If pollution is causing unnatural global warming, then we can't wait until said warming is undeniable fact before we act.
That's quite an assertion. Can you justify it? If so, you're far ahead of most folks: I've never heard a logical justification for that idea.
I suggest an experiment: let's attempt to drastically reduce our emissions, as if we were addressing a real global warming problem.
So, let's consider two cases:
a) Human action really is causing global warming, and we don't take action. Agriculture improves, due to warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons. Climate changes may (or may not) kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, but most folks wind up slightly better off, in the long run.
b) Human action isn't causing warming, and we do something. Millions, or even tens of millions die because of the ``something'' we do. Reducing emissions worldwide will reduce standards of living worldwide, and tens of millions are hovering on the brink of starvation already. All of us wind up worse off in the long run.
I'd say that action for the sake of action is a really bad idea.
Re:At least I'm not the only one!
on
GNOME for Grandma
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I just installed Office 2003 on my laptop here:
1. Put the CD in the drive
2. Enter the registration key
3. Select "Complete Installation"
4. Wait and watch the blinkenlights
That was it. Nothing squirrely there, I'm afraid.
Compare that to
#apt-get install openoffice.org
or a couple of clicks in Synaptic. Steps 2 and 3 are pretty squirrely compared to that and if you have a net connection, step 1 should seem a bit weird, as well.
It's not just Debian that's this easy: Gentoo and *BSD folks tell me it's that easy for them too.
I have to admit that MS does have us beaten in the blinkenlights department. Blinkenlights have obviously been a top priority throughout their corporate history.
>>Answer: Is your work a derivative of the
>>GPLed code or not? Derivative works must also be >>GPLed. I'm inclined to think that the >>situation you describe would be a pretty clear >>example of a derivative work.
>Then so would the binary drivers of all the
>vendors. Wrong.
>If the parent's program is a binary _patch_ , it
>doesn't have to be GPLed. The recipient is free to
>download the original (unpatched) code under GPL.
This is addressed in the FAQ for the GPL:
Can you distribute your changes as a diff to the original GPLed code, rather than distributing the source to the full program? No. So, wheather you are distributing your patch as a diff against the source, or as a binary patch, you must distribute all the source to what the end user runs, if you choose to distribute at all.
So, what's wrong with your logic about binary drivers? I haven't a clue. Perhaps if you explain yourself, we can figure out where you went wrong, but I'd suggest that you spend some time studying the GPL first. Try taking the quiz, too.
Scenario: I write program which builds on GPLed code. But I choose to distribute my program as a binary patch. The end user needs to get the GPLed code/binary from somewhere else, then he applies the binary patch and gets my functionality. Is my code bounded by GPL or not?
Answer: Is your work a derivative of the GPLed code or not? Derivative works must also be GPLed. I'm inclined to think that the situation you describe would be a pretty clear example of a derivative work.
It is the governments responsibility to keep us from getting injured. I will praise any Senator that proposes we outlaw knifes, forks, chopsticks. Who know what we can do to ourselves with them.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of chopsticks? The Shadow knows (yes, the link is workplace safe).
Is there anything that Microsoft has been sued for "illegally integrating" that a Linux distribution or Mac would be caught dead without?
No, nothing. But, there is a big difference between Redhat bundling Mozilla, Lynx and Konqueror, and a convicted monopolist integrating its browser into its OS so that the browser cannot be removed.
First, we have the fact that any of the Linux browsers can be replaced, without buggering up the OS. Second, we have the fact that the intent and effect isn't to lock out competitors, but rather to serve customers. Third, we have the fact that Apple, Redhat and the many others haven't been convicted of illegally abusing their monopoly power.
Monopoly or no monopoly, a modern OS requires an internet browser and a video player.
True, but pointless. MS uses its browser and its video player to keep its hand in your wallet, and to kill off competition. Debian uses its browser and video player to browse the internet, and to watch videos. The difference is in the intent, as expressed by actions, of MS and everyone else. I think that's a significant difference.
We might think that the antitrust laws are a bad idea, and maybe even that they should be repealed. For the moment, however, they are the law of the land, and allowing any person or organization to flout the law is only going to breed lawlessness and disrespect for laws in general. Until those laws are repealed, they need to be enforced, effectively.
