Prove illogical things CANNOT exist. The burden of proof is on you, my friend. You're the one making the statement, not I. An illogical thing does not, at least in some part, follow logical rules. Because there is some insignificant rule it does not follow, it can do anything instead of that rule. It's undefined, and the result is not predictable. "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"-anything can happen. It may break the law of conservation of energy for example. Do you see anything like that happening around you?
What stops god from being natural then? A semantical argument is a weak one. A natural god, can hardly be considered a god by usual definitions. It would imply humans are allowed god-like behavior, because god is bound by the same rules as us. That's what it means to "natural".
I particularly enjoy that second sentence. What is it that has a perception of consciousness? Okay, you're right. I spoke in haste about consciousness.
The point I wanted to make is that we are not entities at all. We perceive ourself and others around us as humans, but we're no different than a chemistry experiment in jar, only there is no one conducting the experiment.
I know that it's the easiest belief to hold, that there's nothing. I disagree, I think it's the hardest belief to hold, but the easiest to proof is true. It such an unrewarding belief, no one wants to hold it.
I'm sure it sounds stupid, but my 'beliefs' make a very coherent picture, I'll just sum it up:
- The world follows logical rules
In fact illogical things can not exist.
- No god
It's impossible for anything "supernatural" to exist in this world, it would simply be natural.
- There is no special reason for our existance
We are here because we are a succesful self-replicating system, it's quite obvious.
- All 'things' including humans are purely conceptual
We are all swirling vortexes of particles interacting with other particals. We only have the perception of consciousness. And 'things' only exist in purely subjective standpoints.
I think the will to believe in things we don't see purely comes from wishful thinking. My standpoint is quite nihilistic and not satisfying at all. It doesn't take a long line of reasoning to see the thruth in these points, it takes guts to except your own insignificance and the pointlessness of your existance. Morals don't come from universal truths, they come from social structures.
Incoherent pictures follow from the clash between rationalisation and wishful thinking.
The information technology revolution of the past few decades (at the expense of the environment) is what will have made all of that possible. Nonsense, sure it helps, but the most important part is awareness. People should care about sustainability, if consumers would choose their products weighing in sustainability, that will make change possible. Citizens electing representitives that prioritize sustainability, that will make change possible. ICT is just a tool that helps.
You need to be more realistic, 'regulating the atmosphere' is not realistic. Everything is a matter of compromise, you need to ship cargo and 'exploit' cheap labor, because you don't want to pay $500 dollars for shoes. War is one of the biggest polluters imaginable, yet apparantly it needs to be done. Change can not come just by giving a billion dollars to researchers, public awareness needs to change, priorities need to change.
I'll bite..
I wouldn't put Negroponte in the same bucket as Oprah or Bill Gates. Obviously, such aid attempts ruin the public image of aid projects. But that doesn't mean there aren't people with genuinely good intentions. If you can't see the difference between the OLPC project and Oprah's school project, I hope you don't vote.
Look where the XO's are going, it's not Ehtiopia or Sierra Leone or Burkina Faso. It's countries like Peru and Mexico and even the US. Give the choice of $200 worth of rice or an XO laptop to a Mexican kid..
"They don't need fucking laptops."
You keep thinking about the rock-bottom poor and solving their problems. How about helping those 3 billion other people who have clean water and food and peace? Let's try to raise the global level of education, only good can come of it. And it will help those extremely poor you care so much about too in the end.
Ha!
You may "personally disagree" ofcourse, but do think about it a bit more.
Apple maybe selling a bit more Macs, because of the Ipod and Vista, but there is definately an upper limit to that. Businesses, unless they are in the graphics industry, will not switch to Macs. Also, outside the US Apple has a much smaller share.
Microsoft is hardly an amateur when it comes to abusing it's position.
I suggest you read up a little bit on Microsoft's history.
Microsoft plays hardball(pdf) is a nice start. It describes the licensing techniques Bill Gates used on OEM's.
Don't think anything has changed, Bill Gates is still there with his extreme competitiveness. The company breathes his attitude towards business. And you get to see it often. Bribing Nigerian officials, dumping software in China, aggressive OOXML lobbying, it's all illegal... They are not exactly showing corporate social responsibility, like big companies are supposed to do this day and age.
Really the simplest proof that Microsoft maintains a crippling monopoly, is the pricing of their products.
Even with bulk license contracts, Vista and Microsoft Office are still much, much more expensive than it's competitors. Yes, you can argue about differences in functionality, but change the discussion to value to cost ratio and it's a clear cut case.
Normal market effects aren't working, a clear sign of market manipulation. Even 15 years after Bill Gates' CPU-licensing practices, OEM's still almost exclusively sell Microsoft OS's on their PC's for consumers. You tell me why. And don't say it's because consumers demand it.
Heck, Microsoft might be selling the greatest software on earth, consumers should still have the freedom of choice to get that not-so-perfect, -but free- software with their PC.
As usual no one here actually read up on the subject.
The SkySail system is fully automated, launching the sail, steering the sail and retrieving the sail is all done with the push of button. Directly under de sail is a computer that controls the wires connected to the chute. So it can fully control the shape and direction of the sail. The only "old tech" about it is that it catched wind on a large surface.
The article is completely ignorant towards sustainable development. These systems are a great example of how technology can help save resources. "Not useful with lower oil prices" is a very, VERY ignorant statement.
It really irks me when someone says "Energy efficient? Meh.". You have any idea of the power consumption of PC's nowadays? It's almost like having your vaccuumcleaner on all day. Contrary to what you may believe we really should be more efficient with our power use. And if this will help all those server parks consume 10% less in five years that would be a great feat. Seriously, energy matters.
And I don't even think it's mentioned here because it's "green", energy consumption is always important in hardware, mainly because it also determines the heat generation. And it's an indicator of the electrical resistance, also influencing speed.
As if you have to be Greenpeace to appreciate energy savings.. pfff, a normal human being would do.
Opera is such a solid piece of work, I use nothing else nowadays. Although my main reason for this is that Opera has automatic tiling; all my tabs appear next to each other. Also resizing webpages works flawlessly, text and images are always enlarged properly. Both are mighty handy when you surf on a 30" screen.
This is not a nation vs. nation thing. Just as in the Cold War Russia was used in the United States as something to focus on, so the US president had more power. Now Putin is saying 'look how evil America is' and the people get angry with America instead of looking at their national problems and get angry at Putin. This is really rule number 1 when it comes to nationalistic politics.
The next step is changing the rule that you can only be president for so long.
Some more examples: Venezuela is coping with a declining economy even though they are one of the biggest oil suppliers in the world. But instead of everyone saying, "Chavez wtf are you doing with our oil?". Chavez says, look capitalist America is evil, we must oppose to that and be proud of our socialism! Chavez is already over that line where he can now be president for the rest of his life.
The United States are coping with all sort of problems, high crime rate, bad health care system, huge national debt, poverty. And the current administration is yelling, the evil axis of North Korea, Iran and Iraq must be opposed! We must fight terrorism! United States good! They evil!
You don't really need you enemy fighting back for this to work, you just have to show how evil they are. In fact, it helps when they say nothing back. So expect Putin to keep winning elections..
What the heck? Equalitarian? No distinguishing from peers? In what part of Holland have you been living??
I would explain the 13.3% with the wide-spread use of Internet. Every noob I know surfs the Internet regularly, and hardly any of them care about technology. They just see computers and the Internet as a means to something else and are happy with what works (and the difference FF : IE is not that big). Also note that MSN is by far the superior IM here Short article on MSN usage in The Netherlands [smartmobs.com]. There is no anti-Microsoft feeling here, including universities, which indeed are highly Microsoft dependent. A lot of IT-students have never even heard of OpenOffice. Nothing will change with Vista even though MS screwed it up. Personally, I'm praying for ReactOS.
Slashdot Mirror
I love my pubic goods..
You mean everyone should DIE once, to really appreciate life?
What stops god from being natural then? A semantical argument is a weak one. A natural god, can hardly be considered a god by usual definitions. It would imply humans are allowed god-like behavior, because god is bound by the same rules as us. That's what it means to "natural".
I particularly enjoy that second sentence. What is it that has a perception of consciousness? Okay, you're right. I spoke in haste about consciousness.
The point I wanted to make is that we are not entities at all. We perceive ourself and others around us as humans, but we're no different than a chemistry experiment in jar, only there is no one conducting the experiment.
I know that it's the easiest belief to hold, that there's nothing. I disagree, I think it's the hardest belief to hold, but the easiest to proof is true. It such an unrewarding belief, no one wants to hold it.
I'm sure it sounds stupid, but my 'beliefs' make a very coherent picture, I'll just sum it up:
- The world follows logical rules
In fact illogical things can not exist.
- No god
It's impossible for anything "supernatural" to exist in this world, it would simply be natural.
- There is no special reason for our existance
We are here because we are a succesful self-replicating system, it's quite obvious.
- All 'things' including humans are purely conceptual
We are all swirling vortexes of particles interacting with other particals. We only have the perception of consciousness. And 'things' only exist in purely subjective standpoints.
I think the will to believe in things we don't see purely comes from wishful thinking. My standpoint is quite nihilistic and not satisfying at all. It doesn't take a long line of reasoning to see the thruth in these points, it takes guts to except your own insignificance and the pointlessness of your existance. Morals don't come from universal truths, they come from social structures.
Incoherent pictures follow from the clash between rationalisation and wishful thinking.
You need to be more realistic, 'regulating the atmosphere' is not realistic. Everything is a matter of compromise, you need to ship cargo and 'exploit' cheap labor, because you don't want to pay $500 dollars for shoes. War is one of the biggest polluters imaginable, yet apparantly it needs to be done. Change can not come just by giving a billion dollars to researchers, public awareness needs to change, priorities need to change.
I'll bite..
I wouldn't put Negroponte in the same bucket as Oprah or Bill Gates. Obviously, such aid attempts ruin the public image of aid projects. But that doesn't mean there aren't people with genuinely good intentions. If you can't see the difference between the OLPC project and Oprah's school project, I hope you don't vote.
Look where the XO's are going, it's not Ehtiopia or Sierra Leone or Burkina Faso. It's countries like Peru and Mexico and even the US. Give the choice of $200 worth of rice or an XO laptop to a Mexican kid..
"They don't need fucking laptops."
You keep thinking about the rock-bottom poor and solving their problems. How about helping those 3 billion other people who have clean water and food and peace? Let's try to raise the global level of education, only good can come of it. And it will help those extremely poor you care so much about too in the end.
Ha!
You may "personally disagree" ofcourse, but do think about it a bit more.
Apple maybe selling a bit more Macs, because of the Ipod and Vista, but there is definately an upper limit to that. Businesses, unless they are in the graphics industry, will not switch to Macs. Also, outside the US Apple has a much smaller share.
Microsoft is hardly an amateur when it comes to abusing it's position. I suggest you read up a little bit on Microsoft's history.
Microsoft plays hardball(pdf) is a nice start. It describes the licensing techniques Bill Gates used on OEM's.
Don't think anything has changed, Bill Gates is still there with his extreme competitiveness. The company breathes his attitude towards business. And you get to see it often. Bribing Nigerian officials, dumping software in China, aggressive OOXML lobbying, it's all illegal... They are not exactly showing corporate social responsibility, like big companies are supposed to do this day and age.
Really the simplest proof that Microsoft maintains a crippling monopoly, is the pricing of their products.
