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you could always just buy it from amazon

That kid really enjoying the destruction is pretty funny.

For those who'd like to do something similar but on a much smaller scale, Estes has done a number of smaller model rockets based on the Star Wars movies. A couple decent models are R2-D2 and my favorite, Vader's TIE fighter. But I would guess the most appropriate to this discussion would be the X Wing

That kid really enjoying the destruction is pretty funny.

For those who'd like to do something similar but on a much smaller scale, Estes has done a number of smaller model rockets based on the Star Wars movies. A couple decent models are R2-D2 and my favorite, Vader's TIE fighter. But I would guess the most appropriate to this discussion would be the X Wing

The parent item is absolutely right. Softpedia has no actual data on Linux installations. The data doesn't exist.

Here are three use cases that would show up as Microsoft customers in any Softpedia data:

My elderly mother finally bought a Vista laptop -- a $400 bargain Toshiba. Very nice dual-core Intel laptop, excellent for the price. Half a gig of RAM rendered Vista unusable. Rather than spend more money, I installed Ubuntu Linux on it, and she's off like a rocket. Everything Just Works.

My mother-in-law's old eMachines desktop blew a hard drive. Oops ... no XP install disk, so we can't just stick in a new hard drive. I inserted an Ubuntu live CD and she ran with that (no HD) for a month. Worked great! So I installed a $75 hard disk and loaded Linux onto it. It took 30 minutes, no problems, and everything Just Works.

My middle daughter just turned 15. For her birthday we gave her a $400 Acer laptop. I put Linux on a partition. By the end of the month I'm confident she'll have abandoned Vista. Too slow, too annoying with its constant security warnings and popups.

(There are only two problems with the Linux setup for her. One is hardware-based. I'd say the installation Just Works except that it doesn't quite; the Atheros wi-fi is broken, and I'll probably have to buy her a d-Link PCMCIA card. The second is the lack of iTunes, and I'll have to introduce her to a DRM-free music store.)

Linux on the desktop is more than viable, and it's installed in a lot more places than "experts" like those at Softpedia know. Even the ditzy kid over at the Wal-Mart electronics section is dual-booting.

That's why you should start buying Ubuntu at Amazon

> showing the crows successfully doing a meta-tool task (i.e. using a tool, to get a tool, to get food)

this is old news -- back in 1974, they filmed animal are beautiful people -- where the animals are filmed doing 'meta-tasks' -- catching one animal in order to track it in order to find the water hole.

...because it is not the purpose of faith to accurately describe reality...

"So, how does that reconcile with your claim, "They are both attempts by thinking people to make sense out of life, the world, and everything in it"?

Because faith doesn't cover everything. It wasn't meant to. ...neither does reason or logic.

Is the purpose of faith to inaccurately describe reality? =)"

That's actually more the role of science when researchers get the math wrong.

"More seriously: faith operates in reality."

Faith ideally, helps people deal with reality by reminding them that there's more to their existence than what they know as reality.

"Luminous beings are we. ...not this crude matter!" - Yoda

"It is only in observable reality that we can assess the usefulness of its operation towards its intended purposes."

...a matter best left to reason and logic, yes.

"Ultimately, of course, only the universe of reality can test the effectiveness, but scientific methods facilitate observing the testing process and results."

...common ground there.

"No; however, I don't recall ever claiming they were opposites, per se."

...fair enough. You did not.

"Though the dot product in some social metric spaces is probably negative, I suspect they generally have a sizable orthogonal component as well."

Faith wasn't meant to replace mathematics either.

...though I'd heard a story about Pythagoras sacrificing a bull to the gods after proving the existence of irrational numbers. I enjoy a good barbecue as much as the next man, but even I think that was a bit much.

"IT support to a philosophy department at an engineering school isn't all that different, but pays about 50% better than restaurant work (unless you own the restaurant)."

If I found out my Geek Squad geek applied scientific methods to a religious matter, I wouldn't want him replacing my damn toner cartridges.

"No, humans seem pretty much alike to me; two eyes, so, nose in the middle, mouth under."

Humans spend a lot of time prone, some more so than others, so mouths aren't always under. I learned that watching my girlfriend sleep.

Sometimes she yells at me when I do that.

"It's always the same. Now if some had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance -- or the mouth at the top -- that would be some help."

There's more to people than physical appearances, Abb3w. Life experience makes a huge difference and not everyone who was fortunate enough to be born with two eyes gets to keep them

"These days, politics and religion are too closely tied for that to be a discussion option."

...understandable. Politicians should know better than to simply write off voters who attend church regularly.

"Mostly we talk about how charming and polite their semi-domesticated little weasels are, how well they're doing in school, and so on."

