"I have made a decision to cancel the move back to 'winter' time starting from autumn this year", Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday, February 8, 2011. The new legislation eliminates the yearly switch between standard time and daylight saving time.
I totally agree, and I love the fact that Russia just "did it". Maybe other European countries won't be so scared if they can follow the lead instead of taking charge themselves so that we can finally end the nonsense.
Oh and by the way I live in Norway, were DST has a pretty strong effect on the sunlight. Just about every autumn the DST is discussed in the media, because people are so sick and tired of messing up their day rhythm. We don't care about the sunlight, we adapt, but changing the time is brutal on the sleep pattern.
But if this move fails and there's another regime change (for better or worse), then the leaders of a certain economic superpower [People's Republic of China] should be worried.
I'm not so sure about that. The thing about China is that its citizens are "brainwashed" for lack of better terms. I think the majority is actually comfortable with the political situation.
An ex-coworker of mine had a Chinese wife, and I asked him if they ever talk about politics at home. He basically replied: "We don't talk about it much, but my understanding is that in China politics is a "non-issue." People generally think it's up to the government to handle any political issues, and seldom get involved with it personally."
Of course there is a democratic movement in China that wants free elections, but my impression is that they are in a strong minority... In other words, I don't think there's anything brewing underneath the surface, so any revolution is going to take a lot of time to emerge.
Publicly, the LSE and the data vendors say they are working together as engineers scramble to fix the price data problems, even though some statements to clients suggest elements of blame.
But behind the scenes, sources close to the several of the parties, including the exchange, told Computerworld UK they were immensely frustrated at the reputational impact of the problems.
The LSE is taking the position that its data feeds are working correctly. Industry sources said the exchange had placed a great deal of emphasis on the launch, which was largely providing successful high-speed trading, and that it had allocated sufficient time - 15 months - for the vendors to be fully prepared for the new system.
The LSE statement appeared to place some blame with the vendors. "Unfortunately a couple of market data vendors have experienced some specific issues aligning to the new Millennium Exchange platform and we are actively working with them to help resolve their issues," it said.
"All other trading customers and vendors are successfully trading on the new platform, benefiting from Millennium Exchange's superior functionality and speed."
Emphasize mine. Looks to me like the exchange is getting the flack for a couple of amateurish (or saboteurish?) vendors.
I agree that the democratic system isn't working optimally (in general) and that it needs change, but changing the government is a pretty major task.
What I'm thinking is that it would be positive for the whole system if more people got involved (an interested population, in your words). Making it available to people by making it easy to participate encourages involvement.
E.g. in Norway we're considering home voting: Letting people vote in front of their computer during elections. (Yes there are multiple problems with it, but it's being considered.) The idea being that making it *that* easy to vote (you don't even need to raise your eyes from the laptop to vote) will increase the voting participation, which again will increase the political interest (especially amongst young people), benefiting democracy as a whole.
But it's not just ease and availability that I'm thinking about. We should use our minds to "help" the politicians write smart and better laws, reach out and discuss with politicians what the consequences of their laws really are, and effectively open up lobbying to the entire population.
I haven't put enough thought into it to come up with anything more tangible than that, but the point is that technology opens up lots of interesting possibilities that are explored in business, but rarely in government. Seeing how important the government actually is, that's something that I think should change.
What I find completely amazing is this simple fact: Most well-run and successful open source projects seem to bear very little relationship to a true democracy (i.e., majority rule) in form or function.
The head of these projects is often referred to as a "benevolent dictator" - he whose word is law. The contributors cooperate (and sometimes compete, sometimes even via nasty political infighting) in what is in essence, a ruthless meritocracy-slash-technocracy, led by that 'benevolent dictator.'
The part that you're missing is that Linux can be forked by anyone, and the fork will have just as much legal power of the code as Linus has today (except for the trademark). In fact, Linus himself even encourages forks and the competition it brings.
The point being that Linus is the boss simply because *everyone wants him to be*. If someone who can do a better job comes a long, that's great, developers can follow that guy or gal instead. But that hasn't happened, even though anyone and everyone has the power to just start a competing movement (a true free market).
Compare this to the physical world were there is only one physical land, only one government, only one police, etc. You can't fork a country like you can fork code.
However, it would be excellent if we use the tools in front of us to open up for more direct participation from voters. There's a million different problems that I can think of, but _we have the technology_, so why not use it to create a more open democracy?
This would tend towards increase consumption of medical services for less and less important things.
I don't know how that stuff works in the US, but being Norwegian I can speak for Norwegian/Scandinavian hospitals (probably works roughly the same).
You can't just walk into a hospital and demand care. You need to see your normal doctor which can "order" a hospital to take you (or in an emergency the local 24/7 doctor or of course ambulance personnel can do the same).
Since doctors are paid the same regardless of what kind of treatment they give people, they have no incentive for giving wrongful or misleading diagnosis. There's no bonus if they lay off using the CAT-scan so often (or whatever it's called), and there's also no bonus if they treat 1000+ patients each.
They're paid to do the best job they can, and just like in any other profession they take pride in their work. Some are probably bad at their work, but like other higher education jobs, you're probably glad you can finally make money doing what you like (a friend of mine is studying to become a doctor [surgeon actually] as we speak, and after seven years of studies, he'll finally start working at a hospital full time).
In Scandinavia, we look in shock upon our American "neighbours" and how someone in their right mind could say no to the health care bill. Even the far far right parties wouldn't dream of removing free health care here (in Norway the far right party actually wants to spend more on it than what we're doing today).
Anecdote: When I was studying I had a semi-nasty biking accident that landed me a bed at the local hospital. After some surgery and lots of antibiotics, I started feeling better and wanted to go home. "I think we'll keep you for a couple of more days, those bacteria you had in that flesh wound was pretty nasty" was the message I got. So I ended up staying in the hospital for twelve days.
The hospital had no real incentive for keeping me there longer than needed, and no real incentive for kicking me out the door. They were simply giving me the medical care that I needed, and I didn't pay a dime. Yes I pay more taxes because of it, but I'll gladly pay that to see my neighbour get the same treatment that I did. (And *that* is socialism, by the way.)
Notice anything...funny...about Android? Like the fact that there is not a spot of GPL V3 code to be found? Why do you think that is? I'll tell you, because thanks to "the TiVo trick" GPL V2 is about as worthless as can be. Hell you might as well release it all as BSD, because that is what's gonna happen anyway.
So... how is that a threat to Linux? Is Mac OS X a threat to *BSD?
Linus and other prominent Linux developers considered the GPL v3 and it was rejected. There are pros and cons with GPL v2, just like GPL v3, just like BSD license, etc. See e.g. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-vs-the-gplv3/1200 regarding tivoization:
The GPL v3 doesn't match what I think is morally where I want to be. I think it *is* ok to control peoples hardware. I do it myself.
I'm not saying I necessarily agree, I'm just saying they made a conscious choice about it.
In my opinion (and I'm not alone in this), software patents are clearly the threat against Linux, and will be for a long time. Just look at Android (again).
At the very worst, playing driving games could possibly even create bad driving habits as the above practices are ignored.
So it's probably not wrong to conclude that since none of the mechanics above are relevant in video games (as you're saying, they're ignored) there's no transfer of either good or bad habits to real life.
(It would be different if e.g. you drive around in congested traffic for a big part of the game and learn that if you time your red lights correctly you can plow through an intersection.)
I think car physics are probably more transferable. I used to love Colin McRea Rally 2, and with an expensive wheel with force feedback I remember the angst of driving on ice and feeling *no force in the wheel* during a complete loss of grip. Whether it makes you a better driver... does driving a rally car on a track make you a better driver?
Define Determinism? Given the state of the universe at time t, you can calculate the state at time t+1.
Funny aren't you:-)
So what's "not determinism"? (Without going totally circular please.) If humans don't behave in a predictable manner, doesn't that mean we behave unpredictably? (Also known as "random".) And... wouldn't that be pretty strange behaviour?
Behaving in a stable (and somewhat predictable) manner is normal. Saying that those who do not behave like this are the only ones who have free will would be.. a strange conclusion. Else, it's my conclusion that even something as complex as the human mind behaves predictably even from the view of the low processing power of fellow humans. Imagine something outside our universe looking in, that could gobble up all the information about everything in the universe: Seems logical that it would predict everything that's going on everywhere.
