I once got sick enough where I thought I was paying for my sins before I died. I got on the Internet to see what my problem was, and had myself convinced that I had acute pancreatitis.
So I went to the doctor, with a semi-knowledge of acute pancreatitis, and described some of the symptoms I had read about. What was the result? Well, the doctor thought I might have acute pancreatitis. We did a rather expensive battery of tests to check for pancreatitis, kidney stones, gallstones, etc. etc. Nothing turned up.
By that evening I felt fine. It turned out to be some simple gastritis (probably due to some NSAIDs I was taking - without doctor supervision - for my tendonitis).
I sent myself to the ER because I tried diagnosing my own problem. I was fine, but I had to pay the price. It ain't cheap.
Ok, I remember when the first rumors were floated that MS was behind the BayStar deal. Someone leaked a memo and it got into ESR's hands.
Do you remember what the FOSS people were saying then? This is huge, they said. If this is substantiated, then MS is in major trouble, they said. People were skeptical because it was such a big deal. It was hard to believe. It was a bigger deal than MS v. Netscape - remember, the one that nearly saw MS broken up by the government?
Was it ever substantiated? You bet. But no one seems concerned anymore.
What? The convicted monopolist puts "licensing" money into SCO's hands for a product that it will never need. Shady, but legal. Now, the same convicted monopolist has been shown to have quietly and indirectly supported SCO's bogus anti-Linux litigation using funds from an organization that has major ties to MS.
How is that not a conspiracy? How is it, when "Microsoft sees an opportunity to help an enemy of an enemy... and acts on it;" how is that not a conspiracy? Isn't that the textbook definition of conspiracy? Just because everyone knows about it doesn't mean it isn't a conspiracy.
What I understand is that a convicted monopolist is still doing "business as usual," and nobody has called to re-convene the court. Why?
It's not illegal to have a monopoly. It is illegal to maintain the monopoly by conspiracy. Microsoft has done this.
With the way some defects are published, you often see the same Linux defect published multiple times because it exists in multiple Linux distributions. I've seen "statistics" that claim enormous defect counts that include defects across all Linux distros, where defects are not only aggregated from a whole bunch of irrelevant software, but also counted multiple times.
This gives Microsoft a huge margin in which to twist their statistics.
(Finally -- very few of your statements are genuinely supportive of your premise. For instance, it's entirely possible that all drivers are not equal and that many who drive recreational vehicles just "for fun" are more hazardous than other drivers, but that these individuals would be just as hazardous if not more were they not driving a recreational vehicle. Likewise, I see very little other than blank assertion which is genuinely supportive of the idea that sports cars cause bad driving).
You gave the very argument for this in your post.:) You suggested that your feeling of vulnerability affected your driving.
So- Give a motorist a feeling of invincibility, and I can now claim that the opposite might be true: that the motorist is more likely to take risks.
Is there a psychological affect on a driver due to the type of car he or she is driving, and does that affect safety? I'm not the first to assert this.
Now I need to clarify: I am not so much talking about "sports cars" as I am about "sport utility vehicles," tricked-out monster trucks and whiny little rice-rockets. Actual sports cars seem to find themselves in a demographic of more responsible males who can't afford to wreck their nice cars.
I also ought to mention that I have examined volumes of GM's market research data during the mid 90's when I worked on a number of research projects as a computer programmer. I can say without reservation that safety is the last thing on many people's minds when choosing a vehicle. If there were no cultural norm for anything BUT safety, I suspect most of these respondents would have responded far more conservatively. If their cars were dull and boring, what incentive would they have to be reckless? Sure, there will always those, regardless of the kinds of cars available.
Well, I'm not a statistician. I don't really have any authority to intrerpret results intended for marketing purposes. Just some thoughts, though.
I guess my point is that while some of us are willing to accept the consequences of our own actions, we aren't all prepared to accept the consequences of the actions of others.
You might validly say, then, to "stay off the road." (I mostly use public transportation, so I've already taken that advice.:))
I am merely pointing out the double-standard in our society whereby we can have an ordinance to remove equipment that is deemed dangerous to our kids, but it is far more difficult to remove people who are dangerous drivers from the road.
The playground scenario is just one example of a public ordinance where the rules are designed to fix the problem by curing the cause, not by treating or lessening the symptoms.
