Interesting argument, but specious. What you've done is assumed that there is an emotional backing for every decision and used that assumption to prove it exists.
For instance, Bob might buy the cheap cereal because he only has 2 dollars and the expensive cereal is 2.99. Sure you can probably track backwards far enough to tie an emotion into any decision, but the emotion isn't necessarily what drives the decision.
Am I the only one that thinks Googles decision not to talk with CNET has more to do with the paranoid nature of the article than it actual revelation of public information about Erich Schmidt.
The article basically accuses Google of deliberately trying to collect information on it users with such privacy invading techniques as "using cookies" and "offering free webmail".
No seriously, read the original article if you haven't. It's not just the singling out of the CEO that prompted Google's reaction it's entire article, and it's probably in Google's best interest not to talk to them, because it's pretty clear anything they say will be used against them in the court of public opinion.
Wow, that was a totally useless article written by a shameless MS fanboy.
It's utter garbage, Windows is secure because if it weren't, it would have even more viruses! and Linux doesn't do anything well. Basically all this guy does is kiss Microsoft's ass and insult everyone who has ever clashed with them.
Gee, what a thoughtprovoking and informative article.
No, I'm pretty sure he's correct. Your arrogance is immediately obvious to anyone who can read... "I develop web site for a fortune 500 companies" "Go back to your high school prom site". I'm sure you could look like a bigger jackass if you tried, but it would take effort.
Progress on the browser front has not been made at Microsoft since the release of IE 5. There have been no significant rendering improvements and no significant usage improvements until FireFox forced Microsoft's hand. Without the alternative browsers there'd be no improvement.
Sure lots of people use IE, and if you want, you can code your sites to cater to them. However, it always more difficult to port IE specific code to the standards than the other way around. A smart developer codes to the actual standards and then kludges it to work for IE. That way you only need to remember what's broken in each particular release of IE, rather than what was broken in the release at the time you wrote the page.
I wouldn't be surprised at all, this is, after all, Microsoft's standard tactic for defeating entrenched opponents. Push up the development cycle speed to the point where your opponent can't afford to release as frequently and as reliably as you.
The did this to WordPerfect to establish office in it's monopoly position. At one point, new versions of Word were being scheduled every 6-9 months to drain funds out of Corel.
On the other hand, Sony may well plan for a 10 year life cycle, and they may be smoking crack. However, as everyone should know, what you plan to do and what you actually do can be two very different things. If Microsoft puts out another console 4 years from now, Sony will have one out in 5 years, and they'll just say (honestly) Microsoft forced them to change their plans.
"As liberal as I am... guns do not kill without a person pulling the trigger."
The NRA would like you to know that guns do not kill people, holes kill people. Therefore restrictions on guns are entirely useless. Instead we should restrict the size and number of the holes that people are allowed to create in response to bullet-related provocation.
No, this assumes that the only reason anyone uses something is because it is "better" this is patently false, except in the case where you equate "better" with "what is used". This is one of the unfortunately false assumptions of economics and capitalist cheerleaders.
Most people use MS software because they really have no alternative choices. They can't purchase a computer without Windows on it, they don't know how to use any computer that doesn't have Windows and most of the program they want to use are Windows specific. This doesn't make Windows the best OS for them, it makes it the only OS.
That's like saying the Earth is the best planet for people to live on, or breathing is the best way to live. It doesn't mean anything because there's no choice.
I consider changing "days" to mean "millions of years" to be rewriting. If you decide that some of the words in your religious text don't mean what they usually mean because of something revealed through science, you are modifying your religion to accomodate science.
"Your last statement is pure flamebait and is simply incorrect. The Bible is not some sort of anti-scientific tome and this is evidenced by the fact that some open-minded people are both scientist and believers."
Yes there are Christian scientists, however, I think you will find most of them in the group who believe the Bible is properly regarded as a series of parables on morality and how we ought to live. This is quite different from the historical belief that the Bible was the literal truth. Thus they have twisted their religion to accomodate their science.
Christian Scientists, on the other hand, pick and choose their scientific facts to support the Bible, thus twisting science to fit their religion.
The reason why science and religion are usually at odds with one another is that science seeks the truth and (most) religion claims to be the truth.
Since scientific discovery rarely matches religious dogma, you have an inevitable conflict. The only way around that conflict is to rewrite one or the other.
