Who was the brain in the NSA that came up with this idea? "We just won't respond."
What they should have done was just sent back a file-folder with the word Echelon pencilled on the cover and a bunch of pages covered with black marker. They would have nicely avoided any grounds for the suit and stopped further publicity on the matter.
I feel that fear of death can be the only cure for some criminals, and that oftentimes the prison system does such terrible job of rehabilitation, it would have been more cost effective to put them down in the first place
If by some criminals, you mean only the most hardened - here's the kicker. They generally fall into two categories:
A: Those that don't have any concern for their own life, or
B: Those that don't think they'll ever be caught.
In either case, the death threat isn't a deterrent. Plus, you have to factor in the added crime from those (few) folks who are looking for a way to martyrdom and the more serious crimes it causes (ie: things get out of hand in a drug store hold up and you accidentally pop the manager - uh oh - now you're on the line for murder and the death penalty.. better pop the wife now so there're no witnesses.)
Check crime rates in states with the death penalty. If you can, check crime rates before and after the death penalty was established. You'll generally find the rates are the same or higher after the death penalty was brought in.
That being said, I do agree with you that the prison system is inherently flawed.
And it's not in any way inconsistent to be an advocate of reducing the size of the federal government and at the same time an advocate of protecting the civil liberties of individuals. In fact, this position is very defensible, as those very civil liberties tend to be more commonly disregarded by the US government than by any other organization. [emphasis added]
Uh.. seen China lately? Singapore? Okay, so they don't have a presence in the U.S., how about RealPlayer, Comet-Cursor (or whatever that silly place is named..), the KKK, the Hell's Angels, Intel, or the Tobacco Industries?
That not enough? Perhaps the Unabomber? The Columbine Kiddies?
There's people out there who'd stomp on your rights a heck of a lot more than the US government if the US government wasn't around.
I remember hearing one of the most drastic proposals on this subject in a Usenet discussion a long while back, that schools ought to revert to teaching only maths, for analytical thinking, and speed reading, so people can teach themselves.
What I did bring with me from school, and that I am thankful for, is that it introduced me to the subject of my passion, that it taught me to think, and that I learned how to learn effiently. I think I would have been more happy weight had been devoted to these thing than trying to force me to read subjects like history and social studies which I never cared less about.
Spoken like a true techie. Of course, what if your passion happened to be history or social studies? Would you have ever clued into that if you only been taught speed-reading and math?
While I agree that the primary lesson taught in pre-college school is how to learn, I don't think narrowing the bredth of what it teaches is a good way to go about that. One of the most important facets of learning is interest. If a person is never introduced to a subject they're interested in they're likely never to see a reason to know how to learn. Which will in turn impair their ability to learn how to learn.
Also, how often are you making use of the concepts you've picked up in those other classes without being aware of them? Would you even understand the concept of an Information Age as opposed to any other?
Beyond that, this pre-supposes that there is only one type of thinking, that of analytical deductive-logic. Such a narrow course field would never introduce ethical, social, emotional, creative, or lateral modes of thinking. Not that the system as it stands addresses all of these, but narrowing it even further seems folly to me.
If anything, I believe we should expand the mandatory range of subjects introduced, while reducing the amount of depth that must be manditorially covered. Leave the indepth studies to the options.
I also believe that we should introduce a holistic type of course where students can be shown to some degree how each subject connects to every other subject.
Since many people running Linux are well connected, why not make the software availabe for on-line purchase? [Emphasis added.]
First, many is not the same as all. And since games are often bought as gifts, online only sales would eliminate that chunk of the market looking to buy something for their Linux running grandchild. Around christmas time, this becomes a sizable chunk - one that only stands to grow as Linux continues to enter the mainstream.
Secondly, I don't know about you, but when it comes to games, I'm an impulse buyer. If I have to spend 4 hours downloading some massive file to play a game, even if it's one I've been drooling over, I generally won't bother. If I'm in the store and see a copy on the shelf, I may just pick it up, even if I was only marginally interested in it to begin with.
Third, if non-Windows turns out to be an easier OS to develop games for, (ie: designed from the ground up for networking and/or graphics ability as opposed to tacking on DirectX, or having to license some other companies API's) the software company can realize a reduction in initial development costs. However, this will only happen if the stores will order non-Windows versions - and they'll only do that if they can feel reasonably assured that those versions will sell.
Fourth, with the current Linux hype, this is an excellent way to get some free publicity. Costs the company the time it took Carmack to write up his.plan, and the "investment time" of the money that waits for the Linux boxed version to come out. In return, the company gets/.'d and the public support of the Linux open source community.
Based in Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, Athabasca University is an accredited, correspondence based University and offers (among other things) a Bachelor of Science in Computing and Information Systems degree.
Courses have a six month (maximum) length and no minimum. If required, you can purchase extensions to the courses as well.
Transfer credits are examined on a course by course basis. You'll need to send in a transcript of your previous college experience. I believe most of the courses can be challenged.
There are a few rumors floating around that Athabasca U may be starting a Master's Degree program in Comp Sci as well, but nothing official has come out to confirm that yet.
You may also want to browse this page at a 0 threshold, as an AC pointed out another possibility. (I'd moderate him up, but then I wouldn't be able to post this.)
What I am saying at heart is that our philosophy, our institutions, our society can all only follow what technology does.
I tend to think it's the other way around. Just because we haven't expressed what the underlying assumptions are doesn't mean they're not affecting what we've developed.
Take a look at the telephone for an example. There's technology which could have developed in any number of ways. The phone could have been a community instrument rather than a single-user device. Much like an interactive radio - it was our choices and our society that caused it to develop like it has.
The normal rules of economics don't apply to free software.
I'm not sure I buy this one. I admit, I haven't been following things too closely, but aside from Red Hat, I don't know of one free software firm/person that's making enough to support themselves.
And Red Hat (and its clones) is a significantly special case - they already had the code developed for them, for free. Add development time and what the wages would have been for programming and I don't think they'd have made it this far.
If all it takes is to fire in a few references to various mythologies even Porky's could be considered a "deep" film. I'll agree that there may be some activity on another level beyond the plot-driven special-effects, but hardly enough for what I'd consider "depth".
I believe that depth occurs when some obvious but unnoticed insight about ourselves (in singular or plural) or the world around us is brought to light.
Which is kind of sad, actually, because it's a concept that lends itself so well to explorations of our existance. Consider what happens, after all, if you accept the premise that your entire life can be falsified? No where do we see any doubt in any of the characters that the life they live now might be just as hallucinatory as the original Matrix.
We only see the most rudimentary questioning of if the apparant lack of freedom within the Matrix matters at all.
Basically, it had the possibility of depth. It certainly didn't reach it.
I still got a kick out of the film, but let's be reasonable here.
Karl If nobody cared about your opinion before the Internet, what makes you think they will now?
Another problem this contest has it that it doesn't address one of the fundamental issues of keeping a system secure: having security conscious users.
After all, a large number of cracks are done through trojan horses. If you have a system who's users are given only the job "Make sure nobody breaks in", you're simply not going to be able to slip a trojan into it. They'll be alert and deleting any and all executable files without running them.
Put this in an office though where the people basically only know how to run their specific software and the email program and a whole world of opportunities open up. If it can stay secure under those conditions (say with lots of appropriate warning messages, auto-scanning incoming files, etc.) then you only have the problems that Mr. Spafford outlines.
I normally like Katz' material, but this time I think he's confused the issues some - and you can see that in a lot of the comments.
The issue is not whether South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was inappropriately rated, (it was, IMHO,) and it is not about whether the rating system as a whole is completely screwy, (it is, IMHO).
The issue is whether we allow parents to abrogate their responsibility in raising their children. In my mind, the reason for the requirement to have parents with children in R rated movies is to ensure that they not only know exactly what their kid is seeing and his/her reaction to it, but also so that they can be aware enough to explain the morality behind the movie and if it is something that they as a parent agree with.
The problem isn't the requirements of the ratings - it's the way the ratings are assigned.
Why struggle against something that's trying to promote responsible parenting? In the context of South Park. the issue seems ridiculous. In the context of say, A Clockwork Orange, suddenly the rules that come with the ratings make a lot more sense.
Would we be so supportive of this parent if the movie that she chose as a baby-sitter happened to be some splatter-punk/snuff film?
The relation isn't quite the same as buying swampland property, it's more akin to "If you buy any property, and the house represented to be on that property is unlivable, unsafe, or just plain isn't even there, that's your fault for walking up to inspect the site." The problem with the standard EULA is that it is strictly that: standard.
Luckily, most EULA's do have a clause in them stating that if any clause of the EULA violates state or federal laws, that clause is considered null and void with the rest of the contract intact. -- Our job as people then is to make sure our governments have laws on the books allowing us to a reasonable time frame to return an unwanted product for our money back. The problem with this then becomes the illegal copying issue, which is all the more reason to take any software pirates you know and beat them severely about the head and shoulders with a Commodore Pet. (oo.. that's gotta hurt)
So while decent consumer laws aren't the entire answer, a regulatory body just won't work, for most of the reasons listed earlier in this thread:
Small publishing companies would be put out of business too easily with arbitrary fines
Large publishing companies would swallow the fines and continue on.
It still provides no remedies to the consumer who got the crap software.
A regulatory body is a money sink. Even if it's not actually out fining people, there's still the payroll of those on staff to take calls, and the internal bureaucracy of any governmental agency.
People with a grudge would cost the regulatory body (and hence us) vast amounts of money on false complaints. (Admit it, even if MS put out something that did work as it was advertised, far-fetched as that may be, wouldn't you complain against them just because it was MS who made it?)
Software advancement would slow as publishers became even more wary of "new" things than they are now; and
Software prices and development time would increase dramatically.
Kwil Just because it's my opinion doesn't make it better than yours. It's better because it's the correct opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
Who was the brain in the NSA that came up with this idea? "We just won't respond."
What they should have done was just sent back a file-folder with the word Echelon pencilled on the cover and a bunch of pages covered with black marker. They would have nicely avoided any grounds for the suit and stopped further publicity on the matter.
Someone just wasn't on the ball.
Kwil
I feel that fear of death can be the only cure for some criminals, and that oftentimes the prison system does such terrible job of rehabilitation, it would have been more cost effective to put them down in the first place
If by some criminals, you mean only the most hardened - here's the kicker. They generally fall into two categories:
A: Those that don't have any concern for their own life, or
B: Those that don't think they'll ever be caught.
In either case, the death threat isn't a deterrent. Plus, you have to factor in the added crime from those (few) folks who are looking for a way to martyrdom and the more serious crimes it causes (ie: things get out of hand in a drug store hold up and you accidentally pop the manager - uh oh - now you're on the line for murder and the death penalty.. better pop the wife now so there're no witnesses.)
Check crime rates in states with the death penalty. If you can, check crime rates before and after the death penalty was established. You'll generally find the rates are the same or higher after the death penalty was brought in.
That being said, I do agree with you that the prison system is inherently flawed.
Kwil
And it's not in any way inconsistent to be an advocate of reducing the size of the federal government and at the same time an advocate of protecting the civil liberties of individuals. In fact, this position is very defensible, as those very civil liberties tend to be more commonly disregarded by the US government than by any other organization. [emphasis added]
Uh.. seen China lately? Singapore?
Okay, so they don't have a presence in the U.S., how about RealPlayer, Comet-Cursor (or whatever that silly place is named..), the KKK, the Hell's Angels, Intel, or the Tobacco Industries?
That not enough? Perhaps the Unabomber? The Columbine Kiddies?
There's people out there who'd stomp on your rights a heck of a lot more than the US government if the US government wasn't around.
Kwil
I remember hearing one of the most drastic proposals on this subject in a Usenet discussion a long while back, that schools ought to revert to teaching only maths, for analytical thinking, and speed reading, so people can teach themselves.
What I did bring with me from school, and that I am thankful for, is that it introduced me to the subject of my passion, that it taught me to think, and that I learned how to learn effiently. I think I would have been more happy weight had been devoted to these thing than trying to force me to read subjects like history and social studies which I never cared less about.
Spoken like a true techie. Of course, what if your passion happened to be history or social studies? Would you have ever clued into that if you only been taught speed-reading and math?
While I agree that the primary lesson taught in pre-college school is how to learn, I don't think narrowing the bredth of what it teaches is a good way to go about that. One of the most important facets of learning is interest. If a person is never introduced to a subject they're interested in they're likely never to see a reason to know how to learn. Which will in turn impair their ability to learn how to learn.
Also, how often are you making use of the concepts you've picked up in those other classes without being aware of them? Would you even understand the concept of an Information Age as opposed to any other?
Beyond that, this pre-supposes that there is only one type of thinking, that of analytical deductive-logic. Such a narrow course field would never introduce ethical, social, emotional, creative, or lateral modes of thinking. Not that the system as it stands addresses all of these, but narrowing it even further seems folly to me.
If anything, I believe we should expand the mandatory range of subjects introduced, while reducing the amount of depth that must be manditorially covered. Leave the indepth studies to the options.
I also believe that we should introduce a holistic type of course where students can be shown to some degree how each subject connects to every other subject.
Kwil
Since many people running Linux are well connected, why not make the software availabe for on-line purchase? [Emphasis added.]
.plan, and the "investment time" of the money that waits for the Linux boxed version to come out. In return, the company gets /.'d and the public support of the Linux open source community.
First, many is not the same as all. And since games are often bought as gifts, online only sales would eliminate that chunk of the market looking to buy something for their Linux running grandchild. Around christmas time, this becomes a sizable chunk - one that only stands to grow as Linux continues to enter the mainstream.
Secondly, I don't know about you, but when it comes to games, I'm an impulse buyer. If I have to spend 4 hours downloading some massive file to play a game, even if it's one I've been drooling over, I generally won't bother. If I'm in the store and see a copy on the shelf, I may just pick it up, even if I was only marginally interested in it to begin with.
Third, if non-Windows turns out to be an easier OS to develop games for, (ie: designed from the ground up for networking and/or graphics ability as opposed to tacking on DirectX, or having to license some other companies API's) the software company can realize a reduction in initial development costs. However, this will only happen if the stores will order non-Windows versions - and they'll only do that if they can feel reasonably assured that those versions will sell.
Fourth, with the current Linux hype, this is an excellent way to get some free publicity. Costs the company the time it took Carmack to write up his
Kwil
Based in Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, Athabasca University is an accredited, correspondence based University and offers (among other things) a Bachelor of Science in Computing and Information Systems degree.
Courses have a six month (maximum) length and no minimum. If required, you can purchase extensions to the courses as well.
Transfer credits are examined on a course by course basis. You'll need to send in a transcript of your previous college experience. I believe most of the courses can be challenged.
There are a few rumors floating around that Athabasca U may be starting a Master's Degree program in Comp Sci as well, but nothing official has come out to confirm that yet.
Main site is located at http://www.athabascau.ca, and here's a direct link to the Bachelor of Comp Sci page.
You may also want to browse this page at a 0 threshold, as an AC pointed out another possibility. (I'd moderate him up, but then I wouldn't be able to post this.)
Kwil
What I am saying at heart is that our philosophy, our institutions, our society can all only follow what technology does.
I tend to think it's the other way around. Just because we haven't expressed what the underlying assumptions are doesn't mean they're not affecting what we've developed.
Take a look at the telephone for an example. There's technology which could have developed in any number of ways. The phone could have been a community instrument rather than a single-user device. Much like an interactive radio - it was our choices and our society that caused it to develop like it has.
Kwil
The normal rules of economics don't apply to free software.
I'm not sure I buy this one. I admit, I haven't been following things too closely, but aside from Red Hat, I don't know of one free software firm/person that's making enough to support themselves.
And Red Hat (and its clones) is a significantly special case - they already had the code developed for them, for free. Add development time and what the wages would have been for programming and I don't think they'd have made it this far.
Kwil
Ever stop to think that Gates' meeting with the Chinese leaders could be part of the reason they chose Linux?
I mean, regardless of any other qualities he might have, the one quality he definitely does not have is charisma.
Karl
If all it takes is to fire in a few references to various mythologies even Porky's could be considered a "deep" film. I'll agree that there may be some activity on another level beyond the plot-driven special-effects, but hardly enough for what I'd consider "depth".
I believe that depth occurs when some obvious but unnoticed insight about ourselves (in singular or plural) or the world around us is brought to light.
Which is kind of sad, actually, because it's a concept that lends itself so well to explorations of our existance. Consider what happens, after all, if you accept the premise that your entire life can be falsified? No where do we see any doubt in any of the characters that the life they live now might be just as hallucinatory as the original Matrix.
We only see the most rudimentary questioning of if the apparant lack of freedom within the Matrix matters at all.
Basically, it had the possibility of depth. It certainly didn't reach it.
I still got a kick out of the film, but let's be reasonable here.
Karl
If nobody cared about your opinion before the Internet, what makes you think they will now?
Another problem this contest has it that it doesn't address one of the fundamental issues of keeping a system secure: having security conscious users.
After all, a large number of cracks are done through trojan horses. If you have a system who's users are given only the job "Make sure nobody breaks in", you're simply not going to be able to slip a trojan into it. They'll be alert and deleting any and all executable files without running them.
Put this in an office though where the people basically only know how to run their specific software and the email program and a whole world of opportunities open up. If it can stay secure under those conditions (say with lots of appropriate warning messages, auto-scanning incoming files, etc.) then you only have the problems that Mr. Spafford outlines.
Kwil
I normally like Katz' material, but this time I think he's confused the issues some - and you can see that in a lot of the comments.
The issue is not whether South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut was inappropriately rated, (it was, IMHO,) and it is not about whether the rating system as a whole is completely screwy, (it is, IMHO).
The issue is whether we allow parents to abrogate their responsibility in raising their children. In my mind, the reason for the requirement to have parents with children in R rated movies is to ensure that they not only know exactly what their kid is seeing and his/her reaction to it, but also so that they can be aware enough to explain the morality behind the movie and if it is something that they as a parent agree with.
The problem isn't the requirements of the ratings - it's the way the ratings are assigned.
Why struggle against something that's trying to promote responsible parenting? In the context of South Park. the issue seems ridiculous. In the context of say, A Clockwork Orange, suddenly the rules that come with the ratings make a lot more sense.
Would we be so supportive of this parent if the movie that she chose as a baby-sitter happened to be some splatter-punk/snuff film?
Kwil
The relation isn't quite the same as buying swampland property, it's more akin to "If you buy any property, and the house represented to be on that property is unlivable, unsafe, or just plain isn't even there, that's your fault for walking up to inspect the site." The problem with the standard EULA is that it is strictly that: standard.
Luckily, most EULA's do have a clause in them stating that if any clause of the EULA violates state or federal laws, that clause is considered null and void with the rest of the contract intact. -- Our job as people then is to make sure our governments have laws on the books allowing us to a reasonable time frame to return an unwanted product for our money back. The problem with this then becomes the illegal copying issue, which is all the more reason to take any software pirates you know and beat them severely about the head and shoulders with a Commodore Pet. (oo.. that's gotta hurt)
So while decent consumer laws aren't the entire answer, a regulatory body just won't work, for most of the reasons listed earlier in this thread:
- Small publishing companies would be put out of business too easily with arbitrary fines
- Large publishing companies would swallow the fines and continue on.
- It still provides no remedies to the consumer who got the crap software.
- A regulatory body is a money sink. Even if it's not actually out fining people, there's still the payroll of those on staff to take calls, and the internal bureaucracy of any governmental agency.
- People with a grudge would cost the regulatory body (and hence us) vast amounts of money on false complaints. (Admit it, even if MS put out something that did work as it was advertised, far-fetched as that may be, wouldn't you complain against them just because it was MS who made it?)
- Software advancement would slow as publishers became even more wary of "new" things than they are now; and
- Software prices and development time would increase dramatically.
KwilJust because it's my opinion doesn't make it better than yours.
It's better because it's the correct opinion.