David Brin has pointed out something that we've all been overlooking (my not-so-humble self included) in all of our "Top 10 List"-ing of the past 100 or 1000 years.
As he correctly points out, the people who have had the loudest voices or the biggest followings have been quite influential (that is one of the definitions of "influence") on our progress as a civilization. If it weren't for these people shouting their ideas -- even the bad ones -- we wouldn't be where we are now.
However, as we here on Slashdot should realize, the loudest people don't always have the greatest effect on humanity at large. There's always a group of people who are saying, "Forget the publicity, ignore the heckling, let's just get this job done!" We may gripe about clueless management, bad pay, less-than-perfect working conditions, but we stay in and do the work, and we tweak it where we can to make it a little better.
And as a result, a program that was originally designed to let a particle physics research group transfer graphic data from CERN led to the medium by which you're (hopefully) reading this.
Honestly, I think that perhaps, rather than a "Person of the Century," some magazines might want to broaden their view to include some groups like the software development team at CERN that first came up with http.
But then he [Mills] adds, "There are some questions science will never answer. That's where you have faith."
I thought that the purpose of science was to find out all of the answers! Maybe not now, but at least the idea is to keep looking until we eventually do!
It seems to me that he's wanting us to include his theories as things to take on faith, too... one of the warning signs that a fool and your money are going to be partners.
This gentleman claims to have come up with something that violates various laws of physics?
There's a problem there. It's almost impossible to violate one law of physics, because the laws that we have discovered tend to be interconnected. As Larry Niven once wrote, "changing one law of physics is like eating one peanut."
Another problem I have is the question of rigorous scientific testing. I remember the cold fusion flap of the late 1980's, and I remember how nobody could duplicate the experiment. I guess that's why we have such things as "peer review" and "independent observation and confirmation."
However, there are companies that are shelling out big bucks to bankroll this guy, just on the off chance he's right. Still, that's not necessarily a bad thing for them -- simply because a venture capitalist loses some money in a scheme that doesn't pay out, his company is NOT going to drop-kick his butt out of his office.
I say we wait and see what happens. I think that Mills will reduce himself to absurdity soon enough.
Well, I guess I've managed to get sucked into the "justify your post to an Anonymous Coward" trap, but oh well...
Don't feel too bad - I got good information out of it as well. Still, I can understand your irritation - I've been leery of responding to "AC" posts. Sometimes they are valuable, but often they seem to be the "drive-by criticisms" of people who want to say something witty and only get halfway.
Thanks for adding to the discussion, and for your patience. Illegitimati non carborundum!
If you check out this website, you will find that the planned script includes a nifty advertisement for EToys.com.
It seems unlikely to me that CNN is going to place any news in such a way that it will make a sponsor look bad. Conversely, it will help insure that their sponsor is able to stay in business if they can denigrate the sponsor's opponents.
I am posting a politely critical E-mail to CNN, because the last thing that I'll permit anyone to say is that I don't try, but I think they may have already chosen their sides on this one.
...Now in my day, the parents would have thrown a fit over the police raiding our house and I wouldn't get out of the dungeon for weeks....
My parents liked Mark Twain's idea about taking a teenage boy and stuffing him in an empty barrel (providing him food and water through the hole in the side), and keeping him there until his eighteenth birthday, upon which a suitable ceremony was performed during which the parents would decide whether to let the boy out... or plug up the hole.
How much did my parents like Mark Twain's idea? Well, let's just say that for two months after my eighteenth birthday, I had to wear dark glasses to help my eyes adapt...:) How well did it work? Well, we had a grand total of 0 (zero) police raids on our house during my teenaged years, and the same number of confiscated computers.
Perhaps Mark Twain should be required reading among parents of script kiddies....
Then there was that goofball at the American Retirement Company or whatever saying he's hired this guy as a "consultant" to prevent him from sicking all the other kiddies on the company....
