Skimming over your comment, I think I see that we are mostly in agreement; I think I'm even agreeing with your characterization of creationists---partially, anyway, that basis for their arguments are... old.
I won't spoil your excellent response with yet another long response of mine; I just wanted to clarify one thing that we seem to disagree on: "evolution in its full scale".
What I see as evolutionists claiming is that all life (incl. very complex organisms, say, like chimpanzees) originated from what is most likely a single-celled protozoa. I don't necessarily reject all arguments where many small steps lead to a huge claim. After all, that's how inductive mathematical proofs work: once you build your little machine that proves P(N) -> P(N+1), you can set that machine to work over an enumerable set to complete your proof. But I don't think biologists have done thorough enough job to claim something like that. Say, in analogy with mathematics, I don't think that the little machine that proves P(N) -> P(N+1) (and have been shown to work for N 100) works for all N. To cast the same kind of doubt I have already, it looks too much like:
1. evolution of species by natural selection (with a few examples that show evolved difference between two clearly related species) 2. ??? 3. all lifeforms originate from simple single-celled life.
Perhaps not every rational person will doubt that step 2 would all be worked out. I, for my own part as a part-time skeptic, am not yet convinced. Yet.
The only problem is... you only have their word for it. This is the same people who, after repenting the privacy-invading "features" of News Feed, made the exact same (if not much worse) privacy-destroying add-on to that feature. Do you really trust them? I know I don't.
Now, if we agree that we can't trust these guys to tell the truth like it is, can you really trust them not to collect the information? What he says is "facebook won't store the info when external sites send it to them". That reads to me like: "Yes, sheep, don't worry about this mysterious communication to facebook.com when you are browsing on eBay. They are probably sending us all your personal, private actions, but we swear solemnly that we will not use or sell this very lucrative information."
As far as I am concerned (until someone either hacks into or raids Facebook servers without their notice and does a full investigation), they are still collecting and storing your information. They have proven over and over again that they have no integrity, and unless they say something like, "if you opt out, we will make sure to notify external websites not to send us your information," that is, something you can verify to be true, whatever they are telling is at worst a damned lie, and at best, half truth.
I hate to repeat myself, especially when you obviously put a lot more effort into your post than I have. But you still have not answered the central question: Is evolution, in its full scale as is claimed, falsifiable?
You did refer to the possibility that it may never be---and that's exactly the point to which I am getting.
I am a physicist, so I must apologize most of what I call science has examples with origin in physics. The thing is, there are plenty of examples of theories that were falsifiable and have been falsified. There was "conservation of heat". Well, people measured heat in various interactions, and discovered that when work is added or subtracted, heat changes. So conservation of heat was falsified. There was the so-called "local hidden variable theory" in quantum mechanics. A theorem (Bell's theorem) was worked out from basic principles that could distinguish the hidden variable theory from its competitor (I don't know what to call it; "Coppenhagen interpretation"?). Some experiments were done, and when they found that the result agreed with predictions of the competitior, hidden variable theory was killed.
Perhaps the main failing of theory of evolution is that it starts out with a tautology, and stays relatively vague in details so that few hard predictions are made. Don't get me wrong about the "tautology" remark---my favorite formulation of second law of thermodynamics is "What is most likely to happen, happens" (which, in the quantum mechanical jargon, I can say "macrostates with largest number of microstates, assuming each microstate has equal probability of happening, is most likely to happen"). Survival of fittest, which, in the analogy of above, says, "what is most likely to survive and reproduce, survives and reproduces", which I have no problem with. The problem is, for a cold, hard scientific theory, you need more details. Statistical mechanics would be of little value if we didn't have the first law of thermodynamics. Holding up the whole evolutionary theory on survival of fittest alone is trying to formulate statistical mechanics (and thermodynamics) on the second law alone. It just doesn't say enough to be falsifiable, or perhaps more importantly, useful, other than for bashing religion (a lot of people say "modern medicine" is based on evolutionary theory, but aside from a population of germs developing resistance, I don't see what role evolution plays in modern science of molecular and cellular biology).
I realize getting such clear results in fields of sciences other than exceptionally simple ones, like physics, is difficult. But that's no excuse for lowering our standards for when we call a theory "good enough". If a theory does not say enough things to be falsifiable (cough*stringtheory*cough), then we shouldn't give it too much weight before people start making some falsifiable, specific claims---claims that aren't obvious to people just guessing out of their arse like myself (in particle physics it's usually properties of yet-undiscovered particles, like the mass, spin, charge, etc.).
But, yes, of course theory of evolution is, at the moment, the leading theory in the field (unlike string theory), and perhaps just by that fact, it deserves more weight? Maybe. But that still doesn't excuse complacency people seem to display. To bring in another example from physics, THE leading theory in physics is the Standard Model. This has stood experimental tests of decades and has proven to be pretty good approximation of what we identify as two forces of universe (electroweak forces and strong force). But you will not see a competent physicist pretending that Standard Model is the true, final theory. This deep distrust of Standard Model, mind you, is not based on any experiment in a lab. It's more based on aesthetics and internal consistency (of not having gravity, an essentially geometric theory, built in), and casual observation (like, there is too much matter in the universe, based on how much matter-antimatter asymmetry Standard Model allows).
Well, when that happens (FSF going evil and changing G*L into something that is not free), then you simply change the license clause for all the future versions---into GPL v26 only.
As for the previous versions that were already released under GPL v26 or later, well, those are obsolete versions, right? If your software is somehow not being maintained anymore, then I think rightfully, it ought to belong in public domain, with no one able to claim ownership over it (after all, not being maintained means no one's claiming responsibility of any sort for it).
As long as your proprietary competitor is forced to use the obsolete versions of your software (before FSF hypothetically went evil), I believe enough in the goodness of free software that you will be able to compete with that proprietary fork.
Until that hypothetical worst case scenario happens, "or any later version" clause does far more good than harm---after all, without that clause, anything with more than a handful of authors will never be able to migrate to future, hopefully improved versions of GPL no matter how much the people working on the project currently want to (e.g. because some old original author, who has no stake in the project anymore, just wants to be stubborn).
But then again, every now and then biologists find, by the mitocondrial DNA evidence, that these assumed affinity (based on phenotype) isn't correct. e.g. given species A, B, and C. Based on the phenotype, it was assumed that A and B were closer than A and C. But when they went and looked at the DNA evidence (probably mitocondrial), it turned out A was actually closer to C. I forget the actual real life example, but I have a feeling that you know better than I do.
Now, can I take this as an evidence that disproves theory of evolution, in the manner of "Look, these A and B are more closely related, but the A and C have more similar mitocondrial DNA! Evolution is WRONG!"? No, I cannot. Because the more reasonable explanation is, well, we were wrong about the affinity of A, B, and C, just like we are wong about significant parts of taxonomy. But then again, this becomes a circular tautology where affinity that is supposedly tested by the mitocondrial DNA evidence is also assumed by the exact same evidence.
I am not saying that this makes the whole thing completely invalid evidence or an exercise in futility. All I am saying is, this carries a whole lot less weight than it would have otherwise, as far as the test of falsifiability goes.
To point at a good example of the opposite kind ('sorry I am a physicist, so most examples I know off the top is physics), at one point, people thought there would be no experimental method to test for validity of hidden variable theories in quantum mechanics. After all, what's the difference between a particle really having a particular state with you just not knowing and you not knowing its state because it just doesn't have one? But then came along Bell's theorem that said in the case of entangled states, the existence of local hidden variable do make the difference in the experimental result. People went ahead and did the experiments, found that the prediction by the probabilistic theory is correct, and that killed any theory that claims local hidden variable. And the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics became much stronger for it.