Am I the only one who thinks this will accomplish the reverse of the stated goals? The longer a corporation controls the music, the less incentive their is to search for new music. Advertising is all about pushing as little choice to as many people as possible to make money.
If they really want to encourage the music companies to search out new talent they should cut the copyright term for music in half, not double it. Then the music corporations would have to look for new artists to maintain and grow their music libraries.
I think the next factor which could segregate populations will be religion. I think it may only be a matter of time before the debate over genetic engineering in humans begins in earnest. It's a debate that will have serious consequences, and I think nations will as country either support or ban it, based mostly on the religious beliefs of the elected representatives and the populations they represent, plus, of course, the excessive application of propoganda from all sides.
The debate which will probably flare up violently on many occasions, may lead to global migration as the strongly religious move to those nations that outright ban any genetic engineering and likely other sacriligous activities. Similarly, the agnostic, atheistic and moderates will move out of those areas to escape the oppression of increasingly theocractice governments.
In time, genetically engineered babies will become common in those countries that embrace bio-engineering, however, they will be banned from entering the religiously conservative countries as abominations in the eyes of (the) God(s).
This could lead to the necessary isolation to allow divergence to occur.
I can't take credit for this idea, though, if you find the idea interesting, you might want to read some of Peter F. Hamilton's stories, particularly those about the Edenists.
Unfotunately the classic demonstration of this truth can't be carried out on the internet.
The classic proof involves one of the listeners thumping the fool who says empiricists are wrong and then challenging him on whether he was really hit, or just thinks he was hit, and what exactly would be the difference.
He's a devoutly religious Mormon so, of course, he's against homosexuality. I wouldn't say he's a homophobe, however, he does have friends who are gay. His religion, however, quite clearly says that homosexuality is a sin and a choice, not genetics. If you start from that assumption, it's only natural to oppose gay "rights".
He's not a despicable human, he's just sadly and willfully ignorant on the subject. Science will need to have hard evidence of the true cause of homosexuality before you will convince any religion to change it's doctrine (and even then, you'll probably have to wait until after all the current church leaders die from old age).
This is one of the reasons I don't like religions, most of them place adherence to rules and beliefs above rational and independent thought.
Well, please allow me to enlighten you. Believe it or not, many of us Bush supporters are highly educated, quite intelligent, scholarly, and are capable of recognizing propaganda for what it is.
My personal experience says otherwise. People who I thought were rational, educated, intelligent people were quite clearly completely incapable of recognizing propaganda. Some of those people still insist that the U.S. found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. I'm afraid they only think they are capable of recognizing propaganda, in fact, I think most people aren't capable of recognizing propaganda at all until they come to a point where reality collides with the propaganda and they are forced to see how they differ. If that weren't the case, propaganda would be a dead art.
Choosing the right time is important as well. The British were engaged in fighting other, more important, wars.
Ironically, that would make the point that the draft is reinstituted in the U.S. the best time to revolt. With the U.S. military understaffed and the fighting force located in the U.S. dipping to below 100,000 soldiers and the U.S. tied up in foreign wars that don't really matter, it would be the moment of greatest weakness both politically and militarily.
Though, no doubt, the administration would be prepared for massive protests if they announced that the draft would be reinstituted.
Yes, the U.S. "Respect for Life" required that she be starved to death, rather than being given a lethal injection that would have ended her "life*".
* As much as you can qualify the death of all higher brain functions due to liquification of the cerebral cortex as life.
And your second suggestion is just ignorant. Having an abortion is a traumatic experience both physically and emotionally, women don't often choose to repeat it.
You don't release it as open source, or you don't spit in the companies face when they come to talk to you. Any company should want to hire you, if they are going to provide support for the project you built, unless of course you're a total crackpot...
They're probably correct, I think there have been some changes in spam filtering technology since last year. I think my (Canadian) ISP essentially gave up on unfiltered email and switched all of their clients over to a filtered system so that before email hits your inbox it's already been filtered by the ISP wide (and mostly invisible) spam filter.
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Interesting argument, but specious. What you've done is assumed that there is an emotional backing for every decision and used that assumption to prove it exists.
For instance, Bob might buy the cheap cereal because he only has 2 dollars and the expensive cereal is 2.99. Sure you can probably track backwards far enough to tie an emotion into any decision, but the emotion isn't necessarily what drives the decision.
