AulusAemilius
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Posts posted by AulusAemilius
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It is nowhere near clear (in fact I think it is false) that the way to create a reliable encyclopedia is to leave everyone willing to edit it, to their own devices. I also think it is false to say that being non-judgmental, impartially cataloging opinions presented by all comers, will lead you to the truth.
And this method is in fact clearly failing to accomplish the purpose that's stated in the quote. I can run through wikipedia and present you with dozens of blatant factual errors, in a matter of minutes. Even in popular culture, wikipedia is routinely referenced as one of the least reliable resources in the World, second only to the generic "bloggers".
Past studies came to the conclusion that the Encyclopedia Britannica made roughly as many errors as Wikipedia did. Original research is not allowed on Wikipedia; everything written should come from reliable sources and cited accordingly - if this is done, why does it matter who writes it? Home enthusiasts are bound to sources to the same degree scholars editing Wikipedia are.
There's no need to theorize about the results of having a wiki where pages can only be edited by a "panel of experts", because it already exists. It's not doing very well.
I find it very hard to believe that you can find dozens of blatant factual errors in a matter of minutes. And if you know where they exist, why don't you tell a group of people, who are all too eager to make the encyclopedia more reliable, about them?
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Where do you get the idea that a license condition can override an actual law, if it comes to pass? No seller or manufactuer can immunize himself against lawsuit by declaring "I can't be sued". Under Directive 1999/44/EC, goods are guaranteed for 2 years.
I thought that creators of software under copyright licenses coming with no warranty, that were legal before passage of the law, could not be incriminated for the software they wrote before this new law existed; that is the basic premise of the ex post facto.
If only the EU attacked FOSS, servers would simply move to countries less hostile to productivity. Trying to stop large groups of volunteers from writing free text that happens to compile and do things seems to me to be very futile. Abusing commercial vendors, however, is a different matter entirely.
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They're going to have a difficult time regulating FOSS...
"Alright men, we just got a lead into the whereabouts of the anonymous hacker who submitted a patch eventually incorporated into revision #80940!"
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Where do you get the idea that makers of FOSS could be sued? All FOSS comes with a license stating somewhere that the copyright holders shall never be liable for any damages produced by the software, which comes with absolutely no warranty.
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The Supreme Court ruled in their favor and declared that seeds could be patented. Since then, Monsanto has begun placing patents on all seeds that do not currently have one.
How can seeds found in nature be patented? Or does "all seeds that do not currently have [a patent]" just refer to all of the new seeds Monsanto produced?
Regardless, I have a related question. The DNA in human cells has a specific sequence, but suppose only one company had successfully decoded it. This information would constitute intellectual property. Would they be able to patent it? Consequences might include suing other companies also attempting to decode it.
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Is there a reason you choose to invest in gold rather than platinum? Once demand for automobiles (and thus catalytic converters) picks up in a few years, the spot price should recover to levels seen in early 2008.
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I think the name "Rand Paul" was coincidental. His son's first name is "Randall", so perhaps this is just a shortening? Ron Paul obviously doesn't think very highly of Ayn Rand, if
video is any indication. -
The S&P 500 took quite a tumble in 2008. If you went long, does anything make you think it has reached a bottom? If you shorted it, what do you think the minimum will be in 1-2 years?
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Very little of Rand's work has been recently typeset. I think even the anniversary editions were photographic reprints of earlier editions. They simply don't exist, officially, in electronic form. The publisher would need to digitally reset the works -- an expensive process which would only be undertaken if there were a lucrative electronic market to exploit or if publishing reprints from the existing plates becomes impossible.
I don't understand; can't a satisfactory electronic copy be made using an OCR program to convert the prints to text, then running the text through a typesetter (such as LaTeX)?
I would be more interested in downloads of the lectures; these they could provide very easily in an electronic form. I'm thinking of writing to them asking why they don't have this as an option in their store. They do have some fiction available this way, but no lectures.
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Becoming consistent can be quite a challenge. I have been an ardent supporter of individual rights, but have knowingly permitted myself to act contrary to that which I promote. So, I am working to correct it. Yesterday I deleted my entire collection of downloaded music - a collection that's been growing for over 10 years. I also piled up all my copied CDs/DVDs of music, games, software, movies, TV shows, etc - probably about 500 in total - and plan to dump them at the nearby recycling plant. My next step after that (Mac fans stop reading at this point) is to *gasp* buy a legitimate copy of Windows XP.
Windows 95 was the last time I remember buying an operating system.This was difficult for me, but maybe it's a non-issue for others. So, I'd like to know where people have found the most difficulty in being consistent, whether regarding property rights, self-esteem, personal goals, treatment of others, etc.
Typing "sudo rm -rf music" into my server terminal was something I knew I had to do to be ethically consistent, and it was also one of the hardest decisions I had to make. That directory was very large, with files that had accumulated over many years. It felt much better than I had anticipated. I bought my favorite things in that collection and started streaming instead from (legal) web radio stations. A few months after I stopped downloading content illegally, I found that I didn't have any desire to do it again. The same might happen in your case.
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It would be very easy for the ARI to add electronic formats to their store; do they fear unauthorized file-sharing? It seems to me that Objectivists would be just about the last group of people who would distribute them illegally.
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Would this be a worthwhile buy for those who have read OPAR and ayn rand's nonfiction? Is it too early to have a definite answer to that?
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Is there any way for me to purchase any of Rand's books in electronic format (besides Anthem, which is in the public domain)? As far as I know the Ayn Rand Institute does not sell them, and they have discontinued the Objectivism research CD that contained such digital works.
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Ah, I was under the impression when reading the article that the dog went totally berserk when seeing the stranger, with only that stranger. The article is too sketchy in its details to know for sure. This is the sort of situation I was referring to. It would be interesting to see how the dog reacted when viewing pictures of a bunch of random strangers, and then the suspect.
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Certainly the 'testimony' cannot morally be used to convict or influence the case decision. From the article, it sounds like the dog reacts oddly only to one certain suspect, which is being used to justify further investigation into the case.
Do you think that is an acceptable reason to further investigate? In my experience, dogs do have the ability to instinctually recognize certain people. (as the owner is critical to the dog's survival in the typical domestic world the dog lives in).
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My favorite is "Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War Original Soundtrack". Most of it is performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.
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The state universities are:
University of Illinois (Urbana Champaign)
Georgia Institute of Technology
and Penn State University, because it's in my home state.
All three are probably safety schools. The privates I could try to get into are Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and Stanford (my SAT's are very borderline and my academic record is good).
As of right now my first choice is UIUC.
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Money is not an issue, but I can't help but 'penny-pinch'. I don't desire a liberal arts education, and don't think humanities classes in college will improve my writing as much as independent practice (and reading good books) do/will. In CS there are usually group projects, which helps communication skills.
What I don't know (from lack of any experience) is what social environment is desired. I'm introverted and a student of Objectivism... even if just .25% of people at a state university are wonderful people, that could be a hundred people, so I don't know whether going to a small private school makes any difference in forming life-lasting (and perhaps opposite sex) relationships. At private schools people are generally more academically inclined, but I imagine it's possible for one to work just as hard at a public school (which I intend to do).
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I'm in highschool, looking at colleges/universities, looking to major in computer science. I have picked out a few, mostly based on the quality of their CS department (according to news rankings) and lack of humanities requirements (except science/math) a strong second.
Do you think the different environments (huge public universities versus small private universities) impact anything significantly, in terms of forming relationships with people? It seems to me the public schools offer education that's just as good (undergraduate, anyways), but at lower costs.
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While BSD has a better philosophy, philosophy tends to mean little in software development (At least, in the sense that most developers use it)
For example, the Ubuntu project holds nonsensical philosophy ("I am what I am because of who we all are"/"Humanity to others") yet the end product is superb. The reason is because their 'philosophy' is just marketing.
When I referred to philosophy, I referred to the general process by which the two operating systems are developed. You are correct that the name "Ubuntu" means little for their project, because this is not the method they use when developing their distribution.
The Linux kernel is developed independentally, and it tends to grow and evolve. All other applications are developed independentally, and various groups string everything together to make distributions. The BSD's take a totally different approach: a small elite develops the kernel and ports programs to work especially well with the BSD. They are stored in the same FTP site as the kernel, and consequently very well documented. The kernel does not evolve as much; even the smallest changes/patches are given much scrutiny and consideration.
They also have different licenses; I think BSD has a better license, as it is not anti-corporate/copyleft. This has been to its advantage (I am not implying the GPL is immoral in any way or that it's a good reason not to use Linux).
Because FreeBSD is built with speed and stability in mind, it makes for excellent servers, and the handbook is superb... never have I seen an equivalent for understand a GNU/Linux system. Other BSD projects specialize in different areas; OpenBSD for security, NetBSD for portability, DragonflyBSD for distributed computing (although I think Solaris is king in that area).
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I prefer FreeBSD over Linux for servers, programming, and exploring the inner workings of an operating system. Read about their different development philosophies here.
importanceofphilosophy.com
in Questions about Objectivism
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Wouldn't merely selling to the highest bidder be improper, considering that people developed properties on/near government-owned roads only because they believed that the roads would always be freely accessible? For example, a bidder could win a road and charge a high toll to all residents near it who have no other possible way to travel; on the other hand if roads had always been private, the property developers would have made sure before building that there were more favorable policies over road usage.