Now, why would pointing out that a
system, running as well as we can run it can still make mistakes, be a result of a black/white world view?
Answer: because of your automatic unquestioning belief that the system is running as well as we can make it run.
I note once again that you had nothing to say when I pointed out your obvious failure to understand in the 'shit happens' part of your original post.
Question: Is that failure to respond because of an unwillingness to admit that you might be wrong?
People in this forum only have your written words on which to make judgments. Your words represent you and your thought patterns. I pointed out examples of arrogant behavior in those words. You respond that it is arrogant of me to presume to do so. That is not arrogant behavior on my part: I could be wrong in what I had to say, but it is not arrogance to make those statements. Your response appears to be a variation of the childish: "I know you are, but what am I?"
If you are unable to understand why people give you - angry - impolite - responses, then I will ask you: Has it ever occurred to you that there might be something wrong with the way that you present your views; that perhaps you do come off as arrogant and condescending? In my experience people are unlikely to call someone a "Pompous arrogant ass" unless they have reason to do so.
If you are experiencing a "growing appriciation of the ambiguity of the real world," I offer you my applause: that is an important step. The next step is an understanding of why that ambiguity must be there and an appreciation of what that knowledge implies about existence. I suspect that once you reach that stage - if you ever do - your views of the world will change.
Questioner: Do you favor government research and spending for Asteroid defense?
Gov. Bush I think that this is a problem which private industry can handle better than the government ever could. In my experience fine products like Preparation H already do a good job of relieving the pain caused by Asteroids.
Vice President Gore: The governor and I are in complete agreement on this subject.
I notice with interest that you didn't have anything to say about any of the important points that I made in my post.
Thanks, I do understand the difference between signal and noise. Applying simple technical understanding to complex societal phenomena is a mistake I made many years ago - and one from which I learned. In order to understand why people behave in the ways that they do you have to understand the ways in which they think.
For example: it is obvious to me that you think in a simplistic, primitive, Aristotelian, the world is black and white fashion. As such your thought patterns do not match the far more complex Yin and Yang nature of reality.
Evidence of arrogance on your part: your condescending use of the word 'kiddo' indicates a contemptuous attitude toward anyone who is not 'sophisticated' enough to agree with you. More evidence: the use of the phrase 'Kahuna fan' to contemptuously describe someone who disagrees with you. By using this phrase you are evidently seeing yourself in the position of famous performer - addressing those 'beneath' you in the social structure. You evidently believe that anyone who disagrees with you does so only from ignorance. It never occurs to you that you have only taken the second step along a multiple step journey to understanding. I have been where you are. I have discovered the errors in those thought patterns and moved on to a better level of understanding.
Your message is not very profound. It is: the world is exactly what it appears to be; no interpretation of what happens is ever necessary.
For example: Let's look at your shit happens perspective in the original post which prompted my reply. If a lightning bolt strikes you, that is an example of shit happens . If you are walking along and you sprain your ankle because the earth beneath you feet gives away due to a naturally occurring weakness in its structure that is shit happens. If the police confiscate your computers that is an example of a deliberate human action against you; it is not 'shit happens'. The distinguishing factor is not 'bad things happening to you', but rather whether those bad things are random or deliberate. Your failure to make this distinction indicates a lack of clear thought and understanding on your part.
Your posts are moderated up because they appeal to people who are proud of having taken the first (big) step toward understanding and who now believe that they know how the world works. Let me suggest that you try pulling your pompous head out of your arrogant ass and look around more carefully; there is more yet for you to learn.
Re:Reality Smacks You in the Face
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Patent Warfare
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· Score: 2
Legally that might work - it is exactly with the letter of the DMCA - however, the question is whether or not you have deep enough pockets to defeat a company in a court of law.
It is possible to do defeat a large company in court. A lone inventor who created the intermittent windshield wiper and patented it was successful in getting judgments against a number of automobile companies: but he did all of the legal work himself. He is the only person I have ever heard of who was successful in doing something like that. By the way, his case was pretty good; the auto companies lifted his circuit design - down to the specific transistors used - straight from his patent and built it into their production models.
This took him many years to win, and the judges ruled against him every chance they got. Judges don't like the idea of an individual suing without a lawyer: as an article of legal extortion they think that their legal brethren deserve a cut of everything.
Short answer to your question: possible, but not probable.
I seem to remember something in the US Constitution about not taking property for
public use without just compensation. Using something as evidence in a criminal case is
'taking the property for public use'.
The simple truth is the government is big and strong - you are not - so you lose. The
government gets away with a lot of things it is not supposed to do; the Constitution
forbids involuntary servitude - but that never stopped them from drafting people.
I can only hope that something like that story happens to you someday; it will knock some of the arrogance and pseudo sophistication out of you.
Maturity is not just accepting things that happen to you - it is knowing when something is malicious, and when it is not. Immature people either believe that everything is malicious - or like you - believe nothing is malicious. The 'nothing that ever happens is deliberate malice' approach is just as wrong as seeing conspiracies around every corner. You might as well fall flat on your face as to lean over too far backwards. A mature human recognizes malice when it exists.
The behavior of the police in the story was malicious. The police believed their malice was justified but their behavior was deliberate (they got a warrant) not accidental (they didn't question the wrong person - they went after the one they wanted). Keeping the equipment on the plausible lie of "its evidence" is malicious. There was no crime committed - so there is no evidence to hold.
We pay the police to be malicious toward 'criminals'. If the police decide that you are a criminal they will be malicious toward you. It is our mistaken belief that we won't ever be seen that way that gives people their sense of safety.
One thing about the sort of people who push things like UCITA - they are relentless. No matter how many times they are beaten they keep coming back. They want to win by exhaustion. If they get voted down 90 to 10 they don't let that stop them. Why? Because they know that if they keep coming back eventually the opposition will get tired of knocking them down.
If saner minds prevail, and UCITA is defeated in a few states it will not stop them . We have to understand this and be just as resolute and relentless as our opponents. We also can't give in in the states where UCITA has passed. We have to keep working to get those laws repealed.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." That is what that phrase means. Fighting these people is a lot like mankind's fight with the cockroach - it will never be won - but you have to keep fighting. Set yourself mentally for the fact that you are in a fight that will last your lifetime. We might win battles, but the war will never end.
You are dead on the money as to the practical results of standing on your Constitutional rights. From the police point of view anyone who objects to being pushed around is clearly a criminal.
The only reasonable thing to do is agree to the search and hope that the officer isn't looking for the adrenaline rush that arresting an innocent suspect brings. Some cops really get off on the idea that they are - for all practical purposes - destroying someone's life; it gives them the illusion that they rather than the government that they represent are the ones who are powerful.
If you are charged with a drug offense the odds are excellent that you will be convicted. In fact it almost doesn't matter what the outcome of the trial is; the legal system will grind you into paste regardless of whether you draw or lose. (The best you can hope for in a criminal case is a zero - zero tie. You are not allowed to score, only the state is. For sure you aren't going to win and send the prosecutor, and arresting officer to jail for lying about you to a jury. It seems pretty obvious to me, but evidently other people appear to miss the fact that if you really are innocent, everything the prosecution uses to try to convict you is a lie; they might believe their own lies, but they are still lies. )
The real danger of Carnivore is its extreme potential for abuse. There is absolutely nothing to keep the FBI from adding a few incriminating packets to a Carnivore finding. Packets can always be forged. After all, they are just ones and zeroes, and there is no way to tell forgeries from legitimate ones and zeroes.
Don't think that law enforcement agencies would do something like that? Of course, you are correct: the police have never planted drugs on a suspect. Not one time, ever.
For example: no police officer would ever claim you were speeding when you weren't - just because he wanted to search your vehicle. Oh wait, I have had that happen to me three times in the last 20 years. And no, I don't look like a drug user - or even meet any sort of profile other than being a single male driving a not very expensive vehicle. I think the officers were just bored. When they couldn't find anything wrong they looked really disappointed. I was always polite and courteous to them when they pulled me over, so they didn't 'find' any drugs in my vehicle. Of course all it would have taken was a little outrage at being stooped for a crime I wasn't committing, and suddenly boom: "Look what I found." See guys, its not paranoia when it has happened to you.
Carnivore enables the modern version of a thought crime: "We thought you might be a criminal, so you are one!"
I am forced to disagree with you on this point: I believe that the law makers understand exactly what they are doing. Their actions are neither accidental (Did they mean to vote "no" but mistakenly press "Yes"?) nor confused (The laws are written by intelligent people who know what they are doing - did they mean to regulate chickens and cows instead of computers?); the laws achieve exactly what they are meant to achieve.
You simply don't want to believe that the people in positions of authority might be deliberately malicious, I don't find that concept unthinkable.
I think that everybody is missing the number one hacking tool which would become illegal: compilers.
I am not exaggerating - think like a lawyer - compilers are the number one hacking tool. (And yes Mr. Pedant I know that it is possible to hack with an assembler. I am using 'compiler' in this context to mean any tool which allows a person to program a computer: compilers, assemblers, interpreters etc.) These would all be illegal under the terms of these laws. While licensed professionals i.e. Microsoft employees etc. might be allowed to use these tools under supervision - common folk such as us would be prohibited from even owning them. As a side effect, this will destroy Linux and BSD - what are those without gcc?
