>If you're using another language (java/c#/python) I really doubt you're using a makefile.
I mostly write python and bash these days but I had my teething days in compiled languages (Pascal in the 80s'/90's - then later C) so I do know how to write a makefile. I actually wrote one for one of our python projects last week (and had to go look up some syntax things because I hadn't done it in so long) but that was because it was the easiest way to create a wrapper for building a distro-agnostic package-building structure from (if your code can be installed with configure / make / make install then you can build package builders for almost every type of package using pretty generic templates).
Of course this isn't the ideal way to do it in most cases (ours is a special case in many ways as we write OS deployment/configuration/management systems rather than true applications) but the gain from being able to do multi-distro with very little per-distro specific packaging code outweighed the minor losses of not using something like install.py
>That's exactly the way you disprove a generalization.
Technically you're right but only because the GP used the wrong word. You can NOT disprove a TREND by way of citing exceptions. Trends by definition are EXPECTED to have exceptions.
This is actually a complicated issue. My first really big job, was in a startup founded by a former teacher. I was in charge of the tech/programming side of the business and I remember he said something to me more than once: "As a teacher I saw all too many great teachers get promoted to headmaster or inspector - the only way to advance was to stop doing what they were actually good at. That's bad, instead we should just have paid those teachers the same salaries as headmasters or inspectors so they would be motivated to keep teaching."
That's one argument - a lot of people who are excellent engineers are horrible managers. I had one like that at an early job - the man was an absolute genius at his job (mechanical engineer) - and one of the worst managers I ever had the displeasure of working under. He was sarcastic, rude and had the people skills of a rock. The guy made RMS look like Paris Hilton. If he had remained an engineer - he'd have been a happy and productive person for decades, instead he became a manager of engineers - and created a department with staff turn-over that must be some kind of guinness record...
But that's only ONE argument. The other argument is the reason I LEFT that company founded by the teacher after six years. I was head programmer, and I knew I would NEVER be anything ELSE there. There would never be a promotion. No chance to try anything new. Maybe I'd be a good manager -maybe I'd be bad at it - but if I stayed there, I would never find out. The other argument is that people need to grow - very, very few people are truly happy in the same job for ever.
As it turns out, I chose to mix it up. After I left I spent 2 years in an almost entirely managerial position - then I went and became a sysadmin for three years, now I'm back programming (and loving it). With each change I'd upped my income - but more importantly - I'd had variety in my work, growth and the opportunity to try other skills - see which I was good at and which I wasn't, and what I enjoyed and what I didn't.
So which argument is right ? Neither. They are both oversimplifying things. People are complex and we all have different dreams, goals, desires and needs. Some of us would PREFER to do what we love, one thing, for decades - some would prefer the very nature of their work to radically change over time (e.g. when engineers become managers become executives become businessmen). One group isn't more right or more wrong.
I think organisations benefit best when they identify the right growth path for an individual and try to help them follow it - and benefit from that growth. A top manager who is cranking out code needs rapid promotion for the benefit of the company. A top coder who is hating his management job should be put back in front of a keyboard with a salary increase - etc.
>The battle cry to unionize programmers is such a thing -- it says "I expect to be useless in the near future, an obstacle to progress of any kind, and I require collective bargaining to hold onto what I can't by skill and effort alone".
I call bullshit. You know why ? Because I first heard that battlecry on slashdot when I first started reading it, back at my first helldesk job during college in 1998. See your disparaging view of collective bargaining is a big giveaway that you're letting your political/economic views prevent you from rationally interpreting the evidence before you.
The real truth is more like this - why is wallmart cheaper than the Mom and Pop store ? Because they can buy in bulk. They buy large amounts, so they get cheaper prices, so they can sell cheaper. That's EFFICIENCY. Bulk always works out more efficient if you can manage it. It works on EVERY level of the economy. For consumers collective-purchasing companies are an old and established system that works in the same way. You join an organisation, get a membership card and shops charge you less. Not because YOU are special to the shop - but because the shop has a deal with the purchasing company - "we will offer your members discounts" - the purchasing company can get those deals because it has a LOT of members - which is attractive to the store. That's collective bargaining's core efficiency boost on two separate levels.
It ALSO works for employees. One employee has limited ability to truly negotiate his terms -hell even for executives most companies have fixed payscales (and this is true even in countries where unions aren't legal disproving the common gripe of blaming it ON unions). Why ? Because it's CHEAPER for the company. Having one standard "fill-in-the-blanks" contract means a LOT less money spent on lawyers. Simply refusing to hire ANYBODY who doesn't go along with the stock-standard contract and it's rules is a major saving on administrative costs (companies may be wrong about this but most consider it unlikely that any individual employees could bring SO MUCH value as to justify the massive cost increase and STILL be profitable to hire).
But it DOES make sense for the company to negotiate with ALL the employees. All the employees together have a bargaining power no single employee can have - AND it's in the companies interest to do it this way because it means they keep the savings of "form agreements". Bulk agreements are ALWAYS more cost efficient. When a single entity can afford to do so, they score - but even wallmart can only get bulk deals because they have a LOT of customers. Bulk is only FEASIBLE when you have lots of people acting collectively.
Collectively bargaining is the epitome of capitalist efficiency and every attempt to paint it otherwise is china-style state/crony capitalism in disguise. This is just as true for employees as it is for consumer-power organisations or bulk-stores.
>If you were a spy and either a sportsman or pretending to be one, you might carry a gun recreationally.
Lol gotcha. But technically - when I'm not at the office I am no longer acting as an employee of my company - I cease to be "platform engineer" and become "citizen". Presumably the same differentiation should be made for government employees (even if I doubt they themselves could understand something that complex...)
