What people really want is a toilet that shits for them! You know, to take all the strain out of the experience and make it a more relaxing affair. First the system would set you at ease and then... assist. For sure, it would make hemorrhoids a thing of the past.
... there's a good chance that it will get a lot less attention from the media than the original report. On the other hand, it may also be seized upon by those who will see this new development as "proof" that scientists are just out to get attention and are therefore not to be trusted. *sigh*
If this thing ever works as intended, I imagine the next step would be to produce a commercial version. At first it would only be for specialized uses, but the big breakthrough would be when the first general purpose model appears. Connected to the Internet, it would be great to help people with no prior knowledge to e.g. repair a car, or simply cook a tasty meal for themselves with a limited collection of ingredients.
On the other hand, I feel less scrupulous entities would be sorely tempted to use these devices to feed people all kinds of misinformation that would e.g. get them to buy inferior products, make bad investments, vote for the wrong candidates, divulge their bank account numbers, etc. A corporation might end up using this technology to, every once in a while, effectively control large numbers of people.
Does this sound crazy? Well, there have already been plenty of accidents due to people blindly following erroneous satnav instructions. At some point most people just stop thinking about what they're being told to do. Heavy users with poor educations and/or poor critical thinking skills would be the most vulnerable.
Florida is supposed to be subtropical with a relatively wet climate, but at the moment the place seems bone dry. Many wetlands have simply dried up and people fear that even most 'gator holes will not be deep enough for the reptiles to survive any significant frosts (the poor critters look pretty skinny as it is). Therefore, I guess it's not totally surprising that parts of the forest seem to be going up in flames spontaneously. When I lived there as a kid in the 60s and 70s, drought was never an issue, but now it has been for more than the past decade. To me, this is yet another strong sign that, climatologically, we live in a changing world.
You know the establishment is winning when they've succeeded in using the fear of terrorism as an excuse to create the foundations of a police state...
If this really is a museum about nonsense, then I will only take it seriously if it includes all of the world's religions.*
On the other hand, if it's really called the "Museum of Failed Inventions", perhaps religions should not be included, because as viruses of the mind they have been very effective indeed.
*) Well, say all of the ones that at some point had over a million followers.
Sounds like you just described the Internet as a modern-day Tower of Babel. I hope it works out for us better than it did the last time.
The Internet may work to unite humanity, but another force still works to achieve the opposite: the quest for power, whether politically, financially or religiously motivated, which starts by using censorship to protect its interests. To get around that, the Internet will have to become less centralized. A decentralized version of DNS would be a good place to start, but even better would be if people didn't have to use a local ISP to get a minimal, affordable Internet connection. For instance, during WWII it was a lot harder for the Nazis to stop people from tuning in to the BBC than it is for the current Chinese government to prevent its citizens from accessing Wikipedia, Twitter and Facebook.
For millenia, groups of people, as well as like-minded individuals everywhere, have been separated from each other geographically, which effectively prevented them from exchanging information and ideas. However, as separate groups they did all find unique ways of communication and entertainment, knowledge, arts and beliefs, which we refer to as language and culture.
Now there's the Internet, and all groups connected to it find themselves being drawn into a single global culture with English as a unifying language. Some folks, Konrad von Finckenstein among them, lament this development because of what's being lost, but what about the bad things we're losing and the good things we're gaining? All these separate languages and cultures are interesting, but they have also prevented us from communicating and understanding each other, which has all too often resulted in violence and bloodshed.
Therefore, if we find that the continued growth of the Internet leads to a loss of individual languages and cultures, but an increase in communication and understanding overall, then that's definitely not something we should try to stop.
Every once in a while, anthropologists find a group of primitive people living in a jungle somewhere without ever having had contact with the outside world. They jump at the opportunity to study such peoples, but there are now questions about whether is it is ethical to keep these people as isolated as possible just to preserve their languages and cultures; outside contact would certainly include many dangers for them, but also many benefits. Besides that, shouldn't they have a choice in the matter?
The same goes for Canadians, or any other less isolated but nevertheless culturally distinct groups around the world: it should be their choice in the first place, and if they choose to further integrate themselves into the global village, then that's also a good thing.
In Europe for many centuries, people were tortured and cremated alive for the lesser crime of heresy, to say nothing of apostasy or atheism. Western societies may have remained in this barbaric state if it wasn't for the Age of Enlightenment, which eventually freed our minds from the chains of religious dogma, or at least loosened them for most Christians.
Unfortunately, this has yet to happen for Islam. If it ever does it won't be easy, because the Quran and the Hadith (which is used as a guide to interpret the Quran) are both unequivocal in their condemnation of unbelievers, and especially of apostasy, for which, according to Sharia law, the punishment is death. That being the case, many would agree that Mr. Aan should count himself lucky, as well as that, among Muslim societies, Indonesia is actually rather moderate.
Still, that doesn't mean that we would consider Indonesia to be a civilized society, which I've seen defined as any in which people may openly discuss and/or criticize any subject imaginable without fear of physical violence.
While yes using a SATA 3.0 would take forever, there is no reason to think that when these drives a produced that will be the standard used for them. I think it is more likely that they will connect to something like PCIe 16x slot (or whatever dongle they are using to connect to that bus). A v3.0 PCIe 16x will do 16GB/s so it would take 34 hours with technology in most people's computer right now. By the time 2EB drives get on the market I don't think it will be an issue.
If IBM's new technology eventually makes it into the common hard disk, there will naturally be a faster bus technology to accommodate the increased bit rates to/from the read/write heads (due to the higher areal density), so you can bet it will take less than 37 days to read or write an entire disk. However, because the disks can't really rotate any faster than they do now, the bigger they get, the more tracks there will be to access and the longer it will take to read or write the whole thing. The only way to get rid of the underlying problem is to stop using rotating disks altogether and to start using things like SSDs instead, which can be accessed at speeds that are not subject to mechanical limitations.
By the time this atomic scale HD hits the consumer sphere - if they do, it'll be something like 20+ years from now - I'm sure by then (2030+) they would have parallel version of SATA 9.0 that can read the entire 2ExaByte content in like 0.2 milsec
You forget that when it comes to sustained throughput, hard disks have always been slower than the buses used to connect them. It's a problem that's intrinsic to writing/reading data to/from a mechanical medium. In this case the disks can't really rotate any faster, so the bigger they get, the more tracks there are to access and the worse the problem becomes.
Sure, over time the sustained throughput rates have increased, but that's only because of the steady increase in areal density. Assuming IBM's new technology eventually makes it into the common hard disk, there will naturally be a faster bus technology to accommodate the increased bit rates to/from the read/write heads, so you can bet it will take less than 37 days to read or write the entire disk. However, it will still take a lot longer than with a 2 TB disk today! The only way to get rid of the underlying problem is to stop using rotating disks altogether and to start using things like SSDs instead, which can be accessed at speeds that are not subject to mechanical limitations.
Imagine having a hard disk with a capacity of 2,000 TB. Using a SATA 3.0 bus with a sustained maximum throughput of 600 MiB/s, it would still take over 37 days to read or write the entire device.
They are just doing what the United States is telling them to do.
That seems fairly obvious. For instance, I live in Europe and this story didn't surprise me at all.
Honestly, Why are the Citizens of the Netherlands allowing the USA to dictate their own laws? Why are you people not protesting in the streets over this stuff?
Because it's so mundane. Many (if not most) of the things that happen in the States eventually seem to happen in other developed, westernized countries. The big corporations know that and use it to get things done. Whenever they want to get the law changed in their favor -- *everywhere* -- they start by drafting something up themselves and taking it to Washington D.C. -- the world's capitol of free-market capitalism where it is now perfectly legal to bribe politicians. All that's necessary is to bribe enough of them and your proposal will become law no matter how unworkable and unpopular it may be. After that it's easy to get any US administration, Republican or Democrat, to pressure foreign countries into passing similar laws, although, as we've seen in Spain, sometimes it's even possible to get them to do that in advance!
