I really hate to do this, but I think the GEN in GenCon stands for "Generals" as in "Generals Convention." This dates back to the days when tabletop wargames were transitioning into Role Play.
How about this: We sleep because it is too dark for that 1/3 of our life to do much of anything else. If we were active during that time, we'd stumble over things, fall and get hurt.
IAAL, and the last time I looked it worked something like this:
1. A DUI checkpoint is allowed, you can systematically stop cars and make sure the driver is sober. This is because unsober drivers present a present threat to the safety of the road. The intrusion is therefore justifiable.
2. A drug checkpoint is not allowed. Merely having drugs in the vehicle does not create a present threat to the safety of the road, and the intrusion is not justifiable.
3. A fake drug checkpoint is allowed. You can put up signs that say "Drug Checkpoint Ahead" even when none exists, and then claim probable cause to check the cars that whip off the road, through the ditch, and burn rubber in the opposite direction.
Again, while IAAL, I am not your lawyer, and this is not a carefully researched opinion.
I've been all around this great big web and I've seen all kinds of 'blogs But I can't wait to get back to the blogs that are good enough to support ads...
(With appologies to the Beach Boys)
My question is, does the presence of advertising on an otherwise ordinary web log make it look more credible to the average web surfer?
I think thats a bit harsh. To my credit, back in college, I did manage to exempt 8 credits of biology for biology majors by CLEP exam. So I have two questions:
1. Has the "current theory" changed that much since 1996?
2. Would you prefer it if, instead of using the word "evolution" I used the phrase "popular belief about how modern live developed from nonlife through a series of changes in response to environmental stimuli?"
I think you missed the point of my question. Even bliblical literalists like to know how things work. I know several that work in biological research at universities. They're not trying to prove what their faith teaches, they're trying to learn how the world around them works.
I hadn't heard about the silt thing though, thats interesting.
Why don't you buy into evolution? And when you mention "how things got here" are you talking about biology, or cosmology?
To me, it seems a choice between the infinitely improbable and the utterly unprovable. Must we rely solely on either science or philosophy to understand our world?
I don't buy into evolution for the litany of reasons that creationists give to "prove" creation. I'm sure you've heard them all. Of course none of these flaws prove creation, but they leave enough holes that I won't sign onto the theory.
Unfortunately, there is no scientific basis by which ID or Creation can be tested. So at least from a rational standpoint that's out too.
Fortunately from a practical, secular, standpoint, I don't need to adopt either. I can confine my research to those observable phenomena around me without resorting to improbable events or beared men in the sky.
The whole point of research is to learn things to better the life of man. We can learn these things from science, or from philosophy, and we can use them both even if the foundational understandings on which they are based conflict.
To be fair, not all biblical literalists think this 6000 year number is anywhere near accurate. Many accept values between 10 and 30 thousand years. In any case, while I don't buy into evolution personally*, I can't help but wonder why I don't ever see ID or creationist fossil research publications. Don't church-supported universities also engage in this kind of research? Even the 6000 year crowd must surely be interested in knowing how these dinosaurs lived.
Any thoughts?
* I am origin agnostic, I haven't seen a good scientific theory yet for how things got here.
Facing a lack of options, most modern people (especially now-minded Americans) will take the best of what is available to them
You are probably correct. Fortunately, there is little need for boycotts anymore, because there is no actual NEED for the product in question. We're talking about movies on a disk, not slave labor or deforestation or starving children or unacceptable forms of discrimination.
If I, for example, feel that the draconian copy protections present on the popular format for video distribution, I can easily enough refrain from watching them. Not only is it true that they are not essential to my survival or happiness, they are in fact are one of only a hundred entertainment options competing for my attention.
On a side note, I find it interesting that RealPlayer, Quicktime, and whatever windows uses now are all surviving fairly well.
Can anyone tell me under what Federal authority such a law is passed and enforced by Congress? It seems to me this thing is overbroad and really not within any of Congress's powers. It has no spending clause, it does not limit itself to commerce, and has nothing to do with civil rights...
