For example, test for other people in the room. Now, test for gods. This much should be obvious.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's quite that straightforward. After all, how do I go about testing for other people in the room? What if they're wearing some kind of invisibility cloak that they invented? How about if I've been hyptonised to not see them? etc, etc.
I reject on principle that any test I perform is necessarily correct, accurate and covers all eventualities. I am human and therefore flawed.
In which case, we must look into other scenarios. If someone offers a reasonable self consistent explanation of why there are invisible people in the room, must we dismiss them out of hand? What if that explanation was untestable? You may consider it unlikely, but that proves nothing. The point I'm making is that in all these analogies atheists produce, the difference is either someone has offered an explanation, or they are comparing an entity like a god to something physical and tangible. When we get to the stage where someone offers that self consistent explanation and we can't test or prove it, the analogy starts to work again. It really starts to work well, when we get to the point that within their framework of thought, by Occam's razor it makes sense that there are invisible people in the room. Dark matter immediately springs to mind. Does it exist? Well, maybe not, but we liked the explanation for a long time.
I however ALSO reject on principle that no test can be defined that tests for the existence of a god. Simply we don't yet have such tests since the definition keeps slipping ("God of the gaps"). If eventually everything in the universe is empirically tested (impossible for us to do, but that doesn't mean it can't in theory be done), and no god has appeared, then the only answer left is that the god is outside of the universe AND does not interact with it in any way. Being both outside of the universe and not interacting with it in any way is identical to not existing.
(relatedly, but not identically: if humans have "souls" and after death these go off to "heaven" which is also outside of the universe and doesn't interact with it in any way, then I'd contest that these souls have nothing to do with the person that they used to be attached to - they couldn't retain memory since that's a function of the brain, which is a part of this universe)
I also (as a religious person) reject the God of the gaps idea. To me, it seems logical that any deity(s) would create a logical universe, where things are self consistent. Anything else, implies any such "god(s)" are mad. The problem that arises then, in your framework, is, being individuals of extreme intelligence and power any god is not predictable in his/her interaction with the universe. Something like that is not reproducable, and thus not provable scientifically. In other words, it is possible to accept that there is a scientific explanation for everything reproducable (i.e. by design of the deity) but not everything has a scientific explanation....
With regard to souls(since I am a student of all religions) I prefer not to comment(and the precise concept can differ a lot even within a religion), except that it relates to the interesting concept of free will, which in turn implies responsibility which in turn is the basis of most legal systems..
By "if there were" I meant "if there were known to be", which I assumed was obvious, but on second thoughts maybe isn't. My apologies.
Sorry, after re-reading, I see what you were meaning. It wasn't obvious the first time around. However that doesn't really help your case... if "there were known to be gods" (or invisible pink unicorns) that would also change how we view the universe. There aren't "known" to be gods though... only "believed".
The difference is subtle.. From someone who believes in a god, that
The pink unicorns exist on the same scale as god exists: "someone said so".
Your argument is still "primitives made this up a long time ago so it must have evidence".
Where did I say this? I will however state categorically, that there are modern people who offer a widely accepted(amoung the general populace) explanation of why God exists. I am not saying they are correct, just that they offer a well thought out reasonably self consistent explanation. I would thank you to address the point I am making not the one you made up in your head.
You haven't demonstrated anything; just deferred the problem. "A bunch of people believe this" is not logic and is not a valid argument. There does not have to be pink unicorn or invisible office worker apologists for the logical comparison to be sound.
I have demonstrated the original statement was crafted to offend one side of a debate on a subject that is debatable. The fact that you don't accept the explanation produced by the other side does not mean it automatically ceases to exist. Whereas in the other cases, there are no explanations offered, so nobody has ever given any reason to believe in such things. If you would like to, be my guest. That is the difference. People have reasons(right or wrong) to believe in their deities of choice. Nobody that I know of has ever offered any reasons to believe in pink unicorns.
Is creation not the base religious assumption? Miracles and magic have been disproven* as well. What other basic religious assumptions are there that haven't been shown false?
No. And no. Miracles and magic have not been disproven, only shown to be unreproducable. And now you try to shift the burden to me to list assumptions that have not been proven false.
Regarding creation, a literal interpretation of genesis is not mandatory. We have an explanation of the mechanism by which the universe came about, which is widely accepted. I would contest religion makes little or no comment on this, but does comment on the purpose for which the universe came to exist, which is not something scientifically testable or provable. You seem to have two major issues; namely you can't conceive or understand a viewpoint that does not match yours(and thus your arguments are ineffective), and you confuse and conflate philosophy and science.
Proven false by my point of view or theirs absolutely does not make a difference in this topic. Point of view is not logic and it is not evidence. You use it to skirt the argument.
See above. But point of view does make a difference (obviously), because the framework of logic we use to come to our conclusions has an effect on our conclusions. This is obvious and visible even within science. From a purely newtonian framework, you will get slightly different answers than in a relativistic framework. Someone in the newtonian framework will consider those relativistic answers wrong. The difference is, within science we are talking about things we can (fairly easily) test. Within philosophy, not much is testable. But I can assure you, a religious framework predicts the state of the world better than you'd think.
You seem to be under the impression I am here to prove God(specifically the Judeo/Chistian God)? I am not(and never said I was), I am here to point out that belief in gods/God does not automatically imply irrationality. Your inability to see that is unsurprising, but disappointing. If you wish to argue the existence of God, I suggest you go elsewhere.
Thats the problem. How do we know something unusual is not the result of an unknown natural law? Naturalism demands we assume that the unusual is the result of such a law. Thats the point, within his POV, no such test can exist.
You may want to read the part where I pointed out that nobody has offered a system of belief involving pink unicorns on a scale that can be argued with. There is no such system with enough self consistency to argue against. This is not the same as God/gods existence(s) since there exist such systems. If you would like to start a pink unicorn's apologetics argument, go right ahead.
If you were referring to the people in the office, then here is a way to differentiate the statements: test for other people in the office. Now test for gods. Invisible people in the office? Well you can do the apologetics on that one.
Without using "emotional" arguments there is your answer. None of those statements are comparable in the important way, and the initial statement was crafted to offend. This I believe I have demonstrated.
Have all base assumptions of religions been proven false? Really... Hmmm... creation myths. Well, Augustine for a while argued that a literal interpretation of Genesis was wrong over a thousand years before darwin. I wouldn't say YEC is necessary to be religious. And strangely enough, that is the only one you mention.
The above is a very flawed way of thinking. "there are no people in the office other than me" and "there are no gods" are hardly comparable statements.
I consider them to be fairly comparable... both are statements of the existence or non-existence of some things. Where it falls down is perhaps that "there being people in my office" is on the balance of probability, a much likelier thing than "there are gods"; but aside from that, the core of the statements is basically the same.
You do, but nevertheless they are not. For example, test for other people in the room. Now, test for gods. This much should be obvious.
When you make a strong claim like "There are no gods" and stop there, you are essentially trolling. People care if there are or aren't gods, whereas nobody really cares how many people are in the office.
Whether people care or not is totally irrelevant to the facts of the universe. Either there ARE people in my office, or there are not. Either there ARE gods, or there are not. The amount of emotional investment by people in these things has no bearing on that at all.
It does of course have a bearing on how people will react to those statements (hence your reference to trolling, which I don't totally disagree with), but not to the validity of the statements themselves.
So, when having a conversation that is not directly about the existence of gods, I'm more likely to phrase it a little better to avoid sounding like a bigot; but when directly discussing the existence of gods, I'd rather just speak plainly to avoid misunderstandings.
Which is my point. In this context it is necessary to phrase things better. And GGGP is wrong.
The number of people in your office doesn't influence the way we look at the universe. It has very little impact whatsoever. Additionally you may notice I was replying to cas200 who made the statement that "believing in "God" is *precisely* as irrational as believing in Invisible Pink Unicorns - no more, no less." Which is a very debatable statement. And as far as I can see is a false statement.
If there were invisible pink unicorns ( invisible and pink?!) that would change the way we view the universe.
Only if people believed in them... if there really were invisible pink unicorns, and no-one believed in them then the way we view the universe would be exactly the same as it is now. This is the same as gods. If there really are gods, then I'm wrong and you're right, but their existence or not doesn't change how I view the universe since my belief hasn't changed. If there really aren't any, then I'm right and you're wrong, but since there's no way for you to really KNOW they aren't there, you'll continue believing in them and continuing seeing the universe the way you do.
So basically, the existence or non-existence of something has nothing to do with how people perceive the universe, but rather the belief in the existence of something. This is the other side of the coin to my other statement that could be summed up by saying the that belief in something has no bearing on actual existence.
