Do all the people replying here not realize that Gandhi_2 was joking? Let me spell it out. Gandhi_2 is making fun of our western tendency to be so hyper-sensitive to cultural issues that mentioning, or even noticing, that someone is from another culture or genetic group is likely to elicit a charge of racism from someone. The fact that that many people didn't even get it shows how accustomed we have become to hearing these charges.
The first time I used Lotus 1-2-3, I recall thinking "It's a good thing I'm sitting down." I'd toyed with Visicalc and Supercalc on Apple IIs, but they were crude toys. 1-2-3 left me breathless. The scope of the product, the ease of use (remember the "/" as the command introducer, so much easier to hit than Excel's "Alt" key?), the almost unlimited potential for mathematical, financial, geographical, statistical, and you-name-it-or-even-imagine-it modelling... a beautifully conceived and developed product. As another poster put it, "goodbye, old friend."
Freedom of speech isn't absolute in the U.S. either. Try (falsely) shouting fire in a crowded theater. Or any speech intended and likely to incite imminent lawless action. Most governments just draw the line well to the left of where the U.S. does.
With power as finely balanced as it is in the US, a party doesn't need anything like a third of the vote. A percent or less of the vote - if concentrated so that it elects one or two congressmen - can give a party power way out of proportion to its actual electoral vote. Countries like Israel have long suffered from a tail-wagging-the-dog syndrome where tiny parties have vastly disproportionate power for that very reason: if they leave the coalition, taking their two or three votes with them, the government loses its majority.
The flip side of this is what I got in Ontario (Canada), whose curriculum 25 years ago required the teaching of creationism as well as evolution. After spending a week or so looking at all the evidence for the theory of evolution, our grade 13 biology teacher announced "I am also required to teach an alternate theory known as creationism. You've seen all the evidence for evolutionary theory (he went on to list it). But there are some who believe that this is all false and that god did it. It is up to you to decide which theory you find more plausible." And on to the next topic.
When I read about teachers having to "teach the controversy", etc., I'm not too worried. I suspect that, even in Tennessee, a majority of science teachers have the same severe doubts about creationism as the rest of us.
Given the amount of discussion, this is obviously not a silly question. I worked at a company in Palo Alto for a while, and one of the things that appealed to me was that they let users name their own workstations. You got a completely random mishmash. They didn't reflect the machine's purpose (more secure, if that worries you); they're easier to remember (betty, veronica, larch, elm, etc are way easier than random alpha strings); you don't have to change them if someone moves; and when someone quits you reimage anyway, so let the new owner choose a new name, or stick with the old name if you prefer. It's also more empowering than some faceless (and finite) naming convention imposed by the trolls.
To all of you who replied to my initial post, thank you. I've read all the responses carefully, even the trolls: they too have their story. There's a wealth of excellent advice here and a high signal-to-noise ratio. Thanks in particular to those of you who took the time to provide thoughtful and well-rounded answers.
Will this idea fly? Beats me. But I hope to have a lot of fun finding out.
This judgement has no effect on free speech in any case, merely on the right to anonymity, a different question entirely.
On the topic of free speech, Oliver Wendell Holmes (an American Supreme Court Judge) put it very well. "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater". Not even in the United States is the right to free speech absolute - nor would any sane person want it to be.
Two important issues:
1. There is nothing illegal about pornography in general. It doesn't matter whether he had two or two million pix of naked women. Their discovery is as irrelevant as wedding photos.
2. Nowadays there are so many ways to carry files around - SD chips, CDs/DVDs, on your iPod, on an encrypted HD partition, not to mention just downloading them later - that this sort of search is largely pointless. Any serious importer of child pornography wouldn't even be inconvenienced by them.
This is not to downplay the legitimacy of the child porn issue - but measures like this waste time and effort that could have been used elsewhere. In Bruce Schneier's phrase, security theater.
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Do all the people replying here not realize that Gandhi_2 was joking? Let me spell it out. Gandhi_2 is making fun of our western tendency to be so hyper-sensitive to cultural issues that mentioning, or even noticing, that someone is from another culture or genetic group is likely to elicit a charge of racism from someone. The fact that that many people didn't even get it shows how accustomed we have become to hearing these charges.
The first time I used Lotus 1-2-3, I recall thinking "It's a good thing I'm sitting down." I'd toyed with Visicalc and Supercalc on Apple IIs, but they were crude toys. 1-2-3 left me breathless. The scope of the product, the ease of use (remember the "/" as the command introducer, so much easier to hit than Excel's "Alt" key?), the almost unlimited potential for mathematical, financial, geographical, statistical, and you-name-it-or-even-imagine-it modelling ... a beautifully conceived and developed product. As another poster put it, "goodbye, old friend."
Freedom of speech isn't absolute in the U.S. either. Try (falsely) shouting fire in a crowded theater. Or any speech intended and likely to incite imminent lawless action. Most governments just draw the line well to the left of where the U.S. does.
Not to mention "animal husbandry".
With power as finely balanced as it is in the US, a party doesn't need anything like a third of the vote. A percent or less of the vote - if concentrated so that it elects one or two congressmen - can give a party power way out of proportion to its actual electoral vote. Countries like Israel have long suffered from a tail-wagging-the-dog syndrome where tiny parties have vastly disproportionate power for that very reason: if they leave the coalition, taking their two or three votes with them, the government loses its majority.
The flip side of this is what I got in Ontario (Canada), whose curriculum 25 years ago required the teaching of creationism as well as evolution. After spending a week or so looking at all the evidence for the theory of evolution, our grade 13 biology teacher announced "I am also required to teach an alternate theory known as creationism. You've seen all the evidence for evolutionary theory (he went on to list it). But there are some who believe that this is all false and that god did it. It is up to you to decide which theory you find more plausible." And on to the next topic. When I read about teachers having to "teach the controversy", etc., I'm not too worried. I suspect that, even in Tennessee, a majority of science teachers have the same severe doubts about creationism as the rest of us.
Given the amount of discussion, this is obviously not a silly question. I worked at a company in Palo Alto for a while, and one of the things that appealed to me was that they let users name their own workstations. You got a completely random mishmash. They didn't reflect the machine's purpose (more secure, if that worries you); they're easier to remember (betty, veronica, larch, elm, etc are way easier than random alpha strings); you don't have to change them if someone moves; and when someone quits you reimage anyway, so let the new owner choose a new name, or stick with the old name if you prefer. It's also more empowering than some faceless (and finite) naming convention imposed by the trolls.
To all of you who replied to my initial post, thank you. I've read all the responses carefully, even the trolls: they too have their story. There's a wealth of excellent advice here and a high signal-to-noise ratio. Thanks in particular to those of you who took the time to provide thoughtful and well-rounded answers. Will this idea fly? Beats me. But I hope to have a lot of fun finding out.
This judgement has no effect on free speech in any case, merely on the right to anonymity, a different question entirely. On the topic of free speech, Oliver Wendell Holmes (an American Supreme Court Judge) put it very well. "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater". Not even in the United States is the right to free speech absolute - nor would any sane person want it to be.
Two important issues: 1. There is nothing illegal about pornography in general. It doesn't matter whether he had two or two million pix of naked women. Their discovery is as irrelevant as wedding photos. 2. Nowadays there are so many ways to carry files around - SD chips, CDs/DVDs, on your iPod, on an encrypted HD partition, not to mention just downloading them later - that this sort of search is largely pointless. Any serious importer of child pornography wouldn't even be inconvenienced by them. This is not to downplay the legitimacy of the child porn issue - but measures like this waste time and effort that could have been used elsewhere. In Bruce Schneier's phrase, security theater.