The best way to get something small and distasteful past someone is to try for something very large and distasteful, and when people complain, back off to the small distasteful thing you wanted in the first place.
There was a famous architect who spoke about using this sort of technique. He knew that his designs would have to be approved by the client, various interest groups, etc. and so he added extra stuff to the design which he didn't want but knew that would get gradually rejected, or "burned off" as he put it. Once everyone had had their share and fill of criticism and influence, what was left were the key elements that he'd been after all along (and which probably wouldn't have been accepted had he presented them as his original design).
Well, the government does tell people what to do. So generally, yes they "should".
Whether they should have a specific policy about blind people and web sites is another matter. There are going to be pros and cons and at some point someone has to decide.
As we can see from many posts, people will fall into basically comparing this situation to some other example of discrimination where it's more obviously unfair, or they'll compare it to some other scenario where it's more obvious that the government is going too far.
Exactly where you draw the line is up to you, but it's also up to the government.
In principle I think the more accessible the web is, the better. And given that the technical challenge to making web sites functional for the blind is fairly small, then if people aren't bothering to then something needs doing. Maybe education is enough. Maybe laws are required.
And lets not forget, blindness implies a whole different lifestyle. We're not talking about losing a nail of an earlobe.
How can not thinking be discrimination?
If we called it neglect then would it make you feel better?
"I, a taxi driver, neglected to notice the black man waiting for a cab, and instead picked up the white man waiting in the line behind him"
It's not like we haven't heard about blindness.
Overall, maybe people should be free to do whatever they like, but that generally only works if people do the right thing. Who says what's right? Well, that's easy. Just ask yourself, "would I want doing to me what I'm doing to this other person?" (also included "not-doing")
So with freedom comes responsibility. You can believe Spiderman, or you can believe Rollo May who wrote about this in "Freedom and Destiny". Either way, we can't have one without the other.
If a blind person told me, "I can't read your website, can you please make this more standard", I would. Not that I'd need to, my websites are all straight up standards, but that's besides the point.
If you are prescribed 100% prescription glasses, and wear them all the time, then unsurprisingly, your eyes get used to the help that the glasses give you.
I don't know whether that's actually true but it does seem to figure intuitively (gasp!)
I asked my optician why it was that last time I got a new (stronger) pair of glasses, initially everything looked super sharp. Then after a week or so, things looked sort of blurry again. I know my eyes get weaker over the years, but why would I notice the blurryness so quickly?
She didn't really know, and suggested it was merely my not being "used" to the new glasses.
I must try alternatives like eye muscle exercises.
Take this new age pseudo-science crap out of here and go back under your rock.
Look buddy, I was careful to point out that the information I had was partial, suspect, and in no way proof.
I'm the one who used the word "supposedly". I'm the one saying "take with a pinch of salt".
I also said "BBC" because they do have some credibility. Saying "BBC" does not prove anything. It does not mean it's true. It just means that it's less likely that the information is bogus. Ie. it's more worth your while investigating further.
Now I can't personally prove that it works, but that does not mean that other people like experts in research, can't "prove" or rather, make observations, about it's effects.
But as I am not an expert, I cannot just believe what the experts say... for I have no way of checking whether their research is in fact correct. They may even falsify their findings for crying out loud.
What makes you so sure that it's new age crap? Because it just sounds like it to you? "Gee, this sounds like new age crap, therefore it must be." That's a real scientific conclusion you got there pal.
You know, there was a time when the idea that men and women were different was considered sexist, oppressive and just false. Well, guess what they eventually found? They found that men and women are different -- the structure of their brains is physically different. Now you can try to tell a femminist this, and she will still call you sexist, oppressive, and wrong. The facts sound to her like unfounded crap. "But they did the research...", "Crap!!"
So what do you want from me? All you need to know, buddy, is that there's a device that some people claim works. Whether or not it works for you is really just up to you to figure out. It is not my job to prove it to you. I really don't care whether you decide to forget it, try it, or just file it under "maybe".
Essentially, EM radiation as emitted from Cell Phones, pagers, wireless computer hardware and computer monitors does a wide range of strange things to the human body. One researcher simply summed up the overall effect of EM on the glandular system as resulting in, 'general stress disorder'.
A device claimed to counter some of these effects is the QLink.
They (supposedly) did some research (it was featured on the BBC) showing that people's blood cells get all squished (as seen under a microscope) after a few hours of using a computer. Then, after wearing a QLink, the subject's blood cells become grouped normally, and the subject reported no longer having headaches.
I found the claims rather hard to believe.
I've been wearing one for a few months, and my impression is that certain "stress" symptoms that I previously experienced have gone.
Let me just say that I don't believe in new age crystals, horoscopes, magnetic bangles, etc. etc. Someone once tried to sell me a "magnet" to increase the efficinecy of my central heating boiler. I said to him, "great, why don't you go home, put it on your own system, measure the rates, and when you find that it works, call me." (I never heard back).
I don't know whether this QLink would work for everyone else. And they aren't cheap. I am, however, fairly sure that it has been working for me, so I might get one for my wife. For example, I used to find it difficult to concentrate on reading sometimes (like my head would feel cloudy). But lately my mind seems mostly clear and reading feels more effortless. It's better than coffee! (although I still like the coffee taste).
If anyone else is already using one of these, I'd be interested to hear what your experiences have been. I still can't get over the idea that it actually seems to work.
I can neither affirm nor deny the research claims that they make on their website, but can say that from my own impressions the device has increased my mental alertness (enough to notice), and reduced headaches (again, by enough to notice).
OTOH you should see how happy a couple of million would make me...
And if you can do it without sacrificing everything else (and some people can), then good for you.
OTOH, some people win the lottery, are totally euphoric, and then a year or two later are somehow no longer so happy. They're comfortable, but not really happy.
Alternatively, there was an elderly couple here in the UK who won the lottery (a few million pounds) and what made them happy afterwards was giving money away to schools, charities, social projects etc.
I wanted to ask the Slashdot community their opinions on how working long hours during the week and weekends affects the quality of the code they produce, and the overall success of the project.
Forget about code quality. Forget success. Your life is too short.
There's nothing wrong with having a modest carreer, and enjoying your work. But just be straight about one thing: when you are 60, you will in all likelyhood look back and see it as a waste.
People who are happily married live longer. Having a relationship takes as much time as a full time job.
You cannot have a relationship with your partner on 20 minutes a day of discussing the bills, the chores, or over a sandwich. It's a full time commitment. It takes spending quality time together, and not just quality, but quantity also.
Wanna have children? You think they're going to turn out great if you're never there to be there for them? You want them to feel loved, and nourished, and mentored? Then you have to be there. Not at work, not on business trips, not at the mall. But there, with them.
You want your parents to feel loved by their children (ie. you) when they grow old, and you're all they've got? Then you have to spend time with them.
Time is all we have. And all we really have, that really counts, is each other.
Geeks are probably the last people to get this, but if you really knew that a truck was going to hit you tomorrow, you would find that your real desire would be to spend the time with those who are close to you. Your job, money, and gizmos are meaningless by comparison.
Work, and prosper. Don't be a slave. Have balance. Be sweet to each other. Don't let some stupid and misguided manager tell you that you have to kill yourself to "succeed". Success is measured in happiness, not paycheck or accomplishments.
If you have the talent to work on class projects, then fine. If you don't, then just let it go. You can still be happy. Truly happy. Just open your eyes and see that life is more than a resume. You have the capacity to love and you can learn to use it to create happiness.
Freud was asked a similar question as to why would he charge for therapy since his main focus was simply to help the patient. His reply was - to paraphrase- the therapy would not work as well because the patient needed to put something of value into it.
Many geeks might not pick up on that point, but one place where it certainly applies is in "personal growth" type workshops and classes. Unless people have paid a good few hundred bucks, they will not bother turning up, or just leave as soon as they don't agree with something.
The money will help people to follow through. After all, these things are about helping people to change, and while people do want to change they also don't want to change (habits, patterns, inertia), so the money is an extra motivation that tips the scales.
I'm not sure how you would apply this more concretely to getting business to adopt OSS. Any ideas?
The fallacy of equipment-based expertise permeates virtually every hobby and profession. It's based on the assumption that if one just uses the appropriate tools, excellent results will be a simple matter of fact. While the true masters of a given domain may indeed use a given toolset, it is most emphatically not the tools that guarantee the results, but the skills of the master.
Nice post. While some of your examples are a bit, er, extreme, "a master surgeon performs brain surgery with a chainsaw" (I made that one up), the point is very valid.
I'm attending a series of classes in creativity, and even though all we're working with is cheap paper and cheap paints, because the instructor gets us to do visualisations, meditations, etc. to first get in touch with something inside, the resulting artworks are quite powerful, and even technically more interesting because the hand seems better guided when there's an inner impulse, than when just trying to copy a bowl of fruit or a landscape.
Again, I don't know what survey you used, and there certainly are valid personality tests out there, but don't get too freaked out when one seems to describe you to a T.
And besides, who you think you are is just the stuff that you're already aware of. There is plenty which you are not aware of, and that has just as much potential to cause problems, if not more, seeing as neither the test nor you know about it.
Puh-leeeeeez. That's what corporations do. It is the corporate officer's duty to undertake whatever actions maximize stockholder benefit. Period, end of sentence. Offering health insurance? Stock options? Good pay? Those are all tools to maximize worker productivity. Understand, this is neither a good nor a bad thing in the moral/ethical sense. In the world of business, there is no right and wrong in the moral sense, only "right" as in following the law and making money.
That's a pretty good description of the values (what's considered 'good' or 'bad') of business. I agree that in the world of business, that's how business people think.
But, being a businessperson is not the whole picture. Each person is also an individual, has a family, friends, lives in a community, is part of a country, a citizen of the planet. Each person has to drink, eat, be comfortable, be educated, breath clean-ish air etc. etc.
What I'm saying is that there are additional, actually, more fundamental and vital levels of values without which we'd never get to be 'businesspeople'. You can't run a business if you're living on the streets, or in a war zone, or you haven't got enough to eat, or haven't had some education. We need a certain amount of working "fabric of society" as a foundation for people to go out and pursue competitive endeavors.
Otherwise, if you try to apply the "rules of business" to the lower, more critical survival levels, then you've basically got a dog eat dog world, where whoever's got the biggest guns wins. There would be no concept of private property or individual rights. It would be bad. People would steal from you because they can, because they have to compete, just like everybody else. That may seem like an odd picture, but I think we forget or take for granted just how much social fabric there is holding things together.
When Gandhi protested against the British, he could do it not because the British were oppressive, but because the British were civilised enough not to slaughter everyone on sight. Sure they beat up people, and there were some mass shootings, but it didn't turn to genocide. Anyway, that's just to illustrate the idea--I'm not good at history.
So I think that while a businessperson has to think like a businessperson, they also have to think like a decent member of sociery--we already tend to do that anyway--otherwise everything would have just collapsed--but the argument that business is business is limited and myopic--because meanwhile society is society and if business practices damage society too much (health care, bad laws, etc.) then we're just destroying the stable foundations upon which business is built. You can't make contracts if the law system is f*cked up. You can't have a stock market if the idea of shares is worthless and untrustworthy. You can't have banks if the banks destroy themselves with bad loans. You can't have a free market if certain companys' idea of competition is to own the track and all the horses. There are certain foundations that must be preserved, and the values with which we do that are not the same as the values with which we operate a business.
In a free market the healthy should thrive and the weak be weeded out. But what also happens, to society, is that sometimes the fairly healthy get dragged down by some other company's failling, or in reverse, the newborns don't get a chance because some big bully is sitting on them.
The sphere of business and the sphere of society and the sphere of the family each have their own healthy/unhealthy patterns, their own sense of good and bad. They all have to co-exist, and they must do so with some sense of balance. You marry your wife, not your work. You compete at work, not with your wife. Society should promote the growth of companies, companies shouldn't stop the growth of society. Etc.
So while we have to think as businesspeople, we have to also think at the other levels as well, so really, in the interests of promoting good business we have to also promote the health of the more fundamental levels. Business is not just business.
Sorry the post is so long... I've not thought of this before.
But does that mean the best thing to do would have been to retain white rule? This is left as an exercise to the reader.
This is, I gather, a huge issue... and quite complicated. You see, firstly it isn't about black vs. white.. people are people, regardless of skin colour. And wherever you go, you find that there is a variety of competency.
So the big issue isn't about whether one race or another should have power, it's about who has the most competency to use that power. And by "who", I don't mean which racial group, but rather, which individuals have the best skills etc. So, ok so far. But the problem with countries that have previously had apartheid like systems, is that one section of the population, notably white, has been doing the european thing of getting well educated, aquiring business skills, knowing how to harness modern technology, etc. while the other part of the population, black and "coloureds", had been doing more the tribal thing, with kings, allegiance to family and tribe, and not being particularly into "entrepreneurial business development" etc.
It's about the environment in which the people grow up. With whites separated from blacks, the children of each group didn't get the same opportunities, and so their competency in business or technology has not been equal (although each is perfectly capable; they just needed a more modern environment).
So, given this historical imbalance (which was artificially enforced through apartheid), how do you transition a country to "power to the people" ragardless of race, while many haven't had chance to adapt to modern concepts like democracy? (for example, in an article by The Guardian, a uk newspaper, a supporter of Mugabe was quoted, prior to the last elections, "why should we need to vote? Mugabe is our King, so he should just rule".)
Democracy only has a chance when people are educated to believe in it as the fair and best way. And that takes a few generations at least...?
So the transition period is really important, so that you can go from rule by "elite" (westernised tecnically competent) to democratic rule, and avoiding the mob rule dictatorship that Mugabe seems to have a reputation for.
On the other hand, I think the attitude that pirating software isn't stealing is a bit silly. It reminds me of Dr. Shipman, a UK serial killer who was recently imprisoned for dozens of life sentences. He killed only elderly people; does the fact that these elderly people were going to die in a few years anyway matter? No. He's still a murderer. And you're still a criminal.
And why not mention the Nazis while you're at it... oh, but, um, what they were doing was "legal" in their country.
Anyway, yes, anyone who breaks any law is a criminal. So did anyone here go over the speed limit today? What about ever? Guess what, you're a criminal. It's like those trick questions on psychology tests... "Did you ever steal?" (the "correct" answer is "yes", because everybody has stolen something, even if it was just once; you went home from work with a pencil in your pocket.
So sure, everyone is a criminal; technically.
Now what about practically? Here I don't think the comparison to "Dr." Shipman is of any use. Here I think it's up to society to make the laws, and set the standards, which requires some degree of agreement.
And also from the practical standpoint, it's possible to do something which does not seem to be wrong, that doesn't feel like it's wrong, but someone still ends up in jail *cough* russian programmers *cough*.
Now I'm not saying that, hey, all laws are relative, there's no real right and wrong, so just do as you please. No, there are clear rights and clear wrongs. And in-between, there's the gray areas.
I think software copying falls somewhat in this gray area (although not completely), and particularly here, with a country deciding to set a policy that allows some degree of copying.
So, no, please don't mention the hundreds of dead grannies. Were they still alive, they may be insulted by the comparison.
But still, I gather from your post, that what you're seeking to value is integrity. That somehow, making copies of commercial software goes against a person's sense of integrity, and I think I agree with that. It's like keeping the house tidy or returning lost property; you just feel better about yourself. It's like, how would a person feel if they'd been pirating some company's software, and then read in the paper that the company had gone out of business from lack of sales, and laid off hundreds of people? (if you've spent your life just basically trying to survive and believe the world is a jungle, then don't bother answering)
But I really do hope that some clearer public agreement / law is achieved to sort our all this "piracy" stuff... because at the moment anyone with a CD burner is a "criminal", which just makes a mockery of the law and reduces people's respect for the law generally.
The people who meditate regularly would wind down quickly once they started, and their brain waves would calm down. The people meditating for the first time wouldn't experience any relaxing effect, so their brains would go on having a high activity. Winding down brain activity is often seen as something desirable.
Thanks for mentioning this, and I have something to add. I agree (IANAP) that whatever state the brain enters when playing a video game, there's nothing inherently "bad" about this. I mean, what state do athletes enter when they hit the ball? What state are people in when they drive their cars?
But I think that there is an area for concern. I heard that certain brain functions develop only before certain ages, so if you don't excercise your brain in those ways enough when you have the chance, then you miss out forever--the more you practice those things while the brain is still developing, the greater your abilities will be.
Now if that is true (and IANAP), then it would be better for children to focus on the conceptual and artistic activities, to develop their brain while they still can.
Again, IANAP, so if anyone can support/deny this then please do. When I heard about this, I freaked out... wish I hadn't spent so much time watching TV as a kid...
She agreed, and then 10 minutes later called me over because she couldn't figure out how to copy/paste. She didn't even try.
Maybe she just didn't know what to look for. Maybe she didn't realise that you had to have the mouse pointer in a particular place, or a particular app at the front, or whatever. If she can't copy/paste, then she probably needs to be taken on a tour of the whole keyboard, and oh, well, back to the very basics.
My point is, don't under-estimate how many small but essential bits of perceptual knowledge you are employing in a "simple" operation like that. It's great that you explained the principles using the real world analogy, but does she even know that a window really is?
I know quite a few people who can't program their VCRs, and seem proud of their ignorance.
I think you've hit on an interesting social phenomenon. It's culturally acceptable -- perhaps even desirable in some circles -- to profess ignorance about certain things.
People have beliefs about things. The belief stops them from doing the things that other people do to get good at something.
To be good at something you usually spend a lot of time and effort on it, practicing, learning with an open mind, and having fun. It's those actions (be it trying recipies, playing an instrument, or writing code) that make you good. But if you believe "I'm no good at it", then you'll just avoid opportunities to practice, learn, and play.
So yeah, if people believe they "don't understand VCR's" then they are actually instructing themselves that the manual is written in Greek. Think hypnosis: "I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand..." That's how strong beliefs are.
Now we all have beliefs, be they positive or negative ones, so it's not about calling some people "stupid". And the beliefs are very strong, and there can be a lot of fear associated with trying to break a belief. People will do all sorts of things to avoid having their beliefs invalidated, because there's a lot of security in "knowing" how the world works (how I belive it to be).
(Living without beliefs is very freeing, but who wants to be free anyway?)
So yeah, the interface and the user manual can go a long way towards being clear, simple and informative, but beyond that, if the user has a blocking belief, I dunno what you can do about it.
Take the middle classes here in the UK. They get upset about house prices. I try to maintain the perspective that there are people starving in the world and places where reaching the age of 5 requires lots of luck! I don't care about house proces too much. I'm happy to have food, shelter, clothing and medical attention when I need it.
While I feel a "Offtopic" moderation heading my way, I just want to say that your chosen view is great. As you observe with your own eyes, no matter what people have, they can still (choose to) be discontent.
What you are doing, though, is being grateful for what you have. Clean water on demand, large warehouses full of food (supermarkets), sanitation, no-one bombing your house.
Having something does not make us happy unless we are actively grateful for having it. I lived in places like Zambia when I was a kid, where the supermarket shelves were "filled" with Coca-Cola bottles spaced at 1 meter intervals (there was nothing else to put on the shelves). Being in Europe still makes me like, hey, I can walk to the shop and they have stuff?? Wow!!
I have complained nicely before about the crapness of the odeon's website here in the uk not working with konq 2.2.1. Didnt work
I believe that they are the worst web site I've ever tried to use. Never mind the standards compliance issue; the usability is terrible. They used to have these menus that mouse roll-overs would cause info to be showed on the page, but to get to the links in the info you'd have to move the mouse across other menus that caused the info to dissapear....
Right now they've got a splash page for Spiderman saying "BOOK NOW". Unfortunately that's all it says on the splash page. I wanted a list of films... I didn't want to book Spiderman... but there was no mention of anything other than "BOOK NOW". So I click "BOOK NOW" to get to the main page... which is blank because they've used some wizzy flying menu animation that totally doens't work in Opera(mac) or Mozilla.
Why is it that some of the most commercial sites are utterly useless???
Do people just sit around saying, "we can only afford to support IE, as it's got 95%", while deliberately spending money writing ie only wizzy stuff?
PS: For the opinion or David Brin, great science fiction writer who makes George Lucas look like the hack he is, read...
Some points from that article about what Lucas is having us believe:
Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.
"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.
Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.
True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.
Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.
But hey, I think all these points could apply to Buffy.
I recall seeing a TV interview with Lucas where he says that he saw there was a lack of simple good v. evil morality in films... or words to that effect, and that he wanted to put myths back into films.
It's a question of whether myths have any value, at least for children. And that question might be better answered by people who study child development.
The myth of the hero, of the super-man, might be nice as something to inspire one, although dangerous to actually identify with it. Elites are not in and of themselves bad, after all, in sport we want to watch the elite players, the ones who are the very best, and not just the average joe.
The Matrix not only had it's own hero myths, with Neo as the saviour of the world, but also lots of esoteric stuff, about the world being just a dream, and so on.
Not that I particularly liked SW.
Re:The best he can build is a disintegration chamb
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 1
Wow, your phone can call other dimensions?;)
Yeah, I just bought it from this great new start-up. I suggest you buy lots of shares in their company!
Just the other day, I got this phone-call from my alternate self in another universe. He's a multi billionnaire, great looking, 50 wifes, and just dicovered the elixier of youth in his private labs. Then he started laughing at me a lot.....
And like, dude, what if, like, the WHOLE UNIVERSE existed on the tip of some big cosmic bong? What if there's another universe on like, every molecule in our bong? Dude!
I wasn't talking about "what if". I'm not tripping.
Plain and simple, try to find the objective, self existance of Time, and you won't. All you will find is Change. And an ever-present changing Now does not imply a Timeline of past and future.
No Timeline, no time travel.
Re:One little problem - reference system
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 2
Assuming that an object can travel backwards in time, it does it relative to a reference systems. What would that reference system be ? The Sun ? The center of the galaxy ? The center of the universe ? I definitely don't like the idea of being teleported into dark, empty space.
Great point. I mean, how would I even know that I'd come from the future? If I somehow brought my memory of the future back with me, then that would be a different past, (because in my actual past, I was not someone from the future). So I would not really have travelled back in time.
Perhaps I would just re-merge with my old self, in which case I would have no idea that I had come from the future -- which means that effectively, stepping into the time machine was not giving me a new past, but just cutting off my future, ie. the moment I stepped in would be my time of death.
Re:The best he can build is a disintegration chamb
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 1
Sounds to me like a great way to get rid of garbage but a less than ideal way to travel.
I want this scientists' phone number! I want to know who to call if, walking down the street some day, a portal opens, and some really pissed-off two headed green thing starts throwing AOL cd's at me.
Re:Poignant.
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I have no idea how physicists approach the question of the creation of a contrafactual timeline which removes its own motive for existing
That's an easy one to answer. There is no such thing as Time.
Time is just a concept that's useful to us.
It's easy to check this for yourself. Have you noticed that whatever time it is, it's always the present?
The present moment is all that there is. Eternity is the timeless now.
Even memories are experienced in the present. We're living an ever changing present moment.
Slashdot Mirror
The best way to get something small and distasteful past someone is to try for something very large and distasteful, and when people complain, back off to the small distasteful thing you wanted in the first place.
