(1) They don't have to put the source literally in the same package as the binary. They can do what Debian does -- offer a source package and a binary package, and leave it up to the user to decide which to download (or both, of course).
(2) It's really too bad that they're cash-strapped, don't have time to deal with the problem, etc. etc. They are using the copywrited work of others and have a legal obligation to comply with the licenses under which that work is distributed. If they can't do that, they should work with software that's written under a license that doesn't have such requirements.
This isn't "a bunch of FUD from a small group of people trying to make things difficult for small time distros." This is a bunch of developers distributing copywrited work without bothering to investigate their legal obligations. The FSF isn't trying to shut these people down; it isn't asking for damages (to which it may be entitled); it is trying to make sure that these developers, who failed to do their homework, respect the rights of the people who's work they are using.
Obviously, the contributions of theists to science refute this. Again, you are confusing "God did" with "how did God...".
No, insofar as theists have contributed anything to science, they've done so as scientists, not as theists. The things that they say about God are literally meaningless in scientific terms. See, the criterion for meaning in the scientific mileu is falsifiability. Since the things they say about God aren't falsifiable, they don't mean anything. This is why Einstein's views on God aren't bandied about in scientific research. See how that works?
Let's apply this to the Monkey/Shakespeare problem.
There is no Monkey/Shakespeare problem. The page was produced by Shakespeare. We know this on the basis of overwhelming evidence.
Chance or God. Are there any other choices?
Yes.
Incidentally, the fact that you think that science is good, and that God is good, doesn't mean that you get to conflate science and God. This is simliar to logicians who believe that logic can produce a working ethical system. It involves a fundamental misunderstanding of what logic is, or of what ethics is, or both.
"If we were to accept the existence of God as a scientifically valid explanatory principle, it would also be a disaster for modern science. It's not science. It allows for every answer and is not testable."
This follows because the proposition "God did it" admits no proof outside of circular, tautological reasoning in which one can use apologetics to justify the proposition aside from, or in spite of, any evidence. It can't be falsified, and if the non-falsifiable is admitted as a scientific explanation, then science has fundamentally erred.
Or, to put it another way: the epistemological justification grounding any scientific explanation is its falsifiability. Without that, it's nothing but hot air. It holds no more epistemic validity than the statement, "cheese fries are better than hot dogs."
You're right about one thing: science can flourish in a civilization that holds dear many non-scientific beliefs. These beliefs can inspire scientists. They can guide our choices about what to study. But when those beliefs get confused with science, we're in trouble.
I don't mean this as a joke. Often the *only* way to get vendors to do what you want is -- minimally -- to verbally abuse them, and often to threaten them. And if they're real wankers, to threaten them with bad publicity. And if they're super-wankers (which so many of them are), to actually start talking about them publically.
Sure, doing it this way is a gamble -- he may piss them off so much that they stop communicating. Some vendors (the rational ones) deal better with public humiliation than others. But it seems from his message that he'd been in communication with them for some time. This was probably a last resort. I say more power to him.
Shakespeare nailed this one: the fool is the only person in the room who can say the truth about what's really going on. This is exactly the same. If a news anchor got up and gave a performance like Colbert's, s/he'd be dangerous. But when the funny man gets on stage and heckles the king, it's expected.
So you don't think that victims have it harder when they have to deal with a blame-the-victim mentality, or when people around them think they're less valuable because they were victimized? What about countries in which women who are raped are sometimes killed because they've 'shamed their families'? Wouldn't those women have it easier if their families thought that rape wasn't 'such a big deal', at least in the sense that they wouldn't be dead?
Stan sure was right when he said "I realize this will be taken wrong". The point isn't that rape isn't a big deal. The point is that even more damage can done to rape victims by the way their culture deals with rape. This isn't equivalent to saying that rape wouldn't be traumatic if the culture were different -- implying that is nothing but setting up a straw man.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding Stan Vassilev's post, but I think his point was that maybe rape would be less traumatic if we didn't stigmatize it as much as we do. That is to say: maybe rape wouldn't be quite as horrible for the victim if our society didn't have the attitude (at least to some degree) that rape leaves you as 'damaged goods' or other similarly twisted anti-victim, anti-woman nonsense.
That's assuming he ever intended bittorrent to be a massive commercial success. I'm not sure that's the case. He really used to come off as an uber-geek with an attitude. Of course that could have been an affected persona, but given the things he's written, the interviews people have done with him, and the fact that he was so obsessed with writing bittorrent that he went into debt past his ears, I'm doubtful.
"I build systems to disseminate information, commit digital piracy, synthesize drugs, maintain untrusted contacts, purchase anonymously, and secure machines and homes...I refuse to work on technology to track users, analyze usage patterns, watermark information, censor, detect drug use, or eavesdrop. I am not naive enough to think any of those technologies could enable a 'compromise'."
He was the last person I'd have expected to deal with the MPAA, given what his rhetoric used to be.
I'm doubtful that this is any kind of hoax. Do a little 'net research on the people involved in the project. They've been pouring effort into this and other things like it for decades. If it is a hoax, it's one hell of a long-term hoax. Also, if they're studying the gullibility of other scientists, you'd think they would have finished by now, since they've been criticized for about as long as they've been making claims.
In my opinion, it is likely that this is an example of good scientists who've fallen 'victim' to their own desire to believe in the paranormal. They're observing(creating) patterns that they want to see, because when they see something that catches their imaginations, they lose their ability to think critically about the data. I admit that my opinion is largely uninformed -- I haven't looked carefully at everything they've published. But a couple hours of studying their methods and hypotheses leads me to believe I'm right.
my take is: what's the point? Oakland is one of the richest counties in the U.S.A. Oakland County residents can, for the most part, afford their own internet access. I'd much rather see a project like this in neighboring Wayne county, where it could actually prove a benifit to residents (although home computer ownership is probably far lower in Detroit than it is in any of Oakland County cities).
If you're in to drama, go watch reruns of As The World Turns.
As The World Turns isn't drama, it's badly-acted soap opera.
Sci-Fi shouldn't be about drama, it should be science-fiction. The story lines should only be there as an excuse for more space-battles.
Science fiction isn't about battles. If you're into battles, go watch an action movie. Shows or books or movies that take place in a futuristic setting as an excuse for endless battles are the Sci-Fi equivalent of As The World Turns. As far as I can tell, just about none of the classical sci-fi listerature (Van Voght, Asimov, Heinlein, Orwell, add whoever you want to the list) is an excuse to push endless battle scenes. It's all more interesting than that.
Science fiction is about ideas. It's an artistic convention that's used to present ideas that can't be easily presented in a standard, conventional setting. The jury is still out on Battlestar Galactica in that respect. We'll see what they do with the Cylons' motives and religion. For now, though, the writers are making sure that we care about the characters, and they're doing a damn good job of it. And it's a good thing, too, because no matter how good the ideas are, sci-fi television without compelling characters is as lame as your average action movie.
To be fair, removing an application from the menu consists of right-clicking the icon, and then choosing 'remove this item'. I agree that GNOME menu-editing isn't quite what it should be, but you're making it out to be a lot worse than it is.
Also, the ability to edit menus isn't the be-all and end-all of a GUI. Being able to configure things is great, assuming you don't waste too much time doing it. A pleasing and uncluttered appearance and a nice set of defaults are also great. I'd say both environments have a great deal of progress ahead of them.
You can right-click in the menus for some options. You can also, for example, open a nautilus browser window and type 'applications://' in the URL bar to edit the applications menus as if they were directories.
Check out the GNOME docs on menu editing. They're not perfect, but they aren't too bad.
I'm not convinced that there is any such thing as the 'everyday family' user who just needs to read and write documents, browse, email, chat, etc. That is, I recognize that there are such users, but I'm not sure that they qualify as 'everyday user' anymore. More and more people I meet who aren't tech-savvy, or even computer-literate, want to use their computers for other things. My mother, for example, is becoming a serious amateur photographer, and spends perhaps ten to twenty hours a week editing photos. A professor I met while doing tech support at my university wants to make movies on her family history and hand them out on DVDs to her relatives. Many friends of mine, mostly not computer-literate, want to do serious sound editing.
I'm not saying these things can't be done under Linux, although I think some of them are more difficult than they are under other platforms. I am saying that the image many people have of 'joe user' is possibly becoming outdated. I'd be interested in seeing some numbers, if anyone's aware of studies that have been done on the subject.
It is also apparently not catering to Linux or MacOS users, which is a shame, because I'd be willing to pay what they seem to be charging, at least on occasion.
I understand the point; I really am thinking mostly from the point of view of a new user. I didn't mean to knock the Debian installer -- it would have been more appropriate to say that the installer I used was confusing to someone who'd never installed Linux with anything other than a Red Hat hold-your-hand installer. Especially the moment when you hit dselect. I imagine it would have been even more confusing to someone who'd only installed Windows and never touched a command line. I wasn't trying to start an installer flame war or anything like that:)
Don't the stable releases also mean new installation CDs with the most recent installer? The last time I installed Debian on anything was just after the Woody release and I remember the installer being somewhat less than excellent. Thus I could see a release mattering, especially to new users who have never installed Debian before. Or do they release CDs with an updated installer more frequently than they do Official Stable New Version releases?
Please forgive my ignorance, I'm not a regular Debian user and I don't know much about how their releases work.
When you're working in an environment in which you have to move from room to room fairly often and would not rather lug an adapter with you, or spend time looking for outlets, or worry about the issue at all. Hell, I find it inconvenient to worry about it in my own home -- get up from desk, kneel down, unplug adapter from under desk, carry adapter in one hand, laptop in other and beer bottle in teeth to living room, put down beer and laptop, rummage around under couch for power strip...etc. etc.
Re:Have to wonder
on
SimChurch
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I think there's a lot of potential for real feelings of unity and other social 'emotions' in online communities, depending on how they're structured. I can tell you this much: in the past, I (err, my character?) have been a part of communities in online text-based RPGs, and those communities have felt extremely real. We all cared about one another, we hated our enemies, we spend absurd amounts of time supporting one another (which is why I stopped), etc. What made it work is that we all cared about what we were doing and we felt something was at stake. Obviously this was fantasy, but it worked for us. I imagine that a similar feeling of investment in online communities would have to be based on the same kind of feeling -- that is, the community would have to matter to the people involved, and reach them in a compelling way.
Well, I did say it's almost impossible to destroy them. The plastic will crack, and will surely melt at high enough temperatures. But under conditions keyboards are used in? What'd you do, drop a safe on the thing?:)
For $49 bucks, I say: not worth it. I can go to ebay, type in 'clicky keyboard', and take my pick of dozens of $20-ish real Model M's. Who cares if they're used, it's almost impossible to distroy the things. That's the whole point of 'em. Well, that and the fact that when you type fast enough your house-mates think you're firing off automatic weapons in your room...
I don't think that's fair. Yours is the first post I've seen in this discussion that's mentioned any of these things. Maybe I missed a post or two, maybe not -- but I don't see any crowd. I'm sure there are people out there who'd prefer that all the software being ported to Linux was done so under open source licenses - hell, I'm one of them. But I think you're over-estimating the level of zealotry more than a little bit.
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(1) They don't have to put the source literally in the same package as the binary. They can do what Debian does -- offer a source package and a binary package, and leave it up to the user to decide which to download (or both, of course).
(2) It's really too bad that they're cash-strapped, don't have time to deal with the problem, etc. etc. They are using the copywrited work of others and have a legal obligation to comply with the licenses under which that work is distributed. If they can't do that, they should work with software that's written under a license that doesn't have such requirements.
This isn't "a bunch of FUD from a small group of people trying to make things difficult for small time distros." This is a bunch of developers distributing copywrited work without bothering to investigate their legal obligations. The FSF isn't trying to shut these people down; it isn't asking for damages (to which it may be entitled); it is trying to make sure that these developers, who failed to do their homework, respect the rights of the people who's work they are using.
No, insofar as theists have contributed anything to science, they've done so as scientists, not as theists. The things that they say about God are literally meaningless in scientific terms. See, the criterion for meaning in the scientific mileu is falsifiability. Since the things they say about God aren't falsifiable, they don't mean anything. This is why Einstein's views on God aren't bandied about in scientific research. See how that works?
There is no Monkey/Shakespeare problem. The page was produced by Shakespeare. We know this on the basis of overwhelming evidence.
Yes.
Incidentally, the fact that you think that science is good, and that God is good, doesn't mean that you get to conflate science and God. This is simliar to logicians who believe that logic can produce a working ethical system. It involves a fundamental misunderstanding of what logic is, or of what ethics is, or both.
Let's reword the post, then:
"If we were to accept the existence of God as a scientifically valid explanatory principle, it would also be a disaster for modern science. It's not science. It allows for every answer and is not testable."
This follows because the proposition "God did it" admits no proof outside of circular, tautological reasoning in which one can use apologetics to justify the proposition aside from, or in spite of, any evidence. It can't be falsified, and if the non-falsifiable is admitted as a scientific explanation, then science has fundamentally erred.
Or, to put it another way: the epistemological justification grounding any scientific explanation is its falsifiability. Without that, it's nothing but hot air. It holds no more epistemic validity than the statement, "cheese fries are better than hot dogs."
You're right about one thing: science can flourish in a civilization that holds dear many non-scientific beliefs. These beliefs can inspire scientists. They can guide our choices about what to study. But when those beliefs get confused with science, we're in trouble.
Do you have much experience working with vendors?
