There's some DRM hypocrisy at work in ARS Technica's rework of the original blog article: when I try to print this article, everything prints, including the XKCD comic, *EXCEPT* the graphic pie chart contributed by ARS (the original blog had a simple numeric table). I tried printing it in two browsers and got the same result in both instances: no pie chart. I also tried selecting just the article column and printing just the selection, again in two browsers, and again got the same result: everything except the pie chart.
It would seem that ARS rather deliberately designed this article page to prevent that graphic from printing along with the article, in spite of the implication inherent in the presence of a "Print this story" button on that same page. ARS doesn't in fact truly allow printing this story, because the story is incomplete without both the graphic and the original blog's numeric table.
I was finally able to print the article, complete with the graphic, by editing the HTML source of the page and stripping out the CSS and scripts. I'm sure someone else can analyze those and figure out the specific method behind ARS' little DRM-like trick, but the fact that I had to "pirate" the article in order to simply print it for fair use is deliciously hypocritical of them.
Does it really f-ing matter whether you cause an accident because you were distracted by (a) holding a cellphone to your ear, (b) talking hands-free, (c) talking to a passenger, (d) fighting to control your children, (e) being drunk into a stupor, (f) being sleep deprived to the point of being a zombie, or (g) just daydreaming?
In terms of basic culpability, the answer is NO, it doesn't matter. You still caused an accident, regardless what particular behavior distracted you in the first place. Must we actually have specific laws describing every specific behavior as "criminal", when (a) those behaviors are only PRECURSORS to an actual criminal act and not truly criminal themselves and (b) we already have laws to handle murder, maiming, vehicular manslaughter, etc.?
This is what our elected legislators do to justify their existence? I want back all my tax dollars that went into their pension fund.
Read my reply to the other person's comment which tried to make the same argument with different words.
There's a difference between education and indoctrination. The INTENT of these parents is to exclude, not include, and that intent is what distinguishes indoctrination from education.
I'd rather you reason that out for yourself, because the process is just as important as the conclusion, so I'm sorry you failed.
Science is not an absolute; there is no "proof" in science, yet by virtue of theories that are tested and repeatable there are certain things we hold to be true by consensus. There is dissent, of course, and SOME of that dissent, a very small fraction of it, leads to new theories that seem to model the world better than the previous ones, and eventually replace them.
The majority of the dissent, though, is not nearly so constructive, and actually retards scientific progress. There is a similar consensual trial-and-error process that takes place with respect to ethics and other conceptual matters, as well. The intellectual and ideological dissent that these particular parents demonstrate is this latter unconstructive sort.
That description and justification is only true IFF the Chinese government was responsible or holding the purse strings. TFS and TFA suggest that this is perhaps not the case after all.
Google is perhaps justified in taking SOME kind of knee-jerk action to protect itself, temporarily at least, in the absence of knowing the real cause or source, but what's your justification? You have nothing to protect, do you? Are you protecting a blind faith in Google and by extension the rightness of its actions?
Well... since SOME people claim that communism is economic entropy, then by extension you're saying that it's a basic principle of entropy, and that the entire universe has to share the risk because of the few?
Do you recall how unfair you thought it was when your third-grade teacher punished the entire class for the misbehavior of one student because she couldn't identify the perpetrator? That's exactly what Google is doing. It's not "deterrence" at all. At best it's indirect deterrence, since it doesn't affect hackers directly; what it affects is the entire Chinese "class" by withdrawing from its network and e-economy, hurting or diminishing the many in an attempt to change the behavior of just a few.
... what I do. Does that sound familiar? That's the way corporate executives think. They make the rules for OTHER people to follow, but their own obligation to follow them is very, very conditional.
Incidentally, we have the same problem in government. Same mindset, different venue.
Seems to me that Le Guin is in effect supporting the Disney model.
She's only doing that because Disney hasn't done anything to screw her over yet. Her ethics are probably limited to what benefits or protects her, and the Greater Good gets the shaft. That's the way it seems to work for far too many people who consider themselves ethical.
I wasn't claiming that the takeover is complete, but the corporate world has gotten things that clearly favor them, like the very existence (and persistence) of Macromedia Flash, to the great anguish of millions of users worldwide. Some of the additions to HTML and related protocols exist to facilitate advertising on the Web, in particular. The victories you mention are truly victories, the result of The People fighting back, but not all the battles were won in the People's favor, and the war is far from over.
What irked me about TFS is that the added comment implies that kernel development exists in some sort of ethical bubble that exempts it from this Eternal Struggle, and someone needed to call bullshit. TFA at least hints at the Eternal Struggle rather than refuting it.
... but they won't be mainlined unless the changes benefit the kernel community in general.
I admit that sounds somewhat logical to make that assumption on the face of it, but if that's truly what occurs then why don't we see the same occurring in politics? Nope, instead we see the corporations getting what they want in spite of harm to the Common Good. Why would you believe the two would function differently when it's the same social and economic pressures at work in both?
