What the earlier commentators miss is that journalists do have shield-laws to protect them for divulging their sources. This is so that the first amendment means something. This allows mud-racking journalists (few and far between in MSM) to protect their sources. For example, remember Mark Felt (aka. Deep Throat), the guy who brought down Nixon? Because he was talking to journalists, he knew that Woodward and Bernstein could refuse to talk under subpoena.
This is important if the press is going to be able to do their job and uncover corruption.
Now also think about this. What defines a "journalist" especially these days? A steady paycheck from an organization that owns a "newspaper" or a "tv station" or a "radio station"? If someone uses the public access station on cable to broadcast muckraking esposes on local politicians, does that make him any less (or more) of a journalist appearing on NBC or doing his own blog?
Think about Dan Gillmor. He no longer works for the Mercury News in San Jose, but he is reporting only on the internet. Is he now no longer a journalist?
Finally, how long is Josh going to be locked up? Are we going to allow an indefinite sentence? (Which in the U.S. is supposed to be illegal?). Are we going to make someone's refusal to talk about a "crime" result in a harsher punishment than the crime itself? Are we going to make it so that everyone is compelled to spy on and report the actions of their neighbor?
All the "law and order" types really need to think about the fact that civil society only respects "law and order" if everyone is equal. And journalists help find public corruption. Corruption which goes unpunished breaks down a society's respect for the law. "Journalists" or people who act as journalists by reporting to the public at-large, whatever their media, deserve the highest protection.
Argh, posts like yours piss me off.
``I want something that:
I turn on and it works.''
Hmm lets think about that. I turn on my car and it works. I turn on my stove and it works. I turn on my TV and it works. I don't even have to turn on Tivo. I turn on a Mac and it just works. I go to Google and it just works.
It is fine to get pissed off. But please understand these things:
Expecting someone, anyone to spend the time to read a manual on how to use any product, Linux included, is just rude. I have better things to do - like playing with my kids and saving the world.
Arbitrary flexibility is not good. (see below)
Computers should not make their users feel like lusers.
Choice is not necessarily useful.
A zillion different filesystem formats to chose from is not choice - it's the developer's failure to make a decision. 90% of users are expecting the developers to pick for them, because the developers know the reasons behind each choice. Most users don't care about the filesystem beyond, the simple fact that they don't want their data lost. Just like most drivers care first that their car keeps them safe, not the details of how their airbags work. So make a reasonable choice for the users.
That's more true of Linux than of Windows. How much maintenance do you need to do on a Windows box to keep it working, and how much maintenance do you need to do on a Linux box to keep it working?
Honestly, I have a hardware firewall, use firefox, never open attachments, have Norton anti-virus and occasionally run a simple product that cleans out the registry. The only computer that I have had hacked is a Redhat Linux -- which is why I purchased the hardware firewall -- I didn't want to spend hours of fun figuring out ipchains (or whatever the current equivalent).
I can perfectly understand how people wouldn't be happy with the nth luser who comes in bitching that they don't know how stuff works and demands others to solve his problems for him. Frankly, I really don't care if you like Linux or not.
Sad to say you are not alone in this attitude. I see this in most code that I have seen professionally - no comments in code, cryptic error messages, little explaination and general indifference to others time. I try not to insult people using programs I work on by calling them "lusers" - that tends to make them go away without paying money (generally a bad thing in commercial software). When a "luser" bitches, as a developer that is a sign that I didn't finish doing my job - ease of use is not optional - and the customer is usually right.
As a developer I get the most satisfaction from writing code that works and when it doesn't work guides the user to possible solutions -- and my personal goal it to make it so the manual gets thinner and thinner (esp. the section that explains what the hell some bizarre error message means). Admittedly, I miss out on the satisfaction of feeling moral superior to the unwashed peasants - but life is full of sacrifices.
I did read your article. Never heard of that distro -- fine but where does it compare to Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, etc. It also don't talk about Eric Raymond's critism of CUPS.
