Heh, half of that rant is a trivial telescoping sum. He is using that as an illustration for why it's OK to ditch the stack in favor of the monolithic design. This makes absolutely no sense. It would be better if he cut the bullshit and just said "it's easy to deploy when you don't really understand how the storage works". I want to hear one good reason for the RAID layer to be glued to the POSIX layer in a way that you cannot replace one without replacing the other.
Merits close study, as the concepts of ZFS overtake current best practices
That is, assuming that having the file system and the volume manager tied to each other is a good thing.
I think I can come up with a bunch of reasons for why this is a pretty terrible idea and why modularity here is
a good thing.
So, you are saying, we shouldn't use your program because if it's buggy and you are unavailable, it's tough luck for us. We are better off playing a GPLed game.
First we segregate women, simply because we can. Then we divide them in a way that actually maximizes the number of unions and the genetic variability (good math, men), and finally we pass property laws to protect male bloodlines.
Back then, from men's point of view, it is imperative to know who the father is, on pain of being a sucker who raises other's child. Hence women became property, not to be shared for any reason. Without sharing, the marriage is the optimal solution as it pairs up everyone in a population where boys and girls are born at the same rate.
With DNA testing being affordable as it is, this concern no longer exists. With no constraint on women, the genetic variability would peak if no two people had more than one child together. This can be implemented easily by having couples stay together and swapping sperm. Or partners, if you are into that kind of thing;)
To quote drsmithy from this very thread: "Overall, marriage creates a 'stronger' community. On a more individual scale, married couples generally live longer, make more money and and have higher employment rates. Additionally children brought up by married couples tend to have better health, better school results and fewer problems with the law."
But married couples also tend to be better for the community in general, more productive, more stable, contributing more wealth.
I had to step back because this statement seems to be very reasonable. Let's just assume that it is true for now and not be overly skeptical. But then it is the classic marriage that does these things for us, not the new marriage being proposed. The stability results, imho, from the common understanding of marriage as a very long term union between one male and one female for the purpose of procreation and child-rearing. To be sure, people marry for other legitimate reasons, but that is irrelevant because we are just looking at the factors which contribute to the economic prosperity of all. It seems to me that this marriage really works as a package and relaxing some of the conditions actually ruins the economic argument, since marriages are only as stable as people believe they should be. In particular, any marriage that does not have a far-reaching, hard-to-achieve communal goal as its core purpose will lack stability. (The argument for a same-sex marriage is therefore weakened because it lacks the procreative function, but I am willing to overlook that because it is more of an issue of technology and price now. That is, in the future, making a new baby won't require "two parents", only two cells or even two data files.)
There are other positive externalities of marriage besides children.
So it seems to me that these positive things are externalities of a marriage-for-the-sake-of-raising-children. Let me tell you then what I think should be done, and please do provide some feedback if you feel like it.
I think that we need to be more careful than ever with this stuff, since there are so many unknown factors we are messing with. Not only we are not justified in propping childless (by design) unions, we are hardly justified in propping the ones with such intent, the way we do it today. We should still do it, imho, but be smarter about it and make adjustments to account for our understanding of the danger of overpopulation. I agree (in contrast with my beliefs a few years ago) that same-sex couples should be treated equally when it comes to child-rearing rights and benefits. There is a bit of an icy slope here I'd like to explore: if we say that two consenting loving adults are a right kind of environment to raise a child in, would it not be true for three or four consenting loving adults? And then, should we have a "civil union of two to five" instead of "man and wife"? I think it follows that we do, but is five the right number? This is a very large social experiment.
And my other main point is that "civil union" is just so much better than "marriage". This is gotta be the stupidest thing the movement has done: instead of asking for equal treatment, they went for "marriage", which is basically a patched-up male property right. What I envision is a civil union of two (or more?) people who get to be treated as a single unit economically and legally if they so desire. That alone already provides them with an economic advantage, so there is no need to make them even stronger at the expense of the loner. We still need the loner to keep the people market liquid. Some people just like to solo, let them.
If the union declares an intention of raising children, more help is given, since we all believe that families should raise children, with government being the only default option, and not the choice one.
But no, that's almost too easy. Instead, the program is to further patch marriage, against the overwhelming
Are you proposing we outlaw marriage for people who already know they are barren?
They should not receive any economic help. They are already better off than singles because they pull resources together. A single parent is far more qualified for tax cuts and such.
This is because copyright is meant to be an incentive to create and publish works, but as minimally restrictive upon the public as possible in scope, and of minimal length so that the work enters the public domain as quickly as possible.
I agree completely. But consider this:
Copyright would be completely unneeded if we could demonstrate that it does not encourage the creation and the publishing of works, right? Well, look at the Internet today. Would you say that we have a shortage, so to speak, of artistic works or good ideas on the Internet? Imho, no. At present, we cannot even begin to account for all the culture on the Internet. All this art, all these ideas are already created and published, and there are so many of them that we struggle to even list them all. And the amount of content is growing about exponentially, at least while the infrastructure does so. This is the very opposite of shortage. What is the point of encouraging creation when we cannot even wade through the stuff we already have, while more is being created every day?
One could may be make an argument for encouraging searching and categorizing (what Google and Wikimedia and others attempt to do) of the said content, because that is what we currently need. Giving out publishing monopolies today seems almost insane: we encourage one artist at the expense of silencing thousands (and later, millions) of others.
I've considered leaving Slashdot because it is not very female friendly,
I feel for you especially after this topic, but I would like to point out that Slashdot is not very people-friendly, because it is at times very juvenile. There is a fair chance that one will be ridiculed here for being a conservative, a liberal, a Vista user, a vi user, a perl user, a facebook user, a virgin, a facial hair enthusiast, a teen, a bad speller, a manager... Did you really expect to make a clean getaway as a feminist?
Watch whenever an article comes up that has any connection, however tenuous, with a woman, and immediately there will be comments--modded all the way up!--about sex.
Are you saying that comments about sex are intrinsically offensive to women?
Seriously though, as others pointed out, this topic is a troll, since no meaningful statistics were offered to show that FOSS community is hostile, insensitive, or unwelcoming to women. Are you saying that every message board or discussion forum where a troll gets through is sexist? Do you believe that women will suddenly start joining FOSS in droves if we reduce the number of sex jokes in kernel development from something like 0.1% to 0.01%? Would it help if we introduced 0.1% of posts that are offensive to men somehow?
Consider this for a moment: if women were just as willing to code as men, would we not have small FOSS projects led by women? FOSS is not a private club. You are a part of the community the moment you license your code under GPL or any other free license. Where are these two-or-three people projects done by women who were ostracized
from the community of misogynistic jerks TFA painted? Where are Feminists forks? One pissed off woman coder would be more than able to fork or at least re-brand even a major project if she was offended by the sexism.
This shows, IMHO, that there is no significant sexism in FOSS development. Whatever little there is, it cannot be the major factor responsible for the near-exclusion of women. Other factors must be in play here, and we should figure out what they are and how we can improve the situation.
Rather than solving this very real problem, TFA hand-picked a few trolls and declared the whole community to be anti-woman. By this logic, the mere presence of GNAA posts make Slashdot a racist forum and IT a racist field all around the world.
And to claim that Slashdot is neutral? Are you fucking kidding me? This place is thick with racism and sexism.
It is also thick with feminism and other great values. I, personally, think that all ethics discussed here are mainly discussed by trolls, and very little of what you guys and gals say about sexism has to do with technology or just plain common sense. In that respect, it is a very neutral forum indeed. You know I am right: you see opposite viewpoints modded up to the wazoo right next to each other all the time.
And as a trained mathematician, I would like to extend it to all the people who use the word "normal"
to describe anything but a non-trivial group G whose only nontrivial subgroup is G itself.
Normal people don't make stupid mistakes like that.
Do you really believe that ER is cheaper than preventive care for USA as a nation? You want the taxpayer to cover ridiculous ER costs but not cover routine exams and cheapo generic drugs which will, in a majority of cases, prevent the ER scenario from ever materializing? Your position is stupid no matter how you look at the issue: it denies poor people health care until they are almost dead, while the overall bill is bigger.
we do not have poor people dying in the streets because they are kicked to the curb from hospitals because they can't pay.
This is false. You may want to rephrase it and say that "we don't have as many curbside deaths as UK", and you may as well be wrong. It seems that no matter how they rank the health care, USA keeps coming up way low, while spending the most. Try referring to real statistical data before formulating your argument.
Slashdot is one of the least female-friendly places on the Internet,
Really?? The vast majority of posters and posts here are gender-neutral. The vast majority of topics here are
gender-neutral. This topic is a rare exception, it has a lot of sexist comments, and it is widely recognized as
a troll (it is tagged so). You are contributing to trolling as well. Slashdot, at large, is very neutral towards any
particular minority in IT, especially after you build your friend list and adjust viewing options. I hope to god you
are not reading it raw.
Wow. Wow. the_womble (580291) may be on to something here. Looks like they are competing with you. Are you sure you didn't use any copyrighted material? (I am thinking pictures.) Damn, publishers must be getting really twitchy. I want to know how this turns out for you.
By that logic it doesn't cost any money to build a hotel
Where did I state that "it doesn't cost any money to" do anything? What are you talking about? I pointed out that rewarding research with cash is better for consumer than rewarding the same research with a global manufacturing monopoly.
I believe that patents reduce the total utility of discoveries for the society. Instead of
rewarding past inventors with monopolies, we should reward future inventors with grants.
The decision to reward a researcher with a grant should be based on many relevant factors,
among them the history, the standing, the proposal. All know-how should be in the public
domain, period.
The outcome would be better in every respect. Inventors would still be encouraged by
monetary prizes (to what degree, no one can compute anyway) and fully compensated for
their research. The public would benefit greatly compared with the current system.
When it comes to inventions which increase
an acknowledged public good (like drugs or infrastructure improvements), this system
would clearly be more ethical, as the goodies would be available to anyone for the price it
takes to manufacture them. And all around, the prices of goods would come down due
to the cut-throat competition among the manufacturers.
Will manufacturers themselves stop to innovate? Impossible. Introducing a novel device or a feature
ahead of your competitors and so gaining the momentum on the free market would be just as valuable
as it is right now.
Take everyone's favorite example of an area where the research is said to be too costly
to conduct without patents: drugs. I call major bullshit. We, consumers, end up compensating big pharma
in full for all research, all marketing, and, if rumors are true, all the coke they blow with their
monopoly money. On top of that, whenever they get distracted from developing "anti-aging" shit (not very often) and come out with a life-saving drug, only the rich
can afford it. It happens all the time: they make all their money back, and they only sell it to the rich.
Does anyone really believe that we will pay more, as a society, if we pay for the research in advance?
Patent law has merit in a society like early USA, where skilled manufacturers are extremely rare
and monopoly is local by necessity, because a global monopoly is logistically impossible.
We live in a different world. In our world of super-powerful corporations, global monopolies run rampant with or without
exclusive rights protected by the government, while skilled manufacturers and researchers are dime-a-dozen.
I guess, my main point is Eben Moglen's point too: there is no such thing as shortage of innovation when the Internet is cheap.
All "intellectual property" laws are utter crap: they benefit only the ultra-rich, while everyone else gets hosed, with one possible exception of the trademark law.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, half of that rant is a trivial telescoping sum. He is using that as an illustration for why it's OK to ditch the stack in favor of the monolithic design. This makes absolutely no sense. It would be better if he cut the bullshit and just said "it's easy to deploy when you don't really understand how the storage works". I want to hear one good reason for the RAID layer to be glued to the POSIX layer in a way that you cannot replace one without replacing the other.
