The problem with the "creationists" s/he is talking about it that they confuse science with faith, as you are doing now. You may want to re-define what "creationist" means for your context, but you would be altering the definition for the context which we are in. Basically, if you want your god, science has no problem with that, just keep your chocolate out of my peanut butter--but if you want your god to be involved with science...well, first tackle philosophy and then we'll talk. Otherwise leave your god out of it.
Also, lay off the violence buddy! How Christian (or whatever your variation) is that?
Clearly GAWD-DUH is changing these little squirrels to fit his heavenly PLAN-NUH. Oh, he works in mysterious WAYS-UH. All of those SINNERS who believe in EVOLUTION-NUH will be shown the folly of their ways when the find themselves burning in the unholy HELL-FIRES of HELL-UH!!
I'm seeing a lot of knee-jerk reactions about Rendezvous and security. People are assuming that because the protocol is about making certain types of network configuration dynamic and simple, it is necessarily insecure. Well, I've got news for you: any type of connection from one computer to another is creating security issues. I mean...duh. Now, clearly using something like the zeroconf protocol is going to require stuff like...passwords and encryption and all the usual nonsense we need to make things secure. Oh, and a competent sysadmin administrating the system. So can we cool it with the frothing?
Runner up: The episode where Bart shoots a bird and feels all bad about it, which is totally false to his character.
I have to say that this isn't really true...in the early years especially Bart was portrayed as a bad kid with a good heart...episodes Bart Gets and F and Bart vs. Thanksgiving are good examples of this.
There's every possibility the ISPs and cable companies already know about this. Why do you think they would tell us? This is the same tired argument used to justify security through obscurity...it's specious.
I say, thank you Steve for making me aware of this. Now I have the option to take action, as do the companies that make these home networking devices.
"I sentence each and every person in the United States to one viewing of "Coupon: The Movie." And may God have mercy...on your souls. Who wants to go Friday?"
I think the funniest thing that happened to me was that I went to the FSF booth, and was poking around at the GNU Emacs manual they were offering. I asked the guy behind the table if it was the same as the online documentation. Of course, I should have known better...
"Well, I don't know because I don't think I've used GNU Emacs in a long time. I stopped using it when the binary got to be larger than 10 megabytes. I don't use editors that are that size. I don't think I've compiled GNU Emacs in 10 years. The version I have on my computer is a decade old...blah blah blah"
Ask a simple question...
Anyways, I found it especially amusing considering that it was coming from the GNU guy himself.
...they are already really slow and therefore one might think easy prey for predators. In fact, it is possible that their slow moving style is a form of defense against eagles and hawks, and they avoid the ground and thereby avoid a lot of predators that way. Their sight isn't particularly saving them from predators. The fact they reside in trees helps (they also are somewhat naturally camouflaged), and they have a powerful jaw and claws that helps them defend against other predators (types of cats mainly, and snakes).
I don't know if blindness would really do that much one way or the other; they use calls to alert each other of impending danger, they have a keen sense of smell and their methods of defending against predators doesn't really rely upon their speed (nonexistent) or sight (pretty poor). Blindness _may_ not be necessary, but of course it might be going to far to say they would lose it entirely...
This is a great magazine. They focus on Jazz, all types of Electronic (from drum and bass, techno, to the most experimental noise) all sorts of rock/indie stuff, and everything outside of these categories, stuff I'm not really describing well. Definitely check it out.
From my perspective there's nothing good about the GPL, so we're going to differ on that one. I view it as a negtative contribution, you as a positive one.
Well, I'm not sure that it is entirely positive either (I don't feel educated enough to talk too much about it is all), but I do think that it has positive goals, and that it's existence means that people care and are willing to do something tangible. You (and I) may disagree with their methods and ideology, but I finding it a good thing that it merely exists. In addition I think their existence has provoked a lot of other stuff to happen...I'm thinking that Mozilla might not exist were it not for FSF, because 'Open Source' in the form that it's in would definitely not exist were it not for the FSF (and on a side note I know a lot of non-geeks who use Mozilla). Of course, like you said, we can agree to disagree on this one.
It's not at all clear that the GPL has resulted in more software being written; I'm not sure what you're basing that on.
I'm sorry; I don't really know where you are coming from with this. I don't recall saying that more software is written because of the GPL. However, on a related note, definitely more free software has been written because of the GPL, I think that would be hard to argue. Do you think if the FSF and the GPL didn't exist, we'd have a better quality free c compiler than gcc (following from your earlier argument)? Maybe, but I don't think so...
As for Windows 2000, its improved stability was the result of a nearly ten-year effort developing Windows NT, which is older than any useful version of Linux. Crediting Linux for these infrastructural improvements seems hard to defend.
Yes, I guess you've got me there. However, their marketing effort at the time certainly had some relationship to the claims of the Linux community that Windows was less stable than Linux. And they are clearly responding on many levels within their organization to the threat of free software. This only goes to show that free software, and thereby the FSF, has had an effect outside of the 'nerd clique' that you mentioned in your original post.
Just as on MacSlash, somehow various people on/. failed to read or grasp the critical phrase "outside the nerd clique," citing supposed counterexamples that in fact are very much nerd-targeted, and completely unrelated to the desires or requirements of ordinary people.
Well, that doesn't mean that what they have done isn't valuable. Of course their software might not always be the best, and I too find their insistent dogmatism really tiresome at times (the whole 'GNU/Linux' thing? C'mon...) but it is pretty good for what it does, and most importantly it is free. That has been useful to me many times.
Yeah I'm within the 'nerd clique' as you put it, but just because their software is directly used by only a minority of computer users doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect on the way the rest of the world uses software. I think that many people even within the FSF would claim that their biggest accomplishment and major function of the organization has been creating the GPL, less importantly all the software that was licensed under the GPL. And if you want to look at the effects of this, you merely need to look at the marketing and technical efforts Microsoft has put forth to fight Linux in the last few years--one could possibly argue, for example, that the better stability of Windows 2000 was due in part to Linux, which might not have existed in the form in which it does without the GPL. And that does have an effect outside of the 'nerd clique.'
Think about it some more--you sound awfully knee-jerk about this whole issue and it's more complex than you are admitting.
Overall though, I firmly believe that if the customer had gone to a "web-house" or some large company to get the job done, he would still be entrenched in meetings and the site would only be half done.
Definitely, exactly! A variation on that theme is actually the reason my one client has hired me; if they let their in-house people try to take care of this stuff, it would still be tied up in committee. Instead they just farm it out to me and get it done in 1/5 (or whatever) of the time.
Customers have no clue what something takes to implement, they just saw it on some other site, and want it...
Yes, this is precisely what I was trying to get at.
I'm an independent web developer, and as such I have a one on one relationship with the (non-technical) people who dictate the 'features' of the software I produce. Most of the time I'm doing not-so-glorified copy editing, but when I do have to create a maintenance tool or a more dynamic feature on the sites I work with, I find that I start to come up against what I perceive as a certain technical ignorance on their part--which is really a lack of communication between the two parties. Many times we'll get to a certain stage with a project, and our mutual assumptions will all of a sudden rear their ugly heads. Me: "Oh, didn't you realize that javascript/perl/unix/the current state of computer science and physics/etc. won't let me blah-dy blah blah?" Them: "Oh, didn't you realize that if you were going to build that thing it was necessarily going to have that feature because that's just a given?"
Having the relationship with my clients that I do, I find most of these problems pretty easy to solve; talk it through, try to understand what they really want, express the issues involved with implementation in as non-patronizing and non-technical a manner as possible. The most difficult point for me though is the debate between feeding the customers the line "that's not technically feasible" or trying to figure out some way to get what they want. I've found that 9 times out of 10 it's the case that I can do what they want if I push and prod myself a bit harder. What's even harder is those times when it's a balance between what the customer needs, what they are willing to pay for, and how long it might take me to do something, and I'm really not clear how it might all play out. An interesting problem.
I would also imagine that my personal solution to this problem wouldn't scale very well if you shifted it to a team of programmers working with a marketing department, customer service department, etc. My "organization's" small size is what enables me to solve these problems quickly and easily.
Sorry I've not supplied any real specifics, I really shouldn't; just wanted to comment on this issue because I definitely find it personally relevant.
Actually the reason KFC changed its name to KFC was because the state of Kentucky decided it wanted to trademark 'Kentucky' and pull in royalties from that move. KFC didn't care for that, and refused to acquiesce.
Er...actually, the reason I'll use certain distributions is _because_ of the kernel that comes with them (well, one of the reasons). And Gentoo (can you tell I like Gentoo?) gives me the option to install the vanilla kernel if I want to.
No, actually...different distributions do use different kernels. There is a reason Red Hat employs Alan Cox and etc. Also, a distro like Gentoo for example gives you the opportunity to use a kernel that does have a lot of patches they've hand picked that do not come with the vanilla kernel sources. So, depending on what your priorities are, yes you might be missing out, no it is not all big ego zealotry, and yes while it is true that securing a linux box takes skill, knowing that your kernel has the grsecurity patches makes a difference.
