Anything can be proved with enough flawed mathematics. Think how many times things have been proven, only to be found flawed later on? That is the foundation of the scientific method.
Nope, this is where you're wrong. Math is different from any other science when in comes to "proving" things.Compared to a mathematical proof, any other scentific "proof" is just a currently accepted working theory.
That's the strangth and beauty of mathematics: once it's proven, we know that it's true until the end of days, not even God could change it if he exists. not even if the laws of physuics suddenly changed and altered all we know about the universe would our mathematical proof become untrue.
Compared to mathematics, even physics is - as a science - not much more proovable than sociology.
1) Please don't mix capitalism with democracy! Those two are not the same thing! However, I understand that living in the US, you might get the impression that they are.
2) Wealth is the moving of an asset from a lower value to a higher one. You are confusing the accumulation of wealth with weath itself. However, you seem to forget that communism is not about the creation of wealth but about the distribution of it. And looking at the way third world countries are currently being denied fair prices for many of their products while interests (? "Zins") for credits payable to first world countries eat up what's left of their economy (causing poverty and millions of deaths as a result of this), a point could be made against capitalism, too.
Erm, yes. The National SOCIALISTS must have been capitalism at its worst...
Sigh. You fell for the marketing name and slept through history-classes.
Hitler was sponsered and supported by industrial leaders from the beginning because they hoped he'd give them (economical) free reign once he held power - and so he did. "IG Farben" anyone?
Please, PLEASE, don't post unless you know what you're talking about!
Well capitalism is a white European invention and it is poised to disappear as non-European nations become dominant.
China is poised to become the 21st century super power and they are communist, not capitalist. Communism is a third world philosophy, not a western one.
Sigh. Communism was "invented" by whom? Marx, Engels? Where were they from? Right, Europe!
Why did they come up with it? Right, it was industrialization! Sounds perfectly third-world to me!
1) Censorship is bad and it's not working. It should be stopped, but not because it's not working but because it's intrinsically bad.
2) We may laugh at australian censor-ware blocking a huge 6 sites. But while we do, we can rest assured that the people who installed the system and at whom we're laughing are developing something new, something better. Maybe even somehting automatic.
So what you're saying is that because you can't stand ads they should be censored so that I, too, won't receive them (you can't censor the name of a stadium for only a part of the audiance).
So you're actually saying that I may not receive ads for stuff that actually interests me. For sadly, the only entity that's able to correctly judge what I'm interested in and what not is me. Also, if I start a company and offer something new and innovative, noone will buy it, because noone will know. I didn't advertise it (or it was censored by you) and normal people don't read magazines that deal in new ways to wipe your behind (in case I want to sell innovative toilet-paper).
You see, even your example for something that could be censored because it's a nuisance (advertisements) is actually ridiculous, limiting other people's liberties, developement of products and society (you'll never be te same once your behind has been wiped my way!;-).
Based on the thinking displayed here we should also give up on the war on drugs, too? After all, it plainly isn't working so let's just let all the kids go out and kill themselves by smoking crack.
Actually that's not the point. It shouldn't be abolished because it's not working, it should be abolished because it's a threat to civil rights and liberties.
It may be laughed at because it's not working, though. However, if you think about it a bit longer, laughing at it seems quite a stupid thing to do. So fine, version 1.0 didn't work. What do you think "they" will do while we're busy laughing our butts off? Right, prepare for version 1.1 or 2.0, and then they will be the ones laughing at us. Or rather at you, since I'm in Europe and still uncensored, who knows for how long.
The computer has the ability to be an INFINITE [...] number of tools.
Then yours is different from mine.
OK, sure the computer can run all sorts of programs. But that's like saying an adjusable screwdriver can be an infinite number of tools, because it can be adjusted to an inifite number of settings.
Unfortunately these settings all range from X to Y and whatever you do, it's still a screwdriver.
So, maybe your computer can do an infinite number of things, but mine can't. It can't play MP3's without using two (audiable) fans, which sucks because I want to listen when it does so. Mine can't take piuctures. Mine can't answer the telephone. I can't carry mine around like my palm to keep track of adresses. My computer might be able to do so, but if it did, I'd not be able to use it to make a phonecall to one of these addresses.
Yes, I make my living (partially) by administering a company network. And still I think that windows is clumsy, hardware should adhere to stricter standards to make it "play well with others". The list could go on, but why care? Currently I hope that the Mac I'll buy when OsX ships will improve things for me.
Of course a Mac is also a PC. I won't carry it around etc. But maybe it will improve some of the things that I hate about my PIII.
I subscribe to AOL (or rather: I don't) and receive a certain cervice anew each day. Someone al AOL's wirks every day while I pay to provide it for me.
I subscribe to anti-virus, and while I do so, someone at their offices compiles new virus-data all the time and hands it to me once a week. I pay to keep that man working. If I choose to not pay anymore - I can still use the software, I just don't get the virus-updates anymore.
Actually, ober here we have a different system of cash-free payment, based on (euro)cheques. So I don't need a credit-card, and owing to the (in comparison) greater risks of misuse posed by them, I'm quite unlikely to get one in the (near) future.
And mind you - I'm a consultant, not a student, I buy my software (I'm one of the few)!
However, if I say that I buy my software, I mean it - I'm not going to rent it, either, not unless I can do all the nice stuff I can do with everything else I rent - like reduce my monthly payment if the item doesn't meet the specifications. And since when did MS-Software ever do this?
To make (strong) encryption (without keys for any gouvernment) illigal will not stop criminals from using it. The programs for this are already out there. Why should they not use them? The only way to find out what they're doing is to try and decrypt
everything
on the internet. And to read it, of course, because I might hide illegal encryption by encrypting it a second time "legally" (e.g. with a key for the CIA).
Do we really want this?
After all, who should hold the keys to internationally fight terrorism? CIA? They're spying on our economy already, no thanks. Mossad? KGB? Or maybe the UN, but then we could be sure that 1) it won't be used and 2) it will be hacked.
No, to make key-recovery-free encryption illegal won't stop a single terrorist from using it. It will, however, stop law-abiding companies from doing so, which in return will seriously reduce their chances in the future.
Maybe americans are allowed to use force to overthrow their gouvernment, but over here, I'd guess that the german gouvernment supports OpenSource encryption for different reasons. Anyone on any side of the atlantic will surely understand a european's feelings if he has to hear that the american economy is constantly being fed information about ours by the CIA.
In a way you could therefore say that in the eyes of the german gouvernment, the CIA's "monopoly" on encryption is more of a threat to its people than some terrorists (who already encrypt anyway).
Why do people insist on pointless bitching, btw, about KDE and Gnome generally sucking?
Because not all of us are willing to invest countless nights until the machine works. I recall Suse 6.3 asking me what RAM-DAC would be on my S3-graphics adapter shortly before I reformatted (guess why). (The old P1-133 is now an NT4-server.) Then I remember those 6 or 7 hours it took to get ISDN running at a different machine - with the help of someone who uses Linux all the time. No, thanks.
In short: if you want it to simply run and to do so quickly and easily, and if you're not experienced already - don't use Linux, wait until it's managable and more user-friendly.
Microsoft-Software may not be tested before it ships, but from my experience I'd say Linux is not even completely written when it ships. You finish it yourself, editing tons of.rc-files etc.
So what does Gome / KDE lack? Controlpanel? Decent printing? Working drag & drop / copy & paste? OK, it's been a while since I looked at Linux, but at that time it was a pain in the... you get the idea.
As a related note to: "8. The WTO limits governments? ability to use their purchasing dollars for human rights, environmental, worker rights, and other non-commercial purposes....":
The European Union is about to punish the swedish gouvernment because they are puchasing computers only from companies that produce them ecologically, e.g. without toxic fire-repellants. but because only few companies can meet these requirements it's considered an unfair exclusion of all the others from the bidding-process and thus illegal.
Again: The EU sais it's illegal to buy equipment only if it's not endangering your employees health! All for the sake of free trade and competition, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope, this is where you're wrong. Math is different from any other science when in comes to "proving" things.Compared to a mathematical proof, any other scentific "proof" is just a currently accepted working theory.
