More seriously: from reading the wiki page, I am saddened to learn of his death a year ago. And his troubles with the IRS -- although his solution was creative.
Seventh, the story links no longer change color when I middle-click to open them in another link (a habit I started back in the 90s when traveling to a dial-up nation, which I keep to this day as it allows me to cleanly switch tasks: going from "scanning for interesting stories" to "reading in depth" without switching back-and-forth).
It's annoying because sometimes I'll leave a tab overnight, or occasionally for over a day; when I go back to the home page now, I may end up middle-clicking the story twice if I forgot that I had already decided it was interesting (there are some comments people could make about long-term effects of short-term memory loss).
But then I would imagine that short-term memory loss applies to many of Slashdot's readers, and...
When cars came into existance, we got another load of bullshit laws, like the ones of people having to walk in front of an automobile with a flag to announce its coming, or that cars are to stop when a horse is passing so it won't spook it, etc.
Well, that might have been a "bullshit law" but horses do get spooked. Just ask Madonna, her horse was spooked this weekend by papparazzi, and threw her.
Not disagreeing with the entire topic, just that horses spook more easily than e.g. cars...
And, the buggy whip manufacturer who are still in business today? They saw the impending demise of their business model, and began selling into the market for sexual fetishes instead.
Well, considering science through the ages, as we've learned more we've refined our experiments and our body of knowledge. I consider religion to be exactly the same in this respect, except that it tends to "move slower" because it is ultimately based on fantasy, and once you've turned your mind to fantasy, "you will believe anything stated from a high enough authority, or repeated enough". (Not you you, the general you.)
Except, I haven't seen religions evolving a whole lot, in my lifetime. Sure, they've started to tackle evolution (I really liked the one I heard back in the early 80s, "God created Man through evolution" but apparently that didn't take hold), but just as the Federal (US) government cannot easily say "hey, we're sorry about the whole making pot illegal thing to prop up the paper industry, our bad, it's now legal", similarly religious authorities cannot easily say "we have re-measured and now understand that this God is local to this solar system, in fact is local to this planet, and we can therefore no longer state that the universe was created by this God".
It's my understanding (knowledge, not belief) that there is an "atmospheric level of energy" that we can take advantage of by breathing more rapidly than normal (deeper, or faster, or a combination). Therefore I know that local conditions have something special to them, which the vacuum of space does not necessarily have (I don't know that it doesn't, I just haven't experimented up there, now that I know how to feel the energy moving).
I do not understand what "meet God in His terms" means, and I am not intentionally trolling by stating this -- I'm not mocking, I just don't know what that means or how to do it (i.e., was it physical? Mental? Chemical? Sleep deprivation, or movement deprivation? Some combination? Etc).
Once we have nanotechnology (and/or the singularity, which I tend to lump together; we may achieve one before the other, but they will occur near the same point in history), we'll be able to enhance our vision so we see the full electro-magnetic spectrum, and our hearing so we hear all possible sounds, etc. We'll be able to speed our brains up so we can communicate faster. Perhaps at that point we'll be "closer" to the type of communication that God can achieve, and will be able to communicate directly with the Protector. And possibly create newer, better Protectors, just as our prosthetic technology is beginning to surpass our original body structures.
And yes kids, THIS is how one does a troll. Pure Truth, yet presented in the most inflamatory way possible, is the surest way to drive folks into a blind rage.
Perhaps; perhaps. Perhaps you are correct.
However, and this is an important however: your post is not going to receive funding. The research discussed in the article, however trollish, likely will. So, I've learned something from your post, even if it wasn't directly what you were conveying.:)
Hitting up TPB for things available through legal outlets just shows that you're some whiny brat who wants to eat his cake and have it too, for free.
Okay, and when they pass the "Air Tax" will you go along and say "all you whiny breathers just want free air!"? Copyright is a modern fantasy; it has only existed for a few centuries. It will go by the wayside, likely around the same time as the singularity occurs.
Combination of libertarianism and advanced technology, which drastically affects the libertarian viewpoint (for instance, I would welcome doubling or tripling our tax burden (yes I understand that tripling for some would go over 100% and that's not what I meant) if the increase would go towards helping keep people alive until the singularity occurs, after which we will all live as long as we choose rather than dying by various accidents.
(And I also realize the above raises many questions, of which I've considered the answers, such as "where to put them?" -- until the singularity: in a facility like Alcor if they're completely terminal and organs are about to fail; after the singularity: after we have one space elevator, we'll have many in short order, and so "the moon" or "the asteroids" leading ultimately to a Dyson Sphere around the sun (with solar collectors on the inside, batteries on the outside) in order to better ration the energy leaking from the sun -- anyway I could go on but that's not really what you're asking.)
Interpretation is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose; what good is understanding without acting on that understanding? And once you've taken action, you're in the process of controlling. So, "Science controls nature" is accurate; through understanding, we obtain better control.
Religion is solely about describing something fantastic to another human in order to make that human behave in a certain way. You're thinking about spirituality, which is more reflective and about interpretation; religion does not want you to interpret at all, religion wants to dictate to you how to interpret. Bill Maher's "Religulous" was excellent, it has a line about "we keep none of the ideas we had from the Bronze Age, except the creation myth." So, "Religion controls humans" was me choosing my words carefully.
I make no mention of God or Gods, because I mostly lack (sharable) evidence of them. I have my own private thoughts and fantasies, some of which I've devised experiments for, which we currently lack the technology to carry out. And I practice Jin Shin Jyutsu; for me, the energy feels like electricity (others feel it as a hot/cold, or a resistance like magnetic, or a pressure -- which I think is really cool, it's not a "sixth" sense, it's a sense that you have already sensed, just being used in a markedly different way; first time I felt the energy it was in my face, my lips and chin; with more practice, I was able to feel it in my fingers). I mention JSJ and energy healing because I feel there's a strong link between The Protector and that phenomenon, and many of the experiments are along those lines, with more sensitive detectors than we currently have.
My view of God? That's much larger, but succinctly: brains work on the quantum level as well as the electrical, chemical, and mechanical. One quantum effect is entanglement, which can allow communication at a distance. Therefore I believe that telepathy is possible, and we have anecdotal evidence through the ages of mothers knowing when children are in danger, and twins tend to know when the other is being traumatized, as well as the experiment mentioned in the movie London, about the mother animal (possum?) which researchers separated from its kids, and as they killed each kid they saw a reaction in the mother... Anyway, my view is that we humans created The Protector through quantum processes, and we power it while we're sleeping, so that it will protect us. Just like the energy is produced/enhanced through deep breathing, which says to me that there's something in the atmosphere that's powering it, so that more rapidly cycling the atmosphere through our lungs produces the healing (and tingling, for me) effect, so my answer to statements like "energy permeates the universe!" is "How can we be sure? Have astronauts practiced JSJ? And even if they have, was it due to the atmosphere that they carried with them in the capsule?"
So to say "God permeates the universe" shows a similar disco
Although somewhat off-topic, this is a good point to remind people that Microsoft actually did publish something to manage updates, called the Critical Update Notification Tool. The acronym reminds one of all the lovely names one used to call Windows 98, generally for the bugs that needed updating by this tool.:)
I could be wrong but I think in many cases the money received by states for vehicle registration (and possibly inspections too) go towards paying for varies levies and funds, similar to the majority of a speeding ticket goes to pay for things for schools and only a small portion of your ticket is the real fine. But I do agree with you on the other items you listed.
While not disagreeing with you, I do very much disagree with the way that we keep increasing "taxes" through other means, which are not directly called "taxes".
The punishment should fit the crime. Speeding is "essentially" a thought crime; unless and until there is a collision, there is no victim (yes I understand that "people were put at risk"). Crimes without victims should be immediately removed from the books, to help improve the economy.
(This got a little confusing; what I was getting at is speeding fines tend to be much higher than they really should be based on the amount of damage that the speeder actually caused (i.e., none); and one reason for the increase in speeding fines is to pay for other, completely unrelated, political agendas. Then it morphed into my response to the evening news that Mass has a huge shortfall to recover from, and will be raising taxes, pulling over people whose "speeding" is closer to "2 or 3 mph over the limit" instead of 10, reducing services and salaries (Deval Patrick said he'd even take a pay cut); my response was a simple three words: "legalize victimless crimes" -- remove the mafia incentive to buy and sell drugs and prostitutes, and we'll all be a lot better off, just as re-legalizing alcohol drastically reduced mafia influence back in the 1920s.)
But, since that doesn't support our prison economy, or the legislative drive to impose harsher and longer sentences (see article on the added "sophistication" charge of using a proxy), it'll never happen.
So prison rape is approved by judges as a part of sentencing?
Yeah, last time I was called for jury duty, the judge gave us all "his speech" and in it he mentioned something about PMITA prisons -- not using that acronym or referencing Office Space, but he definitely made us aware that he is aware that he is not only sentencing criminals to rehabilitation, he's also sentencing them to... inappropriate widening.
I was rather shocked. Not very surprised, since I've heard of this issue since high school if not earlier, and if "lowly me" has heard of it then I'm sure that judges have as well -- however, I was shocked at the way he conveyed his awareness of the issue to us.
It may sound harsh but being raped is one of the bad things that can happen to you in prison. Not to mention being beaten up or stabbed or killed. Prisons are bad places full of bad people, some who don't play well with others and some who happen to like hurting other people.
Actually: prisons are full of non-violent drug users, and a minority population of violent offenders.
The latter routinely abuses the former.
Our society does not get better with harsher penalties for victimless crimes. (Any penalty for a victimless "crime" is too much.)
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Actually, "atheism" puts forth the proposition that there is no God, cannot be a God, never will be a God, etc. It is, quite accurately, "belief in the non-existence of God."
Your quote would make more sense if you used "Agnosticism". Agnostics say "there may or may not be a God, what do I care?" This is more in line with "the stamps can collect themselves, I won't bother".
Atheists are more about eradicating all stamps and making sure everyone knows how you feel about them. Keeping up the atheist mindset requires a lot more energy than keeping up the agnostic mindset, which is why many feel that atheists are cut from the same cloth as religious followers, just with a slight denial bent.
But I get your grammar nit. Framing applies to someone innocent of the crime.
Years ago I was pulled over for speeding. The cop called me an asshole twice, and wanted to teach me a lesson.
He lied on the ticket. He said it was raining, and that there was heavy traffic. On that road, in heavy traffic I would not have been able to get around anyone and could not have been speeding; and, the ground was dry.
He "won" in court, and I learned my lesson: Don't trust cops.
Likely not the lesson he wanted me to learn, but I tend to learn the right ones.
Anyway, I was "framed" in the sense that the cop felt the need to lie in order to obtain his conviction (which didn't happen anyway, this state has CWOF). But like the GP's grammar issue, I was actually "guilty" of speeding, and would have had the same outcome had the cop not lied. (Well, same except I wouldn't have learned quite the same lesson.)
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, I RTFA, they didn't mention that, they only raised the threat level!
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Robert Asprin ftw!
More seriously: from reading the wiki page, I am saddened to learn of his death a year ago. And his troubles with the IRS -- although his solution was creative.
I think you added an "r" to Cal's name?
Drop acid; then try to stop hallucinating. That'll pretty quickly shatter your illusions of free will.
Seventh, the story links no longer change color when I middle-click to open them in another link (a habit I started back in the 90s when traveling to a dial-up nation, which I keep to this day as it allows me to cleanly switch tasks: going from "scanning for interesting stories" to "reading in depth" without switching back-and-forth).
It's annoying because sometimes I'll leave a tab overnight, or occasionally for over a day; when I go back to the home page now, I may end up middle-clicking the story twice if I forgot that I had already decided it was interesting (there are some comments people could make about long-term effects of short-term memory loss).
But then I would imagine that short-term memory loss applies to many of Slashdot's readers, and ...
What were we talking about again?
"You know what, Stuart? I like you. You're not like the other people, here in the trailer park."
Well, one would think the latter would make the former pretty much useless? :)
Well, that might have been a "bullshit law" but horses do get spooked. Just ask Madonna, her horse was spooked this weekend by papparazzi, and threw her.
Not disagreeing with the entire topic, just that horses spook more easily than e.g. cars...
And, the buggy whip manufacturer who are still in business today? They saw the impending demise of their business model, and began selling into the market for sexual fetishes instead.
Well, considering science through the ages, as we've learned more we've refined our experiments and our body of knowledge. I consider religion to be exactly the same in this respect, except that it tends to "move slower" because it is ultimately based on fantasy, and once you've turned your mind to fantasy, "you will believe anything stated from a high enough authority, or repeated enough". (Not you you, the general you.)
Except, I haven't seen religions evolving a whole lot, in my lifetime. Sure, they've started to tackle evolution (I really liked the one I heard back in the early 80s, "God created Man through evolution" but apparently that didn't take hold), but just as the Federal (US) government cannot easily say "hey, we're sorry about the whole making pot illegal thing to prop up the paper industry, our bad, it's now legal", similarly religious authorities cannot easily say "we have re-measured and now understand that this God is local to this solar system, in fact is local to this planet, and we can therefore no longer state that the universe was created by this God".
It's my understanding (knowledge, not belief) that there is an "atmospheric level of energy" that we can take advantage of by breathing more rapidly than normal (deeper, or faster, or a combination). Therefore I know that local conditions have something special to them, which the vacuum of space does not necessarily have (I don't know that it doesn't, I just haven't experimented up there, now that I know how to feel the energy moving).
I do not understand what "meet God in His terms" means, and I am not intentionally trolling by stating this -- I'm not mocking, I just don't know what that means or how to do it (i.e., was it physical? Mental? Chemical? Sleep deprivation, or movement deprivation? Some combination? Etc).
Once we have nanotechnology (and/or the singularity, which I tend to lump together; we may achieve one before the other, but they will occur near the same point in history), we'll be able to enhance our vision so we see the full electro-magnetic spectrum, and our hearing so we hear all possible sounds, etc. We'll be able to speed our brains up so we can communicate faster. Perhaps at that point we'll be "closer" to the type of communication that God can achieve, and will be able to communicate directly with the Protector. And possibly create newer, better Protectors, just as our prosthetic technology is beginning to surpass our original body structures.
Perhaps; perhaps. Perhaps you are correct.
However, and this is an important however: your post is not going to receive funding. The research discussed in the article, however trollish, likely will. So, I've learned something from your post, even if it wasn't directly what you were conveying. :)
Okay, a little scary, here's what I heard: "why are you always attempting to write out the acronyms?" Then it fell down...
And, LOL, when I searched for both "acronym WAYAATWOTA" and "acronym DTKONTPOAA", the only search result returned was to the parent comment. :)
Thank you for reminding me of those fierce college days spent screaming at my Calculus textbook. :)
Hi, like your other responder, I have respect for you, but also a cautionary link; perhaps you may not want to display that sticker so proudly? DHS and FEMA training local law enforcement that you're "likely to shoot at police during traffic stops."
Okay, and when they pass the "Air Tax" will you go along and say "all you whiny breathers just want free air!"? Copyright is a modern fantasy; it has only existed for a few centuries. It will go by the wayside, likely around the same time as the singularity occurs.
Hi!
Combination of libertarianism and advanced technology, which drastically affects the libertarian viewpoint (for instance, I would welcome doubling or tripling our tax burden (yes I understand that tripling for some would go over 100% and that's not what I meant) if the increase would go towards helping keep people alive until the singularity occurs, after which we will all live as long as we choose rather than dying by various accidents.
(And I also realize the above raises many questions, of which I've considered the answers, such as "where to put them?" -- until the singularity: in a facility like Alcor if they're completely terminal and organs are about to fail; after the singularity: after we have one space elevator, we'll have many in short order, and so "the moon" or "the asteroids" leading ultimately to a Dyson Sphere around the sun (with solar collectors on the inside, batteries on the outside) in order to better ration the energy leaking from the sun -- anyway I could go on but that's not really what you're asking.)
Interpretation is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose; what good is understanding without acting on that understanding? And once you've taken action, you're in the process of controlling. So, "Science controls nature" is accurate; through understanding, we obtain better control.
Religion is solely about describing something fantastic to another human in order to make that human behave in a certain way. You're thinking about spirituality, which is more reflective and about interpretation; religion does not want you to interpret at all, religion wants to dictate to you how to interpret. Bill Maher's "Religulous" was excellent, it has a line about "we keep none of the ideas we had from the Bronze Age, except the creation myth." So, "Religion controls humans" was me choosing my words carefully.
I make no mention of God or Gods, because I mostly lack (sharable) evidence of them. I have my own private thoughts and fantasies, some of which I've devised experiments for, which we currently lack the technology to carry out. And I practice Jin Shin Jyutsu; for me, the energy feels like electricity (others feel it as a hot/cold, or a resistance like magnetic, or a pressure -- which I think is really cool, it's not a "sixth" sense, it's a sense that you have already sensed, just being used in a markedly different way; first time I felt the energy it was in my face, my lips and chin; with more practice, I was able to feel it in my fingers). I mention JSJ and energy healing because I feel there's a strong link between The Protector and that phenomenon, and many of the experiments are along those lines, with more sensitive detectors than we currently have.
My view of God? That's much larger, but succinctly: brains work on the quantum level as well as the electrical, chemical, and mechanical. One quantum effect is entanglement, which can allow communication at a distance. Therefore I believe that telepathy is possible, and we have anecdotal evidence through the ages of mothers knowing when children are in danger, and twins tend to know when the other is being traumatized, as well as the experiment mentioned in the movie London, about the mother animal (possum?) which researchers separated from its kids, and as they killed each kid they saw a reaction in the mother... Anyway, my view is that we humans created The Protector through quantum processes, and we power it while we're sleeping, so that it will protect us. Just like the energy is produced/enhanced through deep breathing, which says to me that there's something in the atmosphere that's powering it, so that more rapidly cycling the atmosphere through our lungs produces the healing (and tingling, for me) effect, so my answer to statements like "energy permeates the universe!" is "How can we be sure? Have astronauts practiced JSJ? And even if they have, was it due to the atmosphere that they carried with them in the capsule?"
So to say "God permeates the universe" shows a similar disco
Although somewhat off-topic, this is a good point to remind people that Microsoft actually did publish something to manage updates, called the Critical Update Notification Tool. The acronym reminds one of all the lovely names one used to call Windows 98, generally for the bugs that needed updating by this tool. :)
While not disagreeing with you, I do very much disagree with the way that we keep increasing "taxes" through other means, which are not directly called "taxes".
The punishment should fit the crime. Speeding is "essentially" a thought crime; unless and until there is a collision, there is no victim (yes I understand that "people were put at risk"). Crimes without victims should be immediately removed from the books, to help improve the economy.
(This got a little confusing; what I was getting at is speeding fines tend to be much higher than they really should be based on the amount of damage that the speeder actually caused (i.e., none); and one reason for the increase in speeding fines is to pay for other, completely unrelated, political agendas. Then it morphed into my response to the evening news that Mass has a huge shortfall to recover from, and will be raising taxes, pulling over people whose "speeding" is closer to "2 or 3 mph over the limit" instead of 10, reducing services and salaries (Deval Patrick said he'd even take a pay cut); my response was a simple three words: "legalize victimless crimes" -- remove the mafia incentive to buy and sell drugs and prostitutes, and we'll all be a lot better off, just as re-legalizing alcohol drastically reduced mafia influence back in the 1920s.)
But, since that doesn't support our prison economy, or the legislative drive to impose harsher and longer sentences (see article on the added "sophistication" charge of using a proxy), it'll never happen.
Hey, 1938 is calling, it wants its Nazi Gun Laws back.
Yeah, last time I was called for jury duty, the judge gave us all "his speech" and in it he mentioned something about PMITA prisons -- not using that acronym or referencing Office Space, but he definitely made us aware that he is aware that he is not only sentencing criminals to rehabilitation, he's also sentencing them to ... inappropriate widening.
I was rather shocked. Not very surprised, since I've heard of this issue since high school if not earlier, and if "lowly me" has heard of it then I'm sure that judges have as well -- however, I was shocked at the way he conveyed his awareness of the issue to us.
Actually: prisons are full of non-violent drug users, and a minority population of violent offenders.
The latter routinely abuses the former.
Our society does not get better with harsher penalties for victimless crimes. (Any penalty for a victimless "crime" is too much.)
Yeah, and the men with guns aren't here to keep you in, they're here to protect you. Sure. Just ask Alice, indeed.
Interesting! I foresee height becoming less of a barrier, and barbed wire sales increasing.
Actually, "atheism" puts forth the proposition that there is no God, cannot be a God, never will be a God, etc. It is, quite accurately, "belief in the non-existence of God."
Your quote would make more sense if you used "Agnosticism". Agnostics say "there may or may not be a God, what do I care?" This is more in line with "the stamps can collect themselves, I won't bother".
Atheists are more about eradicating all stamps and making sure everyone knows how you feel about them. Keeping up the atheist mindset requires a lot more energy than keeping up the agnostic mindset, which is why many feel that atheists are cut from the same cloth as religious followers, just with a slight denial bent.
You cannot petition the Lord with prayer.
Years ago I was pulled over for speeding. The cop called me an asshole twice, and wanted to teach me a lesson.
He lied on the ticket. He said it was raining, and that there was heavy traffic. On that road, in heavy traffic I would not have been able to get around anyone and could not have been speeding; and, the ground was dry.
He "won" in court, and I learned my lesson: Don't trust cops.
Likely not the lesson he wanted me to learn, but I tend to learn the right ones.
Anyway, I was "framed" in the sense that the cop felt the need to lie in order to obtain his conviction (which didn't happen anyway, this state has CWOF). But like the GP's grammar issue, I was actually "guilty" of speeding, and would have had the same outcome had the cop not lied. (Well, same except I wouldn't have learned quite the same lesson.)