Linus created Linux. This of no dispute. Other great minds then contributed to it and crafted it into the glorious product that it is today, and insightful speakers like Bruce Perens championed the cause. This is also of no dispute. I didn't mean to detract from their accomplishments, if that is how I came off.
As for the "50 year" thing, it was a typo. I hit '5' instead of '4'. UNIX has been around that long (40 years), as it was created in the early 1960's.
You are confusing issues, over analyzing the issue at hand, and using my opinion concerning this matter to make broad assumptions upon my judgement concerning unrelated topics.
And yet you seem to despise the role of emotion in politics.
Just stop for a moment and reflect upon what Linus Torvalds has accomplished. He created an operating system that in the past ten years has exceeded those that have existed for 50. He sparked a community to righteous uprising, and is the legitimate founder of a revolution in information technology business. And he did it all for the sake of curiosity and community - it was selfless.
You speak as if the use of computers to judge intellectual works will somehow make our society exempt from "rich upper class morons buying and pandering their way through school". Such an aristocratic model is something that exists beyond the scope of one's grades in school, and will not be eliminated, in any sense, by such a thing.
I love the aspect of humanity in the judging of intellectual works, for all of the reasons that you mentioned. I would hate to lose all of that, to sanitize some aspect of our educational institutions of the human element, in order to gain some small amount of elevated grammatical error checking. But hey, that's just me.
A computer program can only work within the limits of it's design. Although a Beowulf cluster can compute gigantic financial equations in the blink of an eye, it could never write a timeless poem, or draw an equisite work of art, or design a comic book, pen a great novel, or even generate a timeless quote about some current sociological event.
A computer isn't good enough to judge a human being.
It's funny that you mention fear as a motivation for opinion. The same can be said of you: you fear the human element so much that you would rather leave the work to a automaton, a thing that lacks the great complexity of man.
We have had Dali, Sagan, Kip Thorne, Hawkin, Poe, Twain, Sigmund Frued, Einstein, Torvalds, et cetera. The great minds that you mentioned were indeed great, but if you place their philosophical or artistic achievements next to the great minds of our past century and a half, I find them equal.
As far as the achievements of ancient cultures go, it is all relative. We have harnessed fusion, mapped the genome, created antibiotics, peered deep into the hearts of galaxies a 100,000,000 light years away, forged fiber optics, designed the integrated circuit, et cetera. People three hundred years from now will look back upon us and wonder how a civilization that could barely put a man on the moon (a feat that will surely be trivial to them) was able to usher in the Information Age in only a decade worth of work.
A lot of people that have the intelligence to debate subjects ranging from the intricacies of memory management in operating systems to the effects that the the Michelson-Morley experiment had on the realm of physics (as many here on Slashdot can) probably cherish good grammar and composition. I know I do. All I have to do is flip the channel to MTV and listen to today's youth (many of whom are older than I am) speak, or read an 11th grader's essay, and I begin to feel that we are slipping greatly in the subject of English.
I sometimes wonder how so many people, who are products of our education system, can be so painfully inadequate when it comes to the simple act of composing a sentence.
I don't like it. Part of the learning experience, especially in the subjects of arts and philosophy, is being judged by another human being (or group of human beings) and having your work subject to their myriad of emotions and intellectual whims. A system like Criteria removes the very complex aspect of education: the human mind.
Without computers we wouldn't be advancing in science, astronomy, genetics, or mathematics as rapidly as we have been in recent years. They are wonderful things. Hell, computers even help me keep a roof over my head. But I don't want Hal judging my kid's school papers.
We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problems, agree what's in the best interests of all the people, and then do it. You might say to yourself "That is exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don't wlways agree. In fact, they hardly ever do".
SSL has proven quite amiable. I see no reason not to trust it. It is this same mentality that is holding the adoption of electronic voting back. A healthy dose of skepticism is needed when approaching all things, but I am confident that SSL has long since passed the test.
All the more reason to create a new system. We have had time to analyze our current voting process and identify it's faults. Therefore, we should theoretically be able to create a new voting process that lacks these faults. The problema shouldn't be so difficult to eliminate if we start from scratch.
Then again, I'm sure this is the same mentality that Microsoft harbors when approaching one of their hazardous applications.
I liked Sandman (it pioneered many things within "comicdom"), but damn if The Dark Knight Returns wasn't one the greatest works of literature of modern times (also published by DC Comics). I want to see a Frank Miller written, Jim Lee illustrated graphic novel of Batman - such a thing is what dreams are made of.
I would also love to see a cross over story arc of Spider-Man and Batman with John Romita Jr. and Jim Lee alternating between titles (Jim Lee doing Spider-Man, and Romita Jr. doing Batman). You wouldn't have to search for writers, because every stellar comic writer of recent times would be fighting tooth and nail to pen this.
Talk about a fanboy's disgustingly drenched wet dream!!
They are doing exaclty that. Remember that the RIAA is more than one man or one company. Their past knee jerk reactions were expected, as many in their ranks no doubt had no understanding of the consumer, and even less had a grasp of the potential of online file sharing. They are now willing to embrace online technologies, and are showing signs of experimentation with lower prices (things that we have all been begging for, and using as justifications for our actions).
The peoples' dreams are being realized. Let's keep pushing the RIAA in the right direction, because if we don't own up to our promises and use those new online technologies and purchase the lower priced CDs we will have proven their past claims legit. And we all know what they will do should these measures fail.
I truly hope not. Record companies serve a purpose: an organized and well funded entitiy that can find good talent, and advertise and distribute said talent, in order to benefit both the artist and the public. Not all record companies have to be as draconion and vile as those that the RIAA represent. There are record companies out there that are quite fair and moral, and there might even be more should the RIAA ever perish.
Ask for amnesty, but only if the RIAA agrees to never make your identity known to any other party, except law enforcement should you ever renig on your agreement (of course). That's what I would do, because as you stated, it would be absurd and self defeating not to.
Whether you agree with them or not, the RIAA has determined that file "sharing"(stealing/copyright infringement) has negatively impacted their "industry"(ripping off artists and preventing others from competing, or even distributing, fairly). You have to admit, they have some compelling evidence that justifies their claim. Their critics evidence is rather compelling as well. In light of this, they are approaching this issue as any large conglomerate would: fierce defense of their successful business model.
At the end of the day, the manner in which the RIAA conducts business is legal, though obviously immoral. Willing copyright infringement is not. The RIAA has the funds, will, and know-how to pursue litigation against those that illegally obtains their goods. Those that have to defend themselves usually do not. What one has to ask themselves is:
1." Do two wrongs make a right?" 2. "Am I willing to participate in illegal and immoral activities?" 3. "If I am willing to engage in copyright infringement/theft, am I prepared to accept the possible consequences?" 4. "Is it all worth it?"
I remember when I was a freshmen in college, many people here on Slashdot were begging the RIAA to attack the individuals that were guilty of copyright infringement, and not the parties that provided the software and networks to make it possible. Now the RIAA is doing exactly that, and the good people at Slashdot continue to cry foul. What, pray tell, do you find an acceptable course of action for the RIAA? They are, at the end of the day, merely doing everything in their power to protect their property, their business, and their livelihood. This embrace of amnesty is an obvious last resort measure before they embark on a truly horrific campaign of litigation, a campaign that may ruin them - and they surely know it.
I must sound like a broken record by now, but I have to say what needs to be said (at the price of sounding pretentious and "holier than thou"). I don't infringe on the copyrights of others. I don't agree with how the RIAA conducts business, in fact, I find it appalling and believe that it does the art of music harm. However, my moral compass points away from acts of theft. The only plausible answer, for me, is to neither purchase RIAA goods, nor participate in copyright infringement. I wonder why this state of mind is so hard to grasp?
Remember the gnomes that spoke in long run-on sentences and couldn't stop themselves unless someone interupted them? That's what this article text reminds me of.
That was the fastest Slashdotting ever. Seriously. I clicked the link right after the article became available to non-sunscribers. It just goes to show, even though you can get complex applications like Apache to run on a PDA, it isn't always the brightest idea.
Slashdot Mirror
As for the "50 year" thing, it was a typo. I hit '5' instead of '4'. UNIX has been around that long (40 years), as it was created in the early 1960's.
And yet you seem to despise the role of emotion in politics.
Interesting.
Such actions wreak of a great mind to me.
You speak as if the use of computers to judge intellectual works will somehow make our society exempt from "rich upper class morons buying and pandering their way through school". Such an aristocratic model is something that exists beyond the scope of one's grades in school, and will not be eliminated, in any sense, by such a thing.
I love the aspect of humanity in the judging of intellectual works, for all of the reasons that you mentioned. I would hate to lose all of that, to sanitize some aspect of our educational institutions of the human element, in order to gain some small amount of elevated grammatical error checking. But hey, that's just me.
