Given Newton's times, alchemy and astrology were not that far out of the mainstream and indeed had their part in the development of the sciences as the world moved out of the Medieval Period.
Heck before Newton's time, there arguably wasn't even Physics or Science! He discovered the laws of motion, helped discover Calculus, proved Kepler's laws of planetary motion, discovered the light spectrum, and helped to found the Scientific Method.
Rather than saying he studied Alchemy and Astrology as a pursuit, I think it is better said that he advanced the world from Alchemy and Astrology to something much greater
1. For 30+ years we have been wrestling with the consequences of simple Cigarettes! We have corporations hiding health info, playing with nicotine amounts, and a ton of cancer patients and billion dollar lawsuits. All for a drug which by all accounts is potentially deadly after long-term use but is comparatively benign. Unlike, say alcohol, coke, or heroin, it does not cause intoxication and cigarette addiction is very unlikely to cause you to lose your job and family.
Now considering everything you know about the tobacco companies and all that has come out in the past 30+ years, you really want a "more enlightened" policy leading to [insert Cigarettes company] brand heroin, cocaine, or crack? Only for 18+, of course....
2. From the article's poster: I wouldn't be surprised to find existing phamaceutical companies excited by this, having to replace cheap drugs with something new, which they can patent and control.
Come on, enough with the tired "big bad evil phamaceutical company" conspiracy theory crap. For being so incredibly evil and selfish, they sure have cured a whole bunch of different diseases the past 50+ years. The way your talk, its like you think the companies are introducing viruses just to make cures for them. I wonder if you will change your thinking if you ever have, God forbid, cancer, heart disease, or fertility problems. Probably not...
Just because they don't give away their hard-earned discoveries for free doesn't make them evil. If you don't like it, don't use their discoveries! You can get 1970's era drugs real cheap generically. Good luck surviving.
Brian Ellenberger
Brave people don't mod down, they reply. True cowards use overrated.
If your talking about India, then I think your wrong about Hindi. From the CIA factbook:
English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language
30% of a billion is ~300 million or less than the population of the US. Nothing to sneeze at but not 1/6.
In talking with an Indian coworkers, one of the things that struck me was how little of their native languages they knew or remembered. In particular, one guy brought out his passport. It had two languages, an Indian one and English. He could only understand one of them---Engish. He laughed about it, but I felt very "culturally imperialist" when he pointed it out.:)
IMHO, one of the reasons that India has been so successful in outsoucing is that so many people know English. There is much less of a language barrier in communicating designs or requirements.
Brian Ellenberger
Re:Changed the view of the US?
on
Bobby Fischer Found
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
But let's say Bill Gates gets a tax cut (or some other wealthy businessman). Does this mean the Microsoft will hire more people? Not likely. MS has billions in cash, they can hire whoever they like. Bill's a smart guy - MS hires people when they need people, not when they have more cash. This can be applied to any large wealthy company.
Two points:
A) If you have extra cash you can afford to invest in new projects which requires hiring new people. If you are short on cash then your more careful about new projects. If you have a very large amount of cash you can afford to blow it on risky R&D.
B) More importantly, in my opinion, is the fact that the more money the government controls the more powerful it becomes---and a government which is too powerful is something to be feared. IMHO, most of the posters on Slashdot lack a healthy fear of the government. The government is the ultimate monopoly---one that can arbitrarily increase its income, has a large standing army, and can come in at any time and take away your freedom.
The more money and power the government has, the more people rely on it, the more it will control our lives. Once the government gets too large and people become too reliant then not even democracy will help since those in power can simply use that reliance to defeat anyone who wishes to change things.
Note: I'm merely throwing out a hypothetical, this is not necessarily my belief. Just a discussion point.
On Slashdot, it is commonly argued and agreed upon that "security thru obscurity" is a falacy and the best way to get yourself into trouble. Obscure facts and details are eventually discovered and exploited. It is better to have all source and algorithms out in the open, have everyone pick at it, find the holes and patch them.
Compare this to the commonly held belief in keeping all personal information "secret". If someone tries hard enough, they can pretty much discover any information about yourself. Private detectives, for example, specialize in "hacking" personal information (arrest record, who you are sleeping with). Would it not be better to "open source" your life and deal with the consequences? Your SSN and Credit Card numbers should be secured with something better than mere obscurity, for example. If you are cheating on your spouse you would assume you are going to be caught and be able to deal with the consequences. With everything out in the open we don't have to worry about blackmail and dirty tricks and you better know people's character and motivations. Kinda like looking inside a program's source and seeing the flaws.
Note, these are NOT my opinions, just things that went through my head at 10pm.
If someone can truthfully say something bad about the film or Moore, there's little he can do about that.
Except sue you anyway. SLAPP lawsuits anyone? Chilling effects? What is your average blogger going to do if he questions a point Moore makes and gets sued by multi-millionare Moore and (potentially) Miramax. Not much. Ever think maybe Moore is playing the lawyer card early so that average people will be afraid to rip up the inaccuracies in this film like they did with his previous film?
If this wasn't left-wing, there would be a much bigger outcry. Can you imaging if Rush or Hannity or Coulter said "I have an army of lawyers waiting if you dare libel me". Heck Al Franken wrote a book with the title "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot"!
More hypocrisy from the left. Its gone from defending the free speech of KKK to threating libel actions....
