Logitech makes those mice, MS just re-brands them.
Really? Do you have a cite? I only ask because I thought I had carefully compared the MS and Logitech portfolio of mice before selecting the MS Comfort 3000; they seemed quite different in both approaches and price points.
But I've been wrong before - usually in the most public and embarrassing way possible...
Isn't the right of author of program to choose either let the product to be open source or not?
If you're attempting to imply that rms wants to force people to create free software, you'll need an exceptionally credible citation.
If people choose to write free software, and as a consequence your proprietary software becomes worthless, that's called an economic reality. It doesn't equate to "rms wants you naked". You'll have to go find something that's worth money to society - write a book, support or customize software for businesses, design hardware products, write classified defense software, whatever.
How exactly are you going to persuade these companies to become more open-source friendly, if all you do is bash them?
What leads you to believe that rms has as a goal "persuading these companies to become more open-source friendly"?
First, rms objects to the term "open-source" as a distraction, since his issue is freedom. The availability of source code is necessary for free use of computers per his definition, but not the goal.
Second, rms' goals are with respect to individuals, not companies. He seeks to preserve the freedom of computer users, not of mega-corporations.
I'm not attempting an analysis of the validity of his claims here, only pointing out that your question misses his point by a rather impressive margin.
When I first read rms' potification, it made a certain sort of sense. If you've ever been threatened by the BSA, as I have - twice - you begin to recognise that many software vendors use EULAs to give themselves ridiculously expansive rights, far beyond the government's constitutional limits (at least in the USA). Enter my house to audit my computers? In your dreams.
After a great deal of thought, however, I realize that his view on free software and society actually do make a lot of sense. Free-as-in-liberty software is worth supporting IMHO. So this former Microsoft enthusiast does. Still use a Microsoft mouse, though - they make great hardware.:-)
I have no opinion on the Gates' foundation - I favour charity, obviously, but I'm not up to speed on the details of their goals & policies.
--
Written on the best-selling N800 GNU and Linux tablet.
Okay, so you are right to point out that the Bible says "kinds" not "species".
Thank you. It's really not that hard to just concede such a well-established (outside of slashdot) point, is it? Please don't be so invested in "winning" an argument that the truth takes a back seat. (I tried to start out right by correcting the "2 of a kind" error, even though the "7 of some kinds, 2 of others" actual text would seem to make my case worse rather than better - although it's actually neutral since we needn't include "species", as you now agree.)
That does not make you anti-science, but it does make you a pedant
Pedant - a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details (right definition?:-). The interpretation of this passage hinges on two critical words, commonly translated as "kinds" and "earth". It's hardly pedantry to point out that your former definition of "kinds" (1) isn't accepted by any modern scholar I've heard, (2) given by any recent dictionary of ancient Hebrew I can find, and (3) involves a concept not invented until thousands of years after the text was penned!
(Now pointing out "7" rather than "2" was arguably pedantry - but again, my point was to emphasize by example that accuracy is more important than "winning". So shoot me.)
- the point still stands, namely, it is nonsense for someone to suggest that all life we see today descended from a collection of lifeforms that someone could fit on a boat.
Yes, it is. Of course, I never said that, but don't let that slow you down. Here's what I actually wrote:
The ancient Hebrew word "'erets" (translated earth in this passage) has many other meanings, including region, city, or nation (usually "my region" etc.), as well as the land of Canaan (not surprising, given who used the language:-). If the flood were regional, it would hardly be necessary for Noah to "deliver the wombats to Australia", as someone claimed earlier today, or to "reproduce the world's diversity in no time", as you claim. The animals would be preserved only as a food supply for the immediate local survivors, until the animal population was replenished from the edges of the disaster.
Nothing about repopulating the earth from a boat that I can see.
Well, it's been fun (in a masochistic sort of way;-), and we haven't covered much territory. I would just encourage you to recognize that the Bible was written down by people about their experiences, and you don't have to give up on science to admit they wrote what they experienced in the best way they knew how.
No - I'm not the one who is a creationist. It seems odd to me that one would reject science
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the number of people on/. who have binary outlooks.;-) If I'm not an angry, hate-filled anti-Christian atheist who considers the Bible worse than Mein Kampf, I must be a creationist who rejects science, believes earth was created 6000 years ago with the exact set of species we see now, and convinced Noah stuffed a gazillion species of animal breeding pairs onto an ark a few thousand years ago.
Actually, I'm more interested in a fair appraisal of evidence, and particularly in analyzing a source document based on its contents rather than what I'd prefer it to say so as to make my off-hand dismissal of its value easier.
If a person asserts that Lot was a prophet sent to kill all the gays (yes, someone claimed exactly that elsewhere in this thread, incredibly enough), I'm not "anti-science" for pointing out that the Bible says no such thing. The Bible says what it says; if you can't debate on that basis, I'm not interested in fan fiction invented by hate-mongers determined to invent new reasons to claim the Bible has no moral value at all.
As to devastating floods, they are a widespread theme across a broad cross-section of cultures from geographically dispersed areas. The Jewish version states that "kinds" of animal pairs were preserved in a large ark - to claim this must necessarily represent hundreds of thousands of species, and thus the tale is fantasy on its face and couldn't have a foundation in a historic event, is foolish and close-minded in my opinion.
I'm hardly alone in that opinion, and I don't mean just among the "anti-science" crowd. I don't know what historic event or events caused the surprisingly high commonality of flood tales among diverse world cultures; it's an interesting area of research. It's not my field, but I don't ridicule it just because some of the evidence is recorded in the mythos of ancient civilizations.
Finally, as to "me, this cat and this dog, we'll reproduce the world's diversity in no time" - why are you assuming a world-wide flood? The ancient Hebrew word "'erets" (translated earth in this passage) has many other meanings, including region, city, or nation (usually "my region" etc.), as well as the land of Canaan (not surprising, given who used the language:-). If the flood were regional, it would hardly be necessary for Noah to "deliver the wombats to Australia", as someone claimed earlier today, or to "reproduce the world's diversity in no time", as you claim. The animals would be preserved only as a food supply for the immediate local survivors, until the animal population was replenished from the edges of the disaster. (Would taking 7 pairs of clean / edible animals but only 2 pairs of unclean / inedible animals (based on Jewish dietary rules) indicate just that? Possibly.)
And while we're on the topic, why a few thousand years ago? The Biblical recounting puts no time frame on the event at all. A few thousand years ago is a common time frame, granted, but that seems to be based on a believe that "X begat Y" in the Bible means "X is the father of Y", even though in several geneologies it clearly means "X is an ancestor of Y". We really have no clues in the text itself as to when the original event may have occurred. Given that homo sapiens appeared (as best we can tell) between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago, why must the flood(s) be so recent?
But I couldn't possibly care less whether you believe that major flood(s) affected ancient civilizations around the planet, as their traditions claim, or not. My only concern, and the point that originally drew me into the discussion and / or roasting, is that critical analysis of any text, and especially a text that I don't like very much, should be based on the content of that text, not on inaccurate summaries or "what I wish
Looks like a single telling of the story to me (Genesis 6-9), but the requirements are given once before the ark is built (6:19-21) and once after (7:1-5). The transition is Genesis 7:1, "The LORD then said to Noah..." In other words, post-construction the requirements had changed.
Even when you have God as your Customer, you can't get stable requirements!:-)
In the book "The Trouble with Tribbles", David Gerrold mentioned that an early Star Trek script included three pages of technically accurate dialog between the Good Captain and his crew to get the Enterprise turned to head to the newest monster-of-the-week. Gene Roddenberry scratched out all three pages and replaced it with a single Captain Kirk command: "Turn around!"
Palm suffers from the same fatal illness that has killed so many once-promising companies - totally inept management.
From their board minutes: "Let's make a Linux OS! No, wait, let's buy BeOS and use that! Great, it works, now let's not ship any products that run it! Now let's announce another Linux OS! Now let's announce an UMPC with a different, incompatible Linux OS than the first one - I mean, second one. Now on shipping day, let's cancel the UMPC and "commit" to the first Linux OS! Let's write an emulator that runs on another company's tablet, and give it away for free - but not ship a product of our own that runs it! And in the meantime, to keep our customers entertained, let's keep selling the Palm name to ourselves over and over again!"