They're going to sell through Walmart? They're going to have to deal with high volumes, low, _low_ margins and there will be absolutely no question of offering support or even quality.
Yes, Walmart offers quality merchandise, but Sun offers _quality_, and Sun's kind of quality doesn't retail for $399.99. Sun will have their boxes made in China or Elbonia by slave labor for peanuts, and soon, Walmart and the sweatshop owners will cut Sun out of the deal. Instead of generic PCs with Staroffice and the Sun logo for $399.99, we'll see generic PCs with Openoffice and some more stylish logo for $389.99.
I've seen a shop which was making a go of it selling a few high-margin systems try to go into low-margin retail. It didn't work, and it spelled the end of the business. I think that's coming here.
... if I was given a job, I'll try my darn best to do it well (IRS tax system included).
Well, I did say that those perverse incentives had nothing to do with the problems. I'm sure that it's the usual amalgam of unrealistic specifications, creeping featuritis, management by committee, and so on, which afflicts pretty much every large project.
Remember ``The Bridge on the River Kwai'' ? Professional pride can get folks to do some crazy things, including shoot themselves in the foot for the public good (think whistle-blowers), or sabatoge their own side's war effort (in that movie), or make it easier for a particularly nasty bureaucracy to do harm.
I would guess that most of the people working on the project are pretty frustrated by the progress it's making, and would be very proud of themselves if they got things back on track. I would also guess that most of them have thought, at one time or another: ``It's a good thing we're not getting all the government we're paying for.''
My point was that any one of the taxpayers who's working on that is going to realize that if it fails, despite his best efforts, there's a bright side: he won't have to worry about his past tax returns coming back to haunt him. The tax code is complex enough, and confusing enough, that everyone is in some danger from the IRS, no matter how hard they try to pay all their taxes.
The Master File is used to determine if you've paid what you owe, and without it the government would have no way to flag returns for audits, pursue tax evaders or even know how much money is or should be flowing into its coffers.
So, if you're a U.S. taxpayer working on the system, you have to be aware that success is going to mean more audits, while disasterous failure is going to mean no chance of those old mid-April indiscretions[1] ever coming back to haunt you.
Hmmmm... what to do, what to do... Stretch out the job and the paycheck, and hope the antiquated system fails catastrophically, or make an honest effort to get the new system on line before that happens?
Of course, I'm sure that has nothing to do with the current difficulties. Seriously.
[1] In the U.S., tax returns (complete with check) are due on 15 April.
How could you not keep some little, vital secrets? How could you not allow critical misconceptions to go uncorrected? In short, how could you resist the temptation to totally, subtly screw up the guy you're training? Make sure that you don't pass on any crucial contacts, ``accidently'' erase or corrupt vital documents on your last day, the possibilities seem endless.
Even if the guy you're training is well qualified, there is probably enough that is peculiar to your company and your job that you could do this. He might know that he's not getting the full story, but he won't know what you're leaving out.
It seems to me that this is really asking for trouble, particularly for higher level jobs where the work isn't easily supervised. The story suggests that there are no counter-incentives to this, and I'm not sure how you could build any in, at least under U.S. labor law.
I view Knoppix as a threat to adoption of Linux, risking marginalizing it as a toy or OS suitable for casual flirtation but undeserving of space on a harddrive.
I've been handing Knoppix disks out to computer illiterate folks I know. They can use it as a toy, and get used to the idea that Linux is something they can use. Knoppix has some little games, a nice web browser, they can write stuff, they can get pictures from their digital cameras (I do have to show them how to do the last two things, since there aren't icons on the desktop for ``write a paper'' and ``digital camera''.).
For these guys, Knoppix means exposure to Linux, and just a little bit of familiarity and de-mistification. The lack of commitment is vital here: these guys are deathly afraid of screwing up their machines. This is definitely casual flirtation, but that's a huge step forward with this crowd.
I've been giving Knoppix disks to computer literate friends, too. For them, it's a chance to find out that Linux really does work on their hardware, that they really can do their work on it (they suspect that's true, so they're interested), and that they really can install it and keep it up to date.
For this bunch, there is usually some Linux application that they want to run, but the new set of system administration tasks and the installation difficulty scares them off. With Knoppix, they can see how easy it is to install, and they can seriously evaluate it. This is FAR from casual flirtation! Not all of this crowd winds up using Linux daily, but most of them wind up with it on their hard drives, and their minds are opened a bit.
