I am from there, but I live in America now. I didn't realise posts here had to be entirely "on-message" or something, I mean, if you want to attract more women into linux, you're going to have to allow for conversations here to stray "off-topic" and across many areas including personal ones, it might be that only nerds like to regiment conversations in casual places into certain safe, technological areas, you know cutey?
And I think computer *work* is working class, that's right. There's nothing wrong with being working class. But back home, people who work in computers (and here too) tend to be working class because it is a hard working and honest profession. I'd put them at upper working class, and perhaps some at lower middle class or even middle class. Working class means nurses, skilled labourers and craftsmen, programmers, middle class is more into the professions, maybe in the computer world this would relate to designers and architects, not just programmers.
Anyway, back home working class kids go to state schools and had spectrums and whatnot to learn from at night, but upper middle and upper class children tend to go to public school which is very expensive and aren't directed towards computers but rather for more shall-we-say "managerial" positions in life.
Working class kids go to school where they are asked questions like "compare and contrast these pieces by Shelley and Byron", but upper middle and upper class children go to schools where they are asked questions more like "You are Julius Caesar. You are invading Gaul. What do you do next?"
I'm not trying to sound snobby and superior at all - in fact the opposite, I like computers and want to learn more about them, and I have nothing against working class people at all, I respect them. But culturally speaking it really is very unusual for a girl of my background to become interested in computers, alright?
I suppose I am upper middle class. My father is a scion of the of the Duke of Atholl's family, in fact, but that's besides the point, he works in business.
I've been told SuSE makes things easy for the end user, I don't want to have to wait for things to build, and wonder why they don't build and give errors sometimes, and I seethe every time I see my ex's packages being updated (he maintained several, he once stayed up all night fixing one, some stupid gnome thing, and making a racket on this old IBM keyboard he had, which kept me awake all night).
I have gentoo on my computer. You might think this is good, but its bad. My ex-boyfriend was a big gentoo-lover, in fact he was a developer for it or something. But now he's left me, and all that's left of him are some books and the impact he made on my computer.
I would love to be able to use linux more, I am taking a course in community college and my boyfriend was wonderful for helping me out with that but when I told him that I hated him developing for gentoo all the time (he even forgot out anniversary) and sitting at the computer all the time, things went from bad to worse, and we eventually split up. And I regret it because now I'm failing college!
So anyway, I've tried gentoo a lot but it seems to have the occasional problem and I can't make it burn CDs or sync with my ipod, so my tutor recommended SuSE, so perhaps I will try that.
I'm catholic and from Scotland originally, so I'm not really from a computing background (none of my family is working class you see) but it is interesting to learn about and I'm thinking linux is the best thing for learning web development, and gentoo especially when you get more advanced.
He was very good at it, but, one thing that worries me still about it is that he almost became too involved. An RPG is unlike most other games - most other games, you play to have some simple arcade fun, yes? In an RPG, it is more of a literary form. You play to fight evil, and advance good, or even the reverse! It is a whole, immersive universe, with a narrative and a plot, something that is quite unlike some shooting game, or space invaders, and such traditional games.
I'm a scottish girl, and was brought up catholic in scotland before coming to the USA. There, games were simpler, when I was a lass. But I came here, and it seems they got much more morally involved while my back was turned. And back home it has changed too - Grand Theft Auto, that most violent of games, is made in scotland! And yet, it has an entirely American setting (another thing that worries me about games, most have to cater to the attitudes prevalent in larger economies of the world, the small ones do not get a look in, and their preferences ignored).
So anyway, I do wonder aobut the attraction of such a game. I'm from a country with real castles, and real queens and kings and princesses. Perhaps this is why i wonder why they shoudl be invented. But I can't help but appreciate the narrative depth.
My husband appreciated it too much, for my liking. He left me, with the children, because I wanted to bring up the children as wiccans and he wouldn't accept it. And then he plays games based on other pagan views! It annoys me by association.
Still. I would like him back. I will try the game and try to talk to him. Its about time I broadened my horizons.
My ex-boyfriend was a phd student at SUNY university, and he did a grad thesis about the social consequences of wearable computing and communications devices. It was all very complicated, and I didn't understand it, but the other day I was peeling potatoes in the kitchen and I stumbled across his old thesis in a pile of his old clothes in a cupboard next to the washing machine. So I was smelling them and feeling sort of fed up when I saw the thesis inside them, and I gave it a read just to be reminded of his intelligence and presence:-)
It said that one of the mobile phones and computers that can be worn like jewellery would become bionic or something - like a part of our own body, and there was a whole lot about how these things become more than just tools and body-extensions instead, I didn't really understand it very well.
But I do miss him I realise that now, I got rid of him because he spent so much time writing his phd thesis he never had any time for me, and I was supporting him too much through my receptionist job, which was bad because I am a catholic from Scotland and I can sometimes have traditional ideas about behaviour between the sexes where I shouldn't, in America these ideas are out of fashion, they are yesterday. But now he is making lots of money as he has graduated and these mobile things look sexy and expensive and I can't afford them and I miss him so I wish I had never done that now, he was sweet and very clever.
Oh well:( These ideas are about tommorrow, aren't they? The future, I should try them so I can adapt to the future, and try to forget the wrong traditionalist ideas that led me to dump my wonderful boyfriend. Getting a mobile wristphone would be a symbolic first step to embracing American ideals and the ideals of tommorrow, and dumping my old ways that have cost me so much.
Sorry for rambling I am getting quite off-topic hehe:)
This is funny, just last weekend I was going through an old cupboard in the hallway, and right at the back I found a big box full of my my ex-boyfriend's boxer shorts and books, and also a paper he had written about keeping processors cool. He worked as some sort of systems engineer, did James, and he used to worry about cooling down processors for "mobile solutions" or something really rather a lot.
I read it, not at first out of interest for the topic, but just so I could see his handwriting, and remember something of his personality and what we used to have together. It was not long before I, amazingly, found myself sucked into the content though. It turns out my old lover, now sadly left, had discovered that processors have been getting running temperatures higher and higher and hihger for the last ten years, needing bigger and bigger and bigger fans. one part had a graph showing a projection of the size of fans that may be needed in ten years if the trend is to continue, and then it went into thermodynamics a lot and new cooling techniques using some sort of silicone gell circulating over and around the surface of the chip silently, but there were a lot of Greek letters by then, I didn't really understand it and only kept on reading for him.
As a Scottish Catholic, I am not used to the American ideals of the pursuit of knowledge. Where I come from, there is very little innovation and a lot of prejudice and hate. But here in Bangor, since he brought me here, although I have found a lot of pain I have discovered that people are far more inventive and innovative. Even in just cooling PC's!
And although this inventiveness is a wonderful thing, I sometimes think that Americans can be a bit too inventive, especially in the bedroom.
It seeps into every region of their life, and this is wondrous and interesting, but I think the Protean nature that it engenders in Americans means that they suffer from a lack of identity through always reinventing themselves, nothing ever stable.
Perhaps the price payed for greater invention and thus economic performance is paid for socially, by a lack of moral surety and stability in most Americans lifes I have noticed as an immigrant.
Can it really be worth a better economy and cooler PCs? I'm not sure.
I actually did think about it at one point, but Catholocism saved me. Think of rural Hebrides being like Russia, you understand why. I was 15.
And it is people like you that make me think of it. i don't know why you need to be hateful. What have I ever said to you? Why not just leave me alone, you take me back to being 12 which is probably what age you are. Just go away please?
or at least try and think and understand why saying what you do might hurt someone. it isn't just a post on the internet. you aren't free of cause and effect. Everything you do here has an effect on you spiritually and emotionally, and can pervert you and punish you. You should avoid this, well, no other word for it, sin and behaving like what you say has no consequences on you or other people, and start being a bit grown up and responsible. Telling people they should top themselves is a hurtful disgrace, and I'm just glad I am much more solid in the head than I was a few years ago, when I did turn away from my community and even my faith for a while, and I payed. You should think carefully and try to be more moral.
I agree with your first point. However, in your second you appear to be arguing for the existance of Natural Law. Natural Law is a good idea (the idea that there are certain laws that are universal and inate), but it is a wee bit on the dodgy side because different people have very different ideas as to what Natural Laws should be.
In the end I think this proves that law is nothing more than a social convention - there is no such thing as a set of laws that are wholly natural at all. Perhaps I have read too many postmodern texts (I curse Bertold Brecht to this day), but I find it very *unnatural* to say that any law whatsoever is universal or natural.
However, there can be no question that any society, in order to function without (in a negative sense) total anarchy, needs certain guidelines. It may be that Man is sovereign, but for the common good it is perhaps best that this is ignored entirely.
I would prefer that such laws as do exist be based on notions of common law, rather than executive law. i would prefer that law is "discovered" through a process of arbitration of juries and judge, rather than enacted by politicians (invented). I would prefer laws to be simple, and on the more dubious and arguable issues, I would prefer there to be no law at all (such as this issue, for example).
Thanks:) Now I must have a nice drink of Glenmorangie. or perhaps an Islay? Hmm....
