Where's our futuristic paradise?
on
The Real Job Threat
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· Score: 5, Insightful
There used to be this sci-fi notion that one day, we'd have robots do all of our work, and it would free humanity to live fulfilling lives without toiling on stupid shit. Now we have robots doing all the work, but instead we've used this as an opportunity to impoverish the people who have been put out of work.
Can we change course? Where is our sci-fi paradise?
Let that be a lesson to you: don't buy a Blackberry. Oh, I know, they were so trendy 10 years ago, but technologically, they're junk.
They have every one of their devices dependent on their servers. Every email you receive goes through RIM's servers, and their servers aren't really that reliable. Why do that to yourself? Why introduce another extraneous point of failure, and another vector for security breaches?
And this has nothing to do with Jobs either. You're participating in the Slashdot echo-chamber.
What do you get out of spitting on the man's grave? You're not changing anyone's mind. You're getting yourself all worked up and angry about the actions of a man who will never act again, and what you're mad at him for is that he made products that you don't want.
I also think part of the problem is that Google bungled the launch. When it was first opened up to the public and it was as hyped as it was ever going to be, it was invitation-only and invitations were scarce. By the time they opened it a few weeks later, many people had already turned sour. In the mean time, Facebook has made improvements to counteract many of the selling points of Google+.
With social networking sites, you have to go big at the start. Once you get people thinking, "My friends aren't on this," you're dead.
Honestly, I don't want them to lower the price back down. I want them to use that increased revenue to license more streaming content. In fact, if they could get to the point that I could pretty much assume that a movie will be available for streaming (and I won't have to get the DVD), and then generally get TV shows as they air (as Hulu, Amazon, and iTunes do), then I would be willing to pay... like maybe $50/month.
Maybe they could throw in a music library (à la Spotify) for that price?
Of course, that's exactly what the media companies who control the licensing *don't* want. It would destroy cable.
Re:"Quikster" split a dumb move to begin with
on
Netflix Kills Qwikster
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I just can't see how they *wouldn't* expect a negative reaction from customers when you tell them "Now you'll have to visit two different sites, with different queues, different passwords, etc." It was taking something simple and making it a much bigger pain in the ass, for no apparent reason.
I agree with whoever said it when it was first announced: It seems like they just didn't think it through. IIRC, there was even a quote by Netflix's president when they asked him about needing to manage separate queues, and he was like, "Oooh, right. Good point. I'll have to get back to you on that one."
My guess is that they were so wrapped up in large-scale business strategies, wanting to separate out DVD and streaming for accounting, legal, and/or marketing reasons, and somehow no one stopped to ask, "What will this mean, on a practical level, for our customers?"
It is most certainly not going to be true, since radio is unlikely to ever go away.
It's not so clean-cut. I don't have a radio. Many people that I know don't have a radio. Given the rate of technological change, I don't think it's outside the bounds to think that a few decades from now, analog radio broadcasts will be an obsolete technology. Besides, the point was not to say that radio would necessarily go away-- it's a thought experiment. If radio went away and the Internet couldn't fill the void because it's not robust enough, then it indicates that we may want to improve Internet infrastructure.
Planning without consideration of costs...
Um... yeah, that's why I said, "lets look at the costs and the downsides." But anyway, it's not really worth using recent infrastructure projects as examples. We live in a society that doesn't understand or value infrastructure in spite of depending on it. We want infrastructure to be there and be completely reliable, we complain about potholes, but at the same time we find it completely unacceptable that the government would engage in the ultra-socialistic project of "filling potholes". In short, we're insane and we have no sense for practicality.
I think the federal government should start with this idea: It may be the case, within a few year or decades, that broadcast radio and TV will go away. Standard telephone lines will go away. Cable networks will go away. And we will be left with one thing: the network that we call the Internet. Even physical travel and shipment of goods may decline in some cases
That may not work out to be true, but let's just start from that stipulation. Let's assume, in addition, that almost everyone will need Internet access the way we assume that almost everyone will need running water and electricity. And let's think about all the ways that the Internet currently fails us in relation to our old infrastructure-- phones may work, for example, even when the power is out. Cell phone networks frequently get overloaded during an emergency. The Internet is currently not as robust.
So, let the Federal government think about these things and devise a plan: "This is how we would make it all work."
Make it robust, fast, ubiquitous, reliable, and something that you can thoroughly take for granted. Even if you aren't ready to commit to making it happen, at least come up with a plan. Then let's look at the costs and the downsides.
I'm not sure who to blame here, but I've seen something like this several times in my career: Someone sets up a big elaborate system to detect security threats, monitor their systems, or enforce a workflow. Then the people in charge cheer how this system is going to solve all of their problems, and they cede all responsibility to the computer. They don't check whether the system is working the way it should. They don't pay attention to the alerts the system kicks out.
Having seen it so many times, I've learned a valuable lesson: there is no replacement for a smart and diligent person who is paying attention and exercising good judgment. I don't care how advanced your computer system is, it won't do your job for you.
Meanwhile in the US, many of us are still dealing with DSL and 2 Mbps down,.3 Mbps up. Even in NYC, depending on the neighborhood, you might not be able to get a 10Mbps symmetrical connection for less than $1,500/month.
I think it should also be recognized that Jobs relentlessly pursued the idea that computers should be able to be used by normal people, that computers should not be frustrating, and that computers can be tools for making beautiful things and not just utilitarian things. At various times in the history of personal computing, Jobs pushed these ideas forward in ways that changed the direction of the industry.
So we can argue whether Windows is better than OSX or whether Android phones are better than iPhones, but without Apple (and Jobs) pushing the idea that computers should be easy to use and that they should be beautiful, it's unlikely that Windows and Android would be as good as they are.
I know that often these kinds of analyses can be right: imposing too many restrictions can hurt an industry.
However, sometimes these things just turn into hopeless naysaying. The government can't create any law or regulation without someone complaining that it will destroy the economy. Yes, having laws against lead-based paint in children's toys probably hurts some profits, causes some economic efficiency and "hurts the economy" in some ways. Sometimes that kind of economic efficiency isn't the most important thing.
Also, sometimes these analyses miss important things: the loss in economic efficiency due to banning lead-based paint is offset by having fewer healthcare costs due to lead poisoning, and also having a more efficient workforce in 20 years because of all the children who weren't sickened or killed by lead poisoning.
Most likely, carrying your phone and carrying an MP3 player is heavier and takes up more room than carrying a phone that does both. If you're "fighting with your cell phone to just play music" then I guess you have a crappy phone.
In the real world, they're not. With a sufficiently educated populace, or a sufficiently minor subset of the populace who gets involved in voting and politics, it can potentially work.
This was the original intention in having a representative democracy-- Our representatives were supposed to be the "minor subset" who were educated on the issues and focused on making good decisions. Unfortunately, we elect bad people who shirk that responsibility.
Well this is probably a move to increase focus, because who is going to buy a Zune? Aside from the iPod being so dominant, stand-alone MP3 players are going away as consumer smart phones take over. If you really want a Zune music player, you'll probably get a Windows-based phone instead.
Well I have my doubts, but they may have a few reasons for doing this. First, it's possible that the specifics on this deal make it beneficial for Apple. Remember that it's not just about selling enough phones-- Apple's original deal with AT&T was supposedly the result, in part, of AT&T being willing to forgo AT&T branding, provide unlimited data plans, and to work with Apple on "visual voicemail". It may be that Apple has an unannounced feature that required carrier cooperation and Sprint was willing to cooperate.
Similarly, it may be that Apple decided that all iPhone 5 models should have 4G support, and only Sprint's 4G network was considered "ready". I don't know how what the current download speeds are that people are getting through WiMax, but it sounds like the HSPA+ networks really should be called 3G+. Verizon LTE is faster, but unfortunately current models using LTE suffer from short battery life. If WiMax is able to achieve superior real-world results, I could see Apple putting some weight behind it.
Yes, but that's certainly not the whole story. In a sense, you could even say that passwords are an instance of "security through obscurity". Your security depends on a lack of knowledge on the attacker, i.e. not-knowing the password.
When I'm running a network, I keep documents on what all the servers are, what their IP addresses are, what services are running and what ports are open. I keep a map of which servers have access to which other servers, and my own assessment of possible attack vectors. If I knew an attacker was trying to gain access to my network, I would certainly prefer that the attacker didn't have access to those documents. If, open reviewing those documents, I see a gaping security hole, then I'll fix it rather than rely on the ignorance of attackers, but I still wouldn't want potential attackers to have access to all of that information.
Realistically, the purpose of security is to make access inconvenient, difficult, and dangerous in proportion to the importance of whatever you're trying to protect. In common practice, your goal is not to make your systems absolutely secure, but instead to make yourself an unappealing target. If gaining access to your system requires a large investment of time, money, energy, interest, and risk while the payout is indeterminate, then you're probably safe.
Your attacker's ignorance is not sufficient security, but it is the first line of defense.
Well maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought the complaints of "security by obscurity" were not that obscurity couldn't be helpful to security, but that it was a bad idea to rely on obscurity.
It seems obvious to me that the more complete the attacker's knowledge, the greater the chance of a successful attack. If an attacker knows which ports are opened, which services are running, which versions of which software are running which services, and whether critical security patches have been applied, for example, it's much easier for them to find an attack vector if there is one. You're more secure if attackers don't know that information about your systems, because it forces them to discover it. That takes additional time and effort, and they may not be able to discover that information at all.
However (and here's the point), it's not a good idea to leave your systems wide open and insecure and hope that attackers don't discover the holes in your security. It's not smart to rely on the attacker's ignorance as the chief (or only) form of protection, because a lot of times that information can be discovered. It's true that "obscurity" is a form of security, but it's a fairly weak form that doesn't hold up over time. The truth tends to out.
What I'm saying is, Flash was about animation. Video is within the realm of animation. That's not so crazy. Deciding that your animation program should now suddenly be an entire development framework to make normal desktop applications is a much bigger inclusion.
So what you're saying isn't "this much is enough, but that much is to much." You're saying "this minor addition is a little too much, but if you add *way* too much you're fine."
I HATE Apple products and could never understand why people would use such a limited device.
Limits don't mean much if you're not running up against them. If all you want to do is browse the Internet, read ebooks, check your email, and use some of the applications available on the iTunes App Store, then you're not running up against any of the iPads limits. For you, the iPad doesn't have any meaningful limits.
So why wouldn't you use a product that does all the things you want it to do? Simply because it doesn't do things you don't care about?
I'm not saying the iPad is for everyone. I don't think I have a use for it, but I also don't get angry at the people who like them.
Well they could always have later versions of the Kindle Fire based on WebOS, and I would wonder if they could even issue a new software update for the Fire that moved it over to Palm. Their applications, include their "shiny new browser", can probably be ported over.
Although their Fire is currently running Android, it doesn't seem like they're aiming aiming to create "just another Android tablet". They want it to be highly customized and focused on directing you to their own services rather than providing a completely open system that encourages you to pull content from wherever.
So given that they're not tied to a particular back-end and they're looking to completely customize the front end, it's probably a pretty good fit. At least, it's probably a better fit than anyone else who's likely to buy Palm.
Ultimately a lot of bloat isn't "bloat" because it's not worthwhile. It's "bloat" because it's stuffed in somewhere that it doesn't need to be, or maybe even someplace it shouldn't be.
Ultimately, we don't need our cross-platform development platform to be the same piece of proprietary software that we're using to make simple vector animations. Those two things can be separate. The problem is, Adobe knows that if they release a platform for world domination on its own, no one will use it. If they shoe-horn it into an inappropriate product that everyone already has installed anyway, then they have a chance at world domination.
Still, I'm confused as to how you can object so strongly to Adobe including video playback in their animation tool, and yet have no problem with making it an entire application framework. It's like saying, "I have no problem throwing in the kitchen sink, but adding this spoon is going too far!"
That was my only point here. Mirroring is not a backup, it's redundancy. It may be pedantic, but I (and many other IT professionals I know) make a distinction because there are practical ramifications. Mirroring/redundancy protects you from catastrophic data loss due to some obvious major failure, but fails to protect you from other common problems, e.g. you delete a file that you didn't mean to or you save a bad version of the file.
Anyway, this all comes down to whether you have more confidence in your RAID array or your backups.
In my mind it comes down to this: if you really care about your data, don't trust anything unless it's necessary. Don't trust your RAID, don't trust your backups, and don't trust your mirroring. Assume that all 3 could go bad, and so try to make each as reliable as possible. However, as I said, if you know what you're doing and you're willing to take you chances, then do what you like. For example, I make very little effort to protect my music library, because in the worst-case scenario, that stuff could be re-purchased, re-downloaded, or re-ripped.
Slashdot Mirror
There used to be this sci-fi notion that one day, we'd have robots do all of our work, and it would free humanity to live fulfilling lives without toiling on stupid shit. Now we have robots doing all the work, but instead we've used this as an opportunity to impoverish the people who have been put out of work.
