An unreleased promotional video for INDECT located on YouTube...
In a press release dated 18 October, 2009, the World Court announced that "'a video on YouTube' has replaced 'an entry in Wikipedia' as the best source of factual evidence for any legal proceeding meeting NWO standards. Film at 11."
stupid businesses are supposed to fail, unless they happen to be banks.
The "stupid" banks were being forced to make low-quality loans due to the CRA, which was supposed to prevent something called "redlining". Preventing redlining was good; the way it was enforced was stupid. So, it all falls back into government saying "we want everyone to be able to own a home" (Barney Frank) even if they couldn't really afford it. It was the consolidation of these loans that passed the problem around until there was no place left to pass it. If the banks had been able to make people show they could actually afford to buy a $150,000 home on $10,000 a year income before making the loan, we wouldn't have had the problem. We'd have a lot more people renting, or owning smaller houses, but the rest of us who actually pay off their loans wouldn't be stuck paying off their's, too.
Hi, I see you're trying to use the Minternet. Would you like some hints on how to increase the priority of your traffic to Flash Override.
You an also improve the throughput of your attached USB device by plugging it into a USB2 port, which is what you would have done if this computer actually had USB2 ports on it, but it doesn't, and I'm not going to tell you how to shut these annoying messages off.
Consider that X $ will be made from your idea, whatever you do. Would you rather A: Give those money to a rich corp. or B: Have those money for yourself...
Consider that an unpatented idea can be used by multiple corporations in competition, and that by not having to pay royalties all of those companies can sell the product for less because it costs them less to produce while still making the same profit.
Yes, a single source can charge what they want and pocket the money they'd have paid in royalties, but any competitor who comes along and sells the same product for less will beat them in the market.
I.e., your either/or situation isn't that clear cut. It's not a zero sum game. And, as another poster commented, the woman who patented the idea for moving patients made zero because nobody used her idea.
Every person who is suggesting other characters to use in place of : or// needs to think about one thing: what are the shell metacharacters?
'|' is one of them. So is '$'. So is '\'. Imagine the mess you'd create if you force people to escape common, routine parts of URLs every time they type them in. It's already bad enough that Winbloze allows spaces in file names, for those of us who deal with SMB shares.
And for those who say that "port is an integer", well, the host part can be an integer, too.
I certainly wouldn't want a cake that was 50% strawberries as at some point it stops being cake. Should I infer that we want to keep women to maybe 5-10% of the development community?
We could maybe handle 20% if we ground them up and mixed them in really well. OTH, they would probably be better off with a sickenly sweet syrup and some horses (hooves) as a pie. But girls are bad at math, so they can't be pie, they have to be cake.
That does sound ridiculous doesn't it, however it's not post-hoc,...
Yes, it most certainly is post-hoc. The claim that "FOSS is sexist" because the person who is one of the leaders is must be post-hoc. Otherwise you'd be claiming that the person in charge is sexist because FOSS is sexist. Which came first, RMS or FOSS? If RMS came first, then the sexism in FOSS is post-hoc.
...and it has nothing to do with my statement,...
... people will make up implausible post-hoc excuses up... Perhaps you can think of one for RMS too while you're here.
Seems relevant to your statement. I know it is opposite what you intended, that someone would come up with some implausible excuse EXCUSING RMS and not some nonsense reason using RMS as proof of sexism in FOSS, but it's still relevant. And you did seem to be asking for an "implausible post-hoc excuse for RMS".
I didn't make that comment,...
I didn't say you did, and I was rather explicit that it was "upthread", not quoting you. I was replying to your statement about implausible excuses.
... however I can't agree with someone saying that the sex of people talking is unknown therefore sexism cannot exist, that is patent nonsense (see the actual comment I responded to, and my response).
I have no idea what "sex" you are. I've had no reason to look at your/. handle, and I don't intend to. You may have looked at mine, and I challenge you to determine beyond reasonable doubt my sex from it. So, yes, for the very most part, I certainly have no clue what sex person I'm talking to here, and I don't particularly care who wrote the FOSS I'm using. I don't bother looking there, either. When I comment, you cannot assume that what I've written is because the other person is a "girl".
I don't know what you think you accomplish be telling me to look at your response. I quoted the parts I was replying to so you know I saw it. Perhaps I'm seeing "I'm a victim and you are too stupid to see it" in your writing, but I hope you aren't trying to play that game.
oops. I just scrolled up to review your response and I saw your/. handle. "Serious Callers Only". Please be explicit in describing exactly what gender information I am to gather from such a handle. Do you think there is some there? How can I use the information in your handle to be discriminating against you due to your sex or prejudiced based on it?
