Closing the sentence before the parentheses would have made things incorrectly nested.
If only there were a BNF grammar for English somewhere, and I could rely on this sort of thing always being true. But really, it's just another arbitrary rule - just like the inconsistent ones about punctuation within quotes which you have such a problem with - that happens in this case to conform to what one might expect.
Supressed? I don't think that's a word, even in Canada! Only goes to show, even editors need editors...
> Our next lesson will review the use of punctuation in parentheses.
I'm looking forward to it, because I was surprised (alternate tense of "supressed"?) by the period after your closing paren above. I would have put it inside.
Except that it isn't "the ultra-elite" that use initialism, it's those who like to think of themselves as ultra-elite. Which are really the same sort as those who like to think of themselves as 1337, only they spell better.
There are certainly exceptions, especially amongst people who have developed and documented HTML template languages of their own - kudos on that! But I'm really talking about what the majority of the business market is doing, which drives what is popular and ubiquitous, often apparently regardless of technical merits.
You also highlighted an important point about Java's success: since the JVM has become such a standard, some things have now become possible that might have been viewed with more suspicion in the past. I don't think you'd be stretching the truth too much to bill your solution as Java-based, although problems might arise if the code needed to be maintained by non-Scheme programmers.
Given Scheme's parsability, though, a translator to JSP might not be that difficult - or perhaps more perversely, a good Java decompiler could convert Kawa-generated bytecode back into Java...;^)
The Sperber paper is a good one, although it conflates Java and OO a bit more than it should. All the arguments of this kind against Java are absolutely, 100% correct. From an academic and theoretical perspective, Java certainly sucks almost beyond repair. I've never even heard an academic defense of it (does anyone know of any?)
At the same time, in a typical business programming environment, all these criticisms are 98% irrelevant. Very often, in these environments, the alternatives are things like Visual BASIC - or COBOL! Languages like Python on the practical side, and Scheme or ML on the academic side, are no more on the radar of most business developers and their bosses, than Smalltalk ever was.
The reasons for this are many, complex, and intertwined, ranging from history and comfort factors to industry support and available tools. But a big part of it is that the proportion of programmers with the CS experience to recognize the flaws in Java are miniscule. To those happily using it, Java seems like a hell of an improvement on what has gone before, and the criticisms of it seems hopelessly abstract and theoretical.
Advanced features take decades to reach programming languages used for business. The evolution of business programming languages so far goes something like this: FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, assorted 4GLs, Java. Progress, don't you agree?
Unfortunately, ubiquity in business translates to ubiquity elsewhere, which is partly why Java has started becoming popular as a teaching language. Actually, compared to Pascal which has been a common teaching language in the past, Java isn't bad. For those wanting an "applied" degree that'll let them go out and get a decent job as a programmer, it'll work. But it is sad that people who might aspire to more are being taught Java as a prototypical programming language. Luckily, the smartest, most inquisitive students won't be satisfied knowing just one rather constraining language, so they'll find alternatives.
IMO this has to be aimed at the piracy issue. Sony == Columbia Studios == Sony Music, don't forget.
Although if Sony Electronics considers this an issue, it would be weird that the new player shown off by Sony at, was it Comdex, can play CD-Rs that contain MP3 files. I guess expecting consistency out of these big conglomerates is asking a bit much...
I don't know if it was on purpose or not, or just if all that complicated equipment was a bit much for your mental capacity of a monkey armed forces
Um, why would any country want to waste perfectly intelligent people in their armed forces?
Well actually, countries do. Which is why I left mine and came to America - those bastards back home wanted to draft me. Fat chance. But here in the U.S., they've figured out they're better off putting the folks with brains in say, Silicon Valley than Fort Mead.
So my advice is, stay out of the way of those American forces. They're nice, patriotic boys one and all, but they're not selected for their smarts.
Open Source is the ultimate in capitalism and competition. It says, in effect, that the product that competitors are selling isn't worth as much as those competitors claim, and backs it up by providing an open source equivalent, which gives customers benefits that they can't get from closed source and typically saves them money too.
Otherwise, you may as well accuse Microsoft of being communist, for giving away IE and IIS.
The communist argument is a kind of poison pill which people put out as deterrent flamebait. The truth is, we've always shared information in various ways. Academia is one big area in which information sharing is very successful. Being a successful competitor doesn't necessarily mean keeping everything you know secret. It may make more sense to share certain information, in exchange for other information from other people.