Aww that's nice. :-)

"It takes all kinds to make a world; I didn't say I thought the ratios were right. Also, while I'm quite fond of swamps (they're great for the overall health of the ecology), that doesn't mean I want to have to deal with the Okeefenokee up close and personal on a regular basis."

You don't have to kiss them. Merely understand that even though your way of dealing with the world might not be the same as others, those others probably take their ways as seriously as you do yours.

"I'm not convinced the latter view is sustainable." You may find The Limits to Growth [amazon.com] is an e

Here you go

[...] it is not the purpose of faith to accurately describe reality.

So, how does that reconcile with your claim, "They are both attempts by thinking people to make sense out of life, the world, and everything in it"? Is the purpose of faith to inaccurately describe reality? =)

More seriously: faith operates in reality. It is only in observable reality that we can assess the usefulness of its operation towards its intended purposes. Ultimately, of course, only the universe of reality can test the effectiveness, but scientific methods facilitate observing the testing process and results.

Does that mean they are diametric opposites? ...or even all that opposite at all?

No; however, I don't recall ever claiming they were opposites, per se. Though the dot product in some social metric spaces is probably negative, I suspect they generally have a sizable orthogonal component as well.

Thusly, someone applying a scientific approach to matters of faith or religion might consider a purpose that involves meeting the public and serving them French fries.

IT support to a philosophy department at an engineering school isn't all that different, but pays about 50% better than restaurant work (unless you own the restaurant).

So, you've moved on to politics or those funny little differences between races and genders?

No, humans seem pretty much alike to me; two eyes, so, nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now if some had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance — or the mouth at the top — that would be some help.

These days, politics and religion are too closely tied for that to be a discussion option. Mostly we talk about how charming and polite their semi-domesticated little weasels are, how well they're doing in school, and so on. With a minimum of effort you can get almost any parent to blather endlessly about their kids. The aunt is a little harder, since asking her kids results in her complaining about them being assortedly unmarried, de-married, and (in one case) all but unmarriable, which then raises my status. I usually ask her about her health, and if she's come across any interesting new recipes; she's chatty enough that takes a few hours.

Provide the specific quote, and I can be specific as to whether you're misunderstanding me, or whether I spoke imprecisely.

I did give the quote, though I misspoke; "pronoun" was an extra word left by mistake, as it's the main focus of "Grammar Lesson" (conflated with the classic Daffy Duck line about "Pronoun Trouble"), but other possessive structures are similarly affected. It's almost certainly the latter case, since you seem to be fluent enough in English to think in it; it's a flaw in the language grammar (and that of the other human languages I know enough of to determine). Consider the prior reading pointer repeated.

However, you seem to have a peculiar way of expressing your "gladness".

It takes all kinds to make a world; I didn't say I thought the ratios were right. Also, while I'm quite fond of swamps (they're great for the overall health of the ecology), that doesn't mean I want to have to deal with the Okeefenokee up close and personal on a regular basis.

"I even suspect that the blind-faith mode of operation for society may be a mode of operation that offers better odds of long-term survival for our species than the rational/scientific/technological worldview."

Wow. How do you figure that?

I'm not convinced the latter view is sustainable. You may find The Limits to Growth is an easier read, but the technical report Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World is more comprehensive and harder to dismiss. The technological/scientific wor

It's been out for almost 4 years. What was stopping you from buying it legally before?

http://www.amazon.com/Macsoft-Halo-Mac/dp/B00006IQTH/ref=sr_1_12/002-9659279-2452860?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1191606663&sr=8-12

Of course, now it's so old that it's pretty much out of stock/discontinued everywhere.

Here y'are..

I was actually think more along the lines of this device which, unlike the the Alera device which really just scores the surface, this one actually breaks up the whole disk into confetti.

I remember Peter Drucker discussing education in his autobiography, Adventures of a Bystander.

There are very few "teachers" out there, those who can illuminate a subject and adapt to all the various types of learning styles, personalities, and perspectives that various students may have. This is not a skill that we really know how to teach itself, it's more of a talent.

The second, more common effective educator, is the "pedagogue" (his use of the term), by which he implies, professionals who help motivate students to structure their own learning. This is a skill set we can teach & codify.

I think that new technology has a lot to do with increasing the pace of self-driven learning. In that vein, new technology is very important. I think old technology is great too (libraries, blackboards, etc.), but the ability of (for example) hypertext to provide context to information is an extremely powerful agent to learning, especially for those with short attention spans.

As for "damn kids are all entitled with no attention span" carmudgeons, I'd note that this seems to be a mainstream variant of Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder (NADD), which seems to be a way of coping with the increasing information glut. Some people bubble up, some people fixate on one medium, others soak it all in, but as a result wind up with "mile wide / inch deep" knowledge, for better or worse.

The trick, for educators, I believe, will be a way to structure education so that people can be specialists in several areas. This keeps things interesting. The second is to allow those areas of speciality to arise based on the student's strengths & talents. Sudbury Schools seem to be a growing approach, but I'm sure there are others.

  Finally, there needs to be a sense of urgency instilled in students that is gradually increased as they grow... the work ethic is a hard thing to instill. I know from my experience in school that I coasted with 80s for 18 years ... and then fell flat on my face in university. And it took me *years* to develop the work ethic to work on distasteful things, something I still struggle with. I was lucky enough to get high-paying jobs I enjoyed for almost 10+ years before I had to really do something important that I disliked. It's a growing experience that I wish I figured out earlier in life.

funny how I just tried looking up the the on amazon, and it worked fine.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-9536991-2551100?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+the&Go.x=10&Go.y=3

This book:

http://www.amazon.com/Nurture-Assumption-Children-Turn-They/dp/0684857073

will make you really angry.

Not that I disagree with what you say about current institutions being horribly broken.

Audiophiles typically are some of the stupidest people on the planet

Hard to disagree, but 30 years ago there *was* a difference between your parents' furniture that happened to have a record player in it/absolutely crappy "stereo systems" and good quality stuff. Back then I bought a 15 watt (yes, only 15 watts) Pioneer system with part-time work money and it sounded great. Up until I found out about the googlephonics system with the space rock needle (my apologies to Gern Blanston).

Dude, they already make those.

http://www.amazon.com/Alera-Technologies-DVD-Shredder-240114/dp/B00006B7HV

It's not as hard anymore, if you avoid iTunes Music Store.

1. Set up an account - at Amazon MP3 Music Store, MP3Tunes, eMusic, others in time...
2. Hope they have a song you want (they might, they might not... probably not yet)
3. Buy the song (Just takes a click or two)
4. Put the song on any mp3 player (done, no drm at these stores!)
5. Play the song on Linux (well, need an mp3 codec but whatev, you need one in windows too)
6. Share the songs with your friends (Complaining that it's hard to share songs with your friends is the whole purpose of DRM. If you'd respect copyright and let your friends buy their own MP3's, we wouldn't need DRM. You're not legally allowed to redistribute copyrighted songs without authorization from the copyright holder - that goes way beyond fair use imho)

If you're still using dialup, you should look into "Ultra High Speed Internet Phone" cable. I'm sure it makes all the difference between 46.6kbps and 48.8kbps.

http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Cable-Ultra-High-Speed-Internet-yellow/dp/B00003CWBZ

Oh, and apparently these have been available on Amazon.com since 1973 :)

Well there again, you're talking about findings which involved applying a scientific approach to a matter of faith. ...an act which is neither reasonable, rational, nor logical, because faith doesn't require the sort of evidence or proof that science does. You yourself posted words to that effect earlier in this thread.

Provide the specific quote, and I can be specific as to whether you're misunderstanding me, or whether I spoke imprecisely; but I suspect one of the two. My intended nuance you seem to omit is that while faith does not require the same kind of proof, it also doesn't present a description of reality that is probably accurate; it merely presents one that may sometimes be useful. The two things aren't the same; descriptions may be accurate, useful, neither, or both. Approximation algorithms show that. (See "Minimum Message Length and Kolmogorov Complexity" by Wallace and Dowe, and the closely-related "Minimum Description Length Induction, Bayesianism and Kolmogorov Complexity" by Vitányi and Li, by the way.) The selection of ultimate values is, I agree, not a scientific question; however, once selected, the methods help in determining choices that will increase the benefit observed... and, incidentally, suggest that when you don't like the choices suggested, that you re-examine the assumed ultimate values to see if they are correct.

That might depend upon the individuals conducting the study.

Not if you answer the question in a generalized manner, such that it may be applied to specific cases by individuals. Of course, there's also the fun possibility that the generalized expression can be demonstrated to be non-computable, and other subtle possibilities.

Do you know anyone like that, personally?

Yes; one aunt, three cousins (on the other side of the family from her), and those cousins' nine assorted spawn. There are other folk I'm merely socially acquainted with (EG, some friend's neighbors), who I prefer to avoid as civility and politeness allow. Relatives are more difficult to do that with; however, I stopped discussing religion with most of my relatives quite a while back. I simply send occasionally subversive Christmas presents to the rugrats... like a fossil Trilobite to the budding rockhound.

De-humanizing and belittling people for the acts of a few bad seeds and thinking different beliefs and thinking different ways used to be the sort of thing that reasonable folks used to associate with intellectual laziness and disingenuousness.

I think you mistake my belittling the source of their beliefs for belittling the people themselves. Again, there's some difference. (I recommend reading Larry Niven's short story "Grammar Lesson," collected in Tales From the Draco Tavern; it seems you do not mentally distinguish intrinsic, extrinsic, and relational possessive pronouns.) There are a LOT of ways to be human. It's an advantage for our species. I'm quite glad there are a lot of people who think in different ways than me. I even suspect that the blind-faith mode of operation for society may be a mode of operation that offers better odds of long-term survival for our species than the rational/scientific/technological worldview. This does not preclude my disapproving of the current dominant selection of foci for blind-faith literalism; nor does my assessment as "less useful" imply they are completely useless. However, one of the nice things about evolution is that it tends to yield improvements over the tests of time... for some value of "improved" anyway. And evolution affects all manner of information expression over time, be it genes or ideas.

However, I'm also glad I have mostly tolerant, open-minded, and non-nosy neighbors nearby; it increases my short-term survival prospects much higher than I would have in, say, Iran.

Oh yeah?! My degree is in Political Science!
[ducks]

Actually, when you really start to examine what makes science science, it can get confusing real quick. Anyone who is interested should read What is this thing called Science? I find myself plugging this book on /. about once a quarter nowadays.

The problem with all this stuff is not that the evil audiophile magazines are duping perfectly normal, rational people...Quite the contrary. These people are looking for some fantasy to dump their money into, and the magazines and manufacturers are providing it.

This is exactly the sort of thing James Randi loves to get involved in, and the sad thing is how few people actually seem to care when the object of their irrational belief is held up in front of them. Look up the whole "Uri Geller on the Tonight Show" clip, where they set up a clean set of props for him to do his psychic schtick on, and he flopped so hard he left a hole in the stage...and it didn't end his career.

People want to believe irrational stuff. Read The demon haunted world by Carl Sagan...He goes over tons of stuff like this.

I was browsing Slashdot while I sit here waiting for 20 minutes to copy a 17 meg file at my freelance gig in front of a Mac when I noticed it's Slashdot's 10th anniversary. So, I think it's equally important to celebrate ten years of successful Slashdot trolling.

For maximum effect I need to post this 3500 times and widen the page, but I won't because it takes too long and I'll be dead before it gets done. ARE YOU GAY? ARE YOU DEAD? Then you should join the BSD USERS GROUP!

I read this great book about trolling and you should buy it right away. Click on the link I conveniently provided. By the way Netcraft has confirmed that Dumbledore and Stephen King are dead. Snape killed them.

hot grits, natalie portman... at least she doesn't have smelly feet like some desktops I could name.

Thinking about your breathing... is it good, or is it whack? Only OOG can decide!

Think about your parents having hot sweaty sex next time you masturbate to a horsecock in space!

Except your body does build tolerance for it. I eat Blair's on my food from an English breakfast to sushi and my bottom like my mouth have built up such a tolerance that anything less than 400,000 scoville or so and it might as well be from Taco Bell.

According to one episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," vampires have a lower thermal output than normal humans and do not show up on infrared cameras. So if the other occupant in your car is a vampire you could now end up being pulled over if you try to drive in high-occupancy lane of the freeway.

I have not actually seen that particular episode, but it is mentioned on page 13 of the book, The Physics of the Buffyverse. Here is a quote from page 13:

So don't invite a vampire to ride with you, just so will be able to use the high-occupancy lane. The new infrared system will just see one occupant in your car and you will be pulled over.

It's just a fancy robo-roadie

I dunno, I think if you can't tune your guitar with a 440hz tone, then you need to work on your ears. Since Gibson == expensive, this is not geared to n00b players. What kind of advanced player cannot tune by ear?

"Science finds every soil barren in which miracles are taken literally and seriously and revelation is considered to provide authentic knowledge of the physical world. "

This is a claim often made by advocates of science who are unaware of (or hostile to) the verified existence of the paranormal. And yet, serious practice of the scientific method has uncovered many phenomena which don't fit the materialist paradigm, and which may challenge fundamentalist religion also, but seem to map more closely onto a spiritual view of the universe. What word other than miracle are we to use to describe healings without physical cause, or anomalous knowing, for example?

If you are seriously interested in the intersection of true science and the true miraculous, try these recent books:

Irreducible Mind by Kelly et al.

(This one is a huge mothership of a book, university textbook level. You may find the next two more readable for an introduction to the field).

Extraordinary Knowing by Elizabeth Mayer.

Entangled Minds by Dean Radin.

Miracles do exist, they are not just 'pseudoscience, and honestly confronting them will be the #1 challenge of the 21st century. And perhaps it may make us a little more accepting and less venomously hostile towards traditional cultures who know that these things are real and don't buy our studied disbelief.

