Yeah, Activision sounds just lovely. I just keep wondering why Vivendi doesn't put them in shape, but probably it brings money in now. I just hope Activision dies quickly. At least EA has started to bring some innovation again.
And that's the rub. By focusing on time-tested franchises that are basically guaranteed to be profitable, rather than new properties, they increase revenues and reduce risk. Both are good from a corporate standpoint, in general. Unfortunately, creativity doesn't always pay the bills. It just drives home that Activision is a production company that happens to specialize in games, rather than a game publisher.
That said, Kotick obviously understands the downsides of this approach. He even stated he regretted not buying (Rockband Developer) Harmonix when he hadthe chance. At some point he needs to expand his franchises, and by being too conservative he ended up passing up one of the best opportunities to come his way. I was expecting that would mean a more balanced approach to Activision's strategy going forward, but this IW shake-up makes me question that prediction...
I fully agree that the ice is valuable, and should be mined. I'm just saying that preserving ONE crater will be even more valuable, in the fullness of time.
Right, but that argument stands apart from the 'same moon our ancestors saw' argument. I think it's totally reasonable to protect some craters from a geological and scientific point of view (beyond the fact that international treaties prevent exploiting lunar resources), but not from a purely nostalgic point of view (since we haven't seen these craters long enough to be nostalgic).
It's not just some big rock; It's the Moon. It's the same Moon that our primate ancestors looked up at in wonder. To say it has no history or emotional impact is profoundly ignorant.
The craters you want to preserve are only visible by satellites orbiting the moon's poles. There is not emotional attachment to them.
If you want something worth preserving, try the Sea of Tranquility, or even prevent anything visible to the naked eye on the side of the moon facing us. Some small craters where we can't see them mean nothing to us compared with the moon and its more recognizable features.
Absolutely nowhere do they claim they can pull details that don't exist out of nothing. This is simply a better version of interpolation. Currently, when we're missing data we usually just look at the adjacent pixels to determine what should go in between. This algorithm looks for the patterns (particularly blocks) in the pixels for what should go in-between (see here for examples).
The assumption is that for most pictures (or other datasets of interest) your data is not random, it has some form of pattern. In fact, completely contrary to pixel homeopathy, the original image must have at least 1 pixel of the detail in question to be reconstructed in the final image, otherwise the reconstruction 'paints' over it with the surrounding details (pattern). The example given is pretty good as far as an image: taking a full resolution image and compressing (with JPG, for example) to 20% original size will yield a picture with similar detail by taking only 20% the pixels originally and using this algorithm. Look at heavily compressed images, and tell me if you think this is a miracle cure.
If you read TFA it explains the process pretty well (just ignore the 'simulation image'). It's just the/. headline that makes the bogus claim "Recovering Data From Noise".
Sorry of TFA answers these questions, but I've never known Wired to get into any kind of detail on stuff like this.
From TFA:
The key to finding the single correct representation is a notion called sparsity, a mathematical way of describing an image’s complexity, or lack thereof. A picture made up of a few simple, understandable elements — like solid blocks of color or wiggly lines — is sparse; a screenful of random, chaotic dots is not. It turns out that out of all the bazillion possible reconstructions, the simplest, or sparsest, image is almost always the right one or very close to it.
So any dataset that is likely to be smooth can be improved with this technique. They give the example in TFA of piano music (except for percussion, the frequencies present are consistent for a significant period of time). Names, addresses, and inventory are for all intents and purposes here random. You can't determine the address of someone in a database by looking at the adjacent entries.
This technique is taking the noisy or incomplete data, and inferring the details already captured but only on a few pixels. So, if there's a line or square on the image but you only catch a few pixels on it, this technique can infer the shape from those few pixels. So, it will enhance the detail on forms you can almost see, but not create the detail from scratch.
Rather than 'enhancing' the image, a better term would be 'upsampling'. The example used in the article was of a musical performance. This technique could take a 44.1kHz sample of a musical instrument at 8-bit resolution and upsample it to 96kHz and 32-bit resolution. Since instruments create predictable frequencies (aside from percussion, the same frequency is usually present for many times the wavelength) the algorithm can determine which frequencies are present, at which times, and at which amplitude and phase. That information can then be used to 'fill in the gaps' more accurately than normal upsampling (usually done with a Sinc filter). However, it can't recreate information that wasn't recorded in the first place, so if the audio was recorded at 20kHz you would only get output of audio below 10kHz (the Nyquist frequency in this case), although it's conceivable that even more advanced algorithms could infer these frequencies as most instruments have a predictable distribution of harmonics.
It also seems that most compression algorithms (JPG for example) would destroy these bits of detail that the algorithm would use, so raw data is likely to be needed in most cases. I'm just going off of my knowledge of DSP, I don't know any particulars of this technique beyond this article, but it looks legitimate and very useful as long as you aren't expecting CSI-level miracles.
Both are correct. Before the license transfer utility, on a new box you needed to be logged on. Now, you can transfer the hardware license to a new console (as GGP says). GP is also correct that you must be more than logged on with the correct XBL account, you must be connected with the Live servers. In other words: no offline play without the hardware license.
The only possible effect I can think of are with the inductive coils on cochlear implants (and possibly other implants). It would depend on the number of coils on the receiver as to the effect, and could range from severe noise and inability to hear (likely) to painful volume or electric shocks (less likely).
I just decided to use newborns as an example, since they are generally believed to be guaranteed a place in heaven if they die before they can do anything sinful (as you admitted).
Quick clarification, I explicitly said that even newborns are sinful. The general theological concensus is that despite being sinful, God is merciful to children who do not have the opportunity to renounce their sin. However, I understand your usage of the word 'innocent' to refer to those who would reach heaven if they died this instant.
I was merely pointing out that if you believe Heaven is a better place than Earth, you should kill anyone who will most likely get into Heaven for their own benefit. After all, like I said, they may sin in the future and thus deny themselves entry into Heaven; however, if you kill them now, they will be guaranteed entry to Heaven. Isn't it worthwhile to force someone to go slightly more quickly to their eternal reward, than to stay here on Earth and still have a chance of messing things up?
Yes, it would be to their own benefit to die soon. However, this kind of selfish thought is not deemed acceptable in the Bible. Firstly, a righteous life is considered pleasing to God, meaning that anyone ending a righteous life early would displease God. Secondly, Christians are charged with "making disciples of all nations", and working for the betterment of others. Taking the easy way out to heaven would be selfish, also not the intended action.
As well, the only sin I am aware of which the New Testament explicitly claims will bar a person from heaven is that against the Holy Spirit. Not exactly something that you stumble into. No need to guard against it by performing actions the Bible instructs not to take.
God can create a world in which I can't kick puppies but still have free will, because that is the definition of omnipotence. The answer for all questions of the form "can God..." is yes for an omnipotent God.
Ah, the old 'boulder so big God can't move it' paradox. We'll leave that one for the philosiphers, I'd rather have a meaningful discussion than a 'what is omnipotent' which has been going on for ages.
Which means that despite being capable of creating a world without sin and horror and death and with free will, God for some reason chose to create this world. Which sort of brings His judgment into question.
My point is exactly that: God created our world in such this manner for some reason. I would claim it requires omniscience to understand exactly why, the best we can do is make informed guesses.
Again, my belief is that suffering entered the world as a result of our free will choosing sin. While this would lead to temporary suffering for all (and permanent suffering for some), the choice of righteous men to be righteous in the face of all of this suffering, was decided to be a reward worth the cost.
In addition (at the risk of sounding irreverent), it also makes for a damn good story. The entire Old Testament setting up rules and regulations, patterns, and forms that come to a head with Jesus. For example, forgiveness for sins would not be as powerful if it had not been 'bought' through the death of God Himself, nor would it have had as much meaning without the connections to the Old Testament sin offering (which the priests ate -> new testament teaches all are priests -> communion is eating of the sin offering of Jesus) or the passover. Whether this story would be the primary or secondary goal of God, I don't know, but it certainly ataches greater meaning to everything taught.
If your PC or cell phone does similar tasks, its computational load is reduced by two orders of magnitude (in other words, somewhere in the range of 1%). That means your computer of cell phone spends 1% of the time doing the work, and the other 99% of the time either doing other useful work (making it faster) or in standby (making it use less energy, or last longer on battery power, or the same time on less battery).
I consider all these things benefits. Of course, it depends on if the algorithm is actually used in PCs or personal devices, or if it is only used in corporate environments. Even then, these same benefits would conceivably be passed to consumers in terms of services, reduced cost, or additional earnings.
If you truly believe that, then the logical next step would be to go forth and kill innocents who are currently guaranteed God's presence. After all, if you kill them now, they are guaranteed to be brought into God's presence - but if you let them live, they may sin and be denied that glory. Of course, killing newly baptized infants (depending on your personal beliefs, of course) will guarantee you a place in Hell; just console yourself with the thought of all those souls for whom you have guaranteed heaven. Surely you don't value your soul over the souls of all those babes you could save from a lifetime of sin, do you?
That assumes two things: that we are inherently sinless, and that sin is justified if it increases God's grace. I present Psalm 51:5 and Romans 6:1-2 to show that this is not the Christian teaching:
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
As for young children, the most common concept is that of the age of accountability. I'm not aware of any scripture passage that deals with this directly, it is simply a theological best-guess based on the nature of God throughout the rest of the Bible. In short, since children have not had the chance to renounce sin, many believe God will be gracious to their souls, others do not.
However, that is not the case. God, being omnipotent, can easily create a universe in which people both have free will and cannot kick puppies. (and if He can't do that, then He is not omnipotent.)
As a somewhat more concrete example: you would presumably argue that I have free will. If I have free will, then why can't I take off and fly right now? Why can't I turn purple? Why can't I flargle?
I have free will, but my free will is necessarily constrained by the reality in which I am embedded. Why, then, am I embedded in a reality in which I can't fly, but can kick puppies? Why is one of those things an infringement of my free will, and the other not?
I would argue that free will in a world where sin is not possible is not free will at all. A world where humans can not choose to ignore God is no different from a world where all are forced to worship Him. As I said before, it is more rewarding for parents when children do good of their own volition, rather than be required to do so, and it is the same with God. Again, God could create a world such as this (and did, if you consider the angels), but it would be shallow and not worth creating.
Your puppy/flying argument is a good strawman, but still pointless. You can still want to fly or not, and free will is about intentions more than actions. More importantly, your inability to fly is consistent, regardless of your good/wicked intentions. By the same token you are able to kick things, be they soccer balls or puppies, regardless of your intentions. It would be an impinging on your free will if you were able to kick soccer balls, but not puppies. By what mechanism do you propose free will is not impinged by selectively preventing things based on intentions?
So yes, God chooses to let people act in wicked ways, but He does so because the alternative would be worse, reducing us to mere puppets on strings.
I find this kind of hilarious, because you're about the tenth person to use this argument with me, and the thousandth I've seen use this same argument. It's a pretty common string of Catholic thought, apparently.
I'm not Catholic (OK, so I'm Lutheran, which is like Catholic-lite). If it's so unreasonable, I'd like to see an alternative explanation of the God of the Bible. We could sit here all day and brainstorm alternative methods for an arbitrary omnipotent entity to design a world, but it wouldn't have any relation to the Biblical God (which is all I was talking about). Do you have an alternate scheme to allow free-will and prevent sin simultaneously?
That seems to me a gross distortion of the Biblical principle.
I'd agree with you on that point. I'd go farther to assert that gross distortions in general are a significant factor in driving Christianity towards the zealotry and social irrelevance that I think we are seeing today. However, that's just an opinion on my part.
And, of course, the ones who are doing the distorting are the ones who are most vocal/visible, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, et al. I'd say those who actually try their best to be Biblical are the majority, but it's hard to compete with a vocal minority that makes for easy headlines.
According to you, God has the capability to bring them back to life. Why would He not do so? According to you, God has the capability to prevent their deaths in the first place. Why would He not do so?
Their deaths do not invalidate or punish them; they just refute the theory that God cares about them.
From a secular and wordly viewpoint only. From the Christian viewpoint, eternal life is a reward, so why send them away from God's presence to return them to a mortal body? The death is only saddening for those who are still on this earth.
This logic does not work for an omnipotent being: because it is omnipotent, every action or inaction costs it nothing. Therefore, by allowing an action to occur, the being is saying that the action will have a net benefit. By disallowing an action, the being is saying that the action will have a net detriment. Hence, everything we can do, God approves of - He believes it will have a net benefit. Everything we cannot do, God disapproves of - He believes it will have a net detriment. There is no way around this, unless you say that God is not omnipotent.
Again, I would say that an omnipotent being can allow a different outcome than he would desire. The cost, in this case, would be that of free will. One of the most common interpretations among Christian theologians is that children who love Him freely is more pleasing to God than those who are forced to worship him.
So on the one hand, God would desire us all to be happy. On the other hand, he desires more for us to have the freedom to choose, leading to wicked people. So yes, God chooses to let people act in wicked ways, but He does so because the alternative would be worse, reducing us to mere puppets on strings.
You may get what you pay for, ie it doesn't have the greasy slick commercial polish, but why does Apple get the only mention?
Apple gets the mention because they are popular. They are popular because they have a slick commercial polish, which is what you need to get the technologically-illiterate to use it. Similarly, car designs with a low coefficient of drag are probably 'uglier', and thus sell worse regardless of increased fuel efficiency.
Doesn't anybody want to see a non-geek, easy to use platform that plays nicely with more technical platforms?
Yes, but until it's economically beneficial to do so, we won't.
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted
This was always something that bugged me about my faith back when I was a practicing Christian (don't ask me what I am now, I couldn't tell you if I tried). There was always a self-righteous pleasure that Christians seemed to take in being persecuted. If someone called them stupid or illogical, there would be this knowing little smirk that dawned on their face, like they had just caught a glimpse up a girl's skirt. This mindset always seemed decidedly masochistic, in some ways. "Oh, so you want to hurt me? Go ahead, I will revel in it." That attitude always walked hand in hand with the turn-the-other-cheek and love-your-enemies mentalities. Occasionally, it results in a smugness,a sort of, "Why, yes, I AM stupid aren't I? You are so wise to notice!" It might even be called sanctimonious.
That seems to me a gross distortion of the Biblical principle. The simplest evidence is that the Bible refers to "enduring" hardship, rather than revelry in it. While Paul seemed to show similar signs of asceticism (boasting of imprisonments, etc), I feel he taught that these hardships were a means to an end for him. He did not become imprisoned for the sake of being imprisoned, but he disregarded the threat of imprisonment and persecution in his devotion to preeching for his sake and the sake of others.
I assume I'm interpreting what you mean correctly. It's always saddening to me to hear these kinds of stories. Sometimes it's hard to understand where things went so wrong.
Yes, and that's where faith comes in. Whether you believe it or like it, that's the belief. I just wanted to clear up the misconception that them being dead somehow invalidated or punished them.
Since God is omnipotent, duh. If an omnipotent being exists, that being necessarily condones any action you perform; if the being does not condone the action, you would not be able to perform it*.
Alternately, God could simply be condoning free-will. For example, I condone people voting, even if they want to vote for things I find to be terrible.
Also, not acting to stop an action is not the same as wanting it to happen, so it depends on the use of the word 'condone' as to if it fits. Perhaps 'willed' is a better word in this case than 'condone', which I think is a loaded word in this case (implying approval, rather than simply acceptance).
For example, when dealing with children, sometimes the parent allows them to hurt themselves (or others) if it is not life threatening. They don't want the child to bump their head, the parent simply values the child's ability to make decisions whether they are right or wrong.
That God's such a great guy! It only took him what, fifty-ish years to demolish the Soviet Union? And it looked more like their economic system failed than any sort of divine intervention. And Stalin, the person who was basically responsible for ordering those deaths, died of a stroke at the ripe old age of 74 - after having what was certainly a delicious all-night dinner.
Notice the ';-)' I put? I didn't mean to imply that the Soviet Union collapsed purely (or even at all) because of this.
And those holy people are still dead.
But the reward from God according to Jesus isn't 'not being dead'. Please reread all above verses that say "you will be persecuted", and remember that Jesus also was killed for the same reason.
Oh yeah and did you know that Stalin was declared to be the divinely anointed leader of the Russian armed forces by the Russian Orthodox church? That God - what a sense of humor!
Since when did a bunch of people doing something (even in God's name) mean that God condoned, agreed-with, or willed it? See also: the Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, et al.
Of course, but only to a degree. The thrust might be random within a 45-90 degree cone (numbers pulled out of my ass), making the exact orbit unpredictable. However, the shape of the new orbit will be predictably eliptic. By being careful when you use such a broom you could ensure that the probability of collision short-term does not increase, but that the long-term probability will drop to zero as the debris burns up in the atmosphere within several orbits.
The attempted solution was the book of Job. Read it some time, because it has a comical end. Basically, the devil totally fucks with Job as some sort of a wager with God. Job holds out and stays loyal to God. But at the end, Job gets impatient and says, "Yo God, this is totally unfair. C'mon, why are you allowing this?"
God's answer: "Who the fuck are you to question anything, pea-brain?!" I'm serious. That's God's answer. So if you want to know why there's evil and how it could possibly be compatible with God's plan, the answer is shut the fuck up with your arrogantly presumptuous questions.
Read Job again. God's rebuke to Job was for presuming God's will, rather than simply for asking it. Job didn't say 'why am I being punished?', he said 'I didn't sin, your punishment is unjust'. It's that act of telling God He was wrong that was found unacceptable.
Regardless, Job is still found to be faithful at the end and is rewarded. God's real answer would then be 'I am the Lord, you can not know my will. However, you are rewarded as a faithful servant'.
And that's the best Judeo-Christianity could do. Pretty impressive, huh?
The explanations in Judaism and Christianity are linked, but altogether different. See above for my post with references where Jesus acknowledged that their faith would cause bad things for them (on earth), rather than fixing everything. The biggest difference is a shift in focus. In Judaism works earned an earthly reward, in Christianity spiritual works earn an eternal reward.
And if you want a better explanation for why bad things happen to 'good' people? Easy, everyone has sinned and deserves death. We deserve nothing, but do receive grace.
You are of course ignoring the fact that the "wide majority of people" have no experience typing on a touchscreen using their hands rather than their thumbs. It will be interesting how many of them change their tune after that.
People said the same thing about the iPhone touchscreen keyboard, too, but users have gotten along swimmingly. Either they are fast typers already and will be able to adapt to a large-format touchscreen keyboard, or they're slow typers anyway and the touchscreen won't slow them down one iota.
So let me get this straight. The fact that users are restricted to only what is in the app store, instead of being able to use any program from any source...you are touting this fact as a plus? OK, then why not just make the iPad app store capable? Why make it app store restricted?
Well, for your non-geek user, a monolithic location for software 'apps' is exactly what they want. It makes it easy for them to find stuff without needing to know anything about compatibility or safety. They will likely find the app store to be an upgrade (partly because they rarely downloaded and installed software previously, why do you think we need to go to their house to install AV software for them?), so why would they miss the ability to do that thing they never did before?
Slashdot Mirror
This is also the first even-numbered year since the PS3 release that is not a leap year. It's possible their leap-year code is completely broken...
Yeah, Activision sounds just lovely. I just keep wondering why Vivendi doesn't put them in shape, but probably it brings money in now. I just hope Activision dies quickly. At least EA has started to bring some innovation again.
And that's the rub. By focusing on time-tested franchises that are basically guaranteed to be profitable, rather than new properties, they increase revenues and reduce risk. Both are good from a corporate standpoint, in general. Unfortunately, creativity doesn't always pay the bills. It just drives home that Activision is a production company that happens to specialize in games, rather than a game publisher.
That said, Kotick obviously understands the downsides of this approach. He even stated he regretted not buying (Rockband Developer) Harmonix when he had the chance. At some point he needs to expand his franchises, and by being too conservative he ended up passing up one of the best opportunities to come his way. I was expecting that would mean a more balanced approach to Activision's strategy going forward, but this IW shake-up makes me question that prediction...
I fully agree that the ice is valuable, and should be mined. I'm just saying that preserving ONE crater will be even more valuable, in the fullness of time.
Right, but that argument stands apart from the 'same moon our ancestors saw' argument. I think it's totally reasonable to protect some craters from a geological and scientific point of view (beyond the fact that international treaties prevent exploiting lunar resources), but not from a purely nostalgic point of view (since we haven't seen these craters long enough to be nostalgic).
Not to mention that these craters receive no sunlight, making the environment much colder and therefor harsher to both humans and equipment.
It's not just some big rock; It's the Moon. It's the same Moon that our primate ancestors looked up at in wonder. To say it has no history or emotional impact is profoundly ignorant.
The craters you want to preserve are only visible by satellites orbiting the moon's poles. There is not emotional attachment to them.
If you want something worth preserving, try the Sea of Tranquility, or even prevent anything visible to the naked eye on the side of the moon facing us. Some small craters where we can't see them mean nothing to us compared with the moon and its more recognizable features.
Absolutely nowhere do they claim they can pull details that don't exist out of nothing. This is simply a better version of interpolation. Currently, when we're missing data we usually just look at the adjacent pixels to determine what should go in between. This algorithm looks for the patterns (particularly blocks) in the pixels for what should go in-between (see here for examples).
The assumption is that for most pictures (or other datasets of interest) your data is not random, it has some form of pattern. In fact, completely contrary to pixel homeopathy, the original image must have at least 1 pixel of the detail in question to be reconstructed in the final image, otherwise the reconstruction 'paints' over it with the surrounding details (pattern). The example given is pretty good as far as an image: taking a full resolution image and compressing (with JPG, for example) to 20% original size will yield a picture with similar detail by taking only 20% the pixels originally and using this algorithm. Look at heavily compressed images, and tell me if you think this is a miracle cure.
If you read TFA it explains the process pretty well (just ignore the 'simulation image'). It's just the /. headline that makes the bogus claim "Recovering Data From Noise".
As long as the acronym is explicitly defined, it doesn't matter how obscure it is. That's proper writing style.
That was the beginning of compressed sensing, or CS
And there it is in the article, what are you complaining about again? Oh right, TFA and slashdot editors. Carry on, then.
More importantly, HOW does it work?
Sorry of TFA answers these questions, but I've never known Wired to get into any kind of detail on stuff like this.
From TFA:
The key to finding the single correct representation is a notion called sparsity, a mathematical way of describing an image’s complexity, or lack thereof. A picture made up of a few simple, understandable elements — like solid blocks of color or wiggly lines — is sparse; a screenful of random, chaotic dots is not. It turns out that out of all the bazillion possible reconstructions, the simplest, or sparsest, image is almost always the right one or very close to it.
So any dataset that is likely to be smooth can be improved with this technique. They give the example in TFA of piano music (except for percussion, the frequencies present are consistent for a significant period of time). Names, addresses, and inventory are for all intents and purposes here random. You can't determine the address of someone in a database by looking at the adjacent entries.
Kind-of.
This technique is taking the noisy or incomplete data, and inferring the details already captured but only on a few pixels. So, if there's a line or square on the image but you only catch a few pixels on it, this technique can infer the shape from those few pixels. So, it will enhance the detail on forms you can almost see, but not create the detail from scratch.
Rather than 'enhancing' the image, a better term would be 'upsampling'. The example used in the article was of a musical performance. This technique could take a 44.1kHz sample of a musical instrument at 8-bit resolution and upsample it to 96kHz and 32-bit resolution. Since instruments create predictable frequencies (aside from percussion, the same frequency is usually present for many times the wavelength) the algorithm can determine which frequencies are present, at which times, and at which amplitude and phase. That information can then be used to 'fill in the gaps' more accurately than normal upsampling (usually done with a Sinc filter). However, it can't recreate information that wasn't recorded in the first place, so if the audio was recorded at 20kHz you would only get output of audio below 10kHz (the Nyquist frequency in this case), although it's conceivable that even more advanced algorithms could infer these frequencies as most instruments have a predictable distribution of harmonics.
It also seems that most compression algorithms (JPG for example) would destroy these bits of detail that the algorithm would use, so raw data is likely to be needed in most cases. I'm just going off of my knowledge of DSP, I don't know any particulars of this technique beyond this article, but it looks legitimate and very useful as long as you aren't expecting CSI-level miracles.
