I meant distributing forks as Java. Obviously every new modification in some way will make a fork of a previous and a later version. And thus if you were to prevent forking in the global sense, all modifications would be prevented. I don't know where my mind goes some days.
What I meant was a more open license being used for Java would be a good thing, and I would support them in this, even if they preventing forking by means similar to the ones you name (registation and certification.)
They appear to be reaching out to the various interests involved in Java programming to approve changes in a congressional manner. I don't know if I should demand better representation, or less taxes.
Then they cannot use a GPL license. It's one thing for an editor like emacs to fork, another for a language to fork.
They must use a different license, where forking is somehow not allowed. I think that's understandable for a piece of software on which millions of other pieces of software are based, such as Java. Although they want it to grow and change quickly, they want it to stay in one version, if only to keep sanity in the ranks of millions of Java programmers (like myself). Can you imagine if someone came out with a Java++ with new features and incomplete support for new initiatives that came along?
Oh wait...
So I support Sun, as a Java programmer still. And I understand why a "pure" GPL license probably isn't the answer in this instance.
-Ben
The car that runs on water... urban legend...
on
Air-Powered Cars
·
· Score: 2
http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/magiccar.htm
Another tale of supression of a carberator.
In response to calls to put up or shut up, Pogue's miracle carburetor was heard of no more. Faced with the choice of believing someone had made claims his invention couldn't later live up to or that a monied bad guy had bought up a technology to forever keep it off the market, at least some chose to believe the suppression theory. That the carburetor never made it to the public, they said, was proof enough of its existence.
Basically, two points:
1) It is not impossible or expensive to build one's own engine. And if it were quite superior, it would be difficult to hide that fact.
2) If this poor person is recieving death threats about his compressed air engine, have those threats been investigated? Or is it meerly said to back up and exagerate the claim. Basically, it seems like this car would not be able to travel as far as stated, as long as stated, as well as it is stated.
I'm skeptical that a "better" engine like this can just pop out of nowhere. Unless, of course, it isn't completely better (i.e. less milage, less speed, less efficiency than is hyped.) Finally, for the ultimate in fuel efficiency for city travel, use a moped, or a bus. I'd bet the efficiency would be far greater than any system moving a car around could produce.
This one sucked. It wasn't funny, it didn't have anything useful to say, and it just didn't deserve to be a story on slashdot like yours did.
I mean, for goodness sake(this is off-topic, sue me) but creating false information news sites as "action news six" is a sick, sad thing to do. Or does anyone care if they are lied to anymore?
Hippies.. They want to save the earth but they just smoke pot and smell bad.
- Eric Cartman
Hello, we techies aren't a bunch of pot-smoking save the earth hippies!
God, you'd think we were all RMSs. I know techies to be more equally divided politically, perhaps more libertarians, like myself.
Here we see some balance to Bush's mistakes of grammar, (Mid-western oriented) pronunciation, and nonsensical quotes.
As you can see, there are a bunch of illogical, absurd, and funny statements which make it clear why he may have failed vanderbilt and considers coddled journalistic... anyway...
I don't see any mention of them running the race together, with lots of drivers. My guess is they are wankers who programmed a robot to drive an empty course the fastest they could with a formula one car. Given the weight reduction and the pretty close repeatability it may be able to beat the driver eventually this way. If they ran *together* then the other driver could certainly use his knowledge of passing and cutting the robot off to great advantage.
It clearly does not warrant it's high rating. The standards on Slashdot are in fact, slipping.
I came to this newsgroup hoping to find original thoughts *actually on the subject matter* posts with additional information that not everybody knew. Instead I find this content-free post and I'm wonderring where all the moderator points went.
Perhaps someone could have added more patent ideas that could be bountied for. Or told us about the origins of the site. Or proposed another set of bounty sites for copyrights.
Here's one idea, just off the top of my head: "We could set up a bounty site where bounties are rewarded for good attacks against bad IP in general. One in which people are rewarded for actually giving a good reason why Microsoft or CO$ or any other big corporation should be denied their current tax-free and IP-endowed state." A bounty on the head of Microsoft and CO$, now that would be worth a lot to me. Put me in for some money (about $2000 I might spare).
See, that wasn't so hard. An original idea. Now please moderate posts without original ideas down, like the parent post of this one.
