I'll agree with you for most of what you said, but I disagree that programmers should learn to implement sorting algorithms. Unless they're doing serious research on the subject it's doubtful that Joe Programmer is going to be whipping up a sorting algorithm that's better than the one provided.
That is completely missing the point. Nobody is expecting the average programmer out there to write a superior sorting library.
Your example of a sorting algorithm being related to decimals in pi is completely bonkers. You're really comparing learning and comprehending an ALGORITHM to memorizing digits? If you (and I don't mean you specifically) don't understand how sort algorithms work, if you don't understand linked lists, etc--and furthermore, think learning them is unnecessary rote memorization--I'd bet a years pay that you're producing shit code and probably not even realizing it.
The AC said that this article automatically made global warming science "wrong", as if such a thing could be summed up in one word, and mentions Al Gore, as if he were a climate scientist.
No, actually you're still wrong. The original AC very specifically mentioned as wrong (direct quote) "elevated ocean levels and other disasters due to melting ice." Not the entire theory of global warming, etc. I'm not sure where you are finding evidence that the original AC claimed this article proves all global warming is false--I would ask you to point it out for me, but apparently by your standards, that is trolling. It's also interesting how you focus on his mention of Al Gore, when again, the original AC specifically said "If you don't like me mentioning Al Gore's name, insert the name of any of the other doom-and-gloom type of environmentalists"
(emphasis mine) This was a hypothetical [yahoo.com] argument intended to show the gap in logic present in the parent's post. It has nothing to do with what I believe or don't believe, it was very clear from the wording that this was a hypothetical argument.
No, read it again.
Sentence 1:
I can easily imagine an ice cap melting somewhere in the antarctic, raising the humidity, and a good portion of that water vapor attaching and freezing again somewhere else where it's cooler
THAT is the hypothetical. The poster was attempting to explain how the article could be right (ie, that ice is growing over most of the arctic) and at the same dangerous time melting could be occurring. (ie, Al Gore is not wrong)
Sentence 2:
That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall.
What does "That" refer to? "That" refers to sentence 1, the hypothetical. What the second sentence means is, even IF the article is true (ice growing over most of Antarctica), due to the theory in sentence 1, that still doesn't prove that "warm currents aren't have a devastating effect overall." REmember, this is in response to the original AC making a rather narrow point (not trying to disprove all global warming as you claim) about ocean levels and ice melting. Sentence 2 is NOT a hypothetical.
IMO, It's completely clear from the context here what is going on. What are you parsing differently?
It was selfish, I admit. I couldn't bear the thought of you going to work and gloating about how those damned lieberals whine about imaginary ice but can't even give you the latitude and longitude of said imaginary ice. So I took a gamble.
I should have known better than to feed the troll. I am sorry, and you can consider this my formal apology to both you and myself.
Honestly, since your first post you have displayed a shit-ton of anger and snideness here. Why so much sarcasm to a genuine question? I seriously don't get it. My original post was 6 words... What is it in 6 words that could POSSIBLY disagree with your world view that is so irritating to you? I really don't understand.
It's really lame to just label anyone you disagree with a troll, but unfortunately, that seems to more and more frequently be the level of discourse on slashdot these days. It wasn't always like this... In any case, since you've said you won't respond any further, thanks for responding as much as you did and keeping it reasonably clean.
That paper sounds interesting, unfortunately I can only read the paragraph synopsis--is there more available anywhere you're able to see? What strikes me as most interesting about the ONE PARAGRAPH you finally managed to link to is that the final sentence says:
It is speculated, with some observational evidence, that the increased stirring of the ocean by winds could hasten the transition of the Arctic toward a weakly stratified ocean with a potential for deep convection and a new sink for atmospheric CO2.
Now, for many of the global warming alarmists, carbon sinks are great things to find! I'm not exactly sure that this qualifies as disastrous? Could you clarify what in the article is disastrous? The synopsis doesn't mention widespread arctic melting (ice drift is mentioned--it would seem that greater melt might be expected, but not backed up by such as the link in this story), etc. What's disastrous?
It's close enough, considering that he was speaking hypothetically, and you knew it. Run along now.
It's nice that you actually hung around long enough to attempt to dig up an article to fit your preexisting point of view, but you really should work on being so cutesy when you're not doing a great job of representing your side of the debate. An unfounded statement is an unfounded statement, and trying to hide behind a shield of "Oh, well, I/he/she was just being hypothetical, I/he/she don't REALLY believe what we wrote..." is imho pretty horrible when it comes to such important matters.
I think you're still confused. Here's the entirety of the post I first replied to:
What makes you think they're wrong? The Earth is not a constant temperature throughout. I can easily imagine an ice cap melting somewhere in the antarctic, raising the humidity, and a good portion of that water vapor attaching and freezing again somewhere else where it's cooler. That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall.
For your point #1, "overall warming" is something that you brought into this conversation (perhaps you are thinking of the OPs "not constant temperature throughput"), not mentioned by the OP or myself.
For your point #2, that's the crux of it--if "warm currents" are indeed having a "devastating" effect overall, where is this occuring? What is the devastating effect? How do the effect of "warm currents" today differ from currents 10,20,50 years ago, etc. Any of these questions would be interesting and informative to know the answers to. This is where I am still looking for specifics. MY first post...my 2nd reply to you...and now my 3rd reply to you have all been very simple, and about as clear as I can make then! Not sure how to ask the question any differently?
There's no way that I'm going to give you a citation for ice melting.
While a nice attempt to be cutesy, the fact remains that you--like the OP--have both been completely unable/unwilling to present the references I said I asked for. If "warm currents" are indeed having "devastating" effects somewhere, it should be easy to find some links. Have at it!
You completely missed the point as well. If you reread my post, you'll see that in the first (of two) lines I quoted exactly what I was questioning. I'll put it here again, since you seem to have missed it:
That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall
Ergo, the need for a citation goes back to warm currents having a devastating effect. Still looking for evidence that "warm currents" are having a "devastating" effect.
I was not, no. I really couldn't care either way if there is...
My only intent was to make the point that the article's logic might be flawed. You could even argue that we're on the same side, if you're against hystericalism for hystericalism's sake.
Fair enough--I apologize if I misinterpreted the tone of your original post, though I still don't manage to see how the logic of the original article is flawed?
You're really telling me--and without being completely disingenuous--that when you wrote "that doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall" you were NOT claiming that there is clear and present damage from warm currents? People don't typically write things using such phrases as a "devastating effect overall" and then go on to discuss non-mainstream hypotheticals which are not backed up by even mainstream global warming supporters? As I said, the only link you could manage to come up with to support your position WEAKENED your position.
It's your kind of hysterical alarmism that I find very bothering about the global warming movement. If that's the best you can do, I find that pretty sorry.
Wow, you go from "That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall" (avoiding the double negative, you're claiming warm currents ARE having a devastating effect??) to "possibilities" have to be considered....and the article to which you link even poo-poos the theory.
I agree with you, and I think the abortion comparison is apt. To put it another way, there are a lot of people out there that are anti-abortion and have kids they probably didn't want.
The difference between those who mouth adherence to values and those who practice what they preach!
Of course I meant Libertarians, as in the Libertarian party. How are you separating Libertarians from "average libertarians"? Do you also make a similar distinction between Republicans and "average republicans"? Democrats and "average democrats"? That is nonsense.
Certainly I make a distinction between a Democrat and a liberal or a conservative and a Republican. Do you not?
And while I agree that there is diversity, I disagree that your "average" LP members vary quite so widely in their views. Again, they do share some core philosophies (at least the sane and relatively intelligent ones do), otherwise they would not be members of the party.
I guess we agree to differ then.
And, once again, a desire to decrease the size of government is still not the same as anarchy. Libertarians who truly have anarchist beliefs are, quite simply, in the wrong party.
Can't say I agree with that either. You might as well make such sweeping statements as "Republicans who are pro-abortion are in the wrong party" or "Democrats who believe in 2nd amendments right are in the wrong party."
And I think that anyone who is opposed to embryonic stem cell research should not be allowed to have this treatment, should they need it and testing proves it successful. Let them go blind.
What makes you think they would want it? There ARE people out there that have values they actually believe in.
I have been around Libertarians for many years, and I am intimately familiar with their philosophy and their literature. It is nothing like what you portray at all. If in fact they wanted "the least amount of regulation, period" then they would indeed be anarchists, and there would be no point in even having a Libertarian party!
That seems doubtful (the part about you being "intimately" familiar with "Libertarians" -- since you're using the Big L I'm assuming you're talking solely about the LP and not your average libertarian). I don't think I've ever seen someone try to buttonhole libertarians and Libertarians so, or at the least, to pretend that the Libertarian Party isn't rather split-personality.
IMHO, the LP is far more diverse than you seem to think. It's got anarcho-capitalists, income tax protestors, drug protestors, black helicopter cospiracy theorists, survivalists, libertarians, classic liberals, Ron Paul types, etc. I think you would be extremely hardpressed to find an "average" LP member that represented any signfiicant part of the membership BEYOND a desire to decrease government influence.
I can remember most of the Hollywood-hating folk telling outspoken actors to GTFO and go to Canada/Europe.
Actually I believe that was directed at the hysterical actors/actresses who claimed they would leave but then failed to actually do so. Any information to the contrary?
Hell, do you really think the 2004 election went the way it did if not for the GOP implying that most Democrats were unpatriotic?
It's always easy to make excuses for being unpopular (see Republicans today). Are you REALLY claiming that you believe that the Republicans won big in 2004 merely because you think "the GOP impl[ied] that most Democrats were unpatriotic." I think you've got to back up that first of all, that actually happened, and second of all, the alleged mere act of claiming somebody is unpatriotic changed votes from Dem to Republican.
For those who don't follow, let me make this easy for you: The term 'flip-flop' existed because Rove & Co. were using it to nail anyone who wished to support the troops but also dissented from the President's edict for fighting terrorism without question.
What utter BS, and just goes to show how you are lacking any and all introspection for your beliefs/party here. The term flip-flop didn't come to characterize Kerry because of "Rove Co" but because of KERRY. Talk about not taking responsibility!
Amazing...as someone who did not vote for Obama, I have to say that I was never that disappointed that he was elected. For one, I wasn't a McCain fan, and secondly, I thought it would mean an end to the tireless squawking about evil BushCo and Cheney. I'm actually still waiting for that... Despite Obama's messages of chance and unity, it seems a lot of people are having trouble moving on!
Yes, I don't doubt it at all. At my workplace we use a piece of accounting software that is probably 30 years old. Though it's now a win32 exe, it's still a text console window only, etc. It's commercial and still supported. I would think it likely that the questioner's dad's vet software is similar.
Open source isn't supported that long--that was my main point.
Perfect example of nonsense...no linguist (I'm sure you're not familiar with terms like AAVE, AE, or SAE. That would be African-American Vernacular ENGLISH, American ENGLISH, and Southern American ENGLISH. You may notice the keywords ENGLISH) or anyone else who wasn't blatantly trying to defend Obama would agree with you.
Just think of the urban legend about Dan Quayle and Latin in Latin America. Many people still actually believe that one. Obama makes a stupid comment and the chattering classes go crazy coming up with explanations to defend him.
I agree that this is an interesting question, and the replies show a lot of interesting points of view. Some more rational than others IMHO:)
You make an interesting point about open source...and I would totally agree with you if they were to keep the software and OS updated. But if we go back in the opensource world 15 years to 1994. Linux 1.0 isn't out yet! Ditto for Apache, no 1.0 release yet. Samba in very early stages of development. PHP doesn't exist yet. Perl is still in version 4! FreeBSD is at version 1.1.
Now, try getting support for any of those versions, or try compiling any of them on a modern OS:)
I remember being very frustrated with Flash performance back in the PowerPC days, but I thought most of the performance issues had been settled since the Intel switch?
Hard to believe that Flash would slow your wohle system to a crawl on a Mac Pro...
IANAL as well so I don't know about a stricly legal pov, but the word "piracy" has a well established history (try since the early 1600s) of meaning exactly what is being talked about here.
I believe there was only one point release of IE for OSX aswell, as it was one point release higher than the OS9 version...
No quite...OSX since 10.0 came with a release of IE5. 10.1 came with 5.1. The final release of IE for Mac was 5.2.3.
Maybe you were confusing the fact that IE for Mac 5.2 was released ONLY for OSX, whereas earlier releases still supported OS8/9?
They may have announced they had stopped development quite late, but actual development stopped quite some time before.
That doesn't jive with the timeline I attempted to describe, nor what I've been able to find out about past releases. But if you have other information, I'd be glad to take a look.
Have you used it? I actually prefer the plugin to WMP for Mac.
Seems odd that you make a big deal out of the plugin not being made by MS one minute, and the next claiming that it's intentionally crippled (by not supporting *1* scarcely used feature?). Odd.
incredibly patronizing, condescending, and flat out historically inaccurate
Ok, so, since it is so flat out historically inaccurate, the onus is on you. Prove it.
i also especially love how you boil my argument for innate humanism as a conceptualization of "the noble savage"
Yes, that was my little bit of humor (which you obviously didn't get!). That IS in essence what you're getting down to though--you've blamed primarily religion for creating ambiguity in what you see as true human morality. You claim that people in their "natural state" (the "kindergardeners" you mention) are all able to just BAM, figure out what is moral and what is not. That's abundantly clear from what you've said--do you disagree with my interpretation? Now, go read a little bit about primitivism (the more polite name for the "noble savage" theory)
your arrogant blind ethnocentrism deserves far worse than rudeness
The amusement continues. The person who drones on and on about empathy and how even "kindergardeners" can understand this has precious little of his own.
what a fucking ideological fossil you are
Basically, in the past what, 5 messages? You've proved that you are great at ad hominems, at putting up straw man arguments and at claiming people said things they didn't. What you haven't done is addressed a SINGLE question I've raised.
Your arguments would really be more effective if you didn't launch off into bizarre rants and tirades everytime you come across something that is slightly different from your worldview.
Here's a great question for you...it's obvious you and I disagree very clearly on a number of points. These are the arguments that you claim are so simple a kindergardener should understand it all, yet we totally disagree. You still think human rights is a simple issue?
it is certain religious, and apparently in your case, academic fools
I really have to say, for all of your (imho bizarre) talk of alleged universality of mores, you're really pretty damn rude. And not nearly as smart as as you think you are, since you still are missing the point.
the biggest lie religion tells us, especially judeochristian thought, is that it originates much of morality
no, it coopts it
Ok, part 1 of the truth comes out. You've got a bone to pick with religion? Ok, that's fine, I'm agnostic and areligious myself. Doesn't change that you're wrong. Christianity DOES act as a moral base for many people. Judaism DOES act as a moral base for many people.
Look, nobody (well actually, I take this back--you are saying this?) says that morality is an easy question. People have been struggling with morality probably for as long as their have been people. The fact that we're here arguing about it should give you a clue of how difficult a topic it is!
kindergarteners will grow up with a sense of morality and reason perfectly sound. most of morality is simple mental efforts, not deep and convoluted and evolved ones
Ahhhh, the truth begins to come out. Are you talking about the "Noble Savage?" That's quite a utopian ideal! Doesn't seem to really play out anywhere in the world, unfortunately. It would be utterly awesome if every human was completely altruistic, and every human was an objectivist and everybody respected everyone else's ideas, rights. It would be great if nobody was rude and went around calling people fools and gasbags, etc, unfortunately, humans are human. We're not some ideal. The best of have flaws.
the very notion of all men being equal is not some amazing intellectual discovery no one thought of before voltaire
Well, I'm a little bit confused by this, because AFAIK Voltaire had nothing to do with that statement. If you're actually interested in the philosophical struggles to reach where we are, check out the age of reason. Locke in particular is who I believe you're thinking of.
And yes, it is a great intellectual statement. The fact that it has echoed down for 300 years and is just as relevant today as it was then shows this.
simple humanism is organic and innate and a basic byproduct of the socialization of any psychologically normal human being
Organic means it grows and changes. So you're suddenly changing your opinion that human rights are set in stone, universal, and have no grounding in philosophy, culture, or morality?
Furthermore, EVERYTHING humans do are, well, human.
take what you wrote above, read it to any nonwesterner, and your blind arrogance is nothing but a source of humor
What part of what I wrote above? Quote exactly what I said (please not in your words) that is "blind arrogance."
Sheesh, I don't know if you're willfully misunderstanding or what, but you're utterly missing the point.
in fact, it is quite arrogant to say to me that an indian, or an egyptian, or a brazilian, or an indonesian, or a japanese, cannot enunciate humanism, and believe in it wholly, and conceive of it originally, in every way you think is some sort of magically and unique western conception
Of course not. My point was--and remains!--that the ORIGINS of the idea of human rights is Western, and that the foundations of the idea of RATIONALLY reaching a conception of human rights that is objectively correct and universal, is a western idea. The foundation is rooted in centuries of philosophies and philosophers that I would be happy to get into a longer discussion about, but I don't think you're really interested in that.
I am no claiming that if you're not a while European male you can't figure out what human rights are.
if you really believe that humanism as a rational and universal concept is a western conception, then you have to believe that the very conception of universality and rationality are somehow distinctly western. as if a nonwestern can't grasp those concepts like a westerner? if you believe that, this is incredibly ethnocentric of you
No, you're misunderstanding again. As you said in a previous post, most everybody believes that their conceptions of human rights are universal (for instance, the Islamic adherents to the Khilafa movement, few though they may be). You show me somebody who doesn't believe that their thinking is rational, and...well, I'd like to see the person! (from a safe distance)
but you can't talk to me about western humanism. this is like trying to talk to me about dry wetness, or bright darkness. self-contradictory terminology
And we're back to this, and I remain disagreeing with you. Like it or not, the human rights you talk about are almost entirely defined by "westerners" and "western philosophers." I can try to walk with you through some of the prime philosophies and people if you like, I'm more than willing. In any case, even if you don't agree with me there, you already acknowledged that a fundamentalist Muslim has different conceptions of human rights than a Chinese technocrat than.. for instance... you, or me.
If there can be "Fundamentalist Islamic Human Rights" and "Chinese Human Rights" why do you have such a problem with admitting that the conception of human rights you keep talking about evolved in the West?
Slashdot Mirror
I'll agree with you for most of what you said, but I disagree that programmers should learn to implement sorting algorithms. Unless they're doing serious research on the subject it's doubtful that Joe Programmer is going to be whipping up a sorting algorithm that's better than the one provided.
That is completely missing the point. Nobody is expecting the average programmer out there to write a superior sorting library.
Your example of a sorting algorithm being related to decimals in pi is completely bonkers. You're really comparing learning and comprehending an ALGORITHM to memorizing digits? If you (and I don't mean you specifically) don't understand how sort algorithms work, if you don't understand linked lists, etc--and furthermore, think learning them is unnecessary rote memorization--I'd bet a years pay that you're producing shit code and probably not even realizing it.
The AC said that this article automatically made global warming science "wrong", as if such a thing could be summed up in one word, and mentions Al Gore, as if he were a climate scientist.
No, actually you're still wrong. The original AC very specifically mentioned as wrong (direct quote) "elevated ocean levels and other disasters due to melting ice." Not the entire theory of global warming, etc. I'm not sure where you are finding evidence that the original AC claimed this article proves all global warming is false--I would ask you to point it out for me, but apparently by your standards, that is trolling. It's also interesting how you focus on his mention of Al Gore, when again, the original AC specifically said "If you don't like me mentioning Al Gore's name, insert the name of any of the other doom-and-gloom type of environmentalists"
(emphasis mine) This was a hypothetical [yahoo.com] argument intended to show the gap in logic present in the parent's post. It has nothing to do with what I believe or don't believe, it was very clear from the wording that this was a hypothetical argument.
No, read it again.
Sentence 1:
I can easily imagine an ice cap melting somewhere in the antarctic, raising the humidity, and a good portion of that water vapor attaching and freezing again somewhere else where it's cooler
THAT is the hypothetical. The poster was attempting to explain how the article could be right (ie, that ice is growing over most of the arctic) and at the same dangerous time melting could be occurring. (ie, Al Gore is not wrong)
Sentence 2:
That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall.
What does "That" refer to? "That" refers to sentence 1, the hypothetical. What the second sentence means is, even IF the article is true (ice growing over most of Antarctica), due to the theory in sentence 1, that still doesn't prove that "warm currents aren't have a devastating effect overall." REmember, this is in response to the original AC making a rather narrow point (not trying to disprove all global warming as you claim) about ocean levels and ice melting. Sentence 2 is NOT a hypothetical.
IMO, It's completely clear from the context here what is going on. What are you parsing differently?
It was selfish, I admit. I couldn't bear the thought of you going to work and gloating about how those damned lieberals whine about imaginary ice but can't even give you the latitude and longitude of said imaginary ice. So I took a gamble.
I should have known better than to feed the troll. I am sorry, and you can consider this my formal apology to both you and myself.
Honestly, since your first post you have displayed a shit-ton of anger and snideness here. Why so much sarcasm to a genuine question? I seriously don't get it. My original post was 6 words... What is it in 6 words that could POSSIBLY disagree with your world view that is so irritating to you? I really don't understand.
It's really lame to just label anyone you disagree with a troll, but unfortunately, that seems to more and more frequently be the level of discourse on slashdot these days. It wasn't always like this... In any case, since you've said you won't respond any further, thanks for responding as much as you did and keeping it reasonably clean.
That paper sounds interesting, unfortunately I can only read the paragraph synopsis--is there more available anywhere you're able to see? What strikes me as most interesting about the ONE PARAGRAPH you finally managed to link to is that the final sentence says:
It is speculated, with some observational evidence, that the increased stirring of the ocean by winds could hasten the transition of the Arctic toward a weakly stratified ocean with a potential for deep convection and a new sink for atmospheric CO2.
Now, for many of the global warming alarmists, carbon sinks are great things to find! I'm not exactly sure that this qualifies as disastrous? Could you clarify what in the article is disastrous? The synopsis doesn't mention widespread arctic melting (ice drift is mentioned--it would seem that greater melt might be expected, but not backed up by such as the link in this story), etc. What's disastrous?
It's close enough, considering that he was speaking hypothetically, and you knew it. Run along now.
It's nice that you actually hung around long enough to attempt to dig up an article to fit your preexisting point of view, but you really should work on being so cutesy when you're not doing a great job of representing your side of the debate. An unfounded statement is an unfounded statement, and trying to hide behind a shield of "Oh, well, I/he/she was just being hypothetical, I/he/she don't REALLY believe what we wrote..." is imho pretty horrible when it comes to such important matters.
I think you're still confused. Here's the entirety of the post I first replied to:
What makes you think they're wrong? The Earth is not a constant temperature throughout. I can easily imagine an ice cap melting somewhere in the antarctic, raising the humidity, and a good portion of that water vapor attaching and freezing again somewhere else where it's cooler. That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall.
For your point #1, "overall warming" is something that you brought into this conversation (perhaps you are thinking of the OPs "not constant temperature throughput"), not mentioned by the OP or myself.
For your point #2, that's the crux of it--if "warm currents" are indeed having a "devastating" effect overall, where is this occuring? What is the devastating effect? How do the effect of "warm currents" today differ from currents 10,20,50 years ago, etc. Any of these questions would be interesting and informative to know the answers to. This is where I am still looking for specifics. MY first post...my 2nd reply to you...and now my 3rd reply to you have all been very simple, and about as clear as I can make then! Not sure how to ask the question any differently?
There's no way that I'm going to give you a citation for ice melting.
While a nice attempt to be cutesy, the fact remains that you--like the OP--have both been completely unable/unwilling to present the references I said I asked for. If "warm currents" are indeed having "devastating" effects somewhere, it should be easy to find some links. Have at it!
You completely missed the point as well. If you reread my post, you'll see that in the first (of two) lines I quoted exactly what I was questioning. I'll put it here again, since you seem to have missed it:
That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall
Ergo, the need for a citation goes back to warm currents having a devastating effect. Still looking for evidence that "warm currents" are having a "devastating" effect.
I was not, no. I really couldn't care either way if there is...
My only intent was to make the point that the article's logic might be flawed. You could even argue that we're on the same side, if you're against hystericalism for hystericalism's sake.
Fair enough--I apologize if I misinterpreted the tone of your original post, though I still don't manage to see how the logic of the original article is flawed?
You're really telling me--and without being completely disingenuous--that when you wrote "that doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall" you were NOT claiming that there is clear and present damage from warm currents? People don't typically write things using such phrases as a "devastating effect overall" and then go on to discuss non-mainstream hypotheticals which are not backed up by even mainstream global warming supporters? As I said, the only link you could manage to come up with to support your position WEAKENED your position.
It's your kind of hysterical alarmism that I find very bothering about the global warming movement. If that's the best you can do, I find that pretty sorry.
Wow, you go from "That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall" (avoiding the double negative, you're claiming warm currents ARE having a devastating effect??) to "possibilities" have to be considered....and the article to which you link even poo-poos the theory.
Seemingly a big difference...
I agree with you, and I think the abortion comparison is apt. To put it another way, there are a lot of people out there that are anti-abortion and have kids they probably didn't want.
The difference between those who mouth adherence to values and those who practice what they preach!
Of course I meant Libertarians, as in the Libertarian party. How are you separating Libertarians from "average libertarians"? Do you also make a similar distinction between Republicans and "average republicans"? Democrats and "average democrats"? That is nonsense.
Certainly I make a distinction between a Democrat and a liberal or a conservative and a Republican. Do you not?
And while I agree that there is diversity, I disagree that your "average" LP members vary quite so widely in their views. Again, they do share some core philosophies (at least the sane and relatively intelligent ones do), otherwise they would not be members of the party.
I guess we agree to differ then.
And, once again, a desire to decrease the size of government is still not the same as anarchy. Libertarians who truly have anarchist beliefs are, quite simply, in the wrong party.
Can't say I agree with that either. You might as well make such sweeping statements as "Republicans who are pro-abortion are in the wrong party" or "Democrats who believe in 2nd amendments right are in the wrong party."
And I think that anyone who is opposed to embryonic stem cell research should not be allowed to have this treatment, should they need it and testing proves it successful.
Let them go blind.
What makes you think they would want it? There ARE people out there that have values they actually believe in.
I have been around Libertarians for many years, and I am intimately familiar with their philosophy and their literature. It is nothing like what you portray at all. If in fact they wanted "the least amount of regulation, period" then they would indeed be anarchists, and there would be no point in even having a Libertarian party!
That seems doubtful (the part about you being "intimately" familiar with "Libertarians" -- since you're using the Big L I'm assuming you're talking solely about the LP and not your average libertarian). I don't think I've ever seen someone try to buttonhole libertarians and Libertarians so, or at the least, to pretend that the Libertarian Party isn't rather split-personality.
IMHO, the LP is far more diverse than you seem to think. It's got anarcho-capitalists, income tax protestors, drug protestors, black helicopter cospiracy theorists, survivalists, libertarians, classic liberals, Ron Paul types, etc. I think you would be extremely hardpressed to find an "average" LP member that represented any signfiicant part of the membership BEYOND a desire to decrease government influence.
That doesn't mean that the warm currents aren't having a devastating effect overall.
What does that mean? Ref please?
I can remember most of the Hollywood-hating folk telling outspoken actors to GTFO and go to Canada/Europe.
Actually I believe that was directed at the hysterical actors/actresses who claimed they would leave but then failed to actually do so. Any information to the contrary?
