He was neither an exceptional genius and phropet, nor was he arrogant, careless about jumping to conclusions, or an atheist.
I have to disagree abouot the "exceptional genius" part. Genius is as genius does. He didn't just stumble into the whole thing, he created an entire science out of whole cloth nearly by himself. If that's not genius, then I don't know what is.
The guy is/was NOT: 100% right about a LOT of things.
Newton's real passion was Alchemy and hidden messages in the Bible Text ; that doesn't make him less of a genius.
Ever hear of places such as Afghanistan and Iraq? Apparently not!
And funny enough, the Afghanis are still in charge of Afghanistan, and the Iraqis are in charge in Iraq. And also funny enough, we've spent enormous amounts of our own resources fixing up those countries. But maybe I missed the news where we added those countries as new states in the Union. Yeah, exactly like Hitler, there.
Whoa, again! I suppose you haven't heard of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and the other detention centres (camps, if you will) where inmates were systematically tortured and killed.
"Systematically" tortured and killed? Yes, there was a limited prison scandal. No, we don't have an official policy of putting people in ovens. No, we didn't go around rounding up anyone who looked like an Arab for extermination.
This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You apparently have zero sense of proportion.
It is hypocritical and ignorant for you to suggest that those who experienced it firsthand are incorrect when they correctly point out history repeating itself.
Hypocritical? Ignorant maybe, but I don't understand what hypocracy has do with anything.
But regardless, no, they are completely incorrect when they point out that history is repeating itself. It is simply stupid to believe that Bush is going to suspend the constitution, set up a fascist dictatorship, and then start invading other countries to expand US territory while putting races of people he doesn't like into concentration camps to be exterminated. It is STUPID to believe that the Patriot Act is even in the same universe is what Hitler did. It is STUPID to believe that because Bush went too far with domestic spying (and I do think he want too far), that it somehow means that Bush is setting up a vast conspiracy to spy on normal American citizens not directly related to terrorism.
I don't care what they might've suffered in WW/II to make them believe this, just like I don't care why Christians don't want to believe in Evolution (though I do actually understand the latter), both are flat-out wrong, and aren't thinking rationally. But again, there are TONS of things that people don't think rationally about. I know there are things I'm not particularly rational about (though, I'm a lot more rational than anyone I know, but I'm rational enough to know that I can't be rational about everything).
Here's an even bigger shock: approval is a multidimensional function. If you completely approval of Bush, then you're dumb and ignorant. If you completely DISapproval of Bush, then you're dumb and ignorant.
I recently read this article about a guy who is doing exactly the opposite. It's just infuriating. I'm tempted to call it child abuse in some form or another, though the rational part of me reminds myself that it really doesn't matter that much. People believe all sorts of nonsensical things, yet manage to continue functioning. I mean, honestly, believing or not believing in evolution doesn't really affect that many things.
Evolution leading to complex organisms is at least tricky to understand . How about the idiots who, for example, think Bush is comparable to Hitler? That's just as stupid as not believing in evolution, or believing the earth is flat, or whatever. We're surrounded every day by idiots who believe in bizarre things.
What I find amusing about that article I liked above, though, is the guy is teaching kids to doubt evolution on the basis that they weren't there to see it. Is that what he really wants to be teaching the kids? To doubt what they can't see for themselves?:D
Because I don't buy into the mindless "SUVs are eeeeevil" urban legend. It's an easy target by people who have no idea exactly where the true problems lie.
Now consider that the number of small(er) businesses is incredibly high compared to the number of huge publically traded corporations.
I don't think you realize just how many small businesses fail. The death rate for startups is that 90% fail within three years. Unless you think 450 of the Fortune 500 are going to fail within three years, I think it's safe to say that larger businesses are a bit more stable than that.
That's because huge publicly traded corporations rarely go out of business. Usually they get bought out instead. Just another type of failure.
