2. Anybody who says that Linux isn't ready for the desktop is misinformed, or a liar.
The power of your statement is completely lost by the way you package it. Linux is getting there... but there are still problems
Driver support (Mum and Dad's new digital camera)
Package management (I need to run the latest aMule, which requires the latest GTK which isn't supplied by YaST, and other such nasties)
Application support - the basics are there, but there are a lot of missing applications, such as quality mixing software (that's what my friends so with their computers).
IE only compatible websites. Like it or not... they are out there, and people use them (for example, to trade stocks online). It made IBMs life a misery
Have you given OS X a run? It suffers from none of these problems, and gives a complete, smooth and consistent user experience. Linux is getting there, but is still only for the technical and the interested.
How much do I miss Windows? Well... I'll probably finish copying some miscellaneous files over from the the Windows partition and reformat it this weekend.
It may take you a few minutes to do this... but hours to install it again. You probably think you'll NEVER install it again... think before you leap.
If you're engaged in a conflict with someone or something... it's very easy to get carried away. If you feel like you're in the mood where you'll say something stupid, unproductive, mean or just something you'll regret, then you just need a little perspective before you open your mouth.
In 500 years, no-one will care about argument you had with someone. That's an easy place to start.
Are you trying to say "watch your language in front of the ladies"?
If your saying something which will make any situation worse, and your audience will feel like that have to tune you out because it threatens their point of view, or because it's such a political topic...
Then you should find a better way to get your point across.
This applies in all situations. It's just common sense. If you're talking to drive through someone, then there's no real communication taking place, and you're only trying to pump yourself up... however "valid" your statement is.
It's not what you say... not even how you say it... but you disposition when you say it.
I'm just curious, here. No need for offense or attacks.
None taken.
Perhaps you (and I) ARE sexist, but don't really know it, because we don't WANT to be sexist. An interesting notion don't you think?
I say that because you seem to care about this type of hypocrisy... you are taking it personally, as though it will swallow up your own sense of maleness if you nod your head in approval at such behaviour.
THIS IS OKAY. Nothing to be ashamed about. Just try to understand their point of view, and have compassion for their struggle to find happiness. Once you understand someone's point of view, you'll understand your own point of view better, and you won't feel your self identity threatened.
I'm amazed by how many 'feminists' I've known who firmly believe that no man should ever hit any women no matter what
It is elementary to think up a situation that makes this statement false. There is, however, a lot to be said for the spirit of this statement. A lot of women get abused physically.
I'm going to lay her out like I would a man who did the same thing
Don't think of such things or you'll suddenly find them, and it won't be an accident! If you are being assaulted by a women, and she really is threatening your safety, then you'll automatically defend yourself. If she isn't threatening, then all you need to is say "You ought to be ashamed of yourself".
Seems like many feminists believe not that women = men, but that women >= men
Everybody thinks they are better than average... it is easy to see that this natural human disposition can lead one to think that one sex is >= to the other sex. Again, just have some compassion for their point of view, and if they get too carried away... laugh at their foolishness!
Completely wrong IMHO, but a good statement none the less.
Empathy isn't "understanding" the human brain. It's about using the "non-clever" side of your mind to appreciate the people in your life. This is completely different to the "clever" side of the mind, which can understand relativity, bride building, social structures, gender roles and other "systems".
The empathic mind can appreciate what Taoists would call the "uncarved block", which points to the inability of clever-mind to really see and understand.
The difference is profound. It is like a guitar playing being so in touch with his music, that he losses his clever mind, and "emapthically" joins with the music. It is what the lyrics of "Stairway to Heaven" are about.
It is because of this natural (cultural or genetic) bias women have toward empathy, that I believe, on average, women find meaning in their lives earlier than men. Men do have this ability, if they choose to use it...
IMHO, I believe that empathy and cleverness (understanding systems) are two completely different tools that we have, each suited to different situations.
I hope I live to see the day when we laugh at the quaint squeemishness of our age to admit what every other age and people have plainly known.
It's just that not every age has known this. In fact, possibly NO age has known this. Most societies have been either male or female dominated (usually male) and in many cases the "weaker" sex is considered completely inferior - presumably to preserve the status-quo.
Equality between the sexes is breaking new ground, but first it must survive the principle that there ARE real differences in the abilities of each sex.
That means we need equality WITH the understanding of slightly unequal abilities. The playing field must be equal, and everybody appreciated for their individual strengths, and not ashamed of their individual weaknesses.
a lot of the comments I've heard seem to be based on this being automatically sexist as opposed to people showing good studies that demonstrate the this isn't at all correct
That's the real problem with talking about a sensitive issue. It's such an issue that we really have to dig deeper, past the literal meaning of the comments, to see the type of person making them, and the context in which they were made. Then we can assess whether this is a sexist comment, or a serious attempt at trying to understand the sexes better.
He also cited as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral upbringing. Yet he said she named them "daddy truck" and "baby truck," as if they were dolls
Children know if they are boys or girls and that it's permanent - this child was old enough to speak, she had probably been copying her mother for years, learning facial expressions and body language.
Besides, it's complete irrelevant. What place does such absurd anecdotal evidence have in the differences in Maths ability between men and women?
IMHO, they were sexist comments because of the point of view of the person making them.
I have two young children and I absolutely WILL NOT put up with them being shown any nudity without my permission
Kid's do what they see, not what they are told to do. You are teaching them to be ashamed of nudity.
As their father it is up to me to decide what they see and what they don't
A parent doesn't OWN their children. A parent is the GUARDIAN of their children. But children are independent living beings that are slowly coming into the world of adults. You can't imprison their minds.
They have acted in good faith and given me the choice
Perhaps they lied about the reality of the statue... isn't that bad faith?
It's called responsible parenting. Never think of that, little 18 year old.
It sounds to me like you'll have a few 18 year olds in your house one day. Better prepare yourself for the worst.
Life and parenting isn't as simple as jumping on the moral high ground.
Most Mac users don't want to run second-hand programs, and second-hand is exactly the impression OO.o leaves on the Mac.
The very first chapter of the original "Inside Mac" talked about how GUI programs should communicate with the user. One major point that was made over and over again was consistency. If Mac does something one way, then anything else just isn't "Mac". Every OS has a feel like that, but on the Mac it's more consistent.
Pushing the rules of another interface guidline make OO.o appear clunky, and ill conceived.
I was really looking forward to an Aqua port of OO.o.
For each application I would have to add an entry to
PATH and possibly LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Let's think outside the box =).
Since there are applications I want to run, but can't trust (such as p2p, or anything proprietry), it would be great to partition my little secutiry island (I mean my user account) for each application that I run.
Thus, when I double click on the App I want to run (think OS X application bundles), a script takes care of a chroot jail, setting up resource auditing etc. Nothing need happen to the PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and all of a sudden I could make in impossible for individual applications to access the network.
It could be simple and intuitive to the end user. You could delete an application by just... deleting it. All configuration information etc. can we neatly stored in the app bundle.
OS X also privdes a 'Library' directory where applications can store per-user information and anything that should logically persist outside of the app bundle.... with such a design, you're not burning any bridges.
Resource usage may be a problem... if something isn't done to manage duplicate copies of the same library in a sensible manor. If I'm not mistaken, UNIX systems load instances of libraries into memory for each process that uses the library... so your main concern is disk space usage.
Libraries _could_ still be centrally stored, with soft links in the app bundles. All of this could automatically be handled when you run the application. For example, your run script (open on OS X) might identify and keep a hash table of libraries. If it identifies two libraries that are the same (exact binary duplicates) it could move them to a common directory, and provide soft links back to the app bundle. When a bundle is deleted... just hink counting semaphores.
With next generation file systems, it may be possible to automatically identify all libraries of a certain ilk in one foul swoop and do this automatically, when you copy files... kinda like a copy-on-write smart pointer. This would make it possible to upgrade all app bundles.
It's all possible, and I think this would be preferrable for end user applications (such as the future Photoshop-Linux), since it's so intuitive to the end user, and gives the application distributor so much flexiblity, since they won't have to consider each different distribution
Package management systems like rpm, urpmi, yast, apt-get, are very cool, but if I want to compile and install my own program, or run the lastest Firefox (with the latest dependent libraries), I can end up with a mess that can be time consuming to clean up. It requires too much Unix savvy for windoze users.
If you've ever used OS X (or Mac Classic), and "installed" a program by copying it from a disk onto your hard disk (anywhere), and then later "uninstalled" it by dragging it into the trash... that's simplicity.
People don't think, socially, p2p is that wrong because they see the insane extent of copyright law
Most people think that copyright law means you have no right to copy. I'm talking Joe Sixpack. From a PR point of view the copyright cartels have already won.
People either "don't care" or feel a little guilty about downloading. It's fun, free, easy to do... it's just human nature to hoard 1000s of mp3s. Any law (in a democracy) that goes so thoroughly against human nature is suspect at best.
So even thought the PR battle has been won by *IAA and co., there's no changing human nature, which means that P2P will be huge until there is a technical "solution" for copyright holders.
The *IAA has such good access to our politicians, so much media power and the issues are so poorly understood by the public that I don't think we'll ever see any rational discussion in parliment over the issue.
We do nothing like smashing atoms into smaller bits
OMG! That's precisely what's happening. For example, the common by-products of splitting Uranium-235 atoms are Iodine, Caesium, Strontium, Xeon and Barium.
Know I'm not too up on this, but...
Iodine gets absorbed into your thyroid (nasty), and if it's radioactive, then you're probably in a bad place
Caesium exists naturally in sea water
Strontium is chemically similar to Calcium, and thus ends up in your bones and will probably give you Leuikemia
Xenon is a noble gas, so trace amounts of radioactive isotopes probably aren't harmful
Barium is highly reactive, and most of it's isotopes have very short half-lifes. Don't know what the biological consequences are of Barium waste.
A few years ago I saw a decay chain from Uranium to Gold, but I can't remember the isotopes involved.
We use the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements to fuel our generators. We do nothing like smashing atoms into smaller bits.
Radioactivity is spontaneous and considered genuinely random. You can't control it, you can't create a chain "decay" reaction etc. Radioactivity and fission/fusion are related because they are both topics of nuclear physics (or chemistry), and because fission/fusion reactions often involve radioactive isotopes. That is not necessarily the case... combining two Deuterium atoms into Helium atom involves no radioactivity.
The mass of a nucleus is less than the mass of it's parts, and the difference is the "binding energy". For example, the mass of two protons and two neutrons is greater than the mass of a He nucleus that contains two protons and two neutrons. Iron has the "smallest" mass per proton/neutron, and thus the least binding energy.
When you split a Uranium nucleus into two smaller nuclei, the mass of those two nuclei is always less than the mass of the original Uranium nucleous. Mass is not conserved in this reaction. The difference in mass is converted into energy according to Einstein's well known formula: e=mc2.
The heat generated from a controlled fission reaction is used to boil water that turns a generator.
And copyright here is poorly understood. I turned up at "Copy Canada" to copy a piece of 18thCentuary music that was published in 1920. They flat out refused to do it because they said they'd be infringing copyright... the business had received letters from "concerned industry representatives" to that effect.
So they knew nothing about copy-right, so I explained it to them. They said they didn't believe me... after all, how could someone make a buck out of selling that music if you could photocopy it for free?
Since then, I've found the pretty much everyone I meet feels that copyright means that you have no right to copy. How ironic.
The copyright-cartel can pass any laws they want and everyone will suck it up. It makes me want to slay myself.
Who cares if the US objects to laws in Australia? How is it any of the their business?
Like it or not, sovereignty is considered the enemy of free trade... and there is a global push (call it globalisation) to put economic (usually big corporate) interests ahead of the ability for a country to pass it's own laws.
I agree with you about self-esteem being potentially the most important factor, but then why does the US system fair comparatively poorly to those systems which don't coddle the kids as much?
Perhaps kids are really smart enough to work out that they are being coddled (omg, they can think!). Thus coddling them _reduces_ their self-esteem... creating a vicious circle of hand-holding and feeling useless, all with natural human laziness mixed in. The end result is a very negative mind space.
In general, you have to push people (including myself) to get them to find any sort of excellence within themselves. You have to create a competitive atmosphere to create competitive results.
Once they see the spark of their own ability... well I'm willing bet self-esteem in those Czech schools isn't the problem it is in the US.
Just another irony of not studying the close relationship between action (attempting to life self-esteem) and reaction (kids feeling that they can drift through school).
Look up the solution... there's no way that someone works out how to do it without learning the solution... the solution required study from specialized people. The last "move" took a whole bunch of people a long time to work out how to do reliably. The solution is easy to learn as an algorithm, but understanding how it works and reaching those conclusions without help... is a wild leap. It was the most simple-complex puzzle of its time.
I do believe that some people would understand how to solve the Rubik's Cube intuitively, but I think you'd be talking 1 in a million... adding to the myth-ous and "coolness" of the puzzle.
While propaganda can influence opinion, it is not mind control. If we believe in democracy, we have to have faith on this, or we might as well just roll over and wait for our new alien overlords to take over.
Don't be too sure until someone you know is indoctrinated by a cult. Kinda brings the reality of being human into sharp focus.
There are two reasons why censorship is a bad idea. The first is that democracy depends on there being a healthy debate of the issues. Using the law to silence your opponent in a debate is like winning a chess match by shooting your opponent.
We're not talking about censorship to silence an opponent in a debate. We're talking a completely different ballpark. People knowingly making false statements that are known to be false and also known to cause anxiety in others. It's kinda like name calling at school. Sure you can argue that it's harmless... until someone takes it too far... and people die.
We're also talking about pornographic materials being circulated for people who suffer from a serious condition; sexual desire of minors. These people are human beings, like everyone else, but they also have the potential of causing great harm... just like any psychopath has the potential to cause harm.
I think we can agree that sex with children is wrong. But what about sex with minors who are past the age of puberty but are below the (local) age of consent?
This is a different issue from adults preying on young children.
If we don't want our children to grow up Nazis, then we shouldn't ban Triumph of the Will. Instead, we should show it in schools - and then take a week to discuss the propaganda techniques used in it. And refute what few logical arguments it uses.
I believe this is naive, but it's hard to explain. Basically human beings believe that they are logical, that they are in control, that they know what's going on, but we fool ourselves. I studied mind control, and as I've grown older I've come to realize just how impossibly irrational even the most logical person is. I've seen how we automatically control and feed off each other as we talk... and how that is immensely more powerful on our discursive thought that our feeble and poorly understood powers of logic. Propaganda works on a level that is far beyond our ability to control with the powers of reason. For example, most people will give you a metric tonne of reasons for why they vote for a particular party, but more often then not, it's because their parents also vote for that party, even if they don't talk about it.
In theory, we should have the freedom to do anything so long as we cause no harm... not every human being is capable of this even if they try. That's were the law should step in, to draw a line between right and wrong. I know it doesn't really work like that, but that's the intent. I'm trying to say that censorship has a roll to play in preventing some people from harming others. If you don't believe me, if you think that you're somehow immune to the messages being pumped into you by propaganda of various forms... then I'd recommend studying advertising for one, and secondly you should seriously try to meet some victims of atrocities... really get to know them.
Remember, that many despicable crimes of yesterday are normal things today. Like publishing research opposing church doctrine, advocating slavery abolition, homosexual relationships and extramarital sex. And remember, that many yesterday's terrorists are today's war heroes of new nations that fought for their freedom
But you know that holocaust happened, and that the KKK committed horrible abuses against Americans. If these people are ever heros, then you'd be living in a place like Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Why is it bad to let these people peddle their propaganda? Like it or not, propaganda works, just like advertising. These people can push their racist agenda, and create a racist society. If you think that's no big deal, then you've never been on the end of racism (Note, I haven't myself, but I've seen the effects). Racism is undeniably wrong, just like thugs roaming the streets beating up gays is wrong.
You may think the government should have anything to say about that... but just as the government has to intervene in the economy, it needs to intervene to make sure that a countries different ethnic groups don't start killing each other... and one common sense measure is to make it illegal to knowingly spread false news that causes grievous offence to an ethnic group. Simple.
I don't see how anyone would be hurt by someone advocating paedophilia, or disseminating synthetic pedophiliac images
Wow. Don't you know that some people cause harm in society? Have you heard of serial killers? Rapists? Psychotic individuals? How would you deal with such people?
Pedophilea is deviant behaviour, but that is not why these people are hounded. Sexual attraction is complex and hardwired into the brain. These people fixate on children. So far no problem, but the potential problem is serious harm to children. Yes children are extra important to society.
I'm not sure what place these people have in society because it's believable that they have not choice over their condition. But a serial murderer probably doesn't have a choice over his behaviour for similar reasons. Jails are places to put people who, for some reason, can't live in society. Psychiatric wards serve a similar purpose for the dangerously mentally ill. A genuine pedophile who commits a crime belongs in the former, otherwise, IMHO, they belong in something similar to the later.
So what's wrong with synthetic paedophiliac images? If someone truly seeks out such images because of a hardwired sexual fixation, then steps need to be taken such that they don't harm a real child... because they will whether they want to or not. Trusting a pedophile not to attack a child is truly foolish indeed.
On another note I fail to see how the german laws you cite are any more stifling to free speech than laws prohibiting libel. Neonazism is tightly coupled to malicious defamation of jews - according to the laws of most countries that constitutes libel. Mentioning neonazism explicitly in the law just serves to simplify libel lawsuits.
Exactly...
Those laws are about antagonizing ethnic groups with lies that are know to be false without a doubt.
Completely different is trying to annihilate a minority culture, such as the war the Turks are raging on the Kurds.
Namely, in Germany it's against the law to be part of certain neo-nazi ideologies and holocaust denial
The Kurds are a large displaced and repressed culture. Turkey is using NATO weapons in a war on it's own citizens because of their race.
Holocaust denail et al, is more akin to telling lies, that are known to be lies without doubt, and furthermore, these lies seriously offend an ethnic group.
Zundel, a holocaust denialist, was charged and convicted of "knowingly publishing false news", on this very issue...
Using a recent distribution is no more difficult for home and office users than using windows or MacOSX
I've done (informal) experiments on my friends, using both OS X and Linux.
My conclusions are that Linux has a _long_ way to go before it becomes as usable as OS X... there are some nice features about linux distros that OS X could use, (uninstalling software anyone?), but for an intuitive, complete desktop experience, OSX is vastly superiour.
I always felt that maybe 2004 will be the year for the linux desktop... but so was 2003, and 2002. I'm not holding my breath anymore.
I think we'll see real change when the distros create a standard package format. They could use a wrapper around rpm, with a config file that takes care of specific disto-isms. I really don't know much about package management details, so I don't know how feasible that is, but something needs to be done to make it so that developers can release a single rpm (and source rpm), and that rpm will always work on every installation. That's fairly close to how it works on OS X and Windows.
I think the installation programs and hardware detection are making good headway, and KDE is quite good, but the whole experience is cluncky compared to OSX and even with the spyware and virus hassle, people seem to be able to get more out of their windoz experiences.
The system was pretty good, but corporations, always trying to extend the definition of themselves, have successfully destroyed the checks and balances. Any sane system will require human intervention so that it can evolve with the needs of the society that it serves. It is these humans who are first corrupted. For example, a patent lawyer who worked for the patent office may be given a very nice job package with a private patent firm, if they play ball. The message is then clear to remaining USPTO lawyers. Offers such as these are always made reasonable at first, so that the culture of the USPTO would never revolt against it. After a while it would become a goal to get a well paid job in private industry, via the USPTO.
At the core of corruption in our society is this type of breakdown between those who are protecting the public interests, and those serving private interests. Such corruption has always been a problem, and history has given us some novel examples of how different regimes have dealt with it. For example, the Ottomans used castrated Christian's (that were usually captured in wars with Europe) as administrators... presumably because they would hate everyone equally. Our British heritage has given us the division of powers and the democratic system. The people who designed those systems were very aware of these types of problems, and did an excellent job.
The problem is that it's impossible to change human nature... but we can change human culture. To me, the current culture of "why didn't I think of that patent first", is the most alarming thing about the whole patent debacle. It will take a serious revolt against the "status quo" to see any real change.
Slashdot Mirror
2. Anybody who says that Linux isn't ready for the desktop is misinformed, or a liar.
The power of your statement is completely lost by the way you package it. Linux is getting there... but there are still problems
Driver support (Mum and Dad's new digital camera)
Package management (I need to run the latest aMule, which requires the latest GTK which isn't supplied by YaST, and other such nasties)
Application support - the basics are there, but there are a lot of missing applications, such as quality mixing software (that's what my friends so with their computers).
IE only compatible websites. Like it or not... they are out there, and people use them (for example, to trade stocks online). It made IBMs life a misery
Have you given OS X a run? It suffers from none of these problems, and gives a complete, smooth and consistent user experience. Linux is getting there, but is still only for the technical and the interested.
How much do I miss Windows? Well... I'll probably finish copying some miscellaneous files over from the the Windows partition and reformat it this weekend.
It may take you a few minutes to do this... but hours to install it again. You probably think you'll NEVER install it again... think before you leap.
what does time have to do with anything
If you're engaged in a conflict with someone or something... it's very easy to get carried away. If you feel like you're in the mood where you'll say something stupid, unproductive, mean or just something you'll regret, then you just need a little perspective before you open your mouth.
In 500 years, no-one will care about argument you had with someone. That's an easy place to start.
Are you trying to say "watch your language in front of the ladies"?
If your saying something which will make any situation worse, and your audience will feel like that have to tune you out because it threatens their point of view, or because it's such a political topic...
Then you should find a better way to get your point across.
This applies in all situations. It's just common sense. If you're talking to drive through someone, then there's no real communication taking place, and you're only trying to pump yourself up... however "valid" your statement is.
It's not what you say... not even how you say it... but you disposition when you say it.
I'm just curious, here. No need for offense or attacks.
None taken.
Perhaps you (and I) ARE sexist, but don't really know it, because we don't WANT to be sexist. An interesting notion don't you think?
I say that because you seem to care about this type of hypocrisy... you are taking it personally, as though it will swallow up your own sense of maleness if you nod your head in approval at such behaviour.
THIS IS OKAY. Nothing to be ashamed about. Just try to understand their point of view, and have compassion for their struggle to find happiness. Once you understand someone's point of view, you'll understand your own point of view better, and you won't feel your self identity threatened.
I'm amazed by how many 'feminists' I've known who firmly believe that no man should ever hit any women no matter what
It is elementary to think up a situation that makes this statement false. There is, however, a lot to be said for the spirit of this statement. A lot of women get abused physically.
I'm going to lay her out like I would a man who did the same thing
Don't think of such things or you'll suddenly find them, and it won't be an accident! If you are being assaulted by a women, and she really is threatening your safety, then you'll automatically defend yourself. If she isn't threatening, then all you need to is say "You ought to be ashamed of yourself".
Seems like many feminists believe not that women = men, but that women >= men
Everybody thinks they are better than average... it is easy to see that this natural human disposition can lead one to think that one sex is >= to the other sex. Again, just have some compassion for their point of view, and if they get too carried away... laugh at their foolishness!
I appreciate your comment, and it may be true for some women, however, before you make such a statement you should:
- Close your eyes
- Breath deeply
- Appreciate the people you are talking about are people
- You'll be all dead in 500 years (that gives you perspective)
Isn't such a comment only going to make the situation worse? Surely there's a better way to get your point across.Completely wrong IMHO, but a good statement none the less.
Empathy isn't "understanding" the human brain. It's about using the "non-clever" side of your mind to appreciate the people in your life. This is completely different to the "clever" side of the mind, which can understand relativity, bride building, social structures, gender roles and other "systems".
The empathic mind can appreciate what Taoists would call the "uncarved block", which points to the inability of clever-mind to really see and understand.
The difference is profound. It is like a guitar playing being so in touch with his music, that he losses his clever mind, and "emapthically" joins with the music. It is what the lyrics of "Stairway to Heaven" are about.
It is because of this natural (cultural or genetic) bias women have toward empathy, that I believe, on average, women find meaning in their lives earlier than men. Men do have this ability, if they choose to use it...
IMHO, I believe that empathy and cleverness (understanding systems) are two completely different tools that we have, each suited to different situations.
I hope I live to see the day when we laugh at the quaint squeemishness of our age to admit what every other age and people have plainly known.
It's just that not every age has known this. In fact, possibly NO age has known this. Most societies have been either male or female dominated (usually male) and in many cases the "weaker" sex is considered completely inferior - presumably to preserve the status-quo.
Equality between the sexes is breaking new ground, but first it must survive the principle that there ARE real differences in the abilities of each sex.
That means we need equality WITH the understanding of slightly unequal abilities. The playing field must be equal, and everybody appreciated for their individual strengths, and not ashamed of their individual weaknesses.
a lot of the comments I've heard seem to be based on this being automatically sexist as opposed to people showing good studies that demonstrate the this isn't at all correct
That's the real problem with talking about a sensitive issue. It's such an issue that we really have to dig deeper, past the literal meaning of the comments, to see the type of person making them, and the context in which they were made. Then we can assess whether this is a sexist comment, or a serious attempt at trying to understand the sexes better.
He also cited as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral upbringing. Yet he said she named them "daddy truck" and "baby truck," as if they were dolls
Children know if they are boys or girls and that it's permanent - this child was old enough to speak, she had probably been copying her mother for years, learning facial expressions and body language.
Besides, it's complete irrelevant. What place does such absurd anecdotal evidence have in the differences in Maths ability between men and women?
IMHO, they were sexist comments because of the point of view of the person making them.
