"Havn't studied much child psychology eh? Young children view their parents as God, it is clear that you have now, as an adult, transferred this parental nature onto your belief of a supernatural God."
I am fairly sure that Jesus' quote "Our Father which art in Heaven" came long before there was such a field as Child Psychology. In other words, Christians have been thinking of God as a "Heavenly Father" for a very long time. Personally I believe that Jesus used that analogy simply because it was very apt. God is very much like an extremely competent Father.
I'm not going to defend the first poster's claims of understanding child psychology. But it's silly to imply that children didn't start behaving psychologically until the field was invented.
Sorry for being the incorrigible skeptic, but I just don't see any evidence for God's competence as a father figure. Despite having complete power to protect His children from harm, people continue to suffer and die in random ways and for no apparent purpose. You could argue that the suffering serves some deep purpose, but that doesn't explain why suffering is so inequitably distributed. One person lives a generally happy and untroubled life, another lurches from one disaster to the next, a third dies of some debilitating disease before the age of six.
Feel free to respond by claiming God knows exactly what we need in our lives and how to best give it to us. But the fact is, that's not evidence; it's a desperate attempt to explain away the evidence of mindless randomness.
"Besides, what kind of sick fuck tapes his kid to the wall."
"That's precisely my point. Just like it would be evil to duct-tape my daughter to the wall it would be wrong for God to control us like so many automatons. In other words, you can't blame the actions of humans on God, he isn't responsible for them."
God created us. He did so knowing precisely how we would behave. He set the system up in such a way that Adam's fall caused his descendants to have a "tendency towards evil," a violation of free will by itself. Yet I and I alone bear full responsibility for my actions?
Would it be wrong for God to control our actions? Probably. But would it be wrong to do so if the end result was an elimination of suffering? Certainly less so. But then, of course, it was within God's power to give us free will without the tendency towards sin. According to my understanding of Christian theology--which is uncomplimentary and therefore wrong--it is possible to rid ourselves of the desire to sin by relying on God. In other words, God deliberately designed us with flaws so that we would have to be dependent on Him.
In the words of Cook, "God is powerful, but insecure."
This is why I hate religion. Not mistrust, not dislike. Hate. All the arguing over what God wants, what God intends, what God plans--when He is either non-existent or powerful enough to just break out and tell us--distracts us from what really matters: the alleviaton of suffering in the here and now.
Not at all correct, I'm afraid. The reason metal has the electrical properties it does is that some of the electrons can be passed easily from one outer shell to another. In fact, the free electrons can't really be said to be in any one atom's orbital.
Therefore, when exposed to an electromotive force (voltage), the electrons do get pulled down along the wire. Because of impurities in the copper, they end up bouncing around like a ball in a pinball machine, and never achieve a high rate of speed (according to my physics teacher, the electrons themselves move along the wire at something akin to walking speed).
However, in a superconductor, there's nothing for the electrons to bounce off, and they do achieve a significant fraction (80%?) of the speed of light. Which is approximately the speed at which the voltage itself moves. You can imagine it as an army of twenty million people in a long column. When they hear a whistle blow, they start walking. Every individual is moving at a very slow rate, yet the signal to move propagates down the column at the speed of sound.
You're right! You're right about everything! I've been watching Buffy for two years now, under the illusion that it was really fun concept, with interesting characters and great writing. Now, after looking at the entire show in the light of your keen insight, I realize that the show completely blows.
Honestly, I don't mind that you don't like the show. I don't even mind that you rag on it. But this "I think everything sucks, and I must be pretty cool to be this cynical and jaded" attitude is just soooo 1998.
It's pathetic, but I was actually quite disturbed by "Normal Again." How dare Joss upset his imaginary world by implying that the imaginary world was a product of someone's imagination? Okay, if that sounded a little confused, it was. But, as silly as it sounds, I felt like I'd been lied to. I still don't know if it was being speculative, or making a definitive statement about the world of Buffy. It shouldn't matter to me, but somehow it does.
"Seems people are overlooking a basic question here... if the content of something offends you, why do you want to view it?"
As someone who was raised in the culture that gave rise to Cleanflicks (Note: I think I'm better now), I think I can speak knowledgeably on this point. My parents, like many of my neighbors, had very strict rules against seeing R-rated movies.* We all wanted to see these movies, because the trailers looked "fetching cool"**. In fact, I did watch these movies occasionally, but I had to have someone with me who knew which parts to fast forward through.
Most devoutly religious types don't want to be weird. They just have certain standards (however arbitrary I feel they are) that they don't want to violate. They can still appreciate that a movie has a good plot and good acting, despite one or two scenes that they find offensive. They end up feeling left out when those around them are raving about a film that they feel obligated not to watch.
I haven't formed an opinion on the Cleanflicks thing from an ethical/legal standpoint, but it's not hard to imagine why their customers want this service.
* This rule wasn't their own idea; it came down from our religious leaders. Strange, in retrospect, that my parents turned their decision-making skills over to those leaders, who then turned specific decisions over to the MPAA.
** Hey, we couldn't say the F-word either. And apparently I still can't.
"Is there some unalienable right to watch the same movie as everybody else that is being violated by having nudity/profanity/evolution/whatever shoved down your throat by those oppressive writers/directors/actors/whatevers?"
When you put it that way, no. But by the same token, does the movie studio have an inalienable right to have the movie watched in precisely its original format? Let's not talk about the artistic vision of the director, since the studios are constantly stomping all over that vision in the name of the almighty buck.
I'll admit I'm as frustrated with the prudishness of some people myself. My fifteen year old cousin refused to play "The Sims" because it depicted nudity and "people in bed together." I kid you not. I can't work up any moral outrage against the movie studios "ruining" a perfectly good shoot-em-up with a ten second sex scene. But as someone who has been there, done that, and refused to wear the t-shirt because of its objectionable contents, I know what the customers are going through, and I don't blame them.
"If you want a movie/book/song/whatever that meets certain criteria, shouldn't you produce/write/sing one of your own? And frankly, if a content creator is creating content to which you object, why would you want to give them your money? That is, after all, how we as a society assign moderator points to creative works."
There's been a movement going on in Utah that does precisely that. Recently, three or four movies every year come out in the Rocky Mountain area that are overtly targeted towards Mormons. They vary a lot in quality, and rely heavily on the sort of plots and in-jokes that guarantee that they will bomb in more mainstream areas. But they're getting a lot of local support, for many of the same reasons people support Cleanflicks.
"Of course, we live in a culture that thinks adults viewing sex is harmful, yet sees no problem with children witnessing gunshots to the head. So maybe slashdot's moderation system isn't the only one that's broken."
"I have indeed seen this. Previously rational people become completely irrational when the issue at hand is "protecting" their own children. It is pretty excessive to believe that preventing your children from seeing naked people is in some way protecting them."
You're missing the point. If children see naked people on television, they might grow up thinking that nudity is okay. The multi-billion dollar fashion industry would suffocate and die.
Worse, said children might also grow up questioning other social norms and traditions, and as we all know, that leads to terrorism. Do you want a charred busload of nuns on your hands? I thought not. So, for the sake of the children, Congress should pass a law mandating that movie stars must be clothed at all times.
Another theory is that the watermelon has more water in it. According to Aristotle, water has a tendency towards downward motion, and earth moreso. Fire and air, on the other hand, have a tendency towards upward motion. Which, if I remember my philosophy right, is why the sun doesn't fall down on top of us and dish out literal "sunburns."
You wouldn't happen to remember if the grape was of either a fiery or an airy nature, would you? It could be very important to breathing new life into the classical framework of motion. It would be nice to give the ancients their due, and knock that upstart Newton down a few pegs.
Wrong. Redcliffe was making a very valid point. Which city always bears the brunt of every disaster film's wrath? New York. When the director of Armaggeddon had to choose something to slam a meteor into to open his movie, what got blown up? Northallerton? No, New York.
The simple fact, which has been demonstrated in such varied settings as movies and. . . well, made-for-TV movies, is that when a disaster is deciding where to strike, it will usually choose New York. It might decide to hit Los Angeles instead if it's feeling rather saucy. But all disasters know, deep down, that New York is the only hangout spot for big-time apocalypses.
In short, the girl's comment was being used only to clarify its insightfulness, and you can stuff yourself. Thank you.
"Self-aware robots using humans as batteries are extraordinarily widespread," said Morpheus, director of whatisthematrix.com. "And if you have any doubt of that, watch The Matrix."
I have no doubt that Mr. Pike is correct, but I agree that using movies as expert witnesses is a disturbing trend.
Five years ago, a small upstart company wouldn't know it had made the big time until it was bought out by Microsoft. These days, we can tell that the "revolutionary OS" is a success, because dependable, non-revolutionary corporations are investigating ways to profit from it. That's always been the nature of most revolutions: They either die most miserably, or end up becoming part of the establishment themselves.
Of course, the ideas inherent in the way Linux is written and distributed may nevertheless go on to infect these established businesses. I'm interested in watching how things change because of it.
But which sort of rebellion will the next generation choose? Perhaps they could try showing their contempt for stuffy social norms by wearing their baseball caps backwards. Seriously, though, I doubt it will have anything to do with computers. They'll use them, sure. And no doubt Moore's Trend^H^H^H^H^H Law will give rise to some very disruptive killer apps. But computers themselves may be too much a part of the everyday landscape to be the focus of much revolutionary energy.
Calling the RIAA a non-profit organization is to bastardize the term. If McDonalds and Burger King got together and funded an "Institute for the Advancement of Health Science" which frequently issued reports downplaying the health effects of fast food, and lobbying congress to give fast food retailers immunity from being sued, the Institute would have a relationship similar to that shared by the RIAA and its members.
Furthermore, it is theoretically possible for a company like HMV to cut out the major labels by signing their own artists. If they could really offer a sweeter deal, I'm sure that even a lot of established artists would defect.
Re:Now I can compare functionality
on
KDE Gets The Hat
·
· Score: 1
The disadvantage, of course, is that it's not quite as obvious which desktop you're in. That's a shame, because they do behave quite differently, and even an experienced user might have the occasional brain freeze.
That's why I had to give up on Mozilla's "IE" theme. The Orbit theme is a bit loud, but I know exactly what I'm looking at.
I'm not sure what you're asking for here. Why would "the same or greater quantity of genetic data" be a requirement for it being a different species?
Nevertheless, the way to determine whether two groups are the same species or different is to see whether they're transmitting genetic information between the populations. I'm sure it would be relatively easy to breed two strains of flies (one very large and one very small) and continue this until it was physically impossible to breed. From then on, they would be two different species.
But if you're claiming that no new information can be added to the genome, then such an experiment wouldn't shed any light.
Evolution is a demonstrable fact. The "theories" only regard the mechanisms and causes of the observed evolution. As to your claim that these theories are unfalsifiable, would you care to be more specific?
I'm not aware of your claimed trend that gestation periods have been increasing. I'd have to see some sort of peer-reviewed study. But if your claim is true, it doesn't invalidate any evolutionary principles. Having thousands of descendants is one way to ensure the survival of your genes, but investing a great deal of effort into a few descendants is also a useful strategy.
Your "can of peaches" argument is absurd. First, we can't be sure that it doesn't happen from time to time. We would never be aware of such an occurance, because the primitive lifeform would just get eaten. Such a resulting lifeform would be impossibly primitive, basically undetectable, and would be at the mercy of the more advanced competitors outside the can. But in an empty planet, it wouldn't have any predators, and would be enough to get the ball rolling.
The negative entropy argument against evolution has been thoroughly discredited since the day it was first dreamed up. The Earth is not a closed system, because it is constantly being bombarded with energy from the sun. The entropy of the Earth/Sun system is increasing, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that there are localized pockets of low entropy.
Further, what is it about the God hypothesis that renders it impervious to the same criticism? If you are correct, you still have to deal with the fact that God's Decreed Law of Entropy is being wilfully violated by His own creations.
