But by the article's admission, we don't know the long lasting effects yet. The burning rays are supposed to be absorbed by the top layer of your skin. But what happens if there's nerve damage that becomes apparent in ten years? Or an increased risk of skin cancer later on in life?
Unless it is absolutely necessary, we probably shouldn't use this weapon yet. The US has the unenviable distinction of being the only country to use large-scale nuclear weapons in war, and that event and it's reasons are debated and discussed to no end. I wouldn't want another weapon used that, although smaller scale, still ends up killing people decades later because they are put at an increased risk for other factors. Especially if the "intent" is non-lethal. But if we can be almost certain that it's truly non-lethal with no long lasting effects, this would be a good tool to use, for both military and riot police.
I'm fairly certain that the law enforcement authorities will try only to catch the forger rather than all who have used the fake $20 bill.
I think they would care if you knew that it was fake and still tried to use it. We can be reasonably sure (in the US, at least) that the currency is not fake. We can't make the assumption that files on P2P networks are legit from the copyright owner.
Maybe software products could have something like UI transitions. When you install the software, setup asks if you've used a previous version in the past. It will set the UI to mimic the version you're used to, and you'll select a time period over which the software UI will slowly change into the new version. Each time there is a change, integrate a little tooltip or something to tell the user, "This is different!" to train the user in the new way.
Automated training, and the user doesn't even know it! Now I'm wishing MS had this when Clippy was eliminated. Would've warmed my soul to see Clippy mentioning his imminent demise.
"Good morning! Today's change is that I'll no longer exist! Wait...what?! Microsoft! You bast-" *blip*
Get a used XBox, put XBox Media Center on it, and then get back to me if your PS2 is still "the center of all your AV stuff". I haven't turned on my PS2 for months, but I don't really play video games anymore. Both the XBox and PS2 have decent games.
Of course, the average consumer probably won't use XBMC, and the PS2 is a great system. I remember years ago when an acquaintance of mine bought a Dreamcast for his kids instead of a new XBox or PS2. His reasoning was that it was inexpensive and there were still decent games for it. I imagine people now are doing much the same thing, but with the PS2, there are even more games, functionality, and potential with the system.
Obviously, there are consumers that just don't see the reasons for a "next-gen" system right now.
Same here on my Treo, and I've got the newest JVM. From what I've seen in the Opera forums, it seems to be a common problem for us Treo 650 owners, but Opera is working on it.
Exactly. I don't want to comb my hair or shave in order to use the phone.
Of course, the natural progression after video is to integrate another human sense. How about smell? The comedic potential aside, I don't want to smell some person's poor excuse for "pleasant fragrance" in that powerful, eye-watering scent wafting out of my phone. Because people just waking up won't bother to shower or brush their teeth before they call; they'll just cover the phone in perfume.
when China and/or India standardize on a Redmond-free set of office applications, they're going to be feeding amazing innovations into the FOSS pool.
Just be sure that we have a good base of translators for documentation and web site homes to get involved. I imagine that most peoples' Hindi and Standard Mandarin is pretty rusty. There could be a fantastic open source tool that you'd use now, but you'll never find it because Google won't find the site relevant in a search in your native language.
BitTorrent has quite literally been used like a cheap whore.
Uh...unless Bram Cohen has been pimping his employees out for inexpensive sex, I don't think that it's exactly literal.;)
What exactly is the motivation behind Bittorrent, Inc.? Its namesake is an open source program with relatively little need for support. They can't really make a "real" business out of that, so they need to partner where they can. What would be an acceptable, "non-evil" way to make money for them, when all they really have is a mild halo effect from a popular (but small) piece of open source software?
This will fail or be underwhelming, I'm nearly certain, but at least they're trying to make a go of it. If the media companies took the DRM out of these media files (so I can re-encode/resize for other devices) and also helped convince our ISPs to uncap upstream bandwidth, I'd probably never touch piratebay again. Even if they had "free" torrents on their own trackers that had commercials (like for TV episodes), I'd probably feel the same. If something is free, I just don't care about advertising, if it's there or not, as long as it doesn't detract from the content. I understand that advertising supports the shows I like, but I care far more about ease of use.
