[...]
> Looks like you were unaware that the swastika was actually a symbol of
> entirely different meaning previous to the Nazis taking it over and doing

No, I was not; you're quite right there.  But, it has a very strong,
pervasive meaning presently.  See my other comment.


> > I don't really make that association at all.  To the extent that I
> > associate the original *photo* at all with war, it simply represents a
> > branch of the military, its soldiers working together in support of their
> > country.
>
> But you *instantly* grasped the swastika connotations, regardless of the
> fact that it originated much, much earlier and meant something completely
> different before the Nazis got hold of it. --You understand where I'm
> headed with this right?--Thus while you appeared gravely offended by the

I can't remember the last time that I was gravely offended.  Sorry.  You
are over-interpreting responses, here.  I don't actually take symbols to
be anything more than a compact way to express things, based on
representation and shared culture.

However, the swastika seems to be an active icon of some hate-groups
today.  It is associated with them (and with former Nazi Germany) in many
people's minds.  If you use a swastika, that's like using a string of
phonemes that say, ``I am a Nazi''.  To most people who put any meaning at
all to that communication, it would carry only negative meaning.

This is in part because most spoken words, like abstract symbols, are
non-representative.  Their meaning depends on what people have been taught
that they mean.  (Unlike representational images, that more or less carry
their own meaning.)  The current image is a representational symbol, with
nothing about war, Japan, the U.S., or defeat anywhere to be seen.


> suggestion, you claim that the other symbol and what it means should be
> overlooked (presumably) in the interests of being deliberately non-PC.

Thanks for making a completely wild guess, but no.  The reason that I
think that the current image is fine is because it has the attributes that
I mentioned before.  You have to stretch the imagination more than a
little to be offended by its composition.  (And by then, you've *long*
since reached the point where the ``little devils'' would be offensive.)


> > Do you know of anyone who's offended?
>
> I'm honouring a request not to tell you who's mildly annoyed at it because
> he really doesn't care one way or the other. :) My point is, is that a
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

``Doesn't really care'' doesn't live in the same house as ``offended''.
Sorry.  If he doesn't care, then move on to the next contestant.  Maybe
you can find someone who's offended, if you look hard enough.  If that's
all that you can find, then perhaps you are over-interpreting people as
being offended (much as you somehow came to believe that I was ``gravely
offended'' above when I was not offended in the least).


> smaller, cooler logo might be nifty.

It would be neat to have a proper logo, yes.  It's harder to commnicate as
much in a logo, though.  So we probably could stand to have two images
(hopefully immediately related), one of which is relatively rich in
interpretation, and the other suitable for use as a logo.


> > Is it possible that *we* can see Iwo Jima's flag-planting there, but that
> > other people wouldn't make that association at all because the image is
> > peculiar to our culture?
>
> What relevance does this have? What happens when they find out what this
> symbol means? How annoyed would you feel if you'd been working under a

Which symbol?  What *does* it mean?  If we tell people that it means that
``Blondes have more fun'', and really insist that, despite the lack of any
blondes in the picture (or, indeed, any color at all), this really is
*the* *meaning* of the picture, then some non-blondes might indeed be
offended.  Probably some blondes would be, too, as a matter of principle.

I have yet to hear any indication that the image up there was designed
with any nationalistic perspective.  *Certainly* I can't see any
reflection of that in the actual image.  If you want to see it there, you
can probably do so (you have to squint rather hard, I think); you could
also convince people who don't know either way that there is a
nationalistic content to the image---but why you'd want to stick that
notion in their head, I don't know.


As for what difference my question makes: It depends.  Since the image is
representational, it really doesn't matter what interpretation some people
want to overlay on it.  It speaks for itself (hint: there are no national
flags, no human beings, and no forms of combat in the image).  So, from
that point of view, my question is exactly as relavant as the whole
thread: It is not.

But, the thread is here.  The only people who have said a single word
about the ``offensiveness'' of the image will only do so by ascribing the
feelings of offense to other people (generally in the complete abstract
claim that the image *may* offend *someone*).  (Except, of course, for the
one person who you said didn't really care.)  So, what is this a case of,
but that the people objecting to the image are projecting their own
interpretations of the image onto others, and then imagining those other
people are upset?

If that's all that's happening, then it *really* matters what the image
means to other people, not what you *think* it means to them.

You can export your interpretation by telling your Japanese friends ``This
image represents the US defeating Japan''.  I think that you are doing
them a disservice, though---the image on the NetBSD site represents no
such thing, nor I think does the photo of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima
(though it may have been *used* at that time, 60 years ago, for such
propoganda when the war in the Pacific was being fought).  It certainly
carries none of that to me (or apparently to others), so it is not a
universal or basic interpretation of even the original photo.


> logo that, in Japanese, actually meant, "Round eyes suck rudabega!" for
> years and then one day learned what it meant when your new Japanese friend

I think that that's spelled ``rutabega'', isn't it?  Anyway, this doesn't
apply.

A better analogy would be to ask about an image that showed a group of
people apparently returning from some taksk to receive honors and
congratulations from friends.  And it may be explained to me that the
image has similar composition to a famous one in Japan representing the
return of the pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor.  Then we could ask: Would I
be offended by such a derived image?  I would not find that offensive in
the least.  I would only be concerned with what the actual image conveyed,
not the context in which the image's ``ancestor'' was originally created.

Would you be offended by such an image?  If so, why?  If not, then what's
your point in this thread?


> http://www.magnamana.com/imagecontest/Realsoft3Dsite/2001annualrunnerup1.htm
> >
> > This image doesn't suggest any of NetBSD's qualities to me.  The creature
 [...]
> Here's what I see: A powerfully muscled, other-worldly being that is
> unstoppable, unaffected by any of our mortal concerns, not guided by any

Unstoppable?  Sounds like a certain monopolistic company.  (^&

Unaffected by *our* concerns?  But you say that you want your computer to
do what you tell it?  I agree, it looks like it doesn't care about our
interests, and has its own agenda.  Hm, again, it reminds me of a certain
other, rather unfriendly OS.  It seems rather alien from NetBSD.


> kind of foibled human hand. In a way, once NetBSD reaches a certain
> critical mass of developers I am convinced that it too becomes
> self-renewing. It no longer matters at that point whether users use it or

I, too, think that NetBSD seems to be self-renewing.  But what this has to
do with the "creature" image totally eludes me.


> Ugliness is subjective: I believe it to be quite superb and "clean". It

I suppose that there's no point in debating aesthetics.  But it certainly
is baroque.


> can't steal my girlfriend, it won't waste its time cutting me off in

It looks like it could steal your lunch, and might kidnap your girlfriend
if it took a liking to her.  I wouldn't trust it.  (^&


> > > Cute and cuddly just doesn't do it for me. I want a badass on my
> > > desktop!!
> >
> > Recall that BSD came from California, dude.  (^&
>
> Sorry, that's lost on me. California is cute and cuddly? =] Since when?

I tend to associate the peace movement with California, I s'pose.  The BSD
daemon has always seemed a very ``Californian'' thing to me.  I guess that
it's just another matter of different people interpreting the same image
different ways.


> > I don't mind thinking of my computers as amicable.
>
> I do. If I wanted friendliness I'd be running something other than NetBSD.

What, pray?  Mac's and MS-WINDOWS are insulting to the user, not friendly.
The Amiga is no longer being made.  Maybe BeOS, though it sounds like they
may be giving up on being a serious OS.  The other BSD's and LINUX are not
much, if any, more friendly, as far as I know.

What you say that you want in a system is *exactly* what I'd call a
friendly system: It's obediant.  It doesn't tie your hands and do what it
thinks is really in your best interest.  You can trust it because it's not
running its own agenda.


> > They do what I want for the most part, and I try to keep them happy with
> > power, parts, and network connections.  (^&  They don't sulk in a corner,
> > ready to lash out at me, and they don't do any of the other things that
> > that "creature" looks like it would do if you gave it half a chance.
>
> But with aims we can't even guess at, why would such a creature take on
> such a human behaviour as sulking in a corner? I am not subservient to my

A creature such as that, if it is in a corner, is sulking.  That, or if it
doesn't think that you know about it, it is lurking.  I can tell.  (^&


> It *vaguely* resembles what we are told demons look like according to

And to that extent (far more than the original image calls to mind any
concept of specific wars or defeats), it may be quite offensive.  Now, it
doesn't offend me, and I really don't care from this perspective.  But I
cannot imagine how one can be so sensitive as to perceive offense in the
current image, and not see a ``demon/devil'' as an offensive thing to many
others.


> sci-fi and AD&D. But since modern Christian dogma usually states that
> Satan isn't an actual creature running around making people do bad things,

Christians seem to come in all shapes and flavors.  Just today, in fact
(when I was explaining this email exchange to a fellow grad student) I was
told a story about a woman who had a shirt with the BSD daemon on it.
Some very firm-minded Christians were *very* upset to see a shirt sporting
an icon of ``the evil one''.  They were even more upset to learn that the
US government uses some of these ``devil machines''.

I myself am the agnostic/atheist sort, so I really don't care one way or
the other.  But I can *easily* believe (based on what I've seen of
Christians) that there are lots of people who will find any kind of
demon-like image to be deeply offensive.  (I'm also sure that many other
Christians are able to take the image for what it is, rather than for how
it can be interpreted.)

Of course, the creature you provided a URL to looks more like the Predator
SF creature than a demon, IMHO.  Or perhaps a humanoid crustacean.


  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu