...because they didn't think of "quepasa.com" soon enough. Clearly they (of bar and music events) were goin' fer that "hip" soundin' name and somebody else came up with something hipper.
In NONE of the cases Katz brought up did the GOVERNMENT infringe on anybody's first amendment rights. And that's all the first amendment is - if you say something somebody doesn't like, you can't be arrested for it and they have nothing on you in court, because you were simply expressing your view.
The first ammendment does NOT read "Everybody must be provided a forum to say whatever they want, wherever they want." You can write for a newspaper and start spreading around antisemetism, and nobody will arrest you and charge you with "disturbing the peace" or anything like that. But the newspaper is not obligated to keep you on staff - they are perfectly within their rights to fire you.
Any kind of "censorship" here is just what Katz said - social taboos. Does anyone out there realistically think that there is any way to make social taboos dissappear off the face of the earth in favor of a society of pure intellectualism? I didn't think so.
'Evolution' itself is very easy to observe, because all it implies is that the gene pool of a species will change over time. "Speciation" is when a new species is created that did not exist before.
The definition of a species is something that can breed with another of its kind and produce fertile offspring. That's why we don't have different species of dogs, just different breeds.
To observe evolution, all you have to do is that basic petri dish experiment where you grow some bacteria, put something in that kills most of it, and keep doing it until you have a strain that is immune to that chemical. That's evolution.
Evolution in and of itself is not only provable, but it is observed all the time. It is the origin of life that creates controversy, and many people mistake "Evolution" to mean that life came from absence of life (a completely separate but reated question). Using the phrase "change over time" in schools and ignoring the origin of species would allow something to actually get done. Anyone who has taken biology in high school knows that usually when a teacher utters the word "Evolution" he/she meets an immediate stone wall with any student that subscribes to Creation. Using different terms sends the message: "I'm not trying to challenge your beliefs here. If you want to believe in Creation I can't stop you, but I AM teaching you science, so I want you to realize that species today are observed to change over time, and diverge into new species."
And be realistic - we can't expect to do any better than that.
Tommy, you say you don't *like* soccer? How can you not like soccer? You're MEANT to play soccer. You were BORN to play soccer. It's in your BLOOD for god's sake. Do you have any idea how disappointed in you your parents (Ronaldo and Mia Hamm, naturally) will be if you give up soccer? Now I want to see you do 500 more penalty kicks this *INSTANT* and then you can eat...
With the antitrust trial not over, I would be very surprised to see any honest answers at all. In fact, I'm surprised he's even doing this interview at all.
Evolution IS change over time. Many people forget that, thinking "evolution" means "life originating from abscence of life" but that is a separate question - abiogenesis.
Deciding to change terms like that, using "change over time" instead might actually be a GOOD move - using different wording will make the meaning more clear and reduce controversy while still sticking to science and facts. I applaud the move.
There is an M8 release for Bezilla, but there is not a single build on the site after that. No M9 build, no M10 build, no nightly builds. Is Bezilla still chugging along? I am really looking forward to it...
I have not met ESR, and I'm not so sure I would like him if I did.
To elaborate on problems I have with him: He has this battle cry he keeps using: "I just want to live in a world where software doesn't suck." Notwithstanding the very narrow focus of this life goal, it differs quite a lot from his litmus test of software quality: "What's the license?"
I am a BeOS person and I know for a fact that a good closed source operating system can be made. In fact, it is better in today's climate, because it has less legal problems encumbering it (such as getting code to run certain hardware). So I differ greatly with ESR on that.
I also have the impression that he has an ego of sufficient size to make him widely resented and get in the way of compromising on anything, or getting along with certain people. Certainly a person that took it upon himself to go into the spotlight like that ought to conduct himself better than he does.
And while he's right about not stuffing his libertarian pro-gun views into his essays, he certainly hangs them out there practically everywhere else. And his depiction of communism as Pure Evil was also uncalled for. I am not a communist, but come on - this is not the cold war. His politics should be kept in their own section on his web site, IMHO.
The big question about ESR is whether we want him or not. It would be a Good Thing if more businesses start seeing things our way. On the other hand, it is debatable whether ESR is helping this goal with his speaking skills and constant traveling and visiblity, or hurting it with his ego and poor ability to get along with others.
That said, I still respect him for his intelligence, the code he wrote and maintained, and because his intentions are good and perhaps he just can't tell when he rubs people the wrong way.
