"That being said, you may not be able to see the sexism or racism yourself because you haven't sat on but one side of that fence your entire life. The Dutch are a people that are greatly of the same descendance, much more than here persay. And while you say you care about the weaker, have you ever been to a ghetto and seen the situation for yourself? Have you given your time recently? How about your blood?"
as opposed to relying on individual small contributions, our taxes are huge compared to the US. i make sure to vote for the parties that believe in maintaining our social welfare system.
personally, i know people of all kinds of colors, shapes, and sizes, and i never made an issue out of it. i'm not blind to cultural differences, though. in fact, i'm curious about them (i love foreign food;-P ).
as a consequence of our HUGE taxes, we do not have ghetto's, we do not have extreme poverty. there's some poverty, no system is perfect. but please look up the numbers on equality, and be ashamed of anyone boasting about the opportunities in the USA. they are only there for a happy few.
you say in parent post that your comment was adressed at the "world as a society". yet you specifically write in your original post: "This information is a combination of things that us Americans see as private and need things such as subpenas to see". in the context of an atricle about NL, can you understand that this seems to contradict what you say now? and can you understand that this can sound condescending to someone who lives in a very well-developed country that is (in)famous worldwide for its liberal and tolerant attitude?
i don't disagree with you so much, there is potential for abuse (with all of these sytems in general, in fact). racism, etc is all about identification with peers in times of distress. you will see its influence diminish when everybody has enough money.
it's the media and the government screaming "them radical muslims" and then nuancing it slightly afterwards that make people believe terrorism being a racist issue. i dislike these mechanisms as much as you do, but the answer is not to shout similar propaganda from the rooftops, making your favourite point.
the answer is dialog, i believe. mutual acceptance (not merely tolerance). and mutual appreciation. in the end, we could all learn to love each other's differences. it's so easy, in theory.
"Maar probeer dat maar eens aan een amerikaan aan z'n verstand te brengen.:-/"
toch blijven proberen, he;^)
"On the other hand, the netherlands is something like second on the list in terms of how much wiretapping the government does. That's not necessarily a good thing..."
i wonder how we know that NL would be the second on this list. is it because they are, or because they are not being as secretive about the amount of wiretapping they do as compared to some other countries?
"Once you've finished paying off the loan, they'd have no reason to keep any of your personal information (though the records would still be stored on your computer if you want them again, as for another loan)."
banks keep records of all their (former) clients, for administrative purposes. they would never allow this information to be decentralised, unless they'd be legally obliged to do so.
even if they would remove their own records, they'd trust your "PODS" less than thier own. psychology, not reasoning.
funny you should mention the example of bank loans. i don't know how it is in other countries, but in the Netherlands all people with outstanding loans are registered in one central place, where the banks verify if their clients are allowed to borrow more, or whether they have reached their limits. it's a similar idea: by combining information sources into one centralised one abuse has become impossible (in this case, getting high loans at several different banks).
you got them EXACTLY right. it's coupling of existing databases, with several restrictions to make sure the risk for abuse and privacy invasion is as small as possible.
hold your horses, conspiracy theorists! the Netherlands are not a fascist state. they are in fact one of the most, if not the most, liberal countries in the world.
how in heaven's name did you get the impression that the dutch society is one where people have trouble to see everyone as equal? either you are completely ignorant of anything non-US, or you are trolling.
inequality in the USA is a LOT bigger than in the Netherlands - in material wealth, job opportunities, and perception between people.
you see, we DO take care of the weaker, instead of enriching the richer, and letting the poor rot in the ghetto.
i am a dutch citizen, and not a fan of this electronic registration system, but don't spread stupid blatant lies as an argument.
and this is not different from the situation as it is now. i personally know some people who work with troubled kids/families, and believe me, they try all they can to make very careful decisions.
negligence of one person can still exist. but in this system, at least all (independent) opinions are collected, which should have a neutralising influence. any professional social worker will look at a case as unbiased as possible. you must realise that the clients often have become very proficient at "fooling" social workers... in this case such a "red flag" could help in the line of questioning at the intake of a client in a new region.
unlike in genetics, there is no strict temporal separation between social traits and the selective pressure in a "social darwinistic system". it'smy fundamental gripe with these kind of ideas, and the reason why i have a hard time accepting theories like dawkins' memetics.
thank you for the philosophy lesson;^) you are correct in nuancing my post. the point remains the same, i should've used another example, though.
yet the popular understanding of atheism involves the negation of the existence of a deity. other replies to my post indicate that more people interprete atheism in that way, and it is my personal experience that just about any self-proclaimed atheist thinks this way. within that context, the example was valid to illustrate the frame of mind of people who assume science is about facts.
