Your definition of a good interface is one that is easy and intuitive (98%) and then you contrast this to "advanced/obscure" expert functions (2%). You appear to define "effective" as "can be done by newbies without thinking". This bias is obvious in trying to link advanced with obscure. The best interface I've ever found for text editing, for example, is vim. It is certainly not easy and intuitive, but there is a systematic approach to the sequencing of keys (cw=change word, dw = delete word, 3dw deletes the next 3 words). Note that in terms of editing text, you can achieve a given sequence of characters using any text editor. So I'm not talking about "advanced/obscure" features so much as a way to do standard editing at an extremely fast rate. This is what makes someone who has spent the time mastering vi to say things like, "Oh my God, that will take you forever to do in notepad!"
Well, but I can remember. It wasn't just ATT. Operating Systems, as well as updates, came as source code on tape. It was a big deal recompiling for a University's main computer. Also a lot of the patches were from universities that tweaked the code and then shared their insights. And, by the way, Unix was more than one OS even in the description I previously posted.
You can charge for GPL software, so that matters not at all. In terms of making changes, rumor has it that as much BSD code was absorbed into ATT Unix as ATT Unix code made its way into BSD. Hence the current state of affairs after the settlement... While source code wasn't Free at that point, it certainly wasn't Closed as we know code to be closed, today.
Agreed that Science and Business are two different callings. The open nature of Science has been at odds with the closed nature of business. One is based on the synergistic effects of cooperation, while the other is stimulated by competition. The balance between cooperation and competition is one of those fundamental questions (like freedom vs security). Note that some do promote bringing the "Science" back to "Computer Science".
Have to point out that while our public education sucks badly, our university system is first rate. We educate the world. Likewise, our public health system sucks. American middle class find crossing the border to canada and mexico necessary... but John Hopkins is second to none. We are were the wealthiest come when their health needs care. Interesting gaps. Again, our national debt soars but nowhere else is there such a production of new billionaires. The public gets poorer (national debt & standard of living) while the fantastically rich become awesomely rich. Oh, and in terms of oil depletion, who has the largest deposits of uranium in the world? It just isn't politically feasible (yet) to make use of them. Strangely enough, this puts tree huggers and Big Oil on the same side of a political fence. These are interesting times, sure enough.
If you go back before 1983 you'll see source used to be open by default. The GNU was originally more a *reactionary* movement (to source closing), not so much a *revolutionary* movement. Lets go back to the days where all commercial software was delivered as source code to be compiled at the machine it is delivered to! Hehehe. No, seriously. At least make the code available.
The seed analogy was meant to further illustrate the difference between a static snapshot at a given time, and effects over an interval of time. "No, the seeds you talk about are always free." Then I challenge you to post the code for MS Windows TCP/IP stack. The "seeds" are from a free flower, whose license didn't require license propagation. Hence, it "grew" into non-free code. You can point backwards in time and say, "The code that was released *then* is still free, and indeed, the facts are that by focusing on a frozen slice of time, one can claim maximized freedom for public domain. When one asks where this takes the codebase over a 5 year period, if one wants to optimize freedom for more than just the release day, there has to mechanisms. Yet there must be no protections in place to maintain said freedom in order for you to accept it as initially free. The purpose of the GPL is to place restricitons that optimize user freedoms over a long time frame, which conflicts with optimizing freedom over a short term.
Yet Another Metaphor: Who has more freedom? The child who spends his inheritence on drugs, whores, and ends up destitute at age 30? Or the child who turns that inheritance over to a money manager and lives well but not so extravagently for the rest of their life? Those who would say, "the party kid did want he wanted when he wanted" with his money have the freedom at time t0 is all that matters mentality. I would suggest that using a longer point of view, the apparent lack of freedom inherent in investing the money (but I can't spend it NOW!) resulted in a more optimal *sustained* level of freedom over a much longer period of time.
