Of course writing is more falsiifiable than a good witness --- that's why legal documents are required to be notarized and witnessed; otherwise they wouldn't be trustworthy, right?:)
I've been reasonably lucky in that I've avoided CPT --- but I had to undergo serious wrist surgery last fall after a bad wrist/arm break in a bicycle accident. It took about three months before the doctor would let the cast off, and another week or two before i had reasonable wrist mobility (with a total of two months on top of that before I had full use of my right arm).
I managed to find a way to type when my arm was still in a cast, though.:)
I would recommend, if you elect to go with surgery, that you be careful in your selection of a surgeon --- you don't want to have to go through the system twice.
Presidential politics (offtopic subthread)
on
Dear Mr. Straw
·
· Score: 1
Actually, this campaign season appears to be an unusually good one in that both major parties have candidates that are reasonably intelligent, thoughtful, and independant-minded. I'd be happy if either of them got nominated (McCain or Bradley), even though I don't agree with them in all cases. I'd be ecstatic if by some stroke of magic _both_ of them got nominated.
What are the implications for ISPs?
on
Dear Mr. Straw
·
· Score: 4
Depending on how "possession" is defined, it would seem that this bill essentially requires providers of hosting space for web pages to have access to the private keys of any encrypted data that they are hosting.
Not a good thing for the relationship between web hosting companies and their customers, I would imagine.
Why do they feel compelled to explain to the world what a geek is? And if they felt so compelled, why distribute half-truths and pseudo-intellectual explanations instead of going to the root of the matter and asking one of us.
For probably the same reason that, if I could answer this question, I would feel compelled to do so --- but my answer would probably be a half-truth.
[NO, I'm _not_ trying to be rude here... I'm simply trying to point out that trying to figure out why reporters as a class of people insist on describing geeks in a particular fashion is logically the same thing as a reporter trying to figure out why geeks as a class of people behave in a particular fashion. It's the same behavior either way.]
You raise some interesting points, which I (perhaps incorrectly) summarize as follows:
(1) High-level development environments help non-programmers pretend to be programmers and so are bad (in the sense that many of the problems with commercially available software are due to "programming" by these "programmers").
(2) Proprietary software is of its nature untrustworthy as it is impossible to tell whether or not what is actually being done and what is claimed to be done are in sync.
(3) The use of proprietary high-level development software on Linux will destroy the advantages that Linux has over Windows.
None of these are particularly new arguments, and I have sympathy on some levels for them. But I submit that you have overstated your case:
(1) Even if RAD enpowers poor programmers to write bad programs more quickly, the logic of open source overcomes it: in an open-source environment, programs developed via RAD will be just as open to review and fixes by other programmers. In fact, arguably open-source communities should be immune to this particular danger --- the more seasoned developers in the community will fix the mistakes of the newbies, who should learn from it.
(2) Proprietary software may require a higher level of scrutiny than non-proprietary software. But as long as the tools to analyse the software exist and are reliable and trusted, this shouldn't be a problem. [You say: "can someone also tell me what this Delphi release -really- puts into the binary?"... But that should be verifiable via other tools on the market.]
Now, granted, there is a greater _time_ investment in running such verifications. But, for the average programmer, the time hit is no greater than that involved in reading the source code to their development tool --- moreover, the average programmer doesn't do that anyway, they just go off of the reputation of the tool. (That's true even now; the days when every linux programmer was a kernel hacker are behind us).
(3) The advantages Linux has over Windows are largely in server software and the kernel, not in client-side user software. That's beginning to change, but remains largely true. Even if all of the things you fear about proprietary RAD tools were true, their use in client-side software would hardly destroy the advantages Linux has over Windows; moreover, such tools won't be used in kernel development _until the parts of the community responsible for such development believe in their efficiency_. In other words: they'll only get the chance to destroy Linux's advantages if they work well enough to be given that chance, in which case it's unlikely that they'll actually do it.
Badly implemented proprietary RAD software could easily have the unfortunate effect of splitting the Linux community into multiple camps: old-school programmers focusing on the kernel, system-level software, and server-side software, and RAD programmers focusing on client-side end-user software. That would be bad, as it would encourage the two communities to grow in different directions and result in a dichotomous view of what the OS should be... but it would hardly be the vision of the future you appear to be worried about.
There's a more optimistic (less cynical) way to look at this. Assuming a division of the world into non-geeks and geeks (the latter being a significant minority), articles like this are the result of some set of non-geeks attempting to explain geekhood to the rest of the non-geeks.
The articles aren't aimed at "us". They're part of an attempt by people who think they understand "us" to explain the whole thing to other people who don't have a clue.
New technologies aer rarely massive successes until after commercialization (although the railroad may be the exception that proves the rule: in both the US and Germany, the success of the rail industry was largely the result of government intervention)... but the last major age of exploration happened largely as a result of government interest: the exploration and conquest of territorry was seen as part of the political game of squaring off against other states.
Maybe what we need is an unstable multi-polar international system which uses space bases as a form of low-grade vaguely unofficial international warfare (like pirates in the 16th and 17th centuries).
> Especially when I have no idea who the heck this guy is.
He was one of the developers on the original Java team. (OK, granted, that doesn't make it _Linux_ related, but it's probably enough to make it relevant news.... if Philippe were ever arrested for something similar, I'd expect to see it here.)
The biggest problem with this is that it requires you to go to Atlanta. How many people with jobs that won't let them away for the better part of a week to fly across the country for the purpose of playing won't be able to participate?
Seriously, though: there are a lot of technologies currently being researched which have disturbing implications --- mite-sized cameras which can move themselves around; plastic-eating biotech creatures; energy generation from radioactive waste; artificially grown organ replacements; etc, etc.
These are all being actively researched. Some will pan out in the near future, some will remain as mythical as the flying car. But either way, there's too much money, and too many people who think the technologies are cool, to stop them... nor would it necessarily be a good thing to do so: for each of the nightmarish uses I can imagine all of these things being put to, there are an equal number of incredibly good uses, as well.
As for AI? It's hard to tell, because it's hard to imagine what the use value of these experiments are right now. Some of the side-effects are clear: neural net technology could make things like internet search engines actually usable, and a friend of mine was recently talking about an interesting neural-net tech possibility that could provide a cure for writer's block. But in general, it seems like playing... which probably makes the potential for a mistake more scary, because it's a risk we don't _have_ to take... except that naybe we do.
Maybe we have to know if we can do it. Maybe, as has been suggested in numerous science fiction novels, maybe this is essentially evolution happening before our eyes, only we are creating the next step. Who knows? Don't you want to find out?
The original post (by channel one) reminded me intensely of the fact that the US government is going around patenting the human genome under the theory that if they don't, someone else will; Channel One _appeared_ to be using the same logic.
But now it turns out that they were _wrong_... someone else had already secured the rights. So Channel One has done what, precisely, except embarass itself (claiming the rights were open when they weren't) and confusing a lot of Americans?
I wonder if the name FreeBSD is protected in Germany?
Granted that things in Soviet times sucked, but it's also true that by all measureable economic statistics the last ten years have been a disaster in Russia: Weimar-style inflation combined with GDP shrinkage comparable to that in the American Great Depression --- joined by declining birthrates and declining life expectancy.
None of this is, per se, the result of "the introduction of capitalism" so much as it is a result of the more or less complete collapse of the state... but it still means that the last decade has been markedly unpleasant, for a large number of people.
I suspect that the real problem is that the publishers are setting hte prices, and so they set them (a) to not undercut their other products, and (b) to maintain overhead.
Once you see clearing-houses where authors sell directly to the consumer and the clearing-house takes a percentage, prices should fall.
That does raise a question, though: what about editing? Almost all books need some of it, at least for the same reason code needs testing; in a clearing-house model, who does the editing? A third party? Who pays for it? Do clearing-houses provide editing services for a fee, or does that just come out of their cut? If so, then clearing-houses could develop editing reputations, and houses with better editing could charge more.
You are right: things don't have to be "open source" to be good. (Reminds me of a sarcastic comment in a book about confusing "object oriented" and "good", but I digress).
The thing is, however, that to a certain extent there's an "open source/freeware/public domain" _ideology_... and a lot of people who are into the open source movement, Linux, whatever, believe strongly in this ideology. There is a feeling (and I don't know how strong it is right now because i lost touch with this part of the internet when I graduated from school and went off to work in the proprietary software world) that the next large-scale ideological conflict will be between open-source public-domain vs. proprietary closed systems.
