You're right that backward compatibility isn't broken hard, but it's going to be broken EVERYWHERE because they've changed the syntax for print and the semantics for list operations by moving everything to iterators.
Prints will be easy to fix, because the old style will cause syntax errors... but old-style code that assumes range() and zip() return lists will break at runtime. Bugs will turn up months after you thought you fixed some code because you forgot some corner-case that isn't called often.
(I'm not complaining - I agree with most of the changes in 3 - I'm just saying that updating code won't necessarily be trivial)
Wikipedia is not about creating an archive of all of human knowledge Funny, because that has been the goal of just about every encyclopedia ever conceived.
For further information, I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia#History
A type system is a theorem, and a [correctly typed] program is a proof. This is Curry-Howard isomorphism.
Thus, proving properties about a program can be done as a mathematical proof, and Godel applies in a more general sense in exactly the same way it applies to all mathematical proofs.
So it is possible to prove that a program doesn't have any bugs, but you have to either be able to define what a bug is (e.g. "access beyond array bounds"), or define what it isn't ("a correct program shall always free memory that it's allocated"). Ultimately I suspect that proving a program is 100% bug-free is just as hard as writing the correct program (for non-trivial programs); but I'm not sure about that. Alternately, you may define some behavior as a "bug" that is not possible to prove in the general case, e.g. "this program halts", in which case you're out of luck.
Of course, this demands that you know exactly how your code will execute. That requires either a language with complete semantics (SML? Haskell?), or a really profound understanding of the compiler and runtime system (because the specifications of most languages, like C, do not completely define their computations). This is why this sort of thing isn't done very often.
There are some systems/languages which guarantee certain properties... this is "proof-carrying code", and is only used right now on some mission-critical systems... but may get more popular some day, as it allows you to trust chunks of anonymous code.
Yeah, you're right, it doesn't use ZFS. I got that idea from an ArsTechnica article, which I didn't read all the way through. The article was actually arguing that Time Machine should use ZFS:-P
To answer my own question, there are apparently two differences:
1. The technical difference: Apple's "Time Machine" is implmented at the file system level via ZFS. Dirvish's integration is less tight, allowing you to use whatever file system you want, but requiring the historical/snapshot data to be stored in a specially set-aside directory.
2. The non-technical difference: "Time Machine" has a sexy user interface. Dirvish does not. It's easy for CLI nerds to dismiss this point, but by reading the comments here, it's apparent that people really like this sexy user interface. "Flyback" is mostly trying to duplicate that interface.
It doesn't directly address Pratt's point, but it addresses some of the things raised in the discussion that followed Pratt's post regarding universality.
I can't believe anyone would write this summary without mentioning Baidu.
Baidu is killing Google in the mainland Chinese market. Despite serious corruption (pay-for-placement extortion schemes + bowing before the Chinese censors), all of the Chinese I've talked to say Baidu consistently returns better results than Google.
People are going to learn to cope with this "feature" once XP goes away.
Most likely, everyone will just tape the Vista serial number to the front of the machine... which means that thieves need only look at the front of machines to steal someone else's Vista. Progress!
I had Vista running in vmware. Changing the virtual machine's allocated memory from 512 to 768 also forces reactivation... what a pain in the ass.
The advantage of doing this in a virtual environment is that "pkill -9 vmware" in a blind rage is a lot cheaper than throwing your computer out the window.
I don't understand why everyone thinks that more competition would solve the problem of slow broadband growth in the U.S.. In any market with both cable and phone lines, there IS a healthy competition for the broadband market. Part of the problem is that infrastructure investments are too costly over such a large and sparse country, and the other part of the problem is that there's still less demand for fast broadband (e.g., my mother, who is perfectly happy with her 56k) than in more tech-savvy countries.
It would be nice to see the government push through some incentive for someone to lay lots of fibre so we could get the kind of bandwidth enjoyed by Japan. Sadly, this is not the kind of thing that the private sector is going to do by itself unless some new technology changes the landscape.
(And, unfortunately, planning for the future is not exactly the Bush administration's strong point...)
> The saddest thing is really for those that aren't so computer savy, or aren't comfortable with lying.
The important skill is to emulate a Windows user over the phone, while actually doing everything on Linux. If you mention words like "ifconfig" or "traceroute" or possibly even "dhcp", you will confuse the Comcast representative and he/she will reset.