>Well... Maybe. I could see doing it in, say, South Africa. Particularly if safari were something you/your cover liked...
I live in South Africa... while our intelligence services may well have been very good during the appartheid years they are a joke now. The last time they made news it was because they decided to spy on the German embassy. Their sollution: a laptop+webcam in a trash-can on the embassy sidewalk.
Sound rather amateurish ? It was.
Do they carry guns ? I can't say. Military Intelligence almost certainly does, but national intelligence probably do not.
Having said that - my summary was of the British secret service's actual way of doing things - as per a register article a few weeks ago. I can't say that other espionage services don't operate in a different manner. The CIA is well-known (and publicly admits to) have assassins on their payroll , they had a few public embarrassments of their own though - they tried to assassinate Castro many times (at least once by poisoning his favourite milkshake) but have consistently failed in that. In the end though - I have no doubt that most espionage even in those services come down to much the same thing - fake diplomats attached to embassies paying bribes to people for betraying their countries.
>I disagree that the (majority of) people doing such things feel "completely" bad about it if they continue doing it. They may feel bad for the people and even cry themselves to sleep every night; become depressed; or otherwise be miserable - but then they either stop doing it (i.e. they realised it doesn't make them happy) or continue doing it (because they also get positive feelings from helping; OR are batshit insane (as I already mentioned as an option))
False dichotomy - which excludes the obvious third possibility (the one most of us who do such thing will give): they have a sense of responsibility toward other people. That is a perfectly reasonable explanation - which lacks any major flaws and is well supported by "lower down" harder science (there is a strong theory that human acts of heroism - including sacrificing of lives to save non-related lives - is a result of what biologists call "overcommitment" - which itself is simply an extension "descendent privileging").
The hard sciences actively SUPPORT the conclusion that many (perhaps most) people have an innate sense of responsibility toward other people (though the degree of that sense varies and it's probably not universal to ALL people) and at least sometimes act in certain ways because they believe they are SUPPOSED to act this way - they feel COMPELLED to do do so. They may explain this compunction through the eyes of religion or morality but it's quite possibly much more base than that- those may well be rationalizations of what is effectively an instinctive drive to TAKE responsibility.
This is common across all social species. Rats adopt the babies of other rat mothers that die - just like we do - but not just childless ones, they add them to their existing litters - thus possibly reducing their own gene's chances of survival to increase those of the species.
Many humans extend this instinct even across the boundaries of species (animal and pet lovers - in their most extreme form you get PETA level thinking which takes this to an insane degree).
So why do people go and help at refugee camps even though it makes them feel absolutely horrible and has ZERO satisfaction to offer in most cases (and no recognition either usually). Because we are compelled by our very nature as a social being, to take responsibility for the welfare of those in need. It's a defining attribute of all social species and we are decidedly social.
While there are solid and rational reasons for it, it's the the rational of evolution "the species survives better if it's members act this way" - not the rational of "I have personally made a logical choice about this". You're looking for the rationality in the wrong PLACE. It exists, but you are checking the wrong source. If you look in the right place, it's perfectly obvious - many of those who do this see that rationality, see WHY the evolutionary path works, and sees that as a reinforcement that what their "gutt" tells them is the right thing to do really IS right.
But since about age 7 my ultimate pen has been the "QWERTY keyboard".
I've had issues with writing my whole life and my handwriting was never very readable. As a result I write in block-letters to preserve readability at a massive cost of speed (in school I often got very high marks for WHAT I wrote but nonetheless failed because I simply could not finish exams in time AND let the examiner be able to read my answers).
So I prefer typing whenever possible, I literally can't ever find a pen when I really HAVE to use one because I avoid them at all other times. Even if I have to fill in a form - I will usually scan it in, type in the answers, and just sign the final printed version. I do however touch-type at more than 10 times the highest word-speed I can achieve while writing.
>In another posting on wifi you suggested that open wifi is free for anybody to receive no matter how 'private' one believes it to be, and to encrypt wifi if they're not cool with that. This doesn't preclude reception, of course, and depending on the level of encryption may be entirely moot. But within the aforementioned context, would you then suggest couples to encrypt their coitus?
I'm pretty sure you got me confused with another poster here. I saw the EFF story but haven't even read it yet, let alone posted on it - if I'd said something like this in a different context (not impossible I guess) then it was a very long time ago...
That said... the idea of encrypted coitus is intriguing... disturbing but intriguing...
> Thermal imaging would not show such a silhouette - unless, of course, the wall were very thin
Like you mean my 3mX3m glass sliding door onto my streetfacing patio - which gives a view right to the opposite side of my house, unless the curtain is drawn. Last I checked... a curtain is pretty damn "thin" for a wall - but blocks visible-spectrum light quite adequately.
The degree of detail is not materially important. The reality is that anybody making any effort to discern what happens in my house whatsoever without having previously established (and convinced a judge off) probable cause IS violating my rights.
>I would need a lot of convincing to understand why the police would need to get PERMISSION to use IR gear in public to find grow houses (as if the IR signature of your house has some kind of right to privacy): they do it all the time in the UK, and only bikers, gangsters, druggies and idiots would have a problem with it.
And people like me, who do not particularly want the cops to watch my silhouette fucking my fiance doggy style through the wall. If I want to be watched, I leave the curtains open. If they're closed, then no they do NOT have the right to use technology that can see through my walls and detect heated areas (like bodies -especially bodies that are engaged in coitus).
This is already addressed in the law today -there are two clearly stated exceptions where a police officer is allowed (and even expected) to enter private property WITHOUT a warrant.
Your examples: >How about a large quantity of peroxide bottles left next to a bin visible at the side of the house.
