who do I trust more, Wikipedia or a commercial encyclopedia, the answer is always to pay for my information.
You make some interesting points, and I agree with many of your statements. I do not, however, share your view that traditional encyclopedias are any better. Have you ever watched a popular movie that deals with a topic you are very familiar with? Be it computers, forensics, firearms, astronomy, plastic making, or skateboarding the movies always screw it up. They throw out some BS 5 second sound byte, that is often completely factually wrong, and then move on. This is because movie makers don't know, or care about any of these topics. The same thing is true for traditional encyclopedias, just to a lesser extent. In both wikipedia and traditional encyclopedias, I have often found completely incorrect information. Just look up anything you are an expert on and you can almost certainly find some mistake. The difference is that wikipedia lets you fix it.
You should obviously not trust either wikipedia or traditional encyclopedias, and anyone who relies upon only one source is not making an informed decision. For quick reference, however, I turn to wikipedia every time. It is always accessible, can be referenced by anyone, and has a larger breadth of topics (by far). In doing quick research I have often referenced both wikipedia and the encyclopedia britannica. Try comparing the articles side-by-side, the wikipedia ones are generally more correct and comprehensive, especially in scientific subjects. Broad peer review makes a difference.
It has been edited over 30 times in the last two days, and information appears to now agree with the complainant's comments. Now, whether or not he was correct or trying to misinform editors to make a point, is still questionable.
I still favor wikipedia as a quick lookup for a number of reasons. First, it is easily searchable. Second, When I see something I know to be incorrect, I can correct it for others. Third, when I want to reference a topic for someone else, I know they have access to wikipedia. Fourth, more topics are covered by wikipedia than traditional encylopedias. And finally, because I think wikipedia may well be the start of one of the most important of human endeavors.
it's like if someone chucked a baseball through your window, you had to pay for the window, and they guy who threw it calls you a thief for stealing his baseball and not giving it back
Your analogy is close, but not quite there. It is more like someone throwing a baseball through your window, breaking it and impacting several surfaces inside your house. Then demanding that you remove and destroy all portions of your house that were illegally branded with the Major League Baseball logo.
I think you are wrong. Rockbox will not take significant share of the market from the ipod. It has an impressive list of features, but do you really expect a significant number of people to apply firmware to their own mp3 player? What percentage of our population do you think can and will do that? Further, it just not a well thought out user interface. Without a great deal of user testing, there is no way to come close to the ease of use of the ipod. Finally, market share relies upon advertising and "cool" factor. I have no doubt that eventually ipods will not be "hip" or "groovy":) but I don't think it is going to be a bad year for ipod users. I think ipod users, and itms users are coming out ahead of the game.
This presumes that the thief would have access to the database of reference. The tag only contains a Unique ID, therefore, without the reference, the ID is useless. You or the famous person are at the type of risk you describe already if an untrustworthy person has access to your medical records or pharmacy records.
Hmm, I go from trusting my pharmacist (and people with access to his database) not to leak info about my drugs, to trusting any person with access to this database (which will necessarily include every pharmacy in the U.S.) who can get within 30 yards of me. I know this article only refers to the larger bottles, not the individual bottles, but I have very little doubt that these tags will make it into everything eventually. This going to be a mess.
Yes it is, or near enough not to make a difference. Legally, it has been declared one. As to our other options, they are not options for most people since most people cannot write, or even install software themselves.
I don't complain that the lyrics in the songs I listen to aren't different, if I don't like them, I just don't use them.
Songs don't have interoperability issues. Well except DRM'd ones.
not because they sell software
You're right, it's because they bundle software for 'free' with the software they do sell.
Any product that is sufficiently better than anything Microsoft has to offer will succeed in the marketplace (Google, to use your reference).
Gee that must be why I'm running OS2, err NextStep, err BeOS...oh no, maybe you are just wrong. Everybody chooses MS, because when they buy a computer, with very few exceptions, they have to pay for Windows. Since they have to pay for it, manufacturers install a copy, and most people do not even know that there is an option to run anything else. This is because of MS's abuse of it's monopoly to illegally stifle competition. Google will die if MS decides they want to take over the search market. (Which they seem to be aiming at in the near future.)
Re:What reason would someone switch?
