It's just one of those things where you have to defer to reality.
Yes, theoretically, Microsoft could act responsibly and cooperatively with regards to a public standard. However, given MS's past (ie: the reality of Microsoft), it makes sense to be extraordinarily skeptical of the outcome here.
It's like this, you have this public well in the center of town, and anyone can come and take a drink, and can volunteer to help maintain and operate the well. There's one guy in town, Prince William the Third, who is known for taking free, public services and corrupting them, selling them, and otherwise claiming such things are immoral because they don't make anyone any money. He's gone into the public park, cordoned it off and charged people to play in his area. He's set vermin free in the communal corn fields. And at the local mercantile, he always takes a penny, but never leaves a penny.
So you see him heading to the well with a large bucket and a drill... Do you think he's going to:
A. Drill holes into his large bucket to loop the rope through, giving to the town a larger bucket making it easier for them to bring up water.
or
B. Fill up his big bucket, then drill a hole into the current bucket about halfway up to make using the public bucket a bit more difficult, and oh, btw, you can buy some water from his huge bucket.
Yeah, maybe this time MS will play fair. I wouldn't bet on it. In fact, I'd say it's extremely foolish to think they'll do anything other than subvert the standard in a way that's designed to most benefit them. That's just what they do. Every single action MS makes is designed to give them the most competitive advantage they can get. There's nothing terribly wrong with this, just don't be so naive as to pretend they're even remotely likely to do otherwise.
It's not that we hate MS, so we don't trust them, it's that they've lost our trust, so we hate them. They could easily earn it back. IBM did it, Apple did it. Hopefully, some day MS will do it, too.
Hopefully this will all work out for the best, but skepticism is definitely called for.
What's the big deal? There have always been and always will be liars, cheats, and thieves among humans.
Yours is one of the most idiotic and mind-numbingly baffling class of comments one can find on Slashdot (and that's saying something!).
Putting aside the fact that you clearly have no understanding of what constitutes news, the fact that you don't find fraud to be a "big deal" is revolting. If you bought a PC from Dell (for example) that was fraudulently mislabeled like the ones in this story, would you just shrug it off and say, "big deal"? Or would you be pissed? Really pissed, and demand not only a refund (or at least, hardware that matches what you paid for), but also look into possible legal actions you might take, as well as, say, thinking it worthwhile to inform others about the fraud?
Not only is this news, but it's also worth alerting others to as well. If fraud is routinely shrugged off as normal and not reported on, there will be less reason to *not* engage in fraud.
Whatever someone may feel about Windows or some other OS, if thats what the company requires you to use then you have to use it.
Clearly the guy was able to run Linux, so depending on how you want to qualify your statement, you're either wrong or what you said doesn't apply to him.
Of course it does. The right to copy something (ie: copyright) can be Licensed to another party (say, an End User), who would have to accept the Agreement in order to receive the copyright license.
I honestly think people only think an unsigned, after-the-fact EULA means anything because they've been conditioned throughout their lives to blindingly accept authority, whether real or perceived.
Due to the faulty (IMO) notion that running a program is "copying" it in such a manner as to involve copyright law, merely running a program requires a license to use a copyrighted work. That's the foundation of the GPL (for example), as well as all your standard EULAs. Your license depends on you agreeing to the EULA. If you don't agree (or break the agreement) your license is revoked.
If the EULA means nothing, then every copyrighted program you are running that isn't licensed to you via other means is, legally, a copyright violation.
Your first paragraph doesn't follow from anything that's been said so far. No one disputes that Newton (for example) was a Christian.
Paragraphs 2 and 3 say nothing about science. You're talking philosophy, and make a valid point about intellectual Christians, but you really aren't talking about science.
Paragraph 4: maybe it's the problem with the presupposition that "Science and dogma don't mix very well at all." Yeah, it sounds good because maybe your professor or mentor told you that (or you've said it enough times), but could you actually argue that Science and Postmodernist relativism mix better?
That's really hard to address because "dogma" isn't a philosophy (comparing dogma to postmodernism, or some form of relativism). Science is a philosophy (or set of philosophies that share a common metaphysics and epistemology). Dogma is a form of epistemology, and it's a form that the philosophy of science cannot accept. All science (in fact, all knowledge of any sort) requires some things to be accepted as "given" (axioms). Science works feverishly to minimize the number of axioms, and to place them as far away as possible. Dogma, on the other hand, is an axiom smack in the middle where it doesn't belong.
The battle between ID and Evolution is not one of philosophy. The philosophy (science) has already been chosen. It's a battle within the realm of science. ID is *not* science. The onus is not on me to refute Dembski (or any other ID proponent), but for them to frame an actual scientific theory, and to promote it through the proper means. I promise you very much that a scientifically valid ID theory would be given due consideration by the scientific community, and if it's actually a more fit theory, it will even prevail over (or be incorporated into) the theory of evolution.
I appreciate the fact that you are an intellectual, a Christian, and a philosopher, but no one has said such a combination is not possible.
Intelligent design? As far as I know, nobody has actually refuted "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe. The man is not an idiot, he knows his molecular biology, and he raises some valid points. Screaming, "He's just a creationist!" doesn't make the points go away.
I haven't read, nor have I heard of, this book, but based on the context, I'm sure the argument isn't ad hominem ("he's just a creationist"), but that his theory is just yet another variation on creationism. My guess is that he is just pointing out aspects of evolution we haven't fully explored or explained, and is claiming "god lives (or might live) here!". So far, every time someone has claimed that, when the light of science has been shined there, we've found no god, just science.
There are people who believe that a fertilized egg is a human being. That's not a scientific question.
Are you serious? It most certainly *is* a scientific question. That's like saying, "is a fertilized horse egg a horse?" isn't a scientific question. One of the things science does really well is classify physical things.
And until you can persuade them that stem cell research isn't a moral issue, they're going to fight you. And some of them (certainly not all) can give you some intelligent reasons why they think what they do.
I haven't heard one. Have you? I've heard appeals to emotion, faith, dogma, and ignorance, but not a single "intelligent reason".
There are plenty of European/Western scientists, that most would consider some of the greatest scientists in the world, believed in a Christian view of God. The two are not mutually exclusive. It seems to me that people that believe as you do are as ignorant as you believe Christians are. That is pretty sad.
What's sad is how you completely misrepresented what the poster said.
He said "makes it hard" (not impossible) and that "Science isn't incompatible with spirituality, but it's totally in opposition to biblical literalism and other fundamentalist practices." which is in complete sync with your claim above about there being scientists who "believed in a Christian view of God".
The fact is there are very, very few prominent scientists who are evangelical or fundamentalist Christians (or any other religion, for that matter), which was his point.
Here is an article about a chemical engineer/scientist that happened to be a Christian. Do you think he would have been more accomplished if he took on an atheistic view of the world? If so, why?
Could you point out the part where he said "any Christian scientist would be more accomplished had he/she been an atheist", because I certainly didn't see that anywhere.
Science and dogma don't mix very well at all. Science and spirituality do mix quite well for some. *That's* what I got from Logic Bomb's post. Re-read it and see if you don't get the same.
Just 'cause they don't tote Bibles (though some do), doesn't mean they're not every bit as big a problem as the creationists
The irrational left might be just as wrong as the irrational right, but both sides are not equally problematic. The animal rights people you are talking about are a relatively disorganized and miniscule number of criminals and terrorists, and should be dealt with as such. The attack from the right is nothing less than a wide-ranging, well-organized, systematic attempt to undermine science itself.
Two different problems with different effects, even if both are based on equally irrational ideals.