Macroevolution is just microevolution over a larger timespan. If you believe in one, you believe in the other. Furthermore, evolution does not conflict with Christianity per se, just with an unimaginative, literalistic interpretation of the Bible.
I think this is a reasonable solution, so long as it's very clear that cell phones / beepers won't work inside the theater. People who are on call for their jobs need to know that a given venue isn't an option for them.
Maybe the theater could provide a separate room (separated with a pane of glass) for such folks. A silly thought.
I think that once a hijacking has begun, several rules pretty much fly out the window. "Stay in your seat while the seatbelt light is on." "No assaulting your fellow passengers." "Do not use the word 'bomb' or 'hijack'." "Don't swipe drinks from the cart while the stewardess' back is turned." Nobody will care.
If there was a proposed ban on carrying cellphones on flights, then your example would be valid. But no matter how draconian the rules against using them may become, there are situations where nobody is going to care to enforce them.
The copyright holder can release his code to different people under different terms. You can have it under the GPL, Fred can get it under the BSD, and for five thousand bucks, Alice can make a closed-source product based on it. This isn't a problem.
The only question here is, "Who owns the copyright on the MySQL code?" Of course, it gets a little messy when you have thousands of potential developers.
This is just a good way to make a profit in the open source world.
Thanks for pointing out that the government is made up of people. Hadn't considered that fact.
Demanding that every application be open sourced is probably overkill for most government purposes. I personally don't care if the government is using Apache or IIS to host its website; the end user experience is the same. Nor do I care what e-mail system they're running, so long as I can send and receive mail from the client of my choice, and their e-mail archives can be freely converted into other formats.
But non-standard/proprietary protocols have to go. Let's say some governmental organization decides that the "easiest" way to publish their information is to use format X. Format X can only be read by application Y. Application Y costs $40. So in order to receive the information, you have to purchase application Y.
But now there's a hitch. You've received a document (say, a contract under negotiation), and you want to make your own revisions before sending it back. But application Y is only a reader. To make the changes, you need access to application Z, which costs $4000. Ouch.
When the government has to publish its doings to the outside world (which should be true by default), then what's "familiar and comfortable" to them should take a back seat to what's most enabling to the citizen.
Y'know, if you're so strapped for cash that you'll buy a $199 computer, you're strapped enough to buy a monitor for five bucks from a thrift store or a garage sale. That's where I've gotten my last three, and I have no complaints.
Or let someone do the manual labor for you: Pick up a comprehensive ad-blocking hosts file here. Then just copy the whole shebang into your hosts file (C:\Windows\hosts or (I believe)/etc/hosts). Personally, I commented out all the entries with OSDN in the string, because hey, I like this place.
One of the disadvantages to this method is that you often get popups saying "unable to connect to ad.adservingsite.com". I tried running Apache for a while to get rid of the messages, but decided that was silly.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry for being the incorrigible skeptic, but I just don't see any evidence for God's competence as a father figure. Despite having complete power to protect His children from harm, people continue to suffer and die in random ways and for no apparent purpose. You could argue that the suffering serves some deep purpose, but that doesn't explain why suffering is so inequitably distributed. One person lives a generally happy and untroubled life, another lurches from one disaster to the next, a third dies of some debilitating disease before the age of six.
Feel free to respond by claiming God knows exactly what we need in our lives and how to best give it to us. But the fact is, that's not evidence; it's a desperate attempt to explain away the evidence of mindless randomness.
God created us. He did so knowing precisely how we would behave. He set the system up in such a way that Adam's fall caused his descendants to have a "tendency towards evil," a violation of free will by itself. Yet I and I alone bear full responsibility for my actions?
Would it be wrong for God to control our actions? Probably. But would it be wrong to do so if the end result was an elimination of suffering? Certainly less so. But then, of course, it was within God's power to give us free will without the tendency towards sin. According to my understanding of Christian theology--which is uncomplimentary and therefore wrong--it is possible to rid ourselves of the desire to sin by relying on God. In other words, God deliberately designed us with flaws so that we would have to be dependent on Him.
In the words of Cook, "God is powerful, but insecure."
This is why I hate religion. Not mistrust, not dislike. Hate. All the arguing over what God wants, what God intends, what God plans--when He is either non-existent or powerful enough to just break out and tell us--distracts us from what really matters: the alleviaton of suffering in the here and now.
Not at all correct, I'm afraid. The reason metal has the electrical properties it does is that some of the electrons can be passed easily from one outer shell to another. In fact, the free electrons can't really be said to be in any one atom's orbital.
Therefore, when exposed to an electromotive force (voltage), the electrons do get pulled down along the wire. Because of impurities in the copper, they end up bouncing around like a ball in a pinball machine, and never achieve a high rate of speed (according to my physics teacher, the electrons themselves move along the wire at something akin to walking speed).
However, in a superconductor, there's nothing for the electrons to bounce off, and they do achieve a significant fraction (80%?) of the speed of light. Which is approximately the speed at which the voltage itself moves. You can imagine it as an army of twenty million people in a long column. When they hear a whistle blow, they start walking. Every individual is moving at a very slow rate, yet the signal to move propagates down the column at the speed of sound.
Does any of this help?
Oh. My. God.
You're right! You're right about everything! I've been watching Buffy for two years now, under the illusion that it was really fun concept, with interesting characters and great writing. Now, after looking at the entire show in the light of your keen insight, I realize that the show completely blows.
Honestly, I don't mind that you don't like the show. I don't even mind that you rag on it. But this "I think everything sucks, and I must be pretty cool to be this cynical and jaded" attitude is just soooo 1998.
It's pathetic, but I was actually quite disturbed by "Normal Again." How dare Joss upset his imaginary world by implying that the imaginary world was a product of someone's imagination? Okay, if that sounded a little confused, it was. But, as silly as it sounds, I felt like I'd been lied to. I still don't know if it was being speculative, or making a definitive statement about the world of Buffy. It shouldn't matter to me, but somehow it does.
:)
I'm sure "Newhart" fans felt the same way.
Most devoutly religious types don't want to be weird. They just have certain standards (however arbitrary I feel they are) that they don't want to violate. They can still appreciate that a movie has a good plot and good acting, despite one or two scenes that they find offensive. They end up feeling left out when those around them are raving about a film that they feel obligated not to watch.
I haven't formed an opinion on the Cleanflicks thing from an ethical/legal standpoint, but it's not hard to imagine why their customers want this service.
* This rule wasn't their own idea; it came down from our religious leaders. Strange, in retrospect, that my parents turned their decision-making skills over to those leaders, who then turned specific decisions over to the MPAA.
** Hey, we couldn't say the F-word either. And apparently I still can't.
When you put it that way, no. But by the same token, does the movie studio have an inalienable right to have the movie watched in precisely its original format? Let's not talk about the artistic vision of the director, since the studios are constantly stomping all over that vision in the name of the almighty buck.
I'll admit I'm as frustrated with the prudishness of some people myself. My fifteen year old cousin refused to play "The Sims" because it depicted nudity and "people in bed together." I kid you not. I can't work up any moral outrage against the movie studios "ruining" a perfectly good shoot-em-up with a ten second sex scene. But as someone who has been there, done that, and refused to wear the t-shirt because of its objectionable contents, I know what the customers are going through, and I don't blame them.
There's been a movement going on in Utah that does precisely that. Recently, three or four movies every year come out in the Rocky Mountain area that are overtly targeted towards Mormons. They vary a lot in quality, and rely heavily on the sort of plots and in-jokes that guarantee that they will bomb in more mainstream areas. But they're getting a lot of local support, for many of the same reasons people support Cleanflicks.
Preach it, my friend. Preach it.
Worse, said children might also grow up questioning other social norms and traditions, and as we all know, that leads to terrorism. Do you want a charred busload of nuns on your hands? I thought not. So, for the sake of the children, Congress should pass a law mandating that movie stars must be clothed at all times.
Please. Venezuela is just a small--though vital--portion of the operating system. So please, call it GNU/Venezuela.
Note: The parent comment was either a joking reference to the board game "Risk" or a comment by someone who learned geography from said board game.
When in doubt, retreat to Australia.
Another theory is that the watermelon has more water in it. According to Aristotle, water has a tendency towards downward motion, and earth moreso. Fire and air, on the other hand, have a tendency towards upward motion. Which, if I remember my philosophy right, is why the sun doesn't fall down on top of us and dish out literal "sunburns."
You wouldn't happen to remember if the grape was of either a fiery or an airy nature, would you? It could be very important to breathing new life into the classical framework of motion. It would be nice to give the ancients their due, and knock that upstart Newton down a few pegs.
Wrong. Redcliffe was making a very valid point. Which city always bears the brunt of every disaster film's wrath? New York. When the director of Armaggeddon had to choose something to slam a meteor into to open his movie, what got blown up? Northallerton? No, New York.
The simple fact, which has been demonstrated in such varied settings as movies and. . . well, made-for-TV movies, is that when a disaster is deciding where to strike, it will usually choose New York. It might decide to hit Los Angeles instead if it's feeling rather saucy. But all disasters know, deep down, that New York is the only hangout spot for big-time apocalypses.
In short, the girl's comment was being used only to clarify its insightfulness, and you can stuff yourself. Thank you.
"Self-aware robots using humans as batteries are extraordinarily widespread," said Morpheus, director of whatisthematrix.com. "And if you have any doubt of that, watch The Matrix."
I have no doubt that Mr. Pike is correct, but I agree that using movies as expert witnesses is a disturbing trend.
Five years ago, a small upstart company wouldn't know it had made the big time until it was bought out by Microsoft. These days, we can tell that the "revolutionary OS" is a success, because dependable, non-revolutionary corporations are investigating ways to profit from it. That's always been the nature of most revolutions: They either die most miserably, or end up becoming part of the establishment themselves.
Of course, the ideas inherent in the way Linux is written and distributed may nevertheless go on to infect these established businesses. I'm interested in watching how things change because of it.
But which sort of rebellion will the next generation choose? Perhaps they could try showing their contempt for stuffy social norms by wearing their baseball caps backwards. Seriously, though, I doubt it will have anything to do with computers. They'll use them, sure. And no doubt Moore's Trend^H^H^H^H^H Law will give rise to some very disruptive killer apps. But computers themselves may be too much a part of the everyday landscape to be the focus of much revolutionary energy.
Calling the RIAA a non-profit organization is to bastardize the term. If McDonalds and Burger King got together and funded an "Institute for the Advancement of Health Science" which frequently issued reports downplaying the health effects of fast food, and lobbying congress to give fast food retailers immunity from being sued, the Institute would have a relationship similar to that shared by the RIAA and its members.
Furthermore, it is theoretically possible for a company like HMV to cut out the major labels by signing their own artists. If they could really offer a sweeter deal, I'm sure that even a lot of established artists would defect.
The disadvantage, of course, is that it's not quite as obvious which desktop you're in. That's a shame, because they do behave quite differently, and even an experienced user might have the occasional brain freeze.
That's why I had to give up on Mozilla's "IE" theme. The Orbit theme is a bit loud, but I know exactly what I'm looking at.
I'm not sure what you're asking for here. Why would "the same or greater quantity of genetic data" be a requirement for it being a different species?
Nevertheless, the way to determine whether two groups are the same species or different is to see whether they're transmitting genetic information between the populations. I'm sure it would be relatively easy to breed two strains of flies (one very large and one very small) and continue this until it was physically impossible to breed. From then on, they would be two different species.
But if you're claiming that no new information can be added to the genome, then such an experiment wouldn't shed any light.
10 Print "You are wrong"
20 Goto 10
Evolution is a demonstrable fact. The "theories" only regard the mechanisms and causes of the observed evolution. As to your claim that these theories are unfalsifiable, would you care to be more specific?