This could happen only because hidden variable theory had no wiggle room to weasel out in the face of experimental data against it. Well, there is a global hidden variable possibility, but most people consider that an absurdity. If there were other explanations that would allow us to keep the hidden variable theory in some other, reasonable form, then this experiment based on Bell's theorem would just not have as much value, because a value of an experiment is not really in its ability to prove (after all, there are always many competing theories that can lead to the same result) but in its ability to DISPROVE.
Even in physics the same thing as in biology happens. Whenever a string theory predicts something, an experiment testing specifically for that prediction really doesn't carry much weight because, well, if the experiment confirms it (I don't think it ever has, though), great. But even if the experiment does not confirm it, the string theory always has some wiggle room. Some assumed parameter to tweak so it predicts an entirely different result.
The only thing that's surprising to me is... this lack of complete falsifiability makes more and more people lose faith in string theory; while this lack of COMPLETE falsifiability (i.e. some type of experiment that really has reasonable potential to kill the whole evolutionary theory) doesn't seem to bother too many people concernin themselves with the theory.
Probably because the differentiation between "macro-evolution" ("speciation") and "micro-evolution" is an ID foil. *ALL* evolution is microevolution. There's nowhere in evolutionary theory that says a frog must give birth to a mouse for evolution to occur. Micro-evolutionary changes are sufficient to explain speciation over a long enough time frame. I hope you realize what you are saying flies in the face of recent (I think, in the last couple decades or so) discovery that evolution, if it happened, according to fossil records indicate happens in the patterns of "punctuated equilibrium"---i.e. most of the changes from one type to next happen in perhaps a million, if not just hundred thousands, years, not hundreds of million years. Of course this isn't the silver bullet that creationists are hoping for, but it does put a more stringent requirement on exactly what "long enough time frame" is---perhaps by one order of magnitude or so, at the very least.
As far as I have seen, no one has proven conclusively that this microevolution can result in macroevolution---yes, now I see that there are cases how microevolution can result in two species that cannot interbreed, etc., but exactly by what mechanism can one "grow new organs", like liver? And as far as I can see, "long enough time frame" is just as good a scientific explanation as "God did it", unless you can define (and prove) what "long enough" means.
If one is allowed to make such arguments (based on some undefined "long enough"), I should be allowed to argue that I can make integral of 1/x^2 (or any unknown function) from 0 to some number X as large a number as I want, for "large enough values of X".
P.S. Just so there is no misunderstanding, I don't think creationism is any sort of scientific theory. No theory that cannot comfortably allow for the fact that it is wrong (say, the way physicists say Standard Model is wrong, despite decades of experimental evidence that it is a pretty darn good approximation) can be scientific.
However, just because religious fanatics promote a nonscientific theory as a scientific one doesn't mean scientists should be sloppy in doing science. The theory of evolution has enough unpatched holes, unsupported assumptions, and unexplained oddities to make a serious scientist stop and question whether it is---pardon the pun---God's truth. Denying that without sufficient explanation based on experimental facts will just make you more like the religious people you condemn.
It is not the rules that are in question---after all, "biological rules" are nothing more than chemistry and physics, the seldom-contested branches of science. In fact, biology in the sense of "what is going on in a living organism today" is also seldom-contested by the less-scientific part of the population.
The real question is, "What can these basic rules, if left to themselves, accomplish?" Can they form a living organism out of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen given enough jolts of energy, but no guiding structure, or, let's say, "design"? Can these rules allow a single-celled organism to gradually become, after many generations, a man?
What some say is, "It's a matter of time. Matter of billions of years." But even that's not too clear. After all, is EVERYTHING a matter of time? I mean, if I asked you to find all the primes in the set of natural numbers, would you be able to do it, and it's just a matter of time? Some things are impossible because it is, well, impossible.
And here is where "faith" comes into play in the mind of evolution supporters. They believe, given enough time, an amoeba (actually, something even simpler than an amoeba) can evolve into a man, from the basic rules that govern all matter in the universe. Their opponents believe, at some time, someone made an amoeba and a man and gave them (and all the matter in the universe) rules that must be obeyed. Tell me which requires more faith. I honestly don't know and your guess is as likely to be correct as the next person's.
You sound like someone who understands the essential difference---perhaps the Achilles' heel of the theory---and yet still believes in Darwinian evolution. I would be very interested in hearing why you think macro-evolution must be possible.
So far, all I've heard are some hand-waving over spotty fossil records and comparison of current species (like genome of chimpanzee vs. homo sapiens), which could just as easily (and perhaps as reasonably) be explained by some sort of intelligent design.
But then again, how do you apply the scientific method on the "evolutionary theory"? After all, scientific method is not simply:
1. form a hypothesis 2. ??? 3. profit!
Because in step 2, it requires that you design an experiment that will either prove or disprove the hypothesis.
Can you tell me an experiment that you can design and run within your lifetime and would either prove or disprove Darwinian evolution on the grand scale (from a single-celled organism to a warm-blooded animal)?
I agree "intelligent design" is just as scientific as this leftover cup of coffee from last night. But it's not like its competitor is on a solid ground as far as scientific principles go. Because so far evolution remains a observational "science", one where you have a rather plausible reason for any lack of evidence ("some organisms just don't leave good fossils", etc), a very reasonable scientific mind can have doubts about its validity.
It's almost like someone positing existence of "black holes" in the 1800s and everyone accepting the idea in the 1950s even though no one ever saw a black hole because, well, you just can't get any light from a black hole!
But that's not how astronomy worked back then (it took a lot of circumstantial evidences, such as X-ray emissions from accretion disk and motions of visible stars, before people accepted that black holes could exist---and this was after someone already showed that a black hole is a possible solution for Einstein's equation!), and that's not how biology should work now. People, especially those scientifically minded, must demand evidences for this "evolutionary theory", and that evidence must be thoroughly thorough, especially in the absense of falsifiability through experimentation.
I thought that once, too, a long time ago---when they started opening up the site to "wider audiences", i.e. high schools rather than just post-secondary institutions. I cut off all Facebook contacts and more or less closed the account. Thinking back, that was a mistake.
Don't think like a user---think like Facebook does. In particular, think of each of your "friend" as an audience for your anti-Facebook agenda. Rather than closeting yourself off, use their tools against them. So, Facebook has an intrusive, opt-out feature called "News Feed". Well, that means, whenever you post story or write notes, all your friends see them. You have the next best thing to a captive audience.
Post news stories that are detrimental to Facebook's image. Write notes that expose weaknesses in how Facebook protects your friends' privacy (by this time, I'm assuming that you have removed enough personal material so that your account is devoid of any item that you wouldn't put on a public website like slashdot). Encourage your friends not to trust Facebook. Tell them not to click on ads on Facebook---tell them if they are interested in the ad, they can usually extract the direct link from the ad link rather than giving Facebook that revenue.
So, Facebook now added yet another privacy-invading feature (of which News Feed was probably just a precursor) hoping to get some of that "viral marketing" money. Well, until you can figure out how to "misuse" it properly, use Facebook's network for your own viral anti-marketing. Tell your friends where you would NOT spend money and why. Tell your friends whose products you would NOT buy and why.
Retreating is, of course, always an option, but that will not turn the tide of the lemmings. Be part of the crowd---just be the lemming that runs away from the cliff, taking others with you.
If you are a scientist (or did anything in academia), you would know it's a good form to refer to other people's work. Creationists have absolutely no motive to present other people's animation as their own---after all, they are trying to appear legitimate here, so if they can claim that the animation was done by some renowned biologist at Harvard, so much the better! Especially when the original animation gives not a single lip service to evolution (granted, it doesn't say anything about intelligent design either...).
As far as why there is no attribution goes, well, it's a short presentation, and presumably, they consider the presentation as a collage of researches (some evidently more reputable than others) done by other people. Giving credit to everyone who contributed anything (willing or unwillingly) would have just taken too much time and distracted from the point being made. As far as presentations go, creationists are not alone in doing this.
I'll be willing to bet that if they were writing a paper (although, I have to admit, no reputable scientific journal would probably accept their main claim) or anything of similar sort, they would be sure to attribute the animation/research to the correct group---it adds credibility, after all.
Even if you were so bent on condemning them on technicality, well, I'm not entirely sure if copyright entirely forbids this sort of "reproduction" or derived work. They were not posting this presentation on-line, and from what I can tell, they were giving a talk to a relatively small audience---and SOMEONE (probably the original poster) made an UNAUTHORIZED COPY of that presentation. I won't resort to the ceremonial introduction of a kettle to a pot, but you get the picture, I hope.
Also, as I've been looking for notebooks that I can run with completely free software (my current Inspiron 700m has the unfortunate defect of having an Intel wireless device which requires a binary-only firmware), it looks like Toshiba is one of the main brand notebooks that fit the profile best. Toshiba notebooks with AMD CPUs, especially (again, because notebooks with AMD CPUs are less likely to have Intel wireless devices that almost invariably require a binary-only firmware).
Of course, if it really comes down to it, there are companies that sell Ubuntu preloaded, like System76, but I'd like to avoid $200 - $400 premium I'd pay over another similarly spec'd system if I can.
Er, before you start foaming at your mouth, I recommend that you actually watch the original video with the original narration. Listen to every word carefully (I'm not a biologist, but I could understand most of it, so unless you are stupid or utterly unqualified to make the remarks you did, you should be able to also), and ask yourself: "Which part of that original narration supports Darwinian evolution?"
Your integrity ought to be questioned if your answer is anything other than "Nothing!" The video does look like a... very sophisticated computer animation with probably biologically correct description of the cell. But that's where it stops. It describes what happens in the cell TODAY, not what might have happened over last couple billion years (or, in the interest of fairness, whether it just had to be designed by a creator).
Given this fact, your characterization of the modified presentation as "distorted and misrepresented" is... well, let's say over-zealous. I'm not saying that the creationist is right in not correctly attributing the Harvard biologist who made the original animation. But, given that the original says nothing about "Creation vs. Evolution" debate, would his presentation have been any less effective if he made the correct attribution? No. After, all, creationists also claim to be (I'm not supporting or denying their claim) scientists, and it is no shame to refer to another scientist's work.
As for the copyright aspect... well, I am not a lawyer and I wouldn't be able to make a cogent argument for or against this particular use. But let me just say, what the creationist did looks very similar to what some people do to make those anime "music videos" on the YouTube. If you condemn him as "distorting and misrepresenting" the original work, by the same measure, you should condemn the people creating those music videos because they are putting the animation together with music that was never designed to be put together and creating possibly misleading atmosphere. Is that what you want to do?
The whole "creation vs. evolution" argument has an effect on people that makes them utterly stupid and unable to make intelligent, rational arguments (yes, that goes for rabid creationists, as well as rabid evolutionists). If you want to save what is left of your intelligence, I advise you to take a step back and look at the debate from a distance. That's what I do as a believing scientist.
As for what copyright ought to allow people to do and ought not, I invite you to watch Lessig's wonderful presentation and make up your own mind: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187.
Ah, but you see, as a people we rely far more on anecdotal evidences than you might think.
If we agree that anecdotal evidences are entirely worthless, what's Amazon, Newegg, Buy.com, etc, etc. doing putting up "Customer Reviews"? What about "Resellerratings"? Or even reports by Better Business Bureau, or Consumerist, or Consumer reports? Unless it's a designed-to-be-fair poll (which almost all online polls aren't) of statistically significant numbers (I usually go with 1000, because that gives nice 3% margin of error, assuming no other sources (such as sampling bias, wrong question wording, etc.) than random sampling error), it's little better than anecdotal evidences---a couple people lying, a company astroturfing will be enough to skew the results way over to the other side.
But, such quality results are hard to come by (I daresay even in clinical studies, let alone psychology survey, such quality is hard to obtain), so if you've ever listened to anyone you don't know personally (and somehow can trust his/her expertise), you have let an anecdotal evidence influence your judgment. Does that mean you are stupid? Well, not any more than me, the president (of U.S., of Canada, prime minister of U.K., anybody important, really), or the vast majority of rational population.
In fact, anyone dismissing an anecdotal evidence just because it's an anecdotal evidence (rather than, say, it can be shown to be false experimentally, or there is some logical fallacy) is simply repeating the folly of Descartes (of overt doubt). Except of course, unlike Descartes, he has absolutely no originality and a hindsight of several centuries, which should prevent all but utter fools from falling into such mistake.
The key to using GIMP effectively is finally learning: EVERYTHING (well, nearly) can be done by right-click on the image window.
Once you get used to it (and some menu choices, like how "image" and "layer" has essentially identical set of menu items with different scope of application, and how many of the options available in the leading proprietary competitor under "mode" or such is under the understated "color" menu in GIMP), you might very well find this much more convenient than the leading proprietary competitor. Your mouse-hand doesn't have to move as much, for one.
P.S. BTW, I don't think... intelligient GIMP defenders would write you off when you complain about GIMP UI. In fact, GIMP developers are accutely aware of this problem. So accutely that they set up this blog.
Indeed. That is why it is paramount that those who know better educate users about freedom and free software. I was once exactly as you described---after all, the cost is the same (gratis) and more people seem to use the proprietary product! It was not until I finally learned about the importance of freedom in software that my first question about any new software I look at isn't "is it hard to learn?" or "how much is it?"---rather, it's "what's the license? is it free software?"
While I can't claim to live by the same standards FSF sets for itself, where the only justifiable reason to use proprietary software is to write a free replacement for it, I'm trying to rid myself of the shackles I have acquired over the years. e.g. I have quite a few Mathematica notebooks that contain notes important to me---I'm exporting them as PDF using the Mathematica Player (free as in beer), and if necessary, I can re-write them as a Maxima script (or, if it's something Maxima can't yet do, either do it by hand or do it numerically using GNU Octave), and in other cases where I am forced into a proprietary program by others (e.g. Skype---many of my coworkers use it as gratis replacement for long-distance, work-related calls), I make it a long-term goal to get them to change to free software alternative (in this case, Wengophone, although it does have a lot of room for improvement).
If you are running your own mail server... have you checked your mail queue? After all, Comcast's tactic of "delaying" messages could cause exactly that. i.e. As your mailserver tries to upload the messages to destination server, Comcast cuts it off with their patented reset packets. Then, if your mailserver is like any other well-configured server, it'll retry a couple more times and reschedule to send the message a couple hours later. And so on.
Without knowing exactly how Comcast decides to mangle your connections, of course it'd be hard to explain why you received all your mail at the same time. But the thing is, there is no "mail limbo" that exists somewhere in the Internet---either it's still on your server (i.e. the receiving server did not accept and take responsibility for further delivery), or it's on the other server. Chances are, it's still on yours. And then you'd at least know, if you sent it to accounts other than your test accounts, that the mail never made it to the recipients.
... and that the reason there aren't many Jews in Poland these days is that there weren't many there to start with...