There are some other things too. First, this whole issue is about copyright law -- something that, sadly, almost no one except Slashdotters and other geeks and nerds seem to be capable of getting worked up about. Second, even in Europe, ever since WWII the Netherlands has had a history of being particularly spineless when it comes to dealing with political and economic pressure from its most valuable trading partner, i.e. Uncle Sam. So, what do you expect?
Besides, I don't see any of you Americans out protesting on the streets against having a bunch of corrupt politicians ram SOPA and PIPA down your throats either.
Indeed. One of my clients uses Linux for just about everything, except for a few applications that must run on Windows. In one of those cases they use a KVM virtual machine with Windows XP, because the minimum hardware requirements for it are a fraction of those for Windows 7. And since it's used only for a single purpose, they've firewalled it off from most of the Internet and so don't even bother with security fixes or AV software. I guess that means April 2014 will only mean something to them if M$ not only uses that occasion to stop producing OS patches for it, but also decides to deactivate all Windows XP licenses.
Wikipedia is a mobocracy, but if even its own members fail to live up to their own policies, what hope is there for any other mobocracy? They are good at gathering information, but have yet to discover a basic mechanism with which to achieve accuracy by automatically weeding out errors...
... other than by employing one or more experts/gatekeepers.
Totally agree! I spend the best part of *three years* working on a relatively obscure corner of WP's biology department involving some 500 articles and over 20,000 edits before finally throwing in the towel. I learned a lot during my time there, but eventually the idea of putting more effort into it just didn't make any more sense. One of their main problems is that the only thing preventing good articles from deteriorating is constant policing by knowledgeable editors -- and preferably by the people who are responsible for all the important contributions. I like to think that my contributions to WP have not been a complete waste, but if enough time goes by before anyone fills my shoes, I fear they will be. After all, what good is an article that's now only 99% accurate? 98%, 97%, 96%...
... and the growth in size of many articles, combined with the limited number of Wikipedia editors, is one possible reason why spelling errors may be on the increase. Also, one form of vandalism is the intentional introduction of spelling errors.
... Congressmen... are elected, so they actually DO represent mainstream American sentiment....
Correction: congressmen on both sides of the isle are elected, but for the most part do not represent mainstream American sentiment. They mostly represent the interests of the people (corporations and their lobbyists) who finance their election campaigns; a group that makes up only about 0.05% of the U.S. population.
Why would I need to spend so much time thinking about a god who doesn't exist? I've been an atheist my entire adult life, and I don't see the need to read a book to tell me the obvious....
I used to think the same thing. But, after hearing so much about stuff like the war in the Balkans, the genocide in Rwanda, the Christian campaign to introduce creationism in the classroom, etc. etc, and then listening to what Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and others had so say about it, everything started to make a lot more sense. So much of the conflict and misery in the world is explained by the divisive nature of many of the world's most popular religions. They all say they're about peace, but because of their irreconcilable dogmas they can never agree with each other, so how can that e.g. ever lead to world peace? It's much more likely to be a recipe for war, which is exactly why most wars have been about religion, or involved it to a large degree.
At this point, many would say the solution is simply to be more tolerant of each others views, religious or otherwise. Religious moderates like to argue this point, and for most of my life I agreed with them. The problem with this, however, is that when religious moderates argue that everyone has the right to believe anything they want about their god, they also give protection to all the folks out there with more extreme views who actually (or have the potential to) cause a lot of suffering in the world.
The fact is that religious groups all around the world are very well organized and often have far more influence on our daily lives than they should. Yet, there is little to counter their influence when it becomes a negative force (the Balkans, Rwanda, Creationism, 9/11, Israel-Palestine, pedophilia in the Catholic church, etc.). I know it sounds silly to try to get a group of people to rally around the idea of not believing in something, but as the world becomes ever more crowded and our resources dwindle, I don't think we can any longer afford not to make an effort to band together and demand that reason always come first.
* Christopher Hitchens -- God is not Great
* Richard Dawkins -- The God Delusion
* Daniel C. Dennett -- Breaking the Spell
* Sam Harris -- The End of Faith
These guys, sometimes collectively referred to as "The Four Horsemen," write even better than they sound in their many interviews, lectures and debates that can be found on YouTube and elsewhere. Whether you've already made up your mind about religion or not, these books don't just offer food for thought: they represent a banquet!
Do that in broad lines, avoiding too much detail. Start on the largest scale, with short descriptions of all the major subsystems, and then work down to the lower levels. In the same way, document your own changes, but don't skimp on describing your rationale.
It may take a while, but this approach has a number of advantages. First, you will develop a clearer picture of what your predecessor has done. Second, you will better understand your own handy-work when you try to figure out why you did what you did months or years from now. Third, as opposed to your predecessor, when the day comes you will be able to leave your position in a clear conscience to your own successor.
To many, this advice probably sounds like a good way to make a tough job even harder. Most of us hate writing documentation (just ask your predecessor), but system administration is definitely a lot more complex these days than it was in the 90s, and even back then I learned the hard way that, in order to remain in control of systems that will likely be used for many years, documentation is essential beyond a certain level of complexity.
... when IIRC the MPAA and the RIAA managed to convince regulators that it was fair to add an additional tax to the sale of all audio and video tapes, incl. DAT. It's called the private copying levy. They argued that, since it was safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of tapes would be used to make illegal copies of copyrighted content, the tax would go some way to compensating them for their losses. Of course, this idea was unfair, because it also taxed everyone who was not interested in music or Hollywood movies, or only recorded their own material. Nowadays it also applies to blank CDs and DVDs. However, this new proposal for a web usage tax is such a blunt instrument it makes the old "blank media tax", as it is also known, look like a razor.
Slashdot Mirror
What people really want is a toilet that shits for them! You know, to take all the strain out of the experience and make it a more relaxing affair. First the system would set you at ease and then... assist. For sure, it would make hemorrhoids a thing of the past.
... there's a good chance that it will get a lot less attention from the media than the original report. On the other hand, it may also be seized upon by those who will see this new development as "proof" that scientists are just out to get attention and are therefore not to be trusted. *sigh*
... So who the F@#K would represent them for free? ...
They themselves? IIRC, companies that engage in patent tolling activities often consist largely or entirely of lawyers.
If this thing ever works as intended, I imagine the next step would be to produce a commercial version. At first it would only be for specialized uses, but the big breakthrough would be when the first general purpose model appears. Connected to the Internet, it would be great to help people with no prior knowledge to e.g. repair a car, or simply cook a tasty meal for themselves with a limited collection of ingredients.
On the other hand, I feel less scrupulous entities would be sorely tempted to use these devices to feed people all kinds of misinformation that would e.g. get them to buy inferior products, make bad investments, vote for the wrong candidates, divulge their bank account numbers, etc. A corporation might end up using this technology to, every once in a while, effectively control large numbers of people.
Does this sound crazy? Well, there have already been plenty of accidents due to people blindly following erroneous satnav instructions. At some point most people just stop thinking about what they're being told to do. Heavy users with poor educations and/or poor critical thinking skills would be the most vulnerable.
Let's hope a FOSS version also becomes available.
Florida is supposed to be subtropical with a relatively wet climate, but at the moment the place seems bone dry. Many wetlands have simply dried up and people fear that even most 'gator holes will not be deep enough for the reptiles to survive any significant frosts (the poor critters look pretty skinny as it is). Therefore, I guess it's not totally surprising that parts of the forest seem to be going up in flames spontaneously. When I lived there as a kid in the 60s and 70s, drought was never an issue, but now it has been for more than the past decade. To me, this is yet another strong sign that, climatologically, we live in a changing world.
You know the terrorists have won when...
Also:
You know the establishment is winning when they've succeeded in using the fear of terrorism as an excuse to create the foundations of a police state...
If this really is a museum about nonsense, then I will only take it seriously if it includes all of the world's religions.*
On the other hand, if it's really called the "Museum of Failed Inventions", perhaps religions should not be included, because as viruses of the mind they have been very effective indeed.
*) Well, say all of the ones that at some point had over a million followers.
Sounds like you just described the Internet as a modern-day Tower of Babel. I hope it works out for us better than it did the last time.
The Internet may work to unite humanity, but another force still works to achieve the opposite: the quest for power, whether politically, financially or religiously motivated, which starts by using censorship to protect its interests. To get around that, the Internet will have to become less centralized. A decentralized version of DNS would be a good place to start, but even better would be if people didn't have to use a local ISP to get a minimal, affordable Internet connection. For instance, during WWII it was a lot harder for the Nazis to stop people from tuning in to the BBC than it is for the current Chinese government to prevent its citizens from accessing Wikipedia, Twitter and Facebook.
For millenia, groups of people, as well as like-minded individuals everywhere, have been separated from each other geographically, which effectively prevented them from exchanging information and ideas. However, as separate groups they did all find unique ways of communication and entertainment, knowledge, arts and beliefs, which we refer to as language and culture.
Now there's the Internet, and all groups connected to it find themselves being drawn into a single global culture with English as a unifying language. Some folks, Konrad von Finckenstein among them, lament this development because of what's being lost, but what about the bad things we're losing and the good things we're gaining? All these separate languages and cultures are interesting, but they have also prevented us from communicating and understanding each other, which has all too often resulted in violence and bloodshed.
Therefore, if we find that the continued growth of the Internet leads to a loss of individual languages and cultures, but an increase in communication and understanding overall, then that's definitely not something we should try to stop.
Every once in a while, anthropologists find a group of primitive people living in a jungle somewhere without ever having had contact with the outside world. They jump at the opportunity to study such peoples, but there are now questions about whether is it is ethical to keep these people as isolated as possible just to preserve their languages and cultures; outside contact would certainly include many dangers for them, but also many benefits. Besides that, shouldn't they have a choice in the matter?
The same goes for Canadians, or any other less isolated but nevertheless culturally distinct groups around the world: it should be their choice in the first place, and if they choose to further integrate themselves into the global village, then that's also a good thing.
In Europe for many centuries, people were tortured and cremated alive for the lesser crime of heresy, to say nothing of apostasy or atheism. Western societies may have remained in this barbaric state if it wasn't for the Age of Enlightenment, which eventually freed our minds from the chains of religious dogma, or at least loosened them for most Christians.
Unfortunately, this has yet to happen for Islam. If it ever does it won't be easy, because the Quran and the Hadith (which is used as a guide to interpret the Quran) are both unequivocal in their condemnation of unbelievers, and especially of apostasy, for which, according to Sharia law, the punishment is death. That being the case, many would agree that Mr. Aan should count himself lucky, as well as that, among Muslim societies, Indonesia is actually rather moderate.
Still, that doesn't mean that we would consider Indonesia to be a civilized society, which I've seen defined as any in which people may openly discuss and/or criticize any subject imaginable without fear of physical violence.
And that's according to the "job creators." How many more hugely expensive tax breaks do they deserve?
While yes using a SATA 3.0 would take forever, there is no reason to think that when these drives a produced that will be the standard used for them. I think it is more likely that they will connect to something like PCIe 16x slot (or whatever dongle they are using to connect to that bus). A v3.0 PCIe 16x will do 16GB/s so it would take 34 hours with technology in most people's computer right now. By the time 2EB drives get on the market I don't think it will be an issue.
If IBM's new technology eventually makes it into the common hard disk, there will naturally be a faster bus technology to accommodate the increased bit rates to/from the read/write heads (due to the higher areal density), so you can bet it will take less than 37 days to read or write an entire disk. However, because the disks can't really rotate any faster than they do now, the bigger they get, the more tracks there will be to access and the longer it will take to read or write the whole thing. The only way to get rid of the underlying problem is to stop using rotating disks altogether and to start using things like SSDs instead, which can be accessed at speeds that are not subject to mechanical limitations.
By the time this atomic scale HD hits the consumer sphere - if they do, it'll be something like 20+ years from now - I'm sure by then (2030+) they would have parallel version of SATA 9.0 that can read the entire 2ExaByte content in like 0.2 milsec
You forget that when it comes to sustained throughput, hard disks have always been slower than the buses used to connect them. It's a problem that's intrinsic to writing/reading data to/from a mechanical medium. In this case the disks can't really rotate any faster, so the bigger they get, the more tracks there are to access and the worse the problem becomes.
Sure, over time the sustained throughput rates have increased, but that's only because of the steady increase in areal density. Assuming IBM's new technology eventually makes it into the common hard disk, there will naturally be a faster bus technology to accommodate the increased bit rates to/from the read/write heads, so you can bet it will take less than 37 days to read or write the entire disk. However, it will still take a lot longer than with a 2 TB disk today! The only way to get rid of the underlying problem is to stop using rotating disks altogether and to start using things like SSDs instead, which can be accessed at speeds that are not subject to mechanical limitations.
Imagine having a hard disk with a capacity of 2,000 TB. Using a SATA 3.0 bus with a sustained maximum throughput of 600 MiB/s, it would still take over 37 days to read or write the entire device.
They are just doing what the United States is telling them to do.
That seems fairly obvious. For instance, I live in Europe and this story didn't surprise me at all.
Honestly, Why are the Citizens of the Netherlands allowing the USA to dictate their own laws? Why are you people not protesting in the streets over this stuff?
Because it's so mundane. Many (if not most) of the things that happen in the States eventually seem to happen in other developed, westernized countries. The big corporations know that and use it to get things done. Whenever they want to get the law changed in their favor -- *everywhere* -- they start by drafting something up themselves and taking it to Washington D.C. -- the world's capitol of free-market capitalism where it is now perfectly legal to bribe politicians. All that's necessary is to bribe enough of them and your proposal will become law no matter how unworkable and unpopular it may be. After that it's easy to get any US administration, Republican or Democrat, to pressure foreign countries into passing similar laws, although, as we've seen in Spain, sometimes it's even possible to get them to do that in advance!
There are some other things too. First, this whole issue is about copyright law -- something that, sadly, almost no one except Slashdotters and other geeks and nerds seem to be capable of getting worked up about. Second, even in Europe, ever since WWII the Netherlands has had a history of being particularly spineless when it comes to dealing with political and economic pressure from its most valuable trading partner, i.e. Uncle Sam. So, what do you expect?
Besides, I don't see any of you Americans out protesting on the streets against having a bunch of corrupt politicians ram SOPA and PIPA down your throats either.
Indeed. One of my clients uses Linux for just about everything, except for a few applications that must run on Windows. In one of those cases they use a KVM virtual machine with Windows XP, because the minimum hardware requirements for it are a fraction of those for Windows 7. And since it's used only for a single purpose, they've firewalled it off from most of the Internet and so don't even bother with security fixes or AV software. I guess that means April 2014 will only mean something to them if M$ not only uses that occasion to stop producing OS patches for it, but also decides to deactivate all Windows XP licenses.
Wikipedia is a mobocracy, but if even its own members fail to live up to their own policies, what hope is there for any other mobocracy? They are good at gathering information, but have yet to discover a basic mechanism with which to achieve accuracy by automatically weeding out errors...
Totally agree! I spend the best part of *three years* working on a relatively obscure corner of WP's biology department involving some 500 articles and over 20,000 edits before finally throwing in the towel. I learned a lot during my time there, but eventually the idea of putting more effort into it just didn't make any more sense. One of their main problems is that the only thing preventing good articles from deteriorating is constant policing by knowledgeable editors -- and preferably by the people who are responsible for all the important contributions. I like to think that my contributions to WP have not been a complete waste, but if enough time goes by before anyone fills my shoes, I fear they will be. After all, what good is an article that's now only 99% accurate? 98%, 97%, 96%...
