So do we take away water and sewer next? After all why should I pay for your sewage?So do we take away water and sewer next? After all why should I pay for your sewage?
Don't be ridiculous. These are public health matters, and utilities which require far more centralized planning. We don't want competing sewage companies to be digging up the streets to install new feeds. There is absolutely no point in comparing them to wireless networks.
And if the Philadelphia network isn't free, then the city government really is competing with commercial providers. That's not what I look to my municipal government for. If there's a demand, it'll be met by some company. If not, fuck the city.
and those benefits are going to be the greatest for the poor
Do you actually know any poor people? How many of them have WiFi enabled laptops? And how is a wireless network a better use of money than free (inexpensive) Internet terminals in the library? Oh, right, the Slashdot crowd owns laptops and doesn't like sharing public library computers with homeless people.
In addition to what you just said: there is nothing preventing citizens from setting up a free WiFi network on their own. A group in Portland already does this; they've been featured on Slashdot in the past. When I visit Portland, I know where the access points are and bring a wireless laptop. One of the nodes is conveniently right across the street from a Starbucks. Sorry, T-Mobile.
The difference, of course, is that this network was set up by volunteers who put their own time and money (and any donations thereof) into building the network. This is not government-subsidized competitition. In fact, it's the free market at work! People who prefer a free, publically-run network are able to donate time, equipment, and money to the effort. If there's no demand, tough shit. Personally, I'd gladly pay more initially for a public service; I refuse to subscribe to a commercial service.
However, I don't want the government doing this for us either; as far as I'm concerned they're just another corporation that controls our lives, except the government has guns. I live in Berkeley, for God's sake. These fuckwits can't do anything right; I certainly don't trust them to build a wireless network. It'd probably take twice as much time and money as either a volunteer or commercial effort, and they'll have endless committee meetings debating which revolutionary Marxist leader to name each node after.
And although as a gen-X yuppy and technologist I'm one of the principle beneficiaries of ubiquitous wireless, I consider it offensive that other people should be paying higher taxes so I can check my email from any location.
Well, it could also proceed from the position that Republicans aren't conservative enough.
I don't think many people would advocate this position, fortunately.:)
By some interpretations of the word "conservative", this is probably true. The conservatives who've become disaffected with the administration and its policies have spoken out against the expansion of executive power, new law enforcement capabilities, the growth in spending, and the activist foreign policy. All of these might be considered anathema to some conservatives; certainly Goldwater didn't care for the direction his party was going, and some of the Reaganites were actually principled in their belief in smaller government.
However, I've never really taken the conservative opposition to these seriously, because I honestly don't believe most conservatives oppose them (except maybe for spending, but that's tricky). There's a strong strain of authoritarian conservatism in this country - to be fair, there are plenty of authoritarian leftists too - and they only support limited government when the other guys are in power. Take someone like Paul Weyrich, who's currently in league with the ACLU in opposing the PATRIOT ACT. Weyrich doesn't believe in limited government - he actually thinks the government *should* bust down doors to stop gays having sex - only in restricting the federal government in case those goddamn liberals get ahold of it again.
While I'm happy to see conservatives like Weyrich standing up to the Bush administration, I don't for a moment believe they're on the same side as me.
We have a two party system in which the parties have to win based carving paper thin slices from the fat middle of the political spectrum.
I've never found this argument at all convincing. It usually starts with the complaint that the Democrats aren't socialist enough. Fortunately, this isn't Europe and most people here agree that a regulated capitalist system like we have now is pretty close to ideal, if imperfect in a few places. Within those lines, there are huge disagreements that actually do affect our lives quite a bit.
The Democrats and Republicans do have one thing in common: neither makes any pretense to believing in a limited government that cherishes liberty above all else. Unfortunately, neither does most of the voting public. Worse, most of the people who consider the parties identical don't believe in any of this either. I'm looking at you, Ralph.
As someone who considered themselves conservative before the religious right got involved
See, the problem is that you're not really a conservative at all; you're a libertarian who's suffering from an identity crisis. It was the same for me; I used to think I was a liberal, but I've come to realize I'm a libertarian too.
Conservatism, as originally understood, favored government imposition of social mores, limited individual rights, government collusion with (or ownership of) business, and general hostility to change. To quote Hayek, whom conservatives mysteriously think was one of them: "A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege and to lean on the power of government for protection of privilege." Old-fashioned liberalism (what we now call libertarianism) favored very limited government. Lefitsm fuses a few aspects of liberalism with a powerful, activist government.
