Naaa... MMORPG's have been around quite a while. I got hooked on Neverwinter Nights on AOL around 1996 or so. (And it wasn't even new at that time, though it was rather pricey before the $20/month rates came into effect.)
Of course, before that there were the almighty MUDs.
If you don't want to spend the money, you can easily use a spreadsheet & calculator to figure your taxes...
If that's so easy and error free, what makes you think pooling of effort via open source won't work? (ie: Let a few folks who know what they're doing set us up the bomb, then everyone else just pushes the plunger...)
At the very least, people ought to be able to crib each other's spreadsheets. Every American writing up their own tax spreadsheet just sounds like terrible (and error prone) duplication of effort.
(And err.. why would you need a calculator if you have a spreadsheet?)
So say 100 is 1 standard deviation (going by the graph in that paper). Then there would be about 800 distinct values that fall within the most common 95% of clock values.
So odds are somewhere between 1/500 and 1/1000 that any random two computers are indistinguishable. Certiainly useful, but by no means conclusive.
Ya, and communication requires responding to TCP packets too. So, by your logic, it shouldn't be possible to communicate through a firewall either...
Of course, if you change your...*and* used connections initiated by the clients... to...*or* used connections initiated by the clients... it would make a lot more sense. In this case, a packet trace of clients connecting to random servers out on the internet taken at, say, their ISP's router, would work wonders.
Example 1: You're a Comcast cable-modem customer and Comcast wants to know if you use NAT. So, comcast installs 1 new tool on the router you use to get onto their network and viola, they can get your clock skews down to an extremely accurate number. (And consequently count the number of machines behind your NAT'ing firewall.)
Example 2: You're a pir8 arrrr and you hook to a usenet server to download your favorite b00t13. But, the ISP providing access to the server has had complaints and wants to lock things down, so they've installed 1 new tool on the router providing internet access to the usenet server. You connect and download a broken up copy of "The Matrix" and the router in question is able to estimate your clock-skew down to.56 ppm. Combine that with your IP, and a trace-back to your ISP, and you could be sunk...
Why does this whole thing remind me of Milliken oil-drop experiments?
Okay. So they can get within.56 ppm of your actual clock skew. What's the standard deviation of skew for these components? (ie: I'm trying to figure out the likelihood that two machines with "matching" standard deviations, as measured by this test, are not actually the same machine. 1/64? 1/1000? 1/1000000?)
I'm confused by this too. I just checked the paper and it does use the term "bits" to refer to the amount of entropy.
Maybe someone can translate this jargon for us? It looks like we go from 4.87 bits at 0 bytes per hour (for 10 minutes of the hour?) to 6.41 at 2000 packets per hour (for 50 minutes of the hour?).
...Further, one can apply our passive and semi-passive techniques when the fingerprinted device is behind a NAT or firewall, and also when the device's system time is maintained iva NTP or SNTP...
This doesn't help. (Not to say "skew correction" is not possible, just that it's part of the escalating arms race.)
You seem to forget this country is (or was) a republic, not a democracy, and that minorities can still easily be opressed under "majority rule". In fact, the very constitution and bill of rights were written for the very purpose of avoiding such opression.
More make right is really no better than might makes right in most ways...
You then destroy all the universes were the dataset isn't sorted.
Maybe collapse is a better word here? Although this was always the part where my understanding started walking out the door... (ie: wouldn't this experientially be like rolling a couple dice and then exploding my own universe if it didn't come up boxcars?)
i, j and k can be used for indexing as well as loop counters.
For example, if you've ever read c code for efficient string in string searches, you'll probably see 1-2 levels of nesting in a couple of places with 4 or more index variables (often i,j,k,l,etc) and several arrays. These are 20-40 line functions encoding mind-warping ideas that no length of variable name is really going to make you understand... (And if you think you're going to refactor Knuth_Morris_Pratt to make it "better" you've got a serious ego problem even if you have god-like genius and programming acumen)
Personally I see nothing wrong with using short variable names in small functions (say 20 lines or less). In fact, I've read several times that when interviewing potential developers short variable names as loop indices (particularly for small loops) is a sign of an experienced developer.
