I am an avid beekeeper (yes, yet another on/. . . . very odd we have so many here). This thing looks all kinds of screwy to me. There a are quite a number of design flaws on this thing, of which a very small sample follows.
--Last I checked, in most areas it is illegal to keep bees in equipment w/o *removable* frames. In looking at the equipment here, I'm not sure it meets that requirement.
--Bees prefer to build their comb strait down, with the cell just slightly angled up. Among other things, this prevents gravity from taking its toll on the contents. The angle of the "frames" on this contraption do not allow for this.
--The queen prefers darkness. All that exposure to light seems to me to be an unwelcome source of stress for her. If mama ain't happy . . . ain't nobody happy.
--I simply don't think that there is enough room in this "hive" to house a healthy colony. They will quickly leave for a more suitable location.
--The insides of hives do not stay sexy. All that gorgeous, new, white comb very quickly becomes dark and brittle (in the brood nest, anyway), and they tend to build burr comb in places you don't like.
--Being able to drain honey from the hive whenever you may please . . . yeah, that's a good idea. In a hive this small (see above comment), they aren't going have enough room for surplus even if you never took a drop. They will starve in this thing over the winter . . . and probably over the summer too, depending on weather conditions. Again though, I doubt they will stay long enough for that to be an issue.
. . . a study which examined the impact that free PC's had on poor students in Romania, writing that "giving the kids machines without a corresponding level of parental supervision just resulted in distractions which ultimately damaged academic performance.
Hmmm . . . really? They needed to do a study on that? Because . . . ummm . . . well . . . DUH!
About 3 years ago, I moved away from Linux on the Desktop. This was after years (since Redhat 5.2) of using it almost exclusively. Eventually, I go _so_ tired of things breaking after updates -- things I'd spent quite a bit of time to get working in the first place such as video cards, network cards, etc. -- only the get the excuse of "Well, you should have read the release notes!" Please. So I'd get things working again, and several weeks or months later I'd go through it all over again. It got old, and I moved on.
However, in the last few weeks I have moved back. All I can say is "Wow". Wow, wow, wow.
The install was smooth. All my hardware worked (had to fiddle a bit for WiFi) as if by magic. OpenOffice -- massively improved. I can connect to Windows shares with no trouble whatsoever. My pectoral muscles have doubled in size! Ok, that last part was an embellishment, but you get my point. The improvement in useability is tremendous.
Coming from somebody who used it on the desktop for quite some time, moved away for quite some time, and has recently returned, I completely disagree with the premise that "Linux on the desktop has failed."
What difference does a day's worth of interest make on the average IRS tax bill? And if people are so concerned about a day's worth of interest, print the damn return and mail it with a check. That way you get a few more days of interest.
I seem to recall that you can file your return, but choose to have your money deducted on a specific date. So interest shouldn't be any concern in the first place. File your return early, and choose to have your money deducted on the "the last day".
I remember seeing an interview with Ford many years ago on TV. The interviewer asked him whether or not he would ever play Han Solo again if given the chance. His reply was that he would not, and that the Solo character was a very empty and uninteresting one to him.
When the interviewer asked him about playing Indiana Jones again, his reply was a calm and decisive, "In a heartbeat."
I've recently started tooling around with creating some in-house Firefox extensions. They don't really do anything to extend Firefox so much as they are applications in and of themselves. As a result, I've had the opportunity to dive back into JavaScript. I must say, I've been able to get quit a number of things done rather quickly, and the results are easily distributable in a cross-platform format.
With applications such as XULRunner, distribution of JavaScript based applications could get even easier.
One of the things that's greatly lacking for non-web applications though is database connectivity. The things I've worked on so far have had to connect to a web server in order to get anything done with SQL. It still works great, but it would really be nice not to have that extra layer of complexity.
Get out your hankies, gentlemen . . . believe it or not, what follows is a *brief and kind* detail of what I've been through.
My experience after purchasing a new Intel iMac resulted in a systemic failure of customer service at Apple. I find it hard to believe that the the problems I experienced at every step were unique.
2 weeks after getting the machine, it would spontaneously shut down when inserting any media into the SuperDrive. I would have to unplug it, wait, and plug it back in just to the machine to boot back up. If the media was still in the drive though, it wouldn't get very far. TechSupport had me reset the NVRAM and SMC . . . which didn't help. So then they had me take it into the shop.
The shop had it for 5 days, and 5 minutes after I got it home I realized the problem had not been fixed. So I called Apple back, and they wanted me to take it back to the shop. My reply was to the effect of (but much more polite and civil), "No, you can fiddle all you want with it, but you're going to have to send me a new computer."
So I argued with the person on the other end, and they asked me to wait a week while he consulted with Apple engineers to see if they'd had similar reports. A week later, I call him back and he says that they have had reports of similar problems and that the issue has been isolated to faulty a mainboard. His remedy, of course, was to take it back to the shop for a repair. I was dubious about the analysis because of some shuffling back and forth he was doing during the conversation.
Eventually we compromised on Apple sending a guy out to my location to fix the it. He said the guy would show up with every conceivable part that could be replaced, and that he'd work on it until it was fixed. So the guy shows up . . . but only with a mainboard and a SuperDrive (which had already been replaced). After about 2 hours of working on it, the computer would no longer even power up. Nice.
The technician called Apple, and they told him to forget about it and have me call them. So I did . . . and their solution was to send somebody out again in 48 hours (since it was Friday, this was actually going to be 48 hours from the following Monday). So this time I was firm. I'd accept two things: My money back, or a new computer.
After further arguing, they eventually agreed to ship me a new computer . . . but getting the data of the drive was my problem. So then I had to send it back to the shop in order to get the data off the drive. I had to pay for this myself. Eventually I got the foul thing shipped back to Apple. Just yesterday they called me to say they'd received the unit, and that my replacement was on it's way. We'll see.
One of the most interesting things, if not infuriating, was that at every step in this process I was zealously solicited to purchase the AppleCare extended warranty package . . . OK, I'm not going to purchase ANYTHING from Apple, EVER, until I have a working computer. It was only 2 weeks old when all of this started happening. I hardly think I should need to purchase something additional to get what I paid for.
Oh, right, silly me! So the biblical explanation of what to charge for your daughter when selling her into slavery is still perfectly valid today? Have I got that right?
You tell me. What does the rest of that passage say? What does it say when you put it in context? I know it serves your point rather nicely to take just a snippet out of context and present it as though you know what you are talking about, but amuse me.
The only reference to homosexuality being wrong is a small passage by paul who claimed it was unnatural.
That is incorrect. It is mentioned as an abomination and condemned in several places in the Old Testament (Leviticus, for one). If you reconcile the Old Testament with the New Testament then you'll find that the evidence is not as ambiguous as Bible critics would like you to believe. It is important to note, however, that many heterosexual acts are considered sinful as well. Infidelity, pre-marital sexual relations, etc.
That said- the bible says about a million things we find despicable today are perfectly acceptable. So which is it? Are you allowed to rape a woman so long as you pay her father and take her in?
There are two words in Hebrew that translate into the English version of rape. "Taphas" means to catch, handle, lay hold, take hold of, seize, or wield. "Shakab" means to lie with or be lain with, sexually. Sometimes they are used together. In any case, the context in which they are used determines the meaning. If you research it just a little more, rather than believing what you are told by fools who have no idea what they are talking about (or intentionally take things out of context), you'll see that The Bible doesn't condone rape. Nor does it condone a whole host of things that people say it does. In fact, many of the people who use the 'translation issue' as part of a strategy to discredit The Bible, actually employ that tactic themselves to spin and stretch the true meaning into something that it is not.
The rest of your questions are very clearly addressed by Jesus in the New Testament and the prophets in the Old Testament.
The problem with the majority of Christians in this country is that they worship the Bible instead of God. Instead of asking themselves "What would a kind and compassionate God think of homosexuality (for example)" they point to the Bible and say "look- it says here that that is wrong!"
You've got it backwards. The majority of (all) Christians worship The LORD, and know that the Bible is His Word. And we know that this Word is our guide for how He wants us to live.