On a mostly unrelated note, parent post led me to the OpenNMS web page, and in turn the OpenNMS "live" demo... which appears to have been Slashdotted or something. In its smoking crater is now a lovely error message:
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: FATAL: sorry, too many clients already
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.handle JspException(JspServletWrapper.java:510)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.servic e(JspServletWrapper.java:375)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFil e(JspServlet.java:314)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspSe rvlet.java:264)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.inv oke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:672)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doI nclude(ApplicationDispatcher.java:574)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.inc lude(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspRuntimeLibrary.includ e(JspRuntimeLibrary.java:966)
at org.apache.jsp.index_jsp._jspService(index_jsp.jav a:53)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(Http JspBase.java:97)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.servic e(JspServletWrapper.java:332)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFil e(JspServlet.java:314)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspSe rvlet.java:264)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:802)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.extremecomponents.table.filter.AbstractExportF ilter.doFilter(AbstractExportFilter.java:49)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.opennms.web.AddRefreshHeaderFilter.doFilter(Ad dRefreshHeaderFilter.java:73)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.opennms.web.StoreRequestPropertiesFilter.doFil ter(StoreRequestPropertiesFilter.java:71)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.j
It's a little unfair to compare Ubuntu 7.04 to Windows XP. XP came out in October 2001; it's ancient.
I've recently upgraded from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04, and also installed Vista (in VMWare) just to play with it.
I was pleasantly surprised by incremental but highly visible improvements in Ubuntu usability/friendliness. Particularly, the auto-install of proprietary codecs for mp3 and windows media actually works now, and network-manager being part of the default install has cleared up the usual Linux + wireless headache. It's definitely closer to something that could replace Windows for mom and pop, although overall it still takes some Linux know-how to get the right software installed. The tan-hued default desktop theme is still fugly, tho. (and that's not opinion.. it's objective fact)
But, at the same time, I've been very impressed by Vista's improvements over XP. Everyone is really critical of Vista, but I find it to be a much better experience, particularly for tasks that involve navigating and manipulating the file system. It's also a little less intrusive with the auto-update crap that drives me nuts in XP. Granted, I'm not playing games or using legacy apps; I understand that Vista has issues with these.
I would say that the defining characteristic of "wasting someone else's time" is that it's involuntary. For instance, you aren't wasting my time here, because I'm voluntarily wasting my own time. (and in a free society, we can't hold people liable for wasting their own time... it is theirs to waste)
Maybe a better term would be "time theft"
> I mean, if you and your colleges get distracted by some students outside the schools every day, > who play loud music even if you already told them it is disturbing, shouldn't they get 65 years...
If 1,000,000 colleagues are distracted.... then, yes, they should get 65 years. That's the thing about spam that makes it different from all of these other crimes, including murder: it takes a trivially larger effort to exponentially increase the volume.
I think it's entirely reasonable for these guys to get life in prison without parole. The same goes for Enron's Skilling and Lay; indeed, the essence of the crime is the same: stealing a little bit from a lot of people in bad faith.
The murder comparison is really a digression, and everybody is correct that murder is really fundamentally different than spam. My point is really just that people do not take spam seriously because it doesn't impact any one person very much; but the aggregate cost to society is staggering, and that should be considered. Our court system is not well-equipped to assess the magnitude of a crime that affects millions.
> 2)If you spam all people, you are left with a society that wastes more time (or can't use email anymore), therefor, society as a whole can survive
I should have clarified from the start that I'm using a very broad definition of spam. Namely, "to waste the time of many people", e.g., not necessarily through the medium of email.
Under the narrower email-only definition, I quite agree with you. But, in the broader sense...
Spam may be applied by varying degrees, whereas murder is boolean (It is nonsensical to "moderately kill" someone, but moderate spamming is less bad than heavy spamming). So for the categorical imperative, we crank the spam to 100% of time wasted for 100% of people, and arrive at:
2) If you continuously spam all people, you are left with a society that wastes ALL time. Therefore, society as a whole cannot survive; it suffocates.
> Ok...if you really believe that, it would mean that, if you *had* to choose between someone being killed, and 11000000 spams being send, you would > rather opt for the former. Somehow, I don't see that as the most moral choice. Ofcourse, one could be an egotistical bastard, and say: go ahead! > But then I would ask: would you really say the same if YOU were the person to be killed?
I do believe that there's some point where a volume of spam is worse than a single death. I'm not going to try to figure out if it's 1000 spams or 10e9, though. I don't know.
> Now, why is there this difference? Because, frankly, spam and murder are simply not comparable, nomatter how much spam it is. They are on a completely different level.
This dilemma occurs any time human life is weighed against a more tangible (and less sacred) resource. Nobody wants to make this decision, for the exact reason you give: It's immoral to put a price on life, whether that price be measured in time, money, oil, or bananas**.
That's why black-and-white morality is an inadequate framework for real life. Sometimes you need to compare apples and oranges.
People avoid explicitly pricing life, but the decision is made quietly and implicitly by market and social forces every day. Just a few examples:
--> Automobile speed limits: Reducing highway speed to 10mph would save lives. So why don't we do it?:: Life versus time
--> Airport security: Running checked baggage through decompression prevents pressure-triggered bombs from making it onto a plane. Israel does this. Why don't we? It's too expensive.:: Life versus money
--> Pharmaceutical testing: More extensive testing would definitely save lives:: Life versus time and money
Are these things immoral? Maybe, but no single person is responsible for the decision. Given that, I think it's okay to come out and say, "Here is how we are going to price life, and this is why..." for a particular situation. These decisions could be better made by clear reasoning, but the status quo is to avoid thinking about it and let whatever happens happen.
> Were you attempting to make the stupidest comment in this thread, or did it just pop out? *boggles*
Okay, I admit to being trollish. Still, it would be nice to discuss something here just once without being personally attacked. (Yeah, I know, it's Slashdot...)
My point was this: Spam is a crime of scale. Murder, when scaled, is genocide.
I'm not saying spam is as BAD as genocide. Obviously it's not. Obviously they're qualitatively different.
But I honestly do think that wasting millions of people's time and money is worse than killing a single person. The impact to society is MUCH higher, but nobody understands that because it's too hard to measure. You're free to disagree with me --- I know it's not a popular viewpoint, especially in the West where the rights of an individual are valued above the rights of society --- but can we please not devolve to ad-hominem sniping?
And, because this is Slashdot, I'll end with a bad analogy:
Society is like a house. Murder is akin to a window being broken: It's a highly visible problem that needs to be fixed, but a window broken on the first floor doesn't affect the second. Spam is like termites; you can't even see it, but it's slowly eating away the structure.
A spammer wastes the time of MILLIONS of people, and disrupts the lives of thousands who fall victim to scams.
Those seconds add up to countless lives in aggregate.
Spammers undermine people's trust in society in a way that isolated murders cannot. Spam is a calculated and rational attack on the rules of society --- the product of sociopathic cost/benefit analysis --- whereas murder is almost always driven by passion or desperation or stupidity, at least in the first world where law enforcement is strong.
Don't compare spam to murder... compare it to genocide.
Microsoft Research has an OS named Singularity, designed to leverage many CPUs. You can bet that some of their research will go into the next Windows... I saw a presentation by the developers, and they firmly believe that none of the current generation operating systems are going to be able to effectively use i.e. thousands of processors.
One of the key improvements is an order of magnitude increase over conventional Windows and Linux in the speed of creating threads.
They also talked about the need for new programming paradigms, and I have a feeling that these are just as important if not more so than the shape of the next-gen OS. It was funny to hear guys from Microsoft --- who brought us Visual Basic --- saying that maybe functional programming was going to be the next wave.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right that backward compatibility isn't broken hard, but it's going to be broken EVERYWHERE because they've changed the syntax for print and the semantics for list operations by moving everything to iterators.
Prints will be easy to fix, because the old style will cause syntax errors... but old-style code that assumes range() and zip() return lists will break at runtime. Bugs will turn up months after you thought you fixed some code because you forgot some corner-case that isn't called often.
(I'm not complaining - I agree with most of the changes in 3 - I'm just saying that updating code won't necessarily be trivial)
ACM curricula guidelines
Scandalous!
I would rant about how stupid the original post is, but I see that's already been covered...