The modern concept of conservatism as a small-government philosophy was Goldwater's idea. Goldwater called himself a conservative because he believed in a limited interpretation of the Constitution (although this is not, mind you, always compatible with increased freedom). This was largely a reaction to the lefists social engineering of the Democrats. Unfortunately, plenty of other people liked Goldwater's ideas too, because they wanted larger and more powerful government on the state level and the federal government was getting in the way.
Modern conservatives only care about states' rights because they see the federal government as an obstacle to conservative rule on the state level, and they're generally correct. However, now that they run the federal government, they can impose conservative values on a national level. This isn't really hypocrisy so much as a change in strategy; this is what they've always really wanted.
I agree with your characterization of both parties; nowadays I either vote against the incumbent (no matter what party), or if it's close, swallow my pride and vote for whomever I least mind running my life (usually the Democrat). But let's face it: 90% of people calling themselves "conservative" do not think it means the same thing you do.
Next up is maping protein 3rd and 4th D structure. Cause we only undestand very little about the littlest of proteins.
Actually, the scope of structural biology has broadened considerably over the past couple of decades, and now membrane proteins and ribosomes are within reach. A number of groups worldwide are trying to apply high-throughput methodology to structure determination, hence "structural genomics." The real problem is that even for small proteins the structure determination process is still somewhat laborious even when it's straightforward. Automation is still very rare, although it's being worked on for specific tasks.
In general, though, structural biology is almost at the point where it can be part of any biologist's toolkit if they're willing to collaborate or spend some extra time.
What really happened is that he made a truthful comment about the WTC attackers
I agreed with Maher's reasoning to a certain extent, but I still found the occasion and the delivery to be tasteless. Maher was applying a coolly rational analysis that really indicated he didn't give a shit and was thinking of it somewhat clinically.
At any rate, this is beside the point - lots of people were offended, but Maher had every right to say it, and the administration spokesgoon's response was even more tasteless.
There's a bit of that in the news right now, you might have noticed, about columnists being paid to promote government programs without acknowledging that they're essentially functioning as advertisers.
That's a separate issue. A campaign, although potentially subject to some regulation (at least on the local level), is primarily funded by private donations. The propagandists were being paid with tax dollars. There's a world of difference between the bloggers who were secretly paid to bash Daschle, and Armstrong Williams. Both are sleazy, but only the latter was a violation of public trust.
I'm not very pleased with these proposed regulations, although I don't much care for professional political operatives covertly pretending to be journalists. On the other hand, I favor full disclosure of anything like Armstrong Williams' gig, but that's for broader reasons. Government transparency (and accountability) are absolutely worthy targets for regulation.
Saying ANYTHING politically INCORRECT is very much a right-wing/libertarian point of view.. always has been, always will be.
Gee, how about when Bill Maher made some tasteless remark about the WTC attackers, and Ari Fleischer responded that "people need to be careful of what they say"? For that matter, the entire right wing has been telling the other half of the country that we're all traitors for not blindly supporting the president during war (that he started).
And FYI, I'm a libertarian and 1st Amendment absolutist, but cut the bullshit. The right wing never cared about free expression until it realized that leftists could be just as oppressive as they could. It's a defensive maneuver, not a matter of principle.
when we didn't like what the Dixie Chicks had to say, we didn't send Janet Reno out to get them
If "we" means the administration, yes, this is most certainly true, because even this administration recognizes the limits of executive power. However, I have been reading right-wing blogs and news sources for years, and I have consistently seen individual writers advocating, say, treason trials for anti-war protestors. As noxious as I find leftist attempts to ban "hate speech" and the like, on the left only the hardcore commies are advocating shooting people who say things they don't like.
Generally the Republican politicians themselves are more realistic, aside from the occasional accusation of treason. But it would be a gross exaggeration to state that the GOP rank-and-file supports unfettered free speech.
Of course, there are issues with losing the encryption key, but as it's a laptop, and probably only has the one harddrive, I would expect the person to be keeping a backup somewhere else.
Yeah, but this is Berkeley, which means it has all the entrenched arrogance of higher education, the mindless bureaucracy of any government-funded organization, and the sheer surreality of, well, Berkeley.
Our department has several employees who spend significant amounts of their time explaining how to deal with the rest of campus administration. God bless 'em - we'd never figure this shit out on our own. Other than our handlers, the only good thing I can say about Berkeley bureaucracy is that the post office here is much, much worse.
If that data really was being stored unencrypted on a laptop, there'd better be some pink slips handed out or I'm buying guns. This is one of the rare occasions where I wish I belonged to the degenerate pack of Marxists known as the graduate employee's union, because they might actually be able get something done. (Unless the person responsible was also unionized, of course!)
On behalf of Berkeley grad students, I'd like to offer a big "fuck you" to the administration.
That episode was the first time I saw a sci-fi show and didn't think "ehhh, Farscape was much better." Even though one of the main plot devices is essentially ripped off from Farscape, what they've done with it is very different but just as good. And although it's much more understated than Farscape, the show still occasionally delivers a total mindfuck. By the end of Season 1 I had no idea what was going to happen.
Of course, the real test is whether they'll kill off main characters and not resurrect them.
Dan Simmons' Ilium. This was a 12-hour read - problem was, it was 12 straight hours because I couldn't put the damn thing down!!
What worries me is that it'll turn out to be another "Hyperion" or even "Endymion", where he spins a fantastic, well-thought-out world full of complex, compelling characters, and then follows up with a sequel that has none of the magic and wraps everything up poorly ("void that binds"? WTF?). "Ilium" was awesome but I have no idea how he'll tie everything together coherently. The hints about the origin of the "gods" didn't reassure me.
The last 12-hour read that I was totally satisfied with was "A Deepness in the Sky". The first time I read it, I finished about an hour after sunrise. And Vinge can actually finish a novel.
Anyway, there's a counterargument, although it's purely anecdotal: the NIH's PubMed system. It's an online index of most biomedical research published in the last 50 years. Probably the most essential web page for every biologist in the country, created solely by the US government.
So this type of project isn't necessarily a bad idea. The major differences, of course, are that PubMed was probably created by scientists who knew exactly what they needed, and there's a huge incentive for journal publishers to have their content indexed. As a result, it's self-sustaining and I doubt it costs much to keep running. There are few government projects I can think of that have been such spectacular successes.
Seriously, how are republicans any different from democrats?
I'd say the Democrats' belief in limiting the power of law enforcement agencies is a good start. I've also seen very few Democrats speak up in favor of torture or arbitrary detention. And though they're denounced by the far left as just another pack of corporate shills, they're less inclined to openly favor big business. (There's a difference between being pro-capitalism and pro-corporation.)
I generally find the Democrats' undying faith in big government as the solution to all problems sort of ridiculous, but I find much to agree with in their stance on civil liberties, privacy, and rights of the accused.
I used to dismiss this type of thinking as paranoid whining. However, as I get older I'm becoming more and more libertarian, and I'm now convinced that even the most well-intentioned congressmen just don't know when the fuck to stop. And then there are assclowns like Ted Stevens, who thinks the FCC ought to be able to regulate profanity on cable. Such hackery is bipartisan; Tipper Gore was notorious for this, and Hillary seems determined to carry on the good fight.
The frequent attacks on open-source as "communism" only hold true to the extent that RMS has more or less admitted that he'd like to outlaw closed-source software. And I've seen posters here claim that copyright is immoral and I should write software for the betterment of humanity. In the context of our current system, however, it's 100% compatible with capitalism. Everyone has a choice whether or not they want to contribute, or whether they want to use the products. If the software or business model is superior, it'll succeed because of that, not because the government is forcing anyone to use it. And if conventional software companies go bankrupt because of competition from the open-source movement, fuck 'em. The free market's a bitch. Learn to love it.
I think that the recent state of affairs in the USA is threatening those "imports". Lots of people wouln't go to work to the USA because of those authoritarian laws you've been passing after 9/11.
Many of the imports are from mainland China, and the USA post-PATRIOT ACT is still orders of magnitude less authoritarian than the PRC. And in general our Constitution is still among the most liberal in the world, despite the best efforts of the administration to shit all over it. If you won't come over here because you just don't like America or Americans, that's okay but it's a separate issue. I wouldn't be caught dead in most European nations either, but that has little to do with your government(s).
Generally, most of the foreign scientists I've known were thrilled to be here, and quite a few preferred the USA (and Canada) to their home nations. None of them were entirely uncritical, but they considered America a nice place on the balance, and some were pretty criticial of their home countries too. And thanks to the EU, the rest of Europe has even more reason to dislike the French, and yet another reason to consider the States.
The much larger problem has been our insane immigration bureaucracy freaking out and withholding visas. I've had friends personally screwed over by this, and the academic community has been lobbying very hard (with some slow success) to make the screening process more efficient.
I wonder if this recent rise of very conservative religious fundamentalism in the USA and efforts to stop the presentation of things that contradict their view
What makes you think this is recent? These ass-clowns have been around for centuries, and American democracy has somehow survived. The difference is that they seem much louder now because they're losing the battle against modernity. They didn't need to be as organized or obnoxious in the past, because there was less public opposition to their views and they already had plenty of friends in government. A century ago, gays were jailed or locked up mental institutions.
the USA eventually falling beind in key sciences, and, as a consquence, losing its edge in the world of technology.
Well, we already import scientists from all over the world because our students either aren't interested, aren't motivated, or aren't good enough. (A little of both, in my experience.) Sure, the creationists are doing their part to ensure that Cobb County, Georgia never produces any Nobel laureates, but I'd argue that the state of public science education in general is a much worse problem than a few uneducated hicks trying to teach the Bible in biology class.
I live in California, and I see no problem; the Bay Area is one of the most sophisticated centers of biomedical research in the world, with a terrific international group of scientists and va$t re$ource$. If conservative states want to educate their children for mediocrity, that's their problem. Federalism, baby, federalism.
It's a pyramid scheme, not a religion. The entire basis for Scientology is finding converts who'll pay out the ass for the "training" and publications. If the publications are free for everyone, what incentive is there to join the "church"? You could just read them on your own online without paying. Additionally, if they're all online people can see for themselves how ridiculous the cult is in advance, depleting the pool of potential converts. The Scientologists would prefer readers to be properly brainwashed (um, "conditioned") before exposing them to the history of Xenu.
I've read that the publication of the Bible in vernacular languages was initially a huge fuss, because up until then the Catholic Church had controlled dissemination of dogma. That meant that the Catholic Church was the sole gatekeeper to salvation. That control was necessary to maintain their stranglehold of Europe. Anyone know if this is accurate?
But I don't consider "piracy" when someone downloads MP3 from the net, and listens it on his computer. Yes, it might or might not be right, but it's not piracy for me
What about when someone offers mp3s of (other people's) copyrighted works to the entire Internet for free? It doesn't matter if they're making money or not - they're still illegally distributing another person's IP. And as far as I know, the people the RIAA has sued are the people doing the distribution, not the people doing the downloading. If the people selling pirated CDs on the streets of NYC started giving them away instead, would this suddenly make it all okay?
Here's an alternate question for you: what if someone took your GPL project, stripped out the copyrights, added some slick interface, and offered it for free online as their own work? (I think this happened with MPlayer at some point, and I recall the developers being nearly homicidal.) Since they're not making money off it, does that make it okay? Personally, I'd be just as pissed off as if they were making thousands of dollars - it's stealing, either way.
Threads that mention Microsoft end up as free-for-alls to bash Microsoft.
Except for the several hundred meta-commenters like you, who always feel the need to point this out. Hell, you didn't even wait for the thread to get going before you started complaining about where it was going.
Threads that mention Linux end up as free-for-alls that revolve around the view that Linux is 256x better than Windows.
Plus several hundred more posters, who brag about how their XP box was up for four years without crashing.
I have heard of the Perth group many, many times - every AIDS denialist posting on Slashdot thinks they're being really insightful by mentioning them. And they have next to zero scientific credibility; some of the claims I've read have been just dumb. Why should I take anything they say seriously? Especially when I just posted evidence that contradicts what you were saying? And what's your expertise in molecular biology that led you to critically re-evaluate the HIV/AIDS hypothesis?
I have a BS in mol. bio and am working towards a PhD, so I'm not some ignorant idiot who believes everything a scientist tells me. I've read the claims of the denialists, and they're full of holes.
Slashdot Mirror
So do we take away water and sewer next? After all why should I pay for your sewage?So do we take away water and sewer next? After all why should I pay for your sewage?
Don't be ridiculous. These are public health matters, and utilities which require far more centralized planning. We don't want competing sewage companies to be digging up the streets to install new feeds. There is absolutely no point in comparing them to wireless networks.
And if the Philadelphia network isn't free, then the city government really is competing with commercial providers. That's not what I look to my municipal government for. If there's a demand, it'll be met by some company. If not, fuck the city.
and those benefits are going to be the greatest for the poor
Do you actually know any poor people? How many of them have WiFi enabled laptops? And how is a wireless network a better use of money than free (inexpensive) Internet terminals in the library? Oh, right, the Slashdot crowd owns laptops and doesn't like sharing public library computers with homeless people.
In addition to what you just said: there is nothing preventing citizens from setting up a free WiFi network on their own. A group in Portland already does this; they've been featured on Slashdot in the past. When I visit Portland, I know where the access points are and bring a wireless laptop. One of the nodes is conveniently right across the street from a Starbucks. Sorry, T-Mobile.
The difference, of course, is that this network was set up by volunteers who put their own time and money (and any donations thereof) into building the network. This is not government-subsidized competitition. In fact, it's the free market at work! People who prefer a free, publically-run network are able to donate time, equipment, and money to the effort. If there's no demand, tough shit. Personally, I'd gladly pay more initially for a public service; I refuse to subscribe to a commercial service.
However, I don't want the government doing this for us either; as far as I'm concerned they're just another corporation that controls our lives, except the government has guns. I live in Berkeley, for God's sake. These fuckwits can't do anything right; I certainly don't trust them to build a wireless network. It'd probably take twice as much time and money as either a volunteer or commercial effort, and they'll have endless committee meetings debating which revolutionary Marxist leader to name each node after.
And although as a gen-X yuppy and technologist I'm one of the principle beneficiaries of ubiquitous wireless, I consider it offensive that other people should be paying higher taxes so I can check my email from any location.
Well, it could also proceed from the position that Republicans aren't conservative enough.
:)
I don't think many people would advocate this position, fortunately.
By some interpretations of the word "conservative", this is probably true. The conservatives who've become disaffected with the administration and its policies have spoken out against the expansion of executive power, new law enforcement capabilities, the growth in spending, and the activist foreign policy. All of these might be considered anathema to some conservatives; certainly Goldwater didn't care for the direction his party was going, and some of the Reaganites were actually principled in their belief in smaller government.
However, I've never really taken the conservative opposition to these seriously, because I honestly don't believe most conservatives oppose them (except maybe for spending, but that's tricky). There's a strong strain of authoritarian conservatism in this country - to be fair, there are plenty of authoritarian leftists too - and they only support limited government when the other guys are in power. Take someone like Paul Weyrich, who's currently in league with the ACLU in opposing the PATRIOT ACT. Weyrich doesn't believe in limited government - he actually thinks the government *should* bust down doors to stop gays having sex - only in restricting the federal government in case those goddamn liberals get ahold of it again.
While I'm happy to see conservatives like Weyrich standing up to the Bush administration, I don't for a moment believe they're on the same side as me.
We have a two party system in which the parties have to win based carving paper thin slices from the fat middle of the political spectrum.
I've never found this argument at all convincing. It usually starts with the complaint that the Democrats aren't socialist enough. Fortunately, this isn't Europe and most people here agree that a regulated capitalist system like we have now is pretty close to ideal, if imperfect in a few places. Within those lines, there are huge disagreements that actually do affect our lives quite a bit.
The Democrats and Republicans do have one thing in common: neither makes any pretense to believing in a limited government that cherishes liberty above all else. Unfortunately, neither does most of the voting public. Worse, most of the people who consider the parties identical don't believe in any of this either. I'm looking at you, Ralph.
As someone who considered themselves conservative before the religious right got involved
See, the problem is that you're not really a conservative at all; you're a libertarian who's suffering from an identity crisis. It was the same for me; I used to think I was a liberal, but I've come to realize I'm a libertarian too.
Conservatism, as originally understood, favored government imposition of social mores, limited individual rights, government collusion with (or ownership of) business, and general hostility to change. To quote Hayek, whom conservatives mysteriously think was one of them: "A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege and to lean on the power of government for protection of privilege." Old-fashioned liberalism (what we now call libertarianism) favored very limited government. Lefitsm fuses a few aspects of liberalism with a powerful, activist government.