The problem with your homosexuality example is that it relies on current social standards. God's standards do not change so readily as those of societies. If we decide that homosexuality is acceptable, then what is next? And what after that? The Bible provides a standard.
Another thing that really ticks me off is that these people claim that the universe was created by an all powerful omniscient being- and then they claim to know what he/she/it is thinking. The arrogance is mind boggling.
Wrong again. Outside of the Bible, Christians do not claim to know what God is thinking. In fact, one of the very important principles in the The Bible is that God's plan is not known to us.
If there's such a slippery slope to prohibiting the individual right to prayer in school, how come it hasn't happened? (Barring a few cases of school officials not understanding the law, which are as likely to be sued by the ACLU as the ACLJ.)
Again, I could ask the same question, reversed, on the other side. It wasn't me who brought up the issue of the slippery slope. It was TA.
Have you ever seen a snowflake under a microscope? It looks like a fantasically intricate crystalline structure of ice, symmetrical and quite remarkable. A complex shape indeed . ..
Actually, no. A snowflake isn't the least bit complex. It's highly repetitive and involves very little complexity. Their form and function have remained essentially unchanged throughout geologic histroy. So to use your rather childish tone . . . What has that to do with evolution? Nothing.
The main "directing" factor in evolution is death. . . . A short necked giraffe wouldn't live very long, as it wouldn't be tall enough to reach the leaves from the trees, and would starve, while the long necked giraffes would do just fine.
Again, no. The driving force being evolution is competition. Not death. If you apply your own theory, then a long necked giraffe came from a short necked creature. That short necked creature must have done just fine with a short neck, at least for a time, or else there would have been no long necked giraffes. But it's really not that simple . . . although I'm sure you'd like it to be in order to explain it to a foolish bible bumpkin such as myself . . . because with that longer neck comes decided disadvantages. For one, decreased ability to hide from predators. Also is the fact that as an aerobic organism's size increases, so do the difficulties associated with diffusion of oxygen. That means that the ability to sustain high speed runs in order to escape from predators is significantly reduced. To use your childish tone once again . . . See how that works?
And I'm inclined to agree with you on the mechanism for change. . . we just disagree on the overseeing force. I think that the series of mutations creating that long neck was directed by The Lord. You seem think they happened by chance error, and that mistake happened to be favorable according to the environment.
Those without the advantages die out.
Really? Does the fossil record show that? No. The fossil record shows that most species die off in huge, cataclysmic events.
This is a classic cop-out. First "complete and beautiful" is an arbitrary, subjective criterion. What is "complete and beautiful" to one person, is "kitsch" to another. Furthermore, it was you who framed it in such terms, I can only guess to try to leave an escape hatch opened to esoteric talk about an "artist" in case someone managed to challenge your "common sense" attempt at discrediting evolution. If you want to keep religion in the realm of never-never land of fantasy and conjecture, you will find no argument from me. But if you attempt to project it onto things that can be subjected to scientific discovery, expect to be made to follow the rules of the playing field you are on.
Spare me. "Complete and beautiful" are words I chose to use. If you don't agree, great. My point is the in demonstration of the complexity of living organisms. If you weren't so determined to make me out to be a bible thumping ignoramos, maybe you could have seen that
Esoteric? What's esoteric about it? Any fool knows I was referring too. It was quite clear. It would make you more comortable if I said The LORD, yes? There I've said it. Maybe now you can stop with the ever classic poo-pooing of ideas that don't agree with what you believe to be unquestionable fact.
As far as following the rules go, let's stick with the ever faithful scientific method. You can show me real experimental evidence that proves how the chemical precursors to life happened to have come about in the violent environment of pre-life earth? And don't tell me about the papers where molecular pre-cursors are subjected to a single stimulus, after which the products are whisked out of solution and/or protected from further stimulus and degradation. Those don't do anything but prove my point that the sequence of events across time that lead to what we have today were directed by an Intelligent Designer (or The LORD God, if that makes you more comfortable).
That is, in your example, instad of all of these things happening spontaneously all at once, you have 3 billion years of self-replicating "paintings" trying and failing to produce your "beautiful landscape"
Except that you don't really have 3 billion years, do you? No, because evidence shows that the conditions suitable for life only existed for a tiny fraction of geologic history.