You know what - go read the book. Think about the subject matter. If I have antagonized you too much I am sorry - feel free to ignore me and continue to enjoy the view from the ivory tower.
My mother, my wife, and my kids' babysitter will all continue to be stuck with Windows until this indifference changes enough so that non-computer experts can use Linux.
Linux is a pain in the ass from an ease of use perspective. And I honestly wish that I could use Linux, but I don't want to be a system admin.
I want something that:
I turn on and it works.
When I want to configure something, there is a GUI that is easily found.
works consistently across all distros.
I don't care about.rpm vs redhat vs whatever 'new, improved, way' of packaging programs to install there is. I don't care about journaling file systems. As a user why should I have to care? Isn't it the responsibility of the computer to keep track of such details?
Its not better for me as a user if I have to learn all about the differences. If I have to be a sys admin to get my document to print this is bad.
For the 2 Linux developers who might care at all, you might read this book
P.S I have worked on *nix off and on for almost 20 years, and I program in Java professionally.
P.P.S. And I would really love it if Microsoft's desktop market share < 50% but it will not happen until Linux developers decide that ease of use matters.
Many laws are written that allow for actions that occur *before* the event resulting in legal action (examples: shredding documents, moving money overseas, creating bankruptcy law-proof trusts, etc.)
They can't arrest you unless they can prove that you hid the computers after being made aware that your home would be searched. But hidding computers: I am thinking about doing this from a theft protection and fire protection perspective.
"An airport is not 'free' because you have to build it."
An airport to serve just international or travel greater than >600 miles (which is where trains lose their competitive edge), would be a lot less congested (and smaller) than one that serves everything including 20-seat business jets. In the Bay Area, they are talking about building a 4th area airport. This airport would not be needed if all the intra-California travel was diverted.
The reality is that all transportation is subsidized.
Look at the financial information on the ATA website. The U.S. airline net profit from 1934-2002 = $0 (including direct subsidies but not indirect) Examples of indirect subsidies: Air Traffic Control, Airports, no taxes on fuel, and foreign flagged airlines are not allowed to fly between two U.S. cities.
Car users only pay about 2/3's of the direct costs of maintaining the road system. Some indirect costs: that free parking at work, on the street in front of your house, at the McDonalds. Of course in Silicon Valley we subsidize the cars in other ways -- like $750K condo's (parking lots cannot be used for homes, so less homes). Take a look at this satelite photo of silicon valley to see how much land we devote to cars.
Correct -- Airports need to exist to handle flights to Europe and Asia. But they have no business using slots up to handle short hop (less than 400 miles) flights. Over a third of SF flights go to LA or San Diego -- a market that is better serviced by trains.
See my article here and SFO's John Martin's comment:
Q: How do airport managers feel about establishing high-speed rail for
California? Do you support the high-speed rail initiative?
A: The airport commission has come on record in support of high-speed rail. We
think it would reduce the number of flights here, and we would see a 5 to 8
percent drop in passenger traffic if high-speed rail is introduced. The markets
it would help us with -- markets like Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego --
are markets that are primarily served by smaller aircraft.
[From a previous question] In the month of January, we had passengers increase
12 percent and flights were down 4 percent. It's a remarkable statistic. It
reflects that the airlines are using larger aircraft and they're getting more
passengers on each plane. That's smart growth. We don't want to see a bunch of
new regional aircraft or propeller jets serving SFO. We want to see 747, triple
sevens. Larger aircraft.
So we might see an even bigger percentage reduction in the number of flights
[with HSR]. At SFO, we would like to see a station right across the freeway
from the international terminal and we would extend our AirTrain system to
connect to the high-speed rail.
Also keep in mind that a SFO's peak capacity is 60 planes/hr * 200 people/plane = 12,000 people/hr (assuming SFO handles nothing but LA/San Diego traffic) With no ability to handle intermediate markets (too time and fuel intensive)
Compare that to an HSR train system: 20 trains/hr/track * 2 tracks * 500-1000 people/train = 20000 - 40000 people/hr. With much ability to handle intermediate markets ( a 6 minute time penalty per station stop, marginal energy effect.)
