I have hit points where I felt like that. The summer job testing for Y2k compliance (searching db and VB code for small dates for 3 months) was enough to give me the screaming horrors. Some of my classes drove me to the point of staggering boredom and homicidal fantasies. At times the enjoyment seemed entirely dead.
But that was the jobs and the classes not CS. Now that I am done with them and am doing interesting work the enjoyment is back. The trick was getting away from the toy problems and being able to focus on a real project not replicating something from a book.
Before you drop out or lose your mind think back. If you once enjoyed some part of CS and you can still summon up some interest in it then it is probably school. Senior year is always stressful and toy problems and half-formed theory are rarely satisfying to someone who wants to solve technical problems and really work.
If after thinking about it you think that it is CS and not school then go find what thrills you before you end up bitter cranky and living the Dilbert life. Money is never a good reason to do anything because, bottom line, it can't compensate for totally hating your job. And, unless you like your job you will never do any good at it.
If you are sure that it is school and not CS then figure out what part of CS you like, go and do it and accept that shitty courses happen and every job no matter how ideal has its downside.
What information sources (websites, newspapers, radio stations) do you go to for news and information? Which ones do you trust? And, which ones don't you trust?
In recent years we have seen a raft of laws that, under one guise or another, act to limit speech and dissemination of information. Your own experience with DeCSS is a prime example. Since September 11 there has been a renewed push in Governmental circles not only to restrict information by refusing to comply with FOIA requests but to demand information by increasing surveillance.
As someone who has dealt with this and won, how do you see it progressing? Do you think that this will pass and these laws will be overturned? Or do you see this as only the beginning?
"A move to favoring Internet Explorer over other browsers would give Microsoft a considerable advantage as it prepares to jump into the world of Web services. Through its.Net software-as-a-service strategy, Microsoft hopes to sell software by subscription, and either directly or with a partner, offer a wide range of ancillary services, ranging from online calendars to financial and travel services.
Is favoring the correct word? It seems to me that Yahoo is understating things a bit. What Microsoft is saying is "Buy our clothes or we don't let you into our club." Strictly speaking it's not monopolistic but as a way to enforce market control on a captive audience it's not much different. It just gives me more hope that BeOs will be released in open form.
Re:But they'd probably want more control
on
IBM Wants Linux
·
· Score: 1
I am in no position to disagree with you on that score. But I think that a fork would be dangerous for the name reasons that I specified above. Granted they haven;t had success up till now but IBM at least hasn't (I'll wager) been trying that hard either.
Re:But they'd probably want more control
on
IBM Wants Linux
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
True but I think you are missing some of the point. Even in open standards there are dominant and weaker players. Consider the fight over the next-generation IP. In that case the standards are supposed to be open. However the dominant voices in the process are not developers, not sysadmins, not even universities they are people like Microsoft and Time-Warner. The largest companies that can shout the loudest to get what they want. IBM is the same. IBM is a corporation and to that end they will do what is best for themselves. This is not necessarily driven by malice it is just the state of affairs. If they find it better to move to Linux or at least publicly support it, both to piss off Bill and to make geeks worldwide love them, then they will.
If they move to using and developing Linux they will then be the biggest gorilla at the table. Linus is one person, everyone else who submits patches is one person (for the most part). IBM is hundreds. By sheer force of size and voice they will be able to dominate the direction of Linux. This may be unintentional but their sheer size makes it likely. I doubt seriously whether the CEO of IBM is twisting his handlebar moustache and plotting to wrest control away. If IBM jumps in with both feet though and becomes dependent upon Linux they will need to. At that point it will be necessary for IBM to drive Linux or at least keep it on their desired path as their bottom line will depend upon it. When it comes to the bottom line for a publicly held corporation all else is secondary.
Moreover, what about the public face of Linux? In the computing world among geeks we may know that Linus is the cheiftan. Geeks also know who Ulrich Drepper is. But the rest of the world, the people who just buy machines and use them the end-users, the university purchasers who cut deals for servers and the corporate managers do not. They know brand names and if IBM manages to identify itself with linux they may become "Linux" (or at least it's guardian) in the eyes of the majority of the world. Then this name which is the real public force and property of the Linux movement will become theirs. At that point what Linus wants, or what the early developers want, IBM will be running the show. IBM will be the company rubber stamping distros and by sheer force of weight blocking competition from people such as RedHat and co.
