Disappointment is all around us. Careers fall apart as times change, and lots of good, hardworking people in this country have businesses that fail and watch their dreams die. I'm not particularly sympathetic to the astronauts when it happens to them.
Are you sympathetic to those people whose businesses fail? Are you sympathetic to those whose careers fall even though they are good, hardwordking people?
If so, why do you hold such contempt for astronauts? Are they not good, hardworking people deserving of your sympathy?
If not, do you ever feel sympathy for other human beings? Why is it that callous cynicism is so popular these days? It's sad.
I've already posted a comment very similar to this, but here goes anyway...
Look past the components and look at the design. You are absolutely right that Apple didn't invent the idea of a hard-drive in a portable music player. But you are absolutely wrong if you think the iPod wasn't revolutionary. Look at the form of the iPod. Look at how small, sleek and pretty it is. Now consider its user interface. Take in the simplicity of its menu system, its scrollwheel and button layout and overall ease of use. Now consider how easily and effectively it interfaces with iTunes, how trivial it is to create playlists and fille your iPod with music.
Now compare that experience (that of the revision 1 iPod) with the hard drive players available at the time. Is there a difference? Is that difference major? I think so.
I've given an iPod to people utterly unfamiliar with gadgetry of any kind and they were up and using the iPod in under a minute (after they got over how cool it looked). THAT is the Apple difference and why they sell products. They lead in a way that is foreign to many PC users: design.
Yes, the cappuccino is small, but its design is bulky and clumsy compared to the Mini. As Apple has consistently proved, its not all about size and speed. Design, user experience and beauty are important, too.
Now look at the pics of Intel's concept mini-PC from the original article--forgetting for a second that it doesn't even exist yet. (Its not even a prototype, just a case with some lights on it.) Now try to tell me Intel isn't following Apple's lead in terms of design.
I think SCO had been in decline for years before resorting to frivolous IP claims. It seems to me that their business model (sell a mediocre version of Unix on highly specialized machines to retailers) wasn't working well, their profits sank and they saw the writing on the wall. In comes a new CEO known for pushing IP litigation and *bang* they have a new business model overnight.
MS is in a different place. I think they will probably go into decline eventually, but they have a long way to go before their business model fails the way SCO's did.
I have no problem with casting a skeptical eye towards research. Methodology, statistics, assumptions, etc. should all be carefully scrutinized in *any* scientific study.
However, there seems to be a large (or maybe just vocal) contingent in the population that abuses this valid doubt by saying, "those scientists are full of crap, therefore we should do absolutely nothing to limit our impact on the environment." This strikees me as an incredibly dangerous attitude.
I want to have kids. I want those kids to have a habitable earth to thrive on. Therefore, I am willing to make some compromises in terms of convenience, comfort and cash to assure they do have a suitable environment to live in. Those who are completely unwilling to make *any* compromises in these areas and making a dangerous gamble, IMO, and I don't my kids to pay for that gamble.
So I'll make you a deal: as soon as pundits and business leaders stop using these "global warming may not be caused by humans" reports for their own agendas, I'll start defneding them. Deal?
To an extent, I agree with both you and the grandparent. I think you took the individual points of his satire far too seriously.
The US media is only interested in one thing: money. Reporting on the things US citizens fear is good business for them as they know that fear will translate easily into ratings. Reporting only on issues that American's care about is also good business, for obvious reasons.
So I guess where I fall between you and the grandparent is that I: a) don't like or trust much of the media in this country, but b) think that they do report on international issues, if only to the extent that American's want to hear about them. To me, this isn't perfect, as the average American doesn't get much in the way of international news or exposure to the problems other countries are facing, other than when they impact us. Then again, welcome to the real world, right? The world would likely be a much better place if more people read, say, the Economist (look at their international coverage vs. CNN, Fox News, or NYTimes), but that isn't very realistic.
BTW, on this point: I guess you are trying to generalize about southerns now, since NASCAR's following is mostly in the more rural section of the country. You missed the mark here. Yes, it was a dig: at rural America. I'm from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, and let me assure you that NASCAR is huge up there. The North vs. South argument is played out. The REAL conflict will come from rural America vs. urban America. Let the revolution begin!:)
The EULA comparison to cars was where I found Rob being truly petty. Apples and Oranges. Exceptions have to be made. When you sell something commercially you pretty much have to exclude yourself from claiming what it can do as someone will attempt to extend that meaning into realms it does not belong. This works the same in cars. That Jeep might imply by the fact it has 4-wheel drive that it would work in situations without roads. Yet I guarantee that the manufacturer has all sorts of warnings about how that isn't true. Again, people as well as corporations must protect themselves from idiots. Can we truly blame a corporation that doesn't try or are we to blame them for the fact they didn't try hard enough?
That's funny, this was the portion I found Mr. Taylor to be exceptionally dishonest about. He used the classic technique of "instead of answering what was asked, I'll answer a question related to the subject so that I fool you into thinking I said something relevant to the original question." Very smooth, this guy.
To be clear, the intent of the question was: Microsoft, in various ads and through statements by executives, says that Linux isn't "backed" by a corporation and that makes it more risky. But at the same time, their EULA says that they aren't responsible for problems in their own software. In other words: they don't "back" their software anymore than RedHat "backs" their pay-for-support Linux distributions.
Taylor basically admits this when he says: "Go read Red Hat EULA and Red Hat will pretty much say, 'Hey,we can't guarantee anything with the software either.' I've read it. Read their filing statements. It's the same thing [as Microsoft's EULA/disclaimers], right?" Basically, MS goes around spouting the line that Linux isn't "backed," then turns around and says, in a more covert venue, "we don't back our software, either." Taylor successfully dodged the hypocracy aspect of the question and focused on the fact that MS is no worse than anyone else on the point. Hey, I admit that is true, but it misses the point.
The comparison to cars was an even bigger digression from the point, which, I think, was Rob's attempt to get him back in line. It failed pretty miserably. Shame on you, Roblimo, for letting Taylor wriggle out of that question. These "unbacked Linux" statements are the perfect example of untrue FUD that Microsoft excels at. You had a chance to nail them, and you blew it. Maybe in another ten years, when MS allows themselves to be interviewed like this again.
I forgot about Attributes. I love those guys, too. Very useful.
However, count me among those who prefer JNI to P/Invoke and unsafe code. Why would I want to pollute my java/c# codebase with c code? I prefer putting this code in a seperate library and using p/invoke or jni. However, I find p/invoke suffers from the "everything must be dynamic" syndrome that I found with COM. There is no good way to verify at compile time that I am not doing something blatently stupid. At least JNI forces you to compile your native code against a header file, insuring you some level of safety at compile time. I admit, though, that Java is less flexible on this point. I just like the paradigm Java forces you into.
I'll pass on 2.0 vs. 1.5 stuff as I am ignorant of the improvements in both.
As to your last two points, they both hinge on the GAC, which I am still wary of. Granted, I haven't given mono's GAC an honest to goodness spin yet, but I've found MS's GAC somewhat flaky. As an example, we were using.Net's default serialization on some objects which used the.Net Comparer class. The serialization routine serialized the Comparer class with our objects (this wasn't perfect, but we were using default binary serialization, so we expected some extra objects). We serialized the objects on one machine, send the data to another machine, then deserialized. This worked well on most of the machines we tested on. However, one of the machines we tested against had two different versions of the.Net framework installed. *Theoretically*, this should have been fine. A particular version of the Comparer class should have been loaded from the GAC and everything should have worked. However, we were getting a version exception on deserialization related to the Comparer class. We tracked down the error to the wrong version of the class being retreived from the GAC. Uninstalling the old version of the Framework made the problem go away.
Since then, I've been a bit leary of the GAC. Don't get me wrong, we still use it. However, we are now much more careful about which frameworks we install on each machine as well as with the versioning and dynamic loading of our own assemblies.
I guess what I'm saying is that with Java, you are left to manage versioning and the loading of classes (mostly) yourself. This is a burden, to be sure, but it allows the careful coder to control every aspect of the process. While.Net (and mono) allow you to sacrifice some of this control in favor of a "don't think about it" kind of versioning with the GAC, it makes me uncomfortable if I can't trust the loading and versioning mechanisms. I liken it to the Unix "everything is a file" paradigm to the MS "we'll take care of it in proprietary format X" paradigm (personified by the registry). You give up control by letting someone else handle the details for you. This has pros and cons, but if I don't entirely trust the people handling the details, I'll probably opt out.
I can count, on one hand, the number of improvements C# makes on top of java's syntax:
1) Events
2) foreach (versus for loops)
3) Properties (versus accessor methods)
4) Boxing/Unboxing (versus Classes for intregal types--also used as the "implicit" operator)
Forgive me if I missed anything, but this is all I can think of. On the flip side, Java has a few things which I consider better than C#'s implementation:
1) Explicit declaration of the exceptions a given function will throw.
2) Better handling of packages, especially in the importing of packages into the current class.
I use both languages (learned java first, though) and I really think the differences amount to a wash. When I go from C# to Java, I miss Properties. When I go from Java to C#, I miss the ability to enforce exception handling. In the end, they are both extremely usable languages well suited for modern object oriented programming.
I agree with you that many people outside the US--and many liberals in the US--thought that Saddam had aspirations of WMDs and probably had a few stashes of weapons with rather limited destructive potential. I thought that myself. What I disagree with is the conclusion that was drawn from that information by the Bush administration: that Saddam's aspirations and small amount of weapons made him so dangerous to the US and other countries that we needed to go to war to stop him. I never believed that. And I believe my perception of the situation was vindicated after the war. Saddam's weapons programs were in shambles and his "stockpiles" of weapons were puny to non-existant. Clinton and Chirac may have recognized that Saddam COULD be a danger, left unchecked, but neither of them thought he was so dangerous as to undertake a war because of it. He was contained. His power and danger was very limited. They recognized this. Bush and company didn't.
This, obviously, doesn't speak to the humanitarian aspect of the war. Yes, the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam in power. But do you want the US to be the world police? Do you want the US to right every wrong in the world (or are we even capable)? I don't want that. Clinton had this tendency, as well, and I didn't like it one bit. There will always be injustice in the world, but the US can't be held responsible for all of it. How about letting an international body figure out when intervention is needed and deploy international troops in that case (UN anyone?). Why not work with the UN to get more EU or Chinese troops in the UN peacekeeping forces? Why not try to better the UN to make sure it answers humanitarian crises in a timely and efficient manner? It would be better than taking the responsibility (and risks, international PR problems, etc.) on our shoulders alone. Bush combined his cowboy "go it alone" attitude with Clinton's "world police" tendencies and ended up painting us into a international relations corner. Not a great strategy, if you ask me.
Further, on the point of the "Oil for food" program, you should really look up the US's involvement in the program from it's start shortly after the first Iraq war. The US helped set up the program and benefitted from the program for years before it was determined that it wasn't in our best interests. Sure, at the time of the second Iraq war we weren't involved in the program any longer, but many out there like to paint the picture that the US's hands were clean. I don't buy it. Backdoor dealings for power/money are the norm in US politics. Why would you assume those principles wouldn't apply to our international dealings as well? We were involved in the program and my guess is that we benefited from it.
...the fact of the matter is that the Earth has a natural environmental cycle that balances itself out over time...
No kidding! So it is a "fact" that human activity contributes nothing, in the long run, to global climate? And here I thought the jury was still out on how much we impact our climate and how long those effects will last. Silly me!
Seriously though, I really don't like this kind of unsubstantiated "it is a fact" statement about something we know so little about. I'm not sure how much human activity contributes to global warming. I'm not sure how long any effects we cause will last. The reason I try to be environmentally concious is because I don't know and the thought of a world rendered uninhabitable because of human activity concerns me.
