Lots of handwaving but no substance. Whether or not the set of state machines is quite well defined or not is irrelevant. P1 is predicated upon the premise that a set can not preceed the existence of its components. V does that. Whether or not V is a valid and well defined set within the context of set theory does not in any way change the fact that V violates one of the premises of this particular argument. If you remove that premise, then P1 falls.
As for noncausal phenomenon, the exact argument you made concerning noncausal phenomenon applies equally well to self-causal phenomenon. Epistemologically, we have no experience with self-causal phenomena and no justification to believe they have any manifestation in reality. Until we do, we must omit them from any metaphysical arguments.
As for g, you're now arguing that single member sets are invalid? That g and G are logically equivalent is the essence of my point. To put it more simply, any component is necessarily equivalent to a single set containing itself. Self-causal phenomenon is therefore a violation of P1. There is no reason to say that P1 doesn't apply, or that it's a misapplication of the postulate except that applying it so invalidates the argument you're trying to champion. The correct conclusion, in that case, isn't that the postulate doesn't apply but that the argument is invalid. If we're allowed to pick and choose which postulates apply to which phenomenon, I'll simply say that P1 doesn't apply to V.
Huh? Evidently, now you're REALLY misunderstanding me. Just because I was raised in that environment doesn't mean that I don't have a brain, nor does it mean that I'm not capable of evaluating those beliefs and rejecting them.
I'm completely and utterly opposed to creationism being taught in school. I don't question evolution at all. I think there's still a great deal we don't know about it. (How much of a role does neo-group selection play? What, specificially, is it in the environment that determines whether and how certain genes are expressed? How did that sensitivity evolve?) But evolution itself it as much a fact as anything else that we know about the universe we inhabit.
My point is this: I don't question people's faith. I can claim that the universe was created 6000 years ago, complete with fossils buried in the ground, carbon isotopes in differing proportions and red shifted stars scattered throughout the universe, and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to disprove it. I don't believe any such claim, but I'm fully aware that there's no way to disprove it. If someone chooses to believe such a thing, its none of my business. My original post, to which you replied, wasn't intended to disprove that type of faith. It was intended to address the issue of whether or not such beliefs are in any sense scientific.
Your point, that for many people faith is not scientific and thus not amenable to scientific dissection, is valid but irrelevant to this particular discussion. If you accept that creationism is a matter of faith, you remove any justification for having it taught in public schools. If you reject that and claim that creationism is scientific, then you must also accept that it is amenable to scientific dissection. One can't have it both ways simultaneously.
But the argument that a Creator who employs intelligent design must have Herself been created by a Meta-Creator just demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what God means to people that believe in Her.
No, your response indicates a complete lack of understanding of what I'm addressing.
I was raised in an extremely fundamentalist Christian home. (By extreme fundamentalism, I mean we did not celebrate Christmas, Easter, Halloween or any other holiday other than attending church. We did not go to movies, bowl, play pool or participate in any other "wordly" activities. When I was in the third grade (1973), we packed up and moved to a little town (Bangs) in the middle of the desert in Texas for the express purpose of getting away from unholy influences. If you want to know more, Google "David Terrell." You might want to add a religious term to get past the football player references.) I'm well aware of what the Creator and creationism means to believers.
However, I'm not addressing issues of belief and faith. I'm exclusively addressing the argument that creationism is a scientific theory - that the belief is logically and scientifically consistent with what we know about the universe. If someone wants to profess a faith in God, I have no issue with that what-so-ever. But if they want to claim that their faithful belief is a scientific theory and demand that it be taught in public schools, then I have a big issue.
Horsefeathers. Stanley Miller's work has not come close to proving that organic molecules could not form in the conditions that prevailed under early Earth conditions. The simple fact is that we don't precisely know what conditions prevailed, or how those molecules formed. But our ignorance of precise details is not proof that they did not or could not form. We have very strong evidence that complex organic molecules do form naturally. The evidence comes in the form of meteors, such as the one which fell near Murchison, Australia in 1969. The meteor was rich in organic molecules. Either such molecules form naturally, or they were formed by some sort of life in outer space. Neither explaination fits well with creationism.
The proof is fraught with flaws. For example, P1 says this:
"The existence of a whole system obviously cannot precede the existence of its components (rather, the constitution of a whole obviously supposes and depends upon the prior or simultaneous existence of its components). We thus have the principle of limitation, which asserts that, for every composite phenomenon A, A cannot be a cause of any of its components."
Yet V is defined as the universal superset composed of everything that has been, is, or will be. But claiming that V includes everything that will ever be violates the underpinning of P1, since V cannot preceed the existence of its components. If V contains things that are not yet but will be, then V is an invalid set.
Another flaw appears in the first argument:
Can V cause V, V->V? Proof: If V->V, and E is an element of V, E el V, then V->E which is not possible according to P1. Therefore, V-/->V.
