What you're describing is generally known as "agnosticism".
And generally incorrectly known as agnosticism. Agnosticism is the philosophy that the existence of gods is unknowable.
One can be an agnostic atheist, a gnostic theist, an agnostic theist or a gnostic atheist.
Atheism and agnosticsm are orthogonal.
I think that some people cannot grasp the idea that a belief in God and practice of religion can be as rational as any empiricist.
As an agnostic atheist, I hold that belief in God and practice of religion can not be rational. Belief without evidence is not rational belief. There is no evidence for the existence of gods. Therefore belief in gods is irrational.
Atheism, by definition, is far less rational because of the greater logical difficulty of proving a negative.
Atheism, by definition, is minimally the lack of belief in gods (the "weak atheist" position). The "strong atheist" point of view, which holds that there are no gods, is also not irrational, due to the positivist axiom that no thing can rationally be said to exist without evidence for its existence; it is therefore rational to deny the existence of anything X for which there is no evidence.
A PDF is not worth the same as a paper book. Any company that wants to sell them at the same price deserves to lose all of their business to piracy and go out of business.
I really have no sympathy for WotC's plan.
As for text searching, an OCR copy of Frostburn has been circulating P2P services since about the day before its retail release, and on Usenet soon after.
The current distribution model does not work. Somebody is going to go out of business. Maybe publishers. Maybe retailers. But someone's gonna end up unemployed with their houses repossessed by the bank. That's life. I'm gonna do what benefits me.
Being a Canadian and downloading commercial music for free, legally. The online music stores can't give it to me for free. Hence, a significant and useful non-infringing use.
Political advertising comes to mind. Already on the big Torrent trackers we're seeing campaign commercials being distributed at a cost much lower than buying television airtime.
Distributing first-run TV shows is as legal in some jurisdictions as it is to "tape tree" (passing around tapes person-to-person to build collections). And faster.
I have downloaded a number of game walkthroughs that I otherwise would have had to wait in a FilePlanet line for.
Distribution of third-party Neverwinter Nights modules is faster via P2P, as well.
I think just about everyone agrees that BT is the best way to get Linux distros.
In short, your five parts ease-of-use are actually five parts inertia...
No, it's ease of use. Turn on the workstation, it boots. Double-click MS Word. Type. I can explain that to a traditional editor who has never used a computer before.
[You know... it's not because Windows is somehow better that you can use the "industry-standard" word-processing and publishing software]
Correct. You've got it backwards. It's not better because of that; it's because of that, that it's better. I explained in another post how OS X wouldn't cut it.
I'd say five parts ease-of-use, three parts cost-effectiveness and two parts inertia (and inertia is always a valid argument; if something ain't broke, why fix it?)
[But let's be honest about why that is, OK?]
You're implying that I'm not being honest. Care to explain where and why?
MS Office is the most-used office suite in the world and MS Word the most-used word processing package. They are therefore a de facto industry standard, in *every* sense of the word.
My work and home PCs run 24 hours a day under WinXP. It's stable as a concrete foundation with earthquake springs. It's not luck.
OS X doesn't run the publishing or word processing software I need in my job. That is, it doesn't run that software under Windows.
It boils down like this: when everyone I exchange files with uses Windows, I need to use Windows, too.
(And now at work we're looking to buy a publishing system that runs only under Windows. What, am I supposed to make it work with forty copies of Star Office or something and train a bunch of people to use a new OS and word processing system?)
And it definitely doesn't run the games I want to play.
I understand that people think that OS X or Linux or Be or whatever can work for any solution, but they can't. People know Windows. People know MS Word. Someone wants to start a foundation and send us a bunch of free money to train these people to use fringe software under fringe OSes, we might consider it.
Whether or not EULAs are binding is up in the air. They haven't yet been tested in my jurisdiction (BC), but they would probably fail. IANAL, but I work in a legislative setting.
My mom is about a kilogram of ashes in a green metal box on the mantle. At least, that's what we've been led to believe. Do you have any special knowledge?
It strikes me that they may have missed what I think may be the most important bit of advice: keep your assets offshore, and if your system needs web presence or indexing servers, keep them offshore in countries where the laws are not likely to change.
Sure, the courts have been ruling that P2P software is legal, but there's a good chance that will change before the end of the decade. There's just too much money in the hands of Big Entertainment for it not to.
You let me run the games I want to play, the industry-standard word processing and publishing software I need to use in my job, and haven't crashed on me in months. While your security is questionable, at least I know that there is some accountability in your design.
Y'know, for me, the concern would have nothing to do with the ship being raided and the plutonium stolen to make bombs.
For em, the issue is that plutonium is astonishingly poisonous. One microgram of ingested plutonium will cause cancer half the time over some short period of time (I don't remembe the specifics, only what I recall from the Guinness Book of World Records).
140kg of plutonium is enough to cause cancer in the entire world population about ten times over.
Just blow the ship up. Fish will eat the plutonium. We'll eat the fish. Millions die.
Aha. I get it now. Now it all makes sense; I didn't quite understand the driving purpose behind Steam.
Cutting out the middleman is always good for the manufacturer. Not so good for the traditional distribution models, tho.
Gotta say that I kinda like the fact that EB employs about thirty people here in town who would otherwise probably not be able to get jobs. So, in the final analysis, I'm going to have to side *against* Valve on this one.
This really shouldn't ever have become an issue. The box-retail distribution model for games is still a viable one. Is it so important for HL fans to play the game as soon as humanly possible? What's wrong with buying it in store on the day of release?
How would Valve be harmed by giving in on this issue? How would the consumers be harmed?
But what's gonna happen when I ask him to open my pod bay doors?
See, if I get a Microsoft system and I ask for the pod bay doors to be opened, there's a 92% chance that it'll work and an 8% chance that it'll hang indefinitely until I reboot.
If I get a Linux system and I ask for the pod bay doors to be opened, I have to do it from a command line and trust that a bunch of unpaid and unaccountable programmers didn't put an easter egg in the code that orders canned peas from The Bay.
HAL, on the other hand, will leave me to die in the vacuum of space.
...until the orbital mind control satellites will be able to tell what movie or concert or event that I want to go to, and then will automatically bill me for it.
Then they will instruct me to attend, and I wil simply pass my Mark of the Beast (tm) over a scanner for admission.
Slashdot Mirror
The funny thing is that he says that he is for: "All voluntary associations should be permissible -- economic and social."
It strikes me that he is not, in fact, in favour of all voluntary associations being permissible.
So he doesn't stick to his beliefs. Or, at the least, he doesn't state his beliefs clearly.
What you're describing is generally known as "agnosticism".
And generally incorrectly known as agnosticism. Agnosticism is the philosophy that the existence of gods is unknowable.
One can be an agnostic atheist, a gnostic theist, an agnostic theist or a gnostic atheist.
Atheism and agnosticsm are orthogonal.
I think that some people cannot grasp the idea that a belief in God and practice of religion can be as rational as any empiricist.
As an agnostic atheist, I hold that belief in God and practice of religion can not be rational. Belief without evidence is not rational belief. There is no evidence for the existence of gods. Therefore belief in gods is irrational.
Atheism, by definition, is far less rational because of the greater logical difficulty of proving a negative.
Atheism, by definition, is minimally the lack of belief in gods (the "weak atheist" position). The "strong atheist" point of view, which holds that there are no gods, is also not irrational, due to the positivist axiom that no thing can rationally be said to exist without evidence for its existence; it is therefore rational to deny the existence of anything X for which there is no evidence.
Shrug. To each their own.
I think my record has been 230kbps down and 170kbps up while trading an episode of Rescue Me during the first hour it was up on TvTorrents.
My computer couldn't do anything else while it was doing that, unfortunately.
A PDF is not worth the same as a paper book. Any company that wants to sell them at the same price deserves to lose all of their business to piracy and go out of business.
I really have no sympathy for WotC's plan.
As for text searching, an OCR copy of Frostburn has been circulating P2P services since about the day before its retail release, and on Usenet soon after.
The current distribution model does not work. Somebody is going to go out of business. Maybe publishers. Maybe retailers. But someone's gonna end up unemployed with their houses repossessed by the bank. That's life. I'm gonna do what benefits me.
A person chooses their religion, too. But we agree that they have the right to follow that choice.
Whether a trait is inborn or not is not relevant to human rights.
(The 'Twins Study" suggests that homosexuality is at least part 'nature', and not wholly a matter of choice in any case.)
I think it'd be fair to say that non-com infantry aren't well-educated.
Wrong. Here are two examples:
/ or bmech/vel_calc.html
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/rocket_sci
http://www.solarsystem.org.uk/datatext.html
Being a Canadian and downloading commercial music for free, legally. The online music stores can't give it to me for free. Hence, a significant and useful non-infringing use.
Political advertising comes to mind. Already on the big Torrent trackers we're seeing campaign commercials being distributed at a cost much lower than buying television airtime.
Distributing first-run TV shows is as legal in some jurisdictions as it is to "tape tree" (passing around tapes person-to-person to build collections). And faster.
I have downloaded a number of game walkthroughs that I otherwise would have had to wait in a FilePlanet line for.
Distribution of third-party Neverwinter Nights modules is faster via P2P, as well.
I think just about everyone agrees that BT is the best way to get Linux distros.
There you go.
In short, your five parts ease-of-use are actually five parts inertia...
No, it's ease of use. Turn on the workstation, it boots. Double-click MS Word. Type. I can explain that to a traditional editor who has never used a computer before.
This is demonstrably untrue.
My experience is that you are incorrect. That reason alone would be enough to not switch.
What I'm saying is that all the reasons you keep reciting why you CAN'T are wrong.
That it would be more expensive to train several dozen non-technical staff to use software that they will never use elsewhere is 'wrong'?
Then I don't want to be right.
(Though I am.)
[You know... it's not because Windows is somehow better that you can use the "industry-standard" word-processing and publishing software]
Correct. You've got it backwards. It's not better because of that; it's because of that, that it's better. I explained in another post how OS X wouldn't cut it.
I'd say five parts ease-of-use, three parts cost-effectiveness and two parts inertia (and inertia is always a valid argument; if something ain't broke, why fix it?)
[But let's be honest about why that is, OK?]
You're implying that I'm not being honest. Care to explain where and why?
MS Office is the most-used office suite in the world and MS Word the most-used word processing package. They are therefore a de facto industry standard, in *every* sense of the word.
My work and home PCs run 24 hours a day under WinXP. It's stable as a concrete foundation with earthquake springs. It's not luck.
OS X doesn't run the publishing or word processing software I need in my job. That is, it doesn't run that software under Windows.
It boils down like this: when everyone I exchange files with uses Windows, I need to use Windows, too.
(And now at work we're looking to buy a publishing system that runs only under Windows. What, am I supposed to make it work with forty copies of Star Office or something and train a bunch of people to use a new OS and word processing system?)
And it definitely doesn't run the games I want to play.
I understand that people think that OS X or Linux or Be or whatever can work for any solution, but they can't. People know Windows. People know MS Word. Someone wants to start a foundation and send us a bunch of free money to train these people to use fringe software under fringe OSes, we might consider it.
Whether or not EULAs are binding is up in the air. They haven't yet been tested in my jurisdiction (BC), but they would probably fail. IANAL, but I work in a legislative setting.
My mom is about a kilogram of ashes in a green metal box on the mantle. At least, that's what we've been led to believe. Do you have any special knowledge?
The heaviest element I've ever encountered would be my dad's synthesis of potroastium.
It strikes me that they may have missed what I think may be the most important bit of advice: keep your assets offshore, and if your system needs web presence or indexing servers, keep them offshore in countries where the laws are not likely to change.
Sure, the courts have been ruling that P2P software is legal, but there's a good chance that will change before the end of the decade. There's just too much money in the hands of Big Entertainment for it not to.
You let me run the games I want to play, the industry-standard word processing and publishing software I need to use in my job, and haven't crashed on me in months. While your security is questionable, at least I know that there is some accountability in your design.
I'll be home by 5.
Hell, most of us have played games where we're a 19th level Ice Blaster or a 22nd level elf necromancer.
I'm a 6th level editor and a 7th level slacker. It'll cost you more if you want me to switch the two around.
(ObFuturama: "I'm a 10th level vice president!")
Y'know, for me, the concern would have nothing to do with the ship being raided and the plutonium stolen to make bombs.
For em, the issue is that plutonium is astonishingly poisonous. One microgram of ingested plutonium will cause cancer half the time over some short period of time (I don't remembe the specifics, only what I recall from the Guinness Book of World Records).
140kg of plutonium is enough to cause cancer in the entire world population about ten times over.
Just blow the ship up. Fish will eat the plutonium. We'll eat the fish. Millions die.
(Paranoid? Yeah, a little.)
Aha. I get it now. Now it all makes sense; I didn't quite understand the driving purpose behind Steam.
Cutting out the middleman is always good for the manufacturer. Not so good for the traditional distribution models, tho.
Gotta say that I kinda like the fact that EB employs about thirty people here in town who would otherwise probably not be able to get jobs. So, in the final analysis, I'm going to have to side *against* Valve on this one.
This really shouldn't ever have become an issue. The box-retail distribution model for games is still a viable one. Is it so important for HL fans to play the game as soon as humanly possible? What's wrong with buying it in store on the day of release?
How would Valve be harmed by giving in on this issue? How would the consumers be harmed?
IMHO, neither would, in any important way.
But what's gonna happen when I ask him to open my pod bay doors?
See, if I get a Microsoft system and I ask for the pod bay doors to be opened, there's a 92% chance that it'll work and an 8% chance that it'll hang indefinitely until I reboot.
If I get a Linux system and I ask for the pod bay doors to be opened, I have to do it from a command line and trust that a bunch of unpaid and unaccountable programmers didn't put an easter egg in the code that orders canned peas from The Bay.
HAL, on the other hand, will leave me to die in the vacuum of space.
I'll stick with off-the-shelf OSes, thanks.
He said that your arguments were irrational and moot, not that you are. It is, as such, not an ad hominem.
...until the orbital mind control satellites will be able to tell what movie or concert or event that I want to go to, and then will automatically bill me for it.
Then they will instruct me to attend, and I wil simply pass my Mark of the Beast (tm) over a scanner for admission.
That's gonna *rock*.