For further information, I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia#History
A type system is a theorem, and a [correctly typed] program is a proof. This is Curry-Howard isomorphism.
Thus, proving properties about a program can be done as a mathematical proof, and Godel applies in a more general sense in exactly the same way it applies to all mathematical proofs.
So it is possible to prove that a program doesn't have any bugs, but you have to either be able to define what a bug is (e.g. "access beyond array bounds"), or define what it isn't ("a correct program shall always free memory that it's allocated"). Ultimately I suspect that proving a program is 100% bug-free is just as hard as writing the correct program (for non-trivial programs); but I'm not sure about that. Alternately, you may define some behavior as a "bug" that is not possible to prove in the general case, e.g. "this program halts", in which case you're out of luck.
Of course, this demands that you know exactly how your code will execute. That requires either a language with complete semantics (SML? Haskell?), or a really profound understanding of the compiler and runtime system (because the specifications of most languages, like C, do not completely define their computations). This is why this sort of thing isn't done very often.
There are some systems/languages which guarantee certain properties... this is "proof-carrying code", and is only used right now on some mission-critical systems... but may get more popular some day, as it allows you to trust chunks of anonymous code.
Yeah, you're right, it doesn't use ZFS. I got that idea from an ArsTechnica article, which I didn't read all the way through. The article was actually arguing that Time Machine should use ZFS :-P
To answer my own question, there are apparently two differences:
1. The technical difference: Apple's "Time Machine" is implmented at the file system level via ZFS. Dirvish's integration is less tight, allowing you to use whatever file system you want, but requiring the historical/snapshot data to be stored in a specially set-aside directory.
2. The non-technical difference: "Time Machine" has a sexy user interface. Dirvish does not. It's easy for CLI nerds to dismiss this point, but by reading the comments here, it's apparent that people really like this sexy user interface. "Flyback" is mostly trying to duplicate that interface.
...but how is this different Dirvish, which has been around for years?
Wow. You're an angry dude.
I didn't look at the dates. I arrived that post by clicking "next in thread" from Pratt's post, so it seemed to be in chronological order.
It doesn't directly address Pratt's point, but it addresses some of the things raised in the discussion that followed Pratt's post regarding universality.
Wolfram's lengthy response:
http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2007-October/012149.html
I can't believe anyone would write this summary without mentioning Baidu.
Baidu is killing Google in the mainland Chinese market. Despite serious corruption (pay-for-placement extortion schemes + bowing before the Chinese censors), all of the Chinese I've talked to say Baidu consistently returns better results than Google.
People are going to learn to cope with this "feature" once XP goes away.
Most likely, everyone will just tape the Vista serial number to the front of the machine... which means that thieves need only look at the front of machines to steal someone else's Vista. Progress!
I had Vista running in vmware. Changing the virtual machine's allocated memory from 512 to 768 also forces reactivation... what a pain in the ass.
The advantage of doing this in a virtual environment is that "pkill -9 vmware" in a blind rage is a lot cheaper than throwing your computer out the window.
("Windows, meet window!")
Now I don't even have to boot to steal sensitive information. This will save so much time!
Here's something that might interest those who are thinking about the $400 two-fer, but want to play with XO first...
You can emulate most of it with qemu or vmware. It's easy.
See: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start
Seemed a pretty sluggish on my wimpy Core Duo 1.66, but lots of that may be due to a lack of hardware accelerated video in qemu.
Anyhow, check it out. Good times.
(It does seem odd to use Python as the primary language on a slow CPU with little memory, but it seems to work okay...)
I don't understand why everyone thinks that more competition would solve the problem of slow broadband growth in the U.S.. In any market with both cable and phone lines, there IS a healthy competition for the broadband market. Part of the problem is that infrastructure investments are too costly over such a large and sparse country, and the other part of the problem is that there's still less demand for fast broadband (e.g., my mother, who is perfectly happy with her 56k) than in more tech-savvy countries.
It would be nice to see the government push through some incentive for someone to lay lots of fibre so we could get the kind of bandwidth enjoyed by Japan. Sadly, this is not the kind of thing that the private sector is going to do by itself unless some new technology changes the landscape.
(And, unfortunately, planning for the future is not exactly the Bush administration's strong point...)
> The saddest thing is really for those that aren't so computer savy, or aren't comfortable with lying.
The important skill is to emulate a Windows user over the phone, while actually doing everything on Linux. If you mention words like "ifconfig" or "traceroute" or possibly even "dhcp", you will confuse the Comcast representative and he/she will reset.
On a mostly unrelated note, parent post led me to the OpenNMS web page, and in turn the OpenNMS "live" demo... which appears to have been Slashdotted or something. In its smoking crater is now a lovely error message:
.java:802) .java:802) .java:802)
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: FATAL: sorry, too many clients already
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.handle JspException(JspServletWrapper.java:510)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.servic e(JspServletWrapper.java:375)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFil e(JspServlet.java:314)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspSe rvlet.java:264)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.inv oke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:672)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doI nclude(ApplicationDispatcher.java:574)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.inc lude(ApplicationDispatcher.java:499)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspRuntimeLibrary.includ e(JspRuntimeLibrary.java:966)
at org.apache.jsp.index_jsp._jspService(index_jsp.jav a:53)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(Http JspBase.java:97)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.servic e(JspServletWrapper.java:332)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFil e(JspServlet.java:314)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspSe rvlet.java:264)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.extremecomponents.table.filter.AbstractExportF ilter.doFilter(AbstractExportFilter.java:49)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.opennms.web.AddRefreshHeaderFilter.doFilter(Ad dRefreshHeaderFilter.java:73)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.opennms.web.StoreRequestPropertiesFilter.doFil ter(StoreRequestPropertiesFilter.java:71)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.j
It's a little unfair to compare Ubuntu 7.04 to Windows XP. XP came out in October 2001; it's ancient.
I've recently upgraded from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04, and also installed Vista (in VMWare) just to play with it.
I was pleasantly surprised by incremental but highly visible improvements in Ubuntu usability/friendliness. Particularly, the auto-install of proprietary codecs for mp3 and windows media actually works now, and network-manager being part of the default install has cleared up the usual Linux + wireless headache. It's definitely closer to something that could replace Windows for mom and pop, although overall it still takes some Linux know-how to get the right software installed. The tan-hued default desktop theme is still fugly, tho. (and that's not opinion.. it's objective fact)
But, at the same time, I've been very impressed by Vista's improvements over XP. Everyone is really critical of Vista, but I find it to be a much better experience, particularly for tasks that involve navigating and manipulating the file system. It's also a little less intrusive with the auto-update crap that drives me nuts in XP. Granted, I'm not playing games or using legacy apps; I understand that Vista has issues with these.
Yes, I do have a broad definition of spam. :-)
I would say that the defining characteristic of "wasting someone else's time" is that it's involuntary. For instance, you aren't wasting my time here, because I'm voluntarily wasting my own time. (and in a free society, we can't hold people liable for wasting their own time... it is theirs to waste)
Maybe a better term would be "time theft"
> I mean, if you and your colleges get distracted by some students outside the schools every day,
> who play loud music even if you already told them it is disturbing, shouldn't they get 65 years...
If 1,000,000 colleagues are distracted.... then, yes, they should get 65 years.
That's the thing about spam that makes it different from all of these other crimes, including murder: it takes a trivially larger effort to exponentially increase the volume.
I think it's entirely reasonable for these guys to get life in prison without parole. The same goes for Enron's Skilling and Lay; indeed, the essence of the crime is the same: stealing a little bit from a lot of people in bad faith.
The murder comparison is really a digression, and everybody is correct that murder is really fundamentally different than spam. My point is really just that people do not take spam seriously because it doesn't impact any one person very much; but the aggregate cost to society is staggering, and that should be considered. Our court system is not well-equipped to assess the magnitude of a crime that affects millions.
Ah, rational discourse. The subthread is saved!
:: Life versus time
:: Life versus money
:: Life versus time and money
2 3/1354205
> 2)If you spam all people, you are left with a society that wastes more time (or can't use email anymore), therefor, society as a whole can survive
I should have clarified from the start that I'm using a very broad definition of spam. Namely, "to waste the time of many people", e.g., not necessarily through the medium of email.
Under the narrower email-only definition, I quite agree with you. But, in the broader sense...
