There are some mods on this site who can't tell the difference between flames and opposing viewpoints. I am going to chalk it up to watching too much Fox News.
Wake me up when I'm able to program these in a high level language with a decent amount of memory onboard.
You see, this is the beauty of having a swarm -- you don't need any individual to have a lot of brainpower. We see the same thing in ants (and Red Sox fans), one ant has an IQ barely higher than that of a carrot but is programmed with one simple set of instructions. When millions of creatures with different simple sets of instructions end up bumping into each other and interacting, some extremely complex and "intelligent" behaviors can emerge -- ants build underground cities with temperature control and hydroponic gardens. They keep slaves and livestock. Ants wage large scale war. This is pretty impressive for a creature with only about 100 neurons each, until you realize how little each ant has to do, and that all of the higher level function comes from the millions of minute interactions between individuals, which is often personified as the "hive mind".
Ok, so how do they reconcile this? I have read the whole Bible numerous times (keep your friends close...) and I see nothing in the New Testament that annuls the rules of Old Testament. Furthermore, if this is the case then it is simply hypocrisy of the worst kind as the very verse I mentioned is constantly trotted out as evidence of God's indictment of homosexuality. The ridiculous story of Genesis is the basis for the fundamentalism attack on the scientifically proven fact of biological evolution (which is separate, I might add from explanation of this fact, known as the Theory of Evolution -- just as the fact of gravity is separate from the Theory of Gravity). If these parts of the Bible are no longer applicable, then they have opened the door for the absurd tale at the beginning of Genesis to be simple allegory. They cannot have it both ways.
Furthermore, this completely undermines the argument that morality comes from the Bible -- these people are able to use their own personal morality to determine which parts of the Bible ought to be observed and which parts are barbaric, twisted, and evil and ought to be thrown out. This indicates that morality comes from our reason, rather than silly, childish imaginary friends and low quality fiction written by barely literate goat herders.
No. I am not saying anything that you are saying there. My whole point is that fundamentalist Christianity is largest belief system in America that is allowed to get away with making horrifyingly bigoted statements in public without having to answer for it. In fact, we are all told that we need to respect the religious beliefs of psychopaths such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, simply because it's in the Bible.
Fundamentalist Christianity claims at its core many bigoted, nasty things. It is not bigoted or unfair to classify it as such, regardless of what individual members might say. If I were to tell you that I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but I was not a racist, and just liked hanging out at Klan rallies for the community of it, and that I like feeling like I belong, it would not affect the status of the Klan as a disgusting racist organization.
It reeks of hatred and bigotry for me to say that Fundamentalist Christianity is based on bigotry? Okay, I'll bite. Fundamentalist Christians say that every word of the Bible is literal truth, right? Okay, we are on the same page with that. Now please open your good books. Now put that book aside, and open your Bible. Please turn to Leviticus 20:13. It says the following:
If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.
I am not allowed to call that bigoted? Seriously? If you said that every word of Mein Kampf was literal truth, I would be more than justified in saying that you are a racist.
The apology will serve very little direct good, but it helps greatly to have things like this go into the history book as being admitted mistakes. It helps prevent them from happening again by learning from the mistakes of our forefathers. That is why we invented history.
So what if he does know Beckham's first name? Athletic achievement is the lowest common denominator in human achievement and serves to inspire the weak-minded. Need proof? Name me one famous sports figure from the time of Aristotle. Ok, I'll be more generous -- let's go with Galileo. Still nothing? How about Mozart -- that was only a couple hundred years ago! My point is, sports are utterly meaningless and this Beckham character, beloved as he is now, will be utterly forgotten in the next century, where great minds such as Turing will continue to inspire the world as long as there are humans to speak of them.
While this is true -- it seems that a lot of the problems with games today is that they are given excessively tight deadlines to get them out, say, by Christmas. To follow the woman/baby analogy -- it takes more resources for a woman to have a baby gestating in her for 9 months than for 5 months. If you can just get that baby out in 5 months, you could save some resources, but the quality of the product (crappy video game vs. good video game/dead fetus vs. live baby) will differ greatly.
Right. Because it's only conservative Christians who "gay bash." Islamic fundamentalists, for whom gay bashing laws are still on the theocratic books, get a pass in the public consciousness, as usual.
