I lived in Ohio for many years and still drive through regularly. You do NOT want to speed on the highways in Ohio. Seriously. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is one of the more ticket-happy police organizations in the country. I've driven from Ohio to Florida and seen more cops in Ohio than in all the other states on the trip combined. I think the state gets a ridiculous amount of revenue from speeding tickets on the highway. The officers in the highway patrol are not especially friendly either. Professional enough but not courteous or forgiving. You will not talk your way out of a ticket if they pull you over.
Basic suggestions when driving on the highways in Ohio. Do not drive more than 5mph over the speed limit and under no circumstances should you go significantly faster than the traffic around you. Radar detectors are legal but the state highway patrol uses laser detectors heavily. If you absolutely must drive faster than I suggested you should invest in a detector. Believe me, you'll need it. If you see one cop in Ohio you can bet others are out too. They like to hide behind obstructions and in the medians. Sometimes they'll have the guy with the laser/radar identifying speeders and the officers pulling people over are further up the road.
If they halved the price, they could possibly quadruple the number of subscribers.
That assumes there are no capacity restrictions. While I can't say for certain I suspect their pricing is due to technical limitations of the satellites. They probably can only handle a certain number of subscribers and if they tried to get more they couldn't adequately serve them. If they are capacity limited (and I'm just hypothesizing that they are) almost the worst thing that could happen to them would be to get too many customers. Too much business too quickly can kill a company almost as effectively as not enough business.
We all know many religious people. And I stand by my statement that relatively few of them are genuinely interested in truth, especially when it comes to their religious beliefs.
Many do, unless your only exposure to religious people is high school students who got hyped up by some preacher and feel hyped up, or if you talk to religious people who aren't sophisticated enough to think that deeply......
I'm not talking about a conscious awareness that the god of christianity or islam might not exist. Of course most adults are able to comprehend the idea. I'm talking about what they actually do with the idea. If they still go to church they have decided that they really believe. They haven't actually accepted the idea that they might be better off worshiping the flying spaghetti monster or maybe even nothing at all. Their actions are speaking to their actual beliefs. There is no point or purpose in going to church if you do not actually believe (or want/hope to believe which is functionally the same thing) in the teaching of that church. They believe in spite of the fact that there is nothing factual to support that belief. QED, they are not interested in the truth.
They would be de-facto agnostics.
Unless they actually have evidence.
Nobody in the entire world has any conclusive evidence of the existence or non-existence of a diety. Do you have an actual point to make?
Larry Wall is a good example of someone who combines science and religion
Larry Wall is not a scientist. I very much respect his abilities as a programmer/engineer, but he does not create or test scientific hypothesis. Furthermore the ability to think like a scientist is not a skill some people choose to apply to every aspect of their lives. Clearly Mr. Wall has decided to believe in a god in spite of the lack of any actual objective proof.
...and he gave a fairly logical response [slashdot.org] when he was interviewed on Slashdot a few years back.
I read his response when it was first published and it is complete nonsense. His argument relies on the premise that if you accept the idea that a god might exist, however unlikely, that you de-facto belief that a god does exist. His argument is an argument from ignorance - because he can't think of a proof that god doesn't exist he therefore believes that god does exist - confirming his pre-existing biases in the process.
I'm fairly creeped out by anyone who admits they want to convert me to their religion. I think Larry Wall is probably a decent enough fellow but I want nothing to do with his religious beliefs. I'd be much happier if he would just keep them to himself.
OK, so you have an organization which believes that it's good to help other people, and to that end it pools the resources of its constituents to perform charitable works in the community and encourages other people to join in its way of thinking. And that's bad... why, exactly?
Clever attempt to frame the issue. Problem is that the issue isn't that simple. You left out some pretty important details.
First you are presuming that the primary goal of the organization is to help other people. That does not describe most religions at all. The primary purpose of religions is to promote a belief in a god. Anything additional is simple the trimming around the edges. Any religion that claims its purpose is to do charitable works is telling you a lie. I have no faith in the integrity of those who work under false pretenses no matter how noble the charitable work might be.
Second, proselytizing to those in dire straights is not far removed from extortion. The basic message is that "if you worship our imaginary friend we'll give you the food/medicine/etc you need". Oh they may not mean it in a threatening way but that IS the message at the end of the day, basically an implied threat.
Seriously, you may hate religion, but a lot of people don't.
Hate? I am utterly indifferent to the idea of worshiping a god in principle. Also I do not remotely care that some people like it. A lot of people like to smoke too but that doesn't mean it is good for them. If they want to go off and worship their imaginary friends in the sky I think that is weird but nothing worse. The problem is that it NEVER just stops there. What I find particularly distasteful is the tendency of practitioners of particular religions (christanity and islam head the list) to try to convert others to join their crazy little beliefs, sometimes at the point of a sword. Using charitable acts as a tool for conversion is more subtle but nearly as despicable.
religious organizations do contribute a lot to communities in America and worldwide in the form of charitable works -- perhaps a lot more than you seem willing to recognize
You mean aside from the hospitals, schools, soup kitchens, medical research, etc. Yeah, I'm well aware of what they do and the scale of it too. I've even worked in some of those institutions. But like with my government I'm VERY cautious about trusting the motives of religious leaders. They are after power just as much as anyone else. If you don't think so, explain to me why the pope needs to live somewhere as opulent as the Vatican. Yes they often do good works but only a fool doesn't ask what the price for those good works is. There is no free lunch.
It's not like anybody who has spent their life as a member of a church wakes up one morning and says, "God dammit, I've been so blind! The only reason this church fed me when I was hungry all those years ago was because they wanted to sucker me into joining this stupid church!"
Nice straw man argument. Of course it never happens like that though people do regularly realize that their church has been feeding them a big helping of BS. No, churches don't feed people to directly recruit members most of the time. But it isn't hard to find individuals who decided to join a religion after an encounter with a charitable group who just happens to be all too willing to discuss having jesus as "your personal savior" at a time when they were down on their luck. Make NO mistake that churches are actively in the business of recruiting.
