This whole discussion is hilarious if you've ever been on a Navy ship. Am I the only one who remembers the salty old first class sending some poor sot of a new seaman running all over the ship looking for batteries for the sound-powered phones? Lots of fun for everyone, except the FNG, of course.
The entire "holiday season" is marketing hype. I'm sorry, but seeing snowflakes and Santa in store windows before Halloween makes me want to move to a hut in the mountains or something.
Businesses do seem to be trying to reach out to online shoppers, though, the same way the brick-and-mortar stores do on Black Friday. They even have a website with hourly specials to entice reluctant people to pull out the plastic: http://www.cybermonday.com/
Marketing hype that at least acknowledges and even actively courts tech-literate people who don't visit "the maul" isn't all a bad thing.
I had the chance to hear Admiral Hopper speak at the Naval Academy (1990, '91, somewhere in there). I had no clue who she was or why everyone was being so deferential to this old lady. After her talk (which blew my mind -- I don't remember exactly, but I think it had something to do with the new paradigm of computers networking together and how it was going to change the world), I was invited with a group of others to meet her for a short panel. I declined, I don't remember why, but I'm sure it was something terribly important at the time.
Then I went and looked her up and cursed myself for being so damned stupid. Her story was inspiring.
On the concept of technology and values, Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article back in 2002 I found thought-provoking. Link here.
Relevant quote from the article:
"Americans find this Middle Eastern cultural schizophrenia maddening, especially in its inability to fathom that all the things that Muslim visitors profess to hate--equality of the sexes, cultural freedom, religious tolerance, egalitarianism, free speech and secular rationalism--are precisely what give us the material things that they want in the first place. CDs and sexy bare midriffs are the fruits of a society that values freedom, unchecked inquiry and individual expression more than the dictates of state or church; wild freedom and wild materialism are part of the American character. So bewildered Americans now ask themselves: Why do so many of these anti-Americans, who profess hatred of the West and reverence for the purity of an energized Islam or a fiery Palestine, enroll in Chico State or UCLA instead of madrassas in Pakistan or military academies in Iraq?"
His answer is even more interesting. Hanson is kind of a conservative, but I liked this article.
Another thing that really ticks me off is that these people claim that the universe was created by an all powerful omniscient being- and then they claim to know what he/she/it is thinking. The arrogance is mind boggling.
AMEN BROTHER!
Isn't God omniscient and omnipotent? So He knows everything and can do anything, right? Wouldn't that mean He could tailor His revelation to be most relevant to each particular human culture? So Jesus for the Jews, and Muhammad for the Arabs, and Gautama for the Hindus, and and and...
What, your God isn't capable of that? He says only one revelation for an obscure Semitic tribe is the true one?
Tell me again how your limited human brain can understand God well enough that you know exactly what He thinks about those filthy ((people who aren't like us))??
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one struggling with understanding that point of view.
I don't know, I think it's possible to be intelligent/creative/a little off-kilter and still wear a uniform. The "military environment" isn't quite as monolithic and mindless as the stereotypes would have you believe.
A friend of mine thought that Marines interacted with each other and their officers with "Sir, yes sir" barked at the top of their lungs all day. It wasn't until I read Cryptonomicon that I understood why he had assumed that's what Marines were like.
There are a LOT of servicemembers working in IT keeping the military's networks up and running -- it's not all civilian contractors with long hair and nose rings (yet). While most are standard help desk jockeys, I have met a few who were an absolute pleasure to troubleshoot with. They knew their stuff cold and weren't afraid to try things without bothering the higher-ups with details until after everything was fixed. I would like to think that those hacker-types would get orders to units like this, and with the right leadership they could be pretty damned good.
Full disclosure: I'm a Marine. No, I don't kill babies...
Thing is, we're all assuming the average Iraqi, or even the average Iraqi government minister, *cares* about licensing issues.
They don't.
This is a country where you can buy pirated CDs with anything you want for next to nothing. If they decide to go with Microsoft products, they'll buy them for a fistful of dinars, install them, and use them for the next three generations with nary a thought of a visit from Redmond copyright police.
If Iraq becomes the next bastion of software freedom and advances the cause of FOSS throughout the world, it will be because FOSS DOES THE JOB. Not because of pure idealism, or any longing to breathe free air after decades of tyranny.
It's a good opportunity for FOSS advocates to break into an emerging market, but the focus needs to be on the capabilites, ease of use, great support, and security of future development -- not licensing platitudes.
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This whole discussion is hilarious if you've ever been on a Navy ship. Am I the only one who remembers the salty old first class sending some poor sot of a new seaman running all over the ship looking for batteries for the sound-powered phones? Lots of fun for everyone, except the FNG, of course.
The entire "holiday season" is marketing hype. I'm sorry, but seeing snowflakes and Santa in store windows before Halloween makes me want to move to a hut in the mountains or something.
Businesses do seem to be trying to reach out to online shoppers, though, the same way the brick-and-mortar stores do on Black Friday. They even have a website with hourly specials to entice reluctant people to pull out the plastic: http://www.cybermonday.com/
Marketing hype that at least acknowledges and even actively courts tech-literate people who don't visit "the maul" isn't all a bad thing.
I had the chance to hear Admiral Hopper speak at the Naval Academy (1990, '91, somewhere in there). I had no clue who she was or why everyone was being so deferential to this old lady. After her talk (which blew my mind -- I don't remember exactly, but I think it had something to do with the new paradigm of computers networking together and how it was going to change the world), I was invited with a group of others to meet her for a short panel. I declined, I don't remember why, but I'm sure it was something terribly important at the time.
Then I went and looked her up and cursed myself for being so damned stupid. Her story was inspiring.
Ah well. At least they named a ship after her.
On the concept of technology and values, Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article back in 2002 I found thought-provoking. Link here.
Relevant quote from the article:
"Americans find this Middle Eastern cultural schizophrenia maddening, especially in its inability to fathom that all the things that Muslim visitors profess to hate--equality of the sexes, cultural freedom, religious tolerance, egalitarianism, free speech and secular rationalism--are precisely what give us the material things that they want in the first place. CDs and sexy bare midriffs are the fruits of a society that values freedom, unchecked inquiry and individual expression more than the dictates of state or church; wild freedom and wild materialism are part of the American character. So bewildered Americans now ask themselves: Why do so many of these anti-Americans, who profess hatred of the West and reverence for the purity of an energized Islam or a fiery Palestine, enroll in Chico State or UCLA instead of madrassas in Pakistan or military academies in Iraq?"
His answer is even more interesting. Hanson is kind of a conservative, but I liked this article.
Another thing that really ticks me off is that these people claim that the universe was created by an all powerful omniscient being- and then they claim to know what he/she/it is thinking. The arrogance is mind boggling.
AMEN BROTHER!
Isn't God omniscient and omnipotent? So He knows everything and can do anything, right? Wouldn't that mean He could tailor His revelation to be most relevant to each particular human culture? So Jesus for the Jews, and Muhammad for the Arabs, and Gautama for the Hindus, and and and...
What, your God isn't capable of that? He says only one revelation for an obscure Semitic tribe is the true one?
Tell me again how your limited human brain can understand God well enough that you know exactly what He thinks about those filthy ((people who aren't like us))??
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one struggling with understanding that point of view.
I don't know, I think it's possible to be intelligent/creative/a little off-kilter and still wear a uniform. The "military environment" isn't quite as monolithic and mindless as the stereotypes would have you believe.
A friend of mine thought that Marines interacted with each other and their officers with "Sir, yes sir" barked at the top of their lungs all day. It wasn't until I read Cryptonomicon that I understood why he had assumed that's what Marines were like.
There are a LOT of servicemembers working in IT keeping the military's networks up and running -- it's not all civilian contractors with long hair and nose rings (yet). While most are standard help desk jockeys, I have met a few who were an absolute pleasure to troubleshoot with. They knew their stuff cold and weren't afraid to try things without bothering the higher-ups with details until after everything was fixed. I would like to think that those hacker-types would get orders to units like this, and with the right leadership they could be pretty damned good.
Full disclosure: I'm a Marine. No, I don't kill babies...
Thing is, we're all assuming the average Iraqi, or even the average Iraqi government minister, *cares* about licensing issues. They don't. This is a country where you can buy pirated CDs with anything you want for next to nothing. If they decide to go with Microsoft products, they'll buy them for a fistful of dinars, install them, and use them for the next three generations with nary a thought of a visit from Redmond copyright police. If Iraq becomes the next bastion of software freedom and advances the cause of FOSS throughout the world, it will be because FOSS DOES THE JOB. Not because of pure idealism, or any longing to breathe free air after decades of tyranny. It's a good opportunity for FOSS advocates to break into an emerging market, but the focus needs to be on the capabilites, ease of use, great support, and security of future development -- not licensing platitudes.
I couldn't RTFA so I don't know if it's the same group but the Iraqi Linux Users Group headquartered in Baghdad is here.