Congratulations, you just played the "change the statement" game, but you got caught. You said:
This isn't just about statistics - many of the comments that are posted are completely non-sexual in nature, you can't post a comment like "how do I compile a driver", and assume that comment is either sexist or not sexist, it's completely unrelated to gender at all.
That, and every other reference in your paragraph, were to "comments". Now, however, you say:
But my point was that it's ridiculous to look at a set of comments where it's simply a bunch of anonymous people talking about things that don't have anything to do with gender and then using those comments as proof that they are not sexist. You can only decide whether or not the commentors (NOT comments!) are sexist if they are discussing things where gender is an issue.
Now you claim you were talking about the commentors, not the comments. Yes, change the object of your sentence and the meaning does change.
You can see differing treatment towards women in several places, including right here.
No, I can't, because I have no idea who the women are and who the men are. I rarely look at the handle being used by a poster, and those rare times I do are because I want to make sure I'm quoting and replying to the right person. So, sorry, Charlie, I don't see different treatment towards women here. I see what people say, then I see what those people CLAIM they said, and then what they say they WANTED to say, and how other people respond to them, but my ability to assign gender to comments is zero.
I'm not sure who some of the more prominent female posters here are, but ask someone like girlintraining or one of the others how many troll or flamebait responses they get just because they identify themselves as female.
I suggest that even those who identify as female don't know how many responses are based on their gender and how many are based on their comments. It's easy to claim "he said something I don't like because I'm a girl", but unless the response actually says why it is being said they don't know.
It seems to me that analyzing comments in the LKML looking for sexism is about as useful as looking through the WebMD forums for people interested in cars.
Ok, you've made the requisite assinine car analogy, you can stop now. Analyzing comments in the LKML for sexism is quite relevant when the issue is... sexism in FOSS.
...you can't post a comment like "how do I compile a driver", and assume that comment is either sexist or not sexist, it's completely unrelated to gender at all.
A comment that is completely unrelated to gender CANNOT BE SEXIST. It does not in any way, shape, or form "discriminate against or degrade any person based on sex", nor does it show any "prejudice based on sex". Therefore, any rational person can believe that such a comment is NON-SEXIST. Period. It is only a loon that could look at a statement that has no mention of gender of any kind and think "gee, is that statement sexist"? "Is there some hidden sexual connotations that show prejudice or discriminiation"?
Every time a loon makes such a ridiculous statement, they attach themselves to legitimate problems and cause people to think "they're all loonies". Put 83 loonies all out for a good time, drinking and mooning passersby onto a bus headed for a political demonstration, and the public will quite rightfully start to connect "loony" with whatever that political orientation is. In the meantime, every person the loons accuse of being sexist will react, naturally, with denial and ire, because they truly are not sexist and are appalled at being accused of such. The loons, of course, will use this denial as proof.
...you need to take the total number of comments as the total number of comments that have anything at all to do with gender.
That's patently baloney. Every person who is intelligent enough to know that sex has nothing to do with FOSS will tend not to NOT post messages to FOSS mailing lists that make gratuitous references to sex, either positive or negative. NON-sexist participants will, by definition, not make many, if any, statements based on sex; it is only those who have some notion that sex is relevant that will comment in such a way. You are, then, by definition, self-selecting the members of your "poll" to have sexist tendencies, and thus dishonestly biasing the results. You will be using one person to prove that the entire movement is sexist, which is pretty clearly what is happening here. Stallman and someone else I've never heard of have made awful comments with the words "girls" in them, thus we are all sexist. I call "bullshit".
Well, I've certainly noticed that on the internet people will make up implausible post-hoc excuses up for anything if it means they don't have to accept they were wrong!
You mean like the pathetically ridiculous claim I saw upthread about RMS being a "leader of the FOSS movement" and "if the leader of the movement is a sexist then the movement is sexist"? You mean "implausible post-hoc excuses" like that?
The "leader of the movement" is a slightly-unbalanced long-haired bearded zealot. Does that mean EVERY developer of FOSS is a slightly-unbalanced long-haired bearded zealot? The current leader of the Democratic Party in the US is a young half-African-American socialist man. Does that make every Democrat young, half-African-American, male and a socialist?
The FOSS "movement" has nothing to do with sex, so the "leaders" views on sex have nothing to do with it.
Add a whip to the scene and it would make even a mostly white audience severely uncomfortable.
And being confronted with unsolicited, unexpected, and unwanted porn images every few slides in a technical presentation wouldn't make MALE viewers uncomfortable? I sense a bit of hypocricy here, when someone paints an entire gender as porn-loving women-haters but complains whenever any comments about women are made.
Why didn't you write
Exactly, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog (or a boy!).
Because, apparently, it is a "girl" who is complaining about sexism. It is quite natural in that context to use female references ("she" vs. "he", "girl" vs. "boy", etc.) It would be stupid, when talking to a female, to say something like "nobody knows you're a boy", because she isn't.
It is, however, part of the culture of victimhood, to pick out one word in a paragraph and claim that it is sexism because it has a specific gender meaning.
I'd take this is a reasonably harmless example of sexism, but quite clear proof that sexism exists, and sexist persons are not even aware of it.
I'd take this as the insufferable attitude of superiority that "victims" have, being the only people on the planet smart enough to be able to detect that they are being victimized. "I'm a victim of XXX, and if you were smarter you'd see how I was being victimized..." "Come see the violence inherent in the system".
Yes, sexism still exists, but it is damaging to the cause of those who fight true sexism for all this pretend victimhood to be waved around all the time. All it does is turn away the people who you want on your side. Jumping down the throat of someone who used the word "girl" and claiming he's an ignorant sexist just makes YOU look like a loon, and by association, all the other people who have serious and reasonable sexism complaints.
There is a difference between "sexism" (an act) and a correlation that only X % of Y are women. There is also a difference between sexism the act and a moron who thinks it's funny to put porn in a powerpoint presentation, even when 98% of his audience is going to be male. (Here's a free clue: not all men find porn to be funny or appropriate, so stop pretending that the only people offended by the alleged ruby presentation problem mentioned above were the women.)
And on all the debate shows, CNN brings on people from both sides. You won't see MSNBC do that.
Nope. Their primetime is made up of people like Olberman and Maddow. Maddow, whose show precedes Olberman, and who feigned surprise at the insulting comments about "the republican's health care plan is for old people to die quickly" from a congressman on the floor, claiming that it was the first time such excess had been uttered by a democrat. She doesn't watch her own network, or even CSPAN, it seems.
You look at CNN, you see people in the left, right and middle.
When you are a liberal, everyone who isn't as liberal as you is called "right". That's the only way you can claim CNN has "middle" and "right". No, Wolf Blitzer is not a conservative. Nor is Larry King.
And anyone who is truly conservative is labeled "wacko right-wing conspiracy theorist" by liberals, because to them, the "right" is anyone just left of center.
Journalists are supposed to be experts on fact gathering and interviewing.
Yep. That's what they are supposed to be experts in. Not experts in economics, electronics, computer science, farming, business, or any of the other areas in which they ANALYZE the facts and tell us how we should feel about them.
The comment I was replying to was referring to them as experts in the areas they write about and sarcastically saying that people don't want to hear the opinions of such experts. He's right, I don't want to hear the opinions of faux experts. If I am interested in a topic, I'll get the facts and form my own opinions, thank you very much. At that point, your "journalist" isn't "several steps up" on the reader.
You see, a journalist may not be an expert in the subject they're writing about, but unless the reader is an expert in every field, they're still several steps up on the average reader.
Yes, here's the incredible denial, admitting first that we know they aren't experts in fields where we have experience, but assuming they must be getting it right for the fields we don't know personally. I think the simpler explanation is the more correct. They aren't an expert in fields I know how to detect their errors in, so they are most likely not experts in those fields where I can't detect their errors. Whether they write well and communicate those mistakes better than an expert would communicate the truth is a stupid way to judge their accuracy.
They also have access average readers don't and their facts are checked by another person.
You HOPE their facts are checked by someone who knows the truth. Most often their facts are checked by an editor who asks "did you get this from more than one person", and when the journalist says "yes", that's the end of the fact checking. The editor doesn't know the facts, he can't "check" them.
All of this provides value.
Show me where I said journalists have no value. I said they aren't the experts that they pretend to be, and their analysis is nothing more than their opinion on the matter. When they stick to reporting the facts, ALL of the facts, correctly, they perform their most valuable service. When they start interviewing each other, they lose all credibility.
This isn't grade school and everyone isn't equally right. You have to form opinions rationally and defend them logically and show your work, or you are simply wrong.
You've just proven the point you were trying to deny. They aren't "different", they are "simply wrong".
And you're the one holding the red pen grading other people's opinions, so you get to decide if what you don't believe could be "logical" or "rational". No possible bias there.
I saw a poll the other day. Don't remember where. Maybe here. 70% of people now believe that the mainstream media have a bias. I suspect that everyone in the mainstream media are in the remaining 30% who deny it.
For now, however, I'm writing you off as a nutjob...
Yes, he must be "simply wrong", and if you can't prove it logically and rationally, you'll write him off as a nutjob. Careful you don't run out of red ink correcting everyone else's papers.