"If the scientific community as a whole wants it bad enough, it will happen"
i agree 100%. i merely stated that *individual* action - as suggested in the post i replied to - would likely decrease the chances to publish, which is exactly the opposite of what a scientist would want.
they are not sure about anything. all right, there is a higher frequency of occurance of a certain allele and the size of the brain. but i think it's highly speculative - on the verge of stupid even - to correlate this to "smartness", as some here on/. like to do.
a *lot* of work needs to be done before anyone can make any sense about the actual effect of these mutations on human behaviour. which is of course why this information is being made public - to get some funding. not to feed the overly active imagination of/. visitors, although that's an amusing side-effect;-)
interesting argumentation. if many people think something is true, it cannot be wrong. following this reasoning, one could argue that adolf hitler was some kind of god (at least for a while he was).
"Calling the principle of evolution a theory is simply wrong. It's a basic biological fact, as far past theory as Newton's Laws."
don't get me wrong, i support evolution theory. but it's far from fact. in fact, the notion of facts and truths don't have a place in science. science is not a new religion (although many people treat it that way).
it's the same as saying that you are an atheist. to think you can have a proof of the non-existence of a God means conforming to the same system as religious people, thus being completely non-scientific, and actually ridiculing your own "rational" argumentation.
give me agnosticism any day. the 7 years i worked as a scientist taught me something very important: scientists are bigger doubters than perceived by the outside world. read some Russel - there's a short essay on why he became an agnostic, and some really good books like "religion and science" that enlighten this subject considerably.
this is what you get when a large enough following of the "intelligent design" camp scream from the top of their lungs that things should have a "purpose".
in addition, a large group of people who think they know what they are talking about when they talk about evolution, have no clue about the time involved and reason from the perspective of here and now. it takes quite a mental leap to see genetic change in the context of (very limited) historical information, and people tend to remember best what happened in their own (short) lifespan.
diversity means strength as a whole. it's completely stupid to want all people to be "ubermensch".
if i had time to write a long reply, i'd argue that it is in fact the presence of the "weaker" that allows for a humankind which is strong and adaptive as a whole.
to put it simply: if we were all rocket scientists, the world would be quite a messy place:-)
this is getting off topic, but i'll react nonetheless.
the reason this phenomenon occurs often in wysiwyg word processors, is because people do not make use of built in style functions consequently, and format page layouts etc during editing.
i'm only experienced in publishing in biology journals, and the amount of formatting you need for that is minimal. text is supplied as a word document in a single font (plus of course a font for symbols). images are supplied separately, and one could do the same with the occasional equation.
eps is an often used format that covers just about anything one would like to do in an image. most people i know make their figures in adobe illustrator and save as eps.
this might have changed slightly since i am not in science and publishing anymore (thank god!) but not drastically. word is a perfectly suitable tool for this kind of simple situation. hell, wordpad+rtf could do the job already.
parent writes: "If your journal is telling you that they won't accept latex, tell them you won't submit your articles anymore, thank you very much."
do you really think a high ranking (or any) journal would accept such an attitude from a single scientist? they would likely laugh at your arrogance. in a world where the rule is "publish or perish", your suggestion is not an option.
i don't understand you guys! why is something enabling (yet unique) a trap?
the way i see it, there's problems and solutions. sometimes BSD can prodive a unique solution, sometimes linux, sometimes microsoft. pick which one solves your problem, and be happy that you don't have a problem anymore.
if opensource means so much to you, always takle the OSS solution when available. isn't life gorgeously simple?
