A bit prejudiced much? I ask because you are prejudging Biblical Creationists. I am one and I don't have a problem discussing the theory of Evolution with people who disagree with creationism. I believe in Creation but I also don't believe that the Bible was intended to be a scientific textbook. There is plenty of room for my view of Creation to be wrong without necessitating that the spiritual truths of the Bible be wrong also. I believe that Man was created in God's image... but the narrative in Genesis is rather short on specifics. The Genesis story is about redemptive history... not a primer on science or an exhaustive exposition of all of human history. That said... in general you are right. Many of my fellow Christians become very hostile at the mere mention of evolution refusing to even hear the arguments in it's favor. Normally reasonable people suddenly shutdown intellectually on this question.
If we are going to split hairs... everything we think we know actually boils down to BELIEF. All of our observable evidence comes from observations on one tiny spot within the universe. We have yet to breach the surface of the available evidence that explains the universe and our place in it. However we have to function like those beliefs reflect reality. I believe that Einstein's theory of relativity is true... but even if I didn't believe it that doesn't make me fling off the planet. Gravity still keeps me tethered to the planet's surface. Maybe one day we'll discover a better theory than relativity... until then it's still the best we've got and so it's the theory that we should be teaching science students.
Theories that humanity was "seeded" by aliens are a non-theological example of Intelligent Design theory. In their 1966 book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" I.S. Shklovski and Carl Sagan present a good case for scientists and historians to consider the possibility of early contact between life on Earth and extraterrestrials. Intelligent Design is not a concept that is owned part and parcel by creationists.
That said... I have a problem with teaching Intelligent Design in public schools. I'm a creationist... I believe the truth of the Bible. I also don't believe it is the job of government to indoctrinate students in religion. Mine or anyone else's.
There was a time where teaching students of science the theory of Spontaneous Generation was perfectly legitimate. It was "good science" based on the best information that was available at the time that the theory was still viable. Evolution is the best scientific theory that explains the evidence as we have it right now. And so it should be the theory taught to science students. Perhaps one day evidence may arise to discredit evolution but that day has not come. If parents want to teach their children alternate views they are welcome to do so via religious education, private education or homeschooling. Presenting alternate views that have little or no hard evidence is unwarranted.
Not confronting the evidence for Evolution is intellectual dishonesty at best and intellectual sloth at worst.
Android is very much Linux. It's just not GNU/Linux. All the GNU utilities that give Linux the functionality and feel of Unix have been stripped out and replaced by running Dalvik on top of the Kernal.
There was actually some discussion in the early days of the shuttle about burning the engines a little longer while the shuttle was still attached to an empty fuel tank. Those tanks could have been linked together, filled with an atmosphere and turned into a massive space station.
I don't think you understood what I was saying. I agree that the Shuttle was a failure from inception but... none of the shuttles ever achieved escape velocity. They only achieved orbital velocity.
1. I quit submitting news to Slashdot over a decade ago when I realized that stuff I submitted would just be rejected only to have the exact same story published weeks later submitted by someone else. 2. I don't use firehose. The frontpage wastes enough of my time so why would I want to be dragged into that monstrosity?
The purpose of SpaceShipTwo is to reach suborbital flight not to obtain escape velocity. The purpose of the Space Shuttle was to reach low Earth orbit not to obtain escape velocity. We did not loose Challenger or Columbia in a "dangerous, expensive and quite frankly stupid" endeavor to achieve escape velocity. Even with your plan of extracting resources from the moon you still have to design and build your payloads on earth and that means traversing the atmosphere at some point during the mission. At least until we have more permanent manned facilities off earth that can perform their own manufacturing and fabrication. That said... going to the moon makes lots of sense. We're funding billions of dollars sending probes to the Jovian moons and Mars why? Looking for life. That's a big gamble who's only reward right now is going to be to answer the philosophical question of whether or not man is alone in the universe. Yeah... it might pay off but then again it might not. For all we know we are sending probes out with all the wrong instruments for finding that life because we're assuming that life requires water and that it will be carbon based. That's a big assumption based only on limited data. We only know of one world where carbon based life exists and uses water as a solvent. Could be that most life in the universe is based on totally different molecular structures.
We've got a whole other world right here on our back porch. Why isn't the moon already crawling with rovers? Why aren't we prospecting it's surface for minerals and materials that humanity can use? Why aren't we exploring it's surface for caves that we can seal off and flood with a breathable atmosphere for building a permanent human settlement? If we can get full-on manufacturing and construction facilities operating on the moon we can build spacecraft that can visit the rest of the solar system using much less v then it does to send the same spacecraft from the surface of the Earth. From Earth you have to account for higher gravity and aerodynamics. From the moon... well heck, even the tiny little Apollo lunar module was capable of launching from the surface and achieving lunar orbit.
Why is Slashdot so late in reporting this? This happened days ago and has been reported widely across all media outlets. The NEW in "NEWs for nerds" implies "fresh" whereas this story is now stale. I guess this is "Olds for Nerds. Stuff that mattered."
Forget Govt. subsidizing of space exploration or private industry. We. Need. KERBALS! In less than 10 years my Kerbals have colonized two worlds and visited countless moons. How? Because Kerbals take the risks!
Right. The unspoken implication of Sputnik was that if the Russians could put something in orbit then they could just as easily drop a nuclear payload on any spot on the planet. The early space race was sold as being about scientific exploration it was just as much about demonstrating to allies and enemies the heavy lifting capability of ICBMs.
The race for the moon became an extension of cold war propaganda. Once the goals were reached... well, space exploration became a hobby. If we look at how much was accomplished from Sputnik to Apollo 11... we've mostly been spinning our wheels... at least when it comes to manned spaceflight.
Exactly. Neil deGrasse Tyson is certainly an intelligent and articulate voice for science but we all have bias and he's not immune. In this case, Tyson has been on the front lines of advocating increasing NASA's budget. When private industry begins talking about doing the things that have traditionally been done within NASA for cheaper, this becomes an argument against increasing government funding for space exploration.
Google owns my digital existence. They read my mail, know every website I visit, record all my voice mails, track who I call and can use GPS to track me to within just a few meters of my location on the planet at any given moment. Yet somehow Google's services make me feel like they've actually added value to my life. If Google were a government, I'd feel like Winston Smith....I try not to think about it.
I use my phone's hotspot function to provide internet access for my kid's Android tablets and Nintendo DSi devices during long duration trips. Disabling all internet access would be a huge bummer resulting in even more "are we there yet?" situations then I already get. I also frequently stream music from my phone through my car's built-in stereo bluetooth. While we all want to save lives the reality is that "distracted driving" is caused not by technology but by human nature. Take away the tech and we'll just find some other distraction. Driving a car is so "second nature" in American culture that most of don't apply the level of concentration to the task that we should. Ever drive while juggling a hamburger and a soda?
My personal worst offense was over a decade ago when I pulled out my laptop and played a game of Quake 2 while "driving." In my defense, I was stuck behind an accident in a construction zone where traffic moved MAYBE three full meters during that two hour wait. Other drivers were out of their cars walking around so it seamed like a safe bet to pass the time with a distraction rather than get upset at the situation.
Sir, I would like to inquire about renting your signature space. Of key issue here is whether or not the soul in payment must be my own or if I can pay with surplus souls from another source. In particular I am considering farming Congress for the souls required as it does not appear the proprietors of said souls are currently using them. With regards, Fphlyer
There are numerous options for dash-mounting or floorboard-mounting tablets and laptops available on Ebay and other internet sites and there are plenty of legitimate reasons for doing so. Many auto-insurance adjusters operate "mobile claims" vehicles that are equiped with the ability to print and prccess claims right at the spot of the accident. Their are many jobs such as home health care providers where employees spend more time in a vehicle or away from an actual office space. The ability to scan and send medical documents instead of hand delivering them could be a huge time saver. Maybe even a life saver. Is this really so uncommon in Germany that it warrants a news story?
The freezer trick has worked for me innumerable times. There are some caveats: 1. Place the drive in a freezer bag packed with as many "silica gel" packets as you can muster. The silica gel helps wick away moisture from the drive. 2. Before plugging the drive in, wait until after all visible condensation has evaporated from the drive. 3. Have a plan in place as to what data is most important. Backup the most critical data first because you won't have a lot of time and repeatedly freezing the drive only increases the chances of the drive experiencing an unrecoverable failure. 4. Use a Linux machine to read the drive. Linux implements a slightly different method of reading NTFS partitions then Windows. In fact, if Windows can't see the drive to begin with, try reading the drive with a Linux system before you even begin sticking the drive in the freezer. 5. This method should only be used as a last resort. If the data on the drive is absolutely CRITICAL hire a professional.
That's a category error. Christians don't assume the existence of an omnipotent "creature." They assume the existence of an omnipotent creator. A "creature" is a created being. The Christian deity is an eternally existent being that relies on nothing other then himself to exist.
Series 5 and 6 of the new Who actually did something that Doctor Who has needed for a long time: it made time travel an important plot point in several of the stories. Time travel has obviously been an important part of Doctor Who, a story about a time traveler, since it began in '63, but usually time travel has been used as a plot device to get the Doctor into a dramatic situation. Steven Moffat has taken time travel and made the paradoxes an important part of the story itself.
Unfortunately, Moffat has failed to resolve any of these dramatic time travel story lines in a way that makes any sense. He uses time travel as a device to get out of a sticky plot complication without worrying about if it makes any logical sense. The finale of Season 5 illustrates this: The future doctor goes back in time and gives Rory the sonic so that Rory can free the Doctor so the Doctor can go forward in time so that he can go back in time to give Rory the sonic... The only way that I can digest that poorly thought out resolution to the problem of getting the Doctor out of "the perfect prison" is to shake my head and let it slide because I like Doctor Who. But seriously... couldn't the writing staff of the series come up with a better resolution than that?
Absolutely. Catherine Tate was brilliant as Donna Noble and really helped to balance Tennant's interpretation of the Doctor.
I'm hoping that a new full-time companion for Matt Smith's Doctor will enable us to see a different side to the Doctor than the current "Mad Man in a Box." It would be nice to see a more serious side to the Doctor a little more often.
One possibility is that global temperatures have been cooler than the norm for the past several thousand years and whatever caused that global cooling trend has now corrected itself and Earth's temperatures are returning to more normalized levels that were experienced around 5-10 thousand years ago.
What we should be debating is not Climate Change but Climate Engineering: engineering Earth's climate to be most beneficial to humanity and other species as we and they exist today. We should focus on maintaining the climate to which we have become accustomed rather than being puppets of either natural or man-made climate variation.
Slashdot Mirror
A bit prejudiced much?
I ask because you are prejudging Biblical Creationists. I am one and I don't have a problem discussing the theory of Evolution with people who disagree with creationism. I believe in Creation but I also don't believe that the Bible was intended to be a scientific textbook. There is plenty of room for my view of Creation to be wrong without necessitating that the spiritual truths of the Bible be wrong also.
I believe that Man was created in God's image... but the narrative in Genesis is rather short on specifics. The Genesis story is about redemptive history... not a primer on science or an exhaustive exposition of all of human history.
That said... in general you are right. Many of my fellow Christians become very hostile at the mere mention of evolution refusing to even hear the arguments in it's favor. Normally reasonable people suddenly shutdown intellectually on this question.
If we are going to split hairs... everything we think we know actually boils down to BELIEF. All of our observable evidence comes from observations on one tiny spot within the universe. We have yet to breach the surface of the available evidence that explains the universe and our place in it. However we have to function like those beliefs reflect reality. I believe that Einstein's theory of relativity is true... but even if I didn't believe it that doesn't make me fling off the planet. Gravity still keeps me tethered to the planet's surface. Maybe one day we'll discover a better theory than relativity... until then it's still the best we've got and so it's the theory that we should be teaching science students.
Theories that humanity was "seeded" by aliens are a non-theological example of Intelligent Design theory.
In their 1966 book "Intelligent Life in the Universe" I.S. Shklovski and Carl Sagan present a good case for scientists and historians to consider the possibility of early contact between life on Earth and extraterrestrials. Intelligent Design is not a concept that is owned part and parcel by creationists.
That said... I have a problem with teaching Intelligent Design in public schools. I'm a creationist... I believe the truth of the Bible. I also don't believe it is the job of government to indoctrinate students in religion. Mine or anyone else's.
There was a time where teaching students of science the theory of Spontaneous Generation was perfectly legitimate. It was "good science" based on the best information that was available at the time that the theory was still viable. Evolution is the best scientific theory that explains the evidence as we have it right now. And so it should be the theory taught to science students. Perhaps one day evidence may arise to discredit evolution but that day has not come. If parents want to teach their children alternate views they are welcome to do so via religious education, private education or homeschooling. Presenting alternate views that have little or no hard evidence is unwarranted.
Not confronting the evidence for Evolution is intellectual dishonesty at best and intellectual sloth at worst.