What are good ways to cure the cause of reckless driving? Current ordinances only reduce the problem by providing some penalties to bad drivers. If drivers of SUVs, rice-rockets, and other vehicles whose primary use is for recreation can drive safely, then fine. I am skeptical that all drivers are equal, though. I suspect that many who drive recreational vehicles just "for fun" tend to be more hazardous on the road.
I submit that removing all modified or recreational vehicles from the road would dramatically reduce the problem of reckless driving, even with the same drivers on the road. This is only a vague hypothesis based on my own flawed observations.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, really. I'm just trying to point out a silly double-standard.
Yet, when unsafely operated and maintained playground equipment hurts our kids, we pass an ordinance to remove it from the community.
On the other hand, we allow vehicles with the word "sport" in them to enter the market, and don't bat an eye at the horrendous fatality statistics on our freeways.
Shift to the right? I think if you look at his actions, you see a different story.
Pork barrel spending. HUGE deficits. Interference in Iraq. Billions spent on public lands. Have we ever seen a more socialist program than "No Child Left Behind?" Government meddling with who can get married and what constitutes responsible scientific research?
The real conservative agenda is this: Fewer taxes, fewer public programs, private property as opposed to public land, and only a level playing field for corporate competition. We want LESS government, not MORE.
Socialist government is a left wing ideal. Funny that the libs are the ones griping and moaning about individual rights and getting the government out of everyone else's business. Isn't that what we conservatives are supposed to be saying?
I think these days the "right" has become the "religious right," and it's all about fundamentalist autocracy, not about democratic government at all.
Don't get me wrong; I'm a church-going man, and I observe the tenets and rules of my religion. But there is something else I believe, and it is that CIVIL government has to do with CIVIL matters and NOT with dictating the conscience of the people. Let us do that within our communities- not for the whole world.
So, as with many true conservatives, I'm voting libertarian this year.
Where have you been the last four years? There are centrist Republicans, certainly, and Bush tries to sound moderate on the campaign trail, but whatever happened to actions speaking louder than words?
You are neglecting the qualifier in my original statement: actual government:)
But you have a point: Bush has a dangerous streak, in spite of the moderate tone.
Ask yourself next time you see the media focusing on medals, ribbons, type setting etc - Do you really know anything about either candidate's platforms? Really really? Do you know Kerry's? Bush's? If not, why not? Shouldn't that bother you? This is an election isn't it? And as much as the spin machine wants to talk about easily misconstrued things like character and "flip-flopping", platform and issues matter.
The problem is that there really aren't "platforms" outside of the emotionally charged rhetoric. The reality is that both major parties are centrist when it comes to actual government.
So if you have nothing to argue about, then you must attack the other man's character. You must also find non-issues to talk about - things that don't belong in federal government anyway, such as legislating morality (how many wives you can have, or whether or not gays can marry, or if stem cells are people too).
People aren't thinking of issues. It's too hard to think about what is best for the country - too much complexity. We want to know who is More Evil and who is Less Evil. Who best fits our ideal of moral goodness? Who is a Real Hero? Issues be damned.
Actually, Linux was built out of a simple little terminal program that Linus wrote to log in to the University's network. He was using Minix at the time, but prefered his own stand-alone terminal program for certain tasks. The program basically "grew legs" and became Linux.
Naturally, Linus was very much inspired by Minix, which is a Unix-like OS written by Andrew Tannenbaum (also without any Unix code in it so that it could be used by students). A lot of Linux development happened on Minix, but there was no Minix nor Unix source code in it.
You get some Unix-looking code in Linux due to Posix compliance, and probaby wherever there is BSD code. I'm fairly certain that, at this point, a number of independent comparisons have been done against System V without any significant matches, if you don't count the little malloc bit that SGI slipped in.
At any rate, it is fairly established as fact that there is no System V code in Linux. SCO knows this, and so they are trying to find situations where code that might have been based in System V code at one time has made its way into Linux. SCO thinks that if you look at every twist of AIX from now back through the beginning, it might turn out that some of it actually grew out of System V code (even though the code now has no resemblance to the original). SCO hopes that this would save them: they can claim rights because of pedigree. If the code happened to be donated to Linux, SCO feels this would vindicate them.
