Don't you realize yet that budget caps are not limits, they are goals?
I was surprised last year when I visited my brother in San Francisco, he told me his car was categorised as a "compact". To me it was just a car, obviously not a huge one but I didn't think of it as a small one either.
All that work on new propulsion technology and vehicle design (spaceplane, anybody?) and we're doing the same roman candle approach. That is actually worse than something we had 40 years ago.
I'm not a physicist, so I don't really know a huge amount about this. Is there actually a viable design for a spaceplane with a large cargo capacity in the works anywhere? I understand that planes are more economic in the lower atmostphere, where you rest the weight of the plane on the wings, but for upper atmosphere I believe you still need a vertical thrust and to carry the oxygen aboard as well as the fuel you're burning with it. How would you go about this? Maybe a spaceplane that takes off conventionally and refuels in the air for the final burn?
We need to GET OFF THIS ROCK. Stop wasting money on climate projects and get a plan together to colonize other planets.
I agree with that sentiment. However, there is one little detail in that that everyone overlooks. Getting off this rock takes a HUGE amount of energy. We're near the bottom of a gravity well. The only way to get out is a shitload of propulsion.
The idea of getting off this rock matches up exactly with the idea of developing renewable energy. And I don't mean the usual politicians bullshit dream of "80% of our energy needs from renewable sources by 2050". I mean 5000% of our energy NEEDS. We need energy to play with. Enough to get by on is nowhere near enough. We need energy to lift matter off the planet and send it into space, energy to toy with desert ecosystems to see what we can make of them. We need to see what we are able to do. And we need an infrastructure in place that will pay for it.
I'm sorry but that is simply rubbish. They had to randomly come up with the idea. Sticking needles into someone is not in any way an intuitively obvious way to make someone healthier. I don't believe that it does make someone healthier. But we'll leave that aside.
As for being from a culture that can't feel points in my hands defined by a weird Chinese magical practice... well, I'm not Chinese. Sorry. If you want I could try hard to cobble together a semi-coherent pile of rubbish regarding Celtic mysticism, which had an emphasis on the magical power of poetry, particularly focused on the less obvious ways in which to use cadence, the beauty of alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia over simple rhymes, the subtle use of half meanings and double entendres. It would be understandable from someone and a culture that uses a tonal language not to understand such a use of linguistics, but then again I would agree it is horseshit. Even if the horses are thoroughbred.
Your acupuncturist? I shudder to think what some Chinese guy 5000 years ago was trying to achieve when he discovered sticking needles into a particular part of someones gut had possible unforeseen therapeutic value. Western society had it's own brand of voodoo medicine with a tradition stretching back as far as the Chinese one. I'll stick to the bits that started out a few hundred years ago with things like keeping wounds washed. Forgive me if I don't trust tossing a coin into a sacred well in the middle of an oak and blackthorn grove, then waiting for a pin in a bottle of water from the well to rust, to cure me of my woes.
I don't think it's particularly surprising either. However, I would be interested in seeing research into what common gut flora & fauna produce what effects, and how particular dietary elements influence population sizes of those specific organisms.
I can understand the school's desire to maintain a certain level of maturity, but this needs to be the job of the parents and teachers, not the technology. As a father of two boys, I want them to have the opportunity to act stupid, so I can correct them and tell them what is and is not appropriate. I don't want a computer enforcing that for me.
I am of the opinion that such censorship maintains immaturity. Everyone curses. Learning where it is appropriate and where it is not is a part of growing up, and school children should be able to figure out for themselves where it fits. Certainly I would expect to see many of those words appear in any kind of creative writing homework.
I agree 100%. I also think that the costs of litigation to the company, if found to be in the wrong, should be in the same kind of ratio as you suggest. If they were going to cost the guy 5 years salary, the company should be fined 5 years profits. See how soon that stops stupid lawsuits.
From that article: "Sometimes the term exponential function is used more generally for functions of the form c(b^x), where the base b is any positive real number, not necessarily e."
Seems to be more or less what he said.
Dr. Dawkins pointed out certain problems with his model of Memes... One basic problem is that Memes do not appear to prohibit unlimited blending as the genetic code does, and such blending, by Dr. Dawkins' own argument, should have precisely the same effect on Meme theory as unlimited blending of genes would have on Darwinian evolution. All the problems he himself acknowledged with Meme theory remain unsolved and largely unaddressed
This doesn't really have anything to do with what we were talking about. But I would agree that thoughts are capable of faster change than organic constructs, due to the lesser constraints upon their form.
The vast majority of philosophers recognize the validity of philosophy of religion. There is no area where human beings should not practice inquiry.
I agree, perhaps I should be more clear. The philosophy of religion is an inquiry into something that is entirely real: religion. It is just the religions themselves I find problematic.
You don't speak directly to the public about an academic matter unless you can also keep up with the process within the academy as well. If you turn away from the academy as Dawkins as done, then it seems like you are running away from challenges to your work by seeking a mass audience who aren't informed enough to judge the merits of your arguments. Science popularizers like Michio Kaku get lots of flack for making extravagant claims to the public even though they are no longer closely involved in science. Dawkins does the same, with the difference that he was never very involved in philosophy to begin with.
I'm afraid I find that to be both somewhat condescending to the public, and also a position which places science on a lesser footing than religion. For the first point, not everyone is a philospher. Not everyone has knowledge of all philosphical arguments that have been made by the great thinkers of the past; certainly I do not. However they do not need to. Logical fallacies should be pointed out to people, and explainations of why they are fallacies, when needed. But the common people do have a right to hear arguments of this nature, regardless of the their level of knowledge of the background subject matter. I can certainly listen to philosophers make a case for something, without being entirely sure what they mean when they make a reference to some principle of philosophy established by David Hume.
And like i said, adhering to such rules automatically places science below religion. Why should Dawkins only speak to fellow academics, while religious leaders spout drivel to the masses? Science is for everyone. My personal experiences of the difference between science and religion make that clear to me. Religion for me before I denounced it consisted of putting on a dress over my normal clothes and banging a bell with a hammer every Sunday in church while people mumbled rubbish they had repeated so often that they didn't even think about what they were saying, and being caned by a nun because she felt like it. Science is something I will freely admit is something of which I have a far lesser understanding than I would wish, but is something that enables me to live and work to a greater capacity than I would otherwise be capable of.
Richard Dawkins isn't a philosopher of religion. He's a biologist.
I'd take that as a positive thing. Biology is the study of something real. The philosophy of religion is the study of something which, while real itself, is based in pure fantasy. Certain aspects of the study of biology are also pertinent to the understanding of why we believe in fantastic things.
When he gets involved in claims about religion, he transgresses the rules of inquiry
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. What rules?
... and fails to continually re-examine his own arguments.
You have no idea whether that is true. Maybe he re-examines them every day, and finds that they are still as logical as ever?
Just compare the sincerity and humility of his late friend, atheist philosopher of religion J.L. Mackie, with Dawkins' wild demagoguery.
I don't think you quite understand what a demagogue is. "A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power".
First of all, I would hardly describe athiesm as being popular compared to theism. I wouldn't see it as prejudiced either, but that is a rather subjective thing.
Secondly, I would say that what he does is attempt to refute false claims, not make claims of his own. He makes no promises; that is something that religions do.
No they shouldn't. "Car" is an abbrieviated form of the word carriage, which is a wheeled transport device. The power source for motion is not a part of that definition, and I would argue that the difference between a jet engine and a standard modern petrol or diesel combustion engine is smaller than the difference between either of those normal modern engines and a horse.
Lets try rearranging some of the words in that summary to encapsulate the message...
The operation, which involved authorities in the United States, Germany, France, Latvia, the UK and several other nations, seizing dozens of computers, servers and bank accounts as part of a large-scale coordinated operation in twelve countries, made a major dent in the huge scareware and rogue antivirus problem, arresting two people.
The smartest ways to broadcast media in real time is to use technologies designed for it: Broadcast TV, radio, cable, PSTN. Using IP networks is just plain stupid.
You are speaking about broadcast when nobody else is. Nobody cares much about broadcast. We want tailored content. Sure, you can have content that lots of people want, but broadcasting it all is just inefficient. What we want is higher bandwith all round, or cleverer ways of reducing network traffic, like content providers redirecting to ISP hosted caches of their content.
Of course, if you were living in a country which said that linking didn't actually constitute copyright infringement, then the response would be "go away". If your country rules that linking is the same as infringement... well, then you get extradited.
What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Linking is providing a pointer to some data. Are journalists going to be held to this standard as well, or is it only for things that happen to be on a computer system?
