It was based on not having his work used to manipulate, confuse, and and disturb someone going through a very difficult period of their life by people with an agenda to push as he very clearly stated.
How is deciding that an idea is too dangerous to be exposed to certain people anything BUT politically correct?
given the inability to do any reasonable controlled distribution
Again, politcal correctness. You're saying some ideas can only be handled by certain people, and kept from others. Who are you to make that decision?
Mr. Gaiman, of course, DOES have the right to make the decision to not create or distribute this work. But it still does not change the fact that his thought process in this instance is politically correct.
Perhaps you could write your own comic the way you wanted it to be told instead of calling people names?
I apologize for descending to ad hominem comments. Mr. Gaiman of course has the right to decide what stories to write. I concede I need to stick to criticizing the content of his ideas.
Nonetheless, the reasons he gives are still a form of political correctness. He's afraid of people being exposed to certain ideas, even when they're HIS ideas.
Look, the people you are afraid of, if they're bad as you think they are, are going to put pressure on young girls whether Neil writes his story or not. So do you want them handing that girl a Neil Gaiman story, or a Jack Chick tract?
This, in general, is typical of the abortion-as-dogma crowd. THINKING about abortion, and what it really means, is just too dangerous. It's too dangerous to think about what a developing, unborn child is really like, because it might mean someone, somewhere, carries a child full term.
An example of this kind of thinking is the contortion "what critics call partial birth abortion". What do advocates call it?
Mr. Gaiman's thought processes dovetail with this movement. He decided his ideas were just too dangerous to allow other people come to their own conclusions about. If that's not politically correct, what is?
If you're able to put aside your biases for a moment, I think you'll see why Gaiman would have been hesitant to give people like that any more, er, ammunition.
Ok, so you generalize that all "pro-lifers" shoot people in the back, while all abortion providers are white as the driven snow, but I'm the one who's biased?
The story will only make her choice tougher and harder.
No, it wouldn't.
The story would just add other things to think about. It's just another piece of information. It's a very hard decision before reading the story, and it's a very hard decision after reading the story. The story can't change that.
Now the circumstances in the situation result in the best option be to not have the child.
That's begging the question. How does the woman decide what is really the best option? Maybe the story changes her mind and results in her making a decision that leads to a lot of happiness. How do you know?
It's just one more way of looking at things, one more thing to consider. You seem to be saying certain ideas should never be entertained or considered. That certain ideas are just to dangerous to expose to someone who needs to make an irrevocable, life changing decision.
That's political correctness in a nutshell. Sadly, Mr. Gaiman made the same decision.
There was a Sandman story I wanted to write, which would have been a heartbreaker, and would have been about the dreams and hopes of an unborn baby, who was, for whatever reason, never going to be born. I didn't write it because I could imagine it being thrust in front of some pregnant teenager who didn't want to be pregnant to make her change her mind about what she was going to do.
Political Correctness claims another victory. How about the girl who wants to have her baby but everyone around her is pushing her to do the "reasonable" thing? I guess she doesn't count, not when the PC police are after you.
Says a lot about our society that a serial killer convention is a perfectly fine topic, but writers are terrified to write about something as important as the very nature of life itself. Mr. Gaiman, your courage failed you in the face of the PC establishment. Hopefully the next time you have a powerful idea for a story that could cause people to think about very important things, but runs afould of the Politically Correct thought police, you will find the courage to go ahead and tell the story.
ShrubCo: No proof/discloser on Iraqi WMD's, state they want a war, start a war still without the proof/disclosure to justify it's actions.
DarlCo: No proof/disclosure on Source Code infringements, states the GPL is moot/void state that all source code under the GPL within the last 3 years should be Public Domain, they preempt and relicense the "public domain" source code.
Linux and Apple now have three years to change that. MS has now told everyone they won't have anything new to show until 2006. Since OS X is pretty much now what Longhorn promises then, Apple can make huge strides during this period. Likewise, all the governments and companies considering Linux have 3 years to decide whether to get off the MS forced march or not.
And what are the compelling business features? 1. We get to rewrite all our custom apps that work just fine to use new APIs! 2. We get to buy all new computers for our employees with 4GHz processors and 1TB disks so the file open dialog box can be 3D and texture mapped with moving video! Or something. (ps The Longhorn graphics features run on current Apple hardware in OS X now.)
Meanwhile, MS is already starting to see revenue losses due to companies hesitant to upgrade because of security concerns.
I'm starting to feel almost bad for MS. Nah, not really.
2. Nearly all the bits, like Explorer, applets, property pages, etc are being rewritten to run on the CLR.
This is what killed Netscape. They're rewriting everything because, well, just because. And they're creating a totally new API for everyone else to rewrite their apps because, well, just because.
Well when you rewrite your entire suite of apps & the shell in managed code, write a completely new window manager that uses the DirectX pipeline as its compositing engine, uses vector graphics to scale to various resolutions and DPI, and so on it can take some time.
In other words, it's gonna take them several years to write Mac OS X.
Could you imagine how nice this site would be if it was nothing but mature veteran UNIX hackers who calmly and rationally discussed the next version of Windows and how it fits into their computing paradigm?
Do you remember the index in the back of one of the compilations? All the letters are entry-less until you get to "T" where you find "The one about..." for each comic in the book.
Agreed, if you tack on "...for any sufficiently complex software".... And as for the name for this law, I suggest "Jimbo's Law".
Heh, that would be a high honor indeed. Of course, with your well said disclaimer, it should probably be "Jimbo-Tapin's Law", but then it gets a little unwieldy:).
I'll Google "Jimbo's Law" and "Jimbo Tapin's Law" in a month to see if it stuck:).
Upgrades are great, but bug-free upgrades are better.
There needs to be a name for the law of software development that bug-free products are not found in nature. If you haven't found a bug, you're just not looking hard enough.
I'm curious to see what will happen if Apple can get those iPod costs down - cheaper hard drives and such. If they can get the production down to $100 an iPod, and have a range ($100 for 5 Gig, $500 for 40 Gig, etc), they will make a killing in the MP3 player market.
Uh, they ARE making a killing in the MP3 player market.
Slashdot Mirror
Would you feel the same if the story presented a pro-abortion POV?
The greater diversity of ideas available to people, the better. Even ones I don't agree with, yes.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Maybe it's not cowardice, maybe it's time management.
But that's not the reason Mr. Gaiman explicitly stated.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
It was based on not having his work used to manipulate, confuse, and and disturb someone going through a very difficult period of their life by people with an agenda to push as he very clearly stated.
How is deciding that an idea is too dangerous to be exposed to certain people anything BUT politically correct?
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
given the inability to do any reasonable controlled distribution
Again, politcal correctness. You're saying some ideas can only be handled by certain people, and kept from others. Who are you to make that decision?
Mr. Gaiman, of course, DOES have the right to make the decision to not create or distribute this work. But it still does not change the fact that his thought process in this instance is politically correct.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Perhaps you could write your own comic the way you wanted it to be told instead of calling people names?
I apologize for descending to ad hominem comments. Mr. Gaiman of course has the right to decide what stories to write. I concede I need to stick to criticizing the content of his ideas.
Nonetheless, the reasons he gives are still a form of political correctness. He's afraid of people being exposed to certain ideas, even when they're HIS ideas.
Look, the people you are afraid of, if they're bad as you think they are, are going to put pressure on young girls whether Neil writes his story or not. So do you want them handing that girl a Neil Gaiman story, or a Jack Chick tract?
This, in general, is typical of the abortion-as-dogma crowd. THINKING about abortion, and what it really means, is just too dangerous. It's too dangerous to think about what a developing, unborn child is really like, because it might mean someone, somewhere, carries a child full term.
An example of this kind of thinking is the contortion "what critics call partial birth abortion". What do advocates call it?
Mr. Gaiman's thought processes dovetail with this movement. He decided his ideas were just too dangerous to allow other people come to their own conclusions about. If that's not politically correct, what is?
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
If you're able to put aside your biases for a moment, I think you'll see why Gaiman would have been hesitant to give people like that any more, er, ammunition.
Ok, so you generalize that all "pro-lifers" shoot people in the back, while all abortion providers are white as the driven snow, but I'm the one who's biased?
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
The story will only make her choice tougher and harder.
No, it wouldn't.
The story would just add other things to think about. It's just another piece of information. It's a very hard decision before reading the story, and it's a very hard decision after reading the story. The story can't change that.
Now the circumstances in the situation result in the best option be to not have the child.
That's begging the question. How does the woman decide what is really the best option? Maybe the story changes her mind and results in her making a decision that leads to a lot of happiness. How do you know?
It's just one more way of looking at things, one more thing to consider. You seem to be saying certain ideas should never be entertained or considered. That certain ideas are just to dangerous to expose to someone who needs to make an irrevocable, life changing decision.
That's political correctness in a nutshell. Sadly, Mr. Gaiman made the same decision.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
There was a Sandman story I wanted to write, which would have been a heartbreaker, and would have been about the dreams and hopes of an unborn baby, who was, for whatever reason, never going to be born. I didn't write it because I could imagine it being thrust in front of some pregnant teenager who didn't want to be pregnant to make her change her mind about what she was going to do.
Political Correctness claims another victory. How about the girl who wants to have her baby but everyone around her is pushing her to do the "reasonable" thing? I guess she doesn't count, not when the PC police are after you.
Says a lot about our society that a serial killer convention is a perfectly fine topic, but writers are terrified to write about something as important as the very nature of life itself. Mr. Gaiman, your courage failed you in the face of the PC establishment. Hopefully the next time you have a powerful idea for a story that could cause people to think about very important things, but runs afould of the Politically Correct thought police, you will find the courage to go ahead and tell the story.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
ShrubCo: No proof/discloser on Iraqi WMD's, state they want a war, start a war still without the proof/disclosure to justify it's actions. DarlCo: No proof/disclosure on Source Code infringements, states the GPL is moot/void state that all source code under the GPL within the last 3 years should be Public Domain, they preempt and relicense the "public domain" source code.
So...
Linus == Saddam Hussein?
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
What position of power does Luskin have?
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
For the common person, these are dark times ahead.
Economy Grows at Fastest Pace Since 1984
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
A lot more people will read Luskin's blog, too, now. So yeah, not a bad move.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Linux and Apple now have three years to change that. MS has now told everyone they won't have anything new to show until 2006. Since OS X is pretty much now what Longhorn promises then, Apple can make huge strides during this period. Likewise, all the governments and companies considering Linux have 3 years to decide whether to get off the MS forced march or not.
And what are the compelling business features? 1. We get to rewrite all our custom apps that work just fine to use new APIs! 2. We get to buy all new computers for our employees with 4GHz processors and 1TB disks so the file open dialog box can be 3D and texture mapped with moving video! Or something. (ps The Longhorn graphics features run on current Apple hardware in OS X now.)
Meanwhile, MS is already starting to see revenue losses due to companies hesitant to upgrade because of security concerns.
I'm starting to feel almost bad for MS. Nah, not really.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
2. Nearly all the bits, like Explorer, applets, property pages, etc are being rewritten to run on the CLR.
This is what killed Netscape. They're rewriting everything because, well, just because. And they're creating a totally new API for everyone else to rewrite their apps because, well, just because.
Also, Aero is Quartz.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Well when you rewrite your entire suite of apps & the shell in managed code, write a completely new window manager that uses the DirectX pipeline as its compositing engine, uses vector graphics to scale to various resolutions and DPI, and so on it can take some time.
In other words, it's gonna take them several years to write Mac OS X.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Could you imagine how nice this site would be if it was nothing but mature veteran UNIX hackers who calmly and rationally discussed the next version of Windows and how it fits into their computing paradigm?
You'd probably have about two readers a day.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Do you remember the index in the back of one of the compilations? All the letters are entry-less until you get to "T" where you find "The one about..." for each comic in the book.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Agreed, if you tack on "...for any sufficiently complex software". ... And as for the name for this law, I suggest "Jimbo's Law".
Heh, that would be a high honor indeed. Of course, with your well said disclaimer, it should probably be "Jimbo-Tapin's Law", but then it gets a little unwieldy :).
I'll Google "Jimbo's Law" and "Jimbo Tapin's Law" in a month to see if it stuck :).
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
I've set it to activate on the click of mouse button 4.
I'll say it before someone beats me to it: "But Apples only have one mouse button!"
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Upgrades are great, but bug-free upgrades are better.
There needs to be a name for the law of software development that bug-free products are not found in nature. If you haven't found a bug, you're just not looking hard enough.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
With no developers, nothing left to steal and nothing left to give, Microsoft is useless.
They do manufacture the best FUD money can buy!
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Microsoft is smart enough to know that the reason they have a dominant O/S marketshare is because of the vast third party software market.
Microsoft has done everything in their power to destroy the WIndows third party software market.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
I'm all for it.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
I'm curious to see what will happen if Apple can get those iPod costs down - cheaper hard drives and such. If they can get the production down to $100 an iPod, and have a range ($100 for 5 Gig, $500 for 40 Gig, etc), they will make a killing in the MP3 player market.
Uh, they ARE making a killing in the MP3 player market.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
"We" want the RIAA to use a reasonable business model, instead of trying to shut down the Internet.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo