That's right. They didn't come here to collect soil. They came here to await their imminent bodily ascension into heaven. They were adventists. Which is why they brought no tools of colonization with them, such as farming equipment, seeds, winter clothing, etc. and only built crude temporary shelters when they arrived. They didn't think they were staying.
Which is the actual reason so many of them died that first, hard winter and they had to eventually learn native farming techniques of native crops.
David Brin's "Glory Season" is about as thought provoking as they come. It has it's flaws, since Brin was more focused on the ideas than keeping the story consistent, but provokation of thought is what you're after and this one will do the job.
Ursula LeGuin's "The Dispossesed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness." Humanist philosophy at it's best. LeGuin is the master of exploring humanist themes in story without getting preachy, letting the characters and the story bring out the points she wishes to illustrate. I wish more writers would follow her example. "The Lathe of Heaven" is the work that really brought her fame, less mature in style than the previous two but definately worth the read.
Harlen Ellison's classic anthologies "Dangerous Visions" and "Again Dangerous Visions." Collections of short stories written specifically for the anthology (not collected from other sources) with the express intent of publishing short works that could not find publication in the usual places.
Somewhat more subtle than the previous, but Roger Zelazney's "Lord of Light" is worth a read. Besides being an excellent story it explores themes of individual freedom set against an immortal oligarchy, cast ( as it were) in the framework of Hinduism vs. Buddhism.
If nothing else none of the above are particularly trite.
How many people that are into bikes at all know the brand of bike that Seinfeld had hanging on his wall?
Which episode? The Klein wasn't ubiquitous.
How many people remember a single ad from the 10 or so years that Seinfeld was on?
Ummmmmmmmmmmm, well, I assume that many of the popular ads of the time were shown during Seinfeld at one point or another, not that I remember off hand what any of them were.
On the other hand I'm perfectly aware of the Trading Spaces' commercial affiliations and will probably remain so 20 years after they go off the air.
For that matter I know that Gary Moore smoked Winstons on the original "I've got a Secret" and I do not, and never have, smoked cigaretters.
That fact that I can remember that 40 years on shows that product placement has real staying power.
True, but much of the point of the article is that it is within the reach of the extreme hobbiest to build a scope of this size.
And I know any number of hobbiests who spent far more on bicycle racing, or a kart, or golf, or their stamp collection, or modifying their car, etc. Fairly lower middle class income types among them.
Not to mention what the computer geeks/gamers I know have spent. The flight sim folks can get downright silly at times. God bless 'em; and I'd love a full motion cockpit myself.
Call it passionate hobbiest rather than extreme, and I'd say anybody setting out to grind their own mirrors rather than drive to the mall and pick up a Meade is, by definition, passionate about telescopes.
Kevin is correct. It would be more accurate to say the law was allowed to stand, not that it was upheld.
I was confused by having trouble reading the pdf, not printing it out, and reading secondary sources that displayed selections from the decision in more readable form.
The bit that led to confusion was that after stipulation both the majority and minorty then still went on to debate the legal merits at length. This is odd and I can only attribute it to the apparent heat that went on behind scenes. The majority opinion seems not have been written first but as response to the minority. Completely backwards to the normal state of affairs.
No, it has the Ransom Love whiff. That alone may be an offensive smell to some, but to associate Lycoris with Darl McBride is an act of sympathetic magic.
No, they are conceding that the XP interface is marketable as a crossover product. This is an entirely different thing.
I wouldn't recommend Lycoris to anyone either, but that has to do with their business model catering to a perception of propriatariness of Open Source software, and it's no particular compliment to OSS that one of the reasons I find this inappropriate is the fact that the general low quality of much of what Lycoris "sells" is remarkably poor compared to their propriatary cousins. Particularly the games, which may well be of far more import to the Windows crossover customer than the average Linux geek.
This will reflect badly on OSS in general.
But again, none of that has anything to do with the interface.
Right, they aren't renaming the beta. They're creating a whole new phase that comes after beta and Release Candidate.
Otherwise known as the "Hey, if it blows up your CD drive it doesn't count unless it's labeled "Official." File a bug report" version.
I hope I live long enough to someday see a "Stick a fork in it, it's Done" version. I don't mean an end to development. Just a version that at least works as intended, rather than works as designed.
I'm less concerned about the abandoning of infrastructure as I am about the abandoning of the knowledge itself.
The fate of the mp3.com archive serves as an interesting cautionary tale for the 21st century.
