Follow the following algorithm to experience a moment of intense joy:
1. Acquire Windows for PPC.
2. Put Windows on your beautiful, pristine, PPC machine.
3. Experience the joys of Windows on PPC for one full week. You MUST use ONLY IE and Outlook Express for the full week. Your feeling at the end of the week should be similar to the expereience of waking up after a week-long bender in Tijuana, only to realize you've been having unprotected sex with an 80-year old Tijuana hooker with no teeth and a hygeine problem. NOTE: I have not experienced this... Ahem.
4. Re-install Mac OS/X on your machine, run it through a full update, set your wallpapers and so forth, then go to bed.
5. The next morning, find a sunny, beautiful spot in your apartment, power your PPC machine up, and check your email. Browse the web for a while using Mozilla. See how much better the system is now, how wonderfully it works, and realize your ordeal is over.
Relish the moment... Every now and then, if you need a pick-me-up, you can repeat it...;)
You misunderstand. I didn't say you were religious. I said that you were reacting similarly to the religious, who often get all riled up over a matter of opinion -- just like you did.
As far as the "children" thing goes, maybe I misspoke. I could have phrased that a lot better. Of course, this is what you should have said, instead of insulting me and calling me a liar.
"loaded words and false claims" -- I think you're reaching here. The most you can say is that I misspoke, and that you overreacted in typical Slashbot fashion.
As far as my comments being inaccurate, well, I'm a layman. It was just my opinion, and I wasn't trying for scientific accuracy -- I wouldn't presume to be an expert on the subject.
I see what you mean about the aborted fetuses; I had been under the impression that some stem cells could still be harvested, but again, I'm a layman and I just know what I hear in the media.
The thing about embryos is hard for me to wrap my mind around. On the one hand, embryos are just spherical collections of stem cells until they start turning into a fetus, right? So in a way, they're like a cultured batch. On the other, an embryo DOES turn into a fetus, whereas a cultured batch of cells wouldn't. I still feel there is some kind of structure there, something that shouldn't be created just to be destroyed.
Of course, I'm all for using the cells from IVF clinics, and I think George Bush is a moron for being stubborn about it. I'm voting for Kerry, I'm guessing you are too? I think that what makes the IVF embryos fair game is that they were created for the purpose of producing a life, and the embryos that are going to be harvested are the ones that didn't get selected for implantation; i.e. a side product of a good practice. Again, it's just the emotional response of a layman, but that's my feeling on it. I might not fully understand the situation, admittedly.
Anyway, no hard feelings? I hope the situation is resolved in a way that lets the research proceed without allowing negative side effects. That's my only concern, really -- I dont' want anyone to stop doing the research, I just want them to err on the side of caution when it comes to ethical concerns.
Amazing, isn't it? I've been noticing that here on Slashdot, anytime any one of a certain taboo set of opinions is expressed, people assume you're awful. Because it's sucn an amazing effect, here's my list (you probably can add a few you've noticed too):
1. Suggesting that not all scientific "progress" is actual progress, and that perhaps, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should (result: people consider you either a luddite, a religious wacko, or ignorant). Actually, this counts for ANY comment that is "against" science, high-tech, the Computerization Of Everything (tm), etc. All voices of reason must be extinguished. Ironically, half the flames come from so-called libertarians -- you'd think they'd be all about freedom of opinion.
2. Saying anything bad about libertarians will get you flamed, pronto. It's kind of like coming out against that weird religion that sprouted from Dianetics; say anything less than complimentary and they bring the smackdown.
3. Argue any point that can be remotely traced or associated with any religious belief, traditional way of thinking, or conservative position and you'll get barked at.
4. Argue anything anti-corporate, pro-union, socialist, or leftist, and you'll get a mixed bag. Half the people will love you, the other half will hate you and sling venom. Actually, this can be fun.
Yeah, Slashdot's a minefield, I think. Of course, considering the four triggers I've mentioned above, we could probably come up with an algorithm for being Loved On Slashdot (LOS). Here's my first blush at this algorithm; if we follow it, we can ALL be LOSers!;)
1. All comments must be pro-technology, regardless of the ultimate consequences of the use of that technology. Similarly, we must grant Big Science our absolute trust and loyalty. They only want what's Best For Us (BFU, tm) after all. This goes double for tech-related corporations.
2. LOSing comments should generally avoid questioning anything considered important by libertarians, feminists, rich techie geeks in Silicon Valley, NYC and SF, and of course the OSS community.
3. One should never question why the Open Source people used the acronym of the Office of Strategic Services, the department that became the CIA after world war II. If someone DOES question it, one should say that they're Wonder Woman fans and change the subject.
4. Comments should generally attack Slashdot's enemy of the week. If you don't know who the current enemy of the week is, it is usually safe to attack SCO, Microsoft, and the federal government. IBM and Sun are on the watch list; their status changes weekly, so use caution.
Ah, well. I can't go along with that, so I figure I'll get flamed pretty regularly. What can you do? At least my home heating bills have gone way down.;)
To everyone who feels like freaking out and telling me off, let me save you all some time and lay out my actual positions on this stuff, so you don't waste time calling me a religious maniac or whatnot:
1. Stem cell research: good.
2. Cultivating stem cells acquired from IVF sources: good.
3. As I've heard suggested in the media, cultivating stem cells acquired from aborted embryos, fetuses, whatever: good. DISCLAIMER: DO NOT PANIC. I AM NOT ACCUSING ANYONE OF DOING THIS. IT IS JUST HYPOTHETICAL FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. Sheesh, People around here are too high strung.
4. Cloning stem cells: good.
5. Cloning entire embryos: touchy ground. I think it's different from using already cast-off tissue that would have died anyway. And, the phrase "cloning embryos" is too damn unspecific anyway. Are you talking about actual cloning, or just culturing cells? If cloning, I think it's a bad idea. Which is what this whole stupid argument thread is about.
I see an embryo, and of course a fetus, as an entire unit, a potential person. Therefore, if that potential person is already dead, as with castoff IVF material, or the clinic idea I've heard mentioned in the media, I don't see any harm in it. On the other hand, if you've just created a viable embryo just to disassemble it for the stem cells, that seems kind of ugly. And I do think it would be only a few steps from some much more serious nastiness down the road. I don't trust scientists as far as I can throw them, sorry. I've read too much about what they've done in the past. Like the guy who invented the lobotomy and then proceeded to inflict it on thousands of patients because he thought he was "helping" them.
6. I am not particularly religious, I have no desire to outlaw abortion, IVF, or any other such thing, I'm not an ignorant, evil redneck, and this is all just my opinion anyway.
Slashdot, people, is an OPINION SITE. Not necessarily the news.
Now, THIS is my WHOLE opinion on the subject, everybody relax.
1. I'm not arguing that anything came from an abortion clinic. I'm arguing that it makes more sense to get it from abortion clinics. Not quite the same, is it? Do relax.
2. The abortion clinic argument came from opinions I've read, heard, and seen in the media that abortion clinics could be a viable source of fetal tissue. I've heard people talk about using IVF sources also, specifically extra samples (do you call them samples? I assume you're involved in all this somehow, hence your angry response) that were going to be thrown out anyway. Lots of discussion has taken place in the media, which I'm sure you're aware of. People are pushing IVF sources now because the religious right went batshit over someone considering abortion clinics, and here you are horrified that I brought it up on Slashdot. Again, do relax.
2. What is with you and fetuses/embryos? The article said they intended to try cloning embryos, not just stem cell tissue. Don't blame ME if journalists are idiots who can't tell the difference. I'm just commenting on the article, as read. By the way, while we're on the subject,
fetus Audio pronunciation of "fetus" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fts) n. pl. fetuses
1. The unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate having a basic structural resemblance to the adult animal.
2. In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo.
And,
embryo Audio pronunciation of "embryo" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mbr-) n. pl. embryos
1.
1. An organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form.
2. An organism at any time before full development, birth, or hatching.
2.
1. The fertilized egg of a vertebrate animal following cleavage.
2. In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development.
Please notice that neither "fetus" nor "embryo" is described as being created in IVF facilities. This is because the definitions of "fetus" and "embryo" have nothing to do with IVF. They don't only come from IVF clinics, in other words. I seem to remember reading about a manual process once, involving two people and large quantities of alcohol.
3. I have read about people trying to clone stem cell tissue, or at least culture it somehow. I didn't make any complaint about that; I think it's perfectly sensible. Not that YOU care what I think, but there it is. Entire embryos, well, that I don't like. Again, not that you care.
FINALLY,
Enjoy your righteous indignation. It bounced right off me. Here's a happy thought for you: your pro-science knee-jerk flame-mail sounds just exactly like that of the religious right. Lots of "dont you dare"s and capital letters, ad hominem (implying I don't know what a fetus or embryo are, thus questioning my intelligence) and etc. You're all the same.
I didn't lie about a thing. You don't consider an embryo to be a human being, or even a potential human being. I consider it to be one stage in the development of a human being, a totally arbitrarily defined one at that. So, who's right? It's a matter of opinion, not fact, a culturally and arbitrarily defined concept. By accusing me of lying, you merely asserted that you were right -- without actually being right.
"Embryo" is just a term, ok? Just a word. Some scientist or doctor, many years ago, needed a term for the stage in human development when cells have differentiated enough to be regognizable as more than just a round little clump of cells, and he came up with "Embryo". Someone else needed a term for when the embryo moved into the next stage, and we got "fetus". Another word. And just a word.
In terms of the abortion argument, which I assume is what everyone's so touchy about, at some point the government decided how old a potential baby could be and still be aborted. So (also arbitrarily) they came up with a magic number, a set number of weeks beyond which abortion was no longer humane to the abortee. People who are extremely pro-choice (yes, they are exremists also) think that before this point, it's not a human being in there. People that are pro-life (also extremists) think that it's a person from the instant sperm meets egg.
Me, I'm in the middle. I think it's definitely at least a potential person, but that an abortion before that potential person is capable of pain or consciousness or even a real nervous system, isn't the terrible act of cruelty the pro-lifers like to claim it to be. At worst, it's a waste of potential, the person that embryo could have become. I'm not crazy about that, don't get me wrong -- but then, I'm not going to go around telling people what they're going to do with their own bodies, either. If it was me, I wouldn't do it. But when it's not me, I mind my own business.
Back to the point we've wandered so far from, I am very uncomfortable with a researcher deciding that he's going to start manufacturing embryos for his research purposes. It seems callous and disrespectful of human life to me. And I definitely see a slippery slope problem involved.
It's one thing to say that since we as a culture have decided that women have the right to abort up to a certain number of weeks, and these embryos are already going to be terminated, that we might as well use their cells. These embryos are the side effect of an accidental pregnancy which was aborted, and if we don't use the cells they just get thrown out anyway.
It's another to say that it's okay to just start growing embryos for research purposes. When you start cloning them, it's no longer an accident, it's no longer the use of something that already exists. There is no gravity, no feeling, there is only product, a very dangerous precedent, and a modification in the way we view life. And I think it's different.
This is my position; it is just as valid as yours. And, no, you aren't right to attack me for it. You aren't right when you call me a liar because I think that experiments on an embryo might as well be on a child (it's all just semantics anyway). And you aren't right when you say I deserve whatever I get because I don't agree with you.
The delicious irony here is that you people are just like the religious right. Who, ironically don't like me either because I'm not interested in their rabid "pro-life" thing.
An embryo is one stage in the development of a fetus. At first, you have only a collection of cells, eventually they start to differentiate into different types of tissues, and at some point the collection of cells is considered an "embryo". In other words, "embryo" is an arbitrary scientific and legal term describing a specific point in the development of a fetus.
What was that you were saying? Something about me not knowing what an embryo is? More typical Slashdot ad hominem.
Before you say I don't know what THAT is, it means "Against the man" meaning a personal attack substituted for an actual logical argument. That thing you forgot to add in your one-liner.
What I don't like is that I'm labelled as an "Evil and ignorant religious" extremist because I voiced the opinion that they should get their stem cells from already-dead aborted fetuses from clinics rather than cloning their own supply.
I voiced an opinion, and this being slashdot, I got instantly attacked for it.
Not because I was against choice (I'm not). Not even because I was against stem cell research (I'm not either). But because I objected to the source of the stem cells and voiced an opinion about slippery slopes and untrustworthy scientists.
That's crazy even for Slashdot. And, I'm not a religious wacko, either. I just don't see the point of cloning entire embryos when you can get them without any moral quandries from abortion clinics, and I don't see the point of cloning an entire embryo when what you're SUPPOSED to be after are stem cells, which you can harvest from already-dead embryos supplied by abortion clinics, and culture to produce a supply.
I don't think that disagreeing with their methodology makes me an "evil and ignorant religious" extremist.
Well, naturally. But not because a dog is more self-aware than an embryo, but because certain types of research don't provide benefits that outweigh the suffering of an animal.
For example, if you're working on curing a serious disease, and you're using, say, rhesus monkeys, I'm not going to give you a hard time.
But if you're just testing cosmetics, I'm not going to weep one bitter tear when a bunch of college kids breaks those animals out of your lab. I'm a little too old to participate, but I sure wouldn't rat them out.
Rat... Get it? It's a pun.;)
Now, about those embryos: they're basically saying they want to clone embryos so that they can disassemble those embryos and pull out their stem cells. This isn't something they HAVE to do. This isn't something that can't be done in a more humane way. There are abortion clinics all over the place that would likely be delighted to let you have their already-dead embryos. And you could harvest all the stem cells you want that way.
I'm not saying "don't do stem cell research".
I'm saying, get your stem cells from embryos that have already been killed (for all intents and purposes, they're pretty dead).
Whether we agree with abortion or not, it's a fact of life. And the embryos are ALREADY THERE. There's no need to start cloning them, manufacturing human beings for disassembly.
And, anyway, if they were JUST after stem cells, they'd say they were going to clone STEM CELLS, not EMBRYOS. There's more here than meets the eye, you know? Something smells.
What's much worse than what you mentioned is what the Harvard researchers are suggesting: cloning human beings for "research" purposes. Imagine creating a human child just to perform experiments on it. And, no, just because it is an embryo doesn't make it right. This is nightmare stuff.
Don't get me wrong; I'm pro choice, and I don't see anything particularly terrible about harvesting cells from aborted fetuses that have already died. But it's one thing to use cells from a dead organism, and a completely DIFFERENT thing to create a living organism and experiment on it.
This just goes to show that researchers all too often dump all consideration of right and wrong "in the name of science". So they inject people with solutions of plutonium to see how long it takes for them to die of radiation poisoning (yes, this happened in the late forties and early fifties, to terminal patients, thus cutting their lives short by MONTHS without their consent). And they let blacks in the deep south suffer from syphilis for decades to study how the disease progresses when untreated, while telling the men that they were doing what they could.
Evil and science are not strangers. Let's hope the ethics committee turns down their requests.
having different sets of icons for each desktop, one for internet, one for apps, etc, does seem kind of cool, I'll give you that much. And, I'll take your word that you can run the same apps as KDE, although I didn't have as much luck when I tried Windowmaker out -- that might be related to my install, though.
As far as five seconds vs. instantaneous goes, I'm much more patient than you. Actually, my KDE takes a little longer than that to start, maybe ten or fifteen, because I'm running older hardware. But still, that's peanuts. At work, I'm stuck with Windows 2000, and if you want to talk about glacially slow start times, check THIS out: at work, I'm running a Dell 1.4Ghz machine, with 512MB of Ram. If I reboot, it takes at least a minute and a half to get to a login prompt. When I log in, it takes at least a minute or two for the system to finish farting around. Amazing, eh? Yet people keep buying it.;)
To be fair, some of the delay is weird firewall and "look over my shoulder" stuff the admins set up, and at least thirty seconds of it is from Outlook starting up (I can't work without it, we depend heavily on email and we're not allowed to use something safer). Half the time, Outlook fails to connect and I have to keep hitting "retry". If only I could use KMail at work...
While admitting that this is strictly a preference (i.e. not a quantitative measure), I like KDE's overall look/feel and the basic layout. It works really well for me, and the general paradigm aligns nicely with my general way of thinking. The other WM's never really turned me on, and Gnome felt alien to me. Just a preference.
1. Again, if you downloaded or purchased the ISO, there's nothing to compile. What is the point of compiling it, again? It seems like a fantastic waste of time.