This is a doomesday scenario I know. But keep in mind that the computing world was once known as "IBM and the Seven Little Dwarves." Keep in mind that they also attempted to paint their ads for peace-love-linux all over san-francisco in an effort to ID themselves with the 60's. I don't think Linus and the rest of us should turn our backs on IBM (allthough I'm sure RMS does). But I do we should see them for what they are, a company, and not rush to them like the Manhattan Indians bearing gifts.
Agreed. While C\C++ is a good language and lies at the root of Perl and Java it and the imperative paradigm is not the center of the programming Universe. Without exploring languages from other paradimgs such as prolog, Haskell, etc one cannot get a good feel for the different ways to approache a problem. This tends to lead people into such dogamtic fun as the belif that recursion in all forms is "just plain wrong" as my C\C++ teacher put it.
In terms of which language to start with Java has the advantage over c in that it's syntax is cleaner and has less of the fun archaic elements such as the need for heavy pointer arithmetic. This makes the into learning curve too damn steep. Unfortunately it too is limiting to the iterative world. I'd recommend something like Pascal which was written to be a teaching language (if you must stick with imperative).
IMHO the best language to start with would be Lisp. It is more mature than python. It is quite tolerant allowing the students to play with less pain. It includes higher level elements such as lists that allows people to get into real programming in shorter order. Rather than forcing them to put off any real programming until after they have mastered the arcane nature of c's memory allocation. Lastly and most importantly as a teaching language it can be used for purely functional, purely iterative, and for object-oriented programming. Thus you can introduce your students to three of the major paradigms (you can do some Psudo-logic programming in it but it just isn't the same as prolog) under one roof. As a result the excess learning time is lessened.
The beautiful irony of this is that science aside it is a federal offence to tamper with money. Under section 331 of the U.S. Criminal code which is availible at Cornell University here. the authors can be fined and/or sent to jail for up to 5 years. Anyone know how to conduct a citizen's arrst over the internet?
Trust in God, Tie your camel, and lie on your taxes. -- American Proverb
Given the penchant Bush has shown for campaigning (Back in Texas he spent the majority of his day out pressing the flesh rather than working) and his conservative bent I predict more CDA (Communications Decency Act) style legislation. Such legslation has the advantage of appealing to conservative groups and rallying people around simple concepts by appearing to solve complex problems with simple homolies (kiddie porn bad, bible good).
The fact that such legislation is terrible both in the short term and the long term is unimportant. If Bush is anything like his father the goal of his domestic agenda will be the maintenance of popularity more than anything else. If the legislation is struck down for being unconsititutional, who cares. The purpose of it is to maike points.
This is, perhaps an overly simply view but given Bush's past activities and recent ones (Sudden stoppage of all Federal Aid that may have something to do with Abortion) That appears to be the tack he will take with technology and free speech issues.
My prediction is that Bush will:
Attempt to revive the CDA in one form or fashion.
Stop the DOJ suit against Microsoft.
Direct DOJ efforts agains Porn websites and violent videogame makers.
Provide strong support for suits such as Nintendo's attacks against game reviewers.
Provide stronger support for mandatory censoship in schools, etc.
Provide additional support for Microsoft and others in their suits against temp employees.
Agreed, I find it unsurprising that Bosses are isolated in small electronic islands. The mark of a good boss (to me and the management literature that I have seen) is one that impresses humanity on his/her employees.
Despite the horror with which many view meetings they have two advantages. Firstly they allow for a greater amount of communication (when conducted properly) between individuals. Secondly, they allow for a level of human contact that, I would wager, may be missing entirely within some of those dark islands of communication. By taking the time to talk to subordinates directly, a boss can better motivate, counsel, and (in bad cases) terrify them. When someone is confronted with an individual directly they cannot ignore him/her as easily as an e-mail, nor can they take as much time to edit what they say, often forcing them to share more than they otherwise would.
Despite my comfort with e-mail (I am a research programmer) I find face-to-face conversations far more useful and would despise any boss that I encountered only through e-mail.
Additionally this study makes no mention of that venerable, and outside the computational fields dominant, means of long-distance communication the telephone. For most professions this is still the primary method of communicating over distances larger than a building and remains so due to tradition and because it more closely approximates direct human contact than e-mail.
Any study which makes no attempt to catalogue the two most dominant means of exchanging information (face-to-face and telephone) is, outside of very specialized groups where e-mail is completely dominant is useless. For groups such as a GNU Project team who tend to be spread over large distances and have a love of e-mail this might work but that is, in the long run, a very small subset of actual functional teams.
I assume that they might crank it up from time to time but why not leave the thing going? Perhaps it could be the machine that cracks RC5 or, even better, Seti@home.
Irvu.
Having spent some frustrating time working with MkLinux I'm curious what your view of the Mach Microkernel is as a subsystem and, by extension what you think of OSX and the Hurd project as architectures based upon that.
I can't speak to the world as a whole. If you intend to look at either the U.S. or the European Union you seem to have a choice between government abuses or corporate ones.
Despite the major problems with corporate abuses and recent efforts by the FBI/CIA/NSA U.S. citizens still enjoy relatively high protection against government intrusion and/or repression. Consider for example the fact that, repugnant as it is to some, racism can be discussed, mentioned, even advocated in the U.S. In france, and Gemany for example one cannot discuss Nazism except as history. For that matter Germany's Anti-Porn laws do not allow for the discussion/distribution of pornographic content online. As a result AOL has cracked down internationally on pornographic chat rooms to keep the Germans happy. Whether or not you support pornography or racism these are disticks for the levels of free speech in a country. For that matter Britan doesn't even have a written constitution thus making their basic rights open to more casual alteration than the U.S.'s.
On the other hand the European Union has taken relatively strident steps to protect the rights of individuals from business. This includes passing strong laws against the sharing of medical records between companies and online profiling. Here in the U.S., a lack of historical fears about business has allowed this to occur rampantly.
This still leaves open Canada who's laws I am not familiar with, Mexico which seems willing to protect the rich, Central and Southern America, Southeast Asia and Russia. I'd love to hear if one country in these areas (not insignificant portions of the Globe) is better than those I know.
Allthough the search is somewhat confusing I've always found www.congress.gov to be indespensible for obtaining useful information in a minimum of time.
On the opposite end of the spectrum I've always been annoyed with www.whitehouse.gov because it has more flash than function.
Irvu.
In the WumpusWorld of Law the Supreme court has determines that the Florida State Supreme court fell into a pit but thy have extra life to try again.
Despite the hopes of many this does not hand either side a victory really. In some sense it is better for bush because it invalidates a ruling favorable to Gore but it does not nevessarily give him the victory.
It seems like we won't really know until we hit the hard deadline of December 18th when the Electoral College meets. On that day (or more accurately 6 days before it the 12th, the State of Florda, by federal law, must have appointed it's electors.
I guess we stiull have time to wait before moving off. Perhaps I'll see you in Monaco.
As a longtime reader I find it almost sickening how little the Slashdot community is paying attention to this. I agree that neither candidate has or will ever have true legitimacy. As it is the woman in charge of certifying the winner was co-chair of Bush's campaign. Nevertheless I find it ludocris to suggest that the topic doesn't matter.
A quick survey of the day's postings feature the following: a discussion of online rights and domain names, the usual discussion of a microsoft breakup, a comment on rumors that Bill has rewritten Linux code for his own use, and a discussion of the rights of employees to develop free software. Every one of these issues is directly in the hands of the President of the United States. Granted he is not soley in charge but he is an 800lb gorilla at the table.
For example it took a president's support to privatize domain name registration. Without that ICANN would not exist. In principle the U.S. Internet and domain names could be nationalized and once-again come under the auspices of the federal government if a president so chose. Granted it would be unlikely to occur given the strong tech investment in presidential campaigns. But imagine a time when Pepsico is unhappy with the way the rinternet is run because a strong ICANN or other group has denied them the right to seize Soda.org for their own use. Any president who owes them anything (Both mainstream candidates) would bend over backwards to make them happy.
