You have a rather nasty disposition that make me think even less of your argument. You should think about that. It's been my experience that people that get nasty don't really have a strong logical argument.
Actually, I don't blindly believe it. In addition to having a highly qualified and well-respected specialist tell me, it reflects my own experience and the experience of others that I know. That would, actually, be more or less the opposite of "blind." Unless by "blind" you mean I didn't ask your opinion.
But again, what is your experience? You had serious RSI. Most of the reading I have done indicates that changes like a new keyboard can help prevent serious problems from developing, but will not be of any particular help once they do develop. Your personal experience, though interesting, is not germane to the issue at hand, and matches what I already believe.
I see you made up an anecdote meant to illustrate that the doctor is only treating the symptoms... Very amsuing, Dr. Undecidable.
I'm actually not sure what you're refering to here. It sounds like you're accusing me of something, and I'm not going to enjoy this interaction, but you may as well be specific with your accusations.
After reading some of your other posts, it's sounds like you are backing off from your original statement that all ergonomic keyboards are useless. For example, you state:
The standard QWERTY keyboards in use today are still a mess, and could still be improved. And improving them might even help prevent RSI. But my understanding of it, gleaned from the Doctors I've worked with is that the keyboard itself is a relatively small part of the puzzle...
Sounds reasonable to me. I believe it will be quite some time until we know how much impact ergonomic keyboards have in preventing RSI, but it's safe to say now that they do have some impact. They solved my problem, but I didn't have a particularly bad problem to begin with.
I totally agree that we need to be "informed consumers" with
the medical profession - read everything you can, ask questions...
David,
It sounds like you agree with me in that one should not blindly trust
doctors. However, you seem very adamant about the advice your doctor gave
you concerning ergonomic keyboards:
THE "ERGONOMIC," "RSI" KEYBOARDS ARE WORTHLESS.
Just because your doctor told you that she believes ergonomic keyboards are
worthless, you seem to blindly believe this. But think about your problem
for a momment. You deleveloped severe RSI from using a standard
keyboard. Ergonomic keyboards alone are not able to undue the damage that
you did to your health. I completely agree that if you have severe RSI,
prescription drugs provided by doctors are a great place to start. But you
are not solving the underlying problem. Other posters have also pointed
this out to you.
You must realize you silly you sound:
10 You have behavour X
20 You become unhealthy.
30 You give doctor money to cure symptom of behavour X.
40 Your doctor tells you to continue behavour X.
50 goto 10
You also state:
All that said, if it's you versus the M.D., I'll take the M.D. every
time.
I can only tell you that an ergonomic keyboard worked for me, and to me, they
make a lot of sense. Perhaps you will find that a different seating height
is better instead of a new keyboard. Perhaps you will find that a new
keyboard layout like Dvorak is better. But you should change something
about your behavour, don't you think?
In a perfect world, I would agree with you completely. Unfortunately, there are two main reason why I feel that self-diagnosis is important:
1) Doctors, even "specialists", don't know everything.
2) Doctors don't always have your best interests in mind.
Concerning (1), even if you plan to see a doctor, I have found in the past that simply doing some reading and self-diagnosis before and after seeing a doctor helps considerably. Doctors are busy people. If they feel like you are actually commited to determining what is wrong by doing some work yourself instead of just throwing money at them, they will try harder to help *you*.
Additionally, knowing more about your problem helps you communicate with the doctor and simply get more out of the time that you have with him or her.
Concerning (2), there are many instances of Doctors acting in ways which serve their own interests, not yours. For example, ever go to the Doctor with a common cold? Did they prescribe a common antibiotic or some other BS medication that you didn't need? Why? A good doctor would almost never deem this necessary. But in general, Doctors have found that if you leave the office without a prescription of some kind, you are less likely to come back, and thus, less likely to give them more money in the future. Over prescription of antibiotics is just one example, but there are many more. Angioplasty surgery comes to mind as another kind of treatment that is overused in an effort to increase income.
The bottom line is that most western doctors are in the business of treating your symptoms, not making you healthy. Clearly, it is unfortunately not in their best interests for you to be always healthy. I'm not saying that all doctors are trying to milk you for your money, but this is a common problem and for every doctor out there that deeply cares about his or her patients, there are two that care more about the new model of Mercedes that just came out.
Several years ago I injured my back. I went to a Chiropractor and he said he could definitely help me using his techniques. It didn't help (but I believe they can help some people with certain injuries). He drives a Mercedes. I then went to a physical therapist, and he said he could help me. Nope. He also drives a Mercedes. I then went to an orthopedic surgen (owned two Mercedes that I saw), and he said he could help me with an operation. I decided to start doing some reading on my own. I ultimately was able to self-diagnose my problem better than any of these "specialists" and ultimately solved my problem through special stretching and exercises. I also learned that if I had had the operation that the orthopedic surgen was trying to sell me, I would most likely be in for worse back problems down the road.
I'm not trying to say that you should never go to a doctor. But you should never blindly trust one either. It's your body, and for you, the stakes are high. But to many doctors, you're just another pay check.
A lot of people have said that these "new-fangled" keyboards are worthless. I disagree.
First of all, anyone serious about ergonomics will tell you that the science of ergonomics is very similar to the science of nutrition. Ergonomics is about guidelines for long-term health, and what works optimally for one person, may not be optimal for another.
Your body can take a lot of abuse before it starts to complain. And just like with nutrition, if you abuse your body to the point that it starts to complain (pain, etc.) you will need to make some major changes to the way you behave, and it may take a long time to fix the problems you have created.
After abusing their body for 10+ years using poorly designed keyboards and improper positioning, etc., people that complain that the new ergonomic keyboard they purchased were a waste of money don't impress me with their wisdom. This is similar to abusing your body for 10+ years with junk food, and then complaining that it takes so long to lose weight and get into shape.
If you are a computer professional, it is your obligation to at least become somewhat familiar with office ergonomics. Your job could very easily depend on it.
So why do I believe that a "new-fangled" keyboard may be worth it? Two main reasons: my personal experience, and the fact that they just make more sense than an old keyboard.
After using a normal keyboard for years, I started feeling small amounts of pain in my hands. I immediately started learning more about ergonomics and decided to purchase a Kinesis keyboard. Now, I can type all day and I don't feel any pain. I think I was lucky that I attacked the problem early. Ideally, you should think about getting an ergonomic keyboard now, before any pain occurs.
Aside from my personal experience, there are lots of things about the Kinesis keyboard that just make sense. Here are just a few high-lights about the Kensis keyboard: 1) It's a split design: this allows your arms to extend forward more naturally, and allows your wrists to remain straight. 2) The keys are arranged in straight columns. For example, in a qwerty layout, the 'e' is directly above the 'd' with is directly above the 'c', etc. This makes more sense since your fingers move more easily up and down instead of diagonally. 3) The keys are arranged in what could be called a "bowl" layout in that the keys which correspond to your middle finger are deeper than the keys that correspond to your pinky, etc. On a normal keyboard, I used to have to pull my middle finger back all the time, and I noticed that this was causing at least some of the pain I felt at the end of the day. 4) You actually use your thumbs. As the normal keyboard was being developed, they needed to add more keys. These keys were simply added around the outside edge of the keyboard. For example, the control key. Not much thought was really put into the design of the normal keyboards that most people use today. Your fingers do not all have the same strength and endurance. Your thumb is the strongest digit, followed by your index finger, on down to the weakest digit, your pinky. But the added keys of normal keyboards place disproportionate stress on your pinky. On a Kensis keyboard, the thumb controls backspace, delete, space, enter, control, alt, home, end, page up and page down. I've found that this simple change helps me out a great deal. My pinky used to hurt at the end of the day using a normal keyboard, but again, on the Kensis I have no problems.
It would be nice to see some well done studies that showed who and how ergonomic keyboards help, but until then, we're all just going to have to use our common sense.
i w o u l d n e v e r d o a n y t h i n g b a d a g a i n s t t h i s c o u n t r y. o u r g o v e r n m e n t a l w a y s m a k e s t h e r i g h t d e c i s i o n s.
I searched google to dig up this definition of "artistic intent":
DEFINITION OF ARTISTIC INTENT:
Artistic Intent is the premeditated effort to express or promote certain ideas or emotions through the work being done. In order for those intentions to be artistic, they must stay to true to the artist. If an artist creates with intent to sell or commercialize, then the artistic intent is lost and the art cannot exist.
Sounds right to me, but then
I disagree with your reasoning here, because using
celebrities (or anyone in particular, for that matter) does not fall under
the artistic intent of the film.
doesn't really make much sense. Can you rephrase this?
Adding them ('NSYNC) in this role is plot-neutral, and so no
harm.
But the plot is just one of many aspects of a film. Sure, the plot
remains unchanged, but that is not at all the issue at hand.
You don't know for certain why he did it, so you can't claim
that he's doing it solely to improve marketability. He likely realizes that
it will help marketability, but might be doing it for personal or artistic
or whatever reasons.
I've never claim otherwise. In fact I've been rather careful to point this
out. I'm not sure why you are pointing this out as well. However, given
the evidence that we do have, you must admit that I'm not exactly
championing a bizarre theory. What do you honestly think the odds are that
Lucas believes that a scene with 'NSYNC is true to his original vision?
Unfortunately, we may never really know the truth since I don't ever expect
Lucas to admit to what I suspect.
Hell, he might actually like their music, for all anyone
knows.
But even then, that's no reason to throw the performers into his movie.
To give you food for thought, how do you think you (and many
other Slashdotters who have complained) would have felt if he recruited
extras from members of his family? Or to Star Trek cast members, or anyone
you choose that doesn't annoy you? Be careful that it's not merely the fact
that it's a band that appeals to teenage girls that annoys
you.
It would all depend on who they are and how I
feel about them. You seem to think that that's a problem; that we should
forget everything that we know about the actors, and perhaps also about the
places and things in a film and watch it in a vacuum. But it is exactly
those experiences which connect us to the artist.
If I happened to have special knowledge that the director did not intend which influenced my perception of the film, then I would need to respect the director's artistic intent, and pretend that I didn't have that special knowledge while watching the film.
But I'm pretty sure that Lucas is aware that most of his audience will know 'NSYNC: this is not special knowledge.
I actually do care why he is doing it. If he honestly thought that injecting 'NSYNC into a scene would make his work better, then I'm proud that he did it. I may not like the result, but perhaps someone else recognizes his genius and loves it.
However, I simply find it hard to believe that he's doing this to improve his work. I believe he is doing this to improve the marketabity of the film. That is what rubs me the wrong way. The fact that I believe he is adding something gratuitous to the film that I dislike.
As far as "sell out cameo appearances" go, this is not a bad example. In fact, this is a killer example. I'm confident that the director of "The Sound of Music" included the real Maria von Trapp in a scene not because he wished to ingratiate a particular demographic, but because he wanted to pay homage to an important figure in the movie, and the movie was the better for it.
Additionally, I would argue that this is not a "no harm, no foul" example. Again, Lucas is likely injecting a cameo appearance by 'NSYNC to improve the marketability of the film. But to benifit from this, we, the future audience, must know about this for it to pay off. Thus, the announcement. So not only is it annoyingly gratuitous, but well advertised.
As I said, it simply looks like he's selling out again. My assumption is that is was for money, but it doesn't really matter whether it's for money, or to make his kids happy.
The bottom line is that it certainly appears as though he is injecting something that doesn't fit into his work for non-artistic reasons.
For all I know, Lucas was wathing MTV one day and said, "Hey, you know what would really make my movie a real work of art! An appearance by 'NSYNC! That's it! That's true to the vision of my film!"
But somehow I doubt this.
This issue touches on an inherent problem with movie making in general. How do you make a lot of money with a film? Not by making a film that a smaller percentage of the population will love, but by making a film that a larger percentage of the population will think is ok.
There are very few movies that I think are great. But there is a sea of movies that I think are ok. Episode I had the potential to be great, but it was just ok thanks to his injecting croud pleasing junk. And this bit of news doesn't make it sound like I'm going to like Episode II any more than I liked Episode I.
Who would have thought that the real dark side lie in Ewoks and Jar Jar?
Sure, but I don't believe that you're addressing the issue:
We already don't like 'NSYNC. But now we're also (more) disappointed with Lucas.
Sure, if I were 'NSYNC, I would try to get myself a cameo. But if I were Lucas, I would tell 'NSYNC to go F themselves.
Does Lucas really need more money? I think the main disappointment with Lucas is that few artists have the financial opportunity to create what they really want because they need the cash. Lucas has this opportunity, but he has sold out in the past, and this bit of news sure makes it sound like he's not about to change.
Why should I care about the low-level workers at some gigantic corporation? You don't have any positive effect on MY neighborhood, but frequently mom-and-pop-store owners live IN the neighborhood and therefore do.
Fundamentally, the benefits of (and why you should care about) large corporations can be summed up in one word: specialization. Large corporations allow the people that work in them to specialize, and this in turn allows the corporation to acheive things that smaller ventures cannot.
I would be willing to bet that almost every possession that you have has been made possible by a large corporation. Look around your room and think about it.
Considering CD resellers in particular, one of the significant things that large corporations can offer you is a large selection: offering you the ability to buy CDs that you might not be able to find at a small mom-and-pop store. For example, a good friend of mine loves Jazz. He already has all of the popular Jazz CDs, and his collection quickly surpassed the collection maintained by all of the local stores. For him, large online CD resllers are a God send.
If your particular buying needs lend themselves to shopping at a mom-and-pop store, then by all means, do what works best for you. But personally, I wouldn't go out of my way to fund a local CD store.
And no, I have no moral problem with that. I strongly believe musician should be paid for performance (live) not records.
I disagree with your position here. I think we can all agree that musicians should be justly rewarded for their work. But to artificially force them into this avenue for obtaining revenue, we as consumers are artificially manipulating the market in a way that I believe we would ultimately find unfortunate.
For example, I enjoy listening to "mood" music like Enya, etc. while I'm coding or relaxing, etc. I would not necessarily wish to actually go to an Enya concert, however. I would imagine that it would be very boring. The simple fact is that there are many kinds of music which just don't lend themselves to live performances.
The bottom line is that there is no magic answer for this issue. It would be nice if musicians could be rewarded for their work in a way that couldn't be circumvented. And it would be nice if we could get their music in a way that didn't restrict us from using it as we want. But these two goals are extremely at odds. We (consumers) are currently "winning" this battle. But the potential long term implication is that if someone cannot be justly reward for their kind of work, then they won't do it, or at least focus on it as a primary occupation.
NxN chess, if I understand it, tries to find a guaranteed win from a specific position.
Right on. But notice that a specific position is the starting position.
From the opening position on a real chess board, there is almost certainly no strategy to guarantee victory for white or black. If there was a sequence of moves such that for every black move, white can find a victory, then I might understand what you are saying, but in chess, there is no such sequence.
Actually, nobody knows the answer to this because nobody is able to calculate it. There are only three posibilities in the game of chess:
White can always win.
Black can always win.
White and Black can always force a draw.
What continues to make chess an interesting game is that it's complex enough for a human not to be able to plan ahead and always know what to do.
In this context, chess and tic-tac-toe are very similar games. Each player makes a move until one player wins or it is a draw. The difference is that tic-tac-toe is simple enough that it is relatively easy to calculate the "best" move.
There is no luck in chess. There is a "best" first move, but calculating it is a major challenge.
Is NxN chess in PSPACE-complete or EXPTIME-complete?
Can you compute perfect chess (regular 8x8) in a reasonable amount of space?
Let's look at issue (1) first.
My quick search on the internet seems to say that NxN chess is EXPTIME-complete.
Perhaps you are referring to the proof contained in:
A.Fraenkel, D.Lichtenstein
Computing a perfect strategy for NxN chess requires time exponential in N.
Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A31, 1981, pp. 199-214
Nice catch. Here's the scoop on NxN chess and PSPACE vs. EXPTIME:
If you bound the allowed length of an NxN chess game to be polynomial in N (which is my operating assumption), then NxN chess is in PSPACE (and thus in PSPACE-complete). If, however, you decide to generalize chess into NxN chess so as to allow a less restrictive bound on the length of a game as Fraenkel and Lichtenstein did, you arrive at their solution of EXPTIME-complete.
So this issue is not as clear-cut as I originally thought. Whether one classifies NxN chess as PSPACE-complete or EXPTIME-complete depends on which chess rulebook you decide to follow (note there are several rules which concern when the game is a draw depending on cycles or lack of progress), and how you decide to generalize the game of chess to an NxN board.
However, what's important to note is that it's the actual length of the game that becomes the space issue, not the breadth of the search space.
With that in mind, let's hit issue (2):
What the hell do you think you are searching? The NXN chess proof doesn't make it implementable. Tell me what structure you are searching. Your first post said you needed a stack of depth 50. This is utter nonsense because in a DFS of a graph, you must keep a list of visited nodes. Otherwise, your super chess program will run in circles until the end of time. Once you keep a list of states, you're screwed for storage space.
So it sounds like you understand minimax searches, etc., but perhaps you are not use to thinking in the completely frightening way that you need to think to solve PSPACE proofs. Don't think about issues like maintaining a visited list to help speed efficiency. We can visit the same state over and over again, as long as we don't cycle repeatedly, thus leading to an unbounded game length. And we know if we are cycling since we store the stack of moves we have made corresponding to the current branch.
Fundamentally, white needs to determine if there exists a move1 that for all black move2s there exists a white move3 such that for all black move4s,..., there exists a white moveN such that white wins.
Well, let's say that we're on move12 for some assignment of move1,..., move11, and we see that black wins. What this means is that we go back to move11 and say, ok, that is not a move that is going to cut it since it doesn't work for all black moves from that state. Let's try "the next" move11. Let's say that after trying every move11 we didn't find anything that lead to victory. Ok, that means that black's move10 was a good move for black and we can't allow black to get to this position, so we need to go back to move8 and pick the "next move", etc.
And you can envision that the "next move" is simply an operation that is performed on a chess state which ultimately generates an iteration over valid chess moves from that state.
So now the question is, what is the maximum number of moves in a (regular) game of chess? Typically it's about 50, but let's bound it by 1,000,000,000 just to be obnoxiously unrestrictive. Ok, how much space does each state require? Let's say about 1K. So we need to be able to store 1 Terabyte of data. No problem.
You have missed the point. Using a depth-first-seach approach allows you to avoid exactly what it is that you have described.
You sound rather dogmatic, so perhaps it would be instructive for you first to realize that you are wrong: it does not require more memory than the number of atoms in the universe to calculate this answer. The fact that "NxN chess" is in PSPACE stands in direct contradiction to your statement.
Even if you could solve it, there'd be no possible way to store the answer
"the answer", at least as I'm defining it, is the best move which could be represented in a 32-bit int.
Additionally, if time was not an issue, you could solve this problem with very little memory using a simple depth-first-search approach. The amount of additional space you would need would simply be the depth of the stack. The depth of the stack is equivalent to the number of moves. The number of moves in a typical game of chess is less than 50, but what's important is that you can bound the number of moves by some constant.
And what do the statistics show? I don't pretend to know, but I would not be at all surprised if there was a high positive correlation between 16 year olds that were arrested for drinking that then later became 17 year olds that were involved in a DUI accident and/or death. This certainly matches my personal experience with the teenagers I know.
Of course this is an unfortunate burden to those teenagers that are mature enough not to mix drinking and driving, but the point is that teenagers are not trusted to be this mature. If they were, then the drinking age would be much lower.