I'm not aware of your claimed trend that gestation periods have been increasing. I'd have to see some sort of peer-reviewed study. But if your claim is true, it doesn't invalidate any evolutionary principles. Having thousands of descendants is one way to ensure the survival of your genes, but investing a great deal of effort into a few descendants is also a useful strategy.
Your "can of peaches" argument is absurd. First, we can't be sure that it doesn't happen from time to time. We would never be aware of such an occurance, because the primitive lifeform would just get eaten. Such a resulting lifeform would be impossibly primitive, basically undetectable, and would be at the mercy of the more advanced competitors outside the can. But in an empty planet, it wouldn't have any predators, and would be enough to get the ball rolling.
The negative entropy argument against evolution has been thoroughly discredited since the day it was first dreamed up. The Earth is not a closed system, because it is constantly being bombarded with energy from the sun. The entropy of the Earth/Sun system is increasing, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that there are localized pockets of low entropy.
Further, what is it about the God hypothesis that renders it impervious to the same criticism? If you are correct, you still have to deal with the fact that God's Decreed Law of Entropy is being wilfully violated by His own creations.
Macroevolution is just microevolution over a larger timespan. If you believe in one, you believe in the other. Furthermore, evolution does not conflict with Christianity per se, just with an unimaginative, literalistic interpretation of the Bible.
Okay, name one time when this has happened. Ever.
I think this is a reasonable solution, so long as it's very clear that cell phones / beepers won't work inside the theater. People who are on call for their jobs need to know that a given venue isn't an option for them.
Maybe the theater could provide a separate room (separated with a pane of glass) for such folks. A silly thought.
Oh, please.
I think that once a hijacking has begun, several rules pretty much fly out the window. "Stay in your seat while the seatbelt light is on." "No assaulting your fellow passengers." "Do not use the word 'bomb' or 'hijack'." "Don't swipe drinks from the cart while the stewardess' back is turned." Nobody will care.
If there was a proposed ban on carrying cellphones on flights, then your example would be valid. But no matter how draconian the rules against using them may become, there are situations where nobody is going to care to enforce them.
The copyright holder can release his code to different people under different terms. You can have it under the GPL, Fred can get it under the BSD, and for five thousand bucks, Alice can make a closed-source product based on it. This isn't a problem.
The only question here is, "Who owns the copyright on the MySQL code?" Of course, it gets a little messy when you have thousands of potential developers.
This is just a good way to make a profit in the open source world.
Nothing more to see here, folks. Move along.
Thanks for pointing out that the government is made up of people. Hadn't considered that fact.
Demanding that every application be open sourced is probably overkill for most government purposes. I personally don't care if the government is using Apache or IIS to host its website; the end user experience is the same. Nor do I care what e-mail system they're running, so long as I can send and receive mail from the client of my choice, and their e-mail archives can be freely converted into other formats.
But non-standard/proprietary protocols have to go. Let's say some governmental organization decides that the "easiest" way to publish their information is to use format X. Format X can only be read by application Y. Application Y costs $40. So in order to receive the information, you have to purchase application Y.
But now there's a hitch. You've received a document (say, a contract under negotiation), and you want to make your own revisions before sending it back. But application Y is only a reader. To make the changes, you need access to application Z, which costs $4000. Ouch.
When the government has to publish its doings to the outside world (which should be true by default), then what's "familiar and comfortable" to them should take a back seat to what's most enabling to the citizen.
The lawsuit has already been fought, though I'm not sure where the case stands today.
Y'know, if you're so strapped for cash that you'll buy a $199 computer, you're strapped enough to buy a monitor for five bucks from a thrift store or a garage sale. That's where I've gotten my last three, and I have no complaints.
Or let someone do the manual labor for you: Pick up a comprehensive ad-blocking hosts file here. Then just copy the whole shebang into your hosts file (C:\Windows\hosts or (I believe) /etc/hosts). Personally, I commented out all the entries with OSDN in the string, because hey, I like this place.
One of the disadvantages to this method is that you often get popups saying "unable to connect to ad.adservingsite.com". I tried running Apache for a while to get rid of the messages, but decided that was silly.