On February 7th, Russ Nelson (Open Source Initiative president) published an article called "Blacks are lazy", quoted in journal entries here and here.
Please consider signing the online petition asking OSI to remove Russ Nelson.
I find Russ Nelson's commentary personally offensive, asinine, and profoundly anti-social. Probably as much as you do. But I disagree vehemently with your campaign against the guy, no matter how obnoxious or stupid he may be.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH is absolutely worthless if people cannot speak their mind and voice views, however unpopular, however disgusting, without living in fear of retribution such as you advocate. Your time would be better spent rebutting Nelson's offensive rhetoric on the basis of fact, with your own counterrhetoric, rather than trying to silence him through economic and social retaliation.
In other words, to paraphrase people far wiser than I, I may find what someone says disgusting, despicable, and vile, but I will defend to the death their right to say it (and that right must include the right to do so without fearing for your job or your professional standing, else the "right" is really quite meaningless).
Your reaction harkens back to Bush's asinine statement with respect to the fools burnign Dixie Chicks' albums after they voiced (IMHO understandable) emberressment at having Bush as president. He commented "freedom of speech has consiquences."
By that definition Stalinist Russia had freedom of speech, as did Maoist China, Khmere Rouge Cambodia, and a dozen other communist and fascist dictatorships. After all, you have the freedom to say whatever you like in those places, but your speech had "consiquences," like ending up in the gulag, at the wrong end of a death squad's gun, or out of a job and unable to feed or house yourself (the latter ever more likely here in the once-free west).
Instead of trying to ruin the guy, counter his rhetoric with your own. Frankly, if he's trying to erase all record of his commentary, it sounds like he's already rethought his position and is emberressed by his earlier writings. If this is a result of his having come to his senses and changed his mind as a result of discussion and counter-arguments, good. If it is a result of fear of retribution such as you're advocating, then I think that is a pity. As much as I loathe and despise what he said, I loath and despise the use of fear, intimidation, and retaliation as means of silencing people (and making their "right" to speek freely essentially moot and worthless) even more. I would far rather have my blood boil at the words of a fool, than have the fool silenced through fear and be looking over my own shoulder, lest I say something that offends someone else and face similiar persecution.
Please, please consider a different approach to dealing with these sorts of jackasses.
Well, he isn't actually a plagerist, but now that I've got your attention, I should point out the Phil Zimmerman has been advocating passphrases since the first version of PGP came out in the early nineties IIRC, and even he is probably not the first. I've certainly been using them for about that long wherever possible.
That won't stop Microsoft from taking credit for this "new, revolutionary idea in computer security," or the Microsoft apologists accusing everyone else from "copying Microsoft instead of innovating" when it becomes more common practice among everyone, some percentage of which will include Linux and OS X users. Nevermind the PAM modules supporting this have been around forever, or that pretty much anyone with half a brain using GnuPG or PGP has been doing this forever either.
I just read your current draft for ep1 of "The Autonomy Project" last week and loved it to bits. Hardest part was getting to the end and realizing I have no idea when the next part will appear. Any plans yet?
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I do have plans for an ep2, but am currently editing ep1 and polishing it up (you probably noticed things were much tighter up through chapter 16, then got kind of crufty thereafter). Once that's finished I'll probably start on Episode 2, which I think will take quite a surprising twist from the very beginning.
Well, you can make up a new term like "anti-entropy" and convinienty avoid defining it until later, but assuming you define anti-entropy as something that occurs AFTER the birth of the universe, it is entirely possible, and indeed quite likely (though of course not certain) that we do in fact live in a universe with no "anti-entropy" and no God.
One example (which may or may not coincide with reality, but it is a reasonable hypothesis which has been advanced more than once) is that the singularity of a black hole may in fact be the birth of a universe, in which entropy starts at a negligable value in a PERFECTLY NATURAL, no-wrathful-God-required big-bang event, then increases as the spawned universe goes through its natural life cycle. Just as ours is. No beginning to the larger cycle, and no end, just as a moebeous strip has no beginning, no end, and only one side.
The fact that modern science, still in its own infancy after a mere 300 years, hasn't explained all the minutia of the big bang, or offered every answer to every question yet, doesn't mean we're required to punt and assume "there must be God, or it must not be true" to every question for which we don't yet have all the answers.
There is, unfortunately for us, verly likely no "anti-entropy" (and certainly no credible evidence at all to the contrary), nor, fortunately for us, a God (again no credible evidence to the contrary). There is probably nothing more than a singular event that occurs at the birth of every universe which we don't yet understand, and which CANNOT occurr once a universe has been born and is up and running. Of course, maybe we'll get lucky and discover we can reverse entropy (and your "anti-entropy" does in fact exist... that would rock, but is unlikely. The laws of thermodynamics have held up very well to centuries of abuse and mistrust... even many scientists don't like what they imply about our long term fate), or get very unlucky and discover that there is a vengeful, cruel, jealous, angry god who likes to kick the shit out of his miniscule creations, but none of those scenerios are terribly likely.
One thing is certain. Science has given us more answeres in 300 years than religion has in 3,000,000 years, and certainly more than Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheism has in the last 2000 years. Whether it will answer the deeper questions as to how this universe was born, who knows... but its track record is certainly better than that of the religious fanatics.
Of course, this is irrelevant to whether or not religion in SCIENCE fiction is interesting, or even apropos. We're discussing SCIENCE-fiction here, not RELIGOUS-fiction or FANTASY. Religion clearly belongs in or the other of those genres... it is at best orthogonal to science, and often at odds with it. It has yet to be complementary to science, all sorts of apologist rhetoric notwithstanding.
I always have found it odd how the US has just the dominating "Rebuplicans", and "Democrats". We have +7 Parties, with all some simular and more diverse agenda's. It'd be a nightmare to just be in the mercy of *two* parties....
