On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, John Klein wrote: > On Thu, 20 Feb 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > > @> > Of course they're criticizable! Criticism is part of the environment (or > @> > interaction) which shapes their future behavior. If they're dangerously > @> > immune to criticism we call them mentally ill and lock them up. > @> > @> Ok, I was trying to preserve some sort of people/non-people language > @> distinction - one doesn't criticize one's computer, one reboots it or > @> downloads a new RPM or tells it to kill some annoying process. > > Really? > > Speaking as someone who's worked with computers for many years, I have to > say that I spend quite a bit of time and energy criticizing them. > > (In fact, one of the primary characteristics of hacker jargon is the > blurring of the distinction between person and non-person. It is > frequently said that "OpenSSH doesn't want to talk to commercial SSH", > when you would probably have it as "OpenSSH and commercial SSH frequently > function in incompatible ways", since programs can't want.) People talk to their cars like this, or their cats, or their cuticles. In Hungarian my point would be clearer - can we switch or drop this? You go first.