You might try a Nokia N8x0. It has a genuine Garnet (e.g, Palm 5) emulator, and runs all of the software I've tried on it quite well. However, you can't set your user ID (I know, what a stupid restriction), and you can only sync the PIM via wifi.
But it's a sweet tablet in its own right. Oh, and yes - it runs Linux.:-)
That sure looks to me like the men of Sodom (all of them, too!) came to rape the angels at Lot's house, and Lot offered up both his virgin daughter for the mob to "do what [they] like with".
You're doing great so far. Now, where does it say this defines Biblical morality? Is he called "Father Lot", for example? Do Jews revere the memory of Lot? Or is it... Abraham?
I apologize if my point was too subtle. Let me try again to be very plain: If you want to argue about the Bible, argue from the Bible. If you want to argue about science, argue from the body of scientific knowledge. In both cases, accurately identify and quote your sources and state your assumptions. It's just logic 101.
Otherwise we'll just be calling each other names until we develop carpal tunnel syndrome, and nobody learns a thing.
Maybe it's a tacit agreement that speciation happens through evolution?
BING!
You did really well in either reading comprehension, logic or science - perhaps all three. Am I right?
Geesh.
The funny thing is the replies to this thread claiming I'm an anti-evolution fundie - just because I think you should argue from the text rather from distortions of the text. Not sure what school these folks attended, but I think "critical thinking" would be an excellent addition to that curriculum!
Two or seven of each species is impossible either way. Two or seven of each "kind" is not. Since we know species evolve spontaneously from other species (it's obvious now, but you gotta give Darwin credit for some great insight), "kind" is all that is needed to preserve life.
Not to devolve into more semantics, but "the whole world" to Noah was likely whatever valley he chose as his home. Just a thought.
You would've thought that a prophet charged with punishing the nasty gay people for their sins...
There you go again - where do you get the idea that Lot was a prophet, or that he was charged to punish gay people???
Lot was Abraham's ne'er-do-well nephew, who is held up in the Bible as the self-centered, selfish, and lazy counterpoint to his uncle's strong faith (despite Abraham's warts). My point is that nothing in the Bible states that Lot's actions were right. They rarely were, as far as I can tell.
Just because the Bible records someone's actions doesn't mean that those actions define morality. That's what the "Don't murder" passages are about.
Except that bit where I was forced to read it...
Well, as painful as it was for you, I'm glad you did. Think how much richness of the English language you would have missed had you not? Apple of my eye, skin of the teeth - so many literary references. I hope you read Shakespeare, too?
Splitting hairs over the specific number of animals that boarded the ark is hardly a reasonable argument.
If the argument is the one you made, to wit; "How do you think that Noah managed to get 2 of every one of the 250000 species of beetles into his boat?", then what else to argue but "It doesn't say that?"
"Kind" would have to be interpreted very broadly in order to fit on a boat, and wouldn't even begin to repopulate the Earth with the diversity we see today.
Do I understand you to believe that all species spontaneously appeared in their current form???
You think that the Earth can be repopulated from just a few "kinds" of animals - and you teach science?
OK, clear this up for me, please. Given that life was not created, but was spontaneously produced from non-living matter by the laws of science: How many species were so produced from non-living matter? How many "kinds" of animals had to spontaneously appear on earth to populate it in the first place to the point of variation we see today?
Certainly - the American Dream is quote possible in many parts of the world, especially those parts where the government stays out of its citizens' knickers.
I still believe in the American Dream as it were, largely because I have lived it
Very well said. The opportunity to follow my own dreams, do the work that truly excites me and gets me out of bed in the morning, and eventually grow rich and empowered to really make a difference in the lives of others is precious beyond words, and still available in America. Necessary to that dream are the freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights - including the right to argue creationism vs. evolution endlessly into the night, without government interference.:-)
I don't care what the naysayers say, this thread just makes me so darned proud...
To put it bluntly, the "goddidit" meme is pure laziness.
Kinda like claiming that Noah was instructed to put "two" of every "species" in an ark (got a source for either? didn't think so), Lot "leaving his daughter out to be raped" as "morality" (got a source for either? didn't think so) or trying to save the "angel Gabriel" (got a source for that? didn't think so).
