Yes, it's the argument that Amazon correctly uses to point out that they are not constitutionally obliged to pay state/county/city sales taxes in every state/county/city.
I disagree. An expert player at SSB will beat a merely good player just as consistently as in, say Street Fighter IV... and will benefit just as much from extended training.
Darwinian selection is the process by which animal species change over time. That is one example of evolution, a specific example which happens to rely on hereditary characteristics, reproduction, and so forth.
But 'evolution' is a word that simply means change over time. Evolution was used as a term long before Darwin; indeed, it was known that animals evolved before there was any good explanation for how they evolved.
The term 'evolution' isn't limited to living creatures any more than the term 'drive' is limited only to cars. It's simply the most common usage of the word. It's probably better to use the term 'natural selection' when you're referring to the evolution of species. Natural selection requires reproduction, for instance, while evolution doesn't.
First off: Everybody browsing this thinks you're an idiot, due to both your opinion (it's wrong) and your presentation (emotional, irrational, vulgar, and immature).
Secondly, the biggest problem with Javascript (really, the only significant one) isn't a problem with Javascript at all; it's a problem with browsers. The model they adopted of autoloading and autorunning scripts and/or applets is completely wrong. Web sites should always have been 100% static as a default, with scripts and embedded applets running only when actively triggered by the user. If any other scripting language had been used instead of Javascript, such as Python, everybody would hate IT instead.
In a modern context, "fascism" means government surveillance and suppression of free speech.
I like how you added the 'modern context' caveat, in order to try to cut the people that actually KNOW what fascism means off before they can correct you. You're obviously a communist*.
*by communist, I mean in the slashdot context, as a person who posted something I don't agree with. Not that outmoded definition as a type of economic system...
Oh yeah, and where the fuck did the water come from? Are there glaciers on top of these goddamn floating mountains?
The same place water comes from on mountains on earth?
why do the bad guys have such a fucking boner over the space smurf's home when they could just stick a tow-strap on the mountains that have so much of it that THEY CREATE FLOATING FUCKING MOUNTAINS
I imagine that mining a floating mountain is much harder and more expensive?
You are surely free to criticize, but if your desperate complaints can be easily answered with a slight application of common sense, it's probably revealing more about you than about the movie. Why so angry? Is it because Avatar was successful?
Also, what is causing the magnetic fields to be so strong as to levitate mountains?
Pandora had a molten iron core, like earth's but larger, and because of tidal effects from the gas giant it was orbiting, the core was rotating much faster than earth's. This generated a much stronger magnetic field, that was complicated by interaction with the gas giant's strong magnetic field. That is apparently what caused the unobtanium to form naturally in the first place. Sure, it's all stretching the science to a breaking point... but I don't mind that. At least it's an attempt at plausibility, and that's FAR more than 90% of SF films do.
Odds are that the house you are in RIGHT NOW was taken by a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises
As they took it from the people before them, and they from the people before them, and so on. I took it through voluntary negotiation and peaceful dealing. Thanks; you're making me feel better about myself.
Not just western. This is about a consistent behavior of humans, not a particular culture. I'm pretty sure an ancient Egyptian would view the basic plot as an old, familiar story.
The scientist twin and some others are studying the natives by tele-operating clones, because the aliens are 15 ft tall and breathe methane.
Just a side note: The atmosphere has plenty of oxygen, and the native life is based on the same respiratory process we use. The problem for us is that carbon dioxide constitutes close to 2% of the atmosphere; that's why humans lose consciousness & die when exposed, but aren't really hurt by short exposure. They're not carrying around air supplies with them, just air filters.
That wasn't really explained clearly in the movie, but was part of the supporting material.
There will be some that will be put off by the underlying message regarding the western industrialized corporate mentality of dealing death and destruction to other cultures for profit. But, hey, the shoe fits... we really DO suck in real life..
If it was a criticism of us (modern U.S.), why did the plot seem like it a could have found a home a couple centuries ago? I think it was more a criticism of a certain universal type of human behavior, than any particular culture or event. Keep in mind, the story was written a decade ago.
If it seems like it's directed at us, it's just because we suffer from the SAME flaws that people have always suffered from. It's worth remembering that many of the characters exhibit the same virtues that people have always displayed, too.
The story was fairly simple, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes stories are simple because the creator is incompetent, and can't actually design anything complex that holds together. That's not the case, here. This is a deliberately simple story, executed well. That's not a bad thing; see Shakespeare. I think Cameron went in to this project with the desire to recreate an early-twentieth century pulp adventure, but with as much scientific rigour and production quality as he could throw at it.
This is probably a version of what played in his imagination as a bright young SF fan.
He is telling you TO demand it, by buying a product that has it. Apple is free to sell locked down devices, we are free to not buy them. What is NOT free is demanding that a government agency force Apple to change their product... that's no more free than it would be for the agency to require us to BUY Apple's product.
Speaking out for what's right is not "doing a corporation's bidding".
Here's the problem. If you can't order every single human into one race or another, your model is flawed. If you're forced to resort to mixes of races, well, then you don't have any distinct race left.
I think you've just proven that colors don't exist.
The lack of distinct boundaries between states doesn't mean those states don't exist in reality. In the case of statistical clustering, they can even be rigorously mathematically defined.
Does Atheism really give the atheist group more/greater evolutionary advantages and fewer disadvantages than groups belonging to the major religious beliefs?
Not automatically or necessarily, but it is very possible that beliefs that are more in line with reality often help an individual's survival. Reality isn't arbitrary; you can act in accordance with it or in opposition, and when you oppose it you lose. You might not lose MUCH, but you don't win.
I agree. It was twenty years ago. We've had presidents who did worse in their past (isn't it established that both Bush and Obama have used cocaine?). Past behavior may be important to establish what a candidate will do in office, but after subsequent decades of personal growth, that one incident is an unimportant data point. If it's a consistent pattern, sure, crucify him for it.
The cost of not being able to divert an asteroid will, eventually, be infinitely high (as in a world-killer). The $500 million put towards diverting this asteroid will pay a return on its investment when what we learn allows us to actually save the world when needed.
With that in mind, the value of diverting asteroids will be very high at first, and reduce as we figure out what we're doing. On the other hand, it very likely will become cheaper as time goes by...
The idea that race is a fiction is a bad, well, fiction, and a clear example of the distortion of thought due to political correctness.
There are a number of human traits (and the genes which cause them) that statistically cluster into groups that correspond to what we consider race. You can test a person's DNA and determine their racial heritage, to a fairly accurate degree. Obviously race is real, if you can nearly automate measuring it. The fact that statistical clusters don't have firm boundaries doesn't mean those clusters don't exist.
Is race relevant? Not for most purposes, but it is for some. I understand that Asians are more likely to have difficulty digesting milk, for example; blacks have a higher tendency to have sickle-cell anemia. Declaring that any test that shows a tendency for races to vary based on genetics is CERTAIN to be flawed because you don't believe race exists is ludicrous.
Well, attributing sarcasm to him is certainly the charitable thing to do, so that's what I'm going to do. It is the holiday season. I will assume he doesn't actually believe that the latency between rendered frames on a display (16ms at MAX) is anywhere near the order of the latency he'll see on a network connection (50-100ms at MIN).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it's the argument that Amazon correctly uses to point out that they are not constitutionally obliged to pay state/county/city sales taxes in every state/county/city.
I disagree. An expert player at SSB will beat a merely good player just as consistently as in, say Street Fighter IV... and will benefit just as much from extended training.
The same argument ten years ago could have disproved the chances of 9/11. Pity you didn't post earlier!
Darwinian selection is the process by which animal species change over time. That is one example of evolution, a specific example which happens to rely on hereditary characteristics, reproduction, and so forth.
But 'evolution' is a word that simply means change over time. Evolution was used as a term long before Darwin; indeed, it was known that animals evolved before there was any good explanation for how they evolved. The term 'evolution' isn't limited to living creatures any more than the term 'drive' is limited only to cars. It's simply the most common usage of the word. It's probably better to use the term 'natural selection' when you're referring to the evolution of species. Natural selection requires reproduction, for instance, while evolution doesn't.
First off: Everybody browsing this thinks you're an idiot, due to both your opinion (it's wrong) and your presentation (emotional, irrational, vulgar, and immature).
Secondly, the biggest problem with Javascript (really, the only significant one) isn't a problem with Javascript at all; it's a problem with browsers. The model they adopted of autoloading and autorunning scripts and/or applets is completely wrong. Web sites should always have been 100% static as a default, with scripts and embedded applets running only when actively triggered by the user. If any other scripting language had been used instead of Javascript, such as Python, everybody would hate IT instead.
Everyone can see it but you.
Think on that.
In a modern context, "fascism" means government surveillance and suppression of free speech.
I like how you added the 'modern context' caveat, in order to try to cut the people that actually KNOW what fascism means off before they can correct you. You're obviously a communist*.
*by communist, I mean in the slashdot context, as a person who posted something I don't agree with. Not that outmoded definition as a type of economic system...
You give people too much credit.
You're a 'people'. Are you as much of a lemming as you claim?
Arrows often carry a higher kinetic energy load than bullets.
Oh yeah, and where the fuck did the water come from? Are there glaciers on top of these goddamn floating mountains?
The same place water comes from on mountains on earth?
why do the bad guys have such a fucking boner over the space smurf's home when they could just stick a tow-strap on the mountains that have so much of it that THEY CREATE FLOATING FUCKING MOUNTAINS
I imagine that mining a floating mountain is much harder and more expensive?
You are surely free to criticize, but if your desperate complaints can be easily answered with a slight application of common sense, it's probably revealing more about you than about the movie. Why so angry? Is it because Avatar was successful?
Also, what is causing the magnetic fields to be so strong as to levitate mountains?
Pandora had a molten iron core, like earth's but larger, and because of tidal effects from the gas giant it was orbiting, the core was rotating much faster than earth's. This generated a much stronger magnetic field, that was complicated by interaction with the gas giant's strong magnetic field. That is apparently what caused the unobtanium to form naturally in the first place. Sure, it's all stretching the science to a breaking point... but I don't mind that. At least it's an attempt at plausibility, and that's FAR more than 90% of SF films do.
Probably because an engineer gave the cost estimate for MINING A FLOATING MOUNTAIN and it worked out a lot cheaper to just relocate natives.
The themes concern mostly an US audience, people elsewhere have outgrown those themes long time ago.
They should make a movie about insecurity-fueled arrogance; it seems you haven't quite outgrown that.
Odds are that the house you are in RIGHT NOW was taken by a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises
As they took it from the people before them, and they from the people before them, and so on. I took it through voluntary negotiation and peaceful dealing. Thanks; you're making me feel better about myself.
Not just western. This is about a consistent behavior of humans, not a particular culture. I'm pretty sure an ancient Egyptian would view the basic plot as an old, familiar story.
The scientist twin and some others are studying the natives by tele-operating clones, because the aliens are 15 ft tall and breathe methane.
Just a side note: The atmosphere has plenty of oxygen, and the native life is based on the same respiratory process we use. The problem for us is that carbon dioxide constitutes close to 2% of the atmosphere; that's why humans lose consciousness & die when exposed, but aren't really hurt by short exposure. They're not carrying around air supplies with them, just air filters.
That wasn't really explained clearly in the movie, but was part of the supporting material.
There will be some that will be put off by the underlying message regarding the western industrialized corporate mentality of dealing death and destruction to other cultures for profit. But, hey, the shoe fits ... we really DO suck in real life ..
If it was a criticism of us (modern U.S.), why did the plot seem like it a could have found a home a couple centuries ago? I think it was more a criticism of a certain universal type of human behavior, than any particular culture or event. Keep in mind, the story was written a decade ago.
If it seems like it's directed at us, it's just because we suffer from the SAME flaws that people have always suffered from. It's worth remembering that many of the characters exhibit the same virtues that people have always displayed, too.
The story was fairly simple, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes stories are simple because the creator is incompetent, and can't actually design anything complex that holds together. That's not the case, here. This is a deliberately simple story, executed well. That's not a bad thing; see Shakespeare. I think Cameron went in to this project with the desire to recreate an early-twentieth century pulp adventure, but with as much scientific rigour and production quality as he could throw at it.
This is probably a version of what played in his imagination as a bright young SF fan.
He is telling you TO demand it, by buying a product that has it. Apple is free to sell locked down devices, we are free to not buy them. What is NOT free is demanding that a government agency force Apple to change their product... that's no more free than it would be for the agency to require us to BUY Apple's product.
Speaking out for what's right is not "doing a corporation's bidding".
Here's the problem. If you can't order every single human into one race or another, your model is flawed. If you're forced to resort to mixes of races, well, then you don't have any distinct race left.
I think you've just proven that colors don't exist.
The lack of distinct boundaries between states doesn't mean those states don't exist in reality. In the case of statistical clustering, they can even be rigorously mathematically defined.
Does Atheism really give the atheist group more/greater evolutionary advantages and fewer disadvantages than groups belonging to the major religious beliefs?
Not automatically or necessarily, but it is very possible that beliefs that are more in line with reality often help an individual's survival. Reality isn't arbitrary; you can act in accordance with it or in opposition, and when you oppose it you lose. You might not lose MUCH, but you don't win.
I agree. It was twenty years ago. We've had presidents who did worse in their past (isn't it established that both Bush and Obama have used cocaine?). Past behavior may be important to establish what a candidate will do in office, but after subsequent decades of personal growth, that one incident is an unimportant data point. If it's a consistent pattern, sure, crucify him for it.
You're not wrong, but you're oversimplifying.
The cost of not being able to divert an asteroid will, eventually, be infinitely high (as in a world-killer). The $500 million put towards diverting this asteroid will pay a return on its investment when what we learn allows us to actually save the world when needed.
With that in mind, the value of diverting asteroids will be very high at first, and reduce as we figure out what we're doing. On the other hand, it very likely will become cheaper as time goes by...
The idea that race is a fiction is a bad, well, fiction, and a clear example of the distortion of thought due to political correctness.
There are a number of human traits (and the genes which cause them) that statistically cluster into groups that correspond to what we consider race. You can test a person's DNA and determine their racial heritage, to a fairly accurate degree. Obviously race is real, if you can nearly automate measuring it. The fact that statistical clusters don't have firm boundaries doesn't mean those clusters don't exist.
Is race relevant? Not for most purposes, but it is for some. I understand that Asians are more likely to have difficulty digesting milk, for example; blacks have a higher tendency to have sickle-cell anemia. Declaring that any test that shows a tendency for races to vary based on genetics is CERTAIN to be flawed because you don't believe race exists is ludicrous.
Well, attributing sarcasm to him is certainly the charitable thing to do, so that's what I'm going to do. It is the holiday season. I will assume he doesn't actually believe that the latency between rendered frames on a display (16ms at MAX) is anywhere near the order of the latency he'll see on a network connection (50-100ms at MIN).