What happens if Britannica ceases publication but subsequently goes under and deletes the archives? Even if the essential knowledge remains elsewhere I might point out that the Britannica represents an amazing work of literature as well.
Anything on the web that isn't mirrored to hell and gone with full legal rights to distribute has to be considered volatile. Extrememly volatile.
I might point out that "the people" did not bring this suit forward, but the internet cafe owners themselves who felt their own rights, as well as the rights of their patrons were being violated.
A later poster writes "My house, my rules."
But that's exactly the point the cafe owners are seeking to have acknowledged.
They are now required, all of them, to install video cameras and post guards by law, and it is that law that has been upheld, against the wishes of the owners.
Is their method truly an invention, or just the end result of some engineering labor any other expert in the field would duplicate given the same task?
If I build a game controller the controller itself may or may not be patentable, but the particular values of the resistors and capcitors I use are not. The values are not part of the invention and are, at best, trade secrets, until I file for the patent.
Yes, I have expended time and labor to determine those values, just as anybody else could. I have also expended time and labor when I fix your car. That doesn't mean I carry any extended rights on your car.
Yeah. I remember vacuum tube compters. I personally scratch built one. While it's abilities were somewhat limited compared to those of today I'd note that it was functionally superiour to those commonly in use today.
It didn't do much, but it did what it did.
Today's computers are still immature, but complicated enough that they fail regularly in ordinary usage.
In martial arts it isn't the white belt or the black belt who is dangerous. It's the brown belt, who has developed certain skills and possesses real power, but who as yet has no deep understanding or control.
I grew up in the age of "Duck and Cover," personal bomb shelters and public fallout shelters, air raid drills being part of the curriculum of the public schools and lived through the "Thirteen Days." I saw Dr. Strangelove in first run and On The Beach at a time when the events it depicts seemed only too real.
I know something about the cold war.
I also know that we were informed at every opportunity that the "conflict" in Vietnam wasn't a war, and are now being informed at every opportunity that we are at "war" with the terrorists.
If the meaning of "war" is going to be congenitally distorted in this manner we're "at war" with everyone and can treat them all as if the rules of warfare apply.
If you download a Mandrake distro from a public mirror you at least have the security of knowing that any flaws in it are generic and the source country has just as much chance of blowing up their own pipelines as anyone else.
In this case the Russians were perfectly willing to purchase the software and made legitimate attempts to do so. It's a Hindenberg disaster scenario.
There is no evidence presented in this article that the Russians had any access to source code on which to make an audit.
You're also confusing the issues of due diligence and caveat emptor, but I'll leave that issue for another day.
It's interesting that I have also been recently accused of having a posting history revealing me to be an ultra conservative, right wing, flag waving, America right or wrong type.
If I appear to you to be some sort of knee jerk west hater I must say you appear to me to have a knee jerk reaction to any criticism of the west to be the result of west hating.
I do not hate the west. I am a product of the west fully capable of leaving it if I were to dislike it overmuch, at least in comparison to the available alternatives.
This does not in any way mean I cannot be critical of the "west's" specific actions in any given case, or that I cannot wish it to improve itself, no matter how admirable it may already be.
Nor does the issue of whether they bought or stole the software have any relevance to my main point that if they had developed the software internally rather than obtaining it from outside they would have been more secure.
In fact it seems that this very incident served to drive this point home to them.
And if I were the leader of a western nation, say Canada, I would be doing everything I could to foster an Open Source software reliance and the creation of chip fabs building "Open Source" chip sets.
Quite frankly we could use a bit less of that sort of innovation right now and get down to the business of making things, and software, that just works.
wish to develop their own indigenous computer technologies industries instead of simply buying it from us and possibly subjecting themselves to this sort of intergovernmental terrorism? Had this explosion taken place in a populated area the blood would be on our hands.
It goes way beyond issues of economic competition. It's a question of independence, control and security.
Slashdot Mirror
That's right. They didn't come here to collect soil. They came here to await their imminent bodily ascension into heaven. They were adventists. Which is why they brought no tools of colonization with them, such as farming equipment, seeds, winter clothing, etc. and only built crude temporary shelters when they arrived. They didn't think they were staying.
Which is the actual reason so many of them died that first, hard winter and they had to eventually learn native farming techniques of native crops.
I suggest we do better on Mars.
KFG
David Brin's "Glory Season" is about as thought provoking as they come. It has it's flaws, since Brin was more focused on the ideas than keeping the story consistent, but provokation of thought is what you're after and this one will do the job.
Ursula LeGuin's "The Dispossesed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness." Humanist philosophy at it's best. LeGuin is the master of exploring humanist themes in story without getting preachy, letting the characters and the story bring out the points she wishes to illustrate. I wish more writers would follow her example. "The Lathe of Heaven" is the work that really brought her fame, less mature in style than the previous two but definately worth the read.
Harlen Ellison's classic anthologies "Dangerous Visions" and "Again Dangerous Visions." Collections of short stories written specifically for the anthology (not collected from other sources) with the express intent of publishing short works that could not find publication in the usual places.
Somewhat more subtle than the previous, but Roger Zelazney's "Lord of Light" is worth a read. Besides being an excellent story it explores themes of individual freedom set against an immortal oligarchy, cast ( as it were) in the framework of Hinduism vs. Buddhism.
If nothing else none of the above are particularly trite.
KFG
What will we have conquered? None but ourselves. - George Mallory
KFG
How many people that are into bikes at all know the brand of bike that Seinfeld had hanging on his wall?
Which episode? The Klein wasn't ubiquitous.
How many people remember a single ad from the 10 or so years that Seinfeld was on?
Ummmmmmmmmmmm, well, I assume that many of the popular ads of the time were shown during Seinfeld at one point or another, not that I remember off hand what any of them were.
On the other hand I'm perfectly aware of the Trading Spaces' commercial affiliations and will probably remain so 20 years after they go off the air.
For that matter I know that Gary Moore smoked Winstons on the original "I've got a Secret" and I do not, and never have, smoked cigaretters.
That fact that I can remember that 40 years on shows that product placement has real staying power.
KFG
True, but much of the point of the article is that it is within the reach of the extreme hobbiest to build a scope of this size.
And I know any number of hobbiests who spent far more on bicycle racing, or a kart, or golf, or their stamp collection, or modifying their car, etc. Fairly lower middle class income types among them.
Not to mention what the computer geeks/gamers I know have spent. The flight sim folks can get downright silly at times. God bless 'em; and I'd love a full motion cockpit myself.
Call it passionate hobbiest rather than extreme, and I'd say anybody setting out to grind their own mirrors rather than drive to the mall and pick up a Meade is, by definition, passionate about telescopes.
KFG
Kevin is correct. It would be more accurate to say the law was allowed to stand, not that it was upheld.
I was confused by having trouble reading the pdf, not printing it out, and reading secondary sources that displayed selections from the decision in more readable form.
The bit that led to confusion was that after stipulation both the majority and minorty then still went on to debate the legal merits at length. This is odd and I can only attribute it to the apparent heat that went on behind scenes. The majority opinion seems not have been written first but as response to the minority. Completely backwards to the normal state of affairs.
KFG
it's got the Darl whiff now.
No, it has the Ransom Love whiff. That alone may be an offensive smell to some, but to associate Lycoris with Darl McBride is an act of sympathetic magic.
No, they are conceding that the XP interface is marketable as a crossover product. This is an entirely different thing.
I wouldn't recommend Lycoris to anyone either, but that has to do with their business model catering to a perception of propriatariness of Open Source software, and it's no particular compliment to OSS that one of the reasons I find this inappropriate is the fact that the general low quality of much of what Lycoris "sells" is remarkably poor compared to their propriatary cousins. Particularly the games, which may well be of far more import to the Windows crossover customer than the average Linux geek.
This will reflect badly on OSS in general.
But again, none of that has anything to do with the interface.
KFG
As it happens I agree entirely.
KFG
Right, they aren't renaming the beta. They're creating a whole new phase that comes after beta and Release Candidate.
Otherwise known as the "Hey, if it blows up your CD drive it doesn't count unless it's labeled "Official." File a bug report" version.
I hope I live long enough to someday see a "Stick a fork in it, it's Done" version. I don't mean an end to development. Just a version that at least works as intended, rather than works as designed.
KFG
I'm less concerned about the abandoning of infrastructure as I am about the abandoning of the knowledge itself.
The fate of the mp3.com archive serves as an interesting cautionary tale for the 21st century.
What happens if Britannica ceases publication but subsequently goes under and deletes the archives? Even if the essential knowledge remains elsewhere I might point out that the Britannica represents an amazing work of literature as well.
