This post brings out some interesting parallels between Bush's speech and 1984. And I have to admit I'm concerned about our constitutional rights. What good is a fight for freedom if we loose all of our liberty in the process?
On the other hand, societies living under the constant threat of seemingly random acts of serious violence and terrorism are not free societies. It's clear something needs to be done, and it's nearly equally clear that something will need to be violent. Radical Islam doesn't seem to be interested in anything we can acceptably give them.
So, can we find a path that accomplishes our goals without seriously trouncing on the Constitution? Probably, but I'm not convinced our Executive Branch will even try.
Two points do give me hope. I recently read an article about the Executive Branch overextending it's power during times of war. Lincoln and Roosevelt were heavy offenders, but the limitations didn't last beyond the war.
Second, during Bush's speech, when he referred to the current legislation proposed by the Ashcroft, the Supreme Court justices did not join the crowd and stand or applaud.
- Like minded people tend to congregate and reinforce their beliefs without external influence (to the person who suggested "gun control" sites tend to link to "right to bear arms" sites, I'd counter with the suggestion that those links are to extremist sites with the intention of showing how scary they can be, and not attempts to foster rational debate.)
- The internet is not being used to it's full potential as a tool for general, rational public debate.
Unfortunately, he's also a little too willing to stomp on personal rights and the constitution.
I also thought of the boards in Ender's Game when reading the review, and have wondered in the past how a similar system might work in reality.
I'd be interested in hearing how people would react to a heirarchy of/. like sites. At the bottom would be any number of sites, either with open discussions or focused on specific topics. There would be lots of chaff, but only posts scoring 5 would move to the next level. Once you get up a few levels the discussion would hopefully be more relavant and, since the posts would come from many sites below, cover many sides of an issue in an intelligent manner.
Sure some sites would attempt to be disruptive, promoting the chaff, but extending the Karma ratings to sites would help keep that to a minumum.
I've put about 10 minutes worth of thought into this, so I'm not suggesting it's a complete idea, but it seems to have interesting possibilites.
As one of the founders of Extreme Programming(XP)Kent Beck's comments are right in line with his methodology. Keep it simple is one of their mantras. For many of the projects I would consider appropriate for XP, a few boxes and arrows are probably sufficient. For projects beyond the scope of XP (e.g. very complex, multiple organizations collaborating) I think UML is almost required.
What UML brings to the table is a standard way of documenting complex models and systems. If you sit in a room with 10 people and spend a day drawing a system with boxes and arrows, everyone in that room will understand the diagram. If you send that diagram to another company or organization intending to collaborate on implementation, odds are they won't find it so useful.
On the other hand, if those same 10 people are solely responsible for implementation and they spend 3 days arguing about correct UML usage, they've just wasted a lot of time.
Think about the right tool for the job and be wary of anyone who tells you their solution will always be the best solution.
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This post brings out some interesting parallels between Bush's speech and 1984. And I have to admit I'm concerned about our constitutional rights. What good is a fight for freedom if we loose all of our liberty in the process?
On the other hand, societies living under the constant threat of seemingly random acts of serious violence and terrorism are not free societies. It's clear something needs to be done, and it's nearly equally clear that something will need to be violent. Radical Islam doesn't seem to be interested in anything we can acceptably give them.
So, can we find a path that accomplishes our goals without seriously trouncing on the Constitution? Probably, but I'm not convinced our Executive Branch will even try.
Two points do give me hope. I recently read an article about the Executive Branch overextending it's power during times of war. Lincoln and Roosevelt were heavy offenders, but the limitations didn't last beyond the war.
Second, during Bush's speech, when he referred to the current legislation proposed by the Ashcroft, the Supreme Court justices did not join the crowd and stand or applaud.
- Like minded people tend to congregate and reinforce their beliefs without external influence (to the person who suggested "gun control" sites tend to link to "right to bear arms" sites, I'd counter with the suggestion that those links are to extremist sites with the intention of showing how scary they can be, and not attempts to foster rational debate.)
- The internet is not being used to it's full potential as a tool for general, rational public debate.
Unfortunately, he's also a little too willing to stomp on personal rights and the constitution.
I also thought of the boards in Ender's Game when reading the review, and have wondered in the past how a similar system might work in reality.
I'd be interested in hearing how people would react to a heirarchy of /. like sites. At the bottom would be any number of sites, either with open discussions or focused on specific topics. There would be lots of chaff, but only posts scoring 5 would move to the next level. Once you get up a few levels the discussion would hopefully be more relavant and, since the posts would come from many sites below, cover many sides of an issue in an intelligent manner.
Sure some sites would attempt to be disruptive, promoting the chaff, but extending the Karma ratings to sites would help keep that to a minumum.
I've put about 10 minutes worth of thought into this, so I'm not suggesting it's a complete idea, but it seems to have interesting possibilites.
Any thoughts?
What UML brings to the table is a standard way of documenting complex models and systems. If you sit in a room with 10 people and spend a day drawing a system with boxes and arrows, everyone in that room will understand the diagram. If you send that diagram to another company or organization intending to collaborate on implementation, odds are they won't find it so useful.
On the other hand, if those same 10 people are solely responsible for implementation and they spend 3 days arguing about correct UML usage, they've just wasted a lot of time.
Think about the right tool for the job and be wary of anyone who tells you their solution will always be the best solution.