Merits close study, as the concepts of ZFS overtake current best practices
That is, assuming that having the file system and the volume manager tied to each other is a good thing. I think I can come up with a bunch of reasons for why this is a pretty terrible idea and why modularity here is a good thing.
When you're high, you can do everything you normally do just as well – you just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort.
-Bill Hicks
Bork bork bork.
So, you are saying, we shouldn't use your program because if it's buggy and you are unavailable, it's tough luck for us. We are better off playing a GPLed game.
First we segregate women, simply because we can. Then we divide them in a way that actually maximizes the number of unions and the genetic variability (good math, men), and finally we pass property laws to protect male bloodlines.
Back then, from men's point of view, it is imperative to know who the father is, on pain of being a sucker who raises other's child. Hence women became property, not to be shared for any reason. Without sharing, the marriage is the optimal solution as it pairs up everyone in a population where boys and girls are born at the same rate.
With DNA testing being affordable as it is, this concern no longer exists. With no constraint on women, the genetic variability would peak if no two people had more than one child together. This can be implemented easily by having couples stay together and swapping sperm. Or partners, if you are into that kind of thing ;)
To quote drsmithy from this very thread: "Overall, marriage creates a 'stronger' community. On a more individual scale, married couples generally live longer, make more money and and have higher employment rates. Additionally children brought up by married couples tend to have better health, better school results and fewer problems with the law."
But married couples also tend to be better for the community in general, more productive, more stable, contributing more wealth.
I had to step back because this statement seems to be very reasonable. Let's just assume that it is true for now and not be overly skeptical. But then it is the classic marriage that does these things for us, not the new marriage being proposed. The stability results, imho, from the common understanding of marriage as a very long term union between one male and one female for the purpose of procreation and child-rearing. To be sure, people marry for other legitimate reasons, but that is irrelevant because we are just looking at the factors which contribute to the economic prosperity of all. It seems to me that this marriage really works as a package and relaxing some of the conditions actually ruins the economic argument, since marriages are only as stable as people believe they should be. In particular, any marriage that does not have a far-reaching, hard-to-achieve communal goal as its core purpose will lack stability. (The argument for a same-sex marriage is therefore weakened because it lacks the procreative function, but I am willing to overlook that because it is more of an issue of technology and price now. That is, in the future, making a new baby won't require "two parents", only two cells or even two data files.)
There are other positive externalities of marriage besides children.
So it seems to me that these positive things are externalities of a marriage-for-the-sake-of-raising-children. Let me tell you then what I think should be done, and please do provide some feedback if you feel like it.
I think that we need to be more careful than ever with this stuff, since there are so many unknown factors we are messing with. Not only we are not justified in propping childless (by design) unions, we are hardly justified in propping the ones with such intent, the way we do it today. We should still do it, imho, but be smarter about it and make adjustments to account for our understanding of the danger of overpopulation. I agree (in contrast with my beliefs a few years ago) that same-sex couples should be treated equally when it comes to child-rearing rights and benefits. There is a bit of an icy slope here I'd like to explore: if we say that two consenting loving adults are a right kind of environment to raise a child in, would it not be true for three or four consenting loving adults? And then, should we have a "civil union of two to five" instead of "man and wife"? I think it follows that we do, but is five the right number? This is a very large social experiment.
And my other main point is that "civil union" is just so much better than "marriage". This is gotta be the stupidest thing the movement has done: instead of asking for equal treatment, they went for "marriage", which is basically a patched-up male property right. What I envision is a civil union of two (or more?) people who get to be treated as a single unit economically and legally if they so desire. That alone already provides them with an economic advantage, so there is no need to make them even stronger at the expense of the loner. We still need the loner to keep the people market liquid. Some people just like to solo, let them.
