rabid. Most people I know my age (and my little brother's age) with any sense of humor at all consider this to be the greatest TV show ever made (narrowly but decisively beating out South Park), and feel that it only gets better with time.
Besides, one of the greatest things about the show is, like Calvin and Hobbes, they never get any older, but they do remember what has happened to them in previous episodes!
I, for one, think that it should be easier to get karma points if a system like this is implemented. From what I understand, karma points are based (loosely? strictly?) on how much you have been moderated up or how many people have responded to your posts. I have been a daily Slashdot visitor for over a year (my user info does not reflect this because I was forced to be an anonymous coward due to the proxy configuration at my work for a long time.) As such, I like the idea proposed of rewards for length of time you have tried "to be a member of the slashdot community".
I don't do trolls, and mostly (present post excluded) I try to stay on topic. But my posts are never moderated up unless I post a frivolous joke about Hemos the Hamster or something that everyone's heard a thousand times before. I feel that a lot of people are rewarded for moderation inertia,or the fact that they have engaged in nasty little back-and-forths, thus capturing the "replies" one needs for karma. There are many users whose names I recognize who seem to always be moderated up, no matter what they write, be it something that's been said a milllion times before, or some strange apology when they've been proved wrong (i.e. I didn't mean to offend you when I said that you probably upload nudie pics of your 9-year old son to jerk off to at night. Score: 2) Maybe I'm just missing something - do people like this have automatic moderation, or what? Occasionally I recieve moderation points - why? I have no idea since my karma is almost always 0. I spend my time trying to find novel ideas being put forth that have a score of 1 and moderating them up, but I feel that most moderation just follows extremely predictable patterns. Maybe if more people had moderation points to begin with, this site would be a much richer place.
Then again, what do I know? I still like reading everyday and posting often. I don't mean to whine either, I'm not asking for "free" moderation. A karma of 0 is fine with me because I know that a few pat posts giving props to Linux or Hemos the Hamster or containing a Simpsons reference will usually get moderated up, and I could also just provoke an angry jerk into a back and forth to get some karma if I really want it. I am just pointing out that the moderation could practically be done by computer program, it is so predictable. Let's be more open to new thoughts and users that aren't as well-known,/.ers! I think it could only make reading the posts more fun for everyone.
Well if you're going to credit Liebniz, what about Descarte?
All of this argument goes to show that in human history things are invented, often simultaneously or only months apart, seperately by more than one person. Our society is like a an ant colony in that together we build on the work that came before us to make the hill bigger and better. Things are invented when the time is right.
This does not mean to say that I believe we shouldn't try to credit those who really came first or actually did invent something. And why should Edison be our national hero if he went around electrocuting cats and dogs? Stupid jerk.
What I can't believe is that the Smithsonian could be at once both so obtuse and weird about the whole thing. Maybe the curator thinks he would get fired if people saw how ignorant he's been. I'd fire him, anyway.
I'm sorry to seem that I'm picking only on you , qirien, because I'm not. Many people have your argument.
But the desire of a minority to view pornography in a public place cannot be allowed to overturn the needs of a majority of children and others who do not wish to be exposed to pornography. What about my desire to learn about anything ELSE that the blocking software blocks?!?!? What if I am a child and I find out my father/uncle/cousin has testicular cancer and I want to learn about that? And why can't there just be a sign above these computers that says "If we catch you viewing pornography in this library you will lose all computer privileges?" (In every library I've been in, the computers are in full view of a librarian anyway, so they can make sure you don't grind candy bars into the CD ROM drive or go over your time limit.)
YOU may be talking about keeping porn out of the sight of children, but I think what millenium is talking about is a much broader issue that I wish everyone who has this sort of knee-jerk reaction to "children viewing porn" would consider.
With this software, you are preventing children from viewing MUCH MORE than porn. For some of these children, you are taking away their only internet access to many informative sites, as Jamie showed, many of them anti-porn or pro-safe sex sites. You, and everyone else that is so concerned about shielding our kids from naked bodies or porn outright should consider the pros and cons of what you are doing. (I for one, believe FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE that if you tell a child they aren't allowed to look at something they will do EVERYTHING in their power to find a way to look at precisely that!) What if, for example, a child is too embarrassed to ask either his parents or clergyman or whatever some questions about safe sex? Or what if a 13-year old girl wants to do a report on abstinence or testicluar cancer? Although the software may not block access to all the sites containing information of these subjects, Jamie has shown that it will block a lot of them, and probably a lot that the search engines will turn up as first hits. Is that worth blocking the porn?