This is actually an interesting point, considering the continuing (and perhaps even rising) anti-semitism in Europe and even U.S. I was in Krakow just this summer for a month, and one of those weeks was some "Annual Jewish Cultural Festival" (I'm not getting the name right, but it's one of the largest in the world---and it's been held in Krakow for over 10, 15 years). My boss, who is, by heritage, Jewish (I don't think he's a practicing Jew... but that's not the distinction usually made by anti-semites), was there for that week, partly on a separate business and partly to participate in the festival (concerts in the evening, some art classes in the afternoon), had some interesting things to say about history of Jewish persecution in Poland.
As he tells me, there were some strong oppositions when this festival got started in Krakow, Poland, initially (more than a decade ago), because before, Jews were persecuted and oppressed in Poland. The truth is, the anti-semitism (and persecution) didn't end with Nazi Germany. For decades after WWII, Jews were not treated well, and as result, any Jews who were in Poland after WWII left the country then, and by the time they started this festival, ironically enough, there were no Jews permanently residing in Krakow (plenty would visit to participate, eventually, of course). So, your neo-Nazi acquaintance does have a point---it wasn't just Germans who were racist.
But, just to be clear, I don't mean to accuse the Poles of rabid racism or anything of the sort. I can honestly say I was thoroughly impressed with their culture, the old city (at least Krakow), and the food in the month's stay there.
P.S. As far as how the postwar conduct of Germans and Japanese compare against each other, I'm sure anyone can find anecdotal evidences to support nearly any point of view, including my friend's, yours, or mine (which I'm not telling since it's not relevant). But, in any case, here's yet a couple more rhetorical question: Do you think there's any realistic chance of these neo-Nazis gaining a significant political power, much less the majority party, in Germany? Now, I realize the emperor is for the most part, only a figurehead like the royalty of Britain, but who is the father of current Japanese emperor, and is there any chance that the Japanese would reject this imperial system because of the actions endorsed by this line of emperors in the past?
In the meantime, I advise you to learn how PGP (or any key-pair encryption scheme) works. You NEVER encrypt with your private key (i.e. the key you keep). It's for decryption only (and maybe signing). If you'd ever encrypt an outgoing mail, you'd encrypt it with the public key of the recipient, and the recipient can decrypt it with her private key.
The passwords that encrypt your private key, which normally lives in the encrypted form, so that not just any shmuck who comes across it can use it (the heart of the matter in this case) uses a symmetric cypher and your naive description does have a slight chance of being remotely correct in this case (about encrypting on your own machine).
If you are non-technical, you can install Portable Thunderbird on a USB key and any Windows computer modern enough to have USB port (and with enough relaxed security to allow you to run executables from a mounted device) will let you read your encrypted email (Thunderbird supports GnuPG, I think) without having to install anything. If you want to do the encryption/decryption manually, there's probably something like "Portable GnuWin32" of which GnuPG would be a part (I found some discussion here).
P.S. Oh, and yes, government installing hardware keylogger is a real problem. Which is why I always carry a USB keyboard with me. Or better yet, my own personal laptop (and all internet connections are done through a SSH tunnel to a server in secure location).
It is like having your engine in the car shut off because the passanger removed the seatbelt.
Hey, that sounds like a good idea! That'll stop those pesky passengers and drivers from driving unsafely without seatbelts. In fact, it sounds like a GREAT SECURITY feature to have on a car!
Just a couple more comments. I think the main things Koreans (like my friend) are angry about is the "revisionist" history books that keep coming out. It's almost like German government approving elementary school history books casting doubt on whether Holocaust ever happened or not. This is mentioned in the articles you quote ('sorry, I couldn't read the Economist one, as I'm not an economist, I wouldn't pay to read it).
I guess what the Koreans want is moral justification. They want the Japanese to say that the conditions during the occupations is as horrible as Koreans say. And a general apology for a generic war crime wouldn't do (after all, a loser in a world war always will need to apologize for *something*). If you want yet another bad analogy, what if Germany did acknowledge that there was a concentration camp and some bad things happened, and apologized for it. But what if they went on to say that "Jews were there for their own protection" (Japanese claim some "comfort women" volunteered of their free will, without deception by the government) or "there were no gas chambers" (Japanese deny that experiments on humans as Koreans claim happened)? I suppose to some degree, it really depends on whether what Koreans claim is even true, but to a Korean mind, it's true beyond doubt, and some "eyewitness accounts" only bolster that belief. So, you have these people who believe these horrible things were done to them, and here's their neighbor, who apologizes for (proverbially) robbing the house, but then denies (again, proverbially), that he raped his wife.
From what I can see, Koreans just feel that Japan is admitting to the minimum it needs to (I mean, it's pretty hard to deny that Japan started a war of agression, so they apologize) while denying some of the more egregious crimes (that are harder to prove that it happened). And almost always, it looks like Korea needs to squeeze apologies (what little there is) out of Japan. I mean, the war ended in 1945. And it took until 1965 for the reparations to come in?
And again, going back to the refuseniks, I still don't see how simple act of refusing to be citizens of country that they reside in make them racists and bigots. After all, there are plenty of permanent residents in U.S. who are eligible for citizenship and yet choose not to apply. I suppose they must just hate U.S. to live here permanently and yet not got citizenship. And, from what I can tell, they are pretty much treated the same way as citizens. I mean, I had no idea this co-worker (and a friend) of Taiwanese descent was only a permanent resident (after all, we've been on business trips together oversees) until some one of those get-the-vote out people walked up to him and he said he couldn't vote because he wasn't a citizen.
P.S. I do have to agree that Koreans are pretty xenophobic. In fact, that's the main thing about this friend of mine that drives me crazy every now and then. And I mean, he lived in U.S. for, what, last 15 years or so, so you'd think he's pretty Americanized now... but from my point of view, he's more xenophobic than even know-nothingers. I can only imagine how it is in the country he's from.
Before you label these "refuseniks" and potentially all Koreans as "racist bigots", perhaps you should look into the modern history of Japanese occupation of Korean penninsula. There are many controversial historical issues, but I will point you to the worst alleged war crime by Japan against Koreans (and I mean alleged in the neutral sense—like O.J. Simpson is an alleged murderer). You can look up the rest, if you are interested. But, in short, I think it'd not be an exaggeration to say that compared to the Korean people under Japanese rule during WWII, the American citizens of Japanese ancestry lived like kings and queens in their "concentration camp" during the same time.
The point is, these people have not prejudged the Japanese—there is history that just can't be buried by nothing less than the amnesia induced by several centuries and all the good feeling that'll be generated by a unified world government (either that, or a very simple apology from the current Japanese government). Calling these people, who, from either their own (my friend's grandfather (who is a Korean) lived under the Japanese rule and could describe all the forced assimilation of Koreans into Japanese culture) or experience of people they trust (like family and teachers), know how badly Koreans were treated by the Japanese, "racist bigots"... is either a display of patent ignorance of modern history, or some truly amazing bigotry in its own right.
Well, I am not a Korean myself (I just have a friend who is overflowing with "Korean-ness", and who, despite all that, happens to be a best friend), so if you need more, you will have to find another Korean to discuss it in more detail. But I just want you to know; it's not like these people don't have a very good reason to distrust and even hate the Japanese. They have the best reason you can find in the world to hate a group of people.
P.S. One very obvious argument (the same one I made when I was first confronted with this) would be: "But that's all history, over 60, 70 years ago!". And here's my friend's answer:
"And the Japanese people living in Japan TODAY is still proud that they beat the Russians, threatened the Chinese, and oppressed the Koreans. Unlike what used to be the Nazi Germany, where there can't possibly be another NAZI party TODAY, and calling a German "Nazi" would be the gravest insult you could throw at him, in Japan, the same emperor (well, emperor of the same line) that ruled over Japan during the periods of WWII (and before) still rules over the APPARENTLY SAME JAPAN. The Japanese government continually refuses to acknowledge its war crimes against Koreans (especially the Korean women who were sexually abused, not to mention the men who were used as human shields) nor apologize for it. It's not history, not just yet. It's very much current, despite the length of time that passed."