CNN caries conservative commentators, liberal commentators, etc.
Called your bluff. I just looked at CNN's schedule for the next three days. Not a single conservative commentator in the list. And I've watched them, especially their international service, and know that they didn't have any conservatives on there, either.
Of course, Ted Turner is rich, and the homeless are not. So nothing happened with the story.
It never crossed your mind that the story wasn't true to start with? Just like the Rather story about Bush's military time? You give too much credit to the liberal news media you watch, assuming everything they tell you is true and that the only reason nothing happened to Ted is because he's rich.
I can believe that the average person doesn't want news gathered by people with more resources than them then analyzed by experts with more knowledge than they have.
If you believe that the journalist writing the stories is an expert in any field in which they write, there is no reason to continue reading your comment. You are patently wrong. They demonstrate this on a daily basis by the errors in their reporting. Talk to anyone who IS an expert in a subject that the journalists cover and see if they don't tell you they see far too many errors.
It's quite an eye opener, to see an event you are personally involved with covered by "the news", and see how often they get it wrong. And yet, most people who have experienced this STILL believe that the journalists don't get it wrong when reporting other news.
One of the least valuable interviews our mainstream media produce is when one journalist interviews another journalist, and yet that's what is happening more and more often as the true experts learn not to talk to journalists because they will be misquoted.
Newspaper-wise, AFAIK, there are no liberal daily newspapers of any appreciable size in the US.
The New York Times is a pretty big operation. They even have an international arm dealing their liberal agenda: The International Herald Tribune. Unfortunately, the IHT is often the only serious US newspaper to be found outside the US (McPaper is the usual competitor). That means that "foreigners" and US people who travel are stuck with the liberal view of the US. And CNN is usually the only english-language cable channel in some countries, so it's impossible to avoid. (And if you think CNN is not liberal, consider that they carry "The Daily Show" on the international feed.)
So, if we say "he" to refer to a professor of unspecified gender, we're simply following tried and true English conventions.
If by "English conventions" you mean "how words are defined", yes.
But if we say "she" to refer to the same individual, we're saying something untrue?
You are saying that the unspecified person is specifically a female, which means that you are connecting a gender to the material you are trying to discuss.
How would you rewrite these sentences?
"If she doesn't want to open-source a book, she simply doesn't claim it as a grant-related activity..."
Thusly: "How would you rewrite this sentence? If he doesn't want to open-source a book, he simply doesn't claim it as a grant-related activity...". This statement applies to everyone; the prior version applied only to women. It begs the question, ok, if a male book author doesn't want to open-source a book what does HE do? By specifying what a female author does, you imply it is different than what a male would do. That's a lie by implication.
If you mean that once it is in the public domain anyone could edit it: then you would be correct. If, on the other hand, you are implying that allowing anyone, and everyone, to read and rewrite a book would soon result in a vandalized tome that is completely useless: then you would be very, very, wrong.
Imagine wikipedia without central control to remove agenda-prompted edits. Imagine thirty eight entries for each wikipedia topic, each promoting a different interpretation and agenda. Imagine the fun of trying to figure out which version of which book was supposed to be used by a teacher... when he could find eight books with the same title and mostly the same text online.
Imagine a Kansas teacher using an open source biology book where evolution has been elided. Imagine a German teacher using an open source history book where WWII was rewritten from the Axis viewpoint.
Open source simply means that anyone who is interested in contributing, and can adhere to the license agreement, may edit the open source item and submit the changes for the latest version.
That is not true. You admit as much in your next sentence:
Open source also means that a person or a group can modify the software or text and turn it into their own creation.
If it "simply" means one thing, it cannot "also mean" another. "Simply" implies simple meaning, not multiple definitions. Open source simply means that the source is available. It doesn't force anyone to register their changes or anything else. I have open source software here that I've modified and I've not registered a single modification with any authority.
As far as open source being hackable goes: anyone who thinks Linux (an open source operating system) is less secure than the operating systems offered by Microsoft or Apple is truly misinformed.
I have no idea what you intend to say with this. Comparative security of operating systems is not the issue. Anyone who thinks there aren't a dozen or more versions of "linux" floating around all called "linux" is truly misinformed, which goes to support the idea that open source textbooks are as likely to be modified to meet the "local requirements" as is "linux".
I personally think this is a great idea. Schools could select a text for their curriculum and allow their students to decide if they need a printed copy or not. If the student decides they do want a printed copy, they could also purchase a copy from their school bookstore or from an approved publisher. It would save costs to the schools and it would save costs for the students.
