Moral Sense Test: test your intuition on right and wrong

So there I am, surfing over to the Edge, when *bing*, there’s a solicitation from Harvard at the top to participate in the Moral Sense Test.

Not just a solicitation; it’s the first feature at the Edge.  Wow, what could that imply?

Anyhow, what would you do if you were in the situation where you had to choose between killing a handful of people on accident or divert and kill only a single person?

Would choosing to kill someone, anyone, for any reason, be immoral?  Would it be immoral not to prevent more deaths where possible?  Does your age, country of origin affect that decision?

Don’t tell me – go ahead, take the test!

I’m itching to see what the results are when published!  Aren’t you?

5:55:23 PM    comment []

RantsCounterRants: National Security and Microsoft…

I told my dad well over a week ago that this country’s overweighting in a single software, a single operating system, was potentially a national security risk.  I’d read this before, but I’d never actually thought through the magnitude of exposure and risks.

What was your first thought when the lights went out, when the blackout hit (assuming you were in the affected Northeast-Midwest)?  Mine was that I had the MSBlaster virus…then, perhaps the Blaster virus attacked the power company.

I thought of terrorism only after I’d already thought of Microsoft and viruses.  Sure brought the point home for me.

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been too worried about the Blaster virus; I’d already gotten the requisite patch back in July, communicated about the patch to the rest of my family and peeps.  My firewall was running and I don’t open strange emails (particularly with attachments) as normal practice.  The blackout was completely unrelated to either viruses or terrorism – or so we’ve been told.

But I am worried that viruses not unlike Blaster and SoBig can cause problems in the near-term for this country’s still-soft economy.  A theory written by a couple Chinese military strategists implied that attacking the U.S. on a military basis would be difficult, but causing more damage than that by military means was possible by attacking our infrastructure through non-traditional, non-linear methods.  In other words, attack U.S. productivity and slow us down in a big way.

Were there a virus that could permanently cripple a quarter or one-half of all PC’s running Microsoft Windows, we could be in a world of hurt, experience greater loss than that caused by the drop of a bomb.  Is unrestrained capitalist, fair and open free market activity worth the risk?  I’m sure there will be much bashing regardless of the position one takes on this point.

Once upon a time I would have thought it an unlikely scenario, that the US would be so exposed by a single company or a single technology; not any longer.  Sure, I’ll allow that I’m more paranoid than most folks.

But if I can think it, it’s possible.  If I can think it, somebody else has as well.  And if I mean well by the thoughts I have, perhaps that other somebody doesn’t mean well at all.

Silly me, though.  No, I’m not castigating myself for indulging in my paranoia.  Now that I’ve explained my concerns to my father, he wants me to find out if it’s possible to use Linux in tandem with Windows, how to run both on the same machine, just in case there’s a truly nasty virus that attacks Microsoft products. 

Sheesh.

No good deed goes unrewarded, eh?

3:34:23 PM    comment []

Day 3

A calm morning followed a quiet evening.

Somebody was grounded from watching television last night because they had so many problems with getting ready in the morning.  He didn’t like this restriction at all, but he did read and spend quality time with his sister and parents.  Naturally, we availed ourselves of the additional face-time opportunity to drill into his head that his choices that morning were directly responsible for unpleasantness and no television.  Making good choices would certainly make things easier on everyone the next morning.

He was overtired, falling asleep in less than two minutes while waiting for me to tuck in his sister.  This was probably the biggest contributor to yesterday’s poor start; he was just plain tuckered out and couldn’t go back to bed to sleep it off.

This morning he managed to get dressed without any prodding – in an outfit of his own choosing – and eat breakfast without any nagging.  I told him I was proud of him for doing so well this morning.

He sat on the couch inclined at a forty-five degree angle, something just shy of a slump as I praised him.  He couldn’t lift his eyes to meet mine; he said in response, I’m dying to go back to bed.

Ah.  Sometimes it’s so hard not to just bust out laughing, hard to choke out something appropriately sympathetic in response and yet not enabling.

It’ll be another big day for him; he’ll be overtired again tonight.  While eating corn on the cob for dinner, he discovered he has his first loose tooth.  He’ll be very busy showing off this new badge of maturity today, sticking his dirty fingers into his mouth to demonstrate for anyone who’ll express curiosity.

Do you remember what it was like, that first week of school, that first loose tooth?  I can remember the tooth, but not school; I have a suspicion it was a bad experience that I’ve buried in the recesses of my memories.

I guess I don’t need to recall it that badly; I’ve gotten to re-live it vicariously now, twice.  What a bonus!

9:53:30 AM    comment []