That's a perfect example of the first exemption in the law: probably cause. The officer have genuine solid reason to believe that this particular property is a crime scene and limited time to respond. It's still better to get a warrant in this case, but it can be overlooked if needed (e.g. there is a real reason to believe the criminal evidence will be gone before a warrant could be obtained).
>I doubt the police officer who ignored a strong burning smell and left someone to die would be praised. That's a perfect example of the second exemption: a situation of clear and present danger. No judge will punish a police officer for entering a burning building and pulling out a person about to die of smoke inhalation without a warrant - but the law makes this a clearly marked exception (and a perfectly sensible one). Indeed it applies to ordinary citizens. If your house is burning down, and I rush in to pull you out - you cannot afterwards sue me for entering your property illegally.
So where do we actually draw the line then ? Well the courts have drawn it at the point where the technology being used is too expensive or complicated to be generally and widely available - that is to say, represents a government resource which an individual could not counter. That is actually a very logical place to draw it since the whole reason we HAVE restrictions on the cops and on what is a legal search and rights not to incriminate yourself and all that stuff is because when an individual is facing the massive power of the state he is completely outgunned. By giving all the advantage to the defendant, we level the playing field - you cannot HAVE justice otherwise since the state's resources are just so much bigger.
>And here I was, believing the concept of having "00" in front of your spy code were mere fiction...
Real world: it is and it isn't. There aren't any spies like old Bond - but on occasion the real spies (who are basically professional bribe-payers mostly attached to embassies) come across situations that merit immediate covert paramilitary action. The spies do not engage in this. They pass it up the chain. Officially the minister of defence makes the decision - in practise he probably wouldn't dare to do so without a rubber-stamp from the prime minister- but once the order is given - the bond-style stuff do happen by people trained in them. That is trained pistol shots, with additional traning in things like scuba diving and urban military manuevers. But not any part of the intelligence services- the special forces divisions of the armed forces. In other words - the military operations are engaged in by the military - on request from the intelligence services. Real spies never carry a gun.
I could see that possibly happening... honestly, I'd call that a damn good foot in the door. Because PC's ARE multi-purpose devices.
When people are using their favorite apps on their gaming system... how long before they are only using that... and then how long before they start contemplating using one of the other linuxes so they can do EVERYTHING on it ?
China is the smart communists remember... well they aren't actually communists at all anymore since they are pure state-capitalism in economics now. They are however pretty much the big-brother government from 1984. Unlike the stupid communists they long ago figured out that if you try to PREVENT religion you have a permanent underground uprising to contend with because people tend to really dislike having their faith banned.
So instead of dealing with samizdat networks and underground churches... they let them all out in public, then carefully lead them. Let the people have their gods - all of them - and carefully keep the party in control of the churches.
The only reason they want atheism in party members is so that none of the churches they are in charge of can complain about the party members giving orders actively belonging to a different sect or religion.
So you have your Bhudists of various sects, your catholics (the largest Christian subgroup) etc. etc . all practicing, and all controlled by the party. That's why the outside religions for foreigners aren't allowed ot let you in the door without a passport... it's the price for not swearing fealty to the king (if you get the metaphor here).
You can worship in China, but you can't do missionary work unless you promise to let the state dictate and control your work.
I am not talking in defense of China - the simple reality is that when it comes to freedom - they are the worst thing to happen to humanity ever. Not just because of the sheer number of people they have under their power - but because they've learned how to secure that power against everything that has previously overthrown dictatorial big brother governments in the world.
I made no assumptions about you - I merely drew a logical conclusion about why somebody may say - as a sincere attempt at warning, something that to anybody who does not share his particular cultural background/beliefs would sound distinctly like a threat intended to control.
If you read the works of Steve Biko for example you will find a lingering resentment at Christian colonialists over those particular lines: "Our cultures had no concepts of a hell, of suffering for the dead. We venerated our ancestors, and saw their guiding hand in our daily lives -good and bad alike, they were merely the spirits of our ancestors living among us."
For them - the idea of heaven and hell were a radical and massive departure from their entire thought-process around spirituality and indeed their entire world-view. Biko recounts that African's experienced the idea of hell as a massive threat, and that the vast majority of conversion to occur during colonialism was in response to a deep sense of fear. This is also why, throughout Africa, most people who converted to Christianity never fully abandoned their original beliefs and combined them in various ways. They were NEVER embracing Christianity. They were paying lip-service to the God that people were saying would burn them forever if they didn't.
Now personally - if I was you, I would consider a 300-year experiment in misionary work which is afterwards recounted by the recipients of this charitable act as "from an age of oppression and exploitation - the greatest and most destructive oppression of all" - to be a failed experiement.
Just a hint: maybe if you want to spread your good news, then make it good news - shut up about the whole heaven and hell thing until AFTER you dealt with a LOT of the other stuff first. Otherwise - you end up sounding like you're trying to threaten people. You may sincerely believe it's a warning, those people will feel it's a threat. You cannot avoid this disconnect - but perhaps you can postpone it until your intentions will be easier to deduce ?
In theory - you're right. Google got away with it though because they effectively ONLY used the kernel and wrote their own userland.
I just don't see this being a viable or valuable approach for Valve to take. It could work if Valve wants to build a console - and provide them a cheap(er) way to get one going (there are some startups effectively trying that now) - but that's not their goal. Their target is PC-gaming, PC-owners even if they are gamers generally still feel they bought multi-purposes devices and won't be happy if they lose the capacity to do things like browse the web or use office applications.
