The need to get to space exists (more than ever!) and the means exists. The systems, organizations and "institutional knowledge" does not, because NASA has pretty much kept it locked up.
Perhaps this is because of national security? What would happen if private companies had this technology, and suddenly wanted to do a deal with China? Sound familiar? It wouldn't be too hard, I expect, for a rocket that can get into space to be turned into an ICBM with whatever chemical, biological, or nuclear payload that your favorite dictator of a rogue state cares to greet a US city with.
I think it's about time that our boys and girls in the House, and the Senate, felt the full brunt of being Slashdotted. Follow those links to immediately find your local Representative and Senators' home page (don't forget each state has two senators, write them both). Email addys shouldn't be but three clicks away.
I'm not talking about flames, mind you. But let's show them how digital democracy can work. If everyone reading my comment were to email their congressman, maybe even send some snailmail (that may actually recieve more attention) perhaps they'd get the message. I suppose non-US citizens could email too, the more the merrier. (My only concern is that such folk aren't their constituents, ie, hold no power over them, but it never hurts to try)
I pay pretty close attention to politics, and not to try and start party wars with other/.ers, but I expect this is a Republican thing here. Since part of their party platform is tax cuts, they have to pay for it somehow. The surplus is needed for Social Security & maybe Medicare, but if the Repubs want to have a hope at passing the size cut they just did ($700 billion, which Clinton has declared he will veto) the Appropriations committee is likely looking for any way it possibly can to scrape together more funds. The fact that Republicans have never liked any public works doesn't help. Remember when they wanted to slash funding for PBS? They think the private sector (one of their main voting bases) can do everything. I don't agree, which may explain why I'm a card carrying Democrat. If any Democrats on the committee were involved, though, I'm just as disgusted at them.
Just as a closing point, to me this underlies the very reason why nerds need to stop living in such an insular world, ignoring things that aren't directly very techie. This comes as no surprise to me, but perhaps does to others. I wonder how many Slashdotters knew the reasons before I put forth my explination, or how many others have realistic explinations of their own. Perhaps if we all got more involved in politics, then such incidents would occur less often. At the very least, we wouldn't be be bowled over by them.
Japan missed the boat (so the US media says) on the PC, multimedia, and to a point, the Internet. From what I've heard, they've been struggling to catch up to US companies. Looks like they're determined not to be left behind again. Nice to see them take the lead like this.
Question is, how long until the US catches up? I hope our companies and consumers realize what the Japanese have already figured out.
He's famous because of his father. His father, the era, and this silly "Camelot" tag which journalists have stuck on the whole thing probably wouldn't exist if John Fitzgerald Kennedy Sr. had not been assassinated. The country was stunned, shocked, and grieved, that time with sincerity and for good reason. To lose a president, the office is in many ways a symbol of our nation, in such a fashion will naturally shake our world to its foundation.
So perhaps that's the foundation of this obsession we currently see, but it does not answer to the larger issue of the single-mindedness of the media (not to be confused with journalism). It is the reason I will not watch The Media, I've been conscious of this nonsense for some years now. I think Katz is bang on target with his essay (though this one lacked a bit of focus in my opinion).
In the end, if you want diversity in your news (outside of the nerd envelope) I suggest The Economist. The subscription is a bit pricy, but the quality and quantity of real news is unbeatable. It covers the entire world in depth, from Africa to Europe to Asia to the Americas. It's scientific reports are befitting of specialized journals, as are it's business and economic sections.
In the end, perhaps whether one allows one's self to be saturated with The Media or if one seeks real news is another dividing line being drawn by the Information Revolution. Windows vs. *nix, Big brother vs. grass roots democracy, The Media vs. journalism.
We each must choose, and our choices will define who we are.
To those who know their history, this analysis comes as no surprise, neither in its content nor its timing. The last four industrial revolutions all brought about wealth to some, poverty to others, a lot of hard work, and incredible technologies which, in due time, benefited everyone.
Before those technologies became so ubiquitous that even the poorest people could hope to benefit from them, however, these waves of innovation wracked the world as they came and went. Take the time to study these "Schumpeter's Waves" as reviewed by The Economist, Feburary 20, 1999, "Survey Innovation in Industry", pg 8.
First wave, 1785-1845
Water power
textiles
Iron
Second wave, 1845-1900
Steam
Rail
Steel
Third wave, 1900-1950
Electricity,
Chemicals
Internalc-combustion engine
Fourth wave, 1950-1990
Petrochemicals
Electronics
Aviation
Fifth wave, 1990 - 2020(?)
Digital networks
SOftware
New media
Given a study of history, it is an inevitable conclusion that division of economic classes will occur as these waves come and go. Tragically, these divisions are typically along the lines that existed before. This appears to be happening again, as Mr. Katz's essay shows. Much of this may be inevitable and unstoppable, yet some may be done to stop it.
Certainly, every effort should be made for getting large volumes of computers and networks into the chools and adding to the curriculum to give the new skills early. If such an effort should be made by the government, then current class divides should not become a deciding factor in who gets how much. That would help to narrow the gap of class division.
Yet also, as many of these postings by Slashdotters have pointed out, much of the responsibility does lie in the hands of the individual. Some would say most. A happy, fair balance must be struck, if we are all to be ready to catch The Sixth Wave.
So what will be The Sixth Wave? That will be an exciting question to ponder as we carry out the remaining thirty-year or so course of this exciting revolution.
Until then, happy surfing. Don't wipe out before you catch the next wave.
Easy to say when you're not scraping money together for groceries every week, or working a third job so that those same kids can have clothes next month when they outgrow the stuff they've got.
I strongly suspect that people who have the means to be posting on Slashdot have no idea what it means to be truly poor. Those people should reserve judgement until they've had the pleasure.
Okay, I admit I maybe rushed to judgement. What annoyed me, though, was the implication that digital cameras were superior by nature to film cameras. It was my intention to disprove that. I find that assumption as annoying and poorly thought-out as the assumption that paper and pencil will someday be replaced completely. Don't think I'm some kind of luddite. I'm quite the nerd, and I've been using a laptop computer to take notes in college classes for about five years now. I am willing to acknowledge when and where pencil and paper will be more useful or appropriate, however.
Moreover, however nice digital flatscreens get, who would ever want to do away with books? Printed and hand-written material have an immense charm. More sophisticated, technological, and complex does not necessarily mean better.
Traditional photography is as much an art as a science. Just getting a digital picture will never be enough for some, myself included. Choosing the fstop and shutter speed, contemplating the light in the shot, picking your lens, and making the personal decision of what you want to achieve in your shot will never be replaced by click&shoot brainlessness of digital cameras (sounds remarkably like point&click, eh?).
I confess I've never used one, so maybe there's more options to using it, but it will still never be a replacement for classic, analog, chemical film. Just as the computer has not lead us to a paperless, inkless office, nor will digital imagery ever banish the film-based camera to obsolesence.
Like a/. who posted before me, I too have a Nikon, mine however, is the N60 (new as of Autumn '98) a very sweet camera. I shot no less than thirteen rolls when I visited London and Paris. Unfortunately, I'm new to photography, so I was doing some serious OJT. It was a joy to do, though. Far from the cold experience of taking digital pictures which I saw other tourists doing. Rather, it was like using UNIX rather than Windows. It required thought, understanding, and artistic choices.
Later on, I hope to set up a dark room, learn to develop my own rolls, and take complete control of the artistic process. Until then, I'll suffer through commercial development, but that "consistency" will allow me to focus learning how depth of field, shutter speed, lighting, and lens choice will all make the shot that I want.
But that amendment [the fifth] confuses the hell out of me at any rate: if you're doing something wrong, shouldn't you be working to change the law that makes it wrong rather than trying to uphold the amendment which keeps you from incriminating yourself for it?
And supposing that something is murder or kidnapping? While cases have existed in the past where bad laws were made and people disobeyed them in protest (the Scopes Monkey trial comes to mind) the principle of the fifth amendment is to uphold the "Innocent until proven guilty". It's why the prosecution cannot call the defendant to the stand. It's why everyone is guaranteed representation (quality nonwithstanding, apologies to the PDAs out there) whether or not the person being prosecuted can afford it or not.
The legal system in the USA is founded upon the principle that it is better to let ten guilty men go free than send on innocent man to prison. This principle still holds true, whatever privacy losses we may have suffered.
Indeed, while it may seem that we are losing control, we are still ultimately a democracy. While that is true, we will continue to retain ultimate control. Remember the impeachment trial? Whatever your position on it, remember the surprise everyone had when the Republicans got pasted at the polls (relatively) in November '98. It was a surprise, pleasant to some, unpleasant to others. Spin doctors went to work, damage control was done. The bottom line was, though, the people spoke, and clearly. Remember it was an election four years previously which swept the Republicans into a strong majority in the House and Senate. The Democrats were the ones who were surprised then. As James Madison said (allow me to paraphrase), "A balance and separation of powers will protect the people from too strong a government. Ambition will be kept in check by...ambition". (That is not a quote but is similar to something I read a long time ago by Mr. Madison.)
In the end, I believe that democracy will prevent this nation (and other democracies in The Americas, Europe, and Asia) from becoming a totalitarian/Orewllian state. The political landscape changes constantly, according to the will of the people. Democracy works, and will continue to do so.
Uhh..RedHat is just as free as Slackware, Debian, SuSE and the rest.
Well, when I was learning about Linux, I had bought a nice thick book about it, which included a Slackware CD, a RedHat CD and a Caldera Lite CD. From what I was able to gather from reading the material presented in the book at the time , neither of the latter was available as a free version. That was not what I wanted, I wanted a free (like free beer) UNIX, and Slackware seemed to fit the category. I never even heard of SUSE or Debian until this year.
A year later, when I decided to try FreeBSD, my ether was set up, and I understood networking a little better. It was, by far, the easiest to install over the network. If one just does a little digging on the homepage, say looking at the link entitled, "Getting FreeBSD" or reading the brief section further down called, "Easy to Install", one can learn how to install the OS with extreme ease and simplicity.
just installed freeBSD I didnt like it... I wanted to see whitch was more solid freeBSD seemed nice but A lot of the basics just wouldnt work like *netscape* which hurt my feelings..
That's interesting, because I tried FreeBSD out of desperation in searching for a UNIX that would work well without much initial effort from me (I had not yet learned much about Unix, but that has changed largely since then). I found it to be far superior to Linux in that respect. I had been using Slackware for several months the year before I installed FreeBSD. I didn't like it much. As to other distros, I didn't like the feel of Redhat and didn't want to pay money for free software anyway.
FreeBSD was extremely easy to install. The ports tree system and Handbook on the homepage flattened the slope of the initial learning curve, and was remarkably rock stable. The centralized nature of FreeBSD is unbeatable. One also gets the advantage of benefiting from the many years of clean, efficient, intelligent coding done at Berkley University by all of those PhDs. Your tax dollars at work, take advantage of it.:)
Besides all that, FreeBSD has complete Linux emulation, so any proggie that will run on Linus' OS will run on any FBSD system.
As to the basics such as netscape not working (I never had any difficulty with any of it) perhaps you are going about things wrong? Did you try and install it from the ports, or did you try and install the Linux distrobution? If you tried the ports, that is curious. If a Linux distro, it may take some tinkering to set up right. If you are trying to run a Linux binary, did you make certain that your Linux emulation was working properly? go into/etc/rc.conf and set lpd_enable="YES". You may find you get better results.;)
Maybe BSD is faster now.
It was always my impression that Linux was catching up to FreeBSD. After all, as the web page says, it has "The power to serve". They're not being overconfident, FreeBSD was built to be server first, workstation second. But as I type this note on my FreeBSD 3.2Release system running on a Toshiba Satellite laptop, I can't help but remember the article one or two months ago on Daemon News called The Power to...Work? which discussed something I had learned to my joy six months ago...that FreeBSD is a superb choice for a workstation. I'm a graduate student doing computational chemistry, and I most of the same stuff on my laptop that everyone else in the office does on their SGIs.
But I wouldn't trade it for my linux box anyday..
That's too bad. But if you want to stick with the penguin with the fat butt, it's your call. It's okay, too, because FreeBSD can just ride piggy-back on Linux's success. And like the sig I've seen here on/. before, "FreeBSD, Linux, it's like blondes and brunettes, I like them both". Let's not forget with these entertaining holy wars we're all on the same UNIX side. On the other hand, these little family squables can be extremely entertaining and productive, don't you think?
Happy hacking, Linux people We FreeBSD folk will just occassionally poke you fat penguin folk in your huge butts with our tridents every now and again so you don't get too comfortable in that oh so hot spotlight.;)
So what's wrong with UNIX being originated in the 1960's? Lots of great stuff came out of that decade, and like it was said before me, UNIX certainly did not stagnate. UNIX was just one more pivotal event of the late 60's, early 70's in this country. (taps his foot as he listens to Henry Mancini's orchestra play Peter Gunn)
But more important is this communism comparison. That analogy occured to me just the other day, that Linux, FreeBSD, and Open Source software is comparable to the software "industry" as communism was comparable to capitalism. I the fretted about the fate of the Open Source movement - would it meet the same fate?
I soon realized that it would not. Open Source will never meet the same fate because it is not based upon a flawed idealization of human nature as communism is. Communism failed because it hinged on the selflessness of individuals, and in that atmosphere of complete giving to the collective, the absolute absence of greediness on the part of opportunists. Given the fact that Communism never worked and the experiments (however distant from the Marxist ideal) all sooner or later went belly up, it is pretty safe to say this theoretical perspective of the human condition was indeed flawed.
Open Source, however, is actually closer to Capitalism than it is to Communism in important areas. It does not hinge on an idealistic, unrealistic selflessness, but rather the same motivations as Capitalism: people want something for themselves. What are some of the prime reasons listed that Open Source programmers code? For glory and reputation, because they enjoy it, or to scratch an itch. Because they love what they do, the quality far exceeds commercial software where Joe Programmer is a salaried employee who is irked at his boss who keeps telling him how this and that have to be, and who didn't want to work on this stupid project anyway. At best Joe Programmer is sanguine about what he does, very few are passionate about it.
In the end Open Source will become the defacto standard for the Information Age because it is compatible with Capitalism. Instead of selling closed, proprietary software in the old Industrial Age model of capitalism, smart companies will sell services and support through the free and open software from the Community. After all, is this the Information Age or isn't it? The software is so ubiquitous these days, who would want to pay for it? Or, if it isn't ubiquitous, it certainly should be for our civilization to take full advantage of the Information Age.
The longer I use FreeBSD and download all my software from the net, the more foolish it seems for people to manufacture countless CDs, manuals, boxes, and ship all that via truck to a store I have to drive to for software I want. What a wastefull expendeture of all those resources. Metcalfe can live in the past if he wants, we'll go onto the future without him or Micro$oft.
I've read Feynman's article before, and once again I am not very impressed with it. It's a commencement speech written by an incredible man, but it's still a commencement speech.
"still a commencement speech"? Goodness, that says a lot about a lot of things. If you're not very impressed with it, it just shows how little you understand science. Every scientist I know holds Feynman in extremely high regard, not because of what he's achieved, but because of his high scientific standards. You are in no position to disgregard what he says on what science is. I am quite disappointed by your reaction.
Working with psychologists right now (I'm a programmer)
If your training is in programming, you are certainly in no position to either assest the scientific valdidity of psychology, nor to judge Dr. Feynman. He is a man out of both of our classes, and a scientist with few peers. Ignore his words at your own risk, even if it is "still a commencment speech" as you so cavalierly put it.
There has been a conflict between the hard and soft sciences for decades. Just two or three years ago, a physicist submitted an "article" to a psychological journal which expounded upon the effects of quantum gravity on behavior. It was total nonesense, a hoax from the start, but it was manufactured for a specific reason. The journal accepted it without ever investigating its validity. A hard-science journal always has a board of reviewers who frequently reject papers, explaining to the author where their work is lacking. Most of the time, those authors then fill in the gaps, and often get accepted later when they've done a better job of it.
To continue with the story, this article was published in the journal, lauded by psychiatrists. Then the hoax was revealed by the author, much to the delight of chemists, physicists, and other hard-science people. The psychologists howled in complaint, much to our amusement.
In the end, it was their own fault for not investigating the validity of that paper. That's what make science work, peer review. In the hard sciences, we try to validate or prove wrong other's work. Experiments are repeated to ensure the validity of the result. Reproducibility is where it's at.
I can say there's a great deal of work put into being sure that the measuring methods mean something, the experiments are relevant to the question being asked, and the data is collected in a statistically relevant way.
All of these things he's doing are important, certainly, but they are only the begining. I'm sure your psychologist is working hard, but is he reproducing favorable experiements, or does he feel that's a waste of effort? Does he put as much work into disproving his theory as he does into proving it? When he has the data, does he look for uncontrolled variables? Does he look for side-affect reasons that produced his favorable results which would undermine their support of his theory? Is he constantly refining his theory to match the experimental data, or refining his data to match his theory?
It's much like open-source software. In this case, however, we're studying nature. We're either right, or we're not, and if we're not, nature will put us right when experiments prove a bad theory is wrong. We must be carefull not to fool ourselves, though.
Oh come now, good sir. As I said, there is nothing wrong with philsophy or religion. My grievence was that unscientifically obtained and analyzed information was being presented under the banner of science. That is what psychology has always claimed to be, a science. This book does nothing to further the legitimacy of this claim, from all that has been presented of it. You would do well to read Dr. Feynman's commencement speach about Cargo Cult Science before you fire back with a rebuttle similar to the one you just did.
Further, your insinuation that people who are criticing this matter are "uncomfortable" or "unable to think [about]" these matters is more than just a poor grasp of the issues at hand, it is insulting. Part of the scientific process is the meticulous analysis of a theory and the evidence supporting it by people other than those who presented it. This is the cornerstone of science. If you take exception to people who try to do this and insult them to boot, you had best keep out of all things scientific, for you clearly then are completely lacking in the understanding necessary to participate in such discussions.
Finally, as to your remark Certainly dismissing it as "psychobabble" reveals a hostility towards the entire notion of philosophizing about the self. I would re-emphasize that this meme material is being presented as psychologial (thus a scientific) theory. Remember, she is a psychologist at a university, and books published by her of this nature is clearly going to be recieved as psychological in nature. Indeed, from all indications, she promotes her theories as such. If it is philosophy, then the author should make that disclaimer that her book is not a book of or about psychology, but philosophy. To do otherwise is disingenuous at best, pernicious at worst. One cannot have it both ways.
I would also point out to you that ad hominem attacks are always the resort of the desperate, those who have no legitimate facts or points to argue about, with respect to the matter at hand. Insulting is a poor way of proving the validity of your (or others') thoughts.
I'm a chemist by training, one of the most materialistic sciences that you can get. I've never heard much about memes before this posting (certainly never had the opportunity to see a definition of it, though I was able to infer some of the meaning from context). It seems to me that the meme, from what I've read here, is just a theoretical model to try and understand a part or property of one of the most complex systems in the universe as we know it, the human mind (not brain).
I hardly think it fair to call Mr. Katz's characterization of the material to be a reflection of himself rather than the book. Psychologists make an interesting career out of studying intangibles. Many great things have come out of psychology. In the end, however, one is studying intangibles. As such, the field and the results derived from it can only be taken so seriously.
Like all of the soft sciences (aka social sciences, humanities) it is very difficult to support theories with hard experimental data. In physics and chemistry, theories are (relatively) easily proven over and over with independent scientists verifying others' work. In psychology, however, one may construct theoretical models to characterize concepts and states of reality as we know them without much accountability.
When a chemist finds a new method of synthesis, the results are tangible, you can hold the them in a bottle. Likewise when a physicist tinkers with the forces of nature (ie, superconductors lifting massive weights off the ground, etc). Even the most abstract theories such as Quantum Mechanics (my specialization) can be proven through rigorous (though arcane) experimentation. We have even reached the point in theoretical chemistry that we can predict the results of a chemical reaction (no small accomplishment, let me assure you).
Phsychologists, however, are doomed to study a system in which they are handicapped by the ultimate bias: they are the systems they study. Therefore, while they may be learned and know important things about the human mind and consciousness, going past a certain depth or level passes the point of usefulness or meaningfulness.
The initial descriptions of what a meme is, as quoted from Dawkins' book, seem simple and useful enough. (Take the most serious note of that, for most important truths are simple.) Memes seem to me, from what I'm reading here, to be soundbytes. Short, catch-phrases without meaning or depth-of-thought. Then, however, Blackmore declares, "Everything that is passed from person to person is a meme,". Oh? What evidence brings her to say that? Are we now saying that memes are the packets in the human internet we call civilization? If so, do they vary in size or are they standardized? If they're standard how many memes make up the complex concepts expressed in mathematics, physics, and chemistry? How do memes (if they are building blocks) fit into interpersonal relationships? According to Blackmore, it's all memes. Based on what evidence? Based on what observations? Who decides? If we're spending all this energy to just *define* what a meme is, is it really so important? What will we gain from this analysis? Insight? Inner peace? Enlightenment? Thank you, but people have been getting all that from religion and philosophy for centuries now. So is psychology now the religion of the "post-modern" era? (another term I find meaningless). Bottom line, where's the science? Isn't that what psyhcology is supposed to be, a science?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for religion, inner peace, greater self-introspection. I'm very devout in my faith, but let's not mix our disciplines here.
In the end, I can guess at Blackmore's motivations. It is, of course, these motivations that dictate the quality of her work. I've been a member of Academia long enough too see how it works. The Publish or Perish code in Universities runs deep and runs strong. Professors are denied tenure and or promotion on the basis of what they can churn out. Quantity, not quality. Like everywhere else in our information (not idea) based society, truely meaningful thought and dialog are being drowned out in a sea of news, facts, data, bits, and bytes.
From all I've seen, the concept of the meme peaked in usefulness and meaningfulness with its introduction in Dawkins' book. Let it be a name for the flotsam of the sea of information we're drowning in. I've noticed of late that on Slashdot, if you don't post early after a story goes up, you'll either be the last one on a list of 200+, or no one will read your thoughts because ever more new stories are getting posted and the piece of news at the bottom of the page just isn't as interesting as what's at the top. Given the time differential between the story (and inital comment's) posting and my post, I doubt this essay of mine will even be ready by many more people than the fellow to whom I'm responding (if he even looks at his user page). I'm sure it won't get moderated up any, after all, who's reading this story now anyway? There's more intersting stuff going on right now, who cares about then. There's no time anymore for introspection or analysis.
As I understand it, most public companies usually only allow 10-30% of their stock to be traded publicly, the rest is held internally by executives and employees (ie, stock options w/salaries). Personally, I'm not worried about someone doing a hostile takeover, or shareholders having that much influence. The folks at Redhat are likely to be much smarter than that.
I sent the following to the author, at the end urging him to post either a correction or a retraction. I strongly urge Slashdot readers with knowhow to fill in the blanks that I left (with cool manners, pocket those flamethrowers) and all Slashdot readers to urge him (again with manners) to post a retraction/correction.
Sir,
Your article posted on InternetWeek was poorly researched, and quite inaccurate in most respects. Allow me to point out the deficiencies of your half-hearted attempt at objective criticism.
"Windows supporters still outnumber Linux supporters because Microsoft provides a better value proposition."
This, sir, is a most disingenuous statement. Windows supporters (by which I presume you mean users) outnumber Linux supporters because Windows has been the only OS in town for many years. Linux is younger than Windows, and is fighting a legacy marketshare, not a quality-based one.
Microsoft's business tactics (as shown in the DOJ trial) do little else but maintain this artificial market dominance which grew out of IBM's initial market dominance of the PC market in the early eighties. It is hardly because of proven product quality that Microsoft currently enjoys the market share that it does.
"Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition ships with a full complement of Internet services, including Web, proxy, index, messaging, database, transaction and firewall services. With Linux, these services will soon be available as a multivendor product."
In fact sir most, if not all, of these features are already available in Linux and other free UNIXes, including the BSDs (I personally favor FreeBSD). For Web services, Apache is readily available and comprises over half of the webservers in existance(1). Further, proxy and firewall services are already implemented in Linux and other *nixes, I myself have set up a FreeBSD firewall on a network I manage. The capability is built into the OS, it only requires a competent sysadmin. Messaging can be taken care of in the form of Sendmail(2). For databases, Oracle has release Oracle8 for Linux(3) and IBM has released DB2 v6.1 for Linux(4). Surely these databases are strong enough for whatever a company needs.
"Without robust SMP, Linux servers can support only small companies and single applications. If you're managing multiple servers for increased scalability, you're better off using multiple NT servers all participating within the same domain."
SMP support currently exists, as explained on the LinuxSMP site. "The current ix86 kernel supports Intel MP v1.1 and Intel MP v1.4 compliant motherboards with between 1 and 16 486/Pentium/Pentium Pro processors."(5) Clustering can also take care of scaling issues, as the Beowulf project website can tell you(6). While neither of these technologies are perhaps completely mature yet, it is reasonable to consider that, given the growth of Linux in the past four years of its eight year history alone, maturity will be achieved in short order, perhaps a year or less.
As for your statement of Linux being worthy of only small-scale operations, perhaps you would be wise to investigate the Linux in Business website.(9)
"Also, remember that Linux is still Unix. One of the reasons for Windows' growth has been the complexity of configuring and maintaining Unix operating systems. Simply because a low-cost version of Unix is now available, it does not automatically generate more people capable of managing and configuring these systems."
Actually, availabilty of low-cost versions of UNIX (again, the BSDs are available as is Linux) *does* in fact guarantee that more UNIX capable people will be generated. It is a matter of availabilty that has kept the number of UNIXphiles low. Previously, UNIX had been available only for companies needing the robust and flexible nature of UNIX, and at Academia in the computer departments and natural science departements. An entire generation of nerds, technophiles, and engineers is now being exposed to UNIX. This exposure will absolutely generate more capable people. Teenagers are learning the joys of the UNIX world, people in college are getting a chance to experience alternatives to Windows drudegery, and IT people who would never have thought of using UNIX are trying it, and liking it. Within a few years, the number of skilled UNIX workers will have increased dramatically.
Furthermore, as I stated before, the reason for Window's "growth" has simply been because of historical opportunity. Microsoft was at the right place at the right time, and had an inside track. Namely Gates' mother was on a charity board with one of IBM's top executive(7). DOS was the defacto OS on IBM PCs, and then the clones. Windows was built on the DOS empire, and NT was built upon that. Linux is inherently more stable, with less downtime than NT, as exemplified by the following story from Replacing WindowsNT with Linux(8).
"Life after moving Cats to NT was a nightmare. The system was crashing two to three times a day with no reason that I could find. I was on the phone with Microsoft and Cats constantly, but nobody could figure it out. Microsoft had me apply Service Packs one through three and a few HotFixes, which helped, but it still was crashing at least twice a week with the infamous "Blue Screen of Death". After many weeks and about $1500.00 in phone support from Microsoft, the technical support rep told me that I should find a better software package than The Cat's Pajamas. The only option left was to replace the server now and the only thing I had was the Linux server, so I restored Cats off our Windows NT tape backup machine to the Linux server and changed the login scripts to connect the users to this server for the Cats drives. Within one hour, we ,were back in operation.
"After completing the morning duties, we normally run a complete Cats backup before we continue with closing which usually would take two hours to complete on the Netware server. The Linux machine was able to do the entire backup in 45 minutes, cutting a little over an hour off our closing time. This increase in speed came from a decrease in hardware because the Linux server was running only 32 MB in RAM and IDE hard drives where the Netware server had 64 MB in RAM and SCSI drives. The speed increase has been noticed in daily work also. I get almost daily remarks that the system seems to be running faster and more reliable."(8)
You may find further such case studies at the Linux in Business website(9).
In conclusion, sir, I can only strongly suggest that you do more thorough research before posting a comments such as you made as fact. To do otherwise is irresponsible at best, and brazenly pernicious at worst. I am sorely disappointed in the quality of your work, and the bias of your opinion which I presume to be based on your "facts". I strongly recommend that you post a correction to your story and perhaps even a retraction. Certainly you owe it as a point of honor and integrity to correct your errors.
1.)http://www.networkcomputing.com/1011/1011f13. html 2.)http://www.networkcomputing.com/1011/1011f12. html 3.)http://technet.oracle.com/tech/linux/index.ht m 4.)http://www.software.ibm.com/data/db2/linux/ 5.)http://www.uk.linux.org/SMP/title.html 6.)http://www.beowulf.org/ 7.)A&E's Biography series 8.)http://citv.unl.edu/linux/LinuxPresentation.h tml 9.)http://www.bynari.com/collateral/case_studies .html
Actually, the ten line script I was talking about DID self-propigate. It was designed to hide itself in one of the system rc.* files, and work surreptitiously. Part of the execution from within the host file (which would have been run with root permissions) made for propigation to other machines.
I always get a chuckle out of these stories, to me viruses represent one of the prime deficiencies in Windows design (or lackthereof) and a capital argument for holding a company responsible for its product flaws.
I have read, however, that viruses can in fact be written for UNIX platforms, and have actually read a ten-line example script to show how it could be done. This inspite of the security structures built into UNIX's multi-user environment. It was rather frightening. There's not a whole lot of literature on this subject that is easily found, what do Slashdotters know about it?
Let's remember something critically important in this battle of the OSes. Making the most technologically advanced system is not the sole issue which will decide which software will be dominant. It is also important to be able to present a good face to the managers and executives who ultimately decide upon what software is running in the server room, or on the desktops of individual workers. We need to win the hearts and minds of all involved, and that means playing to people with different paradigms.
In this theatre of war, Microsoft clearly has the edge. It does not have the edge because of any morals, standards, or acheivements which they can (truthfully) tout. They simply hold the advantage that they are an incorperated company, a legal entity who executives, management, and accounting can identify with. When joe CEO signs a contract with MS, he knows who he's dealing with and who's theoretically is responsible for the performance and reliablity of the software. (of course, we all know that reality differs from theory by leaps and bounds in certain cases.;) Until the last six months, Linux was a faceless intangible to those who weren't nerds or geeks. People outside of the loop simply couldn't understand or identify with it.
It is much like when the PC came out in the first place. Towards the begining of the 1980s, Apple had emerged as the dominant manufacturer, with over 50% market share. Yet the PC didn't make a big entry into Corporate America until IBM stamped their letters on their own brand of plastic boxes. Then the boom started. And look which hardware architecture is everywhere in businesses.
Now adays we are getting the recognition, endorsement, and support of companies like IBM, HP, Intel, and Dell. Yet, it doesn't end there. It's not enough. None of these companies developed Linux of course, and so it's not sufficient that they are now offering support packages. We as a community have to do the rest. We must present a mature, can-do attitude about Linux's develpment, problems, and issues. Most of us are young, so we are not apt to respond in this manner. It crutially important that we not allow the knee-jerk adolescent responses to this kind of tactic by Microsoft to be what defines us to Corporate America.
Many good points in this posting, yet I take contention with the final paragraph. As with every time I hear it, this argument stinks of over-simplification. The infrastructure of computers will never be taken for granted as the structure for television is, for the simple reason that watching the boob toob is a passive activity, while using a computer is an interactive experience, where the user is required for anything to happen.
This assersion about the plumbing becoming transparent has the same flavor of the arguments that Mac people make. "Computers don't need to be hard, they should be as easy to use as a toaster." I love the arguments that computers are just like cars, you just want to use them, you don't care how they work. The fallacy there is that one forgets what a computer does: whatever you want it to do. However efficent or complex it gets, car still does one function: get you from point A to point B. The functionality of a computer is only limited by your imagination and ability to impliment your idea, whether it's coding it yourself, finding the tools and reassembling them in a neat fashion, or getting a buddy to write the code (That's how the spreadsheet was first written, thanks for the effort Bob Frankton). This sort of infinite potential creates a high level of irreducable complexity. This complexity necessitates some knowledge of the plumbing beyond that of one's TV set.
In the end, I think my argument will be proven true as more and more people become far more computer literate than the masses are at this time. I'm not talking about in the next five or ten years, even, I'm talking in a generation or three. Just think about it, two-thousand years ago, the idea of a 95%+ literacy rate was laughable. Who else needed to read besides scholars? As society progressed, and technology became available (the Gutenberg press, faster modes of communication, etc) reading became a necessity. It is my view that computer literacy will follow the same path. Just look at how fast the children today (>10yrs old) are learning computers and getting proficient. As the childrens' exposure to computers in schools and at home increases, we'll see a massive boom in compter literacy in the next twenty to fifty years.
How about we don't impede that natural growth by saying, "You don't need to know that."?
Slashdot Mirror
The need to get to space exists (more than
ever!) and the means exists. The systems, organizations and "institutional knowledge" does not, because
NASA has pretty much kept it locked up.
Perhaps this is because of national security? What would happen if private companies had this technology, and suddenly wanted to do a deal with China? Sound familiar? It wouldn't be too hard, I expect, for a rocket that can get into space to be turned into an ICBM with whatever chemical, biological, or nuclear payload that your favorite dictator of a rogue state cares to greet a US city with.
I think it's about time that our boys and girls in the House, and the Senate, felt the full brunt of being Slashdotted. Follow those links to immediately find your local Representative and Senators' home page (don't forget each state has two senators, write them both). Email addys shouldn't be but three clicks away.
/.ers, but I expect this is a Republican thing here. Since part of their party platform is tax cuts, they have to pay for it somehow. The surplus is needed for Social Security & maybe Medicare, but if the Repubs want to have a hope at passing the size cut they just did ($700 billion, which Clinton has declared he will veto) the Appropriations committee is likely looking for any way it possibly can to scrape together more funds. The fact that Republicans have never liked any public works doesn't help. Remember when they wanted to slash funding for PBS? They think the private sector (one of their main voting bases) can do everything. I don't agree, which may explain why I'm a card carrying Democrat. If any Democrats on the committee were involved, though, I'm just as disgusted at them.
I'm not talking about flames, mind you. But let's show them how digital democracy can work. If everyone reading my comment were to email their congressman, maybe even send some snailmail (that may actually recieve more attention) perhaps they'd get the message. I suppose non-US citizens could email too, the more the merrier. (My only concern is that such folk aren't their constituents, ie, hold no power over them, but it never hurts to try)
I pay pretty close attention to politics, and not to try and start party wars with other
Just as a closing point, to me this underlies the very reason why nerds need to stop living in such an insular world, ignoring things that aren't directly very techie. This comes as no surprise to me, but perhaps does to others. I wonder how many Slashdotters knew the reasons before I put forth my explination, or how many others have realistic explinations of their own. Perhaps if we all got more involved in politics, then such incidents would occur less often. At the very least, we wouldn't be be bowled over by them.
Japan missed the boat (so the US media says) on the PC, multimedia, and to a point, the Internet. From what I've heard, they've been struggling to catch up to US companies. Looks like they're determined not to be left behind again. Nice to see them take the lead like this.
Question is, how long until the US catches up? I hope our companies and consumers realize what the Japanese have already figured out.
I wonder how well FreeBSD is doing over there...
He's famous because of his father. His father, the era, and this silly "Camelot" tag which journalists have stuck on the whole thing probably wouldn't exist if John Fitzgerald Kennedy Sr. had not been assassinated. The country was stunned, shocked, and grieved, that time with sincerity and for good reason. To lose a president, the office is in many ways a symbol of our nation, in such a fashion will naturally shake our world to its foundation.
So perhaps that's the foundation of this obsession we currently see, but it does not answer to the larger issue of the single-mindedness of the media (not to be confused with journalism). It is the reason I will not watch The Media, I've been conscious of this nonsense for some years now. I think Katz is bang on target with his essay (though this one lacked a bit of focus in my opinion).
In the end, if you want diversity in your news (outside of the nerd envelope) I suggest The Economist. The subscription is a bit pricy, but the quality and quantity of real news is unbeatable. It covers the entire world in depth, from Africa to Europe to Asia to the Americas. It's scientific reports are befitting of specialized journals, as are it's business and economic sections.
In the end, perhaps whether one allows one's self to be saturated with The Media or if one seeks real news is another dividing line being drawn by the Information Revolution. Windows vs. *nix, Big brother vs. grass roots democracy, The Media vs. journalism.
We each must choose, and our choices will define who we are.
"..and upon each man will bear the mark of the beast.."
There may be another reference to it, but here's a more specific quote:
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich
and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in
their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save that he
had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the
number of his name
Revelations 13:16 & 13:17
Before those technologies became so ubiquitous that even the poorest people could hope to benefit from them, however, these waves of innovation wracked the world as they came and went. Take the time to study these "Schumpeter's Waves" as reviewed by The Economist, Feburary 20, 1999, "Survey Innovation in Industry", pg 8.
First wave, 1785-1845
Water power
textiles
Iron
Second wave, 1845-1900
Steam
Rail
Steel
Third wave, 1900-1950
Electricity,
Chemicals
Internalc-combustion engine
Fourth wave, 1950-1990
Petrochemicals
Electronics
Aviation
Fifth wave, 1990 - 2020(?)
Digital networks
SOftware
New media
Given a study of history, it is an inevitable conclusion that division of economic classes will occur as these waves come and go. Tragically, these divisions are typically along the lines that existed before. This appears to be happening again, as Mr. Katz's essay shows. Much of this may be inevitable and unstoppable, yet some may be done to stop it.
Certainly, every effort should be made for getting large volumes of computers and networks into the chools and adding to the curriculum to give the new skills early. If such an effort should be made by the government, then current class divides should not become a deciding factor in who gets how much. That would help to narrow the gap of class division.
Yet also, as many of these postings by Slashdotters have pointed out, much of the responsibility does lie in the hands of the individual. Some would say most. A happy, fair balance must be struck, if we are all to be ready to catch The Sixth Wave.
So what will be The Sixth Wave? That will be an exciting question to ponder as we carry out the remaining thirty-year or so course of this exciting revolution.
Until then, happy surfing. Don't wipe out before you catch the next wave.
Easy to say when you're not scraping money together for groceries every week, or working a third job so that those same kids can have clothes next month when they outgrow the stuff they've got.
I strongly suspect that people who have the means to be posting on Slashdot have no idea what it means to be truly poor. Those people should reserve judgement until they've had the pleasure.
Okay, I admit I maybe rushed to judgement. What annoyed me, though, was the implication that digital cameras were superior by nature to film cameras. It was my intention to disprove that. I find that assumption as annoying and poorly thought-out as the assumption that paper and pencil will someday be replaced completely. Don't think I'm some kind of luddite. I'm quite the nerd, and I've been using a laptop computer to take notes in college classes for about five years now. I am willing to acknowledge when and where pencil and paper will be more useful or appropriate, however.
Moreover, however nice digital flatscreens get, who would ever want to do away with books? Printed and hand-written material have an immense charm. More sophisticated, technological, and complex does not necessarily mean better.
Traditional photography is as much an art as a science. Just getting a digital picture will never be enough for some, myself included. Choosing the fstop and shutter speed, contemplating the light in the shot, picking your lens, and making the personal decision of what you want to achieve in your shot will never be replaced by click&shoot brainlessness of digital cameras (sounds remarkably like point&click, eh?).
/. who posted before me, I too have a Nikon, mine however, is the N60 (new as of Autumn '98) a very sweet camera. I shot no less than thirteen rolls when I visited London and Paris. Unfortunately, I'm new to photography, so I was doing some serious OJT. It was a joy to do, though. Far from the cold experience of taking digital pictures which I saw other tourists doing. Rather, it was like using UNIX rather than Windows. It required thought, understanding, and artistic choices.
I confess I've never used one, so maybe there's more options to using it, but it will still never be a replacement for classic, analog, chemical film. Just as the computer has not lead us to a paperless, inkless office, nor will digital imagery ever banish the film-based camera to obsolesence.
Like a
Later on, I hope to set up a dark room, learn to develop my own rolls, and take complete control of the artistic process. Until then, I'll suffer through commercial development, but that "consistency" will allow me to focus learning how depth of field, shutter speed, lighting, and lens choice will all make the shot that I want.
And supposing that something is murder or kidnapping? While cases have existed in the past where bad laws were made and people disobeyed them in protest (the Scopes Monkey trial comes to mind) the principle of the fifth amendment is to uphold the "Innocent until proven guilty". It's why the prosecution cannot call the defendant to the stand. It's why everyone is guaranteed representation (quality nonwithstanding, apologies to the PDAs out there) whether or not the person being prosecuted can afford it or not.
The legal system in the USA is founded upon the principle that it is better to let ten guilty men go free than send on innocent man to prison. This principle still holds true, whatever privacy losses we may have suffered.
Indeed, while it may seem that we are losing control, we are still ultimately a democracy. While that is true, we will continue to retain ultimate control. Remember the impeachment trial? Whatever your position on it, remember the surprise everyone had when the Republicans got pasted at the polls (relatively) in November '98. It was a surprise, pleasant to some, unpleasant to others. Spin doctors went to work, damage control was done. The bottom line was, though, the people spoke, and clearly. Remember it was an election four years previously which swept the Republicans into a strong majority in the House and Senate. The Democrats were the ones who were surprised then. As James Madison said (allow me to paraphrase), "A balance and separation of powers will protect the people from too strong a government. Ambition will be kept in check by...ambition". (That is not a quote but is similar to something I read a long time ago by Mr. Madison.)