What out for Michael Moore lawsuits through.....
on
Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
I agree that theaters shouldn't be pressured into showing his film. However, it doesn't seem as if Moore agrees with free speech all that much:
From Moore: "The most important thing we have is truth on our side. If they persist in telling lies, knowingly telling a lie with malice, then I'll take them to court." From http://slate.msn.com/id/2102725/
Also from the Slate article: "The Times also reported that Moore "has consulted with lawyers who can bring defamation suits against anyone who maligns the film or damages his reputation," and that he's established a "war room" to monitor attacks on the film. Lest anybody miss his threat, the filmmaker repeated it the same day on This Week With George Stephanopoulos and in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle, and will probably whistle the same libel tune all week long in publicity interviews for the film, which opens Friday."
So "libel" Moore and get a lawsuit. The hypocrisy!
And its not as if Moore hasn't been "fact-challenged" before. Roger Ebert, reciently wrote a great article in the Chicago Sun-Times about Moore's "fact-challenged" previous work "Bowling for Columbine". Mr. Ebert writes:
"Because I agree with Moore's politics, his inaccuracies pained me, and I wrote about them in my Answer Man column. Moore wrote me that he didn't expect such attacks "from you, of all people." But I cannot ignore flaws simply because I agree with the filmmaker. In hurting his cause, he wounds mine."
P.S. While Disney got rocked from the left for claims of "censorship" for not releasing Moore's movie, would the left had reacted the same if Disney produced a documentary prasing Bush and making Saddam look like Hitler? Or would the left have villified Disney as "corporate-propaganda". What makes a left-wing corporate-propaganda film wonderful and thought-provoking and a right-wing corporate-propaganda film evil? Nothing, they are both corporate-propaganda.
And isn't it dangerous in this age of campaign finance reform to invite corporations into the political process through "documentaries"? What is to stop Rupert Murdoch and 20th Century Fox from producting a series of right-wing documentaries. The left has no room to complain. From there it only gets worse...
I game on both the PC and on a PS2 and I can tell you that the PC is definitely far superior graphics wise right now. Consoles have some big limitations:
1) Consoles still tend to be limited by low-resolution TVs. XBox supports HDTV, but I haven't seen how good it is. Considering the cost of a decent HDTV system + speakers, you can definitely spend more on a high-end console setup than a high end PC setup.
2) Consoles always get a couple of generations behind in video cards. I regularly play Madden 2004 on my PC with a Radeon 9800. When I played in on a PS2 a couple of weekends ago it looked like crap in comparison.
3) Due to cost, consoles are limited in how much RAM is in them. A PS2 has only 32MB of RAM.An XBox has 64 MB This definitely limits things like the size of textures and the size of levels in a game.
That said, I love consoles for their ease of use, variety of games, and their quick play ability. Also, like popcorn movies, sometimes you just want to play something mindless and fun. Consoles are also alot better for groups of people.
Part of the problem is a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" atmosphere in Washington for a president. If you implement things like the Patriot Act and increased spying you are dinged for eroding liberties and not living up to your country's ideals. If you *don't* implement them and something happens (aka 9-11) you are dinged for not "doing enough" and all your opponents open up multi-year inquisitions into why you didn't stop it.
Noone said after 9-11 "Well, that sucked. But that's the price of living in a free society. We could have engaged in massive spying and black ops and we could have made it a living hell for any Muslim to get on a plane but we didn't because we wanted freedom." No, instead we open up commissions and inquiries and try to assign blame
And note that this same process would have happened no matter if a Democrat or a Republican were in office. I can't imaging what kind of criticism Gore would have faced during 9-11 from the right. Most likely, something like "See you elected that spineless eco-hippy and he let THIS happen."
We need to drop this "us vs. them" attitude FACT. Otherwise our country is in serious trouble. It is not healthy for political discourse when you believe your side is the almighty righteous and the other side is Hitler reincarnated (Bush for lefties and Hilary for righties).
From: http://www.eeoc.gov/types/sexual_harassment.html "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment."
The "offensive work environment" has been defined to include porn. See this on Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/harris.html
"Even though CP had not been offended by her co- workers' bawdy remarks, she believed that the posting of pornographic pictures demeaned women. She complained to her supervisor who refused to ask the employees to remove the pictures. Shortly thereafter, more pictures were posted. After again receiving no response to her complaint, CP filed a charge.
Based on these facts, an investigator should find that the conduct was unwelcome, i.e., that CP subjectively considered the pornographic pictures to be abusive. Her willingness to engage in sexual banter is not material to assessing her perception of the pictures."
IANAL, but at this point it is a completely reasonable argument that employers should install anti-porn software by default and that failure to do so constitutes neglect. And I'm sorry, but these issues about sexual harrassment were brought up far before Bush. And mostly by left-wing feminists (see Tailgate, Clarance Thomas, et al). If the government didn't install these filters and someone was viewing porn and it offended someone else then there would be a big scandal about it and Bush would be portrayed as the anti-feminist woman hating porno president.
And the poster forgot the obvious difference here between Iran and the US is that you can go home to your own computer if you want porn! You do not have the right to view porn on government (ie tax payer owned) computers. Heck, technically you don't have the right to view breastcancer.com unless it pertains to your work! So if you don't like the government's filters, tough. If you need the site to do your work email the admin. Otherwise, don't view the site on the taxpayer's dime.
The fundamental problem is with the way Western Civilization has decided to monetize clan structures, raising the floor on the cost of living, while it takes the deracinated clans and moves them into a pseudo-clan identity via national defense and police protection of monetized assets. Western civilization is now addicted to this con-game and can't allow people to reconstitute their clan structures lest they realize how horrendous the crime has been committed against them, and through them in their dracinated state, others around the world.