Can we change course? Where is our sci-fi paradise?
Let that be a lesson to you: don't buy a Blackberry. Oh, I know, they were so trendy 10 years ago, but technologically, they're junk.
They have every one of their devices dependent on their servers. Every email you receive goes through RIM's servers, and their servers aren't really that reliable. Why do that to yourself? Why introduce another extraneous point of failure, and another vector for security breaches?
Just get decent phone.
And this has nothing to do with Jobs either. You're participating in the Slashdot echo-chamber.
What do you get out of spitting on the man's grave? You're not changing anyone's mind. You're getting yourself all worked up and angry about the actions of a man who will never act again, and what you're mad at him for is that he made products that you don't want.
I also think part of the problem is that Google bungled the launch. When it was first opened up to the public and it was as hyped as it was ever going to be, it was invitation-only and invitations were scarce. By the time they opened it a few weeks later, many people had already turned sour. In the mean time, Facebook has made improvements to counteract many of the selling points of Google+.
With social networking sites, you have to go big at the start. Once you get people thinking, "My friends aren't on this," you're dead.
Honestly, I don't want them to lower the price back down. I want them to use that increased revenue to license more streaming content. In fact, if they could get to the point that I could pretty much assume that a movie will be available for streaming (and I won't have to get the DVD), and then generally get TV shows as they air (as Hulu, Amazon, and iTunes do), then I would be willing to pay... like maybe $50/month.
Maybe they could throw in a music library (à la Spotify) for that price?
Of course, that's exactly what the media companies who control the licensing *don't* want. It would destroy cable.
I just can't see how they *wouldn't* expect a negative reaction from customers when you tell them "Now you'll have to visit two different sites, with different queues, different passwords, etc." It was taking something simple and making it a much bigger pain in the ass, for no apparent reason.
I agree with whoever said it when it was first announced: It seems like they just didn't think it through. IIRC, there was even a quote by Netflix's president when they asked him about needing to manage separate queues, and he was like, "Oooh, right. Good point. I'll have to get back to you on that one."
My guess is that they were so wrapped up in large-scale business strategies, wanting to separate out DVD and streaming for accounting, legal, and/or marketing reasons, and somehow no one stopped to ask, "What will this mean, on a practical level, for our customers?"
Not exactly confidence-inspiring.
It's got nothing to do with anything except that the news media loves sensationalism. To that end, they'd like to turn every death into a tragedy.
It's not about hero-worship of Jobs. It's about the news echo-chamber, loving to hear themselves talk.
It is most certainly not going to be true, since radio is unlikely to ever go away.
It's not so clean-cut. I don't have a radio. Many people that I know don't have a radio. Given the rate of technological change, I don't think it's outside the bounds to think that a few decades from now, analog radio broadcasts will be an obsolete technology. Besides, the point was not to say that radio would necessarily go away-- it's a thought experiment. If radio went away and the Internet couldn't fill the void because it's not robust enough, then it indicates that we may want to improve Internet infrastructure.
Planning without consideration of costs...
Um... yeah, that's why I said, "lets look at the costs and the downsides." But anyway, it's not really worth using recent infrastructure projects as examples. We live in a society that doesn't understand or value infrastructure in spite of depending on it. We want infrastructure to be there and be completely reliable, we complain about potholes, but at the same time we find it completely unacceptable that the government would engage in the ultra-socialistic project of "filling potholes". In short, we're insane and we have no sense for practicality.
I think the federal government should start with this idea: It may be the case, within a few year or decades, that broadcast radio and TV will go away. Standard telephone lines will go away. Cable networks will go away. And we will be left with one thing: the network that we call the Internet. Even physical travel and shipment of goods may decline in some cases
That may not work out to be true, but let's just start from that stipulation. Let's assume, in addition, that almost everyone will need Internet access the way we assume that almost everyone will need running water and electricity. And let's think about all the ways that the Internet currently fails us in relation to our old infrastructure-- phones may work, for example, even when the power is out. Cell phone networks frequently get overloaded during an emergency. The Internet is currently not as robust.
So, let the Federal government think about these things and devise a plan: "This is how we would make it all work."
Make it robust, fast, ubiquitous, reliable, and something that you can thoroughly take for granted. Even if you aren't ready to commit to making it happen, at least come up with a plan. Then let's look at the costs and the downsides.
