With servers I advise sticking with something that's been around a while and is known to be stable. With desktop machines, having the latest apps and desktop (GNOME, KDE) is more important and stability is less important, so I might be prepared to try LIMBO on a desktop machine.
Danny.
Obtain a surplus Russian nuclear warhead and wire your dead man switch to that... That's what one of the characters in Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash does, anyway - the result is that he gets looked after very carefully by local law enforcement.
There's a great bit of dialogue at one point that goes something like "You can't attack him, he's a sovereign nation!" "So, I'll declare war on him first." If anyone has a copy handy maybe they can transcribe it.
META tags have never been used by Google, as far as I know, nor popularity in the sense of number of visitors.
The original algorithm used only
TITLEs and the number and quality of
links to the page (ie PageRank). These days, the text in and near the anchors of incoming links is a major part of the algorithm.
My favorite Lem novels are probably The Cyberiad, His Master's Voice (an alien contact novel, but hardly your standard one), and The Futurological Congress.
It's important to note that in other media - films/books/computer games - classification decisions are made public. If you go through the OFLC database, you can even find details of child pornography classifications carried out for the police.
But we actually stated in our FOI request that we weren't after details of anything that was illegal to possess, or that might compromise police investigations.
I think
the real reason the ABA won't reveal the net censorship details to the public is that that would reveal what a total farce the net censorship system is.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT CHILD PORNOGRAPHY.
People have been forced by ABA take-down notices to remove R-rated content from web sites. To be "not prohibited" under the law,
content on an open web site has to be MA-rated.
can't include "gratuious" coarse language that is "very strong, aggressive or detailed"
can't contain depictions of violence that are "high impact" unless they are infrequent and not "prolonged or gratuitous"
can only treat "adult themes" (such as suicide and marital difficulties) if it's done discreetly or at low intensity.
I think that's enough to give the idea. It may also be useful to think of films that are R-rated in Australia and hence would, if put online, be subject to takedown notices (if there was a complaint about them): Hannibal, Apocalypse Now, The Exorcist, The Godfather, Lolita, Mad Max,...
The IMDB lists 827 films that are R-rated in Australia.
There are quite a surprising number of people posting saying they've never heard of EFA - and even some attacks on our activities and the composition of the board.
I find this somewhat odd because Slashdot has run quite a few stories referencing EFA media releases and other materials. And if anyone actually went looking for us, we should be pretty easy to find - if you put "censorship Australia" into Google (as of 19 June 2002), the top six results consist of EFA pages and the personal pages of two EFA board members. Heck, even on a search as general as "internet censorship", EFA and EFA board members manage
two of the top ten results!
Anyway, if you want to know what we do (and who we are), that's all on our web site.
A campaign world set in medieval Java? That's a fascinating idea, but perhaps too foreign - I doubt it would have the mass appeal of the default Western European setting.
Yes, yes, I know you were talking about a programming language! I couldn't resist myself.
I don't find it that surprising that these guys are so dedicated. Managing computing and network systems isn't so different to engineering or medicine or other occupations where the worker's commitment may be as much to the systems they are building, maintaining, or fixing as to a narrow conception of a job.
The professionalism of doctors and engineers is one of the things that help to leaven the more purely cost/profit approach of their managers.
I was just interested in how much variation in Microsoft software prices there was between Taiwan and Canada - if there's none, then obviously software costs were going to be hurting Taiwan relatively more than the PPP figures suggest, which may be part of the reason for the move.
I don't know enough (anything, eactually) about Taiwanese politics to know what the politics of this would be.
I have no argument with any of that, but it seems to me that you are using "software freedom" in a different sense, not as a noun describing a category of software - none of your uses are really capitalisable, to look at it another way.
So "software freedom" is certainly a useful term, but it's not really an alternative to "Free Software" or "Open Source" - I'd classify it as a grammatical variant on "Free Software", myself.
Those figures, however, are in terms of "purchasing power parity" - ie, adjusted to take into account lower costs of living in Taiwan. I doubt
software costs are included in PPP calculations and I suspect Microsoft's pricing doesn't (fully) take into account relative wealth.
But the latter should be easy to find out. How much does Windows/Office/etc. retail for in Taiwan, and how does that compare with their prices in Canada?
While
"freedom software" and "software freedom" are both acceptable noun phrases (head noun + modifying noun), the former in particular seems awkward. I think we (English speakers) have a choice between "free software" and "open source" - I don't think there's room to create a third phrase.
The problem with "open source" is that "open" in that sense only resonates with people who understand e.g. "open protocol" and "open standard", while "source" is only really meaningful to those with some programming experience.
So I'll stick with "free software" - yes, that involves explaining "free", but that's an important word, well worth educating people about.
All the points in your checklist are met by sperm and ova - ie, they qualify as "human life". So anyone who wants to draw a hard line at conception is actually arguing "diploid human life is sacred", not "human life is sacred".
Keep in mind that there are many species where the haploid stage is larger and lasts longer than the diploid one...
Sperm and ova are "human life" - there is no dispute that they are alive, and there is no possible species membership except H. sapiens. And to preempt those who would complain about them lacking a "full complement of chromosomes", there are many species where the haploid stage of the life-cycle is the long-lived, large-scale one...
