I ask again.
How exactly did they make it unchangeable?
Eugenics is selective breeding of humans. If you're talking about improving individuals' fitness by modifying their genes directly, that is not eugenics. That's genetic engineering.
Now, you can use breeding to "improve" the human race by selecting for positive traits, or against negative ones. Of course, that means someone has to decide (usually not you) what is "positive" and "negative" in your genetic makeup. Some genes that cause or contribute to disease have been identified, but beyond that we really have no idea what traits are matched up with what genes, and by recombination there is a good chance you will lose "positive" traits or gain "negative" traits in mating a subject with another person who has other "positive" traits you are trying to select for.
Evolution works by natural selection to form a "fitness landscape." There are no "good" or "bad" genes in nature, there are just genes that aid or inhibit fertility in a given environment, or are neutral.
What this comes down to is, do you get to choose for yourself whether you want to have children, and with whom? You can leave it up to eugenicists, but there is no scientific basis for the selection they will be doing. Essentially they will just choose what they like and don't like, and even then the offspring will be something of a mixed bag. If you get to choose for yourself, well, people already do that in selecting a mate. They look for traits they consider positive, they don't need a eugenicist's help.
You really should read up on the history of eugenics, you might change your tune. It's one of those ideas that sounds good in principle, but it doesn't work and someone inevitably abuses the power it bestows.
We're not talking about some offshoot of the movement that got off track, we're talking about the founders of the movement, who defined what it's about. It's about deciding for other people what their genetic heritage should be.
You can defend it as a positive idea in the abstract all you want, but in practice it will never work. As a science, a philosophy, and as a political movement, Eugenics is fundamentally flawed. I agree with Capt. Reynolds when he said "sooner or later, they will come back around to the idea that they can make people 'better.' And I just don't hold to that."
> There's nothing in eugenics that says you have to prevent the unfit from reproducing.
Yes, there is. It's the branch called "negative eugenics," and not only did many American eugenicists support it, they actually succeeded in getting American citizens sterilized.
Seriously, check out the book. There was a lot going on at Cold Spring Harbor well before the Nazis took up the mantle.
Eugenics is absurd in its assertion that selective breeding can "improve" people when there is no scientific way to determine which genes are "better" than others, or which genes belong to a "race" or "breed" - categories that are more cultural than biological in humans.
The pre-WW2 eugenics movement had very little to do with genetic science and a lot to do with encouraging the "fit" to reproduce more, or preventing the "unfit" from reproducing so much...as determined by powerful people who assume the right to decide who the "fit" and "unfit" are, of course.
I highly recommend Edwin Black's The War Against the Weak for a detailed look at the sordid history of eugenics. It's one of those ideas that sounds good in theory, but in practice is doomed by corruption to cause suffering.
Tron has a decent plot to it and special effects that are not dated in the same way full-on CGI from that era generally is (except for the Grid Bug part which was full-on CGI).
Not sure what you mean by "full-on" CGI, but pretty much any shot with a vehicle in Tron was entirely CGI.
There's no legal question involved, as the "Four Essential Freedoms" are part of the GNU philosophy, not part of the licensing. They are principles behind "Free Software." If you want to argue that OSS is different from Free Software, that would be fine. Just specify whether it differs in what freedoms it protects or what obligations it imposes.
So, no misunderstanding at all - I am saying that it's NOT wrong to modify and use OSS solely for your own purposes.
If you're making custom software out of your OSS software, you're doing it wrong.
Not at all.
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose is Freedom 0.
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish is Freedom 1.
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others is Freedom 3.
If you are obligated to redistribute your modified version, then it's not a freedom at all, because you have no choice.
What is "You" is both tangible substance, your body, and intangible substance, your "form". ...
You remain You no matter the state of your being.
Actually there's a growing amount of evidence that what you think of as "you" is neither a singular nor consistent thing. The perception that our consciousness is unified and "the same person" throughout life is mostly an illusion.
Y'all remember that Canadian writer who got convicted of getting beat up at the border, Peter Watts?
He wrote a terrific novel called Starfish (you can read it for free here under a CC license) in which a microbe with non-compatible biochemistry is discovered at an ocean-floor volcanic vent. It metabolized sulfur, IIRC, and the concern was that it would out-compete everything at the bottom of our food chain if it got loose on the surface.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
The g in gif comes from the g in graphics, which has a hard g sound and should take on that hard g sound.