And the painting isn't really *trying* to do anything, is it? Things are just happening (errors, mainly), and if environmental conditions dictate those errors to be favorable at that time, then those changes are propagated to the next generation.
That is what I was suggessting. If you think that such an absolutely complete and beautiful work of art could be created by such conditions (even given a nearly infinite timespan), so be it. If you think instead that a skilled artist directed his brush, applied paint to empty canvas, took his time, and created a masterpiece, so be it.
I'm sure this will get modded down as a Troll, so mainly I write this just for myself . . .
From TA . ..
Unfortunately, Intelligent Design's attack on the separation of church and state in our schools is something to be concerned about. It is a slippery slope, from the teaching of a theory with no scientific backing in the classroom, to school sponsored prayer in the classroom. It may seem like a stretch, but as soon as the line is blurred, it is much easier to rationalize each step until an extreme is reached.
I could make the same kind of statement about not allowing the teaching of strict creationism in schools as well. It is a slipperly slope from prohibiting school sponsored prayer in the classroom to prohibiting the individual right to prayer in a school.
In fact, there is no such thing in The Constitution as this lately preached 'Separation of Church and State'. That clause clearly states the FEDERAL government SHALL MAKE NO LAW concerning the establiment of a religion. That means such things are deferred to the states. The Federal Government has no say in the matter. The Supreme Court should not even be hearing these cases.
The founding fathers actions are in clear contradiction to the interpretation of that clause espoused today by the courts. Indeed, one of their first acts was to establish a national day of prayer.
I found a beautiful painting of a great landscape in the ditch the other day. It was absolutely perfect and beautiful.
I imagine that it was probably created when a paint truck drove by and hit a rock that was in that road, causing some of the paint to spill out. I never did find the rock, but I'm sure it was there.
The wind and the rain must have blown and swirled the paint in just such a way that the clear images I saw in the painting were exquisitly displayed . . . although it was clear, calm, and sunny when I found it.
I'm still not sure where the canvas came from, but I imagine that I'll figure it all out one day.
Anyone remember the annoying "punch the monkey flash ad"?
I'll get that damn monkey one of these days. He'll rue the day that he openly mocked me. "And he'll know, he'll know, that it is I, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who emcompasess his doom . ..AH HA HA HA!"
The problem with a national sales tax is that middle to low income earners spend a larger percentage of their earnings. Upper class earners spend a much smaller percentage of their wages. A national sales tax would hurt low wage earners the most as they would be using the majority of their wages on food & basic necessities.
So it's really more about punishing the wealthy for their success then, isn't it? Do the wealthy use more tax payer funded resources than the middle and lower class? No. Then why is it fair that they pay more? It's a government of law, not men . . . remember?
Anyway, if you properly implemented a national sales tax then a wealthy individual would still end up shouldering more of the burden than a middle class one. If I make $200,000 dollars a year, and spend half of it, and am taxed at the same rate as somebody who spends *all* of his $75,000 salary, then I have still paid more taxes.
As a Valentine's day gift I bought my now-ex girlfriend her name dot com and threw up a little vanity site for her. Anyway, now that we're not together, she wants me to transfer the domain to her. I'm not sure why, but I refused, and she said that if I don't give it to her, even though (I think) I am safely the legal owner of the domain despite its being her first and last name, she'd "sick my dad's lawyers on you anyway."
Except that by your own admission you gave her the domain as a gift, which is probably going to hurt your legal standing in the manner. Not to mention that it sounds kind of petty. If you gave it to her as a gift, just transfer it to her and move on with your life.
On my card, in bold black letters I have written '*** ASK FOR ID!! **** in the signature slot.
With extremely rare exception, the clerk takes the card, turns it over to check the signature, gives me the card back, and completes the transaction without so much as another word.
I wonder why they even bother with turning the card over to check . . .
Modern conservatism is nothing more than the rationalization of greed, avarice, and self-interest.
The same generalization could be made for modern day liberalism being nothing more than the rationalization of laziness, lack of personal responsibility, and cowardidce. The only time you see one of those guys change their mind on an issue like CO2 levels is when John Kerry flies around in his private jet.
