I thought AI was a good movie. Admittedly an appreciation of it requires an IQ higher than the temperature outside, but since when was that a bad thing? Shakespeare isn't for bozo's either.
As for Coppolla's casting of his daughter, she was a last minute stand in for Winona Ryder who fell ill when shooting was scheduled to start. I'd rather have seen Winona in the movie myself since she's one of the most beautiful women on the face of the earth, and she can actually act. Sophia Coppolla might make for a good director (The Virgin Suicides), but an actress she is not, or at least WAS not back when GF-3 was made.
You do realize that in order to teach school you pretty much have to be a left wing looney nowadays.
Being a schoolteacher ranks up there with the profession of social work in terms of susceptibility to "liberal" bullshit. There are exceptions of course, but just how long do they last in the teaching profession? I know I wouldn't last a year in a system dominated by an intellectually bankrupt ideology.
" So are you saying that because I have good experiences as a grad student, it renders my perspective invalid? If so, that's ridiculous."
No, all I'm saying is that grad school isn't grade school. I didn't write about grad school, I wrote about the problems and issues that surround primary and secondary school education in America. If you'll recall my original post, I did say that college was better than high school.
As for the rest of what you've said, I don't dispute it. I especially agree with the idea that you get out of your education what you put into it. This idea is not too far off from the point I was trying to make in the first place. If someone is intelligent and industrious, they are going to put a lot into their education, and likely receive a lot from it in return. My only point is that you are better off pursuing knowledge on your own instead of paying tuition. Graduate school is of course different. At that level there is value in the formal instruction. At lower levels the value is questionable. It is not valueless, just not the best bang for your buck, especially before you get to college. I'm pursuing a degree in (big suprise here) computer engineering. There are classes that I've taken that I could have easily taught. Then there are others that I really had to work at. I take all the classes because I'm pursuing a degree. If I were not pursuing a degree I'd concentrate on the areas I didn't already have mastery of.
Nothing in what the original poster wrote suggested that he was interested in pursuing a degree in math, just that he had an interest in it. For him to pay money to take the entry level classes he mentioned would be a very enefficient use of time and effort. He'll get farther on his own in the same ammount of time because he won't be held back by the slow pace of the course. That is assuming that he is able to handle the material in the first place. If his abilities are marginal then private study augmented with the help of a good tutor would be the best way to go. If he does want to pursue a degree in math then of course he'll have to take the courses. If that is the case then he should do what I do, get the texts and syllibi of the courses he is going to be taking in the future and study them ahead of time. What else are summers for? Even if he doesn't gain a full understanding on his own he'll be so far ahead of the curve when he does take the class that it will be a walk in the park.
What about the uselessness of a bad instructor? Or more importantly the detrimental nature of an environment that is not conducive to learning?
Holding up your experiences as a graduate student as examples of formal education is like presenting a gourmet meal as an example of the average fare from McDonalds.
Surely you must remember what it was like back in grade school and high school. For me it was largely a waste of time. My fellow students were not interested in learning anything, and the teachers spent much of their time babysitting. As a result the curriculum was dumbed down and the teachers themselves approached their craft from the viewpoint that they had to force it down your throat. I spent most of my school days trying not to get discouraged from learning by the very system tasked with assisting me to do so.
The products of this system are people who see learning as something unpleasant and education itself as the responsibility of others. They don't take responsibility for their own education (although they may work hard and/or jump through hoops for good grades). When they have children of their own they don't take responsibility for their child's education either. One of the major complaints of teachers and administrators is that parents aren't involved in the education process. All I can say is that the system is reaping what it has sown.
That is not to say that the educational systems in the US are all bad. In fact, compared to the rest of the world we are, as in most things, among the very best. The media and scaremongers used to like to tell us that the US is behind. The truth is that they're doing comparisons between average US students and the best and brightest the third world has to offer. They did this to scare the public and get more money for public education. Or at least that was the plan. Its largely backfired because what has happened instead is the parents who have the means have put their children into private schools and those that don't have demanded vouchers for private schools. That is why you don't hear so much about how the US is behind. Once again, they're reaping what they've sown.
I personally plan to home school my children. I hope for the woman I marry to be at least as intelligent as I am, preferably more intelligent. Chances are our children will also be ahead of the curve. I'll not let them be held back other children who are not as bright. Socialization will of course be an issue, but I'll deal with that when I come to it.
I take it that you're interested in math itself, not necessaarily interested in pursuing a degree in math. Trying to learn most things through formal education is like trying to paint a barn with a brush that only has 10% of its bristles. You'll get it done eventually, but boy is it inefficient.
One of the few advangates that formal education provides, at least in terms of learning, is the step-by-step programmed nature of it. If you're trying to learn something and you don't know how to approach it or what to study, then formal instruction can work. However when you know what it is you should be studying and learning, then formal schooling is usually a hinderance because you can learn things more quickly and more thoroughly on your own, assuming of course that you have some degree of discipline. The forced nature of formal education is its other advantage, and it is a dubious one at that.
Formal education is geared towards the stupid and lazy. For someone who is intelligent and industrious it usually gets in the way more than anything else.
Primary and secondary school spends twelve years teaching those of average intelligence what those whose IQ ranges in the top 10% can easily learn in six. I should know because when I was in sixth grade my "achievemnt" test scores were on par with most college students. My IQ is about 130, or in the top 10%. Of course my teachers all thought I was much brighter, but then they're not used to dealing with someone like me and are, by and large, not too far above the 50% percentile themselves.
College courses are better in that the instructors aren't there to babysit anyone. Also anyone who is either stupid or lazy doesn't usually stick around for long. The pace of study and depth in which the subject is explored can vary greatly however. There have been courses I've had to work pretty hard at, of course those have almost always been the ones that were worth taking.
But anyway, my point is don't spend money to take a course when independent discipline and effort will get you farther in your pursuit of knowledge. Spend money on courses only when they are required for some other purpose independent of learning, such as a job. Don't rely on them as your sole or even primary form of education. Rely on yourself and you'll always be ahead of curve.
I'd just like to point out that most of the two income families you mention are up to their eyeballs in debt. The reason they're having to work so hard is because they were stupid and spent money they didn't have by using credit cards, bank loans, etc.
After taxes my yearly income is 24k a year, and nearly 2/3 of that is disposable income. The reason is that I don't waste my money. I live in a house with three other people and we split the rent. I have more room for less money than if I had a single apartment for myself. We have a big pool in the backyard too. I ride my bike to work instead of driving. I do have a car, but I drive it maybe once or twice a week and I only pay liability insurance on it. Because I watch my money very carefully I can pretty much buy whatever I want. Now mind you I don't go out and waste money on toys and bullshit. If I buy something I have a good reason for doing so. I have that which I need and much of what I want, and I have money in the bank. So when I hear about how Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public have it so hard I can't have much sympathy. Either they didn't do what they needed to when they were younger to ensure they made enough money, or they're so irresponsible with their finances that they're wasting the money they do have paying interest.
I see other people whose thirst for things drives them to dig themselves a very deep hole of debt. As far as I'm concerned they're complete idiots. If I want a new car, and a nice new car for that matter, I'll save money for a few months, put down enough of a down payment that the car is worth more than I owe my credit union, and then pay the rest off within a year. Right now I have almost $15,000 in the bank. If I wanted to I could easily go buy a car worth my yearly (post tax) income and have it paid for within a year.
I'm sure as I grow older my condiitions will change. I'll marry (I sure hope so at least), have children, and in general incur greater expenses in the course of living. I'll also be making more money, and while I might not be able to continue to live off 1/3 of my income, I'll certainly not get to the point where I'm spending more than I make, especially if my future wife works also.
Of all the subjects that children are never taught in school, basic economics is surely one of the most sorely missed. Of course I can't really blame society for the actions of individuals though. It is their responsibility to see to it that they understand how to handle their money. Education would make that easier, but ultimately it is the responsibility of each of us to handle our own business.
As for the rest of what you said, I absolutely agree. Of course I wonder how much of that stress related mental illness is the result of working too hard to pay off your debt.
It seems to me that the entire GPL vs BSD debate is nothing more than a pastime for those with nothing better to do. Just think about it, a bunch of non programmers standing around bickering about licenses they'll never put anything out under anyway. Arm-chair quarterbacking for geeks.
As for actual developers, well there too the debate, or at least an ongoing never-ending squabble, is essentially pointless. Each programmer or team of programmers is going to choose and use the license they like best for the reasons they consider important. They have EVERY right to make this choice as they are the one's doing the work. Whether anyone else likes it or not is completely irrelevant.
Personally I like both licenses, but for different reasons. I see the GPL as a munition, a weapon. Putting high quality implementations of key tools and programs out under the GPL makes sure that the Microsofts of the world play nice by not being too greedy and/or abusing their customers. The downside to the GPL is that you're not going to obtain any financial gain from the products you release under it. There are rare exceptions such as RedHat, but then that company's product is a delivery system for GPL's software more than the software itself. Ultimately the value of GPL'd software is strategic, not directly economic. The GPL is most suitable for fundamental technologies that NEED to be kept absolutely open to ensure that incompatibilities don't creep in due to proprietary implementations. The BSD license is good because the code can be included in commercial programs. Now some people might start foaming at the mouth at the mere mention of commercial software. Of course these same people are usually in high school, college, or 35 and still living in their parent's basement.
Commercial software is what makes products that don't enjoy a wide following possible. Open Source is like socialism in a way. (Actually I don't think that my comparing Open Source to socialism was a very polite thing to do. Socialism is a system by which the abilities of one person are forcibly exploited to fulfill the needs of another. It and communism are but two points along the same continuum.) The base needs of the many are fulfilled, but what about the needs of the few? Does it make sense to try and organize a project to create an open source program to track oil deposits? How about an open source medical imaging system? There are some products for which there is a very small need in terms of how many people need the product. These same people are more often than not willing and able to pay good money to see that these products get created however. Also there is the question of expertise. Programmers are not experts on the best way to do everything possible with a computer. Imagine if someone tried to create an open source implementation of SPSS. Now what if I told you that such a project existed (PSPP) and that it hasn't gone ANYWHERE. The reason is that programmers are not statisticians. Their ability to verify the correctness of their own software's out put is next to nil.
At the end of the day both the GPL and BSD licenses have a useful function to perform. So does commerical software. Anyone who continuously argues about the role these three should play doesn't understand them in the first place.
Want good eductation? All you need is a student who wants to learn and a teacher who wants to teach. If you have those two things everything else is irrelevant.
The problem is the one that has always plagued education, the prevelence of "students" who are not there to learn, and "teachers" who are glorified babysitters. Introducing a new tool into this situation isn't a solution to this problem, because there is no solution to this problem. You can hire better teachers, assuming you can find them, but that doesn't solve the problem of the "students" who aren't there to learn.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that for a very long time people have been bitching and moaning about how our schools are sub-par. Gadgets are for some strange reason seen as a solution to this problem. The truth is that the "problem" of poor schools is largely manufactured by political pundits in order to stir the emotions of the sheeple. There are areas where the schools are sub par. There are two reasons for this that are interrelated. First, the local culture of these areas is barbaric. The "students" are criminals in training, many of which won't live to see their 21st birthday, and even more of which will spend that birthday behind bars. Good teacher's are not going to want to work in such an environment. Needless to say computers and palm pilots aren't going to solve the problem.
A computer or any other information tool in the hands of an interested student will of course be of value. That same tool in the hands of someone who doesn't give a rat's ass is just going to be a waste of money.
If you want a better education for your children, teach them at home starting at the youngest age you possibly can. Send them off to first grade or kindergarten already knowing how to read. If you can afford to home school them, do so. If not then try your dead level best to ensure that they are in a school district where their fellow students are not going to be a bunch of thugs and where the teachers have faith in the future of the students they teach.
Lee
Applications need good designers, not just coders
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Version Fatigue
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· Score: 2
What is the optimum design for a word processor? Does anyone know? Does being the god of all programmers mean you'll have special insight into how a program should work from a user's point of view? Actually being computer literate, let alone a computer god, puts you at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to DESIGNING a program that idiots are going to be using. You might be able to implement a particular design extremely well, but that doesn't mean you'll have any idea what the design should be in the first place. This is why there are so many bad programs out there, coders aren't users. It is also why these programs change so much without ever converging on the optimum interface or design, the people writing them don't know how to do anything but write the code.
If you want to create an outstanding application what you need to do is find people who work in the field that your application is supposed to be used in and ask THEM to design it for you. The less they know about computers the better. The imaginations of people who know nothing about computers are not stunted by an understanding of what is and is not possible. Because of this they'll suggest features and approaches that are much more likely to stretch the ability of a coder to implement them than anything that coder would come up with on his own. I can guarantee you that grammar checkers weren't the idea of anyone who wrote code for a living. They were the idea of someone who wrote type for a living.
These are the reasons why companies like Microsoft employ cognitive psychologists and make heavy use of focus groups to help them design their products. Say what you want about Windows as far as what goes on under the hood, you can't deny that the basic paradigm behind it's interface is superb. All running programs are always accessible from a task bar at the bottom. All applications are accessible through a heirarchial menu, and commonly used apps are available as quick start buttons on the taskbar. The windows themselves feature clear and concise buttons whose functions are immediately obvious. The basic design is so good that the two most powerful and popular Unix desktops, Gnome and KDE, both copy it to the hilt. This design was not thought up by some CLI speed freaks and code wizards who could write a 10,000 program that worked the first time, in assembly. It was the brainchild of people whose understanding of computers was rudimentary at best.
The key to designing great software is to get people who don't know anything about computers, because that is who your customers are going to be. Cater to these customers as much as you can and not only will your programs be very popular, but the problem of version fatigue will almost solve itself, assuming you can avoid feature creep.
Its nice to see someone who actually understands what I've been trying to tell people for some time now.
A lot of free software / open source idealogues have made the same mistake that the Marxists made, they've failed to understand that people act in their own best interest. What is in the best interest of others is only a concern to the degree that it either corresponds to a persons's interests or at the very least does not conflict with them. Those who do not follow this normal human pattern of behavior are known as saints, they're also so rare that trying to base a political, ideological, or economic model upon them just will not work. The Marxist idea best summed up by the phrase "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs" simply doesn't hold water whenever those with abilities derive no benefit from supplying the needs of others.
If anything is the antithesis of Marxism, it is capitalism, and corporations are the embodiment and incarnation of capitalist ideals. They exist to make money. Any other goals or intentions they might have are either in line with making money, or at the very least not contrary to it. If a business is doing something you can rest assured it is because they either believe it will make them money in some way, either directly or indirectly. Even in the case of charity, which corporations donate to in no small measure, the public goodwill that is generated ammounts to yet another reason for a customer to choose to buy that company's products. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that human beings (or collective of human beings which is what a company is) are heartless or completely indifferent to the problems and difficulties of others. Human beings are social animals and we do care for one another. We will do things to help one another that we don't derive immediate benefit from, or that we may never benefit from. It's just that we don't tend to help others when doing so hurts us. We'll certainly give money or even donate our time and energy to help starving kids in some third world country, but not if doing so means our own kids are going to go hungry.
