I hate to nitpick, because I agree completely with your statement, but there's a factual error in there...you said:
If you take anything other than a kitten or a puppy, you are almost certainly condeming that animal to death by explosive decompression.
This is one of the greatest unchallenged urban myths: exposure to vacuum leads to explosive decompression. It's simply not true - the kind of pressure forces need to "pop" an animal cannot be generated before the animal breathes and equibrilates with the environmental pressure. What does happen is even worse, in my opinion: while slowly suffocating from lack of oxygen, the animal suffers from severe decompression sickness - dissolved N2/O2/etc. in the blood expands, and can due horrible tissue damage. Divers call this the "bends" and it's a horrible, horrible way to die. But the animal does not die from "explosive" decompression. It's a subtle, but important difference. Important because the use of sensational words like "explosive" will turn more people away from your argument - if I heard somebody say that the local Humane Society were blowing up dogs and cats, I'd dismiss that person as frankly, kind of looney. The point gets across better with accuracy, you see?
sorry about that offtopic ranting - just to stay OT, it seems ludicrous that with all the benefits controlled cloning could give us, one of the first things we do is find some way to succour rich pet owners. Never mind that people are dying on organ wait-lists, let's bring back Muffy the Sheepdog. Sheesh.:)
If your Pentax lens has 90% modulation transfer at 30cycles/mm, your film 90%, and your film scanner 90%, by the time you get your slide or neg to the SCREEN, you're already down to 73% by the time you're film is ready for production, a digital system can typically give you 10-15% more.
See? That's exactly my point - some quick math:
Improvement on image quality - 10-15%
Relative cost to acheive above: ~600%
I can't justify a $3000 EOS system, plus new Canon lenses, for a 15% difference in quality, especially when that difference might not exist (I'm pretty sure my 50/1.8 gets better than 30 li/mm:) Furthermore, I would defy a non-loupe equipped viewer to detect that 15% difference, and on a student budget, it's a moot point anyways.:) And I doubt that a lower-cost solution would give me that 15%. I'd back it up with numbers, but I couldn't find any comparisons of consumer-grade digital cameras to competent SLR systems. Perhaps you can provide some info regarding affordable digital quality - until then, I have to rely on what I see with my own eyes, and that's generally poorer quality images from digital systems compared to a good SLR system.
Damn, ignore this post...I _was_ thinking about a 6 megapixel (which scales to ~200 ASA.) when I posted. I knew about the 16 megapixel CMOS, but haven't given it much thought, much in the same way I haven't looked at the latest in the Ferrari line.:)
Woopsie, there was supposed to be a "1" in front of that "6" up there. Time to start using that damn preview button.:)
But in all honesty, who can afford a 16 megapixel camera? Not I, and if you can, more power to you. I'll stick to the best imaging system I can afford, which means film, right now.
i wish people would stop trying to come up with some "resolution" and "granularity" comparisons between film and digital cameras.
Why? I've seen side-by-side comparisons of images captured by film and by digital cameras, and I can tell the difference between the digital image and the film image based on the granularity of the image.
--Begin pedantic optics argument--
I will cede that newer technology allows for digital images to approach, and even exceed film resolution. I believe I stated as much in my original post. A true 6 megapixel device, with good optics (say, the Canon EOS D30 or similar, using professional lenses) would have all the optical properties of a film-based camera, with superior MTF response of the CMOS over the film based camera. Remember, though, that the the MTF of the system depends on more than just the film - I'll bet my pro Pentax lenses have better MTFs than the el-cheapo f4.5 lenses found in Joe Consumer digicameras, and cost less, to boot. As such, my dinosaur film camera can give overall MTF numbers comparable to bleeding-edge digital cameras, at a fraction of the cost. Why pay more for the same functionality?
--end pedantic optics argument--
And that's before you even start to consider all of the problems inherent in integral tripack colour films.
IMNSHO, the problems with color-balance in analog film are relatively balanced with the contrast problems in CCD imaging. So that's a wash.
If you want to find a reason to use film, you need look no further than exposure latitude.
Amen, brother!:) I didn't mention that, because I tend to use slide film, but for blowing an exposure by a few stops and still getting a workable image, nothing beats regular ol' ASA 400 negative film. But do consider that some of us compare image quality based on "appearance to the eye" and not on optical engineering specifications. With that in mind, I find the overall granularity of consumer-quality digital images to be displeasing enough not to use 'em, and "pro" digital solutions are way beyond my humble means.:) Hope that helps!
