Actually, this game is set on an orbital. A ringworld encircles a star. An orbital is smaller, it is also a ring, but the ring is much smaller than it's orbit around a star. In this case, the orbitals were inspired by the orbitals described in the "Culture" novels of Iain M. Banks.
Anti-trust is the most ridiculous notion, it punishes success.
Perhaps you should actually read the anti-trust laws you find so ridiculous. Your sig says "reason, free market capitalism, and individualism" Last time I checked, capitalism depended on customers being free to choose among different vendors, and vendors being free to offer their services. How does allowing a company to restrict trade or commerce (you know, the activities that anti-trust laws are designed to prevent) serve that end? How is your desire for individualism served when a company can restrict what products you have access to? Where is the reason in your position?
Perhaps it is time for you to reconsider either your position or your sig.
In other words, if you want your kids to grow up with a healthy attitude to sex and their fellow human beings, monitor their activites and restrict their access to anything having to do with sex. Pfft, indeed.
Heh! Yeah, Republicans are against expanding government into aspects of our lives... unless you're a pregnant woman who wants an abortion, or you're gay, or.... etc., etc, etc.
"The Horror" is some idiot who thinks corporal punishment is the way to raise healthy kids, or that "the woman's place is in the home." I notice you didn't say jack about the father staying home and raising the kids, now did you? Oh, what a surprise. So much for "setting a good example for your kids." Too late.
"The Culture" is the closest thing to Utopia I've ever encountered. If a GCU showed up and invited me aboard, I'd be there in a hot second.
Just because another entity can do something better than you doesn't mean you shouldn't even bother. That's just silly... I write software, but I'm not the best coder in the world. I practice Aikido, but I'm not the best. So what? What matters is how I enrich and fulfill myself and those around me.
You may not like what he has to say, but wrapping yourself in the flag and jumping up and down while chanting "Anti-American! Anti-American!" is, at best, an ineffective way to rebut.
I, 100% American that I am, agree with what he's saying. Do you have any actual, you know, facts to offer by way of counter-argument?
Actually, "irreducible complexity" is, to be blunt, a fantasy within the mind of Behe that gives him the warm feeling that his rejection of evolutionary theory has a valid scientific basis. You can go to www.talkorigins.org and read rather complete refutations of his work.
I think this passive participation stuff is simply an empty effort.
Your opinion is noted.
If you run these programs you are being suckered. You are spending your money on a half-hearted, half-assed project.
And your evidence to support this would be.... ?
Seti@Home is just a bizarre athiest/agnostic search for god after all.
Are you saying that an extraterrestrial signal will be somehow equivalent to the discovery of a Diety? Are you saying that Seti@Home has anything to do with religion at all?
I'm sorry, but this post just illustrates your lack of imagination and courage: the imagination needed to encompass the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and the courage to pursue that possibility, which you further compound by denigrating anyone who does have the imagination or the courage.
You're right... you shouldn't be spending time working on Seti@Home. You should be examining, and working on, the flaws in your own character.
Protein folding is certainly an important problem, and worthy of CPU cycles.
That said, it doesn't give you the right to diss those who want to contribute their cycles for the sake of the search for extraterrestrial life. A confirmed reception would have profound implications, far more than figuring out how a protein folds. So far, we haven't... and that does not invalidate the search.
The disturbing thing (see PeaceFire) is the hidden
agendas used by filter manufacturers. One of my
favorites is Cybersitter. They protect our tender
children's minds from pornography like the NOW
website, and other places that conflict with their
twisty little Right-wing agenda. What happened to
protecting against porn? I guess they just have a
very 'unique' definition of the word. Feh.
If a filter is going to be used in a school (and I
don't think it should), then the school should be
able to see exactly what sites are being
blocked.
Question: how is the Higgs Boson and Mach's Principle related? It would seen that these two approaches are giving two different understandings of what causes inertia.
Actually, given our current "Profit Uber Alles" business mindset, cheaters could be seen as "go-getters" and "on the ball."
"open source" and "Free Software" is part of the problem? People using their creativity for the benefit of themselves and others is a problem? Did you really mean to say that? Somehow, I get the feeling that your exposure to highschoolers is...... limited.
One thing that impressed me about the article was the ingenuity of cheaters (the ones who actually create the cheats, not the lamers who just download and use them). The Doom/Quake franchise managed to, in some sense, harness that creativity by allowing people to create their own game modifications.