Android is very much Linux. It's just not GNU/Linux. All the GNU utilities that give Linux the functionality and feel of Unix have been stripped out and replaced by running Dalvik on top of the Kernal.
There was actually some discussion in the early days of the shuttle about burning the engines a little longer while the shuttle was still attached to an empty fuel tank. Those tanks could have been linked together, filled with an atmosphere and turned into a massive space station.
I don't think you understood what I was saying. I agree that the Shuttle was a failure from inception but... none of the shuttles ever achieved escape velocity. They only achieved orbital velocity.
Thanks for correcting that. Drives me crazy when people claim the ancients were so dull witted as to believe the world was flat.
1. I quit submitting news to Slashdot over a decade ago when I realized that stuff I submitted would just be rejected only to have the exact same story published weeks later submitted by someone else.
2. I don't use firehose. The frontpage wastes enough of my time so why would I want to be dragged into that monstrosity?
I don't think you've thought this through...
The purpose of SpaceShipTwo is to reach suborbital flight not to obtain escape velocity.
The purpose of the Space Shuttle was to reach low Earth orbit not to obtain escape velocity.
We did not loose Challenger or Columbia in a "dangerous, expensive and quite frankly stupid" endeavor to achieve escape velocity.
Even with your plan of extracting resources from the moon you still have to design and build your payloads on earth and that means traversing the atmosphere at some point during the mission. At least until we have more permanent manned facilities off earth that can perform their own manufacturing and fabrication.
That said... going to the moon makes lots of sense. We're funding billions of dollars sending probes to the Jovian moons and Mars why? Looking for life. That's a big gamble who's only reward right now is going to be to answer the philosophical question of whether or not man is alone in the universe. Yeah... it might pay off but then again it might not. For all we know we are sending probes out with all the wrong instruments for finding that life because we're assuming that life requires water and that it will be carbon based. That's a big assumption based only on limited data. We only know of one world where carbon based life exists and uses water as a solvent. Could be that most life in the universe is based on totally different molecular structures.
We've got a whole other world right here on our back porch. Why isn't the moon already crawling with rovers? Why aren't we prospecting it's surface for minerals and materials that humanity can use? Why aren't we exploring it's surface for caves that we can seal off and flood with a breathable atmosphere for building a permanent human settlement? If we can get full-on manufacturing and construction facilities operating on the moon we can build spacecraft that can visit the rest of the solar system using much less v then it does to send the same spacecraft from the surface of the Earth. From Earth you have to account for higher gravity and aerodynamics. From the moon... well heck, even the tiny little Apollo lunar module was capable of launching from the surface and achieving lunar orbit.
Apology not accepeted. We expect better from oyu!
Why is Slashdot so late in reporting this? This happened days ago and has been reported widely across all media outlets. The NEW in "NEWs for nerds" implies "fresh" whereas this story is now stale.
I guess this is "Olds for Nerds. Stuff that mattered."
Forget Govt. subsidizing of space exploration or private industry.
We. Need. KERBALS!
In less than 10 years my Kerbals have colonized two worlds and visited countless moons. How? Because Kerbals take the risks!
Right. The unspoken implication of Sputnik was that if the Russians could put something in orbit then they could just as easily drop a nuclear payload on any spot on the planet. The early space race was sold as being about scientific exploration it was just as much about demonstrating to allies and enemies the heavy lifting capability of ICBMs.
The race for the moon became an extension of cold war propaganda. Once the goals were reached... well, space exploration became a hobby. If we look at how much was accomplished from Sputnik to Apollo 11... we've mostly been spinning our wheels... at least when it comes to manned spaceflight.
Not a billion times. Rather "billions and billions" of times.
Exactly. Neil deGrasse Tyson is certainly an intelligent and articulate voice for science but we all have bias and he's not immune.
In this case, Tyson has been on the front lines of advocating increasing NASA's budget. When private industry begins talking about doing the things that have traditionally been done within NASA for cheaper, this becomes an argument against increasing government funding for space exploration.
Google owns my digital existence. They read my mail, know every website I visit, record all my voice mails, track who I call and can use GPS to track me to within just a few meters of my location on the planet at any given moment. ...I try not to think about it.
Yet somehow Google's services make me feel like they've actually added value to my life. If Google were a government, I'd feel like Winston Smith.
I use my phone's hotspot function to provide internet access for my kid's Android tablets and Nintendo DSi devices during long duration trips. Disabling all internet access would be a huge bummer resulting in even more "are we there yet?" situations then I already get. I also frequently stream music from my phone through my car's built-in stereo bluetooth. While we all want to save lives the reality is that "distracted driving" is caused not by technology but by human nature. Take away the tech and we'll just find some other distraction. Driving a car is so "second nature" in American culture that most of don't apply the level of concentration to the task that we should. Ever drive while juggling a hamburger and a soda?
My personal worst offense was over a decade ago when I pulled out my laptop and played a game of Quake 2 while "driving." In my defense, I was stuck behind an accident in a construction zone where traffic moved MAYBE three full meters during that two hour wait. Other drivers were out of their cars walking around so it seamed like a safe bet to pass the time with a distraction rather than get upset at the situation.
Sir,
I would like to inquire about renting your signature space. Of key issue here is whether or not the soul in payment must be my own or if I can pay with surplus souls from another source. In particular I am considering farming Congress for the souls required as it does not appear the proprietors of said souls are currently using them.
With regards,
Fphlyer
Comets are made out of ice.
Ice is cold.
Bombard Earth with comets.
QED
There are numerous options for dash-mounting or floorboard-mounting tablets and laptops available on Ebay and other internet sites and there are plenty of legitimate reasons for doing so. Many auto-insurance adjusters operate "mobile claims" vehicles that are equiped with the ability to print and prccess claims right at the spot of the accident. Their are many jobs such as home health care providers where employees spend more time in a vehicle or away from an actual office space. The ability to scan and send medical documents instead of hand delivering them could be a huge time saver. Maybe even a life saver.
Is this really so uncommon in Germany that it warrants a news story?
The freezer trick has worked for me innumerable times. There are some caveats:
1. Place the drive in a freezer bag packed with as many "silica gel" packets as you can muster. The silica gel helps wick away moisture from the drive.
2. Before plugging the drive in, wait until after all visible condensation has evaporated from the drive.
3. Have a plan in place as to what data is most important. Backup the most critical data first because you won't have a lot of time and repeatedly freezing the drive only increases the chances of the drive experiencing an unrecoverable failure.
4. Use a Linux machine to read the drive. Linux implements a slightly different method of reading NTFS partitions then Windows. In fact, if Windows can't see the drive to begin with, try reading the drive with a Linux system before you even begin sticking the drive in the freezer.
5. This method should only be used as a last resort. If the data on the drive is absolutely CRITICAL hire a professional.
That's a category error. Christians don't assume the existence of an omnipotent "creature." They assume the existence of an omnipotent creator. A "creature" is a created being. The Christian deity is an eternally existent being that relies on nothing other then himself to exist.
Series 5 and 6 of the new Who actually did something that Doctor Who has needed for a long time: it made time travel an important plot point in several of the stories. Time travel has obviously been an important part of Doctor Who, a story about a time traveler, since it began in '63, but usually time travel has been used as a plot device to get the Doctor into a dramatic situation. Steven Moffat has taken time travel and made the paradoxes an important part of the story itself.
Unfortunately, Moffat has failed to resolve any of these dramatic time travel story lines in a way that makes any sense. He uses time travel as a device to get out of a sticky plot complication without worrying about if it makes any logical sense. The finale of Season 5 illustrates this: The future doctor goes back in time and gives Rory the sonic so that Rory can free the Doctor so the Doctor can go forward in time so that he can go back in time to give Rory the sonic... The only way that I can digest that poorly thought out resolution to the problem of getting the Doctor out of "the perfect prison" is to shake my head and let it slide because I like Doctor Who. But seriously... couldn't the writing staff of the series come up with a better resolution than that?
Absolutely. Catherine Tate was brilliant as Donna Noble and really helped to balance Tennant's interpretation of the Doctor.
I'm hoping that a new full-time companion for Matt Smith's Doctor will enable us to see a different side to the Doctor than the current "Mad Man in a Box." It would be nice to see a more serious side to the Doctor a little more often.
One possibility is that global temperatures have been cooler than the norm for the past several thousand years and whatever caused that global cooling trend has now corrected itself and Earth's temperatures are returning to more normalized levels that were experienced around 5-10 thousand years ago.
What we should be debating is not Climate Change but Climate Engineering: engineering Earth's climate to be most beneficial to humanity and other species as we and they exist today. We should focus on maintaining the climate to which we have become accustomed rather than being puppets of either natural or man-made climate variation.