There's a cool discussion on BeNews about making a second-generation BeBox.. put ideas together - ultra-high-bandwidth BeOS machine!!! After all, the main bottleneck in BeOS is disk I/O.
What's next? Hot 0-day w4r3z, because information wants to be free? It'll happen soon, and what will be provoked? Another War on Drugs.
This new "file-sharing" bent among young people perfectly mirrors the start of the Drug Revolution. Many people thought then, as they do now, that if enough people do it, how can they make it illegal? Well, last I checked, Marijuana is still illegal, despite how many people have used it.
You're creating another War on Drugs, except this is the War on Swapping. It'll be moderately successful and waste huge amounts of govt. resources. Do you want to see file swapping where drugs are today - where you can be fired if you've ever been known to swap a file? Please stop drawing so much attention to it, and maybe we can avoid a lengthly and costly War on Swapping. By flaunting your illegal activities, you create the next War on Drugs.
Re:Who would the tech community have coherent...
on
Selfish Society
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· Score: 1
If that's so, why does everybody feel the need to categorize their position? (e.g. I'm a christian, BeOS-using geek). Why can't I be an individual with complex opinions tha vary from issue to issue? Everybody wants some form of community acceptance, and it's in general split to three levels: Impressing specific peers, impressing a group of peers, and impressing all of your peers. Those three happen at varying levels on slashdot. For instance, I could suck up to the BSD people (#2), I could suck up to a Signal 11 post (#1), or I could be anti-Echelon (#3). It happens all the time here.
Sure, maybe useless trinkets have become a minor social force. But the major inventions have always driven society. Something like, for instance, the Roman Empire, could have never have been built to its full extent without the technology that they developed, the aquaduct, the system of roads, etc. In the same way, computers will build our society.
Well, enough with the pointless comparisons. I have a couple of issues with what JonKatz says:
Technology hasn't "become" a social force. It's been a social force since the beginning of what we call "civilization", which is really technology-based. Look at games like Sid Meier's Civilization. You can't play without tech development.
Libretarianism and individualism are only professed by this collective because it's what suits them. It's about the group needs of the people:
The need to look "cool", to impress specific peers
The need to be in a "in crowd", to impress a group
In general, the need for group acceptance and conformaty, to impress all of your peers.
These needs are what drive people to do things like download songs off of Napster. Some people do GB's of MP3's as a self-worth comparison. When people ask me how many GB I have, I'll tell them 0 - but would you like to look at my CD collection?
Issues on Slashdot tend to be driven by this group ideal as much as anywhere else; it's a place where it's cool to be anti-Echelon and anti-DMCA. What if I'm anti-Echelon, but pro-Carnivore? What if I think that the DMCA ain't such a bad idea? Individual thought needs to be embraced in any society where we wish idealistic progress to happen. We can't have two straw-man positions.
Where's the complexity of your thoughts? Where can I express that Open Source is good in some areas, but in others some Closed Source software is better, and that Free Software might not ever be the best? Where can I truly be an individual? Certainly not slashdot, despite the hidden references in Katz's essay. Individual thought needs to be sustained, but making straw-man sides out of an issue suits nobody.
MIPS is no good, if the processor is sitting and waiting for stuff to do. That's the big lie of clustering and PC technology - the data busses are so abysmally slow that it's pretty pointless to do something like clustering with them. The S/390 is where personal computer technology should have gone. I'd be happy with a few 150 mHz processors as long as my I/O was as fast as the S/390 (scaled for processor speed).
If IBM took their S/390 technology and scaled it down, they would have a PC-killer device. Even my BeOS chokes mostly because of disk access, not my processor's speed. It's the I/O, stupid!
Heck, all you need to do is compile Basilisk II for Linux on there... then you get MacOS 7.5.3, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux! Compile UAE, and run AmigaOS on there! Compile Bochs, and run Dos! The possibilities never end - you could have the machine running the largest number of different operating systems at one time, ever! Why am I speaking in exclamations!
Slashdot Mirror
Your sig: That's not a statement. Therefore, it's false on the grounds that its premise is invalid.
Funny, people usually ignore me in Sch. when I wear DeCSS. You work at Mot? Can't say I've been to the Alumni Club, but I've seen it...
People are looking at me at work funny now... must... stop... laughing...
There's a cool discussion on BeNews about making a second-generation BeBox.. put ideas together - ultra-high-bandwidth BeOS machine!!! After all, the main bottleneck in BeOS is disk I/O.
This new "file-sharing" bent among young people perfectly mirrors the start of the Drug Revolution. Many people thought then, as they do now, that if enough people do it, how can they make it illegal? Well, last I checked, Marijuana is still illegal, despite how many people have used it.
You're creating another War on Drugs, except this is the War on Swapping. It'll be moderately successful and waste huge amounts of govt. resources. Do you want to see file swapping where drugs are today - where you can be fired if you've ever been known to swap a file? Please stop drawing so much attention to it, and maybe we can avoid a lengthly and costly War on Swapping. By flaunting your illegal activities, you create the next War on Drugs.
If that's so, why does everybody feel the need to categorize their position? (e.g. I'm a christian, BeOS-using geek). Why can't I be an individual with complex opinions tha vary from issue to issue? Everybody wants some form of community acceptance, and it's in general split to three levels: Impressing specific peers, impressing a group of peers, and impressing all of your peers. Those three happen at varying levels on slashdot. For instance, I could suck up to the BSD people (#2), I could suck up to a Signal 11 post (#1), or I could be anti-Echelon (#3). It happens all the time here.
Sure, maybe useless trinkets have become a minor social force. But the major inventions have always driven society. Something like, for instance, the Roman Empire, could have never have been built to its full extent without the technology that they developed, the aquaduct, the system of roads, etc. In the same way, computers will build our society.
How much moola? How 'bout a computer, $2000, that runs Linux, with insane I/O, and a couple of ~150 mHz procs? That's what I'd like to see IBM make.
Predicted slasbot community response: Don't buy from Amazon.com! They're evil! Gotta love individualism...
"How could they take my (TV|radio|soma) away?"
Well, enough with the pointless comparisons. I have a couple of issues with what JonKatz says:
- Technology hasn't "become" a social force. It's been a social force since the beginning of what we call "civilization", which is really technology-based. Look at games like Sid Meier's Civilization. You can't play without tech development.
- Libretarianism and individualism are only professed by this collective because it's what suits them. It's about the group needs of the people:
Issues on Slashdot tend to be driven by this group ideal as much as anywhere else; it's a place where it's cool to be anti-Echelon and anti-DMCA. What if I'm anti-Echelon, but pro-Carnivore? What if I think that the DMCA ain't such a bad idea? Individual thought needs to be embraced in any society where we wish idealistic progress to happen. We can't have two straw-man positions.- The need to look "cool", to impress specific peers
- The need to be in a "in crowd", to impress a group
- In general, the need for group acceptance and conformaty, to impress all of your peers.
These needs are what drive people to do things like download songs off of Napster. Some people do GB's of MP3's as a self-worth comparison. When people ask me how many GB I have, I'll tell them 0 - but would you like to look at my CD collection?Where's the complexity of your thoughts? Where can I express that Open Source is good in some areas, but in others some Closed Source software is better, and that Free Software might not ever be the best? Where can I truly be an individual? Certainly not slashdot, despite the hidden references in Katz's essay. Individual thought needs to be sustained, but making straw-man sides out of an issue suits nobody.
If IBM took their S/390 technology and scaled it down, they would have a PC-killer device. Even my BeOS chokes mostly because of disk access, not my processor's speed. It's the I/O, stupid!
Heck, all you need to do is compile Basilisk II for Linux on there... then you get MacOS 7.5.3, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux! Compile UAE, and run AmigaOS on there! Compile Bochs, and run Dos! The possibilities never end - you could have the machine running the largest number of different operating systems at one time, ever! Why am I speaking in exclamations!