You are describing the learning process. And memory. Of course our resources for reason are limited, that's why we take computation short cuts by remembering certain details. It's economical.
And it's important, it allows greater progress, resources saved constantly from recalculating old stuff can be redirected and set to comprehend new stuff.
But the resources for memory must also be limited, and older memories will have less strength, weaker signal, and fade out. Which accounts for why relying totally on instinct and ignoring reason and comprehension is dangerous. Take shortcuts from easy-guesser bad ideas, but always remember to doubt, our memory isn't perfect.
Truth should not decide the legitimacy of expression. People should be free to express falsehoods, for an a different level the person is still expressing something by telling lies. They deserve the right to expression in any means they can. Even if that means tellings lies to reach a particular aim.
The same principle applies.. the person can be proved to be speaking false if what they say is a lie. That is their motivation to honesty. Gaining a reputaion for lying means that nobody believes you or takes you seriously. That is all that can motivate someone to be honest.
Taking away their right to say one thing and mean another can't be taken away from them. But their integrity can.
This is something that really erks me about freedom of expression and racism laws. In France for example, it's illegal to market or sell products with a racist slant to them (ie. the Yahoo auction problem).
Censorship is not an effective means of dismantling a meme. It's short sighted, and in many cases can only fan the flames. Censorship removes an idea from debate, as the author of the article has noted.
Removing debate is dangerous in a free society. In North America, our participation in any sort of public debate is minimal, and doubt is often frowned upon. Doubt in free-trade warrants the label of a protectionist. Doubting America's motives abroad (ie. Vietnam, Iraq, Chile etc.) is un-American. The very same for my own Canada as well.
My solution to racism and other bad ideas is to not censor them. The onus is on us to prove why they are bad ideas. Censorship is lazy, if we really feel strongly about an idea, then we should be prepared to discuss it, prove or disprove it.
There will always be idiots who feel like denying the holocaust, or putting blacks beneath asians on a bell curve. But let the unpopularity of their ideas shine. Let them feel free to make asses of themselves.
Furthermore, isolating a group of bad-ideas-supporters does not help to win them over. Censorship merely ignites them with more passion, convincing them that the government is against them, because of the Zionist conspiracy or some other nonsense.
So really, all censorship does is impede debate, which harms the good ideas and decent common narrative that a culture should have. It isolates instead of healing, it's a bad habit to get into (what if an unpopular idea, like democracy, or socialism, or whatever someday proves correct?)
The only real way to handle bad ideas is to challenge them with better ideas.
Is it possible that this technology could be used for other things besides text? The article says the technique has been applied to detecting chemicals patterns of ink that are undetectable by photography...
But... could a variation or extension of the technique be used to determine the chemical components of something more efficiently than breaking it open and submitting it to different chemical reaction tests?
I think a digital watch would not be cheating, it's still the same method, just a different interface.
The difference between GPS and older technologies is more methodic.
Also, now that you mention the hard to reach places, I wonder how many of the photos will just be "water-shots" with no real terrain to them. I guess it would be approximately equal to the percentage of the earth covered with water (what's that? 2/3? 3/4?)
What I think would be cool is seeing people using ancient technologies (like compasses and sextants) to play the GPS games. That would certainly earn them my complete admiration.
Pre-GPS technology can theroretically be just as accurate, can it not? I guess it depends on the person. I for one have such a horrible sense of direction (hitchhiked across Canada with a friend this summer, and took us on a wrong direction "short-cut"... almost, good thing my friend is smarter than me;)
No, the sanction is in place to ensure that Saddam stays in power. As a bully, the sanction has given him more ammunition to feed to his people. It's the evil West that is doing this to you.
Washington knows this, and is just fine. If you begin too look at the amount of "architecting" that the US does in the Middle East, it's just downright creepy.