In short, yes I am quite cynical about the motivations of religious doctrine that promotes charity. I appreciate their charitable acts but I'm not about to give them a free pass. When religions actively disavow trying to recruit new members into their club then I'll stop worrying about whether their actions are disingenuous.
But there are those questions which are impossible to answer even with cutting edge science, which is where religion comes in: to answer the "why."
You are making the god of the gaps argument. Religion doesn't provide an answer to "why". It never has. Religion soothes the insecure but it doesn't provide actual answers.
Science appeals to people who search for truth, and traditionally so has religion.
Why do you assume that those who follow religion have the slightest interest in the truth? If they did they would have to, in practice, acknowledge the possibility that their religion is a bunch of made up nonsense. They would be de-facto agnostics. You cannot search for "truth" while deciding what the truth is ahead of time. Go into any church and inform the congregation that they have to give up their ideas about god so that they can search for the truth. Let me know how that works out for you.
suggesting that a divine being (perhaps the source of the universe), is somehow subject to science, is a curious argument at best.
Your argument presupposes that divine beings exist in some form which is not an argument an objective scientist should entertain. Granted, scientists are not always perfectly objective and come with biases but that doesn't mean the concept of a divine being is immune from the scientific method. Look at it the other way around. Your divine beings supposedly created this universe. Presuming they exist they obviously created scientific reasoning along with it. Yet you argue that we should not apply the scientific method to a claim by a human regarding these supposed divine beings? To date there is not one speck of measurable evidence for the existence of these supposed divine beings. Perhaps we are unable to observe them but from a practical standpoint science tells us that there is no evidence to support their existence. It's kind of a useless exercise to apply science to a made up story (religion makes no falsifiable claims) but we certainly can do it.
Science is simple stating this is how the world works based on what I can see and logically infer from those observations. If you rely on science to understand the universe, you have to accept that there are things you don't know. We may figure those things out later - or they might not. We knew nothing about computer chips 200 years ago but that just meant that we had new discoveries to make. There is no need to invoke a deity to explain the unknown but there is NO difference between applying the scientific method to understanding how a bird flies versus whether a divine being exists. There is observable evidence of the former and none so far for the later that rises to the level of proof. "Gods" are not immune to scientific reasoning.
I think what the OP is saying is that religions, for all of their wonky beliefs, actually do a lot of good in the world.
So what? If they were doing these charitable works for purely altruistic reasons I would be inclined to agree with you and overlook the eccentricity of their beliefs. After all, a good work is a good work. But the problem is that religious institutions have a long track record of being unable to divorce their charitable acts from their efforts to proselytize and a good work with an ulterior motive is not nearly so noble.
The fact is that the ability to perform compassionate charitable works does not and never will require a belief in a spiritual entity of any kind. Religious groups widely use their charitable acts as recruiting and indoctrination tools. Not always I'll grant you, but often enough. One of the most fertile recruiting grounds for religious conversion is among people who are down on their luck. Religious leaders have known this for thousands of years and regularly use it to their advantage. It is not noble, generous or selfless.
It's an effective set of organizations...
Effective can have a lot of meanings and not all of them are good.
...that have made many positive contributions to society, historically and currently, and can be a strong motivator for social justice and poverty issues.
All true but I'm not willing to divorce the unfortunate baggage that comes along with those positive achievements. Religion doesn't get a free pass for all the wars, persecutions, hatred and misery they have caused because members of a given religion happen to do some charitable works too.
For every church group that opposes birth control in Africa on "moral" grounds, there is usually one that is there handing out condoms. We just hear a lot about the former, and less about the latter.
If this is true then why don't they speak up? Do they lack the courage of their convictions? Or do they not exist? If what you say is true, prove it.
Re:The next James Bond as well!
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The Hobbit On Hold
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· Score: 2, Interesting
There is no debate, the correct answer is Connery was the best Bond.
I don't have a favorite Bond actor though I can't say I liked Connery best in the role. He was fine as Bond, sort of defined it I guess, but I think others have done at least as well. I do have a least favorite (Roger Moore) and Connery did not star in my favorite Bond movies (Casino Royale and A View to A Kill) so if I don't like Connery's Bond movies the best it's hard for me to like him best in the role. Moore was generally annoying in the role, a little to smug and "perfect", and though I really liked A View to A Kill, I hated Moonraker and several others he was in. None of the guys who have been in the role have done a terrible job. Sometimes the directing or the script has sucked.
The only money spent in the stock market that actually goes towards production of wealth are the stocks bought during an IPO.
Completely incorrect. Companies sell stock to raise capital into the market WELL after the IPO. It happens regularly in almost every stock market in the world. Typically they sell treasury stock though there are other permutations. Some types of companies in fact cannot raise funds in the bond market (biotech for example) because they are light on tangible assets so if they couldn't sell stock into the market after the IPO it would be effectively impossible for them to gain financing. Look at any biotech company's balance sheet and you'll find little to no debt but if you read their annual reports you'll find issuance of stock is a regular occurrence even well after the IPO.
The only money retrieved from the stock market that actually comes from production of wealth are dividends and stock buybacks.
Companies are regularly liquidated and money comes out of the market that way too. You also can use stock as collateral for a loan (margin) which takes cash out too. Furthermore your statement is misleading because money is not the only asset of value. Money is an exchange medium but it's only valuable insofar as you can exchange it for other assets, tangible or otherwise. You can use stock to buy companies or even physical assets like real estate or equipment. Furthermore there are other markets for financial instruments besides stock. Bonds, futures, options, even currency. All of these are used for financing and all of them experience speculation. Speculation is not inherently a bad thing. It provides liquidity which is vital to the proper functioning of an economy. Our current financial crisis was essentially a liquidity trap. Frankly, you aren't really considering this very carefully.
The vast majority of activity on the market is strictly sucker A selling a piece of paper to a bigger sucker B, whose only hope of "monetizing" that paper is selling it to an even bigger sucker.
