If you never ascribe to intelligence that which can be explained by mere randomness, you'll find no intelligence in the universe. If you attribute intelligence to all things random, you'll find intelligence strung throughout the universe.
But never ascribe to the intelligence of a roomba that which can be explained by the programming of a roomba.
Re:Not true, also accounts for probablities
on
Blink
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Your premise was that he thoughtlessly tossed in a random value.
No, I guessed that he didn't bother to come up with a prime number. Notice the differences in our sentences. First, there was no logical argument, and so therefore no premises. Second, I don't attribute thoughtlessness. Third, I never said the number was random.
When coming up with a large number at an instant, it's easier to come up with a large number that you're familiar with than a large prime number. What 10 digit number would you come up with if given a few seconds? You have 9,000,000,000 to choose from. Maybe the first thing that comes to mind is your phone number. Maybe if you're a programmer it's a number relevant to programming. Maybe something else. But will it be prime? How many 10 digit prime numbers do you have memorized?
In some instances, it's even easier to come up with a large number you're familiar with than a large number that you *don't* run across often. Perhaps that was *the first* number that popped into his head. After all, it's such a recognizable number that *you* knew what it was.
It is rather improbable that he came up with a 10 digit number with particular anti-prime signifigance by accident.
Exactly, it's an issue of probability. When faced with a situation where you had limited knowledge, you GUESSED based on probability. I'm not saying it's a bad guess, but it's entirely possible he did come up with that number on accident, however improbable.
One that Googles 854 hits on 4,294,967,297 prime and has much discussion of primeness of the set of numbers of the form 2^(2^n)+1.
All the more reason why it may have popped into his head quickly and with little effort. Perhaps he had viewed one of those discussions, or perhaps he was even part of that discussion, and so that was the first number that popped into his head.
I'm just saying you got lucky.
Just in about the same way you'd be "lucky" if we found out that the OP was, in fact, familiar with the 2^(2^n)+1 discussion. Which is to say, a little lucky because you *could* be wrong, but not all that lucky because it's a good guess.
If you pay any attention, my original post was not phrased as an argument, and it was not meant to encompass all of my thinking on the subject. It was merely a few examples of thoughts that passed through my head, so I could show that, when we need to make a quick decision, we make lots of little guesses from incomplete knowledge,
My post was particularly meant to show that, even when evaluating something as cut-and-dry as whether a number is prime, we can make a very strong guess based on non-cut-and-dry aspects of the situation in which we encountered the number-- in this example, the psychology of the person asking if the number is prime.
Part of what went into my guess was that the poster was unlikely to have spent much time on the post, and so probably wouldn't do much research. If he came up with a prime number or came up with a non-prime number, either way it would be a number that came to mind without any research. Hence the "didn't bother". Along with this guess goes the guess that most people can't call large prime numbers off the top of their head.
Another part of my thinking which I didn't previously mention was, given this was Slashdot, and given the argument he was making, if he were the sort of person who could pull a 10 digit prime number out of his head without research, he'd be *more* likely to use a non-prime number. I could explain why, but if you're so much smarter than me, why don't you just figure that one out?
To the general public a 10 digit number is a meaningless babble.
But this is Slashdot, geek central. Around here the better assumption is that a 10 digit number is not going to be meaningless babble. Geeks see 10 digit numbers as meaningfull, and as playthings.
That's an awfully arrogant thing to say. But you're right-- around here it's the text *around* the 10 digit numbers that's likely to be meaningless babble.
Re:Not true, also accounts for probablities
on
Blink
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· Score: 1
Your answer - not prime - happened to be correct. But it was luck.
Well, that's the point, that it's not exactly luck. There's some level of chance involved, since I was making a guess, but there are better ways and worse ways to make a guess. We operate all the time based on what we believe to be "good" guesses without knowing for sure, especially since we're constantly dealing with situations where we can't know for sure. I believe the topic for this book is an examination of under what circumstances we make these guesses, how we make these guesses, and what constitutes a better guess or a worse guess.
I'm guessing he didn't bother to come up with a real prime number.
The logic for your guess was wrong....The OP did indeed go through the trouble of selecting a particular form of pseudoprime - 2^(2^5)+1.
Eh... yeah, so he didn't bother to come up with a real prime number then, right? He picked a large number that came to mind, but it was even, so he added 1 to make sure it wouldn't be immediately obvious whether or not it was prime. Seems like the thought behind my guess was correct, that he didn't bother to come up with a real prime number.
On a side note, notice that you're guessing when you say, "The OP did indeed go through the trouble of selecting a particular form of pseudoprime - 2^(2^5)+1." How did you know how he picked that number purposefully? I'm guessing you didn't talk to him about it, which means you evaluated the situation and guessed that, of all the numbers the OP could have picked, it was unlikely he would have picked 2^(2^5)+1 on accident. Probably a good guess, but a guess none-the-less.
Anyway, even if he had gone through quite a lot of trouble to pick the number, it wouldn't negate the "goodness" of my guess. A good guess is still a good guess, even if it turns out to be wrong, or right for the wrong reason.
sort of... but Office for OSX and Office for Windows are two different apps developed separately. Linux LiveCDs, on the otherhand, the x86 and PPC versions are virtually identical except they have been compiled separately for the different platforms.
Part of my point is, the users can look at Office X 2004 and Office 2003, and they can understand why they're "different". The look different and they work a little differently. Ubuntu for x86 and Ubuntu for PPC, on the other hand-- most users won't understand what the difference is.
The morale of the story... Cars require certain care and maintenance. Why do you assume computers don't? Even a Mac or Linux machine is going to require maintenance.
TV's don't require maintenance. Cars do, but they tell you that when you buy it, and even give you a little book with a chart that tells you what maintenance you'll need after how many months-- at least they did withevery car I've ever purchased. They even gave me a list of authorized service centers in my area.
Have you ever purchased a computer and had someone give you a little chart about how often to run patches on what, how often to defrag, and everything else? I haven't. Does dell give you a list of "authorized maintenance shops" in your area, where you can take your computer in and they'll give you a tune up?
So no one is telling customers the sort of maintenance they need to do or where to get it done... Why wouldn't they assume that it's like a TV? Plug it into the electrical socket, plug the cable in, and use it until it breaks or you decide you want a better one.
I'm not saying people don't know that there's a difference between Macs and PCs, I'm saying they have no idea what the difference is. For example, go ahead and ask people whether you can install the same copy of MS Word on your Dell and your Mac, and if not, why not?
They might know that you can't, but they'll probably just tell you, "It's because they're different kinds of computers" without any idea of what they mean by "different kinds". Now put your Ubuntu LiveCD on both the Mac and the Dell, and watch the confusion play out. Now, why is it that they can run the same programs?
If you're not pretty well versed in these things, it's confusing. Mention the words "memory management" or "virtual memory" or "kernel" or "process". Ask people, does your computer have these things? They don't know.
Let me give a thought experiment: Take four identical Macintoshes, one with Gentoo and KDE, one with Gentoo and Gnome, one with Darwin and Gnome, and one running OSX. Let them sit at each computer for a while, running what applications they can. Now, imagine explaining to them which computers of the four are running the same operating system, and what the difference is.
Are you imagining a glazed-over look peppered with looks of confusion and annnoyance? That's because most users, all they know is the GUI interaction. They know that they click on the "Internet Explorer" icon, type in a web address, and it shows a web site. So do they know the advantages one OS has over another? No, because they don't know that the two machines work any differently underneath the GUI, because they don't necessarily understand that there *is* an "underneath the GUI". All they know, if they know anything, is that the icons are in different places.
More than that: Often, they don't know there is anything else.
This might come as a surprise to the/. community, but many users don't understand the concept of an "operating system". Many users don't know the difference between Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Many users don't even understand that things go on "behind the scenes", and so they think that the difference between Linux, Windows, and OSX are just GUI changes and different programs.
It's not just about Wifi, but it is largely about Wifi. Also quoting from the summary atop this discussion: "A report issued today by the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC) and The Heartland Institute says that municipalities shouldn't build wireless networks because it's anti-competitive and will waste taxypayer dollars."
How is an ISP going to compete against an entrenched (literally!) agency with multi-megabit fiber to the home, just on the basis of content?
If the content in question is porn, I suspect they'll compete quite handily. (I'm not advocating pornography on the Internet, but I also wouldn't underestimate it's potency in attracting consumers.)
Likewise, even if you don't use the internet *yourself*, you're living in a world in which lots of other people that you deal with do. For example, if we *had* ubiquitous internet access, maybe everyone who thinks we should have ubiquitous internet access would be allowed to read this thread, and therefore know why it's a bad idea.
GP: If this group of people begins to see the benefits of locally-provided high speed access (albeit wireless) and votes on it, why shouldn't they be free to exercise their will and implement such a plan, assuming it will be affordable?
P: If there are 5 people starving to death on a raft at sea, and 4 of those people decide to kill the fifth, against his will, in order to survive, would you say that those 4 people are "exercising their freedom" to murder the fifth? That is exactly what you're claiming here, and that's just plain wrong.
umm..... yeah.... no wait.... what? no. WTF are you on about? Setting up internet access is exactly the same as murder?!
I mean, I guess they are exercising a sort of "freedom" in your murdering example, and I can only suppose that they meant to eat the 5th guy?....... So forgive my ignorance, but is it the freedom to murder or the freedom to be cannibals that's "exactly" like the freedom of townspeople to run their own town?
Simply untrue. The problem is that it is WHETHER OR NOT YOU LIKE. If the elected representatives determine it, then you are contributing your money whether or not you like it. And if you refuse, you'll be taken to jail (or worse)
The problem is that you don't seem to understand English. See, "we" can sometimes be taken to mean every member of a group including me, or it can also mean the group which includes me, as a whole. Therefore, I can say "we've decided..." even if *I* didn't decide that, and even if I *disagree* with the decision.
No tax was imposed and no community member forced to support the playground expansion against his or her will.
That's great that y'all, *as a town*, decided not to levy a tax or force any contribution. I bet there was at least one person in that town who would have liked it to have been paid for with taxes, but y'all, as a town, still decided to go with voluntary contributions. See, towns get to make those sorts of decisions.
Already all US citizens have helped pay for the $10 million given to them, and they're going to suck more out of all of us.
And if you notice, I was stipulating that the Federal government shouldn't get into the ISP business. I would say, however, that if a city/town wants to set up some hotspots, and the citizens in general like the idea, that it seems reasonable to me.
If you disagree with me, you need to think long and hard about why that is. Deep down, are you lazy and just want to suck off of your neighbor's hard work?
You're way off there, buddy. I'm more like the sort of guy who's willing to allow reasonable sucking off of my hard work, just so long as it's reasonable.
I'm more the sort of guy who strongly believes that contributions at museums should be voluntary, but always pays the suggested donation. Why? Museums are important, but not everyone can really afford to go. Really. Not everyone can afford to go. If you live in a city, public parks are REALLY important, but if you charged admission, some of the people who need them most couldn't afford it. Playgrounds too. Public transportation too. And you know what, it's not all altruistic. If you took all the public services out of my city, the city turn into a zoo. Even when I don't use these things, I still get a benefit.
Truth is, I would more happily pay $70 a month for citywide WiFi that gives everyone access than pay $60 a month for an ISP that gives me, alone, citywide access.
My state has yet to have a successful municipal in spite of giving 100% of the RUS money to these guys and the tired old monopolies, and the dirty truth is that they end up providing very poor service at high rates, while driving competitors out of town.
Yeah, and it seems (from your post) that the guys in your state are running fiber to the home, which is a pretty daunting task. Why not use more conventional methods? Why not contract the work out to a number of different ISPs, therefore *not* driving local ISPs out or denying competition?
What I'm saying is, I find it reasonable for a town to choose to figure out some way to provide free Internet access for it's citizens. That is not the same as saying it's a good idea to do it in a stupid way.
Ah, so, in your small town, you're allowed to force me to abandon my property rights (make me leave town) if I disagree with your collective decision?
That's not what I said. I said you have the option of leaving. You can also choose to "live with it" as I said. However, it is possible you're right. IANAL, but there may be instances where a town can force you to leave.
In the larger context, when the municipality decides what constitutes "acceptable" WIFI or other internet access, who's to say they won't also decide what you're allowed to access via that public-funded interenet connection?