Each has a place. Trains 100-600 miles. Planes >600miles or across water. Mountain ranges are manageable - HSR can handle >3.5% slopes (All-wheel drive, lightweight and a running start) After all we are talking trains that can go > 186mph.
It takes a long time if the agency is only getting a few million a year and has 3 full-time staff people + assorted consultants. With just this they are trying to plan a 700-mile system.
W.r.t. to the environmental community, with the caveat "provided it is built correctly", we support HSR as a way to guide and concentrate development away from farmland and natural areas. The only issue the environmental community is fighting the California High-Speed Rail Authority over is their insistance on running the train through the Henry Coe State Park and the San Jouquin Valley National Cementary. This particular area is also an area that The Nature Conservancy's Mount Hamilton work would be affected.
So if the rail line is built through parks then, yes there will be opposition. But if you google on the sierra club You will see that in general the environmental community supports HSR.
P.S. there are a lot of "environmentalists" who are just NIMBYs (Not-In-My-Backyard), and use environmental arguments as cover.
Just how cheap do you think airports are? SFO is thinking about a $10 billion dollar project to move runways. LAX is looking at its own $9-$15 billion dollar project.
HSR to connect the two cities would run at about $18 billion and that is for 217mph trains. And oh by the way, Fresno, Bakersfield and the entire California Central Valley would then be less than 1h30 minutes away from LA and San Francisco. Considering that the Central Valley has a real problem with unemployment (~11%), this would be a big win for that part of California.
Running trains at 110 mph for many origin/destination cities in other parts of the country would be adequate.
Final thought here is something to think about Morocco, China, Russia, and other countries that we consider 'backward' are all planning on or are constructing HSR. Only the egotistical (spelling!) US is still stuck in a car/plane only world.
~50% of the flights in the U.S. are less than 400 miles. At that distance (150mph average) trains beat airplanes every time (city-center-to-city-center) When factoring in travel time to get to an airport that is typically located away from the population center. For example the newest airport, Denver's new airport is located in prairie about 27 miles away from the capital.
As far as expense goes, airports are hugely expensive. Billions!!!
The pollution is just the pollution coming out of the tailpipe it is also stormwater run-off from the streets and highways (oil, rubber, metal dust from brakes,etc.)
Also think about the land use that cars require. This is silicon valley. Look at the parking lots surrounding the 2-3 story office buildings. The median price of silicon valley homes is now over $500K. Imagine how muc more affordable it would be to live here if thos parking lots could be homes instead of parking lots that house cars of people living 50 miles away because they cannot afford to live here.
we use the same track gauge as europe (except spain) I believe the loading gauge is also the same as well. The reason why the Acela is such a mess is that it is built like a tank on a go-cart suspension. This was dictated by the FRA which believes in tanks but not High-Speed Rail
The medical insurance issues that you speak of are caused not by the lawyers but rather by the Medical Boards failure to discipline the doctors that have repeated malpractice claims against them.
If you have a legimate business (i.e. you are intending to make a profit at some point and you put in a significant amount of hours (>100) a year) there is a whole raft of stuff you can take off the tax bill. Phone calls, internet usage, depreciation on your computer, mileage, etc.
Spend the money and find an accountant who will take the time to educate you on the basics of what you need to know. Don't skimp but you should get be able to get the information you need for about $500. (which by the way can be deducted.)
My wife is an accountant and she is really the one to answer this -but you should get the idea.
Every year there are people who try this... or variations of this. They are the first people that the IRS goes after because the case law is so clearly on the IRS's side.
Sorry - try again. Freeway capacity is not measured by how many cars are in a section of road. That is called a parking lot's capacity. (Although most freeways seem to resemble a parking lot more than a road.) The way you measure freeway capacity is how many vehicles pass a certain point for a certain amount of time. (1950s method) or more correctly how many *people* pass that point. This is why carpool lanes can be 'empty' but still handle more load than a regular lane of traffic.