Why would you want a robot to do this job? Lawn mowing is one of the truly great pleasures in life.
You like beer, right? Grab two or three or six and toss them in a cooler. You like music right? Grab some noise cancelling headphones and your stocked iPod. You like to tinker right? Take up small engine repair, and keep your mower running smooth and sharp.
Slashdot Mirror
I am an avid beekeeper (yes, yet another on /. . . . very odd we have so many here). This thing looks all kinds of screwy to me. There a are quite a number of design flaws on this thing, of which a very small sample follows.
Hmmm . . . really? They needed to do a study on that? Because . . . ummm . . . well . . . DUH!
About 3 years ago, I moved away from Linux on the Desktop. This was after years (since Redhat 5.2) of using it almost exclusively. Eventually, I go _so_ tired of things breaking after updates -- things I'd spent quite a bit of time to get working in the first place such as video cards, network cards, etc. -- only the get the excuse of "Well, you should have read the release notes!" Please. So I'd get things working again, and several weeks or months later I'd go through it all over again. It got old, and I moved on.
However, in the last few weeks I have moved back. All I can say is "Wow". Wow, wow, wow.
The install was smooth. All my hardware worked (had to fiddle a bit for WiFi) as if by magic. OpenOffice -- massively improved. I can connect to Windows shares with no trouble whatsoever. My pectoral muscles have doubled in size! Ok, that last part was an embellishment, but you get my point. The improvement in useability is tremendous.
Coming from somebody who used it on the desktop for quite some time, moved away for quite some time, and has recently returned, I completely disagree with the premise that "Linux on the desktop has failed."
What difference does a day's worth of interest make on the average IRS tax bill? And if people are so concerned about a day's worth of interest, print the damn return and mail it with a check. That way you get a few more days of interest.
I seem to recall that you can file your return, but choose to have your money deducted on a specific date. So interest shouldn't be any concern in the first place. File your return early, and choose to have your money deducted on the "the last day"."Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
-- Mark Twain
I remember seeing an interview with Ford many years ago on TV. The interviewer asked him whether or not he would ever play Han Solo again if given the chance. His reply was that he would not, and that the Solo character was a very empty and uninteresting one to him.
When the interviewer asked him about playing Indiana Jones again, his reply was a calm and decisive, "In a heartbeat."
I've recently started tooling around with creating some in-house Firefox extensions. They don't really do anything to extend Firefox so much as they are applications in and of themselves. As a result, I've had the opportunity to dive back into JavaScript. I must say, I've been able to get quit a number of things done rather quickly, and the results are easily distributable in a cross-platform format.
With applications such as XULRunner, distribution of JavaScript based applications could get even easier.
One of the things that's greatly lacking for non-web applications though is database connectivity. The things I've worked on so far have had to connect to a web server in order to get anything done with SQL. It still works great, but it would really be nice not to have that extra layer of complexity.
1) I'm a man fanboy.
Yeah, we know.
Get out your hankies, gentlemen . . . believe it or not, what follows is a *brief and kind* detail of what I've been through.
My experience after purchasing a new Intel iMac resulted in a systemic failure of customer service at Apple. I find it hard to believe that the the problems I experienced at every step were unique.
2 weeks after getting the machine, it would spontaneously shut down when inserting any media into the SuperDrive. I would have to unplug it, wait, and plug it back in just to the machine to boot back up. If the media was still in the drive though, it wouldn't get very far. TechSupport had me reset the NVRAM and SMC . . . which didn't help. So then they had me take it into the shop.
The shop had it for 5 days, and 5 minutes after I got it home I realized the problem had not been fixed. So I called Apple back, and they wanted me to take it back to the shop. My reply was to the effect of (but much more polite and civil), "No, you can fiddle all you want with it, but you're going to have to send me a new computer."
So I argued with the person on the other end, and they asked me to wait a week while he consulted with Apple engineers to see if they'd had similar reports. A week later, I call him back and he says that they have had reports of similar problems and that the issue has been isolated to faulty a mainboard. His remedy, of course, was to take it back to the shop for a repair. I was dubious about the analysis because of some shuffling back and forth he was doing during the conversation.
Eventually we compromised on Apple sending a guy out to my location to fix the it. He said the guy would show up with every conceivable part that could be replaced, and that he'd work on it until it was fixed. So the guy shows up . . . but only with a mainboard and a SuperDrive (which had already been replaced). After about 2 hours of working on it, the computer would no longer even power up. Nice.
The technician called Apple, and they told him to forget about it and have me call them. So I did . . . and their solution was to send somebody out again in 48 hours (since it was Friday, this was actually going to be 48 hours from the following Monday). So this time I was firm. I'd accept two things: My money back, or a new computer.
After further arguing, they eventually agreed to ship me a new computer . . . but getting the data of the drive was my problem. So then I had to send it back to the shop in order to get the data off the drive. I had to pay for this myself. Eventually I got the foul thing shipped back to Apple. Just yesterday they called me to say they'd received the unit, and that my replacement was on it's way. We'll see.
One of the most interesting things, if not infuriating, was that at every step in this process I was zealously solicited to purchase the AppleCare extended warranty package . . . OK, I'm not going to purchase ANYTHING from Apple, EVER, until I have a working computer. It was only 2 weeks old when all of this started happening. I hardly think I should need to purchase something additional to get what I paid for.
Oh, right, silly me! So the biblical explanation of what to charge for your daughter when selling her into slavery is still perfectly valid today? Have I got that right?
You tell me. What does the rest of that passage say? What does it say when you put it in context? I know it serves your point rather nicely to take just a snippet out of context and present it as though you know what you are talking about, but amuse me.
The only reference to homosexuality being wrong is a small passage by paul who claimed it was unnatural.
That is incorrect. It is mentioned as an abomination and condemned in several places in the Old Testament (Leviticus, for one). If you reconcile the Old Testament with the New Testament then you'll find that the evidence is not as ambiguous as Bible critics would like you to believe. It is important to note, however, that many heterosexual acts are considered sinful as well. Infidelity, pre-marital sexual relations, etc.
That said- the bible says about a million things we find despicable today are perfectly acceptable. So which is it? Are you allowed to rape a woman so long as you pay her father and take her in?
There are two words in Hebrew that translate into the English version of rape. "Taphas" means to catch, handle, lay hold, take hold of, seize, or wield. "Shakab" means to lie with or be lain with, sexually. Sometimes they are used together. In any case, the context in which they are used determines the meaning. If you research it just a little more, rather than believing what you are told by fools who have no idea what they are talking about (or intentionally take things out of context), you'll see that The Bible doesn't condone rape. Nor does it condone a whole host of things that people say it does. In fact, many of the people who use the 'translation issue' as part of a strategy to discredit The Bible, actually employ that tactic themselves to spin and stretch the true meaning into something that it is not.
The rest of your questions are very clearly addressed by Jesus in the New Testament and the prophets in the Old Testament.
The problem with the majority of Christians in this country is that they worship the Bible instead of God. Instead of asking themselves "What would a kind and compassionate God think of homosexuality (for example)" they point to the Bible and say "look- it says here that that is wrong!"
You've got it backwards. The majority of (all) Christians worship The LORD, and know that the Bible is His Word. And we know that this Word is our guide for how He wants us to live.
The problem with your homosexuality example is that it relies on current social standards. God's standards do not change so readily as those of societies. If we decide that homosexuality is acceptable, then what is next? And what after that? The Bible provides a standard.
Another thing that really ticks me off is that these people claim that the universe was created by an all powerful omniscient being- and then they claim to know what he/she/it is thinking. The arrogance is mind boggling.
Wrong again. Outside of the Bible, Christians do not claim to know what God is thinking. In fact, one of the very important principles in the The Bible is that God's plan is not known to us.
If there's such a slippery slope to prohibiting the individual right to prayer in school, how come it hasn't happened? (Barring a few cases of school officials not understanding the law, which are as likely to be sued by the ACLU as the ACLJ.)
Again, I could ask the same question, reversed, on the other side. It wasn't me who brought up the issue of the slippery slope. It was TA.
Have you ever seen a snowflake under a microscope? It looks like a fantasically intricate crystalline structure of ice, symmetrical and quite remarkable. A complex shape indeed . . .
Actually, no. A snowflake isn't the least bit complex. It's highly repetitive and involves very little complexity. Their form and function have remained essentially unchanged throughout geologic histroy. So to use your rather childish tone . . . What has that to do with evolution? Nothing.The main "directing" factor in evolution is death. . . . A short necked giraffe wouldn't live very long, as it wouldn't be tall enough to reach the leaves from the trees, and would starve, while the long necked giraffes would do just fine.
Again, no. The driving force being evolution is competition. Not death. If you apply your own theory, then a long necked giraffe came from a short necked creature. That short necked creature must have done just fine with a short neck, at least for a time, or else there would have been no long necked giraffes. But it's really not that simple . . . although I'm sure you'd like it to be in order to explain it to a foolish bible bumpkin such as myself . . . because with that longer neck comes decided disadvantages. For one, decreased ability to hide from predators. Also is the fact that as an aerobic organism's size increases, so do the difficulties associated with diffusion of oxygen. That means that the ability to sustain high speed runs in order to escape from predators is significantly reduced. To use your childish tone once again . . . See how that works?
And I'm inclined to agree with you on the mechanism for change. . . we just disagree on the overseeing force. I think that the series of mutations creating that long neck was directed by The Lord. You seem think they happened by chance error, and that mistake happened to be favorable according to the environment.
Those without the advantages die out.
Really? Does the fossil record show that? No. The fossil record shows that most species die off in huge, cataclysmic events.
This is a classic cop-out. First "complete and beautiful" is an arbitrary, subjective criterion. What is "complete and beautiful" to one person, is "kitsch" to another. Furthermore, it was you who framed it in such terms, I can only guess to try to leave an escape hatch opened to esoteric talk about an "artist" in case someone managed to challenge your "common sense" attempt at discrediting evolution. If you want to keep religion in the realm of never-never land of fantasy and conjecture, you will find no argument from me. But if you attempt to project it onto things that can be subjected to scientific discovery, expect to be made to follow the rules of the playing field you are on.
Spare me. "Complete and beautiful" are words I chose to use. If you don't agree, great. My point is the in demonstration of the complexity of living organisms. If you weren't so determined to make me out to be a bible thumping ignoramos, maybe you could have seen that
Esoteric? What's esoteric about it? Any fool knows I was referring too. It was quite clear. It would make you more comortable if I said The LORD, yes? There I've said it. Maybe now you can stop with the ever classic poo-pooing of ideas that don't agree with what you believe to be unquestionable fact.
As far as following the rules go, let's stick with the ever faithful scientific method. You can show me real experimental evidence that proves how the chemical precursors to life happened to have come about in the violent environment of pre-life earth? And don't tell me about the papers where molecular pre-cursors are subjected to a single stimulus, after which the products are whisked out of solution and/or protected from further stimulus and degradation. Those don't do anything but prove my point that the sequence of events across time that lead to what we have today were directed by an Intelligent Designer (or The LORD God, if that makes you more comfortable).
That is, in your example, instad of all of these things happening spontaneously all at once, you have 3 billion years of self-replicating "paintings" trying and failing to produce your "beautiful landscape"
Except that you don't really have 3 billion years, do you? No, because evidence shows that the conditions suitable for life only existed for a tiny fraction of geologic history.
And the painting isn't really *trying* to do anything, is it? Things are just happening (errors, mainly), and if environmental conditions dictate those errors to be favorable at that time, then those changes are propagated to the next generation.
That is what I was suggessting. If you think that such an absolutely complete and beautiful work of art could be created by such conditions (even given a nearly infinite timespan), so be it. If you think instead that a skilled artist directed his brush, applied paint to empty canvas, took his time, and created a masterpiece, so be it.
I'm sure this will get modded down as a Troll, so mainly I write this just for myself . . .
From TA . . .