These scenarious are extremely tenuous (major understatement, that), which SCO also knows, so - as a last resort - SCO seems to be trying to stir up some controversy by exposing some IBM memos on the failed Monterey project, which SCO/Caldera is still (apparently) _very_ angry about. I think that is what this all comes down to: sour grapes over project Monterey.
Really, there isn't much that SCO can do about it. I recall that one of the stipulations in the Monterey contract was that, if SCO happened to be acquired during the course of the project, then all bets are off. We recall that SCO was indeed bought out by Caldera.
must say, I like a lot of the ideas - even if I think that many of them (such as the car driving itself) is about 10 years too early on his time table. Not because we technologically can't do it - but because of the politics.
Agreed.
I don't think we'll have such advances in computing, though. I think Moore's law will take a break for a while (if it hasn't started already). The technology to keep Moore's law going for the next decade may exist, but it will be too expensive to develop and put out to the masses because of economic trends in tech markets.
Of course, we will have faster machines that cost more (less, when adjusted for inflation), and more people will have them worldwide.
The Internet will be far more pervasive. Dial-up will have all but disappeared - and won't be supported by most ISPs. Even the poorest of people will have access to broadband, except in the poorest nations, which will remain largely unchanged.
All of the fancy goodies described in the article will exist (if they don't already), but still be too expensive and rare for any but the richest of people to afford.
You won't be able to buy a CRT. A 19" flat-panel will cost $1000 (really $200, adjusted for inflation). However, wages won't have increased at the rate of inflation. Things will continue to lose wires and gain wireless capabilities. Land lines for public telecommunications will be unheard of.
Technophiles will have gotten bored with Linux and with OSX - too mainstream. Windows will still be dominant on the desktop, but Microsoft will have long stopped their enormous profit-mongering and will have re-invented and diversified. Bill Gates might lose interest and go into some other business. Windows will cost next to nothing. A previously obscure OS will be getting popular with geeks who want something different. Maybe it will even be the Hurd.
Gasoline fossil fuel will still be the dominant fuel for automobiles, but there will now be a significant minority of vehicles fueled by alternate means. Probably bio-diesel or improved hybrids, but still no fuel cells. Gasoline will be very expensive, and we'll still be talking about all of the research going into alternate fuels, except that we'll really be serious about it. Public transportation will improve slightly - dramatically in some areas. SUVs will be out. Thousands of people will still die in their vehicles.
The low-carb craze will have ended. Nutrition won't have changed much - most people will still eat junk (cheap junk).
Healthcare in America will have worsened, but improved in other nations. Fewer Americans will afford healthcare, and the quality of doctors will decline, prompting socialized medicine to become an attractive proposition for the first time (although still not quite there). More doctors will be unable to afford malpractice insurance and quit the practice altogether. People won't have fancy gadgets that assess their health status at home. They might add a few features to the standard thermometer and gain a blood pressure cuff as a standard item in the medicine closet. A few more controlled substances will make it Over the Counter. They will be harmless drugs, though.
Advances in medicine will continue. New drugs, procedures, and equipment will arrive on the scene. These will open up new possibilities, but will come with new risks and new expenses. Ultimately, they will only produce marginal benefits.
We will not find a cure for cancer, but we will come somewhat closer to making it a treatable illness that is regarded as a minor setback rather than a life-changing event.
World hunger will be as prevalent as it is today. AIDS will continue to exact huge tolls on certain populations. No big break-throughs will help us there. Developed nations will experience significant population decreases as fewer children are born and the age demographic increases. Undeveloped nations will continue to increase their populations.
POV-Ray is not 3D modelling software. It is a ray-tracer: a program that reads a scene description file and uses a ray-tracing algorithm to produce an image.
For 3D modelling software that works with POV-Ray, check out Moray or Wings3d. You can also use a program such as 3DS Max to model scenes for POV-Ray if you have appropriate software to convert the scene file to a format that POV-Ray understands.
Billions of dollars earned through patent monopolies are also taken away by class-action law suits when the next FDA-approved wonder-drug turns out to be defective.
How do you ballance the scale if you take patents out of the picture?
Think about this for a minute. Let's suppose there were three parties instead of two. In a democracy, the simple majority would get their leader elected. You could pontentially have two thirds of the population ruled by a leader chosen by the remaining dominant third. The majority would be ruled by a minority. This is a dangerous scenario, and would cause far greater instability and division than you can imagine.
To avoid this, those who set up our government devised a system we call the electoral college, and guaranteed a "republican form of government." That is, the United States is a republic, NOT a "democracy." We have a democratic form of government, but it is built for a two-party system where both parties gravitate to the middle. Our democrats and republicans are both relatively moderate, so your fear of either one forcing their "ideology" on the other is mostly unfounded.
For example, I have been a registered republican, but I decided to look at the democratic ticket this election year. I went to Kerry's campaign site and looked at the issues. It was not really that much different from the republican party line, only the emphasis is spread differently or different solutions were provided. There is nothing that is so revolting where I couldn't vote for it. It's a matter of individual priorities at the moment, but I realized how much both parties are designed to appeal to _everyone_ as much as possible.
I do have ideologies that are not espoused by either party. I've thought of the libertarians and the Green party. However, ideology is a very divisive thing.
Let's face it, it will always be democrats vs. republicans because those two parties are closest to the moderate middle. By voting for another candidate, you are probably only taking your vote away from the moderate mainstream party that is closest to your views, and handing it to the opposing party.
While you make a valid observation, you are talking about something that has not happened, and that you cannot prove will ever happen.
In an argument, the hypothetical must take back-seat to the reality of here-and-now.
TCO for MS systems must include the cost of viruses and other malware. Linux does not currently suffer from this problem. Maybe, at some future time, that will not be the case. However, we can't use the future as an argument because it hasn't happened yet.
If you examine Eric's original chart, you will see that this relationship between Linux, Minix, and Unix exists even there. SCO has simply made it obvious to see, and called the chart a sort of "pedigree" to suggest that Linux contains actual Unix "genetic" material.
Of course, Eric states very clearly on his site that "an arrow indicates an inheritance like a compatibility, it is not only a matter of source code"
And anyway, Minix doesn't contain any AT&T source code by Tanenbaum's own admission. Linux doesn't contain Minix code. These are both original works, influenced by the Unix flavor of their time. That is what the Levenez chart shows, nothing more.
The chart is only useful to SCO in their campaign of dishonesty to suggest something that is clearly untrue, and that has been proved repeatedly to be untrue.
POV-Ray has some excellent "GUIs." For example: Moray and Wings3d. You can even use high-profile modelers like Maya and 3ds Max, and then convert the scene files into POV format.
Although the source code for POV-Ray is available, the POV team does not consider the program to be Open Source, nor does the license.
If I'm not mistaken, the U.S. Navy once built a hydroplane vessel using the same sort of technology that is used on the F117 stealth fighter. The ship even had the characteristic radar-mangling facets.
I could be wrong.
Re:"Doubt" and "uncertainty" are fallacies
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Your learning is superficial and you are intellectually arrogant. The tenets of effective argument have been well established and are published; you may deny these if you wish.
I never advocated nor suggested the use of generalization, flawed reason, or hasty conclusions. I did not condone the wilful misrepresentation of evidence. These are, in themselves, fallacies of argument and of logic. You have made these very errors in supposing that I implied such a thing.
Arguments stand or fall on their merits. They do not need qualifiers on them.
When a conclusion is derived from reason and logic, this conclusion induces belief in those who might consider it. In argument form, such belief is most effectively presented as fact.
"Doubt" and "uncertainty" are fallacies
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I also disagree with the reviewer's assessment on this point.
A good argument does not allow for doubt or uncertainty. You can't effectively persuade people if you put things in terms of "probably" or "maybe" or "I think."
When you have been proven wrong in your argument, then you admit you were wrong. Those who are courageous enough to admit their errors, and then to alter their beliefs, don't need the excuse of doubt and uncertainty in their arguments in the first place.
There is a group of people who take one of the ideas of critical thinking - to question everything - to the false conclusion that we must therefore live with doubt and uncertainty because we can't empirically know it all. "Question everything" becomes "doubt everything," and then you have assertions such as this: that the author is conservative and dogmatic in his views. The aspiring critical thinker, perceiving a flaw in another's thinking, projects that flaw onto the other's argument and cannot except it by virtue of the thought process used to arrive at the conclusion.
Absolutely. And those things are art, not science. The nit I was picking is that the submission equated "culinary hacker" with science by claiming that the chef is a hacker because he approaches food scientifically.
Hackers _usually_ don't approach from the direction of science. A hacker thinks of something neat, and then mayber there are scientific implications in that and maybe its just neat. Or sometimes there is an interesting science, and the hacker gets creative and tries a variation on it, or a creative approximation.
Hackers are defined by the art; science is too prescribed.
Slashdot Mirror
Hear, hear.
I once got sick enough where I thought I was paying for my sins before I died. I got on the Internet to see what my problem was, and had myself convinced that I had acute pancreatitis.
So I went to the doctor, with a semi-knowledge of acute pancreatitis, and described some of the symptoms I had read about. What was the result? Well, the doctor thought I might have acute pancreatitis. We did a rather expensive battery of tests to check for pancreatitis, kidney stones, gallstones, etc. etc. Nothing turned up.
By that evening I felt fine. It turned out to be some simple gastritis (probably due to some NSAIDs I was taking - without doctor supervision - for my tendonitis).
I sent myself to the ER because I tried diagnosing my own problem. I was fine, but I had to pay the price. It ain't cheap.
Indeed. It was clearly formulated in secret, then leaked to ESR. It was a secret. It was a conspiracy.
Ok, I remember when the first rumors were floated that MS was behind the BayStar deal. Someone leaked a memo and it got into ESR's hands.
... and acts on it;" how is that not a conspiracy? Isn't that the textbook definition of conspiracy? Just because everyone knows about it doesn't mean it isn't a conspiracy.
Do you remember what the FOSS people were saying then? This is huge, they said. If this is substantiated, then MS is in major trouble, they said. People were skeptical because it was such a big deal. It was hard to believe. It was a bigger deal than MS v. Netscape - remember, the one that nearly saw MS broken up by the government?
Was it ever substantiated? You bet. But no one seems concerned anymore.
What? The convicted monopolist puts "licensing" money into SCO's hands for a product that it will never need. Shady, but legal. Now, the same convicted monopolist has been shown to have quietly and indirectly supported SCO's bogus anti-Linux litigation using funds from an organization that has major ties to MS.
How is that not a conspiracy? How is it, when "Microsoft sees an opportunity to help an enemy of an enemy
What I understand is that a convicted monopolist is still doing "business as usual," and nobody has called to re-convene the court. Why?
It's not illegal to have a monopoly. It is illegal to maintain the monopoly by conspiracy. Microsoft has done this.
With the way some defects are published, you often see the same Linux defect published multiple times because it exists in multiple Linux distributions. I've seen "statistics" that claim enormous defect counts that include defects across all Linux distros, where defects are not only aggregated from a whole bunch of irrelevant software, but also counted multiple times.
This gives Microsoft a huge margin in which to twist their statistics.
You gave the very argument for this in your post.
So- Give a motorist a feeling of invincibility, and I can now claim that the opposite might be true: that the motorist is more likely to take risks.
Is there a psychological affect on a driver due to the type of car he or she is driving, and does that affect safety? I'm not the first to assert this.
Now I need to clarify: I am not so much talking about "sports cars" as I am about "sport utility vehicles," tricked-out monster trucks and whiny little rice-rockets. Actual sports cars seem to find themselves in a demographic of more responsible males who can't afford to wreck their nice cars.
I also ought to mention that I have examined volumes of GM's market research data during the mid 90's when I worked on a number of research projects as a computer programmer. I can say without reservation that safety is the last thing on many people's minds when choosing a vehicle. If there were no cultural norm for anything BUT safety, I suspect most of these respondents would have responded far more conservatively. If their cars were dull and boring, what incentive would they have to be reckless? Sure, there will always those, regardless of the kinds of cars available.
Well, I'm not a statistician. I don't really have any authority to intrerpret results intended for marketing purposes. Just some thoughts, though.
I guess my point is that while some of us are willing to accept the consequences of our own actions, we aren't all prepared to accept the consequences of the actions of others.
:))
You might validly say, then, to "stay off the road." (I mostly use public transportation, so I've already taken that advice.
I am merely pointing out the double-standard in our society whereby we can have an ordinance to remove equipment that is deemed dangerous to our kids, but it is far more difficult to remove people who are dangerous drivers from the road.
The playground scenario is just one example of a public ordinance where the rules are designed to fix the problem by curing the cause, not by treating or lessening the symptoms.