Admittedly it may be different if the computers were in a childrens' section and they could use the non-blocked adult computers if they had to. But from what I remember, these are the only internet computers in the whole library.
Hate to restate what so many others have said before me, but somehow I feel that its not getting through...
(3) No freedom whatsoever, total privacy, and total security. (Anyone caught doing something wrong is punished)
It seems that you either left out combo #4 or (more likely) do not understand the implications of this scenario. How can one have complete privacy yet no freedom AND total security? No freedom and total security sounds reasonable (as a possible situation, not as something I, for one, would ever desire), but if you have total privacy, how could you possibly not have any freedom? How would **they** know when you were doing something wrong, assuming it was peaceful and not encroaching on others? If you had the privacy to buy banned books, how would they know you were reading them? If you had the privacy to write and save code that swindles others electronically, then how would they ever catch you, thus preserving those other people's security?
Maybe total security is incompatible with total freedom and total privacy, but I think the point is that in a world devoid of absolutes (such as the one the rest of us live in) it is possible to have a blend that ensures a lot of important personal freedoms, a lot of personal privacy, and some measure of security. But I'm probably just an idealist.
Afirmative action is not a perfect fix to the problem you describe, but I don't think that anyone (except its detractors) has ever claimed that it tries to be. The point is that the "playing field" for many things in this country is sunken in on the minority side, somewhat due to historical reasons, somewhat due to the statistics of which families have higher incomes, somewhat due to present racist attitudes and biases. A school like Colorado College effectively has no means of alleviating this burden from its PRESENT incoming class of students through prevention, better teaching in elementary schools as someone suggested, or community programes. So it is trying to level the playing field in a way for THESE students, NOW. It sounds as if its mostly a study anyway - maybe if these students who wouldn't have gotten in on the merits of their SATs alone do really well in college, the program should be continued, and vice versa.
"Free Flow of information is necessary to keep up in today's economy..."
This is a sort of off-topic question, but if the main assumption of this thread, or what the above poster has so succinctly stated in this quote, happens to be true, then what does this imply for the US's increasing reliance on capitalism-based information media. For example AOL-TimeWarner, the Disney conglomerate with ABC (or CBS, I don't remember) etc, etc, etc. If you ask me, we are progressively moving away from free flow of information in this country, it just happens to be controlled more and more by big business instead of the government. I mostly ask because I'm 1)curious as to ya'lls opinion, and 2) I'm not sure as to whether this assumption actually IS true.
Although maybe I've missed a reference to this, either in the comment string or the original article, I feel that "strategy" games are worth a mention, because I know several types of people who only enjoy these types of games. Myself included. I get bored and frusterated with RPG because I feel that under all of the flashy graphics they are imbued with nowadays, they are no more fun than the old type-string games like Wolves and such, and often less because they've mostly just taken away your chance to use your imagination, which is mostly what is fun about those games anyway. The only part of FF7 that I liked, really, was that part where you race those Chocobo things.
Which leads me to my original point. Strategy games, like SimCity, Civilization, and Ceasar - those are where its at. They don't try to be too complicated, and instead of telling some sort of a story they behave more like a puzzle or a board game. Also I have to give a shout out to my other favorite games of all time (full James Brown voice now...) Centipede, Revenge of Yars, Battletoads, Sonic2, and Nascar racing for the PlayStation!!!!
On first glance the above comment may seem to be pointless to many who are not attending universities at the time, because the commenter is comparing @Home's responsibility to provide for their paying customers, which as a business, almost anyone would agree they should do. So how does this relate in any way to what colleges and universities should do for their students?
The answer is that students ARE paying customers to the university or college that they attend. And while they may be paying for instruction and learning materials while on the actual academic campus, and it seems reasonalbe that a college might ban napster use at "study" computer labs owned by the school, the story becomes quite different in a dorm room.
For one thing, I know from living at my college in my undergrad years that schools make an incredible killing on room and board fees. The student ends up paying comprable if not totally inflated prices in contrast to outside housing, except the quality of the housing (and the food, in most cases) is abysmal. I mean, no self-respecting adult would live in these dwellings, and NEVER for the price that most colleges charge. And I'm not talking about the student aspect (or the of course noone wants to live with a great big herd of teenagers and irresponsible college students) OR the institutional aspect (where all the furniture sucks and looks like its been borrowed from hospital waiting rooms). I'm talking about inadequate heating and/or cooling, leaky pipes that go unfixed for a long time, inadequate safety equipment (i.e. Seton Hall) or "temporary buildings" that have been used as dorms since the 50's, in the case of my freshmen dorm room!!
Why would anyone live in dorm rooms, then? The only answer is, not including freshmen, BANDWIDTH. Which I think Slashdot had a story on a few days ago. I was a freshman in '94, (are those still technically the good old days?) and had never been on the internet before. But every dorm room in my dorm (where incidently only 2 out of 4 toilets usually worked, all the windows leaked (in Portland, OR!!!) and my floor was actively collapsing into my downstairs neighbor's ceiling) had ETHERNET access. I mean, whoa. Internet connections were faster than anyone had ever seen. I personally knew many people that stayed in the dorms throughout their scholastic careers FOR THIS VERY REASON, providing the school with lots and lots of money.
So I say that students ARE paying customers, with the housing administration acting sort of like an ISP. This is even more aparent when you consider that on top of exorbitant housing costs students usually have to pay a $100-300 ethernet (or equivalent) connection fee per semester ANYWAY. Let them do what they want with their bandwidth!!!
Warning- totally off topic by now... Kintanon, could you flame that person if their moral stance was that black people are evil and dirty, that animal mutilation is a beautiful thing, or that women shouldn't be allowed to vote?
Besides, I don't think that the previous person was even trying to flame, just asking the original poster to clarify their comment or at least think more about what they really did mean. I am not gay, but I think that if you considered the response a flame, than I could consider the original comment a flame, because I found it offensive, as much as I would have found a casual statement to the effect that raising a child in a Jewish family is not a proper environment offensive. And almost as much as the idea behind it, I guess, was the casual manner in which it was put forth, which I feel the alleged flamer was sort of trying to comment on.
Oh well, you guys all have kids and you are entitled to teach them what you'd like, and I do not, I admit. Whatever, because as another poster said, most kids will learn what they think is right for themselves anyway.
Re:I usually find your articles interesting, but..
on
Planet Gattaca
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I would have to agree with you on this one, DanaL. I found the theses of the article interesting statements, but the evidence for them was sorely lacking. I am not always quite sure where I stand on most genetic research involving alteration of genes (i.e. genetically engineered crops, gene therapy, or creating new life using the 300 essential building blocks (genes that code the polypeptides absolutely essential for autonomous, open-system, cell function and replication) of life) but I do know that this research will go on in any case, because that is the nature of human society. If Craig Venter doesn't do "it", then someone else will, and not too long from now because science is at that point.
I feel that when arguments like this come up, however, at least the scientist have thought out the reasons for why they are doing what they are doing. Modern science may well be short-sighted in many respects, but science-fiction like GATTACA is so long sighted (and possibly just blowing smoke up our collective arses) that I can't believe its cautionary statements, like those loosely referred to in the article, are qualitatively better reasons to stop what we are doing than the short-sighted goals of understanding the next step in some obscure molecular pathway are to keep forging ahead.
Besides, Katz's research this time seems to be based entirely on what he has read in news releases, and he doesn't seem to understand the biology behind it at all. In fact, he might be shocked to know that many scientists consider viruses to be the most simple form of life, and reasearch teams have been constructing their own viruses for reasearch purposes from the known essential building blocks of that life form for quite a while now, with not much press or ill-effects. Or he might do weel to consider that GATTACA was way off base for many reasons, but the main one being that who each person fundamentally is, that is their phenotype, results from a 50-50 interaction of genes and environment. How one develops depends on your environemntal factors as much as your genes starting from day one (conception). He points out that Victor or whatever his name is is excluded from being an astronaut for having a heart condition - well big whoop, astronuats are excluded from going into space for this today, and weel they should be! If he only had a predisposition for a heart condition, then that is different, but things wouldn't be like they were in GATTACA because people with "perfect" genotypes would develop heart disease all the time, and non-perfects, like Victor, would be beating their odds, just like all of us non-perfect people do today. Also, scientists know that a homogeneous population is bad news, man, because it opens your population up to any disease that may come along - you may all be resistant to this new thing, or conversely, you will all not be.
