obviously, you haven't played Civ 4... not to the same extreme, but much of the same stuff. They gave a very loose high level view of religion.

Personally, my views on religion are nowhere near as cynical. There are those in it for the money/power/glory, but I think there are other leaders who truly believe what they preach, and have reasons for believing it. Of course, the more they ask of their congregations, the lessI tend to believe that their motives are "pure".

Phil

or the fact that the people who run linux are the "computer geeks" who see playing with their computer, and securing it as a hobby, whereas Windows users tend to see a computer as a tool to do XYZ, and get annoyed when anything gets in the way of them accomplishing their task.

Phil

It would increase "security" (through obscurity) for the same reason it would make everyone's life a living nightmare. It would be a royal pain to get anything to run properly on more than a small group of people's machines. While Microsoft has many versions of their OS out in the wild, they do a MUCH better job than the linux community does of preserving backward compatibility. If you wanted to install a new version of gimp or some application on a version of redhat from 10 years ago, you'd likely have to replace half the system. However, installing gimp on Windows XP works fine... It would probably even install fine on Windows 98....

Phil

The case for oxygen also doesn't have people receiving large amounts of money to deny the evidence no matter what.

Correction: The case for oxygen also doesn't have people receiving large amounts of money to confirm or deny the evidence no matter what. If you believe the money is only going to people who don't believe in global warming, I have a bridge to sell you. Even the big oil companies now are playing the global warming card. They play both sides of the political spectrum, and always will. They know global warming can give them huge subsidies to develop alternative energy sources (with much of the money going to the pockets of the company). They also know that the government's response to global warming will likely be largely written by the big energy companies. This will enable them to limit exploration (who wants to do that anyhow, it's expensive and doesn't have immediate payouts) while creating artificial shortages in the market. This will result in higher prices for all of us, while the big energy companies get even larger profits, as they aren't paying to extract that expensive oil anymore. Of course distortions will exist overseas from governments not employing these measures, but largely, the big oil companies are likely to make a killing through the global warming issue. The real people who would suffer are the average joes (who now pay more for energy), companies in other fields (who pay more for energy), and in particular new people or businesses that would have come up to challenge the mega corporations dominance. You can be assured that the mega corporations will be able to release carbon at or near the levels they always have, however a new competitor will have a much harder time getting the permits to do this, and may not have the money to do it. Sounds like business as usual with mega corporations stepping in to stop competition wherever it can. Phil

ah yes, because linux applications have never had holes allowing someone to get a shell on a system, and users are always running the most up to date kernel that has no root exploits available for it. The main difference between windows and linux is that the linux kernel has so many different versions, and not all distros are using the same one, so that it's hard to choose which kernel vulnerability to exploit. if 99% of people used linux, and were using the same distribution (with mostly the same kernel), believe me, these exploits would exist, and we would see viruses hitting linux machines over the network. Already, there exist worms that have targeted linux machines.

And saying the problem is not in the kernel but the software applications doesn't cut it either. The same could be said for many of the windows issues, it's just that the software applications in question are in every install and part of the windows user environment. It's no different than applications that might be part of the ubuntu user environment (gnome, samba, etc) etc.

Phil

I think you miss the point of iPhoto. Programs like iPhoto are not designed to do full editing. They do allow some very basic things, things people are likely to do to vacation photos or whatever, but people don't USE iPhoto to edit photos.

The point of iPhoto is to manage a library of images. This way you can easily keep track of them, and view them, show them to people etc. If you don't see why people would want to do that, I guess you wouldn't understand why people had photo albums back in the day. Programs like iPhoto make it easy to transfer a "roll" of digital images from your camera to your computer. You can then adjust basic properties on these images (99% of people don't want to adjust anything else, and the 1% who do can move photos somewhere else to do it). Programs like Gimp are not made to manage a library, and never will be. Comparing them is like comparing a command line mp3 player (one that doesn't use curses) with a program like iTunes. They do not serve the same purpose.

Phil

you are quite wrong on one thing here. It IS NOT the IRS's ob to collect taxes, it is their job to collect the FEDERAL Income Tax. However, Amazon already complies with the IRS and pays federal income tax on its employees, if they didn't there would be largescale unauthorized raids on Amazon and people would be going to jail without trials etc (the things the IRS can get away with doing makes Guantanamo look like paradise). With the federal income tax, amazon is responsible for paying for most of the paperwork involved with paying the income taxes. They have to supply and mail the W2s, W4s, etc. This is an understood cost of doing business in the USA.

However, I agree with you that many big corporations are happy with the bureaucratic red tape that exists. The large corporations tend to be pro-freemarket only when it's in their interests, otherwise they'll throw the ideals that made them successful in the first place out the window in the name of increasing their profits. The only reason Amazon wouldn't support this sort of red tape is because they also compete with large nation-wide retailers who have to pay sales tax everywhere. By not having to pay this tax, amazon has an advantage over their brick-and-mortar competitors. This advantage is worth more than the additional pains it would cause small startup businesses (who would likely partner with amazon to deal with their taxes anyhow).

Phil

Actually, that is only one possible way to get to use the GPL code. The other way is to contact the owner of the code in question, and obtain permission to use the code in question. This often means the exchange of a sum of money for permission to use the code in your product without having to release your derived code. I'm sure this happens often enough, and is a fairly easy way to settle a GPL violation, plus gives the original coder some cash.

Phil

That's crap... What the MPAA did was completely legitimate. Someone illegally downloaded their movie, and they informed them of the infringement. It would be no different than if a local government was pirating copies of MS Office, and MS demanded that they either removed the software or pay them for it.

A government that DOESN'T fear corporations and its constituents is what I consider scary. I'm not saying corporations are always in the right, and that the government doesn't have the right to smack them down when they misbehave... a corporation is BY LAW given many of the legal protections individuals are given. As such, the law applies to them, and they are protected by the law. It's a two way street. If corporations fear the government and the government does not fear the corporations, then there are no longer checks on what the government can do, as there IS no recourse that the companies have if the government wrongs them. I am not arguing that it's better to have corporations not fear the government and the government fearing the corporations, as that means the corporations are above the law, however there is plenty of middle ground, and this case falls squarely in it. While much of what the MPAA does is shady, this particular action was completely within the law, and was their appropriate response.

Phil

uh... actually those with ties to big oil would BENEFIT from the IEA overplaying peak oil, not from them downplaying it. If people think people oil is coming sooner, oil prices increase, big oil owns many of the current wells, and would profit handsomely if oil sold for more money. Think about it . . . everyone said it was an oil company conspiracy a few years ago that drove UP the price of oil... But somehow it would also be an oil company conspiracy to drive down the price of oil by downplaying peak oil...

This blaming everything on Bush seems very like a soviet tactic .. . blame everything on your predecessor.. it doesn't matter what. Sure plenty can be blamed on him, but of course he's responsible for a conspiracy to increase and decrease oil prices.... Go figure.

Phil

you forget the fact that there ARE already viable alternatives. The reason these alternatives aren't in use is because it's not economical to use them BECAUSE oil is so much cheaper right now. As the price of oil increases, these alternatives will become viable EVEN if no additional research is done in them. The transition will be slow as you have fixed and marginal costs involved, but forces tend to balance out, and a good equilibrium is reached.

Phil

This issue isn't that they're "forced" to teach. The real issue is that the Universities DON'T want them to spend too much time on their teaching. If you take a junior faculty member (pre tenure) at a tier-1 research university, the university will often penalize them if they spend too much effort on their teaching. They want them to work on research, and writing grants. Look at how they evaluate tenure for these professors. At many institutions the only "teaching" qualifications they require is that the professor taught a course. Little else is examined, but their research is critiqued in details. It's no wonder that professors spend their time avoiding classes and often do the minimum amount of work required for them. The professors are not to be blamed for this, it's the university that has TOLD them not to focus on teaching, and made clear that their job does not depend on teaching ability.

Phil

If EVERYTHING is in the slides, there are some major issues with the class. First off, including all the details in the slides means you either need long slides (that the professor will have to rush through), or each slide will be much busier, including more details than before. Either way, these are some of the worst types of presentations I've ever seen. Slides should give the basic idea, some of the details, but not every last analysis of the problem etc. Also, when teaching, effective professors will base how much time is spent on slides by the classes reaction etc. In addition, there are readings that are expected, and may not be fully covered in class. If that is too difficult for you to handle, you probably shouldn't be in college in the first place. The goal of college is for you to learn, and to learn for yourself. Not to illustrate that if spoonfed knowledge for 4 years that you can remember enough of it to pass the tests.

In addition, at least in engineering there are many example problems that would just be too difficult or awkward to do in powerpoint. Part of watching someone solve a problem, is watching the steps they go through to solve it. Sure this might be doable in powerpoint, but it would be a waste of a professor's time to spend a couple hours making the example in powerpoint when he could write it down on paper in 5 minutes. Plus many professors like to ask their students for input when solving example problems. At least in computer engineering there are often multiple solutions that are good, so having a powerpoint reduces you to a script that you can't violate. A good professor should be able to show examples that are targeted for the students, which often can only be done on the spot.

One last thing, part of why professors say "not everything will be covered in the slides" is because they want to make sure that after a test they don't have 10s of students coming up to them whining about how "this wasn't covered fully in the slides", or more likely "show me where we covered XYZ in the slides". Students can be whiny at times, and if you don't make these disclaimers, you'll be in trouble. Plus sometimes test questions are very similar to homework problems that weren't fully covered in the lectures. The ideas were likely covered, but not the exact type of problem due to time constraints.

Sorry, but courses cannot always, and should not cater to the students who don't want to go to lecture, skip homeworks etc. If you don't put an effort into it, it is not the professors fault if/when you struggle.

Phil

By your logic, no software company should be able to legally sell upgrades to their products... When you go to the store and buy a copy of snow leopard, you ARE NOT buying a full retail copy of the software. You are buying an upgrade to the previous version. Just because the software doesn't verify that you own a legal version of the software in the first place does not mean that it is legal to install it anywhere.

It is pretty well accepted in the software industry that they can sell upgrade versions of their product. It is also accepted that you CANNOT install an upgrade without having the original software installed. This is true EVEN if the software doesn't first verify that you own the original software. You can't tell me that because you have the upgrade software, that you're allowed to install the software anywhere you want.

also, there are other parts of license agreements that have been accepted. If you buy software, you are normally only allowed to install it on a single machine. Even if the software does nothing to prevent you from running it on multiple machines. Just because you have the software in your hand does not mean you can do whatever you want with it. If you want to say that no licensing is valid, you basically FORCE every software company that wants to stay in business to use the most intrusive form of DRM possible to prevent people from violating their "license".

Phil

Are they buying a full valid license of OSX? Does apple even sell full version of their OS that don't come bundled with their hardware? Buying snow leopard upgrades for $29.99 and installing that on a new machine doesn't sound like it makes it legal to me...

Phil