Definition of clan from Webster: 1 a : a Celtic group especially in the Scottish Highlands comprising a number of households whose heads claim descent from a common ancestor b : a group of people tracing descent from a common ancestor 2 : a group united by a common interest or common characteristics
"while it takes the deracinated clans and moves them into a pseudo-clan identity via national defense and police protection...reconstitute their clan structures"
Huh? Deracinated clans? Reconstitute their clan structures? So your solution to the problems of the world is to reverse back a couple thousand years to a time when people lived in small, distrusting clans? Huh? Civilization wasn't exactly fun when it was broken into small feudal systems, nor were people exactly free from their clan warlords.
And by bringing race into it, you seem to think these "clans" better off segregated.
That's great, just what we need. A bunch of racists, xenophobic clans who wage continual war against one another. BRILLIANT!
LOL. You want to live inside a little closed community, never poking your nose out, convinced that every time you buy something made by foreign devils you are trading a piece of your soul for it -- be my guest. I am living in a global world. Most of the stuff I buy, both cheap and expensive, comes from different countries -- Japan, China, Germany, Mexico, etc.
The problem isn't that it is foreign made. It is that it is foreign made in near slavery conditions with little concern for the safety or well-being of the workers. And there is little hope of better conditions because as soon as the workers get organized, the companies move to the next country.
You mean this stuff I'm drinking right now is only one atom from that flammable gas that can explode into a big fireball! And that additional atom, Oxygen, is highly flammable too! My glass of water may just spontaneously combust into a huge fireball in my stomach!
Arg, there should be a Chem 101, Phys 101, and Bio 101 prereq before posting on Slashdot. In chem, minor changes make a BIG difference.
"really Clinton trashed the economy? and I thought I heard something about the budget being balenced...I even heard some talk of a surplus... I do admit that the DMCA signing was bad but Bush IMO has done very little good for his 4 years so I say OUT."
Hate to break it to you, but this is real life not SimCountry. Presidents don't have these big screens where they control every aspect of the economy. This is especially true for the US since we have relatively few federal state-controlled industries. Politicians can manipulate a few things here or there, but there isn't really that much they can do but try something (lower taxes, lower interest rates) and hope the economy improves.
Clinton was fortunate enough to be president during a tech revolution. But honestly, we all knew that most of the late 90's boom was a mirage. We knew that all those internet companies at $150 stock prices were bogus and AOL buying Time Warner was rediculous. Reality had to set in sometime, and that time is the early 2000's. If anything, we are lucky we are not in a 30's style depression due to overspeculation. To say that Bush did something to cause all this is silly. If he did I'd like someone to explain specifically what Clinton did right and Bush did wrong.
As for deficit spending, it isn't all that bad. In many ways we are taking advantage of countries like China artifically propping up the value of the dollar. Eventually the dollar will fall, American goods will be cheaper, and outsourced foreign labor will be more expensive. Right now, for example, Harley-Davidson is enjoying awesome sales especially in Europe because of the lower value of the dollar.
So, this is indeed Capitalism 101, but at the distortion of market chapter. What needs to be done is a state-imposed standard on printer cartridges, to reinstate competition and fair pricing. Start bullying your politicians today!
Look, I know to the average geek ink prices are a big deal. But in the grand scheme of things printer ink cost isn't that important. It is a luxury item, after all. We don't *need* to print color pictures after all to live.
If you call the government in on such a minor issue would risk a nanny state where we need the government's permission to do anything. The government needs to be aware of the important stuff--food, water, housing, etc. But printer ink? Come on. If it begins to be enough of a problem someone will come along and sell a $200 printer with guaranteed $10 ink carts.
Heck, I can see Dell selling a $100 printer for $10 ink carts just to screw over HP's most profitable business.
Brian Ellenberger
Comparing apples and oranges---See DCOM and CORBA
on
Beyond An Open Source Java
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This is the real issue that Sun needs to address. Java is widely used in enterprise apps because it is easier and faster (therefore cheaper) to develop apps. However, EJBs have some fundamental flaws that add unnecessary complexity and network overhead. I have developed apps for some of the busiest sites in the world and the requirements to strip the code down to the essentials are not compatible with EJBs. More times than not, EJBs are ditched in favor of a servlet-based front-end and a proprietary persistence solution.
I don't mean this negatively, but if your problem is simple enough to solve with servlets then use servlets by all means. And yes, Entity Beans suck and should be avoided at all costs. And much of the time EJBs are overkill.
But if you need clusterable objects with failover and seemless transaction support nothing is easier than EJBs. Go try and do some CORBA or DCOM programming and see how complicated is can get. More power=more complexity.
Perhaps working towards avoiding real-world confrontation would be a more admirable goal? You know, compromise, diplomacy, accepting that others may see the world differently to you?
Now that could be good training. Deal with the conflict before getting your dicks (sorry, guns) out, hmmm?
Plenty of people study political theory and international relations.
However, the first lesson to learn from "accepting that others may see the world differently to you?" is that not everyone is interested in "diplomacy" and "compromise". Some see diplomacy as reaching the "correct" solution to a problem. Many others see it as trying to extract as much out of the other side as possible. What do you do when the two side can't even decide what diplomacy is?
And what happens, say, when people like Slobodan Milosevic decide to kill all the Muslims in their country simply because he doesn't like them? Compromise? "Well, what about if you only kill half the Muslims?" Accept that others may see the world differently to you? "Well, *I* don't think killing all the Muslims is a good idea, but who am I to judge?"
There is a time for diplomacy and a time for war. There is a time for compromise and understanding, and a time for standing up for yourself and your ideals. But anyway that's not the military's job. That is what our elected officials are for.
Brian Ellenberger
Popular speech needs no protection!
on
What You Can't Say
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
More accurately, it's not considered acceptable to voice poorly-supported fringe opinions
Galileo was "fringe" and the church believed his opinions were "poorly-supported" compared to their hundreds of years of theology.
What people fail to realize is that popular speech needs no protection! Everyone is happy to protect those whom they agree with. The tough part is protecting those you disagree with--especially those whom you vehemently disagree with and consider a danger.
So, racist speech is not acceptable (and shouldn't be), and there's nothing wrong with that.
Racist speech is the exact speech that *SHOULD* be protected and needs protected! Why? First of all, true racist speech can (and should) be rebutted instead of left festering hidden away somewhere. Second, all too often certain groups play the "race card" and claim racism to squash legitimate argument. Who is to judge whether speech is racist or not, especially when it involves a sensitive area such as affirmative action? You? The University? The Government?
for it, but please make a distinction between a vocal minority of shit-disturbers (who can be of any background/race/religion), the sensible majority (also diverse), and the administration (weasels).
Galileo, Martin Luther, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Jesus Christ are all examples of vocal minorities of disturbers fighting against the majority. Minority speech is *precisely* what needs protected! Who else is going to benefit from free speech protections? The "sensible majority"? The administration?
Brian Ellenberger
Sadly, universities have the least free speech....
on
What You Can't Say
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Sadly, universities are becoming the places where free speech is the *least* tolerated. Orwellian indoctrination classes and speech codes are the norm. Punishment for controversial speech is becoming more severe. College newspapers exposing "dangerous" thoughts are being stolen or banned. Anyone who speaks up is labeled a "racist conservative Nazi facist".
Why is this such a big leap in thinking? How many Vonage articles has Slashdot posted? What communications do you think won't be replaced by the Internet? Radio? TV? Phone? It's all just data. Radio is already on the Internet and Video-on-demand is somewhat available through *ahem* certain less than legal means. And we are starting to see phone. When wireless internet catches on how long till we see VoIP cell phones?
Strange that you didn't mention the abolute *WORST* thing our government has done to free speech and that is the unconsitutional campaign finance reform that was passed in large part through the efforts of so-called "progressives". If there was anything that the First Amendment was supposed to protect it was POLITICAL SPEECH. Apparently, protecting tax dollars for "Cruifixes in Urine" is far more important than protecting the right of groups of people to gather resources and voice their collective political opinions.
The problem with this rant (and many others) is that you pick and choose your freedoms. Free Speech is OK, unless it is "Evil Right Wing Nazi Hate Speech". Freedom of Religion is great unless it involves protecting a Christian's speech. Fourth Amendment is awesome but screw the evil Second Amendment because guns are bad! And to far too many people there are only NINE articles in the Bill of Rights. The mythical Tenth Amendment states:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
And forget all that stuff in the Constitution about Congress or the people making laws. They are far too bigoted and stupid for that. We will just rely on the fair and wise Judges of this land to do that.
Is it just me, or is the American business model to stick with a rigid plan, and when that plan becomes obsolete, whine, bitch and complain until the politicians you bought last election will come up with laws that protect your horribly backwards business model and crush any and all innovation in the country.
There are very valid points as to why VOIP have unfair advantages over POTS. IMHO, too many people are jumping on the VOIP bandwagon because it is "new" and because they are the "little guy" fighting against the big evil telephone co.
But there are serious questions that need answered. What about 911? What about the laws requiring certain reliability and uptime requirements? What about rural areas without highspeed internet? What about all the taxes that are added your phone company's bill and not on the VOIP bill? I'm sure there are other questions as well.
Don't be one of those dorky protesters who root for the underdog until 10 years later when the VOIP guys are the "big guys" and you start compaining because basic phone and 911 is no longer available in the middle of Mississippi.
Was anyone else disappointed at NWN? I haven't played any of the expansions, but I found the original game lacking in many ways to BG and Torment. You can definitely tell that Black Isle's story telling abilities are sorely missed. It never seemed to draw you in or give you any "cool" story experiences.
Secondly, the henchmen were utterly lacking. Part of the fun of the Infinite Engine games were the companions. I loved the companion interactions and definitely made the store much more enjoyable and meaningful. It wasn't just that you beat some badguy, but you had a journey. NWN henchmen seemed like a hack. Something bolted on as to not make it Diablo
Third, the tile engine was way too obvious. In many ways the Infinity Engines looked better. How many random identical looking caves can someone go through?
Lastly, the fights sucked. Mostly slashing weak monsters and an occasional boss. Of course, with only two companions there is only so much you can do.
I do think Bioware redeemed themselves with Knights of the Old Republic. While still a bit contrived, they have improved in their story telling and the combat and companion systems are greatly improved.
Probably as recently as a non-terrorist. Many 'terrorists' are pretty normal people caught up in situations where they see no option but to turn to violence in order to resist what they see as unbearable injustice. You may see people who are categorised as terrorists as automatically evil, but what would you do if your country had been occupied by a foreign power for the past 50 years, who treated you as a second class citizen, and was able to shoot people, such as your brother, without any form of punishment?
The difference between a "terrorist" and a "freedom fighter" is choice of targets, IMHO. Terrorists primarily target civilian targets. These are targets that are of no tactical or strategy value militarily. The idea is that if you kill enough civilians they will force the government to capitulate and you will get your way.
Freedom fighters generally attack military targets. When the US was fighting for freedom against the British, they didn't go and randomly kill people in London to prove a point. Likewise, when Afghanistan was invaded by the USSR to my knowledge the Afghans didn't go and suicide-bomb civilians in Moscow.
So IMHO, the USS Cole bombing was not a "terrorist" attack since it was against a military target. The World Trade Center attack was a civilian building and that is why I consider it an act of terrorism.
The injustice of terrorism is that *defenseless* people are *intentionally* killed for no significant reason. You can be a pro-Palestianian Jew and be blown up just for eating at the "wrong" restaurant at the wrong time and no Palestianian will will apologize or feel bad because you were just another Jew.
Slashdot Mirror
Given Newton's times, alchemy and astrology were not that far out of the mainstream and indeed had their part in the development of the sciences as the world moved out of the Medieval Period.
Heck before Newton's time, there arguably wasn't even Physics or Science! He discovered the laws of motion, helped discover Calculus, proved Kepler's laws of planetary motion, discovered the light spectrum, and helped to found the Scientific Method.
Rather than saying he studied Alchemy and Astrology as a pursuit, I think it is better said that he advanced the world from Alchemy and Astrology to something much greater
Brian EllenbergerTwo comments:
1. For 30+ years we have been wrestling with the consequences of simple Cigarettes! We have corporations hiding health info, playing with nicotine amounts, and a ton of cancer patients and billion dollar lawsuits. All for a drug which by all accounts is potentially deadly after long-term use but is comparatively benign. Unlike, say alcohol, coke, or heroin, it does not cause intoxication and cigarette addiction is very unlikely to cause you to lose your job and family.
Now considering everything you know about the tobacco companies and all that has come out in the past 30+ years, you really want a "more enlightened" policy leading to [insert Cigarettes company] brand heroin, cocaine, or crack? Only for 18+, of course....
2. From the article's poster:
I wouldn't be surprised to find existing phamaceutical companies excited by this, having to replace cheap drugs with something new, which they can patent and control.
Come on, enough with the tired "big bad evil phamaceutical company" conspiracy theory crap. For being so incredibly evil and selfish, they sure have cured a whole bunch of different diseases the past 50+ years. The way your talk, its like you think the companies are introducing viruses just to make cures for them. I wonder if you will change your thinking if you ever have, God forbid, cancer, heart disease, or fertility problems. Probably not...
Just because they don't give away their hard-earned discoveries for free doesn't make them evil. If you don't like it, don't use their discoveries! You can get 1970's era drugs real cheap generically. Good luck surviving.
Brian Ellenberger
Brave people don't mod down, they reply. True cowards use overrated.
about the same proportion speaks Hindi
:)
If your talking about India, then I think your wrong about Hindi. From the CIA factbook:
English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language
30% of a billion is ~300 million or less than the population of the US. Nothing to sneeze at but not 1/6.
In talking with an Indian coworkers, one of the things that struck me was how little of their native languages they knew or remembered. In particular, one guy brought out his passport. It had two languages, an Indian one and English. He could only understand one of them---Engish. He laughed about it, but I felt very "culturally imperialist" when he pointed it out.
IMHO, one of the reasons that India has been so successful in outsoucing is that so many people know English. There is much less of a language barrier in communicating designs or requirements.
Brian Ellenberger
But let's say Bill Gates gets a tax cut (or some other wealthy businessman). Does this mean the Microsoft will hire more people? Not likely. MS has billions in cash, they can hire whoever they like. Bill's a smart guy - MS hires people when they need people, not when they have more cash. This can be applied to any large wealthy company.
Two points:A) If you have extra cash you can afford to invest in new projects which requires hiring new people. If you are short on cash then your more careful about new projects. If you have a very large amount of cash you can afford to blow it on risky R&D.
B) More importantly, in my opinion, is the fact that the more money the government controls the more powerful it becomes---and a government which is too powerful is something to be feared. IMHO, most of the posters on Slashdot lack a healthy fear of the government. The government is the ultimate monopoly---one that can arbitrarily increase its income, has a large standing army, and can come in at any time and take away your freedom.
The more money and power the government has, the more people rely on it, the more it will control our lives. Once the government gets too large and people become too reliant then not even democracy will help since those in power can simply use that reliance to defeat anyone who wishes to change things.
Brian EllenbergerNote: I'm merely throwing out a hypothetical, this is not necessarily my belief. Just a discussion point.
On Slashdot, it is commonly argued and agreed upon that "security thru obscurity" is a falacy and the best way to get yourself into trouble. Obscure facts and details are eventually discovered and exploited. It is better to have all source and algorithms out in the open, have everyone pick at it, find the holes and patch them.
Compare this to the commonly held belief in keeping all personal information "secret". If someone tries hard enough, they can pretty much discover any information about yourself. Private detectives, for example, specialize in "hacking" personal information (arrest record, who you are sleeping with). Would it not be better to "open source" your life and deal with the consequences? Your SSN and Credit Card numbers should be secured with something better than mere obscurity, for example. If you are cheating on your spouse you would assume you are going to be caught and be able to deal with the consequences. With everything out in the open we don't have to worry about blackmail and dirty tricks and you better know people's character and motivations. Kinda like looking inside a program's source and seeing the flaws.
Note, these are NOT my opinions, just things that went through my head at 10pm.
Brian Ellenberger
If someone can truthfully say something bad about the film or Moore, there's little he can do about that.
Except sue you anyway. SLAPP lawsuits anyone? Chilling effects? What is your average blogger going to do if he questions a point Moore makes and gets sued by multi-millionare Moore and (potentially) Miramax. Not much. Ever think maybe Moore is playing the lawyer card early so that average people will be afraid to rip up the inaccuracies in this film like they did with his previous film?
If this wasn't left-wing, there would be a much bigger outcry. Can you imaging if Rush or Hannity or Coulter said "I have an army of lawyers waiting if you dare libel me". Heck Al Franken wrote a book with the title "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot"!
More hypocrisy from the left. Its gone from defending the free speech of KKK to threating libel actions....
