Humans are always going to be limited by their inherent need for molecules to maintain their skin, bone, and muscle based bodies. The future of deep space exploration is going to involve either using robots with bodies that can be maintained from spare parts over thousands of years, or discovering some magic human suspension/hibernation system, or some magic faster-than-light propulsion system.
"When a senior scientist tells you something is impossible, they are likely to be wrong. When a senior scientist tells you something is certain, they are likely to be wrong. When a senior scientist tells you something may be possible, they are probably correct."
"I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it.
To be fair, that is not a claim of absolute certainty. The 100% statement was immediately followed by the qualifier "I have almost no doubt" - indicating that he does still hold a degree of doubt. So the complete statement, when interpreted as a whole, is actually more analogous to your "something may be possible" quote, than to a claim of impossibility or certainty.
Re:Autotools do not need a book
on
Autotools
·
· Score: 1
You must install into some temporary directory
I'm sure he knows this since he is already using Stow. Stow works pretty well for having multiple versions of different software packages built from source and installed simultaneously, and having a proper package management system for it all. Though these days I use Checkinstall - having the final package as a.deb or.rpm make it a bit easier to distribute the built packages.
often do not make right, as the old saying points out. It's an interesting legal question, though: Does a country have a right to use information illegally obtained by a third party to enforce laws against those implicated by that tainted information?
("elsewhere" could be an interrogation room within the domestic borders of the U.S. or U.K. that is legally classified as Saudi/Uzbek/... soil due to embassy rights.)
Applying this to tax evasion, it would appear that the stolen bank account details could not be directly used as evidence in a UK court, but could be used by an investigation team to locate new data through lawful methods, and that new data will be admissible in UK courts.
The whole thing has the feeling of a house of cards. If prop 19 passes, California legalises cannabis, and Peru, Mexico, and Columbia legalise all drugs, and the U.K moves to decriminalise all drugs, then things could move quite rapidly. If legalisation significantly reduces crime and violence in those nations, the ripple on effects are going to lead to people everywhere questioning why they should continue to be part of the global drugs prohibition regime. In a decade the world's approach to drugs could look significantly different.
Caracas 130 per 100,000 New Orleans est. 67 (pd) to 95 (fbi) per 100,000 Cape Town 62 per 100,000 Washington DC 69.3 per 100,000 Port Moresby 54 per 100,000 Detroit 40.6 per 100,000 Papua New Guinea 15.2 per 100,000 Moscow 9.6 per 100,000 Haiti 5.3 per 100,000. London 1.8 per 100,000
If the govt publishes the specification, and products are measured against that, then competition is more likely to succeed.
This is a great point. The government tenders that I have been involved in have been terribly biased towards an existing supplier. One tender evaluation actually had a grid of checkboxes that exactly matched the feature list of a major commercial project in the area. What I would like to see is a X-Prize bounty type arrangement, where the detailed specification for software is published, and the evaluation criteria, and whoever presents the best solution by some date gets the prize money. It would save billions, and would open up the market to competition from small companies, and even individual coders, who are atm locked out of government contracts by various means. If it worked for getting a reusable space vehicle into orbit and back for $10 million prize money, then why shouldn't it work for developing software? There are employment sites on the net where you can hire top Russian/Indian/etc. coders for a fraction of the hourly rate that EDS consultants charge. If the system could be changed to bring these guys into the game, government IT costs would drop like a stone.
the people running government IT seem to lack focus on what they want to have delivered
This happens in every area of the IT sector. I have seen million dollar projects run by corporations trundle on and on for years before eventual cancellation. Projects tend to only get canned when the manager of that project leaves the company, which often occurs at the same time as the company coming under severe financial pressure. As long as the company as a whole is profitable, individual projects are often given a lot of freedom.
every American should pressure congress to get the US out of various international organizations
Do you see any nation, apart from the U.S., pushing so hard for a global copyright regime? There is a simple reason that the U.S. government does not withdraw from these organizations; the U.S. government is the most proactive in the world in using these international organizations to the advantage of its corporations. The U.S. is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the WTO and the "free trade" mantra. And when the findings of the organization go against U.S. corporate interests (which itself is rare), the U.S. government simply ignores them, enacts the opposite point of view into national law, and uses the organization to reduce its penance to a point when it is insignificant (see U.S. - Antigua Online gambling dispute).
the violent crime rate in 2003 was 475.8 per 100,000 in the U.S. and 6,650 per 100,000 in England and Wales
The statistics are recorded differently by different nations. What exactly is considered "violent crime"? How is the figure derived? The UK report points out that "The majority of incidents categorised as violent crime involve no significant physical injury to the victim". In fact, "harassment" accounts for 15% of that figure, and an "assault" that resulted in no injury at all accounts for another 37% of the incidents.
For comparison of national statistics, it is better to use a specific metric, or a specific rate for a crime like murder, where the definition is very simple. Per-capita homicide:
United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
The last version of what arguably still was the Roman government was removed from this planet less than 80 years ago by Kemal Ataturk
Roman Empire:"The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 as Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate by Odoacer. The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire ended in 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II."
Hell, there are species on this planet that haven't lasted as long as the Roman state. A lot of them.
At which point did WWII partisans ever become a threat the third reich ?
You didn't say anything about being an existential threat. You claimed that "no guerilla force would survive for a week" under harsh conditions - a claim that is clearly invalidated by the fact that WWII resistance fighters were active for the duration of the war.
Sure they were able to slightly disrupt some shipping channels, and pass information to an external invading force, but that's it.
There were notable successes. Operation Gunnerside. A heavy water factory and over 500kg of heavy water destroyed by resistance fighters.
"The saboteurs then placed explosive charges on the heavy water electrolysis chambers, and attached a fuse allowing sufficient time for their escape. A British submachine gun was purposely left behind to indicate that this was the work of British forces and not of the local resistance, in order to alleviate reprisals. A surreal episode ensued when fuses were about to be lit: the caretaker was worried about his spectacles which were lying somewhere in the room (during the war new glasses were nearly impossible to acquire). A frantic search for the caretaker's spectacles ensued, they were found — and the fuses lit. The explosive charges detonated, destroying the electrolysis chambers.
The raid was considered successful. The entire inventory of heavy water produced during the German occupation, over 500 kilograms, was destroyed along with equipment critical to operation of the electrolysis chambers. Although 3000 German soldiers were dispatched to search the area for the commandos, all of them escaped; five of them skied 400 kilometres to Sweden, two proceeded to Oslo where they assisted Milorg, and four remained in the region for further work with the resistance."
That was just one operation of many. The resistance were also invaluable for gaining intelligence on the ground - intelligence that contributed directly to the greater military effort.
No guerilla force will survive for a week under those conditions.
Nazis played by those rules, and yet the resistance were active for years. Slaughtering a village full of innocent people in retaliation for the killing of a soldier does not stop the resistance. Instead, it encourages others to covertly work against you.
Any civilian is only protected as long as he can keep both fighting forces away from himself and his house.
Bullshit. The Geneva Convention Additional Protocols (signed by the U.S. in 1977, endorsed by Ronald Reagan, and accepted as binding on non-signatories by the U.N. Security Council, of which the U.S. is a part), Protocol 1, Articles 50 and 51 make it clear that a commander has a duty to protect civilian life, even if it comes at the cost of exposing his troops to greater danger. The commander/soldier must be able to justify any military action that results in the loss of civilian life as being "reasonable" and "unavoidable" in the context of the military target. Article 50 ("Definition of Civilians and Civilian Population") makes it clear that civilians are to be protected, even if there are "unlawful combatants" within the population ("The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.)
Article 50: Definition of Civilians and Civilian Population
A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Article 4 A 111, lIl, (31 and 161 of the Third Convention and in Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian.
The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians.
The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.
Article 51: Protection of the Civilian Population
The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances.