In the days of the Viking raids, sometimes the Danes would exact tribute from cities in return for their "protection" from being plundered. This was called "Danegeld," and a funny thing about it -- the amount required tended to get bigger each year as the reavers returned. A common saying was the "Once you start paying Danegeld, you can't get rid of the Dane."
Perhaps a reading of medieval history should be a requirement for corporate managers.
Actually, you are wrong: the Bible is opaque. Clear books are not very legible.
Also, I do not believe that you are thinking things through about body heat. For one thing, body heat is a matter of vascular constriction (narrowing of the blood vessels), which increases the "friction" effect (Well, since it's dealing with fluid flow, "viscosity" is the more appropriate term, but let's not quibble).
It would be better to "go to the source" -- by implanting the chip near the heart, (perhaps attached to the pericardial sac). It would have a relatively constant source of heat energy, and would not be subject to temperature variations (such as a hand being placed in an ice bucket, or an ice-filled "headache bag" on a forehead).
I was born and raised a Catholic, but as someone said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "I got better."
That having been said, A Canticle For Leibowitz was one of the best books I read as a teenager, and is a permanent part of my collection (meaning that it gets replaced after it gets "permanently loaned"). The people portrayed are not necessarily saints, but are good people who practice what they preach... something too rare in these days. (Myself included, I'm afraid!)
Slashdotters might particularly enjoy the character of the "Poet-sirrah", as his irreverent attitude does not stop him from acting out against what he sees as wrong.
For those of you who have read it and enjoyed it, you probably already understand. For those of you are considering reading it, stop reading this and go pick it up - it's better written than anything else I can add!
I have an idea. How if we do a feasibility study by setting up a mock-up "colony" on Antarctica?
This could provide some valuable possibilities: launch the parts into Near-Earth orbit, field-test the methods to be used to deliver the colony components on a place with higher gravity, test the methods for landing the crew and components there, practice colony construction there, and inhabit it for a year or so.
This is a way that is less likely to leave people in the lurch if something fails. Things can go "a little wrong" without losing however many people are involved in the project.
FWIW, here's the website for the company providing Mosaic-2000. You can get more information (well, OK, at least you can get more of what the manufacturer wants to say...) about the software.
I still think it's an bad idea, because there are administrators who will try using it to do their thinking for them instead of using it as a tool.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Lawrence Peter, he was the author of "The Peter Principle." The principle, simply stated, says that "In a hierarchy, people tend to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence." -- which means, they get promoted until they are out of their depth, after which promotions stop.
One of the sub-texts of this book talked about "hierarchal exfoliation" -- the removal of both the super-incompetent and the super-competent from the hierarchy, because these people tend to disrupt the orderly workings. In many schools, the "super-incompetent" students were often assigned to "special education" or other similar areas where they were no longer disrupting the "normal" classes. For that matter, they used to have "gifted" classes for "super-competent" students, but I think that this was discontinued because it suggested that the "mainstream" students weren't similarly gifted. (I use the quotes for terms that I personally question, but those questions range beyond the scope of this post.)
Now, if the above article is true, the FBI has just handed school administrators a tool for removing these "super-competent" students. In many of these cases, such students:
have been bullied
have had the handle "Teacher's Pet" hung on them and were subsequently ostracized
have been exposed to "violent games" such as Doom, Quake, or that old standby bugbear of school administrators, Dungeons & Dragons
have been subjected to years of ridicule and isolation from their peers that their self-esteem is often pretty fragile.
What this benighted "profile" does is tell geeks to develop camouflage -- in the same society where we quote Shakespeare's "To thine own self be true" -- all for the sake of beleaguered school administrators who want a quick fix to soothe panicked parents. Well, most of us on this board know what happens with quick fixes....
There are lots of religions in the wide world: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shinto, Sub-Genius, etc. All of these seem to have one thing in common: the works that they consider their "sacred scriptures" are not copyrighted. I mean, you have to pay money to get a Bible, but nobody screams about "copyright dilution" or "trade secret violation" when a "Bible Verse for the Day" appears in a newspaper.