Good. And I agree with the contrived thing. I suspect if anyone tried to explain an irrational belief that can't be substantiated by proof it would sound contrived.:)
It always sounds preachy to me when I try to describe my religious beliefs, so my apologies if this sounds that way.
Hey, God created the universe, and he created all the rules. He didn't need Jesus to come to Earth and die to for everyone's sins - he could have just decided to forgive everyone instead. Heck, he could have just as easily just wiped out the universe and started over.
Yes, that's how God did created the universe; by His rules. Sure, God could've taken the path of least resistance, but the Christian belief says He didn't. Wiping out the universe is counter-productive; if God wanted mindless followers, humans wouldn't have free will, and we would have been made that way in the first place.
Now, the questions "Why didn't God just forgive man's sins?" and "Why send Jesus to die for them?" are tricky. I don't have a good explanation for that yet, but I'll try to give an answer. A blanket "I forgive you all" is rather forced and forcing people to do or accept things doesn't really work well (see History, Human). Deep down, I don't think people want forgiveness forced on them; they must choose it for themselves and release their guilt. Which is basically what it reduces to: In Christianity (well, my denomination of Lutheran), if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, your sins are forgiven by the grace of God. So we actually choose to be forgiven and accept eternal life. That's the second part.
Now we come to the more confusing first part. Logically, God could have said, "If you accept Me as your God, your sins will be forgiven by My grace." That would have sufficed, and really He was already saying that. So what possible purpose was served when Jesus was sent to die in such a way? The only explanation I can come up with is that it was to demonstrate God's incredible love, that he should send his son (and himself) to die in this way for our sins. Your Sims analogy might help.
It's like playing a game of The Sims, deciding you think your sims are behaving badly, thus you create a Sim with the purpose of having that sim die to make up for the bad behavior of all the other sims. Notice that doing so makes absolutely no sense?
To extend that, the Sim you created to die in that way is also an extension of yourself. Granted, you'll bring him back to your side in time, but only after he is tortured and dies in horrible pain at the hands of your misbehaving Sims to take on their sins. What love you'd have to have for those filthy, undeserving little Sims. If you could grant eternal life alongside you to every one of those Sims, if they chose it, by letting them torture you to death, would you? The physical act of "dying for the life of others" is an act of compassion.
At the time, when one spoke of honoring God, it was with fear. As in "God will punish you for that!" as we see in all the God-attributed disasters in the Old Testament. To this day we still have the phrase "God-fearing". Perhaps the purpose in sending Christ to die like this was an act of showing the unending and infinite compassion that God has for each of us. Though each person will be judged by Him, He is still a loving God after all.
That's the best I can do. Again, sorry if I come across as preachy; it isn't my intent.
I have difficulty trusting that fact. How do they know? ...
Alright, now I'm just unhappy, because it seems to be worse than that. So 46% of Americans agree with the statement "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" and are considered strict creationists. The problem I have with that is it leaves little room for subtlety in belief. I mean, you could take two people that can be considered "strict creationists" based on their views:
Person 1: "God created everything 6000 years ago, as it is told in the book of Genesis."
Person 2: "Way back in time, God said BANG, and it was. Indirectly from this action, humankind came to be around 10000 years ago."
In both cases, yes, God was responsible for for creation and subsequently man. But there's literally a universe of time and space of difference between them. It seems like we are reducing the creationism belief to too simple of a form, and it ends up painting more people (Americans in this case) as clueless and ignorant.
a) If evil happens, it's due to the fallibility of Humans, or the interfrence and corruption by a "bad" power.
You're moderated Funny, but to be fair to Christianity, Jesus Christ did die for the sins of Man. Even though all humans sin and are fallible, God created humans so He's also taking responsibility. Pretty sweet deal if you're a believer. If you truly believe, you basically get a free pass for all of the bad stuff you've ever done in your life.
