"Now, that the military is fighting a 2 front war (and looking at the very real possibility of a 3 front war in another year), they are getting a lot of power. More importantly, they are willing to use it."
I don't like to support an obviously trolling GPP, but from your answer I can't help wondering... If Bush/his administration/their policies didn't cause this to happen, who did?
"You normally woudln't and hope you never have to. But things happend. Earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, Riots (Rodney king)."
Ok, but earthquakes, fires and hurricanes aren't helped or hindered by the presence of guns. If you're worried about the breakdown of law and order (which is debatable, since almost all of the confirmed reports from Katrina indicate a comparatively peaceful struggle to survive, with people mostly looting empty shops rather than fighting between themselves), this can be filed under "riots".
Riots, granted, do make gun ownership attractive. But if everyone has guns, that includes the rioters. In fact, since they're manifestly out looking for trouble, rioters are probably more likely to be packing heat.
How does one gun against 50 help you? Unless your objective is to get shot and killed, instead of robbed blind but alive at the end of it?
"I remember the pictures of shop owners protecting their stores/homes in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots with rifles, shotguns, and handguns. And believe they had every right to do so. The police couldn't protect their property, we have to assume SOME responisbility to protect ourselves and those we love."
Again, that's a fair point, but can you give a single example of a riot that was intent on smashing up a shop but was turned away when a shopkeeper pointed a single gun at the entire riot? I haven't heard of any (and see my point above)...
"In the event of an earthquake I have stored water, food, and med's. Not everyone else has. If I have enough I share, if I don't and you insist on trying to take it I shoot/kill you."
This is the depressing thing that Katrina highlighted. In the event of a breakdown of law and order, the first instinct in the US is to treat everyone with suspicion and get tooled up in case someone else attacks you. In the UK the first instinct would be to co-operate, share what you have and try to re-establish some kind of society, not to factionalise into thousands of tiny hilltop forts all pointing guns at each other. I wonder why we don't have survivalist nutjobs in the UK, and if there's any connection?
"One morning I awoke to "put your hands on your head and step out of the car". I live in a "nice" neighborhood but it turns out a guy was sleeping in a car across the street. He'd stolen the car and was considered dangerous. What if he had tried to break in?"
Oh god, where to begin? I don't mean to be offensive, but using this example to justify keeping guns in the house is (to me) such an overreaction it's insane... <:-)
1) I've watched video of US police officers tazing a woman because she refused to stop talking on her mobile and get out of her car quick enough. Oh, and they'd only pulled over for having a broken taillight. Pointing guns at him doesn't mean he was dangerous, and certainly not necessarily to you and yours.
I've got a friend who was surrounded, pulled out of his car and taken away by a four-man police Armed Response Unit (think: SWAT team) armed with Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns, in a quiet sleepy suburb in England, because he'd been mucking about in his privately-owned house with a kids eight-inch-long plastic toy gun that fired sucker darts, and a nosy elderly neighbour (who disliked them and constantly complained to the police and council about them) had called the police and reported he had an unlicenced firearm in the house.
Merely because someone is "considered" dangerous, doesn't mean they necessarily are.
2) Your guy was sleeping in a car across the street (probably, if he was a fugutive, because it was a nice, quiet, safe area), not invading your home at gunpoint. I've slept in cars before, but never invaded a home and shot, raped or killed anyone, and if I was going to do it I'd choose somewhere where the residents hadn't just had eight or ten hours to notice an odd new car with a sleeping guy in it and n
Actually, in the UK (where I'm from), talking on a mobile phone without a hands-free headset while driving is already illegal. As is gun ownership without rigorous training, evaluation and qualification.
And many people who support banning guns across the world do also support clamping down on selfish, thoughtless soccer moms and other completely unnecesary SUV owners.
However, every time we complain about them, they're either told to fuck off (because caring about the environment is clearly unamerican pinko UN communist homosexual flag-burning), or the SUV crowd turn around and say "What about firearms? Children can kill themselves with those - look at Columbine!!!1!1!one!".
You tackle these things as-and-when they crop up, and if the article had been about environmental issues relating to SUVs, and I spotted an ill-thought-out post supporting the right for anyone else to unnecessarily fuck up the air, water and food on my planet, damn straight I would have weighed in on the issue.
"It isn't always necessary to shoot people: the gun often deters people from completing a crime, even if not shot. This happens hundreds of times each week in the U.S."
Touché. Unfortunately, they also tnd to escalate confrontations until someone is shot and killed, when the worst that might otherwise happen in the loss of a car, bag or home posessions, all of which can be claimed back on insurance.
This also happens hundreds of times each week in the U.S., and can be empirically proven by looking at the population-proportion of gun deaths in the U.S. vs. the population-proportion of gun deaths in somewhere like the UK.
Funnily enough, most criminals don't actually want to kill you - it's more hassle than it's worth, and ensures that the police are more likely to take the investigation seriously.
"As for your request for personal experiences, what purpose would it serve to answer your question, which is an obvious troll?"
Actually, I was trying to make a point. The GPP implied that these things happened enough to normal, everyday people that it warranted allowing/encouraging normal, everyday people to carry guns.
I merely asked a normal, everyday person if he had a single shred of personal experience to back up that claim. It's easy to point to two child abductions as proof that paedophiles are everywhere, but it's a completely disproportionate response.
We're a social species, and we tend to congregate in groups of 100-200 individuals. At a very basic subconscious level we assume that when we hear about something happening to someone (even someone outside of our monkeysphere), it's likely to happen to us - our brains subconsciously use "I only know 200 people, so that chances are 1 in 200" reasoning, instead of "actually, with today's mass-media and the fact that sensational things like this are only news because they're so rare, I've still got more chance of having my child hit by lightning than having my child abducted... so I'll hold off on driving them to school every day and forcing them to play indoors, and instead issue them with earthed copper skullcaps and thick rubber soles".
"Other animals kill each other (apes, baboons, chimpanzees, etc.), why shouldn't we? Aboriginal Bushmen will kill each other with arrows or stones over what appear to us to be small differences."
To be crude for a second, other animals routinely eat their own shit, fling it at enemies and fuck their own kin. Why shouldn't we? Oh yeah, because we know better than that. I'm not trying to be offensive, but this is so ill-thought-out that I'm wondering now if you're trolling.
Oh, and Aboriginal Bushmen don't kill each other over "small differences", only over differences that you don't understand. Much like the way the USA spent decades developing weapons that could sterilise the surface of the earth many times over, and several times nearly used them, because it was in a dispute with another country about "their respective internal political systems".
Or how the USA (even now) invades or destabilises other sovereign nations because it disapproves of "piddling details of their internal economic policy".
Isn't cultural chauvenism wonderful?
"Why are you obsessed with guns as weapons?"
Because guns make it easy to kill someone - too easy, in fact. They have no other purpose in a civilised society, and they make it so easy a tiny child can accidentally kill themselves (or someone else) with a gun. You can't say that about a knife, rock, pitchfork, clothesline or tall building.
Guns are addictive, easy, and give people weilding them a massive power trip. No other weapon requires no real training to use, has the same godlike ability to deal death from afar with the merest flick of a finger, and confers the same feeling of (at least partial) invincibility.
"You don't live in the U.S. so you wouldn't know this, but violent murder, robbery, and rape are fairly common in many of our communities. Many of us who own weapons own them for the SPECIFIC PURPOSE of forcibly removing the head of anyone who decides to kick in our front door."
Fair enough, I accept this position. However, do guns really help to the point they're worth all the other problems they bring with them?
"a friend of my mother's, who was viciously attacked by a handiman she had hired."
Not to be offensive or callous, but if he's a handyman, and she invited him into her house, what makes you think she could have got to a gun before he jumped on her? Unless she was packing one on her person (and likely even then), wouldn't there have been an occasion where he could have attacked her in such a way she couldn't have gone for it?
"my ex girlfriend, who was nearly raped by a Mexican guy who broke into her apartment. She managed to fight her way out of it, but he nearly got her."