I agree that theaters shouldn't be pressured into showing his film. However, it doesn't seem as if Moore agrees with free speech all that much:
From Moore: "The most important thing we have is truth on our side. If they persist in telling lies, knowingly telling a lie with malice, then I'll take them to court." From http://slate.msn.com/id/2102725/
Also from the Slate article: "The Times also reported that Moore "has consulted with lawyers who can bring defamation suits against anyone who maligns the film or damages his reputation," and that he's established a "war room" to monitor attacks on the film. Lest anybody miss his threat, the filmmaker repeated it the same day on This Week With George Stephanopoulos and in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle, and will probably whistle the same libel tune all week long in publicity interviews for the film, which opens Friday."
So "libel" Moore and get a lawsuit. The hypocrisy!
And its not as if Moore hasn't been "fact-challenged" before. Roger Ebert, reciently wrote a great article in the Chicago Sun-Times about Moore's "fact-challenged" previous work "Bowling for Columbine". Mr. Ebert writes:
"Because I agree with Moore's politics, his inaccuracies pained me, and I wrote about them in my Answer Man column. Moore wrote me that he didn't expect such attacks "from you, of all people." But I cannot ignore flaws simply because I agree with the filmmaker. In hurting his cause, he wounds mine."
From http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-feature/cst-ftr- moore18.html
Brian EllenbergerP.S. While Disney got rocked from the left for claims of "censorship" for not releasing Moore's movie, would the left had reacted the same if Disney produced a documentary prasing Bush and making Saddam look like Hitler? Or would the left have villified Disney as "corporate-propaganda". What makes a left-wing corporate-propaganda film wonderful and thought-provoking and a right-wing corporate-propaganda film evil? Nothing, they are both corporate-propaganda.
And isn't it dangerous in this age of campaign finance reform to invite corporations into the political process through "documentaries"? What is to stop Rupert Murdoch and 20th Century Fox from producting a series of right-wing documentaries. The left has no room to complain. From there it only gets worse...
I game on both the PC and on a PS2 and I can tell you that the PC is definitely far superior graphics wise right now. Consoles have some big limitations:
1) Consoles still tend to be limited by low-resolution TVs. XBox supports HDTV, but I haven't seen how good it is. Considering the cost of a decent HDTV system + speakers, you can definitely spend more on a high-end console setup than a high end PC setup.
2) Consoles always get a couple of generations behind in video cards. I regularly play Madden 2004 on my PC with a Radeon 9800. When I played in on a PS2 a couple of weekends ago it looked like crap in comparison.
3) Due to cost, consoles are limited in how much RAM is in them. A PS2 has only 32MB of RAM. An XBox has 64 MB This definitely limits things like the size of textures and the size of levels in a game.
That said, I love consoles for their ease of use, variety of games, and their quick play ability. Also, like popcorn movies, sometimes you just want to play something mindless and fun. Consoles are also alot better for groups of people.
Brian
Part of the problem is a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" atmosphere in Washington for a president. If you implement things like the Patriot Act and increased spying you are dinged for eroding liberties and not living up to your country's ideals. If you *don't* implement them and something happens (aka 9-11) you are dinged for not "doing enough" and all your opponents open up multi-year inquisitions into why you didn't stop it.
Noone said after 9-11 "Well, that sucked. But that's the price of living in a free society. We could have engaged in massive spying and black ops and we could have made it a living hell for any Muslim to get on a plane but we didn't because we wanted freedom." No, instead we open up commissions and inquiries and try to assign blame
And note that this same process would have happened no matter if a Democrat or a Republican were in office. I can't imaging what kind of criticism Gore would have faced during 9-11 from the right. Most likely, something like "See you elected that spineless eco-hippy and he let THIS happen."
We need to drop this "us vs. them" attitude FACT. Otherwise our country is in serious trouble. It is not healthy for political discourse when you believe your side is the almighty righteous and the other side is Hitler reincarnated (Bush for lefties and Hilary for righties).
Brian EllenbergerHow to get out of doing tech support for your family.
From: http://www.eeoc.gov/types/sexual_harassment.html
"Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment."
The "offensive work environment" has been defined to include porn. See this on Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/harris.html
"Even though CP had not been offended by her co- workers' bawdy remarks, she believed that the posting of pornographic pictures demeaned women. She complained to her supervisor who refused to ask the employees to remove the pictures. Shortly thereafter, more pictures were posted. After again receiving no response to her complaint, CP filed a charge.
Based on these facts, an investigator should find that the conduct was unwelcome, i.e., that CP subjectively considered the pornographic pictures to be abusive. Her willingness to engage in sexual banter is not material to assessing her perception of the pictures."
IANAL, but at this point it is a completely reasonable argument that employers should install anti-porn software by default and that failure to do so constitutes neglect. And I'm sorry, but these issues about sexual harrassment were brought up far before Bush. And mostly by left-wing feminists (see Tailgate, Clarance Thomas, et al). If the government didn't install these filters and someone was viewing porn and it offended someone else then there would be a big scandal about it and Bush would be portrayed as the anti-feminist woman hating porno president.
And the poster forgot the obvious difference here between Iran and the US is that you can go home to your own computer if you want porn! You do not have the right to view porn on government (ie tax payer owned) computers. Heck, technically you don't have the right to view breastcancer.com unless it pertains to your work! So if you don't like the government's filters, tough. If you need the site to do your work email the admin. Otherwise, don't view the site on the taxpayer's dime.
Brian Ellenberger
The fundamental problem is with the way Western Civilization has decided to monetize clan structures, raising the floor on the cost of living, while it takes the deracinated clans and moves them into a pseudo-clan identity via national defense and police protection of monetized assets. Western civilization is now addicted to this con-game and can't allow people to reconstitute their clan structures lest they realize how horrendous the crime has been committed against them, and through them in their dracinated state, others around the world.
Definition of clan from Webster:
1 a : a Celtic group especially in the Scottish Highlands comprising a number of households whose heads claim descent from a common ancestor b : a group of people tracing descent from a common ancestor
2 : a group united by a common interest or common characteristics
"while it takes the deracinated clans and moves them into a pseudo-clan identity via national defense and police protection...reconstitute their clan structures"
Huh? Deracinated clans? Reconstitute their clan structures? So your solution to the problems of the world is to reverse back a couple thousand years to a time when people lived in small, distrusting clans? Huh? Civilization wasn't exactly fun when it was broken into small feudal systems, nor were people exactly free from their clan warlords.
And by bringing race into it, you seem to think these "clans" better off segregated.
That's great, just what we need. A bunch of racists, xenophobic clans who wage continual war against one another. BRILLIANT!
Brian Ellenberger
LOL. You want to live inside a little closed community, never poking your nose out, convinced that every time you buy something made by foreign devils you are trading a piece of your soul for it -- be my guest.
I am living in a global world. Most of the stuff I buy, both cheap and expensive, comes from different countries -- Japan, China, Germany, Mexico, etc.
The problem isn't that it is foreign made. It is that it is foreign made in near slavery conditions with little concern for the safety or well-being of the workers. And there is little hope of better conditions because as soon as the workers get organized, the companies move to the next country.
You mean this stuff I'm drinking right now is only one atom from that flammable gas that can explode into a big fireball! And that additional atom, Oxygen, is highly flammable too! My glass of water may just spontaneously combust into a huge fireball in my stomach!
Arg, there should be a Chem 101, Phys 101, and Bio 101 prereq before posting on Slashdot. In chem, minor changes make a BIG difference.
Brian Ellenberger
Hate to break it to you, but this is real life not SimCountry. Presidents don't have these big screens where they control every aspect of the economy. This is especially true for the US since we have relatively few federal state-controlled industries. Politicians can manipulate a few things here or there, but there isn't really that much they can do but try something (lower taxes, lower interest rates) and hope the economy improves.
Clinton was fortunate enough to be president during a tech revolution. But honestly, we all knew that most of the late 90's boom was a mirage. We knew that all those internet companies at $150 stock prices were bogus and AOL buying Time Warner was rediculous. Reality had to set in sometime, and that time is the early 2000's. If anything, we are lucky we are not in a 30's style depression due to overspeculation. To say that Bush did something to cause all this is silly. If he did I'd like someone to explain specifically what Clinton did right and Bush did wrong.
As for deficit spending, it isn't all that bad. In many ways we are taking advantage of countries like China artifically propping up the value of the dollar. Eventually the dollar will fall, American goods will be cheaper, and outsourced foreign labor will be more expensive. Right now, for example, Harley-Davidson is enjoying awesome sales especially in Europe because of the lower value of the dollar.
Brian EllenbergerSo, this is indeed Capitalism 101, but at the distortion of market chapter. What needs to be done is a state-imposed standard on printer cartridges, to reinstate competition and fair pricing. Start bullying your politicians today!
Look, I know to the average geek ink prices are a big deal. But in the grand scheme of things printer ink cost isn't that important. It is a luxury item, after all. We don't *need* to print color pictures after all to live.
If you call the government in on such a minor issue would risk a nanny state where we need the government's permission to do anything. The government needs to be aware of the important stuff--food, water, housing, etc. But printer ink? Come on. If it begins to be enough of a problem someone will come along and sell a $200 printer with guaranteed $10 ink carts.
Heck, I can see Dell selling a $100 printer for $10 ink carts just to screw over HP's most profitable business.
Brian Ellenberger
This is the real issue that Sun needs to address. Java is widely used in enterprise apps because it is easier and faster (therefore cheaper) to develop apps. However, EJBs have some fundamental flaws that add unnecessary complexity and network overhead. I have developed apps for some of the busiest sites in the world and the requirements to strip the code down to the essentials are not compatible with EJBs. More times than not, EJBs are ditched in favor of a servlet-based front-end and a proprietary persistence solution.
I don't mean this negatively, but if your problem is simple enough to solve with servlets then use servlets by all means. And yes, Entity Beans suck and should be avoided at all costs. And much of the time EJBs are overkill.
But if you need clusterable objects with failover and seemless transaction support nothing is easier than EJBs. Go try and do some CORBA or DCOM programming and see how complicated is can get. More power=more complexity.
Brian Ellenberger
Perhaps working towards avoiding real-world confrontation would be a more admirable goal? You know, compromise, diplomacy, accepting that others may see the world differently to you?
Now that could be good training. Deal with the conflict before getting your dicks (sorry, guns) out, hmmm?
Plenty of people study political theory and international relations.
However, the first lesson to learn from "accepting that others may see the world differently to you?" is that not everyone is interested in "diplomacy" and "compromise". Some see diplomacy as reaching the "correct" solution to a problem. Many others see it as trying to extract as much out of the other side as possible. What do you do when the two side can't even decide what diplomacy is?
And what happens, say, when people like Slobodan Milosevic decide to kill all the Muslims in their country simply because he doesn't like them? Compromise? "Well, what about if you only kill half the Muslims?" Accept that others may see the world differently to you? "Well, *I* don't think killing all the Muslims is a good idea, but who am I to judge?"
There is a time for diplomacy and a time for war. There is a time for compromise and understanding, and a time for standing up for yourself and your ideals. But anyway that's not the military's job. That is what our elected officials are for.
Brian Ellenberger
Galileo was "fringe" and the church believed his opinions were "poorly-supported" compared to their hundreds of years of theology.
What people fail to realize is that popular speech needs no protection! Everyone is happy to protect those whom they agree with. The tough part is protecting those you disagree with--especially those whom you vehemently disagree with and consider a danger.
So, racist speech is not acceptable (and shouldn't be), and there's nothing wrong with that.Racist speech is the exact speech that *SHOULD* be protected and needs protected! Why? First of all, true racist speech can (and should) be rebutted instead of left festering hidden away somewhere. Second, all too often certain groups play the "race card" and claim racism to squash legitimate argument. Who is to judge whether speech is racist or not, especially when it involves a sensitive area such as affirmative action? You? The University? The Government?
for it, but please make a distinction between a vocal minority of shit-disturbers (who can be of any background/race/religion), the sensible majority (also diverse), and the administration (weasels).Galileo, Martin Luther, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Jesus Christ are all examples of vocal minorities of disturbers fighting against the majority. Minority speech is *precisely* what needs protected! Who else is going to benefit from free speech protections? The "sensible majority"? The administration?
Brian EllenbergerSadly, universities are becoming the places where free speech is the *least* tolerated. Orwellian indoctrination classes and speech codes are the norm. Punishment for controversial speech is becoming more severe. College newspapers exposing "dangerous" thoughts are being stolen or banned. Anyone who speaks up is labeled a "racist conservative Nazi facist".
If you want detailed specifics check out the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Brian Ellenberger
Why is this such a big leap in thinking? How many Vonage articles has Slashdot posted? What communications do you think won't be replaced by the Internet? Radio? TV? Phone? It's all just data. Radio is already on the Internet and Video-on-demand is somewhat available through *ahem* certain less than legal means. And we are starting to see phone. When wireless internet catches on how long till we see VoIP cell phones?
What do you see as not being replaced eventually?
Brian Ellenberger
Strange that you didn't mention the abolute *WORST* thing our government has done to free speech and that is the unconsitutional campaign finance reform that was passed in large part through the efforts of so-called "progressives". If there was anything that the First Amendment was supposed to protect it was POLITICAL SPEECH. Apparently, protecting tax dollars for "Cruifixes in Urine" is far more important than protecting the right of groups of people to gather resources and voice their collective political opinions.
The problem with this rant (and many others) is that you pick and choose your freedoms. Free Speech is OK, unless it is "Evil Right Wing Nazi Hate Speech". Freedom of Religion is great unless it involves protecting a Christian's speech. Fourth Amendment is awesome but screw the evil Second Amendment because guns are bad! And to far too many people there are only NINE articles in the Bill of Rights. The mythical Tenth Amendment states:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
And forget all that stuff in the Constitution about Congress or the people making laws. They are far too bigoted and stupid for that. We will just rely on the fair and wise Judges of this land to do that.
Brian EllenbergerThere are very valid points as to why VOIP have unfair advantages over POTS. IMHO, too many people are jumping on the VOIP bandwagon because it is "new" and because they are the "little guy" fighting against the big evil telephone co.
But there are serious questions that need answered. What about 911? What about the laws requiring certain reliability and uptime requirements? What about rural areas without highspeed internet? What about all the taxes that are added your phone company's bill and not on the VOIP bill? I'm sure there are other questions as well.
Don't be one of those dorky protesters who root for the underdog until 10 years later when the VOIP guys are the "big guys" and you start compaining because basic phone and 911 is no longer available in the middle of Mississippi.
BrianWas anyone else disappointed at NWN? I haven't played any of the expansions, but I found the original game lacking in many ways to BG and Torment. You can definitely tell that Black Isle's story telling abilities are sorely missed. It never seemed to draw you in or give you any "cool" story experiences.
Secondly, the henchmen were utterly lacking. Part of the fun of the Infinite Engine games were the companions. I loved the companion interactions and definitely made the store much more enjoyable and meaningful. It wasn't just that you beat some badguy, but you had a journey. NWN henchmen seemed like a hack. Something bolted on as to not make it Diablo
Third, the tile engine was way too obvious. In many ways the Infinity Engines looked better. How many random identical looking caves can someone go through?
Lastly, the fights sucked. Mostly slashing weak monsters and an occasional boss. Of course, with only two companions there is only so much you can do.
I do think Bioware redeemed themselves with Knights of the Old Republic. While still a bit contrived, they have improved in their story telling and the combat and companion systems are greatly improved.
Brian EllenbergerProbably as recently as a non-terrorist. Many 'terrorists' are pretty normal people caught up in situations where they see no option but to turn to violence in order to resist what they see as unbearable injustice. You may see people who are categorised as terrorists as automatically evil, but what would you do if your country had been occupied by a foreign power for the past 50 years, who treated you as a second class citizen, and was able to shoot people, such as your brother, without any form of punishment?
The difference between a "terrorist" and a "freedom fighter" is choice of targets, IMHO. Terrorists primarily target civilian targets. These are targets that are of no tactical or strategy value militarily. The idea is that if you kill enough civilians they will force the government to capitulate and you will get your way.
Freedom fighters generally attack military targets. When the US was fighting for freedom against the British, they didn't go and randomly kill people in London to prove a point. Likewise, when Afghanistan was invaded by the USSR to my knowledge the Afghans didn't go and suicide-bomb civilians in Moscow.
So IMHO, the USS Cole bombing was not a "terrorist" attack since it was against a military target. The World Trade Center attack was a civilian building and that is why I consider it an act of terrorism.
The injustice of terrorism is that *defenseless* people are *intentionally* killed for no significant reason. You can be a pro-Palestianian Jew and be blown up just for eating at the "wrong" restaurant at the wrong time and no Palestianian will will apologize or feel bad because you were just another Jew.
Brian Ellenberger