Hell, do you really think the 2004 election went the way it did if not for the GOP implying that most Democrats were unpatriotic?
It's always easy to make excuses for being unpopular (see Republicans today). Are you REALLY claiming that you believe that the Republicans won big in 2004 merely because you think "the GOP impl[ied] that most Democrats were unpatriotic." I think you've got to back up that first of all, that actually happened, and second of all, the alleged mere act of claiming somebody is unpatriotic changed votes from Dem to Republican.
For those who don't follow, let me make this easy for you: The term 'flip-flop' existed because Rove & Co. were using it to nail anyone who wished to support the troops but also dissented from the President's edict for fighting terrorism without question.
What utter BS, and just goes to show how you are lacking any and all introspection for your beliefs/party here. The term flip-flop didn't come to characterize Kerry because of "Rove Co" but because of KERRY. Talk about not taking responsibility!
Amazing...as someone who did not vote for Obama, I have to say that I was never that disappointed that he was elected. For one, I wasn't a McCain fan, and secondly, I thought it would mean an end to the tireless squawking about evil BushCo and Cheney. I'm actually still waiting for that... Despite Obama's messages of chance and unity, it seems a lot of people are having trouble moving on!
Yes, I don't doubt it at all. At my workplace we use a piece of accounting software that is probably 30 years old. Though it's now a win32 exe, it's still a text console window only, etc. It's commercial and still supported. I would think it likely that the questioner's dad's vet software is similar.
Open source isn't supported that long--that was my main point.
Er, my last post went through anonymously for some reason (lapsus calami). It was me :)
Perfect example of nonsense...no linguist (I'm sure you're not familiar with terms like AAVE, AE, or SAE. That would be African-American Vernacular ENGLISH, American ENGLISH, and Southern American ENGLISH. You may notice the keywords ENGLISH) or anyone else who wasn't blatantly trying to defend Obama would agree with you.
Just think of the urban legend about Dan Quayle and Latin in Latin America. Many people still actually believe that one. Obama makes a stupid comment and the chattering classes go crazy coming up with explanations to defend him.
I agree that this is an interesting question, and the replies show a lot of interesting points of view. Some more rational than others IMHO :)
You make an interesting point about open source...and I would totally agree with you if they were to keep the software and OS updated. But if we go back in the opensource world 15 years to 1994. Linux 1.0 isn't out yet! Ditto for Apache, no 1.0 release yet. Samba in very early stages of development. PHP doesn't exist yet. Perl is still in version 4! FreeBSD is at version 1.1.
Now, try getting support for any of those versions, or try compiling any of them on a modern OS :)
Even on your Mac Pro? Odd..
I remember being very frustrated with Flash performance back in the PowerPC days, but I thought most of the performance issues had been settled since the Intel switch?
Hard to believe that Flash would slow your wohle system to a crawl on a Mac Pro...
IANAL as well so I don't know about a stricly legal pov, but the word "piracy" has a well established history (try since the early 1600s) of meaning exactly what is being talked about here.
I believe there was only one point release of IE for OSX aswell, as it was one point release higher than the OS9 version...
No quite...OSX since 10.0 came with a release of IE5. 10.1 came with 5.1. The final release of IE for Mac was 5.2.3.
Maybe you were confusing the fact that IE for Mac 5.2 was released ONLY for OSX, whereas earlier releases still supported OS8/9?
They may have announced they had stopped development quite late, but actual development stopped quite some time before.
That doesn't jive with the timeline I attempted to describe, nor what I've been able to find out about past releases. But if you have other information, I'd be glad to take a look.
Have you used it? I actually prefer the plugin to WMP for Mac.
Seems odd that you make a big deal out of the plugin not being made by MS one minute, and the next claiming that it's intentionally crippled (by not supporting *1* scarcely used feature?). Odd.
incredibly patronizing, condescending, and flat out historically inaccurate
Ok, so, since it is so flat out historically inaccurate, the onus is on you. Prove it.
i also especially love how you boil my argument for innate humanism as a conceptualization of "the noble savage"
Yes, that was my little bit of humor (which you obviously didn't get!). That IS in essence what you're getting down to though--you've blamed primarily religion for creating ambiguity in what you see as true human morality. You claim that people in their "natural state" (the "kindergardeners" you mention) are all able to just BAM, figure out what is moral and what is not. That's abundantly clear from what you've said--do you disagree with my interpretation? Now, go read a little bit about primitivism (the more polite name for the "noble savage" theory)
your arrogant blind ethnocentrism deserves far worse than rudeness
The amusement continues. The person who drones on and on about empathy and how even "kindergardeners" can understand this has precious little of his own.
what a fucking ideological fossil you are
Basically, in the past what, 5 messages? You've proved that you are great at ad hominems, at putting up straw man arguments and at claiming people said things they didn't. What you haven't done is addressed a SINGLE question I've raised.