...the reason he's griping about his WinXP boxes is that he doesn't want any viruses banging on his network, crackers hijacking these machines, etc.--Windows IS more susceptible to this stuff, if for no other reason (and there may be other reasons) than it is so popular right now, and it is not exactly set up by default to be secure. So get off your high and mighty standards-compliance horse (no matter that I agree with you--I think you have a good point about what _should_ be the case) and remember this guy has to deal with a real-world situation.
Plus, MS is not really into standards-compliance last I heard, and that also kinda puts a crimp in your ideology...
The problem is, theater managers have to check out the print before they show it, in case it's messed up or something, so they have time to send it back.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with the "creationists" s/he is talking about it that they confuse science with faith, as you are doing now. You may want to re-define what "creationist" means for your context, but you would be altering the definition for the context which we are in. Basically, if you want your god, science has no problem with that, just keep your chocolate out of my peanut butter--but if you want your god to be involved with science...well, first tackle philosophy and then we'll talk. Otherwise leave your god out of it.
Also, lay off the violence buddy! How Christian (or whatever your variation) is that?
Excellent point.
I think.
(this in reference to the "Engineer Your Love Life" piece)
Never, ever, ever, ever compare your prospective mate to a "suitable commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product" in front of him/her.
Clearly GAWD-DUH is changing these little squirrels to fit his heavenly PLAN-NUH. Oh, he works in mysterious WAYS-UH. All of those SINNERS who believe in EVOLUTION-NUH will be shown the folly of their ways when the find themselves burning in the unholy HELL-FIRES of HELL-UH!!
In this comment, on the story that already came up about Rendezvous today...
Oh well. *sigh*
I'm seeing a lot of knee-jerk reactions about Rendezvous and security. People are assuming that because the protocol is about making certain types of network configuration dynamic and simple, it is necessarily insecure. Well, I've got news for you: any type of connection from one computer to another is creating security issues. I mean...duh. Now, clearly using something like the zeroconf protocol is going to require stuff like...passwords and encryption and all the usual nonsense we need to make things secure. Oh, and a competent sysadmin administrating the system. So can we cool it with the frothing?
Now, if someone had some good comments on the security issues involved with the zeroconf protocol itself, I'd like to read about it.
I have to say that this isn't really true...in the early years especially Bart was portrayed as a bad kid with a good heart...episodes Bart Gets and F and Bart vs. Thanksgiving are good examples of this.
There's every possibility the ISPs and cable companies already know about this. Why do you think they would tell us? This is the same tired argument used to justify security through obscurity...it's specious.
I say, thank you Steve for making me aware of this. Now I have the option to take action, as do the companies that make these home networking devices.
"I sentence each and every person in the United States to one viewing of "Coupon: The Movie." And may God have mercy...on your souls. Who wants to go Friday?"
http://www.unoriginal.com/mrshow/2_6.html
I think the funniest thing that happened to me was that I went to the FSF booth, and was poking around at the GNU Emacs manual they were offering. I asked the guy behind the table if it was the same as the online documentation. Of course, I should have known better...
"Well, I don't know because I don't think I've used GNU Emacs in a long time. I stopped using it when the binary got to be larger than 10 megabytes. I don't use editors that are that size. I don't think I've compiled GNU Emacs in 10 years. The version I have on my computer is a decade old...blah blah blah"
Ask a simple question...
Anyways, I found it especially amusing considering that it was coming from the GNU guy himself.
http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/diaries/
I think Merry's is particularly funny. They are more from the perspective of someone who's seen the movies but not the books, but still great.
I don't know if blindness would really do that much one way or the other; they use calls to alert each other of impending danger, they have a keen sense of smell and their methods of defending against predators doesn't really rely upon their speed (nonexistent) or sight (pretty poor). Blindness _may_ not be necessary, but of course it might be going to far to say they would lose it entirely...
This is a great magazine. They focus on Jazz, all types of Electronic (from drum and bass, techno, to the most experimental noise) all sorts of rock/indie stuff, and everything outside of these categories, stuff I'm not really describing well. Definitely check it out.
Yes, I guess you've got me there. However, their marketing effort at the time certainly had some relationship to the claims of the Linux community that Windows was less stable than Linux. And they are clearly responding on many levels within their organization to the threat of free software. This only goes to show that free software, and thereby the FSF, has had an effect outside of the 'nerd clique' that you mentioned in your original post.
Yeah I'm within the 'nerd clique' as you put it, but just because their software is directly used by only a minority of computer users doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect on the way the rest of the world uses software. I think that many people even within the FSF would claim that their biggest accomplishment and major function of the organization has been creating the GPL, less importantly all the software that was licensed under the GPL. And if you want to look at the effects of this, you merely need to look at the marketing and technical efforts Microsoft has put forth to fight Linux in the last few years--one could possibly argue, for example, that the better stability of Windows 2000 was due in part to Linux, which might not have existed in the form in which it does without the GPL. And that does have an effect outside of the 'nerd clique.'
Think about it some more--you sound awfully knee-jerk about this whole issue and it's more complex than you are admitting.
Definitely, exactly! A variation on that theme is actually the reason my one client has hired me; if they let their in-house people try to take care of this stuff, it would still be tied up in committee. Instead they just farm it out to me and get it done in 1/5 (or whatever) of the time.
Yes, this is precisely what I was trying to get at.
I'm an independent web developer, and as such I have a one on one relationship with the (non-technical) people who dictate the 'features' of the software I produce. Most of the time I'm doing not-so-glorified copy editing, but when I do have to create a maintenance tool or a more dynamic feature on the sites I work with, I find that I start to come up against what I perceive as a certain technical ignorance on their part--which is really a lack of communication between the two parties. Many times we'll get to a certain stage with a project, and our mutual assumptions will all of a sudden rear their ugly heads. Me: "Oh, didn't you realize that javascript/perl/unix/the current state of computer science and physics/etc. won't let me blah-dy blah blah?" Them: "Oh, didn't you realize that if you were going to build that thing it was necessarily going to have that feature because that's just a given?"
Having the relationship with my clients that I do, I find most of these problems pretty easy to solve; talk it through, try to understand what they really want, express the issues involved with implementation in as non-patronizing and non-technical a manner as possible. The most difficult point for me though is the debate between feeding the customers the line "that's not technically feasible" or trying to figure out some way to get what they want. I've found that 9 times out of 10 it's the case that I can do what they want if I push and prod myself a bit harder. What's even harder is those times when it's a balance between what the customer needs, what they are willing to pay for, and how long it might take me to do something, and I'm really not clear how it might all play out. An interesting problem.
I would also imagine that my personal solution to this problem wouldn't scale very well if you shifted it to a team of programmers working with a marketing department, customer service department, etc. My "organization's" small size is what enables me to solve these problems quickly and easily.
Sorry I've not supplied any real specifics, I really shouldn't; just wanted to comment on this issue because I definitely find it personally relevant.
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/kfc.htm
I could swear I'd heard that from a reputable source though...*sigh*
Actually the reason KFC changed its name to KFC was because the state of Kentucky decided it wanted to trademark 'Kentucky' and pull in royalties from that move. KFC didn't care for that, and refused to acquiesce.
Er...actually, the reason I'll use certain distributions is _because_ of the kernel that comes with them (well, one of the reasons). And Gentoo (can you tell I like Gentoo?) gives me the option to install the vanilla kernel if I want to.
No, actually...different distributions do use different kernels. There is a reason Red Hat employs Alan Cox and etc. Also, a distro like Gentoo for example gives you the opportunity to use a kernel that does have a lot of patches they've hand picked that do not come with the vanilla kernel sources. So, depending on what your priorities are, yes you might be missing out, no it is not all big ego zealotry, and yes while it is true that securing a linux box takes skill, knowing that your kernel has the grsecurity patches makes a difference.
...the reason he's griping about his WinXP boxes is that he doesn't want any viruses banging on his network, crackers hijacking these machines, etc.--Windows IS more susceptible to this stuff, if for no other reason (and there may be other reasons) than it is so popular right now, and it is not exactly set up by default to be secure. So get off your high and mighty standards-compliance horse (no matter that I agree with you--I think you have a good point about what _should_ be the case) and remember this guy has to deal with a real-world situation.
Plus, MS is not really into standards-compliance last I heard, and that also kinda puts a crimp in your ideology...
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/1 1/25/1559231&mode=thread&tid=118
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/2 5/1226222&mode=thread&tid=134
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/25/032422 1&mode=thread&tid=111
Don't worry Hemos, we all have days like that. ;) It is interesting stuff at least.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/1102/14wym an.html
The problem is, theater managers have to check out the print before they show it, in case it's messed up or something, so they have time to send it back.