You're confusing our two party system (which sucks... European proportional representation is far, far better) with a bicameral legislature.
He is proposing a directly elected bicameral legislature to replace the european parliament and the council, but keeping the rotating presidency (and presumably the european court). It seems like a reasonable idea, particularly given the corruption of the council past, present, and almost certainly future.
The problem of converting a corporate plutocracy (which is what the EU started out as) to a democracy is an interesting one... it looks like the plutocrats intended the European Parliament as simply a smokescreen to maintina the appearance of a democracy and keep the masses appeased, while allowing business to proceed as usual, but have been surprised as the people have actually insisted on having a voice in policy.
How the patent thing works out will give us an indication of whether or not the EU will successfully transition from a corporate plutocracy to a democracy.
The most interesting thing about religion is how it manages to survive in one form or another throughout so much change. One would think that humans getting such a handle on the science of life and physics would have obliterated religion, but it keeps on truckin' all the same.
I disagree. I don't find it terribly interesting at all.
Human beings are expert at living in denial. This is hardly news, and in fact is a theme that has been beaten to death both in the sci-fi genre and in literature in general.
We are intelligent, self-ware, sentient creatures encased in a biological chassis that has a very short, finite lifespan, embedded in a universe of increasing entropy in which the most fundamental laws of physics insure that all life, no matter how sophisticated or "immortal" will one day perish.
There aren't too many people who can face that reality head on... we'll believe anything, anything at all, simply to avoid facing up to that one unpleasant fact: we are mortal and one day will no longer exist. Worse, it won't take much time and change for the very memory of our existence to vanish.
The thing that makes religion so interesting in sci-fi is that you can explore the continuing tensions between technology and faith as technology evolves... seeing how the faithful adapt is very interesting fiction.
Again, I suppose it is a matter of taste, but I don't find the contortions people go through to avoid facing facts particularly interesting or riveting.
Faith isn't evolving. People's rational for denying the obvious, but unpleasant, truth of our own mortality is simply doing ever more creative acrobatics to avoid getting pinned down by cold hard fact.
Frankly, I see science as the interesting facet of science fiction, whether it is social science (what kind of a society will we have in the year 10,000?), physics, biology, astronomy, or what have you. Science actually reveals answer, some (like the ultimate expansion of the universe and ultimate death-by-entropy of all life) is unpleasant, but many are quite fascinating and who knows, mabye a way out of this entropic slide into oblivion will be found (presumably by exiting this universe). Not likely, mind you, but perhaps possible. Now that would be interesting.
As for the current state-of-the-art and future rationalizations people will come up with to deny their own mortality, I don't find particularly intersting. Amusing perhaps, like "what will they say when the very universe is tearing itself to pieces and life anywhere, in any form, is becoming untenable." Doubtless the promises made to the terrified masses will involve some kind of apacalyptic vision, followed by the return of a jealous, angry, vengful god. Which, if they're anything like us, they'll lap up.
That last is kind of interesting. The Judeo-Christian/Mormon/Islamic (and presumably Cylon) god is vengful, jelous, angry, and demanding. Yet people prostrate themselves to him willingly. Most of us wouldn't spend ten seconds in the company of a human being with those personality traits, yet billions of us flock to the idea of such a person having limitless power... simply because those selling the belief in him offer the promise that "even if you burn in hell, at least you won't someday be not".
Which really shows just how truly desperate we are to deny the truth of our own mortality.
Debian will move to Xorg the day Duke Nukem Forever is released.
I see you've been playing with the Duke Nukem beta as well.
The experimental version of Debian that will be running xorg REQUIRES Duke Nukem Forever to boot. It runs as a client process, accessible by shooting the bouncer at the alien-infested oyster bar (from the opening screen take 2 lefts, a right, a left, and straight on three blocks. It'll be on your right.) Killing the bouncer will fork off a process that boostraps the new Debian, from which point you can fire up xorg either using startx or by defaulting to runlevel 5.
The most interesting thing about religion is how it manages to survive in one form or another throughout so much change. One would think that humans getting such a handle on the science of life and physics would have obliterated religion, but it keeps on truckin' all the same.
I don't find it terribly interesting.
Human beings are expert at living in denial. We are intelligent, self-ware, sentient creatures encased in a biological chassis that has a very short, finite lifespan, embedded in a universe of increasing entropy in which the most fundamental laws of physics insure that all life, no matter how sophisticated or "immortal" will one day perish.
There aren't too many people who can face that reality head on... we'll believe anything, anything at all, simply to avoid facing up to that one unpleasant fact: we are mortal and one day will no longer exist. Worse, it won't take much time and change for the very memory of our existence to vanish.
Faith isn't evolving. People's rational for denying the obvious, but unpleasant, truth of our own mortality is simply doing ever more creative acrobatics to avoid getting pinned down by cold hard fact.
Frankly, I see science as the interesting facet of science fiction, whether it is social science (what kind of a society will we have in the year 10,000?), physics, biology, astronomy, or what have you.
What really isn't interesting at all is what kind of rationalization will people have come up with to deny their own mortality when the very universe is tearing itself to pieces and life anywhere, in any form, is becoming untenable. Doubtless it will involve some kind of apacalyptic vision, followed by the return of a jealous, angry, vengful god.
That last is kind of interesting. The Judeo-Christian/Mormon/Islamic god is vengful, jelous, angry, and demanding. Yet people prostrate themselves to him willingly. Most of us wouldn't spend ten seconds in the company of a human being with those personality traits, yet billions of us flock to the idea of such a person having limitless power... simply because those selling the belief in him offer the promise that "even if you burn in hell, at least you won't someday be not".
