The fact that there are serious problems with abuses of power, corruption and imperfections in both China and the US is banal to the point of "who cares". Overall civil rights are alot better in the US but China is NOT the appropriate yardstick to measure the US by. The "First World" (ie. OECD) is. By that measure, compared against its affluent, democratic peers, is where the US falls short. What's more, it has been a "democracy" longer than any nation, and still has not gotten its act together.
I have never seen a more inaccurate description of Orwell's politics or a more problematic description of books like Homage To Catalonia (EG, HTC does NOT paint socialists, facsicts, communists, anarchists with the same brush. He thought fascists to be dangerous and worthy of taken up arms against, Communists (i.e. the Stalinists during that period) were treacherous dogs. As far as I can tell, he was reasonably affectionate towards socialists and anarchists. (BTW anarchist is actually something a misonomer, the POUM were anarcho-syndicalists, but no biggie)
Part of the confusion of your post (and probably about Orwell in general, especially in the US) is that terms liberal, libertarian etc. are not first-order political categories, they are modifiers. There exist liberal and libertarian tendencies on both sides of the political spectrum and even within the subcategory of socialist politics. (Also there is the fact the fact that "liberal" and "libertarian" also have distinct meanings and distinct meaning depending what side of the Atlantic you happen to be on).
Orwell always remained a democratic socialist, always orbiting about left wing of the Labor Party.
The dominant form of socialist politics in Western Europe for most of this century is what commonly known as social-democracy or democratic socialism (in which Orwell is firmly rooted). (BTW, "liberal" when used in American actually means "something like social democratic", where as in common use in Europe "liberal" means "pro-market/pro-civil rights")
And this Left tradition has always been fairly respectful of (if not always buying into) anti-statist ideas. And the S.D.-D.S tradition always has been fairly "liberal" in its embrace of social tolerance, civil rights, etc.
The urgent issues of Orwell's day were how much "rapprochement" should European socialists attempt with the Communists. There had always been suspicions on the "socialist" Left that Russia had turned or was turning into an authoritarian nightmare, but given the fragility of the West during the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, there was plenty of disagreement and not much hard evidence of life inside the USSR.
Scholars argue about whether Orwell was criticizing Nazis or Stalinists more in 1984 and Animal Farm. I actually think it was Stalinists more than anything else. It didn't take any effort to know Fascism was nasty stuff. Orwell's focus was trying to save the left from a potential moral disaster that would ensue by embracing the Soviets. It was NOT an attempt to disavow himself of the Left, it was very much an attempt by a man of the Left trying to influence socialists and liberals.
The fact that Orwell had sympathies for anti-statist politics or that he was passionately anti-totalitarian AND that he was a socialist is only something which surprises those who don't understand know socialist history/politics very well. But if you don't, you have no hope understanding Orwell very well.
If you want to misread Orwell and misinterpret the facts of his life that's your right (thanks in part to Orwell).
I tried the armless-backless variety where you rest on your knees. Guess what it made knees sore (I was only 28 at the time).
The idea is good. There is NOTHING better than an erect posture to deal with neck/back issues. The problem is that it is not comfortable, but it beats the alternative. I have achieved a back-friendly mod by removing the arms from standard office chairs I am given and then placing the back rest down so far that I can't really lean against it. It forces me to sit erect (no sniggering now!). Works about as well as anything else I've tried and it's free (!).
This does not sound correct. Your characterization of academic CS training doesn't conform to my experience/observations of it (for better or worse).
Programmers, many of them who have NOT been thru a CS program - including myself to an extent, or have not been in an academic environment for years, get caught up language "fads" and other non-foundational issues because that is the nature of industry.
The opportunity to apply the basic conceptual weapons of computer science is actually fairly limitied in professional experience. I am usually fairly shocked when I realized I can use something from a data structure course I took once in a project I am working on.
Every CS program I have ever looked at teaches algorithms/computational complexity, data structures, discrete math, theorectical CS (i.e., automata, formal language etc). Now CS departments may standardize on a language or two for instructional purposes, but that should help students grasp the concepts underlying the coded examples, NOT make them obsessed with "HLL"'s.
I would have grokked my data structures examples much more quickly if they had been written in C, (which I knew intimately from work) rather than having to translate them first from Pascal. But whatever language was the choice for instruction, the key issue was how well I knew it or was comfortable in it so that I would not be distracted from the underlying meaning by the specifics of the code.
If anything CS departments favor abstraction at the expense of many software engineering skills and practices that would be extremely useful in everyday programming settings.
I actually think the first MIB could have been much stronger. It started out with great premises, background story and characters.
Instead for whatever reason, bad direction, bad writing, studio pressures, suggest your own theory, they took the gobs of strong material and squandered it.
An example is helpful here. If you take one of the last sci-fi/fantasy spoofs that I can think of that works really well, i.e. Ghostbusters, and make point by point comparisons the weaknesses in MIB become apparent:
the lead characters; the ensemble acting between characters; the love interest.
More importantly, lots of the humor in G'busters was contextual, i.e., driven by the logic of the plot. While MIB was humorous, the overall feelings was that there was much more cheap, throwaway humor (which has its place).
G'buster, in almost every respect pay more attention to the craft of story-telling, and what's sad about MIB is that is started with a great story.
I guess when it comes right down to it, I suspect that the movie makers did not give the original material (in terms of the screenplay, I don't know anything about the graphic novel) the respect that it deserved, and the probably in some ways mirrors their attitudes toward the audience as well.
The idea that MIIB continues down the same depressing road is not lighting a fire under me to see it.
After the end of period when the Beatles could still channel my adolescent angst and rage (a period doubtless extended with a fixation on
John L.) and the start of the period when I realized the punk and arty new wave were the dynamic movements (or moments) of my generation and the place where I wanted to be, I had The Who.
John Entwhistle was the first rock musician who inspired me (not that the inspiration took) purely in a musical sense. He was the only rock bassist to turn the bass guitar in a solo instrument thru sheer virtuosity (McCartney's bass, the only other bassist that ever made an impression on me*,
could stand out by virtue of its melodiousness).
He was a musical Atlas on which the band rested in part, and rhythmically he was an integral unit with the legendary Keith Moon. And this integration was necessary given that Moon, a great innovator, was turning the drums themselves into a kind of melodic instrument.
I find it odd that some of the most grounded seeming of Sixties Rock Icons (John E. and George Harrisson) are dying off at these relatively young ages. They avoided the extravagance that killed off the Glorious Dead (Hendrix, Jones, Joplin, etc). Of course, maybe appearing low key in an art form based on explosive expressiveness implies that one has one of those unhealthy personalities that holds too much in.
Or maybe it doesn't imply anything except, to quote Auden, "all the instruments agree, the day of his death was a dark cold day."
* the one exception is Tony Visconti playing on Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World, especially songs like Width Of A Circle and Black Country Rock.
I don't know much about Kissinger's scholarship but given that he may be one of the most immoral figures in the history of American government (and one of the most tireless self-promoters) you might take anything he says about the 20th century with a grain of salt.
Caleb Carr author of The Alienist has written a military history of terrorism published after 9-11. The NYT reviewer wrote the most vitriolic review I have ever seen. Most really be worth reading (no seriously).
Sorry, but this is inaccurate, not informative, but it does bring up a good point. The reason that vacation policies are so different outside the US is because business is the strongest force in government policiy. In Europe, the trade unions are much stronger and the governments more democratic, hence more people-centered economic policies.
The reason that taxes are high has little to do with taxes per se. Because the trade unions and political left parties are much stronger and hence the welfare states are more expansive.
Personally, i wouldn't mind the taxes to enjoy more security, almost no crime, little poverty and those long vacations
France has mandatory vacation in August, it is not true generally. My bro-in-law is a marketing executive in the Netherlands and has 5 weeks that he takes whenever.
>>Instead of this wacky US Presidential system, >>most countries tend to use Parlimentary >>systems,
>Depends upon continent, now doesn't it? Does >*anyplace* in the americas besides Canada[1] use >a parliamentary system.
Wrong. Most economically advanced countries do use parliamentary systems. Most economically developing countries tend not to be democratic. This hemisphere is full of poor countries with constituions based roughly on the American one, where democracy is tenative at best.
Canada uses a form of the British parliamentary system which itself is NOT the most common form of parliament. Parliamentary systems tend to elect via proportional represenation. GB, Canada (I assume AU-NZ too, bicbw) elect parliaments - like the US - on the basis of single member districts. This structural difference tends to make the political systems have less parties and favors conservative political forces.
>>which in turn are prone to having higher >>turnout,
>Grossly overrated. I'd rather the uninformed >stay away from th polls.
Just the answer that an anti-democrat would give. Yet somehow all these "uninformed" voters produce governments which solve all kinds of social problems that bedevil american politics. Kinda makes ya wonder...