So while valve COULD do what you said- I see absolutely no benefit for them if they did. Google could benefit because their target devices were phones, not pc's, and people have different expectations there. Valve does not have that gap - I see no commercial or financial benefit for them in causing such a split.
You got it exactly backwards. If you play our game by our rules - you never ever EVER have to worry about packaging or API stability. If we change the system - we'll update your code FOR YOU - and send you the patch to make sure it keeps working.
If you don't play by our rules, we don't even have the means to KNOW you're affected by the design change we made.
If you get screwed it's because YOU aren't cooperating. You're playing in our stadium but you're not playing the same game we're playing. We'll let you play - but don't expect us to HELP you. If you want to make up your own rules... then don't expect us to give you a trophee, don't complain if the markers we paint on the field are wrong. Trying to do proprietory DRM software on GNU/Linux is like showing up at a baseball stadium and saying "this is a really pretty stadium - let's play cricket here". Now if you don't interfere with the people who play baseball there, they probably won't chase you away - especially as this field is on public property in the local park.
But then you start saying things like "Will you idiots please remove this damn diamond so we can put in a straight pitch with wickets ? How do you expect anybody to seriously play cricket on this field otherwise ? Nobody will ever want to come to the park if you have a baseball field instead of a cricket pitch you know."
Which is usually news to all the people who were sitting in the park, enjoying the lovely trees, the scenery and watching their friends play baseball...
Play our game. Or don't ask for help. This is our park, you can play your game, in your park. In our neighborhood, with the park we built, for ourselves, we'll play the games WE want ot play. We won't stop you playing your games here, but we aren't going to change our park to help you play them either because we don't LIKE your game.
My history is much like yours. I just never stopped running Linux on my desktops - currently I'm using Mint and I am very happy thank you. In fact the last few times I was forced to do a windows install I was frustrated and irritated by the limitations of the system beyond belief within hours. I was shouting at the computer for not DOING WHAT I BLOODY WANT and worse such idiotics as "I cannot get on the fucking internet because it doesn't have a driver for my lan card which I need to get on teh internet to go download". After years of every piece of hardware I got just working automagically with ZERO setup and ZERO configuration - that was horrible. Then I tried to use a dual-desktop... and found it absolutely frustrating, while on Linux it's just beautiful how well that works (and this is not even hardware specific- my laptop with extra screen uses does not have the nvidia cards I have in my home desktops).
Then a year or so ago my fiance's old laptop finally died. Since she works from home we got her a desktop since she could get a much more powerful one for the price of a new laptop. She had NEVER used a Linux machine in her life before we met (about 4 months before that) - but had used my desktop quite often while I was at work. She immediately asked me: "Get me what you have" - so I put mint on her new desktop. She's been using it ever since.
You know what teaching I did to help her ? I showed her how to install apps from the software manager (because that is really quite different from pre-windows-8-app-store windows ways of doing it). That's it. She's been using it, completely without any help or supervision ever since - she's not a geek (she likes gaming with me but she's never written a line of code in her life and she doesn't even know what a command line IS). She's just a girl who writes copy for an ad-agency on a freelance basis and snuggles up with her programmer man in the evenings to watch the original unaltered star wars trilogy. She uses Linux - and in her own words - she prefers it because she doesn't have to struggle to make it work, because she doesn't have to struggle to figure out how to make it do what she needs done.
As far as she's concerned it's MUCH easier to use and much nicer to have on your computer than anything Microsoft ever did (and this whole app-store thing basically changes the only thing she had to be SHOWN to how things are now done on windows anyway). Anecdotal ? Sure, but so is your post. The point is that for every anecdote like yours, there are anecdotes like mine - this isn't something there is a conclusive scientific study about, but don't think your personal experience is somehow representative or says anything at ALL about Linux.
>Saying Christianity is a peaceful religion which doesn't use coercion is like saying Charles Manson is a peaceful fellow who means no one any harm because he's lately been locked up in jail.
To which Christians would respond that blaming the religion for the actions of some of it's members is like blaming the Beatles for what Manson was inspired to do by the White album.
They may have a point there, I am not yet convinced either way.
1) Are warnings coercion? Some Christians intend it to be a warning... that only means THEY were coerced so effectively that the threat they were coerced by they are now warning others against.
Careful - you're starting to make your own religion sound like a bad case of Stockholm syndrome...
>Tell you what, separate YOUR worldview from the ballot box, and when you figure out how to do that let me know and we can talk about me doing that. The whole idea that you can just separate one part of a person's beliefs from the rest of them is absurd.
Agreed. I demand something much simpler. I demand you stand before the ballot box and apply some enlightened self-interest. Or to put it in Christian terms: follow the golden rule. At that moment the right religious question to ask yourself is: "If I was in a predominantly Muslim country right now, with my faith - how would I want my neighbours to vote ?" Ask yourself, what freedoms you would want them to grant you there. What tolerance you would hope to get for the practise of your faith in a country where it's a tiny minority view.
Then vote to give that to all the tiny minorities in YOUR country, and only AFTER you did that can you look at other countries and say "please, for what I did to your friends and family who live in my land, would you grant the same to mine who live in yours".
China has a state religion - a form of Roman Catholicism that does not recognize the pope (or rather places the chairman in the papacy). Generally the two catholic churches in China get along fairly well and they tolerate the Roman version though there was a period back in the early 2000's where they considered banning the believe in the papacy of the Vatican.
In they end they did not go through with that - probably after somebody in the party noticed the similarity to the actions of a certain well-known British king.
Slashdot Mirror
>If you're using another language (java/c#/python) I really doubt you're using a makefile.
I mostly write python and bash these days but I had my teething days in compiled languages (Pascal in the 80s'/90's - then later C) so I do know how to write a makefile.
