In order to use a Kinko's copier, they could require you sign up for a card needed to activate the copier. Under the guise of convenience (the card could work like a debit card) they could identify who was making the copies and insert a watermark into the copy that identified the card. Of course, you could give false information when getting the card, and I doubt Kinkos is going to start demanding picture ID to get a copier card, but still...
The watermark would degrade until it was no longer usable in nabbing the person. This type of issue was around in the 70s when copiers first came out and people started using them liberally to get copies of books and other publications.
What they're talking about is a watermark embedded using steganography -- placed into the noise of the image, much like copy protection of digital images can be done by Photoshop (and other programs) now.
What you are not counting on is that you could simply have a program that scans the image and looks for anything that is not necessary for the image in question then removes it.
Lot's of stupid, vapid, but stunningly beautiful women, this is bad how?
People get tired of relationships that are not interesting and fullfilling. Why do you think barbarian conquerors get tired of one woman and have several hundred. What happens is that people do not find just sex to be entertaining when they have to spend a long time with a person.
To quote the Judge in Caddyshack "The world needs ditch diggers too."
Oh and I assume that you would just cherish your life forever and always if you had to spend 30 years as a ditch digger right? How many time a day would you hate yourself and your job. You think people "going postal" is a problem now just wait until people are stuck into crappy jobs for the rest of their lives.
There is real danger in monocultures (the lack of biological diversity).
To pick a reference at random, from Cultivating Concepts vol. 5 Sept. 1997 GPCRC
A classic example of the danger of relying on a monoculture system is the devastation wrought by the Irish potato famine. In the 1800's almost the entire Irish potato crop grown was of amazing (and frightening) genetic uniformity since it all originated from a single potato variety from Peru. When the disease, late blight occurred in the 1840's the crop was literally wiped out since it was all highly susceptible to blight. Millions starved to death and history was forever changed.
Now it may be that we will have the ability to rediversify ourselves in the event of disaster, or maybe we won't have time to react. At any rate, it is something to think about.
There are few viruses or bacteria that I immediately that are genetic specific at all. Most of the viruses and bacteria and other nasties are usually equal opportunity infectors.
My point being though, with the ability to continue to increase the average intelligence, won't everyone eventually be as intelligent as the next guy? If we're all looking and thinking alike, where are we? One Einstein in a million is a good thing for the world, but a world of One Million Einsteins may not be. Just a thought!
We would most likely be better off. Consider how the open source movement would be if everyone had the ability to say write perfect code and have a error rate in that code at about 9,998 perfect lines of code in 10,000. This would make for better code and a faster rate of development thus increasing society's ability to achieve.
Sorry to say this, but my words were "Skip the defective genes and leave the rest to chance...defective being defined as disabling or debilitating". I am not referring to people so much as the genes that CAUSE the disabling. Big difference there, if you understand that a person with a disability or genetic predisposition to certain cancers is not *IMHO* defective. My main point is to use this tool to eradicate "sickness", but leave physical appearance and intellectual attributes up to chance.
Could ugliness be considered a illness? To some it is. All that about inner beauty is nice in theory but there are practical considerations to wory about.
Nuff said. New world new rules. Strong, fast and smart survive. All adjectives of above are to be redefined.
Actually the act of caring or of brutality are defining things for humans. If am am a hunter and I hunt gazell for a living and survivial I must get gazell on a somewhat regular basis. Now suppose someone comes up to me and takes the carcass away from me? Ok now I can let him have it and allow for the possibility of problems later on or I can use force and take it away from him. If you take it away then you are just surviving. Now suppose that this person is troublesome. If I attack him mercelessly and cripple him he will not be able to steal any of my carcasses again. That is the difference between animals and humans caring and brutality.
I despise these Linux distro comparisons. Because it always ends up with assigning a number to the "goodness" of a distrobution and then showing who "comes out on top".
In their defense most people dont' have an extra couple of years to evaluate each and every choice. I chose debian because I heard about it and looked at the web site and decided it was for me. If I buy a car I look at consumer reports, my parents, my friends and then make a purtchess. I don't go to a university for 10 years getting a degree in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering to pick the car for me.
Maybe this is because they gave Slackware a 6. In the (incredibly short) review they had absolutely nothing bad to say about the distrobution except that one has to be computer savy to install it, and that it lacks written (and they really mean printed) documentation. Well, that's sort of the point. Slackware's for the us who don't like using hefty and involved package formats.
I started to use slackware but they just didn't get it. I mean the programs that were included by default were nice and 3.4 was a good distribution. Man if anyone really cared about keeping package size down and you could especially use a stack of floppies to install the system. I felt real magic then. What they didn't do was allow for any sory of timely upgrade method as you mention. Their packaging system was barely an upgrade from some of the more hackneyed things out there that other independent authors have done and just a little above making your own distribution. Sure I could compile xemacs, the kernel, xwindows, gcc, gimp, and every other package that I want to use but the time (not to mention the disk space that I lack) disuade me from doing it.
I don't think Slackware should have scored any higher than Debian or Red Hat whose goals are completely different. I'd just like to see a comaprison that says is the spectrum o' Linux and this is where this distrobution falls.
Goals are important. And people have many different goals for themselves however I think that many of the goals that people have could be solved by one distribution that simply had many, differnt settings that could be used for different things. This would allow for considerable power and such. For this I recommend Debian. Since they actually care and don't make me compile my own stuff and spend 2 hours trying to get it to work myself. Believe my stress is not my strong point.
This review doesn't help me pick the distrobution I want if I want the one that's easiest to customize (i.e. in install things out the boundries set my package formats with dependancy checking etc.).
To my knowledge no distribution actually does this. Many distributions will allow you to retain files that are associated with the package from being blown away but there is not integration with what you did to the package. They just expect people to have some knowledge about the programs that they are configuring.
So my point is, this isn't like comparing some piece of software with the same goal. Each distrobution was created because they felt they had something to offer that is not found in the others.
Correct. But I still think that the goals of someone using linux (for the most part) usually overlap for most things. Most desktop users actually have a pretty clear idea of what they want.
You just uncomment a couple of lines in the apt configuration and after that, CDL will look for the newest version on the CD, then at Corel's FTP site, then at Debian's site. Word has it, if you actually get the CD from Corel instead of burning the downloadable version, then you get more software on the CD and don't have to suck it through your phone line. You're still limited to the packages in Debian slink though unless you want to download all of potato and migrate.
I am running a system that takes routinely packages from the unstable tree. The whole thing is not very standard if that's what you mean. You can still in debian say just upgrade gnome or just upgrade xemacs if you wish it's not that hard.
They said Corel didn't come with much software. But as it's based on Debian, can't you just apt-get everything you ever want? How do they handle getting new software after installation?
Unfortunately most people find out that despite various package formats things may not be compatable. Config files may be in different places and an installation may cause perverse mutations in the OS. Just try taking rpm packages and converting them to.tgz packages or.deb packages or something else. They will install but the more graceful things will be lost on you.
ZDNet, CNet, MSNBC! It's not stopping, Linux is going in by STORM! Just today I was asked by my boss "How viable would it be to move over to Linux for our servers?" I mentioned that any new servers running Linux would be GREAT, however, I don't see a need to switch over our Sun Solaris box's considering we already purchased the license and all:)
What actually should be seen is not wheather the thing in question is popular now but wheather it will continue to be as popular as it is now. By that logic I should purthcess a couple million dollars worth of Pokemon cards and keep them in a vault for an investment since everyone whants them now right?
t's really disappointing to see Mandrake, the winner of Best Product at LinuxWorld, if I remember right, being blasted for, what, documentation? As I read this article, I wondered whether anyone rating these distros had used Linux before, and whether they actually used the Linii they reviewed, because they talked about nothing but installing and things you could read on the box yourself - do I really need a hardcopy manual, really? Should it completely overshadow the completeness, functionality and speed of a real OS? And, number of "freeware" and "shareware" apps?? It's very misleading to say the free software included in a distro is "freeware," a diminuation of sorts.
Who actually needs or reads documentation anyway? I have had considerably experience with clueless people and reading the manual is usually the last thing they do. How many times do stupid forgo the manual because they think they know best? Only really knowledgable people actually read documentation and manuals.
Frankly, I haven't seen Corel Linux yet, but if they feel it's so close to Caldera, it will drive me bananas. I expect a distribution to give me everything I need to be productive *now*, and OpenLinux just did not cut it. I switched back to Mandrake w/GNOME faster than you can say "Damn, I see what they meant by gooey."
It's interesting I have/used a copy of the first version of the caldera network desktop and saw it in operation. I remember a kid who had apparently little unix experience delete the nobody group in attempting to improve security. Just because you have a GUI dosn't mean that you make it a painless experience.
huh. i wonder why they used suse 6.2 instead of 6.3....
I would assume that it's easier to rate a product that has most if not all of it's bugfixes out. I also believe that 6.2 is already in stores. 6.3 is most likely a European thing still.
Given the state of robotics and the state of genetic engineering today, it is nearly certain that we'll have menial robots before we could create passive and obedient humans.
A great many of the attitudes that we have about robotics are just about the people of the 1950s thought when they said that we would have personal servant robots, hellicopters, and such. Most of these predictions are/were wrong and most likely so will this.
In order to do create passive and obedient humans, you'd not only have to know how to incorporate arbitrary traits into a human being, you'd also have to have a deep understanding of the operation of the human brain. We are a long way from either of those things. On the other hand, we are already seeing the beginnings of a true robotics.
Quite easy many cultures have used slavery as thier system and it kind of works like this:
1. Make sure you have physical control over the subject so they cannot escape.
2. Make use of tactics that indicate that escape is impossible.
3. Remove any possibility that new information will change items 1 and 2.
4. Physical punishment on a daily or hourly basis. The more beatings that are administered the more they realize who is in charge.
5. Any violation of any code apart from the normal beating offense will result in public execution.
6. Create internal amusements that will entertain the subjects are give them what they want for a while and something to look forward to.
7. Continue this process into the next generation.
The trouble with Katz's article is that it makes the assumption that knowing the human genome == being able to manipulate the human genome in any way we see fit. That's like saying that because we understand the theory of relativity, we can launch spacecraft to travel at 0.99% of c.
If I have the plans to build a pipe bomb then all I have to do is obtain the materials to make it.
So much of this reminds me of all the handwringing that went on when Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born. It is an irrational fear of change, and quite frankly, an irrational fear of change is not the hallmark of the geekdom that Katz so often aspires to.
Everyone even the most change oriented person will eventually be affected by and negatively react to some form of change. If everyone you ever cared about suddently disapeared tomorrow (not killed just mysteriously disaperared) do you think that such a "little" change would affect you? If not you need help.
(This is not to say that there aren't real things to fear in genetic engineering. But simply knowing what those genes are (which is all the human genome project is) is not one of them.)
If I can keep up with the mutants I have no problems.
I'm not worried until they get retroviral capability. (Viruses that modify DNA) Of course, when that happens, we better have something to stop viruses, cause we're all capital-s-screwed if something goes awry.
It depends on how motivated you are to survive. Just create a filtration system for air and water then create underground cities that have independent power reserves or operate on solar cells or geothermal power. Then if necessary to go onto the surface just get a level 3 environmental suit to protect from viral contaminant exposure. The CDC has some rather good material on surviving viral plagues and the like.
Actually, the spectre of Katzism has overtaken me. Retroviruses are just a tool. If we found that altering a bit of a chromosome would cure disease, why not?
If I can lead a more productive life and get more done then why not.
What I think you fail to grasp is that society as a whole is subject to manipulation by the few. It doesn't matter that 2/3rds of the states would have to ratify an amendment. They'd ratify it if they thought it was "popular" with the people. Who controls the people? Though there may in fact be some *truly* individual thinkers, the masses, by definition, do not think. They do not think about the rules which society gives them. They do not think that maybe life is worth more than the TV tells them about. They do not think about the implications of their actions beyond their own lifetime and usually not beyond the next year (if that). These people are the people who manifest what is popular. However, it is the relative few, the marketing people in capitalism, or the propoganda people in totalitarianism, who actually tell people what is popular. So before you have so much faith in democracy, understand that with technology it becomes easier for individuals or small groups to influence larger numbers of people and thus dictate what is popular with in turn dictates how politicians will vote.
That's very interesting because I learned in my HS AP American Government class that the media and various other institutions are not under the control of a secret cabal. That much was made crystal clear by the author of the textbook and the teacher. While I can believe that through some forms of marketing people may be able to create a demand for products there is little correlation about what is wanted and what actually transpires. Take an issue that was not ratified because it may have been popular but was blocked by democracy in action: The ERA. You see a great many people wanted to be politically correct back in the early days and decided to get an ammendment to support their philosophy. A great number of the social elite that you claim can run the country wanted it. It was a popular thing but; and here's the tricky part, it failed! It failed to be ratified by the necessary 2/3 of the states and never passed. Let's get another example: The Pentagon Papers. The government had this little thing called Vietnam that (because of incompetent people) they bungled and tried to cover up. Someone leaked the info and discredited the government. Nixon tried to use all of his formitable power to stop the NY Times to remove the material but he failed because of democracy.
These are just two examples of why democracy still works. I must admit that as far as foreign policy I really am not that interested. Many of the once powerful European countries have seemingly (for some rather baffling reasons) given up their former power and want to live in some kind of little coincious nirvana. This is similar to who a great deal of Americans think today. If we do anything that hurts say some small barely self sufficient country we are commiting evil crimes and we are beant on instituting a repressive regime? Well where's the exact proof that secret plots and people in smoke filled rooms are planning our future? The x-files is a fantasy and almost impossible to keep some mole or insider from comming forward. Our "men in black" as we would like to think compared to other countries are actually not very good at what they do. Look at all the attempts to kill Castro, rescue hostages held in the middle east. These events failed because our thought police are incompetent donut eating slobs who have little training or skill at all.
A: A sue-happy freak, if not a lawyer himself, who planned ahead of time to sue if he lost big bucks. (So if he wins, he wins. If he loses, he doesn't lose.)
And the point? Dont' people have to work for a living anymore?
These people make me sick, as do the juries who fall for this BS.
Personally I for one am not sympathetic to anyone who has 25 grand to waste on gambling. Obviously this wasn't some working class man trying to earn money for his family so I could care less.
The scariest part, I think, is once the initial rush to change what currently is in terms of intelligence and physical attributes is over, will the world become a pod of Beautiful Brains? What good will it all be then?
Maybe create a new Golden age of humans? Think that the Ancient Greeks were good well look at what those people could do. That would be my first impression. The more intelligent you are the less need you have to spend valuable time relearning material that is trivial to a more advanced intellect and the more people that can approach things like quantum mechanics and the like.
Secondly if you are refering to raising the bar yes that would do that. It's not like we haven't raised the bar already. What once was the domain of upper division collegiate work is being taught in high schools. We are requiring more for degrees and having less people who can get jobs with HS diplomas.
As a side note, I do believe that the eradication of disease and disorder are probably the best benefits. Skip the defective genes and leave the rest to chance... defective being defined as disabling or debilitating. (Oh, I can feel the flames!)
As I stated earlier in another post most of the enhancements will most likely not be able to be in pre-existing humans and so therefore will leave a huge gulf of your so called "defective" humans around. Believe me my friend you know not what suffering is in the least.
The trouble is that people act like genetic engineering is some sort of magic wand that can be waved that will cause anything to happen. It is not. For a government to have enough control to genetically engineer a significant part of the population, it would have to have far more control than any government in history has ever had.
In the future all kids are kind, caring and don't question there elders.
Perfection.
In a number of fantasy books they portray the elves kind of like this. Basically they don't really care and nothing get's done in terms of actual progress. Pretty archieture that is about 900+ years old but nothing really new.
hopefully i'll be dead by the time all the bad stuff comes about.
Apathy is the best cure for responsibility in any case. Actually the mutant problem could really get out of hand and perhaps start a Eugenics war like Star Trek has in it's history.
from who? Jon Katz? Yeah. He does raise some interesting points. Then he just takes a running leap with them. I agree that genetic manipulation is both scary and inspiring. I also believe that it's got to happen sometime. Why not now? It's going to raise a myriad of questions and cause gaps between generations and classes and societies. But I believe that these things HAVE to happen sometime. That's how we learn. By tinkering.
Why? Ok let's pose this little question do you want to be inferior? How would you like it if your nice job was taken away by a genetically enhanced individual who could think 20 steps ahead, had an IQ of 230, had at least 10 phds, had a perfect body and could live healthly to 150? I bet you would change your tune if you were forced to sell your house and live like a bum because of these mutants. Most likely any "enhancements" are only useful for children or at the conception stage so you would be out of luck. Don't make your (and my) life worthless just because you want a brave new world.
And if multinational corporations rule the world? I can't say that's the best future. But then again, it might not be a bad one. Read almost any book by William Gibson. He predicts a much more chaotic world. That doesn't make it bad.
Ok I know that this may be unpopular put that will not happen and has not nor ever will. You see we have something called government that protects us (for the most part) and has something called a constitution with a bill of rights. These things along with checks and balances allow for government to look after needs of the governed. Why do people persist in thinking things that are untrue. The world is not a conspiracy. All the really interesting wars, campaigns, movements, etc were accomplished. Now all we have a little bands of terrorists with handguns to worry about. Even if the US wanted to get despotic and make Protestantism the state religion and repeal the bill of rights they would need 2/3 of the states to ratify the ammendment.
In the future, everyone might be attractive, healthy, and sociable. Oh, the horror! Only Jon Katz could complain about that. Get over it, for cryin' out loud.
Alright this is rather interesting. Most slashdot readers/posters believe that the government is moving towards to evil antiutpoia where everyone follows the rules. Let's assume that this is indeed true. Ok so the evil government wants to control people but they loathe to do it with easily detectible means. So what better way then to stop rebellion at the source. Just genetically engineer stupid, vapid, but stunningly beautiful people. This is all too similar to Hitler's arian race concept.
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In order to use a Kinko's copier, they could require you sign up for a card needed to activate the copier. Under the guise of convenience (the card could work like a debit card) they could identify who was making the copies and insert a
watermark into the copy that identified the card. Of course, you could give false information when getting the card, and I doubt Kinkos is going to start demanding picture ID to get a copier card, but still...
The watermark would degrade until it was no longer usable in nabbing the person. This type of issue was around in the 70s when copiers first came out and people started using them liberally to get copies of books and other publications.
What they're talking about is a watermark embedded using steganography -- placed into the noise of the image, much like copy protection of digital images can be done by Photoshop (and other programs) now.
What you are not counting on is that you could simply have a program that scans the image and looks for anything that is not necessary for the image in question then removes it.
Thing is though, your immune system kills the virus + the modefied cells.
Genetic treatmentsare used now that use viruses to deliver changed to cells and can permanently affect the person in question.
Lot's of stupid, vapid, but stunningly beautiful women, this is bad how?
People get tired of relationships that are not interesting and fullfilling. Why do you think barbarian conquerors get tired of one woman and have several hundred. What happens is that people do not find just sex to be entertaining when they have to spend a long time with a person.
To quote the Judge in Caddyshack "The world needs ditch diggers too."
Oh and I assume that you would just cherish your life forever and always if you had to spend 30 years as a ditch digger right? How many time a day would you hate yourself and your job. You think people "going postal" is a problem now just wait until people are stuck into crappy jobs for the rest of their lives.
There is real danger in monocultures (the lack of biological diversity).
To pick a reference at random, from Cultivating Concepts vol. 5 Sept. 1997 GPCRC
A classic example of the danger of relying on a monoculture system is the devastation wrought by the Irish potato famine. In the 1800's almost the entire Irish potato crop grown was of amazing (and frightening)
genetic uniformity since it all originated from a single potato variety from Peru. When the disease, late blight occurred in the 1840's the crop was literally wiped out since it was all highly susceptible to blight.
Millions starved to death and history was forever changed.
Now it may be that we will have the ability to rediversify ourselves in the event of disaster, or maybe we won't have time to react. At any rate, it is something to think about.
There are few viruses or bacteria that I immediately that are genetic specific at all. Most of the viruses and bacteria and other nasties are usually equal opportunity infectors.
My point being though, with the ability to continue to increase the average intelligence, won't everyone eventually be as intelligent as the next guy? If we're all looking and thinking alike, where are we? One Einstein in a million is a
good thing for the world, but a world of One Million Einsteins may not be. Just a thought!
We would most likely be better off. Consider how the open source movement would be if everyone had the ability to say write perfect code and have a error rate in that code at about 9,998 perfect lines of code in 10,000. This would make for better code and a faster rate of development thus increasing society's ability to achieve.
Sorry to say this, but my words were "Skip the defective genes and leave the rest to chance...defective being defined as disabling or debilitating". I am not referring to people so much as the genes that CAUSE the disabling. Big
difference there, if you understand that a person with a disability or genetic predisposition to certain cancers is not *IMHO* defective. My main point is to use this tool to eradicate "sickness", but leave physical appearance and
intellectual attributes up to chance.
Could ugliness be considered a illness? To some it is. All that about inner beauty is nice in theory but there are practical considerations to wory about.
Nuff said. New world new rules. Strong, fast and smart survive. All adjectives of above are to be redefined.
Actually the act of caring or of brutality are defining things for humans. If am am a hunter and I hunt gazell for a living and survivial I must get gazell on a somewhat regular basis. Now suppose someone comes up to me and takes the carcass away from me? Ok now I can let him have it and allow for the possibility of problems later on or I can use force and take it away from him. If you take it away then you are just surviving. Now suppose that this person is troublesome. If I attack him mercelessly and cripple him he will not be able to steal any of my carcasses again. That is the difference between animals and humans caring and brutality.
I despise these Linux distro comparisons. Because it always ends up with assigning a number to the "goodness" of a distrobution and then showing who "comes out on top".
In their defense most people dont' have an extra couple of years to evaluate each and every choice. I chose debian because I heard about it and looked at the web site and decided it was for me. If I buy a car I look at consumer reports, my parents, my friends and then make a purtchess. I don't go to a university for 10 years getting a degree in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering to pick the car for me.
Maybe this is because they gave Slackware a 6. In the (incredibly short) review they had absolutely nothing bad to say about the distrobution except that one has to be computer savy to install it, and that it lacks written (and they
really mean printed) documentation. Well, that's sort of the point. Slackware's for the us who don't like using hefty and involved package formats.
I started to use slackware but they just didn't get it. I mean the programs that were included by default were nice and 3.4 was a good distribution. Man if anyone really cared about keeping package size down and you could especially use a stack of floppies to install the system. I felt real magic then. What they didn't do was allow for any sory of timely upgrade method as you mention. Their packaging system was barely an upgrade from some of the more hackneyed things out there that other independent authors have done and just a little above making your own distribution. Sure I could compile xemacs, the kernel, xwindows, gcc, gimp, and every other package that I want to use but the time (not to mention the disk space that I lack) disuade me from doing it.
I don't think Slackware should have scored any higher than Debian or Red Hat whose goals are completely different. I'd just like to see a comaprison that says is the spectrum o' Linux and this is where this distrobution falls.
Goals are important. And people have many different goals for themselves however I think that many of the goals that people have could be solved by one distribution that simply had many, differnt settings that could be used for different things. This would allow for considerable power and such. For this I recommend Debian. Since they actually care and don't make me compile my own stuff and spend 2 hours trying to get it to work myself. Believe my stress is not my strong point.
This review doesn't help me pick the distrobution I want if I want the one that's easiest to customize (i.e. in install things out the boundries set my package formats with dependancy checking etc.).
To my knowledge no distribution actually does this. Many distributions will allow you to retain files that are associated with the package from being blown away but there is not integration with what you did to the package. They just expect people to have some knowledge about the programs that they are configuring.
So my point is, this isn't like comparing some piece of software with the same goal. Each distrobution was created because they felt they had something to offer that is not found in the others.
Correct. But I still think that the goals of someone using linux (for the most part) usually overlap for most things. Most desktop users actually have a pretty clear idea of what they want.
You just uncomment a couple of lines in the
apt configuration and after that, CDL will look
for the newest version on the CD, then at Corel's
FTP site, then at Debian's site. Word has it,
if you actually get the CD from Corel instead
of burning the downloadable version, then you get
more software on the CD and don't have to suck
it through your phone line. You're still limited
to the packages in Debian slink though unless you
want to download all of potato and migrate.
I am running a system that takes routinely packages from the unstable tree. The whole thing is not very standard if that's what you mean. You can still in debian say just upgrade gnome or just upgrade xemacs if you wish it's not that hard.
They said Corel didn't come with much software. But as it's based on Debian, can't you just apt-get everything you ever want? How do they handle getting new software after installation?
.tgz packages or .deb packages or something else. They will install but the more graceful things will be lost on you.
Unfortunately most people find out that despite various package formats things may not be compatable. Config files may be in different places and an installation may cause perverse mutations in the OS. Just try taking rpm packages and converting them to
ZDNet, CNet, MSNBC! It's not stopping, Linux is going in by STORM! Just today I was asked by my boss "How viable would it be to move over to Linux for our servers?" I mentioned that any new servers running Linux would :)
be GREAT, however, I don't see a need to switch over our Sun Solaris box's considering we already purchased the license and all
What actually should be seen is not wheather the thing in question is popular now but wheather it will continue to be as popular as it is now. By that logic I should purthcess a couple million dollars worth of Pokemon cards and keep them in a vault for an investment since everyone whants them now right?
t's really disappointing to see Mandrake, the winner of Best Product at LinuxWorld, if I remember right, being blasted for, what, documentation? As I read this article, I wondered whether anyone rating these distros had used Linux
before, and whether they actually used the Linii they reviewed, because they talked about nothing but installing and things you could read on the box yourself - do I really need a hardcopy manual, really? Should it completely
overshadow the completeness, functionality and speed of a real OS? And, number of "freeware" and "shareware" apps?? It's very misleading to say the free software included in a distro is "freeware," a diminuation of sorts.
Who actually needs or reads documentation anyway? I have had considerably experience with clueless people and reading the manual is usually the last thing they do. How many times do stupid forgo the manual because they think they know best? Only really knowledgable people actually read documentation and manuals.
Frankly, I haven't seen Corel Linux yet, but if they feel it's so close to Caldera, it will drive me bananas. I expect a distribution to give me everything I need to be productive *now*, and OpenLinux just did not cut it. I switched back
to Mandrake w/GNOME faster than you can say "Damn, I see what they meant by gooey."
It's interesting I have/used a copy of the first version of the caldera network desktop and saw it in operation. I remember a kid who had apparently little unix experience delete the nobody group in attempting to improve security. Just because you have a GUI dosn't mean that you make it a painless experience.
huh. i wonder why they used suse 6.2 instead of 6.3....
I would assume that it's easier to rate a product that has most if not all of it's bugfixes out. I also believe that 6.2 is already in stores. 6.3 is most likely a European thing still.
Given the state of robotics and the state of genetic engineering today, it is nearly certain that we'll have menial robots before we could create passive and obedient humans.
A great many of the attitudes that we have about robotics are just about the people of the 1950s thought when they said that we would have personal servant robots, hellicopters, and such. Most of these predictions are/were wrong and most likely so will this.
In order to do create passive and obedient humans, you'd not only have to know how to incorporate arbitrary traits into a human being, you'd also have to have a deep understanding of the operation of the human brain. We are a long
way from either of those things. On the other hand, we are already seeing the beginnings of a true robotics.
Quite easy many cultures have used slavery as thier system and it kind of works like this:
1. Make sure you have physical control over the subject so they cannot escape.
2. Make use of tactics that indicate that escape is impossible.
3. Remove any possibility that new information will change items 1 and 2.
4. Physical punishment on a daily or hourly basis. The more beatings that are administered the more they realize who is in charge.
5. Any violation of any code apart from the normal beating offense will result in public execution.
6. Create internal amusements that will entertain the subjects are give them what they want for a while and something to look forward to.
7. Continue this process into the next generation.
The trouble with Katz's article is that it makes the assumption that knowing the human genome == being able to manipulate the human genome in any way we see fit. That's like saying that because we understand the theory of
relativity, we can launch spacecraft to travel at 0.99% of c.
If I have the plans to build a pipe bomb then all I have to do is obtain the materials to make it.
So much of this reminds me of all the handwringing that went on when Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born. It is an irrational fear of change, and quite frankly, an irrational fear of change is not the hallmark of the
geekdom that Katz so often aspires to.
Everyone even the most change oriented person will eventually be affected by and negatively react to some form of change. If everyone you ever cared about suddently disapeared tomorrow (not killed just mysteriously disaperared) do you think that such a "little" change would affect you? If not you need help.
(This is not to say that there aren't real things to fear in genetic engineering. But simply knowing what those genes are (which is all the human genome project is) is not one of them.)
If I can keep up with the mutants I have no problems.
.. I'm sure reencarnation is true and eventually we'll all have a chance to be screwed, again, and again, and ...
Reincarnation is a religious belief that like almost any out there cannot be proven.
I'm not worried until they get retroviral capability. (Viruses that modify DNA) Of course, when that happens, we better have something to stop viruses, cause we're all capital-s-screwed if something goes awry.
It depends on how motivated you are to survive. Just create a filtration system for air and water then create underground cities that have independent power reserves or operate on solar cells or geothermal power. Then if necessary to go onto the surface just get a level 3 environmental suit to protect from viral contaminant exposure. The CDC has some rather good material on surviving viral plagues and the like.
Actually, the spectre of Katzism has overtaken me. Retroviruses are just a tool. If we found that altering a bit of a chromosome would cure disease, why not?
If I can lead a more productive life and get more done then why not.
What I think you fail to grasp is that society as a whole is subject to manipulation by the few. It doesn't matter that 2/3rds of the states would have to ratify an amendment. They'd ratify it if they thought it was "popular" with the
people. Who controls the people? Though there may in fact be some *truly* individual thinkers, the masses, by definition, do not think. They do not think about the rules which society gives them. They do not think that maybe life
is worth more than the TV tells them about. They do not think about the implications of their actions beyond their own lifetime and usually not beyond the next year (if that). These people are the people who manifest what is
popular. However, it is the relative few, the marketing people in capitalism, or the propoganda people in totalitarianism, who actually tell people what is popular. So before you have so much faith in democracy, understand that with
technology it becomes easier for individuals or small groups to influence larger numbers of people and thus dictate what is popular with in turn dictates how politicians will vote.
That's very interesting because I learned in my HS AP American Government class that the media and various other institutions are not under the control of a secret cabal. That much was made crystal clear by the author of the textbook and the teacher. While I can believe that through some forms of marketing people may be able to create a demand for products there is little correlation about what is wanted and what actually transpires. Take an issue that was not ratified because it may have been popular but was blocked by democracy in action: The ERA. You see a great many people wanted to be politically correct back in the early days and decided to get an ammendment to support their philosophy. A great number of the social elite that you claim can run the country wanted it. It was a popular thing but; and here's the tricky part, it failed! It failed to be ratified by the necessary 2/3 of the states and never passed. Let's get another example: The Pentagon Papers. The government had this little thing called Vietnam that (because of incompetent people) they bungled and tried to cover up. Someone leaked the info and discredited the government. Nixon tried to use all of his formitable power to stop the NY Times to remove the material but he failed because of democracy.
These are just two examples of why democracy still works. I must admit that as far as foreign policy I really am not that interested. Many of the once powerful European countries have seemingly (for some rather baffling reasons) given up their former power and want to live in some kind of little coincious nirvana. This is similar to who a great deal of Americans think today. If we do anything that hurts say some small barely self sufficient country we are commiting evil crimes and we are beant on instituting a repressive regime? Well where's the exact proof that secret plots and people in smoke filled rooms are planning our future? The x-files is a fantasy and almost impossible to keep some mole or insider from comming forward. Our "men in black" as we would like to think compared to other countries are actually not very good at what they do. Look at all the attempts to kill Castro, rescue hostages held in the middle east. These events failed because our thought police are incompetent donut eating slobs who have little training or skill at all.
A: A sue-happy freak, if not a lawyer himself, who planned ahead of time to sue if he lost big bucks. (So if he wins, he wins. If he loses, he doesn't lose.)
And the point? Dont' people have to work for a living anymore?
These people make me sick, as do the juries who fall for this BS.
Personally I for one am not sympathetic to anyone who has 25 grand to waste on gambling. Obviously this wasn't some working class man trying to earn money for his family so I could care less.
The scariest part, I think, is once the initial rush to change what currently is in terms of intelligence and physical attributes is over, will the world become a pod of Beautiful Brains? What good will it all be then?
Maybe create a new Golden age of humans? Think that the Ancient Greeks were good well look at what those people could do. That would be my first impression. The more intelligent you are the less need you have to spend valuable time relearning material that is trivial to a more advanced intellect and the more people that can approach things like quantum mechanics and the like.
Secondly if you are refering to raising the bar yes that would do that. It's not like we haven't raised the bar already. What once was the domain of upper division collegiate work is being taught in high schools. We are requiring more for degrees and having less people who can get jobs with HS diplomas.
As a side note, I do believe that the eradication of disease and disorder are probably the best benefits. Skip the defective genes and leave the rest to chance... defective being defined as disabling or debilitating. (Oh, I can feel the
flames!)
As I stated earlier in another post most of the enhancements will most likely not be able to be in pre-existing humans and so therefore will leave a huge gulf of your so called "defective" humans around. Believe me my friend you know not what suffering is in the least.
The trouble is that people act like genetic engineering is some sort of magic wand that can be waved that will cause anything to happen. It is not. For a government to have enough control to genetically engineer a significant part of
the population, it would have to have far more control than any government in history has ever had.
Maybe Natzi Germany?
In the future all kids are kind, caring and don't question there elders.
Perfection.
In a number of fantasy books they portray the elves kind of like this. Basically they don't really care and nothing get's done in terms of actual progress. Pretty archieture that is about 900+ years old but nothing really new.
hopefully i'll be dead by the time all the bad stuff comes about.
Apathy is the best cure for responsibility in any case. Actually the mutant problem could really get out of hand and perhaps start a Eugenics war like Star Trek has in it's history.
from who? Jon Katz? Yeah. He does raise some interesting points. Then he just takes a running leap with them. I agree that genetic manipulation is both scary and inspiring. I also believe that it's got to happen sometime. Why not
now? It's going to raise a myriad of questions and cause gaps between generations and classes and societies. But I believe that these things HAVE to happen sometime. That's how we learn. By tinkering.
Why? Ok let's pose this little question do you want to be inferior? How would you like it if your nice job was taken away by a genetically enhanced individual who could think 20 steps ahead, had an IQ of 230, had at least 10 phds, had a perfect body and could live healthly to 150? I bet you would change your tune if you were forced to sell your house and live like a bum because of these mutants. Most likely any "enhancements" are only useful for children or at the conception stage so you would be out of luck. Don't make your (and my) life worthless just because you want a brave new world.
And if multinational corporations rule the world? I can't say that's the best future. But then again, it might not be a bad one. Read almost any book by William Gibson. He predicts a much more chaotic world. That doesn't make it
bad.
Ok I know that this may be unpopular put that will not happen and has not nor ever will. You see we have something called government that protects us (for the most part) and has something called a constitution with a bill of rights. These things along with checks and balances allow for government to look after needs of the governed. Why do people persist in thinking things that are untrue. The world is not a conspiracy. All the really interesting wars, campaigns, movements, etc were accomplished. Now all we have a little bands of terrorists with handguns to worry about. Even if the US wanted to get despotic and make Protestantism the state religion and repeal the bill of rights they would need 2/3 of the states to ratify the ammendment.
In the future, everyone might be attractive, healthy, and sociable. Oh, the horror! Only Jon Katz could complain about that. Get over it, for cryin' out loud.
Alright this is rather interesting. Most slashdot readers/posters believe that the government is moving towards to evil antiutpoia where everyone follows the rules. Let's assume that this is indeed true. Ok so the evil government wants to control people but they loathe to do it with easily detectible means. So what better way then to stop rebellion at the source. Just genetically engineer stupid, vapid, but stunningly beautiful people. This is all too similar to Hitler's arian race concept.