Tell me this. If GPL be such strong competition and all that, why do they need some judge to save they a$$?
Because MS has illegally abused their monopolistic position in the market to cut the air supply to its competition.
When ya'll are better than M$ ya'll know it cause you won't need no judges or no punk DOJ bustas.
I use MS (or other closed source) products when I find them useful. I use GPLed products when I find them useful. Most of the people here know what is better, and when. The rest of the world, though, has by and large been denied the chance to learn that for themselves.
that does not help GPL developers
Not to sound too harsh, but really, cry me a river. Thanks to the rather strict requirements of the GPL, it's really not too hard to come up with something, even in good faith, that doesn't play with the GPL. Witness the QPL or old BSD licenses.
Yes, but remember, this punishment is supposed to hurt microsoft and help the competition. This is not about FSF or GPL evangalism; this is about settling an anti-trust case. I am running WindowsXP now, posting from IE; I'm not a zellot. I do recognize, however, that a settlement that forbids what MS has called its cheif competition from taking advantage of the said settlement is worthless.
And since "Company Implementation" refers specifically to "portions of software that implement CIFS.." (section 1.2), and not the software itself, I still don't see why it would be a problem to link against LGPL modules.
To be honest, IANAL, and I can't comment insightfully one way or the other on the LGPL, though I tend to agree with you. It is the #define $(IPR_IMPAIRING_LICENSE) part that bothers me.
Both the MS and GPL are trying to control the behavior of others.
True, but in different scopes. MS has and is abusing a monopoly; they can make others do what they want. GPL software only makes you play by their rules if you intend to piggyback on the work of others.
That is very true...I'm probably going to get a Mac as my next desktop. I would love to see MS required to keep releasing Office, etc. for the Mac. I would also love to see Mac release OSX for the x86 world. They kind of go hand in hand...and neither are likely to happen. C'est la vie.
Also, Linux is more of a threat to MS on the server side than the client side...that was what I was thinking about when I first posted, and why I forgot about Apple.
It's their code, they can licence it however they damn well please.
That's what "freedom" is all about. You get to choose how your code can be used. MS has decided, now it's up to us to honor that decision.
Otherwise, you have no right to expect anyone to respect licences like the GPL.
Normally, you would be right, but Microsoft has been found guilty of illegaly abusing a monopoly. This trial is in the penalty phase, not the "did they do it or not" phase; Microsoft is being punished.
The very heart of "punishment" means that Microsoft is going to have to do things that they do not want to. The fact that this is an anti-trust trial means that they are going to have to do things that hurt themselves and help their competition. GPL software represents some of their strongest competition, so a "punishment" that does not help GPL developers is not a punishment at all. Remember, they have been abusing their competitors and their customers.
In the past, when Microsoft did whatever they damn well pleased, they broke the law. They cannot continue to do whatever they damn well please to correct this.
The trouble is, most geeks think all learning is the adoption of propositions and the assignation of truth values to them, so they have no sense of how other modalities are used to communicate.
I don't think so...I am more concerned with collecting reasonsnable accurate facts, assigning them a context, and figuring out when they might apply in simmilar context. Very little of what I know or do is based on "if x, then y", and I doubt that that is the case for many people at all, geeks especially. One of our specialties is pattern matching/association.
The best thing we can do to keep our computers free is to buy as many CDs and DVDs as we can afford.
The best this we can to to keep out computers free is to elect people that know what the Bill of Rights is, institute term limits so our "representatives" aren't so worried about building next year's war chest, and passing laws to keep Hollywood/corporate money out of our political process.
You want to talk about great power and great responsibility? The founders of this country gave us more power than any other citizenry in any other country. It is our responsibility to defend that. Buying CDs and DVDs just so WeOwnEveryting, Inc. will keep their damned hands off of our rights is just admitting defeat; it is tantamount to saying "we acknowledge that you have the power to take away our rights, but if we keep you happy, will you please leave us alone?" That is utter crap.
Not true. What Java lacks is dynamic binding / linking. For example, take two classes - Obj1 and Obj2. Obj1 can't be compiled if it makes a method call to Obj2 and doesn't have some sort of reference to that object - like a header file. A true OO programming language would allow you to do this because everything is linked at run time.
Um, nope. Dynamic binding and linking means that classtype is determined at runtime; for example, if class sphere is a subclass of type circle, a sphere object can be referenced by a pointer to circle. If linking is done dynamically, if sphere ovverides any of circle's functions, the sphere methods will be called. If linking is dynamic, the circle methods will be called. All linking in java is dynamic; by default, C++ is static, hence the virtual keyword.
