I haven't seen his posts before, though I agree that he sounded very much like a shill. As for describing his explanation as autistic, I'm not as sure that's the best way to describe it. I'm either autistic or affected by asbergers, though I'm a very mild case of which ever it is (I haven't been examined thoroughly for some time, though I will be again very soon, so hopefully they can shed more light on the situation), and I have an Autistic father and brother (there's no doubt about my father, but my brother might be moderate to severe asbergers instead of autistic, I, again, am not sure). My father is generally very quiet, becoming loud only when he loses his temper (which can be quite a frightening experience). My father's writing is never orchestrated like that of the AC; he only all caps what absolutely needs to be, and his sentences are concise. Of course, I might be being a little over sensitive. and misinterpreted your meaning.
Okay, so I was wrong to an extent; I'll admit it, but I still haven't seen a lot of evidence that they're selling Linux on any of their true workhorses, and that would, to me, at least, show that they are truly serious about Linux, and not just trying to get Microsoft into a snit because of Vista. And, by and by, that configuration is still low end, though its among the best of the low end; it's a little better than my machine (home built), which has only 1 GB RAM and uses a fairly comparable AMD, purchased almost three years ago, at the time one of the best of the low end machines (and it cost me a lot less than $1000, too; might have been around $750 if I'd bothered purchasing a new video card instead of sticking with the ancient GeForce2 I'd bought for the machine it replaced).
Pish-posh. Part of the reason I dropped XP and switched to Linux was because I wanted to make sure I would never have to think about installing Vista. Therefore, in a sense, I went to Linux over Vista; the other major reason I abandoned XP was to restore the network functionality of my network equipment, which XP's pitiful security measures allowed to be destroyed. To be honest, I think Vista's new UI is the ugliest thing I've ever seen; I'm not tremendously fond of GNOME, but at least, IMO, it looks (and is much more convenient) far better than any GUI Microsoft has ever developed.
So the summary should read...
Craig Venter is expected to announce that his team has created
You obviously don't work in the biomedical research industry. Managers take credit.
Are you implying that biomedical research managers are the only ones who take credit? I've seen managers in several industries, including some entirely unrelated to biomedicine, though I can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment, such as a large portion of a number of computer industries, also take credit, without giving any regard for the team responsible for much of the work. While it's true that this, at least, seems to be the exception rather than the rule, as many other industries appear to give a great deal of credit to the team members, even some, such as the motion picture industry, giving too much, the issue is something that should draw more attention. Not to criticize your analysis, which I believe is wholly accurate, I would have liked to see at least a small, though indirect mention that the 'managers take credit' comment applies to other industries as well.
Generally that's true, but Power Supplies can go out in ways that aren't readily evident:
They can just stop working (sometimes without warning, as I have experienced via other friends).
They drive you batty for several weeks/months, then stop working (like my last supply did; fortunately, my current supply, which was used, is working fine).
My friend and I happened upon two of my friend's former neighbors at a computer store as they were getting their computer back from repair. The technicians at the store claimed the issue was the motherboard, but as soon as my friend and I powered the machine up, we could tell that the problem wasn't either; the computer would boot to the Windows splash screen, and then we would lose picture, and afterwards, subsequent reboots would only give the video driver screen before the screen blanked, we realized that the problem was the power supply. My friend subsequently arranged to work on fixing the problem for a lot less than the store charged them for not fixing the issue, basically charging a little for labor and at cost for the replacement power supply, if he found he would be unable to replace it with a working used supply, as we did my own when it went out. Not all power supply problems are immediately evident, and some problems attributable to a power supply issues are actually motherboard issues.
I'm not sure Dell really is serious about Linux; why sell the OS only on the cheapest, crappiest machines they manufacture? If they decided to add the option to their workhorses in addition to the ultra-budget models, even if only as a test for market viability, then I'd get the feeling they were actually getting serious about the venture. Limiting Linux to the crap tells me that's their opinion regarding the OS; my analysis might not be accurate, or might even be completely false, but they're showing no evidence that I'm wrong.
I know his post probably hadn't been modded very high by the time you responded, but by the time I got to it (fourteen hours after your post and sixteen hours after his), it had been very respectfully modded to 5; is it possible to mod someone higher? I totally agree with you. His opinion is very well stated and clearly deserving of the five points and the Insightful rating he received.
I'm using dial up and Linux, and I still have a real firewall; my router, which is behind another firewall, a dial-up router. Sorry, couldn't resist the BS comment.
No, you aren't alone at all. I, too, have the same lack of protection for the same reason, and many others who have posted on the overall thread have offered similar opinions; you are not alone. Windows was designed to be vulnerable to attack; it allows software to run where it shouldn't be, it gives drivers and all sorts of other things privileges they don't need and shouldn't have, and it allows basic software access to drivers they have no need to communicate with. The complexity is part of the problem, but basically, as I've frequently put it to other people I've spoken with, though I've never published it online before, is that Microsoft's most popular method of fixing security problems is to nail 2x4s over the cracks in the foundation, which does absolutely nothing to resolve the problem. Microsoft would rather convince customers to board up their windows and doors than install locks on the doors in the first place, and then they viciously block every possible attempt to actually fix the problems their poor architecture causes in the first place.
So, what's the short answer?
PEBKAC is merely one of many symptoms, the poor quality of the core architecture of the OS is the most severe issue.
You've hit the nail squarely on the head, so to speak; I've had that same opinion for years. In addition to Windows and IE, why does VBA need to be able to do things that aren't specifically vital to the operation of MS Office? I can't think of a single reason why a macro should ever need the power to speak to the OS. Another thing that Windows does poorly is it allows non-OS software to run in ring 0 in the first place; ring 0, by necessity, offers no protection at all to the system, as the kernel cannot operate properly with any protection measures in place. No hardware driver, or anything other than the main MMU (memory management unit, which includes the scheduler) and the central IO controller (the part used exclusively by the operating system to coordinate information flow) needs that kind of power. Someone once posted a very secure layout for an operating system that I had actually already worked out in planning the design of my own CPU:
Ring 0: OS only, no exceptions
Ring 1: Drivers and other non-OS interrupts
Ring 3: User Software
No OS should ever need to lay out its application architecture differently; if a program needs a little more control over the hardware, allow the app to use Ring 1 via interrupts, and give it permission to speak to the hardware it absolutely needs to speak to, and nothing more -- and certain components, such as the network stack and the drive system, should be completely off limits to anything but their specific drivers, no exceptions. This, I believe, would solve thousands of security issues without inconveniencing the user or application developers. As long as the developer knows the absolute limitations of what they're allowed to do, they should be able to write software that does anything they need it to without finding any reason to attempt to circumvent those limitations, and the OS should fault any software that attempts to do what it's not allowed to.
In my opinion, this would virtually eliminate the problem that viruses have become. I eagerly welcome other comments and ideas.
AOL just dumps dozens of registry keys (and then leaves most of them when you try uninstalling); I know this not from experience, but from some testing someone reported on when I worked as a Microsoft Windows technician. My objective here was to make a joke about AOL, not to provide an actual, intellectual response. I guess it wasn't that funny, as I had to explain what I meant.
I am very much in agreement with you, and I think that Ubuntu will help with this as well; it may not be perfect, after all what is, but it's designed to do almost everything hardware related on its own in a manner very similar to the way the Mac OS does it. I've used Ubuntu for nearly six months now, since just after Feisty came out, and I've been very happy with my decision. I'm very disappointed that Corel is essentially sitting on WordPerfect and not releasing it to the world the way they should, and I really find Open Office annoying in comparison, as WordPerfect is a much more solid product, but aside from that, there was nothing keeping me locked into Windows. I've heard the complaints about WordPerfect, but I can positively say that I ran WordPerfect 9 for at least seven years and rarely had a major problem; crashes were infrequent, and WordPerfect generally recovered quite effectively after those rare failures, so I rarely lost more than a few minutes of work. Sorry, I meant this to be more of an agreement with you on your comments, but I am very passionate about WordPerfect, so sometimes I go off on huge tangents. Anyway, what I meant to say was that I've found Ubuntu to be very stable (crashed only once, and even then it wasn't a complete crap out) and reliable, which I never, ever found Windows to be.
I don't disagree with you completely, but while C's lack of natural bounds checking is a major weakness, bounds checking can easily be designed into the architecture using a simple "if (OFFSET_EXPRESSION BUFFER_LIMIT) PERFORM_BUFFER_OPERATION (buffer [OFFSET_EXPRESSION]);" where OFFSET_EXPRESSION is whatever the expression that determines the offset is, excluding any offset advance codes, and adding a "+ VALID_OFFSET_INCREASE" to the end if the advance code is done before the expression is used, and PERFORM_BUFFER_OPERATION... is the operation dealing with the buffer. Yes, I might have gone a little overboard in presenting my example, but the principle works, and implements a fully functional bounds checking procedure.
I agree with you completely. Part of the core problem that MS has, is that they write Windows to allow drivers to run in ring 0; no decent operating system should allow anything to run in ring 0 except its own MM (memory management, which includes the scheduler) and its primary IO controller (which is not the driver component). All drivers should be run in ring 1, and programs should be run in ring 3. I know all this because I've designed a completely different CPU of my own which is laid out differently -- the modes are numbered by the power they provide, and there are only three, User (0/1; doesn't really matter which, as the first bit is the decider for that mode), System 1/Interrupt (2), and System 2/Administrator (3) -- so I've had to study about what a decent processor should make possible on each security level. As far as I am aware, neither the Mac OS kernel nor the Linux/BSD kernels allow this type of activity. Besides, how much power does a driver require other than to talk with the hardware it was designed to interface with and translate that information into something the OS can understand; it doesn't need administrator rights to do any of that, and can easily be organized to flag the OS when it's got information ready. Anyway, nice post.
Fortunately, not all of the Native American languages have been forced to die completely. We should remember that members of the Navajo nation used a code based on their own language to help out during WWII; the Japanese, and possibly the Germans, too, I can't quite remember all of the details, couldn't make out anything that they were saying because they had no means of identifying the language. Of course, that's basically a form of security through obscurity, but that's not always a bad thing (not to say that I mean the principle is good more often than it is bad, as I would argue the opposite in most cases).
While I agree that the help agent could be considered an equivalent to Clippy, I would argue that it's no where near as annoying; it's not animated by default, and it goes away on its own after a few seconds. Of course, if I had a Windows install running on a VM, I could just install WP9 again, and I wouldn't ever have to worry about an 'office assistant' ever again; WordPerfect's Perfect Assistants are far more useful than any MS help file I've ever seen, and they're completely optional, and by default, WordPerfect's help is a standard question/search/browse interface. As soon as I'm able, I'm going to; I can't stand OpenOffice's Writer, and I detest Impress (who ever heard of dumping color selection into a list box, anyway?)
Personally, I use an IM to chat with friends; it works perfectly fine for that, so I don't really care what shortcomings Pidgin has. My only weakness is I haven't worked out how to get it installed on my computer (Ubuntu 64 bit), yet.
Excellent comment, but there is just one minor little point you appear to have misinterpreted (not that it's very difficult to do so); the U.S. is not supposed to be a democracy; Benjamin Franklin is frequently quoted as saying that we are a 'Republic, if you can keep it'. The Senate was created to balance the House of Representatives, so the urban masses wouldn't acquire such a big voice that they dominated all policy, leaving the rural population to suffer, which is a very undemocratic idea (as this gives the minority a real voice). This worked quite well for some time, too, though as always, there are people have done everything they can to destroy our system. For all intents and purposes, however, we are still more a republic than a democracy.
Very well stated. I completely agree with you on your real life example, too. Female criminals can be just as vicious as male criminals, so I see no reason at all for treating a woman who murders her husband any different than a man who murders his wife. In my opinion, murder, specifically the act of deliberately, intentionally, taking the life of another person for one's own selfish ends, is one of the worst crimes imaginable, regardless of what excuses the murderer might use to sanction his or her act; I am not an opponent of capital punishment, however, provided proof of the crime (which I feel should be limited solely to first degree murder) has been solidly, unmistakably, and unquestionably proven (very difficult, I'll admit, but it is possible). I would also argue that anyone who commits a crime, then pins the blame on an innocent and ensures that they are executed for the crime are guilty of both murders; in some cases, I feel it's better to simply let God be the final judge.
Couple of quick points; I disagree with some of what you say, and I agree with some of your other interpretations. The creation was, I believe, more of an organization; I go into a little more detail in another response on a different branch of this post. I also believe you're correct about the seven literal days nonsense; if the world didn't exist at that time, why would God consider a day to be the same thing that we do? My religion believes that a day in God's reckoning is the equivalent to a thousand years in ours, but we also believe that the Genesis 1 creation wasn't quite what most people believe it was; again, see my other post.
As for your interpretation that Adam was the first white guy, I believe that there are many things we, as mortals, do not understand; we don't know how God does what he does any more than we know why he does things the way he does them. Also, consider that Seth, Adam's successor, was born, by the Biblical account, one hundred thirty years after Adam; as man was commanded in Genesis chapter 1 to be fruitful and multiply, why would Adam and Eve wait over a century before bearing children, or why would they have stopped after Cain and Abel were born? Anyway, good post; enjoy.
I would like to say I agree with much of what you say. Furthermore, the KJV, which, I personally believe, is a fairly faithful interpretation, does have mistakes that were created at the time of its composition; there is at least one line in the sermon on the mount that I'm sure doesn't belong. Also, I would argue that anyone who says that the Bible hasn't been tampered with over the ages is full of it, IMO, as it is in the hands of men. Good point in stating that many of the translators had little theological background; I'd hope that more mistakes in the Bible are innocent errors than those that are deliberate assaults on the truth.
As for Esther, the story is more one of faith than anything else; her determination to defend her uncle, who refuses to worship the king, is what I personally feel earns it its place in the Bible, though the Song of Solomon, which, from what little of it I've read, doesn't appear to be particularly religious, may not be something that belongs. A number of the 'racist' rules in the Bible are also subject to scrutiny, as much of what we need to know might possibly be missing; I, personally, believe that the Bible is somewhat incomplete, missing a, hopefully, small portion, not that it doesn't contain critical doctrine and advice.
The New Testament also includes a number of references that indicate missing books, such as Zenos (might be misspelling his name or thinking of someone else), who might be Enoch, as he is frequently reference by Jesus. Also, if I remember correctly, most if not all of the New Testament wasn't written in Hebrew, but Greek, which is why there are odd 'mistakes', like references to Jonah as Jonas; the Greek translation of the name might turn out different than the Hebrew.
Other things to consider: Genesis 2 retells the creation of the world, in a sense, but reorganizes the way things supposedly happened; we really don't know much about how the world itself was actually created and pieced together. Also, the term day in Genesis 1 is very unlikely to mean one of our 24 hour days, but rather a time period that God observes; the fourth 'day' refers to the creation of the sun, the moon, and the stars, and designated their use in ruling day and night then, which means that what he considered day evening and morning may have had dealt with a very different period of time.
All of this indicates that the creation may have happened in a way we can scarcely imagine; we cannot say exactly what happened, or how God did what he claims to. I'd rather believe that we know very little of how God's word relates to science, and that one day, all those who choose to remain open minded will come to a far greater understanding of the principles that allow religion and science to merge without hostility.
One final note; I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so I do have a few other sources that I can use in explaining what I believe with regards to the Bible, and for those who think that Mormons, as we are commonly referred to, do not believe in the Bible, I'd like to point out that it is, one of our standard works; the Book of Mormon is not a replacement of the Bible, it is a companion, and we are, and have always been, urged to study the Bible as vigorously as we do the Book of Mormon.
P.S. The LDS belief on Genesis chapters 1 and 2 is that Chapter 1 was a spiritual creation of the world, whereas Chapter 2 was a physical organization of the matter that had been spiritually created on the newly formed earth. It's a little difficult to explain this principle clearly to those who don't have a doctrinal understanding of our beliefs, so I hope my explanation hasn't confused anyone who reads this hopelessly.
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I haven't seen his posts before, though I agree that he sounded very much like a shill. As for describing his explanation as autistic, I'm not as sure that's the best way to describe it. I'm either autistic or affected by asbergers, though I'm a very mild case of which ever it is (I haven't been examined thoroughly for some time, though I will be again very soon, so hopefully they can shed more light on the situation), and I have an Autistic father and brother (there's no doubt about my father, but my brother might be moderate to severe asbergers instead of autistic, I, again, am not sure). My father is generally very quiet, becoming loud only when he loses his temper (which can be quite a frightening experience). My father's writing is never orchestrated like that of the AC; he only all caps what absolutely needs to be, and his sentences are concise. Of course, I might be being a little over sensitive. and misinterpreted your meaning.
Okay, so I was wrong to an extent; I'll admit it, but I still haven't seen a lot of evidence that they're selling Linux on any of their true workhorses, and that would, to me, at least, show that they are truly serious about Linux, and not just trying to get Microsoft into a snit because of Vista. And, by and by, that configuration is still low end, though its among the best of the low end; it's a little better than my machine (home built), which has only 1 GB RAM and uses a fairly comparable AMD, purchased almost three years ago, at the time one of the best of the low end machines (and it cost me a lot less than $1000, too; might have been around $750 if I'd bothered purchasing a new video card instead of sticking with the ancient GeForce2 I'd bought for the machine it replaced).
Pish-posh. Part of the reason I dropped XP and switched to Linux was because I wanted to make sure I would never have to think about installing Vista. Therefore, in a sense, I went to Linux over Vista; the other major reason I abandoned XP was to restore the network functionality of my network equipment, which XP's pitiful security measures allowed to be destroyed. To be honest, I think Vista's new UI is the ugliest thing I've ever seen; I'm not tremendously fond of GNOME, but at least, IMO, it looks (and is much more convenient) far better than any GUI Microsoft has ever developed.
Are you implying that biomedical research managers are the only ones who take credit? I've seen managers in several industries, including some entirely unrelated to biomedicine, though I can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment, such as a large portion of a number of computer industries, also take credit, without giving any regard for the team responsible for much of the work. While it's true that this, at least, seems to be the exception rather than the rule, as many other industries appear to give a great deal of credit to the team members, even some, such as the motion picture industry, giving too much, the issue is something that should draw more attention. Not to criticize your analysis, which I believe is wholly accurate, I would have liked to see at least a small, though indirect mention that the 'managers take credit' comment applies to other industries as well.
They can just stop working (sometimes without warning, as I have experienced via other friends).
They drive you batty for several weeks/months, then stop working (like my last supply did; fortunately, my current supply, which was used, is working fine).
My friend and I happened upon two of my friend's former neighbors at a computer store as they were getting their computer back from repair. The technicians at the store claimed the issue was the motherboard, but as soon as my friend and I powered the machine up, we could tell that the problem wasn't either; the computer would boot to the Windows splash screen, and then we would lose picture, and afterwards, subsequent reboots would only give the video driver screen before the screen blanked, we realized that the problem was the power supply. My friend subsequently arranged to work on fixing the problem for a lot less than the store charged them for not fixing the issue, basically charging a little for labor and at cost for the replacement power supply, if he found he would be unable to replace it with a working used supply, as we did my own when it went out. Not all power supply problems are immediately evident, and some problems attributable to a power supply issues are actually motherboard issues.
I'm not sure Dell really is serious about Linux; why sell the OS only on the cheapest, crappiest machines they manufacture? If they decided to add the option to their workhorses in addition to the ultra-budget models, even if only as a test for market viability, then I'd get the feeling they were actually getting serious about the venture. Limiting Linux to the crap tells me that's their opinion regarding the OS; my analysis might not be accurate, or might even be completely false, but they're showing no evidence that I'm wrong.
I know his post probably hadn't been modded very high by the time you responded, but by the time I got to it (fourteen hours after your post and sixteen hours after his), it had been very respectfully modded to 5; is it possible to mod someone higher? I totally agree with you. His opinion is very well stated and clearly deserving of the five points and the Insightful rating he received.
While I have absolutely nothing against my country in general, that is one good reason NOT to be an American.
I'm using dial up and Linux, and I still have a real firewall; my router, which is behind another firewall, a dial-up router. Sorry, couldn't resist the BS comment.
Just kidding.
No, you aren't alone at all. I, too, have the same lack of protection for the same reason, and many others who have posted on the overall thread have offered similar opinions; you are not alone. Windows was designed to be vulnerable to attack; it allows software to run where it shouldn't be, it gives drivers and all sorts of other things privileges they don't need and shouldn't have, and it allows basic software access to drivers they have no need to communicate with. The complexity is part of the problem, but basically, as I've frequently put it to other people I've spoken with, though I've never published it online before, is that Microsoft's most popular method of fixing security problems is to nail 2x4s over the cracks in the foundation, which does absolutely nothing to resolve the problem. Microsoft would rather convince customers to board up their windows and doors than install locks on the doors in the first place, and then they viciously block every possible attempt to actually fix the problems their poor architecture causes in the first place.
So, what's the short answer?
PEBKAC is merely one of many symptoms, the poor quality of the core architecture of the OS is the most severe issue.
Ring 0: OS only, no exceptions
Ring 1: Drivers and other non-OS interrupts
Ring 3: User Software
No OS should ever need to lay out its application architecture differently; if a program needs a little more control over the hardware, allow the app to use Ring 1 via interrupts, and give it permission to speak to the hardware it absolutely needs to speak to, and nothing more -- and certain components, such as the network stack and the drive system, should be completely off limits to anything but their specific drivers, no exceptions. This, I believe, would solve thousands of security issues without inconveniencing the user or application developers. As long as the developer knows the absolute limitations of what they're allowed to do, they should be able to write software that does anything they need it to without finding any reason to attempt to circumvent those limitations, and the OS should fault any software that attempts to do what it's not allowed to.
In my opinion, this would virtually eliminate the problem that viruses have become. I eagerly welcome other comments and ideas.
AOL just dumps dozens of registry keys (and then leaves most of them when you try uninstalling); I know this not from experience, but from some testing someone reported on when I worked as a Microsoft Windows technician. My objective here was to make a joke about AOL, not to provide an actual, intellectual response. I guess it wasn't that funny, as I had to explain what I meant.
I am very much in agreement with you, and I think that Ubuntu will help with this as well; it may not be perfect, after all what is, but it's designed to do almost everything hardware related on its own in a manner very similar to the way the Mac OS does it. I've used Ubuntu for nearly six months now, since just after Feisty came out, and I've been very happy with my decision. I'm very disappointed that Corel is essentially sitting on WordPerfect and not releasing it to the world the way they should, and I really find Open Office annoying in comparison, as WordPerfect is a much more solid product, but aside from that, there was nothing keeping me locked into Windows. I've heard the complaints about WordPerfect, but I can positively say that I ran WordPerfect 9 for at least seven years and rarely had a major problem; crashes were infrequent, and WordPerfect generally recovered quite effectively after those rare failures, so I rarely lost more than a few minutes of work. Sorry, I meant this to be more of an agreement with you on your comments, but I am very passionate about WordPerfect, so sometimes I go off on huge tangents. Anyway, what I meant to say was that I've found Ubuntu to be very stable (crashed only once, and even then it wasn't a complete crap out) and reliable, which I never, ever found Windows to be.
I don't disagree with you completely, but while C's lack of natural bounds checking is a major weakness, bounds checking can easily be designed into the architecture using a simple "if (OFFSET_EXPRESSION BUFFER_LIMIT) PERFORM_BUFFER_OPERATION (buffer [OFFSET_EXPRESSION]);" where OFFSET_EXPRESSION is whatever the expression that determines the offset is, excluding any offset advance codes, and adding a "+ VALID_OFFSET_INCREASE" to the end if the advance code is done before the expression is used, and PERFORM_BUFFER_OPERATION ... is the operation dealing with the buffer. Yes, I might have gone a little overboard in presenting my example, but the principle works, and implements a fully functional bounds checking procedure.
I agree with you completely. Part of the core problem that MS has, is that they write Windows to allow drivers to run in ring 0; no decent operating system should allow anything to run in ring 0 except its own MM (memory management, which includes the scheduler) and its primary IO controller (which is not the driver component). All drivers should be run in ring 1, and programs should be run in ring 3. I know all this because I've designed a completely different CPU of my own which is laid out differently -- the modes are numbered by the power they provide, and there are only three, User (0/1; doesn't really matter which, as the first bit is the decider for that mode), System 1/Interrupt (2), and System 2/Administrator (3) -- so I've had to study about what a decent processor should make possible on each security level. As far as I am aware, neither the Mac OS kernel nor the Linux/BSD kernels allow this type of activity. Besides, how much power does a driver require other than to talk with the hardware it was designed to interface with and translate that information into something the OS can understand; it doesn't need administrator rights to do any of that, and can easily be organized to flag the OS when it's got information ready. Anyway, nice post.
You mean worse than AOL?
Fortunately, not all of the Native American languages have been forced to die completely. We should remember that members of the Navajo nation used a code based on their own language to help out during WWII; the Japanese, and possibly the Germans, too, I can't quite remember all of the details, couldn't make out anything that they were saying because they had no means of identifying the language. Of course, that's basically a form of security through obscurity, but that's not always a bad thing (not to say that I mean the principle is good more often than it is bad, as I would argue the opposite in most cases).
While I agree that the help agent could be considered an equivalent to Clippy, I would argue that it's no where near as annoying; it's not animated by default, and it goes away on its own after a few seconds. Of course, if I had a Windows install running on a VM, I could just install WP9 again, and I wouldn't ever have to worry about an 'office assistant' ever again; WordPerfect's Perfect Assistants are far more useful than any MS help file I've ever seen, and they're completely optional, and by default, WordPerfect's help is a standard question/search/browse interface. As soon as I'm able, I'm going to; I can't stand OpenOffice's Writer, and I detest Impress (who ever heard of dumping color selection into a list box, anyway?)
One thing I failed to point out, though; I haven't really been trying too hard.
Personally, I use an IM to chat with friends; it works perfectly fine for that, so I don't really care what shortcomings Pidgin has. My only weakness is I haven't worked out how to get it installed on my computer (Ubuntu 64 bit), yet.
Excellent comment, but there is just one minor little point you appear to have misinterpreted (not that it's very difficult to do so); the U.S. is not supposed to be a democracy; Benjamin Franklin is frequently quoted as saying that we are a 'Republic, if you can keep it'. The Senate was created to balance the House of Representatives, so the urban masses wouldn't acquire such a big voice that they dominated all policy, leaving the rural population to suffer, which is a very undemocratic idea (as this gives the minority a real voice). This worked quite well for some time, too, though as always, there are people have done everything they can to destroy our system. For all intents and purposes, however, we are still more a republic than a democracy.
Not that I seriously question the truth of your statement, but sources, please.
Very well stated. I completely agree with you on your real life example, too. Female criminals can be just as vicious as male criminals, so I see no reason at all for treating a woman who murders her husband any different than a man who murders his wife. In my opinion, murder, specifically the act of deliberately, intentionally, taking the life of another person for one's own selfish ends, is one of the worst crimes imaginable, regardless of what excuses the murderer might use to sanction his or her act; I am not an opponent of capital punishment, however, provided proof of the crime (which I feel should be limited solely to first degree murder) has been solidly, unmistakably, and unquestionably proven (very difficult, I'll admit, but it is possible). I would also argue that anyone who commits a crime, then pins the blame on an innocent and ensures that they are executed for the crime are guilty of both murders; in some cases, I feel it's better to simply let God be the final judge.
As for your interpretation that Adam was the first white guy, I believe that there are many things we, as mortals, do not understand; we don't know how God does what he does any more than we know why he does things the way he does them. Also, consider that Seth, Adam's successor, was born, by the Biblical account, one hundred thirty years after Adam; as man was commanded in Genesis chapter 1 to be fruitful and multiply, why would Adam and Eve wait over a century before bearing children, or why would they have stopped after Cain and Abel were born? Anyway, good post; enjoy.
As for Esther, the story is more one of faith than anything else; her determination to defend her uncle, who refuses to worship the king, is what I personally feel earns it its place in the Bible, though the Song of Solomon, which, from what little of it I've read, doesn't appear to be particularly religious, may not be something that belongs. A number of the 'racist' rules in the Bible are also subject to scrutiny, as much of what we need to know might possibly be missing; I, personally, believe that the Bible is somewhat incomplete, missing a, hopefully, small portion, not that it doesn't contain critical doctrine and advice.
The New Testament also includes a number of references that indicate missing books, such as Zenos (might be misspelling his name or thinking of someone else), who might be Enoch, as he is frequently reference by Jesus. Also, if I remember correctly, most if not all of the New Testament wasn't written in Hebrew, but Greek, which is why there are odd 'mistakes', like references to Jonah as Jonas; the Greek translation of the name might turn out different than the Hebrew.
Other things to consider: Genesis 2 retells the creation of the world, in a sense, but reorganizes the way things supposedly happened; we really don't know much about how the world itself was actually created and pieced together. Also, the term day in Genesis 1 is very unlikely to mean one of our 24 hour days, but rather a time period that God observes; the fourth 'day' refers to the creation of the sun, the moon, and the stars, and designated their use in ruling day and night then, which means that what he considered day evening and morning may have had dealt with a very different period of time.
All of this indicates that the creation may have happened in a way we can scarcely imagine; we cannot say exactly what happened, or how God did what he claims to. I'd rather believe that we know very little of how God's word relates to science, and that one day, all those who choose to remain open minded will come to a far greater understanding of the principles that allow religion and science to merge without hostility.
One final note; I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so I do have a few other sources that I can use in explaining what I believe with regards to the Bible, and for those who think that Mormons, as we are commonly referred to, do not believe in the Bible, I'd like to point out that it is, one of our standard works; the Book of Mormon is not a replacement of the Bible, it is a companion, and we are, and have always been, urged to study the Bible as vigorously as we do the Book of Mormon.
P.S. The LDS belief on Genesis chapters 1 and 2 is that Chapter 1 was a spiritual creation of the world, whereas Chapter 2 was a physical organization of the matter that had been spiritually created on the newly formed earth. It's a little difficult to explain this principle clearly to those who don't have a doctrinal understanding of our beliefs, so I hope my explanation hasn't confused anyone who reads this hopelessly.