Wolfram and Hart style lawyer argument: "After all we license people to drive cars, why not require a license to program a computer."
The hour is growing very late - under the guise of 'protecting the Internet from hackers' governments are about to make it illegal to do anything of value for humanity with free software. When is everybody going to wake up?
Who do you want to control technology: people who understand it, or people who fear it and want to destroy it? We are badly outgunned, and most of us don't even realize we are in a fight for our lives.
We either draw a line in the sand and say NO or we stand to lose everything. It will soon become apparent (to everyone with an IQ above that of a pet turtle) that I have been right about the legal system all along. These people know exactly what they are doing. This is not a mistake, a misunderstanding, or anything else innocent; these laws are deliberate, well thought out and intentionally malicious.
--
The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works.
National Observatory Six astronomers were injured and two hundred were arrested when police had to step in to stop a riot at the observatory. Fighting broke out between the Politically Correct Revisionist Faction and the traditionalist branches of Astronomy.
Phillip Narf a spokesman for the P.C.R.F. said: "The traditionalists are pooh heads. Pluto is the smallest planet, and as such it needs to be called an asteroid". "Nonsense" replied Arnold Dweeb of the traditionalist school "if we call Pluto an asteroid it would be by far the largest asteroid ever discovered, and as such would automatically be promoted to planetary status."
In a related story computer nerds around the world were seen dancing in the streets. A post on Slashdot - the computer nerd news web site explained the jubilation: "Finally we have found a group even more pathetic than we are; at least we could go out at night if we wanted to. And everybody used to say that we needed to get lives."
There is a substantial difference between being forced not to use a debugger and not needing one because the code you produce doesn't have very many bugs.
The sad truth is that there are differences in programming skill levels - just like there are differences between levels of chess players. No one has ever been able to explain what makes a good chess player, and what makes a bad one, except to note that poor players seem to make weaker moves than strong ones. You can't point to a really weak player and say "You're moving your knight wrong". The problem is not that simple. How do you let a low level club chess player see the board like a grand master?
The problem boils down to this: craftsmanship can be taught; art can't be. The reason that the most advanced technical achievements are called "state of the art" is that there are a huge number of ways of solving a given problem - it is a matter of artistic choice how the problem gets solved. Some choices work better than others.
To an artist these truths can be seen easily, if a person hasn't reached the level of artist yet he can't. I don't know how to lift someone from the level of craftsman to artist - neither does anyone else. That is something each person must do for themselves. One of the quick rule of thumb tests to see if someone has reached the level of artist as a programmer is: "Does he need a debugger?". That is not a fair test - the skill sets do not match exactly - but it works better than nothing.
You are correct that raw novices do behave in the fashion you state. Please remember that I said that there was an element of very bad programmers who don't need a debugger, you have correctly identified them.
Instead of treating your experience as an ordeal you could have treated it as an opportunity for growth - forcing yourself to increase in skill level to the point that correct code flowed effortlessly.
I've gone through all of the stages, from not needing a debugger, to becoming skilled in their use and thinking them a great tool, to not needing one again. I don't claim to be a great artist - more accurately I'm like those people in the 'starving artists' group who turn out art to eke out a living; I can see that there are people who are a lot better than I am, but that most people are not as good.
I apologize if I have offended people - but I am not going to apologize for having reached the level of poor artist, I may never get any better, but at least I got that far.
In chess they have competitions to sort the skill levels of players - we really don't have any such things in programming, and it is easy to talk a great fight. It is possible that I am just full of it, however I will admit that possibility. Will the rest of you admit that you could be the ones who are full of it ? One of the hallmarks of having reached the level of artist is that you have to be honest with yourself - the self deluded are self deluded.
Had I known that Linus had said these things I would have quoted him. Rather than parroting him I was explaining what I've learned on the subject.
Anyone can be a 'skeptic' that takes absolutely nothing on that person's part; very few people can produce anything of value.
I've only led one small free software project - but I'll bet that is one more than you have ever led. I know enough to recognize talent in people - you don't, and therein lies the difference.
Well, because confused programmers outnumber the ones who aren't confused by a huge number I think that you will discover that letting them play in the game makes the sheer volume of bad code being submitted so large that you will spend all of your time reading and rejecting bad code. The real danger is that bad code becomes the norm - rather than the exception, and you wind up with a kernel which works only about as well as Win 9X.
Linus' position on the subject may not be snobbery - I suspect that he receives so much bad code as it is that the idea of letting all the confused people in would utterly swamp him. Bad code is more likely to be written by confused programmers than people who aren't confused.
