Thanks for a well considered and constructed reply to my comment. I do not agree with all your conclusions, but I respect the fact that they are well considered opinions. The only point that I feel compelled to comment on is the statement
I don't think Christianity is capable of providing any tool for explaining rationally to or raising mentally sane children.
A short story....
One of the lads I used to associate with in my youth is a sociopath. If A. has a choice between doing things the 'right' way or the 'wrong' way he has to choose the wrong way. He is one of the few people I know who might be a really 'evil person' (he does things like dynabolting shut a person's doors and windows while they're asleep before setting fire to their house, for example). One day, after the birth of his twin sons, he said to me "John, I can see why you sending your kids to Sunday School is a good idea - it would help prevent them growing up like me".
When we have our first kid we have all sorts of ideas about how we're going to raise them, without the 'mistakes' our parents made. Most people learn that we have to compromise our ideals, and that a lot of parenting is a matter of deciding what we believe to be the lesser evil, so that our kids have the best chance at happy and fulfilling lives. For many people Christianity provides a useful set of guidelines for arriving at such compromises. Some people use this same information to abrogate their responsibility for these decisions. I do not think Christians have a monopoly on trying to find the easy option and to avoid responsibility for our decisions.
Anything can make the whole of life repulsive. Best to read Nietzsche's comments in the context of his time place and circumstance, as their are plenty of people who find Christianity improves their quality of life. I've always thought that Nietzsche had the flaw of tending to deal in absolutes, although this might be an artifact of translation. I know that the Fundamentalist Loony Fringe suffers from that exact problem - absolutism as an artifact of translation.
Nobody needs porn, but it's not "needing" it that's at issue. It's choice. You would take choices away if you had the power. Ironic since we supposedly have free will.
Actually, for some people porn is addictive, and it can cause some people incapable of sexual behaviour without the use of porn. These people seem to me to pretty much 'need' porn.
The choice issue is usually abused by all sides of this argument. Informed Choice is a good thing. Kids are not always terribly good at informed decisions. Christianity can provide one way of defining moral boundaries to use as a guide to making informed choices. Unfortunately the Lunatic Fringe in Christianity (which seems to dominate moral debate in the USA) seems to prefer the approach of Prohibition and Protection. Similarly the Humanist Philosophers can also provide some tools to help us deal with life's complexities. But treating Christianity as no more than a Greek Mystery Cult stitched onto liberal Judaism is just as flawed as considering Nietzsche divorced from the social and personal context within which he wrote. It is many years since I read Nietzsche, but it would seem to me that his idealisation of Humanity is entirely consistent with the idea that porn often undermines the dignity of a human, and that education of the deeper issues is the key to making better choices.
If however you idolise Nietzsche because he said some catchy things about some expressions of Christianity, and have missed what he was saying about human potential, then you are very similar to the Bible thumping Fundies you so clearly despise (and I have to agree that those people do seem to have taken the path that avoidance of all potential evil is better than resisting it).
A few years back I found my eldest son (12 at the time( was using the small dark hours to view various kinds of porn. Some was 'normal' but there were many sites that were et the more extreme end of human sexuality.
I set up a transparent proxy with Dansguardian. Do I think it's impossible for my kids to find porn (or other content I'm uncomfortable for my kids to see) ? No. But I do know that it's unlikely for them to stumble across it accidentally. If they set to work to find and view porn, they'll find a way around the filters.
I also took a few of the images C. had looked at, and by zooming and playing with palettes showed him the scars of self-mutilation, the scars from slashed wrists, the track marks, the rotting teeth and the sores. He now knows that many of the girls have pretty nasty problems, as well as nasty habits. He also can see that many of the girls are being exploited, and that porn denigrates humans, unlike art which glorifies the body or casts these girls onto the canvas of our own life to challenge our our nice safe prejudices.
I know if my kids view porn. They know that I know. I also know that they have at least a glimmering of some of the moral and social issues involved. Hopefully I've also provided some guidance about what constitutes 'normal' and what the difference is between sex as an act of love and sex as exploitation for purposes of ego stroking.