I'm not attacking your intelligence, only your laziness in attacking a book you haven't bothered to actually read. You appear to not realize how ignorant you are when it comes to what the Bible actually says (I mean "ignorant" in its true sense - "lacking knowledge or information" - not as a slam; I'm sure when it comes to science you've invested more time in knowing the basics before debating the interesting issues).
Just because some anti-Christian writes something on a hate site doesn't cause the Bible to actually say it. You should attack using the source, not talking points someone else wrote for you.
Here's what the source - er, Bible - actually says:
Genesis 7:2-3 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
Genesis 19:1,9,29 "The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening...", [Lot said], "Look, I have two daughters...", "'Get out of our way,' they replied. And they said, 'This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them.' and "So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe."
Now, your criticisms of the Bible may certainly be worth arguing - I enjoy debating questions such as these with my atheist friends. Even though Christianity is accepted on faith, there's nothing in the Bible I'm unwilling to discuss or defend. Such debates are great exercises for me to discover that what I was certain the Bible said isn't actually there. Thus, I empathize greatly with your ignorance.:-)
But be honest for a moment - if you came to one of my science classes and made so many basic errors in the first paragraph of your first test essay question, do you really think you'd pass?
Having heavily used Windows 1.0 through Vista, and likewise Red Hat 6.0 through Ubuntu 8.04, I'd personally put Ubuntu well ahead of Windows in usability. With Ubuntu:
Installation is far simpler (try-before-you-install, no 40-character "key", and you can use the system while it installs);
Application management is light-years ahead of Windows (just Applications -> Add / Remove, and click the little boxes next to the apps you want);
Hardware requirements are light (especially relative to Vista) and is auto-configured with included drivers (no annoying CDs to "run first!" and keep forever);
No malware; and
Most important of all, a critical omission from Vista, is that windows should burn up when they close and workspaces should rotate on a cube when switched (what was Microsoft doing for 5 years of Vista development?!?).:-)
Windows has better driver support for odd-ball hardware, and some vertical apps are only available on Windows; but overall, there's just no comparison nowadays. Your opinion may certainly vary, of course. No hard feelings.
I haven't used a Mac significantly since OS 2.0, so I'm not qualified to judge its usability. It looks artsy, and Apple's hardware is first class (if a little pricey at the low end); no flames on closing windows, though.;-) My friend loves his.
But I'm far too fond of freedom to compromise on a proprietary OS, except where absolutely required.
I would be willing to congratulate him if he *fixed* these problems, not just for recognizing them. My dog could recognize the problems he lists. ("Heel! Point! Bash Microsoft! Good doggie...")
Fixing such problems is Gates' job, not the job of the poor end user or his problematic shoes. Well, it was Gates' job - he failed at building a truly usable OS (yes, I know it's hard), but I understand they paid him pretty well anyway.
Me. When I want to see a calendar, I click the time in the upper right corner of my Gnome desktop. I also get the time in three other time zones as a bonus, and I don't lose context in the program I'm running.
Well, I'm not sure if telco stocks were part of my mutual fund portfolio or not (like most people, I have retirement investments and such), but I certainly was not "a player" in that regard. And my ability to vote my stocks gives me no more say in those corporations than I have in the government - which is to say non-zero, but precious little.
I do support managed deregulation, for example the power deregulation in Texas, as long as actual competition exists and its not just two or three big corporations turned loose to wreck havoc on the market.
I have had choice in communications, however. I was with AT&T, but they treated me poorly (a lot of suspicious extra charges, and almost English-speaking "customer service" people). I switched to T-Mobile for communications, and while they treated me well, we had trouble maintaining a signal. I switched to Voicestream, and was happy. Of course, AT&T then bought Voicestream (*sigh*), but haven't screwed it up very badly yet.
I signed up with Comcast for Internet as soon as it became available, and was quite happy until I moved 4 years ago. At the new house, I couldn't get reliable service from them, and after 6 months and innumerable "service" calls (where the "technician" just jiggled the cables until he got it limping along again), I switched to DSL. That has worked well... then AT&T bought my DSL company, too, but haven't yet screwed it up.
Yes, I see the pattern here. BUT, I have had and exercised my choices.
As for the government, I have no choice. They send me a tax bill - I pay it or go to jail. They send me a census - I fill it out or go to jail. When I bought a car from a friend who was moving to Canada, I made *4* trips to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get the thing registered. Each time, I got a different set of forms to mail to Canada for my friend to complete, get notorized, and send back. They kept it up until the "penalties for late registration" kicked in.
I'd switch governments, but they seem to have a *true* monopoly.
So while we agree that neither governments nor communication giants are to be trusted, I don't consider them to be equal necessary evils. The biggest and best-armed monopoly is the one I distrust the most.
Of course, I'm from Texas. You'd hardly expect a government fan.:-)
I could be speaking from my own perspective, of course. *I* don't trust the government. I don't trust big corporations, either, but I can usually choose to not deal with corporations if they don't treat me with respect. Unlike the government, corporations don't have guns.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe Gnu's Affero GPL is intended for this domain.
Really? Do you have a cite? I only ask because I thought I had carefully compared the MS and Logitech portfolio of mice before selecting the MS Comfort 3000; they seemed quite different in both approaches and price points.
But I've been wrong before - usually in the most public and embarrassing way possible...
If you're attempting to imply that rms wants to force people to create free software, you'll need an exceptionally credible citation.
If people choose to write free software, and as a consequence your proprietary software becomes worthless, that's called an economic reality. It doesn't equate to "rms wants you naked". You'll have to go find something that's worth money to society - write a book, support or customize software for businesses, design hardware products, write classified defense software, whatever.
Or am I misunderstanding your point?
What leads you to believe that rms has as a goal "persuading these companies to become more open-source friendly"?
First, rms objects to the term "open-source" as a distraction, since his issue is freedom. The availability of source code is necessary for free use of computers per his definition, but not the goal.
Second, rms' goals are with respect to individuals, not companies. He seeks to preserve the freedom of computer users, not of mega-corporations.
I'm not attempting an analysis of the validity of his claims here, only pointing out that your question misses his point by a rather impressive margin.
When I first read rms' potification, it made a certain sort of sense. If you've ever been threatened by the BSA, as I have - twice - you begin to recognise that many software vendors use EULAs to give themselves ridiculously expansive rights, far beyond the government's constitutional limits (at least in the USA). Enter my house to audit my computers? In your dreams.
After a great deal of thought, however, I realize that his view on free software and society actually do make a lot of sense. Free-as-in-liberty software is worth supporting IMHO. So this former Microsoft enthusiast does. Still use a Microsoft mouse, though - they make great hardware. :-)
I have no opinion on the Gates' foundation - I favour charity, obviously, but I'm not up to speed on the details of their goals & policies.
--
Written on the best-selling N800 GNU and Linux tablet.
Thank you. It's really not that hard to just concede such a well-established (outside of slashdot) point, is it? Please don't be so invested in "winning" an argument that the truth takes a back seat. (I tried to start out right by correcting the "2 of a kind" error, even though the "7 of some kinds, 2 of others" actual text would seem to make my case worse rather than better - although it's actually neutral since we needn't include "species", as you now agree.)
Pedant - a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details (right definition? :-). The interpretation of this passage hinges on two critical words, commonly translated as "kinds" and "earth". It's hardly pedantry to point out that your former definition of "kinds" (1) isn't accepted by any modern scholar I've heard, (2) given by any recent dictionary of ancient Hebrew I can find, and (3) involves a concept not invented until thousands of years after the text was penned!
(Now pointing out "7" rather than "2" was arguably pedantry - but again, my point was to emphasize by example that accuracy is more important than "winning". So shoot me.)
Yes, it is. Of course, I never said that, but don't let that slow you down. Here's what I actually wrote:
The ancient Hebrew word "'erets" (translated earth in this passage) has many other meanings, including region, city, or nation (usually "my region" etc.), as well as the land of Canaan (not surprising, given who used the language :-). If the flood were regional, it would hardly be necessary for Noah to "deliver the wombats to Australia", as someone claimed earlier today, or to "reproduce the world's diversity in no time", as you claim. The animals would be preserved only as a food supply for the immediate local survivors, until the animal population was replenished from the edges of the disaster.
Nothing about repopulating the earth from a boat that I can see.
Well, it's been fun (in a masochistic sort of way ;-), and we haven't covered much territory. I would just encourage you to recognize that the Bible was written down by people about their experiences, and you don't have to give up on science to admit they wrote what they experienced in the best way they knew how.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the number of people on /. who have binary outlooks. ;-) If I'm not an angry, hate-filled anti-Christian atheist who considers the Bible worse than Mein Kampf, I must be a creationist who rejects science, believes earth was created 6000 years ago with the exact set of species we see now, and convinced Noah stuffed a gazillion species of animal breeding pairs onto an ark a few thousand years ago.
Actually, I'm more interested in a fair appraisal of evidence, and particularly in analyzing a source document based on its contents rather than what I'd prefer it to say so as to make my off-hand dismissal of its value easier.
If a person asserts that Lot was a prophet sent to kill all the gays (yes, someone claimed exactly that elsewhere in this thread, incredibly enough), I'm not "anti-science" for pointing out that the Bible says no such thing. The Bible says what it says; if you can't debate on that basis, I'm not interested in fan fiction invented by hate-mongers determined to invent new reasons to claim the Bible has no moral value at all.
As to devastating floods, they are a widespread theme across a broad cross-section of cultures from geographically dispersed areas. The Jewish version states that "kinds" of animal pairs were preserved in a large ark - to claim this must necessarily represent hundreds of thousands of species, and thus the tale is fantasy on its face and couldn't have a foundation in a historic event, is foolish and close-minded in my opinion.
I'm hardly alone in that opinion, and I don't mean just among the "anti-science" crowd. I don't know what historic event or events caused the surprisingly high commonality of flood tales among diverse world cultures; it's an interesting area of research. It's not my field, but I don't ridicule it just because some of the evidence is recorded in the mythos of ancient civilizations.
Finally, as to "me, this cat and this dog, we'll reproduce the world's diversity in no time" - why are you assuming a world-wide flood? The ancient Hebrew word "'erets" (translated earth in this passage) has many other meanings, including region, city, or nation (usually "my region" etc.), as well as the land of Canaan (not surprising, given who used the language :-). If the flood were regional, it would hardly be necessary for Noah to "deliver the wombats to Australia", as someone claimed earlier today, or to "reproduce the world's diversity in no time", as you claim. The animals would be preserved only as a food supply for the immediate local survivors, until the animal population was replenished from the edges of the disaster. (Would taking 7 pairs of clean / edible animals but only 2 pairs of unclean / inedible animals (based on Jewish dietary rules) indicate just that? Possibly.)
And while we're on the topic, why a few thousand years ago? The Biblical recounting puts no time frame on the event at all. A few thousand years ago is a common time frame, granted, but that seems to be based on a believe that "X begat Y" in the Bible means "X is the father of Y", even though in several geneologies it clearly means "X is an ancestor of Y". We really have no clues in the text itself as to when the original event may have occurred. Given that homo sapiens appeared (as best we can tell) between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago, why must the flood(s) be so recent?
But I couldn't possibly care less whether you believe that major flood(s) affected ancient civilizations around the planet, as their traditions claim, or not. My only concern, and the point that originally drew me into the discussion and / or roasting, is that critical analysis of any text, and especially a text that I don't like very much, should be based on the content of that text, not on inaccurate summaries or "what I wish
Looks like a single telling of the story to me (Genesis 6-9), but the requirements are given once before the ark is built (6:19-21) and once after (7:1-5). The transition is Genesis 7:1, "The LORD then said to Noah..." In other words, post-construction the requirements had changed.
Even when you have God as your Customer, you can't get stable requirements! :-)
In the book "The Trouble with Tribbles", David Gerrold mentioned that an early Star Trek script included three pages of technically accurate dialog between the Good Captain and his crew to get the Enterprise turned to head to the newest monster-of-the-week. Gene Roddenberry scratched out all three pages and replaced it with a single Captain Kirk command: "Turn around!"
Palm suffers from the same fatal illness that has killed so many once-promising companies - totally inept management.
From their board minutes: "Let's make a Linux OS! No, wait, let's buy BeOS and use that! Great, it works, now let's not ship any products that run it! Now let's announce another Linux OS! Now let's announce an UMPC with a different, incompatible Linux OS than the first one - I mean, second one. Now on shipping day, let's cancel the UMPC and "commit" to the first Linux OS! Let's write an emulator that runs on another company's tablet, and give it away for free - but not ship a product of our own that runs it! And in the meantime, to keep our customers entertained, let's keep selling the Palm name to ourselves over and over again!"
Didn't these guys used to run Atari?
You might try a Nokia N8x0. It has a genuine Garnet (e.g, Palm 5) emulator, and runs all of the software I've tried on it quite well. However, you can't set your user ID (I know, what a stupid restriction), and you can only sync the PIM via wifi.
But it's a sweet tablet in its own right. Oh, and yes - it runs Linux. :-)
You're doing great so far. Now, where does it say this defines Biblical morality? Is he called "Father Lot", for example? Do Jews revere the memory of Lot? Or is it... Abraham?
I apologize if my point was too subtle. Let me try again to be very plain: If you want to argue about the Bible, argue from the Bible. If you want to argue about science, argue from the body of scientific knowledge. In both cases, accurately identify and quote your sources and state your assumptions. It's just logic 101.
Otherwise we'll just be calling each other names until we develop carpal tunnel syndrome, and nobody learns a thing.
BING!
You did really well in either reading comprehension, logic or science - perhaps all three. Am I right?
Geesh.
The funny thing is the replies to this thread claiming I'm an anti-evolution fundie - just because I think you should argue from the text rather from distortions of the text. Not sure what school these folks attended, but I think "critical thinking" would be an excellent addition to that curriculum!
Why assume evolution is false? Do you think Noah used Concord grapes to make his wine?
Two or seven of each species is impossible either way. Two or seven of each "kind" is not. Since we know species evolve spontaneously from other species (it's obvious now, but you gotta give Darwin credit for some great insight), "kind" is all that is needed to preserve life.
Not to devolve into more semantics, but "the whole world" to Noah was likely whatever valley he chose as his home. Just a thought.
There you go again - where do you get the idea that Lot was a prophet, or that he was charged to punish gay people???
Lot was Abraham's ne'er-do-well nephew, who is held up in the Bible as the self-centered, selfish, and lazy counterpoint to his uncle's strong faith (despite Abraham's warts). My point is that nothing in the Bible states that Lot's actions were right. They rarely were, as far as I can tell.
Just because the Bible records someone's actions doesn't mean that those actions define morality. That's what the "Don't murder" passages are about.
Well, as painful as it was for you, I'm glad you did. Think how much richness of the English language you would have missed had you not? Apple of my eye, skin of the teeth - so many literary references. I hope you read Shakespeare, too?
If the argument is the one you made, to wit; "How do you think that Noah managed to get 2 of every one of the 250000 species of beetles into his boat?", then what else to argue but "It doesn't say that?"
Do I understand you to believe that all species spontaneously appeared in their current form???
OK, clear this up for me, please. Given that life was not created, but was spontaneously produced from non-living matter by the laws of science: How many species were so produced from non-living matter? How many "kinds" of animals had to spontaneously appear on earth to populate it in the first place to the point of variation we see today?
Certainly - the American Dream is quote possible in many parts of the world, especially those parts where the government stays out of its citizens' knickers.
Very well said. The opportunity to follow my own dreams, do the work that truly excites me and gets me out of bed in the morning, and eventually grow rich and empowered to really make a difference in the lives of others is precious beyond words, and still available in America. Necessary to that dream are the freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights - including the right to argue creationism vs. evolution endlessly into the night, without government interference. :-)
I don't care what the naysayers say, this thread just makes me so darned proud...
May I quote you on that? This is perhaps the most accurate statement I've heard on /. all year.
We definitely need to nationalize our education system so the federal government can ensure a quality... oh, wait.
Kinda like claiming that Noah was instructed to put "two" of every "species" in an ark (got a source for either? didn't think so), Lot "leaving his daughter out to be raped" as "morality" (got a source for either? didn't think so) or trying to save the "angel Gabriel" (got a source for that? didn't think so).
I'm not attacking your intelligence, only your laziness in attacking a book you haven't bothered to actually read. You appear to not realize how ignorant you are when it comes to what the Bible actually says (I mean "ignorant" in its true sense - "lacking knowledge or information" - not as a slam; I'm sure when it comes to science you've invested more time in knowing the basics before debating the interesting issues).
Just because some anti-Christian writes something on a hate site doesn't cause the Bible to actually say it. You should attack using the source, not talking points someone else wrote for you.
Here's what the source - er, Bible - actually says:
Now, your criticisms of the Bible may certainly be worth arguing - I enjoy debating questions such as these with my atheist friends. Even though Christianity is accepted on faith, there's nothing in the Bible I'm unwilling to discuss or defend. Such debates are great exercises for me to discover that what I was certain the Bible said isn't actually there. Thus, I empathize greatly with your ignorance. :-)
But be honest for a moment - if you came to one of my science classes and made so many basic errors in the first paragraph of your first test essay question, do you really think you'd pass?
Having heavily used Windows 1.0 through Vista, and likewise Red Hat 6.0 through Ubuntu 8.04, I'd personally put Ubuntu well ahead of Windows in usability. With Ubuntu:
Windows has better driver support for odd-ball hardware, and some vertical apps are only available on Windows; but overall, there's just no comparison nowadays. Your opinion may certainly vary, of course. No hard feelings.
I haven't used a Mac significantly since OS 2.0, so I'm not qualified to judge its usability. It looks artsy, and Apple's hardware is first class (if a little pricey at the low end); no flames on closing windows, though. ;-) My friend loves his.
But I'm far too fond of freedom to compromise on a proprietary OS, except where absolutely required.
Cheers!
I would be willing to congratulate him if he *fixed* these problems, not just for recognizing them. My dog could recognize the problems he lists. ("Heel! Point! Bash Microsoft! Good doggie...")
Fixing such problems is Gates' job, not the job of the poor end user or his problematic shoes. Well, it was Gates' job - he failed at building a truly usable OS (yes, I know it's hard), but I understand they paid him pretty well anyway.
Me. When I want to see a calendar, I click the time in the upper right corner of my Gnome desktop. I also get the time in three other time zones as a bonus, and I don't lose context in the program I'm running.
Oh, was Gate running Windows??? Never mind...
Well, I'm not sure if telco stocks were part of my mutual fund portfolio or not (like most people, I have retirement investments and such), but I certainly was not "a player" in that regard. And my ability to vote my stocks gives me no more say in those corporations than I have in the government - which is to say non-zero, but precious little.
I do support managed deregulation, for example the power deregulation in Texas, as long as actual competition exists and its not just two or three big corporations turned loose to wreck havoc on the market.
I have had choice in communications, however. I was with AT&T, but they treated me poorly (a lot of suspicious extra charges, and almost English-speaking "customer service" people). I switched to T-Mobile for communications, and while they treated me well, we had trouble maintaining a signal. I switched to Voicestream, and was happy. Of course, AT&T then bought Voicestream (*sigh*), but haven't screwed it up very badly yet.
I signed up with Comcast for Internet as soon as it became available, and was quite happy until I moved 4 years ago. At the new house, I couldn't get reliable service from them, and after 6 months and innumerable "service" calls (where the "technician" just jiggled the cables until he got it limping along again), I switched to DSL. That has worked well... then AT&T bought my DSL company, too, but haven't yet screwed it up.
Yes, I see the pattern here. BUT, I have had and exercised my choices.
As for the government, I have no choice. They send me a tax bill - I pay it or go to jail. They send me a census - I fill it out or go to jail. When I bought a car from a friend who was moving to Canada, I made *4* trips to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get the thing registered. Each time, I got a different set of forms to mail to Canada for my friend to complete, get notorized, and send back. They kept it up until the "penalties for late registration" kicked in.
I'd switch governments, but they seem to have a *true* monopoly.
So while we agree that neither governments nor communication giants are to be trusted, I don't consider them to be equal necessary evils. The biggest and best-armed monopoly is the one I distrust the most.
Of course, I'm from Texas. You'd hardly expect a government fan. :-)
I could be speaking from my own perspective, of course. *I* don't trust the government. I don't trust big corporations, either, but I can usually choose to not deal with corporations if they don't treat me with respect. Unlike the government, corporations don't have guns.