This does not fix the basic problem of too few patent clerks going over a growing number of bad patents. I also don't think that this will solve problems like the Church of Scientology's copyright on all information about their cult. Nor the growing amount of information being stolen from the public domain for a very long 17 years by corporations demanding everyone else standardize on their products (like Microsoft).
Large corporations like it this way - small businesses are more or less excluded from the patent trade and they can have thousands of jargon-filled patents over their section of the economy. It's a government enforced monopoly system that rewards larger corporations over innovation. What we need is fewer patents. Far far fewer, and better decisions up front.
And who said the patent people have to pay for it all up front? How does this help poor inventers who go all out for their invention and don't always have money for patents (and who therefore have to sell their ideas to GREEDY investors who are more interested in finding a big pile of money than using the invention as intended)?
When "TV" started offering very expensive "advertising" and people actually listened to it.
That will run you a couple million. And corporations are willing to pay these funds... IF they are sure the politition is on their business' side. As Bullworth said: "Give them free air-time they won't have to pay." Not that this is a particularly interesting notion. And actually the free air-time already given to the candidates is impressive (Convention, Debates, Etc...) I think our whole corporate culture has decided to just vote money out of the national treasury.
Like Microsoft decided to give stock options and not pay taxes. We think the Government can solve this problem, but the big G. gave them their patents, powerful copyrights, their free ride, and a good portion of their software sales!
I must disagree with your synopsis. Here is my argument in a nutshell:
1. As a parent, I *will* give my son video games as I deem appropriate, and set limits on their use.
2. Claiming that Libertarianism is more logical than than our current government has no basis in fact, and no proof. However, I am voting libertarian for congress sometimes, as I believe it could be increased.
3. Sometimes I believed anarchism is better than government, because government does bad things. Or that atheism was better than religion. But are people in anarchies or atheistic governments better off? No.
What matters is freedoms. Such as the freedom of parents to raise their kids in a manner they choose. That freedom (which I believe as a corolary to this argument to be more important than the kids freedom to do whatever the want) is what is upheld by laws such as this.
Freedom to BE ABLE to censor the internet and to BE ABLE to use the internet for an affordable price are what I'm interested in. Freedom to turn down censorship is equally important.
Sin is JUST A BRAIN-DAMAGED CONCEPT brought up by some ancient people to explain why people would break perfectly easy to follow anti-murder and anti-adultry laws. There is no such thing in this reality.
It's a CRIMINAL thought that causes criminal behavior. Now you may be all in favor of destroying sinful or criminal thought, but I'd rather live in a world of free-will. Besides, it's not criminal to play Quake, but it would be considerred a sin by the religious right. I think such control over us is and should remain CRIMINAL.
Don't forget ultra-violent shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1995 and X-files earlier.
But the worst part is this:
It doesn't matter how few people get murdered every year, or the comparissons to the year before... the polititions are using this to gain more control of our entertainment and citing the few murderrers left who did it.
I don't think it would matter if ALL murders stopped from this year to it's end. Polititions would STILL use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to encourage people to sacrifice their liberty for an undeliverred promise of safety. Both Bush and Gore are guilty of this.
The real danger is DENYING our base instincts and leaving people to act them out in the real world. But this upsets the religious Jesus freaks, who tell us "thoughts of sin lead to acts of sin". A plainly unscientific and also (therefore) wrong assessment.
By this flawed logic, they can and will take the frag counts of games and ask when this will "spill over" into the real world, even in a murderless society. Bad logic is bad logic, and evidence won't change it.
Let's say that you test positive for Huntington's Disease, but you live in the USA, which hasn't yet adopted Britain's methods. So you sign up for the best insurance coverage you can get at the cheap price of a healthy individual. Or your unborn child has a genetic test for leukemia or something similar.
Then we have a situation where the consumer knows far more about his conditions than the insurance company. In fact, that is the problem. A person with a genetic defect can now expect a private corporation to take care of them through life.
The problem comes when one party knows more about the risk than the other party. Therefore it almost seems justified to demand the insurance company gets all the info the customer does.
The problem is that this causes a situation where people can abuse the system, or the system might abuse the people. What if the test is flat wrong? (happens sometimes) What if the results aren't revealed by the insurance company, because they don't want any trouble with the applicant? What if the company decides to raise the rates of people with a 50% chance of getting the condition to a rate so high it can't be afforded? And then the person doesn't get that disease, but gets into a car accident? Isn't this killing individuals or loading them with debt so they can't reproduce?
Genetic testing is quickly leading to eugenics. People now have the technology and the reasons to abort babies who may have conditions. They will lose their insurance coverage if the child is carried to term! Surely, this must end somewhere. And if it ends with only healthy, quick dying individuals who put the least amount of strain on the health insurance industry as possible, well that's that.
So the basic problem is the tests, and society itself. We can test for anything society doesn't like and eliminate it directly or indirectly. Society now has the ability to shape what genes you are allowed (moreso than before, I guess).
Federal Judges are appointed by the President, as are supreme court justices. It probably matters who you vote for, as GWB has accepted campaign
contributions from microsoft employees (and opposed litigation sometimes. A consultant for him worked at M$)
Every five seconds some new legal situation comes up and 50 IANAL (I am not a lawyer) folks say how terrible it is that we can't do something about it.
Get a lawyer on staff, you guys, and for that matter, consult him on how to fine the phone companies for slamming you.
God, if I hear one more clueless article about "how does the law work again? X did Y which I think was illegal but I'd rather bitch and moan about it." I swear I'll...uh.. I'll... I suppose I'll bitch and moan about it more!
As a pro-life advocate (perhaps rare on slashdot, I don't know) I like to believe that society's rulees will help the unborn as well.
Let me be straight about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/health/newsid_ 954000/954408.stm
This story entitled "baby created to save older sister" is obviously biased the other way, but it has a few facts that are missing.
1.Children with Fanconi anaemia suffer from severe bleeding and immune system disorders and invariably die by the time they reach eight or nine.
2.Life spokesman Kevin Male added: "Adam was the fifteenth embryo created which meant fourteen people were killed before him. In essence a white coated technician brought this human being into the world simply as a means to an end."
3.In the UK, PGD [preimplantation genetic diagnosis ] has been used in five clinics for the past 10 years. The technique has resulted in the birth of about 20 healthy babies, who would otherwise have been at risk of serious genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis or haemophilia.
Is my position this extreme?
Yes.
Are we so moral that bringing human life to an end at this stage is justifiable?
The appeals court has been looking at this for years. Whoever's timetable they agree to may indicate how they will ultimately find. It's not like any new evidence is going to come up in the appeal.
There simply is no (none) known way to completely sterilize anything on earth. Every attack against bacteria (and fungus) gives good results- up to a point.
You use soap. Antibiotics. Radiation. Ultrasound. You use vacuum. Use water and pressure. You curse them and you kill 99.9999% of them. It never matters. They survive, and they come back, and multiply again.
Quite simply, the entire Earth is completely infected with bacteria. Wherever there is a exothermic reaction on earth, they are there. Every dust partical large enough to support one has one. Every drop of water, every grain of dirt has them in abundance. All animals are covered in bacteria. Hint: you don't use soap against dirt, you use it against bacteria in dirt.
Yes we need them to survive, but we don't like that, and we don't like them. But, even in conditions which no animal can survive, like vacuum, they still infect and eat and reproduce and sometimes freeze dry to wait for water to come alive again.
The lesson here is: we are dirty, we are infected, and we always will be. Everything we build, every place we put it, every time we do it, will never be ours alone.
My sentiments exactly. When did Linux become so much better than it's brother unix, Solaris, that we simply assume everything has to be Linux?
Oh, and a good suggestion to drive Cobalt into the ground? Forsake actual developement of new technology in order to support GPL'd versions of all often done old technologies. Like Unix.
I think the author has a point. Computers are getting faster exponentially but not being improved (exponentially) in exception handling. For instance, one would like to like together all elements everyone knows about you to build every single web page you view. That way the page wouldn't waste your time with trivialities you aren't interested in, unless it was necessary to the page's format.
But his thesis seems to be: programming is very hard, getting harder, and evolves slowly. Even faster and faster computers (assuming they can be built) can't do the job well enough. I couldn't agree more.
Still, whatever campy sci-fi future we're heading to, I'll bet it will eerily resemble the present. After all, the present is the future of the past.
And people are sh*t's way of making more sh*t.
And we're talking about a planet of help desks.
Microsoft is guilty as sin. They're only delaying the inevitable.
I mean, if buying your competitors, using monopolies in one area to build monopolies in another and destroying competitors by lawsuits and squeezing out netscape by massive industry control isn't illegal under the sherman anti-trust act, then I don't know what is. I have faith in the appeals court. Maybe in two years or so we'll see results.
And if I remember correctly, it is taking with it to the grave all of OUR personal information. And then there will be a big splatter from said grave, out of which thieves, corporations, and politions will gobble up the feeding frenzy.
Perhaps anything which forestalls this kind of a future, where all your personal information is for sale to anyone who is willing to pay for it, is a good thing.
Oh, wait... I guess all personal information IS for sale, I meant buying record at Amazon.com. So people can snicker you bought Joy of Sex online. Yeah. That's bad.
I don't forget how it was to be a kid on the Bboards.
All the stuff you couldn't download... it was a bunch of porn and warez and dumb online games.
Still, the old apache systems were quite cute, and though I don't miss the connection speeds, it was quite convenient to have everything a little boy shouldn't have in one place. Anarchist's handbook and warez comander keen games in one place. As it went on, it got more focused as a message board tool and less as a pure file-leech place. And that's how the internet started, too. What will the next generation of networking tools be?
This was pre-linux popularity, pre-slashdot. What will replace the internet? A corporate network like Microsoft.net? I'm guessing (just guessing) digital tv and transferrence of free movies and songs. And why shouldn't music videos be given free from companies, or sold for cheap.
Is our personal freedom worth more than the good of society? Yes. So let's fight for the next technology to be as free as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
What I meant was a more open license being used for Java would be a good thing, and I would support them in this, even if they preventing forking by means similar to the ones you name (registation and certification.)
Anywhere, here is java's future in action:
http://java.sun.com/features/2000/10/jcp.html?fron tpage-banner
They appear to be reaching out to the various interests involved in Java programming to approve changes in a congressional manner. I don't know if I should demand better representation, or less taxes.
-Ben
Then they cannot use a GPL license. It's one thing for an editor like emacs to fork, another for a language to fork.
They must use a different license, where forking is somehow not allowed. I think that's understandable for a piece of software on which millions of other pieces of software are based, such as Java. Although they want it to grow and change quickly, they want it to stay in one version, if only to keep sanity in the ranks of millions of Java programmers (like myself). Can you imagine if someone came out with a Java++ with new features and incomplete support for new initiatives that came along?
Oh wait...
So I support Sun, as a Java programmer still. And I understand why a "pure" GPL license probably isn't the answer in this instance.
-Ben
http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/magiccar.htm
Another tale of supression of a carberator.
In response to calls to put up or shut up, Pogue's miracle carburetor was heard of no more. Faced with the choice of believing someone had made claims his invention couldn't later live up to or that a monied bad guy had bought up a technology to forever keep it off the market, at least some chose to believe the suppression theory. That the carburetor never made it to the public, they said, was proof enough of its existence.
Basically, two points:
1) It is not impossible or expensive to build one's own engine. And if it were quite superior, it would be difficult to hide that fact.
2) If this poor person is recieving death threats about his compressed air engine, have those threats been investigated? Or is it meerly said to back up and exagerate the claim. Basically, it seems like this car would not be able to travel as far as stated, as long as stated, as well as it is stated.
I'm skeptical that a "better" engine like this can just pop out of nowhere. Unless, of course, it isn't completely better (i.e. less milage, less speed, less efficiency than is hyped.) Finally, for the ultimate in fuel efficiency for city travel, use a moped, or a bus. I'd bet the efficiency would be far greater than any system moving a car around could produce.
-Ben
This one sucked. It wasn't funny, it didn't have anything useful to say, and it just didn't deserve to be a story on slashdot like yours did.
I mean, for goodness sake(this is off-topic, sue me) but creating false information news sites as "action news six" is a sick, sad thing to do. Or does anyone care if they are lied to anymore?
-Ben
- Eric Cartman
Hello, we techies aren't a bunch of pot-smoking save the earth hippies!
God, you'd think we were all RMSs. I know techies to be more equally divided politically, perhaps more libertarians, like myself.
Here we see some balance to Bush's mistakes of grammar, (Mid-western oriented) pronunciation, and nonsensical quotes.
As you can see, there are a bunch of illogical, absurd, and funny statements which make it clear why he may have failed vanderbilt and considers coddled journalistic... anyway...
http://www.copie.com/politics/goreisms. htm
-Ben
Note: I have switched my vote to Gore. After all, he did take the initiative in creating the internet.
I don't see any mention of them running the race together, with lots of drivers. My guess is they are wankers who programmed a robot to drive an empty course the fastest they could with a formula one car. Given the weight reduction and the pretty close repeatability it may be able to beat the driver eventually this way. If they ran *together* then the other driver could certainly use his knowledge of passing and cutting the robot off to great advantage.
-Ben
Please moderate the above piece down.
It clearly does not warrant it's high rating. The standards on Slashdot are in fact, slipping.
I came to this newsgroup hoping to find original thoughts *actually on the subject matter* posts with additional information that not everybody knew. Instead I find this content-free post and I'm wonderring where all the moderator points went.
Perhaps someone could have added more patent ideas that could be bountied for. Or told us about the origins of the site. Or proposed another set of bounty sites for copyrights.
Here's one idea, just off the top of my head: "We could set up a bounty site where bounties are rewarded for good attacks against bad IP in general. One in which people are rewarded for actually giving a good reason why Microsoft or CO$ or any other big corporation should be denied their current tax-free and IP-endowed state." A bounty on the head of Microsoft and CO$, now that would be worth a lot to me. Put me in for some money (about $2000 I might spare).
See, that wasn't so hard. An original idea. Now please moderate posts without original ideas down, like the parent post of this one.
-Ben
This does not fix the basic problem of too few patent clerks going over a growing number of bad patents. I also don't think that this will solve problems like the Church of Scientology's copyright on all information about their cult. Nor the growing amount of information being stolen from the public domain for a very long 17 years by corporations demanding everyone else standardize on their products (like Microsoft).
Large corporations like it this way - small businesses are more or less excluded from the patent trade and they can have thousands of jargon-filled patents over their section of the economy. It's a government enforced monopoly system that rewards larger corporations over innovation. What we need is fewer patents. Far far fewer, and better decisions up front.
And who said the patent people have to pay for it all up front? How does this help poor inventers who go all out for their invention and don't always have money for patents (and who therefore have to sell their ideas to GREEDY investors who are more interested in finding a big pile of money than using the invention as intended)?
-Ben
When "TV" started offering very expensive "advertising" and people actually listened to it.
That will run you a couple million. And corporations are willing to pay these funds... IF they are sure the politition is on their business' side. As Bullworth said: "Give them free air-time they won't have to pay." Not that this is a particularly interesting notion. And actually the free air-time already given to the candidates is impressive (Convention, Debates, Etc...) I think our whole corporate culture has decided to just vote money out of the national treasury.
Like Microsoft decided to give stock options and not pay taxes. We think the Government can solve this problem, but the big G. gave them their patents, powerful copyrights, their free ride, and a good portion of their software sales!
-Ben
Aint that Slashdot's Business Model?
Are either making *that* much on advertising?
-Ben
As the article says, people didn't actually dream they were playing the game. They dreamt about falling blocks.
I've frequently had dreams about games, usually myself being in the game, rather than playing it.
-Ben
I must disagree with your synopsis. Here is my argument in a nutshell:
1. As a parent, I *will* give my son video games as I deem appropriate, and set limits on their use.
2. Claiming that Libertarianism is more logical than than our current government has no basis in fact, and no proof. However, I am voting libertarian for congress sometimes, as I believe it could be increased.
3. Sometimes I believed anarchism is better than government, because government does bad things. Or that atheism was better than religion. But are people in anarchies or atheistic governments better off? No.
What matters is freedoms. Such as the freedom of parents to raise their kids in a manner they choose. That freedom (which I believe as a corolary to this argument to be more important than the kids freedom to do whatever the want) is what is upheld by laws such as this.
Freedom to BE ABLE to censor the internet and to BE ABLE to use the internet for an affordable price are what I'm interested in. Freedom to turn down censorship is equally important.
-Ben
Don't make me laugh.
Sin is JUST A BRAIN-DAMAGED CONCEPT brought up by some ancient people to explain why people would break perfectly easy to follow anti-murder and anti-adultry laws. There is no such thing in this reality.
It's a CRIMINAL thought that causes criminal behavior. Now you may be all in favor of destroying sinful or criminal thought, but I'd rather live in a world of free-will. Besides, it's not criminal to play Quake, but it would be considerred a sin by the religious right. I think such control over us is and should remain CRIMINAL.
-Ben
Don't forget ultra-violent shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1995 and X-files earlier.
But the worst part is this:
It doesn't matter how few people get murdered every year, or the comparissons to the year before... the polititions are using this to gain more control of our entertainment and citing the few murderrers left who did it.
I don't think it would matter if ALL murders stopped from this year to it's end. Polititions would STILL use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to encourage people to sacrifice their liberty for an undeliverred promise of safety. Both Bush and Gore are guilty of this.
The real danger is DENYING our base instincts and leaving people to act them out in the real world. But this upsets the religious Jesus freaks, who tell us "thoughts of sin lead to acts of sin". A plainly unscientific and also (therefore) wrong assessment.
By this flawed logic, they can and will take the frag counts of games and ask when this will "spill over" into the real world, even in a murderless society. Bad logic is bad logic, and evidence won't change it.
-Ben
Let's say that you test positive for Huntington's Disease, but you live in the USA, which hasn't yet adopted Britain's methods. So you sign up for the best insurance coverage you can get at the cheap price of a healthy individual. Or your unborn child has a genetic test for leukemia or something similar.
Then we have a situation where the consumer knows far more about his conditions than the insurance company. In fact, that is the problem. A person with a genetic defect can now expect a private corporation to take care of them through life.
The problem comes when one party knows more about the risk than the other party. Therefore it almost seems justified to demand the insurance company gets all the info the customer does.
The problem is that this causes a situation where people can abuse the system, or the system might abuse the people. What if the test is flat wrong? (happens sometimes) What if the results aren't revealed by the insurance company, because they don't want any trouble with the applicant? What if the company decides to raise the rates of people with a 50% chance of getting the condition to a rate so high it can't be afforded? And then the person doesn't get that disease, but gets into a car accident? Isn't this killing individuals or loading them with debt so they can't reproduce?
Genetic testing is quickly leading to eugenics. People now have the technology and the reasons to abort babies who may have conditions. They will lose their insurance coverage if the child is carried to term! Surely, this must end somewhere. And if it ends with only healthy, quick dying individuals who put the least amount of strain on the health insurance industry as possible, well that's that.
So the basic problem is the tests, and society itself. We can test for anything society doesn't like and eliminate it directly or indirectly. Society now has the ability to shape what genes you are allowed (moreso than before, I guess).
-Ben
Federal Judges are appointed by the President, as are supreme court justices. It probably matters who you vote for, as GWB has accepted campaign
0 .html
h tm
contributions from microsoft employees (and opposed litigation sometimes. A consultant for him worked at M$)
http://www.democrats.org/news/bulletins/sb03030
while Gore spoke AT Microsoft in FAVOUR of litigaton:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg675.
In other words, those who are looking for government to give M$ a well deserved slapdown are going to be better supporting Gore.
-Ben
P.S. I don't like public health programs and the current Social Security laws. I'm still voting for Bush.
Slashdot Sucks!
Every five seconds some new legal situation comes up and 50 IANAL (I am not a lawyer) folks say how terrible it is that we can't do something about it.
Get a lawyer on staff, you guys, and for that matter, consult him on how to fine the phone companies for slamming you.
God, if I hear one more clueless article about "how does the law work again? X did Y which I think was illegal but I'd rather bitch and moan about it." I swear I'll...uh.. I'll... I suppose I'll bitch and moan about it more!
-Ben
As a pro-life advocate (perhaps rare on slashdot, I don't know) I like to believe that society's rulees will help the unborn as well.
_ 954000/954408.stm
Let me be straight about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/health/newsid
This story entitled "baby created to save older sister" is obviously biased the other way, but it has a few facts that are missing.
1.Children with Fanconi anaemia suffer from severe bleeding and immune system disorders and invariably die by the time they reach eight or nine.
