Phillip-Morris famously hired doctors to tell folks that smoking was actually good for your health when the first medical studies were coming out that indicated that smoking was bad for you.
Then there were years of "second hand smoking doesn't cause harm" from the tobacco lobby sponsored "scientists".
Absolutely there were smoking denialists that wound up enabling the tobacco pushers to sell their deadly product for decades without full knowledge of the effect by their victims, and give smokers a much wanted mental crutch not to face the consequences of their actions.
You're really comparing being given grants to do research that leads to peer reviewed papers with being paid to spin a specific line and suppress science?
Really?
And the denier camp likes to call those who listen to the vast majority of the scientific community on this one "faith based"...
Civil rights? Sorry, you traded those away for temporary relief from intentionally induced fear. You no longer have any. Don't worry - any persisting illusions of said civil rights should dissipate soon.
It really is sad - the foes of Net Neutrality and all that it stands for have completely taken control of the overall fight and the message. Those who would have an open 'net are now completely on the defensive, and never on the offensive anymore.
With the legal precedence they're setting, they'll wind up getting sued if they ever do change the look and feel; they're creating a walled garden from which there will be no escape.
Concur, but recall that on the week of Dennis Richie and Steve Jobs passing, there were thousands of articles and millions of comments about Mr. Jobs. For the most part, the passing of Mr. Richie elicited a response of, "Who?" followed by, "So what?"
To a certain group of people, style is substance, I guess.
He said games have been enjoyed by people for millennia, and that there's no real history of injecting story and emotion into games with really successful results.
Of course, the history of virtual reality is only a few years. We make our VR entertainment game centric to give it purpose and structure, but it truly is a whole new area.
Actually, yes, that is really about all the Apple has got. This article says it better than I can, though (and with pictures of what Apple thinks that Samsung should build.. basically, a triangular tablet a couple of inches thick with big ugly buttons and a cluttered desktop):
It's just amazing, though, how you and bonch manage to get such a nicely written, spelling and grammar checked, hyperlinked and structured post out so fast (read: exact same time stamp as publish of story) every single time there's a thread about Google and/or Apple.
A dedicated blogger - I could see top 5 posts on a regular basis.
But it defies the laws of probability that you guys are whipping this stuff up off the top of your head on every single thread and getting first post in, even before the inevitable troll who's lost his way from/B/ gets his two cents in...
The 'net was decentralized at it's start. That only lasted a few years before the corporations bought up all the hubs and trunks. And now, the tool of said corporations is making laws to ensure eternal control.
It seems that there is nothing that can be built that won't get taken away and turned into a tool of control.
I've read Slashdot for a few years now, and every once in a while I see articles posted that directly or indirectly refer to Christianity. And every single time, it ends up being a sounding board for the Slashdot "community" to boast about how proudly atheistic they are and criticize the few Christians Slashdotters that give their point of view.
I'm a devout Christian, and I can't quite fully express how saddened I am to see some of these comments. For someone to mock my faith, a faith that I've seen work miracles in people's lives and help them go from a place of pain and destruction to a place of life and peace, is something that literally makes me shake with sadness.
Were the Crusades not very Christian-like at times? You betcha. Modern Christians don't condone many of the acts that were committed "in the name of" Christianity hundreds of years ago. If you see anyone killing someone else in the name of Christ, they're not true Christ-followers. So do NOT lump us all together. It's like blaming the existence of nuclear weapons on every physicist that ever lived. It's not a fair accusation. (I know somebody's going to comment on that statement and bash it somehow - so go right ahead, prove to yourself that you're not reading this comment for your own benefit, but rather just to find ways to knock down a Christian).
Secondly, some of you have made comments about how the Bible doesn't apply to modern day or that it's too cryptic for us (or even its original authors) to understand. Is this difficult to understand? "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34) Does this next verse have no applicability to the present day?
Or, "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." (Ephesians 4:28)
Or just read the book of Proverbs (which is even in the Old Testament) and you'll find a slew of practical advice for living a better, more fulfilling life.
Sure, a lot of the Bible is a historical record of the Jewish and Christian people living in the Middle East for a period of a few thousand years, and not every law in Leviticus applies to us today. But the Bible isn't a story, it's a living history, and real churches are not museums for the saints, but hospitals for the sick. Before you make comments on the Bible, make sure you've read it; you don't lend yourself much credibility by scoffing at it without having actually explored it.
I wasn't always a Christian, and I explored other religious texts before settling on the Bible. The conclusion I came to was that it offers something that no other 'religion' offered. Rather than having to 'change' before we can become 'right' with God, we become right with God (through simply asking for it) and letting God's love change us.
Have you ever felt that life is more than just about technology, physics, inventions, etc? Don't you ever get tired of reading news articles every day about the current size of transistors, Apple's patent wars, or funding for space programs? I sure do. If that's all that life is about, then that's pretty scary. I have to believe that life is about helping people in a real and tangible way, TODAY; building up others in our community who aren't as fortunate as us, and not just speculating about how we can make cooler stuff out of silicon.
Seriously - many of us live in cities where people are outside, homeless, starving, and dying every day, and yet you feel comfortable sitting back with your $4.50 Lattes and criticizing Christianity, the single largest organization today that is trying to help the real problems of real people at this very minute. If that's the kind of community that Slashdot is, then I'm done. I'd rather go make a difference in this world than read about occasionally interesting tech news.
Slashdot Mirror
There aren't any more.
Back in the '50's and '60's, there sure were.
Phillip-Morris famously hired doctors to tell folks that smoking was actually good for your health when the first medical studies were coming out that indicated that smoking was bad for you.
Then there were years of "second hand smoking doesn't cause harm" from the tobacco lobby sponsored "scientists".
Absolutely there were smoking denialists that wound up enabling the tobacco pushers to sell their deadly product for decades without full knowledge of the effect by their victims, and give smokers a much wanted mental crutch not to face the consequences of their actions.
You're really comparing being given grants to do research that leads to peer reviewed papers with being paid to spin a specific line and suppress science?
Really?
And the denier camp likes to call those who listen to the vast majority of the scientific community on this one "faith based"...
Where were the massive Patriot Act protests?
Is not a people at least tacitly responsible for what its leaders do at the end of the day?
Civil rights? Sorry, you traded those away for temporary relief from intentionally induced fear. You no longer have any. Don't worry - any persisting illusions of said civil rights should dissipate soon.
It really is sad - the foes of Net Neutrality and all that it stands for have completely taken control of the overall fight and the message. Those who would have an open 'net are now completely on the defensive, and never on the offensive anymore.
CMOT Dibbler, is that you?
You should know that Eurasia is our friends, and that we've always been at war with Eastasia. Or do you need a reminder?
They're in the area around 4chan and Romania and east, west, south and north somewhat.
We spend billions on what a dog can.
I love technology as much as the next guy (probably more)... but sheesh...
With the legal precedence they're setting, they'll wind up getting sued if they ever do change the look and feel; they're creating a walled garden from which there will be no escape.
Concur, but recall that on the week of Dennis Richie and Steve Jobs passing, there were thousands of articles and millions of comments about Mr. Jobs. For the most part, the passing of Mr. Richie elicited a response of, "Who?" followed by, "So what?"
To a certain group of people, style is substance, I guess.
He said games have been enjoyed by people for millennia, and that there's no real history of injecting story and emotion into games with really successful results.
Of course, the history of virtual reality is only a few years. We make our VR entertainment game centric to give it purpose and structure, but it truly is a whole new area.
Actually, yes, that is really about all the Apple has got. This article says it better than I can, though (and with pictures of what Apple thinks that Samsung should build.. basically, a triangular tablet a couple of inches thick with big ugly buttons and a cluttered desktop):
http://www.phonedog.com/2011/12/02/apple-s-design-suggestions-to-samsung-are-moronic-and-hypocritical/
It's just amazing, though, how you and bonch manage to get such a nicely written, spelling and grammar checked, hyperlinked and structured post out so fast (read: exact same time stamp as publish of story) every single time there's a thread about Google and/or Apple.
A dedicated blogger - I could see top 5 posts on a regular basis.
But it defies the laws of probability that you guys are whipping this stuff up off the top of your head on every single thread and getting first post in, even before the inevitable troll who's lost his way from /B/ gets his two cents in...
Non sequitur.
Except... they weren't the first. Including with swipe to unlock or voice activation or search.
See - the sad thing is, I honestly can't decide if this is a troll post or what someone actually believes.
Well, heck - Star Trek TNG came out in 1987, and their control panels had slide to unlock and reconfigurable virtual displays.
Gene Roddenberry's estate ought to be suing Apple.
ATT capped bonch's bandwidth; he couldn't post from his iDevice:
http://news.yahoo.com/t-customers-surprised-unlimited-data-limit-080906861.html
This is by definition a medieval guild system.
*hurries off to the Patent office to patent Voice Activated Crowd Sourcing*
The 'net was decentralized at it's start. That only lasted a few years before the corporations bought up all the hubs and trunks. And now, the tool of said corporations is making laws to ensure eternal control.
It seems that there is nothing that can be built that won't get taken away and turned into a tool of control.
I've read Slashdot for a few years now, and every once in a while I see articles posted that directly or indirectly refer to Christianity. And every single time, it ends up being a sounding board for the Slashdot "community" to boast about how proudly atheistic they are and criticize the few Christians Slashdotters that give their point of view.
I'm a devout Christian, and I can't quite fully express how saddened I am to see some of these comments. For someone to mock my faith, a faith that I've seen work miracles in people's lives and help them go from a place of pain and destruction to a place of life and peace, is something that literally makes me shake with sadness.
Were the Crusades not very Christian-like at times? You betcha. Modern Christians don't condone many of the acts that were committed "in the name of" Christianity hundreds of years ago. If you see anyone killing someone else in the name of Christ, they're not true Christ-followers. So do NOT lump us all together. It's like blaming the existence of nuclear weapons on every physicist that ever lived. It's not a fair accusation. (I know somebody's going to comment on that statement and bash it somehow - so go right ahead, prove to yourself that you're not reading this comment for your own benefit, but rather just to find ways to knock down a Christian).
Secondly, some of you have made comments about how the Bible doesn't apply to modern day or that it's too cryptic for us (or even its original authors) to understand. Is this difficult to understand? "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34) Does this next verse have no applicability to the present day?
Or, "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." (Ephesians 4:28)
Or just read the book of Proverbs (which is even in the Old Testament) and you'll find a slew of practical advice for living a better, more fulfilling life.
Sure, a lot of the Bible is a historical record of the Jewish and Christian people living in the Middle East for a period of a few thousand years, and not every law in Leviticus applies to us today. But the Bible isn't a story, it's a living history, and real churches are not museums for the saints, but hospitals for the sick. Before you make comments on the Bible, make sure you've read it; you don't lend yourself much credibility by scoffing at it without having actually explored it.
I wasn't always a Christian, and I explored other religious texts before settling on the Bible. The conclusion I came to was that it offers something that no other 'religion' offered. Rather than having to 'change' before we can become 'right' with God, we become right with God (through simply asking for it) and letting God's love change us.
Have you ever felt that life is more than just about technology, physics, inventions, etc? Don't you ever get tired of reading news articles every day about the current size of transistors, Apple's patent wars, or funding for space programs? I sure do. If that's all that life is about, then that's pretty scary. I have to believe that life is about helping people in a real and tangible way, TODAY; building up others in our community who aren't as fortunate as us, and not just speculating about how we can make cooler stuff out of silicon.
Seriously - many of us live in cities where people are outside, homeless, starving, and dying every day, and yet you feel comfortable sitting back with your $4.50 Lattes and criticizing Christianity, the single largest organization today that is trying to help the real problems of real people at this very minute. If that's the kind of community that Slashdot is, then I'm done. I'd rather go make a difference in this world than read about occasionally interesting tech news.
If only I had mod points...
And... it would appear that it is fundamental to humanity that any commandment will be broken as soon as it's delivered. ;)
See also, Big Red Button, The.