Actually, from memory, it is 1.3-1.9 million a year in the US. Not, perh., enough to put a serious dent in things, but enough to have an effect. The US would have a population on the order of 20 million larger if not for abortion.
I leave it to the reader to decide whether this is good or bad. I certainly have my own opinion, but it is hardly germane.
Actually, falling birth rates are a Bad Idea(tm) for the simple reason that it is the young who support the old in many ways. Who pays Social Security? The young. Who pays for Medicare? The young. Which 1/8th of the population sucks up 1/3 of medical resources? The old.
This is all fine and dandy, and I cannot say that I begrudge them that money (although in 1997 it was to the tune of $1,986 per man, woman and child in public medical expenditures for the elderly). But if there are more and more old people and fewer and fewer young, eventually the young will revolt against it.
...with less resources used to feed, shelter, clothe, house and educate the young ('cause there will be less of them) it should be quite easy to care of the old.
Who do you think actually creates resources like food, shelter, clothing, homes and education? The young. Without producers, these things don't exist. Most of the economy, while based on natural resources, is devoted to building on those resources. Workers built your computer. Workers laid the fibre to Slashdot. Workers run Slashdot. The old don't produce (much), esp. regarding material things. They do tend to produce more intellectual artifacts, but someone must print the books, cut down the trees for paper &c. Again, there's nothing wrong with this; after a lifetime of labour, it's nice to relax (although 20 years of relaxation seems a bit much), but one must recognise that the workers (i.e. the young) are the motive force for economy. They consume and produce while the old simply consume.
Procreation is a Good Thing(tm). It ensures the survival of one's genes (biologically) and one's experiences and thoughts (socially, as one's children, raised right, carry at least elements of one's philosophy). There are other ways of making a mark, but only a handful may be famous in their own right, and only a fraction of those are known to a third or fourth generation.
Plus it's so fun:-P
P.s.: Yes, I used US social programs. It is a) because I am from the US b) I am taking a class in contemporary health care policy (bleachh, but...) and c) more non-US citizens are likely to know about the US system (from simple exposure) than non-Blueland citizens are to know about programs in Blueland.
he equivalent developer certificate is the "MCSD", which requires you to know the Windows API and either VC++ or VB.
!!! That's ridiculous. VB is no more a serious development tool than is COBOL. This points out, once again, the need for independent developer certification. Why? Just graduating with a CS degree does not mean a whole lot. Past employmeny may or may not mean something.
OTOH, we wouldn't wish to become like doctors or lawyers (where you cannot practice without the association's imprimatur). I'm thinking soemthing more like unto the universities and colleges: they can be accredited, but don't need to be. There could be a Free Software Foundation dev. cert., a Red Hat dev. cert., an Independent Software Developer's Association cert. &&c. It might be pretty nice.
Of course, there are those of us who do prefer suits for work and leisure. Granted, they take a little getting used to. But so does wearing clothes in the first place. There are several advantages to traditional clothing:
Layered--you can take off layers as the heat goes up and put them back on again as it cools down
Better protection from the elements--shorts & t-shirt lead to all sorts of nasty sunburns and wind chapping. As an old hiking hand, I would rather hike in slacks than short pants any day.
More professional--not for the obvious, culturally-based reason (i.e. 'That's what professionals wear'), but because a tasteful outfit is infinitely better than any 'Eat at Joe's,' 'Linux Rox,' 'M$ Sux' shirt could ever be
More comfortable--you laugh, but wear a pair of slacks then a pair of jeans and you'll see
I was greatly disappointed to see that at my job with IBM we switched last year from shirt and tie to 'business casual.' At least here at college I can wear a coat & tie every day of the week if I like. Which I do. I haven't worn a t-shirt more than twice in 3 1/4 years and don't plan on it any time soon.
Nothing against other people wearing their underwear on the outside (that's what it looks like) if that's their thing. But a little bit of understanding for those of us on the other side of the equation would be nice.
But man are t-shirts an ugly form of pseudo-clothing. Blecch.
How does this get moderated to +2 as opposed to -1 (Flamebait)? Imagine if this drivel were written about some other religion. Substitute:
Moslems, in my mind, are very often the most violent, evil people around (I'm going on the numbers here, I'd wager that almost all of the Middle Eastern terrorists aare Moslem).
Jews, in my mind, are very often the richest people around (I'm going on the numbers here, I'd wager that a lot have money).
It's amazing the sort of intolerance some people have. Somehow Christians are the worst people around in the minds of several of the inhabits of/. for some reason.
Any other group, and you'd have screams, shouts and lawsuits.
So boys want to fantasize about driving fast cars( car accidents cause more death in the US yearly than the whole Vietnam war) and shooting others while girls want to fantasize about getting pink dresses, a cute house and a nice kitchen.
Well, I never had any sisters, but I have three younger brothers. My parents never let us have toy guns (my Dad was a career naval officer and didn't want us to go into that line of work), didn't let us watch much television, believing it a bad experience and generally tried to bring us up to be civilised.
For the most part part they succeeded; we were much more polite and well-behaved than other kids our age (not ego here; people use to come up to us in restaraunts and compliment my parents). But in one area they failed rather miserably: keeping us from being violent. My first brother and I made rubber band guns and swords from Construx, but the younger two really took it to a whole new level; they would take sticks from the trees and the grounds, grind them against the sidewalk ar stones to put a point or edge on them, and would attack each other with these improvised spears and swords. They would bombard each other with pine cones and pebbles.
Fortunately for my brothers, they never actually hurt one another and Mom and Dad didn't notice it most of the time (when they did, they put a stop to it, of course).
Little boys love fighting and being soldiers and probably always have. Grown men tend to as well. There's soemthing about running around, fighting, feeling important and heroic, chasing one's foe, defeating him and celebrating that is just fun. I can't say that any of the girls I was a friend of back then were into any that.
Vive la difference (or is it le difference?). Boys and girls are different. The one is not better than the other; in fact, they complement each other. The ideal man is one who is fierce and warlike when needed and civilised and polite otherwise. C. S. Lewis wrote an excellent essay on the need for men to be like Launcelot, who gloried in battle and shed tears in the baquet hall, in other words who combined the masculine and the feminine in a masculine manner. The same goes for women, which is why excessively 'girly' women are as annoying as excessively masculine men. The ideal woman combines the masculine and the feminine in a feminine manner. The two sexes complement; one without the other is lacking something.
Personally, I think that much of these problems are due to the over-emphasis that the 'male' traits get in our culture (note that I have no idea whether or not these are actually in-born; I do tend to think so). Few bother to exalt the feminine to the degree that they exalt the masculine. That's the real problem.
Computer are no longer simply tools. Were they mere tools, we would not be reading Slashdot right now (there are other sources of news, some much more in-depth). The truth is that computers both tools and toys. They stimualte both sides of the brain, they engage both logic and emotion. This is a Good Thing(tm); Western thought has given short shrift to emotion for far too long now.
The rise of computer games which require more power than aught else on the computer is a demonstration of just how important the toy aspect of computers. In time we may have a first-person computer interface to a library of files. I don't know if it would an improvement over a standard file manager (I have a feeling that it would, if only because a three dimensional visual representation can hold more information than a 2D icon), but it is now possible. But for now we have some dashed good games.
On the tool side, we now have almost more than enough power for what we need to do. The days of batch-processed Fortran jobs are well behind us; even an Excel spreadsheet can do more than most of those old systems (not that I like Excel, but it does have a certain amount of ill-constructed power).
The world wide web demonstrates this: in it you may find everything from information to entertainment. More and more the two are the blended into one whole (/. is an excellent example). This is a very good thing; maybe we are at last close to rejoining emotion and thought and harnessing each for its proper use.
This is not to say that I don't sometimes thing that a computer is only for work. But then I start using my Mac or my Linux box and I realise that there is a more than intellectual stimulation here.
The problem is that even simple things like 'Don't hurt people' and 'Do help people' necessarily need more interpretation than that. The fellow down the hall who feels it necessary to witness to me every other day feels that he is helping me (hate to tell him, but I'm already a Christian, just not his sort, and I don't need a new flavour of the month).
There are those who say all killing is wrong; there are those who say that some killing is justified; I even know a few chaps who see naught wrong with killing if it is convenient (scary, but c'est la vie). Who's correct? Whose version of ethics should be taught?
The solution is to allow the student or his agents (i.e. his parents) make that decision by selecting the appropriate school. I might disagree with some of the schools and with some of their teaching, but that is not my business.
I look at ethics education as I look at prayer in schools: I don't want just any random 'ethics facilitator' any more than I want my kids (should I ever have any) being led in prayer by just anyone. Prayer, religion and ethics do have a place in schools, but not in public schools.
That's why everyone (Christian, Jewish, Moslem, atheist, liberal, conservative, science-oriented, liberal srts-focused &c.) needs to decide to abandon public schooling and embrace choice in education. Only in that manner can students receive the education they need in a fair manner. Public schooling is a compromise which cannot satisfy anyone completely. Private schools cannot completely satisfy either, but they come much closer. If you'd rather your kid not get indoctrinated into this or that belief, send him to a school that doesn't teach it. Not only that, but at a private school the opinions of parents matter somewhat; if you voice a complaint about an item on the curriculum (say, the vilification of hackers), you might just cause a change.
hmm, so the education system ins actually a brainwashing system. Well of course; any education is a form of brainwashing; even the most well-balanced presentation of information will be slanted and biased in some form. There's naught at all wrong with this. Not only is it an inevitable result of teaching (whether by others or oneself), but I think that it is necessary as human knowledge is too great for any one man to know it all. Therefor one must limit oneself. My primary focus is on computers and religion, with a pretty hefty secondary focus on politics and literature. Another's might be on sports and engineering first with secondary emphases on translation and carpentry; nothing wrong with either choice.
To get back to the subject at hand, there is nothing wrong with this bias as long as it is recognised and able to be controlled for. The major problem arises with publicly-funded education: the cost of private education rises until only the middle and upper classes can afford to choose what focus their childrens' educations will have (the poor can still get into private, esp. parochial, schools on scholarships and work-study programs, but it's made more difficult). Many who can afford it don'r make their own arrangements regarding education because it's easier just to pack them off in the morning to the same old place.
And so what might have been a minor program in a particular school (annoying, but no big deal) becomes a nation-wide nuisance. Although my major beef is with the term 'hacker.' That poor word is about on its last knees from the abuse it has received at the hands of those who should know better. This will probably drive the last nail in its coffin. Pity, as it was a good word.
Discouraging computer crime, OTOH, is no bigger a deal than discouraging physical crime. The argument that computers should not be left open does have some merit, but exploiting holes is hardly using an open door; it is sneaking through a side window. In a trespass case you might be able to argue that the gate to the yard was open and so you let yourself in, but saying you hopped the wall because you had a ladder would hold no water whatsoever.
Yeah, I know; we use Arabic (actually Hindu IIRC) numerals. I originally wrote Roman-lettered languages, but then realised that I was writing on numerals, so I just changed the second word. 'Roman numeral' is a common phrase, so my brain didn't even pick it up.
Hardly. IMHO, the whole reason for 'service packs' is that companies like the Colossus of Redmond feel that it makes them look better to release a service pack rather than a bugfix release.
The more insidious effect is that this encourages the whole 'software as car' idea: yearly upgrades for cosmetic reasons, the notion that software is expected to have problems requiring a bit of servicing, and worst of all, the notion that a trained serviceman is required to work on said software (e.g. MSCE).
A far better solution is to aim for perfection, plan for failure and release bug fixes as needed. Besides that, RedHat 6.1 is much easier to say and deal with than NT 4.0 Service Pack 4. Plus the version numbering system gives a finer level of granularity: <major release>.<minor release/bug fix>.<developmental release/minor bug fix>. In a way, it's similar to the English system of measurements: a unit for each job (sorry, couldn't resist:-). Seriously though, it's more compact and more elegant. It packs more information into a smaller package, plus it requires no translation (well, not into Roman-numeral languages anyway). And it doesn't add any nasty new buzzwords to our already overloaded language.
It makes perfect sense: if a vendor desires to keep its driver source proprietary, they cannot use GPL code in it. So they can contact these people and purchase the source under a different license, thereby preserving their trade secret.
Of course, the big question is why a printer driver must needs be a trade secret.
The other question is what to do with any submitted code. It cannot be sold by this company to other companies without the author's permission. Perhaps they've already thought of this...
It's pretty hard when you don't have the manual and your monitor does not have any useable info printed on the back of it. This is a fairly common situation a) at work and b) when you buy a computer secondhand.
Besides, why should X need to be told about it when Windows 9X & NT, MacOS, BeOS and others can figure it out for themselves? I submit that it is an itch wh. no-one cares about scratching; you get your system running with baling wire and duct tape and then it never bothers you again.
As a general rule, as little input from the user as possible should be required. The CPU has enough idle cycles to figure nearly anything out. Let it.
I have seen There's Something About Mary and South Park. I didn't really like either; the laugh-to-groan ratio was way too low (much like the latest Austin Powers flick; nowhere near as good as the first). The real issue, though, is when Katz states that they are fine for nine yr. olds.
Pardon? I don't think that a nine yr. old needs to see a fellow jacking off, or Saddam Hussein waving penises at Satan. Granted, I can see little wrong with letting a sixteen yr. old in; by the time one hits that age one is pretty used to the world. But nine is way too young. Hell, when I was nine I still thought girls had cooties (man was I wrong...).
For that matter, I didn't need to see them. I watched TSAM on a trans-Atlantic flight, so it was basically wasted time anyway. SP was just a complete waste of time and money IMHO. I've enjoyed the show (Heidy-ho Kyle! Respect my authority! OMGTKK! YB!) to a certain extent, but the movie was a) over the top b) inordinately crude and worst of all c) just not funny enough. I can forgive just about anything if the movie ends up being funny, but SP just wasn't. I realise that I am in the minority here.
But back to my prev. point: kids twelve and under shouldn't be let in to see R movies. There's generally a reason why they're R. Granted, some movies get the wrong rating, but I cannot recall the last such one.
The idea that a movie cannot harm is false for several reasons. The biggest is this: GIGO. Yes, just like a computer, our own output is a function of the inputs we have received over the years. If we've grown up watching our fathers beat our mothers, we too are likely to do the same (or poss. become extremely non-violent; the point is that it affects us). If we grow up watching propaganda we are likely to believe it (e.g: how many people now believe that the Serbs are a) evil and b) allied with the Nazis in WWII?). If we grow up watching violent movies filled with filth, gore, perversion and debauchery, then our threshold for that sort of thing is raised.
No, going to see Pulp Fiction does not make anyone (well, hardly anyone--the mentally unstable are another matter entirely) a murderer. But it raises the threshold just a hair. Add that up over the years and you get a very definite coarsening effect.
I may sound ridiculous. Ask any parent about how kids behave after seeing a movie. Even teenagers get more or less agressive for days to weeks after seeing movies. I am not advocating a ban on movies. For all sorts of reasons that would be a bad idea. But a reasonable sense of restraint is in order.
Jon Katz seems incapable of exercising that restraint.
So, if I think that my seven year old is mature enough to take my car down to the liquor store and get Dad a nice bottle of single-malt Scotch, that no one should be able to stop me.
I cannot see why not. IMHO, parents should be responsible for the actions of their children. If a parent allows the child to drive the car, fine. If the child has an accident, then the parent is responsible legally for that accident.
If a child buys liquor for a parent, who cares? If the kid buys that liquor and gets drunk, who cares? If the kid buys liquor, gets drunk and assaults someone, then the parent is legally responsible.
We need to get rid of these laws which limit our rights in order to protect us from possible harm. In many of these so-called crimes there is no corpus delicti, no injured party. Crimes without injured parties are not crimes at all.
Hate to say this, but this article is pratically the same (it may be exactly the same, but I'm not about to perform a byte-by-byte comparison) as the one at The Freedom Forum (one of those first-amendment-only freedom sites, from what I can tell).
Actually, on reading it I notice that there are a few minor differences. Can't Katz put out some original work?
That said, neither article was particularly ground-breaking. I learned nothing and my interest failed to be sparked. The articles are rehashes of facts. What they need is an analysis of said facts. That's the problem with much of Katz's writing: it lacks analysis. If I want facts, I can go to the encyclopædia.
Every time crypto export regs come up for discussion, people say that the regs are nonsensical, that the theory is that the rest of the world is too stupid to develop strong crypto. This is incorrect on both counts.