Consider this possibility: look at the enormous advantage the states is given if they have a "rogue state" who's dictator is impossible to shake because of sanctions, but also as a result of the sanctions can for the most part be kept under control. Tbe US loses a lot of credibility and public approval rating for it's Middle East actions if it doesn't have a readily available enemy.
And that's what Saddam is, and the US government knows that as long as the sanctions stay in place, so does he. How is a citizenry supposed to reject a leader when they are cut off from the outside world? They have no access to foreign media, and for the most part they live in squalour and poverty.
Here's two more meme's for y'all: 1. Why doesn't the principle of mutual destruction apply to Saddam? (and don't answer because he's crazy).
And 2. Why was it not ok for Iraq to take over othe countries, but it was ok for Israel to do it? (and don't answer with jewish conspiracy shit on that one either)
Coupled with Perl::Flash covered on slashdot the other day, someone could do really cool stuff with this.
A malicious website could say, gather information about a person's computer with an innocent looking form (this would be the nit-wit factor here) and use it to create an on-the-fly generated Flash animation that knows exactly what to do to nit-wit's computer.
Or, with that previous Netscape JVM bug, generate a file-list from the user's computer, and then use the Flash plugin to delete/corrupt the exact location of files. This wouldn't even need the nit-wit factor.
And like, I'm not very smart, so there must be way better ways to mess people up with this.
Aside from the fact that your post is off-topic, what difference does it make who uses what?
Hopefully this won't cause a major flame war, but it shouldn't. I just really don't see the point of doing posts like this.
Should Apple stop making Macs. Should Linus and all the others stop what they're doing to? I don't think there's much of an argument in the my-os-is-better-the-rest-should-give-up meme as successful as it's been. It doesn't matter if the "real-world" uses windows. If they do, then they probably made the decision that was best for them.
It's just simple organics and evolution that if there's more than one operating system, more people's needs will be met and all of the o/s's will continue to get better. This kind of competition is good for everybody. Even the worry of fragmentation and certain systems not being compatible with others is of not much bother. We all seem to be doing just fine communicating with all the different platforms.
So why am I responding to such obvious flamebait, even at the risk of losing karma? I think it's because I'm stoned.
But all in all, chastizing people about platform choice will get nobody anywhere. It's just nice to have a lot of choices.
I of course don't think what Iraq's leadership did was right, but in no way is the embargo doing what it's PR claims it's meant to.
If you're really interested in reading up on this stuff, here's an interesting article written by Noam Chomsky. It's at the very least an interesting read for opposing opinions:
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.h tml
perhaps I meant "percieved dictatorships"... or what is identified as "rogue states" (ie. any state that could threaten the major western powers)
however, I would be interested in how one-party democracy works... is it that the voters choose representatives within the party? It surely can't be that there is only one option, can it?
I know what you mean about this, but I'd still like to see a way around it.
I guess the amount of reluctance to post stories about the US election is a pretty good indicator of the problem here.
I don't think there's anything wrong with focusing on technology news, I think it's great, I love slashdot, read it everyday.
But to believe that discussion should end there, with technology, is horribly ignorant. It helps to create yet another professional class that cannot properly communicate with the other professions.
This is a far cry from the consilience of knowledge that should perhaps be held as an ideal. It's no secret that the world does not begin and end with technology.
And the technology professionals risk further segmentation if they persist in their ideal tech news should not relate to anything else. Because it's all interconnected and related, and proper interpretation of technology stories cannot come with the proper context.
I'm sorry that a dissenting opinion is considered flamebait.
There is a very clear distinction between the identity of the American people and their government, and most people know it. Generally, people are aware that often their governments are acting without their knowledge, or their approval.
And I know I'm not wrong. I know the majority of Americans don't want their government overthrowing democratically elected presidents in Chile, or imposing poverty on the people of Cuba, or essentially veto-ing the first real steps towards implementing the Kyoto protocol.
Not many Americans really want these things, but at the same time, not many Americans are plugged into what is really happening. And it's not their fault, it's the fault of the leadership class.
