I'm with you. I would rather be a poor worthless beggar in a society with economic freedom, than a drone in a welfare state any day.
You're still misinterpreting welfare as a favor to the recipiant. The fact is that taxpayers don't like beggars on their streets: they're smelly, they're an eyesore, they destabilize society, and they're a health risk. Unfortunately, the options for getting rid of them are limited. We stopped shooting them and banishing them to the colonies is not possible anymore. That leaves locking them up or putting them on welfare. Between the two, putting them on welfare is cheaper. It's as simple as that.
If people like Bush don't manage to shut down SSI, the dollar will likely become insolvent.
The US is becoming insolvent because it is spending a large amount of its tax revenues on military adventures that it cannot afford; in different words, the great, proud US military is financed by loans from the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Europeans.
And the devaluation of the dollar has nothing to do with social security (what a hare-brained idea); it is simply the result of trade imbalances. The fact that the devaluation is likely going to be catastrophic, however, is the result of bad US government policies; the dollar should already be devalued to the point where there is no trade imbalance.
This makes an implicit assumption that money forcefully invested in government IOU's would provide people a better future than money invested by individuals.
I made no argument about which kind of investment gives a better future. In fact, I argued that the point of social security was not to give people a better future, it was to keep people from becoming a burden to their fellow citizens. Furthermore, I pointed out that a better financial future for retirees automatically means a worse future for working families because both are bidding on the same scarce resources; ultimately, it is simply not desirable to have large amounts of wealth in the hands of people who aren't actively contributing to the economy.
The handle was obviously a joke originally, but happened to be what I became known by around here, so I still keep it. I post on forums that matter for more than a few minutes of entertainment under my real name.
That's a lame excuse; you could easily identify yourself with a home page, an email address, or a long description in your Slashdot home page.
I have concluded, at least for now, there are simply more important things to protect on balance. Anonymity is merely a means to an end, or rather it would be if it actually achieved what you describe; obviously I don't believe it does.
You got it backwards. I don't think anonymity is a means to an end: anonymity by itself doesn't achieve democracy. Anonymity per se isn't even necessary for democracy. If we conducted democracy by all meeting in a town square, with no electronic or written records, we wouldn't need anonymity and we would have a difficult time achieving it.
But we don't live in that kind of world anymore. If we attempt to eliminate anonymity in the world in which we live in today, we end up giving the state near total control over communications while achieving none of the goals you want to achieve. That isn't balance, as you claim, it's the end of democracy.
Stuffing money under a mattress keeps it out of the economy and deprives others of its use
Sure, investing money is generally better for the economy than stuffing money under a mattress, but that's a second-order effect. The primary effect that is relevant here is that, as a retiree, you will consume scarce resources without being productive, and the more money you saved during your working years, the more scarce resources you will consume for your leisure activities. That means that the notion of "saving for your retirement" is an illusion. In fact, arguably, the more money you save during your working years, the more you deprive the next generation of their fair share during their working years.
Privacy is a pretty darned effectively-entrenched American value -- as is having a firmly limited government.
I fully support privacy and a firmly limited government. That is precisely why I think a good national ID card system is needed: it improves privacy and lets us limit what government can do with our data. Contrast that with the current system, with its patchwork of regulations and insecure identifiers and tokens.
However, when the government starts paying back those who are cashing out from income supposedly going into the private accounts of those coming in, it is indeed nothing more than a legalized and legislated Ponzi scheme -- and those always fall over, sooner or later.
The notion that social security works like a bank account or investment is just wrong; such plans often fund current payments with current revenue. Of course, the current social security system is actually generating a surplus that could be invested and probably should be out of simple economic considerations, but the US government is wasting money left and right.
Personally, I'd rather take the risk of starving.
Yeah, people like you always say that. But it's simply not going to happen. People without health insurance don't just die, they get expensive emergency healthcare. People without retirement income don't just starve, someone pays for their housing and food. That's the reality.
Isn't making such optimal decisions precisely what the free market is best at?
Perhaps surprisingly to people with one-track minds, there are multiple criteria and goals that we pursue as a society. Your single minded approach amounts to little more than "social Darwinism", and it was popular in the early 20th century, along with lots of other ineffective and amoral political theories.
Ah yes, classic liberal attitude. "Other" people are stupud, so we must protect them from themselves.
It's not about protecting people from themselves, it's about protecting my pocket book from your poor choices. Why? Because if you don't fund your own retirement, society will have to bear the burden of clothing and feeding you no matter whether you have paid into social security or not.