My point is not that genetic modification is good. For goodness sakes, picking the genes for your baby is not just unethical, its downright retarted, unoriginal, arrogant, and an admission that you want to make some sort of super race just like Hitler. My point is, however, that you should understand what you're knocking before you ignorantly strike fear into the hearts of others.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't even be sure that you were implying this, but people should know that the fact that scientific research in nessecarily tied into "profit" is NOT because all scientists are inherently greedy (although I can't say about Craig Venter, to be sure...)
I am a research biologist working right now at a NON-PROFIT research organization, and I will tell you that the costs of research are so enormous and prohibitive that government funding NEVER covers it, even in such "sexy" useful fields as genomics. For example, the cost of creating and keeping a colony of research mice for a year often runs as high as $60,000 or more for each laboratory, which consists of a principal investigator, maybe a couple of post docs, some technicians and (cheap) graduate students. This does not include salaries, rent on lab space, equipment cost (both initial and maintainence - average maintainance contract over $5,000/year per machine) reagent cost, computers, software, etc, etc. Therefore kissing up to corporate monies, or BECOMING coporate monies, as Craig Venter has done, is almost always neccassary, but not because the biologists are trying to make it that way.
People like Venter that establish their own biotech companies to make the big bucks should not immediately be villified either; as the process of becoming a research scientist is often as hard or harder (and time-consuming) as becoming a medical doctor, and most of us don't mind that they get the big bucks because we know they've worked hard and continue to do so. However, staying in non-profit academic research, while often more respected, does not get you any sort of equivalent job security (unless you can fight your way to tenure) or salary. Most of the people here that do create something new and patentable WANT to patent it, often for the money, but again I don't think that wanting to be rewarded for your work in a capitalist society is neccesarily evil.
This is not to say that I think scientists SHOULD be patenting sequences that they have no current use for, and do not even know yet whether they are introns ("throw-away" or structural parts of the chromosomes) or exons (genes), let alone what they do. If you come up with a novel assay, procedure, or something else with a gene you have sequenced, fine - patent that use. But patenting sequences themselves (that you have not personally created, which can be done) is 'patently' (ha!) deplorable.
I certainly don't EVER consider things I say on a cellular phone to be gauranteed, private communication...
I think that the point that the original poster was trying to make is that it is ridiculous and big-brother-scary to outright ban an entire section of the electromagnetic spectrum to your average consumer unless he uses proprietary technology to listen to it. I mean, why when most people hear about this law they don't care about any cellular phone company operators who just like to sit and listen in to their conversations for voyeuristic or incriminating purposes? I'm just saying I don't trust those people any more (any probably in some cases even less, I mean does YOUR cell phone company seem like it cares about you in the least??) than your average joe with a multi-freq. scanner, scanning through the spectrum and listening for interesting things.
I am going to try very hard not to flame you, but what you've said on this matter:
Anyone who thinks that abuse groups are the crux of this issue is deluding themselves. Firstly, the notion of bearing your soul and your abuse to a group of strangers is ridiculous in itself. These folks need to deal with professional counsellors who can really help them, not a bunch of wannabe psychologists hanging out in newsgroups giving out bad advice.
really offends me.
First, my offtopic rant: how many psychology majors did you know at your school, if you have attended college? I can tell you that at my school, some exceptions aside, the psych majors were the craziest bunch there. Not wild-crazy, insane-crazy. I'm sure that most of them were not insane to the point of trying to get medication for it or whatever, but you know those people whose eyes just don't have a calm, sane look in them? Those people who do way more than a usual amount of "normal insane"-type things like becoming totally obsessive about *blank*, say totally strange things in the course of normal conversation, do drugs and then have "tripping fits" where they claim their mind is breaking or something (and then take lots of shrooms the next weekend anyway), or set up strange schemes to manipulate others or get attention? I found that our psych department, aside from being the easiest major to graduate from (which almost everyone thought, not just me) was FULL of these people. I think it's because if you are a little wacked, the concept of being wacked is extremely interesting to you. One of my best friends was also a psych major, and she was very common-sensical and kind and SANE, but the vast majority of these people I WOULD NEVER WANT TO TRY TO TELL ME HOW TO BE MENTALLY HEALTHY!!!