While I agree that electronic texts are a good thing, I do not agree that "save costs" is a reason to support it. There are a lot of things that schools could do to "save costs" that would result in unequal access to information. For example, providing "online texts" and requiring students who can't access them that way to buy their own copies (which is just one aspect of "if the student decides they do want a printed copy" that you mention). If you are too poor to have a computer you can carry around to access your textbook when necessary, you are then saddled with the cost of buying the text in paper? Uhhhh. No, thanks.
And, unfortunately, by lowering the number of books sold, you raise the price for each book to the point where nobody could afford them. A company that recoups its costs by selling 10,000 copies of a math book to the school board will have to charge more for the book when it sells only 100 copies. Schools will have to add the costs of running a bookstore (which I don't recall my elementary schools ever having.)
This would not preclude schools from choosing a more traditional textbook or scholars from writing them.
"Unintended consequences". I am a school board member picking texts. I know an EXCELLENT book written by a "traditional scholar" that covers the material in easy to understand terms. I also have an electronic textbook written by a lesser
Slashdot Mirror
In a press release dated 18 October, 2009, the World Court announced that "'a video on YouTube' has replaced 'an entry in Wikipedia' as the best source of factual evidence for any legal proceeding meeting NWO standards. Film at 11."
The "stupid" banks were being forced to make low-quality loans due to the CRA, which was supposed to prevent something called "redlining". Preventing redlining was good; the way it was enforced was stupid. So, it all falls back into government saying "we want everyone to be able to own a home" (Barney Frank) even if they couldn't really afford it. It was the consolidation of these loans that passed the problem around until there was no place left to pass it. If the banks had been able to make people show they could actually afford to buy a $150,000 home on $10,000 a year income before making the loan, we wouldn't have had the problem. We'd have a lot more people renting, or owning smaller houses, but the rest of us who actually pay off their loans wouldn't be stuck paying off their's, too.
Son, EVERYONE works for the military-industrial complex, they just don't all know it yet.
You an also improve the throughput of your attached USB device by plugging it into a USB2 port, which is what you would have done if this computer actually had USB2 ports on it, but it doesn't, and I'm not going to tell you how to shut these annoying messages off.
I've been insulted by everything you've ever posted to /., you insensitive clod. Post your address so I can come slap you silly, silly.
Consider that an unpatented idea can be used by multiple corporations in competition, and that by not having to pay royalties all of those companies can sell the product for less because it costs them less to produce while still making the same profit.
Yes, a single source can charge what they want and pocket the money they'd have paid in royalties, but any competitor who comes along and sells the same product for less will beat them in the market.
I.e., your either/or situation isn't that clear cut. It's not a zero sum game. And, as another poster commented, the woman who patented the idea for moving patients made zero because nobody used her idea.
'|' is one of them. So is '$'. So is '\'. Imagine the mess you'd create if you force people to escape common, routine parts of URLs every time they type them in. It's already bad enough that Winbloze allows spaces in file names, for those of us who deal with SMB shares.
And for those who say that "port is an integer", well, the host part can be an integer, too.
We could maybe handle 20% if we ground them up and mixed them in really well. OTH, they would probably be better off with a sickenly sweet syrup and some horses (hooves) as a pie. But girls are bad at math, so they can't be pie, they have to be cake.
But then, they can be "sweetie pie" ...
Yes, it most certainly is post-hoc. The claim that "FOSS is sexist" because the person who is one of the leaders is must be post-hoc. Otherwise you'd be claiming that the person in charge is sexist because FOSS is sexist. Which came first, RMS or FOSS? If RMS came first, then the sexism in FOSS is post-hoc.
Seems relevant to your statement. I know it is opposite what you intended, that someone would come up with some implausible excuse EXCUSING RMS and not some nonsense reason using RMS as proof of sexism in FOSS, but it's still relevant. And you did seem to be asking for an "implausible post-hoc excuse for RMS".
I didn't make that comment,...
I didn't say you did, and I was rather explicit that it was "upthread", not quoting you. I was replying to your statement about implausible excuses.
I have no idea what "sex" you are. I've had no reason to look at your /. handle, and I don't intend to. You may have looked at mine, and I challenge you to determine beyond reasonable doubt my sex from it. So, yes, for the very most part, I certainly have no clue what sex person I'm talking to here, and I don't particularly care who wrote the FOSS I'm using. I don't bother looking there, either. When I comment, you cannot assume that what I've written is because the other person is a "girl".
I don't know what you think you accomplish be telling me to look at your response. I quoted the parts I was replying to so you know I saw it. Perhaps I'm seeing "I'm a victim and you are too stupid to see it" in your writing, but I hope you aren't trying to play that game.
oops. I just scrolled up to review your response and I saw your /. handle. "Serious Callers Only". Please be explicit in describing exactly what gender information I am to gather from such a handle. Do you think there is some there? How can I use the information in your handle to be discriminating against you due to your sex or prejudiced based on it?
This isn't just about statistics - many of the comments that are posted are completely non-sexual in nature, you can't post a comment like "how do I compile a driver", and assume that comment is either sexist or not sexist, it's completely unrelated to gender at all.
That, and every other reference in your paragraph, were to "comments". Now, however, you say:
But my point was that it's ridiculous to look at a set of comments where it's simply a bunch of anonymous people talking about things that don't have anything to do with gender and then using those comments as proof that they are not sexist. You can only decide whether or not the commentors (NOT comments!) are sexist if they are discussing things where gender is an issue.
Now you claim you were talking about the commentors, not the comments. Yes, change the object of your sentence and the meaning does change.
You can see differing treatment towards women in several places, including right here.
No, I can't, because I have no idea who the women are and who the men are. I rarely look at the handle being used by a poster, and those rare times I do are because I want to make sure I'm quoting and replying to the right person. So, sorry, Charlie, I don't see different treatment towards women here. I see what people say, then I see what those people CLAIM they said, and then what they say they WANTED to say, and how other people respond to them, but my ability to assign gender to comments is zero.
I'm not sure who some of the more prominent female posters here are, but ask someone like girlintraining or one of the others how many troll or flamebait responses they get just because they identify themselves as female.
I suggest that even those who identify as female don't know how many responses are based on their gender and how many are based on their comments. It's easy to claim "he said something I don't like because I'm a girl", but unless the response actually says why it is being said they don't know.
It seems to me that analyzing comments in the LKML looking for sexism is about as useful as looking through the WebMD forums for people interested in cars.
Ok, you've made the requisite assinine car analogy, you can stop now. Analyzing comments in the LKML for sexism is quite relevant when the issue is ... sexism in FOSS.
Maybe. But:
Excuse me, I need to take a break now.
Yes, Leela needs to be next. And then Lil' Red (from 'Hoodwinked'.) Red wants out of the forest, let's help her pay for her way out!
A comment that is completely unrelated to gender CANNOT BE SEXIST. It does not in any way, shape, or form "discriminate against or degrade any person based on sex", nor does it show any "prejudice based on sex". Therefore, any rational person can believe that such a comment is NON-SEXIST. Period. It is only a loon that could look at a statement that has no mention of gender of any kind and think "gee, is that statement sexist"? "Is there some hidden sexual connotations that show prejudice or discriminiation"?
Every time a loon makes such a ridiculous statement, they attach themselves to legitimate problems and cause people to think "they're all loonies". Put 83 loonies all out for a good time, drinking and mooning passersby onto a bus headed for a political demonstration, and the public will quite rightfully start to connect "loony" with whatever that political orientation is. In the meantime, every person the loons accuse of being sexist will react, naturally, with denial and ire, because they truly are not sexist and are appalled at being accused of such. The loons, of course, will use this denial as proof.
That's patently baloney. Every person who is intelligent enough to know that sex has nothing to do with FOSS will tend not to NOT post messages to FOSS mailing lists that make gratuitous references to sex, either positive or negative. NON-sexist participants will, by definition, not make many, if any, statements based on sex; it is only those who have some notion that sex is relevant that will comment in such a way. You are, then, by definition, self-selecting the members of your "poll" to have sexist tendencies, and thus dishonestly biasing the results. You will be using one person to prove that the entire movement is sexist, which is pretty clearly what is happening here. Stallman and someone else I've never heard of have made awful comments with the words "girls" in them, thus we are all sexist. I call "bullshit".
You mean like the pathetically ridiculous claim I saw upthread about RMS being a "leader of the FOSS movement" and "if the leader of the movement is a sexist then the movement is sexist"? You mean "implausible post-hoc excuses" like that?
The "leader of the movement" is a slightly-unbalanced long-haired bearded zealot. Does that mean EVERY developer of FOSS is a slightly-unbalanced long-haired bearded zealot? The current leader of the Democratic Party in the US is a young half-African-American socialist man. Does that make every Democrat young, half-African-American, male and a socialist?
The FOSS "movement" has nothing to do with sex, so the "leaders" views on sex have nothing to do with it.
And being confronted with unsolicited, unexpected, and unwanted porn images every few slides in a technical presentation wouldn't make MALE viewers uncomfortable? I sense a bit of hypocricy here, when someone paints an entire gender as porn-loving women-haters but complains whenever any comments about women are made.