2. If you're already running an Athlon XP 2500+, Jesus Christmas, you're not going to notice anything slower about KDE than anything else. Hell, you probably aren't going to notice anything slower about ANYTHING than anything else. At some point, the whole "speed" issue just goes away. I could understand if you were running some antiquated piece of junk, but you're not.
As far as your productivity argument, what would ever make one windowing environment more productive than another? They're all the same as far as that goes; they run applications, and you use the actual applications to do your work. There's no productivity issue there at all. In fact, I think I could make the case that you'd be better off with KDE, because you'd have access to KOffice and be able to run nice IDEs like Eclipse and Netbeans. I don't know if you're a developer, but even if you're just doing sysadmin stuff, using Windowmaker doesn't buy you anything. Hell, if you're a sysadmin, you only need a command line. This argument doesn't seem to make sense.
3. I withdraw my assumption about your desire for geekly approval. My apologies. However, I have noticed a large number of people, especially on Slashdot, who seem to relish bragging annoyingly about how they're running some weird, obscure system on ancient hardware, as if that makes them some kind of supergeek.
I used to know someone who ran SCO Unix (Honest to God, he was amazingly weird) and who refused to upgrade to Linux. He fought it tooth and nail, and only finally submitted to SOME Linux because a V.P. basically ordered him to. This guy was such a freak. He'd refuse to buy any commercial software, insisting on downloading free/OSS tools that wouldn't run on his SCO systems, then he'd jump into the C code and tinker around with it until he got it to work. Of course it was totally unstable after that, but then he'd just say that we couldn't do whatever we were trying to do. I quit that job pretty quick, fleeing in horror.
I won't assume anything else about you, but perhaps you'll understand why I might be inclined to suspect an odd motivation when I hear of someone using something obscure instead of something commonplace.
This isn't a flame either; I'm enjoying the conversation.:)
When confronted with a new Microsoft security hole, which seems to one to have existed for a while, possibly leaving his entire organization at risk, one should never react with surprise or horror.
One must make a FRIEND of the horror.
Then, one can hear about the security issue, nod sagely with a wan smile, and whisper to the junior IT staff, "But of COURSE there is a hole. This is to be expected, young one. Run and patch, then we'll go to lunch."
Bonus points for leaning back in one's chair, folding one's hands across one's belly, and sighing loudly before addressing the novice.
1. Why would anyone bother compiling KDE? I use Slackware, I don't have to compile anything. Are you doing this as some sort of bizarre hobbyist exercise, or a feeble attempt at alpha geek status? Weird.
2. As someone else mentioned, window managers are not desktop environments.
3. I think that people like you, who use obscure window managers and strange environments do so primarily because you think it gives you some sort of special ubergeek cachet. Perhaps some of you can't afford anything better than a 133Mhz machine, although one would think you could afford the two or three hundred bucks it would cost to get a real machine (e.g. at least 400Mhz and 128MB of Ram). Whatever.
4. Here's a personal message from me to you: other people's opinions of you don't matter, and if you spend all your time trying to overcome bizarre technical obstacles (like obsolete tools) to impress them, you'll never develop as a technologist. It's far better to get the best tools you can afford, and let your abilities bloom, than to go far out of your way to limit yourself in the hopes that someone will notice your struggle and be suitably impressed.
This isn't meant as a flame. I actually do care. And I think you're being a total masochist. Take off those nipple clamps and painful straps! Seriously.
Sorry, I wasn't aware that Slashdot was a scientific journal. Next time I'll follow APA guidelines and provide references for every sentence. Sheesh.
You provided some good arguments. However, I still don't trust Gnome, Mono, et al. And I think Keramik looks pretty nice, provided you change the window decoration (I prefer "Laptop" myself). The icons are pretty gorgeous, and the widget set looks fine to me.
It all comes down to opinion. I've met people who love Gnome and people who despise it, likewise for KDE. I hate Gnome. I think it's a mess. I'm a KDE guy.
You can include the gnome libraries without including the actual Gnome desktop environment. It would maintain compatability with any gnome apps the user wanted to use, and would be voluntary for installation.
What are you talking about? Gnome is awful. It's freaky looking, it doesn't follow the conventions just about everyone else is following, its configuration tools are rotten, its maintainers are copying Microsoft's.Net initiative, which is going to be crushed like a bug the instant Bill Gates tires of them and opens up his patent portfolio... I mean, there are so many things wrong with Gnome, where do I start?
KDE is a much better tool, I think. I use it exclusively, and I love it dearly. I'm sorry to jump into the GUI religious war thing, but if KDE were to "win" that would be a GOOD thing. Linux would be consistent, and it would look and feel similar enough to the tools almost everyone else is using that people would be comfortable switching over when the time came. This is a GOOD thing.
We Americans can have "have quality and independent news" too. Our cable systems generally bring us a dozen or two different news channels. Most people totally ignore Fox. We might watch some C-Span to see what Congress and the Senate are up to, compare the American news channels to each other to try and guess who they're aligning with, and watch international news to see what the rest of the world thinks about things. Sometimes the UK and Europe come up with something interesting, sometimes they just push their own agendas.
The news, in general, has always been a mixed bag. It is always affected by the ambitions of those in power.
Even your BBC. They're just probably more subtle about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you know, the thing about Kerry is... He's not Bush. ;)
Follow the following algorithm to experience a moment of intense joy:
;)
1. Acquire Windows for PPC.
2. Put Windows on your beautiful, pristine, PPC machine.
3. Experience the joys of Windows on PPC for one full week. You MUST use ONLY IE and Outlook Express for the full week. Your feeling at the end of the week should be similar to the expereience of waking up after a week-long bender in Tijuana, only to realize you've been having unprotected sex with an 80-year old Tijuana hooker with no teeth and a hygeine problem. NOTE: I have not experienced this... Ahem.
4. Re-install Mac OS/X on your machine, run it through a full update, set your wallpapers and so forth, then go to bed.
5. The next morning, find a sunny, beautiful spot in your apartment, power your PPC machine up, and check your email. Browse the web for a while using Mozilla. See how much better the system is now, how wonderfully it works, and realize your ordeal is over.
Relish the moment... Every now and then, if you need a pick-me-up, you can repeat it...
You misunderstand. I didn't say you were religious. I said that you were reacting similarly to the religious, who often get all riled up over a matter of opinion -- just like you did.
As far as the "children" thing goes, maybe I misspoke. I could have phrased that a lot better. Of course, this is what you should have said, instead of insulting me and calling me a liar.
"loaded words and false claims" -- I think you're reaching here. The most you can say is that I misspoke, and that you overreacted in typical Slashbot fashion.
No hard feelings. I'm getting accustomed to it.
Fair enough; how about a truce?
As far as my comments being inaccurate, well, I'm a layman. It was just my opinion, and I wasn't trying for scientific accuracy -- I wouldn't presume to be an expert on the subject.
I see what you mean about the aborted fetuses; I had been under the impression that some stem cells could still be harvested, but again, I'm a layman and I just know what I hear in the media.
The thing about embryos is hard for me to wrap my mind around. On the one hand, embryos are just spherical collections of stem cells until they start turning into a fetus, right? So in a way, they're like a cultured batch. On the other, an embryo DOES turn into a fetus, whereas a cultured batch of cells wouldn't. I still feel there is some kind of structure there, something that shouldn't be created just to be destroyed.
Of course, I'm all for using the cells from IVF clinics, and I think George Bush is a moron for being stubborn about it. I'm voting for Kerry, I'm guessing you are too? I think that what makes the IVF embryos fair game is that they were created for the purpose of producing a life, and the embryos that are going to be harvested are the ones that didn't get selected for implantation; i.e. a side product of a good practice. Again, it's just the emotional response of a layman, but that's my feeling on it. I might not fully understand the situation, admittedly.
Anyway, no hard feelings? I hope the situation is resolved in a way that lets the research proceed without allowing negative side effects. That's my only concern, really -- I dont' want anyone to stop doing the research, I just want them to err on the side of caution when it comes to ethical concerns.
Amazing, isn't it? I've been noticing that here on Slashdot, anytime any one of a certain taboo set of opinions is expressed, people assume you're awful. Because it's sucn an amazing effect, here's my list (you probably can add a few you've noticed too):
;)
;)
1. Suggesting that not all scientific "progress" is actual progress, and that perhaps, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should (result: people consider you either a luddite, a religious wacko, or ignorant). Actually, this counts for ANY comment that is "against" science, high-tech, the Computerization Of Everything (tm), etc. All voices of reason must be extinguished. Ironically, half the flames come from so-called libertarians -- you'd think they'd be all about freedom of opinion.
2. Saying anything bad about libertarians will get you flamed, pronto. It's kind of like coming out against that weird religion that sprouted from Dianetics; say anything less than complimentary and they bring the smackdown.
3. Argue any point that can be remotely traced or associated with any religious belief, traditional way of thinking, or conservative position and you'll get barked at.
4. Argue anything anti-corporate, pro-union, socialist, or leftist, and you'll get a mixed bag. Half the people will love you, the other half will hate you and sling venom. Actually, this can be fun.
Yeah, Slashdot's a minefield, I think. Of course, considering the four triggers I've mentioned above, we could probably come up with an algorithm for being Loved On Slashdot (LOS). Here's my first blush at this algorithm; if we follow it, we can ALL be LOSers!
1. All comments must be pro-technology, regardless of the ultimate consequences of the use of that technology. Similarly, we must grant Big Science our absolute trust and loyalty. They only want what's Best For Us (BFU, tm) after all. This goes double for tech-related corporations.
2. LOSing comments should generally avoid questioning anything considered important by libertarians, feminists, rich techie geeks in Silicon Valley, NYC and SF, and of course the OSS community.
3. One should never question why the Open Source people used the acronym of the Office of Strategic Services, the department that became the CIA after world war II. If someone DOES question it, one should say that they're Wonder Woman fans and change the subject.
4. Comments should generally attack Slashdot's enemy of the week. If you don't know who the current enemy of the week is, it is usually safe to attack SCO, Microsoft, and the federal government. IBM and Sun are on the watch list; their status changes weekly, so use caution.
Ah, well. I can't go along with that, so I figure I'll get flamed pretty regularly. What can you do? At least my home heating bills have gone way down.
Thanks. Not too many people were open to what I was saying.
Exactly.
To everyone who feels like freaking out and telling me off, let me save you all some time and lay out my actual positions on this stuff, so you don't waste time calling me a religious maniac or whatnot:
1. Stem cell research: good.
2. Cultivating stem cells acquired from IVF sources: good.
3. As I've heard suggested in the media, cultivating stem cells acquired from aborted embryos, fetuses, whatever: good. DISCLAIMER: DO NOT PANIC. I AM NOT ACCUSING ANYONE OF DOING THIS. IT IS JUST HYPOTHETICAL FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. Sheesh, People around here are too high strung.