"Microsoft won't try to dominate the search market if there is no money in it"
I actually wrote:
"Microsoft won't try to dominate the search market if there is no money in it (either directly, or indirectly)."
That's your first mistake.
Internet Explorer. Hotmail. Xbox. XP CD burning. Media Player.
Let's see, three of those are features of the OS. Geez, Apple must be losing money on Terminal.app. Those morons. lol
Hotmail makes money, or did you not notice the ads?
The Xbox just recently broke even. The fact that it lost money the first few years isn't a problem. MS now has free access to millions of living rooms. This isn't Gates "irrationally" seeking to defeat some competitor that he didn't even have at the time, it's him seeing a market that would benefit MS greatly to own.
I'll lump those all together as your second mistake.
It's not about profit to him, it's about beating the other guy.
You really have no business sense, do you? MS is all about owning whatever market they enter. Owning the market means profit. MS will not waste money to own a market that does not think will do them any good.
Small companies see a large market and think, "what can we do to make a profit here?" Large companies see a market and think, "what can I do to own that market?" Why would a company do the former when it can do the latter? Once you own the market, then you can think about profit, and the reason is that once you own a market, making a profit is much, much easier.
That's an easy mistake to make, so I won't count it against you.
Microsoft does not operate in any rational way when it comes to competition, and it doesn't have to.
But this is definitely going down as your third. Gates has been ultra-rational about competition. That's exactly why he does so well. If you play a market irrationally, then you are at the mercy of luck and the mistakes of your competitors. You seem to be only looking one move ahead, and are calling a grandmaster "irrational" for sacrificing a queen, not realizing that that's exactly how he won the game.
Of all your mistakes, this is your most profound. Understand why it's wrong, and you'll understand quite a bit about MS.
So must Microsoft. Microsoft won't try to dominate the search market if there is no money in it (either directly, or indirectly). But clearly there is money in it, and Google is the leader. That's a large reason why Google's market cap is so high.
Google owns the market right now. With regards to MS's ability to funnel money from other parts of the company, that just means MS can be the "competitor that won't go away", nothing more.
For example, Microsoft search can be adless [and a few other things...]
But MS won't do any of these things, so they are non-issues. It's sort of like saying MS can use Firefox as its default browser.
Plus, they can integrate it into their ownership of the OS and browser markets.
They already do this. I'm sure Vista will integrate MSN Search even greater.
Google has neither an endless mountain of cash
Google's market cap is just barely under $100 billion. Cash is not a problem, and as long as they stay ahead of the game, it won't be.
nor a 90% of the browsers, nor 90% of the desktops.
Google's services are more compatible with more browsers and more OS's than Microsoft's are.
The simple fact is that MS does not have to win - they can lose, and lose by a wide margin (in terms of profits) until Google is starved out of business. And then they win anyways by default.
That's not even remotely logical. If MS doesn't win "in terms of profits", but Google does, how, exactly, is that going to translate into an MS win over Google?
The only way Google loses in that scenario is if they lose their competitive edge over Microsoft. The ability for MS to funnel money from Office -> MSN Search doesn't mean MSN Search will outcompete Google, it just means MSN Search can stick around.
Imagine a poker game where the rich kid keeps buying himself in after repeatedly losing all his cash. Having more cash doesn't mean he's going to win. In order to win, he will actually have to learn the game and become good at it.
The whole reason this thread exists is because some guy had an issue with a so-called "political agenda". You brought up whether the character is done well or not, but that's not the issue. That's an entirely separate issue. Yes, it's a more proper issue with regards to the quality of the show, but trying to change the issue completely ignores the very real issue that this thread addresses.
If you were unsure, it might have been better to quote from and reply to the GP, rather than to me.
No, because the GP wasn't the one completely missing the point. I only included the caveat out of courtesy. It's poor form to use someone's good manners against them.
Whether the character is well or poorly written or not has no bearing on whether having a gay/bi-sexual main character itself is a bad thing.
You could forget, sometimes, that Tom Baker had curly hair.
Yeah, because there are so many curly-hair-ophobes. (rolls eyes)
Could you forget that Tuvok was black? If yes, then you have no problem. If no, then the problem is with you, not Tuvok.
I haven't seen the show, but...
Describe Dan Fielding from Night Court.
Or Sam Malone from Cheers.
Or that guy with the number from Lexx.
Or the Fonz (or Ralph and what's-his-name for that matter).
Now, that was a writing problem too, but I would have preferred something in the middle rather than having a main character almost totally dominated by his sexuality at the expense of other aspects of his development.
Having not seen the show, I can't comment on whether the character works or not, but that's not the issue, the issue is about a political agenda just because a character is gay (not gay, bi-sexual).
Oh noes! Teh gays are out to get us all!
Whatever. I've seen Will and Grace. I've laughed. I wasn't gay before seeing the show, and I'm still not. I've seen "Top Gun" and I don't want to become a fighter pilot, I've seen Star Trek: Voyager, and I don't want to become a woman.
If your psyche is so fragile that a gay (or bi-sexual) character makes you uncomfortable, that's your problem. Maybe you should look into fixing that, hmm? (And if you, MenTaLGuy, don't really have a problem with it, then this isn't directed at you personally).
Arguing over which economic model is like arguing which religion is right
Absolutely. Most people pick, for whatever reason, some system, then stick with it, and completely ignore logical arguments.
I'm not one of those people. If something I believe is shown to be logically false, I'll abandon it in that form without pause.
If you bought a car in a libertarian society and the second you hit the breaks the car exploded, that would be a criminal act.
I don't believe this is true at all. Unless the car is sold with the guarantee that it "won't explode", then the libertarian stance would be, "people have the right to buy potentially exploding cars if they want, and people have the right to sell potentially exploding cars if they want. If the buyer doesn't want to buy a potentially exploding car, it's up to him to do the research. You can't hold the car dealership/automaker at fault for selling something they have absolutely every right to sell."
A crazy ultra libertarian society would let you do heroine. They might make it so that you have to stand before a witness and consent to the health risks involved
Again, I don't believe this is true at all. I believe not only would you be allowed to do heroine, but you would not be forced to seek any sort of government permission to do so.
CO2 emissions are a nice example. CO2 is dumped into the air. No one owns the air.
Libertarians have no notion of "public property". They do have the notion of, "if the air is above my land, it's my air. Stop by if you want to discuss the issue. You have three choices, you can pay me to not pollute my own air, you can get the hell of my land, or you can say hello to my double-barrel shotgun."
Hell, imagine if every single car had to BUY CO2 emission rights?
From whom, exactly, do you buy those rights? The one entity that libertarians do not believe should have such power?
All of that said, you are right, libertarianism is not ideal. Libertarians have some great ideas.
I believe what you've done with your examples above where to take a libertarian-style idea, and transform it with, "what would be a rational way to apply this idea?" I also think you admit this with your next sentence:
They are extreme, and like all extremist, they are willing to pick ideology over utility.
And that's the problem. Like you say, libertarianism isn't alone in this, it's just that right now libertarianism is the topic at hand.
The fundamental problem with Libertarianism is that it contradicts reality. Personal Liberty can never be absolute in an actual society. Some times (increasingly becoming many times, until eventually, all the times) the wealthy will be able to gruesomely exploit the poor. The libertarian argument would be that "if society chooses to devolve into feudalism, so be it", but that is foolish. Like all people, the rich and powerful will desire to be even more rich and more powerful. This is not a bad thing, it's just true. But without safeguards in place, without limiting the liberty of the rich and powerful, they will march society ever backwards, ever away from the "personal liberty" libertarians hold so dear.
It's not just the rich and powerful that need, in order to have a healthy society, to be limited. Even the poorest person, in acts of valid self-interest, can cause unacceptable harm to society. Politics is the difference in opinion on when to side with the individual, when to side with society, and when to side with some sub-group of society, etc, on some issue or another. Under libertarianism it's "always side with the individual in questions of 'society vs individual', and stay out of the question of 'individual vs anyone else'".
As a Libertarian, once I've bought George Lucas' property I consider it my property.
Because you won't have "bought" his property, you'll have leased it. The DVD will remain "Property of 20th Century Fox", and the only rights you'll have are those which Lucas has granted Fox to grant you.
Libertarians are big on IP. If you aren't, then you aren't following libertarianism. Certainly, libertarians are against the increasing copyright laws--it's government encroachment. Instead, they want to give the creator of the content the right to decide under what terms to release it. Do you think Fox is going to release it under the Creative Commons?
Your absolutely right! Under Libertarianism if you desired to be a slave
That's not what I'm referring to. Libertarianism allows you to you sign a contract that makes you a slave, either directly, or indirectly through devious means.
Right now, no matter how poor you are in America, you cannot sign a contract that directly makes you a slave. Under libertarianism, if you are poor, there will be situations where your only hope of eating is to sign such a contract.
But it's worse than that. Under libertarianism, it's absolutely OK to devise a contract that looks like it says one thing, but really traps you. For example, see the "company store" scenario where you sign up for employment, and can't leave if you still owe the company money, but the company will never pay you enough to cover the costs of food and lodging from the company store.
"another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you take me 'cause I can't go, I sold my soul to the company store."
That's allowed under libertarianism, and if it's allowed, it will happen, and when it does happen, will you, as a libertarian, with glee state, "How great our system is!"?
Or a contract which feeds on the elderly? On the young who don't know better?
The fact is that in society, there is no lack of supply of people who can be tricked, and these aren't people who "deserve" it. I'm sure, I'm absolutely 100% sure, you've been tricked at some point in your life. How would you like it if one trick is all it took for someone to have the legal right to take every cent you'll ever earn for the rest of your life?
What are the public's self-interests? Does the public even have self-interests?
To define the "public's self-interests" one must define "the public" ("self interests" should be clear).
Some ideologies treat "the public" as an illusion, that it doesn't actually exist, and that it's instead, as you point out:
It seems to me the public is filled with innumerable different interests, and almost as many contradictions between them.
From the complex interactions of people in a society, certain behaviors "emerge" that are not the apparent sum of merely adding and subtracting the various actions of those individuals. For example, a two-person partnership can be more profitable than two people working at the same task separately. So while the two people will have their own self-interests, their partnership also has self-interests that are different from those of just two disparate individuals.
Expand this to a community. Tax each person to pay for a local fire station. No single person really needs a fire station, especially not enough to pay for one. But combined, the community can pay a small part which *is* worth while. Additionally, a homeowner in the community might benefit more than just having his house more secure from a fire, he might benefit from a corner store which can move into the neighborhood because the store owner can afford the insurance because of the local fire station.
Expand this to a city, which can benefit from a healthy industrial district, and people who have absolutely nothing to do with the industrial district will benefit from the effects of the district.
Expand to a state, a nation, a region, a planet. You get the idea.
So the self-interests of the public are those types of things. A robust highway system. A universal public education system. Police, fire dept., court houses. Capitalistic businesses, social government services, a strong defense against foreign invaders. All these things are in the public's interest.
I would saw I'm libertarian in some sense, but I wouldn't treat the common parlance corporation(like a Delaware corporation) as a private individual.
I agree with what you say about corporations. The corporation as we know it today is not a valid libertarian construct. Instead, a libertarian corporation would just be some sole-proprietor who has entered into an agreement with others (perhaps many thousands of others, such as shareholders), and would be directly responsible for many of the actions of the corporation.
Unfortunately, I don't think this type of corporation is very useful. The reality is that corporations can only be useful in many cases if they are granted a status which shields them from certain types of responsibilities. We're currently moving towards a "worst of both worlds" scenario, where corporations are granted the rights of the individual, while maintaining the limited responsibilities of the corporation.
I have no intention of getting into a long quote-fest. This post (on previewing it) is already too long as it is. Most of your points are that a libertarian market will tend towards superior products and services. This is absolutely false. Under a libertarian market, it's absolutely OK to sell drugs that will kill you. It's absolutely OK to sell cars that are unsafe at any speed. It's absolutely OK to trick people into entering a system that serves only to put them ever deeper in debt with no hope or possibility of escape.
You, like most libertarians, pretend that some good ideas are compatible with libertarianism. You also pretend that the advances that have come due to socialism are actually due to prosperity. I'll highlight a few examples.
Let's review exactly what the Constitution said which resulted in copyright law and the patent office:
The Congress shall have Power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
To a libertarian, the promotion of the progress of science and the useful arts is not a legitimate task for the government.
As a Libertarian, I think the market no longer needs even these protections. The market would prosper even in the absence of copyright or patent law. But, if we must have it, I would be thrilled if we simply returned copyright to its original term of seventeen years.
As a libertarian, by what moral right do you claim allows you to take George Lucas' property from him?
And while on unsafe goods, let me point out that seat belts became standard equipment on cars long before the US Government mandated them.
No, they didn't. I've provided a hint in my opening paragraph. If that's not enough, look into what Ralph Nader used to do before he let his own ideology get out of sync with reality.
You're right, personal liberty is wonderful. That's one of many reasons why I'm a Libertarian. And, if you really meant it, and you were better informed about what the Libertarian party stood for, you might become one too.
The libertarian party is a party based on irrationally treating a contradictory notion as an absolute. It is impossible to have a society without placing some limits on personal liberty. I repeat it's absolutely impossible. I don't mean in order to have a good society, or to have a civil society, or to have a prosperous society, etc, you have to limit personal liberty, I mean that there exists no possible way to have a society without limiting, in some way, personal liberty.
Libertarians ignore this fact, and by living contradictory to reality, they promote a system which cannot work. In order to design a system that works, one must accept the facts of reality, even if those facts aren't what you wish were true.
Libertarianism is one of those ideologies that doesn't allow for correction. It's a system that stems from the logical application of a simple and singular ideal. Libertarianism says, "x is absolute", and even when treating x as absolute is detrimental (or even impossible), it does not allow reality to suggest a more rational system.
Under libertarianism, you allow slavery conditions. How absurd that a philosophy that intends to promote personal liberty allows slavery!
I'd like to end this already-too-long post by pointing out that I don't generally disagree with the ideals and values of libertarians. I support limiting government powers, and enabling the individual as much as possible. But sometimes society is better when laws limit individual freedom. For example, a company's right to save $0.50 on each car they sell vs the benefit to society of dramatically fewer fatal accidents. I'm sure you can think of other examples where laws place little burden on corporations while providing great benefit to society. Or that place little hardship on the individual while providing great benefit to society. Unfortunately, the libertarian will choose a lesser society for the sake of an irrational (but lofty) ideal. In that way, they share a flaw with other idealistic ideologies I'm sure you can think of.
Libertarians are the ones who claim that if the licensor demands it, you can either agree or walk. They don't support a law that says (for example) "You can't copy a CD", but they support the right of the copyright to say, "You can't, under any circumstance, copy the CD I just sold you."
What the GP said about Laissez-Faire Capitalism, Randism, Libertarianism and greed are all true. Just because a handful of Libertarians online are anarcho-libertarians, doesn't change the fact that libertarianism irrationally puts the public's self-interests behind that of the individual's, always, and they treat the corporation as a individual (either directly, or indirectly as an extension of the owners of the corporation).