And regarding the critique posted earlier, I think the guy that wrote it is clearly a flake and absolutely rehashed stuff other people said earlier and better. And he grossly misread those essays. ESR put him in his place in this case, though unfortunately he also let his ego come through loud and clear.
I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
Get up! Get your lazy ass out of your chair, open your window, and shout it: I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore! I can't hear you. Come on, get up. GET UP RIGHT NOW. Go to your god-fearin congressman, and tell him in no uncertain terms: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Say it with me one more time...
-- grappler
I think you missed the point
on
Managing Geeks
·
· Score: 2
Rewriting that post in your so-called "geek" language served the two-fold purpose of destroying its great humor value and making it nonsensical. Keep your geeks in a subroutine? WTF?
Wording it like a book on pet care is what made it funny - it's called a juxtaposition. You take something completely off the wall that most people wouldn't think of and slap it right alongside the original topic and people laugh at how similiar the two really are.
A good addition might be to elaborate on being "gentle yet firm" with your geeks such as, "If your geek stops comunicating or glares at you with wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, he is probably in an unproductive mood. Smile at him and tell him he is doing a good job. This usually settles them down to write more code. If your geek displays symptoms of consciousness of his situation, such as noises coming from the throat that sound like the word 'rays' or general unwillingness to work in a creativity-choking corporate environment, more extreme measures may be required. Try not to think of yourself as being above such acts as stonewalling employees with a show of ignorance or pompous superority. Always remember that you are better than your geek and your relationship with your geek will require much less attention on your part."
I disagree with ESR about a few major things - namely that open source development is inherently the best way to make good software (Go try BeOS! I am hereby throwing in my BeOS advocacy!)
But I can still respect Eric on the many things he has done right, and for his great ability as a writer. He is certainly far above most technical people in that regard, and he has done great things for open source both by writing code and pushing our ideas into the workplace.
And concerning this so-called "critique" of his work, I would say his response has properly nailed the critic on all counts. Nice job. I especially like the Edgar Allen Poe quote at the end.
If you have an ip address of somebody, there are ALREADY better ways to trace it than bothering to try and track down their ethernet card (and many computers don't even use ethernet cards anyhow).
If you want to be anonymous, you would be much better off with mixmaster remailers (for anonymous email), anonymizer.com (for web surfing) and various anonymizing telnet services. In other words, a trusted third party to strip off identification for you.
You sound a lot like Eliza yourself with that comment:-)
It says more about the friend. It took a LOT of customization to get Eliza to do that. Nothing spiffy, just a lot of words for it to watch for and a variety of responses. When I was done with it, it didn't sound anything like the original psychiatrist version.
This particular friend was actually an annoying guy from my CS class who got my AIM name from somebody and kept bothering me. Instead of putting him on my blocklist, I gave him the Turing Treatment (TM):-)
Now he's been bothering me more - he's fascinated by my customized Eliza and he thinks I am really on to something big in the field of AI. Sheesh...
This might sound like a nitpick, but when it's a public collaboration producing an article or report, let's call it something other than "open source".
"Open source" grates on me when it is used like that - it implies a "source" that is more accessible than the final product. This makes perfect sense in software, where there is human-readable source and then there are machine-readable instructions. Opening the source lets people see the inner workings and change them around.
What we have here is a great new way of putting minds together to make an accurate, insightful document. In this case though, it is more about the new ease with which outside opinions can be solicited and incorporated than with the "open" nature of it. After all, anyone that sees the final product also sees the "source" - they are one and the same.
It's actually quite simple. You have to pick your subject carefully (intelligence is something we want to avoid) and then spring it on them when they don't expect it.
I did this with AOL Instant Messenger. I saved a bunch of my gaim conversations and then read over them and customized Eliza to make it sound as much like me as I could. Then some perl magic to make it work with Toc and I left for a party and then a movie.
I got back at around 2:30 in the morning and saw a friend talking to it. He had been chatting since 11:00 pm!!! He didn't even dimly suspect that it might be a computer, but he was getting pretty pissed off - it was saying pretty stupid stuff that usually didn't make sense, and it repeated itself every 5 or 10 minutes.
I laughed over that one for a looooooong time. It might not work anymore, tho... anyone know if Aol pulled the plug on Toc?
Of all people to make a great, intelligent post advocating BeOS to dispell some of the same FUD that Linux people complain about so much, WHY did it have to be William Wallace?:-)
I guess it's an ill wind that blows no good, or something. Good post.
Good looking fonts. Ideally, those nice expensive postscript fonts that commercial unices have.
I HATE the way XFree86 fonts look - it's ugly. It hurts my eyes. It just doesn't look right. In fact, I dual boot BeOS and Linux, and I am running BeOS 90% of the time. The main reason is fonts. PLEASE somebody do something to make X look decent.
There were a whole group of us at my high school a couple years ago - we were talking to each other constantly. And not the boring stuff teens are stereotyped for talking about, full of 'like's and repetetive smalltalk and meaningless banter. We constantly jumped from one interesting idea to the next, frequently immersing ourselves in imprompteau projects such as designing a triangle version of chess or a labor-saving gadget. There was alot of spontaneous talk revolving around cosmology, origins of species, and even number theory. We would just get into this mode where we would intensely focus on something just like the article says we can - but not by ourselves. We can focus intently on something as a group.
As far as communication skills, I'd like to see so-called 'normal' people write ANYTHING at the level of discussions we often have online (by this I mean our geeky discussion forums in general. Slashdot, being big, has both extremes.)
Seriously, salt is BAD for crops. If anyone even considers the idea of "Tsunami Irrigation" then I hope for their sake they are simply extremely ignorant. Besides the obvious saftey risk, structural damage and, or course, massive erosion, salt is BAD for most plants. Certainly for crops. A high concentration of salt in the soil around the roots of a plant prevent the root from absorbing water - the low concentrations of salt in the cells would force the water back into the soil to balance salt concentraions.
As for Florida, the "non-military" reason is that the Everglades are one huge Estuary (area where fresh river water and salty seawater are mixed) and most of the state is just a couple feet above sea level.
Slashdot Mirror
...because they didn't think of "quepasa.com" soon enough. Clearly they (of bar and music events) were goin' fer that "hip" soundin' name and somebody else came up with something hipper.
Poor baby...
--
grappler
In NONE of the cases Katz brought up did the GOVERNMENT infringe on anybody's first amendment rights. And that's all the first amendment is - if you say something somebody doesn't like, you can't be arrested for it and they have nothing on you in court, because you were simply expressing your view.
The first ammendment does NOT read "Everybody must be provided a forum to say whatever they want, wherever they want." You can write for a newspaper and start spreading around antisemetism, and nobody will arrest you and charge you with "disturbing the peace" or anything like that. But the newspaper is not obligated to keep you on staff - they are perfectly within their rights to fire you.
Any kind of "censorship" here is just what Katz said - social taboos. Does anyone out there realistically think that there is any way to make social taboos dissappear off the face of the earth in favor of a society of pure intellectualism? I didn't think so.
--
grappler
Cool! Ride a rail gun right into orbit!
And for only $75 worth of electricity? (obviously not counting rocket fuel) That's awesome!
--
grappler
'Evolution' itself is very easy to observe, because all it implies is that the gene pool of a species will change over time. "Speciation" is when a new species is created that did not exist before.
The definition of a species is something that can breed with another of its kind and produce fertile offspring. That's why we don't have different species of dogs, just different breeds.
To observe evolution, all you have to do is that basic petri dish experiment where you grow some bacteria, put something in that kills most of it, and keep doing it until you have a strain that is immune to that chemical. That's evolution.
Evolution in and of itself is not only provable, but it is observed all the time. It is the origin of life that creates controversy, and many people mistake "Evolution" to mean that life came from absence of life (a completely separate but reated question). Using the phrase "change over time" in schools and ignoring the origin of species would allow something to actually get done. Anyone who has taken biology in high school knows that usually when a teacher utters the word "Evolution" he/she meets an immediate stone wall with any student that subscribes to Creation. Using different terms sends the message: "I'm not trying to challenge your beliefs here. If you want to believe in Creation I can't stop you, but I AM teaching you science, so I want you to realize that species today are observed to change over time, and diverge into new species."
And be realistic - we can't expect to do any better than that.
--
grappler
Tommy, you say you don't *like* soccer? How can you not like soccer? You're MEANT to play soccer. You were BORN to play soccer. It's in your BLOOD for god's sake. Do you have any idea how disappointed in you your parents (Ronaldo and Mia Hamm, naturally) will be if you give up soccer? Now I want to see you do 500 more penalty kicks this *INSTANT* and then you can eat...
--
grappler
That post absolutely made my day. Thank you.
--
grappler
With the antitrust trial not over, I would be very surprised to see any honest answers at all. In fact, I'm surprised he's even doing this interview at all.