(And just to come full circle: What would our world look like if it wasn't predictable? What does that mean? What would it mean that humans behave in a unpredictable way? To me, that would mean no stability, no order, and just pure "randomness" [not chaos, just random], and a complete lack of logic.)
>>"Free will" just means we cannot see the mechanism that produced it.
Out of curiosity, why are you so convinced that determinism is true?
It basically boils down to: Define free will.
We're human beings with personalties. Most of us behave in a pretty consistent manner just about all the time, and this behaviour gets defined as personality. If free will is doing something outside your personality, then only people acting "randomly" and inconsistently (crazy people?) have free will.
Because we behave in fairly consistent manners, it's possible to predict what other peoples opinions, thoughts and even some actions will be. That's something fairly common for people you know very well, e.g. family and close friends.
You can predict these things because you know them. You understand how they behave, where they come from etc. Jumping ahead, it seems pretty logical to me that if e.g. a supercomputer outside the universe was given all the data about everything in the universe at a specific time (e.g. at the big bang) that it would be able to predict everything that happens.
Our behaviour is predictable. In that sense, we don't have free will (even though we might not know or understand that we don't). But since we can't predict much in this world, we end up experiencing "free will" in practice. The GPs comment was spot on in my opinion.
Just to mention quantum mechanics: I discussed this with a coworker the other day. Not being an expert, I think it boils down to atoms or energy existing in different forms at the same time, until it interacts with its surroundings. It's supposed to be impossible to predict because viewing/seeing/reading the state causes interaction and thus affects the result. However, I think we just don't have a thorough enough understanding of it yet. Determinism doesn't mean humans will ever predict everything (or anything for that matter), it just means that it's logical to conclude that everything is predictable.
(I usually use the fire example: If I take out a lighter from my pocket and set this paper on fire, will there exist a parallel universe where the paper doesn't light up? That's impossible. Why wouldn't it light on fire? It has to. [And just as the physics is predictable, so are our minds.])
THIS. Anyone hosting DMCA-questionable content should damned well get a server offshore in a country that doesn't care about IP laws and then be sure to take every step to keep their real identity separate from it. I hear Russia is a good place...
No need to go that far east, just try out this Norwegian competitor to GitHub instead: http://gitorious.org/ . It might not be completely "outlaw" but without the DMCA the laws are at least a lot saner.
In fact, as others have mentioned further down, a mirror of some of the repos on gitorious is already available @ http://gitorious.org/ps3free.
They urged those who wanted feature-complete desktops to avoid it. Much to their own disappointment, major distributions like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE rushed to adopt it and the result was... well, mass disappointment.
I didn't follow that situation closely, but in my opinion they totally failed in communication. They said it was for "early adopters" but at the same time they labelled it 4.0 and stating something in the line of "we want as many early adopters as possible."
That's doublespeak and a total communication fail. Part of communication is *keep it simple* so that there's nothing to misinterpret and nothing to get "lost on the way".
They could have communicate this better much better. They could have called each version 4.0 Alpha 1, Beta 2 etc until what's now known as 4.2 (or 4.5 or whatever) finally became 4.0. They wanted it both ways (mass adoption with many testers, but no mainstream usage) and they blew it. Hopefully they (and others) will learn from their mistake.
(This might seem harsh, but it's just honest criticism.)
Reminds me of the Nobel peace prize that went to the chinese activist for human rights works.
In a sense, the west is asking China to move closer to our ideals. At the same time, the Norwegian government is planning on storing cellphone/Internet traffic metadata for 6-24 months for *every citizen* through the European Data Retention Directive, effectively moving Norway closer to China.
Perhaps if I didn't feel the "wheel" was being reinvented over and over again for no real purpose other than to say, "I don't like you, I'm taking my ball and going home" I might feel like open source was worth something.
I don't really care precisely what every single entity is doing. What's important is that they *can* reinvent the wheel *if they so please*. Free market for producers. And then it's up to users in that market to decide what they want to spend time on. That wheel, or that other wheel? Or maybe that caravan over there? Free market for consumers. It's wonderful, may the best software win.
There's no confidence that a selected open source solution will provide a stable, long-term platform.
If they want a stable, long-term platform, they sure shouldn't choose Microsoft software. How often do Microsoft come out with new "game changing" versions of their software, forcing users to upgrade? I remember my sister complaining to me when she got a new laptop with Windows Vista on it (before W7 came out), how she "had to learn everything all over again".
The traditional business community might not get it. Perhaps someone who does get it should use the knowledge and software so easily available and get dirty rich after e.g. starting a web site where people can message each other and share pictures and movies or something.
A fairly simple solution would be to use a large encryption key that only existed offsite (and offline), so that whenever the power goes, you have no way of decrypting without the key.
That means you have to physically show up at the data center whenever the power goes (cumbersome), but with uptimes these days that shouldn't be a problem.
If the police gets a warrant and comes home to your house by surprise, you better have a plan for that though. If you're really paranoid you probably could get a hold of "paper thin" CDs I once heard that crackers were using (the idea being that when the police is at the door you just tip over the cd-rack, destroying all the evidence [by "accident" or whatever], or in this case your decryption key).
Exactly. Previously, pirate bay was the best service available for me. Now I pay for spotify, and I get access to just about all the music I want at home and at work.
All someone needed to do was offer me a better service (anything, really). I spend 100 NOK a month on spotify (about 13 euros) and it's been many years since I've used that much on music, and although it's not perfect, I'm very satisfied.
Pretty much everyone who runs Linux dual-boots with Windows. So yes, when given a choice, even very computer-literate people will freely choose Windows.
Pfft. Welcome to the world of anecdotes. *Every* geek I know (and working at a computer company with ~200 employees, I know many) wouldn't touch Windows with a ten foot pole.
All of our machines (desktop and servers) and everyone working at our company (geek or not) use Linux (plus we have a few Macs to be honest). The only Windows exception being accounting: I believe they remote connect to a single windows machine running some proprietary accounting stuff.
I have used Linux exclusively (no dual boot) for about ten years. I still do "windows support" for some friends and family (getting less though) and boy do I not miss all the idiotic problems people have with Windows.
Anyway, just because you live in a Linux-flirting Windows world doesn't mean everyone else does. A lot of us happily live in the Linux-only world.
And in case you're wondering: I obviously work at a free software company. Welcome to the world of anecdotes.
Having a minimal amount of classified material will cut down on the risk of loosing it. Document classification should be used to guard national security interests (e.g. the keys to the castle) instead of hiding potentially embarrassing material or promoting a political agenda.
Just a comment on that: None of the cables that wikileaks has their hands on are classified as top secret. That's why a lot of it is basically gossip: It was given a low classification because it's simply unimportant (which is why someone was able to so easily get their hands on it, if the rumour of the press is correct). So in that regards, the classification system is working as intended: The really nasty stuff (US national security etc.) is literally top secret and still remains undisclosed.
You're far better off using a modern operating system (Mac, Linux, Win7, anything but XP) with no antivirus and religious attention to system updates.
The thing is, a lot of people aren't interested in computers. They just want something that just works. Paying religious attention to anything computer related other than their Facebook account is not an option for these people. And I get it, I feel the same about cars. I don't care much about my car, I just want something that works so it can take me safely back and forth to where ever I need to go (work, mostly).
As long as there are careless users there will be viruses and trojans. We can't expect people to change, but we can change the systems they are using (open source systems at least). If the user isn't interested in being careful, then perhaps a program should be made to do it for them. We can call it e.g. "anti-virus", as its job is basically to defend the user against viruses etc.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/russia-winter-time.html :
"I have made a decision to cancel the move back to 'winter' time starting from autumn this year", Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday, February 8, 2011. The new legislation eliminates the yearly switch between standard time and daylight saving time.
I totally agree, and I love the fact that Russia just "did it". Maybe other European countries won't be so scared if they can follow the lead instead of taking charge themselves so that we can finally end the nonsense.
Oh and by the way I live in Norway, were DST has a pretty strong effect on the sunlight. Just about every autumn the DST is discussed in the media, because people are so sick and tired of messing up their day rhythm. We don't care about the sunlight, we adapt, but changing the time is brutal on the sleep pattern.