That's the strangth and beauty of mathematics: once it's proven, we know that it's true until the end of days, not even God could change it if he exists. not even if the laws of physuics suddenly changed and altered all we know about the universe would our mathematical proof become untrue.
Compared to mathematics, even physics is - as a science - not much more proovable than sociology.
Over here, they went to court once or twice. However, even OEM-Windows may be sold without computers.
Here, Software is a product and once it left microsoft's hands, whoever owns it may sell it in any way he likes.
Don't have the details, though.
1) Please don't mix capitalism with democracy! Those two are not the same thing! However, I understand that living in the US, you might get the impression that they are.
2) Wealth is the moving of an asset from a lower value to a higher one. You are confusing the accumulation of wealth with weath itself.
However, you seem to forget that communism is not about the creation of wealth but about the distribution of it. And looking at the way third world countries are currently being denied fair prices for many of their products while interests (? "Zins") for credits payable to first world countries eat up what's left of their economy (causing poverty and millions of deaths as a result of this), a point could be made against capitalism, too.
Sigh. You fell for the marketing name and slept through history-classes.
Hitler was sponsered and supported by industrial leaders from the beginning because they hoped he'd give them (economical) free reign once he held power - and so he did. "IG Farben" anyone?
Please, PLEASE, don't post unless you know what you're talking about!
China is poised to become the 21st century super power and they are communist, not capitalist. Communism is a third world philosophy, not a western one.
Sigh. Communism was "invented" by whom? Marx, Engels? Where were they from? Right, Europe!
Why did they come up with it? Right, it was industrialization! Sounds perfectly third-world to me!
There's nothing like a well-informed post!
I'm still not sure what you were trying to say.
1) Censorship is bad and it's not working. It should be stopped, but not because it's not working but because it's intrinsically bad.
2) We may laugh at australian censor-ware blocking a huge 6 sites. But while we do, we can rest assured that the people who installed the system and at whom we're laughing are developing something new, something better. Maybe even somehting automatic.
So what you're saying is that because you can't stand ads they should be censored so that I, too, won't receive them (you can't censor the name of a stadium for only a part of the audiance).
So you're actually saying that I may not receive ads for stuff that actually interests me. For sadly, the only entity that's able to correctly judge what I'm interested in and what not is me. Also, if I start a company and offer something new and innovative, noone will buy it, because noone will know. I didn't advertise it (or it was censored by you) and normal people don't read magazines that deal in new ways to wipe your behind (in case I want to sell innovative toilet-paper).
You see, even your example for something that could be censored because it's a nuisance (advertisements) is actually ridiculous, limiting other people's liberties, developement of products and society (you'll never be te same once your behind has been wiped my way! ;-).
Actually that's not the point. It shouldn't be abolished because it's not working, it should be abolished because it's a threat to civil rights and liberties.
It may be laughed at because it's not working, though. However, if you think about it a bit longer, laughing at it seems quite a stupid thing to do. So fine, version 1.0 didn't work. What do you think "they" will do while we're busy laughing our butts off? Right, prepare for version 1.1 or 2.0, and then they will be the ones laughing at us. Or rather at you, since I'm in Europe and still uncensored, who knows for how long.
The computer has the ability to be an INFINITE [...] number of tools.
Then yours is different from mine.
OK, sure the computer can run all sorts of programs. But that's like saying an adjusable screwdriver can be an infinite number of tools, because it can be adjusted to an inifite number of settings.
Unfortunately these settings all range from X to Y and whatever you do, it's still a screwdriver.
So, maybe your computer can do an infinite number of things, but mine can't. It can't play MP3's without using two (audiable) fans, which sucks because I want to listen when it does so. Mine can't take piuctures. Mine can't answer the telephone. I can't carry mine around like my palm to keep track of adresses. My computer might be able to do so, but if it did, I'd not be able to use it to make a phonecall to one of these addresses.
Yes, I make my living (partially) by administering a company network. And still I think that windows is clumsy, hardware should adhere to stricter standards to make it "play well with others". The list could go on, but why care? Currently I hope that the Mac I'll buy when OsX ships will improve things for me.
Of course a Mac is also a PC. I won't carry it around etc. But maybe it will improve some of the things that I hate about my PIII.
Let's not forget: The article was written by msnbc, a joint-venture of NBC and - yes , Microsoft.
So, do I really think this is an objective piece of news?
No.
Will this article stop me from buying my fist Mac as soon as it ships with OSX?
No, surely not.
Microsoft can't write a good OS themselves, what should make me think that they can write a good article about one?
Alternative servers and clients already exist, so why bother?
Actually, last time I checked, there were 6.000 users with 1.2 milloin files logged onto napster, while MusicCity.com had 16.000 users.
Who needs napster anyway?
But don't you see the difference?
I subscribe to AOL (or rather: I don't) and receive a certain cervice anew each day. Someone al AOL's wirks every day while I pay to provide it for me.
I subscribe to anti-virus, and while I do so, someone at their offices compiles new virus-data all the time and hands it to me once a week. I pay to keep that man working. If I choose to not pay anymore - I can still use the software, I just don't get the virus-updates anymore.
You're not the only one without a credit-card.
Actually, ober here we have a different system of cash-free payment, based on (euro)cheques. So I don't need a credit-card, and owing to the (in comparison) greater risks of misuse posed by them, I'm quite unlikely to get one in the (near) future.
And mind you - I'm a consultant, not a student, I buy my software (I'm one of the few)!
However, if I say that I buy my software, I mean it - I'm not going to rent it, either, not unless I can do all the nice stuff I can do with everything else I rent - like reduce my monthly payment if the item doesn't meet the specifications. And since when did MS-Software ever do this?
Unfortunately the choice just isn't that simple.
To make (strong) encryption (without keys for any gouvernment) illigal will not stop criminals from using it. The programs for this are already out there. Why should they not use them? The only way to find out what they're doing is to try and decrypt
- everything
on the internet. And to read it, of course, because I might hide illegal encryption by encrypting it a second time "legally" (e.g. with a key for the CIA).Do we really want this?
After all, who should hold the keys to internationally fight terrorism? CIA? They're spying on our economy already, no thanks. Mossad? KGB? Or maybe the UN, but then we could be sure that 1) it won't be used and 2) it will be hacked.
No, to make key-recovery-free encryption illegal won't stop a single terrorist from using it. It will, however, stop law-abiding companies from doing so, which in return will seriously reduce their chances in the future.
Maybe americans are allowed to use force to overthrow their gouvernment, but over here, I'd guess that the german gouvernment supports OpenSource encryption for different reasons. Anyone on any side of the atlantic will surely understand a european's feelings if he has to hear that the american economy is constantly being fed information about ours by the CIA.
In a way you could therefore say that in the eyes of the german gouvernment, the CIA's "monopoly" on encryption is more of a threat to its people than some terrorists (who already encrypt anyway).
Why do people insist on pointless bitching, btw, about KDE and Gnome generally sucking?
Because not all of us are willing to invest countless nights until the machine works. I recall Suse 6.3 asking me what RAM-DAC would be on my S3-graphics adapter shortly before I reformatted (guess why). (The old P1-133 is now an NT4-server.) Then I remember those 6 or 7 hours it took to get ISDN running at a different machine - with the help of someone who uses Linux all the time. No, thanks.
In short: if you want it to simply run and to do so quickly and easily, and if you're not experienced already - don't use Linux, wait until it's managable and more user-friendly.
Microsoft-Software may not be tested before it ships, but from my experience I'd say Linux is not even completely written when it ships. You finish it yourself, editing tons of .rc-files etc.
So what does Gome / KDE lack? Controlpanel? Decent printing? Working drag & drop / copy & paste? OK, it's been a while since I looked at Linux, but at that time it was a pain in the ... you get the idea.
As a related note to: "8. The WTO limits governments? ability to use their purchasing dollars for human rights, environmental, worker rights, and other non-commercial purposes....": The European Union is about to punish the swedish gouvernment because they are puchasing computers only from companies that produce them ecologically, e.g. without toxic fire-repellants. but because only few companies can meet these requirements it's considered an unfair exclusion of all the others from the bidding-process and thus illegal. Again: The EU sais it's illegal to buy equipment only if it's not endangering your employees health! All for the sake of free trade and competition, of course.