"Afterlife" can include more than {Heaven, Hell}. Although generally when you're threatened with being sent to Hell, the problem is they want you to leave *now*.
If that was true, you'd be able to list those common moralities, purposes etc. But there's only one common thing between atheists and that's a lack of belief in god(s). That's it. No rituals, no dogma, no structure, no hierarchy, and nothing else in common.
That's also pretty true for most Major Religions - how many variations of Catholicism are there? Few posts up there's a description of the various Buddhist religions. Muslims are split the same way.
I thought "he" was Judah in that sentence. Which still makes LORD sound pretty wussy. Unlimited cosmic power, and you can't take out some chariots?
The Bible is pretty sad - I know a lot of very Faithful people who admit that for any statement X, there is a passage Y in the Bible that argues for it, as well as a passage Z that argues against it.
Also stop this nonsense idea that atheism is a religion and agnosticisms is a rational opinions. All atheists DAMN WELL KNOW that God could exist theoretically, the difference is that an agnostic is either ignorant about the facts an reasons that make this existence so unprovable or just don't have the balls to admit it.
To put it differently,
Atheists are agnostics in theory, just like agnostics are atheist in practice.
Well, I consider myself agnostic - maybe there's a Higher Being(s) up there, maybe there isn't. No-one can prove there is, and it's pretty difficult to prove the absence of something. So, from a practical standpoint, there's no difference between a Higher Being that doesn't do anything (or acts so subtly that you can't tell they did anything), and the complete lack of a Higher Being.
Which means that our fate is ours - both personally, as a community, and as a planet. Which I personally believe leads to a better place for everyone.
(As an aside, I've never needed more logic on this than the simple fact - there are multiple religions that all believe that They are the only God. That means that either (a) there *is* only one God, and he/she likes making us fight each other - which makes him/her a bit of a douche; (b) there's only one God, but he/she doesn't really care, since there hasn't been a lot of smiting recently; (c) there is no God, and we're all just fighting because we're idiots; (d) there are multiple Gods, and we're fighting because they're dicking with us - or possibly we're just scoring tokens for them. None of these scenarios are terribly satisfying to me.)
For a stronger example, see the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, who believe that the planet would be better off without us, and choose not to breed.
Yah, they're a wonderful example of evolution in action - they'll breed themselves right out of the genepool, and the rest of us can carry on without them just fine.
I've got one of the Asus netbooks, and the keyboard, while a bit smaller than usual, is still big enough to work with. It runs everything I wanted it to (email, office suite) and a lot of stuff I wasn't expecting it to (Audacity, video editing, and a lot more games than I was expecting).
Lack of optical drive hasn't bugged me - I grabbed the Windows ISO reader, and have InfraReader on a USB stick in case I need to get a copy online. It's never been an issue for me.
Yes, it's smaller than a laptop - that's the point. My old machine was ten pounds with a 15" display. My new machine might only be 10" (widescreen) display, but it only weighs about three pounds, which means it goes a lot more places than the old one did. That means it gets a lot more use as well, which makes it more effective. And did I mention the six hour *minimum* battery life? (They advertise 8, but that's at bare-bones settings; I easily get 6 or so without noticing a tradeoff at all)
Of course, you do pay for that form factor (smaller monitor, smaller keyboard). But that's just the tradeoff to be made. There will always be a market for a simple ultraportable machine at a decent price point. (Yeah, I can get a "full" laptop for around 500, but maybe I don't want the extra couple size and weight). If anything kills the netbook, it'll be the tablets.
I live in Rochester, and especially early in the season, it seems like some people have forgotten how to drive in those conditions.
Hell, I live in Alberta, where there's snow on the ground from November - April, and the drivers *here* forget how to drive to conditions on the first snow day.
What really burns my biscuits is that if that first-day snow melts, and a week later it snows again, everyone's already forgotten. Arrggh.
"innocent until proven guilty" is the standard of proof in criminal law, which is the same in US, UK and AFAIK all common law countries.
As I understand it, the difference between UK and Canada (can't really speak for US, don't live there) is that libel laws in the UK allow the accuser to be considered the defendant (for the purposes of "innocent until proven guilty").
An example: in Canada, if I can you a donkey-fornicator, you can sue me for libel. Then the burden is on you to prove that (a) you're not a donkey fornicator and (b) that I knew you weren't a donkey-fornicator.
As I understand UK law (admittedly, mostly from news reports), when you sue me for libel, I have to prove you're a donkey-fornicator (and prove it a judge's satisfaction, no less). It doesn't appear to me that the accuser (the one bringing the lawsuit) has to do anything to prove their case - the defendant is considered guilty unless proven innocent.
It makes sense that large groups would use the UK for that purpose - it's pretty simple to muddy the waters enough to prevent "proof" of anything in a courtroom. (And too damned expensive for most people to try in the first place).
Ultima and GURPs never had classes, and I am quite thankful that some RPGs just said "NO".
Only "mostly true" for GURPS these days - I'm noticing a lot more "templates" (basically recipes for characters) these days. Still not a pure "class" (since you can freely deviate from the template), but it shows that there is a market for "I wanna be This Guy, and I don't want to spend the next two hours figuring out the details".
Disclaimer: I love GURPS, and I wish I got to play it more often.
I'd love to see what the response to disabled folks will be on this one.
My wife's cousin is confined to a wheelchair. Does that mean his avatar will be required to be in one as well?
Actually, the whole idea of "shaping" the gamer's experience by:
psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc.
Our office is doing the Compatibility Pack thing, and it... mostly... works... sorta. You still can't open 07 files from within Excel. You have to downgrade to save them after doing any edits. It's a constant reminder that it sucks.
They know - they're just trying to muddy the issue enough to convince people that Google is "stealing" content. If Murdoch kicks Google off the index, their ad revenue tanks (because Joe Googler will just click the new "first link", which they'll get the click revenue instead.) Google likely won't even notice (unless people start using another search engine for their news - considering how much material is just wire-reposts, I suspect most people won't even notice.
The sad fact is, "journalism" in the classic movie-sense is long dead - I have a few friends in the newspaper biz, and editorial/news is considered an expense, to be produced as cheaply as possible, and in as small a quantity as necessary to get eyeballs looking at the ads.
The BBC's content is very much paid for. They just don't need a Murdoch-esque figure running around because they enjoy the inexplicable support of many of the British public for their biased reporting.
Odd - I've found BBC's reporting of Canadian news to be far less biased than any of the local papers.
"This attitude always confused me - just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer gets carte blanche with my life" - what attitude? The attitude that if you don't think your company's demands are reasonable you can quit?
Who says they get 'carte blanche' to manage your life? You make choices, live with your decisions or make changes. It's that simple.
Apologies - I meant the attitude of *employers*, not employees. My work once told me that "a reasonable amount of overtime" was expected as part of my salaried job. (This was after being hired, of course). I asked what was considered reasonable. The answer was "well, you and your one-up will have to discuss that".
Suffice to say, I don't consider any amount of working for free to be "reasonable". They still try and reach me after hours. Calls are returned when I get to them, based on (a) how urgent they are in my opinion, and (b) how much uglier they will be to solve on Monday vs. dealing with it on off time. When questioned on it, I simply say I was busy with my family and away from the phone.
Presuming he/she is salaried, you can't complain about it after accepting the position. You can attempt to re-negotiate your employment contract or quit.
This attitude always confused me - just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer gets carte blanche with my life. Sure, the law says I don't get paid for overtime. On the other hand, it doesn't say I must work an unlimited number of hours, either. Employers just like to "expect" that. (And why wouldn't they? Free labor > paid labor.)
So instead what, the rioters get a free pass and the knowledge that they can riot pretty much anytime they damn well please knowing they won't be held accountable for their actions? Yeah, that's productive.
Didn't say it was a good idea. Or even that I agreed with it.
Frankly, it shows the police to be pretty incompetent in general. But it doesn't surprise me that no-one on the scene was willing to take the PR hit involved.
Heck, why not arrest the members of said mob rather than arrest the target of the mob's attention?
That's an easy question. What cop is going to start arresting suburban teenage girls? This will blow over in a day or so (my guess: charges will be dropped, exec gets a bonus for super publicity, matter gets dropped). If they'd arrested a few dozen teeny-boppers? You'd just be substituting unruly teens for unruly parents.
Second, asking someone to refrain from committing a crime is not akin to admitting that you caused them to start committing a crime. If that were the case, then asking someone to stop raping you would be an admission that you wanted to have sex with them in the first place. It doesn't make much sense, does it?
But it would be an admission that he had some measure of control over the group, which could then be used against him.
First of all, she lost disability payments not health care coverage (the story says nothing of healthcare benefits). Secondly, all information in the story including the claim that the disability was ended was provided by the Quebec woman. Thirdly, people do abuse disability leave.
Getting free doctor's visits isn't going to help much if she can't make rent.
That's not surprising, since
She's the one getting screwed
Manulife has no incentive to talk about this case. Even if they're 100% right, it's still bad PR for them (no-one wants to be known as the insurance company that doesn't pay claims)
Sure they do. They also abuse motor vehicle insurance and steal pens from the office supply drawer. Your point?
Slashdot Mirror
"Afterlife" can include more than {Heaven, Hell}. Although generally when you're threatened with being sent to Hell, the problem is they want you to leave *now*.
If that was true, you'd be able to list those common moralities, purposes etc. But there's only one common thing between atheists and that's a lack of belief in god(s). That's it. No rituals, no dogma, no structure, no hierarchy, and nothing else in common.