That's a good question. I suppose they would be within their rights to filter access as much as a library has the right to not-carry certain books. Again, IANAL, but does anyone know the laws about what a public library can choose not to carry, or how much a public library can legally choose to filter in their internet connections?
And what if you disagree with that decision (they've banned your favourite porn site, for example), and you find that you can't find any private, non-restricted ISP to service your address, because they can't make money competing with the local government's monopoly?
I think you'd find that there would still be private ISPs. For starters, WiFi is still not as fast, reliable, or secure as a hard line can be. Plus, I I'd imagine a major ISP providing a free but porn-less internet would find itself losing to the the competition offering an expensive porn-filled Internet.
What next, bulldozing the library because Barnes & Noble wants to open up a store?
Yeah, those fricken commies with their "public libraries"! I've estimated that Barns & Noble has LOST 17 billion dollars of business to public libraries in the past 10 years, accounting for a loss of 3 million jobs. You know those commie libraries are just filled with left-wing propaganda (i.e. books that aren't the Bible) anyhow.
No. The scope of government should be limited to protecting us from force or fraud, providing for a common defence, and construction and/or regulation of essential infrastructure ( e.g. roads ).
No, the scope of the FEDERAL government should be limited to "protecting us from force or fraud, providing for a common defence, and construction and/or regulation of essential infrastructure ( e.g. roads )". If my small town gets together and agrees they're willing to [collectively, as a town] pay Betty to run a public day-care, we as the people of that town are well within our rights to do so. We can build a playground, too, if we like. We can choose to pull our resources together however we see fit and distribute it however we like, so long as it doesn't break any state for federal laws. If you live in my small town and don't like the decisions we make, you can either choose to live with it or leave.
Is it morally acceptable for a group of people to require their fellow citizens for fork over tax dollars at the point of a gun to pay for a service they don't all want to use?
Um... yeah, sometimes. Public parks, for example, I could say, "I don't want public parks! I HAVE a backyard!" What about public transportation? Public museums? Those aren't hard to privatize. We do have private land and and private transportation and private art collections, but the public stuff does serve a purpose, and most of us are willing to put in a few extra dollars to pay for it (even if we don't use them often).
Yes, there are some who'd rather not pay. That doesn't, by itself, indicate anything. Pick any single thing that the government does, and I can find someone who doesn't want to pay for it.
So you *sound* clever and people *pretend* to think you sound clever, and you actually might begin to think that what you are saying is clever, and people will pick up on that and know that you aren't really that clever, if you actually believe things you should know only sound clever, but really isn't.
But tcdk, you should take into account that *sounding* clever goes a long way. A rose by any other name would still smell the same, but nobody will buy roses from you if you call them hoarts.
Well, I would buy them, but I can hear my girlfriend's angry yells now, "WHAT?! YOU bought me HOARTS?!"
But how can we really measure the "intentions" of the creator? If the artist is dead, you can't ask him. Does that mean their work can't be "art"? Or if you can ask the artist, he could lie.
Or what if I create an utterly beautiful painting or sculpture, and you ask me what the intention was, and I say, "umm..... i dunno." Maybe I have intentions I can't put into words, but maybe not.
Or, on the other hand, what if my intentions are amazing, but I can't execute my intentions worth a damn. I have a terrific idea for a painting, but I'm a horrible painter, and it comes out not-fulfilling the intention. Is that still art? Good art?
No shit, Sherlock. That's true of any question. i.e. if you don't already know the answer you're asking from ignorance.
I was trying to figure out how to voice my displeasure about the parent post, and you, "Anonymous Coward", you hit the nail on the head.
It wasn't the pretentiousness of the line, "The intricacies of a Pollock only appear random to those who choose not to really see,"-- though that did annoy me. It was the fact he was showing such disdain for someone asking a question "out of ignorance". It's better to ask a question out of ignorance than to answer in ignorance or even to sit by quietly in ignorance. Why do we feel like we can only talk about things when we are ensured to already know all the answers?
/mostly just responding so the AC post is more likely to get noticed.
