I agree that this is arguable, and both scenarios are possible. I would say that the simpler explanation is that a human being called "Jesus" did exist, simply because that is how religions seem to start (when we do have enough evidence to know); someone founds them (and is later said to be divine, and so forth). But, in the specific case of Jesus, we will probably never know the truth, barring some remarkable archaeological find.
It is simpler to assume a human being (not a divine entity) existed called "Jesus", rather than that someone else convinced other people that such a person existed. Both are possible, but Occam's razor favors the first. Anyhow, these are both minor variations on a skeptical reading of history, the difference is negligible.
If you had quoted me in full, and not the short piece you give (which makes me out to be some sort of nonskeptic), you would see that I said
It is perfectly reasonable to assume, given the existence of early Buddhists, that there was a Buddha. Was he in fact in possession of all of the traits they attributed to him? Probably not, from a skeptical outlook - most likely, he was just a very smart, insightful and charismatic individual.
Thus, all of your examples - Odin, Ra, etc. - are irrelevant. Odin, Ra - these are supernatural. A personal called "Buddha", who is "just a very smart, insightful and charismatic individual" - nothing supernatural about that. It is in fact the simplest hypothesis, given the data, that such a human being existed, and later on people attributed all sorts of fanciful things about him.
As you say, Xenu is a non-simple answer, and so is a son of god who rises from the dead. But a charismatic and insightful human being called "Jesus" is a very simple answer.
One more step down the ladder - the argument that "because there were Christians, there must have been a Chirst." I point you to Scientology. Must there have been a Xenu? I point you to Mormonism. Must there have been golden tablets, an angel named Moroni?
Whoa, whoa. You were doing ok until here, where you slip up. It is perfectly reasonable to assume, given the existence of early Buddhists, that there was a Buddha. Was he in fact in possession of all of the traits they attributed to him? Probably not, from a skeptical outlook - most likely, he was just a very smart, insightful and charismatic individual. Likewise Jesus. The scant evidence does not prove he exists, but the simplest explanation is that such a person - not necessarily a divine one - did, in fact, exist. Don't mix up the existence of the supernatural Christ with a human Jesus. Don't compare the existence of the human Jesus to the existence of Xenu, these are completely different issues.
Scientology - there was a Ron L. Hubbard. Mormonism - there was a Joseph Smith. Religious movements nearly always start with a powerful leader figure. As skeptics, we would view those people as ('merely') exceptional human beings, not divine or supernatural as the adherents of those faiths would. But let's not deny the likely existence of the individual itself.
For those too lazy to read the entire current draft, here is the "Microsoft-Novell" paragraph:
You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work from you, a patent license (a) in connection with copies of the covered work conveyed by you, and/or copies made from those, or (b) primarily for and in connection with specific products or compilations that contain the covered work, which license does not cover, prohibits the exercise of, or is conditioned on the non-exercise of any of the rights that are specifically granted to recipients of the covered work under this License[, unless you entered into that arrangement, or that patent license was granted, prior to March 28, 2007].
The bold part - my emphasis - is the 'retroactive, or not?' clause. As mentioned, 'retroactive' may mislead some people. Hopefully the explicit text will be of help. Basically, the GPL3 will prevent deals like the Microsoft-Novell one; the question is whether to grant Novell a specific exemption, by ignoring previous such deals. Novell would want that clause, I am guessing most of the Free Software community would not. My bet - the exemption won't be included.
Also worth reading is the "Tivoization" section (end of section 6), sometimes misleadingly referred to as the "DRM" section. The current language changed a lot since I last read a GPL3 draft, current terms include "User Product" and "Installation Information" - and it makes a lot more sense now, I think. Nice improvement.
First,.NET isn't a language. It's a platform. [...] So I can write in VB.NET, and use a class that was written in C#. I can package it up, and the application just works.
True in general, but the issue of "one Runtime to rule them all" is debatable. There is sadly no such thing as a 'language-independent' runtime, it always depends on the specifics of the language (e.g. how memory is managed, etc.). This can lead to suboptimal performance. Now, I admit that, for example, IronPython (Python on.Net, say Mono) has similar performance to the standard CPython, which is interesting. But this may be only a matter of time - more advanced dynamic language runtimes are in the works, as is PyPy, which may improve things quite a lot.
The interoperability benefits may outweigh the performance hits, I grant you that, but in general the answer isn't cut-and-dry, it's an interesting question. Perhaps we should have both - native, optimized runtimes for each language (or type of language), as well as standard 'compatibility layers' that can connect them.
Fair enough, but it isn't all one way. Concerning #5 ("It uses up your machine's useful lifespan much more quickly at no significant gain to you."), shutting down and booting up may shorten lifespan faster than keeping it on - there is much more stress during those two operations than constant idle for several hours. Also, keeping your parts at a constant temperature may be better in some cases than cooling them down (when off) and re-heating them.
But I admit that there are plenty of arguments the other way as well.
Every day that goes by, I keep thinking that this Microsoft/Novell deal is nothing more than a prelude to Microsoft outright buying Novell who will then offer some cheap-ass Linux desktop solution.
With Novell owning the original Unix IP, Microsoft may then eventually have the upper hand. That's a SCARY thing...
1. If Novell's Unix IP had much leverage against Linux, then Microsoft buying Novell would be almost certainly very problematic, antitrust-wise.
2. But, the Unix IP in fact doesn't bear much upon Linux, as the SCO case has shown. Even Unix code donated under the GPL to Linux (if any such actually exists) would not be a problem.
3. However, that said, I have a suspicion you may be right. Novell is actually the perfect "Linux branch" of Microsoft. They produce Mono which complements.Net perfectly. They develop code for OpenOffice.org that improves MS Office compatibility. They used to - before many of them left following the Microsoft-Novell deal - develop Samba, which allows interoperability with MS Exchange. In that sense, if Microsoft was going to enter the Linux market, buying Novell would be the perfect move.
All well and good [...] for explaining why the brain seeks out morality, but says nothing of why any given action is moral or not.
As even the summary states, one suggestion is that the brain is wired for a 'moral grammar', that is, not for particular moral values, but for dealing with moral issues. In that case there is no attempt to say anything about why an action is moral or not.
Anyhow, there is an assumption in your question, that actions are, in fact, moral or not. This is debatable. Philosophers have argued both sides.
Minor aside about TFA: it says "There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion." Well, actually this is debatable. Researches have seen some monkey or ape - I can't remember which type, exactly (a variety of baboon, perhaps?) - displaying what *might* be interpreted as 'sun worship'. That is, when the sun came up, they 'greeted' it with a quite unique celebration (jumping around and making noise, mostly, but in a distinct manner). Obviously this is an interpretive leap, but to me at least it seems about as reasonable as saying there are precursors of morality in primates. That is, I think both are just fine, so long as we understand 'precursors' can be something quite different from the human version.
Unless, of course, the parasite adapts to the new super-mosquitos and create a new, super malaria that is more infectious with a higher mortality rate.
By malaria adapting to the 'super-mosquitos', it would be creating a different version of itself. Not a 'super-malaria', except from the point of view of the super-mosquitos. By being a different form of malaria specially-adapted to the new super-mosquitoes, we can expect it to be less virulent against humans. At start, anyhow. Given time, it may adapt to humans as well.
But there is no reason I can see that would imply it is likely to be any worse than the current malaria, as regards humans. It would probably start out weaker against humans, but in essence we are 'rolling the dice', so any final outcome is possible. Given that malaria is already so devastating, and that the most likely result is a less virulent malaria for humans, I would say that this appears to be a reasonable calculated risk.
Because food is cheaper to import than produce locally so all the farms would go out of business. And you don't want to depend on other, potentially unstable, countries for food.
Exactly, well said. And the same is of course true for energy. The point is that cost is not the only factor, even though these things are commodities. There is also the question about whether their sources are reliable, can be expected to continue selling at current prices, and so forth.
In other words, it may make sense to spend X% more on your food and energy if that allows you to not be cripplingly dependent upon foreign entities. How high X can be while making sense to you depends on your political outlook, i.e. - this isn't just an economical question. The complex combination of economics and politics explain a lot of the wide variety of opinions about what X should be - 0 (no subsidies), 10 (mild subsidies), 100 (subsize at will), etc.
Regarding the last patent on your amusing list, it says there
Patent number: 6735593
Filing date: Nov 9, 1999
Issue date: May 11, 2004
Inventor: Simon Guy Williams
Assignee: Simon Guy Williams
Primary Examiner: John Breene Secondary Examiner: Mohammad Ali
Attorneys: Kevin A. Oliver, Foley Hoag LLP
Well, if your read the patent, it's for triply-linked lists
True. So it is just slightly less ridiculous than the headline makes it out to be. For crying out loud, I implemented various sorting methods on my linked lists by adding multiple pointers to them two decades ago as a teenager, and I don't believe for a second that I was doing anything remarkable at all. Once you have heard of linked lists then doubly-linked lists, triply-linked lists or whatever-linked lists are pretty much obvious.
Anyhow, what is really missing in all of this discussion is a response from the patent submitter or the persons in charge of accepting the patent; we never get this on Slashdot nor the stories referred to. Since the patent appears to be so unbelievable, I am very curious as to what their official response would be. Perhaps some IT journalist can get one?
Fact is, Microsoft's business plan has never been "build a better OS/office suite/mousetrap". It's been "build one that's good enough and market it as being better".
More recently, they added the "do everything to maintain the Windows monopoly" strategy. This is in fact why Microsoft cannot "Ship [...] a better cross-platform web development ecosystem than Adobe", as Scoble would suggest they do. Cross-platform? Never.
Cross-platform tools are always created by Microsoft's competitors, not Microsoft. Java is cross-platform,.Net isn't (despite even Mono). Firefox is cross-platform, IE isn't. And so on and so forth.
Scoble suggesting Microsoft do something 'cross-platform' is a sign of ignorance, I would say.
Well, Python has Tkinter (an interface to the TK GUI toolkit) as standard. But this isn't necessarily the best solution. I agree with you that Java may in fact be more ahead in that respect.
In my opinion, the bytecode languages are doing more to solve the underlying problem than you indicate. I'll try to explain why I believe so. There are two major reasons.
1. Python is pretty ubiquitous on Linux. Even if it isn't installed by default, it is a short install away, on every distro I've even used at least. Certainly on Debian (and derivatives), Red Hat and SuSE - which is quite a big enough platform to target. For Windows, Python is a short download and install away as well. I think we can safely assume that Python and (once completely FOSS) Java are safe platforms to develop for in that respect (less sure about.Net/Mono).
2. Python (for example) is quite a rich environment. Develop for Python 2.5, and you have Sqlite built in. You can use it no matter what underlying OS you are on. While 'just a language' the bytecode languages have standard libraries that are starting to look more like small operating systems. And that is good, in that they abstract away the OS details. This leads to not having to worry about what packages are installed; if you are writing for Python, you know with certainty that whatever is in the Python specification is available to you.
Therefore, I think that developing for a bytecode language platform - as opposed to an OS - is the current direction in which things are going.
In the final quarter of 2007, Apple earned $7.1 billion in revenue, compared to Microsoft's $12.5 billion in total revenue. Yes, that's right, Apple brought in more than half as much money as Microsoft, despite Windows owning 98% of the PC market.
Amusing how RoughlyDrafted sort of misleads with these figures, when he is ranting against other misleading statistics. Based on Wikipedia (disclaimer, but I recall it is basically right from the official reports), Apple had almost half as much revenue as Microsoft in 2006 ($19.3 to $44.2 billion). So yes, as claimed, Apple's revenue is around half that of Microsoft's. But look at net income: $1.73 vs. $12.6 billion - Microsoft makes more than 7 times as much, when measured by net income. So, just as RoughlyDrafted says, partial figures can be misleading.
In this case, the cause of the discrepancy is quite obvious: Microsoft sells a product with zero marginal value - software. This is basically making money from nothing. Apple, on the other hand, makes actual 'real' products, that cost money to make - Macs, iPods.
Err, what? It's pretty easy to get in Linux and has been for years, but not everyone uses it because it is only found in packages for more recent versions (however, SSP has been available for about eight years, n^x for about seven).
I have heard some Linux distros have been using SSP for a while now, but am not sure of details; Ubuntu, in any case, uses SSP as of Edgy Eft, that is, since late 2006.
YouTube has the technological capability to minimize infringement, something that wasn't feasible in 1998...
They always had the capability. They could have, in 1998, made posting a video have to pass a 'moderation' step (performed by human beings).
Yes, such a set would be costly, and yes, it would be prone to error - but so is their current technological solution (perhaps less costly, but still - not cheap in any way!).
Actually not even that, people in the US will continue to use search engines, just the search engine servers will reside overseas.
Basically the loss will be the jobs of people who would have run those servers in the US. And also people in the US will have somewhat slower responses from those sites.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that this is arguable, and both scenarios are possible. I would say that the simpler explanation is that a human being called "Jesus" did exist, simply because that is how religions seem to start (when we do have enough evidence to know); someone founds them (and is later said to be divine, and so forth). But, in the specific case of Jesus, we will probably never know the truth, barring some remarkable archaeological find.
It is simpler to assume a human being (not a divine entity) existed called "Jesus", rather than that someone else convinced other people that such a person existed. Both are possible, but Occam's razor favors the first. Anyhow, these are both minor variations on a skeptical reading of history, the difference is negligible.
As you say, Xenu is a non-simple answer, and so is a son of god who rises from the dead. But a charismatic and insightful human being called "Jesus" is a very simple answer.
Whoa, whoa. You were doing ok until here, where you slip up. It is perfectly reasonable to assume, given the existence of early Buddhists, that there was a Buddha. Was he in fact in possession of all of the traits they attributed to him? Probably not, from a skeptical outlook - most likely, he was just a very smart, insightful and charismatic individual. Likewise Jesus. The scant evidence does not prove he exists, but the simplest explanation is that such a person - not necessarily a divine one - did, in fact, exist. Don't mix up the existence of the supernatural Christ with a human Jesus. Don't compare the existence of the human Jesus to the existence of Xenu, these are completely different issues.
Scientology - there was a Ron L. Hubbard. Mormonism - there was a Joseph Smith. Religious movements nearly always start with a powerful leader figure. As skeptics, we would view those people as ('merely') exceptional human beings, not divine or supernatural as the adherents of those faiths would. But let's not deny the likely existence of the individual itself.
For those too lazy to read the entire current draft, here is the "Microsoft-Novell" paragraph:
The bold part - my emphasis - is the 'retroactive, or not?' clause. As mentioned, 'retroactive' may mislead some people. Hopefully the explicit text will be of help. Basically, the GPL3 will prevent deals like the Microsoft-Novell one; the question is whether to grant Novell a specific exemption, by ignoring previous such deals. Novell would want that clause, I am guessing most of the Free Software community would not. My bet - the exemption won't be included.
Also worth reading is the "Tivoization" section (end of section 6), sometimes misleadingly referred to as the "DRM" section. The current language changed a lot since I last read a GPL3 draft, current terms include "User Product" and "Installation Information" - and it makes a lot more sense now, I think. Nice improvement.
True in general, but the issue of "one Runtime to rule them all" is debatable. There is sadly no such thing as a 'language-independent' runtime, it always depends on the specifics of the language (e.g. how memory is managed, etc.). This can lead to suboptimal performance. Now, I admit that, for example, IronPython (Python on
The interoperability benefits may outweigh the performance hits, I grant you that, but in general the answer isn't cut-and-dry, it's an interesting question. Perhaps we should have both - native, optimized runtimes for each language (or type of language), as well as standard 'compatibility layers' that can connect them.
Fair enough, but it isn't all one way. Concerning #5 ("It uses up your machine's useful lifespan much more quickly at no significant gain to you."), shutting down and booting up may shorten lifespan faster than keeping it on - there is much more stress during those two operations than constant idle for several hours. Also, keeping your parts at a constant temperature may be better in some cases than cooling them down (when off) and re-heating them.
But I admit that there are plenty of arguments the other way as well.
2. But, the Unix IP in fact doesn't bear much upon Linux, as the SCO case has shown. Even Unix code donated under the GPL to Linux (if any such actually exists) would not be a problem.
3. However, that said, I have a suspicion you may be right. Novell is actually the perfect "Linux branch" of Microsoft. They produce Mono which complements
Anyhow, there is an assumption in your question, that actions are, in fact, moral or not. This is debatable. Philosophers have argued both sides.
Minor aside about TFA: it says "There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion." Well, actually this is debatable. Researches have seen some monkey or ape - I can't remember which type, exactly (a variety of baboon, perhaps?) - displaying what *might* be interpreted as 'sun worship'. That is, when the sun came up, they 'greeted' it with a quite unique celebration (jumping around and making noise, mostly, but in a distinct manner). Obviously this is an interpretive leap, but to me at least it seems about as reasonable as saying there are precursors of morality in primates. That is, I think both are just fine, so long as we understand 'precursors' can be something quite different from the human version.
By malaria adapting to the 'super-mosquitos', it would be creating a different version of itself. Not a 'super-malaria', except from the point of view of the super-mosquitos. By being a different form of malaria specially-adapted to the new super-mosquitoes, we can expect it to be less virulent against humans. At start, anyhow. Given time, it may adapt to humans as well.
But there is no reason I can see that would imply it is likely to be any worse than the current malaria, as regards humans. It would probably start out weaker against humans, but in essence we are 'rolling the dice', so any final outcome is possible. Given that malaria is already so devastating, and that the most likely result is a less virulent malaria for humans, I would say that this appears to be a reasonable calculated risk.
In other words, it may make sense to spend X% more on your food and energy if that allows you to not be cripplingly dependent upon foreign entities. How high X can be while making sense to you depends on your political outlook, i.e. - this isn't just an economical question. The complex combination of economics and politics explain a lot of the wide variety of opinions about what X should be - 0 (no subsidies), 10 (mild subsidies), 100 (subsize at will), etc.
Nexenta may be of interest to you, then.
Is this a joke or is microsoft really that desperate???
This isn't a joke. Yes, Microsoft are terrified by Linux.
Well, if your read the patent, it's for triply-linked lists
True. So it is just slightly less ridiculous than the headline makes it out to be. For crying out loud, I implemented various sorting methods on my linked lists by adding multiple pointers to them two decades ago as a teenager, and I don't believe for a second that I was doing anything remarkable at all. Once you have heard of linked lists then doubly-linked lists, triply-linked lists or whatever-linked lists are pretty much obvious.
Anyhow, what is really missing in all of this discussion is a response from the patent submitter or the persons in charge of accepting the patent; we never get this on Slashdot nor the stories referred to. Since the patent appears to be so unbelievable, I am very curious as to what their official response would be. Perhaps some IT journalist can get one?
Cross-platform tools are always created by Microsoft's competitors, not Microsoft. Java is cross-platform,
Scoble suggesting Microsoft do something 'cross-platform' is a sign of ignorance, I would say.
Well, Python has Tkinter (an interface to the TK GUI toolkit) as standard. But this isn't necessarily the best solution. I agree with you that Java may in fact be more ahead in that respect.
In my opinion, the bytecode languages are doing more to solve the underlying problem than you indicate. I'll try to explain why I believe so. There are two major reasons.
.Net/Mono).
1. Python is pretty ubiquitous on Linux. Even if it isn't installed by default, it is a short install away, on every distro I've even used at least. Certainly on Debian (and derivatives), Red Hat and SuSE - which is quite a big enough platform to target. For Windows, Python is a short download and install away as well. I think we can safely assume that Python and (once completely FOSS) Java are safe platforms to develop for in that respect (less sure about
2. Python (for example) is quite a rich environment. Develop for Python 2.5, and you have Sqlite built in. You can use it no matter what underlying OS you are on. While 'just a language' the bytecode languages have standard libraries that are starting to look more like small operating systems. And that is good, in that they abstract away the OS details. This leads to not having to worry about what packages are installed; if you are writing for Python, you know with certainty that whatever is in the Python specification is available to you.
Therefore, I think that developing for a bytecode language platform - as opposed to an OS - is the current direction in which things are going.
Sorry, you're right. I mixed up my words.
Amusing how RoughlyDrafted sort of misleads with these figures, when he is ranting against other misleading statistics. Based on Wikipedia (disclaimer, but I recall it is basically right from the official reports), Apple had almost half as much revenue as Microsoft in 2006 ($19.3 to $44.2 billion). So yes, as claimed, Apple's revenue is around half that of Microsoft's. But look at net income: $1.73 vs. $12.6 billion - Microsoft makes more than 7 times as much, when measured by net income. So, just as RoughlyDrafted says, partial figures can be misleading.
In this case, the cause of the discrepancy is quite obvious: Microsoft sells a product with zero marginal value - software. This is basically making money from nothing. Apple, on the other hand, makes actual 'real' products, that cost money to make - Macs, iPods.
They always had the capability. They could have, in 1998, made posting a video have to pass a 'moderation' step (performed by human beings).
Yes, such a set would be costly, and yes, it would be prone to error - but so is their current technological solution (perhaps less costly, but still - not cheap in any way!).
Actually not even that, people in the US will continue to use search engines, just the search engine servers will reside overseas.
Basically the loss will be the jobs of people who would have run those servers in the US. And also people in the US will have somewhat slower responses from those sites.
Well, how about not spidering the site in both of those cases? That seems reasonable to me.
The case should certainly be thrown out, though, I agree with you on that.