The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.
Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.
Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:
an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and
So what's going on with the Galaxy S? Reports on the web are that the actual GPS hardware does not work, and the "fix" is to use wifi/celltower geolocation. How could this issue have made it past testing and 1 million unit sales before it was noticed?
On the plus side, the Galaxy S appears to be completely open source. The source code release from Samsung appears to include drivers for all hardware, including the PowerVR GPU.
What about god? What observation tells us that he does not exist? Well, we haven't seen him, and nobody we know has seen him, but given his scope, he could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any gods occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the god that is claimed to exist by christians isn't exactly claimed to be common.
What about Space Unicorns? What observation tells us that they do not exist? Well, we haven't seen them, and nobody we know has seen them, but given their scope, they could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any Space Unicorns occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the Space Unicorn that is claimed to exist by believers isn't exactly claimed to be common.
What about Thetans? What observation tells us that they do not exist? Well, we haven't seen them, and nobody we know has seen them, but given their scope, they could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any Thetans occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the Thetans that are claimed to exist by Scientologists aren't exactly claimed to be common.
What about ghosts? What observation tells us that they do not exist?......
Useful for those of us who think that a couple of billion years of evolution isn't enough for us to be able to question why we're here, which is pretty much all I have trouble with regarding Darwinian evolution.
WP says : "Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe that is not altered either by God intervening in the affairs of human life or by suspending the natural laws of the universe."
Surely this is the opposite of creationism? A plan for the universe that does not involve suspending the natural laws of the universe. Wouldn't the act of creating humans require suspending the natural laws, unless the act was one of genetic engineering by a being that is physically a part of this universe i.e. not supernatural, and therefore not a deity?
Right, deists believe in a deity - a supreme, supernatural being, and "Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists." and "Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods." So deism is theism, which is the opposite of atheism. So the question is - if deists posit that there is a deity, but they do not worship the deity, is deism still a religion? If I believe that the Greek gods actually exist - that Apollo etc. are real supernatural beings - but I choose not to worship them, am I religious? Does the belief of an individual constitute a religion? If a large group of people believe in the Greek gods, but choose not to worship any of them, does that constitute a religion? Interesting questions.
Your definition (and/or a couple of the definitions Google finds) of religion is inadequate.
You are right. There are other uses of the word "religion" - Merriam-Webster gives examples like "hockey is a religion", and also gives a definition as: "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith". But I would argue that in the context of discussing atheism, which is a lack of belief in supernatural beings, use of the word "religion" would be interpreted as a belief in supernatural beings. "Hockey is a religion" is perfectly valid, but would anyone seriously argue that hockey is a religion? The problem with that definition is that it leaves open "(Anything) is a religion"; "Carnivorism is a religion", "Speaking English is a religion", "Conservatism is a religion". Each of those represent a way of life that some people have strong beliefs about, but are we really going to accept "(Anything I think) is a religion"?
Buddhism and Confucianism come to mind, as do contemporary versions of Shintoism
If a person does not believe in supernatural beings, then they are an atheist. If followers of particular set of beliefs do not believe in supernatural beings, then they are an atheist. If some particular set of beliefs does not require a belief in the supernatural, then it is possible to be a follower of those beliefs and be an atheist. Having said that, it appears that Buddhism requires a belief in supernatural (though not immortal or omnipotent) Devas, it is debated whether Confucianism is a philosophy or religion (Wikipedia describes it as "quasi-religion", whatever that means). Shintoism requires a belief in Kami,which are supernatural beings, such as the sun goddess Amaterasu.
Yeah, very nice how anyone that bothers to follow your damn link sees how you cherry picked
Since when was picking the top two search results "cherry picking"?
any half-way decent widely available dictionary (like m-w or oed) accepts religion to encompass a very wide degree of beliefs
Yes, but these are not applicable in the context of discussing atheism. Merriam-Webster gives examples of the context that you are quoting:
"Hockey is a religion in Canada.
Politics are a religion to him.