You might as well argue that Shakespeare wasn't an artist, because he just wrote the instructions to control the actors, and didn't perform the plays himself.
or argue Shakespeare wasn't a writer because it was always the pen putting the words and the paper capturing them. The pen and paper wrote "Hamlet"!
I'm not sure it's pointless. Yes, it's been debated for as long as there have been people making art, and many of those debates have yielded insight into the question of "what is art?" as well as other topics.
I don't think we'll get an answer, but is a discussion on a question "pointless" if is doesn't yield an "answer"?
Re:Not true, also accounts for probablities
on
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Furthermore I do think the brain is great at correlating all sorts of things for you automatically and thus you can get an accurate "feel" for if something is going to go right or wrong based only on a lot of loose data and seeming anecdote.
In application of this, let's say we didn't have time to actually figure out whether the number is prime. I might say, "4,294,967,297 is a big number, which means it's generally unlikely to be prime." I look at the last digit, and there's no real clue there (an even number or 5, for example, would be a giveaway).
The question then becomes whether the OP is the sort of guy who would pull a big number out of nowhere, or whether he would go through the trouble of finding an actual prime number that was big enough that people wouldn't know immediately. With some loose data about the sort of people on/. and the amount of time generally spent composing/. posts, as well as the general tone of the message itself, I'd guess "no". I'm guessing he didn't bother to come up with a real prime number.
I could be right or I could be wrong, and I'm not really sure of exactly what went into that guess. I haven't even done the math to figure out if I'm right, but if I had to make an immediate guess whether 4,294,967,297 was prime, I'd have to make quick generalizations off of incomplete data and "go with my gut". Mathematical proof wouldn't be an option.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I guessed that he didn't bother to come up with a prime number. Notice the differences in our sentences. First, there was no logical argument, and so therefore no premises. Second, I don't attribute thoughtlessness. Third, I never said the number was random.
When coming up with a large number at an instant, it's easier to come up with a large number that you're familiar with than a large prime number. What 10 digit number would you come up with if given a few seconds? You have 9,000,000,000 to choose from. Maybe the first thing that comes to mind is your phone number. Maybe if you're a programmer it's a number relevant to programming. Maybe something else. But will it be prime? How many 10 digit prime numbers do you have memorized?
In some instances, it's even easier to come up with a large number you're familiar with than a large number that you *don't* run across often. Perhaps that was *the first* number that popped into his head. After all, it's such a recognizable number that *you* knew what it was.
It is rather improbable that he came up with a 10 digit number with particular anti-prime signifigance by accident.
Exactly, it's an issue of probability. When faced with a situation where you had limited knowledge, you GUESSED based on probability. I'm not saying it's a bad guess, but it's entirely possible he did come up with that number on accident, however improbable.
One that Googles 854 hits on 4,294,967,297 prime and has much discussion of primeness of the set of numbers of the form 2^(2^n)+1.
All the more reason why it may have popped into his head quickly and with little effort. Perhaps he had viewed one of those discussions, or perhaps he was even part of that discussion, and so that was the first number that popped into his head.
I'm just saying you got lucky.
Just in about the same way you'd be "lucky" if we found out that the OP was, in fact, familiar with the 2^(2^n)+1 discussion. Which is to say, a little lucky because you *could* be wrong, but not all that lucky because it's a good guess.
If you pay any attention, my original post was not phrased as an argument, and it was not meant to encompass all of my thinking on the subject. It was merely a few examples of thoughts that passed through my head, so I could show that, when we need to make a quick decision, we make lots of little guesses from incomplete knowledge,
My post was particularly meant to show that, even when evaluating something as cut-and-dry as whether a number is prime, we can make a very strong guess based on non-cut-and-dry aspects of the situation in which we encountered the number-- in this example, the psychology of the person asking if the number is prime.
Part of what went into my guess was that the poster was unlikely to have spent much time on the post, and so probably wouldn't do much research. If he came up with a prime number or came up with a non-prime number, either way it would be a number that came to mind without any research. Hence the "didn't bother". Along with this guess goes the guess that most people can't call large prime numbers off the top of their head.
Another part of my thinking which I didn't previously mention was, given this was Slashdot, and given the argument he was making, if he were the sort of person who could pull a 10 digit prime number out of his head without research, he'd be *more* likely to use a non-prime number. I could explain why, but if you're so much smarter than me, why don't you just figure that one out?
