Because Microsoft increased their political contributions by an order of magnitude after the anti-trust trial. It was never about protecting consumers, it was a shakedown pure and simple. Microsoft didn't pay the requisite bribes, and they suffered for it. Now they've learned their lesson, and you can expect pretty much anything they do to be ignored by the DOJ. Especially Obama's DOJ.
Possession is 9/10ths of the law. If they claim they never got the money, they shouldn't have given you the product. If they're claiming shoplifting, it's their burden to prove you didn't lose the receipt. So no, you're not completely screwed at all. Our justice system is quite well adapted to cash transactions.
What I've always wondered is how it's even physically possible, never mind desirable, to actually drink a 'large' or larger soda at a restaurant or movie theater or whatever. Or even a medium.
The size isn't really for you to drink it all. Larger volumes take longer to warm to room temperature. That's important during a 2 hour movie.
I just buy water at fast food. The fast food has enough calories as it is. Now on the one or two occasions per year that I feel like spending 2 hours quietly in a dark room with a bunch of strangers, a sip of sugar water every few minutes makes it much more enjoyable. I don't even finish the cup, the large volumes are mostly useful to keep it cold for longer periods.
Not just the right to view the source, you should have the right to use the code your tax dollars paid for for any purpose you choose. All products of government should be public domain. No exceptions.
Nonsense. Economic power is equivalent to political power. Therefore, in order to eliminate concentrated political power we also have to eliminate concentrated economic power. Ergo, libertarian socialism.
Any variety of capitalism is not anarchistic, because in the absence of state power (and for that matter, the presence too) the wealthy elite form a de facto government with no input from the people. My theoretical freedom to do whatever I want doesn't matter a bit if I've had to sell my soul to the company store just to stay alive.
Think of the birthday paradox. It's quite unlikely that any given researcher has the same name as any other given researcher. But there are n!/(2(n-2)!) pairs to consider, which gets big really fast, so you have to adjust your expectations for multiple comparisons.
Paying for a proprietary software license is no guarantee that you are in compliance. Even buying the software puts you at risk of a BSA raid. All it takes is for one employee to install the software on a machine not covered by the license, and you're at risk of serious fines.
Exactly. A neutral article will be biased towards the position that is actually true. An article that treats all opinions equally is biased in favor of the positions that are untrue.
While most people here are starting from the base assumption that everything can be explained through science
Nobody claims that everything can be explained through science. What we claim is that science is the only way you can actually confirm anything. Some things are beyond the reach of science, but that's no reason to go believing in mythology.
I'm starting from the assumption that it cannot and that the Biblical account is true beyond challenge.
And what rational reason is there to do that? Especially considering the numerous ways that the bible contradicts both scientific and mathematical fact, it even contradicts itself.
Do you have a rational explanation for why you chose the veracity of the bible as your assumption, instead of the tao te ching, or the vedas, or even The Lord of the Rings?
If you start from my assumption (which many do not, but stick with me), then logically you would also have no issues with seemingly contradictory evidence showing up
If you were the least bit rational, you would realize that as soon as a single contradiction occurs you have proven your assumptions incorrect via proof by contradiction.
Anyway, all I sought to do here was represent the other side so you could see how someone who likes to think of themselves as rational can possibly disagree.
But you haven't done that. You've certainly asserted that you like to think of yourself as rational, and that you disagree, but haven't shed any light on how you can actually do so rationally.
What rational basis do you have for being skeptical of evolution? Your Hittite example is irrelevant as the hittites have nothing to do with evolution, except that they are products of it like everyone else.
In the end, I think it will come down to the fact that you want to believe in the biblical account instead of prevailing scientific thought. It's not that there's any weakness in the theory of evolution that you're hanging your hopes on. It's just a desire, and a rationalization that "they've been wrong before". But there's a big difference between rationalizing and rational thought.
A real rational reason to object to evolution is that you have observations that cannot be explained by the theory. Or that you have an alternative explanation which is more elegant. What you're doing here is not rational at all. You are choosing what to believe based on what makes you feel comfortable.
Civil discourse has nothing to do with not calling people out on blatant falsehoods - it's the act of doing so without being a dick about it.