(I've had a few already so I apologise for any incosistencies or stupidities in this post:)
It's true and that's one reason I left Scotland. I come from Harris which is a rural island in the Hebrides that is very strongly Catholic, and when I was 16 I went to Glasgow which is full of hatred and I found I was treated like a second class citizen, I was even spitted on by a boy I went on a date with when he found me saying the Rosary (I had been thinking sinful thoughts;))) and that made me think "Well, I just have to get out of here away from hatred!" and so I eventually found a nice American boy who took me to Bangor and I've been very happy here till he left me.
I like it in America a lot, there is a lot less hatred and I feel I can practise my religion and be myself far more easily than I could in Scotland, but I do long for harris a lot, and it makes me very lonely and sad, especially now that I am alone in such a strange city!
I hope I can get things together though, i really want to make a go of it here. Thank you very much.
..that made a terrible amount of noise. Being from a rural area in Scotland, I'm not used at all to roaring cars and noise and humming computers, and his computer had hundreds of fans because he said it had more than one intel inside it!
Also the tapping of the keys really annoyed me. So eventually I told him to sort it out or else, because I wasn't getting sleep and I was working as a receptionist at the time so needed it. He found a way to dampen the noise using some sort of cloth that was very effective, and he "lowclocked" it he said so that it didn't get as hot?
I really had to tell him to do a lot of things like that to keep noise down, it's a real shame. But now I have a computer job and I find it is really universal that they make this noise.
Anyway, I hope I didn't push him too hard. he left me, eventually, but I don't think it was over the computer. it was because he didn't like my candles (I am Catholic and Scottish).
I wish I hadn't told him to do that now, I could do with a really powerful computer for my computing course at college. It would help a lot, and I miss him.
So my point is, be careful about computer noise. it can cause a lot of tension and problems in a relationship, as I found out to my cost, beyond just headaches.
I was talking about enforcing this morality via the mechanism of the state and its laws and institutions. That's what we should be careful of, especially regarding borderline cases like this.
And given that your morality is not the same as mine, and given that there is no absolute morality, we can then see that there are many problems with seeking to use the state to solve these problems.
Also, I am sorry you found my use of "Who's" offensive, but English is not quite my native language, gaelic is, and I foten make mistakes even now. I can speak it far better than I write it. I'm almost-native, I suppose. Bye:-)
But this company is still within the letter of the law, if not within the bounds of morality.
Some may scream that the law should enforce morality, but then you must wonder "Who's Morality?".
I read a very interesting book recently, called Human Action, by a lovely looking grey haired man called Ludwig von Mises. It was left by my old boyfriend in the bathroom, and I picked it up and smelled it unhappily one evening, but before long found myself readin Mises' interesting take on the fundamental sovereignty of man.
Mises would warn us all against enforcing a common morality, for that is a sure way to tyranny, in the end. This company should not be legislated against. We should instead encourage people to read EULAs and to take responsibility over themselves, over their own bodies, over their computers. Anything else is slavery to government.
I thought I had left slavery to the state behind in my native Scotland. As a Catholic girl, I understand only too well the attractions of worshipping an idol like the state. But we are better to resist laws that seem fair and moral, and instead trust in common deceny and responsibility.
People in America, I have noticed, seem to think that privacy is some sort of fundamental right, when in fact it is socially constructed. If you look at simple stone age peoples, they do not hanker after privacy - they have no idea what it is. It is a western concept, and one we are forcing on the rest of the world, as we make the thrird world adopt our values.
It seems to me that privacy is only desired by those who have something to hide. Furthermore, everyone pretends to be squeeky clean, which means that we have unrealistic expectations of others.
In the future, privacy will not exist. This will create a more sane society - politicians will not be expected to be perfect, we will have more realistic expectations. We will be able to check up on our prospective spouses, find out everything about them before even meeting. It will be a wonderful way of meeting new people and finding love.
The transparent society that is coming will mark the ascendance of our species. In the beginning we were innocent and naked and had no privacy, like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, naked but for a fig leave each. Later, with the rise of agriculture, information became power and the notion of privacy as an absolute right was eventually invented (about as absurd as stating that gun ownership is a 'right').
This is not the case. The only rights we can have are truly fundamental - the right to life, for example.
As we evolve forward into our new Eden, where privacy once again will be a silly idea and we can frolic openly and honestly, we must remember the ills that privacy has caused.
Privacy is not a right, it is a manufactured abomination, a cover for the dishonest and unnatural.
I'm sorry, but that is neodarwinian fascist nonsense. Nobody is hard wired to do *anything*. We are all humans, and we all have a choice. We are not automatons, driven by instinct.
My point is that porn and games tend to bring out these instincts you speak of, bot provide an outlet. Some men can be violent, but in the end that is their choice - they have no excuse. Even though games and porn may make it more likely that they be violent, they still have a choice.