Which really shows just how truly desperate we are to deny the truth of our own mortality.
Now, if we had a permanent base on the moon, with a sub-station on the dark side,
There is no dark side of the moon.[1] As a matter of fact, it's all dark.
[1] Seriously, the Lunar day is 28 earth days, so the sun does rise and set. It does not have one face perminently facing the sun like Mercury (which does has a "dark side").
It's clearly too premature to start monkeying with Mars, as demonstrated by our disaster here on Earth.
The one does not necessarilly correlate to the other. The fact that we're addicted to cheap fossile-fuel energy, and moribound in a political climate where the oil industry's stooges (Bush et al) take power and do things like cut all research in solar energy (Reagain in the 80s) is not an indicator as to whether or not we can capably terraform another planet.
And while I agree with you that it is probably premature to start changing the climate of Mars, and that a great deal of additional research and modelling is required before we even think about trying, it is certainly NOT premature to be doing initial studies on whether and how it might be done... which is exactly what NASA is doing.
This political correctness (and I don't refer to your post so much as numerous others that condemn even thinking or discussing the topic) that would ban discussions and studies designed to see if something can be done, because people with no relevant data have made emotional decisions that it shouldn't be done, is IMHO one of the more dangerous trends in modern society. Every question should be posed, every thought on the subject spoken aloud and judged on its scientific merit, not its political palatability du jour.
Except China, of course. I don't think we really want them to have democracy, because then they wouldn't work for slave wages to build all the cheap crap we buy, or let us sell them a bunch of our crap either.
No, because we can have cheap labor in a democracy just fine (check out Thailand, India, and Indonesia as examples).
But the rest of those are fair game, probably Iran first, then Saudi Arabia.
Actually, it will probably be either Syria or Iran next, then Iran or Syria (whichever didn't get it first the first time around), and maybe Saudi Arabia third... except I don't think we'll ever muck with Saudi Arabia until either all of their oil is gone, or events on the ground change the satus quo and we feel our oil supply is threatened.
I bet "they" would hate us a lot less in the Middle East if we quit propping up tyrants like the Saudi royal family.
Some of "them" might, but most of the islamists have declared war on every other culture (remember, they're setting off bombs in India, China, Europe, and Africa as well as against Americans) and want THEIR culture to rule everywhere. These people won't be satisfied with democracies at home, even if they win the elections (not likely, as most muslims have little interest in having extremests rule their countries). Whether its parliament buildings in India, or the entire population of Dafur, the islamists have no interest in coexisting with other cultures, or even leaving evidence they once existed once they seize power. Remember what they did to the Buddha's in Afghanistan? Imagine what these folks would like to do to the pryamids in Egypt, the temples of India and Nepal, the Cathedrals of Europe, or the science centers of Canada, the US, Europe, China, India, Latin America, etc. were they to ever gain power in those regions.
I think getting "them" to hate us less (by which I assume you mean what they call "the arab street", i.e. popular opinion among the "average Achmed", as oppossed to the Islamists who really hate us) would require that we stop engagin in aggression in their countries and their back yards. This means knocking off Bush's favorite passtime: invading countries that pose no real threat to us because he doesn't like the government, the dictator, or the country's politics.
Which makes one wonder how long before he invades the American Northeast or Northwest (he's already staged a political "coup" in California).
On the other hand, no-one really seems sure of the best way to fix it... One option is obviously to mark somehow when non-ASCII characters are used, but while this will help the people who only want ASCII URLs, it will still leave the problem for everyone who wants to use this extended system, making it effectively useless....
I think you're on the right track here.
Perhaps the best approach is to use a different font/different color for particular ranges of characters, or characters outside of one's locale setting, so e.g. if my local is Germany, and cyrillic or french accent-grave or what have you characters are loaded, then display that character in bold, or in red, or what have you. Also, tint the background of the URL pink or something, so if the offending character is scrolled off the end of the URL field, the user still gets a visual clue that something is wrong.
I'm sure there are other possibilities, like putting a little warning at the top whenever characters are in the URL that are strikingly similiar to characters in the default local OR standard ASCII, specifying what the character is and perhaps stating something like "http://spo0furl.com IS NOT THE SAME as http://spoofurl.com".
It's worth noting that an aircraft with multiple engines is more likely to have some sort of engine failure than an aircraft with one engine of similar design. In general, increasing the number of components in a system increases the chance that at some point one of the components will fail.
A twin engine aircraft is SAFER than a single engine aircraft in terms of engine loss because, while the aircraft is more likely to lose an engine, it can still fly on one engine. Whereas my single engine aircraft will be making an emergency landing in a nearby field if the engine quits.
Multiplicity and diversity aid in recovery. Monocultures are inherently less secure, because one single vulnerabilty can comprimise the entire installation. Add to that that Linux is inherently more secure in its fundamental design than windows has or probably ever will be, and Gate's argument really becomes absurd. If you're stuck with a monoculture, a Linux, FreeBSD, os Mac OS X monoculture would be far more secure than a Windows monoculture. However, an installation with redundancy, on multiple architectures (avoiding Microsoft, of course, as it represents a terrible security risk, far greater than any of its competitors) will be robust even if one or another architecture is vulnerable, and that vulnerability is exploited.
Who care's what they patent? There's no chance in hell this would stand up in court, the judge would laugh it off and Microsoft's patent gets revoked.
YOU should care, and so should everyone else.
Do you have $4,000,000 to spend overturning the patent?
Thought not. Guess your web page linking to M$'s proprietary geographical data is in violation, and you can be browbeaten into submission and forced to remove your webpage (or financially ruined in addition to that, if Microsoft's attorneys are having a bad day) even if the patent is bogus.
Government entitlements to monopolies on knowledge, ideas, inventions, and expression are destructive to everyone except the monopolist.
With this affordable video phone, now all I need is a practical hover car and society's promises of things I would have by the year 2000 will be complete.
What about common supersonic civilian transport, robots to do our house cleaning and upkeep, and a standard 20 hour work week.
We were promised all of these things, had one taken away (the Concord, which never really fulfilled the promise but was more of a teaser), and certainly don't seem to be getting our 20 hour workweek anytime soon.
Don't let them sidetrack you from the other promises by giving you a flying car! You'll still need to get your pilot's license to fly it, and you'll still be working a 60 hour week!;-)
et's put 8 different versions of OpenOffice Writer on millions of machines (10% of which have defective hardware, viruses, etc), and see how well works.
I know you're implicitly shilling Microsoft's shoddy products by implying other folks work is equally bad, but I hate to break the news to you: it isn't.
To take your example, I've what you're suggesting (on hundreds of machines, not millions, but the point remains) and guess what? They all read, write, and exchange one another's openoffice files perfectly...even the crappy windows boxes which do, from time to time, get hosed by the trojan, virus, spyware, or worm du jour.
Version deployed among colleagues, freinds, and relatives include:
Platforms include assorted versions of Windows, numerous distributions of GNU/Linux ranging from Debian, Red Hat, and Suse to Source Mage and Gentoo. Mac OS X Versions include 10.2.x on iMacs and 10.3.x on assorted systems, including my powerbook 17".
It all works and interoperates flawlessly... something Microsoft can't do, with its own products, on its own platforms.
By that logic, no one should ever start a new software project that isn't already being met (however inadequately) by some other piece of software. Why did Linus start writing Gnu/Linux, when there were already great operating systems like Windows/Dos, and Unix/Unix?
Fankly, I think it's a great thing that BSD and HURD will be putting some pressure on Linux to be the best. Competition makes them strong, and the cross-fertilization of ideas makes them stronger still.
I couldn't agree more. I've been a fan and ardent user of Linux since the 0.49 days (1993), and I find FreeBSD and HURD developments exciting and, frankly, important. Not just because it puts a little friendly pressure on the Linux developers, but because diversity is good.
Take for example the licensing issues Linux could have if the developers find themselves needing to move to Version 3.0 of the GPL (this may not happen, and I certainly hope software patents and the like never force such a move, but you never know, and given the current climate, a migration to an updated license may well be required, at least in the US). If Linux were to ever become mired in a untenable license and unable to get unanimous agreement to update said license, we'll still have FreeBSD on one side and an FSF-compliantly GPLed HURD on the other.
This isn't likely (and I really hope it never happens and people can accuse me of wearing a ten-gallon tinfoil hat), but regardless, having a third viable kernel for running free software and all the GNU stuff will be a wonderful thing. As you say, at the very least it will be optimal for certain niches, and if it does turn out to be really superior to the existing monolithic kernels, it could well replace Linux as the defacto standard down the road. I'm not sure that's terribly likely either, but you never know, and having the option available to the community is a tremendously good thing, whether we choose to migrate because of litigation/licensing issues, technical issues, a combination of the two, or not at all (and it remains a niche product).
Cognitive awareness is not taught and learned and something that is not living will never have cognitive awareness.
Oh, really. And when, and by whom, was this demonstrated exactly? Oh I see - you made it up.
Yeah, he's not too bright. He's touting unsubstantiated religious tautologies right, left, and center and clearly lacks even a basic grasp of science.
Every human alive is a counter example of his statement: "Cognitive awareness is not taught and learned and something that is not living will never have cognitive awareness." Each of us, each cell that makes us up, was at one time inert soil, later to become living foliage (with the help of energy from the sun), and still later to become ingested by and assembled into mammalian life (our parents), then later gestated into us.
Non-living, non-conscious, inert material became living material and, ultimately, conscious cognative materal (us). His entire premise is false on its very face.
At that point, there is nothing one sex can hold over another. Feminism would lose all meaning, as sexual roles would simply dissolve.
Actually, that implies full equality between the genders (either can do anything the other can), which is what the definition of Femenism is (the believe that the two genders should be treated equally).
Of course, most people have forgotten this, and instead believe the Rush Limbaugh definition, which has about as much truth as a creationist teaching evolution, or an athiest leading a religious cult.
As for either gender eliminating the other, not in a million years, and certainly not because robots and rubber dolls can simulate coitous. Many of us happen to be in love with people of the opposite gender, and would get extremely violent with little robot-fucking punks who want to wipe them out.
Indeed, it is far more likely the robot-fucking punks will be exterminated long before either gender of the larger population.
Repairing the Hubble might be prohibitively expensive, but a simpler retrieval mission shouldn't cost much more than your average shuttle mission. That thing belongs in the Smithsonian once it's out of service, not vaporized in reentry.
The wheels of the space shuttle would collapse upon touchdown from the weight of the Hubble. It was never designed to land with cargo still in the hold.
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On February 7th, Russ Nelson (Open Source Initiative president) published an article called "Blacks are lazy", quoted in journal entries here and here.
Please consider signing the online petition asking OSI to remove Russ Nelson.
I find Russ Nelson's commentary personally offensive, asinine, and profoundly anti-social. Probably as much as you do. But I disagree vehemently with your campaign against the guy, no matter how obnoxious or stupid he may be.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH is absolutely worthless if people cannot speak their mind and voice views, however unpopular, however disgusting, without living in fear of retribution such as you advocate. Your time would be better spent rebutting Nelson's offensive rhetoric on the basis of fact, with your own counterrhetoric, rather than trying to silence him through economic and social retaliation.