So all those out there who would tell me "humans are causing global warming" or "humans have no impact on global climate" can save it. Given the incredibly complex nature of our ecosystem and the tiny amount of data we currently have, I don't think anyone can say with certainty. As for me, I think the evidence currently shows that we at least some impact on our environment and I don't want to find out how serious that impact could be. So I will work towards policies which limit our impact on the world around us and hope others will do the same.
I understand what you are saying, and I agree: killing corporations punishes far too many people for it to be a viable solution to corporate crimes. However, one consequence of this lack of punishment is an environment where corporate responsibility can be a fiscal liability. In other words, often times acting in a responsible manner is not in the best interests of the company.
So, while I agree that "killing" a corporation as punishment is not viable, I think there needs to be a greater emphasis on making sure corporations act in a responsible manner.
How do you measure "mental or emotional pain or agony"? For that matter, how do you measure "severe or excrutiating" physical pain? How does a hobbling compare to ripping off fingernails? Where is the line between "normal" pain and "sever" pain drawn? I'm asking because you seem to speak with an authoritative voice on the matter. To me, it is a very grey area.
Would, say, sexually abusing a child in front of his/her mother cause the mother sufficient mental anguish to be considered torture? That (likely) happened at Abu Graib. I think raping a child in front of their mother is sufficiently horrible as to be considered torture. Maybe you have a different standard.
You're link to the article on Fox News is so so apropos. It's a stunning example of bias.
Biased, huh? What about this entry? It has a section on the alleged bias of the NYTimes as well as information regarding recent scandals at the paper.
So now I would ask you: in which direction is wikipedia biased?
This is exactly why I often find allegations of widespread bias in a given institution so lacking. For any given publication, I can generally find articles which are biased both to the left and to the right. For example, the Chicago Tribune is generally considered a conservative paper. However, last week, they ran a story on the Ohio presidential recount and declared in their headline "Ohio Recount Ends, Shows Vote Closer." This, after the recount turned up a few hundred less votes for Bush than for Kerry out of a 100,000+ vote difference. Many would consider this an instance of bias towards the Kerry campaign. Even so, taking the paper's historically conservative slant, I would never say the Tribune is biased to the left.
Now take a look at organizations such as the Media Research Center or Media Matters. Both of these organizations purport to be the exposers of media bias, the former of the media's left-wing bias, the latter of its right-wing bias. But, to me, what they really do is to cherry-pick articles which exemplify their point. The MRC hones in on any instance of left-wing bias they can find and MM hones in on any instance of right-wing bias they find. But neither organization is in any way objective as they never--NOT ONCE--expose an example of bias which goes against their pre-conceived notion of bias.
In other words, both organizations start out saying: "we know the media is biased, and we are going to prove it." Rather, shouldn't they be asking a question? Specifically, should they be asking, "IS the media biased?"
Anyone "prove" something by sorting through a bunch of information and pulling only the bits of information which support their pre-conceived theories. But that "proof" should never be considered valid. Where is the objective research? Where are the principles of the scientific method?
Whose definition of torture are you using? Rape is often listed as a method of torture and I see no ethical distinction between what you are calling "abuse" and "torture." It seems to me that the difference is purely legal (as in the charges and penalties for torture are different than that for abuse).
If you can make an argument as to what the difference between sexual abuse and sexual torture is, then maybe I'll buy your argument that the grandparent was using hyperbole. When would sexual assault be considered torture instead of abuse?
What about the NYTimes write-up in wikipedia? Check it out. There is a large section devoted to the allegations of bias against the New York Times as well as other recent controversies there, as there should be.
Concerning CNN, I don't necessarily think that information regarding bias is warranted. How credible are the allegations of bias? How frequent and widespread are the allegations? Are there good sources to cite for these allegations? I would say that for information to be included in an encyclopedia entry, it must meet a certain level of credibility. I am not sure that allegations of bias against CNN have risen to this level. On the other hand, allegations against the Times and Fox News are widespread and easy to cite.
One question: what was your statement insinuating, exactly? That wikipedia (or its contributors) have a bias?
Slick Snake already brought this up, but how do yo really know they love you? Isn't it, to some extent, a matter of trust?
I'm pretty damn sure my girlfriend loves me, and her actions and words back that up enough for me to trust that as fact, but do I ever really know? Let's pretend my girlfriend was currently being unfaithful to me, but lying about it to my face. By all indications, I'd have to say she loves me, but her actions might indicate that is not true. Now let's say I found out about her affair. She might tell me she still loves me, but is that the truth? Even if she DOES love me, how could I be sure given her actions?
Given that there is no way to detect love through objective measurement (currently, anyway), I'd say it is impossible to say with certainty if a person is experiencing that emotion. Also, define 'love'. I love TV. Is that the same as the love I experience for my girlfriend?
He doesn't say whether he values their behavior, nor that it's bad, nor that it's to be condemned. He is, however, in my opinion, using this imaginary example as proof that they are bad people. I could be wrong, but I don't think I'm jumping wildly to conclusions either.
Well then, it looks like we have a good ol' fashioned difference of opinion. Where you see an imaginary example as proof that they are bad people, I see him saying their work has less value than that of Wilco, because they are selling much more than music. Both of us are implying our POV from what he said, not reading it from the page.
I still don't see this "they are bad people" attitude in his post. Why are they "bad" people? Because he doesn't value what they are selling as entertainment? I can't even imagine the logic that conflates "acceptable" entertainment with commentary on their moral being.
I actually thought your original comment was funny. It was when you started defending it as something other than a joke that I took "offense." (I'm not really all that upset about it)
So if it was supposed to be a joke, you might want to think about why you felt you had to defend it as true.
I completely agree that it does not follow logically that they would have ended up stripping on the strip, all coked up.
And he is passing judgement (though not necessarily a moral judgement--the world isn't bad vs. good to everyone). He is saying he likes Wilco's behavior more than Spears'. Fine. But does that mean he dislikes women as a whole? Does that even mean he dislikes Spears, as a whole? Not unless you make some serious assumptions.