Now back on topic: I think that your personal views on who "needs" to be anonymous are clouding the issue for you. Forget about sexual abuse victims and porn-access and whether you think that YOU would ever need to be anonymous on the internet. Don't you just think that, just as it should be within your rights to walk down a public street anonymously (where there is a chance that you could commit a crime at any moment but most likely would not), that it SHOULD be within your rights to enter the forum of the internet anonymously, regardless of the reason why?
I don't have an anonymous web account, nor do I really want one. But I do want the RIGHT to have one. There's a difference...
Alkaiser, I think that you should (get exp. points, that is) except I don't think that this guy considers himself either slayed or a troll in the first place.
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've been reading this little back and forth, but to tell the truth, it's been the most interesting (in a Soap-serial-melrose place-type-way) that I've seen all day.
At first I thought that the FBI agent or whatever he is was joking, but now I truly wonder. Your psycology intrigues me, An. Cow. Are you playing a role playing game? (You seem to be making stuff up as you go...) Are you schizophrenic or have other mental problems? (You do realize that nothing you say makes much sense, don't you?) Or are you actually driven to the brink of madness by agents and spies and SS people and whatnot chasing after you?
Or are you an ex-boyfriend of mine? At first I thought that he was a truly independant thinker who saw deep into society's ills, but later realized that he had severe emotional problems and actually depended on his myriad of conspiracy theories and rants about "the average stupid asleep American" to escape from his unfavorable reality. Needless to say I dumped him, mostly because he was a prime jerk, but also because I suspected him of going off the deep end in just this manner. If it is you, do you still obsessively listen to that song about "the little box-es/on the hill-side/ and they're all made out of ticky-tacky/and they all look just the same"? (100 repetitions of that song be enough to drive anyone loony, believe me, whether or not you listened to it while reading Noam Chomsky over and over again.) In any case, I think you might feel better if you just BREATHE DEEPLY for a second. Whoever else may or may not be, us leftist Nazi slashdot robots are not out to GET YOU.
Anyway, I guess I'll go back to taking some more of those drugs that "make me think life is one great big happy open source pile of warm crap". Actually, I seem to be running out. Do you know where to get any, Alkaiser? (wink,wink)
Every cat I've ever had responds to its name (9 cats). And both of my cats that I have now will actually come when you call them by name, without the help of food or bribes - and to their own name, too, not the other cat's. Well, at least 85% of the time, but if they are feeling pissy or lazy they always do turn their head and blink, just like the robot.
In fact, most dog lovers/catphobes claim that they would have liked cats more if they had known my cats as a child, because they are very friendly and intelligent. I think it's great that they are trying to improve AI by moving up from a dog to a cat. It seems like it would be much harder to simulate or code for cat-like stimulus response, which is often subtle and follows a certain complex reasoning of its own, rather than dogs, which I have found in personal experience to be much more predictable and overtly command-oriented.
Don't get me wrong - I've had a fair number of dogs, too, and I've loved them all. Their social behavior is essentially more cooperative than cats, but only the very smartest dogs I've ever met seem even as intelligent as average cats to me. And, the smart dogs are often "cat-like" in behavior as well, being less prone to do any trick or command at the drop of a hat just because you ask them to.
We must move forwards, not backwards, upwards, not forwards, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. - Klinn-ton
There are so many things wrong with this statement I don't where to begin.
Maggie is the smartest character on the show. Lisa is very intelligent, but sometimes gets carried away with all of her enviro-feminist-vegetarian leanings. Maggie acts (with the possible exception of Marge) like the oldest, wisest character on the show. Any part that involves her I automatically love, and not just because she's so cute. Think about how great she was when:
-she gives Homer her pacifier because he doesn't have a beer and then magicallyu produces another one from behind her back
-Bart fed her coffee ice cream and she was so wired that she climbed the shower curtains, etc.
-she dances (remember when Homer's Mom comes back and notes that "the spirit of the sixties is still alive in you kids" and Maggie is dancing with 'Ban the Bottle' written across her chest, Laugh In style?)
I could go on but I won't. And besides, the show doesn't need anything to "sustain" it - its true fan base is both extremely large, loyal, untiring, and rabid. Most people I know my age (and my little brother's age) with any sense of humor at all consider this to be the greatest TV show ever made (narrowly but decisively beating out South Park), and feel that it only gets better with time.
Besides, one of the greatest things about the show is, like Calvin and Hobbes, they never get any older, but they do remember what has happened to them in previous episodes!