You could say that about almost any asset. Gold, bonds, real estate, pork bellies, cotton, patents... In ANY market the activity is an act of attempting to buy low and sell high. Financial instruments are merely one of many markets - it's just a bit more high profile because other markets depend on the availability of capital.
None of this activity has anything to do with "capital" in terms of wealth production.
Sure it does. You do not need to manufacture a tangible product to create wealth. You obviously can increase wealth through manufacturing but manufacturing is not the only valuable activity in the world. In fact without a lot of other activities, manufacturing as we know it could not occur. You need financing, transport, sales, marketing, warehousing, and information management among other activities to make even the simplest manufacturing feasible. You seriously need to learn about the concept of time value of money because it is the root of all economic activity. The value of any activity is the present value of all future free cash flows. You'll note that producing a tangible asset is not a requirement in that equation.
Not the ones you or I are likely to buy. There are high end laser and copier units (big $$$) that are used in photo processing and print shops that can produce images of similar quality. The $1000 color laser is fine for the occasional marketing brochure but my experience with them to date has been that you still need an inkjet or similar printer (say thermal wax transfer) for the best quality images.
To my mind printing images is one of the only two remaining reasons to buy an inkjet anymore. (the other is large format work) They do a pretty good job and are price competitive with other technologies for those purposes. Black and white text though is a total waste of money on an inkjet.
No one is claiming that the engineering in ink cartridges isn't impressive. This has very little to do with the economics of what price the cartridges should sell at over of the long run. Also as impressive as the engineering might be in the ink cartridges, the printers themselves are pieces of shit. Inkjet printers are engineered to be as low cost as possible and as a result they break easily, perform badly and are generally highly annoying to use. I never use an inkjet when I have a laser printer available to me. I simply will not buy a consumer grade inkjet from HP. They break far too easily and are too expensive to operate.
And thats just the ink. The R&D and engineering that goes into the cartridge and printer is unbelievable, and you get one of them for your $35 too, your own little piece of a few billion invested in R&D, tooling, and cartridge factory
Ever hear about economies of scale? All those R&D and engineering (and tooling and PP&E) costs are fixed costs once you go into production. As production ramps up the per unit cost should come down as the fixed costs get amortized and become an increasingly smaller amount. What we should see is ink cartridges being relatively expensive at first and then dropping in price over time similar to what we see with computer chips. The engineering is DONE once it is in production and the costs should reflect that fact.
HP keeps prices high through a combination of patent protection, scale, lock in, marketing, bribery (allegedly) and probably oligopoly. There are only four major vendors of inkjet printer (HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark) and all of them share the same "razors and blades" business model pioneered by Gillette. It's not that hard for a small group of companies to (tacitly or explicitly) collude to keep prices high because it is in all their interest to do so. Hard to prove but they're smart people and understand the game. If there were more participants in the market it would be harder for them to keep prices high but it's not an easy market to get into.
If your idea of accurate pricing is how much a refill maker charges to rip off HP's formulations, have HP effectively give away the cartridges, and have you do the labor filling them, then I guess you could say the ink is cheap.
It is cheap. The ink is being sold at a tremendous markup or else the business would not be profitable since the printers are being sold at or below cost. HP chose the cheap-printers/expensive-ink business model. If someone undercuts them I'm not going to shed a tear. It was their choice and they can choke on it if the business model doesn't work. I have zero sympathy for them. I think they sell a crappy product and I think they rip people off. I used to respect HP but not anymore.
I dont begrudge HP their business model, especially since we are all the people that made it the dominant technology by buying into it.
Speak for yourself. I use a laser printer that prints 20,000 pages on one toner cartridge (Lexmark Optra) and I get printouts for $0.025 per page versus $0.10-0.15 for simple black and white on an inkjet. Desktop laser printers are available for under $200 these days and the per page cost blows inkjets away. Unless you have a specific need for an inkjet (usually photos or large format drafting) you are a retard if you buy an inkjet.
The amount and frequency of trading of stocks should be on roughly the same order of magnitude as the practical ability of the corporate entity to reallocate its real capital.
And who decides what an appropriate frequency would be? On what basis? How do you efficiently decide and how often do you reconsider? Do you have any idea how fast massive amounts of capital can be brought to bear if the need arises? (hint - it is REALLY fast if there is a good reason) Bear in mind that under your proposal you have to do this for EVERY asset which, to grossly understate matters, is an unbelievably huge and difficult task. Planned economies haven't historically worked especially well. Well designed and managed markets are generally MUCH better at efficiently allocating capital where it is needed. Perhaps you have some new insight that will change things?
Do it any faster, and you're not reacting to real information, but noise, and you're making the system worse.
The fallacy in your argument is that you think the real information is "facts" about the asset. Markets are about collective opinions above all else. Sure, tangible facts get into the mix but when you are evaluating any investment the real question you are asking is "will enough other people want this asset to make the price increase?" Stocks go up and down because of what people believe about those stocks - whether it is true or not is almost irrelevant.
I'll jump in since I'm WELL past the age where I could be described as a "boy" you condescending prick.
When you get to middle-age like me you begin to understand that life is about tolerating and making allowances for others and not letting insignificant bits of crap ruin your day.
Bullshit. There are sometimes things that cannot under any circumstances be tolerated. There are some world views that simply cannot peacefully coexist. There are those who will attempt to conquer, destroy, enslave and humiliate. I should just tolerate this? I think you are the one who needs a dose of the real world.
Oscar Wilde actually said it best "everything in moderation, including moderation". That applies to tolerance too.
But going out of your way to say "fuck you, here's what we think of your religion" just to try to provoke a group of extremists who are prone to violence doesn't make much sense.
It makes plenty of sense in the same way that mass protests against a misbehaving government make sense. If you tell them "the emperor has no clothes" just by yourself they might kill you. If thousands or millions say something is crazy, irrational and wrong then it is harder for those in power to push back. There is power in groups of people who are unwilling to be cowed by those in power. This demand that we "respect" their religious idol is an attempt to coerce MY behavior and I'm not willing to be coerced. When hundreds of thousands of people point out that they are being a bully and aren't going to take it any more then the crazies lose power.