Maybe my ideas seem strange because I am scottish and therefore from a really quite left wing and catholic background somewhat alien to american sensibilities, but I do think that where people cannot be responsible for themselves, the wider sommunity should step in. This would seem to apply to porn and violent games, to me.
Pornography and games are astonishingly similar - probably why they are liked by the same market segment. They both appeal to the basal emotions, and encourage the user to imagine himself doing thing unnacceptable in real life. In games it is violence, and in porn it is sex (and often violence too). The differences are minimal.
As an example, my ex-boyfriend used to like both porn and sex. However, after viewing both for some time it was as though a change had come over him - he would become very demanding and really quite aggressive. I noticed that when he had been playing Quake III the effects were actually worse than when he had been watching porn. Since he has left me, I have made it a condition that those I am interested in not play computer games or use pornography. Both stifle the imagination whilst heightening emotions. This effect is dangerous - we should not stimulate those who cannot handle a heightened sense of awareness and can;t resist their desires.
I would very much like to see both industries become more responsible. I would not like to see them banned, of course, but I would like to see them consider the consequences of their actions - it is the women of America who really pay for the porn and violence that our menfolk consume.
4 years with no remote exploit in the default install. Thats what I call a good 'mean time to root'.
Our company changed over to OpenBSD from Red Hat because we were fed up of all the root exploits, all the patches all the time, and the incoherent way in which linux as a whole tends to be organised - ie, linux is the kernel, not the OS. OpenBSD is the entire OS, and is much more sane, IMHO.
The problem with linux is the general chaos. Great for hackers, and definately much better for the desktop user, but oBSD and *BSD's generally are much better in production environments.
Put simply, oBSD is the single most secure OS in existance, and fBSD the highest performing. Take your pick, its no contest as far as BSD v linux is concerned for my company.
I think I have an original viewpoint to give here. As I am not American, I am not blinded by the media's indoctrination on this subject. It is clear to me that Russia has contributed a lot to the world technologically speaking, even more than america has, and literarily & philosophically speaking it smashes america into a paper hat.
So it is very good to see Russia given its proper dues on an American site, even if it is a counterculture site such as this.
If only america as a whole could realise that it is just another country. This may be its hour in the sun, but it is not nearly as creative as other nations were at their peaks, like Britain, Spain, France and Greece. What has America done that compare?
Hypocrisy is the problem. As a woman, I am attacked because of my gender far more here than anywhere else I have been. As a Catholic, I have been attacked. My ex boyfriend thought it was because people were jealous.
I would like to see america and the males of america adopt a position of humility, and allow the dispossessed and discriminated against, such as Russians and women, to breathe free and stake their claim in society.
Microsoft have a very bad reputation for security for some reason, and it may be that this is undeserved. Microsoft are focusing on making a usable and secure platform, and their platform is attacked more than any other. It could be that there are many security holes in Linux that are unknown simply because it is not put under the same scrutiny. Many eyes make all security flaws shallow, and there are many more eyes scrutinising Windows than Linux.
Also, personally speaking, I must declare an interest. I much prefer using Windows to Linux because it is easy to use and allows doesn't expect me to be an expert to do everything. The last time I used linux it expected me to recompile my kernel so that I could have working sound and access my windows partition. Except it didn't work. So I was screwed over.
Windows I find to be perhaps less secure because many eyes are discovering and publicising its flaws, but for me, as a web designer, I find it a much better solution. Its just a question of trade offs - Impossible to use but secure through obscurity Vs Easy to use but unsecure because of scruting.
I agree with much of what Doug says on this subject.
This represents the dawning of the next age in space exploration. The huge third world nations, China and India, are beginning to flex their muscles and create a valid and sustainable challenge to the space hegemony of the United States and Europe. We have already seen that command of the exosphere is important in any military strategy, and it will become more so in the future.
We are seeing the demise of the nation state and the rise of geopolitical economic power structures.
The European Union we already know about - it has a lengthy history in space with the ESA, and this will only increase. Already the largest economic area on Earth, as it gains political cohesiveness it will come to challenge the mastery of America, under the leadership of the French.
China and India have never really been nation states anyway, being large multicultural post colonial entities without a shared sense of history. Nevertheless, they can be considered rising stars, already with resurgant middle classes and greatly increasing wealth.
America will be challenged by these new entities, and its time at the helm of the worlds power structure will surely pass. However, before that happens there will be a struggle for control of the exosphere through technology - I expect to see a flurry of satelite launches and space competition in the coming fifty years of history.
Perhaps the next round will involve the totla merging of these entities and the begining of a truly global government. Only then will space exploration be undertaken for its own sake alone.
The problem is that the USA in particular hangs on to an outmoded idea - the idea of the nation state. Hopefully it will see the light and not stand in the way of the new era.
Here on Slashdot we have developed, as a community, and incredibally powerful tool, that will one day break out of its ghetto and be used on many online communities. When online communities become popular and break into the mainstream in 10 years or so, they will be controlled by the multinationals, of this there can be no argument. Microsoft and AOL will be controlling them.
The moderation system developed here on Slashdot is a first, and the technology it represents can be considered a beta test by the multinationals.
How long before they take it and control it for their own ends? Moderation is a very right wing and controlling force - rather than punishing people who post trolls and flamebaitish comments, and are irresponsible, by sending them from the community they abuse (k5 can be said to do this), we instead ignore them, and blot them out, which means that they never need to face responsibility for what they do.
Furthermore. this technology developed here can be said to be very powerful, but it will be perverted by the forces that be.
In 20 years time it will be the geeks here that created the moderation system moaning about it in YRO articles. This is, yet again in the geek community, hypocrisy.
Moderation should not be used. It shouold be a free for all, with the irresponsible forced to face up to what they do. Its that simple.
It is funny, but when I applied for my green card here in america I was told that it might be a good idea if I study some american history. One of the things I have been reading about is Ben Franklin, which has been made easy for me by some books my ex-boyfriend left lying around my house when he left.
It turns out that Ben Franklin was a great believer in globalisdation and Information exchange across the world. The vast majority of his ideas can be put down to him being a memeber of the landed gentry in america, with considerable assets (many slaves) and the time and ability to be scholarly.
Most of all, it is thanks to him being able to travel to London and partake in the enlightenment occurring in Europe at the time. Being from a backwater at the time, it was fortunate for america that there were such people with a global outlook.
Now, the funny thing is that soon after, motivated by the 1812 war with Britain and britain's victory in said war, america became isolationist and inward looking, even unto the highest levels of government.
Only in 1942 did America's foriegn policy at last become outward directed, but unfortunately its culture is still very inward looking.
As a Scottish girl used to the pleasures of my native Glasgow, I was very dissappointed in the variety of cuisine, nightlife and people here in Bangor, Maine when I first arrived. It seems that the melting pot is producing a terrible monoculture here in America!
Well, I think it is about time that American *culture*, and not just its government, became outward looking. This wouyld increase creativity and receptiveness to new ideas, and create a new renaissance of learning. The world is such a big place, and so varied! It seems a shame to ignore it. As an article earlier today was moaning about creativity in America, I feel justified in this.
Just think of Franklin. The Founding Fathers, who's ideals and lives I have been studying as an immigrant, would have been for it. I think we should do as they would.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm he organisation hasn't been around since a long time but it has been so long since I visited here, I need to update it I suppose.
And I think computer *work* is working class, that's right. There's nothing wrong with being working class. But back home, people who work in computers (and here too) tend to be working class because it is a hard working and honest profession. I'd put them at upper working class, and perhaps some at lower middle class or even middle class. Working class means nurses, skilled labourers and craftsmen, programmers, middle class is more into the professions, maybe in the computer world this would relate to designers and architects, not just programmers.
Anyway, back home working class kids go to state schools and had spectrums and whatnot to learn from at night, but upper middle and upper class children tend to go to public school which is very expensive and aren't directed towards computers but rather for more shall-we-say "managerial" positions in life.
Working class kids go to school where they are asked questions like "compare and contrast these pieces by Shelley and Byron", but upper middle and upper class children go to schools where they are asked questions more like "You are Julius Caesar. You are invading Gaul. What do you do next?"
I'm not trying to sound snobby and superior at all - in fact the opposite, I like computers and want to learn more about them, and I have nothing against working class people at all, I respect them. But culturally speaking it really is very unusual for a girl of my background to become interested in computers, alright?
Love, Margot. x
I've been told SuSE makes things easy for the end user, I don't want to have to wait for things to build, and wonder why they don't build and give errors sometimes, and I seethe every time I see my ex's packages being updated (he maintained several, he once stayed up all night fixing one, some stupid gnome thing, and making a racket on this old IBM keyboard he had, which kept me awake all night).
Blah. Och well.
I would love to be able to use linux more, I am taking a course in community college and my boyfriend was wonderful for helping me out with that but when I told him that I hated him developing for gentoo all the time (he even forgot out anniversary) and sitting at the computer all the time, things went from bad to worse, and we eventually split up. And I regret it because now I'm failing college!
So anyway, I've tried gentoo a lot but it seems to have the occasional problem and I can't make it burn CDs or sync with my ipod, so my tutor recommended SuSE, so perhaps I will try that.
I'm catholic and from Scotland originally, so I'm not really from a computing background (none of my family is working class you see) but it is interesting to learn about and I'm thinking linux is the best thing for learning web development, and gentoo especially when you get more advanced.