4. Cloning stem cells: good.
5. Cloning entire embryos: touchy ground. I think it's different from using already cast-off tissue that would have died anyway. And, the phrase "cloning embryos" is too damn unspecific anyway. Are you talking about actual cloning, or just culturing cells? If cloning, I think it's a bad idea. Which is what this whole stupid argument thread is about.
I see an embryo, and of course a fetus, as an entire unit, a potential person. Therefore, if that potential person is already dead, as with castoff IVF material, or the clinic idea I've heard mentioned in the media, I don't see any harm in it. On the other hand, if you've just created a viable embryo just to disassemble it for the stem cells, that seems kind of ugly. And I do think it would be only a few steps from some much more serious nastiness down the road. I don't trust scientists as far as I can throw them, sorry. I've read too much about what they've done in the past. Like the guy who invented the lobotomy and then proceeded to inflict it on thousands of patients because he thought he was "helping" them.
6. I am not particularly religious, I have no desire to outlaw abortion, IVF, or any other such thing, I'm not an ignorant, evil redneck, and this is all just my opinion anyway.
Slashdot, people, is an OPINION SITE. Not necessarily the news.
Now, THIS is my WHOLE opinion on the subject, everybody relax.
1. I'm not arguing that anything came from an abortion clinic. I'm arguing that it makes more sense to get it from abortion clinics. Not quite the same, is it? Do relax.
2. The abortion clinic argument came from opinions I've read, heard, and seen in the media that abortion clinics could be a viable source of fetal tissue. I've heard people talk about using IVF sources also, specifically extra samples (do you call them samples? I assume you're involved in all this somehow, hence your angry response) that were going to be thrown out anyway. Lots of discussion has taken place in the media, which I'm sure you're aware of. People are pushing IVF sources now because the religious right went batshit over someone considering abortion clinics, and here you are horrified that I brought it up on Slashdot. Again, do relax.
2. What is with you and fetuses/embryos? The article said they intended to try cloning embryos, not just stem cell tissue. Don't blame ME if journalists are idiots who can't tell the difference. I'm just commenting on the article, as read. By the way, while we're on the subject,
fetus Audio pronunciation of "fetus" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fts)
n. pl. fetuses
1. The unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate having a basic structural resemblance to the adult animal.
2. In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo.
And,
embryo Audio pronunciation of "embryo" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mbr-)
n. pl. embryos
1.
1. An organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form.
2. An organism at any time before full development, birth, or hatching.
2.
1. The fertilized egg of a vertebrate animal following cleavage.
2. In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development.
Please notice that neither "fetus" nor "embryo" is described as being created in IVF facilities. This is because the definitions of "fetus" and "embryo" have nothing to do with IVF. They don't only come from IVF clinics, in other words. I seem to remember reading about a manual process once, involving two people and large quantities of alcohol.
3. I have read about people trying to clone stem cell tissue, or at least culture it somehow. I didn't make any complaint about that; I think it's perfectly sensible. Not that YOU care what I think, but there it is. Entire embryos, well, that I don't like. Again, not that you care.
FINALLY,
Enjoy your righteous indignation. It bounced right off me. Here's a happy thought for you: your pro-science knee-jerk flame-mail sounds just exactly like that of the religious right. Lots of "dont you dare"s and capital letters, ad hominem (implying I don't know what a fetus or embryo are, thus questioning my intelligence) and etc. You're all the same.
I didn't lie about a thing. You don't consider an embryo to be a human being, or even a potential human being. I consider it to be one stage in the development of a human being, a totally arbitrarily defined one at that. So, who's right? It's a matter of opinion, not fact, a culturally and arbitrarily defined concept. By accusing me of lying, you merely asserted that you were right -- without actually being right.
"Embryo" is just a term, ok? Just a word. Some scientist or doctor, many years ago, needed a term for the stage in human development when cells have differentiated enough to be regognizable as more than just a round little clump of cells, and he came up with "Embryo". Someone else needed a term for when the embryo moved into the next stage, and we got "fetus". Another word. And just a word.
In terms of the abortion argument, which I assume is what everyone's so touchy about, at some point the government decided how old a potential baby could be and still be aborted. So (also arbitrarily) they came up with a magic number, a set number of weeks beyond which abortion was no longer humane to the abortee. People who are extremely pro-choice (yes, they are exremists also) think that before this point, it's not a human being in there. People that are pro-life (also extremists) think that it's a person from the instant sperm meets egg.
Me, I'm in the middle. I think it's definitely at least a potential person, but that an abortion before that potential person is capable of pain or consciousness or even a real nervous system, isn't the terrible act of cruelty the pro-lifers like to claim it to be. At worst, it's a waste of potential, the person that embryo could have become. I'm not crazy about that, don't get me wrong -- but then, I'm not going to go around telling people what they're going to do with their own bodies, either. If it was me, I wouldn't do it. But when it's not me, I mind my own business.
Back to the point we've wandered so far from, I am very uncomfortable with a researcher deciding that he's going to start manufacturing embryos for his research purposes. It seems callous and disrespectful of human life to me. And I definitely see a slippery slope problem involved.
It's one thing to say that since we as a culture have decided that women have the right to abort up to a certain number of weeks, and these embryos are already going to be terminated, that we might as well use their cells. These embryos are the side effect of an accidental pregnancy which was aborted, and if we don't use the cells they just get thrown out anyway.
It's another to say that it's okay to just start growing embryos for research purposes. When you start cloning them, it's no longer an accident, it's no longer the use of something that already exists. There is no gravity, no feeling, there is only product, a very dangerous precedent, and a modification in the way we view life. And I think it's different.
This is my position; it is just as valid as yours. And, no, you aren't right to attack me for it. You aren't right when you call me a liar because I think that experiments on an embryo might as well be on a child (it's all just semantics anyway). And you aren't right when you say I deserve whatever I get because I don't agree with you.
The delicious irony here is that you people are just like the religious right. Who, ironically don't like me either because I'm not interested in their rabid "pro-life" thing.
An embryo is one stage in the development of a fetus. At first, you have only a collection of cells, eventually they start to differentiate into different types of tissues, and at some point the collection of cells is considered an "embryo". In other words, "embryo" is an arbitrary scientific and legal term describing a specific point in the development of a fetus.
What was that you were saying? Something about me not knowing what an embryo is? More typical Slashdot ad hominem.
Before you say I don't know what THAT is, it means "Against the man" meaning a personal attack substituted for an actual logical argument. That thing you forgot to add in your one-liner.
And you. I didn't claim moral high ground or authority. I stated my opinion.
And, I didn't deserve being called an ignorant religious extremist because I disagreed with you.
So, again, FUCK YOU.
What I don't like is that I'm labelled as an "Evil and ignorant religious" extremist because I voiced the opinion that they should get their stem cells from already-dead aborted fetuses from clinics rather than cloning their own supply.
I voiced an opinion, and this being slashdot, I got instantly attacked for it.
Not because I was against choice (I'm not). Not even because I was against stem cell research (I'm not either). But because I objected to the source of the stem cells and voiced an opinion about slippery slopes and untrustworthy scientists.
Nice place, this. Real mature crowd.
Amazing. Just amazing.
Not even remotely human???
That's crazy even for Slashdot. And, I'm not a religious wacko, either. I just don't see the point of cloning entire embryos when you can get them without any moral quandries from abortion clinics, and I don't see the point of cloning an entire embryo when what you're SUPPOSED to be after are stem cells, which you can harvest from already-dead embryos supplied by abortion clinics, and culture to produce a supply.
I don't think that disagreeing with their methodology makes me an "evil and ignorant religious" extremist.
Oh, and fuck you. You're a putz.
Well, naturally. But not because a dog is more self-aware than an embryo, but because certain types of research don't provide benefits that outweigh the suffering of an animal.
;)
For example, if you're working on curing a serious disease, and you're using, say, rhesus monkeys, I'm not going to give you a hard time.
But if you're just testing cosmetics, I'm not going to weep one bitter tear when a bunch of college kids breaks those animals out of your lab. I'm a little too old to participate, but I sure wouldn't rat them out.
Rat... Get it? It's a pun.
Now, about those embryos: they're basically saying they want to clone embryos so that they can disassemble those embryos and pull out their stem cells. This isn't something they HAVE to do. This isn't something that can't be done in a more humane way. There are abortion clinics all over the place that would likely be delighted to let you have their already-dead embryos. And you could harvest all the stem cells you want that way.
I'm not saying "don't do stem cell research".
I'm saying, get your stem cells from embryos that have already been killed (for all intents and purposes, they're pretty dead).
Whether we agree with abortion or not, it's a fact of life. And the embryos are ALREADY THERE. There's no need to start cloning them, manufacturing human beings for disassembly.
And, anyway, if they were JUST after stem cells, they'd say they were going to clone STEM CELLS, not EMBRYOS. There's more here than meets the eye, you know? Something smells.
What's much worse than what you mentioned is what the Harvard researchers are suggesting: cloning human beings for "research" purposes. Imagine creating a human child just to perform experiments on it. And, no, just because it is an embryo doesn't make it right. This is nightmare stuff.
Don't get me wrong; I'm pro choice, and I don't see anything particularly terrible about harvesting cells from aborted fetuses that have already died. But it's one thing to use cells from a dead organism, and a completely DIFFERENT thing to create a living organism and experiment on it.
This just goes to show that researchers all too often dump all consideration of right and wrong "in the name of science". So they inject people with solutions of plutonium to see how long it takes for them to die of radiation poisoning (yes, this happened in the late forties and early fifties, to terminal patients, thus cutting their lives short by MONTHS without their consent). And they let blacks in the deep south suffer from syphilis for decades to study how the disease progresses when untreated, while telling the men that they were doing what they could.
Evil and science are not strangers. Let's hope the ethics committee turns down their requests.
having different sets of icons for each desktop, one for internet, one for apps, etc, does seem kind of cool, I'll give you that much. And, I'll take your word that you can run the same apps as KDE, although I didn't have as much luck when I tried Windowmaker out -- that might be related to my install, though.
;)
As far as five seconds vs. instantaneous goes, I'm much more patient than you. Actually, my KDE takes a little longer than that to start, maybe ten or fifteen, because I'm running older hardware. But still, that's peanuts. At work, I'm stuck with Windows 2000, and if you want to talk about glacially slow start times, check THIS out: at work, I'm running a Dell 1.4Ghz machine, with 512MB of Ram. If I reboot, it takes at least a minute and a half to get to a login prompt. When I log in, it takes at least a minute or two for the system to finish farting around. Amazing, eh? Yet people keep buying it.
To be fair, some of the delay is weird firewall and "look over my shoulder" stuff the admins set up, and at least thirty seconds of it is from Outlook starting up (I can't work without it, we depend heavily on email and we're not allowed to use something safer). Half the time, Outlook fails to connect and I have to keep hitting "retry". If only I could use KMail at work...
While admitting that this is strictly a preference (i.e. not a quantitative measure), I like KDE's overall look/feel and the basic layout. It works really well for me, and the general paradigm aligns nicely with my general way of thinking. The other WM's never really turned me on, and Gnome felt alien to me. Just a preference.
1. Again, if you downloaded or purchased the ISO, there's nothing to compile. What is the point of compiling it, again? It seems like a fantastic waste of time.
:)
2. If you're already running an Athlon XP 2500+, Jesus Christmas, you're not going to notice anything slower about KDE than anything else. Hell, you probably aren't going to notice anything slower about ANYTHING than anything else. At some point, the whole "speed" issue just goes away. I could understand if you were running some antiquated piece of junk, but you're not.
As far as your productivity argument, what would ever make one windowing environment more productive than another? They're all the same as far as that goes; they run applications, and you use the actual applications to do your work. There's no productivity issue there at all. In fact, I think I could make the case that you'd be better off with KDE, because you'd have access to KOffice and be able to run nice IDEs like Eclipse and Netbeans. I don't know if you're a developer, but even if you're just doing sysadmin stuff, using Windowmaker doesn't buy you anything. Hell, if you're a sysadmin, you only need a command line. This argument doesn't seem to make sense.
3. I withdraw my assumption about your desire for geekly approval. My apologies. However, I have noticed a large number of people, especially on Slashdot, who seem to relish bragging annoyingly about how they're running some weird, obscure system on ancient hardware, as if that makes them some kind of supergeek.
I used to know someone who ran SCO Unix (Honest to God, he was amazingly weird) and who refused to upgrade to Linux. He fought it tooth and nail, and only finally submitted to SOME Linux because a V.P. basically ordered him to. This guy was such a freak. He'd refuse to buy any commercial software, insisting on downloading free/OSS tools that wouldn't run on his SCO systems, then he'd jump into the C code and tinker around with it until he got it to work. Of course it was totally unstable after that, but then he'd just say that we couldn't do whatever we were trying to do. I quit that job pretty quick, fleeing in horror.
I won't assume anything else about you, but perhaps you'll understand why I might be inclined to suspect an odd motivation when I hear of someone using something obscure instead of something commonplace.
This isn't a flame either; I'm enjoying the conversation.
When confronted with a new Microsoft security hole, which seems to one to have existed for a while, possibly leaving his entire organization at risk, one should never react with surprise or horror.
One must make a FRIEND of the horror.
Then, one can hear about the security issue, nod sagely with a wan smile, and whisper to the junior IT staff, "But of COURSE there is a hole. This is to be expected, young one. Run and patch, then we'll go to lunch."
Bonus points for leaning back in one's chair, folding one's hands across one's belly, and sighing loudly before addressing the novice.
1. Why would anyone bother compiling KDE? I use Slackware, I don't have to compile anything. Are you doing this as some sort of bizarre hobbyist exercise, or a feeble attempt at alpha geek status? Weird.
2. As someone else mentioned, window managers are not desktop environments.
3. I think that people like you, who use obscure window managers and strange environments do so primarily because you think it gives you some sort of special ubergeek cachet. Perhaps some of you can't afford anything better than a 133Mhz machine, although one would think you could afford the two or three hundred bucks it would cost to get a real machine (e.g. at least 400Mhz and 128MB of Ram). Whatever.
4. Here's a personal message from me to you: other people's opinions of you don't matter, and if you spend all your time trying to overcome bizarre technical obstacles (like obsolete tools) to impress them, you'll never develop as a technologist. It's far better to get the best tools you can afford, and let your abilities bloom, than to go far out of your way to limit yourself in the hopes that someone will notice your struggle and be suitably impressed.
This isn't meant as a flame. I actually do care. And I think you're being a total masochist. Take off those nipple clamps and painful straps! Seriously.
Sorry, I wasn't aware that Slashdot was a scientific journal. Next time I'll follow APA guidelines and provide references for every sentence. Sheesh.
You provided some good arguments. However, I still don't trust Gnome, Mono, et al. And I think Keramik looks pretty nice, provided you change the window decoration (I prefer "Laptop" myself). The icons are pretty gorgeous, and the widget set looks fine to me.
It all comes down to opinion. I've met people who love Gnome and people who despise it, likewise for KDE. I hate Gnome. I think it's a mess. I'm a KDE guy.
But I respect your preferences.
You can include the gnome libraries without including the actual Gnome desktop environment. It would maintain compatability with any gnome apps the user wanted to use, and would be voluntary for installation.
What are you talking about? Gnome is awful. It's freaky looking, it doesn't follow the conventions just about everyone else is following, its configuration tools are rotten, its maintainers are copying Microsoft's .Net initiative, which is going to be crushed like a bug the instant Bill Gates tires of them and opens up his patent portfolio... I mean, there are so many things wrong with Gnome, where do I start?
KDE is a much better tool, I think. I use it exclusively, and I love it dearly. I'm sorry to jump into the GUI religious war thing, but if KDE were to "win" that would be a GOOD thing. Linux would be consistent, and it would look and feel similar enough to the tools almost everyone else is using that people would be comfortable switching over when the time came. This is a GOOD thing.
We Americans can have "have quality and independent news" too. Our cable systems generally bring us a dozen or two different news channels. Most people totally ignore Fox. We might watch some C-Span to see what Congress and the Senate are up to, compare the American news channels to each other to try and guess who they're aligning with, and watch international news to see what the rest of the world thinks about things. Sometimes the UK and Europe come up with something interesting, sometimes they just push their own agendas.
The news, in general, has always been a mixed bag. It is always affected by the ambitions of those in power.
Even your BBC. They're just probably more subtle about it.