Witness the Supreme Court vote to allow unrestricted corporate donations to campaigns and parties: who does that benefit? It's certainly not We The People and the Common Good, yet the Supreme Court, that alleged bastion of ethics, actually overturned the law that prevented it! I have strong doubts that the altruism that you claim exists in the kernel development process actually does.
It's not clear from the article why anyone should perceive a contradiction between having high ideals and getting paid to do something you enjoy.
It might not be clear from the article, but the reason why this might be bad should nonetheless be obvious to anyone who doesn't live in a cave and is able to reason.
How is this any different than the "corporatism" in American politics, where laws, rules, bureaucracies, and enforcement all wind up favoring those who "donate" (as if it's some genuine sort of philanthropy?) the most cash to political parties and campaigns?
In this instance, it would mean that code revisions and improvements would inevitably favor the interests of those corporations motivated to pay people to develop and "donate" the most code to the kernel. The more people they pay to develop code for the Kernel, the further they might be able to bend the kernel to their will and desires.
The exact same thing has happened to the World Wide Web and all the protocols used to facilitate it: it has evolved to favor corporate desires and interests, not the desires and interests of those who are using it to learn and share. It's a small miracle that we are even still able to actually use the Web for learning and sharing, given that learning and sharing are so often directly contrary to the goals of corporate marketeering.
He can paint with a much broader brush than that, because the insular mindset extends well beyond just the kernel developers. I encounter it constantly in the Ubuntu and similar user forums as well. Groupthink is viral and highly contagious.
Do you hear that knock on your door? It's the police come calling to have a chat about your post declaring an intent to cause physical harm on Slashdot. Please do turn the bazooka on them and go out in a blaze of glory, so that every other damned fool thing you might do or say becomes a moot issue.
Nowhere in TFA does it state that the Twitter feed in question was private, so how exactly would you know that? Either you have access to information not in TFA, or you DON'T actually know that it was private. If in fact it was private, then why didn't you support your argument with proof of that? If it wasn't private, then your entire expletive-ridden diatribe is baseless.
Slashdot Mirror
There's some DRM hypocrisy at work in ARS Technica's rework of the original blog article: when I try to print this article, everything prints, including the XKCD comic, *EXCEPT* the graphic pie chart contributed by ARS (the original blog had a simple numeric table). I tried printing it in two browsers and got the same result in both instances: no pie chart. I also tried selecting just the article column and printing just the selection, again in two browsers, and again got the same result: everything except the pie chart.
It would seem that ARS rather deliberately designed this article page to prevent that graphic from printing along with the article, in spite of the implication inherent in the presence of a "Print this story" button on that same page. ARS doesn't in fact truly allow printing this story, because the story is incomplete without both the graphic and the original blog's numeric table.
I was finally able to print the article, complete with the graphic, by editing the HTML source of the page and stripping out the CSS and scripts. I'm sure someone else can analyze those and figure out the specific method behind ARS' little DRM-like trick, but the fact that I had to "pirate" the article in order to simply print it for fair use is deliciously hypocritical of them.
Does it really f-ing matter whether you cause an accident because you were distracted by (a) holding a cellphone to your ear, (b) talking hands-free, (c) talking to a passenger, (d) fighting to control your children, (e) being drunk into a stupor, (f) being sleep deprived to the point of being a zombie, or (g) just daydreaming?
In terms of basic culpability, the answer is NO, it doesn't matter. You still caused an accident, regardless what particular behavior distracted you in the first place. Must we actually have specific laws describing every specific behavior as "criminal", when (a) those behaviors are only PRECURSORS to an actual criminal act and not truly criminal themselves and (b) we already have laws to handle murder, maiming, vehicular manslaughter, etc.?
This is what our elected legislators do to justify their existence? I want back all my tax dollars that went into their pension fund.
You mean like:
So Jeffrey Dahmer was really in the forefront of anti-aging research, then?
How does one feed the same brick of Velveeta cheese to a dog repeatedly? Are you "recycling" the cheese? Is that what the castor oil is for?
Read my reply to the other person's comment which tried to make the same argument with different words.
There's a difference between education and indoctrination. The INTENT of these parents is to exclude, not include, and that intent is what distinguishes indoctrination from education.
I'd rather you reason that out for yourself, because the process is just as important as the conclusion, so I'm sorry you failed.
Science is not an absolute; there is no "proof" in science, yet by virtue of theories that are tested and repeatable there are certain things we hold to be true by consensus. There is dissent, of course, and SOME of that dissent, a very small fraction of it, leads to new theories that seem to model the world better than the previous ones, and eventually replace them.
The majority of the dissent, though, is not nearly so constructive, and actually retards scientific progress. There is a similar consensual trial-and-error process that takes place with respect to ethics and other conceptual matters, as well. The intellectual and ideological dissent that these particular parents demonstrate is this latter unconstructive sort.
There's your difference.
Sadly, the "freedom" these parents were granted is the freedom to indoctrinate. So much for educational transparency for those kids, huh?
Your version presumes that the Chinese government is in fact responsible. What if it's not, as the summary and article say may be the case after all?
That description and justification is only true IFF the Chinese government was responsible or holding the purse strings. TFS and TFA suggest that this is perhaps not the case after all.
Google is perhaps justified in taking SOME kind of knee-jerk action to protect itself, temporarily at least, in the absence of knowing the real cause or source, but what's your justification? You have nothing to protect, do you? Are you protecting a blind faith in Google and by extension the rightness of its actions?
Well... since SOME people claim that communism is economic entropy, then by extension you're saying that it's a basic principle of entropy, and that the entire universe has to share the risk because of the few?
Nice.
Do you recall how unfair you thought it was when your third-grade teacher punished the entire class for the misbehavior of one student because she couldn't identify the perpetrator? That's exactly what Google is doing. It's not "deterrence" at all. At best it's indirect deterrence, since it doesn't affect hackers directly; what it affects is the entire Chinese "class" by withdrawing from its network and e-economy, hurting or diminishing the many in an attempt to change the behavior of just a few.
... what I do. Does that sound familiar? That's the way corporate executives think. They make the rules for OTHER people to follow, but their own obligation to follow them is very, very conditional.
Incidentally, we have the same problem in government. Same mindset, different venue.
She's only doing that because Disney hasn't done anything to screw her over yet. Her ethics are probably limited to what benefits or protects her, and the Greater Good gets the shaft. That's the way it seems to work for far too many people who consider themselves ethical.
My one-finger hero is surely George Carlin.
I wasn't claiming that the takeover is complete, but the corporate world has gotten things that clearly favor them, like the very existence (and persistence) of Macromedia Flash, to the great anguish of millions of users worldwide. Some of the additions to HTML and related protocols exist to facilitate advertising on the Web, in particular. The victories you mention are truly victories, the result of The People fighting back, but not all the battles were won in the People's favor, and the war is far from over.
What irked me about TFS is that the added comment implies that kernel development exists in some sort of ethical bubble that exempts it from this Eternal Struggle, and someone needed to call bullshit. TFA at least hints at the Eternal Struggle rather than refuting it.
I admit that sounds somewhat logical to make that assumption on the face of it, but if that's truly what occurs then why don't we see the same occurring in politics? Nope, instead we see the corporations getting what they want in spite of harm to the Common Good. Why would you believe the two would function differently when it's the same social and economic pressures at work in both?
Witness the Supreme Court vote to allow unrestricted corporate donations to campaigns and parties: who does that benefit? It's certainly not We The People and the Common Good, yet the Supreme Court, that alleged bastion of ethics, actually overturned the law that prevented it! I have strong doubts that the altruism that you claim exists in the kernel development process actually does.
It might not be clear from the article, but the reason why this might be bad should nonetheless be obvious to anyone who doesn't live in a cave and is able to reason.
How is this any different than the "corporatism" in American politics, where laws, rules, bureaucracies, and enforcement all wind up favoring those who "donate" (as if it's some genuine sort of philanthropy?) the most cash to political parties and campaigns?
In this instance, it would mean that code revisions and improvements would inevitably favor the interests of those corporations motivated to pay people to develop and "donate" the most code to the kernel. The more people they pay to develop code for the Kernel, the further they might be able to bend the kernel to their will and desires.
The exact same thing has happened to the World Wide Web and all the protocols used to facilitate it: it has evolved to favor corporate desires and interests, not the desires and interests of those who are using it to learn and share. It's a small miracle that we are even still able to actually use the Web for learning and sharing, given that learning and sharing are so often directly contrary to the goals of corporate marketeering.
This should be modded +10: Fucking Prophetic.
Disclaimer: I'm biased, because I've been saying the same thing.
Total Annihilation was better than a mere string of hits. It DEFINED THE STANDARD for RTS games, and is still the litmus test over a decade later.
He can paint with a much broader brush than that, because the insular mindset extends well beyond just the kernel developers. I encounter it constantly in the Ubuntu and similar user forums as well. Groupthink is viral and highly contagious.
What, no TA: Kingdoms and Cavedog? No Master of Orion III and Quicksilver? Lovell must be new here.
What a coincidence... so was mine!
Do you hear that knock on your door? It's the police come calling to have a chat about your post declaring an intent to cause physical harm on Slashdot. Please do turn the bazooka on them and go out in a blaze of glory, so that every other damned fool thing you might do or say becomes a moot issue.
Nowhere in TFA does it state that the Twitter feed in question was private, so how exactly would you know that? Either you have access to information not in TFA, or you DON'T actually know that it was private. If in fact it was private, then why didn't you support your argument with proof of that? If it wasn't private, then your entire expletive-ridden diatribe is baseless.