The 'do you allow a debugger or not' question is a difficult one in programming as a whole. Most of the time your position is the accepted one. The tool in the use of those who do need to use it on occasion is generally better than not having the tool. However, a kernel may be one place where it is better not to have one because of the problems I mentioned.
Wirth noted after he saw Pascal and Modula-2 being used by confused programmers that standards and a model don't seem to keep confused programmers from producing bad code. They follow the form of the standard without comprehending the content of the standard; the letter of the law rather than its spirit is what gets obeyed.
The beauty of the Free Software world is that it allows constructive competition. If you can do better you have, in my opinion, an obligation to the rest of humanity to make the attempt. Linus has said that he hopes that something better does come along.
I know my limitations as a programmer and as a manager of software projects; a few thousand lines of code with a team of 10 or so people is about all I am able to lead. I am the programming equivalent of about a 10.5 second 100 meter sprinter: I am way better than most people - but I don't belong in the Olympics.
Let me suggest that all comments to the FTC be thoughtful, polite, and expressed in such a way that anyone who's IQ exceeds that of a trilobite can understand our positions on the matter. I suggest this for the following reasons: 1. Polite thoughtful and clear is the correct way to put forth ideas which are unfamiliar. 2. When what we have to say is completely ignored we will have irrefutable evidence that the FTC is not interested in doing what is right, but is only interested in appearing to do what is right.
That way more and more people can become convinced that there is something rotten at the heart of the entire structure that we have been taught to believe in.
This will leave the FTC in the uncomfortable position of having to come up with some truly innovative plausible lies to cover up what they are doing - or they will have to do the right thing. I'm betting on the innovative plausible lies approach - but they might be afraid of being too obvious if they take that course. Thus there is some possibility that they might wind up doing what is right - counting on the court system to 'require' them to do the wrong things as an over rule. Of course evil people are clever enough to realize that they can't win every fight, and that this might be one they allow us to win.
There was a story once about the devil finally defeating God, and finding out that he was required to take on many aspects of the divinity when he did so.
Your comments are very interesting, and since you asked to be shown the emperor's clothes I'll try to explain the position on debuggers.
There is a certain class of programmers who don't use debuggers very much because mostly their code is so well designed and thought out that they don't put very many bugs into it in the first place. Such people can see that the code produced by the other types of programmers - who heavily require debuggers - is sloppy and the result of confused thinking.
Those who do use debuggers heavily are incapable of understanding the thought processes of those who don't use debuggers because the thought processes of the 'use a debugger' school are too confused to allow such understanding. Indeed, the people who depend upon debuggers lack the clarity of thought to even understand that another way of doing things might exist.
The lack of a kernel debugger is deliberate on Linus' part: it serves as a barrier to keep programmers below a certain level from attempting to contribute their confused code to the kernel. Linus is too polite to explain that. Of course the barrier is no guarantee: this is a Yin and Yang world - some people who don't need a debugger are very bad programmers - some people who do are very good programmers. However as a first test of programming skill level it is one which works pretty well.
As I said, this is a Yin and Yang world we live in. The mantra 'modular gooood - spaghetti baaad' is too simplistic to fit into the complexities of that world. Generally modular is the right way to do things - and spaghetti code is the wrong way. However, spaghetti code does have one virtue: it is often faster. A place where performance counts is a good candidate for the use of spaghetti code.
Let me suggest that you attempt to create your own kernel based on your ideas of what a kernel ought to be. If you are right everyone will be able to see that it is so. We will all proclaim you a Geek God , and the Playmate of the Year will collapse at your feet moaning "Take me Digital Man , I'm yours". If, on the other hand, you discover you are not up to the task - then some honest reflection might cause you to see that you are the one who is confused, and that your anger might be misplaced.
If plowshare style explosions were allowed the military could test new warheads by using them in the explosions. This would allow them to violate the various test ban treaties and moratoriums which have existed over the years.
It was probably decided that the arguing which could ensue: "Was this a violation or not." was not worth the possible gains.
The big problem is that the noise far exceeds the signal that they are looking for. It is possible to detect a signal in a lot of noise - However. There are certain things necessary to do it. The easiest noise to reject is common mode noise with a differential signal; have differential detectors each of which gets the same noise while the signal comes in in differential form. The noise cancels itself out while the signal gets amplified.
Another way of accepting a signal is to look for a repetitive signal in a random noise environment. Filtering can help you do this.
What these people are trying to do is listen for a cricket chirping outdoors while they are inside and a rock band is playing full volume next to their microphone. They can filter for the expected cricket sound, but there is no guarantee that what they detect isn't the drummer's pant leg brushing against a snare drum. The noise isn't random. If the noise is repetitive at the expected signal frequency there isn't any way to know which is which.
Does anyone have any insight on how they are going to reject noise at the expected frequency?