The problem with libertarianism, when taken as a logical philosophical absolute, is that it allows the less-than-noble among us to march society backwards all for the sake of ideology.
For example, although libertarians tend to hate spam, very few would support making spam illegal. They don't have the moral grounds, in their philosophy, to do so. Another example are seat-belts. Although seat-belts are crucial life-saving devices, libertarians would not force automakers to include them. Result? Automakers will put off including them as long as possible, and in the meantime some grotesque number of people will die all for the right of a corporation to make a few extra cents per auto.
A world based on libertarianism allows such atrocities as the "company store", racial discrimination at (for example) restaurants, toxic waste dumping, the sale of unsafe goods... The list goes on.
Personal liberty is wonderful. The rights and potentials of the individual are to be supported. Libertarianism fails to truly promote those as basic human rights. Libertarianism defends the individual from the government, but places them at the mercy of the wealthy.
What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal?... Even timid bunny rabbits can give a good bite if provoked enough. Again, will they need such devices?
Um, no, they aren't going to require chips in bunnies. Do you really think it likely they would classify a rabbit as a "potentially dangerous" animal?
Yes, eventually some law will be interpreted in some such stupid way, but your question is absurd. Just because something cannot be (or at least, hasn't been) objectively defined does not mean it does not exist, or is not useful.
Dangerous animals pose a public risk, and is within the legitimate realm of things to be controlled by law. If the application of the law requires the interpretation of a subjective term, if it relies on someone's opinion, then that's just the way it is. Many laws are like that, disturbing the peace, reckless driving, and so on. It might be preferable to have all laws be strictly and objectively defined, but sometimes you just can't realistically do so.
What's better, a law with clear intentions, and which a sense of "reasonable" can be used to interpret it, or letting people keep potentially dangerous animals, unchecked, in an urban environment?
I mean, seriously, if your neighbors bobcat killed your child, or you were attacked by someone's alligator that got loose, would you accept the excuse, "well, all animals are 'potentially dangerous', so we couldn't really treat a wild predator any different than a domestic herbivorous bunny"?
But if there is a Windows runtime/emulator/whatever-you-call-it, there will still be less native Mac versions. Count on it.
You're saying that there will be fewer apps than there are now? That companies will tell potential customers to buy VMWare and Windows if they want to run their app? Especially as there are more and more Mac users?
No, it means that less programs will be ported to Mac OS X, because Mac users can just run them on a Windows emulator.
"No" what? No, there won't be increased demand for OS X native software if there are more OS X users? No, there won't be more OS X users because they have the comfort-option of dumping OS X and running Windows? No, developers won't have a potentially easier time porting apps and such to x86 OS X than PPC OS X?
And you're a fool if you think fewer apps will be ported. Right now, very few apps are ported at all. None of those companies are going to *not* maintain their port. Adobe isn't going to say, "Well, just run the emulated Windows version".
Unlike OS/2 (which you *might* be thinking of), OS X will not come with Windows compatibility built-in. You'll have to buy that separately. So if a software publisher wants to target the Mac (which is more likely given more Mac users), they can't just rely on emulation.
Unlike OS/2, the Mac market in non-vertical environments is not insignificant.
Unlike OS/2, Mac native apps are significantly preferable to emulated apps.
But it will make four things dramatically easier and more compelling.
1. Emulation 2. Porting 3. Games 4. Drivers
Emulation is obvious. Compare VMWare vs VirtualPC.
Porting isn't as obvious, but anything that takes advantage of, or relies on, features of the CPU (byte ordering and SSE/AltiVec are important).
Games, because they depend on the CPU, optimization, and video drivers.
Drivers, because now NVidia and ATI (for example) can leverage x86 optimizations on their Mac driver.
So, you're right in that it doesn't mean Google Earth or Counter-Strike are now just a recompile away from being full-fledged Mac programs, but the prospects for running more software on the Mac will benefit from the x86 move.
Another factor that will help, but is not really a technical aspect of the switch, is that it opens the door of the Mac to more people. If x86 Linux and Windows will run on a Mac natively, then more fence-sitters will be able to justify getting a Mac, which translates into more consumer demand for native Mac apps.
Even under ideal conditions, amplifiable DNA is not thought to survive for longer than 1 Myr.
"not thought to" is different from "not possible", although I'd accept adequately long odds as being essentially the same as "not possible".
It would seem to me that the idea of a half-life would apply (although not necessarily linearly), in that after so much time, there would be half the original DNA left, and so on, so that even after hundreds millions of years there would be some amount of intact DNA around, given you have a large enough initial supply.
As to your proposal, if I make enough random DNA out of monomers, eventually one of those artificial chains will form a complete dinosaur chromosome. How, exactly, do you propose that I identify this perfect chromosome from among the population in my (absolutely enormous) sample?
Of course, even in Jurassic Park, they weren't exact clones of dinosaurs--they used frog DNA, and I'm pretty sure the cells themselves weren't dinosaur cells. So as long as we accept that limitation, it appears you bring up two problems:
1. How to find the DNA 2. How to verify it's actual dino-DNA, and not just a sort of jumbled mix
Issue 1 is addressed by narrowing your search. In Jurassic Park they did this by using blood trapped in amber.
Issue 2 might eventually be solvable by computer, but even assuming it's not, I could imagine just attempting to clone a dinosaur using the DNA you are able to find, and if you end up with something very much not like a dinosaur, then it was bad DNA.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to the papers you linked to, so I can't address them directly.
If you had said that a Jurassic Park scenario is not currently possible and quite possibly will never be possible, for dinosaurs, I probably wouldn't have been compelled to reply. It's just when someone says something is "not possible", it requires a bit more than it being a really tough problem.
What you've said implies that it's not impossible, just really, really difficult, and extremely unlikely, but you haven't made the case that it's "not possible".
They've found fossils with traces of blood, skin, flesh and feathers.
In terms of half-life, there's got to be some "dino-dna" around somewhere right now. At least, given a large enough mass of extant dinosaur remains.
The real question is just how much raw dino-mass it will take before any usable DNA can be expected to be found. Perhaps it would take many times more mass than that of every dinosaur that ever lived, but perhaps it's small enough that it's probable that in some museum somewhere is a realistically findable and usable strand of DNA.
I most certainly do not know the answer to that, but I'm not convinced you do either, and I suspect are just promoting as fact something that is more a belief on your part without any serious calculation to back it up.
The major source of security bugs in C and C++ is lazy programmers.
Why is that whenever a technology is flawed or otherwise lacking, the blame is put on the end user?
It makes me think that in a debate over the merits of putting a safety on a gun, these same people would say it makes the gun unnecessarily complex, expensive, prone to failure and just plain gets in the way when you really, really need that extra bit of performance, and besides, anyone who accidentally shoots themselves (or someone else) with a gun is an idiot in the first place.
The fact is that there is a security issue which *can* be fixed by each individual programmer, which both reality and the normal distribution curve demonstrate won't be universal, or can be fixed by the compiler, which will work 100% of the time that option is used (assuming the compiler implements the feature properly).
So, given the security issue exists, which solution is more likely to take hold: better (and more time consuming) programming practices will spread 'cross the land, or a compiler feature will fix the problem across the board?
Sure, it would be nice if programmers (and everyone, really) did their jobs "better", but it's foolish to expect it. It's better to fix the system itself because not only will it eliminate the problem, it will save the programmer from an unnecessary tedium, giving them more time to devote to actual features and other improvements.
Slashdot Mirror
It's just one of those things where you have to defer to reality.
Yes, theoretically, Microsoft could act responsibly and cooperatively with regards to a public standard. However, given MS's past (ie: the reality of Microsoft), it makes sense to be extraordinarily skeptical of the outcome here.
It's like this, you have this public well in the center of town, and anyone can come and take a drink, and can volunteer to help maintain and operate the well. There's one guy in town, Prince William the Third, who is known for taking free, public services and corrupting them, selling them, and otherwise claiming such things are immoral because they don't make anyone any money. He's gone into the public park, cordoned it off and charged people to play in his area. He's set vermin free in the communal corn fields. And at the local mercantile, he always takes a penny, but never leaves a penny.
So you see him heading to the well with a large bucket and a drill... Do you think he's going to:
A. Drill holes into his large bucket to loop the rope through, giving to the town a larger bucket making it easier for them to bring up water.
or
B. Fill up his big bucket, then drill a hole into the current bucket about halfway up to make using the public bucket a bit more difficult, and oh, btw, you can buy some water from his huge bucket.
Yeah, maybe this time MS will play fair. I wouldn't bet on it. In fact, I'd say it's extremely foolish to think they'll do anything other than subvert the standard in a way that's designed to most benefit them. That's just what they do. Every single action MS makes is designed to give them the most competitive advantage they can get. There's nothing terribly wrong with this, just don't be so naive as to pretend they're even remotely likely to do otherwise.
It's not that we hate MS, so we don't trust them, it's that they've lost our trust, so we hate them. They could easily earn it back. IBM did it, Apple did it. Hopefully, some day MS will do it, too.
Hopefully this will all work out for the best, but skepticism is definitely called for.
What's the big deal? There have always been and always will be liars, cheats, and thieves among humans.
Yours is one of the most idiotic and mind-numbingly baffling class of comments one can find on Slashdot (and that's saying something!).
Putting aside the fact that you clearly have no understanding of what constitutes news, the fact that you don't find fraud to be a "big deal" is revolting. If you bought a PC from Dell (for example) that was fraudulently mislabeled like the ones in this story, would you just shrug it off and say, "big deal"? Or would you be pissed? Really pissed, and demand not only a refund (or at least, hardware that matches what you paid for), but also look into possible legal actions you might take, as well as, say, thinking it worthwhile to inform others about the fraud?
Not only is this news, but it's also worth alerting others to as well. If fraud is routinely shrugged off as normal and not reported on, there will be less reason to *not* engage in fraud.
Whatever someone may feel about Windows or some other OS, if thats what the
company requires you to use then you have to use it.
Clearly the guy was able to run Linux, so depending on how you want to qualify your statement, you're either wrong or what you said doesn't apply to him.
Copyright law doesn't have provisions for EULAs.
Of course it does. The right to copy something (ie: copyright) can be Licensed to another party (say, an End User), who would have to accept the Agreement in order to receive the copyright license.
I honestly think people only think an unsigned, after-the-fact EULA means anything because they've been conditioned throughout their lives to blindingly accept authority, whether real or perceived.
Due to the faulty (IMO) notion that running a program is "copying" it in such a manner as to involve copyright law, merely running a program requires a license to use a copyrighted work. That's the foundation of the GPL (for example), as well as all your standard EULAs. Your license depends on you agreeing to the EULA. If you don't agree (or break the agreement) your license is revoked.
If the EULA means nothing, then every copyrighted program you are running that isn't licensed to you via other means is, legally, a copyright violation.
Your first paragraph doesn't follow from anything that's been said so far. No one disputes that Newton (for example) was a Christian.
Paragraphs 2 and 3 say nothing about science. You're talking philosophy, and make a valid point about intellectual Christians, but you really aren't talking about science.
Paragraph 4: maybe it's the problem with the presupposition that "Science and dogma don't mix very well at all." Yeah, it sounds good because maybe your professor or mentor told you that (or you've said it enough times), but could you actually argue that Science and Postmodernist relativism mix better?
That's really hard to address because "dogma" isn't a philosophy (comparing dogma to postmodernism, or some form of relativism). Science is a philosophy (or set of philosophies that share a common metaphysics and epistemology). Dogma is a form of epistemology, and it's a form that the philosophy of science cannot accept. All science (in fact, all knowledge of any sort) requires some things to be accepted as "given" (axioms). Science works feverishly to minimize the number of axioms, and to place them as far away as possible. Dogma, on the other hand, is an axiom smack in the middle where it doesn't belong.
The battle between ID and Evolution is not one of philosophy. The philosophy (science) has already been chosen. It's a battle within the realm of science. ID is *not* science. The onus is not on me to refute Dembski (or any other ID proponent), but for them to frame an actual scientific theory, and to promote it through the proper means. I promise you very much that a scientifically valid ID theory would be given due consideration by the scientific community, and if it's actually a more fit theory, it will even prevail over (or be incorporated into) the theory of evolution.
I appreciate the fact that you are an intellectual, a Christian, and a philosopher, but no one has said such a combination is not possible.
Intelligent design? As far as I know, nobody has actually refuted "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe. The man is not an idiot, he knows his molecular biology, and he raises some valid points. Screaming, "He's just a creationist!" doesn't make the points go away.
I haven't read, nor have I heard of, this book, but based on the context, I'm sure the argument isn't ad hominem ("he's just a creationist"), but that his theory is just yet another variation on creationism. My guess is that he is just pointing out aspects of evolution we haven't fully explored or explained, and is claiming "god lives (or might live) here!". So far, every time someone has claimed that, when the light of science has been shined there, we've found no god, just science.
There are people who believe that a fertilized egg is a human being. That's not a scientific question.
Are you serious? It most certainly *is* a scientific question. That's like saying, "is a fertilized horse egg a horse?" isn't a scientific question. One of the things science does really well is classify physical things.
And until you can persuade them that stem cell research isn't a moral issue, they're going to fight you. And some of them (certainly not all) can give you some intelligent reasons why they think what they do.
I haven't heard one. Have you? I've heard appeals to emotion, faith, dogma, and ignorance, but not a single "intelligent reason".
There are plenty of European/Western scientists, that most would consider some of the greatest scientists in the world, believed in a Christian view of God. The two are not mutually exclusive. It seems to me that people that believe as you do are as ignorant as you believe Christians are. That is pretty sad.
What's sad is how you completely misrepresented what the poster said.
He said "makes it hard" (not impossible) and that "Science isn't incompatible with spirituality, but it's totally in opposition to biblical literalism and other fundamentalist practices." which is in complete sync with your claim above about there being scientists who "believed in a Christian view of God".
The fact is there are very, very few prominent scientists who are evangelical or fundamentalist Christians (or any other religion, for that matter), which was his point.
Here is an article about a chemical engineer/scientist that happened to be a Christian. Do you think he would have been more accomplished if he took on an atheistic view of the world? If so, why?
Could you point out the part where he said "any Christian scientist would be more accomplished had he/she been an atheist", because I certainly didn't see that anywhere.
Science and dogma don't mix very well at all. Science and spirituality do mix quite well for some. *That's* what I got from Logic Bomb's post. Re-read it and see if you don't get the same.
Just 'cause they don't tote Bibles (though some do), doesn't mean they're not every bit as big a problem as the creationists
The irrational left might be just as wrong as the irrational right, but both sides are not equally problematic. The animal rights people you are talking about are a relatively disorganized and miniscule number of criminals and terrorists, and should be dealt with as such. The attack from the right is nothing less than a wide-ranging, well-organized, systematic attempt to undermine science itself.
Two different problems with different effects, even if both are based on equally irrational ideals.
You quoted me:
"Microsoft won't try to dominate the search market if there is no money in it"
I actually wrote:
"Microsoft won't try to dominate the search market if there is no money in it (either directly, or indirectly)."