Let me state at the outset that I support an elimination of the crypto export regs as I do not believe that they are effective. They have not prevented strong crypto from reaching the rest of the world, and esp. not the black hats, who are after all the sole legitimate target of this sort of thing anyway.
The idea that crypto is a munition is correct. It is a tool which is used to defend oneself (in this case, one's data) from an enemy. It can be used by one's enemies to defend their data from your perusal. Lest you think that this is a minor argument, recall that we won WWII mainly through the strength of our cryptology work; without it the Germans and Japanese would have controlled the globe (I discount the Italians for the simple reason that they would have in time been absorbed by the Germans).
The logic of denying one's enemy weapons is not that he cannot develop them for himself; it is rather that there is no point in developing them for him. Anyone can make an atomic weapon; it's not that hard to do. But we don't allow them to be sold. This keeps the barrier to entry higher than it would otherwise be. Ditto for cryptology. Anyone with a semi-decent grasp of programming and a book on cryptology can come up with a workable encryption program. But why should the US do the work for him?
There are legitimate concerns about cryptology. It makes intelligence gathering much more difficult, forcing it to rely on fallible human agents much more than on intercepted transmissions. Our national status is at present due in large part to the efficiency of our intelligence apparatus. Without it, we are much weakened (although not entirely; we also have an excellent military and a top-notch economy).
Unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag in regards to cryptology. With modern software only one person need duplicate functionality for the entire world to use it. Our export restrictions on cryptology now do more harm than good (and they do do good, by making it more difficult for encryption to be used); they have hurt the international competitiveness of our industry. Hence they must be revoked.
Crying that they're holding back technology means nothing; it's like a chemical firm complaining that chemical weapons restrictions are holding it back. It is futile and wastes precious political capital.
As regards encryption with the borders of the US, it is quite rightly allowed. This is a nation which deems rights more important than security. Hence the First, Second, Fifth and other Amendments. This is why we are innocent until proven guilty. This is why the right to encrypt one's data is preserved. IMHO, we should add a new amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing that right.
However, an internal right does no mean that it means anything when crossing international borders. A right to say what one wishes here does not nec. mean that one can carry that tape out of this country or into another. Otherwise espionage would be legal. Restricting export is not a free speech issue. It's a bad idea for other, equally important, reasons.
Not with IPv6, which I think works out to an IP for every cell in every man's body. It wouldn't be like the telephone system, which has an incredibly small address space. Well not really (is there an upper limit on telephone numbers?), but the US space is only 10 digits, with 1 and 0 ruled out for the 4th digit (because within an area code you leave out the first 3 digits). It used to be even worse: area codes had a middle digit of 0 or 1 and the 5th digit also was constrained to 2-9.
IP numbers should be assigned in blocks to geographical areas. Routers can easily handle this. Networks should be based on geographical areas as well. With IPv6 it will be possible to have geographical networks. For those who will need them, it will also be possible to claim additional blocks for their own private networks.
In the real world there is a finite amount of goods. Yet we don't see all that much outright left. Existing property law would have taken care of radio broadcasters, once the initial stations had been assigned or claimed. Granted, some small amount of oversight would have still been needed, but that's life.
What the FCC should do is state that all those now holding licenses are henceforth the actual owners of those frequencies in their geographic areas. Any unclaimed or unused frequency is in the public domain and may be squatted. Anyone who fails to use his frequency for a length of time (say, 6 months to a year) loses it. There are of course some bugs which would need ironing out, but it would work fairly well, I think.
Just as it is illegal to expand your fence to include your neighbor's fields, so it would be illegal to increase transmission power to drown him out. The radio frequency is a finite good just like land, cheese and everything else. It can be dealt with under the same laws.
The FCC controls speech and the airwaves. This should be stopped.
True, the rights came at a cost. But the now cost us nothing. It costs me naught at all to let my neighbor speak freely. It hurts me not one bit if I refuse to torture him. It doesn't interfere in the slightest with my life if I allow him to bear arms.
That is what I mean by rights. They may cost money to win, but the rights themselves ar free. Food, for example, is not a right; it must be earned. If I give you food, I no longer have that piece of bread, or fish, or filet mignon or whatever.
This actually ties back to computers. One can argue that software is a right precisely because it costs nothing for me to give it to you. This is one of the FSF's points, I believe.
Hmmm... They've had those before. France, England, China, Japan. They have all now ditched them. I'm assuming of course that you have yourself in mind for this aristocracy. Sounds like you have little or no real life experience, ( that.edu in your addy is a dead giveaway )
Actually, those were more monarchies. I am thinking of a decentralised hereditary government. Something along the lines of Rome, only decentralised. Not that it'd nec. work, but it'd be better than this ridiculous republic we have. The only way a man can be trusted to run a government is if he has been trained for it from birth. The idea that any Joe Schmoe (or, more accurately, lawyer) can suddenly aquire the wisdom of Solomon upon being sworn in is utter folly.
Aristocracies in place in countries like Brunei, Saudi Arabia, etc. are rife with corruption, nepotism and human rights abuses.
I submit that this is due more to cultural reasons. Read up on Saxon history for an example of mostly fair, mostly decent kings. No system is perfect. Monarchy is to susceptible to malevolent kings; democracy to susceptible to stagnation under complacent citizens. Oligarchy is a happy medium. An aristocracy, properly structured, can be a quite functional oligarchy.
I cannot say if capitalism requires that there be poor people. I know that the free market does not. Naturally, there are those who are not as well of. This, in a perfect market, would be because they or some ancestor were foolish/lazy/gullible/dissolute or for some other reason never did well. It happens. I will never be rich. But, with the proper amount of work, I may arrange it so that my children will be comfortable and that, assuming that my kids are intelligent, my grandchildren will be wealthy.
I worked a minimum wage 32.5 hour/week work-study job in the summer when I was at college, and was able to live off of it -- barely. I had no car at the time, and was renting a room the size of a large closet for $100/month plus utilities from some friends of mine. It's not an experience I would care to repeat.
The summer after my freshman year I worked 40 hours a week at minimum wage. I too had no car. Yet I managed to live very well, sharing a $600/month plus utilities house with 2 others in the middle of a Texan summer. I received no money from my parents, no help of any sort from anyone at all, and yet I managed to do pretty well. You wouldn't be able to support a family on that sort of money, but it kept me alive, happy, well-fed and out of the rain. I even saved enough money to pay for my books the next two semesters and keep my bar stocked. It is doable, if a bit tight.
I would never say that blue-collar workers are lazy. I would say that all men are lazy. Everyone wants something for nothing, a free lunch. I know I do, that everyone I know does, that the entire history of the world points in that direction. Everyone wants to maximise return while minimising expenditures. Among other things, that's called budgeting.
I don't advocate capitalism; I advocate the free market. There is a difference. Capitalism is based on the charging of interest, something which I dislike, and several major religions abhor. There's a reason that it was forbidden for so long.
The free market is the only way to consistently get the true, efficient and appropriate price for goods. Socialism does not work (having been to the UK, Belgium and France I can honestly say that the US is a nicer place, although I'd love to spend two years in London) and cannot. The US is a socialist state just like every other modern nation. It's just not as far gone as the rest.
Slashdot Mirror
I leave it to the reader to decide whether this is good or bad. I certainly have my own opinion, but it is hardly germane.
This is all fine and dandy, and I cannot say that I begrudge them that money (although in 1997 it was to the tune of $1,986 per man, woman and child in public medical expenditures for the elderly). But if there are more and more old people and fewer and fewer young, eventually the young will revolt against it.
Who do you think actually creates resources like food, shelter, clothing, homes and education? The young. Without producers, these things don't exist. Most of the economy, while based on natural resources, is devoted to building on those resources. Workers built your computer. Workers laid the fibre to Slashdot. Workers run Slashdot. The old don't produce (much), esp. regarding material things. They do tend to produce more intellectual artifacts, but someone must print the books, cut down the trees for paper &c. Again, there's nothing wrong with this; after a lifetime of labour, it's nice to relax (although 20 years of relaxation seems a bit much), but one must recognise that the workers (i.e. the young) are the motive force for economy. They consume and produce while the old simply consume.
Procreation is a Good Thing(tm). It ensures the survival of one's genes (biologically) and one's experiences and thoughts (socially, as one's children, raised right, carry at least elements of one's philosophy). There are other ways of making a mark, but only a handful may be famous in their own right, and only a fraction of those are known to a third or fourth generation.
Plus it's so fun:-P
P.s.: Yes, I used US social programs. It is a) because I am from the US b) I am taking a class in contemporary health care policy (bleachh, but...) and c) more non-US citizens are likely to know about the US system (from simple exposure) than non-Blueland citizens are to know about programs in Blueland.
!!! That's ridiculous. VB is no more a serious development tool than is COBOL. This points out, once again, the need for independent developer certification. Why? Just graduating with a CS degree does not mean a whole lot. Past employmeny may or may not mean something.
OTOH, we wouldn't wish to become like doctors or lawyers (where you cannot practice without the association's imprimatur). I'm thinking soemthing more like unto the universities and colleges: they can be accredited, but don't need to be. There could be a Free Software Foundation dev. cert., a Red Hat dev. cert., an Independent Software Developer's Association cert. &&c. It might be pretty nice.
I was greatly disappointed to see that at my job with IBM we switched last year from shirt and tie to 'business casual.' At least here at college I can wear a coat & tie every day of the week if I like. Which I do. I haven't worn a t-shirt more than twice in 3 1/4 years and don't plan on it any time soon.
Nothing against other people wearing their underwear on the outside (that's what it looks like) if that's their thing. But a little bit of understanding for those of us on the other side of the equation would be nice.
But man are t-shirts an ugly form of pseudo-clothing. Blecch.
Moslems, in my mind, are very often the most violent, evil people around (I'm going on the numbers here, I'd wager that almost all of the Middle Eastern terrorists aare Moslem).
Jews, in my mind, are very often the richest people around (I'm going on the numbers here, I'd wager that a lot have money).
It's amazing the sort of intolerance some people have. Somehow Christians are the worst people around in the minds of several of the inhabits of /. for some reason.
Any other group, and you'd have screams, shouts and lawsuits.
Well, I never had any sisters, but I have three younger brothers. My parents never let us have toy guns (my Dad was a career naval officer and didn't want us to go into that line of work), didn't let us watch much television, believing it a bad experience and generally tried to bring us up to be civilised.
For the most part part they succeeded; we were much more polite and well-behaved than other kids our age (not ego here; people use to come up to us in restaraunts and compliment my parents). But in one area they failed rather miserably: keeping us from being violent. My first brother and I made rubber band guns and swords from Construx, but the younger two really took it to a whole new level; they would take sticks from the trees and the grounds, grind them against the sidewalk ar stones to put a point or edge on them, and would attack each other with these improvised spears and swords. They would bombard each other with pine cones and pebbles.
Fortunately for my brothers, they never actually hurt one another and Mom and Dad didn't notice it most of the time (when they did, they put a stop to it, of course).
Little boys love fighting and being soldiers and probably always have. Grown men tend to as well. There's soemthing about running around, fighting, feeling important and heroic, chasing one's foe, defeating him and celebrating that is just fun. I can't say that any of the girls I was a friend of back then were into any that.
Vive la difference (or is it le difference?). Boys and girls are different. The one is not better than the other; in fact, they complement each other. The ideal man is one who is fierce and warlike when needed and civilised and polite otherwise. C. S. Lewis wrote an excellent essay on the need for men to be like Launcelot, who gloried in battle and shed tears in the baquet hall, in other words who combined the masculine and the feminine in a masculine manner. The same goes for women, which is why excessively 'girly' women are as annoying as excessively masculine men. The ideal woman combines the masculine and the feminine in a feminine manner. The two sexes complement; one without the other is lacking something.
Personally, I think that much of these problems are due to the over-emphasis that the 'male' traits get in our culture (note that I have no idea whether or not these are actually in-born; I do tend to think so). Few bother to exalt the feminine to the degree that they exalt the masculine. That's the real problem.
The rise of computer games which require more power than aught else on the computer is a demonstration of just how important the toy aspect of computers. In time we may have a first-person computer interface to a library of files. I don't know if it would an improvement over a standard file manager (I have a feeling that it would, if only because a three dimensional visual representation can hold more information than a 2D icon), but it is now possible. But for now we have some dashed good games.
On the tool side, we now have almost more than enough power for what we need to do. The days of batch-processed Fortran jobs are well behind us; even an Excel spreadsheet can do more than most of those old systems (not that I like Excel, but it does have a certain amount of ill-constructed power).
The world wide web demonstrates this: in it you may find everything from information to entertainment. More and more the two are the blended into one whole (/. is an excellent example). This is a very good thing; maybe we are at last close to rejoining emotion and thought and harnessing each for its proper use.
This is not to say that I don't sometimes thing that a computer is only for work. But then I start using my Mac or my Linux box and I realise that there is a more than intellectual stimulation here.
There are those who say all killing is wrong; there are those who say that some killing is justified; I even know a few chaps who see naught wrong with killing if it is convenient (scary, but c'est la vie). Who's correct? Whose version of ethics should be taught?
The solution is to allow the student or his agents (i.e. his parents) make that decision by selecting the appropriate school. I might disagree with some of the schools and with some of their teaching, but that is not my business.
I look at ethics education as I look at prayer in schools: I don't want just any random 'ethics facilitator' any more than I want my kids (should I ever have any) being led in prayer by just anyone. Prayer, religion and ethics do have a place in schools, but not in public schools.
That's why everyone (Christian, Jewish, Moslem, atheist, liberal, conservative, science-oriented, liberal srts-focused &c.) needs to decide to abandon public schooling and embrace choice in education. Only in that manner can students receive the education they need in a fair manner. Public schooling is a compromise which cannot satisfy anyone completely. Private schools cannot completely satisfy either, but they come much closer. If you'd rather your kid not get indoctrinated into this or that belief, send him to a school that doesn't teach it. Not only that, but at a private school the opinions of parents matter somewhat; if you voice a complaint about an item on the curriculum (say, the vilification of hackers), you might just cause a change.
To get back to the subject at hand, there is nothing wrong with this bias as long as it is recognised and able to be controlled for. The major problem arises with publicly-funded education: the cost of private education rises until only the middle and upper classes can afford to choose what focus their childrens' educations will have (the poor can still get into private, esp. parochial, schools on scholarships and work-study programs, but it's made more difficult). Many who can afford it don'r make their own arrangements regarding education because it's easier just to pack them off in the morning to the same old place.
And so what might have been a minor program in a particular school (annoying, but no big deal) becomes a nation-wide nuisance. Although my major beef is with the term 'hacker.' That poor word is about on its last knees from the abuse it has received at the hands of those who should know better. This will probably drive the last nail in its coffin. Pity, as it was a good word.
Discouraging computer crime, OTOH, is no bigger a deal than discouraging physical crime. The argument that computers should not be left open does have some merit, but exploiting holes is hardly using an open door; it is sneaking through a side window. In a trespass case you might be able to argue that the gate to the yard was open and so you let yourself in, but saying you hopped the wall because you had a ladder would hold no water whatsoever.
Doh!
:-P
The more insidious effect is that this encourages the whole 'software as car' idea: yearly upgrades for cosmetic reasons, the notion that software is expected to have problems requiring a bit of servicing, and worst of all, the notion that a trained serviceman is required to work on said software (e.g. MSCE).
A far better solution is to aim for perfection, plan for failure and release bug fixes as needed. Besides that, RedHat 6.1 is much easier to say and deal with than NT 4.0 Service Pack 4. Plus the version numbering system gives a finer level of granularity: <major release>.<minor release/bug fix>.<developmental release/minor bug fix>. In a way, it's similar to the English system of measurements: a unit for each job (sorry, couldn't resist:-). Seriously though, it's more compact and more elegant. It packs more information into a smaller package, plus it requires no translation (well, not into Roman-numeral languages anyway). And it doesn't add any nasty new buzzwords to our already overloaded language.
Of course, the big question is why a printer driver must needs be a trade secret.
The other question is what to do with any submitted code. It cannot be sold by this company to other companies without the author's permission. Perhaps they've already thought of this...
Besides, why should X need to be told about it when Windows 9X & NT, MacOS, BeOS and others can figure it out for themselves? I submit that it is an itch wh. no-one cares about scratching; you get your system running with baling wire and duct tape and then it never bothers you again.
As a general rule, as little input from the user as possible should be required. The CPU has enough idle cycles to figure nearly anything out. Let it.
I have seen There's Something About Mary and South Park. I didn't really like either; the laugh-to-groan ratio was way too low (much like the latest Austin Powers flick; nowhere near as good as the first). The real issue, though, is when Katz states that they are fine for nine yr. olds.
Pardon? I don't think that a nine yr. old needs to see a fellow jacking off, or Saddam Hussein waving penises at Satan. Granted, I can see little wrong with letting a sixteen yr. old in; by the time one hits that age one is pretty used to the world. But nine is way too young. Hell, when I was nine I still thought girls had cooties (man was I wrong...).
For that matter, I didn't need to see them. I watched TSAM on a trans-Atlantic flight, so it was basically wasted time anyway. SP was just a complete waste of time and money IMHO. I've enjoyed the show (Heidy-ho Kyle! Respect my authority! OMGTKK! YB!) to a certain extent, but the movie was a) over the top b) inordinately crude and worst of all c) just not funny enough. I can forgive just about anything if the movie ends up being funny, but SP just wasn't. I realise that I am in the minority here.
But back to my prev. point: kids twelve and under shouldn't be let in to see R movies. There's generally a reason why they're R. Granted, some movies get the wrong rating, but I cannot recall the last such one.
The idea that a movie cannot harm is false for several reasons. The biggest is this: GIGO. Yes, just like a computer, our own output is a function of the inputs we have received over the years. If we've grown up watching our fathers beat our mothers, we too are likely to do the same (or poss. become extremely non-violent; the point is that it affects us). If we grow up watching propaganda we are likely to believe it (e.g: how many people now believe that the Serbs are a) evil and b) allied with the Nazis in WWII?). If we grow up watching violent movies filled with filth, gore, perversion and debauchery, then our threshold for that sort of thing is raised.
No, going to see Pulp Fiction does not make anyone (well, hardly anyone--the mentally unstable are another matter entirely) a murderer. But it raises the threshold just a hair. Add that up over the years and you get a very definite coarsening effect.
I may sound ridiculous. Ask any parent about how kids behave after seeing a movie. Even teenagers get more or less agressive for days to weeks after seeing movies. I am not advocating a ban on movies. For all sorts of reasons that would be a bad idea. But a reasonable sense of restraint is in order.
Jon Katz seems incapable of exercising that restraint.
So, if I think that my seven year old is mature enough to take my car down to the liquor store and get Dad a nice bottle of single-malt Scotch, that no one should be able to stop me.
I cannot see why not. IMHO, parents should be responsible for the actions of their children. If a parent allows the child to drive the car, fine. If the child has an accident, then the parent is responsible legally for that accident.
If a child buys liquor for a parent, who cares? If the kid buys that liquor and gets drunk, who cares? If the kid buys liquor, gets drunk and assaults someone, then the parent is legally responsible.
We need to get rid of these laws which limit our rights in order to protect us from possible harm. In many of these so-called crimes there is no corpus delicti, no injured party. Crimes without injured parties are not crimes at all.
Sheesh.
Hate to say this, but this article is pratically the same (it may be exactly the same, but I'm not about to perform a byte-by-byte comparison) as the one at The Freedom Forum (one of those first-amendment-only freedom sites, from what I can tell).
Actually, on reading it I notice that there are a few minor differences. Can't Katz put out some original work?
That said, neither article was particularly ground-breaking. I learned nothing and my interest failed to be sparked. The articles are rehashes of facts. What they need is an analysis of said facts. That's the problem with much of Katz's writing: it lacks analysis. If I want facts, I can go to the encyclopædia.
Every time crypto export regs come up for discussion, people say that the regs are nonsensical, that the theory is that the rest of the world is too stupid to develop strong crypto. This is incorrect on both counts.
Let me state at the outset that I support an elimination of the crypto export regs as I do not believe that they are effective. They have not prevented strong crypto from reaching the rest of the world, and esp. not the black hats, who are after all the sole legitimate target of this sort of thing anyway.
The idea that crypto is a munition is correct. It is a tool which is used to defend oneself (in this case, one's data) from an enemy. It can be used by one's enemies to defend their data from your perusal. Lest you think that this is a minor argument, recall that we won WWII mainly through the strength of our cryptology work; without it the Germans and Japanese would have controlled the globe (I discount the Italians for the simple reason that they would have in time been absorbed by the Germans).
The logic of denying one's enemy weapons is not that he cannot develop them for himself; it is rather that there is no point in developing them for him. Anyone can make an atomic weapon; it's not that hard to do. But we don't allow them to be sold. This keeps the barrier to entry higher than it would otherwise be. Ditto for cryptology. Anyone with a semi-decent grasp of programming and a book on cryptology can come up with a workable encryption program. But why should the US do the work for him?
There are legitimate concerns about cryptology. It makes intelligence gathering much more difficult, forcing it to rely on fallible human agents much more than on intercepted transmissions. Our national status is at present due in large part to the efficiency of our intelligence apparatus. Without it, we are much weakened (although not entirely; we also have an excellent military and a top-notch economy).
Unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag in regards to cryptology. With modern software only one person need duplicate functionality for the entire world to use it. Our export restrictions on cryptology now do more harm than good (and they do do good, by making it more difficult for encryption to be used); they have hurt the international competitiveness of our industry. Hence they must be revoked.
Crying that they're holding back technology means nothing; it's like a chemical firm complaining that chemical weapons restrictions are holding it back. It is futile and wastes precious political capital.