So if businesses promote open source because they are going to derive a benefit from it, why do independent open source programmers contribute their own time and money? Because they derive benefit from it as well. Take our imaginary programmer "Gnubert." Gnubert spends his days (and nights) working on free software and advocating the creation and use of free software to others. He doesn't get paid to do this although he may have a job that allows him to do it, but then money is not what motivates him. Gnubert works on free software because it is what he enjoys doing and because the programs that he creates are useful to him in some manner. The fact that others use this code and also find it useful is also something that makes him happy. When others contribute to this code and provide him with their changes that code becomes better and is a more useful tool to Gnubert as well. Gnubert is behaving in a self interested manner.
Here is where the problems begin. Some people, and perhaps even Gnubert himself, start making the argument that everyone should behave as Gnubert does because it is the "right" thing to do, completely ignoring the fact that moral issues are not what motivate the behavior in the first place. As such these arguments make little sense to those who do not benefit from creating open source code, or who do not benefit from creating open source code in the same manner that Gnubert does. They make even less sense to those who would NOT benefit from creating open source code but would in fact stand to suffer because of it. The people making the arguments don't understand those who disagree. Ideology only prospers in the absence of a reality check. Open source is a good idea where it works and benefits those who are in a position to create or promote it. It is not such a good idea where it does not work, and it doesn't work everywhere. When was the last time you saw an open source medical imaging program? You don't because those who want and need an imaging program aren't programmers, and programmers have no want or need for a medical imaging program, except to the extent that creating one will put food on their table. Said programmers might need tools that help them create a medical imaging program, or a flexible and stable OS upon which to run this program, and this is why tools such as GCC and OS's such as Linux have been created as open source projects, developers benefit from their existence and because developers are self interested they have created them.
Lee
This is even more useless than a salad shooter
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IMSAI Series Two
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Someone needs to remind these guys what year it is. Had something like this come out in 1977 or so it would have been a competitive product. The problem is that it is 25 years later now and while Star Wars might not look too dated this thing sure does. S-100 systems and CP/M have been dead since before a good majority of the slashdot community were even born. Is there some reason why I should now shell out a thousand dollars for an S-100 system? For that kind of money I could get a Sun Blade 100, build myself a pretty decent Athlon system, or get my car's transmission fixed.
This product surely belongs in the more dollars than sense catagory.
Their first mistake was to modify a box that the cable company owned. They should have bought a descrambler of their own on the grey market. These 3rd party descrablers are "bullet" proof anyway which would have completely solved the problem altogether before it started. Their second mistake was calling the cable company and complaining when their modified box stopped working. They should have been FAR more cautious than that. If I hacked something and it stopped working the first thing I'd assume is that it was either something I did or something the cable company did in response. I would have checked to see whether the box was still good, which is as simple as connecting the cable straight to the tv. At that point I'd take steps to replace the box on my own, or at the very least undo the hack, assuming that was possible, before handing it over to the cable company.
I heard of this same tactic being used when I was living in DC back in the late 80's. You would think that people would be wise to it by now.
I'll bet you that of the people who are stealing cable in that region, all that were caught were fools and idiots. Anyone with a brain would not be so easily busted. I figure the 170k is nothing more than a stupidity tax, something I never ever see a problem with.
A word of advice to all those who would break the law or do something that could get them in trouble, develop some street smarts and an ounce of common sense beforehand.
The idea that open source is not driven by profit is absurd, as is the idea that the profit to be found within it is defined by companies trying to make money off of "services." At least in the sense of a company actively paying for the development of an open source product and then trying to balance the books by supporting it. That might work for a handful under special circumstances, but it won't work universally, not even close. You can however sell a SOLUTION that uses an open source product. Of course that isn't the FSF party line we're all used to hearing. We're used to hearing that companies that produce open source products should try to pay the bills by selling support to others who are actually implementing the solutions based upon those products. The people who are selling the solution are the ones who make the money. This means that in order to make money from open source you have to sell solutions, not give away and then try to support for a fee the tools that would be used to create the solution.
The truth is that open source is driven by developers for developers. It is a rational self interested response to proprietary and closed products that developers have been stuck with. Open source is the response to things like the Microsoft monopoly and vendor lock-in. No one wants to try and implement an optimal solution using sub-optimal tools. Closed code that can't be changed or even truly understood is a very good example of a sub-optimal tool. Stallman and the FSF might toot their horn about how they started the show, and that might be true on paper. The real truth however is that it was the internet and the power it gave the developer community to respond collectively that made the open source movement real.
Most programs are not written by programmers working for shrink-wrap software firms where the product they are selling is the software. Most programs are written in-house for an in house need. This is the reason why VB is the the most popular programming language in history, as judged by the number of lines of code written in it. These programmers don't make money from selling code, they make money from implementing solutions using code. ALL early open source products were written by programmers for programmers. Even now the overwhelming majority still fit that description. Projects like GCC and Linux are where they are because developers could use them to make money. USE is the key word there. Stallman might have created GCC initially, just as Linus created the Linux kernel initially. Neither product would be worth a plug nickel however if other programmers hadn't found them potentially useful and began contributing to them.
In the long run this will become painfully obvious to everyone and I won't have to always be hearing the selling services while you write your code on the side BS. Selling open source code doesn't work. Selling "services" based upon open source code that you are also somehow trying to develop at the same time also doesn't work. Selling SOLUTIONS based upon open source products that you may or may not have ever contributed a single line of code to WILL make you money. At that point you are not selling the product, you are selling your personal expertise in using it to solve a particular problem. This is why open source is popular and powerful, because giving it away and making it open and free HELPS those who have developed it to make money from it. Bug fixes, patches, improvements, suggestions, even forks, at the end of the day make for a better tool and better tools make for easier money.
The Stallmans of the world can rant all day long about their Marxist utopia but its not something that will ever happen. The value of open source is that it puts power into the hands of developers and solution implementers. It makes their job easier and allows them to create better solutions to the problems they face. The fact that non-developers also benefit is nothing more than a side effect. A very useful side effect but a side effect nonetheless.
Those of you who are always harping on and on about open source as some kind of political, social or even spiritual movement should really give it a rest. Developers create open source products because it is in their own best interest. This isn't some kind of altruistic sacrifice of time and effort to further some social revolutionary goal. Developers create the tools they want and need and then share those tools because doing so does not diminish that tools usefulness to them. Groups of programmers collaborate on open source projects due to the mutual benefit of everyone involved. None but a very small few have any notions of changing the world or undermining commercial software development. They're too busy making money and too smart to begin with to get caught up in a bunch of naive left wing bullshit led by someone who has never left the ivory tower of academia and, based upon the book written about him, has very little understanding of human behavior and what motivates that behavior.
The vast majority of Chineese people live in rural areas and are utterly uneducated. Only a relative few live in or near cities and have any sort of education or access to the internet in the first place. This may slowly change of course, but for the short term at least China's ability to overshadow the internet is basically non-existant.