Over all, I'd say that Knoppix is doing a lot of good. It's letting people progress a lot farther towards using Linux than they would ever go without this sort of distribution.
But if such a database managed to be some 99.95% accurate...
If it managed to be that good, it would be a miracle. But still, 0.05(260)10^6=13,000,000 people who are on the list, but aren't terrorists.
Just to make things worse, it doesn't have to be anywhere near that good, as long as people think it's that good. As you pointed out, if people believe it's infallible, they'll drag their own mother out of the nursing home and pack her off to jail when she shows up on the list.
Even if the false positives are far rarer than you proposed, there will still be too many. If good folks are excluded with 99.999% accuracy, that's still 2,600 false positives.
That's the problem of false positives, and it's a serious problem indeed. The problem of false negatives might be even worse. If people (especially law enforcement people) believe that this database has essentially all terrorists in it, we will be less safe with the data base than without.
Say that there are only half a million terrorists in the world; people who are willing and able to do something like the murders in Spain, or the murders on 9/11. On no particular evidence, I think that's a low estimate.
The 9/11 murders seem to have taken less than 50 people to plan and execute. If the database contains 99.99% of the 500,000 genuine terrorists, that leaves 50 who aren't in the database, and can procede freely, because the police effort is being wasted on the 13,499,950 people in the database. That number in the data base is the 0.05% who are wrongly suspected in the U.S., and the 99.99% of terrorists who are rightly suspected.
Even if there are only 2,600 false positives at any given moment, that still dilutes law enforcement efforts. More seriously, law enforcement is quite likely to believe that all they have to do is watch the ones they know about, and they'll be easily blindsided by the ones they haven't yet found. The mess at Columbine highschool a few years ago shows that the only way to stop all murders is to lock up every one. We'd better lock up the cops too... some of them might go bad.
I'd say that all we can accomplish with this sort of thing (except making things difficult for the current administration's detractors[1]) is provide some excellent cover for hundreds of really dangerous terrorists, at the expense of everyone's freedom.
[1] Every administration in modern times has been accused, with considerable justification, of abusing the FBI and IRS to that end.
>>... that can make even a complete agnostic feel in control.
>... in real life, that's actually an illusion.
>(And do look up the meaning of "agnostic" some time.)
Just a quibble: an agnostic is someone who claims no knowledge. Bertrand Russel tells us:
What Is an agnostic?
An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.
So, by a natural extension from the theological usage, even someone who believes that computers are impossible to understand can have the illusion of control when using MS. As you point out, that control is only an illusion.
Why do you assume making money and making an effective OS are mutually exclusive?
Experience?
Think of Amiga, Sun, DEC and SGI, all of whom had more-or-less effective OSs, and all of whom are either already dead, or hurting.
Think of MS, who has gotten rich with an ``OS'' (Win3.1) which was decades behind Amiga, even though it came out years after.
My motivation for home schooling would be... I also worry about friends and socialization.
It's funny that you should raise the matter of socializing homeschooled children; I just posted a long rant on that yesterday. Since I want to keep this nickname semi-anonymous, I'll cut and paste it below, rather than linking to the original.
It's a long read, by slashdot standards, so here's the summary: socialization is what you do at home. What the schools do prevents socialization. If you want your children to learn to be responsible, mature adults, don't lock them away with a bunch of fellow children!
This was written in response to an attack by an NEA shill, so references to ``you'' are to the shill, not you.
I was homeschooled, and my children are homeschooled today.
The ``socialization'' you are commending is one of the primary reasons
that I would never consign children to a warehouse school.
Socialization is exposing children to society; school, where children
are confined in an artificial environment, allowed to interact only
with others their own age, is about as far from normal society as you
can get.
When you confine children with others their own age, and give them
the supervision of a few adults, what you get is a tame version of
Lord of the Flies. The children will form their own society, and most
of us won't find it an acceptable one. The children will form
attachments to their peer group which are more influential than their
attachments to their parents. Do you really think it's better for
your child to model himself after the cool kid in class than after
you? Or maybe you'd prefer that he model himself after the stoners,
if the cool kids reject him?
The warehoused children I have met usually show several pathologies.
Most of them are uncomfortable alone; they can't amuse themselves.
Boredom is learned, and children learn it at school. The non-stop
busy-ness of the warehouse schools leaves no time for reflection, and
no time to learn to think for one's self. Most homeschooled children
learn to educate and amuse themselves.
Though there may be a few exceptions, I suspect that most
homeschooling parents are too busy to provide the non-stop busyness
and diversion that the warehouse schools find necessary to keep the
little savages under control. Furthermore, the parents can use
effective methods of discipline, the methods which work for their
child, so they don't have to resort to trying to keep him entertained.
Few of the warehoused children can interact comfortably with adults.
This is one of the most important characteristics that homeschooling
builds: children learn how adults behave. Warehoused children get to
see their teachers trying to manipulate them to maintain order, and
their parents pressuring them to do their homework and eat their
vegetables. The only other adult role models they see are in sitcoms
and horror shows on TV, and they spend more time with them than with
their parents. Homeschooled children, even if they watch TV, will
spend more time with real adults in real, unstructured settings, and
spend more time conversing with adults.
Too few of the warehoused children can read, and none read literature,
or are able to discuss literature with adults. There is a reason that
the training of future leaders has included study of literature for as
long as there has been writing. There is a reason that it's not
encouraged in the warehouse schools today, too: it leads one to ask
questions, and that might be disruptive. Most of this nation's
leaders don't send their own children to the public schools.
I find the warehoused children to be ``wise in their own eyes'': they
have a totally unjustified faith in their own wisdom. Homeschooled
children spend enough time with adults to know that adults know more
than they do. Most of them (certainly not all) are more willing to
consider the advice of adults. Is that the ``immaturity'' you
noticed?
If you read the second paragraph, at the top of the page, you see:
Theories on the goals of the facility range from the use of radio (such as a 200 kW wireless system) to putting a charge on the Earth itself. Wardenclyffe purposes that have been proposed include a variant of wireless telecommunications and broadcasting to a power plant, additionally some have offered the construction could be used for a weapon.
They don't say it explicitly (and I admit they should!) but it is obvious that no one knows what its function was.
Here's a thought: the people who can't understand him, and don't care enough about him to try, aren't his peers!
Peer doesn't mean ``same age'', peer means ``one's equals''. The people he's having troubles with (if he's as bright as everyone here seems to be assuming) aren't his equals, and he shouldn't be socializing with them. He should be socializing with intelligent, mature adults. By spending time with them, he'll learn, by example, to be an intelligent, mature adult.
The kid in question also needs to learn to interact with his mental inferiors (I'm assuming that the description you were following is correct) without discomforting them. He shouldn't be trying to learn to be a stupid, immature jerk, so he can fit in with the kids his own age.
I'm an economist, ABD (All of a Ph.D But the Dissertation) in economics. I have two years experience, both acquired on this job.
I work for a state government, and get about US$50K per year, plus decent health benefits and a pension plan. I get also about $6800 in a tax-deferred savings plan, instead of social security (Social security is the U.S. version of your NI.).
My tax rate last year was negative: my refund for federal income tax was larger than what was withheld from my pay. The situation this year should be similar. I have a wife and three kids, which explains most of the favorable tax treatment.
My net pay is about US$3500 per month, plus the benefits. I pay about US$1200 per year in property tax, and a 5% sales tax on most things I buy locally (food and heating oil included!).
Health service here is fair, but this is a small town and we have to travel to the big city for the big-time specialists.
The state pension is decent: for me, it's going to be slightly over 2% for each year served of the average of my three highest years salary, plus health insurance, beginning at age sixty.
It may sound as if I'm doing fairly well, but my family's income is well below the median for this area, and I'm getting some welfare (dole, to you English) money. It's only about $20 to $30 a week, but it's helpful.
For example, one language (Chinese) does not really easily allow you to talk to another person unless you know their status in relation to yours (social superior, social inferior, social equal).
BZZZZZZZZT! WRONG!
Sorry, that's not Chinese.
Chinese doesn't require any knowledge of relative or absolute social status. Perhaps you were thinking of Japanese? My Japanese friends tell me that social status is a part of the Japanese language, exactly as you described.
Now take another language, English, where it is very difficult to talk about a person unless you know whether they are a man or a woman.
Wrong again, and this time you gave me a counter example. Proper English grammer would call for using: ``... unless you know whether he is a man or a woman.''. But that, or your common error, avoids the need to know the sex of the object of the sentence.
However, I'd be willing to bet that if you asked English speakers and Chinese speakers if they knew of people, but did not know their gender[sic] (and perhaps the number of people who have that status), I would expect English speakers would have a lower "Yes" response.
I'll ask some Chinese speakers that. I really doubt that you're right on this. We don't pay attention to a person's sex (not gender) because it's part of the language, we pay attention to this because we care. Language doesn't change that.
If the US bans FOSS I'll renounce my US citizenship and move to Canada.
I think you'd want to reverse the order, wouldn't you? Canada has a nasty immigration bureaucracy, though it's a pale imitation of ours. I wouldn't count on getting in, especially if you don't have a graduate degree in a field they are desperate for this week.
No, I say it on the basis of probability, in light of what I regard as the available empirical evidence. If you have a better evidence than I've heard so far, I'm open to listening to it -- though I have to say that I don't expect to be convinced.
No, no evidence. My point was that any argument which supports your side can equally well support the other. All it takes is a change of belief. One of the reasons that I'm no longer an athiest is that I noticed that everything I thought was a proof of God's non-existance was also being touted as a proof of the opposite. It got me started thinking. I finally realized that God wants us to take Him on faith, or not at all, so there won't be any irrefutable evidence or proof.
But are you trying to argue that rational Christians would have a problem with representations of the BSD daemon? What possible problems would they be -- other than a simple 'it offends my supernatural beliefs'?
How about this one: By using a cute caricature of evil as the mascot for something good, we blur, just a little, our ability to distinguish good from evil. The Germans followed Nietze a whole lot farther down a similar path around the turn of the last century, and the euthanasia program resulted. That predated Hitler and the Nazis, by the way.
There's nothing wrong with the BSD daemon, or the NetBSD logo, except for the effect they might have on future decisions. If they're ok, so is something just a little more extreme, and so on. The little guy with the horns is cute, but I'm not sure that it's a wise choice for logo.
How about if we get back to Maxwell's demon, and use a funny little guy with his hand on a gate? Or a cute polar bear, to go along with the polar theme which worked so well for Linux?
Changing the subject a bit, is your wife a recent convert? The bible warns us strongly against marrying unbelievers[1]. My wife and I married when I was athiest and she was pagen. Fortunately, we both acknowleged God at about the same time, so that saved one or the other of us a lot of worry and trouble.
[1] The bible also tells us we should stick to an unbelieving spouse.
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That's quite an assertion. Can you justify it? If so, you're far ahead of most folks: I've never heard a logical justification for that idea.
I suggest an experiment: let's attempt to drastically reduce our emissions, as if we were addressing a real global warming problem.
So, let's consider two cases:
a) Human action really is causing global warming, and we don't take action. Agriculture improves, due to warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons. Climate changes may (or may not) kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, but most folks wind up slightly better off, in the long run.
b) Human action isn't causing warming, and we do something. Millions, or even tens of millions die because of the ``something'' we do. Reducing emissions worldwide will reduce standards of living worldwide, and tens of millions are hovering on the brink of starvation already. All of us wind up worse off in the long run.
I'd say that action for the sake of action is a really bad idea.
1. Put the CD in the drive
2. Enter the registration key
3. Select "Complete Installation"
4. Wait and watch the blinkenlights
That was it. Nothing squirrely there, I'm afraid.
Compare that to
#apt-get install openoffice.org
or a couple of clicks in Synaptic. Steps 2 and 3 are pretty squirrely compared to that and if you have a net connection, step 1 should seem a bit weird, as well.
It's not just Debian that's this easy: Gentoo and *BSD folks tell me it's that easy for them too.
I have to admit that MS does have us beaten in the blinkenlights department. Blinkenlights have obviously been a top priority throughout their corporate history.
>>GPLed code or not? Derivative works must also be
>>GPLed. I'm inclined to think that the
>>situation you describe would be a pretty clear
>>example of a derivative work.
>Then so would the binary drivers of all the
>vendors. Wrong.
>If the parent's program is a binary _patch_ , it
>doesn't have to be GPLed. The recipient is free to
>download the original (unpatched) code under GPL.
