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User: digitig

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Comments · 4,132

  1. Re:Not surprising. on When Beliefs and Facts Collide · · Score: 1

    Dualism is based on nothing, true, but the same can be said for materialism and idealism. You've stepped outside science and into metaphysics, in just the way I described.

    Now, it is possible to reason about metaphysics, but trying to argue from science ("based on nothing"), ad-hominem attacks ("don't know shit about "mind" beyond their baseless dogma and refuse to learn about brains") and handwaving ("woo") doesn't make for a coherent case.

    Try reading "Aping Humanity" by Raymond Tallis -- prominent atheist, neuroscientist and philosopher -- and you might learn that things are more complex than you think. Assuming you're willing to move beyond baseless dogma, that is.

  2. Re:Not surprising. on When Beliefs and Facts Collide · · Score: 1

    Much of the rest of the planet (not all) is less polarised between science and religion, and finds ways -- with varying degrees of intellectual credibility -- of accommodating both without significant conflict. Typically that will involve accepting the science where it's pretty definitive (eg, evolution) whilst leaving things open when the science tries to stray into metaphysics (eg, dualism versus materialism).

  3. Re:Pissing off customers, much? on Amazon Dispute Now Making Movies Harder To Order · · Score: 2

    Actually, there is a good online one-stop-shop available: Google (other search engines are available). If I want a book, DVD or pretty much anything else I Google to see who has it available and at what price. If Amazon don't, hey, I probably won't even notice; I'll be busy comparing price and delivery options for the companies that do.

  4. Re:Competition Sucks on Uber Demonstrations Snarl Traffic In London, Madrid, Berlin · · Score: 1

    Lawmakers in Britain don't have to do anything, as Uber is already able and does comply with all licensing requirements.

    That's in dispute. It hinges on whether the app that Uber divers use to calculate the fare constitutes a taximeter or not. Uber (and Transport for London) say it doesn't because there's no physical connection required with the vehicle, whereas the black cab and minicab drivers say it does because it's a device that calculates the fare based on measured distance travelled. The case has yet to come to court, and until it does nobody really knows whether it's legal or not (personally I suspect it isn't, but IANAL).

  5. Re:War of government against people? on America 'Has Become a War Zone' · · Score: 1

    Further, the most dangerous cities to live in today, are precisely those cities with the strictest gun control.

    I'd like to see that evidence. Worldwide, that is, not just the USA.

    And the time series of gun control and violence -- after all, it couldn't be that the gun control is a response to the violence, could it?

  6. Re:Oh the humanities! on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    Yes, I spend a lot of my leisure time reading today's "great" literary fiction, and like much of it. I didn't much like Franzen's The Corrections, but then, Franzen's degree is in German, which offers other career opportunities if that writing thing doesn't work out for him. I've not read Don DeLillo, but I note that his degree is in "Communication Arts", but also that he worked as an advertising copywriter before becoming an author, so it looks as if that degree offers other career paths that pay better than waiting at tables.

  7. Re:market at work on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    Still counts as a "liberal art" -- it has general application, rather than being specifically vocational.

  8. Re:Oh the humanities! on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1, Informative

    They're more likely to your boss (or, more likely given your blinkered attitude, governing the welfare system you depend on) than waiting tables.

  9. Re:Oh the humanities! on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    Depends. What do you count as "important"? A lot of great books (which do have commercial value, for the Gradgrinds reading this) are written by English Lit graduates, and are likely better for that. Of course, being an author isn't a "tenure-track job", which the OP seems to think is the only sort of job that matters.

  10. Re:Scotland? on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 1

    The GiffGaff "goodybag" SIM-only bundles look as if they'd be a good option if she's in Glasgow or Edinburgh, because they're a reasonable price with no long-term contractual tie in that I can see. Their 4G coverage doesn't seem to extend to other Scottish towns and cities, though.

  11. Re:Scotland? on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 1

    If "all major locations" means Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Aberdeen & Dundee if you're lucky), yes.

  12. Re: Nexus 4? on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 1

    Then she's going to have to be very picky where she goes in Scotland, or find another source of high speed data.

  13. Re: Nexus 4? on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 2

    And even where there is nominal 4G coverage, it's patchy. I live in London, which is supposed to be pretty well covered by 4G, but much of the time I can't get it.

    On the other hand, 3G should be fine in Scotland. Sure, a lot of Scotland has no cellphone signal at all, but that's because a lot of Scotland is wilderness. If the OP's daughter is actually studying in a town, the mobile signal should be fine. And there will be plenty of free WiFi hotspots - coffee shops, bars & McDonalds - if she wants to voip home to ask for money.

  14. Re:Time to become a better shopper on Amazon Confirms Hachette Spat Is To "Get a Better Deal" · · Score: 1

    I'd be interested to know how much difference Amazon's actions are actually making to Hachette. If I want to buy a book online I Google for it and find a supplier that has it for a reasonable price (and can deliver in reasonable time, if I'm buying the dead tree version). If Amazon doesn't have it or has a long lead time, won't folks just go somewhere else? It's not as if they actually have to walk down the street to get to the next store. As far as I can see, all Amazon is doing is encouraging buyers to check out the competition, but I don't know whether the figures back that up.

  15. Re:A step in the right direction on London Police To Wear Video Cameras In Pilot Project · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not actually true -- I live in London, and it's a five-minute walk from my house until I get on camera (basically, when I get to my local high street). The majority of the cameras you see reported in London (and the UK as a whole) are private security cameras inside shops. And the figures for the vast number of cameras in the UK are bogus -- they were based on counting the number of cameras on two busy shopping streets and multiplying by the total number of streets in the UK.

  16. Re:Cognitive dissonance bites greedy capitalists.. on Visual Effects Artists Use MPAA's Own Words Against It · · Score: 1

    With any luck it will mean they start spending money on storyline instead of VFX.

  17. Re:What's the difference? on Facebook Debuts New Gender Options, Pronoun Choices · · Score: 1

    And as we see, occasionally we find someone who doesn't so much have a dick as is a dick.

  18. Re:What's the difference? on Facebook Debuts New Gender Options, Pronoun Choices · · Score: 1

    See above. About 1%. So if you take Facebook's membership as about 1 billion, that's about ten million users. Probably worth the effort of some extra items in a drop-down menu.

  19. Re:This is what I HATE! Misunderstood by no-coders on Non-Coders As the Face of the Learn-to-Code Movements · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I learned almost entirely from books. I've no idea what Kernigan and Ritchie were like in front of a class -- I was in the wrong country to find out -- and for all I know they might have written The C Programming Language in their moms' basements. Ditto Knuth, ditto Booch, and so on. Sure, there's no reason for a programmer not to be a great presenter, but there's no reason they have to be for us to learn from them.

  20. Re:Kill capitol punishment! Kill it dead! on Controversial Execution In Ohio Uses New Lethal Drug Combination · · Score: 1

    Since you didn't post AC, I'll bite. As a forward, I believe in the death penalty (as it should be, not as it is), but am willing to see it discontinued for several reasons. I'm not fanatically in love with the idea.

    I am against the death penalty for one simple reason. It gives the government more power than I trust the government with,

  21. Re:So it's turtles all the way across. on Why We Think There's a Multiverse, Not Just Our Universe · · Score: 1

    Well, in this universe, at least.

  22. Re:multi-options on Why We Think There's a Multiverse, Not Just Our Universe · · Score: 1

    Well, that's one possible metaphysical assumption.

  23. Re:How is this on US Justice Blocks Implementation of ACA Contraceptive Mandate · · Score: 2

    Plus there is the nasty trick of the Morning After Pill which is considered a contraceptive but is in reality an Abortion Pill.

    Wrong (almost certainly). The best evidence is that "morning after pill" works by preventing fertilisation, not by inducing abortion, as you'd know if you'd read the RA (though of course this is /, so there wasn't much chance of that).

  24. Re: All or nothing on US Justice Blocks Implementation of ACA Contraceptive Mandate · · Score: 1

    These church organizations only "pay for abortions" if their members CHOOSE to go get them. Why don't they just TRUST their members not to get abortions?

    What have abortions got to do with it? This is about contraception, not abortion.

  25. Re:ONE independent demo, please on Ford Self-Driving R&D Car Tells Small Animal From Paper Bag At 200 Ft. · · Score: 1

    I suspect the biggest issue isn't technical. At the moment, if a driver drives full speed into a line of kids crossing the road it's the driver who ends up in court. If it's an autonomous self-driving vehicle, it's likely the vehicle manufacturer who ends up in court.

    I don't expect the lawyers to allow these vehicles on the road in my lifetime.