"The heliocentric model of the solar system was correct long before anybody proposed it, let alone before it was widely accepted."
Yes, but the nature of the heliocentric model was that it dealt with independently observable physics and objects--i.e. something that was capable of being forcibly recognized by everyone. Like 2+2=4, it's a fact with an immutable basis in reality which exists regardless of whatever doublethink one practices. However, the same is not true for ethics. They exist only with a totally subjective basis in individual minds, that is, they do not exist in a state that must by definition be recognized by everyone. It therefore cannot be proven that something is, universally and forever, "right" or "wrong," and so your statement "Whether or not you THINK something is wrong is irrelevant if it IS wrong" is inapplicable.
"Do whatever you like" is a fine principle; the only caveat is that if you take that to extremes, you wind up injuring society and ultimately yourself. In the interests of self-preservation, therefore, we have laws, but the pragmatism of the philosophy is still there. Self-interest is its own perpetuator.
And as for Hotmail--heh, you think that's my primary address? It stores more spam than anything else.:)
Self-interest is one of the most enduring traits in man, and, I would argue, one of the most valuable. My previously-stated reason for using Napster-type systems constitutes the basis for why they exist, and why their admins have been as successful as they have. On an economic level, self-interest is at the heart of all consumers--it's what helps perpetuate the free market.
I cite the work of geneticists as another example. Curiosity is the essence of the scientific mind; scientists generally work out of a desire for knowledge. It certainly is the driving force behind experimental genetics--and yet there are "bioethicists" who would thwart the acquisition of new information because of centuries-old codes of conduct that more often than not have their basis in religion. In religion!
No consensus is ever established in debates over what is "right" and "wrong"; always it is realized that such arguments serve to delay actions, and steps are taken foward in the name of self-interest--with Joe User's usage of Napster, or experimental genetic research. Progress is due to leaps like these. The discussions over what is "moral" continue forever afterwards; they demonstrate their own obsolescence.
"The fact that millions of ordinary Americans engage in this theft is no excuse - ethically and legally, it is wrong." Ethics, shmethics. What is "right" and "wrong" is such an overwhelmingly subjective matter that I often find it more convenient to act as if those concepts don't exist in reality. Like with the case of Napster, Gnutella, iMesh, etc--the systems are there, I like free music, therefore I will use the systems. For me, it's not a matter of who's hurting who, or whether this or that corporate entity is "evil." I'm certainly not going to stop downloading because some say it's wrong according to ancient rules of "moral" conduct.
Sometimes I wonder if perhaps the maintenance workers responsible did it on purpose.:) "Heh heh heh..." *snort* *grunt* "Let's see how long it takes them to find it." *wall wall wall wall wall* "Heh heh heh. Wanna go get a beer?"
So basically, to create a crash-proof server you just fix it up with a stable OS and seal it behind a wall, where no one can make it mad.
I wonder if the UNC folks will consider leaving it on, just to see how long it lasts.
Out of curiosity... It seems to me that most of the news I hear has to do with the discovery and nature of these holes, not present-time exploitation of them. If so, is it because of the quick release of patches, or are these flaws (however serious) largely ignored by the unscrupulous, or is coverage of actual attacks slim, or is it something else? And actually, this seems to apply for most computer security issues I hear about, viruses excepted (again, just an impression).
(Yeah, this was sent with IE 5.5; tell it to the University of Iowa physics department IT staff.)
For five years, through high school and my freshman year of college, I did feel the need to use their system simply because people that I thought mattered used it. Through most of that time, I considered AIM to be one of my critical pieces of software. A new, convenient way to communicate? Why not? After a year at college, however, far away from most of my AIM associates, I realized instant messaging was giving me jack. I reviewed my logs and found that 99% of my conversations consisted of aimless, barely enjoyable, totally disposable chit-chat--a few words here, a few words there. (The other 1% were protracted debates about philosophy, religion, perfect pitch, and other topics with an acquaintance at another college. While those were moderately stimulating, I realized there were better things I could do with my time.) I found that snail mail, e-mail, and the phone were far, far better ways to communicate, for two reasons: they're much more personal, and they inevitably filter out people who don't really matter. I would go as far as to say that instant messaging can play a role in superficializing relationships; when your friend or acquaintance is readily available to communicate with at the click of a button, and then all you see of them is bland text, what room is there for you to miss them? Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I'm actually slightly embarrassed to make that statement because a good friend of mine came to roughly the same conclusion two years ago (his revelation can be found at http://web.dodds.net/~tycho ). My current status? I use e-mail to write meaningful messages to people that actually matter--not "matter" in the superficial, soon-forgotten high-school senes. By a stroke of luck, the aforementioned friend, as well as one other, attend my college; real-life contact abounds. When we all graduate, the phone will probably overtake e-mail as my primary means of long-distance communication. It'll cost a bit and be absolutely worth it. There are no instant messaging clients installed on my system, and I've never been happier.
It used to annoy me that recent pop tunes made up the bulk of what was available on Napster, but now I'm grateful because that's all the RIAA seems to care about blocking. Bartok, Mozart, and Hindemith are as easy for me to get as ever.:)
I was wondering how the disgruntled employee managed to obtain these... did s/he sneak them off the guy's machine, or is it somehow possible to intercept IRC transmissions? (Maybe the answer's somewhere in one of these threads, but I'd rather not wade through them to find it.)
Is "the first game" supposed to mean Wolfenstein 3-D? There were two Wolfenstein games before that, Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. I don't know what system they were originally designed for, but I think they were made by Muse Software--at least, that's what I remember seeing on the title screens of the Apple II versions (along with some copy-protection cracker handles, heh).
I've frequently seen various sci-fi shows blasted for constantly portraying aliens as being more or less humanoid. For TV shows, that's understandable--who's going to watch a show where the protagonist is an amorphous blob? I really wonder, however, just how many people have a humanoid figure with aural communication in mind when they think about alien life, or how many attach *something* characteristic of Earth life, say, eyes or whatever. Arthur C. Clarke didn't; in "2010" he wrote about living gasbags that dwelled in the hostile layers of Jupiter. How could we ever have developed communication with such life? Perhaps we would try some basic form of visual presentation, flashes of light or semaphore (ha ha). But where could we go beyond that? I find myself hoping that the aliens are far, far above us on scales of intelligence, technology, etc. so that *they* can decipher our languages, which, on cosmic time scales, are really quite young. I see all sorts of xenophobic objections having to do with them taking advantage of us, but I think that's the risk we'll have to take if we ever want to say stuff besides "Hello, I'm here."
If I thought any of that processing power was going to waste, I'd just ask him to run SETI@Home in the background. (That's what I'm doing with my 800 MHz, since I'm away from it most of the time.):)
I must say, I love NASA's short and to-the-point response: "We did." One can easily read that as: "That's all we're going to say. If you're too stupid to believe otherwise, we're not going to waste our breath." They're responding naturally, as if they were an intelligent person who'd just been insulted to his/her face. It occurs to me that more large organizations, whether they be government agencies or big corporations, could produce more convincing rebuttals of accusations if they dropped some or all of their officious manner. Let's say there was a CIA agent found floating in some Bulgarian reservoir or someting, and shloads of conspiracy theories promptly made their way about. From the CIA, one might expect something like "We flatly deny having any involvement in this." Yeah, I'm convinced. Now if they said something like "Right, we left one of our own in there so we could study the side effects of drinking corpse-flavored water. Please," or "Dude, what could we possibly want with *Bulgaria*?" I'd be more inclined to believe them. It's all about the tone, guys.
When was the last time you learned of a game's existence for the first time through TV or print? Maybe this is generalizing, but it seems to me that there already exists a nice word-of-mouth network among the people who play these sorts of games (Quake, Unreal, etc). This makes me that this kind of regulation would have much of an impact on the spread of the game. (The marketing-production connection is another thing, of course.)
...black-on-white for everything else? I know this is slightly off-topic, but has anyone noticed that this particular text-background color combo (which I greatly prefer, since it's much easier on the eyes) prevails for sites of a certain flavor, i.e. gaming, hacking, etc., but for nearly everything else (Slashdot included) it's black-on-white? I'm guessing there's some sort of atmosphere the web people want to generate--maybe "cool" for the gaming and hacking and whatever, and a professional "pen on paper" look for corporate and news sites? One thing I've noticed, though, is that a lot of personal websites are white-on-black, or some other light-on-dark combo. Is this for coolness, or do they actually realize that it's easier on the eyes? I really think that needs to be more common, even in applications (except maybe in word processors, where you really are simulating a piece of paper).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but the nature of the heliocentric model was that it dealt with independently observable physics and objects--i.e. something that was capable of being forcibly recognized by everyone. Like 2+2=4, it's a fact with an immutable basis in reality which exists regardless of whatever doublethink one practices. However, the same is not true for ethics. They exist only with a totally subjective basis in individual minds, that is, they do not exist in a state that must by definition be recognized by everyone. It therefore cannot be proven that something is, universally and forever, "right" or "wrong," and so your statement "Whether or not you THINK something is wrong is irrelevant if it IS wrong" is inapplicable.
And as for Hotmail--heh, you think that's my primary address? It stores more spam than anything else. :)
I cite the work of geneticists as another example. Curiosity is the essence of the scientific mind; scientists generally work out of a desire for knowledge. It certainly is the driving force behind experimental genetics--and yet there are "bioethicists" who would thwart the acquisition of new information because of centuries-old codes of conduct that more often than not have their basis in religion. In religion!
No consensus is ever established in debates over what is "right" and "wrong"; always it is realized that such arguments serve to delay actions, and steps are taken foward in the name of self-interest--with Joe User's usage of Napster, or experimental genetic research. Progress is due to leaps like these. The discussions over what is "moral" continue forever afterwards; they demonstrate their own obsolescence.
"The fact that millions of ordinary Americans engage in this theft is no excuse - ethically and legally, it is wrong." Ethics, shmethics. What is "right" and "wrong" is such an overwhelmingly subjective matter that I often find it more convenient to act as if those concepts don't exist in reality. Like with the case of Napster, Gnutella, iMesh, etc--the systems are there, I like free music, therefore I will use the systems. For me, it's not a matter of who's hurting who, or whether this or that corporate entity is "evil." I'm certainly not going to stop downloading because some say it's wrong according to ancient rules of "moral" conduct.
Sometimes I wonder if perhaps the maintenance workers responsible did it on purpose. :) "Heh heh heh..." *snort* *grunt* "Let's see how long it takes them to find it." *wall wall wall wall wall* "Heh heh heh. Wanna go get a beer?"
So basically, to create a crash-proof server you just fix it up with a stable OS and seal it behind a wall, where no one can make it mad. I wonder if the UNC folks will consider leaving it on, just to see how long it lasts.
Out of curiosity... It seems to me that most of the news I hear has to do with the discovery and nature of these holes, not present-time exploitation of them. If so, is it because of the quick release of patches, or are these flaws (however serious) largely ignored by the unscrupulous, or is coverage of actual attacks slim, or is it something else? And actually, this seems to apply for most computer security issues I hear about, viruses excepted (again, just an impression). (Yeah, this was sent with IE 5.5; tell it to the University of Iowa physics department IT staff.)
For five years, through high school and my freshman year of college, I did feel the need to use their system simply because people that I thought mattered used it. Through most of that time, I considered AIM to be one of my critical pieces of software. A new, convenient way to communicate? Why not? After a year at college, however, far away from most of my AIM associates, I realized instant messaging was giving me jack. I reviewed my logs and found that 99% of my conversations consisted of aimless, barely enjoyable, totally disposable chit-chat--a few words here, a few words there. (The other 1% were protracted debates about philosophy, religion, perfect pitch, and other topics with an acquaintance at another college. While those were moderately stimulating, I realized there were better things I could do with my time.) I found that snail mail, e-mail, and the phone were far, far better ways to communicate, for two reasons: they're much more personal, and they inevitably filter out people who don't really matter. I would go as far as to say that instant messaging can play a role in superficializing relationships; when your friend or acquaintance is readily available to communicate with at the click of a button, and then all you see of them is bland text, what room is there for you to miss them? Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I'm actually slightly embarrassed to make that statement because a good friend of mine came to roughly the same conclusion two years ago (his revelation can be found at http://web.dodds.net/~tycho ). My current status? I use e-mail to write meaningful messages to people that actually matter--not "matter" in the superficial, soon-forgotten high-school senes. By a stroke of luck, the aforementioned friend, as well as one other, attend my college; real-life contact abounds. When we all graduate, the phone will probably overtake e-mail as my primary means of long-distance communication. It'll cost a bit and be absolutely worth it. There are no instant messaging clients installed on my system, and I've never been happier.
It used to annoy me that recent pop tunes made up the bulk of what was available on Napster, but now I'm grateful because that's all the RIAA seems to care about blocking. Bartok, Mozart, and Hindemith are as easy for me to get as ever. :)
I was wondering how the disgruntled employee managed to obtain these... did s/he sneak them off the guy's machine, or is it somehow possible to intercept IRC transmissions? (Maybe the answer's somewhere in one of these threads, but I'd rather not wade through them to find it.)
Is "the first game" supposed to mean Wolfenstein 3-D? There were two Wolfenstein games before that, Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. I don't know what system they were originally designed for, but I think they were made by Muse Software--at least, that's what I remember seeing on the title screens of the Apple II versions (along with some copy-protection cracker handles, heh).
I've frequently seen various sci-fi shows blasted for constantly portraying aliens as being more or less humanoid. For TV shows, that's understandable--who's going to watch a show where the protagonist is an amorphous blob? I really wonder, however, just how many people have a humanoid figure with aural communication in mind when they think about alien life, or how many attach *something* characteristic of Earth life, say, eyes or whatever. Arthur C. Clarke didn't; in "2010" he wrote about living gasbags that dwelled in the hostile layers of Jupiter. How could we ever have developed communication with such life? Perhaps we would try some basic form of visual presentation, flashes of light or semaphore (ha ha). But where could we go beyond that? I find myself hoping that the aliens are far, far above us on scales of intelligence, technology, etc. so that *they* can decipher our languages, which, on cosmic time scales, are really quite young. I see all sorts of xenophobic objections having to do with them taking advantage of us, but I think that's the risk we'll have to take if we ever want to say stuff besides "Hello, I'm here."
If I thought any of that processing power was going to waste, I'd just ask him to run SETI@Home in the background. (That's what I'm doing with my 800 MHz, since I'm away from it most of the time.) :)
I must say, I love NASA's short and to-the-point response: "We did." One can easily read that as: "That's all we're going to say. If you're too stupid to believe otherwise, we're not going to waste our breath." They're responding naturally, as if they were an intelligent person who'd just been insulted to his/her face. It occurs to me that more large organizations, whether they be government agencies or big corporations, could produce more convincing rebuttals of accusations if they dropped some or all of their officious manner. Let's say there was a CIA agent found floating in some Bulgarian reservoir or someting, and shloads of conspiracy theories promptly made their way about. From the CIA, one might expect something like "We flatly deny having any involvement in this." Yeah, I'm convinced. Now if they said something like "Right, we left one of our own in there so we could study the side effects of drinking corpse-flavored water. Please," or "Dude, what could we possibly want with *Bulgaria*?" I'd be more inclined to believe them. It's all about the tone, guys.
When was the last time you learned of a game's existence for the first time through TV or print? Maybe this is generalizing, but it seems to me that there already exists a nice word-of-mouth network among the people who play these sorts of games (Quake, Unreal, etc). This makes me that this kind of regulation would have much of an impact on the spread of the game. (The marketing-production connection is another thing, of course.)
...black-on-white for everything else? I know this is slightly off-topic, but has anyone noticed that this particular text-background color combo (which I greatly prefer, since it's much easier on the eyes) prevails for sites of a certain flavor, i.e. gaming, hacking, etc., but for nearly everything else (Slashdot included) it's black-on-white? I'm guessing there's some sort of atmosphere the web people want to generate--maybe "cool" for the gaming and hacking and whatever, and a professional "pen on paper" look for corporate and news sites? One thing I've noticed, though, is that a lot of personal websites are white-on-black, or some other light-on-dark combo. Is this for coolness, or do they actually realize that it's easier on the eyes? I really think that needs to be more common, even in applications (except maybe in word processors, where you really are simulating a piece of paper).