The modern concept of conservatism as a small-government philosophy was Goldwater's idea. Goldwater called himself a conservative because he believed in a limited interpretation of the Constitution (although this is not, mind you, always compatible with increased freedom). This was largely a reaction to the lefists social engineering of the Democrats. Unfortunately, plenty of other people liked Goldwater's ideas too, because they wanted larger and more powerful government on the state level and the federal government was getting in the way.
Modern conservatives only care about states' rights because they see the federal government as an obstacle to conservative rule on the state level, and they're generally correct. However, now that they run the federal government, they can impose conservative values on a national level. This isn't really hypocrisy so much as a change in strategy; this is what they've always really wanted.
I agree with your characterization of both parties; nowadays I either vote against the incumbent (no matter what party), or if it's close, swallow my pride and vote for whomever I least mind running my life (usually the Democrat). But let's face it: 90% of people calling themselves "conservative" do not think it means the same thing you do.
Next up is maping protein 3rd and 4th D structure. Cause we only undestand very little about the littlest of proteins.
Actually, the scope of structural biology has broadened considerably over the past couple of decades, and now membrane proteins and ribosomes are within reach. A number of groups worldwide are trying to apply high-throughput methodology to structure determination, hence "structural genomics." The real problem is that even for small proteins the structure determination process is still somewhat laborious even when it's straightforward. Automation is still very rare, although it's being worked on for specific tasks.
In general, though, structural biology is almost at the point where it can be part of any biologist's toolkit if they're willing to collaborate or spend some extra time.
What really happened is that he made a truthful comment about the WTC attackers
I agreed with Maher's reasoning to a certain extent, but I still found the occasion and the delivery to be tasteless. Maher was applying a coolly rational analysis that really indicated he didn't give a shit and was thinking of it somewhat clinically.
At any rate, this is beside the point - lots of people were offended, but Maher had every right to say it, and the administration spokesgoon's response was even more tasteless.
There's a bit of that in the news right now, you might have noticed, about columnists being paid to promote government programs without acknowledging that they're essentially functioning as advertisers.
That's a separate issue. A campaign, although potentially subject to some regulation (at least on the local level), is primarily funded by private donations. The propagandists were being paid with tax dollars. There's a world of difference between the bloggers who were secretly paid to bash Daschle, and Armstrong Williams. Both are sleazy, but only the latter was a violation of public trust.
I'm not very pleased with these proposed regulations, although I don't much care for professional political operatives covertly pretending to be journalists. On the other hand, I favor full disclosure of anything like Armstrong Williams' gig, but that's for broader reasons. Government transparency (and accountability) are absolutely worthy targets for regulation.
Saying ANYTHING politically INCORRECT is very much a right-wing/libertarian point of view.. always has been, always will be.
Gee, how about when Bill Maher made some tasteless remark about the WTC attackers, and Ari Fleischer responded that "people need to be careful of what they say"? For that matter, the entire right wing has been telling the other half of the country that we're all traitors for not blindly supporting the president during war (that he started).
And FYI, I'm a libertarian and 1st Amendment absolutist, but cut the bullshit. The right wing never cared about free expression until it realized that leftists could be just as oppressive as they could. It's a defensive maneuver, not a matter of principle.
when we didn't like what the Dixie Chicks had to say, we didn't send Janet Reno out to get them
If "we" means the administration, yes, this is most certainly true, because even this administration recognizes the limits of executive power. However, I have been reading right-wing blogs and news sources for years, and I have consistently seen individual writers advocating, say, treason trials for anti-war protestors. As noxious as I find leftist attempts to ban "hate speech" and the like, on the left only the hardcore commies are advocating shooting people who say things they don't like.
Generally the Republican politicians themselves are more realistic, aside from the occasional accusation of treason. But it would be a gross exaggeration to state that the GOP rank-and-file supports unfettered free speech.
Among the many things that can easily happen to fuck everything up.
Subpoenas or search warrants for these databases scare me far more than hackers do.
Of course, there are issues with losing the encryption key, but as it's a laptop, and probably only has the one harddrive, I would expect the person to be keeping a backup somewhere else.
Yeah, but this is Berkeley, which means it has all the entrenched arrogance of higher education, the mindless bureaucracy of any government-funded organization, and the sheer surreality of, well, Berkeley.
Our department has several employees who spend significant amounts of their time explaining how to deal with the rest of campus administration. God bless 'em - we'd never figure this shit out on our own. Other than our handlers, the only good thing I can say about Berkeley bureaucracy is that the post office here is much, much worse.
If that data really was being stored unencrypted on a laptop, there'd better be some pink slips handed out or I'm buying guns. This is one of the rare occasions where I wish I belonged to the degenerate pack of Marxists known as the graduate employee's union, because they might actually be able get something done. (Unless the person responsible was also unionized, of course!)
On behalf of Berkeley grad students, I'd like to offer a big "fuck you" to the administration.
And of course, 33 will win
That episode was the first time I saw a sci-fi show and didn't think "ehhh, Farscape was much better." Even though one of the main plot devices is essentially ripped off from Farscape, what they've done with it is very different but just as good. And although it's much more understated than Farscape, the show still occasionally delivers a total mindfuck. By the end of Season 1 I had no idea what was going to happen.
Of course, the real test is whether they'll kill off main characters and not resurrect them.
Dan Simmons' Ilium. This was a 12-hour read - problem was, it was 12 straight hours because I couldn't put the damn thing down!!
What worries me is that it'll turn out to be another "Hyperion" or even "Endymion", where he spins a fantastic, well-thought-out world full of complex, compelling characters, and then follows up with a sequel that has none of the magic and wraps everything up poorly ("void that binds"? WTF?). "Ilium" was awesome but I have no idea how he'll tie everything together coherently. The hints about the origin of the "gods" didn't reassure me.
The last 12-hour read that I was totally satisfied with was "A Deepness in the Sky". The first time I read it, I finished about an hour after sunrise. And Vinge can actually finish a novel.
Isn't that from "The Fountainhead"?
Anyway, there's a counterargument, although it's purely anecdotal: the NIH's PubMed system. It's an online index of most biomedical research published in the last 50 years. Probably the most essential web page for every biologist in the country, created solely by the US government.
So this type of project isn't necessarily a bad idea. The major differences, of course, are that PubMed was probably created by scientists who knew exactly what they needed, and there's a huge incentive for journal publishers to have their content indexed. As a result, it's self-sustaining and I doubt it costs much to keep running. There are few government projects I can think of that have been such spectacular successes.
Seriously, how are republicans any different from democrats?
I'd say the Democrats' belief in limiting the power of law enforcement agencies is a good start. I've also seen very few Democrats speak up in favor of torture or arbitrary detention. And though they're denounced by the far left as just another pack of corporate shills, they're less inclined to openly favor big business. (There's a difference between being pro-capitalism and pro-corporation.)
I generally find the Democrats' undying faith in big government as the solution to all problems sort of ridiculous, but I find much to agree with in their stance on civil liberties, privacy, and rights of the accused.
I used to dismiss this type of thinking as paranoid whining. However, as I get older I'm becoming more and more libertarian, and I'm now convinced that even the most well-intentioned congressmen just don't know when the fuck to stop. And then there are assclowns like Ted Stevens, who thinks the FCC ought to be able to regulate profanity on cable. Such hackery is bipartisan; Tipper Gore was notorious for this, and Hillary seems determined to carry on the good fight.
The frequent attacks on open-source as "communism" only hold true to the extent that RMS has more or less admitted that he'd like to outlaw closed-source software. And I've seen posters here claim that copyright is immoral and I should write software for the betterment of humanity. In the context of our current system, however, it's 100% compatible with capitalism. Everyone has a choice whether or not they want to contribute, or whether they want to use the products. If the software or business model is superior, it'll succeed because of that, not because the government is forcing anyone to use it. And if conventional software companies go bankrupt because of competition from the open-source movement, fuck 'em. The free market's a bitch. Learn to love it.
I think that the recent state of affairs in the USA is threatening those "imports". Lots of people wouln't go to work to the USA because of those authoritarian laws you've been passing after 9/11.
Many of the imports are from mainland China, and the USA post-PATRIOT ACT is still orders of magnitude less authoritarian than the PRC. And in general our Constitution is still among the most liberal in the world, despite the best efforts of the administration to shit all over it. If you won't come over here because you just don't like America or Americans, that's okay but it's a separate issue. I wouldn't be caught dead in most European nations either, but that has little to do with your government(s).