I actually wrote one for one of our python projects last week (and had to go look up some syntax things because I hadn't done it in so long) but that was because it was the easiest way to create a wrapper for building a distro-agnostic package-building structure from (if your code can be installed with configure / make / make install then you can build package builders for almost every type of package using pretty generic templates).
Of course this isn't the ideal way to do it in most cases (ours is a special case in many ways as we write OS deployment/configuration/management systems rather than true applications) but the gain from being able to do multi-distro with very little per-distro specific packaging code outweighed the minor losses of not using something like install.py
>That's exactly the way you disprove a generalization.
Technically you're right but only because the GP used the wrong word.
You can NOT disprove a TREND by way of citing exceptions. Trends by definition are EXPECTED to have exceptions.
This is actually a complicated issue. My first really big job, was in a startup founded by a former teacher. I was in charge of the tech/programming side of the business and I remember he said something to me more than once: "As a teacher I saw all too many great teachers get promoted to headmaster or inspector - the only way to advance was to stop doing what they were actually good at. That's bad, instead we should just have paid those teachers the same salaries as headmasters or inspectors so they would be motivated to keep teaching."
That's one argument - a lot of people who are excellent engineers are horrible managers. I had one like that at an early job - the man was an absolute genius at his job (mechanical engineer) - and one of the worst managers I ever had the displeasure of working under. He was sarcastic, rude and had the people skills of a rock. The guy made RMS look like Paris Hilton.
If he had remained an engineer - he'd have been a happy and productive person for decades, instead he became a manager of engineers - and created a department with staff turn-over that must be some kind of guinness record...
But that's only ONE argument. The other argument is the reason I LEFT that company founded by the teacher after six years. I was head programmer, and I knew I would NEVER be anything ELSE there. There would never be a promotion. No chance to try anything new. Maybe I'd be a good manager -maybe I'd be bad at it - but if I stayed there, I would never find out.
The other argument is that people need to grow - very, very few people are truly happy in the same job for ever.
As it turns out, I chose to mix it up. After I left I spent 2 years in an almost entirely managerial position - then I went and became a sysadmin for three years, now I'm back programming (and loving it).
With each change I'd upped my income - but more importantly - I'd had variety in my work, growth and the opportunity to try other skills - see which I was good at and which I wasn't, and what I enjoyed and what I didn't.
So which argument is right ? Neither.
They are both oversimplifying things. People are complex and we all have different dreams, goals, desires and needs. Some of us would PREFER to do what we love, one thing, for decades - some would prefer the very nature of their work to radically change over time (e.g. when engineers become managers become executives become businessmen).
One group isn't more right or more wrong.
I think organisations benefit best when they identify the right growth path for an individual and try to help them follow it - and benefit from that growth. A top manager who is cranking out code needs rapid promotion for the benefit of the company. A top coder who is hating his management job should be put back in front of a keyboard with a salary increase - etc.
>The battle cry to unionize programmers is such a thing -- it says "I expect to be useless in the near future, an obstacle to progress of any kind, and I require collective bargaining to hold onto what I can't by skill and effort alone".
I call bullshit. You know why ? Because I first heard that battlecry on slashdot when I first started reading it, back at my first helldesk job during college in 1998.
See your disparaging view of collective bargaining is a big giveaway that you're letting your political/economic views prevent you from rationally interpreting the evidence before you.
The real truth is more like this - why is wallmart cheaper than the Mom and Pop store ? Because they can buy in bulk. They buy large amounts, so they get cheaper prices, so they can sell cheaper. That's EFFICIENCY.
Bulk always works out more efficient if you can manage it.
It works on EVERY level of the economy. For consumers collective-purchasing companies are an old and established system that works in the same way. You join an organisation, get a membership card and shops charge you less. Not because YOU are special to the shop - but because the shop has a deal with the purchasing company - "we will offer your members discounts" - the purchasing company can get those deals because it has a LOT of members - which is attractive to the store.
That's collective bargaining's core efficiency boost on two separate levels.
It ALSO works for employees. One employee has limited ability to truly negotiate his terms -hell even for executives most companies have fixed payscales (and this is true even in countries where unions aren't legal disproving the common gripe of blaming it ON unions). Why ? Because it's CHEAPER for the company. Having one standard "fill-in-the-blanks" contract means a LOT less money spent on lawyers. Simply refusing to hire ANYBODY who doesn't go along with the stock-standard contract and it's rules is a major saving on administrative costs (companies may be wrong about this but most consider it unlikely that any individual employees could bring SO MUCH value as to justify the massive cost increase and STILL be profitable to hire).
But it DOES make sense for the company to negotiate with ALL the employees. All the employees together have a bargaining power no single employee can have - AND it's in the companies interest to do it this way because it means they keep the savings of "form agreements".
Bulk agreements are ALWAYS more cost efficient. When a single entity can afford to do so, they score - but even wallmart can only get bulk deals because they have a LOT of customers.
Bulk is only FEASIBLE when you have lots of people acting collectively.
Collectively bargaining is the epitome of capitalist efficiency and every attempt to paint it otherwise is china-style state/crony capitalism in disguise. This is just as true for employees as it is for consumer-power organisations or bulk-stores.
>If you were a spy and either a sportsman or pretending to be one, you might carry a gun recreationally.
Lol gotcha. But technically - when I'm not at the office I am no longer acting as an employee of my company - I cease to be "platform engineer" and become "citizen".
Presumably the same differentiation should be made for government employees (even if I doubt they themselves could understand something that complex...)
>Well... Maybe. I could see doing it in, say, South Africa. Particularly if safari were something you/your cover liked...