To the general public a 10 digit number is a meaningless babble.
But this is Slashdot, geek central. Around here the better assumption is that a 10 digit number is not going to be meaningless babble. Geeks see 10 digit numbers as meaningfull, and as playthings.
That's an awfully arrogant thing to say. But you're right-- around here it's the text *around* the 10 digit numbers that's likely to be meaningless babble.
Why not?
Well, that's the point, that it's not exactly luck. There's some level of chance involved, since I was making a guess, but there are better ways and worse ways to make a guess. We operate all the time based on what we believe to be "good" guesses without knowing for sure, especially since we're constantly dealing with situations where we can't know for sure. I believe the topic for this book is an examination of under what circumstances we make these guesses, how we make these guesses, and what constitutes a better guess or a worse guess.
Eh... yeah, so he didn't bother to come up with a real prime number then, right? He picked a large number that came to mind, but it was even, so he added 1 to make sure it wouldn't be immediately obvious whether or not it was prime. Seems like the thought behind my guess was correct, that he didn't bother to come up with a real prime number.
On a side note, notice that you're guessing when you say, "The OP did indeed go through the trouble of selecting a particular form of pseudoprime - 2^(2^5)+1." How did you know how he picked that number purposefully? I'm guessing you didn't talk to him about it, which means you evaluated the situation and guessed that, of all the numbers the OP could have picked, it was unlikely he would have picked 2^(2^5)+1 on accident. Probably a good guess, but a guess none-the-less.
Anyway, even if he had gone through quite a lot of trouble to pick the number, it wouldn't negate the "goodness" of my guess. A good guess is still a good guess, even if it turns out to be wrong, or right for the wrong reason.
Part of my point is, the users can look at Office X 2004 and Office 2003, and they can understand why they're "different". The look different and they work a little differently. Ubuntu for x86 and Ubuntu for PPC, on the other hand-- most users won't understand what the difference is.
They know there is some sort of a difference, but they don't know what that difference is. See my other post
TV's don't require maintenance. Cars do, but they tell you that when you buy it, and even give you a little book with a chart that tells you what maintenance you'll need after how many months-- at least they did withevery car I've ever purchased. They even gave me a list of authorized service centers in my area.
Have you ever purchased a computer and had someone give you a little chart about how often to run patches on what, how often to defrag, and everything else? I haven't. Does dell give you a list of "authorized maintenance shops" in your area, where you can take your computer in and they'll give you a tune up?
So no one is telling customers the sort of maintenance they need to do or where to get it done... Why wouldn't they assume that it's like a TV? Plug it into the electrical socket, plug the cable in, and use it until it breaks or you decide you want a better one.
They might know that you can't, but they'll probably just tell you, "It's because they're different kinds of computers" without any idea of what they mean by "different kinds". Now put your Ubuntu LiveCD on both the Mac and the Dell, and watch the confusion play out. Now, why is it that they can run the same programs?
If you're not pretty well versed in these things, it's confusing. Mention the words "memory management" or "virtual memory" or "kernel" or "process". Ask people, does your computer have these things? They don't know.
Let me give a thought experiment: Take four identical Macintoshes, one with Gentoo and KDE, one with Gentoo and Gnome, one with Darwin and Gnome, and one running OSX. Let them sit at each computer for a while, running what applications they can. Now, imagine explaining to them which computers of the four are running the same operating system, and what the difference is.
Are you imagining a glazed-over look peppered with looks of confusion and annnoyance? That's because most users, all they know is the GUI interaction. They know that they click on the "Internet Explorer" icon, type in a web address, and it shows a web site. So do they know the advantages one OS has over another? No, because they don't know that the two machines work any differently underneath the GUI, because they don't necessarily understand that there *is* an "underneath the GUI". All they know, if they know anything, is that the icons are in different places.
This might come as a surprise to the /. community, but many users don't understand the concept of an "operating system". Many users don't know the difference between Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Many users don't even understand that things go on "behind the scenes", and so they think that the difference between Linux, Windows, and OSX are just GUI changes and different programs.
