Is there any particular reason why it's a good idea to put Linux on an XBox? Aside from the kewl factor, I'd rather just go get a $300 PC and put Linux on that. Far more suitable to tinkering.
Point taken - what I was trying to say is that eventually everyone's views boil down to some fundamental assumptions or beliefs, and that though you can argue with the person, you're not likely to change his or her mind on those points. For rational individuals though, reason underlies everything else, and you can start there; but to argue effectively you still need to agree on the facts involved.
While the physical means of recording the vote can matter (Florida), I think it's more important, and potentially much more useful, to explore more rational algorithms for casting votes.
Our current system uses the plurality vote, which just means you cast one vote (only) for one candidate. This method is simplistic and extremely inaccurate because it doesn't take into account second choices. The result is to encourage people to only vote for front runners, which artificially props up the two major parties.
There are several better methods:
Approval voting, where you cast one vote for every candidate you approve of, and the results are added up;
The Borda count, where you rank the candidates in order of preference;
The Condorcet method, similar to Borda but the results are counted differently.
Each of these methods is statistically superior to the plurality vote, and they're already in use. Changing the voting system is a state issue (the Constitution doesn't specify) and can be accomplished in each state with a simple statute.
Id like to start out by saying right/wrong is NOT the same as legal/illegal.
The problem with that argument is that people don't agree on what's right. Osama bin Laden thinks it's right to kill any and all Americans. I disagree. Since our individual views of right and wrong cannot be *reasonably and logically* challenged, we can't have a useful discussion. It's as if you decided that you no longer accepted a basic axiom in simple math, like transitivity - in that case you'd be hard pressed to get someone else to accept your solution to a given problem.
The law is necessarily an *approximation* of what most of us think is right, but it's the standard to which we agree to hold our interaction, and the basis of our public discussion. Your statement above is correct, but useless in this context. You must agree on the terms before you can expect to be understood.
So are you arguing that the law should be changed (in which case there are ways to do so), or that a reasonably representative and just government should not be allowed to enforce a given law on someone who happens not to agree? I hope the former.
Back to the topic: I take reasonable steps to protect my personal information, but I have more important things to worry about than the potential for its abuse. I trust the government to the extent that I trust the people around me, which is to say that I prefer to trust them until given credible evidence that I shouldn't. *Of course* there are those (a minority IMHO) that would abuse it; but I mistrust paranoid people more. My experience has been that people tend to see themselves in everyone else.
Funny how individuals who choose to organize into corporations get to avoid individual responsibility for the corporation's actions. But then that's the whole point of a corporation, right? To avoid liability. "Free association" has nothing to do with it.
I agree with the original reply. Show me where, given a government with a monopoly and a corporation with the same monopoly, the government will abuse it to a greater degree than the corporation, and you might have a case. I have at least SOME say in what the government does; I prefer that my right to vote be guaranteed by the Constitution rather than my portfolio, thank you very much.
I for one I am glad Dell is dropping floppy drives. This is one step towards reducing their ubiquity; and when they're no longer ubiquitous they're no longer required, and maybe more productive uses can be made of the space, weight, materials and money formerly devoted to floppy drives. This is not much of an issue on a desktop machine, but the change is great for laptops - just imagine all the cool stuff laptop makers can pack into the space formerly reserved for floppy drives.
Sure I can pull it out and put something else in, but I'd rather not have paid for something I'm not going to use (no I don't need a boot disk - I have Knoppix and a custom bootable CD).
So what if it doesn't scale? Imagine a (Beowulf!) cluster of these driven by a single nuclear boiler. More drag, but this might be compensated for by the higher efficiency.
When you choose compact cassette, you are also buying into a vast infrastructure of capabilities, services and support. These include the availability of cheap cassettes on every high street, cheap personal stereos, and the ability to use the same format for a wide range of applications (personal stereo, portable radio/cassette players, in the car, in your hi-fi stack).
It seems to me there's a chicken-and-egg issue here. Are the products "superior" because more people like them, or do more people like them because they're superior? This guy is arguing that besides technical aspects, there are other factors that enter into a consumer's buying decision (duh!), and that one of those is the existing level of acceptance and support of the product in the market (ie, availability). But he also says that the products aren't superior anyway.
Despite the author's anecdotal "evidence" disputing the technical superiority of the items in question, there are cases where a given product has been proven to be technically superior through rigorous studies (see my sig) but still failed, usually because the inferior product was first to market and became entrenched. And even in cases where the products were introduced around the same time, other factors such as marketing budgets can make or break a product.
