BTW, if they did have to expose that their mods were 'editor mods', they'd probably have to put up with 1000% more flame bait/mail as people would single out their mods.
You might be familiar with the quote: "Visibility breeds criticism"? I think it would be unfair to expect that the people that put so much work into the site don't get to interact with it with the same level of moderation-related anonymity that you do. And as for the 'unlimited mod points', again.. they wrote/admin the thing, so thank em for the wiked site, cause you obviously spend some time here like I do, and trust that they are working in the best interest of the site and it's community.
> "Why aren't we told when editors moderate our posts?"
Because you trust the administrators/editors of a site you frequent. If you don't trust them, move on. Even if it did say "moderated by an editor", you'd still have to trust that they were being honest about it. Or that they wern't going in and changing words in people's posts. Or hand editing your karma. Or whatever.
So if you want to know if they are abusing their mod points, extend that trust you already HAVE to possess in order to use/. to include the abuse of unlimited moderation points. Simple as that. I don't think the people that put shit loads of work into this site neccessarily have to defend or justify their methods. It's free, it's fun, it's enjoyable, and I have a hard time believing such a point can ruin your experience here. Have some faith that they use their 'powers' in a responsible manner, or else find another site where you think you can implicitly trust that the electrons being thrown up against your screen do indeed represent the time, work, opinions and responsibility of honest, ethical people.
Intelligence has an impossible job. If they do it perfectly, no one knows, and they get no money, credit, or attention. If they don't do it perfectly, they get lambasted.
Kinda like that scarecrow that scares off the giraffes. What? You don't see any giraffes? Must be working then...
One thing I will say is that I give these terrorist orgs more credit than to think that they have truly useful data somewhere online. I don't know if this is really going to help the CIA, or if it's just a public showing of action, but I can't imagine/too/ much relevant info coming out of this. I/definately/ hope it doesn't turn into witch hunt where innocent people who've had anti-american literature online get targeted and monitored, and possibly get made scapegoats out of. Of course, the CIA's track record here isn't that great either...
Re:Science fiction/Fantasy is not interesting anym
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Hugo Award Voting Open
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't think it was the plot of famous sci-fi books that made them worth reading, but the analysis of technology on a social being (humanity). So, part of the allure of sci-fi is answering the question: "How are very powerful computers / space travel going to affect the human race?"
I think people, in general, feel that we live, at least to some degree, in those worlds already, thanks to overzealous advertising (advertising's true purpose, btw, is to portray a fantasy world in which you wish you could live, but thats another post) so there is less interest in the answer.
Fair enough. I see some of your points; in fact, we probably have similar goals, in the sense of forcing website operators to deal with the 'true' economics, where people are interacting with the product and content in the way they choose to.
Sorry about the conservative slag, but I do tend to learn towards socialism and a kind of forced 'taking it for the team' approach to community. That is, I don't mind being a martyr if everyone will join me.;)
I do have to disagree with the banner-responsible-for-bust thing. I think that content creators over estimated people's appetites for new information. Not so much of a problem here at slashdot, but look at all the big portals, and I know you'll know (or already do) what I mean. Anyhow, that and the general empty promise of technology for the sake of technology, as it realtes to bringing wealth and happiness was a shame. I think technical people knew it, but, as usual, the people doing the selling were only looking at the amount of stupid amounts of capital they were sitting on and equating that with the true value of what they were selling. I personally blame the.com bust on the fact that technical engineers still havn't grabbed hold of the reigns yet. Some day, the tech sales people will be car salesmen, and the programmers will be like car engineers. Until this generation, on the whole, learns to force their hand, we'll continue seeing ins and outs of the technology (computer) field that don't equate properly to the true worth and value of the products. As people get smarter about computers, the sales person ability to upsell and oversell decreases, leaving the true power of innovation and creation in the hands of the developers and architects.
> They always track IPs across domains along with cookies like 'web bugs'.
I know, I write the software. You can turn 3rd party cookies off with IE6 (i know, i know), and this will be a mandatory opt-in policy (3rd party cross domain cookies) in a few years, I promise. The entire industry is being forced to move that way, and I do agree that it's better that way. I don't like advertising, but if you can't beat em, join 'em and make it as difficult as possible for your employers to be evil. Trust me, I'm on your side, but this'll only work if people believe we can turn advertising online into a non-intrusive method of earning revenue that has the trust of people, in the same way that people don't complain/too/ much about the ads in magazines. It's a young industry, but I think the right buttons are being (or slowly starting to be) pushed.:) A good example of that is popunders. It started with popovers, and we're starting to get alot more requests from advertisers to run popunders instead in order to get enough inventory to run campaigns. Believe me, it's encouraging.
1. Ad banners are one of the main causes of the dot bomb. Um. Okay. I'll give you that because I'm too lazy to ask why.
2. Its my net connection and computer, I will determine what travels into my system. That doesn't really stop you from being selfish.:)
3. Most 3rd party banner services are privacy killers. So turn cookies off, or block cookies from those domains. No argument here.
4. If I like content, I always hit the tip jar if its available. What if you sorta like it? Or you don't like it, but you keep coming back? And how do you know how much bandwidth/etc cost you are incurring on the content provider, and thus, whether you are providing a meaningful or suitable payment?
5. Is skipping ads with a TiVo any different? No, but again, who says that mentality isn't responsible for why content producers are clamouring for chastity-belt right IP/copyright restrictions? You're circumventing someone's revenue stream, so it has to be made up some other way.
6. Smart web masters will set up their ads to defeat my filters. Most of the time its trivial to defeat ads. "/ads/", hello? Ahhhh. You do it cause it's easy. You're why they keep having to rely on technology to control behaviour. Cause you're too lazy to respect the operational wishes of others. Gotcha.
7. 90% of what I filter is "ads.doubleclick.net" and "servedby.advertising.com" I'm guessing to included this one cause you wanted to round your points off to a nice even 10?
8. Ads are ugly and the flashing animation could almost set off epileptic seizures. And the powerlines by your house flood the water in your brain with an electromagnetic field partly responsible for the 4 times increase in cancer rates in the last 30 years, but you don't seem too concerned about that? I mean, c'mon buddy, if you wanna convince me, you can't really expect to rely on a point like this, can you? DHTML and flash is used in TONS of things other than advertising. I suppose you block every domain you ever find DHTML/javascript/flash on?
9.I don't believe in your imaginary friend so I am unlikely to put money in its plate. Tis a poor debater, he who infers personal details of others based on their examples. I'm athiest. The plate was an example. I'll use littering then. It's okay for you to litter, so long as eveyone else doesn't? (Or, in case you are so fixated on the trees and not the forest, take any example where by you enjoy a priviledge that would be unavailable if everyone wished to take advantage of it.)
Frankly, I don't care about dumb/lazy/ignorant people. Its their lot in life to suffer.
Ah, a conservative. Funny how you all complain when it's a close friend or family member that ends up being that ignorant person. I guess the only thing I can hope for is that someone close to you suffers a little from your own actions. It is, unfortunately, ironies like that that seem to be the sole cure for conservatism, or, as I like to call it, the "I'd never be that dumb!" syndrome.
Advertising isn't great, sure, but thats a pretty selfish way to do things; like going to church but never dropping some change in the plate. Other people are forced to deal with more intrusive advertising thanks to ad-blocking. Are you just betting on enough dumb/lazy/ignorant people to view ads to keep your experience ad-free?
Seems kinda selfish to me. If you don't like advertising, but still want your content, why don't you do something about the model that everyone has to rely on now to provide content for 'free' to the likes of you. What makes you so special that you can step to the head of the line, so long as critical mass doesn't follow your lead?
full disclosure: I hate documentation (unless its in other people's code;) and I've been able to luck out in working at places where we need the code written so fast that documentation is an afterthought.
what about javadoc (is it still called that)? it's good for turning well-formatted function summaries into browsable HTML....
Are we talking API documentation here, or real-world english implementation documentation? if you're looking for just a good ASCII editor, straight off, ultraedit is easily my favorite, but if you are looking for stuff to skim your source and rip out inline documentation, obviously, thats not what you're looking for. but javadoc might be?
um.. throw our clothes off, and climb back up into the trees?
I'm of the opinion that ANY of these technologies that automate/facilitate transparent communication between computers is, in itself, a virus platform. I mean, we'll get to a time where we won't even be sure what's a virus and whats not; I guess this is the idea behind 'trusted signing authorities', but really, doesn't this confirm the whole orwellian push towards trusting and serving corperate entities more so than our friend and his/her computer? I really don't mind wasting a few megabytes and engaging in application updates/downloads/installs/deinstalls/exports/impo rts/etc if it means I can actually keep knowing whats going on under the hood.
What's the point of running a fatclient if all it ends up being is a thinclient with something to lose?
Maybe this is where it should go. Your HD becomes your 'computer', then way we think of it now, and you still have to authorize things going from/to disk. Other than that, I dont want my OS acting as a thin client to a network when I have fatclient-style sensitive or important data on it.
What about deconstruction?
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The Drone War
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· Score: 2
All this is moot if you propose that the very system and society required to build these 'clones' collapses under its own strength and power, thus leaving its people more focused on scrounging for food and shelter rather than developing the next generation of war-bots.
Which is what I buy.. at some point, this western world we live in will reap what it's sowed, and our technological infrastructure will crumble under the more important needs of food, water, shelter, energy, transportation, etc.. it's happened in many other countries, where, technologically, they are behind where they were years ago.
I'm of the belief (and studies have been suggesting this) that the action of developing techynology as advanced as these war-bots or whatnot spells it's own death when the people from inside that system become increasingly unhappy. We see this in North America, as rates of depression rise, and people begin question what it is, exactly, that we're protecting here. Once that question begins to make its rounds, ie, "Why are we protecting our society if we cannot, be definition, be happy in it?", I think you're left with the notion that fighting symbolic wars (ie, robots, ideals, etc) will eventually tire a society enough to spell its own demise from within.
Theodore Kazinski (sp?) put it in terms of your primary goals (to survive, to reproduce) and your secondary goals (to mow your lawn, to paint your toe nails red). Once a society is too focused on it's secondary goals, it begins to eat itself from the inside as parts of society begin rebelling against the system and lifestyle that doesn't contribute to a primary sense of fulfillment.
Basically, all that money that MS is responsible for pushing around in the economy has to be replaced by something.:) Fair enough? I'm no economics student, not by a long shot, but I'm working more off of the principal that fast change begats both benifit but ALSO cost. So if people, in the near future, see Lindows as a way of getting out from under MS, there are alot of people in the world with jobs that would suffer, since the market as it relates to IT is DEFINATELY somewhat dependant on the way MS conducts business, not Lindows.
Let me elaborate what I meant. I know, obviously, that the US economy can run without a large company called "Microsoft".
However, I also know that the economy seems to be in the shitter right now, and that MS went 10 years without so much as a profit warning. Dismantle MS tommorow, and the economy plummets, I think. I'm talking short term here. If, over time, people just switch to Lindows, we're all good. Thus, even if tommorow, I had a fully complient OS that 'replaced' Windows, for free, while keeping application compatibility, that there would be powerful forces still at work, not just IN MS, trying to keep people keeping that company strong.
It was less to do with saying that the US economy cannot run with Bill Gates, the man, but rather that the 'Dont Switch Horses In the Middle of the Stream' mentality is a very powerful force in times of economic downturn, regardless of what that horse is doing. Is that better?:)
If it makes you feel any better, I also know that the Earth can survive without Humans, but really, you can get so macro that you might as well not have a point.
As it relates to the original post, I'm saying that you cannot downplay the element of entrenchment, both technologically AND economically. Product A may be superior to product B, but if a capitalist economy senses (through social patterns here, not on individual basis') that it may hurt our standard of living to make the switch, product B will continue to dominate. What's the use in switching to a superior os if it means many people will end up not being able to afford computers? Now, of course, you can disagree with this analysis, but I think you will always approach an adoption time frame given new technologies that will do more damage than good for many reasons - one being economically.
How many well intentioned competitors to the MS lock-in have failed because people cling to this notion that software can become dominant in the lowest common demoninator market without charging for the development? Don't get me wrong, I'm a FreeBSD developer, and a KDE lover, but I'm not so naive to believe that it won't cost consumers a crud load of money to dig themselves out of the hole they allowed themselves to be pushed into...
Get it into your heads, people! It's gunna cost us ALL (including the entire US economy, to some degree, if one really purpots that MS makes way more money than they ever deserved to) to get outta this. Much of the richness and wealth and comfort of living in the western world owes itself to the very institutions that so many people wish to dismantle...
Most of those who voted are probably 13 year olds who think that "Java is cool", so they voted for it.
If only CIOs and CTOs thought like you, we might be safe. And you started off well.
But witness:
Real polling companies spend a lot of effort trying to get statistically-valid results.
I think that should read "trying to get client-validated results".
Sure, it's not illegal, and sure, it's not an official poll, but to suggest that they do not affect the way people perceive public support and adoption around them is naive, in the very least.
So, does this mean I can stand in front of your house and yell that you're a rampant homophobic? Of course, everyone should know I'm just a raving lunatic, but if MS has prooved anything, it's that even if people don't buy the literal message, they're still irrevocably affected by the FUD that keeps flying around. Which is to say, people might not react to the poll as in "Okay, people like.NET", but rather, "Maybe people don't like Java, so I'd better stick to the same boat as everyone else so that we all go down together." I don't think anyone can view the poll and not have a reaction to it. If people were truly not affected by them, or they had no bearing on the discussion and debate that rages on over technology, ZDnet would have stopped wasting bandwidth on them a long time ago.
HAHAHA. Oh god. Thanks, I needed that. That's why I stick to joints.;)
Actually, it's much like another quote I know that addresses the same issue:
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I agree with you man.. why not ship the guy your 5$ casio watch with calender... surely a small enough kernel and a well-responded to "Ask Slashdot" will result in a number crunching powerhouse in no time flat, right?;)
Daemon News is pleased to announce the availability of pre-orders for FreeBSD 4.5. This will be our first release of FreeBSD on CD.
our which means, their, which means Daemon News. So its Daemon News' first time offering 4.5 on CD. So yeah, it's not news, but the submission isn't wrong. What bothers me about the way things are going, submissions are turning more and more into (community-level, granted) ads.
I don't think anyone was disputing that people like you would like the controllers.:) I think that's what he was saying... but for the rest of us non-giants, I choose the Nintendo GC controller anyday. Actually, the size of the XBox controller isn't/too/ bad, but the buttons on the right hand side are absolutely criminal. It's like braille, and as a (much much much too) experienced gamer, I still found myself mashing the wrong buttons after 4 hours of Halo.
Incidentally, he said they were good for people in the Porn industry:
I agree, but I'll just point out that employee loyalty is on the serious decline. Simply sending the bad boys to bed without desert without addressing the larger problem is sure to result in yet another wave of labour related violence. Whether or not these are the telltale signs of such a movement is difficult for anyone to say, but we've already had a few in the last century, and you'd have to feel relatively committed and faithful to the way things are going to support the idea of just silencing the trouble makers and continuing to skip down the road in blissful ignorance. At some point you'll have to pick a side; as usual, the ones fighting hard to stick to the middle (as in not rushing to either side of the current two ideological movements of socialism and complete free-market capitalism, and proposing a mixture of both that has made countries like Canada, Sweden, and Finland consistantly top the UN 'Best Countries to Live In' charts) are being lost in the din being made by the ideological fundamentalists on either side of the equation.
well, it should come as comforting to recognize the signs of unrest when people like us are beginning just to say 'fuck it' and start fighting the system. we all know where this is going, given the relative peace on this continent for so long, and guys like him will be first to the wall when they force us to fight for our will to live in the kind of world we want to.
I just wish schools of thought didn't always have to polarize like they always seem to do. Actually, what a strange thought I just had. History seems to support the notion of social ideals being formed, and then, over time, undergoing a sort of sociologic and ideological mitosis.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, if they did have to expose that their mods were 'editor mods', they'd probably have to put up with 1000% more flame bait/mail as people would single out their mods.
.. they wrote/admin the thing, so thank em for the wiked site, cause you obviously spend some time here like I do, and trust that they are working in the best interest of the site and it's community.
You might be familiar with the quote: "Visibility breeds criticism"? I think it would be unfair to expect that the people that put so much work into the site don't get to interact with it with the same level of moderation-related anonymity that you do. And as for the 'unlimited mod points', again
> "Why aren't we told when editors moderate our posts?"
/. to include the abuse of unlimited moderation points. Simple as that. I don't think the people that put shit loads of work into this site neccessarily have to defend or justify their methods. It's free, it's fun, it's enjoyable, and I have a hard time believing such a point can ruin your experience here. Have some faith that they use their 'powers' in a responsible manner, or else find another site where you think you can implicitly trust that the electrons being thrown up against your screen do indeed represent the time, work, opinions and responsibility of honest, ethical people.
Because you trust the administrators/editors of a site you frequent. If you don't trust them, move on. Even if it did say "moderated by an editor", you'd still have to trust that they were being honest about it. Or that they wern't going in and changing words in people's posts. Or hand editing your karma. Or whatever.
So if you want to know if they are abusing their mod points, extend that trust you already HAVE to possess in order to use
Ahhhh, I see. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the correction.
Intelligence has an impossible job. If they do it perfectly, no one knows, and they get no money, credit, or attention. If they don't do it perfectly, they get lambasted.
...
/too/ much relevant info coming out of this. I /definately/ hope it doesn't turn into witch hunt where innocent people who've had anti-american literature online get targeted and monitored, and possibly get made scapegoats out of. Of course, the CIA's track record here isn't that great either ...
Kinda like that scarecrow that scares off the giraffes. What? You don't see any giraffes? Must be working then
One thing I will say is that I give these terrorist orgs more credit than to think that they have truly useful data somewhere online. I don't know if this is really going to help the CIA, or if it's just a public showing of action, but I can't imagine
I don't think it was the plot of famous sci-fi books that made them worth reading, but the analysis of technology on a social being (humanity). So, part of the allure of sci-fi is answering the question: "How are very powerful computers / space travel going to affect the human race?"
I think people, in general, feel that we live, at least to some degree, in those worlds already, thanks to overzealous advertising (advertising's true purpose, btw, is to portray a fantasy world in which you wish you could live, but thats another post) so there is less interest in the answer.
Fair enough. I see some of your points; in fact, we probably have similar goals, in the sense of forcing website operators to deal with the 'true' economics, where people are interacting with the product and content in the way they choose to.
;)
.com bust on the fact that technical engineers still havn't grabbed hold of the reigns yet. Some day, the tech sales people will be car salesmen, and the programmers will be like car engineers. Until this generation, on the whole, learns to force their hand, we'll continue seeing ins and outs of the technology (computer) field that don't equate properly to the true worth and value of the products. As people get smarter about computers, the sales person ability to upsell and oversell decreases, leaving the true power of innovation and creation in the hands of the developers and architects.
/too/ much about the ads in magazines. It's a young industry, but I think the right buttons are being (or slowly starting to be) pushed. :) A good example of that is popunders. It started with popovers, and we're starting to get alot more requests from advertisers to run popunders instead in order to get enough inventory to run campaigns. Believe me, it's encouraging.
Sorry about the conservative slag, but I do tend to learn towards socialism and a kind of forced 'taking it for the team' approach to community. That is, I don't mind being a martyr if everyone will join me.
I do have to disagree with the banner-responsible-for-bust thing. I think that content creators over estimated people's appetites for new information. Not so much of a problem here at slashdot, but look at all the big portals, and I know you'll know (or already do) what I mean. Anyhow, that and the general empty promise of technology for the sake of technology, as it realtes to bringing wealth and happiness was a shame. I think technical people knew it, but, as usual, the people doing the selling were only looking at the amount of stupid amounts of capital they were sitting on and equating that with the true value of what they were selling. I personally blame the
> They always track IPs across domains along with cookies like 'web bugs'.
I know, I write the software. You can turn 3rd party cookies off with IE6 (i know, i know), and this will be a mandatory opt-in policy (3rd party cross domain cookies) in a few years, I promise. The entire industry is being forced to move that way, and I do agree that it's better that way. I don't like advertising, but if you can't beat em, join 'em and make it as difficult as possible for your employers to be evil. Trust me, I'm on your side, but this'll only work if people believe we can turn advertising online into a non-intrusive method of earning revenue that has the trust of people, in the same way that people don't complain
1. Ad banners are one of the main causes of the dot bomb.
:)
Um. Okay. I'll give you that because I'm too lazy to ask why.
2. Its my net connection and computer, I will determine what travels into my system.
That doesn't really stop you from being selfish.
3. Most 3rd party banner services are privacy killers.
So turn cookies off, or block cookies from those domains. No argument here.
4. If I like content, I always hit the tip jar if its available.
What if you sorta like it? Or you don't like it, but you keep coming back? And how do you know how much bandwidth/etc cost you are incurring on the content provider, and thus, whether you are providing a meaningful or suitable payment?
5. Is skipping ads with a TiVo any different?
No, but again, who says that mentality isn't responsible for why content producers are clamouring for chastity-belt right IP/copyright restrictions? You're circumventing someone's revenue stream, so it has to be made up some other way.
6. Smart web masters will set up their ads to defeat my filters. Most of the time its trivial to defeat ads. "/ads/", hello?
Ahhhh. You do it cause it's easy. You're why they keep having to rely on technology to control behaviour. Cause you're too lazy to respect the operational wishes of others. Gotcha.
7. 90% of what I filter is "ads.doubleclick.net" and "servedby.advertising.com"
I'm guessing to included this one cause you wanted to round your points off to a nice even 10?
8. Ads are ugly and the flashing animation could almost set off epileptic seizures.
And the powerlines by your house flood the water in your brain with an electromagnetic field partly responsible for the 4 times increase in cancer rates in the last 30 years, but you don't seem too concerned about that? I mean, c'mon buddy, if you wanna convince me, you can't really expect to rely on a point like this, can you? DHTML and flash is used in TONS of things other than advertising. I suppose you block every domain you ever find DHTML/javascript/flash on?
9.I don't believe in your imaginary friend so I am unlikely to put money in its plate.
Tis a poor debater, he who infers personal details of others based on their examples. I'm athiest. The plate was an example. I'll use littering then. It's okay for you to litter, so long as eveyone else doesn't? (Or, in case you are so fixated on the trees and not the forest, take any example where by you enjoy a priviledge that would be unavailable if everyone wished to take advantage of it.)
Frankly, I don't care about dumb/lazy/ignorant people. Its their lot in life to suffer.
Ah, a conservative. Funny how you all complain when it's a close friend or family member that ends up being that ignorant person. I guess the only thing I can hope for is that someone close to you suffers a little from your own actions. It is, unfortunately, ironies like that that seem to be the sole cure for conservatism, or, as I like to call it, the "I'd never be that dumb!" syndrome.
Advertising isn't great, sure, but thats a pretty selfish way to do things; like going to church but never dropping some change in the plate. Other people are forced to deal with more intrusive advertising thanks to ad-blocking. Are you just betting on enough dumb/lazy/ignorant people to view ads to keep your experience ad-free?
Seems kinda selfish to me. If you don't like advertising, but still want your content, why don't you do something about the model that everyone has to rely on now to provide content for 'free' to the likes of you. What makes you so special that you can step to the head of the line, so long as critical mass doesn't follow your lead?
Hey thanks. It felt suragary sweet when it came out of me. I thought I had tripped onto the meat of the matter myself; nice to be validated. :)
full disclosure: I hate documentation (unless its in other people's code ;) and I've been able to luck out in working at places where we need the code written so fast that documentation is an afterthought.
....
what about javadoc (is it still called that)? it's good for turning well-formatted function summaries into browsable HTML
Are we talking API documentation here, or real-world english implementation documentation? if you're looking for just a good ASCII editor, straight off, ultraedit is easily my favorite, but if you are looking for stuff to skim your source and rip out inline documentation, obviously, thats not what you're looking for. but javadoc might be?
um .. throw our clothes off, and climb back up into the trees?
o rts/etc if it means I can actually keep knowing whats going on under the hood.
I'm of the opinion that ANY of these technologies that automate/facilitate transparent communication between computers is, in itself, a virus platform. I mean, we'll get to a time where we won't even be sure what's a virus and whats not; I guess this is the idea behind 'trusted signing authorities', but really, doesn't this confirm the whole orwellian push towards trusting and serving corperate entities more so than our friend and his/her computer? I really don't mind wasting a few megabytes and engaging in application updates/downloads/installs/deinstalls/exports/imp
What's the point of running a fatclient if all it ends up being is a thinclient with something to lose?
Maybe this is where it should go. Your HD becomes your 'computer', then way we think of it now, and you still have to authorize things going from/to disk. Other than that, I dont want my OS acting as a thin client to a network when I have fatclient-style sensitive or important data on it.
All this is moot if you propose that the very system and society required to build these 'clones' collapses under its own strength and power, thus leaving its people more focused on scrounging for food and shelter rather than developing the next generation of war-bots.
.. at some point, this western world we live in will reap what it's sowed, and our technological infrastructure will crumble under the more important needs of food, water, shelter, energy, transportation, etc .. it's happened in many other countries, where, technologically, they are behind where they were years ago.
Which is what I buy
I'm of the belief (and studies have been suggesting this) that the action of developing techynology as advanced as these war-bots or whatnot spells it's own death when the people from inside that system become increasingly unhappy. We see this in North America, as rates of depression rise, and people begin question what it is, exactly, that we're protecting here. Once that question begins to make its rounds, ie, "Why are we protecting our society if we cannot, be definition, be happy in it?", I think you're left with the notion that fighting symbolic wars (ie, robots, ideals, etc) will eventually tire a society enough to spell its own demise from within.
Theodore Kazinski (sp?) put it in terms of your primary goals (to survive, to reproduce) and your secondary goals (to mow your lawn, to paint your toe nails red). Once a society is too focused on it's secondary goals, it begins to eat itself from the inside as parts of society begin rebelling against the system and lifestyle that doesn't contribute to a primary sense of fulfillment.
> pleading a case before an electronic judge sounds like a loser to me
Well, they say she's got the wit of Max Headroom with the looks of Annanova
erm *cough* ba-dum-ching.
Exactly. Switch to friend mode. ;)
Basically, all that money that MS is responsible for pushing around in the economy has to be replaced by something.
Let me elaborate what I meant. I know, obviously, that the US economy can run without a large company called "Microsoft".
:)
However, I also know that the economy seems to be in the shitter right now, and that MS went 10 years without so much as a profit warning. Dismantle MS tommorow, and the economy plummets, I think. I'm talking short term here. If, over time, people just switch to Lindows, we're all good. Thus, even if tommorow, I had a fully complient OS that 'replaced' Windows, for free, while keeping application compatibility, that there would be powerful forces still at work, not just IN MS, trying to keep people keeping that company strong.
It was less to do with saying that the US economy cannot run with Bill Gates, the man, but rather that the 'Dont Switch Horses In the Middle of the Stream' mentality is a very powerful force in times of economic downturn, regardless of what that horse is doing. Is that better?
If it makes you feel any better, I also know that the Earth can survive without Humans, but really, you can get so macro that you might as well not have a point.
As it relates to the original post, I'm saying that you cannot downplay the element of entrenchment, both technologically AND economically. Product A may be superior to product B, but if a capitalist economy senses (through social patterns here, not on individual basis') that it may hurt our standard of living to make the switch, product B will continue to dominate. What's the use in switching to a superior os if it means many people will end up not being able to afford computers? Now, of course, you can disagree with this analysis, but I think you will always approach an adoption time frame given new technologies that will do more damage than good for many reasons - one being economically.
How many well intentioned competitors to the MS lock-in have failed because people cling to this notion that software can become dominant in the lowest common demoninator market without charging for the development? Don't get me wrong, I'm a FreeBSD developer, and a KDE lover, but I'm not so naive to believe that it won't cost consumers a crud load of money to dig themselves out of the hole they allowed themselves to be pushed into ...
