But I will point out that your dork friends would not have 'escaped' into fictional worlds if they were not so uncomfortable and alienated from reality. Bullies play a large part in this process, but abusive homes would also be a major factor.
In all honesty I was just giving the mirror argument to those people denouncing the show, and I tried to make the most boisterous arguments possible. shhh! Don't let the cat out of the bag.
However, I would like to make a minor point. People tend to group all social outcasts together as 'dorks'. However, the level of intelligence among social outcasts (and by social outcast I mean in the childish high-school sense) span all intelligence brackets. I've known a lot of 'dorks' who were also complete idiots. And most of those guys now LARP their life away and work at the ice-cream factory for pot money. Most of the reasonably intelligent dorks I know went to college at least, and although they might not be very happy, they are getting along fine.
Newsflash: People with disabilities are made fun of everyday by a great majority of people!
What if someone is mentally handicapped, and when they see you laughing and making fun of them they think that it is all great fun and they laugh along, because they don't have the ability to understand what is going on? Is that cruel? Whatever you say, it is only cruel to onlookers who empathize (misplaced empathy) with the retarded person.
Oh, and what do you call a man with no arms and no legs who is in the pool? Bob!
It depends really. If I were a Kantian I would agree with you. Since I'm not, I'll say it's not ok at all.
You would like to take some sort of golden rule as being valid. However, there is no evidence that applying this rule generally to all people produces favorable results. In fact, requiring this rule to apply to those outside your social 'in-group' is asking to be taken advantage of.
I would imagine you (would) let your children borrow your car. Do you let the kids from the local highschool borrow your car as well?
Of course you would say that you don't expect those kids from the highschool to let you borrow their car, so you are satisfying the golden rule, treat others as you would have them treat you..
But I would imagine that you would expect your children to let you borrow their car if you asked. So you see, you have a social 'in-group', your family, and you have a certain level of trust and expectation of reciprication within that group that doesn't extend to everyone.
For every favorable thing you do for people there is such an 'in-group', where you have expectations and they have expectations of you. Beyond each of these groups there are sharply defined limits of what you are willing to risk in any transaction.
Besides, for your logic to be true, that I would have to accept being teased and made fun of by more intelligent people, would require that those dummies on this program also accept such treatment from me. Since the teasing is being foisted on them, I fully expect that they and I would react similarly once the deception was uncovered.
OTOH, I would also expect that these people would kick me in the head if the reward were high enough and it was a socially acceptable thing to do, so I owe them nothing.
Three Cheers for the TV Company that rooted out these people who didn't get a decent education so that they can pick on them!
Idiots deserve no quarter. If they are stupid enough to believe that 'low orbit has gravity' or in 'gravity generators' then I'm all for mocking/teasing them.
After they are done they shouldn't even tell them it was a hoax. They should just send them home and wait for them to find out when they watch the first episode with all of their friends and family.
Yes, it is harsh and cruel. But I for one am tired of letting dumb people off with a wink. They will certainly demand that the world work around their mental dilapidation when it suits them.
Oh, criminals! Do you think that most of the people who will stab you for $10 are geniuses? No. Stupid people commit violent crimes.
Those bullies you had to deal with? Oh yea, they went on to found an Internet Startup... wait, I'm thinking of all your dork friends. The bullies are now working at the hat store in the mall. While some might say that life is their punishment, I say put them on TV and trick them into thinking they won the lottery, when really they are wanted for beating their girlfriend. Tell them that they have been selected for a free trip to Tahiti, and then hand them a one way ticket and secretly report their credit cards stolen and replace their drivers license with "Salmun Mohomed Jihaddii"'s drivers license. Just don't forget to film it!
This show avenges us just a little bit for every person that cuts us off because they don't understand how a four way stop works, and for all the government employees we have to deal with.
My meager understanding of patent law is this: You cannot sell a patented article, but if you were to build one from scratch for your own use then this is legal. In any event, if you actually purchase a patented item from the patent holder, there is no restriction on modifying that item to better suit your purpose, assuming you don't resell it.
As for circumventing copy protection or reverse engineering software, I see this as equivalent (not legally, but effectively) to the following: Ford intentionally limits the horsepower on the regular mustang, so that the mustang and the mustang cobra are identical other than some artificial limiting device. Congress makes it illegal to remove that device from the engine.
I do not believe that congress has the authority to make such a law. I cannot imagine any reading of the constitution that grants congress the authority to place arbitrary restrictions on what is done with your property in your possession, especially when it poses no danger to others.
A more accurate analogy is this: Ford places a GPS in it's cars so that they only work in the US, because they can sell the same car for more in Canada and they don't want reseller competition, although it is totally legal for resellers to sell US cars in Canada. Simply unplugging the GPS from under the hood allows the car to be driven anywhere, but is a violation of law because it is circumventing the security device.
This is identical to the region code on DVD's. The only difference is that it is not possible to copy a car, but that is not what the region code is there to prevent. It is there to ensure that media companies can sell their product at a higher cost in regions which are more wealthy, without resellers legally competing with them with their own product.
If I wanted to do the same thing with sacks or rice that could only be opened in region 1 and not any other part of the world, I would be laughed out of court. You cannot prevent people who legally own the product from cutting the bag open and taking the rice out, just because they are doing it somewhere I don't approve of because I can sell rice for $1 a sack in China but $25 a sack in America, and the device on the bag says "You can't open this here". In fact, my ability to set different prices in different regions rests in large part on my distribution monopoly on rice and my ability to enforce my region controls. No law demanding that rice only be opened in the region it is labeled to be opened in in would be considered in any way constitutional (barring other justification, such as spread of disease or collection of taxes).
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
That gives them the right to issue a patent or a copyright. However, it does not give them the right to restrict discussion about patents or copyrights. In other words, If Henry Ford patents the car, he has exclusive use of the invention "car" for a limited amount of time. However, anyone else has the right, once they purchase a car from Ford, to engage in any use of said car which does not violate Ford's exclusive right to manufacture it. Such a use might include taking it apart and discussing how the engine works, or replacing the engine with an engine from a motorcycle, so long as it is for personal use.
Congress does not have the right, under this clause, to ask people not to engage in activities such as discussion about a copyrighted work.
The constitution is very specific in the powers it grants government. Unfortunately we have allowed the government to take more and more authority, so that now we have such outrages as the FDA and Department of Education, Department of Labor, FCC, etc. Entities which actually produce law (regulation, which has the force of law), and are in no way sanctioned by the constitution.
Under what article or amendment to the constitution is the federal government explicitly given the power to restrict what can or cannot be done to bits contained on a disk owned by a researcher? If the federal government is not explicitly given such a power the law should be declared unconstitutional by the courts.
10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And in fact, your right to reverse engineer software is explicitly protected in the constitution, in the form of the 9th amendment.
9th amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In other words: The constitution actually names certain rights like speech and bearing arms and the right to a fair trial. Even though the constitution doesn't name every right you have, you still have those rights. Just because they are not listed by name in the constitution is not an argument against the constitutional protection of those rights.
Yes, that is sure to get the teens packed in there. Look kids! A basic word processor! Oh, you want to save your file to a disk? Just type "mount/dev/fd0 -tvfat/mnt/floppy". It's EASY and FUN!
Have you put any thought into how you are going to deal with the hundreds of teens who all want to use your 15 computers at once?
BAH! The obvious thing to do is to remove the graphics from the X-Server after a timeout on tabs that are hidden.
So the current tab has it's images on the X-Server, the hidden tabs have their images on the X-Server, but if you don't view them for 10 minutes they are free'd on the X-Server.
This way there is equal performance for viewing pages, and a slight lag when switching to a tab you haven't viewed in a while. That lag is so small it might as well be nothing. There will be a noticeable lag when you are on a different machine then the firefox process. In this event you might like to have the option to cache all images in the X-Server.
What are you talking about with the "us" complaint? I mean that if it were possible to ask an animal which it would prefer, being kicked or being killed, we really have no basis to answer. But animals are like humans (us) in many ways, and if they are like humans (us) in many ways we might assume that they would rather be kicked than murdered, much as people would rather be kicked than murdered.
Your distinction between mores and beliefs isn't even scratching the surface of what I was asking. The Pythagorean example is wholly off the mark.
The initial assertion was that morality isn't a popularity contest. I disagree. Morality is merely what people think it is, nothing more. In some places people believe that it is moral to commit suicide if your spouse dies. In other places the opposite is considered what is right.
You seem to believe that morality is something we can discover, and which an unchanging thing. In other words, that morality exists and our beliefs in morality are at best approximations of what is truly moral.
This belief is what people sortof believe in general. It's a rather silly belief, but it is encouraged by religions which present the opinions of the long dead as though it were some sort of magic that will get you rewarded (often after you are dead!).
You act as though being 'moral' is some sort of goal. However, what does it even mean to be moral? If you can't tell me that, you haven't told me anything.
Ahh, a true philosopher. You are proving my point. Hurting animals is wrong because we disapprove of it, for whatever reason.
I've got you pegged. You were the obnoxious kid who sits in the back of philosophy class, and 15 times every class tells everyone 'what he thinks' as though an unsupported assertion is in any way interesting or important. Then you brag that 'the professor doesn't like you because you prove him wrong'.
Please don't try to avoid the issue. I'll make it simple for you. My assertion is that morality is merely the sum of humanities approvals and disapprovals, and is based on nothing more than that.
What do you say morality is? Apparently you think there is some standard of morality which is beyond human control. Probably you are a Christian. I say that because you are clearly unable to analyze morality even in the simplest terms, and instead scoff at anyone who disagrees with you as though that is somehow 'rational discussion'. That is the usual response cult members have to opinions which contradict what they have been taught.
Now, if it is so obvious, WHY is it wrong to kick dogs as a pastime? Why is that wrong? Is it wrong to kick a pig if you are going to kill it in 30 seconds so that your family can eat it? Is it wrong to kick animals to death, so that you can eat them, when there are other methods available? Is it wrong to kill animals for a pastime? I'm sure if animals had a choice, and are anything like us, they would prefer to be kicked once a day than to be killed by a hunter. If it is wrong to kick animals, then it must be far worse to hunt them, for sport anyway.
And so on... That is the oddball thing about ethics. There are seemingly clean cut examples of things that are wrong, but lead to borderline cases where the initial assertion contradicts what we believe is acceptable. Virtually every ethical theory suffers from this flaw. But since you have it all figured out, feel free to enlighten me.
Fantastic response! Let me be the first to commend you for living the unexamined life!
Actually I've read many books on ethics. Care to explain why or where I am wrong? If it is so easy to knock down what I said that you won't even bother with it, it should be fairly simple for you to respond.
Consider this the gauntlet then. If you respond I will completely tear down anything you say with regards to my previous post, and make you feel very silly. It won't be hard since you clearly don't have a grasp on the subject.
Morality IS a popularity contest, and always has been. You can kill, steal, and whatever else in socially acceptable ways. If you kill your neighbor people get nervous, unless your neighbor happens to be on the other side in a war, and you're in the army. Even killing your brother is acceptable in those circumstances. Not because it fits some master morality plan, but because people won't disaprove.
Some people claim that even killing in a war is wrong. Other people consider those pacifists to be immoral and attempt to imprison them in war time if they resist army service, because refusal to defend your country, if it becomes popular enough, will open a nation to invasion. So far there have been no pacifist nations, despite there being many popular pacifist religions, such as Christianity.
In the end all moral judgments amount to 'approval' and 'disapproval'. Some philosophy might guide what you approve and disapprove of, but those philosophies have no other meaning or weight, and are based on nothing beyond what some person(s) at some time approved or disapproved of. There might be well reasoned or clear motivation for a moral rule, but that motivation or reasoning is itself only valid because of the general agreement that the basis or result of the rule is itself 'good'.
Example: It is wrong to kick dogs as a pastime.
Why is this wrong? Maybe because you don't believe that causing pain to animals for no reason. Why is that so? Is there any reason beyond our empathy for certain animals that are similar enough to us? That we can imagine the pain and that makes us uncomfortable or sad? The answer is no, no other reason.
Windows UI is what most people are use to. That is my summary of what is good.
Bad stuff: 1. API is so full of cruft and bugs that it is nearly unuseable. Microsoft tacitily admits this when they use undocumented hooks for their own software.
2. Magic automatic virii, no user intervention necessary.
3. Command line which is worlds worse than even sucky ksh.
4. "Registry"
5. Fragmenting filesystem.
6. By default, internet explorer lets the web cache be approx 5% of HD space. On newer drives this amounts to several gigs. Size of average cached file ~10k. This means millions and millions of files cached. Now revisit #5 and you will realize why this is an issue.
7. Notepad cannot edit files with unix line breaks. It just makes believe the 3 meg text file is all one line. Meanwhile every other windows editor can. Dos edit could as well. This leads to the obvious conclusion that MS intentionally broke notepad to make it harder to interoperate Windows and Unix. Those fuckers...
8. No ssh included, even though openssh is BSD licensed. Meanwhile telnet is ready to go.
9. No NFS support, no real symlinks, pay per seat licensing, zip file support is odd, no gzip or bz2 support.
10. Many many programs will refuse to find a network share, but if you map it as a drive they have no problem finding it.
11. Many many more reasons, my wife is screaming at me.
1. Nobody is paying you to spend your time developing and testing software on a platform you don't use.
2. Nothing is stopping microsoft from breaking any well developed OSS system built on windows. They have a long track record of doing these things (dr-dos, lotus 1-2-3, java, etc etc etc).
Microsoft will fully support OpenDocument. That is to say, it will open them and save them. The formatting will be completely messed up. Graphics and logos will mysteriously disapear or end up on the wrong side of page breaks. Tables will get eaten and the text will end up outside the table, and the table will follow, empty.
Microsoft will support OpenDocument to the extent that they have to to get whatever wonk working for the government to rubber stamp the official document certifying that it is supported. Expect it to be unusable for any document that has any sort of formatting at all beyond flat text.
In the end they will both support it and try to ruin it as a standard which permits cross platform collaboration of any kind, see Java.
Microsoft knows that the SECOND that you don't HAVE to use windows in an office environment, the migration will start. First a few offices will switch. Then a few more. Then things will settle down for awhile, a few major corporations will go "all X" where X!=Windows (linux or OS X or flavor-of-month) to save money. This will signal to the market that there is actually a demand for NON-MS office software, and people are willing to pay money for it. Next the market will be flooded with 10,000 software products, open-office ad-ons, etc, 99% will be crap. A few major competitors will emerge, with products which are competitive with MS's and which are cross-platform. About a year later MS will start supporting other OS's by creating a toolkit to port MS Windows software. This will be a ploy, as the much hyped toolkit will be intentionally impossible to use in the end to produce usable software. Many companies will waste a lot of time and resources attempting to port their windows code using MS's toolkit and API. The strategy by MS will be to delay as much software as possible from being ported for at least one development cycle, hoping to starve their competitors while they maneuver their Next Big Thing (TM) into position. In the end Microsoft would like to cause any company that switched huge costs when they can no longer get support (the stick), meanwhile reaching out to them to switch back with initial price cuts (the carrot). (see also "The Economic Theory of Crack Dealing")
Damn your relentless logic! Personally, I believe that cancer is caused by 'intelligent infection'. Cancer is far to complicated to be anything but the work of a 'great doctor in the sky'.
I don't go into the cockpit of the airplane and bitch about how hard it is to fly it. I don't yell at Ford because I can't change a timing chain. I COULD do these things, and if i had a compelling reason to learn and the resources to learn, and in that case I would gladly do so. However, I can change a tire, and I have managed to figure out the little air nozzle on the airplane.
I set up linux systems all the time. Let me tell you that installing distro's like UBUNTU is very easy. It's easy because time and resources were put into making it easy.
Installing quake 3 on linux is hard because: 1. Linux users like to figure things out, and don't mind following directions. 2. Linux users aren't generally computer-retarded to the point where they NEED to be hand held to get it installed. 3. Quake 3 is FREE SOFTWARE (and has been for awhile). When difficulty puts a dent in someones wallet it will get easier. 4. THE PRIMARY REASON: Very very very little money is being spent, and few resources put into by the community, making quake easy to install on linux.
So let me spell it out. Ford thinks that it should be fairly easy to change a tire, and people are capable of it. >> MAGIC >> Every car sold comes with everything you need to put on the spare, and even comes with a spare.
Now, while were on the subject, I find it infuriating to manage a windows network. People can't do a damned thing without admnistrator priviledges. They can't install software, they can't do shit except browse the web and collect exploits. Why can't they install software, and here I mean to their local account? Because everyone runs windows with administrator priviledges to avoid being pissed off every 30 seconds when shit breaks, so software companies assume it. It isn't a flaw in the OS usually, it is a flaw in the software. There is no reason it should be impossible to install some bullshit image viewer into their home directory, but you can't.
Now, when I want to set up an SSH server, how easy is it to do in windows? Have you ever tried to install Squid onto a windows machine? Windows services are bullshit compared to linux's beautiful init scripts.
People think that cars need mechanics, that sick people need doctors, that pipes need plumbers and wires need electricians. However, they want computers to be fully operate-able and maintainable by every fucktard with a GED.
And finally, yes, it is as easy to install Quake on windows as inserting the CD and clicking Setup.exe. That is why that same person, who's ability to install software consists of running Setup.exe owns a computer which is sending 20,000 SPAM's and his credit card information every hour. This dipshit can install Virus of the Day in two clicks even if his computer is totally patched, firewalled, and virus protected.
And he does run it, and he does get the virus. And then he says, 'why are computers prone to viruses'.
Ford COULD build a car where anyone could change out any part. It would cost $500,000 and would break down every 4 days. The headlights would randomly not work, and people would still install things wrong and break it worse. People would still go to mechanics because they are too stupid to unlatch one part and latch on the replacement without getting their balls caught in it.
While you might only use math while paying your bills, many people use math for other things. That you don't use math at your work is just more evidence that you aren't educated enough to get a decent job. So you are basically using the following logic: I don't know much math (leads to) I get a bad job (leads to) my job doesn't require math (leads to) math isn't useful because I don't even use it!. The problem is of course that if you had been smart enough to learn it initially, you might have a job where it is a requirement.
Good luck paying those bills on shoe-shine wages btw.
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You make fair points.
But I will point out that your dork friends would not have 'escaped' into fictional worlds if they were not so uncomfortable and alienated from reality. Bullies play a large part in this process, but abusive homes would also be a major factor.
In all honesty I was just giving the mirror argument to those people denouncing the show, and I tried to make the most boisterous arguments possible. shhh! Don't let the cat out of the bag.