Here's a positive way of seeing it: If you have ever complained about being treated like an average idiot teenager, then this law is for you. It doesn't simply use age as a crude determination of whether you are mature enough to drive. It also takes into account other factors involving your behaviour, namely, whether you were dumb enough to have been arrested for drinking.
Personally, I don't think it's so bad having a universal id card. I would much rather have one card in my wallet that describe the 10 things I'm licensed to do than 10 individual cards.
And the fact that the drivers license is continuing to evolve into the universal id card makes a lot of sense. I'm sure at some point we'll just start calling it an id card.
By the way, can you give an example of a crime that is non-driving related for which your driving privileges are suspended?
I believe that some of you guys are missing the point. The quote was:
...the subject program in the form of what Transitive calls "directed acyclic graphs."
The author of the article makes it sound as though Transitive has invented DAGs. That's what is funny. Durinia is not a weenie making fun of their technology, and it's not necessarily an attempt on Transitive's part to dazzle.
Cohen claims that Aaron has past the "art" Turing test. But
it's not clear that this is the case. Aaron's art may be displayed in museums,
and may fool people into thinking that a person created them, but an important
question to ask is: "what exactly is an 'art' Turing test".
A fundamentally important aspect of the Turing test, as defined by Turing
himself, is that of interaction. Interaction is what makes the Turing test
so challenging. However, Aaron was not designed to be interactive.
Aaron was designed to simply spew stuff out. A test more in line with what
Turing had in mind would be something like:
Have two consoles that allow a person to type in a request for a picture
One console is connected to a person in the other room, and the other is
connected to Aaron.
After each request is received, the corresponding entity produces a
picture and it is displayed on the corresponding monitor.
After some number of rounds, if a person cannot tell whom is a computer,
Aaron passes the test.
Because Aaron is not interactive, this gives the programmer the ability to
"hardwire" as much as he/she likes. I haven't read the source,
but my guess is that Aaron simply makes random choices which ultimately dictate
the composition of the picture. These random choices are constrained in
ways that were preset by the programmer. Thus, the programmer is simply
creating a "class" of paintings, of which Aaron randomly chooses
one. And to keep things from getting boring, the programmer adds more and
more classes.
But there is something very interesting about Aaron. I wonder if Aaron
is one of the first of a new kind of program designed for entertainment.
I could envision writing a program which generates a short story.
First, the program randomly chooses the plot elements that, of course, the
programmer has carefully laid down and added constraints concerning which plot
elements don't mix. Then it randomly chooses from a database of
characters. Each character would have constraints on the kind of actions
they perform, what they would like to do, and which characters don't mix well
together: bambi combined with the terminator (ok, maybe that would be
good). Then it randomly chooses how these characters interact, etc., until
finally you have all of the elements of the story. Then it generates
sentences which describe each step of the story.
Or, instead of generating sentences, perhaps you could generate a movie.
If I write a program to do my math homework for me, is it my work?
... The teacher had no problem with this; writing the program required a
thorough understanding of the techniques in question.
Right. You fully understood everything that this code was doing.
But what if your code "malfunctioned", and started solving your other
homework problems as well?
The question is, if you write an AI program that creates something
original, who's the creator of the creation? You or the AI program?
The answer doesn't need to be black and white. It's perfectly reasonable
to assign percentages of responsibility to each.
For the case of Aaron, my guess is that most of the creating is being done by
the author of the program. I haven't read the code, but by guess is that
the programmer laid down a very large number of constraints which ultimately
dictate the direction that the painting will go. Instead of using Aaron,
the artist could have done something like: Ok, I want x number of
people in this painting, where x is between 1 and 6. Ok, let me
roll a die. 3, very well. Ok, now I'd like them to be arraigned so
that some are closer and some are farther away. How many will be
closer? Ok, another roll. Ok, I got 4, and divided that by 2, and we
get 2 are going to be in the fore...
This reminds of the stories about the Judge which used a flip of a coin to
help him make decisions.
Something doesn't quite work right and they want it to work right.
They want to be appreciated by cool people, i.e. by other hackers.
There simply is nobody who sits down at night and thinks "ok, tonight I'm
going to submit a patch to the gimp in the hope that I will learn from it and
that will improve my earning power in the future".
While I agree that nowadays writing the patch will probably marginally
improve his earning power: even if it didn't, the guy would still write the
patch.
Nor do I think that hacking on free software is an optimal strategy to
maximize one's earning power in the least amount of time. There are lots of more
efficient (but less sexy) ways to do that.
Are you so sure? There are many students that, at the very least, have
in the back of their minds the fact that working on a high profile project makes
for excellent discussion in an interview. And interviewers eat this
up. They love to hear about the "real" projects that students
have worked on, not the quickies that classes normally expose students to.
Working on an open source project shows a lot: it shows that the student is a
really interested in coding and doesn't need to have something assigned to them
to be motivated to work on it. It shows that they know how work on larger
projects which take coordination. Whether the student meant for this or
not, it currently demonstrates many of the qualities that employers look for.
I
find the benefits and problems of Free Software very interesting. The
benefits have been discussed at length on/., so I won't bother to reiterate
them, but I should point out that I agree with many of these points.
The
problems of Free Software, however, have largely been ignored. In the end,
the benefits of Free Software may very well be worth the problems that it
causes. But I'm not certain. And judging from the level of
discussion that I've seen on/., neither is anyone else. Most of the
people on/. advocate Free Software without even acknowledging that there are
potential problems, let alone an understanding of them. I think it's great
to be an advocate for something, but only if you understand what it is that you
are advocating. There are few things more dangerous than dogmatically
advocating something that you don't understand.
So, what are the problems with Free Software? The fundamental
problem is that people need to make at least some minimum level of income off of
their skills, or they won't bother to develop them in the first place. And
Free Software may ultimately threaten that.
Consider the following
situation: Let's say that you come up with a really good idea (note that
the idea doesn't really matter, I'm just making it concrete): you come up with a
really good way to tutor students in math using a computer application.
You decide to start a small company that designs and builds this
application. Your application becomes quite popular and allows you to
invest in the future by hiring even more mathematicians, educators, and
developers to improve your product.
Someone likes your ideas, and decides to
create a Free Software version. They attract some other developers from
around the world, and soon have an application ready. It's not as good as
yours, but most students really like FREE things.
Soon, your company's market
share is 50% and dropping, and you are selling less of your product. As
the Free Software version gets more and more popular, more developers come on
board and make it even better. Your company posts its first quarter in the
red, and you start ejecting employees.