Basically, someone who's written millions of lines of code in a language isn't going to bother wondering how readable the following is:
for( int i=0; i<20; i++ ) { /* do something for each i */ }
or even this:
for( int i=0; i<MAX_ROWS; i++ ) {
for( int j=0; j<MAX_COLS; j++ ) { /* do something for each item in table */
} }
They're just going to "bang it out". Further, they're going to realize that they can easily re-use pieces of their code if it tends to use simple and consistent variables... (Kind of like how physicists re-use the same variable names over and over to cement understanding and benefit re-use)
Now... using 'i' as a class, module or global variable? That should revoke at least one of your 10 finger keeping privileges.
Bottom line: The one thing that really distinguishes understandable code from code that has to be thrown out is the top-down documentation. This breaks down to project/sub-project/module/public function/protected function/line level. The distinction in readability between 'NULL==ptr' and '!ptr' is meaningless if the public function they reside in doesn't have proper header comments.
Then please do. It is well known that jokes are difficult and/or impossible to translate between lanaguages (or even cultures).
If you can get a Japanese speaker to spew milk out of their nose, and at the same time get the same meaning, in one or two reasonably short sentences I'll consider your translation effort a complete success. If you can only manage the meaning and not the joke, I'd consider that a partial success.
Note: I'll go on to point out that a computer is perfectly capable of verbatim copying your translation (however good or bad it might be) every time it sees that quote. (The translation algorithm worked on words and phrases, I don't recall there being a limit on the size of the phrases... It sounded like that was only bounded by available resources.)
when you really want: TIME (flies) (as) AN ARROW and FRUIT FLIES (favor) A BANANA
No, that's not what you want at all. Ideally you'd like to convey all the richness and multiple meanings inherit in the original. Time bugs enjoy eating an arrow. Fruit bugs enjoy eating a banana. But also: Time streaks by as though it were an arrow while [slung] fruit streaks by as though it were a banana. Somehow compressing all this into a single sentence that can be taken either way (and others) makes it funny. Of course, when you break it apart like this, all the mirth seeps out.
Note: somehow putting 'and' in the middle and making a compound sentence weakens the joke significantly. Said properly it's: "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a bananna." (Thankya Groucho!)
Nobody said a contract has to be fair, it just has to be legal.
Actually, a lot of judges take a pretty dim view of a large corporation with many lawyers trying to coerce a "contract" onto Mamma Milqtoast when she's just out trying to live her life.
Do you own a home? Did you know, if someone slipped on the sidewalk in front of your home they can sue you and win. It is your responsibility to maintain its cleanliness (i.e. snow) even though you do not own it.
This just brings me back to: We need to get a better handle on "our laws". (ie: I could see being sued because I put bear-traps on my sidewalk, or even left sand out after working on some project, but not for being out of town when it snows.)
Must I really post a big sign on my website "Do not steal my custom graphics or you will be sued"? A bit of common sense tells you that the graphics were created by someone else, and that you should at least ask for permission before redistributing.
You shouldn't have to put up a "do not copy sign" any more than I should have to put up a "do not doody" sign.
In the case of doody we have vandalism laws, in the case of obsessive deep-linking we have copyright laws. If both are doing their jobs the contracts should be:
A) un-necessary.
B) largely pointless, since most terms either don't apply or are already covered
I doubt you'd be able to find a single specialist who was working on both stem cell research and evolutionary theory.
Pardon me for thinking they might be related: http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/200 5/01/23/of _stem_cells_and_neanderthals.php
What "hard definition of Naturalism" are you talking about?
Essentially Philosophical Naturalism, or Athiestic Naturalism dressed up as science... The notion that all meaningful phenomena can be explained, or will someday be explainable, by scientific observation and experimentation. In particular, anything that purports to someday be able to fully explain origins (of the universe, life, intelligence etc), or to explain human cognizance I view with a healthy dose of skepticism. Basically, I feel "God of the Gaps" and "Naturalism of the gaps" or "science of the gaps" ought to be on a more or less even footing.
Note: I recognize evolutionary explanations for human development since there's a fair bit of evidence, but saying that also explains sentience is like saying that knowing how to install an upgraded CPU in your PC makes you an expert on processor architecture...
"Any criticism should come from the quality of their ideas and work, not from whether the term "Bible" shows up somewhere on their website..."
I agree... so, where's the research?
Is this a jibe or did you miss my link? I admit, they've a long ways to go... But it is a geology department at an accredited university.
From the footnotes of the article I linked this appears to be one paper the author wrote: http://biology.swau.edu/faculty/tapeats.ht ml
Though, I admit it appears to contain a lot of long words, and not a lot of experimental data... Of course, I'm not a geologist.
A couple other links from those footnotes: http://origins.swau.edu/papers/dinos/y ellowstone/d efault.html http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/rr 1998/r&r9811e.htm
Report index of grisda.org: http://www.grisda.org/reports.htm
One report I found interesting (Note apparently by a different creationist research group, looks like it's ICR. And the author is known for some less than first rate grand canyon dating evidently, but still interesting nonetheless): http://www.grisda.org/origins/11090 .htm
Note: I happened upon this website in my searching, and now I literally can't tell if they are serious or not (ie: is someone spoofing this?) http://www.parentcompany.com/handy_dandy/h dertoc.h tm
And that's the problem with many people on both sides of the debate. They want to take a possibility and turn it into a certainty.
...Saying, as ICR does...
Um who are they exactly? I think I read online they may have spoken at one of my favorite "cult"'s meetings once. Does that make me responsible for their views?
as is the idea that the whole "scientific" community (in scare-quotes)
Actually... that's "scientific" community (in slashdot wannabe quotes).
Naturalism or empiricism is an axiom you are free to accept or reject.
What if I want to reject the one and hold to a modified version of the other? It is entirely possible that some things cannot be explained, even in principle. Therefore, how we choose to deal with things currently unexplainable is important. (Assuming future explanations will come just doesn't cut it)
Saying evolution explains the differences between blue-green algae and man is just as silly as saying the earth was created by God in 6 days
Sorry, but you're wrong. It gives a reasonably good account, which I won't reproduce here as it's done in any number of pop science books.
It gives an account that you accept in leu, apparently, of any other possibilities. Personally, I don't accept it as well enough defined, nor am I convinced there are not better possibilities. Explaining the Cambrian era alone is the subject of many books, few of which agree on the matter...
You do have actual examples with which to back up your assertions, right? Please, tell us all about this "wilfull deception" you're complaining about.
Black holes, string theory, common descent, the idea that evolution may explain the Cambrian Explosion. Presented as possible ideas they're interesting notions. Presented as solid theories without alternatives or any cautionary notes, they border on athiest.
I'm reasonably certain I could get a book or presentation using evolution to explain the Cambrian Explosion past your average public school board. However, pretending not to see the athiestic implications of using evolution to explain the Cambrian Explosion seems a bit deceptive to me. "God did it", or "An alien spaceship landed" are just as likely, and just as useless.
Why put the word "scientists" in quotes? What are you trying to imply here?
I'm implying a real scientist wouldn't make bold claims of certainty when in doubt. So, this kind of thing mostly comes from apologists, the popular press, and other hangers on...
I strongly suggest you go to http://www.talkorigins.org/ and do some serious reading of their FAQs...
Not a terrible site, a bit slanted in some ways. I'll do some more reading there. I seem to recall that or a related site had a couple really good books listed which I read a little while ago in a section with 4 scientists showcasing their beliefs. One was "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind", the other was... something by a Jewish biologist dealing a fair bit with the placebo effect, prayer and the like. I'll have to dig it up.
Please point to the textbook or journal paper that "explains the differences between blue-green algae and man"
On the more narrow topic of the Cambrian and pre-Cambrian, if you go to Amazon and look up Steven J. Gould's "Wonderful Life", there will be a whole slew of related books;->
I can picture the public school classrom now: "Yes, there are all those other books, but this is STEVEN J GOULD we're talking about here. Which do You think makes more sense?" (Note: Ya, I know he mostly skirts the cause issue... but presumably you get the idea, he does write some controversial stuff.)
What the hell does that phrase mean, anyway?
Are we going to argue over the meaning of "explain"? I mean it *is* part of the definition of theory.
Take a look at the other response to my last post if you want to see why I continue to bring up blue-green algae. (It's mostly a litmus test to see how far you'll push evolutionary theory into explaining things... Particularly where it doesn't belong.)