Nope, I added too much carelessness...you're right. Also, "damn Catholics" is kind of a runnig joke with me; some of my best friends are catholic. I don't despise them, and I don't really have anything against the Apocrypha; I just don't consider it inspired by God. Neither do the Jews of today, or the Jews of 2000 years ago.
Let me know when they find that the world really _was_ created in 6 days, ok? And is floating in a bubble with water below and water above...
You're going to love this one. Genesis records creation as six days, science as roughly 15.75 billion years. That is a difference of magniuted of about a million-million. Seems pretty damming, doesn't it?
Cosmic time is measured by Cosmic Background Radiation; in essence, the speed of light and redshift can be used to determine how long ago something happened. Today, the CRB (or the tempurature of vaccume) is about 2.73 degrees Kelvin. At the time of the Big Bang, however, it was millions upon millions of times greater, since the radiation was spread over a universe that was millions upon millions of times smaller. As the universe expanded, the average ammount of radiation fell, and the clock of the universe slowed down. I'm not going to walk through the calculus and relativity involved, but from the inside of the universe, it took us nearly 16 billion years to get where we are now, but from an outside obserever, it would have taken...yep...six days. Check out The Science of God by Gerald L. Schroeder if you don't believe me. He is a PHD from MIT.
Thing is, Arthurian legends have only had to survive 1500 years, and they're all screwed up. Robin Hood has got nice and twisted in 800 years. Yet the Bible is supposed to be word-perfect after 4000 years?
Rabbis from that time period were known for having the entire old testament commited to memory. They were also meticulous about copying their manuscripts...if a single flaw was found in a copy, it was burned. I'll get a bit more into this when you mention the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Empires come and go in a century or so; all we know is that there was a fairly powerful king at one point. Ditto your Solomon - except that here, we only know that there was a king, and there's nothing else. There could have been 1 Solomon or 1000, we don't know.
Wrong. Solomon was considered fiction by a great many people for a long time, until they started finding his seal all over the place. We can look at the Arthurian legend and see what inspired it, but we can look at the Bible and see evidence that it is true. You don't find markers or vases or coins with Arthur's crest on it, but you can see these same things bearing the mark of Solomon. He was a real, historical figure, and he left tracks.
The New Testament is full of inaccuracies. Jesus's lineage to David is incredibly tenuous. The date of Jesus's birth can't be fixed, bcos the Roman governor mentioned wasn't around at the time of a census. A whole bunch of the "prophesies" mentioned by the four main writers are junk, if you cross-reference them back. And then there's the theory (most famously used by Neal Stephenson in "Snow Crash") that the whole Pentecostal thing is fiction.
Cite, please. Just one fact, if you could. All you have is "I don't think so," and "well, there are theories that say it's bunk."
The most common theory about the lineage of Jesus was that one Gospel writer traced it back through his father, and one through his mother. This would have been done due to the Jewish customs of how title and property were inherited.
As for the Roman governor you mentioned; Herod died around 4 B.C, and Quirinius began to rule in A.D. 6...looks like you are right. Except that there was another man named Quirinius (which is a Roman name; it would not be uncommon for such a name to be shared by two people, just as there are a lot of guys named "Thomas" running around today) who served as procounsul of Syria from 11 B.C. on...he is the man who would have conducted the census.
There are hundreds prophecies that the Jews considered mesianic long before Jesus ever appeared on Earth. The chance of fulfilling just eight of these in one lifetime is 1 in 100 million billion, millions of times greater than the number of people who have ever lived. That would be like covering the entire state of Texas in silver dollars two feet deep, marking one, and the choosing it at random. Jesus accomplished this, and much more. His life played out exactly as prophesiesed, even up to the crucifiction, which was fortold a century or more before that form of execution was invented.
And the Dead Sea Scrolls. These were texts keep by a Jewish sect called the Children of Light. About 25-33% of the text found were scriptural verses, and they are about 95% the same as the texts today. Considering that they are two thousand years old, and from an offshoot of mainstream Judaism, I would say that that speaks rather well to the accuracy of the bible we have today.
You can shout all of the poitically correct statements you want, and quote any half baked theory that pleases you, but I deal in facts. Christianity is not a religion that requires its believers to shut their eyes and disregard science; in fact, it is science that offered some of the strongest reasons for my conversion. What I have given you are some of the facts; there is more out there.
Your gut may tell you I am wrong. Your friends may tell you I am delusional. But science says that I am right.
It's just that in Trek, the "establishment" is idealized to the point of somehow being beyond corruption (in most of the episodes at least:), which is a nice ideal to strive for, rather than assuming that any sufficiently large organization must by nature be evil and tyranical.
