Linux-Advocacy Digest #427, Volume #28 Tue, 15 Aug 00 20:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linsux as a desktop platform ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Are Linux people illiterate? ("Colin R. Day")
Re: Linux people don't speak Russian very well (was Re: Are Linux people ("Colin R.
Day")
Re: Linux...Does Anyone REALLY Care? (Andres Soolo)
Re: Another satisfied Linux user (Milton)
Re: OS advertising in the movies... (was Re: Microsoft MCSE) (Tim Smith)
Re: OS advertising in the movies... (was Re: Microsoft MCSE) ("Colin R. Day")
Re: OS advertising in the movies... (was Re: Microsoft MCSE) (Stephen S. Edwards II)
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From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linsux as a desktop platform
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 18:53:26 -0400
Roberto Alsina wrote:
> "Colin R. Day" escribi�:
> I don't think so. To be responsible for what we value, we would
> have to be able to discern the correctness of our values. For
> instance, if I knew that doing A is wrong, yet I valued A, I
> would have an internally inconsistent value system.
>
We have to make attempt to discern the correctness of our values.
And what is wrong with acting contrary to one's values?
>
> On a internally inconsistent value system, anything goes, so
> my position regarding ethics will still call it unethical, since
> both doing A and not doing it would be against my values.
>
But why should one worry about being ethical by such a standard?
Also, what if one's values are themselves inconsistent?
>
> > > > > If you define what actions are ethical in a different way, then we are
> > > > > talking about different things, and of course we will disagree.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > But what you mean by ethics would make it trivial.
> > >
> > > Ok. How do YOU define ethics? If your definition is better, I will
> > > be happy to adopt it.
> >
> > Ethics is the study of how we should choose values and pursue them.
> > To restrict ethics to the pursuit of values, but not the choice of values
> > trivializes ethics, because one can justify any action as long as
> > the actor is pursuing what he values.
>
> What do we use to choose values, if not preexisting values? The choice
> of values is then trivially reduced to the pursuit of values.
>
Cognition.
> > >
> > > So, you accept you are ethically equivalent to a cannibal, or not?
> >
> > No, I don't accept it. And what justification would you have for
> > saying that I am so equivalent to a cannibal?
>
> I say you both are equivalent because you both act (in principle)
> according to your ethics. Now, you say you are ethically superior
> to a cannibal. Why?
>
Because I don't accept your alleged "ethics" in the first place.
> > >
> > > Depends on what you are comparing with. Better than Norway? In many
> > > ways. Think about it. If Greece didn't have a warm climate, and
> > > slavery, what are the chances of finding a numerous group of
> > > adult healthy men wandering around olive groves discussing nature
> > > for days and years?
> >
> > Sorry, most other ancient civilizations were also in warm climates, so
> > again you fail to explain how the Greeks did what they did.
>
> Again, necessary != sufficient.
>
Again, no explanation.
> > > Ok. Now, you said "if they must blind themselves". You assume that the
> > > inquisitors knew first that the acts of the inquisition would be wrong,
> > > and then blinded themselves. That would indeed be evil. That is also
> > > probably something that didn't happen.
> > >
> > > If that had happened, I would agree it was unethical, because they
> > > would KNOW they were doing something bad. We kinda agree here, really.
> >
> > How could they have avoided knowing it?
>
> Because of bad education, and the reigning morality of the age.
>
And who ran the educational system? None other than the Catholic
Church itself.
> > >
> > > Torture was not considered bad. Why restrict something not bad?
> >
> > Why didn't they consider it bad?
>
> Because at the time the perceived benefits of torture appeared
> as bigger than its drawbacks.
>
And why did they "perceive" it that way?
>
> > And their failure to consider
> > it bad detracts from their alleged moral leadership.
>
> Compared to who?
>
Galileo, Giordano Bruno, John Hus, Joan of Arc, etc.
>
> > >
> > > Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.
> >
> > If they Church couldn't know that censorship was wrong, then it
> > had no business trying to govern.
>
> The Church didn't quite govern, did they?.
>
The Church governed the Papal States (then much of central Italy),
and influenced other governments.
> > >
> > > How does astronomical data prove you will not go to hell?
> > > Or you meant brainwashing for something else?
> >
> > It provides sufficient evidence for rejecting Ptolemaic
> > (as well as Biblical) astronomy. And what evidence
> > did the Church provide of Hell in the first place?
>
> The (at the time undisputed) historical account of the
> acts of god's son?
Accepting alleged supernatural events is bad history.
And why didn't they dispute it?
> The (then considered) historical
> account of god's words expressed through his prophets?
>
Credulity is not a substitute for history.
>
> Pretty much the same proof we have now of the existence
> of Sumeria, in a way (yes, less scientifically assured).
>
But I don't recall anyone being threatened with death or
torture for disbelieving claims about Sumerian culture.
And what historical evidence can there be for the
supernatural
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > What's the complexity? Millions of people were killed for very
> > > > little reason.
> > >
> > > Oh, the shallowness.
> >
> > So what is the complexity?
>
> Ok, consider the case of a 16 year old in 1944, sent to the
> eastern front. By his actions, he was:
>
> a) defending nazism
> b) helping genocide
> c) defending his homeland against communism
Gee, maybe if Hitler hadn't backstabbed Stalin, that
would not have been necessary. The Soviet Union
was hardly a threat to the Weimar Republic. Also,
what basic distinction is there between nazism and
communism?
Also, how does being a concentration-camp guard
protect the homeland?
>
> d) protecting his own life
Oh, yeah, we know how well those prisoners were armed.
>
> e) protecting his family
>From whom?
>
> f) giving time for the western front to advance, thus
> saving a piece of western europe for democracy
>
Oh, yeah, the Soviets were really slowed down by the
death camps.
Actually, the entire apparatus of mass extermination was
a negative for the German military, as it required resources
that could have been directed against the Soviets.
>
> and maybe a hundred other things. How can you say that was
> not a complex situation?
>
Well, mainly because none of that has much to do with the
death camps, does it?
>
> > > > You said that the Church prosecuted Galileo to defend the faith, and I
> > > > pointed out that one of the reasons for the Crusades was to defend
> > > > holy places, and that the latter was far more destructive than the former.
> > >
> > > Ok. So, what point are you trying to make?
> >
> > You attempted to justify the Church's actions as a defense of faith,
>
> Yikes, no. I just said they honestly believed it was a defense of the
> faith. It surely was no defense of my faith.
>
But is right to defend such faith in the first place? Sincerity is
not a means of cognition.
>
> > >
> > > The church had hardly a monopoly on bearing arms!
> >
> > Actually, the Church did not bear much in the way of arms,
> > but most governments were willing to follow the Church's
> > orders.
>
> Well, in some occasions, yes.
>
True, some of the German princes aided Luther (not out of
a genuine religious tolerance, but as a means of not having
to ship the loot to Rome.).
>
> > I don't recall the Albigensians and Hussites
> > bearing arms.
> >
> > >
> > > > So the would-be victims get to fire back. This is a problem?
> > >
> > > Weapons were extremely unregulated in the renaissance.
> > > Anyone could own a cannon, if they could pay for it, AFAIK.
> >
> > More data, please.
>
> Well, I have no data, really. I just have a hard time imagining
> anyone in renaissance caring if you had a cannon or not.
> Of course all nobility could have their own militia.
>
I'll have to check that.
> > >
> > > Ok, then. So your "Oh great, let's take people with no rational basis
> > > for their beliefs and give them weapons and political power." was
> > > kinda strange.
> >
> > But they only have the weapons, not the power. As many people
> > have such weapons, the power does not devolve to any small
> > group of them.
>
> But it devolves to any large group of them. So, it becomes
> "Oh great, let's take people with no rational basis
> for their POPULAR beliefs and give them weapons and political
> power".
>
But that large group would have to be a majority if arms are
evenly distributed, in which case it would just vote for what
it wanted.
>
> > > > > Well, that's where we part.
> > > >
> > > > Then people may do whatever they want, as long as they
> > > > value the results of such action?
> > >
> > > Quoting you "judge and prepare to be judged"?
> > >
> >
> > Hey, you were the one saying that
>
> No, Ayn Rand was ;-)
>
Oops, didn't finish that. Should people include the likely responses
of others in the choosing of their values?
Having the word "that" as both a demonstrative and a relative pronoun
can be confusing, sorry.
>
> [snip]
> > > > But we haven't destroyed the world yet. Our deserving of censure
> > > > is conditional on that.
> > >
> > > We have destroyed considerable chunks of it.
> > >
> >
> > Native Americans, true. Most of the rest were shooting at us.
>
> Depends on the definition of "us".
>
I'm an American, and was speaking from that perspective.
> > > >
> > > > And when Galileo tried to convince people that his astronomical
> > > > theories were better?
> > >
> > > Well, he failed in the short term, I'd say. However, notice that
> > > I was writing about convincing on the superiority of a morality,
> > > not of a astronomical theory.
> >
> > So it's moral to be wrong? Hmm.
>
> It doesn't seem to be necessarily immoral to me.
>
But if one isn't bound by awareness of facts (not omniscience), then
what is one bound by?
>
> > >
> > > That would be promoting something evil in their eyes. You can
> > > not tolerate the proponents of something ungodly :-P (in
> > > inquisitional terms, mind you).
> >
> > Then their eyes are wrong.
>
> Oh, well. I see we are never going to get anywhere in this
> discussion. You don't share my position, that's ok, but
> could you please at least acknowledge that when I say something
> as I expect, say, renaissance people to believe it, I don't
> ned you to tell me "they were wrong" every time? I know that
> for you and I they were.
>
Can you speak of someone being wrong, not for you or me, but
just objectively wrong?
Also, is the claim that the use of torture was right for the
Inquisition itself objective, or are people free to believe it
or not as they feel like?
> > > >
> > > > You're not supposed to ignore centuries of censorship and torture.
> > >
> > > I am not ignoring that. Why do you say I am?
> > >
> >
> > True, you aren't ignoring it, you're defending it.
>
> You have real trouble accepting someone can consider a position
> wrong and yet accept it as obvious considering the situation.
>
Those particular positions, and the Church's willingness to kill
for them, yes, I will not accept as obvious. I'm more accepting of
Ptolemy's errors as he was making some effort at cognition, as
well as not killing people over disagreement.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Are Linux people illiterate?
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 18:57:19 -0400
"Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
> "Colin R. Day" wrote:
> >
> > "Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
> >
> > > >
> > > > And the gamma looking letter sounds like English hard g,
> > > > except when it sounds like v.
> > >
> > > ONLY in "-ogo", except for the word "mnogo"
> > >
> >
> > What about the word "sevodnia" (latinized as I have no damn
> > idea how to enter Cyrillic in Netscape).
>
> Oh yeah... lone exception.
Given my (not huge) awareness of Russian, I wasn't sure about that.
If one include accents, Russian is much more phonetic.
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux people don't speak Russian very well (was Re: Are Linux people
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 19:03:00 -0400
Andres Soolo wrote:
> Jim Cameron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> [snip]
> Thanks. It covers well the holes left by me and describes transliteration.
>
> > `ch' "chernii". That `e' in there is actually a `yo', which looks
> > like an E-umlaut in Russian but turns into an ordinary e in Roman.
> Even Russians often skip the umlaut and just use `e'. I don't know
> why, but it's usually written as e-umlaut only in beginners' textbooks
> and dictionaries.
>
> >>The tve"rdyj znak and e" aren't usually mapped.
> > Hard sign, but AFAIR that's very rare.
> Yes, and it's usage is decreasing. It's basically a leftover from Old
> Russian. I can think of only one non-rare word that uses that. It's
> syest, spelt s-hard sign-e-s-t-soft sign, looks like C ~b E C T b and means
> `to eat' in perfect.
(AFAIK)
Before the Communist Revolution, every word ended in a hard sign, soft sign,
or vowel. The Soviets may have considered the use of a hard sign at the end
of a word to be inefficient, and so got rid of it.
The hard sign occurs in "obisnatch" (again, no attempt at Cyrillic), which
means "to explain".
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux...Does Anyone REALLY Care?
Date: 15 Aug 2000 23:07:59 GMT
Oldayz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Jed?
> It's an optional text editor, I have no idea why you brought THAT
> up..
Jed is a pretty nice editor. It's flexible as Emacs but much faster
(and smaller). I used to use that until I found out Vim.
The original poster probably couldn't get past the version number. :-)
>>Sed?
> Why not, it's small.. People use it, scripts use it, why the hell
> not?
Debian has it marked Essential. It's one of the little things that,
when combined, make up the power of the Unix command line.
>>Lyx?
It's basically a WYSIWYG-like shell (sorry, I forgot the exact abbrev) for
LaTeX. I don't use it because I like to write LaTeX code by hand.
Still, it's useful for many people. And without it, someone would complain
about how arcane LaTeX is :-P
>>Do you Lino-Ners really think this is what the public wants?
> Some of it, apparently.
#1. The public consist of different persons.
#2. It's *very* hard to tell what public wants without proper marketing
research.
#3. Don't think you can know all about the mythical `public'. It's too
damn big.
--
Andres Soolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing their hair. If this doesn't
work, use the other side of the brush on the other end of the child.
------------------------------
From: Milton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Another satisfied Linux user
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 19:23:40 -0400
On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 18:22:09 -0400, Jeff Szarka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 13:12:05 -0400, Milton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>"...a lot securer than Windows NT or Windows 2000"
>
>How so?
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2528362.html?tag=st.ne.ron.lthd.ni
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tim Smith)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS advertising in the movies... (was Re: Microsoft MCSE)
Date: 15 Aug 2000 16:14:58 -0700
Reply-To: Tim Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
On 13 Aug 2000 05:06:46 GMT, Stephen S. Edwards II <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"This is a UNIX system... I know this!"
>
>Oh Gawd. That has to have been the _STUPIDEST_ line in a movie
>I ever heard. I cannot begin to tell you how I was pining to
Why is it a stupid line? It was a Unix system.
--Tim Smith
------------------------------
From: "Colin R. Day" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS advertising in the movies... (was Re: Microsoft MCSE)
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 19:24:41 -0400
Nathaniel Jay Lee wrote:
> "Stephen S. Edwards II" wrote:
> > voice, stating "This is car 37! I've got birds! Over.",
> > or something similar.
> >
> > I was howling for 15 minutes. :-)
>
> I remember that movie you are talking about, but can't remember the name
> of it :-(. But my favorite was the one where they went looking for
> bigfoot (or something along similar lines, I didn't catch the beginning
> of it). The group is all locked up in a house, and the
> bigfoot/monster/whatever crashes through the door and crow (I think)
> says, "SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!" and then the other little robot dude says,
> "Eat me!" in that snotty voice on the slim jim commercials. I was
> laughing for a good 15 minutes, and I laughed so hard that my wife
> actually ran out of the shower to see what was wrong with me. God that
> was funny.
It's too bad they never reviewed "Judge Dredd". During the scene when
Robb Schneider enters the cloning vats, one of them could have said
"Hmm... making copies!".
Colin Day
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stephen S. Edwards II)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS advertising in the movies... (was Re: Microsoft MCSE)
Date: 15 Aug 2000 23:49:02 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Nathaniel Jay Lee) wrote in
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Mike Marion wrote:
>>
>> Nathaniel Jay Lee wrote:
>>
>> > bit of intelligence. Dan Simmons (one of my favorite authors, and
>> > extremely intelligent) watches Mystery Science Theater 3000, and I
>> > don't think anyone would claim that is hi-brow entertainment :-).
>>
>> Then again, MST3K is a show that you have to pay attention to, and
>> often think about what they've said to get obscure references and
>> such. Which is one reason I love the show.
>>
>> Then again, I love The Simpsons too, because they often sneak things
>> into their episodes too.
>
>
>Yeah, it's kind of interesting to watch the same cartoons you watched as
>a kid and pick up some dirty little side joke that made no sense to you
>ages ago. Or even references to historical figures and such. It makes
>it a lot more funnier when you remember your thought as a child, and
>then put it together with what you know now.
Do either of you two ever watch The Family Guy?
Two of my favorite scenes: (not exact, but close enough)
1.) [Two softball players in the foul zone...]
Player1: "Here, have some gum."
Player2: "Gee, thanks!"
Player1: "Hahaha! I got you! That's trick gum!"
Player2: "Huh?!"
Player1: "You're addicted to heroin now!"
[Both players laugh hysterically, until
Player2 stops suddenly...]
Player2: "*shudder* I'm so cold!"
2.) [Peter arrives home after getting razzed in
a business meeting for a silly idea he had
for a new product...]
Peter: "It was awful, Lois. As I was standin' up
there, all they saw was a loser... well,
except for the guy with the lazy eye...
He saw a loser and the soda machine."
--
.-----.
|[_] | Stephen S. Edwards II | http://www.primenet.com/~rakmount/
| = :| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
| -| "Even though you can't see the details, you can sense them.
| | And that is what makes great computer graphics."
|_..._| -- Robert Abel of Abel Image Research
------------------------------
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