Was this the same Lilo that used to administer #linpeople on Undernet years ago (like in 95/96)?
If so that sucks, Lilo helped me get a start in linux which enabled me to grow in IT and become an administrator then programmer.
Indeed, it was the same. I ran one of the linpeople irc servers after #linpeople moved from Undernet. I had significant daily interaction with Lilo for years, although not in person. In 98-99, Rob called my office. He happened to be traveling through the region and wanted to meet me. Unfortunately, that day, I was preoccupied with other matters, and didn't get the message in time to return Rob's call. Until I read this/. story, I had forgotten all about it.
I never got another chance to meet the man in person. And now, I never will.
An optimally efficient economy maximizes wealth creation and benefits all citizens to a much greater extent than having a group of bureaucrats decide which types of data are more important than others, and regulating commerce along those lines. The latter arrangement can only lead the type of social planning that ruined so many Eastern European economies.
See, this is where libertarianism drifts away from rationality. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for as much laissez faire as possible, especially when it comes to Big Brother staying out of people's private lives (excepting depriving someone else of their freedoms, including coercion and fraud). But this libertarian nonsense about the perfection of a Free Market economy is just silly.
Libertarians are quick to point out that monopolies are almost always government mandated. Well, duh. Of course they are. It's no accident either.
When corporations reach a considerable size, it only makes sense that the best way to ensure continued growth and desired stock performance is to manipulate some (or all) of public policy. Sure, great product ought to be enough, but what if something goes wrong? What if a competitor suddenly pulls the rug out from underneath you? Why not hedge your bets? Sound business planning really; a little insurance to cover those "unforseens."
To those at the very top of the market ladder (corporations, not people), fascism is a utopia, as long as its fascism they are in control of (or at least benefit from). It's perfect; reduces corporate risk to practically nothing. Fortunately, there are other pressures which, so far, in the US, have kept it relatively under control. But to many it seems like its slipping every day.
It's a new century. We don't need a nanny state to keep an eye on things.
See, that's just the thing. You're afraid of Big Brother being a little too big and a little too controlling. What you have to understand is the megacorps want to be the nanny state, not so they can have some sort of Comic Book Evil totalitarian control over you, but to make sure you only buy products from them or their partners.
I look at it like this: being a programmer is to computer literacy what being an expert mechanic is to the ability to drive a car. We don't need a society where everybody knows how to write software, just like we don't need a society where everybody knows how to rebuild a carburator.
Here, here. People don't become great coders, electrical engineers or high-performance engine mechanics just because the tools that lead down those paths happen to be laying around during their youth. They do it because they enjoy it.
Like many professionals in my peer group (which likely includes many on/.), I too started out in a TRS-80/Pet/Apple ][/C64 world, and the various incarnations of BASIC and assembly that were natively available at the time. There were a great many other kids in the same age bracket that had similar toys, yet I recall very few actually sitting down and programming "just to figure it out." All they wanted to do is play games, they found no fascination with the semantics (hardware or softare) of the machine. I happened to grow up in one of the few areas in the US that implemented limited comp sci in public education far before it became wide-spread (although slightly after I had already discovered hacking). When my typical peers, many of whom were affluent and had access to the quaint home computers of the time, were forced to code due to educational requirements, they would usually do only the bare minimum required to achieve a satifactory grade. I'm sure most of them promptly forgot all about it once the school season was over.
While BASIC might not be instantly and automatically available at power-on in today's home computing environment, there is a flipside. Young potential coders have the benefit of voluminous information available at their fingertips should they desire it, a benefit my peer group did not have. If we sought, for example, details on directly accessing the low or high order 8-bits of the Z80 index registers (IX/IY) and our manuals did not document such (in fact, they did not), our options were pretty much limited to (a) finding some obscure magazine article or (b) purchasing books/hardware manuals (likely only available mailorder) in hopes that they included more complete documentation. By analogy, today, if I want to learn how to control thread permissions in a java virtual machine, well.. we all know the first place to start even with no previous reference.;)
If a young programmer-to-be is genuinely interested and possesses the natural aptitude of the autodidact (which is precisely what we were in our youth), I suspect they will expend considerable effort figuring out what exactly is on their computer and how it all works. I know I certainly did, even in an Internetless world (outside of the distant rumblings in University labs).
I played through the 1-60 level grind on my free month, battlegrounds seemed a joke with the wait times, and WoW raiding doesn't seem very interesting(at least IMO compared to EQ raiding a few years ago).
I know a lot of MMORPG players and not one of them are still playing WoW - which is strange because the sampling of the people I know has pretty well tracked player populations for every previous MMORPG over the past six to seven years I've been playing them.
Where are all these WoW players and what are they doing while they are logged in all these months since the game went live?
Many of us are still there. Not necessarily with our original characters, but still....
Myself, I played from beta onwards. Not continously, I've taken multi-month breaks. Early on I spent most of my time exploring the 1-60 content, most of which is soloable or doable in five-man groups. Then I spent much time exploring the pvp aspects. Most recently, I've taken to the end-game (i.e. "raid") content, which is more challanging, but only by virtue of there being little room for error (and learning techniques for getting 40 people to deal w/ some rather intricate encounter mechanics).
Why do I continue with a game that is considered rather pedestrian by the hard-core mmorpg crowd? Mostly, I suppose, because I don't like mmorpgs, and wow doesn't "feel" like one (in the traditional sense). It's fast paced, you kill quickly and you likewise can die quickly. But more than that, buried behind the accessibility of the game that has made it so popular is a rich and sophisticated set of mechanics. These mechanics were originally designed to create as much diversity as possible between the different classes (although I fear those responsible for this design are long gone, as the trend has definitely been towards homogenization). Each class has a significantly different feel to it and requires a different playstyle in order to excel, while simultaneously retaining class-specific complexities. These traits don't usually become fully apparent until one has reached the higher levels with a given class.
While these sophistications certainly exist in WoW, the other edge of the sword is that, quite obviously, mass accessibility was a primary design concern; meaning that while you can become very good at the intricacies of a particular class and playstyle, it's not exactly required in order to experience all the content. The fallout from this is that the majority of the (very large) playerbase isn't terribly good at playing the game (and there exists little incentive for them to improve). Similarly, with a small group of proficient players who have mastered these intricacies, one can easily move through late/end-game content that most players would consider very difficult (without high-end "raiding" gear itemization).
Why do you assume that the earth and the moon are that old? There is not a shred of hard evidence that shows the age of anything to be that old. You believe that propaganda just as much as theologists believe everything was created. It's not different. If we are just going on propaganda/belief and not on hard evidence, then I say the bulge in the moon is actually a slow forming pimple, ready to pop and spew molten moon pimple juices all over the earth. GAG.
There is plenty of evidence to indicate both luna and terra ages, and their relationship, merely by analyzing crystalized zirconium enriched samples. The relationships of the various isotopes of Hafium and Tungsten are particularly revealing. Hafium, which is chemically very similar to Zirconium and behaves predictably during crystalization from Zirconium enriched liquids, has a naturally extinct isotope Hafium-182, with a halflife of about 9 million years (it can exist naturally due to cosmic ray bombardment, but there are other telltale signs of this). Hafium-182 decay byproduct is the stable Tungsten-182 isotope. Tungsten is considerably more dense than Hafium and less reactive (and does not behave similarly during crystalization). In a large molten body, Tungsten will tend to sink due to its density. Thus, in a zirconium enriched sample that contains little of the other Tungsten isotopes, logically any 182W is the result of 182Hf decay. This can further be isolated by examining the ratio of 182W, 183W, 184W (all stable) and 180W. 180W is a rare Tungsten isotope that occurs naturally in 0.12% of unprocessed tungsten, has a halflife of 1.8E+18 years and decays to 176Hf (stable). This can be used to approximate the age of a sample when plotted in correlation with 182W:180Hf ratios (in this case, considering the 180Hf, stable, to be crystalized during original formation).
My thoughts exactly. Since when did data gathered from hynposis or 'hypnotised' patients make its way into the lab? Even hypnotists admit that the discipline involves suggestion. Subjects' responses are usually compatible with the expectations of those around them - the data is tainted. Find a biochemical way of triggering a neurological deja-vu response and I'm interested.
Hypnosis doesn't just involve suggestion, it is suggestion, as particularly evidenced by the fact that a subject must be receptive and willing in order for induction to work and that suggestions made under even the deepest hypnotic state will be rejected if they grossly violate the subject's core values or principles.
That doesn't change the fact that hypnosis is an identifiable, testable and verifiable state of consciousness (via EEG or induced eye/limb catalepsy) that is both radically different from a normal waking rational state and shows commonalities between all individuals in said state.
When I tell people "torture is wrong," and I have to argue the point, that leaves a very surreal, bizarre, and uneasy feeling in the back of my mind for the rest of the day.No one cares.
I think you can blame Fox for this one. 24 did so much to put the idea into peoples' minds that we have to allow torture.
Every time the subject comes up, people ask, "what if it was necessary to prevent an impending attack?"
Never mind that that is a totally borderline case that has nothing to do with the routine involvement with torture (rendition, etc.) that the US has recently participated in.
The whole torture issue is just insanity; it shouldn't even be an issue. Information obtained via torture must ultimately be considered unreliable. Under conditions considered torturous, a person will say or do anything in order to alleviate their suffering. They will tell their interregator the truth if they know it and believe it aligns with the interregator's desired responses. If they do not possess the "requested" knowledge or believe that differing information is desired, they will manufacture to suit. It's that simple; using torture, how can an interregator determine true facts from those manufactured by an individual with no knowledge? Extensive cross-referencing is the only option, and even when possible, coincidences may lead to considerable investigative effort being expended on ultimately incorrect information.
There exists a corollary interrogation technique. Take any given person, isolate them from their peers and media, but provide them with food, water, shelter, fresh air, sunshine/exercise and medical care on demand (essentially meeting all basic needs, but beyond this, providing them with a sense of freedom with the exclusion of peer or family contact and external current events/opinion). Simultaneously, arrange to have "counselors" (interregators well trained in psychology) spend a few hours a day, at scheduled and random intervals, communicating with them in a non-threatening but persistant manner. Within three months you will have gained this individual's full and complete trust and, more importantly, any information they possess. Yes, it's "brain washing", but it's also as far removed from torture as any captive interrogation technique can be. It's incredibly effective as well as considerably more expensive than torture.
The human psyche is well suited to withstand or escape suffering. It cannot withstand positive conditioning in the absence of external stimuli.
I've been to Hiroshima. The atomic bomb killed 140,000 people, if you include those who died of bomb-related injuries and illnesses, within (iirc) a year after the attack. If you increase that to five years, the number increases by many thousands, though I don't recall the exact number.
The bomb levelled literally the entire city -- only one building remained, now referred to as the Genbaku Dome . It's still standing, but it has been re-inforced with a steel structure to retain the shape it was in after the war.
Anyway, the point is that even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.
Atomic (and later, thermonuclear) weapons are designed to be detonated a few hundered meters above ground level in order to inflict maximum possible damage. If one was to be detonated at ground level, a large crater would be formed, much of the explosive yield would be absorbed by the ground, and the resulting area-effect collateral damage radius would be considerably reduced.
The "Little Boy" weapon dropped on Hiroshima was detonated at approximately 580m AGL via the use of a barometric fuse.
Thus, while a large(ish) meteor impact may very well produce energy comperable to an atomic weapon; it's obviously not "detonating" at a specific altitude and therefore may appear to produce significantly less damage to the surrounding area.
Wow, and people say having faith in God is hard. Seems that believing in evolution takes a much larger leap of faith....
Yeah, ok, I'll feed the troll.
Judging from human history it would appear that faith in the supernatural is pretty easy and common-place; but that's not the point here.
You're off the hook, as you don't need "faith" in evolution or science to figure out this "mystery", just some simple logic. The domestic chicken was created by huuman beings, and the first domestic chicken egg was layed while the maternal fowl was in the custody of said humans.
To anyone who compares the features of a domestic dog with that of a timber wolf, it's obvious that some genetic change has occured. Not enough to prevent inter-breeding nor true speciation biologically speaking, but enough to alter the canine's natural appearence and behavior. That was caused by human beings and their mutually beneficial relationship with said canines over many generations. Same thing with the game hen and the standard issue coop chicken. Genetically compatible enough to interbreed, but slightly different. Before humans decided that game hen were tasty and/or useful enough to be placed in a controlled environment there were no chickens.
Genetically, the differentiation between a game hen egg and a chicken egg is insubstantial, but that's the way the whole thing works. You'll never find some sort of wild punctuation between a sire/parent and his or her offspring (excepting for non-viable mutation and/or disease).
There are modern examples of speciation in progress: the equines. Both horses, donkeys and zebras can be interbred in various combinations. Each is technically a separate equid species and the result in almost every cast of successful (some equid interbreeds have a higher failure rate than others) interbreeding is a healthy individual with the notable exception of the reproductive system. The resulting offspring is almost always infertile and thus a genetic dead-end; as in the case of the most popular and successful equine interbreed, the mule (male donkey + female horse). This is a prime (and rare) example of genetic diversification; the genotypes have changed just enough so that viable offspring are possible but not themselves capable of continuing reproduction. Without human intervention, it is unlikely that any (or very few) of these intermixed equids would exist in the wild.
He was flat-out wrong. A philosophy professor should at least be familar with the ideas of quantum mechanics, even if he doesn't bother with the maths.
At the most fundamental level everything works by inherently random processes. Only on average can we predict what will happen. It's quite possible to manufacture a truly random, entirely unpredicable (despite knowing everything about the system) random number generator by basing it on a quantum random process.
No, he wasn't, it just happens to be that "enough" must be no less than "everything" for his "all cases" statement. Of course, as soon as you've broken "everything" down to the scale where no method exists (or can exist) of directly statically observing some component (i.e. without affecting unknown change at that scale) then you're stuck and "everything" stays firmly seated at its throne atop the number line.
Perhaps a more accurate statement from said prof would be "If you know enough about a given experiment (and are willing to reproduce it enough times that a viable statistical sample set exists), you can calculate some probability of the outcome to within a deterministic value of statistical error."
I think you've hit the nail on the head, in a round-about fashion. There's an entire sub-branch of philosophy dedicated to this, but I don't think it gets examined enough in the context of modern issues.
Sometimes, the ends do justify the mean. Before you come down on me like the wrath of god, hear me out.
It's easy to take an extreme example and conclude that "the ends do not justify the means." Invading most of Europe and attempting to systematically anhilate an entire culture is pretty damn hard to justify for any rational person. But what about the other end of the spectrum? Take "white lies" for example. Everyone knows, generally, that honesty is not a license for cruelty. Most adults find no issue with very small non-harmful mistruths when the primary intention is not to deceive but to prevent a slight avoidable injury to another's identity or ego. No big deal.
Obviously then, in-between these two polars there is a line which people feel uncomfortable crossing. The problem, really part of the human condition, is that the line is a little fuzzy and not in the same place for every individual. As a society we must make some attempt to rigidly define such a boundary; but obviously we cannot expect each and every person to have the exact same perspective of where that line is and how fuzzy it might be. Combine this with mankind's social nature and ability to intentionally or unintentionally manipulate others, and we find groups of people can often delude each other into believing that the line should be/has been moved.
There is a lot of comment in the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal about future planetary space suits. Comments from the moon walkers tend to be that engineers today are trying to solve the wrong problems. People assume that the apollo suits were not mobile enough, in fact they were, but the joints in suits were a maintenance nightmare. So if a future suit is more complex because of this supposed moblity requirement then it will be harder to keep it working for a month on Mars.
I'm not sure I agree with this; at least not fully. The original apollo era EVA suits were quite mobility limiting. Take a thick durable mylar balloon and inflate to postive 4 PSI, then try to bend it. Now imagine your arm is inside the thing for 8 hours of work; including needing to bend your limbs. That's a simplication without any joint aperatus, but you get the idea... After apollo 11 (or perhaps 12), the positive pressure in the suits was lowered slightly in order to increase mobility, but it's simply not physiologically safe to go below 3-4 psi even with pure O2.
I will agree that lunar environmental conditions, specifically particulate matter, were a major issue as well. Suits have come a long way since apollo, but all new innovation has been lacking the requirement of withstanding conditions which might damage or foul mechanical joints. The lunar environment is a strange one; billions of years of meteorite impact dust build-up and a lack of erosion have produced surface "dirt particles" with sharp burr-like edges. The stuff stuck to everything and was a nightmare to remove from intricate mechanical assemblies.
The questions to be answered, in my opinion: What erosion processes have existed in the past on mars, how long ago and are any still present in sufficient quantity to yield less "sticky dust?"
"You don't get it. The whole damned point is that it shouldn't be illegal."
Let me be the devil's advocate for a moment here. What you are saying is hypothetically speaking;
It's wrong to put a copyright on a work one owns and sell for profit without giving up the rights to control the duplication of work (meaning, distribution).
No. What he/she is saying is that the very concept that you have some inherent right to control information once you copy it from your brain to some external source is fundamentally flawed.
In the pre-information era world, protecting creators from plagiarism made a lot of sense. It was difficult, without wide-spread effective means of communication, to verify a work's authenticity. Plagiarists who profited from another's work caused significant damage to an enlightened society which held that creative works have intrinsic value for the good of all. In that context, copyright makes a lot of sense.
After (during?) the information era, technologies allow the accessible and rapid verification of authenticity. "copyright", in the original sense, no longer has much purpose; except to act as a registry of authenticity. Various forms of criminal/civil fraud easily cover the corner cases where an individual or corporation profits from a knowlingly plagiarised work.
Venus has no "days" or "nights", at least not any perceivable by human beings. If you were standing anywhere on the surface of Venus (ignore for a moment a few minor environmental complications that would make such a tad unpleasant), all you would see was a very murky and very dark twilight with no discernable light-source other than perhaps a very very faint glow from all directions. It would look like this all the time, no matter what time of the "day" or what day of the "year."
Raleigh scattering through Venus' incredibly thick and saturated atmosphere is so significant that no visible light (detectable to the human eye) makes it through without becoming completely diffuse.
Such a claim can not be made scientifically. There can always be the possibility that there is some thermodymanic transfer taking place that has yet to be fully explored/explained/observed. The laws of physics are NOT immutable truths
That is incorrect. You have an insufficient understanding of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics are called "law" rather than "theory" for two reasons. The first is simply anachronistic; many scientific "laws" which pre-date the stratification of law and theory are still, honorifically only, referred to as laws. The second reason is far, far more important. Thermodynamics is unlike any other theory, postulate or law; it is a fundamental set of principles upon which all scientific reason and causality is based. If thermodynamics is not correct, there can be no possible replacement which will allow for a causally consistent universe. Without thermodynamics, no prediction can be made, no hypothesis tested. If, somehow, energy can be miraculously created from nothing; if entropy in a closed-system can be reversed (same thing), then it cannot be assumed that any principal we hold to be reasonably true (or even use on a daily basis) will work. In fact, life itself cannot exist, stars cannot sustain fusion and "down" no longer has meaning.
Now, you did mention an "as yet unknown" thermodynamic manipulation. This is possible, but it does not mean that the immutable laws of thermodynamics were incorrect; as they do not specify particular mechanisms (forces) by which mass-energy-inertia interaction can occur, but merely lay the framework for what must always happen given any and all mechanisms. Even in your "unknown" scenario, you still cannot get a free lunch. Ever.
The statement that "anything is possible," (e.g. stating that thermodynamics might be invalidated somehow), is akin to boldy pronouncing "maybe pi isn't pi." It's a fantasy, and potentially a destructive delusion.
Come on, what more education do you need than "don't shoot up drugs with strangers and don't have sex with them"
What an incredibly simplistic, narrow and ignorant viewpoint.
The problems Africa has are unrelated to education and more in line with corrupt politicians and warlords. A $100 laptop ain't gonna solve that one bit, no matter if the poor kids there can now blog about how crappy their lives are.
The challanges facing emerging third-world nations are very much rooted in education (or lack-there-of). Anachronistic feudal systems are a symptom, not a cause.
When one's only knowledge of issues like disease and sexuality comes from an oral tradition that is lacking in causality-based logic, being told "don't shoot up drugs with strangers and don't have sex with them" is going to be completely meaningless; especially if one's heard such gems as "having sex with a virgin will cure you of X disease" from your peers for most of your life. In order to understand and incorporate the importance of "don't have sex with strangers", one first needs to understand what can happen when this rule is broken and why/how it happens.
This means teaching, at a minimum, the basis of critical thinking; e.g. causality. In developed societies, east or west, causality is taught almost from birth (whether explicitly or implicitly); and it is often assumed that causality-reasoning is a "built-in" human feature. This is very much not true, and has not been the majority-case until relatively recent history. Such knowledge comes no more naturally or automatically to man than it does to your dog. The difference is that humans have the physiological capability to significantly extend and modify their reasoning abilities, while rover is somewhat limited in this capacity.
The "10% of the brain" idea is popular but utterly wrong. It has a basis in fact, but it horribly misrepresents the truth. Consider the analogy: how much of your muscle do you use at any one time? Do you think that even at your most active you're using every muscle in your body to the greatest possible extent? The same goes for your brain. It's easy to tell from various types of brain scans that the more of your brain at use at any time the more confused and unfocussed you are. This is intuitive.
Indeed. Actually, there is a way you can use a much larger percentage of your brain all in one go. It's called epilepsy.
This gets at the heart of the problem I've always had for MMO's. One of the central parts of the game is making money. If the process is so little fun that people are willing to spend even more money to not go through it, then isn't that a poor design for a central game mechanic? Also, if you're paying for a game, subscription fees, and now at the very least matching those prices bypassing a large chunk of the game, how fun is that? It's like the satisfaction of beating games with god mode on. Sure you won, but you also missed 70% (those FMVs are so awesome they are the other 30% ha ) of the game.
Well, that's largely the fault of the human condition. Call it "gold", "dollars", "yen" or something more abstract, it all comes down to the same thing: Economics. What is money? It's an abstract representation of work (energy/time). I don't particularly want to work the fields for eight hours a day, so I have you do it in exchange for something representing the energy required, the energy produced and quite possibly some additional overhead (e.g. profit). Ideally this is consensually agreed upon and executed in a mutually beneficial manner.
In the real world we often do this because some people, via talent or long experience (most likely both), are much much better at certain skills than others. It doesn't make sense for you to spend tremendous time and effort (assuming you have little knowledge or experience) building a generator from spare parts when the inevitable outcome is a product inferior to something made by a skilled craftsman (or just assembly-lined in the modern era). In MMOs that support a crafting system, this may be somewhat applicable as typically all characters cannot specialize (or reach great proficiency) in all trade skills; uniqueness is a very large part of identity and ego. Thus, the work-proxy abstract is needed to allow an economy to exist. If such is not provided, people will revert to a simple barter system automatically.
It has long been the holy grail of MMOs to give users a vast array of choices in content. Obviously, everyone is unique (but not special) and we all have differing tastes, playstyles, and levels of willingness to commit (personally I am a "casual" mmorpger, not because of time constraints, but merely because I don't really want to get all that wrapped up in one thing). The downside to a greater content palette is that it is inevitable that some content will not be enjoyable to a certain subset of the player-base.
This leads to the situation where either (a) all content that has any sort of linear progression is completely meshed for the majority of preferences and play-styles (unrealistic), or (b) a good chance exists that a player will hit "necessary" content (for continued character development) at some point that is not entertaining to them. Obviously, B is the much more likely scenario. This doesn't mean that they dislike the entire MMO or all content, it just means that the particular palette selection is not compatible with their preferences.