...and I think the death of film may really just be around the corner.
Not so fast, though...IIRC, the upper limit right now is something like 6 megapixels, for a ludicrously expensive unit. 6 megapixels scales to roughly the granularity of 200 ASA film - fine for everyday photography, not so fine when you want to blow up images to ludicrous sizes. People who like to make poster-size prints will continue using ASA 40 and 50 film with cameras that cost a fraction of what one of these digital-wonders cost, with film that gives them not only better resolution, but superior color balance as well.
Seems like every time there's an advance in digital imaging, somebody has to whang the "death of film" gong - the fact of the matter is, even _after_ digital cameras have surpassed analog ones, there will be people who will _still_ prefer film, if for no other reason than they like the images better. You can't measure artistic value with "real color, nn megapixel" stats - and as such, film will really never die.
Yeah, which was precisely the point of my "eventually, the warhead wins" statement. The whole point being, of course, it doesn't matter what "anti-hacking" provisions they've put in an X-box, they'll just get beaten someday.
I was clearly responding to the parent's assertion that there was no hack due to lack of interest. There is plenty of interest, as you well know.
Fine...I guess I was too far down the thread to pick up on that one. Mea culpa. But neither do I think that the lack of an X-box hack is due to anti-hack measures - I think it's just been too short a time for a home-grown hack to have been properly made up/bug-fixed/tested.
Also... I won't consider an "XBox Linux Hack" to be valid unless a non-hacker can install it on a standard retail unit, without a soldering iron, in one day.
OK, the whole world will pay attention to what you define as a valid hack. I personally won't consider it a valid "Linux hack" until my X-box can toast the perfect bagel using Open Source code and a nifty DVD-laser hack that projects a spinning Tux on my wall. But who cares about what we think...most people will be happy to have a Linux prompt on their TV, right?:)
Is it totally inconceivable that the reason the XBox hasn't been hacked is because so far, the anti-hacking measures have been stronger than the hackers?
Remember this statement...put it on your webpage or something...someday, when the X-box is good and hacked, you'll look at it and learn the following lesson:
"In the war between armor and warhead, the warhead will eventually win. Always."
The X-box has only been out since what, Nov. 15th? Not even three months...Linux on the Box is coming, and I'd bet sooner than later. Like I said, remember your statement when that day comes. You'll need it, just to season that crow.:)
DVRs are also relatively complicated to set up. ?Wiring it into TV is tricky,? Bernoff says, ?and the more sophisticated the TV, the harder it is.?
If the question was "why do geeks like these while Joe Sixpack isn't buying them" then it seems pretty clear (and intuitive.) The average shmo is just fine with a 15" monitor, a cassette-tape player for the car (or a cheap CD), AOL for internet connection, and a $60 VCR from Wal-Mart for recording "Friends." Why would they pay seven or eight times as much for a device that essentially replicates their VCR, albeit at a higher quality (which they don't even care about), plus, it requires a smug 15-year-old to set it up?
More properly, a SWAG. You seem to have acronyms on the brain, so you can figure that one out.:) Actually, they qualify it pretty well, I think - they state that the 80 or so planets they've discovered are far larger than Jupiter/closer to star system, yadda yadda. But they're right - the only reason they see these planets so frequently is because they're the only planets we can currently see. IIRC, the method they use to detect planetary objects is to subject the emissions of the star to very precise Fourier analysis, or other frequency analysis, and thereby detect very slight frequency shifts in detected emissions - Doppler shifts corresponding to slight motions of the star due to the influence of the planet on the star. Naturally, that influence is small, and it's only measurable above the noise floor, currently, if the planet is truly ginormous. Smaller planets don't influence stars enough that we can see it with current methods - so their statement stands, I'd say.
I think the real question is this: why the heck do you posess terabytes of sheep porn?:)
You seem to have a few sterotypes about the rest of the world that are better laid to rest.