This is about the point where a lot of people start falling asleep: big revolutionary schemes that will overthrow the established order, yeah, yeah, sure. uh-huh. History is over, doesn't anyone remember, we've won all the large ideological debates and reached the eternal now of modern technological capitalism...
Only we haven't: history doesn't stop, and societies continue to evolve. Right now it _appears_ that that evolution is away from closed proprietary systems towards open systems --- but the economics hasn't been worked out yet, and people on both sides of the fence are scrambling to figure out how the economics will work.
Bruce Sterling did an interesting book, Holy Fire, on a related subject a few years ago: an old wealthy woman got some sort of medical treatment which would rejuvenate her body to its early 20s... and promptly took off, vanished from the world, and became a hedonistic drifter. Seems that the rejuvenation also caused her body to get pumped with chemicals that her brain no longer knew how to cope with.:)
It's hard to save up money for a computer when you make $960 a month _before taxes_ and have a family to support, and no friends to get a computer from.
Arguments that say "it's our responsibility to take care of people in situation [x]" often have logical problems. But there's another approach: when does it benefit society to take help individuals _not because they deserve the help_ but because the harm that they will or may inflict upon society is more than the cost of helping them?
A few years ago California adopted a law which prohibited the children of illegal immigrants from being educated in the public school system. Most of the discussion boiled down, on the one hand, to "but they deserve an education" or, on the other, "but they're freeloaders who don't belong here." I was distressed by the whole conversation because almost nobody would state the obvious --- that illegal immigration is not going to go away and, given that, and regardless of what's better for the _individuals_, it's better for everyone else if their children are educated and not uneducated drones that can only make money by stealing or (insert other unpleasentness here).
Most debates over social responsibility are like this --- nobody makes the pragmatic argument for helping people. Anyone know why?
I suspect that the problem is that there is a potential that, were everyone highly educated and technologically competent, the economy would collapse.
On the national level, this seems unlikely: immigration will continue to supply cheap labor. But on an international level, the argument may have merit --- when everyone is equally competent, what do you do? Build robots to perform the mindless tasks?
The Roman Empire faced a problem of this sort at one point: as the empire became wealthier and people in different parts of the empire became able to produce the goods that were produced elsewhere, specialization decreased, and then trade decreased... and this _may_ have been a contributing factor to the collapse.
I'm not convinced it's an issue --- I've dealt with far too many people that really are simply incapable of understanding technical concepts to be worried about it. But I can understand, from the standpoint of an economic or social theoretician, where it could be worrying.
While it is true that the correlation between poor economic conditions in the US and race is not _currently_ a causal relationship, the fact remains that _historically_ it was... people who grow up in poor economic conditions statistically are far more likely to remain in poor economic conditions than not, and the fact that there is a correlation today is largely because there was a correlation in the past that came about because of racist policies and practices.
To simply stick your head in the sand and say "we're color-blind now", even if it were true, would miss the point: people remain trapped in poverty now because we weren't color-blind in the past, and it's a reasonable social policy to try to correct that. Indeed, arguably failing to attempt to correct that would lead to greater social instability than we see now.
What the government is _really_ trying to do is promote better quality international encryption. "We _know_ your encryption is better than ours, so we won't inflict any of our suck encryption on you."
Your experience is a little different from mine, then. When attempting to do development work or debug under windows 98, I can't expect the machine to stay stable for more than two or three hours. NT, on the other hand, I manage to crash once every two or three days.
Running desktop applications --- office, games, win amp, etc --- win98 seems reasonably stable (although ICQ blows up under it constantly). But trying to do development work under it is asking for trouble.
I'm fairly introverted, and have a hard time meeting people at parties, except for a couple of things: (1) if i know most of the people there; (2) if i'm there with a clsoe friend who is more extroverted than me (3) if I have a role in the event (the parties at BorCon were fun because i was working there, so I could always fall back on that role if i needed it).
If I go to LinuxWorld --- that is, if work lets me go --- I'll go to the party.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course writing is more falsiifiable than a good witness --- that's why legal documents are required to be notarized and witnessed; otherwise they wouldn't be trustworthy, right? :)
I've been reasonably lucky in that I've avoided CPT --- but I had to undergo serious wrist surgery last fall after a bad wrist/arm break in a bicycle accident. It took about three months before the doctor would let the cast off, and another week or two before i had reasonable wrist mobility (with a total of two months on top of that before I had full use of my right arm).
:)
I managed to find a way to type when my arm was still in a cast, though.
I would recommend, if you elect to go with surgery, that you be careful in your selection of a surgeon --- you don't want to have to go through the system twice.
Actually, this campaign season appears to be an unusually good one in that both major parties have candidates that are reasonably intelligent, thoughtful, and independant-minded. I'd be happy if either of them got nominated (McCain or Bradley), even though I don't agree with them in all cases. I'd be ecstatic if by some stroke of magic _both_ of them got nominated.
Depending on how "possession" is defined, it would seem that this bill essentially requires providers of hosting space for web pages to have access to the private keys of any encrypted data that they are hosting.
Not a good thing for the relationship between web hosting companies and their customers, I would imagine.
Why do they feel compelled to explain to the world what a geek is? And if they felt so compelled, why distribute half-truths and pseudo-intellectual explanations instead of going to the root of the matter and asking one of us.
... I'm simply trying to point out that trying to figure out why reporters as a class of people insist on describing geeks in a particular fashion is logically the same thing as a reporter trying to figure out why geeks as a class of people behave in a particular fashion. It's the same behavior either way.]
For probably the same reason that, if I could answer this question, I would feel compelled to do so --- but my answer would probably be a half-truth.
[NO, I'm _not_ trying to be rude here
You raise some interesting points, which I (perhaps incorrectly) summarize as follows:
... But that should be verifiable via other tools on the market.]
... but it would hardly be the vision of the future you appear to be worried about.
(1) High-level development environments help non-programmers pretend to be programmers and so are bad (in the sense that many of the problems with commercially available software are due to "programming" by these "programmers").
(2) Proprietary software is of its nature untrustworthy as it is impossible to tell whether or not what is actually being done and what is claimed to be done are in sync.
(3) The use of proprietary high-level development software on Linux will destroy the advantages that Linux has over Windows.
None of these are particularly new arguments, and I have sympathy on some levels for them. But I submit that you have overstated your case:
(1) Even if RAD enpowers poor programmers to write bad programs more quickly, the logic of open source overcomes it: in an open-source environment, programs developed via RAD will be just as open to review and fixes by other programmers. In fact, arguably open-source communities should be immune to this particular danger --- the more seasoned developers in the community will fix the mistakes of the newbies, who should learn from it.
(2) Proprietary software may require a higher level of scrutiny than non-proprietary software. But as long as the tools to analyse the software exist and are reliable and trusted, this shouldn't be a problem. [You say: "can someone also tell me what this Delphi release -really- puts into the binary?"
Now, granted, there is a greater _time_ investment in running such verifications. But, for the average programmer, the time hit is no greater than that involved in reading the source code to their development tool --- moreover, the average programmer doesn't do that anyway, they just go off of the reputation of the tool. (That's true even now; the days when every linux programmer was a kernel hacker are behind us).
(3) The advantages Linux has over Windows are largely in server software and the kernel, not in client-side user software. That's beginning to change, but remains largely true. Even if all of the things you fear about proprietary RAD tools were true, their use in client-side software would hardly destroy the advantages Linux has over Windows; moreover, such tools won't be used in kernel development _until the parts of the community responsible for such development believe in their efficiency_. In other words: they'll only get the chance to destroy Linux's advantages if they work well enough to be given that chance, in which case it's unlikely that they'll actually do it.
Badly implemented proprietary RAD software could easily have the unfortunate effect of splitting the Linux community into multiple camps: old-school programmers focusing on the kernel, system-level software, and server-side software, and RAD programmers focusing on client-side end-user software. That would be bad, as it would encourage the two communities to grow in different directions and result in a dichotomous view of what the OS should be
There's a more optimistic (less cynical) way to look at this. Assuming a division of the world into non-geeks and geeks (the latter being a significant minority), articles like this are the result of some set of non-geeks attempting to explain geekhood to the rest of the non-geeks.
The articles aren't aimed at "us". They're part of an attempt by people who think they understand "us" to explain the whole thing to other people who don't have a clue.
New technologies aer rarely massive successes ... but the last major
until after commercialization (although the
railroad may be the exception that proves the
rule: in both the US and Germany, the success of the rail industry was largely the result of
government intervention)
age of exploration happened largely as a result
of government interest: the exploration and
conquest of territorry was seen as part of
the political game of squaring off against other
states.
Maybe what we need is an unstable multi-polar
international system which uses space bases
as a form of low-grade vaguely unofficial
international warfare (like pirates in the 16th
and 17th centuries).
> Especially when I have no idea who the heck this guy is.
.... if Philippe were ever arrested for something similar, I'd expect to see it here.)
He was one of the developers on the original Java team. (OK, granted, that doesn't make it _Linux_ related, but it's probably enough to make it relevant news
The biggest problem with this is that it requires you to go to Atlanta. How many people with jobs that won't let them away for the better part of a week to fly across the country for the purpose of playing won't be able to participate?
*sigh*
Repurcussions are for science-fiction writers. :)
... nor would it necessarily be a good thing to do so: for each of the nightmarish uses I can imagine all of these things being put to, there are an equal number of incredibly good uses, as well.
... which probably makes the potential for a mistake more scary, because it's a risk we don't _have_ to take ... except that naybe we do.
Seriously, though: there are a lot of technologies currently being researched which have disturbing implications --- mite-sized cameras which can move themselves around; plastic-eating biotech creatures; energy generation from radioactive waste; artificially grown organ replacements; etc, etc.
These are all being actively researched. Some will pan out in the near future, some will remain as mythical as the flying car. But either way, there's too much money, and too many people who think the technologies are cool, to stop them
As for AI? It's hard to tell, because it's hard to imagine what the use value of these experiments are right now. Some of the side-effects are clear: neural net technology could make things like internet search engines actually usable, and a friend of mine was recently talking about an interesting neural-net tech possibility that could provide a cure for writer's block. But in general, it seems like playing
Maybe we have to know if we can do it. Maybe, as has been suggested in numerous science fiction novels, maybe this is essentially evolution happening before our eyes, only we are creating the next step. Who knows? Don't you want to find out?
The original post (by channel one) reminded me intensely of the fact that the US government is going around patenting the human genome under the theory that if they don't, someone else will; Channel One _appeared_ to be using the same logic.
... someone else had already secured the rights. So Channel One has done what, precisely, except embarass itself (claiming the rights were open when they weren't) and confusing a lot of Americans?
But now it turns out that they were _wrong_
I wonder if the name FreeBSD is protected in Germany?
Granted that things in Soviet times sucked, but it's also true that by all measureable economic statistics the last ten years have been a disaster in Russia: Weimar-style inflation combined with GDP shrinkage comparable to that in the American Great Depression --- joined by declining birthrates and declining life expectancy.
... but it still means that the last decade has been markedly unpleasant, for a large number of people.
None of this is, per se, the result of "the introduction of capitalism" so much as it is a result of the more or less complete collapse of the state
I suspect that the real problem is that the publishers are setting hte prices, and so they set them (a) to not undercut their other products, and (b) to maintain overhead.
Once you see clearing-houses where authors sell directly to the consumer and the clearing-house takes a percentage, prices should fall.
That does raise a question, though: what about editing? Almost all books need some of it, at least for the same reason code needs testing; in a clearing-house model, who does the editing? A third party? Who pays for it? Do clearing-houses provide editing services for a fee, or does that just come out of their cut? If so, then clearing-houses could develop editing reputations, and houses with better editing could charge more.
You are right: things don't have to be "open source" to be good. (Reminds me of a sarcastic comment in a book about confusing "object oriented" and "good", but I digress).
... and a lot of people who are into the open source movement, Linux, whatever, believe strongly in this ideology. There is a feeling (and I don't know how strong it is right now because i lost touch with this part of the internet when I graduated from school and went off to work in the proprietary software world) that the next large-scale ideological conflict will be between open-source public-domain vs. proprietary closed systems.
...
The thing is, however, that to a certain extent there's an "open source/freeware/public domain" _ideology_
This is about the point where a lot of people start falling asleep: big revolutionary schemes that will overthrow the established order, yeah, yeah, sure. uh-huh. History is over, doesn't anyone remember, we've won all the large ideological debates and reached the eternal now of modern technological capitalism
Only we haven't: history doesn't stop, and societies continue to evolve. Right now it _appears_ that that evolution is away from closed proprietary systems towards open systems --- but the economics hasn't been worked out yet, and people on both sides of the fence are scrambling to figure out how the economics will work.
Bruce Sterling did an interesting book, Holy Fire, ... and promptly took off, vanished from the world, and became a hedonistic drifter. Seems that :)
on a related subject a few years ago: an old wealthy woman got some sort of medical treatment which would rejuvenate her body to its early 20s
the rejuvenation also caused her body to get pumped with chemicals that her brain no longer knew how to cope with.
OK, so the people in question are idiots. But
what about their children?
It's hard to save up money for a computer when
you make $960 a month _before taxes_ and have
a family to support, and no friends to get
a computer from.
Arguments that say "it's our responsibility to take care of people in situation [x]" often have logical problems. But there's another approach: when does it benefit society to take help individuals _not because they deserve the help_ but because the harm that they will or may inflict upon society is more than the cost of helping them?
A few years ago California adopted a law which prohibited the children of illegal immigrants from being educated in the public school system. Most of the discussion boiled down, on the one hand, to "but they deserve an education" or, on the other, "but they're freeloaders who don't belong here." I was distressed by the whole conversation because almost nobody would state the obvious --- that illegal immigration is not going to go away and, given that, and regardless of what's better for the _individuals_, it's better for everyone else if their children are educated and not uneducated drones that can only make money by stealing or (insert other unpleasentness here).
Most debates over social responsibility are like this --- nobody makes the pragmatic argument for helping people. Anyone know why?
I suspect that the problem is that there is a potential that, were everyone highly educated and technologically competent, the economy would collapse.
... and this _may_ have been a contributing factor to the collapse.
On the national level, this seems unlikely: immigration will continue to supply cheap labor. But on an international level, the argument may have merit --- when everyone is equally competent, what do you do? Build robots to perform the mindless tasks?
The Roman Empire faced a problem of this sort at one point: as the empire became wealthier and people in different parts of the empire became able to produce the goods that were produced elsewhere, specialization decreased, and then trade decreased
I'm not convinced it's an issue --- I've dealt with far too many people that really are simply incapable of understanding technical concepts to be worried about it. But I can understand, from the standpoint of an economic or social theoretician, where it could be worrying.
While it is true that the correlation between ...
poor economic conditions in the US and race is
not _currently_ a causal relationship, the
fact remains that _historically_ it was
people who grow up in poor economic conditions
statistically are far more likely to remain in
poor economic conditions than not, and the fact
that there is a correlation today is largely
because there was a correlation in the past
that came about because of racist policies
and practices.
To simply stick your head in the sand and say
"we're color-blind now", even if it were true,
would miss the point: people remain trapped in
poverty now because we weren't color-blind in
the past, and it's a reasonable social policy
to try to correct that. Indeed, arguably
failing to attempt to correct that would lead
to greater social instability than we see now.
What the government is _really_ trying to do is promote better quality international encryption. "We _know_ your encryption is better than ours, so we won't inflict any of our suck encryption on you."
Dianne Feinstein has shown in recent years that the old axiom is true: the better of two evils is still evil.
*sigh*
Your experience is a little different from mine, then. When attempting to do development work or
debug under windows 98, I can't expect the machine
to stay stable for more than two or three hours.
NT, on the other hand, I manage to crash once
every two or three days.
Running desktop applications --- office, games,
win amp, etc --- win98 seems reasonably stable
(although ICQ blows up under it constantly). But
trying to do development work under it is asking
for trouble.
I'm fairly introverted, and have a hard time meeting people at parties, except for a couple of things:
:)
(1) if i know most of the people there;
(2) if i'm there with a clsoe friend who is more extroverted than me
(3) if I have a role in the event (the parties at BorCon were fun because i was working there, so I could always fall back on that role if i needed it).
If I go to LinuxWorld --- that is, if work lets
me go --- I'll go to the party.