Next time a "doctor" is about to put you under and saw through your sternum to operate on your heart, ask yourself the same question.
I hope if I get to that point (heart problems run in my family) I've another citizenship besides USA in a country that doesn't try to shoehorn capitalism into medicine.
I realize that the article and not the summary mentions that this occurred in *Richmond, B.C.*, but the icon for this article is a Canadian flag. FYI, I don't think the Canadian system is the shoehorning capitalism type.;-)
Couldn't that also be interpreted as "necessarily simple"? Older generations don't get it not because of its complexity, but its simplicity. They might understand better if everything had a label and step-by-step info, but for the rest of us that do understand, this just adds complexity when it might not be needed.
Age has little to do with it. Once a person, young or old, has seen it done once or twice they get it. Its really nothing more than younger people were the early iPhone/iPod touch adopters, or early adopters of computers that used similar user interface widgets. If you hand an iPhone to an older person today its more likely to be something new and different, just like it was for a younger person five or so years ago.
... I add my aunt as my *family*, my buddy as *friend* and my colleague as "work". Family sees pics from family, friends see pics from friends and work doesn't see anything at all. If I post myself I pick what social circles it's for...
And what about pics that other people post? What happens when they tag you? Do their pics inherit your settings or do you have to manually do something? Even if it is automatically inherited or easy to set manually you are one facebook policy change away from losing that. Given facebook's history I think putting people on a separate network may be more prudent.
So, as almost useful of a purpose LinkedIn serves, it will never outgrow what it already is. It's hopes, dreams and aspirations are limited.... This valuation is definitely bullshit.
Absolutely agreed.
Oh, you want me to post a status update about how I drank a case of beer and pissed on the neighbor's lawn? Maybe on Facebook, certainly not on LinkedIn.
That summarizes the reason for LinkedIn. It's not as your original subject line suggested, a social network for people with no social lives. Rather it is a social network for those who do not need to be aware of your social life. We already categorize people as friends or business contacts in our minds and in our real world social networks, it makes sense to have separate online social networks to match.
And I never use it. I don't even know what it's for. It's like a limited purpose version of facebook.
The purpose of LinkedIn is to isolate two networks, one for friends and family and one for business and professional. When a co-worker, boss or other professional contact asks for or gives a facebook invite you should redirect them to linkedin. That way professional/business contacts do not see the pics from the weekend partying with your friends.
We have two lives, the fun/personal and the serious/professional. It makes sense to have separate social networks too. As a matter of fact in our minds we already have such a distinction, separate online social networks just mirrors how we are already thinking.
You can have extremely high karma and still be posting contrary to group think if you actually think about what you're posting.
What you fail to consider is that you can get high karma much faster if your posts merely reinforce the slashdot group think. The GP is correct, groupthink is more highly reward on slashdot than independent thought.
In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is hidden.
Nonsense. Opinions do *not* need to be hidden, opinions are one source of information. What needs to be suppressed are cliques, groupthink, etc.
In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is considered but not blindly followed, where individuals think for themselves.
In other words it almost always only works when the opinions of others are hidden.
Those cases of groups of tough-minded independent thinkers being vanishingly rare.
Tough mindedness is not required. I've seen the previously mentioned experiment performed on groups that included people ranging from the more aggressive to the more passive.
Even among seasoned experts overcoming the effects of groupthink requires special measures. Consider the "Delphi Technique" developed at RAND - where the experts pool their knowledge in multiple rounds anonymously.
You misrepresent the delphi technique. They key is not anonymity. They key is that answers to questions and comments on these answers are processed and filtered. They key is structured information, not anonymous information.
In the spirit of the delphi technique the remainder of your post was discarded as irrelevant speculation.;-)
I didn't read the article, buuuut;) I imagine the tests being like the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire ask the audience deal. When you ask everyone to vote without seeing the opinion of others, you'd be more likely to get the correct answer.
A classic experiment used to study group decision making is a variant of the knapsack problem. A common scenario is that the group are survivors of a plane crash and they may have to hike out. They have more resources than they can carry, they have to prioritize items and only take a subset. Before discussions begin individuals are asked to rank the items on their own. Next discussion begin, opinions are offered, and the group comes to a consensus regarding the ranking of items. The rankings are then scored and the group score is typically better than nearly all individual scores. It is common for the group to outperform experts.
