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Wikipedia Discredits Open Source, Data Tsunami and the Lenovo ...

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 304 comments
TechNewsWorld; By Rob Enderle
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At the core of open source is the belief that mysterious others assure the quality of an open source product. However, few actually have the skills required to do such a review. If, in the case of Wikipedia -- where there should be a lot of experts -- you still can't trust the content, the people or the quality, then how can you trust that open source works where such a review is less likely?

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Comments (304)

Enderle alert

160 earlier comments in the full thread.

> . Now substitute "me" with "iran" or "north korea" in that last sentence.

Sander, people are not states. The individual is not the collective. Your comparison is invalid.
Why? You trust me that I won't use a nuke if I have one, but you don't trust a country not to use them when they have them? For the purpose of the arms race example it's perfectly valid.
>Afterall, if I had a nuke I would not use it.

The biggest problem with that argument is that people do use guns every day in every nation. I hope that doesn't become true of nuclear weapons. So far, they are uniquely unusable.
> Why?

A person is far more likely to die from a gunshot wound that a country to die from a single nuke, just for starters.
Quoting:I hope that doesn't become true of nuclear weapons


Mau Tsi Tung once said "The Atomic bomb is a paper tiger". Let's hope it remains so.

But, to be on the safe side and be sure, nuclear weapons should be totally dismantled and the countries with the largest stock pile should start first. An international watch dog committee should be in place to insure that hapens. It is the survival of humanity that is at stake.

> the survival of humanity that is at stake

When did that ever concern anyone?
>nuclear weapons should be totally dismantled and the countries with the largest stock pile should start first.

You need to keep up with the times...or rather, with history.

The countries with the largest stock piles have already started first.

One of the Ronald Reagan's crowing achievements was a disarmament treaty with the old Soviet Union under which many nuclear weapons and delivery systems have been destroyed.
Quoting:One of the Ronald Reagan's crowing achievements was a disarmament treaty with the old Soviet Union under which many nuclear weapons and delivery systems have been destroyed.
Another would be getting the rest of the country to call his wife "mommy" too.
> many nuclear weapons and delivery systems have been destroyed.

Yup. To make way for the next generation of smaller, more efficent, and more tasked ones.
Quoting:You need to keep up with the times...or rather, with history.


I do Dino, I do. Where is the treaty now?

Reagan started but didn't include all the others while it it had momentum. Reagan wanted to replace nuclear with "Star wars" technology. The plan shouldn't be tied to individuals, it should be a constant effort by all who care and there are many who do. You just have to know how to approach them and deal with them the way it is best.

> But, to be on the safe side and be sure, nuclear weapons should be totally dismantled and the countries with the largest stock pile should start first.

As Dino noted, they did start first, but as to them being totally dismantled, it ain't gonna happen.

The trend is in the exact opposite direction with more and more countries gaining nuclear capability. If a dirt poor, non-technological country like North Korea can get nukes, any country can. In fact, a number of businesses probably could. And would you put it past Microsoft to build/buy a couple of nukes, just in case they got threatened by the DOJ again? :)
Sander, you said, "private gun ownership makes it easy for criminals to get guns. They get stolen, lost, etcetera. It also means that there are a *lot* of places selling firearms."

Since you enjoy international comparisons, let's look at Northern Ireland.

A closed, controlled environment, with every port and every access under government control. No legal firearms manufacturing, and plenty of surveillance both public and private.

Yet firearms were continually available.

I can whole-heartedly suggest the book _Unintended Consequences_ by John Ross. See if you can scare up a copy, maybe through inter-library loan if they do that where you live. I cannot suggest it strongly enough with mere printed words. Read only the first half of it, and you will fully understand why people defend "gun rights".

If you are interested in the scholarly efforts in this area, you could start with _The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy_, by David B. Kopel. He compares international gun control, which seems to be something you enjoy doing.

But in reply to your assertion, it really goes back to what I and others said earlier in this thread: Holland and the US are different places. Even when there was no gun control at all in either country, the crime rates were very different.

If you remove drug-related inner-city violence from the US statistics, you will find that the US compares very well even with Holland in terms of violent crime. But for that I blame the War On Some Drugs, not drugs, just as I don't blame guns for the uses people make of them.

Jdixon, Microsoft doesn't have to buy any nukes, they can just buy the prosecutors and judges and politicians, just like they did last time. Much cheaper.

> Microsoft doesn't have to buy any nukes, they can just buy the prosecutors and judges and politicians,

Bob: True, but you just know one of these days Ballmer is going to get tired of only throwing chairs.
> Microsoft doesn't have to buy any nukes, they can just buy the prosecutors and judges and politicians,

I'm just afraid that one day we'll wake up to find they're supplying the software that run the nukes....
Windows NE? (Nuclear Edition)
jimf, I'll try to scare up the story about the navy ships being run by MS Windows.

Oh, they decry, but we take really good care of it!

Windows glitch puts Aegis Cruiser dead in the water: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/26/windows_boxes_at_sea...

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/ArticleID/18007/18007.h...

Bill Gates makes a lot of money investing in the Navy http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=490

It worked so well on the Aegis, let's put it on a nuclear aircraft carrier! http://www.gcn.com/print/vol19_no27/2868-1.html

Just to follow up, the most interesting thing about the results of the Google search for "navy runs windows" is that all the results are older. None more recent than Win2K.

Hmmm.....
> None more recent than Win2K.

Bob, the last thing you want if for your weapons control system to suddenly go to "reduced functionality mode". Unless they can find a way around that, I don't see XP or Vista being used.
Pity the poor poor Brits on their new Windows powered cruiser :(
JD, _my_ weapons systems won't. :^)

I also won't use an M-16, same reason.

But to suggest that intelligence or experience drives government procurement is to demonstrate a profound lack of information about government procurement processes.

Why did the Challenger blow up? Because politicians from Utah wanted the rockets built there, which means they couldn't be built in one piece, then they had to be linked back together in a cluster-puck that was eventually going to fail. It did, and that is simply one example of an endless list that goes back as far as government procurement.

Two things you never want to watch being made: Sausage and legislation.

Somebody sue this lier please!

104 earlier comments in the full thread.

"Used to be there was just Virginia."

...until Ubuntu came along.
> On another note, jdixon and Pa must use MEPIS...or is WV a state divided?

I guess they can reunite it. Warren now says he's looking to move. What did you do or say to him jdixon? :D
HEY - everyone stop dissing on WV - they stayed loyal to the Union when the rest of Virginia got whiny about the duly elected leadership of the U.S. and decided to incite armed rebellion against the government as a first action instead of attempting to use diplomacy.

What is it about the Southern mentality that leads to shoot first, ask later?

It's the big reason I find displaying the confederate battle flag so unpatriotic. Southern Pride? Pride in what? Pride in taking up arms against the government and killing those people who disagree with you just because you don't like some laws that were passed? In a society based on law, that is unacceptable. Even the Declaration of Independance tells us that armed rebellion should be an action of last resort.

>What is it about the Southern mentality that leads to shoot first, ask later?

You misunderstand entirely.

That is not the Southern mentality so much as a reasonable gut reaction to Yankees!
>That is not the Southern mentality so much as a reasonable gut reaction to Yankees!

gut reaction I'll grant you (Ulysses S Grant, that is) but reasonable? There are anomalies such as yourself and DC, but I'm pretty sure reasonable is not the most apt of adjectives for those Southerners who continue believe that "the South is gonna do it again."
"the South is gonna do it again."

Ummm....

In the event you haven't notice where big new car plants are being located, as well as quite a few other desirable jobs, the south is, in fact, doing it again.

They're just doing it smarter this time.
That just may be a side effect of them opening up the gene pool away from immeadiate family. It shows that they are finally capable of turning a wrench the correct way 2 times out of 3.

*evil grin*
> they stayed loyal to the Union when the rest of Virginia got whiny about the duly elected leadership of the U.S. and decided to incite armed rebellion against the government as a first action instead of attempting to use diplomacy.

OK, as already noted, I'm a West Virginian born and raised. That said, Virginia did not leave the union until after the battle at Fort Sumter. And the left the union properly, in the same manner that the colonies left England, by a proper vote of their representatives. And finally, I've heard that a peace delegation was on the train to Washington when war was declared. So I think claiming that armed rebellion was their first option is stretching things somewhat.
> ...where big new car plants are being located...

The big new, non-union, car plants.
> On another note, jdixon and Pa must use MEPIS...or is WV a state divided?

Actually, while I've tried Mepis, I used Slackware for years before Mepis was created, and I've never seen a good reason to switch.
>The big new, non-union, car plants.

Yup...with all of those non-union jobs paying a whole lot more than that good-old union unemployment.
quote:: Yes, it could be. She's as human and fallible as anyone else. ::quote

I guess we could say that of Mike Moore, Richard Stallman, George Bush, Fidel Castro, The Editors of ZdNet, Bob Enderle...... well anyone.
> I guess we could say that of Mike Moore, Richard Stallman, George Bush, Fidel Castro, The Editors of ZdNet, Bob Enderle...... well anyone.

Yep. Including, and especially, jdixon. It's always best to keep in mind that all of us make mistakes and have faults and weaknesses. All any of us can do is our best, and sometimes that's woefully inadequate. I've made more than my share of mistakes in my life, some with consequences I would very much like to undo, but can't. I hope that makes me more forgiving of other peoples failures, but I'm not sure.
"I guess we could say that of .... well anyone."

Indeed. All the more reason never to vest in anyone else the power to coerce others.

"There are some troubles from which mankind can never escape. . . . [The anarchists] have never claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow from authority. As a choice of blessings, liberty is the greater; as a choice of evils, liberty is the smaller. Then liberty always says the Anarchist. No use of force except against the invader." --- Benjamin Tucker

> I still watch M*A*S*H every weekday

tuxtom: actually, I found it on one of the cable channels here the other night. I *love* M*A*S*H. I think, even given all the episodes I've seen, I still have only seen a few re-runs. I may start devoting some time to that when I get home from work.
> > I guess we could say that of Mike Moore, Richard Stallman, George Bush, Fidel Castro, The Editors of ZdNet, Bob Enderle...... well anyone.

Oh sure... Any of them 'cept' the ones 'we know' are alien invaders.. or worse! Who knows what's come a creaping out of those old WV coal mines...
> Any of them 'cept' the ones 'we know' are alien invaders.. or worse! Who knows what's come a creaping out of those old WV coal mines...

He's on to us DC, time for an "intervention".
DC: Watching it right now. Margret's put in for a transfer...leaving the camp. She'll be back permanently in 15 minutes.

Definitely the best show ever to grace television.
You bet. They just don't make 'em like that anymore. :-(

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