>>better ability to implement policy, quicker >>response times,
>You say that like those are good things. Having >seen those, we *deliberately* set up the system >to avoid them.
That is absolutely true, though don't say "we". The planter/merchant elites of early colonial America, did it, and I think they may have had their own interests at heart, rather than ours (I take that back - not "ours", "mine", I don't know what your interest is, but I have my suspicions)
The type of government the founding dudes set up is one that systematically favors those who don't want goverment action. Slaveowners who don't want their slaves freed, people who don't want their wealth redistributed, polluters who don't want their business regulated. IE, everyone who is opposed to more democracy.
>Finally, we are *not* a democracy, and our >founders considered it a dirty word. We are a >republic (albeit a democratic republic), and >will fight to keep it that way. It is the >principle of government by consent of the >governed that is important, not the particular >implementation.
Absolutely. The founding dudes did not want democracy, they wanted "fake democracy"! The notion that a "republic" is somehow a good thing comes from the founders admiration for ancient Rome. Now there's a society we should emulate, slavery, imperial expansion, etc.
You know when American political debate will have truly advanced when conservatives actually become embarassed to argue this sort of anti-democratic tripe in public.
The analysis of the constitution is spot on and the pecularities of American "democracy" are another bullseye.
The famous (and rather conservative) political scientist Samuel Huntington long ago suggested the American system of government recapitulated the political equilibrium of the pre-English Civil War England (ie 1640's). IE, our vaunted separation of powers reproduces the complex and somewhat dysfunctional standoff between the monarchy/court, the country gentry and parliament.
Huntington's thesis was that the colonies were politically allied with the "country" faction of English politics and hence reproduced and idealized form of how these reactionary nobles wanted government to work. Not a democracy really as much as an oligopoly composed of a weak monarchy and a strong, dispered, nobility. So much for the Constituion being a revolutionary document, and it ain't terribly democratic neither.
The article doesn't mention (iirc) how you account for an minimize the effect of electromagentic forces. Is it the material you choose. I suppose if you juxtapose the spheres and the attraction is the same you have accounted for it (because of polarity).
IIRC from reading Longitude, some of Harrison's earlier models (perhaps as early as H1 or H2) actually performed more than adequately during sea trials. As for certifying the results of the sea trials of Harrison's clocks (and giving Harrison a rather hefty prize), the Board of Longitude never actually did this due to alot of political Chicanery (there were astronomers on the board who favored a Rube Goldberg method of measuring the moons of Jupiter (Saturn?))
A bit of trivia, I was watching My Fair Lady recently and if you remember the foreign accented professional rival of Higgins at the Diplomatic Ball is revealed to be the affected son of a provincial watchmaker who becomes rich. I assumed this was an allusion to the Harrison episode (he eventually did get a huge prize awarded by the King).
The article in part seems to be about highlighting the existence of a new form of collaborative art project using a web-site. It might be old news, and you might not agree with the assessment of the web site he has focused on, but just from skimming the darn article it is clearly more that a web site review.
Code may enjoy legal protections like speech does, but it is clearly has unique characteristics when view economically or socially. "Ulysses" or "The Communist Manifesto" don't run machines, don't constitute economic capital, are not inherently apolitical... to name a few differences that come to mind.
Sterling in one of the great lights in sci-fi. I read what he has to say about the internet because he has written the most intellectually sophisticated (sociology, cultural theory etc) sci-fi I have ever seen. He may not be right but at least it will be interesting and might actually provide a launch pad for figuring out better insights.
XP is supposed to encrypt all its data streams, maybe this won't pose a problem for single node software, but won't it make impossible any attempt to make Lindows interoperable with distributed Windows software.
I actually think it is ironic just not very descriptive. The various meanings of ironic leave room for (as I read the dictionary) room for both intentional and unintentional occurences or utterances of a incongruous nature.
The important point here is that ironic doesn't mean much, because the question that jumps to every one's mind is whether to take the statement of "powered by emacs" at face value.
Since I don't, I think the more useful description is to say the text is facetious, i.e.,
intentionally humourous.
Slashdot Mirror
Only a cadre of psycho-libertarians (sorry,
that's redundant) could moderate this dreck up.
The fact that there are serious problems
with abuses of power, corruption and imperfections in both China and the US is
banal to the point of "who cares". Overall civil rights are alot better in the US but China is NOT
the appropriate yardstick to measure the US by.
The "First World" (ie. OECD) is. By that measure,
compared against its affluent, democratic peers,
is where the US falls short. What's more, it has been a "democracy" longer than any nation, and still has not gotten its act together.
I have never seen a more inaccurate
description of Orwell's politics or
a more problematic description of
books like Homage To Catalonia
(EG, HTC does NOT paint socialists,
facsicts, communists, anarchists with
the same brush. He thought fascists to
be dangerous and worthy of taken up arms
against, Communists (i.e. the Stalinists
during that period) were treacherous dogs.
As far as I can tell, he was reasonably
affectionate towards socialists and anarchists.
(BTW anarchist is actually something a misonomer,
the POUM were anarcho-syndicalists, but no
biggie)
Part of the confusion of your post (and probably about Orwell in general, especially in the US) is that terms liberal, libertarian etc. are not first-order
political categories, they are modifiers. There
exist liberal and libertarian tendencies on both sides of the political spectrum and
even within the subcategory of socialist politics. (Also there is the fact
the fact that "liberal" and "libertarian" also have distinct meanings and distinct meaning
depending what side of the Atlantic you happen to be on).
Orwell always remained a democratic socialist,
always orbiting about left wing of the Labor Party.
The dominant form of socialist politics in Western Europe for most of this century is what commonly known as social-democracy or democratic socialism (in which Orwell is firmly rooted).
(BTW, "liberal" when used in American actually
means "something like social democratic",
where as in common use in Europe "liberal" means
"pro-market/pro-civil rights")
And this Left tradition has always been fairly respectful of (if not always buying into) anti-statist ideas. And the S.D.-D.S tradition always has been fairly "liberal"
in its embrace of social tolerance, civil rights,
etc.
The urgent issues of Orwell's day were how
much "rapprochement" should European socialists
attempt with the Communists. There had always
been suspicions on the "socialist" Left that Russia had turned or was turning into an authoritarian nightmare, but given the fragility
of the West during the Great Depression and the
rise of fascism, there was plenty of disagreement
and not much hard evidence of life inside the
USSR.
Scholars argue about whether Orwell
was criticizing Nazis or Stalinists more in
1984 and Animal Farm. I actually think it
was Stalinists more than anything else. It
didn't take any effort to know Fascism was
nasty stuff. Orwell's focus was trying to
save the left from a potential moral disaster
that would ensue by embracing the Soviets.
It was NOT an attempt to disavow himself of the Left,
it was very much an attempt by a man of the
Left trying to influence socialists and liberals.
The fact that Orwell had sympathies for anti-statist politics or that he was passionately anti-totalitarian AND that he was a socialist is only something which surprises those who don't understand know socialist history/politics very well. But if you don't, you have no hope understanding Orwell very well.
If you want to misread Orwell and misinterpret
the facts of his life that's your right (thanks
in part to Orwell).
I tried the armless-backless variety where you rest on your knees. Guess what it made knees sore (I was only 28 at the time).
The idea is good. There is NOTHING better than an erect posture to deal with neck/back issues. The problem is that it is not comfortable, but it beats the alternative. I have achieved a
back-friendly mod by removing the arms from standard office chairs I am given and then placing the back rest down so far that I can't really lean against it. It forces me to sit erect (no sniggering now!).
Works about as well as anything else I've tried
and it's free (!).
This does not sound correct. Your characterization of academic CS training doesn't conform to my experience/observations of it (for better or worse).
Programmers, many of them who have NOT been thru a CS program - including myself to an extent, or have not been in an academic environment for years, get caught up language "fads" and other non-foundational issues because that is the nature of industry.
The opportunity to apply the basic conceptual weapons of computer science is actually fairly limitied in professional experience. I am usually fairly shocked when I realized I can use something from a data structure course I took once
in a project I am working on.
Every CS program I have ever looked at teaches algorithms/computational complexity, data structures, discrete math, theorectical CS (i.e., automata, formal language etc). Now CS departments may standardize on a language or two for instructional purposes, but that should help
students grasp the concepts underlying the coded examples, NOT make them obsessed with "HLL"'s.
I would have grokked my data structures examples much more quickly if they had been written in C,
(which I knew intimately from work)
rather than having to translate them first from Pascal. But whatever language was the choice for instruction, the key issue was how well I knew it or was comfortable in it so that I would not be distracted from the underlying meaning by the
specifics of the code.
If anything CS departments favor abstraction at the expense of many software engineering skills and practices that would be extremely useful
in everyday programming settings.
I did not know that, but it make mucho sense.
I actually think the first MIB could have been
much stronger. It started out with great premises, background story and characters.
Instead for whatever reason, bad direction, bad
writing, studio pressures, suggest your own theory, they took the gobs of strong material
and squandered it.
An example is helpful here.
If you take one of the last sci-fi/fantasy spoofs
that I can think of that works really well, i.e. Ghostbusters, and make point by point comparisons the weaknesses in MIB become apparent:
the lead characters;
the ensemble acting between characters;
the love interest.
More importantly, lots of the humor in G'busters
was contextual, i.e., driven by the logic of the
plot. While MIB was humorous, the overall feelings
was that there was much more cheap, throwaway humor
(which has its place).
G'buster, in almost
every respect pay more attention to the craft of
story-telling, and what's sad about MIB is that
is started with a great story.
I guess when it comes right down to it, I suspect
that the movie makers did not give the original
material (in terms of the screenplay, I don't know anything about the graphic novel) the
respect that
it deserved, and the probably in some ways
mirrors their attitudes toward the audience
as well.
The idea that MIIB continues down the same
depressing road is not lighting a fire under me
to see it.
John Entwhistle died today.
After the end of period when the Beatles could
still channel my adolescent angst and rage
(a period doubtless extended with a fixation on
John L.) and the start of the period
when I realized the punk and arty new wave
were the dynamic movements (or moments) of my generation
and the place where I wanted to be, I had The Who.
John Entwhistle was the first rock musician who
inspired me (not that the inspiration took)
purely in a musical sense. He
was the only rock bassist to turn the bass guitar
in a solo instrument thru sheer virtuosity
(McCartney's bass, the only other bassist
that ever made an impression on me*,
could stand out by virtue of its melodiousness).
He was a musical Atlas on which the band rested in part,
and rhythmically he was an integral unit with the legendary
Keith Moon. And this integration was necessary given that Moon,
a great innovator,
was turning the drums themselves into a kind of melodic instrument.
I find it odd that some of the most grounded seeming of
Sixties Rock Icons (John E. and George Harrisson) are dying
off at these relatively young ages. They avoided the
extravagance that killed off the Glorious Dead (Hendrix, Jones,
Joplin, etc). Of course, maybe appearing low key in an art
form based on explosive expressiveness implies that one has
one of those unhealthy personalities that holds too much in.
Or maybe it doesn't imply anything except, to quote Auden,
"all the instruments agree, the day of his death was a dark
cold day."
* the one exception is Tony Visconti playing on Bowie's
The Man Who Sold The World, especially songs like Width Of A Circle
and Black Country Rock.
I don't know much about Kissinger's scholarship but given that he may be one of the most immoral
figures in the history of American government (and
one of the most tireless self-promoters) you might take anything he says about the 20th century
with a grain of salt.
Caleb Carr author of The Alienist has
written a military history of terrorism
published after 9-11.
The NYT reviewer wrote the most vitriolic
review I have ever seen. Most really be worth
reading (no seriously).
Sorry, but this is inaccurate, not informative, but it does bring up a good point. The reason that vacation policies are so different outside the US is because business is the strongest force in government policiy.
In Europe, the trade unions are much stronger and the governments more democratic, hence more people-centered economic policies.
The reason that taxes are high has little to do with taxes per se. Because the trade unions and political left parties are much stronger and hence the welfare states are more expansive.
Personally, i wouldn't mind the taxes to enjoy more security, almost no crime, little poverty and those long vacations
France has mandatory vacation in August, it is not true generally. My bro-in-law is a marketing executive in the Netherlands and has 5 weeks that he takes whenever.
>>Instead of this wacky US Presidential system,
>>most countries tend to use Parlimentary >>systems,
>Depends upon continent, now doesn't it? Does >*anyplace* in the americas besides Canada[1] use >a parliamentary system.
Wrong. Most economically advanced countries do use parliamentary systems. Most economically developing countries tend not to be democratic. This hemisphere is full of poor countries with constituions based roughly on the American one, where democracy is tenative at best.
Canada uses a form of the British parliamentary system which itself is NOT the most common form of parliament. Parliamentary systems tend to elect via proportional represenation. GB, Canada (I assume AU-NZ too, bicbw) elect parliaments - like the US - on the basis of single member districts. This structural difference tends to make the political systems have less parties and favors conservative political forces.
>>which in turn are prone to having higher >>turnout,
>Grossly overrated. I'd rather the uninformed >stay away from th polls.
Just the answer that an anti-democrat would give.
Yet somehow all these "uninformed" voters produce
governments which solve all kinds of social problems that bedevil american politics. Kinda makes ya wonder...
>>better ability to implement policy, quicker
>>response times,
>You say that like those are good things. Having >seen those, we *deliberately* set up the system >to avoid them.
That is absolutely true, though don't say "we". The planter/merchant elites of early colonial America, did it, and I think they may have had their own interests at heart, rather than ours (I take that back - not "ours", "mine", I don't know what your interest is, but I have my suspicions)
The type of government the founding dudes set up is one that systematically favors those who don't want goverment action. Slaveowners who don't want their slaves freed, people who don't want their wealth redistributed, polluters who don't want their business regulated. IE, everyone who is opposed to more democracy.
>Finally, we are *not* a democracy, and our >founders considered it a dirty word. We are a >republic (albeit a democratic republic), and >will fight to keep it that way. It is the >principle of government by consent of the >governed that is important, not the particular >implementation.
Absolutely. The founding dudes did not want democracy, they wanted "fake democracy"! The notion that a "republic" is somehow a good thing
comes from the founders admiration for ancient Rome. Now there's a society we should emulate,
slavery, imperial expansion, etc.
You know when American political debate will have truly advanced when conservatives actually become embarassed to argue this sort of anti-democratic tripe in public.
The analysis of the constitution is spot on
and the pecularities of American "democracy"
are another bullseye.
The famous (and rather conservative) political
scientist Samuel Huntington long ago suggested
the American system of government recapitulated
the political equilibrium of the pre-English Civil War England (ie 1640's). IE, our vaunted separation of powers reproduces the complex and somewhat dysfunctional standoff between the monarchy/court, the country gentry and parliament.
Huntington's thesis was that the colonies were politically allied with the "country" faction of English politics and hence reproduced and idealized form of how these reactionary nobles wanted government to work. Not a democracy really as much as an oligopoly composed of a weak monarchy and a strong, dispered, nobility.
So much for the Constituion being a revolutionary document, and it ain't terribly democratic neither.
Anyway, my vote is for the computer.
I checked out the timecube web site, then I got very afraid and enabled my virus monitor!
The article doesn't mention (iirc) how you account for an minimize the effect of electromagentic forces. Is it the material you choose. I suppose if you juxtapose the spheres and the attraction is the same you have accounted for it (because of polarity).
The data hand is NOT one, correct? I don't know about the twiddler. Anyone have experience with them?
Is the kid on home page for HMC Warren from Buffy TVS. Sure looks like him.
IIRC from reading Longitude, some of Harrison's earlier models (perhaps as early as H1 or H2) actually performed more than adequately during sea trials. As for certifying the results of the sea trials of Harrison's clocks (and giving Harrison a rather hefty prize), the Board of Longitude never actually did this due to alot of political Chicanery (there were astronomers on the board who favored a Rube Goldberg method of measuring the moons of Jupiter (Saturn?))
A bit of trivia, I was watching My Fair Lady recently and if you remember the foreign accented professional rival of Higgins at the Diplomatic Ball is revealed to be the affected son of a provincial watchmaker who becomes rich. I assumed this was an allusion to the Harrison episode (he eventually did get a huge prize awarded by the King).
The article in part seems to be about highlighting the existence of a new form of collaborative art project using a web-site. It might be old news, and you might not agree with the assessment of the web site he has focused on, but just from skimming the darn article it is clearly more that a web site review.
Keep at it Jon, wooh-wooh!
Code may enjoy legal protections like speech does, but it is clearly has unique characteristics when view economically or socially. "Ulysses" or "The Communist Manifesto" don't run machines, don't constitute economic capital, are not inherently apolitical... to name a few differences that come to mind.
Sterling in one of the great lights in sci-fi. I read what he has to say about the internet because he has written the most intellectually sophisticated (sociology, cultural theory etc) sci-fi I have ever seen. He may not be right but at least it will be interesting and might actually provide a launch pad for figuring out better insights.
I every time I see bugtraq I am sure it says butrag
XP is supposed to encrypt all its data streams, maybe this won't pose a problem for single node software, but won't it make impossible any attempt to make Lindows interoperable with distributed Windows software.
I actually think it is ironic just not very descriptive. The various meanings of ironic leave room for (as I read the dictionary) room for both intentional and unintentional occurences or utterances of a incongruous nature.
The important point here is that ironic doesn't mean much, because the question that jumps to every one's mind is whether to take the statement of "powered by emacs" at face value.
Since I don't, I think the more useful description is to say the text is facetious, i.e.,
intentionally humourous.