Some people need "something" to believe in. Some others (like myself) don't.
Yeah, I was thinking more about what little I've heard about child development. Young children don't have the more sophisticated rational thinking skills that develop later, but nevertheless they need ethical guidance. And maybe religious stories, whether true or false, can be useful here. But yes, overall, I'm not saying we all have to go to church. I don't.
I see the cloning issue as a matter of Ethics and human rights not as a "human soul" issue. The product of cloning is simply a genetic duplicate of the original. Just like natural twins.
Again, I basically agree with you here. I mentioned the soul thing just to highlight that if there is a soul, by definition it's not something we can really prove using scientific apparatus --and so we can't deny their belief that human cells have souls... and they can't prove it. As you say, scientifically it's a non-issue. I don't suppose the Buddhists would be bothered much about it, as they try not to identify with their bodies much anyway.
The product of cloning is simply a genetic duplicate of the original. Just like natural twins.
Yes, but only in the objective sense. Scientifically you might not find any difference between a clone and the original, but what about culturally and subjectively? The scary thing about GATTACA for me was the degree to which society's values and organisations changed around the cloning technology, although in some ways it was just an extension of what we do already.
Yes, because Science and Ethics are two separate domains. One is about Truth, the other about Good. (And art is the third: Beauty).
There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense.
And as all you can do with Science is just count, you cannot get Science to tell you what is better or worse. A big number is not better than a small number. They're all just numbers. 'Better' and 'worse' are value judgements. Science has no business making value judgements. That's the domain of Ethics. Science is a separate domain. So please don't mix arguments about scientific numbers with arguments about ethical value judgements.
I agree with you that we have the ethical problem of at what point an embryo is a 'person'. But being an ethical problem, we can't just count cells -- otherwise we could just compare counts of a cow and a human's cells, and figure that it's better to eat people than it is to eat cows.
So drawing the line, ethically, at a few cells, is not necessarally stupid just because small numbers are 'inferior'. Ethically we're trying to figure out what is Good, and whether at this point in our development, with free markets, universities, tv, wars, the internet, famines, nuclear power, comfortable lifestyles for some, B.F. bombs, diseases, dodgy education, Atheists, Fundamentalists, a youth who don't see any meaning in life, a youth who are drafted to kamikaze missions, globalisation, red China, global warming, medical treatments for many ailments (but not available to all), McDonalds, wind power, etc. etc. etc. -- whether given, basically, the state of the world, good and bad, it is good for humanity to have more technology in this area, or whether, given our track record in other things, we should wait, or proceed with a different focus.
Now I don't suppose the Catholics look at it this way. Their religion says that bunch of cells has a soul. Something which by definition we can't check scientifically. When a person experiences their Soul, an inner illumination or a vision, the only thing science can say is that you brain waves have changes, or that your heart rate has changed. For all you can tell from your instruments, the person could just have food poisoning. Spirituality is simply not accessible to objective measurement. It may exist, it may not... but you can't tell with instruments. But that's another problem -- Science has totally trashed Christianity. Beaten it to a pulp. And while Science was correct to do so in the areas where the Church had said all sorts of nonsence about the age of the Earth, etc. etc., we need to recognise that at a certain point in people's lives, they need something to believe in. At least as a basic moral guide. So we have to be careful not to totally destroy Religion. It helps to hold societies together. The common Myth. A basic bond.
Of course, when you no longer need the Myth, then you should be free to forget it. But just remember that Science cannot tell you what is Good. And to live only by science is to live in a world devoid of values. I could rob and kill you and say it's survival of the fittest etc.
So we can ask questions about Values -- do we value having more technology, or do we value more stability in human affairs? If stability is more valuable right now, can we forsee how cloning may alter things... will it prevent diseases, reducing medical bills, and be used throughout the world? Or will it have negative side effects that destabilise our country? Can we even answer these questions? Are these questions important? Or do we value getting results as quickly as possible, and say, "whatever, just keep doing the science, and we'll probably be ok?"
So the problem isn't that some religious zealots are making ethical complaints -- it's that not enough intelligent and talented thinkers are botherting to make ethical considerations! Including the scientists!
We've generally gone beyond religious dogma, and science has given us many answers. But that doesn't mean science can give all the answers. We've forgotten Ethics because it used to be associated with religion, and also because it doesn't show up on an oscilloscope.
There are 80 basic Yoga postures, and 80,000 variations.
And not one of them is called the 'intel'.
In fact, the only posture you'll find associated with an 'intel', is the "shoulderhouchedoverkeyboardstrainedneckahansa" -- and that is definetly not a classic Yoga posture.
There's also the "repetitivestressisfuckingmywristsahansa", and the "mybodywilldieprematurelyfromlackofexcerciseahansa " posture.
But none of these will be found on a Yoga video.
And don't get me started on diet.
Really, "Yoga" is associated with health, while "intel" is associated with unhealth.
Yoga means the joining of mind and body. Intel means the joining of your arse to the chair.
There is no possibility of confusing these two things, 'yoga' and 'intel'.