Now we've come back full-circle to human nature. In order to access the more personally enjoyable content, the natural desire will be to bypass (or make unnecessary) the undesirable via an economic transaction of some type.
There is no escaping economies and economics. For better or for worse, they are intrinsic in Homo Sapiens. If an MMO does not provide such, and the players have sufficient control and flexibility in the game world, they will create their own. This may not necessarily be a bad thing, but without the constraints and consequences imposed by the real world, often leads to a very unpleasant experience for the majority of users.
The following thought experiment will help you to understand the principle of falsibility:
In the not-so-distant future, a team of archaeologists discovers a giant underground complex filled with technology significantly more advanced than any known to modern man. Radiometric isotope analysis seems to indicate the structure is at least a few hundred million years old. Further study of the various discovered technologies reveals an astoundingly complete map of all genomes currently known to exist as well as those belonging to species which have recently become extinct and a vast array of genetic information that does not appear correlated to any known living organism.
After an appropriate period of analysis, debate and extensive verification during which no potential fraud is discovered, science discards the theory of evolution as previously known, as it has become quite logically obvious that an external intelligent force played a major role in the development of life on earth as we know it. Science would not need to immediately understand all of this newly discovered technology in order to revise or discard previous theories and move forward.
The purpose of this thought experiment was to demonstrate a logical scenario that would lead to the "disproving of evolution" (at least in terms of fitness adaptation in the past few hundred million years).
Can you concoct a similar scenario whereby, through the discovery of evidence, it can be proved that an Intelligent Designer was not responsible for life on earth? Or even a scenario which can disprove the involvement of a supreme being in geologically recent speciation?
That's right: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, not even information. We are witnessing something that happened millions of years ago, but because the electromagnetic waves (light, gamma rays etc) carrying the information are all travelling at the same speed (the speed of light), we get a chronological "look" at how the event panned out millions of years ago.
That is an over-simplified and somewhat misleading portrayal of the SR model. Given that the OP's question assumed a universal reference frame, the only realistic (although not necessarily gratifying) response is: "It is not possible to answer the question as stated in any meaningful way. If you assume a local reference frame on earth, then it appears as though whatever event is responsible for this GRB occured a few hundred million years ago. If you were to assume a reference frame at the original source it could be an entirely different story. However, because the two frames are disconnected, this is unknowable."
From the reference frame of the GRB itself, the event is occuring right now, and will be forever; but it's not our "right now" or our "forever."
Now for the mind bender- according to the laws of conservation, all the energy in the universe - spinning planets, energy stored in elements, whatever - had to come from somewhere. You can start with our solar system and our sun and move outwards through the universe, but eventually, if you trace the energy back from every object- it has to come from somewhere. So one of three possibilities:
1) there's a God that can create something from nothing and came into being who knows how, just believe it.
2) we are not made of energy, and we do not exist physically- we only think we do
3) we do not exist at all- which seems to be disproven immediately because, well, we exist. Or at least we think we do... *grin* (Cogito ergo sum)
4) We do exist, however, our cognitive abilities are currently too primitive to understand the scope of the universe (e.g. "everything") and the nature of causality at that level, and are thus still struggling to determine what the right (meaningful) cosmological questions are, much less make some sort of ultimate unifying revelation.
If you look for an excuse, you will always find one, regardless of whether you are Christian, Muslim or atheist (Hitler, anyone?).
Just thought I would point out: Contrary to common misconception, Hitler wasn't actually an atheist. It would be more accurate to describe him as a paganist of sorts. He believed himself to be a non-specific mythical and superhuman germanic knight/hero as depicted in much early prussian artwork from that region. Not God/Jehovah/Allah, but certainly supernatural and "theist" in the most literal meaning of the word.
It seems strange to us now, but at the time (re-)interest in that particular flavour of cultural paganism was common throughout Germany and Austria.
Not really. Now it's now, and that's all that is. You remember yesterday, but that is a memory occuring now. The past doesn't physically exist. Nor does the future. The only real (i.e. existing physically) part of our time perception is now.
Of course "now" is just the various electrochemical processes occuring inside your bonebox, reacting to some electrical stimulation supposedly originating from outside your body in the "present."
I'd keep going with this all the way down the ever-spiraling hole, but I don't much care for the particularly maniacal gleam in Descartes' eye as he waits patiently at the bottom for the next victim to get sucked in.
Slashdot Mirror
I never got another chance to meet the man in person. And now, I never will.
Libertarians are quick to point out that monopolies are almost always government mandated. Well, duh. Of course they are. It's no accident either.
When corporations reach a considerable size, it only makes sense that the best way to ensure continued growth and desired stock performance is to manipulate some (or all) of public policy. Sure, great product ought to be enough, but what if something goes wrong? What if a competitor suddenly pulls the rug out from underneath you? Why not hedge your bets? Sound business planning really; a little insurance to cover those "unforseens."
To those at the very top of the market ladder (corporations, not people), fascism is a utopia, as long as its fascism they are in control of (or at least benefit from). It's perfect; reduces corporate risk to practically nothing. Fortunately, there are other pressures which, so far, in the US, have kept it relatively under control. But to many it seems like its slipping every day.
See, that's just the thing. You're afraid of Big Brother being a little too big and a little too controlling. What you have to understand is the megacorps want to be the nanny state, not so they can have some sort of Comic Book Evil totalitarian control over you, but to make sure you only buy products from them or their partners.
Here, here. People don't become great coders, electrical engineers or high-performance engine mechanics just because the tools that lead down those paths happen to be laying around during their youth. They do it because they enjoy it.