Open source is exactly like that. It represents a shared knowledge that the global community has about software, an interchange of ideas, and a pool that people can draw on and contribute to in order to further all our interests. It doesn't make sense to claim that this amazing resource shouldn't exist, just because it superficially can be argued to have a slight resemblance to a widely-disliked political ideology.
As for who pays the developer, the answer is, commercial companies. It's happening every day. If you think about what I've said above, you might start to realize when and how it could be in a company's interest to pay developers to work on open source software. As awareness of these issues is raised, I expect many more companies to do this, and we've been seeing this trend in action recently. An important point to remember is that not all companies are software companies (not yet anyway!)
That's right, make me feel guilty for my tone now, why don't you!;^)
ActiveX controls and browser plugins can have uninstall programs. One that does is the free Alice 3D plugin. If I browse through my Add/Remove list right now, I see "Alice99 Plugin" listed. I notice their installer is a downloadable EXE, but I'm under the impression that an install program can also be packaged in a.CAB file for autodownload during a web page load, although I could be wrong.
I just find it obnoxious that Macromedia go to some lengths to install their product seamlessly, and have it update itself, but don't (or didn't) make it just as easy to uninstall.
Aside from all the other obvious problems with Carr's thesis, I was really struck by this assertion of his:
watching an entire generation of young people grow up to become virtual machines capable of storing informational bits like biocomputers but not of assembling those bits into meaningful bodies of knowledge
And to solve this alleged problem, he wants government regulation??? Yeah, let's regulate people to be more useful and productive! Why didn't anyone think of that before?
It's hard to understand how someone like this is given any credence whatsoever.
Aside from the ludicrousness of the proposed solution, there's also the question of whether this particular problem actually exists. It sounds like pure old-fartism to me: "Young people these days are just plain irresponsible! We need tougher regulations to keep them under control!"
Thankfully, laws and regulations already exist - not least of which is the U.S. Constitution - which mostly prevent people like this from doing too much damage to our society.
I agree with you. But resistance to change is fundamental; people fight new things because they don't want to change. This characteristic is probably fairly closely correlated with ability to change. Change involves learning new things - many people effectively stop learning once they're no longer forced to, as they are to some extent at school.
There are also valid reasons for resistance to change: change has a cost, you have to spend time learning, making mistakes, rearranging the neurons in your brain. It doesn't make sense to do this without good reason. As you say, this often isn't as big of an issue for the real geeks, who enjoy learning. But we all make decisions on what we are or aren't going to learn about and become familiar with: OSes, languages, applications, etc.
So how are worthwhile changes communicated to other people? Hype. To overcome the barriers we have against change, the change must be presented as the greatest thing since sliced bread. It should preferably not just involve new features, but represent a fundamentally different paradigm that's going to solve problems that we never knew existed. Arguably, Linux and other open source systems fit this description, so is worthy of at least some of the hype surrounding it. However, any group of people trying to promote their pet project uses similar hype, so people have developed defenses against it. The first reaction to hype, except amongst the exceedingly gullible, is usually to assume it's exaggerated.
So in addition to the people afraid of change, you get those who, while perfectly capable of changing, honestly aren't convinced there's a reason to learn this new thing. They discount the hype. But in doing this, they necessarily become very partisan - they have to defend the system they already know, against the newcomer, underscoring "their" system's good points, minimizing the bad, and doing the reverse for the competitor. This creates a mindset which can be very difficult to change.
The solution? Penguins! Millions of penguins! We'll dispatch them to all corners of the globe, and have them peck at the MCSEs until they give in! Submit, worthless MCSE! Submit, or I will peck you as if you were a herring!
(Sorry, I got tired of trying to construct a serious argument...)
Re:Why the movie is ho-hum
on
"Traffic"
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· Score: 2
I think the movie is better than you give it credit for. You're simply saying that since you knew what the message was (and even agree with it, see below), that it was uninteresting. But as a movie, I thought it succeeded very well. It felt as though it gave some insight into a few different worlds which most of us probably don't have much contact with; it was also quite entertaining, for a movie with such a serious subject. I also enjoyed the cinematography, although I found myself having to squint through the glare on occasion. Compared to the movies I saw in 2000, I'd have to say it was one of the best.
I agree the Michael Douglas subplot was a bit weak. An interesting aspect of the movie is the fact that it's a remake of a (Canadian?) series that aired on British TV (as noted elsewhere here on/.), with relevant details changed (e.g. British MP => US Drug Czar.) I haven't seen the series, but I wonder to what extent Soderbergh "blockbusterized" it, turning into something that a mass audience might pay to go and see. If so, I think he's done a service in terms of raising the issue.
I think you're right about the hypocrisy being a problem in the War on Drugs, but that's really a major point of the movie, surely? Seems like you're coming from the same place, although you might draw different conclusions. I don't think the movie rammed any conclusions down the audience's throat, though, which is a good thing.
People have to learn that they are responsible for the consequences of their own actions, and that they can't always count on a second chance. When people learn this, they'll become more responsible.
The only problem is that by the time they learn this, it may be too late. Your sentiment sounds fine in theory, although it's usually heard from rather right-wing Republicans, but it doesn't really gel with how humans behave in real life. Ignoring human nature usually makes for bad public policy, even if you're only concerned about your own self-interest and tax bite. If you seriously favor the Asian model of response to drugs, the only way you're going to have that in your lifetime is by moving to Asia. And I for one am glad of that.
Speaking of second chances, the current and future U.S. President are both testaments to the concept. In a way, second chances are a fundamental American value. In no other country is having run a failed business less stigmatized, for example. People do, in general, learn from mistakes, if you let them. "No second chances" is a recipe for squandering human resources and huge societal cost in the long run.
Go see the movie, then discuss
on
"Traffic"
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· Score: 4
I'm guessing you haven't seen it. Don't base your opinion of a movie on a Katz capsule review. Try these reviews instead:
Entertainment Weekly and New York Times (free login required.)
I found the movie very immersive, informative, and thought provoking. It lays out quite vividly something that most smart people already know: why the classic "war on drugs" approach can't work, because the enormous demand for drugs will create a supply, no matter what legal prohibitive steps are taken.
Instead of encouraging the people -- especially the young people -- to lead healthy drug-free lives, this movie basically says that it's useless to fight the drugs; give up already.
I think the move does exactly what you want: it suggests that a large part of the answer is up to us. This is highlighted quite clearly when the drug czar's daughter in the movie ends up in a rehab program (not really giving away any plot.)
You'll see in the reviews something that was made amply clear, in fact stated in so many words, in the movie: that the "war on drugs" is a war, in part, on the people we love: our own children, for example. The movie wasn't saying we should give up; rather, it presents a well-constructed view of the drug industry from a number of different angles, giving some insight into what drives it and why efforts against it have had limited success, and poses the question, is the approach being taking right now really the most effective one? If you're not even willing to discuss the question, then it's your motives that should be scrutinized, not Steven Soderbergh's.
I mean, shit, it's only a kernel with an OS built around it, it's not as if we're discussing the Middle East or something.
No, we're discussing something far more important to the people involved: for those who had thought they had made a safe decision sometime in the last 5 - 10 years to devote their careers to using and learning about Microsoft software, the astonishing rise in popularity of Linux can be incredibly threatening. I don't recall much from the Advocacy HOWTO myself (although I did read it once upon a time), but if it doesn't already, it should probably include some information on the psychology of people who feel that their entire way of life may be threatened. The ZDNet Talkback should be proof enough that this is what some people are feeling.
The problem with Linux, from the point of view of an unreconstructed Windows devotee, is not just that it's a competing software system, but that it represents so many unfamiliar ideas: open source software, lack of strong central control by one big Corporation You Can Trust (TM), and just in general a mode of existence that is like antimatter to Windows' matter, or vice versa. Again, the ZDNet talkback provides ample evidence of the misapprehensions that so many people labor under, most of which arise from having absolutely no understanding of the basic concepts which make Linux useful and successful.
Until Linux either utterly destroys Windows, or settles into a stable market share so that it's no longer perceived as such a threat, this will continue to be one of the most religious of all software wars.
I said, "at one point, it didn't even have an uninstaller", and that's accurate. I followed the instructions for uninstalling it at the time, and it was a PITA. As far as I'm concerned, if something is going to a great deal of trouble to make sure it installs real easy, it should be equally easy to uninstall - which means, when you go to Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel, Flash should appear there and be uninstallable at the click of a button.
Perhaps it does that now, I don't care. It's (a) a security risk, (b) an unnecessary piece of shit (as previously stated.)
As you can tell, Macromedia annoyed me with this. But this also goes to a bigger, more serious issue - that of one-click downloads and updates of software on user's computers. Most users aren't able to make an informed choice about the software they're "choosing" to download. They just want to see the latest shiny thing on the website they're looking at, or get the latest update to anything from Winamp to their IM client. While this is a marketer's dream, it's a security nightmare. As the macro virus holes in software like Office are slowly closed, downloadable Web widgets are likely to become the next major virus delivery channel. And you can't trust "name-brand" companies like Macromedia, as this buffer overflow bug proves.