In the end, I believe that democracy will prevent this nation (and other democracies in The Americas, Europe, and Asia) from becoming a totalitarian/Orewllian state. The political landscape changes constantly, according to the will of the people. Democracy works, and will continue to do so.
Uhh..RedHat is just as free as Slackware, Debian, SuSE and the rest.
Well, when I was learning about Linux, I had bought a nice thick book about it, which included a Slackware CD, a RedHat CD and a Caldera Lite CD. From what I was able to gather from reading the material presented in the book at the time , neither of the latter was available as a free version. That was not what I wanted, I wanted a free (like free beer) UNIX, and Slackware seemed to fit the category. I never even heard of SUSE or Debian until this year.
A year later, when I decided to try FreeBSD, my ether was set up, and I understood networking a little better. It was, by far, the easiest to install over the network. If one just does a little digging on the homepage, say looking at the link entitled, "Getting FreeBSD" or reading the brief section further down called, "Easy to Install", one can learn how to install the OS with extreme ease and simplicity.
just installed freeBSD I didnt like it... I wanted to see whitch was more solid freeBSD seemed nice but A
:)
/etc/rc.conf and set lpd_enable="YES". You may find you get better results. ;)
/. before, "FreeBSD, Linux, it's like blondes and brunettes, I like them both". Let's not forget with these entertaining holy wars we're all on the same UNIX side. On the other hand, these little family squables can be extremely entertaining and productive, don't you think?
;)
lot of the basics just wouldnt work like *netscape* which hurt my feelings..
That's interesting, because I tried FreeBSD out of desperation in searching for a UNIX that would work well without much initial effort from me (I had not yet learned much about Unix, but that has changed largely since then). I found it to be far superior to Linux in that respect. I had been using Slackware for several months the year before I installed FreeBSD. I didn't like it much. As to other distros, I didn't like the feel of Redhat and didn't want to pay money for free software anyway.
FreeBSD was extremely easy to install. The ports tree system and Handbook on the homepage flattened the slope of the initial learning curve, and was remarkably rock stable. The centralized nature of FreeBSD is unbeatable. One also gets the advantage of benefiting from the many years of clean, efficient, intelligent coding done at Berkley University by all of those PhDs. Your tax dollars at work, take advantage of it.
Besides all that, FreeBSD has complete Linux emulation, so any proggie that will run on Linus' OS will run on any FBSD system.
As to the basics such as netscape not working (I never had any difficulty with any of it) perhaps you are going about things wrong? Did you try and install it from the ports, or did you try and install the Linux distrobution? If you tried the ports, that is curious. If a Linux distro, it may take some tinkering to set up right. If you are trying to run a Linux binary, did you make certain that your Linux emulation was working properly? go into
Maybe BSD is faster now.
It was always my impression that Linux was catching up to FreeBSD. After all, as the web page says, it has "The power to serve". They're not being overconfident, FreeBSD was built to be server first, workstation second. But as I type this note on my FreeBSD 3.2Release system running on a Toshiba Satellite laptop, I can't help but remember the article one or two months ago on Daemon News called The Power to...Work? which discussed something I had learned to my joy six months ago...that FreeBSD is a superb choice for a workstation. I'm a graduate student doing computational chemistry, and I most of the same stuff on my laptop that everyone else in the office does on their SGIs.
But I wouldn't trade it for my linux box anyday..
That's too bad. But if you want to stick with the penguin with the fat butt, it's your call. It's okay, too, because FreeBSD can just ride piggy-back on Linux's success. And like the sig I've seen here on
Happy hacking, Linux people We FreeBSD folk will just occassionally poke you fat penguin folk in your huge butts with our tridents every now and again so you don't get too comfortable in that oh so hot spotlight.
So what's wrong with UNIX being originated in the 1960's? Lots of great stuff came out of that decade, and like it was said before me, UNIX certainly did not stagnate. UNIX was just one more pivotal event of the late 60's, early 70's in this country. (taps his foot as he listens to Henry Mancini's orchestra play Peter Gunn)
But more important is this communism comparison. That analogy occured to me just the other day, that Linux, FreeBSD, and Open Source software is comparable to the software "industry" as communism was comparable to capitalism. I the fretted about the fate of the Open Source movement - would it meet the same fate?
I soon realized that it would not. Open Source will never meet the same fate because it is not based upon a flawed idealization of human nature as communism is. Communism failed because it hinged on the selflessness of individuals, and in that atmosphere of complete giving to the collective, the absolute absence of greediness on the part of opportunists. Given the fact that Communism never worked and the experiments (however distant from the Marxist ideal) all sooner or later went belly up, it is pretty safe to say this theoretical perspective of the human condition was indeed flawed.
Open Source, however, is actually closer to Capitalism than it is to Communism in important areas. It does not hinge on an idealistic, unrealistic selflessness, but rather the same motivations as Capitalism: people want something for themselves. What are some of the prime reasons listed that Open Source programmers code? For glory and reputation, because they enjoy it, or to scratch an itch. Because they love what they do, the quality far exceeds commercial software where Joe Programmer is a salaried employee who is irked at his boss who keeps telling him how this and that have to be, and who didn't want to work on this stupid project anyway. At best Joe Programmer is sanguine about what he does, very few are passionate about it.
In the end Open Source will become the defacto standard for the Information Age because it is compatible with Capitalism. Instead of selling closed, proprietary software in the old Industrial Age model of capitalism, smart companies will sell services and support through the free and open software from the Community. After all, is this the Information Age or isn't it? The software is so ubiquitous these days, who would want to pay for it? Or, if it isn't ubiquitous, it certainly should be for our civilization to take full advantage of the Information Age.
The longer I use FreeBSD and download all my software from the net, the more foolish it seems for people to manufacture countless CDs, manuals, boxes, and ship all that via truck to a store I have to drive to for software I want. What a wastefull expendeture of all those resources. Metcalfe can live in the past if he wants, we'll go onto the future without him or Micro$oft.
I've read Feynman's article before, and once again I am not very impressed with it. It's a commencement
speech written by an incredible man, but it's still a commencement speech.
"still a commencement speech"? Goodness, that says a lot about a lot of things. If you're not very impressed with it, it just shows how little you understand science. Every scientist I know holds Feynman in extremely high regard, not because of what he's achieved, but because of his high scientific standards. You are in no position to disgregard what he says on what science is. I am quite disappointed by your reaction.
Working with psychologists right now (I'm a programmer)
If your training is in programming, you are certainly in no position to either assest the scientific valdidity of psychology, nor to judge Dr. Feynman. He is a man out of both of our classes, and a scientist with few peers. Ignore his words at your own risk, even if it is "still a commencment speech" as you so cavalierly put it.
You seem to assume that this book can't possibly have any basis in fact, because it's a book on "social sciences."
Go read Dr. Richard Feynman's commencement speach "Cargo Cult Science" and you will see why such an attitude is not unreasonable.
There has been a conflict between the hard and soft sciences for decades. Just two or three years ago, a physicist submitted an "article" to a psychological journal which expounded upon the effects of quantum gravity on behavior. It was total nonesense, a hoax from the start, but it was manufactured for a specific reason. The journal accepted it without ever investigating its validity. A hard-science journal always has a board of reviewers who frequently reject papers, explaining to the author where their work is lacking. Most of the time, those authors then fill in the gaps, and often get accepted later when they've done a better job of it.
To continue with the story, this article was published in the journal, lauded by psychiatrists. Then the hoax was revealed by the author, much to the delight of chemists, physicists, and other hard-science people. The psychologists howled in complaint, much to our amusement.
In the end, it was their own fault for not investigating the validity of that paper. That's what make science work, peer review. In the hard sciences, we try to validate or prove wrong other's work. Experiments are repeated to ensure the validity of the result. Reproducibility is where it's at.
I can say there's a great deal of work put into being sure that the measuring methods
mean something, the experiments are relevant to the question being asked, and the data is collected in a
statistically relevant way.
All of these things he's doing are important, certainly, but they are only the begining. I'm sure your psychologist is working hard, but is he reproducing favorable experiements, or does he feel that's a waste of effort? Does he put as much work into disproving his theory as he does into proving it? When he has the data, does he look for uncontrolled variables? Does he look for side-affect reasons that produced his favorable results which would undermine their support of his theory? Is he constantly refining his theory to match the experimental data, or refining his data to match his theory?
It's much like open-source software. In this case, however, we're studying nature. We're either right, or we're not, and if we're not, nature will put us right when experiments prove a bad theory is wrong. We must be carefull not to fool ourselves, though.
Oh come now, good sir. As I said, there is nothing wrong with philsophy or religion. My grievence was that unscientifically obtained and analyzed information was being presented under the banner of science. That is what psychology has always claimed to be, a science. This book does nothing to further the legitimacy of this claim, from all that has been presented of it. You would do well to read Dr. Feynman's commencement speach about Cargo Cult Science before you fire back with a rebuttle similar to the one you just did.
Further, your insinuation that people who are criticing this matter are "uncomfortable" or "unable to think [about]" these matters is more than just a poor grasp of the issues at hand, it is insulting. Part of the scientific process is the meticulous analysis of a theory and the evidence supporting it by people other than those who presented it. This is the cornerstone of science. If you take exception to people who try to do this and insult them to boot, you had best keep out of all things scientific, for you clearly then are completely lacking in the understanding necessary to participate in such discussions.
Finally, as to your remark Certainly dismissing it as "psychobabble" reveals a hostility towards the entire notion of philosophizing about the self. I would re-emphasize that this meme material is being presented as psychologial (thus a scientific) theory. Remember, she is a psychologist at a university, and books published by her of this nature is clearly going to be recieved as psychological in nature. Indeed, from all indications, she promotes her theories as such. If it is philosophy, then the author should make that disclaimer that her book is not a book of or about psychology, but philosophy. To do otherwise is disingenuous at best, pernicious at worst. One cannot have it both ways.
I would also point out to you that ad hominem attacks are always the resort of the desperate, those who have no legitimate facts or points to argue about, with respect to the matter at hand. Insulting is a poor way of proving the validity of your (or others') thoughts.
I'm a chemist by training, one of the most materialistic sciences that you can get. I've never heard much about memes before this posting (certainly never had the opportunity to see a definition of it, though I was able to infer some of the meaning from context). It seems to me that the meme, from what I've read here, is just a theoretical model to try and understand a part or property of one of the most complex systems in the universe as we know it, the human mind (not brain).
I hardly think it fair to call Mr. Katz's characterization of the material to be a reflection of himself rather than the book. Psychologists make an interesting career out of studying intangibles. Many great things have come out of psychology. In the end, however, one is studying intangibles. As such, the field and the results derived from it can only be taken so seriously.
Like all of the soft sciences (aka social sciences, humanities) it is very difficult to support theories with hard experimental data. In physics and chemistry, theories are (relatively) easily proven over and over with independent scientists verifying others' work. In psychology, however, one may construct theoretical models to characterize concepts and states of reality as we know them without much accountability.
When a chemist finds a new method of synthesis, the results are tangible, you can hold the them in a bottle. Likewise when a physicist tinkers with the forces of nature (ie, superconductors lifting massive weights off the ground, etc). Even the most abstract theories such as Quantum Mechanics (my specialization) can be proven through rigorous (though arcane) experimentation. We have even reached the point in theoretical chemistry that we can predict the results of a chemical reaction (no small accomplishment, let me assure you).
Phsychologists, however, are doomed to study a system in which they are handicapped by the ultimate bias: they are the systems they study. Therefore, while they may be learned and know important things about the human mind and consciousness, going past a certain depth or level passes the point of usefulness or meaningfulness.
The initial descriptions of what a meme is, as quoted from Dawkins' book, seem simple and useful enough. (Take the most serious note of that, for most important truths are simple.) Memes seem to me, from what I'm reading here, to be soundbytes. Short, catch-phrases without meaning or depth-of-thought. Then, however, Blackmore declares, "Everything that is passed from person to person is a meme,". Oh? What evidence brings her to say that? Are we now saying that memes are the packets in the human internet we call civilization? If so, do they vary in size or are they standardized? If they're standard how many memes make up the complex concepts expressed in mathematics, physics, and chemistry? How do memes (if they are building blocks) fit into interpersonal relationships? According to Blackmore, it's all memes. Based on what evidence? Based on what observations? Who decides? If we're spending all this energy to just *define* what a meme is, is it really so important? What will we gain from this analysis? Insight? Inner peace? Enlightenment? Thank you, but people have been getting all that from religion and philosophy for centuries now. So is psychology now the religion of the "post-modern" era? (another term I find meaningless). Bottom line, where's the science? Isn't that what psyhcology is supposed to be, a science?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for religion, inner peace, greater self-introspection. I'm very devout in my faith, but let's not mix our disciplines here.
In the end, I can guess at Blackmore's motivations. It is, of course, these motivations that dictate the quality of her work. I've been a member of Academia long enough too see how it works. The Publish or Perish code in Universities runs deep and runs strong. Professors are denied tenure and or promotion on the basis of what they can churn out. Quantity, not quality. Like everywhere else in our information (not idea) based society, truely meaningful thought and dialog are being drowned out in a sea of news, facts, data, bits, and bytes.
From all I've seen, the concept of the meme peaked in usefulness and meaningfulness with its introduction in Dawkins' book. Let it be a name for the flotsam of the sea of information we're drowning in. I've noticed of late that on Slashdot, if you don't post early after a story goes up, you'll either be the last one on a list of 200+, or no one will read your thoughts because ever more new stories are getting posted and the piece of news at the bottom of the page just isn't as interesting as what's at the top. Given the time differential between the story (and inital comment's) posting and my post, I doubt this essay of mine will even be ready by many more people than the fellow to whom I'm responding (if he even looks at his user page). I'm sure it won't get moderated up any, after all, who's reading this story now anyway? There's more intersting stuff going on right now, who cares about then. There's no time anymore for introspection or analysis.
Too many memes, too little time.
According to netcraft, the site is running Solaris:
:)
www.internetwk.com is running Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) mod_perl/1.16 on Solaris specifically.
See for yourself or visit netcraft to check out other sites' identities.
As I understand it, most public companies usually only allow 10-30% of their stock to be traded publicly, the rest is held internally by executives and employees (ie, stock options w/salaries). Personally, I'm not worried about someone doing a hostile takeover, or shareholders having that much influence. The folks at Redhat are likely to be much smarter than that.
what makes you think the operating system will become an irrelevant concept? That doesn't seem possible
I sent the following to the author, at the end urging him to post either a correction or a retraction. I strongly urge Slashdot readers with knowhow to fill in the blanks that I left (with cool manners, pocket those flamethrowers) and all Slashdot readers to urge him (again with manners) to post a retraction/correction.
. html . html t m h tml s .html
Sir,
Your article posted on InternetWeek was poorly researched, and quite
inaccurate in most respects. Allow me to point out the deficiencies of
your half-hearted attempt at objective criticism.
"Windows supporters still outnumber Linux supporters because Microsoft
provides a better value proposition."
This, sir, is a most disingenuous statement. Windows supporters (by which
I presume you mean users) outnumber Linux supporters because Windows has
been the only OS in town for many years. Linux is younger than Windows,
and is fighting a legacy marketshare, not a quality-based one.
Microsoft's business tactics (as shown in the DOJ trial) do little else
but maintain this artificial market dominance which grew out of IBM's
initial market dominance of the PC market in the early eighties. It is
hardly because of proven product quality that Microsoft currently enjoys
the market share that it does.
"Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition ships with a full complement of
Internet services, including Web, proxy, index, messaging, database,
transaction and firewall services. With Linux, these services will soon be
available as a multivendor product."
In fact sir most, if not all, of these features are already available in
Linux and other free UNIXes, including the BSDs (I personally favor
FreeBSD). For Web services, Apache is readily available and comprises
over half of the webservers in existance(1). Further, proxy and firewall
services are already implemented in Linux and other *nixes, I myself have
set up a FreeBSD firewall on a network I manage. The capability is built
into the OS, it only requires a competent sysadmin. Messaging can be
taken care of in the form of Sendmail(2). For databases, Oracle has
release Oracle8 for Linux(3) and IBM has released DB2 v6.1 for Linux(4).
Surely these databases are strong enough for whatever a company needs.
"Without robust SMP, Linux servers can support only small companies and
single applications. If you're managing multiple servers for increased
scalability, you're better off using multiple NT servers all participating
within the same domain."
SMP support currently exists, as explained on the LinuxSMP site. "The
current ix86 kernel supports Intel MP v1.1 and Intel MP v1.4 compliant
motherboards with between 1 and 16 486/Pentium/Pentium Pro processors."(5)
Clustering can also take care of scaling issues, as the Beowulf project
website can tell you(6). While neither of these technologies are perhaps
completely mature yet, it is reasonable to consider that, given the growth
of Linux in the past four years of its eight year history alone, maturity
will be achieved in short order, perhaps a year or less.
As for your statement of Linux being worthy of only small-scale
operations, perhaps you would be wise to investigate the Linux in Business
website.(9)
"Also, remember that Linux is still Unix. One of the reasons for Windows'
growth has been the complexity of configuring and maintaining Unix
operating systems. Simply because a low-cost version of Unix is now
available, it does not automatically generate more people capable of
managing and configuring these systems."
Actually, availabilty of low-cost versions of UNIX (again, the BSDs are
available as is Linux) *does* in fact guarantee that more UNIX capable
people will be generated. It is a matter of availabilty that has kept the
number of UNIXphiles low. Previously, UNIX had been available only for
companies needing the robust and flexible nature of UNIX, and at Academia
in the computer departments and natural science departements. An entire
generation of nerds, technophiles, and engineers is now being exposed to
UNIX. This exposure will absolutely generate more capable people.
Teenagers are learning the joys of the UNIX world, people in college are
getting a chance to experience alternatives to Windows drudegery, and IT
people who would never have thought of using UNIX are trying it, and
liking it. Within a few years, the number of skilled UNIX workers will
have increased dramatically.
Furthermore, as I stated before, the reason for Window's "growth" has
simply been because of historical opportunity. Microsoft was at the right
place at the right time, and had an inside track. Namely Gates' mother
was on a charity board with one of IBM's top executive(7). DOS was the
defacto OS on IBM PCs, and then the clones. Windows was built on the DOS
empire, and NT was built upon that. Linux is inherently more stable, with
less downtime than NT, as exemplified by the following story from
Replacing WindowsNT with Linux(8).
"Life after moving Cats to NT was a nightmare. The system was crashing two
to three times a day with no reason that I could find. I was on the phone
with Microsoft and Cats constantly, but nobody could figure it out.
Microsoft had me apply Service Packs one through three and a few HotFixes,
which helped, but it still was crashing at least twice a week with the
infamous "Blue Screen of Death". After many weeks and about $1500.00 in
phone support from Microsoft, the technical support rep told me that I
should find a better software package than The Cat's Pajamas.
The only option left was to replace the server now and the only thing I
had was the Linux server, so I restored Cats off our Windows NT tape
backup machine to the Linux server and changed the login scripts to
connect the users to this server for the Cats drives. Within one hour, we
,were back in operation.
"After completing the morning duties, we normally run a complete Cats
backup before we continue with closing which usually would take two hours
to complete on the Netware server. The Linux machine was able to do the
entire backup in 45 minutes, cutting a little over an hour off our closing
time. This increase in speed came from a decrease in hardware because the
Linux server was running only 32 MB in RAM and IDE hard drives where the
Netware server had 64 MB in RAM and SCSI drives. The speed increase has
been noticed in daily work also. I get almost daily remarks that the
system seems to be running faster and more reliable."(8)
You may find further such case studies at the Linux in Business
website(9).
In conclusion, sir, I can only strongly suggest that you do more thorough
research before posting a comments such as you made as fact. To do
otherwise is irresponsible at best, and brazenly pernicious at worst. I
am sorely disappointed in the quality of your work, and the bias of your
opinion which I presume to be based on your "facts". I strongly recommend
that you post a correction to your story and perhaps even a retraction.
Certainly you owe it as a point of honor and integrity to correct your
errors.
1.)http://www.networkcomputing.com/1011/1011f13
2.)http://www.networkcomputing.com/1011/1011f12
3.)http://technet.oracle.com/tech/linux/index.h
4.)http://www.software.ibm.com/data/db2/linux/
5.)http://www.uk.linux.org/SMP/title.html
6.)http://www.beowulf.org/
7.)A&E's Biography series
8.)http://citv.unl.edu/linux/LinuxPresentation.
9.)http://www.bynari.com/collateral/case_studie
Actually, the ten line script I was talking about DID self-propigate. It was designed to hide itself in one of the system rc.* files, and work surreptitiously. Part of the execution from within the host file (which would have been run with root permissions) made for propigation to other machines.
I always get a chuckle out of these stories, to me viruses represent one of the prime deficiencies in Windows design (or lackthereof) and a capital argument for holding a company responsible for its product flaws.
I have read, however, that viruses can in fact be written for UNIX platforms, and have actually read a ten-line example script to show how it could be done. This inspite of the security structures built into UNIX's multi-user environment. It was rather frightening. There's not a whole lot of literature on this subject that is easily found, what do Slashdotters know about it?
Let's remember something critically important in this battle of the OSes. Making the most technologically advanced system is not the sole issue which will decide which software will be dominant. It is also important to be able to present a good face to the managers and executives who ultimately decide upon what software is running in the server room, or on the desktops of individual workers. We need to win the hearts and minds of all involved, and that means playing to people with different paradigms.
;) Until the last six months, Linux was a faceless intangible to those who weren't nerds or geeks. People outside of the loop simply couldn't understand or identify with it.
In this theatre of war, Microsoft clearly has the edge. It does not have the edge because of any morals, standards, or acheivements which they can (truthfully) tout. They simply hold the advantage that they are an incorperated company, a legal entity who executives, management, and accounting can identify with. When joe CEO signs a contract with MS, he knows who he's dealing with and who's theoretically is responsible for the performance and reliablity of the software. (of course, we all know that reality differs from theory by leaps and bounds in certain cases.
It is much like when the PC came out in the first place. Towards the begining of the 1980s, Apple had emerged as the dominant manufacturer, with over 50% market share. Yet the PC didn't make a big entry into Corporate America until IBM stamped their letters on their own brand of plastic boxes. Then the boom started. And look which hardware architecture is everywhere in businesses.
Now adays we are getting the recognition, endorsement, and support of companies like IBM, HP, Intel, and Dell. Yet, it doesn't end there. It's not enough. None of these companies developed Linux of course, and so it's not sufficient that they are now offering support packages. We as a community have to do the rest. We must present a mature, can-do attitude about Linux's develpment, problems, and issues. Most of us are young, so we are not apt to respond in this manner. It crutially important that we not allow the knee-jerk adolescent responses to this kind of tactic by Microsoft to be what defines us to Corporate America.
It is precisely what Redmond is counting on.
Many good points in this posting, yet I take contention with the final paragraph. As with every time I hear it, this argument stinks of over-simplification. The infrastructure of computers will never be taken for granted as the structure for television is, for the simple reason that watching the boob toob is a passive activity, while using a computer is an interactive experience, where the user is required for anything to happen.
This assersion about the plumbing becoming transparent has the same flavor of the arguments that Mac people make. "Computers don't need to be hard, they should be as easy to use as a toaster." I love the arguments that computers are just like cars, you just want to use them, you don't care how they work. The fallacy there is that one forgets what a computer does: whatever you want it to do. However efficent or complex it gets, car still does one function: get you from point A to point B. The functionality of a computer is only limited by your imagination and ability to impliment your idea, whether it's coding it yourself, finding the tools and reassembling them in a neat fashion, or getting a buddy to write the code (That's how the spreadsheet was first written, thanks for the effort Bob Frankton). This sort of infinite potential creates a high level of irreducable complexity. This complexity necessitates some knowledge of the plumbing beyond that of one's TV set.
In the end, I think my argument will be proven true as more and more people become far more computer literate than the masses are at this time. I'm not talking about in the next five or ten years, even, I'm talking in a generation or three. Just think about it, two-thousand years ago, the idea of a 95%+ literacy rate was laughable. Who else needed to read besides scholars? As society progressed, and technology became available (the Gutenberg press, faster modes of communication, etc) reading became a necessity. It is my view that computer literacy will follow the same path. Just look at how fast the children today (>10yrs old) are learning computers and getting proficient. As the childrens' exposure to computers in schools and at home increases, we'll see a massive boom in compter literacy in the next twenty to fifty years.
How about we don't impede that natural growth by saying, "You don't need to know that."?