How could the creativity of cheaters be harnessed in other ways, without ruining the game for non-cheaters? Maybe create games where you design in-game ships or weapons by writing some sort of psuedo-code ?
Re:We don't burn books, we delete them
on
Fahrenheit 451
·
· Score: 1
Who gets to decide what I can't read? Who is going to get that kind of power? "Who watches the watchers?"
As with software security, "security via obscurity" doesn't work. I haven't tried to do it, but I bet I could find out how to create weapons-grade plutonium if I wanted to. I doubt I could assmble the materials and equipment without spending a lot of money. Remember: ignorance is NOT a good thing. Beware anyone who tells you you are better off not knowing something.
No sympathy and laying blame? Not the most productive of responses, if I may say so. The deaths at Columbine were tragic, no question. We should be trying to understand why it happened - the conditions that led to it. Getting the whole thing out for calm, reasoned discussion is a step in that direction.
There is no shortage of posters here at Slashdot. Aside from the trolls, grits-mongers, Portman-lusters, Katz-bashers, and the rest of the noise, there are sincere, thoughtful posts. We post here because we choose to. We do it because we have something (or in some cases, nothing) to say.
Someone wants to take some of those thoughts, and publish them as part of a book. The proceeds are to go to charity. Where is the bad? What, you want your cut of something going to charity? You don't want people to read what you've written? A bit late for that, and your name won't even be on it. You want some sort of credit? I suggest an ego trim - yours seems to be getting a bit too large. People all over the planet read our posts, and anyone posting here must know that. It's too late - your words are out there, and they aren't going away. Someone wants to do some good with some of your writing? Mad? You should be flattered!
Perhaps you'd just like more control over what happen to your posts. Sounds like they intend to implement that. What more is there to be done?
Wasn't post #98 enough for you? How many times are you going to bitch?
An interesting aspect of the social implications of nanotechnology might be to compare it to the current debates over genetically-modified foods. People are protesting, but are doing so for different reasons. Some of the issues involved - complex interactions with the environment, self-replication of GM organisms, corporate vs. public interests - will no doubt match the issues that nanotech will bring up. Food (ahem) for thought.
What are you so upset about, cheese_wallet? Someone holding a gun to your head and making you post? I say, let him ask! People respond because they want to. And why not? Slashdot is all about the exchange of ideas. If you have a topic to discuss, then bring it up! But, please, don't whine because someone else did.
Any argument that intelligent machines cannot exist must deal with the fact that we exist. Human brains are physical - they are matter and energy. Unless you claim that the brain has some metaphysical properties, what's to stop someone from building a device with the same properties as a brain? You may argue something like "intelligent machines based on a Von Neumman architecture are impossible", but that's a different argument.
"confuse with thought" ? Are you trying to imply that computers will never be able to think ? If so, what is your basis for that?
If I have a computer which is able to converse with me, that is have an intelligent, original conversation, I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt. After all, what evidence do I have that anyone has thoughts, spiritual or otherwise?
The old "evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" concept had been shown to be false time and again. The relevant links have been given right here on Slashdot.
Is it me, or has Slashdot's SNR been dropping? I've always had the philosophy of setting my threshold to -1, but if the various trollers and immature ACs keep it up, I may have to go to a threshold of 1. I'd rather not.
Oh, please. It is a classic mistake to define the middle by the extremes. Yes, these pictures are icky. Yes, I looked at them. Would I want my children looking at them? That would depend on their level of maturity - I doubt they'd like them any more than you or I do. But, frankly, what the hell do you mean "If I could find these pictures in ten minutes, you can imagine much, much worse things exist on the net." ? You are trying to appeal to ignorance and fear - you aren't trying to help anyone, you're trying to scare others into your own little ideological corner.
I suggest that, in the future, you refrain from posting unless you have something substantive to say.
As a 37-year-old who is engaged to be married, I could hardly be considered "uninformed and arrogant" by fiat, at least any more so than any other adult. I have thought about the issue of filtered access for the children I will be having.
To begin with, I take issue with this:
Children are inherently vulnerable and early exposure to such disturbing material such as pornography, gay rights or sexually transmitted diseases can scar them for life, making it far harder for them to grow up to become fine upstanding people with a good Christian decency.
First, exposure to pornography has never, ever, been shown to be of harm to children. Next, are you suggesting that gay people shouldn't have rights? Third, I'd say reading about sexually transmitted diseases is considerably less scarring than contracting them due to ignorance.
