"To prevent scanning by RFID tag sensors, one must first
A) Get a suitable detector B) Configure it to read each and every of the potential wavelengths for all RFID tags, C) Configure it to understand the protocol(s) and protocol variations for all RFID tags in the area D) Then, without being able to actually see limits of the area being scanned, one must scan the entire area."
E) or just detonate a small nuclear device to disable the tags via ElectroMagnetic Pulse.
"Sears doesn't have to stop selling wrenches when someone bashes someones head with a craftsman wrench [sears.com] so what is so different about the digital age where people can get presumed guilty and shut down on the basis of one party's complaint without any judge or jury?"
exactly. Just about everything that is sold could one way or another be used to cause much greater harm than making illegitamite copies of music, the wrench is just one good example. Who would have ever thought that razor blades and utility knives could knock down the world trade center. But last time I checked it was still legal for people to shave and cut open boxes. Tools themselves should never be outlawed, except maybe in the extreme. But nobody is going to die if a few music files get copied without proper authorization.
"Sorry, it isn't the same as radio. The radio doesn't put the full album out there in full CD quality. And radio isn't free. It costs money to play [bmi.com] those songs"
CD quality doesn't mean jack shit to most people, before there was P2P people were making mix tapes and giving them to there girlfriends in similar volume to modern day p2p. Of course back then the industry got congress to pass a fucked up law that gave the music industry money for each piece of media sold regardless of its eventual use. Next they will want money from the sale of cars because they could facilitate the transfer of copied music. I digress. The point is that the music industry has not shown that they are harmed by music copying and even if they were, then that gives them no right to harm bystanders by enacting laws which restrict my freedom to create. Sure if you put bunches of unauthorized copies onto the internet you should be ready for a civil lawsuit, but to go after anyone else is a reprehensible act and one that must be punished. These industry groups have too much money and can do far too much damage to be acting in such a destructive manner.
The makers of Apache have no responsibility for the contents of this post. Neither should the creators of software be responsible for their use by others when there is even the least likely of legitamite uses. That is the threshold for prior restraint of freedom of speach. If there is any conceivable legitamite use then it is allowed. P2P software is no different. Just ask the chinese.
"That's not a boycott. That is just you making a choice. It is the same as me, a non-smoker, saying I have boycotted the tobacco industry. If you're not in the market and you don't buy then it is not really a boycott is it."
Can't you detect a less than subtle trace of irony in a simple statement? Dumb Ass.
"But why aren't their CD's selling?"
They are selling, selling in huge numbers in a down economy in which entertainment dollars are stretched very thin. I worked for an entertainment company briefly and they always had some bullshit numbers about how the entertainment industry is recession proof, well it isn't. Expensive entertainment is the first thing that is thrown out the window when times get tough. And that's what CDs are, expensive. Blaming P2P is probably just as much about covering CEO pride and investor sentiment as it is about enacting dumb laws.
"Is P2P to blame? Hell yes."
Blame for what? The Business cycle? People have less money. This more than explains a slight (around 10%) decline in sales from the record high sales in 2000. 2000 marked the height of Napster filesharing, how do explain record CD sales and widespread file sharing? I'm sure you must have some sort of interesting explanation. Heck I think the decline over the last two years should have been much greater than it was, in the range of 30%. When people don't buy something from you it is economics not theft. I haven't been able to find any real numbers, but I would suspect that CD sales are not substantially different than what they were in the mid 90s, so rather I would ask you, What has the music industry done differently that one would expect an increase in sales?
Sure, some people might not be buying CDs because they can just download what they want, but more likely those that are downloading would not have otherwise bought one and are in fact more likely to buy a copy if they like the bands music.
So, you are wrong, stupid wrong. File sharing has nothing but helped the music industry. Just as free broadcast of songs over the radio has. Now they are ungrateful.
I've been boycotting the music industry since 1996, not because of the RIAA, but because I don't care about music enough to buy it. Nor do I care enough about music to go through the hassle of downloading it, I'll stick to just listening to brainless pop or classical on the way home if I happen to get tired of NPR and the BBC.
"The problem is that the entertainment industry is using dropping revenue as proof that they need to implement tighter controls to prevent file sharing. So any boycott may be backfiring!"
They can use it as proof, but that does not make it proof. It is very easy to show that with the increased popularity of Napster that Music sales went up, but when Napster was shut down music sales went down. I don't think that is proof that file sharing increases sales of music, but it certainly shows that their proof is garbage.
"Legislate Now. Not big brother, not slippery-slope BS about john ashcroft in your inbox - just reasonable, progressive legislation to eliminate the spam epidemic."
If John Ashcroft is in my Inbox, then my spam filter is even more useless than I thought.
"GIMP is pretty much the only raster graphics package out there"
So, you are a graphic artist? I muttle through just fine with GIMP doing some minor image editing for web sites and such. GIMP may or may not lack some features, I haven't noticed any, but the lack of other mature projects is an inication of GIMP's success.
"This is the argument I always get into when my friends ask me why I don't use Linux or BSD or whatever."
I'm guessing you looked into using Linux at some point, but with the pace of change in Linux based software, how can you tell if the software hasn't matured enough to be productive with it, unless you try it out. Seems it is merely an understandable unwillingness to change that is the major reason for not trying new software. I don't know the specifics, but why is it that you don't want to use GIMP? Seems like it can do much of what Photoshop does. I even use it on Windows XP at work for some image manipulation and it works fine. Yes, it would probably require that you know what you want and then that you go search and find it, so really I think the question comes down to money and time. Do you want to take the time and learn new software, and perhaps save a grand every couple years in upgrade costs or is it worth it to you to just keep buying licenses. I suspect that the majority of Photoshop, etc users who just want to do regular types of things with images would do just fine with GIMP even on Windows. If I had felt I was in a position to justify a Photoshop license where I work I probably would have, but I'm glad I didn't bother.
Of course that is correct, but that is exactly what SCO is doing here. Asking for licensing fees from code that they themselves publish under the GPL.
Every time I hear this bozo of a story I think of stupid investors that would actually hang onto this doomed company's stock. Can we just change the icon for SCO news to a picture of their CEO with a clown nose.
Location matters too, there will likely be more PHd level jobs in larger companies or defense contractors, since they will use the qualifications of their staff to get contracts. Also, with a PHd you could probably get some Venture Capital to turn that research project into a company.
Just don't expect to be getting a mid level or even upper level programming job, so you may indeed go longer in between work.
Or else your fallback is teaching someplace, unless you are still single in which hitting on hot 20 year old females that you teach everyday might get you fired someday.
come on now, with such technical jargon as "jiggled something important, and there was a nasty cracking noise"... I'm guessing this guy is a professional, he just came to the wrong place.
"this is a one time deal due to equipment failure."
equipment failure doesn't explain why 50 million people were without electricity. This is a failure of the entire system. Problems in any grid system need to be isolated not propagated over a larege portion of the continent. This is more akin to a design flaw, or a overall management failure.
On this one I vote that this is a design flaw, there were far too many people saying that this was the way it was supposed to work coming out right after this happened... If cascading failures are a design feature, then the design is flawed.
I would go further to suggest that the grid system in general is a bad idea inherently, people need to build generating capacity near the people that use it, not transmit it over thousands of miles of lines in an interconnected system that runs near capacity. This should be similar to how the Internet operates, if the Internet backbones are running over 50% capacity that is a problem, since you are not providing redundancy if that is the case. Same thing here, the immediate problem is that the rest of the system was probably operating near capacity which means that there is no redundancy. In this case the solution is either to isolate parts of the system or add capacity. Or this is going to happen again soon.
"There is also work being done on pig Xenotransplants but the problem there is dormant viruses integrated in the pig genome that could awaken due to the immune supression."
MmmmMMmmm... Spare parts and bacon! We are truly creating a new utopia.
Well, it goes both ways too, plants and animals can take hold at the fringes of the desert and slowly bring a desert back to life... also through human activity by irrigation and such... look at The Western United States and you will see many areas where man is actually destroying desert which leads to biodiversity conflict because desert is usually far from deserted with many creatures that have adapted to life there. Whether such irrigated systems lead to increases in natural rain and such would be interesting to find out.
Alright to keep this going a bit... There seem to be basically two threads to our sub discussion here.
The original one was that the Definition of Democracy should be a "big tent" including forms of government which have elections to pick representatives versus my contention that the term Democracy should be reserved to describe a system of government where laws are directly voted upon by the people. I don't think we can agree on this point, but maybe we can agree that the definition of Democracy while today includes the forms of government you say, did not previously and originally mean a representative elected government. I think this is largely because of politcal marketing by the parties that control government, but this watering down of the definition could have occured through less insidious circumstance.
"The reason we have legislative representatives, instead of direct democracy is because"
"1. It would take too much time to keep up with the cases. It is a full time job."
I agree that is a reason not to have direct voting on laws, but it is not a good one from my perspective. Basically democracy tends towards simple laws, while full time representative government clearly means the elaboration of laws since they have more time to spend devising them.
So are Elaborate laws better than simple ones? I don't believe they are. I think if people voted on laws directly they would tend to be simple, understandable and by definition would have broad public support. Far too often I see laws proposed that have broad public support in summary(like the current calling cry of lets make things safer), but then the specific laws are enacted without much public notice and the specific law or regulation has onerous and harmful consequences. Perhaps it is a good thing to sneak by with a law, if you agree with the law, but how can anyone who cares about Society, let alone Democracy, be okay with the fact that some laws have very little public support. When the laws have no support from the people then that is a recipe for violent disorder or a
violent imposition of order.
" 2. All people from far reaches of the country can't travel to the capitol."
We agree that technology and telecommunications today might make it more possible to support Democracy over larger areas and larger numbers of people. I also agree that it was not possible in times past, which is why Democracy was and still is a more local phenomena. I would say that democracy is not practical form of government for populations in excess of a few tens of thousands
But originally the Federal and even State systems in the US implicitly understood that local control was good because it was more democratic, but over the years more and more local control has been ceded to State and the Federal Governement and coincidently our collective understanding of what democracy is has been modified to fit the new reality of cenralized control and party politics. This only leads to a less Democratic basis for US law and in any other states that have followed the same trend.
" 3. Having a permanent legislature helps keep the rest of the government in check."
No more than direct Democracy would, perhaps less. ouldn't the executive and judicial parts of government be cowed by a legislative branch that was the people. If anything, a representative government keeps the people in check by diluting their voice in government while still giving them outlet to express their frustrations.
I agree that an Executive by nature is best a person whom is elected to administer the employees of the government and direct their actions according to the expressed will of the citizens. The town meeting form of government elects such a person and I would consider this a Democracy. In some ways the Judicial is also executive in nature in that it applies the law to individula cases. So, my d
"I believe a Democratic Republic is both a Republic and a Democracy."
I believe Democracy should be strictly defined as people voting for their laws. Voting to elect someone who then votes to establish a committee that then votes for that law might be democratic, but I wouldn't call that a democracy. And that is what exists at the federal level in the US. I believe "Representative Democracy" is an oxymoron. Democracy does exist in the US in the form of local town meetings, during which all people vote on the laws and spending of the town within the rules that have been agreed upon and can be changed by the people.
"Is there some kind of bad history about the word "Democracy" in the U.S?"
Yes, there is a bad history with the word Democracy in the US. Those of us that wish more power and responsibility in the hands of individuals are told that 'we already have a Democracy, so what else do you want?' 'Just shut up and vote for who we tell you' and then they will represent "us."
So, sure we have democracy... If when I vote for my congressman and there is no one else on the ballot, that is democracy. Or when I vote for my state legislator and I have one choice, that is democracy? But when I go to my town hall and vote on each of the laws that will effect me, what is that? I would prefer to call that Democracy and the rest something else. Or I think maybe it is just more pleasant to say we live in a Democracy rather than to actually do so.
yes, the tyranny of the majority is a well established argument against democracy. However your argument applies equally to a Republic and a true Democracy. As in a democratic Republic the will of the majority is still expressed through representatives. So, the wolves have two representatives in Congress and the sheep one. Or in the case of redistricting, the wolves have 3 representatives and the sheep none. So, if they are still voting on who is for dinner, how is the situation different? The wolves will likely vote for their wolf constituents and let dinner ensue. A representative form of government does nothing to counter the tyranny of the majority. It is only by a constitution which can be changed only by super-majority that limits the authority of the government with respect to individual rights which can counter the tyranny of the majority. But the point is that such a constitution can apply to a true democracy as well as a republic.
"As you say, the U.S. and other constitutional democracies have checks and balances to counter-act such abuses from the majority."
I still disagree with the watering down of the word democracy. Democratic Republic is how I would describe the form of government in the US. The Federal System is Democratic in that people vote for something, but it is not a Democracy. Constitutiuon as a description of government is irrelevent, since nearly all forms of government have some type of constitution, some good some very bad.
Also, a declaration of rights or mere acknowledgement of rights is not a constitution, and if you read it carefully the US constitution does not declare rights either. It acknowledges them and limits the United States government from infringing upon them. Just compare the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" found here to the US Constitution To someone unconcerned with language they may appear like they would have similar effect, but any computer programmer that can read english should be able to tell you that one of these documents is meant to be put to work and the other is meant to be looked at.
"Yes, yes, you are a flaming Republic. I'm sick of hearing it. By that standard there are hardly any democracies in the world"
Seems like you are correct about the term democracy, which according to one dictionary at least can mean an elected government. Seems sad to water down the term so much so. Soon will freedom just mean 'well fed' and truth mean 'what we tell you'? Isn't true traditional Democracy still the ideal of an enlightened society? Otherwise what are our laws based upon, but a house of cards?
The town meeting form of local government is as close to a true a democracy as is probably possible, it is not perfect and I disagree a lot with the decisions of my neighbors, but I feel like I am involved. With the US Federal and even state governments do you feel involved or just ruled?
"By that standard there are hardly any democracies in the world, since most of them have constitutions, laws and courts."
Laws and courts are executive in nature, meaning they execute the laws. In a true Democracy there is usually seperation between lawmaking and execution of the law.
"A total democracy, where two wolwes and a sheep votes on what to have for dinner, is bad, because everybody belongs to some kind of minority."
Don't you think that what to have for dinner should be a personal choice? That is what a meta law (ie constitution) is for, to restrict the scope and jurisdiction of the laws that a group may make. A constitution is crucial to a true democracy, since there must at the very least be agreement on what a majority is and how it is to be determined and I would add that you must also need to know what you are able to vote on.
"I certainly appreciate that, and I would think it a good idea if I was convinced all other avenues of hacking were cut out, but I'm not convinced they are"
So, you are suggesting that closed source software somehow reduces hacking? I think or friends at Microsoft have proven otherwise. Sure, open source means someone could take the code and change it and then make it look like the original software, but with checksums and the like this could probably be eliminated.
"I'll admit a fair amount of ignorance of the whole computer voting thing, but I assume the thing has to be 'netted up to communicate its results with something. To me, there's your backdoor for hacking potential."
I don't know what the features of specific systems are, but my understanding is that what is being talked about are these vote taking terminals not some sort of internet voting, that means that the connections between machines, if there are any, are just cords that might run along the floor of an election hall. And the election results are probably still reported over phone lines and such. So, I guess the argument here is the same for all open source vs closed source debate... Is security by obscurity better than security by open design? I think for operational details obscurity is best... IE when are events scheduled, so when would the right time be to breach security. But for systems of security the best option is for there to be wide understanding of the methods used, so that sloppiness and flaws can be discussed openly. Otherwise evn the most simple flaws can exist and be exploited for long periods of time without anyone being aware.
"On the contrary, if the source were opened, one might not be able to trust that there would be more white hat hackers than black hats for such a high-profile application"
Hacking is of little concern here. Since we aren't talking about Internet voting, so the only opportunity to hack would be while you are in the voting booth, with nothing but the interface that is given to you. So assume there is a touch screen or something with a limited number of options.
Making this software open source so that we can all look at the code is really just to make sure that there isn't some algorithm that drops every 3rd vote for a particular party or adds it to the wrong tally. Paper ballots are retained for auditing by third parties after the fact if there are questions about how the human tally was conducted. But computer recorded voting does not have such directly auditable methods, so we must be certain that the systems are not flawed or biased.
Voting by computer terminal might make it faster to count the votes, but it is more akin to walking up to a sheet and telling the person behind the sheet who you are voting for. You lose the physical evidence of the vote unless there is some direct physical recording made. Regardless of how you desing the system, it is essentially relaying the vote without any direct physical evidence of the vote. Any subsequent recording of the vote is at least once removed from the actual person casting the vote. Unlike with paper ballots or even those horrible punch cards where the ballots are direct physical evidence of the vote.
So, that is the argument in a nutshell. If you are to be forced to trust a machine or person to record your vote accurately, then we have a right to know the procedures that they will use to record the vote.
Otherwise and unless there are many layers of accountability, both before the election and after, then let's just stick with paper ballots and optical scanners.
Is it better to ignore the rediculousness of SCO or is it better to slam them out of existence so that no reputable company will deal with them? I am leaning towards the slamming which we are doing a good job of, but at some point seems like it would be good to just ignore them and wait till they run out of money to pay their lawyers.
But the bad publicity has to effect their bottom line... Rhambus barely survived their sue happy days, but they actually make product. Either way SCO is going to go out of business rather soon I would think, unless Microsoft decides that SCO needs another infusion of cash and decides to "License" some more Intelectual property from them.
your list jumps accross many disciplines... but if you want:
fire cooking cement metallurgy astronomy ti me and the calendar rockets (oh did you forget that the chinese invented them a couple thousand years ago?) the plow irrigation mathematics
just to name a few were invented long before the advent of the modern scientific method and the disciplines of physics. Sure you could just extend Physics and science to cover all past discoveries and accomplishment, but that would be to ignore the fact that modern science as we know it today has existed only in the past 300 years at most, or perhaps more recognizably in the past one hundred years. But the human reason on which science and the other arts are based has existed far longer.
Far from attacking science, I am defending it. The worst part about the position that you espoused was that it leads to a cowardly subservience to belief over reason which undermines the very purpose of science. Sure, people can't know everything, but science demands that knowledge be based upon the solid foundation of reason. It is never good enough to say "just because" If you have to resort to such rhetoric then it is likely that you have nothing to say worth a damn or you are just being lazy. Either way you are of no use.
"So when some new outlandish "breakthrough" is announced with great fanfare, I for one will continue to await the verdict of "the system". And while I will attempt, so far as possible, to make my own evaluation of it, I will let myself be guided by the people and the system that has earned my trust"
Come on now, the paper is seven pages including references. That has to be a new intelectual low to not just read the damned thing and make your own judgement.
I have searched for and read the thing and have concluded that he doesn't put forward a persuasive argument, but I think the author has contributed to a worthwhile debate and discussion on a topic that is far from settled. But it seems that most people would prefer not to think for themselves and rather go about reading reviews of the next great hard drive... which is fine, but I would prefer you to not speak or write if you are unwilling to think on your own... being a far greater waste of everyone's time than reading 7 pages of text with a few big words in it.
"So when some new outlandish "breakthrough" is announced with great fanfare, I for one will continue to await the verdict of "the system". And while I will attempt, so far as possible, to make my own evaluation of it, I will let myself be guided by the people and the system that has earned my trust.
bullcrap. There are maybe a few great ideas in all of science, the rest is just detail. I figure the wheel is a pretty good one and then maybe nuclear fission and fusion... But the wheel was figured out long before physics was created, by my count so far far less than 50% of worthwhile discovery has been in the era of science and physics... And considering the rest of the discoveries couldn't have been made without the prior discovery, then I'm not sure why you would place trust in a system with such little track record.
Slashdot Mirror
"To prevent scanning by RFID tag sensors, one must first
A) Get a suitable detector
B) Configure it to read each and every of the potential wavelengths for all RFID tags,
C) Configure it to understand the protocol(s) and protocol variations for all RFID tags in the area
D) Then, without being able to actually see limits of the area being scanned, one must scan the entire area."
E) or just detonate a small nuclear device to disable the tags via ElectroMagnetic Pulse.
"Sears doesn't have to stop selling wrenches when someone bashes someones head with a craftsman wrench [sears.com] so what is so different about the digital age where people can get presumed guilty and shut down on the basis of one party's complaint without any judge or jury?"
exactly. Just about everything that is sold could one way or another be used to cause much greater harm than making illegitamite copies of music, the wrench is just one good example. Who would have ever thought that razor blades and utility knives could knock down the world trade center. But last time I checked it was still legal for people to shave and cut open boxes. Tools themselves should never be outlawed, except maybe in the extreme. But nobody is going to die if a few music files get copied without proper authorization.
"Sorry, it isn't the same as radio. The radio doesn't put the full album out there in full CD quality. And radio isn't free. It costs money to play [bmi.com] those songs"
CD quality doesn't mean jack shit to most people, before there was P2P people were making mix tapes and giving them to there girlfriends in similar volume to modern day p2p. Of course back then the industry got congress to pass a fucked up law that gave the music industry money for each piece of media sold regardless of its eventual use. Next they will want money from the sale of cars because they could facilitate the transfer of copied music. I digress. The point is that the music industry has not shown that they are harmed by music copying and even if they were, then that gives them no right to harm bystanders by enacting laws which restrict my freedom to create. Sure if you put bunches of unauthorized copies onto the internet you should be ready for a civil lawsuit, but to go after anyone else is a reprehensible act and one that must be punished. These industry groups have too much money and can do far too much damage to be acting in such a destructive manner.
The makers of Apache have no responsibility for the contents of this post. Neither should the creators of software be responsible for their use by others when there is even the least likely of legitamite uses. That is the threshold for prior restraint of freedom of speach. If there is any conceivable legitamite use then it is allowed. P2P software is no different. Just ask the chinese.
"That's not a boycott. That is just you making a choice. It is the same as me, a non-smoker, saying I have boycotted the tobacco industry. If you're not in the market and you don't buy then it is not really a boycott is it."
Can't you detect a less than subtle trace of irony in a simple statement? Dumb Ass.
"But why aren't their CD's selling?"
They are selling, selling in huge numbers in a down economy in which entertainment dollars are stretched very thin. I worked for an entertainment company briefly and they always had some bullshit numbers about how the entertainment industry is recession proof, well it isn't. Expensive entertainment is the first thing that is thrown out the window when times get tough. And that's what CDs are, expensive. Blaming P2P is probably just as much about covering CEO pride and investor sentiment as it is about enacting dumb laws.
"Is P2P to blame? Hell yes."
Blame for what? The Business cycle? People have less money. This more than explains a slight (around 10%) decline in sales from the record high sales in 2000. 2000 marked the height of Napster filesharing, how do explain record CD sales and widespread file sharing? I'm sure you must have some sort of interesting explanation. Heck I think the decline over the last two years should have been much greater than it was, in the range of 30%. When people don't buy something from you it is economics not theft. I haven't been able to find any real numbers, but I would suspect that CD sales are not substantially different than what they were in the mid 90s, so rather I would ask you, What has the music industry done differently that one would expect an increase in sales?
Sure, some people might not be buying CDs because they can just download what they want, but more likely those that are downloading would not have otherwise bought one and are in fact more likely to buy a copy if they like the bands music.
So, you are wrong, stupid wrong. File sharing has nothing but helped the music industry. Just as free broadcast of songs over the radio has. Now they are ungrateful.
I've been boycotting the music industry since 1996, not because of the RIAA, but because I don't care about music enough to buy it. Nor do I care enough about music to go through the hassle of downloading it, I'll stick to just listening to brainless pop or classical on the way home if I happen to get tired of NPR and the BBC.
"The problem is that the entertainment industry is using dropping revenue as proof that they need to implement tighter controls to prevent file sharing. So any boycott may be backfiring!"
They can use it as proof, but that does not make it proof. It is very easy to show that with the increased popularity of Napster that Music sales went up, but when Napster was shut down music sales went down. I don't think that is proof that file sharing increases sales of music, but it certainly shows that their proof is garbage.
"Legislate Now. Not big brother, not slippery-slope BS about john ashcroft in your inbox - just reasonable, progressive legislation to eliminate the spam epidemic."
If John Ashcroft is in my Inbox, then my spam filter is even more useless than I thought.
"GIMP is pretty much the only raster graphics package out there"
So, you are a graphic artist? I muttle through just fine with GIMP doing some minor image editing for web sites and such. GIMP may or may not lack some features, I haven't noticed any, but the lack of other mature projects is an inication of GIMP's success.
"This is the argument I always get into when my friends ask me why I don't use Linux or BSD or whatever."
I'm guessing you looked into using Linux at some point, but with the pace of change in Linux based software, how can you tell if the software hasn't matured enough to be productive with it, unless you try it out. Seems it is merely an understandable unwillingness to change that is the major reason for not trying new software. I don't know the specifics, but why is it that you don't want to use GIMP? Seems like it can do much of what Photoshop does. I even use it on Windows XP at work for some image manipulation and it works fine. Yes, it would probably require that you know what you want and then that you go search and find it, so really I think the question comes down to money and time. Do you want to take the time and learn new software, and perhaps save a grand every couple years in upgrade costs or is it worth it to you to just keep buying licenses. I suspect that the majority of Photoshop, etc users who just want to do regular types of things with images would do just fine with GIMP even on Windows. If I had felt I was in a position to justify a Photoshop license where I work I probably would have, but I'm glad I didn't bother.
"You can't ask for that under GPL."
Of course that is correct, but that is exactly what SCO is doing here. Asking for licensing fees from code that they themselves publish under the GPL.
Every time I hear this bozo of a story I think of stupid investors that would actually hang onto this doomed company's stock. Can we just change the icon for SCO news to a picture of their CEO with a clown nose.
Location matters too, there will likely be more PHd level jobs in larger companies or defense contractors, since they will use the qualifications of their staff to get contracts. Also, with a PHd you could probably get some Venture Capital to turn that research project into a company.
Just don't expect to be getting a mid level or even upper level programming job, so you may indeed go longer in between work.
Or else your fallback is teaching someplace, unless you are still single in which hitting on hot 20 year old females that you teach everyday might get you fired someday.
come on now, with such technical jargon as "jiggled something important, and there was a nasty cracking noise" ... I'm guessing this guy is a professional, he just came to the wrong place.
"this is a one time deal due to equipment failure."
equipment failure doesn't explain why 50 million people were without electricity. This is a failure of the entire system. Problems in any grid system need to be isolated not propagated over a larege portion of the continent. This is more akin to a design flaw, or a overall management failure.
On this one I vote that this is a design flaw, there were far too many people saying that this was the way it was supposed to work coming out right after this happened... If cascading failures are a design feature, then the design is flawed.
I would go further to suggest that the grid system in general is a bad idea inherently, people need to build generating capacity near the people that use it, not transmit it over thousands of miles of lines in an interconnected system that runs near capacity. This should be similar to how the Internet operates, if the Internet backbones are running over 50% capacity that is a problem, since you are not providing redundancy if that is the case. Same thing here, the immediate problem is that the rest of the system was probably operating near capacity which means that there is no redundancy. In this case the solution is either to isolate parts of the system or add capacity. Or this is going to happen again soon.
"There is also work being done on pig Xenotransplants but the problem there is dormant viruses integrated in the pig genome that could awaken due to the immune supression."
MmmmMMmmm... Spare parts and bacon! We are truly creating a new utopia.
Well, it goes both ways too, plants and animals can take hold at the fringes of the desert and slowly bring a desert back to life... also through human activity by irrigation and such... look at The Western United States and you will see many areas where man is actually destroying desert which leads to biodiversity conflict because desert is usually far from deserted with many creatures that have adapted to life there. Whether such irrigated systems lead to increases in natural rain and such would be interesting to find out.
Alright to keep this going a bit... There seem to be basically two threads to our sub discussion here.
The original one was that the Definition of Democracy
should be a "big tent" including forms of government which have
elections to pick representatives versus my contention that the
term Democracy should be reserved to describe a system of government
where laws are directly voted upon by the people. I don't think
we can agree on this point, but maybe we can agree that the definition
of Democracy while today includes the forms of government
you say, did not previously and originally mean a representative elected government.
I think this is largely because of politcal marketing by the parties that control government,
but this watering down of the definition could have occured through less insidious circumstance.
"The reason we have legislative representatives, instead of direct democracy is because"
"1. It would take too much time to keep up with the cases. It is a full time job."
I agree that is a reason not to have direct voting on laws, but
it is not a good one from my perspective. Basically democracy tends
towards simple laws, while full time representative government clearly
means the elaboration of laws since they have more time to spend devising them.
So are Elaborate laws better than simple ones? I don't believe
they are. I think if people voted on laws directly they would tend
to be simple, understandable and by definition would have broad
public support. Far too often I see laws proposed that have broad
public support in summary(like the current calling cry of lets make things safer), but then
the specific laws are enacted without much public notice and the
specific law or regulation has onerous and harmful consequences. Perhaps it is a good
thing to sneak by with a law, if you agree with the law, but how can anyone who cares about
Society, let alone Democracy, be okay with the fact that some laws
have very little public support. When the laws have no support
from the people then that is a recipe for violent disorder or a
violent imposition of order.
" 2. All people from far reaches of the country can't travel to the capitol."
We agree that technology and telecommunications today might make
it more possible to support Democracy over larger areas and larger
numbers of people. I also agree that it was not possible in times
past, which is why Democracy was and still is a more local phenomena.
I would say that democracy is not practical form of government for populations in excess of a few tens of thousands
But originally the Federal and even State systems in the US implicitly
understood that local control was good because it was more democratic,
but over the years more and more local control has been ceded to
State and the Federal Governement and coincidently our collective understanding of what democracy is has been modified to fit the new reality of cenralized control and party politics.
This only leads to a less Democratic basis for US law and in any other states that have followed the same trend.
" 3. Having a permanent legislature helps keep the rest of the government in check."