But I think God would find this Creationism Museum silly.
"You figured out a key aspect of how My universe works and you have solid scientific evidence! I'm proud! But some of you still think that Earth has only been around for several thousand years because a chapter in the Bible written by humans says so? Give Me a break."
I'd think that God is powerful enough to deliver symbolism in His divine inspiration. So, Creationists, you fail it.
It's unfortunate, but we'll probably have to deal with confusing decisions like this and "bendable" phrases in redundant legislation for a generation while people transition from a sans Internet life to one where it is a necessary part of daily life. The people who were born "post Internet" will have a better, more logical understanding of the technologies, and those same people will become tomorrow's judges and lawmakers.
I'm sure that similar problems came up when we first tried to make laws to account for the telephone (or even telegraph). One could argue that, with the increase in complexity and quantity of our technologies, the problems are magnified, but I don't think it's all that bad. As long as we can always do what we're doing here, actually discussing it and exposing the potential problems, I think we'll be fine. Without this discourse and exchange of ideas, no positive change can come. Imagine how much worse it would be if it was against the law to question laws that you don't like.
Heh. Maybe what the RIAA is really afraid of is all the young people that shamelessly and unapologetically use P2P for music eventually becoming judges and lawmakers.
As with any nuclear-related project, safety must be taken into consideration.
[...]
* Radiation; this should be the least of your worries until about 15,000 volts of acceleration potential. At this point, x-rays start to emanate from viewports due to electron and ion bombardment of metals in the chamber. Always use a camera or mirror to peer into the viewport. X-rays can cause burns and lead to cancer. Above 40,000 volts, x-rays will start to come through the stainless steel chamber walls. At this point, you will need to use lead shielding. Neutron radiation is the most dangerous form of radiation known to man, but the fusor does not put out enough of it to be dangerous until about 45,000 volts. It can easily be shielded with water, wax or plastic. You can also minimize your exposure by standing well away from the fusor, or by operating it for only 20 minutes per week.
"Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W."
Languages were kind of his thing; I imagine he was pretty gifted in that respect. It's amazing the level of detail that the languages he created actually have.
Ability to convert 2D television to 3D? I'm skeptical.
I was once skeptical of many things too. Then I received the word from The Creator of the Universe, The Total Mind and Total Energy of All. With the divine secrets revealed in the sacred text, I replaced the polluting engine in my car with a Magnogen Motor...uh, well...I'm in the process of replacing it. I can't seem to get the damn thing to work right, but I'm sure that's my fault.
In any case, now I know that anything is possible, even the transmission of your so-called "chocolate".
RIAA: "Hey, we're going to sue you. Unless you settle, of course."
Person: "Really? Yeah, no. I am absolutely confident that you will get exactly zero evidence from my computers, should you seize them. You will lose, and I will file a countersuit."
RIAA: "Uh..."
Person: "I will stop working; I have friends that will help fund my crusade. Make no mistake, I will make it my personal mission for several years to bury you and continue setting some civil precedence, like others before me."
Of course, if they call somebody on it, that person would have to back it up. But if they truly fear it, might they just drop it if somebody sounds confident enough? It seems too easy and sounds a bit arrogant. Maybe the key would be to sound confident without being cocky?
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But by the article's admission, we don't know the long lasting effects yet. The burning rays are supposed to be absorbed by the top layer of your skin. But what happens if there's nerve damage that becomes apparent in ten years? Or an increased risk of skin cancer later on in life?
Unless it is absolutely necessary, we probably shouldn't use this weapon yet. The US has the unenviable distinction of being the only country to use large-scale nuclear weapons in war, and that event and it's reasons are debated and discussed to no end. I wouldn't want another weapon used that, although smaller scale, still ends up killing people decades later because they are put at an increased risk for other factors. Especially if the "intent" is non-lethal. But if we can be almost certain that it's truly non-lethal with no long lasting effects, this would be a good tool to use, for both military and riot police.
