It seems that there a lot of unelected people out there who have decided that they will decide who we will be giving our money to. Buy a PC, some of your money will go to Microsoft, attend a uni, some of that will go to the RIAA members.
I would rather see our own Indian companies becoming more self relient and working for the benefit of Indian consumers than US.
No offense, but so would most of us American workers.
India for one should take lessons from its colonial past.
So should the workers in the west, during the hight of British colonialism, there was massive unemployment and poverty throughout England. As the American companies move to eliminate their workers jobs and outsource them overseas, I expect that we will see more of that here (like we did during the seventies with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs), but hopefully to a leesser extent.
As much as American (and other westen) IT workers refuse to admit it, they are the serfs of the new economy, and as much as they dislike to hear it, that vendor you have been so loyal to is going to screw you the first chance he gets. Giving so much power to any single organisation is stupid. Bill and company can't wait to fuck you (loyal IT) guys, and are laughing at all of the demonstrations of loyalty that get thrown their way by IT folk who think they'll get to save their jobs by blocking every attempt to introduce some other option to the workplace.
Also, the sweep hand watch is an elegant method for expressing the time that also conveys a sense of time passing in a way that a digital is unable to.
In addituiion to the overt asthetics of the facepiece, many analogue watches are beautiful examples of many years of engineering tradition.
There is no superior watch than a well crafted, self-winding mechanical timepeice, regardless of the name-brand. Those with visible workings are able to show one of the truest masterpieces of craftsmanship that humans have ever acheived. It would be extremely sad if the skill to create such works were to be lost due to a misplaced obsession with things new.
Besides, even expensive digital watches are butt ugly, and many of even the cheapest analogues are still acceptably attractive.
You can read a page or chapter of Cory's book, then buy it if you think it's worthwhile.
That's what I did when "Down and Out..." was put online, and the print copy was well worth the cost and effort in spite of the text being available online.
(Screw the publishers, let the authors promote their own shit, and let the public decide what will succeed. Same goes for music, fuck the RIAA.)
The vast majority of the criticism has not been of the "Think of the children" hysterical condemnation school, but more a sense of outrage that this what is considered entertaining (bad dancing, crappy music, insincere patriotic posturing, crotch grabbing, fake astonishment, and showing a tit). The sheer lack of spontenaity, the absolute absense of anything remotely resembling talent, the dearth of inspired performance plus the Janet Jackson tit exposure left many feeling rather insulted, that the show was conceived by either an inexpirienced and purile mind or by a has been who is desperate to regain the spotlight.
Think back to the rather sterile, emotionless and absolutely unerotic kisses exchanged betwteen Madonna and Britney/Christina. Same crap, nothing spontaneous, nothing titilating, nothing exciting in the least. Simply juvenalia at its absolute, unentertaining worst.
As to why this devolution into the mindnumbingly boring realm of poor imitations of a seventh grade boy's psyche, perhaps it is evidence that the entertainment industry knows they are obsolete, they are desperate to retain the spotlight, and uncertain of when the public will realize that this dinosaur has no more new tricks to perform, and their hired talent no longer has anything with which to keep our attention. If they can't have our devotion, it seems they'll settle for dissatisfied scorn.
I wonder what exactly the "right" conditions might be?
After the upcoming search engine battle with Microsoft perhaps. Having publicly traded stock available, having to answer to a board of directors for every decision before it can be acted upon, and being in the middle of restructuring your financing (as I'm sure going public would require), would not be strengths when facing a battle with a company that has $50 billion cash on hand. As a privately owned company, Google has the advantage of needing to only fight Microsoft on a single front, instead of worrying about how much Microsoft stock thier investors (including board members) are holding, or how much voting stock Microsoft loyalists might be buying on the market. An IPO would generate cash, but it would also open up to the company to some possibly unwelcome outside influence just as they are in the crosshairs of one of the most notorious dirty players in the industry.
People are rightfully pissed off. If you're not, fine,
What ever gave you the idea that I'm not pissed off, or that I feel that this is something not worth debating. It's just that I see people ignoring the fact that every one of these problems comes about do to the decisions made by people who will not suffer any negative consequences, while those most affected by these decisions are to a large extent powerless to affect change in the system as long as they are unwilling to criticise the employers, lawmakers, and vendors/manufacturers who are making these decisions. The guy in India is not much different from you in that he desperately needed a job, and one was offered to him. The state of the economy there that makes it possible for him to work for much less than you or I is not his fault, and you can't reasonably expect him to turn down the job.
People who, like you and I, are pissed off need to stop blaming the folks who accept an A1-B, stop blaming the folk who get the job in India, and start blaming the *ssh*les who are making the decision to "increase investor value" by deciding that it's your turn to go hungry.
Look at how the Republicans decide that the economy is "healthy": Stock Matrket, DOW Jones, etc. They don't give a rats ass if you or I are working, eating or have a ropof to call our own as long as thier portfolio is rising in value. They sell us out at every turn and send our kids over to Iraq tgo die so that the vice president's own business can get $375 BILLION in contracts? And still very few are willing to shout "FOUL!" They happily make it easier for our companies to outsource overseas (stock goes up), reduce the companies liability to pay unemployment after a layoff (stock goes up) and make it more difficult for the average Joe to file bankruptcy after he loses his job (stock goes up). Meanwhile everyone is blaming the immigrant and the foreigner. WTF? If pointing fingers is your game, then point them at the jerk who's screwing you over, not the next guy in line to get screwed.
Perhaps because we've seen over a million jobs lost just after granting a roughly equal number of H1-B visas in one industry followed by our trade deficit doubling in less than two years. Yeah, that might be it.
Perhaps you should blame the employers who lobby for an expanded H1-B program and the politicians who they support, rather than blaming the immigrants who are seeking employment and free software advocates who have little or no effect on the H1-B situation.
And with a name like "Sardonix" who could blame them:
~$ dict -d wn sardonic
1 definition found
From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [wn]:
sardonic
adj : disdainfully or ironically humorous; scornful and mocking;"his rebellion is the bitter, sardonic laughter of all great satirists"- Frank Schoenberner; "a wry pleasure to be...reminded of all that one is missing"- Irwin Edman [syn: {wry}]
Re:Linux will be mainstream competition in a year.
on
Linux Going Mainstream
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· Score: 1
I also predict that Linux will surpass Longhorn.
I predict that Longhorn will not only be delivered much later than anyone expects, but that it will contain so many incompatible technologies that it will simply further entrench Microsoft's hold on the businesses who use it, and that those companies that do make the upgrade will be further away from being able to easily switch to Linux than they ever were before.
If Linux is to become truly a commonplace expirience, it will have to happen before Longhorn is widely adopted. After that it will likely be left mainly to new installations and the stagglers who have not yet commited to Microsoft technology.
Re:Why does MS *need* to get into searching?
on
Google v. Microsoft
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· Score: 1
Why do they need to rip off and own everything that succeeds?
Insatiable ego with an underlying inferiority complex shared among the executives and the hangers-on at Microsoft?
Why cant there be other big players in the market aside from MS without them trying to push them out / take them over.
Those other players are attracting recognition and are therefore percieved as a threat to the insatiable ego and will possibly expose the underlying self-doubt of both those who run the company and those who derive thier sense of self worth from being allied to a powerful player.
And how can you Microphiles even say that MS isnt sqwashing competitiveness.
To admit this would be to admit that there is an actual challenge to Microsoft's percieved superiority and might even expose an actual weakness, which of course cannot be permitted lest the isatiable ego that has successfully feuled the company becpome somehow dammaged.
Cult-like businesses become powerful through leveraging the loyalties of their members and employees by creating a shared sense of identity in which the participants draw thier sense of "empowerment" from the perception that the organisation possesses an authority that is universal. Any threat to that perception, whether it be another authoritative organisation (such as Google), or an organisation that seems to have no need for them (such as the Free Software movement) must be eliminated in order to continue the illusion. (see Frank L. Baum's "The Wizzard of Oz" for a rather thorough illustration of this phenomenon.)
While microsofts tendancy to "go after the money" in all aspects of thier business might have an advantage for some sectors, I doubt that that preference translates into profit in the search business. Google's profits come from other sectors of thier business than thier search engine, although it is thier search engione that draws eyes for thier advertising business, improves the technology for thier appliance business, and provides the demographics for thier advertising placement (whether in response to a search, or for placement on a advert reseller's site).
I'm not sure that Microsoft will be capable of resisting the temptation to sell search result placement. AFAICT, it is resisting that temptation that has allowed Google to succeed to an extent that its predecessors have not.
Re:Why are genetically defective people breeding?
on
Three Blind Phreaks
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· Score: 1
I'm not some right-winger who thinks that everyone is on the Earth to drive up the GNP of their respective countries.
You sure sounded like one. Perhaps you are simply the kind of right-winger who believes that certain families should not be permitted to "breed". It's very considerate of you to distance yourself from your economic determinist allies, I'm sure they will return the favor someday.
Think about families a few generations down the road that will have blind children because these people perpetuated these recessive genes.
What do we know about this family? They have three intelligent children who were blind from birth. Do we know that this blindness was caused by a genetic predisposition? It certainly seems to be implied by circumstance, but it is by no means a given. Without knowing about environmental conditions (industrial pollutants, natural mutagens, etc) drug use (medications) by the mother, and a score of other possible causes that effect the developing feotus, we do not know if this blindness was caused by a genetic anomoly.
Think about how devastating that will be for them. Think about what your quality of life would be if you had been born blind.
I cannot imagine how devastating it would be to be born blind, but the one person I've met was rather open about the fact that he didn't much mind, although he does wish he could expirience a painting or photograph firsthand.
You are living proof that it's possible for a woman to conceive and give birth to a living turd...
I attempt to illustrate my point byu putting you on the recieving end of your judgements and you turn it into an obscenity fest, how mature, and it is as aproximately as genuine as your attempt to use "compassion" as an argument for removing a families "breeding" rights.
Re:Why are genetically defective people breeding?
on
Three Blind Phreaks
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· Score: 1
You are against something,
Yes, I am against the idea that you should be the arbiters of what is survivable. In other words, I am recognising that culture and social structures have become part of the *environment* in which we live, and that a society that supports those who have a visibly obvious defect may benefit from other non-visibly obvious traits that individual may have. I also do not believe that our understanding of genetic language and mechanism has developed to the extent that we fully understand how to recognise the beneficicial (and often non-obvious) traits, or how they are encoded in our genetic makeup. We may have a map, but not only do we not know how to read it, it is sorely incomplete, does not come with a useful legend, and is missing more elements than it displays.
you never name a trait you support or disdain,
I thought the implication of my words was rather clear, I disdain that trait that leads some to believe that they are qualified to judge whether or not another family should "breed".
you merely acknowledge that people can be sorted.
where? I thought it was a given that all things that have differing traits can be classified. What crieria and how it should be applied is a more appropriate question. Who should be applying that criteria and how universal or far reaching the action taken is another.
Imagine your positive traits are negative. Your arguments still apply. Now do you understand how vacant your position is?
Been attending "The Forum" much? You are not addressing anything in my argument. You are basing your argument on a position that I did not state nor do is it one that I hold (that I, or you, or the poster who started this thread, should be the one to decide for others whether or not the children of another family are fit to exist).
My point of view is that it is a waste of time and effort to judge the worthiness to exist of those uninvolved directly in your immediate life. I also believe that the tendancy to pronounce such judgements based on percieved inferiority is harmful to society and to the human race as a whole, as nature has developed mechanisms that handle these selections. Local communities also have developed such mechanisms, but they do not scale to a great extent. What may be a disadvantage in one locale may be an advantage elsewhere, such as is the case with sicle-cell anemia.
Get off your high horse and quit accusing those who disagree with you position of avoiding a position. They are not, thier position just happens to be one that differs from your own, and it is one that displays a greater understanding of the issue being debated.
The list of participating states can be found here.
Re:Why are genetically defective people breeding?
on
Three Blind Phreaks
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· Score: 1
If you don't understand the difference between Nazi Eugenics, which was based on superficial traits and aimed for "racial purity", and a desire to prevent children from being born blind, with Down's Syndrome, or with Huntington's Disease, then you have nothing to contribute to this discussion.
All I see is an asshole attempting to force his standards of judgement as to who is worthy to exist. Most arguing against you would not disagree with the idea that parents should have the option to know about the potential handicaps thier children may possess due to inherited traits, but the decision to act on this knowledge should remain with the parents, not a government, or a commitee of "the enlightened", and definately not you.
Re:Why are genetically defective people breeding?
on
Three Blind Phreaks
·
· Score: 1
So you're advocating suicide for those with genetically inherited conditions?
He wasn't advocating anything, he was simply acknowledging that the decision of whether or not someone should exist (come into existance, cease to exist, etc) is not to be made by you or I.
I said that the parents should have voluntarily stopped breeding when it became clear that they had a genetic flaw that leads to blindness.
Who are you to say they should not breed? Are you assuming that those who are blind are universally suffering? Are you assuming that blind people are too costly for a society to tollerate? That they are not as productive as your average sighted person?
Do you have siblings? Do they share similar ideas? Perhaps your parents should have stopped breeding rather than bring yet another asshole into this world.
No shit, but metadata in the filesystem is just as wrong when you can (read as "should") use magic to determine filetype.
For extended and user-configured information, filesystem metadata *is* the right way, but only if it is impossible to include that data in the file itself (the id3 tags in mp3 files is a good example of how this *should* be done).
Filesystem dependant metadata is useful only to those who use the same filesystem, is too easily seperable from the file itself, and is can be altered while bypassing security implementations that the user might be expecting to notify him of such changes (md5sums, etc), and thus should be reserved for information that is only of interest to a particular user or for use on a specific computer.
Your jpeg already contains a metadata format that can record the resolution, date, and a thumbnail, plus a "comment" segment where you can include your "family album", "outdoor" and "Mount fuji" requirements. Nomatter where you copy this file to, no matter what filesystem it is written to, this data will follow your file and save you a lot of vendor-induced worry. Here is the spec.
I never fail to be baffled at the degree of inertia in the IT world.
I never fail to be astounded by people's willingness to believe the hype. Microsoft is very poor at assesing the needs of their users, but very adept at convincing users of a need that does not actually exist. WinFS is yet another attempt at lock-in and does not address anything that has not been addressed before in a more apropriate manner.
The biggest only thing that is leading some to consider these jerks "heros" is thier disability. Reading the article, I find little to respect about thier "skilz" as it seems that most of thier tech-dependant exploits were performed using software not written by themselves. Knowing what script to run does not necessarily imply an understanding of how it works.
The sad thing is that it seems that those with little or no skill garner acolades if they also demonstrate an accompanying lack of restraint or outright dishonesty. While contientious tech explorers and practitioners go unnoticed by the media, loud mouthed script kiddies and clueless "experts" get to tout thier wares and mythical skills to the most respected security companies.
As to whether thier sentancing was apropriate, it seems a little light to me. In keeping with Mitnik's extended probation from computing equipment, these jerks should be sentanced to mittens and earplugs for the next five years.
If all of us who are sick of using Microsoft at work would simply send an email to the person in charge of making decisions about the installed software asking for thier opinion and for advice as to what action should be taken, this would go a long way toward getting them to consider adopting an alternative.
No-one needs to write anti-Microsoft FUD, Microsoft will write it for you!
Slashdot Mirror
Yup.
It seems that there a lot of unelected people out there who have decided that they will decide who we will be giving our money to. Buy a PC, some of your money will go to Microsoft, attend a uni, some of that will go to the RIAA members.
I would rather see our own Indian companies becoming more self relient and working for the benefit of Indian consumers than US.
No offense, but so would most of us American workers.
India for one should take lessons from its colonial past.
So should the workers in the west, during the hight of British colonialism, there was massive unemployment and poverty throughout England. As the American companies move to eliminate their workers jobs and outsource them overseas, I expect that we will see more of that here (like we did during the seventies with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs), but hopefully to a leesser extent.
As much as American (and other westen) IT workers refuse to admit it, they are the serfs of the new economy, and as much as they dislike to hear it, that vendor you have been so loyal to is going to screw you the first chance he gets. Giving so much power to any single organisation is stupid. Bill and company can't wait to fuck you (loyal IT) guys, and are laughing at all of the demonstrations of loyalty that get thrown their way by IT folk who think they'll get to save their jobs by blocking every attempt to introduce some other option to the workplace.
I just want a watch that tells time.
Also, the sweep hand watch is an elegant method for expressing the time that also conveys a sense of time passing in a way that a digital is unable to.
In addituiion to the overt asthetics of the facepiece, many analogue watches are beautiful examples of many years of engineering tradition.
There is no superior watch than a well crafted, self-winding mechanical timepeice, regardless of the name-brand. Those with visible workings are able to show one of the truest masterpieces of craftsmanship that humans have ever acheived. It would be extremely sad if the skill to create such works were to be lost due to a misplaced obsession with things new.
Besides, even expensive digital watches are butt ugly, and many of even the cheapest analogues are still acceptably attractive.
You can read a page or chapter of Cory's book, then buy it if you think it's worthwhile.
That's what I did when "Down and Out..." was put online, and the print copy was well worth the cost and effort in spite of the text being available online.
(Screw the publishers, let the authors promote their own shit, and let the public decide what will succeed. Same goes for music, fuck the RIAA.)
The vast majority of the criticism has not been of the "Think of the children" hysterical condemnation school, but more a sense of outrage that this what is considered entertaining (bad dancing, crappy music, insincere patriotic posturing, crotch grabbing, fake astonishment, and showing a tit). The sheer lack of spontenaity, the absolute absense of anything remotely resembling talent, the dearth of inspired performance plus the Janet Jackson tit exposure left many feeling rather insulted, that the show was conceived by either an inexpirienced and purile mind or by a has been who is desperate to regain the spotlight.
Think back to the rather sterile, emotionless and absolutely unerotic kisses exchanged betwteen Madonna and Britney/Christina. Same crap, nothing spontaneous, nothing titilating, nothing exciting in the least. Simply juvenalia at its absolute, unentertaining worst.
As to why this devolution into the mindnumbingly boring realm of poor imitations of a seventh grade boy's psyche, perhaps it is evidence that the entertainment industry knows they are obsolete, they are desperate to retain the spotlight, and uncertain of when the public will realize that this dinosaur has no more new tricks to perform, and their hired talent no longer has anything with which to keep our attention. If they can't have our devotion, it seems they'll settle for dissatisfied scorn.
See, it all makes sense now! "New Times Roman".
"New Times" == "Changing Times" == "New World Order"
And what kind of "Order"? Roman law, the law of Empire, the end of the Republic, the... the...
Well, at least they didn't choose Comic Sans. I'd hate to think what kind of world that font would be ushering in.
I wonder what exactly the "right" conditions might be?
After the upcoming search engine battle with Microsoft perhaps. Having publicly traded stock available, having to answer to a board of directors for every decision before it can be acted upon, and being in the middle of restructuring your financing (as I'm sure going public would require), would not be strengths when facing a battle with a company that has $50 billion cash on hand. As a privately owned company, Google has the advantage of needing to only fight Microsoft on a single front, instead of worrying about how much Microsoft stock thier investors (including board members) are holding, or how much voting stock Microsoft loyalists might be buying on the market. An IPO would generate cash, but it would also open up to the company to some possibly unwelcome outside influence just as they are in the crosshairs of one of the most notorious dirty players in the industry.
People are rightfully pissed off. If you're not, fine,
What ever gave you the idea that I'm not pissed off, or that I feel that this is something not worth debating. It's just that I see people ignoring the fact that every one of these problems comes about do to the decisions made by people who will not suffer any negative consequences, while those most affected by these decisions are to a large extent powerless to affect change in the system as long as they are unwilling to criticise the employers, lawmakers, and vendors/manufacturers who are making these decisions. The guy in India is not much different from you in that he desperately needed a job, and one was offered to him. The state of the economy there that makes it possible for him to work for much less than you or I is not his fault, and you can't reasonably expect him to turn down the job.
People who, like you and I, are pissed off need to stop blaming the folks who accept an A1-B, stop blaming the folk who get the job in India, and start blaming the *ssh*les who are making the decision to "increase investor value" by deciding that it's your turn to go hungry.
Look at how the Republicans decide that the economy is "healthy": Stock Matrket, DOW Jones, etc. They don't give a rats ass if you or I are working, eating or have a ropof to call our own as long as thier portfolio is rising in value. They sell us out at every turn and send our kids over to Iraq tgo die so that the vice president's own business can get $375 BILLION in contracts? And still very few are willing to shout "FOUL!" They happily make it easier for our companies to outsource overseas (stock goes up), reduce the companies liability to pay unemployment after a layoff (stock goes up) and make it more difficult for the average Joe to file bankruptcy after he loses his job (stock goes up). Meanwhile everyone is blaming the immigrant and the foreigner. WTF? If pointing fingers is your game, then point them at the jerk who's screwing you over, not the next guy in line to get screwed.
Perhaps because we've seen over a million jobs lost just after granting a roughly equal number of H1-B visas in one industry followed by our trade deficit doubling in less than two years. Yeah, that might be it.
Perhaps you should blame the employers who lobby for an expanded H1-B program and the politicians who they support, rather than blaming the immigrants who are seeking employment and free software advocates who have little or no effect on the H1-B situation.
you beat me to it!
Curses! Foiled again.
I also predict that Linux will surpass Longhorn.
I predict that Longhorn will not only be delivered much later than anyone expects, but that it will contain so many incompatible technologies that it will simply further entrench Microsoft's hold on the businesses who use it, and that those companies that do make the upgrade will be further away from being able to easily switch to Linux than they ever were before.
If Linux is to become truly a commonplace expirience, it will have to happen before Longhorn is widely adopted. After that it will likely be left mainly to new installations and the stagglers who have not yet commited to Microsoft technology.
Why do they need to rip off and own everything that succeeds?
Insatiable ego with an underlying inferiority complex shared among the executives and the hangers-on at Microsoft?
Why cant there be other big players in the market aside from MS without them trying to push them out / take them over.
Those other players are attracting recognition and are therefore percieved as a threat to the insatiable ego and will possibly expose the underlying self-doubt of both those who run the company and those who derive thier sense of self worth from being allied to a powerful player.
And how can you Microphiles even say that MS isnt sqwashing competitiveness.
To admit this would be to admit that there is an actual challenge to Microsoft's percieved superiority and might even expose an actual weakness, which of course cannot be permitted lest the isatiable ego that has successfully feuled the company becpome somehow dammaged.
Cult-like businesses become powerful through leveraging the loyalties of their members and employees by creating a shared sense of identity in which the participants draw thier sense of "empowerment" from the perception that the organisation possesses an authority that is universal. Any threat to that perception, whether it be another authoritative organisation (such as Google), or an organisation that seems to have no need for them (such as the Free Software movement) must be eliminated in order to continue the illusion. (see Frank L. Baum's "The Wizzard of Oz" for a rather thorough illustration of this phenomenon.)
Google might just have a hard time ever making a profit.
Google seems to be doing quite well.
While microsofts tendancy to "go after the money" in all aspects of thier business might have an advantage for some sectors, I doubt that that preference translates into profit in the search business. Google's profits come from other sectors of thier business than thier search engine, although it is thier search engione that draws eyes for thier advertising business, improves the technology for thier appliance business, and provides the demographics for thier advertising placement (whether in response to a search, or for placement on a advert reseller's site).
I'm not sure that Microsoft will be capable of resisting the temptation to sell search result placement. AFAICT, it is resisting that temptation that has allowed Google to succeed to an extent that its predecessors have not.
I'm not some right-winger who thinks that everyone is on the Earth to drive up the GNP of their respective countries.
...
You sure sounded like one. Perhaps you are simply the kind of right-winger who believes that certain families should not be permitted to "breed". It's very considerate of you to distance yourself from your economic determinist allies, I'm sure they will return the favor someday.
Think about families a few generations down the road that will have blind children because these people perpetuated these recessive genes.
What do we know about this family? They have three intelligent children who were blind from birth. Do we know that this blindness was caused by a genetic predisposition? It certainly seems to be implied by circumstance, but it is by no means a given. Without knowing about environmental conditions (industrial pollutants, natural mutagens, etc) drug use (medications) by the mother, and a score of other possible causes that effect the developing feotus, we do not know if this blindness was caused by a genetic anomoly.
Think about how devastating that will be for them. Think about what your quality of life would be if you had been born blind.
I cannot imagine how devastating it would be to be born blind, but the one person I've met was rather open about the fact that he didn't much mind, although he does wish he could expirience a painting or photograph firsthand.
You are living proof that it's possible for a woman to conceive and give birth to a living turd
I attempt to illustrate my point byu putting you on the recieving end of your judgements and you turn it into an obscenity fest, how mature, and it is as aproximately as genuine as your attempt to use "compassion" as an argument for removing a families "breeding" rights.
You are against something,
Yes, I am against the idea that you should be the arbiters of what is survivable. In other words, I am recognising that culture and social structures have become part of the *environment* in which we live, and that a society that supports those who have a visibly obvious defect may benefit from other non-visibly obvious traits that individual may have. I also do not believe that our understanding of genetic language and mechanism has developed to the extent that we fully understand how to recognise the beneficicial (and often non-obvious) traits, or how they are encoded in our genetic makeup. We may have a map, but not only do we not know how to read it, it is sorely incomplete, does not come with a useful legend, and is missing more elements than it displays.
you never name a trait you support or disdain,
I thought the implication of my words was rather clear, I disdain that trait that leads some to believe that they are qualified to judge whether or not another family should "breed".
you merely acknowledge that people can be sorted.
where? I thought it was a given that all things that have differing traits can be classified. What crieria and how it should be applied is a more appropriate question. Who should be applying that criteria and how universal or far reaching the action taken is another.
Imagine your positive traits are negative.
Your arguments still apply.
Now do you understand how vacant your position is?
Been attending "The Forum" much? You are not addressing anything in my argument. You are basing your argument on a position that I did not state nor do is it one that I hold (that I, or you, or the poster who started this thread, should be the one to decide for others whether or not the children of another family are fit to exist).
My point of view is that it is a waste of time and effort to judge the worthiness to exist of those uninvolved directly in your immediate life. I also believe that the tendancy to pronounce such judgements based on percieved inferiority is harmful to society and to the human race as a whole, as nature has developed mechanisms that handle these selections. Local communities also have developed such mechanisms, but they do not scale to a great extent. What may be a disadvantage in one locale may be an advantage elsewhere, such as is the case with sicle-cell anemia.
Get off your high horse and quit accusing those who disagree with you position of avoiding a position. They are not, thier position just happens to be one that differs from your own, and it is one that displays a greater understanding of the issue being debated.
the company behind Matrix, was founded by a guy who was implicated in a Bahamian drug smuggling ring back in the 80's
But that's OK, the drug smuggling was part of this operation.
it can happen in your state or mine.
See my other post to find a list of the participating states.
As mentioned in my rejected story sub from last week, several other states are already participating in MATRIX.
For more information, you can look at the MATRIX homepage, listen to an NPR program, read some newspaper columns, a findlaw article, and a politechbot writup.
The list of participating states can be found here.
If you don't understand the difference between Nazi Eugenics, which was based on superficial traits and aimed for "racial purity", and a desire to prevent children from being born blind, with Down's Syndrome, or with Huntington's Disease, then you have nothing to contribute to this discussion.
All I see is an asshole attempting to force his standards of judgement as to who is worthy to exist. Most arguing against you would not disagree with the idea that parents should have the option to know about the potential handicaps thier children may possess due to inherited traits, but the decision to act on this knowledge should remain with the parents, not a government, or a commitee of "the enlightened", and definately not you.
So you're advocating suicide for those with genetically inherited conditions?
He wasn't advocating anything, he was simply acknowledging that the decision of whether or not someone should exist (come into existance, cease to exist, etc) is not to be made by you or I.
I said that the parents should have voluntarily stopped breeding when it became clear that they had a genetic flaw that leads to blindness.
Who are you to say they should not breed? Are you assuming that those who are blind are universally suffering? Are you assuming that blind people are too costly for a society to tollerate? That they are not as productive as your average sighted person?
Do you have siblings? Do they share similar ideas? Perhaps your parents should have stopped breeding rather than bring yet another asshole into this world.
File name extensions are very archaic technology.
No shit, but metadata in the filesystem is just as wrong when you can (read as "should") use magic to determine filetype.
For extended and user-configured information, filesystem metadata *is* the right way, but only if it is impossible to include that data in the file itself (the id3 tags in mp3 files is a good example of how this *should* be done).
Filesystem dependant metadata is useful only to those who use the same filesystem, is too easily seperable from the file itself, and is can be altered while bypassing security implementations that the user might be expecting to notify him of such changes (md5sums, etc), and thus should be reserved for information that is only of interest to a particular user or for use on a specific computer.
Your jpeg already contains a metadata format that can record the resolution, date, and a thumbnail, plus a "comment" segment where you can include your "family album", "outdoor" and "Mount fuji" requirements. Nomatter where you copy this file to, no matter what filesystem it is written to, this data will follow your file and save you a lot of vendor-induced worry. Here is the spec.
I never fail to be baffled at the degree of inertia in the IT world.
I never fail to be astounded by people's willingness to believe the hype. Microsoft is very poor at assesing the needs of their users, but very adept at convincing users of a need that does not actually exist. WinFS is yet another attempt at lock-in and does not address anything that has not been addressed before in a more apropriate manner.
The biggest only thing that is leading some to consider these jerks "heros" is thier disability. Reading the article, I find little to respect about thier "skilz" as it seems that most of thier tech-dependant exploits were performed using software not written by themselves. Knowing what script to run does not necessarily imply an understanding of how it works.
The sad thing is that it seems that those with little or no skill garner acolades if they also demonstrate an accompanying lack of restraint or outright dishonesty. While contientious tech explorers and practitioners go unnoticed by the media, loud mouthed script kiddies and clueless "experts" get to tout thier wares and mythical skills to the most respected security companies.
As to whether thier sentancing was apropriate, it seems a little light to me. In keeping with Mitnik's extended probation from computing equipment, these jerks should be sentanced to mittens and earplugs for the next five years.
If all of us who are sick of using Microsoft at work would simply send an email to the person in charge of making decisions about the installed software asking for thier opinion and for advice as to what action should be taken, this would go a long way toward getting them to consider adopting an alternative.
No-one needs to write anti-Microsoft FUD, Microsoft will write it for you!
argumentitive, subversive and prone to waste time questioning decisions.
Why would that offend anyone? Those are my best qualities.