In my view, the frightening thing about this view is that it is fundamentally based on the changing state of science. It does not sit well with me that our definition of "humanity," or at least of "humanity worth protection," should include the phrase "if current technology is good enough." But that is really what we're doing here. Years ago, doctors were not every remotely able to deliver and care for a child conceived 5 months ago. In the future, you can bet that they'll be able to sustain the child from an even earlier point. It's not that technology is irrelvant to morality, but I still pause at including available technology in the definition of a person.
*blah blah Gunton makes a couple decent points blah blah*
Statements that "it's not so simple" and that not everyone has "time to 'get under the hood'" are true; however, Gunton seems to be making it too simple, himself. As mentioned, he's ignoring the whole gratis/freedom distiction. But even then...
Guntun identifies the cost of free software as programmers' inability to charge for their work. But has free software really *decreased* my profits from using a computer? Thanks to Linux, GNU utilities like make, Gentoo's distribution, gcc, X.org, Apache, Perl, Qt, XFCE4, Vim, Gnumeric, aterm, Firefox, CVS, Pine, and dozens more than I'm fogetting *because* I take them for granted, I can pay the cost of hardware for the ability to use my computer and develop programs, and I can change and examine all that software as I see fit. If not for free software, I'd pay for an OS, a compiler, an IDE, a source-control system, access to "real" source code for educational purposes, and so forth, and I might need to go to great lengths to customize them or fix their problems (assuming it's even legal and possible). How many $5 shareware registrations would I need just to make up for that, let alone to profit from my software development as Gunton assumes to be possible? If I want to charge for the software I create, I'd better be willing to give back to RMS, Daniel Robbins, Bram Moolenaar, Ben Goodger, and so forth. And it's still not that simple. How many of the products I listed would even exist without one another? How many free-software organizations shelled out for Microsoft IIS, and what would have happened if they'd needed to? How many of their programmers started by looking at others' code, and what would have happened if it hadn't been available?
Actually, returning null when window.open() is blocked is the usual behavior for Firefox, and I assume for most other popup-blockers, as well. If memory serves, window.open() returns the window it creates so that you can further manipulate it from your code. Thus, no windows created --> null return value. Those of you with popup blockers can test the functionality here.
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In my view, the frightening thing about this view is that it is fundamentally based on the changing state of science. It does not sit well with me that our definition of "humanity," or at least of "humanity worth protection," should include the phrase "if current technology is good enough." But that is really what we're doing here. Years ago, doctors were not every remotely able to deliver and care for a child conceived 5 months ago. In the future, you can bet that they'll be able to sustain the child from an even earlier point. It's not that technology is irrelvant to morality, but I still pause at including available technology in the definition of a person.
Somehow I find this interesting:
Current moderation of first post (poorly spaced): 100% Informative.
Current moderation of second post (spacing fixed): 70% Interesting, 30% Informative.
I'm not sure that the sample size is really large enough to draw any conclusions, but still... Does
adding spacing
to your posts make
them
interesting (or, conversely, less informative)?
*blah blah Gunton makes a couple decent points blah blah*
Statements that "it's not so simple" and that not everyone has "time to 'get under the hood'" are true; however, Gunton seems to be making it too simple, himself. As mentioned, he's ignoring the whole gratis/freedom distiction. But even then...
Guntun identifies the cost of free software as programmers' inability to charge for their work. But has free software really *decreased* my profits from using a computer? Thanks to Linux, GNU utilities like make, Gentoo's distribution, gcc, X.org, Apache, Perl, Qt, XFCE4, Vim, Gnumeric, aterm, Firefox, CVS, Pine, and dozens more than I'm fogetting *because* I take them for granted, I can pay the cost of hardware for the ability to use my computer and develop programs, and I can change and examine all that software as I see fit. If not for free software, I'd pay for an OS, a compiler, an IDE, a source-control system, access to "real" source code for educational purposes, and so forth, and I might need to go to great lengths to customize them or fix their problems (assuming it's even legal and possible). How many $5 shareware registrations would I need just to make up for that, let alone to profit from my software development as Gunton assumes to be possible? If I want to charge for the software I create, I'd better be willing to give back to RMS, Daniel Robbins, Bram Moolenaar, Ben Goodger, and so forth. And it's still not that simple. How many of the products I listed would even exist without one another? How many free-software organizations shelled out for Microsoft IIS, and what would have happened if they'd needed to? How many of their programmers started by looking at others' code, and what would have happened if it hadn't been available?
Actually, returning null when window.open() is blocked is the usual behavior for Firefox, and I assume for most other popup-blockers, as well. If memory serves, window.open() returns the window it creates so that you can further manipulate it from your code. Thus, no windows created --> null return value. Those of you with popup blockers can test the functionality here.
Microsoft Outlook 2003 Spam Filter: Under the hood
There are multiple problems with what he said: