I don't know about the leaders of the Church of Scientology, but I can tell you that the Jehovah's Witnesses wouldn't have anything to do with the Masons out of principle. Their theology tells them that they are to be "not of this earth" and they refrain from joining fraternal or other organizations.
Alester Crowley wasn't a Mason. The same thing with Gardner and Westcott. They joined groups of pretenders who borrowed titles and symbols from Masonry without understanding them or having the ritual. L. Ron Hubbard might have had contact with pretend masonry through the occultists (e.g. Jack Parsons) he associated with in his early years. Joseph Smith was a Mason (a grandmaster made him a Mason on sight), but he wasn't a 33rd degree. He was only involved in the Blue Lodge (1st - 3rd degrees). George H. W. Bush isn't a Mason, let alone a 33rd degree. If he joined the Blue Lodge and the Scottish Rite, he could probably expect to be conferred the 33rd Degree rather quickly because it's an honor conferred for extraordinary service to Masonry or to the country in general. The rest of that list you linked to is quite spotty as well. It names Bill Clinton as a Mason because he was in DeMolay, which is merely a group that the Masons sponsor. Many people join DeMolay and never join the lodge. It lists a woman, who would be prohibited by joining by the landmarks.
You really shouldn't trust anti-Mason websites. They tend to make stuff up or quote people who have. That page quotes the Taxil Hoax which has been known as a hoax for over a century. That right there tells you about their dedication to the truth, or lack thereof.
Many programs are offered either as a BA (or AB) or as a BS. When both programs exist, it's common that the BA has less strict requirements, allowing a person to explore other areas of study. Also, some universities only issue BAs to undergrads, regardless of the subject. Another thing to consider is that CS is essentially a branch of mathematics. The traditional undergraduate mathematics degree is a BA or AB. In places where CS is in the mathematics department, it wouldn't be so weird for the department to teach a BA degree.
I disagree with your statement that Martin is qualified for his job. Martin is not an engineer and it shows in his opinion towards BPL and other topics. Under the leadership of people like him, the FCC has concentrated more on being the morality police instead of concentrating on competently regulating the spectrum.
I have no problem with socialism. I believe that the US would do well to socialize certain things, health care among them. However, I do have a problem with misleading people and telling outright lies, which Moore does frequently. That's why I dismiss Moore, not because he promotes socialist policies.
I don't know what kind of CS program your experience was with, but my undergraduate degree program required me to take two years of computer science. I can tell you right now, most of our tests were free response and the averages hovered around 40%. The questions were meant to be so hard that only the most gifted could get a high raw score. We never had any multiple choice exams.
Download count doesn't mean that much. I know I've downloaded Opera several times as new versions came out. I promptly trashed the download each time because the interface still sucked. It's simply not a Mac browser.
I think you're confusing the second law of thermodynamics with the law of conservation of matter-energy. If you hooked up a thermal machine to a heat pump, you'd decrease entropy without an input of energy into the system, violating the second law of thermodynamics.
Re:Wow. A real slashdot story
on
DNS Complexity
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Perhaps I'm a snob, but I hardly consider this a real slashdot story. It's an overview of DNS, which any computer geek worth his/her salt should already be quite familiar with.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the phone company. Do you think they'd use CallerID? More likely, they'd be using ANI which is way more difficult to forge.
I don't know about the leaders of the Church of Scientology, but I can tell you that the Jehovah's Witnesses wouldn't have anything to do with the Masons out of principle. Their theology tells them that they are to be "not of this earth" and they refrain from joining fraternal or other organizations.
Alester Crowley wasn't a Mason. The same thing with Gardner and Westcott. They joined groups of pretenders who borrowed titles and symbols from Masonry without understanding them or having the ritual. L. Ron Hubbard might have had contact with pretend masonry through the occultists (e.g. Jack Parsons) he associated with in his early years. Joseph Smith was a Mason (a grandmaster made him a Mason on sight), but he wasn't a 33rd degree. He was only involved in the Blue Lodge (1st - 3rd degrees). George H. W. Bush isn't a Mason, let alone a 33rd degree. If he joined the Blue Lodge and the Scottish Rite, he could probably expect to be conferred the 33rd Degree rather quickly because it's an honor conferred for extraordinary service to Masonry or to the country in general. The rest of that list you linked to is quite spotty as well. It names Bill Clinton as a Mason because he was in DeMolay, which is merely a group that the Masons sponsor. Many people join DeMolay and never join the lodge. It lists a woman, who would be prohibited by joining by the landmarks.
You really shouldn't trust anti-Mason websites. They tend to make stuff up or quote people who have. That page quotes the Taxil Hoax which has been known as a hoax for over a century. That right there tells you about their dedication to the truth, or lack thereof.
By "well regulated" they mean well trained and competent.
Many programs are offered either as a BA (or AB) or as a BS. When both programs exist, it's common that the BA has less strict requirements, allowing a person to explore other areas of study. Also, some universities only issue BAs to undergrads, regardless of the subject. Another thing to consider is that CS is essentially a branch of mathematics. The traditional undergraduate mathematics degree is a BA or AB. In places where CS is in the mathematics department, it wouldn't be so weird for the department to teach a BA degree.
I disagree with your statement that Martin is qualified for his job. Martin is not an engineer and it shows in his opinion towards BPL and other topics. Under the leadership of people like him, the FCC has concentrated more on being the morality police instead of concentrating on competently regulating the spectrum.
I have no problem with socialism. I believe that the US would do well to socialize certain things, health care among them. However, I do have a problem with misleading people and telling outright lies, which Moore does frequently. That's why I dismiss Moore, not because he promotes socialist policies.
I don't know what kind of CS program your experience was with, but my undergraduate degree program required me to take two years of computer science. I can tell you right now, most of our tests were free response and the averages hovered around 40%. The questions were meant to be so hard that only the most gifted could get a high raw score. We never had any multiple choice exams.
Download count doesn't mean that much. I know I've downloaded Opera several times as new versions came out. I promptly trashed the download each time because the interface still sucked. It's simply not a Mac browser.
I think you're confusing the second law of thermodynamics with the law of conservation of matter-energy. If you hooked up a thermal machine to a heat pump, you'd decrease entropy without an input of energy into the system, violating the second law of thermodynamics.
Perhaps I'm a snob, but I hardly consider this a real slashdot story. It's an overview of DNS, which any computer geek worth his/her salt should already be quite familiar with.