"My cat's breath smells like cat food." -Ralph
Ok I know this is very off-topic...
/.ers! I think it could only make reading the posts more fun for everyone.
I, for one, think that it should be easier to get karma points if a system like this is implemented. From what I understand, karma points are based (loosely? strictly?) on how much you have been moderated up or how many people have responded to your posts. I have been a daily Slashdot visitor for over a year (my user info does not reflect this because I was forced to be an anonymous coward due to the proxy configuration at my work for a long time.) As such, I like the idea proposed of rewards for length of time you have tried "to be a member of the slashdot community".
I don't do trolls, and mostly (present post excluded) I try to stay on topic. But my posts are never moderated up unless I post a frivolous joke about Hemos the Hamster or something that everyone's heard a thousand times before. I feel that a lot of people are rewarded for moderation inertia,or the fact that they have engaged in nasty little back-and-forths, thus capturing the "replies" one needs for karma. There are many users whose names I recognize who seem to always be moderated up, no matter what they write, be it something that's been said a milllion times before, or some strange apology when they've been proved wrong (i.e. I didn't mean to offend you when I said that you probably upload nudie pics of your 9-year old son to jerk off to at night. Score: 2) Maybe I'm just missing something - do people like this have automatic moderation, or what? Occasionally I recieve moderation points - why? I have no idea since my karma is almost always 0. I spend my time trying to find novel ideas being put forth that have a score of 1 and moderating them up, but I feel that most moderation just follows extremely predictable patterns. Maybe if more people had moderation points to begin with, this site would be a much richer place.
Then again, what do I know? I still like reading everyday and posting often. I don't mean to whine either, I'm not asking for "free" moderation. A karma of 0 is fine with me because I know that a few pat posts giving props to Linux or Hemos the Hamster or containing a Simpsons reference will usually get moderated up, and I could also just provoke an angry jerk into a back and forth to get some karma if I really want it. I am just pointing out that the moderation could practically be done by computer program, it is so predictable. Let's be more open to new thoughts and users that aren't as well-known,
Well if you're going to credit Liebniz, what about Descarte?
All of this argument goes to show that in human history things are invented, often simultaneously or only months apart, seperately by more than one person. Our society is like a an ant colony in that together we build on the work that came before us to make the hill bigger and better. Things are invented when the time is right.
This does not mean to say that I believe we shouldn't try to credit those who really came first or actually did invent something. And why should Edison be our national hero if he went around electrocuting cats and dogs? Stupid jerk.
What I can't believe is that the Smithsonian could be at once both so obtuse and weird about the whole thing. Maybe the curator thinks he would get fired if people saw how ignorant he's been. I'd fire him, anyway.
I'm sorry to seem that I'm picking only on you , qirien, because I'm not. Many people have your argument.
But the desire of a minority to view pornography in a public place cannot be allowed to overturn the needs of a majority of children and others who do not wish to be exposed to pornography. What about my desire to learn about anything ELSE that the blocking software blocks?!?!? What if I am a child and I find out my father/uncle/cousin has testicular cancer and I want to learn about that? And why can't there just be a sign above these computers that says "If we catch you viewing pornography in this library you will lose all computer privileges?" (In every library I've been in, the computers are in full view of a librarian anyway, so they can make sure you don't grind candy bars into the CD ROM drive or go over your time limit.)
YOU may be talking about keeping porn out of the sight of children, but I think what millenium is talking about is a much broader issue that I wish everyone who has this sort of knee-jerk reaction to "children viewing porn" would consider.
With this software, you are preventing children from viewing MUCH MORE than porn. For some of these children, you are taking away their only internet access to many informative sites, as Jamie showed, many of them anti-porn or pro-safe sex sites. You, and everyone else that is so concerned about shielding our kids from naked bodies or porn outright should consider the pros and cons of what you are doing. (I for one, believe FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE that if you tell a child they aren't allowed to look at something they will do EVERYTHING in their power to find a way to look at precisely that!) What if, for example, a child is too embarrassed to ask either his parents or clergyman or whatever some questions about safe sex? Or what if a 13-year old girl wants to do a report on abstinence or testicluar cancer? Although the software may not block access to all the sites containing information of these subjects, Jamie has shown that it will block a lot of them, and probably a lot that the search engines will turn up as first hits. Is that worth blocking the porn?