But you're right to this degree: social security is probably a bad way of doing it because it's regressive and raises false expectations. It's much better to pay social security benefits out of the normal, progressive federal income tax revenues. That way, any illusion that people like you have that social security is some kind of savings plan would be eliminated.
A nice start would be SSI, anyone under 40 must surely know that they'll never see a peny of it anyhow
Unless people like Bush manage to turn back the clock to 19th century conditions with people starving in the streets, one way or another, the government will provide minimal food and health care for old people. After all, old people vote.
I especially resent using that number that dog tags me and makes it a cakewalk to steal my ID
If right wing nuts didn't keep interfering in the deployment of a secure national ID system, you wouldn't have to worry about that.
I resent being forced into a ponzi scheme, and especially resent coercing my kids to pay for my retirement.
Your kids will pay for your retirement--it doesn't matter how you dress it up: privat retirement accounts, social security, whatever. Even if you stuff money under a mattress, when you use it to buy services once you're retired, you're still depriving your kids of the same amount of goods and services. It's not a "Ponzi scheme", it's a simple economic truth.
The only difference between SSI and other plans is that SSI makes sure everybody is forced to create a minimal income they can live on, and that's good thing. Because if we don't force everybody to do this, people like you would just have a party with their money or invest it poorly and the state still would need to take care of you when you're old, because we don't actually let people starve. Maybe we should, but we don't.
All of those problems can be addressed by creating a good AJAX toolkit; a toolkit can fall back to plain HTML when Javascript isn't available, it can do the right per-browser customizations, etc.
However, from an interaction point of view, AJAX is enormously useful and a big advance over plain HTML pages. It's unfortunate that the underlying technologies are so ugly (Javascript, XML,...), but, again, with a good toolkit, you don't have to ever think about that.
If the company in question is involved directly in pro-life lobbying, maybe, but in the case of (random example) an IT firm specialising in accountancy software, why on earth should my opinions on abortion be at all relevant?
It clearly shouldn't be relevant. But if a potential employer decides it is relevant even though it shouldn't be relevant, that's an employer you probably don't want to work for.
If ISVs could come up with a solution to Linux's continuous upgrade cycles, they still have unknowns with regard to whether Linux would take off as a desktop alternative to Microsoft. Possibly, the availability of Adobe and Intuit products could supercharge Linux.
It's the same bullshit we have been getting from columnists for years. The fact that this guy is a self-proclaimed Linux advocate (but really seems to be a close Mac zealot) doesn't change that. For the n'th time: Linux doesn't need ISVs, it has all the software most people need built in.
As for Adobe and Intuit specifically: I have never seen an Adobe product I have wanted to use, and Intuit software has largely been replaced by on-line banking and tax offerings.
The guy correctly concludes that function is more important than form and that more sites should emulate them. But I disagree with his assertion that web sites like IMDB, Craigslist, or eBay are "ugly"; they are clean and simple designs that work.
In fact, I suspect that what the author considers "eautiful, CSS designed web sites" corresponds to what I consider ugly.
In any case, the take-home message is the same as for many other engineering problems: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
If web hosts made inline Python, Ruby and Perl modules like mod_python availible to their users, few people would choose PHP over those three.
I disagree: I think all three of those languages and runtimes have significant disadvantages compared to PHP for web applications. In fact, mod_python and mod_perl are old enough that if they were the best choice, they'd be more widely used.
But you most certainly can't speak in public without being held accountable, since normally anyone can see who you are.
Of course, you can; people do it all the time. You can also make contributions to newspapers under false names, you can hire people to speak for you, you can distribute pamphlets, and you have lots of other choices. And the people who have done the best traditionally at circumventing anti-anonymity provisions are the government, the rich and powerful, and criminals. When you prohibit anonymity, you make it hard only for the law-abiding middle class to remain anonymous.
You miss my point entirely.
No, I get your point exactly. I just happen to think that you are fundamentally wrong. What you argue for, the kind of traceability and public accountability of on-line communications that would be required to affect computer-related crime would instantly transform us into a totalitarian society.
If not, why do you think the Internet should remain essentially outside the law?
Anonymous communication on the Internet is not "outside the law" right now, and there are very few crimes that don't have a real-world component. Computer crime laws are simply used as an excuse by various groups who don't want to address the real problems.
That'll never happen until people who care have the courage to put their name to what they believe in, no matter how many almost-anonymous posts they make on the Internet.
You must be kidding, Mr. Anonymous-Brave-Guy without a real name. Given your name, your signature, and your behavior, I really have to wonder whether you aren't pulling my leg. Come on--you don't really believe that a pervasive assault against anonymity is a good idea, do you?
Well, as I was saying: the Internet takes away some potential jobs (because they find out things about you they don't like), and it gives you access to a lot of other potential jobs. I think on balance, we all still win, employers and employees.
If that worries you, I think you're an idiot, frankly. If you meet a girl and she doesn't date you because your income is too low for her tastes, that's not the kind of girl you want to hang out with--you simply couldn't make her happy. If anybody has reason to complain is people whose income is high, because they have to figure out how to separate the gold diggers from people genuinely interested in them.
I think making people's tax records publicly available is a great idea, and the world would be a better place if every nation did it.
I've been arguing for a long time that completely free and effectively unaccountable speech on-line, particularly when made anonymously, is not necessarily a good thing,
Whether it's a "good thing" is completely irrelevant: there simply is no reasonable way of preventing unaccountable speech from happening in a free society. This isn't even a new thing, it's been true since long before the Internet.
I'd rather accept putting my name to my words and standing by my comments than the continued and increasing presence of viruses, [...]
That's simply not the choice we face. The choice we face is the kind of world you are advocating, a fascist, totalitarian world in which ordinary citizens are deprived of the ability to discuss controversial issues freely and openly, but in which viruses, propaganda, manipulation, and crime continue to thrive, and the status quo, a messy mix of anonymous speech and accountability.
The day people like you win the argument will be the end for democracy. It will probably happen sooner or later (as it has in many other kinds of democracies), but I hope I won't be around to have to endure the consequences.
In general, if you have to hide a lot of stuff from a potential employer, it's probably not going to be a good relationship anyway. If you are pro-choice and your employer is a die-hard pro-lifer, you don't want to work at that company. And your employer really shouldn't care whether you secretly wish to return to academia, they should have the confidence in their job and your interest in it that they can interest you in staying.
Generally, looking back, I find that the best places for me to work were those where the employers knew the most about me and chose me because of that knowledge. And with the Internet, enough new potential employers open up that the loss of some fraction of them because of incompatibilities may matter less than it has in the past.
You're free to abandon your evolved body anytime you choose. I generally like mine and plan to hang on to it for a lot longer.
When it really needs augmentation, there is a wide variety of devices to choose from. My personal favorites are motorcycles, cars, and skis, but there are a lot of others to choose from.
You do realize that you effectively proposed outlawing libraries, don't you?
No, I don't. Libraries operate under a specific set of rules and guidelines, many of which have historically been tied to possession of a physical artifact, the book. That doesn't change under what I suggested.
If I sell you a printed copy of what I wrote, then I have given my permission for one copy of those writings to exist in this particular permanent form. You (or a library) can keep and lend that physical copy for as long as it lasts; you can also publish index information about that copy, even electronically, but beyond that, what you can do is limited strongly by copyright law and fair use provisions.
One more thing: I have pretty bad eyes myself, although it can fortunately be mostly corrected. But, at times, I've had to use Linux with displays of 1" tall characters in order to see anything. For other reasons, I've also had to use it over 110 baud connections with single line displays for significant amounts of time. I've edited documents that way, responded to emails, chatted, and browsed the web. I can't imagine an environment I'd rather use than Linux under difficult circumstances.
I think advocates for the visually disabled are heading in the wrong direction by insisting that software like OOo and Gnome be made accessible; making graphical applications accessible is a dead end direction foisted upon us by the likes of Microsoft and Apple, who want to be able to keep selling their cash cows in the presence of accessibility laws, without opening their formats to competitors and without developing a separate set of applications aimed at the needs of disabled users.
The real value and benefit of Linux for people with visual problems is the extensive range of text-based and command line applications that exist for Linux and that continue to be created.
That usualy measn that they do not have the money, resources, or skills (Or they have the skills but dont have the tools) to do so.
So, you are saying that the blind are all a bunch of helpless, pathetic people depending on handouts and the good will of others? I'm sorry, but I know that not to be the case.
Furthermore, you don't need a lot of money, tools, or resources in order to contribute to FOSS. And some of the biggest issues with FOSS--testing and documentation--don't require high intelligence or computer skills in order to contribute.