If the union declares an intention of raising children, more help is given, since we all believe that families should raise children, with government being the only default option, and not the choice one.
But no, that's almost too easy. Instead, the program is to further patch marriage, against the overwhelming
You are making a good point, I'll think about it.
Are you proposing we outlaw marriage for people who already know they are barren?
They should not receive any economic help. They are already better off than singles because they pull resources together. A single parent is far more qualified for tax cuts and such.
GITS (animation)?
Have you seen Columbo?
This is because copyright is meant to be an incentive to create and publish works, but as minimally restrictive upon the public as possible in scope, and of minimal length so that the work enters the public domain as quickly as possible.
I agree completely. But consider this:
Copyright would be completely unneeded if we could demonstrate that it does not encourage the creation and the publishing of works, right? Well, look at the Internet today. Would you say that we have a shortage, so to speak, of artistic works or good ideas on the Internet? Imho, no. At present, we cannot even begin to account for all the culture on the Internet. All this art, all these ideas are already created and published, and there are so many of them that we struggle to even list them all. And the amount of content is growing about exponentially, at least while the infrastructure does so. This is the very opposite of shortage. What is the point of encouraging creation when we cannot even wade through the stuff we already have, while more is being created every day?
One could may be make an argument for encouraging searching and categorizing (what Google and Wikimedia and others attempt to do) of the said content, because that is what we currently need. Giving out publishing monopolies today seems almost insane: we encourage one artist at the expense of silencing thousands (and later, millions) of others.
I've considered leaving Slashdot because it is not very female friendly,
I feel for you especially after this topic, but I would like to point out that Slashdot is not very people-friendly, because it is at times very juvenile. There is a fair chance that one will be ridiculed here for being a conservative, a liberal, a Vista user, a vi user, a perl user, a facebook user, a virgin, a facial hair enthusiast, a teen, a bad speller, a manager... Did you really expect to make a clean getaway as a feminist?
Watch whenever an article comes up that has any connection, however tenuous, with a woman, and immediately there will be comments--modded all the way up!--about sex.
Are you saying that comments about sex are intrinsically offensive to women?
Seriously though, as others pointed out, this topic is a troll, since no meaningful statistics were offered to show that FOSS community is hostile, insensitive, or unwelcoming to women. Are you saying that every message board or discussion forum where a troll gets through is sexist? Do you believe that women will suddenly start joining FOSS in droves if we reduce the number of sex jokes in kernel development from something like 0.1% to 0.01%? Would it help if we introduced 0.1% of posts that are offensive to men somehow?
Consider this for a moment: if women were just as willing to code as men, would we not have small FOSS projects led by women? FOSS is not a private club. You are a part of the community the moment you license your code under GPL or any other free license. Where are these two-or-three people projects done by women who were ostracized from the community of misogynistic jerks TFA painted? Where are Feminists forks? One pissed off woman coder would be more than able to fork or at least re-brand even a major project if she was offended by the sexism.
This shows, IMHO, that there is no significant sexism in FOSS development. Whatever little there is, it cannot be the major factor responsible for the near-exclusion of women. Other factors must be in play here, and we should figure out what they are and how we can improve the situation. Rather than solving this very real problem, TFA hand-picked a few trolls and declared the whole community to be anti-woman. By this logic, the mere presence of GNAA posts make Slashdot a racist forum and IT a racist field all around the world.
And to claim that Slashdot is neutral? Are you fucking kidding me? This place is thick with racism and sexism.
It is also thick with feminism and other great values. I, personally, think that all ethics discussed here are mainly discussed by trolls, and very little of what you guys and gals say about sexism has to do with technology or just plain common sense. In that respect, it is a very neutral forum indeed. You know I am right: you see opposite viewpoints modded up to the wazoo right next to each other all the time.
And as a trained mathematician, I would like to extend it to all the people who use the word "normal" to describe anything but a non-trivial group G whose only nontrivial subgroup is G itself. Normal people don't make stupid mistakes like that.