The bill that passed means that the California voters will be voting on building the High Speed Rail System in November 2004
Send me an email at patrick > hsrail > org if you want to help out.
High Speed Rail is very feasable over the distances in question. (350 miles) Also earthquakes are not an issue that cannot be addressed. The latest TGV line in France was designed to handle an 5.5 earthquake occuring when two trains are passing each other. Also keep in mind that the Japanese have been running HSR trains for more than 40 years. Lots of engineering knowledge there.
The problem with air transport is that it requires lots of land in a certain configuration and airports tend to be very poor neighbors. This means that airports tend to built away from people. This means that people need to drive to the airport which adds enormously to the total trip time. Compare that to taking the train. Usually the train station is much more accessible so the total trip time is a lot less.
Slashdot Mirror
What the earlier commentators miss is that journalists do have shield-laws to protect them for divulging their sources. This is so that the first amendment means something. This allows mud-racking journalists (few and far between in MSM) to protect their sources. For example, remember Mark Felt (aka. Deep Throat), the guy who brought down Nixon? Because he was talking to journalists, he knew that Woodward and Bernstein could refuse to talk under subpoena.
This is important if the press is going to be able to do their job and uncover corruption.
Now also think about this. What defines a "journalist" especially these days? A steady paycheck from an organization that owns a "newspaper" or a "tv station" or a "radio station"? If someone uses the public access station on cable to broadcast muckraking esposes on local politicians, does that make him any less (or more) of a journalist appearing on NBC or doing his own blog?
Think about Dan Gillmor. He no longer works for the Mercury News in San Jose, but he is reporting only on the internet. Is he now no longer a journalist?
Finally, how long is Josh going to be locked up? Are we going to allow an indefinite sentence? (Which in the U.S. is supposed to be illegal?). Are we going to make someone's refusal to talk about a "crime" result in a harsher punishment than the crime itself? Are we going to make it so that everyone is compelled to spy on and report the actions of their neighbor?
All the "law and order" types really need to think about the fact that civil society only respects "law and order" if everyone is equal. And journalists help find public corruption. Corruption which goes unpunished breaks down a society's respect for the law. "Journalists" or people who act as journalists by reporting to the public at-large, whatever their media, deserve the highest protection.
just go read this
Hmm lets think about that. I turn on my car and it works. I turn on my stove and it works. I turn on my TV and it works. I don't even have to turn on Tivo. I turn on a Mac and it just works. I go to Google and it just works.
It is fine to get pissed off. But please understand these things:
Choice is not necessarily useful. A zillion different filesystem formats to chose from is not choice - it's the developer's failure to make a decision. 90% of users are expecting the developers to pick for them, because the developers know the reasons behind each choice. Most users don't care about the filesystem beyond, the simple fact that they don't want their data lost. Just like most drivers care first that their car keeps them safe, not the details of how their airbags work. So make a reasonable choice for the users.
Honestly, I have a hardware firewall, use firefox, never open attachments, have Norton anti-virus and occasionally run a simple product that cleans out the registry. The only computer that I have had hacked is a Redhat Linux -- which is why I purchased the hardware firewall -- I didn't want to spend hours of fun figuring out ipchains (or whatever the current equivalent).Sad to say you are not alone in this attitude. I see this in most code that I have seen professionally - no comments in code, cryptic error messages, little explaination and general indifference to others time. I try not to insult people using programs I work on by calling them "lusers" - that tends to make them go away without paying money (generally a bad thing in commercial software). When a "luser" bitches, as a developer that is a sign that I didn't finish doing my job - ease of use is not optional - and the customer is usually right.
As a developer I get the most satisfaction from writing code that works and when it doesn't work guides the user to possible solutions -- and my personal goal it to make it so the manual gets thinner and thinner (esp. the section that explains what the hell some bizarre error message means). Admittedly, I miss out on the satisfaction of feeling moral superior to the unwashed peasants - but life is full of sacrifices.
I did read your article. Never heard of that distro -- fine but where does it compare to Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, etc. It also don't talk about Eric Raymond's critism of CUPS.
You know what - go read the book. Think about the subject matter. If I have antagonized you too much I am sorry - feel free to ignore me and continue to enjoy the view from the ivory tower.
My mother, my wife, and my kids' babysitter will all continue to be stuck with Windows until this indifference changes enough so that non-computer experts can use Linux.
I want something that:
I don't care about .rpm vs redhat vs whatever 'new, improved, way' of packaging programs to install there is. I don't care about journaling file systems. As a user why should I have to care? Isn't it the responsibility of the computer to keep track of such details?
Its not better for me as a user if I have to learn all about the differences. If I have to be a sys admin to get my document to print this is bad.
Unfortunately, the indifference to the user who does not want to RTFM permeates Linux (and to be fair most 'enterprise' commercial software) For examples of what I mean: Why I Hate the Apache Web Server and the whole discussion about Eric Raymonds rant about CUPS
For the 2 Linux developers who might care at all, you might read this book
P.S I have worked on *nix off and on for almost 20 years, and I program in Java professionally.
P.P.S. And I would really love it if Microsoft's desktop market share < 50% but it will not happen until Linux developers decide that ease of use matters.
Many laws are written that allow for actions that occur *before* the event resulting in legal action (examples: shredding documents, moving money overseas, creating bankruptcy law-proof trusts, etc.)
They can't arrest you unless they can prove that you hid the computers after being made aware that your home would be searched. But hidding computers: I am thinking about doing this from a theft protection and fire protection perspective.
"An airport is not 'free' because you have to build it." An airport to serve just international or travel greater than >600 miles (which is where trains lose their competitive edge), would be a lot less congested (and smaller) than one that serves everything including 20-seat business jets. In the Bay Area, they are talking about building a 4th area airport. This airport would not be needed if all the intra-California travel was diverted.
Look at the financial information on the ATA website. The U.S. airline net profit from 1934-2002 = $0 (including direct subsidies but not indirect) Examples of indirect subsidies: Air Traffic Control, Airports, no taxes on fuel, and foreign flagged airlines are not allowed to fly between two U.S. cities.
Car users only pay about 2/3's of the direct costs of maintaining the road system. Some indirect costs: that free parking at work, on the street in front of your house, at the McDonalds. Of course in Silicon Valley we subsidize the cars in other ways -- like $750K condo's (parking lots cannot be used for homes, so less homes). Take a look at this satelite photo of silicon valley to see how much land we devote to cars.
Also keep in mind that a SFO's peak capacity is 60 planes/hr * 200 people/plane = 12,000 people/hr (assuming SFO handles nothing but LA/San Diego traffic) With no ability to handle intermediate markets (too time and fuel intensive)
Compare that to an HSR train system: 20 trains/hr/track * 2 tracks * 500-1000 people/train = 20000 - 40000 people/hr. With much ability to handle intermediate markets ( a 6 minute time penalty per station stop, marginal energy effect.)
Each has a place. Trains 100-600 miles. Planes >600miles or across water. Mountain ranges are manageable - HSR can handle >3.5% slopes (All-wheel drive, lightweight and a running start) After all we are talking trains that can go > 186mph.
W.r.t. to the environmental community, with the caveat "provided it is built correctly", we support HSR as a way to guide and concentrate development away from farmland and natural areas. The only issue the environmental community is fighting the California High-Speed Rail Authority over is their insistance on running the train through the Henry Coe State Park and the San Jouquin Valley National Cementary. This particular area is also an area that The Nature Conservancy's Mount Hamilton work would be affected.
So if the rail line is built through parks then, yes there will be opposition. But if you google on the sierra club You will see that in general the environmental community supports HSR.
