No religion ensures its principles are actually followed. Much less any of the "book" religions that are so damned complex (all the books say different things!, even within the same creed).
The only religion where that angle is well taken care of is budhism. And thats only because its too abstract to actually cause any sort of debate about this or that principle.
Reality flies in your face: did you know that 90% of catholic priests accept to having violated their celibacy at one point or another, at least in spain (and boy, are they catholic there!).
So yeah. Many catholic priests are iluminated people that really believe their creed (and, at least to me, it looks like a beautifull creed, as deep and interersting as any other thousends-of-years-old religion).
So yeah, many catholic priests really like their job and many DO FEEL FORCED by a celibacy rule that EVERYONE (within catholicism) knows was imposed not by any apostol, its not in the bible, but was imposed by a couple of big wigheads (popes) that were in serius need of dough and were planning for the future (the church gets the inheritance, not any sort of family).
SO... i mean, i understand not in every country is the catholic religion important enough so that anyone knows this kind of details (im no catholic, i just live in a country that thinks the vatican is quite a big deal), but hey, youre here to learn as much as anyone. Aint this slashdot?
A member of the armed forces (a GENERAL!), a policeman, a firefighter, the owner of a barbershop, a barman, a sailor, just-from-frisco-but-not-gay, capitan of the school's wrestling team....
I mean, i add this to the lists so that no one feels left out. Poor closet gays, you gave them the choice of being either catholic priests or politicians!
Your "give away" of your code actually puts it not in the public domain, but under full copyright law (at least in my country). I wouldnt touch your code with a 12 meter pole.
Yeah... gcc is not succesful, the GNU toolset is not successfull, gnome is not successfull, all that GPL stuff that gets bundled in every single Unix is not successfull, emacs is not successfull.... shall I go on?
And of course! other software with other licenses is ALSO very successfull... GOOD, aint it?
Its not one OR another license. Its WHEN to use one and WHEN to use another that matter.
No, you are right, animated pics are better at conveying simulations than a blackboard.
But then my question gets transformed to this: if using multimedia tech becomes a trend and gvmnt starts spending on it as a way to revolutionize the future workforce so that its better educated, is there such a thing as "too much" tech?
Would it be dangerous to subsitute physics labs with IT simulations? Dangerous in that it really does not help MOST kids understand newton's equations? Not better than the lab and pencil dragging that comes from it?
Its like, you know, the cool HP scientiffic calculators: they can be used to solve problems more efficiently, but they also can be used for students to cheat their way out of learning mathematical models and the WAY THOSE get created.
What is impossible to substitute at the lab with any kind of simulation? Is there really anything that cant be done reasonably well in a simulation?
This is what I mean by "learning models": i dont think we have them pinned down with or without IT, so im skeptical of the software that purpotedly "helps" students learn.
IT in education is too young. I dont think the right models for education have been developed anyhow, much less good software that supports them.
The thing is that education is severely tied into media: from the greeks and their oral traditions, to the medieval cult of the books, to the discovery of print, education has been transformed by the media in which we store and confer information.
Today, that media is becoming a universally accessible cloud. I think current trends of education that favor the use of PowerPoint as a better tool than a blackboard are ok in terms of efficiency, and they might really convey information in a better way.
The question that I make myself is not about efficiency, but about the difference between information and knowledge. Yeah, sure, tech conveys info. it also MAY convey knowledge of SOME things that are encodable in our new tool (the net, for example).
But knowledge? Is viewwing a simulation of a physic phenomenon the same as taking the weighs in the labs and proving them yourself? Is it the same viewing a simulation of the parabolic shot, than actually going into the lab, meassuring force, launching a thingie, see how far it got and THEN using newtons tools to see if they still work.
In a word: can we ever substitute experience through tech?
Im not qualifying that part. What im saying (and youd know if you read the full post), is that the foundation also does stuff to ensure Microsoft's dominance in the third world. And i cite a very direct and verifiable example
You obviously know nothing about the FOSS or OSS movement's stories, not to say anything about the opening of mozilla.