2.Life spokesman Kevin Male added: "Adam was the fifteenth embryo created which meant fourteen people were killed before him. In essence a white coated technician brought this human being into the world simply as a means to an end."
3.In the UK, PGD [preimplantation genetic diagnosis ] has been used in five clinics for the past 10 years. The technique has resulted in the birth of about 20 healthy babies, who would otherwise have been at risk of serious genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis or haemophilia.
Is my position this extreme?
Yes.
Are we so moral that bringing human life to an end at this stage is justifiable?
-Ben
The appeals court has been looking at this for years. Whoever's timetable they agree to may indicate how they will ultimately find. It's not like any new evidence is going to come up in the appeal.
-Ben
There simply is no (none) known way to completely sterilize anything on earth. Every attack against bacteria (and fungus) gives good results- up to a point.
You use soap. Antibiotics. Radiation. Ultrasound. You use vacuum. Use water and pressure. You curse them and you kill 99.9999% of them. It never matters. They survive, and they come back, and multiply again.
Quite simply, the entire Earth is completely infected with bacteria. Wherever there is a exothermic reaction on earth, they are there. Every dust partical large enough to support one has one. Every drop of water, every grain of dirt has them in abundance. All animals are covered in bacteria. Hint: you don't use soap against dirt, you use it against bacteria in dirt.
Yes we need them to survive, but we don't like that, and we don't like them. But, even in conditions which no animal can survive, like vacuum, they still infect and eat and reproduce and sometimes freeze dry to wait for water to come alive again.
The lesson here is: we are dirty, we are infected, and we always will be. Everything we build, every place we put it, every time we do it, will never be ours alone.
-Ben
My sentiments exactly. When did Linux become so much better than it's brother unix, Solaris, that we simply assume everything has to be Linux?
Oh, and a good suggestion to drive Cobalt into the ground? Forsake actual developement of new technology in order to support GPL'd versions of all often done old technologies. Like Unix.
-Ben
I think the author has a point. Computers are getting faster exponentially but not being improved (exponentially) in exception handling. For instance, one would like to like together all elements everyone knows about you to build every single web page you view. That way the page wouldn't waste your time with trivialities you aren't interested in, unless it was necessary to the page's format.
But his thesis seems to be: programming is very hard, getting harder, and evolves slowly. Even faster and faster computers (assuming they can be built) can't do the job well enough. I couldn't agree more.
Still, whatever campy sci-fi future we're heading to, I'll bet it will eerily resemble the present. After all, the present is the future of the past.
And people are sh*t's way of making more sh*t.
And we're talking about a planet of help desks.
-Ben
Microsoft is guilty as sin. They're only delaying the inevitable.
I mean, if buying your competitors, using monopolies in one area to build monopolies in another and destroying competitors by lawsuits and squeezing out netscape by massive industry control isn't illegal under the sherman anti-trust act, then I don't know what is. I have faith in the appeals court. Maybe in two years or so we'll see results.
-Ben
And if I remember correctly, it is taking with it to the grave all of OUR personal information. And then there will be a big splatter from said grave, out of which thieves, corporations, and politions will gobble up the feeding frenzy.
Perhaps anything which forestalls this kind of a future, where all your personal information is for sale to anyone who is willing to pay for it, is a good thing.
Oh, wait... I guess all personal information IS for sale, I meant buying record at Amazon.com. So people can snicker you bought Joy of Sex online. Yeah. That's bad.
-Ben
I don't forget how it was to be a kid on the Bboards.
All the stuff you couldn't download... it was a bunch of porn and warez and dumb online games.
Still, the old apache systems were quite cute, and though I don't miss the connection speeds, it was quite convenient to have everything a little boy shouldn't have in one place. Anarchist's handbook and warez comander keen games in one place. As it went on, it got more focused as a message board tool and less as a pure file-leech place. And that's how the internet started, too. What will the next generation of networking tools be?
This was pre-linux popularity, pre-slashdot. What will replace the internet? A corporate network like Microsoft.net? I'm guessing (just guessing) digital tv and transferrence of free movies and songs. And why shouldn't music videos be given free from companies, or sold for cheap.
Is our personal freedom worth more than the good of society? Yes. So let's fight for the next technology to be as free as possible.
-Ben