In short, listening to a wide variety of opinions can lead to better results than merely listening to an expert. Think of it as the expert being double checked or enhanced by bits of info from the group.
The problem is that most people can't tell the difference between an opinion and a fact. Even if the fact is wrong, they still can't distinguish that from an opinion.
You frequently see people complaining about "Obamacare" that's an incorrect fact, the actual meat and potatoes of the health care package was lifted from various conservative politicians, it only became "Obamacare" when they decided that they needed to stymy the President. All of the actual controversial aspects had been proposed by various conservative politicians.
Congratulations, you have proved your own point regarding facts and opinions being confused.;-) What you present as a fact is in reality an opinion. Another opinion is that it became "Obamacare" when it was done on a national scale rather than at a local level, that a unique characteristic of the Obama approach is a nationwide one-size-fits-all approach. Which of these opinions is more correct is irrelevant, both are opinions, neither are facts.
The brain isn't designed to think independent of context. It's built to be part of a social system. Yes, people need to think for themselves, but to mandate that requires us to break the architecture of our minds. It can't work as the primary solution.
Context and group think are two different things. Context can work against emotion and in favor of reason. It helps judge the credibility of opinions.
A social system and group think are two different things. A social system may have more to do with accepting a decision once one is made, and not so much to do with the decision making process and debate that led to the decision.
You seem to be confusing the decision making process and following the decision once it is made. We may be wired to follow the decision, to stay with the group rather than strike out on our own, however that does not mean that independent thought was not part of the decision making process.
In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is hidden.
Nonsense. Opinions do *not* need to be hidden, opinions are one source of information. What needs to be suppressed are cliques, groupthink, etc.
In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is considered but not blindly followed, where individuals think for themselves.
Hanging on to a microorganism that can kill millions is about as evil as evil gets. To the autoclave they should all go. Every last one of them. And anyone who defends the existence of smallpox as a weapon should have his head examined.
The problem is that the disease still exists outside of labs. Some victims were far enough north that they were buried in permafrost regions. Note that this fact has been the inspiration for numerous movies and tv shows. Also note that those concerned about global warming are also concerned about smallpox.
"The search for variola viruses surviving even longer was pursued in 1991 near Novosibirsk, Russia (9). "Bioweapons experts" searched for the variola virus in 19th-century smallpox victims mummified in the permafrost above the Arctic Circle. In the event of unusual thawing and flooding, the concern was that these corpses might become exposed and release infectious virus into the environment. In the 19th century, this region of Russia (Sakha Republic) was "ravaged by smallpox strains of extraordinary lethality" (9). Isolating and comparing them with preserved modern strains might identify genes contributing to virulence. To date, no live variola viruses have been isolated from Sakha. But the threat now is that "a sophisticated terrorist team might go smallpox hunting on the permafrost" (9)" http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol11no05/04-0616.htm
There has even been discussions regarding investigations of crypts in Europe:
Ummmm... where does one write a thesis on orbital bombardment and in what discipline of study?
Perhaps at a war college, its the place one visits on the way to becoming a general or admiral. Something like:
"Throughout its history, the college has held fast to the belief, first articulated by its founding president, Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, that,"The War College is a place of original research on all questions relating to war and to statesmanship connected with war, or the prevention of war."" http://www.usnwc.edu/About.aspx
TNG generally had beam phasers. But DS9 and later tended to use blasters that shot slower balls of whatever.
As someone who has watched many a slow paintball coming in and yet has been unable to dodge them, I'm still a little skeptical. Then again I am not starfleet material.:-)
Perhaps letting a person have 1, 2 or 3 children depending on how well adapted they are
Are joking aside, we're talking about something taking 300,000 years, with a ship that gradually modifies its internal state from one planet's equilibrium to another's. I don't think you need to add in any husbandry to get the exact result you're looking for.
I agree that the human tendency to prefer the better adapted is powerful stuff. The concern I have is that the conditions of the spaceship may not fully model the conditions of the planet. Maybe some preference for a trait not needed during the flight, but needed once boots are on the ground, needs to be factored in?
Perhaps I missed the episode but I don't really recall people dodging phaser beams. People may have ducked for cover and moved out of the aim point prior to the phaser firing but once the beam was "in flight" there was no ducking, much as with a bullet. The key to ducking is the time lag between the decision that the weapon is on target and the trigger finger moving far enough to fire the weapon.
It is different from designs people are familiar with yet it represents a highly plausible next generation design. For example a horizontal magazine in-line with the sights allows a user to easily see how many rounds are available. A horizontal magazine also allows the user to get closer to the ground. A vertical magazine sticking out the bottom unnecessarily raises the weapon and the users head, making the head a better target for an opponent. This limits the capacity of vertical magazines, so a horizontal may more easily offer greater capacity.
There would also need to be some mechanism to implement natural selection.
Easy solution: put lions on the ship and give them free reign. That ought to do it!
While I eagerly await the SyFy channel's Colosseum 2400AD as much as the next slashdotter, I was thinking of something a little less dramatic. Perhaps letting a person have 1, 2 or 3 children depending on how well adapted they are; hit your max and its off to the doctor you go for snip-snip. Everyone gets 1 for morale purposes, a sense of hope and psychological health - and the potentially useful recessive gene. Maybe a bonus kid for going above and beyond one's duty at great personal risk, plugging the hole in the just-breached hull sort of stuff. And of course lets not forget a lottery where winners get an extra kid, we should not forget to breed for luck.;-)
Yes the above is morally reprehensible in various ways. However sending current humans to a planet with gravity, temperature and other environmental conditions beyond their comfort/safety zone is a bit morally reprehensible to begin with. Especially so when they did not volunteer for such hardships, as is implicit with generational ships. Then there is the practical concern that breeding has to be limited on a generational spacecraft.
300,000 years would be longer than there have been anatomically modern humans on Earth. If we make it, by the time we get there, we'll be a whole new species.
That can work for the colonists. Consider a generational ship that slowly changes the onboard environment from something resembling earth to something resembling the destination over the trip. Gravity, temperature, chemical composition of atmosphere, etc. There would also need to be some mechanism to implement natural selection.
Of course this is most likely somewhat academic. When scientists use the word "habitable" they are generally referring to some place habitable by something other than humans, maybe something closer to algae. Humans would require sufficient technology to manipulate raw materials to create artificial environments for themselves.
"Currently, individuals entering a military installation must place their fingers on a scanner, with a Marine standing beside them to help ensure a viable print. Powell would prefer there to be a safe distance between the Marine and the person being scanned."
Given a Marine carrying a sidearm the "safe distance" is far more than 6 feet.;-)
... Its equivalent to a city threatening to cut police, fire or K-12 teachers...
It makes me sad to see this cited as insightful. At least in the US, a typical local budget (city/state) is broken down something like the following. 70% - Education 15% - Law Enforcement/Fire Services 10% - Infrastructure (almost entirely roads and bridges) 5% - Everything else, including those annoying bureaucrats. The reason city's threaten to cut education or police is because that's what they spend most of their money on.
What your hypothetical numbers fail to account for is that there are plenty of bureaucrats in that segment you identify as education. Note that I specifically wrote "teachers". You also fail to realize that large dramatically sized cuts are not required. For example, if a large urban school district is told to cut $300K from the education budget they are not going to cancel the office remodeling budgets of high ranking school district administrators, they are going to hold a press conference saying that the jobs of 5 teachers are threatened.
Why CentOS? Why not a more popular distro not to disparage Cent.....
MS is going after commercial users of Linux not hobbyists. CentOS *is* Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) without the Red Hat branding, CentOS is built from the RHEL source code. While CentOS is not as popular as a desktop it is interesting to anyone using or thinking about using RHEL. If you know you are going to ultimately deploy on RHEL then developing on CentOS would make more sense than other Linux distributions.
Slashdot Mirror
Next time a "doctor" is about to put you under and saw through your sternum to operate on your heart, ask yourself the same question.
I hope if I get to that point (heart problems run in my family) I've another citizenship besides USA in a country that doesn't try to shoehorn capitalism into medicine.
I realize that the article and not the summary mentions that this occurred in *Richmond, B.C.*, but the icon for this article is a Canadian flag. FYI, I don't think the Canadian system is the shoehorning capitalism type. ;-)
Couldn't that also be interpreted as "necessarily simple"? Older generations don't get it not because of its complexity, but its simplicity. They might understand better if everything had a label and step-by-step info, but for the rest of us that do understand, this just adds complexity when it might not be needed.
Age has little to do with it. Once a person, young or old, has seen it done once or twice they get it. Its really nothing more than younger people were the early iPhone/iPod touch adopters, or early adopters of computers that used similar user interface widgets. If you hand an iPhone to an older person today its more likely to be something new and different, just like it was for a younger person five or so years ago.
... I add my aunt as my *family*, my buddy as *friend* and my colleague as "work". Family sees pics from family, friends see pics from friends and work doesn't see anything at all. If I post myself I pick what social circles it's for ...
And what about pics that other people post? What happens when they tag you? Do their pics inherit your settings or do you have to manually do something? Even if it is automatically inherited or easy to set manually you are one facebook policy change away from losing that. Given facebook's history I think putting people on a separate network may be more prudent.
So, as almost useful of a purpose LinkedIn serves, it will never outgrow what it already is. It's hopes, dreams and aspirations are limited. ... This valuation is definitely bullshit.
Absolutely agreed.
Oh, you want me to post a status update about how I drank a case of beer and pissed on the neighbor's lawn? Maybe on Facebook, certainly not on LinkedIn.
That summarizes the reason for LinkedIn. It's not as your original subject line suggested, a social network for people with no social lives. Rather it is a social network for those who do not need to be aware of your social life. We already categorize people as friends or business contacts in our minds and in our real world social networks, it makes sense to have separate online social networks to match.
And I never use it. I don't even know what it's for. It's like a limited purpose version of facebook.
The purpose of LinkedIn is to isolate two networks, one for friends and family and one for business and professional. When a co-worker, boss or other professional contact asks for or gives a facebook invite you should redirect them to linkedin. That way professional/business contacts do not see the pics from the weekend partying with your friends.
We have two lives, the fun/personal and the serious/professional. It makes sense to have separate social networks too. As a matter of fact in our minds we already have such a distinction, separate online social networks just mirrors how we are already thinking.
You are going to get modded down. :-)
You can have extremely high karma and still be posting contrary to group think if you actually think about what you're posting.
What you fail to consider is that you can get high karma much faster if your posts merely reinforce the slashdot group think. The GP is correct, groupthink is more highly reward on slashdot than independent thought.
In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is hidden.
Nonsense. Opinions do *not* need to be hidden, opinions are one source of information. What needs to be suppressed are cliques, groupthink, etc. In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is considered but not blindly followed, where individuals think for themselves.
In other words it almost always only works when the opinions of others are hidden.
No. To avoid redundancy read this respose: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2167128&cid=36170734.
Those cases of groups of tough-minded independent thinkers being vanishingly rare.
Tough mindedness is not required. I've seen the previously mentioned experiment performed on groups that included people ranging from the more aggressive to the more passive.
Even among seasoned experts overcoming the effects of groupthink requires special measures. Consider the "Delphi Technique" developed at RAND - where the experts pool their knowledge in multiple rounds anonymously.
You misrepresent the delphi technique. They key is not anonymity. They key is that answers to questions and comments on these answers are processed and filtered. They key is structured information, not anonymous information.
;-)
In the spirit of the delphi technique the remainder of your post was discarded as irrelevant speculation.
I didn't read the article, buuuut ;) I imagine the tests being like the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire ask the audience deal. When you ask everyone to vote without seeing the opinion of others, you'd be more likely to get the correct answer.
A classic experiment used to study group decision making is a variant of the knapsack problem. A common scenario is that the group are survivors of a plane crash and they may have to hike out. They have more resources than they can carry, they have to prioritize items and only take a subset. Before discussions begin individuals are asked to rank the items on their own. Next discussion begin, opinions are offered, and the group comes to a consensus regarding the ranking of items. The rankings are then scored and the group score is typically better than nearly all individual scores. It is common for the group to outperform experts.
In short, listening to a wide variety of opinions can lead to better results than merely listening to an expert. Think of it as the expert being double checked or enhanced by bits of info from the group.
The problem is that most people can't tell the difference between an opinion and a fact. Even if the fact is wrong, they still can't distinguish that from an opinion.
You frequently see people complaining about "Obamacare" that's an incorrect fact, the actual meat and potatoes of the health care package was lifted from various conservative politicians, it only became "Obamacare" when they decided that they needed to stymy the President. All of the actual controversial aspects had been proposed by various conservative politicians.
Congratulations, you have proved your own point regarding facts and opinions being confused. ;-) What you present as a fact is in reality an opinion. Another opinion is that it became "Obamacare" when it was done on a national scale rather than at a local level, that a unique characteristic of the Obama approach is a nationwide one-size-fits-all approach. Which of these opinions is more correct is irrelevant, both are opinions, neither are facts.
The brain isn't designed to think independent of context. It's built to be part of a social system. Yes, people need to think for themselves, but to mandate that requires us to break the architecture of our minds. It can't work as the primary solution.
Context and group think are two different things. Context can work against emotion and in favor of reason. It helps judge the credibility of opinions.
A social system and group think are two different things. A social system may have more to do with accepting a decision once one is made, and not so much to do with the decision making process and debate that led to the decision.
You seem to be confusing the decision making process and following the decision once it is made. We may be wired to follow the decision, to stay with the group rather than strike out on our own, however that does not mean that independent thought was not part of the decision making process.
In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is hidden.
Nonsense. Opinions do *not* need to be hidden, opinions are one source of information. What needs to be suppressed are cliques, groupthink, etc.
In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is considered but not blindly followed, where individuals think for themselves.
So does this mean we just might have a reliable earthquake detector, or is it only a sometimes-thing?
Or it may be a too-often-thing. Many earthquakes are small, barely noticeable. It would be more useful if the magnitude could also be predicted.
Hanging on to a microorganism that can kill millions is about as evil as evil gets. To the autoclave they should all go. Every last one of them. And anyone who defends the existence of smallpox as a weapon should have his head examined.
The problem is that the disease still exists outside of labs. Some victims were far enough north that they were buried in permafrost regions. Note that this fact has been the inspiration for numerous movies and tv shows. Also note that those concerned about global warming are also concerned about smallpox.
"The search for variola viruses surviving even longer was pursued in 1991 near Novosibirsk, Russia (9). "Bioweapons experts" searched for the variola virus in 19th-century smallpox victims mummified in the permafrost above the Arctic Circle. In the event of unusual thawing and flooding, the concern was that these corpses might become exposed and release infectious virus into the environment. In the 19th century, this region of Russia (Sakha Republic) was "ravaged by smallpox strains of extraordinary lethality" (9). Isolating and comparing them with preserved modern strains might identify genes contributing to virulence. To date, no live variola viruses have been isolated from Sakha. But the threat now is that "a sophisticated terrorist team might go smallpox hunting on the permafrost" (9)"
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol11no05/04-0616.htm
There has even been discussions regarding investigations of crypts in Europe:
"In the absence of reliable survival data some experts have advised the routine vaccination of archaeologists who might handle well preserved corpses"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1008009/pdf/brjindmed00145-0079.pdf
Ummmm ... where does one write a thesis on orbital bombardment and in what discipline of study?
Perhaps at a war college, its the place one visits on the way to becoming a general or admiral. Something like: ,"The War College is a place of original research on all questions relating to war and to statesmanship connected with war, or the prevention of war.""
"Throughout its history, the college has held fast to the belief, first articulated by its founding president, Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, that
http://www.usnwc.edu/About.aspx
TNG generally had beam phasers. But DS9 and later tended to use blasters that shot slower balls of whatever.
As someone who has watched many a slow paintball coming in and yet has been unable to dodge them, I'm still a little skeptical. Then again I am not starfleet material. :-)
Perhaps letting a person have 1, 2 or 3 children depending on how well adapted they are
Are joking aside, we're talking about something taking 300,000 years, with a ship that gradually modifies its internal state from one planet's equilibrium to another's. I don't think you need to add in any husbandry to get the exact result you're looking for.
