Slashdot Mirror

This is actually a reply to a more specific thread on this topic, but I'm pasting it here because I think it worth the say to a more general audience.... the thread in question is:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171719&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=1&tid=99&mode=thread&cid=1430287 9

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You're very assertive, but did you witness it first-hand? For that matter, did I witness our creation first-hand? The answer to both questions is "no". Both require a fair amount of faith to believe in.

There's a Star Trek: Voyager episode, "Living Witness" (http://www.st-hypertext.com/voy-4/witness.html) that actually provides some though provoking parallels (well, close enough to make my point). Basically, 700 years in the future, a civilization has used fossil records and debree as a means of determining a doctrine that the Voyager crew was hostile. Their purpose for doing so was revisionist, unlike the root of this conversation. They would look at fossil records and theorize certain things and many of the details were in fact, innaccurate. Well worth the watch.

It very much applies to this conversation. We are looking at fossil records and postulating, but who knows whether we're interpreting the data incorrectly. Just recently Slashdot had a story about how some feathered dinosaurs were found fossilized, when the creature in question was previously thought more reptilian than feathered (assuming the discovery was true).

Now, I've said this before, I'll say it again: I don't know whether I believe in ID so-called, as I've never taken the time to understand it, and every reference I hear to it seems to indicate it is a bit different than Creationism. I do believe in Creationism. I do not believe Creationism is incompatible with evolotion (in general) but more specifically, I think our thoeries of evolution are incorrect and thus far, inconclusive. To the extend I think they are compatible, is the extent that I believe a species will adapt to their environment and certain conditions can cause changes, such as people growing taller or whatever. Is that species evolving into another that one day will not become compatible with humans? As far as I'm aware, all humans are compatible with each other respective to the ability to procreate, dispite any other localized differences.

We can live near a nuclear powerplant and become "changed" as well as our offspring, which can possibly become incompatible with both society and procreation with other non-changed humans, is that evolution in action? Is genetically modifying genes and other things, such as foods that we eat, that might cause unpredictable things to happen to us, also evolution in action?

The simple fact is, we don't know for sure that one creature became another. All we're doing is looking at fossils and DNA and thoerizing (is that a word?), similar to the main characteristic of the Voyager episode cited above. With the same conviction that you believe in evolution, so do I believe in Creationism. I've been told more than once that anyone with a brain can see right past the religious dogma and see the "truth". I do have a brain, I have looked at some of the details, and am not completely convinced of the current form of the thoery of evolution. It is not a life endeavor of mine to spend all my time seeking the "truth" anyway, much as it is not a life endeavor of mine to better understand quantum physics. So I make best with what I can, as do you I'm sure.

In any case, I choose to believe in Creationism for many other reasons than I can list here, but I hope I can effectively communicate that I'm not mindless or uneducated and have a fairly open mind. Open mind, not to be confused with easily persuaded or mindless (sometimes when people te

You're very assertive, but did you witness it first-hand? For that matter, did I witness our creation first-hand? The answer to both questions is "no". Both require a fair amount of faith to believe in.

There's a Star Trek: Voyager episode, "Living Witness" (http://www.st-hypertext.com/voy-4/witness.html) that actually provides some though provoking parallels (well, close enough to make my point). Basically, 700 years in the future, a civilization has used fossil records and debree as a means of determining a doctrine that the Voyager crew was hostile. Their purpose for doing so was revisionist, unlike the root of this conversation. They would look at fossil records and theorize certain things and many of the details were in fact, innaccurate. Well worth the watch.

It very much applies to this conversation. We are looking at fossil records and postulating, but who knows whether we're interpreting the data incorrectly. Just recently Slashdot had a story about how some feathered dinosaurs were found fossilized, when the creature in question was previously thought more reptilian than feathered (assuming the discovery was true).

Now, I've said this before, I'll say it again: I don't know whether I believe in ID so-called, as I've never taken the time to understand it, and every reference I hear to it seems to indicate it is a bit different than Creationism. I do believe in Creationism. I do not believe Creationism is incompatible with evolotion (in general) but more specifically, I think our thoeries of evolution are incorrect and thus far, inconclusive. To the extend I think they are compatible, is the extent that I believe a species will adapt to their environment and certain conditions can cause changes, such as people growing taller or whatever. Is that species evolving into another that one day will not become compatible with humans? As far as I'm aware, all humans are compatible with each other respective to the ability to procreate, dispite any other localized differences.

We can live near a nuclear powerplant and become "changed" as well as our offspring, which can possibly become incompatible with both society and procreation with other non-changed humans, is that evolution in action? Is genetically modifying genes and other things, such as foods that we eat, that might cause unpredictable things to happen to us, also evolution in action?

The simple fact is, we don't know for sure that one creature became another. All we're doing is looking at fossils and DNA and thoerizing (is that a word?), similar to the main characteristic of the Voyager episode cited above. With the same conviction that you believe in evolution, so do I believe in Creationism. I've been told more than once that anyone with a brain can see right past the religious dogma and see the "truth". I do have a brain, I have looked at some of the details, and am not completely convinced of the current form of the thoery of evolution. It is not a life endeavor of mine to spend all my time seeking the "truth" anyway, much as it is not a life endeavor of mine to better understand quantum physics. So I make best with what I can, as do you I'm sure.

In any case, I choose to believe in Creationism for many other reasons than I can list here, but I hope I can effectively communicate that I'm not mindless or uneducated and have a fairly open mind. Open mind, not to be confused with easily persuaded or mindless (sometimes when people tell me I need to open my mind what they are really saying is I need to believe what they do). There's an element of doubt in both Creationism and evolution. Each requires faith, I choose the one over the other. Simple as that. Neither of which have been proven or disproven conclusively, and because of that, I cannot possibly be dogmatic for choosing the religious one over evolution, any more than one choosing evolution over Creationism.

Thanks,
Leabre

Personally, I thought "Trials" was hilarious - heavily nostalgic, it was quite self-consciously poking fun at Trek tropes, and addressing various discrepancies between ToS and the later Treks in a tongue-in-cheek fashion ("and women wore..less", "We do not speak of it (the old-style Klingon look))." It was a joke, son. And I'm far from the only one who thinks so - take a look at this review, for instance.

I liked B5 too - especially where it borrowed from Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man", such as the episode where a mind-wiped criminal is hunted down and slain by the families of his victims ("passing through gethsemane", I believe). However, glancing at the Lurker's guide, I can spot a few lemons, and glaring inconsistencies as well. And generally, the B5 universe never felt coherent to me, in terms of geography (or galactography, if you will), technology and evolution. Where star trek substituted technobabble, most often nonsensically, but occasionally in a somewhat sensible fashion (I'm a scientist), B5 went completely in the other direction, in the Clarke-ian advanced-technology-as-magic direction. First ones, Shadows, Vorlons, there seemed to be no limit to what they could accomplish, and that alone created a few plot holes in the "why couldn't they have done this at that point" sense. Plus, it's supposed to be science fiction, and besides the medical stuff, there just wasn't a lot of scientific extrapolation. On the other hand, Trek is quite inconsistent with its use of technology to so...eh. But we're discussing DS9

Let me address the straw man argument from your first paragraph. Have you seen "The Visitor", "Far Beyond the Stars", "In the Pale Moonlight", "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" and many other episodes of similar quality? The first is a personal favorite, along with TNG's "The Inner Light". The acting and characterization were superb (I believe the episode won awards), and what's more, it was a uniquely science-fictional story, not something random turned into SF by subsituting ray guns for pistols. Moving stuff, and a great example of what SF can bring to television. "In the Pale Moonlight", part of the Dominion war arc, describes the exigencies of war, and the whole ends-versus-means question, and is applicable to any society. We fudged the WMD intelligence (or at least, there were several credible reports that the administration was exerting great pressure on the CIA to present favorable reports), presumably in view of a greater cause, and this episode addressed similar issues, and showed quite plausibly what even good people can do when faced with destruction. I could go on and on, but you can read the story summaries and watch the episodes for yourself. I just can't take you seriously when you have such a selective memory (or perhaps you caught 1 episode in 3) of the series.