There was a famous architect who spoke about using this sort of technique. He knew that his designs would have to be approved by the client, various interest groups, etc. and so he added extra stuff to the design which he didn't want but knew that would get gradually rejected, or "burned off" as he put it. Once everyone had had their share and fill of criticism and influence, what was left were the key elements that he'd been after all along (and which probably wouldn't have been accepted had he presented them as his original design).
It's a very cunning technique.
But should the government or a court tell me to?
Well, the government does tell people what to do. So generally, yes they "should".
Whether they should have a specific policy about blind people and web sites is another matter. There are going to be pros and cons and at some point someone has to decide.
As we can see from many posts, people will fall into basically comparing this situation to some other example of discrimination where it's more obviously unfair, or they'll compare it to some other scenario where it's more obvious that the government is going too far.
Exactly where you draw the line is up to you, but it's also up to the government.
In principle I think the more accessible the web is, the better. And given that the technical challenge to making web sites functional for the blind is fairly small, then if people aren't bothering to then something needs doing. Maybe education is enough. Maybe laws are required.
And lets not forget, blindness implies a whole different lifestyle. We're not talking about losing a nail of an earlobe.
How can not thinking be discrimination?
If we called it neglect then would it make you feel better?
"I, a taxi driver, neglected to notice the black man waiting for a cab, and instead picked up the white man waiting in the line behind him"
It's not like we haven't heard about blindness.
Overall, maybe people should be free to do whatever they like, but that generally only works if people do the right thing. Who says what's right? Well, that's easy. Just ask yourself, "would I want doing to me what I'm doing to this other person?" (also included "not-doing")
So with freedom comes responsibility. You can believe Spiderman, or you can believe Rollo May who wrote about this in "Freedom and Destiny". Either way, we can't have one without the other.
If a blind person told me, "I can't read your website, can you please make this more standard", I would. Not that I'd need to, my websites are all straight up standards, but that's besides the point.
Wonderful. I wish more people were like that.
If you are prescribed 100% prescription glasses, and wear them all the time, then unsurprisingly, your eyes get used to the help that the glasses give you.
I don't know whether that's actually true but it does seem to figure intuitively (gasp!)
I asked my optician why it was that last time I got a new (stronger) pair of glasses, initially everything looked super sharp. Then after a week or so, things looked sort of blurry again. I know my eyes get weaker over the years, but why would I notice the blurryness so quickly?
She didn't really know, and suggested it was merely my not being "used" to the new glasses.
I must try alternatives like eye muscle exercises.
Take this new age pseudo-science crap out of here and go back under your rock.
Look buddy, I was careful to point out that the information I had was partial, suspect, and in no way proof.
I'm the one who used the word "supposedly". I'm the one saying "take with a pinch of salt".
I also said "BBC" because they do have some credibility. Saying "BBC" does not prove anything. It does not mean it's true. It just means that it's less likely that the information is bogus. Ie. it's more worth your while investigating further.
Now I can't personally prove that it works, but that does not mean that other people like experts in research, can't "prove" or rather, make observations, about it's effects.
But as I am not an expert, I cannot just believe what the experts say... for I have no way of checking whether their research is in fact correct. They may even falsify their findings for crying out loud.
What makes you so sure that it's new age crap? Because it just sounds like it to you? "Gee, this sounds like new age crap, therefore it must be." That's a real scientific conclusion you got there pal.
You know, there was a time when the idea that men and women were different was considered sexist, oppressive and just false. Well, guess what they eventually found? They found that men and women are different -- the structure of their brains is physically different. Now you can try to tell a femminist this, and she will still call you sexist, oppressive, and wrong. The facts sound to her like unfounded crap. "But they did the research...", "Crap!!"
So what do you want from me? All you need to know, buddy, is that there's a device that some people claim works. Whether or not it works for you is really just up to you to figure out. It is not my job to prove it to you. I really don't care whether you decide to forget it, try it, or just file it under "maybe".
Uncertainty is a part of life. Deal with it.
Essentially, EM radiation as emitted from Cell Phones, pagers, wireless computer hardware and computer monitors does a wide range of strange things to the human body. One researcher simply summed up the overall effect of EM on the glandular system as resulting in, 'general stress disorder'.
A device claimed to counter some of these effects is the QLink.
They (supposedly) did some research (it was featured on the BBC) showing that people's blood cells get all squished (as seen under a microscope) after a few hours of using a computer. Then, after wearing a QLink, the subject's blood cells become grouped normally, and the subject reported no longer having headaches.
I found the claims rather hard to believe.
I've been wearing one for a few months, and my impression is that certain "stress" symptoms that I previously experienced have gone.
Let me just say that I don't believe in new age crystals, horoscopes, magnetic bangles, etc. etc. Someone once tried to sell me a "magnet" to increase the efficinecy of my central heating boiler. I said to him, "great, why don't you go home, put it on your own system, measure the rates, and when you find that it works, call me." (I never heard back).
I don't know whether this QLink would work for everyone else. And they aren't cheap. I am, however, fairly sure that it has been working for me, so I might get one for my wife. For example, I used to find it difficult to concentrate on reading sometimes (like my head would feel cloudy). But lately my mind seems mostly clear and reading feels more effortless. It's better than coffee! (although I still like the coffee taste).
If anyone else is already using one of these, I'd be interested to hear what your experiences have been. I still can't get over the idea that it actually seems to work.
I can neither affirm nor deny the research claims that they make on their website, but can say that from my own impressions the device has increased my mental alertness (enough to notice), and reduced headaches (again, by enough to notice).
OTOH you should see how happy a couple of million would make me...
And if you can do it without sacrificing everything else (and some people can), then good for you.
OTOH, some people win the lottery, are totally euphoric, and then a year or two later are somehow no longer so happy. They're comfortable, but not really happy.
Alternatively, there was an elderly couple here in the UK who won the lottery (a few million pounds) and what made them happy afterwards was giving money away to schools, charities, social projects etc.
I wanted to ask the Slashdot community their opinions on how working long hours during the week and weekends affects the quality of the code they produce, and the overall success of the project.
Forget about code quality. Forget success. Your life is too short.
There's nothing wrong with having a modest carreer, and enjoying your work. But just be straight about one thing: when you are 60, you will in all likelyhood look back and see it as a waste.
People who are happily married live longer. Having a relationship takes as much time as a full time job .
You cannot have a relationship with your partner on 20 minutes a day of discussing the bills, the chores, or over a sandwich. It's a full time commitment. It takes spending quality time together, and not just quality, but quantity also.
Wanna have children? You think they're going to turn out great if you're never there to be there for them? You want them to feel loved, and nourished, and mentored? Then you have to be there. Not at work, not on business trips, not at the mall. But there, with them.
You want your parents to feel loved by their children (ie. you) when they grow old, and you're all they've got? Then you have to spend time with them.
Time is all we have. And all we really have, that really counts, is each other.
Geeks are probably the last people to get this, but if you really knew that a truck was going to hit you tomorrow, you would find that your real desire would be to spend the time with those who are close to you. Your job, money, and gizmos are meaningless by comparison.
Work, and prosper. Don't be a slave. Have balance. Be sweet to each other. Don't let some stupid and misguided manager tell you that you have to kill yourself to "succeed". Success is measured in happiness, not paycheck or accomplishments.
If you have the talent to work on class projects, then fine. If you don't, then just let it go. You can still be happy. Truly happy. Just open your eyes and see that life is more than a resume. You have the capacity to love and you can learn to use it to create happiness.
Be true to yourself.
Freud was asked a similar question as to why would he charge for therapy since his main focus was simply to help the patient. His reply was - to paraphrase- the therapy would not work as well because the patient needed to put something of value into it.
Many geeks might not pick up on that point, but one place where it certainly applies is in "personal growth" type workshops and classes. Unless people have paid a good few hundred bucks, they will not bother turning up, or just leave as soon as they don't agree with something.
The money will help people to follow through. After all, these things are about helping people to change, and while people do want to change they also don't want to change (habits, patterns, inertia), so the money is an extra motivation that tips the scales.
I'm not sure how you would apply this more concretely to getting business to adopt OSS. Any ideas?
The fallacy of equipment-based expertise permeates virtually every hobby and profession. It's based on the assumption that if one just uses the appropriate tools, excellent results will be a simple matter of fact. While the true masters of a given domain may indeed use a given toolset, it is most emphatically not the tools that guarantee the results, but the skills of the master.
Nice post. While some of your examples are a bit, er, extreme, "a master surgeon performs brain surgery with a chainsaw" (I made that one up), the point is very valid.
I'm attending a series of classes in creativity, and even though all we're working with is cheap paper and cheap paints, because the instructor gets us to do visualisations, meditations, etc. to first get in touch with something inside, the resulting artworks are quite powerful, and even technically more interesting because the hand seems better guided when there's an inner impulse, than when just trying to copy a bowl of fruit or a landscape.
Again, I don't know what survey you used, and there certainly are valid personality tests out there, but don't get too freaked out when one seems to describe you to a T.
And besides, who you think you are is just the stuff that you're already aware of. There is plenty which you are not aware of, and that has just as much potential to cause problems, if not more, seeing as neither the test nor you know about it.
Self knowledge is not easy.
Puh-leeeeeez. That's what corporations do. It is the corporate officer's duty to undertake whatever actions maximize stockholder benefit. Period, end of sentence. Offering health insurance? Stock options? Good pay? Those are all tools to maximize worker productivity. Understand, this is neither a good nor a bad thing in the moral/ethical sense. In the world of business, there is no right and wrong in the moral sense, only "right" as in following the law and making money.
That's a pretty good description of the values (what's considered 'good' or 'bad') of business. I agree that in the world of business, that's how business people think.
But, being a businessperson is not the whole picture. Each person is also an individual, has a family, friends, lives in a community, is part of a country, a citizen of the planet. Each person has to drink, eat, be comfortable, be educated, breath clean-ish air etc. etc.
What I'm saying is that there are additional, actually, more fundamental and vital levels of values without which we'd never get to be 'businesspeople'. You can't run a business if you're living on the streets, or in a war zone, or you haven't got enough to eat, or haven't had some education. We need a certain amount of working "fabric of society" as a foundation for people to go out and pursue competitive endeavors.
Otherwise, if you try to apply the "rules of business" to the lower, more critical survival levels, then you've basically got a dog eat dog world, where whoever's got the biggest guns wins. There would be no concept of private property or individual rights. It would be bad. People would steal from you because they can, because they have to compete, just like everybody else. That may seem like an odd picture, but I think we forget or take for granted just how much social fabric there is holding things together.
When Gandhi protested against the British, he could do it not because the British were oppressive, but because the British were civilised enough not to slaughter everyone on sight. Sure they beat up people, and there were some mass shootings, but it didn't turn to genocide. Anyway, that's just to illustrate the idea--I'm not good at history.
So I think that while a businessperson has to think like a businessperson, they also have to think like a decent member of sociery--we already tend to do that anyway--otherwise everything would have just collapsed--but the argument that business is business is limited and myopic--because meanwhile society is society and if business practices damage society too much (health care, bad laws, etc.) then we're just destroying the stable foundations upon which business is built. You can't make contracts if the law system is f*cked up. You can't have a stock market if the idea of shares is worthless and untrustworthy. You can't have banks if the banks destroy themselves with bad loans. You can't have a free market if certain companys' idea of competition is to own the track and all the horses. There are certain foundations that must be preserved, and the values with which we do that are not the same as the values with which we operate a business.
In a free market the healthy should thrive and the weak be weeded out. But what also happens, to society, is that sometimes the fairly healthy get dragged down by some other company's failling, or in reverse, the newborns don't get a chance because some big bully is sitting on them.
