Eh? The definition of Crusades was a holy war for the purpose of transferring control of "Holy Land" (basically, Jerusalem) from Islam to Xtian control. Let's look at Iraq war (which is what you preobably refer to):
1) The war deposed NON-muslim ruler Saddam, with the likeliest consequence that more-islamic givernment would take its place in Iraq. 2) The price of war for Bush was that he sold out Israel to Arabs, basically helping them to gain control of Jerusalem from Jews in the long run.
1) The original poster mentioned 3 characteristics: "skin colour, culture and religion". If you read carefully, I ONLY touched the 3-d one (colour wasn't mentioned because it's irrelevant, and culture is impossible to define -unlike religion, the cuyltures of the region are very diverse, though some have shared characteristics.
2) Read carefully what I wrote. Giovanny is not evil because Real IRA share the same declared religion. Giovanny would be evil if he:
- provided safe haven and aid to his evil co-religionists. While some Catholics may have supported IRA, I'd be surprized if all but a very few would give money to "Real IRA". And anyone who gave money to them - knowing they plan to kill civilians - deserves to hang by the neck till dead as far as I'm concerned.
- thinks that it was a Good Thing to target innocents (don't know about IRA or Catholics in Ireland in general - never met any - but at the very least, none of the catholics in the US that I know think so).
- his priest - and majority of that religion's priests - claim that the bomber went to heaven, and more like him should act the same way. Show me a single Catholic priest who said so, please?
Yeah, there are whackos in any social group. The difference is how the majority of the group react to the wackos - as heroes, or someone who shamed their group.
What does the coloring have to do with religion? There are Muslims who look "middle-eastern", "black", "white", "asian", and probably any other color/type you can imagine. I was referring to the contents of their heads, not their ethnicity.
> And you (if you are a Christian) share a religion that has in the past promoted... > Just because a minority of its followers have an interpretation of a religion, it doesn't mean that all its followers can be tarred with the same brush.
1) i'm not a Christian. 2) The key words here are PAST and MINORITY.
I'd feel the same about Christians as I feel about Muslims had I lived during the times of Crusades and Inquisition. (or not lived, as both would have been glad to get rid of me in the most un-gentle ways possible... as I said to the other person who replied to me, this makes me VERY objective about Christianity).
And it's not "minority" of Muslims who consider terrorism a valid thing, and not a "minority" of their clerics who preach "death to infidels".
Oh, and you're equating some fundie who tries to ***legally*** proceed with protecting his beliefs (wrong though the strict creationalists' intentions and may be beliefs may be), with a guy whose idea of "due process" is to blow up a woman and her kids to make a point, your value system is seriously wrong.
> > No, because most of them share a religion that at best, tolerates, and at worst, actively encourages killing of infidels.
> Sounds a lot like christianity
No, it sounds like christianity long time ago. Thankfully, it outgrew such barbarism. Islam have not. How many christian preachers do you see TODAY preaching from their pulpits "death to infidels"? How many claim that Timothy McVeigh went to heaven?
-DVK -- and, BTW, I'm not even Christian, so I am objective about this.
> Is this a troll? Fearing a quarter of the world's people because they share a vague similiarity in skin colour, culture and religion (as if there were no diversity in the Middle East!) is unwittingly ignorant and primitive
No, because most of them share a religion that at best, tolerates[0], and at worst, actively encourages killing of infidels. Which actively preaches that the goal of the faith is GLOBAL TOTAL conversion. And large elements of which think that deliberately targeting innocent women and children is a Good Thing, rewarded by the deity in the afterlife with XXX virgins awarded to you.
[0] I will retract that part of the statement if/when you can point me to fatwas issued by all, or at least most, of the major Islamic religious authorities comdemning any deliberate attacks on civilians. As well as speaches to the same effect preached in Mosques.
> This is embarrassing actually. We're not even sure Bush can read without some help sounding-out the big words...
Al Gore, is that you posting as AC?
No, what is embarassing is that a trollish childish insult gets modded up. All the qualities of President Bush nonwithstanding (this is not the thread to debate them), comparing him to India's president is among the dumber things you can do - in India, President doesn't hold political power, Prime Minister does. So they can stick anyone there, like a rocket scientist who doesn't need to be a politician. I fail to see any rocket scientists holding the Presidency in the USA in its entire history. Or any scientists, after B.F., for that matter.
P.S. If you're so fscking smart, how come you're not running for - and winning - the Oval Office?
P.S. BTW, ability to speak fluently is in no way related to intelligence. Whether Bush is smart or not, as I said, is not on-topic. However, for example, I can't speak much better than him even in my native language, and am probably even worse when speaking English, as I wasn't born here. Despite that, i'm pretty sure whoever that AC I replied to is, I'm lots better than him at math, and probably a lot of other sciences too. (First degree diploma in Russian national Math contest in my HS graduating year, for the doubters, and in top 60 in Putnam contest while being a sophomore in college - AFTER I stopped studying math seriously for 2 years:)
> I've said it before and I'll say it again: the large multinational drugs companies (eg, Glaxo, Monsanto, Novartis, etc) are a plague: they continually put profits before people.
Oh... and dare I ask, why don't those Indian companies manufacture generic drugs based on research performed by NON-evil drug companies?
There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Lunch, commie boy. You want to have those medicines, someone's gotta pay for the development. And those cheapo generic manufacturers in India won't and can't. So basically they are stealing money (research money) from the "evil" corprations.
Now, I never said that big US drug manufcaturers are *smart* in that regard - since the generics companies obviously can't afford to pay for that research, just sell it to them cheap with the provision that the resultant product doesn't get sold in US. That way the both lose their "evil" image in front of commies like you AND earn more since they are getting paid by generic manufacturers who previously stole from them.
But not doing so merely makes them less smart, not "evil". If YOU care so much about suffering people in India, YOU build a major drug company, do the research and then turn it over to generic manufacturers there.
Uhm... no ofense... but somehow: 1) the knowledge of how to make a compost pile doesn't seem to be an indicator of having "more imagination". Any half-witted medieval peasant could do it.
2) It aint't as difficult as you make it sound. I built tons, when I lived back in russia and had to help parents out in the small garden we owned.
3) I'm pretty sure that despite being a smart geek, you can't build a much better compost pile than an average farmer:)
4) Oh, and it sounds dead silly to me, you build compost piles because you HAVE to, not because it's fun.
> Thus, either we reduce the influence of campain donations
While we're at it, we might as well prove P=NP, and learn how to teleport. Some things just can't be done:(
Where there's government, there's graft. Whether it is more "civilized" (lobbying) or less (bribes) is just about the only choice short of complete lack of any authority alltogether.
> Why should mathematicians need to wait until college before specializing?
Dude, you must have never heard of science schools. Not having finished HS in USA, I know of only four (3 of them in NY, one in MS); but I'm quite convinced every state has at least one, and every major city several. You don't expect an Olympic-level gymnast to "specialize" in Junior High phys ed, do you? So why did you expect your random math teacher - who probably doesnt know caclulus that well her/himself - to be your math Olympic coach?
US education system sucks, but the problem you menationed is nowhere near being a big deal. I had to deal with the same in USSR schools (before transferring to science-specialized HS). If you want to start fixing the system, start with "school is for making kids feel good abouut themselves" attitude that fucks up this country's education more than any other set of problems combined.
Actually, as for usage, I must disagree with you. If someone could make it on the cheap, i'd love to be able to time-shift a radio. From talk shows i NEVER get to hear (Hannity for example) because i'm never around a working radio when they broadcast, to music that i likely would love to hear but miss for the same reason (don't drive to work, and no radio reception in NYC subways). -DVK
tape can have confidence heads... while recording on the record head, you can listen off the playback head, and KNOW that your signal is going on to tape cleanly. Can't do that on flash or HD systems.
Why can't you simply playback the part of the file written 1 second before? It seems to achieve almost the same result.
Good points about specifics, and thanks - my last cassete player was bought >5 years ago, and I never dealt with iPods (matter of fact, haven't even seen one) - i'm a CD-MP3 for the last couple of years;)
-DVK
Re:Isn't that...
on
TiVo For Radio?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Let's review the differences: Capacity: Tape capacity: 60-90mins Flash card capacity: 256Megs (256 mins at a very good quality mp3). H/drive capacity: ~5Gig for a protable? (5000mins=83 hours)
Search/rewind/jump capabilities: Tape: Rewind/FF. ANYONE who ever used a tape player would agree it's very s l o w. Flash: instant h/drive: very fast.
Ability for signal processing: Tape: None flash or drive: anything our circuits/processor allow. For example, commercial skip.
Size: Tape: limited to pretty big factor by tape size Flash: can be VERY small h/drive: probably same size as tape player for now.
Other capabilities: For example, ability to record several tracks at once, enabling recording of mmore than one frequency. Tape: None flash or drive: ability to write in parallel to multiple files.
Summary: Tape has no benefits whatsoever (perhaps cost?) over flash. H/drive is preferrable over flash if capacity is an issue and/or movement is not (i.e. for home as opposed to walkman-like functionality).
With the size of sound files compared to video, you can probably store LOTS of recorderd time Days, maybe? And if it could recieve on multiple freequencies at once (at least two), would be ideal.
Whereas, in the non-business universe (for example, academic, lazy bums - err... disenfranchised welfare dolists), 80% can be stupid, lazy, negligent, incompetent, greedy, and even sometimes dishonest. And the rest are even worse.
The fault is not with "business". It's with the human nature.
Oh... here's the deal.... I can ALSO have a gun (that is, if I move to a saner location than NYC where only criminals are allowed to have guns), and defend myself.
Would you have a recipe for defending myself from a guy miles away i don't know about who's about to send a cruise missile into my vicinity? No?
Oh, and a cruise missile can kill LOTS more people, in case you didn't notice. AFAIK, it's not legal to own artillery or tanks in USA.
seriously though, this is interesting. on the one hand, theres the scientific me who thinks its academically to kow how to build a cruise missile, then theres the anarchist me who thinks it might be fun to launch in the woods, and on my THIRD hand, theres the scared-straight-arrow me who thinks this post could be used against me in the future.
Shouldn't there also be a thoughtful you who realizes that a FUCKING MISSILE built with those instructions could be used against you, by anyone from real terrorist, to disgruntled rocket model enthusiast whose dog you ran over a year ago, to some (probably slashdot-posting) wacko; read the posts in this thread - a bunch are already jumping up and down with glee wondering how cool it'd be to own one of these - and i'm deeply worried that some were NOT 100% kidding.
The Silkworm is basically a Mig-17 airframe with the pilot replaced by a guidance system.
I'm not quite sure if that's true, judging from the images:
Silkworm doesn't look too close to MiG-17
However, IIRC, USSR did have a cruise missile developed based on MiG-17 - AS-1 "Kennel".
BTW, a minor nitpick - correct spelling is MiG (which is shorthand for Mikhoyan i Gureevitch, two of the designers wgo started the bureau).
Slashdot Mirror
Eh? The definition of Crusades was a holy war for the purpose of transferring control of "Holy Land" (basically, Jerusalem) from Islam to Xtian control. Let's look at Iraq war (which is what you preobably refer to):
1) The war deposed NON-muslim ruler Saddam, with the likeliest consequence that more-islamic givernment would take its place in Iraq.
2) The price of war for Bush was that he sold out Israel to Arabs, basically helping them to gain control of Jerusalem from Jews in the long run.
Yeah... right... Crusades.... only BACKWARDS.
-DVK
1) The original poster mentioned 3 characteristics: "skin colour, culture and religion". If you read carefully, I ONLY touched the 3-d one (colour wasn't mentioned because it's irrelevant, and culture is impossible to define -unlike religion, the cuyltures of the region are very diverse, though some have shared characteristics.
2) Read carefully what I wrote. Giovanny is not evil because Real IRA share the same declared religion. Giovanny would be evil if he:
- provided safe haven and aid to his evil co-religionists. While some Catholics may have supported IRA, I'd be surprized if all but a very few would give money to "Real IRA". And anyone who gave money to them - knowing they plan to kill civilians - deserves to hang by the neck till dead as far as I'm concerned.
- thinks that it was a Good Thing to target innocents (don't know about IRA or Catholics in Ireland in general - never met any - but at the very least, none of the catholics in the US that I know think so).
- his priest - and majority of that religion's priests - claim that the bomber went to heaven, and more like him should act the same way. Show me a single Catholic priest who said so, please?
Yeah, there are whackos in any social group.
The difference is how the majority of the group react to the wackos - as heroes, or someone who shamed their group.
-DVK
What does the coloring have to do with religion? There are Muslims who look "middle-eastern", "black", "white", "asian", and probably any other color/type you can imagine. I was referring to the contents of their heads, not their ethnicity.
> And you (if you are a Christian) share a religion that has in the past promoted ...
> Just because a minority of its followers have an interpretation of a religion, it doesn't mean that all its followers can be tarred with the same brush.
1) i'm not a Christian.
2) The key words here are PAST and MINORITY.
I'd feel the same about Christians as I feel about Muslims had I lived during the times of Crusades and Inquisition. (or not lived, as both would have been glad to get rid of me in the most un-gentle ways possible... as I said to the other person who replied to me, this makes me VERY objective about Christianity).
And it's not "minority" of Muslims who consider terrorism a valid thing, and not a "minority" of their clerics who preach "death to infidels".
Oh, and you're equating some fundie who tries to ***legally*** proceed with protecting his beliefs (wrong though the strict creationalists' intentions and may be beliefs may be), with a guy whose idea of "due process" is to blow up a woman and her kids to make a point, your value system is seriously wrong.
-DVK
> > No, because most of them share a religion that at best, tolerates, and at worst, actively encourages killing of infidels.
> Sounds a lot like christianity
No, it sounds like christianity long time ago.
Thankfully, it outgrew such barbarism. Islam have not. How many christian preachers do you see TODAY preaching from their pulpits "death to infidels"?
How many claim that Timothy McVeigh went to heaven?
-DVK -- and, BTW, I'm not even Christian, so I am objective about this.
> Is this a troll? Fearing a quarter of the world's people because they share a vague similiarity in skin colour, culture and religion (as if there were no diversity in the Middle East!) is unwittingly ignorant and primitive
No, because most of them share a religion that at best, tolerates[0], and at worst, actively encourages killing of infidels. Which actively preaches that the goal of the faith is GLOBAL TOTAL conversion. And large elements of which think that deliberately targeting innocent women and children is a Good Thing, rewarded by the deity in the afterlife with XXX virgins awarded to you.
[0] I will retract that part of the statement if/when you can point me to fatwas issued by all, or at least most, of the major Islamic religious authorities comdemning any deliberate attacks on civilians. As well as speaches to the same effect preached in Mosques.
-DVK
> This is embarrassing actually. We're not even sure Bush can read without some help sounding-out the big words...
:)
Al Gore, is that you posting as AC?
No, what is embarassing is that a trollish childish insult gets modded up. All the qualities of President Bush nonwithstanding (this is not the thread to debate them), comparing him to India's president is among the dumber things you can do - in India, President doesn't hold political power, Prime Minister does. So they can stick anyone there, like a rocket scientist who doesn't need to be a politician. I fail to see any rocket scientists holding the Presidency in the USA in its entire history. Or any scientists, after B.F., for that matter.
P.S. If you're so fscking smart, how come you're not running for - and winning - the Oval Office?
P.S. BTW, ability to speak fluently is in no way related to intelligence. Whether Bush is smart or not, as I said, is not on-topic. However, for example, I can't speak much better than him even in my native language, and am probably even worse when speaking English, as I wasn't born here. Despite that, i'm pretty sure whoever that AC I replied to is, I'm lots better than him at math, and probably a lot of other sciences too. (First degree diploma in Russian national Math contest in my HS graduating year, for the doubters, and in top 60 in Putnam contest while being a sophomore in college - AFTER I stopped studying math seriously for 2 years
-DVK
> I've said it before and I'll say it again: the large multinational drugs companies (eg, Glaxo, Monsanto, Novartis, etc) are a plague: they continually put profits before people.
Oh... and dare I ask, why don't those Indian companies manufacture generic drugs based on research performed by NON-evil drug companies?
There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Lunch, commie boy. You want to have those medicines, someone's gotta pay for the development. And those cheapo generic manufacturers in India won't and can't. So basically they are stealing money (research money) from the "evil" corprations.
Now, I never said that big US drug manufcaturers are *smart* in that regard - since the generics companies obviously can't afford to pay for that research, just sell it to them cheap with the provision that the resultant product doesn't get sold in US.
That way the both lose their "evil" image in front of commies like you AND earn more since they are getting paid by generic manufacturers who previously stole from them.
But not doing so merely makes them less smart, not "evil". If YOU care so much about suffering people in India, YOU build a major drug company, do the research and then turn it over to generic manufacturers there.
Let the modding down begin.
-DVK
Uhm... no ofense... but somehow:
:)
1) the knowledge of how to make a compost pile doesn't seem to be an indicator of having "more imagination". Any half-witted medieval peasant could do it.
2) It aint't as difficult as you make it sound. I built tons, when I lived back in russia and had to help parents out in the small garden we owned.
3) I'm pretty sure that despite being a smart geek, you can't build a much better compost pile than an average farmer
4) Oh, and it sounds dead silly to me, you build compost piles because you HAVE to, not because it's fun.
-Cheers,
DVK == half geek, half farm kid.
And then special interests will buy off votes even more easily - a bottle of beer/vote, anyone?
> Thus, either we reduce the influence of campain donations
:(
While we're at it, we might as well prove P=NP, and learn how to teleport. Some things just can't be done
Where there's government, there's graft. Whether it is more "civilized" (lobbying) or less (bribes) is just about the only choice short of complete lack of any authority alltogether.
-DVK
-DVK
Not that I like the bribes, but check your facts first. Unions give no less money in bribers....errr.. donations, than companies.
> Why should mathematicians need to wait until college before specializing?
Dude, you must have never heard of science schools. Not having finished HS in USA, I know of only four (3 of them in NY, one in MS); but I'm quite convinced every state has at least one, and every major city several. You don't expect an Olympic-level gymnast to "specialize" in Junior High phys ed, do you? So why did you expect your random math teacher - who probably doesnt know caclulus that well her/himself - to be your math Olympic coach?
US education system sucks, but the problem you menationed is nowhere near being a big deal. I had to deal with the same in USSR schools (before transferring to science-specialized HS).
If you want to start fixing the system, start with "school is for making kids feel good abouut themselves" attitude that fucks up this country's education more than any other set of problems combined.
-DVK
Actually, as for usage, I must disagree with you. If someone could make it on the cheap, i'd love to be able to time-shift a radio. From talk shows i NEVER get to hear (Hannity for example) because i'm never around a working radio when they broadcast, to music that i likely would love to hear but miss for the same reason (don't drive to work, and no radio reception in NYC subways).
-DVK
tape can have confidence heads... while recording on the record head, you can listen off the playback head, and KNOW that your signal is going on to tape cleanly. Can't do that on flash or HD systems.
;)
Why can't you simply playback the part of the file written 1 second before? It seems to achieve almost the same result.
Good points about specifics, and thanks - my last cassete player was bought >5 years ago, and I never dealt with iPods (matter of fact, haven't even seen one) - i'm a CD-MP3 for the last couple of years
-DVK
Let's review the differences:
Capacity:
Tape capacity: 60-90mins
Flash card capacity: 256Megs (256 mins at a very good quality mp3).
H/drive capacity: ~5Gig for a protable? (5000mins=83 hours)
Search/rewind/jump capabilities:
Tape: Rewind/FF. ANYONE who ever used a tape player would agree it's very s l o w.
Flash: instant
h/drive: very fast.
Ability for signal processing:
Tape: None
flash or drive: anything our circuits/processor allow. For example, commercial skip.
Size:
Tape: limited to pretty big factor by tape size
Flash: can be VERY small
h/drive: probably same size as tape player for now.
Other capabilities:
For example, ability to record several tracks at once, enabling recording of mmore than one frequency.
Tape: None
flash or drive: ability to write in parallel to multiple files.
Summary:
Tape has no benefits whatsoever (perhaps cost?)
over flash. H/drive is preferrable over flash if capacity is an issue and/or movement is not (i.e. for home as opposed to walkman-like functionality).
-DVK
With the size of sound files compared to video, you can probably store LOTS of recorderd time Days, maybe?
And if it could recieve on multiple freequencies at once (at least two), would be ideal.
-DVK
Whereas, in the non-business universe (for example, academic, lazy bums - err... disenfranchised welfare dolists), 80% can be stupid, lazy, negligent, incompetent, greedy, and even sometimes dishonest. And the rest are even worse.
The fault is not with "business". It's with the human nature.
-DVK
Your impression that the first Matrix had any philosophical content was just a glitch in the program.
-DVK
I'm sure you'd much rather live in the world ruled by either North Korea or Saddam's Iraq.
You must be French.
You ***FIRED*** a CPU? You were an underaged employer? Did you pay taxes on that CPU's salary?
*duck*
Oh... here's the deal.... I can ALSO have a gun (that is, if I move to a saner location than NYC where only criminals are allowed to have guns), and defend myself.
Would you have a recipe for defending myself from a guy miles away i don't know about who's about to send a cruise missile into my vicinity? No?
Oh, and a cruise missile can kill LOTS more people, in case you didn't notice. AFAIK, it's not legal to own artillery or tanks in USA.
-DVK
Shouldn't there also be a thoughtful you who realizes that a FUCKING MISSILE built with those instructions could be used against you, by anyone from real terrorist, to disgruntled rocket model enthusiast whose dog you ran over a year ago, to some (probably slashdot-posting) wacko; read the posts in this thread - a bunch are already jumping up and down with glee wondering how cool it'd be to own one of these - and i'm deeply worried that some were NOT 100% kidding.
-DVK
That would be "Gurevitch", not "Gureevitch", of course. Need to learn to type better :)
Oh, and while i'm at it, the URL for the MiG "ÍÉËÏÑÎ É ÇÕÒÅ×É" Bureau is:
http://www.migavia.ru
-DVK
Silkworm doesn't look too close to MiG-17
However, IIRC, USSR did have a cruise missile developed based on MiG-17 - AS-1 "Kennel".
BTW, a minor nitpick - correct spelling is MiG (which is shorthand for Mikhoyan i Gureevitch, two of the designers wgo started the bureau).
-DVK