Admittedly it may be different if the computers were in a childrens' section and they could use the non-blocked adult computers if they had to. But from what I remember, these are the only internet computers in the whole library.
Hate to restate what so many others have said before me, but somehow I feel that its not getting through...
(3) No freedom whatsoever, total privacy, and total security. (Anyone caught doing something wrong is punished)
It seems that you either left out combo #4 or (more likely) do not understand the implications of this scenario. How can one have complete privacy yet no freedom AND total security? No freedom and total security sounds reasonable (as a possible situation, not as something I, for one, would ever desire), but if you have total privacy, how could you possibly not have any freedom? How would **they** know when you were doing something wrong, assuming it was peaceful and not encroaching on others? If you had the privacy to buy banned books, how would they know you were reading them? If you had the privacy to write and save code that swindles others electronically, then how would they ever catch you, thus preserving those other people's security?
Maybe total security is incompatible with total freedom and total privacy, but I think the point is that in a world devoid of absolutes (such as the one the rest of us live in) it is possible to have a blend that ensures a lot of important personal freedoms, a lot of personal privacy, and some measure of security. But I'm probably just an idealist.
Afirmative action is not a perfect fix to the problem you describe, but I don't think that anyone (except its detractors) has ever claimed that it tries to be. The point is that the "playing field" for many things in this country is sunken in on the minority side, somewhat due to historical reasons, somewhat due to the statistics of which families have higher incomes, somewhat due to present racist attitudes and biases. A school like Colorado College effectively has no means of alleviating this burden from its PRESENT incoming class of students through prevention, better teaching in elementary schools as someone suggested, or community programes. So it is trying to level the playing field in a way for THESE students, NOW. It sounds as if its mostly a study anyway - maybe if these students who wouldn't have gotten in on the merits of their SATs alone do really well in college, the program should be continued, and vice versa.
"Free Flow of information is necessary to keep up in today's economy..."
This is a sort of off-topic question, but if the main assumption of this thread, or what the above poster has so succinctly stated in this quote, happens to be true, then what does this imply for the US's increasing reliance on capitalism-based information media. For example AOL-TimeWarner, the Disney conglomerate with ABC (or CBS, I don't remember) etc, etc, etc. If you ask me, we are progressively moving away from free flow of information in this country, it just happens to be controlled more and more by big business instead of the government. I mostly ask because I'm 1)curious as to ya'lls opinion, and 2) I'm not sure as to whether this assumption actually IS true.
Although maybe I've missed a reference to this, either in the comment string or the original article, I feel that "strategy" games are worth a mention, because I know several types of people who only enjoy these types of games. Myself included. I get bored and frusterated with RPG because I feel that under all of the flashy graphics they are imbued with nowadays, they are no more fun than the old type-string games like Wolves and such, and often less because they've mostly just taken away your chance to use your imagination, which is mostly what is fun about those games anyway. The only part of FF7 that I liked, really, was that part where you race those Chocobo things.
Which leads me to my original point. Strategy games, like SimCity, Civilization, and Ceasar - those are where its at. They don't try to be too complicated, and instead of telling some sort of a story they behave more like a puzzle or a board game. Also I have to give a shout out to my other favorite games of all time (full James Brown voice now...) Centipede, Revenge of Yars, Battletoads, Sonic2, and Nascar racing for the PlayStation!!!!
On first glance the above comment may seem to be pointless to many who are not attending universities at the time, because the commenter is comparing @Home's responsibility to provide for their paying customers, which as a business, almost anyone would agree they should do. So how does this relate in any way to what colleges and universities should do for their students?
The answer is that students ARE paying customers to the university or college that they attend. And while they may be paying for instruction and learning materials while on the actual academic campus, and it seems reasonalbe that a college might ban napster use at "study" computer labs owned by the school, the story becomes quite different in a dorm room.
For one thing, I know from living at my college in my undergrad years that schools make an incredible killing on room and board fees. The student ends up paying comprable if not totally inflated prices in contrast to outside housing, except the quality of the housing (and the food, in most cases) is abysmal. I mean, no self-respecting adult would live in these dwellings, and NEVER for the price that most colleges charge. And I'm not talking about the student aspect (or the of course noone wants to live with a great big herd of teenagers and irresponsible college students) OR the institutional aspect (where all the furniture sucks and looks like its been borrowed from hospital waiting rooms). I'm talking about inadequate heating and/or cooling, leaky pipes that go unfixed for a long time, inadequate safety equipment (i.e. Seton Hall) or "temporary buildings" that have been used as dorms since the 50's, in the case of my freshmen dorm room!!