In fact, the article itself has a counterexample to your portrayal of the disabled as depending on handouts and charity: Pietrosanti is not at all helpless, he is a politician; instead of whining about how FOSS isn't supplying him the software he wants for free, he is in an ideal position for getting government funding for improving accessibility of FOSS projects. But he doesn't want to do that--he apparently just wants FOSS to go away.
Why dont you try educating yourself on the topic before you promote FUD?
Why don't you try educating yourself about computer terminology? The term "FUD" refers to specific sales tactics by IBM and other big companies and has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
And you're missing my point anyway. My point is that nobody is going to educate themselves more than they have about the topic, no matter how much Pietrosanti and others complain. FOSS developers who aren't disabled simply don't have the time or resources to worry about catering to the disabled, and that's not going to change. Either the disabled fix this themselves or it's not going to happen.
Crichton's post is poorly researched and poorly argued because the only factual case he gives us of a bad patent is of a useless one.
What matters is that the patent office has been willing to grant this patent and that the courts are willing to enforce it. Whether the patent is on something actually useful or important is completely irrelevant. And the mere existence of such a patent causes harm because it constitutes prior art for other patents.
I'm sorry, but I have to say: the moron here is YOU.
This is the way great civilizations usually fall: society becomes more and more stratified, small groups control all economic activity, and thought and innovation get incresingly controlled. As a result, both contributions of individuals to the nation and innovation becomes stifled and the nation falls further and further behind internationally.
Of course, there is a possibility that this time (or next time), the dominant nation will manage to export its economic and intellectual malaise globally. In that case, we may be looking forward to thousands of years of stagnation under the kinds of dystopias popular in SciFi.
Well, obviously not, since patents have been granted on things that can't be built, on known prior art, and a lot of other things that, according to the letter of the law shouldn't be patentable.
So, we aren't discussing here what patents "apply" to in our misguided implementation of the patent system, we are discussing what they should apply to according to the letter and spirit of patent law, and whether even the letter of patent law is good public policy.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm with you. I would rather be a poor worthless beggar in a society with economic freedom, than a drone in a welfare state any day.
You're still misinterpreting welfare as a favor to the recipiant. The fact is that taxpayers don't like beggars on their streets: they're smelly, they're an eyesore, they destabilize society, and they're a health risk. Unfortunately, the options for getting rid of them are limited. We stopped shooting them and banishing them to the colonies is not possible anymore. That leaves locking them up or putting them on welfare. Between the two, putting them on welfare is cheaper. It's as simple as that.
If people like Bush don't manage to shut down SSI, the dollar will likely become insolvent.
The US is becoming insolvent because it is spending a large amount of its tax revenues on military adventures that it cannot afford; in different words, the great, proud US military is financed by loans from the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Europeans.
And the devaluation of the dollar has nothing to do with social security (what a hare-brained idea); it is simply the result of trade imbalances. The fact that the devaluation is likely going to be catastrophic, however, is the result of bad US government policies; the dollar should already be devalued to the point where there is no trade imbalance.
This makes an implicit assumption that money forcefully invested in government IOU's would provide people a better future than money invested by individuals.
I made no argument about which kind of investment gives a better future. In fact, I argued that the point of social security was not to give people a better future, it was to keep people from becoming a burden to their fellow citizens. Furthermore, I pointed out that a better financial future for retirees automatically means a worse future for working families because both are bidding on the same scarce resources; ultimately, it is simply not desirable to have large amounts of wealth in the hands of people who aren't actively contributing to the economy.
The handle was obviously a joke originally, but happened to be what I became known by around here, so I still keep it. I post on forums that matter for more than a few minutes of entertainment under my real name.
That's a lame excuse; you could easily identify yourself with a home page, an email address, or a long description in your Slashdot home page.
I have concluded, at least for now, there are simply more important things to protect on balance. Anonymity is merely a means to an end, or rather it would be if it actually achieved what you describe; obviously I don't believe it does.
You got it backwards. I don't think anonymity is a means to an end: anonymity by itself doesn't achieve democracy. Anonymity per se isn't even necessary for democracy. If we conducted democracy by all meeting in a town square, with no electronic or written records, we wouldn't need anonymity and we would have a difficult time achieving it.
But we don't live in that kind of world anymore. If we attempt to eliminate anonymity in the world in which we live in today, we end up giving the state near total control over communications while achieving none of the goals you want to achieve. That isn't balance, as you claim, it's the end of democracy.
Stuffing money under a mattress keeps it out of the economy and deprives others of its use
Sure, investing money is generally better for the economy than stuffing money under a mattress, but that's a second-order effect. The primary effect that is relevant here is that, as a retiree, you will consume scarce resources without being productive, and the more money you saved during your working years, the more scarce resources you will consume for your leisure activities. That means that the notion of "saving for your retirement" is an illusion. In fact, arguably, the more money you save during your working years, the more you deprive the next generation of their fair share during their working years.
Privacy is a pretty darned effectively-entrenched American value -- as is having a firmly limited government.
I fully support privacy and a firmly limited government. That is precisely why I think a good national ID card system is needed: it improves privacy and lets us limit what government can do with our data. Contrast that with the current system, with its patchwork of regulations and insecure identifiers and tokens.
However, when the government starts paying back those who are cashing out from income supposedly going into the private accounts of those coming in, it is indeed nothing more than a legalized and legislated Ponzi scheme -- and those always fall over, sooner or later.
The notion that social security works like a bank account or investment is just wrong; such plans often fund current payments with current revenue. Of course, the current social security system is actually generating a surplus that could be invested and probably should be out of simple economic considerations, but the US government is wasting money left and right.
Personally, I'd rather take the risk of starving.
Yeah, people like you always say that. But it's simply not going to happen. People without health insurance don't just die, they get expensive emergency healthcare. People without retirement income don't just starve, someone pays for their housing and food. That's the reality.
Isn't making such optimal decisions precisely what the free market is best at?
Perhaps surprisingly to people with one-track minds, there are multiple criteria and goals that we pursue as a society. Your single minded approach amounts to little more than "social Darwinism", and it was popular in the early 20th century, along with lots of other ineffective and amoral political theories.
Ah yes, classic liberal attitude. "Other" people are stupud, so we must protect them from themselves.
It's not about protecting people from themselves, it's about protecting my pocket book from your poor choices. Why? Because if you don't fund your own retirement, society will have to bear the burden of clothing and feeding you no matter whether you have paid into social security or not.
But you're right to this degree: social security is probably a bad way of doing it because it's regressive and raises false expectations. It's much better to pay social security benefits out of the normal, progressive federal income tax revenues. That way, any illusion that people like you have that social security is some kind of savings plan would be eliminated.
A nice start would be SSI, anyone under 40 must surely know that they'll never see a peny of it anyhow
Unless people like Bush manage to turn back the clock to 19th century conditions with people starving in the streets, one way or another, the government will provide minimal food and health care for old people. After all, old people vote.
I especially resent using that number that dog tags me and makes it a cakewalk to steal my ID
If right wing nuts didn't keep interfering in the deployment of a secure national ID system, you wouldn't have to worry about that.
I resent being forced into a ponzi scheme, and especially resent coercing my kids to pay for my retirement.
Your kids will pay for your retirement--it doesn't matter how you dress it up: privat retirement accounts, social security, whatever. Even if you stuff money under a mattress, when you use it to buy services once you're retired, you're still depriving your kids of the same amount of goods and services. It's not a "Ponzi scheme", it's a simple economic truth.
The only difference between SSI and other plans is that SSI makes sure everybody is forced to create a minimal income they can live on, and that's good thing. Because if we don't force everybody to do this, people like you would just have a party with their money or invest it poorly and the state still would need to take care of you when you're old, because we don't actually let people starve. Maybe we should, but we don't.
All of those problems can be addressed by creating a good AJAX toolkit; a toolkit can fall back to plain HTML when Javascript isn't available, it can do the right per-browser customizations, etc.
...), but, again, with a good toolkit, you don't have to ever think about that.
However, from an interaction point of view, AJAX is enormously useful and a big advance over plain HTML pages. It's unfortunate that the underlying technologies are so ugly (Javascript, XML,
If the company in question is involved directly in pro-life lobbying, maybe, but in the case of (random example) an IT firm specialising in accountancy software, why on earth should my opinions on abortion be at all relevant?
It clearly shouldn't be relevant. But if a potential employer decides it is relevant even though it shouldn't be relevant, that's an employer you probably don't want to work for.
Yeah... because life is so rough when you're going home to a 5-bedroom house and banging the gold-diggers three at a time.
Actually, I choose to live in a small house and drive a beat up car.
