The Wikipedia is about the search for verifiable fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.
Yes, you're right. And further, the Wikipedia didn't invent this sort of thing. It's sort of a long-standing procedure when doing a certain sort of writing, which is why you cite your sources.
Of course, it's not quite as passive as you're making it sound. The Wikipedia authors (and other writers of that sort) don't merely accumulate facts and present every report equally all the time. They pick and choose what sources to use, and put it together in a (hopefully) coherent explanation. They may present conflicting information from different sources, but only in cases where they're aware of multiple semi-trustworthy sources giving differing viewpoints. Often, if one source is substantially more trustworthy, they'll take that as true.
However, like I said, this isn't new or different. It's what journalists and academics have done for a very long time, and it doesn't really redefine "truth".
Granted, if you _have_ to have some particular OS X only software a Mac is the only option.
Maybe he's not referring to an outright requirement, but rather a need for an OS that runs photoshop and doesn't make you want to throw the computer out the Window? Just because an OS runs the applications you need doesn't mean the OS is meeting your needs.
Not to mention that the review picks Lenovo and Sony, two of the most expensive brands.
From TFA:
The new MacBook is in the same ballpark pricewise as fancier high-style 13-inch Windows laptops. But if you're happy with something a little more basic, you can get a Windows 13-incher for a lot less--or, for that matter, the white MacBook, which is a good deal at its new price.
There's no contradiction there. The author is just arguing against this sense that Apple's prices are somehow unprecedented and out of line with any other manufacturers' prices.
And one who breaks security is like the one who alerts the king about wearing no clothes. You WILL get punished. You WILL be dealt with.
Maybe because, in most cases, security is meant to deter the casual threat. You don't need to be some kind of super-spy to break into my apartment, but then the purpose of having a lock on my door isn't to keep super-spies out. Still, I don't particularly want you standing outside my door offering tutorials on how to pick my lock.
Most of their proposals seem to be based on the idea of some sort of dictator, with everyone's best interests in mind. I'm sure like communism it might work well in theory.
Pretty much any governmental/economic system should work well if you stipulate that whoever is running things are brilliant, wise, incorruptible, competent people and nothing goes wrong.
It's pretty clear that a benevolent king or dictator would be a very efficient government, providing you can find a good enough person to be the dictator. Still, the devil is in the details: What oversight is there against corruption at the various levels of the hierarchy of power? How do you ensure that the government is kept aware of the needs of the people? How do you keep the voices of the majority from drowning out the voice of justice?
But when trying to build a power hierarchy, probably the most important question is, what happens when that system breaks down? If you have a great benevolent dictator, what happens when that leader retires or dies? How much damage can be done by one corrupt individual? And if systemic corruption does happen, how far from "justice" can your government's actions get before it can be rectified?
The founding fathers of the US sought to build a system that you might say was very "fault tolerant". A big part of that scheme was to keep power very divided. The theory was that, if you had many groups of relatively equal power fighting over power, you'd have to get lots of various groups to agree in order to take any action. That was the idea behind having 3 separate branches of government, and also behind having several semi-sovereign states that were joined together in a Republic.
I know, this is a bit of a tangential rant. I guess I went into all this because I get the willies whenever anyone gets the idea of utopian governments where we all unify behind ideals. As counter-intuitive as it is, I'd much rather us splinter into lots of small groups that all fight each other except when we find common interests.
There are probably lessons that the government could learn from FOSS development models, especially with regards to transparency and feedback. Our government probably needs a better bug tracker, at least. Of course, they already know how to blow off suggestions from their own users and focus instead on scratching their own itch.
All "modern" government systems (democracy, communism, you name it), or in fact, all government systems until now, had one giant elephant of a problem sitting right there in the middle of the room:
There are humans governing others.
On the other hand, all government systems have one giant elephant of a virtue sitting right in the middle of the room:
There are humans governing others.
You see, any system that you put into place will fail unless someone intervenes, and systems can be gamed. Have a computer system running things, and how long until we get the governmental equivalent of spam?
I know it's hard to think about sometimes because people can be so easily corrupted, but their judgment can also save the day sometimes. Think of the court system as an example. It's true that sometimes juries can make the wrong decisions, and judges can abuse their power. On the other hand, the application of law without judgment or compassion would be a disaster. There are too many times where the spirit of the law gets lost in the technicalities, and it takes human judgment to understand and reverse those injustices.
It is just not in the mainstream, so there is little reason to include it on a machine that is primarily made to meet a price point.
And I think the market segmentation makes a certain amount of sense. The most stripped-down model (Air) has 1 usb port, audio out, and a display port. The next heftier model adds another USB port, ethernet port, DVD writer, and audio-in. And then they have the Pro model with an expansion card, bigger/better screen, firewire, and a better graphics card.
So while the Air is stripped down to the bare essentials for someone who's willing to sacrifice a lot for the sake of mobility, the Pro model adds some higher-end features that most people can do without.
So if you really need those "Pro" features, then you buy the Pro laptop. Meanwhile everyone else will save money by not paying for hardware they don't need. I'll be among those who will miss having firewire on the Macbooks, but I recognize that there are trade-offs. More hardware generally means a bigger, more expensive package.
That's a great idea, except that the machine that they dropped Firewire from is their low-end laptop, which doesn't have any slots for expansion cards.
Not only that, but Macs usually have this nice little feature called "target disk mode". Basically, I can reboot my computer into target disk mode, and then it acts like an external hard drive through firewire. This can be very handy for troubleshooting, imaging, and repair.
The problem here is that USB doesn't support it. I don't know the technical details of why, but supposedly it's something that firewire can do because of something about the hardware spec or the protocols it uses, and whatever it is, USB doesn't have that, and you can't fix it with software. (from what I understand)
I'm going to miss having that option, though I'm not sure it's a deal-breaker for many people.
Well I assume the logic goes like this: for whatever their given crime is, locking them up for the rest of their lives would be cruel and unusual punishment, but warning people that they're "sex offenders" wouldn't be. Since sexual offenders are less likely to be rehabilitated, these people remain dangerous for longer than they can be locked up, and people around them deserve to be warned.
Now I'm not sure that the ideas in the preceding paragraph area true, but I'm suggesting that that's the logic behind these policies.
Maybe. It depends on why they're considered a "sex offender". But from what I understand, it's not easy to keep someone forcibly locked up in a mental institution for the rest of their lives, and some people aren't going to be "cured".
Yes, you're right, it'd be great if there were a simple solution to criminal justice, where people got locked up for exactly as long as they needed to, and walked out completely rehabilitated. That's just not what our system does, and I don't know a system that does that.
I'm as guilty as hell of this. I just don't get why anyone would buy OSX version 10.x
But that's my point. What difference does the version number make? What does it matter whether they call it version 10.5 and 10.6, version 15 and 16, or version 50 and 60? It's the next major release version. They could call it 10.0.0.5 and 10.0.0.6, and the real question would still be, "Does it have enough improvements to be worth the cost of upgrading?"
I'm not really going to argue with your point about Linux-- except to say that Linux being great doesn't negate the possibility that someone could find value in one of the alternatives. To each his own.
Now, if your research showed there were two products that might do what you want: Foo v1.01 and Bar v6.0. Which one would you choose, based solely on version number?
This also reminds me of the OSX issue. I bet when Snow Leopard comes out, you'll once again hear the trolls saying, "Why are people spending $130 to buy a point release? You just bought 10.5, and you're willing to spend money just to get 10.6? Windows service packs are FREE!"
So how you number things seems like a valid marketing concern. If they bought version 1.0, they aren't going to want to spend money on version 1.01, or even 1.7. But take that new version, and without adding a single feature, relabel it as 2.0, and people will think it's valid to spend money on it.
In short, Obama supported a bill which provided "age appropriate sex education", which for young kids meant teaching them to avoid predators. McCain put out ads that tried to make it seem like Obama just wants to teach little kids about sex.
1. Cui bono? Why would they bother to do this, except just to be a dick?
2. I rather suspect that the penalty for supplying false information will be comparably stiff to not supplying it at all, which would seem to be sufficient deterrent.
Do you really think that it's not worth considering what happens if people do things just to be dicks? Maybe Slashdot trolls are too highbrow to make this clear-- have you seen the "dumbass" and "florida" articles on FARK? Have you seen 4chan?
Negative consequences won't stop people from being dicks. Hell, if people didn't do things with negative consequences, then there wouldn't be a need for a sex offender registry.
Perhaps a better law would be one that provides funding to help teach kids on the Internet about sexual predators and give them the information they need to avoid them.
Of course, if you suggest that law, your political opponents might make ads accusing you of wanting to teach kindergardeners about sex.
A very salient point: If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?
Er... because they have rights?
I mean, yes, perhaps we could re-evaluate particular statutes, but criminals can't be held in jail for longer than their prison sentence. Often, it's hard to just lock someone up and throw away the key because of protections against "cruel and unusual punishment".
Of course, it depends (at least somewhat) on what you consider to be a "sex offender". I was reading a story earlier today about a teenage girl who might be forced to register as a sex offender for distributing nude pictures of herself.
That's fine, but why? If you're not going to be routing anything in to those machines anyway, what's the benefit?
If there is a difference, I'd generally rather not let anyone get to the point of expecting a routable IP for any particular machine, except for servers where it's actually necessary. Then you should be able to reassign IPs arbitrarily and just update your NAT for your couple servers without anything breaking. But then, I also prefer to use DHCP and rely on name resolution, only making exceptions where necessary, so maybe it's just an issue of what problems you want to deal with?
most of our internal network is those 3.x addresses, behind firewalls so basically useless
Out of curiosity, can anyone give any reason for why you would want to do that? I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Even if there's no difference, I think I'd probably prefer to give people non-routable addresses, but maybe that's neurotic on my part.
Just to add on: depending what you imagine with my frosted glass "analogy", it might not be an inexact analogy at all, but pretty much exactly literally what's happening. The matt finish does the same thing to light as frosted glass, but it's not heavily frosted and the display is directly behind it, effect on the image behind it isn't extreme.
You've already gotten some answers, but the truth is that a lot of different factors are converging:
It's become a bit of a fad. Technology isn't immune to fashion, and fashions come in and out of style. There was a period when glossy screens were rare, and therefore some people thought they looked cool. Now everyone is moving towards glossy screens because that's where the demand is, and I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point, there was a move back toward matte.
Apple has moved toward using glass in their designs, partially for structural/durability reasons, and glass is naturally glossy.
Another advantage of glass is it's easier to care for and clean without damaging. Glossy things are generally easier to clean, but also with glass, if you do happen to damage it, there's a better chance you can polish it rather than replacing it.
Because of how matte finishes refract/disperse the light, you can get more vivid colors with higher contrast, giving the appearance of a brighter/sharper image.
The last point is probably the trickiest to understand. If you want an easy-to-imagine analogy, think about trying to look at an image through clear glass vs. translucent frosted glass. It's not exactly right, but hey, it's just an analogy. When you have a matte finish, it scatters the ambient light, which is exactly what keeps it from being "glossy". You don't see a clear reflection of your desk lamp because the light from your desk lamp is being scattered in a bunch of different directions. The matte finish also causes the light from the display itself (the image being displayed) to scatter a bit, too. Because of this, glossy screens can get deeper blacks more vivid colors.
Slashdot Mirror
The Wikipedia is about the search for verifiable fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.
Yes, you're right. And further, the Wikipedia didn't invent this sort of thing. It's sort of a long-standing procedure when doing a certain sort of writing, which is why you cite your sources.
Of course, it's not quite as passive as you're making it sound. The Wikipedia authors (and other writers of that sort) don't merely accumulate facts and present every report equally all the time. They pick and choose what sources to use, and put it together in a (hopefully) coherent explanation. They may present conflicting information from different sources, but only in cases where they're aware of multiple semi-trustworthy sources giving differing viewpoints. Often, if one source is substantially more trustworthy, they'll take that as true.
However, like I said, this isn't new or different. It's what journalists and academics have done for a very long time, and it doesn't really redefine "truth".
Granted, if you _have_ to have some particular OS X only software a Mac is the only option.
Maybe he's not referring to an outright requirement, but rather a need for an OS that runs photoshop and doesn't make you want to throw the computer out the Window? Just because an OS runs the applications you need doesn't mean the OS is meeting your needs.
Who buys those high-end Windows machines? Nobody with any sense.
Exactly. If I'm going to spend extra money to get a "high-end" machine, then that sucker had better not run Windows.
Not to mention that the review picks Lenovo and Sony, two of the most expensive brands.
From TFA:
The new MacBook is in the same ballpark pricewise as fancier high-style 13-inch Windows laptops. But if you're happy with something a little more basic, you can get a Windows 13-incher for a lot less--or, for that matter, the white MacBook, which is a good deal at its new price.
There's no contradiction there. The author is just arguing against this sense that Apple's prices are somehow unprecedented and out of line with any other manufacturers' prices.
And one who breaks security is like the one who alerts the king about wearing no clothes. You WILL get punished. You WILL be dealt with.
Maybe because, in most cases, security is meant to deter the casual threat. You don't need to be some kind of super-spy to break into my apartment, but then the purpose of having a lock on my door isn't to keep super-spies out. Still, I don't particularly want you standing outside my door offering tutorials on how to pick my lock.