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Skimming over your comment, I think I see that we are mostly in agreement; I think I'm even agreeing with your characterization of creationists---partially, anyway, that basis for their arguments are ... old.
I won't spoil your excellent response with yet another long response of mine; I just wanted to clarify one thing that we seem to disagree on: "evolution in its full scale".
What I see as evolutionists claiming is that all life (incl. very complex organisms, say, like chimpanzees) originated from what is most likely a single-celled protozoa. I don't necessarily reject all arguments where many small steps lead to a huge claim. After all, that's how inductive mathematical proofs work: once you build your little machine that proves P(N) -> P(N+1), you can set that machine to work over an enumerable set to complete your proof. But I don't think biologists have done thorough enough job to claim something like that. Say, in analogy with mathematics, I don't think that the little machine that proves P(N) -> P(N+1) (and have been shown to work for N 100) works for all N. To cast the same kind of doubt I have already, it looks too much like:
1. evolution of species by natural selection (with a few examples that show evolved difference between two clearly related species)
2. ???
3. all lifeforms originate from simple single-celled life.
Perhaps not every rational person will doubt that step 2 would all be worked out. I, for my own part as a part-time skeptic, am not yet convinced. Yet.
The only problem is ... you only have their word for it. This is the same people who, after repenting the privacy-invading "features" of News Feed, made the exact same (if not much worse) privacy-destroying add-on to that feature. Do you really trust them? I know I don't.
Now, if we agree that we can't trust these guys to tell the truth like it is, can you really trust them not to collect the information? What he says is "facebook won't store the info when external sites send it to them". That reads to me like: "Yes, sheep, don't worry about this mysterious communication to facebook.com when you are browsing on eBay. They are probably sending us all your personal, private actions, but we swear solemnly that we will not use or sell this very lucrative information."
As far as I am concerned (until someone either hacks into or raids Facebook servers without their notice and does a full investigation), they are still collecting and storing your information. They have proven over and over again that they have no integrity, and unless they say something like, "if you opt out, we will make sure to notify external websites not to send us your information," that is, something you can verify to be true, whatever they are telling is at worst a damned lie, and at best, half truth.
I hate to repeat myself, especially when you obviously put a lot more effort into your post than I have. But you still have not answered the central question: Is evolution, in its full scale as is claimed, falsifiable?
You did refer to the possibility that it may never be---and that's exactly the point to which I am getting.
I am a physicist, so I must apologize most of what I call science has examples with origin in physics. The thing is, there are plenty of examples of theories that were falsifiable and have been falsified. There was "conservation of heat". Well, people measured heat in various interactions, and discovered that when work is added or subtracted, heat changes. So conservation of heat was falsified. There was the so-called "local hidden variable theory" in quantum mechanics. A theorem (Bell's theorem) was worked out from basic principles that could distinguish the hidden variable theory from its competitor (I don't know what to call it; "Coppenhagen interpretation"?). Some experiments were done, and when they found that the result agreed with predictions of the competitior, hidden variable theory was killed.
Perhaps the main failing of theory of evolution is that it starts out with a tautology, and stays relatively vague in details so that few hard predictions are made. Don't get me wrong about the "tautology" remark---my favorite formulation of second law of thermodynamics is "What is most likely to happen, happens" (which, in the quantum mechanical jargon, I can say "macrostates with largest number of microstates, assuming each microstate has equal probability of happening, is most likely to happen"). Survival of fittest, which, in the analogy of above, says, "what is most likely to survive and reproduce, survives and reproduces", which I have no problem with. The problem is, for a cold, hard scientific theory, you need more details. Statistical mechanics would be of little value if we didn't have the first law of thermodynamics. Holding up the whole evolutionary theory on survival of fittest alone is trying to formulate statistical mechanics (and thermodynamics) on the second law alone. It just doesn't say enough to be falsifiable, or perhaps more importantly, useful, other than for bashing religion (a lot of people say "modern medicine" is based on evolutionary theory, but aside from a population of germs developing resistance, I don't see what role evolution plays in modern science of molecular and cellular biology).
I realize getting such clear results in fields of sciences other than exceptionally simple ones, like physics, is difficult. But that's no excuse for lowering our standards for when we call a theory "good enough". If a theory does not say enough things to be falsifiable (cough*stringtheory*cough), then we shouldn't give it too much weight before people start making some falsifiable, specific claims---claims that aren't obvious to people just guessing out of their arse like myself (in particle physics it's usually properties of yet-undiscovered particles, like the mass, spin, charge, etc.).
But, yes, of course theory of evolution is, at the moment, the leading theory in the field (unlike string theory), and perhaps just by that fact, it deserves more weight? Maybe. But that still doesn't excuse complacency people seem to display. To bring in another example from physics, THE leading theory in physics is the Standard Model. This has stood experimental tests of decades and has proven to be pretty good approximation of what we identify as two forces of universe (electroweak forces and strong force). But you will not see a competent physicist pretending that Standard Model is the true, final theory. This deep distrust of Standard Model, mind you, is not based on any experiment in a lab. It's more based on aesthetics and internal consistency (of not having gravity, an essentially geometric theory, built in), and casual observation (like, there is too much matter in the universe, based on how much matter-antimatter asymmetry Standard Model allows).
But
Well, when that happens (FSF going evil and changing G*L into something that is not free), then you simply change the license clause for all the future versions---into GPL v26 only.
As for the previous versions that were already released under GPL v26 or later, well, those are obsolete versions, right? If your software is somehow not being maintained anymore, then I think rightfully, it ought to belong in public domain, with no one able to claim ownership over it (after all, not being maintained means no one's claiming responsibility of any sort for it).
As long as your proprietary competitor is forced to use the obsolete versions of your software (before FSF hypothetically went evil), I believe enough in the goodness of free software that you will be able to compete with that proprietary fork.
Until that hypothetical worst case scenario happens, "or any later version" clause does far more good than harm---after all, without that clause, anything with more than a handful of authors will never be able to migrate to future, hopefully improved versions of GPL no matter how much the people working on the project currently want to (e.g. because some old original author, who has no stake in the project anymore, just wants to be stubborn).
But then again, every now and then biologists find, by the mitocondrial DNA evidence, that these assumed affinity (based on phenotype) isn't correct. e.g. given species A, B, and C. Based on the phenotype, it was assumed that A and B were closer than A and C. But when they went and looked at the DNA evidence (probably mitocondrial), it turned out A was actually closer to C. I forget the actual real life example, but I have a feeling that you know better than I do.
... this lack of complete falsifiability makes more and more people lose faith in string theory; while this lack of COMPLETE falsifiability (i.e. some type of experiment that really has reasonable potential to kill the whole evolutionary theory) doesn't seem to bother too many people concernin themselves with the theory.
Now, can I take this as an evidence that disproves theory of evolution, in the manner of "Look, these A and B are more closely related, but the A and C have more similar mitocondrial DNA! Evolution is WRONG!"? No, I cannot. Because the more reasonable explanation is, well, we were wrong about the affinity of A, B, and C, just like we are wong about significant parts of taxonomy. But then again, this becomes a circular tautology where affinity that is supposedly tested by the mitocondrial DNA evidence is also assumed by the exact same evidence.