It's not just about Wifi, but it is largely about Wifi. Also quoting from the summary atop this discussion: "A report issued today by the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC) and The Heartland Institute says that municipalities shouldn't build wireless networks because it's anti-competitive and will waste taxypayer dollars."
How is an ISP going to compete against an entrenched (literally!) agency with multi-megabit fiber to the home, just on the basis of content?
If the content in question is porn, I suspect they'll compete quite handily. (I'm not advocating pornography on the Internet, but I also wouldn't underestimate it's potency in attracting consumers.)
Likewise, even if you don't use the internet *yourself*, you're living in a world in which lots of other people that you deal with do. For example, if we *had* ubiquitous internet access, maybe everyone who thinks we should have ubiquitous internet access would be allowed to read this thread, and therefore know why it's a bad idea.
P: If there are 5 people starving to death on a raft at sea, and 4 of those people decide to kill the fifth, against his will, in order to survive, would you say that those 4 people are "exercising their freedom" to murder the fifth? That is exactly what you're claiming here, and that's just plain wrong.
umm..... yeah.... no wait.... what? no. WTF are you on about? Setting up internet access is exactly the same as murder?!
I mean, I guess they are exercising a sort of "freedom" in your murdering example, and I can only suppose that they meant to eat the 5th guy?....... So forgive my ignorance, but is it the freedom to murder or the freedom to be cannibals that's "exactly" like the freedom of townspeople to run their own town?
The problem is that you don't seem to understand English. See, "we" can sometimes be taken to mean every member of a group including me, or it can also mean the group which includes me, as a whole. Therefore, I can say "we've decided..." even if *I* didn't decide that, and even if I *disagree* with the decision.
No tax was imposed and no community member forced to support the playground expansion against his or her will.
That's great that y'all, *as a town*, decided not to levy a tax or force any contribution. I bet there was at least one person in that town who would have liked it to have been paid for with taxes, but y'all, as a town, still decided to go with voluntary contributions. See, towns get to make those sorts of decisions.
Already all US citizens have helped pay for the $10 million given to them, and they're going to suck more out of all of us.
And if you notice, I was stipulating that the Federal government shouldn't get into the ISP business. I would say, however, that if a city/town wants to set up some hotspots, and the citizens in general like the idea, that it seems reasonable to me.
If you disagree with me, you need to think long and hard about why that is. Deep down, are you lazy and just want to suck off of your neighbor's hard work?
You're way off there, buddy. I'm more like the sort of guy who's willing to allow reasonable sucking off of my hard work, just so long as it's reasonable.
I'm more the sort of guy who strongly believes that contributions at museums should be voluntary, but always pays the suggested donation. Why? Museums are important, but not everyone can really afford to go. Really. Not everyone can afford to go. If you live in a city, public parks are REALLY important, but if you charged admission, some of the people who need them most couldn't afford it. Playgrounds too. Public transportation too. And you know what, it's not all altruistic. If you took all the public services out of my city, the city turn into a zoo. Even when I don't use these things, I still get a benefit.
Truth is, I would more happily pay $70 a month for citywide WiFi that gives everyone access than pay $60 a month for an ISP that gives me, alone, citywide access.
My state has yet to have a successful municipal in spite of giving 100% of the RUS money to these guys and the tired old monopolies, and the dirty truth is that they end up providing very poor service at high rates, while driving competitors out of town.
Yeah, and it seems (from your post) that the guys in your state are running fiber to the home, which is a pretty daunting task. Why not use more conventional methods? Why not contract the work out to a number of different ISPs, therefore *not* driving local ISPs out or denying competition?
What I'm saying is, I find it reasonable for a town to choose to figure out some way to provide free Internet access for it's citizens. That is not the same as saying it's a good idea to do it in a stupid way.
That's not what I said. I said you have the option of leaving. You can also choose to "live with it" as I said. However, it is possible you're right. IANAL, but there may be instances where a town can force you to leave.
In the larger context, when the municipality decides what constitutes "acceptable" WIFI or other internet access, who's to say they won't also decide what you're allowed to access via that public-funded interenet connection?