Where I live, high school football is religion.
Food is religion in this house."
Merriam Webster also defines the modern use of atheism:
"a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity"
So, modern use of the word "atheism" is in the context of "deity". Therefore comparisons with usage of the word "religion" in the context of "hockey is a religion" are invalid; religion is being used in a context that is many would say is "non-religious", because nobody would seriously classify hockey as a religion.
Fair enough, but then I don't see why atheism (as practiced in OT discussions on countless bulletin boards, if you prefer) shouldn't qualify as a "religion" as well.
Religion: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
Atheism: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods
These are contradictory - you can't believe in gods and at the same time lack belief in gods. Hence atheism is not a religion.
Slashdot Mirror
Humans are always going to be limited by their inherent need for molecules to maintain their skin, bone, and muscle based bodies. The future of deep space exploration is going to involve either using robots with bodies that can be maintained from spare parts over thousands of years, or discovering some magic human suspension/hibernation system, or some magic faster-than-light propulsion system.
My bet is on the robots.
"When a senior scientist tells you something is impossible, they are likely to be wrong. When a senior scientist tells you something is certain, they are likely to be wrong. When a senior scientist tells you something may be possible, they are probably correct."
"I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it.
To be fair, that is not a claim of absolute certainty. The 100% statement was immediately followed by the qualifier "I have almost no doubt" - indicating that he does still hold a degree of doubt. So the complete statement, when interpreted as a whole, is actually more analogous to your "something may be possible" quote, than to a claim of impossibility or certainty.
You must install into some temporary directory
I'm sure he knows this since he is already using Stow. Stow works pretty well for having multiple versions of different software packages built from source and installed simultaneously, and having a proper package management system for it all. Though these days I use Checkinstall - having the final package as a .deb or .rpm make it a bit easier to distribute the built packages.
And the same empty threat of rich people leaving if overtaxed applies here too.
Indeed. It was hilarious to hear that Tracey Emin was going to leave Britain over the 50% tax rate, heading for the low tax destination of .... France?! Unfortunately, she never did.
often do not make right, as the old saying points out. It's an interesting legal question, though: Does a country have a right to use information illegally obtained by a third party to enforce laws against those implicated by that tainted information?
The position of the British government appears to be that receiving information illegally obtained elsewhere is legal under UK law: "In the meeting, Sir Michael Wood told me that it was not illegal for us to obtain intelligence from torture, provided someone else did the torture. " However, the House of Lords did rule that torture evidence can't be used in domestic proceedings.
("elsewhere" could be an interrogation room within the domestic borders of the U.S. or U.K. that is legally classified as Saudi/Uzbek/... soil due to embassy rights.)
Applying this to tax evasion, it would appear that the stolen bank account details could not be directly used as evidence in a UK court, but could be used by an investigation team to locate new data through lawful methods, and that new data will be admissible in UK courts.
The only hope for Mexico is if prop 19 passes cali, speads east followed by the other recreational drugs.
I'm not so sure - it is possible that the people of Mexico will simply get fed up of the violence and decide to end prohibition by themselves. It seems like there is a real global momentum towards decriminalisation and legalisation at the moment. Last year Mexico decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs including marijuana, cocaine and heroin. In the past few months, the Presidents of Peru, Mexico and Columbia have all called for debate on legalisation. There is some amount of popular support in Mexico for legalisation of all drugs (The Guardian - Mexico looks to legalisation as drug war murders hit 28,000, The Guardian - War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle, The Economist - Mexico and drugs: Thinking the unthinkable, BBC News - Vicente Fox backs Mexico drugs legalisation). And it's not just Mexico BBC News - Britain looks at Portugal's success story over decriminalising personal drug use.
The whole thing has the feeling of a house of cards. If prop 19 passes, California legalises cannabis, and Peru, Mexico, and Columbia legalise all drugs, and the U.K moves to decriminalise all drugs, then things could move quite rapidly. If legalisation significantly reduces crime and violence in those nations, the ripple on effects are going to lead to people everywhere questioning why they should continue to be part of the global drugs prohibition regime. In a decade the world's approach to drugs could look significantly different.
