Domain: nd.edu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to nd.edu.
Comments · 191
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Re:You are only hurting yourself you know....People who make up definitions of science and then try to rule out rival theories because they are not "scientific" are usually up to no good. Part of what is at stake in scientific controversy is what the proper definition of science is. Here's what Alvin Plantinga, one of the major ID honchos and a tenured professor at Notre Dame, suggests for a proper definition of science:
[A] Christian academic and scientific community ought to pursue science in its own way, starting from and taking for granted what we know as Christians. (This suggestion suffers from the considerable disadvantage of being at present both unpopular and heretical; I shall argue, however, that it also has the considerable advantage of being correct).
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Read the article at
http://www.nd.edu/~networks/Publication%20Categor
i es/03%20Journal%20Articles/Social%20Science/Corres pondencePatterns_Nature%20437,%201251%20(27Oct05). pdf
and the Supplementary Material at
http://www.nd.edu/~networks/Publication%20Categori es/03%20Journal%20Articles/Social%20Science/Corres pondencePatterns-Suppl_Nature%20437,%201251%20(27O ct05).pdf -
Read the article at
http://www.nd.edu/~networks/Publication%20Categor
i es/03%20Journal%20Articles/Social%20Science/Corres pondencePatterns_Nature%20437,%201251%20(27Oct05). pdf
and the Supplementary Material at
http://www.nd.edu/~networks/Publication%20Categori es/03%20Journal%20Articles/Social%20Science/Corres pondencePatterns-Suppl_Nature%20437,%201251%20(27O ct05).pdf -
Re:FAX resolution
Actually, his sample is a crappy scan, not a representative sample. Note the dust showing up in spaces that should be empty, and the bumpiness around the letters. This is caused by the scanner picking up things that aren't actually visible. A 4 color greyscale picture shown on a 100 DPI display would look far better than that. Find a 300x300 GreyScale Palm Pilot sometime and look at the picture. You should find it to be more than acceptable.
BTW, here's a far better 4 color 100DPI scan: http://www.rarebooks.nd.edu/exhibits/riverplate/im ages/08-gauchos/1960_Elflein.txt4.100.jpg -
Harvard University, Porneia, and Veritas
"Fornication" is an English word, never found in the original text. This may shock you, but language can be ambiguous. Thus, translations can be wrong. This is why Muslims consider only Arabic versions of the Qur'an to be correct. Sometimes I wish Christians did the same.Nobody remembers this now, but Harvard University was founded by a bunch of evil white puritan dudes so that their evil white puritan spawn could be taught to read the New Testament in its original Greek, without all the overhead of the {Greek -> Latin} and {Latin -> English} interventions.
As an aside, the word in question here is porneia, and there's a great deal of controversy about what it might have meant to the first century ear. One theory is that porneia meant "abomination", so that a man and a woman were not to divorce unless they came to discover that their marriage was an abomination - for instance, if they were to learn, after marrying, that they were in fact half-brother and half-sister. Cf Pierre Jourde's Lost Land, or - SPOILER ALERT - John Sayles's Lone Star, or, of course, Sophocles's Oedipus Rex.
Finally, while we're on the subject of Harvard, you might be interested in her motto, Veritas, or "Truth":
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
http://www.bartleby.com/108/43/1.html#S1And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
http://www.bartleby.com/108/43/3.html#S10Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
http://www.bartleby.com/108/43/8.html#S33Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
http://www.bartleby.com/108/43/8.html#S34Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
http://www.bartleby.com/108/43/14.html#S58If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
http://www.bartleby.com/108/43/14.html#S59But this cometh to pass, that
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This is Slashdot, retard.
No one cares about whether or not someone says "crap" or even "fuck." Language is a tool, like a Swiss Army knife, and sometimes it is amusing or an expedient to use the toothed sawblade of vulgarity to express yourself.
You, on the other hand, are TERRIBLE at expressing yourself. You repeat yourself ad infinitum and believe it amplifies your "points." You can't organize thoughts. You don't know the meaning of the word "paragraph." You claim "victory" in "wars" in which you are the only combatant and everyone else sits by and watches you flail and slash at the air.
As for your all-important question, "What have you ever written that others can use in the way of programs featured @ websites online that have done well over time?"
Answer: Nothing! Yay! You apparently believe that is a testament to your superiority as a computer scientist and human being. I do not. I feel there are other metrics of a person's worth and intelligence, such as how well they can compose their thoughts into words.
I would *love* to see a publication written by Alexander Peter Kowalsky. Please, Alex. PLEASE write a paper and submit it to a conference. You need the drain on your ego desperately.
Here is an example of a software system produced by the academics you love to deride. If you ever produce something of even slightly comparable quality or utility, get back to me and I'll be properly chastened.
(Hint: Comments on ZDNet do not a high-quality piece of software make) -
Alternatively...
I created a guild in WoW named "Incomitatus". I'm the only member. I do it for personal amusement.
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Re:Question about old Mac Viruses
You can still download those viruses here:
http://www.hackcanada.com/whacked/filelists/aol.ht ml
Read more about them here:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-virus/macintosh- faq/
http://www.nd.edu/~madmacs/virus.html
I had the nVIR A virus on my LC II running System 7.0 in 1993. I got it from a floppy disk with a game on it given to me by a relative. It would screw up the System so that you couldn't launch any apps but it wouldn't harm your data. If you read the above info you'll see that most of these viruses are benign.
The upgrade to MacOS 8 broke most of these threats. Even the 1995 autostart worm if I remember correctly. Considering that The OS X classic environment requires Mac OS 9.1 there is no chance that any of these threats can infect a computer running Mac OS X. -
BYU
We should be playing them in a few months. It should be amusing to hand them their asses this year
:D
More on topic (though still technically FAR afield from actual topic), what do you mean about "not being able to stand it?" I mean, it's still America. Live and let live and all that. -
Re:Anti Virus firms will kick his butt
http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/WORDS.EXE?vi
r i I guess that says something about mankind, huh? -
Re:Anti Virus firms will kick his butt
Viri in latin has nothing to do with viruses.
http://catholic.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookup.pl? stem=vir&ending=i
Viri is man.
Virus is poison or slimy liquid and is not pluralised in latin as far as I am aware. -
Re:My Wife, my mother and Linux...
Not virii! Viruses! Though there are no known uses of the plural of virus in Latin, it is believed to have been fourth declension, which would make the Latin plural, if it existed, virus. Regardless, since the Latin definition is not the same as the English definition, it is correct to use the regular English plural.
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Re:Queries with 1,000 results
That makes sense, but it does stand to reason (or, at least, to my reason) that these queries that garner large numbers of results could have had a significant impact on the bottom line of the survey.
Well, there's a worse bias. They're grabbing words from an Ispell word list.
There are websites which contain the Ispell word list. There appear to be more of those returned in Google as results than in Yahoo. (here is one returned in Google for "apprizers expense", but which is not returned in Yahoo.)
This basically contributes a pedestal to their result - they'll never get zero results, because they'll always get the Ispell lists back, and because those results always return the same number (about 8 Google to 1 or 2 Yahoo), you'll bias the results of the entire set to that result.
They needed to remove results which are returned in common to multiple searches, as that's essentially double counting. -
Belgium
I can't think of any EU state other than Belgium that doesn't have a colonialist, imperialist or otherwise expansionist past. Europe had a very violent middle-ages.
Belgium was one of those colonized:
A Brief Outline of Dutch History and the Province of New Netherland
Although most Americans are familiar with the basic outline of the British colonization of America, and even know some information on the Spanish and French settlements, their is less familiarity with the history and geography of another new word settler, namely the Dutch. Not only did they settle the colony of New Netherland but coins from both the United Provinces of the Netherlands and the Flemish area held by Spain, which we now call Belgium, circulated in America. The following summaries are presented to clarify statements in the various sections of this site that mention events concerning the Dutch; below are capsule histories (a) on the formation of the states of Belgium and the Netherlands and (b) the development of the province of New Netherland in America.
Falcon -
Re:Evolutionary Naturalism Vs Intelligent Design
Ad homonym is not a viable form of argumentation, If you see Plantinga as Hogwash and hand waving then you are either A) ill prepared for any jaunt into philosophy and thus would be ill advised to read anyone save base references or B) Have not actually read the argument. However given that you are likely both (slashdot cant take the formatting required to prove such within a reasonable doubt) You then put me in a position to devise a list of natural philosophers and limit it (while any such a response is certain to garner a reply along the lines of "well what about so and so"). You can also try doing a simple search at your local college library for the original paper and then adding "in response to" as part of your query. You can try similar searches online, but given the fact that there are no standards as to who can publish online your results may be more incongruous.
If you have a reasonable argument showing that the defeaters as described in "An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" are in fact not defeaters, or that there is some hole in the argument I would be glad to hear of them and discuss them.
For those who do not know who Alvin Plantinga is, he is The John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame and a sometimes lecturer at Biola, Stanford et al. You may of course take a look at his faculty bio page at Notre Dame -
Think Twice ....
... about it.
Ask yourselves: Are software patents a good thing?
Do not be tempted to say: "Yes, if used against M$"
It is a question of moral judgement.
Kohlberg 1
Kohlberg 2
CC.
P.S.: Now I wonder what happens this time - fucking stupid moderators! -
Think Twice ...
... about it.
Ask yourselves: Are software patents a good thing?
Do not be tempted to say: "Yes, if used against M$"
It is a question of moral judgement.
Kohlberg 1
Kohlberg 2
CC.
P.S.: Note for moderators: Offtopic, because you are stupid. -
Re:Uh, that's not how they detect planetsThis German article lists a number of ways to detect planets. In addition the two you mentioned, they have the Pulsar-Timing-Method which can of course only find planets around Pulsars, Gravitational Microlensing, and the Transit-Timing-Method . And occlusion of starlight IS an important way to find planets.
Of course, you can always check this site for all extra-solar planets found, and method they were found with.
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Re:Not surprised at slowed growthNote also that the third link is outdated. In particular, from the linked spoof page:
Modern versions of Firefox, like 1.0, are much harder to spoof.
In other words, yes, there was a bug, someone pointed out the bug, and the bug was fixed. -
Re:Not surprised at slowed growth
You may have a small point there. Nevertheless, I don't think Firefox will ever have so many bugs as IE does, and MOST of them are very quickly fixed.
The fact that ActiveX doesn't work on firefox is already a major factor against malware.
Now if we see the Microsoft case, they have specifically said that they will not release a new browser until Windows Longhorn is released. Now that's what I really call a sense of security :)
BTW, this page has a description of that bug, and some proofs of concept which no longer work on Firefox. There's also a comment in the end called "Why 5 Years?" which has some thoughts about the fact it hasn't been fully fixed yet. -
Quantum computing isn't the holy grail
Look, people, you'd be a lot less impressed with quantum computing if you actually had an idea of what it does compared to traditional FET technology.
Here are some links that explain a bit about how quantum computers (specifically, Quantum Cellular Automata (QCAs) work:
Beware of PDF
Another PDF
It's not about blazing fast processing or seemingly infinite scalability, it's about simpler design. It takes 11(correct me if I'm wrong) FET items to make an AND gate, whereas it only takes 5 quantum cells. Furthermore, there are ways to make coplanar "wire" crossings. The problem is timing, since a signal has to propogate through a QCA like a set of dominos. There, IMHO, is too much hype surrounding quantum computing. -
Large Binocular Telescope
University of Arizona is building the Large Binocular Telescope [http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/lbtwww/], with with a pair of mirrors each 8.4 meters (25 feet) in diameter. The light gathering power and sharpness are both supposed to put Hubble to shame [ see http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/lbt_oth
e rtelescopes.shtml] using adaptive optics to remove the atmospheric blurring. It's a lot cheaper than Hubble, and while being ground-based has limitations, having it on the ground will make it much easier to repair and upgrade. -
Re:wait 10 years and 10 million doses
I know of at least 1 well documented medical risk to humans from a gene-engineered food, if you count a dietary supplement and not just whole foods.
http://www.nd.edu/~chem191/d3.html/ -
Re:National Aronatics Space AssociationIt's National Aeronautics and Space Administration. So, yes you were wrong.
My one year of Latin in high school is telling me to try and figure out what exactly "aronatics" would mean. All I know is, plowing doesn't sound very good in the context of rocketry.
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Large Binocular Telescope
The University of Arizona is currently working on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)- see: http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/index.s
h tml. The thing has twin 8.4 meter mirrors- their light gathering power is equivalent to a single 11.8 meter telescope, and their resolving power is equivalent to a 22.8 meter telescope. It is supposed to have more light gathering power and much sharper images than Hubble http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/lbt_othe rtelescopes.shtml. Supposedly the LBT is be able to get around the blurring from the atmosphere by using adaptive optics- deforming the secondary mirrors to correct for distortions. They claim that the construction costs are $80 million. So, an order of magnitude more resolution for an order of magnitude less money. If it performs even close to specifications, it sounds like a good deal. The dedication ceremony has already taken place and the thing is supposed to be operational in 2006. -
Large Binocular Telescope
The University of Arizona is currently working on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)- see: http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/index.s
h tml. The thing has twin 8.4 meter mirrors- their light gathering power is equivalent to a single 11.8 meter telescope, and their resolving power is equivalent to a 22.8 meter telescope. It is supposed to have more light gathering power and much sharper images than Hubble http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/lbt_othe rtelescopes.shtml. Supposedly the LBT is be able to get around the blurring from the atmosphere by using adaptive optics- deforming the secondary mirrors to correct for distortions. They claim that the construction costs are $80 million. So, an order of magnitude more resolution for an order of magnitude less money. If it performs even close to specifications, it sounds like a good deal. The dedication ceremony has already taken place and the thing is supposed to be operational in 2006. -
Minors do have rights
The Supreme Court has acknowledged that minors have their First Amendment rights several times (First Amendment and Public Schools), though in dealing with school-sponsered activities, high school teachers have more authority, and high schools can choose to censor school newspapers. from my understanding of the law, if high school students chose to launch an independent newspaper and distribute it in school, the paper would no longer be part of a "supervised learning experience" and would therefore be protected by the First Amendment.
Furthermore, the Court has protected minors' right to privacy in dealing with abortion. It is constitutional to pass laws requiring all minors to obtain parental consent before receiving an abortion if and only if the young woman may bypass the requirement through a judicial review.
As I recall from my high school days, we were told that when schools conduct drug searches using dogs, etc, they are only allowed to open lockers if the dogs have indicated there are drugs present or if they have a reasonable suspicion based on other evidence. I believe I did some research at the time and found this to be the same for adults in the workplace.
So to conclude, I think it's unreasonable and ill-informed to continue this stigma that students have no real rights. Even if their rights are limited in some situations, our children need to be taught the importance of the Constitution and their rights.
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Ankylosaurus?
From the article:
This huge, extremely heavy reptile was an herbivore (it ate only plants).
It had to eat a huge amount of low-lying plant material to sustain itself so
its gut must have been very large. It probably had a fermentation compartment
to aid in the digestion of the tough plant material, producing prodigious
amounts of gas!
Better call it Puteosaurus then.
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Re:Why cant Comerical Enterprise respect IP Rights
Six of one, half dozen of the other. Remember Kohlberg's stages of moral development? Not everyone is at the same moral stage. If everyone was at step 5 (Social Contract) or step 6 (Principled Conscience), we wouldn't need to have laws governing IP rights. We wouldn't need laws at all. Now, a commercial enterprise is often composed of multiple individuals. The chances are very low that all of those individuals are at the same moral plane, let alone at the highest. So, we have a legal system that aims first at the lowest level, Obedience and Punishment, which you might think of as being the lowest common denominator.
Further, the OP writes that his personal respect for IP rights is derived from the fact that he is a creator himself, and he wouldn't want to deny to others the livelihood that he himself enjoys. So, if anything, we might guess that the OP is at least at step 5 (Social Contract) and understands the Golden Rule (the do unto others rule, not the one about who owns all the gold).
I've avoided getting into the subject of the moral development of corporations as individual entities as this is beyond the scope of a simple slashdot post. However, even if the management of such an enterprise were all at step 6, they'd still need to govern that enterprise in such a way that takes into account the lowest stage achieved by the other employees, not to mention the moral development of their competitors, if they wanted that enterprise to survive. -
Re:Another HTTP Mirror
Oh, and one of that QT movie too.
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Another HTTP Mirror
Here is another mirror, for those who care to use it.
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It's called VIRUSES not viriiThis virus has a lot of DNA (the poxvirii do as well)
That geeks write "virii" in l33tspeak when they talk about computer viruses is one thing, but it's worse when this spelling pops up in scientific discussions. The plural is VIRUSES!
If you follow latin rules for constructing the plural form, it would still be viri with a single i at the end.
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Re:Don't make me laugh so loud at work!
Lupe is a dog
I would have thought, based on the name, that it is a wolf. -
Security
While this is impressive, Mozillas XUL also introduces some security hazards. Right now they are not really used, but see this example in the 0.9 Firefox Series shows the spoofing/phishing possibilities. IE got into trouble by integrating too much with the OS, XUL might integrate mozillas to far too...
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Re:Good god! Sun makes a heel turn!
In addition to being disturbingly phallic, Peng does not meet the original requirements.
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fantasize about the Borg Queen
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Re:good move/about time
As sure as I can be: vira dictionary entry from Notre Dame's service. And it is most certainly not virii
:). -
Re:Whose fault?
Do you have any links to examples or javascript that can actually do this?
Firefox spoof demonstration. No padlock spoof, though, I believe.
JP
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WM theme
This is pretty off-topic, but does anybody here know the name of the window manager theme this guy Jeff uses in his screenshot? I really like the look of it.
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Javascript window "features"
The real problem here is not so much XUL, but Javascript!
Why does the browser even allow Javascript to create popup windows without toolbars, menu bars and status bars? This has to be one of the most annoying features of any web browser, I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would think up or need such a feature.
Without this Javascript, you couldn't turn the real menubars and toolbars off, and the problem would be much less severe since although you'd have a second set of interface controls within the browser window, the real status bar would be at the bottom, and the real menubar would be at the top.
Firefox already has a way to block JS from doing this and using several other of its most annoying features, and indeed I personally have these limits switched on already. Put about:config in the address bar, and change these entires to the following values (or look up how to make a user.js file on Google):
dom.disable_window_move_resize = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.close = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.directories = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.location = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.minimizable = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.personalbar = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.resizable = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.scrollbars = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.status = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.titlebar = true
dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar = true
dom.disable_window_status_change = true
Now try the example given in the summary again. -
Re:Vulnerability?
I had the same opinion initally, but if you check out the spoofed Mozilla window you have to admit this could prove to be dangerous..
Having said that, I'll stick to Firefox nonetheless - let's just hope the Firefox team will find a way to fix it soon. -
Re:uh....
well.. maybe not just yet
but the LBT project promises to change that.
Sure, its slightly behind schedule, but its racing towards its first light pretty fast. -
Re:So What?
as i posted on a different article earlier this week, you're both wrong. virus is a 2nd declension latin neuter noun, and he was trying to use the latin plural, except he forgot that virus is neuter. look it up at Notre Damn Latin Dictionary if you don't believe me. the neuter ending takes an -a in the plural; hence, vira. this is one of those tricky latin nouns (i'm thinking it's probably a greek loan word) where the neuter starts with the 2nd declension masculine ending, but continues with the neuter endings). that said, don't use the latin plural. it's kind of lame.
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Re:Plural of virusokay you're both wrong. as i posted earlier as an AC, virus is a 2nd declension latin neuter noun, and he was trying to use the latin plural, except he forgot that virus is neuter. look it up at Notre Dame Latin Dictionary if you don't believe me. the neuter ending takes an -a in the plural; hence, vira. this is one of those tricky latin nouns (i'm thinking it's probably a greek loan word) where the neuter starts with the 2nd declension masculine ending, but continues with the neuter endings).
as for the "grammar nazi" bit, it's perfectly acceptable to use either the english or the latin plurals for words like that (anybody like baseball stadia?), though there are times when it's more appropriate than others. at least that's what sociolinguists say, and i can tell you that at least in my circle of intellectual acquintances, latin plurals are perfectly acceptable if, unlike the grandparent, you do it right. largely, the -us ending which ends most masculine nouns and the -um ending of most neuters sounds good on the latin plural (-i and -a, respectively) whereas the feminine ones allow for more effective english plurals, so you hardly ever see people use the latin plurals on them.
in fact, if i remember right, this is what happened in most the so-called western romance languages. there's a line that runs through europe and italy and it divides between the western romance languages, which took the latin accussative plurals (ending with -s) and the eastern ones, which preserved the latin nominative ones.
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Again: virii :(
vir viri m. [a man , male person]; esp. [a grown man; a husband; a man of character or courage, 'he-man']; milit. [a soldier, esp. an infantryman; a single man, individual].
virus -i n. [slimy liquid , slime; poison, esp. of snakes, venom; any harsh taste or smell].
Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid
sic !
CC. -
Re:Authoritive Answer
vir viri m. [a man , male person]; esp. [a grown man; a husband; a man of character or courage, 'he-man']; milit. [a soldier, esp. an infantryman; a single man, individual].
virus -i n. [slimy liquid , slime; poison, esp. of snakes, venom; any harsh taste or smell].
Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid
sic !
CC.
post scriptum: We (pluralis majestatis :) tend to infer that one might substitute "viri" for a set of slashbots with bad karma. -
Re:I Shall Not Drink Decaf. Decaf is the Mindkille
reminds me of that old joke:
A mathematician is a device for converting coffee into theorems.
a wav -
Re:Statecraft 101
Not according to Ally Here
Friend here
Search for friend and ally here -
Re:Statecraft 101
Not according to Ally Here
Friend here
Search for friend and ally here -
Re:Familiar pair for atheists.
Education has the highest correlation coefficient to lack of belief in a personal god. By most surveys, more than 90% of professional scientists don't believe in a personal god.
I can buy the second statement, but not necessarily the first. There are plenty of people with higher education who are not scientists.
In fact in most churches a prerequisite to joining the clergy is an advanced degree. Furthermore, the "professional degree" that you need to be a priest or pastor is a Master of Divinity, which normally requires an undergraduate degree, much like a law degree. There are no shortage of top universities that have excellent theology or divinity departments. Some of the world's most influential and interesting thinkers have been theologians.
As for the "90% of scientists" claim, I think that's a nasty prejudice on the part of scientists, rather than something to be proud of. Think about it: science and religion explore orthogonal aspects of life, neither of which is any less real than the other. Science tells us about what we can observe and test; religion illuminates things that are by nature untestable, like morality, ethics, compassion, and love for our fellow man.
In spite of what some might say, science can't really illuminate our understanding of God very much, because by nature you can't perform an experiment on God. Furthermore God can easily escape whatever assumptions a scientist may make (or, as one Vatican astronomer put it, "God is not a boundary condition"). By the same token our understanding of God can't do much to illuminate science, because when (for example) the bible contradicts a scientific observation, the observation must win. Fortunately most mainline religions acknowledge this, it's just the loudmouth conservative wackos who perpetuate the stereotype that a Christian believes the world is four thousand years old.
In fact my opinion is that the existence of God is an axiom. This fits because axioms are initial assumptions that cannot be tested, and as yet nobody has even developed a convincing test for the existence of God. One either believes that God exists or doesn't exist, and that belief affects the remaining propositions in one's life as any other axiom might. In no way is this incompatible with a career in science. In fact, if one believes (as I do) that God exists, what we know about the universe contributes to a sense of awe concerning the greatness of God. And, as one theologian suggests, this is one important aspect of religion: the "fear" of God puts you and your petty problems into perspective.
Religion really isn't about heaven, or hell, or converting as many atheists as possible, or strapping a bomb to yourself and blowing up a cafe. Religion is about suppressing your own ego and having compassion for those around you, which is something that a lot of scientists could sorely use.