But I'll stop here, cause it's not like anyone's going to be reading this. But perhaps a plea to not use moderation as a means to keep political opinions from the eyes of slashdot readers. I don't think that's what it's for.
And for that matter, counter-productive. By cutting Iraq (or any country run by a dictator for that matter, including Cuba) out of the global economic loop, all the United States has succeeded in doing is punishing the Iraqi people it says it's trying to protect.
Hussein does not suffer due to lack of food, medicine, or a real economy. In fact, embargoes like this only serve to make the dictator stronger. It's very easy to point a finger of blame at the US for all of Iraq's problems. Creating an embargo weakens the public and allows the dictator to villify the developed nations (read USA), further securing his base of power.
If free-trade is supposed to lead to the democratization of the whole world, then what's wrong with Iraq?
The concerns addressed here were exactly those addressed by Nader in his presidential run. Concerns that everybody has, but you let Democrats convince you that he didn't stand a chance, and that he'd just split the vote.
And then how many of you actually voted? The turn out was what, around 30%? You know, most of the people in the world don't even get a chance to vote at all.
With the remaining, mostly symbolic threads of democracy that you still have, demand a system of presidential run-off elections. Yugoslavia has them, and they're POOR-ASS so don't tell me that the USA can't afford them. Stop taking people off the voter's list. Have proportional representation in your House and Senate so that there is a viable oppurtunity for third parties.
Because obviously your two-party system is failing. All the two parties do is reach for the centre while trying to portray themselves in their traditional light.
Were the US truely the greatest democracy in the world, or even a democracy at all, Bush would have had to survive a run-off vote, not a favour from other Republicans.
If we heard about that kind of shit happening in Eastern Europe, Asia or South America, there's a good chance someone would send troops to enforce real democracy.
Russia has the oppurtunity to provide the only alternative to marine transport of goods from Asia to the Americas. There is already a huge volume of trade flowing back and forth from Asia to North America. If Russia could tap into that, it would give them a great deal of leverage, and would also have the side effect of allowing this trade to over flow back into Russia.
Why do you think the Russians are also building a similar Tunnel directly to Japan?
Transportation routes bring greater trade, that's a fundamental. All Russia's doing is laying the foundation for future economic success.
To Russia, of course this is worth it. This would be the ultimate trade route for them. That part of Russia (Siberia) doesn't have much more than raw minerals (lotsa rocks) which are expensive to ship by boat. (compared to shipping finished products that have a higher value to shipping cost ratio).
This would also give Russia a big market for transporting goods from the Pacific rim power house manufacturing countries (ie. Japan, South Korea) if they could do it cheaper and faster and safer than boat. Russia desperately needs to built an import/export industry, because it's slipping so fast into being a part of the third world.
And heck... it would be cool to take train from BC to Russia (not that there'd be much passenger transit on it...
the hospitals here in Canada are all funded by the Government (Provincial gov'ts control health policy, but the federal gov't usually puts in most of the money I think). And it's great, because no matter what kind of treatment you need, you're probably going to get it, and it's always free (except for things like unnecessary cosmetic stuff, and not many drugs are covered yet.)
Education is definetely something that should never ever slip entirely into a private market. Infact I think I'd rather see an elimination of private school because they create a kind of class system. And education most certainly be controlled at a local government level (but it's probably a good idea if there's nation wide minimum standards to be upheld).
That's why taxes are higher here in Canada, because of universal healthcare. But overall, this means that employers need to pay less for insurance, and on an even greater scale, less money is spend per capita on healthcare here in Canada than in the US. Canadian taxes are income-scaled, and everybody pays into it.
I think the idea is that everyone pays into healthcare, whether they use it or not for two reasons: 1. they never know when they'll need it (and it's nice to not get enormous bills when you get hit by appendicitis, or a car) and 2. It's better for the whole society overall if everybody is healthy, so even if you're not sick, you're still reaping the benefits of a stable society and economy.
I think for things like health care, electricity and water, they should be run by local municipal governments (as opposed to a strong central gov't). The straight facts are that publically run hospitals are much cheaper and efficient than privately run hospitals. Universal healthcare in Canada costs less than private healthcare does in the US (based on what percentage of the GDP is spent on healthcare and other stats). And on top of that, ALL Canadians are covered for almost everything, whereas 40 Million Americans are without healthcoverage. That to me seems like a massive failure of capitalism in at least that sector of the economy.
I guess my bias is that a lot of essential services should be publically run, and managed on a local government level. I'm all for decentralization of democracy and of the economy.
That would include fire, ambulance, water, electricity, gas (for heat, maybe not for gasoline), healthcare, postal service. Perhaps even telecommunications could be managed better if it were publically run. Then again, governments don't respond to market demand in the same way private companies do, and if governments were responsible for the expansion of the internet, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.
From a completely degulated stand point, even in a large, spread out society people could organize themselves, form guilds or unions or advocacy groups, and publically educate people on who-dun-what. But I think overall that's a long shot, and anarchy is probably just as bad an idea as freemarket capitalism.
Yeah... I'm not a capitalist, or maybe I am a capitalist by the true definition. I just don't think that what we call capitalism here in the Western world is acutally that, it doesn't really live up to what it was supposed to be theologically.
oh, I understand why it's a good thing to have both KDE and GNOME (and the others).
But there's no reason to have both desktop environments installed on the same computer really... I can see the point of having the kdelibs etc installed on a GNOME desktop so that KDE apps will work, and vice-versa, but it's pretty redundant and confusing to novices to have lots of different but similar choices for environment, word processor, web browser, calender application etc on their own computer.
I'd hazard to guess that the average user would benefit more if they were using a distro that installed only what the distro thought were the cream of the crop in each of the application areas.
Heh, yeah... California sucks. Isn't a lot of their problem the shaky transition towards deregulation though? I guess they've still got enough red tape to get through to make things difficult, or they know that they'll still cut a profit without growing...
So maybe, the solution isn't to remove regulation, but to change the type of regulation (we're getting way off topic here, but it's fun).
Just for the sake of argument, do you think a completely de-regulated society would run itself allright (based on things like natural liability... if you're not trustworthy, people will exclude you from the economy in a natural, organic kind of way)
I guess in that respect, super-pure capitalism is a lot like anarchism. VOTE ANARCHIST!
Sometimes, when installing Linux on a "newbie's" computer, I wish the answer to "What's the difference between KDE and GNOME? Why is there two?" could be a lot easier to answer.
Now, I know I'm getting a little bit offtopic, but I think any distribution's ease-of-use factor for non-geeks (ie. people that don't have the time to fiddle and experiment, they just want to use a computer) if it included only one desktop environment.
And for that matter, install only one (or maybe two, but no more) word processor, one calender application, one way to dial out to the internet.
It would make things a lot less confusing... most people don't think application centric on their computers, they think task-centric. Of course, this kind of thing would only happen bump-free with a universal file format.
I don't think there was much in the article about regulation here. What exactly is there to regulate? Who gets to use the new metal finding gadget?
The patent will be regulating that.
Also, about regulation on a general scale, safety regs (such as those in the airline industry) can increase customer confidence, and generate a larger market. Pill makers should be regulated on their products, otherwise what would cause them to print the long term side-effects on the labels?
Regulation isn't something the big-bad-government does to impede business and make itself feel important. It's one of the ways that a society defines its value system and generates accountability for when it's not being upheld.
It is a reasonable application of tax dollars, but perhaps if your tax dollars are going into this, then nobody should be allowed to patent it?
I personally don't think it's fair that when someone gets funded by the public, they can still turn around and put an exclusive license on the new technology so their company gets to make the most money.
If the public paid for it, then it should be public domain.
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And it's important, it allows greater progress, resources saved constantly from recalculating old stuff can be redirected and set to comprehend new stuff.