History tells us that any sufficiently large organization will be corrupt. Institutional inertia, the thought that "I've got this whole big organization backing me" and "I'm just a cog in a wheel" all lead to this. This is a part of the Republican's (and to some extent the Libretarian's) push to get power out of the Federal government and into the States.
Brin makes a good argument that Lucas is bombarding us with propoganda in favor of aristocracy. That may not be an expressed intention, but that is the result. Star Trek is certainly idealistic, but it favors democracy
Star Wars: democracy grew too large, people grew too complacent, which leads to a "benevolant" dictatorship, which leads to an oppresive empire. Against all odds, the little guys have to fight against the oppressive empire, and manage to win. All the while a story of personal sin and redemption is told.
Star Trek: The system will take care of itself. The people within the system are enough of a restraining force to keep it in line.
The characters of both series have superhuman powers; Star Wars has the Force, Star Trek has the Federation's technology. Take all of that away (since it's really just candy), and you have those basic stories.
Which is more democratic? Which is more status quo?
From the link: Consider: Let's say Luke gets really mad during his "temptation" confrontation with the Emperor. Say he grabs up the light saber and kills Vader & the Emperor.
He's a soldier. IT'S HIS JOB!
That act won't make him evil. Even if he enjoys it!
He's not a soldier, he's a warrior. And yes, it would make him evil, or at least start him down that path. The Jews are some of the most coldly efficient warriors around, but their holy book tells them to love their enemy, and to wish harm to no one. Even a sinner loves those who love him, but a holy man loves everyone, and seeks their salvation. Sometimes, you have to fight. Sometimes, you have to kill. You never have to enjoy it. When fighting monsters, one must take care not to become a monster yourself.
67 books, unless you're one of those damn Catholics.:-)
Funny how ever archielogical discovery of biblical importance has supported biblical reports. The walls of Jehrico weren't stormed, they fell down on their own. For years, people though Solomon was make-believe; until they found a mile marker bearing his seal. The new testament has yet to be refuted by anything stronger than "I don't think that's how it was."
One of the things about storytelling is that there are only so many stories to be told. IIRC, the count stands somewhere around 18, with everything else being varriation on a theme and detail. So no, LOTR might not have been intended as an allegory, but someone can look at it and go "Sauron is a minion of the devil" or "the Ring represents the temptation to use power for one's own gain."
It does sadden me that a number of otherwise smart people make such a big deal about the Star Wars franchise. It's not like I have anything against epic geek entertainment: LOTR was fucking brilliant.
Was it really? Maybe for us, but we know what's going to happen later on. When they got to the top of that mountain an the credits started, the girl sitting next to me went "What? It's over? What they hell kind of ending is that?" Kind of like people did with Ep. 1.
I liked LOTR. I like Star Wars, too. It's easy to watch, it has good and evil, magic powers, temptation, and redemption. The characters don't have to say "fuck" all the time. The world has enough grey areas and heros who are only a step above the villains. Star Wars avoids that, and it very refreshing.
Neither of these articles look very favorable on Star Wars. They are entitled to their opinion, but I tend to disagree, at least on some points.
The Star Wars movies are not a visionary gift that we have been granted by Wise Sage Lucas. The Middichlorians never happened, much like Highlander 2. Jar Jar exists for the solepurpose of getting gibbed in Ep. 2. The movies as a whole are, however, very entertaining, and they do strike chords deep in our cultural selves.
I'll relate it to bibical history, since it's what I know. The Jedi may well harken back to the Lensmen (I don't know, this is the first I have heard of them), but they also harken back to the Judges of the Old Testament. Both are the leaders and protectors of their nation. Both are choosen and annointed by some higher power. Both have their heros, and those who fell from grace.
Both tell the tale of a youth that nobody expected much out of, but who went on to a great destiny; Luke Skywalker in SW, and one of the most consistant themes in the Bible is the choosing of the younger son, despite cultural norms
Both paint morality in terms of black and white, right and wrong. There are servants of good, servants of evil, and peopel caught in between.
The link above also rails against the redemption of Darth Vader, saying that is a moral outrage, but this is one of the clearest messages of the Bible; repent, and you will be forgiven. Everything is not magically made better in either case (Vader still dies in the end, after all), but your soul can be at peace.
I could go on, but I think you can see the parallels. Now, is Star Wars a religious experience? No. Is the Trash Compactor scene a re-telling of Jonnah and the Whale? No. But Star Wars does share common threads with many of our oldest stories. It is not surprising that it shares threads with other, modern stories, especially if they are drawing from the same archetypes.
The article I linked to goes on to compare SW and Star Trek, saying that ST paints a better future, one where technology is our friend, governments are beningn, and normal men can successfuly challenge these benign governments when parts of them get out of hand. It then asks "[w]where would you rather live, assuming you'll be a normal citizen and no demigod? In Roddenberry's Federation? Or Lucas' Empire?" Good question. A better one, though, is where are you more likely to live?
One of the things I like about Star Wars is that it takes an esentially believeable univers and adds space travel and magic. Technlogy sometimes fails. Ships get banged up now and then, and there isn't always a replicator around to whip up spare parts. 3PO has a silver leg because that's all they had laying around. And all-powerful governments are not benign; they are a thing to be fought, in just the same way our country was founded.
how about-
1. The 5% of software developers who work on commercial products can write in whatever they want to.
2. The other 95% of us will continue to write in a language that actually runs on a real OS.
I don't see how IBM could reverse this even if their intentions are good: Java2 can't shrink again, and we are stuck with the multitude of APIs that it has.
Wow, you're right. I totaly didn't understand that having a lot of useful APIs was such a bad thing. Thank you for showing me the light. I will now go back and start re-writing all of my code to use my own libraries.
Java was never meant to be a simple language. The goal of Java is to be "best of breed" in whatever it does. You can't do that without some good APIs, and Java's APIs, from both a utility and consistency viewpoint, are just about the best out there.
For a comparison, go through some C++ code and comment out every #include <iostream>, <stdlib>, any calls you might make to OpenGL or the MFC, etc etc.
I don't understand your point. If Brook's Law is valid, then it's useful not only in retrospect, but at any time, I think.
The main factor in Brook's Law is the time it takes a person to become familiar with a system. The farther along the development cycle a project is, the more complex it will be, the harder it will be for a developer to get a working feel for it, and thus the longer it will take for him/her to be useful to the project. If this developer is assigned some part of the code, one of two scenarios is likely: one, that the rest of the team will be held up waiting for the newbie to grok the system and churn out some working code, or two, that the developer will start hacking away without the requisite knowledge of the system, and the rest of the team will spend time dealing with the newbie's errors. It is also important to note that "newbie" in this sense does not have to mean an inexperienced coder; just someone who doesn't know the system that is being worked on.
If you add developers early on in the cycle, the system will be less complex and easier to understand, and the time waiting for a developer to become useful will then be less than for a project that is further along.
Of course, if the modules are well thought out and self contained, knowledge of the rest of the system isn't really necessary, as long as your module communicates the way it is expected to. This will allow people to be added to particular tasks and not interfere with the other developers. For example, I would be rather useless as an EMACS developer, but I might be able to jump in on a new text editor project, or write some new modes.
Anyway, to apply Brook's Law, one must weigh the time it will take a developer to become useful, and the errors he/she might introduce to the system, and that developer's potential contribution. This can be done at any time, but the ratio is more likely to be unfavorable the longer the project has been in development. For some projects, you also might want to consider "addition by subtraction," cutting the deadwood and letting everyone else get to work.
How does this work? I'm fairly sure that even IE won't let you write to the hard drive (which, IIRC, is required to change the look/feel of IE.
I have no idea how this works, though my off-the-cuff guess is CSS and javascript, but VBScript lets you do damn near anything. Horrible security model, and the reason for all of those wonderful outlook-spread viri.
1) Annoying your market is not good business pracitce.
2) Useful/Interesting attracts attention. Banners get ignored. Anything more in-your-face gets people to stop coming to your site.
3) Spoof 'em.
4) See 3.
Quiz: name one innovative Linux/free software/Open Source(TM) technology.
What's that I hear? The sweet sound of silence.
No, it's the sweet sound of SAMBA.
Microsoft is afraid of the GPL because it thinks, for no particular reason, that it is anti-capitalist.
What is your particular reason that the GNU philosophy of free software is pro-capitalism? Oh. "No particular reason?" I see now... double standards.
It is anti-capitalis; or, at the least, not pro-capitalist. Take a look at ESR's Homesteading the Noosphere. He does a very good job of explaining how the open-source community works. In essence, it is based not on an exchange-for-goods culture, where status is won by being the one with the most toys, but on a gift culture, where status is won by giving the best toys to the community.
One of the things he discusses is that this type of culture can only arise when people are not concerned with meeting their basic needs. Since they are not all that concerned with "getting stuff," focus turns to "getting prestiege."
A lot of this is fairly common sense, if you think about it, but this paper is well thought out, well written, and makes a facinating read.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell me this. If GPL be such strong competition and all that, why do they need some judge to save they a$$?