The problem with the so-called "Church of Scientology" is that they have declared many of their works to be "copyrighted." As a result, they only allow people to be able to read these works after they've shelled out big bucks for initial "training," and afterward they are not allowed to divulge any of this information.
The religions that I mentioned above are all secure enough in their faith that their works are available for any to read and even criticize. I can only guess that Scientology is unable to compete this way.
Now, if we substitute the word "Microsoft" for "Church of Scientology," and the phrase "source code" for "religious writings," it makes me wonder: does this seem to anyone else to be a similar situation with the open source idea?
There is no cause that is so right that you cannot find a fool following it.
Now, I do not call ESR a fool, but I do know that there are going to be sloppy thinkers who will characterize the Linux movement by his eloquence (or lack thereof), rather than by Linux's capabilities. As Niven also said, "Ad hominem arguments are quick and effective, but they are still fallacious."
The best thing to do is simply let ESR speak his piece and for us to go on doing what we're doing... improving Linux.
"After an initial inquiry, TRUSTe found that because the transmission of user data through RealNetworks' RealJukebox program did not involve collection of data on the RealNetworks Web site, the privacy incident was outside of the scope of TRUSTe's current privacy seal program"...
This is first-rate B.S.! TRUSTe has just defaulted on its commitment to privacy!
This whole idea of informational warfare is rather like having a couple of groups fighting on a rope bridge, hacking away at the ropes to knock the other side's people off. The problem is that whenever you do such a thing, the rope bridge is going to come out of it in the worst shape.
If we start using info-weapons on each other, we run a serious risk of destroying the advantages we have gained from such things as the internet. This genie needs to stay in the bottle!
...increases like this just shows a severe misjudgment of what price to charge, doesn't it?
Not necessarily.
I am not a stock analyst, but consider - did all of the company's shares go out on the open market? Or did a large percentage stay "inside the company", so to speak? If the latter, then it indicates that they have additional shares to sell later... albeit at a slightly lower price (due to dilution), but still at a considerably higher price than $22 (US) per share.
They may have underestimated the market value of their company, and that may have reduced the amount they could have made, but over the long term, they will have developed stockholders who have a particularly vital interest in the company... if nothing else, to regain the value that they lost in the price drop from $146 (US) / share to the current quote.:)
Perhaps profit is not the enemy of progress. Most people, though, tend to use the same reasoning as Calvin of "Calvin and Hobbes" fame, after Hobbes refuses to take the blame for a mishap suffered by Calvin. Calvin says, "But considering what a shambles my life is in, couldn't you take at least a little bit of the blame?"
Wonderful rantsmanship here. "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile!"
Anyone could use the "there's not enough of a market for us to help them" argument, and the "if they don't like it let them go someplace else" line of reasoning. In fact, it was used very effectively in the South during the 1950's (does anyone remember "The management reserves the right to refuse service to anyone" signs?)
So, tell me - if everything were driven by the almighty dollar as some of you are suggesting, then who would have insisted that black people had a right to be served at a white-owned diner just outside of Montgomery?
Grow up, people. We geeks (of all people!) should know that our job doesn't end when we have the system working the way we like it. Saying, "Well, gee, the system's already set up, and anyone who can't use it shouldn't have access anyway," sounds a whole lot like "Well, gee, I've already picked my kickball team, so maybe you should go play in another part of the playground."
Most of us "nerds" (many of whom glory in that term!) had to put up with being shut out of the mainstream. Does that mean we have to keep up the idiocy?
There are a variety of very good speech synth programs available (if you have the patience to wait for the computer to read it out to you)...
Ahhhh. Patience. That seems to be the first thing to go with some people who have gotten a taste of high technology.
I was entertained by the person who was asking about how difficult it might be to surf the web and handle graphic information. I wonder if the next question was "Well, gee, if it's so impractical, why should anyone bother doing it?" Maybe blind people should just get used to not getting access to the web?