Your arguments would really be more effective if you didn't launch off into bizarre rants and tirades everytime you come across something that is slightly different from your worldview.
Here's a great question for you...it's obvious you and I disagree very clearly on a number of points. These are the arguments that you claim are so simple a kindergardener should understand it all, yet we totally disagree. You still think human rights is a simple issue?
it is certain religious, and apparently in your case, academic fools
I really have to say, for all of your (imho bizarre) talk of alleged universality of mores, you're really pretty damn rude. And not nearly as smart as as you think you are, since you still are missing the point.
the biggest lie religion tells us, especially judeochristian thought, is that it originates much of morality
no, it coopts it
Ok, part 1 of the truth comes out. You've got a bone to pick with religion? Ok, that's fine, I'm agnostic and areligious myself. Doesn't change that you're wrong. Christianity DOES act as a moral base for many people. Judaism DOES act as a moral base for many people.
Look, nobody (well actually, I take this back--you are saying this?) says that morality is an easy question. People have been struggling with morality probably for as long as their have been people. The fact that we're here arguing about it should give you a clue of how difficult a topic it is!
kindergarteners will grow up with a sense of morality and reason perfectly sound. most of morality is simple mental efforts, not deep and convoluted and evolved ones
Ahhhh, the truth begins to come out. Are you talking about the "Noble Savage?" That's quite a utopian ideal! Doesn't seem to really play out anywhere in the world, unfortunately. It would be utterly awesome if every human was completely altruistic, and every human was an objectivist and everybody respected everyone else's ideas, rights. It would be great if nobody was rude and went around calling people fools and gasbags, etc, unfortunately, humans are human. We're not some ideal. The best of have flaws.
the very notion of all men being equal is not some amazing intellectual discovery no one thought of before voltaire
Well, I'm a little bit confused by this, because AFAIK Voltaire had nothing to do with that statement. If you're actually interested in the philosophical struggles to reach where we are, check out the age of reason. Locke in particular is who I believe you're thinking of.
And yes, it is a great intellectual statement. The fact that it has echoed down for 300 years and is just as relevant today as it was then shows this.
simple humanism is organic and innate and a basic byproduct of the socialization of any psychologically normal human being
Organic means it grows and changes. So you're suddenly changing your opinion that human rights are set in stone, universal, and have no grounding in philosophy, culture, or morality?
Furthermore, EVERYTHING humans do are, well, human.
take what you wrote above, read it to any nonwesterner, and your blind arrogance is nothing but a source of humor
What part of what I wrote above? Quote exactly what I said (please not in your words) that is "blind arrogance."
Sheesh, I don't know if you're willfully misunderstanding or what, but you're utterly missing the point.
in fact, it is quite arrogant to say to me that an indian, or an egyptian, or a brazilian, or an indonesian, or a japanese, cannot enunciate humanism, and believe in it wholly, and conceive of it originally, in every way you think is some sort of magically and unique western conception
Of course not. My point was--and remains!--that the ORIGINS of the idea of human rights is Western, and that the foundations of the idea of RATIONALLY reaching a conception of human rights that is objectively correct and universal, is a western idea. The foundation is rooted in centuries of philosophies and philosophers that I would be happy to get into a longer discussion about, but I don't think you're really interested in that.
I am no claiming that if you're not a while European male you can't figure out what human rights are.
if you really believe that humanism as a rational and universal concept is a western conception, then you have to believe that the very conception of universality and rationality are somehow distinctly western. as if a nonwestern can't grasp those concepts like a westerner? if you believe that, this is incredibly ethnocentric of you
No, you're misunderstanding again. As you said in a previous post, most everybody believes that their conceptions of human rights are universal (for instance, the Islamic adherents to the Khilafa movement, few though they may be). You show me somebody who doesn't believe that their thinking is rational, and...well, I'd like to see the person! (from a safe distance)
but you can't talk to me about western humanism. this is like trying to talk to me about dry wetness, or bright darkness. self-contradictory terminology
And we're back to this, and I remain disagreeing with you. Like it or not, the human rights you talk about are almost entirely defined by "westerners" and "western philosophers." I can try to walk with you through some of the prime philosophies and people if you like, I'm more than willing. In any case, even if you don't agree with me there, you already acknowledged that a fundamentalist Muslim has different conceptions of human rights than a Chinese technocrat than .. for instance ... you, or me.
If there can be "Fundamentalist Islamic Human Rights" and "Chinese Human Rights" why do you have such a problem with admitting that the conception of human rights you keep talking about evolved in the West?