First of all, I never said it's only fundamentalist Christians who bash gays. Fundamentalist Christianity is, however, one of the last and greatest bastions of hatred and bigotry left in the first world. I absolutely do not give Islam a free pass on anything, it is a vile, barbaric belief system that subjugates women and preaches intolerance. Fundamentalist Islam, however, is much less of a problem in progressive societies, however, as most fundamentalist Islamic societies are otherwise backward dictatorships that would be suffering the same human rights abuses under a similar, secular dictator. In the U.S., it is more or less impossible to get elected to higher office without professing belief in the Christian God. Fundamentalist Christians have their finger on the button and have huge sway over the minds of the people. We let people like Jerry Falwell (well not him anymore; thankfully, the God I don't believe in felt fit to strike this particular hateful gasbag down) and Pat Robertson spout the worst kind of vile hatred live on television because they do it in the name of the almighty jeebus. Fundamentalist Christians are, by far, the biggest threats to equality and freedom in America and western Europe. Thankfully, the world is beginning to leave these idiots behind as they are proven to be wrong again and again by science, and our reason brings their bigotry and backwardness to the light of day.
Lookit, the Americans and Western Europeans did some bad things, and then we got over it! We moved on! We entered the 21st Century!!
I wish this were the case, but it is not. Homophobia is still rampant. Gays are not allowed to serve in the military. Gay marriage is gaining traction, but encountering severe resistance. Gays still feel pressure to stay in the closet for fear of repercussions. Society has come a long way, but it still has a ways to go before people can grow out of their prejudices.
I disagree. If the persecution itself was wrong, then the treatment of each individual was wrong. It is not okay for the government to just arbitrarily make laws against something and say "Oh, well, you knew that was against the law, bad on you for breaking the law!" Government needs to be held accountable for these grievous human rights violations -- repealing the law is not good enough.
Excuse me, but WHY would his pardon be unlikely? He was convicted of something that is totally legal today! Shouldn't they be pardoning EVERYONE convicted under these acts? He was convicted for having sex with a man in the privacy of his own home! These idiots shunned one of the most brilliant members of their society because of who he wanted to have sex with! If there are any conservative Christians out there who need an example of why their gay-bashing is idiotic and obscenely counter-productive, look no further than the case of Alan Turing.
Sorry, but the scientists weren't making it up, and the fact that you are so filled with ass-hat ignorance as to be certain of some bullshit conspiracy among scientists should help to convince anyone on the fence about global warning that people like you are just idiots without a freaking clue.
The case for global warming really is not open and shut the way you present it -- there are mountains of conflicting data that one could draw any number of conclusions from. Yes, the Earth is warming for the time being. Nobody really knows if humans are causing this change, or if the upward trend is going to continue. The Earth's climate is always in flux and is far too complex of a situation for us to accurately model.
That being said, I think the probability that human carbon emissions are causing global warming is great enough that it would be prudent of us to curb our output where possible. What we shouldn't do is spout hypotheses and opinions as if they were fact, you will only turn people away.
First of all, I wouldn't go so far as to call karma a "theory", since it has no basis in fact. Second, I would propose two alternatives and let the reader decide which is more likely:
1.) Human beings somehow discovered some deep, dark, unobservable secret to the Universe
OR
2.) Someone just made all this shit up to control people/make themselves feel better.
I think it is pretty obvious which option here is more likely.
I am sure that eventually the horrible wrong she committed will be balanced - Karma has a way of working things out !
No it doesn't. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to say that there is something to that, karma is total bullshit. I mean, Hitler committed suicide before we could get to him -- how's that for karma? Or the evil, scumfuck businessmen who defraud the world of billions of dollars only to die of natural causes after getting fat, rich, and happy at the expense of the world? I wish there were something to be said for karma, but alas, it seems that ordinary means of revenge and retribution are all we have. As for Lori Drew, she will be punished by those around her for the rest of her life -- everyone knows who she is and what she has done and she will be an outcast forever. There's nothing mystical about that.
I can't fathom any grounds on which you can consider searching the personal information on a traveler's computer to be reasonable. How is this necessary for security? If a nasty little terrorist needs to get through the border with their nasty little, super-secret terrorist plans there are PLENTY of other ways for them to accomplish this without having the data on their laptop. If they put it on an SD card and hid it somewhere in the vehicle, it would be virtually impossible to find. Or they could mail said SD card to their destination right before crossing. This is not even to mention how comically overblown the fear of terrorists has become in our society (you have a better chance of being killed by lightning, for Christ's sake!).
