Even if I accept your postulate that history is an extremely noisy channel, the fact that the Church has nearly two millenia of recorded miracles suggests that the early stories are accurate. Furthermore, unlike historians who must often piece together fragmented evidence, the Church collected and maintained the accounts from their inception. Hence, the stories we have are far more accurate than most of secular history.
The fact that you have different religions is more or less evidence that mankind as a whole still has unresolved questions about the divine. Many of these discrepancies are merely semantic; a few are serious differences, but for which we simply don't (yet) have the answer. Think about it this way: you wouldn't deny that science is valid because various physicists had different theories with regard to star formation; why would religion be any different? The fact that it cannot be an experimental science only further complicates things.
My understanding of the universe sees no conflict between science and religion. My mind is large enough to understand the theories of the physical universe leave ample room for the existence of God. I realize there are still open questions with respect to both religion and science, but I don't dismiss either because of it. What I've come to realize is that most who don't believe in God do so not out of reasoned inquiry, but because they simply don't possess - nor desire to possess - an understanding that would allow them to discover the answer.
I need not exclude any evidence to maintain my faith in God. However, I suspect that unbelievers must go to considerable lengths to discredit evidentiary sources with whom they disagree. I'm not afraid of some scientist discovering the "missing link" - as it were - because it wouldn't affect my faith at all. Yet how many atheists would consider the Church a reliable source? I'm able to separate things like divine mystery from a mere pedestrian explanation of how it took place. It's akin to a physicist describing a baseball game in terms of velocities and forces; technically speaking, he's right, but such an explanation misses a large part of the picture. There's a greater understanding of the universe to be had if one can understand things not merely on the material level, but the metaphysical one as well.
When you look at all of human knowledge, it can be divided into different categories, based on the means by which humans discovered it.
You have mathematical types of knowledge, which are self-consistent systems within their own right, but which ultimately tell us nothing about the universe: they have to be applied in a particular context, and any misapplication, however small, renders their conclusions worthless.
You have the scientific types of knowledge. These are all based on the logical fallacy, "after the fact, therefore because of the fact". Science hasn't ever proven anything in its entire existence. While it may provide a useful tool for engineers and doctors, it won't (actually it can't) tell us anything about the origin of time or existence of God.
You have the philosophical type of knowledge. Related to the mathematical type, it does seek self-consistency and provability. However, considering the God question has been quite relevant for some time, and understanding that the philosophers of the past 2000 years have been unable to definitively prove/disprove his existence, I don't think philosophy can provide the answer any time soon. (And I'm not counting Augustine or Aquinas among the philosophers.) Ever since philosophers rightly noted that senses can deceive us, they've been hung up on the question of reality. A discipline which can't even know the difference between reality and imagination isn't going to provide any earth-shattering insights.
You have the divine revelation type of knowledge. It is known to be true because of the source; it is confirmed true in the passage of time and lives of the believers. (That is, you can't mathematically verify it, but you can observe that the theology accurately describes reality.) Of course, the difficulty with divine revelation is distinguishing between those who merely claim to have it and those who really do have it. This involves what most people would call common sense, and if you can't tell the difference between a charlatan exploiting the religious nature of people to his own benefit and someone genuinely committed to the service of God, you need to ask your university for a refund.
So, in short, you've got nothing apart from divine revelation. If you don't accept the postulate that something is true because God said it (or not accept that God exists at all), you have no real mechanism for knowing what is real and what is mere imagination. If even your senses can trick you, how can you build a foundation of facts upon which to postulate their meaning?
I can't understand why people think there's something illogical about religion:
For a finite investment, you get an infinite return.
You have a guaranteed return on your investment. Compare that with *any* of the current stock market/401k/retirement/financial products, and you'll find them considerably lacking. Almost none guarantee their return rate, and even those that do have a pithy return. Jesus promised a hundred-fold return, not a mere 5 percent!
Can't beat the peace and joy religion brings in times of suffering. Those without any hope for the future fare a lot worse than those with hope. Religion has a social value apart from its religious message.
Religion still (in most cases) makes one a better person.
The church still rescues far more from poverty and famine than government. Also, try *not* paying taxes sometime, and see how well that goes. For all the complaints about religion, participation is much more voluntary than participation in government.
As a believer, if I'm wrong about God's existence, I'll never know the difference. An atheist wrong about God's existence is in for a very rude awakening. In short, you risk a lot more through unbelief than belief.
What I find interesting is that people who will run Linux because it's The Right Thing To Do (TM) and spurn Microsoft because it is evil will, in a strident display of cognitive dissonance, dismiss those who believe in God, in right and wrong, etc... as somehow uninformed or illogical. Could it be that believers are simply applying the same principles to their lives as a whole? That is, they desire to be ethical and honest, and to do the right thing. It seems like if one would attend a University to expand one's capacity for thought, it would be only logical to attend a church, to believe in a God, in order to expand one's capacity for virtue.
Of course, this is slashdot, and IANAL. But having a little experience, this is my take on things:
The bad news: you probably cannot afford a legal battle with the University, especially if they're your sole source of income. Think about the worth of what you created: does it have a commercial application? Would a business sue for the rights? If not, even if you win a court case, you'll end up spending your lawyer's fees to retain the rights you already possessed in the first place.
The good news: you might be able to convince the University to release your code under a GPL or BSD style license, especially if it has little or no commercial value.
If you created the code on your own time, with your own equipment, for your own purposes, and have not signed any agreements to the contrary, you likely own the rights. However,
If the code you created had a purpose specifically related to the work you were performing for the University, or
If you relied on their equipment to produce the code, and/or
If you produced the code during established working hours -
then the University probably has a good legal claim to it.
If your creative duties were supervised by the University - that is, they told you what program to write, and how to write it, and your duties included writing code - your chances of winning a court case in your favor are very small.