Why are you trying so desperately to turn any discussion about China into a political one?
Well, why not? Every discussion about the US turns into a long list of complaints about how either a) America sucks and has always sucked, or b) America is giving up its superpower status to the Chinese.
America is not "giving up" superpower status to anyone. China is merely rapidly catching up. This is a good thing; a lot of people may point at China and cry out about human rights abuses, etc. but the simple fact of the matter is that human rights abuses are more likely to happen where people are poverty stricken and trying to claw their way out of it. People with a comfortable quality of life are less likely to try to fuck everyone else over to make a buck. And as for any perceived danger from a military standpoint from China's rise into superpower status, only a lunatic would try to start a war between global powers today, and the Chinese don't even seem to go in for the beligerent swaggering that happenned in the cold war between Russia and the US.
The "America sucks" bit... well thats really up to Americans to fix if it is true. Nothing to do with China.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you realize yet that budget caps are not limits, they are goals?
I was surprised last year when I visited my brother in San Francisco, he told me his car was categorised as a "compact". To me it was just a car, obviously not a huge one but I didn't think of it as a small one either.
All that work on new propulsion technology and vehicle design (spaceplane, anybody?) and we're doing the same roman candle approach. That is actually worse than something we had 40 years ago.
I'm not a physicist, so I don't really know a huge amount about this. Is there actually a viable design for a spaceplane with a large cargo capacity in the works anywhere? I understand that planes are more economic in the lower atmostphere, where you rest the weight of the plane on the wings, but for upper atmosphere I believe you still need a vertical thrust and to carry the oxygen aboard as well as the fuel you're burning with it. How would you go about this? Maybe a spaceplane that takes off conventionally and refuels in the air for the final burn?
We need to GET OFF THIS ROCK. Stop wasting money on climate projects and get a plan together to colonize other planets.
I agree with that sentiment. However, there is one little detail in that that everyone overlooks. Getting off this rock takes a HUGE amount of energy. We're near the bottom of a gravity well. The only way to get out is a shitload of propulsion.
The idea of getting off this rock matches up exactly with the idea of developing renewable energy. And I don't mean the usual politicians bullshit dream of "80% of our energy needs from renewable sources by 2050". I mean 5000% of our energy NEEDS. We need energy to play with. Enough to get by on is nowhere near enough. We need energy to lift matter off the planet and send it into space, energy to toy with desert ecosystems to see what we can make of them. We need to see what we are able to do. And we need an infrastructure in place that will pay for it.
I'm sorry but that is simply rubbish. They had to randomly come up with the idea. Sticking needles into someone is not in any way an intuitively obvious way to make someone healthier. I don't believe that it does make someone healthier. But we'll leave that aside. As for being from a culture that can't feel points in my hands defined by a weird Chinese magical practice... well, I'm not Chinese. Sorry. If you want I could try hard to cobble together a semi-coherent pile of rubbish regarding Celtic mysticism, which had an emphasis on the magical power of poetry, particularly focused on the less obvious ways in which to use cadence, the beauty of alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia over simple rhymes, the subtle use of half meanings and double entendres. It would be understandable from someone and a culture that uses a tonal language not to understand such a use of linguistics, but then again I would agree it is horseshit. Even if the horses are thoroughbred.
Your acupuncturist? I shudder to think what some Chinese guy 5000 years ago was trying to achieve when he discovered sticking needles into a particular part of someones gut had possible unforeseen therapeutic value. Western society had it's own brand of voodoo medicine with a tradition stretching back as far as the Chinese one. I'll stick to the bits that started out a few hundred years ago with things like keeping wounds washed. Forgive me if I don't trust tossing a coin into a sacred well in the middle of an oak and blackthorn grove, then waiting for a pin in a bottle of water from the well to rust, to cure me of my woes.
I don't think it's particularly surprising either. However, I would be interested in seeing research into what common gut flora & fauna produce what effects, and how particular dietary elements influence population sizes of those specific organisms.
AH yes, I was.
I can understand the school's desire to maintain a certain level of maturity, but this needs to be the job of the parents and teachers, not the technology. As a father of two boys, I want them to have the opportunity to act stupid, so I can correct them and tell them what is and is not appropriate. I don't want a computer enforcing that for me.
I am of the opinion that such censorship maintains immaturity. Everyone curses. Learning where it is appropriate and where it is not is a part of growing up, and school children should be able to figure out for themselves where it fits. Certainly I would expect to see many of those words appear in any kind of creative writing homework.
Worked for me. Shows a list of banned words:
anal anus arse ass asses asshole assholes asskisser asswipe ballsack bastard beastiality biatch bitch bitches bitchin bitching blowjob blowjobs boner boob boobies boobs bullshit bunghole buttface buttfuck buttfucker butthole buttplug circlejerk clit clitoris cock cocks cocksuck cocksucker cocksucking cum cumming cums cumshot cunilingus cunillingus cunnilingus cunt cuntlick cuntlicker cuntlicking cunts damn dick dike dildo dildos dipshit douchebag dumbass dyke ejaculate ejaculated ejaculates ejaculating ejaculation fag fagget fagging faggit faggot faggs fagot fagots fags fatass fatso felatio fellatio fingerfuck fingerfucked fingerfucker fingerfuckers fingerfucking fingerfucks fistfuck fistfucked fistfucker fistfuckers fistfucking fistfuckings fistfucks fuck fucked fucker fuckers fuckin fucking fuckings fuckme fucks fudgepacker gangbang gangbanged gangbangs gaysex goddamn gonads hardon hardcoresex hell homo hooker horniest horny hotsex hussy jackass jackingoff jackoff jack-off jerk-off jism jiz jizm jizz lesbo mothafuck mothafucka mothafuckas mothafuckaz mothafucked mothafucker mothafuckers mothafuckin mothafucking mothafuckings mothafucks motherfuck motherfucked motherfucker motherfuckers motherfuckin motherfucking motherfuckings motherfucks muff nig nigga nigger niggers orgasm orgasms pecker penis phonesex pissoff prick pricks pube pussies pussy pussys queer rape raped retard screw scrotum shit shited shitfull shiting shits shitted shitter shitters shitting shitty sleaze slut sluts smut spunk tit titties titty twat vagina wank whore
Theres also a list of "concern words":
gun shoot stab knife kill hurt fight murder attack punch hate suicide cutting drug drugs pot weed marijuana grass blunt toke stoned beer alcohol booze drunk gay lesbian porn sex molest molested molesting naked nude
I agree 100%. I also think that the costs of litigation to the company, if found to be in the wrong, should be in the same kind of ratio as you suggest. If they were going to cost the guy 5 years salary, the company should be fined 5 years profits. See how soon that stops stupid lawsuits.
Better hurry up then. Theres not much of it left.
That is inflation, and has absolutely nothing to do with economic growth. It is merely a devaluation of the trade medium.
From that article: "Sometimes the term exponential function is used more generally for functions of the form c(b^x), where the base b is any positive real number, not necessarily e." Seems to be more or less what he said.
Dr. Dawkins pointed out certain problems with his model of Memes... One basic problem is that Memes do not appear to prohibit unlimited blending as the genetic code does, and such blending, by Dr. Dawkins' own argument, should have precisely the same effect on Meme theory as unlimited blending of genes would have on Darwinian evolution. All the problems he himself acknowledged with Meme theory remain unsolved and largely unaddressed
This doesn't really have anything to do with what we were talking about. But I would agree that thoughts are capable of faster change than organic constructs, due to the lesser constraints upon their form.
I do, but you apparently don't. Among the several definitions in the OED, one finds "an unprincipled or factious popular orator."
Neither of which I would see as applying.
The vast majority of philosophers recognize the validity of philosophy of religion. There is no area where human beings should not practice inquiry.
I agree, perhaps I should be more clear. The philosophy of religion is an inquiry into something that is entirely real: religion. It is just the religions themselves I find problematic.
You don't speak directly to the public about an academic matter unless you can also keep up with the process within the academy as well. If you turn away from the academy as Dawkins as done, then it seems like you are running away from challenges to your work by seeking a mass audience who aren't informed enough to judge the merits of your arguments. Science popularizers like Michio Kaku get lots of flack for making extravagant claims to the public even though they are no longer closely involved in science. Dawkins does the same, with the difference that he was never very involved in philosophy to begin with.
I'm afraid I find that to be both somewhat condescending to the public, and also a position which places science on a lesser footing than religion. For the first point, not everyone is a philospher. Not everyone has knowledge of all philosphical arguments that have been made by the great thinkers of the past; certainly I do not. However they do not need to. Logical fallacies should be pointed out to people, and explainations of why they are fallacies, when needed. But the common people do have a right to hear arguments of this nature, regardless of the their level of knowledge of the background subject matter. I can certainly listen to philosophers make a case for something, without being entirely sure what they mean when they make a reference to some principle of philosophy established by David Hume. And like i said, adhering to such rules automatically places science below religion. Why should Dawkins only speak to fellow academics, while religious leaders spout drivel to the masses? Science is for everyone. My personal experiences of the difference between science and religion make that clear to me. Religion for me before I denounced it consisted of putting on a dress over my normal clothes and banging a bell with a hammer every Sunday in church while people mumbled rubbish they had repeated so often that they didn't even think about what they were saying, and being caned by a nun because she felt like it. Science is something I will freely admit is something of which I have a far lesser understanding than I would wish, but is something that enables me to live and work to a greater capacity than I would otherwise be capable of.
Richard Dawkins isn't a philosopher of religion. He's a biologist.
I'd take that as a positive thing. Biology is the study of something real. The philosophy of religion is the study of something which, while real itself, is based in pure fantasy. Certain aspects of the study of biology are also pertinent to the understanding of why we believe in fantastic things.
When he gets involved in claims about religion, he transgresses the rules of inquiry
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. What rules?
... and fails to continually re-examine his own arguments.
You have no idea whether that is true. Maybe he re-examines them every day, and finds that they are still as logical as ever?
Just compare the sincerity and humility of his late friend, atheist philosopher of religion J.L. Mackie, with Dawkins' wild demagoguery.
I don't think you quite understand what a demagogue is. "A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power". First of all, I would hardly describe athiesm as being popular compared to theism. I wouldn't see it as prejudiced either, but that is a rather subjective thing. Secondly, I would say that what he does is attempt to refute false claims, not make claims of his own. He makes no promises; that is something that religions do.
I'd imagine anything travelling at 1000mph is prone to crashing.
No they shouldn't. "Car" is an abbrieviated form of the word carriage, which is a wheeled transport device. The power source for motion is not a part of that definition, and I would argue that the difference between a jet engine and a standard modern petrol or diesel combustion engine is smaller than the difference between either of those normal modern engines and a horse.
Lets try rearranging some of the words in that summary to encapsulate the message...
The operation, which involved authorities in the United States, Germany, France, Latvia, the UK and several other nations, seizing dozens of computers, servers and bank accounts as part of a large-scale coordinated operation in twelve countries, made a major dent in the huge scareware and rogue antivirus problem, arresting two people .
The smartest ways to broadcast media in real time is to use technologies designed for it: Broadcast TV, radio, cable, PSTN. Using IP networks is just plain stupid.
You are speaking about broadcast when nobody else is. Nobody cares much about broadcast. We want tailored content. Sure, you can have content that lots of people want, but broadcasting it all is just inefficient. What we want is higher bandwith all round, or cleverer ways of reducing network traffic, like content providers redirecting to ISP hosted caches of their content.
Of course, if you were living in a country which said that linking didn't actually constitute copyright infringement, then the response would be "go away". If your country rules that linking is the same as infringement ... well, then you get extradited.
What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Linking is providing a pointer to some data. Are journalists going to be held to this standard as well, or is it only for things that happen to be on a computer system?
Why are you trying so desperately to turn any discussion about China into a political one?
Well, why not? Every discussion about the US turns into a long list of complaints about how either a) America sucks and has always sucked, or b) America is giving up its superpower status to the Chinese.
America is not "giving up" superpower status to anyone. China is merely rapidly catching up. This is a good thing; a lot of people may point at China and cry out about human rights abuses, etc. but the simple fact of the matter is that human rights abuses are more likely to happen where people are poverty stricken and trying to claw their way out of it. People with a comfortable quality of life are less likely to try to fuck everyone else over to make a buck. And as for any perceived danger from a military standpoint from China's rise into superpower status, only a lunatic would try to start a war between global powers today, and the Chinese don't even seem to go in for the beligerent swaggering that happenned in the cold war between Russia and the US.
The "America sucks" bit... well thats really up to Americans to fix if it is true. Nothing to do with China.
No they aren't. Particles don't collide in our normal daily experience of the universe; they merely bounce off each orther's fields.
imagine that, you do something bad, and you get put somewhere you don't like.
I know, it is absolutely disgusting. When will people stop thinking about being born as something that is acceptable in modern society?