The disk defragmenter that ships with Windows 2000 and XP was written by Executive Software, a company wholly owned and run by scientologists. The German government and people, being thoroughly familiar with totalitarian philosophies and regimes, are VERY anti-scientology. They recognize and understand that scientology is Nazi-ism taken one step farther, it is a nazi-esque philosophy dressed up as religion. I should know, I once was a scientologist. Scientology is the closest thing to an amalgamation of the mafia, fascism, big business, and a mind control cult, with a money scam thrown in for good measure. Because of the relationship between Microsoft and Executive Software the German government has refused to implement computing solutions that utilize Windows 2000 or XP. At one point the German government was demanding that Microsoft provide them with a version of Windows 2000 that was free of Executive Software's code. They didn't want to support a group overseas that they were working very hard to eliminate in their own country, with good reason I might add. On top of this add things like Echelon and the accusation that Microsoft has installed back doors into windows at the behest of the US intelligence community and Linux makes absolutely perfect sense as the platform of choice. Using it doesn't help support an evil cult and it doesn't make you vulnerable to US government spooks. I'm very glad to see this.
When I read about stories like this the impression I get is that Microsoft is desperate and is fighting a war they cannot win.
The best way to respond to Microsoft when they are in this position is to ignore them. By that I mean don't communicate with them. Refuse to take their phone calls, ignore email messages, throw faxes into the circular file, assuming of course that you have the power and authority to do so. This will have the effect of demoralizing the Microsoft employees tasked with preventing you from using non-MS products. This in turn will inhibit their ability to do this to others as well. At the end of the day anything that causes a Microsoftie to do a bad job is a good thing.
...is politicians seeking to ensure that by the time they reach adulthood we will all be treated as children by the state.
Who is going to protect them? Only we can and only by taking responsibility for the government that we create. Politicians are chosen from among the people and it is the people who elect them. Be responsible by being active in the political arena and aware of what is going on. B.S. legislation exists largely because most people DON'T VOTE. Politicians know this, boy do they ever. You wouldn't believe the kinds of statistical research they have done to find out who their real constituents are. Why do you think politicians from both parties kiss the ass of the elderly? Because the elderly VOTE! We can bitch and moan about campaign finances and political corruption due to the influence of corporations, but at the end of the day it is still the citizens who do the electing.
The system can work for us or against us. Your choice.
Greater than the threat of online pedophiles and creeps is the threat of Washington lawmakers with too much time on their hands and too many idiots among the public demanding that they enact counterproductive and even downright abusive legislation.
Luckily it would seem that while these lawmakers do have too much time on their hands, cooler and wiser heads are speaking on behalf of the public.
The problem is that calling the operating system in question "GNU/Linux" instead of just Linux is about as sensible as calling the CPU in your computer a "Central Processing Unit" at every opportunity.
People call it Linux because its easier to write and easier to say. I don't give a rat's ass whether Stallman approves or not. Demanding that I and everyone else kiss his ass just isn't going to work. For a genius the man has an EQ level of a three year old. Read "Free as in Freedom" if you want to see what I mean.
Your argument was well thought out but fundamentally flawed. The issue at stake here is not what rights the constitution and other legal safeguards acknolwedge but whether or not these rights are inherent and therefore independent of any government or legal system. I would argue that they are. The fact that the government does not recognize the rights of those under 18 does not mean that said persons have no rights. Our nation was founded upon the belief that all free people have inalienable rights. Our constitution is not something that grants rights to the people the way a monarch once granted indulgences. The constitution RECOGNIZES certain rights and freedoms and it stands as a testament to their being an innate aspect of man in the natural state of freedom.
So when some politician or another comes along, smiles for the camera, and proceeds to practice the age old art of fooling enough of the voters enough of the time to stay in office, don't tell me that its alright based upon flaws and loopholes in our legal system.
I can guarantee you that if the voting age in this country were around 12 that bills like this would never ever see the light of day. Politicians like picking on the young because its a good way to generate publicity and most older people have lost so many brain cells that they don't remember what THEY THEMSELVES were like in their younger days. Instead they buy into this sterotype that says anyone under 18 is barely able to wipe their own ass. Its the same with the curfew laws and ordinances, they don't do anything to keep anyone safe, but they sure do get people elected.
I turn 30 this year and the BS that I had to put up with as a teenager makes even less sense to me now, and it didn't make ANY sense back then. Actually I take that back, it makes more sense to me now. I now understand that trying to understand this kind of crap in rational or even knowledgable terms just won't work. The only context in which any of it makes sense is ageism. Like racism and sexism, and any other form of irrational discrimination you care to mention, ageism is a very real thing. People of all ages are hit by it, but the young and the old are hit the most. The same prejudice that says the average 15 year old is "impressionable" also says the average 75 year old is senile. There are immature idiots of any age and the teenage years hardly corner the market on that. Senility is also not a normal part of growing old but the sign of a serious problem such as alzheimer's disease.
Anyway I'm getting off track here. What I mainly want to say is that the rights and freedoms that your legal points say don't apply to the young are in fact not bound by the law nor by any government. They exist regardless as they are a innate and inalienable aspect of human sentience. Only through oppression and volence can they be suppressed, but they can never be dissolved or destroyed. If someone is old enough to make the money to buy a video game, he or she is old enough to play that video game. If you don't like it then the next time you're under 18 you can exercise your right to not buy those video games. Also if you have children you can exercise your power over them to steer them away from those games. But never shall the government or any other third party have the right to dictate what people can and cannot choose to look at.
I don't even know where to begin. Only someone who didn't understand anything about compilers and the hinderance that unnecessary abstraction creates would make the statment that C++ is better for programming games. C++ is fine for applications that don't squeeze the last drop of performance out of a system because memory usage and overhead are considered acceptable trade-offs. But for real programming the only way to go is hand optimized C and assembly. C++ just makes programs EASIER to write, it doesn't generate superior code by any stretch of the imagination.
..is just how long it will be before nitwits start trying to blame various acts of real-life violence or mayhem on the fact that some of the perpetrators might have played this game, especially if said perpetrators were younger than the magical mystical age of 18. This age is such a wonderous one. It is the point when everyone suddenly becomes a responsible adult accountable for their own actions, except of course when you spill your coffee in which case it is McDonald's fault. If you're under this age then things like Doom and Quake are bad for you because you're "impressionable." They are so bad for you in fact that if you play them you are (insert made up statistic here) times more likely to commit a violent act! They promote hate-thought, hate-speech, hate-crimes, racism, sexism, classism, dwarfism, and even autism! The whole world would be a better place if everyone turned in all their bad, bad guns, and just did what Big Brother^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H their benevolent government overseers told them to.
Mod me down, call me flame bait, I'm not here for asskissing anyway.
What is commonly called "liberalism" in the US is in fact usually something closer to socialism or marxism. True liberals are people like Thomas Jefferson, who was not exactly anti-religion. A true liberal nowadays is usually referred to as a libertarian.
As far as religion goes, the funny thing is, most "liberals" are in fact very religious. They believe in an entity that they believe should be all knowing, all powerful, in control of everything, and of course always benevolent. I am of course not talking about God but about Government. Nature abhors a vacuum. Liberals are generally athiests (or at least secular and not religious) and so they've simply chosen government as the "higher power" they believe in.
I've always said that religion stops a thinking mind. Well I'm coming to the conclusion that it is not religion that is stopping anyone from thinking but that there are people out there who cannot or will not think for themselves and that religions is simply one of many crutches that are used by the mentally incompetent to avoid having to deal with reality. Any ideology can be used as such a crutch. The most you can hope for is that the idiots choose an ideology that keeps them out of everyone's hair.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought AI was a good movie. Admittedly an appreciation of it requires an IQ higher than the temperature outside, but since when was that a bad thing? Shakespeare isn't for bozo's either.
As for Coppolla's casting of his daughter, she was a last minute stand in for Winona Ryder who fell ill when shooting was scheduled to start. I'd rather have seen Winona in the movie myself since she's one of the most beautiful women on the face of the earth, and she can actually act. Sophia Coppolla might make for a good director (The Virgin Suicides), but an actress she is not, or at least WAS not back when GF-3 was made.
Lee
You do realize that in order to teach school you pretty much have to be a left wing looney nowadays.
Being a schoolteacher ranks up there with the profession of social work in terms of susceptibility to "liberal" bullshit. There are exceptions of course, but just how long do they last in the teaching profession? I know I wouldn't last a year in a system dominated by an intellectually bankrupt ideology.
Lee
" So are you saying that because I have good experiences as a grad student, it renders my perspective invalid? If so, that's ridiculous."
No, all I'm saying is that grad school isn't grade school. I didn't write about grad school, I wrote about the problems and issues that surround primary and secondary school education in America. If you'll recall my original post, I did say that college was better than high school.
As for the rest of what you've said, I don't dispute it. I especially agree with the idea that you get out of your education what you put into it. This idea is not too far off from the point I was trying to make in the first place. If someone is intelligent and industrious, they are going to put a lot into their education, and likely receive a lot from it in return. My only point is that you are better off pursuing knowledge on your own instead of paying tuition. Graduate school is of course different. At that level there is value in the formal instruction. At lower levels the value is questionable. It is not valueless, just not the best bang for your buck, especially before you get to college. I'm pursuing a degree in (big suprise here) computer engineering. There are classes that I've taken that I could have easily taught. Then there are others that I really had to work at. I take all the classes because I'm pursuing a degree. If I were not pursuing a degree I'd concentrate on the areas I didn't already have mastery of.
Nothing in what the original poster wrote suggested that he was interested in pursuing a degree in math, just that he had an interest in it. For him to pay money to take the entry level classes he mentioned would be a very enefficient use of time and effort. He'll get farther on his own in the same ammount of time because he won't be held back by the slow pace of the course. That is assuming that he is able to handle the material in the first place. If his abilities are marginal then private study augmented with the help of a good tutor would be the best way to go. If he does want to pursue a degree in math then of course he'll have to take the courses. If that is the case then he should do what I do, get the texts and syllibi of the courses he is going to be taking in the future and study them ahead of time. What else are summers for? Even if he doesn't gain a full understanding on his own he'll be so far ahead of the curve when he does take the class that it will be a walk in the park.
Lee
What about the uselessness of a bad instructor? Or more importantly the detrimental nature of an environment that is not conducive to learning?
Holding up your experiences as a graduate student as examples of formal education is like presenting a gourmet meal as an example of the average fare from McDonalds.
Surely you must remember what it was like back in grade school and high school. For me it was largely a waste of time. My fellow students were not interested in learning anything, and the teachers spent much of their time babysitting. As a result the curriculum was dumbed down and the teachers themselves approached their craft from the viewpoint that they had to force it down your throat. I spent most of my school days trying not to get discouraged from learning by the very system tasked with assisting me to do so.
The products of this system are people who see learning as something unpleasant and education itself as the responsibility of others. They don't take responsibility for their own education (although they may work hard and/or jump through hoops for good grades). When they have children of their own they don't take responsibility for their child's education either. One of the major complaints of teachers and administrators is that parents aren't involved in the education process. All I can say is that the system is reaping what it has sown.
That is not to say that the educational systems in the US are all bad. In fact, compared to the rest of the world we are, as in most things, among the very best. The media and scaremongers used to like to tell us that the US is behind. The truth is that they're doing comparisons between average US students and the best and brightest the third world has to offer. They did this to scare the public and get more money for public education. Or at least that was the plan. Its largely backfired because what has happened instead is the parents who have the means have put their children into private schools and those that don't have demanded vouchers for private schools. That is why you don't hear so much about how the US is behind. Once again, they're reaping what they've sown.
I personally plan to home school my children. I hope for the woman I marry to be at least as intelligent as I am, preferably more intelligent. Chances are our children will also be ahead of the curve. I'll not let them be held back other children who are not as bright. Socialization will of course be an issue, but I'll deal with that when I come to it.
Lee
I take it that you're interested in math itself, not necessaarily interested in pursuing a degree in math. Trying to learn most things through formal education is like trying to paint a barn with a brush that only has 10% of its bristles. You'll get it done eventually, but boy is it inefficient.
One of the few advangates that formal education provides, at least in terms of learning, is the step-by-step programmed nature of it. If you're trying to learn something and you don't know how to approach it or what to study, then formal instruction can work. However when you know what it is you should be studying and learning, then formal schooling is usually a hinderance because you can learn things more quickly and more thoroughly on your own, assuming of course that you have some degree of discipline. The forced nature of formal education is its other advantage, and it is a dubious one at that.
Formal education is geared towards the stupid and lazy. For someone who is intelligent and industrious it usually gets in the way more than anything else.
Primary and secondary school spends twelve years teaching those of average intelligence what those whose IQ ranges in the top 10% can easily learn in six. I should know because when I was in sixth grade my "achievemnt" test scores were on par with most college students. My IQ is about 130, or in the top 10%. Of course my teachers all thought I was much brighter, but then they're not used to dealing with someone like me and are, by and large, not too far above the 50% percentile themselves.
College courses are better in that the instructors aren't there to babysit anyone. Also anyone who is either stupid or lazy doesn't usually stick around for long. The pace of study and depth in which the subject is explored can vary greatly however. There have been courses I've had to work pretty hard at, of course those have almost always been the ones that were worth taking.
But anyway, my point is don't spend money to take a course when independent discipline and effort will get you farther in your pursuit of knowledge. Spend money on courses only when they are required for some other purpose independent of learning, such as a job. Don't rely on them as your sole or even primary form of education. Rely on yourself and you'll always be ahead of curve.
Lee
I'd just like to point out that most of the two income families you mention are up to their eyeballs in debt. The reason they're having to work so hard is because they were stupid and spent money they didn't have by using credit cards, bank loans, etc.
After taxes my yearly income is 24k a year, and nearly 2/3 of that is disposable income. The reason is that I don't waste my money. I live in a house with three other people and we split the rent. I have more room for less money than if I had a single apartment for myself. We have a big pool in the backyard too. I ride my bike to work instead of driving. I do have a car, but I drive it maybe once or twice a week and I only pay liability insurance on it. Because I watch my money very carefully I can pretty much buy whatever I want. Now mind you I don't go out and waste money on toys and bullshit. If I buy something I have a good reason for doing so. I have that which I need and much of what I want, and I have money in the bank. So when I hear about how Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public have it so hard I can't have much sympathy. Either they didn't do what they needed to when they were younger to ensure they made enough money, or they're so irresponsible with their finances that they're wasting the money they do have paying interest.
I see other people whose thirst for things drives them to dig themselves a very deep hole of debt. As far as I'm concerned they're complete idiots. If I want a new car, and a nice new car for that matter, I'll save money for a few months, put down enough of a down payment that the car is worth more than I owe my credit union, and then pay the rest off within a year. Right now I have almost $15,000 in the bank. If I wanted to I could easily go buy a car worth my yearly (post tax) income and have it paid for within a year.
I'm sure as I grow older my condiitions will change. I'll marry (I sure hope so at least), have children, and in general incur greater expenses in the course of living. I'll also be making more money, and while I might not be able to continue to live off 1/3 of my income, I'll certainly not get to the point where I'm spending more than I make, especially if my future wife works also.
Of all the subjects that children are never taught in school, basic economics is surely one of the most sorely missed. Of course I can't really blame society for the actions of individuals though. It is their responsibility to see to it that they understand how to handle their money. Education would make that easier, but ultimately it is the responsibility of each of us to handle our own business.
As for the rest of what you said, I absolutely agree. Of course I wonder how much of that stress related mental illness is the result of working too hard to pay off your debt.
Lee
It seems to me that the entire GPL vs BSD debate is nothing more than a pastime for those with nothing better to do. Just think about it, a bunch of non programmers standing around bickering about licenses they'll never put anything out under anyway. Arm-chair quarterbacking for geeks.
As for actual developers, well there too the debate, or at least an ongoing never-ending squabble, is essentially pointless. Each programmer or team of programmers is going to choose and use the license they like best for the reasons they consider important. They have EVERY right to make this choice as they are the one's doing the work. Whether anyone else likes it or not is completely irrelevant.
Personally I like both licenses, but for different reasons. I see the GPL as a munition, a weapon. Putting high quality implementations of key tools and programs out under the GPL makes sure that the Microsofts of the world play nice by not being too greedy and/or abusing their customers. The downside to the GPL is that you're not going to obtain any financial gain from the products you release under it. There are rare exceptions such as RedHat, but then that company's product is a delivery system for GPL's software more than the software itself. Ultimately the value of GPL'd software is strategic, not directly economic. The GPL is most suitable for fundamental technologies that NEED to be kept absolutely open to ensure that incompatibilities don't creep in due to proprietary implementations. The BSD license is good because the code can be included in commercial programs. Now some people might start foaming at the mouth at the mere mention of commercial software. Of course these same people are usually in high school, college, or 35 and still living in their parent's basement.
Commercial software is what makes products that don't enjoy a wide following possible. Open Source is like socialism in a way. (Actually I don't think that my comparing Open Source to socialism was a very polite thing to do. Socialism is a system by which the abilities of one person are forcibly exploited to fulfill the needs of another. It and communism are but two points along the same continuum.) The base needs of the many are fulfilled, but what about the needs of the few? Does it make sense to try and organize a project to create an open source program to track oil deposits? How about an open source medical imaging system? There are some products for which there is a very small need in terms of how many people need the product. These same people are more often than not willing and able to pay good money to see that these products get created however. Also there is the question of expertise. Programmers are not experts on the best way to do everything possible with a computer. Imagine if someone tried to create an open source implementation of SPSS. Now what if I told you that such a project existed (PSPP) and that it hasn't gone ANYWHERE. The reason is that programmers are not statisticians. Their ability to verify the correctness of their own software's out put is next to nil.
At the end of the day both the GPL and BSD licenses have a useful function to perform. So does commerical software. Anyone who continuously argues about the role these three should play doesn't understand them in the first place.
Lee
Want good eductation? All you need is a student who wants to learn and a teacher who wants to teach. If you have those two things everything else is irrelevant.
The problem is the one that has always plagued education, the prevelence of "students" who are not there to learn, and "teachers" who are glorified babysitters. Introducing a new tool into this situation isn't a solution to this problem, because there is no solution to this problem. You can hire better teachers, assuming you can find them, but that doesn't solve the problem of the "students" who aren't there to learn.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that for a very long time people have been bitching and moaning about how our schools are sub-par. Gadgets are for some strange reason seen as a solution to this problem. The truth is that the "problem" of poor schools is largely manufactured by political pundits in order to stir the emotions of the sheeple. There are areas where the schools are sub par. There are two reasons for this that are interrelated. First, the local culture of these areas is barbaric. The "students" are criminals in training, many of which won't live to see their 21st birthday, and even more of which will spend that birthday behind bars. Good teacher's are not going to want to work in such an environment. Needless to say computers and palm pilots aren't going to solve the problem.
A computer or any other information tool in the hands of an interested student will of course be of value. That same tool in the hands of someone who doesn't give a rat's ass is just going to be a waste of money.
If you want a better education for your children, teach them at home starting at the youngest age you possibly can. Send them off to first grade or kindergarten already knowing how to read. If you can afford to home school them, do so. If not then try your dead level best to ensure that they are in a school district where their fellow students are not going to be a bunch of thugs and where the teachers have faith in the future of the students they teach.
Lee
What is the optimum design for a word processor? Does anyone know? Does being the god of all programmers mean you'll have special insight into how a program should work from a user's point of view? Actually being computer literate, let alone a computer god, puts you at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to DESIGNING a program that idiots are going to be using. You might be able to implement a particular design extremely well, but that doesn't mean you'll have any idea what the design should be in the first place. This is why there are so many bad programs out there, coders aren't users. It is also why these programs change so much without ever converging on the optimum interface or design, the people writing them don't know how to do anything but write the code.
If you want to create an outstanding application what you need to do is find people who work in the field that your application is supposed to be used in and ask THEM to design it for you. The less they know about computers the better. The imaginations of people who know nothing about computers are not stunted by an understanding of what is and is not possible. Because of this they'll suggest features and approaches that are much more likely to stretch the ability of a coder to implement them than anything that coder would come up with on his own. I can guarantee you that grammar checkers weren't the idea of anyone who wrote code for a living. They were the idea of someone who wrote type for a living.
These are the reasons why companies like Microsoft employ cognitive psychologists and make heavy use of focus groups to help them design their products. Say what you want about Windows as far as what goes on under the hood, you can't deny that the basic paradigm behind it's interface is superb. All running programs are always accessible from a task bar at the bottom. All applications are accessible through a heirarchial menu, and commonly used apps are available as quick start buttons on the taskbar. The windows themselves feature clear and concise buttons whose functions are immediately obvious. The basic design is so good that the two most powerful and popular Unix desktops, Gnome and KDE, both copy it to the hilt. This design was not thought up by some CLI speed freaks and code wizards who could write a 10,000 program that worked the first time, in assembly. It was the brainchild of people whose understanding of computers was rudimentary at best.
The key to designing great software is to get people who don't know anything about computers, because that is who your customers are going to be. Cater to these customers as much as you can and not only will your programs be very popular, but the problem of version fatigue will almost solve itself, assuming you can avoid feature creep.
Lee
Its nice to see someone who actually understands what I've been trying to tell people for some time now.
A lot of free software / open source idealogues have made the same mistake that the Marxists made, they've failed to understand that people act in their own best interest. What is in the best interest of others is only a concern to the degree that it either corresponds to a persons's interests or at the very least does not conflict with them. Those who do not follow this normal human pattern of behavior are known as saints, they're also so rare that trying to base a political, ideological, or economic model upon them just will not work. The Marxist idea best summed up by the phrase "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs" simply doesn't hold water whenever those with abilities derive no benefit from supplying the needs of others.
If anything is the antithesis of Marxism, it is capitalism, and corporations are the embodiment and incarnation of capitalist ideals. They exist to make money. Any other goals or intentions they might have are either in line with making money, or at the very least not contrary to it. If a business is doing something you can rest assured it is because they either believe it will make them money in some way, either directly or indirectly. Even in the case of charity, which corporations donate to in no small measure, the public goodwill that is generated ammounts to yet another reason for a customer to choose to buy that company's products. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that human beings (or collective of human beings which is what a company is) are heartless or completely indifferent to the problems and difficulties of others. Human beings are social animals and we do care for one another. We will do things to help one another that we don't derive immediate benefit from, or that we may never benefit from. It's just that we don't tend to help others when doing so hurts us. We'll certainly give money or even donate our time and energy to help starving kids in some third world country, but not if doing so means our own kids are going to go hungry.
So if businesses promote open source because they are going to derive a benefit from it, why do independent open source programmers contribute their own time and money? Because they derive benefit from it as well. Take our imaginary programmer "Gnubert." Gnubert spends his days (and nights) working on free software and advocating the creation and use of free software to others. He doesn't get paid to do this although he may have a job that allows him to do it, but then money is not what motivates him. Gnubert works on free software because it is what he enjoys doing and because the programs that he creates are useful to him in some manner. The fact that others use this code and also find it useful is also something that makes him happy. When others contribute to this code and provide him with their changes that code becomes better and is a more useful tool to Gnubert as well. Gnubert is behaving in a self interested manner.
Here is where the problems begin. Some people, and perhaps even Gnubert himself, start making the argument that everyone should behave as Gnubert does because it is the "right" thing to do, completely ignoring the fact that moral issues are not what motivate the behavior in the first place. As such these arguments make little sense to those who do not benefit from creating open source code, or who do not benefit from creating open source code in the same manner that Gnubert does. They make even less sense to those who would NOT benefit from creating open source code but would in fact stand to suffer because of it. The people making the arguments don't understand those who disagree. Ideology only prospers in the absence of a reality check. Open source is a good idea where it works and benefits those who are in a position to create or promote it. It is not such a good idea where it does not work, and it doesn't work everywhere. When was the last time you saw an open source medical imaging program? You don't because those who want and need an imaging program aren't programmers, and programmers have no want or need for a medical imaging program, except to the extent that creating one will put food on their table. Said programmers might need tools that help them create a medical imaging program, or a flexible and stable OS upon which to run this program, and this is why tools such as GCC and OS's such as Linux have been created as open source projects, developers benefit from their existence and because developers are self interested they have created them.
Lee
Someone needs to remind these guys what year it is. Had something like this come out in 1977 or so it would have been a competitive product. The problem is that it is 25 years later now and while Star Wars might not look too dated this thing sure does. S-100 systems and CP/M have been dead since before a good majority of the slashdot community were even born. Is there some reason why I should now shell out a thousand dollars for an S-100 system? For that kind of money I could get a Sun Blade 100, build myself a pretty decent Athlon system, or get my car's transmission fixed.
This product surely belongs in the more dollars than sense catagory.
Lee
Their first mistake was to modify a box that the cable company owned. They should have bought a descrambler of their own on the grey market. These 3rd party descrablers are "bullet" proof anyway which would have completely solved the problem altogether before it started. Their second mistake was calling the cable company and complaining when their modified box stopped working. They should have been FAR more cautious than that. If I hacked something and it stopped working the first thing I'd assume is that it was either something I did or something the cable company did in response. I would have checked to see whether the box was still good, which is as simple as connecting the cable straight to the tv. At that point I'd take steps to replace the box on my own, or at the very least undo the hack, assuming that was possible, before handing it over to the cable company.
I heard of this same tactic being used when I was living in DC back in the late 80's. You would think that people would be wise to it by now.
I'll bet you that of the people who are stealing cable in that region, all that were caught were fools and idiots. Anyone with a brain would not be so easily busted. I figure the 170k is nothing more than a stupidity tax, something I never ever see a problem with.
A word of advice to all those who would break the law or do something that could get them in trouble, develop some street smarts and an ounce of common sense beforehand.
Lee
The idea that open source is not driven by profit is absurd, as is the idea that the profit to be found within it is defined by companies trying to make money off of "services." At least in the sense of a company actively paying for the development of an open source product and then trying to balance the books by supporting it. That might work for a handful under special circumstances, but it won't work universally, not even close. You can however sell a SOLUTION that uses an open source product. Of course that isn't the FSF party line we're all used to hearing. We're used to hearing that companies that produce open source products should try to pay the bills by selling support to others who are actually implementing the solutions based upon those products. The people who are selling the solution are the ones who make the money. This means that in order to make money from open source you have to sell solutions, not give away and then try to support for a fee the tools that would be used to create the solution.
The truth is that open source is driven by developers for developers. It is a rational self interested response to proprietary and closed products that developers have been stuck with. Open source is the response to things like the Microsoft monopoly and vendor lock-in. No one wants to try and implement an optimal solution using sub-optimal tools. Closed code that can't be changed or even truly understood is a very good example of a sub-optimal tool. Stallman and the FSF might toot their horn about how they started the show, and that might be true on paper. The real truth however is that it was the internet and the power it gave the developer community to respond collectively that made the open source movement real.
Most programs are not written by programmers working for shrink-wrap software firms where the product they are selling is the software. Most programs are written in-house for an in house need. This is the reason why VB is the the most popular programming language in history, as judged by the number of lines of code written in it. These programmers don't make money from selling code, they make money from implementing solutions using code. ALL early open source products were written by programmers for programmers. Even now the overwhelming majority still fit that description. Projects like GCC and Linux are where they are because developers could use them to make money. USE is the key word there. Stallman might have created GCC initially, just as Linus created the Linux kernel initially. Neither product would be worth a plug nickel however if other programmers hadn't found them potentially useful and began contributing to them.
In the long run this will become painfully obvious to everyone and I won't have to always be hearing the selling services while you write your code on the side BS. Selling open source code doesn't work. Selling "services" based upon open source code that you are also somehow trying to develop at the same time also doesn't work. Selling SOLUTIONS based upon open source products that you may or may not have ever contributed a single line of code to WILL make you money. At that point you are not selling the product, you are selling your personal expertise in using it to solve a particular problem. This is why open source is popular and powerful, because giving it away and making it open and free HELPS those who have developed it to make money from it. Bug fixes, patches, improvements, suggestions, even forks, at the end of the day make for a better tool and better tools make for easier money.
The Stallmans of the world can rant all day long about their Marxist utopia but its not something that will ever happen. The value of open source is that it puts power into the hands of developers and solution implementers. It makes their job easier and allows them to create better solutions to the problems they face. The fact that non-developers also benefit is nothing more than a side effect. A very useful side effect but a side effect nonetheless.
Those of you who are always harping on and on about open source as some kind of political, social or even spiritual movement should really give it a rest. Developers create open source products because it is in their own best interest. This isn't some kind of altruistic sacrifice of time and effort to further some social revolutionary goal. Developers create the tools they want and need and then share those tools because doing so does not diminish that tools usefulness to them. Groups of programmers collaborate on open source projects due to the mutual benefit of everyone involved. None but a very small few have any notions of changing the world or undermining commercial software development. They're too busy making money and too smart to begin with to get caught up in a bunch of naive left wing bullshit led by someone who has never left the ivory tower of academia and, based upon the book written about him, has very little understanding of human behavior and what motivates that behavior.
Lee
The vast majority of Chineese people live in rural areas and are utterly uneducated. Only a relative few live in or near cities and have any sort of education or access to the internet in the first place. This may slowly change of course, but for the short term at least China's ability to overshadow the internet is basically non-existant.
Lee
The disk defragmenter that ships with Windows 2000 and XP was written by Executive Software, a company wholly owned and run by scientologists. The German government and people, being thoroughly familiar with totalitarian philosophies and regimes, are VERY anti-scientology. They recognize and understand that scientology is Nazi-ism taken one step farther, it is a nazi-esque philosophy dressed up as religion. I should know, I once was a scientologist. Scientology is the closest thing to an amalgamation of the mafia, fascism, big business, and a mind control cult, with a money scam thrown in for good measure. Because of the relationship between Microsoft and Executive Software the German government has refused to implement computing solutions that utilize Windows 2000 or XP. At one point the German government was demanding that Microsoft provide them with a version of Windows 2000 that was free of Executive Software's code. They didn't want to support a group overseas that they were working very hard to eliminate in their own country, with good reason I might add. On top of this add things like Echelon and the accusation that Microsoft has installed back doors into windows at the behest of the US intelligence community and Linux makes absolutely perfect sense as the platform of choice. Using it doesn't help support an evil cult and it doesn't make you vulnerable to US government spooks. I'm very glad to see this.
Lee
When I read about stories like this the impression I get is that Microsoft is desperate and is fighting a war they cannot win.
The best way to respond to Microsoft when they are in this position is to ignore them. By that I mean don't communicate with them. Refuse to take their phone calls, ignore email messages, throw faxes into the circular file, assuming of course that you have the power and authority to do so. This will have the effect of demoralizing the Microsoft employees tasked with preventing you from using non-MS products. This in turn will inhibit their ability to do this to others as well. At the end of the day anything that causes a Microsoftie to do a bad job is a good thing.
Lee
...is politicians seeking to ensure that by the time they reach adulthood we will all be treated as children by the state.
Who is going to protect them? Only we can and only by taking responsibility for the government that we create. Politicians are chosen from among the people and it is the people who elect them. Be responsible by being active in the political arena and aware of what is going on. B.S. legislation exists largely because most people DON'T VOTE. Politicians know this, boy do they ever. You wouldn't believe the kinds of statistical research they have done to find out who their real constituents are. Why do you think politicians from both parties kiss the ass of the elderly? Because the elderly VOTE! We can bitch and moan about campaign finances and political corruption due to the influence of corporations, but at the end of the day it is still the citizens who do the electing.
The system can work for us or against us. Your choice.
Lee
Greater than the threat of online pedophiles and creeps is the threat of Washington lawmakers with too much time on their hands and too many idiots among the public demanding that they enact counterproductive and even downright abusive legislation.
Luckily it would seem that while these lawmakers do have too much time on their hands, cooler and wiser heads are speaking on behalf of the public.
Lee
The problem is that calling the operating system in question "GNU/Linux" instead of just Linux is about as sensible as calling the CPU in your computer a "Central Processing Unit" at every opportunity.
People call it Linux because its easier to write and easier to say. I don't give a rat's ass whether Stallman approves or not. Demanding that I and everyone else kiss his ass just isn't going to work. For a genius the man has an EQ level of a three year old. Read "Free as in Freedom" if you want to see what I mean.
Lee
Or at least masturbation.
Your argument was well thought out but fundamentally flawed. The issue at stake here is not what rights the constitution and other legal safeguards acknolwedge but whether or not these rights are inherent and therefore independent of any government or legal system. I would argue that they are. The fact that the government does not recognize the rights of those under 18 does not mean that said persons have no rights. Our nation was founded upon the belief that all free people have inalienable rights. Our constitution is not something that grants rights to the people the way a monarch once granted indulgences. The constitution RECOGNIZES certain rights and freedoms and it stands as a testament to their being an innate aspect of man in the natural state of freedom.
So when some politician or another comes along, smiles for the camera, and proceeds to practice the age old art of fooling enough of the voters enough of the time to stay in office, don't tell me that its alright based upon flaws and loopholes in our legal system.
I can guarantee you that if the voting age in this country were around 12 that bills like this would never ever see the light of day. Politicians like picking on the young because its a good way to generate publicity and most older people have lost so many brain cells that they don't remember what THEY THEMSELVES were like in their younger days. Instead they buy into this sterotype that says anyone under 18 is barely able to wipe their own ass. Its the same with the curfew laws and ordinances, they don't do anything to keep anyone safe, but they sure do get people elected.
I turn 30 this year and the BS that I had to put up with as a teenager makes even less sense to me now, and it didn't make ANY sense back then. Actually I take that back, it makes more sense to me now. I now understand that trying to understand this kind of crap in rational or even knowledgable terms just won't work. The only context in which any of it makes sense is ageism. Like racism and sexism, and any other form of irrational discrimination you care to mention, ageism is a very real thing. People of all ages are hit by it, but the young and the old are hit the most. The same prejudice that says the average 15 year old is "impressionable" also says the average 75 year old is senile. There are immature idiots of any age and the teenage years hardly corner the market on that. Senility is also not a normal part of growing old but the sign of a serious problem such as alzheimer's disease.
Anyway I'm getting off track here. What I mainly want to say is that the rights and freedoms that your legal points say don't apply to the young are in fact not bound by the law nor by any government. They exist regardless as they are a innate and inalienable aspect of human sentience. Only through oppression and volence can they be suppressed, but they can never be dissolved or destroyed. If someone is old enough to make the money to buy a video game, he or she is old enough to play that video game. If you don't like it then the next time you're under 18 you can exercise your right to not buy those video games. Also if you have children you can exercise your power over them to steer them away from those games. But never shall the government or any other third party have the right to dictate what people can and cannot choose to look at.
Lee
I don't even know where to begin. Only someone who didn't understand anything about compilers and the hinderance that unnecessary abstraction creates would make the statment that C++ is better for programming games. C++ is fine for applications that don't squeeze the last drop of performance out of a system because memory usage and overhead are considered acceptable trade-offs. But for real programming the only way to go is hand optimized C and assembly. C++ just makes programs EASIER to write, it doesn't generate superior code by any stretch of the imagination.
Lee
..is just how long it will be before nitwits start trying to blame various acts of real-life violence or mayhem on the fact that some of the perpetrators might have played this game, especially if said perpetrators were younger than the magical mystical age of 18. This age is such a wonderous one. It is the point when everyone suddenly becomes a responsible adult accountable for their own actions, except of course when you spill your coffee in which case it is McDonald's fault. If you're under this age then things like Doom and Quake are bad for you because you're "impressionable." They are so bad for you in fact that if you play them you are (insert made up statistic here) times more likely to commit a violent act! They promote hate-thought, hate-speech, hate-crimes, racism, sexism, classism, dwarfism, and even autism! The whole world would be a better place if everyone turned in all their bad, bad guns, and just did what Big Brother^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H their benevolent government overseers told them to.
Mod me down, call me flame bait, I'm not here for asskissing anyway.
Lee
What is commonly called "liberalism" in the US is in fact usually something closer to socialism or marxism. True liberals are people like Thomas Jefferson, who was not exactly anti-religion. A true liberal nowadays is usually referred to as a libertarian.
As far as religion goes, the funny thing is, most "liberals" are in fact very religious. They believe in an entity that they believe should be all knowing, all powerful, in control of everything, and of course always benevolent. I am of course not talking about God but about Government. Nature abhors a vacuum. Liberals are generally athiests (or at least secular and not religious) and so they've simply chosen government as the "higher power" they believe in.
I've always said that religion stops a thinking mind. Well I'm coming to the conclusion that it is not religion that is stopping anyone from thinking but that there are people out there who cannot or will not think for themselves and that religions is simply one of many crutches that are used by the mentally incompetent to avoid having to deal with reality. Any ideology can be used as such a crutch. The most you can hope for is that the idiots choose an ideology that keeps them out of everyone's hair.
Lee
If only the rate were as low as 60%