What foreign country? Maybe you *should* watch TV, to help you with the language....
Anyway, it's a mixed bag, in my experience & observations.
Solid, well-functioning things are a pleasure to work with on a daily basis. These are very rarely cutting-edge technology, and you rarely need many of them.
I was thinking partly of those guys who get a super expensive car, then double-park it way out in the parking lot and freak out if a shopping cart veers towards it. Better get a high-tech security system, too, huh. And that big engine is real useful in getting them up to the speed limit +5 real fast.. but then they just have to sit there, unless they're a daredevil and/or don't care about the speeding tickets. I got a car that's good enough to be reliable, but already has a few dings (so I don't even wince if I bump the curb while parking, or if someone nicks it with a door in the parking lot). And it's got a puny diesel engine (and takes a little while to get up to speed..), but gets me where I want to go at 50 mpg.
Enough space in the house for a party -- maybe, if you are going to host a ton of parties. But you don't need 30 foot ceilings for that (everyone is going to be in the kitchen, anyway). The more I think about human resource consumption, etc., the more swimming pools, big houses, big cars, expensive entertainment and so on start to bug me. Isn't there something *wrong* if I spend 8 hours a day gaming? Or watching fluff TV? Is that the pinnacle of civilization -- I'm not forced to work, so I can at last become a useless lump on a (comfortable!) couch? If America is sucking down far more than our share of the earth's resources mostly just entertaining ourselves, aren't we doing something wrong?
Seriously (trying to swing away from self-righteous prick territory..), I'm not some kind of monk, nor do I think people should be (e.g., it's not hard to find the travel photos on my website.. at least that's partly educational). I'm just starting to feel more like we should know the real costs of what we buy -- in resources required (for manufacture, use, and disposal), in hazardous waste generated, in envy incited, in potential pain upon theft/damage/loss/failure, and so on. We don't take those into account normally.
It's not as if you can't put some effort into making your life a pleasant place to be. But there has to be more to life than *just* that pursuit.
Maybe you need to put a little more thought into "finding and using the best tool available"... otherwise, you're just another rabid Mac fanatic.
PC Hardware sucks because no one is in control of it. [...] Vista will be years before it stops sucking. See, you've got two solutions right there to the out-of-control breast milk problem, but somehow you're not making the connection.
I suspect the primaries are arranged by the DNC and RNC, not the bipartisan commission. I mentioned "presidential debates", since you mentioned them, but I guess this particular discussion is just about the primary debates.
I think you're wrong to assume that once they actually address this issue, this is some kind of give-and-take. In fact, I think both NBC and the DNC/RNC prefer there to be tight control over video footage from the debates, each for their own reasons. The possibility of having the debates analyzed and picked apart second by second on YouTube must give the DNC/RNC members ulcers. This is a good point -- of course, the network (MSNBC in this case) will work for all of the control they can get, purely for business reasons. So it's up to the organizing committees/commissions to decide what they give away... and if the only backlash is a few bloggers and slashdotters griping to each other, they have no reason whatsoever to push back.
I wouldn't be too surprised if it gets a bit more exposure than that, though. After all, all of the *other* networks and news organizations have to pony up the cash or be left out in the cold, so they might try to stir up a little outrage for the sake of, ah, the American people.
It's not a sports event, you know. I mean, who do you think they "paid" for the rights? Of course it doesn't work like a sporting event -- that's what I said "they paid for it, somehow".
That is, how did the bipartisan debate commission decide who would run the presidential debate? I'm sure MSNBC wasn't the only network interested in doing it.
MSNBC managed to give them everything they wanted (and I'm sure running this thing won't be cheap), and in exchange MSNBC bargained for an extreme level of control over the broadcast and rights.
That's what I'm talking about. The committees and commissions were willing to grant MSNBC complete control in exchange for, probably, some control over what questions are asked, the format of the debate, etc. etc. I don't know the details, but I'd like to know....
It's not as if they just walked in, set up cameras, and said "we'll be running these debates -- everyone else out NOW!!"
If they have this extreme level of control that basically means they *paid* for it, somehow, and outbid everyone else.
Or did they just ask all the candidates nicely?
Personally, I think this should be illegal. The output of our political process should be public domain immediately. Tax payers are paying the salaries already of most of these candidates, and funding the rest of the election process. If MSNBC wants to pay the costs of running the debates -- hey, sure, let them put their logo on the podiums or whatever, but the content of the debates themselves should not be permitted to be sold.
Pre-election debates are one of the single best ways for the public to actually get a sense of who they'll be voting for... they aren't perfect, but we at least get some back and forth, and some of the more difficult questions get raised.
I don't know much about how the debates are set up currently, but this just isn't working.
And who has rights to derivative works? The original author. No -- the original author still only owns the copyright to his own code. The author of the new code keeps copyright to his own work. He doesn't normally give that up.
The GPL is just a distribution license -- it doesn't transfer copyright or anything like that.
The original author, with the GPL, gives the new author the right to *distribute* a derivative work as GPL, mixing in new code as long as it's also GPL. But the new author still owns his own code (and the original author can only touch the new code under restrictions of the GPL).
The new author, by the way, has the right to *stop* distributing his code. If he can separate it out from the original GPLed code, he can also start releasing his own code under a commercial license... he owns the copyright, so he can. He's just limited in what he can do with the original author's code (and, likewise, the original author is limited in what he can do with the new author's code).
It's unfortunately fairly complicated; the important thing to remember is that all authors keeps copyright of their own code -- it's only under the GPL that they can merge, redistribute, borrow, etc. each others'.
ignorant attitude in one area usually indicates overall ignorance, so why would i want to experience that in case of inquiries or warranty returns ? Well, possibly, but the situation is often more complicated. There are plenty of companies that may know their core business perfectly well, but when they decide it's time to build a web site to move their business online, they're somewhat at the mercy of the "experts" they choose. Who in turn may have their reasons for not wanting to bother with cross-browser development. Even if they have a serious discussion on the subject, the developers may say building the site cross-browser/platform will triple the cost and/or time of development.
Yup -- I think that's pretty much what how I described it, actually:
If/when you start accepting contributions/patches/etc. from other developers under the GPL, though, you have to get agreement from them to change anything (unless they sign over copyright for their code to you). I.e., you need additional consent to distribute their GPL patch in your commercial package. That could potentially be signing over copyright to you, but more probably would be a separate agreement in which they give you permission.
Worth thinking about in advance of accepting code, anyway. Linux, for example, is probably staying GPLv2 forever no matter *how* much Linux likes v3, because most of the code is GPLv2 only (some other code is "v2 or later", some is dual-licensed BSD/GPL... it's a strange mess at this point, and would not be easy to migrate even if they wanted to).
Whatever license you choose, remember that you can *change* your selection later, as long as you still own the copyright completely.
You can release it as GPL, then (if people convince you there are good reasons to relax the license somewhat) you can switch to LGPL, BSD, whatever.
You can also *sell it* to commercial customers who want to distribute it as a part of a closed source project. Yes, at the same time as you have a GPL version out, or you can stop distributing the GPL version and go pure closed source.
The point is, as long as you personally own the copyright, you can leverage that however you want. If/when you start accepting contributions/patches/etc. from other developers under the GPL, though, you have to get agreement from them to change anything (unless they sign over copyright for their code to you). Getting permission to change from many, far-flung developers is not easy... so ideally you should make sure you are happy with your license before accepting donated code.
Yes, if you release it as GPL then go back to closed source, other people might "fork" your project and continue development & distribution of their own version. But THEY must always stay GPL -- they don't own the copyright, so they don't have the option (like you do) of changing the license.
These distinctions are important to understand; they're what make the MySql business model (for example) possible.
True -- unfortunately, I expect the thinking often goes more like "well, many of those firefox/opera/etc. users are still on windows... so they have IE installed, and we don't have to worry about them!".
And counting lost customers isn't easy -- most people won't take the time to complain, they'll just move on. The company has no way to tell how many users they're turning away simply because of the browser issue, and the problem flies under their radar.
Typical slshdot arrogance. How about IE has functionality that your sacred cow doesn't? If Y% of the market uses IE and Z% uses Firefox, Opera, etc... well, as Z grows, supporting only IE gets stupider and stupider.
Certainly, it's easier to write one-platform one-browser code. I guess as long as the extra effort would cost more than you're losing in users, it makes sense...
Maybe it's the difference between reading what you first wrote as either:
"Do you believe that evolution is purely a result of random chance?" vs. (actual quote)
"Do you believe that evolution is a result of purely random chance?"...which doesn't quite make sense -- what other kind of "chance" is there besides the purely random kind?
But even drop the "purely" altogether, and it's still like standing by a sawmill and saying, "these planks are the result of water flow: true or false?".
Sure, without the water flow the mill wouldn't run -- but you can run all the water you want and you won't get a single 2x4 without the waterwheel there, directing the unfocused water power to a saw that cuts the wood along the guides, etc..
In the same way, random mutations (without the direction of natural selection) do not result in "evolution". Take a single-cell organism, and throw in a HUGE number of random mutations, and your chances of coming up with, say, a hummingbird are still pretty much nil.
This is the straw man that confused creationists keep knocking down.
This is why anyone who understands evolution would probably answer that question "no". Or "mu". Randomness and entropy is everywhere (there are lots of different causes for genetic mutation, for example). Natural selection - the directing force - is the special sauce of evolution, not the randomness.
However, almost no university anywhere can afford to turn away students, no matter how poorly-educated they are. Wait, what? You mean almost all universities have a 100% acceptance rate? Alas, no -- they are turning away plenty of students with writing skills that are even worse than what you see.
Why do some aquatic animals push injured companions to the surface so they can breathe? Bottle-nosed Dolphin are known to do this, and so are some aquarium fish. Do you think this is based on "philosophy", or do you think there is some basic hard-wiring in there that arose from a biological imperative similar to the idea that that keeping the group healthy has a generally positive effect on the individual (and hence its genes)? Yes -- also, don't forget that it's not the *individual's* genes that have to benefit. If you die saving 5 lives in your (genetically-related) group, you have still greatly benefited your genes (it just won't be *you* who passes them on).
Why will a cat or dog or pig or any number of other animals accept another species to nurse at its teats, even when, as in many of these cases, said species is considered natural prey or predator? A behavior like "I should feed the thing suckling at my teats" will apply to its own infant 99.99..% of the time, so it doesn't necessarily have to be more specific.
Do ethics and/or morals have to be "systems" in order to be valid, useful, or characterized as such? If yes, why? Could it be that such an outlook is primarily an exercise in hubris? Isn't it sufficient to choose not to do something based on a vague feeling that it isn't the right thing to do, or a simple situational evaluation that detects dissatisfaction as a likely outcome if a particular course is followed, or not? Most choices *are* based on vague feelings of right or wrong. When people have difficulty making moral decisions, they try to think of similar situations where their "feeling" is more clear. The feelings aren't *just* instinctual or *just* experience-based, though. People have some basic instincts that play into our morals, but (perhaps more importantly) we've evolved into a species that depends very heavily on teaching. Our moral systems -- the more complex ideas -- have developed (and done some back-sliding, etc...) over thousands of years. These are better studied in the context of memes, not genes.
But is the bad feeling about taking what is not yours incurred by having your hand smacked by dad for stealing sister's lollipop any different than having your instincts and endocrine system twist your stomach in a knot when contemplating the bloody suffering of another? Both encourage what look like what we commonly call moral behaviors; neither one can reasonably be called "philosophy" on the part of the primary actor by any stretch of the imagination. They both come into play very early in events that call for them. They're interrelated. Because we're a "teaching" species, your parents taught you various moral rules, some of which were probably the product of serious philosophical thought thousands of years ago (religions played a role in codifying these, and passing them on). Others were less developed and probably less internally consistent. Your parents/teachers/etc. probably also stressed some rules over others, depending on their own life experience (there's more "philosophy" and thought involved in those lessons).
Personally, I don't think we're nearly as sophisticated as we'd like to imagine. How sophisticated do most people imagine they are, morally? They generally don't think about it much. Most people don't even think of themselves as "moral" actors -- just as people trying to do what's best for them and their family, more or less, imagining there's a right answer for every situation (and sometimes they just can't tell what it is).
Some people put more time/thought into trying to be morally consistent, which turns out to be quite difficult (read some Peter Singer on this topic). But sure, most people are pretty much reactive.
In the end, these questions all go to how the mind operates, and as we know very little about that It's not a complete cipher, though, and we can make observations on thought sequences, decision-making, justifications, etc. that are very interesting to study, completely separately from the neuron-level stuff.
The problem here is that most of us don't know how to assess the value of things. There can be a big difference between "value to you" and "market value", and if you sell it based on "value to you" you'll either get no buyer (because your valuation is far over market value) OR you'll get a buyer instantly, who will most likely immediately resell at market value and pocket the cash.
Suppose he sells the domain name, and the guy he sells it to turns around and sells it in turn for 10x the price, because *he* knew of a company starting up that was interested in the name. Was that knowledge -- an overheard conversation -- really worth $3600? Is that fair?
I think he's doing the right thing. If he finds that the original offer was fairly close to market value (i.e., what other people offer), the first buyer should get the domain - no need for a bidding war, or fighting over a few bucks. But if he immediately gets offers far above $400, they need to renegotiate.
There's a third situation -- where he really likes what the buyer plans on doing with the domain, and DECIDES to sell it below market value. This one's complicated, because the buyer might lie about intentions... but it happens; I've done this before. Mind you, this is impossible to do without knowing the market value; otherwise you're giving away an unknown sum.
So despite the fact that genes can be the drivers behind selfless instinct, this still isn't an argument for self-sacrifice, only a tendency to accept greater risk in the face of danger. I'm not sure I follow you here... maybe a definition of "self-sacrifice" would help?
The idea I'm getting at is that our current systems of morality are long-term elaborations on basic, blurry feelings of "that's wrong" vs. "that's right", that are based on instincts people have in common. Human beings have evolved to be social, teaching creatures, so all of the finer details of morality are taught from parent to child, including specific ideas of "noble sacrifice" and so on.
In different cultures, time periods, etc. there have been significant differences in accepted "moral" behavior, but the basics (e.g., you shouldn't kill someone else in 'your group', however that's defined, and you must take some personal risks to defend your group) are constant, because they're based at heart on instincts.
But certainly it's not all "evolved" in a biological sense. The instincts are a starting point; mix in our well-evolved abilities to conceive of complex ideas, and to teach children and others (incredibly important to our species) and you can figure out the rest of the process... here's where the meme comes into play more than the gene.
Squirrels aren't automatons. They experience fear, pain, longing for a luscious nut, etc.. If they do X and get hurt, they'll be more careful about that next time. But the instinct (to do something "brave and selfless" in a dangerous situation) is still there, counter to their normal danger responses when alone.
You still see this as an argument against evolution, because getting yourself killed will probably *prevent* you from reproducing and passing on your genes directly.
But Dawkins' point was that it's the GENE that's "selfish", not the individual. So an urge for an individual to sacrifice itself to save the rest of its group CAN serve its genes, because its group (probably family with the same genes) will survive because of this even if the individual doesn't.
This applies to people as well, because we have some of the same urges ("pre-thought urge" loosely equals "residual instinct") to risk ourselves to help our group. People argue that these shared urges among different culture prove the existence of God or some kind higher moral guide, because they don't understand how we could have evolved this kind of idea. But if you understand the operation of evolution a bit better (see above) and remember that we're generally social, group-centered animals, it's not so hard to explain.
I confess I didn't RTFA, but this seemed pretty clear in the writeup -- the data loss was NOT in the billions.
"Using the 300 cardboard boxes containing all the information, staff worked overtime for several months to rescan everything at an additional cost of $200,000."
I.e., the loss cost them 200K. And a huge headache, of course, but how much Advil did they have to buy to cost billions?
Oh, I know, I know... This has been my job a few times for large projects, working as the lead dev/tech lead. And it sucks. You can balance it out by saying "these are the biggest risks -- when we have proof-of-concept code for these, you can go from a 20% confident estimate to a 70% confident estimate". You can also do a lot if you have good data from previous projects. No project is ever the same as the last, but you can certainly do a lot better than gut feel times 3.
It sucks the worst when you have no metrics to start from. Because the project managers have a hell of a time: 1) building a project plan (with developer assistance) of small, discrete tasks 2) getting developers to log their time against these tasks accurately (and against new, unexpected tasks as needed).
There's a lot of work involved in doing all of these seemingly useless logging and maintenance tasks. Developers, myself included, hate it. The mediocre developers don't want management deducing their exact productivity and basing layoffs on that. The good developers just want to get on with the actual project work. And the project manager wants the developers to be on his/her side.
And the whole "post mortem" step at the end of the project, where you sit down and really analyze what worked, what went faster than expected, what sucked up more time, what risks should have been tackled earlier, etc. etc... well, once the average development project has gone over schedule and/or over budget, when it's finally wrapped up the people involved are already late starting the next project. So it often gets skipped.
Yes, it's hard to do this stuff; but some of the difficulty is the developer's own fault for not grasping the business side of things.
Slashdot Mirror
What foreign country? Maybe you *should* watch TV, to help you with the language....
