It is one thing to put amazing amounts of energy and discipline into one's work, as the Debian developers have done. It is something else to foresee the battle between free and commercial software, as RMS did, and try to plan a course through this battle. RMS is pedantic, painfully self-righteous, and needs a shave. But he is one of the greatest thinkers of our time, a genius, and a mind to be treasured and revered. As a programmer and the developer of many free applications, RMS is for me a hero, someone who has anticipated many of the problems I would face in protecting the viability of my work. He once refused to accept a t-shirt with our team's logo on it, but he's a great man nonetheless.
Siemens is presumably positioning themselves as a Linux vendor. Whatever they say should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
The future has an amazing ability to be exactly like the past in every aspect we thought it would change, and totally different in those aspects we expected to remain the same.
So, here is my prediction of Linux in 2008:
- There will be an explosion in the development of portable computers, provoked by the appearance of OLED screens that are cheap and flexible and gentle on batteries.
- Some of these computers will be truly wierd, ranging from disposable to wall-sized.
- Most of these new devices will run Linux or another free OS with similar plasticity and easy consumption.
- By 2008, server computers will be assembled out of brick-style units (storage, CPU, devices) that let you throw together a server of any capability from standard pieces with no tools. The OS will be Linux, the principal vendors will be IBM and DELL, the technology remarkably similar to clustering. Windows will try and fail to compete.
- The concept of 'desktop' will thus be totally passe by 2008. Only poor slobs will keep a desk chained to a computer.
- The majority of 'desktop's outside the US and parts of Europe will run Linux distributions.
- Most of those distributions will be heavily customised per country, often sponsored by governments. This will start in China and India and work up through every literate and connected country.
- The US will remain the stubborn consumer of desktop Windows OS and applications.
Conclusion: Windows can only dominate a market that is static. But markets do not rest. New technologies permit and drive new platforms, and each time, it gets harder to justify Windows. In 5 years, the current landscape will have been changed by the appearance of many new platforms where Windows is a poor second choice. It is these new platforms that will finally kill Windows and Microsoft, not replacement on the desktop.
You may have missed the recent news headlines, but as a businessman responsible for deploying vital computer systems and networks, you will be aware that the Linux operating system, which you have deployed, is a copyrighted (c) system with a documented trademark pedigree.
Our company (SCO Holdings Internation Ltd.) bought, in 1992, the rights to all Unix kernels outside the United States of America (USA). We have learned to our dismay that the Linux operating system, which you are running on your computers in Europe, contains no less than 70 (70) lines of our source code, and any business (such as yours) using or operating a Linux system is liable for breach of copyright and license.
However, after careful consideration of your circumstances, we are prepared to offer you a special one-time "cleansing" license for the modest fee of only $699 per server. For this small license fee you not only get the right to use your Linux systems without further fees, you also get the peace of mind knowing you are using software that is commercially supported and developed.
To order your license now, call 1-555-233323 and ask for me, Chinua Obeye Please ignore all messages from companies calling themselves "SCO Group" or "SCO International", these are scurilous fraudsters who will take your money and run.
Sincerely, Chinua Obeye President of Vice SCO Holdings International
To be accurate, none of the big names build their own hardware, hardly. Most is built by anonymous assemblers in various places. Who builds the rest of the X-Box? How much does Microsoft pay in terms of royalties to other companies for the various components?
I'm guessing (and it's a wild guess, based on nothing more than twenty years of watching MS in action) that Microsoft are paying quite a lot for the graphics subsystem, and as usual money is the deciding factor in such things.
Yeah, yeah, make fun of me just 'cause I don't remember further back than... uh, where was I.
Anyhow: working assumption (based on utter and total ignorance but compensated by attitude) is that the Redmond Boys took what they could from NVidia (who are probably feeling somewhat like the Goatse guy) and decided that they need a bit more before they have that they need.