That's your first mistake.
Internet Explorer.
Hotmail.
Xbox.
XP CD burning.
Media Player.
Let's see, three of those are features of the OS. Geez, Apple must be losing money on Terminal.app. Those morons. lol
Hotmail makes money, or did you not notice the ads?
The Xbox just recently broke even. The fact that it lost money the first few years isn't a problem. MS now has free access to millions of living rooms. This isn't Gates "irrationally" seeking to defeat some competitor that he didn't even have at the time, it's him seeing a market that would benefit MS greatly to own.
I'll lump those all together as your second mistake.
It's not about profit to him, it's about beating the other guy.
You really have no business sense, do you? MS is all about owning whatever market they enter. Owning the market means profit. MS will not waste money to own a market that does not think will do them any good.
Small companies see a large market and think, "what can we do to make a profit here?" Large companies see a market and think, "what can I do to own that market?" Why would a company do the former when it can do the latter? Once you own the market, then you can think about profit, and the reason is that once you own a market, making a profit is much, much easier.
That's an easy mistake to make, so I won't count it against you.
Microsoft does not operate in any rational way when it comes to competition, and it doesn't have to.
But this is definitely going down as your third. Gates has been ultra-rational about competition. That's exactly why he does so well. If you play a market irrationally, then you are at the mercy of luck and the mistakes of your competitors. You seem to be only looking one move ahead, and are calling a grandmaster "irrational" for sacrificing a queen, not realizing that that's exactly how he won the game.
Of all your mistakes, this is your most profound. Understand why it's wrong, and you'll understand quite a bit about MS.
Google must show a profit in their endeavors
So must Microsoft. Microsoft won't try to dominate the search market if there is no money in it (either directly, or indirectly). But clearly there is money in it, and Google is the leader. That's a large reason why Google's market cap is so high.
Google owns the market right now. With regards to MS's ability to funnel money from other parts of the company, that just means MS can be the "competitor that won't go away", nothing more.
For example, Microsoft search can be adless [and a few other things...]
But MS won't do any of these things, so they are non-issues. It's sort of like saying MS can use Firefox as its default browser.
Plus, they can integrate it into their ownership of the OS and browser markets.
They already do this. I'm sure Vista will integrate MSN Search even greater.
Google has neither an endless mountain of cash
Google's market cap is just barely under $100 billion. Cash is not a problem, and as long as they stay ahead of the game, it won't be.
nor a 90% of the browsers, nor 90% of the desktops.
Google's services are more compatible with more browsers and more OS's than Microsoft's are.
The simple fact is that MS does not have to win - they can lose, and lose by a wide margin (in terms of profits) until Google is starved out of business. And then they win anyways by default.
That's not even remotely logical. If MS doesn't win "in terms of profits", but Google does, how, exactly, is that going to translate into an MS win over Google?
The only way Google loses in that scenario is if they lose their competitive edge over Microsoft. The ability for MS to funnel money from Office -> MSN Search doesn't mean MSN Search will outcompete Google, it just means MSN Search can stick around.
Imagine a poker game where the rich kid keeps buying himself in after repeatedly losing all his cash. Having more cash doesn't mean he's going to win. In order to win, he will actually have to learn the game and become good at it.
And that's exactly what MS is good at.
"I have such enthusiasm and confidence in the mission." -Hal 9000
:-)
The whole reason this thread exists is because some guy had an issue with a so-called "political agenda". You brought up whether the character is done well or not, but that's not the issue. That's an entirely separate issue. Yes, it's a more proper issue with regards to the quality of the show, but trying to change the issue completely ignores the very real issue that this thread addresses.
If you were unsure, it might have been better to quote from and reply to the GP, rather than to me.
No, because the GP wasn't the one completely missing the point. I only included the caveat out of courtesy. It's poor form to use someone's good manners against them.
Whether the character is well or poorly written or not has no bearing on whether having a gay/bi-sexual main character itself is a bad thing.
You could forget, sometimes, that Tom Baker had curly hair.
Yeah, because there are so many curly-hair-ophobes. (rolls eyes)
Could you forget that Tuvok was black? If yes, then you have no problem. If no, then the problem is with you, not Tuvok.
I haven't seen the show, but...
Describe Dan Fielding from Night Court.
Or Sam Malone from Cheers.
Or that guy with the number from Lexx.
Or the Fonz (or Ralph and what's-his-name for that matter).
Now, that was a writing problem too, but I would have preferred something in the middle rather than having a main character almost totally dominated by his sexuality at the expense of other aspects of his development.
Having not seen the show, I can't comment on whether the character works or not, but that's not the issue, the issue is about a political agenda just because a character is gay (not gay, bi-sexual).
Oh noes! Teh gays are out to get us all!
Whatever. I've seen Will and Grace. I've laughed. I wasn't gay before seeing the show, and I'm still not. I've seen "Top Gun" and I don't want to become a fighter pilot, I've seen Star Trek: Voyager, and I don't want to become a woman.
If your psyche is so fragile that a gay (or bi-sexual) character makes you uncomfortable, that's your problem. Maybe you should look into fixing that, hmm? (And if you, MenTaLGuy, don't really have a problem with it, then this isn't directed at you personally).
Arguing over which economic model is like arguing which religion is right
Absolutely. Most people pick, for whatever reason, some system, then stick with it, and completely ignore logical arguments.
I'm not one of those people. If something I believe is shown to be logically false, I'll abandon it in that form without pause.
If you bought a car in a libertarian society and the second you hit the breaks the car exploded, that would be a criminal act.
I don't believe this is true at all. Unless the car is sold with the guarantee that it "won't explode", then the libertarian stance would be, "people have the right to buy potentially exploding cars if they want, and people have the right to sell potentially exploding cars if they want. If the buyer doesn't want to buy a potentially exploding car, it's up to him to do the research. You can't hold the car dealership/automaker at fault for selling something they have absolutely every right to sell."
A crazy ultra libertarian society would let you do heroine. They might make it so that you have to stand before a witness and consent to the health risks involved
Again, I don't believe this is true at all. I believe not only would you be allowed to do heroine, but you would not be forced to seek any sort of government permission to do so.
CO2 emissions are a nice example. CO2 is dumped into the air. No one owns the air.
Libertarians have no notion of "public property". They do have the notion of, "if the air is above my land, it's my air. Stop by if you want to discuss the issue. You have three choices, you can pay me to not pollute my own air, you can get the hell of my land, or you can say hello to my double-barrel shotgun."
Hell, imagine if every single car had to BUY CO2 emission rights?
From whom, exactly, do you buy those rights? The one entity that libertarians do not believe should have such power?
All of that said, you are right, libertarianism is not ideal. Libertarians have some great ideas.
I believe what you've done with your examples above where to take a libertarian-style idea, and transform it with, "what would be a rational way to apply this idea?" I also think you admit this with your next sentence:
They are extreme, and like all extremist, they are willing to pick ideology over utility.
And that's the problem. Like you say, libertarianism isn't alone in this, it's just that right now libertarianism is the topic at hand.
The fundamental problem with Libertarianism is that it contradicts reality. Personal Liberty can never be absolute in an actual society. Some times (increasingly becoming many times, until eventually, all the times) the wealthy will be able to gruesomely exploit the poor. The libertarian argument would be that "if society chooses to devolve into feudalism, so be it", but that is foolish. Like all people, the rich and powerful will desire to be even more rich and more powerful. This is not a bad thing, it's just true. But without safeguards in place, without limiting the liberty of the rich and powerful, they will march society ever backwards, ever away from the "personal liberty" libertarians hold so dear.