Unfortunately, Intelligent Design's attack on the separation of church and state in our schools is something to be concerned about. It is a slippery slope, from the teaching of a theory with no scientific backing in the classroom, to school sponsored prayer in the classroom. It may seem like a stretch, but as soon as the line is blurred, it is much easier to rationalize each step until an extreme is reached.
I could make the same kind of statement about not allowing the teaching of strict creationism in schools as well. It is a slipperly slope from prohibiting school sponsored prayer in the classroom to prohibiting the individual right to prayer in a school.
In fact, there is no such thing in The Constitution as this lately preached 'Separation of Church and State'. That clause clearly states the FEDERAL government SHALL MAKE NO LAW concerning the establiment of a religion. That means such things are deferred to the states. The Federal Government has no say in the matter. The Supreme Court should not even be hearing these cases.
The founding fathers actions are in clear contradiction to the interpretation of that clause espoused today by the courts. Indeed, one of their first acts was to establish a national day of prayer.
I found a beautiful painting of a great landscape in the ditch the other day. It was absolutely perfect and beautiful.
I imagine that it was probably created when a paint truck drove by and hit a rock that was in that road, causing some of the paint to spill out. I never did find the rock, but I'm sure it was there.
The wind and the rain must have blown and swirled the paint in just such a way that the clear images I saw in the painting were exquisitly displayed . . . although it was clear, calm, and sunny when I found it.
I'm still not sure where the canvas came from, but I imagine that I'll figure it all out one day.
Anyone remember the annoying "punch the monkey flash ad"?
I'll get that damn monkey one of these days. He'll rue the day that he openly mocked me. "And he'll know, he'll know, that it is I, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who emcompasess his doom . . .AH HA HA HA!"
The problem with a national sales tax is that middle to low income earners spend a larger percentage of their earnings. Upper class earners spend a much smaller percentage of their wages. A national sales tax would hurt low wage earners the most as they would be using the majority of their wages on food & basic necessities.
So it's really more about punishing the wealthy for their success then, isn't it? Do the wealthy use more tax payer funded resources than the middle and lower class? No. Then why is it fair that they pay more? It's a government of law, not men . . . remember?
Anyway, if you properly implemented a national sales tax then a wealthy individual would still end up shouldering more of the burden than a middle class one. If I make $200,000 dollars a year, and spend half of it, and am taxed at the same rate as somebody who spends *all* of his $75,000 salary, then I have still paid more taxes.
As a Valentine's day gift I bought my now-ex girlfriend her name dot com and threw up a little vanity site for her. Anyway, now that we're not together, she wants me to transfer the domain to her. I'm not sure why, but I refused, and she said that if I don't give it to her, even though (I think) I am safely the legal owner of the domain despite its being her first and last name, she'd "sick my dad's lawyers on you anyway."
Except that by your own admission you gave her the domain as a gift, which is probably going to hurt your legal standing in the manner. Not to mention that it sounds kind of petty. If you gave it to her as a gift, just transfer it to her and move on with your life.
On my card, in bold black letters I have written '*** ASK FOR ID!! **** in the signature slot.
With extremely rare exception, the clerk takes the card, turns it over to check the signature, gives me the card back, and completes the transaction without so much as another word.
I wonder why they even bother with turning the card over to check . . .
Many people consider it too bloated.
I concur. The trouble with Smarty is described perfectly in the "Philosophy" of the CPAN module Text::Template.
If you apply the same philosophy to PHP and Template engines, then you'll see that Savant is a much more powerful choice.
Funny how I got modded down as a troll in my previous post, but this parent is 'Insightful'.
Modern conservatism is nothing more than the rationalization of greed, avarice, and self-interest.
The same generalization could be made for modern day liberalism being nothing more than the rationalization of laziness, lack of personal responsibility, and cowardidce. The only time you see one of those guys change their mind on an issue like CO2 levels is when John Kerry flies around in his private jet.
Why would you want a robot to do this job? Lawn mowing is one of the truly great pleasures in life.
You like beer, right? Grab two or three or six and toss them in a cooler. You like music right? Grab some noise cancelling headphones and your stocked iPod. You like to tinker right? Take up small engine repair, and keep your mower running smooth and sharp.
Hop on your mower and roll, man.