What are good ways to cure the cause of reckless driving? Current ordinances only reduce the problem by providing some penalties to bad drivers. If drivers of SUVs, rice-rockets, and other vehicles whose primary use is for recreation can drive safely, then fine. I am skeptical that all drivers are equal, though. I suspect that many who drive recreational vehicles just "for fun" tend to be more hazardous on the road.
I submit that removing all modified or recreational vehicles from the road would dramatically reduce the problem of reckless driving, even with the same drivers on the road. This is only a vague hypothesis based on my own flawed observations.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, really. I'm just trying to point out a silly double-standard.
Yet, when unsafely operated and maintained playground equipment hurts our kids, we pass an ordinance to remove it from the community.
On the other hand, we allow vehicles with the word "sport" in them to enter the market, and don't bat an eye at the horrendous fatality statistics on our freeways.
Shift to the right? I think if you look at his actions, you see a different story.
Pork barrel spending. HUGE deficits. Interference in Iraq. Billions spent on public lands. Have we ever seen a more socialist program than "No Child Left Behind?" Government meddling with who can get married and what constitutes responsible scientific research?
The real conservative agenda is this: Fewer taxes, fewer public programs, private property as opposed to public land, and only a level playing field for corporate competition. We want LESS government, not MORE.
Socialist government is a left wing ideal. Funny that the libs are the ones griping and moaning about individual rights and getting the government out of everyone else's business. Isn't that what we conservatives are supposed to be saying?
I think these days the "right" has become the "religious right," and it's all about fundamentalist autocracy, not about democratic government at all.
Don't get me wrong; I'm a church-going man, and I observe the tenets and rules of my religion. But there is something else I believe, and it is that CIVIL government has to do with CIVIL matters and NOT with dictating the conscience of the people. Let us do that within our communities- not for the whole world.
So, as with many true conservatives, I'm voting libertarian this year.
You are neglecting the qualifier in my original statement: actual government
But you have a point: Bush has a dangerous streak, in spite of the moderate tone.
The problem is that there really aren't "platforms" outside of the emotionally charged rhetoric. The reality is that both major parties are centrist when it comes to actual government.
So if you have nothing to argue about, then you must attack the other man's character. You must also find non-issues to talk about - things that don't belong in federal government anyway, such as legislating morality (how many wives you can have, or whether or not gays can marry, or if stem cells are people too).
People aren't thinking of issues. It's too hard to think about what is best for the country - too much complexity. We want to know who is More Evil and who is Less Evil. Who best fits our ideal of moral goodness? Who is a Real Hero? Issues be damned.
Actually, Linux was built out of a simple little terminal program that Linus wrote to log in to the University's network. He was using Minix at the time, but prefered his own stand-alone terminal program for certain tasks. The program basically "grew legs" and became Linux.
Naturally, Linus was very much inspired by Minix, which is a Unix-like OS written by Andrew Tannenbaum (also without any Unix code in it so that it could be used by students). A lot of Linux development happened on Minix, but there was no Minix nor Unix source code in it.
You get some Unix-looking code in Linux due to Posix compliance, and probaby wherever there is BSD code. I'm fairly certain that, at this point, a number of independent comparisons have been done against System V without any significant matches, if you don't count the little malloc bit that SGI slipped in.
At any rate, it is fairly established as fact that there is no System V code in Linux. SCO knows this, and so they are trying to find situations where code that might have been based in System V code at one time has made its way into Linux. SCO thinks that if you look at every twist of AIX from now back through the beginning, it might turn out that some of it actually grew out of System V code (even though the code now has no resemblance to the original). SCO hopes that this would save them: they can claim rights because of pedigree. If the code happened to be donated to Linux, SCO feels this would vindicate them.
These scenarious are extremely tenuous (major understatement, that), which SCO also knows, so - as a last resort - SCO seems to be trying to stir up some controversy by exposing some IBM memos on the failed Monterey project, which SCO/Caldera is still (apparently) _very_ angry about. I think that is what this all comes down to: sour grapes over project Monterey.
Really, there isn't much that SCO can do about it. I recall that one of the stipulations in the Monterey contract was that, if SCO happened to be acquired during the course of the project, then all bets are off. We recall that SCO was indeed bought out by Caldera.
But I digress. Hope that was helpful.
Forget false analogy. :)
How about a new one: The Crystal Ball Fallacy.
How can you make a factual assertion based on speculation or supposition?
I suppose, using that same logic, IF Microsoft IIS were as popular as Apache, it would have just as many problems... oh, wait.
Agreed.
I don't think we'll have such advances in computing, though. I think Moore's law will take a break for a while (if it hasn't started already). The technology to keep Moore's law going for the next decade may exist, but it will be too expensive to develop and put out to the masses because of economic trends in tech markets.
Of course, we will have faster machines that cost more (less, when adjusted for inflation), and more people will have them worldwide.
The Internet will be far more pervasive. Dial-up will have all but disappeared - and won't be supported by most ISPs. Even the poorest of people will have access to broadband, except in the poorest nations, which will remain largely unchanged.
All of the fancy goodies described in the article will exist (if they don't already), but still be too expensive and rare for any but the richest of people to afford.
You won't be able to buy a CRT. A 19" flat-panel will cost $1000 (really $200, adjusted for inflation). However, wages won't have increased at the rate of inflation. Things will continue to lose wires and gain wireless capabilities. Land lines for public telecommunications will be unheard of.
Technophiles will have gotten bored with Linux and with OSX - too mainstream. Windows will still be dominant on the desktop, but Microsoft will have long stopped their enormous profit-mongering and will have re-invented and diversified. Bill Gates might lose interest and go into some other business. Windows will cost next to nothing. A previously obscure OS will be getting popular with geeks who want something different. Maybe it will even be the Hurd.
Gasoline fossil fuel will still be the dominant fuel for automobiles, but there will now be a significant minority of vehicles fueled by alternate means. Probably bio-diesel or improved hybrids, but still no fuel cells. Gasoline will be very expensive, and we'll still be talking about all of the research going into alternate fuels, except that we'll really be serious about it. Public transportation will improve slightly - dramatically in some areas. SUVs will be out. Thousands of people will still die in their vehicles.
The low-carb craze will have ended. Nutrition won't have changed much - most people will still eat junk (cheap junk).
Healthcare in America will have worsened, but improved in other nations. Fewer Americans will afford healthcare, and the quality of doctors will decline, prompting socialized medicine to become an attractive proposition for the first time (although still not quite there). More doctors will be unable to afford malpractice insurance and quit the practice altogether. People won't have fancy gadgets that assess their health status at home. They might add a few features to the standard thermometer and gain a blood pressure cuff as a standard item in the medicine closet. A few more controlled substances will make it Over the Counter. They will be harmless drugs, though.
Advances in medicine will continue. New drugs, procedures, and equipment will arrive on the scene. These will open up new possibilities, but will come with new risks and new expenses. Ultimately, they will only produce marginal benefits.
We will not find a cure for cancer, but we will come somewhat closer to making it a treatable illness that is regarded as a minor setback rather than a life-changing event.
World hunger will be as prevalent as it is today. AIDS will continue to exact huge tolls on certain populations. No big break-throughs will help us there. Developed nations will experience significant population decreases as fewer children are born and the age demographic increases. Undeveloped nations will continue to increase their populations.
The working cl
POV-Ray is not 3D modelling software. It is a ray-tracer: a program that reads a scene description file and uses a ray-tracing algorithm to produce an image.
For 3D modelling software that works with POV-Ray, check out Moray or Wings3d. You can also use a program such as 3DS Max to model scenes for POV-Ray if you have appropriate software to convert the scene file to a format that POV-Ray understands.
Billions of dollars earned through patent monopolies are also taken away by class-action law suits when the next FDA-approved wonder-drug turns out to be defective.
How do you ballance the scale if you take patents out of the picture?
Think about this for a minute. Let's suppose there were three parties instead of two. In a democracy, the simple majority would get their leader elected. You could pontentially have two thirds of the population ruled by a leader chosen by the remaining dominant third. The majority would be ruled by a minority. This is a dangerous scenario, and would cause far greater instability and division than you can imagine.
To avoid this, those who set up our government devised a system we call the electoral college, and guaranteed a "republican form of government." That is, the United States is a republic, NOT a "democracy." We have a democratic form of government, but it is built for a two-party system where both parties gravitate to the middle. Our democrats and republicans are both relatively moderate, so your fear of either one forcing their "ideology" on the other is mostly unfounded.