"including Haiti and Papua New Guinea, whose capital, Port Moresby, has one of the highest murder rates in the world"
I wonder what counts as "high". For comparison: (1999 BBC article, 2008 Foreign Policy article, and Guardian 2009).
Caracas 130 per 100,000
New Orleans est. 67 (pd) to 95 (fbi) per 100,000
Cape Town 62 per 100,000
Washington DC 69.3 per 100,000
Port Moresby 54 per 100,000
Detroit 40.6 per 100,000
Papua New Guinea 15.2 per 100,000
Moscow 9.6 per 100,000
Haiti 5.3 per 100,000.
London 1.8 per 100,000
If the govt publishes the specification, and products are measured against that, then competition is more likely to succeed.
This is a great point. The government tenders that I have been involved in have been terribly biased towards an existing supplier. One tender evaluation actually had a grid of checkboxes that exactly matched the feature list of a major commercial project in the area. What I would like to see is a X-Prize bounty type arrangement, where the detailed specification for software is published, and the evaluation criteria, and whoever presents the best solution by some date gets the prize money. It would save billions, and would open up the market to competition from small companies, and even individual coders, who are atm locked out of government contracts by various means. If it worked for getting a reusable space vehicle into orbit and back for $10 million prize money, then why shouldn't it work for developing software? There are employment sites on the net where you can hire top Russian/Indian/etc. coders for a fraction of the hourly rate that EDS consultants charge. If the system could be changed to bring these guys into the game, government IT costs would drop like a stone.
the people running government IT seem to lack focus on what they want to have delivered
This happens in every area of the IT sector. I have seen million dollar projects run by corporations trundle on and on for years before eventual cancellation. Projects tend to only get canned when the manager of that project leaves the company, which often occurs at the same time as the company coming under severe financial pressure. As long as the company as a whole is profitable, individual projects are often given a lot of freedom.
David Cameron has been talking about moving to open source and open standards for a few years now. Although that may not be what actually happens in the end, this man is unlikely to be removed for merely stating a desire to do what Cameron has already pledged to do.
every American should pressure congress to get the US out of various international organizations
Do you see any nation, apart from the U.S., pushing so hard for a global copyright regime? There is a simple reason that the U.S. government does not withdraw from these organizations; the U.S. government is the most proactive in the world in using these international organizations to the advantage of its corporations. The U.S. is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the WTO and the "free trade" mantra. And when the findings of the organization go against U.S. corporate interests (which itself is rare), the U.S. government simply ignores them, enacts the opposite point of view into national law, and uses the organization to reduce its penance to a point when it is insignificant (see U.S. - Antigua Online gambling dispute).
the violent crime rate in 2003 was 475.8 per 100,000 in the U.S. and 6,650 per 100,000 in England and Wales
The statistics are recorded differently by different nations. What exactly is considered "violent crime"? How is the figure derived? The UK report points out that "The majority of incidents categorised as violent crime involve no significant physical injury to the victim". In fact, "harassment" accounts for 15% of that figure, and an "assault" that resulted in no injury at all accounts for another 37% of the incidents.
For comparison of national statistics, it is better to use a specific metric, or a specific rate for a crime like murder, where the definition is very simple. Per-capita homicide:
United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
You realise that America is the longest existing democracy right ?
Parliament of England: established 1241.The first elected parliament of England was De Montfort's Parliament in 1265. If you are talking about universal suffrage, then New Zealand was the first to grant that right and keep it in 1893 - U.S. didn't catch up till 1965.
The last version of what arguably still was the Roman government was removed from this planet less than 80 years ago by Kemal Ataturk
Roman Empire: "The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 as Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate by Odoacer. The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire ended in 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II."
Hell, there are species on this planet that haven't lasted as long as the Roman state. A lot of them.
[citation needed]
At which point did WWII partisans ever become a threat the third reich ?
You didn't say anything about being an existential threat. You claimed that "no guerilla force would survive for a week" under harsh conditions - a claim that is clearly invalidated by the fact that WWII resistance fighters were active for the duration of the war.
Sure they were able to slightly disrupt some shipping channels, and pass information to an external invading force, but that's it.
There were notable successes. Operation Gunnerside. A heavy water factory and over 500kg of heavy water destroyed by resistance fighters.
"The saboteurs then placed explosive charges on the heavy water electrolysis chambers, and attached a fuse allowing sufficient time for their escape. A British submachine gun was purposely left behind to indicate that this was the work of British forces and not of the local resistance, in order to alleviate reprisals. A surreal episode ensued when fuses were about to be lit: the caretaker was worried about his spectacles which were lying somewhere in the room (during the war new glasses were nearly impossible to acquire). A frantic search for the caretaker's spectacles ensued, they were found — and the fuses lit. The explosive charges detonated, destroying the electrolysis chambers.
The raid was considered successful. The entire inventory of heavy water produced during the German occupation, over 500 kilograms, was destroyed along with equipment critical to operation of the electrolysis chambers. Although 3000 German soldiers were dispatched to search the area for the commandos, all of them escaped; five of them skied 400 kilometres to Sweden, two proceeded to Oslo where they assisted Milorg, and four remained in the region for further work with the resistance."
That was just one operation of many. The resistance were also invaluable for gaining intelligence on the ground - intelligence that contributed directly to the greater military effort.
No guerilla force will survive for a week under those conditions.
Nazis played by those rules, and yet the resistance were active for years. Slaughtering a village full of innocent people in retaliation for the killing of a soldier does not stop the resistance. Instead, it encourages others to covertly work against you.
Any civilian is only protected as long as he can keep both fighting forces away from himself and his house.
Bullshit. The Geneva Convention Additional Protocols (signed by the U.S. in 1977, endorsed by Ronald Reagan, and accepted as binding on non-signatories by the U.N. Security Council, of which the U.S. is a part), Protocol 1, Articles 50 and 51 make it clear that a commander has a duty to protect civilian life, even if it comes at the cost of exposing his troops to greater danger. The commander/soldier must be able to justify any military action that results in the loss of civilian life as being "reasonable" and "unavoidable" in the context of the military target. Article 50 ("Definition of Civilians and Civilian Population") makes it clear that civilians are to be protected, even if there are "unlawful combatants" within the population ("The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.)
Article 50: Definition of Civilians and Civilian Population
Article 51: Protection of the Civilian Population
They use Javascript download instead of linking directly to the file. But it does work - I got a 156MB file, md5sum 049d201674bb53a9a639753c5bb19c85
If you search for the filename on Google there are a few sites mirroring it.
GT-I9000_OpenSource.zip on opensource.samsung.com
So what's going on with the Galaxy S? Reports on the web are that the actual GPS hardware does not work, and the "fix" is to use wifi/celltower geolocation. How could this issue have made it past testing and 1 million unit sales before it was noticed?
On the plus side, the Galaxy S appears to be completely open source. The source code release from Samsung appears to include drivers for all hardware, including the PowerVR GPU.
What about god? What observation tells us that he does not exist? Well, we haven't seen him, and nobody we know has seen him, but given his scope, he could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any gods occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the god that is claimed to exist by christians isn't exactly claimed to be common.
What about Space Unicorns? What observation tells us that they do not exist? Well, we haven't seen them, and nobody we know has seen them, but given their scope, they could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any Space Unicorns occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the Space Unicorn that is claimed to exist by believers isn't exactly claimed to be common.
What about Thetans? What observation tells us that they do not exist? Well, we haven't seen them, and nobody we know has seen them, but given their scope, they could be literally anywhere, in (or even outside) an extremely expansive universe. We haven't found any Thetans occurring naturally in the universe, but then again, the Thetans that are claimed to exist by Scientologists aren't exactly claimed to be common.