The problem with 'playing god' and creating a universe is that people don't know enough to do the job; you start changing things and the whole apple cart gets upset.
For example: demand Circular orbits only and you never get any planets; circular orbits can never intersect. That means there can't be any collisions - so the planets never form. That's why we don't have circular orbits - that sort of simplistic "perfection" just won't work. The 'imperfections' of the universe are just as necessary as the perfectly precision parts. Throw away the imperfections and things don't work anymore.
We live in a complex Yin and Yang universe - not a simplistic 4 elements black and white universe like Aristotle thought. 4 elements won't support life either - that's why we need the complexity of more than 90 elements.
Get rid of the vacuum inside of atoms and everything collapses into nuclear material - and boy does life change then. The messy parts are just as necessary as the clean ones; get rid of the mess, and you get rid of life. The illogical chaos of the universe is just as important as the perfectly logical parts are. Eliminate the Yin and Yang nature of the universe - demand only black and white - the way most simplistic people think things are - and nothing works.
i've been accused by somebody of being a Karma Whore. My main interest is in trying to learn haw to tell people about the things I've learned.
In any case I've already received the highest moderation possible for a geek. One night I was working with Vanna Lace - who was the reigning Miss Nude World. Between her shows we talked for a couple of hours. She is quite intelligent, and was one of the people who helped me understand women better. Just before she left she said: "Here is my name and home address; write to me when you have your theories written down.
That would be a moderation of:
+10 Miss Nude World gives you her real name and home address.
Now that is moderation points worth having. I'm willing to bet I'm the only geek in history to ever get one of those.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, why would pointing out that a system, running as well as we can run it can still make mistakes, be a result of a black/white world view?
Answer: because of your automatic unquestioning belief that the system is running as well as we can make it run.
I note once again that you had nothing to say when I pointed out your obvious failure to understand in the 'shit happens' part of your original post.
Question: Is that failure to respond because of an unwillingness to admit that you might be wrong?
People in this forum only have your written words on which to make judgments. Your words represent you and your thought patterns. I pointed out examples of arrogant behavior in those words. You respond that it is arrogant of me to presume to do so. That is not arrogant behavior on my part: I could be wrong in what I had to say, but it is not arrogance to make those statements. Your response appears to be a variation of the childish: "I know you are, but what am I?"
If you are unable to understand why people give you - angry - impolite - responses, then I will ask you: Has it ever occurred to you that there might be something wrong with the way that you present your views; that perhaps you do come off as arrogant and condescending? In my experience people are unlikely to call someone a "Pompous arrogant ass" unless they have reason to do so.
If you are experiencing a "growing appriciation of the ambiguity of the real world," I offer you my applause: that is an important step. The next step is an understanding of why that ambiguity must be there and an appreciation of what that knowledge implies about existence. I suspect that once you reach that stage - if you ever do - your views of the world will change.
Gov. Bush I think that this is a problem which private industry can handle better than the government ever could. In my experience fine products like Preparation H already do a good job of relieving the pain caused by Asteroids.
Vice President Gore: The governor and I are in complete agreement on this subject.
Thanks, I do understand the difference between signal and noise. Applying simple technical understanding to complex societal phenomena is a mistake I made many years ago - and one from which I learned. In order to understand why people behave in the ways that they do you have to understand the ways in which they think.
For example: it is obvious to me that you think in a simplistic, primitive, Aristotelian, the world is black and white fashion. As such your thought patterns do not match the far more complex Yin and Yang nature of reality.
Evidence of arrogance on your part: your condescending use of the word 'kiddo' indicates a contemptuous attitude toward anyone who is not 'sophisticated' enough to agree with you. More evidence: the use of the phrase 'Kahuna fan' to contemptuously describe someone who disagrees with you. By using this phrase you are evidently seeing yourself in the position of famous performer - addressing those 'beneath' you in the social structure. You evidently believe that anyone who disagrees with you does so only from ignorance. It never occurs to you that you have only taken the second step along a multiple step journey to understanding. I have been where you are. I have discovered the errors in those thought patterns and moved on to a better level of understanding.
Your message is not very profound. It is: the world is exactly what it appears to be; no interpretation of what happens is ever necessary.
For example: Let's look at your shit happens perspective in the original post which prompted my reply. If a lightning bolt strikes you, that is an example of shit happens . If you are walking along and you sprain your ankle because the earth beneath you feet gives away due to a naturally occurring weakness in its structure that is shit happens. If the police confiscate your computers that is an example of a deliberate human action against you; it is not 'shit happens'. The distinguishing factor is not 'bad things happening to you', but rather whether those bad things are random or deliberate. Your failure to make this distinction indicates a lack of clear thought and understanding on your part.
Your posts are moderated up because they appeal to people who are proud of having taken the first (big) step toward understanding and who now believe that they know how the world works. Let me suggest that you try pulling your pompous head out of your arrogant ass and look around more carefully; there is more yet for you to learn.
It is possible to do defeat a large company in court. A lone inventor who created the intermittent windshield wiper and patented it was successful in getting judgments against a number of automobile companies: but he did all of the legal work himself. He is the only person I have ever heard of who was successful in doing something like that. By the way, his case was pretty good; the auto companies lifted his circuit design - down to the specific transistors used - straight from his patent and built it into their production models.
This took him many years to win, and the judges ruled against him every chance they got. Judges don't like the idea of an individual suing without a lawyer: as an article of legal extortion they think that their legal brethren deserve a cut of everything.
Short answer to your question: possible, but not probable.
The simple truth is the government is big and strong - you are not - so you lose. The government gets away with a lot of things it is not supposed to do; the Constitution forbids involuntary servitude - but that never stopped them from drafting people.
Maturity is not just accepting things that happen to you - it is knowing when something is malicious, and when it is not. Immature people either believe that everything is malicious - or like you - believe nothing is malicious. The 'nothing that ever happens is deliberate malice' approach is just as wrong as seeing conspiracies around every corner. You might as well fall flat on your face as to lean over too far backwards. A mature human recognizes malice when it exists.
The behavior of the police in the story was malicious. The police believed their malice was justified but their behavior was deliberate (they got a warrant) not accidental (they didn't question the wrong person - they went after the one they wanted). Keeping the equipment on the plausible lie of "its evidence" is malicious. There was no crime committed - so there is no evidence to hold.
We pay the police to be malicious toward 'criminals'. If the police decide that you are a criminal they will be malicious toward you. It is our mistaken belief that we won't ever be seen that way that gives people their sense of safety.
If saner minds prevail, and UCITA is defeated in a few states it will not stop them . We have to understand this and be just as resolute and relentless as our opponents. We also can't give in in the states where UCITA has passed. We have to keep working to get those laws repealed.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." That is what that phrase means. Fighting these people is a lot like mankind's fight with the cockroach - it will never be won - but you have to keep fighting. Set yourself mentally for the fact that you are in a fight that will last your lifetime. We might win battles, but the war will never end.
The only reasonable thing to do is agree to the search and hope that the officer isn't looking for the adrenaline rush that arresting an innocent suspect brings. Some cops really get off on the idea that they are - for all practical purposes - destroying someone's life; it gives them the illusion that they rather than the government that they represent are the ones who are powerful.
If you are charged with a drug offense the odds are excellent that you will be convicted. In fact it almost doesn't matter what the outcome of the trial is; the legal system will grind you into paste regardless of whether you draw or lose. (The best you can hope for in a criminal case is a zero - zero tie. You are not allowed to score, only the state is. For sure you aren't going to win and send the prosecutor, and arresting officer to jail for lying about you to a jury. It seems pretty obvious to me, but evidently other people appear to miss the fact that if you really are innocent, everything the prosecution uses to try to convict you is a lie; they might believe their own lies, but they are still lies. )
Don't think that law enforcement agencies would do something like that? Of course, you are correct: the police have never planted drugs on a suspect. Not one time, ever.
For example: no police officer would ever claim you were speeding when you weren't - just because he wanted to search your vehicle. Oh wait, I have had that happen to me three times in the last 20 years. And no, I don't look like a drug user - or even meet any sort of profile other than being a single male driving a not very expensive vehicle. I think the officers were just bored. When they couldn't find anything wrong they looked really disappointed. I was always polite and courteous to them when they pulled me over, so they didn't 'find' any drugs in my vehicle. Of course all it would have taken was a little outrage at being stooped for a crime I wasn't committing, and suddenly boom: "Look what I found." See guys, its not paranoia when it has happened to you.
Carnivore enables the modern version of a thought crime: "We thought you might be a criminal, so you are one!"
TROLL.
Debit cards on the other hand have no such liability limit on them.
If a law passed which allowed a judge to hold a red hot poker to my tongue I would be worried about that too.
You simply don't want to believe that the people in positions of authority might be deliberately malicious, I don't find that concept unthinkable.
I am not exaggerating - think like a lawyer - compilers are the number one hacking tool. (And yes Mr. Pedant I know that it is possible to hack with an assembler. I am using 'compiler' in this context to mean any tool which allows a person to program a computer: compilers, assemblers, interpreters etc.) These would all be illegal under the terms of these laws. While licensed professionals i.e. Microsoft employees etc. might be allowed to use these tools under supervision - common folk such as us would be prohibited from even owning them. As a side effect, this will destroy Linux and BSD - what are those without gcc?
