McCarthy may have done some fucked-up stuff, but in so doing he hurt the anti-Communist movement more than the Communists.
William F. Buckley issued a challenge years ago WRT the Hollywood blacklists: try and find a single "injured" person who was not a socialist... nobody has ever answered the challenge because there are none. So for all the cries of "witchhunt", the Red Scare was accurately targetted. You may think that Communists should not be persecuted, OK, but I think they should, and the Red Scare didn't persecute anyone who was not.
Many of tactics of the worst sorts of zealots like McCarthy were theoretically dangerous and were rightfully rebuked, but they never led to any actual loss of liberty except for those who were sympathetic to the Soviet Union and wanted the same Orwellian freedoms for the rest of us.
Today, the way the word "McCarthyist" gets used is itself an example of McCarthyism: smearing someone by applying a negative label. Every time I hear someone use the term, I say back, "I have in my hand a list of known McCarthyists!"
Of course, most are too uneducated to get the reference, let alone the irony.
I don't set policy, so the 'no
violence' is a fixed criteria.
dude, this is slashdot, home to people who think like RMS, Jon Katz, Jamie McCarthy... you know, frothy thinkers. you have to believe, like the rest of us, that (1) violent games aren't bad, and (2) any principle (regardless of its truth-value) is worth sacrificing everything for, or at least threatening too.
So, you should dress in black and engage in civil disobedience till this misguided no-violence policy is changed. Or, at least till XP is released, then protest that instead. While waiting to be noticed, call the EFF: surely they will take this case. Also, try to induce your employers to violate the GPL. That will surely get those "loosers" in a world of hurt.
slashdot lost several of our comments. I just wanted you to know I did read one that you wrote where you talk about your father implementing a maze walker that was slow because he used exceptions.
I don't know if you read my response to that (nor if you wrote a response), but in case you did not see it, it was essentially this:
exceptions can be implemented as tuple returns (invisibly to the user) and that implementation is the same speed as a return and nobody ever says that returns are slow so exceptions don't need to be slow either. this method also unwinds the stack normally so it is simple. it is not as fast as jumping many frames up the stack but if you are doing that and solving the stack unwinding problem you could use that as a compiler optimizations for normal returns too.
and this takes us right back to the beginning of the discussion so perhaps now after all this you'll understand what my original post said: it is wrong (from a language designers perspective) to think of exceptions as slow and it is wrong (from a language designers perspective) to think of exceptions as useful only for unusual error conditions. And if language designers stopped thinking about it wrong, language users would too.
You also had one other comment i did not respond to but I will now: you said something like "but character not found in string is an error". I think it is better to think about this abstractly: if a particular character does not belong in a string, then finding it is an error. the function you call should not be passing judgement on what's an error or not, it should simply tell you the answer to "where is the character" including "nowhere" as an acceptable answer.
now, your joke was funny:) but it raises a more serious issue and a little bit of edification for the slashdot crowd.
Here on the dot, people bray frequently (and sometimes rightfully) about how monied trademark holders try suppress other people's speech. But take another look at the Caldera site and you'll see what they're up to. The shoe's on the other foot, and it's a little uglier.
They are tempting to put the Linux label all over a product that's not... well as you put it,
Open Unix's not Linux, but you could never tell that from the way they've labelled it. They are attempting to live in the shade of Linux's good reputation. This is why trademark law allows trademark holders fairly broad rights. If a competitor is allowed to use the name, they'll put it to work in their own interest, not in the interest of customers who depend on the name to mean something: in this case, Linux.
Linux is a trademark, however, so I hope that the owner has some success enforcing it against a clear "theft" (not of the name, of the reputation) that Caldera is attempting.
First, let me attack your argument: what they taught you in Humanities is wrong. Humans have evolved a tendency to consider the broad sweep of a person because with humans beliefs and integrity with respect to different issues are not independent though they theoretically might be. Unfair, yes, in the cases where it does not work, But it often does work, and that's why it's enshrined in every system of jurisprudence in the world.
And it particularly works the way I did it. I didn't say "this man's an alcoholic". I said I heard him talk about Privacy--his supposed expertise!--just yesterday and he didn't sound too committed or swift. It's not as if Privacy and Security are unrelated either.
Anyway, I thought background information on him would be interesting and it is.
I did reference his defense of Microsoft in my post which, in an obvious corollary to Godwin's Law, needs no explanation on Slashdot.
And finally, I did already attack his argument in a separate post so I've satisfied that of your criteria. Of course, you hadn't seen that so you are forgiven.
The letter makes an argument based on the supposed "full cost" of the full disclosure of security holes. Unfortunately, this argument is hopelessly flawed from an economics perspective because he did not consider the cost that diminished awareness puts on the future.
It was not till exploits started being written, and even further after there were some major epidemics, that unix admins and programmers tightened up on security. (sendmail? ftpd? bind? sheesh!)
Did Microsoft learn anything from these previous incidents? Yes, but very little. The greater cost of cleaning up Microsoft software reflects the widespread use of it by relatively clueless lusrs. But this widespread use means that "total cost" gets spread across a bunch more people. Was the disruption disproportionate to the laxity that Windows sys admins and Microsoft programmers had showed immediately prior to this incident? No, it was a bargain. And trust me, the cost of Code Red cleanup is a bigger bargain if it means that people will wake up to the importance of security in the future.
Right now in the wake of the dot-com collapse, an outbreak of Code Red means we can't get our email for a day or something. But when we are truly dependent on the net in the future it is imperative that we are ready and history shows us that we would not be without a few swift kicks in the pants like this.
As I mentioned in another post, I don't think Richard Smith is sophisticated enough to be a leader on issues like this.
The guy who signed that letter, Richard M. Smith
CTO, Privacy Foundation, was on the radio in Boston yesterday (you can probably find it in the archives of Here and Now at http://wbur.org/ I'm not linking because I don't live in Boston and I don't want my feed slashdotted:) The news story was about a court ruling in Massachusetts where the automatic toll "scanner" information was turned over to the court for some Big Brother like law enforcement purposes. Courts approved the info transfer even though the law creating the toll system explicitly said it would be "private".
So, anyway, Richard Smith, this supposed privacy guru, it turns out happily uses this very same toll system! Despite its obvious privacy problems, he can't be bothered to wait a few seconds a day to pay cash. Not only that, but he shows up in public forums letting us all know how he feels.
Now, on a security list (he is CTO after all, woo woo!) he is now praising Microsoft's security policies...?
Ya know, Stallman can be incredibly annoying. But, when it comes to a public figure like this, his "purity" is somewhat reassuring. I think Richard Smith is probably a nice and smart guy, and he's entitled to his opinion... but CTO of the Privacy Foundation is also how he's "entitled" and if you ask me, he loses credibility all the time. So what? Well, he dimishes the causes of privacy and security as he sinks.
Drug companies spend a higher percentage of their revenues on R&D than any other industry.
so what? Roughly speaking, if IP worked like the free market, drug companies would obviously spend the same percentage of their revenue as other industries. Remember, there's no free lunch. The fact that they spend more indicates that they think the risk of losing the investment is lower. This is because the IP they own guarantees them a protected monopoly and inordinate. Any real free marketeer will tell you: monopoly is a Bad Thing. There is no exception in free market theory that says monopoly is good.
You are describing a company that gets a small stream of investment in an early period and then a balloon infusion later... what do they give up in exchange for this? a trickle of equity at first, then a big wad? That's really all that matters. I don't see a need for the VCs to put the money in escrow up front (lack of trust?) and if the VCs keep the cash till they need to deliver it they won't need to get it back which is a real issue of trust. Otherwise you are mixing issues that shouldn't be mixed.
be wary of referring to "dangerous fringe religions" lest someone in power decide that your religion (or lack thereof) is
dangerous, and on the fringe.
agreed... but it's that human nature we were talking about...:)
computer darwinism. people who are stupid and inexperienced enough to click on dangerous attachments are not knowledgeable enough to maintain a working computer at home, they need a tech support and IT infrastructure to sustain them. this exists in the workplace.
also, the number of emails processed increases
the probability of infection, spread, etc. for the above class of people, they spend much more time at work on a computer than they do at home.
now, some of the actions, many even, taken by the government were wrong. but "mistakes were made" because our government agencies are staffed by humans who were fallible. there is no government policy to persecute followers of particular religions. after Waco, there were hearings and an investigation in an attempt to get at the truth. did we get at the truth? did the right people get punished? probably not.
Why? there's no magic: we have not repealed human nature. there are mistakes and there is corruption everywhere there are humans. But there is less corruption here than in china, and there is no government policy to persecute religious people of any faith.
In China, there is, and not just armed dangerous fringe religions, but pacifist movements with enormous followings.
yes, you correctly identify the flaw, that the group of gamers they are studying are not selected at random.
Sample size is a more complex question. Remember this, though: sample size is independent of population size. When flipping a coin, 15 flips (samples) will tell you with a great deal of certainty whether the coin is "fair". It does not matter how many "coin flips there are in the population" (infinite?:). If gamers were selected at random, 100 could be way more than enough. In fact, 35 could be plenty. Depends on how many degrees of freedom...
"China's laws broadly ban "socially destabilizing content," breaches of public security, "divulging state secrets" and Internet
pornography."
How is that different from the.. say.. US laws?
it's very different. Under US law it is illegal to call for the violent overthrow of the government. It is not illegal to call for elections or to say the the elections we've had are tainted. It is illegal to do those things in China. See the difference? Of course you do. You could see the difference before you even posted. So why did you post? troll? nitwit? who knows.
"Authorities closely monitor Web site content in search for buzzwords such as Taiwan, Tibet and the banned spiritual group
Falun Gong, Web executives say."
Yeah? Well, the Echolon system and the NSA and CIA closely monitor *ALL* electronic traffic in search for buzzwords such as
bomb, C4, Bill Clinton etc.
Once again, here you can post messages about C4 or the Falun Gong (you just did) and not actually get arrested or tortured. The government may scan, but would be because it is looking for actual criminals committing actual crimes (as in part A above). There is no religion that you could write about here in the US that would get you sentenced and or tortured. But Falun Gong and Lamaism are two religions that will get you imprisoned in China. Too bad we don't have a law here against asking seemingly provocative but in reality inane questions: troll or not, you'd be going down. Oh well, we'll leave laws like that to the Chinese.
you're right. Think of it this way, if Jon and Jamie and Timothy left the demonstrations in Genoa "minutes into" them, they would never have written us inciteful/insightful commentary on what it was like in the Dante's Hellmouth where peaceful protesters are being killed in the streets by vicious jackbooted... hey wait a minute... what are these guys doing? going to the movies? surfing space sites... wow! what dedication.
I think my original post was on point WRT your original.
First, where exactly is the strawman?
where I quoted you you criticizing "relig[ious]" people as being as likely to be corrupt as any. That's a rather broad category so I gave the example of Christians. Christians do not claim to be less corrupt. The exact opposite in fact. Christians claim to all (with the sometime exception of Mary) be sinners. So, your attack is attacking a claim that Christians do not make: that's the definition of a strawman.
Christianity... is about trying to be the best person you can...
I don't want to quibble this to death; I don't find the whole subject that interesting, and I'm not even a Christian. However, I do appreciate accuracy and you are not being accurate.
Christianity is only about accepting Jesus Christ as the savior, and confessing your own sins and asking forgiveness of God. To convey the spirit, allow me to embellish slightly what you said to convey how I read it and would change it: it is specifically not an egotistical pursuit of being the "best"; it is closer to a humble acceptance of imperfection and weakness.
forgiveness is not unconditional, it is always predicated on an attempt to do better.
Absolution from confessed sins from God is predicated on genuine sorrow with a wish to better, but the Christian duty to forgive sin in others is not predicated on any such earnestness on the sinner's part. The biggest challenge for a Christian is forgiving those who are not sorry, just as Jesus forgave those who put him to death. "forgive them Lord, they know not what they do"
... though and that's the rub. There aren't that many Christians that really take the "trying" to heart. It seems to get lost along the way.
um... ever hear, "judge not lest ye be judged"? My suggestion that you would do well to be more forgiving (as Christians should also be) of the failings of others is not ad hominem but referred specifically to this tendency of yours to denigrate Christians (among all religious people) in this public forum. Whether you then go offline and forgive them, I do not know. If you are claiming that you do, I think that's great.
but anyway, I am not a Christian, and never claim to be one. I am an atheist. The person I was admonishing was advocating civil behavior, but I never did. So, where's the hypocrisy? nyah nyah.
Religion does not have a cornerstone [sic] on civility or morality. From my personal experience, most people of faith are just as
likely to be morally corrupt as someone who has never stepped in a church in their life.
You are attacking a strawman. Christian teaching says exactly what you do, that people are sinners, where sin is doing stuff like not being civil to other people. Christianity not about being perfect: that is impossible. It is about love, especially through the forgiveness of the sins of others, something you perhaps could work a little harder at...
i'm no expert on his server, but down 3 days out of a hundred, while not GREAT, would be understandable if the 3 days were in a row while he was otherwise occupied.
What happened?... what do you mean, "what happened?" Don't you know anything? The Cubes were highly vulnerable. The cracks, ok, that was one problem, but the real problem was that they weren't ready for the Enterprise. In use, the Cubes proved to be vulnerable to both Enterprise and Voyager class starships. Finally, I guess they decided that change was necessary.
That should say "you can't copyright data". Patents are totally different, for processes. ok? somebody should trademark this distinction so they can sue people who get it wrong
stuff like that should be "opt in", not "opt out". I shouldn't have to stay current on every pin-headed thing that comes out of Redmond just to stop monopolists from unauthorized munging with my copyrighted creative product. How can we make those assholes pay for all the BS they subject us to?
Slashdot Mirror
McCarthy may have done some fucked-up stuff, but in so doing he hurt the anti-Communist movement more than the Communists.
William F. Buckley issued a challenge years ago WRT the Hollywood blacklists: try and find a single "injured" person who was not a socialist... nobody has ever answered the challenge because there are none. So for all the cries of "witchhunt", the Red Scare was accurately targetted. You may think that Communists should not be persecuted, OK, but I think they should, and the Red Scare didn't persecute anyone who was not.
Many of tactics of the worst sorts of zealots like McCarthy were theoretically dangerous and were rightfully rebuked, but they never led to any actual loss of liberty except for those who were sympathetic to the Soviet Union and wanted the same Orwellian freedoms for the rest of us.
Today, the way the word "McCarthyist" gets used is itself an example of McCarthyism: smearing someone by applying a negative label. Every time I hear someone use the term, I say back, "I have in my hand a list of known McCarthyists!"
Of course, most are too uneducated to get the reference, let alone the irony.
DID NOT SUCCEED.
Steve, Steve, Steve, I've told you before: you do the marketing. Have Woz do this stuff for you, mmm'k?
violence' is a fixed criteria.
dude, this is slashdot, home to people who think like RMS, Jon Katz, Jamie McCarthy... you know, frothy thinkers. you have to believe, like the rest of us, that (1) violent games aren't bad, and (2) any principle (regardless of its truth-value) is worth sacrificing everything for, or at least threatening too.
So, you should dress in black and engage in civil disobedience till this misguided no-violence policy is changed. Or, at least till XP is released, then protest that instead. While waiting to be noticed, call the EFF: surely they will take this case. Also, try to induce your employers to violate the GPL. That will surely get those "loosers" in a world of hurt.
I don't know if you read my response to that (nor if you wrote a response), but in case you did not see it, it was essentially this:
exceptions can be implemented as tuple returns (invisibly to the user) and that implementation is the same speed as a return and nobody ever says that returns are slow so exceptions don't need to be slow either. this method also unwinds the stack normally so it is simple. it is not as fast as jumping many frames up the stack but if you are doing that and solving the stack unwinding problem you could use that as a compiler optimizations for normal returns too.
and this takes us right back to the beginning of the discussion so perhaps now after all this you'll understand what my original post said: it is wrong (from a language designers perspective) to think of exceptions as slow and it is wrong (from a language designers perspective) to think of exceptions as useful only for unusual error conditions. And if language designers stopped thinking about it wrong, language users would too.
You also had one other comment i did not respond to but I will now: you said something like "but character not found in string is an error". I think it is better to think about this abstractly: if a particular character does not belong in a string, then finding it is an error. the function you call should not be passing judgement on what's an error or not, it should simply tell you the answer to "where is the character" including "nowhere" as an acceptable answer.
GNU's Now Unix
now, your joke was funny
Here on the dot, people bray frequently (and sometimes rightfully) about how monied trademark holders try suppress other people's speech. But take another look at the Caldera site and you'll see what they're up to. The shoe's on the other foot, and it's a little uglier.
They are tempting to put the Linux label all over a product that's not... well as you put it,
Open Unix's not Linux, but you could never tell that from the way they've labelled it. They are attempting to live in the shade of Linux's good reputation. This is why trademark law allows trademark holders fairly broad rights. If a competitor is allowed to use the name, they'll put it to work in their own interest, not in the interest of customers who depend on the name to mean something: in this case, Linux.
Linux is a trademark, however, so I hope that the owner has some success enforcing it against a clear "theft" (not of the name, of the reputation) that Caldera is attempting.
It was not till exploits started being written, and even further after there were some major epidemics, that unix admins and programmers tightened up on security. (sendmail? ftpd? bind? sheesh!)
Did Microsoft learn anything from these previous incidents? Yes, but very little. The greater cost of cleaning up Microsoft software reflects the widespread use of it by relatively clueless lusrs. But this widespread use means that "total cost" gets spread across a bunch more people. Was the disruption disproportionate to the laxity that Windows sys admins and Microsoft programmers had showed immediately prior to this incident? No, it was a bargain. And trust me, the cost of Code Red cleanup is a bigger bargain if it means that people will wake up to the importance of security in the future.
Right now in the wake of the dot-com collapse, an outbreak of Code Red means we can't get our email for a day or something. But when we are truly dependent on the net in the future it is imperative that we are ready and history shows us that we would not be without a few swift kicks in the pants like this. As I mentioned in another post, I don't think Richard Smith is sophisticated enough to be a leader on issues like this.
So, anyway, Richard Smith, this supposed privacy guru, it turns out happily uses this very same toll system! Despite its obvious privacy problems, he can't be bothered to wait a few seconds a day to pay cash. Not only that, but he shows up in public forums letting us all know how he feels.
Now, on a security list (he is CTO after all, woo woo!) he is now praising Microsoft's security policies...?
Ya know, Stallman can be incredibly annoying. But, when it comes to a public figure like this, his "purity" is somewhat reassuring. I think Richard Smith is probably a nice and smart guy, and he's entitled to his opinion... but CTO of the Privacy Foundation is also how he's "entitled" and if you ask me, he loses credibility all the time. So what? Well, he dimishes the causes of privacy and security as he sinks.
so what? Roughly speaking, if IP worked like the free market, drug companies would obviously spend the same percentage of their revenue as other industries. Remember, there's no free lunch. The fact that they spend more indicates that they think the risk of losing the investment is lower. This is because the IP they own guarantees them a protected monopoly and inordinate. Any real free marketeer will tell you: monopoly is a Bad Thing. There is no exception in free market theory that says monopoly is good.
----
agreed... but it's that human nature we were talking about... :)
----
also, the number of emails processed increases the probability of infection, spread, etc. for the above class of people, they spend much more time at work on a computer than they do at home.
----
----
now, some of the actions, many even, taken by the government were wrong. but "mistakes were made" because our government agencies are staffed by humans who were fallible. there is no government policy to persecute followers of particular religions. after Waco, there were hearings and an investigation in an attempt to get at the truth. did we get at the truth? did the right people get punished? probably not.
Why? there's no magic: we have not repealed human nature. there are mistakes and there is corruption everywhere there are humans. But there is less corruption here than in china, and there is no government policy to persecute religious people of any faith.
In China, there is, and not just armed dangerous fringe religions, but pacifist movements with enormous followings.
----
Sample size is a more complex question. Remember this, though: sample size is independent of population size. When flipping a coin, 15 flips (samples) will tell you with a great deal of certainty whether the coin is "fair". It does not matter how many "coin flips there are in the population" (infinite? :). If gamers were selected at random, 100 could be way more than enough. In fact, 35 could be plenty. Depends on how many degrees of freedom...