So don't give me "People, you're not even trying." I'm not trying, I'm succeeding, in following and promulgating successful security policies.
If a company wants to put out a multimedia viewer, they shouldn't try to force it on people. After it's been downloaded the first time, the damn thing virtually (or actually?) downloads updates itself. At one point, it didn't even have an uninstall option - and may still not for all I know, I no longer allow it on my system or my clients' systems. I've told my clients it's a security risk. Boy do I look like a guru now...
I'm not entirely sure what you propose as a solution, though -- my solution is simply to restrict government through a conservatively interpreted and strictly enforced Constitution, such that even a corrupt legislature can do little harm. What's your solution?
I didn't say I had one!;) I was merely commenting on one of the causes of the problem: that not everyone shares the prioritization of the human rights of others over their own profit.
Regarding that point, while checks and balances on government are very important, it seems to me that a need that's evolving in the digital age is for greater checks and balances on corporations, regarding many of the same kinds of issues that have traditionally been associated with government. The power which we worried that governments might abuse has largely shifted and now resides in corporations, which are less closely controlled, but nevertheless have the full force of government enforcement behind them.
So I don't believe that simply interpreting and enforcing the existing Constitution will be sufficient protection for a free society over the next century or so. I think a more explicitly drawn bill of rights related to issues like privacy and information sharing may be needed. It's not that privacy in and of itself is necessarily the primary issue, but rather the abuses that are possible when privacy is violated. Laws to protect against this need to exist with teeth, unlike most existing efforts in this area, so that when an individual's rights in these areas are violated by a corporation, the individual can obtain meaningful legal redress that will also serve as a disincentive to corporations to commit such abuses.
This approach seems to have worked quite well for product liability - corporations, in general, are quite responsible about the safety of products these days (Firestone excepted!) That's because the legislature has given higher priority to the safety of individuals, than to corporate profit. So "my solution" may lie in this direction...
I don't disagree about the right to pursue profits.
The kind of issues I'm thinking of are the ones you refer to when you talk about "The recent tendency of the government to step in and permit corporations to trample on individual rights because they'd lose their profits otherwise." The intellectual property arena is just one area where corporations appear to be increasingly supported by government in "pissing in our drinking water": damaging the public domain by being allowed to impose undue control over their "intellectual property".
[Side rant: I'm not against profiting from the fruits of intellectual labor; however, I am against a society in which innocent citizens are punished for the paranoia of value-subtracting middlemen who are watching their sinecures erode with alarm. The vaunted free market should be killing those middlemen off like flies; instead, the government is helping to legislate their continued existence. Long after these middlemen are gone, we'll still be dealing with the dangerous laws which they helped to create.]
And any workable plan for reducing government without introducing a brave new world in which corporations own us body and soul, is fine with me. I do question, however, whether the current insurance industry is capable of doing anything particularly more efficiently than government. Perhaps one day, when the existing insurance infrastructure has been replaced by fully securitized instruments which are traded on open insurance markets (sorry, been reading too much of The Economist), but right now the industry is too closed, too old-fashioned, and too slow-moving, and too spottily capitalized to provide good solutions to anything.
I for one still favour the basic rights of my fellow humans over the right to make a profit.
You put your finger on an important issue here. Not everyone shares these priorities. In fact, when it comes to big business, priorities are almost inevitably reversed, and profit comes first. It's like driving a car - people feel anonymous and so are more likely to behave badly - little fear of repercussions or damage to their reputation. Corporations provide a similiar anonymizing shield for their officers, and the pressure to perform - produce profits - is often enormous. Given that the direct effects of a corporate officer's actions usually aren't felt by that officer, and you have a recipe for bad behavior that certainly isn't going to be in the best interests of customers.
So while ordinary people like us can sit around and say that human rights should come before profit, the reality is that the companies which are infringing on our rights do not, on the whole, share this perspective.
I agree with one of your premises: the reverence accorded to the machine in the article is ridiculous. And assuming some of the quotes aren't distorted, perhaps the people on the project have too much of that same reverence, unless they just exude it on cue when the journalists come round.
If the scientists do have that kind of attitude, it's a recipe for failure. You don't want people who sit back in awe and say "My god, this could really work" when they achieve 20% of the required power. You want them to say, "Shit, we've got a long way to go! We're doing something wrong. Must try harder!"
That said, though, a working fusion reactor would be a Pretty Damn Big Deal. It could give us the ability to power the globe without pollution, without contributing towards global warming, and with ultimately lower cost. The role of electricity would change: it would probably no longer make sense to heat our houses with oil or gas. Battery-driven cars would get their energy from a clean source, rather than ultimately from dirty hydrocarbon-powered plants. The dependence on oil could be dramatically reduced.
Is it going to cure all of society's ills? Obviously not. However, it represents a kind of wealth which allows us to concentrate our energy and resources on other, more important things. As other technological advances have allowed us to build societies which are healthier, more free, and better educated, so this has the potential to allow us to take another step forward in a direction that is actually, for a change, sustainable.
No, it won't solve all our problems, but it has the potential to make our lives easier and better, if we let it.
We already have the technology AND the resources, as a race, to lift much of the lower-class portion of our billions from their squalor and ignorance, improve their lifestyles, and improve mankind as a whole thereby. We haven't, not because we cant, but because we just don't care to.
I think this is a very simplistic view. Go and spend some time in a poor African country, say, and see the problems involved in lifting "much of the lower-class portion of our billions from their squalor and ignorance", and you might come to a different conclusion. You can't fix someone else's problems from the outside, any more than technology can cure all society's ill's. All you can do is help to enable people to help themselves.
And if cheap, clean power isn't an enabling technology, I don't know what is.
Slashdot Mirror
If only there were a BNF grammar for English somewhere, and I could rely on this sort of thing always being true. But really, it's just another arbitrary rule - just like the inconsistent ones about punctuation within quotes which you have such a problem with - that happens in this case to conform to what one might expect.
Supressed? I don't think that's a word, even in Canada! Only goes to show, even editors need editors...
> Our next lesson will review the use of punctuation in parentheses.
I'm looking forward to it, because I was surprised (alternate tense of "supressed"?) by the period after your closing paren above. I would have put it inside.
Except that it isn't "the ultra-elite" that use initialism, it's those who like to think of themselves as ultra-elite. Which are really the same sort as those who like to think of themselves as 1337, only they spell better.
You also highlighted an important point about Java's success: since the JVM has become such a standard, some things have now become possible that might have been viewed with more suspicion in the past. I don't think you'd be stretching the truth too much to bill your solution as Java-based, although problems might arise if the code needed to be maintained by non-Scheme programmers.
Given Scheme's parsability, though, a translator to JSP might not be that difficult - or perhaps more perversely, a good Java decompiler could convert Kawa-generated bytecode back into Java... ;^)
see subject
At the same time, in a typical business programming environment, all these criticisms are 98% irrelevant. Very often, in these environments, the alternatives are things like Visual BASIC - or COBOL! Languages like Python on the practical side, and Scheme or ML on the academic side, are no more on the radar of most business developers and their bosses, than Smalltalk ever was.
The reasons for this are many, complex, and intertwined, ranging from history and comfort factors to industry support and available tools. But a big part of it is that the proportion of programmers with the CS experience to recognize the flaws in Java are miniscule. To those happily using it, Java seems like a hell of an improvement on what has gone before, and the criticisms of it seems hopelessly abstract and theoretical.
Advanced features take decades to reach programming languages used for business. The evolution of business programming languages so far goes something like this: FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, assorted 4GLs, Java. Progress, don't you agree?
Unfortunately, ubiquity in business translates to ubiquity elsewhere, which is partly why Java has started becoming popular as a teaching language. Actually, compared to Pascal which has been a common teaching language in the past, Java isn't bad. For those wanting an "applied" degree that'll let them go out and get a decent job as a programmer, it'll work. But it is sad that people who might aspire to more are being taught Java as a prototypical programming language. Luckily, the smartest, most inquisitive students won't be satisfied knowing just one rather constraining language, so they'll find alternatives.
Although if Sony Electronics considers this an issue, it would be weird that the new player shown off by Sony at, was it Comdex, can play CD-Rs that contain MP3 files. I guess expecting consistency out of these big conglomerates is asking a bit much...
Um, why would any country want to waste perfectly intelligent people in their armed forces?
Well actually, countries do. Which is why I left mine and came to America - those bastards back home wanted to draft me. Fat chance. But here in the U.S., they've figured out they're better off putting the folks with brains in say, Silicon Valley than Fort Mead.
So my advice is, stay out of the way of those American forces. They're nice, patriotic boys one and all, but they're not selected for their smarts.