Just to clarify, code released into the public domain is, at time t0, when released, as free as free can be. Yes. You can do anything with it, including fork a non-free version. Hence at time t0 + delta_t, the seed of code (a beautiful free flower) has grown up in some yards as an ugly non-free weed. No one disputes the static, time independent equation view which you state. In terms of a time-based evolution of code equation, the freedom is lost. Would you want to buy seeds from a vendor who admitted that while he took his seeds from a pretty flower, this flower is known to produce weeds instead of flowers for a finite non-zero percentage of its seeds? The GPL is about ensuring that *user* rights are maintained over time whenever the code evolves (and is distributed), despite the worst intentions of developers to lock users out of their original rights. And it mostly works.
Actually the argument was made in my graduate business law class. The professor was the department chair, and a retired District Attorney who knew what the GPL was but had never actually seen Linux running. He thought the GPL was "interesting" but he certainly not a proponent, let alone an advocate.
"...its methods run counter to the scientific method" defines the dichotomy
Agreed that spiritual inquiry is a part of being human. I certainly don't believe it to be useless. I do have concerns that faith, inappropriately applied, can interfere with a search for truth. I think of it as "faith abuse".
A few translations of one of my favorite scriptures (yes, I am a Christian (babtised and everything) include:
Heb 11:1 (KJV) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:1 (NIV) Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Heb 11:1 (NEB) Faith... makes us certain of realities we do not see.
Heb 11:1 (Mof) Now faith means that we are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see.
Heb 11:1 (Wey) Now faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope, and a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see.
My true favorite is all of I CORINTHIANS 13, but especially pertinent to this discussion is the way it ends: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love."
I have no trouble with faith as I understand it in Heb 11:1, and anything that promotes love amongst all the members of our species has to be a good thing. It is "blind faith" with which I have a problem. The blind faith which leads to a pride in one's natural state of ignorance is not a Christian virtue and gives Christianity a bad reputation amongst rationally thinking people.
I thought Evangelicals where a type of Protestant...
1: of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels
2: protestant
3: emphasizing salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual
4 a capitalized : of or relating to the Evangelical Church in Germany
b often capitalized : of, adhering to, or marked by fundamentalism : fundamentalist
c often capitalized : low church
The actual argument (which was ambiguous int the post) is that evolution should be taught in science classes and ID should be taught in theology (and perhaps philosophy?) classes. It isn't so much that ID is unworthy of being taught (especially in polysci or current events type classes) but rather just that it shouldn't be taught as science:-)
Actually Einstein received his Nobel for his work demonstrating the quantum nature of light (photo-electric effect), not relativity. What is sad is that Einstein's religious views prevented him from ever accepting the quantum theory which developed. Thus, arguably one of the greatest minds of our time was locked of pursuing the development of quantum theory because of religious conviction. I would suggest this is indeed something to be very alarmed about.
It was suggested (by my dept chair ("proof by authority", but oh well)) that it is less a matter of "no one to observe" as it is "some thing to interact". Hence, he posits, the other trees in the forest would be there to force the collapse of the wave function(s) and absorb/reflect the phonons. A better way, perhaps, to frame what you meant would be, if an "event occurred" and the wave form never collapsed, did the event "really", ah... "occur"?
Actually the point of "if a tree falls and nothing is there to hear it" has always been, insofar as I've been aware, always a "semantic" point. However, Meriam's online dictionary seems to have destroyed this useful teaching tool:
1 a: a particular auditory impression : tone
b: the sensation perceived by the sense of hearing
c: mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (as air) and is the objective cause of hearing
No one (should be) suggesting that 'c' requires perception. It is only in the sense of 'a' and 'b' that there would be no sound.
Actually I'd suggest that isn't true. Safety is probably the major claim people make for implementing speed limits, in that many people would claim that speed limits allow mobility while limiting hospitalization. Thus your *sustained* freedom of mobility is enhanced by limiting the speed at which you exercise said mobility.
Note: the argument for the GPL approach is also exactly about sustainability.
"No, you want both integration with the Office document and seperation." Merely restating your position doesn't add to the discussion.