This does nothing to protect security and does a great amount to violate our privacy. Even if it could protect security a bit, I would still say that the violation of privacy is far too great. Not only are they keeping certain physical goods out of the country with border searches, but the thought police are now trying to prevent the flow of any doubleplusungood ideas into our nation. This is absolutely beyond the pale and needs to stop immediately.
Scientists calculated the weather conditions on a similar "hot Jupiter", HD 189733b, and came up with some pretty amazing results. HD 189733b is locked into synchronous orbit around its parent star in the same manner that the moon orbits the Earth, in that the rotational period directly matches the orbital period (which is fairly common for close orbiting planets, it is very plausible that Wasp 18b could be a similar story), leaving one side of the planet perpetually day, the other perpetually night. As the planet is only 3 million miles from its parent star, it was not overly surprising to find daytime highs of 2,000 - 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. What was surprising, however, was the nighttime temperature of roughly 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit! This indicates that the atmosphere is incredibly efficient at transferring heat, which means a lot of "air" (NOTE: The atmosphere of HD 189733b is NOT air, but a completely alien mixture of gasses.) moving around. When they calculated the winds that would be necessary to sustain such heat transfer, it was determined that HD 189733b would need to sustain windspeeds of approximately 7,000 mph, making Hurricane Katrina look like a nice ocean breeze by comparison. The weather conditions on Wasp 18b are likely similar; any beings that lived there would indeed have to be extremely tough, and Chuck Norris would most likely be checking his closet for them before going to bed.
How presumptuous is it for these physicists to make claims about exoplanets, when no one has been able to visit them to confirm anything that our measurements are telling us *might* be out there? How confident is astrophysics in what they're seeing and interpreting?
Why do we need to go to a planet to take measurements? By your logic, we should not be able to confidently say anything about any of the celestial bodies save the Earth and our moon. All the astronomers (not physicists, mind you) are doing here is determining (not presuming) the orbital period of a planet around a star, which is EXTREMELY straightforward, even for an exoplanet such as this. It is also fairly straightforward to the age of a star. Since all of our current knowledge shows that planets tend to form at the same time as a star, we are taking that as the most likely scenario here. The scientists in question are making it totally clear that there is a disconnect between theory and observation here, and are investigating more deeply to find out how to amend theory and enhance our understanding of the cosmos. I cannot see what is presumptuous here, other than your ignorant blatherings of presumptuousness.
I think the proper response to this would be to remove the profit -- not to stop using the organs. It is really dumb to let the organs decompose in the ground when they could save the life of a living person.
On the other hand, why should we let microsoft get away with being evil even if it's the status quo?
Would you let a polluter who has polluted for years get a break when you catch them doing something?
In short, what I'm saying is, that evil shouldn't be protected by a grandfather clause.
I don't think the complaint here is with the FSF calling out Microsoft on their nasty behavior, I doubt many on/. would object to such things -- I think the objection is more to the shrill, get off my lawn approach that FSF is taking to it. The '7 Sins' come across as being extremely overhyped, whiny, and pathetic. To go with your polluter analogy, this is like saying that one polluter in Kansas (or Redmond) is going to destroy the whole planet. They are most certainly doing something wrong, and deserve to be taken to task for it -- but by making over the top and shrill arguments against them you really undermine your own case and force people to tune out.
Do you really think that the postal service should be immune if they carry a package containing methamphetamine? Even if they deliver it to a 13-year-old child?
Yes. Are you honestly suggesting that the postal service ought to be liable to search every package? They weren't liable for the fools shipping around anthrax, or for the unabomber. There is no realistic (or non-Orwellian) way for the postal service to be able to control the content of packages, so they should absolutely NOT be liable (and this has been held up in court on numerous occasions). They should, however, assist the authorities in tracking down the source of the methamphetamine, in the same manner than the ISPs already respond to subpoenas from law enforcement.
Do you really think that a bus-line should be immune if they give a ride to a terrorist with a bomb in his back-pack on his way to blow up a kindergarten?