The sphere of business and the sphere of society and the sphere of the family each have their own healthy/unhealthy patterns, their own sense of good and bad. They all have to co-exist, and they must do so with some sense of balance. You marry your wife, not your work. You compete at work, not with your wife. Society should promote the growth of companies, companies shouldn't stop the growth of society. Etc.
So while we have to think as businesspeople, we have to also think at the other levels as well, so really, in the interests of promoting good business we have to also promote the health of the more fundamental levels. Business is not just business.
Sorry the post is so long... I've not thought of this before.
But does that mean the best thing to do would have been to retain white rule? This is left as an exercise to the reader.
This is, I gather, a huge issue... and quite complicated. You see, firstly it isn't about black vs. white.. people are people, regardless of skin colour. And wherever you go, you find that there is a variety of competency.
So the big issue isn't about whether one race or another should have power, it's about who has the most competency to use that power. And by "who", I don't mean which racial group, but rather, which individuals have the best skills etc. So, ok so far. But the problem with countries that have previously had apartheid like systems, is that one section of the population, notably white, has been doing the european thing of getting well educated, aquiring business skills, knowing how to harness modern technology, etc. while the other part of the population, black and "coloureds", had been doing more the tribal thing, with kings, allegiance to family and tribe, and not being particularly into "entrepreneurial business development" etc.
It's about the environment in which the people grow up. With whites separated from blacks, the children of each group didn't get the same opportunities, and so their competency in business or technology has not been equal (although each is perfectly capable; they just needed a more modern environment).
So, given this historical imbalance (which was artificially enforced through apartheid), how do you transition a country to "power to the people" ragardless of race, while many haven't had chance to adapt to modern concepts like democracy? (for example, in an article by The Guardian, a uk newspaper, a supporter of Mugabe was quoted, prior to the last elections, "why should we need to vote? Mugabe is our King, so he should just rule".)
Democracy only has a chance when people are educated to believe in it as the fair and best way. And that takes a few generations at least...?
So the transition period is really important, so that you can go from rule by "elite" (westernised tecnically competent) to democratic rule, and avoiding the mob rule dictatorship that Mugabe seems to have a reputation for.
Not that I'm certain of any of this.
On the other hand, I think the attitude that pirating software isn't stealing is a bit silly. It reminds me of Dr. Shipman, a UK serial killer who was recently imprisoned for dozens of life sentences. He killed only elderly people; does the fact that these elderly people were going to die in a few years anyway matter? No. He's still a murderer. And you're still a criminal.
And why not mention the Nazis while you're at it... oh, but, um, what they were doing was "legal" in their country.
Anyway, yes, anyone who breaks any law is a criminal. So did anyone here go over the speed limit today? What about ever? Guess what, you're a criminal. It's like those trick questions on psychology tests... "Did you ever steal?" (the "correct" answer is "yes", because everybody has stolen something, even if it was just once; you went home from work with a pencil in your pocket.
So sure, everyone is a criminal; technically.
Now what about practically? Here I don't think the comparison to "Dr." Shipman is of any use. Here I think it's up to society to make the laws, and set the standards, which requires some degree of agreement.
And also from the practical standpoint, it's possible to do something which does not seem to be wrong, that doesn't feel like it's wrong, but someone still ends up in jail *cough* russian programmers *cough*.
Now I'm not saying that, hey, all laws are relative, there's no real right and wrong, so just do as you please. No, there are clear rights and clear wrongs. And in-between, there's the gray areas.
I think software copying falls somewhat in this gray area (although not completely), and particularly here, with a country deciding to set a policy that allows some degree of copying.
So, no, please don't mention the hundreds of dead grannies. Were they still alive, they may be insulted by the comparison.
But still, I gather from your post, that what you're seeking to value is integrity. That somehow, making copies of commercial software goes against a person's sense of integrity, and I think I agree with that. It's like keeping the house tidy or returning lost property; you just feel better about yourself. It's like, how would a person feel if they'd been pirating some company's software, and then read in the paper that the company had gone out of business from lack of sales, and laid off hundreds of people? (if you've spent your life just basically trying to survive and believe the world is a jungle, then don't bother answering)
But I really do hope that some clearer public agreement / law is achieved to sort our all this "piracy" stuff... because at the moment anyone with a CD burner is a "criminal", which just makes a mockery of the law and reduces people's respect for the law generally.
The people who meditate regularly would wind down quickly once they started, and their brain waves would calm down. The people meditating for the first time wouldn't experience any relaxing effect, so their brains would go on having a high activity. Winding down brain activity is often seen as something desirable.
Thanks for mentioning this, and I have something to add. I agree (IANAP) that whatever state the brain enters when playing a video game, there's nothing inherently "bad" about this. I mean, what state do athletes enter when they hit the ball? What state are people in when they drive their cars?
But I think that there is an area for concern. I heard that certain brain functions develop only before certain ages, so if you don't excercise your brain in those ways enough when you have the chance, then you miss out forever--the more you practice those things while the brain is still developing, the greater your abilities will be.
Now if that is true (and IANAP), then it would be better for children to focus on the conceptual and artistic activities, to develop their brain while they still can.
Again, IANAP, so if anyone can support/deny this then please do. When I heard about this, I freaked out... wish I hadn't spent so much time watching TV as a kid...
There's principle, then there's the real world.
And in this case, not following the principle of reading the contract will cost you hundreds of dollars. That's real money we're talking.
There's nothing like a real world material loss for turning customers from docile, hurried, ignorant sheep into angry, alert, demanding, sharks.
Companies that do this are just asking for trouble down the line.
She agreed, and then 10 minutes later called me over because she couldn't figure out how to copy/paste. She didn't even try.
Maybe she just didn't know what to look for. Maybe she didn't realise that you had to have the mouse pointer in a particular place, or a particular app at the front, or whatever. If she can't copy/paste, then she probably needs to be taken on a tour of the whole keyboard, and oh, well, back to the very basics.
My point is, don't under-estimate how many small but essential bits of perceptual knowledge you are employing in a "simple" operation like that. It's great that you explained the principles using the real world analogy, but does she even know that a window really is?
Or maybe she just wants you to call more.
I think you've hit on an interesting social phenomenon. It's culturally acceptable -- perhaps even desirable in some circles -- to profess ignorance about certain things.
People have beliefs about things. The belief stops them from doing the things that other people do to get good at something.
To be good at something you usually spend a lot of time and effort on it, practicing, learning with an open mind, and having fun. It's those actions (be it trying recipies, playing an instrument, or writing code) that make you good. But if you believe "I'm no good at it", then you'll just avoid opportunities to practice, learn, and play.
So yeah, if people believe they "don't understand VCR's" then they are actually instructing themselves that the manual is written in Greek. Think hypnosis: "I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand..." That's how strong beliefs are.
Now we all have beliefs, be they positive or negative ones, so it's not about calling some people "stupid". And the beliefs are very strong, and there can be a lot of fear associated with trying to break a belief. People will do all sorts of things to avoid having their beliefs invalidated, because there's a lot of security in "knowing" how the world works (how I belive it to be).
(Living without beliefs is very freeing, but who wants to be free anyway?)
So yeah, the interface and the user manual can go a long way towards being clear, simple and informative, but beyond that, if the user has a blocking belief, I dunno what you can do about it.
Take the middle classes here in the UK. They get upset about house prices. I try to maintain the perspective that there are people starving in the world and places where reaching the age of 5 requires lots of luck! I don't care about house proces too much. I'm happy to have food, shelter, clothing and medical attention when I need it.
While I feel a "Offtopic" moderation heading my way, I just want to say that your chosen view is great. As you observe with your own eyes, no matter what people have, they can still (choose to) be discontent.
What you are doing, though, is being grateful for what you have. Clean water on demand, large warehouses full of food (supermarkets), sanitation, no-one bombing your house.
Having something does not make us happy unless we are actively grateful for having it. I lived in places like Zambia when I was a kid, where the supermarket shelves were "filled" with Coca-Cola bottles spaced at 1 meter intervals (there was nothing else to put on the shelves). Being in Europe still makes me like, hey, I can walk to the shop and they have stuff?? Wow!!
We have to remember to be grateful.
I have complained nicely before about the crapness of the odeon's website here in the uk not working with konq 2.2.1. Didnt work
I believe that they are the worst web site I've ever tried to use. Never mind the standards compliance issue; the usability is terrible. They used to have these menus that mouse roll-overs would cause info to be showed on the page, but to get to the links in the info you'd have to move the mouse across other menus that caused the info to dissapear....
Right now they've got a splash page for Spiderman saying "BOOK NOW". Unfortunately that's all it says on the splash page. I wanted a list of films... I didn't want to book Spiderman... but there was no mention of anything other than "BOOK NOW". So I click "BOOK NOW" to get to the main page... which is blank because they've used some wizzy flying menu animation that totally doens't work in Opera(mac) or Mozilla.
Why is it that some of the most commercial sites are utterly useless???
Do people just sit around saying, "we can only afford to support IE, as it's got 95%", while deliberately spending money writing ie only wizzy stuff?
PS: For the opinion or David Brin, great science fiction writer who makes George Lucas look like the hack he is, read...
Some points from that article about what Lucas is having us believe:
But hey, I think all these points could apply to Buffy.
I recall seeing a TV interview with Lucas where he says that he saw there was a lack of simple good v. evil morality in films... or words to that effect, and that he wanted to put myths back into films.
It's a question of whether myths have any value, at least for children. And that question might be better answered by people who study child development.
The myth of the hero, of the super-man, might be nice as something to inspire one, although dangerous to actually identify with it. Elites are not in and of themselves bad, after all, in sport we want to watch the elite players, the ones who are the very best, and not just the average joe.
The Matrix not only had it's own hero myths, with Neo as the saviour of the world, but also lots of esoteric stuff, about the world being just a dream, and so on.
Not that I particularly liked SW.
Wow, your phone can call other dimensions? ;)
Yeah, I just bought it from this great new start-up. I suggest you buy lots of shares in their company!
Just the other day, I got this phone-call from my alternate self in another universe. He's a multi billionnaire, great looking, 50 wifes, and just dicovered the elixier of youth in his private labs. Then he started laughing at me a lot.....
And like, dude, what if, like, the WHOLE UNIVERSE existed on the tip of some big cosmic bong? What if there's another universe on like, every molecule in our bong? Dude!
I wasn't talking about "what if". I'm not tripping.
Plain and simple, try to find the objective, self existance of Time, and you won't. All you will find is Change. And an ever-present changing Now does not imply a Timeline of past and future.
No Timeline, no time travel.
Assuming that an object can travel backwards in time, it does it relative to a reference systems. What would that reference system be ? The Sun ? The center of the galaxy ? The center of the universe ? I definitely don't like the idea of being teleported into dark, empty space.
Great point. I mean, how would I even know that I'd come from the future? If I somehow brought my memory of the future back with me, then that would be a different past, (because in my actual past, I was not someone from the future). So I would not really have travelled back in time.
Perhaps I would just re-merge with my old self, in which case I would have no idea that I had come from the future -- which means that effectively, stepping into the time machine was not giving me a new past, but just cutting off my future, ie. the moment I stepped in would be my time of death.
Sounds to me like a great way to get rid of garbage but a less than ideal way to travel.
I want this scientists' phone number! I want to know who to call if, walking down the street some day, a portal opens, and some really pissed-off two headed green thing starts throwing AOL cd's at me.
I have no idea how physicists approach the question of the creation of a contrafactual timeline which removes its own motive for existing
That's an easy one to answer. There is no such thing as Time.
Time is just a concept that's useful to us.
It's easy to check this for yourself. Have you noticed that whatever time it is, it's always the present?
The present moment is all that there is. Eternity is the timeless now.
Even memories are experienced in the present. We're living an ever changing present moment.
Oh, and there's no Space either.