--
grappler
So now Robin Miller "has got to have one of these"?? Wow... hunger for geeky gadgets is infectious in these parts...
--
grappler
Evolution IS change over time. Many people forget that, thinking "evolution" means "life originating from abscence of life" but that is a separate question - abiogenesis.
Deciding to change terms like that, using "change over time" instead might actually be a GOOD move - using different wording will make the meaning more clear and reduce controversy while still sticking to science and facts. I applaud the move.
--
grappler
There is an M8 release for Bezilla, but there is not a single build on the site after that. No M9 build, no M10 build, no nightly builds. Is Bezilla still chugging along? I am really looking forward to it...
--
grappler
I have not met ESR, and I'm not so sure I would like him if I did.
To elaborate on problems I have with him:
He has this battle cry he keeps using: "I just want to live in a world where software doesn't suck." Notwithstanding the very narrow focus of this life goal, it differs quite a lot from his litmus test of software quality: "What's the license?"
I am a BeOS person and I know for a fact that a good closed source operating system can be made. In fact, it is better in today's climate, because it has less legal problems encumbering it (such as getting code to run certain hardware). So I differ greatly with ESR on that.
I also have the impression that he has an ego of sufficient size to make him widely resented and get in the way of compromising on anything, or getting along with certain people. Certainly a person that took it upon himself to go into the spotlight like that ought to conduct himself better than he does.
And while he's right about not stuffing his libertarian pro-gun views into his essays, he certainly hangs them out there practically everywhere else. And his depiction of communism as Pure Evil was also uncalled for. I am not a communist, but come on - this is not the cold war. His politics should be kept in their own section on his web site, IMHO.
The big question about ESR is whether we want him or not. It would be a Good Thing if more businesses start seeing things our way. On the other hand, it is debatable whether ESR is helping this goal with his speaking skills and constant traveling and visiblity, or hurting it with his ego and poor ability to get along with others.
That said, I still respect him for his intelligence, the code he wrote and maintained, and because his intentions are good and perhaps he just can't tell when he rubs people the wrong way.
And regarding the critique posted earlier, I think the guy that wrote it is clearly a flake and absolutely rehashed stuff other people said earlier and better. And he grossly misread those essays. ESR put him in his place in this case, though unfortunately he also let his ego come through loud and clear.
--
grappler
I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
Get up! Get your lazy ass out of your chair, open your window, and shout it: I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore! I can't hear you. Come on, get up. GET UP RIGHT NOW. Go to your god-fearin congressman, and tell him in no uncertain terms: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Say it with me one more time...
--
grappler
Rewriting that post in your so-called "geek" language served the two-fold purpose of destroying its great humor value and making it nonsensical. Keep your geeks in a subroutine? WTF?
Wording it like a book on pet care is what made it funny - it's called a juxtaposition. You take something completely off the wall that most people wouldn't think of and slap it right alongside the original topic and people laugh at how similiar the two really are.
A good addition might be to elaborate on being "gentle yet firm" with your geeks such as, "If your geek stops comunicating or glares at you with wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, he is probably in an unproductive mood. Smile at him and tell him he is doing a good job. This usually settles them down to write more code. If your geek displays symptoms of consciousness of his situation, such as noises coming from the throat that sound like the word 'rays' or general unwillingness to work in a creativity-choking corporate environment, more extreme measures may be required. Try not to think of yourself as being above such acts as stonewalling employees with a show of ignorance or pompous superority. Always remember that you are better than your geek and your relationship with your geek will require much less attention on your part."
--
grappler
I disagree with ESR about a few major things - namely that open source development is inherently the best way to make good software (Go try BeOS! I am hereby throwing in my BeOS advocacy!)
But I can still respect Eric on the many things he has done right, and for his great ability as a writer. He is certainly far above most technical people in that regard, and he has done great things for open source both by writing code and pushing our ideas into the workplace.
And concerning this so-called "critique" of his work, I would say his response has properly nailed the critic on all counts. Nice job. I especially like the Edgar Allen Poe quote at the end.
--
grappler
If you have an ip address of somebody, there are ALREADY better ways to trace it than bothering to try and track down their ethernet card (and many computers don't even use ethernet cards anyhow).
If you want to be anonymous, you would be much better off with mixmaster remailers (for anonymous email), anonymizer.com (for web surfing) and various anonymizing telnet services. In other words, a trusted third party to strip off identification for you.
--
grappler
You sound a lot like Eliza yourself with that comment :-)
:-)
It says more about the friend. It took a LOT of customization to get Eliza to do that. Nothing spiffy, just a lot of words for it to watch for and a variety of responses. When I was done with it, it didn't sound anything like the original psychiatrist version.
This particular friend was actually an annoying guy from my CS class who got my AIM name from somebody and kept bothering me. Instead of putting him on my blocklist, I gave him the Turing Treatment (TM)
Now he's been bothering me more - he's fascinated by my customized Eliza and he thinks I am really on to something big in the field of AI. Sheesh...
--
grappler
This might sound like a nitpick, but when it's a public collaboration producing an article or report, let's call it something other than "open source".
"Open source" grates on me when it is used like that - it implies a "source" that is more accessible than the final product. This makes perfect sense in software, where there is human-readable source and then there are machine-readable instructions. Opening the source lets people see the inner workings and change them around.
What we have here is a great new way of putting minds together to make an accurate, insightful document. In this case though, it is more about the new ease with which outside opinions can be solicited and incorporated than with the "open" nature of it. After all, anyone that sees the final product also sees the "source" - they are one and the same.
--
grappler
It's actually quite simple. You have to pick your subject carefully (intelligence is something we want to avoid) and then spring it on them when they don't expect it.
I did this with AOL Instant Messenger. I saved a bunch of my gaim conversations and then read over them and customized Eliza to make it sound as much like me as I could. Then some perl magic to make it work with Toc and I left for a party and then a movie.
I got back at around 2:30 in the morning and saw a friend talking to it. He had been chatting since 11:00 pm!!! He didn't even dimly suspect that it might be a computer, but he was getting pretty pissed off - it was saying pretty stupid stuff that usually didn't make sense, and it repeated itself every 5 or 10 minutes.
I laughed over that one for a looooooong time. It might not work anymore, tho... anyone know if Aol pulled the plug on Toc?
--
grappler
"I respect the elegance and ingenuity of BeOS's design." --Eric S. Raymond
Know what makes that quote especially juicy with irony? It reminded me of his favorite tagline:
"I just want to live in a world where software doesn't suck." --Also Eric S. Raymond
--
grappler
Of all people to make a great, intelligent post advocating BeOS to dispell some of the same FUD that Linux people complain about so much, WHY did it have to be William Wallace? :-)
I guess it's an ill wind that blows no good, or something. Good post.
--
grappler
Good looking fonts. Ideally, those nice expensive postscript fonts that commercial unices have.
I HATE the way XFree86 fonts look - it's ugly. It hurts my eyes. It just doesn't look right. In fact, I dual boot BeOS and Linux, and I am running BeOS 90% of the time. The main reason is fonts. PLEASE somebody do something to make X look decent.
--
grappler
There were a whole group of us at my high school a couple years ago - we were talking to each other constantly. And not the boring stuff teens are stereotyped for talking about, full of 'like's and repetetive smalltalk and meaningless banter. We constantly jumped from one interesting idea to the next, frequently immersing ourselves in imprompteau projects such as designing a triangle version of chess or a labor-saving gadget.
There was alot of spontaneous talk revolving around cosmology, origins of species, and even number theory. We would just get into this mode where we would intensely focus on something just like the article says we can - but not by ourselves. We can focus intently on something as a group.
As far as communication skills, I'd like to see so-called 'normal' people write ANYTHING at the level of discussions we often have online (by this I mean our geeky discussion forums in general. Slashdot, being big, has both extremes.)
--
grappler
200-1 that more firearms are sold in the US in December 1999 than December 1998???????
Is there any reason why this would NOT happen?
--
grappler
I'm not positive that the earth is flat ;-)
Seriously, salt is BAD for crops. If anyone even considers the idea of "Tsunami Irrigation" then I hope for their sake they are simply extremely ignorant. Besides the obvious saftey risk, structural damage and, or course, massive erosion, salt is BAD for most plants. Certainly for crops. A high concentration of salt in the soil around the roots of a plant prevent the root from absorbing water - the low concentrations of salt in the cells would force the water back into the soil to balance salt concentraions.
As for Florida, the "non-military" reason is that the Everglades are one huge Estuary (area where fresh river water and salty seawater are mixed) and most of the state is just a couple feet above sea level.
--
grappler
I'm certain I've see this before - oh yeah! Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, by Roald Dahl. They went up to a Hilton space hotel.
BEWARE THE VICIOUS KNIDS!!!!!!
--
grappler