While often spoken that way, I think the argument could also be stated the other way round.
We want to fundamentally change human society, but most people are lazy, don't want t learn now ways of doing something, content with the status quo and are willing to do what most other people do (think why people stick with Windows over Linux).
However, we now have this massive and overriding problem, global warming, the effects are big enough that if left unchecked will force a change on everyone (for the worse). It also might just be big enough to get people to step back and think about the real impacts of what we do how we have setup this thing called civilization.
To fundamentally change human society won't solve all our problems, but will solve some of the deeply ingraned issues, inequalities and balance of powers that are prerequisites for the existing system to function.
If we solve global warming using a technological fix, then everyone will go back to the way they where living before and all these other issues will get put on the sidelines.
PS. I'm not trying argue the merits of either side, but just trying to reframe the question.
While that may be true, the economic reality has also changed.
There are far less "job-for-life" type jobs in the manufacturing sector. Most manufacturing has shifted overseas (this money does not circulate back as wages), and jobs have become more service orientated coupled with more part time and "flexable" employment.
Prices that seek to be the absolute cheapest must cut corners and shift the hidden costs and risks to either the suppliers, employees or consumers. Outsourcing and just-in-time stockkeeping is a big part of this (we will make a fixed profit on the item, but you carry the risks if production screws up or demand is low and we can't sell all the stock).
Unionization and the cost/benifit analysis given to wages is pushed to the side with outsourcing. If we don't cut wages, then we won't get the next contract and everyone will be out of the job.
Look at a company like Nike, they design, advertise and and add a huge markup on the shoes they sell, but they don't really make them anymore - they buy their shoes from the same factories that make their competitiors shoes.
In the IT sector, at least in London, the market rates are high, especally for contracting work. But the price of housing are stupid... Rent is £1000 ($2000 USD) per month for a 1 bedroom flat in Central London is considered a good deal (and there is almost nothing under £800 even if you don't live in the very center).
Of course, there is one way to avoid the high cost of housing in London... don't live in a house (Did I happen to mention that I live on a boat... in Central London).:wq
The problem is that part of the unspoken argument is about centralized vs decentralized power generation as well as a larger cultural change away from consumerism, globalization and wasteful power usage.
Fusion (plus hydrogen fuel cells for cars, planes, trains and ships) would solve the greenhouse gas problem but would do so as a "drop in" technological fix, it would also require funding for large centralized projects, but would essencally allow us western people to carry on living exactly the same as we are living now.
The alternitive, using existing renewable technology and contraction and convergance carbon rationing, would also solve the problem, but require large scale socal and economic changes as well. The end of cheap flights and long distance mass-transport, more localized communities and production, more decentralized power generation, organic food and less exploitation of third world resources by first world contries.
Strangly enough, the people who consider climate change a very urgent problem, tend to advocate more the the cultural solution (which by its nature would take a much longer time to implement, possibly a generation or two), whereas those who see climate change as still being a little way off tend to advocate a more technological fix, which would potentually take a shorter time to implement (as its generally easier to organize billions of dollars than billions of people).
For a geek, who understands what everything is, you take a whitelist aproach to boxes in your house. If you don't know what something is, your first instinct is to read up on it.
As a non-geek, all these electronic devices are just black boxes (even if they are painted white), it has something to do with the computer or that interweb thingy... so if it ain't broke and ain't causing any other problems then just leave it well alone.
While sometimes a fork will lead to two seperate and incompatable codebases, it does not preclude the fact that good ideas will be shared and even sections of the code will be shared (or reimplemented).
As for the Linux kernel, it does get forked but these forks are not usually over project management, but over new and possibly unstable features. The use of GIT/Bitkeeper also helps to keep a large number of trunks in play. Think of the Love patchset that was focused on desktop performance over stability (I think most of it has been merged now, but it could have been considered almost a "fork").
While universal health care may have some inefficencies, the "everyone orders stake" argument doesn't always apply ("I think I'll just break my leg today, because I can't afford to have a heart attack").
You also have to factor in the cost of not providing medical care to people, ie the cost to the economy and society in general of having sick people around who can't afford to be treated (think time off work/unemployment, time/effort of friends to treat the symptoms).
In the UK there is a safety net, if you fall sick, lose your job and run out of money, the state will (eventually) cover the basics (food and a roof over your head). You can still rebuild your life afterwards. When I visited the US, I was suprised to meet people who having fallen sick where now broke and straddled with $20,000 of unpayable medical bills.
Anti-personnel mines are fairly harmless against a tank and anti-tank mines can be disarmed by a person. So often they are used together, an anti-tank mine surounded by anti-personnel mines.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophist "The essential claim of sophistry is that the actual logical validity of an argument is irrelevant (if not non-existent); it is only the ruling of the audience which ultimately determines whether a conclusion is considered "true" or not. By appealing to the prejudices and emotions of the judges, one can garner favorable treatment for one's side of the argument and cause a factually false position to be ruled true."
Another aspect to the current length of copyright, is that it seems to cover almost all works from near the advent of mass media. While Mickey Mouse is iconic, there is not a substantual amount of popular film Mickey (as long as Mickey stays under copyright, then so does everything else).
In Europe, the copyright on music only lasts 50 years (as a performance - composition lasts 70) . It was only in the 1950's that radio started to create the big superstars, the first big one being Elvis. Its only now that the music companies are trying to lobby the EU to extend this length.
I suspect its just the royalties from these old works they are worried about, but the very idea that popular non-written works could enter the public domain, and for the public domain to significantly enter the public consciousness.
Thats not really a fair comparison, doubly so if you compare against a modern distro like ubuntu.
For the linux version, you assume that the graphics drivers and X are not setup. IIRC ubuntu installs these by default, but otherwise are just an apt-get away. If apt-get is too complex, then just fire up synaptic with all its GUI clickity goodness (and IIRC there is now another GUI package manager than just lists the major package-sets by user-friendly names without breaking it down to all the detailed deb package names).
Compare this to a Windows XP machine, while it will come with a bunch of several year old drivers, chances are you will need to spend the next couple of hours looking around the net searching for drivers, and then installing each individual program from a CD or downloading them one by one.
Maybe your comparison would be more fair if you said that the Windows XP machine was fully setup and configured by the vendor, and the user knew several friends would would help her do simple tasks like install a new program, and that this user was not willing to spend a little bit of time trying to figure out how to solve problems herself and would be more likely to say "OMG this doesn't work... help!!!" as soon as the first popup box that mentioned the word "error" in it appeared.
I admit that learning how to properly sysadmin a linux box does have a steeper learning curve than a windows machine (spreading the learning curve for windows over a decade, while working on fully setup machines does make it seem less steep anyway), I'd far prefer to sysadmin a linux box than a windows box.
The biggest points against linux at the moment are mostly non-technical ones. Most people are familiar with windows, already have things setup (or been setup) the way they like things (or at least know which buttons to click), know a couple of "techies" who they can ask questions to when things go wrong, and don't usually want to put any time/effort into learning new things.
For linux, which doesn't usually come pre-installed with a tech-support helpline, first requires a crash course in sysadmin'ing a machine (how to I partition my hard disk, backup all my old data, setup a bootloader and find compatable/cross-platform applications so I can keep accessing all my data). The very same problems would plague windows if linux has 90% market share and people wanted to try out windows. Also note that most Vista installs will be on new machines, and upgrades will overwite the old OS (thus skipping the whole backup/partition/bootloader issue).
For linux to become mainstream, it needs to be significantly better than windows (or for MS to piss people off enough to overcome their ineria). The next big step will be getting linux installed by the big name vendors (as an option) and offering basic tech-support for it. This is just starting to happen (a few isolated models here and there), but is taking its time.
Thats easy: a vasectomy means never having to worry about children.
A frontal lobotomy on the other hand would be like having to program in VB all day.
Rather than thinking about a perminant job, consider getting into the contracting market (especally in London).
Build up a small portfolio of websites and/or open source projects and be confident enough in your skills that you can sell yourself and not require too much handholding.
You will need to learn a skill have some experence in it before you can get a job in it (thats where personal projects are very handy) and in most cases being available immediatly is the clincher when picking someone.
You won't have sick pay, holiday pay and may even find yourself looking for new work on a days notice, but if you are good at what you do, then finding new work will be easy.
I think I could categorise most things using less than 15 (admittedly very broad) tags. Animal, person, plant, machine, sports, vehicle, furniture, book, etc.
So which of these categories does a mushroom fit into?
Actually its been done (the 386 part anyway), you get about 200 frames per hour unless you happen to place the system in a bathtub full of liquid nirogen and overclock the system to a couple of Ghz.
One of the reasons the pen and paper anonymous ballet system has lasted so long is that its a tried and tested system. People trust it, its very simple, and is fairly difficult to subvert/corrupt.
Look at NASA, when they send up a space probe, the computer on board are not the latest and greatest, but more likely 486's. This is because you are are a tried and tested system and any bugs or issues are very likely to be already known.
In a voting, just as in space flight, reliability is more important than efficency. Simple systems tend to be more reliable (less points of failure). Electronic voting is an attempt to improve the efficency of the voting process (quicker and less costly), but its no good optimizing a function if it ends up being more buggy.
Slashdot Mirror
While often spoken that way, I think the argument could also be stated the other way round.
We want to fundamentally change human society, but most people are lazy, don't want t learn now ways of doing something, content with the status quo and are willing to do what most other people do (think why people stick with Windows over Linux).
However, we now have this massive and overriding problem, global warming, the effects are big enough that if left unchecked will force a change on everyone (for the worse). It also might just be big enough to get people to step back and think about the real impacts of what we do how we have setup this thing called civilization.
To fundamentally change human society won't solve all our problems, but will solve some of the deeply ingraned issues, inequalities and balance of powers that are prerequisites for the existing system to function.
If we solve global warming using a technological fix, then everyone will go back to the way they where living before and all these other issues will get put on the sidelines.
PS. I'm not trying argue the merits of either side, but just trying to reframe the question.
While that may be true, the economic reality has also changed.
:wq
There are far less "job-for-life" type jobs in the manufacturing sector. Most manufacturing has shifted overseas (this money does not circulate back as wages), and jobs have become more service orientated coupled with more part time and "flexable" employment.
Prices that seek to be the absolute cheapest must cut corners and shift the hidden costs and risks to either the suppliers, employees or consumers. Outsourcing and just-in-time stockkeeping is a big part of this (we will make a fixed profit on the item, but you carry the risks if production screws up or demand is low and we can't sell all the stock).
Unionization and the cost/benifit analysis given to wages is pushed to the side with outsourcing. If we don't cut wages, then we won't get the next contract and everyone will be out of the job.
Look at a company like Nike, they design, advertise and and add a huge markup on the shoes they sell, but they don't really make them anymore - they buy their shoes from the same factories that make their competitiors shoes.
In the IT sector, at least in London, the market rates are high, especally for contracting work. But the price of housing are stupid... Rent is £1000 ($2000 USD) per month for a 1 bedroom flat in Central London is considered a good deal (and there is almost nothing under £800 even if you don't live in the very center).
Of course, there is one way to avoid the high cost of housing in London... don't live in a house (Did I happen to mention that I live on a boat... in Central London).
The problem is that part of the unspoken argument is about centralized vs decentralized power generation as well as a larger cultural change away from consumerism, globalization and wasteful power usage.
Fusion (plus hydrogen fuel cells for cars, planes, trains and ships) would solve the greenhouse gas problem but would do so as a "drop in" technological fix, it would also require funding for large centralized projects, but would essencally allow us western people to carry on living exactly the same as we are living now.
The alternitive, using existing renewable technology and contraction and convergance carbon rationing, would also solve the problem, but require large scale socal and economic changes as well. The end of cheap flights and long distance mass-transport, more localized communities and production, more decentralized power generation, organic food and less exploitation of third world resources by first world contries.
Strangly enough, the people who consider climate change a very urgent problem, tend to advocate more the the cultural solution (which by its nature would take a much longer time to implement, possibly a generation or two), whereas those who see climate change as still being a little way off tend to advocate a more technological fix, which would potentually take a shorter time to implement (as its generally easier to organize billions of dollars than billions of people).
As long as the internet contains 100x more than could ever fit into the human consciousness, 1% should be more than enough for anybody.
For a geek, who understands what everything is, you take a whitelist aproach to boxes in your house. If you don't know what something is, your first instinct is to read up on it.
As a non-geek, all these electronic devices are just black boxes (even if they are painted white), it has something to do with the computer or that interweb thingy... so if it ain't broke and ain't causing any other problems then just leave it well alone.
While sometimes a fork will lead to two seperate and incompatable codebases, it does not preclude the fact that good ideas will be shared and even sections of the code will be shared (or reimplemented).
As for the Linux kernel, it does get forked but these forks are not usually over project management, but over new and possibly unstable features. The use of GIT/Bitkeeper also helps to keep a large number of trunks in play. Think of the Love patchset that was focused on desktop performance over stability (I think most of it has been merged now, but it could have been considered almost a "fork").
While universal health care may have some inefficencies, the "everyone orders stake" argument doesn't always apply ("I think I'll just break my leg today, because I can't afford to have a heart attack").
You also have to factor in the cost of not providing medical care to people, ie the cost to the economy and society in general of having sick people around who can't afford to be treated (think time off work/unemployment, time/effort of friends to treat the symptoms).
In the UK there is a safety net, if you fall sick, lose your job and run out of money, the state will (eventually) cover the basics (food and a roof over your head). You can still rebuild your life afterwards. When I visited the US, I was suprised to meet people who having fallen sick where now broke and straddled with $20,000 of unpayable medical bills.
Anti-personnel mines are fairly harmless against a tank and anti-tank mines can be disarmed by a person. So often they are used together, an anti-tank mine surounded by anti-personnel mines.
Sounds alot like Sophism to me
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophist
"The essential claim of sophistry is that the actual logical validity of an argument is irrelevant (if not non-existent); it is only the ruling of the audience which ultimately determines whether a conclusion is considered "true" or not. By appealing to the prejudices and emotions of the judges, one can garner favorable treatment for one's side of the argument and cause a factually false position to be ruled true."
A merging of the codebases would create:
gunix = GNU Unix = GNU's I can't believe its not unix.
Another aspect to the current length of copyright, is that it seems to cover almost all works from near the advent of mass media. While Mickey Mouse is iconic, there is not a substantual amount of popular film Mickey (as long as Mickey stays under copyright, then so does everything else).
In Europe, the copyright on music only lasts 50 years (as a performance - composition lasts 70) . It was only in the 1950's that radio started to create the big superstars, the first big one being Elvis. Its only now that the music companies are trying to lobby the EU to extend this length.
I suspect its just the royalties from these old works they are worried about, but the very idea that popular non-written works could enter the public domain, and for the public domain to significantly enter the public consciousness.
Thats not really a fair comparison, doubly so if you compare against a modern distro like ubuntu. For the linux version, you assume that the graphics drivers and X are not setup. IIRC ubuntu installs these by default, but otherwise are just an apt-get away. If apt-get is too complex, then just fire up synaptic with all its GUI clickity goodness (and IIRC there is now another GUI package manager than just lists the major package-sets by user-friendly names without breaking it down to all the detailed deb package names). Compare this to a Windows XP machine, while it will come with a bunch of several year old drivers, chances are you will need to spend the next couple of hours looking around the net searching for drivers, and then installing each individual program from a CD or downloading them one by one. Maybe your comparison would be more fair if you said that the Windows XP machine was fully setup and configured by the vendor, and the user knew several friends would would help her do simple tasks like install a new program, and that this user was not willing to spend a little bit of time trying to figure out how to solve problems herself and would be more likely to say "OMG this doesn't work... help!!!" as soon as the first popup box that mentioned the word "error" in it appeared. I admit that learning how to properly sysadmin a linux box does have a steeper learning curve than a windows machine (spreading the learning curve for windows over a decade, while working on fully setup machines does make it seem less steep anyway), I'd far prefer to sysadmin a linux box than a windows box. The biggest points against linux at the moment are mostly non-technical ones. Most people are familiar with windows, already have things setup (or been setup) the way they like things (or at least know which buttons to click), know a couple of "techies" who they can ask questions to when things go wrong, and don't usually want to put any time/effort into learning new things. For linux, which doesn't usually come pre-installed with a tech-support helpline, first requires a crash course in sysadmin'ing a machine (how to I partition my hard disk, backup all my old data, setup a bootloader and find compatable/cross-platform applications so I can keep accessing all my data). The very same problems would plague windows if linux has 90% market share and people wanted to try out windows. Also note that most Vista installs will be on new machines, and upgrades will overwite the old OS (thus skipping the whole backup/partition/bootloader issue). For linux to become mainstream, it needs to be significantly better than windows (or for MS to piss people off enough to overcome their ineria). The next big step will be getting linux installed by the big name vendors (as an option) and offering basic tech-support for it. This is just starting to happen (a few isolated models here and there), but is taking its time.
Ceiling penguin is watching you fsck...
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced as parody but I know it when I see it
Thats easy: a vasectomy means never having to worry about children. A frontal lobotomy on the other hand would be like having to program in VB all day.
Rather than thinking about a perminant job, consider getting into the contracting market (especally in London).
Build up a small portfolio of websites and/or open source projects and be confident enough in your skills that you can sell yourself and not require too much handholding.
You will need to learn a skill have some experence in it before you can get a job in it (thats where personal projects are very handy) and in most cases being available immediatly is the clincher when picking someone.
You won't have sick pay, holiday pay and may even find yourself looking for new work on a days notice, but if you are good at what you do, then finding new work will be easy.
To get started, have a look at http://www.cukjobs.co.uk/csw/
PS. Contracting can pay 1.5x to 2x what you get from a perminant job.
How do I contribute to this project. I've just built a $100 note and would like SVN privlidges to check it in.
How exactly is "lets fuck without condom" a condom failure?
But such a spy could also subtily tweak the data in the wiki to perpetuate false information.
I signed up for one, you insensitive sod.
Cash is the poor man's off-shore bank account.
Back in my day, we didn't have these fancy jpegs and xvid, we had to make do with ASCII porn, you insensitive sod.
Actually its been done (the 386 part anyway), you get about 200 frames per hour unless you happen to place the system in a bathtub full of liquid nirogen and overclock the system to a couple of Ghz.
One of the reasons the pen and paper anonymous ballet system has lasted so long is that its a tried and tested system. People trust it, its very simple, and is fairly difficult to subvert/corrupt.
Look at NASA, when they send up a space probe, the computer on board are not the latest and greatest, but more likely 486's. This is because you are are a tried and tested system and any bugs or issues are very likely to be already known.
In a voting, just as in space flight, reliability is more important than efficency. Simple systems tend to be more reliable (less points of failure). Electronic voting is an attempt to improve the efficency of the voting process (quicker and less costly), but its no good optimizing a function if it ends up being more buggy.