You use words like 'stealing' and 'spying', which may be justified from an American viewpoint, but not necessarily from a Chinese one. Perhaps from their viewpoint it is morally wrong to keep knowledge secret when it could benefit society; perhaps they are not 'spying', but 'exercising the right of the people'?
Yes, and that was my point. I'm sorry if I wrote too much and perhaps hid that I think exactly as much.
We almost completely agree, except that it seems to me you overstate (or over-imply) the current state of Chinese culture and society with respect to IP. IP and kin are growing stronger in the Chinese world alongside individualism and the increasing appetite for personal wealth. I call it the new Opium War, only this time, the dealers are hooked, too.
I'll fight to move "The American Dream" away from individualism, as the world loses sleep and its mind trying to achieve it.
You're right to imply there is heightened sensitivity toward Chinese offenses in the media; of course, that's for good reason. Some of the answer is human nature, and some of it is cultural.
If it's "always China" now, it is instructive to remember that it always used to be Japan. Honest Japanese Americans and all Asian Americans mistaken as vaguely Japanese struggled for decades against FUD per what their forefathers had done in World War II. In the 80s it was more about competitive concerns, but the under toe of fear was still strong. Only with the rise of China, a common rival if not opponent for Japan and the U.S., and as well with Japan's economic setbacks, did heightened reporting of Japanese espionage recede, whether governmental or IP theft. It's instructive to remember because: some of it is just about the human need for an opponent.
Much of the answer is also, really just about China or rather Chinese culture, if not Asian versus European sensitivities. When I say it's for "good reason" that the U.S. media is especially sensitive to Chinese espionage, I observe not only from ample public evidence of organized governmental and corporate infiltration, but also from personal experience. I've had too many acquaintances from Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as well as China who I knew were tasked to steal IP. It was a regular part of their experience where I studied (Cornell, Harvard) and later worked -- should they steal? Was it wrong? Often, family back in Asia were recruited to send tasking letters, putting all the more pressure on. It was almost never governmental at all in my experience, just corporate espionage such as theft of code, designs, chemical formulae and processes, kitchen sinks...
I've heard less of it but similarly in Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and other East Asian circles. I'm born and raised American, and married to a citizen of India and working in software --> I have a lot of exposure to Indian culture --> IP theft is much less prevalent in South Asia than in the farther East. Anecdotally and from some academic reading when I majored in political science, it seems to be broadly East Asian but especially Chinese. I'm not saying the Chinese are less ethical, except from an especially American perspective; rather, it is the sense among Chinese that corporate espionage and spying in general is a fair competitive practice.
In the United States especially but all throughout the West, we have a fundamental cultural difference with the Chinese on this note. Oh sure, we do a lot of spying and stealing, but we generally think it's a moral wrong to do so. This doesn't mean we don't spy, but it means that when we do it, is always against a static coefficient of cultural friction; we are starting from a position that spying and IP theft are wrong.
In China and broadly Asia, IP is almost a misnomer -- ideas are not so much property at all, as part of the more general philosophical difference in which individual ownership and property are fundamentally weaker concepts over there. The degree to which Chinese spy is altogether different because the general assumption is that nearly everyone is doing it and to the greatest extent they can. They hide their spying of course, but not so much because they feel it is wrong, more simply because it is more effective when hidden. Because the Chinese execute against a kinetic coefficient of cultural friction, they enjoy a basic competitive advantage against Western entities.
In the U.S. therefore, we are not only afraid that the Chinese are spying. We are even more afraid that they don't think it's wrong, that they're effectively doing it every chance they get, that we have been largely ignorant of this basic cultural difference for decades, and frankly, that they are better at it than we are.
Expect it to be "always China" for a long time to come, and expect culturally American, ethnically Chinese, and good honest engineers and professionals in the U.S. to suffer the prejudicial consequences. BG
I'm not so sure about assuming the quality of Chinese censorship. If you're only watching mainstream news feeds, it looks like "another day, another protest" in China. In the Washington Post via MSNBC this morning, it's One-dog policy resisted in Beijing crackdown where in these near-daily articles, juicy quotes like this one are increasingly common, too:
"More and more people own dogs. It is pointless to restrict dog-raising. The stricter the government is, the more people will love to own a dog," said Liu Tao, 26, who was at the unauthorized protest Saturday. "We are not blocked from the outside now. With the Internet, we can see how Western countries treat dogs well. It's hard to stop us from communicating with the outside."
Aside from the groundswell of Western ideals changing China, and back to their Wikipedia: Chinese officials might believe they can handle it. In addition to the drumbeat of articles in our free press indicating their people's increasingly free access to information, I also have known many friends and colleagues in China who have effectively unfettered access. Party-types might think they can handle it, but I would not assume they actually can. BG
SETI@home was not started by, nor was it designed by SETI. A few volunteers conceived of and technically produced it. If you're that worried, a similar arrangement could certainly be made.
In the early days up here in Seattle, pitches were made to major corporations. Paramount Pictures donated US$50,000. Sun Microsystems donated server hardware, and they are one of several commercial entities advertised for on the sponsors page of the SETI site still today.
That's just SETI. As for the non-profit holiness of the University, have you heard of Nike, Inc.? They're big fans of Cal and hundreds of other non-profit colleges and universities --> the tens of millions of students, alumni, staff and administration of which happily advertise for Nike, Inc. and other commercial entities. If commercial advertising and the collegiate sports money machine can feed your educations and research projects, then I'm sure you can milk a little from us volunteers in your BOINC wares, too!
Nike, Inc. is just the tip of a commercial iceberg floating in academia's drink. My suggestion would be the least of anyone's concerns. If the IRS does call, let them in on the secret, too, then transfer them to UC Athletic Director Sandy Barbour. BG
Wouldn't it be a slap in the face of the people volunteering their computer resources, to make them look at ads too?
No, it wouldn't, if looking at ads were also voluntary.
For my part, screen saving bits run when I'm not looking or even when I'm not there. I would happily volunteer that space at those times for relevant, inconspicuous text ads with SETI, Arecibo itself, or related others as a beneficiaries. If it meant closing the screen saver instead of just jiggling a mouse, or instead a three second pause before the saver closed so users could click an ad if they wanted to, then that's fine with me, too.
It was a small inconvenience with a feel good, curiosity factor when I installed SETI@home. Two-ish million times over, it has done wonders for SETI. It would be a small inconvenience with an occasionally useful ad for me to turn on ads inside SETI@home. If only a part of two million times over, this too can do wonders for SETI.
SETI and Arecibo are not the same, but I'm guessing few @homers would argue against that particular revenue sharing. BG
If Google AdSense ran inside the SETI screensaver, what would it show? I ran a little test in Gmail just now with relevant text from SETI, and returned:
Sponsored Links
Moon Sand $29.95
Molds like dough. Use over & over again. Ships next day. [redacted]
Space Ringtone
Send this complimentary ringtone to your phone right now! [redacted]
There are variations on Dvorak which target Spanish but Dvorak is English centric. In Spanish adaptations, yes the letter "ñ" is more accessible than otherwise, but is it in the best possible location based on its frequency? Or as Mischa Poslawsky, the shiar.org guy put it, "These modified layouts are nothing but experiments created by amateurs afaik, not based on as extensive research as the genuine dvorak. While no doubt still better than qwerty...."
The noticeable gain I have had through Dvorak is in reduced strain from doing less work. I have not had a huge increase in WPM typing personally, but from what I know of average typing speed (in the 40s? I've read), I was already fast. With Qwerty I'm still around 90 WPM and my last tests using Dvorak were in the 90s, too.
Some people HAVE had real increases by switching to Dvorak, while some of them have also speculated their gains were a result of focusing on their typing for a couple weeks (what it took them to get back up to speed), because they had never before spent time actively trying to improve WPM. Based on what I know and have read of others' experiences, I'd bet most people who already type 60, if they either practiced specifically to improve their Qwerty or switched to Dvorak, could reasonably expect to hit 80-100.
All of which was why dontclick.it originally drove me to add an iGesture touch pad to my Christmas 2003 wishlist. At the same time I chased after my first Tablet PC. I'm happy to report in response to "news" of dontclick.it that consumers thinking differently have some great hardware alternatives, granted some of them may lock you into software "alternatives" the typical/.er might rather avoid. UMPCs with the Touch Pack have taken it to the glorious next level, where finally no other tool (pen) need be held to work with the PC, and sans anything too futuristic still like eyeball tracking lasers or brain implants. Thank you, Microsoft et al. for making it real.
How's it going? For machine performance, worky reasons I do have a desktop, with which I'm still using that iGesture, right now in fact. With a little learning, it's fantastic -- far more comfortable, natural, and powerful than any classic form mouse. Are iGesture pads the future of hardware? Hardly, sadly. Almost all people wouldn't even consider remapping for a Dvorak keyboard or any other arrangement despite numerous benefits, so good luck prying the mouse from their hands.
Aside from the mouse itself, for pure click reduction I doubt the extremity of dontclick.it can be considered a likely end for most of site or application design. One other thing dontclick.it led me to, however, was to more actively reduce the number of clicks in my user interface designs. Back in 2003, this User Interface Engineering post was also new, regarding the practicality of the Three-Click Rule. "Every piece of content should take no more than three clicks to access." The article finds via pointed clicking research that the number of clicks itself is not an issue, but it acknowledges that for designers to focus on reducing clicks is a useful means to the end of better, more user centric design.
As a software UI designer/developer, I keep it in mind. I think in terms of click reduction and it leads to simple, usable sites and software. Thank you, dontclick.it for raising the point, but yes, despite great alternatives in hardware and great intentions in software, most users still must click.
the document contains the simple directive "Count total number of Google products and reduce by 20%"
There have been many Google betas with low user populations, but here in the land of every-Google-launch-is-an-article, there might be a lot of/.ers who put time and effort and personal data into a Google beta only to see it disappear in the next year. Which Google apps are on the chopping block? Will they give users a nice way to export data?
I fully agree with the analysis, I just meant to point out that nowadays there can be a drastic difference in consequences between beating up like that on an AC and beating up on a respected Muslim cleric. I don't say as much because realistically I think a comment on/. is the next "Danish cartoon" but rather because we're more or less here to discern underlying principles and generalize based on our conversations. What goes on in the/. sandbox is at least reflective and can be indicative of larger, more material results.
It's worth noting, I would say anyway, that because Islamic cultures do not enjoy as much freedom of speech as Western cultures, Muslims from those cultures are more easily offended. They are not accustomed to open criticism, blunt debate, and they may take what we mean as a mild, if pointed observation to be a prelude to violence.
Cue references to the Pope's recent controversy, where he quoted an anti-Islamic Christian from centuries back AS A DISAGREEABLE EXAMPLE, which the Muslim world grossly misunderstood despite repeated explanation and to which they took deep offense despite repeated apologies, errupting with protests many of which became violent despite Muslim leaders pleading that they should not. From a Western perspective, frankly they look silly, like immature children unaccustomed to adult conversation who are too easily offended. For Muslims in Islamic nations however, this is all very serious.
I meant for the lighter side of my comment to indicate that I agree with you, yet that in cases like this Westerners need to know they may be unwittingly picking real fights.
...that by calling AC's argument "total bloody nonsense... bollocks... Dark Ages... intellectually bankrupt posturing... specious... Stone Age," you have said the same of a powerful Muslim cleric in Australia, whose analogy AC was quoting.
Oh, and Salman Rushdie called, said could you kindly return to him Ali Khamenei's fatwa as he wants to spend more time underground with his wife.
There are practical advantages in problem solving which have been tied to the language used in mental formulation, for example the development of what is metaphorically called "logical circuitry" has been shown to diverge between native English and Mandarin Chinese speakers.
My expectation is that spoken language will eventually go the way of handwriting: creature comfort, dying art, what once defined the best of us but becomes in many cases an indulgent inefficiency. How?
Anybody who dares to at this point, has realized they can jam wires into the human brain and let it learn to control machines on the other end. It's already beyond that in fact, with embedded communication devices being the next step, stepping shoe now currently in air: you'll see in a few days in Nature how real the "Neurochip" already is.
People should stop pretending this is about helping paraplegics by playing Space Invaders or moving a cursor with mind control, or that we're only trying to help brain injury, stroke, or paralysis patients. This is about construction workers with better than human strength in their better than human limbs. We drive vehicles through obstacles on land at 10 times the speed human beings can run, and we fly vehicles at 800 times the speed we can biologically move ourselves. We are mentally capable of managing bodily abilities far beyond those with which we are born.
This is not only about helping the disabled, and it's not only about incredible speeds or strengths. It's also about perfectly able people who would rather control personal electronics with their thoughts than search for or decipher other remote control electronics. Personal electronics are going to be a lot more personal, too; these people will eventually prefer to have personal electronics embedded in their bodies and networked with their minds.
Don't worry about losing human language: we will only lose it when we'll be better off for it, when we communicate and think better without it. The translator here, with IBM and elsewhere is of course more narrowly focused, but with this we are converging on technological telepathy and obsoleting human language.
Human logic and good intentions have come at it from a more traditional, less technological direction, giving us Esperanto, Loglan, Lojban, etc. You've probably heard of only one of these, which you probably laughed at somebody for being Geek enough to know any of. Most of them have been great ideas and well executed, but despite inherent gains in efficiency or intellectual force they are nowhere near the markets and their returns depend on mass adoption. Technology is different, it's tied directly to markets and to private profiteering with immediate amplification of wealth among the wealthy. Human beings are not going to create a better enough language, soon enough, before we create a technology which in itself superior to all human language. BG
Ha, ha ... There was that long controversy with naming before, so the last time someone thought they'd created 118, they intended to name it Ghiorsium after Albert Ghiorso who "helped discover numerous chemical elements." I'd expect something similarly NOT controversial, while IUPAC will likely settle any disputes like they did for the long-disputed transfermiums in 1997. These are some of the same guys right? so maybe still "Ghiorsium," and maybe we'll find out tomorrow at the press conference. BG
I work "remotely," not some of the time but 95% of the time. I visit headquarters, a few timezones away, once or twice per year. I am in my home office a lot of the time, but if the work I'm doing allows it then I venture out. There is no "third place" for me, however; instead I work from as many different places as I can. My nth place has been a library, cafe, university, park, and even my parents' house.
People are creatures of habit, for sure, and being a regular has its advantages, but I wonder. USA Today focuses on "third place" types, but how many workers in their uberstatistic, the tens of millions of people working outside offices, are actually "nth place" types? USA Today was also lazy in spending their time primarily in one cafe. Are all those tens of millions of people as uncreative as this reporter?
I've also worked from locations I traveled to, blurring the definition of "vacation." No matter where I am and regardless of timezone, I put my full time in for the office during their normal hours of operation. Usually I work from wherever I'm staying, because I am only visiting the area for a short time and I need to be online reliably. Before and after work though, I have ample time to do other business, visit, or explore.
I've often considered closing the gap between my lifestyle now, and one in which I have no permanent home, like Paul Erdos but perhaps with more self reliance... and of course, with my wife:) BG
Aside even from the age of the universe, at stake would be whether the universe is in fact expanding at the widely understood rate, or perhaps whether the universe is expanding at all. IOW at stake again is the question of ultimate fate.
It seems in TFA that astronomers do have some data to reevaluate, toss, and that these fundamental calculations could be in flux. This is exciting, we might not be expanding to oblivion, instead we might be contracting to oblivion like we thought we were before! Knowledgeable comments here seem to think otherwise, that inconsistency related to what should be consistent Chandrasekhar mass in supernovae won't ultimately affect universal expansion calculations. My amateur reading of expert opinion: this does matter, at least theoretically in the special case, and probably for the more general cosmological cases, too. We'll see.
On the related ultimate fate question, I've often wondered why popular astronomers seem to think either (1) it's all going to contract indefinitely -- so we'll perish in an ultimate crunch, or (2) it's all going to expand indefinitely -- so we'll perish in an ultimate fade. Either way we're meaningless in the end, and there is entirely nothing we can do about it.
Well gee, pardon my optimism, but couldn't anyone entertain the possibility of flux in the amount of matter and energy in the observable universe? Couldn't we suppose that black holes leaking into imaginary time, or parallel matter in higher dimensions, or some other mechanism might possibly exist by which we are... I dunno, not ultimately meaningless? Is it not possible to suppose the universe might expand, slow down, contract, slow down, expand again -- but never singularly or infinitely? Must our most eminent scientists pretend they know certainly what truly they only predict theoretically based on their best current knowledge?
The scientists instead seem to rather gleefully predict our penultimate doom of one sort or the other. They seem so sure of themselves on the television and in major lectures, they state predictions as if they are knowledge and not subject to change. This doesn't jive at all with the scientific method nor with critical thought, while certainty even if imagined might serve some personal, human emotional needs just fine.
I wonder whether their attitude hurts the public's acceptance of critical thinking as a modus operandi. Could it be that scientists' certain-doom-speak has precipitated less acceptance of the scientific method, of scientists, and of scientific observation and theory? Could it be that the public, so often maligned on/. and in scientific circles, sees through the chicanery used to win grants and sell books and whatnot? Could it be that scientists end up looking just like religious nuts who believe something rather than observing and analysing and hypothesizing? Could it be that given a choice between one nut who says we're definitely doomed and another who says we're definitely in control of our fate, the public supposes "might as well go with the hopeful one?"
I do think this discovery is illuminating with respect to the limits of our knowledge, not that we should need further evidence of such. If I may make this prediction, based on our long history of not fully knowing what we thought we knew: I find it likely that some discovery in the near future will fundamentally change our understanding of our universe. I would even predict we will never know everything. I predict in other words that again in the longer future, then again in the distant future and again unpredictably forever after, we will happen upon discoveries which fundamentally alter our understandings.
Given that, I suggest scientists would be better understood and more respected if we stopped pretending we know what we merely predict, assume, or suppose. The public might not collectively make a great mathematician or considerate strategist, but they're sometimes quite good at smelling a rat. Given only rats to choose from, they'll take whichever makes the most entertaining pet. BG
While this concept is, as moderated "interesting" in some respect, it has been controlled for in famous and fundamental experiments which to the contrary, strongly support that it is in fact power which corrupts. The Stanford Prison Experiment is certainly the most famous and instructive. For recent interpretations of this and related work, try consulting Zimbardo.
I've spent a lot of time around politicans, their staff, and their active supporters, at the national level in the U.S. Most people get into politics at this level with altruistic intentions. I am political and partisan personally, but however entirely I disagree with the other side's interpretation of the world, I respect that people on the other side are involved because they truly believe they are in the right. No, I'm serious. New Members of Congress especially come in with full heads of do-gooder steam.
It doesn't take long for most of them to compromise so much that, from the outside looking in, it would appear they have been corrupted. Some never slide all the way into vote trading, nepotistic business-as-usual, but they are in the minority and either end up as failures or highly respected successes. IOW the mainstream, beaten path in a position of power is a corrupt one.
Most people entering any path will walk right up the middle of it, even if they are natural leaders. Newton's first law: it's not only mechanics... and power: it corrupts; when absolute, absolutely. BG
... and "what a lawyer says it means" is a critical part of how a judge ultimately interprets it, not to mention the fact that judges ARE lawyers. Sorry winkydink, but the idea that a lawyer's interpretation doesn't matter is wrong by definition in one regard, and wrong as a matter of processual fact in the other. BG
Design: it's not only about what's inside the application.
One of the basic problems I have with OpenOffice: it's called "Office." One of the basic problems with "Google Apps for Your Domain," well in the vein of bad naming, is a comment even necessary? So bad is Google's product design at the identity level -- you know, where you create a great name and logo and make sense of yourself to your target markets -- so bad is Google at this that we are all knee-jerking with "Google Releasing an Office Suite."
Lots of other comments point out correctly, as do all the articles and as does Google, that this is not an Office Suite per se. It's "apps for your domain." When you read from their reps and execs, Google describes well their place in the market, and as other/. comments in weeks past have observed, so it is: not directly competitive with MS for business productivity, rather overlapping in small business, education, personal use, the lighter like. Why did they fail to wrap up this wisdom in a neat product identity?
Some of you are thinking "maybe that's their point. They want to be compared to MS without saying it themselves, they want to be defined as an alternative because they believe most people don't use most of MS and...."
OK maybe, GOOG is anything but traditional, they move their pieces in combination and they've a history of being steps ahead... maaaayyybe but I doubt tanking a product's identity to this degree can be a net positive. It's a gambit with a valuable piece, too early on to ensure the strategy's success without an absent-minded opponent (like the Office Lite market?).
My working theory: they're Geeks. As any Google Watcher knows, the engineers run the place: they don't believe in their Sales Force, in Marketing, not even in Customer Service. We all think Google is heavy into user experience, but maybe they're just usability and web analytics nerds. This is not only about "Apps for Your Domain," Google too often misses the boat on product identity. We have seen more than a few of their truly great, charming, promising applications fade away. What if they had been marketed?
It's as if Googlers actually listen to Jakob Nielsen:o while missing how tone-deaf the man is when it comes to pleasing the eyes and ears. Jakob, if you're out there man... BG
Of all the writers, politicians, and others who have ripped off the originator of the "digital native" and "digital immigrant" labels and concepts, Marc Prensky, someone calling herself an anthropologist should at least credit the spark of a light she's basking in.
Get Kirah's name right yes, but worse: the/. summary, TFA AKA ninemsn and Microsoft, and myriad others before them have either been unaware of Prensky or have themselves enjoyed a ride without crediting him and his relative wit.
Here is
the original source from Prensky.
It's not as if he's a nobody, he has a Harvard MBA and a Masters in Teaching from Yale where I suppose he made a few connections, and while not a household name he's successful in tech business and philanthropy.
In 2005 Rupert Murdoch spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, after which Murdoch was widely credited with the "digital native, digital immigrant" observation and phrases. To pick an Australian example of subsequent error in which the text of Murdoch's speech is also posted, see "The Challenge Of Becoming A True Digital Native: Rupert Murdoch."
Thanks to Mr. Murdoch's blockbuster status, not only speciality sites, but sites often used for citation like About.com have credited Murdoch for posterity, as in this article targeting educators which asks, in a poll and an associated essay, "Are You A Digital Native Or Digital Immigrant?"
Setting it to 50 is not necessarily to assume and report all driving above 50 as speeding. If an interested party set it to 50: they'd not be assuming the driver can never legally exceed 50, but that whenever the driver is exceeding 50 they are concerned enough to want speed data correlated with location and limit. BG
"It is a pity that there has been so little adverse reaction to the decision, and that those of us who are opposed to the new definition have no voice in the issue."
This is only due to limited popular interest in and understanding of the debate, you both clearly have the matter more in hand with a longterm mindset. Whether in 100 or 1,000 runs around our star, there will come a time when enough human attention is focused on other worlds for our survival. At that time, it probably won't matter what amount or even what quality of debate occurred now-abouts in the IAU or in technical communities online. IAU or our concerns may simply be irrelevant in the mass of a survival-based and broader human decision. For one thing, we can suppose technical abilities far surpassing our own, which may have vastly altered what humanity can survive or the nature of human beings, or both and more.
Just as we in this thread would rather now, future humanity will classify and name these entities with deeper cultural consideration, a more anthropocentric perspective, and with greater awareness of other bodies of knowledge and their naming conventions. We're just not there yet, it just doesn't matter enough yet, and we're likely unable now to foresee the issues of that later day on which a more lasting definition will turn.
At any rate, I hope it CAN be the people in this thread, 100 or 1,000 years from now, participating in the debate at a level which matters. There's a more pressing issue to kick around:) BG
Profit is the easiest excuse behind which humankind can enjoy legal rewards from other vices. It is little wonder that capitalists would be innovative in their pursuit of profit, as deceit requires great creativity and innovation.
Much of profitting is theft, won with sellers' lies, buyers' fear or ignorance, or by sellers taking advantage of buyers' timely need.
Not all profit is theft. Perceived value is the devil in the details. Capitalists will argue there is never wrong in taking more than the cost of an item -- when consumers perceive the value of the item is higher than its cost to the capitalist. There can be genuine difficulty in determining true value and no one could dispute the imperfection of our world in that regard. This difficulty, however, is the veil behind which capitalism hides all the time, claiming its innocence for all profit based on the fact that some accidental profit cannot be avoided.
It is capitalism's blanket lie that the majority of profit is morally good. I'm not sure whether most people either accept, are not aware, or believe they cannot change that corporations actively work to deceive consumers so that consumers will pay more for products and services than they cost. NBC has a popular TV program in the USA on "the fleecing of America," and there are laws on the books against false advertising, but it's understood by anyone mature and just a bit perceptive that most advertising, sales and marketing, is at least a partial lie. No one would accuse advertisements or sales presentations of telling "the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
Other popular and yet morally terrible profit schemes are derived of sourcing when buyers most need something, so sellers can derive the most profit. There are many vices and devices with which for-profit corporations artificially increase demand and exacerbate social inequalities.
The only right way to go about business is to be non-profit. This is not to say all business should be socialized, or governmental or public, nor am I now suggesting any of the other variously Communist, Socialist or other programs associated, I'm just observing that profit is fundamentally incorrect and to pursue it is morally wrong. In a life of crime, deceit is often required, even when the crime and the deceit are legal, expected, enjoyed as entertainment. Again, deceit requires great creativity and innovation.
Vices feed on each other, for example by sharing methods in committing or hiding them, or by lowering conscience barriers to more vice through local social acceptance. When you understand profit as being in itself a vice, it is less a wonder that innovation would spark from profitting by other vices. BG
Unfortunately, outrage rarely impacts political decision making at this level without an impending election, and this president does not face another election. We teetered at 50/50 around both of the elections Bush survived, but by now less than one third of Americans support this president and this country's "direction." There is outrage, and plenty of it, but it doesn't much matter.
Our "leaders" are much more "practical" than that.
On practicality: Nixon ducked out because Congress was not his own, and they would have made history in hanging him (if not literally). Note that there had been several earlier attempts in the House of Representatives to impeach Nixon which stalled or failed in the Judiciary committee. Bush and company own Congress. What happens in Congress, or what could potentially happen, metes out mid-term justice with respect to the presidency.
If you want Bush to actually respond to the now-large-majority American public opinion, then you've got to win Congress for the Democrats; or, enjoy the rest of his run at America and the world. Period. BG
"A computer on every desk" is not only about business, Mart, nor is being "great" only about business. It's also about personal computing. Every desk, Mart. Computing for everyone.
Maybe you don't like the idea that billions of people computing is more important than 10 millions of people computing -- even when the billions are doing so much less computation and more of simple communication and information retrieval when they "compute."
You could take a lot of hard lines and Geek perspectives which will make the software you mention seem more seminal or more important, or more "great" than Windows. If you ask me, in denying the importance of Windows, mass markets, and the still dawning participation age, you'd be missing the definition of "great" in this "greatest software ever" question.
Great is a computer on every desk, not because I prefer consumerism to intellectualism but because for one reason, thanks to the former we can afford a lot more of the latter. Thanks to a computer on every desk the Web could take off -- without the right OS and UI and a business capable of selling them, we could easily have stalled with BBSes, gopher, email.
I suppose the potential was too incredible for no one else to succeed, had Windows not succeeded in bringing computing to the masses. You can argue for the rest of your life that Microsoft and Windows have not been essential, or that they should not have been essential to the success of your livelihood and mine, but: they were, and they are. Windows: perhaps the greatest software ever.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, and that was my point. I'm sorry if I wrote too much and perhaps hid that I think exactly as much.
We almost completely agree, except that it seems to me you overstate (or over-imply) the current state of Chinese culture and society with respect to IP. IP and kin are growing stronger in the Chinese world alongside individualism and the increasing appetite for personal wealth. I call it the new Opium War, only this time, the dealers are hooked, too.
I'll fight to move "The American Dream" away from individualism, as the world loses sleep and its mind trying to achieve it.
You're right to imply there is heightened sensitivity toward Chinese offenses in the media; of course, that's for good reason. Some of the answer is human nature, and some of it is cultural.
If it's "always China" now, it is instructive to remember that it always used to be Japan. Honest Japanese Americans and all Asian Americans mistaken as vaguely Japanese struggled for decades against FUD per what their forefathers had done in World War II. In the 80s it was more about competitive concerns, but the under toe of fear was still strong. Only with the rise of China, a common rival if not opponent for Japan and the U.S., and as well with Japan's economic setbacks, did heightened reporting of Japanese espionage recede, whether governmental or IP theft. It's instructive to remember because: some of it is just about the human need for an opponent.
Much of the answer is also, really just about China or rather Chinese culture, if not Asian versus European sensitivities. When I say it's for "good reason" that the U.S. media is especially sensitive to Chinese espionage, I observe not only from ample public evidence of organized governmental and corporate infiltration, but also from personal experience. I've had too many acquaintances from Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as well as China who I knew were tasked to steal IP. It was a regular part of their experience where I studied (Cornell, Harvard) and later worked -- should they steal? Was it wrong? Often, family back in Asia were recruited to send tasking letters, putting all the more pressure on. It was almost never governmental at all in my experience, just corporate espionage such as theft of code, designs, chemical formulae and processes, kitchen sinks ...
I've heard less of it but similarly in Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and other East Asian circles. I'm born and raised American, and married to a citizen of India and working in software --> I have a lot of exposure to Indian culture --> IP theft is much less prevalent in South Asia than in the farther East. Anecdotally and from some academic reading when I majored in political science, it seems to be broadly East Asian but especially Chinese. I'm not saying the Chinese are less ethical, except from an especially American perspective; rather, it is the sense among Chinese that corporate espionage and spying in general is a fair competitive practice.
In the United States especially but all throughout the West, we have a fundamental cultural difference with the Chinese on this note. Oh sure, we do a lot of spying and stealing, but we generally think it's a moral wrong to do so. This doesn't mean we don't spy, but it means that when we do it, is always against a static coefficient of cultural friction; we are starting from a position that spying and IP theft are wrong.
In China and broadly Asia, IP is almost a misnomer -- ideas are not so much property at all, as part of the more general philosophical difference in which individual ownership and property are fundamentally weaker concepts over there. The degree to which Chinese spy is altogether different because the general assumption is that nearly everyone is doing it and to the greatest extent they can. They hide their spying of course, but not so much because they feel it is wrong, more simply because it is more effective when hidden. Because the Chinese execute against a kinetic coefficient of cultural friction, they enjoy a basic competitive advantage against Western entities.
In the U.S. therefore, we are not only afraid that the Chinese are spying. We are even more afraid that they don't think it's wrong, that they're effectively doing it every chance they get, that we have been largely ignorant of this basic cultural difference for decades, and frankly, that they are better at it than we are.
Expect it to be "always China" for a long time to come, and expect culturally American, ethnically Chinese, and good honest engineers and professionals in the U.S. to suffer the prejudicial consequences. BG
I'm not so sure about assuming the quality of Chinese censorship. If you're only watching mainstream news feeds, it looks like "another day, another protest" in China. In the Washington Post via MSNBC this morning, it's One-dog policy resisted in Beijing crackdown where in these near-daily articles, juicy quotes like this one are increasingly common, too:
"More and more people own dogs. It is pointless to restrict dog-raising. The stricter the government is, the more people will love to own a dog," said Liu Tao, 26, who was at the unauthorized protest Saturday. "We are not blocked from the outside now. With the Internet, we can see how Western countries treat dogs well. It's hard to stop us from communicating with the outside."
Aside from the groundswell of Western ideals changing China, and back to their Wikipedia: Chinese officials might believe they can handle it. In addition to the drumbeat of articles in our free press indicating their people's increasingly free access to information, I also have known many friends and colleagues in China who have effectively unfettered access. Party-types might think they can handle it, but I would not assume they actually can. BG
SETI@home was not started by, nor was it designed by SETI. A few volunteers conceived of and technically produced it. If you're that worried, a similar arrangement could certainly be made.
In the early days up here in Seattle, pitches were made to major corporations. Paramount Pictures donated US$50,000. Sun Microsystems donated server hardware, and they are one of several commercial entities advertised for on the sponsors page of the SETI site still today.
That's just SETI. As for the non-profit holiness of the University, have you heard of Nike, Inc.? They're big fans of Cal and hundreds of other non-profit colleges and universities --> the tens of millions of students, alumni, staff and administration of which happily advertise for Nike, Inc. and other commercial entities. If commercial advertising and the collegiate sports money machine can feed your educations and research projects, then I'm sure you can milk a little from us volunteers in your BOINC wares, too!
Nike, Inc. is just the tip of a commercial iceberg floating in academia's drink. My suggestion would be the least of anyone's concerns. If the IRS does call, let them in on the secret, too, then transfer them to UC Athletic Director Sandy Barbour. BG
Wouldn't it be a slap in the face of the people volunteering their computer resources, to make them look at ads too?
No, it wouldn't, if looking at ads were also voluntary.
For my part, screen saving bits run when I'm not looking or even when I'm not there. I would happily volunteer that space at those times for relevant, inconspicuous text ads with SETI, Arecibo itself, or related others as a beneficiaries. If it meant closing the screen saver instead of just jiggling a mouse, or instead a three second pause before the saver closed so users could click an ad if they wanted to, then that's fine with me, too.
It was a small inconvenience with a feel good, curiosity factor when I installed SETI@home. Two-ish million times over, it has done wonders for SETI. It would be a small inconvenience with an occasionally useful ad for me to turn on ads inside SETI@home. If only a part of two million times over, this too can do wonders for SETI.
SETI and Arecibo are not the same, but I'm guessing few @homers would argue against that particular revenue sharing. BG
If Google AdSense ran inside the SETI screensaver, what would it show? I ran a little test in Gmail just now with relevant text from SETI, and returned:
Sponsored Links
Moon Sand $29.95
Molds like dough. Use over & over again. Ships next day. [redacted]
Space Ringtone
Send this complimentary ringtone to your phone right now! [redacted]
Pluto Astronomy T-Shirts
Planetary science & geology humor cool t-shirts & gifts. Fast ship. [redacted]
Eh, not so bad. BG
There are variations on Dvorak which target Spanish but Dvorak is English centric. In Spanish adaptations, yes the letter "ñ" is more accessible than otherwise, but is it in the best possible location based on its frequency? Or as Mischa Poslawsky, the shiar.org guy put it, "These modified layouts are nothing but experiments created by amateurs afaik, not based on as extensive research as the genuine dvorak. While no doubt still better than qwerty ...."
The noticeable gain I have had through Dvorak is in reduced strain from doing less work. I have not had a huge increase in WPM typing personally, but from what I know of average typing speed (in the 40s? I've read), I was already fast. With Qwerty I'm still around 90 WPM and my last tests using Dvorak were in the 90s, too.
Some people HAVE had real increases by switching to Dvorak, while some of them have also speculated their gains were a result of focusing on their typing for a couple weeks (what it took them to get back up to speed), because they had never before spent time actively trying to improve WPM. Based on what I know and have read of others' experiences, I'd bet most people who already type 60, if they either practiced specifically to improve their Qwerty or switched to Dvorak, could reasonably expect to hit 80-100.
All of which was why dontclick.it originally drove me to add an iGesture touch pad to my Christmas 2003 wishlist. At the same time I chased after my first Tablet PC. I'm happy to report in response to "news" of dontclick.it that consumers thinking differently have some great hardware alternatives, granted some of them may lock you into software "alternatives" the typical /.er might rather avoid. UMPCs with the Touch Pack have taken it to the glorious next level, where finally no other tool (pen) need be held to work with the PC, and sans anything too futuristic still like eyeball tracking lasers or brain implants. Thank you, Microsoft et al. for making it real.
How's it going? For machine performance, worky reasons I do have a desktop, with which I'm still using that iGesture, right now in fact. With a little learning, it's fantastic -- far more comfortable, natural, and powerful than any classic form mouse. Are iGesture pads the future of hardware? Hardly, sadly. Almost all people wouldn't even consider remapping for a Dvorak keyboard or any other arrangement despite numerous benefits, so good luck prying the mouse from their hands.
Aside from the mouse itself, for pure click reduction I doubt the extremity of dontclick.it can be considered a likely end for most of site or application design. One other thing dontclick.it led me to, however, was to more actively reduce the number of clicks in my user interface designs. Back in 2003, this User Interface Engineering post was also new, regarding the practicality of the Three-Click Rule. "Every piece of content should take no more than three clicks to access." The article finds via pointed clicking research that the number of clicks itself is not an issue, but it acknowledges that for designers to focus on reducing clicks is a useful means to the end of better, more user centric design.
As a software UI designer/developer, I keep it in mind. I think in terms of click reduction and it leads to simple, usable sites and software. Thank you, dontclick.it for raising the point, but yes, despite great alternatives in hardware and great intentions in software, most users still must click.
I fully agree with the analysis, I just meant to point out that nowadays there can be a drastic difference in consequences between beating up like that on an AC and beating up on a respected Muslim cleric. I don't say as much because realistically I think a comment on /. is the next "Danish cartoon" but rather because we're more or less here to discern underlying principles and generalize based on our conversations. What goes on in the /. sandbox is at least reflective and can be indicative of larger, more material results.
It's worth noting, I would say anyway, that because Islamic cultures do not enjoy as much freedom of speech as Western cultures, Muslims from those cultures are more easily offended. They are not accustomed to open criticism, blunt debate, and they may take what we mean as a mild, if pointed observation to be a prelude to violence.
Cue references to the Pope's recent controversy, where he quoted an anti-Islamic Christian from centuries back AS A DISAGREEABLE EXAMPLE, which the Muslim world grossly misunderstood despite repeated explanation and to which they took deep offense despite repeated apologies, errupting with protests many of which became violent despite Muslim leaders pleading that they should not. From a Western perspective, frankly they look silly, like immature children unaccustomed to adult conversation who are too easily offended. For Muslims in Islamic nations however, this is all very serious.
I meant for the lighter side of my comment to indicate that I agree with you, yet that in cases like this Westerners need to know they may be unwittingly picking real fights.
...that by calling AC's argument "total bloody nonsense ... bollocks ... Dark Ages ... intellectually bankrupt posturing ... specious ... Stone Age," you have said the same of a powerful Muslim cleric in Australia, whose analogy AC was quoting.
Oh, and Salman Rushdie called, said could you kindly return to him Ali Khamenei's fatwa as he wants to spend more time underground with his wife.
For all the non-Australians with no idea where the uncovered meat reference came from, an Australian sheikh has just managed to more or less publicly blame scantily clad women for inviting rape, causing an uproar there. Condemnation has been quick; John Major already chimed in to call the comments "preposterous."
Having said that, Google has said content would need to be illegal, e.g. spam related before they would actually remove it. Anyone else read this and hear echoes of user 606117 writing yesterday, "Don't come to Australia"?
There are practical advantages in problem solving which have been tied to the language used in mental formulation, for example the development of what is metaphorically called "logical circuitry" has been shown to diverge between native English and Mandarin Chinese speakers.
My expectation is that spoken language will eventually go the way of handwriting: creature comfort, dying art, what once defined the best of us but becomes in many cases an indulgent inefficiency. How?
Anybody who dares to at this point, has realized they can jam wires into the human brain and let it learn to control machines on the other end. It's already beyond that in fact, with embedded communication devices being the next step, stepping shoe now currently in air: you'll see in a few days in Nature how real the "Neurochip" already is.
People should stop pretending this is about helping paraplegics by playing Space Invaders or moving a cursor with mind control, or that we're only trying to help brain injury, stroke, or paralysis patients. This is about construction workers with better than human strength in their better than human limbs. We drive vehicles through obstacles on land at 10 times the speed human beings can run, and we fly vehicles at 800 times the speed we can biologically move ourselves. We are mentally capable of managing bodily abilities far beyond those with which we are born.
This is not only about helping the disabled, and it's not only about incredible speeds or strengths. It's also about perfectly able people who would rather control personal electronics with their thoughts than search for or decipher other remote control electronics. Personal electronics are going to be a lot more personal, too; these people will eventually prefer to have personal electronics embedded in their bodies and networked with their minds.
Don't worry about losing human language: we will only lose it when we'll be better off for it, when we communicate and think better without it. The translator here, with IBM and elsewhere is of course more narrowly focused, but with this we are converging on technological telepathy and obsoleting human language.
Human logic and good intentions have come at it from a more traditional, less technological direction, giving us Esperanto, Loglan, Lojban, etc. You've probably heard of only one of these, which you probably laughed at somebody for being Geek enough to know any of. Most of them have been great ideas and well executed, but despite inherent gains in efficiency or intellectual force they are nowhere near the markets and their returns depend on mass adoption. Technology is different, it's tied directly to markets and to private profiteering with immediate amplification of wealth among the wealthy. Human beings are not going to create a better enough language, soon enough, before we create a technology which in itself superior to all human language. BG
Ha, ha ... There was that long controversy with naming before, so the last time someone thought they'd created 118, they intended to name it Ghiorsium after Albert Ghiorso who "helped discover numerous chemical elements." I'd expect something similarly NOT controversial, while IUPAC will likely settle any disputes like they did for the long-disputed transfermiums in 1997. These are some of the same guys right? so maybe still "Ghiorsium," and maybe we'll find out tomorrow at the press conference. BG
I work "remotely," not some of the time but 95% of the time. I visit headquarters, a few timezones away, once or twice per year. I am in my home office a lot of the time, but if the work I'm doing allows it then I venture out. There is no "third place" for me, however; instead I work from as many different places as I can. My nth place has been a library, cafe, university, park, and even my parents' house.
People are creatures of habit, for sure, and being a regular has its advantages, but I wonder. USA Today focuses on "third place" types, but how many workers in their uberstatistic, the tens of millions of people working outside offices, are actually "nth place" types? USA Today was also lazy in spending their time primarily in one cafe. Are all those tens of millions of people as uncreative as this reporter?
I've also worked from locations I traveled to, blurring the definition of "vacation." No matter where I am and regardless of timezone, I put my full time in for the office during their normal hours of operation. Usually I work from wherever I'm staying, because I am only visiting the area for a short time and I need to be online reliably. Before and after work though, I have ample time to do other business, visit, or explore.
I've often considered closing the gap between my lifestyle now, and one in which I have no permanent home, like Paul Erdos but perhaps with more self reliance ... and of course, with my wife :) BG
Aside even from the age of the universe, at stake would be whether the universe is in fact expanding at the widely understood rate, or perhaps whether the universe is expanding at all. IOW at stake again is the question of ultimate fate.
It seems in TFA that astronomers do have some data to reevaluate, toss, and that these fundamental calculations could be in flux. This is exciting, we might not be expanding to oblivion, instead we might be contracting to oblivion like we thought we were before! Knowledgeable comments here seem to think otherwise, that inconsistency related to what should be consistent Chandrasekhar mass in supernovae won't ultimately affect universal expansion calculations. My amateur reading of expert opinion: this does matter, at least theoretically in the special case, and probably for the more general cosmological cases, too. We'll see.
On the related ultimate fate question, I've often wondered why popular astronomers seem to think either (1) it's all going to contract indefinitely -- so we'll perish in an ultimate crunch, or (2) it's all going to expand indefinitely -- so we'll perish in an ultimate fade. Either way we're meaningless in the end, and there is entirely nothing we can do about it.
Well gee, pardon my optimism, but couldn't anyone entertain the possibility of flux in the amount of matter and energy in the observable universe? Couldn't we suppose that black holes leaking into imaginary time, or parallel matter in higher dimensions, or some other mechanism might possibly exist by which we are ... I dunno, not ultimately meaningless? Is it not possible to suppose the universe might expand, slow down, contract, slow down, expand again -- but never singularly or infinitely? Must our most eminent scientists pretend they know certainly what truly they only predict theoretically based on their best current knowledge?
The scientists instead seem to rather gleefully predict our penultimate doom of one sort or the other. They seem so sure of themselves on the television and in major lectures, they state predictions as if they are knowledge and not subject to change. This doesn't jive at all with the scientific method nor with critical thought, while certainty even if imagined might serve some personal, human emotional needs just fine.
I wonder whether their attitude hurts the public's acceptance of critical thinking as a modus operandi. Could it be that scientists' certain-doom-speak has precipitated less acceptance of the scientific method, of scientists, and of scientific observation and theory? Could it be that the public, so often maligned on /. and in scientific circles, sees through the chicanery used to win grants and sell books and whatnot? Could it be that scientists end up looking just like religious nuts who believe something rather than observing and analysing and hypothesizing? Could it be that given a choice between one nut who says we're definitely doomed and another who says we're definitely in control of our fate, the public supposes "might as well go with the hopeful one?"
I do think this discovery is illuminating with respect to the limits of our knowledge, not that we should need further evidence of such. If I may make this prediction, based on our long history of not fully knowing what we thought we knew: I find it likely that some discovery in the near future will fundamentally change our understanding of our universe. I would even predict we will never know everything. I predict in other words that again in the longer future, then again in the distant future and again unpredictably forever after, we will happen upon discoveries which fundamentally alter our understandings.
Given that, I suggest scientists would be better understood and more respected if we stopped pretending we know what we merely predict, assume, or suppose. The public might not collectively make a great mathematician or considerate strategist, but they're sometimes quite good at smelling a rat. Given only rats to choose from, they'll take whichever makes the most entertaining pet. BG
While this concept is, as moderated "interesting" in some respect, it has been controlled for in famous and fundamental experiments which to the contrary, strongly support that it is in fact power which corrupts. The Stanford Prison Experiment is certainly the most famous and instructive. For recent interpretations of this and related work, try consulting Zimbardo.
I've spent a lot of time around politicans, their staff, and their active supporters, at the national level in the U.S. Most people get into politics at this level with altruistic intentions. I am political and partisan personally, but however entirely I disagree with the other side's interpretation of the world, I respect that people on the other side are involved because they truly believe they are in the right. No, I'm serious. New Members of Congress especially come in with full heads of do-gooder steam.
It doesn't take long for most of them to compromise so much that, from the outside looking in, it would appear they have been corrupted. Some never slide all the way into vote trading, nepotistic business-as-usual, but they are in the minority and either end up as failures or highly respected successes. IOW the mainstream, beaten path in a position of power is a corrupt one.
Most people entering any path will walk right up the middle of it, even if they are natural leaders. Newton's first law: it's not only mechanics ... and power: it corrupts; when absolute, absolutely. BG
... and "what a lawyer says it means" is a critical part of how a judge ultimately interprets it, not to mention the fact that judges ARE lawyers. Sorry winkydink, but the idea that a lawyer's interpretation doesn't matter is wrong by definition in one regard, and wrong as a matter of processual fact in the other. BG
Design: it's not only about what's inside the application.
One of the basic problems I have with OpenOffice: it's called "Office." One of the basic problems with "Google Apps for Your Domain," well in the vein of bad naming, is a comment even necessary? So bad is Google's product design at the identity level -- you know, where you create a great name and logo and make sense of yourself to your target markets -- so bad is Google at this that we are all knee-jerking with "Google Releasing an Office Suite."
Lots of other comments point out correctly, as do all the articles and as does Google, that this is not an Office Suite per se. It's "apps for your domain." When you read from their reps and execs, Google describes well their place in the market, and as other /. comments in weeks past have observed, so it is: not directly competitive with MS for business productivity, rather overlapping in small business, education, personal use, the lighter like. Why did they fail to wrap up this wisdom in a neat product identity?
Some of you are thinking "maybe that's their point. They want to be compared to MS without saying it themselves, they want to be defined as an alternative because they believe most people don't use most of MS and ...."
OK maybe, GOOG is anything but traditional, they move their pieces in combination and they've a history of being steps ahead ... maaaayyybe but I doubt tanking a product's identity to this degree can be a net positive. It's a gambit with a valuable piece, too early on to ensure the strategy's success without an absent-minded opponent (like the Office Lite market?).
My working theory: they're Geeks. As any Google Watcher knows, the engineers run the place: they don't believe in their Sales Force, in Marketing, not even in Customer Service. We all think Google is heavy into user experience, but maybe they're just usability and web analytics nerds. This is not only about "Apps for Your Domain," Google too often misses the boat on product identity. We have seen more than a few of their truly great, charming, promising applications fade away. What if they had been marketed?
It's as if Googlers actually listen to Jakob Nielsen :o while missing how tone-deaf the man is when it comes to pleasing the eyes and ears. Jakob, if you're out there man ... BG
Of all the writers, politicians, and others who have ripped off the originator of the "digital native" and "digital immigrant" labels and concepts, Marc Prensky , someone calling herself an anthropologist should at least credit the spark of a light she's basking in.
Get Kirah's name right yes, but worse: the /. summary, TFA AKA ninemsn and Microsoft, and myriad others before them have either been unaware of Prensky or have themselves enjoyed a ride without crediting him and his relative wit.
Here is the original source from Prensky. It's not as if he's a nobody, he has a Harvard MBA and a Masters in Teaching from Yale where I suppose he made a few connections, and while not a household name he's successful in tech business and philanthropy.
In 2005 Rupert Murdoch spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors , after which Murdoch was widely credited with the "digital native, digital immigrant" observation and phrases. To pick an Australian example of subsequent error in which the text of Murdoch's speech is also posted, see "The Challenge Of Becoming A True Digital Native: Rupert Murdoch."
Thanks to Mr. Murdoch's blockbuster status, not only speciality sites, but sites often used for citation like About.com have credited Murdoch for posterity, as in this article targeting educators which asks, in a poll and an associated essay, "Are You A Digital Native Or Digital Immigrant?"
Even Apple, who took Prensky's idea and ran with it, credits Ian Jukes and Anita Dosaj of The InfoSavvy Group, not Prensky!
At least someone has it right, if for the next few minutes, incompletely so.
BG
Setting it to 50 is not necessarily to assume and report all driving above 50 as speeding. If an interested party set it to 50: they'd not be assuming the driver can never legally exceed 50, but that whenever the driver is exceeding 50 they are concerned enough to want speed data correlated with location and limit. BG
"It is a pity that there has been so little adverse reaction to the decision, and that those of us who are opposed to the new definition have no voice in the issue."
This is only due to limited popular interest in and understanding of the debate, you both clearly have the matter more in hand with a longterm mindset. Whether in 100 or 1,000 runs around our star, there will come a time when enough human attention is focused on other worlds for our survival. At that time, it probably won't matter what amount or even what quality of debate occurred now-abouts in the IAU or in technical communities online. IAU or our concerns may simply be irrelevant in the mass of a survival-based and broader human decision. For one thing, we can suppose technical abilities far surpassing our own, which may have vastly altered what humanity can survive or the nature of human beings, or both and more.
Just as we in this thread would rather now, future humanity will classify and name these entities with deeper cultural consideration, a more anthropocentric perspective, and with greater awareness of other bodies of knowledge and their naming conventions. We're just not there yet, it just doesn't matter enough yet, and we're likely unable now to foresee the issues of that later day on which a more lasting definition will turn.
At any rate, I hope it CAN be the people in this thread, 100 or 1,000 years from now, participating in the debate at a level which matters. There's a more pressing issue to kick around :) BG
Profit is the easiest excuse behind which humankind can enjoy legal rewards from other vices. It is little wonder that capitalists would be innovative in their pursuit of profit, as deceit requires great creativity and innovation.
Much of profitting is theft, won with sellers' lies, buyers' fear or ignorance, or by sellers taking advantage of buyers' timely need.
Not all profit is theft. Perceived value is the devil in the details. Capitalists will argue there is never wrong in taking more than the cost of an item -- when consumers perceive the value of the item is higher than its cost to the capitalist. There can be genuine difficulty in determining true value and no one could dispute the imperfection of our world in that regard. This difficulty, however, is the veil behind which capitalism hides all the time, claiming its innocence for all profit based on the fact that some accidental profit cannot be avoided.
It is capitalism's blanket lie that the majority of profit is morally good. I'm not sure whether most people either accept, are not aware, or believe they cannot change that corporations actively work to deceive consumers so that consumers will pay more for products and services than they cost. NBC has a popular TV program in the USA on "the fleecing of America," and there are laws on the books against false advertising, but it's understood by anyone mature and just a bit perceptive that most advertising, sales and marketing, is at least a partial lie. No one would accuse advertisements or sales presentations of telling "the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
Other popular and yet morally terrible profit schemes are derived of sourcing when buyers most need something, so sellers can derive the most profit. There are many vices and devices with which for-profit corporations artificially increase demand and exacerbate social inequalities.
The only right way to go about business is to be non-profit. This is not to say all business should be socialized, or governmental or public, nor am I now suggesting any of the other variously Communist, Socialist or other programs associated, I'm just observing that profit is fundamentally incorrect and to pursue it is morally wrong. In a life of crime, deceit is often required, even when the crime and the deceit are legal, expected, enjoyed as entertainment. Again, deceit requires great creativity and innovation.
Vices feed on each other, for example by sharing methods in committing or hiding them, or by lowering conscience barriers to more vice through local social acceptance. When you understand profit as being in itself a vice, it is less a wonder that innovation would spark from profitting by other vices. BG
Unfortunately, outrage rarely impacts political decision making at this level without an impending election, and this president does not face another election. We teetered at 50/50 around both of the elections Bush survived, but by now less than one third of Americans support this president and this country's "direction." There is outrage, and plenty of it, but it doesn't much matter.
Our "leaders" are much more "practical" than that.
On practicality: Nixon ducked out because Congress was not his own, and they would have made history in hanging him (if not literally). Note that there had been several earlier attempts in the House of Representatives to impeach Nixon which stalled or failed in the Judiciary committee. Bush and company own Congress. What happens in Congress, or what could potentially happen, metes out mid-term justice with respect to the presidency.
If you want Bush to actually respond to the now-large-majority American public opinion, then you've got to win Congress for the Democrats; or, enjoy the rest of his run at America and the world. Period. BG
"A computer on every desk" is not only about business, Mart, nor is being "great" only about business. It's also about personal computing. Every desk, Mart. Computing for everyone.
Maybe you don't like the idea that billions of people computing is more important than 10 millions of people computing -- even when the billions are doing so much less computation and more of simple communication and information retrieval when they "compute."
You could take a lot of hard lines and Geek perspectives which will make the software you mention seem more seminal or more important, or more "great" than Windows. If you ask me, in denying the importance of Windows, mass markets, and the still dawning participation age, you'd be missing the definition of "great" in this "greatest software ever" question.
Great is a computer on every desk, not because I prefer consumerism to intellectualism but because for one reason, thanks to the former we can afford a lot more of the latter. Thanks to a computer on every desk the Web could take off -- without the right OS and UI and a business capable of selling them, we could easily have stalled with BBSes, gopher, email.
I suppose the potential was too incredible for no one else to succeed, had Windows not succeeded in bringing computing to the masses. You can argue for the rest of your life that Microsoft and Windows have not been essential, or that they should not have been essential to the success of your livelihood and mine, but: they were, and they are. Windows: perhaps the greatest software ever.