From the press release you'd think that Plato was a champion of freedom and human rights. It would be more accurate to describe him as a proto-fascist pederast. Popper has argued as much in The open society and its enemies Vol 1: The spell of Plato, but apparently this guy didn't get the memo..
A Plato quote from that book: `The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. [..] And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals [..] only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it.'
Also see wikipedia: "According to this model, the principles of Athenian democracy (as it existed in his day) are rejected as only a few are fit to rule."
"He argues that it is better to be ruled by a bad tyrant, than be a bad democracy"
Are you absolutely sure cannabis is not mentioned in the narcotics law anymore? AFAIK the 5 grams thing was more a rule of thumb that the police made up for themselves. They also don't bother with shoplifters that steal less than 10 euros worth of stuff, but that's doesn't make shoplifting legal.
"Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the Netherlands and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanors, punishable by fine."
That seems pretty clear, not sure how up to date wikipedia is in this regard though.
just as prostitution has not been considered a "victimless crime" but has actually been legal since the sixties. The reason it took so long to get an actual law on prostitution, is because a christian party has been part of most governments, and tolerating it but not actually legalizing it was a dutch "polder" compromise.
I think we have a misunderstanding about the semantics of `legal' here. I meant `legal' as in `having a law about it'. Prostitution was tolerated, but technically illegal, in the sixties.
"Prostitution was defined as a legal profession in January 1988."
"When the Dutch government legalized prostitution in 2000 it was to protect the women by giving them work permits but some fear that this business cannot be normalized."
I can think of no other European country other than the Netherlands where your weed would not be confiscated if found by the coppers.
Sorry to contradict you, but when backpacking through Europe (early '90s) I found that weed is everywhere, often much more visible than in the Netherlands. When I got of the train in Lisbon, the first thing I saw was a welcoming committee of dealers on the platform openly wielding huge chunks of hashish. One followed me through the station hall into a bank, he was trying to sell me his chunk while I was changing money. We passed quite a few policemen who did not seem to care at all.
And the first impression I got of Barcelona was a group of spanish guys parading around a square smoking weed, again in front of the police. I later heard from a local that there's another square in Barcelona where basically anything goes, the police is always present there but only intervenes when things get out of hand.
And then there's Camden Lock in London, there are always a few (very pushy) hash dealers hanging around there. I'm 100% sure the police knows about this, but they don't intervene. I've been to Canada, and got the strong impression that it's the same over there.
My point was not that it's legal anywhere else in Europe, but that in practice there is little to no enforcement. France may be a notable exception.
Caveat: I'm not advocating possession and/or use of illegal substances in European countries (or anywhere else for that matter). Don't blame me if you get thrown in jail!
The national laws regarding drugs are somewhat hazy (the same with squatting).
Actually both are crystal clear, thanks to the practice of jurisprudence. It's legal for adults to carry weed up to 5 grams and to use it in their homes (though even if used on the street, I have never heard of a conviction or even an arrest for this specific misdemeanor)
.
I have, but admittedly it's rare. There's a zero-tolerance policy in place for UItrecht Central station and adjacent shopping mall. And occasionally a major may decide to have a temporary zero-tolerance policy for a specific event (dance festivals etc).
So that's what I meant by `hazy'.
You're also allowed to have a couple of plants (I thought about 5).
I live in the Netherlands, the background to this story:
Using cannabis is considered a victimless crime and thus low priority for law enforcement. This is true for most countries in Europe, but the Netherlands is known for this because it's in the open. So, yes, it's tolerated, but this is far from unique and has little to do with government income from taxes, as someone on this thread suggested.
The national laws regarding drugs are somewhat hazy (the same with squatting). This is intentional, it gives city councils room to adapt their policies to the local situation. Some cities on the borders get thousands of drug tourists a day, which creates all kinds of problems. Maastricht has banned its coffeeshops to a `drug boulevard' outside the city, other places work with a pass system so that only locals can visit coffeeshops. Most other places don't experience such problems, so do not need such measures.
However, things have changed in the last decade. Modern designer plants literally drip with THC, the content of some weed is actually so high that it is considered hallucinogenic and thus a hard drug. Also, the growers are not old ladies or hippies anymore. It's now big business run by criminal gangs that grow for export, not just local use.
These are reasons for the police to crack down on the growers. It's also part of a political trend, the current coalition includes two christian parties. They are the parties responsible for the Netherlands joining Bush's wars. The former minister for science belongs to one of them, she kept telling universities they should look into ID, so they're quite extreme.
Both parties spout rethoric about moral reconstruction of the country, they're also pushing for stiff jail sentences for squatters. City councils are against this, they tolerate squatters to make life difficult for real-estate speculators.
Concerning the drone, the police says they'll only use it if they suspect the presence of a cannabis farm. Maybe they get tipped of by electricity companies (growers rig their meters).
What worries me far more than this silly drone, which seems to be mainly a deterrent, is a proposed law concerning smart meters. The ID woman is now minister of economy, and she's trying to make smart meters obligatory. Refusing to have them installed would be an economic crime, which implies high fines and even jail.
These meters send data about your minute-to-minute electricity use over the interwebtubes to your energy company, they in turn provide records to government upon request. So it just comes down to government spying, and since the meters have been hacked already, it means criminals can spy on you as well. They can then burgle your house while you're on holiday, so as not to inconvenience you too much. So it's a win-win situation.
The motivation for this bill is that it will help consumers to be more energy efficient.
I bought a Levi's 501 for about $25 last year while visiting Nebraska. In the Netherlands you'd pay about 100 EUR, six times as much. Two weeks later someone went on a killing spree in that very same mall, maybe that's the kind of thing that keeps prices down in the US?
"get out of there it's gonna blow!"
"Master, master, wheres the dreams that Ive been after?
Master, master, you promised only lies
Laughter, laughter, all I hear and see is laughter
Laughter, laughter, laughing at my cries
Hell is worth all that, natural habitat
Just a rhyme without a reason
Neverending maze, drift on numbered days
Now your life is out of season"
[fade out with evil laughter].
Given that every reply you got here basically says something different, I'd say that although many people have very strong opinions on this subject, nobody really knows. The same goes for me, and I have been developing for 24 years, I have a PhD in Computational Linguistics, worked in industry, taught software engineering courses etc.
Of course you should be aware of methodologies such as waterfall, XP etc. But if you take a closer look you will see there is neither much of a theoretical nor an empirical basis for them, it always comes down to some guys saying 'this is how you should do it, trust us'. Think about it, would you buy a mortgage backed bond from somebody who tells you that documentation is a bad thing? Only in software engineering will you hear such a thing.
So, the truth of the matter is, nobody knows. I think heavy engineering-type approaches generally do not work and are not used in practice.
As an example, take OO programming. Almost any programmer will tell you that principles like inheritance, data encapsulation etc help you write better code. But, as far as I know, nobody bothered to check whether this is actually true (in a scientific way) until Les Hatton did, and guess what: he claims that OO code is significantly more buggy than non-OO . It seems counter-intuitive, but there you go. Another disturbing finding is that software quality has steadily decreased over the last few decades.
I don't think his work has had much impact on how code is written nowadays.
Another example, Cleanroom. It sounds good, the most scientific approach to software development I know of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom_Software_Engineering). Case studies have indicated that it's really good for delivering high-quality, cost-effective code. So good in fact that, as far as I know, nobody has ever adopted it. Cleanroom is an extreme case, but I could give many more such examples.
The main reason for bad software is not technical, it's caused by the way the industry works. It's run by the kind of people that believe in motivational posters. That kind of mentality is dangerous in any engineering discipline, where you need to think defensively.
Another problem is that there is no regulation as found in any other industry (food, aviation, civil engineering, healthcare etc). The way I see it, there's a war going on between professionals and 'generalists', and in ICT the latter have been on top for decades. Compared to say lawyers and surgeons, software developers have very little status.
I hope I don't sound too cynical, of course I think there's a place for SE and I wish you the best of luck with your research. But I'm very sceptical about software quality going up in the near future as a result of SE research.
There is hope though. If a team manages to steer clear of worst practices, and uses some kind (any kind!) of methodology, it would already produce code that's way beyond industry standard.
The things you read on http://thedailywtf.com/ are just the tip of the iceberg. I've seen industry-grade code which had an implementation of bubble sort (in C).
Some of the worst practices imho:
- hiring the most uneducated and uncaring people you can find. All large IT firms do this, they're cheap, malleable, and motivated by money, which is something any manager can understand. Also, managers don't like to have people work for them that are better educated than they are. So as a customer, you pay extortionist prices to have art history majors and ex-cons build your back-office software.
Another problem is that, even if a firm does not have this kind of policy, recruiters tend to be clueless bimbos. I've heard one of them complain about not being able to find C-programmers, "only C++, and what use are those!".
I've also heard a recruiter proudly proclaim "we only do projects for large companies, the others can't afford us".
- hiring antisocial, narcissistic people. Obviously arrogant behaviour is an indication of high market value. Never mind that such people check in non-comp
Slashdot Mirror
Pay your tithe you heathens!
http://stuffgodhates.com/2010/09/87-cheapskates/
So.. you believe in the mythical man minute?