Wolfram and Hart style lawyer argument: "After all we license people to drive cars, why not require a license to program a computer."
The hour is growing very late - under the guise of 'protecting the Internet from hackers' governments are about to make it illegal to do anything of value for humanity with free software. When is everybody going to wake up?
Who do you want to control technology: people who understand it, or people who fear it and want to destroy it? We are badly outgunned, and most of us don't even realize we are in a fight for our lives.
We either draw a line in the sand and say NO or we stand to lose everything. It will soon become apparent (to everyone with an IQ above that of a pet turtle) that I have been right about the legal system all along. These people know exactly what they are doing. This is not a mistake, a misunderstanding, or anything else innocent; these laws are deliberate, well thought out and intentionally malicious.
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The law, 100's of millions of lines of code, not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works.
Phillip Narf a spokesman for the P.C.R.F. said: "The traditionalists are pooh heads. Pluto is the smallest planet, and as such it needs to be called an asteroid". "Nonsense" replied Arnold Dweeb of the traditionalist school "if we call Pluto an asteroid it would be by far the largest asteroid ever discovered, and as such would automatically be promoted to planetary status."
In a related story computer nerds around the world were seen dancing in the streets. A post on Slashdot - the computer nerd news web site explained the jubilation: "Finally we have found a group even more pathetic than we are; at least we could go out at night if we wanted to. And everybody used to say that we needed to get lives."
The sad truth is that there are differences in programming skill levels - just like there are differences between levels of chess players. No one has ever been able to explain what makes a good chess player, and what makes a bad one, except to note that poor players seem to make weaker moves than strong ones. You can't point to a really weak player and say "You're moving your knight wrong". The problem is not that simple. How do you let a low level club chess player see the board like a grand master?
The problem boils down to this: craftsmanship can be taught; art can't be. The reason that the most advanced technical achievements are called "state of the art" is that there are a huge number of ways of solving a given problem - it is a matter of artistic choice how the problem gets solved. Some choices work better than others.
To an artist these truths can be seen easily, if a person hasn't reached the level of artist yet he can't. I don't know how to lift someone from the level of craftsman to artist - neither does anyone else. That is something each person must do for themselves. One of the quick rule of thumb tests to see if someone has reached the level of artist as a programmer is: "Does he need a debugger?". That is not a fair test - the skill sets do not match exactly - but it works better than nothing.
You are correct that raw novices do behave in the fashion you state. Please remember that I said that there was an element of very bad programmers who don't need a debugger, you have correctly identified them.
Instead of treating your experience as an ordeal you could have treated it as an opportunity for growth - forcing yourself to increase in skill level to the point that correct code flowed effortlessly.
I've gone through all of the stages, from not needing a debugger, to becoming skilled in their use and thinking them a great tool, to not needing one again. I don't claim to be a great artist - more accurately I'm like those people in the 'starving artists' group who turn out art to eke out a living; I can see that there are people who are a lot better than I am, but that most people are not as good.
I apologize if I have offended people - but I am not going to apologize for having reached the level of poor artist, I may never get any better, but at least I got that far.
In chess they have competitions to sort the skill levels of players - we really don't have any such things in programming, and it is easy to talk a great fight. It is possible that I am just full of it, however I will admit that possibility. Will the rest of you admit that you could be the ones who are full of it ? One of the hallmarks of having reached the level of artist is that you have to be honest with yourself - the self deluded are self deluded.
Anyone can be a 'skeptic' that takes absolutely nothing on that person's part; very few people can produce anything of value.
I've only led one small free software project - but I'll bet that is one more than you have ever led. I know enough to recognize talent in people - you don't, and therein lies the difference.
Linus' position on the subject may not be snobbery - I suspect that he receives so much bad code as it is that the idea of letting all the confused people in would utterly swamp him. Bad code is more likely to be written by confused programmers than people who aren't confused.
The 'do you allow a debugger or not' question is a difficult one in programming as a whole. Most of the time your position is the accepted one. The tool in the use of those who do need to use it on occasion is generally better than not having the tool. However, a kernel may be one place where it is better not to have one because of the problems I mentioned.
Wirth noted after he saw Pascal and Modula-2 being used by confused programmers that standards and a model don't seem to keep confused programmers from producing bad code. They follow the form of the standard without comprehending the content of the standard; the letter of the law rather than its spirit is what gets obeyed.
The beauty of the Free Software world is that it allows constructive competition. If you can do better you have, in my opinion, an obligation to the rest of humanity to make the attempt. Linus has said that he hopes that something better does come along.
I know my limitations as a programmer and as a manager of software projects; a few thousand lines of code with a team of 10 or so people is about all I am able to lead. I am the programming equivalent of about a 10.5 second 100 meter sprinter: I am way better than most people - but I don't belong in the Olympics.