Oh sure, the disappearance of 2800 ships was literally a deus ex machina - but as the show was described, it was well within the technological capabilities of the aliens. The writers could've made it clearer what exactly this choice cost Sisko, but that went beyond the end of the series. It was on par with all the mystical "The First One" stuff after the Z'aha'Dum episode in B5, but I didn't mind. The holodeck episodes were filler, yes - but you seem to have forgotten that TNG had its fair share and more of those. What I saw of Voyager was complete dreck, but as I haven't seen it in its entirety, I'm not going to comment beyond saying t

There was a great episode of Enterprise where they encounter an alien species with a 3rd, rarer sex required for breeding. They were prevented from learning or studying or reading, and they were shunted around the species to allow scheduled couples to have children. The captain doesn't like the situation but doesn't want to interfere when three of them come on board, and one is treated like a total slave and kept in the dark about everything. Tucker, however, can't stand the arrangement and sets out to teach the person how to read and about the world around them.

Ultimately Tucker teaches this person so much that she can't stand the idea of being nothing more than a reproductive organ, and kills herself. The Captain chastizes Tucker soundly for rushing in and imposing his cultural beliefs upon another group before understanding the reasons for their actions. He also points out the Tucker is responsible for the death of not only the girl, but of the child who will not be born.

It's a really good, deep, conflicted episode, directed by LeVar Burton (excellent director, BTW), and written by... Berman and Braga.

Not that I wouldn't mind removing them from the helm, but they did write the best episode of the second season.

> But as it stands now, I just don't think anyone's gonna care too much about my
> /. password when I'm gone. Least of all, me.

You don't have any friends who could post a message in your journal, or info page? Besides posting "I'm dead" messages, I'm sure you have some data that your friends would like to have. Someone is going to do something with your corpse and estate when you die, even if you don't have dependents.

As for Trek, it's obviously only the conformists that even think about enrolling in Starfleet... The average people you see running around on earth don't wear Human uniforms. (unlike the members of some poorly thought-out alien cultures, which aren't too common recently.) It is really weird that everybody wears their uniform most of the time, though. There are a lot of things that seem pretty hokey about the Trek universe, besides the made-up-on-the-spot physics of the later series.

However, I was actually talking about the Workforce I and II episodes. (plot synopsis). Basically, there's a factory that mind controls their "employees" after capturing them away from their previous lives. It makes you wonder just exactly what's wrong with everyone being happy, even if it is because of mind control. This kind of thing has come up in other Trek episodes, but not with the ship's crew. I seem to recall an episode where Voyager (or maybe Enterprise) came across a utopian society that didn't have a clue about anything, because the computer ran everything. This is not a new idea for SF.

Voyager had its moments. The episode I saw last night was pretty good.

They have a feel similar to the IBM Model M, and are completely reprogrammable IN the keyboard. No software.

Also, it has the F1-F12 keys at the top and a second set of F1-F10 keys at the side (like the old XT keyboard layout), which I assume you could reprogram to whatever functions you wanted.

The cursor keys are arranged like the ones in the numeric keypad but with a space in the middle, in the space where the regular inverted-T shape keys are. It takes a little getting used to, but it is nice since it has diagonal keys on it.

An article about the AnyKey.

Sounds a lot like the keyboard my brother use to swear by . . . an old 124-key Gateway Anykey. An image of it is in this article. Another rave about it is here.

Google for 'gateway anykey' and you'll find lots of comments about it, the programmable macros, remappable keys, etc etc. It's a pretty slick keyboard, but I never liked how it had the 8-way arrow keys instead of the standard inverted-T.

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