Who convinced netscape of the mozilla decition? ESR, right? And WHY did he do that? Go read HIS BOOK. While youre at it, go ask JWZ or read his posts about the whole thing.
Yes... BSD was there before, Licklider was there before, wikipedia is also not an original idea. But WHO MADE THEM?
The ones that did, and now we can all enjoy them. BSD would NEVER be commercially successfull in the market like linux IS. Sun, the first BSD based company, droped it in favor of their own flavor of SYSV Unix.
The difference is, precisely, the GPL. If you wanna play with linux, you HAVE to abide by it and the sharing it imposes. With a BSD, you just close it and be on your marry way to build your own brand and software, which takes competition to other areas: introducing incompatibilities to foster lock-in.
Everything is GNU. Linux is really a small part of the equation. A very important one, but smaller then the whole of GNU.
The same can be said about apache. Even thoguh totally independent and runnable everywhere, the combo of GNU/LINUX/APACHE is what beats the shit out of anything else out there.
This is like the worst argument EVER against FOSS's NATURAL way of promoting competition.
Without VNC, my friend, we would ALL be FUCKING STUCK with citrix: a sole vendor solution that sort-of, kind-of, works for basically ONE platform.
With VNC, MANY vendors can enter that arena and compete on the same base differentiating their product as they go along.
Now the trick here is that by your thinking, VNC shouldve been closed source to "compete" with citrix. But, you see, competition is almost never really exclusively a product vs. product issue. Competition happens in the market: brand positioning, sales capacity, market prescence, all of that is more important than the solution itself (if this wasnt the case, microsoft wouldve died with winME).
However, if you pick up an IBM HS21 bladecenter, youll see it integrates VNC as the thingie (horrendous by the way) through which you work with your blade servers.
If you pick up plenty of remote administration solutions that include seamless remote installing and filecopying, those include the VNC protocol as well, but add it other values...
Etc, etc, etc. The idea of remote viewing thingies in computers is NOT a citrix idea. Its NOT a UNIX idea. Its NOT a windows idea. For christ sakes, LICKLIDER's team (talk about ancient history), had already forseen it!
Propietary software provides imaginary walls to protect imaginary "inventions" that are nobodie's in the first place: it stiffles innovation by allowing basically pirates of other people ideas and granting them monopolies over basic simple stuff that are OBVIOUS WAYS one would use a computer since the DAMNED THING was invented properly (read Lickliders essays, in particular: The Computer as a Communications Device... we are talking 1962 at the latest, if i recall correctly).
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
Thats not charity. Thats taking care of brand positioning in the future.
Now of course the foundation ALSO does some great things, with no strings attached. But when it comes to technology.... well, they just do what the founder needs them to do.
Activex should've died a simple rapid death a decade ago. Microsoft is willing to actually make their stuff standards compliant: that'll mess much more many people up than killing activex off.
In any case, I dont care at all: ive necer used activex and I never will. Hell, i dont even use IE and never will.
Why? because its funny to recognize that yes, things may happen first here or there as an idea, but the ones that pin it down, or the ones that simply get lucky, end up with the win anyhow.
Modern republic started in france, and then DIED on them. Only to rise up again in the Americas and then BACK to france (to the joy of occident).
We all need to go back to whitman: this are dire times. We need to recognize all occident as one, single block. NOW.
Slashdot Mirror
+1 truthfull.
No religion ensures its principles are actually followed. Much less any of the "book" religions that are so damned complex (all the books say different things!, even within the same creed).
The only religion where that angle is well taken care of is budhism. And thats only because its too abstract to actually cause any sort of debate about this or that principle.
Reality flies in your face: did you know that 90% of catholic priests accept to having violated their celibacy at one point or another, at least in spain (and boy, are they catholic there!).
So yeah. Many catholic priests are iluminated people that really believe their creed (and, at least to me, it looks like a beautifull creed, as deep and interersting as any other thousends-of-years-old religion).
So yeah, many catholic priests really like their job and many DO FEEL FORCED by a celibacy rule that EVERYONE (within catholicism) knows was imposed not by any apostol, its not in the bible, but was imposed by a couple of big wigheads (popes) that were in serius need of dough and were planning for the future (the church gets the inheritance, not any sort of family).
SO... i mean, i understand not in every country is the catholic religion important enough so that anyone knows this kind of details (im no catholic, i just live in a country that thinks the vatican is quite a big deal), but hey, youre here to learn as much as anyone. Aint this slashdot?
A member of the armed forces (a GENERAL!), a policeman, a firefighter, the owner of a barbershop, a barman, a sailor, just-from-frisco-but-not-gay, capitan of the school's wrestling team....
I mean, i add this to the lists so that no one feels left out. Poor closet gays, you gave them the choice of being either catholic priests or politicians!
...(A longtine friend of his who lives here in Springfield told me he had considered it last year)
People from springfield are mostly yellow and have terrible haircuts. I wouldnt trust them at all.
Hey, keep your nerdy Vista bashing to yourself! this is a politicall post.
Well... youre giving away legal problems.
Your "give away" of your code actually puts it not in the public domain, but under full copyright law (at least in my country). I wouldnt touch your code with a 12 meter pole.
Yeah... gcc is not succesful, the GNU toolset is not successfull, gnome is not successfull, all that GPL stuff that gets bundled in every single Unix is not successfull, emacs is not successfull.... shall I go on?
And of course! other software with other licenses is ALSO very successfull... GOOD, aint it?
Its not one OR another license. Its WHEN to use one and WHEN to use another that matter.
"They Both Went For The Gun"?
Nobody says tech is bad for education. All I am saying is that people making the decitions might be inclined to think that tech IS education.
So: do we WANT tech/media to replace experience in education?
I agree WE dont have to choose. But some people in key areas might think different. Which is why I worry.
No, you are right, animated pics are better at conveying simulations than a blackboard.
But then my question gets transformed to this: if using multimedia tech becomes a trend and gvmnt starts spending on it as a way to revolutionize the future workforce so that its better educated, is there such a thing as "too much" tech?
Would it be dangerous to subsitute physics labs with IT simulations? Dangerous in that it really does not help MOST kids understand newton's equations? Not better than the lab and pencil dragging that comes from it?
Its like, you know, the cool HP scientiffic calculators: they can be used to solve problems more efficiently, but they also can be used for students to cheat their way out of learning mathematical models and the WAY THOSE get created.
What is impossible to substitute at the lab with any kind of simulation? Is there really anything that cant be done reasonably well in a simulation?
This is what I mean by "learning models": i dont think we have them pinned down with or without IT, so im skeptical of the software that purpotedly "helps" students learn.
IT in education is too young. I dont think the right models for education have been developed anyhow, much less good software that supports them.
The thing is that education is severely tied into media: from the greeks and their oral traditions, to the medieval cult of the books, to the discovery of print, education has been transformed by the media in which we store and confer information.
Today, that media is becoming a universally accessible cloud. I think current trends of education that favor the use of PowerPoint as a better tool than a blackboard are ok in terms of efficiency, and they might really convey information in a better way.
The question that I make myself is not about efficiency, but about the difference between information and knowledge. Yeah, sure, tech conveys info. it also MAY convey knowledge of SOME things that are encodable in our new tool (the net, for example).
But knowledge? Is viewwing a simulation of a physic phenomenon the same as taking the weighs in the labs and proving them yourself? Is it the same viewing a simulation of the parabolic shot, than actually going into the lab, meassuring force, launching a thingie, see how far it got and THEN using newtons tools to see if they still work.
In a word: can we ever substitute experience through tech?
Worse: do we WANT to do that?
Why would I?
Im not qualifying that part. What im saying (and youd know if you read the full post), is that the foundation also does stuff to ensure Microsoft's dominance in the third world. And i cite a very direct and verifiable example
Incompatible? Whats incompatible about them?
Same kernel and same glibc and same gcc suite and its ALL compatible. What the hell are you talking about.
ALL distros of the same breed have ways to include any kind off foss library across the whole thing. They are ALL compatible.
That YOU dont know how to make it so, does NOT make them incompatible.
You obviously know nothing about the FOSS or OSS movement's stories, not to say anything about the opening of mozilla.
