If you don't mind me asking, does your line of work involve improving humanity in any way or are you an armchair/desktop hypocrite like most other holier than thou Slashdot posters?
What if everyone simply did what they wanted to with their lives instead of what you want them to do? Oh wait they are!
I understand that there are things that are important to all of humanity. What you don't understand is not everyone is or ever wants to be some sort of global saviour. You can save the world or enjoy life for yourself. Most choose the latter. By your reasoning we should all feel a deep and unending guilt if the entire population of Earth isn't working simultaneously to put an end to every form of suffering and injustice.
"The fact that I have to point this out, might be a good indication that you might want to evaluate some things in your life. After all, in the grand scheme of things, sports activities don't mean a dang thing."
There you go again. They don't mean a dang thing to you, but obviously they mean a great deal to others. And its not just sports that matters. Any activity that doesn't involve saving the world must be offensive to you if it detracts us from doing Great Works for Humanity. Ever hear the phrases Holier Than Thou or Self Righteous? They happen to define you to a perfect T.
I don't care that more advances aren't being found at the RATE you would prefer. I think we're doing fine as is. I'm not going to become some mindless Borg automaton for the Human Collective. Why don't you rise to the level of Dictator of Earth and simply force us all to work on ending homelessness and curing cancer and finding a treatment for aging? You could use the justification that you're just doing it for our own good and preventing us from wasting our time on useless but fun activities. After all, YOU do know whats best for everyone don't you?
Throughout most of your replies in this thread you center around this theme of "things that matter, and things that dont"
I think you have gotten that confused with things that matter to you and things that matter to other people. In the REAL grand scheme of things, we're all going to be dead and returned to our component molecules. Whether you believe in a heaven or hell or not (I dont I'm an atheist) whatever we do on this planet and in this life just really does not matter in the end.
That being said whats the distinction between playing sports and studying to become a doctor? You completly disregard the excitement factor. Becoming a doctor who cures some disease is great and all, really it is. But being the quarter back who throws the winning pass or the reciever who catches it is something people tend to not forget, not those playing, not those watching.
You are also undercutting familiar relationships. Men relate to other men by DOING things with each other. We don't sit around and discuss our feelings like women do. Dads and sons build things together, fix things together, play sports together, go on trips together, hunt together....etc. Men (really all people) also like to see their children do the same things they did if those things were enjoyable in the first place. This is why if a guy played football in school he'll try to get his son interested.
As for wasting time, whats wrong with wasting time? We're doing that right now just by sitting in front of our computers when we could be outside playing sports! We have a right to waste time! Why he hell shouldn't we? Whats so important that it must be done all the time?
Sports also polarizes people. Whole cities, towns, schools unite under their team against someone else's. We've all heard people say "My team beat your team" or "My school's team won the championship and yours didn't". Can you imagine hearin this however? "Hah my school cured cancer and yours didn't! WOO HOOO LETS GO HAVE A KEG PARTY TO CELEBRATE!!!"
Why does something have to effect something of importance to matter? People like things for an unlimited amount of reasons.
I didn't go to college myself, but there are folks who choose what college to go to based on where their friends went, how good the academics are, how its ranked, how new/advanced the facilities are, how comfortable the dorms are, how much of a party/prude school it is....etc. Some folks even choose a college based on its drug usage policies.
What do YOU care about? Open source? IT? Why should anyone else care? You can ask those questions of anything people take an interest in in life.
Sports are EXCITING. The regular business of a school is not. Whoo hoo we got 2 Nobel Laureates, lets give them money and women.....not. See what I mean?
Yes yes humans are still animals ruled by petty pleasures. What can ya do?
Certainly for most public high schools it isn't the case, but private high schools are just like private universities. They have endowment funds, alumni donors....etc the whole kit and kaboodle. My hs had a yearly tuition of $26k. There were routine donations for new sports facilities, but also for regular academic facilities too.
One thing to also keep in mind is athletics bring IN money to a school. For every tax dollar invested in university sports it probably generates 15 more. This is because alumni who played sports when they went to college want to see their old school do well against their old enemies and donate money for new stadiums, equipment, coaches....etc.
Not too many people donate money for new language centers or computer labs or anything else.
So we should adopt more regulation of the business sector here in the US so that we can eventually match the double digit unemployment figures that one sees in continental Europe?
Its incredible how some folks can trick themselves into thinking sacrificing for a technological cause is some great endeavour. NO ONE 50 years from now is going to look back on the OSS movement with reverence, there will be no Free Software holiday and those who remember the FSF and Stallman will be those few fortunate geeks with enough money to afford anti-aging telomere therapy.
Riker, Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Sisko AND Archer have disobeyed the chain of command on NUMEROUS occasions for very good reasons. They're not robots or automatons. They're free thinking people who will refuse an order if it comes from an idiot when lives are at stake.