By "if there were" I meant "if there were known to be", which I assumed was obvious, but on second thoughts maybe isn't. My apologies.
But the number of people who believe in such is small,...person starting from a different viewpoint(read set of working assumptions) will reach different conclusions about the nature of the universe.
I would argue that the person is working from a flawed set of assumptions and is therefore not equally rational. That may sound very harsh, but I honestly do believe that people who are religious have not taken the time (or in extreme cases are not able) to analyse their beliefs in detail. Most of it eventually comes back to Occam's Razor, whi
Rather say (from your POV) God is not likely. While even that is debatable, it is at least more honest.
While you're technically correct, the problem is that you then end up needing to do that for pretty much everything to be consistent, which is just a massive drain on time and common sense. If I say "There are no people in this office other than me", what I really mean is "There are no people in this office other than me, as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe.".
The above is a very flawed way of thinking. "there are no people in the office other than me" and "there are no gods" are hardly comparable statements. When you make a strong claim like "There are no gods" and stop there, you are essentially trolling. People care if there are or aren't gods, whereas nobody really cares how many people are in the office. The number of people in your office doesn't influence the way we look at the universe. It has very little impact whatsoever. Additionally you may notice I was replying to cas200 who made the statement that "believing in "God" is *precisely* as irrational as believing in Invisible Pink Unicorns - no more, no less." Which is a very debatable statement. And as far as I can see is a false statement.
If there were invisible pink unicorns ( invisible and pink?!) that would change the way we view the universe. But the number of people who believe in such is small, so claiming they don't exist is unlikely to be a successful troll. And nobody so far has offered a belief system that has pink unicorns in it on a significant scale to be analyzed. Again, the two statements are not comparable.
The point you still miss, is a equally rational person starting from a different viewpoint(read set of working assumptions) will reach different conclusions about the nature of the universe. Now, how do you know your POV, which includes naturalism and a whole whack of other stuff is more valid? The simple truth is you don't. So, when you say "there are no gods" you may mean "I believe there are no gods", but you are being (deliberately?) misleading, and in the context of the discussion that is, I am sorry, dishonest. Or being a troll.
believing in something for which there is absolutely no evidence, and in fact is contra-indicated by the evidence,
That is debatable. Some would say, those who believe in God have a different view of the universe than you. The view is arguably self consistent and rational. They merely start from a different set of assumptions (or arguably have a few less assumptions than you) about the nature of things.
As another atheist said, strong atheism is indefensible. Not even Dawkins for all his passion states "THERE IS NO GOD". There is a "probably" in his statements. It is an emotional argument viewpoint to say categorically that there is no God, no more, no less. It lacks understanding of the other side and is generally a bit silly.
Rather say (from your POV) God is not likely. While even that is debatable, it is at least more honest.
And now will someone mod this whole thread down for being off-topic. Including this post please.
I enjoyed Heretic 2, where if in multiplayer, someone cut off your arm, you'd bleed to death, and the health wouldn't help you. You had to find a healing shrine. But it wasn't intended to be realistic...
While you are very correct, let me fix that for you:
It doesn't work yet.
While fixing it will break a lot of (arguably already broken) hardware, it is an essential feature if we are talking about pushing large amounts of power through USB. The protocol supports it, all we have to do is implement it correctly in both hardware and software. Otherwise the whole thing is a disaster looking for a place to happen.
Power over USB is negotiated. If the supplier does not have it does not grant the device's request. Simply put this means you won't be able to use all your devices with your laptop without adding an external power supply to the device... There are other physics problems with their idea. (At 50V, 2A still seems like a lot of current to put through your small USB connector. At 100V your USB cable is not a safety hazard...)
Probably compromise. And a change in connectors. I doubt they'll exceed a couple of amps. But the voltage could conceivably reach 48V, which is a very useful voltage. Still, 2A through a standard USB connector...? I dunno. That could still be a fire hazard..
It is all a bit silly, because to get more than 12V out of a PC, you'd need an inefficient step up converter. Or a redesigned power supply, which may be what they're looking at.
They're talking about increasing the power by increasing the voltage as well as the current. I doubt anyone is stupid enough to push 20A through a USB port without a serious design change in the connectors. More than likely we'll be seeing less than 5A at 20V or less. Even that is pushing it a little...