In other words, to paraphrase people far wiser than I, I may find what someone says disgusting, despicable, and vile, but I will defend to the death their right to say it (and that right must include the right to do so without fearing for your job or your professional standing, else the "right" is really quite meaningless).
Your reaction harkens back to Bush's asinine statement with respect to the fools burnign Dixie Chicks' albums after they voiced (IMHO understandable) emberressment at having Bush as president. He commented "freedom of speech has consiquences."
By that definition Stalinist Russia had freedom of speech, as did Maoist China, Khmere Rouge Cambodia, and a dozen other communist and fascist dictatorships. After all, you have the freedom to say whatever you like in those places, but your speech had "consiquences," like ending up in the gulag, at the wrong end of a death squad's gun, or out of a job and unable to feed or house yourself (the latter ever more likely here in the once-free west).
Instead of trying to ruin the guy, counter his rhetoric with your own. Frankly, if he's trying to erase all record of his commentary, it sounds like he's already rethought his position and is emberressed by his earlier writings. If this is a result of his having come to his senses and changed his mind as a result of discussion and counter-arguments, good. If it is a result of fear of retribution such as you're advocating, then I think that is a pity. As much as I loathe and despise what he said, I loath and despise the use of fear, intimidation, and retaliation as means of silencing people (and making their "right" to speek freely essentially moot and worthless) even more. I would far rather have my blood boil at the words of a fool, than have the fool silenced through fear and be looking over my own shoulder, lest I say something that offends someone else and face similiar persecution.
Please, please consider a different approach to dealing with these sorts of jackasses.
Well, he isn't actually a plagerist, but now that I've got your attention, I should point out the Phil Zimmerman has been advocating passphrases since the first version of PGP came out in the early nineties IIRC, and even he is probably not the first. I've certainly been using them for about that long wherever possible.
That won't stop Microsoft from taking credit for this "new, revolutionary idea in computer security," or the Microsoft apologists accusing everyone else from "copying Microsoft instead of innovating" when it becomes more common practice among everyone, some percentage of which will include Linux and OS X users. Nevermind the PAM modules supporting this have been around forever, or that pretty much anyone with half a brain using GnuPG or PGP has been doing this forever either.
"emerge corefonts" works fine for me.
/usr/share/fonts/corefonts is in your xorg.conf FontPath and you're good to go ... whether Microsoft likes it or not.
Just make sure
I just read your current draft for ep1 of "The Autonomy Project" last week and loved it to bits. Hardest part was getting to the end and realizing I have no idea when the next part will appear. Any plans yet?
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I do have plans for an ep2, but am currently editing ep1 and polishing it up (you probably noticed things were much tighter up through chapter 16, then got kind of crufty thereafter). Once that's finished I'll probably start on Episode 2, which I think will take quite a surprising twist from the very beginning.
Can't be true. Not without a God.
... that would rock, but is unlikely. The laws of thermodynamics have held up very well to centuries of abuse and mistrust ... even many scientists don't like what they imply about our long term fate), or get very unlucky and discover that there is a vengeful, cruel, jealous, angry god who likes to kick the shit out of his miniscule creations, but none of those scenerios are terribly likely.
... but its track record is certainly better than that of the religious fanatics.
... it is at best orthogonal to science, and often at odds with it. It has yet to be complementary to science, all sorts of apologist rhetoric notwithstanding.
Well, you can make up a new term like "anti-entropy" and convinienty avoid defining it until later, but assuming you define anti-entropy as something that occurs AFTER the birth of the universe, it is entirely possible, and indeed quite likely (though of course not certain) that we do in fact live in a universe with no "anti-entropy" and no God.
One example (which may or may not coincide with reality, but it is a reasonable hypothesis which has been advanced more than once) is that the singularity of a black hole may in fact be the birth of a universe, in which entropy starts at a negligable value in a PERFECTLY NATURAL, no-wrathful-God-required big-bang event, then increases as the spawned universe goes through its natural life cycle. Just as ours is. No beginning to the larger cycle, and no end, just as a moebeous strip has no beginning, no end, and only one side.
The fact that modern science, still in its own infancy after a mere 300 years, hasn't explained all the minutia of the big bang, or offered every answer to every question yet, doesn't mean we're required to punt and assume "there must be God, or it must not be true" to every question for which we don't yet have all the answers.
There is, unfortunately for us, verly likely no "anti-entropy" (and certainly no credible evidence at all to the contrary), nor, fortunately for us, a God (again no credible evidence to the contrary). There is probably nothing more than a singular event that occurs at the birth of every universe which we don't yet understand, and which CANNOT occurr once a universe has been born and is up and running. Of course, maybe we'll get lucky and discover we can reverse entropy (and your "anti-entropy" does in fact exist
One thing is certain. Science has given us more answeres in 300 years than religion has in 3,000,000 years, and certainly more than Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheism has in the last 2000 years. Whether it will answer the deeper questions as to how this universe was born, who knows
Of course, this is irrelevant to whether or not religion in SCIENCE fiction is interesting, or even apropos. We're discussing SCIENCE-fiction here, not RELIGOUS-fiction or FANTASY. Religion clearly belongs in or the other of those genres
He also brought it up because the group of scientists in the article (and always has been) are extremely leftist and always have been.
Extremely left being defined as "to the left of Gengis Khan."
I always have found it odd how the US has just the dominating "Rebuplicans", and "Democrats". We have +7 Parties, with all some simular and more diverse agenda's. It'd be a nightmare to just be in the mercy of *two* parties....
... European proportional representation is far, far better) with a bicameral legislature.
... it looks like the plutocrats intended the European Parliament as simply a smokescreen to maintina the appearance of a democracy and keep the masses appeased, while allowing business to proceed as usual, but have been surprised as the people have actually insisted on having a voice in policy.
You're confusing our two party system (which sucks
He is proposing a directly elected bicameral legislature to replace the european parliament and the council, but keeping the rotating presidency (and presumably the european court). It seems like a reasonable idea, particularly given the corruption of the council past, present, and almost certainly future.
The problem of converting a corporate plutocracy (which is what the EU started out as) to a democracy is an interesting one
How the patent thing works out will give us an indication of whether or not the EU will successfully transition from a corporate plutocracy to a democracy.
The most interesting thing about religion is how it manages to survive in one form or another throughout so much change. One would think that humans getting such a handle on the science of life and physics would have obliterated religion, but it keeps on truckin' all the same.
... we'll believe anything, anything at all, simply to avoid facing up to that one unpleasant fact: we are mortal and one day will no longer exist. Worse, it won't take much time and change for the very memory of our existence to vanish.
... simply because those selling the belief in him offer the promise that "even if you burn in hell, at least you won't someday be not".
I disagree. I don't find it terribly interesting at all.
Human beings are expert at living in denial. This is hardly news, and in fact is a theme that has been beaten to death both in the sci-fi genre and in literature in general.
We are intelligent, self-ware, sentient creatures encased in a biological chassis that has a very short, finite lifespan, embedded in a universe of increasing entropy in which the most fundamental laws of physics insure that all life, no matter how sophisticated or "immortal" will one day perish.
There aren't too many people who can face that reality head on
The thing that makes religion so interesting in sci-fi is that you can explore the continuing tensions between technology and faith as technology evolves... seeing how the faithful adapt is very interesting fiction.
Again, I suppose it is a matter of taste, but I don't find the contortions people go through to avoid facing facts particularly interesting or riveting.
Faith isn't evolving. People's rational for denying the obvious, but unpleasant, truth of our own mortality is simply doing ever more creative acrobatics to avoid getting pinned down by cold hard fact.
Frankly, I see science as the interesting facet of science fiction, whether it is social science (what kind of a society will we have in the year 10,000?), physics, biology, astronomy, or what have you. Science actually reveals answer, some (like the ultimate expansion of the universe and ultimate death-by-entropy of all life) is unpleasant, but many are quite fascinating and who knows, mabye a way out of this entropic slide into oblivion will be found (presumably by exiting this universe). Not likely, mind you, but perhaps possible. Now that would be interesting.
As for the current state-of-the-art and future rationalizations people will come up with to deny their own mortality, I don't find particularly intersting. Amusing perhaps, like "what will they say when the very universe is tearing itself to pieces and life anywhere, in any form, is becoming untenable." Doubtless the promises made to the terrified masses will involve some kind of apacalyptic vision, followed by the return of a jealous, angry, vengful god. Which, if they're anything like us, they'll lap up.
That last is kind of interesting. The Judeo-Christian/Mormon/Islamic (and presumably Cylon) god is vengful, jelous, angry, and demanding. Yet people prostrate themselves to him willingly. Most of us wouldn't spend ten seconds in the company of a human being with those personality traits, yet billions of us flock to the idea of such a person having limitless power
Which really shows just how truly desperate we are to deny the truth of our own mortality.
Debian will move to Xorg the day Duke Nukem Forever is released.
I see you've been playing with the Duke Nukem beta as well.
The experimental version of Debian that will be running xorg REQUIRES Duke Nukem Forever to boot. It runs as a client process, accessible by shooting the bouncer at the alien-infested oyster bar (from the opening screen take 2 lefts, a right, a left, and straight on three blocks. It'll be on your right.) Killing the bouncer will fork off a process that boostraps the new Debian, from which point you can fire up xorg either using startx or by defaulting to runlevel 5.
The most interesting thing about religion is how it manages to survive in one form or another throughout so much change. One would think that humans getting such a handle on the science of life and physics would have obliterated religion, but it keeps on truckin' all the same.
... we'll believe anything, anything at all, simply to avoid facing up to that one unpleasant fact: we are mortal and one day will no longer exist. Worse, it won't take much time and change for the very memory of our existence to vanish.
... simply because those selling the belief in him offer the promise that "even if you burn in hell, at least you won't someday be not".
I don't find it terribly interesting.
Human beings are expert at living in denial. We are intelligent, self-ware, sentient creatures encased in a biological chassis that has a very short, finite lifespan, embedded in a universe of increasing entropy in which the most fundamental laws of physics insure that all life, no matter how sophisticated or "immortal" will one day perish.
There aren't too many people who can face that reality head on
Faith isn't evolving. People's rational for denying the obvious, but unpleasant, truth of our own mortality is simply doing ever more creative acrobatics to avoid getting pinned down by cold hard fact.
Frankly, I see science as the interesting facet of science fiction, whether it is social science (what kind of a society will we have in the year 10,000?), physics, biology, astronomy, or what have you.
What really isn't interesting at all is what kind of rationalization will people have come up with to deny their own mortality when the very universe is tearing itself to pieces and life anywhere, in any form, is becoming untenable. Doubtless it will involve some kind of apacalyptic vision, followed by the return of a jealous, angry, vengful god.
That last is kind of interesting. The Judeo-Christian/Mormon/Islamic god is vengful, jelous, angry, and demanding. Yet people prostrate themselves to him willingly. Most of us wouldn't spend ten seconds in the company of a human being with those personality traits, yet billions of us flock to the idea of such a person having limitless power
Which really shows just how truly desperate we are to deny the truth of our own mortality.
Now, if we had a permanent base on the moon, with a sub-station on the dark side,
There is no dark side of the moon.[1] As a matter of fact, it's all dark.
[1] Seriously, the Lunar day is 28 earth days, so the sun does rise and set. It does not have one face perminently facing the sun like Mercury (which does has a "dark side").
It's clearly too premature to start monkeying with Mars, as demonstrated by our disaster here on Earth.
... which is exactly what NASA is doing.
The one does not necessarilly correlate to the other. The fact that we're addicted to cheap fossile-fuel energy, and moribound in a political climate where the oil industry's stooges (Bush et al) take power and do things like cut all research in solar energy (Reagain in the 80s) is not an indicator as to whether or not we can capably terraform another planet.
And while I agree with you that it is probably premature to start changing the climate of Mars, and that a great deal of additional research and modelling is required before we even think about trying, it is certainly NOT premature to be doing initial studies on whether and how it might be done
This political correctness (and I don't refer to your post so much as numerous others that condemn even thinking or discussing the topic) that would ban discussions and studies designed to see if something can be done, because people with no relevant data have made emotional decisions that it shouldn't be done, is IMHO one of the more dangerous trends in modern society. Every question should be posed, every thought on the subject spoken aloud and judged on its scientific merit, not its political palatability du jour.
Except China, of course. I don't think we really want them to have democracy, because then they wouldn't work for slave wages to build all the cheap crap we buy, or let us sell them a bunch of our crap either.
... except I don't think we'll ever muck with Saudi Arabia until either all of their oil is gone, or events on the ground change the satus quo and we feel our oil supply is threatened.
No, because we can have cheap labor in a democracy just fine (check out Thailand, India, and Indonesia as examples).
But the rest of those are fair game, probably Iran first, then Saudi Arabia.
Actually, it will probably be either Syria or Iran next, then Iran or Syria (whichever didn't get it first the first time around), and maybe Saudi Arabia third
I bet "they" would hate us a lot less in the Middle East if we quit propping up tyrants like the Saudi royal family.
Some of "them" might, but most of the islamists have declared war on every other culture (remember, they're setting off bombs in India, China, Europe, and Africa as well as against Americans) and want THEIR culture to rule everywhere. These people won't be satisfied with democracies at home, even if they win the elections (not likely, as most muslims have little interest in having extremests rule their countries). Whether its parliament buildings in India, or the entire population of Dafur, the islamists have no interest in coexisting with other cultures, or even leaving evidence they once existed once they seize power. Remember what they did to the Buddha's in Afghanistan? Imagine what these folks would like to do to the pryamids in Egypt, the temples of India and Nepal, the Cathedrals of Europe, or the science centers of Canada, the US, Europe, China, India, Latin America, etc. were they to ever gain power in those regions.
I think getting "them" to hate us less (by which I assume you mean what they call "the arab street", i.e. popular opinion among the "average Achmed", as oppossed to the Islamists who really hate us) would require that we stop engagin in aggression in their countries and their back yards. This means knocking off Bush's favorite passtime: invading countries that pose no real threat to us because he doesn't like the government, the dictator, or the country's politics.
Which makes one wonder how long before he invades the American Northeast or Northwest (he's already staged a political "coup" in California).
On the other hand, no-one really seems sure of the best way to fix it... One option is obviously to mark somehow when non-ASCII characters are used, but while this will help the people who only want ASCII URLs, it will still leave the problem for everyone who wants to use this extended system, making it effectively useless....
I think you're on the right track here.
Perhaps the best approach is to use a different font/different color for particular ranges of characters, or characters outside of one's locale setting, so e.g. if my local is Germany, and cyrillic or french accent-grave or what have you characters are loaded, then display that character in bold, or in red, or what have you. Also, tint the background of the URL pink or something, so if the offending character is scrolled off the end of the URL field, the user still gets a visual clue that something is wrong.
I'm sure there are other possibilities, like putting a little warning at the top whenever characters are in the URL that are strikingly similiar to characters in the default local OR standard ASCII, specifying what the character is and perhaps stating something like "http://spo0furl.com IS NOT THE SAME as http://spoofurl.com".
It's worth noting that an aircraft with multiple engines is more likely to have some sort of engine failure than an aircraft with one engine of similar design. In general, increasing the number of components in a system increases the chance that at some point one of the components will fail.
A twin engine aircraft is SAFER than a single engine aircraft in terms of engine loss because, while the aircraft is more likely to lose an engine, it can still fly on one engine. Whereas my single engine aircraft will be making an emergency landing in a nearby field if the engine quits.
Multiplicity and diversity aid in recovery. Monocultures are inherently less secure, because one single vulnerabilty can comprimise the entire installation. Add to that that Linux is inherently more secure in its fundamental design than windows has or probably ever will be, and Gate's argument really becomes absurd. If you're stuck with a monoculture, a Linux, FreeBSD, os Mac OS X monoculture would be far more secure than a Windows monoculture. However, an installation with redundancy, on multiple architectures (avoiding Microsoft, of course, as it represents a terrible security risk, far greater than any of its competitors) will be robust even if one or another architecture is vulnerable, and that vulnerability is exploited.
Who care's what they patent? There's no chance in hell this would stand up in court, the judge would laugh it off and Microsoft's patent gets revoked.
YOU should care, and so should everyone else.
Do you have $4,000,000 to spend overturning the patent?
Thought not. Guess your web page linking to M$'s proprietary geographical data is in violation, and you can be browbeaten into submission and forced to remove your webpage (or financially ruined in addition to that, if Microsoft's attorneys are having a bad day) even if the patent is bogus.
Government entitlements to monopolies on knowledge, ideas, inventions, and expression are destructive to everyone except the monopolist.
... those lying rat bastards!
;-)
With this affordable video phone, now all I need is a practical hover car and society's promises of things I would have by the year 2000 will be complete.
What about common supersonic civilian transport, robots to do our house cleaning and upkeep, and a standard 20 hour work week.
We were promised all of these things, had one taken away (the Concord, which never really fulfilled the promise but was more of a teaser), and certainly don't seem to be getting our 20 hour workweek anytime soon.
Don't let them sidetrack you from the other promises by giving you a flying car! You'll still need to get your pilot's license to fly it, and you'll still be working a 60 hour week!
et's put 8 different versions of OpenOffice Writer on millions of machines (10% of which have defective hardware, viruses, etc), and see how well works.
... something Microsoft can't do, with its own products, on its own platforms.
I know you're implicitly shilling Microsoft's shoddy products by implying other folks work is equally bad, but I hate to break the news to you: it isn't.
To take your example, I've what you're suggesting (on hundreds of machines, not millions, but the point remains) and guess what? They all read, write, and exchange one another's openoffice files perfectly...even the crappy windows boxes which do, from time to time, get hosed by the trojan, virus, spyware, or worm du jour.
Version deployed among colleagues, freinds, and relatives include:
OpenOffice 1.0 (Linux)
OpenOffice 1.1.1 (OS X)
OpenOffice 1.1.2 (Linux, Windows, OS X)
OpenOffice 1.1.3 (Linux, Windows)
OpenOffice 1.1.4 (Linux)
OpenOffice-Ximian 1.1.53 (Linux)
OpenOffice-Ximian 1.3.5 (Linux)
OpenOffice-Ximian 1.3.6 (Linux)
OpenOffice-Ximian 1.3.8 (Linux)
NeoOffice/J 0.8.4 (OS X)
NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha 2 (OS X)
NeoOffice/J 1.1 Beta (OS X)
Platforms include assorted versions of Windows, numerous distributions of GNU/Linux ranging from Debian, Red Hat, and Suse to Source Mage and Gentoo. Mac OS X Versions include 10.2.x on iMacs and 10.3.x on assorted systems, including my powerbook 17".
It all works and interoperates flawlessly
A priest and a lawyer are walking down the street when they see a young boy.
The priest says to to the lawyer, "Hey, wanna screw that kid?"
The lawyer asks, "Out of what?"
This has to be one of the funniest parodies I've read in a very long time, and I say that as an avid fan of Gentoo who uses it at work and at home.
... oh damn ... addfjjjjj
Absolutely hilarious!
PS - Gentoo is recompiling my genome as I
HURD will never ever be where Linux is...
By that logic, no one should ever start a new software project that isn't already being met (however inadequately) by some other piece of software. Why did Linus start writing Gnu/Linux, when there were already great operating systems like Windows/Dos, and Unix/Unix?
Fankly, I think it's a great thing that BSD and HURD will be putting some pressure on Linux to be the best. Competition makes them strong, and the cross-fertilization of ideas makes them stronger still.
I couldn't agree more. I've been a fan and ardent user of Linux since the 0.49 days (1993), and I find FreeBSD and HURD developments exciting and, frankly, important. Not just because it puts a little friendly pressure on the Linux developers, but because diversity is good.
Take for example the licensing issues Linux could have if the developers find themselves needing to move to Version 3.0 of the GPL (this may not happen, and I certainly hope software patents and the like never force such a move, but you never know, and given the current climate, a migration to an updated license may well be required, at least in the US). If Linux were to ever become mired in a untenable license and unable to get unanimous agreement to update said license, we'll still have FreeBSD on one side and an FSF-compliantly GPLed HURD on the other.
This isn't likely (and I really hope it never happens and people can accuse me of wearing a ten-gallon tinfoil hat), but regardless, having a third viable kernel for running free software and all the GNU stuff will be a wonderful thing. As you say, at the very least it will be optimal for certain niches, and if it does turn out to be really superior to the existing monolithic kernels, it could well replace Linux as the defacto standard down the road. I'm not sure that's terribly likely either, but you never know, and having the option available to the community is a tremendously good thing, whether we choose to migrate because of litigation/licensing issues, technical issues, a combination of the two, or not at all (and it remains a niche product).
Cognitive awareness is not taught and learned and something that is not living will never have cognitive awareness.
Oh, really. And when, and by whom, was this demonstrated exactly? Oh I see - you made it up.
Yeah, he's not too bright. He's touting unsubstantiated religious tautologies right, left, and center and clearly lacks even a basic grasp of science.
Every human alive is a counter example of his statement: "Cognitive awareness is not taught and learned and something that is not living will never have cognitive awareness." Each of us, each cell that makes us up, was at one time inert soil, later to become living foliage (with the help of energy from the sun), and still later to become ingested by and assembled into mammalian life (our parents), then later gestated into us.
Non-living, non-conscious, inert material became living material and, ultimately, conscious cognative materal (us). His entire premise is false on its very face.
At that point, there is nothing one sex can hold over another. Feminism would lose all meaning, as sexual roles would simply dissolve.
Actually, that implies full equality between the genders (either can do anything the other can), which is what the definition of Femenism is (the believe that the two genders should be treated equally).
Of course, most people have forgotten this, and instead believe the Rush Limbaugh definition, which has about as much truth as a creationist teaching evolution, or an athiest leading a religious cult.
As for either gender eliminating the other, not in a million years, and certainly not because robots and rubber dolls can simulate coitous. Many of us happen to be in love with people of the opposite gender, and would get extremely violent with little robot-fucking punks who want to wipe them out.
Indeed, it is far more likely the robot-fucking punks will be exterminated long before either gender of the larger population.
Oops.
You are indeed right. I stand corrected.
Repairing the Hubble might be prohibitively expensive, but a simpler retrieval mission shouldn't cost much more than your average shuttle mission. That thing belongs in the Smithsonian once it's out of service, not vaporized in reentry.
The wheels of the space shuttle would collapse upon touchdown from the weight of the Hubble. It was never designed to land with cargo still in the hold.