But if this move fails and there's another regime change (for better or worse), then the leaders of a certain economic superpower [People's Republic of China] should be worried.
I'm not so sure about that. The thing about China is that its citizens are "brainwashed" for lack of better terms. I think the majority is actually comfortable with the political situation.
An ex-coworker of mine had a Chinese wife, and I asked him if they ever talk about politics at home. He basically replied: "We don't talk about it much, but my understanding is that in China politics is a "non-issue." People generally think it's up to the government to handle any political issues, and seldom get involved with it personally."
Of course there is a democratic movement in China that wants free elections, but my impression is that they are in a strong minority... In other words, I don't think there's anything brewing underneath the surface, so any revolution is going to take a lot of time to emerge.
From this article a couple of days earlier http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3261625/frustrations-mount-over-london-stock-exchange-data-interface-problems/ :
Publicly, the LSE and the data vendors say they are working together as engineers scramble to fix the price data problems, even though some statements to clients suggest elements of blame.
But behind the scenes, sources close to the several of the parties, including the exchange, told Computerworld UK they were immensely frustrated at the reputational impact of the problems.
The LSE is taking the position that its data feeds are working correctly. Industry sources said the exchange had placed a great deal of emphasis on the launch, which was largely providing successful high-speed trading, and that it had allocated sufficient time - 15 months - for the vendors to be fully prepared for the new system.
The LSE statement appeared to place some blame with the vendors. "Unfortunately a couple of market data vendors have experienced some specific issues aligning to the new Millennium Exchange platform and we are actively working with them to help resolve their issues," it said.
"All other trading customers and vendors are successfully trading on the new platform, benefiting from Millennium Exchange's superior functionality and speed."
Emphasize mine. Looks to me like the exchange is getting the flack for a couple of amateurish (or saboteurish?) vendors.
I agree that the democratic system isn't working optimally (in general) and that it needs change, but changing the government is a pretty major task.
What I'm thinking is that it would be positive for the whole system if more people got involved (an interested population, in your words). Making it available to people by making it easy to participate encourages involvement.
E.g. in Norway we're considering home voting: Letting people vote in front of their computer during elections. (Yes there are multiple problems with it, but it's being considered.) The idea being that making it *that* easy to vote (you don't even need to raise your eyes from the laptop to vote) will increase the voting participation, which again will increase the political interest (especially amongst young people), benefiting democracy as a whole.
But it's not just ease and availability that I'm thinking about. We should use our minds to "help" the politicians write smart and better laws, reach out and discuss with politicians what the consequences of their laws really are, and effectively open up lobbying to the entire population.
I haven't put enough thought into it to come up with anything more tangible than that, but the point is that technology opens up lots of interesting possibilities that are explored in business, but rarely in government. Seeing how important the government actually is, that's something that I think should change.
What I find completely amazing is this simple fact: Most well-run and successful open source projects seem to bear very little relationship to a true democracy (i.e., majority rule) in form or function.
The head of these projects is often referred to as a "benevolent dictator" - he whose word is law. The contributors cooperate (and sometimes compete, sometimes even via nasty political infighting) in what is in essence, a ruthless meritocracy-slash-technocracy, led by that 'benevolent dictator.'
The part that you're missing is that Linux can be forked by anyone, and the fork will have just as much legal power of the code as Linus has today (except for the trademark). In fact, Linus himself even encourages forks and the competition it brings.
The point being that Linus is the boss simply because *everyone wants him to be*. If someone who can do a better job comes a long, that's great, developers can follow that guy or gal instead. But that hasn't happened, even though anyone and everyone has the power to just start a competing movement (a true free market).
Compare this to the physical world were there is only one physical land, only one government, only one police, etc. You can't fork a country like you can fork code.
However, it would be excellent if we use the tools in front of us to open up for more direct participation from voters. There's a million different problems that I can think of, but _we have the technology_, so why not use it to create a more open democracy?
This would tend towards increase consumption of medical services for less and less important things.
I don't know how that stuff works in the US, but being Norwegian I can speak for Norwegian/Scandinavian hospitals (probably works roughly the same).
You can't just walk into a hospital and demand care. You need to see your normal doctor which can "order" a hospital to take you (or in an emergency the local 24/7 doctor or of course ambulance personnel can do the same).
Since doctors are paid the same regardless of what kind of treatment they give people, they have no incentive for giving wrongful or misleading diagnosis. There's no bonus if they lay off using the CAT-scan so often (or whatever it's called), and there's also no bonus if they treat 1000+ patients each.
They're paid to do the best job they can, and just like in any other profession they take pride in their work. Some are probably bad at their work, but like other higher education jobs, you're probably glad you can finally make money doing what you like (a friend of mine is studying to become a doctor [surgeon actually] as we speak, and after seven years of studies, he'll finally start working at a hospital full time).
In Scandinavia, we look in shock upon our American "neighbours" and how someone in their right mind could say no to the health care bill. Even the far far right parties wouldn't dream of removing free health care here (in Norway the far right party actually wants to spend more on it than what we're doing today).
Anecdote: When I was studying I had a semi-nasty biking accident that landed me a bed at the local hospital. After some surgery and lots of antibiotics, I started feeling better and wanted to go home. "I think we'll keep you for a couple of more days, those bacteria you had in that flesh wound was pretty nasty" was the message I got. So I ended up staying in the hospital for twelve days.
The hospital had no real incentive for keeping me there longer than needed, and no real incentive for kicking me out the door. They were simply giving me the medical care that I needed, and I didn't pay a dime. Yes I pay more taxes because of it, but I'll gladly pay that to see my neighbour get the same treatment that I did. (And *that* is socialism, by the way.)
Notice anything...funny...about Android? Like the fact that there is not a spot of GPL V3 code to be found? Why do you think that is? I'll tell you, because thanks to "the TiVo trick" GPL V2 is about as worthless as can be. Hell you might as well release it all as BSD, because that is what's gonna happen anyway.
So... how is that a threat to Linux? Is Mac OS X a threat to *BSD?
Linus and other prominent Linux developers considered the GPL v3 and it was rejected. There are pros and cons with GPL v2, just like GPL v3, just like BSD license, etc. See e.g. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-vs-the-gplv3/1200 regarding tivoization:
The GPL v3 doesn't match what I think is morally where I want to be. I think it *is* ok to control peoples hardware. I do it myself.
I'm not saying I necessarily agree, I'm just saying they made a conscious choice about it.
In my opinion (and I'm not alone in this), software patents are clearly the threat against Linux, and will be for a long time. Just look at Android (again).
At the very worst, playing driving games could possibly even create bad driving habits as the above practices are ignored.
So it's probably not wrong to conclude that since none of the mechanics above are relevant in video games (as you're saying, they're ignored) there's no transfer of either good or bad habits to real life.
(It would be different if e.g. you drive around in congested traffic for a big part of the game and learn that if you time your red lights correctly you can plow through an intersection.)
I think car physics are probably more transferable. I used to love Colin McRea Rally 2, and with an expensive wheel with force feedback I remember the angst of driving on ice and feeling *no force in the wheel* during a complete loss of grip. Whether it makes you a better driver ... does driving a rally car on a track make you a better driver?
As the Linux system isn't due to go "live" for another fortnight, I'd expect that it is the .NET based system that has been hacked.
I agree, but we can't be sure.
The London Stock Exchangeâ(TM)s new open source trading system may have been hacked last year, according to a report.
It would be nice to see the actual report this news item is based on.
Define free will? Easy - it's !Determinism.
Define Determinism? Given the state of the universe at time t, you can calculate the state at time t+1.
Funny aren't you :-)
So what's "not determinism"? (Without going totally circular please.) If humans don't behave in a predictable manner, doesn't that mean we behave unpredictably? (Also known as "random".) And ... wouldn't that be pretty strange behaviour?
Behaving in a stable (and somewhat predictable) manner is normal. Saying that those who do not behave like this are the only ones who have free will would be .. a strange conclusion. Else, it's my conclusion that even something as complex as the human mind behaves predictably even from the view of the low processing power of fellow humans. Imagine something outside our universe looking in, that could gobble up all the information about everything in the universe: Seems logical that it would predict everything that's going on everywhere.
(And just to come full circle: What would our world look like if it wasn't predictable? What does that mean? What would it mean that humans behave in a unpredictable way? To me, that would mean no stability, no order, and just pure "randomness" [not chaos, just random], and a complete lack of logic.)
>>"Free will" just means we cannot see the mechanism that produced it.
Out of curiosity, why are you so convinced that determinism is true?
It basically boils down to: Define free will.
We're human beings with personalties. Most of us behave in a pretty consistent manner just about all the time, and this behaviour gets defined as personality. If free will is doing something outside your personality, then only people acting "randomly" and inconsistently (crazy people?) have free will.
Because we behave in fairly consistent manners, it's possible to predict what other peoples opinions, thoughts and even some actions will be. That's something fairly common for people you know very well, e.g. family and close friends.
You can predict these things because you know them. You understand how they behave, where they come from etc. Jumping ahead, it seems pretty logical to me that if e.g. a supercomputer outside the universe was given all the data about everything in the universe at a specific time (e.g. at the big bang) that it would be able to predict everything that happens.
Our behaviour is predictable. In that sense, we don't have free will (even though we might not know or understand that we don't). But since we can't predict much in this world, we end up experiencing "free will" in practice. The GPs comment was spot on in my opinion.
Just to mention quantum mechanics: I discussed this with a coworker the other day. Not being an expert, I think it boils down to atoms or energy existing in different forms at the same time, until it interacts with its surroundings. It's supposed to be impossible to predict because viewing/seeing/reading the state causes interaction and thus affects the result. However, I think we just don't have a thorough enough understanding of it yet. Determinism doesn't mean humans will ever predict everything (or anything for that matter), it just means that it's logical to conclude that everything is predictable.
(I usually use the fire example: If I take out a lighter from my pocket and set this paper on fire, will there exist a parallel universe where the paper doesn't light up? That's impossible. Why wouldn't it light on fire? It has to. [And just as the physics is predictable, so are our minds.])
THIS. Anyone hosting DMCA-questionable content should damned well get a server offshore in a country that doesn't care about IP laws and then be sure to take every step to keep their real identity separate from it. I hear Russia is a good place...
No need to go that far east, just try out this Norwegian competitor to GitHub instead: http://gitorious.org/ . It might not be completely "outlaw" but without the DMCA the laws are at least a lot saner.
In fact, as others have mentioned further down, a mirror of some of the repos on gitorious is already available @ http://gitorious.org/ps3free.
They urged those who wanted feature-complete desktops to avoid it. Much to their own disappointment, major distributions like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE rushed to adopt it and the result was ... well, mass disappointment.
I didn't follow that situation closely, but in my opinion they totally failed in communication. They said it was for "early adopters" but at the same time they labelled it 4.0 and stating something in the line of "we want as many early adopters as possible."
That's doublespeak and a total communication fail. Part of communication is *keep it simple* so that there's nothing to misinterpret and nothing to get "lost on the way".
They could have communicate this better much better. They could have called each version 4.0 Alpha 1, Beta 2 etc until what's now known as 4.2 (or 4.5 or whatever) finally became 4.0. They wanted it both ways (mass adoption with many testers, but no mainstream usage) and they blew it. Hopefully they (and others) will learn from their mistake.
(This might seem harsh, but it's just honest criticism.)
Reminds me of the Nobel peace prize that went to the chinese activist for human rights works.
In a sense, the west is asking China to move closer to our ideals. At the same time, the Norwegian government is planning on storing cellphone/Internet traffic metadata for 6-24 months for *every citizen* through the European Data Retention Directive, effectively moving Norway closer to China.
Perhaps if I didn't feel the "wheel" was being reinvented over and over again for no real purpose other than to say, "I don't like you, I'm taking my ball and going home" I might feel like open source was worth something.
I don't really care precisely what every single entity is doing. What's important is that they *can* reinvent the wheel *if they so please*. Free market for producers. And then it's up to users in that market to decide what they want to spend time on. That wheel, or that other wheel? Or maybe that caravan over there? Free market for consumers. It's wonderful, may the best software win.