Generally, most of the foreign scientists I've known were thrilled to be here, and quite a few preferred the USA (and Canada) to their home nations. None of them were entirely uncritical, but they considered America a nice place on the balance, and some were pretty criticial of their home countries too. And thanks to the EU, the rest of Europe has even more reason to dislike the French, and yet another reason to consider the States.
The much larger problem has been our insane immigration bureaucracy freaking out and withholding visas. I've had friends personally screwed over by this, and the academic community has been lobbying very hard (with some slow success) to make the screening process more efficient.
Sort of what happened in Iran when Khomeini and his religious band of merry men took over the government.
'cept for the mass hangings, death penalty for premarital sex or alcohol consumption, and women forced to wear veils, of course.
I wonder if this recent rise of very conservative religious fundamentalism in the USA and efforts to stop the presentation of things that contradict their view
What makes you think this is recent? These ass-clowns have been around for centuries, and American democracy has somehow survived. The difference is that they seem much louder now because they're losing the battle against modernity. They didn't need to be as organized or obnoxious in the past, because there was less public opposition to their views and they already had plenty of friends in government. A century ago, gays were jailed or locked up mental institutions.
the USA eventually falling beind in key sciences, and, as a consquence, losing its edge in the world of technology.
Well, we already import scientists from all over the world because our students either aren't interested, aren't motivated, or aren't good enough. (A little of both, in my experience.) Sure, the creationists are doing their part to ensure that Cobb County, Georgia never produces any Nobel laureates, but I'd argue that the state of public science education in general is a much worse problem than a few uneducated hicks trying to teach the Bible in biology class.
I live in California, and I see no problem; the Bay Area is one of the most sophisticated centers of biomedical research in the world, with a terrific international group of scientists and va$t re$ource$. If conservative states want to educate their children for mediocrity, that's their problem. Federalism, baby, federalism.
where does a copyright case fit into that
It's a pyramid scheme, not a religion. The entire basis for Scientology is finding converts who'll pay out the ass for the "training" and publications. If the publications are free for everyone, what incentive is there to join the "church"? You could just read them on your own online without paying. Additionally, if they're all online people can see for themselves how ridiculous the cult is in advance, depleting the pool of potential converts. The Scientologists would prefer readers to be properly brainwashed (um, "conditioned") before exposing them to the history of Xenu.
I've read that the publication of the Bible in vernacular languages was initially a huge fuss, because up until then the Catholic Church had controlled dissemination of dogma. That meant that the Catholic Church was the sole gatekeeper to salvation. That control was necessary to maintain their stranglehold of Europe. Anyone know if this is accurate?
But I don't consider "piracy" when someone downloads MP3 from the net, and listens it on his computer. Yes, it might or might not be right, but it's not piracy for me
What about when someone offers mp3s of (other people's) copyrighted works to the entire Internet for free? It doesn't matter if they're making money or not - they're still illegally distributing another person's IP. And as far as I know, the people the RIAA has sued are the people doing the distribution, not the people doing the downloading. If the people selling pirated CDs on the streets of NYC started giving them away instead, would this suddenly make it all okay?
Here's an alternate question for you: what if someone took your GPL project, stripped out the copyrights, added some slick interface, and offered it for free online as their own work? (I think this happened with MPlayer at some point, and I recall the developers being nearly homicidal.) Since they're not making money off it, does that make it okay? Personally, I'd be just as pissed off as if they were making thousands of dollars - it's stealing, either way.
Threads that mention Microsoft end up as free-for-alls to bash Microsoft.
Except for the several hundred meta-commenters like you, who always feel the need to point this out. Hell, you didn't even wait for the thread to get going before you started complaining about where it was going.
Threads that mention Linux end up as free-for-alls that revolve around the view that Linux is 256x better than Windows.
Plus several hundred more posters, who brag about how their XP box was up for four years without crashing.
I have heard of the Perth group many, many times - every AIDS denialist posting on Slashdot thinks they're being really insightful by mentioning them. And they have next to zero scientific credibility; some of the claims I've read have been just dumb. Why should I take anything they say seriously? Especially when I just posted evidence that contradicts what you were saying? And what's your expertise in molecular biology that led you to critically re-evaluate the HIV/AIDS hypothesis?
I have a BS in mol. bio and am working towards a PhD, so I'm not some ignorant idiot who believes everything a scientist tells me. I've read the claims of the denialists, and they're full of holes.