Erm, why exactly? How does blaming a company help? Just a buck-passing issue?
Open Source is the ultimate in capitalism and competition. It says, in effect, that the product that competitors are selling isn't worth as much as those competitors claim, and backs it up by providing an open source equivalent, which gives customers benefits that they can't get from closed source and typically saves them money too.
Otherwise, you may as well accuse Microsoft of being communist, for giving away IE and IIS.
The communist argument is a kind of poison pill which people put out as deterrent flamebait. The truth is, we've always shared information in various ways. Academia is one big area in which information sharing is very successful. Being a successful competitor doesn't necessarily mean keeping everything you know secret. It may make more sense to share certain information, in exchange for other information from other people.
Open source is exactly like that. It represents a shared knowledge that the global community has about software, an interchange of ideas, and a pool that people can draw on and contribute to in order to further all our interests. It doesn't make sense to claim that this amazing resource shouldn't exist, just because it superficially can be argued to have a slight resemblance to a widely-disliked political ideology.
As for who pays the developer, the answer is, commercial companies. It's happening every day. If you think about what I've said above, you might start to realize when and how it could be in a company's interest to pay developers to work on open source software. As awareness of these issues is raised, I expect many more companies to do this, and we've been seeing this trend in action recently. An important point to remember is that not all companies are software companies (not yet anyway!)
That's right, make me feel guilty for my tone now, why don't you! ;^)
ActiveX controls and browser plugins can have uninstall programs. One that does is the free Alice 3D plugin. If I browse through my Add/Remove list right now, I see "Alice99 Plugin" listed. I notice their installer is a downloadable EXE, but I'm under the impression that an install program can also be packaged in a .CAB file for autodownload during a web page load, although I could be wrong.
I just find it obnoxious that Macromedia go to some lengths to install their product seamlessly, and have it update itself, but don't (or didn't) make it just as easy to uninstall.
watching an entire generation of young people grow up to become virtual machines capable of storing informational bits like biocomputers but not of assembling those bits into meaningful bodies of knowledge
And to solve this alleged problem, he wants government regulation??? Yeah, let's regulate people to be more useful and productive! Why didn't anyone think of that before?
It's hard to understand how someone like this is given any credence whatsoever.
Aside from the ludicrousness of the proposed solution, there's also the question of whether this particular problem actually exists. It sounds like pure old-fartism to me: "Young people these days are just plain irresponsible! We need tougher regulations to keep them under control!"
Thankfully, laws and regulations already exist - not least of which is the U.S. Constitution - which mostly prevent people like this from doing too much damage to our society.
Why Free Speach but no Free Bear? I want my Free Bear, dammit! ;)
There are also valid reasons for resistance to change: change has a cost, you have to spend time learning, making mistakes, rearranging the neurons in your brain. It doesn't make sense to do this without good reason. As you say, this often isn't as big of an issue for the real geeks, who enjoy learning. But we all make decisions on what we are or aren't going to learn about and become familiar with: OSes, languages, applications, etc.
So how are worthwhile changes communicated to other people? Hype. To overcome the barriers we have against change, the change must be presented as the greatest thing since sliced bread. It should preferably not just involve new features, but represent a fundamentally different paradigm that's going to solve problems that we never knew existed. Arguably, Linux and other open source systems fit this description, so is worthy of at least some of the hype surrounding it. However, any group of people trying to promote their pet project uses similar hype, so people have developed defenses against it. The first reaction to hype, except amongst the exceedingly gullible, is usually to assume it's exaggerated.
So in addition to the people afraid of change, you get those who, while perfectly capable of changing, honestly aren't convinced there's a reason to learn this new thing. They discount the hype. But in doing this, they necessarily become very partisan - they have to defend the system they already know, against the newcomer, underscoring "their" system's good points, minimizing the bad, and doing the reverse for the competitor. This creates a mindset which can be very difficult to change.
The solution? Penguins! Millions of penguins! We'll dispatch them to all corners of the globe, and have them peck at the MCSEs until they give in! Submit, worthless MCSE! Submit, or I will peck you as if you were a herring!
(Sorry, I got tired of trying to construct a serious argument...)
I agree the Michael Douglas subplot was a bit weak. An interesting aspect of the movie is the fact that it's a remake of a (Canadian?) series that aired on British TV (as noted elsewhere here on /.), with relevant details changed (e.g. British MP => US Drug Czar.) I haven't seen the series, but I wonder to what extent Soderbergh "blockbusterized" it, turning into something that a mass audience might pay to go and see. If so, I think he's done a service in terms of raising the issue.
I think you're right about the hypocrisy being a problem in the War on Drugs, but that's really a major point of the movie, surely? Seems like you're coming from the same place, although you might draw different conclusions. I don't think the movie rammed any conclusions down the audience's throat, though, which is a good thing.
People have to learn that they are responsible for the consequences of their own actions, and that they can't always count on a second chance. When people learn this, they'll become more responsible.
The only problem is that by the time they learn this, it may be too late. Your sentiment sounds fine in theory, although it's usually heard from rather right-wing Republicans, but it doesn't really gel with how humans behave in real life. Ignoring human nature usually makes for bad public policy, even if you're only concerned about your own self-interest and tax bite. If you seriously favor the Asian model of response to drugs, the only way you're going to have that in your lifetime is by moving to Asia. And I for one am glad of that.
Speaking of second chances, the current and future U.S. President are both testaments to the concept. In a way, second chances are a fundamental American value. In no other country is having run a failed business less stigmatized, for example. People do, in general, learn from mistakes, if you let them. "No second chances" is a recipe for squandering human resources and huge societal cost in the long run.
I found the movie very immersive, informative, and thought provoking. It lays out quite vividly something that most smart people already know: why the classic "war on drugs" approach can't work, because the enormous demand for drugs will create a supply, no matter what legal prohibitive steps are taken.
I think the move does exactly what you want: it suggests that a large part of the answer is up to us. This is highlighted quite clearly when the drug czar's daughter in the movie ends up in a rehab program (not really giving away any plot.)
You'll see in the reviews something that was made amply clear, in fact stated in so many words, in the movie: that the "war on drugs" is a war, in part, on the people we love: our own children, for example. The movie wasn't saying we should give up; rather, it presents a well-constructed view of the drug industry from a number of different angles, giving some insight into what drives it and why efforts against it have had limited success, and poses the question, is the approach being taking right now really the most effective one? If you're not even willing to discuss the question, then it's your motives that should be scrutinized, not Steven Soderbergh's.
No, we're discussing something far more important to the people involved: for those who had thought they had made a safe decision sometime in the last 5 - 10 years to devote their careers to using and learning about Microsoft software, the astonishing rise in popularity of Linux can be incredibly threatening. I don't recall much from the Advocacy HOWTO myself (although I did read it once upon a time), but if it doesn't already, it should probably include some information on the psychology of people who feel that their entire way of life may be threatened. The ZDNet Talkback should be proof enough that this is what some people are feeling.
The problem with Linux, from the point of view of an unreconstructed Windows devotee, is not just that it's a competing software system, but that it represents so many unfamiliar ideas: open source software, lack of strong central control by one big Corporation You Can Trust (TM), and just in general a mode of existence that is like antimatter to Windows' matter, or vice versa. Again, the ZDNet talkback provides ample evidence of the misapprehensions that so many people labor under, most of which arise from having absolutely no understanding of the basic concepts which make Linux useful and successful.
Until Linux either utterly destroys Windows, or settles into a stable market share so that it's no longer perceived as such a threat, this will continue to be one of the most religious of all software wars.
Perhaps it does that now, I don't care. It's (a) a security risk, (b) an unnecessary piece of shit (as previously stated.)
As you can tell, Macromedia annoyed me with this. But this also goes to a bigger, more serious issue - that of one-click downloads and updates of software on user's computers. Most users aren't able to make an informed choice about the software they're "choosing" to download. They just want to see the latest shiny thing on the website they're looking at, or get the latest update to anything from Winamp to their IM client. While this is a marketer's dream, it's a security nightmare. As the macro virus holes in software like Office are slowly closed, downloadable Web widgets are likely to become the next major virus delivery channel. And you can't trust "name-brand" companies like Macromedia, as this buffer overflow bug proves.
So don't give me "People, you're not even trying." I'm not trying, I'm succeeding, in following and promulgating successful security policies.
NATALIE=National Association of Trolls And Lamers, Idiots Every one.
If a company wants to put out a multimedia viewer, they shouldn't try to force it on people. After it's been downloaded the first time, the damn thing virtually (or actually?) downloads updates itself. At one point, it didn't even have an uninstall option - and may still not for all I know, I no longer allow it on my system or my clients' systems. I've told my clients it's a security risk. Boy do I look like a guru now...
I didn't say I had one! ;) I was merely commenting on one of the causes of the problem: that not everyone shares the prioritization of the human rights of others over their own profit.