"It is a superieur solution." Merely restating that it is better doesn't add to the discussion.
"This shows exactly the basic conceptand design difference of ODF and OOXML." Agreed on the difference, yes. We disagree on which is a better approach.
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Your definition of a good interface is one that is easy and intuitive (98%) and then you contrast this to "advanced/obscure" expert functions (2%). You appear to define "effective" as "can be done by newbies without thinking". This bias is obvious in trying to link advanced with obscure. The best interface I've ever found for text editing, for example, is vim. It is certainly not easy and intuitive, but there is a systematic approach to the sequencing of keys (cw=change word, dw = delete word, 3dw deletes the next 3 words). Note that in terms of editing text, you can achieve a given sequence of characters using any text editor. So I'm not talking about "advanced/obscure" features so much as a way to do standard editing at an extremely fast rate. This is what makes someone who has spent the time mastering vi to say things like, "Oh my God, that will take you forever to do in notepad!"
Well, but I can remember. It wasn't just ATT. Operating Systems, as well as updates, came as source code on tape. It was a big deal recompiling for a University's main computer. Also a lot of the patches were from universities that tweaked the code and then shared their insights. And, by the way, Unix was more than one OS even in the description I previously posted.
You can charge for GPL software, so that matters not at all. In terms of making changes, rumor has it that as much BSD code was absorbed into ATT Unix as ATT Unix code made its way into BSD. Hence the current state of affairs after the settlement... While source code wasn't Free at that point, it certainly wasn't Closed as we know code to be closed, today.
Agreed that Science and Business are two different callings. The open nature of Science has been at odds with the closed nature of business. One is based on the synergistic effects of cooperation, while the other is stimulated by competition. The balance between cooperation and competition is one of those fundamental questions (like freedom vs security). Note that some do promote bringing the "Science" back to "Computer Science".
Have to point out that while our public education sucks badly, our university system is first rate. We educate the world. Likewise, our public health system sucks. American middle class find crossing the border to canada and mexico necessary... but John Hopkins is second to none. We are were the wealthiest come when their health needs care. Interesting gaps. Again, our national debt soars but nowhere else is there such a production of new billionaires. The public gets poorer (national debt & standard of living) while the fantastically rich become awesomely rich. Oh, and in terms of oil depletion, who has the largest deposits of uranium in the world? It just isn't politically feasible (yet) to make use of them. Strangely enough, this puts tree huggers and Big Oil on the same side of a political fence. These are interesting times, sure enough.
I thought the US had one of the lowest tax rates of the industrialized world? Doesn't all of (socialist) Europe have a higher tax rate?
If you go back before 1983 you'll see source used to be open by default. The GNU was originally more a *reactionary* movement (to source closing), not so much a *revolutionary* movement. Lets go back to the days where all commercial software was delivered as source code to be compiled at the machine it is delivered to! Hehehe. No, seriously. At least make the code available.
A concise list of IE7 interface mistakes. Thank you.
The seed analogy was meant to further illustrate the difference between a static snapshot at a given time, and effects over an interval of time. "No, the seeds you talk about are always free." Then I challenge you to post the code for MS Windows TCP/IP stack. The "seeds" are from a free flower, whose license didn't require license propagation. Hence, it "grew" into non-free code. You can point backwards in time and say, "The code that was released *then* is still free, and indeed, the facts are that by focusing on a frozen slice of time, one can claim maximized freedom for public domain. When one asks where this takes the codebase over a 5 year period, if one wants to optimize freedom for more than just the release day, there has to mechanisms. Yet there must be no protections in place to maintain said freedom in order for you to accept it as initially free. The purpose of the GPL is to place restricitons that optimize user freedoms over a long time frame, which conflicts with optimizing freedom over a short term.
Yet Another Metaphor: Who has more freedom? The child who spends his inheritence on drugs, whores, and ends up destitute at age 30? Or the child who turns that inheritance over to a money manager and lives well but not so extravagently for the rest of their life? Those who would say, "the party kid did want he wanted when he wanted" with his money have the freedom at time t0 is all that matters mentality. I would suggest that using a longer point of view, the apparent lack of freedom inherent in investing the money (but I can't spend it NOW!) resulted in a more optimal *sustained* level of freedom over a much longer period of time.
Actually it was a civil suit, so "convicted" was an inappropriate term.
Microsoft isn't a convicted monopolist in the US? Being a monopoly isn't illegal. They were convicted of illegally leveraging their monopoly power.
Doesn't Kword have the ability to edit a PDF file?
Just to clarify, code released into the public domain is, at time t0, when released, as free as free can be. Yes. You can do anything with it, including fork a non-free version. Hence at time t0 + delta_t, the seed of code (a beautiful free flower) has grown up in some yards as an ugly non-free weed. No one disputes the static, time independent equation view which you state. In terms of a time-based evolution of code equation, the freedom is lost. Would you want to buy seeds from a vendor who admitted that while he took his seeds from a pretty flower, this flower is known to produce weeds instead of flowers for a finite non-zero percentage of its seeds? The GPL is about ensuring that *user* rights are maintained over time whenever the code evolves (and is distributed), despite the worst intentions of developers to lock users out of their original rights. And it mostly works.
Actually the argument was made in my graduate business law class. The professor was the department chair, and a retired District Attorney who knew what the GPL was but had never actually seen Linux running. He thought the GPL was "interesting" but he certainly not a proponent, let alone an advocate.
Agreed that spiritual inquiry is a part of being human. I certainly don't believe it to be useless. I do have concerns that faith, inappropriately applied, can interfere with a search for truth. I think of it as "faith abuse".
A few translations of one of my favorite scriptures (yes, I am a Christian (babtised and everything) include: My true favorite is all of I CORINTHIANS 13, but especially pertinent to this discussion is the way it ends: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
I have no trouble with faith as I understand it in Heb 11:1, and anything that promotes love amongst all the members of our species has to be a good thing. It is "blind faith" with which I have a problem. The blind faith which leads to a pride in one's natural state of ignorance is not a Christian virtue and gives Christianity a bad reputation amongst rationally thinking people.
Show me how to measure the Soul and we'll start determining its properties and hypothesizing on its development and evolutionary history.
Actually in English "he/him" is also used when the sex is not specified. 2 --used in a generic sense or when the sex of the person is unspecified
The actual argument (which was ambiguous int the post) is that evolution should be taught in science classes and ID should be taught in theology (and perhaps philosophy?) classes. It isn't so much that ID is unworthy of being taught (especially in polysci or current events type classes) but rather just that it shouldn't be taught as science :-)
Actually Einstein received his Nobel for his work demonstrating the quantum nature of light (photo-electric effect), not relativity. What is sad is that Einstein's religious views prevented him from ever accepting the quantum theory which developed. Thus, arguably one of the greatest minds of our time was locked of pursuing the development of quantum theory because of religious conviction. I would suggest this is indeed something to be very alarmed about.
It was suggested (by my dept chair ("proof by authority", but oh well)) that it is less a matter of "no one to observe" as it is "some thing to interact". Hence, he posits, the other trees in the forest would be there to force the collapse of the wave function(s) and absorb/reflect the phonons. A better way, perhaps, to frame what you meant would be, if an "event occurred" and the wave form never collapsed, did the event "really", ah... "occur"?
Actually I'd suggest that isn't true. Safety is probably the major claim people make for implementing speed limits, in that many people would claim that speed limits allow mobility while limiting hospitalization. Thus your *sustained* freedom of mobility is enhanced by limiting the speed at which you exercise said mobility.
Note: the argument for the GPL approach is also exactly about sustainability.
"No, you want both integration with the Office document and seperation." Merely restating your position doesn't add to the discussion.
"It is a superieur solution." Merely restating that it is better doesn't add to the discussion. "This shows exactly the basic conceptand design difference of ODF and OOXML." Agreed on the difference, yes. We disagree on which is a better approach.