This is exactly the same problem Western Lawyers have suffered from for years. I give people good advice almost daily, and like Alice, they very seldom follow it. But tell them something is not an issue, and a hundred stories from the internet come wafting out.
"But what about this man?! I checked it out and it's legit!"
Like Doctors, lawyers were trusted until nationwide news started making an issue out of a few bad apples.
Were the UN to assume such regulatory authority over the internet, what assurances would citizens of a United State have that the rights they exercise now, via the internet, would be continued?
Right now if I want I can spew all the hate-speech I like on the internet.
Right now I can arrange the sale of firearms over the internet.
Right now I can play addictive text-based MUDs that waste more lives than either of the above.
Will these be preserved by a governing body who disapproves of all three?*
Does anyone else wonder if the whole AMD lawsuit and allegations of intel code biased against AMD hardware is just a front to keep boosting prices? I mean, they gotta fund the legal battle, right?
Bah, who am I to complain, my favorite application is a nice MUD client written circa 1998. If anything it works too fast.
Surely there must be bias in the player too for this to become an issue. The article example of "mosters" urging violence, for example, assumes that every player will assume monsters are bad. Clearly these folks did not watch enough Sesame Street.
Now go turn on PBS while I fire up a MUD, no biased graphics to distract me from good and evil there!
Now lets see... To get this thing feeding to my 1987 Black and White television, how many adaptors will I need? It's not cable ready, just has the two little screws in the back where I hook up the rabbit ears...
Anyone know how I can hook this new box up without disconnecting my Atari 2600?
I still don't understand all the fuss about putting data in or on my body. Rather than tatoo data on my hand, or embed it under my skin, why not just make the devices I already carry more useful?
To whit: Why can't I get a combination.375 revolver / 1 gigabyte pen drive?
You make an interesting point. Perhaps the term "theory" is not a good one to apply to models we use in considering past events. As creationists are propmpt to point out, no amount of reproduceable experiments, in the future, can tell us for certain what events took place in the past. I suppose then, a "theory" about what happened in the past is not something we can test by experiment. Used in this way, a "theory" includes an element of speculation that cannot be tested.
In order to remedy this linguistic problem, I propose that henceforth all models about how events in the past took place be called "Bob." Evolution of present species is a Bob, but forward looking natural selection is a theory.
I too have an analog TV, but I'll be getting a converter box for it. I've had my little black and white television since 1988. We've come a long way together, and I've always taken good care of it. I'm not going to part with it now, just because the FCC thinks it knows best. Can anyone suggest a good, inexpensive converter box?
And of course the 9 hours it took last time to go from London to Edinburgh was a feature, not a bug. That was 4 extra hours in which we could get blue blind paralytic drunk.
Issues indeed. If I go around telling my friends that WMP is a horrible program, a dangerous and sneaky system to get DRM into a computer, or just plain ugly, it would be intellectually dishonest for me to pay for a copy of it. It may be business for the vendors, but it's going to run on my Personal computer.
Whether other people are buying a copy of XP that includes WMP at the same price is no concern of mine.
Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way. The point of forcing an alternative offering is to prevent lock-in to certain software and media types. If I still used windows, I'd feel compelled to pick up a copy of N and use it purely to maintain my own personal dignity. At least then I could say I didn't PAY for WMP.
And let is encourage our windows using friends to do likewise.
iYou know, I hate to break it to you but most exploration missions of the past were privately funded, either by capitalists in search of new opportunities, or by rich idealists./i
But then again, in the past most roads, libraries, schools and hospitals were privately funded too.
Slashdot Mirror
I really hate to do this, but I think the GEN in GenCon stands for "Generals" as in "Generals Convention." This dates back to the days when tabletop wargames were transitioning into Role Play.
How about this: We sleep because it is too dark for that 1/3 of our life to do much of anything else. If we were active during that time, we'd stumble over things, fall and get hurt.