It's not just the rich and powerful that need, in order to have a healthy society, to be limited. Even the poorest person, in acts of valid self-interest, can cause unacceptable harm to society. Politics is the difference in opinion on when to side with the individual, when to side with society, and when to side with some sub-group of society, etc, on some issue or another. Under libertarianism it's "always side with the individual in questions of 'society vs individual', and stay out of the question of 'individual vs anyone else'".
As a Libertarian, once I've bought George Lucas' property I consider it my property.
Because you won't have "bought" his property, you'll have leased it. The DVD will remain "Property of 20th Century Fox", and the only rights you'll have are those which Lucas has granted Fox to grant you.
Libertarians are big on IP. If you aren't, then you aren't following libertarianism. Certainly, libertarians are against the increasing copyright laws--it's government encroachment. Instead, they want to give the creator of the content the right to decide under what terms to release it. Do you think Fox is going to release it under the Creative Commons?
Your absolutely right! Under Libertarianism if you desired to be a slave
That's not what I'm referring to. Libertarianism allows you to you sign a contract that makes you a slave, either directly, or indirectly through devious means.
Right now, no matter how poor you are in America, you cannot sign a contract that directly makes you a slave. Under libertarianism, if you are poor, there will be situations where your only hope of eating is to sign such a contract.
But it's worse than that. Under libertarianism, it's absolutely OK to devise a contract that looks like it says one thing, but really traps you. For example, see the "company store" scenario where you sign up for employment, and can't leave if you still owe the company money, but the company will never pay you enough to cover the costs of food and lodging from the company store.
"another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you take me 'cause I can't go, I sold my soul to the company store."
That's allowed under libertarianism, and if it's allowed, it will happen, and when it does happen, will you, as a libertarian, with glee state, "How great our system is!"?
Or a contract which feeds on the elderly? On the young who don't know better?
The fact is that in society, there is no lack of supply of people who can be tricked, and these aren't people who "deserve" it. I'm sure, I'm absolutely 100% sure, you've been tricked at some point in your life. How would you like it if one trick is all it took for someone to have the legal right to take every cent you'll ever earn for the rest of your life?
What are the public's self-interests? Does the public even have self-interests?
To define the "public's self-interests" one must define "the public" ("self interests" should be clear).
Some ideologies treat "the public" as an illusion, that it doesn't actually exist, and that it's instead, as you point out:
It seems to me the public is filled with innumerable different interests, and almost as many contradictions between them.
From the complex interactions of people in a society, certain behaviors "emerge" that are not the apparent sum of merely adding and subtracting the various actions of those individuals. For example, a two-person partnership can be more profitable than two people working at the same task separately. So while the two people will have their own self-interests, their partnership also has self-interests that are different from those of just two disparate individuals.
Expand this to a community. Tax each person to pay for a local fire station. No single person really needs a fire station, especially not enough to pay for one. But combined, the community can pay a small part which *is* worth while. Additionally, a homeowner in the community might benefit more than just having his house more secure from a fire, he might benefit from a corner store which can move into the neighborhood because the store owner can afford the insurance because of the local fire station.
Expand this to a city, which can benefit from a healthy industrial district, and people who have absolutely nothing to do with the industrial district will benefit from the effects of the district.
Expand to a state, a nation, a region, a planet. You get the idea.
So the self-interests of the public are those types of things. A robust highway system. A universal public education system. Police, fire dept., court houses. Capitalistic businesses, social government services, a strong defense against foreign invaders. All these things are in the public's interest.
I would saw I'm libertarian in some sense, but I wouldn't treat the common parlance corporation(like a Delaware corporation) as a private individual.
I agree with what you say about corporations. The corporation as we know it today is not a valid libertarian construct. Instead, a libertarian corporation would just be some sole-proprietor who has entered into an agreement with others (perhaps many thousands of others, such as shareholders), and would be directly responsible for many of the actions of the corporation.
Unfortunately, I don't think this type of corporation is very useful. The reality is that corporations can only be useful in many cases if they are granted a status which shields them from certain types of responsibilities. We're currently moving towards a "worst of both worlds" scenario, where corporations are granted the rights of the individual, while maintaining the limited responsibilities of the corporation.
I have no intention of getting into a long quote-fest. This post (on previewing it) is already too long as it is. Most of your points are that a libertarian market will tend towards superior products and services. This is absolutely false. Under a libertarian market, it's absolutely OK to sell drugs that will kill you. It's absolutely OK to sell cars that are unsafe at any speed. It's absolutely OK to trick people into entering a system that serves only to put them ever deeper in debt with no hope or possibility of escape.
You, like most libertarians, pretend that some good ideas are compatible with libertarianism. You also pretend that the advances that have come due to socialism are actually due to prosperity. I'll highlight a few examples.
Let's review exactly what the Constitution said which resulted in copyright law and the patent office:
The Congress shall have Power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
To a libertarian, the promotion of the progress of science and the useful arts is not a legitimate task for the government.
As a Libertarian, I think the market no longer needs even these protections. The market would prosper even in the absence of copyright or patent law. But, if we must have it, I would be thrilled if we simply returned copyright to its original term of seventeen years.
As a libertarian, by what moral right do you claim allows you to take George Lucas' property from him?
And while on unsafe goods, let me point out that seat belts became standard equipment on cars long before the US Government mandated them.
No, they didn't. I've provided a hint in my opening paragraph. If that's not enough, look into what Ralph Nader used to do before he let his own ideology get out of sync with reality.
You're right, personal liberty is wonderful. That's one of many reasons why I'm a Libertarian. And, if you really meant it, and you were better informed about what the Libertarian party stood for, you might become one too.
The libertarian party is a party based on irrationally treating a contradictory notion as an absolute. It is impossible to have a society without placing some limits on personal liberty. I repeat it's absolutely impossible. I don't mean in order to have a good society, or to have a civil society, or to have a prosperous society, etc, you have to limit personal liberty, I mean that there exists no possible way to have a society without limiting, in some way, personal liberty.
Libertarians ignore this fact, and by living contradictory to reality, they promote a system which cannot work. In order to design a system that works, one must accept the facts of reality, even if those facts aren't what you wish were true.
Libertarianism is one of those ideologies that doesn't allow for correction. It's a system that stems from the logical application of a simple and singular ideal. Libertarianism says, "x is absolute", and even when treating x as absolute is detrimental (or even impossible), it does not allow reality to suggest a more rational system.
Under libertarianism, you allow slavery conditions. How absurd that a philosophy that intends to promote personal liberty allows slavery!
I'd like to end this already-too-long post by pointing out that I don't generally disagree with the ideals and values of libertarians. I support limiting government powers, and enabling the individual as much as possible. But sometimes society is better when laws limit individual freedom. For example, a company's right to save $0.50 on each car they sell vs the benefit to society of dramatically fewer fatal accidents. I'm sure you can think of other examples where laws place little burden on corporations while providing great benefit to society. Or that place little hardship on the individual while providing great benefit to society. Unfortunately, the libertarian will choose a lesser society for the sake of an irrational (but lofty) ideal. In that way, they share a flaw with other idealistic ideologies I'm sure you can think of.
Libertarians are the ones who claim that if the licensor demands it, you can either agree or walk. They don't support a law that says (for example) "You can't copy a CD", but they support the right of the copyright to say, "You can't, under any circumstance, copy the CD I just sold you."
What the GP said about Laissez-Faire Capitalism, Randism, Libertarianism and greed are all true. Just because a handful of Libertarians online are anarcho-libertarians, doesn't change the fact that libertarianism irrationally puts the public's self-interests behind that of the individual's, always, and they treat the corporation as a individual (either directly, or indirectly as an extension of the owners of the corporation).
The problem with libertarianism, when taken as a logical philosophical absolute, is that it allows the less-than-noble among us to march society backwards all for the sake of ideology.
For example, although libertarians tend to hate spam, very few would support making spam illegal. They don't have the moral grounds, in their philosophy, to do so. Another example are seat-belts. Although seat-belts are crucial life-saving devices, libertarians would not force automakers to include them. Result? Automakers will put off including them as long as possible, and in the meantime some grotesque number of people will die all for the right of a corporation to make a few extra cents per auto.
A world based on libertarianism allows such atrocities as the "company store", racial discrimination at (for example) restaurants, toxic waste dumping, the sale of unsafe goods... The list goes on.
Personal liberty is wonderful. The rights and potentials of the individual are to be supported. Libertarianism fails to truly promote those as basic human rights. Libertarianism defends the individual from the government, but places them at the mercy of the wealthy.
What exactly is a "potentially dangerous" animal? ... Even timid bunny rabbits can give a good bite if provoked enough. Again, will they need such devices?
Um, no, they aren't going to require chips in bunnies. Do you really think it likely they would classify a rabbit as a "potentially dangerous" animal?
Yes, eventually some law will be interpreted in some such stupid way, but your question is absurd. Just because something cannot be (or at least, hasn't been) objectively defined does not mean it does not exist, or is not useful.
Dangerous animals pose a public risk, and is within the legitimate realm of things to be controlled by law. If the application of the law requires the interpretation of a subjective term, if it relies on someone's opinion, then that's just the way it is. Many laws are like that, disturbing the peace, reckless driving, and so on. It might be preferable to have all laws be strictly and objectively defined, but sometimes you just can't realistically do so.
What's better, a law with clear intentions, and which a sense of "reasonable" can be used to interpret it, or letting people keep potentially dangerous animals, unchecked, in an urban environment?
I mean, seriously, if your neighbors bobcat killed your child, or you were attacked by someone's alligator that got loose, would you accept the excuse, "well, all animals are 'potentially dangerous', so we couldn't really treat a wild predator any different than a domestic herbivorous bunny"?
Yes.
But if there is a Windows runtime/emulator/whatever-you-call-it, there will still be less native Mac versions. Count on it.
You're saying that there will be fewer apps than there are now? That companies will tell potential customers to buy VMWare and Windows if they want to run their app? Especially as there are more and more Mac users?
It just doesn't follow.
No, it means that less programs will be ported to Mac OS X, because Mac users can just run them on a Windows emulator.
"No" what? No, there won't be increased demand for OS X native software if there are more OS X users? No, there won't be more OS X users because they have the comfort-option of dumping OS X and running Windows? No, developers won't have a potentially easier time porting apps and such to x86 OS X than PPC OS X?
And you're a fool if you think fewer apps will be ported. Right now, very few apps are ported at all. None of those companies are going to *not* maintain their port. Adobe isn't going to say, "Well, just run the emulated Windows version".
Unlike OS/2 (which you *might* be thinking of), OS X will not come with Windows compatibility built-in. You'll have to buy that separately. So if a software publisher wants to target the Mac (which is more likely given more Mac users), they can't just rely on emulation.
Unlike OS/2, the Mac market in non-vertical environments is not insignificant.
Unlike OS/2, Mac native apps are significantly preferable to emulated apps.
But it will make four things dramatically easier and more compelling.
1. Emulation
2. Porting
3. Games
4. Drivers
Emulation is obvious. Compare VMWare vs VirtualPC.
Porting isn't as obvious, but anything that takes advantage of, or relies on, features of the CPU (byte ordering and SSE/AltiVec are important).
Games, because they depend on the CPU, optimization, and video drivers.
Drivers, because now NVidia and ATI (for example) can leverage x86 optimizations on their Mac driver.
So, you're right in that it doesn't mean Google Earth or Counter-Strike are now just a recompile away from being full-fledged Mac programs, but the prospects for running more software on the Mac will benefit from the x86 move.
Another factor that will help, but is not really a technical aspect of the switch, is that it opens the door of the Mac to more people. If x86 Linux and Windows will run on a Mac natively, then more fence-sitters will be able to justify getting a Mac, which translates into more consumer demand for native Mac apps.
Even under ideal conditions, amplifiable DNA is not thought to survive for
longer than 1 Myr.
"not thought to" is different from "not possible", although I'd accept adequately long odds as being essentially the same as "not possible".
It would seem to me that the idea of a half-life would apply (although not necessarily linearly), in that after so much time, there would be half the original DNA left, and so on, so that even after hundreds millions of years there would be some amount of intact DNA around, given you have a large enough initial supply.
As to your proposal, if I make enough random DNA out of monomers, eventually one of those artificial chains will form a complete dinosaur chromosome. How, exactly, do you propose that I identify this perfect chromosome from among the population in my (absolutely enormous) sample?
Of course, even in Jurassic Park, they weren't exact clones of dinosaurs--they used frog DNA, and I'm pretty sure the cells themselves weren't dinosaur cells. So as long as we accept that limitation, it appears you bring up two problems:
1. How to find the DNA
2. How to verify it's actual dino-DNA, and not just a sort of jumbled mix
Issue 1 is addressed by narrowing your search. In Jurassic Park they did this by using blood trapped in amber.
Issue 2 might eventually be solvable by computer, but even assuming it's not, I could imagine just attempting to clone a dinosaur using the DNA you are able to find, and if you end up with something very much not like a dinosaur, then it was bad DNA.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to the papers you linked to, so I can't address them directly.
If you had said that a Jurassic Park scenario is not currently possible and quite possibly will never be possible, for dinosaurs, I probably wouldn't have been compelled to reply. It's just when someone says something is "not possible", it requires a bit more than it being a really tough problem.
What you've said implies that it's not impossible, just really, really difficult, and extremely unlikely, but you haven't made the case that it's "not possible".
They've found fossils with traces of blood, skin, flesh and feathers.
In terms of half-life, there's got to be some "dino-dna" around somewhere right now. At least, given a large enough mass of extant dinosaur remains.
The real question is just how much raw dino-mass it will take before any usable DNA can be expected to be found. Perhaps it would take many times more mass than that of every dinosaur that ever lived, but perhaps it's small enough that it's probable that in some museum somewhere is a realistically findable and usable strand of DNA.
I most certainly do not know the answer to that, but I'm not convinced you do either, and I suspect are just promoting as fact something that is more a belief on your part without any serious calculation to back it up.
The major source of security bugs in C and C++ is lazy programmers.
Why is that whenever a technology is flawed or otherwise lacking, the blame is put on the end user?
It makes me think that in a debate over the merits of putting a safety on a gun, these same people would say it makes the gun unnecessarily complex, expensive, prone to failure and just plain gets in the way when you really, really need that extra bit of performance, and besides, anyone who accidentally shoots themselves (or someone else) with a gun is an idiot in the first place.
The fact is that there is a security issue which *can* be fixed by each individual programmer, which both reality and the normal distribution curve demonstrate won't be universal, or can be fixed by the compiler, which will work 100% of the time that option is used (assuming the compiler implements the feature properly).
So, given the security issue exists, which solution is more likely to take hold: better (and more time consuming) programming practices will spread 'cross the land, or a compiler feature will fix the problem across the board?
Sure, it would be nice if programmers (and everyone, really) did their jobs "better", but it's foolish to expect it. It's better to fix the system itself because not only will it eliminate the problem, it will save the programmer from an unnecessary tedium, giving them more time to devote to actual features and other improvements.