<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Jim Kinney <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jim.kinney@gmail.com">jim.kinney@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128490874" target="_blank">http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128490874</a><br><br>"A new body of research out of the University of Michigan suggests that's
not what happens, that we base our opinions on beliefs and when
presented with contradictory facts, we adhere to our original belief
even more strongly. "<br><br>The article is a transcript of an interview so it's a bit disjointed. The meat of the discussion begins around the first <br><br>(Soundbite of laughter) <br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>
<font color="#888888">
-- <br>James P. Kinney III<br>Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness <br>Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits <br><br> Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.<br>
Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith", 1992 <br><br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br>Pretty good interview, and not really all that off topic if we really want to understand advocacy, and advance free software (and free music as well ((*lisp quotes intended) another issue of mine)). We all tend to shut out any ideas which contradict our predetermined beliefs. In the OS sense I try to fight that within myself by doing two things on opposite ends of the spectrum. One is installing whatever new OS Microsoft has released and giving it a bit of a chance (Vista lasted three weeks -- Windows 7 is actually usable. and I'm sporadically using a cheap laptop running it), the other is installing and configuring operating systems which are only used by a small number of people (Minix 3 is my current project).<br>
<br>The moral of the story is to really examine wherever you are based on better criteria than where you have been. It's one of the reasons that George Bernard Shaw is my personal hero.<br><br>Larry<br><br><br>Metaphorically I'd place Microsoft as mainstream conservatisim, Linux as Liberalism (in the American sense of the term) the Libertarian right represented by Apple, and the left fringes occupied by Minix 3, the Hurd, etc. <br clear="all">
<br>-- <br>"I see design standards that don't tell you how to come up with a good design (only how to write it down), employee evaluation standards that don't help you build meaningful long-term relationships with staff, testing standards that don't tell you how to invent a test that is worth running."<br>
<br> Tom DeMarco<br> Slack<br>