The Enterprise is the flagship of the fleet, staffed with Starfleets best and finest. The crew stonewalled Jellico because he was a moron of the highest order. If he hadn't rescured Picard I have no doubt Riker would have killed him with his bare hands.
There's actually a sci-fi book called "Ethan of Athos" about a planet in a sci-fi universe that is all men. The men on that planet use stored eggs and artificial wombs to reproduce. Artificial wombs are already being worked on in reality. So in the future neither men or women will be necessary to create children.
You start off waiting tables (up to 40k), you move up to bartending (anywhere from 30-150k depending on the city) and move up to owning your own bar (unlimtied potential income).
But you don't need a fancy degree to do any of that so lets just ignore those possibilities.:P
If you you "achieve" doesn't help the company earn more money thus giving it a reason to hire/keep you then what fuck all is it worth at the end of the day?
The fact that so many college grads are unable to find work these days pretty much proves that those degrees are utterly worthless except for impressing parents and those who already have jobs but are unable to offer them any.
"I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith's of Linux have their way, in the future they will look back and say: "Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains." "
That statement right there ought to put a chill down the spine of any IT worker because it applies to far more than just Linux. If you work on building transatlantic/pacific communications for example then you are lowering the costs for outsourcing and long distance communications. This is the enabler for foreigners to take jobs from Americans. Add to this all the work engineers are doing on the automation of all kinds of jobs and careers and the average IT worker really IS "working hard to forge his own chains".
Obviously the guy is a very intelligent Linux coder. But socially he is unable to realize that the wider world doesn't even know his LUG EXISTS. His quitting will have no effect whatsoever on the Military's use of linux. The GPL states that anyone can use the software. ANYONE. If you aren't modifying it you don't have to worry about whether you can use it or not. Even RMS has recognized and acknowledged this.
Wow it just goes to show you how head in the sand some people can be.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't mind me asking, does your line of work involve improving humanity in any way or are you an armchair/desktop hypocrite like most other holier than thou Slashdot posters?
What if everyone simply did what they wanted to with their lives instead of what you want them to do? Oh wait they are!
I understand that there are things that are important to all of humanity. What you don't understand is not everyone is or ever wants to be some sort of global saviour. You can save the world or enjoy life for yourself. Most choose the latter. By your reasoning we should all feel a deep and unending guilt if the entire population of Earth isn't working simultaneously to put an end to every form of suffering and injustice.
"The fact that I have to point this out, might be a good indication that you might want to evaluate some things in your life. After all, in the grand scheme of things, sports activities don't mean a dang thing."
There you go again. They don't mean a dang thing to you, but obviously they mean a great deal to others. And its not just sports that matters. Any activity that doesn't involve saving the world must be offensive to you if it detracts us from doing Great Works for Humanity. Ever hear the phrases Holier Than Thou or Self Righteous? They happen to define you to a perfect T.
I don't care that more advances aren't being found at the RATE you would prefer. I think we're doing fine as is. I'm not going to become some mindless Borg automaton for the Human Collective. Why don't you rise to the level of Dictator of Earth and simply force us all to work on ending homelessness and curing cancer and finding a treatment for aging? You could use the justification that you're just doing it for our own good and preventing us from wasting our time on useless but fun activities. After all, YOU do know whats best for everyone don't you?
Throughout most of your replies in this thread you center around this theme of "things that matter, and things that dont"
I think you have gotten that confused with things that matter to you and things that matter to other people. In the REAL grand scheme of things, we're all going to be dead and returned to our component molecules. Whether you believe in a heaven or hell or not (I dont I'm an atheist) whatever we do on this planet and in this life just really does not matter in the end.
That being said whats the distinction between playing sports and studying to become a doctor? You completly disregard the excitement factor. Becoming a doctor who cures some disease is great and all, really it is. But being the quarter back who throws the winning pass or the reciever who catches it is something people tend to not forget, not those playing, not those watching.
You are also undercutting familiar relationships. Men relate to other men by DOING things with each other. We don't sit around and discuss our feelings like women do. Dads and sons build things together, fix things together, play sports together, go on trips together, hunt together....etc. Men (really all people) also like to see their children do the same things they did if those things were enjoyable in the first place. This is why if a guy played football in school he'll try to get his son interested.
As for wasting time, whats wrong with wasting time? We're doing that right now just by sitting in front of our computers when we could be outside playing sports! We have a right to waste time! Why he hell shouldn't we? Whats so important that it must be done all the time?
Sports also polarizes people. Whole cities, towns, schools unite under their team against someone else's. We've all heard people say "My team beat your team" or "My school's team won the championship and yours didn't". Can you imagine hearin this however? "Hah my school cured cancer and yours didn't! WOO HOOO LETS GO HAVE A KEG PARTY TO CELEBRATE!!!"