The quality of your product is dropping
relative to the quality of the Free Software version. Ultimately, your
company's market share drops to 5%, and you decide to close the doors.
Your investors are upset because they lost all kinds of money.
So what's the
lesson? Don't start a software company that makes a product useful enough
to get onto the radar screens of those writing Free Software.
Perhaps this
happens to many companies. Soon, the only people developing are those
working on Free Software projects. But because the market can only support
a fraction of the number of developers that it used to, computer science, or
more specifically, software engineering, starts being seen as a dead end career
wise. Students decide to change majors, and new students coming into
college choose other majors. Soon, the number of CS students available to
do Free Software drops.
Ultimately, this leads to a balance in the
market. The number of developers that can be supported by the market is
balanced by the number of jobs that students take away from the market by
contributing to Free Software.
This balance point would likely support a far
fewer number of developers than a market which banned Free Software. The
immediate gratification of being able to use a multitude of innovations from
others around the world would be mediated by the fact that far fewer people
would be bothering to innovate.
Would this ultimately be an overall
bad thing? I don't know. I think it's too complex a system to
predict. But is the negative view that I paint about Free Software far
from what really might happen? Why? Where do I make assumptions that
you disagree with? What other forces am I neglecting to consider?
I
don't believe that all Free Software is bad. If you agree that there might
exist some Free Software project that might be bad, what questions can we ask
about a Free Software project which helps us decide if it is an overall negative
influence or not?
It's not a contradiction. It simply follows from our diversity. The US is
probably the most diverse country in the world, and to assume that we are all
anything is a big mistake.
We may have lots of devout religious followers. But we also have lots of
atheists.
Something important to point out about the distribution of our population
with regard to religious beliefs is that they are not distributed evenly among
our occupations: a much higher percentage of our scientists are
atheists. If you look at pretty much any academic department in the hard
sciences in the US, you will find that most of the professors are not
religious. Almost every department has a few devout religious followers,
which makes for a nice mix, but they typically do not have a majority.
Even if the number of staff that were religious is above 50%, it would still
likely be the case that no one religion had a majority.
If you look at the humanities, things get much less predictable. I do
know that a vast majority of philosophers are not religious. They
typically design their own from scratch.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a rather nasty disposition that make me think even less of your argument. You should think about that. It's been my experience that people that get nasty don't really have a strong logical argument.
But again, what is your experience? You had serious RSI. Most of the reading I have done indicates that changes like a new keyboard can help prevent serious problems from developing, but will not be of any particular help once they do develop. Your personal experience, though interesting, is not germane to the issue at hand, and matches what I already believe.
I'm actually not sure what you're refering to here. It sounds like you're accusing me of something, and I'm not going to enjoy this interaction, but you may as well be specific with your accusations.
After reading some of your other posts, it's sounds like you are backing off from your original statement that all ergonomic keyboards are useless. For example, you state: Sounds reasonable to me. I believe it will be quite some time until we know how much impact ergonomic keyboards have in preventing RSI, but it's safe to say now that they do have some impact. They solved my problem, but I didn't have a particularly bad problem to begin with.
David,
It sounds like you agree with me in that one should not blindly trust doctors. However, you seem very adamant about the advice your doctor gave you concerning ergonomic keyboards:
Just because your doctor told you that she believes ergonomic keyboards are worthless, you seem to blindly believe this. But think about your problem for a momment. You deleveloped severe RSI from using a standard keyboard. Ergonomic keyboards alone are not able to undue the damage that you did to your health. I completely agree that if you have severe RSI, prescription drugs provided by doctors are a great place to start. But you are not solving the underlying problem. Other posters have also pointed this out to you.
You must realize you silly you sound:
10 You have behavour X
20 You become unhealthy.
30 You give doctor money to cure symptom of behavour X.
40 Your doctor tells you to continue behavour X.
50 goto 10
You also state:
I can only tell you that an ergonomic keyboard worked for me, and to me, they make a lot of sense. Perhaps you will find that a different seating height is better instead of a new keyboard. Perhaps you will find that a new keyboard layout like Dvorak is better. But you should change something about your behavour, don't you think?
Good luck.
In a perfect world, I would agree with you completely. Unfortunately, there are two main reason why I feel that self-diagnosis is important:
1) Doctors, even "specialists", don't know everything.
2) Doctors don't always have your best interests in mind.
Concerning (1), even if you plan to see a doctor, I have found in the past that simply doing some reading and self-diagnosis before and after seeing a doctor helps considerably. Doctors are busy people. If they feel like you are actually commited to determining what is wrong by doing some work yourself instead of just throwing money at them, they will try harder to help *you*.
Additionally, knowing more about your problem helps you communicate with the doctor and simply get more out of the time that you have with him or her.
Concerning (2), there are many instances of Doctors acting in ways which serve their own interests, not yours. For example, ever go to the Doctor with a common cold? Did they prescribe a common antibiotic or some other BS medication that you didn't need? Why? A good doctor would almost never deem this necessary. But in general, Doctors have found that if you leave the office without a prescription of some kind, you are less likely to come back, and thus, less likely to give them more money in the future. Over prescription of antibiotics is just one example, but there are many more. Angioplasty surgery comes to mind as another kind of treatment that is overused in an effort to increase income.
The bottom line is that most western doctors are in the business of treating your symptoms, not making you healthy. Clearly, it is unfortunately not in their best interests for you to be always healthy. I'm not saying that all doctors are trying to milk you for your money, but this is a common problem and for every doctor out there that deeply cares about his or her patients, there are two that care more about the new model of Mercedes that just came out.
Several years ago I injured my back. I went to a Chiropractor and he said he could definitely help me using his techniques. It didn't help (but I believe they can help some people with certain injuries). He drives a Mercedes. I then went to a physical therapist, and he said he could help me. Nope. He also drives a Mercedes. I then went to an orthopedic surgen (owned two Mercedes that I saw), and he said he could help me with an operation. I decided to start doing some reading on my own. I ultimately was able to self-diagnose my problem better than any of these "specialists" and ultimately solved my problem through special stretching and exercises. I also learned that if I had had the operation that the orthopedic surgen was trying to sell me, I would most likely be in for worse back problems down the road.
I'm not trying to say that you should never go to a doctor. But you should never blindly trust one either. It's your body, and for you, the stakes are high. But to many doctors, you're just another pay check.
A lot of people have said that these "new-fangled" keyboards are worthless. I disagree.
First of all, anyone serious about ergonomics will tell you that the science of ergonomics is very similar to the science of nutrition. Ergonomics is about guidelines for long-term health, and what works optimally for one person, may not be optimal for another.
Your body can take a lot of abuse before it starts to complain. And just like with nutrition, if you abuse your body to the point that it starts to complain (pain, etc.) you will need to make some major changes to the way you behave, and it may take a long time to fix the problems you have created.
After abusing their body for 10+ years using poorly designed keyboards and improper positioning, etc., people that complain that the new ergonomic keyboard they purchased were a waste of money don't impress me with their wisdom. This is similar to abusing your body for 10+ years with junk food, and then complaining that it takes so long to lose weight and get into shape.
If you are a computer professional, it is your obligation to at least become somewhat familiar with office ergonomics. Your job could very easily depend on it.
So why do I believe that a "new-fangled" keyboard may be worth it? Two main reasons: my personal experience, and the fact that they just make more sense than an old keyboard.
After using a normal keyboard for years, I started feeling small amounts of pain in my hands. I immediately started learning more about ergonomics and decided to purchase a Kinesis keyboard. Now, I can type all day and I don't feel any pain. I think I was lucky that I attacked the problem early. Ideally, you should think about getting an ergonomic keyboard now, before any pain occurs.
Aside from my personal experience, there are lots of things about the Kinesis keyboard that just make sense. Here are just a few high-lights about the Kensis keyboard:
1) It's a split design: this allows your arms to extend forward more naturally, and allows your wrists to remain straight.
2) The keys are arranged in straight columns. For example, in a qwerty layout, the 'e' is directly above the 'd' with is directly above the 'c', etc. This makes more sense since your fingers move more easily up and down instead of diagonally.
3) The keys are arranged in what could be called a "bowl" layout in that the keys which correspond to your middle finger are deeper than the keys that correspond to your pinky, etc. On a normal keyboard, I used to have to pull my middle finger back all the time, and I noticed that this was causing at least some of the pain I felt at the end of the day.
4) You actually use your thumbs. As the normal keyboard was being developed, they needed to add more keys. These keys were simply added around the outside edge of the keyboard. For example, the control key. Not much thought was really put into the design of the normal keyboards that most people use today. Your fingers do not all have the same strength and endurance. Your thumb is the strongest digit, followed by your index finger, on down to the weakest digit, your pinky. But the added keys of normal keyboards place disproportionate stress on your pinky. On a Kensis keyboard, the thumb controls backspace, delete, space, enter, control, alt, home, end, page up and page down. I've found that this simple change helps me out a great deal. My pinky used to hurt at the end of the day using a normal keyboard, but again, on the Kensis I have no problems.
It would be nice to see some well done studies that showed who and how ergonomic keyboards help, but until then, we're all just going to have to use our common sense.
Good luck and happy typing.
i w o u l d n e v e r d o a n y t h i n g b a d a g a i n s t t h i s c o u n t r y. o u r g o v e r n m e n t a l w a y s m a k e s t h e r i g h t d e c i s i o n s.
I searched google to dig up this definition of "artistic intent":
Sounds right to me, but then
doesn't really make much sense. Can you rephrase this?
But the plot is just one of many aspects of a film. Sure, the plot remains unchanged, but that is not at all the issue at hand.
I've never claim otherwise. In fact I've been rather careful to point this out. I'm not sure why you are pointing this out as well. However, given the evidence that we do have, you must admit that I'm not exactly championing a bizarre theory. What do you honestly think the odds are that Lucas believes that a scene with 'NSYNC is true to his original vision? Unfortunately, we may never really know the truth since I don't ever expect Lucas to admit to what I suspect.
But even then, that's no reason to throw the performers into his movie.
It would all depend on who they are and how I feel about them. You seem to think that that's a problem; that we should forget everything that we know about the actors, and perhaps also about the places and things in a film and watch it in a vacuum. But it is exactly those experiences which connect us to the artist.
If I happened to have special knowledge that the director did not intend which influenced my perception of the film, then I would need to respect the director's artistic intent, and pretend that I didn't have that special knowledge while watching the film.
But I'm pretty sure that Lucas is aware that most of his audience will know 'NSYNC: this is not special knowledge.
I actually do care why he is doing it. If he honestly thought that injecting 'NSYNC into a scene would make his work better, then I'm proud that he did it. I may not like the result, but perhaps someone else recognizes his genius and loves it.
However, I simply find it hard to believe that he's doing this to improve his work. I believe he is doing this to improve the marketabity of the film. That is what rubs me the wrong way. The fact that I believe he is adding something gratuitous to the film that I dislike.
As far as "sell out cameo appearances" go, this is not a bad example. In fact, this is a killer example. I'm confident that the director of "The Sound of Music" included the real Maria von Trapp in a scene not because he wished to ingratiate a particular demographic, but because he wanted to pay homage to an important figure in the movie, and the movie was the better for it.
Additionally, I would argue that this is not a "no harm, no foul" example. Again, Lucas is likely injecting a cameo appearance by 'NSYNC to improve the marketability of the film. But to benifit from this, we, the future audience, must know about this for it to pay off. Thus, the announcement. So not only is it annoyingly gratuitous, but well advertised.
As I said, it simply looks like he's selling out again. My assumption is that is was for money, but it doesn't really matter whether it's for money, or to make his kids happy.
The bottom line is that it certainly appears as though he is injecting something that doesn't fit into his work for non-artistic reasons.
For all I know, Lucas was wathing MTV one day and said, "Hey, you know what would really make my movie a real work of art! An appearance by 'NSYNC! That's it! That's true to the vision of my film!"
But somehow I doubt this.
This issue touches on an inherent problem with movie making in general. How do you make a lot of money with a film? Not by making a film that a smaller percentage of the population will love, but by making a film that a larger percentage of the population will think is ok.
There are very few movies that I think are great. But there is a sea of movies that I think are ok. Episode I had the potential to be great, but it was just ok thanks to his injecting croud pleasing junk. And this bit of news doesn't make it sound like I'm going to like Episode II any more than I liked Episode I.
Who would have thought that the real dark side lie in Ewoks and Jar Jar?
Sure, but I don't believe that you're addressing the issue:
We already don't like 'NSYNC. But now we're also (more) disappointed with Lucas.
Sure, if I were 'NSYNC, I would try to get myself a cameo. But if I were Lucas, I would tell 'NSYNC to go F themselves.
Does Lucas really need more money? I think the main disappointment with Lucas is that few artists have the financial opportunity to create what they really want because they need the cash. Lucas has this opportunity, but he has sold out in the past, and this bit of news sure makes it sound like he's not about to change.
Fundamentally, the benefits of (and why you should care about) large corporations can be summed up in one word: specialization. Large corporations allow the people that work in them to specialize, and this in turn allows the corporation to acheive things that smaller ventures cannot.
I would be willing to bet that almost every possession that you have has been made possible by a large corporation. Look around your room and think about it.
Considering CD resellers in particular, one of the significant things that large corporations can offer you is a large selection: offering you the ability to buy CDs that you might not be able to find at a small mom-and-pop store. For example, a good friend of mine loves Jazz. He already has all of the popular Jazz CDs, and his collection quickly surpassed the collection maintained by all of the local stores. For him, large online CD resllers are a God send.
If your particular buying needs lend themselves to shopping at a mom-and-pop store, then by all means, do what works best for you. But personally, I wouldn't go out of my way to fund a local CD store.
I disagree with your position here. I think we can all agree that musicians should be justly rewarded for their work. But to artificially force them into this avenue for obtaining revenue, we as consumers are artificially manipulating the market in a way that I believe we would ultimately find unfortunate.
For example, I enjoy listening to "mood" music like Enya, etc. while I'm coding or relaxing, etc. I would not necessarily wish to actually go to an Enya concert, however. I would imagine that it would be very boring. The simple fact is that there are many kinds of music which just don't lend themselves to live performances.
The bottom line is that there is no magic answer for this issue. It would be nice if musicians could be rewarded for their work in a way that couldn't be circumvented. And it would be nice if we could get their music in a way that didn't restrict us from using it as we want. But these two goals are extremely at odds. We (consumers) are currently "winning" this battle. But the potential long term implication is that if someone cannot be justly reward for their kind of work, then they won't do it, or at least focus on it as a primary occupation.
Right on. But notice that a specific position is the starting position.
Actually, nobody knows the answer to this because nobody is able to calculate it. There are only three posibilities in the game of chess:
- White can always win.
- Black can always win.
- White and Black can always force a draw.
What continues to make chess an interesting game is that it's complex enough for a human not to be able to plan ahead and always know what to do.In this context, chess and tic-tac-toe are very similar games. Each player makes a move until one player wins or it is a draw. The difference is that tic-tac-toe is simple enough that it is relatively easy to calculate the "best" move.
There is no luck in chess. There is a "best" first move, but calculating it is a major challenge.
There are two issues:
- Is NxN chess in PSPACE-complete or EXPTIME-complete?
- Can you compute perfect chess (regular 8x8) in a reasonable amount of space?
Let's look at issue (1) first.Perhaps you are referring to the proof contained in:
Nice catch. Here's the scoop on NxN chess and PSPACE vs. EXPTIME:
If you bound the allowed length of an NxN chess game to be polynomial in N (which is my operating assumption), then NxN chess is in PSPACE (and thus in PSPACE-complete). If, however, you decide to generalize chess into NxN chess so as to allow a less restrictive bound on the length of a game as Fraenkel and Lichtenstein did, you arrive at their solution of EXPTIME-complete.
So this issue is not as clear-cut as I originally thought. Whether one classifies NxN chess as PSPACE-complete or EXPTIME-complete depends on which chess rulebook you decide to follow (note there are several rules which concern when the game is a draw depending on cycles or lack of progress), and how you decide to generalize the game of chess to an NxN board.
However, what's important to note is that it's the actual length of the game that becomes the space issue, not the breadth of the search space.
With that in mind, let's hit issue (2):
So it sounds like you understand minimax searches, etc., but perhaps you are not use to thinking in the completely frightening way that you need to think to solve PSPACE proofs. Don't think about issues like maintaining a visited list to help speed efficiency. We can visit the same state over and over again, as long as we don't cycle repeatedly, thus leading to an unbounded game length. And we know if we are cycling since we store the stack of moves we have made corresponding to the current branch.
Fundamentally, white needs to determine if there exists a move1 that for all black move2s there exists a white move3 such that for all black move4s, ..., there exists a white moveN such that white wins.
Well, let's say that we're on move12 for some assignment of move1, ..., move11, and we see that black wins. What this means is that we go back to move11 and say, ok, that is not a move that is going to cut it since it doesn't work for all black moves from that state. Let's try "the next" move11. Let's say that after trying every move11 we didn't find anything that lead to victory. Ok, that means that black's move10 was a good move for black and we can't allow black to get to this position, so we need to go back to move8 and pick the "next move", etc.
And you can envision that the "next move" is simply an operation that is performed on a chess state which ultimately generates an iteration over valid chess moves from that state.
So now the question is, what is the maximum number of moves in a (regular) game of chess? Typically it's about 50, but let's bound it by 1,000,000,000 just to be obnoxiously unrestrictive. Ok, how much space does each state require? Let's say about 1K. So we need to be able to store 1 Terabyte of data. No problem.
You have missed the point. Using a depth-first-seach approach allows you to avoid exactly what it is that you have described.
You sound rather dogmatic, so perhaps it would be instructive for you first to realize that you are wrong: it does not require more memory than the number of atoms in the universe to calculate this answer. The fact that "NxN chess" is in PSPACE stands in direct contradiction to your statement.
Additionally, if time was not an issue, you could solve this problem with very little memory using a simple depth-first-search approach. The amount of additional space you would need would simply be the depth of the stack. The depth of the stack is equivalent to the number of moves. The number of moves in a typical game of chess is less than 50, but what's important is that you can bound the number of moves by some constant.
Can you rephrase this? It sounds like you are saying that we can/could determine the best moves in chess.
And what do the statistics show? I don't pretend to know, but I would not be at all surprised if there was a high positive correlation between 16 year olds that were arrested for drinking that then later became 17 year olds that were involved in a DUI accident and/or death. This certainly matches my personal experience with the teenagers I know.
Of course this is an unfortunate burden to those teenagers that are mature enough not to mix drinking and driving, but the point is that teenagers are not trusted to be this mature. If they were, then the drinking age would be much lower.
Here's a positive way of seeing it: If you have ever complained about being treated like an average idiot teenager, then this law is for you. It doesn't simply use age as a crude determination of whether you are mature enough to drive. It also takes into account other factors involving your behaviour, namely, whether you were dumb enough to have been arrested for drinking.
Personally, I don't think it's so bad having a universal id card. I would much rather have one card in my wallet that describe the 10 things I'm licensed to do than 10 individual cards.
And the fact that the drivers license is continuing to evolve into the universal id card makes a lot of sense. I'm sure at some point we'll just start calling it an id card.
By the way, can you give an example of a crime that is non-driving related for which your driving privileges are suspended?
I believe that some of you guys are missing the point. The quote was:
The author of the article makes it sound as though Transitive has invented DAGs. That's what is funny. Durinia is not a weenie making fun of their technology, and it's not necessarily an attempt on Transitive's part to dazzle.
You should not think such thoughts. If you continue to do so, you will be unplugged and flushed down the tube.
Cohen claims that Aaron has past the "art" Turing test. But it's not clear that this is the case. Aaron's art may be displayed in museums, and may fool people into thinking that a person created them, but an important question to ask is: "what exactly is an 'art' Turing test".
A fundamentally important aspect of the Turing test, as defined by Turing himself, is that of interaction. Interaction is what makes the Turing test so challenging. However, Aaron was not designed to be interactive. Aaron was designed to simply spew stuff out. A test more in line with what Turing had in mind would be something like:
Because Aaron is not interactive, this gives the programmer the ability to "hardwire" as much as he/she likes. I haven't read the source, but my guess is that Aaron simply makes random choices which ultimately dictate the composition of the picture. These random choices are constrained in ways that were preset by the programmer. Thus, the programmer is simply creating a "class" of paintings, of which Aaron randomly chooses one. And to keep things from getting boring, the programmer adds more and more classes.
But there is something very interesting about Aaron. I wonder if Aaron is one of the first of a new kind of program designed for entertainment.
I could envision writing a program which generates a short story. First, the program randomly chooses the plot elements that, of course, the programmer has carefully laid down and added constraints concerning which plot elements don't mix. Then it randomly chooses from a database of characters. Each character would have constraints on the kind of actions they perform, what they would like to do, and which characters don't mix well together: bambi combined with the terminator (ok, maybe that would be good). Then it randomly chooses how these characters interact, etc., until finally you have all of the elements of the story. Then it generates sentences which describe each step of the story.
Or, instead of generating sentences, perhaps you could generate a movie.
Right. You fully understood everything that this code was doing. But what if your code "malfunctioned", and started solving your other homework problems as well?
The answer doesn't need to be black and white. It's perfectly reasonable to assign percentages of responsibility to each.
For the case of Aaron, my guess is that most of the creating is being done by the author of the program. I haven't read the code, but by guess is that the programmer laid down a very large number of constraints which ultimately dictate the direction that the painting will go. Instead of using Aaron, the artist could have done something like: Ok, I want x number of people in this painting, where x is between 1 and 6. Ok, let me roll a die. 3, very well. Ok, now I'd like them to be arraigned so that some are closer and some are farther away. How many will be closer? Ok, another roll. Ok, I got 4, and divided that by 2, and we get 2 are going to be in the fore...
This reminds of the stories about the Judge which used a flip of a coin to help him make decisions.
Are you so sure? There are many students that, at the very least, have in the back of their minds the fact that working on a high profile project makes for excellent discussion in an interview. And interviewers eat this up. They love to hear about the "real" projects that students have worked on, not the quickies that classes normally expose students to. Working on an open source project shows a lot: it shows that the student is a really interested in coding and doesn't need to have something assigned to them to be motivated to work on it. It shows that they know how work on larger projects which take coordination. Whether the student meant for this or not, it currently demonstrates many of the qualities that employers look for.
I find the benefits and problems of Free Software very interesting. The benefits have been discussed at length on /., so I won't bother to reiterate
them, but I should point out that I agree with many of these points.
The problems of Free Software, however, have largely been ignored. In the end, the benefits of Free Software may very well be worth the problems that it causes. But I'm not certain. And judging from the level of discussion that I've seen on /., neither is anyone else. Most of the
people on /. advocate Free Software without even acknowledging that there are
potential problems, let alone an understanding of them. I think it's great
to be an advocate for something, but only if you understand what it is that you
are advocating. There are few things more dangerous than dogmatically
advocating something that you don't understand.
So, what are the problems with Free Software? The fundamental problem is that people need to make at least some minimum level of income off of their skills, or they won't bother to develop them in the first place. And Free Software may ultimately threaten that.
Consider the following situation: Let's say that you come up with a really good idea (note that the idea doesn't really matter, I'm just making it concrete): you come up with a really good way to tutor students in math using a computer application. You decide to start a small company that designs and builds this application. Your application becomes quite popular and allows you to invest in the future by hiring even more mathematicians, educators, and developers to improve your product.
Someone likes your ideas, and decides to create a Free Software version. They attract some other developers from around the world, and soon have an application ready. It's not as good as yours, but most students really like FREE things.
Soon, your company's market share is 50% and dropping, and you are selling less of your product. As the Free Software version gets more and more popular, more developers come on board and make it even better. Your company posts its first quarter in the red, and you start ejecting employees.
The quality of your product is dropping relative to the quality of the Free Software version. Ultimately, your company's market share drops to 5%, and you decide to close the doors. Your investors are upset because they lost all kinds of money.
So what's the lesson? Don't start a software company that makes a product useful enough to get onto the radar screens of those writing Free Software.
Perhaps this happens to many companies. Soon, the only people developing are those working on Free Software projects. But because the market can only support a fraction of the number of developers that it used to, computer science, or more specifically, software engineering, starts being seen as a dead end career wise. Students decide to change majors, and new students coming into college choose other majors. Soon, the number of CS students available to do Free Software drops.
Ultimately, this leads to a balance in the market. The number of developers that can be supported by the market is balanced by the number of jobs that students take away from the market by contributing to Free Software.
This balance point would likely support a far fewer number of developers than a market which banned Free Software. The immediate gratification of being able to use a multitude of innovations from others around the world would be mediated by the fact that far fewer people would be bothering to innovate.
Would this ultimately be an overall bad thing? I don't know. I think it's too complex a system to predict. But is the negative view that I paint about Free Software far from what really might happen? Why? Where do I make assumptions that you disagree with? What other forces am I neglecting to consider?
I don't believe that all Free Software is bad. If you agree that there might exist some Free Software project that might be bad, what questions can we ask about a Free Software project which helps us decide if it is an overall negative influence or not?
It's not a contradiction. It simply follows from our diversity. The US is probably the most diverse country in the world, and to assume that we are all anything is a big mistake.
We may have lots of devout religious followers. But we also have lots of atheists.
Something important to point out about the distribution of our population with regard to religious beliefs is that they are not distributed evenly among our occupations: a much higher percentage of our scientists are atheists. If you look at pretty much any academic department in the hard sciences in the US, you will find that most of the professors are not religious. Almost every department has a few devout religious followers, which makes for a nice mix, but they typically do not have a majority. Even if the number of staff that were religious is above 50%, it would still likely be the case that no one religion had a majority.
If you look at the humanities, things get much less predictable. I do know that a vast majority of philosophers are not religious. They typically design their own from scratch.