He said this was based on update-server figures. More specifically, the ratio of users downloading updates:users who bought the game.
Both are correct. Before the license transfer utility, on a new box you needed to be logged on. Now, you can transfer the hardware license to a new console (as GGP says). GP is also correct that you must be more than logged on with the correct XBL account, you must be connected with the Live servers. In other words: no offline play without the hardware license.
The only possible effect I can think of are with the inductive coils on cochlear implants (and possibly other implants). It would depend on the number of coils on the receiver as to the effect, and could range from severe noise and inability to hear (likely) to painful volume or electric shocks (less likely).
I just decided to use newborns as an example, since they are generally believed to be guaranteed a place in heaven if they die before they can do anything sinful (as you admitted).
Quick clarification, I explicitly said that even newborns are sinful. The general theological concensus is that despite being sinful, God is merciful to children who do not have the opportunity to renounce their sin. However, I understand your usage of the word 'innocent' to refer to those who would reach heaven if they died this instant.
I was merely pointing out that if you believe Heaven is a better place than Earth, you should kill anyone who will most likely get into Heaven for their own benefit. After all, like I said, they may sin in the future and thus deny themselves entry into Heaven; however, if you kill them now, they will be guaranteed entry to Heaven. Isn't it worthwhile to force someone to go slightly more quickly to their eternal reward, than to stay here on Earth and still have a chance of messing things up?
Yes, it would be to their own benefit to die soon. However, this kind of selfish thought is not deemed acceptable in the Bible. Firstly, a righteous life is considered pleasing to God, meaning that anyone ending a righteous life early would displease God. Secondly, Christians are charged with "making disciples of all nations", and working for the betterment of others. Taking the easy way out to heaven would be selfish, also not the intended action.
As well, the only sin I am aware of which the New Testament explicitly claims will bar a person from heaven is that against the Holy Spirit. Not exactly something that you stumble into. No need to guard against it by performing actions the Bible instructs not to take.
God can create a world in which I can't kick puppies but still have free will, because that is the definition of omnipotence. The answer for all questions of the form "can God..." is yes for an omnipotent God.
Ah, the old 'boulder so big God can't move it' paradox. We'll leave that one for the philosiphers, I'd rather have a meaningful discussion than a 'what is omnipotent' which has been going on for ages.
Which means that despite being capable of creating a world without sin and horror and death and with free will, God for some reason chose to create this world. Which sort of brings His judgment into question.
My point is exactly that: God created our world in such this manner for some reason. I would claim it requires omniscience to understand exactly why, the best we can do is make informed guesses.
Again, my belief is that suffering entered the world as a result of our free will choosing sin. While this would lead to temporary suffering for all (and permanent suffering for some), the choice of righteous men to be righteous in the face of all of this suffering, was decided to be a reward worth the cost.
In addition (at the risk of sounding irreverent), it also makes for a damn good story. The entire Old Testament setting up rules and regulations, patterns, and forms that come to a head with Jesus. For example, forgiveness for sins would not be as powerful if it had not been 'bought' through the death of God Himself, nor would it have had as much meaning without the connections to the Old Testament sin offering (which the priests ate -> new testament teaches all are priests -> communion is eating of the sin offering of Jesus) or the passover. Whether this story would be the primary or secondary goal of God, I don't know, but it certainly ataches greater meaning to everything taught.
And this is a benefit how exactly?
If your PC or cell phone does similar tasks, its computational load is reduced by two orders of magnitude (in other words, somewhere in the range of 1%). That means your computer of cell phone spends 1% of the time doing the work, and the other 99% of the time either doing other useful work (making it faster) or in standby (making it use less energy, or last longer on battery power, or the same time on less battery).
I consider all these things benefits. Of course, it depends on if the algorithm is actually used in PCs or personal devices, or if it is only used in corporate environments. Even then, these same benefits would conceivably be passed to consumers in terms of services, reduced cost, or additional earnings.
If you truly believe that, then the logical next step would be to go forth and kill innocents who are currently guaranteed God's presence. After all, if you kill them now, they are guaranteed to be brought into God's presence - but if you let them live, they may sin and be denied that glory. Of course, killing newly baptized infants (depending on your personal beliefs, of course) will guarantee you a place in Hell; just console yourself with the thought of all those souls for whom you have guaranteed heaven. Surely you don't value your soul over the souls of all those babes you could save from a lifetime of sin, do you?
That assumes two things: that we are inherently sinless, and that sin is justified if it increases God's grace. I present Psalm 51:5 and Romans 6:1-2 to show that this is not the Christian teaching:
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
As for young children, the most common concept is that of the age of accountability. I'm not aware of any scripture passage that deals with this directly, it is simply a theological best-guess based on the nature of God throughout the rest of the Bible. In short, since children have not had the chance to renounce sin, many believe God will be gracious to their souls, others do not.
However, that is not the case. God, being omnipotent, can easily create a universe in which people both have free will and cannot kick puppies. (and if He can't do that, then He is not omnipotent.)
As a somewhat more concrete example: you would presumably argue that I have free will. If I have free will, then why can't I take off and fly right now? Why can't I turn purple? Why can't I flargle?
I have free will, but my free will is necessarily constrained by the reality in which I am embedded. Why, then, am I embedded in a reality in which I can't fly, but can kick puppies? Why is one of those things an infringement of my free will, and the other not?
I would argue that free will in a world where sin is not possible is not free will at all. A world where humans can not choose to ignore God is no different from a world where all are forced to worship Him. As I said before, it is more rewarding for parents when children do good of their own volition, rather than be required to do so, and it is the same with God. Again, God could create a world such as this (and did, if you consider the angels), but it would be shallow and not worth creating.
Your puppy/flying argument is a good strawman, but still pointless. You can still want to fly or not, and free will is about intentions more than actions. More importantly, your inability to fly is consistent, regardless of your good/wicked intentions. By the same token you are able to kick things, be they soccer balls or puppies, regardless of your intentions. It would be an impinging on your free will if you were able to kick soccer balls, but not puppies. By what mechanism do you propose free will is not impinged by selectively preventing things based on intentions?
So yes, God chooses to let people act in wicked ways, but He does so because the alternative would be worse, reducing us to mere puppets on strings.
I find this kind of hilarious, because you're about the tenth person to use this argument with me, and the thousandth I've seen use this same argument. It's a pretty common string of Catholic thought, apparently.
I'm not Catholic (OK, so I'm Lutheran, which is like Catholic-lite). If it's so unreasonable, I'd like to see an alternative explanation of the God of the Bible. We could sit here all day and brainstorm alternative methods for an arbitrary omnipotent entity to design a world, but it wouldn't have any relation to the Biblical God (which is all I was talking about). Do you have an alternate scheme to allow free-will and prevent sin simultaneously?
That seems to me a gross distortion of the Biblical principle.
I'd agree with you on that point. I'd go farther to assert that gross distortions in general are a significant factor in driving Christianity towards the zealotry and social irrelevance that I think we are seeing today. However, that's just an opinion on my part.
And, of course, the ones who are doing the distorting are the ones who are most vocal/visible, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, et al. I'd say those who actually try their best to be Biblical are the majority, but it's hard to compete with a vocal minority that makes for easy headlines.
According to you, God has the capability to bring them back to life. Why would He not do so? According to you, God has the capability to prevent their deaths in the first place. Why would He not do so?
Their deaths do not invalidate or punish them; they just refute the theory that God cares about them.
From a secular and wordly viewpoint only. From the Christian viewpoint, eternal life is a reward, so why send them away from God's presence to return them to a mortal body? The death is only saddening for those who are still on this earth.
This logic does not work for an omnipotent being: because it is omnipotent, every action or inaction costs it nothing. Therefore, by allowing an action to occur, the being is saying that the action will have a net benefit. By disallowing an action, the being is saying that the action will have a net detriment. Hence, everything we can do, God approves of - He believes it will have a net benefit. Everything we cannot do, God disapproves of - He believes it will have a net detriment. There is no way around this, unless you say that God is not omnipotent.
Again, I would say that an omnipotent being can allow a different outcome than he would desire. The cost, in this case, would be that of free will. One of the most common interpretations among Christian theologians is that children who love Him freely is more pleasing to God than those who are forced to worship him.
So on the one hand, God would desire us all to be happy. On the other hand, he desires more for us to have the freedom to choose, leading to wicked people. So yes, God chooses to let people act in wicked ways, but He does so because the alternative would be worse, reducing us to mere puppets on strings.
You may get what you pay for, ie it doesn't have the greasy slick commercial polish, but why does Apple get the only mention?
Apple gets the mention because they are popular. They are popular because they have a slick commercial polish, which is what you need to get the technologically-illiterate to use it. Similarly, car designs with a low coefficient of drag are probably 'uglier', and thus sell worse regardless of increased fuel efficiency.
Doesn't anybody want to see a non-geek, easy to use platform that plays nicely with more technical platforms?
Yes, but until it's economically beneficial to do so, we won't.
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted
This was always something that bugged me about my faith back when I was a practicing Christian (don't ask me what I am now, I couldn't tell you if I tried). There was always a self-righteous pleasure that Christians seemed to take in being persecuted. If someone called them stupid or illogical, there would be this knowing little smirk that dawned on their face, like they had just caught a glimpse up a girl's skirt. This mindset always seemed decidedly masochistic, in some ways. "Oh, so you want to hurt me? Go ahead, I will revel in it." That attitude always walked hand in hand with the turn-the-other-cheek and love-your-enemies mentalities. Occasionally, it results in a smugness,a sort of, "Why, yes, I AM stupid aren't I? You are so wise to notice!" It might even be called sanctimonious.
That seems to me a gross distortion of the Biblical principle. The simplest evidence is that the Bible refers to "enduring" hardship, rather than revelry in it. While Paul seemed to show similar signs of asceticism (boasting of imprisonments, etc), I feel he taught that these hardships were a means to an end for him. He did not become imprisoned for the sake of being imprisoned, but he disregarded the threat of imprisonment and persecution in his devotion to preeching for his sake and the sake of others.
I assume I'm interpreting what you mean correctly. It's always saddening to me to hear these kinds of stories. Sometimes it's hard to understand where things went so wrong.
Is it that kind of reward?
Yes, and that's where faith comes in. Whether you believe it or like it, that's the belief. I just wanted to clear up the misconception that them being dead somehow invalidated or punished them.
Since God is omnipotent, duh. If an omnipotent being exists, that being necessarily condones any action you perform; if the being does not condone the action, you would not be able to perform it*.
Alternately, God could simply be condoning free-will. For example, I condone people voting, even if they want to vote for things I find to be terrible.
Also, not acting to stop an action is not the same as wanting it to happen, so it depends on the use of the word 'condone' as to if it fits. Perhaps 'willed' is a better word in this case than 'condone', which I think is a loaded word in this case (implying approval, rather than simply acceptance).
For example, when dealing with children, sometimes the parent allows them to hurt themselves (or others) if it is not life threatening. They don't want the child to bump their head, the parent simply values the child's ability to make decisions whether they are right or wrong.
That God's such a great guy! It only took him what, fifty-ish years to demolish the Soviet Union? And it looked more like their economic system failed than any sort of divine intervention. And Stalin, the person who was basically responsible for ordering those deaths, died of a stroke at the ripe old age of 74 - after having what was certainly a delicious all-night dinner.
Notice the ';-)' I put? I didn't mean to imply that the Soviet Union collapsed purely (or even at all) because of this.
And those holy people are still dead.
But the reward from God according to Jesus isn't 'not being dead'. Please reread all above verses that say "you will be persecuted", and remember that Jesus also was killed for the same reason.
Oh yeah and did you know that Stalin was declared to be the divinely anointed leader of the Russian armed forces by the Russian Orthodox church? That God - what a sense of humor!
Since when did a bunch of people doing something (even in God's name) mean that God condoned, agreed-with, or willed it? See also: the Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, et al.
Of course, but only to a degree. The thrust might be random within a 45-90 degree cone (numbers pulled out of my ass), making the exact orbit unpredictable. However, the shape of the new orbit will be predictably eliptic. By being careful when you use such a broom you could ensure that the probability of collision short-term does not increase, but that the long-term probability will drop to zero as the debris burns up in the atmosphere within several orbits.
What, you mean you've never hacked the Gibson!? Just because you're a bad hacker doesn't mean they should dumb down the hackers in movies for you.
The attempted solution was the book of Job. Read it some time, because it has a comical end. Basically, the devil totally fucks with Job as some sort of a wager with God. Job holds out and stays loyal to God. But at the end, Job gets impatient and says, "Yo God, this is totally unfair. C'mon, why are you allowing this?"
God's answer: "Who the fuck are you to question anything, pea-brain?!" I'm serious. That's God's answer. So if you want to know why there's evil and how it could possibly be compatible with God's plan, the answer is shut the fuck up with your arrogantly presumptuous questions.
Read Job again. God's rebuke to Job was for presuming God's will, rather than simply for asking it. Job didn't say 'why am I being punished?', he said 'I didn't sin, your punishment is unjust'. It's that act of telling God He was wrong that was found unacceptable.
Regardless, Job is still found to be faithful at the end and is rewarded. God's real answer would then be 'I am the Lord, you can not know my will. However, you are rewarded as a faithful servant'.
And that's the best Judeo-Christianity could do. Pretty impressive, huh?
The explanations in Judaism and Christianity are linked, but altogether different. See above for my post with references where Jesus acknowledged that their faith would cause bad things for them (on earth), rather than fixing everything. The biggest difference is a shift in focus. In Judaism works earned an earthly reward, in Christianity spiritual works earn an eternal reward.
And if you want a better explanation for why bad things happen to 'good' people? Easy, everyone has sinned and deserves death. We deserve nothing, but do receive grace.
You are of course ignoring the fact that the "wide majority of people" have no experience typing on a touchscreen using their hands rather than their thumbs. It will be interesting how many of them change their tune after that.
People said the same thing about the iPhone touchscreen keyboard, too, but users have gotten along swimmingly. Either they are fast typers already and will be able to adapt to a large-format touchscreen keyboard, or they're slow typers anyway and the touchscreen won't slow them down one iota.
So let me get this straight. The fact that users are restricted to only what is in the app store, instead of being able to use any program from any source...you are touting this fact as a plus? OK, then why not just make the iPad app store capable? Why make it app store restricted?
Well, for your non-geek user, a monolithic location for software 'apps' is exactly what they want. It makes it easy for them to find stuff without needing to know anything about compatibility or safety. They will likely find the app store to be an upgrade (partly because they rarely downloaded and installed software previously, why do you think we need to go to their house to install AV software for them?), so why would they miss the ability to do that thing they never did before?