I have had this problem as well and traced it to missing ground connections on my screen (poorly designed 2 pin switching power supply) so when the laptop charger is not in and my external screen is connected, any groundplane on the laptop gives me a shock. If you look between "ground" on your port and ground on your mains supply with a CRO, you will probably see a fairly big signal...
You shrug this off, yet what we see here is a case where a country's police are corrupt enough to completely turn a blind eye to infringement of traffic laws, are incapable of controlling basic criminal actions (South Africa has the second highest murder rate per capita, and first highest rape rate), and let things get to the extent that car jacking is so common place that insurance of cars is very expensive.
Actually, insuring cars here is mostly expensive because 3rd party insurance is not mandatory here, so if you're involved in an accident that is not your fault, your insurance company probably won't get its money back... And the hijacking, but that has a much smaller effect than you'd think.
Then the hardware designer stuffed up. There are things that should be safety interlocked. Also, system should be rated for a specific load. Cooking the PLC outputs may be possible by rapidly switching them, but someone would notice before your rated 100000 switches were up.
Where I work we have found simpler PLCs more reliable and easier to work with. Siemens are a complete mess. Much better to use OMRON. Or even Mitsubishi(though they have issues too).
I have yet to see a major SCADA system that does not require Windows. It is simply the way things are. We are tied to things like legacy OPC (which uses that mess called DCOM). Some control PC software is so poorly written, it will only run on for example Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. And that is from one of the big (nameless - for obvious reasons) companies. The problem is, the cost of re-writing this software is insane. And you'd never justify it to your boss, because it works already.
I still say why are any of these connected to a commodity OS as well.
You don't *need* it to be online directly, nor do you need it to be tied to any specific commodity OS at this stage of the game. In the old days this was the case. Isolated networks, and dedicated operating systems were the norm ( including the monitoring systems ).
Name a major SCADA system that doesn't require Windows. Heck, I know some that require very specific versions and service packs or they don't work...
Slashdot Mirror
For example, test for other people in the room. Now, test for gods. This much should be obvious.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's quite that straightforward. After all, how do I go about testing for other people in the room? What if they're wearing some kind of invisibility cloak that they invented? How about if I've been hyptonised to not see them? etc, etc.
I reject on principle that any test I perform is necessarily correct, accurate and covers all eventualities. I am human and therefore flawed.
In which case, we must look into other scenarios. If someone offers a reasonable self consistent explanation of why there are invisible people in the room, must we dismiss them out of hand? What if that explanation was untestable? You may consider it unlikely, but that proves nothing. The point I'm making is that in all these analogies atheists produce, the difference is either someone has offered an explanation, or they are comparing an entity like a god to something physical and tangible. When we get to the stage where someone offers that self consistent explanation and we can't test or prove it, the analogy starts to work again. It really starts to work well, when we get to the point that within their framework of thought, by Occam's razor it makes sense that there are invisible people in the room. Dark matter immediately springs to mind. Does it exist? Well, maybe not, but we liked the explanation for a long time.
I however ALSO reject on principle that no test can be defined that tests for the existence of a god. Simply we don't yet have such tests since the definition keeps slipping ("God of the gaps"). If eventually everything in the universe is empirically tested (impossible for us to do, but that doesn't mean it can't in theory be done), and no god has appeared, then the only answer left is that the god is outside of the universe AND does not interact with it in any way. Being both outside of the universe and not interacting with it in any way is identical to not existing.
(relatedly, but not identically: if humans have "souls" and after death these go off to "heaven" which is also outside of the universe and doesn't interact with it in any way, then I'd contest that these souls have nothing to do with the person that they used to be attached to - they couldn't retain memory since that's a function of the brain, which is a part of this universe)
I also (as a religious person) reject the God of the gaps idea. To me, it seems logical that any deity(s) would create a logical universe, where things are self consistent. Anything else, implies any such "god(s)" are mad. The problem that arises then, in your framework, is, being individuals of extreme intelligence and power any god is not predictable in his/her interaction with the universe. Something like that is not reproducable, and thus not provable scientifically. In other words, it is possible to accept that there is a scientific explanation for everything reproducable (i.e. by design of the deity) but not everything has a scientific explanation....
With regard to souls(since I am a student of all religions) I prefer not to comment(and the precise concept can differ a lot even within a religion), except that it relates to the interesting concept of free will, which in turn implies responsibility which in turn is the basis of most legal systems..
By "if there were" I meant "if there were known to be", which I assumed was obvious, but on second thoughts maybe isn't. My apologies.
Sorry, after re-reading, I see what you were meaning. It wasn't obvious the first time around. However that doesn't really help your case... if "there were known to be gods" (or invisible pink unicorns) that would also change how we view the universe. There aren't "known" to be gods though... only "believed".
The difference is subtle.. From someone who believes in a god, that
The pink unicorns exist on the same scale as god exists: "someone said so".
Your argument is still "primitives made this up a long time ago so it must have evidence".
Where did I say this? I will however state categorically, that there are modern people who offer a widely accepted(amoung the general populace) explanation of why God exists. I am not saying they are correct, just that they offer a well thought out reasonably self consistent explanation. I would thank you to address the point I am making not the one you made up in your head.
You haven't demonstrated anything; just deferred the problem. "A bunch of people believe this" is not logic and is not a valid argument. There does not have to be pink unicorn or invisible office worker apologists for the logical comparison to be sound.
I have demonstrated the original statement was crafted to offend one side of a debate on a subject that is debatable. The fact that you don't accept the explanation produced by the other side does not mean it automatically ceases to exist. Whereas in the other cases, there are no explanations offered, so nobody has ever given any reason to believe in such things. If you would like to, be my guest. That is the difference. People have reasons(right or wrong) to believe in their deities of choice. Nobody that I know of has ever offered any reasons to believe in pink unicorns.
Is creation not the base religious assumption? Miracles and magic have been disproven* as well. What other basic religious assumptions are there that haven't been shown false?
No. And no. Miracles and magic have not been disproven, only shown to be unreproducable. And now you try to shift the burden to me to list assumptions that have not been proven false.
Regarding creation, a literal interpretation of genesis is not mandatory. We have an explanation of the mechanism by which the universe came about, which is widely accepted. I would contest religion makes little or no comment on this, but does comment on the purpose for which the universe came to exist, which is not something scientifically testable or provable. You seem to have two major issues; namely you can't conceive or understand a viewpoint that does not match yours(and thus your arguments are ineffective), and you confuse and conflate philosophy and science.
Proven false by my point of view or theirs absolutely does not make a difference in this topic. Point of view is not logic and it is not evidence. You use it to skirt the argument.
See above. But point of view does make a difference (obviously), because the framework of logic we use to come to our conclusions has an effect on our conclusions. This is obvious and visible even within science. From a purely newtonian framework, you will get slightly different answers than in a relativistic framework. Someone in the newtonian framework will consider those relativistic answers wrong. The difference is, within science we are talking about things we can (fairly easily) test. Within philosophy, not much is testable. But I can assure you, a religious framework predicts the state of the world better than you'd think.
You seem to be under the impression I am here to prove God(specifically the Judeo/Chistian God)? I am not(and never said I was), I am here to point out that belief in gods/God does not automatically imply irrationality. Your inability to see that is unsurprising, but disappointing. If you wish to argue the existence of God, I suggest you go elsewhere.
Thats the problem. How do we know something unusual is not the result of an unknown natural law? Naturalism demands we assume that the unusual is the result of such a law. Thats the point, within his POV, no such test can exist.
Additionally, proven false from your POV, or internally to theirs? It makes a difference, if you can see it.
You may want to read the part where I pointed out that nobody has offered a system of belief involving pink unicorns on a scale that can be argued with. There is no such system with enough self consistency to argue against. This is not the same as God/gods existence(s) since there exist such systems. If you would like to start a pink unicorn's apologetics argument, go right ahead.
If you were referring to the people in the office, then here is a way to differentiate the statements: test for other people in the office. Now test for gods. Invisible people in the office? Well you can do the apologetics on that one.
Without using "emotional" arguments there is your answer. None of those statements are comparable in the important way, and the initial statement was crafted to offend. This I believe I have demonstrated.
Have all base assumptions of religions been proven false? Really... Hmmm... creation myths. Well, Augustine for a while argued that a literal interpretation of Genesis was wrong over a thousand years before darwin. I wouldn't say YEC is necessary to be religious. And strangely enough, that is the only one you mention.
The above is a very flawed way of thinking. "there are no people in the office other than me" and "there are no gods" are hardly comparable statements.
I consider them to be fairly comparable... both are statements of the existence or non-existence of some things. Where it falls down is perhaps that "there being people in my office" is on the balance of probability, a much likelier thing than "there are gods"; but aside from that, the core of the statements is basically the same.
You do, but nevertheless they are not. For example, test for other people in the room. Now, test for gods. This much should be obvious.
When you make a strong claim like "There are no gods" and stop there, you are essentially trolling. People care if there are or aren't gods, whereas nobody really cares how many people are in the office.
Whether people care or not is totally irrelevant to the facts of the universe. Either there ARE people in my office, or there are not. Either there ARE gods, or there are not. The amount of emotional investment by people in these things has no bearing on that at all.
It does of course have a bearing on how people will react to those statements (hence your reference to trolling, which I don't totally disagree with), but not to the validity of the statements themselves.
So, when having a conversation that is not directly about the existence of gods, I'm more likely to phrase it a little better to avoid sounding like a bigot; but when directly discussing the existence of gods, I'd rather just speak plainly to avoid misunderstandings.
Which is my point. In this context it is necessary to phrase things better. And GGGP is wrong.
The number of people in your office doesn't influence the way we look at the universe. It has very little impact whatsoever. Additionally you may notice I was replying to cas200 who made the statement that "believing in "God" is *precisely* as irrational as believing in Invisible Pink Unicorns - no more, no less." Which is a very debatable statement. And as far as I can see is a false statement.
If there were invisible pink unicorns ( invisible and pink?!) that would change the way we view the universe.
Only if people believed in them... if there really were invisible pink unicorns, and no-one believed in them then the way we view the universe would be exactly the same as it is now. This is the same as gods. If there really are gods, then I'm wrong and you're right, but their existence or not doesn't change how I view the universe since my belief hasn't changed. If there really aren't any, then I'm right and you're wrong, but since there's no way for you to really KNOW they aren't there, you'll continue believing in them and continuing seeing the universe the way you do.
So basically, the existence or non-existence of something has nothing to do with how people perceive the universe, but rather the belief in the existence of something. This is the other side of the coin to my other statement that could be summed up by saying the that belief in something has no bearing on actual existence.
By "if there were" I meant "if there were known to be", which I assumed was obvious, but on second thoughts maybe isn't. My apologies.
But the number of people who believe in such is small, ...person starting from a different viewpoint(read set of working assumptions) will reach different conclusions about the nature of the universe.
I would argue that the person is working from a flawed set of assumptions and is therefore not equally rational. That may sound very harsh, but I honestly do believe that people who are religious have not taken the time (or in extreme cases are not able) to analyse their beliefs in detail. Most of it eventually comes back to Occam's Razor, whi
Rather say (from your POV) God is not likely. While even that is debatable, it is at least more honest.
While you're technically correct, the problem is that you then end up needing to do that for pretty much everything to be consistent, which is just a massive drain on time and common sense. If I say "There are no people in this office other than me", what I really mean is "There are no people in this office other than me, as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe.".
The above is a very flawed way of thinking. "there are no people in the office other than me" and "there are no gods" are hardly comparable statements. When you make a strong claim like "There are no gods" and stop there, you are essentially trolling. People care if there are or aren't gods, whereas nobody really cares how many people are in the office. The number of people in your office doesn't influence the way we look at the universe. It has very little impact whatsoever. Additionally you may notice I was replying to cas200 who made the statement that "believing in "God" is *precisely* as irrational as believing in Invisible Pink Unicorns - no more, no less." Which is a very debatable statement. And as far as I can see is a false statement.
If there were invisible pink unicorns ( invisible and pink?!) that would change the way we view the universe. But the number of people who believe in such is small, so claiming they don't exist is unlikely to be a successful troll. And nobody so far has offered a belief system that has pink unicorns in it on a significant scale to be analyzed. Again, the two statements are not comparable.
The point you still miss, is a equally rational person starting from a different viewpoint(read set of working assumptions) will reach different conclusions about the nature of the universe. Now, how do you know your POV, which includes naturalism and a whole whack of other stuff is more valid? The simple truth is you don't. So, when you say "there are no gods" you may mean "I believe there are no gods", but you are being (deliberately?) misleading, and in the context of the discussion that is, I am sorry, dishonest. Or being a troll.
believing in something for which there is absolutely no evidence, and in fact is contra-indicated by the evidence,
That is debatable. Some would say, those who believe in God have a different view of the universe than you. The view is arguably self consistent and rational. They merely start from a different set of assumptions (or arguably have a few less assumptions than you) about the nature of things.
As another atheist said, strong atheism is indefensible. Not even Dawkins for all his passion states "THERE IS NO GOD". There is a "probably" in his statements. It is an emotional argument viewpoint to say categorically that there is no God, no more, no less. It lacks understanding of the other side and is generally a bit silly.
Rather say (from your POV) God is not likely. While even that is debatable, it is at least more honest.
And now will someone mod this whole thread down for being off-topic. Including this post please.
These guys don't think that should be the case... But you still don't get altitude or g-force effects sitting in front of a PC.
there is a topic in game design what I call "Frame of Reference", but that is a topic for another day.
Interesting. Perhaps you could post a link? Or at least something here or in your journal?
I enjoyed Heretic 2, where if in multiplayer, someone cut off your arm, you'd bleed to death, and the health wouldn't help you. You had to find a healing shrine. But it wasn't intended to be realistic...
While you are very correct, let me fix that for you:
It doesn't work yet.
While fixing it will break a lot of (arguably already broken) hardware, it is an essential feature if we are talking about pushing large amounts of power through USB. The protocol supports it, all we have to do is implement it correctly in both hardware and software. Otherwise the whole thing is a disaster looking for a place to happen.
*USB cable becomes a safety hazard... Need more coffee. I've been working on Bob's code today...
Power over USB is negotiated. If the supplier does not have it does not grant the device's request. Simply put this means you won't be able to use all your devices with your laptop without adding an external power supply to the device... There are other physics problems with their idea. (At 50V, 2A still seems like a lot of current to put through your small USB connector. At 100V your USB cable is not a safety hazard...)
Probably compromise. And a change in connectors. I doubt they'll exceed a couple of amps. But the voltage could conceivably reach 48V, which is a very useful voltage. Still, 2A through a standard USB connector...? I dunno. That could still be a fire hazard..
It is all a bit silly, because to get more than 12V out of a PC, you'd need an inefficient step up converter. Or a redesigned power supply, which may be what they're looking at.
They're talking about increasing the power by increasing the voltage as well as the current. I doubt anyone is stupid enough to push 20A through a USB port without a serious design change in the connectors. More than likely we'll be seeing less than 5A at 20V or less. Even that is pushing it a little...
Mod parent up.
I have had this problem as well and traced it to missing ground connections on my screen (poorly designed 2 pin switching power supply) so when the laptop charger is not in and my external screen is connected, any groundplane on the laptop gives me a shock. If you look between "ground" on your port and ground on your mains supply with a CRO, you will probably see a fairly big signal...
Are you serious? Normally I would assume not, but this is slashdot. If you are, what would you suggest he do with his old machines? Doorstops?
This could be why they're rioting... They want better smartphones!
(And additionally, if the police are ignoring traffic infringements, I have yet to see it. The fines can be quite hefty.)
You shrug this off, yet what we see here is a case where a country's police are corrupt enough to completely turn a blind eye to infringement of traffic laws, are incapable of controlling basic criminal actions (South Africa has the second highest murder rate per capita, and first highest rape rate), and let things get to the extent that car jacking is so common place that insurance of cars is very expensive.
Actually, insuring cars here is mostly expensive because 3rd party insurance is not mandatory here, so if you're involved in an accident that is not your fault, your insurance company probably won't get its money back... And the hijacking, but that has a much smaller effect than you'd think.
Stab in the dark here... Rockwell...?
Then the hardware designer stuffed up. There are things that should be safety interlocked. Also, system should be rated for a specific load. Cooking the PLC outputs may be possible by rapidly switching them, but someone would notice before your rated 100000 switches were up.
Where I work we have found simpler PLCs more reliable and easier to work with. Siemens are a complete mess. Much better to use OMRON. Or even Mitsubishi(though they have issues too).
I have yet to see a major SCADA system that does not require Windows. It is simply the way things are. We are tied to things like legacy OPC (which uses that mess called DCOM). Some control PC software is so poorly written, it will only run on for example Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. And that is from one of the big (nameless - for obvious reasons) companies. The problem is, the cost of re-writing this software is insane. And you'd never justify it to your boss, because it works already.
I still say why are any of these connected to a commodity OS as well.
You don't *need* it to be online directly, nor do you need it to be tied to any specific commodity OS at this stage of the game. In the old days this was the case. Isolated networks, and dedicated operating systems were the norm ( including the monitoring systems ).
Name a major SCADA system that doesn't require Windows. Heck, I know some that require very specific versions and service packs or they don't work...