So anyone chanting "all human life is sacred" and insisting on full rights for foetuses should actually be chanting "all diploid human life is sacred"... or they need to think about how to protect sperm and ova!
London has shockingly poor food, or at
least it did when I was last there in 1997.
Mind you, I'm comparing it with Sydney, which probably has the best food in the world - in range, quality, and price.
Gould wrote some great stuff, though I've only
reviewed a few of his books and I've been leaving his last few as a treat for later. I think there's a whole generation of people who acquired an interest in the history of science from Gould - that may ultimately be his greatest influence.
That was my point! The "diploid human life is sacred" suggestion was intended to demonstrate the arbitrariness of the position taken by "human life is sacred" advocates - the point is that even they have to take complexity, size, viability, etc into account, and that there is no position which avoids that.
I have never run Windows (the first computer I bought in 1993 ran Linux) and I buy my machines "bare", without an operating system.
Sure, I'm in a minority, but don't try to pretend that people like me don't exist.
Before getting too carried away with "human life is sacred", consider that every human egg or sperm is "human life". There's absolutely no doubt that eggs and sperm are alive rather than inanimate, and there are no candidates for their species other than H. sapiens - ergo they are human life. And in many species, the haploid stage of the life-cycle is the one with which we are familiar, so there's no obvious reason to exclude the haploid stage of our own species - except on grounds of size and complexity...
So either change the chant to "diploid human life is sacred" or change the chant entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
With servers I advise sticking with something that's been around a while and is known to be stable. With desktop machines, having the latest apps and desktop (GNOME, KDE) is more important and stability is less important, so I might be prepared to try LIMBO on a desktop machine. Danny.
There's a great bit of dialogue at one point that goes something like "You can't attack him, he's a sovereign nation!" "So, I'll declare war on him first." If anyone has a copy handy maybe they can transcribe it.
Danny.
The original algorithm used only TITLEs and the number and quality of links to the page (ie PageRank). These days, the text in and near the anchors of incoming links is a major part of the algorithm.
Danny.
Danny.
But we actually stated in our FOI request that we weren't after details of anything that was illegal to possess, or that might compromise police investigations.
I think the real reason the ABA won't reveal the net censorship details to the public is that that would reveal what a total farce the net censorship system is.
Danny.
MA-rated content (from the the Office of Film and Literature Classification's own guidelines):
- can only "imply" sexual activity
- can't include "gratuious" coarse language that is "very strong, aggressive or detailed"
- can't contain depictions of violence that are "high impact" unless they are infrequent and not "prolonged or gratuitous"
- can only treat "adult themes" (such as suicide and marital difficulties) if it's done discreetly or at low intensity.
I think that's enough to give the idea. It may also be useful to think of films that are R-rated in Australia and hence would, if put online, be subject to takedown notices (if there was a complaint about them): Hannibal, Apocalypse Now, The Exorcist, The Godfather, Lolita, Mad Max,Danny.
I find this somewhat odd because Slashdot has run quite a few stories referencing EFA media releases and other materials. And if anyone actually went looking for us, we should be pretty easy to find - if you put "censorship Australia" into Google (as of 19 June 2002), the top six results consist of EFA pages and the personal pages of two EFA board members. Heck, even on a search as general as "internet censorship", EFA and EFA board members manage two of the top ten results!
Anyway, if you want to know what we do (and who we are), that's all on our web site.
Danny (EFA board member).
- The Art of Computer Programming (Knuth)
- Computer Networks: A Systems Approach (Peterson and Davie)
- Distributed Algorithms (Lynch)
- Designing Web Usability (Nielsen)
Danny.Danny.
A campaign world set in medieval Java? That's a fascinating idea, but perhaps too foreign - I doubt it would have the mass appeal of the default Western European setting.
Yes, yes, I know you were talking about a programming language! I couldn't resist myself.
Danny.
The professionalism of doctors and engineers is one of the things that help to leaven the more purely cost/profit approach of their managers.
Danny.
I was just interested in how much variation in Microsoft software prices there was between Taiwan and Canada - if there's none, then obviously software costs were going to be hurting Taiwan relatively more than the PPP figures suggest, which may be part of the reason for the move.
I don't know enough (anything, eactually) about Taiwanese politics to know what the politics of this would be.
Danny.
So "software freedom" is certainly a useful term, but it's not really an alternative to "Free Software" or "Open Source" - I'd classify it as a grammatical variant on "Free Software", myself.
Danny.
But the latter should be easy to find out. How much does Windows/Office/etc. retail for in Taiwan, and how does that compare with their prices in Canada?
Danny.
Danny.
So I'll stick with "free software" - yes, that involves explaining "free", but that's an important word, well worth educating people about.
Danny.
Keep in mind that there are many species where the haploid stage is larger and lasts longer than the diploid one...
Danny.
So anyone chanting "all human life is sacred" and insisting on full rights for foetuses should actually be chanting "all diploid human life is sacred"... or they need to think about how to protect sperm and ova!
Danny.
I'll have to do a review of The Epic of Gilgamesh or The Book of the Dead one day.
Danny.
Danny.
Danny.
Danny.
Danny.
Danny.
So either change the chant to "diploid human life is sacred" or change the chant entirely.
Danny.