As to trying to "explain" the relationship between Algae and man here are a couple possibilities: 1) Algae and Man share a common ancestor 2) Algae is an ancestor of Man (unlikely based on evidence?) 3) Man is an ancestor of Algae (refuted by evidence) 4) Both ancestors originate from distinct "spark of life" events. (parallel descent)
Aside from kicking out the two refuted by evidence, picking an option at this time and calling it "best" would be a premature attempt at "explanation", theory building, or whatever you want to call it.
But in legal forums - if their terms of service does not break any laws then it is legally binding.
Ya, we need to get a better handle on "our law" don't we? Of course when you say "legally binding" does that mean they can suspend my account for breaking TOS or that they can sue me for breach of contract for breaking TOS? The latter seems pretty one-sided considering I'm the only one who made any promises.
If you don't buy that argument - then you can never make the argument that spyware writers should have to pay you (assuming they get caught and prosecuted) for wasting your bandwidth - something that many/.'ers have claimed.
Um... Red Herring? Besides, malware is like toilet papering someone's house, you shouldn't need contract law to know it's more or less wrong. I know I don't have a sign up saying "Please don't throw a bag of doodie on my porch" but I'd still expect someone to get in trouble if I caught em at it.
their specific website and their bandwidth is most certainly theirs.
At what point does the sidewalk outside become the property inside?
Also, if you have a big "open house" sign up, with a bunch of small print saying what folks can and can't do you certainly have the right to kick people out who don't follow your rules (actually, only if it doesn't break laws as you say) but can you also sue them?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of stripping someone's content, I think that's wrong no matter how it is done and with or without a TOS about it. I just get a bit impatient with all this lawyerly binding contract nonsense. Contracts serve a specific purpose, and it isn't to undergird civilized behavior.
If you didn't want that sentence criticized, why did you put it in there? Is this a friendly withdrawal of that particular comment?
As for LAN's, you think my friends want to bother driving 30 miles, (or 3,000) so they can play a game with me? Looks like I'm not the only one who enjoys dodging skewers. (And yes, I suppose I could set up a VPN, but realistically how many people know how to do that? Not to mention network efficiency...)
And if you read a few more posts in this article, you'll see the piracy thing *is* a red-herring, the bnetd guys tried to get a closed source module for verifying keys, but blizzard wouldn't go for it. Oh wait, actually, it isn't that simple because giving out that kind of module would be a HUGE risk. Such is life.
Seriously, why wouldn't you want to use Blizzard's servers if you bought the game? Possibly because some of your friends didn't and you still want to play with them?
And to think, just a few years ago stuff like this was questionable under fair use... (ie: whether you could give non-commercial copies of things to close friends and/or family) Oh wait!! You know what... IT STILL IS! (Actually, for audio and video tapes its not even that questionable because of the betamax dues paid to recording companies) And guess what! If I buy a book, I could invite my whole family, read it to them, and WE WOULDN'T BE BREAKING A SINGLE LAW!!!!
The only law in any of this that would have a major say in doing something like buying 1 copy and sharing with 2 friends, especially temporarily, is the DMCA. I really hope you're not going to try and defend that as a "good law".
Choices: 1) Have Cake 2) Eat Cake 3) Get Stuffed
</rant>
Sorry, I got a little carried away, nothing personal. Unless you're wearing a tie of course...
Boundaries being things we're just not meant to understand?
Boundaries meaning: This is the part of the map we've actually visited, and this other stuff is made up pictures from off in never never land... Willful deception is at least as bad as willful ignorance.
The thing that annoys creationists is that they don't say "I don't know, so I'm going to just assume your fairytale is right."
No, the thing that annoys creationists is when "scientists" want to pretend their naturalistic fairy tales are better than everyone else's fairy tales. (For instance: Saying evolution explains the differences between blue-green algae and man is just as silly as saying the earth was created by God in 6 days)
Slashdot Mirror
Naaa... MMORPG's have been around quite a while. I got hooked on Neverwinter Nights on AOL around 1996 or so. (And it wasn't even new at that time, though it was rather pricey before the $20/month rates came into effect.)
Of course, before that there were the almighty MUDs.
If you don't want to spend the money, you can easily use a spreadsheet & calculator to figure your taxes...
If that's so easy and error free, what makes you think pooling of effort via open source won't work? (ie: Let a few folks who know what they're doing set us up the bomb, then everyone else just pushes the plunger...)
At the very least, people ought to be able to crib each other's spreadsheets. Every American writing up their own tax spreadsheet just sounds like terrible (and error prone) duplication of effort.
(And err.. why would you need a calculator if you have a spreadsheet?)
So say 100 is 1 standard deviation (going by the graph in that paper). Then there would be about 800 distinct values that fall within the most common 95% of clock values.
So odds are somewhere between 1/500 and 1/1000 that any random two computers are indistinguishable. Certiainly useful, but by no means conclusive.
Ya, and communication requires responding to TCP packets too. So, by your logic, it shouldn't be possible to communicate through a firewall either...
...*and* used connections initiated by the clients... to ...*or* used connections initiated by the clients... it would make a lot more sense. In this case, a packet trace of clients connecting to random servers out on the internet taken at, say, their ISP's router, would work wonders.
.56 ppm. Combine that with your IP, and a trace-back to your ISP, and you could be sunk...
Of course, if you change your
Example 1: You're a Comcast cable-modem customer and Comcast wants to know if you use NAT. So, comcast installs 1 new tool on the router you use to get onto their network and viola, they can get your clock skews down to an extremely accurate number. (And consequently count the number of machines behind your NAT'ing firewall.)
Example 2: You're a pir8 arrrr and you hook to a usenet server to download your favorite b00t13. But, the ISP providing access to the server has had complaints and wants to lock things down, so they've installed 1 new tool on the router providing internet access to the usenet server. You connect and download a broken up copy of "The Matrix" and the router in question is able to estimate your clock-skew down to
Why does this whole thing remind me of Milliken oil-drop experiments?
Okay. So they can get within .56 ppm of your actual clock skew. What's the standard deviation of skew for these components? (ie: I'm trying to figure out the likelihood that two machines with "matching" standard deviations, as measured by this test, are not actually the same machine. 1/64? 1/1000? 1/1000000?)
I'm confused by this too. I just checked the paper and it does use the term "bits" to refer to the amount of entropy.
Maybe someone can translate this jargon for us? It looks like we go from 4.87 bits at 0 bytes per hour (for 10 minutes of the hour?) to 6.41 at 2000 packets per hour (for 50 minutes of the hour?).
2^4.87 = 29.2 distinct values
2^6.41 = 85.0 distinct values
But err, those numbers seem awful low considering all the excitement over this method... What are we missing?
This doesn't help. (Not to say "skew correction" is not possible, just that it's part of the escalating arms race.)
You seem to forget this country is (or was) a republic, not a democracy, and that minorities can still easily be opressed under "majority rule". In fact, the very constitution and bill of rights were written for the very purpose of avoiding such opression.
More make right is really no better than might makes right in most ways...
Sounds *fast* but not necessarily *cheap*:
You then destroy all the universes were the dataset isn't sorted.
Maybe collapse is a better word here? Although this was always the part where my understanding started walking out the door... (ie: wouldn't this experientially be like rolling a couple dice and then exploding my own universe if it didn't come up boxcars?)
Am 1 the only one who does this?
We all gotta be unique right?
My trick is stopping at green lights (and sometimes running reds). Be glad your quirk is not life threatening.
For example, if you've ever read c code for efficient string in string searches, you'll probably see 1-2 levels of nesting in a couple of places with 4 or more index variables (often i,j,k,l,etc) and several arrays. These are 20-40 line functions encoding mind-warping ideas that no length of variable name is really going to make you understand... (And if you think you're going to refactor Knuth_Morris_Pratt to make it "better" you've got a serious ego problem even if you have god-like genius and programming acumen)
Personally I see nothing wrong with using short variable names in small functions (say 20 lines or less). In fact, I've read several times that when interviewing potential developers short variable names as loop indices (particularly for small loops) is a sign of an experienced developer.
Basically, someone who's written millions of lines of code in a language isn't going to bother wondering how readable the following is:or even this:They're just going to "bang it out". Further, they're going to realize that they can easily re-use pieces of their code if it tends to use simple and consistent variables... (Kind of like how physicists re-use the same variable names over and over to cement understanding and benefit re-use)
Now... using 'i' as a class, module or global variable? That should revoke at least one of your 10 finger keeping privileges.
Bottom line: The one thing that really distinguishes understandable code from code that has to be thrown out is the top-down documentation. This breaks down to project/sub-project/module/public function/protected function/line level. The distinction in readability between 'NULL==ptr' and '!ptr' is meaningless if the public function they reside in doesn't have proper header comments.
Variables optimize you.
No wait. Actually in Java, runtimes *are* faster when shorter variable names are used. Go figure.
I can handle this problem easily,
Then please do. It is well known that jokes are difficult and/or impossible to translate between lanaguages (or even cultures).
If you can get a Japanese speaker to spew milk out of their nose, and at the same time get the same meaning, in one or two reasonably short sentences I'll consider your translation effort a complete success. If you can only manage the meaning and not the joke, I'd consider that a partial success.
Note: I'll go on to point out that a computer is perfectly capable of verbatim copying your translation (however good or bad it might be) every time it sees that quote. (The translation algorithm worked on words and phrases, I don't recall there being a limit on the size of the phrases... It sounded like that was only bounded by available resources.)
when you really want:
TIME (flies) (as) AN ARROW and FRUIT FLIES (favor) A BANANA
No, that's not what you want at all. Ideally you'd like to convey all the richness and multiple meanings inherit in the original. Time bugs enjoy eating an arrow. Fruit bugs enjoy eating a banana. But also: Time streaks by as though it were an arrow while [slung] fruit streaks by as though it were a banana. Somehow compressing all this into a single sentence that can be taken either way (and others) makes it funny. Of course, when you break it apart like this, all the mirth seeps out.
Note: somehow putting 'and' in the middle and making a compound sentence weakens the joke significantly. Said properly it's: "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a bananna." (Thankya Groucho!)
I think that's the biggest belly laugh I've ever had on slashdot.
I just click 'continue'.
What? Your install programs don't say 'continue' on that page? Maybe you should invest in a hex editor.
Of course, I'm not nearly so cavalier with business oriented purchases...
If it has seen it translated by a human somewhere else before and remembers it... why should it have a problem?
Or are you expecting a computer to solve a problem even a human can't handle?
But then... Maybe I'm a little naive?
Nobody said a contract has to be fair, it just has to be legal.
Actually, a lot of judges take a pretty dim view of a large corporation with many lawyers trying to coerce a "contract" onto Mamma Milqtoast when she's just out trying to live her life.
Do you own a home? Did you know, if someone slipped on the sidewalk in front of your home they can sue you and win. It is your responsibility to maintain its cleanliness (i.e. snow) even though you do not own it.
This just brings me back to: We need to get a better handle on "our laws". (ie: I could see being sued because I put bear-traps on my sidewalk, or even left sand out after working on some project, but not for being out of town when it snows.)
Must I really post a big sign on my website "Do not steal my custom graphics or you will be sued"? A bit of common sense tells you that the graphics were created by someone else, and that you should at least ask for permission before redistributing.
You shouldn't have to put up a "do not copy sign" any more than I should have to put up a "do not doody" sign.
In the case of doody we have vandalism laws, in the case of obsessive deep-linking we have copyright laws. If both are doing their jobs the contracts should be:
A) un-necessary.
B) largely pointless, since most terms either don't apply or are already covered
A vague attempt at a smear against scientists.
0 5/01/23/of _stem_cells_and_neanderthals.php
t ml
y ellowstone/d efault.htmlr 1998/r&r9811e .htm
0 .htm
h dertoc.h tm
I apologize.
I doubt you'd be able to find a single specialist who was working on both stem cell research and evolutionary theory.
Pardon me for thinking they might be related:
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/20
What "hard definition of Naturalism" are you talking about?
Essentially Philosophical Naturalism, or Athiestic Naturalism dressed up as science... The notion that all meaningful phenomena can be explained, or will someday be explainable, by scientific observation and experimentation. In particular, anything that purports to someday be able to fully explain origins (of the universe, life, intelligence etc), or to explain human cognizance I view with a healthy dose of skepticism. Basically, I feel "God of the Gaps" and "Naturalism of the gaps" or "science of the gaps" ought to be on a more or less even footing.
Note: I recognize evolutionary explanations for human development since there's a fair bit of evidence, but saying that also explains sentience is like saying that knowing how to install an upgraded CPU in your PC makes you an expert on processor architecture...
"Any criticism should come from the quality of their ideas and work, not from whether the term "Bible" shows up somewhere on their website..."
I agree... so, where's the research?
Is this a jibe or did you miss my link? I admit, they've a long ways to go... But it is a geology department at an accredited university.
From the footnotes of the article I linked this appears to be one paper the author wrote:
http://biology.swau.edu/faculty/tapeats.h
Though, I admit it appears to contain a lot of long words, and not a lot of experimental data... Of course, I'm not a geologist.
A couple other links from those footnotes:
http://origins.swau.edu/papers/dinos/
http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/r
Report index of grisda.org:
http://www.grisda.org/reports.htm
One report I found interesting (Note apparently by a different creationist research group, looks like it's ICR. And the author is known for some less than first rate grand canyon dating evidently, but still interesting nonetheless):
http://www.grisda.org/origins/1109
Note: I happened upon this website in my searching, and now I literally can't tell if they are serious or not (ie: is someone spoofing this?)
http://www.parentcompany.com/handy_dandy/
And that's the problem with many people on both sides of the debate. They want to take a possibility and turn it into a certainty.
...Saying, as ICR does...
Sorry, but you're wrong. It gives a reasonably good account, which I won't reproduce here as it's done in any number of pop science books.Um who are they exactly? I think I read online they may have spoken at one of my favorite "cult"'s meetings once. Does that make me responsible for their views?
as is the idea that the whole "scientific" community (in scare-quotes)
Actually... that's "scientific" community (in slashdot wannabe quotes).
Naturalism or empiricism is an axiom you are free to accept or reject.
What if I want to reject the one and hold to a modified version of the other? It is entirely possible that some things cannot be explained, even in principle. Therefore, how we choose to deal with things currently unexplainable is important. (Assuming future explanations will come just doesn't cut it)
It gives an account that you accept in leu, apparently, of any other possibilities. Personally, I don't accept it as well enough defined, nor am I convinced there are not better possibilities. Explaining the Cambrian era alone is the subject of many books, few of which agree on the matter...
You do have actual examples with which to back up your assertions, right? Please, tell us all about this "wilfull deception" you're complaining about.
;->
Black holes, string theory, common descent, the idea that evolution may explain the Cambrian Explosion. Presented as possible ideas they're interesting notions. Presented as solid theories without alternatives or any cautionary notes, they border on athiest.
I'm reasonably certain I could get a book or presentation using evolution to explain the Cambrian Explosion past your average public school board. However, pretending not to see the athiestic implications of using evolution to explain the Cambrian Explosion seems a bit deceptive to me. "God did it", or "An alien spaceship landed" are just as likely, and just as useless.
Why put the word "scientists" in quotes? What are you trying to imply here?
I'm implying a real scientist wouldn't make bold claims of certainty when in doubt. So, this kind of thing mostly comes from apologists, the popular press, and other hangers on...
I strongly suggest you go to http://www.talkorigins.org/ and do some serious reading of their FAQs...
Not a terrible site, a bit slanted in some ways. I'll do some more reading there. I seem to recall that or a related site had a couple really good books listed which I read a little while ago in a section with 4 scientists showcasing their beliefs. One was "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind", the other was... something by a Jewish biologist dealing a fair bit with the placebo effect, prayer and the like. I'll have to dig it up.
Please point to the textbook or journal paper that "explains the differences between blue-green algae and man"
On the more narrow topic of the Cambrian and pre-Cambrian, if you go to Amazon and look up Steven J. Gould's "Wonderful Life", there will be a whole slew of related books
I can picture the public school classrom now: "Yes, there are all those other books, but this is STEVEN J GOULD we're talking about here. Which do You think makes more sense?" (Note: Ya, I know he mostly skirts the cause issue... but presumably you get the idea, he does write some controversial stuff.)
What the hell does that phrase mean, anyway?
Are we going to argue over the meaning of "explain"? I mean it *is* part of the definition of theory.
Take a look at the other response to my last post if you want to see why I continue to bring up blue-green algae. (It's mostly a litmus test to see how far you'll push evolutionary theory into explaining things... Particularly where it doesn't belong.)
As to trying to "explain" the relationship between Algae and man here are a couple possibilities:
1) Algae and Man share a common ancestor
2) Algae is an ancestor of Man (unlikely based on evidence?)
3) Man is an ancestor of Algae (refuted by evidence)
4) Both ancestors originate from distinct "spark of life" events. (parallel descent)
Aside from kicking out the two refuted by evidence, picking an option at this time and calling it "best" would be a premature attempt at "explanation", theory building, or whatever you want to call it.
But in legal forums - if their terms of service does not break any laws then it is legally binding.
/.'ers have claimed.
Ya, we need to get a better handle on "our law" don't we? Of course when you say "legally binding" does that mean they can suspend my account for breaking TOS or that they can sue me for breach of contract for breaking TOS? The latter seems pretty one-sided considering I'm the only one who made any promises.
If you don't buy that argument - then you can never make the argument that spyware writers should have to pay you (assuming they get caught and prosecuted) for wasting your bandwidth - something that many
Um... Red Herring? Besides, malware is like toilet papering someone's house, you shouldn't need contract law to know it's more or less wrong. I know I don't have a sign up saying "Please don't throw a bag of doodie on my porch" but I'd still expect someone to get in trouble if I caught em at it.
their specific website and their bandwidth is most certainly theirs.
At what point does the sidewalk outside become the property inside?
Also, if you have a big "open house" sign up, with a bunch of small print saying what folks can and can't do you certainly have the right to kick people out who don't follow your rules (actually, only if it doesn't break laws as you say) but can you also sue them?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of stripping someone's content, I think that's wrong no matter how it is done and with or without a TOS about it. I just get a bit impatient with all this lawyerly binding contract nonsense. Contracts serve a specific purpose, and it isn't to undergird civilized behavior.
If you didn't want that sentence criticized, why did you put it in there? Is this a friendly withdrawal of that particular comment?
As for LAN's, you think my friends want to bother driving 30 miles, (or 3,000) so they can play a game with me? Looks like I'm not the only one who enjoys dodging skewers. (And yes, I suppose I could set up a VPN, but realistically how many people know how to do that? Not to mention network efficiency...)
And if you read a few more posts in this article, you'll see the piracy thing *is* a red-herring, the bnetd guys tried to get a closed source module for verifying keys, but blizzard wouldn't go for it. Oh wait, actually, it isn't that simple because giving out that kind of module would be a HUGE risk. Such is life.
Seriously, why wouldn't you want to use Blizzard's servers if you bought the game? Possibly because some of your friends didn't and you still want to play with them?
And to think, just a few years ago stuff like this was questionable under fair use... (ie: whether you could give non-commercial copies of things to close friends and/or family) Oh wait!! You know what... IT STILL IS! (Actually, for audio and video tapes its not even that questionable because of the betamax dues paid to recording companies) And guess what! If I buy a book, I could invite my whole family, read it to them, and WE WOULDN'T BE BREAKING A SINGLE LAW!!!!
The only law in any of this that would have a major say in doing something like buying 1 copy and sharing with 2 friends, especially temporarily, is the DMCA. I really hope you're not going to try and defend that as a "good law".
Choices:
1) Have Cake
2) Eat Cake
3) Get Stuffed
</rant>
Sorry, I got a little carried away, nothing personal. Unless you're wearing a tie of course...
Boundaries being things we're just not meant to understand?
Boundaries meaning: This is the part of the map we've actually visited, and this other stuff is made up pictures from off in never never land... Willful deception is at least as bad as willful ignorance.
The thing that annoys creationists is that they don't say "I don't know, so I'm going to just assume your fairytale is right."
No, the thing that annoys creationists is when "scientists" want to pretend their naturalistic fairy tales are better than everyone else's fairy tales. (For instance: Saying evolution explains the differences between blue-green algae and man is just as silly as saying the earth was created by God in 6 days)