See, I'm not calling you any names, yet I do disagree with your position. It is possible to have a civilized dialogue about this. Surely, you would rather control which sites your own children can or cannot visit than leave the decision up to the filter's manufacturers? You have no idea what they are blocking or not blocking - they could very well block access to bible sites while letting porn through. Clearly, that isn't what you want. One of the objections that I and others have is that some filter manufacturers pursue their own political agenda by blocking sites that have nothing to do with pornography, and everything to do with criticism of their products or organizations they don't approve of. Were it not for organizations like Peacefire, we would never know.
When I have children (in the next few years), I most certainly will NOT filter their access. It's my job as a parent to give them the guidance, education, and skills such that they can decide for themselves what to read, what to think. I can't do that for them - I can only provide guidance. As for the Australian government, they weren't motivated by the morality of their nation's children - there are far better ways to help their children than requiring filtering.
Finally, do you so lightly consider "free speech" and "equal rights"? If the US government decided tomorrow to restrict the speech and rights of Christians such as yourself, I suspect you'd get a whole, new perspective on life. Think about that.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, this game is set on an orbital. A ringworld encircles a star. An orbital is smaller, it is also a ring, but the ring is much smaller than it's orbit around a star. In this case, the orbitals were inspired by the orbitals described in the "Culture" novels of Iain M. Banks.
Perhaps you should actually read the anti-trust laws you find so ridiculous. Your sig says "reason, free market capitalism, and individualism" Last time I checked, capitalism depended on customers being free to choose among different vendors, and vendors being free to offer their services. How does allowing a company to restrict trade or commerce (you know, the activities that anti-trust laws are designed to prevent) serve that end? How is your desire for individualism served when a company can restrict what products you have access to? Where is the reason in your position?
Perhaps it is time for you to reconsider either your position or your sig.
In other words, if you want your kids to grow up with a healthy attitude to sex and their fellow human beings, monitor their activites and restrict their access to anything having to do with sex. Pfft, indeed.
Heh! Yeah, Republicans are against expanding government into aspects of our lives... unless you're a pregnant woman who wants an abortion, or you're gay, or.... etc., etc, etc.
"The Horror" is some idiot who thinks corporal punishment is the way to raise healthy kids, or that "the woman's place is in the home." I notice you didn't say jack about the father staying home and raising the kids, now did you? Oh, what a surprise. So much for "setting a good example for your kids." Too late.
Just because another entity can do something better than you doesn't mean you shouldn't even bother. That's just silly... I write software, but I'm not the best coder in the world. I practice Aikido, but I'm not the best. So what? What matters is how I enrich and fulfill myself and those around me.
I, 100% American that I am, agree with what he's saying. Do you have any actual, you know, facts to offer by way of counter-argument?
Actually, "irreducible complexity" is, to be blunt, a fantasy within the mind of Behe that gives him the warm feeling that his rejection of evolutionary theory has a valid scientific basis. You can go to www.talkorigins.org and read rather complete refutations of his work.
Your opinion is noted.
And your evidence to support this would be.... ?
Are you saying that an extraterrestrial signal will be somehow equivalent to the discovery of a Diety? Are you saying that Seti@Home has anything to do with religion at all?
I'm sorry, but this post just illustrates your lack of imagination and courage: the imagination needed to encompass the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and the courage to pursue that possibility, which you further compound by denigrating anyone who does have the imagination or the courage.
You're right... you shouldn't be spending time working on Seti@Home. You should be examining, and working on, the flaws in your own character.
That said, it doesn't give you the right to diss those who want to contribute their cycles for the sake of the search for extraterrestrial life. A confirmed reception would have profound implications, far more than figuring out how a protein folds. So far, we haven't... and that does not invalidate the search.
If a filter is going to be used in a school (and I don't think it should), then the school should be able to see exactly what sites are being blocked.
Question: how is the Higgs Boson and Mach's Principle related? It would seen that these two approaches are giving two different understandings of what causes inertia.
Actually, given our current "Profit Uber Alles" business mindset, cheaters could be seen as "go-getters" and "on the ball."
"open source" and "Free Software" is part of the problem? People using their creativity for the benefit of themselves and others is a problem? Did you really mean to say that? Somehow, I get the feeling that your exposure to highschoolers is...... limited.
One thing that impressed me about the article was the ingenuity of cheaters (the ones who actually create the cheats, not the lamers who just download and use them). The Doom/Quake franchise managed to, in some sense, harness that creativity by allowing people to create their own game modifications.
How could the creativity of cheaters be harnessed in other ways, without ruining the game for non-cheaters? Maybe create games where you design in-game ships or weapons by writing some sort of psuedo-code ?
Who gets to decide what I can't read? Who is going to get that kind of power? "Who watches the watchers?"
As with software security, "security via obscurity" doesn't work. I haven't tried to do it, but I bet I could find out how to create weapons-grade plutonium if I wanted to. I doubt I could assmble the materials and equipment without spending a lot of money. Remember: ignorance is NOT a good thing. Beware anyone who tells you you are better off not knowing something.
No sympathy and laying blame? Not the most productive of responses, if I may say so. The deaths at Columbine were tragic, no question. We should be trying to understand why it happened - the conditions that led to it. Getting the whole thing out for calm, reasoned discussion is a step in that direction.
Someone wants to take some of those thoughts, and publish them as part of a book. The proceeds are to go to charity. Where is the bad? What, you want your cut of something going to charity? You don't want people to read what you've written? A bit late for that, and your name won't even be on it. You want some sort of credit? I suggest an ego trim - yours seems to be getting a bit too large. People all over the planet read our posts, and anyone posting here must know that. It's too late - your words are out there, and they aren't going away. Someone wants to do some good with some of your writing? Mad? You should be flattered!
Perhaps you'd just like more control over what happen to your posts. Sounds like they intend to implement that. What more is there to be done?
An interesting aspect of the social implications of nanotechnology might be to compare it to the current debates over genetically-modified foods. People are protesting, but are doing so for different reasons. Some of the issues involved - complex interactions with the environment, self-replication of GM organisms, corporate vs. public interests - will no doubt match the issues that nanotech will bring up. Food (ahem) for thought.
What are you so upset about, cheese_wallet? Someone holding a gun to your head and making you post? I say, let him ask! People respond because they want to. And why not? Slashdot is all about the exchange of ideas. If you have a topic to discuss, then bring it up! But, please, don't whine because someone else did.
Any argument that intelligent machines cannot exist must deal with the fact that we exist. Human brains are physical - they are matter and energy. Unless you claim that the brain has some metaphysical properties, what's to stop someone from building a device with the same properties as a brain? You may argue something like "intelligent machines based on a Von Neumman architecture are impossible", but that's a different argument.
If I have a computer which is able to converse with me, that is have an intelligent, original conversation, I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt. After all, what evidence do I have that anyone has thoughts, spiritual or otherwise?
Is it me, or has Slashdot's SNR been dropping? I've always had the philosophy of setting my threshold to -1, but if the various trollers and immature ACs keep it up, I may have to go to a threshold of 1. I'd rather not.
I suggest that, in the future, you refrain from posting unless you have something substantive to say.
The thing that will keep me up at nights, is that I can't be sure that the above AC isn't serious.
To begin with, I take issue with this:
First, exposure to pornography has never, ever, been shown to be of harm to children. Next, are you suggesting that gay people shouldn't have rights? Third, I'd say reading about sexually transmitted diseases is considerably less scarring than contracting them due to ignorance.
See, I'm not calling you any names, yet I do disagree with your position. It is possible to have a civilized dialogue about this. Surely, you would rather control which sites your own children can or cannot visit than leave the decision up to the filter's manufacturers? You have no idea what they are blocking or not blocking - they could very well block access to bible sites while letting porn through. Clearly, that isn't what you want. One of the objections that I and others have is that some filter manufacturers pursue their own political agenda by blocking sites that have nothing to do with pornography, and everything to do with criticism of their products or organizations they don't approve of. Were it not for organizations like Peacefire, we would never know.
When I have children (in the next few years), I most certainly will NOT filter their access. It's my job as a parent to give them the guidance, education, and skills such that they can decide for themselves what to read, what to think. I can't do that for them - I can only provide guidance. As for the Australian government, they weren't motivated by the morality of their nation's children - there are far better ways to help their children than requiring filtering.
Finally, do you so lightly consider "free speech" and "equal rights"? If the US government decided tomorrow to restrict the speech and rights of Christians such as yourself, I suspect you'd get a whole, new perspective on life. Think about that.