I don't mean this as a joke. Often the *only* way to get vendors to do what you want is -- minimally -- to verbally abuse them, and often to threaten them. And if they're real wankers, to threaten them with bad publicity. And if they're super-wankers (which so many of them are), to actually start talking about them publically.
Sure, doing it this way is a gamble -- he may piss them off so much that they stop communicating. Some vendors (the rational ones) deal better with public humiliation than others. But it seems from his message that he'd been in communication with them for some time. This was probably a last resort. I say more power to him.
Shakespeare nailed this one: the fool is the only person in the room who can say the truth about what's really going on. This is exactly the same. If a news anchor got up and gave a performance like Colbert's, s/he'd be dangerous. But when the funny man gets on stage and heckles the king, it's expected.
So you don't think that victims have it harder when they have to deal with a blame-the-victim mentality, or when people around them think they're less valuable because they were victimized? What about countries in which women who are raped are sometimes killed because they've 'shamed their families'? Wouldn't those women have it easier if their families thought that rape wasn't 'such a big deal', at least in the sense that they wouldn't be dead?
Stan sure was right when he said "I realize this will be taken wrong". The point isn't that rape isn't a big deal. The point is that even more damage can done to rape victims by the way their culture deals with rape. This isn't equivalent to saying that rape wouldn't be traumatic if the culture were different -- implying that is nothing but setting up a straw man.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding Stan Vassilev's post, but I think his point was that maybe rape would be less traumatic if we didn't stigmatize it as much as we do. That is to say: maybe rape wouldn't be quite as horrible for the victim if our society didn't have the attitude (at least to some degree) that rape leaves you as 'damaged goods' or other similarly twisted anti-victim, anti-woman nonsense.
That's assuming he ever intended bittorrent to be a massive commercial success. I'm not sure that's the case. He really used to come off as an uber-geek with an attitude. Of course that could have been an affected persona, but given the things he's written, the interviews people have done with him, and the fact that he was so obsessed with writing bittorrent that he went into debt past his ears, I'm doubtful.
Bram Cohen has in fact condoned piracy, at least until mid-2003. Check out this little piece, now removed from his website, but still accessible via wayback: http://web.archive.org/web/20030602145959/bitconju rer.org/a_technological_activists_agenda.html
"I build systems to disseminate information, commit digital piracy, synthesize drugs, maintain untrusted contacts, purchase anonymously, and secure machines and homes...I refuse to work on technology to track users, analyze usage patterns, watermark information, censor, detect drug use, or eavesdrop. I am not naive enough to think any of those technologies could enable a 'compromise'."
He was the last person I'd have expected to deal with the MPAA, given what his rhetoric used to be.
I'm doubtful that this is any kind of hoax. Do a little 'net research on the people involved in the project. They've been pouring effort into this and other things like it for decades. If it is a hoax, it's one hell of a long-term hoax. Also, if they're studying the gullibility of other scientists, you'd think they would have finished by now, since they've been criticized for about as long as they've been making claims.
In my opinion, it is likely that this is an example of good scientists who've fallen 'victim' to their own desire to believe in the paranormal. They're observing(creating) patterns that they want to see, because when they see something that catches their imaginations, they lose their ability to think critically about the data. I admit that my opinion is largely uninformed -- I haven't looked carefully at everything they've published. But a couple hours of studying their methods and hypotheses leads me to believe I'm right.
my take is: what's the point? Oakland is one of the richest counties in the U.S.A. Oakland County residents can, for the most part, afford their own internet access. I'd much rather see a project like this in neighboring Wayne county, where it could actually prove a benifit to residents (although home computer ownership is probably far lower in Detroit than it is in any of Oakland County cities).
If you're in to drama, go watch reruns of As The World Turns.
As The World Turns isn't drama, it's badly-acted soap opera.
Sci-Fi shouldn't be about drama, it should be science-fiction. The story lines should only be there as an excuse for more space-battles.
Science fiction isn't about battles. If you're into battles, go watch an action movie. Shows or books or movies that take place in a futuristic setting as an excuse for endless battles are the Sci-Fi equivalent of As The World Turns. As far as I can tell, just about none of the classical sci-fi listerature (Van Voght, Asimov, Heinlein, Orwell, add whoever you want to the list) is an excuse to push endless battle scenes. It's all more interesting than that.
Science fiction is about ideas. It's an artistic convention that's used to present ideas that can't be easily presented in a standard, conventional setting. The jury is still out on Battlestar Galactica in that respect. We'll see what they do with the Cylons' motives and religion. For now, though, the writers are making sure that we care about the characters, and they're doing a damn good job of it. And it's a good thing, too, because no matter how good the ideas are, sci-fi television without compelling characters is as lame as your average action movie.