What about ghosts? What observation tells us that they do not exist? ......
What about Flying Spaghetti Monsters? Or Norse Gods? Or Mbaba Mwana Waresa? What observation tells us that they do not exist? ...... ....(This could go on forever)....
Useful for those of us who think that a couple of billion years of evolution isn't enough for us to be able to question why we're here, which is pretty much all I have trouble with regarding Darwinian evolution.
WP says : "Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe that is not altered either by God intervening in the affairs of human life or by suspending the natural laws of the universe."
Surely this is the opposite of creationism? A plan for the universe that does not involve suspending the natural laws of the universe. Wouldn't the act of creating humans require suspending the natural laws, unless the act was one of genetic engineering by a being that is physically a part of this universe i.e. not supernatural, and therefore not a deity?
Right, deists believe in a deity - a supreme, supernatural being, and "Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists." and "Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods." So deism is theism, which is the opposite of atheism. So the question is - if deists posit that there is a deity, but they do not worship the deity, is deism still a religion? If I believe that the Greek gods actually exist - that Apollo etc. are real supernatural beings - but I choose not to worship them, am I religious? Does the belief of an individual constitute a religion? If a large group of people believe in the Greek gods, but choose not to worship any of them, does that constitute a religion? Interesting questions.
Your definition (and/or a couple of the definitions Google finds) of religion is inadequate.
You are right. There are other uses of the word "religion" - Merriam-Webster gives examples like "hockey is a religion", and also gives a definition as: "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith". But I would argue that in the context of discussing atheism, which is a lack of belief in supernatural beings, use of the word "religion" would be interpreted as a belief in supernatural beings. "Hockey is a religion" is perfectly valid, but would anyone seriously argue that hockey is a religion? The problem with that definition is that it leaves open "(Anything) is a religion"; "Carnivorism is a religion", "Speaking English is a religion", "Conservatism is a religion". Each of those represent a way of life that some people have strong beliefs about, but are we really going to accept "(Anything I think) is a religion"?
Buddhism and Confucianism come to mind, as do contemporary versions of Shintoism
If a person does not believe in supernatural beings, then they are an atheist. If followers of particular set of beliefs do not believe in supernatural beings, then they are an atheist. If some particular set of beliefs does not require a belief in the supernatural, then it is possible to be a follower of those beliefs and be an atheist. Having said that, it appears that Buddhism requires a belief in supernatural (though not immortal or omnipotent) Devas, it is debated whether Confucianism is a philosophy or religion (Wikipedia describes it as "quasi-religion", whatever that means). Shintoism requires a belief in Kami,which are supernatural beings, such as the sun goddess Amaterasu.
Yeah, very nice how anyone that bothers to follow your damn link sees how you cherry picked
Since when was picking the top two search results "cherry picking"?
any half-way decent widely available dictionary (like m-w or oed) accepts religion to encompass a very wide degree of beliefs
Yes, but these are not applicable in the context of discussing atheism. Merriam-Webster gives examples of the context that you are quoting:
"Hockey is a religion in Canada.
Politics are a religion to him.
Where I live, high school football is religion.
Food is religion in this house."
Merriam Webster also defines the modern use of atheism:
"a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity"
So, modern use of the word "atheism" is in the context of "deity". Therefore comparisons with usage of the word "religion" in the context of "hockey is a religion" are invalid; religion is being used in a context that is many would say is "non-religious", because nobody would seriously classify hockey as a religion.
Fair enough, but then I don't see why atheism (as practiced in OT discussions on countless bulletin boards, if you prefer) shouldn't qualify as a "religion" as well.
Religion: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny
Atheism: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods
These are contradictory - you can't believe in gods and at the same time lack belief in gods. Hence atheism is not a religion.
Buddhism (which is neutral on the topic of gods)
Buddhism has Devas. They are not creators of the universe or omnipotent or immortal, but are considered "supernatural gods".
and Scientology
Some countries do not accept Scientology is a religion..