People manage to get around some difficulties if they get help. "Bears dance badly, but they can learn to dance." The problem is that AOL doesn't even give these people the chance to get anywhere. These people aren't asking for everything -- just the chance to do the same things that we were able to do 10 years ago with text-only browsers.
...but I wish I understood the vitriol that some of you are pouring upon it.
Often, accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of humor. "It never works" or "It always crashes" gets a cheaper laugh than "It works most of the time unless there are complex programs on it..." Gross exaggeration is part of humor.
Were you truly expecting to get sophisticated, well-reasoned, and totally-accurate prose when you clicked on this article? I didn't. Some of the gripes about this sound like the sort of people who would complain about the historical inaccuracy of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."
The only complaint that I've seen so far that I can agree with is the one stating that the article came more under the "humor" heading than the "Microsoft" heading. However, considering that the graphic for the Microsoft heading is humorous, this may be an indication that the two may be considered synonymous.
Slashdot Mirror
As he correctly points out, the people who have had the loudest voices or the biggest followings have been quite influential (that is one of the definitions of "influence") on our progress as a civilization. If it weren't for these people shouting their ideas -- even the bad ones -- we wouldn't be where we are now.
However, as we here on Slashdot should realize, the loudest people don't always have the greatest effect on humanity at large. There's always a group of people who are saying, "Forget the publicity, ignore the heckling, let's just get this job done!" We may gripe about clueless management, bad pay, less-than-perfect working conditions, but we stay in and do the work, and we tweak it where we can to make it a little better.
And as a result, a program that was originally designed to let a particle physics research group transfer graphic data from CERN led to the medium by which you're (hopefully) reading this.
Honestly, I think that perhaps, rather than a "Person of the Century," some magazines might want to broaden their view to include some groups like the software development team at CERN that first came up with http.
I thought that the purpose of science was to find out all of the answers! Maybe not now, but at least the idea is to keep looking until we eventually do!
It seems to me that he's wanting us to include his theories as things to take on faith, too... one of the warning signs that a fool and your money are going to be partners.
There's a problem there. It's almost impossible to violate one law of physics, because the laws that we have discovered tend to be interconnected. As Larry Niven once wrote, "changing one law of physics is like eating one peanut."
Another problem I have is the question of rigorous scientific testing. I remember the cold fusion flap of the late 1980's, and I remember how nobody could duplicate the experiment. I guess that's why we have such things as "peer review" and "independent observation and confirmation."
However, there are companies that are shelling out big bucks to bankroll this guy, just on the off chance he's right. Still, that's not necessarily a bad thing for them -- simply because a venture capitalist loses some money in a scheme that doesn't pay out, his company is NOT going to drop-kick his butt out of his office.
I say we wait and see what happens. I think that Mills will reduce himself to absurdity soon enough.
Don't feel too bad - I got good information out of it as well. Still, I can understand your irritation - I've been leery of responding to "AC" posts. Sometimes they are valuable, but often they seem to be the "drive-by criticisms" of people who want to say something witty and only get halfway.
Thanks for adding to the discussion, and for your patience. Illegitimati non carborundum!
It seems unlikely to me that CNN is going to place any news in such a way that it will make a sponsor look bad. Conversely, it will help insure that their sponsor is able to stay in business if they can denigrate the sponsor's opponents.
I am posting a politely critical E-mail to CNN, because the last thing that I'll permit anyone to say is that I don't try, but I think they may have already chosen their sides on this one.
My parents liked Mark Twain's idea about taking a teenage boy and stuffing him in an empty barrel (providing him food and water through the hole in the side), and keeping him there until his eighteenth birthday, upon which a suitable ceremony was performed during which the parents would decide whether to let the boy out... or plug up the hole.
How much did my parents like Mark Twain's idea? Well, let's just say that for two months after my eighteenth birthday, I had to wear dark glasses to help my eyes adapt... :) How well did it work? Well, we had a grand total of 0 (zero) police raids on our house during my teenaged years, and the same number of confiscated computers.
Perhaps Mark Twain should be required reading among parents of script kiddies....
Then there was that goofball at the American Retirement Company or whatever saying he's hired this guy as a "consultant" to prevent him from sicking all the other kiddies on the company....
In the days of the Viking raids, sometimes the Danes would exact tribute from cities in return for their "protection" from being plundered. This was called "Danegeld," and a funny thing about it -- the amount required tended to get bigger each year as the reavers returned. A common saying was the "Once you start paying Danegeld, you can't get rid of the Dane."
Perhaps a reading of medieval history should be a requirement for corporate managers.
(irony=on)
What?!? How can you say that? Brooding over the far-fetched potentials of a new technology is one of the most beloved hobbies here on Slashdot!
(irony=off)
"And I'm so worried about
The baggage retrieval
System they've got at Heathrow...."
(irony=off, really now. I mean it!)
Also, I do not believe that you are thinking things through about body heat. For one thing, body heat is a matter of vascular constriction (narrowing of the blood vessels), which increases the "friction" effect (Well, since it's dealing with fluid flow, "viscosity" is the more appropriate term, but let's not quibble).
It would be better to "go to the source" -- by implanting the chip near the heart, (perhaps attached to the pericardial sac). It would have a relatively constant source of heat energy, and would not be subject to temperature variations (such as a hand being placed in an ice bucket, or an ice-filled "headache bag" on a forehead).
Have you considered going into government service?
I was born and raised a Catholic, but as someone said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "I got better."
That having been said, A Canticle For Leibowitz was one of the best books I read as a teenager, and is a permanent part of my collection (meaning that it gets replaced after it gets "permanently loaned"). The people portrayed are not necessarily saints, but are good people who practice what they preach... something too rare in these days. (Myself included, I'm afraid!)
Slashdotters might particularly enjoy the character of the "Poet-sirrah", as his irreverent attitude does not stop him from acting out against what he sees as wrong.
For those of you who have read it and enjoyed it, you probably already understand. For those of you are considering reading it, stop reading this and go pick it up - it's better written than anything else I can add!
This could provide some valuable possibilities: launch the parts into Near-Earth orbit, field-test the methods to be used to deliver the colony components on a place with higher gravity, test the methods for landing the crew and components there, practice colony construction there, and inhabit it for a year or so.
This is a way that is less likely to leave people in the lurch if something fails. Things can go "a little wrong" without losing however many people are involved in the project.
I still think it's an bad idea, because there are administrators who will try using it to do their thinking for them instead of using it as a tool.
One of the sub-texts of this book talked about "hierarchal exfoliation" -- the removal of both the super-incompetent and the super-competent from the hierarchy, because these people tend to disrupt the orderly workings. In many schools, the "super-incompetent" students were often assigned to "special education" or other similar areas where they were no longer disrupting the "normal" classes. For that matter, they used to have "gifted" classes for "super-competent" students, but I think that this was discontinued because it suggested that the "mainstream" students weren't similarly gifted. (I use the quotes for terms that I personally question, but those questions range beyond the scope of this post.)
Now, if the above article is true, the FBI has just handed school administrators a tool for removing these "super-competent" students. In many of these cases, such students:
have had the handle "Teacher's Pet" hung on them and were subsequently ostracized
have been exposed to "violent games" such as Doom, Quake, or that old standby bugbear of school administrators, Dungeons & Dragons
have been subjected to years of ridicule and isolation from their peers that their self-esteem is often pretty fragile.
What this benighted "profile" does is tell geeks to develop camouflage -- in the same society where we quote Shakespeare's "To thine own self be true" -- all for the sake of beleaguered school administrators who want a quick fix to soothe panicked parents. Well, most of us on this board know what happens with quick fixes....
The problem with the so-called "Church of Scientology" is that they have declared many of their works to be "copyrighted." As a result, they only allow people to be able to read these works after they've shelled out big bucks for initial "training," and afterward they are not allowed to divulge any of this information.
The religions that I mentioned above are all secure enough in their faith that their works are available for any to read and even criticize. I can only guess that Scientology is unable to compete this way.
Now, if we substitute the word "Microsoft" for "Church of Scientology," and the phrase "source code" for "religious writings," it makes me wonder: does this seem to anyone else to be a similar situation with the open source idea?
Now, I do not call ESR a fool, but I do know that there are going to be sloppy thinkers who will characterize the Linux movement by his eloquence (or lack thereof), rather than by Linux's capabilities. As Niven also said, "Ad hominem arguments are quick and effective, but they are still fallacious."
The best thing to do is simply let ESR speak his piece and for us to go on doing what we're doing... improving Linux.
"In this phrasebook, you have the Bulgarian expression 'Which way to the train station' translated as 'Please fondle my buttocks'...."
This is first-rate B.S.! TRUSTe has just defaulted on its commitment to privacy!
If we start using info-weapons on each other, we run a serious risk of destroying the advantages we have gained from such things as the internet. This genie needs to stay in the bottle!
Not necessarily.
I am not a stock analyst, but consider - did all of the company's shares go out on the open market? Or did a large percentage stay "inside the company", so to speak? If the latter, then it indicates that they have additional shares to sell later... albeit at a slightly lower price (due to dilution), but still at a considerably higher price than $22 (US) per share.
They may have underestimated the market value of their company, and that may have reduced the amount they could have made, but over the long term, they will have developed stockholders who have a particularly vital interest in the company... if nothing else, to regain the value that they lost in the price drop from $146 (US) / share to the current quote. :)
Wonderful rantsmanship here. "Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile!"
Anyone could use the "there's not enough of a market for us to help them" argument, and the "if they don't like it let them go someplace else" line of reasoning. In fact, it was used very effectively in the South during the 1950's (does anyone remember "The management reserves the right to refuse service to anyone" signs?)
So, tell me - if everything were driven by the almighty dollar as some of you are suggesting, then who would have insisted that black people had a right to be served at a white-owned diner just outside of Montgomery?
If I may add to an otherwise perfect list:
8) Because it sounds like work!
Grow up, people. We geeks (of all people!) should know that our job doesn't end when we have the system working the way we like it. Saying, "Well, gee, the system's already set up, and anyone who can't use it shouldn't have access anyway," sounds a whole lot like "Well, gee, I've already picked my kickball team, so maybe you should go play in another part of the playground."
Most of us "nerds" (many of whom glory in that term!) had to put up with being shut out of the mainstream. Does that mean we have to keep up the idiocy?
Ahhhh. Patience. That seems to be the first thing to go with some people who have gotten a taste of high technology.
I was entertained by the person who was asking about how difficult it might be to surf the web and handle graphic information. I wonder if the next question was "Well, gee, if it's so impractical, why should anyone bother doing it?" Maybe blind people should just get used to not getting access to the web?
People manage to get around some difficulties if they get help. "Bears dance badly, but they can learn to dance." The problem is that AOL doesn't even give these people the chance to get anywhere. These people aren't asking for everything -- just the chance to do the same things that we were able to do 10 years ago with text-only browsers.
Often, accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of humor. "It never works" or "It always crashes" gets a cheaper laugh than "It works most of the time unless there are complex programs on it..." Gross exaggeration is part of humor.
Were you truly expecting to get sophisticated, well-reasoned, and totally-accurate prose when you clicked on this article? I didn't. Some of the gripes about this sound like the sort of people who would complain about the historical inaccuracy of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."
The only complaint that I've seen so far that I can agree with is the one stating that the article came more under the "humor" heading than the "Microsoft" heading. However, considering that the graphic for the Microsoft heading is humorous, this may be an indication that the two may be considered synonymous.
I wonder what the difference is between mandatory and 'required' data... I was taught in school that the terms were synonymous.
Are these legal terms that require special definition? Or does that depend on what you mean by 'required'?