I suggest the lawyers sow a label onto the back of their trowsers, "shit inside", and then they can sue their own asses off.
A paperless office will never happen, but not because it wouldn't be possible, or even better. I think up little things all the time, that I start doing electroncically, instead of scribbled on this note or that napkin, or whatever. But I'm one of the guys that makes computers work, that understands them. In corporate america, I'm 1 in 100, or even 1000. The rest are still stuck in the 15th century, and if you don't believe me, duck into the helpdesk call center.
So are you saying that you find you don't need paper for notes and stuff... you can scribble on your computer ok?
The sad thing is, by the time computers are smart enough to do the thinking for these retards, they'll also be able to do the job for them.
And that the people who feel they have to use paper for notes are just stuck in old ways... or don't know enough about computer tools to use them well?
But maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe M$ makes it too hard for people, hell, if I had to run Word every time I wanted to scribble a note, I'd want to chop down a tree and felt some paper too. Would be easier. When I was a winslave, I remember numerous times, where I wanted a simple spreadsheet, just some columns with numbers, etc. And they only option was tabbing over in notepad(preferred) or opening Excel (to be avoided). Sc takes care of that stuff now.
Although, maybe if we had better software, even avarage people could use the computer for notes?
So what do you think are some of the attributes of paper that software would have to either re-create or replace with alternative ways, that are missing from current popular software?
Actually, China is claiming to be fighting the war against terror in its repression of the Uighur ethnic Turk Muslim people in its Xinjiang province, on the basis that a few dozen people from there may have trained in Afghan Al Qaeda terrorist camps.
Tibet, anyone? Maybe they should have a game where Chinese Su-27's get chased and harassed by flying lotus-postured monks.
We don't want to keep tripping over bits of locked data all over the place.
We think it's bad having to comply with the.doc 'standard'.... well, just wait until 50% of your files are locked/ registered/ timelimited/ self-deleting/ copy-number-tracked/ require internet connection etc. etc. in 20 different 'management' schemes...
Information transcends physical constraints... but all these clever people keep forgetting that.
....But they're pretty sure they get to keep more of the artists' money this way.
I know that there's terrorism and wars and famine in the news every day, but that people calmly sit down and do this (SOA) as their job, just leaves me flaberghasted.
Everything is perfect, just as it is....and there's plenty of room for improvement.
The point is that the RIAA can and will make all *recording* devices illegal. The will probably be done by introducing a new format, using the SSSCA to make manufacturing devices using old formats like CD and DVD illegal, and desigining the new format so it is impossible to record without a technique requiring mechanical pressing or otherwise massive scale manufacturing.
Ah, you Americans, always so confident in your technological "solutions". Here in Elbonia, when we wish to "pirate" one of your glamorous musical disks, we call the whole village out to sit in the mud, under the stars, and then turn up the volume on our state owned, mudproof, CD player really loud....
I'm no techno guru, so I can't say I understand all the issues involved in building 'secure' systems, but I dunno how they can stop the "laws of physics" (as some posters have put it), and prevent bits from being copied.
They can only make it harder to copy stuff, but then it only takes one person to crack it. They can make it illegal to distribute copies, but then we have huge illegal distribution networks in place. They can put people in jail for posession, but then they can't examine the contents of a CD found on your person without taking it to the lab. They can make a device report every single file you open to some central database or whatnot, but who the hell is going to track billions of needles in terabytes of haystacks?
Just what do they expect to be able to do? Frighten people? Make 'em think, "gee, this is illegal... I'd better not do it?" -- but music and films appeal to young people, the ones most likely to have less need of "respectability".
Is Dirty Data is going to become a new rhetoric, a sort of new morality, making people believe that data can be "filthy" and "rotten". Listen to a Bach copy and you'll be corrupted by those dirty nasty un-authenticated bits??
Is that all they hope to achieve? Get the tech industry to admit that it might be sort of maybe possible, (thus creating pretense that the law is enforceable), and then use the existence of the law to create a cultural notion that copying is bad and can damage your health and well being?
Silly, but I do wonder. Or perhaps they already realise that the game is up. Digital technology is to data what mass cheap produced energy available through a socket in your home is to the local cart and coal merchant. They know the game is up. Their distribution model is dead. And they're just buying themselves some time.
So long as they can maintain the illusion that they still have something to own and distribute (see, we prevent copies with DRM, and we sell online to new markets), then their credibility as a business will continue... just a little while longer. Maybe until they figure out what to really do, maybe just to milk the market until they retire.
Either way, when an empty shell of an industry only has it's image of power and worth left, then "The show must go on...."
...the Linux crowd is the least qualified to comment about design. The common thread is that people wouldn't want to sacrifice content for a flashy web site, and that just shows their ignorance. These people don't realize that good design does not involve compromizes. Good design is about presenting the content in such a manner that the appearance enhances the content presentation, not distracts from it. ...a real graphic designer. Such an individual has both training and experience in creating designs that work
Well, there's the technical side, and there's the arty side (which you seem to be stating), but I think Design goes above and beyond both.
Your view is to some extent valid in addition to the/. view. So it's still valid to ask the/. crowd. If they give you are 'technical' viewpoint, then that's at least half the story.
My only quibble with many/. posts re. web design is that they seem to think that 'design' means adding pictures and stuff, but I prefer the term Design to mean synthesising, making value judgements, integrating, solving etc. For a very simple example: How long shall we make the user wait for the download? -- that's a design decision. The graphic designer may think the graphic is really important (after all, that's his/her job), but on the technical side that graphic consumes bandwidth... What a Designer does is evaluate both and make a decision. What's the vision and what are the constraints?
Good design, I think, starts with a good vision, a picture of how the whole will be, and then solving all the technical and artistic issues and constraints to bring that vision to fruition.
In this respect I think that neither coders nor "real" graphic designers are ideal for the job.
The coders are too interested in function, while the graphic designers are too accustomed to print, and overstate the importance of visual composition etc. I am quite sick of visually stunning sites that look awful because for most of the time they're just a bunch of silly little boxes loading.
A "real" Designer is someone who will balance the information architecture, useability, and content (be it text, image, movie, animation, sound etc.) to suit some Vision that meets not just what the client needs but also what they didn't realise they needed.
I mean, "useability" sorta implies that there should be just a little on the page, and be really clear. "Content" implies that there should be loads on the site. And "information architecture" tends towards systematic diagrams and hierarchies. But hierarchies aren't very useable, and simple pages don't give much content or interest. So all three pull in different directions and neither, alone, will give you a good site.
Design is about solving the problem of how to integrate everything into a coherent and innovative vision.
So he's saying that we'll have self-aware robots in 23 years. This seems pretty unrealistic to me, being that we have yet to design a computer that has demonstrated anything close to human conciousness.
And what is 'consciousness' anyway? There's a hard question in itself. Zen Buddhists spend years asking "Who Am I?", just to get to this question of the basic mystery of how it is that anything is Aware.
One mystic put in something like this: I follow the argument that light travels from the sun, bounces off an object, enters my eye, stimulates my retina, is converted to nerve impulses which travel into my brain....but the explanation stops there. Even if we find little neurons responsable for being stimulated by "lines" or colours, it doesn't explain the "little man inside watching the movie". And if he's watching the movie, who's inside his brain watching the movie that's being made in his brain....? and so on forever....
The philosopher Ken Wilber has pointed out that some A.I. research focusses on modelling concepts... but concepts are only a very late and high development in the brain... there's masses of stuff happening in the brain before you can get anywhere near anything like a "concept".
And on top of that, concepts ocurr IN consciousness. They themselves are not consciousness. They are content. Just like the visual field you are now experiencing is content of consciosuness. Even if a computer could be programmed to give intelligent answers--that's a separate issue to building a self aware machine.
A friend of mine said to me:
"I didn't believe in God until I worked 1 year in AI. No matter how great an achievement we made, it STILL sucked in comparison"
There's a new book due out in a few months by Ken Wilber, a philosopher and "enlightnened" Zen practitioner (among other things), called "Boomeritis", about a clever geek who wants to work in A.I. He gets into the problem of what is consciousness, which leads him towards those who have traditionally studied this question, like Zen Buddhists etc.
Group think is everywhere - religious cults are perhaps the most prominent example, but you don't have to try very hard before you spot it elsewhere.
Well, can I make a suggestion re. this "group think" thing? I read it more as what a person identifies with. And what they value.
But I'm reading you to have some objection to "group-think", and I think that's a bit shallow. Yes, we are individuals, and we are also part of a culture, or group, of others.
Some people value the individuality. Some people value the "group". Some people are happy to sit in their studios and paint and just pursue their "own" thing. Some people find meaning and purpose in joining a cause, a greater order, something that goes beyond the individual.
Both ways can make a contribution.
Just as an example, if you're into Buddhism, or if you have the impression Buddha was cool, they have the notion of "the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha". The Buddha is the realized one (individual), the Dharma is the knowledge or way, and the Sangha is the community of seekers. So both the individual and the collective are valued.
Yes there are cults where individuality is specifically repressed in order to prevent people questioning the leader's lack of integrity, but there are also positive "cults" where people are encouraged to think beyond their concern for themselves, their "individuality", and consider what's of benefit to the group, or, if you like, village, city, country, planet.
Basically the health of the group should not be at the expense of the health of the individual and vice versae.
Sorry to add such a long tangental comment to your post but I thought it might be interesting.
There are only individuals, everything else is just a convenient abstraction.
Well, some (any Zen masters present? or child psychologists?) would say that even the "individual" is an abstraction. What you're mistakingly describing as your uniqueness is all the individual stuff (your name, age, body, feelings, values etc.), but these are things that You are experiencing, noticing, seeing, just like you notice clouds and trees. Those objects are not You, they are just Witnessed by You.. They are things ocurring IN You, that is, in awareness, consciousness, they are not actually You. "you", your personal stuff, is not the real "You". Seeing the concept of "me" and thinking it's you is like seeing a rock and identifying with the rock. Your mistaking yourself for that object which you are witnessing. The concept "you" is not You. You are merely aware of the concept. Your real uniqueness is the consciousness, the Witness, this undoubtable sense of existing. Ok, I'll stop now:-)
My laser of death,
How it fries the little soldiers.