Why has this not already happened?
I'm not sure who to blame here, but I've seen something like this several times in my career: Someone sets up a big elaborate system to detect security threats, monitor their systems, or enforce a workflow. Then the people in charge cheer how this system is going to solve all of their problems, and they cede all responsibility to the computer. They don't check whether the system is working the way it should. They don't pay attention to the alerts the system kicks out.
Having seen it so many times, I've learned a valuable lesson: there is no replacement for a smart and diligent person who is paying attention and exercising good judgment. I don't care how advanced your computer system is, it won't do your job for you.
Meanwhile in the US, many of us are still dealing with DSL and 2 Mbps down, .3 Mbps up. Even in NYC, depending on the neighborhood, you might not be able to get a 10Mbps symmetrical connection for less than $1,500/month.
I think it should also be recognized that Jobs relentlessly pursued the idea that computers should be able to be used by normal people, that computers should not be frustrating, and that computers can be tools for making beautiful things and not just utilitarian things. At various times in the history of personal computing, Jobs pushed these ideas forward in ways that changed the direction of the industry.
So we can argue whether Windows is better than OSX or whether Android phones are better than iPhones, but without Apple (and Jobs) pushing the idea that computers should be easy to use and that they should be beautiful, it's unlikely that Windows and Android would be as good as they are.
I know that often these kinds of analyses can be right: imposing too many restrictions can hurt an industry.
However, sometimes these things just turn into hopeless naysaying. The government can't create any law or regulation without someone complaining that it will destroy the economy. Yes, having laws against lead-based paint in children's toys probably hurts some profits, causes some economic efficiency and "hurts the economy" in some ways. Sometimes that kind of economic efficiency isn't the most important thing.
Also, sometimes these analyses miss important things: the loss in economic efficiency due to banning lead-based paint is offset by having fewer healthcare costs due to lead poisoning, and also having a more efficient workforce in 20 years because of all the children who weren't sickened or killed by lead poisoning.
Meh, unless the phone is tiny and light...
Most likely, carrying your phone and carrying an MP3 player is heavier and takes up more room than carrying a phone that does both. If you're "fighting with your cell phone to just play music" then I guess you have a crappy phone.
In the real world, they're not. With a sufficiently educated populace, or a sufficiently minor subset of the populace who gets involved in voting and politics, it can potentially work.
This was the original intention in having a representative democracy-- Our representatives were supposed to be the "minor subset" who were educated on the issues and focused on making good decisions. Unfortunately, we elect bad people who shirk that responsibility.
Well this is probably a move to increase focus, because who is going to buy a Zune? Aside from the iPod being so dominant, stand-alone MP3 players are going away as consumer smart phones take over. If you really want a Zune music player, you'll probably get a Windows-based phone instead.
Well I have my doubts, but they may have a few reasons for doing this. First, it's possible that the specifics on this deal make it beneficial for Apple. Remember that it's not just about selling enough phones-- Apple's original deal with AT&T was supposedly the result, in part, of AT&T being willing to forgo AT&T branding, provide unlimited data plans, and to work with Apple on "visual voicemail". It may be that Apple has an unannounced feature that required carrier cooperation and Sprint was willing to cooperate.
Similarly, it may be that Apple decided that all iPhone 5 models should have 4G support, and only Sprint's 4G network was considered "ready". I don't know how what the current download speeds are that people are getting through WiMax, but it sounds like the HSPA+ networks really should be called 3G+. Verizon LTE is faster, but unfortunately current models using LTE suffer from short battery life. If WiMax is able to achieve superior real-world results, I could see Apple putting some weight behind it.
Umm... you just described any average company. They all want to maximize profits.
That doesn't necessarily make it right.
Yes, but that's certainly not the whole story. In a sense, you could even say that passwords are an instance of "security through obscurity". Your security depends on a lack of knowledge on the attacker, i.e. not-knowing the password.
When I'm running a network, I keep documents on what all the servers are, what their IP addresses are, what services are running and what ports are open. I keep a map of which servers have access to which other servers, and my own assessment of possible attack vectors. If I knew an attacker was trying to gain access to my network, I would certainly prefer that the attacker didn't have access to those documents. If, open reviewing those documents, I see a gaping security hole, then I'll fix it rather than rely on the ignorance of attackers, but I still wouldn't want potential attackers to have access to all of that information.
Realistically, the purpose of security is to make access inconvenient, difficult, and dangerous in proportion to the importance of whatever you're trying to protect. In common practice, your goal is not to make your systems absolutely secure, but instead to make yourself an unappealing target. If gaining access to your system requires a large investment of time, money, energy, interest, and risk while the payout is indeterminate, then you're probably safe.
Your attacker's ignorance is not sufficient security, but it is the first line of defense.
Well maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought the complaints of "security by obscurity" were not that obscurity couldn't be helpful to security, but that it was a bad idea to rely on obscurity.
It seems obvious to me that the more complete the attacker's knowledge, the greater the chance of a successful attack. If an attacker knows which ports are opened, which services are running, which versions of which software are running which services, and whether critical security patches have been applied, for example, it's much easier for them to find an attack vector if there is one. You're more secure if attackers don't know that information about your systems, because it forces them to discover it. That takes additional time and effort, and they may not be able to discover that information at all.
However (and here's the point), it's not a good idea to leave your systems wide open and insecure and hope that attackers don't discover the holes in your security. It's not smart to rely on the attacker's ignorance as the chief (or only) form of protection, because a lot of times that information can be discovered. It's true that "obscurity" is a form of security, but it's a fairly weak form that doesn't hold up over time. The truth tends to out.
What I'm saying is, Flash was about animation. Video is within the realm of animation. That's not so crazy. Deciding that your animation program should now suddenly be an entire development framework to make normal desktop applications is a much bigger inclusion.
So what you're saying isn't "this much is enough, but that much is to much." You're saying "this minor addition is a little too much, but if you add *way* too much you're fine."
I HATE Apple products and could never understand why people would use such a limited device.
Limits don't mean much if you're not running up against them. If all you want to do is browse the Internet, read ebooks, check your email, and use some of the applications available on the iTunes App Store, then you're not running up against any of the iPads limits. For you, the iPad doesn't have any meaningful limits.
So why wouldn't you use a product that does all the things you want it to do? Simply because it doesn't do things you don't care about?
I'm not saying the iPad is for everyone. I don't think I have a use for it, but I also don't get angry at the people who like them.
Well they could always have later versions of the Kindle Fire based on WebOS, and I would wonder if they could even issue a new software update for the Fire that moved it over to Palm. Their applications, include their "shiny new browser", can probably be ported over.
Although their Fire is currently running Android, it doesn't seem like they're aiming aiming to create "just another Android tablet". They want it to be highly customized and focused on directing you to their own services rather than providing a completely open system that encourages you to pull content from wherever.
So given that they're not tied to a particular back-end and they're looking to completely customize the front end, it's probably a pretty good fit. At least, it's probably a better fit than anyone else who's likely to buy Palm.
Ultimately a lot of bloat isn't "bloat" because it's not worthwhile. It's "bloat" because it's stuffed in somewhere that it doesn't need to be, or maybe even someplace it shouldn't be.
Ultimately, we don't need our cross-platform development platform to be the same piece of proprietary software that we're using to make simple vector animations. Those two things can be separate. The problem is, Adobe knows that if they release a platform for world domination on its own, no one will use it. If they shoe-horn it into an inappropriate product that everyone already has installed anyway, then they have a chance at world domination.
Still, I'm confused as to how you can object so strongly to Adobe including video playback in their animation tool, and yet have no problem with making it an entire application framework. It's like saying, "I have no problem throwing in the kitchen sink, but adding this spoon is going too far!"
True, no attempt is made to preserve old versions
That was my only point here. Mirroring is not a backup, it's redundancy. It may be pedantic, but I (and many other IT professionals I know) make a distinction because there are practical ramifications. Mirroring/redundancy protects you from catastrophic data loss due to some obvious major failure, but fails to protect you from other common problems, e.g. you delete a file that you didn't mean to or you save a bad version of the file.
Anyway, this all comes down to whether you have more confidence in your RAID array or your backups.
In my mind it comes down to this: if you really care about your data, don't trust anything unless it's necessary. Don't trust your RAID, don't trust your backups, and don't trust your mirroring. Assume that all 3 could go bad, and so try to make each as reliable as possible. However, as I said, if you know what you're doing and you're willing to take you chances, then do what you like. For example, I make very little effort to protect my music library, because in the worst-case scenario, that stuff could be re-purchased, re-downloaded, or re-ripped.