"The other possibility I see is that bandwith gets cheap enough so that we may consider remote storage vaults. That has a couple of privacy issues I'm certain you can see... But it's incredibly convenient and will probably be adopted by everyone if we just find a way to have a high speed switched pipe to everybody's home at a reasonable cost.."
Just an idea, but if everything the remote storage vault saw was already strongly encrypted, there wouldn't be much loss of privacy. There would still be some risk, but I think I'd be comfortable with it.
Mmmmm.... high speed switched pipe to everybody's home... yummy.:)
Re:Out of the Real World
on
On to Mars
·
· Score: 1
"It's very unlikely that anyone can predict that
a) how many fragments a comet will split into (Hitting Canada and Mexico whilst missing the large chunk of land in between sounds very strange.)"
Quite right - yes, those were just examples of mine. I don't know where it would hit, that would depend on what time it was, and the comet's exact orbit, which varies every time it passes close to the sun.
You're right, it would more likely shower most of the hemisphere it was facing with Tunguska-type explosions
"b) it's exact orbit from 126 years away..."
Yeah. Back in 1991, IIRC, when they first rediscovered it, they computed its orbit, and it would've hit Earth on August 14, 2126. After perihelion, they plotted it again, and it had changed speed slightly, and would miss Earth easily. However, it could shift back, so they are still tracking it, and the meteor shower could still do damage.
The *date* is known - it's when the orbits of Swift-Tuttle and Earth intersect. What's not known is whether or not the comet and the Earth will be there at the same time.
Besides, Swift-Tuttle is just an example, I could have picked another NEO, say, the one that nearly hit the Earth back in the 1960's, I think it was - I read about it in a Feynman book.
Asteroid collisions, pollution, famine, lack of resorces, political freedom, whatever... there are lots of reasons to move into space.
Re:It's logical to go to space
on
On to Mars
·
· Score: 1
"Humanity has done OK here for the past 50000 years I think the Earth has a few more good years in her."
Yep. A few more. Maybe a couple million years. Maybe tonight. I don't want to wait around and find out, do you?
"Plus humans are pretty adaptable."
Do know know what happens when a 2 mile wide body hits the Earth? It ain't pretty. Anything bigger than a cockroach is gonna be in serious trouble. Humanity has already shown how it reacts to being starved and dehydrated to death. That'll be worldwide someday if we don't prepare for it.
Re:Out of the Real World
on
On to Mars
·
· Score: 2
Have you ever watched an entire species die? What about all the kids in Canada and India and Mexico who will die on August 14, 2126 when comet Swift-Tuttle slams into the Earth with a 200 *tera*ton blast? What about the thousands of plant and animal species that will go extinct when ash and nitric acid rains down on the shattered landscape of what used to be the Earth under a sky that no longer knows the sun?
More recent news suggests that comet Swift-Tuttle will probably miss us in 2126. All we have to worry about is a heavy meteor shower. As Dr. Duncan Steel observed in the Sources and Acknowlegements to Hammer of God by Arthur C Clarke, "How do you fancy a hundred Tunguskas in a day?"
Besides that, goverment aid doesn't solve social problems. It never has, it never will - but goverment aid might save the human race, and as many plants and animal species as we can take with us.
In the 20th century, we've had two biggish impacts on the Earth - both hit in distant regions of the Soviet Union. We also had a near miss - so close the asteroid burned through the upper atmosphere long enough for a guy on a fishing trip to film it. Both the impacts weren't that bad - only slightly bigger than the Hiroshima blast. That's nothing compared to what it could have been, and what it soon will be if we don't get our act together. We know about Swift-Tuttle, and we're keeping an eye on it. But how many more asteroids and comets are there out there that we don't know about?
I can't know for sure, but I think you nailed it, or at least a huge part of it. Whether it's cultural or genetic, women seem less likely to get into computers. I read part of the article above, until about the 4th (web)page it got too thick with politically correct buzzwords to stand.
I'd sure like it if there were more women in computing. My girlfriend is a huge computer geek, and I greatly enjoy talking about anything and everything with her - and it's a whole lot easier when our interests match up.:)
But how do we fix it? Maybe encourage young girls with geeky tendancies to pick up a soldering iron instead of the stereotypical barbie doll? Or an O'Reilly book instead of makeup and jewelry? Better than the feminists calling the men chauvanists, the fed-up guys calling the feminists politically correct, and everyone in the middle tries to ignore both sides as best they can.
Maybe it's a problem, maybe it isn't, but if there's something we can do to even the odds, I think we should do it.
> Someone mentioned wavelets as an example of what I would consider patentable.
I wouldn't. I thought of the idea myself, three or four years ago. I was staring at this spectrograph, wondering about how they must do that, and figured it must be like fourier analysis. Then I wondered, 'what if they store phase information along with the frequency? Maybe that could be used as an audio file format, better than midi or wav?' I knew fourier analysis would not work well for recovering the original signal form the results. I thought about it later, figuring they'd have to map each wave's beginning, amplitude, phase, and end. Now, unless I totally miss my guess, this is what wavelets are, right? I asked my dad aboutit, asking if storing phase and frequency information in a file would make a good method of audio compression. He said it probably wouldn't work, and I dropped the idea. Btw, I always thought wavelets had the coolest name.
Wavelets had already been discovered. I just came across an obvious idea that someone else had published papers about that I had never read.
If I can come up with it, so can thousands of guys just like me. Wavelets would have been discovered, they are the obvious next step up from fourier analysis. Wavelets are an obvious idea, even to me, even back then. A patent on wavelets is as wrong as a patent on fourier analysis.
Actually, I'm convinced cold fusion works. A search on slashdot would reveal a recent link to a story on another news site where a reporter visited some scientists doing cold fusion research in secret, because they knew they would be ruined if it was public. A recent Analog SF&F (the F stands for Fact) told about some cold fusion experiments in a Tokyo lab that produced a very large number of elecments, not just helium. Other cold fuision researchers have seen their expensive palladium electrodes transmutate into half a dozen cheap metals.
Dr Bussard, as well, has rediscovered an old method of starting a fusion reaction with minimal power, and the JPL has three prototypes (a recent Analog SF&F and Popular Science, I don't know which ones.) Dr Bussard's electrostatic method involves a spherical grid at high voltage inside a vaccuum bulb - in short, by accelerating the ions at very high speed through a central point, they collide head-on instead of the glancing impacts in a thermonuclear fusion rector. They are fascinating articles, and made a believer out of me.
(Back on topic)
Math research can be duplicated cheaply by anyone skilled in the art, as can software programs be written by anyone who cares to learn.
Software is written, not invented. It is already protected by copyright, and that's all it should have. Math processes and algorithms (including compression and encryption, hardware and software) cannot be patented, because there is no barrier to entry. I have no problem with 'smart cards' as a whole being patented, because I'm sure there is something innovative going on, and it's a very specific application. However, wavelets can't be allowed to be patented, because they appear in so many fields and have so many applications. It'd be almost like patenting radio.
Maybe a specific radio transmitter/reciever design could be patented, but the idea of patenting radio itself is ridiculus.
I upgrade for fun - it gives me a warm feeling, knowing I have the latest kernel out there. I don't even have to run it, I just have to have it. I run a 2.2.12 kernel, personally. I have a 2.2.13 patch, it's been sitting on my hard drive for a couple months. Now that there's a new one, I must have it. I'll wait till the mirrors have it to download it, I think. Then I think I'll actually compile a new kernel. It's been awhile, I'm out of practice. Besides, it's fun (for me).
I don't have moderator points, but if I did, I'd moderate Kukuman's comment up.
I'm 19, a guy, and I'd be bothered. I know some people wouldn't, that's not the point - it's an invasion of privacy. If someone doesn't want looked at naked, they shouldn't be looked at naked. So far, it's not a problem - I'd just choose to be frisked. I'd be annoyed and delayed, but it's not humiliating, imho. It's when they stop offering the other choice that it becomes a problem.
I don't know about you, but most of the 12-16 year old girls I know would never step in front of that thing. They'd probably rather walk than fly. Can you tear up your ticket and leave rather than get scanned? Isn't staring at someone's body *without their consent* a mild type of rape? Maybe not, but it is violation.
There are people who don't care if strangers see them naked, and good for them - whatever floats their boat. If they made me choose between getting scanned and not flying, I wouldn't fly.
> All a preliminary injunction says is that the > plantiff's case does in fact have merit, and to > prevent further potential damage from being > done, the defendant must cease in the offensive > behavior until such time as the defendant is > cleared.
The offensive behavior here is Amazon patenting a bogus "invention," and sueing Barnes and Noble over it. The preliminary injunction is exactly what's doing the damage. There's plenty of law to protect the patent holders, but what is there to protect people *from* patents?