Toast dipped in egg. Yum!
If you really want to throw up, read this [christianity.com]. Direct quote - "The recent release of Windows XP illustrates the concept of intelligent design. If Windows XP points to Bill Gates, how much more do the marvelous complexities of DNA point directly to God, the great Intelligent Designer?"
Gosh. Although maybe they should have stuck to the "find a watch in the desert" analogy. Anyhow, I have no problem with seeing that the universe is creative and intelligent. But that doesn't imply a "God" in the Christian sense, and all their associated beliefs. The universe might be one giant creative force of consciousness or something, and not just some clock set in motion by a beardy old guy.
"The universe exhibits creativity, therefore it was created, therefore there is a creator, therefore you should worship your creator" is a false line of reasoning. All we can really say is that, "it is creative". (I'm guessing that that line of reasoning was why the Christian article was making the point about DNA, although I've heard other Chrstians make a similar "leap" of logic).
Anyway, just a minor OT point. Don't want to start a religious flame war, now, do I? ;-)
Common sense should have told you to get those promises as written agreements into your service contract. If something sounds too good to be possible, it usually is.
Common sense as applied to a relatively new type of service? I mean, you're right, today, but 24/7 dialup was then relatively new in the UK, and BT is our big monopoly company, with loads of infrastructure. It doesn't sound "too good to be possible" that this big company that runs most of the nation's phones should not also be able to handle 24/7 internet access. In the UK we've no prior experience for forming a common sense view of what is and isn't deliverable. Although we're starting to get the picture.
Do you ask your water company for a written agreement that you may run the tap to fill your bath? Or your supermarket that the expiry dates printed on the food are true and reliable? We have enough collective experience of these things for "common sense" to be formed.
What disgusts me is that the service is advertised as unlimited bandwidth
That obviously is false. You bandwidth won't be higher than the maximum its possible to transfer to your cablemodem/router/whatever.
Now, if you think it through rationally - and not from a stupid leeching luser perspective
I read 'unlimited' not as meaning that I get infinite speed--as the service states what the speed is--but that I can make unlimited use of that speed. And why not?
Now if you're already familiar with networking and ISPs and the market and all that, then sure, you decide that what they say is not what they mean, because it "obviously" can't be true. Good for you.
But that's like buying a plane ticket for destination Kitwe, only to find, when you land, that you're actually in Lusaka, because, "D'oh dumbass, Kitwe doesn't have an airport!!!" You surely knew you'd have to make the rest of the trip on your own, didn't you?
Now lots of people will see a better analogy. But I just maintain that "unlimited X" means "no limits on X". Otherwise, state it clearly.
So I think you're wrong to refer to these people as "bandwidth pigs". If it's a problem for the service, then the system should have quotas. And the users should be made aware of the quotas. Advertising it as "unlimited" is just an outright lie.
What disgusts me is that the service is advertised as unlimited bandwidth.
This is my only quibble with any ISP. I specifically asked BT Internet, before I signed up,
me: "I've heard that other services have had to cap usage of so called 'heavy users'--does BT do this?"
isp rep:"No, I've never heard of anything like that."
me: "So I can use it all the time and it won't be a problem?"
isp rep: "Yes, you can use it as much as you like. It's an unlimited dial-up service."
me: "You are sure? There won't be any restrictions?"
isp rep: "It's unlimited"
A couple of months later, BT Internet switched heavy users to a different dial-up number, in an operation roumored to be called "Boa Constrictor". Suddenly I find I keep getting the busy tone.
rant: I'm all for business competitiveness, but competition has to be by the rules. Cheating your customers is not competitive, it's just cheating--athletes don't 'compete' in the 400m by riding motorcycles. The game is only competitive when people play by the rules. Just look at Enron. BAh.
Has anyone noticed how bandwith cost less to the end-user as to the upstream provider?
Ok, so how does one find out what bandwidth really costs? I mean, just out of interest, are there any ballpark (cricket ground?) figures for what bandwidth will cost to an ISP?
Slashdot Mirror
Some people need "something" to believe in. Some others (like myself) don't.
Yeah, I was thinking more about what little I've heard about child development. Young children don't have the more sophisticated rational thinking skills that develop later, but nevertheless they need ethical guidance. And maybe religious stories, whether true or false, can be useful here. But yes, overall, I'm not saying we all have to go to church. I don't.
I see the cloning issue as a matter of Ethics and human rights not as a "human soul" issue. The product of cloning is simply a genetic duplicate of the original. Just like natural twins.
Again, I basically agree with you here. I mentioned the soul thing just to highlight that if there is a soul, by definition it's not something we can really prove using scientific apparatus --and so we can't deny their belief that human cells have souls... and they can't prove it. As you say, scientifically it's a non-issue. I don't suppose the Buddhists would be bothered much about it, as they try not to identify with their bodies much anyway.
The product of cloning is simply a genetic duplicate of the original. Just like natural twins.
Yes, but only in the objective sense. Scientifically you might not find any difference between a clone and the original, but what about culturally and subjectively? The scary thing about GATTACA for me was the degree to which society's values and organisations changed around the cloning technology, although in some ways it was just an extension of what we do already.
Technology by itself is not bad.
Yes, because Science and Ethics are two separate domains. One is about Truth, the other about Good. (And art is the third: Beauty).
There are religious and ethical people who want to attach full human rights to arbitrarily small clusters of human cells (fertalized eggs, tiny embryo's, etc.). From a scientific point of view this is of course complete nonsense.
And as all you can do with Science is just count, you cannot get Science to tell you what is better or worse. A big number is not better than a small number. They're all just numbers. 'Better' and 'worse' are value judgements. Science has no business making value judgements. That's the domain of Ethics. Science is a separate domain. So please don't mix arguments about scientific numbers with arguments about ethical value judgements.
I agree with you that we have the ethical problem of at what point an embryo is a 'person'. But being an ethical problem, we can't just count cells -- otherwise we could just compare counts of a cow and a human's cells, and figure that it's better to eat people than it is to eat cows.
So drawing the line, ethically, at a few cells, is not necessarally stupid just because small numbers are 'inferior'. Ethically we're trying to figure out what is Good, and whether at this point in our development, with free markets, universities, tv, wars, the internet, famines, nuclear power, comfortable lifestyles for some, B.F. bombs, diseases, dodgy education, Atheists, Fundamentalists, a youth who don't see any meaning in life, a youth who are drafted to kamikaze missions, globalisation, red China, global warming, medical treatments for many ailments (but not available to all), McDonalds, wind power, etc. etc. etc. -- whether given, basically, the state of the world, good and bad, it is good for humanity to have more technology in this area, or whether, given our track record in other things, we should wait, or proceed with a different focus.
Now I don't suppose the Catholics look at it this way. Their religion says that bunch of cells has a soul. Something which by definition we can't check scientifically. When a person experiences their Soul, an inner illumination or a vision, the only thing science can say is that you brain waves have changes, or that your heart rate has changed. For all you can tell from your instruments, the person could just have food poisoning. Spirituality is simply not accessible to objective measurement. It may exist, it may not... but you can't tell with instruments. But that's another problem -- Science has totally trashed Christianity. Beaten it to a pulp. And while Science was correct to do so in the areas where the Church had said all sorts of nonsence about the age of the Earth, etc. etc., we need to recognise that at a certain point in people's lives, they need something to believe in. At least as a basic moral guide. So we have to be careful not to totally destroy Religion. It helps to hold societies together. The common Myth. A basic bond.
Of course, when you no longer need the Myth, then you should be free to forget it. But just remember that Science cannot tell you what is Good. And to live only by science is to live in a world devoid of values. I could rob and kill you and say it's survival of the fittest etc.
So we can ask questions about Values -- do we value having more technology, or do we value more stability in human affairs? If stability is more valuable right now, can we forsee how cloning may alter things... will it prevent diseases, reducing medical bills, and be used throughout the world? Or will it have negative side effects that destabilise our country? Can we even answer these questions? Are these questions important? Or do we value getting results as quickly as possible, and say, "whatever, just keep doing the science, and we'll probably be ok?"
So the problem isn't that some religious zealots are making ethical complaints -- it's that not enough intelligent and talented thinkers are botherting to make ethical considerations! Including the scientists!
We've generally gone beyond religious dogma, and science has given us many answers. But that doesn't mean science can give all the answers. We've forgotten Ethics because it used to be associated with religion, and also because it doesn't show up on an oscilloscope.
Um, this post is way to long. :(
There are 80 basic Yoga postures, and 80,000 variations.
And not one of them is called the 'intel'.
In fact, the only posture you'll find associated with an 'intel', is the "shoulderhouchedoverkeyboardstrainedneckahansa" -- and that is definetly not a classic Yoga posture.
There's also the "repetitivestressisfuckingmywristsahansa", and the "mybodywilldieprematurelyfromlackofexcerciseahansa " posture.
But none of these will be found on a Yoga video.
And don't get me started on diet.
Really, "Yoga" is associated with health, while "intel" is associated with unhealth.
Yoga means the joining of mind and body. Intel means the joining of your arse to the chair.
There is no possibility of confusing these two things, 'yoga' and 'intel'.
I suggest the lawyers sow a label onto the back of their trowsers, "shit inside", and then they can sue their own asses off.
A paperless office will never happen, but not because it wouldn't be possible, or even better. I think up little things all the time, that I start doing electroncically, instead of scribbled on this note or that napkin, or whatever. But I'm one of the guys that makes computers work, that understands them. In corporate america, I'm 1 in 100, or even 1000. The rest are still stuck in the 15th century, and if you don't believe me, duck into the helpdesk call center.
So are you saying that you find you don't need paper for notes and stuff... you can scribble on your computer ok?
The sad thing is, by the time computers are smart enough to do the thinking for these retards, they'll also be able to do the job for them.
