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Domain: digitalelite.com
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Comments · 219
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Today's Karma Burn
I see a lot of comments lambasting the lawsuit, but I have to say I don't see the problem.
Making a site 508 compliant is not really all that hard and it essentially consists of making sure your site validates as XHTML 1.0 (preferably 1.0 Strict) or even better, XHTML 1.1. Do that and you are about 90% of the way there. The rest consists of actually knowing html and using it correctly. Learn to use labels, fieldsets, and other html elements that have been largely ignored, despite being quite useful. Actually use the alt tags for images of consequence. In other words, if you've designed a site that complies with web standards, you have little to worry about with this lawsuit. If you haven't, then now you know why we have and push standards. Consider it a lesson learned and move forward a wiser developer.
The only downside to writing a site to be 508 compliant is that AJAX must be used carefully. Screen readers still don't detect client-side content changes well, so client-side dynamic content is slightly more limited, requiring a few more postbacks that you would normally use. But if you know what you are doing, those sorts of "intrusions" to your normal programming work are almost inconsequential. One caveat: Don't trust that Visual Studio 2005 and IIS will give you compliant code, even if they say they will. They won't.
You need to know a little something about real web development but the end your site will be better, cleaner, and more easily maintainable. I've done it. It's ain't that hard.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Awesome!
Now we in the open source world can start benefitting from all those ironclad security techniques that have heretofore beeen the sole purvue of Microsoft's security team!
Pretty soon our stuff will be almost as secure as Windows!
Now if only we could only get a defection from whomever it is at Microsoft that is in charge of their world reknown OS stability....
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class?
If they can get the information from other places, why are you concerned if they come to class or not? As long as they are learning, your job is done.
Because there is a difference between education and training. They may pass the tests by watching video of the lectures and skimming the reading, but they will not have been educated at all. Education is a communal process. Training can be gotten from a CDROM. College is about the former and watching videos encourages the latter.
But that fact that you replied as you did suggests that you don't get that difference and may never.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Well...
There's a reason there are anti-discrimination laws in the US, and yes, age IS one of the protected factors.
This story is from the U.K., not the U.S. In the U.S., this company would be in hot water for making such an assinine policy. In the U.K., they are free to discriminate in this way to their heart's content.
That said, I agree with you. As a U.S. citizen (is it still cool to admit that publicly?), I am so glad we have the antidiscrimination laws in place that we do. We've gotten a lot of flak recently over the things we've done wrong, but it's nice to be reminded now and again about the things we do right.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:I'm suspicious of net "neutrality".
well, free markets have a way of fixing problems like that. I say... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
What free market? We are talking about telecoms here, not widget manufacturers. The telecoms exist outside the free market. They are government buttressed corporations with a legally acknowledged leg up on all competitors...enforced by the Local, State, and Federal governments.
If this were a free market I'd agree with you, but it isn't. Given their priviledged position, it is incumbent upon them to accept the minimal extra oversight that is imposed on them. In short, they play by different rules than this free market you are talking about.
Not to mention that they are on record as saying they intend to leverage their priviledged place in the infrastructure marketplace to gain a priviledged position in the internet services marketplace.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
What was he doing?
Not that it justifies a firebombing at all, but what exactly was he doing to get the activists so upset? I know many of them can be irrational, but they do tend to concentrate efforts on the worst offenders in general.
I'm not siding with them at all, but I am curious as to what he was doing in his labs that made him such a strong target. Is it possible that he was being overzealous in his experimentation? I'm no fan of PETA, but there is a limit to the amount of cruelty I think should be visited on animals for our benefit. What were his supposed "crimes"?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
But the question on everyone's mind...
Does it use Blue Ray or HD-DVD?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Nice Dream
It's not about stem cells, see? Or rather, it is but it's not how they're obtained...That's just a nice straw man that they've been holding up (Your godless science is eating our unborn babies!).
I dunno about that but your mindless rant is eating our logical discourse. It most certainly is about how they are obtained for most of us who have a problem with embryonic stem cell research. I look forward to the advances that can be made with stem cells that were harvested without a loss to human life. So do most people who are against it that I know. Will there still be some on the fringe who continue to complain? Sure, but not the teeming throng you've villified in your rant here.
Seriously, how the hell are we supposed progress as a community if we can't even have civil discourse on the topic? Try a little understanding of your opponent's opinions next time. It'll carry you farther and make you damn bit more likely to be somewhat correct.What they're really scared of is all the stuff that they see stem cells leading to.
Yeah, oh, I'm so very scared.Fortunately, most people are in favor of stem cell research, so it's unlikely the fundies will be able to halt it forever.