So my question is, "Is this a good thing?". It seems to me that if we care about improvement in technology, we should work to reduce the inertia in the system, and eliminate factors that ought not be relevant. This article is meaningless in that context, since it doesn't address this question.
What's to stop a group of crackers from ranking each other highly? I thought the whole point of CA's is that you already trust them, and that trust gets extended to cover entities verified by them. I'm not sure I would trust a certificate "authenticated" by anonymous users.
1) It's a PITA to read through all the legalese in a typical EULA, and this discourages people from doing so;
2) Most users aren't lawyers, and many probably don't trust their own judgment when it comes to evaluating what the real-world effects of an EULA are.
There seems to be an opportunity here. I'd like to see an organization that reviews the EULA's for widespread software titles, and gives them a simple rating according to useful criteria. The rating process could be done by a panel of lawyers or other informed independent individuals. I might even subscribe to such a service, if it were painless to quickly check the rating and block the installation of poorly-rated software.
After a quick read through the manual I'm left unconvinced - it really only addresses text editing, and to me it doesn't sound easier even for that. I'm pretty good with a mouse - the only thing I want is for keyboard makers to put the numeric keypad and other junk on the left so the mouse is closer to my right hand.
Don't get me wrong - I'm perfectly willing to relearn my work habits for the sake of efficiency (see my sig), but so far this guy hasn't convinced me he's onto anything revolutionary.
It occurred to me that part of their business plan is to make money by collecting interest on the money players have put into the game.
More questions: Since in-game money is, in effect, real money, couldn't a character set up in-game financial companies (banks, insurance, etc)? If so, wouldn't be these be regulatable by real-world governments (Swedish)?
I agree completely. Everything else I've used (ASP, Java, VB 6.0, COBOL, C, n scripting langs) sucks donkey balls compared to.NET, especially ASP.NET and ADO.NET.
From the article: Some researchers are also working on more efficient solar cells and methane-powered fuel cells. Does that mean I have to fart into the laptop to recharge it? Hmmm...this could be an excuse to drink beer at work...
I use the Dvorak keyboard layout, and my wife doesn't. When I'm not glued to my laptop we share a desktop machine and tend to switch often. It has a DvortyBoard, which is hardwired to switch between the two layouts with a keypress, and is dual-labeled, but the dual labeling is confusing to my wife because she looks at the keys. Something like this would be a godsend for her.
Reading this quickly, I thought it was asking about the effect of the Patriot Act on libertarians... but then I thought, "this is Slashdot...everyone already knows the answer to that!";)
As an avid player of Irish dance music and a Linux user, this is particularly interesting to me. Doolin is (has been?) known for its thriving traditional music scene, though the word's been out for a while now... Anyway I'm going back there in late October, but this Linux shindig will be over by then:(
One other thing: Doolin is just up the road from Ennis, which had a project back in the late 90's to wire the whole town for broadband, IIRC. Don't really know how it turned out.
Avoiding the issue of intellectual property, there are valid reasons not to own things you "buy". As pointed out in this book, having a system where the manufacturer retains ownership of the raw materials would have some positive effects on how things are designed, the biggest of which is that manufacturers would have a real incentive to design things to be taken apart and recycled in a closed-loop flow of materials. Currently, when you buy a product, you are not only responsible for its use but its disposal, leading to an inefficient, environmentally destructive cradle-to-grave mentality.
See this page for a good debunking of the Fable of the Keys article. Basically their whole analysis was biased from the start and logically flawed (circular logic, etc.).
This is something that's irked me for a while, since I switched over to the Dvorak keyboard layout (see sig for link to more info). The Dvorak layout is more efficient for typing English text than the standard Qwerty layout, but never succeeded due to market inertia.
Would it bother you if somebody could just take that paper and get an A too?
I agree that this is an inaccurate analogy. I don't have the ability to sell millions of copies of my A paper and collect royalties not commensurate with the effort I put into it.
Even if I could, what about all A minus papers, who'd be locked out of all that moola? The system as it is set up right now discriminates against small and non-mainstream artists.
I suggest boycotting popular music, at least the major labels. C'mon, it's not THAT good. I've heard lots of unknowns who are as good IMHO as the big names.
Another thing not mentioned in the article is the memory's capacity. Is this thing only going to be available in a 16MB module at first, or will I be able to get a 1GB module? Inquiring minds want to know.
Slashdot Mirror
I just signed up for Speakeasy since DirecTV Broadband went out of business. Now I guess I'm screwed again. THANKS A LOT FCC! Jerks.