Yes. Again, are you really suggesting that the bus company ought to individually search every passenger getting on the bus? Not only would you never be able to get anywhere on time, but personal freedom and privacy would be completely out the window. Again, there is very good legal precedent for this. The bus company would be required to respond to any subpoenas from law enforcement as to assist the investigation, but they would have no liability as there is way they could have reasonably prevented the incident in question.
Do you really think that the phone company should be immune if they allow a 6 year old child to call a fetish phone-sex line?
Ok, now you are just getting ridiculous. This is stupid in too many ways for me to explain, so I will move on.
Do you really think that a gun-company should be immune if they manufacture a weapon and a child accidentally shoots his friend while showing it off?
Yes. They should be. And they are. This has (again) come up repeatedly in the American court systems and has been repeatedly shut down. The gun company has one responsibility -- they need to make sure that their products function properly and can be used safely by a responsible adult who so chooses. If you buy a gun, and it blows up in your face, the gun company is liable. If you use that gun to commit a murder, they are not.
Very well said. I would consider myself the exception to the rule in that I am aware of how bad I am at multi-tasking, yet still insist on doing it anyway. That whole ADD thing is a bitch...
It seems the mods have a great sense of irony -- the guy making the extremely overdone Skynet comment gets modded up (+5 even!) and I get modded down (as redundant of all things!) for pointing this out. WOW!! I can see from the other comments that there are some people who find my thoughts valid -- I call bollocks on whoever modded me down here.
Ahh... this is such a tough case. There is so much stupid bull$hit on all sides here... on one hand we have a spoiled brat model who thinks that she can take out personal vendettas through the court system and waste our time and money "cuz she's calling me names", and on the other hand we have a spoiled brat blogger who couldn't be bothered to read over the ToS that she already agreed to before filing a lawsuit. The legal process should be amended to keep both of these idiots out of the courts -- you should need to PROVE actual harm before you can bring a libel suit to court for one. The second suit should not even make it to hearing -- Google's actions were blatantly within the boundaries of law and the contract (ToS) that this clown agreed to. This is not even to mention how stupid anyone is that believes that they can truly be anonymous on the Internet -- it is a public forum, plain and simple. I need to stop now before all this stupid gives me an aneurysm...
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There are some mods on this site who can't tell the difference between flames and opposing viewpoints. I am going to chalk it up to watching too much Fox News.
Wake me up when I'm able to program these in a high level language with a decent amount of memory onboard.
You see, this is the beauty of having a swarm -- you don't need any individual to have a lot of brainpower. We see the same thing in ants (and Red Sox fans), one ant has an IQ barely higher than that of a carrot but is programmed with one simple set of instructions. When millions of creatures with different simple sets of instructions end up bumping into each other and interacting, some extremely complex and "intelligent" behaviors can emerge -- ants build underground cities with temperature control and hydroponic gardens. They keep slaves and livestock. Ants wage large scale war. This is pretty impressive for a creature with only about 100 neurons each, until you realize how little each ant has to do, and that all of the higher level function comes from the millions of minute interactions between individuals, which is often personified as the "hive mind".
Ok, so how do they reconcile this? I have read the whole Bible numerous times (keep your friends close...) and I see nothing in the New Testament that annuls the rules of Old Testament. Furthermore, if this is the case then it is simply hypocrisy of the worst kind as the very verse I mentioned is constantly trotted out as evidence of God's indictment of homosexuality. The ridiculous story of Genesis is the basis for the fundamentalism attack on the scientifically proven fact of biological evolution (which is separate, I might add from explanation of this fact, known as the Theory of Evolution -- just as the fact of gravity is separate from the Theory of Gravity). If these parts of the Bible are no longer applicable, then they have opened the door for the absurd tale at the beginning of Genesis to be simple allegory. They cannot have it both ways.
Furthermore, this completely undermines the argument that morality comes from the Bible -- these people are able to use their own personal morality to determine which parts of the Bible ought to be observed and which parts are barbaric, twisted, and evil and ought to be thrown out. This indicates that morality comes from our reason, rather than silly, childish imaginary friends and low quality fiction written by barely literate goat herders.
No. I am not saying anything that you are saying there. My whole point is that fundamentalist Christianity is largest belief system in America that is allowed to get away with making horrifyingly bigoted statements in public without having to answer for it. In fact, we are all told that we need to respect the religious beliefs of psychopaths such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, simply because it's in the Bible.
Fundamentalist Christianity claims at its core many bigoted, nasty things. It is not bigoted or unfair to classify it as such, regardless of what individual members might say. If I were to tell you that I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but I was not a racist, and just liked hanging out at Klan rallies for the community of it, and that I like feeling like I belong, it would not affect the status of the Klan as a disgusting racist organization.
If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.
I am not allowed to call that bigoted? Seriously? If you said that every word of Mein Kampf was literal truth, I would be more than justified in saying that you are a racist.
The apology will serve very little direct good, but it helps greatly to have things like this go into the history book as being admitted mistakes. It helps prevent them from happening again by learning from the mistakes of our forefathers. That is why we invented history.
So what if he does know Beckham's first name? Athletic achievement is the lowest common denominator in human achievement and serves to inspire the weak-minded. Need proof? Name me one famous sports figure from the time of Aristotle. Ok, I'll be more generous -- let's go with Galileo. Still nothing? How about Mozart -- that was only a couple hundred years ago! My point is, sports are utterly meaningless and this Beckham character, beloved as he is now, will be utterly forgotten in the next century, where great minds such as Turing will continue to inspire the world as long as there are humans to speak of them.
While this is true -- it seems that a lot of the problems with games today is that they are given excessively tight deadlines to get them out, say, by Christmas. To follow the woman/baby analogy -- it takes more resources for a woman to have a baby gestating in her for 9 months than for 5 months. If you can just get that baby out in 5 months, you could save some resources, but the quality of the product (crappy video game vs. good video game/dead fetus vs. live baby) will differ greatly.
Right. Because it's only conservative Christians who "gay bash." Islamic fundamentalists, for whom gay bashing laws are still on the theocratic books, get a pass in the public consciousness, as usual.
First of all, I never said it's only fundamentalist Christians who bash gays. Fundamentalist Christianity is, however, one of the last and greatest bastions of hatred and bigotry left in the first world. I absolutely do not give Islam a free pass on anything, it is a vile, barbaric belief system that subjugates women and preaches intolerance. Fundamentalist Islam, however, is much less of a problem in progressive societies, however, as most fundamentalist Islamic societies are otherwise backward dictatorships that would be suffering the same human rights abuses under a similar, secular dictator. In the U.S., it is more or less impossible to get elected to higher office without professing belief in the Christian God. Fundamentalist Christians have their finger on the button and have huge sway over the minds of the people. We let people like Jerry Falwell (well not him anymore; thankfully, the God I don't believe in felt fit to strike this particular hateful gasbag down) and Pat Robertson spout the worst kind of vile hatred live on television because they do it in the name of the almighty jeebus. Fundamentalist Christians are, by far, the biggest threats to equality and freedom in America and western Europe. Thankfully, the world is beginning to leave these idiots behind as they are proven to be wrong again and again by science, and our reason brings their bigotry and backwardness to the light of day.
Lookit, the Americans and Western Europeans did some bad things, and then we got over it! We moved on! We entered the 21st Century!!
I wish this were the case, but it is not. Homophobia is still rampant. Gays are not allowed to serve in the military. Gay marriage is gaining traction, but encountering severe resistance. Gays still feel pressure to stay in the closet for fear of repercussions. Society has come a long way, but it still has a ways to go before people can grow out of their prejudices.
I disagree. If the persecution itself was wrong, then the treatment of each individual was wrong. It is not okay for the government to just arbitrarily make laws against something and say "Oh, well, you knew that was against the law, bad on you for breaking the law!" Government needs to be held accountable for these grievous human rights violations -- repealing the law is not good enough.
Excuse me, but WHY would his pardon be unlikely? He was convicted of something that is totally legal today! Shouldn't they be pardoning EVERYONE convicted under these acts? He was convicted for having sex with a man in the privacy of his own home! These idiots shunned one of the most brilliant members of their society because of who he wanted to have sex with! If there are any conservative Christians out there who need an example of why their gay-bashing is idiotic and obscenely counter-productive, look no further than the case of Alan Turing.
Sorry, but the scientists weren't making it up, and the fact that you are so filled with ass-hat ignorance as to be certain of some bullshit conspiracy among scientists should help to convince anyone on the fence about global warning that people like you are just idiots without a freaking clue.
The case for global warming really is not open and shut the way you present it -- there are mountains of conflicting data that one could draw any number of conclusions from. Yes, the Earth is warming for the time being. Nobody really knows if humans are causing this change, or if the upward trend is going to continue. The Earth's climate is always in flux and is far too complex of a situation for us to accurately model.
That being said, I think the probability that human carbon emissions are causing global warming is great enough that it would be prudent of us to curb our output where possible. What we shouldn't do is spout hypotheses and opinions as if they were fact, you will only turn people away.
First of all, I wouldn't go so far as to call karma a "theory", since it has no basis in fact. Second, I would propose two alternatives and let the reader decide which is more likely:
1.) Human beings somehow discovered some deep, dark, unobservable secret to the Universe
OR
2.) Someone just made all this shit up to control people/make themselves feel better.
I think it is pretty obvious which option here is more likely.
WHHOOOOSH!!!!
I am sure that eventually the horrible wrong she committed will be balanced - Karma has a way of working things out !
No it doesn't. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to say that there is something to that, karma is total bullshit. I mean, Hitler committed suicide before we could get to him -- how's that for karma? Or the evil, scumfuck businessmen who defraud the world of billions of dollars only to die of natural causes after getting fat, rich, and happy at the expense of the world? I wish there were something to be said for karma, but alas, it seems that ordinary means of revenge and retribution are all we have. As for Lori Drew, she will be punished by those around her for the rest of her life -- everyone knows who she is and what she has done and she will be an outcast forever. There's nothing mystical about that.
I can't fathom any grounds on which you can consider searching the personal information on a traveler's computer to be reasonable. How is this necessary for security? If a nasty little terrorist needs to get through the border with their nasty little, super-secret terrorist plans there are PLENTY of other ways for them to accomplish this without having the data on their laptop. If they put it on an SD card and hid it somewhere in the vehicle, it would be virtually impossible to find. Or they could mail said SD card to their destination right before crossing. This is not even to mention how comically overblown the fear of terrorists has become in our society (you have a better chance of being killed by lightning, for Christ's sake!).
This does nothing to protect security and does a great amount to violate our privacy. Even if it could protect security a bit, I would still say that the violation of privacy is far too great. Not only are they keeping certain physical goods out of the country with border searches, but the thought police are now trying to prevent the flow of any doubleplusungood ideas into our nation. This is absolutely beyond the pale and needs to stop immediately.
Hah, tougher than Chuck Norris, indeed.
Scientists calculated the weather conditions on a similar "hot Jupiter", HD 189733b, and came up with some pretty amazing results. HD 189733b is locked into synchronous orbit around its parent star in the same manner that the moon orbits the Earth, in that the rotational period directly matches the orbital period (which is fairly common for close orbiting planets, it is very plausible that Wasp 18b could be a similar story), leaving one side of the planet perpetually day, the other perpetually night. As the planet is only 3 million miles from its parent star, it was not overly surprising to find daytime highs of 2,000 - 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. What was surprising, however, was the nighttime temperature of roughly 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit! This indicates that the atmosphere is incredibly efficient at transferring heat, which means a lot of "air" (NOTE: The atmosphere of HD 189733b is NOT air, but a completely alien mixture of gasses.) moving around. When they calculated the winds that would be necessary to sustain such heat transfer, it was determined that HD 189733b would need to sustain windspeeds of approximately 7,000 mph, making Hurricane Katrina look like a nice ocean breeze by comparison. The weather conditions on Wasp 18b are likely similar; any beings that lived there would indeed have to be extremely tough, and Chuck Norris would most likely be checking his closet for them before going to bed.
How presumptuous is it for these physicists to make claims about exoplanets, when no one has been able to visit them to confirm anything that our measurements are telling us *might* be out there? How confident is astrophysics in what they're seeing and interpreting?
Why do we need to go to a planet to take measurements? By your logic, we should not be able to confidently say anything about any of the celestial bodies save the Earth and our moon. All the astronomers (not physicists, mind you) are doing here is determining (not presuming) the orbital period of a planet around a star, which is EXTREMELY straightforward, even for an exoplanet such as this. It is also fairly straightforward to the age of a star. Since all of our current knowledge shows that planets tend to form at the same time as a star, we are taking that as the most likely scenario here. The scientists in question are making it totally clear that there is a disconnect between theory and observation here, and are investigating more deeply to find out how to amend theory and enhance our understanding of the cosmos. I cannot see what is presumptuous here, other than your ignorant blatherings of presumptuousness.