Regarding that point, while checks and balances on government are very important, it seems to me that a need that's evolving in the digital age is for greater checks and balances on corporations, regarding many of the same kinds of issues that have traditionally been associated with government. The power which we worried that governments might abuse has largely shifted and now resides in corporations, which are less closely controlled, but nevertheless have the full force of government enforcement behind them.
So I don't believe that simply interpreting and enforcing the existing Constitution will be sufficient protection for a free society over the next century or so. I think a more explicitly drawn bill of rights related to issues like privacy and information sharing may be needed. It's not that privacy in and of itself is necessarily the primary issue, but rather the abuses that are possible when privacy is violated. Laws to protect against this need to exist with teeth, unlike most existing efforts in this area, so that when an individual's rights in these areas are violated by a corporation, the individual can obtain meaningful legal redress that will also serve as a disincentive to corporations to commit such abuses.
This approach seems to have worked quite well for product liability - corporations, in general, are quite responsible about the safety of products these days (Firestone excepted!) That's because the legislature has given higher priority to the safety of individuals, than to corporate profit. So "my solution" may lie in this direction...
The kind of issues I'm thinking of are the ones you refer to when you talk about "The recent tendency of the government to step in and permit corporations to trample on individual rights because they'd lose their profits otherwise." The intellectual property arena is just one area where corporations appear to be increasingly supported by government in "pissing in our drinking water": damaging the public domain by being allowed to impose undue control over their "intellectual property".
[Side rant: I'm not against profiting from the fruits of intellectual labor; however, I am against a society in which innocent citizens are punished for the paranoia of value-subtracting middlemen who are watching their sinecures erode with alarm. The vaunted free market should be killing those middlemen off like flies; instead, the government is helping to legislate their continued existence. Long after these middlemen are gone, we'll still be dealing with the dangerous laws which they helped to create.]
And any workable plan for reducing government without introducing a brave new world in which corporations own us body and soul, is fine with me. I do question, however, whether the current insurance industry is capable of doing anything particularly more efficiently than government. Perhaps one day, when the existing insurance infrastructure has been replaced by fully securitized instruments which are traded on open insurance markets (sorry, been reading too much of The Economist), but right now the industry is too closed, too old-fashioned, and too slow-moving, and too spottily capitalized to provide good solutions to anything.
There must be an Iraqi moderator on the loose tonight...
You put your finger on an important issue here. Not everyone shares these priorities. In fact, when it comes to big business, priorities are almost inevitably reversed, and profit comes first. It's like driving a car - people feel anonymous and so are more likely to behave badly - little fear of repercussions or damage to their reputation. Corporations provide a similiar anonymizing shield for their officers, and the pressure to perform - produce profits - is often enormous. Given that the direct effects of a corporate officer's actions usually aren't felt by that officer, and you have a recipe for bad behavior that certainly isn't going to be in the best interests of customers.
So while ordinary people like us can sit around and say that human rights should come before profit, the reality is that the companies which are infringing on our rights do not, on the whole, share this perspective.
If the scientists do have that kind of attitude, it's a recipe for failure. You don't want people who sit back in awe and say "My god, this could really work" when they achieve 20% of the required power. You want them to say, "Shit, we've got a long way to go! We're doing something wrong. Must try harder!"
That said, though, a working fusion reactor would be a Pretty Damn Big Deal. It could give us the ability to power the globe without pollution, without contributing towards global warming, and with ultimately lower cost. The role of electricity would change: it would probably no longer make sense to heat our houses with oil or gas. Battery-driven cars would get their energy from a clean source, rather than ultimately from dirty hydrocarbon-powered plants. The dependence on oil could be dramatically reduced.
Is it going to cure all of society's ills? Obviously not. However, it represents a kind of wealth which allows us to concentrate our energy and resources on other, more important things. As other technological advances have allowed us to build societies which are healthier, more free, and better educated, so this has the potential to allow us to take another step forward in a direction that is actually, for a change, sustainable.
No, it won't solve all our problems, but it has the potential to make our lives easier and better, if we let it.
I think this is a very simplistic view. Go and spend some time in a poor African country, say, and see the problems involved in lifting "much of the lower-class portion of our billions from their squalor and ignorance", and you might come to a different conclusion. You can't fix someone else's problems from the outside, any more than technology can cure all society's ill's. All you can do is help to enable people to help themselves.
And if cheap, clean power isn't an enabling technology, I don't know what is.