Author here. While mathematicians usually begin the series with zero, in papers about computing the initial zero is often left off. I should have been consistent, though.
I've never heard of this "post count limit". Is that something new?
You say that interpretation of holy texts is fallible. Could there be mistakes in the texts themselves? Where the interpretation is clear, is there anything that could be wrong?
Clearly you think that the overwhelming scientific consensus about the history of the world is wrong, because it conflicts with parts of the holy texts whose interpretation seems clear. When and how did you determine that the scientific community is wrong and the old books are right? Do you agree with many Christian creationists that fossils and other evidence were planted by god to try to trick us or test our faith?
You seem to share with most Christian creationists a basic confusion about what science is and how it works. It is not true that abiogenesis "is a theory which directly stems from the presumption that there is no creator". There is no presumption, just basic intellectual hygiene: avoid adding pieces and parts to your theory unless there is evidence for them. Since there is no evidence for a "creator", there is no good reason to include one.
People used to believe that god pushed the stars and planets around in the sky. Now that we have a universal theory of gravitation, we can calculate their orbits and see their motions as resulting from a natural process. It would not be correct to say that the theory of gravitation "presumes" that there is no creator. There is simply no need to invoke one to explain the motions of the planets. We would make no progress in understanding the universe if we kept saying "god is doing it" rather than figuring out what is really happening. Same thing in biology.
I'm not understanding the connection you're making between the idea of an omnipotent god and Jesus in particular. Many people, including myself, think that the very concept of an omnipotent god, if it has any meaning at all, is probably inherently illogical. This would include Allah, the Christian god, etc. I don't see how the Islamic and Christian conceptions of god differ in any fundamental way, in regard to omnipotence and its other inherent characteristics. (Can Allah make a rock too heavy for him to lift? If not, there is something he can not make. If yes, there is something he can not lift. Either way, not omnipotent. Not that this is serious, but neither is the idea of an omnipotent god.)
Thank you for sharing something about your conversion experience. So is it true that in six years you've not encountered any fundamental thing in the religion, either in the holy text or its authoritative interpretations, that seems obviously false? Is Islam in conflict with the mainstream scientific understanding of the history of our planet, for example (that life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years)?
"How can an omnipotent being create a rock, which is too heavy for him to lift"
Is not Allah supposed to be omnipotent? Or is it not omnipotence itself that you object to, but the particular form it takes in Christian theology? Can you expand on this?
Also, pointing out some things that bother you about Christianity doesn't explain why you decided to convert to Islam. Islam, like most other religions, makes many specific claims about the world and its history. Did you determine that these claims were true before converting? Or did you convert first, and now "know" that these claims are true because they are (now) part of your religion?
I ask because I am genuinely curious about the conversion process in those adults who do not otherwise seem to be completely befuddled. I can understand someone who is raised in a particular religion either struggling to overcome it, or not, but have never been able to understand how a rational adult makes the free choice of a specific religion (free in the sense of not being determined by powerful social pressures).
You're convolving science with engineering. GR is a radical and fundamental conceptual breakthrough of a kind that only occurs every few hundred years at most. Easily on a par with Newton's system of the world. This would be true even if it had no engineering consequences whatsoever; but, in fact, the GPS depends upon it.
After the US liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban the world saw the televised celebration in the streets, as people were allowed to listen to music again and girls were allowed to go to school. Except that part of the world watching Al Jazeera, which censored all of it.
"anyone who cares about having a usable OS probably dropped Ubuntu as soon as they made Unity the default."
I use Ubuntu on my laptops, but I don't use Unity or any desktop environment. I use the dwm window manager. I care about having a usable OS, so you are incorrect.
I didn't know it was a dupe. And I have some sympathy with the view that "unconscious" makes an awkward noun, correct or not, now that I take a hard look at it. It reminds me of the Uncola.
Submitter here. It seems to me that the commenter thinks that "unconscious" is an adjective and that I left out the noun. But it is indeed a noun, as a quick trip to any dictionary published after 1912 will confirm.
A prominent one would be graphviz, of course. But most other software that describes itself as dealing with "mind maps" can only handle a basic tree structure, you're right. Another exception would be Tinderbox, but that's closed source.
I only see the term "maser" in popular accounts of science. In my experience the people who work on them call them "lasers", "free-electron lasers" (FELs), "microwave lasers", etc.
And microwave lasers have been commonplace for decades in the form of FELs. What's new here is the "solid state" part.
The article begins with an example of what the author seems to think is truly outmoded technology, only useful for teaching preschoolers. But people who know how to use the abacus can multiply a couple of four-digit numbers together, arriving at the result before an experienced electronic calculator user has finished entering the first number into the machine. I've seen shopkeepers in New York's Chinatown using abacuses in place of cash registers, and I'm sure their use is still widespread in China, at least. Electronic calculators begin to have an edge when you need to extract square roots of numbers more than a few digits long.
There is a pattern here: old technology often requires some training to use it effectively, but if you put in the work to develop the skill, it works better in some situations.
I don't follow. You still get all the advantages of separate semantic markup and styling, of only requiring the user to download the styling information once, of being able to reuse your stylesheets, and of allowing the user to substitute his own stylesheet.
I'm betting this was the meteor that Scott Adams happened to see : http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/gods_matchbox/ (warning: Adams' website has become practically unreadable due to the desperate explosion of intrusive advertising. I read the RSS feed, which carries the full articles.)
Double jeopardy is about not being punished for the same crime twice.
No, it's what it says: being put in jeopardy for the same (alleged) crime twice. It's why (in the US) you can appeal your conviction, but the government may not appeal your acquittal. (Supposedly. In practice, if there is sufficient public outcry to string you up, you will be tried again for a "different crime," such as violation of a hate-crime law.)
Well, no, you don't have to. But if the goal is to shut them up and make it more likely that they'll skip over your house the next time, this is reputedly pretty effective. Myself, when I see the vacant expressions and handful of Watchtowers through the window, I just don't answer the door. I tired years ago of whatever sport I can extract from these sad, brainwashed drones.
Hitchens never "blogged" there or anywhere else.
But the domain acquisition does, no doubt, explain it. If you try to go to hitchensweb you do indeed get redirected to the yellowpages site.
I haven't yet read the link you provided, but it seems strange that someone should be able to buy reputation just by purchasing a domain and redirecting it. It sounds like a recipe for spam.
Slashdot Mirror
Author here. While mathematicians usually begin the series with zero, in papers about computing the initial zero is often left off. I should have been consistent, though.
Thanks for sharing the story of PORTRAN: that's really interesting history that I'd never heard before (I'm the author of the OA).
That's an unrelated "arc".
I've never heard of this "post count limit". Is that something new?
You say that interpretation of holy texts is fallible. Could there be mistakes in the texts themselves? Where the interpretation is clear, is there anything that could be wrong?
Clearly you think that the overwhelming scientific consensus about the history of the world is wrong, because it conflicts with parts of the holy texts whose interpretation seems clear. When and how did you determine that the scientific community is wrong and the old books are right? Do you agree with many Christian creationists that fossils and other evidence were planted by god to try to trick us or test our faith?
You seem to share with most Christian creationists a basic confusion about what science is and how it works. It is not true that abiogenesis "is a theory which directly stems from the presumption that there is no creator". There is no presumption, just basic intellectual hygiene: avoid adding pieces and parts to your theory unless there is evidence for them. Since there is no evidence for a "creator", there is no good reason to include one.
People used to believe that god pushed the stars and planets around in the sky. Now that we have a universal theory of gravitation, we can calculate their orbits and see their motions as resulting from a natural process. It would not be correct to say that the theory of gravitation "presumes" that there is no creator. There is simply no need to invoke one to explain the motions of the planets. We would make no progress in understanding the universe if we kept saying "god is doing it" rather than figuring out what is really happening. Same thing in biology.
I'm not understanding the connection you're making between the idea of an omnipotent god and Jesus in particular. Many people, including myself, think that the very concept of an omnipotent god, if it has any meaning at all, is probably inherently illogical. This would include Allah, the Christian god, etc. I don't see how the Islamic and Christian conceptions of god differ in any fundamental way, in regard to omnipotence and its other inherent characteristics. (Can Allah make a rock too heavy for him to lift? If not, there is something he can not make. If yes, there is something he can not lift. Either way, not omnipotent. Not that this is serious, but neither is the idea of an omnipotent god.) Thank you for sharing something about your conversion experience. So is it true that in six years you've not encountered any fundamental thing in the religion, either in the holy text or its authoritative interpretations, that seems obviously false? Is Islam in conflict with the mainstream scientific understanding of the history of our planet, for example (that life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years)?
"How can an omnipotent being create a rock, which is too heavy for him to lift"
Is not Allah supposed to be omnipotent? Or is it not omnipotence itself that you object to, but the particular form it takes in Christian theology? Can you expand on this?
