The paper in question requires payment to access its archives, so I have to do this by memory:
If I recall correctly, the interviewer quoted a member of the department of state (statsministeriet), implying the claim. When the newsprinter printed it, he claimed he had been misunderstood by the interviewer. That could have been under pressure from some source, sure, although a lawsuit from Microsoft is laughably absurd in Denmark.
Unfalsifiable claims, disowned by everyone involved, are usually called conspiracy theories, and shouldn't be used as part of a rational discussion about, what was it again? Ahh, software patents.
Some governments ceded to threats from mega-corporations. Danish newspapers reported in 2004 that Microsoft had threatened to move a recently acquired company out of Denmark if the government did not put its hand up for patents.
Yes, the danish newspaper "Borsen" reported this, and then retracted the story. It simply wasn't true.
allows an independent operator to build systems for speed, footprint, or security.
It's probably one of the most common security problems - making a system secure is very hard. Even security experts fail at this. Doing it yourself is only going to make you repeat the errors which have been corrected in other distros.
The only security you could get is security through obscurity, which is not security.
Lai says there have been about 200 studies on the biological effects of cell-phone-related radiation. If you put all the ones that say there is a biological effect on one side and those that say there is no effect on the other, you'd have two piles roughly equal in size. The research splits about 50-50.
First of all, IANAS! If I recall correctly, this is called the Texas sharpshooters fallacy: A sharpshooter who wishes to impress his friends shoots at a barn from a huge distance, then walks up to it, and paints a circle around each bullet-hole.
If you examine 100 people without a single well-defined goal, you are almost guaranteed to find an extreme anomaly.
From a statistic point of view, if you perform a standard examination of cell-phones on a population regardless of it's size, you perform a "Type I"-error if you reject a hypothesis ("Cell phones don't have any biological effect") when the hypothesis is correct. You generally accept a conclusion if the probability of having made a Type I error is less than 5%. So if the quoted studies have 20 different "biological effects" (Like destroyed DNA), we should expect to see roughly half the studies finding at least one biological effect, and the rest not finding one.
I'm not saying mr Lai did make this mistake - but the article is written so it seems it's author made that mistake. If there's anyone with a better grasp of statistics than me, I'd appreciate a reply.
Who has the right to make a definition? If he had thought he could have convinced anyone, Mussolini would have defined fascism as paradise. That doesn't necessarily mean it is correct.
Allow me to quote the definition found on Wikipedia (No link, it's currently out):
Definition
The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that
* exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
* uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
* engages in severe economic and social regimentation.
* engages in corporatism,[1] (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=219369 )
* implements or is a totalitarian regime.
In an article in the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana, written by Giovanni Gentile and attributed to Benito Mussolini, fascism is described as a system in which "The State not only is authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also power which makes its will prevail abroad.... For the Fascist, everything is within the State and... neither individuals nor groups are outside the State.... For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative...."
Mussolini, in a speech delivered on October 28, 1925, stated the following maxim that encapsulates the fascist philosophy: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato." ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State".) Therefore, he reasoned, all individuals' business is the state's business, and the state's existence is the sole duty of the individual.
Historians should judge the leaders of the world - not themselves. And it appears historians consider corporatism a rather small part of fascism. It is later in that article described as more of a means than an end.
Historians often judge people and their deeds quite different from what they would do themselves. Consider this quote: (Translated from German to Danish to english - sorry)
"At this hour I feel, that it is my duty to my own conscience again to appeal to the common sense, both in Great Britain and elsewhere(...)
I can see no reason for this war to continue. Herr Churchill will probably disregard this statement by saying, that it is born of fear and doubt about our final victory. In that case I have relieved my conscience about the things that are to follow." Adolf Hitler - 19. july 1940.
Yet historians put the blame of the atrocities of the second world war on Hitler, rather than Churchill.
(Yes, I know about Godwin's law)
In February, 2003, for the second time local elections had taken place since being introduced in 1999 as part of President Khatami's concept of a civil society at the grassroots level. 905 city councils and 34,205 village councils were up for election. In Tehran and some of the major cities, all of the seats were taken back by conservatives over reformists. This swing was caused by widespread abstention from the local elections. In Tehran only about 10% of the electorate voted, following appeals by reformist groups.
Many of the estimated 41 million eligible voters were under the age of 30 for a turnout of about 49%. This was considered a failure. Recent elections had been regarded as a test of strength between western influenced reformists and hardliners but this vote could also be seen as a virtual referendum on President Khatami's popularity.
In February 2004 Parliament elections, the Council of Guardians banned thousands of candidates, including most of the reformist members of the parliament and all the candidates of the Islamic Iran Participation Front party from running. This led to a win by the conservatives of at least 70% of the seats. The turnout was about 50%, the least in parliament elections since the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
I live in Denmark, and gun ranges are quite uncommon here, but that's what google is for, I guess. I'll try to persuade my brother to come with me to one. Who knows, I might get hooked.:)
In fact, if he's holding the gun sideways ("gangsta style"), I'd personally cut that down to ten feet. We got temporary special dispensation from the range officer (who was as curious as we were), and tried it. Even for an experienced shooter, it's goddamn near fucking impossible to hit jack shit that way, even if you take time to aim.
Some time ago, I saw a program, in which a SWAT officer was facing a hostage-taker with a hostage, and trying to persuade him to let the hostage go. During this, he was covering behind a large shield, with a horizontal window about two inches high (and almost certainly some reinforced glass in it).
In order for the police officer to aim his gun at the hostage-taker, he had his arm around the right side of the shield, and holding the pistol so he could use the iron sights while looking through the window of his shield. In order to do this, he held his gun horizontally, to be able to have as little as possible of his forearm exposed. Since shooting a hostagetaker behind a hostage is probably very difficult even at close range (ten feet in this situation), I would think that it is possible to learn to fire a weapon accurately "gangsta style".
Disclaimers: I have never held a gun, nor seen an unholstered gun outside of TV, pictures and games. I know very little about SWAT tactics, the program I quoted wasn't even about SWAT teams. Please don't mod me insightful:)
My point is not that RMS should only work on Free Software. My point is that what's interesting about RMS is his connection to free software, rather than his view on international trade. The interviewer clearly agrees in the section you quoted, trying to turn the subject back to Free Software. RMS could have finished the sentence after the period in the part you emphasised, and started talking about what issues Free Software does adress.
Imagine John Carmack in interviews turning every third question about openGL into an argument of how vi is superior to emacs.
This would alienate developers who prefered emacs, and people who used another editor or didn't care would be annoyed that they had to read through the irelevant parts to get to his view on openGL. I think John Carmack would hurt openGL if he started doing this.
I'm not saying I know or even suspect that RMS is hurting Free Software by this. But I personally would prefer if he seperated the two issues.
Sorry if this may seem assinine to you, but I think RMS suffer from the same problem as many other geniuses: Failure to percieve his own limitations.
Free software is a great idea (IMHO), and to come up with it (and pursue it to this degree) deserves a lot of recognition. When it comes to the philosophy of software, I won't hesitate in calling him a genius.
Unfortunately, this is not enough for him. He wants to try to save the world also on topics where he is no genius. Look at the lengths he goes on about outsourcing in this interview, even as it is quite unrelated to Free Software. This isn't the only example, far from it.
You really don't have to be leftish to believe in freedom. It's not only communists who care about user rights.
The part of RMS who talks about broader subjects than software licenses attracts some to fsf, and repels other. Wether it is a good thing or a bad thing is not given a priori.
Live long, RMS, and never give up the fight for free software.
I play UO and I don't agree with him
on
R.I.P Ultima Online ?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
First of all, UO has been declared dying more often than *BSD. It's at a low point right now, granted, but it's not that bad. A few points:
A) Most people who has been there since the beginning has left.
I joined years after the beginning, yet my account is 74 months old. It would be quite a surprise if a considerable number of people had stayed for seven years playing the same game.
B) The developers have made changes I don't approve of (paraphrased).
*Shrugs* Hardly proof positive that the game is dying. The fact that people are paying loads of real money for items in the game is not a proof that people are loosing faith in it, quite the contrary.
E) They only accept credit cards! Wrong.
There are four options avaible. However, the poster's local shop have stopped selling game time coupons. He claims that's the main reason why he doesn't play the game any longer.
His solutions doesn't seem like ways to resuscitate a dying game. He suggests that a vast amount of new land is added, for housing. UO has a 1 house per account rule, so he's actually complaining of overcrowding.
His other arguments are either vague ( There is some evidence to suggest that the game's current
programmers are frustrated with the age/possible obsolescence in some
respects of the game's codebase.) or about minor things ( EA's "Return to Britannia," campaign last year did not instill
confidence in me).
Gameplay has become
primarily item-based as opposed to skill-based. If you don't believe
me, look at tradespot, check out the demand for LRC armour (as one
example)
LRC armour is "Lower Reagent Cost"-armour, which makes it free (in a monetary sense) to cast spells. It is very popular, but it is mainly used for training. In Player Versus Player, the miniscule cost of buying reagents is almost always neglected.
Mind you, his point is valid, good items matter a lot. Just not LRC.
Yes, Bjorn Lomborg has been criticised - He has written a 185 pages long rebuttal to the critique, which can be found here. That's how science works.
Your comment: "In exchange they'll get huge grants from industries whose profits might be diminished by scientific enquiry." still stands without any documentation. Notice that your criticism is NOT present on the website you provided. Unless you can be bothered to give documentation or at least completely describe your conjecture, I won't believe you.
Of course, those that are really into money, like Bjorn Lomborg, will actually argue against the mounting evidence. In exchange they'll get huge grants from industries whose profits might be diminished by scientific enquiry.
Do you have any proof of this? Any reason to believe this? Any slight indication EXCEPT that he doesn't reach your conclusion?
He's been hotly debated in Denmark, including many attacks which were more aimed at his homosexuality than the matter at hand.
If he had gotten money from Exxon, I think someone other than you would have found out.
Please stop making up facts. Thanks
Yeah right they aren't biased: Quote from the top of your link:
Microsoft Sucks I've begun to think maybe I should take down this page. I'm not as frothing-at-the-mouth against Microsoft as I used to be.... pages around the world that already have the title Microsoft Sucks. A much more extensive and up-to... and searching for the string "Microsoft sucks". I'm not sure why... www.cs.toronto.edu/~wayne/microsoft-sucks.htm l
The current signs for derivative and integrals (d/dx and a stylished S) are Leibniz's notation, not Newtons.
Newton was a rotten human being
Mathematicans are judged by the quality of their work, not by whether they are nice people. Mathematicans would not hesitate the least to use "Satan's Theorem" if it was useful to them:)
Slashdot Mirror
If I recall correctly, the interviewer quoted a member of the department of state (statsministeriet), implying the claim. When the newsprinter printed it, he claimed he had been misunderstood by the interviewer. That could have been under pressure from some source, sure, although a lawsuit from Microsoft is laughably absurd in Denmark.
Unfalsifiable claims, disowned by everyone involved, are usually called conspiracy theories, and shouldn't be used as part of a rational discussion about, what was it again? Ahh, software patents.
Yes, I know I've probably been flaimebaited :/
Some governments ceded to threats from mega-corporations. Danish newspapers reported in 2004 that Microsoft had threatened to move a recently acquired company out of Denmark if the government did not put its hand up for patents.
Yes, the danish newspaper "Borsen" reported this, and then retracted the story. It simply wasn't true.
Take a guess at which of the three a caveman would be saying.
It's probably one of the most common security problems - making a system secure is very hard. Even security experts fail at this. Doing it yourself is only going to make you repeat the errors which have been corrected in other distros.
The only security you could get is security through obscurity, which is not security.
No, it must be expressable in big-O notation
First of all, IANAS!
If I recall correctly, this is called the Texas sharpshooters fallacy: A sharpshooter who wishes to impress his friends shoots at a barn from a huge distance, then walks up to it, and paints a circle around each bullet-hole.
If you examine 100 people without a single well-defined goal, you are almost guaranteed to find an extreme anomaly.
From a statistic point of view, if you perform a standard examination of cell-phones on a population regardless of it's size, you perform a "Type I"-error if you reject a hypothesis ("Cell phones don't have any biological effect") when the hypothesis is correct. You generally accept a conclusion if the probability of having made a Type I error is less than 5%. So if the quoted studies have 20 different "biological effects" (Like destroyed DNA), we should expect to see roughly half the studies finding at least one biological effect, and the rest not finding one.
I'm not saying mr Lai did make this mistake - but the article is written so it seems it's author made that mistake. If there's anyone with a better grasp of statistics than me, I'd appreciate a reply.
Xel'Naga
The quote is from "Famøs october 03" page 22.
It can be found here
I've been unable to verify the link, (doesn't have a ps-viewer handy), but it should be there.
It's by no means a historical journal, or anything like that, but I've got no reason to doubt the veracity of the quote.
Who has the right to make a definition? If he had thought he could have convinced anyone, Mussolini would have defined fascism as paradise. That doesn't necessarily mean it is correct.
Allow me to quote the definition found on Wikipedia (No link, it's currently out):9 )
Definition
The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that
* exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
* uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
* engages in severe economic and social regimentation.
* engages in corporatism,[1] (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=21936
* implements or is a totalitarian regime.
In an article in the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana, written by Giovanni Gentile and attributed to Benito Mussolini, fascism is described as a system in which "The State not only is authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also power which makes its will prevail abroad.... For the Fascist, everything is within the State and... neither individuals nor groups are outside the State.... For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative...."
Mussolini, in a speech delivered on October 28, 1925, stated the following maxim that encapsulates the fascist philosophy: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato." ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State".) Therefore, he reasoned, all individuals' business is the state's business, and the state's existence is the sole duty of the individual.
Historians should judge the leaders of the world - not themselves. And it appears historians consider corporatism a rather small part of fascism. It is later in that article described as more of a means than an end.
Historians often judge people and their deeds quite different from what they would do themselves. Consider this quote: (Translated from German to Danish to english - sorry)
"At this hour I feel, that it is my duty to my own conscience again to appeal to the common sense, both in Great Britain and elsewhere(...)
I can see no reason for this war to continue. Herr Churchill will probably disregard this statement by saying, that it is born of fear and doubt about our final victory. In that case I have relieved my conscience about the things that are to follow." Adolf Hitler - 19. july 1940.
Yet historians put the blame of the atrocities of the second world war on Hitler, rather than Churchill.
(Yes, I know about Godwin's law)
Politics of Iran:
In February, 2003, for the second time local elections had taken place since being introduced in 1999 as part of President Khatami's concept of a civil society at the grassroots level. 905 city councils and 34,205 village councils were up for election. In Tehran and some of the major cities, all of the seats were taken back by conservatives over reformists. This swing was caused by widespread abstention from the local elections. In Tehran only about 10% of the electorate voted, following appeals by reformist groups.
Many of the estimated 41 million eligible voters were under the age of 30 for a turnout of about 49%. This was considered a failure. Recent elections had been regarded as a test of strength between western influenced reformists and hardliners but this vote could also be seen as a virtual referendum on President Khatami's popularity.
In February 2004 Parliament elections, the Council of Guardians banned thousands of candidates, including most of the reformist members of the parliament and all the candidates of the Islamic Iran Participation Front party from running. This led to a win by the conservatives of at least 70% of the seats. The turnout was about 50%, the least in parliament elections since the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
Duke nukem voice:
Staci: The women in the industry are doing their breast... err best
Thanks for the inspiration.
Xel'Naga
Some time ago, I saw a program, in which a SWAT officer was facing a hostage-taker with a hostage, and trying to persuade him to let the hostage go. During this, he was covering behind a large shield, with a horizontal window about two inches high (and almost certainly some reinforced glass in it).
In order for the police officer to aim his gun at the hostage-taker, he had his arm around the right side of the shield, and holding the pistol so he could use the iron sights while looking through the window of his shield. In order to do this, he held his gun horizontally, to be able to have as little as possible of his forearm exposed. Since shooting a hostagetaker behind a hostage is probably very difficult even at close range (ten feet in this situation), I would think that it is possible to learn to fire a weapon accurately "gangsta style".
