Look guys... I really think this whole China/Linux thing is a non-issue. First, I agree with ESR that the story is probably mistaken at best and most probably fraudulent. But what if it is true? So what! Who cares?
Linux is not about politics. It's not about communism, democracy, monarchism, or even libertarianism. Yes, many Linux developers and users have strong views on these subjects. I have strong views myself. But that's not what Linux is about.
Linux is about technology. It's about the freedom to use the best technology available, and if what's available is not the best, improve it until it is the best. If China chooses to use Linux, so be it! I think it's great: a billion+ people who use Linux as their default OS? Are you kidding me? This is great!
We don't need to get involved in the politics. Using an OS is not a political statement. And I think the best thing for us to do is to totally ignore this. Why waste our time, energy, and ideology arguing about something that doesn't really matter and we couldn't change even if we wanted to?
Worse, to the extent that you get involved in the politics you will lose focus on the technology. Don't you think there's a good reason why Linus tries to remain aloof from all this kind of stuff?
Consider that, without fail, every Linux distro and application, even the kernel, uses gcc. And Cygnus are the acknowledged world experts on gcc. So, if improvements can be made to gcc that make it 10% faster, then suddenly Linux is 10% faster!
On another note, one of the big things Linux needs to do is improve the quality and availability of "easy" development tools. Cygnus has a background in that area as well (although they are not necessarily the best). I know they've already done some work on precompiled headers and so forth.
Given Redhat's record of contributing back to the community, I think this could be a really good thing for Linux as a whole.
I've seen a lot of posts saying "Who's cygnus?" While I don't know the company especially well, I thought I'd make a quick post of some of what I do know.
Cygnus has been around since the dawn of time. err.. Well, the late 80's anyway. Basically, they were founded to provide commercial support for the GNU project. Their biggest area of involvement has been in the compilers.
As nearly as I can tell, Cygnus makes most of their money from consulting, support contract for GNU stuff, and porting GCC to processor platforms for various vendors (e.g. Intel).
EGCS is a cygnus project. I think glibc is as well. They have produced a version of the GNU development suite called "GNUPro" which includes some moderately enhanced stuff. They have produced their own Real Time operating system called Ecos (if I remember right). They have produced a complete port of all the GNU stuff to Windows called "Cyg-Win" which they sell for $99.
When Linux came out, they blew it off. Now look at 'em;)
What you say is true, so long as the information forbidden is totally forbidden. In order for it to be totally forbidden, it must be totally unknown.
Anti-pornography laws do not qualify. The material to be forbidden is well known and understood, and is generally not totally forbidden, only made more difficult to acquire. I realize that the "well-known and understood" is a value judgement, but at the very least there is ample opportunity for oversight as to what is being forbidden.
The/danger/ is when something is forbidden and totally hidden. I'm far more worried about the NSA than about the CDA -- the CDA cannot go too far beyond the realm of reasonable and proper without public knowledge, especially as/none/ of its prohibitions applied to adults so long as you confirmed they were adults. (It was still bad law, but my point is that it was not as black as you paint it).
Granted on the CDA. I am very grateful that it was found unconstitutional. But the CDA would almost certainly not have been applied to the sites in question. The thing is that limiting sales of pornography is not the same thing as book burning. And yet that is the dichotomy we are eternally presented with. Society tries to assert that "an inch is as good as a mile" and if you are for something in its mildest, most attenuated form, then you must also support its most outrageous excesses.
If you're against total freedom for smut on the Internet (I am), its assumed that you are against the free distribution of (for example) Howl by Ginsburg (I'm not). If you're against allowing lesbian and gay households to adopt children (I am) you are assumed to be a homophobic asshole (I'm not). If you're a Christian (I am), you must be either a Fundamentalist (I'm not. On an aside, I wonder how many people who scream about the "Fundies" could define Fundamentalism as a movement? Not many from what I've seen.) or a Liberal Socialist Universalist (I'm not). If you think that Jews need Christ (I do) then you are considered to be a raging anti-semite (I'm not -- In fact, if I had been a German I would have qualified for the death camps, and I loved my Jewish grandfather dearly.)
Our society tries to condense everything into sound bites, reduce all issues to black and white caricatures. This is a Really Bad Thing! In the end, the only safe position is to have no opinions at all.
But back to the point. A little bit of censorship is not the same thing as a lot. And a little bit of government interference in the net is/not/ the same thing as NSA line-eater code in every router. I think that the government regulating privacy on the net has the potential to be a Good Thing. In fact, I would like to see them do more regulation of Privacy off the net too.
How bout this: our elected officials use a little bit of common sense? We don't need a legal definition of a "rider", combined with some legalistic prohibition against them. We simply need for politicians to change the rules of congress to forbid them and stick by that promise.
Why does our society always feel the need to check its common sense at the door?
What matters is if the company is able to exercise a strong influence on the market, and the what they do with that influence. So, Microsoft, while they are not the/only/ vendor of PC operatings systems, does exercies monopoly power due to the high price of entry into the market. That has been documented in nauseating (but wonderfully well written) detail by Judge Jackson. (I want his child, by the way).
The point is that Microsoft/used/ their monopoly power in an area (operating systems) to prevent people from entering other markets. Specifically, web browsers.
The only way in which market share is relevant is that you usually have to have a lot of it to have monopoly power. There have been successful cases with as little as 45%.
Please guys: remember this, and repeat it. There is a lot of nonsense still going around that "MS ISn't a monopoly, look at linux!" They are a monopoly, notwithstanding that Linux is going to kick their little hButts, and at the bare minimum they deserve a massive (say $10billion) fine.
I have to wonder how many total customers this represents? Could provide some nice verification for the "10-15 million" numbers. Sadly, the article doesn't seem to say.
That's great, if they actually deliver. Let's look at Sun's record lately, shall we? In the past year or so, Sun have promised the following (that I remember):
Java 2 for Linux
Source to Solaris
Source to StarOffice
I'm not aware that they have delivered on any of them. Have they actually/delivered/ a line of code under the SCSL? Whatever you think of the SCSL, Sun's record on delivering promises is not too hot.
Disclaimer: I have never looked at the ReiserFS code, nor am I significantly familiar with it or Ext2 internals. The following is rampant speculation of the worst kind and should be ignored.
Having said that, I can think of a couple of reasons why, given the stated design goals of rfs, it would not perform well on those tests. Basically, the performance ( O(n) = "big O" ) of an algorithm can be measured as it varies on the size of data points.
Now, let's suppose that ext2 uses sequential scans to get directory entries (I'm fairly sure it does). The O() of a sequential scan is O(n)=n. That is, the time required to perform the scan for n elements increases linearly.
The time for a B-tree based filesystem would increase according to O(log2(n)). The curve on this one is/worse/ for small values of n, but much better as n grows larger. Try graphing x=log(y) to in gnuplot to get an idea of what this would look like.
In other words, you may not have had enough items in a single directory to experience the benefits of RFS. I would be interested in results with say 10,000 items in a single directory, or better yet 10,000 directories in a single directory with 10,000 one byte files.
That (as I understand it) is really the kind of grueling stuff that reiserfs is designed for. Nor is this without application. On one of the boxes where I work, we have > 70,000 elm email folders, each stored under "customer_name/email". A simple "ls" takes an hour! Granted this is a boneheaded design (that I didn't do), but the point remains.
I have to say that things are looking grim for Microsoft. First this, then today (according to CNN this morning) is also the day that the findings of fact for the main show are supposed to come out.
Its going to be really interesting to see what happens. Most people seem to have pretty much accepted that Microsoft will come out on the bottom of the "Findings of Fact", and these are pretty difficult to challenge on appeal. In fact, the judge was apparently openly sceptical of Microsoft during the trial!
Personally though, I think the just punishment would be to make Microsoft port everything to Linux, including Bill G's "Smart House". Hold it... That would make them... Competitive! Ack! We don't want that.
Anyway... I really hope that they do something real this time, and not the kind of slap on the wrist they did in the early nineties -- they basically said "Bill, play nice now" and he said "alright dad" and that was the end of it.
What was absurd about that was that the original judge turned down the settlement as too lenient and they had to take it to an appeals court to get the settlement approved. Outrageous!
I guess I see a kind of justice in Katz-bashing. While I choose not to engage in it (other than the occasional sarcastic "Watch out for the evil Christians" comment) it seems to me that his tendencies to dehumanize and villify anyone he does not agree with almost makes it okay to dehumanize and devillify.
Its juvenile, I choose not to do it myself, but still there is a certain poetic justice to it.
My big problem with Katz is that he makes a lot of broad generalizations without attempting to back them up. Worse, many of his generalizations are wrong.
See, for example, the recent "Onward Christian Geeks" article. The thing was so riddled with untested assumptions, snideness, and baseless harrassment that it was almost nauseating.
On top of that, Katz seems to have bought heavily into the twentieth century doctrine of victimization -- a philisophy that I find repugnant.
This isn't bashing. This is criticism. When did it become okay to define the statements of anyone with whom you do not agree as "bashing"? Or rather, since when does that prove anything?
First off, let me say that I think the "system" probably made a mistake in this case. But I would like to take a second to answer many/.'ers false assumptions regarding the right to Free Speech.
You see, according to long judicial precedent, the right to free speech does not mean being free from the consequences of what you say. It frees you to say it. After you say it, you can be held accountable for the content of what you said. So, if you (to use the classic example) shout "fire!" in a crowded theater, you can be held accountable for the damage done. Your right to free speech does not include this.
You can also be held accountable for using "fighting words" or other things designed to incite people to criminal action. And treason and sedition are still crimes, as is espionage. You are not permitted to divulge legitimate state secrets without consequence. Unfortunately, this approach to free speech (the only rational one in my opinion) has been eroded by a lot of people who want to be able to say or do anything without consequence. So far, the courts have not bought in in most cases. I hope they continue to hold out.
In any case, I don't think that there is any natural right to speak without consequences. The logical extremes of this idea are absurd and untenable. Do you really want someone who says "I'm going to kill Bill Clinton" to be free from any questioning?
In this case, a kid wrote an essay that was genuinely disturbing. While throwing him in jail may have been a bit much, I think asking him about it, counseling him for it, etc. were entirely appropriate! I'm sorry, but any kid who writes something this graphic (have you read it?) is very likely to have a problem. The school system would be derelict to not inquire -- and yes, this/is/ profiling. But there I'm not aware of any legal or moral reason that it shouldn't be done.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not defending public schools. In fact, I am a staunch advocate of home schooling. But in this case I think that they are doing the best they can with what they've got.
I should clarify on the Apostle: that set of beliefs and behaviours do not represent the mainstream of American protestantism, nor what I believe other than in broad outline.
But there are many who believe and approach God in that way. I think their faith is valid, just... different.:) Definitely not my style. So, the movie was realistic, but not authoritative.
I see a lot of people commenting that the Matrix was "the worst/best file they've ever seen". I think what you're seeing here is the difference between those who just want to be entertained and those who want "depth and meaning".
The thing is that Matrix is not supposed to be deep. You're supposed to plug your brain into it for two hours and enjoy old fashioned mayhem. Not everything has to have literary depth in order to be a good movie. Another good example of this "comic book" genre was Independence Day. I enjoyed it greatly.
Incidentally, the best movie I've seen lately was "The Apostle". As a fairly serious Christian, I found it decidedly realistic, and it managed to avoid being either pro or anti Christian. That was a good movie! Of course, it was pretty literary. It was all about character. My wife hates it because she can't check her brain at the door -- and I love it because I don't have to.
I watch Matrix the same times I watch Star Trek: when I want light entertainment and nothing else.
This is not a bad idea, but there are some issues you are going to have to deal with.
First, for this to be of maximum effectiveness, you need to make some evaluation of the quality of contributed code. One of my big problems with Freshmeat is that, when I am presented with 17 http proxy servers, I have no idea whch one is the freeware standard under active development and which one is some guys perl script until I download them.
Second, in an ideal world there would be some standards applied to the modules. What do you do when you have three different tcp/ip socket abstractions, dependent on three different string classes? And you also want to use the database class, which is dependent on a fourth string class?
Also, don't confuse components with just code modules. Components are bigger, and have a simpler interface. Typically, they represent a significant body of code, unlike a function. Component based programming is about plugging together the components with very little glue code: hardly the same thing as a "function library".
Also, it seems to me that for maximum effectiveness in components, you need a standard in interfacing them above and beyond a functionc all interface. Currently, GNOME uses CORBA, KDE is using something of their own spinning based on libICE and their own RPC mechanism and CORBA (ARG!), and everyone else is spinning and just using libraries.
So, you have three choices. Pick between GNOME and KDE (and have a lot of components that a lot of people can't or won't use), develop your own component standard (how many ways can I say bad idea?) and carry two sections, one with KDE components and one with GNOME. Oh yeah... You could say that your repository is less for components than libraries: still a worthwhile project.
What I would really love to see is you foster development of new software and adaptation of existing software to work within a given component framework. I dearly wish GNOME and KDE would standardize, but it looks like they won't. I really don't know which is better: GNOME seems better developed, KDE seems to likely engender better support in the OSS community.
Anyway.. Those are my thoughts, do with them as you wish. Let me say that I would LOVE to see a component archive -- but I think it's going to have to come with standardization of some kind. Guys: we have got to agree on a common standard environment, including at least interoperability.
One thing you could do is this: develop some components under straight CORBA, avoid doing GUI components altogether for the time being (until some standards develop), and hope that KDE actually continues with CORBA now that they've partially "dissed" it.
Read about the 'Pascal's wager' argument to find out why he was a christian. You might be surprised...
I know why he was a Christian -- and I was already familiar with his wager. As for heretics: I am not aware that Copernicus, Pascal, or Newton were judged heretical. In fact I'm quite certain that Copernicus and Pascal were not.
What was done to Darwin was a horrible crime, which I have preached against on more than one occasion. The way the churched showed its ass during the monkey trials is a large part of why we are in so much trouble to day. We focused on doctrine to the exclusion of everything else: caring for the poor, loving our neighbours, our relationship with God. We elevated the Bible to an almost idolatrous position. We because defensive and deluded ourselves into thinking that America was/ever/ a Christian nation. These were all horrible mistakes, but more and more churches are correcting them now. Not in the sense of acknowledging Godless random chance as the source of all life (we don't) but recognizing that evolution, as separate from natural selection, is not necessarily untennable, and most of all b y concentrating on more important matters.
But why do you assume that Christianity is synonymous with "the church"? I would say that Christianity is something that happens/despite/ the church, not because of it. The church can be good and useful, but it is not the head of Christianity: God/Christ is.
Also, you should probably look up the arguments that were used to assume that the earth revolved the sun. They were based on bad interpretation of scripture: nowhere does the Bible say that the Sun circles the earth. IIRC, the verse in question says that the sun rises and sets over the earth. I think that is legitimately a figure of speech, not a statement of scientific fact, and not a "shepherd making a typo".
Most modern Christians would agree with me that the best criteria for understanding the Bible is to try to understand what the author/meant/ to say. For example, in Job the author writes about the "four corners of the earth". I don't think he meant that the earth was square: it's poetry people!
I could go on for hours about principals of hermaneutics, but that's the basic idea. The thing is that far too many people, both religious and irreligious check their brains at the door when they read the Bible. They are so busy trying to crack "the bible code" that they neglect the gospel message! Concentrate on the big things scripture says and the small ones will work themselves out.
Also, I know full well what an oxymoron is. Could you look up what "sarcasm" means?
Anybody remember "Bait for the NSA Line Eater"? These were keywords we would attach to USENet messages back in the 80's, the purpose of which was to force one of the NSA's analysts to look at the message -- it was believed that they monitored the Usenet pretty closely. So, people would include things like "Assasinate president weapons nuclear kremlin american communist party" in their message. (For the record, the previous is not a threat to assassinate the President, but an example of content that would conceivably trip such a system if it exists).
Another thing people would do is "rot-13" their messages. Rot-13 just means that you rotate each letter 13 characters. I think this would still be useful for keeping AOL Newbies out your hair.