Also, pointing out some things that bother you about Christianity doesn't explain why you decided to convert to Islam. Islam, like most other religions, makes many specific claims about the world and its history. Did you determine that these claims were true before converting? Or did you convert first, and now "know" that these claims are true because they are (now) part of your religion?
I ask because I am genuinely curious about the conversion process in those adults who do not otherwise seem to be completely befuddled. I can understand someone who is raised in a particular religion either struggling to overcome it, or not, but have never been able to understand how a rational adult makes the free choice of a specific religion (free in the sense of not being determined by powerful social pressures).
You're convolving science with engineering. GR is a radical and fundamental conceptual breakthrough of a kind that only occurs every few hundred years at most. Easily on a par with Newton's system of the world. This would be true even if it had no engineering consequences whatsoever; but, in fact, the GPS depends upon it.
After the US liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban the world saw the televised celebration in the streets, as people were allowed to listen to music again and girls were allowed to go to school. Except that part of the world watching Al Jazeera, which censored all of it.
"this has been spearheaded by Christian groups and linked to Christian groups in the US" And applauded by the Pope: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/pope-benedict-blesses-top-lawmaker-pushing-ugandas-kill-the-gays-bill/politics/2012/12/13/56277
"anyone who cares about having a usable OS probably dropped Ubuntu as soon as they made Unity the default." I use Ubuntu on my laptops, but I don't use Unity or any desktop environment. I use the dwm window manager. I care about having a usable OS, so you are incorrect.
I didn't know it was a dupe. And I have some sympathy with the view that "unconscious" makes an awkward noun, correct or not, now that I take a hard look at it. It reminds me of the Uncola.
Submitter here. It seems to me that the commenter thinks that "unconscious" is an adjective and that I left out the noun. But it is indeed a noun, as a quick trip to any dictionary published after 1912 will confirm.
A prominent one would be graphviz, of course. But most other software that describes itself as dealing with "mind maps" can only handle a basic tree structure, you're right. Another exception would be Tinderbox, but that's closed source.
I only see the term "maser" in popular accounts of science. In my experience the people who work on them call them "lasers", "free-electron lasers" (FELs), "microwave lasers", etc. And microwave lasers have been commonplace for decades in the form of FELs. What's new here is the "solid state" part.
If they are basically truthful, then they are improving on their record.
The article begins with an example of what the author seems to think is truly outmoded technology, only useful for teaching preschoolers. But people who know how to use the abacus can multiply a couple of four-digit numbers together, arriving at the result before an experienced electronic calculator user has finished entering the first number into the machine. I've seen shopkeepers in New York's Chinatown using abacuses in place of cash registers, and I'm sure their use is still widespread in China, at least. Electronic calculators begin to have an edge when you need to extract square roots of numbers more than a few digits long. There is a pattern here: old technology often requires some training to use it effectively, but if you put in the work to develop the skill, it works better in some situations.
How cool is it that lumberjacks read Slashdot?
I don't follow. You still get all the advantages of separate semantic markup and styling, of only requiring the user to download the styling information once, of being able to reuse your stylesheets, and of allowing the user to substitute his own stylesheet.
You can use CSS compilers, like CleverCSS, for this.
But that's the best way to do it.
I'm betting this was the meteor that Scott Adams happened to see : http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/gods_matchbox/ (warning: Adams' website has become practically unreadable due to the desperate explosion of intrusive advertising. I read the RSS feed, which carries the full articles.)
No, it's what it says: being put in jeopardy for the same (alleged) crime twice. It's why (in the US) you can appeal your conviction, but the government may not appeal your acquittal. (Supposedly. In practice, if there is sufficient public outcry to string you up, you will be tried again for a "different crime," such as violation of a hate-crime law.)
Well, no, you don't have to. But if the goal is to shut them up and make it more likely that they'll skip over your house the next time, this is reputedly pretty effective. Myself, when I see the vacant expressions and handful of Watchtowers through the window, I just don't answer the door. I tired years ago of whatever sport I can extract from these sad, brainwashed drones.
You're supposed to tell them that you're Jewish.
What "hindu priests" are you talking about?
Hitchens never "blogged" there or anywhere else. But the domain acquisition does, no doubt, explain it. If you try to go to hitchensweb you do indeed get redirected to the yellowpages site. I haven't yet read the link you provided, but it seems strange that someone should be able to buy reputation just by purchasing a domain and redirecting it. It sounds like a recipe for spam.