Anything on the web that isn't mirrored to hell and gone with full legal rights to distribute has to be considered volatile. Extrememly volatile.
KFG
I might point out that "the people" did not bring this suit forward, but the internet cafe owners themselves who felt their own rights, as well as the rights of their patrons were being violated.
A later poster writes "My house, my rules."
But that's exactly the point the cafe owners are seeking to have acknowledged.
They are now required, all of them, to install video cameras and post guards by law, and it is that law that has been upheld, against the wishes of the owners.
They wish to have a choice in the matter.
KFG
Well then they should have just damn well done the right thing and bought it instead of pirating it.
KFG
Is their method truly an invention, or just the end result of some engineering labor any other expert in the field would duplicate given the same task?
If I build a game controller the controller itself may or may not be patentable, but the particular values of the resistors and capcitors I use are not. The values are not part of the invention and are, at best, trade secrets, until I file for the patent.
Yes, I have expended time and labor to determine those values, just as anybody else could. I have also expended time and labor when I fix your car. That doesn't mean I carry any extended rights on your car.
KFG
Hey asswipe, *Hitler* banned top posting!
KFG
Why is everybody always picking on cyclists?
KFG
Haven't you ever had a throat culture taken?
Man, them cotton swabs is deadly weapons, I'm tellin' ya.
KFG
Bunch of posers. Real extremophiles inhabit the alt groups of usenet.
Stupid git.
KFG
Yeah. I remember vacuum tube compters. I personally scratch built one. While it's abilities were somewhat limited compared to those of today I'd note that it was functionally superiour to those commonly in use today.
It didn't do much, but it did what it did.
Today's computers are still immature, but complicated enough that they fail regularly in ordinary usage.
In martial arts it isn't the white belt or the black belt who is dangerous. It's the brown belt, who has developed certain skills and possesses real power, but who as yet has no deep understanding or control.
KFG
I didn't speak of blame. I spoke of responsibility.
KFG
I grew up in the age of "Duck and Cover," personal bomb shelters and public fallout shelters, air raid drills being part of the curriculum of the public schools and lived through the "Thirteen Days." I saw Dr. Strangelove in first run and On The Beach at a time when the events it depicts seemed only too real.
I know something about the cold war.
I also know that we were informed at every opportunity that the "conflict" in Vietnam wasn't a war, and are now being informed at every opportunity that we are at "war" with the terrorists.
If the meaning of "war" is going to be congenitally distorted in this manner we're "at war" with everyone and can treat them all as if the rules of warfare apply.
If you download a Mandrake distro from a public mirror you at least have the security of knowing that any flaws in it are generic and the source country has just as much chance of blowing up their own pipelines as anyone else.
In this case the Russians were perfectly willing to purchase the software and made legitimate attempts to do so. It's a Hindenberg disaster scenario.
There is no evidence presented in this article that the Russians had any access to source code on which to make an audit.
You're also confusing the issues of due diligence and caveat emptor, but I'll leave that issue for another day.
KFG
Don't be silly. It doesn't have cooties.
KFG
It's interesting that I have also been recently accused of having a posting history revealing me to be an ultra conservative, right wing, flag waving, America right or wrong type.
If I appear to you to be some sort of knee jerk west hater I must say you appear to me to have a knee jerk reaction to any criticism of the west to be the result of west hating.
I do not hate the west. I am a product of the west fully capable of leaving it if I were to dislike it overmuch, at least in comparison to the available alternatives.
This does not in any way mean I cannot be critical of the "west's" specific actions in any given case, or that I cannot wish it to improve itself, no matter how admirable it may already be.
Nor does the issue of whether they bought or stole the software have any relevance to my main point that if they had developed the software internally rather than obtaining it from outside they would have been more secure.
In fact it seems that this very incident served to drive this point home to them.
And if I were the leader of a western nation, say Canada, I would be doing everything I could to foster an Open Source software reliance and the creation of chip fabs building "Open Source" chip sets.
KFG
It is an innovation in marketing.
Quite frankly we could use a bit less of that sort of innovation right now and get down to the business of making things, and software, that just works.
KFG
wish to develop their own indigenous computer technologies industries instead of simply buying it from us and possibly subjecting themselves to this sort of intergovernmental terrorism? Had this explosion taken place in a populated area the blood would be on our hands.
It goes way beyond issues of economic competition. It's a question of independence, control and security.
Rather like your use of Open Source software.
KFG