You know, when an article like this comes out, and the gets posted on Slashdot, I have to wonder if the folks mentioned therein suddenly have there foreheads break out in a cold sweat.
I'm normally not one to advocate guerrilla tactics for anything short of the repression of human rights, but at this point, I think greatdomains.com, and to a lesser extent the NSI, are fair game for email avalanches and, what the heck, a few crudely-spelled ungrammatical aspersions cast on the genetic integrity of their ancestors.
Considering that all it takes to create a human is a couple randy humans, a 40 oz-er, and roll-away, I wish that more of them would consult panels of scientific and religious leaders before deciding to do so.
This sort of development is a line of demarcation between those who like Linux because, like the BSDs and Hurd, it's Free and Open, and those who just like Linux as the "alternative operating system of the day," like OS/2 and BeOS and AmigaOS were/are.
I'm a member of the former; I'm glad that there's a Free VMWare-like solution. I'm not so religious that I would never buy commercial software - I do and will - but I will always prefer a Free option, even if paying for media and documentation (money isn't a big issue for me.)
This DOES put Linux ISVs in an awkward position, but I'm afraid that's really their problem - I hope to see the day that the idea of paying for software is as archaic as the idea of paying for buggy whips. I'm not doing this to make ISVs rich.
I have a concern, in fact, about the growing success of Linux. If two people are doing something for Free because they enjoy doing it, they will usually work pretty hard and do a good job of it. If both of them are getting paid well for it, nothing changes except - perhaps - things might happen more quickly. BUT if ONE is getting paid and the other isn't, I suspect that the latter *might* say "screw this, I'm getting out of here." I'm nervous about what the move to funded development by groups like Mozilla, VALinux, and RedHat might do to the people who were developing on their own dime - and when the IPOs pay off and we get our first cash-in-hand Free Software multimillionaires, how will that affect the people who *aren't?*
Madeline Kahn was one of my favorite actresses, and Mel Brooks is (usually) brilliant.
Now, about the "why is this here" posts:
On one hand, it gratifies me as someone of Latin American descent that so many of these posters are supporting the fragile economy of the Andes by their purchase and consumption of large quantities of crack cocaine. It gratifies me to see the support given to the hardworking narcotraffickers of Colombia.
That said, *look at the icon, people..* It's a clapboard! That means that it's on the MOVIE (and media) topic! Like Pi and Star Wars and The Truman Show! An actor whose work is popular among geeks has died, and we celebrate her work.
Is geek cinema only science fiction? (And fantasy?) Feh. I like a lot of science fiction cinema, but that's hardly enough. 1. Most science fiction cinema isn't interesting. 2. Most intellectually engaging cinema isn't science fiction. I share an above poster's view that I think History of the World is much more geekworthy than Episode 1 was.
And here's the BIG rub - a notice about an actor's passing, even IF it weren't NFN-STM, is a LOT less invasive to attention than complaints about the same in the following discussion. You ACTUALLY posted on an obituary and BOTHERED to comment on how it didn't belong here.
WOW. The peace-loving coca growers of the Andes owe you a huge debt.
I've been on Slashdot and seen the following two positions come out on the same day. I know that there's no reason to believe that anyone individual made them, but it strikes me as entirely within the 90's geek gestalt to hold both these views at once:
1. Regarding the independent ISP whose business is endangered by flames and letters to customers - defensive "that's too bad - the Internet is a rough place" and "that's one ISP who well never buckle under to the Feds again" remarks. And lots of "that's just a small minority - Slashdot shouldn't be judged by the actions of a few" remarks. That line is very often repeated whenever stories about flame-avalanches directed at writers and journalists is brought up.
2. Regarding the attacks on Starbucks and McDonalds - "those punks have no respect for property;" "the protestors are just acting up without knowing what they're talking about." Little discrimination is made between the "flaming" few and the nonviolent thousands. Tears are shed for the insured, corporate-buck backed mega-franchises that have to replace their windows and lose a couple days of business.
I think this betrays a deep bias in geek thinking: non-physical "violence" is ok in a way that physical or direct confrontation is not, even if the former is more destructive to peoples' lives. Maybe because a lot of geeks are body-loathing recluses who posture themselves as pure intellect. (Hell, I used to be that way.)
Maybe the fact is that people in the high-tech field are a little incriminated by these protests has something to do with it. People who are getting what they want often tend to promote the ideology that people get what they deserve, and any reference to large-scale economic inequities compromises that stance.
Anyway, quite UNLIKE Columbine, I do see the WTO event as a sea-change of sorts. An interesting way to end a millenium.
I'm afraid that you'll have to justify that claim to me a bit. As I see it, early releases grab attention, buggy or not.
This may be the psychological irony: tiny frustrations and aggravations, coupled with the promises of better things to come, *engage* the consumer with the product in a way that promotes it. A seamless, flawless experience is - dare I say it? - forgetable. If you make it look too easy, people will think that it is.
Aside from the obvious example (Microsoft), I can think of a couple other products that fit this pattern, including Gnome.
Now, I definitely don't think this is a good thing (I don't believe that humans are essentially rational, and the people who act on that basis - i.e., the advertising and marketing industries - seem to be thriving quite nicely), and I would like to be proven wrong. Can you name any historical product releases that showed how patient attention to detail is rewarded in the mass market?
Re:The humans rights violations are irksome
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There's nothing about point #1 that I particularly disagree with (except to note that 6% of the US GDP was equivalent to the a lot more than 20% of the USSR's GDP, in lieu of the resources that the US had at its disposal in the postware period.) Challenging some myths about communism shouldn't default into a defense of Stalinism, except that I would put Stalinism in as much a lineage with Tsarism as with Marxism. Can you say "pogrom?"
As for point #2, I would have to disagree. Great minds go where their research will be funded and they'll get a good standard of living, which is why Von Braun didn't head over here until AFTER WW2. He (and Mengele and his ilk) didn't seem to mind "enslavement" in the Third Reich, when it came with well-funded labs and cushy paychecks.
There are freer societies than the US, without a doubt. They just can't pay as well.
The ones that are back in stumblebum status are the ones that have made a radical shift to a free market/democratic society. China may be using a free market model for many things, but it is still deeply socialist, much more so than any European country.
Personally, I agree that Allende's regime would probably have been an economic disaster for a number of reasons if he had implemented the policies he had initially proposed, but let's be honest - he didn't fall, he was pushed, before he had any real chance to do much of *anything,* by Pinochet and the CIA.
I'm not an apologist for the the 20th century communist state, by any means, but they myths currently being propagated about the failures of socialism overlook these basic facts:
1. American success is primarly a product of World War Two, not of the inherent value of the capitalist system. George S. Kennan described the situation best - at the end of WW2, the US directly controlled about half of the world's wealth, and the role of US geopolitics was to maintain that precarious imbalance.
2. Given that, the socialist economies of the eastern bloc performed amazing things in light of the ongoing hostility of the US. 3rd world countries that aligned themselves more closely with the US did not do as well, since, sadly, it was their lot to preserve the imbalance mentioned by Kennan, by providing cheap labor and natural resources. The disasters of the socialist economies has more to do with centralization and autocracy than anything else - viz. the disastrous agricultural projects of the 70's in the USSR, largely the result of fantasies of Moscow apparatchiks.
3. The liberalized economies of Latin America are only serving a small fraction of the economy. A recent article in Latin Trade described how the Latin middle class, which American free market boosters had predicted would mushroom over the bast 10+ years of free-market policies, has been in crisis and dwindling, with the wealth of the upper classes expanding (and often moved offshore) and the poor remaining solidly poor. The victory of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the renewed vigor of Latin leftists parties in the last couple years, now with growing middle class support (which is always fortunate, since it keeps these parties sensible, the governments democratic, and the economies mixed,) is a result of the dawning realization that the majority of Latin Americans are simply not meant to benefit from the implementation of free market policies.
In Marxist theory, communism is that social stage which follows socialism. In practice, it makes sense to identify as communist those countries whose governments are lead by a Communist party built on a Leninist model, such as China, Vietnam, Cuba, and the old USSR, even though in the language of their own political theory they could only implement socialism. We use the world 'socialism' to describe more democratic political traditions (except in the US, where it is an epithet analogous to "poopyhead.")
It's a fact of history that most Communist regimes came into power due to either 1. a communist revolution, or 2. invasion by a country that had a Communist revolution. (One interesting exception was the election of Salvador Allende in Chile - and we saw happened to *that.*) Marxist theory suggests that revolution is a requisite for historical change. (There is some room for play here, since I guess you could argue that the change from capitalist to socialist means of production is itself the revolution, but the traditional model has been the up-against-the-wall-mofo style revolution.)
The question of the "legality" of these things is a bit silly. It does make sense to talk of a peaceful or violent change of property models. However, most real property and natural resources were at one point taken from someone else violently. Laws are created by political forces; when the Communists took power, they created laws that legitimize their economic behavior, just as capitalist countries do (i.e., intellectual property law, patent law.)
The humans rights violations are irksome
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... of course, but frankly, I'm pleased that there is at least *one* challenger to US hegemony on the planet.
One amusing fact is that there is a myth of communist ineffectiveness (I refer to communism as a historical fact, not as an ideal model). In the two nominally communist superpowers, we have countries which went from being relatively backwards little stumble-bums of history, to world-class superpowers, in the space of a few decades. The Soviet Union managed to develop a space program only a decade after having been completely mauled by the second world war, in addition to improving the standard of living of its populace to a very high extent (vis a vis the pre-communist standard of living.)
A real tragedy of communism is that it has never been attempted in a country with a genuine democratic tradition. I attribute China's autocratic nature more to China's historical political culture than to communism per se.
Perhaps the eurosocialist model is just that fusion of socialism and democracy.
This really isn't true. I work throughout Latin America, and there is plenty of good infrastructure. There is also pretty good penetration and distribution of PC's. Here are some of the problems:
1. Pricing of connectivity. Most internet service is metered. That is starting to change - in Brazil, Universal Online has moved to undercut AOL. However, connectivity charges are still higher down here (I'm in Caracas at the moment) than up in the states.
2. The quality of education in Latin America, while still much better than the GNP's of these countries might suggest, has been slipping over the past couple decades, and schools can't pay for talented educators who make better money in foreign companies or overseas. It's one of a number of vicious circles that are all a product of the fact that the US still controls a massive proportion of the world's resources. The drive towards reduced public sectors, and increasing corrpution in the public sector that is left, has dried the revenue base of the educational infrastructure in most Latin American countries (this is especially tragic in the once excellent Argentine system.) Also, the politicization of the universities continues to be a problem, as in the UNAM strike in Mexico.
3. The previously mentioned Nestle Milk syndrome, associated with the above-described crisis in education funding. The prestige of American software companies and the associated aura of success make the penetration of free software, and the move from a consumer to a producer mindset, difficult.
Here are some advantages and strengths that this region has, too:
1. Latin America is not simply reducable to the 3rd world stereotypes. Much of the population is much better educated than you might expect, and in many places the populace is taught better critical thinking skills than in the US.
2. Latin American has always held engineers in great esteem. "Ingeniero" is a proudly-held prefix, like "Doctor" or "... Esq." The brightest and best are as likely to enter technical fields as they are law or business.
3. There's the leap-frog effect, which allows countries to skip intermediary infrastructure, and, for example, bypass copper wire for fiber optic. Brazil is leading in this.
4. Communalist cultures - information sharing is much broader (despite the myths here, you really are more on your own in the US even in the Linux culture). CyberCafes are a frequent fixture, which allows members of a community to share access to (usually low bandwidth) connectivity on old machines for a very low price. As such, communities are able to teach other things like linux.
5. The BSA is cracking down on piracy throughout the region. Piracy campaigns are part of US software companies' sales strategies - they LIKE finding lots of software being pirated, because they can then often cut a deal for a huge settlement. Often, software companies will get in bed with major industries and government agencies to target antipiracy campaigns against politically unpopular sectors (Ah, even silicon valley joins in the plunder of the continent. The more things change...) However, the market here, unable to afford the nominal prices of things, is starting to jump ship proactively. I hear a lot of people in surpringly high places talking about linux.
Apparently CDNow believes that it is impossible for them to make money by delivering goods and services without a legally-backed monopoly on their business model.
The patent system is being used to call "dibs" on specific markets.
Eventually, there will have to be a test case, I imagine. Is there any precedent cases for patents on business models?
That tactic - of moving from a topic on which two people disagree to one the they agree on - is part of a very effective strategy for negotiating someone into your camp. It's intellectual momentum.
Let's say you and I disagree over, say, the value of the GNU Public License. I could try to rebut your objections one by one, but I doubt either of us would really move much, especially if we've become vested in one opinion or another. If, instead, I change the topic into one of the hundred or so things on which we agree - especially if it is a subject we are both emotional about, such as human rights in Latin America or urban sprawl in the US - then the earlier topic enjoys the "splash effect" of our agreement, and you will be much more inclined in the future to agree with me later, even to the point of thinking that you have always held an opinion much like mine.
When there are entire categories of opinion, it becomes even easier. If I declare myself of Libertarian, and you are a proponent of environmental regulation, I will, if I am wise, not try to discuss environmental regulation with you - instead, I will probably want to discuss the problems with the War on Drugs and a whole subset of stances that you agree with. Then I can roundly declare that you, too, are a Libertarian! Then I might incidentally note that Most Libertarians oppose environmental regulation. If you have begun to value your Libertarian affiliation, you will begin to migrate your views on environmental regulation in that direction.
I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who described people's ideas as little badges of affiliation that people used to demonstrate group identity.
You know, the more often I read these stories, the more I see people write "I know I'm right, but I'd rather not go to court/get sued/can't afford lawyers" etc.
It's discouraging to see that. Essentially, it's cowardice.
Partially, geeks are legal cowards because the have too much to lose - they have a lot of income potential, and they don't want to jeopardize it - and partially, I think there's a culture here that's conflict averse for anything other than text flamewars.
Personally, I'm a scrapper, descended from a line of scrappers - including people who fought Latin American dictators and faced exile and death for their convictions. I am pretty sure I would put up a fight in a situation like this - it's sad to see that few will, because you will never enjoy rights that you don't struggle for.
If you really watched Matrix 20+ times, I don't think you'll actually enjoy the book, because it is not about the themes you probably liked about the movie.
Essentially, it's a sociological text about the proliferation of pseudo-experiences to replace real experience - of the creation of Lollapaloozas to replace Carnivals and festivals, of the use of media to replace the normal patterns of desire and fulfillment. It's rather cerebral, a bit obscurantist in its style, and probably not that interesting to most techie-geeks, unless they are already interested in and reasonably educated in the liberal arts.
The relationship to the movie is that it postures the film as a criticism of a mediated society.
If, by some quirk, you are interested still, I also recommend the works of the Situationist International, particularly Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle.
The problem is, you Irish just took ONE variety of potato and planted it everywhere: the variety that has the biggest yields, but is the least tolerant of drought.
In Peru, there are well over a hundred varieties of potato, adapted to different types of terrain, climate, and altitude. The various Andean people there learned over time and communicated via lore the advantages and disadvantages of all the different varieties, and also means of preserving potatoes for years of famine (such as freeze-drying.)If the Europeans had actually dealt with the Andean people as an authentic culture, instead of as a nuisance people that temporarily stood between them and a resource they wanted, and had actually bothered to *learn* from them, then the Irish potato famine might never have happened.
(I also recall there being geopolitical factors in the famine, but I suppose you could elaborate on them better than I could.)
I do agree that within the confines of our particulary technological abilities, there are avenues for community etc. I like your choice of metaphor.
And, please understand, a Technological stance is not the same as existing in a technological-rich environment. One can have the technological stance and access only to simple machines, or alternatively, as you've described, one can inhabit a world as found in a technological era with a stance that is more human scaled.
Some major differences are this:
1. in your scenario, we are talking about a recreational activity that is designed to be amusing, but is probably of limited duration, is partitioned off of the world of work and sustinence. It doesn't actually encompass the horizon of your activities (from the perspective of what I brazenly, in light of the response I suspect it will get here, will call a post-modern episteme, this could be seen as a feature, not a bug); it's more analogous to a high-tech game of kick-the-can.
But I still see you as not distinguishing between technology as local problem-solving, which of course exists as much in tuber-gatherers as in Quake Clans, and Technology as a redemptive stance.
The potato analogy is interesting here: I'm Peruvian, you're Irish. We gave you the potato. You're welcome.
1. Did I really mispell "tragedy?" Oy. I'm increasingly orthographically challenged. I blame my cell phone.
2. If the question is "what is the least labor intensive way to eat?" then grubbing for wild tubers loses to popping a tray into the microwave. However, if grubbing for wild tubers is the core shared activity of your community, something that you do with your family and friends; if it is the basis of the annual Tuber Festival, and you are participating in building a wonderful effigy of the Great Sacrificial Tuber; if your back and arms are strong from tuber gathering, and the local girls notice and appreciate it; if you can look with satisfaction at a fine tuber, know what type of ground creates what kind of tuber, then... then I would say that you may not, in fact, be made unqualifyingly more happy with the microwave/caffienated peppermint solution.
That is how a problem->technology approach differs from other stances towards life. It isn't about the stuff, it's about the relationships between stuff and people.
Any given instance of technology with a small "t" is just an attempt to solve a problem (sadly, that problem is increasingly "how do we enchance stockholder value?")
However, Technology with a big T (viz: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology) is the implicit faith and complex of assumptions that motivates us to seek technological, rather than social, spiritual, cultural, political or psychological responses to our environment - when we encounter our world entirely in terms of tools, methods, and means. It's noble in that it is a positive, reasonable, and often helpful stance to problems. It is tragic in a number of senses: often, it seeks to satisfy a desire without understanding the engine that underlies desire; satisfying desire is itself essentially tragic, since desire is extinguished in its satisfaction and the motivation lost. From a Buddhist perspective, desire is the source of suffering, and technology only feeds the illusion that desire can be fulfilled.
Heidegger's plaint is that the technological stance towards the world eclipses all others, and is a sort of squandering and corruption of our ability to generate Being through interaction with the world. I think it's largely an aesthetic argument, but it really is a powerful one -by choosing to live in a technological mode, we stop inhabiting a world and start dwelling amidst Objects and Tools.
While the solutions addressed by technology is almost always local, its effects are often global. Technology always serves someone's interest, and that interest may be someone elses's detriment.
But the essence of the tragic nature of technology is this: the technological stance seems redemptive, but it can never actually redeem.
The idea that the market is teleological and always "does the right thing" is what RMS described as the practically Marxist element in ESR's doctrine. It motivates his belief that the economic incentive alone will move software makers to Open Source, which in turn protects him from having to identify communal values as a factor in free software. This faith allows him to both oppose Microsoft's strategies in the market without actually using any legal remedy, because The Mandate of History/A Wrathful God/The Market will be the instrument of justice.
It's a weird fusion of Hegel and A. Smith. (It should be noted that A. Smith believed that the "invisible hand" was a general rule, not a universal one, and that he did in fact hold that the state had a role in shaping it and ameliorating its worst effects.)
Seeing the role of the "teleological market" in the specific stances of those who subscribe to it is left as an exercise to the reader.
What I have to say may apply less to those of you who live in an area where there are lots more jobs to fill in your field than people to fill them, but remember - that as largely a fluke of the economy.
The fact is that in many situations, agreements to conditions and restrictions on one's freedom as a requisite for employment should be considered as made under duress, unless you're sitting on a fat wad of savings. But if someone is offering you a paycheck, and your three daughters are wearing out their shoes, and your mortgage payment is late, and you don't have health insurance for your family, you are pretty damn close to coerced to sign away your rights. It is not an agreement between to parties with parity, and it is a fiction to act as if it is. This is especially true if a unpleasant clauses become an "industry standard" within an industry, making alternatives rare.
A lot of quasi-libertarian rhetoric is thinly-veiled shilling for corporate and monied interests. Contract law and a contract-oriented attitude can not single-handedly replace other legal and political mechanisms in a fair way, especially when there are disparities in wealth and power such as those between a single employee and an entire corporation.
There are so many essential misconceptions in these campaigns to attract "E"-businesses (ugh, I feel I should wash my hands after typing that word) that I don't know where to start. It's cargo-cult thinking at its worse.
First, of course, the idea is not to attract tourists, it's to attract Internet businesses. That's the big miss there: Internet-based businesses don't move. They're home grown, from local nourished talent. They're based on a successful strategy for changing a "pre-E" business idea and "net-enabling" it (my hair feels pointier already) or they're the product of very smart people who understand what's possible with what they already have at hand. Almost no one says "can't start my E-business here, I better up and move to Mass. or Virginia!" Perhaps some of the larger success stories will satellite out on those criteria, but not really that many.
The best route to growing e-businesses is actively building infrastructure - I think most of these regions are keen on this - and then emphasizing local education on every level to create and nurutre smart, talented, adventerous people.
And THEN: making life INTERESTING for them. That's one way that the Bay Area and the Boston area have it all over a lot of places: each is a fun place to be, with cultures that value intelligence and difference. Each are stimulating, exciting, and diverse. The brightest and best, essentially, don't want to be bored to tears.
One of my closer friends comes from Huntington, West Virginia. He describes it as a very "well-wired" place that tries to push itself as technologically cutting edge. I asked him if, insofar as he's In Our Field and very competitive and sought-after, he'd ever go back (he lives and works in San Francisco.) Essentially, the answer was "HELL no."
Ironically, some of things that make a region a good ".com" region are the things that they emphasize the least: arts, education, culture, nightlife, music, and diversity.
I used to dismiss the idea of a navigable/immersive cyberspace as a workable metaphor as naive, but I'm beginning to think that Gibson et al were really on to something.
I can imagine encapsulating a wide number of functions into this sort of interface; if, ultimately, every aspect of a system, and the data that they host, is made accessible or inaccessible using these sort of metaphors, the Gibsonian vision of cyberspace might be viable.
(One of my favorite Gibson quotes is this reality check: "Cyberspace is where they keep your money.")
It was only a couple weeks after I dismissed the idea of 'virtual spaces' as hokum among my friends that I really started getting into multiplayer Quake - and even looking for friends on servers.
We'll all have a little egg on our face if the "Hollywood O.S." turns out to have a grain of prophetic truth to it, no?
pilot-xfer -i filename works on.prd and.prc files, uploading them into the RAM. This, the OS upgrade, is a ROM flash. pilot-xfer won't work. ROM flashing utilities do exist for unix, however, as the poster previous to you has mentioned.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, when an article like this comes out, and the gets posted on Slashdot, I have to wonder if the folks mentioned therein suddenly have there foreheads break out in a cold sweat.
I'm normally not one to advocate guerrilla tactics for anything short of the repression of human rights, but at this point, I think greatdomains.com, and to a lesser extent the NSI, are fair game for email avalanches and, what the heck, a few crudely-spelled ungrammatical aspersions cast on the genetic integrity of their ancestors.
Considering that all it takes to create a human is a couple randy humans, a 40 oz-er, and roll-away, I wish that more of them would consult panels of scientific and religious leaders before deciding to do so.
This sort of development is a line of demarcation between those who like Linux because, like the BSDs and Hurd, it's Free and Open, and those who just like Linux as the "alternative operating system of the day," like OS/2 and BeOS and AmigaOS were/are.
I'm a member of the former; I'm glad that there's a Free VMWare-like solution. I'm not so religious that I would never buy commercial software - I do and will - but I will always prefer a Free option, even if paying for media and documentation (money isn't a big issue for me.)
This DOES put Linux ISVs in an awkward position, but I'm afraid that's really their problem - I hope to see the day that the idea of paying for software is as archaic as the idea of paying for buggy whips. I'm not doing this to make ISVs rich.
I have a concern, in fact, about the growing success of Linux. If two people are doing something for Free because they enjoy doing it, they will usually work pretty hard and do a good job of it. If both of them are getting paid well for it, nothing changes except - perhaps - things might happen more quickly. BUT if ONE is getting paid and the other isn't, I suspect that the latter *might* say "screw this, I'm getting out of here." I'm nervous about what the move to funded development by groups like Mozilla, VALinux, and RedHat might do to the people who were developing on their own dime - and when the IPOs pay off and we get our first cash-in-hand Free Software multimillionaires, how will that affect the people who *aren't?*
Madeline Kahn was one of my favorite actresses, and Mel Brooks is (usually) brilliant.
Now, about the "why is this here" posts:
On one hand, it gratifies me as someone of Latin American descent that so many of these posters are supporting the fragile economy of the Andes by their purchase and consumption of large quantities of crack cocaine. It gratifies me to see the support given to the hardworking narcotraffickers of Colombia.
That said, *look at the icon, people..* It's a clapboard! That means that it's on the MOVIE (and media) topic! Like Pi and Star Wars and The Truman Show! An actor whose work is popular among geeks has died, and we celebrate her work.
Is geek cinema only science fiction? (And fantasy?) Feh. I like a lot of science fiction cinema, but that's hardly enough. 1. Most science fiction cinema isn't interesting. 2. Most intellectually engaging cinema isn't science fiction. I share an above poster's view that I think History of the World is much more geekworthy than Episode 1 was.
And here's the BIG rub - a notice about an actor's passing, even IF it weren't NFN-STM, is a LOT less invasive to attention than complaints about the same in the following discussion. You ACTUALLY posted on an obituary and BOTHERED to comment on how it didn't belong here.
WOW. The peace-loving coca growers of the Andes owe you a huge debt.
Sonny Bono, Michael Kennedy, and the students of Texas A&M. Death by timber, all of them
The trees are on the move, and they are pissed.
I've been on Slashdot and seen the following two positions come out on the same day. I know that there's no reason to believe that anyone individual made them, but it strikes me as entirely within the 90's geek gestalt to hold both these views at once:
1. Regarding the independent ISP whose business is endangered by flames and letters to customers - defensive "that's too bad - the Internet is a rough place" and "that's one ISP who well never buckle under to the Feds again" remarks. And lots of "that's just a small minority - Slashdot shouldn't be judged by the actions of a few" remarks. That line is very often repeated whenever stories about flame-avalanches directed at writers and journalists is brought up.
2. Regarding the attacks on Starbucks and McDonalds - "those punks have no respect for property;" "the protestors are just acting up without knowing what they're talking about." Little discrimination is made between the "flaming" few and the nonviolent thousands. Tears are shed for the insured, corporate-buck backed mega-franchises that have to replace their windows and lose a couple days of business.
I think this betrays a deep bias in geek thinking: non-physical "violence" is ok in a way that physical or direct confrontation is not, even if the former is more destructive to peoples' lives. Maybe because a lot of geeks are body-loathing recluses who posture themselves as pure intellect. (Hell, I used to be that way.)
Maybe the fact is that people in the high-tech field are a little incriminated by these protests has something to do with it. People who are getting what they want often tend to promote the ideology that people get what they deserve, and any reference to large-scale economic inequities compromises that stance.
Anyway, quite UNLIKE Columbine, I do see the WTO event as a sea-change of sorts. An interesting way to end a millenium.
Stay in alpha as long as possible?
I'm afraid that you'll have to justify that claim to me a bit. As I see it, early releases grab attention, buggy or not.
This may be the psychological irony: tiny frustrations and aggravations, coupled with the promises of better things to come, *engage* the consumer with the product in a way that promotes it. A seamless, flawless experience is - dare I say it? - forgetable. If you make it look too easy, people will think that it is.
Aside from the obvious example (Microsoft), I can think of a couple other products that fit this pattern, including Gnome.
Now, I definitely don't think this is a good thing (I don't believe that humans are essentially rational, and the people who act on that basis - i.e., the advertising and marketing industries - seem to be thriving quite nicely), and I would like to be proven wrong. Can you name any historical product releases that showed how patient attention to detail is rewarded in the mass market?
There's nothing about point #1 that I particularly disagree with (except to note that 6% of the US GDP was equivalent to the a lot more than 20% of the USSR's GDP, in lieu of the resources that the US had at its disposal in the postware period.) Challenging some myths about communism shouldn't default into a defense of Stalinism, except that I would put Stalinism in as much a lineage with Tsarism as with Marxism. Can you say "pogrom?"
As for point #2, I would have to disagree. Great minds go where their research will be funded and they'll get a good standard of living, which is why Von Braun didn't head over here until AFTER WW2. He (and Mengele and his ilk) didn't seem to mind "enslavement" in the Third Reich, when it came with well-funded labs and cushy paychecks.
There are freer societies than the US, without a doubt. They just can't pay as well.
The ones that are back in stumblebum status are the ones that have made a radical shift to a free market/democratic society. China may be using a free market model for many things, but it is still deeply socialist, much more so than any European country.
Personally, I agree that Allende's regime would probably have been an economic disaster for a number of reasons if he had implemented the policies he had initially proposed, but let's be honest - he didn't fall, he was pushed, before he had any real chance to do much of *anything,* by Pinochet and the CIA.
I'm not an apologist for the the 20th century communist state, by any means, but they myths currently being propagated about the failures of socialism overlook these basic facts:
1. American success is primarly a product of World War Two, not of the inherent value of the capitalist system. George S. Kennan described the situation best - at the end of WW2, the US directly controlled about half of the world's wealth, and the role of US geopolitics was to maintain that precarious imbalance.
2. Given that, the socialist economies of the eastern bloc performed amazing things in light of the ongoing hostility of the US. 3rd world countries that aligned themselves more closely with the US did not do as well, since, sadly, it was their lot to preserve the imbalance mentioned by Kennan, by providing cheap labor and natural resources. The disasters of the socialist economies has more to do with centralization and autocracy than anything else - viz. the disastrous agricultural projects of the 70's in the USSR, largely the result of fantasies of Moscow apparatchiks.
3. The liberalized economies of Latin America are only serving a small fraction of the economy. A recent article in Latin Trade described how the Latin middle class, which American free market boosters had predicted would mushroom over the bast 10+ years of free-market policies, has been in crisis and dwindling, with the wealth of the upper classes expanding (and often moved offshore) and the poor remaining solidly poor. The victory of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the renewed vigor of Latin leftists parties in the last couple years, now with growing middle class support (which is always fortunate, since it keeps these parties sensible, the governments democratic, and the economies mixed,) is a result of the dawning realization that the majority of Latin Americans are simply not meant to benefit from the implementation of free market policies.
Definitions follow practice.
In Marxist theory, communism is that social stage which follows socialism. In practice, it makes sense to identify as communist those countries whose governments are lead by a Communist party built on a Leninist model, such as China, Vietnam, Cuba, and the old USSR, even though in the language of their own political theory they could only implement socialism. We use the world 'socialism' to describe more democratic political traditions (except in the US, where it is an epithet analogous to "poopyhead.")
It's a fact of history that most Communist regimes came into power due to either 1. a communist revolution, or 2. invasion by a country that had a Communist revolution. (One interesting exception was the election of Salvador Allende in Chile - and we saw happened to *that.*) Marxist theory suggests that revolution is a requisite for historical change. (There is some room for play here, since I guess you could argue that the change from capitalist to socialist means of production is itself the revolution, but the traditional model has been the up-against-the-wall-mofo style revolution.)
The question of the "legality" of these things is a bit silly. It does make sense to talk of a peaceful or violent change of property models. However, most real property and natural resources were at one point taken from someone else violently. Laws are created by political forces; when the Communists took power, they created laws that legitimize their economic behavior, just as capitalist countries do (i.e., intellectual property law, patent law.)
... of course, but frankly, I'm pleased that there is at least *one* challenger to US hegemony on the planet.
One amusing fact is that there is a myth of communist ineffectiveness (I refer to communism as a historical fact, not as an ideal model). In the two nominally communist superpowers, we have countries which went from being relatively backwards little stumble-bums of history, to world-class superpowers, in the space of a few decades. The Soviet Union managed to develop a space program only a decade after having been completely mauled by the second world war, in addition to improving the standard of living of its populace to a very high extent (vis a vis the pre-communist standard of living.)
A real tragedy of communism is that it has never been attempted in a country with a genuine democratic tradition. I attribute China's autocratic nature more to China's historical political culture than to communism per se.
Perhaps the eurosocialist model is just that fusion of socialism and democracy.
This really isn't true. I work throughout Latin America, and there is plenty of good infrastructure. There is also pretty good penetration and distribution of PC's. Here are some of the problems:
1. Pricing of connectivity. Most internet service is metered. That is starting to change - in Brazil, Universal Online has moved to undercut AOL. However, connectivity charges are still higher down here (I'm in Caracas at the moment) than up in the states.
2. The quality of education in Latin America, while still much better than the GNP's of these countries might suggest, has been slipping over the past couple decades, and schools can't pay for talented educators who make better money in foreign companies or overseas. It's one of a number of vicious circles that are all a product of the fact that the US still controls a massive proportion of the world's resources. The drive towards reduced public sectors, and increasing corrpution in the public sector that is left, has dried the revenue base of the educational infrastructure in most Latin American countries (this is especially tragic in the once excellent Argentine system.) Also, the politicization of the universities continues to be a problem, as in the UNAM strike in Mexico.
3. The previously mentioned Nestle Milk syndrome, associated with the above-described crisis in education funding. The prestige of American software companies and the associated aura of success make the penetration of free software, and the move from a consumer to a producer mindset, difficult.
Here are some advantages and strengths that this region has, too:
1. Latin America is not simply reducable to the 3rd world stereotypes. Much of the population is much better educated than you might expect, and in many places the populace is taught better critical thinking skills than in the US.
2. Latin American has always held engineers in great esteem. "Ingeniero" is a proudly-held prefix, like "Doctor" or "... Esq." The brightest and best are as likely to enter technical fields as they are law or business.
3. There's the leap-frog effect, which allows countries to skip intermediary infrastructure, and, for example, bypass copper wire for fiber optic. Brazil is leading in this.
4. Communalist cultures - information sharing is much broader (despite the myths here, you really are more on your own in the US even in the Linux culture). CyberCafes are a frequent fixture, which allows members of a community to share access to (usually low bandwidth) connectivity on old machines for a very low price. As such, communities are able to teach other things like linux.
5. The BSA is cracking down on piracy throughout the region. Piracy campaigns are part of US software companies' sales strategies - they LIKE finding lots of software being pirated, because they can then often cut a deal for a huge settlement. Often, software companies will get in bed with major industries and government agencies to target antipiracy campaigns against politically unpopular sectors (Ah, even silicon valley joins in the plunder of the continent. The more things change...) However, the market here, unable to afford the nominal prices of things, is starting to jump ship proactively. I hear a lot of people in surpringly high places talking about linux.
Apparently CDNow believes that it is impossible for them to make money by delivering goods and services without a legally-backed monopoly on their business model.
The patent system is being used to call "dibs" on specific markets.
Eventually, there will have to be a test case, I imagine. Is there any precedent cases for patents on business models?
That tactic - of moving from a topic on which two people disagree to one the they agree on - is part of a very effective strategy for negotiating someone into your camp. It's intellectual momentum.
Let's say you and I disagree over, say, the value of the GNU Public License. I could try to rebut your objections one by one, but I doubt either of us would really move much, especially if we've become vested in one opinion or another. If, instead, I change the topic into one of the hundred or so things on which we agree - especially if it is a subject we are both emotional about, such as human rights in Latin America or urban sprawl in the US - then the earlier topic enjoys the "splash effect" of our agreement, and you will be much more inclined in the future to agree with me later, even to the point of thinking that you have always held an opinion much like mine.
When there are entire categories of opinion, it becomes even easier. If I declare myself of Libertarian, and you are a proponent of environmental regulation, I will, if I am wise, not try to discuss environmental regulation with you - instead, I will probably want to discuss the problems with the War on Drugs and a whole subset of stances that you agree with. Then I can roundly declare that you, too, are a Libertarian! Then I might incidentally note that Most Libertarians oppose environmental regulation. If you have begun to value your Libertarian affiliation, you will begin to migrate your views on environmental regulation in that direction.
I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who described people's ideas as little badges of affiliation that people used to demonstrate group identity.
You know, the more often I read these stories, the more I see people write "I know I'm right, but I'd rather not go to court/get sued/can't afford lawyers" etc.
It's discouraging to see that. Essentially, it's cowardice.
Partially, geeks are legal cowards because the have too much to lose - they have a lot of income potential, and they don't want to jeopardize it - and partially, I think there's a culture here that's conflict averse for anything other than text flamewars.
Personally, I'm a scrapper, descended from a line of scrappers - including people who fought Latin American dictators and faced exile and death for their convictions. I am pretty sure I would put up a fight in a situation like this - it's sad to see that few will, because you will never enjoy rights that you don't struggle for.
If you really watched Matrix 20+ times, I don't think you'll actually enjoy the book, because it is not about the themes you probably liked about the movie.
Essentially, it's a sociological text about the proliferation of pseudo-experiences to replace real experience - of the creation of Lollapaloozas to replace Carnivals and festivals, of the use of media to replace the normal patterns of desire and fulfillment. It's rather cerebral, a bit obscurantist in its style, and probably not that interesting to most techie-geeks, unless they are already interested in and reasonably educated in the liberal arts.
The relationship to the movie is that it postures the film as a criticism of a mediated society.
If, by some quirk, you are interested still, I also recommend the works of the Situationist International, particularly Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle.
The problem is, you Irish just took ONE variety of potato and planted it everywhere: the variety that has the biggest yields, but is the least tolerant of drought.
In Peru, there are well over a hundred varieties of potato, adapted to different types of terrain, climate, and altitude. The various Andean people there learned over time and communicated via lore the advantages and disadvantages of all the different varieties, and also means of preserving potatoes for years of famine (such as freeze-drying.)If the Europeans had actually dealt with the Andean people as an authentic culture, instead of as a nuisance people that temporarily stood between them and a resource they wanted, and had actually bothered to *learn* from them, then the Irish potato famine might never have happened.
(I also recall there being geopolitical factors in the famine, but I suppose you could elaborate on them better than I could.)
So, dont blame us!
I do agree that within the confines of our particulary technological abilities, there are avenues for community etc. I like your choice of metaphor.
And, please understand, a Technological stance is not the same as existing in a technological-rich environment. One can have the technological stance and access only to simple machines, or alternatively, as you've described, one can inhabit a world as found in a technological era with a stance that is more human scaled.
Some major differences are this:
1. in your scenario, we are talking about a recreational activity that is designed to be amusing, but is probably of limited duration, is partitioned off of the world of work and sustinence. It doesn't actually encompass the horizon of your activities (from the perspective of what I brazenly, in light of the response I suspect it will get here, will call a post-modern episteme, this could be seen as a feature, not a bug); it's more analogous to a high-tech game of kick-the-can.
But I still see you as not distinguishing between technology as local problem-solving, which of course exists as much in tuber-gatherers as in Quake Clans, and Technology as a redemptive stance.
The potato analogy is interesting here: I'm Peruvian, you're Irish. We gave you the potato. You're welcome.
1. Did I really mispell "tragedy?" Oy. I'm increasingly orthographically challenged. I blame my cell phone.
2. If the question is "what is the least labor intensive way to eat?" then grubbing for wild tubers loses to popping a tray into the microwave. However, if grubbing for wild tubers is the core shared activity of your community, something that you do with your family and friends; if it is the basis of the annual Tuber Festival, and you are participating in building a wonderful effigy of the Great Sacrificial Tuber; if your back and arms are strong from tuber gathering, and the local girls notice and appreciate it; if you can look with satisfaction at a fine tuber, know what type of ground creates what kind of tuber, then... then I would say that you may not, in fact, be made unqualifyingly more happy with the microwave/caffienated peppermint solution.
That is how a problem->technology approach differs from other stances towards life. It isn't about the stuff, it's about the relationships between stuff and people.
Any given instance of technology with a small "t" is just an attempt to solve a problem (sadly, that problem is increasingly "how do we enchance stockholder value?")
However, Technology with a big T (viz: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology) is the implicit faith and complex of assumptions that motivates us to seek technological, rather than social, spiritual, cultural, political or psychological responses to our environment - when we encounter our world entirely in terms of tools, methods, and means. It's noble in that it is a positive, reasonable, and often helpful stance to problems. It is tragic in a number of senses: often, it seeks to satisfy a desire without understanding the engine that underlies desire; satisfying desire is itself essentially tragic, since desire is extinguished in its satisfaction and the motivation lost. From a Buddhist perspective, desire is the source of suffering, and technology only feeds the illusion that desire can be fulfilled.
Heidegger's plaint is that the technological stance towards the world eclipses all others, and is a sort of squandering and corruption of our ability to generate Being through interaction with the world. I think it's largely an aesthetic argument, but it really is a powerful one -by choosing to live in a technological mode, we stop inhabiting a world and start dwelling amidst Objects and Tools.
While the solutions addressed by technology is almost always local, its effects are often global. Technology always serves someone's interest, and that interest may be someone elses's detriment.
But the essence of the tragic nature of technology is this: the technological stance seems redemptive, but it can never actually redeem.
The idea that the market is teleological and always "does the right thing" is what RMS described as the practically Marxist element in ESR's doctrine. It motivates his belief that the economic incentive alone will move software makers to Open Source, which in turn protects him from having to identify communal values as a factor in free software. This faith allows him to both oppose Microsoft's strategies in the market without actually using any legal remedy, because The Mandate of History/A Wrathful God/The Market will be the instrument of justice.
It's a weird fusion of Hegel and A. Smith. (It should be noted that A. Smith believed that the "invisible hand" was a general rule, not a universal one, and that he did in fact hold that the state had a role in shaping it and ameliorating its worst effects.)
Seeing the role of the "teleological market" in the specific stances of those who subscribe to it is left as an exercise to the reader.
What I have to say may apply less to those of you who live in an area where there are lots more jobs to fill in your field than people to fill them, but remember - that as largely a fluke of the economy.
The fact is that in many situations, agreements to conditions and restrictions on one's freedom as a requisite for employment should be considered as made under duress, unless you're sitting on a fat wad of savings. But if someone is offering you a paycheck, and your three daughters are wearing out their shoes, and your mortgage payment is late, and you don't have health insurance for your family, you are pretty damn close to coerced to sign away your rights. It is not an agreement between to parties with parity, and it is a fiction to act as if it is. This is especially true if a unpleasant clauses become an "industry standard" within an industry, making alternatives rare.
A lot of quasi-libertarian rhetoric is thinly-veiled shilling for corporate and monied interests. Contract law and a contract-oriented attitude can not single-handedly replace other legal and political mechanisms in a fair way, especially when there are disparities in wealth and power such as those between a single employee and an entire corporation.
There are so many essential misconceptions in these campaigns to attract "E"-businesses (ugh, I feel I should wash my hands after typing that word) that I don't know where to start. It's cargo-cult thinking at its worse.
First, of course, the idea is not to attract tourists, it's to attract Internet businesses. That's the big miss there: Internet-based businesses don't move. They're home grown, from local nourished talent. They're based on a successful strategy for changing a "pre-E" business idea and "net-enabling" it (my hair feels pointier already) or they're the product of very smart people who understand what's possible with what they already have at hand. Almost no one says "can't start my E-business here, I better up and move to Mass. or Virginia!" Perhaps some of the larger success stories will satellite out on those criteria, but not really that many.
The best route to growing e-businesses is actively building infrastructure - I think most of these regions are keen on this - and then emphasizing local education on every level to create and nurutre smart, talented, adventerous people.
And THEN: making life INTERESTING for them. That's one way that the Bay Area and the Boston area have it all over a lot of places: each is a fun place to be, with cultures that value intelligence and difference. Each are stimulating, exciting, and diverse. The brightest and best, essentially, don't want to be bored to tears.
One of my closer friends comes from Huntington, West Virginia. He describes it as a very "well-wired" place that tries to push itself as technologically cutting edge. I asked him if, insofar as he's In Our Field and very competitive and sought-after, he'd ever go back (he lives and works in San Francisco.) Essentially, the answer was "HELL no."
Ironically, some of things that make a region a good ".com" region are the things that they emphasize the least: arts, education, culture, nightlife, music, and diversity.
I used to dismiss the idea of a navigable/immersive cyberspace as a workable metaphor as naive, but I'm beginning to think that Gibson et al were really on to something.
I can imagine encapsulating a wide number of functions into this sort of interface; if, ultimately, every aspect of a system, and the data that they host, is made accessible or inaccessible using these sort of metaphors, the Gibsonian vision of cyberspace might be viable.
(One of my favorite Gibson quotes is this reality check: "Cyberspace is where they keep your money.")
It was only a couple weeks after I dismissed the idea of 'virtual spaces' as hokum among my friends that I really started getting into multiplayer Quake - and even looking for friends on servers.
We'll all have a little egg on our face if the "Hollywood O.S." turns out to have a grain of prophetic truth to it, no?
pilot-xfer -i filename works on .prd and .prc files, uploading them into the RAM. This, the OS upgrade, is a ROM flash. pilot-xfer won't work. ROM flashing utilities do exist for unix, however, as the poster previous to you has mentioned.