Now, I don't think that the NSA was actually monitoring any of this, but if Echelon is in fact the case you could probably have some fun/get in a whole lot of trouble by calling your buddy in Bulgaria and saying a bunch of nonsense words (or "Amphigory":-) ) that were meant to trigger the monitors.
Oh yeah -- back in the 70's a machine called "kremvax" (kremlin vax) came up on the USENet briefly. I understand that the Government actually took notice before it was exposed as a hoax.
Slashdot Mirror
Look guys... I really think this whole China/Linux thing is a non-issue. First, I agree with ESR that the story is probably mistaken at best and most probably fraudulent. But what if it is true? So what! Who cares?
Linux is not about politics. It's not about communism, democracy, monarchism, or even libertarianism. Yes, many Linux developers and users have strong views on these subjects. I have strong views myself. But that's not what Linux is about.
Linux is about technology. It's about the freedom to use the best technology available, and if what's available is not the best, improve it until it is the best. If China chooses to use Linux, so be it! I think it's great: a billion+ people who use Linux as their default OS? Are you kidding me? This is great!
We don't need to get involved in the politics. Using an OS is not a political statement. And I think the best thing for us to do is to totally ignore this. Why waste our time, energy, and ideology arguing about something that doesn't really matter and we couldn't change even if we wanted to?
Worse, to the extent that you get involved in the politics you will lose focus on the technology. Don't you think there's a good reason why Linus tries to remain aloof from all this kind of stuff?
Consider that, without fail, every Linux distro and application, even the kernel, uses gcc. And Cygnus are the acknowledged world experts on gcc. So, if improvements can be made to gcc that make it 10% faster, then suddenly Linux is 10% faster!
On another note, one of the big things Linux needs to do is improve the quality and availability of "easy" development tools. Cygnus has a background in that area as well (although they are not necessarily the best). I know they've already done some work on precompiled headers and so forth.
Given Redhat's record of contributing back to the community, I think this could be a really good thing for Linux as a whole.
Go Redhat!
I've seen a lot of posts saying "Who's cygnus?" While I don't know the company especially well, I thought I'd make a quick post of some of what I do know.
;)
Cygnus has been around since the dawn of time. err.. Well, the late 80's anyway. Basically, they were founded to provide commercial support for the GNU project. Their biggest area of involvement has been in the compilers.
As nearly as I can tell, Cygnus makes most of their money from consulting, support contract for GNU stuff, and porting GCC to processor platforms for various vendors (e.g. Intel).
EGCS is a cygnus project. I think glibc is as well. They have produced a version of the GNU development suite called "GNUPro" which includes some moderately enhanced stuff. They have produced their own Real Time operating system called Ecos (if I remember right). They have produced a complete port of all the GNU stuff to Windows called "Cyg-Win" which they sell for $99.
When Linux came out, they blew it off. Now look at 'em
Email me. Degrees don't mean jack in this day and age.
You're getting screwed. Email me. If you really know your stuff, I can double that /easy/.
What you say is true, so long as the information forbidden is totally forbidden. In order for it to be totally forbidden, it must be totally unknown.
/danger/ is when something is forbidden and totally hidden. I'm far more worried about the NSA than about the CDA -- the CDA cannot go too far beyond the realm of reasonable and proper without public knowledge, especially as /none/ of its prohibitions applied to adults so long as you confirmed they were adults. (It was still bad law, but my point is that it was not as black as you paint it).
Anti-pornography laws do not qualify. The material to be forbidden is well known and understood, and is generally not totally forbidden, only made more difficult to acquire. I realize that the "well-known and understood" is a value judgement, but at the very least there is ample opportunity for oversight as to what is being forbidden.
The
So how much karma will you give me, huh Taco?
Granted on the CDA. I am very grateful that it was found unconstitutional. But the CDA would almost certainly not have been applied to the sites in question. The thing is that limiting sales of pornography is not the same thing as book burning. And yet that is the dichotomy we are eternally presented with. Society tries to assert that "an inch is as good as a mile" and if you are for something in its mildest, most attenuated form, then you must also support its most outrageous excesses.
/not/ the same thing as NSA line-eater code in every router. I think that the government regulating privacy on the net has the potential to be a Good Thing. In fact, I would like to see them do more regulation of Privacy off the net too.
