If they're going to outlaw racist webpages then what websites will I be able to go to to make fun of the obviously illogical reasoning? Now, I'm not saying that a logical argument for racist conclusions isn't possible, I'm just saying that absurdly illogical arguments are more common.
Oh, wait, there's still religious sites like capreport.org to make fun of... I'll be just fine =P
And I think my.sig is appropriate to this subject...
Although you are correct in that there is some genetic difference between the different races of humanity, the effect of this fact is generally negligable when dealing with anything more specific than statistical generalities.
I tend to think that society and culture have more effect than genetics do, and that the breadth of genetic possiblities within a racial group is more broad than the genetic tendancies for that race. (ie. Africans have a tendancy to have longer legs and to be better at running than do those of European decent, but I've met my share of stubby legged Africans - and of long legged Europeans).
Given your idea that you can measure how advanced a people are by what technology they produced, I would counter that most major technological advances came from the most wealthy peoples at the time, and that what race they were had nothing to do with it.
When the Chinese were rich, they produced Paper, Gunpowder, etc. When the Greeks were rich, they produced the science and philosophy that would power later technological advances. During the European dark ages, when everyone was poor, they produced exactly jack shit - All the western technological advances of that period came from the Muslims in Arabia and North Africa. Then, when the Europeans became rich again they spawned all the recent history we know and love.
Hmm... I think I managed to actually say something...
The way the USA was designed is that you put limits on government power, not on individual freedom.
Also, you should only limit activities when they are actually the problem. If the problem is murder - make murder illegal. Don't make talking about murder illegal, or buying a lethal weapon illegal.
By illegalizing lethal weapons, your limiting more than just illegal murders, and that's an unacceptable limit on freedom.
If I want my privacy protected, all I have to do is to run through a privacy cgi proxy thingie. I can set up one of those pretty easily... (Yea, I'm a CGI script hosted at Tripod.com or whatever)
Well, with the Internet Junk Buster, I only get cookies from a few select sites (and I don't get any doubleclick banner adds), so I'm perfectly fine...
It's probably just netscape's default.tar.gz binary packaged up with scripts to turn it into an RPM. I'll bet my left sock that the source to Netscape 4.61 is not avalible.
It is the government, not the corporations that cause the problem. Corporations are powerless without government support.
For some reason the USA tends to pass laws that have no effect but increasing the power of single corporations by decreasing the possiblility of competition.
What do copyright and patent laws do? They prevent competition and technological advancements. For example, the RSA encryption patent did allow the relevent company to make some money on licencing it, but it's primary effect was to delay the adoption of the new technology by 17 years.
Think about it. If you do something that a major Corp doesn't like, do corporate security guards come and bust down your door? Nope - It's the FBI. Last time I checked the FBI was an arm of the government. But all they seem to do is use our money to enforce corporate policy.
The even existance of corporations is because of the government. When you form a new corporation, who do you register it with? Your local government.
If, for example, AOL/Time Warner want to prevent the spread of others' opinions they can't do it themselves, they'll try to get laws passed preventing speach that they don't approve of - probably under the guise of "Immorality" or some such. We need to make a preemptive strike, prevent the government from having the power to legislate morality - or anything else that it doesn't need to legislate.
So, as I said before, the single entity that is the primary cause of the problem is the government. So if we reduce the power of government (which in the USA the citizens have the power to do), the power of corporations to harm consumers is reduced proportionally.
Note: This post is primarily written from a USA-centric perspective, but it is equally valid in most other countries.
Hmm... if it costs about $13/user to provide 15 hours/mo of ISP service, then how can Galaxy Internet Services afford to let me be online about 180 hours a month for only $9.95?
Well, not *every* tool, but at least every tool that could possibly be nessary to a system administration function. I'm pretty sure I don't need a text-based version of Moonlight Creator or The GIMP. =)
There's a reason it's considered important for it to be easy to edit config files with a simple text editor - what if your system's borked and you can only boot it with a rescue disk? You think you can fit X on that disk to be able to get your pretty config tools?
Trademarks make sense. If I make something, and call it "Chandon's Product", I don't want someone named Aym Inept to be able to make something similar and also call it "Chandon's Product", simply because Aym's possible ineptidude would then reflect upon me.
With patents and copyright, it's a whole different story, it's a question of making something that people can see but never change. I don't care if you make something like my "Chandon's Product" and call it "Bob's Product"...
Users are people, people each have their own needs and wants, anyone who generalizes about what "users want" will nessisarily be inaccurate.
I'm a user. I use software. For me, freedom in software is very important. If I don't have the source, I'm not going to trust anything more important than video game savefiles to it, and I'd rather not do even that.
As the concept of Free Software becomes more widespread and more well understood, serious users who give a crap at all about their computer will want it more.
I think that as long as BeOS remains closed-source, it will be doomed to an existance where at best people will know of it as "Oh yea, that shareware OS".
I intend to download it, but as a toy, nothing more. I may even install it on the computers of my relitives who don't have the time or inclination to learn how to use a real OS, the same way as I have my Aunt using Pine and Mosaic because they're so brainlessly simple, but I'll never use it as a serious OS, and I doubt that all that many others will eithor.
Hey, if someone doesn't follow the API as documented, it's their own damn fault when their App doesn't work with the next version. The should pretty much expect it to fail.
My theory is that most of the people here on Slashdot that are so "Microsoft is the best thing since computers" eithor A. Have never tried to do a significant programming project under Windows. or B. Have so much time and money invested in Microsoft knowledge and products that they are resisting anything else.
Human life is important, but judgment calls must be made, and, for a car maker, a "We will do everything we possibly can to protect human life reguardless of cost." judgement is just as bad as a "We will cut every corner to save money reguardless of loss of human life." judgement.
Yea, if Rob had started with Python everyone wouldn't be pounding their head on the wall quite as bad right now, but then, if Slashdot were in python it wouldn't be as featurefull as it is now. Python code is just slower to write than Perl code.
And remember... there's nothing that *prevents* you from wrighting good, maintainable code in Perl.
Any case of software or media copy protecton is merely security through obscurity. And as we all know "Security through obscurity is not security at all".
Well, I know that all the republican presidential candidates are against abortion and free speach. (Or at least Bush and McCain are, and Dole was)
And all the democrat candidates want to raise taxes so that they can waste 70% of those taxes on burocracy. (No, really, of every $1 of taxes that goes to the fedral government, ~70 cents get spent processing that money, and only ~30 cents are spent on actually doing things)
Hmm, I think that we're at their mercy already if they really make an effort at serious repression. Do you own anything that could take out a tank? Your handguns are just about worthless in any real revolt. More useful weapons, like rifles and shotguns are not nearly as regulated (nor need they be). The current gun control debates are mostly about handguns. I don't know if the second ammendment really means that I should have the right to freely own an M16. I would be the minimum of what I would want if I was really woried about protecting myself from the govenrment.
My personal interpratation of the 2nd ammendment is that private citizens should be able to own *any* weapons that the government can own. That means up to and including neuclear weapons.
Some may argue about weapons of mass destruction, but an M16 with grenade launcher is definately protected.
Slashdot Mirror
If they're going to outlaw racist webpages then what websites will I be able to go to to make fun of the obviously illogical reasoning? Now, I'm not saying that a logical argument for racist conclusions isn't possible, I'm just saying that absurdly illogical arguments are more common.
Oh, wait, there's still religious sites like capreport.org to make fun of... I'll be just fine =P
And I think my .sig is appropriate to this subject...
Although you are correct in that there is some genetic difference between the different races of humanity, the effect of this fact is generally negligable when dealing with anything more specific than statistical generalities.
I tend to think that society and culture have more effect than genetics do, and that the breadth of genetic possiblities within a racial group is more broad than the genetic tendancies for that race. (ie. Africans have a tendancy to have longer legs and to be better at running than do those of European decent, but I've met my share of stubby legged Africans - and of long legged Europeans).
Given your idea that you can measure how advanced a people are by what technology they produced, I would counter that most major technological advances came from the most wealthy peoples at the time, and that what race they were had nothing to do with it.
When the Chinese were rich, they produced Paper, Gunpowder, etc. When the Greeks were rich, they produced the science and philosophy that would power later technological advances. During the European dark ages, when everyone was poor, they produced exactly jack shit - All the western technological advances of that period came from the Muslims in Arabia and North Africa. Then, when the Europeans became rich again they spawned all the recent history we know and love.
Hmm... I think I managed to actually say something...
The way the USA was designed is that you put limits on government power, not on individual freedom.
Also, you should only limit activities when they are actually the problem. If the problem is murder - make murder illegal. Don't make talking about murder illegal, or buying a lethal weapon illegal.
By illegalizing lethal weapons, your limiting more than just illegal murders, and that's an unacceptable limit on freedom.
If I want my privacy protected, all I have to do is to run through a privacy cgi proxy thingie. I can set up one of those pretty easily... (Yea, I'm a CGI script hosted at Tripod.com or whatever)
Well, with the Internet Junk Buster, I only get cookies from a few select sites (and I don't get any doubleclick banner adds), so I'm perfectly fine...
Because *this* money is for the Beanie Awards. Other money can be spent on the EFF for the DeCSS battle.
Learning Perl is easy and worthwile.
All you have to do is go to your local bookstore and purchase "Programming Perl", just read the book and you'll know Perl.
It's probably just netscape's default .tar.gz binary packaged up with scripts to turn it into an RPM. I'll bet my left sock that the source to Netscape 4.61 is not avalible.
It is the government, not the corporations that cause the problem.
Corporations are powerless without government support.
For some reason the USA tends to pass laws that have no effect but increasing the power of single corporations by decreasing the possiblility of competition.
What do copyright and patent laws do? They prevent competition and technological advancements. For example, the RSA encryption patent did allow the relevent company to make some money on licencing it, but it's primary effect was to delay the adoption of the new technology by 17 years.
Think about it.
If you do something that a major Corp doesn't like, do corporate security guards come and bust down your door? Nope - It's the FBI. Last time I checked the FBI was an arm of the government. But all they seem to do is use our money to enforce corporate policy.
The even existance of corporations is because of the government. When you form a new corporation, who do you register it with? Your local government.
If, for example, AOL/Time Warner want to prevent the spread of others' opinions they can't do it themselves, they'll try to get laws passed preventing speach that they don't approve of - probably under the guise of "Immorality" or some such. We need to make a preemptive strike, prevent the government from having the power to legislate morality - or anything else that it doesn't need to legislate.
So, as I said before, the single entity that is the primary cause of the problem is the government. So if we reduce the power of government (which in the USA the citizens have the power to do), the power of corporations to harm consumers is reduced proportionally.
Note: This post is primarily written from a USA-centric perspective, but it is equally valid in most other countries.
Hmm... if it costs about $13/user to provide 15 hours/mo of ISP service, then how can Galaxy Internet Services afford to let me be online about 180 hours a month for only $9.95?
Well, not *every* tool, but at least every tool that could possibly be nessary to a system administration function. I'm pretty sure I don't need a text-based version of Moonlight Creator or The GIMP. =)
There's a reason it's considered important for it to be easy to edit config files with a simple text editor - what if your system's borked and you can only boot it with a rescue disk? You think you can fit X on that disk to be able to get your pretty config tools?
Trademarks make sense. If I make something, and call it "Chandon's Product", I don't want someone named Aym Inept to be able to make something similar and also call it "Chandon's Product", simply because Aym's possible ineptidude would then reflect upon me.
With patents and copyright, it's a whole different story, it's a question of making something that people can see but never change. I don't care if you make something like my "Chandon's Product" and call it "Bob's Product"...
Users are people, people each have their own needs and wants, anyone who generalizes about what "users want" will nessisarily be inaccurate.
I'm a user. I use software. For me, freedom in software is very important. If I don't have the source, I'm not going to trust anything more important than video game savefiles to it, and I'd rather not do even that.
As the concept of Free Software becomes more widespread and more well understood, serious users who give a crap at all about their computer will want it more.
I think that as long as BeOS remains closed-source, it will be doomed to an existance where at best people will know of it as "Oh yea, that shareware OS".
I intend to download it, but as a toy, nothing more. I may even install it on the computers of my relitives who don't have the time or inclination to learn how to use a real OS, the same way as I have my Aunt using Pine and Mosaic because they're so brainlessly simple, but I'll never use it as a serious OS, and I doubt that all that many others will eithor.
Hey, if someone doesn't follow the API as documented, it's their own damn fault when their App doesn't work with the next version. The should pretty much expect it to fail.
My theory is that most of the people here on Slashdot that are so "Microsoft is the best thing since computers" eithor
A. Have never tried to do a significant programming project under Windows. or
B. Have so much time and money invested in Microsoft knowledge and products that they are resisting anything else.
Human life is important, but judgment calls must be made, and, for a car maker, a "We will do everything we possibly can to protect human life reguardless of cost." judgement is just as bad as a "We will cut every corner to save money reguardless of loss of human life." judgement.
Yea, if Rob had started with Python everyone wouldn't be pounding their head on the wall quite as bad right now, but then, if Slashdot were in python it wouldn't be as featurefull as it is now. Python code is just slower to write than Perl code.
And remember... there's nothing that *prevents* you from wrighting good, maintainable code in Perl.
Not if that'll cost money and reduce system performance/security.
Yup, if I can view something, I can copy it.
Any case of software or media copy protecton is merely security through obscurity. And as we all know "Security through obscurity is not security at all".
Apparently it's illegal to distribute instructions on using a doornob...
Yea, and there are three or four other ways of doing that anyway, not the least of which involves a VHS tape, a VCR, and a video in connector.
Whether true or not, that statement is completely irrelevent.
There's absolutely no reason for this, or any other, software to *not* be avalible to the end user.
Well, I know that all the republican presidential candidates are against abortion and free speach. (Or at least Bush and McCain are, and Dole was)
And all the democrat candidates want to raise taxes so that they can waste 70% of those taxes on burocracy. (No, really, of every $1 of taxes that goes to the fedral government, ~70 cents get spent processing that money, and only ~30 cents are spent on actually doing things)
My personal interpratation of the 2nd ammendment is that private citizens should be able to own *any* weapons that the government can own. That means up to and including neuclear weapons.
Some may argue about weapons of mass destruction, but an M16 with grenade launcher is definately protected.