This, I'll grant you, is a good argument for permitting weapons. However, we're again at the question of whether guns are necessary, and on balance a benefit. Before you own a gun in most countries you're required to take training first - is this the same in the USA? If so (in fact, even if not), you'd be amazed how handy you can become with a simple knife and a couple of hours of professional tuition - certainly good enough to disable or kill an unarmed attacker. You can also turn this skill to use with practically any similar object to hand - you're not reliant on a specific tool which may well (hell, should be) kept locked up, well out of the way, and hence useless in most emergencies.
I'm dealing with unarmed attackers here, but if the attacker has a gun he'll generally get the drop on you anyway (hence the name "attacker", instead of "combatant"), in which case a gun is no use at all apart from a temptation to get shot by going for it...
"a girl I was about to start dating had forgotten to tell me about her insane boyfriend, who promptly told me he was coming over with a nine millimeter to "talk this out". I informed him I'd be waiting with my hunting rifle, and he never showed up. THIS sort of thing is way more common than you might think, by the way. People are such hotheads!"
Again, a good example, but
1) He wouldn't have been able to threaten if private guns were banned, since he likely wouldn't have one. 2) When guns are banned, they become much less familiar items, and a threat to use one is treated much more seriously. If nobody had guns and you reported this incident to the police, they should take it much more seriously since the very fact he claimed to posess a firearm marked him out as a serious criminal. This change of attitude doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen eventually in societies where guns are restricted... and these places therefore become much nicer, more relaxed places to live. Win-win scenario? 3) You didn't actually have a gun, you merely told him you did. Granted, the threat of a gun is a lot more scary if they're commonly available, but the threat still holds some weight even if not. (And as an aside, in an urban environment like "your house", I think I'd rather have a gun than a rifle, right? Much more manoeuverable...) 4) People are indeed hotheads, and most such people will try to intimidate you to make themselves feel better. By not giving in or being frightened you indicate you're not scared of him, and such people will often give up. In this context, I think the reply "Fine, but I'll be waiting behind one of my interior doors with my polished, sharpened samauri sword/metal nunchucks/meat cleaver" would probably have done the job, too.;-)
" "Home Invasion""
So what you're saying is, they break into your home pretending to be legitimate law enforcement, then when they're pointing their guns at your head and you've already volu
"Then don't. You're not an American. This is no concern of yours."
Fair enough. I was only weighing in to highlight what seemed (to me) like erroneous logic. If I was basing my beliefs on something that might be a non-sequiteur, I'd want someone to point it out.
"You're obviously not very knowledable about our society if you think there's any chance of getting guns out of the hands of criminals. It may not be comfortable, but there's a lot of truth in, "If you outlaw guns, only criminals will have guns.""
That is a good point, but I don't think it's impossible. Ultimately, how many robberies does private gun ownership foil, and how many mistaken/accidental/illegal shootings does it enable? I'd like to see statistics on this before I really made definitive statements, but I don't hear of many occasions where someone's attacked, they pull a gun and the dispute's resolved comfortably. If nothing else, because (apart from home burglary) the criminal's normally the first to pull a gun, and the first person to pull a gun can generally stop the other person from doing it themselves.
However, the fact the other person owns a gun may just give them the courage to go for it, which suddenly hugely pressures the criminal to shoot them before they can. Although without a gun the non-criminal might lose his car/posessions/whatever, he's got a much, much higher chance of escaping with his life and health. I can't find the statistics on this at this second, but the ones I've read have all been pretty clear.
"Also, media uses of the term 'assalt weapon' are all over the map... Somehow I doubt you were thinking of any real definition--just parroting media."
My apologies. I didn't realise this was a favourite liberal keyword in the US. I meant fully-automatic rifles or submachine guns. High-powered guns specifically designed to kill large numbers of people in battle situations, rather than a single-shot rifle or pistol which is more designed for small, unarmoured groups. Criminals, I've noticed, rarely attack individuals in groups of ten or twenty, and they rarely wear body-armour.
"I could go on and on, but I suspect you're most interested in impressing everyone with your supposed intelligence and moral superiority. Why else post about something that's none of your business to begin with, and which you seem to have very little knowledge of?"
As I said, there seemed to be several logical holes in the GPP's position. You could also ask if it should be allowed for someone to post (possibly, but I believed them to be) erroneous arguments without expecting correction?
"There's only one more bit that I just can't pass up... Should I bin that, too?"
Cheers for answering that, since that was one of the major points I was querying.
My answer? Yes, as long as fire extinguishers are primarily designed to main and/or kill people, if they statistically increase your chances of dying in a house fire, and if they were the direct cause of thousands of accidental deaths (including children) across the country every year.
"wow, let me get this right. You feel my 1st amendment rights to support (with money) any candidate I wish should be a crime? And, my right to petition (you call it lobbying) my representative over an issue important to me should also be a crime?"
I'd politely advise you to strap down that jerking knee and read my post again - I specify professional lobbyists.;-)
Do I think any citizen should be able to (within reason) petition their government on an issue? Of course.
Do I think there shold exists a distinct industry, populated by "old-boys" and political operatives with a personal relationship with members of the administration, who exist solely to allow the wealthy additional and influential access to the government? No.
I believe one of the founding principles of your society is that all men should be equal in the eyes of the law. How does this square with a (comparatively recent) mechanism designed for nothing but turning wealth directly into political clout?
Professional lobbyists are nothing but prostitutes - whoring themselves and their connections out to whoever will pay them enough. Are you arguing that this is right? Or good?
"Liberals have no compulsion to spend their own money, you feel its the "government's" responsibility to fund political campaigns, well as a conservative I don't want my money going to support causes I detest. See the problem here?"
Not at all. I sit on the fence on the matter of corporate donations to campaigns, but I certainly believe the present system of effectively purchasing as many congressmen or senators as you need isn't working.
What would be wrong with (for example), making all donations anonymous? Or prohibiting companies who donate to a candidate's campaign from landing contracts put out to tender by that person? Or forcing any congressman/senator to excuse himself from any decisions that have any connection to a company or individual that contributed to his campaign?
It's not about stopping contributions, but breaking the connection between "giving money" and "getting personal favours, even to the detriment of the country, back".
"Back to the original topic, if you read the information and/or listen to "All Things Left Considered" you actually learn that the "violations" supposedly done by the FBI are predominantly record keeping on a very complicated act."
I don't listen to ATLC (never even heard of it, in fact), but I'll try to listen to it if I get the chance. I'm guessing from the tone and the name it's very right-wing, but I'll listen with an open mind.
In return, could you address certain issues which (bearing in mind they are the only thing preventing the USA, or any society, from becoming an unrestrained police state) seem slightly more than "mere paperwork":
"agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents."
"the new documents raise questions about the extent of possible misconduct in counterintelligence investigations and underscore the need for greater congressional oversight of clandestine surveillance within the United States"... while "House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to conduct secret searches and surveillance"
"It indicates that the existing mechanisms do not appear adequate to prevent abuses or to ensure the public that abuses that are identified are treated seriously and remedied."
"FBI officials disagreed, saying that none of the cases have involved major violations and most amount to administrative errors"... so not all, then. Frankly I'd be worried if new laws specifically designed to relax the restrictions on domestic spying allowed or encouraged even one incident of abuse. Don't forget, the laws have been relaxed,
Ok then, I'll bite, but only for one more post. I couldn't be bothered to reply to such blatantly (and personally) offensive posts, so I was trying to humorously give yo uthe brush-off. Again, unless you are John Dvorak, where do you get off on personally attacking me for expressing an opinion about a third party?
I'm guessing from your demeanour and vehemence that you're either John himself (I was only partly joking on that) or a rabid fanboy apologist of his. In either case it would seem to be pretty futile to try reason, but here goes...
"The reason I bought unix into the issue, Dvorak is talking about design philosophy. I was making an analogy. Idiot."
How does user-interface design have anything to do with back-end implementation design?
If you want to get pedantic, for a "pure" Unix design philosophy desktop application, the UI would be a shell which calls a collection of smaller tools which accomplish one (or few) tasks each[1]. A "pure" Windows-philosophy application would be a UI shell that calls a collection of smaller methods and functions in the same application to accomplish one (or few) tasks each.
Since one of the major purposes of a UI is to hide implementation detail and present a user-centric view of functionality, whether it's implemented using a "Unix" or "Windows" design philosophy is irrelevent to whether the UI is any good.
Hence bringing the backend implementation into a question of "how the menus/toolbars are arranged" is irrelevant. I don't mean to be offensive, but have you ever done serious application programming? This kind of separation of functionality and UI is one of the most basic lessons you learn.
[1] Note that this "keychain of small tools) isn't always practical for all tasks, especially those in a graphical, highly-integrated WIMP environment (instead of a pipeable command-line one). This is why many *nix applications are also presented as "monolithic" applications (Firefox, OpenOffice.org, etc).
"I agree about your lack of knowledge statement. It extends to such things as rhetoric, and simily. Idiot."
Mmmmm... constructive. Could you possibly point to a use of rhetoric and/or similie that I've misunderstood? Then this is a baseless, completely unconstructive insult calculated to do nothing but give offence.
"How do you expect the market to deliver if yu as a consumer don't excercise your perogative to tell the producer. After all - "I'm not making a single constructive suggestion as to how to do it, either." How would you know the difference about whining or otherwise. Idiot."
So you're... what? Going to completely ignore my argument again in favour of the cheap insult? Just because a user demands something, that doesn't mean it's reasonable, practical, feasible or even sane. I can demand my word processor "read documents from my mind with the power of magnets", but it doesn't mean it's any kind of laudable thing that I requested it, and I'd fully expect people to take the piss out of me for my unreasonable expectations. Especially when I hold myself up as a public authority on things like this.
Or do you believe all requests, no matter how unconstructive, unreasonable or silly should be accepted? Well, if you do it looks like this is a judgement call, and we'll agree to differ. See, that's what grown-ups do with each other in a disagreement on something which really doesn't matter - they agree that they both have different (but valid) opinions. They don't resort to calling each other names and trying to offend each other.
"You call yourself an "unprofessional, semi-serious, half-joking poster on an anonymous forum on the internet." Which is why your opinion counts for shit,"
So unless I'm an accredited technology journalist, with a weekly column (even if it is one which is laughed-at by many real techies), my opinion doesn't count for shit?
Fine, but one question. If my opinion doesn't count for shit, why did you
In what sense does law enforcement personnel breaking the law constitute "the system working"?
Just because they were caught out by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a third-party, non-governmental organisation doesn't prove shit is working, apart from EPIC.
In most civilised societies we have this concept of "judicial oversight". It means different bits of the government watch each other, to ensure "the government" remains trustworthy. If "the government" drops the ball, just because a third-party NGO advocacy group catches them on it, this does not prove "the system is working". It proves it's incredibly, incredibly broken.
Or are you happy to claim that "the system is working" even if the USA devolves into a theocratic despotism, as long as it's eventually overthrown in a popular rebellion?
I mean, I realise you're a troll from your controversial posting and AC status, but really...
Don't forget, a private company with strong ties to the eventual winning party.
And the state in question was run by the winning-party candidate's brother.
And the overhwelming majority of the disenfranchised were losing-party supporters.
And the popular media called the result early, prodded into it when an embarrassingly winning-party-biased partisan news network announced the "final result" for the winning party, without any justification or excuse for doing so.
And the winning-party-dominated Supreme Court stopped the recounts just as the losing-party-candidate was about to draw level.
I hate to get involved in a hot-button US article of faith like gun ownership, but could you please name me one occasion from your personal experience where you were required to shoot someone?
This should be an occasion where you were required to shoot and/or kill another person, and where you couldn't escape, allow them to continue with their action without risk of your death or injury, or secure help from qualified third party, who optionally may themselves have been in posession of a gun (eg, police).
Nobody has any doubt that in any given society occasionally deadly force (or at least the threat of it) needs to be used. Where the rest of the world apparently differs from the USA is in assuming that these circumstances crop up often enough in any kind of civilised society that it warrants keeping (sometimes multiple!) firearms in the family home, and enduring the (empirically-demonstrated) consequence of numerous accidental shootings, homicides, cases of mistaken identity, suicides and accidental deaths of children every year.
And yes, I'm fully aware that there's also the argument that a well-armed polulation is essential to protect against the government. However:
1) You elect the fuckers. If you don't like them, elect someone else, don't shoot the poor bastards they employ to do their bidding.
2) When that phrase was written, it was eminently possible for a state of the USA to secede from the USA - the entire "country" was much more modular. Just try it today, and you'll have the federal authorities breathing down your neck faster than you can say "Waco". These days your freedom to resist is a myth, so it's no longer a good reason to permit weapons.
3) When that phrase was written "modern" weapons were pretty much uncontrolled, and it wasn't unreasonable for militia members to have weapons on par with a professional army. Assult weapons are already banned, and does anyone really believe a pistol (even a semi) is going to be worth shit against a fully-automatic assult rifle, grenade launchers, cruise missiles or nukes?
If the federal government decided tomorrow to move into your back yard, there's no a damn thing you personally could do about it. Given this state of affairs, you should either be pushing for drastic political reform to re-institute your succession rights, or face facts and give up your 9mm security blankets.
Two truly excellent and insightful posts, but one thought occurs:
"The Senate should be reapportioned to reflect economic power. Let the corporations have their playground"
So the US is institutionally corrupt[1], sliding towards political corporatism, and your solution is what, to give corporations an official seat at the table, and legitimise their actions from popularly-ignored corruption to official policy?
The mind boggles...
Surely the correct action is merely to drastically reform (and enforce) campaign finance regulations, crack down on (ideally, eliminate) pork, make professional lobbying illegal, increase financial transparency and mandate jail time[2] for any political figure found guilty of financial or procedural irregularity.
Sure, it's pretty radical, but you don't turn around the decline of an entire country with a few nice words and a pat on the back.
[1] What's lobbying, if not institutionalised corruption?
[2] We hold doctors to high professional standards, and they only hold one person's life in their hands at a time. Politicians hold the entire future of our society in their hands, and (with the right amount of cash and the old-boy network in place) they seem practically immune from prosecution.
Sorry - you appear to be replying to a different post from me than the one I'm reading.
Did I mention Unix once? Nope. Did I mention Windows specifically once? Nope. Did I imply Windows, by talking about Photoshop/PSP? Yes, but only in the context of Windows apps, which (with his tirades against *nix and Macs) is pretty much the only platform Dvorak generally considers.
"You are an angry man and a limited by your inability to appreciate the complexity of the problem"
Actually, I find Photoshop exceedingly hard to use. I also get annoyed with MS Paint for its lack of functionality. The difference is, I recognise this is a result of my lack of knowledge, and don't run off and whine to the world on my column because I want to do something but can't be bothered to learn how to.
Oh yeah, and I consider other applications, like PSP, with a gentler learning-curve, that do the job.
"Sure, he could be a "fucking Photoshop book." But, wouldn't it be better for him to tell commercial vendors what he really wants? This is the point of demand economy."
Sure. I'd like an OS that looks pretty, doesn't crash, runs every game in existence, comes with free Office productivity software, psychically predicts my personal level of expertise when I turn on the machine, and gives me a foot-massage and a blow-job while it's doing it.
Am I going to get it? No. There's no way to do half the stuff I want, I'm not making a single constructive suggestion as to how to do it, either. And, as I said, companies would go bankrupt trying to tailor their software to the precise skill-level of every person who bought it, even if it were possible.
There's a fine line between "telling commercial vendors what I really want", and "pathetically and unreasonably whining because everything isn't handed to me on a plate".
Photo editing is complex. Decent photo-editing programs are therefore complex. Simple photo editing programs are, well, simple. There are programs like Paintshop Pro which bridge the gap nicely.
If you want to do something that only Photoshop can do, it's pretty much obscure, hard or complex by definition, and it's still going to require learning no matter how much you whine and hate it.
"You should have been modded flame bait. Never have I seen dvorak ranting and swearing because someone disagrees with him."
Indeed. But, y'see, John Dvorak holds himself up as a serious journalist. I hold myself up as an unprofessional, semi-serious, half-joking poster on an anonymous forum on the internet.
And frankly, I'd rather read ten profanity-laden articles that are worthwhile, informative and factually correct than one ill-advised, uneducated, whiny Dvorak troll masquerading as serious journalism.
Haven't you worked out yet that the/. editors post Dvorak stories as light relief? Read the other comments on the story, and I think you'll see Dvorak isn't held in high esteem as any kind of proper technology journalist around here...
"As for being an old fossil, there are certain perks that come with age, as the addage tells."
Indeed. Such as (in Dvorak's case) a complete loss of touch with modern computing trends, the perception that the world is wrong simple because he can't keep up with it any more[1], a loss of flexibility of thinking, leading to dogmatic opinions and a lack of self-questioning, increasing xenophobia towards other ways of doing things and a general breakdown in information-processing and reasoning faculties.
There are indeed benefits to aging, and I've also made several (unofficial) predictions that have come true (web browser-as-application UI being the most successful, as far back as 1997). Obviously I can't point you to them, not having a blog[2] and not holding myself out as a professional journalist with an archived collection of columns.
And obviously, if you're a professional writer, and you're going to post
Dvorak is in the very tiny third group - experienced idiots.
Basically, idiots who've been around computers so long that (despite their best efforts) they've absorbed some knowledge by osmosis. Funnily enough, in my experience people like this are generally much more dogmatic, inflexible, obnoxious and sure of themselves than people who genuinely have spent years actively learning computing/IT.
The trouble is, since he (i) is an idiot, and (ii) has a bit more knowledge than a regular idiot, he thinks he's on par with a guru. This is highly amusing to most real gurus/techies, and also explains his shameless public twattery... and his habit of commenting on things he clearly knows nothing about. He doesn't know how much there actually is to know, so he doesn't realise he doesn't know squat.
"I feel that there is a problem with your definition: must I then educate myself on everything? I don't know much about theater, and I don't particularly care to learn more about it. When my wife talks about it and I can't follow should I be derided as stupid?"
Apples and Oranges - in this case you should simply refrain from talking about it.
Dvorak's doing the equivalent of repeatedly sitting through plays he doesn't understand, then running to his blog/column and savaging the performances simply because he can't be bothered to learn anything about theatre.
If he can't be arsed to learn about theatre he doesn't have to, but if he wants to regularly go to plays and enjoy himeself (or to legitimately criticise them), he's going to have to learn the first thing about them... not just sit under his bridge bitching about how puppet shows are too simple and operas don't offer a paid full-time interpreter and theatre expert to sit next to every audience member and explain the medium and the plot.
Ok, it's stretching your metaphor to breaking point, but you get the idea;-)
Sorry - I should have been less blunt and more explanatory.
Granted, almost everybody knows the Lotus allegation was subsequently shown to be false. However, I was (wrongly) assuming that Googling for it would throw up links to many of the other incidents MS is/was guilty of - I also included a link to the DR-DOS controversy, just in case.
Things like DR-DOS, SAMBA and all the other examples I list in response to the other replier demonstrate MS is more than happy to deliberately break compatibility, as long as they're in the dominant market position.
TBH, I'm not entirely sure why we're all having this conversation, anyway - the story was about MS supporting a bunch of other, proprietary, devices form Sony and Apple, in an area where they didn't have any competing products, so breaking compatability in this case would bring them no gain... <:-/
1) The code was still in the commercially-available, release version of Windows 2) Although it was disabled, it was disabled by a single instruction, which made it comparatively easy to reactivate later if MS wanted, and 3) Even more obscure and unnecessary tests had been added to the code between beta and release (which also suggests the anti-DR-DOS catch was still being considered for inclusion even after the beta was released)
Now granted, this isn't a concrete example of MS deliberately breaking competitors' products in a final release version of a package, but it's still ethically dubious and indicative of their mindset.
FWIW I know the "DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run" catchprase is an urban legend, but if you're trying to imply that this kind of deliberate breakage of other people's products isn't exactly the kind of thing Microsoft is eager to do if it thinks it can get away with it, well, all I have to say to that is SAMBA, Java, Javascript/JScript, proprietary HTML extensions (and yes, Netscape was guilty too), etc, etc, etc. And those are just the relatively recent ones that instantly spring to mind... <:-/
Indeed - I'm a big fan of PSP, and also thought it changed direction a bit after 5. PSP was doing great work as a nice middle-ground between Photoshop and MS Paint, but then it seemed they got the urge to compete with Adobe, and whacked a load of new features in without quite so much care over the UI any more.
I, much like Dvorak[1], don't have the need or the time to learn Photoshop, so I use PSP. What's so hard for him to understand?
[1] Ok, never thought I'd ever, ever be writing those words. I think I need to go and scrub myself all over, just to feel clean ever again...
So what's the solution? Produce a different version of your software for every industry, company or skill-level that requires it? How is it in any way realistic or cost-effective for a company? Sure, I bet I'd love "Photoshop Bob Smith Edition", but Adobe would go bankrupt.
I've got to say, I'd saddened by Dvorak. He was doing so well in so many ways this time, then we hit the line:
"Make a print? How about using the drop-down menu under FILE and clicking on PRINT? Is that so off-the-wall? These programs assume that you are a dolt... these programs are in fact harder to use than Photoshop because of the rigmarole you have to go through to do a simple chore."
So... Photoshop (aimed at professionals) is "too hard", so he gets petulant, but drool-proof bundled software that's aimed at your Granny is "too easy", so he gets petulant. This porridge is too hot... this porridge is too cold...
So, what he's arguing for is not, in fact, some brilliant new way of presenting user-interface options or simplifying common user tasks. What he's doing is merely throwing a tantrum because the software isn't pitched squarely at his existing skill-level.
Here's a clue, John. People who want to use Photoshop for anything regularly buy a fucking Photoshop book. People who only want to remove redeye once in a blue moon use the idiot-proof bundled apps that anyone can use. It's not a hassle, because they only do it once in a blue moon. Anyone who wants to do it regularly learns to use Photoshop... acquiring a skill because, y'know, they'll be doing the task a lot.
Buy a book on Photoshop or learn to love using idiot-proof bundled apps... and for christ's sake Shut The Living Fuck Up, you mindless drolling old troll-fossil.
He's not advocating open standards, he's wanting to interoperate with a competitor's closed, proprietary standards, because Microsoft lags behind in those areas of consumer electronics.
Microsoft doesn't produce cameras or MP3 players (or at least if they do, they're very minority players), so they don't dominate the market. Thus, by closing off the XBox 360 to competitors products, they ensure the XBox is less useful. Since they're the underdog in this context, the sensible thing to do is to make sure Sony/Apple/whatever products work with the XBox, but try as hard as they can to prevent MS electronics from working with the PS3 or the Mac.
If MS felt secure by producing the world's most popular MP3 player, or dominating the digital camera market, you can bet your bottom dollar they'd crawl over a mile of broken glass with their flies open sooner than they'd support a (smaller) competitor's products.
And either way, "open standards" aren't anywhere within ten miles of this story.
Slashdot Mirror
"Now, that the military is fighting a 2 front war (and looking at the very real possibility of a 3 front war in another year), they are getting a lot of power. More importantly, they are willing to use it."
I don't like to support an obviously trolling GPP, but from your answer I can't help wondering... If Bush/his administration/their policies didn't cause this to happen, who did?
"You normally woudln't and hope you never have to. But things happend. Earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, Riots (Rodney king)."
Ok, but earthquakes, fires and hurricanes aren't helped or hindered by the presence of guns. If you're worried about the breakdown of law and order (which is debatable, since almost all of the confirmed reports from Katrina indicate a comparatively peaceful struggle to survive, with people mostly looting empty shops rather than fighting between themselves), this can be filed under "riots".
Riots, granted, do make gun ownership attractive. But if everyone has guns, that includes the rioters. In fact, since they're manifestly out looking for trouble, rioters are probably more likely to be packing heat.
How does one gun against 50 help you? Unless your objective is to get shot and killed, instead of robbed blind but alive at the end of it?
"I remember the pictures of shop owners protecting their stores/homes in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots with rifles, shotguns, and handguns. And believe they had every right to do so. The police couldn't protect their property, we have to assume SOME responisbility to protect ourselves and those we love."
Again, that's a fair point, but can you give a single example of a riot that was intent on smashing up a shop but was turned away when a shopkeeper pointed a single gun at the entire riot? I haven't heard of any (and see my point above)...
"In the event of an earthquake I have stored water, food, and med's. Not everyone else has. If I have enough I share, if I don't and you insist on trying to take it I shoot/kill you."
This is the depressing thing that Katrina highlighted. In the event of a breakdown of law and order, the first instinct in the US is to treat everyone with suspicion and get tooled up in case someone else attacks you. In the UK the first instinct would be to co-operate, share what you have and try to re-establish some kind of society, not to factionalise into thousands of tiny hilltop forts all pointing guns at each other. I wonder why we don't have survivalist nutjobs in the UK, and if there's any connection?
"One morning I awoke to "put your hands on your head and step out of the car". I live in a "nice" neighborhood but it turns out a guy was sleeping in a car across the street. He'd stolen the car and was considered dangerous. What if he had tried to break in?"
Oh god, where to begin? I don't mean to be offensive, but using this example to justify keeping guns in the house is (to me) such an overreaction it's insane... <:-)
1) I've watched video of US police officers tazing a woman because she refused to stop talking on her mobile and get out of her car quick enough. Oh, and they'd only pulled over for having a broken taillight. Pointing guns at him doesn't mean he was dangerous, and certainly not necessarily to you and yours.
I've got a friend who was surrounded, pulled out of his car and taken away by a four-man police Armed Response Unit (think: SWAT team) armed with Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns, in a quiet sleepy suburb in England, because he'd been mucking about in his privately-owned house with a kids eight-inch-long plastic toy gun that fired sucker darts, and a nosy elderly neighbour (who disliked them and constantly complained to the police and council about them) had called the police and reported he had an unlicenced firearm in the house.
Merely because someone is "considered" dangerous, doesn't mean they necessarily are.
2) Your guy was sleeping in a car across the street (probably, if he was a fugutive, because it was a nice, quiet, safe area), not invading your home at gunpoint. I've slept in cars before, but never invaded a home and shot, raped or killed anyone, and if I was going to do it I'd choose somewhere where the residents hadn't just had eight or ten hours to notice an odd new car with a sleeping guy in it and n
Actually, in the UK (where I'm from), talking on a mobile phone without a hands-free headset while driving is already illegal. As is gun ownership without rigorous training, evaluation and qualification.
;-)
And many people who support banning guns across the world do also support clamping down on selfish, thoughtless soccer moms and other completely unnecesary SUV owners.
However, every time we complain about them, they're either told to fuck off (because caring about the environment is clearly unamerican pinko UN communist homosexual flag-burning), or the SUV crowd turn around and say "What about firearms? Children can kill themselves with those - look at Columbine!!!1!1!one!".
You tackle these things as-and-when they crop up, and if the article had been about environmental issues relating to SUVs, and I spotted an ill-thought-out post supporting the right for anyone else to unnecessarily fuck up the air, water and food on my planet, damn straight I would have weighed in on the issue.
Does that answer your question?
"It isn't always necessary to shoot people: the gun often deters people from completing a crime, even if not shot. This happens hundreds of times each week in the U.S."
Touché. Unfortunately, they also tnd to escalate confrontations until someone is shot and killed, when the worst that might otherwise happen in the loss of a car, bag or home posessions, all of which can be claimed back on insurance.
This also happens hundreds of times each week in the U.S., and can be empirically proven by looking at the population-proportion of gun deaths in the U.S. vs. the population-proportion of gun deaths in somewhere like the UK.
Funnily enough, most criminals don't actually want to kill you - it's more hassle than it's worth, and ensures that the police are more likely to take the investigation seriously.
"As for your request for personal experiences, what purpose would it serve to answer your question, which is an obvious troll?"
Actually, I was trying to make a point. The GPP implied that these things happened enough to normal, everyday people that it warranted allowing/encouraging normal, everyday people to carry guns.
I merely asked a normal, everyday person if he had a single shred of personal experience to back up that claim. It's easy to point to two child abductions as proof that paedophiles are everywhere, but it's a completely disproportionate response.
We're a social species, and we tend to congregate in groups of 100-200 individuals. At a very basic subconscious level we assume that when we hear about something happening to someone (even someone outside of our monkeysphere), it's likely to happen to us - our brains subconsciously use "I only know 200 people, so that chances are 1 in 200" reasoning, instead of "actually, with today's mass-media and the fact that sensational things like this are only news because they're so rare, I've still got more chance of having my child hit by lightning than having my child abducted... so I'll hold off on driving them to school every day and forcing them to play indoors, and instead issue them with earthed copper skullcaps and thick rubber soles".
"Other animals kill each other (apes, baboons, chimpanzees, etc.), why shouldn't we? Aboriginal Bushmen will kill each other with arrows or stones over what appear to us to be small differences."
To be crude for a second, other animals routinely eat their own shit, fling it at enemies and fuck their own kin. Why shouldn't we? Oh yeah, because we know better than that. I'm not trying to be offensive, but this is so ill-thought-out that I'm wondering now if you're trolling.
Oh, and Aboriginal Bushmen don't kill each other over "small differences", only over differences that you don't understand. Much like the way the USA spent decades developing weapons that could sterilise the surface of the earth many times over, and several times nearly used them, because it was in a dispute with another country about "their respective internal political systems".
Or how the USA (even now) invades or destabilises other sovereign nations because it disapproves of "piddling details of their internal economic policy".
Isn't cultural chauvenism wonderful?
"Why are you obsessed with guns as weapons?"
Because guns make it easy to kill someone - too easy, in fact. They have no other purpose in a civilised society, and they make it so easy a tiny child can accidentally kill themselves (or someone else) with a gun. You can't say that about a knife, rock, pitchfork, clothesline or tall building.
Guns are addictive, easy, and give people weilding them a massive power trip. No other weapon requires no real training to use, has the same godlike ability to deal death from afar with the merest flick of a finger, and confers the same feeling of (at least partial) invincibility.
"While you "elect t
"You don't live in the U.S. so you wouldn't know this, but violent murder, robbery, and rape are fairly common in many of our communities. Many of us who own weapons own them for the SPECIFIC PURPOSE of forcibly removing the head of anyone who decides to kick in our front door."
;-)
Fair enough, I accept this position. However, do guns really help to the point they're worth all the other problems they bring with them?
"a friend of my mother's, who was viciously attacked by a handiman she had hired."
Not to be offensive or callous, but if he's a handyman, and she invited him into her house, what makes you think she could have got to a gun before he jumped on her? Unless she was packing one on her person (and likely even then), wouldn't there have been an occasion where he could have attacked her in such a way she couldn't have gone for it?
"my ex girlfriend, who was nearly raped by a Mexican guy who broke into her apartment. She managed to fight her way out of it, but he nearly got her."
This, I'll grant you, is a good argument for permitting weapons. However, we're again at the question of whether guns are necessary, and on balance a benefit. Before you own a gun in most countries you're required to take training first - is this the same in the USA? If so (in fact, even if not), you'd be amazed how handy you can become with a simple knife and a couple of hours of professional tuition - certainly good enough to disable or kill an unarmed attacker. You can also turn this skill to use with practically any similar object to hand - you're not reliant on a specific tool which may well (hell, should be) kept locked up, well out of the way, and hence useless in most emergencies.
I'm dealing with unarmed attackers here, but if the attacker has a gun he'll generally get the drop on you anyway (hence the name "attacker", instead of "combatant"), in which case a gun is no use at all apart from a temptation to get shot by going for it...
"a girl I was about to start dating had forgotten to tell me about her insane boyfriend, who promptly told me he was coming over with a nine millimeter to "talk this out". I informed him I'd be waiting with my hunting rifle, and he never showed up. THIS sort of thing is way more common than you might think, by the way. People are such hotheads!"
Again, a good example, but
1) He wouldn't have been able to threaten if private guns were banned, since he likely wouldn't have one.
2) When guns are banned, they become much less familiar items, and a threat to use one is treated much more seriously. If nobody had guns and you reported this incident to the police, they should take it much more seriously since the very fact he claimed to posess a firearm marked him out as a serious criminal. This change of attitude doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen eventually in societies where guns are restricted... and these places therefore become much nicer, more relaxed places to live. Win-win scenario?
3) You didn't actually have a gun, you merely told him you did. Granted, the threat of a gun is a lot more scary if they're commonly available, but the threat still holds some weight even if not. (And as an aside, in an urban environment like "your house", I think I'd rather have a gun than a rifle, right? Much more manoeuverable...)
4) People are indeed hotheads, and most such people will try to intimidate you to make themselves feel better. By not giving in or being frightened you indicate you're not scared of him, and such people will often give up. In this context, I think the reply "Fine, but I'll be waiting behind one of my interior doors with my polished, sharpened samauri sword/metal nunchucks/meat cleaver" would probably have done the job, too.
" "Home Invasion""
So what you're saying is, they break into your home pretending to be legitimate law enforcement, then when they're pointing their guns at your head and you've already volu
"Then don't. You're not an American. This is no concern of yours."
Fair enough. I was only weighing in to highlight what seemed (to me) like erroneous logic. If I was basing my beliefs on something that might be a non-sequiteur, I'd want someone to point it out.
"You're obviously not very knowledable about our society if you think there's any chance of getting guns out of the hands of criminals. It may not be comfortable, but there's a lot of truth in, "If you outlaw guns, only criminals will have guns.""
That is a good point, but I don't think it's impossible. Ultimately, how many robberies does private gun ownership foil, and how many mistaken/accidental/illegal shootings does it enable? I'd like to see statistics on this before I really made definitive statements, but I don't hear of many occasions where someone's attacked, they pull a gun and the dispute's resolved comfortably. If nothing else, because (apart from home burglary) the criminal's normally the first to pull a gun, and the first person to pull a gun can generally stop the other person from doing it themselves.
However, the fact the other person owns a gun may just give them the courage to go for it, which suddenly hugely pressures the criminal to shoot them before they can. Although without a gun the non-criminal might lose his car/posessions/whatever, he's got a much, much higher chance of escaping with his life and health. I can't find the statistics on this at this second, but the ones I've read have all been pretty clear.
"Also, media uses of the term 'assalt weapon' are all over the map... Somehow I doubt you were thinking of any real definition--just parroting media."
My apologies. I didn't realise this was a favourite liberal keyword in the US. I meant fully-automatic rifles or submachine guns. High-powered guns specifically designed to kill large numbers of people in battle situations, rather than a single-shot rifle or pistol which is more designed for small, unarmoured groups. Criminals, I've noticed, rarely attack individuals in groups of ten or twenty, and they rarely wear body-armour.
"I could go on and on, but I suspect you're most interested in impressing everyone with your supposed intelligence and moral superiority. Why else post about something that's none of your business to begin with, and which you seem to have very little knowledge of?"
As I said, there seemed to be several logical holes in the GPP's position. You could also ask if it should be allowed for someone to post (possibly, but I believed them to be) erroneous arguments without expecting correction?
"There's only one more bit that I just can't pass up... Should I bin that, too?"
Cheers for answering that, since that was one of the major points I was querying.
My answer? Yes, as long as fire extinguishers are primarily designed to main and/or kill people, if they statistically increase your chances of dying in a house fire, and if they were the direct cause of thousands of accidental deaths (including children) across the country every year.
See my position now?
"wow, let me get this right. You feel my 1st amendment rights to support (with money) any candidate I wish should be a crime? And, my right to petition (you call it lobbying) my representative over an issue important to me should also be a crime?"
;-)
I'd politely advise you to strap down that jerking knee and read my post again - I specify professional lobbyists.
Do I think any citizen should be able to (within reason) petition their government on an issue? Of course.
Do I think there shold exists a distinct industry, populated by "old-boys" and political operatives with a personal relationship with members of the administration, who exist solely to allow the wealthy additional and influential access to the government? No.
I believe one of the founding principles of your society is that all men should be equal in the eyes of the law. How does this square with a (comparatively recent) mechanism designed for nothing but turning wealth directly into political clout?
Professional lobbyists are nothing but prostitutes - whoring themselves and their connections out to whoever will pay them enough. Are you arguing that this is right? Or good?
"Liberals have no compulsion to spend their own money, you feel its the "government's" responsibility to fund political campaigns, well as a conservative I don't want my money going to support causes I detest. See the problem here?"
Not at all. I sit on the fence on the matter of corporate donations to campaigns, but I certainly believe the present system of effectively purchasing as many congressmen or senators as you need isn't working.
What would be wrong with (for example), making all donations anonymous? Or prohibiting companies who donate to a candidate's campaign from landing contracts put out to tender by that person? Or forcing any congressman/senator to excuse himself from any decisions that have any connection to a company or individual that contributed to his campaign?
It's not about stopping contributions, but breaking the connection between "giving money" and "getting personal favours, even to the detriment of the country, back".
"Back to the original topic, if you read the information and/or listen to "All Things Left Considered" you actually learn that the "violations" supposedly done by the FBI are predominantly record keeping on a very complicated act."
I don't listen to ATLC (never even heard of it, in fact), but I'll try to listen to it if I get the chance. I'm guessing from the tone and the name it's very right-wing, but I'll listen with an open mind.
In return, could you address certain issues which (bearing in mind they are the only thing preventing the USA, or any society, from becoming an unrestrained police state) seem slightly more than "mere paperwork":
"agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents."
"the new documents raise questions about the extent of possible misconduct in counterintelligence investigations and underscore the need for greater congressional oversight of clandestine surveillance within the United States"... while "House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to conduct secret searches and surveillance"
"It indicates that the existing mechanisms do not appear adequate to prevent abuses or to ensure the public that abuses that are identified are treated seriously and remedied."
"FBI officials disagreed, saying that none of the cases have involved major violations and most amount to administrative errors"... so not all, then. Frankly I'd be worried if new laws specifically designed to relax the restrictions on domestic spying allowed or encouraged even one incident of abuse. Don't forget, the laws have been relaxed,
Indeed. I was under the impression they already did.
Sigh.
Ok then, I'll bite, but only for one more post. I couldn't be bothered to reply to such blatantly (and personally) offensive posts, so I was trying to humorously give yo uthe brush-off. Again, unless you are John Dvorak, where do you get off on personally attacking me for expressing an opinion about a third party?
I'm guessing from your demeanour and vehemence that you're either John himself (I was only partly joking on that) or a rabid fanboy apologist of his. In either case it would seem to be pretty futile to try reason, but here goes...
"The reason I bought unix into the issue, Dvorak is talking about design philosophy. I was making an analogy. Idiot."
How does user-interface design have anything to do with back-end implementation design?
If you want to get pedantic, for a "pure" Unix design philosophy desktop application, the UI would be a shell which calls a collection of smaller tools which accomplish one (or few) tasks each[1]. A "pure" Windows-philosophy application would be a UI shell that calls a collection of smaller methods and functions in the same application to accomplish one (or few) tasks each.
Since one of the major purposes of a UI is to hide implementation detail and present a user-centric view of functionality, whether it's implemented using a "Unix" or "Windows" design philosophy is irrelevent to whether the UI is any good.
Hence bringing the backend implementation into a question of "how the menus/toolbars are arranged" is irrelevant. I don't mean to be offensive, but have you ever done serious application programming? This kind of separation of functionality and UI is one of the most basic lessons you learn.
[1] Note that this "keychain of small tools) isn't always practical for all tasks, especially those in a graphical, highly-integrated WIMP environment (instead of a pipeable command-line one). This is why many *nix applications are also presented as "monolithic" applications (Firefox, OpenOffice.org, etc).
"I agree about your lack of knowledge statement. It extends to such things as rhetoric, and simily. Idiot."
Mmmmm... constructive. Could you possibly point to a use of rhetoric and/or similie that I've misunderstood? Then this is a baseless, completely unconstructive insult calculated to do nothing but give offence.
"How do you expect the market to deliver if yu as a consumer don't excercise your perogative to tell the producer. After all - "I'm not making a single constructive suggestion as to how to do it, either." How would you know the difference about whining or otherwise. Idiot."
So you're... what? Going to completely ignore my argument again in favour of the cheap insult? Just because a user demands something, that doesn't mean it's reasonable, practical, feasible or even sane. I can demand my word processor "read documents from my mind with the power of magnets", but it doesn't mean it's any kind of laudable thing that I requested it, and I'd fully expect people to take the piss out of me for my unreasonable expectations. Especially when I hold myself up as a public authority on things like this.
Or do you believe all requests, no matter how unconstructive, unreasonable or silly should be accepted? Well, if you do it looks like this is a judgement call, and we'll agree to differ. See, that's what grown-ups do with each other in a disagreement on something which really doesn't matter - they agree that they both have different (but valid) opinions. They don't resort to calling each other names and trying to offend each other.
"You call yourself an "unprofessional, semi-serious, half-joking poster on an anonymous forum on the internet." Which is why your opinion counts for shit,"
So unless I'm an accredited technology journalist, with a weekly column (even if it is one which is laughed-at by many real techies), my opinion doesn't count for shit?
Fine, but one question. If my opinion doesn't count for shit, why did you
In what sense does law enforcement personnel breaking the law constitute "the system working"?
Just because they were caught out by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a third-party, non-governmental organisation doesn't prove shit is working, apart from EPIC.
In most civilised societies we have this concept of "judicial oversight". It means different bits of the government watch each other, to ensure "the government" remains trustworthy. If "the government" drops the ball, just because a third-party NGO advocacy group catches them on it, this does not prove "the system is working". It proves it's incredibly, incredibly broken.
Or are you happy to claim that "the system is working" even if the USA devolves into a theocratic despotism, as long as it's eventually overthrown in a popular rebellion?
I mean, I realise you're a troll from your controversial posting and AC status, but really...
Don't forget, a private company with strong ties to the eventual winning party.
And the state in question was run by the winning-party candidate's brother.
And the overhwelming majority of the disenfranchised were losing-party supporters.
And the popular media called the result early, prodded into it when an embarrassingly winning-party-biased partisan news network announced the "final result" for the winning party, without any justification or excuse for doing so.
And the winning-party-dominated Supreme Court stopped the recounts just as the losing-party-candidate was about to draw level.
And...
I hate to get involved in a hot-button US article of faith like gun ownership, but could you please name me one occasion from your personal experience where you were required to shoot someone?
This should be an occasion where you were required to shoot and/or kill another person, and where you couldn't escape, allow them to continue with their action without risk of your death or injury, or secure help from qualified third party, who optionally may themselves have been in posession of a gun (eg, police).
Nobody has any doubt that in any given society occasionally deadly force (or at least the threat of it) needs to be used. Where the rest of the world apparently differs from the USA is in assuming that these circumstances crop up often enough in any kind of civilised society that it warrants keeping (sometimes multiple!) firearms in the family home, and enduring the (empirically-demonstrated) consequence of numerous accidental shootings, homicides, cases of mistaken identity, suicides and accidental deaths of children every year.
And yes, I'm fully aware that there's also the argument that a well-armed polulation is essential to protect against the government. However:
1) You elect the fuckers. If you don't like them, elect someone else, don't shoot the poor bastards they employ to do their bidding.
2) When that phrase was written, it was eminently possible for a state of the USA to secede from the USA - the entire "country" was much more modular. Just try it today, and you'll have the federal authorities breathing down your neck faster than you can say "Waco". These days your freedom to resist is a myth, so it's no longer a good reason to permit weapons.
3) When that phrase was written "modern" weapons were pretty much uncontrolled, and it wasn't unreasonable for militia members to have weapons on par with a professional army. Assult weapons are already banned, and does anyone really believe a pistol (even a semi) is going to be worth shit against a fully-automatic assult rifle, grenade launchers, cruise missiles or nukes?
If the federal government decided tomorrow to move into your back yard, there's no a damn thing you personally could do about it. Given this state of affairs, you should either be pushing for drastic political reform to re-institute your succession rights, or face facts and give up your 9mm security blankets.
Have I missed anything here?
Two truly excellent and insightful posts, but one thought occurs:
"The Senate should be reapportioned to reflect economic power. Let the corporations have their playground"
So the US is institutionally corrupt[1], sliding towards political corporatism, and your solution is what, to give corporations an official seat at the table, and legitimise their actions from popularly-ignored corruption to official policy?
The mind boggles...
Surely the correct action is merely to drastically reform (and enforce) campaign finance regulations, crack down on (ideally, eliminate) pork, make professional lobbying illegal, increase financial transparency and mandate jail time[2] for any political figure found guilty of financial or procedural irregularity.
Sure, it's pretty radical, but you don't turn around the decline of an entire country with a few nice words and a pat on the back.
[1] What's lobbying, if not institutionalised corruption?
[2] We hold doctors to high professional standards, and they only hold one person's life in their hands at a time. Politicians hold the entire future of our society in their hands, and (with the right amount of cash and the old-boy network in place) they seem practically immune from prosecution.
" The best of intentions? I hardly agree that the PATRIOT Act was signed into law with the best of intentions."
And once again, we demonstrate that "sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice".
(With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)
Good god - John, that is you, isn't it?
;-p
Welcome to Slashdot! I'm sorry to say you won't be taken very seriously here...
P.S. "Idiot."
Eloquent and well-reasoned as always, I see. You'll fit right in here.
Fair enough. I agree, this particular case was arguable.
Sorry - you appear to be replying to a different post from me than the one I'm reading.
/. editors post Dvorak stories as light relief? Read the other comments on the story, and I think you'll see Dvorak isn't held in high esteem as any kind of proper technology journalist around here...
Did I mention Unix once? Nope.
Did I mention Windows specifically once? Nope.
Did I imply Windows, by talking about Photoshop/PSP? Yes, but only in the context of Windows apps, which (with his tirades against *nix and Macs) is pretty much the only platform Dvorak generally considers.
"You are an angry man and a limited by your inability to appreciate the complexity of the problem"
Actually, I find Photoshop exceedingly hard to use. I also get annoyed with MS Paint for its lack of functionality. The difference is, I recognise this is a result of my lack of knowledge, and don't run off and whine to the world on my column because I want to do something but can't be bothered to learn how to.
Oh yeah, and I consider other applications, like PSP, with a gentler learning-curve, that do the job.
"Sure, he could be a "fucking Photoshop book." But, wouldn't it be better for him to tell commercial vendors what he really wants? This is the point of demand economy."
Sure. I'd like an OS that looks pretty, doesn't crash, runs every game in existence, comes with free Office productivity software, psychically predicts my personal level of expertise when I turn on the machine, and gives me a foot-massage and a blow-job while it's doing it.
Am I going to get it? No. There's no way to do half the stuff I want, I'm not making a single constructive suggestion as to how to do it, either. And, as I said, companies would go bankrupt trying to tailor their software to the precise skill-level of every person who bought it, even if it were possible.
There's a fine line between "telling commercial vendors what I really want", and "pathetically and unreasonably whining because everything isn't handed to me on a plate".
Photo editing is complex. Decent photo-editing programs are therefore complex. Simple photo editing programs are, well, simple. There are programs like Paintshop Pro which bridge the gap nicely.
If you want to do something that only Photoshop can do, it's pretty much obscure, hard or complex by definition, and it's still going to require learning no matter how much you whine and hate it.
"You should have been modded flame bait. Never have I seen dvorak ranting and swearing because someone disagrees with him."
Indeed. But, y'see, John Dvorak holds himself up as a serious journalist. I hold myself up as an unprofessional, semi-serious, half-joking poster on an anonymous forum on the internet.
And frankly, I'd rather read ten profanity-laden articles that are worthwhile, informative and factually correct than one ill-advised, uneducated, whiny Dvorak troll masquerading as serious journalism.
Haven't you worked out yet that the
"As for being an old fossil, there are certain perks that come with age, as the addage tells."
Indeed. Such as (in Dvorak's case) a complete loss of touch with modern computing trends, the perception that the world is wrong simple because he can't keep up with it any more[1], a loss of flexibility of thinking, leading to dogmatic opinions and a lack of self-questioning, increasing xenophobia towards other ways of doing things and a general breakdown in information-processing and reasoning faculties.
There are indeed benefits to aging, and I've also made several (unofficial) predictions that have come true (web browser-as-application UI being the most successful, as far back as 1997). Obviously I can't point you to them, not having a blog[2] and not holding myself out as a professional journalist with an archived collection of columns.
And obviously, if you're a professional writer, and you're going to post
Dvorak is in the very tiny third group - experienced idiots.
Basically, idiots who've been around computers so long that (despite their best efforts) they've absorbed some knowledge by osmosis. Funnily enough, in my experience people like this are generally much more dogmatic, inflexible, obnoxious and sure of themselves than people who genuinely have spent years actively learning computing/IT.
The trouble is, since he (i) is an idiot, and (ii) has a bit more knowledge than a regular idiot, he thinks he's on par with a guru. This is highly amusing to most real gurus/techies, and also explains his shameless public twattery... and his habit of commenting on things he clearly knows nothing about. He doesn't know how much there actually is to know, so he doesn't realise he doesn't know squat.
"I feel that there is a problem with your definition: must I then educate myself on everything? I don't know much about theater, and I don't particularly care to learn more about it. When my wife talks about it and I can't follow should I be derided as stupid?"
;-)
Apples and Oranges - in this case you should simply refrain from talking about it.
Dvorak's doing the equivalent of repeatedly sitting through plays he doesn't understand, then running to his blog/column and savaging the performances simply because he can't be bothered to learn anything about theatre.
If he can't be arsed to learn about theatre he doesn't have to, but if he wants to regularly go to plays and enjoy himeself (or to legitimately criticise them), he's going to have to learn the first thing about them... not just sit under his bridge bitching about how puppet shows are too simple and operas don't offer a paid full-time interpreter and theatre expert to sit next to every audience member and explain the medium and the plot.
Ok, it's stretching your metaphor to breaking point, but you get the idea
Sorry - I should have been less blunt and more explanatory.
Granted, almost everybody knows the Lotus allegation was subsequently shown to be false. However, I was (wrongly) assuming that Googling for it would throw up links to many of the other incidents MS is/was guilty of - I also included a link to the DR-DOS controversy, just in case.
Things like DR-DOS, SAMBA and all the other examples I list in response to the other replier demonstrate MS is more than happy to deliberately break compatibility, as long as they're in the dominant market position.
TBH, I'm not entirely sure why we're all having this conversation, anyway - the story was about MS supporting a bunch of other, proprietary, devices form Sony and Apple, in an area where they didn't have any competing products, so breaking compatability in this case would bring them no gain... <:-/
Best. Comeback. Evar.
Granted, but if you read it again you'll see that
1) The code was still in the commercially-available, release version of Windows
2) Although it was disabled, it was disabled by a single instruction, which made it comparatively easy to reactivate later if MS wanted, and
3) Even more obscure and unnecessary tests had been added to the code between beta and release (which also suggests the anti-DR-DOS catch was still being considered for inclusion even after the beta was released)
Now granted, this isn't a concrete example of MS deliberately breaking competitors' products in a final release version of a package, but it's still ethically dubious and indicative of their mindset.
FWIW I know the "DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run" catchprase is an urban legend, but if you're trying to imply that this kind of deliberate breakage of other people's products isn't exactly the kind of thing Microsoft is eager to do if it thinks it can get away with it, well, all I have to say to that is SAMBA, Java, Javascript/JScript, proprietary HTML extensions (and yes, Netscape was guilty too), etc, etc, etc. And those are just the relatively recent ones that instantly spring to mind... <:-/
Indeed - I'm a big fan of PSP, and also thought it changed direction a bit after 5. PSP was doing great work as a nice middle-ground between Photoshop and MS Paint, but then it seemed they got the urge to compete with Adobe, and whacked a load of new features in without quite so much care over the UI any more.
I, much like Dvorak[1], don't have the need or the time to learn Photoshop, so I use PSP. What's so hard for him to understand?
[1] Ok, never thought I'd ever, ever be writing those words. I think I need to go and scrub myself all over, just to feel clean ever again...
So what's the solution? Produce a different version of your software for every industry, company or skill-level that requires it? How is it in any way realistic or cost-effective for a company? Sure, I bet I'd love "Photoshop Bob Smith Edition", but Adobe would go bankrupt.
I've got to say, I'd saddened by Dvorak. He was doing so well in so many ways this time, then we hit the line:
"Make a print? How about using the drop-down menu under FILE and clicking on PRINT? Is that so off-the-wall? These programs assume that you are a dolt... these programs are in fact harder to use than Photoshop because of the rigmarole you have to go through to do a simple chore."
So... Photoshop (aimed at professionals) is "too hard", so he gets petulant, but drool-proof bundled software that's aimed at your Granny is "too easy", so he gets petulant. This porridge is too hot... this porridge is too cold...
So, what he's arguing for is not, in fact, some brilliant new way of presenting user-interface options or simplifying common user tasks. What he's doing is merely throwing a tantrum because the software isn't pitched squarely at his existing skill-level.
Here's a clue, John. People who want to use Photoshop for anything regularly buy a fucking Photoshop book. People who only want to remove redeye once in a blue moon use the idiot-proof bundled apps that anyone can use. It's not a hassle, because they only do it once in a blue moon. Anyone who wants to do it regularly learns to use Photoshop... acquiring a skill because, y'know, they'll be doing the task a lot.
Buy a book on Photoshop or learn to love using idiot-proof bundled apps... and for christ's sake Shut The Living Fuck Up, you mindless drolling old troll-fossil.
Or just, y'know, buy Paintshop Pro.
He's not advocating open standards, he's wanting to interoperate with a competitor's closed, proprietary standards, because Microsoft lags behind in those areas of consumer electronics.
Microsoft doesn't produce cameras or MP3 players (or at least if they do, they're very minority players), so they don't dominate the market. Thus, by closing off the XBox 360 to competitors products, they ensure the XBox is less useful. Since they're the underdog in this context, the sensible thing to do is to make sure Sony/Apple/whatever products work with the XBox, but try as hard as they can to prevent MS electronics from working with the PS3 or the Mac.
If MS felt secure by producing the world's most popular MP3 player, or dominating the digital camera market, you can bet your bottom dollar they'd crawl over a mile of broken glass with their flies open sooner than they'd support a (smaller) competitor's products.
And either way, "open standards" aren't anywhere within ten miles of this story.