"Science finds every soil barren in which miracles are taken literally and seriously and revelation is considered to provide authentic knowledge of the physical world. "

This is a claim often made by advocates of science who are unaware of (or hostile to) the verified existence of the paranormal. And yet, serious practice of the scientific method has uncovered many phenomena which don't fit the materialist paradigm, and which may challenge fundamentalist religion also, but seem to map more closely onto a spiritual view of the universe. What word other than miracle are we to use to describe healings without physical cause, or anomalous knowing, for example?

If you are seriously interested in the intersection of true science and the true miraculous, try these recent books:

Irreducible Mind by Kelly et al.

(This one is a huge mothership of a book, university textbook level. You may find the next two more readable for an introduction to the field).

Extraordinary Knowing by Elizabeth Mayer.

Entangled Minds by Dean Radin.

Miracles do exist, they are not just 'pseudoscience, and honestly confronting them will be the #1 challenge of the 21st century. And perhaps it may make us a little more accepting and less venomously hostile towards traditional cultures who know that these things are real and don't buy our studied disbelief.

"Science finds every soil barren in which miracles are taken literally and seriously and revelation is considered to provide authentic knowledge of the physical world. "

This is a claim often made by advocates of science who are unaware of (or hostile to) the verified existence of the paranormal. And yet, serious practice of the scientific method has uncovered many phenomena which don't fit the materialist paradigm, and which may challenge fundamentalist religion also, but seem to map more closely onto a spiritual view of the universe. What word other than miracle are we to use to describe healings without physical cause, or anomalous knowing, for example?

If you are seriously interested in the intersection of true science and the true miraculous, try these recent books:

Irreducible Mind by Kelly et al.

(This one is a huge mothership of a book, university textbook level. You may find the next two more readable for an introduction to the field).

Extraordinary Knowing by Elizabeth Mayer.

Entangled Minds by Dean Radin.

Miracles do exist, they are not just 'pseudoscience, and honestly confronting them will be the #1 challenge of the 21st century. And perhaps it may make us a little more accepting and less venomously hostile towards traditional cultures who know that these things are real and don't buy our studied disbelief.

"An open mind is distinct from an empty head"

...fair enough, but I haven't asked you to empty your head.

"Well, more precisely, science is about discovering the sense; religion merely fabricates it wholesale, then says "shaddap kid" to any remaining questions."

Unfortunately that does happen a lot. Religion at its best, should offer meaning, inspiration, and hope. That could be why the church still has a good public image in spite of all those scandals in the news.

"It reminds me of the Mysterious Stranger's line from Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic : 'Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality. Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore. The two are rarely compatible.'"

There are similarities and differences. The amusing thing about it is when I browse through Slashdot threads, I find mis-guided souls who really should know better, trying to apply scientific answers to questions of faith and religion. I think they are different answers to different questions, and there is a place and purpose for both.

I don't know about that - it doesn't look like it is right now though. From Amazon's MP3 player list, ordered by best-selling:

#1 Apple 4G Nano (silver, latest)
#2 Apple 16G ipod touch
#3 Apple 80G ipod classic (black, latest)
#4 Apple 8G ipod touch
#5 Apple 160G ipod classic (black, latest)
#6 Apple 80G ipod classic (silver, latest)
#7 Apple 8G ipod nano (green, latest)
#8 Apple 8G ipod nano (black, latest)
#9 Apple 8G ipod nano (blue, latest)
#10 Apple 8G ipod nano (silver, latest)
#11 Apple 1G ipod shuffle (purple, latest)
#12 Sandisk 8G (black)
#13 Sandisk 4G +SD
#14 Apple 2G nano (silver)
#15 Zune 30G (white) (this is the V1 player)
...
#28 Zune 30G (black) (this is the V1 player)
#29 Sandisk 1G express
#30 Zune 4G pink (this is the V2 player)
#31 Zune 8G red (this is the V2 player)
#32 Zune 4G black (this is the V2 player)
#33 Zune 8G pink (this is the V2 player)
#34 Zune 4G red (this is the V2 player)
#35 Zune 80G black (this is the V2 player)
#36 Zune 8G black (this is the V2 player)
...
#54 Zune 30G brown

I gave up listing apple players after the first 15 or so. The majority of the missing numbers are Apple MP3 players.

What I think is interesting from this list is that all the top 10 (11 actually) players are the latest-generation players from Apple. The zune V2, even on its launch-day, is languishing in the #30's. It's not even beating the zune V1. I don't think that's a good sign...

Simon

They are both attempts by thinking people to make sense out of life, the world, and everything in it.

Well, more precisely, science is about discovering the sense; religion merely fabricates it wholesale, then says "shaddap kid" to any remaining questions. It reminds me of the Mysterious Stranger's line from Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic: "Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality. Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore. The two are rarely compatible."

That both Science and Religion can be useful, and that both can be abused, I agree.

I've heard this argument from my Christian friends, that at the bottom of rational thought lies some faith, but it's really messy, slippery-slope argument. Pretty soon you invoke Nietzsche, and then ultimately, Hume.

Not necessarily. Only certain premises degenerate into Nietzsche and Hume. Perhaps the argument wasn't presented well. In fact, I hesitate even call it an argument, since it's really just elementary epistemology. It's more like a clarification of terms, particularly the English word "faith," which carries too many conflicting definitions to be of any use in a proper argument. Here's the way I usually formulate it:

Let's start with the term "axiom" instead.

I think it would be hard to disagree that "at the bottom of rational thought" lies a set of axioms. The very laws of reason obviously form part of this axiom system, for instance, as well as certain axioms of mathematics. Axioms may be either unproven or unprovable, but that doesn't prevent them from being true. The best nontrivial example is the axiom that the Universe exists. Does that sound silly? Let us rephrase it, then: the Universe, rather than the Matrix, exists. This is a rigorously unprovable proposition, yet nobody would be considered irrational for believing it.

How, then, should we choose between axiom systems? There are a good number of plausible axiom systems, yet we know that only one (or zero) of them can be correct. Humean skepticism would have us regard this whole exercise as either subjective or contingent, but I see no reason to agree since we're dealing with propositions that are quite capable of being known. As philosopher Dallas Willard has remarked: you can't just believe your doubts and doubt your beliefs, sometimes you have to doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs. In other words,

• Faith is the choice between plausible axioms.

This is not blind faith, but a rational commitment to an unprovable truth -- it begins as judgment call and ends as confident principle. Incidentally, this is exactly the definition used in the Bible -- and not any of the other outrageously irrational definitions that are attached to the word "faith." Frankly, I'd rather get rid of the word entirely and use, say, "conviction" instead. (Note that this definition cuts two ways: (1) it exposes the countless polemics against "faith" as strawmen of the highly-uninformed variety, and (2) it exposes countless Christians as being of the highly-uninformed variety also.)

Indeed, we can expand the definition to be even more useful:

• Conviction is the choice between plausible alternatives.

Such beliefs are therefore entirely rational, even in the face of significant uncertainty. For instance, consider the proposition "P != NP". There are many good reasons to think this is true, along with some good reasons to think it isn't. Someday we may find out, but for now, I choose to believe that P != NP, and therefore trust RSA encryption. This is not a strong conviction, but it is nevertheless a conviction. Others may choose to believe that P == NP, and therefore RSA could be devastated at any moment.

Of course, you can probably see where this is going:

• God is an axiom.

I happen to think it is rather baldly obvious that this is a valid position. The stereotype of a "rational," "intelligent," "educated" person is one who is committed to certain axioms, such as the reliability of logic and the existence of the universe -- but not other axioms, such as the existence of God. This is an arbitrary cultural bias, and has nothing to do with being rational, intelligent, or educated.

We can develop this part more technically, if you are interest

You may get along with many religious people, as I do, but the more pious and certain people get, the less tolerant they get, and the more difficult it is to get along with them. Kingdom Coming is an interesting book on Christian Nationalism, a faction/movement that I find both terrifying and fascinating. Referring back to the subject of the original article, the problem science faces with Islamic society is that the fundamentalists are in charge. Faith in God isn't what undermines science--it's biblical literalism, and the faith that the Bible trumps empirical science, that makes science impossible.

When faith remains a private matter that people call on to console themselves in times of crisis, or as a model in which to understand morality, then faith doesn't encroach on empirical (what fundamentalists call materialistic) science. Faith remains a private matter in secularized societies, and this secularization of society is exactly the grievance that fundamentalists have. They want society to be religious, not secular, and this shift of focus would kill science for us just as it has for Islamic countries. The question is not whether or not Christian Nationalism is as bad as the Taliban. I don't actually believe they would go around putting people to death on streetcorners, Deuteronomy notwithstanding. But the de-secularization of society would still make science impossible, even if you and I find individual religious people sane the vast majority of the time.

My girlfriend and I do the same thing. For us, this device from Linksys was the deal maker. I was not willing to leave a computer on all the time in order to receive Skype In calls or to turn on a computer to order a pizza. There are Wifi versions that do the same thing but most are more error prone, require an unsecured wifi network, and have terrible handset battery life. In keeping with the theme... HIGHLY RECOMMEND!! A+++ PRODUCT!!!!

You mean like this thing?

Personally, I'd rather go for a SIP-phone anyway, as buying on of these would be just another vendor lock-in. There are enough SIP based VOIP providers out there with great deals, so I don't think it's worth using Skype anyway (at least last time I checked they didn't have that good prices)

The only advantage of Skype is that it's fairly wide spread, and a lot of people are hooked on it when they're on their PC. So it's a pretty easy to use and convenient service if you can stand their little fucker of a client.

2.6 billion is way, way too much though, considering the alternatives out there.

And lets be honest, sales from services like Steam and Direct2Drive are rather insignificant compared to that coming from brick and mortar stores, that is if they ever actually released those numbers.

Not to mention recently you have such time vacuums like World of Warcraft that have been drying up PC gaming dollars that might go elsewhere. Consoles don't really have that problem, yet.

"Valve is about the only major game publisher not owned by MS that doesn't port their mainstream titles to the Mac. "

Erm.. What?

Mac Games Release Calendar: http://www.amazon.com/Mac-Games/b?ie=UTF8&node=229647
PC Games Release Calendar: http://www.amazon.com/PC-Games/b?ie=UTF8&node=229575

Notice the 'more' links on the PC list. There are single days where the PC will see more mainstream games released then the Mac will see for the rest of the year. Also notice those mac games.. they aren't exactly fresh titles.

"Valve is about the only major game publisher not owned by MS that doesn't port their mainstream titles to the Mac. "

Erm.. What?

Mac Games Release Calendar: http://www.amazon.com/Mac-Games/b?ie=UTF8&node=229647
PC Games Release Calendar: http://www.amazon.com/PC-Games/b?ie=UTF8&node=229575

Notice the 'more' links on the PC list. There are single days where the PC will see more mainstream games released then the Mac will see for the rest of the year. Also notice those mac games.. they aren't exactly fresh titles.

There is an excellent book that came out fairly recently:

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp/1400063515/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9935606-8991319?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189099290&sr=8-1

In it, the author discusses the phenomenon of break away opportunities that no one sees coming. It is very relevant to the software industry and generally to venture capital as well. The moral of the story is that it's often very hard to predict ahead of time whether something represents a huge Black Swan (breakaway) opportunity (i.e. Google or the "Next Anything"), so companies often pay a lot of money to expose themselves to the conditions under which Black Swans emerge in order to take advantage of them. Sure, it's expensive, but there has to be massive risk and it sure sucks to be on the losing side of the equation. The Dot Com Bubble 1.0 wasted massive money, but it was ironic that Google came along right at the end of the bubble, and generally there were plenty of success stories where now Google, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo are the winners in a winner-take-all market. The barriers to entry are so high in building massive data centers, that most companies will have to be content to build on top of the existing infrastrucutre + frameworks (web services API's etc) that have already been put in place.

This is a rather nice book:

Modern Information Retrieval by Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hearst/irbook/

Amazon link for the reviews (no, no referer tricks, don't worry)
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Information-Retrieval-Ricardo-Baeza-Yates/dp/020139829X

Everyone is quick to dream up what technology like this could yield, but we are far from being able to apply this technology into anything truly useful.

We have an unimaginable amount of information on the brain anatomy and biology, but no real idea on how the brain works at a fundamental level. That information is vital to being able to make intelligent technology that can actually make use of stuff like is discussed in TFA. I am sure many have already read it, but there is a great book on the subject called On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. It talks about the study of the brain and why current attempts to create AI are doomed to failure.

Anyways, I thought I should mention the book as it opened my eyes and gave me great insight into the industry and our very remarkable brains. :)

True enough.

Bill Bryson's book, The Mother Tongue , is as readable as it is fascinating.... Who would have guessed that there are more distinct dialects of English within 50 miles of London than there are in all of North America?

I also agree that the English I grew up speaking in the 1950s is likely to be as foreign to English speakers of the next century as the writings of the 1500s are to me. But I think the result will be an improvement where we have an increased number of different ways of saying the same thing— each with its own nuances. AND some easy ways of saying things that we cannot say easily today.

For example, which of these equivalent phrases is easier to express?

1. "A person is the person he is because of his interactions with the persons around him."
2. "Ubuntu."

I, too, speak only English. But I'm under no illusions about it being "better".

The dog chased the cat

I'd like to know how many of you complaining are actual 3D artists (of some sort, be it pro/student/hobbyist) of even an intermediate skill level, who actually made an honest effort learning Blender. No, opening it up, finding your left and right mouse buttons swapped, then giving up and going back to your pirated copy of Maya doesn't count.

I _HAD_ to learn Blender for an animated short I worked on over the summer. I had about 9 months of 3ds max experience behind me, and grasping the basics in Blender took me less than a week, using Tony Mullen's book Introducing Character Animation with Blender as well as whatever tutorials could be found online. Yes, the documentation is sometimes lacking (nothing new there, considering it's free software), but that mostly applies to more advanced features (NLA editing, linking animation files together, stuff like that) where you end up having to discover many things by trial and error (which is horrible if you're working to a deadline to be sure). In my experience there's no shortage of resources targetting beginners though. Just don't expect to become a master sitting around reading tutorials -- the reason 3D graphics in general and animation in particular is hard is because IT IS HARD. And it's hard even after you've mastered whatever application you're using. Getting past the user interface is the easy part.

At this point the only thing I could say 3ds max is outright "better" at is pure modelling, since Blender lacks n-gons, and even then I'd rather use Blender because the interface is just that much nicer. I haven't really used hair and fur much in 3ds max, but my understanding is that it's a fair bit more advanced than what's currently in Blender as well, although you can expect that to change soon as the Peach project gets underway. Textures, rigging, animation, lighting, rendering, compositing are all things I find much easier to do in Blender.

Yes, the Blender interface is "unintuitive" in the sense that it doesn't look like anything else, but compared to the hodgepodge that is max it's a shedload more consistent and logical. Once you grasp the basics (A selects/deselects all, B border selects, G moves, R rotates, S scales...) all 3D windows, node views, curve editors and what have you work exactly the same way which is just lovely. Add to that a completely customizable workspace layout and completely zoomable/pannable windows. I cannot tell you what a shock it was to go back to 3ds max and discover that to move and zoom the timeline you had to use combinations of ctrl, alt and mousebuttons, when you're used to doing all of that the same way you zoom and pan 3D windows: scrollwheel and middle mouse button. Or that the damn thing loads for a minute and a half even on a top of the line machine, while Blender takes about 2 seconds to start. :)

That's not to say the Blender interface couldn't be improved. The default keyboard shortcuts are WEIRD -- Ctrl-W to save, anyone? -- and more importantly, not customizable. The default view control options are pretty confusing as well if you're used to basically anything else ever, but these can at least be changed. I think changing the defaults (but making it easy for advanced users to change back) would go a long way towards improving Blender's image at large, but I'm not so arrogant as to assume that the Blender developers (who btw are excellent, pay attention to users needs and release new features at a mindboggling rate) aren't aware of these things.

Here's an excellent book on the Soviet space program, written waay back in 1981; I picked it up in a second hand shop a few years later and was completely engrossed. Oberg's ability to stitch together a fairly comprehensive history of the then still highly secretive Soviet spac program from public open source material is excellent, and the revelations about the early catastrophes (like the launch pad explosion that wiped out 200 of the best launch technicians and engineers they had, plus the head of the entire ICBM program, and the tragic deaths of various cosmonauts) were amazing to me, 20 years ago anyway.

"When you look at the history of Soviet space exploration, you often get the impression that "it builds and fits together, launch it" was more often than not the deciding factor"

Please look again:
http://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Space-Race-Apollo/dp/0813026288

I am just stunned. I realize the majority of people here are probably monolingual and probably living in North America, but the majority of posts here seem to be along the lines of "Well it doesn't affect me, so who gives a f**k?" or "If they are dying out, they are just cruft". At least some people see the value in everyone having a common language - but thats the best argument for everyone to learn a SECOND language, not for us to just abandon all of the smaller languages out there.

You see, a lot of those languages are dying out because the speakers of the more monolithic languages have forced them into extinction. We have made speaking many Native American languages illegal in the past, abused the cultures and people involved and slowly strangled their native language speaking populations to the point where they have all died off or are doing so daily. We have marginalized many small linguistic groups by the overwhelming power of Western culture and advertising, by refusing to learn their languages and insisting they learn ours or suffer the consequences. Thats a tragedy, nothing less.

Each language is more than just a medium of communications between people, its the encapsulation of an entire way of thinking, of a cultural world-view. When a language dies out, a small piece of humanity and human achievement goes with it. We are all lessened by the death of each language, and with it each culture that dies out.

I would think the programmers here would be the first to get it: You can program some things in certain programming languages, express some concepts, much more effectively and efficiently than in others. You can do anything in any language certainly, but some lean one way or another, some are more expressive and some more rigidly defined. Luckily we rarely lose a programming language, they just go out of style for the majority of users, but as long as someone is willing to write a compiler, we can keep using one. That is not true of human languages. Once they are gone, they are gone completely, and with them a unique way of thinking, and a unique way of viewing the world and expressing ideas about it. Languages quite honestly give you a completely different way of thinking and its a shame to lose that.

New languages effectively don't happen, or at best rarely and I imagine its almost impossible for a new language to evolve in the modern day. Human linguistic evolution is essentially a living version of the Highlander maxim "there can be only one", or at best maybe 2. It doesn't have to be inevitable though, we can preserve dying languages, and with them the cultures they belong to. It just takes more effort than most people are willing to engage in, and sadly - like the majority of posters here - it doesn't seem to worry those who speak the major languages, particularly the world's piranha of a language English.