I am not saying that this makes the whole thing completely invalid evidence or an exercise in futility. All I am saying is, this carries a whole lot less weight than it would have otherwise, as far as the test of falsifiability goes.
To point at a good example of the opposite kind ('sorry I am a physicist, so most examples I know off the top is physics), at one point, people thought there would be no experimental method to test for validity of hidden variable theories in quantum mechanics. After all, what's the difference between a particle really having a particular state with you just not knowing and you not knowing its state because it just doesn't have one? But then came along Bell's theorem that said in the case of entangled states, the existence of local hidden variable do make the difference in the experimental result. People went ahead and did the experiments, found that the prediction by the probabilistic theory is correct, and that killed any theory that claims local hidden variable. And the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics became much stronger for it.
This could happen only because hidden variable theory had no wiggle room to weasel out in the face of experimental data against it. Well, there is a global hidden variable possibility, but most people consider that an absurdity. If there were other explanations that would allow us to keep the hidden variable theory in some other, reasonable form, then this experiment based on Bell's theorem would just not have as much value, because a value of an experiment is not really in its ability to prove (after all, there are always many competing theories that can lead to the same result) but in its ability to DISPROVE.
Even in physics the same thing as in biology happens. Whenever a string theory predicts something, an experiment testing specifically for that prediction really doesn't carry much weight because, well, if the experiment confirms it (I don't think it ever has, though), great. But even if the experiment does not confirm it, the string theory always has some wiggle room. Some assumed parameter to tweak so it predicts an entirely different result.
The only thing that's surprising to me is
As far as I have seen, no one has proven conclusively that this microevolution can result in macroevolution---yes, now I see that there are cases how microevolution can result in two species that cannot interbreed, etc., but exactly by what mechanism can one "grow new organs", like liver? And as far as I can see, "long enough time frame" is just as good a scientific explanation as "God did it", unless you can define (and prove) what "long enough" means.
If one is allowed to make such arguments (based on some undefined "long enough"), I should be allowed to argue that I can make integral of 1/x^2 (or any unknown function) from 0 to some number X as large a number as I want, for "large enough values of X".
P.S. Just so there is no misunderstanding, I don't think creationism is any sort of scientific theory. No theory that cannot comfortably allow for the fact that it is wrong (say, the way physicists say Standard Model is wrong, despite decades of experimental evidence that it is a pretty darn good approximation) can be scientific.
However, just because religious fanatics promote a nonscientific theory as a scientific one doesn't mean scientists should be sloppy in doing science. The theory of evolution has enough unpatched holes, unsupported assumptions, and unexplained oddities to make a serious scientist stop and question whether it is---pardon the pun---God's truth. Denying that without sufficient explanation based on experimental facts will just make you more like the religious people you condemn.
It is not the rules that are in question---after all, "biological rules" are nothing more than chemistry and physics, the seldom-contested branches of science. In fact, biology in the sense of "what is going on in a living organism today" is also seldom-contested by the less-scientific part of the population.
The real question is, "What can these basic rules, if left to themselves, accomplish?" Can they form a living organism out of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen given enough jolts of energy, but no guiding structure, or, let's say, "design"? Can these rules allow a single-celled organism to gradually become, after many generations, a man?
What some say is, "It's a matter of time. Matter of billions of years." But even that's not too clear. After all, is EVERYTHING a matter of time? I mean, if I asked you to find all the primes in the set of natural numbers, would you be able to do it, and it's just a matter of time? Some things are impossible because it is, well, impossible.
And here is where "faith" comes into play in the mind of evolution supporters. They believe, given enough time, an amoeba (actually, something even simpler than an amoeba) can evolve into a man, from the basic rules that govern all matter in the universe. Their opponents believe, at some time, someone made an amoeba and a man and gave them (and all the matter in the universe) rules that must be obeyed. Tell me which requires more faith. I honestly don't know and your guess is as likely to be correct as the next person's.
You sound like someone who understands the essential difference---perhaps the Achilles' heel of the theory---and yet still believes in Darwinian evolution. I would be very interested in hearing why you think macro-evolution must be possible.
So far, all I've heard are some hand-waving over spotty fossil records and comparison of current species (like genome of chimpanzee vs. homo sapiens), which could just as easily (and perhaps as reasonably) be explained by some sort of intelligent design.
But then again, how do you apply the scientific method on the "evolutionary theory"? After all, scientific method is not simply:
1. form a hypothesis
2. ???
3. profit!
Because in step 2, it requires that you design an experiment that will either prove or disprove the hypothesis.
Can you tell me an experiment that you can design and run within your lifetime and would either prove or disprove Darwinian evolution on the grand scale (from a single-celled organism to a warm-blooded animal)?
I agree "intelligent design" is just as scientific as this leftover cup of coffee from last night. But it's not like its competitor is on a solid ground as far as scientific principles go. Because so far evolution remains a observational "science", one where you have a rather plausible reason for any lack of evidence ("some organisms just don't leave good fossils", etc), a very reasonable scientific mind can have doubts about its validity.
It's almost like someone positing existence of "black holes" in the 1800s and everyone accepting the idea in the 1950s even though no one ever saw a black hole because, well, you just can't get any light from a black hole!
But that's not how astronomy worked back then (it took a lot of circumstantial evidences, such as X-ray emissions from accretion disk and motions of visible stars, before people accepted that black holes could exist---and this was after someone already showed that a black hole is a possible solution for Einstein's equation!), and that's not how biology should work now. People, especially those scientifically minded, must demand evidences for this "evolutionary theory", and that evidence must be thoroughly thorough, especially in the absense of falsifiability through experimentation.
I thought that once, too, a long time ago---when they started opening up the site to "wider audiences", i.e. high schools rather than just post-secondary institutions. I cut off all Facebook contacts and more or less closed the account. Thinking back, that was a mistake.
Don't think like a user---think like Facebook does. In particular, think of each of your "friend" as an audience for your anti-Facebook agenda. Rather than closeting yourself off, use their tools against them. So, Facebook has an intrusive, opt-out feature called "News Feed". Well, that means, whenever you post story or write notes, all your friends see them. You have the next best thing to a captive audience.
Post news stories that are detrimental to Facebook's image. Write notes that expose weaknesses in how Facebook protects your friends' privacy (by this time, I'm assuming that you have removed enough personal material so that your account is devoid of any item that you wouldn't put on a public website like slashdot). Encourage your friends not to trust Facebook. Tell them not to click on ads on Facebook---tell them if they are interested in the ad, they can usually extract the direct link from the ad link rather than giving Facebook that revenue.
So, Facebook now added yet another privacy-invading feature (of which News Feed was probably just a precursor) hoping to get some of that "viral marketing" money. Well, until you can figure out how to "misuse" it properly, use Facebook's network for your own viral anti-marketing. Tell your friends where you would NOT spend money and why. Tell your friends whose products you would NOT buy and why.
Retreating is, of course, always an option, but that will not turn the tide of the lemmings. Be part of the crowd---just be the lemming that runs away from the cliff, taking others with you.
I believe you are mistaking their intent here.
...).
If you are a scientist (or did anything in academia), you would know it's a good form to refer to other people's work. Creationists have absolutely no motive to present other people's animation as their own---after all, they are trying to appear legitimate here, so if they can claim that the animation was done by some renowned biologist at Harvard, so much the better! Especially when the original animation gives not a single lip service to evolution (granted, it doesn't say anything about intelligent design either
As far as why there is no attribution goes, well, it's a short presentation, and presumably, they consider the presentation as a collage of researches (some evidently more reputable than others) done by other people. Giving credit to everyone who contributed anything (willing or unwillingly) would have just taken too much time and distracted from the point being made. As far as presentations go, creationists are not alone in doing this.