That's also pretty true for most Major Religions - how many variations of Catholicism are there? Few posts up there's a description of the various Buddhist religions. Muslims are split the same way.
I thought "he" was Judah in that sentence. Which still makes LORD sound pretty wussy. Unlimited cosmic power, and you can't take out some chariots?
The Bible is pretty sad - I know a lot of very Faithful people who admit that for any statement X, there is a passage Y in the Bible that argues for it, as well as a passage Z that argues against it.
Also stop this nonsense idea that atheism is a religion and agnosticisms is a rational opinions. All atheists DAMN WELL KNOW that God could exist theoretically, the difference is that an agnostic is either ignorant about the facts an reasons that make this existence so unprovable or just don't have the balls to admit it.
To put it differently,
Atheists are agnostics in theory, just like agnostics are atheist in practice.
Well, I consider myself agnostic - maybe there's a Higher Being(s) up there, maybe there isn't. No-one can prove there is, and it's pretty difficult to prove the absence of something. So, from a practical standpoint, there's no difference between a Higher Being that doesn't do anything (or acts so subtly that you can't tell they did anything), and the complete lack of a Higher Being.
Which means that our fate is ours - both personally, as a community, and as a planet. Which I personally believe leads to a better place for everyone.
(As an aside, I've never needed more logic on this than the simple fact - there are multiple religions that all believe that They are the only God. That means that either (a) there *is* only one God, and he/she likes making us fight each other - which makes him/her a bit of a douche; (b) there's only one God, but he/she doesn't really care, since there hasn't been a lot of smiting recently; (c) there is no God, and we're all just fighting because we're idiots; (d) there are multiple Gods, and we're fighting because they're dicking with us - or possibly we're just scoring tokens for them. None of these scenarios are terribly satisfying to me.)
Yah, they're a wonderful example of evolution in action - they'll breed themselves right out of the genepool, and the rest of us can carry on without them just fine.
Oddly, many religions are fans of this movement.
I've got one of the Asus netbooks, and the keyboard, while a bit smaller than usual, is still big enough to work with. It runs everything I wanted it to (email, office suite) and a lot of stuff I wasn't expecting it to (Audacity, video editing, and a lot more games than I was expecting).
Lack of optical drive hasn't bugged me - I grabbed the Windows ISO reader, and have InfraReader on a USB stick in case I need to get a copy online. It's never been an issue for me.
Yes, it's smaller than a laptop - that's the point. My old machine was ten pounds with a 15" display. My new machine might only be 10" (widescreen) display, but it only weighs about three pounds, which means it goes a lot more places than the old one did. That means it gets a lot more use as well, which makes it more effective. And did I mention the six hour *minimum* battery life? (They advertise 8, but that's at bare-bones settings; I easily get 6 or so without noticing a tradeoff at all)
Of course, you do pay for that form factor (smaller monitor, smaller keyboard). But that's just the tradeoff to be made. There will always be a market for a simple ultraportable machine at a decent price point. (Yeah, I can get a "full" laptop for around 500, but maybe I don't want the extra couple size and weight). If anything kills the netbook, it'll be the tablets.
I live in Rochester, and especially early in the season, it seems like some people have forgotten how to drive in those conditions.
Hell, I live in Alberta, where there's snow on the ground from November - April, and the drivers *here* forget how to drive to conditions on the first snow day.
What really burns my biscuits is that if that first-day snow melts, and a week later it snows again, everyone's already forgotten. Arrggh.
"innocent until proven guilty" is the standard of proof in criminal law, which is the same in US, UK and AFAIK all common law countries.
As I understand it, the difference between UK and Canada (can't really speak for US, don't live there) is that libel laws in the UK allow the accuser to be considered the defendant (for the purposes of "innocent until proven guilty").
An example: in Canada, if I can you a donkey-fornicator, you can sue me for libel. Then the burden is on you to prove that (a) you're not a donkey fornicator and (b) that I knew you weren't a donkey-fornicator.
As I understand UK law (admittedly, mostly from news reports), when you sue me for libel, I have to prove you're a donkey-fornicator (and prove it a judge's satisfaction, no less). It doesn't appear to me that the accuser (the one bringing the lawsuit) has to do anything to prove their case - the defendant is considered guilty unless proven innocent.
It makes sense that large groups would use the UK for that purpose - it's pretty simple to muddy the waters enough to prevent "proof" of anything in a courtroom. (And too damned expensive for most people to try in the first place).
Ultima and GURPs never had classes, and I am quite thankful that some RPGs just said "NO".
Only "mostly true" for GURPS these days - I'm noticing a lot more "templates" (basically recipes for characters) these days. Still not a pure "class" (since you can freely deviate from the template), but it shows that there is a market for "I wanna be This Guy, and I don't want to spend the next two hours figuring out the details".
Disclaimer: I love GURPS, and I wish I got to play it more often.
I'd love to see what the response to disabled folks will be on this one.
My wife's cousin is confined to a wheelchair. Does that mean his avatar will be required to be in one as well?
Actually, the whole idea of "shaping" the gamer's experience by:
psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc.
is screaming "discrimination lawsuit"
Or, the admins download and roll out the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack and leave the CEO with his new shiny-shiny.
Our office is doing the Compatibility Pack thing, and it... mostly... works... sorta. You still can't open 07 files from within Excel. You have to downgrade to save them after doing any edits. It's a constant reminder that it sucks.
Agreed - the difference seems to be "did you become rich and/or famous". No one mocks the hockey stars who spent every waking hour at the rink.
Do they not know about robots.txt?
They know - they're just trying to muddy the issue enough to convince people that Google is "stealing" content. If Murdoch kicks Google off the index, their ad revenue tanks (because Joe Googler will just click the new "first link", which they'll get the click revenue instead.) Google likely won't even notice (unless people start using another search engine for their news - considering how much material is just wire-reposts, I suspect most people won't even notice.
The sad fact is, "journalism" in the classic movie-sense is long dead - I have a few friends in the newspaper biz, and editorial/news is considered an expense, to be produced as cheaply as possible, and in as small a quantity as necessary to get eyeballs looking at the ads.
The BBC's content is very much paid for. They just don't need a Murdoch-esque figure running around because they enjoy the inexplicable support of many of the British public for their biased reporting.
Odd - I've found BBC's reporting of Canadian news to be far less biased than any of the local papers.
"This attitude always confused me - just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer gets carte blanche with my life" - what attitude? The attitude that if you don't think your company's demands are reasonable you can quit?
Who says they get 'carte blanche' to manage your life? You make choices, live with your decisions or make changes. It's that simple.
Apologies - I meant the attitude of *employers*, not employees. My work once told me that "a reasonable amount of overtime" was expected as part of my salaried job. (This was after being hired, of course). I asked what was considered reasonable. The answer was "well, you and your one-up will have to discuss that".
Suffice to say, I don't consider any amount of working for free to be "reasonable". They still try and reach me after hours. Calls are returned when I get to them, based on (a) how urgent they are in my opinion, and (b) how much uglier they will be to solve on Monday vs. dealing with it on off time. When questioned on it, I simply say I was busy with my family and away from the phone.
Presuming he/she is salaried, you can't complain about it after accepting the position. You can attempt to re-negotiate your employment contract or quit.
This attitude always confused me - just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer gets carte blanche with my life. Sure, the law says I don't get paid for overtime. On the other hand, it doesn't say I must work an unlimited number of hours, either. Employers just like to "expect" that. (And why wouldn't they? Free labor > paid labor.)
Then maybe he should negotiate a contract that is less stupid. It's his own fault for agreeing to such ridiculous terms.
No, it's his own fault for agreeing to an oral contract. Sure, it's binding - if you can prove it was the agreement.
My read was that the on call is an "expectation" - it wasn't stipulated either way, and the employer is pushing their advantage.
So instead what, the rioters get a free pass and the knowledge that they can riot pretty much anytime they damn well please knowing they won't be held accountable for their actions? Yeah, that's productive.
Didn't say it was a good idea. Or even that I agreed with it.
Frankly, it shows the police to be pretty incompetent in general. But it doesn't surprise me that no-one on the scene was willing to take the PR hit involved.
I'd be curious what the list of "specific cases" is. Does it include "incriminate yourself" or "sign this confession"?
Heck, why not arrest the members of said mob rather than arrest the target of the mob's attention?
That's an easy question. What cop is going to start arresting suburban teenage girls? This will blow over in a day or so (my guess: charges will be dropped, exec gets a bonus for super publicity, matter gets dropped). If they'd arrested a few dozen teeny-boppers? You'd just be substituting unruly teens for unruly parents.
Second, asking someone to refrain from committing a crime is not akin to admitting that you caused them to start committing a crime. If that were the case, then asking someone to stop raping you would be an admission that you wanted to have sex with them in the first place. It doesn't make much sense, does it?
But it would be an admission that he had some measure of control over the group, which could then be used against him.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on point of view), it's not illegal to be a douche.
"Please leave the venue. The concert is cancelled, and singer not very good. I am not being coerced by the police to say this."
And this woman's defense is that she doesn't know how the insurance company accessed her photos that she posted on the Internet... come on.
I didn't read that as a defense, but an accusation - if they used illegal means to access the pictures, they could be additionally liable.
First of all, she lost disability payments not health care coverage (the story says nothing of healthcare benefits). Secondly, all information in the story including the claim that the disability was ended was provided by the Quebec woman. Thirdly, people do abuse disability leave.