Am I the only one that thinks Googles decision not to talk with CNET has more to do with the paranoid nature of the article than it actual revelation of public information about Erich Schmidt.
The article basically accuses Google of deliberately trying to collect information on it users with such privacy invading techniques as "using cookies" and "offering free webmail".
No seriously, read the original article if you haven't. It's not just the singling out of the CEO that prompted Google's reaction it's entire article, and it's probably in Google's best interest not to talk to them, because it's pretty clear anything they say will be used against them in the court of public opinion.
Wow, that was a totally useless article written by a shameless MS fanboy.
It's utter garbage, Windows is secure because if it weren't, it would have even more viruses! and Linux doesn't do anything well. Basically all this guy does is kiss Microsoft's ass and insult everyone who has ever clashed with them.
Gee, what a thoughtprovoking and informative article.
No, I'm pretty sure he's correct. Your arrogance is immediately obvious to anyone who can read... "I develop web site for a fortune 500 companies" "Go back to your high school prom site". I'm sure you could look like a bigger jackass if you tried, but it would take effort.
Progress on the browser front has not been made at Microsoft since the release of IE 5. There have been no significant rendering improvements and no significant usage improvements until FireFox forced Microsoft's hand. Without the alternative browsers there'd be no improvement.
Sure lots of people use IE, and if you want, you can code your sites to cater to them. However, it always more difficult to port IE specific code to the standards than the other way around. A smart developer codes to the actual standards and then kludges it to work for IE. That way you only need to remember what's broken in each particular release of IE, rather than what was broken in the release at the time you wrote the page.
I wouldn't be surprised at all, this is, after all, Microsoft's standard tactic for defeating entrenched opponents. Push up the development cycle speed to the point where your opponent can't afford to release as frequently and as reliably as you.
The did this to WordPerfect to establish office in it's monopoly position. At one point, new versions of Word were being scheduled every 6-9 months to drain funds out of Corel.
On the other hand, Sony may well plan for a 10 year life cycle, and they may be smoking crack. However, as everyone should know, what you plan to do and what you actually do can be two very different things. If Microsoft puts out another console 4 years from now, Sony will have one out in 5 years, and they'll just say (honestly) Microsoft forced them to change their plans.
"As liberal as I am... guns do not kill without a person pulling the trigger."
The NRA would like you to know that guns do not kill people, holes kill people. Therefore restrictions on guns are entirely useless. Instead we should restrict the size and number of the holes that people are allowed to create in response to bullet-related provocation.
No, this assumes that the only reason anyone uses something is because it is "better" this is patently false, except in the case where you equate "better" with "what is used". This is one of the unfortunately false assumptions of economics and capitalist cheerleaders.
Most people use MS software because they really have no alternative choices. They can't purchase a computer without Windows on it, they don't know how to use any computer that doesn't have Windows and most of the program they want to use are Windows specific. This doesn't make Windows the best OS for them, it makes it the only OS.
That's like saying the Earth is the best planet for people to live on, or breathing is the best way to live. It doesn't mean anything because there's no choice.
I consider changing "days" to mean "millions of years" to be rewriting. If you decide that some of the words in your religious text don't mean what they usually mean because of something revealed through science, you are modifying your religion to accomodate science.
"Science is a process by which people can examine data and possibly extract certain kinds of meaning."
In this context, what exactly is the difference between "meaning" and "truth"?
Are the "meanings" discovered by the scientific method false?
"Your last statement is pure flamebait and is simply incorrect. The Bible is not some sort of anti-scientific tome and this is evidenced by the fact that some open-minded people are both scientist and believers."
Yes there are Christian scientists, however, I think you will find most of them in the group who believe the Bible is properly regarded as a series of parables on morality and how we ought to live. This is quite different from the historical belief that the Bible was the literal truth. Thus they have twisted their religion to accomodate their science.
Christian Scientists, on the other hand, pick and choose their scientific facts to support the Bible, thus twisting science to fit their religion.
The reason why science and religion are usually at odds with one another is that science seeks the truth and (most) religion claims to be the truth.
Since scientific discovery rarely matches religious dogma, you have an inevitable conflict. The only way around that conflict is to rewrite one or the other.
Am I the only one who thinks this will accomplish the reverse of the stated goals? The longer a corporation controls the music, the less incentive their is to search for new music. Advertising is all about pushing as little choice to as many people as possible to make money.