But the resources for memory must also be limited, and older memories will have less strength, weaker signal, and fade out. Which accounts for why relying totally on instinct and ignoring reason and comprehension is dangerous. Take shortcuts from easy-guesser bad ideas, but always remember to doubt, our memory isn't perfect.
Always doubt.
The same principle applies.. the person can be proved to be speaking false if what they say is a lie. That is their motivation to honesty. Gaining a reputaion for lying means that nobody believes you or takes you seriously. That is all that can motivate someone to be honest.
Taking away their right to say one thing and mean another can't be taken away from them. But their integrity can.
Censorship is not an effective means of dismantling a meme. It's short sighted, and in many cases can only fan the flames. Censorship removes an idea from debate, as the author of the article has noted.
Removing debate is dangerous in a free society. In North America, our participation in any sort of public debate is minimal, and doubt is often frowned upon. Doubt in free-trade warrants the label of a protectionist. Doubting America's motives abroad (ie. Vietnam, Iraq, Chile etc.) is un-American. The very same for my own Canada as well.
My solution to racism and other bad ideas is to not censor them. The onus is on us to prove why they are bad ideas. Censorship is lazy, if we really feel strongly about an idea, then we should be prepared to discuss it, prove or disprove it.
There will always be idiots who feel like denying the holocaust, or putting blacks beneath asians on a bell curve. But let the unpopularity of their ideas shine. Let them feel free to make asses of themselves.
Furthermore, isolating a group of bad-ideas-supporters does not help to win them over. Censorship merely ignites them with more passion, convincing them that the government is against them, because of the Zionist conspiracy or some other nonsense.
So really, all censorship does is impede debate, which harms the good ideas and decent common narrative that a culture should have. It isolates instead of healing, it's a bad habit to get into (what if an unpopular idea, like democracy, or socialism, or whatever someday proves correct?)
The only real way to handle bad ideas is to challenge them with better ideas.
But... could a variation or extension of the technique be used to determine the chemical components of something more efficiently than breaking it open and submitting it to different chemical reaction tests?
The difference between GPS and older technologies is more methodic.
Also, now that you mention the hard to reach places, I wonder how many of the photos will just be "water-shots" with no real terrain to them. I guess it would be approximately equal to the percentage of the earth covered with water (what's that? 2/3? 3/4?)
Pre-GPS technology can theroretically be just as accurate, can it not? I guess it depends on the person. I for one have such a horrible sense of direction (hitchhiked across Canada with a friend this summer, and took us on a wrong direction "short-cut"... almost, good thing my friend is smarter than me ;)
Washington knows this, and is just fine. If you begin too look at the amount of "architecting" that the US does in the Middle East, it's just downright creepy.
Consider this possibility: look at the enormous advantage the states is given if they have a "rogue state" who's dictator is impossible to shake because of sanctions, but also as a result of the sanctions can for the most part be kept under control. Tbe US loses a lot of credibility and public approval rating for it's Middle East actions if it doesn't have a readily available enemy.
And that's what Saddam is, and the US government knows that as long as the sanctions stay in place, so does he. How is a citizenry supposed to reject a leader when they are cut off from the outside world? They have no access to foreign media, and for the most part they live in squalour and poverty.
Here's two more meme's for y'all: 1. Why doesn't the principle of mutual destruction apply to Saddam? (and don't answer because he's crazy).
And 2. Why was it not ok for Iraq to take over othe countries, but it was ok for Israel to do it? (and don't answer with jewish conspiracy shit on that one either)
A malicious website could say, gather information about a person's computer with an innocent looking form (this would be the nit-wit factor here) and use it to create an on-the-fly generated Flash animation that knows exactly what to do to nit-wit's computer.
Or, with that previous Netscape JVM bug, generate a file-list from the user's computer, and then use the Flash plugin to delete/corrupt the exact location of files. This wouldn't even need the nit-wit factor.
And like, I'm not very smart, so there must be way better ways to mess people up with this.