I'll be willing to bet that if they were writing a paper (although, I have to admit, no reputable scientific journal would probably accept their main claim) or anything of similar sort, they would be sure to attribute the animation/research to the correct group---it adds credibility, after all.
Even if you were so bent on condemning them on technicality, well, I'm not entirely sure if copyright entirely forbids this sort of "reproduction" or derived work. They were not posting this presentation on-line, and from what I can tell, they were giving a talk to a relatively small audience---and SOMEONE (probably the original poster) made an UNAUTHORIZED COPY of that presentation. I won't resort to the ceremonial introduction of a kettle to a pot, but you get the picture, I hope.
Er, isn't it KAIST? I remember because "KIST" sounds like some bad mispronounciation of KISS.
Also, as I've been looking for notebooks that I can run with completely free software (my current Inspiron 700m has the unfortunate defect of having an Intel wireless device which requires a binary-only firmware), it looks like Toshiba is one of the main brand notebooks that fit the profile best. Toshiba notebooks with AMD CPUs, especially (again, because notebooks with AMD CPUs are less likely to have Intel wireless devices that almost invariably require a binary-only firmware).
Of course, if it really comes down to it, there are companies that sell Ubuntu preloaded, like System76, but I'd like to avoid $200 - $400 premium I'd pay over another similarly spec'd system if I can.
Er, before you start foaming at your mouth, I recommend that you actually watch the original video with the original narration. Listen to every word carefully (I'm not a biologist, but I could understand most of it, so unless you are stupid or utterly unqualified to make the remarks you did, you should be able to also), and ask yourself: "Which part of that original narration supports Darwinian evolution?"
... very sophisticated computer animation with probably biologically correct description of the cell. But that's where it stops. It describes what happens in the cell TODAY, not what might have happened over last couple billion years (or, in the interest of fairness, whether it just had to be designed by a creator).
... well, let's say over-zealous. I'm not saying that the creationist is right in not correctly attributing the Harvard biologist who made the original animation. But, given that the original says nothing about "Creation vs. Evolution" debate, would his presentation have been any less effective if he made the correct attribution? No. After, all, creationists also claim to be (I'm not supporting or denying their claim) scientists, and it is no shame to refer to another scientist's work.
... well, I am not a lawyer and I wouldn't be able to make a cogent argument for or against this particular use. But let me just say, what the creationist did looks very similar to what some people do to make those anime "music videos" on the YouTube. If you condemn him as "distorting and misrepresenting" the original work, by the same measure, you should condemn the people creating those music videos because they are putting the animation together with music that was never designed to be put together and creating possibly misleading atmosphere. Is that what you want to do?
Your integrity ought to be questioned if your answer is anything other than "Nothing!" The video does look like a
Given this fact, your characterization of the modified presentation as "distorted and misrepresented" is
As for the copyright aspect
The whole "creation vs. evolution" argument has an effect on people that makes them utterly stupid and unable to make intelligent, rational arguments (yes, that goes for rabid creationists, as well as rabid evolutionists). If you want to save what is left of your intelligence, I advise you to take a step back and look at the debate from a distance. That's what I do as a believing scientist.
As for what copyright ought to allow people to do and ought not, I invite you to watch Lessig's wonderful presentation and make up your own mind: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187.
Ah, but you see, as a people we rely far more on anecdotal evidences than you might think.
If we agree that anecdotal evidences are entirely worthless, what's Amazon, Newegg, Buy.com, etc, etc. doing putting up "Customer Reviews"? What about "Resellerratings"? Or even reports by Better Business Bureau, or Consumerist, or Consumer reports? Unless it's a designed-to-be-fair poll (which almost all online polls aren't) of statistically significant numbers (I usually go with 1000, because that gives nice 3% margin of error, assuming no other sources (such as sampling bias, wrong question wording, etc.) than random sampling error), it's little better than anecdotal evidences---a couple people lying, a company astroturfing will be enough to skew the results way over to the other side.
But, such quality results are hard to come by (I daresay even in clinical studies, let alone psychology survey, such quality is hard to obtain), so if you've ever listened to anyone you don't know personally (and somehow can trust his/her expertise), you have let an anecdotal evidence influence your judgment. Does that mean you are stupid? Well, not any more than me, the president (of U.S., of Canada, prime minister of U.K., anybody important, really), or the vast majority of rational population.
In fact, anyone dismissing an anecdotal evidence just because it's an anecdotal evidence (rather than, say, it can be shown to be false experimentally, or there is some logical fallacy) is simply repeating the folly of Descartes (of overt doubt). Except of course, unlike Descartes, he has absolutely no originality and a hindsight of several centuries, which should prevent all but utter fools from falling into such mistake.
The key to using GIMP effectively is finally learning: EVERYTHING (well, nearly) can be done by right-click on the image window.
Once you get used to it (and some menu choices, like how "image" and "layer" has essentially identical set of menu items with different scope of application, and how many of the options available in the leading proprietary competitor under "mode" or such is under the understated "color" menu in GIMP), you might very well find this much more convenient than the leading proprietary competitor. Your mouse-hand doesn't have to move as much, for one.
P.S. BTW, I don't think ... intelligient GIMP defenders would write you off when you complain about GIMP UI. In fact, GIMP developers are accutely aware of this problem. So accutely that they set up this blog.
Indeed. That is why it is paramount that those who know better educate users about freedom and free software. I was once exactly as you described---after all, the cost is the same (gratis) and more people seem to use the proprietary product! It was not until I finally learned about the importance of freedom in software that my first question about any new software I look at isn't "is it hard to learn?" or "how much is it?"---rather, it's "what's the license? is it free software?"
While I can't claim to live by the same standards FSF sets for itself, where the only justifiable reason to use proprietary software is to write a free replacement for it, I'm trying to rid myself of the shackles I have acquired over the years. e.g. I have quite a few Mathematica notebooks that contain notes important to me---I'm exporting them as PDF using the Mathematica Player (free as in beer), and if necessary, I can re-write them as a Maxima script (or, if it's something Maxima can't yet do, either do it by hand or do it numerically using GNU Octave), and in other cases where I am forced into a proprietary program by others (e.g. Skype---many of my coworkers use it as gratis replacement for long-distance, work-related calls), I make it a long-term goal to get them to change to free software alternative (in this case, Wengophone, although it does have a lot of room for improvement).
If you are running your own mail server ... have you checked your mail queue? After all, Comcast's tactic of "delaying" messages could cause exactly that. i.e. As your mailserver tries to upload the messages to destination server, Comcast cuts it off with their patented reset packets. Then, if your mailserver is like any other well-configured server, it'll retry a couple more times and reschedule to send the message a couple hours later. And so on.
Without knowing exactly how Comcast decides to mangle your connections, of course it'd be hard to explain why you received all your mail at the same time. But the thing is, there is no "mail limbo" that exists somewhere in the Internet---either it's still on your server (i.e. the receiving server did not accept and take responsibility for further delivery), or it's on the other server. Chances are, it's still on yours. And then you'd at least know, if you sent it to accounts other than your test accounts, that the mail never made it to the recipients.
This is actually an interesting point, considering the continuing (and perhaps even rising) anti-semitism in Europe and even U.S. I was in Krakow just this summer for a month, and one of those weeks was some "Annual Jewish Cultural Festival" (I'm not getting the name right, but it's one of the largest in the world---and it's been held in Krakow for over 10, 15 years). My boss, who is, by heritage, Jewish (I don't think he's a practicing Jew ... but that's not the distinction usually made by anti-semites), was there for that week, partly on a separate business and partly to participate in the festival (concerts in the evening, some art classes in the afternoon), had some interesting things to say about history of Jewish persecution in Poland.