For the record, I happen to think you may be right, but this is just your opinion. What study have you read (prior to reading my reply here!) that told you that most people favor it? Again, I think you are right, but I've never seen a valid study done on the subject. I've seen opinion polls that show both biases. That's all.
Your post was marked "Interesting". Well, at least it wasn't called "Insightful" becuase that would've been depressing.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Is it a technology story indeed?
Is it really? I think the problem is that we want it to be.
You had me.Rock would not exist withoug electric guitar, tape recorder and analog amplifier. Could Lester Bangs fix a broken tape recorder? Was he a great critic because he understood how a guitar works? No. He wrote about rock music as a cultural phenomenon, not a technological one.
I agree. In the past, however, the technology was an enabler/amplifier of culture. The printing press took what already existed and brought it to everyone. The tape recorder did the same. No longer did you have to be rich to do your own recording. But this is a different world.
Technology is no longer the background noise of our culture. It is ingrained in our culture. It is a character in the play of our lives. And it is, unlike previous advances, essentially inscrutable.
Anyone could apprehend in a casual conversation the idea of the printing press---ink and letters and all that. They understood books already. This was just a new way to make them cheaper and easier. Same with the electric guitar and the tape recorder. They knew what music was and they knew this was just a new way to amplify and record it.
But today? Today we don't just have easiler ways of doing older things. We have new things. Instead of trying to comprehend ink pressed to page, the populus is asked to get the idea of baysian filters and tunneling privacy protocols and URIs (and they need to know them well enough to know a good one from a bad one!). These sorts of things are transforming culture in a way that has no
I think it is fair to say that people cannot easily get this, cannot easily digest the new world that lay ahead still. When we still have educated people talking about the Internet as a series of tubes and people mass mailing warnings about Bill Gates offering rewards for numbers of emails sent, we can know for certain that the culture has chabged and the majority of people in it don't understand the changes.
Huxley was right. It's a Brave New World.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Fr1st iM p0st
or AIM 'jamiekzoo' if you catch me online
I can already see your IM Client choking on the "Fr1st iM p0st" storm that is sure to follow.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
not the issue for many of us
The real news for many of us about the AMD price cuts is extremely cheap CPU upgrades for our 939 socket systems. I have an AMD 3800+ and 3400+. Both are 939 and both mobos allow me to move up to one of the spiffy new dual core chips. With the new price cuts, I can upgrade my system to a dual core chip--each seperate core faster than my current single core CPU---for the price of a cheap-to-average video card. And there are a lot of AMD 939 users out there.
That's the real news, not AMD missing the pricemark by 4%.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
easy answer!
Slashdot brings people to blogs!
-Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
I guess it's a matter of perspective
When I look for someone to blame for Botnets, I tend to lay it on Botnet operators. I guess McAfee has a different way of looking at blame.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
I think I'll wait
I think I'll wait to see if netcraft can confirm this. I'm still a little gunshy from the whole *BSD thing.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
A Modding Experiment?
So, I wonder if I can get this post modded up by being the first person to use antidisestablishmentarianism in a slashdot thread properly and in context?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
linux
When will a linux version be released? Is this something the original developers intend to do or should the community step up to port it now that we have the source?
Just curious.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
Well, at least you got to plug your blog either way.
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
Well, at least you got to plug your blog either way.
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
Well, at least you got to plug your blog either way.
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
Well, at least you got to plug your blog either way.
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
Well, at least you got to plug your blog either way.
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
Well, at least you got to plug your blog either way.
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
Well, at least you got to plug your blog either way.
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
...this is a book summary, not a book review.
I'm not saying it isn't useful, nor that it doesn't have a place on
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:About CSS2...
How about a Firefox plugin that e-mails the Firefox foundation everytime you start Firefox?
Or how about being grateful for the free use of the software they are giving you? Or how about gettinmg involved in the solution rather than coming up with newer ways to spam the programmers who volunteer their time to make you a better browser?
I get your frustration. I'm a web developer, and deviation from standards causes me a great deal of pain and trouble, but when it's all said and done, I haven't contributed one line of code to the Firefox project, so anything they give me is a gift.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Do you ever have to choke down the urge to punch Bill Gates straight in the mouth for what he's done to your creation?
I mean, I know I do, and CSS isn't my baby.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ (why yes, it is a CSS-based 3-column layout!) -
ULTRA portable?
I know what "ultra" means. Do they? I believe the phrase they are looking for is Semi Portable, not Ultra Portable.
That's like saying Windows is Ultra Stable or Linux is Ultra Simple!
Tom "Ultra Brilliant" Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:hmmm . . .
the TV is upsampling the signal to use all of the pixels on the display, right? So why is this a feature on the player? How does it improve image quality? Is it using a blingy-er algorithm than the TV would be using? Marketing fluff?
Actually, that is precisely correct. Full motion image rescaling is a nontrivial task. The TV is rarely (though there are notable exceptions!) the best choice to do the scaling. You want the video to be rescaled before it hits the TV by something a bit more beefy and slickery than what the TV will through at it.
The claim here is that the player's scaler is going to be better than the TV's, but probably not as good as a dedicated scaler. I'm sure you can turn the player's scaler off if you want that done by other equipment.
Is their claim truthful? Who knows? Most likely is is better than the TV, but I've seen some good TV-based scaling.
My home theater setup? http://tom.digitalelite.com/caudroplex.html
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:hmmm . . .
the TV is upsampling the signal to use all of the pixels on the display, right? So why is this a feature on the player? How does it improve image quality? Is it using a blingy-er algorithm than the TV would be using? Marketing fluff?
Actually, that is precisely correct. Full motion image rescaling is a nontrivial task. The TV is rarely (though there are notable exceptions!) the best choice to do the scaling. You want the video to be rescaled before it hits the TV by something a bit more beefy and slickery than what the TV will through at it.
The claim here is that the player's scaler is going to be better than the TV's, but probably not as good as a dedicated scaler. I'm sure you can turn the player's scaler off if you want that done by other equipment.
Is their claim truthful? Who knows? Most likely is is better than the TV, but I've seen some good TV-based scaling.
My home theater setup? http://tom.digitalelite.com/caudroplex.html
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
a matter of mutual respect
I know this is a good thing, and it is needed, but I just can't bring myself to submit bug reports to Microsoft. Here's why:
Microsoft is stingy with their knowledge. They release only what they want on their terms in their own way as they please. I can't, in good conscience, participate in that sort of relationship---one where I give everything I have to help them make a better product and they in turn give back just enough to justify charging me for the 'right' to lease (because software ownership is apparently so 90's) their software back. If I'm lucky, the software I've leased back from them may possibly have a fix to the problem I reported or it may not. Depending on the problem, I may never know. It's not like I am privy to their code or even their coding methodology. I will give to Microsoft to the extent that they give to me. And for the record Microsoft never 'gave' me anything. I have no investment in seeing them succeed under their current model.
In contrast, when I submit a bug report to a Free software project, I get the name of a guy assigned to the bug, I can log in and see the bug tracking discussion, the fix is there for me to review, the new version with fix included is given back to me free of charge and free of stipulations. I feel like a real participant in the process. I feel like Gnome's success or Evolution's success is both partly to do with me and directly beneficial to me.
Submitting bugs to Microsoft feel the same to me as submitting CD track info to CDDB. I give them info, they charge me to get it back.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
So we have a FPS mouse and a MMO mouse...
...when do we get our Pr0n optimized mouse?
I want something with a zooming wheel, snap-to-naughty-bits software, and maybe a navigation straw so I can use it hands-free!
Hot grits, I'm a genius! Why don't these people hire me?
This has been another embarrassing post by,
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
That's not what you said.
It's what I intended to convey. If you get not get that from my statement, then hopefully I've now made my position more clear. I'm not interested in engaging you in a he-said-she-said sort of debate. I have only been replying thus far, because the questions seemed legitimate and serious. I admot that I'm starting to worry that I'm being ambushed in this subthread, however.The first condition makes no sense (it adds nothing to the argument: you can't make things right and wrong by "authority" and still have them BE right and wrong: they are simply in line with or not line with commands at that point)
If an author writes a text, and that text conveys a specific setting or mood, then it simply is the setting or mood for that work. Likewise if the author of the universe embues the uiniverse with an ethic, then that is simple what the ethic is. It is no more a command than the author commands his setting. It is how it was written. And yes, I understand the Free Will implications of the analogy.This analysis relies on an incredibly simplified and lacking understanding of Judaic law and history.
My degree is in Religious Studies. I am quite familiar with Judiac law and history, as well as its intersection with Christianity. I'm also quite able to discuss them in comparison to other world faiths, such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, to name the other top choices. You should be very careful about accusing someone you don't know of a lack of understanding. It comes off a bit mean-spirited at best and argument ad hominim at worst. I've been polite, I thought. I have not corrected any of the simple factual errors I've seen in this thread, because I don't think this is the time or place to play that sort of game. It's a (friendly?) discussion about morality in the religious context.No, it is the claim of some of the sects of various faiths in that tradition, not all.
It is the overwhelming viewpoint of that family of faiths. To say otherwise is to unduly amplify a margin opinion for the sake of argument. Book after book after book will confirm this for you. I didn't just make it up, man, I swear. lol!Good is synonymous with whatever God does, and therefore there is nothing laudable in anything God does: nothing that God rises to achieves or perfects. All there is is power, nothing more.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what gave you the imporession that God was someone to be lauded? He doesn't ask for laudation. His only claim is to have our best interest at heart and to be ultimately powerful. Good and Evil in the sense you are describing is an extra-biblical concept. don't beleive me? Ask Job.It wasn't merely extraordinary: it was in direct contradiction to Judiac Scripture, a failure of nearly every test of prophecy and behavior that the Jews had.
Most scholars I've studied on the subject---to include many Jewish ones---would strongly disagree with you. Indeed, most of the Gospel of Matthew is spent listing the various prophesies he is fulfilling as he does so, almost to a fault. Whether or not he actually did those things is a matter of faith, but that those things would fulfill the (sometimes contradictory) Jewish prophesies is not really a debated question in academic circles.
I wrote a paper on the development and evolution of the messianic figure in the Old Testament a while back. Rather than rehash all the arguments I made there, I'll just link to it:
http://tom.digitalelite.com/2004_03_07_08_02_00.ht ml
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
That's not what you said.
It's what I intended to convey. If you get not get that from my statement, then hopefully I've now made my position more clear. I'm not interested in engaging you in a he-said-she-said sort of debate. I have only been replying thus far, because the questions seemed legitimate and serious. I admot that I'm starting to worry that I'm being ambushed in this subthread, however.The first condition makes no sense (it adds nothing to the argument: you can't make things right and wrong by "authority" and still have them BE right and wrong: they are simply in line with or not line with commands at that point)
If an author writes a text, and that text conveys a specific setting or mood, then it simply is the setting or mood for that work. Likewise if the author of the universe embues the uiniverse with an ethic, then that is simple what the ethic is. It is no more a command than the author commands his setting. It is how it was written. And yes, I understand the Free Will implications of the analogy.This analysis relies on an incredibly simplified and lacking understanding of Judaic law and history.
My degree is in Religious Studies. I am quite familiar with Judiac law and history, as well as its intersection with Christianity. I'm also quite able to discuss them in comparison to other world faiths, such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, to name the other top choices. You should be very careful about accusing someone you don't know of a lack of understanding. It comes off a bit mean-spirited at best and argument ad hominim at worst. I've been polite, I thought. I have not corrected any of the simple factual errors I've seen in this thread, because I don't think this is the time or place to play that sort of game. It's a (friendly?) discussion about morality in the religious context.No, it is the claim of some of the sects of various faiths in that tradition, not all.
It is the overwhelming viewpoint of that family of faiths. To say otherwise is to unduly amplify a margin opinion for the sake of argument. Book after book after book will confirm this for you. I didn't just make it up, man, I swear. lol!Good is synonymous with whatever God does, and therefore there is nothing laudable in anything God does: nothing that God rises to achieves or perfects. All there is is power, nothing more.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what gave you the imporession that God was someone to be lauded? He doesn't ask for laudation. His only claim is to have our best interest at heart and to be ultimately powerful. Good and Evil in the sense you are describing is an extra-biblical concept. don't beleive me? Ask Job.It wasn't merely extraordinary: it was in direct contradiction to Judiac Scripture, a failure of nearly every test of prophecy and behavior that the Jews had.
Most scholars I've studied on the subject---to include many Jewish ones---would strongly disagree with you. Indeed, most of the Gospel of Matthew is spent listing the various prophesies he is fulfilling as he does so, almost to a fault. Whether or not he actually did those things is a matter of faith, but that those things would fulfill the (sometimes contradictory) Jewish prophesies is not really a debated question in academic circles.
I wrote a paper on the development and evolution of the messianic figure in the Old Testament a while back. Rather than rehash all the arguments I made there, I'll just link to it:
http://tom.digitalelite.com/2004_03_07_08_02_00.ht ml
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
Again, don't purport to speak for religions everywhere. Many many theologians reject moral command theology in favor of the idea that morals are simple eternal principles basic to the ability to feel and have value, and that what God does is illuminate them for us, not create them.
My claim is that religions everywhere present the idea that morality is absolute. That's what I was saying.If what is good and what is bad is merely the decision of a particular sort of being, then they are not really universal at all: they are merely conditional. Nor are they abstractable: they are situational and relative.
Principles that require a value for life may not convince a sociopath, but then again we never expected them to do so.
They will also not convince anyone who chooses not to beleive them. Without appeal to an absolute authority and in absense of a moral calculus that can prove out the moral claim, the only morality is consensual.If good is defined by God, then there is no way God could not be good, and hence the term "good" has no real meaning at all.
Actually, linguisitically that isn't precisely true. What it means is the God is a superset of Good. The terms become uni-directionally synonymous. Like I said, it's not a popular position to take (most for it's Free Will implications, I think) but it's a defensible position, as it is the one the Christian church has taken since the great Augustine/Pelagius debate. You won't find too many denominations fo Christianity that side with Pelagius on that one. Likewise, you won't find many liaty that are even aware of the debate or its details, and so only side with the one presented best by the questioner.This of course is why so few Jews bought into Christianity. The idea that god would turn around and change morality, from suddenly declaring things that were abominations to be ok, to endorsing human sacrifice and so on, to them the message of Jesus wasn't much different than someone today saying that adultery was really ok after all as long as you did it with your eyes closed.
I have to strongly disagree here. This is a more academic point, but the biggest reason that Jesus wasn't popular with the Jewish people had nothing to do with his general theology (as he was quite similar to the ruling Pharisees in outlook on many issues) but because of his underlying claim of divinity. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah prophesied in the Jewish texts for thousands of years. It's easy to have faith that something will happen, it's quite another to have faith that something prophecied did happen. It was an extraordinary claim. Not everyone was convinced. This is understandable. It's akin to someone showing up now and saying they are Jesus. Some interpretations of the New Testament suggest he will show up, but if someone told me he was the expected Christ, I have to admit the BS-ometer is gonna get pegged. It is human nature to be skeptical of such claims.
As for the theological changes Jesus suggested to Judiasm, those changes were already underway in other parts of the jewish world. Those changes are by-and-large a part of modern Judaism. The general trend of jewish morality was one that saw the people of Isreal move from barbarism and its commensurate morality (revenge served cold) to moral enlightenment (from only an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek).
I don't see most of Jesus theology being a challenge to the jewish people. His claim of divinity, however...THAT'S a big deal!
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
I apologise if it comes off this way. I'm just trying to discuss it. No harm intended.
No problem. I didnt' take offense.If you can't quantify and explain it, it has no place being turned to law.
I agree. Laws shouls be as clear as they can be, where they are unclear, solid case law should be established to add clarity. I think, though, that I can explain my position. The issue isn't one of explanation, it's one of agreement. We both make certain assumptions and if those assumptions are too different our conclusions will differ wildly. At it's core, my assumption is that rights should be granted at conception, whereas other people have different assumptions. I can explain what I want clearly, but I am doubtful that anyone could offer a calculus that would answer the question of granted rights.When someone throws a ball at you, you don't consciously mathmatically work out the velocity of the ball, factor in gravity, and determine where the ball will be when it reaches you.
True enough, but there are laws of physics at work that we can dissect and quantify with a thrown object, not so with the morality of murder. We can debate the liability of the murderer but we cannot quatnify the underlying morality of the act. We can only work under assumptions and guesses. My starting assumption is that murder is wrong. I think you have the same assumption, but neither of us could venture a credible quantification of why it's wrong.The difference between us in this argument I really believe is the way we weighted the individual variables and decisions up to and including this point. Both are valid as our life experiences have moved them. If we begin to acknowledge that feelings aren't unchangeable sacred things, but just differences of opinion, it seems we could work things out rationally.
I agree. Rational discourse is all we have when it comes to settling disagreement within a civilized context. At its core, rational discourse assumes that both parties are entering honestly and willing to concede to evidence presented.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
But then what defines what is or isn't human? That still doesn't really answer the question of what or where this concept of special human beings is based on. How do we know it when we see it, given that we can see any number of different things?
Humanity is defined, in a religious sense, by our relationship with God. How do I know it when I see it? Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I might get it wrong. In the end, the reason I draw the line where I do with respect to embryos and such is that we see a clearly living being who is growing towards a role in the community. Not everyone draws the line there. Some draw it later, often at birth or the third trimester.
When it comes to issues of morality, quantifiability is elusive at best and non-existent at worst. We are left with something closer to blind groping. I wish that weren't so, but it is.It also seems a bit frightening that a concept of morality would be based purely on the unexplained commands of a being only some claim to know and report the commands of, rather than compassion or empathy or something more directly relevant to the beings themselves that need the protection and concern and so on.
The absolute morality you are talking about requires an absolute authority. this is the claim of religions everywhere. In absence of such a granting authority, we are left with relative morality. That is to say, without some authority to draw the universal line you may dislike murder, but that doesn't make it wrong for me (illegal, but not morally wrong). There is no way to start with copmpassion and empathy and derive a universal ethic that has any meaning outside of the context of the person or people who derived it. I'm not saying this is an invalid method for determining morality (it's essentially morality by consensus) but it is not the method I use and it is not universal, it's consensual morality. This is, in short, what our legal system is supposed to be. It can work well enough to progress as a species, but I prefer a differetn methodology.
The underlying question you seem to be asking is "Is Good Good because Good is Good or is Good Good because God said Good is Good?" If you can follow that logic.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
How does and embryo that is not an individual have a life to take?
I don't mean to say it doesn't have an individuality, just that my reasoning doesn't really address it's individualness one way or that other. Rather, it addresses the embryo's part within the community. I know it's a bit hair-splitting to make that sort of distinction, but it's an important one to make, religiously speaking. Individuality is a non-issue, but being a part of the community it. Your arm will itself never be a part of the human community, your child will.I would say that at whatever point in its development the embryo becomes equal in God's eyes to you and I, the only coherent way I can think about that is to correspond to when the embryo becomes an individual, is granted a soul, whatever language you want to use.
Well, despite what you may have heard to the contrary, God (at least according to the bible) has little to no interest in personal relationships with each of us individually. His concern thoughout the text is with the community. It is of note that whenever an individual stands out in the bible, it's usually due to a crisis of community. I'm not trying to devalue individualness---nor, I think, do the writer's of the books of the bible---rather I'm trying to establish the perspective from which a religious person will view another to determine "humanness".
Remember, also, that there exists in the bible no distinction between body, mind, and soul---no moment when God embues a body with a soul to make a human whole. The distincton between them is a Greek, not a Hebrew, concept. Once the person begins to grow at all, theologically speaking his 'soul' is part and parcel of that development.The Bible acknowledges that Isaac to be different from Abraham
Now if you mean that being human in God's eyes does not depend on you somehow exhibiting some set of phenomena that constitutes "individuality", that's fine, but again, we come back to the problem of motivating when something becomes a person, with a life to lose, in God's eyes.
Agreed. Am I right to say as I do above that "Once the person begins to grow at all, theologically speaking his 'soul' is part and parcel of that development." I think I am. On that one point, the bible seems remarkably consistent. Could I be misunderstanding things as written? Sure. Could the bible be wrong on that point? Yep. That brings us to faith. In the end, whether you say human rights are granted at conception or at birth or at the age of 21, you are making a small leap of faith in the hopes that you are right. You describe it above as a "problem". I don't disagree with that assessment at all. Making decisions without all the evidence in hand is always problematic.How is this even possible if we can't count on God to give us observable clues that something is human. Because, for better or for worse, we are starting to create things which don't have a clear "human-ness" status.
I'm not sure that we need observable clues to humanness in the sense you mean it here. I think reasoned discourse will allow the community to come to a consensus as to what is and is not human. Sometimes we will make mistakes and (hopefully) most the time we will get it right.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
by human, I assume you mean of course a human individual.
Not really, no. Individuality is a pychological concept, not a religious one. I'm not arguing that we aren't individuals, just that our individuallity is not what makes grants us rights or makes us special (in the religious sense). Religiously, community is the keyword, rather than individuality.How do you know you are not just anthropomorphizing the embryo?
I don't really care that the embryo seems or doesn't seem human. My only concern is a religious one. The embryo, from the Judeo-Islamic-Christian perspective, is equal in God's eyes.I have a good Catholic friend whose reponse would be that she just likes to "play it safe" then, and assume that personhood beings at conception, which seems to be the standard reply, but this has never been satisfying for me
It seems a good enough reply, but it isn't an answer, I agree.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
It looks like your argument simply slipped from "Rights of Man" (your capitals) to an economic argument ("the price is too high"). Economic in the sense of means and ends, not merely financial.
I just wanted to address the differing concerns of different people. My reason is simply that all people have a set of basic rights and I argue that those right extend to all forms of human life (i.e., embryonic, fetal, infantile, adult, etc...).Both have the same right to live, according to you, but at least one of them will die
Maybe so, but I won't kill either of them. I hope you catch the gist of what I'm getting at. I'm not saying it isn't a tragedy. I'm not being cavalier about anyone's death. Anything I can do to help, short of killing someone else, I will do. But I won't take a human life to save one. That's the line I'm drawing. Others draw the line elsewhere. It's a hard call to make.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Flawed Argument
You argue, correct me if I am wrong, that it is inappropriate to assign less significance to an embryo than a more developed person because it is not our place to determine who's life is more worth living.
Not exactly, no. I argue that it is inappropriate to assign less significance to an embryo than a more developed person because it is not our place to assign such significance. Who's life is more worth living is a seperate question and not related to me argument.
Therefore, whether the life were well-lived (whatever that means) or not, they are equally valuable.
And yes, this does mean I am not for IVF. But that's a whole different discussion.
-Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
I don't see why we can, eg, use a condom, which also interferes with the reproductive process. For me, this is problematic. I would be interested in your perspective.
Indeed, the Catholic church does take a stand against that. I'm not Catholic, and I disagree with their stance on this, but I understand their perspective. To be clear, they come to this stance from a different route.
Regarding the rest of your examples, there are many cases that are and will be difficult to adjudicate. Is a group of stem cells a person? If not, does it become a person if placed in a lab for the purpose of cloning a new person? I dunno. I won't venture a guess, since such things are better left to a case-by-case decision. In the case of an embryo, I think the "Is it a human" line has clearly been crossed. The "is it a person" line is a different one, and it's one that asks socialogical and psychological questions, not religious ones. Religiously, a human is a person. Hence, once we consider it human (embryo, fetus, etc...) then it gets accorded the "specialness" of personhood, like the Right to Life.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Morality?
Why does the life of an embryo with no family, or home, or even gurantee of survival, outweigh the life of someone who is already established in society; who loves and is loved, who has built up a life, and who would be sorely missed by many people?
What you've done is base your reasoning on an emotional plea rather than a logical framework. It is a tragedy when someone so firmly entrenched in the human community passes from us---of that there can be no debate, and that depth of tragedy does not exist in cases of abortion, IVF, and other examples of the destruction of human embryos. We will all miss the guy with the family more than the embryo we never knew.
But that was never the claim of those with a religious objection to the act. Religious and moral objections center around the question of the Rights of Man and at what stage in life those rights are accorded to us (Embryonic? Fetal? Infant? Puberty? Adulthood? etc...). The religious arguement is that those rights are accorded to each individual as soon as that individual comes into being. In short, "God bless everyone...no exceptions". Others argue that those rights are prematurely granted and shouldn't be accorded until birth. The law takes a graduated approach, saying that rights are accorded piecemeal as we move through the stages of life, and the most basic of rights (the Right to Life) is granted (conditionally) sometime around the third trimester of pregnancy.
Nowhere in the discussion do the religious folk claim that the people who would be saved don't deserve to be saved, just that the price is too high.
That argument in an (WAY) oversimplified nutshell: You and four others are in a hot air balloon and the balloon begiuns to sink into a volcano (too much weight!). Some quick calulations reveal that if just one of you jumped overboard the rest would survive. Do you toss someone overboard? If so, how do you determine who? Destruction of the embryo to save other lives is akin, in this argument, to saying that you determine the person to toss overboard by evaluating their life and determining which one has the fewest friends and family who will miss them, or alternatively by which is least capable of fending off the forced toss.
There are, of course, arguements on boths sides and such implausible scenarios can always be gamed in logical debates like this, so don't carry it too far. I'm not trying to get into a tit-for-tat over the specifics of the fantasy example, but rather just trying to show you the gist of the argument.This is a pretty clear-cut moral decision.
Many people would vehemently disagree with you. There are quite few "clear cut" moral decisions in life. If there were, we wouldn't need to argue so much about them.
Disclaimer: I am against the destruction of embryos in this context for religious and moral reasons. I am not approaching this from an unbiased perspective (like anyone does!). Your mileage may vary. Do not stare at happy fun ball, etc....
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
A small but important change...
...make email a pull instead of a push system.
If you make it a pull system:
1) there is no spoofing issue (you always have the real IP address of te sender, becuase you have to connect to get the message contents).
2) spam costs move from the receiver to the sender, becuase the spam sender now has to bear the brunt of the bandwidth traffic hit.
3) finally, recalling a mail message would work.
There are more benefits to that "small" switch, but I'm far too lazy to lay them all out here.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:net neutrality
I totally agree that one has more immediate effect, but I just don't want to ignore the other. As William O. Douglas said:
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
Our ideals are not often destroyed in one great act, but slowly chipped away until the remnant bears no resemblance to the original and we find it hard to point to any one thing that stole our ideal. This isn't a fight that has only one battle front. That's all I'm saying.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:net neutrality
The guy who does the DNS records gets to decide which hosts are allowed to send mail for a particular domain.
Not before SPF.
Previously, I could run sendmail on my own box and, you know, send mail. I didn't need permission from anyone to have my mail considered equally valid on the net. SPF changes that. It says that only the one "validated" smtp server can send mail and moreover, underlying it is the implicit expectatin that every server on the net should be a paid-for domain, instead of an ip address. Domain names were and are a useful addition to add a memorizable name to an ip range, but this moves us from "domains are useful and nice" to "domain traffic is the only valid traffic". Now some computers on the net are more signifigant to the software than others.
Remember that the net was intended to be a community of peers, not a client-server environment.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
net neutrality
I am all about Network Neutrality...the problem is that most of you aren't. There, my shocking intro is out of the way.
Seriously though, I'm only half joking. I agree that we must do everything we can to promote the vision of the Web that people like Tim Berners-Lee had at its inception. The problem is that while we want to fight for neutrality in our bandwidth, we are willing to give it up in our protocols.
For instance, the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) so-called spam solution is being adopted all over the place without nary a complaint. But think about it. Tim Berners-Lee didn't just envision a web of equitable bandwidth, he envisioned a web of peers---a web of end points, all equally valid. What happens when my system is no longer considered a valid end point? Suddenly, we have a network of clients and servers rather than peers. When the SPF process looks to verify that the sender is the one valid smtp server for the mail address' domain (based on either MX or A records), it devalues all non-domain level systems on the web. Peers on the network become clients, fed valid packets from those servers that are approved to pass said packets. The SMTP semantic paradigm moves from Sender>Receiver to Server>Client.
But no one really cares because there is some belief that this will help reduce spam. It will, but so will turning off our mail clients. Neither is the right solution. The solution is a newer, better mail protocol, many of which have been proposed that DO NOT devalue the peers of the network. Probably one of the better known of the examples is the IM2000 protocol.
But we'd rather have a network of tiered rights---as long as our bandwidth is balanced equitably we won't complain, I guess.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
OK, a serious question
Tell me why we don't see cheap network appliances at Walmart and Bestbuy that accept USB drives and printers all in one convenient box.
I see the "cheap" drive sharing boxes and the "cheap" printer sharing boxes but, given how easy it is to set up SAMBA on a VERY low end device, why don't we see any that do both?
And while I'm on the subject, why don't we see cheap server appliances for other services? Is it lack of market demand that keeps me from being about the buy a low power, cheap apache server in a box the size of a cable modem? Same for proftpd and squirrelmail/postfix/mailman? Seriously, I know the market is limited, but it's hardly non-existent! Especially if they made it easy to set up and use, then ANYONE could be an end point. That is the real promise fo the Internet to me.
And before I get those "just do it yourself on old hardware" replies, I have already done so and posted the how-to's for others. What I'm asking for is not an easy way to set up apache. Apache is pretty easy out of the box. I'm asking for an easy, low-power apache appliance that EVEN a relatively non-technical person can set up and use. Seems cool to me. Especially coupled with a cheap DNS appliance box.
These services beg for hardware modularization.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
OK, a serious question
Tell me why we don't see cheap network appliances at Walmart and Bestbuy that accept USB drives and printers all in one convenient box.
I see the "cheap" drive sharing boxes and the "cheap" printer sharing boxes but, given how easy it is to set up SAMBA on a VERY low end device, why don't we see any that do both?
And while I'm on the subject, why don't we see cheap server appliances for other services? Is it lack of market demand that keeps me from being about the buy a low power, cheap apache server in a box the size of a cable modem? Same for proftpd and squirrelmail/postfix/mailman? Seriously, I know the market is limited, but it's hardly non-existent! Especially if they made it easy to set up and use, then ANYONE could be an end point. That is the real promise fo the Internet to me.
And before I get those "just do it yourself on old hardware" replies, I have already done so and posted the how-to's for others. What I'm asking for is not an easy way to set up apache. Apache is pretty easy out of the box. I'm asking for an easy, low-power apache appliance that EVEN a relatively non-technical person can set up and use. Seems cool to me. Especially coupled with a cheap DNS appliance box.
These services beg for hardware modularization.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
So, here's the technical question...
...is it still called "masturbation" if the robot is the one doing it to you?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
P.S. I look forward to 15 years from now when my daughter reads this comment after searching on my name. What a proud moment in my history to share with future generations. -
Re:garbage!
Insufficient data...
Yes, you---a slashdot armchair physicist---have disassembled and shamed the work of a team of NASA scientists with three poorly punctuated semi-sentences.
Let that be a lesson to the rest of you would-be geniuses out there using your "science" and "math" to "prove facts". Quasar1999 stands at the ready to quip your supposedly careful research into shamed oblivion.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/