Do you really believe that ER is cheaper than preventive care for USA as a nation? You want the taxpayer to cover ridiculous ER costs but not cover routine exams and cheapo generic drugs which will, in a majority of cases, prevent the ER scenario from ever materializing? Your position is stupid no matter how you look at the issue: it denies poor people health care until they are almost dead, while the overall bill is bigger.
we do not have poor people dying in the streets because they are kicked to the curb from hospitals because they can't pay.
This is false. You may want to rephrase it and say that "we don't have as many curbside deaths as UK", and you may as well be wrong. It seems that no matter how they rank the health care, USA keeps coming up way low, while spending the most. Try referring to real statistical data before formulating your argument.
Slashdot is one of the least female-friendly places on the Internet,
Really?? The vast majority of posters and posts here are gender-neutral. The vast majority of topics here are gender-neutral. This topic is a rare exception, it has a lot of sexist comments, and it is widely recognized as a troll (it is tagged so). You are contributing to trolling as well. Slashdot, at large, is very neutral towards any particular minority in IT, especially after you build your friend list and adjust viewing options. I hope to god you are not reading it raw.
Yeah, people who don't have insurance right now because they cannot afford it, they literally can't wait.
Wow. Wow. the_womble (580291) may be on to something here. Looks like they are competing with you. Are you sure you didn't use any copyrighted material? (I am thinking pictures.) Damn, publishers must be getting really twitchy. I want to know how this turns out for you.
By that logic it doesn't cost any money to build a hotel
Where did I state that "it doesn't cost any money to" do anything? What are you talking about? I pointed out that rewarding research with cash is better for consumer than rewarding the same research with a global manufacturing monopoly.
This is not altogether pointless. This new data could help to finally settle the question:
To bee or not to bee?
I believe that patents reduce the total utility of discoveries for the society. Instead of rewarding past inventors with monopolies, we should reward future inventors with grants. The decision to reward a researcher with a grant should be based on many relevant factors, among them the history, the standing, the proposal. All know-how should be in the public domain, period.
The outcome would be better in every respect. Inventors would still be encouraged by monetary prizes (to what degree, no one can compute anyway) and fully compensated for their research. The public would benefit greatly compared with the current system. When it comes to inventions which increase an acknowledged public good (like drugs or infrastructure improvements), this system would clearly be more ethical, as the goodies would be available to anyone for the price it takes to manufacture them. And all around, the prices of goods would come down due to the cut-throat competition among the manufacturers.
Will manufacturers themselves stop to innovate? Impossible. Introducing a novel device or a feature ahead of your competitors and so gaining the momentum on the free market would be just as valuable as it is right now.
Take everyone's favorite example of an area where the research is said to be too costly to conduct without patents: drugs. I call major bullshit. We, consumers, end up compensating big pharma in full for all research, all marketing, and, if rumors are true, all the coke they blow with their monopoly money. On top of that, whenever they get distracted from developing "anti-aging" shit (not very often) and come out with a life-saving drug, only the rich can afford it. It happens all the time: they make all their money back, and they only sell it to the rich. Does anyone really believe that we will pay more, as a society, if we pay for the research in advance?
Patent law has merit in a society like early USA, where skilled manufacturers are extremely rare and monopoly is local by necessity, because a global monopoly is logistically impossible. We live in a different world. In our world of super-powerful corporations, global monopolies run rampant with or without exclusive rights protected by the government, while skilled manufacturers and researchers are dime-a-dozen.
I guess, my main point is Eben Moglen's point too: there is no such thing as shortage of innovation when the Internet is cheap. All "intellectual property" laws are utter crap: they benefit only the ultra-rich, while everyone else gets hosed, with one possible exception of the trademark law.
Fuck Macs.
MS just can't garner the trust for large-scale mission-critical deployments any more
There, fixed it for you.
Hmm, never mind, I looked up dd-wrt.