Sorry for my rambling :)
I'm a scottish girl, and was brought up catholic in scotland before coming to the USA. There, games were simpler, when I was a lass. But I came here, and it seems they got much more morally involved while my back was turned. And back home it has changed too - Grand Theft Auto, that most violent of games, is made in scotland! And yet, it has an entirely American setting (another thing that worries me about games, most have to cater to the attitudes prevalent in larger economies of the world, the small ones do not get a look in, and their preferences ignored).
So anyway, I do wonder aobut the attraction of such a game. I'm from a country with real castles, and real queens and kings and princesses. Perhaps this is why i wonder why they shoudl be invented. But I can't help but appreciate the narrative depth.
My husband appreciated it too much, for my liking. He left me, with the children, because I wanted to bring up the children as wiccans and he wouldn't accept it. And then he plays games based on other pagan views! It annoys me by association.
Still. I would like him back. I will try the game and try to talk to him. Its about time I broadened my horizons.
It said that one of the mobile phones and computers that can be worn like jewellery would become bionic or something - like a part of our own body, and there was a whole lot about how these things become more than just tools and body-extensions instead, I didn't really understand it very well.
But I do miss him I realise that now, I got rid of him because he spent so much time writing his phd thesis he never had any time for me, and I was supporting him too much through my receptionist job, which was bad because I am a catholic from Scotland and I can sometimes have traditional ideas about behaviour between the sexes where I shouldn't, in America these ideas are out of fashion, they are yesterday. But now he is making lots of money as he has graduated and these mobile things look sexy and expensive and I can't afford them and I miss him so I wish I had never done that now, he was sweet and very clever.
Oh well
Sorry for rambling I am getting quite off-topic hehe
I read it, not at first out of interest for the topic, but just so I could see his handwriting, and remember something of his personality and what we used to have together. It was not long before I, amazingly, found myself sucked into the content though. It turns out my old lover, now sadly left, had discovered that processors have been getting running temperatures higher and higher and hihger for the last ten years, needing bigger and bigger and bigger fans. one part had a graph showing a projection of the size of fans that may be needed in ten years if the trend is to continue, and then it went into thermodynamics a lot and new cooling techniques using some sort of silicone gell circulating over and around the surface of the chip silently, but there were a lot of Greek letters by then, I didn't really understand it and only kept on reading for him.
As a Scottish Catholic, I am not used to the American ideals of the pursuit of knowledge. Where I come from, there is very little innovation and a lot of prejudice and hate. But here in Bangor, since he brought me here, although I have found a lot of pain I have discovered that people are far more inventive and innovative. Even in just cooling PC's!
And although this inventiveness is a wonderful thing, I sometimes think that Americans can be a bit too inventive, especially in the bedroom.
It seeps into every region of their life, and this is wondrous and interesting, but I think the Protean nature that it engenders in Americans means that they suffer from a lack of identity through always reinventing themselves, nothing ever stable.
Perhaps the price payed for greater invention and thus economic performance is paid for socially, by a lack of moral surety and stability in most Americans lifes I have noticed as an immigrant.
Can it really be worth a better economy and cooler PCs? I'm not sure.
Margot, xxx.
And it is people like you that make me think of it. i don't know why you need to be hateful. What have I ever said to you? Why not just leave me alone, you take me back to being 12 which is probably what age you are. Just go away please?
or at least try and think and understand why saying what you do might hurt someone. it isn't just a post on the internet. you aren't free of cause and effect. Everything you do here has an effect on you spiritually and emotionally, and can pervert you and punish you. You should avoid this, well, no other word for it, sin and behaving like what you say has no consequences on you or other people, and start being a bit grown up and responsible. Telling people they should top themselves is a hurtful disgrace, and I'm just glad I am much more solid in the head than I was a few years ago, when I did turn away from my community and even my faith for a while, and I payed. You should think carefully and try to be more moral.
Margot. no xxx for you
In the end I think this proves that law is nothing more than a social convention - there is no such thing as a set of laws that are wholly natural at all. Perhaps I have read too many postmodern texts (I curse Bertold Brecht to this day), but I find it very *unnatural* to say that any law whatsoever is universal or natural.
However, there can be no question that any society, in order to function without (in a negative sense) total anarchy, needs certain guidelines. It may be that Man is sovereign, but for the common good it is perhaps best that this is ignored entirely.
I would prefer that such laws as do exist be based on notions of common law, rather than executive law. i would prefer that law is "discovered" through a process of arbitration of juries and judge, rather than enacted by politicians (invented). I would prefer laws to be simple, and on the more dubious and arguable issues, I would prefer there to be no law at all (such as this issue, for example).
Thanks :) Now I must have a nice drink of Glenmorangie. or perhaps an Islay? Hmm....
(I've had a few already so I apologise for any incosistencies or stupidities in this post:)
I like it in America a lot, there is a lot less hatred and I feel I can practise my religion and be myself far more easily than I could in Scotland, but I do long for harris a lot, and it makes me very lonely and sad, especially now that I am alone in such a strange city!
I hope I can get things together though, i really want to make a go of it here. Thank you very much.
Margot, xxx.
Also the tapping of the keys really annoyed me. So eventually I told him to sort it out or else, because I wasn't getting sleep and I was working as a receptionist at the time so needed it. He found a way to dampen the noise using some sort of cloth that was very effective, and he "lowclocked" it he said so that it didn't get as hot?
I really had to tell him to do a lot of things like that to keep noise down, it's a real shame. But now I have a computer job and I find it is really universal that they make this noise.
Anyway, I hope I didn't push him too hard. he left me, eventually, but I don't think it was over the computer. it was because he didn't like my candles (I am Catholic and Scottish).
I wish I hadn't told him to do that now, I could do with a really powerful computer for my computing course at college. It would help a lot, and I miss him.
So my point is, be careful about computer noise. it can cause a lot of tension and problems in a relationship, as I found out to my cost, beyond just headaches.
Thanks, Margot. :o)
And given that your morality is not the same as mine, and given that there is no absolute morality, we can then see that there are many problems with seeking to use the state to solve these problems.
Also, I am sorry you found my use of "Who's" offensive, but English is not quite my native language, gaelic is, and I foten make mistakes even now. I can speak it far better than I write it. I'm almost-native, I suppose. Bye
I'm very sorry. My native language is gaelic and sometimes I make mistakes, though my English is usually quite good.
Some may scream that the law should enforce morality, but then you must wonder "Who's Morality?".
I read a very interesting book recently, called Human Action, by a lovely looking grey haired man called Ludwig von Mises. It was left by my old boyfriend in the bathroom, and I picked it up and smelled it unhappily one evening, but before long found myself readin Mises' interesting take on the fundamental sovereignty of man.
Mises would warn us all against enforcing a common morality, for that is a sure way to tyranny, in the end. This company should not be legislated against. We should instead encourage people to read EULAs and to take responsibility over themselves, over their own bodies, over their computers. Anything else is slavery to government.
I thought I had left slavery to the state behind in my native Scotland. As a Catholic girl, I understand only too well the attractions of worshipping an idol like the state. But we are better to resist laws that seem fair and moral, and instead trust in common deceny and responsibility.
Thanks,
Margot. XXX
Please ignore
It seems to me that privacy is only desired by those who have something to hide. Furthermore, everyone pretends to be squeeky clean, which means that we have unrealistic expectations of others.
In the future, privacy will not exist. This will create a more sane society - politicians will not be expected to be perfect, we will have more realistic expectations. We will be able to check up on our prospective spouses, find out everything about them before even meeting. It will be a wonderful way of meeting new people and finding love.
The transparent society that is coming will mark the ascendance of our species. In the beginning we were innocent and naked and had no privacy, like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, naked but for a fig leave each. Later, with the rise of agriculture, information became power and the notion of privacy as an absolute right was eventually invented (about as absurd as stating that gun ownership is a 'right').
This is not the case. The only rights we can have are truly fundamental - the right to life, for example.
As we evolve forward into our new Eden, where privacy once again will be a silly idea and we can frolic openly and honestly, we must remember the ills that privacy has caused.
Privacy is not a right, it is a manufactured abomination, a cover for the dishonest and unnatural.
My point is that porn and games tend to bring out these instincts you speak of, bot provide an outlet. Some men can be violent, but in the end that is their choice - they have no excuse. Even though games and porn may make it more likely that they be violent, they still have a choice.
Maybe my ideas seem strange because I am scottish and therefore from a really quite left wing and catholic background somewhat alien to american sensibilities, but I do think that where people cannot be responsible for themselves, the wider sommunity should step in. This would seem to apply to porn and violent games, to me.
As an example, my ex-boyfriend used to like both porn and sex. However, after viewing both for some time it was as though a change had come over him - he would become very demanding and really quite aggressive. I noticed that when he had been playing Quake III the effects were actually worse than when he had been watching porn. Since he has left me, I have made it a condition that those I am interested in not play computer games or use pornography. Both stifle the imagination whilst heightening emotions. This effect is dangerous - we should not stimulate those who cannot handle a heightened sense of awareness and can;t resist their desires.
I would very much like to see both industries become more responsible. I would not like to see them banned, of course, but I would like to see them consider the consequences of their actions - it is the women of America who really pay for the porn and violence that our menfolk consume.