If you're against total freedom for smut on the Internet (I am), its assumed that you are against the free distribution of (for example) Howl by Ginsburg (I'm not). If you're against allowing lesbian and gay households to adopt children (I am) you are assumed to be a homophobic asshole (I'm not). If you're a Christian (I am), you must be either a Fundamentalist (I'm not. On an aside, I wonder how many people who scream about the "Fundies" could define Fundamentalism as a movement? Not many from what I've seen.) or a Liberal Socialist Universalist (I'm not). If you think that Jews need Christ (I do) then you are considered to be a raging anti-semite (I'm not -- In fact, if I had been a German I would have qualified for the death camps, and I loved my Jewish grandfather dearly.)
Our society tries to condense everything into sound bites, reduce all issues to black and white caricatures. This is a Really Bad Thing! In the end, the only safe position is to have no opinions at all.
But back to the point. A little bit of censorship is not the same thing as a lot. And a little bit of government interference in the net is
How bout this: our elected officials use a little bit of common sense? We don't need a legal definition of a "rider", combined with some legalistic prohibition against them. We simply need for politicians to change the rules of congress to forbid them and stick by that promise.
Why does our society always feel the need to check its common sense at the door?
The point is that Microsoft /used/ their monopoly power in an area (operating systems) to prevent people from entering other markets. Specifically, web browsers.
The only way in which market share is relevant is that you usually have to have a lot of it to have monopoly power. There have been successful cases with as little as 45%.
Please guys: remember this, and repeat it. There is a lot of nonsense still going around that "MS ISn't a monopoly, look at linux!" They are a monopoly, notwithstanding that Linux is going to kick their little hButts, and at the bare minimum they deserve a massive (say $10billion) fine.
I have to wonder how many total customers this represents? Could provide some nice verification for the "10-15 million" numbers. Sadly, the article doesn't seem to say.
I have a few questions that I would like to ask him. Although God might tell the truth more.
I'm not aware that they have delivered on any of them. Have they actually
Disclaimer: I have never looked at the ReiserFS code, nor am I significantly familiar with it or Ext2 internals. The following is rampant speculation of the worst kind and should be ignored.
/worse/ for small values of n, but much better as n grows larger. Try graphing x=log(y) to in gnuplot to get an idea of what this would look like.
Having said that, I can think of a couple of reasons why, given the stated design goals of rfs, it would not perform well on those tests. Basically, the performance ( O(n) = "big O" ) of an algorithm can be measured as it varies on the size of data points.
Now, let's suppose that ext2 uses sequential scans to get directory entries (I'm fairly sure it does). The O() of a sequential scan is O(n)=n. That is, the time required to perform the scan for n elements increases linearly.
The time for a B-tree based filesystem would increase according to O(log2(n)). The curve on this one is
In other words, you may not have had enough items in a single directory to experience the benefits of RFS. I would be interested in results with say 10,000 items in a single directory, or better yet 10,000 directories in a single directory with 10,000 one byte files.
That (as I understand it) is really the kind of grueling stuff that reiserfs is designed for. Nor is this without application. On one of the boxes where I work, we have > 70,000 elm email folders, each stored under "customer_name/email". A simple "ls" takes an hour! Granted this is a boneheaded design (that I didn't do), but the point remains.
I have to say that things are looking grim for Microsoft. First this, then today (according to CNN this morning) is also the day that the findings of fact for the main show are supposed to come out.
... Competitive! Ack! We don't want that.
Its going to be really interesting to see what happens. Most people seem to have pretty much accepted that Microsoft will come out on the bottom of the "Findings of Fact", and these are pretty difficult to challenge on appeal. In fact, the judge was apparently openly sceptical of Microsoft during the trial!
Personally though, I think the just punishment would be to make Microsoft port everything to Linux, including Bill G's "Smart House". Hold it... That would make them
Anyway... I really hope that they do something real this time, and not the kind of slap on the wrist they did in the early nineties -- they basically said "Bill, play nice now" and he said "alright dad" and that was the end of it.