And that the people who feel they have to use paper for notes are just stuck in old ways... or don't know enough about computer tools to use them well?
But maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe M$ makes it too hard for people, hell, if I had to run Word every time I wanted to scribble a note, I'd want to chop down a tree and felt some paper too. Would be easier. When I was a winslave, I remember numerous times, where I wanted a simple spreadsheet, just some columns with numbers, etc. And they only option was tabbing over in notepad(preferred) or opening Excel (to be avoided). Sc takes care of that stuff now.
Although, maybe if we had better software, even avarage people could use the computer for notes?
So what do you think are some of the attributes of paper that software would have to either re-create or replace with alternative ways, that are missing from current popular software?
What? Only a mentally deranged person would come up with something like that. Please tell me it's not true.
Why don't they just cross off the 'aloud' and be done with it.
Actually, China is claiming to be fighting the war against terror in its repression of the Uighur ethnic Turk Muslim people in its Xinjiang province, on the basis that a few dozen people from there may have trained in Afghan Al Qaeda terrorist camps.
Tibet, anyone? Maybe they should have a game where Chinese Su-27's get chased and harassed by flying lotus-postured monks.
...is a null DRM.
We don't want to keep tripping over bits of locked data all over the place.
We think it's bad having to comply with the .doc 'standard'.... well, just wait until 50% of your files are locked/ registered/ timelimited/ self-deleting/ copy-number-tracked/ require internet connection etc. etc. in 20 different 'management' schemes...
Information transcends physical constraints... but all these clever people keep forgetting that.
I know that there's terrorism and wars and famine in the news every day, but that people calmly sit down and do this (SOA) as their job, just leaves me flaberghasted.
Everything is perfect, just as it is....and there's plenty of room for improvement.
Thank you for your intelligent explanation. That's cleared up a lot of the arguments that I've been reading.
Buddha walks into a pizza parlour and says, "Hey, make me one with everything".
The point is that the RIAA can and will make all *recording* devices illegal. The will probably be done by introducing a new format, using the SSSCA to make manufacturing devices using old formats like CD and DVD illegal, and desigining the new format so it is impossible to record without a technique requiring mechanical pressing or otherwise massive scale manufacturing.
Ah, you Americans, always so confident in your technological "solutions". Here in Elbonia, when we wish to "pirate" one of your glamorous musical disks, we call the whole village out to sit in the mud, under the stars, and then turn up the volume on our state owned, mudproof, CD player really loud....
Get that message out there folks--its not about piracy, its about pay-per-view everywhere.
+1: Ouch
But how will they enforce pay per view....?.... oh yeah, retinal scans.
I'm no techno guru, so I can't say I understand all the issues involved in building 'secure' systems, but I dunno how they can stop the "laws of physics" (as some posters have put it), and prevent bits from being copied.
They can only make it harder to copy stuff, but then it only takes one person to crack it. They can make it illegal to distribute copies, but then we have huge illegal distribution networks in place. They can put people in jail for posession, but then they can't examine the contents of a CD found on your person without taking it to the lab. They can make a device report every single file you open to some central database or whatnot, but who the hell is going to track billions of needles in terabytes of haystacks?
Just what do they expect to be able to do? Frighten people? Make 'em think, "gee, this is illegal... I'd better not do it?" -- but music and films appeal to young people, the ones most likely to have less need of "respectability".
Is Dirty Data is going to become a new rhetoric, a sort of new morality, making people believe that data can be "filthy" and "rotten". Listen to a Bach copy and you'll be corrupted by those dirty nasty un-authenticated bits??
Is that all they hope to achieve? Get the tech industry to admit that it might be sort of maybe possible, (thus creating pretense that the law is enforceable), and then use the existence of the law to create a cultural notion that copying is bad and can damage your health and well being?
Silly, but I do wonder. Or perhaps they already realise that the game is up. Digital technology is to data what mass cheap produced energy available through a socket in your home is to the local cart and coal merchant. They know the game is up. Their distribution model is dead. And they're just buying themselves some time.
So long as they can maintain the illusion that they still have something to own and distribute (see, we prevent copies with DRM, and we sell online to new markets), then their credibility as a business will continue... just a little while longer. Maybe until they figure out what to really do, maybe just to milk the market until they retire.
Either way, when an empty shell of an industry only has it's image of power and worth left, then "The show must go on...."
The common thread is that people wouldn't want to sacrifice content for a flashy web site, and that just shows their ignorance. These people don't realize that good design does not involve compromizes. Good design is about presenting the content in such a manner that the appearance enhances the content presentation, not distracts from it.
Well, there's the technical side, and there's the arty side (which you seem to be stating), but I think Design goes above and beyond both.
Your view is to some extent valid in addition to the /. view. So it's still valid to ask the /. crowd. If they give you are 'technical' viewpoint, then that's at least half the story.
My only quibble with many /. posts re. web design is that they seem to think that 'design' means adding pictures and stuff, but I prefer the term Design to mean synthesising, making value judgements, integrating, solving etc. For a very simple example: How long shall we make the user wait for the download? -- that's a design decision. The graphic designer may think the graphic is really important (after all, that's his/her job), but on the technical side that graphic consumes bandwidth... What a Designer does is evaluate both and make a decision. What's the vision and what are the constraints?
Good design, I think, starts with a good vision, a picture of how the whole will be, and then solving all the technical and artistic issues and constraints to bring that vision to fruition.
In this respect I think that neither coders nor "real" graphic designers are ideal for the job.
The coders are too interested in function, while the graphic designers are too accustomed to print, and overstate the importance of visual composition etc. I am quite sick of visually stunning sites that look awful because for most of the time they're just a bunch of silly little boxes loading.
A "real" Designer is someone who will balance the information architecture, useability, and content (be it text, image, movie, animation, sound etc.) to suit some Vision that meets not just what the client needs but also what they didn't realise they needed.
I mean, "useability" sorta implies that there should be just a little on the page, and be really clear. "Content" implies that there should be loads on the site. And "information architecture" tends towards systematic diagrams and hierarchies. But hierarchies aren't very useable, and simple pages don't give much content or interest. So all three pull in different directions and neither, alone, will give you a good site.
Design is about solving the problem of how to integrate everything into a coherent and innovative vision.
So he's saying that we'll have self-aware robots in 23 years. This seems pretty unrealistic to me, being that we have yet to design a computer that has demonstrated anything close to human conciousness.
And what is 'consciousness' anyway? There's a hard question in itself. Zen Buddhists spend years asking "Who Am I?", just to get to this question of the basic mystery of how it is that anything is Aware.
One mystic put in something like this: I follow the argument that light travels from the sun, bounces off an object, enters my eye, stimulates my retina, is converted to nerve impulses which travel into my brain....but the explanation stops there. Even if we find little neurons responsable for being stimulated by "lines" or colours, it doesn't explain the "little man inside watching the movie". And if he's watching the movie, who's inside his brain watching the movie that's being made in his brain....? and so on forever....
The philosopher Ken Wilber has pointed out that some A.I. research focusses on modelling concepts... but concepts are only a very late and high development in the brain... there's masses of stuff happening in the brain before you can get anywhere near anything like a "concept".
And on top of that, concepts ocurr IN consciousness. They themselves are not consciousness. They are content. Just like the visual field you are now experiencing is content of consciosuness. Even if a computer could be programmed to give intelligent answers--that's a separate issue to building a self aware machine.
Time travel invented ... 2075
Bah! Phoney! There's no such thing as "time". Haven't you noticed how no matter what time it is, it's always the present?
What makes the first one potentially easier? I wonder.
Let me just wind my watch back. There we are... time travel.
Also, if time is money, and I spend some, then I'm going back in time, right??
A friend of mine said to me: "I didn't believe in God until I worked 1 year in AI. No matter how great an achievement we made, it STILL sucked in comparison"
There's a new book due out in a few months by Ken Wilber, a philosopher and "enlightnened" Zen practitioner (among other things), called "Boomeritis", about a clever geek who wants to work in A.I. He gets into the problem of what is consciousness, which leads him towards those who have traditionally studied this question, like Zen Buddhists etc.
Group think is everywhere - religious cults are perhaps the most prominent example, but you don't have to try very hard before you spot it elsewhere.
Well, can I make a suggestion re. this "group think" thing? I read it more as what a person identifies with. And what they value.
But I'm reading you to have some objection to "group-think", and I think that's a bit shallow. Yes, we are individuals, and we are also part of a culture, or group, of others.
Some people value the individuality. Some people value the "group". Some people are happy to sit in their studios and paint and just pursue their "own" thing. Some people find meaning and purpose in joining a cause, a greater order, something that goes beyond the individual.
Both ways can make a contribution.
Just as an example, if you're into Buddhism, or if you have the impression Buddha was cool, they have the notion of "the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha". The Buddha is the realized one (individual), the Dharma is the knowledge or way, and the Sangha is the community of seekers. So both the individual and the collective are valued.
Yes there are cults where individuality is specifically repressed in order to prevent people questioning the leader's lack of integrity, but there are also positive "cults" where people are encouraged to think beyond their concern for themselves, their "individuality", and consider what's of benefit to the group, or, if you like, village, city, country, planet.
Basically the health of the group should not be at the expense of the health of the individual and vice versae.
Sorry to add such a long tangental comment to your post but I thought it might be interesting.
There are only individuals, everything else is just a convenient abstraction.
Well, some (any Zen masters present? or child psychologists?) would say that even the "individual" is an abstraction. What you're mistakingly describing as your uniqueness is all the individual stuff (your name, age, body, feelings, values etc.), but these are things that You are experiencing, noticing, seeing, just like you notice clouds and trees. Those objects are not You, they are just Witnessed by You.. They are things ocurring IN You, that is, in awareness, consciousness, they are not actually You. "you", your personal stuff, is not the real "You". Seeing the concept of "me" and thinking it's you is like seeing a rock and identifying with the rock. Your mistaking yourself for that object which you are witnessing. The concept "you" is not You. You are merely aware of the concept. Your real uniqueness is the consciousness, the Witness, this undoubtable sense of existing. Ok, I'll stop now :-)
My laser of death,
How it fries the little soldiers.