Not all buyouts are because of failure, in fact, I'd say that's relatively rare. Usually you do have one that's stronger than the other. Neither AOL nor Time Warner were on the edge of bankruptcy, though AOL was especially strong because of the Internet bubble, and Time Warner was a bit down. The AT&T and Verizon merger wasn't because one was failing. Same with Daimler / Chrysler.
In fact, I'm trying to think of a recent case were a large company sold out or merged to stave off bankruptcy. I'm sure it's happened, but it's not coming to mind. SGI is certainly on the brink of that.
Actually, 8 or 10 years ago I read a study by some economist (whose name I've forgotten) that tackled exactly this topic. It was a large "data dredging" study to determine what company characteristics were correlated with longevity.
I'd have to see that study to believe it. The failure rate for small businesses is incredibly high. It happens so often that we don't even blink at it. However, when a huge publically traded corporation fails, it's big news.
But proprietary widget vendors cannot guarantee they'll be in business either, so it's not an argument in favor of either open source or proprietary. It's not relevant to deciding which is better.
Come on. Which is more likely to be in business in five years, Home Depot, or Joe's Contractor Shack?
It's all about probabilities. Microsoft has a FAR higher probability of being around in five years than, say, Red Hat, which is the strongest player. How about Debian? Who knows? Manager Man sure the hell doesn't, and frankly neither does the OSS community.
That's why the whole "but the source will never die!!" arguments come up in the first place. The paid companies are so small that it makes people nervous.
Too bad IBM doesn't come out with their IBM-branded distribution that they promise to support forever. That would solve a lot of these problems. I'm not sure what kind of promises they make now on behalf of their Linux partners.
To be honest, you're not really thinking like a businessman, you're thinking like a programmer.
You don't say "Home Depot" may go out of business in 5 years, and then use it as a reason that you will no longer be able to buy 2x4s.
That's because Home Depot doesn't support the 2x4s for the foreseeable future. A better analogy is using them for their contractor services -- if anything goes wrong with your floor installation, you know Home Depot will be around to complain to.
Open source. If push comes to shove, hire a person or two to fix what needs to be fixed, even if Torvalds is gored to death by angry reindeer.
OSS advocates bring this up a lot, but what a business person hears when this is said is, "Yeah, they're admitting this business will gone in a couple years, and then I'll have to go into the software business, and I don't freaking WANT to be in the software business. I want to sell my widgets. I'll go with someone that won't force me to be in the operating system business."
Business types understand business, which comes down to money. If you want them to buy into something, then express how it either saves money, or produces more money. If you can't make that case, then maybe your argument isn't as strong as you think.
Hmmm, it's interesting that this isn't more common knowledge, especially when it's so commonly said that, "my kids are going to drive me to an early death.":)
I wonder if this same pattern emerges in other cultures. That would help to account for environmental factors that might have an influence.
This is so easy to test that it's easy to disprove. If the baby cells "protected" the mother, then statistically mothers should live longer than childless woman. Since that's never been observed (and I'm sure someone has looked at the stats, it's such an easy study), this can't be true.
I suspect these so-called "scientists" who are proposing this aren't really all that high in the scientific food chain.
But most of the youth I've spoken to who are in the music or software industries are planning on seeing the end of copywrite law. What seems like youthful idealism now, if pursued, could be the political reality of the future.
The problem is that "most youth" in this case are motivated by greed -- they want to download software and music without paying.
This attitude tends to change once they get out in the real world and create something of value, and (gasp!) actually want to profit from their labors.
I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable.
I wonder if he would agree with, "I no longer endorse Free Software. I cannot endorse Free Software as a shole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable."
Of course, he would never say that, because he would say, "well, any license I disagree with is by definition not Free Software". Well, if the issue is confusion as he claims, there are lots of licenses that people think of as "free" that he would think really aren't. So by his own reasoning, if there is any confusion by people, then one should immediately throw out all babies with all bathwater.
In the eyes of a person willing to strap a bomb on their body and self-detonate in a shopping mall, none of the people they maim or kill are innocent. In the eyes of many U.S. soldiers and leaders, few (if any) of the civilians they've killed are innocent.
I need to get out of this conversation, because I'm getting too irritated, but to think that the US soldiers and leaders feel that none of the civilians they've killed were innocent is just idiotical prejudice against the military. Yeah, they're just all monsters who don't care how many people they kill. In fact, they enjoy killing!
Gah, I'm out of here. I knew I shouldn't have posted. There is a class of people who don't understand the military, don't want to understand the military, and think they're all terrorists in a different uniform. It's just so f***ing stupid! --must resist urge to post more--
or number 3, you know, when they just kill people that really are innocent and had nothing to do with the terrorists, and believe me, it happens all of the time, and if you don't think so, then you're deluded.
I'm sure it does happen. The question, however, is intent. Terrorists intend to kill innocent people.
What's the difference between the U.S. Army and the Terrorists? The U.S. Army has better funding and organization.
Oh, please. What crapola.
The difference between the US Army and the Terrorists is that the US Army targets the bad guys, while Terrorists target people at random (hence the name "terrorist" -- they want people to feel fear, so they'll pressure political leaders to do what the terrorists want).
If the US Army happens to kill innocents, there are two reason:
1) The terrorists hide among innocent people, thereby endangering their own people. IOW, it's the terrorists fault.
2) The "innocents" know about the terrorists, yet do nothing. Therefore, it's their own fault.
One is Gonzalo Frasca's "September 12," in which players shoot missiles at terrorists in a small village. The fun quickly turns political, however, as villagers mourning friends and relatives accidentally killed by the missiles morph into terrorists themselves. The message, clearly, is to think about consequences.
Maybe it would be better to realize that this "message" is totally and completely racist, bigoted and prejudiced. Of course, all of "them" are ticking immoral, barbarian time bombs ready to turn into terrorists that blow up innocent children. Better not make 'em mad. Because, you know, "they" are all the same.
You didn't say "economically viable". You said "popular".
I said both, and made the point that the two are tied together. Refusing to understand my point doesn't make it less valid.
NASCAR and football are popular, but I'd rather rearrange my sock drawer than watch that stuff.
Again, it's totally irrelevent what you as an individual care about. What matters is what people care about statistically when it comes to making a viable sport. If you have enough people who care and are willing to pay, then you have a viable sport.
Also don't make the mistake of thinking that something is bad just because you don't understand it.
Did you even bother to look at the pictures? They ARE airplanes...with rocket engines. But you're the Reality Master, so those facts probably don't have much to do with your judgement, right?
They're not airplanes as such; they're rockets with wings. If you actually read the web site (as I have), rather than just look at the pictures, they use use a combination of rocket power and gliding, the gliding presumably used for the actual turns. In other words, drag racing.
The Reality Master doesn't claim to be always right, but the Reality Master is dedicated to objective analysis without wishful thinking. I fail to see why rocket racing will succeed when airplane racing hasn't (to any great extent, the occasional race show notwithstanding).
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I have to disagree abouot the "exceptional genius" part. Genius is as genius does. He didn't just stumble into the whole thing, he created an entire science out of whole cloth nearly by himself. If that's not genius, then I don't know what is.
The guy is/was NOT: 100% right about a LOT of things.
Newton's real passion was Alchemy and hidden messages in the Bible Text ; that doesn't make him less of a genius.
And funny enough, the Afghanis are still in charge of Afghanistan, and the Iraqis are in charge in Iraq. And also funny enough, we've spent enormous amounts of our own resources fixing up those countries. But maybe I missed the news where we added those countries as new states in the Union. Yeah, exactly like Hitler, there.
Whoa, again! I suppose you haven't heard of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and the other detention centres (camps, if you will) where inmates were systematically tortured and killed.
"Systematically" tortured and killed? Yes, there was a limited prison scandal. No, we don't have an official policy of putting people in ovens. No, we didn't go around rounding up anyone who looked like an Arab for extermination.
This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You apparently have zero sense of proportion.
Actually, the beliefs about SUVs DO make my point, but not how you think.
Hypocritical? Ignorant maybe, but I don't understand what hypocracy has do with anything.
But regardless, no, they are completely incorrect when they point out that history is repeating itself. It is simply stupid to believe that Bush is going to suspend the constitution, set up a fascist dictatorship, and then start invading other countries to expand US territory while putting races of people he doesn't like into concentration camps to be exterminated. It is STUPID to believe that the Patriot Act is even in the same universe is what Hitler did. It is STUPID to believe that because Bush went too far with domestic spying (and I do think he want too far), that it somehow means that Bush is setting up a vast conspiracy to spy on normal American citizens not directly related to terrorism.
I don't care what they might've suffered in WW/II to make them believe this, just like I don't care why Christians don't want to believe in Evolution (though I do actually understand the latter), both are flat-out wrong, and aren't thinking rationally. But again, there are TONS of things that people don't think rationally about. I know there are things I'm not particularly rational about (though, I'm a lot more rational than anyone I know, but I'm rational enough to know that I can't be rational about everything).
Here's an even bigger shock: approval is a multidimensional function. If you completely approval of Bush, then you're dumb and ignorant. If you completely DISapproval of Bush, then you're dumb and ignorant.
Evolution leading to complex organisms is at least tricky to understand . How about the idiots who, for example, think Bush is comparable to Hitler? That's just as stupid as not believing in evolution, or believing the earth is flat, or whatever. We're surrounded every day by idiots who believe in bizarre things.
What I find amusing about that article I liked above, though, is the guy is teaching kids to doubt evolution on the basis that they weren't there to see it. Is that what he really wants to be teaching the kids? To doubt what they can't see for themselves? :D
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOGERM!
Because I don't buy into the mindless "SUVs are eeeeevil" urban legend. It's an easy target by people who have no idea exactly where the true problems lie.
I don't think you realize just how many small businesses fail. The death rate for startups is that 90% fail within three years. Unless you think 450 of the Fortune 500 are going to fail within three years, I think it's safe to say that larger businesses are a bit more stable than that.
Not all buyouts are because of failure, in fact, I'd say that's relatively rare. Usually you do have one that's stronger than the other. Neither AOL nor Time Warner were on the edge of bankruptcy, though AOL was especially strong because of the Internet bubble, and Time Warner was a bit down. The AT&T and Verizon merger wasn't because one was failing. Same with Daimler / Chrysler.
In fact, I'm trying to think of a recent case were a large company sold out or merged to stave off bankruptcy. I'm sure it's happened, but it's not coming to mind. SGI is certainly on the brink of that.
I'd have to see that study to believe it. The failure rate for small businesses is incredibly high. It happens so often that we don't even blink at it. However, when a huge publically traded corporation fails, it's big news.
Come on. Which is more likely to be in business in five years, Home Depot, or Joe's Contractor Shack?
It's all about probabilities. Microsoft has a FAR higher probability of being around in five years than, say, Red Hat, which is the strongest player. How about Debian? Who knows? Manager Man sure the hell doesn't, and frankly neither does the OSS community.
That's why the whole "but the source will never die!!" arguments come up in the first place. The paid companies are so small that it makes people nervous.
Too bad IBM doesn't come out with their IBM-branded distribution that they promise to support forever. That would solve a lot of these problems. I'm not sure what kind of promises they make now on behalf of their Linux partners.
You don't say "Home Depot" may go out of business in 5 years, and then use it as a reason that you will no longer be able to buy 2x4s.
That's because Home Depot doesn't support the 2x4s for the foreseeable future. A better analogy is using them for their contractor services -- if anything goes wrong with your floor installation, you know Home Depot will be around to complain to.
Open source. If push comes to shove, hire a person or two to fix what needs to be fixed, even if Torvalds is gored to death by angry reindeer.
OSS advocates bring this up a lot, but what a business person hears when this is said is, "Yeah, they're admitting this business will gone in a couple years, and then I'll have to go into the software business, and I don't freaking WANT to be in the software business. I want to sell my widgets. I'll go with someone that won't force me to be in the operating system business."
Business types understand business, which comes down to money. If you want them to buy into something, then express how it either saves money, or produces more money. If you can't make that case, then maybe your argument isn't as strong as you think.
I wonder if this same pattern emerges in other cultures. That would help to account for environmental factors that might have an influence.
I suspect these so-called "scientists" who are proposing this aren't really all that high in the scientific food chain.
The problem is that "most youth" in this case are motivated by greed -- they want to download software and music without paying.
This attitude tends to change once they get out in the real world and create something of value, and (gasp!) actually want to profit from their labors.
I wonder if he would agree with, "I no longer endorse Free Software. I cannot endorse Free Software as a shole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable."
Of course, he would never say that, because he would say, "well, any license I disagree with is by definition not Free Software". Well, if the issue is confusion as he claims, there are lots of licenses that people think of as "free" that he would think really aren't. So by his own reasoning, if there is any confusion by people, then one should immediately throw out all babies with all bathwater.
I need to get out of this conversation, because I'm getting too irritated, but to think that the US soldiers and leaders feel that none of the civilians they've killed were innocent is just idiotical prejudice against the military. Yeah, they're just all monsters who don't care how many people they kill. In fact, they enjoy killing!
Gah, I'm out of here. I knew I shouldn't have posted. There is a class of people who don't understand the military, don't want to understand the military, and think they're all terrorists in a different uniform. It's just so f***ing stupid! --must resist urge to post more--
I'm sure it does happen. The question, however, is intent. Terrorists intend to kill innocent people.
Oh, please. What crapola.
The difference between the US Army and the Terrorists is that the US Army targets the bad guys, while Terrorists target people at random (hence the name "terrorist" -- they want people to feel fear, so they'll pressure political leaders to do what the terrorists want).
If the US Army happens to kill innocents, there are two reason:
1) The terrorists hide among innocent people, thereby endangering their own people. IOW, it's the terrorists fault.
2) The "innocents" know about the terrorists, yet do nothing. Therefore, it's their own fault.
Maybe it would be better to realize that this "message" is totally and completely racist, bigoted and prejudiced. Of course, all of "them" are ticking immoral, barbarian time bombs ready to turn into terrorists that blow up innocent children. Better not make 'em mad. Because, you know, "they" are all the same.
That was a joke, responding to your attacking my username (which is also a joke) to make your point. -sigh-
You're refusing to argue against the point I'm making, and instead being deliberately obtuse and arguing against what I'm not saying.
Sure, but lots of things have fans. Checker tournaments have fans, but I'd hardly call it a popular sport.
I said both, and made the point that the two are tied together. Refusing to understand my point doesn't make it less valid.
NASCAR and football are popular, but I'd rather rearrange my sock drawer than watch that stuff.
Again, it's totally irrelevent what you as an individual care about. What matters is what people care about statistically when it comes to making a viable sport. If you have enough people who care and are willing to pay, then you have a viable sport.
Also don't make the mistake of thinking that something is bad just because you don't understand it.
Did you even bother to look at the pictures? They ARE airplanes...with rocket engines. But you're the Reality Master, so those facts probably don't have much to do with your judgement, right?
They're not airplanes as such; they're rockets with wings. If you actually read the web site (as I have), rather than just look at the pictures, they use use a combination of rocket power and gliding, the gliding presumably used for the actual turns. In other words, drag racing.
The Reality Master doesn't claim to be always right, but the Reality Master is dedicated to objective analysis without wishful thinking. I fail to see why rocket racing will succeed when airplane racing hasn't (to any great extent, the occasional race show notwithstanding).