I live in South Africa ... while our intelligence services may well have been very good during the appartheid years they are a joke now.
The last time they made news it was because they decided to spy on the German embassy. Their sollution: a laptop+webcam in a trash-can on the embassy sidewalk.
Sound rather amateurish ? It was.
Do they carry guns ? I can't say. Military Intelligence almost certainly does, but national intelligence probably do not.
Having said that - my summary was of the British secret service's actual way of doing things - as per a register article a few weeks ago. I can't say that other espionage services don't operate in a different manner. The CIA is well-known (and publicly admits to) have assassins on their payroll , they had a few public embarrassments of their own though - they tried to assassinate Castro many times (at least once by poisoning his favourite milkshake) but have consistently failed in that.
In the end though - I have no doubt that most espionage even in those services come down to much the same thing - fake diplomats attached to embassies paying bribes to people for betraying their countries.
>I disagree that the (majority of) people doing such things feel "completely" bad about it if they continue doing it. They may feel bad for the people and even cry themselves to sleep every night; become depressed; or otherwise be miserable - but then they either stop doing it (i.e. they realised it doesn't make them happy) or continue doing it (because they also get positive feelings from helping; OR are batshit insane (as I already mentioned as an option))
False dichotomy - which excludes the obvious third possibility (the one most of us who do such thing will give): they have a sense of responsibility toward other people.
That is a perfectly reasonable explanation - which lacks any major flaws and is well supported by "lower down" harder science (there is a strong theory that human acts of heroism - including sacrificing of lives to save non-related lives - is a result of what biologists call "overcommitment" - which itself is simply an extension "descendent privileging").
The hard sciences actively SUPPORT the conclusion that many (perhaps most) people have an innate sense of responsibility toward other people (though the degree of that sense varies and it's probably not universal to ALL people) and at least sometimes act in certain ways because they believe they are SUPPOSED to act this way - they feel COMPELLED to do do so. They may explain this compunction through the eyes of religion or morality but it's quite possibly much more base than that- those may well be rationalizations of what is effectively an instinctive drive to TAKE responsibility.
This is common across all social species. Rats adopt the babies of other rat mothers that die - just like we do - but not just childless ones, they add them to their existing litters - thus possibly reducing their own gene's chances of survival to increase those of the species.
Many humans extend this instinct even across the boundaries of species (animal and pet lovers - in their most extreme form you get PETA level thinking which takes this to an insane degree).
So why do people go and help at refugee camps even though it makes them feel absolutely horrible and has ZERO satisfaction to offer in most cases (and no recognition either usually).
Because we are compelled by our very nature as a social being, to take responsibility for the welfare of those in need. It's a defining attribute of all social species and we are decidedly social.
While there are solid and rational reasons for it, it's the the rational of evolution "the species survives better if it's members act this way" - not the rational of "I have personally made a logical choice about this".
You're looking for the rationality in the wrong PLACE. It exists, but you are checking the wrong source. If you look in the right place, it's perfectly obvious - many of those who do this see that rationality, see WHY the evolutionary path works, and sees that as a reinforcement that what their "gutt" tells them is the right thing to do really IS right.
But since about age 7 my ultimate pen has been the "QWERTY keyboard".
I've had issues with writing my whole life and my handwriting was never very readable. As a result I write in block-letters to preserve readability at a massive cost of speed (in school I often got very high marks for WHAT I wrote but nonetheless failed because I simply could not finish exams in time AND let the examiner be able to read my answers).
So I prefer typing whenever possible, I literally can't ever find a pen when I really HAVE to use one because I avoid them at all other times.
Even if I have to fill in a form - I will usually scan it in, type in the answers, and just sign the final printed version.
I do however touch-type at more than 10 times the highest word-speed I can achieve while writing.
>In another posting on wifi you suggested that open wifi is free for anybody to receive no matter how 'private' one believes it to be, and to encrypt wifi if they're not cool with that. This doesn't preclude reception, of course, and depending on the level of encryption may be entirely moot. But within the aforementioned context, would you then suggest couples to encrypt their coitus?
I'm pretty sure you got me confused with another poster here. I saw the EFF story but haven't even read it yet, let alone posted on it - if I'd said something like this in a different context (not impossible I guess) then it was a very long time ago...
That said... the idea of encrypted coitus is intriguing... disturbing but intriguing...
> Thermal imaging would not show such a silhouette - unless, of course, the wall were very thin
Like you mean my 3mX3m glass sliding door onto my streetfacing patio - which gives a view right to the opposite side of my house, unless the curtain is drawn.
Last I checked... a curtain is pretty damn "thin" for a wall - but blocks visible-spectrum light quite adequately.
The degree of detail is not materially important. The reality is that anybody making any effort to discern what happens in my house whatsoever without having previously established (and convinced a judge off) probable cause IS violating my rights.
>I would need a lot of convincing to understand why the police would need to get PERMISSION to use IR gear in public to find grow houses (as if the IR signature of your house has some kind of right to privacy): they do it all the time in the UK, and only bikers, gangsters, druggies and idiots would have a problem with it.
And people like me, who do not particularly want the cops to watch my silhouette fucking my fiance doggy style through the wall.
If I want to be watched, I leave the curtains open. If they're closed, then no they do NOT have the right to use technology that can see through my walls and detect heated areas (like bodies -especially bodies that are engaged in coitus).
This is already addressed in the law today -there are two clearly stated exceptions where a police officer is allowed (and even expected) to enter private property WITHOUT a warrant.
Your examples:
>How about a large quantity of peroxide bottles left next to a bin visible at the side of the house.