I'll never understand why respecting someone else's religious views (or lack there of) is such a bad thing?
Because many religions (particularly christianity and islam) actively seek to impose their worldview on those who do not share their beliefs. It is a key part of their belief system that they expressly do not respect the fact that I don't believe in their god. According to some of them I should be put to death for not converting to their irrational worship. Adults who believe you should respect their imaginary friends and will hurt you if you don't is not something I'm particularly inclined to respect. If they keep their crazy beliefs to themselves they'll never have a problem with me. But there always seem to be those who can't resist trying to convert the unbelievers by any means necessary.
Disrespecting their religious views just to get a rise out of them is counterproductive, and when someone gets hurt or killed those who are on the receiving end of the violence will act as though they are surprised by it.
Surprised? I don't think anyone is surprised at how crazy religious zealots get. That is also not a compelling argument for appeasing them or their crazy irrational beliefs.
Don't poke a bear with a stick - it never ends well.
obviously you've never owned a 30" lcd, 2560x1600 is a wonderful resolution. I've got one of those screens. It blows away anything you can buy in multi monitor.
A 3 monitor setup with 1920x1200 displays gives an effective resolution of 5760x1200. That's roughly 50% more pixels than your 30" 2560x1600 display. Nothing wrong with a huge monitor but it's not better for every purpose. Personally I find a multiple monitor setup more useful for the way I work. YMMV.
With annoying gaps between the screens. Watch you not notice something because it's straddling a gap.
I've been doing a multi-monitor setup for a while. In practice this isn't a problem. Usually you have different items you are working on on different screens. Now and then you'll stretch across multiple monitors but really most of the time I prefer 2-3 monitors over one huge one. Normally I have my email/IM/calendar on one monitor, my active work on a second window and a browser or documentation on the third if I have it. (usually I have 2). Works really well.
we are suppose to be nice to each other and not offend other people
Only to a point. There are times when offense is impossible to avoid or even intended. I have no objection to a well timed and well delivered insult. That can be high art when done properly.
if i refer to women as bitches, i am comparing females of my own species to female dogs.
You apparently neglected to actually read my fucking post. Bitch is only offensive in a context. If I'm talking about my female collie, the word bitch is completely appropriate, accurate and should offend no one. Anyone who is offended by its use in that context is a prissy moron for whom I have no respect.
Look at it this way: if a bird mimics the sound, is that still a curse? No. It has no context, no intent and no meaning. It's just a sound.
but if we are to believe what you say, that words cannot offend, well then you've just neutered my ability to attack with words
Words absolutely can offend you moron. There is a huge difference between me hitting my hand with a hammer and exclaiming "fuck" and me telling you to "go fuck a donkey". Context makes all the difference.
Can somebody explain to me what exactly is bad about swearing?
Not really, no.
Apparently some people think certain words are evil, bad and offensive regardless of the context in which they are used. This argument is of course fucking absurd. Word have no meaning without context. I believe George Carlin addressed this issue at some length and expense.
OK... So the companies that decided to sell their games for half the price or even less are stupid?
Didn't say that. They might be brilliant. I'm just saying you can't automatically assume that increased revenue occurred without increased costs as well. Profits may have gone up but they also might have declined - we just can't assume either case just by looking at the change in revenue. To know whether profits improved we need information about costs which companies rarely share in sufficient detail to be useful.
Just pointing out the potential flaw in that piece of your argument. On the whole I pretty much agree with what you said.
Utilities, trains, software development, and a few other industries almost always feature a declining average cost curve...
Quite correct but the important word there is "almost". In all likelihood most of Steam's costs are fixed and the marginal cost of an additional bit of software is a decent approximation of zero. BUT we don't know for sure. It's possible they have weird licensing schemes that make them an unusual case. All I'm saying is without additional information it is impossible to say for sure whether dropping prices would increase profit in their particular case.
Steam showed that halving the game's price results is more than twice the sales. Which in the end means more profit.
Whether that results in more profit depends on the cost structure. It's quite easy to show a case where more doubling sales by cutting price results in less profit despite greater revenue. For most companies profit is maximized when marginal cost equals marginal revenue. At some level of sales the cost to sell an extra unit outweighs the additional revenue realized. The exception to this is if marginal revenue exceeds marginal cost at all levels of production (plausible for Steam though not certain) in which case maximizing revenue will maximize profits. You might be right but I'd caution you to not assume so much about the cost structure of any given company.
How do you know that it doesn't trigger when it shouldn't?
You can feel the ABS system work when it comes on. If you can't feel it, it probably didn't come on when it shouldn't have.
Say an emergency stop on the freeway, but without skidding? ABS helps with steering, but it hurts braking power.
Unless the highway is covered in gravel, sand or deep snow, ABS has been proven to improve braking performance such that even expert drivers would have difficulty improving on the braking distances. Furthermore the primary purpose of ABS is to maintain the ability to control the car on slippery surfaces when braking.
Why don't you get rid of your current car and buy a vehicle which is old enough to be (mostly) free of microelectronics?
Because my current car, which has lots of microelectronics, is more reliable and much more pleasant to drive than any vehicle that fits your description. Yes I'm old enough to have owned and driven cars with little in the way of microelectronics. I've even been in the business of buying/selling classic cars. Old cars might look nice but those electronics (usually) make a huge difference in performance and reliability. Car manufacturers don't use them because they think sensors and microcode are cool. They'd rather save the money if the electronics didn't really work.
Then you could not only easily tinker with pretty common tools but also fix mechanical defects as they occur.
That presumes you can find parts for an old/ancient car for reasonable prices. Old and mechanical does not necessarily equate to "easy" or cheap or pleasant to drive or reliable. Today's cars are demonstrably more reliable than those of decades past. Personally I prefer a car that breaks down less in the first place. You're not going to find some relic of a car that isn't going to need constant wrenching to stay on the road.
Slashdot Mirror
I lived in Ohio for many years and still drive through regularly. You do NOT want to speed on the highways in Ohio. Seriously. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is one of the more ticket-happy police organizations in the country. I've driven from Ohio to Florida and seen more cops in Ohio than in all the other states on the trip combined. I think the state gets a ridiculous amount of revenue from speeding tickets on the highway. The officers in the highway patrol are not especially friendly either. Professional enough but not courteous or forgiving. You will not talk your way out of a ticket if they pull you over.
Basic suggestions when driving on the highways in Ohio. Do not drive more than 5mph over the speed limit and under no circumstances should you go significantly faster than the traffic around you. Radar detectors are legal but the state highway patrol uses laser detectors heavily. If you absolutely must drive faster than I suggested you should invest in a detector. Believe me, you'll need it. If you see one cop in Ohio you can bet others are out too. They like to hide behind obstructions and in the medians. Sometimes they'll have the guy with the laser/radar identifying speeders and the officers pulling people over are further up the road.
If they halved the price, they could possibly quadruple the number of subscribers.
That assumes there are no capacity restrictions. While I can't say for certain I suspect their pricing is due to technical limitations of the satellites. They probably can only handle a certain number of subscribers and if they tried to get more they couldn't adequately serve them. If they are capacity limited (and I'm just hypothesizing that they are) almost the worst thing that could happen to them would be to get too many customers. Too much business too quickly can kill a company almost as effectively as not enough business.
Because I've known many religious people.
We all know many religious people. And I stand by my statement that relatively few of them are genuinely interested in truth, especially when it comes to their religious beliefs.
Many do, unless your only exposure to religious people is high school students who got hyped up by some preacher and feel hyped up, or if you talk to religious people who aren't sophisticated enough to think that deeply......
I'm not talking about a conscious awareness that the god of christianity or islam might not exist. Of course most adults are able to comprehend the idea. I'm talking about what they actually do with the idea. If they still go to church they have decided that they really believe. They haven't actually accepted the idea that they might be better off worshiping the flying spaghetti monster or maybe even nothing at all. Their actions are speaking to their actual beliefs. There is no point or purpose in going to church if you do not actually believe (or want/hope to believe which is functionally the same thing) in the teaching of that church. They believe in spite of the fact that there is nothing factual to support that belief. QED, they are not interested in the truth.
They would be de-facto agnostics.
Unless they actually have evidence.
Nobody in the entire world has any conclusive evidence of the existence or non-existence of a diety. Do you have an actual point to make?
Larry Wall is a good example of someone who combines science and religion
Larry Wall is not a scientist. I very much respect his abilities as a programmer/engineer, but he does not create or test scientific hypothesis. Furthermore the ability to think like a scientist is not a skill some people choose to apply to every aspect of their lives. Clearly Mr. Wall has decided to believe in a god in spite of the lack of any actual objective proof.
...and he gave a fairly logical response [slashdot.org] when he was interviewed on Slashdot a few years back.
I read his response when it was first published and it is complete nonsense. His argument relies on the premise that if you accept the idea that a god might exist, however unlikely, that you de-facto belief that a god does exist. His argument is an argument from ignorance - because he can't think of a proof that god doesn't exist he therefore believes that god does exist - confirming his pre-existing biases in the process.
I'm fairly creeped out by anyone who admits they want to convert me to their religion. I think Larry Wall is probably a decent enough fellow but I want nothing to do with his religious beliefs. I'd be much happier if he would just keep them to himself.
OK, so you have an organization which believes that it's good to help other people, and to that end it pools the resources of its constituents to perform charitable works in the community and encourages other people to join in its way of thinking. And that's bad... why, exactly?
Clever attempt to frame the issue. Problem is that the issue isn't that simple. You left out some pretty important details.
First you are presuming that the primary goal of the organization is to help other people. That does not describe most religions at all. The primary purpose of religions is to promote a belief in a god. Anything additional is simple the trimming around the edges. Any religion that claims its purpose is to do charitable works is telling you a lie. I have no faith in the integrity of those who work under false pretenses no matter how noble the charitable work might be.
Second, proselytizing to those in dire straights is not far removed from extortion. The basic message is that "if you worship our imaginary friend we'll give you the food/medicine/etc you need". Oh they may not mean it in a threatening way but that IS the message at the end of the day, basically an implied threat.
Seriously, you may hate religion, but a lot of people don't.
Hate? I am utterly indifferent to the idea of worshiping a god in principle. Also I do not remotely care that some people like it. A lot of people like to smoke too but that doesn't mean it is good for them. If they want to go off and worship their imaginary friends in the sky I think that is weird but nothing worse. The problem is that it NEVER just stops there. What I find particularly distasteful is the tendency of practitioners of particular religions (christanity and islam head the list) to try to convert others to join their crazy little beliefs, sometimes at the point of a sword. Using charitable acts as a tool for conversion is more subtle but nearly as despicable.
religious organizations do contribute a lot to communities in America and worldwide in the form of charitable works -- perhaps a lot more than you seem willing to recognize
You mean aside from the hospitals, schools, soup kitchens, medical research, etc. Yeah, I'm well aware of what they do and the scale of it too. I've even worked in some of those institutions. But like with my government I'm VERY cautious about trusting the motives of religious leaders. They are after power just as much as anyone else. If you don't think so, explain to me why the pope needs to live somewhere as opulent as the Vatican. Yes they often do good works but only a fool doesn't ask what the price for those good works is. There is no free lunch.
It's not like anybody who has spent their life as a member of a church wakes up one morning and says, "God dammit, I've been so blind! The only reason this church fed me when I was hungry all those years ago was because they wanted to sucker me into joining this stupid church!"
Nice straw man argument. Of course it never happens like that though people do regularly realize that their church has been feeding them a big helping of BS. No, churches don't feed people to directly recruit members most of the time. But it isn't hard to find individuals who decided to join a religion after an encounter with a charitable group who just happens to be all too willing to discuss having jesus as "your personal savior" at a time when they were down on their luck. Make NO mistake that churches are actively in the business of recruiting.
In short, yes I am quite cynical about the motivations of religious doctrine that promotes charity. I appreciate their charitable acts but I'm not about to give them a free pass. When religions actively disavow trying to recruit new members into their club then I'll stop worrying about whether their actions are disingenuous.
But there are those questions which are impossible to answer even with cutting edge science, which is where religion comes in: to answer the "why."
You are making the god of the gaps argument. Religion doesn't provide an answer to "why". It never has. Religion soothes the insecure but it doesn't provide actual answers.
Science appeals to people who search for truth, and traditionally so has religion.
Why do you assume that those who follow religion have the slightest interest in the truth? If they did they would have to, in practice, acknowledge the possibility that their religion is a bunch of made up nonsense. They would be de-facto agnostics. You cannot search for "truth" while deciding what the truth is ahead of time. Go into any church and inform the congregation that they have to give up their ideas about god so that they can search for the truth. Let me know how that works out for you.
suggesting that a divine being (perhaps the source of the universe), is somehow subject to science, is a curious argument at best.
Your argument presupposes that divine beings exist in some form which is not an argument an objective scientist should entertain. Granted, scientists are not always perfectly objective and come with biases but that doesn't mean the concept of a divine being is immune from the scientific method. Look at it the other way around. Your divine beings supposedly created this universe. Presuming they exist they obviously created scientific reasoning along with it. Yet you argue that we should not apply the scientific method to a claim by a human regarding these supposed divine beings? To date there is not one speck of measurable evidence for the existence of these supposed divine beings. Perhaps we are unable to observe them but from a practical standpoint science tells us that there is no evidence to support their existence. It's kind of a useless exercise to apply science to a made up story (religion makes no falsifiable claims) but we certainly can do it.
Science is simple stating this is how the world works based on what I can see and logically infer from those observations. If you rely on science to understand the universe, you have to accept that there are things you don't know. We may figure those things out later - or they might not. We knew nothing about computer chips 200 years ago but that just meant that we had new discoveries to make. There is no need to invoke a deity to explain the unknown but there is NO difference between applying the scientific method to understanding how a bird flies versus whether a divine being exists. There is observable evidence of the former and none so far for the later that rises to the level of proof. "Gods" are not immune to scientific reasoning.
I think what the OP is saying is that religions, for all of their wonky beliefs, actually do a lot of good in the world.
So what? If they were doing these charitable works for purely altruistic reasons I would be inclined to agree with you and overlook the eccentricity of their beliefs. After all, a good work is a good work. But the problem is that religious institutions have a long track record of being unable to divorce their charitable acts from their efforts to proselytize and a good work with an ulterior motive is not nearly so noble.
The fact is that the ability to perform compassionate charitable works does not and never will require a belief in a spiritual entity of any kind. Religious groups widely use their charitable acts as recruiting and indoctrination tools. Not always I'll grant you, but often enough. One of the most fertile recruiting grounds for religious conversion is among people who are down on their luck. Religious leaders have known this for thousands of years and regularly use it to their advantage. It is not noble, generous or selfless.
It's an effective set of organizations...
Effective can have a lot of meanings and not all of them are good.
...that have made many positive contributions to society, historically and currently, and can be a strong motivator for social justice and poverty issues.
All true but I'm not willing to divorce the unfortunate baggage that comes along with those positive achievements. Religion doesn't get a free pass for all the wars, persecutions, hatred and misery they have caused because members of a given religion happen to do some charitable works too.
For every church group that opposes birth control in Africa on "moral" grounds, there is usually one that is there handing out condoms. We just hear a lot about the former, and less about the latter.
If this is true then why don't they speak up? Do they lack the courage of their convictions? Or do they not exist? If what you say is true, prove it.
There is no debate, the correct answer is Connery was the best Bond.
I don't have a favorite Bond actor though I can't say I liked Connery best in the role. He was fine as Bond, sort of defined it I guess, but I think others have done at least as well. I do have a least favorite (Roger Moore) and Connery did not star in my favorite Bond movies (Casino Royale and A View to A Kill) so if I don't like Connery's Bond movies the best it's hard for me to like him best in the role. Moore was generally annoying in the role, a little to smug and "perfect", and though I really liked A View to A Kill, I hated Moonraker and several others he was in. None of the guys who have been in the role have done a terrible job. Sometimes the directing or the script has sucked.
The only money spent in the stock market that actually goes towards production of wealth are the stocks bought during an IPO.
Completely incorrect. Companies sell stock to raise capital into the market WELL after the IPO. It happens regularly in almost every stock market in the world. Typically they sell treasury stock though there are other permutations. Some types of companies in fact cannot raise funds in the bond market (biotech for example) because they are light on tangible assets so if they couldn't sell stock into the market after the IPO it would be effectively impossible for them to gain financing. Look at any biotech company's balance sheet and you'll find little to no debt but if you read their annual reports you'll find issuance of stock is a regular occurrence even well after the IPO.
The only money retrieved from the stock market that actually comes from production of wealth are dividends and stock buybacks.
Companies are regularly liquidated and money comes out of the market that way too. You also can use stock as collateral for a loan (margin) which takes cash out too. Furthermore your statement is misleading because money is not the only asset of value. Money is an exchange medium but it's only valuable insofar as you can exchange it for other assets, tangible or otherwise. You can use stock to buy companies or even physical assets like real estate or equipment. Furthermore there are other markets for financial instruments besides stock. Bonds, futures, options, even currency. All of these are used for financing and all of them experience speculation. Speculation is not inherently a bad thing. It provides liquidity which is vital to the proper functioning of an economy. Our current financial crisis was essentially a liquidity trap. Frankly, you aren't really considering this very carefully.
The vast majority of activity on the market is strictly sucker A selling a piece of paper to a bigger sucker B, whose only hope of "monetizing" that paper is selling it to an even bigger sucker.
You could say that about almost any asset. Gold, bonds, real estate, pork bellies, cotton, patents... In ANY market the activity is an act of attempting to buy low and sell high. Financial instruments are merely one of many markets - it's just a bit more high profile because other markets depend on the availability of capital.
None of this activity has anything to do with "capital" in terms of wealth production.
Sure it does. You do not need to manufacture a tangible product to create wealth. You obviously can increase wealth through manufacturing but manufacturing is not the only valuable activity in the world. In fact without a lot of other activities, manufacturing as we know it could not occur. You need financing, transport, sales, marketing, warehousing, and information management among other activities to make even the simplest manufacturing feasible. You seriously need to learn about the concept of time value of money because it is the root of all economic activity. The value of any activity is the present value of all future free cash flows. You'll note that producing a tangible asset is not a requirement in that equation.
Do laser printers do good photos on photo paper?
Not the ones you or I are likely to buy. There are high end laser and copier units (big $$$) that are used in photo processing and print shops that can produce images of similar quality. The $1000 color laser is fine for the occasional marketing brochure but my experience with them to date has been that you still need an inkjet or similar printer (say thermal wax transfer) for the best quality images.
To my mind printing images is one of the only two remaining reasons to buy an inkjet anymore. (the other is large format work) They do a pretty good job and are price competitive with other technologies for those purposes. Black and white text though is a total waste of money on an inkjet.
Maybe I impress easily but I was impressed.
No one is claiming that the engineering in ink cartridges isn't impressive. This has very little to do with the economics of what price the cartridges should sell at over of the long run. Also as impressive as the engineering might be in the ink cartridges, the printers themselves are pieces of shit. Inkjet printers are engineered to be as low cost as possible and as a result they break easily, perform badly and are generally highly annoying to use. I never use an inkjet when I have a laser printer available to me. I simply will not buy a consumer grade inkjet from HP. They break far too easily and are too expensive to operate.
And thats just the ink. The R&D and engineering that goes into the cartridge and printer is unbelievable, and you get one of them for your $35 too, your own little piece of a few billion invested in R&D, tooling, and cartridge factory
Ever hear about economies of scale? All those R&D and engineering (and tooling and PP&E) costs are fixed costs once you go into production. As production ramps up the per unit cost should come down as the fixed costs get amortized and become an increasingly smaller amount. What we should see is ink cartridges being relatively expensive at first and then dropping in price over time similar to what we see with computer chips. The engineering is DONE once it is in production and the costs should reflect that fact.
HP keeps prices high through a combination of patent protection, scale, lock in, marketing, bribery (allegedly) and probably oligopoly. There are only four major vendors of inkjet printer (HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark) and all of them share the same "razors and blades" business model pioneered by Gillette. It's not that hard for a small group of companies to (tacitly or explicitly) collude to keep prices high because it is in all their interest to do so. Hard to prove but they're smart people and understand the game. If there were more participants in the market it would be harder for them to keep prices high but it's not an easy market to get into.
If your idea of accurate pricing is how much a refill maker charges to rip off HP's formulations, have HP effectively give away the cartridges, and have you do the labor filling them, then I guess you could say the ink is cheap.
It is cheap. The ink is being sold at a tremendous markup or else the business would not be profitable since the printers are being sold at or below cost. HP chose the cheap-printers/expensive-ink business model. If someone undercuts them I'm not going to shed a tear. It was their choice and they can choke on it if the business model doesn't work. I have zero sympathy for them. I think they sell a crappy product and I think they rip people off. I used to respect HP but not anymore.
I dont begrudge HP their business model, especially since we are all the people that made it the dominant technology by buying into it.
Speak for yourself. I use a laser printer that prints 20,000 pages on one toner cartridge (Lexmark Optra) and I get printouts for $0.025 per page versus $0.10-0.15 for simple black and white on an inkjet. Desktop laser printers are available for under $200 these days and the per page cost blows inkjets away. Unless you have a specific need for an inkjet (usually photos or large format drafting) you are a retard if you buy an inkjet.
The amount and frequency of trading of stocks should be on roughly the same order of magnitude as the practical ability of the corporate entity to reallocate its real capital.
And who decides what an appropriate frequency would be? On what basis? How do you efficiently decide and how often do you reconsider? Do you have any idea how fast massive amounts of capital can be brought to bear if the need arises? (hint - it is REALLY fast if there is a good reason) Bear in mind that under your proposal you have to do this for EVERY asset which, to grossly understate matters, is an unbelievably huge and difficult task. Planned economies haven't historically worked especially well. Well designed and managed markets are generally MUCH better at efficiently allocating capital where it is needed. Perhaps you have some new insight that will change things?
Do it any faster, and you're not reacting to real information, but noise, and you're making the system worse.
The fallacy in your argument is that you think the real information is "facts" about the asset. Markets are about collective opinions above all else. Sure, tangible facts get into the mix but when you are evaluating any investment the real question you are asking is "will enough other people want this asset to make the price increase?" Stocks go up and down because of what people believe about those stocks - whether it is true or not is almost irrelevant.
Grow up, boy.
I'll jump in since I'm WELL past the age where I could be described as a "boy" you condescending prick.
When you get to middle-age like me you begin to understand that life is about tolerating and making allowances for others and not letting insignificant bits of crap ruin your day.
Bullshit. There are sometimes things that cannot under any circumstances be tolerated. There are some world views that simply cannot peacefully coexist. There are those who will attempt to conquer, destroy, enslave and humiliate. I should just tolerate this? I think you are the one who needs a dose of the real world.
Oscar Wilde actually said it best "everything in moderation, including moderation". That applies to tolerance too.
But going out of your way to say "fuck you, here's what we think of your religion" just to try to provoke a group of extremists who are prone to violence doesn't make much sense.
It makes plenty of sense in the same way that mass protests against a misbehaving government make sense. If you tell them "the emperor has no clothes" just by yourself they might kill you. If thousands or millions say something is crazy, irrational and wrong then it is harder for those in power to push back. There is power in groups of people who are unwilling to be cowed by those in power. This demand that we "respect" their religious idol is an attempt to coerce MY behavior and I'm not willing to be coerced. When hundreds of thousands of people point out that they are being a bully and aren't going to take it any more then the crazies lose power.
I'll never understand why respecting someone else's religious views (or lack there of) is such a bad thing?
Because many religions (particularly christianity and islam) actively seek to impose their worldview on those who do not share their beliefs. It is a key part of their belief system that they expressly do not respect the fact that I don't believe in their god. According to some of them I should be put to death for not converting to their irrational worship. Adults who believe you should respect their imaginary friends and will hurt you if you don't is not something I'm particularly inclined to respect. If they keep their crazy beliefs to themselves they'll never have a problem with me. But there always seem to be those who can't resist trying to convert the unbelievers by any means necessary.
Disrespecting their religious views just to get a rise out of them is counterproductive, and when someone gets hurt or killed those who are on the receiving end of the violence will act as though they are surprised by it.
Surprised? I don't think anyone is surprised at how crazy religious zealots get. That is also not a compelling argument for appeasing them or their crazy irrational beliefs.
Don't poke a bear with a stick - it never ends well.
Depends on who is doing the poking.
obviously you've never owned a 30" lcd, 2560x1600 is a wonderful resolution. I've got one of those screens. It blows away anything you can buy in multi monitor.
A 3 monitor setup with 1920x1200 displays gives an effective resolution of 5760x1200. That's roughly 50% more pixels than your 30" 2560x1600 display. Nothing wrong with a huge monitor but it's not better for every purpose. Personally I find a multiple monitor setup more useful for the way I work. YMMV.
With annoying gaps between the screens. Watch you not notice something because it's straddling a gap.
I've been doing a multi-monitor setup for a while. In practice this isn't a problem. Usually you have different items you are working on on different screens. Now and then you'll stretch across multiple monitors but really most of the time I prefer 2-3 monitors over one huge one. Normally I have my email/IM/calendar on one monitor, my active work on a second window and a browser or documentation on the third if I have it. (usually I have 2). Works really well.
we are suppose to be nice to each other and not offend other people
Only to a point. There are times when offense is impossible to avoid or even intended. I have no objection to a well timed and well delivered insult. That can be high art when done properly.
if i refer to women as bitches, i am comparing females of my own species to female dogs.
You apparently neglected to actually read my fucking post. Bitch is only offensive in a context. If I'm talking about my female collie, the word bitch is completely appropriate, accurate and should offend no one. Anyone who is offended by its use in that context is a prissy moron for whom I have no respect.
Look at it this way: if a bird mimics the sound, is that still a curse? No. It has no context, no intent and no meaning. It's just a sound.
but if we are to believe what you say, that words cannot offend, well then you've just neutered my ability to attack with words
Words absolutely can offend you moron. There is a huge difference between me hitting my hand with a hammer and exclaiming "fuck" and me telling you to "go fuck a donkey". Context makes all the difference.
Can somebody explain to me what exactly is bad about swearing?
Not really, no.
Apparently some people think certain words are evil, bad and offensive regardless of the context in which they are used. This argument is of course fucking absurd. Word have no meaning without context. I believe George Carlin addressed this issue at some length and expense.
OK... So the companies that decided to sell their games for half the price or even less are stupid?
Didn't say that. They might be brilliant. I'm just saying you can't automatically assume that increased revenue occurred without increased costs as well. Profits may have gone up but they also might have declined - we just can't assume either case just by looking at the change in revenue. To know whether profits improved we need information about costs which companies rarely share in sufficient detail to be useful.
Just pointing out the potential flaw in that piece of your argument. On the whole I pretty much agree with what you said.
Utilities, trains, software development, and a few other industries almost always feature a declining average cost curve...
Quite correct but the important word there is "almost". In all likelihood most of Steam's costs are fixed and the marginal cost of an additional bit of software is a decent approximation of zero. BUT we don't know for sure. It's possible they have weird licensing schemes that make them an unusual case. All I'm saying is without additional information it is impossible to say for sure whether dropping prices would increase profit in their particular case.
Steam showed that halving the game's price results is more than twice the sales. Which in the end means more profit.
Whether that results in more profit depends on the cost structure. It's quite easy to show a case where more doubling sales by cutting price results in less profit despite greater revenue. For most companies profit is maximized when marginal cost equals marginal revenue. At some level of sales the cost to sell an extra unit outweighs the additional revenue realized. The exception to this is if marginal revenue exceeds marginal cost at all levels of production (plausible for Steam though not certain) in which case maximizing revenue will maximize profits. You might be right but I'd caution you to not assume so much about the cost structure of any given company.
How do you know that it doesn't trigger when it shouldn't?
You can feel the ABS system work when it comes on. If you can't feel it, it probably didn't come on when it shouldn't have.
Say an emergency stop on the freeway, but without skidding? ABS helps with steering, but it hurts braking power.
Unless the highway is covered in gravel, sand or deep snow, ABS has been proven to improve braking performance such that even expert drivers would have difficulty improving on the braking distances. Furthermore the primary purpose of ABS is to maintain the ability to control the car on slippery surfaces when braking.
Why don't you get rid of your current car and buy a vehicle which is old enough to be (mostly) free of microelectronics?
Because my current car, which has lots of microelectronics, is more reliable and much more pleasant to drive than any vehicle that fits your description. Yes I'm old enough to have owned and driven cars with little in the way of microelectronics. I've even been in the business of buying/selling classic cars. Old cars might look nice but those electronics (usually) make a huge difference in performance and reliability. Car manufacturers don't use them because they think sensors and microcode are cool. They'd rather save the money if the electronics didn't really work.
Then you could not only easily tinker with pretty common tools but also fix mechanical defects as they occur.
That presumes you can find parts for an old/ancient car for reasonable prices. Old and mechanical does not necessarily equate to "easy" or cheap or pleasant to drive or reliable. Today's cars are demonstrably more reliable than those of decades past. Personally I prefer a car that breaks down less in the first place. You're not going to find some relic of a car that isn't going to need constant wrenching to stay on the road.