What was absurd about that was that the original judge turned down the settlement as too lenient and they had to take it to an appeals court to get the settlement approved. Outrageous!
I guess I see a kind of justice in Katz-bashing. While I choose not to engage in it (other than the occasional sarcastic "Watch out for the evil Christians" comment) it seems to me that his tendencies to dehumanize and villify anyone he does not agree with almost makes it okay to dehumanize and devillify.
Its juvenile, I choose not to do it myself, but still there is a certain poetic justice to it.
My big problem with Katz is that he makes a lot of broad generalizations without attempting to back them up. Worse, many of his generalizations are wrong.
See, for example, the recent "Onward Christian Geeks" article. The thing was so riddled with untested assumptions, snideness, and baseless harrassment that it was almost nauseating.
On top of that, Katz seems to have bought heavily into the twentieth century doctrine of victimization -- a philisophy that I find repugnant.
This isn't bashing. This is criticism. When did it become okay to define the statements of anyone with whom you do not agree as "bashing"? Or rather, since when does that prove anything?
First off, let me say that I think the "system" probably made a mistake in this case. But I would like to take a second to answer many /.'ers false assumptions regarding the right to Free Speech.
/is/ profiling. But there I'm not aware of any legal or moral reason that it shouldn't be done.
You see, according to long judicial precedent, the right to free speech does not mean being free from the consequences of what you say. It frees you to say it. After you say it, you can be held accountable for the content of what you said. So, if you (to use the classic example) shout "fire!" in a crowded theater, you can be held accountable for the damage done. Your right to free speech does not include this.
You can also be held accountable for using "fighting words" or other things designed to incite people to criminal action. And treason and sedition are still crimes, as is espionage. You are not permitted to divulge legitimate state secrets without consequence. Unfortunately, this approach to free speech (the only rational one in my opinion) has been eroded by a lot of people who want to be able to say or do anything without consequence. So far, the courts have not bought in in most cases. I hope they continue to hold out.
In any case, I don't think that there is any natural right to speak without consequences. The logical extremes of this idea are absurd and untenable. Do you really want someone who says "I'm going to kill Bill Clinton" to be free from any questioning?
In this case, a kid wrote an essay that was genuinely disturbing. While throwing him in jail may have been a bit much, I think asking him about it, counseling him for it, etc. were entirely appropriate! I'm sorry, but any kid who writes something this graphic (have you read it?) is very likely to have a problem. The school system would be derelict to not inquire -- and yes, this
Don't get me wrong: I'm not defending public schools. In fact, I am a staunch advocate of home schooling. But in this case I think that they are doing the best they can with what they've got.
www.kdevelop.org
It's close enough to visual studio that I think you would be satisfied.
I should clarify on the Apostle: that set of beliefs and behaviours do not represent the mainstream of American protestantism, nor what I believe other than in broad outline.
... different. :) Definitely not my style. So, the movie was realistic, but not authoritative.
But there are many who believe and approach God in that way. I think their faith is valid, just
I see a lot of people commenting that the Matrix was "the worst/best file they've ever seen". I think what you're seeing here is the difference between those who just want to be entertained and those who want "depth and meaning".
The thing is that Matrix is not supposed to be deep. You're supposed to plug your brain into it for two hours and enjoy old fashioned mayhem. Not everything has to have literary depth in order to be a good movie. Another good example of this "comic book" genre was Independence Day. I enjoyed it greatly.
Incidentally, the best movie I've seen lately was "The Apostle". As a fairly serious Christian, I found it decidedly realistic, and it managed to avoid being either pro or anti Christian. That was a good movie! Of course, it was pretty literary. It was all about character. My wife hates it because she can't check her brain at the door -- and I love it because I don't have to.
I watch Matrix the same times I watch Star Trek: when I want light entertainment and nothing else.
This is not a bad idea, but there are some issues you are going to have to deal with.
First, for this to be of maximum effectiveness, you need to make some evaluation of the quality of contributed code. One of my big problems with Freshmeat is that, when I am presented with 17 http proxy servers, I have no idea whch one is the freeware standard under active development and which one is some guys perl script until I download them.