From the press release you'd think that Plato was a champion of freedom and human rights. It would be more accurate to describe him as a proto-fascist pederast. Popper has argued as much in The open society and its enemies Vol 1: The spell of Plato, but apparently this guy didn't get the memo..
A Plato quote from that book:
`The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. [..]
And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals [..] only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it.'
Also see wikipedia:
"According to this model, the principles of Athenian democracy (as it existed in his day) are rejected as only a few are fit to rule."
"He argues that it is better to be ruled by a bad tyrant, than be a bad democracy"
| There is no content in this article, just a statement of random unsubstantiated statistics.
Yes, the good people of Optenet pulled these numbers out of their ass. I know because I saw the video on gmilfspullingthingsoutoftheirass.com
No, actually it's legal,
Are you absolutely sure cannabis is not mentioned in the narcotics law anymore? AFAIK the 5 grams thing was more a rule of thumb that the police made up for themselves. They also don't bother with shoplifters that steal less than 10 euros worth of stuff, but that's doesn't make shoplifting legal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands#Non-enforcement
"Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the Netherlands and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanors, punishable by fine."
That seems pretty clear, not sure how up to date wikipedia is in this regard though.
just as prostitution has not been considered a "victimless crime" but has actually been legal since the sixties. The reason it took so long to get an actual law on prostitution, is because a christian party has been part of most governments, and tolerating it but not actually legalizing it was a dutch "polder" compromise.
I think we have a misunderstanding about the semantics of `legal' here. I meant `legal' as in `having a law about it'. Prostitution was tolerated, but technically illegal, in the sixties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands
"Prostitution was defined as a legal profession in January 1988."
"When the Dutch government legalized prostitution in 2000 it was to protect the women by giving them work permits but some fear that this business cannot be normalized."
I can think of no other European country other than the Netherlands where your weed would not be confiscated if found by the coppers.
Sorry to contradict you, but when backpacking through Europe (early '90s) I found that weed is everywhere, often much more visible than in the Netherlands. When I got of the train in Lisbon, the first thing I saw was a welcoming committee of dealers on the platform openly wielding huge chunks of hashish. One followed me through the station hall into a bank, he was trying to sell me his chunk while I was changing money. We passed quite a few policemen who did not seem to care at all.
And the first impression I got of Barcelona was a group of spanish guys parading around a square smoking weed, again in front of the police. I later heard from a local that there's another square in Barcelona where basically anything goes, the police is always present there but only intervenes when things get out of hand.
And then there's Camden Lock in London, there are always a few (very pushy) hash dealers hanging around there. I'm 100% sure the police knows about this, but they don't intervene. I've been to Canada, and got the strong impression that it's the same over there.
My point was not that it's legal anywhere else in Europe, but that in practice there is little to no enforcement. France may be a notable exception. Caveat: I'm not advocating possession and/or use of illegal substances in European countries (or anywhere else for that matter). Don't blame me if you get thrown in jail!
The national laws regarding drugs are somewhat hazy (the same with squatting).
Actually both are crystal clear, thanks to the practice of jurisprudence. It's legal for adults to carry weed up to 5 grams and to use it in their homes (though even if used on the street, I have never heard of a conviction or even an arrest for this specific misdemeanor)
.
I have, but admittedly it's rare. There's a zero-tolerance policy in place for UItrecht Central station and adjacent shopping mall. And occasionally a major may decide to have a temporary zero-tolerance policy for a specific event (dance festivals etc).
So that's what I meant by `hazy'.
You're also allowed to have a couple of plants (I thought about 5).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands#Non-enforcement
A maximum of five Cannabis
I live in the Netherlands, the background to this story:
Using cannabis is considered a victimless crime and thus low priority for law enforcement. This is true for most countries in Europe, but the Netherlands is known for this because it's in the open. So, yes, it's tolerated, but this is far from unique and has little to do with government income from taxes, as someone on this thread suggested.
The national laws regarding drugs are somewhat hazy (the same with squatting). This is intentional, it gives city councils room to adapt their policies to the local situation. Some cities on the borders get thousands of drug tourists a day, which creates all kinds of problems. Maastricht has banned its coffeeshops to a `drug boulevard' outside the city, other places work with a pass system so that only locals can visit coffeeshops. Most other places don't experience such problems, so do not need such measures.
However, things have changed in the last decade. Modern designer plants literally drip with THC, the content of some weed is actually so high that it is considered hallucinogenic and thus a hard drug. Also, the growers are not old ladies or hippies anymore. It's now big business run by criminal gangs that grow for export, not just local use.