P.S. there are a lot of "environmentalists" who are just NIMBYs (Not-In-My-Backyard), and use environmental arguments as cover.
HSR to connect the two cities would run at about $18 billion and that is for 217mph trains. And oh by the way, Fresno, Bakersfield and the entire California Central Valley would then be less than 1h30 minutes away from LA and San Francisco. Considering that the Central Valley has a real problem with unemployment (~11%), this would be a big win for that part of California.
Running trains at 110 mph for many origin/destination cities in other parts of the country would be adequate.
Final thought here is something to think about Morocco, China, Russia, and other countries that we consider 'backward' are all planning on or are constructing HSR. Only the egotistical (spelling!) US is still stuck in a car/plane only world.
~50% of the flights in the U.S. are less than 400 miles. At that distance (150mph average) trains beat airplanes every time (city-center-to-city-center) When factoring in travel time to get to an airport that is typically located away from the population center. For example the newest airport, Denver's new airport is located in prairie about 27 miles away from the capital. As far as expense goes, airports are hugely expensive. Billions!!!
The pollution is just the pollution coming out of the tailpipe it is also stormwater run-off from the streets and highways (oil, rubber, metal dust from brakes,etc.) Also think about the land use that cars require. This is silicon valley. Look at the parking lots surrounding the 2-3 story office buildings. The median price of silicon valley homes is now over $500K. Imagine how muc more affordable it would be to live here if thos parking lots could be homes instead of parking lots that house cars of people living 50 miles away because they cannot afford to live here.
we use the same track gauge as europe (except spain) I believe the loading gauge is also the same as well. The reason why the Acela is such a mess is that it is built like a tank on a go-cart suspension. This was dictated by the FRA which believes in tanks but not High-Speed Rail
Including San Francisco to LA. California High-Speed Rail Project is planning a 350kph (217 mph) that will beat a plane flying the same route.
Well -- solving the correct problem would help.
The medical insurance issues that you speak of are caused not by the lawyers but rather by the Medical Boards failure to discipline the doctors that have repeated malpractice claims against them.
Public citizen's report about the true cause of the rising medical malpracticeNot true. The deductions can be used against capital gains, or ordinary income from the 9-5 W-2 wages.
If you have a legimate business (i.e. you are intending to make a profit at some point and you put in a significant amount of hours (>100) a year) there is a whole raft of stuff you can take off the tax bill. Phone calls, internet usage, depreciation on your computer, mileage, etc. Spend the money and find an accountant who will take the time to educate you on the basics of what you need to know. Don't skimp but you should get be able to get the information you need for about $500. (which by the way can be deducted.) My wife is an accountant and she is really the one to answer this -but you should get the idea.
Every year there are people who try this... or variations of this. They are the first people that the IRS goes after because the case law is so clearly on the IRS's side.
Sorry - try again. Freeway capacity is not measured by how many cars are in a section of road. That is called a parking lot's capacity. (Although most freeways seem to resemble a parking lot more than a road.) The way you measure freeway capacity is how many vehicles pass a certain point for a certain amount of time. (1950s method) or more correctly how many *people* pass that point. This is why carpool lanes can be 'empty' but still handle more load than a regular lane of traffic.
The bill that passed means that the California voters will be voting on building the High Speed Rail System in November 2004 Send me an email at patrick > hsrail > org if you want to help out.
High Speed Rail is very feasable over the distances in question. (350 miles) Also earthquakes are not an issue that cannot be addressed. The latest TGV line in France was designed to handle an 5.5 earthquake occuring when two trains are passing each other. Also keep in mind that the Japanese have been running HSR trains for more than 40 years. Lots of engineering knowledge there.
The problem with air transport is that it requires lots of land in a certain configuration and airports tend to be very poor neighbors. This means that airports tend to built away from people. This means that people need to drive to the airport which adds enormously to the total trip time. Compare that to taking the train. Usually the train station is much more accessible so the total trip time is a lot less.