Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The nature of free will
For centuries, philosophers have grappled with the question of whether man can exercise free will or not. Well, in the 21st century, I believe the answers are becoming clearer. Consider the substantial influences on your thought patterns, dear reader. When was the last time you saw a Nike commercial? Do you think you have any free will in deciding what kind of athletic footwear to purchase? Or has a marketing executive made the decision for you? Lest you find the Nike example facile, consider this: how did you come to know what you know? Let me answer that for you, friend. You probably read it. In other words, you were relying on someone else to plant those thoughts and that knowledge in your brain. Do you consider that free will? Or are you simply a media-fueled automaton?
You might think "I choose to turn off my PC and go outside and smell the roses", but because I have now planted that idea in your head, the will to perform that act is MINE, not YOURS. You are truly incapable of a single act of free will. You are only a puppet doing the bidding of your sub-conscious master. Why, it's a wonder that your sub-conscious even bothers to give you the time of day with the illusion of free will, when it's quite capable of running the show without your conscious self leering out through your eyes.
Having thus enlightened you, I'm going to switch off my PC, go outside, and smell the roses.
You might think "I choose to turn off my PC and go outside and smell the roses", but because I have now planted that idea in your head, the will to perform that act is MINE, not YOURS. You are truly incapable of a single act of free will. You are only a puppet doing the bidding of your sub-conscious master. Why, it's a wonder that your sub-conscious even bothers to give you the time of day with the illusion of free will, when it's quite capable of running the show without your conscious self leering out through your eyes.
Having thus enlightened you, I'm going to switch off my PC, go outside, and smell the roses.
Labels: philosophy
Saturday, January 22, 2005
MS vs OSS
Can Microsoft (MS) survive against the Open Source Software (OSS) movement? Or as a subtext: is Microsoft bashing immature? First, let me put the debate into context. Microsoft, as you are probably aware, holds the lion's share of the market for operating systems, internet browsers, and office productivity software. The fact that I am using the OSS Firefox browser to write this is irrelevant. In a similar fashion, America holds the greatest market share in matters of global corporate, cultural and militaristic affairs. America also is ripe for immature bashing, much as is Micorosft. Well, my friends, let me tell you this: might is right. Or if I may paraphrase this aphorism, majority is right. In a democratic society such as America, the majority of the voting population has voted for GWB. Therefore, almost by definition, he is the best person to lead America in the pursuit of further global market share. Did the VHS video format win out over Beta because of any superiority? No, because VHS is the dominant video format, it is the better format. Can anyone say "DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-ROM"?
Exactly the same arguments apply to the domination of William H. Gates and his cohorts (click here1 for an alarming insight into the leader of the free world). An analogy is always helpful. If the corporate world is like a box of Lego, Microsoft is like one of those 8x2 long pieces. There's never enough of them to make something really useful.
How does the OSS movement fit into all of this? OSS, for those who may be unaware, is essentially free software holding no secret or proprietary techniques. Anyone can "read"and modify the internals of the software, where "anyone" is defined as someone who cares enough to do so, has a computer and an internet connection, and owns an Integrated Development Environment which they actually know how to use. So in other words "Open" Source Software is "open" to approximately 0.000039636664%2 of the world poulation. What are these people trying to achieve by subverting the capitalist paradigm that our society is built upon? Are they all cigar-smoking communists? To what extent are these people immature Microsoft bashers, and following on from that, to what extent is Microsoft reaping what it has sowed? Let me return to the parallels with America. Would there be America bashing (or in other words, terrorism) without America's global market share? Is America also reaping what it has sowed? Does GWB = WHG?
The quintessential problem with OSS is that it leads to a proliferation of freely available software which may or may not be fit for purpose and which puts the potential "consumer" into a free-falling death spiral of analysis paralysis. Too much choice = no choice. The Microsoft monopoly equates to "1 choice = no choice". It's like the malignant spread of ideas. Too many ideas and the re-expression of existing ideas with unoriginal twists is exactly what the OSS movement (and capitalism) are trying to push onto us (the innocent consumer). Don't be fooled into thinking that I have communist tendencies - I, Wally Masterson, am just thinking for a better world.
1I must avoid the tendency to introduce meaningless hyperlinks.
2 As at 2001, according to http://www.popconnect.org/Communications/WPAW 2004/PDF folder/worldof100.pdf. (1/1000 of internet users having an IDE is my own estimate).
Exactly the same arguments apply to the domination of William H. Gates and his cohorts (click here1 for an alarming insight into the leader of the free world). An analogy is always helpful. If the corporate world is like a box of Lego, Microsoft is like one of those 8x2 long pieces. There's never enough of them to make something really useful.
How does the OSS movement fit into all of this? OSS, for those who may be unaware, is essentially free software holding no secret or proprietary techniques. Anyone can "read"and modify the internals of the software, where "anyone" is defined as someone who cares enough to do so, has a computer and an internet connection, and owns an Integrated Development Environment which they actually know how to use. So in other words "Open" Source Software is "open" to approximately 0.000039636664%2 of the world poulation. What are these people trying to achieve by subverting the capitalist paradigm that our society is built upon? Are they all cigar-smoking communists? To what extent are these people immature Microsoft bashers, and following on from that, to what extent is Microsoft reaping what it has sowed? Let me return to the parallels with America. Would there be America bashing (or in other words, terrorism) without America's global market share? Is America also reaping what it has sowed? Does GWB = WHG?
The quintessential problem with OSS is that it leads to a proliferation of freely available software which may or may not be fit for purpose and which puts the potential "consumer" into a free-falling death spiral of analysis paralysis. Too much choice = no choice. The Microsoft monopoly equates to "1 choice = no choice". It's like the malignant spread of ideas. Too many ideas and the re-expression of existing ideas with unoriginal twists is exactly what the OSS movement (and capitalism) are trying to push onto us (the innocent consumer). Don't be fooled into thinking that I have communist tendencies - I, Wally Masterson, am just thinking for a better world.
1I must avoid the tendency to introduce meaningless hyperlinks.
2 As at 2001, according to http://www.popconnect.org/Communications/WPAW 2004/PDF folder/worldof100.pdf. (1/1000 of internet users having an IDE is my own estimate).
Labels: microsoft
Friday, January 21, 2005
Genetic Engineering: Frankenstein or Einstein?
1. Take some infinitesimally small one-dimensional vibrating strings and glue them together with the color force to form quarks.
2. Combine quarks to form protons and neutrons.
3. Mix in some electrons and gluons, W+, W- and Z0 particles to form atoms.
3a. Hydrogen (H) = 1 proton, 1 electron
3b. Carbon (C) = 6 protons, 6 neutrons, 6 electrons
3c. Nitrogen (N) = 7 protons, 7 neutrons, 7 electrons
3d. Oxygen (O) = 8 protons, 8 neutrons, 8 electrons
4. Combine atoms to form adenine (C5H5N5), cytosine (C4H5N3O), guanine (N5H4O), thymine (C5H6N2O2) and uracil (C4H4N2O2) molecules.
5. Combine atoms and base molecules from step 4 to form nucleotides consisting of a sugar, a phosphate and a base molecule.
6. Chain together nucleotides from step 5 to form DNA and RNA molecules in such a fashion that each sequence of 3 base molecules (a codon) identifies an amino acid.
7. Sequence the codons in the DNA molecule to form genes such that the amino acids manufactured from each gene assemble to form a protein.
8. Assemble a structure that will transcribe and translate protein sequences in a strictly time-controlled fashion to form organic structures.
9. Let the so-called "scientists" play God and meddle with this process and expect to lead a Frankenstein-free existence. Honestly, the world would be a better place without the scientists' ridiculous posturing.
2. Combine quarks to form protons and neutrons.
3. Mix in some electrons and gluons, W+, W- and Z0 particles to form atoms.
3a. Hydrogen (H) = 1 proton, 1 electron
3b. Carbon (C) = 6 protons, 6 neutrons, 6 electrons
3c. Nitrogen (N) = 7 protons, 7 neutrons, 7 electrons
3d. Oxygen (O) = 8 protons, 8 neutrons, 8 electrons
4. Combine atoms to form adenine (C5H5N5), cytosine (C4H5N3O), guanine (N5H4O), thymine (C5H6N2O2) and uracil (C4H4N2O2) molecules.
5. Combine atoms and base molecules from step 4 to form nucleotides consisting of a sugar, a phosphate and a base molecule.
6. Chain together nucleotides from step 5 to form DNA and RNA molecules in such a fashion that each sequence of 3 base molecules (a codon) identifies an amino acid.
7. Sequence the codons in the DNA molecule to form genes such that the amino acids manufactured from each gene assemble to form a protein.
8. Assemble a structure that will transcribe and translate protein sequences in a strictly time-controlled fashion to form organic structures.
9. Let the so-called "scientists" play God and meddle with this process and expect to lead a Frankenstein-free existence. Honestly, the world would be a better place without the scientists' ridiculous posturing.
Labels: genetic engineering
Digital Piracy
Once upon a time when piracy was theft, there was a general concern that this can surely not be good for the economy. But in this day and age of global media and Digital Rights Management, it seems that casual "mom and pop" piracy is flourishing and rapidly becoming a socially acceptable norm. What can the publishers do to avoid this from eventually crippling the digital medium that we have come to love? A casual survey of many internet forums reveals that in the most part, theft = piracy without conscience playing any part. The question of rights vis-a-vis publisher versus consumer is a vexed one. I believe there can be only one solution.
Many pundits believe that technology is free from any kind of moral obligation. This kind of thinking does nothing to protect us from the future. If the digital medium is to form an increasing part of our lives, then so is theft in the form of digital trespass. It saddens me to see such short-sighted thinking, especially from the technocrats who espouse these things in the first place.
Can a 1 be stolen? Can a 0 be stolen? Extrapolate these questions to ask yourself if a binary sequence of indeterminate length can be stolen1. Who has created this binary sequence? Is there any intrinsic value in one sequence of binary digits over another, and who is to ascribe this relative weighting? I believe that these questions are at the heart of the digital dilemma facing us today. Can anyone say "Microsoft Palladium"? Try Googling that and you will realize that there is much more to this vexed issue than meets the eye.
To sum up: information = data = knowledge + control = personal rights - responsibility.
Yours deeply,
Wally
1Footnote 1/23/2005: If I use the letter "a", can I be accused of plagiarism?
Many pundits believe that technology is free from any kind of moral obligation. This kind of thinking does nothing to protect us from the future. If the digital medium is to form an increasing part of our lives, then so is theft in the form of digital trespass. It saddens me to see such short-sighted thinking, especially from the technocrats who espouse these things in the first place.
Can a 1 be stolen? Can a 0 be stolen? Extrapolate these questions to ask yourself if a binary sequence of indeterminate length can be stolen1. Who has created this binary sequence? Is there any intrinsic value in one sequence of binary digits over another, and who is to ascribe this relative weighting? I believe that these questions are at the heart of the digital dilemma facing us today. Can anyone say "Microsoft Palladium"? Try Googling that and you will realize that there is much more to this vexed issue than meets the eye.
To sum up: information = data = knowledge + control = personal rights - responsibility.
Yours deeply,
Wally
1Footnote 1/23/2005: If I use the letter "a", can I be accused of plagiarism?
Labels: copyright
