It's funny, I thought "Ride The Lightning" was a total sell-out. That song, "Escape," was so wimpy compared to anything on "Kill 'Em All." Ever since then, they've been losing appeal, for me. There was something interesting there, on that first album. That essence started to slip away pretty early on, in my opinion.
"Lightning" is definitely a very different album from "Kill 'Em All." But I kinda prefered Lightning because it struck me as more personal and political, less cocky and schlocky, than Kill. But I still prefer Kill over that Black Album.
IMO, Master of Puppets is the best Metallica album of them all. But that was fourteen years ago.
Are your issues with the music itself or with unrelated shit that doesn't matter?
Good question. My problem is with the music itself. I bought that album expecting some great speed metal. What I got was pop. I can respect that they changed their sound, but I can't respect what they changed their sound to. Megadeth at least has harmony; Anthrax at least has interesting composition. Slayer at least has a gut-wrenching evil sound, which has always been their hallmark. Metallica's just got image. If I wanted that I'd buy Marilyn Manson.
I still think the Napster lawsuit matters, but it would be dishonest of me to say that my real reason is the Napster lawsuit.
The spooks will now devote substantial research to finding a way to observe particles *without* interacting with them.
Damn...and you realize, that if they discover a way to do this somehow or another (maybe by exploiting some insight into waves? Or by approximating spins?), that such a revelation would become a matter of national security?
I really hate this new proprietary world sometimes.
Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography makes mention of this 'eavesdrop detection' feature of quantum crypto. The article is really cool and educational, but it's not that new.
But Max, do you
really want to live in a culture of people who are hardwired to believe that power emanates from a gun barrel or batch of explosives rather
than moral virtue and creative intelligence?? Think about it....
If you ask me, power eminates from all of these in combination. Creative intelligence and moral virtue are powerful, but are more powerful with a medium to broadcast the ideas they come up with. And a person of moral virtue and creative intelligence can get snuffed out with a gun in no time flat, as both the activist and the dictator are aware....
There are two really baseless assumptions you make in your argument.
The first is that a young adult who has lived a sheltered life does not
have the capacity to think. You assume that these people are incapable of rational thought just because they have not seen pornography,
heard about satan worship, or tried pot.
I think you're intelligent enough to recognize hyperbole when you see it. Just for the record, I am not advocating that people see pornography or try pot. But hearing about Satan worship, absolutely. Not necessarily practising it, mind you. Hearing about it, or maybe knowing a thing or two about it, so that you can fight it better, or decide it's plain silly, or even join in if you're so inclined. But any of these is preferable to being completely ignorant about it.
This is a ridiculous assertion. Everytime I go to math class I learn something new, that doesn't mean I
just blindly accept these things. I have the capacity to judge the proofs that back these new concepts. If I believe the proof makes sense, then
I accept the new concept (If I don't, I go ask the TA to explain it:)).
And, consequently, you gain further experience with proofs. Which is a good thing. It also means that you'll be better capable of recognizing a lousy proof when you see one. But this is still experience, and speaking as someone who loves mathematics myself, this is really pretty limited experience.
We are humans, we have the ability to
reason and make valid inferences from data. We don't need experience. I don't need to steal something to know that I would feel guilty
afterwards. I can reason! I don't need to kill someone to know it is wrong!
I think we have sufficient information to judge that stealing and killing are, in most cases, wrong. On the other hand, coming to a conclusion based on little or no evidence is pure superstition.
The second assumption is even scarier, "children are property of the state". You are now not allowed to teach your children your own values
or via your own methods. You must do it our way, or no way. Our thinking or no thinking. These same liberals (I'm just guessing you are one,
but you might not be) would have us believe that we have no right to teach our children the way we want but we have every right to abort
them before they have a chance at life. What a coherent idea!
For the record:
I never make the assumption that children are anyone's property. They are the responsibility of parents, primarily, and everyone else also to some extent. But they are not anyone's property, let alone the state, or in this case, the corporation.
I have no problem whatsoever with instilling in children whatever values you, as a parent, wish. However I would advise that values are stronger when sharpened on real world experience.
I have no clue where people get the idea that allowing children of an appropriate age to handle things like Marxism, the gay rights debate, the gun debate, etc., somehow constitutes a Liberal agenda to wipe out parental involvement and turn children into government property. This strikes me as evidence of an utter failure of reason.
NB, I think Slashdot is handling social issues really well. It does, after all, allow people do discuss these things. There may be a liberal or libertarian bias here, but at least here, anyone with something to say can be heard, instead of just one person delivering information one way to the waiting masses (as in most of the rest of the media).
I'm sure there may be many parents that don't want their kids exposed to a liberal agenda untill they're old enough to make their own
decisions. A political affiliation is a decision to be made by an educated and informed adult, not by little skulls full of mush.
Maybe you're right. In my estimation, parents like these are willfully foisting ignorance on their children. Which may be okay when they're toddlers, but when they're teenagers, it's child abuse.
Consider the following: random kid is brought up unexposed to undesireable political, religious and social agendas; some good, some bad, all somehow controversial for reasons that may or may not be complete bullshit. Kid goes into college, where, for the first time in his or her life, there is free and unfettered access to information. (NB, I'm not refering to technical information here, such as patents and trade secrets. I'm refering to philosophies, religions, and politics that random kid's parents find objectionable).
So, the kid runs into the Army of Satanic Order, a group which s/he has never heard of before. Furthermore: s/he discovers that there is a conspiracy (through AOL/Time-Warner and other companies) to deny him/her information about this group, because this information is threatening to the powers that be. Which is now true!
Said kid, whose real world experiences have thus far been filtered, probably hasn't had to develop bullshit detectors, either. Moreover, s/he's likely to make the mistake a lot of conspiracy theorists make -- believing that if information is being suppressed, that it must be true.
In no time flat, the Army of Satanic Order has a new, naive, paranoid recruit.
Note that you can substitute any other organization, legitimate or illegitimate, objectionable or merely controversial, good or bad, for the Army of Satanic Order. The end result is the same: recruits who have been deliberately brought up not to think for themselves.
I'm not saying that AOL shouldn't be censoring content. Far from it. If parents want to raise their kids this way, fine by me. I'll raise my kids with exposure to more of the world, so they can learn about real life at an earlier age. Let's see whose kids are working for whose 30 years later.
In Hubble's lifetime, we've gathered data from several Mars probes and one highly successful Jupiter probe, discovered new planets, re-written our hypotheses on alien life, located fountains of antimatter spewing out of the centers of galaxies, brought the search for alien life to millions of home computers, and discovered an orientation for the Cosmos. Cosmology has arguably replaced High Energy Physics as the hotest research field, and NASA is still launching interesting missions. Coolest of all, once troubled Hubble may outlive the once bleeding edge Iridium sattelites.
In order to meet the demand amoungst Metallica fans to bazooka all their money at their favorite band, I am starting a website through which you can send money to former Metallica bass player Cliff Burton.
While it's true that Cliff Burton died in a tragic accident during the Master of Puppets tour, I can assure you all that he will appreciate your donations posthumously. Please visit www.paycliff.com; or make out your checks to Cliff Burton of Metallica and send your payment and note of thanks to:
Cliff Burton of Metallica, c/o MAXOMENOS
PO Box 31337 Seattle, WA 98195
Your generous donation will go towards preserving the memory of the 1980's, pre-Black-album Metallica, and paying the living expenses of poor, starving Metallica fans in the Pacific Northwest.
Something else I might point out...corporations are treated as artificial persons under the law. But corporations are not the same as people.
When you commit a felony, you go to prison for a LONG time, and you usually lose certain rights. (You can't own a firearm, you can't vote, &c). In many states, if you commit three felonies, you're put in jail for life. But when a corporation such as Exxon commits a felony (by violating environmental protection or racketeering laws, for example), then the penalty is a fine. Not a loss of any rights; not government oversight; in fact no substansive loss of freedom whatsoever. Just a fine. Corporations don't have to register themselves as conviced felons; they don't serve jail time; they don't undergo any kind of death penalty, unless they've committed gross abuses against other corporations, or unless the damage they did was so eggregious as to bankrupt them from the litigation. They get a fine; and usually that fine is a slap on the wrist.
Let me put forth this hypothesis: corporations are fundamentally different from people, and there should be treated fundamentally differently. This means that corporations are not necessarily guaranteed the same rights as individuals. Discuss.:)
Just as a note -- Rob, something's wrong with the Slashdot code. My original response got cut short.
The GOVERNMENT has broken treaties with the Indians over mineral and oil rights, has broken up fair protests (Seattle), and arrested and detained citizens without due process.
On whose behest did the government do this? Yours? Mine? Was this ever voted upon? Who called the shots here?
The GOVERNMENT does not want me to buy airline tickets with cash, limits the amount of cash I can legally send using wire services and is opposed to encryption of my personal files on my computer all in the name of public safety, (and requires privately owned companies to comply with these rules). How does me whipping out a wad of Ben Franklins to pay for a plane trip to Philadelphia threaten national security?
Corporations have the right to collect information about anybody they want to, and sell it to anyone they want to, unless you, personally, tell them otherwise. What's to prevent them from selling their information to the FBI? The CIA? The BATF? You'll note also that there's no provision in the Constitution preventing corporations from invading your privacy in this manner.
The GOVERNMENT has broad search and seizure rules without need for warrant, has the right to track all firearm purchases and trips outside of our shores, has the right to mandate new taxes (even though it is forbidden by the Constitution), and has the right to fight undeclared wars against foreign powers (even though that is against the Constitution as well).
Thanks partially to computers, partially to the end of the Cold War, and partially to the enormous amount of money corporations presently have, corporate America has almost as much power, if not more, than the Federal Government. And whatever power they don't have, they can pay a lobbyist to get for them. Who are these companies beholden to...you? me? Not unless we're shareholders with a significant amount of stock. Even the media do what the Corporate world tells it to.
So what are you going to do...blame the government for everything, or start looking at who's telling the government what to do?
The GOVERNMENT has broken treaties with the Indians over mineral and oil rights, has broken up fair protests (Seattle), and arrested and detained citizens without due process.
At whose behest did the government do this? Here's a hint: none of these were on a ballot anywhere.
For a second, just reading the blurb on Slashdot, I thought that some crypto-advocates were talking about letting the government regulate Internet and place restrictions on cryptography. Fortunately I was quite wrong:).
It looks like the author of this Salon article is disappointed because a number of major Cryptography/Cypherpunk figures... Neal Stephenson, Phil Zimmerman, Whitfield Diffie... have started to advocate some very traditionally leftist activities (such as organizing unions!) and are walking away, slowly, from Libertarian ideals.
Good for them.
In case anyone's not been paying attention, right now our rights as coders and geeks are under attack...by corporations. It's not the FBI that's collecting information about misfits in high school, it's Pinkertons. It's not the Congress that's censoring web sites, it's Cybersitter. It's not the NSA that's stepping on software development, it's corporations like the MPAA, Microsoft, ad infinitum.
In the past, protecting ourselves with encryption and security was enough, because the government could only go so far. But now, corporations have powers the government never had. We need to adapt to the change in circumstances in order to protect our rights. If this means abandoning the sacred cow of Libertarianism, so be it. Stephenson, Zimmerman and Diffie are right on with this one.
The patent that Amazon is being sued under was issued in 1999. That's well after the development of MP3,.wav files, &c. The combination of putting an audio file on Internet and allowing someone to download it and play it back is pretty obvious. The Kiosk technology isn't as obvious...I'll grant that...but we're not talking kiosks here. We're talking websites. I hope this lawsuit gets thrown out on its rearend.
Not only are 4 out of 5 staff men, but the site is basically still promoting the looks of these girls who are good at math, enforcing the stereotypical viewpoint that all men care about is how a woman looks. This may be true for some men, and this is certainly true for things like porn, but in real life, I want a woman who can challenge me, and keep me guessing, who is at, above, or near my level of intelligence, and not necessarily interested in the same things.
Yeah, you're right, it's promoting a stereotype: the smart attractive teenage girl. Which is, IMO, progress compared to the steretype of the smart, bookish teenage girl. Knowing the way that my brain operated when I was a kid, if beauty mattered to me a great deal, and I didn't see anyone who was smart and beautiful, I'd probably choose beautiful over smart. Dumb? You bet. But then again, logic doesn't come naturally to humans; it has to be trained into us.
Yeah, I personally prefer someone with brains over someone with beauty; and someone who's overweight with a free spirit and brains is sexier than a supermodel with neither. But I could give a sh** how this site reflects on ME. I worry more that we may be subtly pissing away half of our pool of talent with messages like "girls can't do math."
BOTTOM 10 pickup lines at Calculusgirls.com
on
80 Proof Quickies
·
· Score: 5
With apologies to all the calculus girls, who are, indeed, gorgeous....
Hey beautiful -- what's your sine?
So baby, are you into groups that commute?
Wanna see my root function?
I know you can integrate, but do you want to multiply?
How'd you like to....take my measure?
You know about predator-prey systems right? Wanna be the predator to my prey?
Oh wow, you are SO absolutely continuous.
How'd you like to come home and study my module?
Oh wow, you make me approximate the Dirac delta function in ways you couldn't imagine!
They say love is complex, but I wanna keep it real. Let's do away with the imaginary stuff and project, shall we?
I'm not particularly concerned whether Microsoft gets slapped on the wrist with a drinking straw or gets obliterated from the face of Corporate America. Either way, if I had my druthers, I'd make sure they honored refunds on their damn products.
Sometimes I *like* Microsoft products. I do! Windows is easier to use than Linux for a lot of things, even if I enjoy using Linux more. And I can't beat Excel yet. But I want to have the *choice* to use a Microsoft product, or an alternative, and not have to pay for the products I *don't* choose. If I buy a PC and it comes with Windows, and I want to use Linux on it, then Microsoft should have to send me a refund when I send them the product back, as their licensing agreement states they will. If only ONE thing comes out of the ruling, it should be this.
Bundling pre-installed Windows with VMWare is a slam dunk. I'm quite glad that VMWare made this move, because it means that it will be cheaper for me to install Win2k on my VMWare box (after I upgrade my computer, blah blah blah:)). It also makes it that much easier to poke and prod Win2k for flaws on top of my Linux box.
And additionally, it will save you money if you want your cable modem to be installed on your Linux box...:)
And we can soon give VMWare and Microsoft the award for best Linux application (VMWare with WinNT:)).
With all the media attention on the failures of NASA, it's good to see NASA's great successes: Cassini, Galileo, Voyager, Pathfinder, Viking, and most of all Apollo. When people talk about cutting the NASA budget, we can point them to these; and when they ask, "Yeah, but what did it do to save the environment," you can ask them, "How much are you willing to pay for knowledge that isn't immediately useful?"
I'm going to continue my boycott of Amazon, after having read Jeff Bezos's comments.
What Jeff Bezos has proposed is a series of very good ideas on the subject of patent law reform, and I personally am going to write every politician I can find and spread the word about Bezos's proposals. I think they are quite sound.
But if you ask me, these proposals aren't enough from Bezos. Before I can take him at his word that he's really pushing for these changes, I need to see some proof of action. For example:
Testifying before Congress;
Writing an open letter and passing it out to all the major newspapers, calling for specific patent reforms;
Consulting with President Clinton on this matter, in a public conference.
So Jeff, if you're reading this, take note: I'm going to keep telling people to boycott Amazon, and I'm going to tell them my new reasons why. But if you turn your words into actions, then I'll buy my books exclusively from Amazon unless they are simply not available there. (Right now, I'm buying from Barnes and Noble). I'll also explain to my friends why they should do this as a part of my word-of-mouth campaign. Call it a "carrot-stick boycott":).
Slashdot Mirror
It's funny, I thought "Ride The Lightning" was a total sell-out. That song, "Escape," was so wimpy compared to anything on "Kill 'Em All." Ever since then, they've been losing appeal, for me. There was something interesting there, on that first album. That essence started to slip away pretty early on, in my opinion.
"Lightning" is definitely a very different album from "Kill 'Em All." But I kinda prefered Lightning because it struck me as more personal and political, less cocky and schlocky, than Kill. But I still prefer Kill over that Black Album.
IMO, Master of Puppets is the best Metallica album of them all. But that was fourteen years ago.
The Second Amendment Sisters
Are your issues with the music itself or with unrelated shit that doesn't matter?
Good question. My problem is with the music itself. I bought that album expecting some great speed metal. What I got was pop. I can respect that they changed their sound, but I can't respect what they changed their sound to. Megadeth at least has harmony; Anthrax at least has interesting composition. Slayer at least has a gut-wrenching evil sound, which has always been their hallmark. Metallica's just got image. If I wanted that I'd buy Marilyn Manson.
I still think the Napster lawsuit matters, but it would be dishonest of me to say that my real reason is the Napster lawsuit.
The Second Amendment Sisters
Some of us have been doing it since that stupidass Black Album :).
The Second Amendment Sisters
Damn...and you realize, that if they discover a way to do this somehow or another (maybe by exploiting some insight into waves? Or by approximating spins?), that such a revelation would become a matter of national security?
I really hate this new proprietary world sometimes.
The Second Amendment Sisters
Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography makes mention of this 'eavesdrop detection' feature of quantum crypto. The article is really cool and educational, but it's not that new.
The Second Amendment Sisters
Scary thing is, they ARE working on it in the United States...as a way to resolve traffic accidents and the like quickly.
The Second Amendment Sisters
If you ask me, power eminates from all of these in combination. Creative intelligence and moral virtue are powerful, but are more powerful with a medium to broadcast the ideas they come up with. And a person of moral virtue and creative intelligence can get snuffed out with a gun in no time flat, as both the activist and the dictator are aware....
I think you're intelligent enough to recognize hyperbole when you see it. Just for the record, I am not advocating that people see pornography or try pot. But hearing about Satan worship, absolutely. Not necessarily practising it, mind you. Hearing about it, or maybe knowing a thing or two about it, so that you can fight it better, or decide it's plain silly, or even join in if you're so inclined. But any of these is preferable to being completely ignorant about it.
And, consequently, you gain further experience with proofs. Which is a good thing. It also means that you'll be better capable of recognizing a lousy proof when you see one. But this is still experience, and speaking as someone who loves mathematics myself, this is really pretty limited experience.
I think we have sufficient information to judge that stealing and killing are, in most cases, wrong. On the other hand, coming to a conclusion based on little or no evidence is pure superstition.
For the record:
NB, I think Slashdot is handling social issues really well. It does, after all, allow people do discuss these things. There may be a liberal or libertarian bias here, but at least here, anyone with something to say can be heard, instead of just one person delivering information one way to the waiting masses (as in most of the rest of the media).
Maybe you're right. In my estimation, parents like these are willfully foisting ignorance on their children. Which may be okay when they're toddlers, but when they're teenagers, it's child abuse.
Consider the following: random kid is brought up unexposed to undesireable political, religious and social agendas; some good, some bad, all somehow controversial for reasons that may or may not be complete bullshit. Kid goes into college, where, for the first time in his or her life, there is free and unfettered access to information. (NB, I'm not refering to technical information here, such as patents and trade secrets. I'm refering to philosophies, religions, and politics that random kid's parents find objectionable).
So, the kid runs into the Army of Satanic Order, a group which s/he has never heard of before. Furthermore: s/he discovers that there is a conspiracy (through AOL/Time-Warner and other companies) to deny him/her information about this group, because this information is threatening to the powers that be. Which is now true!
Said kid, whose real world experiences have thus far been filtered, probably hasn't had to develop bullshit detectors, either. Moreover, s/he's likely to make the mistake a lot of conspiracy theorists make -- believing that if information is being suppressed, that it must be true.
In no time flat, the Army of Satanic Order has a new, naive, paranoid recruit.
Note that you can substitute any other organization, legitimate or illegitimate, objectionable or merely controversial, good or bad, for the Army of Satanic Order. The end result is the same: recruits who have been deliberately brought up not to think for themselves.
I'm not saying that AOL shouldn't be censoring content. Far from it. If parents want to raise their kids this way, fine by me. I'll raise my kids with exposure to more of the world, so they can learn about real life at an earlier age. Let's see whose kids are working for whose 30 years later.
In Hubble's lifetime, we've gathered data from several Mars probes and one highly successful Jupiter probe, discovered new planets, re-written our hypotheses on alien life, located fountains of antimatter spewing out of the centers of galaxies, brought the search for alien life to millions of home computers, and discovered an orientation for the Cosmos. Cosmology has arguably replaced High Energy Physics as the hotest research field, and NASA is still launching interesting missions. Coolest of all, once troubled Hubble may outlive the once bleeding edge Iridium sattelites.
Happy birthday Hubble.
Here's another bit of UNIX history from Ritchie's site: a brief history of the UNIX pipe.
In order to meet the demand amoungst Metallica fans to bazooka all their money at their favorite band, I am starting a website through which you can send money to former Metallica bass player Cliff Burton.
While it's true that Cliff Burton died in a tragic accident during the Master of Puppets tour, I can assure you all that he will appreciate your donations posthumously. Please visit www.paycliff.com; or make out your checks to Cliff Burton of Metallica and send your payment and note of thanks to:
Your generous donation will go towards preserving the memory of the 1980's, pre-Black-album Metallica, and paying the living expenses of poor, starving Metallica fans in the Pacific Northwest.
Something else I might point out...corporations are treated as artificial persons under the law. But corporations are not the same as people.
When you commit a felony, you go to prison for a LONG time, and you usually lose certain rights. (You can't own a firearm, you can't vote, &c). In many states, if you commit three felonies, you're put in jail for life. But when a corporation such as Exxon commits a felony (by violating environmental protection or racketeering laws, for example), then the penalty is a fine. Not a loss of any rights; not government oversight; in fact no substansive loss of freedom whatsoever. Just a fine. Corporations don't have to register themselves as conviced felons; they don't serve jail time; they don't undergo any kind of death penalty, unless they've committed gross abuses against other corporations, or unless the damage they did was so eggregious as to bankrupt them from the litigation. They get a fine; and usually that fine is a slap on the wrist.
Let me put forth this hypothesis: corporations are fundamentally different from people, and there should be treated fundamentally differently. This means that corporations are not necessarily guaranteed the same rights as individuals. Discuss. :)
Just as a note -- Rob, something's wrong with the Slashdot code. My original response got cut short.
On whose behest did the government do this? Yours? Mine? Was this ever voted upon? Who called the shots here?
Corporations have the right to collect information about anybody they want to, and sell it to anyone they want to, unless you, personally, tell them otherwise. What's to prevent them from selling their information to the FBI? The CIA? The BATF? You'll note also that there's no provision in the Constitution preventing corporations from invading your privacy in this manner.
Granted, these are all gross violations of our Constitutional rights. OTOH, who benefitted from those wars? Was the war in the Balkans really about Monica?
Thanks partially to computers, partially to the end of the Cold War, and partially to the enormous amount of money corporations presently have, corporate America has almost as much power, if not more, than the Federal Government. And whatever power they don't have, they can pay a lobbyist to get for them. Who are these companies beholden to...you? me? Not unless we're shareholders with a significant amount of stock. Even the media do what the Corporate world tells it to.
So what are you going to do...blame the government for everything, or start looking at who's telling the government what to do?
At whose behest did the government do this? Here's a hint: none of these were on a ballot anywhere.
For a second, just reading the blurb on Slashdot, I thought that some crypto-advocates were talking about letting the government regulate Internet and place restrictions on cryptography. Fortunately I was quite wrong :).
It looks like the author of this Salon article is disappointed because a number of major Cryptography/Cypherpunk figures ... Neal Stephenson, Phil Zimmerman, Whitfield Diffie ... have started to advocate some very traditionally leftist activities (such as organizing unions!) and are walking away, slowly, from Libertarian ideals.
Good for them.
In case anyone's not been paying attention, right now our rights as coders and geeks are under attack...by corporations. It's not the FBI that's collecting information about misfits in high school, it's Pinkertons. It's not the Congress that's censoring web sites, it's Cybersitter. It's not the NSA that's stepping on software development, it's corporations like the MPAA, Microsoft, ad infinitum.
In the past, protecting ourselves with encryption and security was enough, because the government could only go so far. But now, corporations have powers the government never had. We need to adapt to the change in circumstances in order to protect our rights. If this means abandoning the sacred cow of Libertarianism, so be it. Stephenson, Zimmerman and Diffie are right on with this one.
The patent that Amazon is being sued under was issued in 1999. That's well after the development of MP3, .wav files, &c. The combination of putting an audio file on Internet and allowing someone to download it and play it back is pretty obvious. The Kiosk technology isn't as obvious...I'll grant that...but we're not talking kiosks here. We're talking websites. I hope this lawsuit gets thrown out on its rearend.
Hell yeah, I am too. But I still think more women learning calculus is a very good thing.
Oh yeah, I think I'm better than most women too, but my sex has nothing to do with that :).
:)
Love,
MAXOMENOS, arrogant f***.
No thanks, multiplying with zeroes isn't even novel.
Want me to partition it?
Yeah, you're right, it's promoting a stereotype: the smart attractive teenage girl. Which is, IMO, progress compared to the steretype of the smart, bookish teenage girl. Knowing the way that my brain operated when I was a kid, if beauty mattered to me a great deal, and I didn't see anyone who was smart and beautiful, I'd probably choose beautiful over smart. Dumb? You bet. But then again, logic doesn't come naturally to humans; it has to be trained into us.
Yeah, I personally prefer someone with brains over someone with beauty; and someone who's overweight with a free spirit and brains is sexier than a supermodel with neither. But I could give a sh** how this site reflects on ME. I worry more that we may be subtly pissing away half of our pool of talent with messages like "girls can't do math."
I'm not particularly concerned whether Microsoft gets slapped on the wrist with a drinking straw or gets obliterated from the face of Corporate America. Either way, if I had my druthers, I'd make sure they honored refunds on their damn products.
Sometimes I *like* Microsoft products. I do! Windows is easier to use than Linux for a lot of things, even if I enjoy using Linux more. And I can't beat Excel yet. But I want to have the *choice* to use a Microsoft product, or an alternative, and not have to pay for the products I *don't* choose. If I buy a PC and it comes with Windows, and I want to use Linux on it, then Microsoft should have to send me a refund when I send them the product back, as their licensing agreement states they will. If only ONE thing comes out of the ruling, it should be this.
Bundling pre-installed Windows with VMWare is a slam dunk. I'm quite glad that VMWare made this move, because it means that it will be cheaper for me to install Win2k on my VMWare box (after I upgrade my computer, blah blah blah :)). It also makes it that much easier to poke and prod Win2k for flaws on top of my Linux box.
And additionally, it will save you money if you want your cable modem to be installed on your Linux box...:)
And we can soon give VMWare and Microsoft the award for best Linux application (VMWare with WinNT :)).
With all the media attention on the failures of NASA, it's good to see NASA's great successes: Cassini, Galileo, Voyager, Pathfinder, Viking, and most of all Apollo. When people talk about cutting the NASA budget, we can point them to these; and when they ask, "Yeah, but what did it do to save the environment," you can ask them, "How much are you willing to pay for knowledge that isn't immediately useful?"
I'm going to continue my boycott of Amazon, after having read Jeff Bezos's comments.
What Jeff Bezos has proposed is a series of very good ideas on the subject of patent law reform, and I personally am going to write every politician I can find and spread the word about Bezos's proposals. I think they are quite sound.
But if you ask me, these proposals aren't enough from Bezos. Before I can take him at his word that he's really pushing for these changes, I need to see some proof of action. For example:
So Jeff, if you're reading this, take note: I'm going to keep telling people to boycott Amazon, and I'm going to tell them my new reasons why. But if you turn your words into actions, then I'll buy my books exclusively from Amazon unless they are simply not available there. (Right now, I'm buying from Barnes and Noble). I'll also explain to my friends why they should do this as a part of my word-of-mouth campaign. Call it a "carrot-stick boycott" :).