I can understand hating Jar Jar. I can understand hating "I'm gonna be a Jedi, whee!" I can understand hating Jar Jar. I can understand thinking that Lucas strung together about a half hour of plot with showy CG. I can understand hating Jar Jar. But I don't see what's wrong about Midiclorians.
I mean, the force is still a mystical energy field which flows through the universe. But midiclorians are how humans (and whatever) manage to interface with this energy field. What's wrong with that?
I've always parsed it as cruel punishment and unusual punishment, just like saying "Import and Vintage cars park in the D lot." Although it's hard to say for sure, because English sucks.
<rant type="creepy-technotopian">Curse those founders for writing the constitution in English! Natural languages are terrible at writing laws in them. Far too vague. We need to invent an artificial language to write laws in! Then they could be parsed by computers!</rant>
Well, webcomic artists tend to use a lot of "merchandising" and "begging" as alternatives to advertising. Also, "having a real job" or "living with your parents" are popular for the smaller ones. I think that's a doable "business plan" for content producers.
Although I've never actually heard of a defensive patent lawsuit, I imagine it would be in the form of a counterattack. That is, if someone tries to sue you, you check if they're breaking any patents you own and threaten to sue them back.
You could probably set something up. For example, take data from some time periods, some of which occured on "special days" like September 11th or whatever, and some of which occured on completely boring days, or which were made up by a different kind of random number generator, or whatever. Give the data to the scientists without telling them what day it comes from, and tell them to intepret it. Compare the results.
I love when people make this logical fallacy on Slashdot, (Although he did not. He was joking.) because it gives me an excuse to quote Der Python.
"What do you do with witches?"
"Burn Them!"
"And what do you burn apart from witches?"
"More witches! (slap) Wood?"
"So why do witches burn?"
"Because they're... made of... wood?"
The Jargon File seems to suggest that personifying software is a common tendency in Geek/Hacker culture. I imagine it has ESR's debatable fingerprints all over it, but it seems like a valid argument.
That doesn't even make sense. The monkeys have nothing to do with this. They were minding their own business trying to write Hamlet when this happened.
This website is more like driving around looking for cars who left their keys in the ignition and then posting the information on the Internet. Not neccesarily ethical, but different, and maybe legal.
(And also, it's impossible to actually "steal" the car, you can only bring it for a joyride. Or whatever the correct analogy would be.)
Fact: Both space organizations used pencils at first, but pencils have problems because if you little bits of graphite floating in the air, you've got a problem.
And space pens were, in fact, not developed by NASA, but were instead developed by an independent developer.
Perhaps you're right, and egoism absed morality is still a bit flawed. I can accept that, because I came to that theory theory was formulated late at night when I was 17. (Although smarter people than I have independently thought it up.) But even if that's the case...
How is god-based morality any better?
In that case, you have a morality which is based entirely around the decrees of some external entity which we are not even entirely sure what he wants. If morality is defined as simply "acting in such a way as to follow the will of God," then morality seems amazingly shallow.
Why should we act moral if all moral means is obeying God? Especially because certain Christian belief systems states that everyone is too sinful for God's tastes, and that you can only get rewarded by God if you can have your sins "wiped away."
Egoism based morality might not be perfect, but at least it's based in something tangible.
Not really. You can derive a decent ethical system from egoism.
A sensible person who is primarily interested in his own pleasure will logically want other people to act in a way which is in his interest. But just saying "everyone be nice to me" ain't gonna work unless you threaten people with violence, but if you go down that road, there's not much to prevent other people from applying counterviolence. However, if you tell people "everyone be nice to everyone else," you have a much more effective moral system, because everyone benefits from the idea.
From "be nice to everyone else," you can derive further moral rules. It's still a little abitrary, but it's less arbitrary, because you're not just taking your moral rules from some external authority, but instead are using morality as a method for everyone to have more fun, which is somewhat quantifiable.
Slashdot Mirror
What's so bad about the midiclorians?
I can understand hating Jar Jar. I can understand hating "I'm gonna be a Jedi, whee!" I can understand hating Jar Jar. I can understand thinking that Lucas strung together about a half hour of plot with showy CG. I can understand hating Jar Jar. But I don't see what's wrong about Midiclorians.
I mean, the force is still a mystical energy field which flows through the universe. But midiclorians are how humans (and whatever) manage to interface with this energy field. What's wrong with that?
Well, he tricked a bunch of know-nothings into telling him their passwords and then got rammed in the ass by the government to the point of absurdity.
Matyrdom sells, ya see.
I've always parsed it as cruel punishment and unusual punishment, just like saying "Import and Vintage cars park in the D lot." Although it's hard to say for sure, because English sucks.
<rant type="creepy-technotopian">Curse those founders for writing the constitution in English! Natural languages are terrible at writing laws in them. Far too vague. We need to invent an artificial language to write laws in! Then they could be parsed by computers!</rant>
Of course. He doesn't use backwards singularity OSes made by educated stupids, he uses four-sided cubic OSes.
ARTHUR: O Knights of Free, we have brought you your shrubbery. May we go now?
.
HEAD KNIGHT: It is a good shrubbery. I like the laurels particularly,... but there is one small problem.
ARTHUR: What is that?
HEAD KNIGHT: We are now... no longer the Knights Who Say 'Free'.
KNIGHTS OF NI: Free! Shh!
HEAD KNIGHT: Shh! We are now the Knights Who Say 'GNU/OpenKXEckySlashBangColonWhimpleDotCoDotUK++'
ARTHUR: Not dotcom or dotorg?
HEAD KNIGHT: Of course not! We're British!
Well, webcomic artists tend to use a lot of "merchandising" and "begging" as alternatives to advertising. Also, "having a real job" or "living with your parents" are popular for the smaller ones. I think that's a doable "business plan" for content producers.
And real Go can be played at KGS.
You sound more like Zaphod Beeblebrox than you do Ford Prefect.
Although I've never actually heard of a defensive patent lawsuit, I imagine it would be in the form of a counterattack. That is, if someone tries to sue you, you check if they're breaking any patents you own and threaten to sue them back.
With taxpayer-funded Internet, people won't need to go outside. :)
You could probably set something up. For example, take data from some time periods, some of which occured on "special days" like September 11th or whatever, and some of which occured on completely boring days, or which were made up by a different kind of random number generator, or whatever. Give the data to the scientists without telling them what day it comes from, and tell them to intepret it. Compare the results.
Ah, if you can't be funny on your gravestone, when can you be funny?
I love when people make this logical fallacy on Slashdot, (Although he did not. He was joking.) because it gives me an excuse to quote Der Python.
"What do you do with witches?"
"Burn Them!"
"And what do you burn apart from witches?"
"More witches! (slap) Wood?"
"So why do witches burn?"
"Because they're... made of... wood?"
Not just any BSD-based kernel either. Darwin.
The Jargon File seems to suggest that personifying software is a common tendency in Geek/Hacker culture. I imagine it has ESR's debatable fingerprints all over it, but it seems like a valid argument.
Orange? How does that work?
That doesn't even make sense. The monkeys have nothing to do with this. They were minding their own business trying to write Hamlet when this happened.
This website is more like driving around looking for cars who left their keys in the ignition and then posting the information on the Internet. Not neccesarily ethical, but different, and maybe legal.
(And also, it's impossible to actually "steal" the car, you can only bring it for a joyride. Or whatever the correct analogy would be.)
Fact: Both space organizations used pencils at first, but pencils have problems because if you little bits of graphite floating in the air, you've got a problem.
And space pens were, in fact, not developed by NASA, but were instead developed by an independent developer.
Source.
(I suppose I shouldn't reply to this, but whatever. It's always good to get the truth out there.)
No, but ESR is psychotic for completely unrelated reasons.
Although hentai is fansubbed, I would theorize that hentai is the sort of thing which doesn't really need to be fansubbed.
Perhaps you're right, and egoism absed morality is still a bit flawed. I can accept that, because I came to that theory theory was formulated late at night when I was 17. (Although smarter people than I have independently thought it up.) But even if that's the case...
How is god-based morality any better?
In that case, you have a morality which is based entirely around the decrees of some external entity which we are not even entirely sure what he wants. If morality is defined as simply "acting in such a way as to follow the will of God," then morality seems amazingly shallow.
Why should we act moral if all moral means is obeying God? Especially because certain Christian belief systems states that everyone is too sinful for God's tastes, and that you can only get rewarded by God if you can have your sins "wiped away."
Egoism based morality might not be perfect, but at least it's based in something tangible.
Mehhh... they're also making fun of the entertainment industry though. So when Futurama and Family Guy do it, it's a little different.
Not really. You can derive a decent ethical system from egoism.
A sensible person who is primarily interested in his own pleasure will logically want other people to act in a way which is in his interest. But just saying "everyone be nice to me" ain't gonna work unless you threaten people with violence, but if you go down that road, there's not much to prevent other people from applying counterviolence. However, if you tell people "everyone be nice to everyone else," you have a much more effective moral system, because everyone benefits from the idea.
From "be nice to everyone else," you can derive further moral rules. It's still a little abitrary, but it's less arbitrary, because you're not just taking your moral rules from some external authority, but instead are using morality as a method for everyone to have more fun, which is somewhat quantifiable.
It was a plurality, actually. No candidate got a majority in Florida that year. (Official tally: Bush: 48.85%, Gore: 48.84%.)