Is there any particular reason why it's a good idea to put Linux on an XBox? Aside from the kewl factor, I'd rather just go get a $300 PC and put Linux on that. Far more suitable to tinkering.
Point taken - what I was trying to say is that eventually everyone's views boil down to some fundamental assumptions or beliefs, and that though you can argue with the person, you're not likely to change his or her mind on those points. For rational individuals though, reason underlies everything else, and you can start there; but to argue effectively you still need to agree on the facts involved.
Our current system uses the plurality vote, which just means you cast one vote (only) for one candidate. This method is simplistic and extremely inaccurate because it doesn't take into account second choices. The result is to encourage people to only vote for front runners, which artificially props up the two major parties.
There are several better methods:
Each of these methods is statistically superior to the plurality vote, and they're already in use. Changing the voting system is a state issue (the Constitution doesn't specify) and can be accomplished in each state with a simple statute.
For more info, see the following links:
ElectionMethods.org
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/068voting/
http://www.discover.com/nov_00/gthere.html?articl
Id like to start out by saying right/wrong is NOT the same as legal/illegal.
The problem with that argument is that people don't agree on what's right. Osama bin Laden thinks it's right to kill any and all Americans. I disagree. Since our individual views of right and wrong cannot be *reasonably and logically* challenged, we can't have a useful discussion. It's as if you decided that you no longer accepted a basic axiom in simple math, like transitivity - in that case you'd be hard pressed to get someone else to accept your solution to a given problem.
The law is necessarily an *approximation* of what most of us think is right, but it's the standard to which we agree to hold our interaction, and the basis of our public discussion. Your statement above is correct, but useless in this context. You must agree on the terms before you can expect to be understood.
So are you arguing that the law should be changed (in which case there are ways to do so), or that a reasonably representative and just government should not be allowed to enforce a given law on someone who happens not to agree? I hope the former.
Back to the topic: I take reasonable steps to protect my personal information, but I have more important things to worry about than the potential for its abuse. I trust the government to the extent that I trust the people around me, which is to say that I prefer to trust them until given credible evidence that I shouldn't. *Of course* there are those (a minority IMHO) that would abuse it; but I mistrust paranoid people more. My experience has been that people tend to see themselves in everyone else.
Funny how individuals who choose to organize into corporations get to avoid individual responsibility for the corporation's actions. But then that's the whole point of a corporation, right? To avoid liability. "Free association" has nothing to do with it.
I agree with the original reply. Show me where, given a government with a monopoly and a corporation with the same monopoly, the government will abuse it to a greater degree than the corporation, and you might have a case. I have at least SOME say in what the government does; I prefer that my right to vote be guaranteed by the Constitution rather than my portfolio, thank you very much.
I for one I am glad Dell is dropping floppy drives. This is one step towards reducing their ubiquity; and when they're no longer ubiquitous they're no longer required, and maybe more productive uses can be made of the space, weight, materials and money formerly devoted to floppy drives. This is not much of an issue on a desktop machine, but the change is great for laptops - just imagine all the cool stuff laptop makers can pack into the space formerly reserved for floppy drives.
Sure I can pull it out and put something else in, but I'd rather not have paid for something I'm not going to use (no I don't need a boot disk - I have Knoppix and a custom bootable CD).
So what if it doesn't scale? Imagine a (Beowulf!) cluster of these driven by a single nuclear boiler. More drag, but this might be compensated for by the higher efficiency.
When you choose compact cassette, you are also buying into a vast infrastructure of capabilities, services and support. These include the availability of cheap cassettes on every high street, cheap personal stereos, and the ability to use the same format for a wide range of applications (personal stereo, portable radio/cassette players, in the car, in your hi-fi stack).
It seems to me there's a chicken-and-egg issue here. Are the products "superior" because more people like them, or do more people like them because they're superior? This guy is arguing that besides technical aspects, there are other factors that enter into a consumer's buying decision (duh!), and that one of those is the existing level of acceptance and support of the product in the market (ie, availability). But he also says that the products aren't superior anyway.
Despite the author's anecdotal "evidence" disputing the technical superiority of the items in question, there are cases where a given product has been proven to be technically superior through rigorous studies (see my sig) but still failed, usually because the inferior product was first to market and became entrenched. And even in cases where the products were introduced around the same time, other factors such as marketing budgets can make or break a product.
So my question is, "Is this a good thing?". It seems to me that if we care about improvement in technology, we should work to reduce the inertia in the system, and eliminate factors that ought not be relevant. This article is meaningless in that context, since it doesn't address this question.
What's to stop a group of crackers from ranking each other highly? I thought the whole point of CA's is that you already trust them, and that trust gets extended to cover entities verified by them. I'm not sure I would trust a certificate "authenticated" by anonymous users.
I think the problems here are that:
1) It's a PITA to read through all the legalese in a typical EULA, and this discourages people from doing so;
2) Most users aren't lawyers, and many probably don't trust their own judgment when it comes to evaluating what the real-world effects of an EULA are.
There seems to be an opportunity here. I'd like to see an organization that reviews the EULA's for widespread software titles, and gives them a simple rating according to useful criteria. The rating process could be done by a panel of lawyers or other informed independent individuals. I might even subscribe to such a service, if it were painless to quickly check the rating and block the installation of poorly-rated software.
After a quick read through the manual I'm left unconvinced - it really only addresses text editing, and to me it doesn't sound easier even for that. I'm pretty good with a mouse - the only thing I want is for keyboard makers to put the numeric keypad and other junk on the left so the mouse is closer to my right hand.
Don't get me wrong - I'm perfectly willing to relearn my work habits for the sake of efficiency (see my sig), but so far this guy hasn't convinced me he's onto anything revolutionary.
It occurred to me that part of their business plan is to make money by collecting interest on the money players have put into the game.
More questions: Since in-game money is, in effect, real money, couldn't a character set up in-game financial companies (banks, insurance, etc)? If so, wouldn't be these be regulatable by real-world governments (Swedish)?
I agree completely. Everything else I've used (ASP, Java, VB 6.0, COBOL, C, n scripting langs) sucks donkey balls compared to .NET, especially ASP.NET and ADO.NET.
From the article:
Some researchers are also working on more efficient solar cells and methane-powered fuel cells.
Does that mean I have to fart into the laptop to recharge it? Hmmm...this could be an excuse to drink beer at work...
I use the Dvorak keyboard layout, and my wife doesn't. When I'm not glued to my laptop we share a desktop machine and tend to switch often. It has a DvortyBoard, which is hardwired to switch between the two layouts with a keypress, and is dual-labeled, but the dual labeling is confusing to my wife because she looks at the keys. Something like this would be a godsend for her.
Reading this quickly, I thought it was asking about the effect of the Patriot Act on libertarians... but then I thought, "this is Slashdot...everyone already knows the answer to that!" ;)
As an avid player of Irish dance music and a Linux user, this is particularly interesting to me. Doolin is (has been?) known for its thriving traditional music scene, though the word's been out for a while now... Anyway I'm going back there in late October, but this Linux shindig will be over by then :(
One other thing: Doolin is just up the road from Ennis, which had a project back in the late 90's to wire the whole town for broadband, IIRC. Don't really know how it turned out.
Avoiding the issue of intellectual property, there are valid reasons not to own things you "buy". As pointed out in this book, having a system where the manufacturer retains ownership of the raw materials would have some positive effects on how things are designed, the biggest of which is that manufacturers would have a real incentive to design things to be taken apart and recycled in a closed-loop flow of materials. Currently, when you buy a product, you are not only responsible for its use but its disposal, leading to an inefficient, environmentally destructive cradle-to-grave mentality.
See this page for a good debunking of the Fable of the Keys article. Basically their whole analysis was biased from the start and logically flawed (circular logic, etc.).
This is something that's irked me for a while, since I switched over to the Dvorak keyboard layout (see sig for link to more info). The Dvorak layout is more efficient for typing English text than the standard Qwerty layout, but never succeeded due to market inertia.
Somehow I got a free subscription to Road & Track. They also reviewed this in their current issue, and they concluded that iDrive sucks IIRC.
Check out the Street Performer Protocol. Pretty cool idea in my opinion, but will take a critical mass of support and interest to get off the ground.
Would it bother you if somebody could just take that paper and get an A too?
I agree that this is an inaccurate analogy. I don't have the ability to sell millions of copies of my A paper and collect royalties not commensurate with the effort I put into it.
Even if I could, what about all A minus papers, who'd be locked out of all that moola? The system as it is set up right now discriminates against small and non-mainstream artists.
I suggest boycotting popular music, at least the major labels. C'mon, it's not THAT good. I've heard lots of unknowns who are as good IMHO as the big names.
Another suggestion: support alternate funding of artists, for example The Street Performer Protocol.
Another thing not mentioned in the article is the memory's capacity. Is this thing only going to be available in a 16MB module at first, or will I be able to get a 1GB module? Inquiring minds want to know.