I hope B&N is cleared, but I wish there was a way to protect them until that time.
> There has been no trial, no finding of fact, and > no consideration of the merits of Amazon's case > by either a judge or a jury. Don't get too > worried too quickly.
I'm sure they will be cleared, but what can they do in the meantime?
Could they design a new interface that uses two clicks? Could they alter just enough of their existing interface that they don't infringe the patent, while it stays easy for people to shop? Maybe B&N can use public sympathy, by telling everyone they can about this. By making themselves the victim and Amazon the villian, could they use that to get people to buy from them?
Just a few ideas. I'm sure Barnes&Noble's thought of them already, I wonder what they're doing about it?
I haven't seen any of these movies, but there were still a few points I didn't understand what Jon Katz was talking about.
> One of the great blessings of the onrushing > Millenium is that there can't be any more movies > about Armageddon, since it will either have come > or gone.Or not.
What's the Millenium got to do with Armageddon? The Millenium's just a number.
I'm a Christian, but I don't see why people think the millenium's all that special.
> This movie - awful in almost every conceivable > way - is symbolic, if not perhaps in the way it > intended. This era in Apocalyptic action movies > seems over.
Why is that? I don't know much about movies, but they've been writing books about the end of the world since the beginning of writing. If you mean the pre-millenium era of Apocalyptic action movies, that I understand, that'll be over at January 1, 2001.
> "The End of Days" is aptly titled: this sorry > movie marks the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger's > spectacular reign as America's Armageddon Action > hero.
I don't really disagree with this, but I can't agree - why would Arnold Schwarzenegger stop making movies about the end of the world? He's still getting plenty of movie offers, and I don't think he's retiring anytime soon.
There's plenty of religious people here who believe in the scientific method just as much as any atheist. I know, because I do, and I've met quite a few others who do also.
This is free speech, you can criticize religion all you want, but it is also flamebait.
> I know Rob can't personally verify every story > before he posts it. But shouldn't you be a > little more careful with a particularly > implausible and inflammatory one, like this one? > It took me ten minutes on Google to find this > information.
Oh, I don't know - I don't know Rob, but my guess is he doesn't have ten minutes, I know some days I don't, and I'm on vacation compared to him.
Just my factorial of five over number base used by the Babylonians cents.
> who is the stronger, in terms of capacity to do > work required to maintain society, man or woman? > Big Lie=Man. Women make babies, carry 20 lbs. of > child on one arm and 20 lbs. of groceries on the > other, manage the books of a household, and do > it continuously 400 months straight on 4 ounces > of food and 4 hours of sleep. This regime would > kill a man. To man, a 4-minute mile, or a 4-hour > marathon, is a test of physical "endurance."
Silly exaggeration, that'd kill anyone. Dare I say society needs both sexes? I'm a guy. Since when was that a crime? That's beside the point, I know. The point is, which sex is stronger. I've known girls who are greatly smarter than me. And others who weren't. Same with physical strength, endurance, speed at learning. Some more, some less.
And since when is stronger better? Aren't we all geeks here?
> whose brain is more efficient, prehaps even > intelligent, in terms of ability to indentify > information, gather it, organize it, store it > and retrieve it? Big Lie=Man. Like myself now, > men are constantly blasting off, focusing on > this point or that point, while women listen, > gather sort and organize information about > everything else going on in the room.
Oh, I'm a listener, just in a talkative mood right now. Maybe if I talk reasonably instead of in an insulted way, I can improve the reputation of guys as a whole? Worth a shot. There are women who think all guys are jerks, pigs. Maybe I can show them that's not so.
As for the "more intelligent" part, it used to be quite socially acceptable to talk about how a Hispanic or Asian brain was genetically incapable of matching the superior Caucasian intelligence. Of course now, we know how ridiculus that is. Now some women are using the same argument against guys. It'll blow over, I'm sure. If it doesn't, I'll manage to get a good job anyway, I'm sure.
> In term's of brain structure, men's neurons are > organized in cubes, women's in tetrahedrons. The > timing differences of these two shapes, and the > smaller cellular packing, i.e. in terms of > neuron timing, the faster neuron spacing, makes > the brains of women "faster" than that of men, > in that their brains respond to a higher > frequency of information.
Pardon me while I sing along to "Alive and Kicking" on the radio - love that 1980's rock.:) o/Whatcha gonna do when the love burns down, whatcha gonna do when it all goes up... whatcha gonna do when... whatcha gonna do when... Stay until your love is... Alive and Kicking... love is... love is.../o
I know this is wild blue yonder off topic, but I have *got* to get that on cd... anyone know what group did that song?
Oh, yes - brain structure - yeah, I was reading in "Escalante" by Jay Mathews, (good book, btw) how it used to be very fashionable to talk about the inferior brain structures of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Don't flame me, I know it's ridiculus. But back then, they scientifically "proved" how blacks, asians, and hispanics couldn't hope to keep up with a caucasian. They used that to excuse why the research labs and engineering classes were full of whites. Then Jaime Escalante taught advanced placement calculus to a bunch of inner-city hispanics. Anyone can be whatever they want to be, if they believe it and work hard for a long time.
> God did not write men out of the picture. He > gave them higher capacity for physical impulse, > and their "slower," i.e. the longer timing > synchronicity of their brain structures, gives > them an inclination to see a more distant > horizon than women's brains can in general > perceive.
Gee, if that was a compliment, I think I may have missed it... are you saying men are workhorses, good for physical strength and endurance?
> On the way out fringes of feminism, the long > range challenge for geek women, i.e. for the > survival of "mankind" in space, is to figure out > a way to steal from the seed of their fathers, > i.e. to clone-breed women only, eliminating the > inefficiency and imbalance, and vision distance > or creativity, of men.
Stealing sperm and raising women only? What are you going to do with the women who disagree with your methods?
To say nothing about what you'll do to the men.
Look, I won't deny any of that. I'm imbalanced, inefficient, imperfect. Comes with being human. I'm sure there are plenty of women who've locked their keys in their car, or slept through an alarm, or been late for a deadline. I don't like perfect people, they're arrogent, proud... just please, let everyone be human? Forgive people for not being perfect, okay? No man, and no woman could live up to the standards you list.
Slashdot Mirror
"If what you are doing is illegal, why should you be able to simply use 'open source' as a shield?"
Maybe because ($what_is_legal != $what_is_right).
If what he's doing is ethical, my best wishes to him. And imho, he can use open source as a shield anyday.
"The other possibility I see is that bandwith gets cheap enough so that we may consider remote storage vaults. That has a couple of privacy issues I'm certain you can see... But it's incredibly convenient and will probably be adopted by everyone if we just find a way to have a high speed switched pipe to everybody's home at a reasonable cost.."
:)
Just an idea, but if everything the remote storage vault saw was already strongly encrypted, there wouldn't be much loss of privacy. There would still be some risk, but I think I'd be comfortable with it.
Mmmmm.... high speed switched pipe to everybody's home... yummy.
"It's very unlikely that anyone can predict that
a) how many fragments a comet will split into (Hitting Canada and Mexico whilst missing the large chunk of land in
between sounds very strange.)"
Quite right - yes, those were just examples of mine. I don't know where it would hit, that would depend on what time it was, and the comet's exact orbit, which varies every time it passes close to the sun.
You're right, it would more likely shower most of the hemisphere it was facing with Tunguska-type explosions
"b) it's exact orbit from 126 years away..."
Yeah. Back in 1991, IIRC, when they first rediscovered it, they computed its orbit, and it would've hit Earth on August 14, 2126. After perihelion, they plotted it again, and it had changed speed slightly, and would miss Earth easily. However, it could shift back, so they are still tracking it, and the meteor shower could still do damage.
The *date* is known - it's when the orbits of Swift-Tuttle and Earth intersect. What's not known is whether or not the comet and the Earth will be there at the same time.
Besides, Swift-Tuttle is just an example, I could have picked another NEO, say, the one that nearly hit the Earth back in the 1960's, I think it was - I read about it in a Feynman book.
Asteroid collisions, pollution, famine, lack of resorces, political freedom, whatever... there are lots of reasons to move into space.
"Humanity has done OK here for the past 50000 years I think the Earth has a few more good years in her."
Yep. A few more. Maybe a couple million years. Maybe tonight. I don't want to wait around and find out, do you?
"Plus humans are pretty adaptable."
Do know know what happens when a 2 mile wide body hits the Earth? It ain't pretty. Anything bigger than a cockroach is gonna be in serious trouble. Humanity has already shown how it reacts to being starved and dehydrated to death. That'll be worldwide someday if we don't prepare for it.
Have you ever watched an entire species die? What about all the kids in Canada and India and Mexico who will die on August 14, 2126 when comet Swift-Tuttle slams into the Earth with a 200 *tera*ton blast? What about the thousands of plant and animal species that will go extinct when ash and nitric acid rains down on the shattered landscape of what used to be the Earth under a sky that no longer knows the sun?
More recent news suggests that comet Swift-Tuttle will probably miss us in 2126. All we have to worry about is a heavy meteor shower. As Dr. Duncan Steel observed in the Sources and Acknowlegements to Hammer of God by Arthur C Clarke, "How do you fancy a hundred Tunguskas in a day?"
Besides that, goverment aid doesn't solve social problems. It never has, it never will - but goverment aid might save the human race, and as many plants and animal species as we can take with us.
In the 20th century, we've had two biggish impacts on the Earth - both hit in distant regions of the Soviet Union. We also had a near miss - so close the asteroid burned through the upper atmosphere long enough for a guy on a fishing trip to film it. Both the impacts weren't that bad - only slightly bigger than the Hiroshima blast. That's nothing compared to what it could have been, and what it soon will be if we don't get our act together. We know about Swift-Tuttle, and we're keeping an eye on it. But how many more asteroids and comets are there out there that we don't know about?
I don't have any moderator points.
Someone, *please* give nullity's post a 5?
I can't know for sure, but I think you nailed it, or at least a huge part of it. Whether it's cultural or genetic, women seem less likely to get into computers. I read part of the article above, until about the 4th (web)page it got too thick with politically correct buzzwords to stand.
:)
I'd sure like it if there were more women in computing. My girlfriend is a huge computer geek, and I greatly enjoy talking about anything and everything with her - and it's a whole lot easier when our interests match up.
But how do we fix it? Maybe encourage young girls with geeky tendancies to pick up a soldering iron instead of the stereotypical barbie doll? Or an O'Reilly book instead of makeup and jewelry? Better than the feminists calling the men chauvanists, the fed-up guys calling the feminists politically correct, and everyone in the middle tries to ignore both sides as best they can.
Maybe it's a problem, maybe it isn't, but if there's something we can do to even the odds, I think we should do it.
err... What's that I read in that article about women being polite and friendly, and males swearing and flaming?
Defend and fight in cyberspace when called on? Call me crazy, but we already have several cyberspace forces. L0pht, for one off the top of my head.
They expose that which is wrong in the world. I don't like their methods, but I gotta admit, they are effective.
> Someone mentioned wavelets as an example of what I would consider patentable.
I wouldn't. I thought of the idea myself, three or four years ago. I was staring at this spectrograph, wondering about how they must do that, and figured it must be like fourier analysis. Then I wondered, 'what if they store phase information along with the frequency? Maybe that could be used as an audio file format, better than midi or wav?' I knew fourier analysis would not work well for recovering the original signal form the results. I thought about it later, figuring they'd have to map each wave's beginning, amplitude, phase, and end. Now, unless I totally miss my guess, this is what wavelets are, right? I asked my dad aboutit, asking if storing phase and frequency information in a file would make a good method of audio compression. He said it probably wouldn't work, and I dropped the idea. Btw, I always thought wavelets had the coolest name.
Wavelets had already been discovered. I just came across an obvious idea that someone else had published papers about that I had never read.
If I can come up with it, so can thousands of guys just like me. Wavelets would have been discovered, they are the obvious next step up from fourier analysis. Wavelets are an obvious idea, even to me, even back then. A patent on wavelets is as wrong as a patent on fourier analysis.
(Somewhat offtopic)
Actually, I'm convinced cold fusion works. A search on slashdot would reveal a recent link to a story on another news site where a reporter visited some scientists doing cold fusion research in secret, because they knew they would be ruined if it was public. A recent Analog SF&F (the F stands for Fact) told about some cold fusion experiments in a Tokyo lab that produced a very large number of elecments, not just helium. Other cold fuision researchers have seen their expensive palladium electrodes transmutate into half a dozen cheap metals.
Dr Bussard, as well, has rediscovered an old method of starting a fusion reaction with minimal power, and the JPL has three prototypes (a recent Analog SF&F and Popular Science, I don't know which ones.) Dr Bussard's electrostatic method involves a spherical grid at high voltage inside a vaccuum bulb - in short, by accelerating the ions at very high speed through a central point, they collide head-on instead of the glancing impacts in a thermonuclear fusion rector. They are fascinating articles, and made a believer out of me.