... and the growth in size of many articles, combined with the limited number of Wikipedia editors, is one possible reason why spelling errors may be on the increase. Also, one form of vandalism is the intentional introduction of spelling errors.
... Congressmen ... are elected, so they actually DO represent mainstream American sentiment. ...
Correction: congressmen on both sides of the isle are elected, but for the most part do not represent mainstream American sentiment. They mostly represent the interests of the people (corporations and their lobbyists) who finance their election campaigns; a group that makes up only about 0.05% of the U.S. population.
I say this as an atheist. I've not read any of his books, but what I have read/watched of Dawkins's stuff on religion is pretty weak.
Hmm. As an atheist, who's stuff would you recommend?
Why would I need to spend so much time thinking about a god who doesn't exist? I've been an atheist my entire adult life, and I don't see the need to read a book to tell me the obvious. ...
I used to think the same thing. But, after hearing so much about stuff like the war in the Balkans, the genocide in Rwanda, the Christian campaign to introduce creationism in the classroom, etc. etc, and then listening to what Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and others had so say about it, everything started to make a lot more sense. So much of the conflict and misery in the world is explained by the divisive nature of many of the world's most popular religions. They all say they're about peace, but because of their irreconcilable dogmas they can never agree with each other, so how can that e.g. ever lead to world peace? It's much more likely to be a recipe for war, which is exactly why most wars have been about religion, or involved it to a large degree.
At this point, many would say the solution is simply to be more tolerant of each others views, religious or otherwise. Religious moderates like to argue this point, and for most of my life I agreed with them. The problem with this, however, is that when religious moderates argue that everyone has the right to believe anything they want about their god, they also give protection to all the folks out there with more extreme views who actually (or have the potential to) cause a lot of suffering in the world.
The fact is that religious groups all around the world are very well organized and often have far more influence on our daily lives than they should. Yet, there is little to counter their influence when it becomes a negative force (the Balkans, Rwanda, Creationism, 9/11, Israel-Palestine, pedophilia in the Catholic church, etc.). I know it sounds silly to try to get a group of people to rally around the idea of not believing in something, but as the world becomes ever more crowded and our resources dwindle, I don't think we can any longer afford not to make an effort to band together and demand that reason always come first.
How about trying one of these books?
* Christopher Hitchens -- God is not Great
* Richard Dawkins -- The God Delusion
* Daniel C. Dennett -- Breaking the Spell
* Sam Harris -- The End of Faith
These guys, sometimes collectively referred to as "The Four Horsemen," write even better than they sound in their many interviews, lectures and debates that can be found on YouTube and elsewhere. Whether you've already made up your mind about religion or not, these books don't just offer food for thought: they represent a banquet!
Do that in broad lines, avoiding too much detail. Start on the largest scale, with short descriptions of all the major subsystems, and then work down to the lower levels. In the same way, document your own changes, but don't skimp on describing your rationale.
It may take a while, but this approach has a number of advantages. First, you will develop a clearer picture of what your predecessor has done. Second, you will better understand your own handy-work when you try to figure out why you did what you did months or years from now. Third, as opposed to your predecessor, when the day comes you will be able to leave your position in a clear conscience to your own successor.
To many, this advice probably sounds like a good way to make a tough job even harder. Most of us hate writing documentation (just ask your predecessor), but system administration is definitely a lot more complex these days than it was in the 90s, and even back then I learned the hard way that, in order to remain in control of systems that will likely be used for many years, documentation is essential beyond a certain level of complexity.
... when IIRC the MPAA and the RIAA managed to convince regulators that it was fair to add an additional tax to the sale of all audio and video tapes, incl. DAT. It's called the private copying levy. They argued that, since it was safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of tapes would be used to make illegal copies of copyrighted content, the tax would go some way to compensating them for their losses. Of course, this idea was unfair, because it also taxed everyone who was not interested in music or Hollywood movies, or only recorded their own material. Nowadays it also applies to blank CDs and DVDs. However, this new proposal for a web usage tax is such a blunt instrument it makes the old "blank media tax", as it is also known, look like a razor.