And have I disabled flash? I'll do it tomorrow...
Hopefully this won't cause a major flame war, but it shouldn't. I just really don't see the point of doing posts like this.
Should Apple stop making Macs. Should Linus and all the others stop what they're doing to? I don't think there's much of an argument in the my-os-is-better-the-rest-should-give-up meme as successful as it's been. It doesn't matter if the "real-world" uses windows. If they do, then they probably made the decision that was best for them.
It's just simple organics and evolution that if there's more than one operating system, more people's needs will be met and all of the o/s's will continue to get better. This kind of competition is good for everybody. Even the worry of fragmentation and certain systems not being compatible with others is of not much bother. We all seem to be doing just fine communicating with all the different platforms.
So why am I responding to such obvious flamebait, even at the risk of losing karma? I think it's because I'm stoned.
But all in all, chastizing people about platform choice will get nobody anywhere. It's just nice to have a lot of choices.
If you're really interested in reading up on this stuff, here's an interesting article written by Noam Chomsky. It's at the very least an interesting read for opposing opinions: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.h tml
perhaps I meant "percieved dictatorships"... or what is identified as "rogue states" (ie. any state that could threaten the major western powers)
however, I would be interested in how one-party democracy works... is it that the voters choose representatives within the party? It surely can't be that there is only one option, can it?
I guess the amount of reluctance to post stories about the US election is a pretty good indicator of the problem here.
I don't think there's anything wrong with focusing on technology news, I think it's great, I love slashdot, read it everyday.
But to believe that discussion should end there, with technology, is horribly ignorant. It helps to create yet another professional class that cannot properly communicate with the other professions.
This is a far cry from the consilience of knowledge that should perhaps be held as an ideal. It's no secret that the world does not begin and end with technology.
And the technology professionals risk further segmentation if they persist in their ideal tech news should not relate to anything else. Because it's all interconnected and related, and proper interpretation of technology stories cannot come with the proper context.
There is a very clear distinction between the identity of the American people and their government, and most people know it. Generally, people are aware that often their governments are acting without their knowledge, or their approval.
And I know I'm not wrong. I know the majority of Americans don't want their government overthrowing democratically elected presidents in Chile, or imposing poverty on the people of Cuba, or essentially veto-ing the first real steps towards implementing the Kyoto protocol.
Not many Americans really want these things, but at the same time, not many Americans are plugged into what is really happening. And it's not their fault, it's the fault of the leadership class.
But I'll stop here, cause it's not like anyone's going to be reading this. But perhaps a plea to not use moderation as a means to keep political opinions from the eyes of slashdot readers. I don't think that's what it's for.
Hussein does not suffer due to lack of food, medicine, or a real economy. In fact, embargoes like this only serve to make the dictator stronger. It's very easy to point a finger of blame at the US for all of Iraq's problems. Creating an embargo weakens the public and allows the dictator to villify the developed nations (read USA), further securing his base of power.
If free-trade is supposed to lead to the democratization of the whole world, then what's wrong with Iraq?
And then how many of you actually voted? The turn out was what, around 30%? You know, most of the people in the world don't even get a chance to vote at all.
With the remaining, mostly symbolic threads of democracy that you still have, demand a system of presidential run-off elections. Yugoslavia has them, and they're POOR-ASS so don't tell me that the USA can't afford them. Stop taking people off the voter's list. Have proportional representation in your House and Senate so that there is a viable oppurtunity for third parties.
Because obviously your two-party system is failing. All the two parties do is reach for the centre while trying to portray themselves in their traditional light.
Were the US truely the greatest democracy in the world, or even a democracy at all, Bush would have had to survive a run-off vote, not a favour from other Republicans.
If we heard about that kind of shit happening in Eastern Europe, Asia or South America, there's a good chance someone would send troops to enforce real democracy.
Why do you think the Russians are also building a similar Tunnel directly to Japan?