That way more and more people can become convinced that there is something rotten at the heart of the entire structure that we have been taught to believe in.
This will leave the FTC in the uncomfortable position of having to come up with some truly innovative plausible lies to cover up what they are doing - or they will have to do the right thing. I'm betting on the innovative plausible lies approach - but they might be afraid of being too obvious if they take that course. Thus there is some possibility that they might wind up doing what is right - counting on the court system to 'require' them to do the wrong things as an over rule. Of course evil people are clever enough to realize that they can't win every fight, and that this might be one they allow us to win.
Your comments are very interesting, and since you asked to be shown the emperor's clothes I'll try to explain the position on debuggers.
There is a certain class of programmers who don't use debuggers very much because mostly their code is so well designed and thought out that they don't put very many bugs into it in the first place. Such people can see that the code produced by the other types of programmers - who heavily require debuggers - is sloppy and the result of confused thinking.
Those who do use debuggers heavily are incapable of understanding the thought processes of those who don't use debuggers because the thought processes of the 'use a debugger' school are too confused to allow such understanding. Indeed, the people who depend upon debuggers lack the clarity of thought to even understand that another way of doing things might exist.
The lack of a kernel debugger is deliberate on Linus' part: it serves as a barrier to keep programmers below a certain level from attempting to contribute their confused code to the kernel. Linus is too polite to explain that. Of course the barrier is no guarantee: this is a Yin and Yang world - some people who don't need a debugger are very bad programmers - some people who do are very good programmers. However as a first test of programming skill level it is one which works pretty well.
As I said, this is a Yin and Yang world we live in. The mantra 'modular gooood - spaghetti baaad' is too simplistic to fit into the complexities of that world. Generally modular is the right way to do things - and spaghetti code is the wrong way. However, spaghetti code does have one virtue: it is often faster. A place where performance counts is a good candidate for the use of spaghetti code.
Let me suggest that you attempt to create your own kernel based on your ideas of what a kernel ought to be. If you are right everyone will be able to see that it is so. We will all proclaim you a Geek God , and the Playmate of the Year will collapse at your feet moaning "Take me Digital Man , I'm yours". If, on the other hand, you discover you are not up to the task - then some honest reflection might cause you to see that you are the one who is confused, and that your anger might be misplaced.
If plowshare style explosions were allowed the military could test new warheads by using them in the explosions. This would allow them to violate the various test ban treaties and moratoriums which have existed over the years.
It was probably decided that the arguing which could ensue: "Was this a violation or not." was not worth the possible gains.
Another way of accepting a signal is to look for a repetitive signal in a random noise environment. Filtering can help you do this.
What these people are trying to do is listen for a cricket chirping outdoors while they are inside and a rock band is playing full volume next to their microphone. They can filter for the expected cricket sound, but there is no guarantee that what they detect isn't the drummer's pant leg brushing against a snare drum. The noise isn't random. If the noise is repetitive at the expected signal frequency there isn't any way to know which is which.
Does anyone have any insight on how they are going to reject noise at the expected frequency?
Sigh. No, the previous post was the flamebait, mine was the flame. This moderator is truly clueless.
The problem with 'playing god' and creating a universe is that people don't know enough to do the job; you start changing things and the whole apple cart gets upset.
For example: demand Circular orbits only and you never get any planets; circular orbits can never intersect. That means there can't be any collisions - so the planets never form. That's why we don't have circular orbits - that sort of simplistic "perfection" just won't work. The 'imperfections' of the universe are just as necessary as the perfectly precision parts. Throw away the imperfections and things don't work anymore.
We live in a complex Yin and Yang universe - not a simplistic 4 elements black and white universe like Aristotle thought. 4 elements won't support life either - that's why we need the complexity of more than 90 elements.
Get rid of the vacuum inside of atoms and everything collapses into nuclear material - and boy does life change then. The messy parts are just as necessary as the clean ones; get rid of the mess, and you get rid of life. The illogical chaos of the universe is just as important as the perfectly logical parts are. Eliminate the Yin and Yang nature of the universe - demand only black and white - the way most simplistic people think things are - and nothing works.
In any case I've already received the highest moderation possible for a geek. One night I was working with Vanna Lace - who was the reigning Miss Nude World. Between her shows we talked for a couple of hours. She is quite intelligent, and was one of the people who helped me understand women better. Just before she left she said: "Here is my name and home address; write to me when you have your theories written down.
That would be a moderation of:
+10 Miss Nude World gives you her real name and home address.
Now that is moderation points worth having. I'm willing to bet I'm the only geek in history to ever get one of those.