(Back on topic)
Math research can be duplicated cheaply by anyone skilled in the art, as can software programs be written by anyone who cares to learn.
Software is written, not invented. It is already protected by copyright, and that's all it should have. Math processes and algorithms (including compression and encryption, hardware and software) cannot be patented, because there is no barrier to entry. I have no problem with 'smart cards' as a whole being patented, because I'm sure there is something innovative going on, and it's a very specific application. However, wavelets can't be allowed to be patented, because they appear in so many fields and have so many applications. It'd be almost like patenting radio.
Maybe a specific radio transmitter/reciever design could be patented, but the idea of patenting radio itself is ridiculus.
I upgrade for fun - it gives me a warm feeling,
knowing I have the latest kernel out there. I
don't even have to run it, I just have to have it.
I run a 2.2.12 kernel, personally. I have a 2.2.13
patch, it's been sitting on my hard drive for a
couple months. Now that there's a new one, I must
have it. I'll wait till the mirrors have it to
download it, I think. Then I think I'll actually
compile a new kernel. It's been awhile, I'm out of
practice. Besides, it's fun (for me).
I don't have moderator points, but if I did, I'd moderate Kukuman's comment up.
I'm 19, a guy, and I'd be bothered. I know some people wouldn't, that's not the point - it's an invasion of privacy. If someone doesn't want looked at naked, they shouldn't be looked at naked. So far, it's not a problem - I'd just choose to be frisked. I'd be annoyed and delayed, but it's not humiliating, imho. It's when they stop offering the other choice that it becomes a problem.
I don't know about you, but most of the 12-16 year old girls I know would never step in front of that thing. They'd probably rather walk than fly. Can you tear up your ticket and leave rather than get scanned? Isn't staring at someone's body *without their consent* a mild type of rape? Maybe not, but it is violation.
There are people who don't care if strangers see them naked, and good for them - whatever floats their boat. If they made me choose between getting scanned and not flying, I wouldn't fly.
> All a preliminary injunction says is that the
> plantiff's case does in fact have merit, and to
> prevent further potential damage from being
> done, the defendant must cease in the offensive
> behavior until such time as the defendant is
> cleared.
The offensive behavior here is Amazon patenting a bogus "invention," and sueing Barnes and Noble over it. The preliminary injunction is exactly what's doing the damage. There's plenty of law to protect the patent holders, but what is there to protect people *from* patents?
I hope B&N is cleared, but I wish there was a way to protect them until that time.
> There has been no trial, no finding of fact, and
> no consideration of the merits of Amazon's case
> by either a judge or a jury. Don't get too
> worried too quickly.
I'm sure they will be cleared, but what can they do in the meantime?
Could they design a new interface that uses two clicks? Could they alter just enough of their existing interface that they don't infringe the patent, while it stays easy for people to shop? Maybe B&N can use public sympathy, by telling everyone they can about this. By making themselves the victim and Amazon the villian, could they use that to get people to buy from them?
Just a few ideas. I'm sure Barnes&Noble's thought of them already, I wonder what they're doing about it?
I haven't seen any of these movies, but there were still a few points I didn't understand what Jon Katz was talking about.
> One of the great blessings of the onrushing
> Millenium is that there can't be any more movies
> about Armageddon, since it will either have come
> or gone.Or not.
What's the Millenium got to do with Armageddon? The Millenium's just a number.
I'm a Christian, but I don't see why people think the millenium's all that special.
> This movie - awful in almost every conceivable
> way - is symbolic, if not perhaps in the way it
> intended. This era in Apocalyptic action movies
> seems over.
Why is that? I don't know much about movies, but they've been writing books about the end of the world since the beginning of writing. If you mean the pre-millenium era of Apocalyptic action movies, that I understand, that'll be over at January 1, 2001.
> "The End of Days" is aptly titled: this sorry
> movie marks the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger's
> spectacular reign as America's Armageddon Action
> hero.
I don't really disagree with this, but I can't agree - why would Arnold Schwarzenegger stop making movies about the end of the world? He's still getting plenty of movie offers, and I don't think he's retiring anytime soon.
Why is this not marked Flamebait?
There's plenty of religious people here who believe in the scientific method just as much as any atheist. I know, because I do, and I've met quite a few others who do also.
This is free speech, you can criticize religion all you want, but it is also flamebait.