I agree that the human tendency to prefer the better adapted is powerful stuff. The concern I have is that the conditions of the spaceship may not fully model the conditions of the planet. Maybe some preference for a trait not needed during the flight, but needed once boots are on the ground, needs to be factored in?
Perhaps I missed the episode but I don't really recall people dodging phaser beams. People may have ducked for cover and moved out of the aim point prior to the phaser firing but once the beam was "in flight" there was no ducking, much as with a bullet. The key to ducking is the time lag between the decision that the weapon is on target and the trigger finger moving far enough to fire the weapon.
Why is the P90 so popular with sci-fi writers?
Recognizably different + highly plausible.
It is different from designs people are familiar with yet it represents a highly plausible next generation design. For example a horizontal magazine in-line with the sights allows a user to easily see how many rounds are available. A horizontal magazine also allows the user to get closer to the ground. A vertical magazine sticking out the bottom unnecessarily raises the weapon and the users head, making the head a better target for an opponent. This limits the capacity of vertical magazines, so a horizontal may more easily offer greater capacity.
There would also need to be some mechanism to implement natural selection.
Easy solution: put lions on the ship and give them free reign. That ought to do it!
While I eagerly await the SyFy channel's Colosseum 2400AD as much as the next slashdotter, I was thinking of something a little less dramatic. Perhaps letting a person have 1, 2 or 3 children depending on how well adapted they are; hit your max and its off to the doctor you go for snip-snip. Everyone gets 1 for morale purposes, a sense of hope and psychological health - and the potentially useful recessive gene. Maybe a bonus kid for going above and beyond one's duty at great personal risk, plugging the hole in the just-breached hull sort of stuff. And of course lets not forget a lottery where winners get an extra kid, we should not forget to breed for luck. ;-)
Yes the above is morally reprehensible in various ways. However sending current humans to a planet with gravity, temperature and other environmental conditions beyond their comfort/safety zone is a bit morally reprehensible to begin with. Especially so when they did not volunteer for such hardships, as is implicit with generational ships. Then there is the practical concern that breeding has to be limited on a generational spacecraft.
... because oh so much evolution occurs over the course of ten thousand years ...
Re-read the subject line. :-)
300,000 years would be longer than there have been anatomically modern humans on Earth. If we make it, by the time we get there, we'll be a whole new species.
That can work for the colonists. Consider a generational ship that slowly changes the onboard environment from something resembling earth to something resembling the destination over the trip. Gravity, temperature, chemical composition of atmosphere, etc. There would also need to be some mechanism to implement natural selection.
Of course this is most likely somewhat academic. When scientists use the word "habitable" they are generally referring to some place habitable by something other than humans, maybe something closer to algae. Humans would require sufficient technology to manipulate raw materials to create artificial environments for themselves.
"Currently, individuals entering a military installation must place their fingers on a scanner, with a Marine standing beside them to help ensure a viable print. Powell would prefer there to be a safe distance between the Marine and the person being scanned."
Given a Marine carrying a sidearm the "safe distance" is far more than 6 feet. ;-)
... Its equivalent to a city threatening to cut police, fire or K-12 teachers ...
It makes me sad to see this cited as insightful. At least in the US, a typical local budget (city/state) is broken down something like the following. 70% - Education 15% - Law Enforcement/Fire Services 10% - Infrastructure (almost entirely roads and bridges) 5% - Everything else, including those annoying bureaucrats. The reason city's threaten to cut education or police is because that's what they spend most of their money on.
What your hypothetical numbers fail to account for is that there are plenty of bureaucrats in that segment you identify as education. Note that I specifically wrote "teachers". You also fail to realize that large dramatically sized cuts are not required. For example, if a large urban school district is told to cut $300K from the education budget they are not going to cancel the office remodeling budgets of high ranking school district administrators, they are going to hold a press conference saying that the jobs of 5 teachers are threatened.
Why CentOS? Why not a more popular distro not to disparage Cent.....
MS is going after commercial users of Linux not hobbyists. CentOS *is* Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) without the Red Hat branding, CentOS is built from the RHEL source code. While CentOS is not as popular as a desktop it is interesting to anyone using or thinking about using RHEL. If you know you are going to ultimately deploy on RHEL then developing on CentOS would make more sense than other Linux distributions.