When microbial life is discovered on Pluto, the following will happen within 30 days:
-- The United States will send off a fleet to liberate it. -- The Vatican will send off missionaries to convert it. -- China will block access to it. -- The United Nations will dun it for back dues. -- Scientists will smell juicy research projects and start competing for grant dollars. The carnage will be unbelievable.
In short, it will slot neatly into the pattern of how things work already. God, how I love humanity!;)
That's pretty much what Microsoft does when they donate "millions of dollars" worth of their own software to schools.
This is interesting. What makes a charitable act a charitable act? That is hurts the giver, or that it helps the recipient?
The point: Microsoft donating software to schools is an admirable thing, because it frees up the dollars that the school would otherwise have spent to buy the software. (Or, more likely, there would be no software)
I know, I know: They could have gotten free software of one stripe or another. I am surprised that this doesn't happen more, really.
I know, I know: These "gifts" poison the minds of students and make them zombie Microsoft slaves. I wish more vendors would attempt to "subvert" students by giving them software!
I myself am skeptical of these findings. There are no details given as to the distinctions in the DNA between the different species. Does anyone know what the cut-off point is for defining a species by DNA?
The One True Method for defining species is...
if you can breed with it, it's the same species as you. If not, not.
This of course kind of falls apart with bacteria. D'oh.
can the elephants themselves tell the species apart?
Maybe it's like French and Germans. They claim they can tell each other apart, but they really can't.
In such a complicated world, flexibility is a must. We must learn to be skeptics. We must question everything. We must consider that although America is a wonderful place, it's still possible for it to go in the wrong direction
[...] We must look at new questions of morality -- such as stem-cell research -- from a fresh perspective. Etc. etc. etc. Hope you read this, I'm posting late.
I appreciate your reasoned approach to the subject!
There is something to what you say -- we do live in a complicated society and a complicated world, and can benefit from more perspectives. What I am worried about, however, is an excess of skepticism and, above all, relativism. See, if you believe that all belief systems (or countries!) are equally valid, it's hard to *really* believe in your own. It's also a good way to excuse any kind of wickedness by saying, "Oh, it's okay, it's their *culture*."
Seems to me we'll have to strike an uneasy balance somewhere... That's the American way!;)
Don't give us believers a bad name, okay? This creation science stuff is just embarrassing.
This is God's universe, He can do whatever He wants with it.
That includes building a mechanism whereby critters can change and evolve. A lot of folks get indignant because they don't want to be related to monkeys. Hey, God loves monkeys too. "Not a sparrow falls", eh?
To the Bible: remember the audience. The ancient Hebrews didn't know jack about DNA, they couldn't handle an explanation of evolution. You can.
God gave you a brain, He expects you to use it. Most reasonable Christians today see Adam's naming of the beasts as a symbolic mandate for science to understand God's own world as best we can.
There shouldn't be any conflict between religion and science, anyway. Religion explains Why We're Here, science explains How We Got Here. In the past the Church has ignored this, and suffered for it.
So get with the program: Try to understand the world God put you in; accept that God made you out of an ape, not clay, and that this is a PROVISIONAL promotion if you're not careful; admit that you ARE a monkey's nephew, if not uncle; and don't waste people's goodwill towards Christians on this stupid argument.
I find it perplexing that many people take the time to diligently study the religion they were brought up to know, yet few take even scant moments to study the countless other religions in this world. Well, no, it doesn't really perplex me. It saddens me.
I think the key here is the brought up to know part. Most people don't shop around for religions, they are given one by their parents when they're young enough that taught knowledge becomes nearly-inassailable conviction. This is not just for religion, by the way... childhood indoctrination is how we learn that Democracy Is Great, We Love Our Homeland, Work Hard And Get Ahead, and anything else you want to teach your kids. Please be ready for this huge responsibility before having kids!
(Incidentally, one of the hallmarks of the critical-theory-inspired American intellectual Left is to question all of these. America is just another country, other people's customs are just as valid as ours, we can social-engineer ourselves a better life, etc. Small wonder the conservatives "men are fools but the race is wise" get so angry about this)
Okay, that's the setup. Now here's the part where we make a lot of people Very Angry.;)
This childhood indoctrination is a good thing. All religions (and every society's unwritten philosophy) basically teach kids to Be Good, Respect Elders, Share Toys, Wipe your Nose, Be A Good Boy and Let Daddy Sleep Just 10 More Minutes, etc. These are good lessons, and are best pounded into tender young skulls. If you ask kids to derive their own moral rules, you'll get a nasty brand of selfish utilitarianism, or at best, a complicated, manipulative game-theory view of how to get what one wants. We get a lot of this in adults as it is, because Being Good is often personally counterproductive. Any kind of community spirit is best taught young, where it becomes an unchallenged axiom.
I look at it like an SUV. 99% of the people that buy them are never going to need 4-wheel drive, but they like to know it's there. "uh-oh, gravel...better slide this baby into overdrive!"
I'm not sure about 99% -- I know a lot of folks who take the SUV out camping or to see that "nature" stuff, and they seem to like it. But surely many owners would be as well off with a station wgn or something else.
Myself, I test-drove a Land Rover Freelander. It is absolutely amazing. It is essentially Spider-man. It can climb cliffs. It can subdue hostile natives. It is... awesome.
However, I am deeply suspicious of anything past the city limits of San Francisco. I don't camp. The car would be wasted on me. (Sigh) Back to the old bus pass.
Please remember that the folklore Disney built on was hundreds of years old, if not thousands.
Wrong. Some of it like the classical music in Fantasia was hundreds of years old, but many others were much more recent. The last of the Grimm brothers [...]
Um, guys. The bros. Grimm didn't invent Cinderella, Snow White, et. al. They drew on the centuries-old folklore I'm talking about. If not for them, Disney could've gotten the story from other sources. And don't even get me started about who invented Hercules or Moses. *Anybody* was, and is free to make their own Cinderalla movie today, or the day after Disney released theirs. Why is it so critical that you be able to sell Disney's? Can't other artists draw their own Snow White?
A lot of people want to make a quick buck selling merchandise based on characters they didn't have the creativity to invent themselves.
So, Walt Disney didn't have any creativity because he made works based on characters he didn't create himself? Like Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and the rest?
Please, I think you are deliberately misunderstanding me. Here I'm talking about Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, et al., which were created by Disney. These (plus some others) are the characters protected by copyright, as Aladdin et al. are already in the public domain.
If I understand you, you are arguing that other people should have the right to build off of Mickey today. As I argued originally -- and seems to have been forgotten -- I do agree with copyright time limits. The real disagreement here is how long they should be.
Life + 70 seems fair to me. I don't believe that copyright time limits are there so people can sell knock-off Bart Simpson T-shirts without paying licence fees; they are there so that eventually the arts that stand the test of time are in the public domain.
The article points out that Disney used a great deal of public domain literature as the basis for some of it's most profitable works (and let's not forget the music in Fantasia), yet none of Disney's work has gone to public domain
How desperate are you to start making your own Mickey Mouse videos? That's what you're really talking about here. A lot of people want to make a quick buck selling merchandise based on characters they didn't have the creativity to invent themselves.
Please remember that the folklore Disney built on was hundreds of years old, if not thousands. I don't think they or anyone was really put out much by Homer or the Beowulf poet grasping his copyright a few years longer.
It gets a little trickier when we consider "Hunchback"... V. Hugo wasn't that long ago, but it is pretty clear that that stuff belongs in the public domain. I'm just not sure yet about Mickey & Donald.
Certainly copyrights can't be *forever*. But I do suggest people are making too much of this Disney business.
But in ten or so years that 13 year old kid may very well be in charge of purchase orders for a 3D studio, and guess what software that kid is going to want to work with?
This is what I don't like about those arguments saying "it's okay to warez, it's like free advertising. Yeah, the kid'll buy the package for his employer."
Isn't that forgetting the moralistic part? That is, we don't steal things because they do not belong to us. It doesn't make a lick of difference that the Internet makes it easy, safe (ish), and convenient.
Also, it is pretty weak to justify theft by saying you're building brand loyalty. That's just silly. If the lad doesn't buy the software 10 years later, does it turn back into theft?
I fail to see a justification in stealing something becuase you feel the price is too high. Only in this industry does that mode of thinking seem to carry any weight.
Well, in this industry the cost of duplication is zero. I'm not defending software "pirates", but I wish people would stop equating copying bits on a hard disk to theft of physical goods.
Copying software may be even worse than physical theft, in that it destroys the value of the product. Imagine for a moment that there were no penalties for warezing, that it was completely legal. How many people would actually go and buy these expensive products? Only those (seemingly) few of us who still believe that piracy is wrong.
Don't use the word "pirate". You're putting the slant on it that the corporations would like you to use. What he did was
share software.
Don't forget that he sharedsomeone else's software. If he was so determined that people have the benefit of cruddy software for free, why didn't he write his own?
Don't forget that this guy was only distributing binaries. Not a line of source, not a semicolon. Doesn't that make him evil?;)
simply selling tunes direct to the customer on a website could put the power back where it belongs - in the hands of the people who have the talent.
Let us not consider for now, whether marketing is a "talent".
Let us instead consider that it is not so much that information wants to be free, but that people want information to be free. And there are many folks who sincerely believe that intellectual property is wrong, and act accordingly.
Without the RIAA's jackbooted muscle to squelch Napster, how is the direct-download-marketing of music supposed to work? How long before the new album show up on gnutella/gnapster/gwherever?
In essence, this scheme would make music supported by voluntary donations from fans. And turn it from a profession into a hobby.
Above and beyond that, you can't get rich and famous from selling songs off of a website. You need people to promote you, to put you all over the place, etc. Why does this matter? Because many people get into the business to make money! Yes that's right, most of the acts on major labels who make money want to keep it that way.
This comment is interesting, because there seems to be an unspoken assumption that musicians don't or shouldn't be "in it for the money", that their trade is Ahht and should be unencumbered by filthy commercial interests.
I don't follow the music world closely enough to say whether this attitude is justified.
I would like to point out, however, that if you "aren't in it for the money", you shouldn't be surprised if you don't make any. If you are a professional musician, that's your job. And I think we all know that when you have a job, it's not all the rewarding beautiful stuff. There's also that part where we (be we cabinetmakers, coders, drummers, or whoever) rent out our talents for money, in pursuit of someone else's dreams.
I'm just trying to say it seems a little unrealistic to believe that the music trade will be so much different.
Yeah. Nothing like walking by a yuppie bar and seeing a bunch of rich white guys standing around outside and saying things like, "Whazzat? Watchoo sayin?" "Yo, I said, Wassup, bitch?" "Mofo, I'm gonna bust a cap in yo ass!"
Sure it is stupid for rich white folks to imitate this mode of speech, but remember *they didn't invent it*. They're just being silly. For someone, this is his native dialect. That is the part I find disturbing.
True. But then again, France doesn't make her mourning an international event as the U.S. seems so keen to do. France doesn't make statements about "The world changed that day," or "You're either with us, or against us," or start projecting the French Military across the oceans and demanding concessions from neighboring country's security forces.
Tell that to Algeria.
I think nobody would question the right of the U.S. to mourn. We question the right of the U.S. to insist everybody else do so as well.
I don't think the US "insists" that everyone else mourn our dead. That the world does is indicative that the US is seen as a moral beacon (yes, yes, through a glass, darkly sometimes)... that is what I was commenting on before, that when the U.S. does react in a nationalistic or "tribal" manner, it draws larger gasps of horror (we are shocked. Shocked!) than when country X does it.
Another factor I believe you have not considered in its fullness (I'm trying to say politely that I think you are wrong. Wrong!) is that the US is going about its own business, but that the whole world watches CNN. This is not American pushiness; you have to *pay* to get CNN -- that is, you have to ask for it.
One last thing... The article I referenced above does mention that even the French unbent so far as to hold a memorial. My chapeau is off to them.
toupsie: Sometime in the next week or so, I am going to stop by your home and probe for any security problems that a burglar might exploit.
mastoid: Boy, did you miss the point. It is the function of university tech services to maintain a secured network, which they are permitting students to use.
So... is it okay if they check for unlicensed software while they're there? How bout illegal mp3 files?;)
Why is America expected to equally mourn every slain person in the world, while other countries are allowed to prefer their own dead?
Perhaps it is because I have overcome tribalism and petty nationalism. I read about the deaths of innocents, and it does not matter what their nationality was. These are innocent people who have died through no fault or cause of their own.
Surely it is admirable to mourn innocent dead of whatever region, but that's not exactly what I'm trying to get at. There seems to be something significant about how it is the US that takes heat for not having (say) a Rwandan memorial. Nobody criticizes Canada or Mexico for not mourning Yugoslavian dead.
It is almost as if there were an unspoken set of ideals that the US -- and nobody else -- is expected to live up to. The US -- and nobody else -- is supposed to be above nationalism. When France honors her dead, nobody pops up saying "but what about the Kurds!".
I'm not saying there's any weird conspiracy out there, but there may be some unexamined attitudes.
Slashdot Mirror
When microbial life is discovered on Pluto, the following will happen within 30 days:
;)
-- The United States will send off a fleet to liberate it.
-- The Vatican will send off missionaries to convert it.
-- China will block access to it.
-- The United Nations will dun it for back dues.
-- Scientists will smell juicy research projects and start competing for grant dollars. The carnage will be unbelievable.
In short, it will slot neatly into the pattern of how things work already. God, how I love humanity!
Jesus, talk about blase'.
It's wasting my time! Thanks a lot, Slashdot. Thanks a lot, Onion. Thanks a lot, MSNB-- er, comment over. Gotta go.
The point: Microsoft donating software to schools is an admirable thing, because it frees up the dollars that the school would otherwise have spent to buy the software. (Or, more likely, there would be no software)
I know, I know: They could have gotten free software of one stripe or another. I am surprised that this doesn't happen more, really.
I know, I know: These "gifts" poison the minds of students and make them zombie Microsoft slaves. I wish more vendors would attempt to "subvert" students by giving them software!
This of course kind of falls apart with bacteria. D'oh. Maybe it's like French and Germans. They claim they can tell each other apart, but they really can't.
There is something to what you say -- we do live in a complicated society and a complicated world, and can benefit from more perspectives. What I am worried about, however, is an excess of skepticism and, above all, relativism. See, if you believe that all belief systems (or countries!) are equally valid, it's hard to *really* believe in your own. It's also a good way to excuse any kind of wickedness by saying, "Oh, it's okay, it's their *culture*."
Seems to me we'll have to strike an uneasy balance somewhere... That's the American way!
Guys...
Don't give us believers a bad name, okay? This creation science stuff is just embarrassing.
This is God's universe, He can do whatever He wants with it.
That includes building a mechanism whereby critters can change and evolve. A lot of folks get indignant because they don't want to be related to monkeys. Hey, God loves monkeys too. "Not a sparrow falls", eh?
To the Bible: remember the audience. The ancient Hebrews didn't know jack about DNA, they couldn't handle an explanation of evolution. You can.
God gave you a brain, He expects you to use it. Most reasonable Christians today see Adam's naming of the beasts as a symbolic mandate for science to understand God's own world as best we can.
There shouldn't be any conflict between religion and science, anyway. Religion explains Why We're Here, science explains How We Got Here. In the past the Church has ignored this, and suffered for it.
So get with the program: Try to understand the world God put you in; accept that God made you out of an ape, not clay, and that this is a PROVISIONAL promotion if you're not careful; admit that you ARE a monkey's nephew, if not uncle; and don't waste people's goodwill towards Christians on this stupid argument.
(Incidentally, one of the hallmarks of the critical-theory-inspired American intellectual Left is to question all of these. America is just another country, other people's customs are just as valid as ours, we can social-engineer ourselves a better life, etc. Small wonder the conservatives "men are fools but the race is wise" get so angry about this)
Okay, that's the setup. Now here's the part where we make a lot of people Very Angry.
This childhood indoctrination is a good thing. All religions (and every society's unwritten philosophy) basically teach kids to Be Good, Respect Elders, Share Toys, Wipe your Nose, Be A Good Boy and Let Daddy Sleep Just 10 More Minutes, etc. These are good lessons, and are best pounded into tender young skulls. If you ask kids to derive their own moral rules, you'll get a nasty brand of selfish utilitarianism, or at best, a complicated, manipulative game-theory view of how to get what one wants. We get a lot of this in adults as it is, because Being Good is often personally counterproductive. Any kind of community spirit is best taught young, where it becomes an unchallenged axiom.
(gasp)
Any takers?
Myself, I test-drove a Land Rover Freelander. It is absolutely amazing. It is essentially Spider-man. It can climb cliffs. It can subdue hostile natives. It is
However, I am deeply suspicious of anything past the city limits of San Francisco. I don't camp. The car would be wasted on me. (Sigh) Back to the old bus pass.
Doh.
Please, I think you are deliberately misunderstanding me. Here I'm talking about Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, et al., which were created by Disney. These (plus some others) are the characters protected by copyright, as Aladdin et al. are already in the public domain.
If I understand you, you are arguing that other people should have the right to build off of Mickey today. As I argued originally -- and seems to have been forgotten -- I do agree with copyright time limits. The real disagreement here is how long they should be.
Life + 70 seems fair to me. I don't believe that copyright time limits are there so people can sell knock-off Bart Simpson T-shirts without paying licence fees; they are there so that eventually the arts that stand the test of time are in the public domain.
(gasp)
Apologies for long-windedness.
Ah ... good old H2O.
e.g. i.e. Q.E.D. etc.
What's with these kids?
Please remember that the folklore Disney built on was hundreds of years old, if not thousands. I don't think they or anyone was really put out much by Homer or the Beowulf poet grasping his copyright a few years longer.
It gets a little trickier when we consider "Hunchback"
Certainly copyrights can't be *forever*. But I do suggest people are making too much of this Disney business.
Isn't that forgetting the moralistic part? That is, we don't steal things because they do not belong to us. It doesn't make a lick of difference that the Internet makes it easy, safe (ish), and convenient.
Also, it is pretty weak to justify theft by saying you're building brand loyalty. That's just silly. If the lad doesn't buy the software 10 years later, does it turn back into theft?
Don't forget that this guy was only distributing binaries. Not a line of source, not a semicolon. Doesn't that make him evil?
Let us instead consider that it is not so much that information wants to be free, but that people want information to be free. And there are many folks who sincerely believe that intellectual property is wrong, and act accordingly.
Without the RIAA's jackbooted muscle to squelch Napster, how is the direct-download-marketing of music supposed to work? How long before the new album show up on gnutella/gnapster/gwherever?
In essence, this scheme would make music supported by voluntary donations from fans. And turn it from a profession into a hobby.
I don't follow the music world closely enough to say whether this attitude is justified.
I would like to point out, however, that if you "aren't in it for the money", you shouldn't be surprised if you don't make any. If you are a professional musician, that's your job. And I think we all know that when you have a job, it's not all the rewarding beautiful stuff. There's also that part where we (be we cabinetmakers, coders, drummers, or whoever) rent out our talents for money, in pursuit of someone else's dreams.
I'm just trying to say it seems a little unrealistic to believe that the music trade will be so much different.
I don't want to go on a rant here...
So I won't. Maybe some other time.
God has recently put out a press statement that Humanity was not designed with security in mind.
I don't think the US "insists" that everyone else mourn our dead. That the world does is indicative that the US is seen as a moral beacon (yes, yes, through a glass, darkly sometimes)
Another factor I believe you have not considered in its fullness (I'm trying to say politely that I think you are wrong. Wrong!) is that the US is going about its own business, but that the whole world watches CNN. This is not American pushiness; you have to *pay* to get CNN -- that is, you have to ask for it.
One last thing... The article I referenced above does mention that even the French unbent so far as to hold a memorial. My chapeau is off to them.
It is almost as if there were an unspoken set of ideals that the US -- and nobody else -- is expected to live up to. The US -- and nobody else -- is supposed to be above nationalism. When France honors her dead, nobody pops up saying "but what about the Kurds!".
I'm not saying there's any weird conspiracy out there, but there may be some unexamined attitudes.