Life just doesn't work that way.
Why does something have to effect something of importance to matter? People like things for an unlimited amount of reasons.
I didn't go to college myself, but there are folks who choose what college to go to based on where their friends went, how good the academics are, how its ranked, how new/advanced the facilities are, how comfortable the dorms are, how much of a party/prude school it is....etc. Some folks even choose a college based on its drug usage policies.
What do YOU care about? Open source? IT? Why should anyone else care? You can ask those questions of anything people take an interest in in life.
Sports are EXCITING. The regular business of a school is not. Whoo hoo we got 2 Nobel Laureates, lets give them money and women.....not. See what I mean?
Yes yes humans are still animals ruled by petty pleasures. What can ya do?
Certainly for most public high schools it isn't the case, but private high schools are just like private universities. They have endowment funds, alumni donors....etc the whole kit and kaboodle. My hs had a yearly tuition of $26k. There were routine donations for new sports facilities, but also for regular academic facilities too.
One thing to also keep in mind is athletics bring IN money to a school. For every tax dollar invested in university sports it probably generates 15 more. This is because alumni who played sports when they went to college want to see their old school do well against their old enemies and donate money for new stadiums, equipment, coaches....etc.
Not too many people donate money for new language centers or computer labs or anything else.
The problem is your students have to start paying for University level education so the teachers can make more than the pittance they do now.
Its hard to retain good professors when they have to subsist on civil servant level wages.
So we should adopt more regulation of the business sector here in the US so that we can eventually match the double digit unemployment figures that one sees in continental Europe?
Linux is the new Unix. Therefore Unix is here to stay.
Its incredible how some folks can trick themselves into thinking sacrificing for a technological cause is some great endeavour. NO ONE 50 years from now is going to look back on the OSS movement with reverence, there will be no Free Software holiday and those who remember the FSF and Stallman will be those few fortunate geeks with enough money to afford anti-aging telomere therapy.
Or how about not using the laptops with Centrino so that the FUCKING AIRPLANE DOESNT FUCKING CRASH?!
Anyone else notice its usually an anonymous coward who selfishly demands access to that which they do not deserve access to?
Riker, Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Sisko AND Archer have disobeyed the chain of command on NUMEROUS occasions for very good reasons. They're not robots or automatons. They're free thinking people who will refuse an order if it comes from an idiot when lives are at stake.
The Enterprise is the flagship of the fleet, staffed with Starfleets best and finest. The crew stonewalled Jellico because he was a moron of the highest order. If he hadn't rescured Picard I have no doubt Riker would have killed him with his bare hands.
There's actually a sci-fi book called "Ethan of Athos" about a planet in a sci-fi universe that is all men. The men on that planet use stored eggs and artificial wombs to reproduce. Artificial wombs are already being worked on in reality. So in the future neither men or women will be necessary to create children.
You start off waiting tables (up to 40k), you move up to bartending (anywhere from 30-150k depending on the city) and move up to owning your own bar (unlimtied potential income).
:P
But you don't need a fancy degree to do any of that so lets just ignore those possibilities.
It could also come from being able to do the jobs people with degrees get but not getting hired because you don't have the degree.
People have bills to pay.
College grads have even MORE bills to pay.
If you you "achieve" doesn't help the company earn more money thus giving it a reason to hire/keep you then what fuck all is it worth at the end of the day?
The fact that so many college grads are unable to find work these days pretty much proves that those degrees are utterly worthless except for impressing parents and those who already have jobs but are unable to offer them any.
It must be wonderful to live in such a simplistic Bush like world full of "bad guys" that are easily identifiable.
"I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith's of Linux have their way, in the future they will look back and say: "Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains." "
That statement right there ought to put a chill down the spine of any IT worker because it applies to far more than just Linux. If you work on building transatlantic/pacific communications for example then you are lowering the costs for outsourcing and long distance communications. This is the enabler for foreigners to take jobs from Americans. Add to this all the work engineers are doing on the automation of all kinds of jobs and careers and the average IT worker really IS "working hard to forge his own chains".
Obviously the guy is a very intelligent Linux coder. But socially he is unable to realize that the wider world doesn't even know his LUG EXISTS. His quitting will have no effect whatsoever on the Military's use of linux. The GPL states that anyone can use the software. ANYONE. If you aren't modifying it you don't have to worry about whether you can use it or not. Even RMS has recognized and acknowledged this.
Wow it just goes to show you how head in the sand some people can be.
What on earth are you talking about?
The activation of the lights is the theft deterrant, not the price.
....with the increasing usage of hybrid vehicles lessening the demand for gas the price of gas will plummet, thus bankrupting the Middle East.