Wonderful waste of time

[Bob La Quey]

At 08:14 PM 7/11/00 -0700, Jesus Castagnetto wrote:

>In a textbook when you are learning, the descriptions help. When you
>are doing research, when what you are looking at is new, where are the
>descriptions then? where are the textual descriptions even when you
>look at a series of known structures and realize there is a novel
>pattern there?

I think this is the heart of the matter. Research and creative exploration 
is a very different animal then is exposition of known info or managing of 
a quasistatic system. This fact is at the heart of my endless disagreements
with the "System admin mentality" which often dominates discussion of all
kinds of applications of the web. Espcially in LUGs where admins seem to 
congregate in large numbers. 

For background see

http://www.ultranet.com/~jkimball/BiologyPages/D/DoubleHelix.html
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980817/17dna.htm

The latter reference, while dealing with much more than the 
discovery of the structure of DNA, does discuss the distinctly 
non verbal "frenzy of model building" which was an important part
of the process of discovery in which Watson and Crick were involved.

The net is far too important to be left to the quasifacist mentality
of the security gurus. We need them, but we must also keep them in 
their place :) i.e. subject to civil authority. 

Risks must be taken. We need not fear that risks will go unrecognized,
since there is a huge security industry funded and devoted to 
rooting out every possible risk and emphasizing that risk ad nauseum.
Besides, risks that are real, will inevitably lead to a certain number
of failures, which are certain to be highlighted by the more conservative
members of any community. So I don't worry about risks going unnoticed.

After all people love to point at failures and say "See! I told you so."

I worry more about people who think of Java Applets as some kind of 
horrendous risk. Give me a break. Please. I mean, "Really!".  

The net is first and foremost a medium for communication. Some
communication is risky. Get used to it. Or go back in your little 
corner and only hear what you want to hear, see what you want to see,
and feel safe. The best thing to do is to pull the plug. 

Nah, nah, nah, na,nah!

Wow, I must have needed a rant. 

That really felt good. 

Thanks Stewart,


Bob La Quey