My wife manages to find all my character faults without much apparent effort.... Perhaps the computer is female....
Actually, the 'female' brain is vastly more interconnected than the 'male' brain. A female brain is an amazing feat of parallel processing. This is why,
A woman can take just one step into a shop, and instantly know there's nothing in it that she wants
A woman gan go shopping for "nothing in particular" for hours, just taking in the delight of the variety of clothes, people, places...
A man can never win an argument with a woman, because while the man is trying to argue the point, the woman makes the argument about everything...
But I'm not being sexist... because some men have more female patterned brains, and some women more male-patterned brains... so we're talking generally about average men and women.
So as a general rule to relationships, always remember that from the male point of view, a woman is crazy, and from the female point of view, a male is stupid.... so expect the female to act crazy -- this is just her powerful brain processing greater complexity than the poor male brain can understand. But the male contributes also, by way of his stupid brain, the ability to stay focussed on one thing.
Q. Are there any Slashdotters aiming to provide Web services despite its heavy backing by Microsoft?
A. If its the right tool/idea for the job USE IT!
I think you've given a technical reply to a political question. A political reply would have been more involved.
Re:Very much depends on the software of course
on
X On OSX Now Free
·
· Score: 1
if the software isn't using multiple process, you won't see any improvement going from one to two CPU
Yes, I gather the software was SMP enabled.... what I meant (I wasn't very clear) was that maybe it was just not very well implemented... or maybe like you say... it really wasn't using the second chip at all, and the P4 is just average in fp performance.
Re:Price-Performance of "iCubes" and other Macs
on
X On OSX Now Free
·
· Score: 1
But, it has turned out that a 500 MHz G4 (not G3) is remarkably fast for it's clock speed
I read a posting in the form.Z (3d modelling app) user forum, where someone reported a rendering on their dual-pentium processor enabled form.Z was finishing in a similar time to their similarly clocked but single processor G4.
Maybe it's the software, but even so, if your main breadwinning app runs twice as fast, that's all the reason you need to buy a G4.
I think Jobs' real strategy is to turn the Mac into the equivalent of a designer label in clothing.
Here (in the UK) I see most ads (90%?) that need to include a computer as part of the set, are using iMacs and iBooks. That's a heck of a lot of 'free' advertising. And TV programmes too. Take 'Watchdog' for example (they pursue consumer complaints by hounding down the companies involved -- you don't want your company featured on this programme) -- they read email from viewers while in the studio on air, on a prominently placed iMac)
Another example, I was checking out the latest models at one of the few department stores that carry macs, when a middle aged woman dragged her husband over to show him the machine. She said "Now that (hands gesturing with delight) is what I'd like to see at home..."
Something is working in their campaign -- although I'd hate computers to go the way of the car....
Do you find the Big Bang and it's associated theorems to be a joke, or do you laugh at the concept of some deity who's saturday afternoon fun consisted of slapping together a snow globe full of planets and stars?
There's also the option that the universe is 'intelligent'. A sort of 'infinite and unbounded field of creative possibilities'. We tend to think that matter is just inert, dead stuff, and wonder how just lumps of stuff could accidentally get together just right to make complex living structures, that in turn evolve consciousness... so some people say there must be a 'creator' figure 'outside', pulling the strings. But maybe the 'stuff' is not 'dead'. Maybe the stuff is intelligent.
After all, we experience the 'stuff' in our minds, and our minds are in our brains, which are in our bodies, which are made of stuff, which we experience in the mind... we can't really split 'consciousness' off from the stuff of the universe... one song, one mind, one.. whoa! I'm LEVITATING... no, no, just kidding.
This reminds me of one of the predictions in "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds",
2021. The first humans land on Mars and have some unpleasant surprises.
I wondered what he meant by that, but imagine being on mars, 2 years journey from earth, and noticing the 'red fungus' growing on all the plastic seals of your ship, living habitat, suits etc....
No, I don't think it does. Maybe you're referring to BootX, which is a MacOS app, but it's not the only way. Open Firmware can be set to boot linux by itself, allowing you to wipe away all traces of MacOS off your disk, (at least on an old 8500 - I haven't personally done it on a new cube).
Apple and MSFT have specifically rewritten their new Operating Systems to target the problems that have been leveled at them
... which also includes the apps --- like iMovie and Maya. Now I don't want to get into a war about which platform has the best price/power/stability/availability etc etc. --- but ever since QuickTime came out, that little 3 fps video in a 160x120 box has been just dying to grow up. Today I had a play with iMovie on a cube, and it was sweet.
Sure they're trying to sell more hardware with resource hungry animated gui's, which are, ehm, 'non essential', but we'll use that power for real work anyway...
Small is beautiful. Small can be elegant and lightweight, but MOSX is a three headed dragon (Classic/Cabon/Cocoa) in a big dress (Aqua) with a pair of jet skis (QuickTime, OpenGL) sitting on a tank (BSD) with custom tracks (Mach)... (my analogy powers falter...) and it all does a job and it ain't ever going to be 'small'.
So while I respect the author's points (and I believe his observations are accurate), they are not the whole picture. Just today I was shocked at the amount of memory I overheard a salesperson recommending to a likely home user, on the basis that in a year any less would be 'useless', but it reminds me of how every day I see four seater metal boxes drive past with three seats empty.... (ow! offtopic!)
Yep. Just yesterday I saw a kid with a nike logo dyed into the back of his head in his short cropped hair. (The logo was about 10 cm across). Talk about identifying with a brand. The scary thing is that advertising works.
The GUI may have become the interface for millions of computers, but for all the hype of "ease of use", the only things its given us are buttons, windows and menus. Not really "graphical". And DOS programs had menus anyway.
In fact, the GUI seems almost to have made things "worse". Consider that the 'easiest' interface is one, single, big button in the middle of the screen that says "click me". Very easy. Anyone can operate it. This seems to be the goal of GUI's, an interface that a clueless user can operate. But the problem is that the user remains clueless.
To overcome the cluelessness, we need to emphasise understanding. Think of all the mental maps you have stored up, that you rely on when using a computer.
When I used to work at a university help desk, I found that the hardest part was transferring to the students the mental model that I had aquired through my own computer use.
But by the time they are asking for help, it is usually too late, and they just want to "print their assignment before the deadline". And long theoretical blurbs just send them to sleep (I was told that my 'Starter Pack' booklet that I wrote to try to explain the basics of computer systems, like networks, peripherals, software, and filing systems, was used as bedtime reading, for it's soporific effect). But they do need to know this stuff!
...most students just don't seem to know how to tackle the problem of getting access to their work outside of the classroom labs.
So every time there's a new task, they are still clueless, because they lack the understanding. Without a map, people will have no clue how to go about it. You can give them precise step by step instructions, but if there are any discrepancies then they will get lost. And so we get students who can't even find their own files.
Now I'm not sure about the Marx stuff, but I do think that Bradley Dilger is on the right track. We need to get people understanding. And the current GUI does not do this.
So often when we try to explain something and words fail us we will resort to drawing a diagram. Why oh why diagrammatic explanations are not used to their full in interfaces I don't know. But "Understanding Comics", by Scott McLoud argues that we undervalue pictorial thinking in preference for so called "left-brain" skills like english and maths. Rudolf Steiner schools have tried to redress the balance, with art being a valuable thinking" tool. I'm happy that Dilger sees this:
Too, images are considered easier to understand and work with than text. I'm thinking of W. J. T. Mitchell's notion of the "pictorial turn," a broad shift in culture which constructs pictures and images as more accessible and more vibrant and just plain better than text [9]. The idea that images are less information dense or inferior to text starts early with toddlers' picture books -- which in my elementary school library were all under call letter E for "easy". It continues today in fear of television, a caustic attitude toward serial-graphic narrative (what most people call "comics"), and a lack of support for the visual and the aesthetic in school curricula.
Our cultural bias against "right-brain" education has been carried over into the so called "GUI". Let's face it, it's not really a graphical interface. Heck, studies quoted in "The Trouble with Computers" by Landauer show that the GUI is no more easier or more productive to use than the old DOS ways.
We are missing the potential of using interactive diagrams that self-document the functions available and the structure of the informtation being manipulated. Sorry about the 'big fancy words', but I know of no prototype. And I don't mean to imply that such diagrams would be the ultimate answer. Some people prefer auditory clues, so there's potential for much experimentation.
Sure they can- you're missing the entire point with music.
I wasn't talking about music. My post was a response to this statement,
The central problem here, which this article makes perfectly clear, is that someone who owns and creates something has every right to sell it under any terms they want.
which is very broad statement, ie. it doens't seem to be just about music, and being broad, I gave the South Africa/AIDS example --- not because the RSA/AIDS case was the same as music -- it plainly isn't, and I said so,
Anyway, this example is some way from music
but because I wanted to reply to that general statement about the rights of the owner. I wanted to say that the attitude of just "looking after" the owner,
don't scale too well.
to bigger situations, like RSA/AIDS. So I agree with you about not comparing it to music. I'm not. It seems fair to me that the artist have means by which he/she is rewarded. But I disagree with you on,
South Africa is welcome to develop their own AIDS drugs without violating patent laws in the least.
I mostly disagree, because it's a limited viewpoint. Because a higher and more all-inclusive viewpoint says that when humanity has the means, it should use the means to improve/save the lives of millions. The money/investment viewpoint is by no means without merit. It has value, and much material progress has been made with that view. But the "One World" viewpoint is simply a higher and more integral viewpoint.
The nazis loved their fatherland, and said to hell with everyone else who is outside the borders of the fatherland-race. They loved and protected their own race only. It is plainly a higher viewpoint that says we should love and protect all races. Yes, the mega-corp should care and protect itself, making sure it survives and prospers. But at some point the higher view tries to integrate this with the survival and health of everybody. At the moment people are saying, "yes, on the planet we have the technology that can help, but South Africa will just have to wait until it can develop its own tech, however long that takes..."
ie.
South Africa is welcome to develop their own AIDS drugs without violating patent laws in the least.
And as long as people come from this limited view point, no political system is ever going to solve these problems. It was Einstein who said something about people suffering from an "optical delusion of consciousness" that limits us to caring for only those few closest to us, and that our task should be to "widen our circle of compassion".
By Jungs personality typing system, which became the Myers-Briggs, many IT people are INTPs. Introverted, intuitive, perceivers of possibilities and primarily driven by their thinking faculty. According to Jung, in his book "Psychological Types", the introverted intuitive is more open to the mystical, spiritual dimention of life.
This type is also more likely to find the first half of life the most difficult when it comes to worldly affairs, while the extrovert will dominate and succeed in worldly matters more easily. However, the dominance is reversed in the second half of life, where the extrovert finds it increasingly more difficult to deal with his/her own "twilight", and hence the bigger question of "why am I here?", "what does it mean to 'be'?" and "who am I?". The extrovert is simply not equipped, and may try to find fulfillment by trying to "stay young", having affairs etc. But the introvert is already open to these questions, and through philosophy, religion etc. will deepen his understanding and create more meaning.
Ok, now for a quick poll. Who here has ever heard of:
Sufi mysticism
Gurdjieff and The Fourth Way
Maslows 'Self Actualizer'
The Enneagram (how many variants can you name?)
Krishnamurti
Paramahansa Yogananda
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Ken Wilber
Ram Dass
The Diamond Approach
The 'Pre/Trans' Fallacy
Sri Aurobindo
Neuro Linguistic Programming
You're all welcome to add your favourite philosophy/guru/technique...
but it's another issue entirely when you look at intellectual property in the light of the AIDS epedemic where millions have died and continue to die because pharmecuticals own the right to the knowledge
Hey, I used that argument just now, in my own post, before I read your post which you made earlier. Does that mean I have to pay you something?:P
The central problem here, which this article makes perfectly clear, is that someone who owns and creates something has every right to sell it under any terms they want.
I know we're really talking about music here, but this point takes the argument onto a broader level. Bear with me here.