I think the proper response to this would be to remove the profit -- not to stop using the organs. It is really dumb to let the organs decompose in the ground when they could save the life of a living person.
On the other hand, why should we let microsoft get away with being evil even if it's the status quo?
Would you let a polluter who has polluted for years get a break when you catch them doing something?
In short, what I'm saying is, that evil shouldn't be protected by a grandfather clause.
I don't think the complaint here is with the FSF calling out Microsoft on their nasty behavior, I doubt many on /. would object to such things -- I think the objection is more to the shrill, get off my lawn approach that FSF is taking to it. The '7 Sins' come across as being extremely overhyped, whiny, and pathetic. To go with your polluter analogy, this is like saying that one polluter in Kansas (or Redmond) is going to destroy the whole planet. They are most certainly doing something wrong, and deserve to be taken to task for it -- but by making over the top and shrill arguments against them you really undermine your own case and force people to tune out.
Do you really think that the postal service should be immune if they carry a package containing methamphetamine? Even if they deliver it to a 13-year-old child?
Yes. Are you honestly suggesting that the postal service ought to be liable to search every package? They weren't liable for the fools shipping around anthrax, or for the unabomber. There is no realistic (or non-Orwellian) way for the postal service to be able to control the content of packages, so they should absolutely NOT be liable (and this has been held up in court on numerous occasions). They should, however, assist the authorities in tracking down the source of the methamphetamine, in the same manner than the ISPs already respond to subpoenas from law enforcement.
Do you really think that a bus-line should be immune if they give a ride to a terrorist with a bomb in his back-pack on his way to blow up a kindergarten?
Yes. Again, are you really suggesting that the bus company ought to individually search every passenger getting on the bus? Not only would you never be able to get anywhere on time, but personal freedom and privacy would be completely out the window. Again, there is very good legal precedent for this. The bus company would be required to respond to any subpoenas from law enforcement as to assist the investigation, but they would have no liability as there is way they could have reasonably prevented the incident in question.
Do you really think that the phone company should be immune if they allow a 6 year old child to call a fetish phone-sex line?
Ok, now you are just getting ridiculous. This is stupid in too many ways for me to explain, so I will move on.
Do you really think that a gun-company should be immune if they manufacture a weapon and a child accidentally shoots his friend while showing it off?
Yes. They should be. And they are. This has (again) come up repeatedly in the American court systems and has been repeatedly shut down. The gun company has one responsibility -- they need to make sure that their products function properly and can be used safely by a responsible adult who so chooses. If you buy a gun, and it blows up in your face, the gun company is liable. If you use that gun to commit a murder, they are not.
Does 64-bit cost more than 32-bit now?
So is that the reason that Linux has the same limit?
I think that it is more related to the reason that 2+2=5 and the Earth is flat -- in that it doesn't.
Very well said. I would consider myself the exception to the rule in that I am aware of how bad I am at multi-tasking, yet still insist on doing it anyway. That whole ADD thing is a bitch...
It seems the mods have a great sense of irony -- the guy making the extremely overdone Skynet comment gets modded up (+5 even!) and I get modded down (as redundant of all things!) for pointing this out. WOW!! I can see from the other comments that there are some people who find my thoughts valid -- I call bollocks on whoever modded me down here.
Ahh... this is such a tough case. There is so much stupid bull$hit on all sides here... on one hand we have a spoiled brat model who thinks that she can take out personal vendettas through the court system and waste our time and money "cuz she's calling me names", and on the other hand we have a spoiled brat blogger who couldn't be bothered to read over the ToS that she already agreed to before filing a lawsuit. The legal process should be amended to keep both of these idiots out of the courts -- you should need to PROVE actual harm before you can bring a libel suit to court for one. The second suit should not even make it to hearing -- Google's actions were blatantly within the boundaries of law and the contract (ToS) that this clown agreed to. This is not even to mention how stupid anyone is that believes that they can truly be anonymous on the Internet -- it is a public forum, plain and simple. I need to stop now before all this stupid gives me an aneurysm...