Most of their proposals seem to be based on the idea of some sort of dictator, with everyone's best interests in mind. I'm sure like communism it might work well in theory.
Pretty much any governmental/economic system should work well if you stipulate that whoever is running things are brilliant, wise, incorruptible, competent people and nothing goes wrong.
It's pretty clear that a benevolent king or dictator would be a very efficient government, providing you can find a good enough person to be the dictator. Still, the devil is in the details: What oversight is there against corruption at the various levels of the hierarchy of power? How do you ensure that the government is kept aware of the needs of the people? How do you keep the voices of the majority from drowning out the voice of justice?
But when trying to build a power hierarchy, probably the most important question is, what happens when that system breaks down? If you have a great benevolent dictator, what happens when that leader retires or dies? How much damage can be done by one corrupt individual? And if systemic corruption does happen, how far from "justice" can your government's actions get before it can be rectified?
The founding fathers of the US sought to build a system that you might say was very "fault tolerant". A big part of that scheme was to keep power very divided. The theory was that, if you had many groups of relatively equal power fighting over power, you'd have to get lots of various groups to agree in order to take any action. That was the idea behind having 3 separate branches of government, and also behind having several semi-sovereign states that were joined together in a Republic.
I know, this is a bit of a tangential rant. I guess I went into all this because I get the willies whenever anyone gets the idea of utopian governments where we all unify behind ideals. As counter-intuitive as it is, I'd much rather us splinter into lots of small groups that all fight each other except when we find common interests.
There are probably lessons that the government could learn from FOSS development models, especially with regards to transparency and feedback. Our government probably needs a better bug tracker, at least. Of course, they already know how to blow off suggestions from their own users and focus instead on scratching their own itch.
All "modern" government systems (democracy, communism, you name it), or in fact, all government systems until now, had one giant elephant of a problem sitting right there in the middle of the room:
There are humans governing others.
On the other hand, all government systems have one giant elephant of a virtue sitting right in the middle of the room:
There are humans governing others.
You see, any system that you put into place will fail unless someone intervenes, and systems can be gamed. Have a computer system running things, and how long until we get the governmental equivalent of spam?
I know it's hard to think about sometimes because people can be so easily corrupted, but their judgment can also save the day sometimes. Think of the court system as an example. It's true that sometimes juries can make the wrong decisions, and judges can abuse their power. On the other hand, the application of law without judgment or compassion would be a disaster. There are too many times where the spirit of the law gets lost in the technicalities, and it takes human judgment to understand and reverse those injustices.
It is just not in the mainstream, so there is little reason to include it on a machine that is primarily made to meet a price point.
And I think the market segmentation makes a certain amount of sense. The most stripped-down model (Air) has 1 usb port, audio out, and a display port. The next heftier model adds another USB port, ethernet port, DVD writer, and audio-in. And then they have the Pro model with an expansion card, bigger/better screen, firewire, and a better graphics card.
So while the Air is stripped down to the bare essentials for someone who's willing to sacrifice a lot for the sake of mobility, the Pro model adds some higher-end features that most people can do without.
So if you really need those "Pro" features, then you buy the Pro laptop. Meanwhile everyone else will save money by not paying for hardware they don't need. I'll be among those who will miss having firewire on the Macbooks, but I recognize that there are trade-offs. More hardware generally means a bigger, more expensive package.
That's a great idea, except that the machine that they dropped Firewire from is their low-end laptop, which doesn't have any slots for expansion cards.
Not only that, but Macs usually have this nice little feature called "target disk mode". Basically, I can reboot my computer into target disk mode, and then it acts like an external hard drive through firewire. This can be very handy for troubleshooting, imaging, and repair.
The problem here is that USB doesn't support it. I don't know the technical details of why, but supposedly it's something that firewire can do because of something about the hardware spec or the protocols it uses, and whatever it is, USB doesn't have that, and you can't fix it with software. (from what I understand)
I'm going to miss having that option, though I'm not sure it's a deal-breaker for many people.
Well I assume the logic goes like this: for whatever their given crime is, locking them up for the rest of their lives would be cruel and unusual punishment, but warning people that they're "sex offenders" wouldn't be. Since sexual offenders are less likely to be rehabilitated, these people remain dangerous for longer than they can be locked up, and people around them deserve to be warned.
Now I'm not sure that the ideas in the preceding paragraph area true, but I'm suggesting that that's the logic behind these policies.
There are definitely people who would assume so.
Maybe. It depends on why they're considered a "sex offender". But from what I understand, it's not easy to keep someone forcibly locked up in a mental institution for the rest of their lives, and some people aren't going to be "cured".
Yes, you're right, it'd be great if there were a simple solution to criminal justice, where people got locked up for exactly as long as they needed to, and walked out completely rehabilitated. That's just not what our system does, and I don't know a system that does that.
I'm as guilty as hell of this. I just don't get why anyone would buy OSX version 10.x
But that's my point. What difference does the version number make? What does it matter whether they call it version 10.5 and 10.6, version 15 and 16, or version 50 and 60? It's the next major release version. They could call it 10.0.0.5 and 10.0.0.6, and the real question would still be, "Does it have enough improvements to be worth the cost of upgrading?"
I'm not really going to argue with your point about Linux-- except to say that Linux being great doesn't negate the possibility that someone could find value in one of the alternatives. To each his own.
Ah. Haven't we reached a sad state of affairs? Neither of our jokes were funny.
Now, if your research showed there were two products that might do what you want: Foo v1.01 and Bar v6.0. Which one would you choose, based solely on version number?
This also reminds me of the OSX issue. I bet when Snow Leopard comes out, you'll once again hear the trolls saying, "Why are people spending $130 to buy a point release? You just bought 10.5, and you're willing to spend money just to get 10.6? Windows service packs are FREE!"
So how you number things seems like a valid marketing concern. If they bought version 1.0, they aren't going to want to spend money on version 1.01, or even 1.7. But take that new version, and without adding a single feature, relabel it as 2.0, and people will think it's valid to spend money on it.
Well, I was somewhat making a joke. In case you don't know, McCain ran an ad against Obama regarding this exact issue.
In short, Obama supported a bill which provided "age appropriate sex education", which for young kids meant teaching them to avoid predators. McCain put out ads that tried to make it seem like Obama just wants to teach little kids about sex.
1. Cui bono? Why would they bother to do this, except just to be a dick?
2. I rather suspect that the penalty for supplying false information will be comparably stiff to not supplying it at all, which would seem to be sufficient deterrent.
Do you really think that it's not worth considering what happens if people do things just to be dicks? Maybe Slashdot trolls are too highbrow to make this clear-- have you seen the "dumbass" and "florida" articles on FARK? Have you seen 4chan?
Negative consequences won't stop people from being dicks. Hell, if people didn't do things with negative consequences, then there wouldn't be a need for a sex offender registry.
Perhaps a better law would be one that provides funding to help teach kids on the Internet about sexual predators and give them the information they need to avoid them.
Of course, if you suggest that law, your political opponents might make ads accusing you of wanting to teach kindergardeners about sex.
A very salient point: If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?
Er... because they have rights?
I mean, yes, perhaps we could re-evaluate particular statutes, but criminals can't be held in jail for longer than their prison sentence. Often, it's hard to just lock someone up and throw away the key because of protections against "cruel and unusual punishment".
Of course, it depends (at least somewhat) on what you consider to be a "sex offender". I was reading a story earlier today about a teenage girl who might be forced to register as a sex offender for distributing nude pictures of herself.
That's fine, but why? If you're not going to be routing anything in to those machines anyway, what's the benefit?
If there is a difference, I'd generally rather not let anyone get to the point of expecting a routable IP for any particular machine, except for servers where it's actually necessary. Then you should be able to reassign IPs arbitrarily and just update your NAT for your couple servers without anything breaking. But then, I also prefer to use DHCP and rely on name resolution, only making exceptions where necessary, so maybe it's just an issue of what problems you want to deal with?
most of our internal network is those 3.x addresses, behind firewalls so basically useless
Out of curiosity, can anyone give any reason for why you would want to do that? I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Even if there's no difference, I think I'd probably prefer to give people non-routable addresses, but maybe that's neurotic on my part.
Just to add on: depending what you imagine with my frosted glass "analogy", it might not be an inexact analogy at all, but pretty much exactly literally what's happening. The matt finish does the same thing to light as frosted glass, but it's not heavily frosted and the display is directly behind it, effect on the image behind it isn't extreme.
The last point is probably the trickiest to understand. If you want an easy-to-imagine analogy, think about trying to look at an image through clear glass vs. translucent frosted glass. It's not exactly right, but hey, it's just an analogy. When you have a matte finish, it scatters the ambient light, which is exactly what keeps it from being "glossy". You don't see a clear reflection of your desk lamp because the light from your desk lamp is being scattered in a bunch of different directions. The matte finish also causes the light from the display itself (the image being displayed) to scatter a bit, too. Because of this, glossy screens can get deeper blacks more vivid colors.
So really there are upsides and downsides.