Because, apparently, it is a "girl" who is complaining about sexism. It is quite natural in that context to use female references ("she" vs. "he", "girl" vs. "boy", etc.) It would be stupid, when talking to a female, to say something like "nobody knows you're a boy", because she isn't.
It is, however, part of the culture of victimhood, to pick out one word in a paragraph and claim that it is sexism because it has a specific gender meaning.
I'd take this is a reasonably harmless example of sexism, but quite clear proof that sexism exists, and sexist persons are not even aware of it.
I'd take this as the insufferable attitude of superiority that "victims" have, being the only people on the planet smart enough to be able to detect that they are being victimized. "I'm a victim of XXX, and if you were smarter you'd see how I was being victimized..." "Come see the violence inherent in the system".
Yes, sexism still exists, but it is damaging to the cause of those who fight true sexism for all this pretend victimhood to be waved around all the time. All it does is turn away the people who you want on your side. Jumping down the throat of someone who used the word "girl" and claiming he's an ignorant sexist just makes YOU look like a loon, and by association, all the other people who have serious and reasonable sexism complaints.
There is a difference between "sexism" (an act) and a correlation that only X % of Y are women. There is also a difference between sexism the act and a moron who thinks it's funny to put porn in a powerpoint presentation, even when 98% of his audience is going to be male. (Here's a free clue: not all men find porn to be funny or appropriate, so stop pretending that the only people offended by the alleged ruby presentation problem mentioned above were the women.)
Nope. Their primetime is made up of people like Olberman and Maddow. Maddow, whose show precedes Olberman, and who feigned surprise at the insulting comments about "the republican's health care plan is for old people to die quickly" from a congressman on the floor, claiming that it was the first time such excess had been uttered by a democrat. She doesn't watch her own network, or even CSPAN, it seems.
You look at CNN, you see people in the left, right and middle.
When you are a liberal, everyone who isn't as liberal as you is called "right". That's the only way you can claim CNN has "middle" and "right". No, Wolf Blitzer is not a conservative. Nor is Larry King.
And anyone who is truly conservative is labeled "wacko right-wing conspiracy theorist" by liberals, because to them, the "right" is anyone just left of center.
Yep. That's what they are supposed to be experts in. Not experts in economics, electronics, computer science, farming, business, or any of the other areas in which they ANALYZE the facts and tell us how we should feel about them.
The comment I was replying to was referring to them as experts in the areas they write about and sarcastically saying that people don't want to hear the opinions of such experts. He's right, I don't want to hear the opinions of faux experts. If I am interested in a topic, I'll get the facts and form my own opinions, thank you very much. At that point, your "journalist" isn't "several steps up" on the reader.
You see, a journalist may not be an expert in the subject they're writing about, but unless the reader is an expert in every field, they're still several steps up on the average reader.
Yes, here's the incredible denial, admitting first that we know they aren't experts in fields where we have experience, but assuming they must be getting it right for the fields we don't know personally. I think the simpler explanation is the more correct. They aren't an expert in fields I know how to detect their errors in, so they are most likely not experts in those fields where I can't detect their errors. Whether they write well and communicate those mistakes better than an expert would communicate the truth is a stupid way to judge their accuracy.
They also have access average readers don't and their facts are checked by another person.
You HOPE their facts are checked by someone who knows the truth. Most often their facts are checked by an editor who asks "did you get this from more than one person", and when the journalist says "yes", that's the end of the fact checking. The editor doesn't know the facts, he can't "check" them.
All of this provides value.
Show me where I said journalists have no value. I said they aren't the experts that they pretend to be, and their analysis is nothing more than their opinion on the matter. When they stick to reporting the facts, ALL of the facts, correctly, they perform their most valuable service. When they start interviewing each other, they lose all credibility.
You've just proven the point you were trying to deny. They aren't "different", they are "simply wrong". And you're the one holding the red pen grading other people's opinions, so you get to decide if what you don't believe could be "logical" or "rational". No possible bias there.
I saw a poll the other day. Don't remember where. Maybe here. 70% of people now believe that the mainstream media have a bias. I suspect that everyone in the mainstream media are in the remaining 30% who deny it.
For now, however, I'm writing you off as a nutjob ...
Yes, he must be "simply wrong", and if you can't prove it logically and rationally, you'll write him off as a nutjob. Careful you don't run out of red ink correcting everyone else's papers.
Called your bluff. I just looked at CNN's schedule for the next three days. Not a single conservative commentator in the list. And I've watched them, especially their international service, and know that they didn't have any conservatives on there, either.
Of course, Ted Turner is rich, and the homeless are not. So nothing happened with the story.
It never crossed your mind that the story wasn't true to start with? Just like the Rather story about Bush's military time? You give too much credit to the liberal news media you watch, assuming everything they tell you is true and that the only reason nothing happened to Ted is because he's rich.