In the case of Bill Gates and any of his activities the president's power is obvious. Even Bill knows that, why else would he donate so massively to both parties?
The case of free software development is even more obvious. It is strong but dying labor legislation that allows employees any freedom at all with respect to their employers. This legislation has been eroding steadily to the point where companies such as Boeing and Best Buy are asking their employees to sign away their right to sue the company for redress of grevances. Courtesy of a conservative federal and Supreme Court system (Appointed by the president and Congress) these contracts have stood. Thus permitting companies to strip the rights of their workers openly.
Given all of this how can anyone assume that the election of the president does not matter? I myself am of the opinion that Bush and Gore are (in the grand scheme of things) a gnat's hair apart but they do differ on issuies such as antitrust law. Nevertheless given the extreme power that a president weilds over (almost) everything that/. regularly covers, and the fact that the election is being openly hijacked by one of the parties, how can we afford not to care?
I have to disagree. Fundamentally politics in my opinion is exactly about who has control and why. Politics is, at it's most abstract the (art, science, game, manufacture) of control, who has it and why. The issue lies in the distinction between the public avenues of politics and the meanings of those actions.
The conventional view of politics as it is presented to us by Time, Newsweek, NYTimes, People, etc. is the public face, politics as a game of popularity and assertions. This is merely the surface level of politics, the actions of the players.
What makes these actions important is their meaning and purpose. Bush's Shibboleth or Slogan "Leave No child behind" is, in and of itself meaningless. When you consider it in refrence to Bush's support for school vouchers, and his desire to make that program palpavble to the vast bulk of Americans who would not be able to afford private schooling under that program then it is invested with meaning in terms of power.
What is necessary is that you be willing to look beyond the level of People Magazine. Viewing politics strictly at that surface-level is akin to watching a game of chess or a swordfight and recording the individual actions. The motion of peices, the thrusts, parries, etc. But NOT paying attention to the state of the board, the ranking of players, or even the connection between one move and the next. Under some circumstances this can be interesting to watch but it is stripped of all real excitement or purpose.
I personally have to suppress my gag reflex at the presence of most politics but that is less to do with the conception of politics as a whole which would be present in some form or another in any socisty (hopefully a better form in future societies) but at the current state of the field and the players in it.
"Man was not meant to speculate but to act." -- Noam Chomsky.
Slashdot Mirror
I have hit points where I felt like that. The summer job testing for Y2k compliance (searching db and VB code for small dates for 3 months) was enough to give me the screaming horrors. Some of my classes drove me to the point of staggering boredom and homicidal fantasies. At times the enjoyment seemed entirely dead.
But that was the jobs and the classes not CS. Now that I am done with them and am doing interesting work the enjoyment is back. The trick was getting away from the toy problems and being able to focus on a real project not replicating something from a book.
Before you drop out or lose your mind think back. If you once enjoyed some part of CS and you can still summon up some interest in it then it is probably school. Senior year is always stressful and toy problems and half-formed theory are rarely satisfying to someone who wants to solve technical problems and really work.
If after thinking about it you think that it is CS and not school then go find what thrills you before you end up bitter cranky and living the Dilbert life. Money is never a good reason to do anything because, bottom line, it can't compensate for totally hating your job. And, unless you like your job you will never do any good at it.
If you are sure that it is school and not CS then figure out what part of CS you like, go and do it and accept that shitty courses happen and every job no matter how ideal has its downside.
Best of Luck. Irvu
What information sources (websites, newspapers, radio stations) do you go to for news and information? Which ones do you trust? And, which ones don't you trust?
In recent years we have seen a raft of laws that, under one guise or another, act to limit speech and dissemination of information. Your own experience with DeCSS is a prime example. Since September 11 there has been a renewed push in Governmental circles not only to restrict information by refusing to comply with FOIA requests but to demand information by increasing surveillance.
As someone who has dealt with this and won, how do you see it progressing? Do you think that this will pass and these laws will be overturned? Or do you see this as only the beginning?
I am in no position to disagree with you on that score. But I think that a fork would be dangerous for the name reasons that I specified above. Granted they haven;t had success up till now but IBM at least hasn't (I'll wager) been trying that hard either.
True but I think you are missing some of the point. Even in open standards there are dominant and weaker players. Consider the fight over the next-generation IP. In that case the standards are supposed to be open. However the dominant voices in the process are not developers, not sysadmins, not even universities they are people like Microsoft and Time-Warner. The largest companies that can shout the loudest to get what they want. IBM is the same. IBM is a corporation and to that end they will do what is best for themselves. This is not necessarily driven by malice it is just the state of affairs. If they find it better to move to Linux or at least publicly support it, both to piss off Bill and to make geeks worldwide love them, then they will.
If they move to using and developing Linux they will then be the biggest gorilla at the table. Linus is one person, everyone else who submits patches is one person (for the most part). IBM is hundreds. By sheer force of size and voice they will be able to dominate the direction of Linux. This may be unintentional but their sheer size makes it likely. I doubt seriously whether the CEO of IBM is twisting his handlebar moustache and plotting to wrest control away. If IBM jumps in with both feet though and becomes dependent upon Linux they will need to. At that point it will be necessary for IBM to drive Linux or at least keep it on their desired path as their bottom line will depend upon it. When it comes to the bottom line for a publicly held corporation all else is secondary.
Moreover, what about the public face of Linux? In the computing world among geeks we may know that Linus is the cheiftan. Geeks also know who Ulrich Drepper is. But the rest of the world, the people who just buy machines and use them the end-users, the university purchasers who cut deals for servers and the corporate managers do not. They know brand names and if IBM manages to identify itself with linux they may become "Linux" (or at least it's guardian) in the eyes of the majority of the world. Then this name which is the real public force and property of the Linux movement will become theirs. At that point what Linus wants, or what the early developers want, IBM will be running the show. IBM will be the company rubber stamping distros and by sheer force of weight blocking competition from people such as RedHat and co.
This is a doomesday scenario I know. But keep in mind that the computing world was once known as "IBM and the Seven Little Dwarves." Keep in mind that they also attempted to paint their ads for peace-love-linux all over san-francisco in an effort to ID themselves with the 60's. I don't think Linus and the rest of us should turn our backs on IBM (allthough I'm sure RMS does). But I do we should see them for what they are, a company, and not rush to them like the Manhattan Indians bearing gifts.
Agreed. While C\C++ is a good language and lies at the root of Perl and Java it and the imperative paradigm is not the center of the programming Universe. Without exploring languages from other paradimgs such as prolog, Haskell, etc one cannot get a good feel for the different ways to approache a problem. This tends to lead people into such dogamtic fun as the belif that recursion in all forms is "just plain wrong" as my C\C++ teacher put it.
In terms of which language to start with Java has the advantage over c in that it's syntax is cleaner and has less of the fun archaic elements such as the need for heavy pointer arithmetic. This makes the into learning curve too damn steep. Unfortunately it too is limiting to the iterative world. I'd recommend something like Pascal which was written to be a teaching language (if you must stick with imperative).
IMHO the best language to start with would be Lisp. It is more mature than python. It is quite tolerant allowing the students to play with less pain. It includes higher level elements such as lists that allows people to get into real programming in shorter order. Rather than forcing them to put off any real programming until after they have mastered the arcane nature of c's memory allocation. Lastly and most importantly as a teaching language it can be used for purely functional, purely iterative, and for object-oriented programming. Thus you can introduce your students to three of the major paradigms (you can do some Psudo-logic programming in it but it just isn't the same as prolog) under one roof. As a result the excess learning time is lessened.
Irvu
The beautiful irony of this is that science aside it is a federal offence to tamper with money. Under section 331 of the U.S. Criminal code which is availible at Cornell University here. the authors can be fined and/or sent to jail for up to 5 years. Anyone know how to conduct a citizen's arrst over the internet?
Trust in God, Tie your camel, and lie on your taxes. -- American Proverb
Irvu
Professor Lee Spector at Hampshire College is currently teaching a course in Quantum Computing for undergraduates entitled Quantum Computing with No Prerequsites of any kind.