Who convinced netscape of the mozilla decition? ESR, right? And WHY did he do that? Go read HIS BOOK. While youre at it, go ask JWZ or read his posts about the whole thing.
Yes... BSD was there before, Licklider was there before, wikipedia is also not an original idea. But WHO MADE THEM?
The ones that did, and now we can all enjoy them. BSD would NEVER be commercially successfull in the market like linux IS. Sun, the first BSD based company, droped it in favor of their own flavor of SYSV Unix.
The difference is, precisely, the GPL. If you wanna play with linux, you HAVE to abide by it and the sharing it imposes. With a BSD, you just close it and be on your marry way to build your own brand and software, which takes competition to other areas: introducing incompatibilities to foster lock-in.
Remember the Unix wars?
Man.... why are this new kids so clueless?
Everything is GNU. Linux is really a small part of the equation. A very important one, but smaller then the whole of GNU.
The same can be said about apache. Even thoguh totally independent and runnable everywhere, the combo of GNU/LINUX/APACHE is what beats the shit out of anything else out there.
And the server space is dominated by apple, right?
Linux will run the internet in no more than five years, my friend. IBM makes about 20 billion worth of sales solely on Linux.
Ive lived off linux for the past EIGHT years (and I live pretty well).
I would mod you to the moon.
They would, if they didnt have to pay for microsoft's license ANYWAY, even if they DONT use their software.
This is like the worst argument EVER against FOSS's NATURAL way of promoting competition.
Without VNC, my friend, we would ALL be FUCKING STUCK with citrix: a sole vendor solution that sort-of, kind-of, works for basically ONE platform.
With VNC, MANY vendors can enter that arena and compete on the same base differentiating their product as they go along.
Now the trick here is that by your thinking, VNC shouldve been closed source to "compete" with citrix. But, you see, competition is almost never really exclusively a product vs. product issue. Competition happens in the market: brand positioning, sales capacity, market prescence, all of that is more important than the solution itself (if this wasnt the case, microsoft wouldve died with winME).
However, if you pick up an IBM HS21 bladecenter, youll see it integrates VNC as the thingie (horrendous by the way) through which you work with your blade servers.
If you pick up plenty of remote administration solutions that include seamless remote installing and filecopying, those include the VNC protocol as well, but add it other values...
Etc, etc, etc. The idea of remote viewing thingies in computers is NOT a citrix idea. Its NOT a UNIX idea. Its NOT a windows idea. For christ sakes, LICKLIDER's team (talk about ancient history), had already forseen it!
Propietary software provides imaginary walls to protect imaginary "inventions" that are nobodie's in the first place: it stiffles innovation by allowing basically pirates of other people ideas and granting them monopolies over basic simple stuff that are OBVIOUS WAYS one would use a computer since the DAMNED THING was invented properly (read Lickliders essays, in particular: The Computer as a Communications Device... we are talking 1962 at the latest, if i recall correctly).
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
Thats not charity. Thats taking care of brand positioning in the future.
Now of course the foundation ALSO does some great things, with no strings attached. But when it comes to technology.... well, they just do what the founder needs them to do.
Fuck Korea, Microsoft and the horse they rode on.
Activex should've died a simple rapid death a decade ago. Microsoft is willing to actually make their stuff standards compliant: that'll mess much more many people up than killing activex off.
In any case, I dont care at all: ive necer used activex and I never will. Hell, i dont even use IE and never will.
Heh...
+1 funny
+1 really damned insightful.
Why? because its funny to recognize that yes, things may happen first here or there as an idea, but the ones that pin it down, or the ones that simply get lucky, end up with the win anyhow.
Modern republic started in france, and then DIED on them. Only to rise up again in the Americas and then BACK to france (to the joy of occident).
We all need to go back to whitman: this are dire times. We need to recognize all occident as one, single block. NOW.
The only good activex is a DEAD activex. Kill it once and for all, for christ sakes.
Come on, my friend. Im not an american, but one should recognize that free direct elections rules for a modern republic were invented there.
Toqueville wrote about democracy....IN AMERICA