Disclaimers: I have never held a gun, nor seen an unholstered gun outside of TV, pictures and games. I know very little about SWAT tactics, the program I quoted wasn't even about SWAT teams. Please don't mod me insightful :)
Xel'Naga
Yep, just like having a religion which doesn't allow promiscuity. It just can't be done.
Imagine John Carmack in interviews turning every third question about openGL into an argument of how vi is superior to emacs.
This would alienate developers who prefered emacs, and people who used another editor or didn't care would be annoyed that they had to read through the irelevant parts to get to his view on openGL. I think John Carmack would hurt openGL if he started doing this.
I'm not saying I know or even suspect that RMS is hurting Free Software by this. But I personally would prefer if he seperated the two issues.
Free software is a great idea (IMHO), and to come up with it (and pursue it to this degree) deserves a lot of recognition. When it comes to the philosophy of software, I won't hesitate in calling him a genius.
Unfortunately, this is not enough for him. He wants to try to save the world also on topics where he is no genius. Look at the lengths he goes on about outsourcing in this interview, even as it is quite unrelated to Free Software. This isn't the only example, far from it.
You really don't have to be leftish to believe in freedom. It's not only communists who care about user rights.
The part of RMS who talks about broader subjects than software licenses attracts some to fsf, and repels other. Wether it is a good thing or a bad thing is not given a priori.
Live long, RMS, and never give up the fight for free software.
A) Most people who has been there since the beginning has left.
I joined years after the beginning, yet my account is 74 months old. It would be quite a surprise if a considerable number of people had stayed for seven years playing the same game.
B) The developers have made changes I don't approve of (paraphrased).
*Shrugs* Hardly proof positive that the game is dying. The fact that people are paying loads of real money for items in the game is not a proof that people are loosing faith in it, quite the contrary.
E) They only accept credit cards!
Wrong. There are four options avaible. However, the poster's local shop have stopped selling game time coupons. He claims that's the main reason why he doesn't play the game any longer.
His solutions doesn't seem like ways to resuscitate a dying game. He suggests that a vast amount of new land is added, for housing. UO has a 1 house per account rule, so he's actually complaining of overcrowding.
His other arguments are either vague ( There is some evidence to suggest that the game's current programmers are frustrated with the age/possible obsolescence in some respects of the game's codebase.) or about minor things ( EA's "Return to Britannia," campaign last year did not instill confidence in me).
LRC armour is "Lower Reagent Cost"-armour, which makes it free (in a monetary sense) to cast spells. It is very popular, but it is mainly used for training. In Player Versus Player, the miniscule cost of buying reagents is almost always neglected.
Mind you, his point is valid, good items matter a lot. Just not LRC.
Your comment: "In exchange they'll get huge grants from industries whose profits might be diminished by scientific enquiry." still stands without any documentation. Notice that your criticism is NOT present on the website you provided. Unless you can be bothered to give documentation or at least completely describe your conjecture, I won't believe you.
Do you have any proof of this? Any reason to believe this? Any slight indication EXCEPT that he doesn't reach your conclusion?
He's been hotly debated in Denmark, including many attacks which were more aimed at his homosexuality than the matter at hand.
If he had gotten money from Exxon, I think someone other than you would have found out.
Please stop making up facts. Thanks
democrat(VictoryStatus) == true
Actually, you could just write democrat(VictoryStatus), that would produce the same result.
Yeah right they aren't biased: Quote from the top of your link:
... pages around the world that already have the title Microsoft Sucks. A much more extensive and up-to ... and searching for the string "Microsoft sucks". I'm not sure why ...m l
Microsoft Sucks
I've begun to think maybe I should take down this page. I'm not as frothing-at-the-mouth against Microsoft as I used to be.
www.cs.toronto.edu/~wayne/microsoft-sucks.ht
Nice joke - but how did you get that past the lameness filter?
The current signs for derivative and integrals (d/dx and a stylished S) are Leibniz's notation, not Newtons.
Newton was a rotten human being
Mathematicans are judged by the quality of their work, not by whether they are nice people. Mathematicans would not hesitate the least to use "Satan's Theorem" if it was useful to them :)
Quite a dilemma, huh? Fortunately your sig has the solution:
--
If someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back!