Anyway, it's a mixed bag, in my experience & observations.
Solid, well-functioning things are a pleasure to work with on a daily basis. These are very rarely cutting-edge technology, and you rarely need many of them.
I was thinking partly of those guys who get a super expensive car, then double-park it way out in the parking lot and freak out if a shopping cart veers towards it. Better get a high-tech security system, too, huh. And that big engine is real useful in getting them up to the speed limit +5 real fast.. but then they just have to sit there, unless they're a daredevil and/or don't care about the speeding tickets. I got a car that's good enough to be reliable, but already has a few dings (so I don't even wince if I bump the curb while parking, or if someone nicks it with a door in the parking lot). And it's got a puny diesel engine (and takes a little while to get up to speed..), but gets me where I want to go at 50 mpg.
Enough space in the house for a party -- maybe, if you are going to host a ton of parties. But you don't need 30 foot ceilings for that (everyone is going to be in the kitchen, anyway). The more I think about human resource consumption, etc., the more swimming pools, big houses, big cars, expensive entertainment and so on start to bug me. Isn't there something *wrong* if I spend 8 hours a day gaming? Or watching fluff TV? Is that the pinnacle of civilization -- I'm not forced to work, so I can at last become a useless lump on a (comfortable!) couch? If America is sucking down far more than our share of the earth's resources mostly just entertaining ourselves, aren't we doing something wrong?
Seriously (trying to swing away from self-righteous prick territory..), I'm not some kind of monk, nor do I think people should be (e.g., it's not hard to find the travel photos on my website.. at least that's partly educational). I'm just starting to feel more like we should know the real costs of what we buy -- in resources required (for manufacture, use, and disposal), in hazardous waste generated, in envy incited, in potential pain upon theft/damage/loss/failure, and so on. We don't take those into account normally.
It's not as if you can't put some effort into making your life a pleasant place to be. But there has to be more to life than *just* that pursuit.
No, no -- we all need big houses, to put all our stuff in.
We need all our stuff (and the house) to keep up with the Joneses, and to watch TV without being sad about all those shiny things we don't have.
We need to keep up with the Joneses and buy the things on TV because lots of consumption keeps our economy going.
We need to keep the economy going so we can have well-paying jobs, manufacturing and supporting more and more stuff.
We need well-paying jobs to pay all the bills for repairing/maintaining our stuff.
Oh, and to pay the mortgage on our big houses.
[...not necessarily a direct comment on the GP post; this is just a cycle I've been thinking about...]
Everything else is more or less made up -- you can calculate whatever stats make you look good.
The real test?
Two words: sack race.
Vista will be years before it stops sucking. See, you've got two solutions right there to the out-of-control breast milk problem, but somehow you're not making the connection.
I'd go up to every camera I saw and HOPE they were reading my lips.
Vacuum!
VaaaacUUUUUM!
I wouldn't be too surprised if it gets a bit more exposure than that, though. After all, all of the *other* networks and news organizations have to pony up the cash or be left out in the cold, so they might try to stir up a little outrage for the sake of, ah, the American people.
That is, how did the bipartisan debate commission decide who would run the presidential debate? I'm sure MSNBC wasn't the only network interested in doing it.
MSNBC managed to give them everything they wanted (and I'm sure running this thing won't be cheap), and in exchange MSNBC bargained for an extreme level of control over the broadcast and rights.
That's what I'm talking about. The committees and commissions were willing to grant MSNBC complete control in exchange for, probably, some control over what questions are asked, the format of the debate, etc. etc. I don't know the details, but I'd like to know....
It's not as if they just walked in, set up cameras, and said "we'll be running these debates -- everyone else out NOW!!"
If they have this extreme level of control that basically means they *paid* for it, somehow, and outbid everyone else.
Or did they just ask all the candidates nicely?
Personally, I think this should be illegal. The output of our political process should be public domain immediately. Tax payers are paying the salaries already of most of these candidates, and funding the rest of the election process. If MSNBC wants to pay the costs of running the debates -- hey, sure, let them put their logo on the podiums or whatever, but the content of the debates themselves should not be permitted to be sold.
Pre-election debates are one of the single best ways for the public to actually get a sense of who they'll be voting for... they aren't perfect, but we at least get some back and forth, and some of the more difficult questions get raised.
I don't know much about how the debates are set up currently, but this just isn't working.
I think
The GPL is just a distribution license -- it doesn't transfer copyright or anything like that.
The original author, with the GPL, gives the new author the right to *distribute* a derivative work as GPL, mixing in new code as long as it's also GPL. But the new author still owns his own code (and the original author can only touch the new code under restrictions of the GPL).
The new author, by the way, has the right to *stop* distributing his code. If he can separate it out from the original GPLed code, he can also start releasing his own code under a commercial license... he owns the copyright, so he can. He's just limited in what he can do with the original author's code (and, likewise, the original author is limited in what he can do with the new author's code).
It's unfortunately fairly complicated; the important thing to remember is that all authors keeps copyright of their own code -- it's only under the GPL that they can merge, redistribute, borrow, etc. each others'.
So they just miss out.
Worth thinking about in advance of accepting code, anyway. Linux, for example, is probably staying GPLv2 forever no matter *how* much Linux likes v3, because most of the code is GPLv2 only (some other code is "v2 or later", some is dual-licensed BSD/GPL... it's a strange mess at this point, and would not be easy to migrate even if they wanted to).
Whatever license you choose, remember that you can *change* your selection later, as long as you still own the copyright completely.
You can release it as GPL, then (if people convince you there are good reasons to relax the license somewhat) you can switch to LGPL, BSD, whatever.
You can also *sell it* to commercial customers who want to distribute it as a part of a closed source project. Yes, at the same time as you have a GPL version out, or you can stop distributing the GPL version and go pure closed source.
The point is, as long as you personally own the copyright, you can leverage that however you want. If/when you start accepting contributions/patches/etc. from other developers under the GPL, though, you have to get agreement from them to change anything (unless they sign over copyright for their code to you). Getting permission to change from many, far-flung developers is not easy... so ideally you should make sure you are happy with your license before accepting donated code.
Yes, if you release it as GPL then go back to closed source, other people might "fork" your project and continue development & distribution of their own version. But THEY must always stay GPL -- they don't own the copyright, so they don't have the option (like you do) of changing the license.
These distinctions are important to understand; they're what make the MySql business model (for example) possible.
True -- unfortunately, I expect the thinking often goes more like "well, many of those firefox/opera/etc. users are still on windows... so they have IE installed, and we don't have to worry about them!".
And counting lost customers isn't easy -- most people won't take the time to complain, they'll just move on. The company has no way to tell how many users they're turning away simply because of the browser issue, and the problem flies under their radar.
Certainly, it's easier to write one-platform one-browser code. I guess as long as the extra effort would cost more than you're losing in users, it makes sense...
I remember barrels first (which would roll along the platforms), followed by fireballs a bit later.
Were there flaming barrels as well? It's pretty vague in my memory by now...
Maybe it's the difference between reading what you first wrote as either: ...which doesn't quite make sense -- what other kind of "chance" is there besides the purely random kind?
"Do you believe that evolution is purely a result of random chance?"
vs. (actual quote)
"Do you believe that evolution is a result of purely random chance?"
But even drop the "purely" altogether, and it's still like standing by a sawmill and saying, "these planks are the result of water flow: true or false?".
Sure, without the water flow the mill wouldn't run -- but you can run all the water you want and you won't get a single 2x4 without the waterwheel there, directing the unfocused water power to a saw that cuts the wood along the guides, etc..
In the same way, random mutations (without the direction of natural selection) do not result in "evolution". Take a single-cell organism, and throw in a HUGE number of random mutations, and your chances of coming up with, say, a hummingbird are still pretty much nil.
This is the straw man that confused creationists keep knocking down.
This is why anyone who understands evolution would probably answer that question "no". Or "mu". Randomness and entropy is everywhere (there are lots of different causes for genetic mutation, for example). Natural selection - the directing force - is the special sauce of evolution, not the randomness.
Alas, no -- they are turning away plenty of students with writing skills that are even worse than what you see.
You know how people say 'you shouldn't post anonymously except in a few, rare situations'?
Well, this was one of those situations.
Some people put more time/thought into trying to be morally consistent, which turns out to be quite difficult (read some Peter Singer on this topic). But sure, most people are pretty much reactive. In the end, these questions all go to how the mind operates, and as we know very little about that It's not a complete cipher, though, and we can make observations on thought sequences, decision-making, justifications, etc. that are very interesting to study, completely separately from the neuron-level stuff.
The problem here is that most of us don't know how to assess the value of things. There can be a big difference between "value to you" and "market value", and if you sell it based on "value to you" you'll either get no buyer (because your valuation is far over market value) OR you'll get a buyer instantly, who will most likely immediately resell at market value and pocket the cash.
Suppose he sells the domain name, and the guy he sells it to turns around and sells it in turn for 10x the price, because *he* knew of a company starting up that was interested in the name. Was that knowledge -- an overheard conversation -- really worth $3600? Is that fair?
I think he's doing the right thing. If he finds that the original offer was fairly close to market value (i.e., what other people offer), the first buyer should get the domain - no need for a bidding war, or fighting over a few bucks. But if he immediately gets offers far above $400, they need to renegotiate.
There's a third situation -- where he really likes what the buyer plans on doing with the domain, and DECIDES to sell it below market value. This one's complicated, because the buyer might lie about intentions... but it happens; I've done this before. Mind you, this is impossible to do without knowing the market value; otherwise you're giving away an unknown sum.
The idea I'm getting at is that our current systems of morality are long-term elaborations on basic, blurry feelings of "that's wrong" vs. "that's right", that are based on instincts people have in common. Human beings have evolved to be social, teaching creatures, so all of the finer details of morality are taught from parent to child, including specific ideas of "noble sacrifice" and so on.
In different cultures, time periods, etc. there have been significant differences in accepted "moral" behavior, but the basics (e.g., you shouldn't kill someone else in 'your group', however that's defined, and you must take some personal risks to defend your group) are constant, because they're based at heart on instincts.
But certainly it's not all "evolved" in a biological sense. The instincts are a starting point; mix in our well-evolved abilities to conceive of complex ideas, and to teach children and others (incredibly important to our species) and you can figure out the rest of the process... here's where the meme comes into play more than the gene.
Squirrels aren't automatons. They experience fear, pain, longing for a luscious nut, etc.. If they do X and get hurt, they'll be more careful about that next time. But the instinct (to do something "brave and selfless" in a dangerous situation) is still there, counter to their normal danger responses when alone.
You still see this as an argument against evolution, because getting yourself killed will probably *prevent* you from reproducing and passing on your genes directly.
But Dawkins' point was that it's the GENE that's "selfish", not the individual. So an urge for an individual to sacrifice itself to save the rest of its group CAN serve its genes, because its group (probably family with the same genes) will survive because of this even if the individual doesn't.
This applies to people as well, because we have some of the same urges ("pre-thought urge" loosely equals "residual instinct") to risk ourselves to help our group. People argue that these shared urges among different culture prove the existence of God or some kind higher moral guide, because they don't understand how we could have evolved this kind of idea. But if you understand the operation of evolution a bit better (see above) and remember that we're generally social, group-centered animals, it's not so hard to explain.
I confess I didn't RTFA, but this seemed pretty clear in the writeup -- the data loss was NOT in the billions.
"Using the 300 cardboard boxes containing all the information, staff worked overtime for several months to rescan everything at an additional cost of $200,000."
I.e., the loss cost them 200K. And a huge headache, of course, but how much Advil did they have to buy to cost billions?
Oh, I know, I know... This has been my job a few times for large projects, working as the lead dev/tech lead. And it sucks. You can balance it out by saying "these are the biggest risks -- when we have proof-of-concept code for these, you can go from a 20% confident estimate to a 70% confident estimate". You can also do a lot if you have good data from previous projects. No project is ever the same as the last, but you can certainly do a lot better than gut feel times 3.
It sucks the worst when you have no metrics to start from. Because the project managers have a hell of a time:
1) building a project plan (with developer assistance) of small, discrete tasks
2) getting developers to log their time against these tasks accurately (and against new, unexpected tasks as needed).
There's a lot of work involved in doing all of these seemingly useless logging and maintenance tasks. Developers, myself included, hate it. The mediocre developers don't want management deducing their exact productivity and basing layoffs on that. The good developers just want to get on with the actual project work. And the project manager wants the developers to be on his/her side.
And the whole "post mortem" step at the end of the project, where you sit down and really analyze what worked, what went faster than expected, what sucked up more time, what risks should have been tackled earlier, etc. etc... well, once the average development project has gone over schedule and/or over budget, when it's finally wrapped up the people involved are already late starting the next project. So it often gets skipped.
Yes, it's hard to do this stuff; but some of the difficulty is the developer's own fault for not grasping the business side of things.