However, I would like to make a minor point. People tend to group all social outcasts together as 'dorks'. However, the level of intelligence among social outcasts (and by social outcast I mean in the childish high-school sense) span all intelligence brackets. I've known a lot of 'dorks' who were also complete idiots. And most of those guys now LARP their life away and work at the ice-cream factory for pot money. Most of the reasonably intelligent dorks I know went to college at least, and although they might not be very happy, they are getting along fine.
Newsflash: People with disabilities are made fun of everyday by a great majority of people!
What if someone is mentally handicapped, and when they see you laughing and making fun of them they think that it is all great fun and they laugh along, because they don't have the ability to understand what is going on? Is that cruel? Whatever you say, it is only cruel to onlookers who empathize (misplaced empathy) with the retarded person.
Oh, and what do you call a man with no arms and no legs who is in the pool? Bob!
It depends really. If I were a Kantian I would agree with you. Since I'm not, I'll say it's not ok at all.
You would like to take some sort of golden rule as being valid. However, there is no evidence that applying this rule generally to all people produces favorable results. In fact, requiring this rule to apply to those outside your social 'in-group' is asking to be taken advantage of.
I would imagine you (would) let your children borrow your car. Do you let the kids from the local highschool borrow your car as well?
Of course you would say that you don't expect those kids from the highschool to let you borrow their car, so you are satisfying the golden rule, treat others as you would have them treat you..
But I would imagine that you would expect your children to let you borrow their car if you asked. So you see, you have a social 'in-group', your family, and you have a certain level of trust and expectation of reciprication within that group that doesn't extend to everyone.
For every favorable thing you do for people there is such an 'in-group', where you have expectations and they have expectations of you. Beyond each of these groups there are sharply defined limits of what you are willing to risk in any transaction.
Besides, for your logic to be true, that I would have to accept being teased and made fun of by more intelligent people, would require that those dummies on this program also accept such treatment from me. Since the teasing is being foisted on them, I fully expect that they and I would react similarly once the deception was uncovered.
OTOH, I would also expect that these people would kick me in the head if the reward were high enough and it was a socially acceptable thing to do, so I owe them nothing.
Would you like to be on a new tv show this fall? We're sending people to the center of the earth!
There is no gravitational effect in any orbit. There is 'microgravity' but that is so small that you can't physically feel it.
Three Cheers for the TV Company that rooted out these people who didn't get a decent education so that they can pick on them!
Idiots deserve no quarter. If they are stupid enough to believe that 'low orbit has gravity' or in 'gravity generators' then I'm all for mocking/teasing them.
After they are done they shouldn't even tell them it was a hoax. They should just send them home and wait for them to find out when they watch the first episode with all of their friends and family.
Yes, it is harsh and cruel. But I for one am tired of letting dumb people off with a wink. They will certainly demand that the world work around their mental dilapidation when it suits them.
Oh, criminals! Do you think that most of the people who will stab you for $10 are geniuses? No. Stupid people commit violent crimes.
Those bullies you had to deal with? Oh yea, they went on to found an Internet Startup... wait, I'm thinking of all your dork friends. The bullies are now working at the hat store in the mall. While some might say that life is their punishment, I say put them on TV and trick them into thinking they won the lottery, when really they are wanted for beating their girlfriend. Tell them that they have been selected for a free trip to Tahiti, and then hand them a one way ticket and secretly report their credit cards stolen and replace their drivers license with "Salmun Mohomed Jihaddii"'s drivers license. Just don't forget to film it!
This show avenges us just a little bit for every person that cuts us off because they don't understand how a four way stop works, and for all the government employees we have to deal with.
My meager understanding of patent law is this: You cannot sell a patented article, but if you were to build one from scratch for your own use then this is legal. In any event, if you actually purchase a patented item from the patent holder, there is no restriction on modifying that item to better suit your purpose, assuming you don't resell it.
As for circumventing copy protection or reverse engineering software, I see this as equivalent (not legally, but effectively) to the following: Ford intentionally limits the horsepower on the regular mustang, so that the mustang and the mustang cobra are identical other than some artificial limiting device. Congress makes it illegal to remove that device from the engine.
I do not believe that congress has the authority to make such a law. I cannot imagine any reading of the constitution that grants congress the authority to place arbitrary restrictions on what is done with your property in your possession, especially when it poses no danger to others.
A more accurate analogy is this: Ford places a GPS in it's cars so that they only work in the US, because they can sell the same car for more in Canada and they don't want reseller competition, although it is totally legal for resellers to sell US cars in Canada. Simply unplugging the GPS from under the hood allows the car to be driven anywhere, but is a violation of law because it is circumventing the security device.
This is identical to the region code on DVD's. The only difference is that it is not possible to copy a car, but that is not what the region code is there to prevent. It is there to ensure that media companies can sell their product at a higher cost in regions which are more wealthy, without resellers legally competing with them with their own product.
If I wanted to do the same thing with sacks or rice that could only be opened in region 1 and not any other part of the world, I would be laughed out of court. You cannot prevent people who legally own the product from cutting the bag open and taking the rice out, just because they are doing it somewhere I don't approve of because I can sell rice for $1 a sack in China but $25 a sack in America, and the device on the bag says "You can't open this here". In fact, my ability to set different prices in different regions rests in large part on my distribution monopoly on rice and my ability to enforce my region controls. No law demanding that rice only be opened in the region it is labeled to be opened in in would be considered in any way constitutional (barring other justification, such as spread of disease or collection of taxes).
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
That gives them the right to issue a patent or a copyright. However, it does not give them the right to restrict discussion about patents or copyrights. In other words, If Henry Ford patents the car, he has exclusive use of the invention "car" for a limited amount of time. However, anyone else has the right, once they purchase a car from Ford, to engage in any use of said car which does not violate Ford's exclusive right to manufacture it. Such a use might include taking it apart and discussing how the engine works, or replacing the engine with an engine from a motorcycle, so long as it is for personal use.
Congress does not have the right, under this clause, to ask people not to engage in activities such as discussion about a copyrighted work.
The constitution is very specific in the powers it grants government. Unfortunately we have allowed the government to take more and more authority, so that now we have such outrages as the FDA and Department of Education, Department of Labor, FCC, etc. Entities which actually produce law (regulation, which has the force of law), and are in no way sanctioned by the constitution.
Under what article or amendment to the constitution is the federal government explicitly given the power to restrict what can or cannot be done to bits contained on a disk owned by a researcher? If the federal government is not explicitly given such a power the law should be declared unconstitutional by the courts.
10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And in fact, your right to reverse engineer software is explicitly protected in the constitution, in the form of the 9th amendment.
9th amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In other words: The constitution actually names certain rights like speech and bearing arms and the right to a fair trial. Even though the constitution doesn't name every right you have, you still have those rights. Just because they are not listed by name in the constitution is not an argument against the constitutional protection of those rights.
Yes, that is sure to get the teens packed in there. Look kids! A basic word processor! Oh, you want to save your file to a disk? Just type "mount /dev/fd0 -tvfat /mnt/floppy". It's EASY and FUN!
Have you put any thought into how you are going to deal with the hundreds of teens who all want to use your 15 computers at once?
BAH! The obvious thing to do is to remove the graphics from the X-Server after a timeout on tabs that are hidden.
So the current tab has it's images on the X-Server, the hidden tabs have their images on the X-Server, but if you don't view them for 10 minutes they are free'd on the X-Server.
This way there is equal performance for viewing pages, and a slight lag when switching to a tab you haven't viewed in a while. That lag is so small it might as well be nothing. There will be a noticeable lag when you are on a different machine then the firefox process. In this event you might like to have the option to cache all images in the X-Server.
This is obvious.
us as in mankind vice animals you dope.
What are you talking about with the "us" complaint? I mean that if it were possible to ask an animal which it would prefer, being kicked or being killed, we really have no basis to answer. But animals are like humans (us) in many ways, and if they are like humans (us) in many ways we might assume that they would rather be kicked than murdered, much as people would rather be kicked than murdered.
Your distinction between mores and beliefs isn't even scratching the surface of what I was asking. The Pythagorean example is wholly off the mark.
The initial assertion was that morality isn't a popularity contest. I disagree. Morality is merely what people think it is, nothing more. In some places people believe that it is moral to commit suicide if your spouse dies. In other places the opposite is considered what is right.
You seem to believe that morality is something we can discover, and which an unchanging thing. In other words, that morality exists and our beliefs in morality are at best approximations of what is truly moral.
This belief is what people sortof believe in general. It's a rather silly belief, but it is encouraged by religions which present the opinions of the long dead as though it were some sort of magic that will get you rewarded (often after you are dead!).
You act as though being 'moral' is some sort of goal. However, what does it even mean to be moral? If you can't tell me that, you haven't told me anything.
Ahh, a true philosopher. You are proving my point. Hurting animals is wrong because we disapprove of it, for whatever reason.
I've got you pegged. You were the obnoxious kid who sits in the back of philosophy class, and 15 times every class tells everyone 'what he thinks' as though an unsupported assertion is in any way interesting or important. Then you brag that 'the professor doesn't like you because you prove him wrong'.
Please don't try to avoid the issue. I'll make it simple for you. My assertion is that morality is merely the sum of humanities approvals and disapprovals, and is based on nothing more than that.
What do you say morality is? Apparently you think there is some standard of morality which is beyond human control. Probably you are a Christian. I say that because you are clearly unable to analyze morality even in the simplest terms, and instead scoff at anyone who disagrees with you as though that is somehow 'rational discussion'. That is the usual response cult members have to opinions which contradict what they have been taught.
Now, if it is so obvious, WHY is it wrong to kick dogs as a pastime? Why is that wrong? Is it wrong to kick a pig if you are going to kill it in 30 seconds so that your family can eat it? Is it wrong to kick animals to death, so that you can eat them, when there are other methods available? Is it wrong to kill animals for a pastime? I'm sure if animals had a choice, and are anything like us, they would prefer to be kicked once a day than to be killed by a hunter. If it is wrong to kick animals, then it must be far worse to hunt them, for sport anyway.
And so on... That is the oddball thing about ethics. There are seemingly clean cut examples of things that are wrong, but lead to borderline cases where the initial assertion contradicts what we believe is acceptable. Virtually every ethical theory suffers from this flaw. But since you have it all figured out, feel free to enlighten me.
Fantastic response! Let me be the first to commend you for living the unexamined life!
Actually I've read many books on ethics. Care to explain why or where I am wrong? If it is so easy to knock down what I said that you won't even bother with it, it should be fairly simple for you to respond.
Consider this the gauntlet then. If you respond I will completely tear down anything you say with regards to my previous post, and make you feel very silly. It won't be hard since you clearly don't have a grasp on the subject.
Morality IS a popularity contest, and always has been. You can kill, steal, and whatever else in socially acceptable ways. If you kill your neighbor people get nervous, unless your neighbor happens to be on the other side in a war, and you're in the army. Even killing your brother is acceptable in those circumstances. Not because it fits some master morality plan, but because people won't disaprove.
Some people claim that even killing in a war is wrong. Other people consider those pacifists to be immoral and attempt to imprison them in war time if they resist army service, because refusal to defend your country, if it becomes popular enough, will open a nation to invasion. So far there have been no pacifist nations, despite there being many popular pacifist religions, such as Christianity.
In the end all moral judgments amount to 'approval' and 'disapproval'. Some philosophy might guide what you approve and disapprove of, but those philosophies have no other meaning or weight, and are based on nothing beyond what some person(s) at some time approved or disapproved of. There might be well reasoned or clear motivation for a moral rule, but that motivation or reasoning is itself only valid because of the general agreement that the basis or result of the rule is itself 'good'.
Example: It is wrong to kick dogs as a pastime.
Why is this wrong? Maybe because you don't believe that causing pain to animals for no reason. Why is that so? Is there any reason beyond our empathy for certain animals that are similar enough to us? That we can imagine the pain and that makes us uncomfortable or sad? The answer is no, no other reason.
Windows UI is what most people are use to. That is my summary of what is good.
Bad stuff:
1. API is so full of cruft and bugs that it is nearly unuseable. Microsoft tacitily admits this when they use undocumented hooks for their own software.
2. Magic automatic virii, no user intervention necessary.
3. Command line which is worlds worse than even sucky ksh.
4. "Registry"
5. Fragmenting filesystem.
6. By default, internet explorer lets the web cache be approx 5% of HD space. On newer drives this amounts to several gigs. Size of average cached file ~10k. This means millions and millions of files cached. Now revisit #5 and you will realize why this is an issue.
7. Notepad cannot edit files with unix line breaks. It just makes believe the 3 meg text file is all one line. Meanwhile every other windows editor can. Dos edit could as well. This leads to the obvious conclusion that MS intentionally broke notepad to make it harder to interoperate Windows and Unix. Those fuckers...
8. No ssh included, even though openssh is BSD licensed. Meanwhile telnet is ready to go.
9. No NFS support, no real symlinks, pay per seat licensing, zip file support is odd, no gzip or bz2 support.
10. Many many programs will refuse to find a network share, but if you map it as a drive they have no problem finding it.
11. Many many more reasons, my wife is screaming at me.
It does make sense to only develop for OSS OS's.
1. Nobody is paying you to spend your time developing and testing software on a platform you don't use.
2. Nothing is stopping microsoft from breaking any well developed OSS system built on windows. They have a long track record of doing these things (dr-dos, lotus 1-2-3, java, etc etc etc).
3. Windows is total crap in every way.
Microsoft will fully support OpenDocument. That is to say, it will open them and save them. The formatting will be completely messed up. Graphics and logos will mysteriously disapear or end up on the wrong side of page breaks. Tables will get eaten and the text will end up outside the table, and the table will follow, empty.
Microsoft will support OpenDocument to the extent that they have to to get whatever wonk working for the government to rubber stamp the official document certifying that it is supported. Expect it to be unusable for any document that has any sort of formatting at all beyond flat text.
In the end they will both support it and try to ruin it as a standard which permits cross platform collaboration of any kind, see Java.
Microsoft knows that the SECOND that you don't HAVE to use windows in an office environment, the migration will start. First a few offices will switch. Then a few more. Then things will settle down for awhile, a few major corporations will go "all X" where X!=Windows (linux or OS X or flavor-of-month) to save money. This will signal to the market that there is actually a demand for NON-MS office software, and people are willing to pay money for it. Next the market will be flooded with 10,000 software products, open-office ad-ons, etc, 99% will be crap. A few major competitors will emerge, with products which are competitive with MS's and which are cross-platform. About a year later MS will start supporting other OS's by creating a toolkit to port MS Windows software. This will be a ploy, as the much hyped toolkit will be intentionally impossible to use in the end to produce usable software. Many companies will waste a lot of time and resources attempting to port their windows code using MS's toolkit and API. The strategy by MS will be to delay as much software as possible from being ported for at least one development cycle, hoping to starve their competitors while they maneuver their Next Big Thing (TM) into position. In the end Microsoft would like to cause any company that switched huge costs when they can no longer get support (the stick), meanwhile reaching out to them to switch back with initial price cuts (the carrot). (see also "The Economic Theory of Crack Dealing")
Damn your relentless logic! Personally, I believe that cancer is caused by 'intelligent infection'. Cancer is far to complicated to be anything but the work of a 'great doctor in the sky'.
Well, it's like this. You're an idiot. He's a scientist. Your post is the equivalent of:
"How does Ford know that it's new Hybrid cars won't have a nuclear meltdown?"
"I heard that cancer is cause by di-hydrogen monoxide."
Why send rockets into space? Leave the vacuum alone!
I'm testing the edit comment thing.. Nothing to see here, move along.
Fuck newbies.
I don't go into the cockpit of the airplane and bitch about how hard it is to fly it. I don't yell at Ford because I can't change a timing chain. I COULD do these things, and if i had a compelling reason to learn and the resources to learn, and in that case I would gladly do so. However, I can change a tire, and I have managed to figure out the little air nozzle on the airplane.
I set up linux systems all the time. Let me tell you that installing distro's like UBUNTU is very easy. It's easy because time and resources were put into making it easy.
Installing quake 3 on linux is hard because:
1. Linux users like to figure things out, and don't mind following directions.
2. Linux users aren't generally computer-retarded to the point where they NEED to be hand held to get it installed.
3. Quake 3 is FREE SOFTWARE (and has been for awhile). When difficulty puts a dent in someones wallet it will get easier.
4. THE PRIMARY REASON: Very very very little money is being spent, and few resources put into by the community, making quake easy to install on linux.
So let me spell it out. Ford thinks that it should be fairly easy to change a tire, and people are capable of it. >> MAGIC >> Every car sold comes with everything you need to put on the spare, and even comes with a spare.
Now, while were on the subject, I find it infuriating to manage a windows network. People can't do a damned thing without admnistrator priviledges. They can't install software, they can't do shit except browse the web and collect exploits. Why can't they install software, and here I mean to their local account? Because everyone runs windows with administrator priviledges to avoid being pissed off every 30 seconds when shit breaks, so software companies assume it. It isn't a flaw in the OS usually, it is a flaw in the software. There is no reason it should be impossible to install some bullshit image viewer into their home directory, but you can't.
Now, when I want to set up an SSH server, how easy is it to do in windows? Have you ever tried to install Squid onto a windows machine? Windows services are bullshit compared to linux's beautiful init scripts.
People think that cars need mechanics, that sick people need doctors, that pipes need plumbers and wires need electricians. However, they want computers to be fully operate-able and maintainable by every fucktard with a GED.
And finally, yes, it is as easy to install Quake on windows as inserting the CD and clicking Setup.exe. That is why that same person, who's ability to install software consists of running Setup.exe owns a computer which is sending 20,000 SPAM's and his credit card information every hour. This dipshit can install Virus of the Day in two clicks even if his computer is totally patched, firewalled, and virus protected.
And he does run it, and he does get the virus. And then he says, 'why are computers prone to viruses'.
Ford COULD build a car where anyone could change out any part. It would cost $500,000 and would break down every 4 days. The headlights would randomly not work, and people would still install things wrong and break it worse. People would still go to mechanics because they are too stupid to unlatch one part and latch on the replacement without getting their balls caught in it.
Dear Stupid,
While you might only use math while paying your bills, many people use math for other things. That you don't use math at your work is just more evidence that you aren't educated enough to get a decent job. So you are basically using the following logic: I don't know much math (leads to) I get a bad job (leads to) my job doesn't require math (leads to) math isn't useful because I don't even use it!. The problem is of course that if you had been smart enough to learn it initially, you might have a job where it is a requirement.
Good luck paying those bills on shoe-shine wages btw.
*BSD gives you the option to use blowfish instead of MD5. I would assume that Linux distros could be modified to do this with almost no effort.
You bumbling idiot. Now explain to me what the 'optimal root' is, aka 'optimal superuser'.
Moron
do you mean optimal route? Pronounced RAUWT?