Every company that ever deals with MS gets shafted. I give them a year before Microsoft discovers that it is perfectly able to produce its own graphics systems, using technology that is amazingly close to ATI's, yet incredibly much cheaper.
Sarge: Soldier, we've gotten orders to attack. Prepare battlefleet 5 and get ready to strike on my signal. Soldier: Sarge, we gotta problem... Sarge: "Problem", soldier? Whatd'ya mean "we gotta problem"? Soldier: the bots, Sarge. They're all upgrading. Gonna take at least an hour, then we have to test them all again. Last virus was a bitch, they were all singing "My Way" a capella together... Sarge: yeah, I heard. Those slimy bastards... it was terrible... Soldier: anyhow, this new patch is gonna block all those music viruses. Sarge: OK, do what you have to. But what about the enemy? Soldier: Oh, no problem. We hit them with TZ/21, it's the virus that makes their 'bots quote random Nietsche, with Bob Hope delivery... Sarge: poor bastards... poor bastards... Soldier: yeah, war sucks. So, game of Doom/6? Sarge: yeah, why not... (don VR helmets, zapping noises)
One of the funny things about Friendsters trying to recreate a natural society... society is almost driven by the arms race between the fakers and the cheat-detectors. We are constantly trying to fake each other, and constantly spotting and defeating these fakes. At least, this is the theory used by social scientists to explain emotions, and I tend to agree. Emotions evolved to be unfakable demonstrations of sincerity, which is why we're so impressed by good actors. So the problems that Friendster is having with fakesters is actually a very good mirror of real society, except that Friendster lacks the tools for detecting and punishing cheats!
What's the deal with the angst over the word "censorship?" I'm not implying anything immoral, just commenting on the technique. This is the definition of the word "censor" from dictionary.com:
"A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable."
And I believe that's exactly what's happening here.
Indeed there are many forms of healthy censorship, a good example being one where a group censors itself. Slashdot moderation is a form of censorship, but it works. Why? Because the decision of "good" versus "evil" is done by the group, and following the dynamics of the group. Why should this matter? For two reasons. First, a single person cannot accurately measure the opinions of the group. Secondly, because individuals don't often change their opinions, while groups do. I'm all in favour of censorship, if done correctly. What this means is providing the group with the tools to do it, not applying it from the top down.
I dunno - got Blade Runner DVD on a shelf and I'm sure I've seen it like hundreds of times too. Only watched it maybe three or four times, but seen it every time I walk by. Maybe the guy is just an off-duty lawyer who likes making people nervous. Actually, suddenly, I agree with you. I definitely would not date an off-duty lawyer.
Is the "typing break". I can sit back in my chair, hands on my head, and when the PHB asks why I'm not working, I just say "Gnome Typing Break" and he says "Uh-hu" and goes away. Totally excellent.
I'm only pointing out that if they want their network to be popular (I presume this is the idea) then they have to work with, not against, the way people want to use it.
It's not a matter of legality or illegality. It's a matter of how to run a network that people use and enjoy using and bring their friends onto. Censorship, when you tell people what they can and cannot say in a supposedly free forum, is simply not a good tool.
It will, as I originally said, go sour.
The correct way to filter noise is to give the group the tools to do it. Then you get a self-adjusting space in which those people who invest time in creating content get some say over its well-being.
Look: it's very interesting to see fakesters acting as 'hubs', for instance. It's an impossible thing if you insist that only real profiles exist, yet hubs are incredibly useful to the network.
Of course I totally support the right of Friendster to shoot themselves in the foot, it's fine by me: the result will be the creation of multiple other sites that do the same, for free, and following a constitution that I'd consider "healthy".
I'm not interested in judging Friendster's actions as 'legal' or not, I don't give a toss. But I find it very interesting indeed to try to understand what makes this kind of network work or fail.
When you create an infrastructure for people to communicate with, you must make a basic choice: are you the publisher, or only the provider? It's a common dilema: when the provider turns into a publisher, even briefly, there are all kinds of problems.
If you start deleting profiles, does this mean you take responsibility for the quality of profiles? The answer is "yes", and that simply switch of position, from provider of communication services to quality assurer changes the model.
If you start deleting profiles, does this mean you assert control over what people can do? Yes, and worse, you have changed the consitution of the network to add the "dictator" function. People stop trusting you at that point.
If you start deleting profiles, are you censoring the discussion? Yes, because censorship is simply the point at which the governing authority switches from acting neutrally to enable communications to acting in a partisan manner, approving some communications over others.
When a government tells a newspaper what it can or cannot print, that is censorship. Why? Because the role of government is to create frameworks in which people can communicate (and do everything else) freely within a well-defined consitution.
Indeed. Kinda my point exactly: if you don't accomodate people's preferred social models, they will go somewhere else.
I'm not debating the rights and wrongs, only the 'how'. I presume the idea of deleting fake profiles is to keep the system working. I believe it will instead break it. Look at the scene in 3 months' time and you will see that the interesting people have gone elsewhere, and built a better site that does what they want.
The problem is basically that even a good designer cannot predict what such systems will do, or even define what "works" formally. You can only create tools that allow the people who spend most time in the group to promote value and punish fools, and then let things progress as they will.
Personally I would make it possible for high ranking profiles to demote abusers of the system. However, many of the fakesters are very intense users, highly dedicated, and responsible for much of the growth of the network. Why on earth would you want to stop them doing their thing? It's foolish and short-sighted.
Censorship is when someone with power decides what other people can or cannot say. I don't think creating a fake profile is like spraying grafitti on someone's house. But deciding to kill profiles because they don't fit _your_ design for what people can and cannot do is most definitely censorship. It will create bad feeling and backfire terribly: friendsters will not survive more than a few months if people don't feel free to express themselves any way they like. It's like the Slashdot troll culture. Ironically it's what keeps Slashdot interesting, since the trolls and ACs show the rest of us how to behave. Censorship is bad not simply because it stops people expressing themselves. It's bad because it kills the natural flow that makes such systems wonderful to play in. My 5c.
Surely Slashdot (karma whoring, karma whoring) has shown that a self-moderating system can tolerate huge amounts of noise and still turn up valuable content. There are several rules that a site like Friendsters has to follow to allow value to emerge and be protected: 1. No democracy: status depends on time spent in the system and behaviour, and high status gives more power. (Basically like Karma). 2. Reputation: aliases, so if you troll, people know who you are. 3. Tools for promoting good and punishing bad behaviour (like moderation). 4. Design around the social aspects of the groups, i.e. if people want to use the system a certain way, let them. The last is a bummer when people don't do what you expect them to. But if ten million fakesters create a happy community, why not?
The sad truth about the insurance trade is that entirely honest people often get a poor deal from the insurers, while crooks can benefit nicely. A typical exchange between accident victim and insurer...:
Insurer: "So, your neighbour's car exploded and your house caught fire, you lost all your posessions, and you've now lost your job too?"
Victim: "Yeah, I guess so, it all happened so fast, I'm still kinda stunned..."
Insurer: "Do you have proper documentation for all your posessions?"
Victim: "Well, my house kinda burnt down, so I guess the papers got lost"
Insurer: "We're willing to make an offer of $1,500 if you sign right here..." (offers paper and pen)
Victim (after signing): "Does this mean I will get my house back?"
Insurer: "Sure, if you can buy one for $1500", turns around smartly and disappears.
This is not comedy: it pretty darn happened to me like that, only it wasn't a fire, just half the neighbour's roof falling into my house.
On the other hand, present the insurance with a clean dossier, lots of pretty receipts and paperwork, and you will probably be paid in full with no discussion.
Lie detectors are fine, but prompt and honest treatment of customers would also be cool.
Disclaimer: insurance companies in your country/city/town may be more honest than the ones I have dealt with.
It would be doing a favour to SCO users to find that GCC support will be dropped in a few months, and now is the time to migrate to Linux. Is there any software running on SCO that _won't_ run on Linux?
"I guess you have never tried to make a living by being a writer or a musician."
Funny you should say that, since I am a musician (drummer) and a writer (short stories and long stories). I'm sure I create when I write, and yet - as when I play my rhythms, I know that I'm only spinning words from the threads created by the generations before me. To pretend pure creation from a void is to show an amazing arrogance.
Presumably you treat the last stage as the "creative part" and the million years before as just "the tools". But imagine if the "concerto" was patented by some Baroque composer. It's an incredible concept, to name an intellectual domain as "property".
No person creates anything except on the back of an unbroken chain of human culture, all ideas and concepts are the refinement of untold precedents, and the mere concept of defining these as the "property" of individuals or groups is a vile and sleazy attempt to create monopolies of thought.
What we call "creativity" is in fact the process of digesting and reformulating a huge number of existing concepts, ideas, patterns, and principles. Nobody creates anything from a blank slate, indeed the concept of a human being without the cultural baggage of a million years is a joke.
The good news is that any organization that closes itself off from the cultural mainstream becomes as relevant as an artist forever trying to protect that 'one big hit' instead of looking to create another one.
So, while this seems an inevitable symptom of today's cozy partnership between big business and big government, it won't last. The revolution always comes from those, with nothing to lose, who have everything to gain.
Possibly. I presume you're reacting to my statement that levels of violence in the US are perceived to be higher than they are.
It is true that compared to other industrialised countries, the risk of dieing from violence is high in the US, perhaps 5 times higher. This seems a lot until you look at the real figures.
We're talking about the difference between 0.5 per 100,000 and 2 per 100,000. Now switch to some (traditional) cultures where the risk of violent death is anything up to 20-30%.
You can look at the social aspects of any drug usage. When a drug is illegal, it is consumed furtively in a criminal environment. When a drug is legal it is more likely to be consumed in a social environment.
The socializing aspects would, I'd expect, dampen consumption to some extent. I remember that at high school, the guys who drank (illegally) always ended up totally wasted.
The illegality or legality of a drug definitely has an impact on its patterns of use, and that includes (in my experience as an observer) the compulsive aspects.
"where did you come upon the notion that banning a substance makes addicts compulsive?"
Closing time, any English pub.
The English are by far the most compulsive drinkers in Europe bar the Scandinavians.
What is true for alchohol is (IMHO) true for other drugs. And it seems to make sense: if you don't know when you will be able to get your next fix, you are more likely to overconsume while you can.
You are absolutely correct to state that child porn is not a "victimless crime". This was never the statement. Child pornography is an illicit thing, as bad an item as was ever fabricated by the hands of an immoral person. No discussion on that issue. But: we live in an age in which no walls can contain digital materials. No digital image, text, video, or recording can be kept locked up. What this means is that a vast number of people will inevitably find themselves looking at, possibly even collecting, child pornography for reasons more to do with curiosity than vice. I don't disagree that there are many people out there who should be put behind bars because they represent a real danger to children. But I don't think it's a sustainable argument to make that child porn on your PC makes you a danger to children. I know this is a lie, and it's one being pushed by law enforcement bodies because it gives them easy targets who don't fight back. The current harsh public views on child molestation makes it all to easy. It is a witch hunt. And while witch hunts may indeed find the occasional witch, they take the lives of innocents with them. Is it not a basis of our system of justice that it is worth allowing ten criminals to go free to avoid that one innocent person be wrongly imprisoned? That the state must shoulder the burden of evidence? Today, simply being publically accused of having child porn on your PC is enough to ruin your life. It is a sad story, and time will show it to be a failure and a farce.
Slashdot Mirror
It is one thing to put amazing amounts of energy and discipline into one's work, as the Debian developers have done. It is something else to foresee the battle between free and commercial software, as RMS did, and try to plan a course through this battle.
RMS is pedantic, painfully self-righteous, and needs a shave. But he is one of the greatest thinkers of our time, a genius, and a mind to be treasured and revered.
As a programmer and the developer of many free applications, RMS is for me a hero, someone who has anticipated many of the problems I would face in protecting the viability of my work.
He once refused to accept a t-shirt with our team's logo on it, but he's a great man nonetheless.
Is that few people come back to check afterwards.
Siemens is presumably positioning themselves as a Linux vendor. Whatever they say should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
The future has an amazing ability to be exactly like the past in every aspect we thought it would change, and totally different in those aspects we expected to remain the same.
So, here is my prediction of Linux in 2008:
- There will be an explosion in the development of portable computers, provoked by the appearance of OLED screens that are cheap and flexible and gentle on batteries.
- Some of these computers will be truly wierd, ranging from disposable to wall-sized.
- Most of these new devices will run Linux or another free OS with similar plasticity and easy consumption.
- By 2008, server computers will be assembled out of brick-style units (storage, CPU, devices) that let you throw together a server of any capability from standard pieces with no tools. The OS will be Linux, the principal vendors will be IBM and DELL, the technology remarkably similar to clustering. Windows will try and fail to compete.
- The concept of 'desktop' will thus be totally passe by 2008. Only poor slobs will keep a desk chained to a computer.
- The majority of 'desktop's outside the US and parts of Europe will run Linux distributions.
- Most of those distributions will be heavily customised per country, often sponsored by governments. This will start in China and India and work up through every literate and connected country.
- The US will remain the stubborn consumer of desktop Windows OS and applications.
Conclusion: Windows can only dominate a market that is static. But markets do not rest. New technologies permit and drive new platforms, and each time, it gets harder to justify Windows. In 5 years, the current landscape will have been changed by the appearance of many new platforms where Windows is a poor second choice. It is these new platforms that will finally kill Windows and Microsoft, not replacement on the desktop.
Dear Sir,
You may have missed the recent news headlines,
but as a businessman responsible for deploying
vital computer systems and networks, you will be
aware that the Linux operating system, which you
have deployed, is a copyrighted (c) system with
a documented trademark pedigree.
Our company (SCO Holdings Internation Ltd.) bought, in 1992, the rights to all Unix kernels
outside the United States of America (USA). We
have learned to our dismay that the Linux
operating system, which you are running on your
computers in Europe, contains no less than 70
(70) lines of our source code, and any business
(such as yours) using or operating a Linux system
is liable for breach of copyright and license.
However, after careful consideration of your
circumstances, we are prepared to offer you a
special one-time "cleansing" license for the
modest fee of only $699 per server. For this
small license fee you not only get the right to
use your Linux systems without further fees,
you also get the peace of mind knowing you are
using software that is commercially supported
and developed.
To order your license now, call 1-555-233323 and
ask for me, Chinua Obeye
Please ignore all messages from companies calling
themselves "SCO Group" or "SCO International",
these are scurilous fraudsters who will take your
money and run.
Sincerely,
Chinua Obeye
President of Vice
SCO Holdings International
To be accurate, none of the big names
build their own hardware, hardly. Most is built
by anonymous assemblers in various places. Who
builds the rest of the X-Box? How much does
Microsoft pay in terms of royalties to other
companies for the various components?
I'm guessing (and it's a wild guess, based on
nothing more than twenty years of watching MS
in action) that Microsoft are paying quite a
lot for the graphics subsystem, and as usual
money is the deciding factor in such things.
Yeah, yeah, make fun of me just 'cause I don't remember further back than... uh, where was I.
Anyhow: working assumption (based on utter and total ignorance but compensated by attitude) is that the Redmond Boys took what they could from NVidia (who are probably feeling somewhat like the Goatse guy) and decided that they need a bit more before they have that they need.
Every company that ever deals with MS gets shafted. I give them a year before Microsoft discovers that it is perfectly able to produce its own graphics systems, using technology that is amazingly close to ATI's, yet incredibly much cheaper.
Sarge: Soldier, we've gotten orders to attack. Prepare battlefleet 5 and get ready to strike on my signal.
Soldier: Sarge, we gotta problem...
Sarge: "Problem", soldier? Whatd'ya mean "we gotta problem"?
Soldier: the bots, Sarge. They're all upgrading. Gonna take at least an hour, then we have to test them all again. Last virus was a bitch, they were all singing "My Way" a capella together...
Sarge: yeah, I heard. Those slimy bastards... it was terrible...
Soldier: anyhow, this new patch is gonna block all those music viruses.
Sarge: OK, do what you have to. But what about the enemy?
Soldier: Oh, no problem. We hit them with TZ/21, it's the virus that makes their 'bots quote random Nietsche, with Bob Hope delivery...
Sarge: poor bastards... poor bastards...
Soldier: yeah, war sucks. So, game of Doom/6?
Sarge: yeah, why not... (don VR helmets, zapping noises)
One of the funny things about Friendsters trying to recreate a natural society... society is almost driven by the arms race between the fakers and the cheat-detectors. We are constantly trying to fake each other, and constantly spotting and defeating these fakes.
At least, this is the theory used by social scientists to explain emotions, and I tend to agree. Emotions evolved to be unfakable demonstrations of sincerity, which is why we're so impressed by good actors.
So the problems that Friendster is having with fakesters is actually a very good mirror of real society, except that Friendster lacks the tools for detecting and punishing cheats!
Is RMS singing the "Free Software Song". Please, Microsoft, make this available ASAP!
What's the deal with the angst over the word "censorship?" I'm not implying anything immoral, just commenting on the technique. This is the definition of the word "censor" from dictionary.com:
"A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable."
And I believe that's exactly what's happening here.
Indeed there are many forms of healthy censorship, a good example being one where a group censors itself.
Slashdot moderation is a form of censorship, but it works. Why? Because the decision of "good" versus "evil" is done by the group, and following the dynamics of the group.
Why should this matter? For two reasons. First, a single person cannot accurately measure the opinions of the group. Secondly, because individuals don't often change their opinions, while groups do.
I'm all in favour of censorship, if done correctly. What this means is providing the group with the tools to do it, not applying it from the top down.
I dunno - got Blade Runner DVD on a shelf and I'm sure I've seen it like hundreds of times too. Only watched it maybe three or four times, but seen it every time I walk by. Maybe the guy is just an off-duty lawyer who likes making people nervous.
Actually, suddenly, I agree with you. I definitely would not date an off-duty lawyer.
Is the "typing break". I can sit back in my chair, hands on my head, and when the PHB asks why I'm not working, I just say "Gnome Typing Break" and he says "Uh-hu" and goes away. Totally excellent.
Yes, of course they can do what they like.
I'm only pointing out that if they want their network to be popular (I presume this is the idea) then they have to work with, not against, the way people want to use it.
It's not a matter of legality or illegality. It's a matter of how to run a network that people use and enjoy using and bring their friends onto. Censorship, when you tell people what they can and cannot say in a supposedly free forum, is simply not a good tool.
It will, as I originally said, go sour.
The correct way to filter noise is to give the group the tools to do it. Then you get a self-adjusting space in which those people who invest time in creating content get some say over its well-being.
Look: it's very interesting to see fakesters acting as 'hubs', for instance. It's an impossible thing if you insist that only real profiles exist, yet hubs are incredibly useful to the network.
Of course I totally support the right of Friendster to shoot themselves in the foot, it's fine by me: the result will be the creation of multiple other sites that do the same, for free, and following a constitution that I'd consider "healthy".
I'm not interested in judging Friendster's actions as 'legal' or not, I don't give a toss. But I find it very interesting indeed to try to understand what makes this kind of network work or fail.
My point was perhaps more subtle.
When you create an infrastructure for people to communicate with, you must make a basic choice: are you the publisher, or only the provider? It's a common dilema: when the provider turns into a publisher, even briefly, there are all kinds of problems.
If you start deleting profiles, does this mean you take responsibility for the quality of profiles? The answer is "yes", and that simply switch of position, from provider of communication services to quality assurer changes the model.
If you start deleting profiles, does this mean you assert control over what people can do? Yes, and worse, you have changed the consitution of the network to add the "dictator" function. People stop trusting you at that point.
If you start deleting profiles, are you censoring the discussion? Yes, because censorship is simply the point at which the governing authority switches from acting neutrally to enable communications to acting in a partisan manner, approving some communications over others.
When a government tells a newspaper what it can or cannot print, that is censorship. Why? Because the role of government is to create frameworks in which people can communicate (and do everything else) freely within a well-defined consitution.
It's no different here.
Indeed. Kinda my point exactly: if you don't accomodate people's preferred social models, they will go somewhere else.
I'm not debating the rights and wrongs, only the 'how'. I presume the idea of deleting fake profiles is to keep the system working. I believe it will instead break it. Look at the scene in 3 months' time and you will see that the interesting people have gone elsewhere, and built a better site that does what they want.
The problem is basically that even a good designer cannot predict what such systems will do, or even define what "works" formally. You can only create tools that allow the people who spend most time in the group to promote value and punish fools, and then let things progress as they will.
Personally I would make it possible for high ranking profiles to demote abusers of the system. However, many of the fakesters are very intense users, highly dedicated, and responsible for much of the growth of the network. Why on earth would you want to stop them doing their thing? It's foolish and short-sighted.
Censorship is when someone with power decides what other people can or cannot say. I don't think creating a fake profile is like spraying grafitti on someone's house. But deciding to kill profiles because they don't fit _your_ design for what people can and cannot do is most definitely censorship.
It will create bad feeling and backfire terribly: friendsters will not survive more than a few months if people don't feel free to express themselves any way they like.
It's like the Slashdot troll culture. Ironically it's what keeps Slashdot interesting, since the trolls and ACs show the rest of us how to behave.
Censorship is bad not simply because it stops people expressing themselves. It's bad because it kills the natural flow that makes such systems wonderful to play in.
My 5c.
Surely Slashdot (karma whoring, karma whoring) has shown that a self-moderating system can tolerate huge amounts of noise and still turn up valuable content.
There are several rules that a site like Friendsters has to follow to allow value to emerge and be protected:
1. No democracy: status depends on time spent in the system and behaviour, and high status gives more power. (Basically like Karma).
2. Reputation: aliases, so if you troll, people know who you are.
3. Tools for promoting good and punishing bad behaviour (like moderation).
4. Design around the social aspects of the groups, i.e. if people want to use the system a certain way, let them.
The last is a bummer when people don't do what you expect them to. But if ten million fakesters create a happy community, why not?
The sad truth about the insurance trade is that entirely honest people often get a poor deal from the insurers, while crooks can benefit nicely. A typical exchange between accident victim and insurer...:
Insurer: "So, your neighbour's car exploded and your house caught fire, you lost all your posessions, and you've now lost your job too?"
Victim: "Yeah, I guess so, it all happened so fast, I'm still kinda stunned..."
Insurer: "Do you have proper documentation for all your posessions?"
Victim: "Well, my house kinda burnt down, so I guess the papers got lost"
Insurer: "We're willing to make an offer of $1,500 if you sign right here..." (offers paper and pen)
Victim (after signing): "Does this mean I will get my house back?"
Insurer: "Sure, if you can buy one for $1500", turns around smartly and disappears.
This is not comedy: it pretty darn happened to me like that, only it wasn't a fire, just half the neighbour's roof falling into my house.
On the other hand, present the insurance with a clean dossier, lots of pretty receipts and paperwork, and you will probably be paid in full with no discussion.
Lie detectors are fine, but prompt and honest treatment of customers would also be cool.
Disclaimer: insurance companies in your country/city/town may be more honest than the ones I have dealt with.
It would be doing a favour to SCO users to find that GCC support will be dropped in a few months, and now is the time to migrate to Linux.
Is there any software running on SCO that _won't_ run on Linux?
"I guess you have never tried to make a living by being a writer or a musician."
Funny you should say that, since I am a musician (drummer) and a writer (short stories and long stories). I'm sure I create when I write, and yet - as when I play my rhythms, I know that I'm only spinning words from the threads created by the generations before me. To pretend pure creation from a void is to show an amazing arrogance.
Presumably you treat the last stage as the "creative part" and the million years before as just "the tools". But imagine if the "concerto" was patented by some Baroque composer. It's an incredible concept, to name an intellectual domain as "property".
No person creates anything except on the back of an unbroken chain of human culture, all ideas and concepts are the refinement of untold precedents, and the mere concept of defining these as the "property" of individuals or groups is a vile and sleazy attempt to create monopolies of thought.
What we call "creativity" is in fact the process of digesting and reformulating a huge number of existing concepts, ideas, patterns, and principles. Nobody creates anything from a blank slate, indeed the concept of a human being without the cultural baggage of a million years is a joke.
The good news is that any organization that closes itself off from the cultural mainstream becomes as relevant as an artist forever trying to protect that 'one big hit' instead of looking to create another one.
So, while this seems an inevitable symptom of today's cozy partnership between big business and big government, it won't last. The revolution always comes from those, with nothing to lose, who have everything to gain.
"You really are stupid."
Possibly. I presume you're reacting to my statement that levels of violence in the US are perceived to be higher than they are.
It is true that compared to other industrialised countries, the risk of dieing from violence is high in the US, perhaps 5 times higher. This seems a lot until you look at the real figures.
We're talking about the difference between 0.5 per 100,000 and 2 per 100,000. Now switch to some (traditional) cultures where the risk of violent death is anything up to 20-30%.
Go check the figures, Google is your friend.
And further...
You can look at the social aspects of any drug usage. When a drug is illegal, it is consumed furtively in a criminal environment. When a drug is legal it is more likely to be consumed in a social environment.
The socializing aspects would, I'd expect, dampen consumption to some extent. I remember that at high school, the guys who drank (illegally) always ended up totally wasted.
The illegality or legality of a drug definitely has an impact on its patterns of use, and that includes (in my experience as an observer) the compulsive aspects.
"where did you come upon the notion that banning a substance makes addicts compulsive?"
Closing time, any English pub.
The English are by far the most compulsive drinkers in Europe bar the Scandinavians.
What is true for alchohol is (IMHO) true for other drugs. And it seems to make sense: if you don't know when you will be able to get your next fix, you are more likely to overconsume while you can.
Tell me I'm wrong?
You are absolutely correct to state that child porn is not a "victimless crime". This was never the statement.
Child pornography is an illicit thing, as bad an item as was ever fabricated by the hands of an immoral person. No discussion on that issue.
But: we live in an age in which no walls can contain digital materials. No digital image, text, video, or recording can be kept locked up. What this means is that a vast number of people will inevitably find themselves looking at, possibly even collecting, child pornography for reasons more to do with curiosity than vice.
I don't disagree that there are many people out there who should be put behind bars because they represent a real danger to children.
But I don't think it's a sustainable argument to make that child porn on your PC makes you a danger to children. I know this is a lie, and it's one being pushed by law enforcement bodies because it gives them easy targets who don't fight back. The current harsh public views on child molestation makes it all to easy.
It is a witch hunt. And while witch hunts may indeed find the occasional witch, they take the lives of innocents with them.
Is it not a basis of our system of justice that it is worth allowing ten criminals to go free to avoid that one innocent person be wrongly imprisoned? That the state must shoulder the burden of evidence?
Today, simply being publically accused of having child porn on your PC is enough to ruin your life.
It is a sad story, and time will show it to be a failure and a farce.