To be fair, removing an application from the menu consists of right-clicking the icon, and then choosing 'remove this item'. I agree that GNOME menu-editing isn't quite what it should be, but you're making it out to be a lot worse than it is.
Also, the ability to edit menus isn't the be-all and end-all of a GUI. Being able to configure things is great, assuming you don't waste too much time doing it. A pleasing and uncluttered appearance and a nice set of defaults are also great. I'd say both environments have a great deal of progress ahead of them.
Yes, several.
You can right-click in the menus for some options. You can also, for example, open a nautilus browser window and type 'applications://' in the URL bar to edit the applications menus as if they were directories.
Check out the GNOME docs on menu editing. They're not perfect, but they aren't too bad.
That would be Bill Hicks. It's a great bit, and it's available on a CD called Relentless.
I'm not convinced that there is any such thing as the 'everyday family' user who just needs to read and write documents, browse, email, chat, etc. That is, I recognize that there are such users, but I'm not sure that they qualify as 'everyday user' anymore. More and more people I meet who aren't tech-savvy, or even computer-literate, want to use their computers for other things. My mother, for example, is becoming a serious amateur photographer, and spends perhaps ten to twenty hours a week editing photos. A professor I met while doing tech support at my university wants to make movies on her family history and hand them out on DVDs to her relatives. Many friends of mine, mostly not computer-literate, want to do serious sound editing.
I'm not saying these things can't be done under Linux, although I think some of them are more difficult than they are under other platforms. I am saying that the image many people have of 'joe user' is possibly becoming outdated. I'd be interested in seeing some numbers, if anyone's aware of studies that have been done on the subject.
Their website seems to suggest a 30-day viewing window. Is there a catch or something?
It is also apparently not catering to Linux or MacOS users, which is a shame, because I'd be willing to pay what they seem to be charging, at least on occasion.
I understand the point; I really am thinking mostly from the point of view of a new user. I didn't mean to knock the Debian installer -- it would have been more appropriate to say that the installer I used was confusing to someone who'd never installed Linux with anything other than a Red Hat hold-your-hand installer. Especially the moment when you hit dselect. I imagine it would have been even more confusing to someone who'd only installed Windows and never touched a command line. I wasn't trying to start an installer flame war or anything like that :)
Don't the stable releases also mean new installation CDs with the most recent installer? The last time I installed Debian on anything was just after the Woody release and I remember the installer being somewhat less than excellent. Thus I could see a release mattering, especially to new users who have never installed Debian before. Or do they release CDs with an updated installer more frequently than they do Official Stable New Version releases?
Please forgive my ignorance, I'm not a regular Debian user and I don't know much about how their releases work.
When you're working in an environment in which you have to move from room to room fairly often and would not rather lug an adapter with you, or spend time looking for outlets, or worry about the issue at all. Hell, I find it inconvenient to worry about it in my own home -- get up from desk, kneel down, unplug adapter from under desk, carry adapter in one hand, laptop in other and beer bottle in teeth to living room, put down beer and laptop, rummage around under couch for power strip...etc. etc.
I think there's a lot of potential for real feelings of unity and other social 'emotions' in online communities, depending on how they're structured. I can tell you this much: in the past, I (err, my character?) have been a part of communities in online text-based RPGs, and those communities have felt extremely real. We all cared about one another, we hated our enemies, we spend absurd amounts of time supporting one another (which is why I stopped), etc. What made it work is that we all cared about what we were doing and we felt something was at stake. Obviously this was fantasy, but it worked for us. I imagine that a similar feeling of investment in online communities would have to be based on the same kind of feeling -- that is, the community would have to matter to the people involved, and reach them in a compelling way.
Well, I did say it's almost impossible to destroy them. The plastic will crack, and will surely melt at high enough temperatures. But under conditions keyboards are used in? What'd you do, drop a safe on the thing? :)
For $49 bucks, I say: not worth it. I can go to ebay, type in 'clicky keyboard', and take my pick of dozens of $20-ish real Model M's. Who cares if they're used, it's almost impossible to distroy the things. That's the whole point of 'em. Well, that and the fact that when you type fast enough your house-mates think you're firing off automatic weapons in your room...
I don't think that's fair. Yours is the first post I've seen in this discussion that's mentioned any of these things. Maybe I missed a post or two, maybe not -- but I don't see any crowd. I'm sure there are people out there who'd prefer that all the software being ported to Linux was done so under open source licenses - hell, I'm one of them. But I think you're over-estimating the level of zealotry more than a little bit.