This is addressed in the FAQ for the GPL: Can you distribute your changes as a diff to the original GPLed code, rather than distributing the source to the full program? No. So, wheather you are distributing your patch as a diff against the source, or as a binary patch, you must distribute all the source to what the end user runs, if you choose to distribute at all.
So, what's wrong with your logic about binary drivers? I haven't a clue. Perhaps if you explain yourself, we can figure out where you went wrong, but I'd suggest that you spend some time studying the GPL first. Try taking the quiz, too.
Answer: Is your work a derivative of the GPLed code or not? Derivative works must also be GPLed. I'm inclined to think that the situation you describe would be a pretty clear example of a derivative work.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of chopsticks? The Shadow knows (yes, the link is workplace safe).
No, nothing. But, there is a big difference between Redhat bundling Mozilla, Lynx and Konqueror, and a convicted monopolist integrating its browser into its OS so that the browser cannot be removed.
First, we have the fact that any of the Linux browsers can be replaced, without buggering up the OS. Second, we have the fact that the intent and effect isn't to lock out competitors, but rather to serve customers. Third, we have the fact that Apple, Redhat and the many others haven't been convicted of illegally abusing their monopoly power.
Monopoly or no monopoly, a modern OS requires an internet browser and a video player.
True, but pointless. MS uses its browser and its video player to keep its hand in your wallet, and to kill off competition. Debian uses its browser and video player to browse the internet, and to watch videos. The difference is in the intent, as expressed by actions, of MS and everyone else. I think that's a significant difference.
We might think that the antitrust laws are a bad idea, and maybe even that they should be repealed. For the moment, however, they are the law of the land, and allowing any person or organization to flout the law is only going to breed lawlessness and disrespect for laws in general. Until those laws are repealed, they need to be enforced, effectively.
Gee, Mr. Marx, your mind is as open as ever. Two hundred twentyone years in the grave didn't change you a bit. Your thoughts still stink.
Yes, Walmart offers quality merchandise, but Sun offers _quality_, and Sun's kind of quality doesn't retail for $399.99. Sun will have their boxes made in China or Elbonia by slave labor for peanuts, and soon, Walmart and the sweatshop owners will cut Sun out of the deal. Instead of generic PCs with Staroffice and the Sun logo for $399.99, we'll see generic PCs with Openoffice and some more stylish logo for $389.99.
I've seen a shop which was making a go of it selling a few high-margin systems try to go into low-margin retail. It didn't work, and it spelled the end of the business. I think that's coming here.
Well, I did say that those perverse incentives had nothing to do with the problems. I'm sure that it's the usual amalgam of unrealistic specifications, creeping featuritis, management by committee, and so on, which afflicts pretty much every large project.
Remember ``The Bridge on the River Kwai'' ? Professional pride can get folks to do some crazy things, including shoot themselves in the foot for the public good (think whistle-blowers), or sabatoge their own side's war effort (in that movie), or make it easier for a particularly nasty bureaucracy to do harm.
I would guess that most of the people working on the project are pretty frustrated by the progress it's making, and would be very proud of themselves if they got things back on track. I would also guess that most of them have thought, at one time or another: ``It's a good thing we're not getting all the government we're paying for.''
My point was that any one of the taxpayers who's working on that is going to realize that if it fails, despite his best efforts, there's a bright side: he won't have to worry about his past tax returns coming back to haunt him. The tax code is complex enough, and confusing enough, that everyone is in some danger from the IRS, no matter how hard they try to pay all their taxes.
Hmmmm ... what to do, what to do ... Stretch out the job and the paycheck, and hope the antiquated system fails catastrophically, or make an honest effort to get the new system on line before that happens?
Of course, I'm sure that has nothing to do with the current difficulties. Seriously.
[1] In the U.S., tax returns (complete with check) are due on 15 April.
Even if the guy you're training is well qualified, there is probably enough that is peculiar to your company and your job that you could do this. He might know that he's not getting the full story, but he won't know what you're leaving out.
It seems to me that this is really asking for trouble, particularly for higher level jobs where the work isn't easily supervised. The story suggests that there are no counter-incentives to this, and I'm not sure how you could build any in, at least under U.S. labor law.
Well, to continue your analogy, Windows goes down on everything, and spreads virsuses. It's a little like a whore with the clap.
I've been handing Knoppix disks out to computer illiterate folks I know. They can use it as a toy, and get used to the idea that Linux is something they can use. Knoppix has some little games, a nice web browser, they can write stuff, they can get pictures from their digital cameras (I do have to show them how to do the last two things, since there aren't icons on the desktop for ``write a paper'' and ``digital camera''.).
For these guys, Knoppix means exposure to Linux, and just a little bit of familiarity and de-mistification. The lack of commitment is vital here: these guys are deathly afraid of screwing up their machines. This is definitely casual flirtation, but that's a huge step forward with this crowd.
I've been giving Knoppix disks to computer literate friends, too. For them, it's a chance to find out that Linux really does work on their hardware, that they really can do their work on it (they suspect that's true, so they're interested), and that they really can install it and keep it up to date.
For this bunch, there is usually some Linux application that they want to run, but the new set of system administration tasks and the installation difficulty scares them off. With Knoppix, they can see how easy it is to install, and they can seriously evaluate it. This is FAR from casual flirtation! Not all of this crowd winds up using Linux daily, but most of them wind up with it on their hard drives, and their minds are opened a bit.
Over all, I'd say that Knoppix is doing a lot of good. It's letting people progress a lot farther towards using Linux than they would ever go without this sort of distribution.
If it managed to be that good, it would be a miracle. But still, 0.05(260)10^6=13,000,000 people who are on the list, but aren't terrorists.
Just to make things worse, it doesn't have to be anywhere near that good, as long as people think it's that good. As you pointed out, if people believe it's infallible, they'll drag their own mother out of the nursing home and pack her off to jail when she shows up on the list.
Even if the false positives are far rarer than you proposed, there will still be too many. If good folks are excluded with 99.999% accuracy, that's still 2,600 false positives.
That's the problem of false positives, and it's a serious problem indeed. The problem of false negatives might be even worse. If people (especially law enforcement people) believe that this database has essentially all terrorists in it, we will be less safe with the data base than without.
Say that there are only half a million terrorists in the world; people who are willing and able to do something like the murders in Spain, or the murders on 9/11. On no particular evidence, I think that's a low estimate.
The 9/11 murders seem to have taken less than 50 people to plan and execute. If the database contains 99.99% of the 500,000 genuine terrorists, that leaves 50 who aren't in the database, and can procede freely, because the police effort is being wasted on the 13,499,950 people in the database. That number in the data base is the 0.05% who are wrongly suspected in the U.S., and the 99.99% of terrorists who are rightly suspected.
Even if there are only 2,600 false positives at any given moment, that still dilutes law enforcement efforts. More seriously, law enforcement is quite likely to believe that all they have to do is watch the ones they know about, and they'll be easily blindsided by the ones they haven't yet found. The mess at Columbine highschool a few years ago shows that the only way to stop all murders is to lock up every one. We'd better lock up the cops too ... some of them might go bad.
I'd say that all we can accomplish with this sort of thing (except making things difficult for the current administration's detractors[1]) is provide some excellent cover for hundreds of really dangerous terrorists, at the expense of everyone's freedom.
[1] Every administration in modern times has been accused, with considerable justification, of abusing the FBI and IRS to that end.
> ... in real life, that's actually an illusion.
>(And do look up the meaning of "agnostic" some time.) Just a quibble: an agnostic is someone who claims no knowledge. Bertrand Russel tells us:
So, by a natural extension from the theological usage, even someone who believes that computers are impossible to understand can have the illusion of control when using MS. As you point out, that control is only an illusion.I ought to have a whole herd o' them thangs purty soon!
Experience?
Think of Amiga, Sun, DEC and SGI, all of whom had more-or-less effective OSs, and all of whom are either already dead, or hurting. Think of MS, who has gotten rich with an ``OS'' (Win3.1) which was decades behind Amiga, even though it came out years after.
It's funny that you should raise the matter of socializing homeschooled children; I just posted a long rant on that yesterday. Since I want to keep this nickname semi-anonymous, I'll cut and paste it below, rather than linking to the original.
It's a long read, by slashdot standards, so here's the summary: socialization is what you do at home. What the schools do prevents socialization. If you want your children to learn to be responsible, mature adults, don't lock them away with a bunch of fellow children!
This was written in response to an attack by an NEA shill, so references to ``you'' are to the shill, not you.
Here's a thought: the people who can't understand him, and don't care enough about him to try, aren't his peers!
Peer doesn't mean ``same age'', peer means ``one's equals''. The people he's having troubles with (if he's as bright as everyone here seems to be assuming) aren't his equals, and he shouldn't be socializing with them. He should be socializing with intelligent, mature adults. By spending time with them, he'll learn, by example, to be an intelligent, mature adult.
The kid in question also needs to learn to interact with his mental inferiors (I'm assuming that the description you were following is correct) without discomforting them. He shouldn't be trying to learn to be a stupid, immature jerk, so he can fit in with the kids his own age.
You speak about them (SCO and MS) as if they were different. I think that the latest Halloween memo shows that SCO's antics _are_ Microsoft's antics.
I work for a state government, and get about US$50K per year, plus decent health benefits and a pension plan. I get also about $6800 in a tax-deferred savings plan, instead of social security (Social security is the U.S. version of your NI.).
My tax rate last year was negative: my refund for federal income tax was larger than what was withheld from my pay. The situation this year should be similar. I have a wife and three kids, which explains most of the favorable tax treatment.
My net pay is about US$3500 per month, plus the benefits. I pay about US$1200 per year in property tax, and a 5% sales tax on most things I buy locally (food and heating oil included!).
Health service here is fair, but this is a small town and we have to travel to the big city for the big-time specialists.
The state pension is decent: for me, it's going to be slightly over 2% for each year served of the average of my three highest years salary, plus health insurance, beginning at age sixty.
It may sound as if I'm doing fairly well, but my family's income is well below the median for this area, and I'm getting some welfare (dole, to you English) money. It's only about $20 to $30 a week, but it's helpful.
BZZZZZZZZT! WRONG!
Sorry, that's not Chinese.
Chinese doesn't require any knowledge of relative or absolute social status. Perhaps you were thinking of Japanese? My Japanese friends tell me that social status is a part of the Japanese language, exactly as you described.
Now take another language, English, where it is very difficult to talk about a person unless you know whether they are a man or a woman.
Wrong again, and this time you gave me a counter example. Proper English grammer would call for using: ``... unless you know whether he is a man or a woman.''. But that, or your common error, avoids the need to know the sex of the object of the sentence.
However, I'd be willing to bet that if you asked English speakers and Chinese speakers if they knew of people, but did not know their gender[sic] (and perhaps the number of people who have that status), I would expect English speakers would have a lower "Yes" response.
I'll ask some Chinese speakers that. I really doubt that you're right on this. We don't pay attention to a person's sex (not gender) because it's part of the language, we pay attention to this because we care. Language doesn't change that.
I think you'd want to reverse the order, wouldn't you? Canada has a nasty immigration bureaucracy, though it's a pale imitation of ours. I wouldn't count on getting in, especially if you don't have a graduate degree in a field they are desperate for this week.
No, no evidence. My point was that any argument which supports your side can equally well support the other. All it takes is a change of belief. One of the reasons that I'm no longer an athiest is that I noticed that everything I thought was a proof of God's non-existance was also being touted as a proof of the opposite. It got me started thinking. I finally realized that God wants us to take Him on faith, or not at all, so there won't be any irrefutable evidence or proof.
But are you trying to argue that rational Christians would have a problem with representations of the BSD daemon? What possible problems would they be -- other than a simple 'it offends my supernatural beliefs'?
How about this one: By using a cute caricature of evil as the mascot for something good, we blur, just a little, our ability to distinguish good from evil. The Germans followed Nietze a whole lot farther down a similar path around the turn of the last century, and the euthanasia program resulted. That predated Hitler and the Nazis, by the way.
There's nothing wrong with the BSD daemon, or the NetBSD logo, except for the effect they might have on future decisions. If they're ok, so is something just a little more extreme, and so on. The little guy with the horns is cute, but I'm not sure that it's a wise choice for logo.
How about if we get back to Maxwell's demon, and use a funny little guy with his hand on a gate? Or a cute polar bear, to go along with the polar theme which worked so well for Linux?
Changing the subject a bit, is your wife a recent convert? The bible warns us strongly against marrying unbelievers[1]. My wife and I married when I was athiest and she was pagen. Fortunately, we both acknowleged God at about the same time, so that saved one or the other of us a lot of worry and trouble.
[1] The bible also tells us we should stick to an unbelieving spouse.