So my approach as a parent is (1) make it less likely that they'll find porn by accident (2) make sure they're game to talk to me about it (3) make sure they see woman as more than a set of orifices in a warm bundle (4) make sure they know that their dreams and urges are normal and (5) that they are the only ones who can decide whether they treat Human Beings with respect as Divine Creatures deserve.
I figure that if (however unlikely) I can make some headway on all these points, I'll have got some wins, and their chances of happy future relationships are (slightly?) improved. I think thats my job - the rest is up to them.
I find it interesting that this article has drawn so few comments. Is this because the/. reader base has already made its' mind up about OOXML vs ODF? Or is it a sign of boredom over this issue? Or apathy? Or has the readership changed to one more concerned about Free access to movies and games, and doesn't care about a data format war that has most concern to Governments and Corporations?
I feel uneasy about this, as It may be that as the voices of the informed fall silent, we will lose the battle to keep the access to important data available to the common man.
The whole debate about the relative costs of Socialised vs Free Market medicine is a messy one. I have no doubt that in a genuine Free Market Economy competition would act to reduce prices, whilst a subsidised market would act to prop up real costs. Unfortunately the Free Economy is as much an Idealist's utopia as the Socialist ideal. As long as patents on biology and algorithms remain, there cannot be real competition, and demand will set prices, as supply is restricted. Furthermore it is in the drug companies interests to inflate costs in a socialised model. Currently it is not possible to maintain the costs of socialised medicine.
An example is my supply of Oxycontin. I get 60 tablets every 30 days for $4.95AUD, via the PBS, where the difference from the retail price ($65.05AUD) is paid by the Federal Government. The price for 20mg OC from Purdue in the US is $208US per box (i.e. $624US per month for my dosage) , or a generic for $139.99US ($519.97US for my dosage).
So here in Australia the difference for the non-subsidised price for a generic is $113.17US cheaper than the price for the same generic in the USA. It would appear as if the lack of pervasive socialised pharmaceuticals in the US results in a much higher price than the non-subsidised price in Australia. I acknowledge that there are other factors at work, but it does at least show that in the presence of an imperfect "Free Economy", partial socialisation can act to keep prices down for those unable to gain access to the PBS priced medication. It also suggests that Americans are paying a premium for this particular medicine, as in theory a Free Market should have lower costs than in a Socialist Market.
So beware of applying political ideology to Health Care - it doesn't seem to follow the basic rules of economics.
In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn describes how the zeks ate a frozen mammoth raw before it could be studied. This has more to do with their inadequate diet than how tasty mammoth is.
This happened to me 10 years ago. My childhood was a lot further back than that, and was no more disturbed than most kids of the early 60's. The late 60's - well the acid was good then. That got a bit disturbing at times.
It's easy to be a sceptic and ask about 'and what about when the bugs become resistant to this'. As a person who had his life ruined by MRSA, I know too well the impact these types of infection have on individuals and families. Anything that can extend the reach of antibiotics (particularly the less toxic ones - I was only 2 or 3 days off being killed by the antibiotic that beat my infection) and decrease the chance of resistance is a good thing.
Hopefully this won't be used promiscuously, and I hope they'll work out the interactions with other treatments, as quite often treatment is multi-modal.
I wouldn't wish what I go through due to MRSA on anyone (except my stepfather, but that's another story altogether.
One reason why there is so much funding devoted to HIV/AIDS research is that the economic costs of the disease are so high. Then if you consider the social costs of a large proportion of the population being orphaned, the cost of research is paltry by comparison.
I have to point out as well the contradiction in the phrase "homosexuals are indoctrinating your children and making them choose their lifestyle" - you can't make someone choose something, although you can make particular choices more likely by controlling the information they have access to.
Finally, it's mainly in the 'developed' 'Christian' countries that HIV/AIDS is a disease mainly affecting gays and IV users. In Africa and SE Asia the disease is predominantly affecting heterosexuals, mainly due to use of prostitutes and a culture that does not strictly adhere to the concepts of chastity and monogamy. That is the 'moral' basis for the disaster befalling Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
It's about 2 mouse clicks and six words to install EToys into a squeak image. I fail to understand the point of this article - EToys is probably being used in Cuba already as it's a great environment to let kids loose in, see http://www.squeakland.org/
I suspect that the US (and Australia) will learn a harsh lesson from freely trading with China when it is discovered that the "Free Economies" have their economic policies being decided for them in Beijing. I'm definitely the political Left, but it makes me worry about the future. Lets see who are the Superpowers in 50 years - India and China will both have absolutely massive economies, and incredible resources.
In Australia we are very confident that votes are properly counted. In fact, in order to issue a rigged count you would have to bribe the opposing party's scrutineers in the 5 minute window between the submission of the scrutineer's form and the beginning of the count for every polling place as well as have all the electoral officers bribed, or else have a mole planted within the committee of each and candidate as well as having all the scrutineers and electoral officers bribed.
Blind voters select a person to place their vote under the supervision of the Returning Officer, who confirms the recorded vote with the blind (or otherwise disabled/handicapped) person.
There's a reason why the 'Australian Vote' is used as the model for most countries that are having their first free and fair elections.
All the exchanges are owned by Telstra. They were the Government monopoly telco until Howard started selling it off. Now it's a public company that has to sell services to all its competitors. Telstra also owns the majority (by I believe at least an order of magnitude) of the glass and copper in the ground. It's not a level playing field so market forces don't work.
I believeyou should listen to the music the way the musician who played it intended it to sound. Otherwise it's like drawing a beard on the Mona Lisa with a felt marker because you "like it that way".
I reckon there should be some kind of a test and license before you can own a graphical EQ, or else consumer level EQs should have a maximum gain of +/- 3dB, with auto re-centering if the controls are untouched for 20 seconds. The idea that EQ is to compensate for speaker and room, and not some kind of magic to "make the sound better" is totally unknown to most people who claim to "like music".
I don't think that OOP is the problem, rather that most OOP languages are jut syntactic sugar on top of the good old 'sequence, selection and iteration' models. An Actor model however suits ||ism quite nicely though. An OOP language (such as Smalltalk or even Java) could be used for quite nice || code in a Actors with Consumers and Producers IF a good memory manager and Garbage Collector was developed. I base my opinion on playing with Visual Works on IBM's SP2 architecture about 12 years ago.
I use XMing ( http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/ )- it,s not much good for a full blown XDCMP with gnome, but works very well for most work. Its much leaner and faster than using Cygwin.
I have to point out that the Celtic Church had a history independent of the Roman Church, and saved the Roman Church through its missionary efforts. It was merged with the roman church in the 5th century in order to take advantage of Rome's better marketing arm.
Ah, but it is a museum. The Museum was the temple of the Muses. The Muses were a set of goddesses ( 3 to 9 in number depending on when and where you're talking about) responsible for investing a human with genius - a kind of daemon that provided inspiration to humans.
The odd thing is that no-one has replied with "Yes, get it from http://www.colinux.org/". I've found it to actually be useful, and not just a toy. Still takes a little work to get it running, and you don't get the same performance.
Last week I was walking my 3 youngest children (ages 8, 6 and 4) to school, when the eldest of them ( my daughter) said "Dad, Elisha's Dad is a policeman!"
The 6 year old then said "But our Dad's a scientist". The youngest then said "So you mix things together to make explosions then Dad?"
I said "Some Scientists do that, but I don't. But all scientists ask questions, measure or count things, and then write about it".
"Oh" he said. "so what do you do then?"
"It's like this - see how the road is a bit slippery?" - it had just rained that morning. "I start by having an idea that might explain why the road is slippery. Maybe there's lots of tiny little slimy fish on a wet road, and that makes it slippery". He had been amazed by how slippery fish are just the week before.
"That's silly Dad!" he retorted.
"Well, let's see if we can find a way to check if that's why the road is slippery. What do cats do when there's a fish lying on the ground?"
"They lick it" He said. suddenly looking very serious.
"Is our cat licking the fish on the road? What about the cats that live in both houses next to ours?"
He looked about. "No, I don't see any cats"
"So if we counted the number of cats licking little tiny fish so small we can't see them we'd get the number zero."
"Yes" he said.
"And we all agree that if there were tiny slimy fish lying on the road making it slippery there would be at least one of the 3 cats licking them?"
"Yes" he said.
"So is it likely there are tiny slimy fish on the road making it slippery?"
"No, there are no cats there".
"So we decide that the fish idea isn't right. A scientist will then get another idea about why the road is slippery, and he thinks up a way to measure or count something to see if it's a good idea. We keep on going until we get an idea that we can't prove is wrong. That's what all scientists do, no matter what sort of science they study"
He now has a fair understanding of the scientific method, and he knows that we have to measure (or count) things.
Tip: Read the thread. Nowhere in this particular branch do we see anything about Fortune 500 companies.
Let's look back:
GP to this: My post
Parent (By Quantum G):
"Why can't you understand that people don't want to be sued. No-one will ever see the list of patent numbers and where they are apparently infringed upon until there is a court case. If the cost of a court case is X and the cost of a license is Y, and Y is less than X, then there will never be a court case.
Microsoft doesn't care if you don't believe them. People are buying the licenses."
Nothing about F500 Companies there. A lot about people though in YOUR post.
Parent: Comment that an individual can't audit the FOSS he uses unless he knows what patents are allegedly infringing.
And we are at the top of the thread.
Keep in mind this is a threat against USERS, which does indeed include people and other entities (such as Fortune 500 companies). Look at other posts to see why initial action is unlikely to be against big companies so that the chances of establishing a precedent is increased.
Yes, the article is in "Fortune 500" magazine, but that's because M$ is such a big fish, and doesn't say anything about who is going to be extorted for license monies.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think Christianity is capable of providing any tool for explaining rationally to or raising mentally sane children.
A short story....
One of the lads I used to associate with in my youth is a sociopath. If A. has a choice between doing things the 'right' way or the 'wrong' way he has to choose the wrong way. He is one of the few people I know who might be a really 'evil person' (he does things like dynabolting shut a person's doors and windows while they're asleep before setting fire to their house, for example). One day, after the birth of his twin sons, he said to me "John, I can see why you sending your kids to Sunday School is a good idea - it would help prevent them growing up like me".
When we have our first kid we have all sorts of ideas about how we're going to raise them, without the 'mistakes' our parents made. Most people learn that we have to compromise our ideals, and that a lot of parenting is a matter of deciding what we believe to be the lesser evil, so that our kids have the best chance at happy and fulfilling lives. For many people Christianity provides a useful set of guidelines for arriving at such compromises. Some people use this same information to abrogate their responsibility for these decisions. I do not think Christians have a monopoly on trying to find the easy option and to avoid responsibility for our decisions.
Anything can make the whole of life repulsive. Best to read Nietzsche's comments in the context of his time place and circumstance, as their are plenty of people who find Christianity improves their quality of life. I've always thought that Nietzsche had the flaw of tending to deal in absolutes, although this might be an artifact of translation. I know that the Fundamentalist Loony Fringe suffers from that exact problem - absolutism as an artifact of translation.
Actually, for some people porn is addictive, and it can cause some people incapable of sexual behaviour without the use of porn. These people seem to me to pretty much 'need' porn.
The choice issue is usually abused by all sides of this argument. Informed Choice is a good thing. Kids are not always terribly good at informed decisions. Christianity can provide one way of defining moral boundaries to use as a guide to making informed choices. Unfortunately the Lunatic Fringe in Christianity (which seems to dominate moral debate in the USA) seems to prefer the approach of Prohibition and Protection. Similarly the Humanist Philosophers can also provide some tools to help us deal with life's complexities. But treating Christianity as no more than a Greek Mystery Cult stitched onto liberal Judaism is just as flawed as considering Nietzsche divorced from the social and personal context within which he wrote. It is many years since I read Nietzsche, but it would seem to me that his idealisation of Humanity is entirely consistent with the idea that porn often undermines the dignity of a human, and that education of the deeper issues is the key to making better choices.
If however you idolise Nietzsche because he said some catchy things about some expressions of Christianity, and have missed what he was saying about human potential, then you are very similar to the Bible thumping Fundies you so clearly despise (and I have to agree that those people do seem to have taken the path that avoidance of all potential evil is better than resisting it).
A few years back I found my eldest son (12 at the time( was using the small dark hours to view various kinds of porn. Some was 'normal' but there were many sites that were et the more extreme end of human sexuality.
I set up a transparent proxy with Dansguardian. Do I think it's impossible for my kids to find porn (or other content I'm uncomfortable for my kids to see) ? No. But I do know that it's unlikely for them to stumble across it accidentally. If they set to work to find and view porn, they'll find a way around the filters.
I also took a few of the images C. had looked at, and by zooming and playing with palettes showed him the scars of self-mutilation, the scars from slashed wrists, the track marks, the rotting teeth and the sores. He now knows that many of the girls have pretty nasty problems, as well as nasty habits. He also can see that many of the girls are being exploited, and that porn denigrates humans, unlike art which glorifies the body or casts these girls onto the canvas of our own life to challenge our our nice safe prejudices.
I know if my kids view porn. They know that I know. I also know that they have at least a glimmering of some of the moral and social issues involved. Hopefully I've also provided some guidance about what constitutes 'normal' and what the difference is between sex as an act of love and sex as exploitation for purposes of ego stroking.
So my approach as a parent is (1) make it less likely that they'll find porn by accident (2) make sure they're game to talk to me about it (3) make sure they see woman as more than a set of orifices in a warm bundle (4) make sure they know that their dreams and urges are normal and (5) that they are the only ones who can decide whether they treat Human Beings with respect as Divine Creatures deserve.
I figure that if (however unlikely) I can make some headway on all these points, I'll have got some wins, and their chances of happy future relationships are (slightly?) improved. I think thats my job - the rest is up to them.
I find it interesting that this article has drawn so few comments. Is this because the /. reader base has already made its' mind up about OOXML vs ODF? Or is it a sign of boredom over this issue? Or apathy? Or has the readership changed to one more concerned about Free access to movies and games, and doesn't care about a data format war that has most concern to Governments and Corporations?
I feel uneasy about this, as It may be that as the voices of the informed fall silent, we will lose the battle to keep the access to important data available to the common man.
[Disclaimer: I'm a Socialist]
The whole debate about the relative costs of Socialised vs Free Market medicine is a messy one. I have no doubt that in a genuine Free Market Economy competition would act to reduce prices, whilst a subsidised market would act to prop up real costs. Unfortunately the Free Economy is as much an Idealist's utopia as the Socialist ideal. As long as patents on biology and algorithms remain, there cannot be real competition, and demand will set prices, as supply is restricted. Furthermore it is in the drug companies interests to inflate costs in a socialised model. Currently it is not possible to maintain the costs of socialised medicine.
An example is my supply of Oxycontin. I get 60 tablets every 30 days for $4.95AUD, via the PBS, where the difference from the retail price ($65.05AUD) is paid by the Federal Government. The price for 20mg OC from Purdue in the US is $208US per box (i.e. $624US per month for my dosage) , or a generic for $139.99US ($519.97US for my dosage).
So here in Australia the difference for the non-subsidised price for a generic is $113.17US cheaper than the price for the same generic in the USA. It would appear as if the lack of pervasive socialised pharmaceuticals in the US results in a much higher price than the non-subsidised price in Australia. I acknowledge that there are other factors at work, but it does at least show that in the presence of an imperfect "Free Economy", partial socialisation can act to keep prices down for those unable to gain access to the PBS priced medication. It also suggests that Americans are paying a premium for this particular medicine, as in theory a Free Market should have lower costs than in a Socialist Market.
So beware of applying political ideology to Health Care - it doesn't seem to follow the basic rules of economics.
Yes indeed. I made a mistake once. I believe it was a Tuesday.
In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn describes how the zeks ate a frozen mammoth raw before it could be studied. This has more to do with their inadequate diet than how tasty mammoth is.
This happened to me 10 years ago. My childhood was a lot further back than that, and was no more disturbed than most kids of the early 60's. The late 60's - well the acid was good then. That got a bit disturbing at times.
It's easy to be a sceptic and ask about 'and what about when the bugs become resistant to this'. As a person who had his life ruined by MRSA, I know too well the impact these types of infection have on individuals and families. Anything that can extend the reach of antibiotics (particularly the less toxic ones - I was only 2 or 3 days off being killed by the antibiotic that beat my infection) and decrease the chance of resistance is a good thing.
Hopefully this won't be used promiscuously, and I hope they'll work out the interactions with other treatments, as quite often treatment is multi-modal.
I wouldn't wish what I go through due to MRSA on anyone (except my stepfather, but that's another story altogether.
One reason why there is so much funding devoted to HIV/AIDS research is that the economic costs of the disease are so high. Then if you consider the social costs of a large proportion of the population being orphaned, the cost of research is paltry by comparison.
I have to point out as well the contradiction in the phrase "homosexuals are indoctrinating your children and making them choose their lifestyle" - you can't make someone choose something, although you can make particular choices more likely by controlling the information they have access to.
Finally, it's mainly in the 'developed' 'Christian' countries that HIV/AIDS is a disease mainly affecting gays and IV users. In Africa and SE Asia the disease is predominantly affecting heterosexuals, mainly due to use of prostitutes and a culture that does not strictly adhere to the concepts of chastity and monogamy. That is the 'moral' basis for the disaster befalling Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
It's about 2 mouse clicks and six words to install EToys into a squeak image. I fail to understand the point of this article - EToys is probably being used in Cuba already as it's a great environment to let kids loose in, see http://www.squeakland.org/
I suspect that the US (and Australia) will learn a harsh lesson from freely trading with China when it is discovered that the "Free Economies" have their economic policies being decided for them in Beijing. I'm definitely the political Left, but it makes me worry about the future. Lets see who are the Superpowers in 50 years - India and China will both have absolutely massive economies, and incredible resources.
1) manipulation of the electorate - e.g. how many children were thrown overboard?
2) taxpayer funded advertising and cash "tax rebates" - e.g. baby bonus and the fridge magnets.
These are not flaws in our electoral system so much as flaws in the memories and ethics of the voters.
In Australia we are very confident that votes are properly counted. In fact, in order to issue a rigged count you would have to bribe the opposing party's scrutineers in the 5 minute window between the submission of the scrutineer's form and the beginning of the count for every polling place as well as have all the electoral officers bribed, or else have a mole planted within the committee of each and candidate as well as having all the scrutineers and electoral officers bribed.
Blind voters select a person to place their vote under the supervision of the Returning Officer, who confirms the recorded vote with the blind (or otherwise disabled/handicapped) person.
There's a reason why the 'Australian Vote' is used as the model for most countries that are having their first free and fair elections.
All the exchanges are owned by Telstra. They were the Government monopoly telco until Howard started selling it off. Now it's a public company that has to sell services to all its competitors. Telstra also owns the majority (by I believe at least an order of magnitude) of the glass and copper in the ground. It's not a level playing field so market forces don't work.
I believeyou should listen to the music the way the musician who played it intended it to sound. Otherwise it's like drawing a beard on the Mona Lisa with a felt marker because you "like it that way".
I reckon there should be some kind of a test and license before you can own a graphical EQ, or else consumer level EQs should have a maximum gain of +/- 3dB, with auto re-centering if the controls are untouched for 20 seconds. The idea that EQ is to compensate for speaker and room, and not some kind of magic to "make the sound better" is totally unknown to most people who claim to "like music".
I don't think that OOP is the problem, rather that most OOP languages are jut syntactic sugar on top of the good old 'sequence, selection and iteration' models. An Actor model however suits ||ism quite nicely though. An OOP language (such as Smalltalk or even Java) could be used for quite nice || code in a Actors with Consumers and Producers IF a good memory manager and Garbage Collector was developed. I base my opinion on playing with Visual Works on IBM's SP2 architecture about 12 years ago.
I use XMing ( http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/ )- it,s not much good for a full blown XDCMP with gnome, but works very well for most work. Its much leaner and faster than using Cygwin.
I have to point out that the Celtic Church had a history independent of the Roman Church, and saved the Roman Church through its missionary efforts. It was merged with the roman church in the 5th century in order to take advantage of Rome's better marketing arm.
So it's kind of hilarious really.
The odd thing is that no-one has replied with "Yes, get it from http://www.colinux.org/". I've found it to actually be useful, and not just a toy. Still takes a little work to get it running, and you don't get the same performance.
Last week I was walking my 3 youngest children (ages 8, 6 and 4) to school, when the eldest of them ( my daughter) said "Dad, Elisha's Dad is a policeman!"
The 6 year old then said "But our Dad's a scientist". The youngest then said "So you mix things together to make explosions then Dad?"
I said "Some Scientists do that, but I don't. But all scientists ask questions, measure or count things, and then write about it".
"Oh" he said. "so what do you do then?"
"It's like this - see how the road is a bit slippery?" - it had just rained that morning. "I start by having an idea that might explain why the road is slippery. Maybe there's lots of tiny little slimy fish on a wet road, and that makes it slippery". He had been amazed by how slippery fish are just the week before.
"That's silly Dad!" he retorted.
"Well, let's see if we can find a way to check if that's why the road is slippery. What do cats do when there's a fish lying on the ground?"
"They lick it" He said. suddenly looking very serious.
"Is our cat licking the fish on the road? What about the cats that live in both houses next to ours?"
He looked about. "No, I don't see any cats"
"So if we counted the number of cats licking little tiny fish so small we can't see them we'd get the number zero."
"Yes" he said.
"And we all agree that if there were tiny slimy fish lying on the road making it slippery there would be at least one of the 3 cats licking them?"
"Yes" he said.
"So is it likely there are tiny slimy fish on the road making it slippery?"
"No, there are no cats there".
"So we decide that the fish idea isn't right. A scientist will then get another idea about why the road is slippery, and he thinks up a way to measure or count something to see if it's a good idea. We keep on going until we get an idea that we can't prove is wrong. That's what all scientists do, no matter what sort of science they study"
He now has a fair understanding of the scientific method, and he knows that we have to measure (or count) things.
Tip: Read the thread. Nowhere in this particular branch do we see anything about Fortune 500 companies. Let's look back: GP to this: My post Parent (By Quantum G): "Why can't you understand that people don't want to be sued. No-one will ever see the list of patent numbers and where they are apparently infringed upon until there is a court case. If the cost of a court case is X and the cost of a license is Y, and Y is less than X, then there will never be a court case. Microsoft doesn't care if you don't believe them. People are buying the licenses." Nothing about F500 Companies there. A lot about people though in YOUR post. Parent: Comment that an individual can't audit the FOSS he uses unless he knows what patents are allegedly infringing. And we are at the top of the thread. Keep in mind this is a threat against USERS, which does indeed include people and other entities (such as Fortune 500 companies). Look at other posts to see why initial action is unlikely to be against big companies so that the chances of establishing a precedent is increased. Yes, the article is in "Fortune 500" magazine, but that's because M$ is such a big fish, and doesn't say anything about who is going to be extorted for license monies.