These are reasons for the police to crack down on the growers. It's also part of a political trend, the current coalition includes two christian parties. They are the parties responsible for the Netherlands joining Bush's wars. The former minister for science belongs to one of them, she kept telling universities they should look into ID, so they're quite extreme. Both parties spout rethoric about moral reconstruction of the country, they're also pushing for stiff jail sentences for squatters. City councils are against this, they tolerate squatters to make life difficult for real-estate speculators.
Concerning the drone, the police says they'll only use it if they suspect the presence of a cannabis farm. Maybe they get tipped of by electricity companies (growers rig their meters). What worries me far more than this silly drone, which seems to be mainly a deterrent, is a proposed law concerning smart meters. The ID woman is now minister of economy, and she's trying to make smart meters obligatory. Refusing to have them installed would be an economic crime, which implies high fines and even jail.
These meters send data about your minute-to-minute electricity use over the interwebtubes to your energy company, they in turn provide records to government upon request. So it just comes down to government spying, and since the meters have been hacked already, it means criminals can spy on you as well. They can then burgle your house while you're on holiday, so as not to inconvenience you too much. So it's a win-win situation. The motivation for this bill is that it will help consumers to be more energy efficient.
Most. Transparent. Excuse. Ever.
I bought a Levi's 501 for about $25 last year while visiting Nebraska. In the Netherlands you'd pay about 100 EUR, six times as much. Two weeks later someone went on a killing spree in that very same mall, maybe that's the kind of thing that keeps prices down in the US?
"get out of there it's gonna blow!" "Master, master, wheres the dreams that Ive been after? Master, master, you promised only lies Laughter, laughter, all I hear and see is laughter Laughter, laughter, laughing at my cries Hell is worth all that, natural habitat Just a rhyme without a reason Neverending maze, drift on numbered days Now your life is out of season" [fade out with evil laughter].
Given that every reply you got here basically says something different, I'd say that although many people have very strong opinions on this subject, nobody really knows. The same goes for me, and I have been developing for 24 years, I have a PhD in Computational Linguistics, worked in industry, taught software engineering courses etc. Of course you should be aware of methodologies such as waterfall, XP etc. But if you take a closer look you will see there is neither much of a theoretical nor an empirical basis for them, it always comes down to some guys saying 'this is how you should do it, trust us'. Think about it, would you buy a mortgage backed bond from somebody who tells you that documentation is a bad thing? Only in software engineering will you hear such a thing. So, the truth of the matter is, nobody knows. I think heavy engineering-type approaches generally do not work and are not used in practice. As an example, take OO programming. Almost any programmer will tell you that principles like inheritance, data encapsulation etc help you write better code. But, as far as I know, nobody bothered to check whether this is actually true (in a scientific way) until Les Hatton did, and guess what: he claims that OO code is significantly more buggy than non-OO . It seems counter-intuitive, but there you go. Another disturbing finding is that software quality has steadily decreased over the last few decades. I don't think his work has had much impact on how code is written nowadays. Another example, Cleanroom. It sounds good, the most scientific approach to software development I know of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom_Software_Engineering). Case studies have indicated that it's really good for delivering high-quality, cost-effective code. So good in fact that, as far as I know, nobody has ever adopted it. Cleanroom is an extreme case, but I could give many more such examples. The main reason for bad software is not technical, it's caused by the way the industry works. It's run by the kind of people that believe in motivational posters. That kind of mentality is dangerous in any engineering discipline, where you need to think defensively. Another problem is that there is no regulation as found in any other industry (food, aviation, civil engineering, healthcare etc). The way I see it, there's a war going on between professionals and 'generalists', and in ICT the latter have been on top for decades. Compared to say lawyers and surgeons, software developers have very little status. I hope I don't sound too cynical, of course I think there's a place for SE and I wish you the best of luck with your research. But I'm very sceptical about software quality going up in the near future as a result of SE research. There is hope though. If a team manages to steer clear of worst practices, and uses some kind (any kind!) of methodology, it would already produce code that's way beyond industry standard. The things you read on http://thedailywtf.com/ are just the tip of the iceberg. I've seen industry-grade code which had an implementation of bubble sort (in C). Some of the worst practices imho: - hiring the most uneducated and uncaring people you can find. All large IT firms do this, they're cheap, malleable, and motivated by money, which is something any manager can understand. Also, managers don't like to have people work for them that are better educated than they are. So as a customer, you pay extortionist prices to have art history majors and ex-cons build your back-office software. Another problem is that, even if a firm does not have this kind of policy, recruiters tend to be clueless bimbos. I've heard one of them complain about not being able to find C-programmers, "only C++, and what use are those!". I've also heard a recruiter proudly proclaim "we only do projects for large companies, the others can't afford us". - hiring antisocial, narcissistic people. Obviously arrogant behaviour is an indication of high market value. Never mind that such people check in non-comp