As regards encryption with the borders of the US, it is quite rightly allowed. This is a nation which deems rights more important than security. Hence the First, Second, Fifth and other Amendments. This is why we are innocent until proven guilty. This is why the right to encrypt one's data is preserved. IMHO, we should add a new amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing that right.
However, an internal right does no mean that it means anything when crossing international borders. A right to say what one wishes here does not nec. mean that one can carry that tape out of this country or into another. Otherwise espionage would be legal. Restricting export is not a free speech issue. It's a bad idea for other, equally important, reasons.
Not with IPv6, which I think works out to an IP for every cell in every man's body. It wouldn't be like the telephone system, which has an incredibly small address space. Well not really (is there an upper limit on telephone numbers?), but the US space is only 10 digits, with 1 and 0 ruled out for the 4th digit (because within an area code you leave out the first 3 digits). It used to be even worse: area codes had a middle digit of 0 or 1 and the 5th digit also was constrained to 2-9.
But IPv6 has an incredibly huge address space.
IP numbers should be assigned in blocks to geographical areas. Routers can easily handle this. Networks should be based on geographical areas as well. With IPv6 it will be possible to have geographical networks. For those who will need them, it will also be possible to claim additional blocks for their own private networks.
In the real world there is a finite amount of goods. Yet we don't see all that much outright left. Existing property law would have taken care of radio broadcasters, once the initial stations had been assigned or claimed. Granted, some small amount of oversight would have still been needed, but that's life.
What the FCC should do is state that all those now holding licenses are henceforth the actual owners of those frequencies in their geographic areas. Any unclaimed or unused frequency is in the public domain and may be squatted. Anyone who fails to use his frequency for a length of time (say, 6 months to a year) loses it. There are of course some bugs which would need ironing out, but it would work fairly well, I think.
Just as it is illegal to expand your fence to include your neighbor's fields, so it would be illegal to increase transmission power to drown him out. The radio frequency is a finite good just like land, cheese and everything else. It can be dealt with under the same laws.
The FCC controls speech and the airwaves. This should be stopped.
True, the rights came at a cost. But the now cost us nothing. It costs me naught at all to let my neighbor speak freely. It hurts me not one bit if I refuse to torture him. It doesn't interfere in the slightest with my life if I allow him to bear arms.
That is what I mean by rights. They may cost money to win, but the rights themselves ar free. Food, for example, is not a right; it must be earned. If I give you food, I no longer have that piece of bread, or fish, or filet mignon or whatever.
This actually ties back to computers. One can argue that software is a right precisely because it costs nothing for me to give it to you. This is one of the FSF's points, I believe.
Hmmm... They've had those before. France, England, China, Japan. They have all now ditched them. I'm assuming of course that you have yourself in mind for this aristocracy. Sounds like you have little or no real life experience, ( that .edu in your addy is a dead giveaway )
Actually, those were more monarchies. I am thinking of a decentralised hereditary government. Something along the lines of Rome, only decentralised. Not that it'd nec. work, but it'd be better than this ridiculous republic we have. The only way a man can be trusted to run a government is if he has been trained for it from birth. The idea that any Joe Schmoe (or, more accurately, lawyer) can suddenly aquire the wisdom of Solomon upon being sworn in is utter folly.
Aristocracies in place in countries like Brunei, Saudi Arabia, etc. are rife with corruption, nepotism and human rights abuses.
I submit that this is due more to cultural reasons. Read up on Saxon history for an example of mostly fair, mostly decent kings. No system is perfect. Monarchy is to susceptible to malevolent kings; democracy to susceptible to stagnation under complacent citizens. Oligarchy is a happy medium. An aristocracy, properly structured, can be a quite functional oligarchy.
I cannot say if capitalism requires that there be poor people. I know that the free market does not. Naturally, there are those who are not as well of. This, in a perfect market, would be because they or some ancestor were foolish/lazy/gullible/dissolute or for some other reason never did well. It happens. I will never be rich. But, with the proper amount of work, I may arrange it so that my children will be comfortable and that, assuming that my kids are intelligent, my grandchildren will be wealthy.
I worked a minimum wage 32.5 hour/week work-study job in the summer when I was at college, and was able to live off of it -- barely. I had no car at the time, and was renting a room the size of a large closet for $100/month plus utilities from some friends of mine. It's not an experience I would care to repeat.
The summer after my freshman year I worked 40 hours a week at minimum wage. I too had no car. Yet I managed to live very well, sharing a $600/month plus utilities house with 2 others in the middle of a Texan summer. I received no money from my parents, no help of any sort from anyone at all, and yet I managed to do pretty well. You wouldn't be able to support a family on that sort of money, but it kept me alive, happy, well-fed and out of the rain. I even saved enough money to pay for my books the next two semesters and keep my bar stocked. It is doable, if a bit tight.
I would never say that blue-collar workers are lazy. I would say that all men are lazy. Everyone wants something for nothing, a free lunch. I know I do, that everyone I know does, that the entire history of the world points in that direction. Everyone wants to maximise return while minimising expenditures. Among other things, that's called budgeting.
True laiz-fair capitalism has *never* worked
I don't advocate capitalism; I advocate the free market. There is a difference. Capitalism is based on the charging of interest, something which I dislike, and several major religions abhor. There's a reason that it was forbidden for so long.
The free market is the only way to consistently get the true, efficient and appropriate price for goods. Socialism does not work (having been to the UK, Belgium and France I can honestly say that the US is a nicer place, although I'd love to spend two years in London) and cannot. The US is a socialist state just like every other modern nation. It's just not as far gone as the rest.