How do you call someone a self-serving liar without being a dick about it?
As for those blinded to the obvious by their own hubris... fuck 'em, they aren't worth the energy it takes to argue with them.
But this is the vast majority of the populace. How can we function as a society when the vast majority of the populace believes in things that are plainly untrue and acts on them? This isn't just restrained to the topic of evolution either, the antiscientific mindset of the typical American has caused all sorts of bad policy. From the continued use of fossil fuels, to imprisoning hundreds of thousands of harmless pot smokers, to the massive undeserved subsidies given to corn, to the normalization of sexual assault at the hands of the TSA, and so on(and on, and on) deliberate ignorance promoted by short sighted greed is overwhelmingly the driving force behind our politics.
If we can't come up with a strategy to defeat deliberate ignorance, we have no hope at all.
So, these seismometers - they can send a signal to the alleged core, and it will bounce back in such a way that we can be certain the core is X miles deep, Y miles in diameter, and made up of Z?
Yes, pretty much. Except that the signals are either earthquakes or nukes.
To reiterate, a scientist saying "Science proves it's this way" without sufficient evidence to back the proof, is no different than a Creationist saying "God says it's this way." Both statements are based on belief as opposed to fact.
Not quite. When a scientist says something, there's a certain amount of trust. Even if he shows you the data, there's a certain amount of trust that the experiment was performed as described and the data reported accurately. But this trust is well founded, because you can do the experiment yourself and see what happens. And if you can't there are plenty of people working in the same field who would love to make a name for themselves by disproving a major theory.
When a religious figure tells you something, he's counting on you to trust him as well. But what is that trust based on? Absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell.
But I do agree with the idea that scientists should communicate more of the "how do we know this" part, and not just the "this is how it is" part. That is where science education really falls apart, IMO. Most people could tell you that the Earth is round and made of atoms, but few people could tell you how it was determined that those facts are true.
Nah, to be honest you're one of the few people here I actually enjoy discussing things with, regardless of whether we agree or otherwise.
Thanks, I do try to keep it as civil as I can manage. But it's hard sometimes.
So what you're saying is that it was written from the perspective of, and with the knowledge of, a bronze age goat herder. A creation tale directly from an omniscient creator would have no excuse for getting the order wrong.
The origin of life on Earth is one of those things that's sort of in between the two phases. Most religions have accepted evolution but a few are still in the opposition phase
Careful there. Evolution is not a theory of the origin of life. It is a theory of the origin of species.
They don't make it easy, but that's what creates good character - remaining civil in the face of the uncivil actions of others.
I suppose you could define character that way, but then what would be the value of character? If everyone were willing to suffer fools gladly, would there be any reason not to be a fool? Aren't you encouraging this bullshit by not calling people out on it?
Also worth noting, my entire purpose of bringing up the "Hollow Earth" theory was to point out how an idea can be written off by otherwise intelligent people for no better reason than that it "sounds ridiculous," even though the explanation they do believe in typically has an equal lack of backing data.
Which is a bad example, because there's lots of backing data for the current model of the Earth. This line of argument was ill advised to begin with. Since intelligent people know what the evidence is for the things they believe, you won't be able to find such an example.
To that end - have you or anyone you know ever seen the Earth's core? Taken a sample? If not, how do you know, for an absolute fact, that it's there and what it's made of?
The answer is, of course, that you don't, but rather are conjecturing based on what you do know, vis a vis seismic data.
Sure we have, we just "see" the seismic waves with a seismometer, instead of "seeing" electromagnetic waves with my retinas. Both are indirect measurements, and honestly the seismometer is more reliable.
In life, you will come across folks who, for whatever reasons, will refuse to see the truth, even if you pin their eyes open and force feed it to them ala A Clockwork Orange. In those cases, your best course of action is to smile, agree to disagree, and excuse yourself by telling them to genuinely have a great day.
It's really hard to do that when those people would, if unrestrained, destroy your way of life. We're not talking about a disagreement over the color of a bike shed. We're talking about people who are making decisions(e.g. voting) that could ruin the lives of millions of people if they don't carefully consider what they're doing. How is it possible to consider someone who makes that decision based on nothing but ancient fairy tales and tribalism anything but evil?