That's a perfect example of the first exemption in the law: probably cause. The officer have genuine solid reason to believe that this particular property is a crime scene and limited time to respond. It's still better to get a warrant in this case, but it can be overlooked if needed (e.g. there is a real reason to believe the criminal evidence will be gone before a warrant could be obtained).
>I doubt the police officer who ignored a strong burning smell and left someone to die would be praised.
That's a perfect example of the second exemption: a situation of clear and present danger.
No judge will punish a police officer for entering a burning building and pulling out a person about to die of smoke inhalation without a warrant - but the law makes this a clearly marked exception (and a perfectly sensible one).
Indeed it applies to ordinary citizens. If your house is burning down, and I rush in to pull you out - you cannot afterwards sue me for entering your property illegally.
So where do we actually draw the line then ? Well the courts have drawn it at the point where the technology being used is too expensive or complicated to be generally and widely available - that is to say, represents a government resource which an individual could not counter. That is actually a very logical place to draw it since the whole reason we HAVE restrictions on the cops and on what is a legal search and rights not to incriminate yourself and all that stuff is because when an individual is facing the massive power of the state he is completely outgunned. By giving all the advantage to the defendant, we level the playing field - you cannot HAVE justice otherwise since the state's resources are just so much bigger.
>And here I was, believing the concept of having "00" in front of your spy code were mere fiction...
Real world: it is and it isn't.
There aren't any spies like old Bond - but on occasion the real spies (who are basically professional bribe-payers mostly attached to embassies) come across situations that merit immediate covert paramilitary action.
The spies do not engage in this. They pass it up the chain. Officially the minister of defence makes the decision - in practise he probably wouldn't dare to do so without a rubber-stamp from the prime minister- but once the order is given - the bond-style stuff do happen by people trained in them.
That is trained pistol shots, with additional traning in things like scuba diving and urban military manuevers. But not any part of the intelligence services- the special forces divisions of the armed forces.
In other words - the military operations are engaged in by the military - on request from the intelligence services.
Real spies never carry a gun.
>I'm also strongly in favor of capital punishment for politicians.
You mean entering politics should be a capital crime ? I could get behind that idea...
>If the criminals are organized enough we call it a Government.
Or a corporation.
Frankly these days the differences are getting too small to matter.
I could see that possibly happening... honestly, I'd call that a damn good foot in the door.
Because PC's ARE multi-purpose devices.
When people are using their favorite apps on their gaming system... how long before they are only using that... and then how long before they start contemplating using one of the other linuxes so they can do EVERYTHING on it ?
Whoever said China has only ONE state religion ?
China is the smart communists remember... well they aren't actually communists at all anymore since they are pure state-capitalism in economics now. They are however pretty much the big-brother government from 1984.
Unlike the stupid communists they long ago figured out that if you try to PREVENT religion you have a permanent underground uprising to contend with because people tend to really dislike having their faith banned.
So instead of dealing with samizdat networks and underground churches... they let them all out in public, then carefully lead them. Let the people have their gods - all of them - and carefully keep the party in control of the churches.
The only reason they want atheism in party members is so that none of the churches they are in charge of can complain about the party members giving orders actively belonging to a different sect or religion.
So you have your Bhudists of various sects, your catholics (the largest Christian subgroup) etc. etc . all practicing, and all controlled by the party.
That's why the outside religions for foreigners aren't allowed ot let you in the door without a passport... it's the price for not swearing fealty to the king (if you get the metaphor here).
You can worship in China, but you can't do missionary work unless you promise to let the state dictate and control your work.
I am not talking in defense of China - the simple reality is that when it comes to freedom - they are the worst thing to happen to humanity ever. Not just because of the sheer number of people they have under their power - but because they've learned how to secure that power against everything that has previously overthrown dictatorial big brother governments in the world.
I made no assumptions about you - I merely drew a logical conclusion about why somebody may say - as a sincere attempt at warning, something that to anybody who does not share his particular cultural background/beliefs would sound distinctly like a threat intended to control.
If you read the works of Steve Biko for example you will find a lingering resentment at Christian colonialists over those particular lines: "Our cultures had no concepts of a hell, of suffering for the dead. We venerated our ancestors, and saw their guiding hand in our daily lives -good and bad alike, they were merely the spirits of our ancestors living among us."
For them - the idea of heaven and hell were a radical and massive departure from their entire thought-process around spirituality and indeed their entire world-view. Biko recounts that African's experienced the idea of hell as a massive threat, and that the vast majority of conversion to occur during colonialism was in response to a deep sense of fear.
This is also why, throughout Africa, most people who converted to Christianity never fully abandoned their original beliefs and combined them in various ways. They were NEVER embracing Christianity. They were paying lip-service to the God that people were saying would burn them forever if they didn't.
Now personally - if I was you, I would consider a 300-year experiment in misionary work which is afterwards recounted by the recipients of this charitable act as "from an age of oppression and exploitation - the greatest and most destructive oppression of all" - to be a failed experiement.
Just a hint: maybe if you want to spread your good news, then make it good news - shut up about the whole heaven and hell thing until AFTER you dealt with a LOT of the other stuff first. Otherwise - you end up sounding like you're trying to threaten people.
You may sincerely believe it's a warning, those people will feel it's a threat. You cannot avoid this disconnect - but perhaps you can postpone it until your intentions will be easier to deduce ?
In theory - you're right. Google got away with it though because they effectively ONLY used the kernel and wrote their own userland.
I just don't see this being a viable or valuable approach for Valve to take. It could work if Valve wants to build a console - and provide them a cheap(er) way to get one going (there are some startups effectively trying that now) - but that's not their goal. Their target is PC-gaming, PC-owners even if they are gamers generally still feel they bought multi-purposes devices and won't be happy if they lose the capacity to do things like browse the web or use office applications.
So while valve COULD do what you said- I see absolutely no benefit for them if they did. Google could benefit because their target devices were phones, not pc's, and people have different expectations there. Valve does not have that gap - I see no commercial or financial benefit for them in causing such a split.
You got it exactly backwards.
If you play our game by our rules - you never ever EVER have to worry about packaging or API stability. If we change the system - we'll update your code FOR YOU - and send you the patch to make sure it keeps working.
If you don't play by our rules, we don't even have the means to KNOW you're affected by the design change we made.
If you get screwed it's because YOU aren't cooperating. You're playing in our stadium but you're not playing the same game we're playing. We'll let you play - but don't expect us to HELP you. If you want to make up your own rules... then don't expect us to give you a trophee, don't complain if the markers we paint on the field are wrong.
Trying to do proprietory DRM software on GNU/Linux is like showing up at a baseball stadium and saying "this is a really pretty stadium - let's play cricket here".
Now if you don't interfere with the people who play baseball there, they probably won't chase you away - especially as this field is on public property in the local park.
But then you start saying things like "Will you idiots please remove this damn diamond so we can put in a straight pitch with wickets ? How do you expect anybody to seriously play cricket on this field otherwise ? Nobody will ever want to come to the park if you have a baseball field instead of a cricket pitch you know."
Which is usually news to all the people who were sitting in the park, enjoying the lovely trees, the scenery and watching their friends play baseball...
Play our game. Or don't ask for help. This is our park, you can play your game, in your park. In our neighborhood, with the park we built, for ourselves, we'll play the games WE want ot play. We won't stop you playing your games here, but we aren't going to change our park to help you play them either because we don't LIKE your game.
My history is much like yours. I just never stopped running Linux on my desktops - currently I'm using Mint and I am very happy thank you.
In fact the last few times I was forced to do a windows install I was frustrated and irritated by the limitations of the system beyond belief within hours.
I was shouting at the computer for not DOING WHAT I BLOODY WANT and worse such idiotics as "I cannot get on the fucking internet because it doesn't have a driver for my lan card which I need to get on teh internet to go download".
After years of every piece of hardware I got just working automagically with ZERO setup and ZERO configuration - that was horrible.
Then I tried to use a dual-desktop... and found it absolutely frustrating, while on Linux it's just beautiful how well that works (and this is not even hardware specific- my laptop with extra screen uses does not have the nvidia cards I have in my home desktops).
Then a year or so ago my fiance's old laptop finally died. Since she works from home we got her a desktop since she could get a much more powerful one for the price of a new laptop. She had NEVER used a Linux machine in her life before we met (about 4 months before that) - but had used my desktop quite often while I was at work.
She immediately asked me: "Get me what you have" - so I put mint on her new desktop. She's been using it ever since.
You know what teaching I did to help her ? I showed her how to install apps from the software manager (because that is really quite different from pre-windows-8-app-store windows ways of doing it).
That's it. She's been using it, completely without any help or supervision ever since - she's not a geek (she likes gaming with me but she's never written a line of code in her life and she doesn't even know what a command line IS). She's just a girl who writes copy for an ad-agency on a freelance basis and snuggles up with her programmer man in the evenings to watch the original unaltered star wars trilogy.
She uses Linux - and in her own words - she prefers it because she doesn't have to struggle to make it work, because she doesn't have to struggle to figure out how to make it do what she needs done.
As far as she's concerned it's MUCH easier to use and much nicer to have on your computer than anything Microsoft ever did (and this whole app-store thing basically changes the only thing she had to be SHOWN to how things are now done on windows anyway).
Anecdotal ? Sure, but so is your post.
The point is that for every anecdote like yours, there are anecdotes like mine - this isn't something there is a conclusive scientific study about, but don't think your personal experience is somehow representative or says anything at ALL about Linux.
It says something about you. Nothing more.
>Saying Christianity is a peaceful religion which doesn't use coercion is like saying Charles Manson is a peaceful fellow who means no one any harm because he's lately been locked up in jail.
To which Christians would respond that blaming the religion for the actions of some of it's members is like blaming the Beatles for what Manson was inspired to do by the White album.
They may have a point there, I am not yet convinced either way.
1) Are warnings coercion?
Some Christians intend it to be a warning... that only means THEY were coerced so effectively that the threat they were coerced by they are now warning others against.
Careful - you're starting to make your own religion sound like a bad case of Stockholm syndrome...
>Tell you what, separate YOUR worldview from the ballot box, and when you figure out how to do that let me know and we can talk about me doing that. The whole idea that you can just separate one part of a person's beliefs from the rest of them is absurd.
Agreed. I demand something much simpler. I demand you stand before the ballot box and apply some enlightened self-interest. Or to put it in Christian terms: follow the golden rule.
At that moment the right religious question to ask yourself is: "If I was in a predominantly Muslim country right now, with my faith - how would I want my neighbours to vote ?"
Ask yourself, what freedoms you would want them to grant you there. What tolerance you would hope to get for the practise of your faith in a country where it's a tiny minority view.
Then vote to give that to all the tiny minorities in YOUR country, and only AFTER you did that can you look at other countries and say "please, for what I did to your friends and family who live in my land, would you grant the same to mine who live in yours".
China has a state religion - a form of Roman Catholicism that does not recognize the pope (or rather places the chairman in the papacy).
Generally the two catholic churches in China get along fairly well and they tolerate the Roman version though there was a period back in the early 2000's where they considered banning the believe in the papacy of the Vatican.
In they end they did not go through with that - probably after somebody in the party noticed the similarity to the actions of a certain well-known British king.