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Jeez, do I really have to explain monopoly expansion via bundling for umpteenth time on Slashdot? OK, here it is short and sweet. If someone has a monopoly, their customers have no other practical choice than to use their product. If that monopoly then enters another market, and bundles their two products, there is no way any competitor can survive, even with a better product. If you follow this to it's end conclusion, you end up with one company that sells everything. This is why we have a regulated capitalist system. Because monopolies are bad for everyone except the monopolist.
Microsoft has already set back the computing industry by a decade. Think of all the great companies they bought and killed, or squashed with bundling. When MS incorporates a search engine into their browser, all the cool stuff google (and everyone else in the search space) would otherwise bring us will not happen.
Do you expect to have the right to decide who you want to work for, and to leave one employer for another if, for instance, they offer more money or more desirable conditions?
The capitalist model works just fine, if no one employs anyone else, and everyone produces goods or services and trades them. It breaks down when moving to a macro scale because the more consolidated either businesses or unions get, the more centralized the power is and the more likely abuses will occur.
If business grow, they can screw over their workers, because quitting, despite your assertions, is not a viable option for most people. If you quit, your family begins to starve. That is capitalism. Consolidated workers are a response to consolidated work. If a company controls 80% of the jobs in an industry, they can dictate whatever terms they like to people who work in that industry. Look at Wal-mart already. When workers organize, they balance the playing field by controlling 80% of the labor pool, and allow bargaining on an equal level, rather than a subservient one.
As for the previous poster's comments about animals, it was uncalled for and incorrect. Many animals are more organized and cooperative than humans, and he should stop badmouthing them by comparing them to humans. What humans who espouse your world view are is selfish. Humans waste a large part of their effort competing with one another when cooperation would yield better results for all involved. That is not to say that competition is bad, it can motivate people and in some cases results in rewards that are more proportional to a persons abilities and effort. A focus that does not allow for cooperation, however, is just as foolish as one that does not allow competition.
You are looking at the auto workers unions from 20 years ago, and extrapolating what you think a union is, and must be. There is no reason union workers can't work in the same place as non-union workers. It is illegal to fire you for being in a union so if they fire all the union workers, they will have to pay them compensation anyway. There is no reason a union has to enforce specific work hours, or time clocks. And there is no reason why a union member has to go with the union on all issues. You said that companies don't like unions. That is true, their reason is because it shifts some power back into the hands of the employees. Collective bargaining is just a counter to the consolidation due to unregulated capitalism. It would be great if more companies ran their business with their employees happiness as one of it's high priorities, but that is just not the reality of today's market. Businesses are run by executives who's priorities are usually, personal profit, person power, gaining allies and subordinates, maximizing shareholder returns, keeping the business going, and finally, making employees happy. Unions allow the workers to share a little more of the power, and usually a little more of the profits.
Re:What reason would someone switch?
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They will switch because some future version of IE will have a search bar that goes there, and most users will use whatever is provided for them. Sorry, but that is just the way it goes. The monopoly is simply too strong and the legal system is not fast enough or willing to actually punish them in a meaningful way.
So you are saying you don't have any answers or estimates, but you're pretty sure the only study done to date is wrong. Well, that is very helpful.
It's like saying Coke is a better spermicide than Pepsi
It's a lot more like saying that the study that was done is the best estimate because it was done scientifically, and while not conclusive, you have presented no evidence to the contrary, only possible (but not verified by any actual facts) problems with the methodology. This is science, not debate.
The Lancet study is the most reliable study to date. You may doubt it, (I know I have doubts) but you have presented no evidence to refute it. The hypothesis is that the most probably value is 100,000 to 200,000 civilians killed. Please apply your scientific method now.
could only make you see what a mass of strawmen and twisted logic your post is. Follow the link I posted. It answers most of your question.
I did follow your link, and read the article. Did you read any of my post? Please answer the questions I repeated several times. How many civilians are dead? Why do you think that? What is your source? What makes that source more reliable?
The Lancet study, as far as I know, is the most reliable study on the number of civilians killed. Do you disagree with this, and if so, what is the most reliable study?
P.S. do you know what a strawman argument is? What weak arguments did I present and then refute?
is the report by The Lancet that US troops have killed 100,000 civilians. This number is being reported everywhere as a recorded facts
When this study was first reported, I saw dozens of people on Slashdot questioning it's validity and debunking it. They proclaimed those who made the study poor scientists, and pointed out the statistical margins of error. You are here again proclaiming it to be poor science, and how the media simply regurgitates it.