Even with bulk license contracts, Vista and Microsoft Office are still much, much more expensive than it's competitors. Yes, you can argue about differences in functionality, but change the discussion to value to cost ratio and it's a clear cut case.
Normal market effects aren't working, a clear sign of market manipulation. Even 15 years after Bill Gates' CPU-licensing practices, OEM's still almost exclusively sell Microsoft OS's on their PC's for consumers. You tell me why. And don't say it's because consumers demand it.
Heck, Microsoft might be selling the greatest software on earth, consumers should still have the freedom of choice to get that not-so-perfect, -but free- software with their PC.
As usual no one here actually read up on the subject. The SkySail system is fully automated, launching the sail, steering the sail and retrieving the sail is all done with the push of button. Directly under de sail is a computer that controls the wires connected to the chute. So it can fully control the shape and direction of the sail. The only "old tech" about it is that it catched wind on a large surface. The article is completely ignorant towards sustainable development. These systems are a great example of how technology can help save resources. "Not useful with lower oil prices" is a very, VERY ignorant statement.
It really irks me when someone says "Energy efficient? Meh.". You have any idea of the power consumption of PC's nowadays? It's almost like having your vaccuumcleaner on all day. Contrary to what you may believe we really should be more efficient with our power use. And if this will help all those server parks consume 10% less in five years that would be a great feat. Seriously, energy matters.
And I don't even think it's mentioned here because it's "green", energy consumption is always important in hardware, mainly because it also determines the heat generation. And it's an indicator of the electrical resistance, also influencing speed.
As if you have to be Greenpeace to appreciate energy savings.. pfff, a normal human being would do.
It's well established by now that RSI is not the result of mouse/computer-use.
Yeah, it's the complete opposite of hypocritical if you acknowledge the facts.
Opera is such a solid piece of work, I use nothing else nowadays. Although my main reason for this is that Opera has automatic tiling; all my tabs appear next to each other. Also resizing webpages works flawlessly, text and images are always enlarged properly. Both are mighty handy when you surf on a 30" screen.
The article on Slate.com tries to add some sort of America vs Europe thing and then tries to downplay the whole use of the LHC. What nonsense.
Most likely yes. Carmack as always preferred OpenGL above Microsofts DirectX.. And since OpenGL is platform independent..
This is not a nation vs. nation thing. Just as in the Cold War Russia was used in the United States as something to focus on, so the US president had more power. Now Putin is saying 'look how evil America is' and the people get angry with America instead of looking at their national problems and get angry at Putin. This is really rule number 1 when it comes to nationalistic politics. The next step is changing the rule that you can only be president for so long.
Some more examples: Venezuela is coping with a declining economy even though they are one of the biggest oil suppliers in the world. But instead of everyone saying, "Chavez wtf are you doing with our oil?". Chavez says, look capitalist America is evil, we must oppose to that and be proud of our socialism! Chavez is already over that line where he can now be president for the rest of his life.
The United States are coping with all sort of problems, high crime rate, bad health care system, huge national debt, poverty. And the current administration is yelling, the evil axis of North Korea, Iran and Iraq must be opposed! We must fight terrorism! United States good! They evil!
You don't really need you enemy fighting back for this to work, you just have to show how evil they are. In fact, it helps when they say nothing back. So expect Putin to keep winning elections..
What the heck? Equalitarian? No distinguishing from peers? In what part of Holland have you been living??
I would explain the 13.3% with the wide-spread use of Internet. Every noob I know surfs the Internet regularly, and hardly any of them care about technology. They just see computers and the Internet as a means to something else and are happy with what works (and the difference FF : IE is not that big). Also note that MSN is by far the superior IM here Short article on MSN usage in The Netherlands [smartmobs.com]. There is no anti-Microsoft feeling here, including universities, which indeed are highly Microsoft dependent. A lot of IT-students have never even heard of OpenOffice. Nothing will change with Vista even though MS screwed it up. Personally, I'm praying for ReactOS.