I agree in principle (unless I misheard and it's actually "giraffe interchange format") but there's actually no precedent for letters in acronyms taking the sound of their source words.
Think about it: do you pronounce NATO as "nah-to" or SCUBA as "scubba"? WINE as "winneh"? PIN as "pine"?
Whoever delivers the machines the average user need to access the web will define the way that the web pages are developed. Be it HTML 5, Flash, with a WIMP or more likely touch interface.
I keep hoping someone will notice that HTTP is not the only Internet protocol in existence!
HTML has been stretched way beyond its original intent - to deliver static, stateless text-based documents. In the mad rush to push multimedia onto the net, someone decided that the Web browser is the proper platform for delivery of all content, whether it's text, graphics, sound, video, animation, VR, mail, newsgroups, RSS, etc. etc. HTML5 is just the latest symptom of the illness.
When is someone going to notice that not all applications have the same needs? Some need statefulness, some don't. Some need asynchronous streaming, form fields, database querying, error correction, etc. and some don't.
IMHO the Internet needs to recover from Kitchen Sink Syndrome first, then each of these companies can push its own proprietary protocols and applications. If people go for it, great. If not, they can go back to free standards.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone could get the same for one of the first Amiga machines or even the first C64. Fanbois have crazy loyalty even when it makes NO sense for them
Put in perspective - the Apple I is exceedingly rare. There were only a couple hundred made, whereas Commodore sold about 20 million C64s.
The Amiga was released in 1985, and was indeed the dominant GUI of the 80s. We only need to look at mac sales -vs- amiga sales; the amiga sold more units.
I don't know where you're getting your figures, but going by Jeremy Reimer's research, the Amiga didn't approach Mac sales in any single year, let alone cumulative sales. Even if you omit the Mac's head start in 1984 (372,000 units) they still sold almost twice as many units as the Amiga.
I know you're an Amiga fan, but I don't see how you can justify calling it the "dominant GUI of the '80s."
Slashdot Mirror
Eugenics is selective breeding of humans. If you're talking about improving individuals' fitness by modifying their genes directly, that is not eugenics. That's genetic engineering.
Now, you can use breeding to "improve" the human race by selecting for positive traits, or against negative ones. Of course, that means someone has to decide (usually not you) what is "positive" and "negative" in your genetic makeup. Some genes that cause or contribute to disease have been identified, but beyond that we really have no idea what traits are matched up with what genes, and by recombination there is a good chance you will lose "positive" traits or gain "negative" traits in mating a subject with another person who has other "positive" traits you are trying to select for.
Evolution works by natural selection to form a "fitness landscape." There are no "good" or "bad" genes in nature, there are just genes that aid or inhibit fertility in a given environment, or are neutral.
What this comes down to is, do you get to choose for yourself whether you want to have children, and with whom? You can leave it up to eugenicists, but there is no scientific basis for the selection they will be doing. Essentially they will just choose what they like and don't like, and even then the offspring will be something of a mixed bag. If you get to choose for yourself, well, people already do that in selecting a mate. They look for traits they consider positive, they don't need a eugenicist's help.
You really should read up on the history of eugenics, you might change your tune. It's one of those ideas that sounds good in principle, but it doesn't work and someone inevitably abuses the power it bestows.
We're not talking about some offshoot of the movement that got off track, we're talking about the founders of the movement, who defined what it's about. It's about deciding for other people what their genetic heritage should be.
You can defend it as a positive idea in the abstract all you want, but in practice it will never work. As a science, a philosophy, and as a political movement, Eugenics is fundamentally flawed. I agree with Capt. Reynolds when he said "sooner or later, they will come back around to the idea that they can make people 'better.' And I just don't hold to that."
> There's nothing in eugenics that says you have to prevent the unfit from reproducing.
Yes, there is. It's the branch called "negative eugenics," and not only did many American eugenicists support it, they actually succeeded in getting American citizens sterilized.
Seriously, check out the book. There was a lot going on at Cold Spring Harbor well before the Nazis took up the mantle.
Eugenics is absurd in its assertion that selective breeding can "improve" people when there is no scientific way to determine which genes are "better" than others, or which genes belong to a "race" or "breed" - categories that are more cultural than biological in humans.