Touché. Maybe I should say future Massachusetts taxpayers.
Meanwhile, I'm smirking at the do-gooders and busybodies who are being hoisted on their own petards.
And ultimately, the taxpayers of Massachusetts may be hoisted along with them.
I'm fairly certain that the law enforcement authorities will try only to catch the forger rather than all who have used the fake $20 bill.
I think they would care if you knew that it was fake and still tried to use it. We can be reasonably sure (in the US, at least) that the currency is not fake. We can't make the assumption that files on P2P networks are legit from the copyright owner.
Maybe software products could have something like UI transitions. When you install the software, setup asks if you've used a previous version in the past. It will set the UI to mimic the version you're used to, and you'll select a time period over which the software UI will slowly change into the new version. Each time there is a change, integrate a little tooltip or something to tell the user, "This is different!" to train the user in the new way.
Automated training, and the user doesn't even know it! Now I'm wishing MS had this when Clippy was eliminated. Would've warmed my soul to see Clippy mentioning his imminent demise.
"Good morning! Today's change is that I'll no longer exist! Wait...what?! Microsoft! You bast-" *blip*
Did they present any good reasoning for the block? Or was it just an easy partisan opposition to needle the governor?
In my area in Minnesota we've still got the scantron machines. You can bet I'll raise holy hell if they change it.
Get a used XBox, put XBox Media Center on it, and then get back to me if your PS2 is still "the center of all your AV stuff". I haven't turned on my PS2 for months, but I don't really play video games anymore. Both the XBox and PS2 have decent games.
Of course, the average consumer probably won't use XBMC, and the PS2 is a great system. I remember years ago when an acquaintance of mine bought a Dreamcast for his kids instead of a new XBox or PS2. His reasoning was that it was inexpensive and there were still decent games for it. I imagine people now are doing much the same thing, but with the PS2, there are even more games, functionality, and potential with the system.
Obviously, there are consumers that just don't see the reasons for a "next-gen" system right now.
Same here on my Treo, and I've got the newest JVM. From what I've seen in the Opera forums, it seems to be a common problem for us Treo 650 owners, but Opera is working on it.
Exactly. I don't want to comb my hair or shave in order to use the phone.
Of course, the natural progression after video is to integrate another human sense. How about smell? The comedic potential aside, I don't want to smell some person's poor excuse for "pleasant fragrance" in that powerful, eye-watering scent wafting out of my phone. Because people just waking up won't bother to shower or brush their teeth before they call; they'll just cover the phone in perfume.
when China and/or India standardize on a Redmond-free set of office applications, they're going to be feeding amazing innovations into the FOSS pool.
Just be sure that we have a good base of translators for documentation and web site homes to get involved. I imagine that most peoples' Hindi and Standard Mandarin is pretty rusty. There could be a fantastic open source tool that you'd use now, but you'll never find it because Google won't find the site relevant in a search in your native language.
BitTorrent has quite literally been used like a cheap whore.
Uh...unless Bram Cohen has been pimping his employees out for inexpensive sex, I don't think that it's exactly literal. ;)
What exactly is the motivation behind Bittorrent, Inc.? Its namesake is an open source program with relatively little need for support. They can't really make a "real" business out of that, so they need to partner where they can. What would be an acceptable, "non-evil" way to make money for them, when all they really have is a mild halo effect from a popular (but small) piece of open source software?
This will fail or be underwhelming, I'm nearly certain, but at least they're trying to make a go of it. If the media companies took the DRM out of these media files (so I can re-encode/resize for other devices) and also helped convince our ISPs to uncap upstream bandwidth, I'd probably never touch piratebay again. Even if they had "free" torrents on their own trackers that had commercials (like for TV episodes), I'd probably feel the same. If something is free, I just don't care about advertising, if it's there or not, as long as it doesn't detract from the content. I understand that advertising supports the shows I like, but I care far more about ease of use.
Good. And I agree with the contrived thing. I suspect if anyone tried to explain an irrational belief that can't be substantiated by proof it would sound contrived. :)
It always sounds preachy to me when I try to describe my religious beliefs, so my apologies if this sounds that way.
Hey, God created the universe, and he created all the rules. He didn't need Jesus to come to Earth and die to for everyone's sins - he could have just decided to forgive everyone instead. Heck, he could have just as easily just wiped out the universe and started over.
Yes, that's how God did created the universe; by His rules. Sure, God could've taken the path of least resistance, but the Christian belief says He didn't. Wiping out the universe is counter-productive; if God wanted mindless followers, humans wouldn't have free will, and we would have been made that way in the first place.
Now, the questions "Why didn't God just forgive man's sins?" and "Why send Jesus to die for them?" are tricky. I don't have a good explanation for that yet, but I'll try to give an answer. A blanket "I forgive you all" is rather forced and forcing people to do or accept things doesn't really work well (see History, Human). Deep down, I don't think people want forgiveness forced on them; they must choose it for themselves and release their guilt. Which is basically what it reduces to: In Christianity (well, my denomination of Lutheran), if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, your sins are forgiven by the grace of God. So we actually choose to be forgiven and accept eternal life. That's the second part.
Now we come to the more confusing first part. Logically, God could have said, "If you accept Me as your God, your sins will be forgiven by My grace." That would have sufficed, and really He was already saying that. So what possible purpose was served when Jesus was sent to die in such a way? The only explanation I can come up with is that it was to demonstrate God's incredible love, that he should send his son (and himself) to die in this way for our sins. Your Sims analogy might help.
It's like playing a game of The Sims, deciding you think your sims are behaving badly, thus you create a Sim with the purpose of having that sim die to make up for the bad behavior of all the other sims. Notice that doing so makes absolutely no sense?
To extend that, the Sim you created to die in that way is also an extension of yourself. Granted, you'll bring him back to your side in time, but only after he is tortured and dies in horrible pain at the hands of your misbehaving Sims to take on their sins. What love you'd have to have for those filthy, undeserving little Sims. If you could grant eternal life alongside you to every one of those Sims, if they chose it, by letting them torture you to death, would you? The physical act of "dying for the life of others" is an act of compassion.
At the time, when one spoke of honoring God, it was with fear. As in "God will punish you for that!" as we see in all the God-attributed disasters in the Old Testament. To this day we still have the phrase "God-fearing". Perhaps the purpose in sending Christ to die like this was an act of showing the unending and infinite compassion that God has for each of us. Though each person will be judged by Him, He is still a loving God after all.
That's the best I can do. Again, sorry if I come across as preachy; it isn't my intent.
50 million Americans believe in creationism
I have difficulty trusting that fact. How do they know?
...
Alright, now I'm just unhappy, because it seems to be worse than that. So 46% of Americans agree with the statement "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" and are considered strict creationists. The problem I have with that is it leaves little room for subtlety in belief. I mean, you could take two people that can be considered "strict creationists" based on their views:
Person 1: "God created everything 6000 years ago, as it is told in the book of Genesis."
Person 2: "Way back in time, God said BANG, and it was. Indirectly from this action, humankind came to be around 10000 years ago."
In both cases, yes, God was responsible for for creation and subsequently man. But there's literally a universe of time and space of difference between them. It seems like we are reducing the creationism belief to too simple of a form, and it ends up painting more people (Americans in this case) as clueless and ignorant.
a) If evil happens, it's due to the fallibility of Humans, or the interfrence and corruption by a "bad" power.
You're moderated Funny, but to be fair to Christianity, Jesus Christ did die for the sins of Man. Even though all humans sin and are fallible, God created humans so He's also taking responsibility. Pretty sweet deal if you're a believer. If you truly believe, you basically get a free pass for all of the bad stuff you've ever done in your life.
But I think God would find this Creationism Museum silly.