...
Get it into your heads, people! It's gunna cost us ALL (including the entire US economy, to some degree, if one really purpots that MS makes way more money than they ever deserved to) to get outta this. Much of the richness and wealth and comfort of living in the western world owes itself to the very institutions that so many people wish to dismantle
Now's the time to invest in the christmas light and plasterboard companies
Most of those who voted are probably 13 year olds who think that "Java is cool", so they voted for it.
.NET", but rather, "Maybe people don't like Java, so I'd better stick to the same boat as everyone else so that we all go down together." I don't think anyone can view the poll and not have a reaction to it. If people were truly not affected by them, or they had no bearing on the discussion and debate that rages on over technology, ZDnet would have stopped wasting bandwidth on them a long time ago.
If only CIOs and CTOs thought like you, we might be safe. And you started off well.
But witness:
Real polling companies spend a lot of effort trying to get statistically-valid results.
I think that should read "trying to get client-validated results".
Sure, it's not illegal, and sure, it's not an official poll, but to suggest that they do not affect the way people perceive public support and adoption around them is naive, in the very least.
So, does this mean I can stand in front of your house and yell that you're a rampant homophobic? Of course, everyone should know I'm just a raving lunatic, but if MS has prooved anything, it's that even if people don't buy the literal message, they're still irrevocably affected by the FUD that keeps flying around. Which is to say, people might not react to the poll as in "Okay, people like
HAHAHA. Oh god. Thanks, I needed that. That's why I stick to joints. ;)
.. why not ship the guy your 5$ casio watch with calender ... surely a small enough kernel and a well-responded to "Ask Slashdot" will result in a number crunching powerhouse in no time flat, right? ;)
Actually, it's much like another quote I know that addresses the same issue:
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I agree with you man
I think you're the one that read this wrong.
Daemon News is pleased to announce the availability of pre-orders for FreeBSD 4.5. This will be our first release of FreeBSD on CD.
our which means, their, which means Daemon News. So its Daemon News' first time offering 4.5 on CD. So yeah, it's not news, but the submission isn't wrong. What bothers me about the way things are going, submissions are turning more and more into (community-level, granted) ads.
Ah well.
(Disclaimer: I am 6'3" and can palm a basketball)
:) I think that's what he was saying ... but for the rest of us non-giants, I choose the Nintendo GC controller anyday. Actually, the size of the XBox controller isn't /too/ bad, but the buttons on the right hand side are absolutely criminal. It's like braille, and as a (much much much too) experienced gamer, I still found myself mashing the wrong buttons after 4 hours of Halo.
;)
I don't think anyone was disputing that people like you would like the controllers.
Incidentally, he said they were good for people in the Porn industry:
Jeremy
As in Ron?
I agree, but I'll just point out that employee loyalty is on the serious decline. Simply sending the bad boys to bed without desert without addressing the larger problem is sure to result in yet another wave of labour related violence. Whether or not these are the telltale signs of such a movement is difficult for anyone to say, but we've already had a few in the last century, and you'd have to feel relatively committed and faithful to the way things are going to support the idea of just silencing the trouble makers and continuing to skip down the road in blissful ignorance. At some point you'll have to pick a side; as usual, the ones fighting hard to stick to the middle (as in not rushing to either side of the current two ideological movements of socialism and complete free-market capitalism, and proposing a mixture of both that has made countries like Canada, Sweden, and Finland consistantly top the UN 'Best Countries to Live In' charts) are being lost in the din being made by the ideological fundamentalists on either side of the equation.
well, it should come as comforting to recognize the signs of unrest when people like us are beginning just to say 'fuck it' and start fighting the system. we all know where this is going, given the relative peace on this continent for so long, and guys like him will be first to the wall when they force us to fight for our will to live in the kind of world we want to.
I just wish schools of thought didn't always have to polarize like they always seem to do. Actually, what a strange thought I just had. History seems to support the notion of social ideals being formed, and then, over time, undergoing a sort of sociologic and ideological mitosis.