For example, I have been a registered republican, but I decided to look at the democratic ticket this election year. I went to Kerry's campaign site and looked at the issues. It was not really that much different from the republican party line, only the emphasis is spread differently or different solutions were provided. There is nothing that is so revolting where I couldn't vote for it. It's a matter of individual priorities at the moment, but I realized how much both parties are designed to appeal to _everyone_ as much as possible.
I do have ideologies that are not espoused by either party. I've thought of the libertarians and the Green party. However, ideology is a very divisive thing.
Let's face it, it will always be democrats vs. republicans because those two parties are closest to the moderate middle. By voting for another candidate, you are probably only taking your vote away from the moderate mainstream party that is closest to your views, and handing it to the opposing party.
"If" Linux ever attains...
While you make a valid observation, you are talking about something that has not happened, and that you cannot prove will ever happen.
In an argument, the hypothetical must take back-seat to the reality of here-and-now.
TCO for MS systems must include the cost of viruses and other malware. Linux does not currently suffer from this problem. Maybe, at some future time, that will not be the case. However, we can't use the future as an argument because it hasn't happened yet.
Yes, you're right about that. I completely missed that change in SCO's chart. Thanks for pointing it out.
If you examine Eric's original chart, you will see that this relationship between Linux, Minix, and Unix exists even there. SCO has simply made it obvious to see, and called the chart a sort of "pedigree" to suggest that Linux contains actual Unix "genetic" material.
Of course, Eric states very clearly on his site that "an arrow indicates an inheritance like a compatibility, it is not only a matter of source code"
And anyway, Minix doesn't contain any AT&T source code by Tanenbaum's own admission. Linux doesn't contain Minix code. These are both original works, influenced by the Unix flavor of their time. That is what the Levenez chart shows, nothing more.
The chart is only useful to SCO in their campaign of dishonesty to suggest something that is clearly untrue, and that has been proved repeatedly to be untrue.
POV-Ray has some excellent "GUIs." For example: Moray and Wings3d. You can even use high-profile modelers like Maya and 3ds Max, and then convert the scene files into POV format.
Although the source code for POV-Ray is available, the POV team does not consider the program to be Open Source, nor does the license.
If I'm not mistaken, the U.S. Navy once built a hydroplane vessel using the same sort of technology that is used on the F117 stealth fighter. The ship even had the characteristic radar-mangling facets.
I could be wrong.
Your learning is superficial and you are intellectually arrogant. The tenets of effective argument have been well established and are published; you may deny these if you wish.
I never advocated nor suggested the use of generalization, flawed reason, or hasty conclusions. I did not condone the wilful misrepresentation of evidence. These are, in themselves, fallacies of argument and of logic. You have made these very errors in supposing that I implied such a thing.
Arguments stand or fall on their merits. They do not need qualifiers on them.
When a conclusion is derived from reason and logic, this conclusion induces belief in those who might consider it. In argument form, such belief is most effectively presented as fact.
I also disagree with the reviewer's assessment on this point.
A good argument does not allow for doubt or uncertainty. You can't effectively persuade people if you put things in terms of "probably" or "maybe" or "I think."
When you have been proven wrong in your argument, then you admit you were wrong. Those who are courageous enough to admit their errors, and then to alter their beliefs, don't need the excuse of doubt and uncertainty in their arguments in the first place.
There is a group of people who take one of the ideas of critical thinking - to question everything - to the false conclusion that we must therefore live with doubt and uncertainty because we can't empirically know it all. "Question everything" becomes "doubt everything," and then you have assertions such as this: that the author is conservative and dogmatic in his views. The aspiring critical thinker, perceiving a flaw in another's thinking, projects that flaw onto the other's argument and cannot except it by virtue of the thought process used to arrive at the conclusion.
This is a good point, and one that I didn't really pick up on until last semester when I took a philosophy class...
It isn't about a bunch guys offering opinions and insights about life; it's all about logic.
So yeah, I agree with you on that point.
Absolutely. And those things are art, not science. The nit I was picking is that the submission equated "culinary hacker" with science by claiming that the chef is a hacker because he approaches food scientifically.
Hackers _usually_ don't approach from the direction of science. A hacker thinks of something neat, and then mayber there are scientific implications in that and maybe its just neat. Or sometimes there is an interesting science, and the hacker gets creative and tries a variation on it, or a creative approximation.
Hackers are defined by the art; science is too prescribed.