Toast dipped in egg. Yum!
If .NET makes any fucking difference before it gets replaced with the Next Big Thing, I'll eat my damned crusty underwear.
I read that ars article, in it's fine detail, expecting to get to a "summary" or "in the grand scheme of things..." conclusion. But there wasn't one.
Thanks for the great summary!
I'm typing this on a five+ year old PowerMac 9500. Running Mac OS 9.2 on 48 MB ram rather smoothly.
Hey, it's praise our old hardware day.
I'm reading this on a 8500/604e/144MB/OS8.6 :-)
If you really want to throw up, read this [christianity.com]. Direct quote - "The recent release of Windows XP illustrates the concept of intelligent design. If Windows XP points to Bill Gates, how much more do the marvelous complexities of DNA point directly to God, the great Intelligent Designer?"
Gosh. Although maybe they should have stuck to the "find a watch in the desert" analogy. Anyhow, I have no problem with seeing that the universe is creative and intelligent. But that doesn't imply a "God" in the Christian sense, and all their associated beliefs. The universe might be one giant creative force of consciousness or something, and not just some clock set in motion by a beardy old guy.
"The universe exhibits creativity, therefore it was created, therefore there is a creator, therefore you should worship your creator" is a false line of reasoning. All we can really say is that, "it is creative". (I'm guessing that that line of reasoning was why the Christian article was making the point about DNA, although I've heard other Chrstians make a similar "leap" of logic).
Anyway, just a minor OT point. Don't want to start a religious flame war, now, do I?
;-)
Common sense should have told you to get those promises as written agreements into your service contract. If something sounds too good to be possible, it usually is.
Common sense as applied to a relatively new type of service? I mean, you're right, today, but 24/7 dialup was then relatively new in the UK, and BT is our big monopoly company, with loads of infrastructure. It doesn't sound "too good to be possible" that this big company that runs most of the nation's phones should not also be able to handle 24/7 internet access. In the UK we've no prior experience for forming a common sense view of what is and isn't deliverable. Although we're starting to get the picture.
Do you ask your water company for a written agreement that you may run the tap to fill your bath? Or your supermarket that the expiry dates printed on the food are true and reliable? We have enough collective experience of these things for "common sense" to be formed.
What's your common sense view about 3G? :-P
What disgusts me is that the service is advertised as unlimited bandwidth
That obviously is false. You bandwidth won't be higher than the maximum its possible to transfer to your cablemodem/router/whatever.
Now, if you think it through rationally - and not from a stupid leeching luser perspective
I read 'unlimited' not as meaning that I get infinite speed--as the service states what the speed is--but that I can make unlimited use of that speed. And why not?
Now if you're already familiar with networking and ISPs and the market and all that, then sure, you decide that what they say is not what they mean, because it "obviously" can't be true. Good for you.
But that's like buying a plane ticket for destination Kitwe, only to find, when you land, that you're actually in Lusaka, because, "D'oh dumbass, Kitwe doesn't have an airport!!!" You surely knew you'd have to make the rest of the trip on your own, didn't you?
Now lots of people will see a better analogy. But I just maintain that "unlimited X" means "no limits on X". Otherwise, state it clearly.
So I think you're wrong to refer to these people as "bandwidth pigs". If it's a problem for the service, then the system should have quotas. And the users should be made aware of the quotas. Advertising it as "unlimited" is just an outright lie.
What disgusts me is that the service is advertised as unlimited bandwidth.
This is my only quibble with any ISP. I specifically asked BT Internet, before I signed up,
me: "I've heard that other services have had to cap usage of so called 'heavy users'--does BT do this?"
isp rep:"No, I've never heard of anything like that."
me: "So I can use it all the time and it won't be a problem?"
isp rep: "Yes, you can use it as much as you like. It's an unlimited dial-up service."
me: "You are sure? There won't be any restrictions?"
isp rep: "It's unlimited"
A couple of months later, BT Internet switched heavy users to a different dial-up number, in an operation roumored to be called "Boa Constrictor". Suddenly I find I keep getting the busy tone.
rant: I'm all for business competitiveness, but competition has to be by the rules. Cheating your customers is not competitive, it's just cheating--athletes don't 'compete' in the 400m by riding motorcycles. The game is only competitive when people play by the rules. Just look at Enron. BAh.
Has anyone noticed how bandwith cost less to the end-user as to the upstream provider?
Ok, so how does one find out what bandwidth really costs? I mean, just out of interest, are there any ballpark (cricket ground?) figures for what bandwidth will cost to an ISP?
Men are stupid and women are crazy.
In order to make sure your HP Nano-chip(tm) will continue working, please AVOID the following :
HP engineer: And these are the first prototypes we've been able to manufacture of our new nanochips...
Woody Allen: Gee, how much do these cost?
HP engineer: About a billion dollars an ounce
Woody Allen: ah...ah......ATCHOOOOO!