Our company changed over to OpenBSD from Red Hat because we were fed up of all the root exploits, all the patches all the time, and the incoherent way in which linux as a whole tends to be organised - ie, linux is the kernel, not the OS. OpenBSD is the entire OS, and is much more sane, IMHO.
The problem with linux is the general chaos. Great for hackers, and definately much better for the desktop user, but oBSD and *BSD's generally are much better in production environments.
Put simply, oBSD is the single most secure OS in existance, and fBSD the highest performing. Take your pick, its no contest as far as BSD v linux is concerned for my company.
So it is very good to see Russia given its proper dues on an American site, even if it is a counterculture site such as this.
If only america as a whole could realise that it is just another country. This may be its hour in the sun, but it is not nearly as creative as other nations were at their peaks, like Britain, Spain, France and Greece. What has America done that compare?
Hypocrisy is the problem. As a woman, I am attacked because of my gender far more here than anywhere else I have been. As a Catholic, I have been attacked. My ex boyfriend thought it was because people were jealous.
I would like to see america and the males of america adopt a position of humility, and allow the dispossessed and discriminated against, such as Russians and women, to breathe free and stake their claim in society.
Thank you,
one of Shakespeares Countrywomen.
Also, personally speaking, I must declare an interest. I much prefer using Windows to Linux because it is easy to use and allows doesn't expect me to be an expert to do everything. The last time I used linux it expected me to recompile my kernel so that I could have working sound and access my windows partition. Except it didn't work. So I was screwed over.
Windows I find to be perhaps less secure because many eyes are discovering and publicising its flaws, but for me, as a web designer, I find it a much better solution. Its just a question of trade offs - Impossible to use but secure through obscurity Vs Easy to use but unsecure because of scruting.
I agree with much of what Doug says on this subject.
We are seeing the demise of the nation state and the rise of geopolitical economic power structures.
The European Union we already know about - it has a lengthy history in space with the ESA, and this will only increase. Already the largest economic area on Earth, as it gains political cohesiveness it will come to challenge the mastery of America, under the leadership of the French.
China and India have never really been nation states anyway, being large multicultural post colonial entities without a shared sense of history. Nevertheless, they can be considered rising stars, already with resurgant middle classes and greatly increasing wealth.
America will be challenged by these new entities, and its time at the helm of the worlds power structure will surely pass. However, before that happens there will be a struggle for control of the exosphere through technology - I expect to see a flurry of satelite launches and space competition in the coming fifty years of history.
Perhaps the next round will involve the totla merging of these entities and the begining of a truly global government. Only then will space exploration be undertaken for its own sake alone.
The problem is that the USA in particular hangs on to an outmoded idea - the idea of the nation state. Hopefully it will see the light and not stand in the way of the new era.
The moderation system developed here on Slashdot is a first, and the technology it represents can be considered a beta test by the multinationals.
How long before they take it and control it for their own ends? Moderation is a very right wing and controlling force - rather than punishing people who post trolls and flamebaitish comments, and are irresponsible, by sending them from the community they abuse (k5 can be said to do this), we instead ignore them, and blot them out, which means that they never need to face responsibility for what they do.
Furthermore. this technology developed here can be said to be very powerful, but it will be perverted by the forces that be.
In 20 years time it will be the geeks here that created the moderation system moaning about it in YRO articles. This is, yet again in the geek community, hypocrisy.
Moderation should not be used. It shouold be a free for all, with the irresponsible forced to face up to what they do. Its that simple.
It turns out that Ben Franklin was a great believer in globalisdation and Information exchange across the world. The vast majority of his ideas can be put down to him being a memeber of the landed gentry in america, with considerable assets (many slaves) and the time and ability to be scholarly.
Most of all, it is thanks to him being able to travel to London and partake in the enlightenment occurring in Europe at the time. Being from a backwater at the time, it was fortunate for america that there were such people with a global outlook.
Now, the funny thing is that soon after, motivated by the 1812 war with Britain and britain's victory in said war, america became isolationist and inward looking, even unto the highest levels of government.
Only in 1942 did America's foriegn policy at last become outward directed, but unfortunately its culture is still very inward looking.
As a Scottish girl used to the pleasures of my native Glasgow, I was very dissappointed in the variety of cuisine, nightlife and people here in Bangor, Maine when I first arrived. It seems that the melting pot is producing a terrible monoculture here in America!
Well, I think it is about time that American *culture*, and not just its government, became outward looking. This wouyld increase creativity and receptiveness to new ideas, and create a new renaissance of learning. The world is such a big place, and so varied! It seems a shame to ignore it. As an article earlier today was moaning about creativity in America, I feel justified in this.
Just think of Franklin. The Founding Fathers, who's ideals and lives I have been studying as an immigrant, would have been for it. I think we should do as they would.