What are the odds that you are just trolling?
There's no confidence that a selected open source solution will provide a stable, long-term platform.
If they want a stable, long-term platform, they sure shouldn't choose Microsoft software. How often do Microsoft come out with new "game changing" versions of their software, forcing users to upgrade? I remember my sister complaining to me when she got a new laptop with Windows Vista on it (before W7 came out), how she "had to learn everything all over again".
The traditional business community might not get it. Perhaps someone who does get it should use the knowledge and software so easily available and get dirty rich after e.g. starting a web site where people can message each other and share pictures and movies or something.
Indeed, the "splitting up" is part of how free software is (theoretically) supposed to work
Like healthy competition in a free market.
(The fact that people can't grasp that open source == free market just shows how poorly people actually understand open source.)
A fairly simple solution would be to use a large encryption key that only existed offsite (and offline), so that whenever the power goes, you have no way of decrypting without the key.
That means you have to physically show up at the data center whenever the power goes (cumbersome), but with uptimes these days that shouldn't be a problem.
If the police gets a warrant and comes home to your house by surprise, you better have a plan for that though. If you're really paranoid you probably could get a hold of "paper thin" CDs I once heard that crackers were using (the idea being that when the police is at the door you just tip over the cd-rack, destroying all the evidence [by "accident" or whatever], or in this case your decryption key).
Exactly. Previously, pirate bay was the best service available for me. Now I pay for spotify, and I get access to just about all the music I want at home and at work.
All someone needed to do was offer me a better service (anything, really). I spend 100 NOK a month on spotify (about 13 euros) and it's been many years since I've used that much on music, and although it's not perfect, I'm very satisfied.
Lazy as I am I didn't read the post you were replying to (your post was scored 4 and the one you were replying to zero).
Anyway, nice reply.
Pretty much everyone who runs Linux dual-boots with Windows. So yes, when given a choice, even very computer-literate people will freely choose Windows.
Pfft. Welcome to the world of anecdotes. *Every* geek I know (and working at a computer company with ~200 employees, I know many) wouldn't touch Windows with a ten foot pole.
All of our machines (desktop and servers) and everyone working at our company (geek or not) use Linux (plus we have a few Macs to be honest). The only Windows exception being accounting: I believe they remote connect to a single windows machine running some proprietary accounting stuff.
I have used Linux exclusively (no dual boot) for about ten years. I still do "windows support" for some friends and family (getting less though) and boy do I not miss all the idiotic problems people have with Windows.
Anyway, just because you live in a Linux-flirting Windows world doesn't mean everyone else does. A lot of us happily live in the Linux-only world.
And in case you're wondering: I obviously work at a free software company. Welcome to the world of anecdotes.
There are six different nobel prizes, and only one of them (the peace prize) is handed out in Norway.
Having a minimal amount of classified material will cut down on the risk of loosing it. Document classification should be used to guard national security interests (e.g. the keys to the castle) instead of hiding potentially embarrassing material or promoting a political agenda.
Just a comment on that: None of the cables that wikileaks has their hands on are classified as top secret. That's why a lot of it is basically gossip: It was given a low classification because it's simply unimportant (which is why someone was able to so easily get their hands on it, if the rumour of the press is correct). So in that regards, the classification system is working as intended: The really nasty stuff (US national security etc.) is literally top secret and still remains undisclosed.
Wikileaks cables:
# 15, 652 secret
# 101,748 confidential
# 133,887 unclassified
You're far better off using a modern operating system (Mac, Linux, Win7, anything but XP) with no antivirus and religious attention to system updates.
The thing is, a lot of people aren't interested in computers. They just want something that just works. Paying religious attention to anything computer related other than their Facebook account is not an option for these people. And I get it, I feel the same about cars. I don't care much about my car, I just want something that works so it can take me safely back and forth to where ever I need to go (work, mostly).
As long as there are careless users there will be viruses and trojans. We can't expect people to change, but we can change the systems they are using (open source systems at least). If the user isn't interested in being careful, then perhaps a program should be made to do it for them. We can call it e.g. "anti-virus", as its job is basically to defend the user against viruses etc.