What he did was to pick an extreme possible outcome to use as a hyperbolic example of what their lives would be like had they not made it big. Where I took offense was that you used that fact to label him misogynistic (ie. you said he hates women). It is COMPLETELY unfair to say he hates women based on that one hyperbolic statement. How the fuck do you know? Because he chose one hypothetical example over several others, you can safely label him a misogynist? Bleh. It's a guess you are making, plain and simple, and an extremely presumptuous one, at that. Maybe he just dislikes Britney Spears. Does his dislike of ONE FREAKIN' WOMAN make him a misogynist? Hell, I dislike Spears, but I'd be respectful to her if I ever met her, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean I hate women or am a misogynist.
It's the hyper-PC attitude that I hate. Anything said which is remotely stereotypical gets labelled as "hate speech." I see your attitude as an extension of this.
The only evidence I think he has for his conclusion (that they would become strippers) is that they are women.
Where do you come up with this stuff? He has plenty of other evidence: their actions between when they hit it big and now. Go watch the Ashley Simpson show and tell me you don't construct some picture of who Ashley Simpson really is outside the fact she is a woman. You seem to be saying a person's public actions should be ignored or are ignoring the fact that these people (esp. the Simpsons, but also Britney) are celebrities whose every public action for the last 5-10 years has been closely tracked. Hell, People does most of the work for anyone interested in what Britney has been eating (or dating!) for the last month.
That's fine. It's not what he said.
You're right, he said they are only interested in "entertaining." Have you ever been to, or seen on tv, a Britney Spears concert? You do know that sex plays a BIG part of her act, right? Think Madonna. You are trying to artificially restrict the definition of the word entertainment. Sex, sexuality, beauty, and image are all actively sold by these artists under the general heading of "entertainment."
It's pretty clear that he was comparing and contrasting them with Wilco, whom he approves of, and these female performers whom he does not approve of. It was completely clear that he was using this as example of what made them bad people. What makes you say otherwise?
You are using pretty loaded language. "Approve of" isn't really appropriate. It is implying he was making a moral judgement on their behavior. I don't see that. Rather, he was saying HE doesn't value their behavior. That is VERY different than saying their behvior is "bad" or to be condemned. I could view his statement as much as a lamentation of what society currently values as it is a moral condemnation of their behavior.
BTW.
I think this is incorrect too. The same post would not be written about a boy band and talk about how they'd be working as gigolos. It could be, but would not.
This is preposterous. You are trying to say that the only reason that a person wouldn't say this about a boy band is misogyny (or more correctly, negative stereotypes of women). Nope.
Another equally valid reason why a person might be more likely to say a woman might end up in the sex industry is that women are more likely to end up in the sex industry. This doesn't make women "bad people." This doesn't mean they have lower moral values than men. It's because of gender roles and market demand. Boys and girls are generally conditioned from a young age to conform to certain societal roles. For girls, a very common conditioning is for them to place disproportionately high value on looks. For boys, a common conditioning is for them to be strong, tough and not to cry.
Further emphasising this problem is market demand. What percentage of steel mill workers do you think are women? Farm hands? Etc. Etc. Now, what percentage of total strip clubs have male dancers? Why do you think there are more strip clubs with women dancers than men? Why do you think there are more men in the steel industry than women?
A big part is demand.
There are simply more men than women out there who want to look at porn, making the femal form highly prized in porn purveyors. And steel mills prize a "work horse" attitude from their employees, which makes the male form more desirable (as it is more able to provide the work they need).
So given the demand for porn featuring the femal form, OF COURSE there is going to be a lot of people willing to use (or exploit, given your POV) women to peddle porn. And given that demand is higher than the demand for porn with the male form, there are more female sex workers than male. Which means it is more likely that a women would enter the sex trade than man.
What use this knowledge is is of some debate. And OF COURSE some qualification based on INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES of different women is always more useful. And this is, like any statistic, a form of stereotyping. But the underlying logic is there.
I can understand saying that the original poster was incorrectly stereotyping women. But that he HATES women? That's a stretch. I think the word misogyny is way overused these days. People mistake ignorance for hatred and the application of the word misogyny is the result.
Anyway, I interpreted his statement as saying that these women's only marketable feature is their beauty. No (or very little education) education. No REAL skill in their trade. Just looks.
And I don't think he was saying that made them bad people, just that there are limited options for those in this world wanting to make a living from their looks. If they are super-lucky, MAYBE they'll land a modelling, acting or singing gig which brings them fame and years of waelth. More likely, they'll struggle along in some less-than-ideal career position. One of those alternatives could well be in the sex industry in one capacity or another.
You act as though the mere mention of the fact that women hoping to get by on their looks MIGHT end up in the sex industry makes him a bad person. Whatever.
You can patent new varieties of plants you derive through breeding. Check out roses, for instance, so the core argument is wrong.
Heh. I don't see at all why this fact would make his core argument "wrong."
Anyway, this wasn't true until around December of 2001, when the Supreme court ruled that bio-engineered plants are patentable using traditional patent methods. Until then, parties who wished to protect the results of their breeding would have to act according to the Plant Variety Protection Act and the Plant Patent Act. These limited the control of companies over the results of their breeding methods. Many people, myself included, think this ruling was a bad thing.
Read more about this decision and why it is bad here.
Or maybe I'm just a socialist... [rolleyes]
The purpose of the government is to protect property, obviously.
Come on! I agree that the government should protect property of individuals. But your statement is so generic and implies so many other assumtions as to make it useless. Should a business model be considered property? Should the ONLY purpose of government be to protect property or should they have other responsibilities? (For instance a responsibility to protect humanity.)
Look, I understand where you are coming from: you are a pure capatalist. But please stop arguing like that is the only correct viewpoint out there. Many countries around the globe have found a reasonable balance between capitalist and collectivist principles. The idea of the protection of individual rights (including property rights) while protecting the group as a whole is not a crazy idea. Works well for Canada...
Why do people read the NYTimes, watch CNN or Fox News, etc.? To get up-to-date, condensed versions or current events and important topics. Sure, there are varying levels of thoroughness in these news outlets, but they are all essentially condensing news and arguments for popular consumption.
Given that fact, and their inability to provide ALL information on a given topic implied by that fact, they must pick and choose what to pass along to the populace. The very fact that they must do this necessitates some sort of filtering process.
Now, to simplify your argument a bit (sorry!), you seem to be saying that popular opinion be used to dictate which opinions are deemed coverage-worthy or that ALL opinions are given near equal coverage. I, on the other hand, am advocating a more in-depth set of criteria which would effectively assign merit to each opinion and then choose the opinions with the most merit. I agree that by assigning worth to ideas does open the possibility for injection of bias, but that is not automatic. So I see us as having a difference of opinions on this matter. Fine.
But notice that I'm not saying that ANY opinion be dismissed out of hand by a journalist. If a journalist does his or her job, EVERY opinion would be judged against the same criteria, without exception. You latched onto the "because God says" argument above and noted that I didn't discuss WHY that had no backing. You are right. But how many times do we need to address the same argument before we can say the argument doesn't add anything to the discussion. The "because God says" argument has been deconstructed by thoughtful minds probably since the concept of God has been around. There are well established reasons why it doesn't work. Is it elitest of me to look at that history and then say, "it isn't a valid argument?"
I agree that every argument and opinion should be open for discussion and should not be dismissed out of hand by journalists or any thinking person. On the other hand, there comes a point where an argument has been so successfully defeated that mentioning it becomes like saying "2 + 2 = 5." I don't think it is elitest to recognize that fact when dealing with certain well-established arguments, so long as you keep an open mind and at least ADDRESS the existence of those arguments and understand the reasons you don't value those arguments.
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Are you sympathetic to those people whose businesses fail? Are you sympathetic to those whose careers fall even though they are good, hardwordking people?
If so, why do you hold such contempt for astronauts? Are they not good, hardworking people deserving of your sympathy?
If not, do you ever feel sympathy for other human beings? Why is it that callous cynicism is so popular these days? It's sad.
Taft
Look past the components and look at the design. You are absolutely right that Apple didn't invent the idea of a hard-drive in a portable music player. But you are absolutely wrong if you think the iPod wasn't revolutionary. Look at the form of the iPod. Look at how small, sleek and pretty it is. Now consider its user interface. Take in the simplicity of its menu system, its scrollwheel and button layout and overall ease of use. Now consider how easily and effectively it interfaces with iTunes, how trivial it is to create playlists and fille your iPod with music.
Now compare that experience (that of the revision 1 iPod) with the hard drive players available at the time. Is there a difference? Is that difference major? I think so.
I've given an iPod to people utterly unfamiliar with gadgetry of any kind and they were up and using the iPod in under a minute (after they got over how cool it looked). THAT is the Apple difference and why they sell products. They lead in a way that is foreign to many PC users: design.
Taft
Yes, the cappuccino is small, but its design is bulky and clumsy compared to the Mini. As Apple has consistently proved, its not all about size and speed. Design, user experience and beauty are important, too.
Now look at the pics of Intel's concept mini-PC from the original article--forgetting for a second that it doesn't even exist yet. (Its not even a prototype, just a case with some lights on it.) Now try to tell me Intel isn't following Apple's lead in terms of design.
Look past the size and see the form.
Taft
I think SCO had been in decline for years before resorting to frivolous IP claims. It seems to me that their business model (sell a mediocre version of Unix on highly specialized machines to retailers) wasn't working well, their profits sank and they saw the writing on the wall. In comes a new CEO known for pushing IP litigation and *bang* they have a new business model overnight.
MS is in a different place. I think they will probably go into decline eventually, but they have a long way to go before their business model fails the way SCO's did.
Taft
However, there seems to be a large (or maybe just vocal) contingent in the population that abuses this valid doubt by saying, "those scientists are full of crap, therefore we should do absolutely nothing to limit our impact on the environment." This strikees me as an incredibly dangerous attitude.
I want to have kids. I want those kids to have a habitable earth to thrive on. Therefore, I am willing to make some compromises in terms of convenience, comfort and cash to assure they do have a suitable environment to live in. Those who are completely unwilling to make *any* compromises in these areas and making a dangerous gamble, IMO, and I don't my kids to pay for that gamble.
So I'll make you a deal: as soon as pundits and business leaders stop using these "global warming may not be caused by humans" reports for their own agendas, I'll start defneding them. Deal?
Taft
The US media is only interested in one thing: money. Reporting on the things US citizens fear is good business for them as they know that fear will translate easily into ratings. Reporting only on issues that American's care about is also good business, for obvious reasons.
So I guess where I fall between you and the grandparent is that I: a) don't like or trust much of the media in this country, but b) think that they do report on international issues, if only to the extent that American's want to hear about them. To me, this isn't perfect, as the average American doesn't get much in the way of international news or exposure to the problems other countries are facing, other than when they impact us. Then again, welcome to the real world, right? The world would likely be a much better place if more people read, say, the Economist (look at their international coverage vs. CNN, Fox News, or NYTimes), but that isn't very realistic.
BTW, on this point: I guess you are trying to generalize about southerns now, since NASCAR's following is mostly in the more rural section of the country. You missed the mark here. Yes, it was a dig: at rural America. I'm from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, and let me assure you that NASCAR is huge up there. The North vs. South argument is played out. The REAL conflict will come from rural America vs. urban America. Let the revolution begin! :)
Taft
That's funny, this was the portion I found Mr. Taylor to be exceptionally dishonest about. He used the classic technique of "instead of answering what was asked, I'll answer a question related to the subject so that I fool you into thinking I said something relevant to the original question." Very smooth, this guy.
To be clear, the intent of the question was: Microsoft, in various ads and through statements by executives, says that Linux isn't "backed" by a corporation and that makes it more risky. But at the same time, their EULA says that they aren't responsible for problems in their own software. In other words: they don't "back" their software anymore than RedHat "backs" their pay-for-support Linux distributions.
Taylor basically admits this when he says: "Go read Red Hat EULA and Red Hat will pretty much say, 'Hey,we can't guarantee anything with the software either.' I've read it. Read their filing statements. It's the same thing [as Microsoft's EULA/disclaimers], right?" Basically, MS goes around spouting the line that Linux isn't "backed," then turns around and says, in a more covert venue, "we don't back our software, either." Taylor successfully dodged the hypocracy aspect of the question and focused on the fact that MS is no worse than anyone else on the point. Hey, I admit that is true, but it misses the point.
The comparison to cars was an even bigger digression from the point, which, I think, was Rob's attempt to get him back in line. It failed pretty miserably. Shame on you, Roblimo, for letting Taylor wriggle out of that question. These "unbacked Linux" statements are the perfect example of untrue FUD that Microsoft excels at. You had a chance to nail them, and you blew it. Maybe in another ten years, when MS allows themselves to be interviewed like this again.
Taft
However, count me among those who prefer JNI to P/Invoke and unsafe code. Why would I want to pollute my java/c# codebase with c code? I prefer putting this code in a seperate library and using p/invoke or jni. However, I find p/invoke suffers from the "everything must be dynamic" syndrome that I found with COM. There is no good way to verify at compile time that I am not doing something blatently stupid. At least JNI forces you to compile your native code against a header file, insuring you some level of safety at compile time. I admit, though, that Java is less flexible on this point. I just like the paradigm Java forces you into.
I'll pass on 2.0 vs. 1.5 stuff as I am ignorant of the improvements in both.
As to your last two points, they both hinge on the GAC, which I am still wary of. Granted, I haven't given mono's GAC an honest to goodness spin yet, but I've found MS's GAC somewhat flaky. As an example, we were using .Net's default serialization on some objects which used the .Net Comparer class. The serialization routine serialized the Comparer class with our objects (this wasn't perfect, but we were using default binary serialization, so we expected some extra objects). We serialized the objects on one machine, send the data to another machine, then deserialized. This worked well on most of the machines we tested on. However, one of the machines we tested against had two different versions of the .Net framework installed. *Theoretically*, this should have been fine. A particular version of the Comparer class should have been loaded from the GAC and everything should have worked. However, we were getting a version exception on deserialization related to the Comparer class. We tracked down the error to the wrong version of the class being retreived from the GAC. Uninstalling the old version of the Framework made the problem go away.
Since then, I've been a bit leary of the GAC. Don't get me wrong, we still use it. However, we are now much more careful about which frameworks we install on each machine as well as with the versioning and dynamic loading of our own assemblies.
I guess what I'm saying is that with Java, you are left to manage versioning and the loading of classes (mostly) yourself. This is a burden, to be sure, but it allows the careful coder to control every aspect of the process. While .Net (and mono) allow you to sacrifice some of this control in favor of a "don't think about it" kind of versioning with the GAC, it makes me uncomfortable if I can't trust the loading and versioning mechanisms. I liken it to the Unix "everything is a file" paradigm to the MS "we'll take care of it in proprietary format X" paradigm (personified by the registry). You give up control by letting someone else handle the details for you. This has pros and cons, but if I don't entirely trust the people handling the details, I'll probably opt out.
Taft
1) Events
2) foreach (versus for loops)
3) Properties (versus accessor methods)
4) Boxing/Unboxing (versus Classes for intregal types--also used as the "implicit" operator)
Forgive me if I missed anything, but this is all I can think of. On the flip side, Java has a few things which I consider better than C#'s implementation:
1) Explicit declaration of the exceptions a given function will throw.
2) Better handling of packages, especially in the importing of packages into the current class.
I use both languages (learned java first, though) and I really think the differences amount to a wash. When I go from C# to Java, I miss Properties. When I go from Java to C#, I miss the ability to enforce exception handling. In the end, they are both extremely usable languages well suited for modern object oriented programming.
Taft
I agree with you that many people outside the US--and many liberals in the US--thought that Saddam had aspirations of WMDs and probably had a few stashes of weapons with rather limited destructive potential. I thought that myself. What I disagree with is the conclusion that was drawn from that information by the Bush administration: that Saddam's aspirations and small amount of weapons made him so dangerous to the US and other countries that we needed to go to war to stop him. I never believed that. And I believe my perception of the situation was vindicated after the war. Saddam's weapons programs were in shambles and his "stockpiles" of weapons were puny to non-existant. Clinton and Chirac may have recognized that Saddam COULD be a danger, left unchecked, but neither of them thought he was so dangerous as to undertake a war because of it. He was contained. His power and danger was very limited. They recognized this. Bush and company didn't.
This, obviously, doesn't speak to the humanitarian aspect of the war. Yes, the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam in power. But do you want the US to be the world police? Do you want the US to right every wrong in the world (or are we even capable)? I don't want that. Clinton had this tendency, as well, and I didn't like it one bit. There will always be injustice in the world, but the US can't be held responsible for all of it. How about letting an international body figure out when intervention is needed and deploy international troops in that case (UN anyone?). Why not work with the UN to get more EU or Chinese troops in the UN peacekeeping forces? Why not try to better the UN to make sure it answers humanitarian crises in a timely and efficient manner? It would be better than taking the responsibility (and risks, international PR problems, etc.) on our shoulders alone. Bush combined his cowboy "go it alone" attitude with Clinton's "world police" tendencies and ended up painting us into a international relations corner. Not a great strategy, if you ask me.
Further, on the point of the "Oil for food" program, you should really look up the US's involvement in the program from it's start shortly after the first Iraq war. The US helped set up the program and benefitted from the program for years before it was determined that it wasn't in our best interests. Sure, at the time of the second Iraq war we weren't involved in the program any longer, but many out there like to paint the picture that the US's hands were clean. I don't buy it. Backdoor dealings for power/money are the norm in US politics. Why would you assume those principles wouldn't apply to our international dealings as well? We were involved in the program and my guess is that we benefited from it.
Taft
No kidding! So it is a "fact" that human activity contributes nothing, in the long run, to global climate? And here I thought the jury was still out on how much we impact our climate and how long those effects will last. Silly me!
Seriously though, I really don't like this kind of unsubstantiated "it is a fact" statement about something we know so little about. I'm not sure how much human activity contributes to global warming. I'm not sure how long any effects we cause will last. The reason I try to be environmentally concious is because I don't know and the thought of a world rendered uninhabitable because of human activity concerns me.
So all those out there who would tell me "humans are causing global warming" or "humans have no impact on global climate" can save it. Given the incredibly complex nature of our ecosystem and the tiny amount of data we currently have, I don't think anyone can say with certainty. As for me, I think the evidence currently shows that we at least some impact on our environment and I don't want to find out how serious that impact could be. So I will work towards policies which limit our impact on the world around us and hope others will do the same.
Taft
So, while I agree that "killing" a corporation as punishment is not viable, I think there needs to be a greater emphasis on making sure corporations act in a responsible manner.
Taft
Would, say, sexually abusing a child in front of his/her mother cause the mother sufficient mental anguish to be considered torture? That (likely) happened at Abu Graib. I think raping a child in front of their mother is sufficiently horrible as to be considered torture. Maybe you have a different standard.
Taft
Biased, huh? What about this entry? It has a section on the alleged bias of the NYTimes as well as information regarding recent scandals at the paper.
So now I would ask you: in which direction is wikipedia biased?
This is exactly why I often find allegations of widespread bias in a given institution so lacking. For any given publication, I can generally find articles which are biased both to the left and to the right. For example, the Chicago Tribune is generally considered a conservative paper. However, last week, they ran a story on the Ohio presidential recount and declared in their headline "Ohio Recount Ends, Shows Vote Closer." This, after the recount turned up a few hundred less votes for Bush than for Kerry out of a 100,000+ vote difference. Many would consider this an instance of bias towards the Kerry campaign. Even so, taking the paper's historically conservative slant, I would never say the Tribune is biased to the left.
Now take a look at organizations such as the Media Research Center or Media Matters. Both of these organizations purport to be the exposers of media bias, the former of the media's left-wing bias, the latter of its right-wing bias. But, to me, what they really do is to cherry-pick articles which exemplify their point. The MRC hones in on any instance of left-wing bias they can find and MM hones in on any instance of right-wing bias they find. But neither organization is in any way objective as they never--NOT ONCE--expose an example of bias which goes against their pre-conceived notion of bias.
In other words, both organizations start out saying: "we know the media is biased, and we are going to prove it." Rather, shouldn't they be asking a question? Specifically, should they be asking, "IS the media biased?"
Anyone "prove" something by sorting through a bunch of information and pulling only the bits of information which support their pre-conceived theories. But that "proof" should never be considered valid. Where is the objective research? Where are the principles of the scientific method?
Taft
If you can make an argument as to what the difference between sexual abuse and sexual torture is, then maybe I'll buy your argument that the grandparent was using hyperbole. When would sexual assault be considered torture instead of abuse?
Taft
Concerning CNN, I don't necessarily think that information regarding bias is warranted. How credible are the allegations of bias? How frequent and widespread are the allegations? Are there good sources to cite for these allegations? I would say that for information to be included in an encyclopedia entry, it must meet a certain level of credibility. I am not sure that allegations of bias against CNN have risen to this level. On the other hand, allegations against the Times and Fox News are widespread and easy to cite.
One question: what was your statement insinuating, exactly? That wikipedia (or its contributors) have a bias?
Taft
I'm pretty damn sure my girlfriend loves me, and her actions and words back that up enough for me to trust that as fact, but do I ever really know? Let's pretend my girlfriend was currently being unfaithful to me, but lying about it to my face. By all indications, I'd have to say she loves me, but her actions might indicate that is not true. Now let's say I found out about her affair. She might tell me she still loves me, but is that the truth? Even if she DOES love me, how could I be sure given her actions?
Given that there is no way to detect love through objective measurement (currently, anyway), I'd say it is impossible to say with certainty if a person is experiencing that emotion. Also, define 'love'. I love TV. Is that the same as the love I experience for my girlfriend?
Taft
Well then, it looks like we have a good ol' fashioned difference of opinion. Where you see an imaginary example as proof that they are bad people, I see him saying their work has less value than that of Wilco, because they are selling much more than music. Both of us are implying our POV from what he said, not reading it from the page.
I still don't see this "they are bad people" attitude in his post. Why are they "bad" people? Because he doesn't value what they are selling as entertainment? I can't even imagine the logic that conflates "acceptable" entertainment with commentary on their moral being.
Taft
So if it was supposed to be a joke, you might want to think about why you felt you had to defend it as true.
Taft
And he is passing judgement (though not necessarily a moral judgement--the world isn't bad vs. good to everyone). He is saying he likes Wilco's behavior more than Spears'. Fine. But does that mean he dislikes women as a whole? Does that even mean he dislikes Spears, as a whole? Not unless you make some serious assumptions.
What he did was to pick an extreme possible outcome to use as a hyperbolic example of what their lives would be like had they not made it big. Where I took offense was that you used that fact to label him misogynistic (ie. you said he hates women). It is COMPLETELY unfair to say he hates women based on that one hyperbolic statement. How the fuck do you know? Because he chose one hypothetical example over several others, you can safely label him a misogynist? Bleh. It's a guess you are making, plain and simple, and an extremely presumptuous one, at that. Maybe he just dislikes Britney Spears. Does his dislike of ONE FREAKIN' WOMAN make him a misogynist? Hell, I dislike Spears, but I'd be respectful to her if I ever met her, and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean I hate women or am a misogynist.
It's the hyper-PC attitude that I hate. Anything said which is remotely stereotypical gets labelled as "hate speech." I see your attitude as an extension of this.
Taft
Where do you come up with this stuff? He has plenty of other evidence: their actions between when they hit it big and now. Go watch the Ashley Simpson show and tell me you don't construct some picture of who Ashley Simpson really is outside the fact she is a woman. You seem to be saying a person's public actions should be ignored or are ignoring the fact that these people (esp. the Simpsons, but also Britney) are celebrities whose every public action for the last 5-10 years has been closely tracked. Hell, People does most of the work for anyone interested in what Britney has been eating (or dating!) for the last month.
That's fine. It's not what he said.
You're right, he said they are only interested in "entertaining." Have you ever been to, or seen on tv, a Britney Spears concert? You do know that sex plays a BIG part of her act, right? Think Madonna. You are trying to artificially restrict the definition of the word entertainment. Sex, sexuality, beauty, and image are all actively sold by these artists under the general heading of "entertainment."
It's pretty clear that he was comparing and contrasting them with Wilco, whom he approves of, and these female performers whom he does not approve of. It was completely clear that he was using this as example of what made them bad people. What makes you say otherwise?
You are using pretty loaded language. "Approve of" isn't really appropriate. It is implying he was making a moral judgement on their behavior. I don't see that. Rather, he was saying HE doesn't value their behavior. That is VERY different than saying their behvior is "bad" or to be condemned. I could view his statement as much as a lamentation of what society currently values as it is a moral condemnation of their behavior.
Taft
This is preposterous. You are trying to say that the only reason that a person wouldn't say this about a boy band is misogyny (or more correctly, negative stereotypes of women). Nope.
Another equally valid reason why a person might be more likely to say a woman might end up in the sex industry is that women are more likely to end up in the sex industry. This doesn't make women "bad people." This doesn't mean they have lower moral values than men. It's because of gender roles and market demand. Boys and girls are generally conditioned from a young age to conform to certain societal roles. For girls, a very common conditioning is for them to place disproportionately high value on looks. For boys, a common conditioning is for them to be strong, tough and not to cry.
Further emphasising this problem is market demand. What percentage of steel mill workers do you think are women? Farm hands? Etc. Etc. Now, what percentage of total strip clubs have male dancers? Why do you think there are more strip clubs with women dancers than men? Why do you think there are more men in the steel industry than women?
A big part is demand.
There are simply more men than women out there who want to look at porn, making the femal form highly prized in porn purveyors. And steel mills prize a "work horse" attitude from their employees, which makes the male form more desirable (as it is more able to provide the work they need).
So given the demand for porn featuring the femal form, OF COURSE there is going to be a lot of people willing to use (or exploit, given your POV) women to peddle porn. And given that demand is higher than the demand for porn with the male form, there are more female sex workers than male. Which means it is more likely that a women would enter the sex trade than man.
What use this knowledge is is of some debate. And OF COURSE some qualification based on INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES of different women is always more useful. And this is, like any statistic, a form of stereotyping. But the underlying logic is there.
Taft
From dictionary.com:
misogyny, n.: Hatred of women
I can understand saying that the original poster was incorrectly stereotyping women. But that he HATES women? That's a stretch. I think the word misogyny is way overused these days. People mistake ignorance for hatred and the application of the word misogyny is the result.
Anyway, I interpreted his statement as saying that these women's only marketable feature is their beauty. No (or very little education) education. No REAL skill in their trade. Just looks.
And I don't think he was saying that made them bad people, just that there are limited options for those in this world wanting to make a living from their looks. If they are super-lucky, MAYBE they'll land a modelling, acting or singing gig which brings them fame and years of waelth. More likely, they'll struggle along in some less-than-ideal career position. One of those alternatives could well be in the sex industry in one capacity or another.
You act as though the mere mention of the fact that women hoping to get by on their looks MIGHT end up in the sex industry makes him a bad person. Whatever.
Taft
Heh. I don't see at all why this fact would make his core argument "wrong."
Anyway, this wasn't true until around December of 2001, when the Supreme court ruled that bio-engineered plants are patentable using traditional patent methods. Until then, parties who wished to protect the results of their breeding would have to act according to the Plant Variety Protection Act and the Plant Patent Act. These limited the control of companies over the results of their breeding methods. Many people, myself included, think this ruling was a bad thing.
Read more about this decision and why it is bad here.
Or maybe I'm just a socialist... [rolleyes]
The purpose of the government is to protect property, obviously.
Come on! I agree that the government should protect property of individuals. But your statement is so generic and implies so many other assumtions as to make it useless. Should a business model be considered property? Should the ONLY purpose of government be to protect property or should they have other responsibilities? (For instance a responsibility to protect humanity.)
Look, I understand where you are coming from: you are a pure capatalist. But please stop arguing like that is the only correct viewpoint out there. Many countries around the globe have found a reasonable balance between capitalist and collectivist principles. The idea of the protection of individual rights (including property rights) while protecting the group as a whole is not a crazy idea. Works well for Canada...
Taft
Given that fact, and their inability to provide ALL information on a given topic implied by that fact, they must pick and choose what to pass along to the populace. The very fact that they must do this necessitates some sort of filtering process.
Now, to simplify your argument a bit (sorry!), you seem to be saying that popular opinion be used to dictate which opinions are deemed coverage-worthy or that ALL opinions are given near equal coverage. I, on the other hand, am advocating a more in-depth set of criteria which would effectively assign merit to each opinion and then choose the opinions with the most merit. I agree that by assigning worth to ideas does open the possibility for injection of bias, but that is not automatic. So I see us as having a difference of opinions on this matter. Fine.
But notice that I'm not saying that ANY opinion be dismissed out of hand by a journalist. If a journalist does his or her job, EVERY opinion would be judged against the same criteria, without exception. You latched onto the "because God says" argument above and noted that I didn't discuss WHY that had no backing. You are right. But how many times do we need to address the same argument before we can say the argument doesn't add anything to the discussion. The "because God says" argument has been deconstructed by thoughtful minds probably since the concept of God has been around. There are well established reasons why it doesn't work. Is it elitest of me to look at that history and then say, "it isn't a valid argument?"
I agree that every argument and opinion should be open for discussion and should not be dismissed out of hand by journalists or any thinking person. On the other hand, there comes a point where an argument has been so successfully defeated that mentioning it becomes like saying "2 + 2 = 5." I don't think it is elitest to recognize that fact when dealing with certain well-established arguments, so long as you keep an open mind and at least ADDRESS the existence of those arguments and understand the reasons you don't value those arguments.
Taft