No more than direct Democracy would, perhaps less. ouldn't the executive and judicial
parts of government be cowed by a legislative branch that was the
people. If anything, a representative government keeps the people
in check by diluting their voice in government while still giving them
outlet to express their frustrations.
I agree that an Executive by nature is best a person whom is elected
to administer the employees of the government and direct their actions
according to the expressed will of the citizens. The town meeting
form of government elects such a person and I would consider this
a Democracy. In some ways the Judicial is also executive in nature
in that it applies the law to individula cases. So, my d
"I believe a Democratic Republic is both a Republic and a Democracy."
I believe Democracy should be strictly defined as people voting for their laws. Voting to elect someone who then votes to establish a committee that then votes for that law might be democratic, but I wouldn't call that a democracy. And that is what exists at the federal level in the US. I believe "Representative Democracy" is an oxymoron. Democracy does exist in the US in the form of local town meetings, during which all people vote on the laws and spending of the town within the rules that have been agreed upon and can be changed by the people.
"Is there some kind of bad history about the word "Democracy" in the U.S?"
Yes, there is a bad history with the word Democracy in the US. Those of us that wish more power and responsibility in the hands of individuals are told that 'we already have a Democracy, so what else do you want?' 'Just shut up and vote for who we tell you' and then they will represent "us."
So, sure we have democracy... If when I vote for my congressman and there is no one else on the ballot, that is democracy. Or when I vote for my state legislator and I have one choice, that is democracy? But when I go to my town hall and vote on each of the laws that will effect me, what is that? I would prefer to call that Democracy and the rest something else. Or I think maybe it is just more pleasant to say we live in a Democracy rather than to actually do so.
"What I would call the tyrany of the majority."
yes, the tyranny of the majority is a well established argument against democracy. However your argument applies equally to a Republic and a true Democracy. As in a democratic Republic the will of the majority is still expressed through representatives. So, the wolves have two representatives in Congress and the sheep one. Or in the case of redistricting, the wolves have 3 representatives and the sheep none. So, if they are still voting on who is for dinner, how is the situation different? The wolves will likely vote for their wolf constituents and let dinner ensue. A representative form of government does nothing to counter the tyranny of the majority. It is only by a constitution which can be changed only by super-majority that limits the authority of the government with respect to individual rights which can counter the tyranny of the majority. But the point is that such a constitution can apply to a true democracy as well as a republic.
"As you say, the U.S. and other constitutional democracies have checks and balances to counter-act such abuses from the majority."
I still disagree with the watering down of the word democracy. Democratic Republic is how I would describe the form of government in the US. The Federal System is Democratic in that people vote for something, but it is not a Democracy. Constitutiuon as a description of government is irrelevent, since nearly all forms of government have some type of constitution, some good some very bad.
Also, a declaration of rights or mere acknowledgement of rights is not a constitution, and if you read it carefully the US constitution does not declare rights either. It acknowledges them and limits the United States government from infringing upon them. Just compare the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" found here to the US Constitution
To someone unconcerned with language they may appear like they would have similar effect, but any computer programmer that can read english should be able to tell you that one of these documents is meant to be put to work and the other is meant to be looked at.
"Yes, yes, you are a flaming Republic. I'm sick of hearing it.
By that standard there are hardly any democracies in the world"
Seems like you are correct about the term democracy, which according to one dictionary at least can mean an elected government. Seems sad to water down the term so much so. Soon will freedom just mean 'well fed' and truth mean 'what we tell you'? Isn't true traditional Democracy still the ideal of an enlightened society? Otherwise what are our laws based upon, but a house of cards?
The town meeting form of local government is as close to a true a democracy as is probably possible, it is not perfect and I disagree a lot with the decisions of my neighbors, but I feel like I am involved. With the US Federal and even state governments do you feel involved or just ruled?
"By that standard there are hardly any democracies in the world, since most of them have constitutions, laws and courts."
Laws and courts are executive in nature, meaning they execute the laws. In a true Democracy there is usually seperation between lawmaking and execution of the law.
"A total democracy, where two wolwes and a sheep votes on what to have for dinner, is bad, because everybody belongs to some kind of minority."
Don't you think that what to have for dinner should be a personal choice? That is what a meta law (ie constitution) is for, to restrict the scope and jurisdiction of the laws that a group may make. A constitution is crucial to a true democracy, since there must at the very least be agreement on what a majority is and how it is to be determined and I would add that you must also need to know what you are able to vote on.
"Is it just me "
Yup
"I certainly appreciate that, and I would think it a good idea if I was convinced all other avenues of hacking were cut out, but I'm not convinced they are"
So, you are suggesting that closed source software somehow reduces hacking? I think or friends at Microsoft have proven otherwise. Sure, open source means someone could take the code and change it and then make it look like the original software, but with checksums and the like this could probably be eliminated.
"I'll admit a fair amount of ignorance of the whole computer voting thing, but I assume the thing has to be 'netted up to communicate its results with something. To me, there's your backdoor for hacking potential."
I don't know what the features of specific systems are, but my understanding is that what is being talked about are these vote taking terminals not some sort of internet voting, that means that the connections between machines, if there are any, are just cords that might run along the floor of an election hall. And the election results are probably still reported over phone lines and such. So, I guess the argument here is the same for all open source vs closed source debate... Is security by obscurity better than security by open design? I think for operational details obscurity is best... IE when are events scheduled, so when would the right time be to breach security. But for systems of security the best option is for there to be wide understanding of the methods used, so that sloppiness and flaws can be discussed openly. Otherwise evn the most simple flaws can exist and be exploited for long periods of time without anyone being aware.
"On the contrary, if the source were opened, one might not be able to trust that there would be more white hat hackers than black hats for such a high-profile application"
Hacking is of little concern here. Since we aren't talking about Internet voting, so the only opportunity to hack would be while you are in the voting booth, with nothing but the interface that is given to you. So assume there is a touch screen or something with a limited number of options.
Making this software open source so that we can all look at the code is really just to make sure that there isn't some algorithm that drops every 3rd vote for a particular party or adds it to the wrong tally. Paper ballots are retained for auditing by third parties after the fact if there are questions about how the human tally was conducted. But computer recorded voting does not have such directly auditable methods, so we must be certain that the systems are not flawed or biased.
Voting by computer terminal might make it faster to count the votes, but it is more akin to walking up to a sheet and telling the person behind the sheet who you are voting for. You lose the physical evidence of the vote unless there is some direct physical recording made. Regardless of how you desing the system, it is essentially relaying the vote without any direct physical evidence of the vote. Any subsequent recording of the vote is at least once removed from the actual person casting the vote. Unlike with paper ballots or even those horrible punch cards where the ballots are direct physical evidence of the vote.
So, that is the argument in a nutshell. If you are to be forced to trust a machine or person to record your vote accurately, then we have a right to know the procedures that they will use to record the vote.
Otherwise and unless there are many layers of accountability, both before the election and after, then let's just stick with paper ballots and optical scanners.
"Why isn't this code open source by law?"
because we haven't made it so yet. Remember Government by the people...
Is it better to ignore the rediculousness of SCO or is it better to slam them out of existence so that no reputable company will deal with them? I am leaning towards the slamming which we are doing a good job of, but at some point seems like it would be good to just ignore them and wait till they run out of money to pay their lawyers.
But the bad publicity has to effect their bottom line... Rhambus barely survived their sue happy days, but they actually make product. Either way SCO is going to go out of business rather soon I would think, unless Microsoft decides that SCO needs another infusion of cash and decides to "License" some more Intelectual property from them.
your list jumps accross many disciplines... but if you want:
i me and the calendar
fire
cooking
cement
metallurgy
astronomy
t
rockets (oh did you forget that the chinese invented them a couple thousand years ago?)
the plow
irrigation
mathematics
just to name a few were invented long before the advent of the modern scientific method and the disciplines of physics. Sure you could just extend Physics and science to cover all past discoveries and accomplishment, but that would be to ignore the fact that modern science as we know it today has existed only in the past 300 years at most, or perhaps more recognizably in the past one hundred years. But the human reason on which science and the other arts are based has existed far longer.
Far from attacking science, I am defending it. The worst part about the position that you espoused was that it leads to a cowardly subservience to belief over reason which undermines the very purpose of science. Sure, people can't know everything, but science demands that knowledge be based upon the solid foundation of reason. It is never good enough to say "just because" If you have to resort to such rhetoric then it is likely that you have nothing to say worth a damn or you are just being lazy. Either way you are of no use.
I studied physics in college.
"You already posted to /. =) Otherwise you could have just released it to the wild without a peep using Kazaa or Freenet or something like that."
Oh I'm sure that it would be easy to figure out who "pipeb0mb" is and then find him in Russia.
"So when some new outlandish "breakthrough" is announced with great fanfare, I for one will continue to await the verdict of "the system". And while I will attempt, so far as possible, to make my own evaluation of it, I will let myself be guided by the people and the system that has earned my trust"
Come on now, the paper is seven pages including references. That has to be a new intelectual low to not just read the damned thing and make your own judgement.
I have searched for and read the thing and have concluded that he doesn't put forward a persuasive argument, but I think the author has contributed to a worthwhile debate and discussion on a topic that is far from settled. But it seems that most people would prefer not to think for themselves and rather go about reading reviews of the next great hard drive... which is fine, but I would prefer you to not speak or write if you are unwilling to think on your own... being a far greater waste of everyone's time than reading 7 pages of text with a few big words in it.
"So when some new outlandish "breakthrough" is announced with great fanfare, I for one will continue to await the verdict of "the system". And while I will attempt, so far as possible, to make my own evaluation of it, I will let myself be guided by the people and the system that has earned my trust.
bullcrap. There are maybe a few great ideas in all of science, the rest is just detail. I figure the wheel is a pretty good one and then maybe nuclear fission and fusion... But the wheel was figured out long before physics was created, by my count so far far less than 50% of worthwhile discovery has been in the era of science and physics... And considering the rest of the discoveries couldn't have been made without the prior discovery, then I'm not sure why you would place trust in a system with such little track record.