If you believe that the journalist writing the stories is an expert in any field in which they write, there is no reason to continue reading your comment. You are patently wrong. They demonstrate this on a daily basis by the errors in their reporting. Talk to anyone who IS an expert in a subject that the journalists cover and see if they don't tell you they see far too many errors.
It's quite an eye opener, to see an event you are personally involved with covered by "the news", and see how often they get it wrong. And yet, most people who have experienced this STILL believe that the journalists don't get it wrong when reporting other news.
One of the least valuable interviews our mainstream media produce is when one journalist interviews another journalist, and yet that's what is happening more and more often as the true experts learn not to talk to journalists because they will be misquoted.
The New York Times is a pretty big operation. They even have an international arm dealing their liberal agenda: The International Herald Tribune. Unfortunately, the IHT is often the only serious US newspaper to be found outside the US (McPaper is the usual competitor). That means that "foreigners" and US people who travel are stuck with the liberal view of the US. And CNN is usually the only english-language cable channel in some countries, so it's impossible to avoid. (And if you think CNN is not liberal, consider that they carry "The Daily Show" on the international feed.)
If by "English conventions" you mean "how words are defined", yes.
But if we say "she" to refer to the same individual, we're saying something untrue?
You are saying that the unspecified person is specifically a female, which means that you are connecting a gender to the material you are trying to discuss.
How would you rewrite these sentences? "If she doesn't want to open-source a book, she simply doesn't claim it as a grant-related activity..."
Thusly: "How would you rewrite this sentence? If he doesn't want to open-source a book, he simply doesn't claim it as a grant-related activity...". This statement applies to everyone; the prior version applied only to women. It begs the question, ok, if a male book author doesn't want to open-source a book what does HE do? By specifying what a female author does, you imply it is different than what a male would do. That's a lie by implication.
Imagine wikipedia without central control to remove agenda-prompted edits. Imagine thirty eight entries for each wikipedia topic, each promoting a different interpretation and agenda. Imagine the fun of trying to figure out which version of which book was supposed to be used by a teacher ... when he could find eight books with the same title and mostly the same text online.
Imagine a Kansas teacher using an open source biology book where evolution has been elided. Imagine a German teacher using an open source history book where WWII was rewritten from the Axis viewpoint.
Open source simply means that anyone who is interested in contributing, and can adhere to the license agreement, may edit the open source item and submit the changes for the latest version.
That is not true. You admit as much in your next sentence:
Open source also means that a person or a group can modify the software or text and turn it into their own creation.
If it "simply" means one thing, it cannot "also mean" another. "Simply" implies simple meaning, not multiple definitions. Open source simply means that the source is available. It doesn't force anyone to register their changes or anything else. I have open source software here that I've modified and I've not registered a single modification with any authority.
As far as open source being hackable goes: anyone who thinks Linux (an open source operating system) is less secure than the operating systems offered by Microsoft or Apple is truly misinformed.
I have no idea what you intend to say with this. Comparative security of operating systems is not the issue. Anyone who thinks there aren't a dozen or more versions of "linux" floating around all called "linux" is truly misinformed, which goes to support the idea that open source textbooks are as likely to be modified to meet the "local requirements" as is "linux".
I personally think this is a great idea. Schools could select a text for their curriculum and allow their students to decide if they need a printed copy or not. If the student decides they do want a printed copy, they could also purchase a copy from their school bookstore or from an approved publisher. It would save costs to the schools and it would save costs for the students.
While I agree that electronic texts are a good thing, I do not agree that "save costs" is a reason to support it. There are a lot of things that schools could do to "save costs" that would result in unequal access to information. For example, providing "online texts" and requiring students who can't access them that way to buy their own copies (which is just one aspect of "if the student decides they do want a printed copy" that you mention). If you are too poor to have a computer you can carry around to access your textbook when necessary, you are then saddled with the cost of buying the text in paper? Uhhhh. No, thanks.
And, unfortunately, by lowering the number of books sold, you raise the price for each book to the point where nobody could afford them. A company that recoups its costs by selling 10,000 copies of a math book to the school board will have to charge more for the book when it sells only 100 copies. Schools will have to add the costs of running a bookstore (which I don't recall my elementary schools ever having.)
This would not preclude schools from choosing a more traditional textbook or scholars from writing them.
"Unintended consequences". I am a school board member picking texts. I know an EXCELLENT book written by a "traditional scholar" that covers the material in easy to understand terms. I also have an electronic textbook written by a lesser
This is a fact not in evidence. I don't think I want a textbook that has "no initial cost". That means no effort went into producing it.