I was left with a kind of idea, a rumbling undercurrent, that, permeating it all, he was, not unlike Einstein, a Malthusian Nazi pig.
Um, no. Bzzzt. Wrong. Einstein was a socialist, opposite side of the political spectrum. (He was also a vegetarian out of concern for animal welfare, which put together in my mind make for a compassionate person.) Get your facts right, please.
And there's nothing in there that I can see to justify the label "malthusian" or "Nazi" - except the thing on population growth (but get real, there are physical limits to population grown on Earth, whether you agree with Malthus' AP vs GP theories or not!) and the thing on human genetic engineering (but then you might as well call doctors who even now use genetic screening to eliminate horrible genetic diseases, "Nazis").
How would you like it if I called you a Malthusian Nazi pig without any good reason?
See e.g. the Open Directory license. That's been a very successful business model (pay volunteers nothing, give away data for free) - it's growing at an astounding rate and will soon surpass Yahoo!
To try to suggest that Java makes people think more clearly is silly.
Well, that's not completely beyond the bounds of possibility - exceptions, more clean OO, less worrying about freeing memory etc. Don't you think that assemblers might have helped programers to think more clearly than when they had to code in hex - or Pascal might have helped programmers to think more clearly than if they were using a language where the only control structure was GOTO, for example?
More to the point, Blackdown isn't Open Source - let alone GPL'd! I do wish the slashdot story writers would stop saying things are open source when they're not. Blackdown has nothing to do with this question.
it discriminates against the authors and pubishers of commerical software
Only in the sense that a Microsoft EULA "discriminates" against people who make copies without paying for them, or the MPL "discriminates" against companies who want to screw OSS developers with patent attacks... Every license disallows *something*, otherwise it wouldn't be a license - but to call that "discrimination" is stretching the term a bit far in this case.
The GPL attempts to turn open source into a weapon against business
So VA Linux, Red Hat, SuSE, OpenAvenue, LinuxCare etc. etc. are all shooting themselves in the foot? Perhaps you should let the SEC know about these blatantly stupid business models! (sarcasm)
That turned into ODP. Well, we're only a tiny outfit, only 1.3 million sites, only 20,000 editors, only being used by AOL Search, Netscape Netcenter, Hotbot, Lycos, Altavista... All thanks to our Open Content license! See for yourself.
...we should have a community planned and maintained categorical system
That sounds a bit like the Open Directory. Anyone can apply to become a volunteer editor, and any editor can join in the discussions on categorisation (or ontology as we tend to call it). While it is, admittedly, owned by AOL and the paid staff have the final call, in practice they let us make the ontology decisions by consensus most of the time. It's a cool project to be part of!
according to certain tastes and peramaters.
It would be quite easy to make a customisable Open Directory, which learns from your personal preferences, based on the freely available ODP data (yes, free! It's 100% Open Content!) at http://dmoz.org/license.html
Re: "absolutely untrue" is absolute nonsense
on
Suing the Spammers
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· Score: 1
Why not? The point is that other factors have brought the price of access down. But without the millions of spams that circulate every single day, mightn't access be even cheaper? Who knows?
That's simply impossible. Think about that for a minute - no proprietary product would be able to run under Linux Java. Every program has to be linked against the core packages, so according to GPL that would mean every Java program would have to be non-proprietary, i.e. open source!
LGPL or MPL is quite different though. (glibc is LGPL, for example). That's possible in principle, although Sun would lose a lot of control, which I think is the key factor. I'm not defending them, I'm just saying that's how it is.
Thanks for reminding me. School fucks people up far more than computer games ever could on their own. School is basically a totalitarian institution, and kids can get so screwed up from bullying or social rejection, but of course they'll very rarely say "I'm not OK", however worse it gets. I know. The person who I thought of as my "best friend" used to beat me up every day sometimes in full view of the teacher and I never complained, for two years!
Of course, it could have been worse. I could have been driven to suicide, which is far from unknown. Especially in Japan where schooling is particularly totalitarian, rigid and intensive. The more our schools get like Japan, the more suicides and school violence we will see. Hopefully also the more homeschooling we'll see, as parents and children realised the stupidity and huge waste of the current system. As John Holt said, schools cannot be reformed, they must be abolished.
(4)Microsoft recieved $23.68 in sales for every $1.00 they spent on ads in 1998.
So do you think everyone who bought M$ did it because they were brainwashed by the ads? Or did at least some of them do it never having seen an ad, or because it was bundled, or because of compatability requirements, or because of a review in a computer magazine, etc. etc.?
Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation. Just because they spent X on ads and got Y, does not mean that the ads were the main cause.
I have seem some absolutely brain-dead ads in my time. It is amazing how anyone could ever believe that the early Renault Megane adverts would ever sell cars.
Branding works, sure, that's obvious. But as for more subtle influencing - those figures don't really tell you anything about that.
I think the content and focus of the news media is a far more important influence on people than adverts.
We have ask them not to fight and get in touch with their feelings and be more passive like girls.
That's not the reason why. In fact it's the complete reversal of the truth. Do you seriously think that most violent youths were brought up by their parents like that? No. In fact, a recent British study showed a significant correlation between whether the parents encouraged kids to "hit back", whether violent toys were played with (we're talking toy guns, soldiers etc. not computer games here) and whether the kid engaged in violent behaviour towards other kids.
If you tell young kids to fight back, and set them an example in the toys you give them, they will on average be more violent. Violence breeds violence.
As for computer games, sure context is important, but I think the key factor is age. The younger the kid, the more inexperienced and malleable their minds are and the more influenced they will be. A 14 year old probably is mature enough to not be influenced towards violence at all.
I think we need to start communicating with both *Marketing* and *Legal* at *EVERY* company that's doing something in Open Source. The former failed at Sun, and the latter failed at Corel.
Clarification: Although Sun is doing something in Open Source (jakarta.apache.org, which is on a very free license), which should be applauded of course, the recent Blackdown debacle had nothing to do with Open Source. SCSL is not open source, and in fact I don't know that Sun have ever claimed that it was.
However, I'm not so sure the need is there anymore.
Remember the Peter Singer story? That was a need for AC if ever I saw one. Anyone even slightly supporting Singer might not want to be publicly identified.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, no. Bzzzt. Wrong. Einstein was a socialist, opposite side of the political spectrum. (He was also a vegetarian out of concern for animal welfare, which put together in my mind make for a compassionate person.) Get your facts right, please.
And there's nothing in there that I can see to justify the label "malthusian" or "Nazi" - except the thing on population growth (but get real, there are physical limits to population grown on Earth, whether you agree with Malthus' AP vs GP theories or not!) and the thing on human genetic engineering (but then you might as well call doctors who even now use genetic screening to eliminate horrible genetic diseases, "Nazis").
How would you like it if I called you a Malthusian Nazi pig without any good reason?
What do you mean by rare? Do we really want people creating articifical scarcity and making megaprofits off it?
Well, that's not completely beyond the bounds of possibility - exceptions, more clean OO, less worrying about freeing memory etc. Don't you think that assemblers might have helped programers to think more clearly than when they had to code in hex - or Pascal might have helped programmers to think more clearly than if they were using a language where the only control structure was GOTO, for example?
Shouldn't that be {edit_source (); continue;} ? ;)
So what? It's true, isn't it?
Hence the flaws and limitations of the Java security model.
Such as...?
More to the point, Blackdown isn't Open Source - let alone GPL'd! I do wish the slashdot story writers would stop saying things are open source when they're not. Blackdown has nothing to do with this question.
Er, no. Largest software company, maybe. IBM was bigger, last I heard.
Only in the sense that a Microsoft EULA "discriminates" against people who make copies without paying for them, or the MPL "discriminates" against companies who want to screw OSS developers with patent attacks... Every license disallows *something*, otherwise it wouldn't be a license - but to call that "discrimination" is stretching the term a bit far in this case.
The GPL attempts to turn open source into a weapon against business
So VA Linux, Red Hat, SuSE, OpenAvenue, LinuxCare etc. etc. are all shooting themselves in the foot? Perhaps you should let the SEC know about these blatantly stupid business models! (sarcasm)
Please read www.opensource.org and get a clue!
That turned into ODP. Well, we're only a tiny outfit, only 1.3 million sites, only 20,000 editors, only being used by AOL Search, Netscape Netcenter, Hotbot, Lycos, Altavista... All thanks to our Open Content license! See for yourself.
That sounds a bit like the Open Directory. Anyone can apply to become a volunteer editor, and any editor can join in the discussions on categorisation (or ontology as we tend to call it). While it is, admittedly, owned by AOL and the paid staff have the final call, in practice they let us make the ontology decisions by consensus most of the time. It's a cool project to be part of!
according to certain tastes and peramaters.
It would be quite easy to make a customisable Open Directory, which learns from your personal preferences, based on the freely available ODP data (yes, free! It's 100% Open Content!) at http://dmoz.org/license.html
That's simply impossible. Think about that for a minute - no proprietary product would be able to run under Linux Java. Every program has to be linked against the core packages, so according to GPL that would mean every Java program would have to be non-proprietary, i.e. open source!
LGPL or MPL is quite different though. (glibc is LGPL, for example). That's possible in principle, although Sun would lose a lot of control, which I think is the key factor. I'm not defending them, I'm just saying that's how it is.
Of course, it could have been worse. I could have been driven to suicide, which is far from unknown. Especially in Japan where schooling is particularly totalitarian, rigid and intensive. The more our schools get like Japan, the more suicides and school violence we will see. Hopefully also the more homeschooling we'll see, as parents and children realised the stupidity and huge waste of the current system. As John Holt said, schools cannot be reformed, they must be abolished.
Oops, that was a stupid thing to say. I withdraw that.
So do you think everyone who bought M$ did it because they were brainwashed by the ads? Or did at least some of them do it never having seen an ad, or because it was bundled, or because of compatability requirements, or because of a review in a computer magazine, etc. etc.?
Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation. Just because they spent X on ads and got Y, does not mean that the ads were the main cause.
I have seem some absolutely brain-dead ads in my time. It is amazing how anyone could ever believe that the early Renault Megane adverts would ever sell cars.
Branding works, sure, that's obvious. But as for more subtle influencing - those figures don't really tell you anything about that.
I think the content and focus of the news media is a far more important influence on people than adverts.
That's not the reason why. In fact it's the complete reversal of the truth. Do you seriously think that most violent youths were brought up by their parents like that? No. In fact, a recent British study showed a significant correlation between whether the parents encouraged kids to "hit back", whether violent toys were played with (we're talking toy guns, soldiers etc. not computer games here) and whether the kid engaged in violent behaviour towards other kids.
If you tell young kids to fight back, and set them an example in the toys you give them, they will on average be more violent. Violence breeds violence.
As for computer games, sure context is important, but I think the key factor is age. The younger the kid, the more inexperienced and malleable their minds are and the more influenced they will be. A 14 year old probably is mature enough to not be influenced towards violence at all.
Clarification: Although Sun is doing something in Open Source (jakarta.apache.org, which is on a very free license), which should be applauded of course, the recent Blackdown debacle had nothing to do with Open Source. SCSL is not open source, and in fact I don't know that Sun have ever claimed that it was.
Remember the Peter Singer story? That was a need for AC if ever I saw one. Anyone even slightly supporting Singer might not want to be publicly identified.