Well, I'd like to know, how many civilians have been killed in Iraq? What is your best guess, and where are you getting your figures? I looked around and could not find even one other study, aside from the Lancet one, that even attempts to apply any scientific method to discovering this number. I looked at numbers reported in the media, and still reported in the media, and all of them are guesses based either on the reports from a few hospitals in less devastated areas, or by modifying another news agency's report.
I agree that this study has potentially serious flaws, it's sample size is too small, and much of the media has done a poor job of explaining the likelihood that it could be very wrong. But at the same time, I think it is moronic to attack the credibility of the only study conducted that actually has ANY credibility.
If you, as a scientist, were asked to estimate how many civilians have been killed in Iraq, what numbers would you rely upon? What study has a better methodology and execution? If you don't like this study, why don't you go try to conduct one of your own in the middle of a war. The scientists who conducted the Lancet study should be lauded for their efforts to come up with a figure that has some backing in scientific method. Their numbers are not facts, and should not be presented as such, but they are still the most credible numbers to be presented thus far.
I think it is indicative of how annoyed people are that they equate sending advertisements to you in the same category as burgling your house. They are not stealing your time and resources, they are trying to sell you something. Should street vendors be banned from walking up to you and trying to sell you things? They are stealing your valuable time and resources. I'm not saying that spammers are nice or good, or have some sort of moral high ground, many of them run confidence schemes, as in the this case. Many of them use compromised machines, or at least forge their from headers. I think those practices are wrong, and have no problems with banning them. You assert that I am blaming the victim, but I don't see people who receive spam, myself included, as poor helpless victims. Some people like to get spam, and buy products from them. Filtering is trivial.
You are saying, in effect, people should be free to smoke pot, but they should NOT be free to make lots of money.
No, actually I'm not. What I'm saying is that although I find laws against smoking pot to be ridiculous, and think that future generations will agree, I think that greed, as a major goal of an individual in our society, leads to a great deal of evil. This has nothing to do with the legality of commerce. I do not support laws banning making money.
I do, however, support a more socialized government in order to distribute power and wealth more broadly, and stabilize or government and society. Concentration of wealth and power is the greatest danger out democracy faces.
As far as the value of wealth is concerned 87% of respondents in a blind study said financial status was one of their top three concerns in finding a mate, and was the number one answer when asked to define success.
spam obstructs people who are trying to speak to each other
I don't think anyone would buy that argument. Just try applying it to mass snail mailings. I get so much junk mail that it is restricting my loved ones freedom of speech, since I can't find their mail in the pile. Is it true that it is a hindrance, yes, but it is all free speech, it is just that you only value some of it. And it is not your assessment of it's value that is important (constitutionally), but the speaker's. There is a right to speak. There is no right to not be spoken to. If you don't like spam, filter it, or ignore it, or blacklist the sender and throw away all communication from them, just don't stop them from speaking. That is a road that we do not want to go down any further.
Are you implying that there is something wrong with being rich, submissive, or homosexual? All three are logical possibilities for the previous poster's preferences, given his, or her, implied consent for the current state of affairs. Why must you result to juvenile name-calling?
I'm rubber, you're glue, douche-bags bounce off me and stick to you. (hmm, there's some imagery for you.)
You clearly don't understand your position in the company.
You don't think this statement is a little presumptuous? You don't know who I am, what my company is, or what my position within it is. Unless, of course, you're one of them!
You can't use overall weak management in a company as justification for your position that Linux only fails in businesses because of management. That doesn't even make any sense.
I'm not providing reasons why Linux fails, I'm providing reasons why Linux is not deployed. It has nothing to do with technical merit, and everything to do with the people making decisions, their motivations, and their decision making process. It is a cultural issue, and one that will resolve itself, given time and some good old capitalist competition.
You claimed in your original post that managers were not switching to Linux, because they were more informed about the cost, than the typical slashdotter. Now you state that they should not have to know about technology, that is my job. Don't you think that is a bit of a contradiction? You further claim that management is interested in the bottom line, and you're right. Unfortunately they are rarely informed enough to make correct decisions regarding the bottom line, and the bottom line they really care about is their own. The CEO of a company I left had an employment history that should have made him a red flag for every prospective employer. Three companies had tanked under his command, and two suffered losses, then fired him. For some reason, however, that hard work made him a millionaire. That is because he was looking after his own interests, not those of the company. This, in my experience, is par for the course. Managers are interested in short term gains, giving themselves bonuses and raises, with all available cash, and bailing once they have ruined a good and profitable company.
As far as it being my job to convince management otherwise, no it is not. My task is to accomplish specific goals, and improve our product. Managements job is to plan strategy, and provide reliable tools cheaply. In corporate America, however, their goal tends to be to make money for themselves at all costs. Few managers care about making a quality product, or a long lasting and stable company. The reason Linux will eventually win, is because companies that don't use it will be undercut by those who do. The process will take a while, and may be more socialist than Americans are used to. Look to China, Europe, and South America. These are places where innovation can still happen.
99Bottles, here, is the guy none of us talk to at parties.
I find your comment ironic, given the variety of people I talked to at a party last weekend, both "liberal" and "conservative." I always wondered about people who refer to themselves as liberals. Are you trying to distinguish yourself from conservatives (which seems to be a pop culture term for republican theses days)? Websters actually defines liberal as democratic or republican, as opposed to monarchical or aristocratic. Of course that is independent of the parties, whose names are just reminders of what they used to be. As far as being representative, please do not regard me as representative of any group, stereotype, archetype, religion, or species. I like to think of myself as atypical, unique, and not boring as dirt. As far as my comments above go, they were meant to be informative (of my personal experiences), speculative (how will history judge us), and interrogative (do you really think anal rape is ok, not approved of by some christians, or are you just parroting some talk show?) I'll see talk to you later at the party, or tomorrow at that party, or friday at that party. Who knows, maybe I really will.
OK, lets not argue that for the moment. Will these laws stop spam? Do they apply to people in China, Korea, Argentina, and Sweden? Will criminalizing spam do anything other than make it more profitable for those who do it, and move the rest of it overseas?
Spam can be filtered at the server or client, spammers have already lost the battle for my inbox, I just don't see any of it. Authentication of mail, and encryption mechanisms will curtail it even further. This is just people using the legal system to try to punish and deter those who have annoyed them. It will be ineffective and will likely just result in one more body in the prisons and one more institutionalized criminal in 5 years.
Liberal is a stupid term used to classify and dismiss anyone who disagrees with you. What is a liberal, someone who wants liberty? Man, we can't have that. Nor am I particularly enraged or trolling. I was just presenting a futurist-fiction of how history is likely to judge our society. Do you not find our culture ridiculous and ethically bankrupt? Perhaps you think people should be judged by the amount of wealth they have and a huge percentage of our population should be anally raped. Are you perhaps a rich, submissive homosexual?
a one-to-one application capable of natively sucking in those.mdb files and running with them.
Google gives me about 15 different mysql front ends, capable of opening.mdb files. Commercially packaged, professional grade setups with support, run as low as $45 a license for linux versions, and have windows and MacOSX versions for cross-platform support and gradual migrations. Maybe all of the solutions out there are crap. I don't know. But maybe this is a non-issue.
You are claiming that ignorance of management is not a major reason for Linux uptake? You are dead wrong. Managers and executives are not, for the most part, tech saavy or well informed.
I have worked at two different companies where managers from on high decreed that Windows was going to be the ubiquitous platform for the whole company. In one case they wrote rules banning all mail clients other that Outlook and banning the use of any free software. This was for a company that wrote software that only ran on UNIX/Linux/BSD machines and was, of course, completely developed with free software. The rules they decreed would have completely stopped all work had the engineering middle management not lied through their teeth.
I have no faith that any given manager will have a clue, or even bother to inform themselves or talk to the people using the systems before making technical decisions. Undoubtedly some of those will be to Linux where it is inappropriate. For the most part, however, managers will just use Windows because that is what they know, and they don't want to look stupid.
The company I work for now, is a UNIX development shop, but even here you notice that the farther up the chain of command you get, the more windows machines you see. Luckily, we have some very clueful middle managers who have a hands-off style. As a result, there are maybe 3 windows machines among actual coders, and as many apples as X86 systems.
In summary, if you think the technical ignorance of managers is a myth, and that they have more of a clue than the the average slashdotter, I'm sure a thousand horror stories will be presented to prove you wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
who do I trust more, Wikipedia or a commercial encyclopedia, the answer is always to pay for my information.
You make some interesting points, and I agree with many of your statements. I do not, however, share your view that traditional encyclopedias are any better. Have you ever watched a popular movie that deals with a topic you are very familiar with? Be it computers, forensics, firearms, astronomy, plastic making, or skateboarding the movies always screw it up. They throw out some BS 5 second sound byte, that is often completely factually wrong, and then move on. This is because movie makers don't know, or care about any of these topics. The same thing is true for traditional encyclopedias, just to a lesser extent. In both wikipedia and traditional encyclopedias, I have often found completely incorrect information. Just look up anything you are an expert on and you can almost certainly find some mistake. The difference is that wikipedia lets you fix it.
You should obviously not trust either wikipedia or traditional encyclopedias, and anyone who relies upon only one source is not making an informed decision. For quick reference, however, I turn to wikipedia every time. It is always accessible, can be referenced by anyone, and has a larger breadth of topics (by far). In doing quick research I have often referenced both wikipedia and the encyclopedia britannica. Try comparing the articles side-by-side, the wikipedia ones are generally more correct and comprehensive, especially in scientific subjects. Broad peer review makes a difference.
It has been edited over 30 times in the last two days, and information appears to now agree with the complainant's comments. Now, whether or not he was correct or trying to misinform editors to make a point, is still questionable.
I still favor wikipedia as a quick lookup for a number of reasons. First, it is easily searchable. Second, When I see something I know to be incorrect, I can correct it for others. Third, when I want to reference a topic for someone else, I know they have access to wikipedia. Fourth, more topics are covered by wikipedia than traditional encylopedias. And finally, because I think wikipedia may well be the start of one of the most important of human endeavors.
it's like if someone chucked a baseball through your window, you had to pay for the window, and they guy who threw it calls you a thief for stealing his baseball and not giving it back
Your analogy is close, but not quite there. It is more like someone throwing a baseball through your window, breaking it and impacting several surfaces inside your house. Then demanding that you remove and destroy all portions of your house that were illegally branded with the Major League Baseball logo.
I think you are wrong. Rockbox will not take significant share of the market from the ipod. It has an impressive list of features, but do you really expect a significant number of people to apply firmware to their own mp3 player? What percentage of our population do you think can and will do that? Further, it just not a well thought out user interface. Without a great deal of user testing, there is no way to come close to the ease of use of the ipod. Finally, market share relies upon advertising and "cool" factor. I have no doubt that eventually ipods will not be "hip" or "groovy" :) but I don't think it is going to be a bad year for ipod users. I think ipod users, and itms users are coming out ahead of the game.
This presumes that the thief would have access to the database of reference. The tag only contains a Unique ID, therefore, without the reference, the ID is useless. You or the famous person are at the type of risk you describe already if an untrustworthy person has access to your medical records or pharmacy records.
Hmm, I go from trusting my pharmacist (and people with access to his database) not to leak info about my drugs, to trusting any person with access to this database (which will necessarily include every pharmacy in the U.S.) who can get within 30 yards of me. I know this article only refers to the larger bottles, not the individual bottles, but I have very little doubt that these tags will make it into everything eventually. This going to be a mess.
Just move to downtown, you can get a house for a dollar :)
It's not a monopoly
Yes it is, or near enough not to make a difference. Legally, it has been declared one. As to our other options, they are not options for most people since most people cannot write, or even install software themselves.
I don't complain that the lyrics in the songs I listen to aren't different, if I don't like them, I just don't use them.
Songs don't have interoperability issues. Well except DRM'd ones.
not because they sell software
You're right, it's because they bundle software for 'free' with the software they do sell.
Any product that is sufficiently better than anything Microsoft has to offer will succeed in the marketplace (Google, to use your reference).
Gee that must be why I'm running OS2, err NextStep, err BeOS...oh no, maybe you are just wrong. Everybody chooses MS, because when they buy a computer, with very few exceptions, they have to pay for Windows. Since they have to pay for it, manufacturers install a copy, and most people do not even know that there is an option to run anything else. This is because of MS's abuse of it's monopoly to illegally stifle competition. Google will die if MS decides they want to take over the search market. (Which they seem to be aiming at in the near future.)
Jeez, do I really have to explain monopoly expansion via bundling for umpteenth time on Slashdot? OK, here it is short and sweet. If someone has a monopoly, their customers have no other practical choice than to use their product. If that monopoly then enters another market, and bundles their two products, there is no way any competitor can survive, even with a better product. If you follow this to it's end conclusion, you end up with one company that sells everything. This is why we have a regulated capitalist system. Because monopolies are bad for everyone except the monopolist.
Microsoft has already set back the computing industry by a decade. Think of all the great companies they bought and killed, or squashed with bundling. When MS incorporates a search engine into their browser, all the cool stuff google (and everyone else in the search space) would otherwise bring us will not happen.
Do you expect to have the right to decide who you want to work for, and to leave one employer for another if, for instance, they offer more money or more desirable conditions?
The capitalist model works just fine, if no one employs anyone else, and everyone produces goods or services and trades them. It breaks down when moving to a macro scale because the more consolidated either businesses or unions get, the more centralized the power is and the more likely abuses will occur.
If business grow, they can screw over their workers, because quitting, despite your assertions, is not a viable option for most people. If you quit, your family begins to starve. That is capitalism. Consolidated workers are a response to consolidated work. If a company controls 80% of the jobs in an industry, they can dictate whatever terms they like to people who work in that industry. Look at Wal-mart already. When workers organize, they balance the playing field by controlling 80% of the labor pool, and allow bargaining on an equal level, rather than a subservient one.
As for the previous poster's comments about animals, it was uncalled for and incorrect. Many animals are more organized and cooperative than humans, and he should stop badmouthing them by comparing them to humans. What humans who espouse your world view are is selfish. Humans waste a large part of their effort competing with one another when cooperation would yield better results for all involved. That is not to say that competition is bad, it can motivate people and in some cases results in rewards that are more proportional to a persons abilities and effort. A focus that does not allow for cooperation, however, is just as foolish as one that does not allow competition.
FUD
You are looking at the auto workers unions from 20 years ago, and extrapolating what you think a union is, and must be. There is no reason union workers can't work in the same place as non-union workers. It is illegal to fire you for being in a union so if they fire all the union workers, they will have to pay them compensation anyway. There is no reason a union has to enforce specific work hours, or time clocks. And there is no reason why a union member has to go with the union on all issues. You said that companies don't like unions. That is true, their reason is because it shifts some power back into the hands of the employees. Collective bargaining is just a counter to the consolidation due to unregulated capitalism. It would be great if more companies ran their business with their employees happiness as one of it's high priorities, but that is just not the reality of today's market. Businesses are run by executives who's priorities are usually, personal profit, person power, gaining allies and subordinates, maximizing shareholder returns, keeping the business going, and finally, making employees happy. Unions allow the workers to share a little more of the power, and usually a little more of the profits.
They will switch because some future version of IE will have a search bar that goes there, and most users will use whatever is provided for them. Sorry, but that is just the way it goes. The monopoly is simply too strong and the legal system is not fast enough or willing to actually punish them in a meaningful way.
So you are saying you don't have any answers or estimates, but you're pretty sure the only study done to date is wrong. Well, that is very helpful.
It's like saying Coke is a better spermicide than Pepsi
It's a lot more like saying that the study that was done is the best estimate because it was done scientifically, and while not conclusive, you have presented no evidence to the contrary, only possible (but not verified by any actual facts) problems with the methodology. This is science, not debate.
The Lancet study is the most reliable study to date. You may doubt it, (I know I have doubts) but you have presented no evidence to refute it. The hypothesis is that the most probably value is 100,000 to 200,000 civilians killed. Please apply your scientific method now.
could only make you see what a mass of strawmen and twisted logic your post is. Follow the link I posted. It answers most of your question.
I did follow your link, and read the article. Did you read any of my post? Please answer the questions I repeated several times. How many civilians are dead? Why do you think that? What is your source? What makes that source more reliable?
The Lancet study, as far as I know, is the most reliable study on the number of civilians killed. Do you disagree with this, and if so, what is the most reliable study?
P.S. do you know what a strawman argument is? What weak arguments did I present and then refute?
is the report by The Lancet that US troops have killed 100,000 civilians. This number is being reported everywhere as a recorded facts
When this study was first reported, I saw dozens of people on Slashdot questioning it's validity and debunking it. They proclaimed those who made the study poor scientists, and pointed out the statistical margins of error. You are here again proclaiming it to be poor science, and how the media simply regurgitates it.
Well, I'd like to know, how many civilians have been killed in Iraq? What is your best guess, and where are you getting your figures? I looked around and could not find even one other study, aside from the Lancet one, that even attempts to apply any scientific method to discovering this number. I looked at numbers reported in the media, and still reported in the media, and all of them are guesses based either on the reports from a few hospitals in less devastated areas, or by modifying another news agency's report.
I agree that this study has potentially serious flaws, it's sample size is too small, and much of the media has done a poor job of explaining the likelihood that it could be very wrong. But at the same time, I think it is moronic to attack the credibility of the only study conducted that actually has ANY credibility.
If you, as a scientist, were asked to estimate how many civilians have been killed in Iraq, what numbers would you rely upon? What study has a better methodology and execution? If you don't like this study, why don't you go try to conduct one of your own in the middle of a war. The scientists who conducted the Lancet study should be lauded for their efforts to come up with a figure that has some backing in scientific method. Their numbers are not facts, and should not be presented as such, but they are still the most credible numbers to be presented thus far.
I think it is indicative of how annoyed people are that they equate sending advertisements to you in the same category as burgling your house. They are not stealing your time and resources, they are trying to sell you something. Should street vendors be banned from walking up to you and trying to sell you things? They are stealing your valuable time and resources. I'm not saying that spammers are nice or good, or have some sort of moral high ground, many of them run confidence schemes, as in the this case. Many of them use compromised machines, or at least forge their from headers. I think those practices are wrong, and have no problems with banning them. You assert that I am blaming the victim, but I don't see people who receive spam, myself included, as poor helpless victims. Some people like to get spam, and buy products from them. Filtering is trivial.
You are saying, in effect, people should be free to smoke pot, but they should NOT be free to make lots of money.
No, actually I'm not. What I'm saying is that although I find laws against smoking pot to be ridiculous, and think that future generations will agree, I think that greed, as a major goal of an individual in our society, leads to a great deal of evil. This has nothing to do with the legality of commerce. I do not support laws banning making money.
I do, however, support a more socialized government in order to distribute power and wealth more broadly, and stabilize or government and society. Concentration of wealth and power is the greatest danger out democracy faces.
As far as the value of wealth is concerned 87% of respondents in a blind study said financial status was one of their top three concerns in finding a mate, and was the number one answer when asked to define success.
spam obstructs people who are trying to speak to each other
I don't think anyone would buy that argument. Just try applying it to mass snail mailings. I get so much junk mail that it is restricting my loved ones freedom of speech, since I can't find their mail in the pile. Is it true that it is a hindrance, yes, but it is all free speech, it is just that you only value some of it. And it is not your assessment of it's value that is important (constitutionally), but the speaker's. There is a right to speak. There is no right to not be spoken to. If you don't like spam, filter it, or ignore it, or blacklist the sender and throw away all communication from them, just don't stop them from speaking. That is a road that we do not want to go down any further.
Are you implying that there is something wrong with being rich, submissive, or homosexual? All three are logical possibilities for the previous poster's preferences, given his, or her, implied consent for the current state of affairs. Why must you result to juvenile name-calling?
I'm rubber, you're glue, douche-bags bounce off me and stick to you. (hmm, there's some imagery for you.)
You clearly don't understand your position in the company.
You don't think this statement is a little presumptuous? You don't know who I am, what my company is, or what my position within it is. Unless, of course, you're one of them!
You can't use overall weak management in a company as justification for your position that Linux only fails in businesses because of management. That doesn't even make any sense.
I'm not providing reasons why Linux fails, I'm providing reasons why Linux is not deployed. It has nothing to do with technical merit, and everything to do with the people making decisions, their motivations, and their decision making process. It is a cultural issue, and one that will resolve itself, given time and some good old capitalist competition.
You claimed in your original post that managers were not switching to Linux, because they were more informed about the cost, than the typical slashdotter. Now you state that they should not have to know about technology, that is my job. Don't you think that is a bit of a contradiction? You further claim that management is interested in the bottom line, and you're right. Unfortunately they are rarely informed enough to make correct decisions regarding the bottom line, and the bottom line they really care about is their own. The CEO of a company I left had an employment history that should have made him a red flag for every prospective employer. Three companies had tanked under his command, and two suffered losses, then fired him. For some reason, however, that hard work made him a millionaire. That is because he was looking after his own interests, not those of the company. This, in my experience, is par for the course. Managers are interested in short term gains, giving themselves bonuses and raises, with all available cash, and bailing once they have ruined a good and profitable company.
As far as it being my job to convince management otherwise, no it is not. My task is to accomplish specific goals, and improve our product. Managements job is to plan strategy, and provide reliable tools cheaply. In corporate America, however, their goal tends to be to make money for themselves at all costs. Few managers care about making a quality product, or a long lasting and stable company. The reason Linux will eventually win, is because companies that don't use it will be undercut by those who do. The process will take a while, and may be more socialist than Americans are used to. Look to China, Europe, and South America. These are places where innovation can still happen.
99Bottles, here, is the guy none of us talk to at parties.
I find your comment ironic, given the variety of people I talked to at a party last weekend, both "liberal" and "conservative." I always wondered about people who refer to themselves as liberals. Are you trying to distinguish yourself from conservatives (which seems to be a pop culture term for republican theses days)? Websters actually defines liberal as democratic or republican, as opposed to monarchical or aristocratic. Of course that is independent of the parties, whose names are just reminders of what they used to be. As far as being representative, please do not regard me as representative of any group, stereotype, archetype, religion, or species. I like to think of myself as atypical, unique, and not boring as dirt. As far as my comments above go, they were meant to be informative (of my personal experiences), speculative (how will history judge us), and interrogative (do you really think anal rape is ok, not approved of by some christians, or are you just parroting some talk show?) I'll see talk to you later at the party, or tomorrow at that party, or friday at that party. Who knows, maybe I really will.
Does this punishment fit their crime? Absolutely.
OK, lets not argue that for the moment. Will these laws stop spam? Do they apply to people in China, Korea, Argentina, and Sweden? Will criminalizing spam do anything other than make it more profitable for those who do it, and move the rest of it overseas?
Spam can be filtered at the server or client, spammers have already lost the battle for my inbox, I just don't see any of it. Authentication of mail, and encryption mechanisms will curtail it even further. This is just people using the legal system to try to punish and deter those who have annoyed them. It will be ineffective and will likely just result in one more body in the prisons and one more institutionalized criminal in 5 years.
OK, Bush=Hitler
Liberal is a stupid term used to classify and dismiss anyone who disagrees with you. What is a liberal, someone who wants liberty? Man, we can't have that. Nor am I particularly enraged or trolling. I was just presenting a futurist-fiction of how history is likely to judge our society. Do you not find our culture ridiculous and ethically bankrupt? Perhaps you think people should be judged by the amount of wealth they have and a huge percentage of our population should be anally raped. Are you perhaps a rich, submissive homosexual?
a one-to-one application capable of natively sucking in those .mdb files and running with them.
Google gives me about 15 different mysql front ends, capable of opening .mdb files. Commercially packaged, professional grade setups with support, run as low as $45 a license for linux versions, and have windows and MacOSX versions for cross-platform support and gradual migrations. Maybe all of the solutions out there are crap. I don't know. But maybe this is a non-issue.
You are claiming that ignorance of management is not a major reason for Linux uptake? You are dead wrong. Managers and executives are not, for the most part, tech saavy or well informed.
I have worked at two different companies where managers from on high decreed that Windows was going to be the ubiquitous platform for the whole company. In one case they wrote rules banning all mail clients other that Outlook and banning the use of any free software. This was for a company that wrote software that only ran on UNIX/Linux/BSD machines and was, of course, completely developed with free software. The rules they decreed would have completely stopped all work had the engineering middle management not lied through their teeth.
I have no faith that any given manager will have a clue, or even bother to inform themselves or talk to the people using the systems before making technical decisions. Undoubtedly some of those will be to Linux where it is inappropriate. For the most part, however, managers will just use Windows because that is what they know, and they don't want to look stupid.
The company I work for now, is a UNIX development shop, but even here you notice that the farther up the chain of command you get, the more windows machines you see. Luckily, we have some very clueful middle managers who have a hands-off style. As a result, there are maybe 3 windows machines among actual coders, and as many apples as X86 systems.
In summary, if you think the technical ignorance of managers is a myth, and that they have more of a clue than the the average slashdotter, I'm sure a thousand horror stories will be presented to prove you wrong.