That's a good question. I suppose they would be within their rights to filter access as much as a library has the right to not-carry certain books. Again, IANAL, but does anyone know the laws about what a public library can choose not to carry, or how much a public library can legally choose to filter in their internet connections?
And what if you disagree with that decision (they've banned your favourite porn site, for example), and you find that you can't find any private, non-restricted ISP to service your address, because they can't make money competing with the local government's monopoly?
I think you'd find that there would still be private ISPs. For starters, WiFi is still not as fast, reliable, or secure as a hard line can be. Plus, I I'd imagine a major ISP providing a free but porn-less internet would find itself losing to the the competition offering an expensive porn-filled Internet.
Yeah, those fricken commies with their "public libraries"! I've estimated that Barns & Noble has LOST 17 billion dollars of business to public libraries in the past 10 years, accounting for a loss of 3 million jobs. You know those commie libraries are just filled with left-wing propaganda (i.e. books that aren't the Bible) anyhow.
No, the scope of the FEDERAL government should be limited to "protecting us from force or fraud, providing for a common defence, and construction and/or regulation of essential infrastructure ( e.g. roads )". If my small town gets together and agrees they're willing to [collectively, as a town] pay Betty to run a public day-care, we as the people of that town are well within our rights to do so. We can build a playground, too, if we like. We can choose to pull our resources together however we see fit and distribute it however we like, so long as it doesn't break any state for federal laws. If you live in my small town and don't like the decisions we make, you can either choose to live with it or leave.
Um... yeah, sometimes. Public parks, for example, I could say, "I don't want public parks! I HAVE a backyard!" What about public transportation? Public museums? Those aren't hard to privatize. We do have private land and and private transportation and private art collections, but the public stuff does serve a purpose, and most of us are willing to put in a few extra dollars to pay for it (even if we don't use them often).
Yes, there are some who'd rather not pay. That doesn't, by itself, indicate anything. Pick any single thing that the government does, and I can find someone who doesn't want to pay for it.
So we're back to talking about modern art?
Well, I would buy them, but I can hear my girlfriend's angry yells now, "WHAT?! YOU bought me HOARTS?!"
/trying to sound clever
Or what if I create an utterly beautiful painting or sculpture, and you ask me what the intention was, and I say, "umm..... i dunno." Maybe I have intentions I can't put into words, but maybe not.
Or, on the other hand, what if my intentions are amazing, but I can't execute my intentions worth a damn. I have a terrific idea for a painting, but I'm a horrible painter, and it comes out not-fulfilling the intention. Is that still art? Good art?
No it can't. You don't think it's art.
I was trying to figure out how to voice my displeasure about the parent post, and you, "Anonymous Coward", you hit the nail on the head.
It wasn't the pretentiousness of the line, "The intricacies of a Pollock only appear random to those who choose not to really see,"-- though that did annoy me. It was the fact he was showing such disdain for someone asking a question "out of ignorance". It's better to ask a question out of ignorance than to answer in ignorance or even to sit by quietly in ignorance. Why do we feel like we can only talk about things when we are ensured to already know all the answers?
/mostly just responding so the AC post is more likely to get noticed.
or argue Shakespeare wasn't a writer because it was always the pen putting the words and the paper capturing them. The pen and paper wrote "Hamlet"!
I don't think we'll get an answer, but is a discussion on a question "pointless" if is doesn't yield an "answer"?
In application of this, let's say we didn't have time to actually figure out whether the number is prime. I might say, "4,294,967,297 is a big number, which means it's generally unlikely to be prime." I look at the last digit, and there's no real clue there (an even number or 5, for example, would be a giveaway).
The question then becomes whether the OP is the sort of guy who would pull a big number out of nowhere, or whether he would go through the trouble of finding an actual prime number that was big enough that people wouldn't know immediately. With some loose data about the sort of people on /. and the amount of time generally spent composing /. posts, as well as the general tone of the message itself, I'd guess "no". I'm guessing he didn't bother to come up with a real prime number.
I could be right or I could be wrong, and I'm not really sure of exactly what went into that guess. I haven't even done the math to figure out if I'm right, but if I had to make an immediate guess whether 4,294,967,297 was prime, I'd have to make quick generalizations off of incomplete data and "go with my gut". Mathematical proof wouldn't be an option.