Irvu.Given the penchant Bush has shown for campaigning (Back in Texas he spent the majority of his day out pressing the flesh rather than working) and his conservative bent I predict more CDA (Communications Decency Act) style legislation. Such legslation has the advantage of appealing to conservative groups and rallying people around simple concepts by appearing to solve complex problems with simple homolies (kiddie porn bad, bible good).
The fact that such legislation is terrible both in the short term and the long term is unimportant. If Bush is anything like his father the goal of his domestic agenda will be the maintenance of popularity more than anything else. If the legislation is struck down for being unconsititutional, who cares. The purpose of it is to maike points.
This is, perhaps an overly simply view but given Bush's past activities and recent ones (Sudden stoppage of all Federal Aid that may have something to do with Abortion) That appears to be the tack he will take with technology and free speech issues.
My prediction is that Bush will:
Irvu.
Agreed, I find it unsurprising that Bosses are isolated in small electronic islands. The mark of a good boss (to me and the management literature that I have seen) is one that impresses humanity on his/her employees.
Despite the horror with which many view meetings they have two advantages. Firstly they allow for a greater amount of communication (when conducted properly) between individuals. Secondly, they allow for a level of human contact that, I would wager, may be missing entirely within some of those dark islands of communication. By taking the time to talk to subordinates directly, a boss can better motivate, counsel, and (in bad cases) terrify them. When someone is confronted with an individual directly they cannot ignore him/her as easily as an e-mail, nor can they take as much time to edit what they say, often forcing them to share more than they otherwise would.
Despite my comfort with e-mail (I am a research programmer) I find face-to-face conversations far more useful and would despise any boss that I encountered only through e-mail.
Additionally this study makes no mention of that venerable, and outside the computational fields dominant, means of long-distance communication the telephone. For most professions this is still the primary method of communicating over distances larger than a building and remains so due to tradition and because it more closely approximates direct human contact than e-mail.
Any study which makes no attempt to catalogue the two most dominant means of exchanging information (face-to-face and telephone) is, outside of very specialized groups where e-mail is completely dominant is useless. For groups such as a GNU Project team who tend to be spread over large distances and have a love of e-mail this might work but that is, in the long run, a very small subset of actual functional teams.
Irvu.I assume that they might crank it up from time to time but why not leave the thing going? Perhaps it could be the machine that cracks RC5 or, even better, Seti@home. Irvu.
Having spent some frustrating time working with MkLinux I'm curious what your view of the Mach Microkernel is as a subsystem and, by extension what you think of OSX and the Hurd project as architectures based upon that.
I can't speak to the world as a whole. If you intend to look at either the U.S. or the European Union you seem to have a choice between government abuses or corporate ones.
Despite the major problems with corporate abuses and recent efforts by the FBI/CIA/NSA U.S. citizens still enjoy relatively high protection against government intrusion and/or repression. Consider for example the fact that, repugnant as it is to some, racism can be discussed, mentioned, even advocated in the U.S. In france, and Gemany for example one cannot discuss Nazism except as history. For that matter Germany's Anti-Porn laws do not allow for the discussion/distribution of pornographic content online. As a result AOL has cracked down internationally on pornographic chat rooms to keep the Germans happy. Whether or not you support pornography or racism these are disticks for the levels of free speech in a country. For that matter Britan doesn't even have a written constitution thus making their basic rights open to more casual alteration than the U.S.'s.
On the other hand the European Union has taken relatively strident steps to protect the rights of individuals from business. This includes passing strong laws against the sharing of medical records between companies and online profiling. Here in the U.S., a lack of historical fears about business has allowed this to occur rampantly.
This still leaves open Canada who's laws I am not familiar with, Mexico which seems willing to protect the rich, Central and Southern America, Southeast Asia and Russia. I'd love to hear if one country in these areas (not insignificant portions of the Globe) is better than those I know.
Irvu.Allthough the search is somewhat confusing I've always found www.congress.gov to be indespensible for obtaining useful information in a minimum of time. On the opposite end of the spectrum I've always been annoyed with www.whitehouse.gov because it has more flash than function. Irvu.