As I see it, "owning" something is not a god given right. It's more an agreement that we use to share out the finite resources of the planet. (limited land, fossil fuel etc.) But because those resources are finite, their use ultimately affects everyone else (eg. pollution, deforestation etc.) So being the "owner" also carries a responsability to make good use of that resource (its criminal to pour beer down the sink). Ie. other people do have a say, even though it's "yours".
Now lets look at a strictly IP example. Certain US drug companies hold patents on AIDS related medications. South Africa wants to provide these drugs to the huge numbers of people with AIDS. The drug companies want a lot of money. South Africa can...
You think that bussiness model sucks? Fine- drive them out of bussiness with your own
... by manufacturing the drug by themselves, locally in South Africa. But the US is threatening sanctions if they do -- the point of IP is that no-one else can provide their own competing product.
Anyway, this example is some way from music, but it's worth bearing in mind that some of these arguments "if you don't like it, don't buy it" don't scale too well.
it doesn't render as fast as IE5 but overall the app has better response speed and I prefer the interface
Also, a MacIE5 crash usually freezes my machine. But while iCab crashes, it will leave things generally ok. And I've seen iCab render long/. pages that IE5 just gives up on. I don't know about iCab being better than say, Mozilla, but it's nice that iCab is getting acknowledged.
Slashdot Mirror
"knife the baby"? Where ... have you heard that?
IIRC, in the MS trial, Avie Tevanian testefied that MS told Apple to kill QuickTime and stay out of the media market.
My wife manages to find all my character faults without much apparent effort.... Perhaps the computer is female....
Actually, the 'female' brain is vastly more interconnected than the 'male' brain. A female brain is an amazing feat of parallel processing. This is why,
But I'm not being sexist... because some men have more female patterned brains, and some women more male-patterned brains... so we're talking generally about average men and women.
So as a general rule to relationships, always remember that from the male point of view, a woman is crazy, and from the female point of view, a male is stupid.... so expect the female to act crazy -- this is just her powerful brain processing greater complexity than the poor male brain can understand. But the male contributes also, by way of his stupid brain, the ability to stay focussed on one thing.
See Brain Sex.
...MS spends a fortune on Sun servers.
Q. Are there any Slashdotters aiming to provide Web services despite its heavy backing by Microsoft?
A. If its the right tool/idea for the job USE IT!
I think you've given a technical reply to a political question. A political reply would have been more involved.
if the software isn't using multiple process, you won't see any improvement going from one to two CPU
Yes, I gather the software was SMP enabled.... what I meant (I wasn't very clear) was that maybe it was just not very well implemented... or maybe like you say... it really wasn't using the second chip at all, and the P4 is just average in fp performance.
But, it has turned out that a 500 MHz G4 (not G3) is remarkably fast for it's clock speed
I read a posting in the form.Z (3d modelling app) user forum, where someone reported a rendering on their dual-pentium processor enabled form.Z was finishing in a similar time to their similarly clocked but single processor G4.
Maybe it's the software, but even so, if your main breadwinning app runs twice as fast, that's all the reason you need to buy a G4.
I think Jobs' real strategy is to turn the Mac into the equivalent of a designer label in clothing.
Here (in the UK) I see most ads (90%?) that need to include a computer as part of the set, are using iMacs and iBooks. That's a heck of a lot of 'free' advertising. And TV programmes too. Take 'Watchdog' for example (they pursue consumer complaints by hounding down the companies involved -- you don't want your company featured on this programme) -- they read email from viewers while in the studio on air, on a prominently placed iMac)
Another example, I was checking out the latest models at one of the few department stores that carry macs, when a middle aged woman dragged her husband over to show him the machine. She said "Now that (hands gesturing with delight) is what I'd like to see at home..."
Something is working in their campaign -- although I'd hate computers to go the way of the car....
My dad isn't ignorant, he isn't and idiot. He could talk the hell out of you in politics or sociology any day.
Hammer smashes nail on head. It's a mixing of categories and labels,
"Doesn't know unix" --> "ignorant of unix" --> "ignorant person".
Likewise for the category "stupid". But hell, it's even in the school system...
"logic/math/word thinking" --> "intelligent"
Which 'ignores' spacial/mechanical/musical and visual thinking.
Pluto? No, don't go there, that's a Mickey Mouse planet!
-- Mork
Do you find the Big Bang and it's associated theorems to be a joke, or do you laugh at the concept of some deity who's saturday afternoon fun consisted of slapping together a snow globe full of planets and stars?
There's also the option that the universe is 'intelligent'. A sort of 'infinite and unbounded field of creative possibilities'. We tend to think that matter is just inert, dead stuff, and wonder how just lumps of stuff could accidentally get together just right to make complex living structures, that in turn evolve consciousness... so some people say there must be a 'creator' figure 'outside', pulling the strings. But maybe the 'stuff' is not 'dead'. Maybe the stuff is intelligent.
After all, we experience the 'stuff' in our minds, and our minds are in our brains, which are in our bodies, which are made of stuff, which we experience in the mind... we can't really split 'consciousness' off from the stuff of the universe... one song, one mind, one.. whoa! I'm LEVITATING... no, no, just kidding.
I think this is a fantastic common ground for nations to get together and do something.
Yes. Countries need something to keep them occupied and stop them from getting bored. When they get bored they start wars.
This reminds me of one of the predictions in "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds",
I wondered what he meant by that, but imagine being on mars, 2 years journey from earth, and noticing the 'red fungus' growing on all the plastic seals of your ship, living habitat, suits etc....
Linux relies on MacOS in order to boot
No, I don't think it does. Maybe you're referring to BootX, which is a MacOS app, but it's not the only way. Open Firmware can be set to boot linux by itself, allowing you to wipe away all traces of MacOS off your disk, (at least on an old 8500 - I haven't personally done it on a new cube).
Apple and MSFT have specifically rewritten their new Operating Systems to target the problems that have been leveled at them
... which also includes the apps --- like iMovie and Maya. Now I don't want to get into a war about which platform has the best price/power/stability/availability etc etc. --- but ever since QuickTime came out, that little 3 fps video in a 160x120 box has been just dying to grow up. Today I had a play with iMovie on a cube, and it was sweet.
Sure they're trying to sell more hardware with resource hungry animated gui's, which are, ehm, 'non essential', but we'll use that power for real work anyway...
Small is beautiful. Small can be elegant and lightweight, but MOSX is a three headed dragon (Classic/Cabon/Cocoa) in a big dress (Aqua) with a pair of jet skis (QuickTime, OpenGL) sitting on a tank (BSD) with custom tracks (Mach)... (my analogy powers falter...) and it all does a job and it ain't ever going to be 'small'.
So while I respect the author's points (and I believe his observations are accurate), they are not the whole picture. Just today I was shocked at the amount of memory I overheard a salesperson recommending to a likely home user, on the basis that in a year any less would be 'useless', but it reminds me of how every day I see four seater metal boxes drive past with three seats empty.... (ow! offtopic!)
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" may make non-christians sick, but it's a pretty good way to make decisions.
BAHA'I
"Blessed are those who prefer others before themselves."
-- Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, 71
BUDDHISM
"Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful."
-- Udana-Varga, 5:18
CHRISTIANITY
"Always treat others as you would like them to treat you."
-- Jesus, Matthew 7:12
CONFUCIANISM
"Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you."
-- Analects 15:23
HINDUISM
"This is the sum of all duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you."
-- Mahabharata 5:1517
ISLAM
"No one of you is a believer until you desire for another that which you desire for yourself"
-- Sunnah
JAINISM
"In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, regard all creatures as you would regard your own self."
-- Lord Mahavir 24th Tirthankara
JUDAISM
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor, That is the entire Torah; all the rest is commentary."
-- Talmud, Shabbat 31a
NATIVE AMERICAN
"Respect for all life is the foundation"
-- The Great Law of Peace
SIKHISM
"Be not estranged from another for God dwells in every heart."
-- Sri Guru Granth Sahib
ZOROASTRIANISM
"Human nature is good only when it does not do unto another whatever is no good for its own self."