Why would anyone live in dorm rooms, then? The only answer is, not including freshmen, BANDWIDTH. Which I think Slashdot had a story on a few days ago. I was a freshman in '94, (are those still technically the good old days?) and had never been on the internet before. But every dorm room in my dorm (where incidently only 2 out of 4 toilets usually worked, all the windows leaked (in Portland, OR!!!) and my floor was actively collapsing into my downstairs neighbor's ceiling) had ETHERNET access. I mean, whoa. Internet connections were faster than anyone had ever seen. I personally knew many people that stayed in the dorms throughout their scholastic careers FOR THIS VERY REASON, providing the school with lots and lots of money.
So I say that students ARE paying customers, with the housing administration acting sort of like an ISP. This is even more aparent when you consider that on top of exorbitant housing costs students usually have to pay a $100-300 ethernet (or equivalent) connection fee per semester ANYWAY. Let them do what they want with their bandwidth!!!
Warning- totally off topic by now...
Kintanon, could you flame that person if their moral stance was that black people are evil and dirty, that animal mutilation is a beautiful thing, or that women shouldn't be allowed to vote?
Besides, I don't think that the previous person was even trying to flame, just asking the original poster to clarify their comment or at least think more about what they really did mean. I am not gay, but I think that if you considered the response a flame, than I could consider the original comment a flame, because I found it offensive, as much as I would have found a casual statement to the effect that raising a child in a Jewish family is not a proper environment offensive. And almost as much as the idea behind it, I guess, was the casual manner in which it was put forth, which I feel the alleged flamer was sort of trying to comment on.
Oh well, you guys all have kids and you are entitled to teach them what you'd like, and I do not, I admit. Whatever, because as another poster said, most kids will learn what they think is right for themselves anyway.
I would have to agree with you on this one, DanaL. I found the theses of the article interesting statements, but the evidence for them was sorely lacking. I am not always quite sure where I stand on most genetic research involving alteration of genes (i.e. genetically engineered crops, gene therapy, or creating new life using the 300 essential building blocks (genes that code the polypeptides absolutely essential for autonomous, open-system, cell function and replication) of life) but I do know that this research will go on in any case, because that is the nature of human society. If Craig Venter doesn't do "it", then someone else will, and not too long from now because science is at that point.
I feel that when arguments like this come up, however, at least the scientist have thought out the reasons for why they are doing what they are doing. Modern science may well be short-sighted in many respects, but science-fiction like GATTACA is so long sighted (and possibly just blowing smoke up our collective arses) that I can't believe its cautionary statements, like those loosely referred to in the article, are qualitatively better reasons to stop what we are doing than the short-sighted goals of understanding the next step in some obscure molecular pathway are to keep forging ahead.
Besides, Katz's research this time seems to be based entirely on what he has read in news releases, and he doesn't seem to understand the biology behind it at all. In fact, he might be shocked to know that many scientists consider viruses to be the most simple form of life, and reasearch teams have been constructing their own viruses for reasearch purposes from the known essential building blocks of that life form for quite a while now, with not much press or ill-effects. Or he might do weel to consider that GATTACA was way off base for many reasons, but the main one being that who each person fundamentally is, that is their phenotype, results from a 50-50 interaction of genes and environment. How one develops depends on your environemntal factors as much as your genes starting from day one (conception). He points out that Victor or whatever his name is is excluded from being an astronaut for having a heart condition - well big whoop, astronuats are excluded from going into space for this today, and weel they should be! If he only had a predisposition for a heart condition, then that is different, but things wouldn't be like they were in GATTACA because people with "perfect" genotypes would develop heart disease all the time, and non-perfects, like Victor, would be beating their odds, just like all of us non-perfect people do today. Also, scientists know that a homogeneous population is bad news, man, because it opens your population up to any disease that may come along - you may all be resistant to this new thing, or conversely, you will all not be.
My point is not that genetic modification is good. For goodness sakes, picking the genes for your baby is not just unethical, its downright retarted, unoriginal, arrogant, and an admission that you want to make some sort of super race just like Hitler. My point is, however, that you should understand what you're knocking before you ignorantly strike fear into the hearts of others.