> I know Rob can't personally verify every story
> before he posts it. But shouldn't you be a
> little more careful with a particularly
> implausible and inflammatory one, like this one?
> It took me ten minutes on Google to find this
> information.
Oh, I don't know - I don't know Rob, but my guess is he doesn't have ten minutes, I know some days I don't, and I'm on vacation compared to him.
Just my factorial of five over number base used by the Babylonians cents.
> who is the stronger, in terms of capacity to do
:) o/Whatcha gonna do when the love burns down, whatcha gonna do when it all goes up... whatcha gonna do when... whatcha gonna do when... Stay until your love is... Alive and Kicking... love is... love is.../o
> work required to maintain society, man or woman?
> Big Lie=Man. Women make babies, carry 20 lbs. of
> child on one arm and 20 lbs. of groceries on the
> other, manage the books of a household, and do
> it continuously 400 months straight on 4 ounces
> of food and 4 hours of sleep. This regime would
> kill a man. To man, a 4-minute mile, or a 4-hour
> marathon, is a test of physical "endurance."
Silly exaggeration, that'd kill anyone. Dare I say society needs both sexes? I'm a guy. Since when was that a crime? That's beside the point, I know. The point is, which sex is stronger. I've known girls who are greatly smarter than me. And others who weren't. Same with physical strength, endurance, speed at learning. Some more, some less.
And since when is stronger better? Aren't we all geeks here?
> whose brain is more efficient, prehaps even
> intelligent, in terms of ability to indentify
> information, gather it, organize it, store it
> and retrieve it? Big Lie=Man. Like myself now,
> men are constantly blasting off, focusing on
> this point or that point, while women listen,
> gather sort and organize information about
> everything else going on in the room.
Oh, I'm a listener, just in a talkative mood right now. Maybe if I talk reasonably instead of in an insulted way, I can improve the reputation of guys as a whole? Worth a shot. There are women who think all guys are jerks, pigs. Maybe I can show them that's not so.
As for the "more intelligent" part, it used to be quite socially acceptable to talk about how a Hispanic or Asian brain was genetically incapable of matching the superior Caucasian intelligence. Of course now, we know how ridiculus that is. Now some women are using the same argument against guys. It'll blow over, I'm sure. If it doesn't, I'll manage to get a good job anyway, I'm sure.
> In term's of brain structure, men's neurons are
> organized in cubes, women's in tetrahedrons. The
> timing differences of these two shapes, and the
> smaller cellular packing, i.e. in terms of
> neuron timing, the faster neuron spacing, makes
> the brains of women "faster" than that of men,
> in that their brains respond to a higher
> frequency of information.
Pardon me while I sing along to "Alive and Kicking" on the radio - love that 1980's rock.
I know this is wild blue yonder off topic, but I have *got* to get that on cd... anyone know what group did that song?
Oh, yes - brain structure - yeah, I was reading in "Escalante" by Jay Mathews, (good book, btw) how it used to be very fashionable to talk about the inferior brain structures of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Don't flame me, I know it's ridiculus. But back then, they scientifically "proved" how blacks, asians, and hispanics couldn't hope to keep up with a caucasian. They used that to excuse why the research labs and engineering classes were full of whites. Then Jaime Escalante taught advanced placement calculus to a bunch of inner-city hispanics. Anyone can be whatever they want to be, if they believe it and work hard for a long time.
> God did not write men out of the picture. He
> gave them higher capacity for physical impulse,
> and their "slower," i.e. the longer timing
> synchronicity of their brain structures, gives
> them an inclination to see a more distant
> horizon than women's brains can in general
> perceive.
Gee, if that was a compliment, I think I may have missed it... are you saying men are workhorses, good for physical strength and endurance?
> On the way out fringes of feminism, the long
> range challenge for geek women, i.e. for the
> survival of "mankind" in space, is to figure out
> a way to steal from the seed of their fathers,
> i.e. to clone-breed women only, eliminating the
> inefficiency and imbalance, and vision distance
> or creativity, of men.
Stealing sperm and raising women only? What are you going to do with the women who disagree with your methods?
To say nothing about what you'll do to the men.
Look, I won't deny any of that. I'm imbalanced, inefficient, imperfect. Comes with being human. I'm sure there are plenty of women who've locked their keys in their car, or slept through an alarm, or been late for a deadline. I don't like perfect people, they're arrogent, proud... just please, let everyone be human? Forgive people for not being perfect, okay? No man, and no woman could live up to the standards you list.