Seriously, try it sometime - if nothing else, the hard stop you see them make when you abruptly and pleasantly stop arguing with someone like that is freaking priceless.
Is this a hint? I probably shouldn't expect a reply to this post, heh.
Non-obvious problem: The studios that actually own all the distribution rights to the videos on Netflix are, for the most part, wary about DRM on Linux, under the belief that obscurity grants security. Now, we all know that's stupid, but we also all know they are stupid
The problem is, they're right. The only security possible with DRM is obscurity. Every DRM system has to decrypt the data eventually. At that point it can be captured, it's only a matter of doing the right gymnastics. This is the case on Windows too, but perhaps the open source nature of Linux makes the required gymnastics a little less demanding.
Evolution is not the "why", it is merely part of the "how". Perhaps there is really no "why", but I don't know anyone who can answer that question with any confidence who is not doing so irrationally.
As a practical matter, being unable to distinguish between any of the infinitely many possible "why's", and there actually not being a "why" are the same. If you can't possibly distinguish between any of them, you have no reason to reject the null hypothesis.
Perhaps there is really no "why", but I don't know anyone who can answer that question with any confidence who is not doing so irrationally.
I've never met anyone who can rigorously explain the difference between "how" and "why". They're the same thing, "why" is just teleological.
And please do not underestimate the fairy tales. They hold much truth.
Much truth, contaminated with a great preponderance of lies. This is like saying "Please do not underestimate the pile of shit, it contains much corn!"
Try to think of these stories as if they are written by your wife. It is not about what she says, but what she wants you to figure out yourself.
If my SO wants me to know something, she tells me. If she wants to play a guessing game, she can fuck right off. Life is much better when you can count on people to tell you the straightforward truth.
Slashdot Mirror
What open source software reads Protools files?
Because Microsoft increased their political contributions by an order of magnitude after the anti-trust trial. It was never about protecting consumers, it was a shakedown pure and simple. Microsoft didn't pay the requisite bribes, and they suffered for it. Now they've learned their lesson, and you can expect pretty much anything they do to be ignored by the DOJ. Especially Obama's DOJ.
Possession is 9/10ths of the law. If they claim they never got the money, they shouldn't have given you the product. If they're claiming shoplifting, it's their burden to prove you didn't lose the receipt. So no, you're not completely screwed at all. Our justice system is quite well adapted to cash transactions.
What I've always wondered is how it's even physically possible, never mind desirable, to actually drink a 'large' or larger soda at a restaurant or movie theater or whatever. Or even a medium.
The size isn't really for you to drink it all. Larger volumes take longer to warm to room temperature. That's important during a 2 hour movie.
I just buy water at fast food. The fast food has enough calories as it is. Now on the one or two occasions per year that I feel like spending 2 hours quietly in a dark room with a bunch of strangers, a sip of sugar water every few minutes makes it much more enjoyable. I don't even finish the cup, the large volumes are mostly useful to keep it cold for longer periods.
Not just the right to view the source, you should have the right to use the code your tax dollars paid for for any purpose you choose. All products of government should be public domain. No exceptions.
That's math, and as everyone knows math has no relation to daily life. Why do they even try to teach us that useless crap?
Now you'll just have to get up 4 times for refills during a movie, instead of just hitting the bathroom once.
Nonsense. Economic power is equivalent to political power. Therefore, in order to eliminate concentrated political power we also have to eliminate concentrated economic power. Ergo, libertarian socialism.
Any variety of capitalism is not anarchistic, because in the absence of state power (and for that matter, the presence too) the wealthy elite form a de facto government with no input from the people. My theoretical freedom to do whatever I want doesn't matter a bit if I've had to sell my soul to the company store just to stay alive.
Think of the birthday paradox. It's quite unlikely that any given researcher has the same name as any other given researcher. But there are n!/(2(n-2)!) pairs to consider, which gets big really fast, so you have to adjust your expectations for multiple comparisons.
Paying for a proprietary software license is no guarantee that you are in compliance. Even buying the software puts you at risk of a BSA raid. All it takes is for one employee to install the software on a machine not covered by the license, and you're at risk of serious fines.
Exactly. A neutral article will be biased towards the position that is actually true. An article that treats all opinions equally is biased in favor of the positions that are untrue.
You can't. Even if you write purely factual prose, it's slanted toward's the left. Reality has a well known liberal bias.
By all accounts Kim seems to be something of a scumbag
But far less so than those scumbags involved in his arrest.
While most people here are starting from the base assumption that everything can be explained through science
Nobody claims that everything can be explained through science. What we claim is that science is the only way you can actually confirm anything. Some things are beyond the reach of science, but that's no reason to go believing in mythology.
I'm starting from the assumption that it cannot and that the Biblical account is true beyond challenge.
And what rational reason is there to do that? Especially considering the numerous ways that the bible contradicts both scientific and mathematical fact, it even contradicts itself.
Do you have a rational explanation for why you chose the veracity of the bible as your assumption, instead of the tao te ching, or the vedas, or even The Lord of the Rings?
If you start from my assumption (which many do not, but stick with me), then logically you would also have no issues with seemingly contradictory evidence showing up
If you were the least bit rational, you would realize that as soon as a single contradiction occurs you have proven your assumptions incorrect via proof by contradiction.
Anyway, all I sought to do here was represent the other side so you could see how someone who likes to think of themselves as rational can possibly disagree.
But you haven't done that. You've certainly asserted that you like to think of yourself as rational, and that you disagree, but haven't shed any light on how you can actually do so rationally.
What rational basis do you have for being skeptical of evolution? Your Hittite example is irrelevant as the hittites have nothing to do with evolution, except that they are products of it like everyone else.
In the end, I think it will come down to the fact that you want to believe in the biblical account instead of prevailing scientific thought. It's not that there's any weakness in the theory of evolution that you're hanging your hopes on. It's just a desire, and a rationalization that "they've been wrong before". But there's a big difference between rationalizing and rational thought.
A real rational reason to object to evolution is that you have observations that cannot be explained by the theory. Or that you have an alternative explanation which is more elegant. What you're doing here is not rational at all. You are choosing what to believe based on what makes you feel comfortable.
Civil discourse has nothing to do with not calling people out on blatant falsehoods - it's the act of doing so without being a dick about it.
How do you call someone a self-serving liar without being a dick about it?
As for those blinded to the obvious by their own hubris... fuck 'em, they aren't worth the energy it takes to argue with them.
But this is the vast majority of the populace. How can we function as a society when the vast majority of the populace believes in things that are plainly untrue and acts on them? This isn't just restrained to the topic of evolution either, the antiscientific mindset of the typical American has caused all sorts of bad policy. From the continued use of fossil fuels, to imprisoning hundreds of thousands of harmless pot smokers, to the massive undeserved subsidies given to corn, to the normalization of sexual assault at the hands of the TSA, and so on(and on, and on) deliberate ignorance promoted by short sighted greed is overwhelmingly the driving force behind our politics.
If we can't come up with a strategy to defeat deliberate ignorance, we have no hope at all.
So, these seismometers - they can send a signal to the alleged core, and it will bounce back in such a way that we can be certain the core is X miles deep, Y miles in diameter, and made up of Z?
Yes, pretty much. Except that the signals are either earthquakes or nukes.
To reiterate, a scientist saying "Science proves it's this way" without sufficient evidence to back the proof, is no different than a Creationist saying "God says it's this way." Both statements are based on belief as opposed to fact.
Not quite. When a scientist says something, there's a certain amount of trust. Even if he shows you the data, there's a certain amount of trust that the experiment was performed as described and the data reported accurately. But this trust is well founded, because you can do the experiment yourself and see what happens. And if you can't there are plenty of people working in the same field who would love to make a name for themselves by disproving a major theory.
When a religious figure tells you something, he's counting on you to trust him as well. But what is that trust based on? Absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell.
But I do agree with the idea that scientists should communicate more of the "how do we know this" part, and not just the "this is how it is" part. That is where science education really falls apart, IMO. Most people could tell you that the Earth is round and made of atoms, but few people could tell you how it was determined that those facts are true.
Nah, to be honest you're one of the few people here I actually enjoy discussing things with, regardless of whether we agree or otherwise.
Thanks, I do try to keep it as civil as I can manage. But it's hard sometimes.
So what you're saying is that it was written from the perspective of, and with the knowledge of, a bronze age goat herder. A creation tale directly from an omniscient creator would have no excuse for getting the order wrong.
The origin of life on Earth is one of those things that's sort of in between the two phases. Most religions have accepted evolution but a few are still in the opposition phase
Careful there. Evolution is not a theory of the origin of life. It is a theory of the origin of species.
Someone please kill me.
What is wrong with this damn comment system, someone please fix this sack of crap.
That's odd, usually those two statements come in the reversed order.
They don't make it easy, but that's what creates good character - remaining civil in the face of the uncivil actions of others.
I suppose you could define character that way, but then what would be the value of character? If everyone were willing to suffer fools gladly, would there be any reason not to be a fool? Aren't you encouraging this bullshit by not calling people out on it?
Also worth noting, my entire purpose of bringing up the "Hollow Earth" theory was to point out how an idea can be written off by otherwise intelligent people for no better reason than that it "sounds ridiculous," even though the explanation they do believe in typically has an equal lack of backing data.
Which is a bad example, because there's lots of backing data for the current model of the Earth. This line of argument was ill advised to begin with. Since intelligent people know what the evidence is for the things they believe, you won't be able to find such an example.
To that end - have you or anyone you know ever seen the Earth's core? Taken a sample? If not, how do you know, for an absolute fact, that it's there and what it's made of?
The answer is, of course, that you don't, but rather are conjecturing based on what you do know, vis a vis seismic data.
Sure we have, we just "see" the seismic waves with a seismometer, instead of "seeing" electromagnetic waves with my retinas. Both are indirect measurements, and honestly the seismometer is more reliable.
In life, you will come across folks who, for whatever reasons, will refuse to see the truth, even if you pin their eyes open and force feed it to them ala A Clockwork Orange. In those cases, your best course of action is to smile, agree to disagree, and excuse yourself by telling them to genuinely have a great day.
It's really hard to do that when those people would, if unrestrained, destroy your way of life. We're not talking about a disagreement over the color of a bike shed. We're talking about people who are making decisions(e.g. voting) that could ruin the lives of millions of people if they don't carefully consider what they're doing. How is it possible to consider someone who makes that decision based on nothing but ancient fairy tales and tribalism anything but evil?
Seriously, try it sometime - if nothing else, the hard stop you see them make when you abruptly and pleasantly stop arguing with someone like that is freaking priceless.
Is this a hint? I probably shouldn't expect a reply to this post, heh.
Non-obvious problem: The studios that actually own all the distribution rights to the videos on Netflix are, for the most part, wary about DRM on Linux, under the belief that obscurity grants security. Now, we all know that's stupid, but we also all know they are stupid
The problem is, they're right. The only security possible with DRM is obscurity. Every DRM system has to decrypt the data eventually. At that point it can be captured, it's only a matter of doing the right gymnastics. This is the case on Windows too, but perhaps the open source nature of Linux makes the required gymnastics a little less demanding.
Evolution is not the "why", it is merely part of the "how". Perhaps there is really no "why", but I don't know anyone who can answer that question with any confidence who is not doing so irrationally.
As a practical matter, being unable to distinguish between any of the infinitely many possible "why's", and there actually not being a "why" are the same. If you can't possibly distinguish between any of them, you have no reason to reject the null hypothesis.
Perhaps there is really no "why", but I don't know anyone who can answer that question with any confidence who is not doing so irrationally.
I've never met anyone who can rigorously explain the difference between "how" and "why". They're the same thing, "why" is just teleological.
Indeed. This explains why the atheist Leakey professes "no animosity toward religion". He doesn't really understand what it is.
And please do not underestimate the fairy tales. They hold much truth.
Much truth, contaminated with a great preponderance of lies. This is like saying "Please do not underestimate the pile of shit, it contains much corn!"
Try to think of these stories as if they are written by your wife. It is not about what she says, but what she wants you to figure out yourself.
If my SO wants me to know something, she tells me. If she wants to play a guessing game, she can fuck right off. Life is much better when you can count on people to tell you the straightforward truth.