Oh, so what you don't like is the way OO.o looks on Linux? That's not a desktop problem, or a Linux problem - that's an OpenOffice problem. It's a legitimate complaint, and I completely agree with you - but your unhappiness is the result of how OO.o uses system fonts, not the result of poor-looking fonts on Linux. OO.o apparently needs to be tweaked to look nice on linux for a variety of reasons, none of which seem logical to me but I'm not an OO.o developer.
Linux fonts look fine. OO.o doesn't by default use those perfectly suitable fonts. It can be made to look fine: this page seems to have some useful information, and even though one of the suggestions does talk about editing your xorg.conf (may be distro-specific instructions) it shouldn't take any four hours to do it. I'm sure that a less cursory Googling would turn up even better results, like this one. I know, I know - you shouldn't have to Google to solve basic problems like this. You're right. Email the OO.o devs and let them know. It's still not a Linux problem, it's an OO.o problem.
I have never argued that OO.o looks as good on Linux as it does on Windows. That wasn't what your original comment implied, though - it implied that the default fonts in Linux were ugly, required lots of configuration to make the desktop usable, and that the OO.o problems were a symptom of that. THAT implication is incorrect. Since you no longer appear to be maintaining that position, though, we can consider this conversation to be complete.
"Last time I checked, OOo, AbiWord, and WordPerfect could work w/ MS Office files."
But not with complete functionality, and that's the point.
Microsoft can and do change how their document format works, and do NOT publish the specifications for that format. Those who have implemented compatibility have had to reverse-engineer it. For a variety of very good reasons, Mass. wants their documents created in a format whose specifications are open and available to the public without restriction. There is no technical reason why Microsoft cannot implement such a standard. The only reason that Microsoft don't want to is because it breaks their vendor lock-in. Massachusetts has no reason to protect Microsoft's profit margins, especially at the expense of Mass. taxpayers whose needs are, as a point of fact, EXACTLY what the gov't of Mass. is supposed to be meeting.
The ability to gain access to a computer for the purposes of interaction with one's state government is not synonymous with the ability to gain access to a copy of Office - especially not a current copy compatible with the latest revision of the.doc standard.
Again, if Mass. requires a format whose specifications are known and unencumbered but Microsoft chooses not to support any such format, who is being unreasonable? Which limits customer choice more: a format whose spec is open and unencumbered and thus can be implemented completely and properly by any developer who wants to, or a format whose spec is closed, unavailable to developers, and subject to change without notice?
My fonts look fine. I live in the "real" world, and have spent approximately zero time screwing with fonts. What, exactly, is the problem with your fonts?
No. The crux of the issue is vendor lock-in. Massachusetts wants to avoid it, Microsoft wants to enforce it. If Massachusetts requires the use of an open document format and Microsoft refuses to support it, who is cutting off whose nose?
"The average computer uses as much as 140 jack-o-lanterns worth of coal to run on any given day."
How much coal is a jack-o-lantern's worth? A coal-fired plant will use up about 3 liters of coal to power a 300W PC for 24 hours.
I base those numbers on the following assumptions: that the density of coal is about 1.3 g/cc, that coal has 8,800 btu/lb, and that the average coal-fired plant's efficiency is such that it produces 8,800 btu/lb926 watt-hours per pound of coal. The heat content of coal used for electric generation varies, but that's probably toward the low end of the range.
So, 300 w*24 hours is 7200 w-h. 7200/926=7.77 lbs. That's 3.5 kg, near enough. (3500 g) / (1.3 g/cc) = 2,692 cc or 2.692 liters. Now, if we assume that you referred to a "jack-o-lanterns worth" as by volume, we can do a bit of simple geometry and find that a perfectly spherical, 2,692 cc pumpkin would be 17" in diameter. That's a large, but not huge, pumpkin. ONE pumpkin. If your statement that it's 140 jack-o-lanterns worth by volume can be considered to be true, we must then find that you consider a jack-o-lantern to be 3.3 cm in diameter.
I think you're confusing a jack-o-lantern and a golfball. Those must be a bitch to carve.
I was gonna suggest that. I *KNOW* that my office has been haunted by a few brown ghosts over the last few years. Sure, it's not exactly "paranormal"... but it's still pretty scary.
2. cdparanoia lacks such basic features as a GUI front-end, freedb lookup of the CD in the drive, automatic creation of ID3 tags, invocation of the encoder, profiles so that you can easily go from one compression mode (e.g., APE, MP3 VBR, MP3 192kbps CBR, FLAC, etc.) to another. Don't waste my time telling me how to string multiple programs together via shell scripts or other kludges. That you would need to do such a thing to even approach the features that EAC has natively shows that cdparanoia is deficient by comparison.
cdparanoia isn't an encoder. It isn't *supposed* to do all that stuff, any more than OpenOffice is supposed to do all that stuff.
If you wish to begin a discussion of why cdparanoia isn't as good a ripper as EAC, then you can perhaps make some valid arguments and perhaps educate some of us. If, however, you wish to proclaim to the world that EAC is a better encoder than cdparanoia, then you're clearly misunderstanding the situation. cdparanoia's one and only job is to take a raw audio datastream and convert it to a.wav file. It does that, and nothing more.
If *I* want to do all of that stuff (encoding, ID3, etc) then I use a program designed and intended to do that stuff. Like, e.g., GRiP. Which was designed to implement a GUI for ripping, encoding, tagging, etc. It happens to use cdparanoia as a backend for ripping. Nonetheless, cdparanoia is still a ripper, not an encoder. A much more fair and reasonable comparison would be EAC to GRiP - don't tell me, I know. EAC is MUCH better. Clearly. Wow. I'm thoroughly impressed. Now, clearly there's no comparison (because EAC is the gold standard) but at least there is some correspondence between what those two programs are intended to do.
I would have assumed that you, being a moderator on the EAC Yahoo! forum, do know the difference between a ripper and an encoder. Was I mistaken, or are you simply in a mood to stir up shit?
If your intent is to point out to the great unwashed here on Slashdot that their precious open source is usually deficient to closed source, you'll need to do a few things differently: 1) Don't be a prick. At least, don't be the first to be a prick. The longer you can hold out before becoming a prick, the more likely people are to listen. 2) You'll need more street cred than "I'm a moderator on a Yahoo! group!" Sorry. See if you can convince Ken Pohlman to endorse your audio godhood. 3) Assertions of superiority are best supported with either unassailable facts ("Bill Gates sucks Satan's cock!") or legitimate, supportable testing performed by qualified persons. Arny Krueger doesn't count. 4) "If you knew a bit more about this subject, then you would know that..." convinces no one. It neither convinces anyone that you are right, or that you know more than they do.
These are just some little helpful tidbits that might get you through your day with a bit less frustration and a bit more success. Cheers!
Cree are claiming a white (phosphor-based) LED with 50% wallplug efficiency, according to Don Klipstein's Lighting Site. The link from his site is dead, though. Cree are also claiming that lab versions of a current LED achieve 70 lumens/watt, and a total of 85 lumens at 350 mA. You'd still need about 25 of these to get the light output of a 100W incandescent, though. Probably cheaper to drop 300 5mm LEDs into a dedicated fixture - Chi Wing's eBay store will sell you 300 16,000 mcd (maybe...) white LEDs for a little over $100, shipped. However, I can't really see spending $100 for a 100W bulb, ya know?
OTGH, though, I can see a distinctly untapped market for specialty, artistic LED fixtures that simply can't be realized with incandescents or fluorescents.
No, not *every* program, that's what the 'usually' qualifier means. My structuring of the dependent clause probably didn't make that clear. My intended meaning was that it usually had to modify the registry and usually had to reboot. And yes, frankly, the majority of the packages I've installed have in fact required me to reboot - probably not strictly necessary, but that's what they tell me. Now, maybe if I were installing 20 or 30 bits of shareware and freeware a week, perhaps I'd see more software that didn't tell me I had to reboot. But the only time I'm using Windows in the first place is for something I can't use on another OS, and that means commercial packages, and usually vendor-specific. Yes, those usually require a reboot. Don't like it? Don't jump my shit, call Bill Gates and jump his.
And why the fuck would I install IE? Besides being a security hole you could drive a truck through, it comes preinstalled because it's an integral and irremovable part of the OS! I have no intention of wasting my bandwidth on IE updates, either. That's several tens of megs that COULD be used for d/l porn.
Although MATLAB on OS X is a flaming piece of shit - even worse than the Linux version, which at least works moderately well. Frankly, I'm embarassed for those developers. They're such 'tards. I could stand the fact that they use an ugly Java interface for MATLAB on Unix, but it's also unreliable, antiquated (hello? There's this thing called a scroll wheel?), and slow as shit. That's when it works, mind you. I've recently switched to IDL for my data analysis. While it may take more programming to do the same things, IDL at least doesn't crash on me as often. I've given those fuckers at the MathWorks the last of my money they'll ever see, unless they turn that ship around fast.
Linux's biggest problem is that it requires any "package management" at all. Because of the scattered directory structure, files are littered all over the place, so you have to run a program to install the program, and run a program to remove the program.
Used Windows lately? Every program *I've* installed on Windows in the last several years has not only run a program to install itself and required another to uninstall it, it also usually has to modify the registry and then forces me to reboot after installing. Of course, Windows only has 90%+ of the market - no doubt it would be much larger, were it not for the fact that their package management requires a program to install new software. Imagine if they solved that problem!
I did not say that it had to be a Deity. I just said that if it wasn't then it must be a person, group of persons, or a simple majority.
You asked how there can be right and wrong without god. Last I checked, that is a deity. Those non-deity examples you mention are all example of entities which have the power of legal and illegal, not right and wrong. You are again mistaken, and you again make my point for me. You continue to insist that there has to be some person or deity, some entity or group thereof, responsible for determining right from wrong. This is, again, the same "big daddy in the sky" claptrap which indicates your own moral immaturity, and your inability to see the difference between "legal" and "moral". Are you the CEO of a large corporation, or perhaps a lawyer?
For you to say that x strikes you as being right or moral without a base of measurement is no less a leap of faith than someone saying that "the bible strikes me as being true". You are saying I know it is right!
Read my statement again. I never said that my personal sense of right and wrong was developed without a framework or reference; I merely pointed out that god wasn't a part of it. You interpreted that to mean "without framework" because you still cannot comprehend the idea that right and wrong are not defined by your god. This is because you have been brainwashed.
You continue to attribute statements and meanings to me that I did not make and that are clearly contradictory to what I have stated and to reality, and then base poorly-constructed logical extrapolations upon them. You continue to assert that right and wrong are the same thing as legal and illegal. Swing, and a miss. Every single point that you've made is either flat wrong or completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I would be willing to continue this discussion with you if you were capable of a) accurately reading my words and b) thinking rationally for yourself. Since you continue to show that you can do neither, there is no point in carrying on. I shall respond no more to your comments. Wallow, sir, wallow in your ignorance and convince yourself that it is bliss.
Yes. I'm sorry that you've endured brainwashing at the hands of no-doubt-well-meaning christian clerics, but the fact of the matter is that neither they nor any other spiritual shamen hold a monopoly on morality.
In fact, I'd go so far as to assert that any system of right and wrong based on the caprices of a god is in fact inferior. Such systems take the childish, "wrong is what daddy doesn't want me to do, and he'll punish me if I do it," paradigm and modify it to replace "daddy" with a putative "big daddy in the sky" figure, but the essential core is the same. That's great if you're a primitive society in which education is a luxury afforded to the privileged few and critical thought is still more rare, as this provides a simple way for the clerical class to rule over and maintain some semblance of order in their society. "Don't eat shellfish, pigs are filthy, thou shalt not lie with a woman during her unclean time, thou shalt not kill, etc." are great ways to enforce hygiene and a sort of pseudo-morality upon those who haven't the intellect or education to think for themselves... but it presupposes ignorance and stupidity upon the part of the laiety. Shepherds are those who tend sheep, and there's a reason why christian clerics refer to themselves as shepherds and to their parishioners as their flock.
I won't argue the point that the concepts of right and wrong require some sort of frame of reference. I will, however, disagree vehemently that that frame of reference must necessarily be a deity of any description. Saying that by developing my own moral code I am setting myself up as my own personal god is again logically fallacious, as it presupposes that god is a necessary requirement for a moral code, which is incorrect.
I realize that this view completely contradicts yours. How fortunate for you, then, that we live in a country which has codified the freedom for you to believe what you wish so long as you don't force it upon the rest of us. It's called religious tolerance. That, sir, strikes me as being right - despite not requiring the existence of a god to make that determination.
I agree with you up to one point. How is Card forcing you to do anything? Does he have a gun to your head? Is he going to throw you in a camp? Last time I checked he wasn't doing anything but voicing his opinions. Doesn't he have as much right to voice his opinions as anyone else? Or do you feel that because you disagree with them that is enough to take that right away from him?
No one has advocated telling him to shut up - that's a straw man you've set up. He's free to hold his opinions, free to express them, etc., but not free to impose his religion upon me, via legislation or any other method. THAT, my friend, would be religious intolerance from OSC. Also note that "wrong"!="should be outlawed," especially when "wrong" is determined on religious grounds. It is, in fact, entirely possible to develop a system of morals which will allow one to be a happy and productive member of society, all without having them handed to you by religion. In other words, one can know right from wrong without your god or any other. Takes more work and more thought, though...
Well, not to seem needlessly argumentative... but no, actually, I don't think tolerance has anything to do with respect. I don't have to respect a single thing about you or your religion in order to tolerate it. What I have to do in order to tolerate your religion is to not try to limit or control how or whether you practice your religion - so long as you do the same. Not shooting you for practicing your religion is exactly that - tolerance. But your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, and your right to teach creationism (no matter how you try to disguise it) ends at my child's ears.
I'd also like to point out that as long as we're talking about assholes, the assholes I hate are the ones who lie about the fact that they are trying to force their religious beliefs upon me (and I'm not talking about you, sir). I hate the assholes who, e.g., pretend that their desire to have ID taught in schools is based on a desire to "present a balanced view." I hate the assholes who pretend that having the phrase, "Under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance is a way of preserving and honoring the fact that some of the Founding Fathers of our country nominally shared some belief systems with them (although I don't think there were any Southern Baptists who signed the Declaration of Indepence... hmm?) If they wanted to amend the POA to say, "...one nation, which was founded by people, some of whom were Christians..." I might buy it. But you and I both know that's not really what they want.
Religious tolerance needs to work both ways - people who have a religious preference need to respect the fact that others do not share that preference, and need to stop trying to force them. Again, I'm not suggesting that you are guilty of that particular transgression. You do have a peculiar idea of what tolerance means, though.
To be honest, I don't recall having done so. I've looked at your recent comment history, and I can't see anything that immediately jumps out at me. Wonder if it's a Slashcode fuckup, or perhaps the lack of sleep is simply getting to me.
What? Somebody got a patent on the intermittent windshield wiper? Shit, I know there's prior art - I have an MGB. This is ridiculous. Next you're going to tell me that someone got a patent on a car that leaks oil.
I think Glory Road has more going on than a quick-and-dirty bit of pulp, honestly. Otherwise the book would have ended at the point when they got the Egg and found out who Star really was. At worst, I think it belongs in the same category of political fiction as does Starship Troopers. It's not as blatant and pervasive as in ST, but GR is all about political and social commentary. Top to bottom.
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel is one of RAH's juveniles, and is by no means targetted at those who would appreciate literary fiction. Those are just for fun, probably for him and for us. I just read The Rolling Stones (again!), and that's what it was. Fun.
Just to be on-topic, though, I'll say that I enjoyed Firefly - at least the episodes I've seen of it - and I'm looking forward to the movie. I also like OSC, especially Ender's Game and the Alvin Maker series. I can do without Folk of the Fringe, though. As one of my greatest fears is that someone will do to {insert any one of a hundred favorite SF novels here} what they did to Starship Troopers and to a lesser extent LOTR, I find OSC's endorsement of the movie to be very meaningful.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, so what you don't like is the way OO.o looks on Linux? That's not a desktop problem, or a Linux problem - that's an OpenOffice problem. It's a legitimate complaint, and I completely agree with you - but your unhappiness is the result of how OO.o uses system fonts, not the result of poor-looking fonts on Linux. OO.o apparently needs to be tweaked to look nice on linux for a variety of reasons, none of which seem logical to me but I'm not an OO.o developer.
Linux fonts look fine. OO.o doesn't by default use those perfectly suitable fonts. It can be made to look fine: this page seems to have some useful information, and even though one of the suggestions does talk about editing your xorg.conf (may be distro-specific instructions) it shouldn't take any four hours to do it. I'm sure that a less cursory Googling would turn up even better results, like this one. I know, I know - you shouldn't have to Google to solve basic problems like this. You're right. Email the OO.o devs and let them know. It's still not a Linux problem, it's an OO.o problem.
I have never argued that OO.o looks as good on Linux as it does on Windows. That wasn't what your original comment implied, though - it implied that the default fonts in Linux were ugly, required lots of configuration to make the desktop usable, and that the OO.o problems were a symptom of that. THAT implication is incorrect. Since you no longer appear to be maintaining that position, though, we can consider this conversation to be complete.
"Last time I checked, OOo, AbiWord, and WordPerfect could work w/ MS Office files."
.doc standard.
But not with complete functionality, and that's the point.
Microsoft can and do change how their document format works, and do NOT publish the specifications for that format. Those who have implemented compatibility have had to reverse-engineer it. For a variety of very good reasons, Mass. wants their documents created in a format whose specifications are open and available to the public without restriction. There is no technical reason why Microsoft cannot implement such a standard. The only reason that Microsoft don't want to is because it breaks their vendor lock-in. Massachusetts has no reason to protect Microsoft's profit margins, especially at the expense of Mass. taxpayers whose needs are, as a point of fact, EXACTLY what the gov't of Mass. is supposed to be meeting.
The ability to gain access to a computer for the purposes of interaction with one's state government is not synonymous with the ability to gain access to a copy of Office - especially not a current copy compatible with the latest revision of the
Again, if Mass. requires a format whose specifications are known and unencumbered but Microsoft chooses not to support any such format, who is being unreasonable? Which limits customer choice more: a format whose spec is open and unencumbered and thus can be implemented completely and properly by any developer who wants to, or a format whose spec is closed, unavailable to developers, and subject to change without notice?
My fonts look fine. I live in the "real" world, and have spent approximately zero time screwing with fonts. What, exactly, is the problem with your fonts?
No. The crux of the issue is vendor lock-in. Massachusetts wants to avoid it, Microsoft wants to enforce it. If Massachusetts requires the use of an open document format and Microsoft refuses to support it, who is cutting off whose nose?
"The average computer uses as much as 140 jack-o-lanterns worth of coal to run on any given day."
How much coal is a jack-o-lantern's worth? A coal-fired plant will use up about 3 liters of coal to power a 300W PC for 24 hours.
I base those numbers on the following assumptions: that the density of coal is about 1.3 g/cc, that coal has 8,800 btu/lb, and that the average coal-fired plant's efficiency is such that it produces 8,800 btu/lb926 watt-hours per pound of coal. The heat content of coal used for electric generation varies, but that's probably toward the low end of the range.
So, 300 w*24 hours is 7200 w-h. 7200/926=7.77 lbs. That's 3.5 kg, near enough. (3500 g) / (1.3 g/cc) = 2,692 cc or 2.692 liters. Now, if we assume that you referred to a "jack-o-lanterns worth" as by volume, we can do a bit of simple geometry and find that a perfectly spherical, 2,692 cc pumpkin would be 17" in diameter. That's a large, but not huge, pumpkin. ONE pumpkin. If your statement that it's 140 jack-o-lanterns worth by volume can be considered to be true, we must then find that you consider a jack-o-lantern to be 3.3 cm in diameter.
I think you're confusing a jack-o-lantern and a golfball. Those must be a bitch to carve.
I was gonna suggest that. I *KNOW* that my office has been haunted by a few brown ghosts over the last few years. Sure, it's not exactly "paranormal"... but it's still pretty scary.
Grandma has to use this? OK. LyX should do her fine.
"LaTeX" is not synonymous with "command line".
Evil, sure - but who are you calling a genius?
Three minutes? You wish!
Come to think of it, so do I.
2. cdparanoia lacks such basic features as a GUI front-end, freedb lookup of the CD in the drive, automatic creation of ID3 tags, invocation of the encoder, profiles so that you can easily go from one compression mode (e.g., APE, MP3 VBR, MP3 192kbps CBR, FLAC, etc.) to another. Don't waste my time telling me how to string multiple programs together via shell scripts or other kludges. That you would need to do such a thing to even approach the features that EAC has natively shows that cdparanoia is deficient by comparison.
.wav file. It does that, and nothing more.
cdparanoia isn't an encoder. It isn't *supposed* to do all that stuff, any more than OpenOffice is supposed to do all that stuff.
If you wish to begin a discussion of why cdparanoia isn't as good a ripper as EAC, then you can perhaps make some valid arguments and perhaps educate some of us. If, however, you wish to proclaim to the world that EAC is a better encoder than cdparanoia, then you're clearly misunderstanding the situation. cdparanoia's one and only job is to take a raw audio datastream and convert it to a
If *I* want to do all of that stuff (encoding, ID3, etc) then I use a program designed and intended to do that stuff. Like, e.g., GRiP. Which was designed to implement a GUI for ripping, encoding, tagging, etc. It happens to use cdparanoia as a backend for ripping. Nonetheless, cdparanoia is still a ripper, not an encoder. A much more fair and reasonable comparison would be EAC to GRiP - don't tell me, I know. EAC is MUCH better. Clearly. Wow. I'm thoroughly impressed. Now, clearly there's no comparison (because EAC is the gold standard) but at least there is some correspondence between what those two programs are intended to do.
I would have assumed that you, being a moderator on the EAC Yahoo! forum, do know the difference between a ripper and an encoder. Was I mistaken, or are you simply in a mood to stir up shit?
If your intent is to point out to the great unwashed here on Slashdot that their precious open source is usually deficient to closed source, you'll need to do a few things differently: 1) Don't be a prick. At least, don't be the first to be a prick. The longer you can hold out before becoming a prick, the more likely people are to listen. 2) You'll need more street cred than "I'm a moderator on a Yahoo! group!" Sorry. See if you can convince Ken Pohlman to endorse your audio godhood. 3) Assertions of superiority are best supported with either unassailable facts ("Bill Gates sucks Satan's cock!") or legitimate, supportable testing performed by qualified persons. Arny Krueger doesn't count. 4) "If you knew a bit more about this subject, then you would know that..." convinces no one. It neither convinces anyone that you are right, or that you know more than they do.
These are just some little helpful tidbits that might get you through your day with a bit less frustration and a bit more success. Cheers!
You forgot #7. It was our only rule:
#7. Costume or naked.
We had good parties. GP poster wouldn't have fit in very well. I miss those days.
Cree are claiming a white (phosphor-based) LED with 50% wallplug efficiency, according to Don Klipstein's Lighting Site. The link from his site is dead, though. Cree are also claiming that lab versions of a current LED achieve 70 lumens/watt, and a total of 85 lumens at 350 mA. You'd still need about 25 of these to get the light output of a 100W incandescent, though. Probably cheaper to drop 300 5mm LEDs into a dedicated fixture - Chi Wing's eBay store will sell you 300 16,000 mcd (maybe...) white LEDs for a little over $100, shipped. However, I can't really see spending $100 for a 100W bulb, ya know?
OTGH, though, I can see a distinctly untapped market for specialty, artistic LED fixtures that simply can't be realized with incandescents or fluorescents.
"should"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
No, not *every* program, that's what the 'usually' qualifier means. My structuring of the dependent clause probably didn't make that clear. My intended meaning was that it usually had to modify the registry and usually had to reboot. And yes, frankly, the majority of the packages I've installed have in fact required me to reboot - probably not strictly necessary, but that's what they tell me. Now, maybe if I were installing 20 or 30 bits of shareware and freeware a week, perhaps I'd see more software that didn't tell me I had to reboot. But the only time I'm using Windows in the first place is for something I can't use on another OS, and that means commercial packages, and usually vendor-specific. Yes, those usually require a reboot. Don't like it? Don't jump my shit, call Bill Gates and jump his.
And why the fuck would I install IE? Besides being a security hole you could drive a truck through, it comes preinstalled because it's an integral and irremovable part of the OS! I have no intention of wasting my bandwidth on IE updates, either. That's several tens of megs that COULD be used for d/l porn.
Although MATLAB on OS X is a flaming piece of shit - even worse than the Linux version, which at least works moderately well. Frankly, I'm embarassed for those developers. They're such 'tards. I could stand the fact that they use an ugly Java interface for MATLAB on Unix, but it's also unreliable, antiquated (hello? There's this thing called a scroll wheel?), and slow as shit. That's when it works, mind you. I've recently switched to IDL for my data analysis. While it may take more programming to do the same things, IDL at least doesn't crash on me as often. I've given those fuckers at the MathWorks the last of my money they'll ever see, unless they turn that ship around fast.
Linux's biggest problem is that it requires any "package management" at all. Because of the scattered directory structure, files are littered all over the place, so you have to run a program to install the program, and run a program to remove the program.
Used Windows lately? Every program *I've* installed on Windows in the last several years has not only run a program to install itself and required another to uninstall it, it also usually has to modify the registry and then forces me to reboot after installing. Of course, Windows only has 90%+ of the market - no doubt it would be much larger, were it not for the fact that their package management requires a program to install new software. Imagine if they solved that problem!
I did not say that it had to be a Deity. I just said that if it wasn't then it must be a person, group of persons, or a simple majority.
You asked how there can be right and wrong without god. Last I checked, that is a deity. Those non-deity examples you mention are all example of entities which have the power of legal and illegal, not right and wrong. You are again mistaken, and you again make my point for me. You continue to insist that there has to be some person or deity, some entity or group thereof, responsible for determining right from wrong. This is, again, the same "big daddy in the sky" claptrap which indicates your own moral immaturity, and your inability to see the difference between "legal" and "moral". Are you the CEO of a large corporation, or perhaps a lawyer?
For you to say that x strikes you as being right or moral without a base of measurement is no less a leap of faith than someone saying that "the bible strikes me as being true". You are saying I know it is right!
Read my statement again. I never said that my personal sense of right and wrong was developed without a framework or reference; I merely pointed out that god wasn't a part of it. You interpreted that to mean "without framework" because you still cannot comprehend the idea that right and wrong are not defined by your god. This is because you have been brainwashed.
You continue to attribute statements and meanings to me that I did not make and that are clearly contradictory to what I have stated and to reality, and then base poorly-constructed logical extrapolations upon them. You continue to assert that right and wrong are the same thing as legal and illegal. Swing, and a miss. Every single point that you've made is either flat wrong or completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I would be willing to continue this discussion with you if you were capable of a) accurately reading my words and b) thinking rationally for yourself. Since you continue to show that you can do neither, there is no point in carrying on. I shall respond no more to your comments. Wallow, sir, wallow in your ignorance and convince yourself that it is bliss.
Without a God is there a right or wrong?
Yes. I'm sorry that you've endured brainwashing at the hands of no-doubt-well-meaning christian clerics, but the fact of the matter is that neither they nor any other spiritual shamen hold a monopoly on morality.
In fact, I'd go so far as to assert that any system of right and wrong based on the caprices of a god is in fact inferior. Such systems take the childish, "wrong is what daddy doesn't want me to do, and he'll punish me if I do it," paradigm and modify it to replace "daddy" with a putative "big daddy in the sky" figure, but the essential core is the same. That's great if you're a primitive society in which education is a luxury afforded to the privileged few and critical thought is still more rare, as this provides a simple way for the clerical class to rule over and maintain some semblance of order in their society. "Don't eat shellfish, pigs are filthy, thou shalt not lie with a woman during her unclean time, thou shalt not kill, etc." are great ways to enforce hygiene and a sort of pseudo-morality upon those who haven't the intellect or education to think for themselves... but it presupposes ignorance and stupidity upon the part of the laiety. Shepherds are those who tend sheep, and there's a reason why christian clerics refer to themselves as shepherds and to their parishioners as their flock.
I won't argue the point that the concepts of right and wrong require some sort of frame of reference. I will, however, disagree vehemently that that frame of reference must necessarily be a deity of any description. Saying that by developing my own moral code I am setting myself up as my own personal god is again logically fallacious, as it presupposes that god is a necessary requirement for a moral code, which is incorrect.
I realize that this view completely contradicts yours. How fortunate for you, then, that we live in a country which has codified the freedom for you to believe what you wish so long as you don't force it upon the rest of us. It's called religious tolerance. That, sir, strikes me as being right - despite not requiring the existence of a god to make that determination.
I agree with you up to one point. How is Card forcing you to do anything? Does he have a gun to your head? Is he going to throw you in a camp? Last time I checked he wasn't doing anything but voicing his opinions. Doesn't he have as much right to voice his opinions as anyone else? Or do you feel that because you disagree with them that is enough to take that right away from him?
No one has advocated telling him to shut up - that's a straw man you've set up. He's free to hold his opinions, free to express them, etc., but not free to impose his religion upon me, via legislation or any other method. THAT, my friend, would be religious intolerance from OSC. Also note that "wrong"!="should be outlawed," especially when "wrong" is determined on religious grounds. It is, in fact, entirely possible to develop a system of morals which will allow one to be a happy and productive member of society, all without having them handed to you by religion. In other words, one can know right from wrong without your god or any other. Takes more work and more thought, though...
Well, not to seem needlessly argumentative... but no, actually, I don't think tolerance has anything to do with respect. I don't have to respect a single thing about you or your religion in order to tolerate it. What I have to do in order to tolerate your religion is to not try to limit or control how or whether you practice your religion - so long as you do the same. Not shooting you for practicing your religion is exactly that - tolerance. But your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, and your right to teach creationism (no matter how you try to disguise it) ends at my child's ears.
I'd also like to point out that as long as we're talking about assholes, the assholes I hate are the ones who lie about the fact that they are trying to force their religious beliefs upon me (and I'm not talking about you, sir). I hate the assholes who, e.g., pretend that their desire to have ID taught in schools is based on a desire to "present a balanced view." I hate the assholes who pretend that having the phrase, "Under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance is a way of preserving and honoring the fact that some of the Founding Fathers of our country nominally shared some belief systems with them (although I don't think there were any Southern Baptists who signed the Declaration of Indepence... hmm?) If they wanted to amend the POA to say, "...one nation, which was founded by people, some of whom were Christians..." I might buy it. But you and I both know that's not really what they want.
Religious tolerance needs to work both ways - people who have a religious preference need to respect the fact that others do not share that preference, and need to stop trying to force them. Again, I'm not suggesting that you are guilty of that particular transgression. You do have a peculiar idea of what tolerance means, though.
1,3) Why did I foe you?
To be honest, I don't recall having done so. I've looked at your recent comment history, and I can't see anything that immediately jumps out at me. Wonder if it's a Slashcode fuckup, or perhaps the lack of sleep is simply getting to me.
Do you think I should have? Or shouldn't have?
You read that Mac Minis use AMD?
I think you'll want to go read that again. And perhaps provide us a linky. Because there's no truth in that at all.
Wow, with such insightful and useful commentary, it's no wonder that Anonymous Coward is the single most-read poster on Slashdot!
Perhaps you could tell me what you think of the Gimp while we're at it?
What? Somebody got a patent on the intermittent windshield wiper? Shit, I know there's prior art - I have an MGB. This is ridiculous. Next you're going to tell me that someone got a patent on a car that leaks oil.
I think Glory Road has more going on than a quick-and-dirty bit of pulp, honestly. Otherwise the book would have ended at the point when they got the Egg and found out who Star really was. At worst, I think it belongs in the same category of political fiction as does Starship Troopers. It's not as blatant and pervasive as in ST, but GR is all about political and social commentary. Top to bottom.
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel is one of RAH's juveniles, and is by no means targetted at those who would appreciate literary fiction. Those are just for fun, probably for him and for us. I just read The Rolling Stones (again!), and that's what it was. Fun.
Just to be on-topic, though, I'll say that I enjoyed Firefly - at least the episodes I've seen of it - and I'm looking forward to the movie. I also like OSC, especially Ender's Game and the Alvin Maker series. I can do without Folk of the Fringe, though. As one of my greatest fears is that someone will do to {insert any one of a hundred favorite SF novels here} what they did to Starship Troopers and to a lesser extent LOTR, I find OSC's endorsement of the movie to be very meaningful.