Therefore, there must exist some phenomenon G, such that G->V G must be an element or a subset of V, since V is the superset containing everything
The argument "Therefore, there must exist..." is predicated upon the assumption that there must exist a cause for V. This isn't proven, nor is it listed in the definitions which define the assumptions. In fact, the definitions specifically say:
D1. B is without cause (uncaused) if, for no A does A->B hold
It specifically allows for the possibility of B being without cause. If one simply asserts that there is no A for which A -> V, V is therefore uncaused, there is no need to postulate G, and the rest of the proof falls apart.
You dismissed this above by deferring to the authority of physicists, but this proof isn't based upon the work of physics. It's self-contained - it depends only upon its own assumptions and definitions. It either stands or falls upon its own weight, not upon the word of physicists.
There are other problems as well. Let us say that g is the set of all things which are self caused. g contains one element - G. Thus we have, by definition, G el g. Since V is the superset of all things, it follows that g el V.
Since G->V, then P2 says that G->g.
On the other hand, given G el g, P1 says that G-/->g.
So it is the case that both G->g and G-/->g, which violates P3.
There are other problems as well, but these are sufficient to damn the attempt.
Neat proof. Flawed as a proof of God, but neat. Among other things, it assumes that everything must have a cause, which is far from proven. It ignores the possibility of infinite regression - an infinite series of causes with no end. The unique, self-caused phenomenon, which Magi (Magi - wiseman, hmmm....) calls God can just as easily be called "The Universe."
Fundamental forces don't require a more fundamental force to explain them. But if you accept fundamental forces, then you can't argue that a force requires God to explain it. If you lose the requirement for a Metacreator, then you also lose the requirment for a creator. You can't have it both ways.
If you could prove evolution it would no longer be a scientific theory -- would then be a scientific law.
Horsefeathers. People talk about both the law of gravity and the theory of gravity. The law is the attraction between masses. The theory is the precise description of how that law works. A theory doesn't somehow become a law when it gains sufficient proof. The two are related but distinct terms.
I'd love to see this. However, any teacher who explicitly takes on creationsim like this is very likely to lose his or her job. Creationist don't want creationism evalutated in a scientific light in the classroom. They want it taught as a plausible alternative to evolution, and no mention of it's inherent silliness discussed.
I suspect you're trolling, and I probably shouldn't feed you, but there may be those who fail to see the fallacies in your arguments. I'll respond for their sakes.
True, we do not know where time and matter came from. That doesn't mean it's unknowable. There are lots of clues about the origin of the universe in the way the universe behaves and the form it currently has. To put it simply, all of them indicate a universe that begain in an explosion at a single point and expanded to its present size and consistency. As our knowledge expands, we gain the ability to interpret the existing clues and evidence more accurately. We may never know the exact origin of the universe, or we may someday develop a theory that convincingly explains it. But to say that we don't currently know a detailed explanation isn't the same as saying that the knowledge is unknowable, or "outside the realm of possible study."
But lets suppose that you're correct. Let's suppose that both the origin of matter and the origin of a Creator are unknowable and "outside the realm of possible study." Where does that leave us? It leaves us with one of two possible unanswerable questions. The first possiblity is "There exists a universe which consists of energy in various forms, including matter. This universe follows basic, fundamental rules, and the application of those rules to the energy and matter is capable of explaining life and human intelligence. We have no explanation for how that universe originated." The second possiblity is "There exists a universe with energy in various forms, including matter. It follows fundamental rules but those rules are incapable of explaining the presence of life and human intelligence. We therefore assume that there exists a greater intelligence of unimaginable and unknowable complexity who authored this universe. We have no idea where this greater intelligence originated. Indeed, we claim that we cannot know it because it is too grand and complicated for the human mind to comprehend." Which possibility is simpler? Which better fits with the scientific process? What, exactly, does the believing in the second possibility buy you in terms of scientific knowledge?
Creation is pseudosciene because it is not science, but merely religion dressed up in scientific-sounding clothing. What makes it not science is not any bias or prejudice on my part. What makes it not science is that it does not follow the principles of science. Despite all of the posturing and blustering by creationist, there is no scientific evidence for creationism. None. Furthermore, even if most of the creationist claims were true, there would be precious little evidence for creationism. Creationist seem to think that challenging evolution somehow strengthens the evidence for creationism. It doesn't. The origin of species isn't an "either/or" proposition. It is not the case that either evolution is true or creationism is true. Both could be false, with the true explanation some third alternative. Disproving that the sun revolves around the earth didn't make the theory of epicycles any more true. If creationism were a theory, it would have to stand on its own merits, without reference to evolution. It doesn't. (Of course, it is extremely unlikely that evolution is false. The "problems" that creationsist bring up to challenge it are generally either complete misunderstandings of the theory, such as attacking the claim that "men came from monkeys," or they're assertions that real questions about the details of the mechanisms of evolution somehow challenge the validity of the overall theory.)
Scientists generally don't bother challenging the "evidence" that creationsist present for two reasons. One, doing so grants creationism a respectability that it doesn't merit as a scientific theory. The general public tends to see debates of that sort as comparing two equally tenable alternatives. Creationist would love to see scientists debate them in public because it gives the perception that creationi
It doesn't matter whether or not the Creator is part of the Universe or not. If you can postulate that the Creator exists without cause, then you can postulate that the universe exists without cause. If the complexity of the universe requires a Creator, then the complexity of the Creator requires a MetaCreator as well. Talking about existing inside or outside of the universe is sophistry and doesn't address the real essence of the argument. Why would a complex entity outside of the universe not require an intelligent cause, but a complex entity inside the universe necessarily require one? Is the outside of the universe a magical place where complexity springs into existence without cause? Hardly sounds like a scientific theory to me.
Note that I'm not arguing that Creationist don't make the argument you presented - they certainly do. But that argument is as flawed as the rest of their pseudo-scientific assertions.
This is a geek site, right? And if you're on a company system, there's a good chance you're using Outlook. That means you can send HTML email. (And very probably can even if you're not using Outlook.) So take advantage of a few spammer tricks. Insert an HTML tag into the middle of any words you think might be flagged:
cu<B></b>nt
The recipient won't see the tags at all but they'll fool most content filters.
Shouldn't take very long to hack up a macro or VB script to automatically search and replace for a list of common terms.
The code needs to be well documented, where "well" means both "correctly" and "frequently." Lots and lots of poor documentation is just as bad as little or no documentation. And documentation, no matter how well done, will not fix lousy code.
So I don't question. The story poster is correct. Code needs to be well documented, and neither good organization nor descriptive variable names is a sufficient replacement for documentation. But you're absolutely correct too that documentation is only a small part of what it takes to write good code.
Haven't you heard? That's been modernized, renamed and re-released. It's now called The Dell Desktop With Intel Inside Running Windows XP That Wore Levis and Air Nikes, Brought To You By PepsiCo, Available at Amazon.Com.
Absolutely. This is sheer paranoia. If you go to the AV utility linked above, it clearly states:
Marketscore is part of an online market research community with over 2 million members worldwide. Marketscore relies on its members to gain valuable insight into Internet trends and behavior. In exchange for having their Internet browsing and purchasing activity observed, members have access to free email virus scanning and other benefits. Marketscore DOES NOT sell personal information; nor do members receive any advertisements as a result of their participation.
Unless there is evidence that they're lying and ARE actually collecting personal data or the program tries to hide itself and prevent you from uninstalling it, this is a non-issue. Absent some sort of incriminating evidence that isn't immediately apparent, the company is doing nothing wrong.
I'm not sure if you're intent was to agree or disagree with me. My point was that using Bitkeeper for three years didn't buy anything. The correct solution was to write an open source program that would do what was needed, and all using BK did was delay the start of working on it for three years. As you say, it may have slowed development by a bit but it needs to be done sooner or later. Putting it off doesn't buy you anything.
Also remember that there really wasn't much alternative 3 years ago. What solution would you have chosen 3 years ago?
What solution is there now? Evidently, the solution now is going to be to write a new product (or perhaps enhance an existing product) that accomplishes what the kernel hackers are looking for. So what's going to happen to kernel productivity while this is going on? If the work on an open source applicaton had started three years ago, we'd almost certainly have a usable, though perhaps not complete, product in place by now. So now we're right where we were three years ago. If Bitkeeper had been implemented as a stop gap measure, used while the work proceeded on an open source replacement, it might have been different. It wasn't implemented as a stop gap measure. It was implemented as a solution with no thought as to what would replace it. (Well, there was lots of thought by lots of people but evidently not much by Linus.)
Also what hypocrisy is there from Linus? Has he said somewhere that reverse engineering the BK protocol is immoral and unethical? Has he said the opposite for the samba team? Where exactly is the hypocrisy?
Trigdell is the lead programmer for Samba. It's his baby. It started out as a hobby for him, something to play with, exactly the same way that he was playing with Bitkeeper. I don't know that this hobby would ever produce a replacement for Bitkeeper, but I don't know that it wouldn't either. But, to steal a line from MS, the freedom to innovate is vital. It's the very essence of Open Source.
And yes, Linus has slammed Trigdell directly for it. See here and here.