...that automaton would have caught my glaring grammatical mistake: ...the work to a automaton.... It should have been "an". :)
A computer isn't good enough to judge a human being.
;)
As far as the achievements of ancient cultures go, it is all relative. We have harnessed fusion, mapped the genome, created antibiotics, peered deep into the hearts of galaxies a 100,000,000 light years away, forged fiber optics, designed the integrated circuit, et cetera. People three hundred years from now will look back upon us and wonder how a civilization that could barely put a man on the moon (a feat that will surely be trivial to them) was able to usher in the Information Age in only a decade worth of work.
I sometimes wonder how so many people, who are products of our education system, can be so painfully inadequate when it comes to the simple act of composing a sentence.
The fun they had
Without computers we wouldn't be advancing in science, astronomy, genetics, or mathematics as rapidly as we have been in recent years. They are wonderful things. Hell, computers even help me keep a roof over my head. But I don't want Hal judging my kid's school papers.
How does one willingly pay $25,250,000, without trial, and not admit to wrong doing? An admittance of guilt is suggested under such circumstances.
I would say that they should be made to agree.
I am your father.
SSL has proven quite amiable. I see no reason not to trust it. It is this same mentality that is holding the adoption of electronic voting back. A healthy dose of skepticism is needed when approaching all things, but I am confident that SSL has long since passed the test.
Then again, I'm sure this is the same mentality that Microsoft harbors when approaching one of their hazardous applications.
For the betterment of mankind, I post this first.
I would also love to see a cross over story arc of Spider-Man and Batman with John Romita Jr. and Jim Lee alternating between titles (Jim Lee doing Spider-Man, and Romita Jr. doing Batman). You wouldn't have to search for writers, because every stellar comic writer of recent times would be fighting tooth and nail to pen this.
Talk about a fanboy's disgustingly drenched wet dream!!
OK, so I am a big nerd, so sue me.
The peoples' dreams are being realized. Let's keep pushing the RIAA in the right direction, because if we don't own up to our promises and use those new online technologies and purchase the lower priced CDs we will have proven their past claims legit. And we all know what they will do should these measures fail.
I truly hope not. Record companies serve a purpose: an organized and well funded entitiy that can find good talent, and advertise and distribute said talent, in order to benefit both the artist and the public. Not all record companies have to be as draconion and vile as those that the RIAA represent. There are record companies out there that are quite fair and moral, and there might even be more should the RIAA ever perish.
Ask for amnesty, but only if the RIAA agrees to never make your identity known to any other party, except law enforcement should you ever renig on your agreement (of course). That's what I would do, because as you stated, it would be absurd and self defeating not to.
Why must you pervert my mind with such horrific visuals!
At the end of the day, the manner in which the RIAA conducts business is legal, though obviously immoral. Willing copyright infringement is not. The RIAA has the funds, will, and know-how to pursue litigation against those that illegally obtains their goods. Those that have to defend themselves usually do not. What one has to ask themselves is:
1." Do two wrongs make a right?"
2. "Am I willing to participate in illegal and immoral activities?"
3. "If I am willing to engage in copyright infringement/theft, am I prepared to accept the possible consequences?"
4. "Is it all worth it?"
I remember when I was a freshmen in college, many people here on Slashdot were begging the RIAA to attack the individuals that were guilty of copyright infringement, and not the parties that provided the software and networks to make it possible. Now the RIAA is doing exactly that, and the good people at Slashdot continue to cry foul. What, pray tell, do you find an acceptable course of action for the RIAA? They are, at the end of the day, merely doing everything in their power to protect their property, their business, and their livelihood. This embrace of amnesty is an obvious last resort measure before they embark on a truly horrific campaign of litigation, a campaign that may ruin them - and they surely know it.
I must sound like a broken record by now, but I have to say what needs to be said (at the price of sounding pretentious and "holier than thou"). I don't infringe on the copyrights of others. I don't agree with how the RIAA conducts business, in fact, I find it appalling and believe that it does the art of music harm. However, my moral compass points away from acts of theft. The only plausible answer, for me, is to neither purchase RIAA goods, nor participate in copyright infringement. I wonder why this state of mind is so hard to grasp?
Remember the gnomes that spoke in long run-on sentences and couldn't stop themselves unless someone interupted them? That's what this article text reminds me of.
That was the fastest Slashdotting ever. Seriously. I clicked the link right after the article became available to non-sunscribers. It just goes to show, even though you can get complex applications like Apache to run on a PDA, it isn't always the brightest idea.