Teachers and professors are in a different category because, generally speaking, they are not producing a "work for hire" - but are instead hired for their role as a teacher or lecturer. The University does not retain creative control over their work; does not proscribe what is produced; and does not require them to produce code as part of their duties. That is, the code is incidental to their work. Thus, they can often retain copyright of the code they produce.
From your description, this does not sound like the case at all. Instead, from your terse description, I, and a court, could reasonably conclude that you were hired to write code (among other duties), and hence, your employer owns the rights to it.
Unless you have a well-documented case to the contrary, it would be safest to assume your University's legal department is correct.
Honestly, I'm sick to death of the whole racism debate. This is nothing more than a manufactured controversy. Seriously, people, move on - in case you didn't notice, a Black man was elected President and has chosen a woman for his Secretary of State. The debate is over, racism is out. Sure, you can find racists if you look, but the majority of America is not racist, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that there are more Mac users than racists. (Okay, that last part was troll bait, but only in jest...)
There are bigger, more important issues in the gaming world than whether or not some game is interpreted by some conspiracy-loving-nutjob as racist.
\sarcasm
I mean, just think of the titles passed over by the gaming industry in the name of sensitivity to women and minorities:
Grand Theft Auto: Nigga Thug Style...
Age of Empires: African Conquest.
World of Whorecraft...
And many more!
\sarcasm
But on a more serious note, games are about fantasy, not reality. I'm not interested in a game which represents someone else's politically correct reality. Conflict is part of the fun. But I've yet to see any game where racism represents a major theme. It would be just too close to reality to be fun. Instead, game makers concentrate on the fantasy, escapist themes which take the players away from the daily boredom and unresolved difficulties of normal life.
But I think his arguments are centered around a misunderstanding of terms. It's simple academic dishonesty to which he objects:
Computer Science is a discipline of mathematics, a true science.
Computer Engineering is an engineering discipline, concerned with how to use the principles of computer science to create working systems. Provable correctness is a must; you don't get to respin a board until it works. Generally speaking, things have to work right the first time.
Software Engineering is a vocational discipline, which requires some knowledge of computer science, in the same way a construction foreman needs to know basic math. Software engineering requires both an understanding of programming and the corporate structure for producing software. But it is more a collection of specific pragmatic methods than an exact science.
Computer Programming is a vocational discipline. It also requires a basic understanding of computer science, but for some jobs, notably business applications, it is enough to merely understand the language du jour. Regardless of how terrible the code is, from a business perspective, someone who produces code which can be shipped in a short period of time is a good programmer. The corporate bean counters could care less about things like correctness and maintainability, and are more interested in the state of accounts receivable. The programmer who helps out the accounts receivable side will be better liked regardless of the quality of his code, and probably promoted to management.
The cost of a bad decision is amortized over the life of the system. It is easier for a business to accept a low initial cost in exchange for paying a much greater total cost over the life of the product than it is for them to accept a large initial cost with much greater long term savings.
This is why Windows is so successful. Consumers browsing Best Buy don't see the annual reinstall or inevitable virus-cleanup. They see a product which is easy to use from the outset, and can play their video and audio with minimal hassle. I've actually met people who would rather buy another PC when their machine slows down than deal with the inconvenience of rebuilding their Windows system, or installing and learning Linux.
In business, a similar law applies: A decision which results in immediate savings earns the manager kudos, where one which results in immediate loss is discouraged. There are multiple reasons for this:
A long term gain benefits the company, but not necessarily the manager who made the decision, who may have since moved on to other roles. A short term gain always benefits the manager who makes the decision, even if it leaves the company worse off in the long term. Managers are almost never rated over periods longer than one year. CEOs are rated quarterly.
There are often limits to what a manager can spend per month/quarter/year, etc... Money unused in one period cannot be saved for use in a subsequent period, hence, a manager cannot make a decision more expensive than their periodic budget allows. So that high-initial-expense-long-term-payoff decision won't ever get approved if it breaks the budget.
It is difficult to predict the future, and that system with long-term payoff may become obsolete before the company has realized the full saving potential. Consider how the Web has changed; now everyone wants "web 2.0" (whatever that means...) A long-term payoff solution may not ever realize the savings proposed.
IT budgets are often structured more on an absolute cost basis than on a value-per-dollar basis.
Open source has already become ubiquitous in companies still in the black. Now that the economy is in the toilet, those companies that have reduced their IT cost through using open source solutions are better able to compete with those that did not. You have two types of management culture:
The short term manager. The companies which embrace this culture have a large number of proprietary systems, and are hard at work trying to reduce their IT cost. In fact, in these companies, IT cost IS ALWAYS AN ISSUE. Instead of concentrating on making their product/sales, the employees spend a considerable amount of time and effort overcoming the poor IT environment.
The long term manager. The companies which embrace this culture are now hard at work taking market share away from the aforementioned type of companies. They're looking to buy the least expensive IT assets, because they're going to need them. They're more concerned about the value per dollar of their IT assets than absolute value of IT spending. The employees at this type of company don't even notice IT; they're too busy making a product or selling it to notice.
Open source is for companies that want to be successful, regardless of market conditions. It does take a considerably greater up front investment, but results in the company working better as a whole. Companies which track the cost of every bean probably won't benefit from open source because of the difficulty in quantifying the savings; they'll never adopt it in the first place. But ultimately, success in business is not about accounting methods, but revenue generation and cost elimination. Consequently, one of the best indicators of a good employer is their use of open source... if they don't use it, it could be indicative that their management is incapable of sound long term decisions.
the brain-dead architecture of the x86 PC strikes me as funny.
Here, you've got 2, 4, what - now 8 cores which can't compete with a decent FPGA?! The problem isn't the CPU speed. The problem is that CPUs make very poor DSPs. A TI DSP can encode/decode HD video in realtime using only a few percent of the power required by the desktop CPU. A large part of that GPU's performance comes from the fact that it has hardware optimized for video, which, of course, Intel has steadfastly refused to add to their processors. Instead, they push multimedia instructions which, as hard as they try, are still hamstrung by the memory architecture, and hence, non-competitive compared to a GPU.
What we really need is for PC architecture to include a standard FPGA which can be reprogrammed on the fly by the OS. You need a GPU? Simply program the FPGA for 3D tasks (you need not emulate the entire GPU - just the parts you need at the moment for your application). You want to do audio processing? Filter implementation in the FPGA is as simple as loading the correct software. Instead of writing the algorithm in software, and it being implemented by software, you configure the hardware to do the computations you need directly. That way, you get the flexibility of software with the speed of dedicated hardware.
But, alas, market forces trump all others. I remember seeing $20 motherboards recently!? When even a Spartan FPGA costs $10 in quantity, I'm not going to hold my breath for a standard FPGA. But it sure would be nice.
As part of my undergrad education. Taking less than a second on today's hardware is nothing spectacular; the secret is in the algorithm: You rate the squares according to the number of moves available from that square and, when given a choice, pick the square with the least number of moves. This way, you don't work yourself into a dead-end situation as frequently. Combine this with a little backtracking, and you've got a nice example to show how algorithm selection has a much larger impact on runtime performance than language selection.
Incidentally, 200 MHz was considered a fast CPU when I did it, and I remember it taking 8 billion moves and all night without finding a solution. Until, that is, we implemented the preferential choice part of the algorithm. After that, it was pretty much instantaneous.
I really don't like statistical arguments, but yours is no better than the ID notion. Sure, you can lay down 52 cards anyway you like, but the comparison is more apt to laying down 52 cards at random and getting a royal flush. Sure, amino acids chains can form in any sequence, but how many of those are actually useful? The odds are manifestly against a random occurrence. It is more likely that there is some as yet undiscovered mechanism which makes the odds of certain sequences far more likely under certain circumstances.
The problem, of course, is that the arguments are moot on both sides. Irreducible complexity is not an insurmountable obstacle given a sufficiently sophisticated environment. The core problem with ID is that there's no provable way of showing a given structure requires a sentient creator to come into existence and cannot be created by a serendipitous combination of natural forces alone.
The ancient arguments about first causes were considerably more solid...
IIRC, Michael Behe has done just that. Though I forget which (and it's probably a decade old by now...) he describes in one of his books how he comes to the conclusion that something is intelligently designed. I'm probably short on crucial details, but as I remember it, it went something like this: If there exists a system where multiple, feasible configurations are possible, and we find only the more complex of those configurations in existence, then it is evidence of intelligent design. That is, in a world devoid of an intelligent designer, we would expect to find organisms no more complicated than absolutely necessary for their survival. In such a case, you would not find things which were "beautiful" - that is, structures whose only value is their aesthetic appeal. Think of colorful birds in woodland areas where their color would aid predators, etc... IIRC, Michael argues the complexity and infitesimally(sp?) small statistical likelihood of life's basic structures is evidence of an intelligent designer. Simply put: if evolution is random, we'd be simpler creatures.*
But the bigger issue, I think, is why biology - and mainstream science in general - hasn't come up with any theories of evolution which have predictive value. That is, given a set of environmental circumstances, a biologist today cannot predict which path evolution will take, or the form of new species created. Such a theory would put a lot of skeptics to rest.
* - there's a much bigger argument here; I don't have time to cover why I disagree with the statistical method of proving intelligent design. However, even I must admit it is a compelling argument. Consider for example that there are four amino acid bases, and that one of the amino acids essential for life is a chain of 54 bases. The odds of this amino acid being formed by random chance is one in 4^54 - a number greater than the number of atoms in the known universe. Biologists will not be able to put ID to bed until they can explain how such a molecule is formed without resorting to claiming it was random chance.
Use a desktop. You can replace the keyboard relatively inexpensively when he breaks it.
My (now) 3 year old has destroyed the keys on two laptop keyboards, and we did not even let him use the computer. Letting him near it was close enough. You see, he likes to bang on things to see what sound they make. He likes to bang on things in general. I have to hold his hands when letting him watch video on a laptop simply because he will see me using the keyboard and try to imitate me. Except in a rather forceful and imprecise manner. Keys need not be pried to be removed.
I too would like to have a kid-proof laptop, but I just don't see them being made. Instead, I've been making him blinking lights in relatively robust cases. He likes playing with something that he can touch and make it light up or make sounds; he doesn't necessarily care for what's on the screen, unless, of course, it's Thomas the Tank Engine or Firetrucks!(TM).
Because we already have the technology, and no one does it.
I can already buy cheap wifi adapters and link two wifi nodes together. In my complex alone, I can see a half dozen routers. Multiple problems:
About half are encrypted, which means that they don't want to share their network with anyone else. Totally understandable, but it just doesn't work for a community net.
Laptops are popular now, and don't work that well as routers. Someone closes the lid to their laptop, and your connection goes away. Not too many people are keen on getting both a laptop and a desktop just so their neighbors can surf for free.
"Oh, sorry about your connection, man - my computer has been at Big Box* for the last 5 [weeks | months] getting repaired..."
It's a cool idea, one I wish we could make work. But unfortunately, the limitations are economic, not technical. Any attempt to fix this is going to look like the telephone monopoly all over again.
A thief looking to offload your laptop to get his fix is likely going to sell it as soon as possible. So it will be the naive kid or pawn shop owner who gets burned by this long after the thief has burned up his money in drugs.
A good thief might be able to unload your laptop before you even realize its gone. Think about how much time you spend buying groceries or eating lunch, etc...
Maybe there's a FSM above us judging our actions. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure the boss above me is a Finite State Machine, and yes, he's judging my actions. If you can say maybe, then I'm pretty sure you've got a cool boss.
Is that success is often not merely talent and hard work, but having talent and being in the right place at the right time.
How many/.ers could have been Bill Gates?
Yet, only Bill Gates had both the contacts at IBM and the luck that IBM didn't can the PC project.
Also, what the laissez-faire business proponents often fail to realize is that the markets are often structured in such a way as to preclude everyone with the talent from actually competing. Consider the network effect on operating systems, for example. Even though you and I could write our own operating systems, the fact is that once one is written, it can be distributed and sold for a nominal cost; Microsoft has already amortized a large part of the cost of the Windows operating system, meaning that they can sell it for far less than it would cost me to write my own. In other words, in spite of the amount of talent out there, there's only room for one Bill Gates. And the laissez-faire economists often miss this point.
The consequence, of course, is that while many people could have made as much money as the star players in the technology game, the market will tolerate only a few super-millionaires. The rest of us - despite our talent - either never had the opportunity, or chose to forego it for other, more important reasons (such as spending time raising a family). This notion that anyone can become rich in the tech sector is not entirely false; provided that you understand that not everyone can become rich. The rest of us with the talent of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates will have to sign our inventions over to our employers and settle for a middle class lifestyle.
Have I deprived anyone of life, liberty, or property?
No, but you've deprived them of the money they would have made during the time they spent interviewing. When you consider the rate at which most engineers are paid, and that a typical interview is a full or half day, it gets fairly expensive.
If you aren't actually hiring, you're cheating these guys out of $250 - $300, at least.
Let's not forget that once prostitution becomes a legal profession, it will be considered 'work' from the perspective of unemployment agencies. How long will it be before turning down a job as a prostitute means invalidating one's eligibility for unemployment benefits?
I expected it to end with...There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
I don't need to look up encephaly - I've got a sister in law who gave birth to a child with the disease. After birth, she got to hold her first child for the few hours of her short life. Afterward, they gave her a Christian burial.
What impressed me the most was not that they thought she was going to live, but that they stuck by their principles. They gave her the same opportunity to live that had been given to them. And while there was little doubt about her fate prior to delivery, they resolved to give her the best care medicine could provide for the short time she lived outside the womb. Instead of abandoning their child, they gave her every chance possible to live. I think it came down to living out the golden rule, "do unto others as you would have done unto you." Just as I would make every effort and spare no expense to keep myself alive, I can't in good conscience deny someone else the chance to live, no matter how slight the odds may be.
I suspect the reason why diseases such as encephaly are 100% fatal is because parents are told that their children have no chance of surviving, and hence, have them killed by abortion. Hence, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where anyone with the disease dies, regardless of whether or not they could have survived it. I find it more likely that the fatality rate for this condition is driven by hopelessness and fear than the lack of technical means to keep the child alive; if we can put a man on the moon and the complete vacuum of space, surely we could keep someone with an exposed brain alive. The artificial heart is nearly 20 years old by now. The primary difference, though, is that a lot more people have heart attacks, and there's a lot more money involved in keeping them alive.
Which is interesting that it comes down to money, and inevitably, power. A society in which the rich and powerful oppress the poor and weak can hardly be called civilized. Yet, we all start out helpless and weak, and only by the gift of life and support given us by our parents can we become self-sufficient. It would seem that anyone who denies someone else the same gift upon which they've relied for their success is hippocritical. Even worse, it is done for purely arbitrary reasons - the mother cares not for the child, or justifies her decision by reasoning that it is only a matter of time before the child dies. When we think about it, this last statement is true of all of us; if we can deny someone the protection of law, or life-giving care simply because their death is only a matter of time, then we can justify killing anyone, for surely the death of anyone is only a matter of time.
The notion that terminal conditions somehow justify killing someone is ridiculous, as life itself is a terminal condition. At what point does, "going to die anyway" justify killing someone? If they are expected to die in the next day? The next hour? When? What I think it comes down to is that those who want to kill others when they become burdensome are searching for a rationale to justify their decision. But ultimately, the decision to have an abortion is about selfishness, not the best interests of the child.
Yeah, but you need to remember that ten years ago, vendors like HP, Sun, DEC, and SGI (IIRC) were putting uptime guarantees in their marketing. IBM wouldn't guarantee uptimes, but they would state the average mainframe had less than 5 minutes of downtime a year. Strangely, Microsoft was pushing Windows as "Enterprise Class", but would make no uptime guarantees. Guaranteeing your clients 5 nines of uptime is nothing new in the enterprise market. It wasn't until Microsoft started pushing Windows as a server that people started to think of 5 nines as some kind of remarkable feat - it had been done in the industry by IBM mainframes and UNIX machines for decades prior.
Well, I'm sorry to hear about your negative experience with Linux. I too bought an Asus EEE Pc with Linux installed. Overall, I'm disappointed that Asus is dropping support for it, because the Linux desktop was by far the most user friendly and idiot proof interface I've seen yet. Numerous friends and family have commented on how easy it is to use. And that Asus is canning 30% of their market? I just don't understand their reasoning. I bought the EEE Pc specifically because it shipped with Linux. I installed the KDE desktop on my EEE Pc, and while it required two attempts to work, I did manage to get it working. Since then, apt-get has become my new best friend.
Not to dig you, but a few hundred hours to learn Linux is a little bit excessive. Sure, I don't know it all, but I know that GIMF and how to read a man page. I've learned how to learn. I think the reason you have difficulty with Linux is because you're used to a Windows mentality: if it doesn't work, try reinstalling something, and if that doesn't work, just quit. That's understandable, because on Windows you don't have the source code and can't possibly figure out what went wrong unless you're handy with the debugger and can parse assembly. The typical Windows support response involves attempting to reinstall whatever doesn't work, and quitting if that doesn't work. Linux programs, OTOH, are often well designed, and will tell you what the problem is should you take the time to read the output. If something doesn't work, you'll likely get a plethora of error messages which will give you an idea of where the problem lies. Even should you lack the motivation to figure these things out, often times a Google search of the error message will turn up a detailed description of what is wrong and how to fix the problem.
So I suppose every post needs an anecdote, and here's mine: Earlier this year, I installed Ubuntu on my wife's laptop. And she, a long time Windows user, without any formal computer training whatsoever, picked it up and used it just as she had Windows. Her big complaint: She can't upload multiple photos on Snapfish anymore - she has to do them one by one. Oh, and she also doesn't like the K moniker for everything KDE.
The thing which impressed me most about the EEE Pc, as well as Ubuntu, is that the average user can approach it and use it without understanding anything about computer science. If you can type and use a mouse, you can use the Linux EEE Pc. If you want to do something non-standard, you need to know the system on which you are working, and this is true of any system - Linux, Windows, Macs, etc... Unlike Windows, Linux is actually accessible - if you don't understand how the system works, you can just read the startup scripts and look at the source code. If you're too lazy for that, chances are that someone else has already solved your problem and posted it online.
And on the odd chance that you're just trolling for answers, here are some pointers:
You spent 10 hours and gave up? Have you ever had to restore a Windows machine because it crashed or got a virus? Your total time expenditure keeping the system operational is much larger on Windows than Linux. I suppose you enjoy the initial convenience of using Windows, but I swore it off after having to restore it too many times because it mysteriously stopped working. When I first started using Windows, it was that the system was unstable (95/98/ME days...), and later, it was that I either slowed my machine down with antivirus software, got a virus, or both.
Your VPN client is unreliable? Sadly, this is probably not a Linux thing - there are many ways in which a network can be broken which would cause the occasional drop of a connection, and I've experienced this both with Windows and Linux machines. Setting up your router to drop ICMP packets is a good way to cause this.
Asus uses Xandros, which is, quite frankly, a rather "odd" distro. It was chosen largely for its simple user interface. If you
You know, I'm fairly conservative leaning, preferring government not to meddle in the affairs of ordinary citizens. Sadly, though, I'm the poster child for health care reform. You see, neither of my two sons' deliveries were covered by my health insurance.
I'm an engineer; I make good money. I can actually afford health insurance. But there's little point in doing so, because the only way in which I can get a substantial claim paid is to bring suit against the insurance company. And before I do that, I must exhaust their appeals process, which can take several years.
In my case, the insurance companies attempted to use loopholes to deny coverage for my sons. In the first case, the company failed to mail the enrollment forms until after the enrollment deadline had passed. In the second case, the deadline passed when my wife was mourning her late father, and prior to this, was actually told that my son would automatically be enrolled. But, alas, rules are rules, and even though I'm slaving away working overtime to meet a deadline, the insurance company my employer uses won't make an exception for a late enrollment form.
The notion that having health insurance means your medical expenses will be paid is laughable. Sadly - even though I really don't like the idea - I have to concede that the government would do a better job providing health care than private insurance. A company which won't pay for a routine expense like child birth isn't going to cover any really expensive incident, like cancer, or heart attacks.
So where am I now? I'm paying about a grand a month for family health insurance which won't even cover the birth of my sons - a routine medical expense. I'm fully convinced that if they won't pay for this, they're not going to pay for a heart attack or cancer without me suing them. I'm convinced that revoking the corporate charter for health insurance companies and divesting their assets would be a step forward. Making it illegal to profit from health insurance would be even better.
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Even if I accept your postulate that history is an extremely noisy channel, the fact that the Church has nearly two millenia of recorded miracles suggests that the early stories are accurate. Furthermore, unlike historians who must often piece together fragmented evidence, the Church collected and maintained the accounts from their inception. Hence, the stories we have are far more accurate than most of secular history.
The fact that you have different religions is more or less evidence that mankind as a whole still has unresolved questions about the divine. Many of these discrepancies are merely semantic; a few are serious differences, but for which we simply don't (yet) have the answer. Think about it this way: you wouldn't deny that science is valid because various physicists had different theories with regard to star formation; why would religion be any different? The fact that it cannot be an experimental science only further complicates things.
My understanding of the universe sees no conflict between science and religion. My mind is large enough to understand the theories of the physical universe leave ample room for the existence of God. I realize there are still open questions with respect to both religion and science, but I don't dismiss either because of it. What I've come to realize is that most who don't believe in God do so not out of reasoned inquiry, but because they simply don't possess - nor desire to possess - an understanding that would allow them to discover the answer.
I need not exclude any evidence to maintain my faith in God. However, I suspect that unbelievers must go to considerable lengths to discredit evidentiary sources with whom they disagree. I'm not afraid of some scientist discovering the "missing link" - as it were - because it wouldn't affect my faith at all. Yet how many atheists would consider the Church a reliable source? I'm able to separate things like divine mystery from a mere pedestrian explanation of how it took place. It's akin to a physicist describing a baseball game in terms of velocities and forces; technically speaking, he's right, but such an explanation misses a large part of the picture. There's a greater understanding of the universe to be had if one can understand things not merely on the material level, but the metaphysical one as well.
You don't know that. That's the whole point.
But I do know it. In fact, I'm sure of it.
When you look at all of human knowledge, it can be divided into different categories, based on the means by which humans discovered it.
So, in short, you've got nothing apart from divine revelation. If you don't accept the postulate that something is true because God said it (or not accept that God exists at all), you have no real mechanism for knowing what is real and what is mere imagination. If even your senses can trick you, how can you build a foundation of facts upon which to postulate their meaning?
I can't understand why people think there's something illogical about religion:
What I find interesting is that people who will run Linux because it's The Right Thing To Do (TM) and spurn Microsoft because it is evil will, in a strident display of cognitive dissonance, dismiss those who believe in God, in right and wrong, etc... as somehow uninformed or illogical. Could it be that believers are simply applying the same principles to their lives as a whole? That is, they desire to be ethical and honest, and to do the right thing. It seems like if one would attend a University to expand one's capacity for thought, it would be only logical to attend a church, to believe in a God, in order to expand one's capacity for virtue.
Of course, this is slashdot, and IANAL. But having a little experience, this is my take on things:
If your creative duties were supervised by the University - that is, they told you what program to write, and how to write it, and your duties included writing code - your chances of winning a court case in your favor are very small.
Teachers and professors are in a different category because, generally speaking, they are not producing a "work for hire" - but are instead hired for their role as a teacher or lecturer. The University does not retain creative control over their work; does not proscribe what is produced; and does not require them to produce code as part of their duties. That is, the code is incidental to their work. Thus, they can often retain copyright of the code they produce.
From your description, this does not sound like the case at all. Instead, from your terse description, I, and a court, could reasonably conclude that you were hired to write code (among other duties), and hence, your employer owns the rights to it.
Unless you have a well-documented case to the contrary, it would be safest to assume your University's legal department is correct.
Someone who...
Honestly, I'm sick to death of the whole racism debate. This is nothing more than a manufactured controversy. Seriously, people, move on - in case you didn't notice, a Black man was elected President and has chosen a woman for his Secretary of State. The debate is over, racism is out. Sure, you can find racists if you look, but the majority of America is not racist, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that there are more Mac users than racists. (Okay, that last part was troll bait, but only in jest...)
There are bigger, more important issues in the gaming world than whether or not some game is interpreted by some conspiracy-loving-nutjob as racist.
\sarcasm
I mean, just think of the titles passed over by the gaming industry in the name of sensitivity to women and minorities:
And many more!
\sarcasm
But on a more serious note, games are about fantasy, not reality. I'm not interested in a game which represents someone else's politically correct reality. Conflict is part of the fun. But I've yet to see any game where racism represents a major theme. It would be just too close to reality to be fun. Instead, game makers concentrate on the fantasy, escapist themes which take the players away from the daily boredom and unresolved difficulties of normal life.
But I think his arguments are centered around a misunderstanding of terms. It's simple academic dishonesty to which he objects:
The cost of a bad decision is amortized over the life of the system. It is easier for a business to accept a low initial cost in exchange for paying a much greater total cost over the life of the product than it is for them to accept a large initial cost with much greater long term savings.
This is why Windows is so successful. Consumers browsing Best Buy don't see the annual reinstall or inevitable virus-cleanup. They see a product which is easy to use from the outset, and can play their video and audio with minimal hassle. I've actually met people who would rather buy another PC when their machine slows down than deal with the inconvenience of rebuilding their Windows system, or installing and learning Linux.
In business, a similar law applies: A decision which results in immediate savings earns the manager kudos, where one which results in immediate loss is discouraged. There are multiple reasons for this:
Open source has already become ubiquitous in companies still in the black. Now that the economy is in the toilet, those companies that have reduced their IT cost through using open source solutions are better able to compete with those that did not. You have two types of management culture:
Open source is for companies that want to be successful, regardless of market conditions. It does take a considerably greater up front investment, but results in the company working better as a whole. Companies which track the cost of every bean probably won't benefit from open source because of the difficulty in quantifying the savings; they'll never adopt it in the first place. But ultimately, success in business is not about accounting methods, but revenue generation and cost elimination. Consequently, one of the best indicators of a good employer is their use of open source... if they don't use it, it could be indicative that their management is incapable of sound long term decisions.
the brain-dead architecture of the x86 PC strikes me as funny.
Here, you've got 2, 4, what - now 8 cores which can't compete with a decent FPGA?! The problem isn't the CPU speed. The problem is that CPUs make very poor DSPs. A TI DSP can encode/decode HD video in realtime using only a few percent of the power required by the desktop CPU. A large part of that GPU's performance comes from the fact that it has hardware optimized for video, which, of course, Intel has steadfastly refused to add to their processors. Instead, they push multimedia instructions which, as hard as they try, are still hamstrung by the memory architecture, and hence, non-competitive compared to a GPU.
What we really need is for PC architecture to include a standard FPGA which can be reprogrammed on the fly by the OS. You need a GPU? Simply program the FPGA for 3D tasks (you need not emulate the entire GPU - just the parts you need at the moment for your application). You want to do audio processing? Filter implementation in the FPGA is as simple as loading the correct software. Instead of writing the algorithm in software, and it being implemented by software, you configure the hardware to do the computations you need directly. That way, you get the flexibility of software with the speed of dedicated hardware.
But, alas, market forces trump all others. I remember seeing $20 motherboards recently!? When even a Spartan FPGA costs $10 in quantity, I'm not going to hold my breath for a standard FPGA. But it sure would be nice.
As part of my undergrad education. Taking less than a second on today's hardware is nothing spectacular; the secret is in the algorithm: You rate the squares according to the number of moves available from that square and, when given a choice, pick the square with the least number of moves. This way, you don't work yourself into a dead-end situation as frequently. Combine this with a little backtracking, and you've got a nice example to show how algorithm selection has a much larger impact on runtime performance than language selection.
Incidentally, 200 MHz was considered a fast CPU when I did it, and I remember it taking 8 billion moves and all night without finding a solution. Until, that is, we implemented the preferential choice part of the algorithm. After that, it was pretty much instantaneous.
I really don't like statistical arguments, but yours is no better than the ID notion. Sure, you can lay down 52 cards anyway you like, but the comparison is more apt to laying down 52 cards at random and getting a royal flush. Sure, amino acids chains can form in any sequence, but how many of those are actually useful? The odds are manifestly against a random occurrence. It is more likely that there is some as yet undiscovered mechanism which makes the odds of certain sequences far more likely under certain circumstances.
The problem, of course, is that the arguments are moot on both sides. Irreducible complexity is not an insurmountable obstacle given a sufficiently sophisticated environment. The core problem with ID is that there's no provable way of showing a given structure requires a sentient creator to come into existence and cannot be created by a serendipitous combination of natural forces alone.
The ancient arguments about first causes were considerably more solid...
IIRC, Michael Behe has done just that. Though I forget which (and it's probably a decade old by now...) he describes in one of his books how he comes to the conclusion that something is intelligently designed. I'm probably short on crucial details, but as I remember it, it went something like this: If there exists a system where multiple, feasible configurations are possible, and we find only the more complex of those configurations in existence, then it is evidence of intelligent design. That is, in a world devoid of an intelligent designer, we would expect to find organisms no more complicated than absolutely necessary for their survival. In such a case, you would not find things which were "beautiful" - that is, structures whose only value is their aesthetic appeal. Think of colorful birds in woodland areas where their color would aid predators, etc... IIRC, Michael argues the complexity and infitesimally(sp?) small statistical likelihood of life's basic structures is evidence of an intelligent designer. Simply put: if evolution is random, we'd be simpler creatures.*
But the bigger issue, I think, is why biology - and mainstream science in general - hasn't come up with any theories of evolution which have predictive value. That is, given a set of environmental circumstances, a biologist today cannot predict which path evolution will take, or the form of new species created. Such a theory would put a lot of skeptics to rest.
* - there's a much bigger argument here; I don't have time to cover why I disagree with the statistical method of proving intelligent design. However, even I must admit it is a compelling argument. Consider for example that there are four amino acid bases, and that one of the amino acids essential for life is a chain of 54 bases. The odds of this amino acid being formed by random chance is one in 4^54 - a number greater than the number of atoms in the known universe. Biologists will not be able to put ID to bed until they can explain how such a molecule is formed without resorting to claiming it was random chance.
Use a desktop. You can replace the keyboard relatively inexpensively when he breaks it.
My (now) 3 year old has destroyed the keys on two laptop keyboards, and we did not even let him use the computer. Letting him near it was close enough. You see, he likes to bang on things to see what sound they make. He likes to bang on things in general. I have to hold his hands when letting him watch video on a laptop simply because he will see me using the keyboard and try to imitate me. Except in a rather forceful and imprecise manner. Keys need not be pried to be removed.
I too would like to have a kid-proof laptop, but I just don't see them being made. Instead, I've been making him blinking lights in relatively robust cases. He likes playing with something that he can touch and make it light up or make sounds; he doesn't necessarily care for what's on the screen, unless, of course, it's Thomas the Tank Engine or Firetrucks!(TM).
Because we already have the technology, and no one does it.
I can already buy cheap wifi adapters and link two wifi nodes together. In my complex alone, I can see a half dozen routers. Multiple problems:
It's a cool idea, one I wish we could make work. But unfortunately, the limitations are economic, not technical. Any attempt to fix this is going to look like the telephone monopoly all over again.
A thief looking to offload your laptop to get his fix is likely going to sell it as soon as possible. So it will be the naive kid or pawn shop owner who gets burned by this long after the thief has burned up his money in drugs.
A good thief might be able to unload your laptop before you even realize its gone. Think about how much time you spend buying groceries or eating lunch, etc...
Maybe there's a FSM above us judging our actions. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure the boss above me is a Finite State Machine, and yes, he's judging my actions. If you can say maybe, then I'm pretty sure you've got a cool boss.
Is that success is often not merely talent and hard work, but having talent and being in the right place at the right time.
How many /.ers could have been Bill Gates?
Yet, only Bill Gates had both the contacts at IBM and the luck that IBM didn't can the PC project.
Also, what the laissez-faire business proponents often fail to realize is that the markets are often structured in such a way as to preclude everyone with the talent from actually competing. Consider the network effect on operating systems, for example. Even though you and I could write our own operating systems, the fact is that once one is written, it can be distributed and sold for a nominal cost; Microsoft has already amortized a large part of the cost of the Windows operating system, meaning that they can sell it for far less than it would cost me to write my own. In other words, in spite of the amount of talent out there, there's only room for one Bill Gates. And the laissez-faire economists often miss this point.
The consequence, of course, is that while many people could have made as much money as the star players in the technology game, the market will tolerate only a few super-millionaires. The rest of us - despite our talent - either never had the opportunity, or chose to forego it for other, more important reasons (such as spending time raising a family). This notion that anyone can become rich in the tech sector is not entirely false; provided that you understand that not everyone can become rich. The rest of us with the talent of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates will have to sign our inventions over to our employers and settle for a middle class lifestyle.
Have I deprived anyone of life, liberty, or property?
No, but you've deprived them of the money they would have made during the time they spent interviewing. When you consider the rate at which most engineers are paid, and that a typical interview is a full or half day, it gets fairly expensive.
If you aren't actually hiring, you're cheating these guys out of $250 - $300, at least.
Let's not forget that once prostitution becomes a legal profession, it will be considered 'work' from the perspective of unemployment agencies. How long will it be before turning down a job as a prostitute means invalidating one's eligibility for unemployment benefits?
While it's a little inconvenience, connecting a car charger goes a long way. If you've got an unlimited data plan, why wouldn't you use this?
I expected it to end with ...There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
I don't need to look up encephaly - I've got a sister in law who gave birth to a child with the disease. After birth, she got to hold her first child for the few hours of her short life. Afterward, they gave her a Christian burial.
What impressed me the most was not that they thought she was going to live, but that they stuck by their principles. They gave her the same opportunity to live that had been given to them. And while there was little doubt about her fate prior to delivery, they resolved to give her the best care medicine could provide for the short time she lived outside the womb. Instead of abandoning their child, they gave her every chance possible to live. I think it came down to living out the golden rule, "do unto others as you would have done unto you." Just as I would make every effort and spare no expense to keep myself alive, I can't in good conscience deny someone else the chance to live, no matter how slight the odds may be.
I suspect the reason why diseases such as encephaly are 100% fatal is because parents are told that their children have no chance of surviving, and hence, have them killed by abortion. Hence, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where anyone with the disease dies, regardless of whether or not they could have survived it. I find it more likely that the fatality rate for this condition is driven by hopelessness and fear than the lack of technical means to keep the child alive; if we can put a man on the moon and the complete vacuum of space, surely we could keep someone with an exposed brain alive. The artificial heart is nearly 20 years old by now. The primary difference, though, is that a lot more people have heart attacks, and there's a lot more money involved in keeping them alive.
Which is interesting that it comes down to money, and inevitably, power. A society in which the rich and powerful oppress the poor and weak can hardly be called civilized. Yet, we all start out helpless and weak, and only by the gift of life and support given us by our parents can we become self-sufficient. It would seem that anyone who denies someone else the same gift upon which they've relied for their success is hippocritical. Even worse, it is done for purely arbitrary reasons - the mother cares not for the child, or justifies her decision by reasoning that it is only a matter of time before the child dies. When we think about it, this last statement is true of all of us; if we can deny someone the protection of law, or life-giving care simply because their death is only a matter of time, then we can justify killing anyone, for surely the death of anyone is only a matter of time.
The notion that terminal conditions somehow justify killing someone is ridiculous, as life itself is a terminal condition. At what point does, "going to die anyway" justify killing someone? If they are expected to die in the next day? The next hour? When? What I think it comes down to is that those who want to kill others when they become burdensome are searching for a rationale to justify their decision. But ultimately, the decision to have an abortion is about selfishness, not the best interests of the child.
Yeah, but you need to remember that ten years ago, vendors like HP, Sun, DEC, and SGI (IIRC) were putting uptime guarantees in their marketing. IBM wouldn't guarantee uptimes, but they would state the average mainframe had less than 5 minutes of downtime a year. Strangely, Microsoft was pushing Windows as "Enterprise Class", but would make no uptime guarantees. Guaranteeing your clients 5 nines of uptime is nothing new in the enterprise market. It wasn't until Microsoft started pushing Windows as a server that people started to think of 5 nines as some kind of remarkable feat - it had been done in the industry by IBM mainframes and UNIX machines for decades prior.
Well, I'm sorry to hear about your negative experience with Linux. I too bought an Asus EEE Pc with Linux installed. Overall, I'm disappointed that Asus is dropping support for it, because the Linux desktop was by far the most user friendly and idiot proof interface I've seen yet. Numerous friends and family have commented on how easy it is to use. And that Asus is canning 30% of their market? I just don't understand their reasoning. I bought the EEE Pc specifically because it shipped with Linux. I installed the KDE desktop on my EEE Pc, and while it required two attempts to work, I did manage to get it working. Since then, apt-get has become my new best friend.
Not to dig you, but a few hundred hours to learn Linux is a little bit excessive. Sure, I don't know it all, but I know that GIMF and how to read a man page. I've learned how to learn. I think the reason you have difficulty with Linux is because you're used to a Windows mentality: if it doesn't work, try reinstalling something, and if that doesn't work, just quit. That's understandable, because on Windows you don't have the source code and can't possibly figure out what went wrong unless you're handy with the debugger and can parse assembly. The typical Windows support response involves attempting to reinstall whatever doesn't work, and quitting if that doesn't work. Linux programs, OTOH, are often well designed, and will tell you what the problem is should you take the time to read the output. If something doesn't work, you'll likely get a plethora of error messages which will give you an idea of where the problem lies. Even should you lack the motivation to figure these things out, often times a Google search of the error message will turn up a detailed description of what is wrong and how to fix the problem.
So I suppose every post needs an anecdote, and here's mine: Earlier this year, I installed Ubuntu on my wife's laptop. And she, a long time Windows user, without any formal computer training whatsoever, picked it up and used it just as she had Windows. Her big complaint: She can't upload multiple photos on Snapfish anymore - she has to do them one by one. Oh, and she also doesn't like the K moniker for everything KDE.
The thing which impressed me most about the EEE Pc, as well as Ubuntu, is that the average user can approach it and use it without understanding anything about computer science. If you can type and use a mouse, you can use the Linux EEE Pc. If you want to do something non-standard, you need to know the system on which you are working, and this is true of any system - Linux, Windows, Macs, etc... Unlike Windows, Linux is actually accessible - if you don't understand how the system works, you can just read the startup scripts and look at the source code. If you're too lazy for that, chances are that someone else has already solved your problem and posted it online.
And on the odd chance that you're just trolling for answers, here are some pointers:
You know, I'm fairly conservative leaning, preferring government not to meddle in the affairs of ordinary citizens. Sadly, though, I'm the poster child for health care reform. You see, neither of my two sons' deliveries were covered by my health insurance.
I'm an engineer; I make good money. I can actually afford health insurance. But there's little point in doing so, because the only way in which I can get a substantial claim paid is to bring suit against the insurance company. And before I do that, I must exhaust their appeals process, which can take several years.
In my case, the insurance companies attempted to use loopholes to deny coverage for my sons. In the first case, the company failed to mail the enrollment forms until after the enrollment deadline had passed. In the second case, the deadline passed when my wife was mourning her late father, and prior to this, was actually told that my son would automatically be enrolled. But, alas, rules are rules, and even though I'm slaving away working overtime to meet a deadline, the insurance company my employer uses won't make an exception for a late enrollment form.
The notion that having health insurance means your medical expenses will be paid is laughable. Sadly - even though I really don't like the idea - I have to concede that the government would do a better job providing health care than private insurance. A company which won't pay for a routine expense like child birth isn't going to cover any really expensive incident, like cancer, or heart attacks.
So where am I now? I'm paying about a grand a month for family health insurance which won't even cover the birth of my sons - a routine medical expense. I'm fully convinced that if they won't pay for this, they're not going to pay for a heart attack or cancer without me suing them. I'm convinced that revoking the corporate charter for health insurance companies and divesting their assets would be a step forward. Making it illegal to profit from health insurance would be even better.
IOW, that clause about not suppressing free speech is useless if free speech is illegal. Again, it means nothing.