Perhaps...but I doubt the guy in Vietnam who made my flower-pot would enjoy a game of EverQuest - despite the availability of computers, the cultural differences are still there. I did not intend to imply that people in these countries don't understand computers, but the culture that is infused in any western-culture-based computer game would not likely hold their attention for long. You seem to have a bias about your culture and it's application to the rest of the world that would be better laid to rest.:)
That aside, I like my humor dry, as you seemed to have intuited.
I wonder if it would be more profitable to have some of the 3rd world participants play Everquest and sell their accounts at the stores.
Hey, no problem! Just trek out to some remote village in the South American jungle, or Africa, or Vietnam, and set 'em up with EverQuest-enabled PCs. Who cares that they don't have power, or even potable water supplies - they'll intuitively understand the Western culture of fantasy that is EverQuest. They don't need to spend their time finding food or eking out a living - they can just play games all day, and pick up the electronically-posted fund at the nearest ATM. Because hey, it works in America, right?
I hope you were gunning for the +1, Funny rating, 'cuz otherwise, you need to lay off the sauce.:) I love Ten Thousand Villages, BTW, but I think I prefer getting beautiful, hand-made works created by craftsmen than some cheesy RPG junk.
One would thing they would want to publicize these items. "
Sorry you've got a cold, man.:)
How long do you guys think it'll take for the service to make it out of the original three launch areas? (arrgh, they picked SLC instead of Denver, those tools! Stupid Olympics...) Seems to me like new wireless services come and go all the time...is this just another flash-in-the-pan?
Who's applauding? It's funny, but yeah, it's childish, and the guy knows it, and says so. Nobody's applauding this guy, that I know of...we chuckle at his stance, and move on. Where's the hypocrisy?
I get the feeling you'd answer that, but you're too damn chicken to post under your own name, AC. So never mind, then.:)
Hmm...Direct Marketing Association...DMA. What exactly do they represent? Spammers, who uniformly sell crap. Thus, they could be the Direct Marketing (of) Crap Associat - thereby becoming the DMCA!
Two evil entities, two similar acronyms. Coincidence? I think not.:)
Yes, but Netcape was free, and a piece of crap, BEFORE AOL bought it.
Um, I think I mentioned that Netscape was only free to students and such, way back in the day before IE or even AOL. I'm talking 1994, like, before AOL really got popular. Like Netscape 1.1/1.2 and stuff (which I still have on 1.44 MB floppies...w00t.:)
And Netscape didn't turn into a piece of crap, IMNSHO until version 3.0, when it decided it needed to play IE's feeping creaturism game. Netscape 2.0 did just fine without all the extra chrome, and wasn't there a lawsuit about hidden Microsoft APIs that helped Netscape 3.0 suck so much?
Why should Microsoft be forced to pay for AOL's bad business decisions?
Something else that I didn't say...IIRC, this whole thread is about what AOL/TW is suing MS for, not why. Why, we already know - they're all greedy corporate slime, and they'd sue their own grandmother for two dollars more.:)
Lets do a little reductio ad absurdum. The only natural form of transportation for a human is to use your legs, arms, etc to move about. From this we see that using a car as a means of transportation is unnatural. Therefore, using a car is immoral.
Where in the above two posts have you missed the point where I stated that I was playing the devil's advocate? Here's a clue, smart-guy - I agree with you. Tell it to the unwashed masses, not me.:)
Just because people are ignorant or even stupid does not mean that you should work within their incorrect ethical system and its silly moral boundries.
See, this only shows how little you know about the whole funding system. You're right, of course, but good luck paying the bills working on principle alone, outside of whatever "incorrect", "silly" or "stupid" boundaries you may find. Because when those "incorrect" "silly" and "stupid" people run the government, guess who gets screwed?
Beside, who the hell am I to decide what is "incorrect" "silly" and "stupid"? Am I so fucking sure about how right I am to write everybody else off? Look, all I'm saying is this: wackos with money have a right to decide what they want to support with their money, no matter how wacky they are. The research will still get done - remember Goodyear in his basement vulcanizing rubber at the expense of food/heat/etc.? - but it'll take longer, at least until we:
iron out the "ethical" issues, or
convice those who disagree with us that they're wrong, and we alone are right.
Good luck with the latter, until then, I think we need to work on the former.
How is this different than any other instance of becoming a parent?
Another great question - recall the part where I stated "devil's advocate", yadda yadda.:) Having said that, for the natural conception people, there would be a difference - the natural child being born would have been produced, albeit against its will, through natural means. Being produced artificially against someone's will, with no known knowledge of the outcome of said experiment, seems like a step too far for some. Or so the argument goes...:)
I won't even dig at your catholicism that appearently compells you to pity the "righteous" jewish people as they fight bravely against the "inhuman" palestinians.
Too late, dickbrain, you just did. Apparently, what you just said was that Catholics don't care about Palestinians, even though there's an appreciable minority of Catholic Palestinians being hassled/displaced/etc. by Israeli forces. Just this Christmas, Catholics were buying handmade olive-wood religious statuary made by Palestinian Christians who were unable to sell their wares due to restrictions placed on them by the Israeli government. Catholics, that I'm aware of, "pity" everybody who lives in that region, insofar as the fact that many normal, good people are getting bad reps by the actions of radical groups that purport to represent them globally. No, wait, they don't "pity" them; rather, they wish the situation were otherwise, and hope/pray that this would be the case.
Honestly, I can't understand why you would post a belittling and patronizing statement like that...care to explain?
Mr matt, mr matt the funny train has left the station.
Wank on, flamewarrior. The point of parent post was this:
Wasn't there already a.tv domain that got in trouble about the name?
There might have been discussion, too, if it weren't for your blathering idiocy and trollish.sig. But that's/. I guess: where News for Nerds and Stuff that Matters gets overrun with Posts from Losers.:) Oh well...
replies to/dev/null...I've wasted enough time on you.
Oh come on. Cloning is just another form of conception. I still remember when test tube babies as a form of conception was considered immoral.
To you (and me) maybe, but there are people out there who find any form of non-natural conception to be immoral. As a proto-scientist myself, I feel like it's my duty, at least to some degree, to respect the moral imperatives of those who would fund my research. Granted, that kind of direction can go too far and lead to silliness, but in the case of cloning, there are some ethical and moral issues that need to be resolved before wholescale cloning research can be started, using federal/state funds.
I'm playing devil's advocate here, so keep the flamage down, but here's an argument about cloning that gave me pause: the cloning of a human being would be one of the most phenominal scientific experiments of all time. This is an experiment, performed to create a living human being, that takes place without the consent of the subject. Sure, that person doesn't exist at the start of the experiment, but at the end of it, they know that their entire existence is due wholly to research that they had no directing part in. That's a tough call to make, playing God like that. Other issues, like civil rights for cloned humans (seems trivial, but there are those who think that their clones become their slaves...STW if you don't believe me), identification issues between clones/progenitors (what happens if the clone/parent commits a crime and blames it on the parent/clone?) and other sticky issues still exist...these are things that we should work out before moving ahead at full speed.
The research is valuable, but the end results need better direction, IMNSHO.:)
The artice is kinda breathy, even for New Scientist
:)
If this research is valid, it is a huge breakthrough. But it means that human cloning will have to be argued for its own sake, rather than it somehow being necessary for growing spare kidneys. My concern with this is that Bush, et al, will use it to shut down cloning research altogether; they've never seemed to have any other use for cloning. On the other hand, it may allow clarity on the morality of cloning.
And this is a great point...it seems like the reason cloning research has been allowed to go forward is because of the potential gains resulting from non-fully cloned results. The bigger question, I think, is this: how does this modify the age-old dispute between unfettered scientific research and constant restraints on that research by people with non-scientific agendas to push? Can this breakthrough provide a clear method to delineate "good" cloning research from "bad" cloning research?
As for my statement about fucked up standards, I believe I'm entitled to express that opinion.
When did I state otherwise? You could trot around spouting Nazi propaganda, Knicks scores, summaries of the stock market, or simply chant "poopy poopy look at the troll!" and you'd be entitled to do it. I believe I asked what you thought you'd get out of it...but I guess all you wanted was the childish rush of being a troll. Well, congratulations, I bit twice, but no more. All I'll ask you is this: for someone who earned a +1 bonus, please act like it, okay?
It might do some good to read "Why I Am Not A Christian," a collection of essays by Bertrand Russell. You don't have to agree with it -- but why not read it?
Because it's not the fucking topic, that's why. Besides, I have read several of those essays. And frankly, ol' Bertie smacks more of self-indulgent wankiness than of logic and reason. But I won't debate it anymore with you. Frankly, I hope they bitchslap this thread before it gets out of hand. I'll take the karma hit.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe not in Santa Cruz, but high-altitude used to be a common means of euthanasia. See:
i .htm
http://www.ccac.ca/guides/english/V1_93/chap/chxi
for details. FWIW, the practice is now "discouraged" but it wouldn't surprise me if it still happens in lower-income pounds and such...
I hate to nitpick, because I agree completely with your statement, but there's a factual error in there...you said:
:)
If you take anything other than a kitten or a puppy, you are almost certainly condeming that animal to death by explosive decompression.
This is one of the greatest unchallenged urban myths: exposure to vacuum leads to explosive decompression. It's simply not true - the kind of pressure forces need to "pop" an animal cannot be generated before the animal breathes and equibrilates with the environmental pressure. What does happen is even worse, in my opinion: while slowly suffocating from lack of oxygen, the animal suffers from severe decompression sickness - dissolved N2/O2/etc. in the blood expands, and can due horrible tissue damage. Divers call this the "bends" and it's a horrible, horrible way to die. But the animal does not die from "explosive" decompression. It's a subtle, but important difference. Important because the use of sensational words like "explosive" will turn more people away from your argument - if I heard somebody say that the local Humane Society were blowing up dogs and cats, I'd dismiss that person as frankly, kind of looney. The point gets across better with accuracy, you see?
sorry about that offtopic ranting - just to stay OT, it seems ludicrous that with all the benefits controlled cloning could give us, one of the first things we do is find some way to succour rich pet owners. Never mind that people are dying on organ wait-lists, let's bring back Muffy the Sheepdog. Sheesh.
and the ClearType feature is like eyeball sex.
:)
:)
Maybe it's just me, but that sounds like it would hurt quite a bit. *poke* ow! *poke* ow!...
I'd probably pick another analogy if I wanted to sell the ideas of e-books.
See? That's exactly my point - some quick math:
I can't justify a $3000 EOS system, plus new Canon lenses, for a 15% difference in quality, especially when that difference might not exist (I'm pretty sure my 50/1.8 gets better than 30 li/mm
Damn, ignore this post...I _was_ thinking about a 6 megapixel (which scales to ~200 ASA.) when I posted. I knew about the 16 megapixel CMOS, but haven't given it much thought, much in the same way I haven't looked at the latest in the Ferrari line. :)
Woopsie, there was supposed to be a "1" in front of that "6" up there. Time to start using that damn preview button. :)
But in all honesty, who can afford a 16 megapixel camera? Not I, and if you can, more power to you. I'll stick to the best imaging system I can afford, which means film, right now.
i wish people would stop trying to come up with some "resolution" and "granularity" comparisons between film and digital cameras.
:) I didn't mention that, because I tend to use slide film, but for blowing an exposure by a few stops and still getting a workable image, nothing beats regular ol' ASA 400 negative film. But do consider that some of us compare image quality based on "appearance to the eye" and not on optical engineering specifications. With that in mind, I find the overall granularity of consumer-quality digital images to be displeasing enough not to use 'em, and "pro" digital solutions are way beyond my humble means. :) Hope that helps!
Why? I've seen side-by-side comparisons of images captured by film and by digital cameras, and I can tell the difference between the digital image and the film image based on the granularity of the image.
--Begin pedantic optics argument--
I will cede that newer technology allows for digital images to approach, and even exceed film resolution. I believe I stated as much in my original post. A true 6 megapixel device, with good optics (say, the Canon EOS D30 or similar, using professional lenses) would have all the optical properties of a film-based camera, with superior MTF response of the CMOS over the film based camera. Remember, though, that the the MTF of the system depends on more than just the film - I'll bet my pro Pentax lenses have better MTFs than the el-cheapo f4.5 lenses found in Joe Consumer digicameras, and cost less, to boot. As such, my dinosaur film camera can give overall MTF numbers comparable to bleeding-edge digital cameras, at a fraction of the cost. Why pay more for the same functionality?
--end pedantic optics argument--
And that's before you even start to consider all of the problems inherent in integral tripack colour films.
IMNSHO, the problems with color-balance in analog film are relatively balanced with the contrast problems in CCD imaging. So that's a wash.
If you want to find a reason to use film, you need look no further than exposure latitude.
Amen, brother!
...and I think the death of film may really just be around the corner.
Not so fast, though...IIRC, the upper limit right now is something like 6 megapixels, for a ludicrously expensive unit. 6 megapixels scales to roughly the granularity of 200 ASA film - fine for everyday photography, not so fine when you want to blow up images to ludicrous sizes. People who like to make poster-size prints will continue using ASA 40 and 50 film with cameras that cost a fraction of what one of these digital-wonders cost, with film that gives them not only better resolution, but superior color balance as well.
Seems like every time there's an advance in digital imaging, somebody has to whang the "death of film" gong - the fact of the matter is, even _after_ digital cameras have surpassed analog ones, there will be people who will _still_ prefer film, if for no other reason than they like the images better. You can't measure artistic value with "real color, nn megapixel" stats - and as such, film will really never die.
Please don't patronise me, sonny.
:)
Heh heh heh...
Did you notice the words "so far" in my comment?
Yeah, which was precisely the point of my "eventually, the warhead wins" statement. The whole point being, of course, it doesn't matter what "anti-hacking" provisions they've put in an X-box, they'll just get beaten someday.
I was clearly responding to the parent's assertion that there was no hack due to lack of interest. There is plenty of interest, as you well know.
Fine...I guess I was too far down the thread to pick up on that one. Mea culpa. But neither do I think that the lack of an X-box hack is due to anti-hack measures - I think it's just been too short a time for a home-grown hack to have been properly made up/bug-fixed/tested.
Also... I won't consider an "XBox Linux Hack" to be valid unless a non-hacker can install it on a standard retail unit, without a soldering iron, in one day.
OK, the whole world will pay attention to what you define as a valid hack. I personally won't consider it a valid "Linux hack" until my X-box can toast the perfect bagel using Open Source code and a nifty DVD-laser hack that projects a spinning Tux on my wall. But who cares about what we think...most people will be happy to have a Linux prompt on their TV, right?
Is it totally inconceivable that the reason the XBox hasn't been hacked is because so far, the anti-hacking measures have been stronger than the hackers?
:)
Remember this statement...put it on your webpage or something...someday, when the X-box is good and hacked, you'll look at it and learn the following lesson:
"In the war between armor and warhead, the warhead will eventually win. Always."
The X-box has only been out since what, Nov. 15th? Not even three months...Linux on the Box is coming, and I'd bet sooner than later. Like I said, remember your statement when that day comes. You'll need it, just to season that crow.
DVRs are also relatively complicated to set up. ?Wiring it into TV is tricky,? Bernoff says, ?and the more sophisticated the TV, the harder it is.?
:)
If the question was "why do geeks like these while Joe Sixpack isn't buying them" then it seems pretty clear (and intuitive.) The average shmo is just fine with a 15" monitor, a cassette-tape player for the car (or a cheap CD), AOL for internet connection, and a $60 VCR from Wal-Mart for recording "Friends." Why would they pay seven or eight times as much for a device that essentially replicates their VCR, albeit at a higher quality (which they don't even care about), plus, it requires a smug 15-year-old to set it up?
Seems to me like the question answers itself.
Hmm, WAG anyone?
:) Actually, they qualify it pretty well, I think - they state that the 80 or so planets they've discovered are far larger than Jupiter/closer to star system, yadda yadda. But they're right - the only reason they see these planets so frequently is because they're the only planets we can currently see. IIRC, the method they use to detect planetary objects is to subject the emissions of the star to very precise Fourier analysis, or other frequency analysis, and thereby detect very slight frequency shifts in detected emissions - Doppler shifts corresponding to slight motions of the star due to the influence of the planet on the star. Naturally, that influence is small, and it's only measurable above the noise floor, currently, if the planet is truly ginormous. Smaller planets don't influence stars enough that we can see it with current methods - so their statement stands, I'd say.
:)
More properly, a SWAG. You seem to have acronyms on the brain, so you can figure that one out.
I think the real question is this: why the heck do you posess terabytes of sheep porn?
You seem to have a few sterotypes about the rest of the world that are better laid to rest.
:)
Perhaps...but I doubt the guy in Vietnam who made my flower-pot would enjoy a game of EverQuest - despite the availability of computers, the cultural differences are still there. I did not intend to imply that people in these countries don't understand computers, but the culture that is infused in any western-culture-based computer game would not likely hold their attention for long. You seem to have a bias about your culture and it's application to the rest of the world that would be better laid to rest.
That aside, I like my humor dry, as you seemed to have intuited.
As do I. Cheers!
I wonder if it would be more profitable to have some of the 3rd world participants play Everquest and sell their accounts at the stores.
:) I love Ten Thousand Villages, BTW, but I think I prefer getting beautiful, hand-made works created by craftsmen than some cheesy RPG junk.
:)
Hey, no problem! Just trek out to some remote village in the South American jungle, or Africa, or Vietnam, and set 'em up with EverQuest-enabled PCs. Who cares that they don't have power, or even potable water supplies - they'll intuitively understand the Western culture of fantasy that is EverQuest. They don't need to spend their time finding food or eking out a living - they can just play games all day, and pick up the electronically-posted fund at the nearest ATM. Because hey, it works in America, right?
I hope you were gunning for the +1, Funny rating, 'cuz otherwise, you need to lay off the sauce.
sheesh...some people...
Quoth timothy:
:)
One would thing they would want to publicize these items. "
Sorry you've got a cold, man.
How long do you guys think it'll take for the service to make it out of the original three launch areas? (arrgh, they picked SLC instead of Denver, those tools! Stupid Olympics...) Seems to me like new wireless services come and go all the time...is this just another flash-in-the-pan?
Who's applauding? It's funny, but yeah, it's childish, and the guy knows it, and says so. Nobody's applauding this guy, that I know of...we chuckle at his stance, and move on. Where's the hypocrisy?
:)
I get the feeling you'd answer that, but you're too damn chicken to post under your own name, AC. So never mind, then.
Hmm...Direct Marketing Association...DMA. What exactly do they represent? Spammers, who uniformly sell crap. Thus, they could be the Direct Marketing (of) Crap Associat - thereby becoming the DMCA!
:)
Two evil entities, two similar acronyms. Coincidence? I think not.
Yes, but Netcape was free, and a piece of crap, BEFORE AOL bought it.
:)
:)
Um, I think I mentioned that Netscape was only free to students and such, way back in the day before IE or even AOL. I'm talking 1994, like, before AOL really got popular. Like Netscape 1.1/1.2 and stuff (which I still have on 1.44 MB floppies...w00t.
And Netscape didn't turn into a piece of crap, IMNSHO until version 3.0, when it decided it needed to play IE's feeping creaturism game. Netscape 2.0 did just fine without all the extra chrome, and wasn't there a lawsuit about hidden Microsoft APIs that helped Netscape 3.0 suck so much?
Why should Microsoft be forced to pay for AOL's bad business decisions?
Something else that I didn't say...IIRC, this whole thread is about what AOL/TW is suing MS for, not why. Why, we already know - they're all greedy corporate slime, and they'd sue their own grandmother for two dollars more.
Where in the above two posts have you missed the point where I stated that I was playing the devil's advocate? Here's a clue, smart-guy - I agree with you. Tell it to the unwashed masses, not me.
Just because people are ignorant or even stupid does not mean that you should work within their incorrect ethical system and its silly moral boundries.
See, this only shows how little you know about the whole funding system. You're right, of course, but good luck paying the bills working on principle alone, outside of whatever "incorrect", "silly" or "stupid" boundaries you may find. Because when those "incorrect" "silly" and "stupid" people run the government, guess who gets screwed?
Beside, who the hell am I to decide what is "incorrect" "silly" and "stupid"? Am I so fucking sure about how right I am to write everybody else off? Look, all I'm saying is this: wackos with money have a right to decide what they want to support with their money, no matter how wacky they are. The research will still get done - remember Goodyear in his basement vulcanizing rubber at the expense of food/heat/etc.? - but it'll take longer, at least until we:
Good luck with the latter, until then, I think we need to work on the former.
How is this different than any other instance of becoming a parent?
:) Having said that, for the natural conception people, there would be a difference - the natural child being born would have been produced, albeit against its will, through natural means. Being produced artificially against someone's will, with no known knowledge of the outcome of said experiment, seems like a step too far for some. Or so the argument goes... :)
Another great question - recall the part where I stated "devil's advocate", yadda yadda.
I won't even dig at your catholicism that appearently compells you to pity the "righteous" jewish people as they fight bravely against the "inhuman" palestinians.
Too late, dickbrain, you just did. Apparently, what you just said was that Catholics don't care about Palestinians, even though there's an appreciable minority of Catholic Palestinians being hassled/displaced/etc. by Israeli forces. Just this Christmas, Catholics were buying handmade olive-wood religious statuary made by Palestinian Christians who were unable to sell their wares due to restrictions placed on them by the Israeli government. Catholics, that I'm aware of, "pity" everybody who lives in that region, insofar as the fact that many normal, good people are getting bad reps by the actions of radical groups that purport to represent them globally. No, wait, they don't "pity" them; rather, they wish the situation were otherwise, and hope/pray that this would be the case.
Honestly, I can't understand why you would post a belittling and patronizing statement like that...care to explain?
Mr matt, mr matt the funny train has left the station.
.tv domain that got in trouble about the name?
.sig. But that's /. I guess: where News for Nerds and Stuff that Matters gets overrun with Posts from Losers. :) Oh well...
/dev/null...I've wasted enough time on you.
Wank on, flamewarrior. The point of parent post was this:
Wasn't there already a
There might have been discussion, too, if it weren't for your blathering idiocy and trollish
replies to
Oh come on. Cloning is just another form of conception. I still remember when test tube babies as a form of conception was considered immoral.
:)
To you (and me) maybe, but there are people out there who find any form of non-natural conception to be immoral. As a proto-scientist myself, I feel like it's my duty, at least to some degree, to respect the moral imperatives of those who would fund my research. Granted, that kind of direction can go too far and lead to silliness, but in the case of cloning, there are some ethical and moral issues that need to be resolved before wholescale cloning research can be started, using federal/state funds.
I'm playing devil's advocate here, so keep the flamage down, but here's an argument about cloning that gave me pause: the cloning of a human being would be one of the most phenominal scientific experiments of all time. This is an experiment, performed to create a living human being, that takes place without the consent of the subject. Sure, that person doesn't exist at the start of the experiment, but at the end of it, they know that their entire existence is due wholly to research that they had no directing part in. That's a tough call to make, playing God like that. Other issues, like civil rights for cloned humans (seems trivial, but there are those who think that their clones become their slaves...STW if you don't believe me), identification issues between clones/progenitors (what happens if the clone/parent commits a crime and blames it on the parent/clone?) and other sticky issues still exist...these are things that we should work out before moving ahead at full speed.
The research is valuable, but the end results need better direction, IMNSHO.
Exactly...I wonder if Hemos didn't mean to say
The artice is kinda breathy, even for New Scientist
:)
If this research is valid, it is a huge breakthrough. But it means that human cloning will have to be argued for its own sake, rather than it somehow being necessary for growing spare kidneys. My concern with this is that Bush, et al, will use it to shut down cloning research altogether; they've never seemed to have any other use for cloning. On the other hand, it may allow clarity on the morality of cloning.
And this is a great point...it seems like the reason cloning research has been allowed to go forward is because of the potential gains resulting from non-fully cloned results. The bigger question, I think, is this: how does this modify the age-old dispute between unfettered scientific research and constant restraints on that research by people with non-scientific agendas to push? Can this breakthrough provide a clear method to delineate "good" cloning research from "bad" cloning research?
As for my statement about fucked up standards, I believe I'm entitled to express that opinion.
When did I state otherwise? You could trot around spouting Nazi propaganda, Knicks scores, summaries of the stock market, or simply chant "poopy poopy look at the troll!" and you'd be entitled to do it. I believe I asked what you thought you'd get out of it...but I guess all you wanted was the childish rush of being a troll. Well, congratulations, I bit twice, but no more. All I'll ask you is this: for someone who earned a +1 bonus, please act like it, okay?
It might do some good to read "Why I Am Not A Christian," a collection of essays by Bertrand Russell. You don't have to agree with it -- but why not read it?
Because it's not the fucking topic, that's why. Besides, I have read several of those essays. And frankly, ol' Bertie smacks more of self-indulgent wankiness than of logic and reason. But I won't debate it anymore with you. Frankly, I hope they bitchslap this thread before it gets out of hand. I'll take the karma hit.
FOAD, troll.