Because MS has illegally abused their monopolistic position in the market to cut the air supply to its competition.
When ya'll are better than M$ ya'll know it cause you won't need no judges or no punk DOJ bustas.
I use MS (or other closed source) products when I find them useful. I use GPLed products when I find them useful. Most of the people here know what is better, and when. The rest of the world, though, has by and large been denied the chance to learn that for themselves.
that does not help GPL developers
Not to sound too harsh, but really, cry me a river. Thanks to the rather strict requirements of the GPL, it's really not too hard to come up with something, even in good faith, that doesn't play with the GPL. Witness the QPL or old BSD licenses.
Yes, but remember, this punishment is supposed to hurt microsoft and help the competition. This is not about FSF or GPL evangalism; this is about settling an anti-trust case. I am running WindowsXP now, posting from IE; I'm not a zellot. I do recognize, however, that a settlement that forbids what MS has called its cheif competition from taking advantage of the said settlement is worthless.
And since "Company Implementation" refers specifically to "portions of software that implement CIFS.." (section 1.2), and not the software itself, I still don't see why it would be a problem to link against LGPL modules.
To be honest, IANAL, and I can't comment insightfully one way or the other on the LGPL, though I tend to agree with you. It is the #define $(IPR_IMPAIRING_LICENSE) part that bothers me.
Both the MS and GPL are trying to control the behavior of others.
True, but in different scopes. MS has and is abusing a monopoly; they can make others do what they want. GPL software only makes you play by their rules if you intend to piggyback on the work of others.
That is very true...I'm probably going to get a Mac as my next desktop. I would love to see MS required to keep releasing Office, etc. for the Mac. I would also love to see Mac release OSX for the x86 world. They kind of go hand in hand...and neither are likely to happen. C'est la vie.
Also, Linux is more of a threat to MS on the server side than the client side...that was what I was thinking about when I first posted, and why I forgot about Apple.
It's their code, they can licence it however they damn well please.
That's what "freedom" is all about. You get to choose how your code can be used. MS has decided, now it's up to us to honor that decision.
Otherwise, you have no right to expect anyone to respect licences like the GPL.
Normally, you would be right, but Microsoft has been found guilty of illegaly abusing a monopoly. This trial is in the penalty phase, not the "did they do it or not" phase; Microsoft is being punished.
The very heart of "punishment" means that Microsoft is going to have to do things that they do not want to. The fact that this is an anti-trust trial means that they are going to have to do things that hurt themselves and help their competition. GPL software represents some of their strongest competition, so a "punishment" that does not help GPL developers is not a punishment at all. Remember, they have been abusing their competitors and their customers.
In the past, when Microsoft did whatever they damn well pleased, they broke the law. They cannot continue to do whatever they damn well please to correct this.
The trouble is, most geeks think all learning is the adoption of propositions and the assignation of truth values to them, so they have no sense of how other modalities are used to communicate.
I don't think so...I am more concerned with collecting reasonsnable accurate facts, assigning them a context, and figuring out when they might apply in simmilar context. Very little of what I know or do is based on "if x, then y", and I doubt that that is the case for many people at all, geeks especially. One of our specialties is pattern matching/association.
Hell no!
The best thing we can do to keep our computers free is to buy as many CDs and DVDs as we can afford.
The best this we can to to keep out computers free is to elect people that know what the Bill of Rights is, institute term limits so our "representatives" aren't so worried about building next year's war chest, and passing laws to keep Hollywood/corporate money out of our political process.
You want to talk about great power and great responsibility? The founders of this country gave us more power than any other citizenry in any other country. It is our responsibility to defend that. Buying CDs and DVDs just so WeOwnEveryting, Inc. will keep their damned hands off of our rights is just admitting defeat; it is tantamount to saying "we acknowledge that you have the power to take away our rights, but if we keep you happy, will you please leave us alone?" That is utter crap.
Not true. What Java lacks is dynamic binding / linking. For example, take two classes - Obj1 and Obj2. Obj1 can't be compiled if it makes a method call to Obj2 and doesn't have some sort of reference to that object - like a header file. A true OO programming language would allow you to do this because everything is linked at run time.
Um, nope. Dynamic binding and linking means that classtype is determined at runtime; for example, if class sphere is a subclass of type circle, a sphere object can be referenced by a pointer to circle. If linking is done dynamically, if sphere ovverides any of circle's functions, the sphere methods will be called. If linking is dynamic, the circle methods will be called. All linking in java is dynamic; by default, C++ is static, hence the virtual keyword.
Nope, I added too much carelessness...you're right. Also, "damn Catholics" is kind of a runnig joke with me; some of my best friends are catholic. I don't despise them, and I don't really have anything against the Apocrypha; I just don't consider it inspired by God. Neither do the Jews of today, or the Jews of 2000 years ago.
Let me know when they find that the world really _was_ created in 6 days, ok? And is floating in a bubble with water below and water above...
You're going to love this one. Genesis records creation as six days, science as roughly 15.75 billion years. That is a difference of magniuted of about a million-million. Seems pretty damming, doesn't it?
Cosmic time is measured by Cosmic Background Radiation; in essence, the speed of light and redshift can be used to determine how long ago something happened. Today, the CRB (or the tempurature of vaccume) is about 2.73 degrees Kelvin. At the time of the Big Bang, however, it was millions upon millions of times greater, since the radiation was spread over a universe that was millions upon millions of times smaller. As the universe expanded, the average ammount of radiation fell, and the clock of the universe slowed down. I'm not going to walk through the calculus and relativity involved, but from the inside of the universe, it took us nearly 16 billion years to get where we are now, but from an outside obserever, it would have taken...yep...six days. Check out The Science of God by Gerald L. Schroeder if you don't believe me. He is a PHD from MIT.
Thing is, Arthurian legends have only had to survive 1500 years, and they're all screwed up. Robin Hood has got nice and twisted in 800 years. Yet the Bible is supposed to be word-perfect after 4000 years?
Rabbis from that time period were known for having the entire old testament commited to memory. They were also meticulous about copying their manuscripts...if a single flaw was found in a copy, it was burned. I'll get a bit more into this when you mention the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Empires come and go in a century or so; all we know is that there was a fairly powerful king at one point. Ditto your Solomon - except that here, we only know that there was a king, and there's nothing else. There could have been 1 Solomon or 1000, we don't know.
Wrong. Solomon was considered fiction by a great many people for a long time, until they started finding his seal all over the place. We can look at the Arthurian legend and see what inspired it, but we can look at the Bible and see evidence that it is true. You don't find markers or vases or coins with Arthur's crest on it, but you can see these same things bearing the mark of Solomon. He was a real, historical figure, and he left tracks.
The New Testament is full of inaccuracies. Jesus's lineage to David is incredibly tenuous. The date of Jesus's birth can't be fixed, bcos the Roman governor mentioned wasn't around at the time of a census. A whole bunch of the "prophesies" mentioned by the four main writers are junk, if you cross-reference them back. And then there's the theory (most famously used by Neal Stephenson in "Snow Crash") that the whole Pentecostal thing is fiction.
Cite, please. Just one fact, if you could. All you have is "I don't think so," and "well, there are theories that say it's bunk."
The most common theory about the lineage of Jesus was that one Gospel writer traced it back through his father, and one through his mother. This would have been done due to the Jewish customs of how title and property were inherited.
As for the Roman governor you mentioned; Herod died around 4 B.C, and Quirinius began to rule in A.D. 6...looks like you are right. Except that there was another man named Quirinius (which is a Roman name; it would not be uncommon for such a name to be shared by two people, just as there are a lot of guys named "Thomas" running around today) who served as procounsul of Syria from 11 B.C. on...he is the man who would have conducted the census.
There are hundreds prophecies that the Jews considered mesianic long before Jesus ever appeared on Earth. The chance of fulfilling just eight of these in one lifetime is 1 in 100 million billion, millions of times greater than the number of people who have ever lived. That would be like covering the entire state of Texas in silver dollars two feet deep, marking one, and the choosing it at random. Jesus accomplished this, and much more. His life played out exactly as prophesiesed, even up to the crucifiction, which was fortold a century or more before that form of execution was invented.
And the Dead Sea Scrolls. These were texts keep by a Jewish sect called the Children of Light. About 25-33% of the text found were scriptural verses, and they are about 95% the same as the texts today. Considering that they are two thousand years old, and from an offshoot of mainstream Judaism, I would say that that speaks rather well to the accuracy of the bible we have today.
You can shout all of the poitically correct statements you want, and quote any half baked theory that pleases you, but I deal in facts. Christianity is not a religion that requires its believers to shut their eyes and disregard science; in fact, it is science that offered some of the strongest reasons for my conversion. What I have given you are some of the facts; there is more out there.
Your gut may tell you I am wrong. Your friends may tell you I am delusional. But science says that I am right.
It's just that in Trek, the "establishment" is idealized to the point of somehow being beyond corruption (in most of the episodes at least :), which is a nice ideal to strive for, rather than assuming that any sufficiently large organization must by nature be evil and tyranical.
History tells us that any sufficiently large organization will be corrupt. Institutional inertia, the thought that "I've got this whole big organization backing me" and "I'm just a cog in a wheel" all lead to this. This is a part of the Republican's (and to some extent the Libretarian's) push to get power out of the Federal government and into the States.
Brin makes a good argument that Lucas is bombarding us with propoganda in favor of aristocracy. That may not be an expressed intention, but that is the result. Star Trek is certainly idealistic, but it favors democracy
Star Wars: democracy grew too large, people grew too complacent, which leads to a "benevolant" dictatorship, which leads to an oppresive empire. Against all odds, the little guys have to fight against the oppressive empire, and manage to win. All the while a story of personal sin and redemption is told.
Star Trek: The system will take care of itself. The people within the system are enough of a restraining force to keep it in line.
The characters of both series have superhuman powers; Star Wars has the Force, Star Trek has the Federation's technology. Take all of that away (since it's really just candy), and you have those basic stories.
Which is more democratic? Which is more status quo?
From the link: Consider: Let's say Luke gets really mad during his "temptation" confrontation with the Emperor. Say he grabs up the light saber and kills Vader & the Emperor.
He's a soldier. IT'S HIS JOB!
That act won't make him evil. Even if he enjoys it!
He's not a soldier, he's a warrior. And yes, it would make him evil, or at least start him down that path. The Jews are some of the most coldly efficient warriors around, but their holy book tells them to love their enemy, and to wish harm to no one. Even a sinner loves those who love him, but a holy man loves everyone, and seeks their salvation. Sometimes, you have to fight. Sometimes, you have to kill. You never have to enjoy it. When fighting monsters, one must take care not to become a monster yourself.
67 books, unless you're one of those damn Catholics. :-)
Funny how ever archielogical discovery of biblical importance has supported biblical reports. The walls of Jehrico weren't stormed, they fell down on their own. For years, people though Solomon was make-believe; until they found a mile marker bearing his seal. The new testament has yet to be refuted by anything stronger than "I don't think that's how it was."
One of the things about storytelling is that there are only so many stories to be told. IIRC, the count stands somewhere around 18, with everything else being varriation on a theme and detail. So no, LOTR might not have been intended as an allegory, but someone can look at it and go "Sauron is a minion of the devil" or "the Ring represents the temptation to use power for one's own gain."
It does sadden me that a number of otherwise smart people make such a big deal about the Star Wars franchise. It's not like I have anything against epic geek entertainment: LOTR was fucking brilliant.
Was it really? Maybe for us, but we know what's going to happen later on. When they got to the top of that mountain an the credits started, the girl sitting next to me went "What? It's over? What they hell kind of ending is that?" Kind of like people did with Ep. 1.
I liked LOTR. I like Star Wars, too. It's easy to watch, it has good and evil, magic powers, temptation, and redemption. The characters don't have to say "fuck" all the time. The world has enough grey areas and heros who are only a step above the villains. Star Wars avoids that, and it very refreshing.
I read this article, and an article it linked to, "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists
Neither of these articles look very favorable on Star Wars. They are entitled to their opinion, but I tend to disagree, at least on some points.
The Star Wars movies are not a visionary gift that we have been granted by Wise Sage Lucas. The Middichlorians never happened, much like Highlander 2. Jar Jar exists for the solepurpose of getting gibbed in Ep. 2. The movies as a whole are, however, very entertaining, and they do strike chords deep in our cultural selves.
I'll relate it to bibical history, since it's what I know. The Jedi may well harken back to the Lensmen (I don't know, this is the first I have heard of them), but they also harken back to the Judges of the Old Testament. Both are the leaders and protectors of their nation. Both are choosen and annointed by some higher power. Both have their heros, and those who fell from grace.
Both tell the tale of a youth that nobody expected much out of, but who went on to a great destiny; Luke Skywalker in SW, and one of the most consistant themes in the Bible is the choosing of the younger son, despite cultural norms
Both paint morality in terms of black and white, right and wrong. There are servants of good, servants of evil, and peopel caught in between.
The link above also rails against the redemption of Darth Vader, saying that is a moral outrage, but this is one of the clearest messages of the Bible; repent, and you will be forgiven. Everything is not magically made better in either case (Vader still dies in the end, after all), but your soul can be at peace.
I could go on, but I think you can see the parallels. Now, is Star Wars a religious experience? No. Is the Trash Compactor scene a re-telling of Jonnah and the Whale? No. But Star Wars does share common threads with many of our oldest stories. It is not surprising that it shares threads with other, modern stories, especially if they are drawing from the same archetypes.
The article I linked to goes on to compare SW and Star Trek, saying that ST paints a better future, one where technology is our friend, governments are beningn, and normal men can successfuly challenge these benign governments when parts of them get out of hand. It then asks "[w]where would you rather live, assuming you'll be a normal citizen and no demigod? In Roddenberry's Federation? Or Lucas' Empire?" Good question. A better one, though, is where are you more likely to live?
One of the things I like about Star Wars is that it takes an esentially believeable univers and adds space travel and magic. Technlogy sometimes fails. Ships get banged up now and then, and there isn't always a replicator around to whip up spare parts. 3PO has a silver leg because that's all they had laying around. And all-powerful governments are not benign; they are a thing to be fought, in just the same way our country was founded.
how about-
1. The 5% of software developers who work on commercial products can write in whatever they want to.
2. The other 95% of us will continue to write in a language that actually runs on a real OS.
I don't see how IBM could reverse this even if their intentions are good: Java2 can't shrink again, and we are stuck with the multitude of APIs that it has.
Wow, you're right. I totaly didn't understand that having a lot of useful APIs was such a bad thing. Thank you for showing me the light. I will now go back and start re-writing all of my code to use my own libraries.
Java was never meant to be a simple language. The goal of Java is to be "best of breed" in whatever it does. You can't do that without some good APIs, and Java's APIs, from both a utility and consistency viewpoint, are just about the best out there.
For a comparison, go through some C++ code and comment out every #include <iostream>, <stdlib>, any calls you might make to OpenGL or the MFC, etc etc.
I don't understand your point. If Brook's Law is valid, then it's useful not only in retrospect, but at any time, I think.
The main factor in Brook's Law is the time it takes a person to become familiar with a system. The farther along the development cycle a project is, the more complex it will be, the harder it will be for a developer to get a working feel for it, and thus the longer it will take for him/her to be useful to the project. If this developer is assigned some part of the code, one of two scenarios is likely: one, that the rest of the team will be held up waiting for the newbie to grok the system and churn out some working code, or two, that the developer will start hacking away without the requisite knowledge of the system, and the rest of the team will spend time dealing with the newbie's errors. It is also important to note that "newbie" in this sense does not have to mean an inexperienced coder; just someone who doesn't know the system that is being worked on.
If you add developers early on in the cycle, the system will be less complex and easier to understand, and the time waiting for a developer to become useful will then be less than for a project that is further along. Of course, if the modules are well thought out and self contained, knowledge of the rest of the system isn't really necessary, as long as your module communicates the way it is expected to. This will allow people to be added to particular tasks and not interfere with the other developers. For example, I would be rather useless as an EMACS developer, but I might be able to jump in on a new text editor project, or write some new modes.
Anyway, to apply Brook's Law, one must weigh the time it will take a developer to become useful, and the errors he/she might introduce to the system, and that developer's potential contribution. This can be done at any time, but the ratio is more likely to be unfavorable the longer the project has been in development. For some projects, you also might want to consider "addition by subtraction," cutting the deadwood and letting everyone else get to work.
How does this work? I'm fairly sure that even IE won't let you write to the hard drive (which, IIRC, is required to change the look/feel of IE.
I have no idea how this works, though my off-the-cuff guess is CSS and javascript, but VBScript lets you do damn near anything. Horrible security model, and the reason for all of those wonderful outlook-spread viri.
How about this:
1) Annoying your market is not good business pracitce.
2) Useful/Interesting attracts attention. Banners get ignored. Anything more in-your-face gets people to stop coming to your site.
3) Spoof 'em.
4) See 3.
Quiz: name one innovative Linux/free software/Open Source(TM) technology.
What's that I hear? The sweet sound of silence.
No, it's the sweet sound of SAMBA.
Microsoft is afraid of the GPL because it thinks, for no particular reason, that it is anti-capitalist.
What is your particular reason that the GNU philosophy of free software is pro-capitalism? Oh. "No particular reason?" I see now... double standards.
It is anti-capitalis; or, at the least, not pro-capitalist. Take a look at ESR's Homesteading the Noosphere . He does a very good job of explaining how the open-source community works. In essence, it is based not on an exchange-for-goods culture, where status is won by being the one with the most toys, but on a gift culture, where status is won by giving the best toys to the community.
One of the things he discusses is that this type of culture can only arise when people are not concerned with meeting their basic needs. Since they are not all that concerned with "getting stuff," focus turns to "getting prestiege."
A lot of this is fairly common sense, if you think about it, but this paper is well thought out, well written, and makes a facinating read.
No, no, no....it's
echo 'y' | format c: