Cloning a human embryo doesn't invalidate millennia of ponderance on the existence of a soul, any more than any other technical breakthrough does. That's a little like claiming we can safely ignore gravity because we have airplanes.
I would suggest to even the most empirical thinker that the soul is a useful construct, allowing for abstract discussion of the difference between the sentient and the non-sentient, and to distinguish the status of living and non-living things.
I'm not sure which is cause for greater confusion, theologians pretending to be scientists or scientists pretending to be theologians.
Or perhaps it's me, neither one and trying to be both at once:-).
Something powerful is happening, it's in the early stages and I have a chance to help figure this out... [professional journalists as a professional group have learned some principles which I hope to carry over into a blog]
Thereby raising the collective IQ of... no, that doesn't fit and it's mean to this guy, who appears to be sharp.
"Journalism" on the Net seems to mean learning how to google and then exchanging email with someone to get a quote or two.
While sometimes those pieces are well done, they still suffer from narrow focus. I hope Mr. Gillmor doesn't forget how to use the old fashioned tools of journalism, such as the telephone and the taxi.
He'll have a tough time, though. Information dissemination on th Net follows the Open Source model: release early and release often, and let your mistakes be corrected by many eyeballs. That runs completely counter to the principles of old school journalism, which say to get it right first, so no one sees you make a mistake. After all, your credibility is at stake, so bury your retractions on page 6, with the obits.
Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their centers.
That proves it. All this quasi-science about the Earth being round (when anyone can see it's flat) is clearly debunked, when a major scientist finds the planet's corners and brings back from each corner samples of its core.
This gives me hope we'll dispense with that space travel hoax soon, too.
I had one, and I know what you mean. It was an eye-opener for me when I was forced to upgrade: by comparison the 2325 may as well be solar powered, it's so easy on juice.
The battery actually "recovers" after resting a while. It's part of the physical properies of the battery. The meter is measuring what's available at any given moment; it doesn't know what the battery will have after you stop using it a while.
Get a Kyocera. I have a 2325, but I don't know if they still sell them. The battery life is great, the sound is fine, and there are no moving parts to break.
I get about two hours of talk time on a full charge, which takes an hour or so. Idle time charge lasts about four days, sometimes more (if I stay near a tower). It doesn't suffer from heat problems.
Our republic is strong in part because the power is separated among not just the branches of government, but between the Federal Government, State Government, and the People.
The Electoral College gives power to the States, quadrennially checking the power of the President and thus the Federal Government. A strict popular vote would remove that check.
The Computer Stand is the best thing I've ever used. You pull it up next to an easy chair or even a bed. Probably it's best to set a timer, or you'll miss meals.
It's patented (possibly only pending, but I know there's at least a provisional patent in place)
Star Wars was HUGE in '78. This was a movie people made small talk about. It made a generation of people aware that technology was here to stay, and that it could be cool. It marked a turning point in our culture, but I can't quite say how.
Star Wars raised the standards for special effects in a movie, and people copied that. The copiers thought they were making something as appealing as Star Wars was, but Star Wars transported the viewers to that galaxy a long time ago and very far away, and made us want to stay.
Here are some other shows that didn't quite have the same level of achievement. Perhaps you remember:
1. Battlestar Galactica. Lorne Greene in space?
2. Flash Gordon (the full-length film, with soundtrack by Queen)
3. Flash Gordon in the 25th Century ((?) the series featuring Erin Gray in spandex and a cute little robot that went "weebeedeebee-weebeedeebee")
(... the group's feeling that no inappropriate compromise on the issue of choice should be accepted)...[snip]... I cannot comprehend how some can argue that hate crimes are no different from all other crimes. That is why we need tougher laws to prevent and punish them.
Because any crime is a hate crime, Mr. Gore.
It's just bad principle to say that a crime's motivation (separate from its intentionality) supercedes its damages.
If I write a bad check to buy groceries, and I know it's a bad check, is that less of a forgery than if I write one to buy beer? Medicine? Clothing?
If I kill someone for his Nike's, is he less dead than if I killed him for his goose down parka?
The law can't be made to distinguish these fine points, or it ceases to have meaning.
A code of ethics for system administrators should be generated by open discussion. A code that comes from above will not be adopted in practice unless it matches with the highest desires of its constituents. Finding which potential tenets of a code have the most appeal can best be done in an open forum such as, well, here.
"Ethics" and "Morals" are not the same; ethics are about what you do, and morals are about why. A code of ethics is only as powerful as the morality underlying it. It is not the case that we have a common morality on the Net.
For instance, one of the tenets Jon proposed was to keep a level playing field between Haves and Have Nots. He was really pushing a certain kind of morality that many might embrace, but many others would reject with equally grounded arguments. To me, equitable distribution is not central to the question at hand, and should be dealt with elsewhere.
Nonetheless, a code of ethics built around the culture of the Net can succeed and is needed.
Here are a few ideas. I think I have them arranged such that each tenet supercedes those after it. For brevity, I've left out a few "in general" and "except in cases of nuclear war" clauses. Sysadmins should:
- Obey the law, and not tolerate crime - Steal nothing - Comply with other sysadmins and authorities - Comply with system owners - Keep confidentiality - Not peek without probable cause
What Does He Mean by Allothat?
- Obey the law, and not tolerate crime
The first part of this should be obvious, but I list it anyway. A code of ethics extends law by being more rigorous than the law is. The second part, which will be controversial, I'm sure, is that sysadmins should report crimes that they uncover. I don't mean they should be snooping (see below); I mean that if they receive information that a crime is being committed on their system or another system, they should take whatever action is appropriate, depending on its seriousness. This is a thorny issue, but an anology to street crime might work: people generally don't report someone for double parking, but they will report a hit and run accident. They might tell a double-parked driver to move his vehicle - well, you get the idea.
- Steal nothing
Sysadmins must insist that Copyrights and software licenses are followed and respected. If you don't like the license, don't run the software. Horking any softwarez you want and installing them willy-nilly is a message to users that anything goes.
- Comply with other sysadmins
A sysadmin, when notified of a valid security issue at another site, should actively support the remote sysadmins when his or her support would be helpful. This has been standard practice on the Net since the early days.
- Comply with system owners
A sysadmin should let the owner of a computer system decide its proper use. He doesn't have the right, for instance, to sabotage the system merely because he doesn't like the use it's given by its owners. If he really has a problem with it, but there's nothing illegal going on, he can go elsewhere.
- Not peek
Sysadmins should worry about getting their work done, not with snooping into user's data.
- Confidentiality
Tell no one anything, generally. Sysadmins usually have access to information that is thought secret. Users will be less likely to use seemingly secure storage media such as floppy disks for their important and confidential data if they have confidence in system security and the trustworthiness of the sysadmin.
Slashdot Mirror
- C. S. Lewis
Cloning a human embryo doesn't invalidate millennia of ponderance on the existence of a soul, any more than any other technical breakthrough does. That's a little like claiming we can safely ignore gravity because we have airplanes.
I would suggest to even the most empirical thinker that the soul is a useful construct, allowing for abstract discussion of the difference between the sentient and the non-sentient, and to distinguish the status of living and non-living things.
I'm not sure which is cause for greater confusion, theologians pretending to be scientists or scientists pretending to be theologians.
Or perhaps it's me, neither one and trying to be both at once :-).
Thereby raising the collective IQ of ... no, that doesn't fit and it's mean to this guy, who appears to be sharp.
"Journalism" on the Net seems to mean learning how to google and then exchanging email with someone to get a quote or two.
While sometimes those pieces are well done, they still suffer from narrow focus. I hope Mr. Gillmor doesn't forget how to use the old fashioned tools of journalism, such as the telephone and the taxi.
He'll have a tough time, though. Information dissemination on th Net follows the Open Source model: release early and release often, and let your mistakes be corrected by many eyeballs. That runs completely counter to the principles of old school journalism, which say to get it right first, so no one sees you make a mistake. After all, your credibility is at stake, so bury your retractions on page 6, with the obits.
It'll be interesting what he comes up with.
That proves it. All this quasi-science about the Earth being round (when anyone can see it's flat) is clearly debunked, when a major scientist finds the planet's corners and brings back from each corner samples of its core.
This gives me hope we'll dispense with that space travel hoax soon, too.
>meter
I had one, and I know what you mean. It was an eye-opener for me when I was forced to upgrade: by comparison the 2325 may as well be solar powered, it's so easy on juice.
The battery actually "recovers" after resting a while. It's part of the physical properies of the battery. The meter is measuring what's available at any given moment; it doesn't know what the battery will have after you stop using it a while.
Get a Kyocera. I have a 2325, but I don't know if they still sell them. The battery life is great, the sound is fine, and there are no moving parts to break.
I get about two hours of talk time on a full charge, which takes an hour or so. Idle time charge lasts about four days, sometimes more (if I stay near a tower). It doesn't suffer from heat problems.
And it has Tetris.
... we can listen to people on airplanes singing along to their cell phones.
"...whiskey for my men, beer for my [urph] hosses!"
Dino: Good morning, colonel.
... you've got a nice army base here, colonel.
Colonel: Good morning gentlemen. Now what can I do for you.
Luigi: You've
Colonel: Yes.
Luigi: We wouldn't want anything to happen to it.
(see http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode08.htm)
The Electoral College gives power to the States, quadrennially checking the power of the President and thus the Federal Government. A strict popular vote would remove that check.
The Computer Stand is the best thing I've ever used. You pull it up next to an easy chair or even a bed. Probably it's best to set a timer, or you'll miss meals.
It's patented (possibly only pending, but I know there's at least a provisional patent in place)
http://www.xel.net/computerstand.htm
Star Wars was HUGE in '78. This was a movie people made small talk about. It made a generation of people aware that technology was here to stay, and that it could be cool. It marked a turning point in our culture, but I can't quite say how.
Star Wars raised the standards for special effects in a movie, and people copied that. The copiers thought they were making something as appealing as Star Wars was, but Star Wars transported the viewers to that galaxy a long time ago and very far away, and made us want to stay.
Here are some other shows that didn't quite have the same level of achievement. Perhaps you remember:
1. Battlestar Galactica. Lorne Greene in space?
2. Flash Gordon (the full-length film, with soundtrack by Queen)
3. Flash Gordon in the 25th Century ((?) the series featuring Erin Gray in spandex and a cute little robot that went "weebeedeebee-weebeedeebee")
(... the group's feeling that no inappropriate compromise on the issue of choice should be accepted) ...[snip]... I cannot comprehend how some can argue that hate crimes are no different from all other crimes. That is why we need tougher laws to prevent and punish them.
Because any crime is a hate crime, Mr. Gore.
It's just bad principle to say that a crime's motivation (separate from its intentionality)
supercedes its damages.
If I write a bad check to buy groceries, and I know it's a bad check, is that less of a forgery than if I write one to buy beer? Medicine? Clothing?
If I kill someone for his Nike's, is he less dead than if I killed him for his goose down parka?
The law can't be made to distinguish these fine points, or it ceases to have meaning.
A code of ethics for system administrators should be generated by open discussion. A code that comes from above will not be adopted in practice unless it matches with the highest desires of its constituents. Finding which potential tenets of a code have the most appeal can best be done in an open forum such as, well, here.
"Ethics" and "Morals" are not the same; ethics are about what you do, and morals are about why. A code of ethics is only as powerful as the morality underlying it. It is not the case that we have a common morality on the Net.
For instance, one of the tenets Jon proposed was to keep a level playing field between Haves and Have Nots. He was really pushing a certain kind of morality that many might embrace, but many others would reject with equally grounded arguments. To me, equitable distribution is not central to the question at hand, and should be dealt with elsewhere.
Nonetheless, a code of ethics built around the culture of the Net can succeed and is needed.
Here are a few ideas. I think I have them arranged such that each tenet supercedes those after it. For brevity, I've left out a few "in general" and "except in cases of nuclear war" clauses. Sysadmins should:
- Obey the law, and not tolerate crime
- Steal nothing
- Comply with other sysadmins and authorities
- Comply with system owners
- Keep confidentiality
- Not peek without probable cause
What Does He Mean by Allothat?
- Obey the law, and not tolerate crime
The first part of this should be obvious, but I list it anyway. A code of ethics extends law by being more rigorous than the law is. The second part, which will be controversial, I'm sure, is that sysadmins should report crimes that they uncover. I don't mean they should be snooping (see below); I mean that if they receive information that a crime is being committed on their system or another system, they should take whatever action is appropriate, depending on its seriousness. This is a thorny issue, but an anology to street crime might work: people generally don't report someone for double parking, but they will report a hit and run accident. They might tell a double-parked driver to move his vehicle - well, you get the idea.
- Steal nothing
Sysadmins must insist that Copyrights and software licenses are followed and respected. If you don't like the license, don't run the software. Horking any softwarez you want and installing them willy-nilly is a message to users that anything goes.
- Comply with other sysadmins
A sysadmin, when notified of a valid security issue at another site, should actively support the remote sysadmins when his or her support would be helpful. This has been standard practice on the Net since the early days.
- Comply with system owners
A sysadmin should let the owner of a computer system decide its proper use. He doesn't have the right, for instance, to sabotage the system merely because he doesn't like the use it's given by its owners. If he really has a problem with it, but there's nothing illegal going on, he can go elsewhere.
- Not peek
Sysadmins should worry about getting their work done, not with snooping into user's data.
- Confidentiality
Tell no one anything, generally. Sysadmins usually have access to information that is thought secret. Users will be less likely to use seemingly secure storage media such as floppy disks for their important and confidential data if they have confidence in system security and the trustworthiness of the sysadmin.