Funny how changes in purchasing power is how they calculate inflation.
They measure it in the purchasing power of a unit of currency, not in the purchasing power of individuals.
If your wages don't keep up with inflation, *your* purchasing power declines. Which is (or is headed toward being) a big problem in post-industrial USA.
Daniel Kim.. what fucking world do you live in where $60 games deliver 40 hour experiences and then you can just go get another new game that does the same?
I mean, my first game was an RPG. My favorite genre is still RPG. So I'm well aware that they can. But I'm not under some illusion that such games dominate the market.. Batman, Assassin's Creed. They're like 20 hour experiences if I drag my ass a little.
At three dollars per hour of entertainment, it still beats going to the movies.
Big name PC games have cost around $50 since about 1980.
I think that has effectively gone up in the last few years, as game publishers have adopted the model of selling you an incomplete ~$50 game and then nickle-and-dime-ing you toward bankruptcy with DLC and "expansions" that should have been in the initial release.
However, there may be a downward pressure developing, as gamers come to realize that if they can wait 6 months they can get recent titles with a substantial discount on outlets like Steam, and bigger discounts if they wait longer. For example Civ V was released ~18 months ago, and yesterday they had it bundled with almost all the expansions and DLC for IIRC $12.49.
I only give it 2/10, since posted as an AC. If you want your trolls to pass for something you actually believe, create an account and post them from there.
The key concept behind 'Intelligent Design' is that someone or something had to create a plan and assemble the first few units which then began self-replicating and evolving based on the conditions they were living in.
And the arguments they offer to support that notion are utterly specious.
Why should the theory of biological self-assembly be the only explanation considered scientifically viable?
It's the only explanation out there that actually has explanatory value, while simultaneously conforming to observable facts.
You're welcome to introduce a new one, but the kind of dishonest arguments peddled by the Discovery Institute are not going to fly in *any* field of science.
Recent self-assembly theories have attempted (desperately) to identify certain rock structures surrounding deep ocean thermal vents as a possible substrate for self-assembly but any close examination of that mechanism makes it appear as so much scientific hand-waving due to problems with sequence, complexity, protein chirality, length of time needed, etc. making the Intelligent Design theory appear to be well-substantiated in comparison.
There is no Intelligent Design theory. There's just a collection of anti-evolution arguments that would only fool someone who is (a) ignorant, or (b) unskilled at critical thinking.
It's rhetoric - dishonest rhetoric - not science. It was invented as a wrapper for creationism to make it superficially look like science after the SCOTUS ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violates the Establishment Clause.
It's also propaganda for creationists, to make them think their Iron Age myths are "really true, because they're supported by SCIENCE!"
Human arrogance appears to exclude any extra-terrestrial origin based on nothing but 'We don't need no stinkin' outsider doing creation.'
Since the rise of the modern scientific mentality, religious nutters have been claiming that anything we don't know a natural mechanism for must be God's work. Apart from the logical fallacy inherent in that, we keep discovering natural causes for stuff that was formerly unexplainable. That "god of the gaps" view should have died in 1828, when urea was first synthesized from non-biological substances.
"It's part of a pattern. There is basically a war on anyone who dissents from Darwin and we've seen that for several years," said John West, associate director of Center for Science and Culture at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute." --
WRONG. It's a war on anyone who crams their beliefs down others throats. It's a war on those who don't respect that other people MIGHT have a different opinion and not want to discuss such subjects for fear of oh, say LAWSUITS?!! i.e. leave it at home.
I should have attached my last post here. West is a perfect example of someone who thinks rejecting his beliefs is persecution.
Or, given that he works for DI, I'd guess that he's just cynically playing that card for the benefit of the True Believers, who are eager for an explanation as to why ordinary people reject their "obviously true" superstitions and supporting pseudosciences. '
I think that you've seriously exaggerated how much of a victim of discrimination for your basic religious beliefs you've been on Slashdot.
In my experience, the more religious a person is, the more likely they harbor a persecution complex. To the point of certainty, for those who wear their religion on their sleeve and constantly peddle their beliefs to the people they associate with. (Witness the topic of this article.)
If you reject their views, it's persecution. If you don't give them a special hearing, it's persecution. If you don't teach their mythology alongside science in science classes, it's persecution. If you don't let them legislate their religious scruples onto everyone else, it's persecution. If businesses want to broaden their holiday sales beyond "Christmas", it's persecution.
When you can't find ID articles in biology journals, it's persecution. It couldn't *possibly* be that they rarely submit any articles, even more rarely submit articles that are on-topic for the journal, and never submit articles that can stand up to the most casual critical scrutiny. Nope, it's persecution, pure and simple.
(And they're fond of comparing themselves to Galileo, which is exactly backwards in terms of science vs. superstition.)
It's not just religious nutters, though they dominate this niche in US society. On the internet you can easily find "persecuted" cranks who think they have come up with a revolutionary technology or game-changing scientific theory, and they act just like the religious zealots.
But the latter are far more common. I've had a lot of religious cranks as coworkers or classmates, but never a secular crank. You have to go looking for them.
I've always had Excellent karma on Slashdot for years until I made a post that the believe that evolution occurs is not in direct opposition to the belief that there is a Creator/God.
No need for paranoia. People mod stuff down for no good reason all the time, on every topic. Presumably because they disagree or don't like something about the post.
Also, one post modded down to oblivion won't do much to your karma. It happens to me fairly often, and I've still kept my default +1 status.
I still maintain that if it is a great offense to believe in the existence of God (which cannot be tested), then it is equally a great offense to believe definitely in the inverse of something that cannot be tested.
Do you expect us to believe that you take that attitude toward anything other than your unevidenced religious beliefs?
You have absolutely no opinion on whether Russell's Teapot exists?
If I say there's a ghost in my house, or Bigfoot regularly raids my garden, are you without opinion on whether it's so?
Do you think believing/disbelieving in Thor or Marduk has the same status as believing/disbelieving in your own God?
Special pleading doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already want to be convinced. (Usually the person making the argument.)
If teachers can teach kids to pass a sufficiently rigorous test, I think we could all be pretty satisfied.
And if the kids don't pass, how do you know it was the teachers' fault?
Maybe the kids have low IQs, or some other sort of cognitive disability. Maybe they weren't properly prepared before entering the class. Maybe the teachers weren't given sufficient resources, or had too many bullshit non-educational job responsibilities. Maybe the classes are too large. Maybe the school is in a noisy environment. Maybe the students come from a neighborhood with a gang/punk mentality that gives them the attitude that success in school is un-cool. Maybe they just aren't motivated to work to prepare for a job that will let rich people exploit them for the rest of their lives.
Slashdot Mirror
First post, never got that before.
You must be using the new FTL neutrino submission system.
...seems appropriate as a term for how the US government takes its stance towards the rest of the world. Even although broke. How long, yet ?
We're not broke, just bleeding.
All the hand-wringing is because certain politicians are upset that we're not spending all of it on the haves.
How many bits should we use for encryption now?
If you assume peak computing power is doubling ever n years, they you need one more bit every n years to keep ahead.
And of course, whatever you use now will be breakable in the future, if anyone cares to save your messages until computing catches up.
The more messages from a given target, the more likely it is for the computers to detect telltale patterns
IIRC, that's not true, for a good encryptation system.
For a *perfect* encryptation system, the messages would be indistinguishable from random patterns of bits.
Only 61 years late! ;)
I'll bet all the special effects studios are drooling over the chance for another contract - they should do a lot better this time.
TSA Menu:
Skip opening suitcase - $10
Skip opening computer - $10
Skip taking off shoes - $5
Skip anal probe - $250
Skip groping - $500 for hunk or babe; free for everyone else.
Now only terrorists who can afford the $100 can take a bomb on your plane.
Willie Nelson smokes pot? I thought he was a clean-cut, all-American C&W singer.
Pre-history is getting crowded with failed competitors. Yay us?
Well, our ancestors had to eat *something*.
Gospel of Thomas, Saying 40
If you want to be Mr. Extracanonical, you should be quoting the Gospel of John-Thomas.
Has there ever been a patent that *wasn't* weaponized?
but...but...but.. the world is only 6,000 years old and man was created in his current image by god! There must be some other explanation!
That's why they're a different species: made in someone else's image.
And survived right up 'til 5500 years before creation, too!
Which part of " FBI officials have requested a search warrant" do you think isn't about getting a warrant?
Which brings up the question... WTF is this newsworthy?
The Feds finally got *something* right on the topic of intellectual property.
Maybe we can teach them a second trick.
Funny how changes in purchasing power is how they calculate inflation.
They measure it in the purchasing power of a unit of currency, not in the purchasing power of individuals.
If your wages don't keep up with inflation, *your* purchasing power declines. Which is (or is headed toward being) a big problem in post-industrial USA.
Daniel Kim.. what fucking world do you live in where $60 games deliver 40 hour experiences and then you can just go get another new game that does the same?
I mean, my first game was an RPG. My favorite genre is still RPG. So I'm well aware that they can. But I'm not under some illusion that such games dominate the market.. Batman, Assassin's Creed. They're like 20 hour experiences if I drag my ass a little.
At three dollars per hour of entertainment, it still beats going to the movies.
predicting the end of the $40 computer game.
Big name PC games have cost around $50 since about 1980.
I think that has effectively gone up in the last few years, as game publishers have adopted the model of selling you an incomplete ~$50 game and then nickle-and-dime-ing you toward bankruptcy with DLC and "expansions" that should have been in the initial release.
However, there may be a downward pressure developing, as gamers come to realize that if they can wait 6 months they can get recent titles with a substantial discount on outlets like Steam, and bigger discounts if they wait longer. For example Civ V was released ~18 months ago, and yesterday they had it bundled with almost all the expansions and DLC for IIRC $12.49.
I lol'd. But a bad troll... I give 3/10.
Other judges?
I only give it 2/10, since posted as an AC. If you want your trolls to pass for something you actually believe, create an account and post them from there.
It's not incumbent upon a theory to provide its own hypotheses.
Never in my life have I seen the confusion about what a scientific theory is stated so strongly and succinctly.
The key concept behind 'Intelligent Design' is that someone or something had to create a plan and assemble the first few units which then began self-replicating and evolving based on the conditions they were living in.
And the arguments they offer to support that notion are utterly specious.
Why should the theory of biological self-assembly be the only explanation considered scientifically viable?
It's the only explanation out there that actually has explanatory value, while simultaneously conforming to observable facts.
You're welcome to introduce a new one, but the kind of dishonest arguments peddled by the Discovery Institute are not going to fly in *any* field of science.
Recent self-assembly theories have attempted (desperately) to identify certain rock structures surrounding deep ocean thermal vents as a possible substrate for self-assembly but any close examination of that mechanism makes it appear as so much scientific hand-waving due to problems with sequence, complexity, protein chirality, length of time needed, etc. making the Intelligent Design theory appear to be well-substantiated in comparison.
There is no Intelligent Design theory. There's just a collection of anti-evolution arguments that would only fool someone who is (a) ignorant, or (b) unskilled at critical thinking.
It's rhetoric - dishonest rhetoric - not science. It was invented as a wrapper for creationism to make it superficially look like science after the SCOTUS ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violates the Establishment Clause.
It's also propaganda for creationists, to make them think their Iron Age myths are "really true, because they're supported by SCIENCE!"
Human arrogance appears to exclude any extra-terrestrial origin based on nothing but 'We don't need no stinkin' outsider doing creation.'
Since the rise of the modern scientific mentality, religious nutters have been claiming that anything we don't know a natural mechanism for must be God's work. Apart from the logical fallacy inherent in that, we keep discovering natural causes for stuff that was formerly unexplainable. That "god of the gaps" view should have died in 1828, when urea was first synthesized from non-biological substances.
"It's part of a pattern. There is basically a war on anyone who dissents from Darwin and we've seen that for several years," said John West, associate director of Center for Science and Culture at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute."
--
WRONG. It's a war on anyone who crams their beliefs down others throats. It's a war on those who don't respect that other people MIGHT have a different opinion and not want to discuss such subjects for fear of oh, say LAWSUITS?!! i.e. leave it at home.
I should have attached my last post here. West is a perfect example of someone who thinks rejecting his beliefs is persecution.
Or, given that he works for DI, I'd guess that he's just cynically playing that card for the benefit of the True Believers, who are eager for an explanation as to why ordinary people reject their "obviously true" superstitions and supporting pseudosciences.
'
I think that you've seriously exaggerated how much of a victim of discrimination for your basic religious beliefs you've been on Slashdot.
In my experience, the more religious a person is, the more likely they harbor a persecution complex. To the point of certainty, for those who wear their religion on their sleeve and constantly peddle their beliefs to the people they associate with. (Witness the topic of this article.)
If you reject their views, it's persecution. If you don't give them a special hearing, it's persecution. If you don't teach their mythology alongside science in science classes, it's persecution. If you don't let them legislate their religious scruples onto everyone else, it's persecution. If businesses want to broaden their holiday sales beyond "Christmas", it's persecution.
When you can't find ID articles in biology journals, it's persecution. It couldn't *possibly* be that they rarely submit any articles, even more rarely submit articles that are on-topic for the journal, and never submit articles that can stand up to the most casual critical scrutiny. Nope, it's persecution, pure and simple.
(And they're fond of comparing themselves to Galileo, which is exactly backwards in terms of science vs. superstition.)
It's not just religious nutters, though they dominate this niche in US society. On the internet you can easily find "persecuted" cranks who think they have come up with a revolutionary technology or game-changing scientific theory, and they act just like the religious zealots.
But the latter are far more common. I've had a lot of religious cranks as coworkers or classmates, but never a secular crank. You have to go looking for them.
I've always had Excellent karma on Slashdot for years until I made a post that the believe that evolution occurs is not in direct opposition to the belief that there is a Creator/God.
No need for paranoia. People mod stuff down for no good reason all the time, on every topic. Presumably because they disagree or don't like something about the post.
Also, one post modded down to oblivion won't do much to your karma. It happens to me fairly often, and I've still kept my default +1 status.
I still maintain that if it is a great offense to believe in the existence of God (which cannot be tested), then it is equally a great offense to believe definitely in the inverse of something that cannot be tested.
Do you expect us to believe that you take that attitude toward anything other than your unevidenced religious beliefs?
You have absolutely no opinion on whether Russell's Teapot exists?
If I say there's a ghost in my house, or Bigfoot regularly raids my garden, are you without opinion on whether it's so?
Do you think believing/disbelieving in Thor or Marduk has the same status as believing/disbelieving in your own God?
Special pleading doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already want to be convinced. (Usually the person making the argument.)
If teachers can teach kids to pass a sufficiently rigorous test, I think we could all be pretty satisfied.
And if the kids don't pass, how do you know it was the teachers' fault?
Maybe the kids have low IQs, or some other sort of cognitive disability. Maybe they weren't properly prepared before entering the class. Maybe the teachers weren't given sufficient resources, or had too many bullshit non-educational job responsibilities. Maybe the classes are too large. Maybe the school is in a noisy environment. Maybe the students come from a neighborhood with a gang/punk mentality that gives them the attitude that success in school is un-cool. Maybe they just aren't motivated to work to prepare for a job that will let rich people exploit them for the rest of their lives.
"fire teachers" is an ideology, not a solution.