I have two young children and I absolutely WILL NOT put up with them being shown any nudity without my permission
Kid's do what they see, not what they are told to do. You are teaching them to be ashamed of nudity.
As their father it is up to me to decide what they see and what they don't
A parent doesn't OWN their children. A parent is the GUARDIAN of their children. But children are independent living beings that are slowly coming into the world of adults. You can't imprison their minds.
They have acted in good faith and given me the choice
Perhaps they lied about the reality of the statue... isn't that bad faith?
It's called responsible parenting. Never think of that, little 18 year old.
It sounds to me like you'll have a few 18 year olds in your house one day. Better prepare yourself for the worst.
Life and parenting isn't as simple as jumping on the moral high ground.
Most Mac users don't want to run second-hand programs, and second-hand is exactly the impression OO.o leaves on the Mac.
The very first chapter of the original "Inside Mac" talked about how GUI programs should communicate with the user. One major point that was made over and over again was consistency. If Mac does something one way, then anything else just isn't "Mac". Every OS has a feel like that, but on the Mac it's more consistent.
Pushing the rules of another interface guidline make OO.o appear clunky, and ill conceived.
I was really looking forward to an Aqua port of OO.o.
Yep.
For each application I would have to add an entry to PATH and possibly LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Let's think outside the box =).
Since there are applications I want to run, but can't trust (such as p2p, or anything proprietry), it would be great to partition my little secutiry island (I mean my user account) for each application that I run.
Thus, when I double click on the App I want to run (think OS X application bundles), a script takes care of a chroot jail, setting up resource auditing etc. Nothing need happen to the PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and all of a sudden I could make in impossible for individual applications to access the network.
It could be simple and intuitive to the end user. You could delete an application by just... deleting it. All configuration information etc. can we neatly stored in the app bundle.
OS X also privdes a 'Library' directory where applications can store per-user information and anything that should logically persist outside of the app bundle.... with such a design, you're not burning any bridges.
Resource usage may be a problem... if something isn't done to manage duplicate copies of the same library in a sensible manor. If I'm not mistaken, UNIX systems load instances of libraries into memory for each process that uses the library... so your main concern is disk space usage.
Libraries _could_ still be centrally stored, with soft links in the app bundles. All of this could automatically be handled when you run the application. For example, your run script (open on OS X) might identify and keep a hash table of libraries. If it identifies two libraries that are the same (exact binary duplicates) it could move them to a common directory, and provide soft links back to the app bundle. When a bundle is deleted... just hink counting semaphores.
With next generation file systems, it may be possible to automatically identify all libraries of a certain ilk in one foul swoop and do this automatically, when you copy files... kinda like a copy-on-write smart pointer. This would make it possible to upgrade all app bundles.
It's all possible, and I think this would be preferrable for end user applications (such as the future Photoshop-Linux), since it's so intuitive to the end user, and gives the application distributor so much flexiblity, since they won't have to consider each different distribution
Package management systems like rpm, urpmi, yast, apt-get, are very cool, but if I want to compile and install my own program, or run the lastest Firefox (with the latest dependent libraries), I can end up with a mess that can be time consuming to clean up. It requires too much Unix savvy for windoze users.
If you've ever used OS X (or Mac Classic), and "installed" a program by copying it from a disk onto your hard disk (anywhere), and then later "uninstalled" it by dragging it into the trash... that's simplicity.
People don't think, socially, p2p is that wrong because they see the insane extent of copyright law
Most people think that copyright law means you have no right to copy. I'm talking Joe Sixpack. From a PR point of view the copyright cartels have already won.
People either "don't care" or feel a little guilty about downloading. It's fun, free, easy to do... it's just human nature to hoard 1000s of mp3s. Any law (in a democracy) that goes so thoroughly against human nature is suspect at best.
So even thought the PR battle has been won by *IAA and co., there's no changing human nature, which means that P2P will be huge until there is a technical "solution" for copyright holders.
The *IAA has such good access to our politicians, so much media power and the issues are so poorly understood by the public that I don't think we'll ever see any rational discussion in parliment over the issue.
will drive people to use alternatives sooner due to supply/demand curves
Syntehtic rubber came about because of supply/demand, and maybe technologies like this will mean that supply will keep increasing for the time being.
OMG! That's precisely what's happening. For example, the common by-products of splitting Uranium-235 atoms are Iodine, Caesium, Strontium, Xeon and Barium.
Know I'm not too up on this, but...
- Iodine gets absorbed into your thyroid (nasty), and if it's radioactive, then you're probably in a bad place
- Caesium exists naturally in sea water
- Strontium is chemically similar to Calcium, and thus ends up in your bones and will probably give you Leuikemia
- Xenon is a noble gas, so trace amounts of radioactive isotopes probably aren't harmful
- Barium is highly reactive, and most of it's isotopes have very short half-lifes. Don't know what the biological consequences are of Barium waste.
You can't turn uranium into gold, for exampleUranium-238 and Uranium-235 naturally turn into lead
A few years ago I saw a decay chain from Uranium to Gold, but I can't remember the isotopes involved.
We use the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements to fuel our generators. We do nothing like smashing atoms into smaller bits.
Radioactivity is spontaneous and considered genuinely random. You can't control it, you can't create a chain "decay" reaction etc. Radioactivity and fission/fusion are related because they are both topics of nuclear physics (or chemistry), and because fission/fusion reactions often involve radioactive isotopes. That is not necessarily the case... combining two Deuterium atoms into Helium atom involves no radioactivity.
The mass of a nucleus is less than the mass of it's parts, and the difference is the "binding energy". For example, the mass of two protons and two neutrons is greater than the mass of a He nucleus that contains two protons and two neutrons. Iron has the "smallest" mass per proton/neutron, and thus the least binding energy.
When you split a Uranium nucleus into two smaller nuclei, the mass of those two nuclei is always less than the mass of the original Uranium nucleous. Mass is not conserved in this reaction. The difference in mass is converted into energy according to Einstein's well known formula: e=mc2.
The heat generated from a controlled fission reaction is used to boil water that turns a generator.
And copyright here is poorly understood. I turned up at "Copy Canada" to copy a piece of 18thCentuary music that was published in 1920. They flat out refused to do it because they said they'd be infringing copyright... the business had received letters from "concerned industry representatives" to that effect.
So they knew nothing about copy-right, so I explained it to them. They said they didn't believe me... after all, how could someone make a buck out of selling that music if you could photocopy it for free?
Since then, I've found the pretty much everyone I meet feels that copyright means that you have no right to copy. How ironic.
The copyright-cartel can pass any laws they want and everyone will suck it up. It makes me want to slay myself.
Who cares if the US objects to laws in Australia? How is it any of the their business?
Like it or not, sovereignty is considered the enemy of free trade... and there is a global push (call it globalisation) to put economic (usually big corporate) interests ahead of the ability for a country to pass it's own laws.
I agree with you about self-esteem being potentially the most important factor, but then why does the US system fair comparatively poorly to those systems which don't coddle the kids as much?
Perhaps kids are really smart enough to work out that they are being coddled (omg, they can think!). Thus coddling them _reduces_ their self-esteem... creating a vicious circle of hand-holding and feeling useless, all with natural human laziness mixed in. The end result is a very negative mind space.
In general, you have to push people (including myself) to get them to find any sort of excellence within themselves. You have to create a competitive atmosphere to create competitive results.
Once they see the spark of their own ability... well I'm willing bet self-esteem in those Czech schools isn't the problem it is in the US.
Just another irony of not studying the close relationship between action (attempting to life self-esteem) and reaction (kids feeling that they can drift through school).
Look up the solution... there's no way that someone works out how to do it without learning the solution... the solution required study from specialized people. The last "move" took a whole bunch of people a long time to work out how to do reliably. The solution is easy to learn as an algorithm, but understanding how it works and reaching those conclusions without help... is a wild leap. It was the most simple-complex puzzle of its time.
I do believe that some people would understand how to solve the Rubik's Cube intuitively, but I think you'd be talking 1 in a million... adding to the myth-ous and "coolness" of the puzzle.
While propaganda can influence opinion, it is not mind control. If we believe in democracy, we have to have faith on this, or we might as well just roll over and wait for our new alien overlords to take over.
Don't be too sure until someone you know is indoctrinated by a cult. Kinda brings the reality of being human into sharp focus.
There are two reasons why censorship is a bad idea. The first is that democracy depends on there being a healthy debate of the issues. Using the law to silence your opponent in a debate is like winning a chess match by shooting your opponent.
We're not talking about censorship to silence an opponent in a debate. We're talking a completely different ballpark. People knowingly making false statements that are known to be false and also known to cause anxiety in others. It's kinda like name calling at school. Sure you can argue that it's harmless... until someone takes it too far... and people die.
We're also talking about pornographic materials being circulated for people who suffer from a serious condition; sexual desire of minors. These people are human beings, like everyone else, but they also have the potential of causing great harm... just like any psychopath has the potential to cause harm.
I think we can agree that sex with children is wrong. But what about sex with minors who are past the age of puberty but are below the (local) age of consent?
This is a different issue from adults preying on young children.
If we don't want our children to grow up Nazis, then we shouldn't ban Triumph of the Will. Instead, we should show it in schools - and then take a week to discuss the propaganda techniques used in it. And refute what few logical arguments it uses.
I believe this is naive, but it's hard to explain. Basically human beings believe that they are logical, that they are in control, that they know what's going on, but we fool ourselves. I studied mind control, and as I've grown older I've come to realize just how impossibly irrational even the most logical person is. I've seen how we automatically control and feed off each other as we talk... and how that is immensely more powerful on our discursive thought that our feeble and poorly understood powers of logic. Propaganda works on a level that is far beyond our ability to control with the powers of reason. For example, most people will give you a metric tonne of reasons for why they vote for a particular party, but more often then not, it's because their parents also vote for that party, even if they don't talk about it.
In theory, we should have the freedom to do anything so long as we cause no harm... not every human being is capable of this even if they try. That's were the law should step in, to draw a line between right and wrong. I know it doesn't really work like that, but that's the intent. I'm trying to say that censorship has a roll to play in preventing some people from harming others. If you don't believe me, if you think that you're somehow immune to the messages being pumped into you by propaganda of various forms... then I'd recommend studying advertising for one, and secondly you should seriously try to meet some victims of atrocities... really get to know them.
Remember, that many despicable crimes of yesterday are normal things today. Like publishing research opposing church doctrine, advocating slavery abolition, homosexual relationships and extramarital sex. And remember, that many yesterday's terrorists are today's war heroes of new nations that fought for their freedom
But you know that holocaust happened, and that the KKK committed horrible abuses against Americans. If these people are ever heros, then you'd be living in a place like Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
Why is it bad to let these people peddle their propaganda? Like it or not, propaganda works, just like advertising. These people can push their racist agenda, and create a racist society. If you think that's no big deal, then you've never been on the end of racism (Note, I haven't myself, but I've seen the effects). Racism is undeniably wrong, just like thugs roaming the streets beating up gays is wrong.
You may think the government should have anything to say about that... but just as the government has to intervene in the economy, it needs to intervene to make sure that a countries different ethnic groups don't start killing each other... and one common sense measure is to make it illegal to knowingly spread false news that causes grievous offence to an ethnic group. Simple.
I don't see how anyone would be hurt by someone advocating paedophilia, or disseminating synthetic pedophiliac images
Wow. Don't you know that some people cause harm in society? Have you heard of serial killers? Rapists? Psychotic individuals? How would you deal with such people?
Pedophilea is deviant behaviour, but that is not why these people are hounded. Sexual attraction is complex and hardwired into the brain. These people fixate on children. So far no problem, but the potential problem is serious harm to children. Yes children are extra important to society.
I'm not sure what place these people have in society because it's believable that they have not choice over their condition. But a serial murderer probably doesn't have a choice over his behaviour for similar reasons. Jails are places to put people who, for some reason, can't live in society. Psychiatric wards serve a similar purpose for the dangerously mentally ill. A genuine pedophile who commits a crime belongs in the former, otherwise, IMHO, they belong in something similar to the later.
So what's wrong with synthetic paedophiliac images? If someone truly seeks out such images because of a hardwired sexual fixation, then steps need to be taken such that they don't harm a real child... because they will whether they want to or not. Trusting a pedophile not to attack a child is truly foolish indeed.
On another note I fail to see how the german laws you cite are any more stifling to free speech than laws prohibiting libel. Neonazism is tightly coupled to malicious defamation of jews - according to the laws of most countries that constitutes libel. Mentioning neonazism explicitly in the law just serves to simplify libel lawsuits.
Exactly...
Those laws are about antagonizing ethnic groups with lies that are know to be false without a doubt.
Completely different is trying to annihilate a minority culture, such as the war the Turks are raging on the Kurds.
Namely, in Germany it's against the law to be part of certain neo-nazi ideologies and holocaust denial
The Kurds are a large displaced and repressed culture. Turkey is using NATO weapons in a war on it's own citizens because of their race.
Holocaust denail et al, is more akin to telling lies, that are known to be lies without doubt, and furthermore, these lies seriously offend an ethnic group.
Zundel, a holocaust denialist, was charged and convicted of "knowingly publishing false news", on this very issue...
in the true land of the free...
Canada
Using a recent distribution is no more difficult for home and office users than using windows or MacOSX
I've done (informal) experiments on my friends, using both OS X and Linux.
My conclusions are that Linux has a _long_ way to go before it becomes as usable as OS X... there are some nice features about linux distros that OS X could use, (uninstalling software anyone?), but for an intuitive, complete desktop experience, OSX is vastly superiour.
I always felt that maybe 2004 will be the year for the linux desktop... but so was 2003, and 2002. I'm not holding my breath anymore.
I think we'll see real change when the distros create a standard package format. They could use a wrapper around rpm, with a config file that takes care of specific disto-isms. I really don't know much about package management details, so I don't know how feasible that is, but something needs to be done to make it so that developers can release a single rpm (and source rpm), and that rpm will always work on every installation. That's fairly close to how it works on OS X and Windows.
I think the installation programs and hardware detection are making good headway, and KDE is quite good, but the whole experience is cluncky compared to OSX and even with the spyware and virus hassle, people seem to be able to get more out of their windoz experiences.
The system was pretty good, but corporations, always trying to extend the definition of themselves, have successfully destroyed the checks and balances. Any sane system will require human intervention so that it can evolve with the needs of the society that it serves. It is these humans who are first corrupted. For example, a patent lawyer who worked for the patent office may be given a very nice job package with a private patent firm, if they play ball. The message is then clear to remaining USPTO lawyers. Offers such as these are always made reasonable at first, so that the culture of the USPTO would never revolt against it. After a while it would become a goal to get a well paid job in private industry, via the USPTO.
At the core of corruption in our society is this type of breakdown between those who are protecting the public interests, and those serving private interests. Such corruption has always been a problem, and history has given us some novel examples of how different regimes have dealt with it. For example, the Ottomans used castrated Christian's (that were usually captured in wars with Europe) as administrators... presumably because they would hate everyone equally. Our British heritage has given us the division of powers and the democratic system. The people who designed those systems were very aware of these types of problems, and did an excellent job.
The problem is that it's impossible to change human nature... but we can change human culture. To me, the current culture of "why didn't I think of that patent first", is the most alarming thing about the whole patent debacle. It will take a serious revolt against the "status quo" to see any real change.
its the people who willingly abuse it
Reality check... money corrupts.