As he tells me, there were some strong oppositions when this festival got started in Krakow, Poland, initially (more than a decade ago), because before, Jews were persecuted and oppressed in Poland. The truth is, the anti-semitism (and persecution) didn't end with Nazi Germany. For decades after WWII, Jews were not treated well, and as result, any Jews who were in Poland after WWII left the country then, and by the time they started this festival, ironically enough, there were no Jews permanently residing in Krakow (plenty would visit to participate, eventually, of course). So, your neo-Nazi acquaintance does have a point---it wasn't just Germans who were racist.
But, just to be clear, I don't mean to accuse the Poles of rabid racism or anything of the sort. I can honestly say I was thoroughly impressed with their culture, the old city (at least Krakow), and the food in the month's stay there.
P.S. As far as how the postwar conduct of Germans and Japanese compare against each other, I'm sure anyone can find anecdotal evidences to support nearly any point of view, including my friend's, yours, or mine (which I'm not telling since it's not relevant). But, in any case, here's yet a couple more rhetorical question: Do you think there's any realistic chance of these neo-Nazis gaining a significant political power, much less the majority party, in Germany? Now, I realize the emperor is for the most part, only a figurehead like the royalty of Britain, but who is the father of current Japanese emperor, and is there any chance that the Japanese would reject this imperial system because of the actions endorsed by this line of emperors in the past?
In the meantime, I advise you to learn how PGP (or any key-pair encryption scheme) works. You NEVER encrypt with your private key (i.e. the key you keep). It's for decryption only (and maybe signing). If you'd ever encrypt an outgoing mail, you'd encrypt it with the public key of the recipient, and the recipient can decrypt it with her private key.
The passwords that encrypt your private key, which normally lives in the encrypted form, so that not just any shmuck who comes across it can use it (the heart of the matter in this case) uses a symmetric cypher and your naive description does have a slight chance of being remotely correct in this case (about encrypting on your own machine).
That's why there's such thing as "Portable Apps".
If you are non-technical, you can install Portable Thunderbird on a USB key and any Windows computer modern enough to have USB port (and with enough relaxed security to allow you to run executables from a mounted device) will let you read your encrypted email (Thunderbird supports GnuPG, I think) without having to install anything. If you want to do the encryption/decryption manually, there's probably something like "Portable GnuWin32" of which GnuPG would be a part (I found some discussion here).
P.S. Oh, and yes, government installing hardware keylogger is a real problem. Which is why I always carry a USB keyboard with me. Or better yet, my own personal laptop (and all internet connections are done through a SSH tunnel to a server in secure location).
Hey, that sounds like a good idea! That'll stop those pesky passengers and drivers from driving unsafely without seatbelts. In fact, it sounds like a GREAT SECURITY feature to have on a car!
Just a couple more comments. I think the main things Koreans (like my friend) are angry about is the "revisionist" history books that keep coming out. It's almost like German government approving elementary school history books casting doubt on whether Holocaust ever happened or not. This is mentioned in the articles you quote ('sorry, I couldn't read the Economist one, as I'm not an economist, I wouldn't pay to read it).
... but from my point of view, he's more xenophobic than even know-nothingers. I can only imagine how it is in the country he's from.
I guess what the Koreans want is moral justification. They want the Japanese to say that the conditions during the occupations is as horrible as Koreans say. And a general apology for a generic war crime wouldn't do (after all, a loser in a world war always will need to apologize for *something*). If you want yet another bad analogy, what if Germany did acknowledge that there was a concentration camp and some bad things happened, and apologized for it. But what if they went on to say that "Jews were there for their own protection" (Japanese claim some "comfort women" volunteered of their free will, without deception by the government) or "there were no gas chambers" (Japanese deny that experiments on humans as Koreans claim happened)? I suppose to some degree, it really depends on whether what Koreans claim is even true, but to a Korean mind, it's true beyond doubt, and some "eyewitness accounts" only bolster that belief. So, you have these people who believe these horrible things were done to them, and here's their neighbor, who apologizes for (proverbially) robbing the house, but then denies (again, proverbially), that he raped his wife.
From what I can see, Koreans just feel that Japan is admitting to the minimum it needs to (I mean, it's pretty hard to deny that Japan started a war of agression, so they apologize) while denying some of the more egregious crimes (that are harder to prove that it happened). And almost always, it looks like Korea needs to squeeze apologies (what little there is) out of Japan. I mean, the war ended in 1945. And it took until 1965 for the reparations to come in?
And again, going back to the refuseniks, I still don't see how simple act of refusing to be citizens of country that they reside in make them racists and bigots. After all, there are plenty of permanent residents in U.S. who are eligible for citizenship and yet choose not to apply. I suppose they must just hate U.S. to live here permanently and yet not got citizenship. And, from what I can tell, they are pretty much treated the same way as citizens. I mean, I had no idea this co-worker (and a friend) of Taiwanese descent was only a permanent resident (after all, we've been on business trips together oversees) until some one of those get-the-vote out people walked up to him and he said he couldn't vote because he wasn't a citizen.
P.S. I do have to agree that Koreans are pretty xenophobic. In fact, that's the main thing about this friend of mine that drives me crazy every now and then. And I mean, he lived in U.S. for, what, last 15 years or so, so you'd think he's pretty Americanized now
Before you label these "refuseniks" and potentially all Koreans as "racist bigots", perhaps you should look into the modern history of Japanese occupation of Korean penninsula. There are many controversial historical issues, but I will point you to the worst alleged war crime by Japan against Koreans (and I mean alleged in the neutral sense—like O.J. Simpson is an alleged murderer). You can look up the rest, if you are interested. But, in short, I think it'd not be an exaggeration to say that compared to the Korean people under Japanese rule during WWII, the American citizens of Japanese ancestry lived like kings and queens in their "concentration camp" during the same time.
The point is, these people have not prejudged the Japanese—there is history that just can't be buried by nothing less than the amnesia induced by several centuries and all the good feeling that'll be generated by a unified world government (either that, or a very simple apology from the current Japanese government). Calling these people, who, from either their own (my friend's grandfather (who is a Korean) lived under the Japanese rule and could describe all the forced assimilation of Koreans into Japanese culture) or experience of people they trust (like family and teachers), know how badly Koreans were treated by the Japanese, "racist bigots" ... is either a display of patent ignorance of modern history, or some truly amazing bigotry in its own right.
Well, I am not a Korean myself (I just have a friend who is overflowing with "Korean-ness", and who, despite all that, happens to be a best friend), so if you need more, you will have to find another Korean to discuss it in more detail. But I just want you to know; it's not like these people don't have a very good reason to distrust and even hate the Japanese. They have the best reason you can find in the world to hate a group of people.
P.S. One very obvious argument (the same one I made when I was first confronted with this) would be: "But that's all history, over 60, 70 years ago!". And here's my friend's answer:
"And the Japanese people living in Japan TODAY is still proud that they beat the Russians, threatened the Chinese, and oppressed the Koreans. Unlike what used to be the Nazi Germany, where there can't possibly be another NAZI party TODAY, and calling a German "Nazi" would be the gravest insult you could throw at him, in Japan, the same emperor (well, emperor of the same line) that ruled over Japan during the periods of WWII (and before) still rules over the APPARENTLY SAME JAPAN. The Japanese government continually refuses to acknowledge its war crimes against Koreans (especially the Korean women who were sexually abused, not to mention the men who were used as human shields) nor apologize for it. It's not history, not just yet. It's very much current, despite the length of time that passed."