Incitement to hatred is not protected under the free speech in any democracy.
Freedoms are weighted against each other.
For example, If I try to brainwash my children and try to incite them to kill you, and there is a small but reasonable probability that you will get killed as a result, the protection of human life trumps the freedom of speech.
If it was only a matter of academic blabber on holocaust denial and drawing swastikas in an art exhibition it would not be a problem. However it is associated with rise in hate crimes.
And finally, I lived in both the US and Europe. While the US melting pot more or less successfully creates a functioning society which respects individual rights, the European multiculturalism, only hides deep rooted hatreds. For instance many Americans would be appalled at the way Gypsies are treated - but Europeans are very good at hiding their dirty laundry while lambasting the Americans for all the evils of the world.
Plus, only the paranoid survive. Microsoft proved more than once in the past that it is capable of spreading FUD and ruining everything in their way.
Remember? They hi-jacked the browser market!!!
I have heard comments from Balmer, returning to me from some clueless sysadmin. The guy didn't even know what was the origin of those statemets.
That is what FUD is all about -- it gets quoted in the media as just another thing someone said, but then it gets to unexpected places -- just like a rumor.
Also a point to remember we have much to thank in the Open Source world to the same rumor engine (no big expensive PR). We should know better than to underestimate it.
In fact we should have a well designed counter campaign -- explaining to people (and journalists) in a well organized and behaved manner what the truth is and point to the independent sources of information.
I think most of our planet has stopped dreaming. I the 60s and 70s most of the population was thrilled with the possibility of space exploration and "going where no-one has gone before". Nowdays it is getting more money than anyone has got before. To most people: technology = Bill Gates = big bucks.
Look just at the way investors think -- if it doesn't pay off in 2 years they are not going to invest. Space exploration takes decades. Let us not kid ourselves -- with the pace of space exploration in the 60s, we could put the man on Mars in a decade and probably start colonizing the Moon in the 2 decades. The productivity and the wealth of the world are enought to both solve the world hunger, education and space exploration. The system encourages people who are best at accumulating capital not to spend it on long term goals. Look just at John Carmack vs. Bill Gates. John Carmack is a dreamer, hence the X-Prize project involvement -- Bill Gates is not. The unregulated free market system unfortunately prefers the later.
Most of the very creative people in the world cannot even pursue their creativity because of the economic system.
The first 70 years of the century was in great breakthroughs. People who did them didnt stop and waited for the general public to catch up. The public could take it or leave it.
The wordprocessor vs. typewriter example is the key for the difference. Of course the productivity hasnt increased. People are using networked computers (MSWord attachments + e-mail) the way they would use typewriters+pneumatic-mail-tubes.
The real, efficient and automatic information exchange hasnt occurred yet. We have only began to separate the information from its paper presentation (using XML). This is not because the researchers didnt understand the issues 20 years ago (SGML), but because the public couldnt grasp the concept and were more than happy to accept paper oriented WYSIWYG technologies.
Thus, the big corporate money isnt funneled to research and new technologies, but to satisfying general population and making them feel at ease with technology.
And as for government spending: I am ready to put aside >30% of my income for education, scientific reasearch and space technologies, but how many others will let their government spend on technology the amounts of money they did in the 50s and 60s.
Most people today read horoscopes the way they did 100 years ago, but today they feel free to protest agains GM food and influence research budgets.
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Incitement to hatred is not protected under the free speech in any democracy.
Freedoms are weighted against each other.
For example,
If I try to brainwash my children and try to incite them to kill you,
and there is a small but reasonable probability that you will get killed as a result, the protection of human life trumps the freedom of speech.
If it was only a matter of academic blabber on holocaust denial
and drawing swastikas in an art exhibition it would not be a problem.
However it is associated with rise in hate crimes.
And finally, I lived in both the US and Europe.
While the US melting pot more or less successfully creates a functioning
society which respects individual rights,
the European multiculturalism, only hides deep rooted hatreds.
For instance many Americans would be appalled at the way Gypsies are
treated - but Europeans are very good at hiding their dirty laundry while
lambasting the Americans for all the evils of the world.
No Engineers deal with physical sciences and math in varying degrees.
.
Computer Science deals 99% with math. So it is and extreme (math only) field of engineering.
This of course doesn't hold, if you think CS = Programming/IT. It would be like saying
EE = repairing/making toasters and simple appliances
Plus, only the paranoid survive. Microsoft proved more than once in the past that it is capable of spreading FUD and ruining everything in their way.
Remember? They hi-jacked the browser market!!!
I have heard comments from Balmer, returning to me from some clueless sysadmin. The guy didn't even know what was the origin of those statemets.
That is what FUD is all about -- it gets quoted in the media as just another thing someone said, but then it gets to unexpected places -- just like a rumor.
Also a point to remember we have much to thank in the Open Source world to the same rumor engine (no big expensive PR). We should know better than to underestimate it.
In fact we should have a well designed counter campaign -- explaining to people (and journalists) in a well organized and behaved manner what the truth is and point to the independent sources of information.
I think most of our planet has stopped dreaming. I the 60s and 70s most of the population was thrilled with the possibility of space exploration and "going where no-one has gone before". Nowdays it is getting more money than anyone has got before. To most people: technology = Bill Gates = big bucks.
Look just at the way investors think -- if it doesn't pay off in 2 years they are not going to invest. Space exploration takes decades. Let us not kid ourselves -- with the pace of space exploration in the 60s, we could put the man on Mars in a decade and probably start colonizing the Moon in the 2 decades.
The productivity and the wealth of the world are
enought to both solve the world hunger, education and space exploration.
The system encourages people who are best at accumulating capital not to spend it on long term goals. Look just at John Carmack vs. Bill Gates.
John Carmack is a dreamer, hence the X-Prize project involvement -- Bill Gates is not.
The unregulated free market system unfortunately prefers the later.
Most of the very creative people in the world cannot even pursue their creativity because of the economic system.
The first 70 years of the century was in great breakthroughs. People who did them didnt stop and waited for the general public to catch up. The public could take it or leave it. The wordprocessor vs. typewriter example is the key for the difference. Of course the productivity hasnt increased. People are using networked computers (MSWord attachments + e-mail) the way they would use typewriters+pneumatic-mail-tubes. The real, efficient and automatic information exchange hasnt occurred yet. We have only began to separate the information from its paper presentation (using XML). This is not because the researchers didnt understand the issues 20 years ago (SGML), but because the public couldnt grasp the concept and were more than happy to accept paper oriented WYSIWYG technologies. Thus, the big corporate money isnt funneled to research and new technologies, but to satisfying general population and making them feel at ease with technology. And as for government spending: I am ready to put aside >30% of my income for education, scientific reasearch and space technologies, but how many others will let their government spend on technology the amounts of money they did in the 50s and 60s. Most people today read horoscopes the way they did 100 years ago, but today they feel free to protest agains GM food and influence research budgets.
we are running a 50 diskless linux stations for
the undergraduate students (CS dept. Hebrew Univ.)
this is our most reliable configuration for large numbers of workstations. app. servers supporting
80+ NCD X-Terminals are far less stable.
the author of the scripts for diskless station administration is planning to post them soon on the www.mosix.cs.huji.ac.il, so check there for
updates