Like many professionals in my peer group (which likely includes many on
While BASIC might not be instantly and automatically available at power-on in today's home computing environment, there is a flipside. Young potential coders have the benefit of voluminous information available at their fingertips should they desire it, a benefit my peer group did not have. If we sought, for example, details on directly accessing the low or high order 8-bits of the Z80 index registers (IX/IY) and our manuals did not document such (in fact, they did not), our options were pretty much limited to (a) finding some obscure magazine article or (b) purchasing books/hardware manuals (likely only available mailorder) in hopes that they included more complete documentation. By analogy, today, if I want to learn how to control thread permissions in a java virtual machine, well
If a young programmer-to-be is genuinely interested and possesses the natural aptitude of the autodidact (which is precisely what we were in our youth), I suspect they will expend considerable effort figuring out what exactly is on their computer and how it all works. I know I certainly did, even in an Internetless world (outside of the distant rumblings in University labs).
Many of us are still there. Not necessarily with our original characters, but still
Myself, I played from beta onwards. Not continously, I've taken multi-month breaks. Early on I spent most of my time exploring the 1-60 content, most of which is soloable or doable in five-man groups. Then I spent much time exploring the pvp aspects. Most recently, I've taken to the end-game (i.e. "raid") content, which is more challanging, but only by virtue of there being little room for error (and learning techniques for getting 40 people to deal w/ some rather intricate encounter mechanics).
Why do I continue with a game that is considered rather pedestrian by the hard-core mmorpg crowd? Mostly, I suppose, because I don't like mmorpgs, and wow doesn't "feel" like one (in the traditional sense). It's fast paced, you kill quickly and you likewise can die quickly. But more than that, buried behind the accessibility of the game that has made it so popular is a rich and sophisticated set of mechanics. These mechanics were originally designed to create as much diversity as possible between the different classes (although I fear those responsible for this design are long gone, as the trend has definitely been towards homogenization). Each class has a significantly different feel to it and requires a different playstyle in order to excel, while simultaneously retaining class-specific complexities. These traits don't usually become fully apparent until one has reached the higher levels with a given class.
While these sophistications certainly exist in WoW, the other edge of the sword is that, quite obviously, mass accessibility was a primary design concern; meaning that while you can become very good at the intricacies of a particular class and playstyle, it's not exactly required in order to experience all the content. The fallout from this is that the majority of the (very large) playerbase isn't terribly good at playing the game (and there exists little incentive for them to improve). Similarly, with a small group of proficient players who have mastered these intricacies, one can easily move through late/end-game content that most players would consider very difficult (without high-end "raiding" gear itemization).
Large object in the center of the Solar System called Hotthing.
Hypnosis doesn't just involve suggestion, it is suggestion, as particularly evidenced by the fact that a subject must be receptive and willing in order for induction to work and that suggestions made under even the deepest hypnotic state will be rejected if they grossly violate the subject's core values or principles.
That doesn't change the fact that hypnosis is an identifiable, testable and verifiable state of consciousness (via EEG or induced eye/limb catalepsy) that is both radically different from a normal waking rational state and shows commonalities between all individuals in said state.
The whole torture issue is just insanity; it shouldn't even be an issue. Information obtained via torture must ultimately be considered unreliable. Under conditions considered torturous, a person will say or do anything in order to alleviate their suffering. They will tell their interregator the truth if they know it and believe it aligns with the interregator's desired responses. If they do not possess the "requested" knowledge or believe that differing information is desired, they will manufacture to suit. It's that simple; using torture, how can an interregator determine true facts from those manufactured by an individual with no knowledge? Extensive cross-referencing is the only option, and even when possible, coincidences may lead to considerable investigative effort being expended on ultimately incorrect information.
There exists a corollary interrogation technique. Take any given person, isolate them from their peers and media, but provide them with food, water, shelter, fresh air, sunshine/exercise and medical care on demand (essentially meeting all basic needs, but beyond this, providing them with a sense of freedom with the exclusion of peer or family contact and external current events/opinion). Simultaneously, arrange to have "counselors" (interregators well trained in psychology) spend a few hours a day, at scheduled and random intervals, communicating with them in a non-threatening but persistant manner. Within three months you will have gained this individual's full and complete trust and, more importantly, any information they possess. Yes, it's "brain washing", but it's also as far removed from torture as any captive interrogation technique can be. It's incredibly effective as well as considerably more expensive than torture.
The human psyche is well suited to withstand or escape suffering. It cannot withstand positive conditioning in the absence of external stimuli.
Atomic (and later, thermonuclear) weapons are designed to be detonated a few hundered meters above ground level in order to inflict maximum possible damage. If one was to be detonated at ground level, a large crater would be formed, much of the explosive yield would be absorbed by the ground, and the resulting area-effect collateral damage radius would be considerably reduced.
The "Little Boy" weapon dropped on Hiroshima was detonated at approximately 580m AGL via the use of a barometric fuse.
Thus, while a large(ish) meteor impact may very well produce energy comperable to an atomic weapon; it's obviously not "detonating" at a specific altitude and therefore may appear to produce significantly less damage to the surrounding area.
Yeah, ok, I'll feed the troll.
Judging from human history it would appear that faith in the supernatural is pretty easy and common-place; but that's not the point here.
You're off the hook, as you don't need "faith" in evolution or science to figure out this "mystery", just some simple logic. The domestic chicken was created by huuman beings, and the first domestic chicken egg was layed while the maternal fowl was in the custody of said humans.
To anyone who compares the features of a domestic dog with that of a timber wolf, it's obvious that some genetic change has occured. Not enough to prevent inter-breeding nor true speciation biologically speaking, but enough to alter the canine's natural appearence and behavior. That was caused by human beings and their mutually beneficial relationship with said canines over many generations. Same thing with the game hen and the standard issue coop chicken. Genetically compatible enough to interbreed, but slightly different. Before humans decided that game hen were tasty and/or useful enough to be placed in a controlled environment there were no chickens.
Genetically, the differentiation between a game hen egg and a chicken egg is insubstantial, but that's the way the whole thing works. You'll never find some sort of wild punctuation between a sire/parent and his or her offspring (excepting for non-viable mutation and/or disease).
There are modern examples of speciation in progress: the equines. Both horses, donkeys and zebras can be interbred in various combinations. Each is technically a separate equid species and the result in almost every cast of successful (some equid interbreeds have a higher failure rate than others) interbreeding is a healthy individual with the notable exception of the reproductive system. The resulting offspring is almost always infertile and thus a genetic dead-end; as in the case of the most popular and successful equine interbreed, the mule (male donkey + female horse). This is a prime (and rare) example of genetic diversification; the genotypes have changed just enough so that viable offspring are possible but not themselves capable of continuing reproduction. Without human intervention, it is unlikely that any (or very few) of these intermixed equids would exist in the wild.
No, he wasn't, it just happens to be that "enough" must be no less than "everything" for his "all cases" statement. Of course, as soon as you've broken "everything" down to the scale where no method exists (or can exist) of directly statically observing some component (i.e. without affecting unknown change at that scale) then you're stuck and "everything" stays firmly seated at its throne atop the number line.
Perhaps a more accurate statement from said prof would be "If you know enough about a given experiment (and are willing to reproduce it enough times that a viable statistical sample set exists), you can calculate some probability of the outcome to within a deterministic value of statistical error."
I think you've hit the nail on the head, in a round-about fashion. There's an entire sub-branch of philosophy dedicated to this, but I don't think it gets examined enough in the context of modern issues.
Sometimes, the ends do justify the mean. Before you come down on me like the wrath of god, hear me out.
It's easy to take an extreme example and conclude that "the ends do not justify the means." Invading most of Europe and attempting to systematically anhilate an entire culture is pretty damn hard to justify for any rational person. But what about the other end of the spectrum? Take "white lies" for example. Everyone knows, generally, that honesty is not a license for cruelty. Most adults find no issue with very small non-harmful mistruths when the primary intention is not to deceive but to prevent a slight avoidable injury to another's identity or ego. No big deal.
Obviously then, in-between these two polars there is a line which people feel uncomfortable crossing. The problem, really part of the human condition, is that the line is a little fuzzy and not in the same place for every individual. As a society we must make some attempt to rigidly define such a boundary; but obviously we cannot expect each and every person to have the exact same perspective of where that line is and how fuzzy it might be. Combine this with mankind's social nature and ability to intentionally or unintentionally manipulate others, and we find groups of people can often delude each other into believing that the line should be/has been moved.
I'm not sure I agree with this; at least not fully. The original apollo era EVA suits were quite mobility limiting. Take a thick durable mylar balloon and inflate to postive 4 PSI, then try to bend it. Now imagine your arm is inside the thing for 8 hours of work; including needing to bend your limbs. That's a simplication without any joint aperatus, but you get the idea
I will agree that lunar environmental conditions, specifically particulate matter, were a major issue as well. Suits have come a long way since apollo, but all new innovation has been lacking the requirement of withstanding conditions which might damage or foul mechanical joints. The lunar environment is a strange one; billions of years of meteorite impact dust build-up and a lack of erosion have produced surface "dirt particles" with sharp burr-like edges. The stuff stuck to everything and was a nightmare to remove from intricate mechanical assemblies.
The questions to be answered, in my opinion: What erosion processes have existed in the past on mars, how long ago and are any still present in sufficient quantity to yield less "sticky dust?"
No. What he/she is saying is that the very concept that you have some inherent right to control information once you copy it from your brain to some external source is fundamentally flawed.
In the pre-information era world, protecting creators from plagiarism made a lot of sense. It was difficult, without wide-spread effective means of communication, to verify a work's authenticity. Plagiarists who profited from another's work caused significant damage to an enlightened society which held that creative works have intrinsic value for the good of all. In that context, copyright makes a lot of sense.
After (during?) the information era, technologies allow the accessible and rapid verification of authenticity. "copyright", in the original sense, no longer has much purpose; except to act as a registry of authenticity. Various forms of criminal/civil fraud easily cover the corner cases where an individual or corporation profits from a knowlingly plagiarised work.
Venus has no "days" or "nights", at least not any perceivable by human beings. If you were standing anywhere on the surface of Venus (ignore for a moment a few minor environmental complications that would make such a tad unpleasant), all you would see was a very murky and very dark twilight with no discernable light-source other than perhaps a very very faint glow from all directions. It would look like this all the time, no matter what time of the "day" or what day of the "year."
Raleigh scattering through Venus' incredibly thick and saturated atmosphere is so significant that no visible light (detectable to the human eye) makes it through without becoming completely diffuse.
Such a claim can not be made scientifically. There can always be the possibility that there is some thermodymanic transfer taking place that has yet to be fully explored/explained/observed. The laws of physics are NOT immutable truths
That is incorrect. You have an insufficient understanding of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics are called "law" rather than "theory" for two reasons. The first is simply anachronistic; many scientific "laws" which pre-date the stratification of law and theory are still, honorifically only, referred to as laws. The second reason is far, far more important. Thermodynamics is unlike any other theory, postulate or law; it is a fundamental set of principles upon which all scientific reason and causality is based. If thermodynamics is not correct, there can be no possible replacement which will allow for a causally consistent universe. Without thermodynamics, no prediction can be made, no hypothesis tested. If, somehow, energy can be miraculously created from nothing; if entropy in a closed-system can be reversed (same thing), then it cannot be assumed that any principal we hold to be reasonably true (or even use on a daily basis) will work. In fact, life itself cannot exist, stars cannot sustain fusion and "down" no longer has meaning.
Now, you did mention an "as yet unknown" thermodynamic manipulation. This is possible, but it does not mean that the immutable laws of thermodynamics were incorrect; as they do not specify particular mechanisms (forces) by which mass-energy-inertia interaction can occur, but merely lay the framework for what must always happen given any and all mechanisms. Even in your "unknown" scenario, you still cannot get a free lunch. Ever.
The statement that "anything is possible," (e.g. stating that thermodynamics might be invalidated somehow), is akin to boldy pronouncing "maybe pi isn't pi." It's a fantasy, and potentially a destructive delusion.
What an incredibly simplistic, narrow and ignorant viewpoint.
The challanges facing emerging third-world nations are very much rooted in education (or lack-there-of). Anachronistic feudal systems are a symptom, not a cause.
When one's only knowledge of issues like disease and sexuality comes from an oral tradition that is lacking in causality-based logic, being told "don't shoot up drugs with strangers and don't have sex with them" is going to be completely meaningless; especially if one's heard such gems as "having sex with a virgin will cure you of X disease" from your peers for most of your life. In order to understand and incorporate the importance of "don't have sex with strangers", one first needs to understand what can happen when this rule is broken and why/how it happens.
This means teaching, at a minimum, the basis of critical thinking; e.g. causality. In developed societies, east or west, causality is taught almost from birth (whether explicitly or implicitly); and it is often assumed that causality-reasoning is a "built-in" human feature. This is very much not true, and has not been the majority-case until relatively recent history. Such knowledge comes no more naturally or automatically to man than it does to your dog. The difference is that humans have the physiological capability to significantly extend and modify their reasoning abilities, while rover is somewhat limited in this capacity.
Indeed. Actually, there is a way you can use a much larger percentage of your brain all in one go. It's called epilepsy.
Be thankful for the "10% limit."
Well, that's largely the fault of the human condition. Call it "gold", "dollars", "yen" or something more abstract, it all comes down to the same thing: Economics. What is money? It's an abstract representation of work (energy/time). I don't particularly want to work the fields for eight hours a day, so I have you do it in exchange for something representing the energy required, the energy produced and quite possibly some additional overhead (e.g. profit). Ideally this is consensually agreed upon and executed in a mutually beneficial manner.
In the real world we often do this because some people, via talent or long experience (most likely both), are much much better at certain skills than others. It doesn't make sense for you to spend tremendous time and effort (assuming you have little knowledge or experience) building a generator from spare parts when the inevitable outcome is a product inferior to something made by a skilled craftsman (or just assembly-lined in the modern era). In MMOs that support a crafting system, this may be somewhat applicable as typically all characters cannot specialize (or reach great proficiency) in all trade skills; uniqueness is a very large part of identity and ego. Thus, the work-proxy abstract is needed to allow an economy to exist. If such is not provided, people will revert to a simple barter system automatically.
It has long been the holy grail of MMOs to give users a vast array of choices in content. Obviously, everyone is unique (but not special) and we all have differing tastes, playstyles, and levels of willingness to commit (personally I am a "casual" mmorpger, not because of time constraints, but merely because I don't really want to get all that wrapped up in one thing). The downside to a greater content palette is that it is inevitable that some content will not be enjoyable to a certain subset of the player-base.
This leads to the situation where either (a) all content that has any sort of linear progression is completely meshed for the majority of preferences and play-styles (unrealistic), or (b) a good chance exists that a player will hit "necessary" content (for continued character development) at some point that is not entertaining to them. Obviously, B is the much more likely scenario. This doesn't mean that they dislike the entire MMO or all content, it just means that the particular palette selection is not compatible with their preferences.
Now we've come back full-circle to human nature. In order to access the more personally enjoyable content, the natural desire will be to bypass (or make unnecessary) the undesirable via an economic transaction of some type.
There is no escaping economies and economics. For better or for worse, they are intrinsic in Homo Sapiens. If an MMO does not provide such, and the players have sufficient control and flexibility in the game world, they will create their own. This may not necessarily be a bad thing, but without the constraints and consequences imposed by the real world, often leads to a very unpleasant experience for the majority of users.
The following thought experiment will help you to understand the principle of falsibility:
In the not-so-distant future, a team of archaeologists discovers a giant underground complex filled with technology significantly more advanced than any known to modern man. Radiometric isotope analysis seems to indicate the structure is at least a few hundred million years old. Further study of the various discovered technologies reveals an astoundingly complete map of all genomes currently known to exist as well as those belonging to species which have recently become extinct and a vast array of genetic information that does not appear correlated to any known living organism.
After an appropriate period of analysis, debate and extensive verification during which no potential fraud is discovered, science discards the theory of evolution as previously known, as it has become quite logically obvious that an external intelligent force played a major role in the development of life on earth as we know it. Science would not need to immediately understand all of this newly discovered technology in order to revise or discard previous theories and move forward.
The purpose of this thought experiment was to demonstrate a logical scenario that would lead to the "disproving of evolution" (at least in terms of fitness adaptation in the past few hundred million years).
Can you concoct a similar scenario whereby, through the discovery of evidence, it can be proved that an Intelligent Designer was not responsible for life on earth? Or even a scenario which can disprove the involvement of a supreme being in geologically recent speciation?
That is an over-simplified and somewhat misleading portrayal of the SR model. Given that the OP's question assumed a universal reference frame, the only realistic (although not necessarily gratifying) response is: "It is not possible to answer the question as stated in any meaningful way. If you assume a local reference frame on earth, then it appears as though whatever event is responsible for this GRB occured a few hundred million years ago. If you were to assume a reference frame at the original source it could be an entirely different story. However, because the two frames are disconnected, this is unknowable."
From the reference frame of the GRB itself, the event is occuring right now, and will be forever; but it's not our "right now" or our "forever."
4) We do exist, however, our cognitive abilities are currently too primitive to understand the scope of the universe (e.g. "everything") and the nature of causality at that level, and are thus still struggling to determine what the right (meaningful) cosmological questions are, much less make some sort of ultimate unifying revelation.
Just thought I would point out: Contrary to common misconception, Hitler wasn't actually an atheist. It would be more accurate to describe him as a paganist of sorts. He believed himself to be a non-specific mythical and superhuman germanic knight/hero as depicted in much early prussian artwork from that region. Not God/Jehovah/Allah, but certainly supernatural and "theist" in the most literal meaning of the word.
It seems strange to us now, but at the time (re-)interest in that particular flavour of cultural paganism was common throughout Germany and Austria.
Of course "now" is just the various electrochemical processes occuring inside your bonebox, reacting to some electrical stimulation supposedly originating from outside your body in the "present."
I'd keep going with this all the way down the ever-spiraling hole, but I don't much care for the particularly maniacal gleam in Descartes' eye as he waits patiently at the bottom for the next victim to get sucked in.