> I haven't seen such anti-American sentiment > since I last visited Berkeley.
I dunno. I don't think there is a SINGLE THING more "American" than criticizing the government and the current order.
Well either that or talking about personal freedom while driving people from their land in the name of "progress" or "manifest destiny" or whatever todays term is.
As for china...
> In China, nobody's rich! (Except for the > bureaucrats, but no country's perfect.)
So what your saying is...Its NOT really a communist or socialist system...it just is for the masses, in reality a bunch of fat cats are living off the people. Doesn't sound like much of a utopia to me.
Its not a system that promotes equality of oppertunity among all people, doesn't sound like a place I want to be.
> before everyone spouts their indoctrinated > drivel, i would like to remind the posters that > they would not be posting on slashdot, would not > be using a browser, would be surfing an > internet, and would not be using a computer if > it were not for "multinational corporations", > the "military industrial complex" or > "monopolies."
Yes yes yes, and mousolini DID in fact make the trains run on time. Whats your point?
> it is so strange that what "evil" corporations > are accused of doing,(with what power i can't > imagine) is the same stuff that governments > have been doing forever!
With what power? Well its called money. People are wed to it. Can't survive in our society without it. That makes those who have alot of it powerful and capable of influencing people.
Its no better when governments do it really. Though really...does it matter if the media is run by a bunch of guys under name of government or a bunch of guys with allot of money under name of profits? Its the same end result.
Capitalism is broken because humans do NOT act in rational manners. They are much too easy to manipulate. Corperations have learned that quality of product doesn't matter...only quality of marketing and media control. Its better to buy out your competition or market like crazy than it is to actually make something worth buying.
Look at microsoft. They have bought companies with competeing or otherwise semi-cool products like most people buy coffee. I have yet to see a microsoft product that wasn't a steaming pile of shit (and yes, I have used them...supported them even, in past jobs). Yet its instant profit....just add marketing.
We are fast aproaching the point where it is hard to not be a customer of the huge companies. Go to the supermarket? well with very few exceptions you know nothing is locally produced and sold by small companies in there.
How about hardware stores? We used to have 3 in this area...Home Depot came in and all the others (all locally owned buisnesses) were out of buisness within 3 years. Now Home Depot has NO competition...they are the ONLY place in the area.
Starbucks does it with coffee shops. These things are becomming ubiqutous and its disgusting.
I, for one, refuse to vote for anyone. I am a firm believer in the principal that any person who is capable of convincing the public to elect him as leader, should under NO circumstances EVER be put in a position of power.
I believe we have about 200 years of case history on that one too.
The idea is interesting...even if it is fatally flawed, in ways that make it useless.
Anything short of tamperproof hardware, with built in DAC and speaker outputs just can not stop the copying....and even then...with the right equipment...a pretty good copy could be made (do a few analog copies and combine them together to reduce random noise).
If a program, in the Users system, EVER has a decryption key that the whole system rests on...then it is flawed...the user has the key (even if it means probing memory in real time to find it). Even barring that....if it ever goes digitally through something the user controls (like the sound card driver)...then the user can copy with no key.
It would be nearly trivial to make a linux driver that looked just like/dev/audio but let me dump the digital input right into a file (or better yet...had an mp3 encoder on the other side of it encoding and dumping)
What about for windows? I wouldn't imagine it would be too hard.
I supose these guys are mathematicians. They have a hammer (math; encryption technology) and to them every problem looks like a nail. The problem is that encryption is an end to end thing. It can't protect you from the person that you are sending the data rightfully to.
I mean if adam encrypts a letter to bob telling bob that he suspects his wife is having an affair but he wants to find out who it is with before he accuses her...all the encryption in the world wont help him if bob is the one who is sleeping with her.
This problem is a technical impossibility to solve, if you want to allow people to use the data you give them on anything but custom hardware that you have control over. Its a completely backwards aproach.
Take java...java is a trusted environemnt (avirtual machine) which knows how to check and "watch" untrusted code and stop it from doing bad things. This is the opposite...they have trusted data...and run it in an untrusted environment...yet make sure the environment (which is what is interpreting it in the first place) is not doing "bad things".
...but...as you SHOULD have known as a juror (which of course you arn't told)...the Jury makes final decision. It does NOT matter what the law says...if the Jury says Not Guilty...then not Guilty it is.
The Jury doesn't have to answer to anyone (unless it can be shown the the jury was tampered with). This is the whole reason a jury exists...it is the FINAL Check on the system.