Just because you're shallow, gluttenous, and looking for a high-class hooker for a mate doesn't mean everybody is.
If ISVs could come up with a solution to Linux's continuous upgrade cycles, they still have unknowns with regard to whether Linux would take off as a desktop alternative to Microsoft. Possibly, the availability of Adobe and Intuit products could supercharge Linux.
It's the same bullshit we have been getting from columnists for years. The fact that this guy is a self-proclaimed Linux advocate (but really seems to be a close Mac zealot) doesn't change that. For the n'th time: Linux doesn't need ISVs, it has all the software most people need built in.
As for Adobe and Intuit specifically: I have never seen an Adobe product I have wanted to use, and Intuit software has largely been replaced by on-line banking and tax offerings.
The guy correctly concludes that function is more important than form and that more sites should emulate them. But I disagree with his assertion that web sites like IMDB, Craigslist, or eBay are "ugly"; they are clean and simple designs that work.
In fact, I suspect that what the author considers "eautiful, CSS designed web sites" corresponds to what I consider ugly.
In any case, the take-home message is the same as for many other engineering problems: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
PHP is strongly typed, it just isn't statically typed. Learn the difference before you complain!
If web hosts made inline Python, Ruby and Perl modules like mod_python availible to their users, few people would choose PHP over those three.
I disagree: I think all three of those languages and runtimes have significant disadvantages compared to PHP for web applications. In fact, mod_python and mod_perl are old enough that if they were the best choice, they'd be more widely used.
But you most certainly can't speak in public without being held accountable, since normally anyone can see who you are.
Of course, you can; people do it all the time. You can also make contributions to newspapers under false names, you can hire people to speak for you, you can distribute pamphlets, and you have lots of other choices. And the people who have done the best traditionally at circumventing anti-anonymity provisions are the government, the rich and powerful, and criminals. When you prohibit anonymity, you make it hard only for the law-abiding middle class to remain anonymous.
You miss my point entirely.
No, I get your point exactly. I just happen to think that you are fundamentally wrong. What you argue for, the kind of traceability and public accountability of on-line communications that would be required to affect computer-related crime would instantly transform us into a totalitarian society.
If not, why do you think the Internet should remain essentially outside the law?
Anonymous communication on the Internet is not "outside the law" right now, and there are very few crimes that don't have a real-world component. Computer crime laws are simply used as an excuse by various groups who don't want to address the real problems.
That'll never happen until people who care have the courage to put their name to what they believe in, no matter how many almost-anonymous posts they make on the Internet.
You must be kidding, Mr. Anonymous-Brave-Guy without a real name. Given your name, your signature, and your behavior, I really have to wonder whether you aren't pulling my leg. Come on--you don't really believe that a pervasive assault against anonymity is a good idea, do you?
Well, as I was saying: the Internet takes away some potential jobs (because they find out things about you they don't like), and it gives you access to a lot of other potential jobs. I think on balance, we all still win, employers and employees.
If that worries you, I think you're an idiot, frankly. If you meet a girl and she doesn't date you because your income is too low for her tastes, that's not the kind of girl you want to hang out with--you simply couldn't make her happy. If anybody has reason to complain is people whose income is high, because they have to figure out how to separate the gold diggers from people genuinely interested in them.
I think making people's tax records publicly available is a great idea, and the world would be a better place if every nation did it.
I've been arguing for a long time that completely free and effectively unaccountable speech on-line, particularly when made anonymously, is not necessarily a good thing,
Whether it's a "good thing" is completely irrelevant: there simply is no reasonable way of preventing unaccountable speech from happening in a free society. This isn't even a new thing, it's been true since long before the Internet.
I'd rather accept putting my name to my words and standing by my comments than the continued and increasing presence of viruses, [...]
That's simply not the choice we face. The choice we face is the kind of world you are advocating, a fascist, totalitarian world in which ordinary citizens are deprived of the ability to discuss controversial issues freely and openly, but in which viruses, propaganda, manipulation, and crime continue to thrive, and the status quo, a messy mix of anonymous speech and accountability.
The day people like you win the argument will be the end for democracy. It will probably happen sooner or later (as it has in many other kinds of democracies), but I hope I won't be around to have to endure the consequences.
In general, if you have to hide a lot of stuff from a potential employer, it's probably not going to be a good relationship anyway. If you are pro-choice and your employer is a die-hard pro-lifer, you don't want to work at that company. And your employer really shouldn't care whether you secretly wish to return to academia, they should have the confidence in their job and your interest in it that they can interest you in staying.
Generally, looking back, I find that the best places for me to work were those where the employers knew the most about me and chose me because of that knowledge. And with the Internet, enough new potential employers open up that the loss of some fraction of them because of incompatibilities may matter less than it has in the past.
You're free to abandon your evolved body anytime you choose. I generally like mine and plan to hang on to it for a lot longer.
When it really needs augmentation, there is a wide variety of devices to choose from. My personal favorites are motorcycles, cars, and skis, but there are a lot of others to choose from.
You do realize that you effectively proposed outlawing libraries, don't you?
No, I don't. Libraries operate under a specific set of rules and guidelines, many of which have historically been tied to possession of a physical artifact, the book. That doesn't change under what I suggested.
If I sell you a printed copy of what I wrote, then I have given my permission for one copy of those writings to exist in this particular permanent form. You (or a library) can keep and lend that physical copy for as long as it lasts; you can also publish index information about that copy, even electronically, but beyond that, what you can do is limited strongly by copyright law and fair use provisions.
One more thing: I have pretty bad eyes myself, although it can fortunately be mostly corrected. But, at times, I've had to use Linux with displays of 1" tall characters in order to see anything. For other reasons, I've also had to use it over 110 baud connections with single line displays for significant amounts of time. I've edited documents that way, responded to emails, chatted, and browsed the web. I can't imagine an environment I'd rather use than Linux under difficult circumstances.
I think advocates for the visually disabled are heading in the wrong direction by insisting that software like OOo and Gnome be made accessible; making graphical applications accessible is a dead end direction foisted upon us by the likes of Microsoft and Apple, who want to be able to keep selling their cash cows in the presence of accessibility laws, without opening their formats to competitors and without developing a separate set of applications aimed at the needs of disabled users.
The real value and benefit of Linux for people with visual problems is the extensive range of text-based and command line applications that exist for Linux and that continue to be created.
That usualy measn that they do not have the money, resources, or skills (Or they have the skills but dont have the tools) to do so.
So, you are saying that the blind are all a bunch of helpless, pathetic people depending on handouts and the good will of others? I'm sorry, but I know that not to be the case.
Furthermore, you don't need a lot of money, tools, or resources in order to contribute to FOSS. And some of the biggest issues with FOSS--testing and documentation--don't require high intelligence or computer skills in order to contribute.
In fact, the article itself has a counterexample to your portrayal of the disabled as depending on handouts and charity: Pietrosanti is not at all helpless, he is a politician; instead of whining about how FOSS isn't supplying him the software he wants for free, he is in an ideal position for getting government funding for improving accessibility of FOSS projects. But he doesn't want to do that--he apparently just wants FOSS to go away.
Why dont you try educating yourself on the topic before you promote FUD?
Why don't you try educating yourself about computer terminology? The term "FUD" refers to specific sales tactics by IBM and other big companies and has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
And you're missing my point anyway. My point is that nobody is going to educate themselves more than they have about the topic, no matter how much Pietrosanti and others complain. FOSS developers who aren't disabled simply don't have the time or resources to worry about catering to the disabled, and that's not going to change. Either the disabled fix this themselves or it's not going to happen.
Crichton's post is poorly researched and poorly argued because the only factual case he gives us of a bad patent is of a useless one.
What matters is that the patent office has been willing to grant this patent and that the courts are willing to enforce it. Whether the patent is on something actually useful or important is completely irrelevant. And the mere existence of such a patent causes harm because it constitutes prior art for other patents.
I'm sorry, but I have to say: the moron here is YOU.
This is the way great civilizations usually fall: society becomes more and more stratified, small groups control all economic activity, and thought and innovation get incresingly controlled. As a result, both contributions of individuals to the nation and innovation becomes stifled and the nation falls further and further behind internationally.
Of course, there is a possibility that this time (or next time), the dominant nation will manage to export its economic and intellectual malaise globally. In that case, we may be looking forward to thousands of years of stagnation under the kinds of dystopias popular in SciFi.
Patents don't just apply to inventions.
Well, obviously not, since patents have been granted on things that can't be built, on known prior art, and a lot of other things that, according to the letter of the law shouldn't be patentable.
So, we aren't discussing here what patents "apply" to in our misguided implementation of the patent system, we are discussing what they should apply to according to the letter and spirit of patent law, and whether even the letter of patent law is good public policy.