IAAL, and the last time I looked it worked something like this:
1. A DUI checkpoint is allowed, you can systematically stop cars and make sure the driver is sober. This is because unsober drivers present a present threat to the safety of the road. The intrusion is therefore justifiable.
2. A drug checkpoint is not allowed. Merely having drugs in the vehicle does not create a present threat to the safety of the road, and the intrusion is not justifiable.
3. A fake drug checkpoint is allowed. You can put up signs that say "Drug Checkpoint Ahead" even when none exists, and then claim probable cause to check the cars that whip off the road, through the ditch, and burn rubber in the opposite direction.
Again, while IAAL, I am not your lawyer, and this is not a carefully researched opinion.
I've been all around this great big web
and I've seen all kinds of 'blogs
But I can't wait to get back to the blogs
that are good enough to support ads...
(With appologies to the Beach Boys)
My question is, does the presence of advertising on an otherwise ordinary web log make it look more credible to the average web surfer?
I think thats a bit harsh. To my credit, back in college, I did manage to exempt 8 credits of biology for biology majors by CLEP exam. So I have two questions:
1. Has the "current theory" changed that much since 1996?
2. Would you prefer it if, instead of using the word "evolution" I used the phrase "popular belief about how modern live developed from nonlife through a series of changes in response to environmental stimuli?"
What do you call the popular theory about how life at the advent of recorded history got here in the first place?
I think you missed the point of my question. Even bliblical literalists like to know how things work. I know several that work in biological research at universities. They're not trying to prove what their faith teaches, they're trying to learn how the world around them works.
I hadn't heard about the silt thing though, thats interesting.
Why don't you buy into evolution? And when you mention "how things got here" are you talking about biology, or cosmology?
To me, it seems a choice between the infinitely improbable and the utterly unprovable. Must we rely solely on either science or philosophy to understand our world?
I don't buy into evolution for the litany of reasons that creationists give to "prove" creation. I'm sure you've heard them all. Of course none of these flaws prove creation, but they leave enough holes that I won't sign onto the theory.
Unfortunately, there is no scientific basis by which ID or Creation can be tested. So at least from a rational standpoint that's out too.
Fortunately from a practical, secular, standpoint, I don't need to adopt either. I can confine my research to those observable phenomena around me without resorting to improbable events or beared men in the sky.
The whole point of research is to learn things to better the life of man. We can learn these things from science, or from philosophy, and we can use them both even if the foundational understandings on which they are based conflict.
To be fair, not all biblical literalists think this 6000 year number is anywhere near accurate. Many accept values between 10 and 30 thousand years. In any case, while I don't buy into evolution personally*, I can't help but wonder why I don't ever see ID or creationist fossil research publications. Don't church-supported universities also engage in this kind of research? Even the 6000 year crowd must surely be interested in knowing how these dinosaurs lived.
Any thoughts?
* I am origin agnostic, I haven't seen a good scientific theory yet for how things got here.
There are a couple of problems with your analogy:
1. the govnernment was behind the problem, not a private company;
2. There were laws prohibiting people from getting tea from other places.; and
3. The tea was just a symptom of a larger problem which affected both tea drinkers and others, taxation without representation.
Facing a lack of options, most modern people (especially now-minded Americans) will take the best of what is available to them
You are probably correct. Fortunately, there is little need for boycotts anymore, because there is no actual NEED for the product in question. We're talking about movies on a disk, not slave labor or deforestation or starving children or unacceptable forms of discrimination.
If I, for example, feel that the draconian copy protections present on the popular format for video distribution, I can easily enough refrain from watching them. Not only is it true that they are not essential to my survival or happiness, they are in fact are one of only a hundred entertainment options competing for my attention.
On a side note, I find it interesting that RealPlayer, Quicktime, and whatever windows uses now are all surviving fairly well.
Wow, that's pretty solid ... bummer.
Can anyone tell me under what Federal authority such a law is passed and enforced by Congress? It seems to me this thing is overbroad and really not within any of Congress's powers. It has no spending clause, it does not limit itself to commerce, and has nothing to do with civil rights...
Then again, my research lasted about 10 minutes.
Can anyone help with this?
This is exactly the same problem Western Lawyers have suffered from for years. I give people good advice almost daily, and like Alice, they very seldom follow it. But tell them something is not an issue, and a hundred stories from the internet come wafting out.
"But what about this man?! I checked it out and it's legit!"
Like Doctors, lawyers were trusted until nationwide news started making an issue out of a few bad apples.
Were the UN to assume such regulatory authority over the internet, what assurances would citizens of a United State have that the rights they exercise now, via the internet, would be continued?
Right now if I want I can spew all the hate-speech I like on the internet.
Right now I can arrange the sale of firearms over the internet.
Right now I can play addictive text-based MUDs that waste more lives than either of the above.
Will these be preserved by a governing body who disapproves of all three?*
(*number three was a joke)
Does anyone else wonder if the whole AMD lawsuit and allegations of intel code biased against AMD hardware is just a front to keep boosting prices? I mean, they gotta fund the legal battle, right?
Bah, who am I to complain, my favorite application is a nice MUD client written circa 1998. If anything it works too fast.
Surely there must be bias in the player too for this to become an issue. The article example of "mosters" urging violence, for example, assumes that every player will assume monsters are bad. Clearly these folks did not watch enough Sesame Street.
Now go turn on PBS while I fire up a MUD, no biased graphics to distract me from good and evil there!
Now lets see... To get this thing feeding to my 1987 Black and White television, how many adaptors will I need? It's not cable ready, just has the two little screws in the back where I hook up the rabbit ears...
Anyone know how I can hook this new box up without disconnecting my Atari 2600?
I still don't understand all the fuss about putting data in or on my body. Rather than tatoo data on my hand, or embed it under my skin, why not just make the devices I already carry more useful?
.375 revolver / 1 gigabyte pen drive?
To whit: Why can't I get a combination
You make an interesting point. Perhaps the term "theory" is not a good one to apply to models we use in considering past events. As creationists are propmpt to point out, no amount of reproduceable experiments, in the future, can tell us for certain what events took place in the past. I suppose then, a "theory" about what happened in the past is not something we can test by experiment. Used in this way, a "theory" includes an element of speculation that cannot be tested.
In order to remedy this linguistic problem, I propose that henceforth all models about how events in the past took place be called "Bob." Evolution of present species is a Bob, but forward looking natural selection is a theory.
I too have an analog TV, but I'll be getting a converter box for it. I've had my little black and white television since 1988. We've come a long way together, and I've always taken good care of it. I'm not going to part with it now, just because the FCC thinks it knows best. Can anyone suggest a good, inexpensive converter box?
My cat, on the other hand, is expendable.
And of course the 9 hours it took last time to go from London to Edinburgh was a feature, not a bug. That was 4 extra hours in which we could get blue blind paralytic drunk.
That said, train booze is far too expensive.
Issues indeed. If I go around telling my friends that WMP is a horrible program, a dangerous and sneaky system to get DRM into a computer, or just plain ugly, it would be intellectually dishonest for me to pay for a copy of it. It may be business for the vendors, but it's going to run on my Personal computer.
Whether other people are buying a copy of XP that includes WMP at the same price is no concern of mine.
Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way. The point of forcing an alternative offering is to prevent lock-in to certain software and media types. If I still used windows, I'd feel compelled to pick up a copy of N and use it purely to maintain my own personal dignity. At least then I could say I didn't PAY for WMP.
And let is encourage our windows using friends to do likewise.
iYou know, I hate to break it to you but most exploration missions of the past were privately funded, either by capitalists in search of new opportunities, or by rich idealists./i
But then again, in the past most roads, libraries, schools and hospitals were privately funded too.