Second, in an ideal world there would be some standards applied to the modules. What do you do when you have three different tcp/ip socket abstractions, dependent on three different string classes? And you also want to use the database class, which is dependent on a fourth string class?
Also, don't confuse components with just code modules. Components are bigger, and have a simpler interface. Typically, they represent a significant body of code, unlike a function. Component based programming is about plugging together the components with very little glue code: hardly the same thing as a "function library".
Also, it seems to me that for maximum effectiveness in components, you need a standard in interfacing them above and beyond a functionc all interface. Currently, GNOME uses CORBA, KDE is using something of their own spinning based on libICE and their own RPC mechanism and CORBA (ARG!), and everyone else is spinning and just using libraries.
So, you have three choices. Pick between GNOME and KDE (and have a lot of components that a lot of people can't or won't use), develop your own component standard (how many ways can I say bad idea?) and carry two sections, one with KDE components and one with GNOME. Oh yeah... You could say that your repository is less for components than libraries: still a worthwhile project.
What I would really love to see is you foster development of new software and adaptation of existing software to work within a given component framework. I dearly wish GNOME and KDE would standardize, but it looks like they won't. I really don't know which is better: GNOME seems better developed, KDE seems to likely engender better support in the OSS community.
Anyway.. Those are my thoughts, do with them as you wish. Let me say that I would LOVE to see a component archive -- but I think it's going to have to come with standardization of some kind. Guys: we have got to agree on a common standard environment, including at least interoperability.
One thing you could do is this: develop some components under straight CORBA, avoid doing GUI components altogether for the time being (until some standards develop), and hope that KDE actually continues with CORBA now that they've partially "dissed" it.
I know why he was a Christian -- and I was already familiar with his wager. As for heretics: I am not aware that Copernicus, Pascal, or Newton were judged heretical. In fact I'm quite certain that Copernicus and Pascal were not.
What was done to Darwin was a horrible crime, which I have preached against on more than one occasion. The way the churched showed its ass during the monkey trials is a large part of why we are in so much trouble to day. We focused on doctrine to the exclusion of everything else: caring for the poor, loving our neighbours, our relationship with God. We elevated the Bible to an almost idolatrous position. We because defensive and deluded ourselves into thinking that America was
But why do you assume that Christianity is synonymous with "the church"? I would say that Christianity is something that happens
Also, you should probably look up the arguments that were used to assume that the earth revolved the sun. They were based on bad interpretation of scripture: nowhere does the Bible say that the Sun circles the earth. IIRC, the verse in question says that the sun rises and sets over the earth. I think that is legitimately a figure of speech, not a statement of scientific fact, and not a "shepherd making a typo".
Most modern Christians would agree with me that the best criteria for understanding the Bible is to try to understand what the author
I could go on for hours about principals of hermaneutics, but that's the basic idea. The thing is that far too many people, both religious and irreligious check their brains at the door when they read the Bible. They are so busy trying to crack "the bible code" that they neglect the gospel message! Concentrate on the big things scripture says and the small ones will work themselves out.
Also, I know full well what an oxymoron is. Could you look up what "sarcasm" means?
Anybody remember "Bait for the NSA Line Eater"? These were keywords we would attach to USENet messages back in the 80's, the purpose of which was to force one of the NSA's analysts to look at the message -- it was believed that they monitored the Usenet pretty closely. So, people would include things like "Assasinate president weapons nuclear kremlin american communist party" in their message. (For the record, the previous is not a threat to assassinate the President, but an example of content that would conceivably trip such a system if it exists).
:-) ) that were meant to trigger the monitors.
Another thing people would do is "rot-13" their messages. Rot-13 just means that you rotate each letter 13 characters. I think this would still be useful for keeping AOL Newbies out your hair.
Now, I don't think that the NSA was actually monitoring any of this, but if Echelon is in fact the case you could probably have some fun/get in a whole lot of trouble by calling your buddy in Bulgaria and saying a bunch of nonsense words (or "Amphigory"
Oh yeah -- back in the 70's a machine called "kremvax" (kremlin vax) came up on the USENet briefly. I understand that the Government actually took notice before it was exposed as a hoax.
I miss the bad old days. *sigh*