If they really want to encourage the music companies to search out new talent they should cut the copyright term for music in half, not double it. Then the music corporations would have to look for new artists to maintain and grow their music libraries.
I think the next factor which could segregate populations will be religion. I think it may only be a matter of time before the debate over genetic engineering in humans begins in earnest. It's a debate that will have serious consequences, and I think nations will as country either support or ban it, based mostly on the religious beliefs of the elected representatives and the populations they represent, plus, of course, the excessive application of propoganda from all sides.
The debate which will probably flare up violently on many occasions, may lead to global migration as the strongly religious move to those nations that outright ban any genetic engineering and likely other sacriligous activities. Similarly, the agnostic, atheistic and moderates will move out of those areas to escape the oppression of increasingly theocractice governments.
In time, genetically engineered babies will become common in those countries that embrace bio-engineering, however, they will be banned from entering the religiously conservative countries as abominations in the eyes of (the) God(s).
This could lead to the necessary isolation to allow divergence to occur.
I can't take credit for this idea, though, if you find the idea interesting, you might want to read some of Peter F. Hamilton's stories, particularly those about the Edenists.
An idiot with a PhD is still an idiot.
Unfotunately the classic demonstration of this truth can't be carried out on the internet.
The classic proof involves one of the listeners thumping the fool who says empiricists are wrong and then challenging him on whether he was really hit, or just thinks he was hit, and what exactly would be the difference.
He's a devoutly religious Mormon so, of course, he's against homosexuality. I wouldn't say he's a homophobe, however, he does have friends who are gay. His religion, however, quite clearly says that homosexuality is a sin and a choice, not genetics. If you start from that assumption, it's only natural to oppose gay "rights".
He's not a despicable human, he's just sadly and willfully ignorant on the subject. Science will need to have hard evidence of the true cause of homosexuality before you will convince any religion to change it's doctrine (and even then, you'll probably have to wait until after all the current church leaders die from old age).
This is one of the reasons I don't like religions, most of them place adherence to rules and beliefs above rational and independent thought.
Well, please allow me to enlighten you. Believe it or not, many of us Bush supporters are highly educated, quite intelligent, scholarly, and are capable of recognizing propaganda for what it is.
My personal experience says otherwise. People who I thought were rational, educated, intelligent people were quite clearly completely incapable of recognizing propaganda. Some of those people still insist that the U.S. found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. I'm afraid they only think they are capable of recognizing propaganda, in fact, I think most people aren't capable of recognizing propaganda at all until they come to a point where reality collides with the propaganda and they are forced to see how they differ. If that weren't the case, propaganda would be a dead art.
The current American government is much more fascist than the previous one. For many people that's enough to brand them fascists.
Choosing the right time is important as well. The British were engaged in fighting other, more important, wars.
Ironically, that would make the point that the draft is reinstituted in the U.S. the best time to revolt. With the U.S. military understaffed and the fighting force located in the U.S. dipping to below 100,000 soldiers and the U.S. tied up in foreign wars that don't really matter, it would be the moment of greatest weakness both politically and militarily.
Though, no doubt, the administration would be prepared for massive protests if they announced that the draft would be reinstituted.
Yes, the U.S. "Respect for Life" required that she be starved to death, rather than being given a lethal injection that would have ended her "life*".
* As much as you can qualify the death of all higher brain functions due to liquification of the cerebral cortex as life.
And your second suggestion is just ignorant. Having an abortion is a traumatic experience both physically and emotionally, women don't often choose to repeat it.
You don't release it as open source, or you don't spit in the companies face when they come to talk to you. Any company should want to hire you, if they are going to provide support for the project you built, unless of course you're a total crackpot...
Wait, nevermind...
So, it's a tool, which can be used irresponsibly, like a gun?
That why both the prosecution and the defense are allowed to exclude members from the jury.
Innocent isn't a part of the court system, the jury doesn't find him innocent of the crime, they find him "not guilty (beyond a reasonable doubt)".
They are there to judge the quality of the state's case.
They're probably correct, I think there have been some changes in spam filtering technology since last year. I think my (Canadian) ISP essentially gave up on unfiltered email and switched all of their clients over to a filtered system so that before email hits your inbox it's already been filtered by the ISP wide (and mostly invisible) spam filter.