Spam may be applied by varying degrees, whereas murder is boolean (It is nonsensical to "moderately kill" someone, but moderate spamming is less bad than heavy spamming). So for the categorical imperative, we crank the spam to 100% of time wasted for 100% of people, and arrive at:
2) If you continuously spam all people, you are left with a society that wastes ALL time. Therefore, society as a whole cannot survive; it suffocates.
> Ok...if you really believe that, it would mean that, if you *had* to choose between someone being killed, and 11000000 spams being send, you would
> rather opt for the former. Somehow, I don't see that as the most moral choice. Ofcourse, one could be an egotistical bastard, and say: go ahead!
> But then I would ask: would you really say the same if YOU were the person to be killed?
I do believe that there's some point where a volume of spam is worse than a single death. I'm not going to try to figure out if it's 1000 spams or 10e9, though. I don't know.
> Now, why is there this difference? Because, frankly, spam and murder are simply not comparable, nomatter how much spam it is. They are on a completely different level.
This dilemma occurs any time human life is weighed against a more tangible (and less sacred) resource. Nobody wants to make this decision, for the exact reason you give: It's immoral to put a price on life, whether that price be measured in time, money, oil, or bananas**.
That's why black-and-white morality is an inadequate framework for real life. Sometimes you need to compare apples and oranges.
People avoid explicitly pricing life, but the decision is made quietly and implicitly by market and social forces every day. Just a few examples:
--> Automobile speed limits: Reducing highway speed to 10mph would save lives. So why don't we do it?
--> Airport security: Running checked baggage through decompression prevents pressure-triggered bombs from making it onto a plane. Israel does this. Why don't we? It's too expensive.
--> Pharmaceutical testing: More extensive testing would definitely save lives
Are these things immoral? Maybe, but no single person is responsible for the decision. Given that, I think it's okay to come out and say, "Here is how we are going to price life, and this is why..." for a particular situation. These decisions could be better made by clear reasoning, but the status quo is to avoid thinking about it and let whatever happens happen.
** bananas? Sadly, not a joke at all... c.f. recently uncovered links between Chiquita and Colombian paramilitary groups: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/
> Were you attempting to make the stupidest comment in this thread, or did it just pop out? *boggles*
Okay, I admit to being trollish. Still, it would be nice to discuss something here just once without being personally attacked. (Yeah, I know, it's Slashdot...)
My point was this: Spam is a crime of scale. Murder, when scaled, is genocide.
I'm not saying spam is as BAD as genocide. Obviously it's not. Obviously they're qualitatively different.
But I honestly do think that wasting millions of people's time and money is worse than killing a single person. The impact to society is MUCH higher, but nobody understands that because it's too hard to measure. You're free to disagree with me --- I know it's not a popular viewpoint, especially in the West where the rights of an individual are valued above the rights of society --- but can we please not devolve to ad-hominem sniping?
And, because this is Slashdot, I'll end with a bad analogy:
Society is like a house. Murder is akin to a window being broken: It's a highly visible problem that needs to be fixed, but a window broken on the first floor doesn't affect the second. Spam is like termites; you can't even see it, but it's slowly eating away the structure.
Ha, I logged on to say basically what you just said.
The author chucks his credibility with the last sentence of the first paragraph...
Is spam worse than murder?
Yes. YES.
Your average murderer kills ONE person.
A spammer wastes the time of MILLIONS of people, and disrupts the lives of thousands who fall victim to scams.
Those seconds add up to countless lives in aggregate.
Spammers undermine people's trust in society in a way that isolated murders cannot. Spam is a calculated and rational attack on the rules of society --- the product of sociopathic cost/benefit analysis --- whereas murder is almost always driven by passion or desperation or stupidity, at least in the first world where law enforcement is strong.
Don't compare spam to murder... compare it to genocide.
Microsoft Research has an OS named Singularity, designed to leverage many CPUs. You can bet that some of their research will go into the next Windows... I saw a presentation by the developers, and they firmly believe that none of the current generation operating systems are going to be able to effectively use i.e. thousands of processors.
One of the key improvements is an order of magnitude increase over conventional Windows and Linux in the speed of creating threads.
They also talked about the need for new programming paradigms, and I have a feeling that these are just as important if not more so than the shape of the next-gen OS. It was funny to hear guys from Microsoft --- who brought us Visual Basic --- saying that maybe functional programming was going to be the next wave.