And if Microsoft had politely asked Trigdell to cease reverse engineering the network protocols, should he have done that too? At the time he started working on them, there was no replacement for a Windows server either. Trigdell reverse engineered the protocols, created Samba, and now we can have Windows and Linux servers running on the same network, working (almost) seamlessly together. Clean room reverse engineering is not only common, it's a key part of the methodology that allows Open Source software to work. Variations on that is how we get Linux to work with Windows, it's how we get Open Office to read Word documents, its how we make Open Source work with any closed software where the protocols are not open. McVoy has every right to kindly ask Trigdell to stop. So does Microsoft and any other company. But Trigdell has every right to ignore the request.
BK is sitting at a table and it threw the Open Source community a bone. Trigdell refused to gnaw on the leavings and decided to go to the kitchen and cook his own dinner instead. McVoy got all in a huff and took his bone back. And it's all Trigdell's fault for not being grateful for the scraps and having the gall to want a full meal instead.
The real issue isn't his decision to use BK. That's was a mistake, but no one is perfect. Mistakes can be rectified. The real issue is that, now that it's become apparent and undeniable that it was a mistake, Linus isn't saying "Ooops. Sorry about that guys." Instead, he's continuting to insist that it wasn't a mistake and that the blame lies on other people for daring to refuse to play by the royal decree that McVoy laid down for the use of his software. There is absolutely no difference in what BK is doing with their protocols and what MS does with their protocols. Reverse engineering MS networking to create Samba, so Linux machines can work with Windows machines, is a good thing. But doing the exact same thing to allow people without a commercial BK license to get to all of their data is somehow immoral and unethical. That's the rankest sort of hypocrisy from Linus, and it greatly damages my trust in his leadership. I don't take anything away from him, or deny him any of the props he deserves for his work on Linux. But he needs to step up to the plate, admit he screwed up, and apologize to Trigdell.
I don't see much difference in this and contracting out physical security services. If Acme Security provides the nightwatchmen for you and also for your rival down the street, are you going to worry about them letting your rivals come in the back door and rummage through your place at night?
There is no conflict of interest in providing security for competing businesses. You have a contract with each business to protect their network infrastructure. You do not have a contract to help their business succeed or to assist them in any other way. You specifically don't have any interest in helping one company to accomplish illegal acts of corporate espionage. Your interest is to protect each network and there is no conflicting interest for you to take any other action. It isn't at all like the case of, say, a law firm representing two competing businesses. While there may be a small number of managers who won't grasp that, most business people are familiar with a company providing services to multiple organizations, including competitors. Do you think they worry about the power compnay cutting off their power in order to help a competitor? How about UPS letting the competitor look through their packages? The phone company letting them listen to phone calls?
Off the motherboard. XP wouldn't see the drive without loading a driver. Loading the driver at the beginning of the install process allowed it to see the drives. It'd go through the install process, copying files, until it got to the first reboot. On reboot, it would hang with an error message about the drive. Don't recall the exact message.
Doesn't the same goes for linux if you don't have the drivers?
If you're talking about ease of install for the unskilled, yes it does.
However, for those with a bit of knowledge, Linux has a significant edge. You can boot from a Windows CD and do some very basic maintenance if your install hangs or crashes half way through. Chances are, however, you won't be able to fix the problem. It took me four times, starting from scratch each time, before I got Windows to install on an SATA.
For Linux, booting from a Live CD and chrooting into the hard disk is straightforward and allows me to fix almost any problem that goes wrong, including installing drivers if needed. I've been a Windows sysadmin, and very possibly will be again, and I'd give my left nu^h^h arm for a similar capability under Windows.
Windows is easy to setup if everything goes right. If it doesn't, you need to have some skillz or know someone who does. One example that springs quickly to mind (because I've just spent a great deal of time wrestling with it) is to try and install Windows to a SATA (Serial ATA) hard drive. Windows generally doesn't recognize SATA controllers without loading a driver, and sometimes it will load and use the driver to start the install, then fail to reload the driver on boot-up and hang. When something like that happens, Windows isn't so easy to install anymore.
The mainstream Linux distros are pretty much the same as Windows. SuSE, Novell Desktop, Mandrake, Red Hat, etc are all as easy to install as Windows now. That wasn't true a couple of years ago. And like Windows, if things go wrong, you need to know what you're doing to get them working.
I too run Gentoo but it's a geeks distro and isn't as easy to setup as the more mainstream distros.
The package selection you pointed out is primarly because Linux tends to install a lot of apps along with the OS. Sure, Windows may not ask you about packages but when you're done, you don't have Office and a whole host of other software installed either. By the time you go through the install process for all of the additional software, I don't think Windows is much easier.
I'm not going to argue that Linux is easier, but it's hardly more difficult either in the mainstream distros.
Not that you mention it, I seem to recall hearing that before. That's what the copyright lawsuit in the story is referring to. Still, Mandrake the Magician is a human being, not a duck. And I'll bet that Mandrake the Magician was named after mandrake, the magical plant.
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Lots of handwaving but no substance. Whether or not the set of state machines is quite well defined or not is irrelevant. P1 is predicated upon the premise that a set can not preceed the existence of its components. V does that. Whether or not V is a valid and well defined set within the context of set theory does not in any way change the fact that V violates one of the premises of this particular argument. If you remove that premise, then P1 falls.
As for noncausal phenomenon, the exact argument you made concerning noncausal phenomenon applies equally well to self-causal phenomenon. Epistemologically, we have no experience with self-causal phenomena and no justification to believe they have any manifestation in reality. Until we do, we must omit them from any metaphysical arguments.
As for g, you're now arguing that single member sets are invalid? That g and G are logically equivalent is the essence of my point. To put it more simply, any component is necessarily equivalent to a single set containing itself. Self-causal phenomenon is therefore a violation of P1. There is no reason to say that P1 doesn't apply, or that it's a misapplication of the postulate except that applying it so invalidates the argument you're trying to champion. The correct conclusion, in that case, isn't that the postulate doesn't apply but that the argument is invalid. If we're allowed to pick and choose which postulates apply to which phenomenon, I'll simply say that P1 doesn't apply to V.
Huh? Evidently, now you're REALLY misunderstanding me. Just because I was raised in that environment doesn't mean that I don't have a brain, nor does it mean that I'm not capable of evaluating those beliefs and rejecting them.
I'm completely and utterly opposed to creationism being taught in school. I don't question evolution at all. I think there's still a great deal we don't know about it. (How much of a role does neo-group selection play? What, specificially, is it in the environment that determines whether and how certain genes are expressed? How did that sensitivity evolve?) But evolution itself it as much a fact as anything else that we know about the universe we inhabit.
My point is this: I don't question people's faith. I can claim that the universe was created 6000 years ago, complete with fossils buried in the ground, carbon isotopes in differing proportions and red shifted stars scattered throughout the universe, and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to disprove it. I don't believe any such claim, but I'm fully aware that there's no way to disprove it. If someone chooses to believe such a thing, its none of my business. My original post, to which you replied, wasn't intended to disprove that type of faith. It was intended to address the issue of whether or not such beliefs are in any sense scientific.
Your point, that for many people faith is not scientific and thus not amenable to scientific dissection, is valid but irrelevant to this particular discussion. If you accept that creationism is a matter of faith, you remove any justification for having it taught in public schools. If you reject that and claim that creationism is scientific, then you must also accept that it is amenable to scientific dissection. One can't have it both ways simultaneously.
But the argument that a Creator who employs intelligent design must have Herself been created by a Meta-Creator just demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what God means to people that believe in Her.
No, your response indicates a complete lack of understanding of what I'm addressing.
I was raised in an extremely fundamentalist Christian home. (By extreme fundamentalism, I mean we did not celebrate Christmas, Easter, Halloween or any other holiday other than attending church. We did not go to movies, bowl, play pool or participate in any other "wordly" activities. When I was in the third grade (1973), we packed up and moved to a little town (Bangs) in the middle of the desert in Texas for the express purpose of getting away from unholy influences. If you want to know more, Google "David Terrell." You might want to add a religious term to get past the football player references.) I'm well aware of what the Creator and creationism means to believers.
However, I'm not addressing issues of belief and faith. I'm exclusively addressing the argument that creationism is a scientific theory - that the belief is logically and scientifically consistent with what we know about the universe. If someone wants to profess a faith in God, I have no issue with that what-so-ever. But if they want to claim that their faithful belief is a scientific theory and demand that it be taught in public schools, then I have a big issue.
Horsefeathers. Stanley Miller's work has not come close to proving that organic molecules could not form in the conditions that prevailed under early Earth conditions. The simple fact is that we don't precisely know what conditions prevailed, or how those molecules formed. But our ignorance of precise details is not proof that they did not or could not form. We have very strong evidence that complex organic molecules do form naturally. The evidence comes in the form of meteors, such as the one which fell near Murchison, Australia in 1969. The meteor was rich in organic molecules. Either such molecules form naturally, or they were formed by some sort of life in outer space. Neither explaination fits well with creationism.
The proof is fraught with flaws. For example, P1 says this:
"The existence of a whole system obviously cannot precede the existence of its components (rather, the constitution of a whole obviously supposes and depends upon the prior or simultaneous existence of its components). We thus have the principle of limitation, which asserts that, for every composite phenomenon A, A cannot be a cause of any of its components."
Yet V is defined as the universal superset composed of everything that has been, is, or will be. But claiming that V includes everything that will ever be violates the underpinning of P1, since V cannot preceed the existence of its components. If V contains things that are not yet but will be, then V is an invalid set.
Another flaw appears in the first argument:
Can V cause V, V->V?
Proof:
If V->V, and E is an element of V, E el V, then V->E which is not possible according to P1.
Therefore, V-/->V.
Therefore, there must exist some phenomenon G, such that G->V
G must be an element or a subset of V, since V is the superset containing everything
The argument "Therefore, there must exist..." is predicated upon the assumption that there must exist a cause for V. This isn't proven, nor is it listed in the definitions which define the assumptions. In fact, the definitions specifically say:
D1. B is without cause (uncaused) if, for no A does A->B hold
It specifically allows for the possibility of B being without cause. If one simply asserts that there is no A for which A -> V, V is therefore uncaused, there is no need to postulate G, and the rest of the proof falls apart.
You dismissed this above by deferring to the authority of physicists, but this proof isn't based upon the work of physics. It's self-contained - it depends only upon its own assumptions and definitions. It either stands or falls upon its own weight, not upon the word of physicists.
There are other problems as well. Let us say that g is the set of all things which are self caused. g contains one element - G. Thus we have, by definition, G el g. Since V is the superset of all things, it follows that g el V.
Since G->V, then P2 says that G->g.
On the other hand, given G el g, P1 says that G-/->g.
So it is the case that both G->g and G-/->g, which violates P3.
There are other problems as well, but these are sufficient to damn the attempt.
Neat proof. Flawed as a proof of God, but neat. Among other things, it assumes that everything must have a cause, which is far from proven. It ignores the possibility of infinite regression - an infinite series of causes with no end. The unique, self-caused phenomenon, which Magi (Magi - wiseman, hmmm....) calls God can just as easily be called "The Universe."
Fundamental forces don't require a more fundamental force to explain them. But if you accept fundamental forces, then you can't argue that a force requires God to explain it. If you lose the requirement for a Metacreator, then you also lose the requirment for a creator. You can't have it both ways.
If you could prove evolution it would no longer be a scientific theory -- would then be a scientific law.
Horsefeathers. People talk about both the law of gravity and the theory of gravity. The law is the attraction between masses. The theory is the precise description of how that law works. A theory doesn't somehow become a law when it gains sufficient proof. The two are related but distinct terms.
I'd love to see this. However, any teacher who explicitly takes on creationsim like this is very likely to lose his or her job. Creationist don't want creationism evalutated in a scientific light in the classroom. They want it taught as a plausible alternative to evolution, and no mention of it's inherent silliness discussed.
I suspect you're trolling, and I probably shouldn't feed you, but there may be those who fail to see the fallacies in your arguments. I'll respond for their sakes.
True, we do not know where time and matter came from. That doesn't mean it's unknowable. There are lots of clues about the origin of the universe in the way the universe behaves and the form it currently has. To put it simply, all of them indicate a universe that begain in an explosion at a single point and expanded to its present size and consistency. As our knowledge expands, we gain the ability to interpret the existing clues and evidence more accurately. We may never know the exact origin of the universe, or we may someday develop a theory that convincingly explains it. But to say that we don't currently know a detailed explanation isn't the same as saying that the knowledge is unknowable, or "outside the realm of possible study."
But lets suppose that you're correct. Let's suppose that both the origin of matter and the origin of a Creator are unknowable and "outside the realm of possible study." Where does that leave us? It leaves us with one of two possible unanswerable questions. The first possiblity is "There exists a universe which consists of energy in various forms, including matter. This universe follows basic, fundamental rules, and the application of those rules to the energy and matter is capable of explaining life and human intelligence. We have no explanation for how that universe originated." The second possiblity is "There exists a universe with energy in various forms, including matter. It follows fundamental rules but those rules are incapable of explaining the presence of life and human intelligence. We therefore assume that there exists a greater intelligence of unimaginable and unknowable complexity who authored this universe. We have no idea where this greater intelligence originated. Indeed, we claim that we cannot know it because it is too grand and complicated for the human mind to comprehend." Which possibility is simpler? Which better fits with the scientific process? What, exactly, does the believing in the second possibility buy you in terms of scientific knowledge?
Creation is pseudosciene because it is not science, but merely religion dressed up in scientific-sounding clothing. What makes it not science is not any bias or prejudice on my part. What makes it not science is that it does not follow the principles of science. Despite all of the posturing and blustering by creationist, there is no scientific evidence for creationism. None. Furthermore, even if most of the creationist claims were true, there would be precious little evidence for creationism. Creationist seem to think that challenging evolution somehow strengthens the evidence for creationism. It doesn't. The origin of species isn't an "either/or" proposition. It is not the case that either evolution is true or creationism is true. Both could be false, with the true explanation some third alternative. Disproving that the sun revolves around the earth didn't make the theory of epicycles any more true. If creationism were a theory, it would have to stand on its own merits, without reference to evolution. It doesn't. (Of course, it is extremely unlikely that evolution is false. The "problems" that creationsist bring up to challenge it are generally either complete misunderstandings of the theory, such as attacking the claim that "men came from monkeys," or they're assertions that real questions about the details of the mechanisms of evolution somehow challenge the validity of the overall theory.)
Scientists generally don't bother challenging the "evidence" that creationsist present for two reasons. One, doing so grants creationism a respectability that it doesn't merit as a scientific theory. The general public tends to see debates of that sort as comparing two equally tenable alternatives. Creationist would love to see scientists debate them in public because it gives the perception that creationi
It doesn't matter whether or not the Creator is part of the Universe or not. If you can postulate that the Creator exists without cause, then you can postulate that the universe exists without cause. If the complexity of the universe requires a Creator, then the complexity of the Creator requires a MetaCreator as well. Talking about existing inside or outside of the universe is sophistry and doesn't address the real essence of the argument. Why would a complex entity outside of the universe not require an intelligent cause, but a complex entity inside the universe necessarily require one? Is the outside of the universe a magical place where complexity springs into existence without cause? Hardly sounds like a scientific theory to me.
Note that I'm not arguing that Creationist don't make the argument you presented - they certainly do. But that argument is as flawed as the rest of their pseudo-scientific assertions.
This is a geek site, right? And if you're on a company system, there's a good chance you're using Outlook. That means you can send HTML email. (And very probably can even if you're not using Outlook.) So take advantage of a few spammer tricks. Insert an HTML tag into the middle of any words you think might be flagged:
cu<B></b>nt
The recipient won't see the tags at all but they'll fool most content filters.
Shouldn't take very long to hack up a macro or VB script to automatically search and replace for a list of common terms.
So who said HTML email was good for nothing?
The code needs to be well documented, where "well" means both "correctly" and "frequently." Lots and lots of poor documentation is just as bad as little or no documentation. And documentation, no matter how well done, will not fix lousy code.
So I don't question. The story poster is correct. Code needs to be well documented, and neither good organization nor descriptive variable names is a sufficient replacement for documentation. But you're absolutely correct too that documentation is only a small part of what it takes to write good code.
Haven't you heard? That's been modernized, renamed and re-released. It's now called The Dell Desktop With Intel Inside Running Windows XP That Wore Levis and Air Nikes, Brought To You By PepsiCo, Available at Amazon.Com.
Absolutely. This is sheer paranoia. If you go to the AV utility linked above, it clearly states:
Marketscore is part of an online market research community with over 2 million members worldwide. Marketscore relies on its members to gain valuable insight into Internet trends and behavior. In exchange for having their Internet browsing and purchasing activity observed, members have access to free email virus scanning and other benefits. Marketscore DOES NOT sell personal information; nor do members receive any advertisements as a result of their participation.
Unless there is evidence that they're lying and ARE actually collecting personal data or the program tries to hide itself and prevent you from uninstalling it, this is a non-issue. Absent some sort of incriminating evidence that isn't immediately apparent, the company is doing nothing wrong.
I'm not sure if you're intent was to agree or disagree with me. My point was that using Bitkeeper for three years didn't buy anything. The correct solution was to write an open source program that would do what was needed, and all using BK did was delay the start of working on it for three years. As you say, it may have slowed development by a bit but it needs to be done sooner or later. Putting it off doesn't buy you anything.
Also remember that there really wasn't much alternative 3 years ago. What solution would you have chosen 3 years ago?
What solution is there now? Evidently, the solution now is going to be to write a new product (or perhaps enhance an existing product) that accomplishes what the kernel hackers are looking for. So what's going to happen to kernel productivity while this is going on? If the work on an open source applicaton had started three years ago, we'd almost certainly have a usable, though perhaps not complete, product in place by now. So now we're right where we were three years ago. If Bitkeeper had been implemented as a stop gap measure, used while the work proceeded on an open source replacement, it might have been different. It wasn't implemented as a stop gap measure. It was implemented as a solution with no thought as to what would replace it. (Well, there was lots of thought by lots of people but evidently not much by Linus.)
Also what hypocrisy is there from Linus? Has he said somewhere that reverse engineering the BK protocol is immoral and unethical? Has he said the opposite for the samba team? Where exactly is the hypocrisy?
Trigdell is the lead programmer for Samba. It's his baby. It started out as a hobby for him, something to play with, exactly the same way that he was playing with Bitkeeper. I don't know that this hobby would ever produce a replacement for Bitkeeper, but I don't know that it wouldn't either. But, to steal a line from MS, the freedom to innovate is vital. It's the very essence of Open Source.
And yes, Linus has slammed Trigdell directly for it. See here and here.
And if Microsoft had politely asked Trigdell to cease reverse engineering the network protocols, should he have done that too? At the time he started working on them, there was no replacement for a Windows server either. Trigdell reverse engineered the protocols, created Samba, and now we can have Windows and Linux servers running on the same network, working (almost) seamlessly together. Clean room reverse engineering is not only common, it's a key part of the methodology that allows Open Source software to work. Variations on that is how we get Linux to work with Windows, it's how we get Open Office to read Word documents, its how we make Open Source work with any closed software where the protocols are not open. McVoy has every right to kindly ask Trigdell to stop. So does Microsoft and any other company. But Trigdell has every right to ignore the request.
BK is sitting at a table and it threw the Open Source community a bone. Trigdell refused to gnaw on the leavings and decided to go to the kitchen and cook his own dinner instead. McVoy got all in a huff and took his bone back. And it's all Trigdell's fault for not being grateful for the scraps and having the gall to want a full meal instead.
The real issue isn't his decision to use BK. That's was a mistake, but no one is perfect. Mistakes can be rectified. The real issue is that, now that it's become apparent and undeniable that it was a mistake, Linus isn't saying "Ooops. Sorry about that guys." Instead, he's continuting to insist that it wasn't a mistake and that the blame lies on other people for daring to refuse to play by the royal decree that McVoy laid down for the use of his software. There is absolutely no difference in what BK is doing with their protocols and what MS does with their protocols. Reverse engineering MS networking to create Samba, so Linux machines can work with Windows machines, is a good thing. But doing the exact same thing to allow people without a commercial BK license to get to all of their data is somehow immoral and unethical. That's the rankest sort of hypocrisy from Linus, and it greatly damages my trust in his leadership. I don't take anything away from him, or deny him any of the props he deserves for his work on Linux. But he needs to step up to the plate, admit he screwed up, and apologize to Trigdell.
Speaking of classics, did anyone else think of Heinlein's waldos when they read this?
I don't see much difference in this and contracting out physical security services. If Acme Security provides the nightwatchmen for you and also for your rival down the street, are you going to worry about them letting your rivals come in the back door and rummage through your place at night?
There is no conflict of interest in providing security for competing businesses. You have a contract with each business to protect their network infrastructure. You do not have a contract to help their business succeed or to assist them in any other way. You specifically don't have any interest in helping one company to accomplish illegal acts of corporate espionage. Your interest is to protect each network and there is no conflicting interest for you to take any other action. It isn't at all like the case of, say, a law firm representing two competing businesses. While there may be a small number of managers who won't grasp that, most business people are familiar with a company providing services to multiple organizations, including competitors. Do you think they worry about the power compnay cutting off their power in order to help a competitor? How about UPS letting the competitor look through their packages? The phone company letting them listen to phone calls?
Off the motherboard. XP wouldn't see the drive without loading a driver. Loading the driver at the beginning of the install process allowed it to see the drives. It'd go through the install process, copying files, until it got to the first reboot. On reboot, it would hang with an error message about the drive. Don't recall the exact message.
Doesn't the same goes for linux if you don't have the drivers?
If you're talking about ease of install for the unskilled, yes it does.
However, for those with a bit of knowledge, Linux has a significant edge. You can boot from a Windows CD and do some very basic maintenance if your install hangs or crashes half way through. Chances are, however, you won't be able to fix the problem. It took me four times, starting from scratch each time, before I got Windows to install on an SATA.
For Linux, booting from a Live CD and chrooting into the hard disk is straightforward and allows me to fix almost any problem that goes wrong, including installing drivers if needed. I've been a Windows sysadmin, and very possibly will be again, and I'd give my left nu^h^h arm for a similar capability under Windows.
Windows is easy to setup if everything goes right. If it doesn't, you need to have some skillz or know someone who does. One example that springs quickly to mind (because I've just spent a great deal of time wrestling with it) is to try and install Windows to a SATA (Serial ATA) hard drive. Windows generally doesn't recognize SATA controllers without loading a driver, and sometimes it will load and use the driver to start the install, then fail to reload the driver on boot-up and hang. When something like that happens, Windows isn't so easy to install anymore.
The mainstream Linux distros are pretty much the same as Windows. SuSE, Novell Desktop, Mandrake, Red Hat, etc are all as easy to install as Windows now. That wasn't true a couple of years ago. And like Windows, if things go wrong, you need to know what you're doing to get them working.
I too run Gentoo but it's a geeks distro and isn't as easy to setup as the more mainstream distros.
The package selection you pointed out is primarly because Linux tends to install a lot of apps along with the OS. Sure, Windows may not ask you about packages but when you're done, you don't have Office and a whole host of other software installed either. By the time you go through the install process for all of the additional software, I don't think Windows is much easier.
I'm not going to argue that Linux is easier, but it's hardly more difficult either in the mainstream distros.
Not that you mention it, I seem to recall hearing that before. That's what the copyright lawsuit in the story is referring to. Still, Mandrake the Magician is a human being, not a duck. And I'll bet that Mandrake the Magician was named after mandrake, the magical plant.