Transportation routes bring greater trade, that's a fundamental. All Russia's doing is laying the foundation for future economic success.
This would also give Russia a big market for transporting goods from the Pacific rim power house manufacturing countries (ie. Japan, South Korea) if they could do it cheaper and faster and safer than boat. Russia desperately needs to built an import/export industry, because it's slipping so fast into being a part of the third world.
And heck... it would be cool to take train from BC to Russia (not that there'd be much passenger transit on it...
Education is definetely something that should never ever slip entirely into a private market. Infact I think I'd rather see an elimination of private school because they create a kind of class system. And education most certainly be controlled at a local government level (but it's probably a good idea if there's nation wide minimum standards to be upheld).
That's why taxes are higher here in Canada, because of universal healthcare. But overall, this means that employers need to pay less for insurance, and on an even greater scale, less money is spend per capita on healthcare here in Canada than in the US. Canadian taxes are income-scaled, and everybody pays into it.
I think the idea is that everyone pays into healthcare, whether they use it or not for two reasons: 1. they never know when they'll need it (and it's nice to not get enormous bills when you get hit by appendicitis, or a car) and 2. It's better for the whole society overall if everybody is healthy, so even if you're not sick, you're still reaping the benefits of a stable society and economy.
I guess my bias is that a lot of essential services should be publically run, and managed on a local government level. I'm all for decentralization of democracy and of the economy. That would include fire, ambulance, water, electricity, gas (for heat, maybe not for gasoline), healthcare, postal service. Perhaps even telecommunications could be managed better if it were publically run. Then again, governments don't respond to market demand in the same way private companies do, and if governments were responsible for the expansion of the internet, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.
From a completely degulated stand point, even in a large, spread out society people could organize themselves, form guilds or unions or advocacy groups, and publically educate people on who-dun-what. But I think overall that's a long shot, and anarchy is probably just as bad an idea as freemarket capitalism.
Yeah... I'm not a capitalist, or maybe I am a capitalist by the true definition. I just don't think that what we call capitalism here in the Western world is acutally that, it doesn't really live up to what it was supposed to be theologically.
And I'm a Canadian :P
But there's no reason to have both desktop environments installed on the same computer really... I can see the point of having the kdelibs etc installed on a GNOME desktop so that KDE apps will work, and vice-versa, but it's pretty redundant and confusing to novices to have lots of different but similar choices for environment, word processor, web browser, calender application etc on their own computer.
I'd hazard to guess that the average user would benefit more if they were using a distro that installed only what the distro thought were the cream of the crop in each of the application areas.
So maybe, the solution isn't to remove regulation, but to change the type of regulation (we're getting way off topic here, but it's fun). Just for the sake of argument, do you think a completely de-regulated society would run itself allright (based on things like natural liability... if you're not trustworthy, people will exclude you from the economy in a natural, organic kind of way)
I guess in that respect, super-pure capitalism is a lot like anarchism. VOTE ANARCHIST!
Now, I know I'm getting a little bit offtopic, but I think any distribution's ease-of-use factor for non-geeks (ie. people that don't have the time to fiddle and experiment, they just want to use a computer) if it included only one desktop environment.
And for that matter, install only one (or maybe two, but no more) word processor, one calender application, one way to dial out to the internet. It would make things a lot less confusing... most people don't think application centric on their computers, they think task-centric. Of course, this kind of thing would only happen bump-free with a universal file format.
The patent will be regulating that.
Also, about regulation on a general scale, safety regs (such as those in the airline industry) can increase customer confidence, and generate a larger market. Pill makers should be regulated on their products, otherwise what would cause them to print the long term side-effects on the labels?
Regulation isn't something the big-bad-government does to impede business and make itself feel important. It's one of the ways that a society defines its value system and generates accountability for when it's not being upheld.
I personally don't think it's fair that when someone gets funded by the public, they can still turn around and put an exclusive license on the new technology so their company gets to make the most money.
If the public paid for it, then it should be public domain.