The ruling, oddly enough, was an unsigned ruling (definitely not normal) where the court asserted that there was "there is considerable uncertanty as to the precise grounds for the decision" in the Florida Court's decision. Therefore they have invalidated the decision based upon precendent and sent it back to Florida to Reconsider. See the story from CNN
In the WumpusWorld of Law the Supreme court has determines that the Florida State Supreme court fell into a pit but thy have extra life to try again.
Despite the hopes of many this does not hand either side a victory really. In some sense it is better for bush because it invalidates a ruling favorable to Gore but it does not nevessarily give him the victory.
It seems like we won't really know until we hit the hard deadline of December 18th when the Electoral College meets. On that day (or more accurately 6 days before it the 12th, the State of Florda, by federal law, must have appointed it's electors.
I guess we stiull have time to wait before moving off. Perhaps I'll see you in Monaco.
Irvu.
As a longtime reader I find it almost sickening how little the Slashdot community is paying attention to this. I agree that neither candidate has or will ever have true legitimacy. As it is the woman in charge of certifying the winner was co-chair of Bush's campaign. Nevertheless I find it ludocris to suggest that the topic doesn't matter.
A quick survey of the day's postings feature the following: a discussion of online rights and domain names, the usual discussion of a microsoft breakup, a comment on rumors that Bill has rewritten Linux code for his own use, and a discussion of the rights of employees to develop free software. Every one of these issues is directly in the hands of the President of the United States. Granted he is not soley in charge but he is an 800lb gorilla at the table.
For example it took a president's support to privatize domain name registration. Without that ICANN would not exist. In principle the U.S. Internet and domain names could be nationalized and once-again come under the auspices of the federal government if a president so chose. Granted it would be unlikely to occur given the strong tech investment in presidential campaigns. But imagine a time when Pepsico is unhappy with the way the rinternet is run because a strong ICANN or other group has denied them the right to seize Soda.org for their own use. Any president who owes them anything (Both mainstream candidates) would bend over backwards to make them happy.
In the case of Bill Gates and any of his activities the president's power is obvious. Even Bill knows that, why else would he donate so massively to both parties?
The case of free software development is even more obvious. It is strong but dying labor legislation that allows employees any freedom at all with respect to their employers. This legislation has been eroding steadily to the point where companies such as Boeing and Best Buy are asking their employees to sign away their right to sue the company for redress of grevances. Courtesy of a conservative federal and Supreme Court system (Appointed by the president and Congress) these contracts have stood. Thus permitting companies to strip the rights of their workers openly.
Given all of this how can anyone assume that the election of the president does not matter? I myself am of the opinion that Bush and Gore are (in the grand scheme of things) a gnat's hair apart but they do differ on issuies such as antitrust law. Nevertheless given the extreme power that a president weilds over (almost) everything that /. regularly covers, and the fact that the election is being openly hijacked by one of the parties, how can we afford not to care?
Irvu.I have to disagree. Fundamentally politics in my opinion is exactly about who has control and why. Politics is, at it's most abstract the (art, science, game, manufacture) of control, who has it and why. The issue lies in the distinction between the public avenues of politics and the meanings of those actions.
The conventional view of politics as it is presented to us by Time, Newsweek, NYTimes, People, etc. is the public face, politics as a game of popularity and assertions. This is merely the surface level of politics, the actions of the players.
What makes these actions important is their meaning and purpose. Bush's Shibboleth or Slogan "Leave No child behind" is, in and of itself meaningless. When you consider it in refrence to Bush's support for school vouchers, and his desire to make that program palpavble to the vast bulk of Americans who would not be able to afford private schooling under that program then it is invested with meaning in terms of power.
What is necessary is that you be willing to look beyond the level of People Magazine. Viewing politics strictly at that surface-level is akin to watching a game of chess or a swordfight and recording the individual actions. The motion of peices, the thrusts, parries, etc. But NOT paying attention to the state of the board, the ranking of players, or even the connection between one move and the next. Under some circumstances this can be interesting to watch but it is stripped of all real excitement or purpose.
I personally have to suppress my gag reflex at the presence of most politics but that is less to do with the conception of politics as a whole which would be present in some form or another in any socisty (hopefully a better form in future societies) but at the current state of the field and the players in it.