"You figured out a key aspect of how My universe works and you have solid scientific evidence! I'm proud! But some of you still think that Earth has only been around for several thousand years because a chapter in the Bible written by humans says so? Give Me a break."
I'd think that God is powerful enough to deliver symbolism in His divine inspiration. So, Creationists, you fail it.
It's unfortunate, but we'll probably have to deal with confusing decisions like this and "bendable" phrases in redundant legislation for a generation while people transition from a sans Internet life to one where it is a necessary part of daily life. The people who were born "post Internet" will have a better, more logical understanding of the technologies, and those same people will become tomorrow's judges and lawmakers.
I'm sure that similar problems came up when we first tried to make laws to account for the telephone (or even telegraph). One could argue that, with the increase in complexity and quantity of our technologies, the problems are magnified, but I don't think it's all that bad. As long as we can always do what we're doing here, actually discussing it and exposing the potential problems, I think we'll be fine. Without this discourse and exchange of ideas, no positive change can come. Imagine how much worse it would be if it was against the law to question laws that you don't like.
Heh. Maybe what the RIAA is really afraid of is all the young people that shamelessly and unapologetically use P2P for music eventually becoming judges and lawmakers.
Making a fusion reactor is relatively easy, albeit somewhat dangerous, like you said.
From here:
As with any nuclear-related project, safety must be taken into consideration.
[...]
* Radiation; this should be the least of your worries until about 15,000 volts of acceleration potential. At this point, x-rays start to emanate from viewports due to electron and ion bombardment of metals in the chamber. Always use a camera or mirror to peer into the viewport. X-rays can cause burns and lead to cancer. Above 40,000 volts, x-rays will start to come through the stainless steel chamber walls. At this point, you will need to use lead shielding. Neutron radiation is the most dangerous form of radiation known to man, but the fusor does not put out enough of it to be dangerous until about 45,000 volts. It can easily be shielded with water, wax or plastic. You can also minimize your exposure by standing well away from the fusor, or by operating it for only 20 minutes per week.
More safety info.
Really, it's that pesky part where we try to actually make it produce energy and break even that is stumping us right now.
I'm now convinced that America has no friends in the middle east- only trading partners controlled by the enemy of us all, the petroleum corporations.
Bring on the Magnetic Over-Unity devices!
And anyone who writes more Liv Tyler With Elf Ears scenes onto the screen can't be all that bad.
Amen, brother.
I do think he invented a cool world, and was pretty clever to be able to just invent languages like that.
Look at his career.
"Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W."
Languages were kind of his thing; I imagine he was pretty gifted in that respect. It's amazing the level of detail that the languages he created actually have.
Ability to convert 2D television to 3D? I'm skeptical.
I was once skeptical of many things too. Then I received the word from The Creator of the Universe, The Total Mind and Total Energy of All. With the divine secrets revealed in the sacred text, I replaced the polluting engine in my car with a Magnogen Motor...uh, well...I'm in the process of replacing it. I can't seem to get the damn thing to work right, but I'm sure that's my fault.
In any case, now I know that anything is possible, even the transmission of your so-called "chocolate".
RIAA: "Hey, we're going to sue you. Unless you settle, of course."
Person: "Really? Yeah, no. I am absolutely confident that you will get exactly zero evidence from my computers, should you seize them. You will lose, and I will file a countersuit."
RIAA: "Uh..."
Person: "I will stop working; I have friends that will help fund my crusade. Make no mistake, I will make it my personal mission for several years to bury you and continue setting some civil precedence, like others before me."
Of course, if they call somebody on it, that person would have to back it up. But if they truly fear it, might they just drop it if somebody sounds confident enough? It seems too easy and sounds a bit arrogant. Maybe the key would be to sound confident without being cocky?
Since we know how dirty the RIAA is, I imagine "itsacrap" would work as well, since they filthify all they touch.
Hell, I don't know who any of these people are!
Nick Douglas? Jason Calacanis? Duncan Riley? Why do these people matter?
I guess I've been living under an Internet connected rock...