----
it's very different. Under US law it is illegal to call for the violent overthrow of the government. It is not illegal to call for elections or to say the the elections we've had are tainted. It is illegal to do those things in China. See the difference? Of course you do. You could see the difference before you even posted. So why did you post? troll? nitwit? who knows.
"Authorities closely monitor Web site content in search for buzzwords such as Taiwan, Tibet and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, Web executives say." Yeah? Well, the Echolon system and the NSA and CIA closely monitor *ALL* electronic traffic in search for buzzwords such as bomb, C4, Bill Clinton etc.
Once again, here you can post messages about C4 or the Falun Gong (you just did) and not actually get arrested or tortured. The government may scan, but would be because it is looking for actual criminals committing actual crimes (as in part A above). There is no religion that you could write about here in the US that would get you sentenced and or tortured. But Falun Gong and Lamaism are two religions that will get you imprisoned in China. Too bad we don't have a law here against asking seemingly provocative but in reality inane questions: troll or not, you'd be going down. Oh well, we'll leave laws like that to the Chinese.
----
----
First, where exactly is the strawman?
where I quoted you you criticizing "relig[ious]" people as being as likely to be corrupt as any. That's a rather broad category so I gave the example of Christians. Christians do not claim to be less corrupt. The exact opposite in fact. Christians claim to all (with the sometime exception of Mary) be sinners. So, your attack is attacking a claim that Christians do not make: that's the definition of a strawman.
Christianity ... is about trying to be the best person you can...
I don't want to quibble this to death; I don't find the whole subject that interesting, and I'm not even a Christian. However, I do appreciate accuracy and you are not being accurate.
Christianity is only about accepting Jesus Christ as the savior, and confessing your own sins and asking forgiveness of God. To convey the spirit, allow me to embellish slightly what you said to convey how I read it and would change it: it is specifically not an egotistical pursuit of being the "best"; it is closer to a humble acceptance of imperfection and weakness.
forgiveness is not unconditional, it is always predicated on an attempt to do better.
Absolution from confessed sins from God is predicated on genuine sorrow with a wish to better, but the Christian duty to forgive sin in others is not predicated on any such earnestness on the sinner's part. The biggest challenge for a Christian is forgiving those who are not sorry, just as Jesus forgave those who put him to death. "forgive them Lord, they know not what they do"
um... ever hear, "judge not lest ye be judged"? My suggestion that you would do well to be more forgiving (as Christians should also be) of the failings of others is not ad hominem but referred specifically to this tendency of yours to denigrate Christians (among all religious people) in this public forum. Whether you then go offline and forgive them, I do not know. If you are claiming that you do, I think that's great.
----
I doubt you hate to prod.
but anyway, I am not a Christian, and never claim to be one. I am an atheist. The person I was admonishing was advocating civil behavior, but I never did. So, where's the hypocrisy? nyah nyah.
----
You are attacking a strawman. Christian teaching says exactly what you do, that people are sinners, where sin is doing stuff like not being civil to other people. Christianity not about being perfect: that is impossible. It is about love, especially through the forgiveness of the sins of others, something you perhaps could work a little harder at...
----
----
i'm no expert on his server, but down 3 days out of a hundred, while not GREAT, would be understandable if the 3 days were in a row while he was otherwise occupied.
What happened?... what do you mean, "what happened?" Don't you know anything? The Cubes were highly vulnerable. The cracks, ok, that was one problem, but the real problem was that they weren't ready for the Enterprise. In use, the Cubes proved to be vulnerable to both Enterprise and Voyager class starships. Finally, I guess they decided that change was necessary.
That should say "you can't copyright data". Patents are totally different, for processes. ok? somebody should trademark this distinction so they can sue people who get it wrong
stuff like that should be "opt in", not "opt out". I shouldn't have to stay current on every pin-headed thing that comes out of Redmond just to stop monopolists from unauthorized munging with my copyrighted creative product. How can we make those assholes pay for all the BS they subject us to?