-- Dadistan-i-Dinik, 94:5
WICCAN
"Everything you do, whether positive or negative, is returned to you threefold."
-- The Threefold Law
Get over it folks. Ads are everywhere.
Yep. Just yesterday I saw a kid with a nike logo dyed into the back of his head in his short cropped hair. (The logo was about 10 cm across). Talk about identifying with a brand. The scary thing is that advertising works.
The GUI may have become the interface for millions of computers, but for all the hype of "ease of use", the only things its given us are buttons, windows and menus. Not really "graphical". And DOS programs had menus anyway.
In fact, the GUI seems almost to have made things "worse". Consider that the 'easiest' interface is one, single, big button in the middle of the screen that says "click me". Very easy. Anyone can operate it. This seems to be the goal of GUI's, an interface that a clueless user can operate. But the problem is that the user remains clueless.
To overcome the cluelessness, we need to emphasise understanding. Think of all the mental maps you have stored up, that you rely on when using a computer. When I used to work at a university help desk, I found that the hardest part was transferring to the students the mental model that I had aquired through my own computer use.
But by the time they are asking for help, it is usually too late, and they just want to "print their assignment before the deadline". And long theoretical blurbs just send them to sleep (I was told that my 'Starter Pack' booklet that I wrote to try to explain the basics of computer systems, like networks, peripherals, software, and filing systems, was used as bedtime reading, for it's soporific effect). But they do need to know this stuff!
So every time there's a new task, they are still clueless, because they lack the understanding. Without a map, people will have no clue how to go about it. You can give them precise step by step instructions, but if there are any discrepancies then they will get lost. And so we get students who can't even find their own files.
Now I'm not sure about the Marx stuff, but I do think that Bradley Dilger is on the right track. We need to get people understanding. And the current GUI does not do this.
So often when we try to explain something and words fail us we will resort to drawing a diagram. Why oh why diagrammatic explanations are not used to their full in interfaces I don't know. But "Understanding Comics", by Scott McLoud argues that we undervalue pictorial thinking in preference for so called "left-brain" skills like english and maths. Rudolf Steiner schools have tried to redress the balance, with art being a valuable thinking" tool. I'm happy that Dilger sees this:
Too, images are considered easier to understand and work with than text. I'm thinking of W. J. T. Mitchell's notion of the "pictorial turn," a broad shift in culture which constructs pictures and images as more accessible and more vibrant and just plain better than text [9]. The idea that images are less information dense or inferior to text starts early with toddlers' picture books -- which in my elementary school library were all under call letter E for "easy". It continues today in fear of television, a caustic attitude toward serial-graphic narrative (what most people call "comics"), and a lack of support for the visual and the aesthetic in school curricula.
Our cultural bias against "right-brain" education has been carried over into the so called "GUI". Let's face it, it's not really a graphical interface. Heck, studies quoted in "The Trouble with Computers" by Landauer show that the GUI is no more easier or more productive to use than the old DOS ways.
We are missing the potential of using interactive diagrams that self-document the functions available and the structure of the informtation being manipulated. Sorry about the 'big fancy words', but I know of no prototype. And I don't mean to imply that such diagrams would be the ultimate answer. Some people prefer auditory clues, so there's potential for much experimentation.
Sure they can- you're missing the entire point with music.
I wasn't talking about music. My post was a response to this statement,
The central problem here, which this article makes perfectly clear, is that someone who owns and creates something has every right to sell it under any terms they want.
which is very broad statement, ie. it doens't seem to be just about music, and being broad, I gave the South Africa/AIDS example --- not because the RSA/AIDS case was the same as music -- it plainly isn't, and I said so,
Anyway, this example is some way from music
but because I wanted to reply to that general statement about the rights of the owner. I wanted to say that the attitude of just "looking after" the owner,
don't scale too well.
to bigger situations, like RSA/AIDS. So I agree with you about not comparing it to music. I'm not. It seems fair to me that the artist have means by which he/she is rewarded. But I disagree with you on,
South Africa is welcome to develop their own AIDS drugs without violating patent laws in the least.
I mostly disagree, because it's a limited viewpoint. Because a higher and more all-inclusive viewpoint says that when humanity has the means, it should use the means to improve/save the lives of millions. The money/investment viewpoint is by no means without merit. It has value, and much material progress has been made with that view. But the "One World" viewpoint is simply a higher and more integral viewpoint.
The nazis loved their fatherland, and said to hell with everyone else who is outside the borders of the fatherland-race. They loved and protected their own race only. It is plainly a higher viewpoint that says we should love and protect all races. Yes, the mega-corp should care and protect itself, making sure it survives and prospers. But at some point the higher view tries to integrate this with the survival and health of everybody. At the moment people are saying, "yes, on the planet we have the technology that can help, but South Africa will just have to wait until it can develop its own tech, however long that takes..."
ie.South Africa is welcome to develop their own AIDS drugs without violating patent laws in the least.
And as long as people come from this limited view point, no political system is ever going to solve these problems. It was Einstein who said something about people suffering from an "optical delusion of consciousness" that limits us to caring for only those few closest to us, and that our task should be to "widen our circle of compassion".
By Jungs personality typing system, which became the Myers-Briggs, many IT people are INTPs. Introverted, intuitive, perceivers of possibilities and primarily driven by their thinking faculty. According to Jung, in his book "Psychological Types", the introverted intuitive is more open to the mystical, spiritual dimention of life.
This type is also more likely to find the first half of life the most difficult when it comes to worldly affairs, while the extrovert will dominate and succeed in worldly matters more easily. However, the dominance is reversed in the second half of life, where the extrovert finds it increasingly more difficult to deal with his/her own "twilight", and hence the bigger question of "why am I here?", "what does it mean to 'be'?" and "who am I?". The extrovert is simply not equipped, and may try to find fulfillment by trying to "stay young", having affairs etc. But the introvert is already open to these questions, and through philosophy, religion etc. will deepen his understanding and create more meaning.
Ok, now for a quick poll. Who here has ever heard of:
You're all welcome to add your favourite philosophy/guru/technique...
You can have Sawfish/Gnome/X or KDE/WindowMaker/X.
Yep, the only bit we can't change right now is X.
but it's another issue entirely when you look at intellectual property in the light of the AIDS epedemic where millions have died and continue to die because pharmecuticals own the right to the knowledge
Hey, I used that argument just now, in my own post, before I read your post which you made earlier. Does that mean I have to pay you something? :P
The central problem here, which this article makes perfectly clear, is that someone who owns and creates something has every right to sell it under any terms they want.
I know we're really talking about music here, but this point takes the argument onto a broader level. Bear with me here.
As I see it, "owning" something is not a god given right. It's more an agreement that we use to share out the finite resources of the planet. (limited land, fossil fuel etc.) But because those resources are finite, their use ultimately affects everyone else (eg. pollution, deforestation etc.) So being the "owner" also carries a responsability to make good use of that resource (its criminal to pour beer down the sink). Ie. other people do have a say, even though it's "yours".
Now lets look at a strictly IP example. Certain US drug companies hold patents on AIDS related medications. South Africa wants to provide these drugs to the huge numbers of people with AIDS. The drug companies want a lot of money. South Africa can...
You think that bussiness model sucks? Fine- drive them out of bussiness with your own
... by manufacturing the drug by themselves, locally in South Africa. But the US is threatening sanctions if they do -- the point of IP is that no-one else can provide their own competing product.
Anyway, this example is some way from music, but it's worth bearing in mind that some of these arguments "if you don't like it, don't buy it" don't scale too well.
it doesn't render as fast as IE5 but overall the app has better response speed and I prefer the interface
Also, a MacIE5 crash usually freezes my machine. But while iCab crashes, it will leave things generally ok. And I've seen iCab render long /. pages that IE5 just gives up on. I don't know about iCab being better than say, Mozilla, but it's nice that iCab is getting acknowledged.
my Christian Movie Reviews website! It has lists of movies which are morally damaging
Christianity is morally damaging. If J.C. came back today, he would not be a Christian.
"As a man is, so he sees." - Wordsworth
Besides, I am right.