"To me, technology, like any other -ology, is the knowledge of something, especially using the scientific method."
is it really about technology per se?
firstly, i think it's incorrect to suggest that technology has a lot to do with teaching the "scientific method". empirism can be taught in many ways, hardly any of them having anything to do with computers.
what does matter in this context, in my view, is the way kids take up information. computers, and in particular the net, shape information in a completely different way. no longer do kids get approved textbooks that are well thought out and concise... instead they get a heterogeneous, large, and inconsistent amount of information through internet searches.
being critical about information, checking sources, finding inconsistencies, etc etc are skills that are becoming more and more important. and teachers are often not flexible enough to handle that...
that's a very valid point and i agree with your assessment of the self-righteousness of the "slashdot elite linux corps" *grin*
of course you are free to use whatever platform you like, and if a minimum of distraction in maintaining your system is the goal, windows is one of the better choices. although i do think that you are overstating the ease of use and minimum amount of hassle of a windows desktop.
my reason for moving away from windows as much as possible is that i don't want one company to be able to control my data. i don't want to be forced into the use of DRM. or proprietary document formats. or extended and badly implemented standards. for me, that's worth a little effort.
and that's not an elitist attitude... far from it.
"It makes absolutely no bloody sense for GNOME to have a VFS or KDE to have kioslaves. These functions have *nothing* to do with a desktop environment -- they are generic functionality that would be useful anywhere. They *should* be available in a separate library. You wouldn't make kxml and gnome-xml -- you'd use libxml So why all the tying into DEs?"
1. because they can 2. because they'd rather compete. you know, choice is good and stuff (sarcasm, indeed). anyways, the kde/gnome people are working together on these issues now.
btw: i'm too lazy to google, but i'm pretty sure i saw something called "kioexec" which allows for launching kioslaves from the command line.
i never understood this "desktop"/"system" dichotomy anyway... emacs is a desktop, bash is a desktop... kde and gnome also are desktops.
Slashdot Mirror
nevermind. he doesn't get it.
"That being said, you may not be able to see the sexism or racism yourself because you haven't sat on but one side of that fence your entire life. The Dutch are a people that are greatly of the same descendance, much more than here persay. And while you say you care about the weaker, have you ever been to a ghetto and seen the situation for yourself? Have you given your time recently? How about your blood?"
;-P ).
as opposed to relying on individual small contributions, our taxes are huge compared to the US. i make sure to vote for the parties that believe in maintaining our social welfare system.
personally, i know people of all kinds of colors, shapes, and sizes, and i never made an issue out of it. i'm not blind to cultural differences, though. in fact, i'm curious about them (i love foreign food
as a consequence of our HUGE taxes, we do not have ghetto's, we do not have extreme poverty. there's some poverty, no system is perfect. but please look up the numbers on equality, and be ashamed of anyone boasting about the opportunities in the USA. they are only there for a happy few.
you say in parent post that your comment was adressed at the "world as a society". yet you specifically write in your original post: "This information is a combination of things that us Americans see as private and need things such as subpenas to see". in the context of an atricle about NL, can you understand that this seems to contradict what you say now? and can you understand that this can sound condescending to someone who lives in a very well-developed country that is (in)famous worldwide for its liberal and tolerant attitude?
i don't disagree with you so much, there is potential for abuse (with all of these sytems in general, in fact). racism, etc is all about identification with peers in times of distress. you will see its influence diminish when everybody has enough money.
it's the media and the government screaming "them radical muslims" and then nuancing it slightly afterwards that make people believe terrorism being a racist issue. i dislike these mechanisms as much as you do, but the answer is not to shout similar propaganda from the rooftops, making your favourite point.
the answer is dialog, i believe. mutual acceptance (not merely tolerance). and mutual appreciation. in the end, we could all learn to love each other's differences. it's so easy, in theory.
"Maar probeer dat maar eens aan een amerikaan aan z'n verstand te brengen. :-/"
;^)
toch blijven proberen, he
"On the other hand, the netherlands is something like second on the list in terms of how much wiretapping the government does. That's not necessarily a good thing..."
i wonder how we know that NL would be the second on this list. is it because they are, or because they are not being as secretive about the amount of wiretapping they do as compared to some other countries?
"Once you've finished paying off the loan, they'd have no reason to keep any of your personal information (though the records would still be stored on your computer if you want them again, as for another loan)."
banks keep records of all their (former) clients, for administrative purposes. they would never allow this information to be decentralised, unless they'd be legally obliged to do so.
even if they would remove their own records, they'd trust your "PODS" less than thier own. psychology, not reasoning.
funny you should mention the example of bank loans. i don't know how it is in other countries, but in the Netherlands all people with outstanding loans are registered in one central place, where the banks verify if their clients are allowed to borrow more, or whether they have reached their limits. it's a similar idea: by combining information sources into one centralised one abuse has become impossible (in this case, getting high loans at several different banks).
you got them EXACTLY right. it's coupling of existing databases, with several restrictions to make sure the risk for abuse and privacy invasion is as small as possible.
hold your horses, conspiracy theorists! the Netherlands are not a fascist state. they are in fact one of the most, if not the most, liberal countries in the world.
how in heaven's name did you get the impression that the dutch society is one where people have trouble to see everyone as equal? either you are completely ignorant of anything non-US, or you are trolling.
inequality in the USA is a LOT bigger than in the Netherlands - in material wealth, job opportunities, and perception between people.
you see, we DO take care of the weaker, instead of enriching the richer, and letting the poor rot in the ghetto.
i am a dutch citizen, and not a fan of this electronic registration system, but don't spread stupid blatant lies as an argument.
and this is not different from the situation as it is now. i personally know some people who work with troubled kids/families, and believe me, they try all they can to make very careful decisions.
negligence of one person can still exist. but in this system, at least all (independent) opinions are collected, which should have a neutralising influence. any professional social worker will look at a case as unbiased as possible. you must realise that the clients often have become very proficient at "fooling" social workers... in this case such a "red flag" could help in the line of questioning at the intake of a client in a new region.
unlike in genetics, there is no strict temporal separation between social traits and the selective pressure in a "social darwinistic system". it'smy fundamental gripe with these kind of ideas, and the reason why i have a hard time accepting theories like dawkins' memetics.
thank you for the philosophy lesson ;^) you are correct in nuancing my post. the point remains the same, i should've used another example, though.
yet the popular understanding of atheism involves the negation of the existence of a deity. other replies to my post indicate that more people interprete atheism in that way, and it is my personal experience that just about any self-proclaimed atheist thinks this way. within that context, the example was valid to illustrate the frame of mind of people who assume science is about facts.
"If the scientific community as a whole wants it bad enough, it will happen"
i agree 100%. i merely stated that *individual* action - as suggested in the post i replied to - would likely decrease the chances to publish, which is exactly the opposite of what a scientist would want.
they are not sure about anything. all right, there is a higher frequency of occurance of a certain allele and the size of the brain. but i think it's highly speculative - on the verge of stupid even - to correlate this to "smartness", as some here on /. like to do.
/. visitors, although that's an amusing side-effect ;-)
a *lot* of work needs to be done before anyone can make any sense about the actual effect of these mutations on human behaviour. which is of course why this information is being made public - to get some funding. not to feed the overly active imagination of
interesting argumentation. if many people think something is true, it cannot be wrong. following this reasoning, one could argue that adolf hitler was some kind of god (at least for a while he was).
"Calling the principle of evolution a theory is simply wrong. It's a basic biological fact, as far past theory as Newton's Laws."
don't get me wrong, i support evolution theory. but it's far from fact. in fact, the notion of facts and truths don't have a place in science. science is not a new religion (although many people treat it that way).
it's the same as saying that you are an atheist. to think you can have a proof of the non-existence of a God means conforming to the same system as religious people, thus being completely non-scientific, and actually ridiculing your own "rational" argumentation.
give me agnosticism any day. the 7 years i worked as a scientist taught me something very important: scientists are bigger doubters than perceived by the outside world. read some Russel - there's a short essay on why he became an agnostic, and some really good books like "religion and science" that enlighten this subject considerably.
this is what you get when a large enough following of the "intelligent design" camp scream from the top of their lungs that things should have a "purpose".
in addition, a large group of people who think they know what they are talking about when they talk about evolution, have no clue about the time involved and reason from the perspective of here and now. it takes quite a mental leap to see genetic change in the context of (very limited) historical information, and people tend to remember best what happened in their own (short) lifespan.
diversity means strength as a whole. it's completely stupid to want all people to be "ubermensch".
:-)
if i had time to write a long reply, i'd argue that it is in fact the presence of the "weaker" that allows for a humankind which is strong and adaptive as a whole.
to put it simply: if we were all rocket scientists, the world would be quite a messy place
"That's probably why I should never be allowed any power..."
exactly
this is getting off topic, but i'll react nonetheless.
the reason this phenomenon occurs often in wysiwyg word processors, is because people do not make use of built in style functions consequently, and format page layouts etc during editing.
i'm only experienced in publishing in biology journals, and the amount of formatting you need for that is minimal. text is supplied as a word document in a single font (plus of course a font for symbols). images are supplied separately, and one could do the same with the occasional equation.
eps is an often used format that covers just about anything one would like to do in an image. most people i know make their figures in adobe illustrator and save as eps.
this might have changed slightly since i am not in science and publishing anymore (thank god!) but not drastically. word is a perfectly suitable tool for this kind of simple situation. hell, wordpad+rtf could do the job already.
i cannot see how this comment is insightful.
parent writes:
"If your journal is telling you that they won't accept latex, tell them you won't submit your articles anymore, thank you very much."
do you really think a high ranking (or any) journal would accept such an attitude from a single scientist? they would likely laugh at your arrogance. in a world where the rule is "publish or perish", your suggestion is not an option.
i don't understand you guys! why is something enabling (yet unique) a trap?
the way i see it, there's problems and solutions. sometimes BSD can prodive a unique solution, sometimes linux, sometimes microsoft. pick which one solves your problem, and be happy that you don't have a problem anymore.
if opensource means so much to you, always takle the OSS solution when available. isn't life gorgeously simple?
"To me, technology, like any other -ology, is the knowledge of something, especially using the scientific method."
is it really about technology per se?
firstly, i think it's incorrect to suggest that technology has a lot to do with teaching the "scientific method". empirism can be taught in many ways, hardly any of them having anything to do with computers.
what does matter in this context, in my view, is the way kids take up information. computers, and in particular the net, shape information in a completely different way. no longer do kids get approved textbooks that are well thought out and concise... instead they get a heterogeneous, large, and inconsistent amount of information through internet searches.
being critical about information, checking sources, finding inconsistencies, etc etc are skills that are becoming more and more important. and teachers are often not flexible enough to handle that...
that's a very valid point and i agree with your assessment of the self-righteousness of the "slashdot elite linux corps" *grin*
of course you are free to use whatever platform you like, and if a minimum of distraction in maintaining your system is the goal, windows is one of the better choices. although i do think that you are overstating the ease of use and minimum amount of hassle of a windows desktop.
my reason for moving away from windows as much as possible is that i don't want one company to be able to control my data. i don't want to be forced into the use of DRM. or proprietary document formats. or extended and badly implemented standards. for me, that's worth a little effort.
and that's not an elitist attitude... far from it.
what's so funny about a kid trying to eat a large vegetable? :p
"It makes absolutely no bloody sense for GNOME to have a VFS or KDE to have kioslaves. These functions have *nothing* to do with a desktop environment -- they are generic functionality that would be useful anywhere. They *should* be available in a separate library. You wouldn't make kxml and gnome-xml -- you'd use libxml So why all the tying into DEs?"
1. because they can
2. because they'd rather compete. you know, choice is good and stuff (sarcasm, indeed). anyways, the kde/gnome people are working together on these issues now.
btw: i'm too lazy to google, but i'm pretty sure i saw something called "kioexec" which allows for launching kioslaves from the command line.
i never understood this "desktop"/"system" dichotomy anyway... emacs is a desktop, bash is a desktop... kde and gnome also are desktops.
"If you'd like to contact me directly, I can be reached at billhilf at microsoft dot com."
what incredible courage! this man must have some extra time on his hands.
that's awesome, man... really creative!