The pre-WW2 eugenics movement had very little to do with genetic science and a lot to do with encouraging the "fit" to reproduce more, or preventing the "unfit" from reproducing so much...as determined by powerful people who assume the right to decide who the "fit" and "unfit" are, of course.
I highly recommend Edwin Black's The War Against the Weak for a detailed look at the sordid history of eugenics. It's one of those ideas that sounds good in theory, but in practice is doomed by corruption to cause suffering.
You had me at 10. :)
(Not mine, I'd give credit for this one, but can't remember who came up with it...)
> Yes he war dialed, but he also changed his grades, and got into a military computer. Not phreaking
Remember he also recorded the DTMF trigger for the door lock at NORAD, and shorted the mouthpiece wiring on the pay phone to call home.
Not sure what you mean by "full-on" CGI, but pretty much any shot with a vehicle in Tron was entirely CGI.
(The Grid Bugs, IIRC, were cel-animated by hand)
"Oog not know fire really stupid spacetime portal. Now Oog own grandfather!"
A Delta hub?
Yep, you hit the nail on the head. :)
Oh. "Never mind!"
</emilylitella>
There's no legal question involved, as the "Four Essential Freedoms" are part of the GNU philosophy, not part of the licensing. They are principles behind "Free Software." If you want to argue that OSS is different from Free Software, that would be fine. Just specify whether it differs in what freedoms it protects or what obligations it imposes.
So, no misunderstanding at all - I am saying that it's NOT wrong to modify and use OSS solely for your own purposes.
Not at all.
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose is Freedom 0.
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish is Freedom 1.
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others is Freedom 3.
If you are obligated to redistribute your modified version, then it's not a freedom at all, because you have no choice.
Anyone can do it - in fact I'm writing a book to tell you how, it's called "Teach Yourself Autodidactism."
Actually there's a growing amount of evidence that what you think of as "you" is neither a singular nor consistent thing. The perception that our consciousness is unified and "the same person" throughout life is mostly an illusion.
Read Robert Ornstein's Multimind and Tor Nørretranders The User Illusion for a good introduction.
Actually there's a darn good reason. Antiscience seems to be on the rise, along with superstition and anti-intellectualism.
Y'all remember that Canadian writer who got convicted of getting beat up at the border, Peter Watts?
He wrote a terrific novel called Starfish (you can read it for free here under a CC license) in which a microbe with non-compatible biochemistry is discovered at an ocean-floor volcanic vent. It metabolized sulfur, IIRC, and the concern was that it would out-compete everything at the bottom of our food chain if it got loose on the surface.
It's the same amount, but you should be using "pebibytes" and "zebibytes"!
The best way to predict the future is to create it!
Stephen King, dead at 63
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
I agree in principle (unless I misheard and it's actually "giraffe interchange format") but there's actually no precedent for letters in acronyms taking the sound of their source words.
Think about it: do you pronounce NATO as "nah-to" or SCUBA as "scubba"? WINE as "winneh"? PIN as "pine"?
I keep hoping someone will notice that HTTP is not the only Internet protocol in existence!
HTML has been stretched way beyond its original intent - to deliver static, stateless text-based documents. In the mad rush to push multimedia onto the net, someone decided that the Web browser is the proper platform for delivery of all content, whether it's text, graphics, sound, video, animation, VR, mail, newsgroups, RSS, etc. etc. HTML5 is just the latest symptom of the illness.
When is someone going to notice that not all applications have the same needs? Some need statefulness, some don't. Some need asynchronous streaming, form fields, database querying, error correction, etc. and some don't.
IMHO the Internet needs to recover from Kitchen Sink Syndrome first, then each of these companies can push its own proprietary protocols and applications. If people go for it, great. If not, they can go back to free standards.
Isn't Brazil the country where they have a giant statue of Jesus looking down on a beach full of topless women wearing butt-floss bikini bottoms??
Put in perspective - the Apple I is exceedingly rare. There were only a couple hundred made, whereas Commodore sold about 20 million C64s.
I don't know where you're getting your figures, but going by Jeremy Reimer's research, the Amiga didn't approach Mac sales in any single year, let alone cumulative sales. Even if you omit the Mac's head start in 1984 (372,000 units) they still sold almost twice as many units as the Amiga.
I know you're an Amiga fan, but I don't see how you can justify calling it the "dominant GUI of the '80s."