In fact the Jury can even find a person innocent simply because they believe the law itself is wrong. This is a tradition that goes back to the very beginnings of the Jury system.
The law is simply a set of rules...luckily the people who made those rules realised that no set of rules will ever be perfect (too bad they didn't also realise that rules are a figment of our collective overactive imagination...just like power and order and authority...) and they built in a saftey catch (unfortunaly one that doesn't always work...partially because Jurors are not informed about the true nature of their charge).
In fact, these days I am sorry that I found a way to get out of jury duty. I refuse to vote (don't believe in it) or take part in most things,...but I realise now that the Jury *IS* the final check and balance. Its the one place where ordinary people, without the delusions of grandure and "con-artist" personalities needed to hold public office, can actually make a difference.
The next time I am up for it...I will serve proudly....I think. Actually...I have moral objections to the entire concept of sending people to jail...I don't know if I could find a person guilty knowing what was in store for them...stripped of their freedom to satisfy vengence, done in the name of justice.....sigh.
I hate to beat on the victem but...I think they got what they deserved. Noone was actually hurt...but it should have sent a nice shock through them.
If a system is so important as to be monitoring vital signs of crew and allowing crucial comminication to a shuttle mission...then what the hell is it doing connected to the internet?
What...did they just put up a chocolate wall and think they were safe? They should wise up and come up with a better way, before someone actually gets hurt or killed.
I mean hell...if you really NEED that data to be available on the net...then you setup an inbetween host that just gets data pushed to it through a serial line or something.
Heh freebase cocaine has been around for a long time...the only thing "newer" about crack is that somone realised that you can make freebase with sodium bicarbonate...which means any moron can do it and NOT blow themselves up (like say Richard Priar did back in the 80s - most people just should not be playing with ether and other volitale solvents in their kitchen)
I still maintain that there are NO bad drugs...just bad relationships with drugs. Peoples lack of self disipline and concern for themselves that is the real problem... that and the use of drugs outside of a socially acceptable context. Other cultures have integrated drugs into their culture...drugs are as much a part of our culture as they are of any other the difference is that we choose to close our eyes and wish they didn't exist... like maybe we can put the genie back in the bottle... but I digress....
> many wars no one wants
Has anyone, with the exception of people in power who have something to gain (like say land or more power), ever WANTED war?
> I don't think we're any better or worse off than > our parents' generation.
That depends how you define "better or worst". What is the criterea for judgement? We are still human beings...no better and no worst in breed than we ever were...still fundamentally the same animal as we were say 5000 years ago.
Whats different now is that we are on the leading edge of a wave of technological advancement that is unrivaled throughout all of history. Our abilities to manipulate the world around us and pass information around have advanced more in the past 50 years then in ALL of recorded history.
I think our culture is somewhat in shock from this...as cultures always are after large changes. Just think of the internet itself...the barrier to entry is tiny compared to traditional media.
Compare to television. What do we see on TV? Is it any wonder that it is called "programming"? Its lots of shows...all paid for and written by the same group sof people. A small, rich, elite control the media. I seem to remember that if you trace the money back, 4 individuals control 90% of the traditional media in all of the US. (in other countries its probably either the same or worst...like the government itself in control).
In short...I think that our generation, and the ones to come, are in the most interesting situations of all time (well assuming our generation only includes people in the US and similarly developed countries, middle class and "up"...).
Of course...on the whole the human animal is the same creature, and the biggest unknown variable in how things will progress. It will be interesting to see what social change comes of this.
Does any of this mean we are "better off"? Thats so subjective that no answer is really possible I guess. However thats never stopped it from being argued before.
> N_2 (as well as pure water, contrary to popular > perception) does not conduct electricity.
While true, water tends to be a bad choice for such things. Its hard to get and KEEP really pure. Plus it had this nasty habbit...if there are any electrolytes in it at all...any two parts with a potential difference will caue a small current and, while it may not effect the equipment, it will cause water to break down into H2 and O2.
The breakdown tends to corrode parts too. I thought of water when I was making capacitors... with a whopping dielectric constant of 81 (most plastics are in the 4-7 range...mineral oil is I think 7) its VERY tempting. Of course...when you are planning on using it in a project where voltages will be in excess of 10,000 V...that nasty electrolosis habbit of water could be a problem.
Our understanding of physics may change...and we may find clever ways to get around limitations... but this does not change or invalidate physics.
Normally "limits" that are broken are NOT defined by physics but by other things...the need to interoperate with existing systems is a big one. Current day manafactuing technology is another.
These are not physics. If you push something beyond the limit that current physical laws dictate it must have...then you have undeniable proof that those laws are wrong and must be further researched and modified to meet the new data. THAT is the very essence of science.
This is all true...unless you research the company or have your footwear custom made...there is no way to know what conditions your shoes are being made in...for all you know its probably sweatshop labor.
Tho personally...I prefer to goto k-mart and pay $10 for a nice pair of flimsy velcro instead of lace sneakers. They last about a year...but at about $10/pair...its not too bad.
The masses only have the power to change laws in theory. In practice we have a small elite formed of people who are capable of convincing people that they should be in power, who are able to change laws (too bad, as history has shown, those are exactly the people who should never have power...much like the con artist who convinced you to give your credit card number to is the last person who shoul dever have you rcredit card number).
> It's all very well and good to show off one's > expertise but peoples' lives are not something > to be played with
But sponsoring a coup is ok of course...as long as its a coup against a "bad governtment" full of "Bad people" (Bad being defined as "anyone we don't like")
> that's NOTHING compared to what could happen to > these agents
Something they knew before they got involved I would assume. Should have known better than to get in bed with the CIA.
So your argument is that just because we don't have conclusive proof that there is indeed a cause and effect relationship, we shouldn't care?
As time goes on we are relying more and more on RF equipment. We are bathing ourselves in EM radiation. Have long term exposure studies been done?
What about non-cancer effects? The brain is nothing more than a large, wet, electochemical device. It is suceptible to EM feilds. We have known for more than 50 years that EM feilds in the microwave range can cause psycological effects.
So...these are low power...I understand that, but what about long term effects. We are fast aproaching a world where we will be exposed to this stuff to chronic low levels.
I simply mean to point out that we have evidence that there may be health issues involved and that this really needs to be considered. People should be informed so that they can ecide for themselves about the possibility of risk involved.
Now I know the power output is nothing like that of a microwave oven but, it does make you think. There have been links made between putting cell phones next to your head and brain tumors...
Beyond that... it is well documented that electromagnetic waves in the microwave range can cause psycological effects in humans (in fact, I believe this was one of the many things that certain government agencies did some research in to see if they could use it to modify behavior)
I have to wonder what the long term effects of "imersing" yourself (for lack of a better term) in a "bath" of low power microwave rane EM radiation is.
Interestingly, health risks are exactly the objection that a co-worker of mine cited when we talked about deploying wireless ethernet in some places around campus...his background? Well he is a HAM radio operator and said "I know the risks and I voluntarily use the equipment with that knowledge. What about people who just happen to be nearby and don't even know its there - they don't get a choice" (or some similar sting of words to that effect...was a few weeks ago)
He will make definite statments that he believes that its against the law (and this is all from the court transcript mind you) to use a DVD on an unlicenced player...but....
When asked about librarians using 2 or 3 mins of a film as part of a lecture....he answers...
"The answer is, if there's a legal conclusion to be drawn, I don't know" so....he is perfectly ok drawing his own legal conclusions about unlicenced DVD players, but not about that....interesting.
This seems to me to sound like the argument over Cable content scrambling. I have always been of the opinion that I can do whatever I want with data, once its in my posession. So if they don't want me to descramble, decrypt or whatever, then they shouldn't send me the signal in the first place, should block it outside the home.
Course, thats not convinent. The rule that life isn't always convinent isn't suposed to apply to corperations I guess.
I dunno, this certainly IS relavent, I mean the very idea that a person could be in legal trouble because he wrote some code that a company disliked is frightening...
Though...as to your suggestion...I would rather not go to Lie School and become a liar myself.
> Windows crashed and toasted something that you > didn't back up, it's your own damn fault.
Yup...been there...tho it was under linux...hard drive failed...lost it all. That was a few years back though.
> I buy some software which includes a documented > feature X that (say) sorts my data in some way. > However, feature X was coded by some disgruntled > employee, and instead of sorting data, it > actually formats my hard drive.
This would certainly be grounds to sue...there is a huge difference between a codeing error and a conscious malicous attack.
Generally speaking, when people are talking about "Someone to sue and blame" they are talking from the perspective of a company that wants to base some portion of buisness process on a piece of software.
Or rather, the person whose job it is to choose software wants to be able to shift the blame so he doesn't lose his job for...well..not actually doing his job and making sure it works before commiting to using it.
> Idon't think its reasonable to expect users > tounderstand the source code. Anymore than I > consider it reasonable that someone should be > expected to check the designs of a car (e.g. the > Ford Pinto) to make sure that it won't explode > when it gets hit. This is something people take > for granted.
There is a major difference here. Whenever you get into a car, and operate it, you are potentialy at risk of life and limb. As such, I think it is reasonable to require certain saftey tests etc on cars.
Software on the other hand is NOT the same. Anyone with a little time can write software. You are not necissarily endangering yourself by using software.
This I agree with:
> I don't think its reasonable to expect users > tounderstand the source code.
However...it *IS* reasonable to excpect people to be able to assess risks for the situation that they are in. If you work for an airline, and you are planning to deploy a peice of software for controlling airplane landings, then it is reasonable to assume that you understand the risks involved and will take the necissary precautions BEFORE deploying it. (like performing or having performed source code audits etc).
If you are just an end user at home...and you move all your personal financial info into a spreadsheet, and destroy all your original info, before testing it and using it for a while, then you have noone to blame but yourself if you lose your data.
The GPL ONLY coveres modification and distribution. It doesn't say anything about use or failure.
In any case...why do you feel the need to have someone to sue? Theres too much of that going around these days as it is, everyone wants to settle everything in court it seems.
As for liability. You have the source, you have the ability to check it over. If you put software, or anything, into a position where its running is critical, without checking it out yourself (or paying someone else to check it out) then you have NOONE to blame but yourself anyway.
If YOU are using the software, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that it is the correct solution for your problem. If you are unable, or unwilling to do that, then you have noone to blame but...guess who...yourself.
Software developers are only human. Expecting them to write perfect code with no errors is foolish at best, and in many instances, downright irresponsible.
Its like anything else....when a car maker makes cars, they test them out. If you go out and buy a car that was designed for city driving...take it out to a race track and burn around at toip speed, can you expect the car company to be liable if the car turns out to not be able to handle zipping around a race track that it was never designed to be on?
With software, of course, the differences are more subtle. Uses are not so black and white, which is why it is up to the person deploying the software to make sure that it is what they need.
Someone to sue and blame. What a childish attitude. Who cares about finding the problem and fixing it...its so much more important to find who to blame and blame them...it acomplishes so much more.
(Sorry, but the tendancy to try to deny personal responsibility for ones own decisions and actions is one of my personal pet peeves)
This really, truely is nothing new. I have been involved in the debian project on and off for a couple of years now....
This debate surfaces about once every 6 months to a year. Sometimes more often, sometimes less.
Personally, I think non-free should stay. Its nice to have, even if its not used by everyone. I think I only have 2 packages on my system out of non-free, (netscape and um...realplayer?)
I read one argument that stated that virus has no plaural because in latin (where it comes from, obviously) it had a very similar sense as "air". Ie there really is no plaural, it refers to all of it at once. You may talk of the air inside the house, or the air outside, but you never refer to the two differnt "airs".
The argument goes that virus originally was used in the same way, so there is no plaural.
> At least for Cryptonomicon, you have to know > that this is the first in at least a two part > series. He has said that he couldn't fit the > entire story into one volume because of binding > limitations.
I had thought that might be the case. I am glad to hear it. I know there was some vague mention of that in the cover blurbs but nothing definite.
> I also like the way his endings go. They are > definitely not pat. However, some of them are > tied up better than others.
Well as I said, I only read cryptonomicon and snow crash. I can't comment on others. However, everyone in the office who has read them complained about his endings, so im not alone:)
Cryptonmicon seemed to have almost a corny ending. Just melt it all down right in the caves...this goes on without a hitch...no problem.
I guess the whole thing from page 650 or so seemd very rushed to me, like he knew "I have to end this soon"...and let it influence the story too much.
This goes as much for the ending as for Randy's time in jail...it wasn't a bad concept...it was actually fairly interesting...just that...the presentation in the story was kind of lame.
Of course, knowing it was meant to be only half the story, does help....I hope the next book will develop some things a bit more.
Slashdot Mirror
> HAHAHAHAHA!!! You think statist systems breed
> anything else? That's hilarious!
No I don't think statist systems breed anything else. Which is exactly why neither the US nor China happen to be much of a Utopia.
Though...unbridled capitalism tends to be just as bad as statist systems.
>LEAVE
I have seriously considered expatriation. However I am in no position right now to do so...too busy.
> I haven't seen such anti-American sentiment
> since I last visited Berkeley.
I dunno. I don't think there is a SINGLE THING more "American" than criticizing the government and the current order.
Well either that or talking about personal freedom while driving people from their land in the name of "progress" or "manifest destiny" or whatever todays term is.
As for china...
> In China, nobody's rich! (Except for the
> bureaucrats, but no country's perfect.)
So what your saying is...Its NOT really a communist or socialist system...it just is for the masses, in reality a bunch of fat cats are living off the people. Doesn't sound like much of a utopia to me.
Its not a system that promotes equality of oppertunity among all people, doesn't sound like a place I want to be.
> before everyone spouts their indoctrinated
> drivel, i would like to remind the posters that
> they would not be posting on slashdot, would not
> be using a browser, would be surfing an
> internet, and would not be using a computer if
> it were not for "multinational corporations",
> the "military industrial complex" or
> "monopolies."
Yes yes yes, and mousolini DID in fact make the trains run on time. Whats your point?
> it is so strange that what "evil" corporations
> are accused of doing,(with what power i can't
> imagine) is the same stuff that governments
> have been doing forever!
With what power? Well its called money. People are wed to it. Can't survive in our society without it. That makes those who have alot of it powerful and capable of influencing people.
Its no better when governments do it really. Though really...does it matter if the media is run by a bunch of guys under name of government or a bunch of guys with allot of money under name of profits? Its the same end result.
Capitalism is broken because humans do NOT act in rational manners. They are much too easy to manipulate. Corperations have learned that quality of product doesn't matter...only quality of marketing and media control. Its better to buy out your competition or market like crazy than it is to actually make something worth buying.
Look at microsoft. They have bought companies with competeing or otherwise semi-cool products like most people buy coffee. I have yet to see a microsoft product that wasn't a steaming pile of shit (and yes, I have used them...supported them even, in past jobs). Yet its instant profit....just add marketing.
We are fast aproaching the point where it is hard to not be a customer of the huge companies. Go to the supermarket? well with very few exceptions you know nothing is locally produced and sold by small companies in there.
How about hardware stores? We used to have 3 in this area...Home Depot came in and all the others (all locally owned buisnesses) were out of buisness within 3 years. Now Home Depot has NO competition...they are the ONLY place in the area.
Starbucks does it with coffee shops. These things are becomming ubiqutous and its disgusting.
I, for one, refuse to vote for anyone. I am a firm believer in the principal that any person who is capable of convincing the public to elect him as leader, should under NO circumstances EVER be put in a position of power.
I believe we have about 200 years of case history on that one too.
The idea is interesting...even if it is fatally flawed, in ways that make it useless.
/dev/audio but let me dump the digital input right into a file (or better yet...had an mp3 encoder on the other side of it encoding and dumping)
Anything short of tamperproof hardware, with built in DAC and speaker outputs just can not stop the copying....and even then...with the right equipment...a pretty good copy could be made (do a few analog copies and combine them together to reduce random noise).
If a program, in the Users system, EVER has a decryption key that the whole system rests on...then it is flawed...the user has the key (even if it means probing memory in real time to find it). Even barring that....if it ever goes digitally through something the user controls (like the sound card driver)...then the user can copy with no key.
It would be nearly trivial to make a linux driver that looked just like
What about for windows? I wouldn't imagine it would be too hard.
I supose these guys are mathematicians. They have a hammer (math; encryption technology) and to them every problem looks like a nail. The problem is that encryption is an end to end thing. It can't protect you from the person that you are sending the data rightfully to.
I mean if adam encrypts a letter to bob telling bob that he suspects his wife is having an affair but he wants to find out who it is with before he accuses her...all the encryption in the world wont help him if bob is the one who is sleeping with her.
This problem is a technical impossibility to solve, if you want to allow people to use the data you give them on anything but custom hardware that you have control over. Its a completely backwards aproach.
Take java...java is a trusted environemnt (avirtual machine) which knows how to check and "watch" untrusted code and stop it from doing bad things. This is the opposite...they have trusted data...and run it in an untrusted environment...yet make sure the environment (which is what is interpreting it in the first place) is not doing "bad things".
...but...as you SHOULD have known as a juror (which of course you arn't told)...the Jury makes final decision. It does NOT matter what the law says...if the Jury says Not Guilty...then not Guilty it is.
The Jury doesn't have to answer to anyone (unless it can be shown the the jury was tampered with). This is the whole reason a jury exists...it is the FINAL Check on the system.
In fact the Jury can even find a person innocent simply because they believe the law itself is wrong. This is a tradition that goes back to the very beginnings of the Jury system.
The law is simply a set of rules...luckily the people who made those rules realised that no set of rules will ever be perfect (too bad they didn't also realise that rules are a figment of our collective overactive imagination...just like power and order and authority...) and they built in a saftey catch (unfortunaly one that doesn't always work...partially because Jurors are not informed about the true nature of their charge).
In fact, these days I am sorry that I found a way to get out of jury duty. I refuse to vote (don't believe in it) or take part in most things,...but I realise now that the Jury *IS* the final check and balance. Its the one place where ordinary people, without the delusions of grandure and "con-artist" personalities needed to hold public office, can actually make a difference.
The next time I am up for it...I will serve proudly....I think. Actually...I have moral objections to the entire concept of sending people to jail...I don't know if I could find a person guilty knowing what was in store for them...stripped of their freedom to satisfy vengence, done in the name of justice.....sigh.
I hate to beat on the victem but...I think they got what they deserved. Noone was actually hurt...but it should have sent a nice shock through them.
If a system is so important as to be monitoring vital signs of crew and allowing crucial comminication to a shuttle mission...then what the hell is it doing connected to the internet?
What...did they just put up a chocolate wall and think they were safe? They should wise up and come up with a better way, before someone actually gets hurt or killed.
I mean hell...if you really NEED that data to be available on the net...then you setup an inbetween host that just gets data pushed to it through a serial line or something.
> Even Worse Drugs (crack et al)
Heh freebase cocaine has been around for a long time...the only thing "newer" about crack is that somone realised that you can make freebase with sodium bicarbonate...which means any moron can do it and NOT blow themselves up (like say Richard Priar did back in the 80s - most people just should not be playing with ether and other volitale solvents in their kitchen)
I still maintain that there are NO bad drugs...just bad relationships with drugs. Peoples lack of self disipline and concern for themselves that is the real problem... that and the use of drugs outside of a socially acceptable context. Other cultures have integrated drugs into their culture...drugs are as much a part of our culture as they are of any other the difference is that we choose to close our eyes and wish they didn't exist... like maybe we can put the genie back in the bottle... but I digress....
> many wars no one wants
Has anyone, with the exception of people in power who have something to gain (like say land or more power), ever WANTED war?
> I don't think we're any better or worse off than
> our parents' generation.
That depends how you define "better or worst". What is the criterea for judgement? We are still human beings...no better and no worst in breed than we ever were...still fundamentally the same animal as we were say 5000 years ago.
Whats different now is that we are on the leading edge of a wave of technological advancement that is unrivaled throughout all of history. Our abilities to manipulate the world around us and pass information around have advanced more in the past 50 years then in ALL of recorded history.
I think our culture is somewhat in shock from this...as cultures always are after large changes. Just think of the internet itself...the barrier to entry is tiny compared to traditional media.
Compare to television. What do we see on TV? Is it any wonder that it is called "programming"? Its lots of shows...all paid for and written by the same group sof people. A small, rich, elite control the media. I seem to remember that if you trace the money back, 4 individuals control 90% of the traditional media in all of the US. (in other countries its probably either the same or worst...like the government itself in control).
In short...I think that our generation, and the ones to come, are in the most interesting situations of all time (well assuming our generation only includes people in the US and similarly developed countries, middle class and "up"...).
Of course...on the whole the human animal is the same creature, and the biggest unknown variable in how things will progress. It will be interesting to see what social change comes of this.
Does any of this mean we are "better off"? Thats so subjective that no answer is really possible I guess. However thats never stopped it from being argued before.
> N_2 (as well as pure water, contrary to popular
> perception) does not conduct electricity.
While true, water tends to be a bad choice for such things. Its hard to get and KEEP really pure. Plus it had this nasty habbit...if there are any electrolytes in it at all...any two parts with a potential difference will caue a small current and, while it may not effect the equipment, it will cause water to break down into H2 and O2.
The breakdown tends to corrode parts too. I thought of water when I was making capacitors... with a whopping dielectric constant of 81 (most plastics are in the 4-7 range...mineral oil is I think 7) its VERY tempting. Of course...when you are planning on using it in a project where voltages will be in excess of 10,000 V...that nasty electrolosis habbit of water could be a problem.
I wholeheartedly disagree...
Our understanding of physics may change...and we may find clever ways to get around limitations... but this does not change or invalidate physics.
Normally "limits" that are broken are NOT defined by physics but by other things...the need to interoperate with existing systems is a big one. Current day manafactuing technology is another.
These are not physics. If you push something beyond the limit that current physical laws dictate it must have...then you have undeniable proof that those laws are wrong and must be further researched and modified to meet the new data. THAT is the very essence of science.
This is all true...unless you research the company or have your footwear custom made...there is no way to know what conditions your shoes are being made in...for all you know its probably sweatshop labor.
Tho personally...I prefer to goto k-mart and pay $10 for a nice pair of flimsy velcro instead of lace sneakers. They last about a year...but at about $10/pair...its not too bad.
Um...and thats worst than what we have now?
The masses only have the power to change laws in theory. In practice we have a small elite formed of people who are capable of convincing people that they should be in power, who are able to change laws (too bad, as history has shown, those are exactly the people who should never have power...much like the con artist who convinced you to give your credit card number to is the last person who shoul dever have you rcredit card number).
> (Examples: you can't yell "Fire" in a crowded
> theater; you can't claim religious freedom to
> kill people; the list goes on.)
He released the names of criminals, who had not been caught for their crime (well criminals according to the Iranian government that is).
What if it was a document about russian spys who helped fund a coup here in the US? Would you be so quick to come to the side of their protection?
> It's all very well and good to show off one's
> expertise but peoples' lives are not something
> to be played with
But sponsoring a coup is ok of course...as long as its a coup against a "bad governtment" full of "Bad people" (Bad being defined as "anyone we don't like")
> that's NOTHING compared to what could happen to
> these agents
Something they knew before they got involved I would assume. Should have known better than to get in bed with the CIA.
So your argument is that just because we don't have conclusive proof that there is indeed a cause and effect relationship, we shouldn't care?
As time goes on we are relying more and more on RF equipment. We are bathing ourselves in EM radiation. Have long term exposure studies been done?
What about non-cancer effects? The brain is nothing more than a large, wet, electochemical device. It is suceptible to EM feilds. We have known for more than 50 years that EM feilds in the microwave range can cause psycological effects.
So...these are low power...I understand that, but what about long term effects. We are fast aproaching a world where we will be exposed to this stuff to chronic low levels.
I simply mean to point out that we have evidence that there may be health issues involved and that this really needs to be considered. People should be informed so that they can ecide for themselves about the possibility of risk involved.
Actually...
It has been known for more than 50 years that Electromagnetic feilds can effect the functioning of the human brain.
In fact, it was experimented with for much the same reasons as LSD was back in the 50s and 60s by organizations like the CIA.
This is very interesting.
Now I know the power output is nothing like that of a microwave oven but, it does make you think. There have been links made between putting cell phones next to your head and brain tumors...
Beyond that... it is well documented that electromagnetic waves in the microwave range can cause psycological effects in humans (in fact, I believe this was one of the many things that certain government agencies did some research in to see if they could use it to modify behavior)
I have to wonder what the long term effects of "imersing" yourself (for lack of a better term) in a "bath" of low power microwave rane EM radiation is.
Interestingly, health risks are exactly the objection that a co-worker of mine cited when we talked about deploying wireless ethernet in some places around campus...his background? Well he is a HAM radio operator and said "I know the risks and I voluntarily use the equipment with that knowledge. What about people who just happen to be nearby and don't even know its there - they don't get a choice" (or some similar sting of words to that effect...was a few weeks ago)
Food for thought.
He will make definite statments that he believes that its against the law (and this is all from the court transcript mind you) to use a DVD on an unlicenced player...but....
When asked about librarians using 2 or 3 mins of a film as part of a lecture....he answers...
"The answer is, if there's a legal conclusion to be drawn, I don't know" so....he is perfectly ok drawing his own legal conclusions about unlicenced DVD players, but not about that....interesting.
This seems to me to sound like the argument over Cable content scrambling. I have always been of the opinion that I can do whatever I want with data, once its in my posession. So if they don't want me to descramble, decrypt or whatever, then they shouldn't send me the signal in the first place, should block it outside the home.
Course, thats not convinent. The rule that life isn't always convinent isn't suposed to apply to corperations I guess.
I dunno, this certainly IS relavent, I mean the
very idea that a person could be in legal trouble
because he wrote some code that a company disliked
is frightening...
Though...as to your suggestion...I would rather
not go to Lie School and become a liar myself.
> Windows crashed and toasted something that you
> didn't back up, it's your own damn fault.
Yup...been there...tho it was under linux...hard drive failed...lost it all. That was a few years back though.
> I buy some software which includes a documented
> feature X that (say) sorts my data in some way.
> However, feature X was coded by some disgruntled
> employee, and instead of sorting data, it
> actually formats my hard drive.
This would certainly be grounds to sue...there is a huge difference between a codeing error and a conscious malicous attack.
Generally speaking, when people are talking about "Someone to sue and blame" they are talking from the perspective of a company that wants to base some portion of buisness process on a piece of software.
Or rather, the person whose job it is to choose software wants to be able to shift the blame so he doesn't lose his job for...well..not actually doing his job and making sure it works before commiting to using it.
> Idon't think its reasonable to expect users
> tounderstand the source code. Anymore than I
> consider it reasonable that someone should be
> expected to check the designs of a car (e.g. the
> Ford Pinto) to make sure that it won't explode
> when it gets hit. This is something people take
> for granted.
There is a major difference here. Whenever you get into a car, and operate it, you are potentialy at risk of life and limb. As such, I think it is reasonable to require certain saftey tests etc on cars.
Software on the other hand is NOT the same. Anyone with a little time can write software. You are not necissarily endangering yourself by using software.
This I agree with:
> I don't think its reasonable to expect users
> tounderstand the source code.
However...it *IS* reasonable to excpect people to be able to assess risks for the situation that they are in. If you work for an airline, and you are planning to deploy a peice of software for controlling airplane landings, then it is reasonable to assume that you understand the risks involved and will take the necissary precautions BEFORE deploying it. (like performing or having performed source code audits etc).
If you are just an end user at home...and you move all your personal financial info into a spreadsheet, and destroy all your original info, before testing it and using it for a while, then you have noone to blame but yourself if you lose your data.
Again...no
The GPL ONLY coveres modification and distribution. It doesn't say anything about use or failure.
In any case...why do you feel the need to have someone to sue? Theres too much of that going around these days as it is, everyone wants to settle everything in court it seems.
As for liability. You have the source, you have the ability to check it over. If you put software, or anything, into a position where its running is critical, without checking it out yourself (or paying someone else to check it out) then you have NOONE to blame but yourself anyway.
If YOU are using the software, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that it is the correct solution for your problem. If you are unable, or unwilling to do that, then you have noone to blame but...guess who...yourself.
Software developers are only human. Expecting them to write perfect code with no errors is foolish at best, and in many instances, downright irresponsible.
Its like anything else....when a car maker makes cars, they test them out. If you go out and buy a car that was designed for city driving...take it out to a race track and burn around at toip speed, can you expect the car company to be liable if the car turns out to not be able to handle zipping around a race track that it was never designed to be on?
With software, of course, the differences are more subtle. Uses are not so black and white, which is why it is up to the person deploying the software to make sure that it is what they need.
Someone to sue and blame. What a childish attitude. Who cares about finding the problem and fixing it...its so much more important to find who to blame and blame them...it acomplishes so much more.
(Sorry, but the tendancy to try to deny personal responsibility for ones own decisions and actions is one of my personal pet peeves)
This really, truely is nothing new. I have been involved in the debian project on and off for a couple of years now....
This debate surfaces about once every 6 months to a year. Sometimes more often, sometimes less.
Personally, I think non-free should stay. Its nice to have, even if its not used by everyone. I think I only have 2 packages on my system out of non-free, (netscape and um...realplayer?)
That depends on how you wish to argue it :)
I read one argument that stated that virus has no plaural because in latin (where it comes from, obviously) it had a very similar sense as "air". Ie there really is no plaural, it refers to all of it at once. You may talk of the air inside the house, or the air outside, but you never refer to the two differnt "airs".
The argument goes that virus originally was used in the same way, so there is no plaural.
> At least for Cryptonomicon, you have to know
:)
> that this is the first in at least a two part
> series. He has said that he couldn't fit the
> entire story into one volume because of binding
> limitations.
I had thought that might be the case. I am glad to hear it. I know there was some vague mention of that in the cover blurbs but nothing definite.
> I also like the way his endings go. They are
> definitely not pat. However, some of them are
> tied up better than others.
Well as I said, I only read cryptonomicon and snow crash. I can't comment on others. However, everyone in the office who has read them complained about his endings, so im not alone
Cryptonmicon seemed to have almost a corny ending. Just melt it all down right in the caves...this goes on without a hitch...no problem.
I guess the whole thing from page 650 or so seemd very rushed to me, like he knew "I have to end this soon"...and let it influence the story too much.
This goes as much for the ending as for Randy's time in jail...it wasn't a bad concept...it was actually fairly interesting...just that...the presentation in the story was kind of lame.
Of course, knowing it was meant to be only half the story, does help....I hope the next book will develop some things a bit more.