...until you understand them. Nowhere in the Constitution are you "awarded" rights of any kind, and the document itself says you don't need to be "awarded" rights, you already have them. The Constitution protects the rights you're assumed to have already. The right to privacy is protected by (among other things) the Fourth Amendment. Notice the use of "protected", not "granted". You have the right to privacy, and the Constitution protects that right.
These are the two parts you need to understand. The Fourth Amendment...
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
...and the Ninth Amendment...
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
These describe how the right to privacy already exists, and how the Constitution prevents laws that abrogate that right.
Virg
Re:It's pretty amazing when you think about it.
on
Making Tracks on Mars
·
· Score: 1
> -- What you "know" of God does nothing to invalidate what I believe.
> It does. But you wouldn't know that.
I was going to go on with the retort, but this comment pretty much closes the door, and makes it pointless to continue the dance. Have fun with your faith.
Here we go again. You'll have to pardon my irritation, but you're still hyperextending, and you're far from being the first, and it gets tiresome to go over this again and again. But, once more we go...
You point out that the Souix tribe's description of a thunderbird that matches a description of a pteronadon is proof that humans and dinosaurs lived concurrently. To that I say it proves that one tribe saw one dinosaur, even if it truly was a dinosaur, which I'm willing to allow for. Heck, there are those that think that the Loch Ness monster (again, if it exists) it likely to be a saurian animal. But again, this is a hyperextension. One dinosaur isn't proof of concurrence by any stretch. There were many, many dinosaurs all over the planet. There are many, many people all over the planet. There's no more than a tiny handful of descriptions of first-hand accounts of encounters. If humans and dinosaurs shared the planet, and the planet was only about 5000 years old, there'd be a lot more than that. There are no descriptions of dinosaurs in Egyptian culture. None in Sumerian culture. None in Inca culture. Do you really expect that one account, even if it's completely accurate, is enough to prove the widespread commingling that you so stubbornly posit? Would you accept that from any scientist?
Virg
Re:It's pretty amazing when you think about it.
on
Making Tracks on Mars
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> I studied AI while working toward an MS in Computer science a few years ago.
My pointing out the thinking of physicists in 1899 was to demonstrate that even those who have studied a field extensively can't usually predict watershed changes in the field any better than layfolks, so it's a bad exercise to say "we're no closer to..." about it. Studying AI makes you better informed about the current state of AI, but it doesn't help you predict the future.
> Advances in "AI" (a badly named field) are very interesting to me - I hope to see them continue to occur for some time. I said synthetic intelligence (as in "pass the Turing test" intelligence) is unlikely. That belief is based on the current state of AI research and my understanding of the Bible.
See above, and remember that your understanding of the Bible doesn't speak very well toward what we'll discover in the field of AI.
> Its sad to see you angry without just cause.:( Here are my reasons for the apparently arbitrary 5800 ring count: the Bible says that the existing world was destroyed in a deluge that occured about 5000 years ago. Now most trees add one tree ring a year. In extremely rare cases, trees have been known to grow more than a single ring a year. Hence, I chose the 5800 ring count (to sufficiently account for ring aberrations). Now, I probably should not have stated 5800 -- 5100-5200 rings should be sufficient.:)
I almost don't want to get into this, because it's such a bothersome dance, but I must ask you one thing. If all the trees on Earth were destroyed by a deluge, where'd the new trees come from? Most importantly, though, why do you say that there's nothing stopping them from living longer? Random chance virtually guarantees that any living object will die due to accident or disease give enough time. Sure, there's no one specific thing that guarantees that a tree will die in 5000 years but the amount of luck an immobile living object would need to fail to have anything lethal occur to it in that span of time would be significant. The fact that the number of trees that measure past 4000 years can be counted in single digits indicates that a tree some significant amount older than them would be even more rare, to the likely point of non-existence. Again I present, you've given no reasonable argument that the age of the Earth can be determined by the age of trees in any case.
> Please back that up with suitable observations of an evolutionary process adding information to the genome.
This is my just cause for being angry, by the way. It's a broken argument, and you present it broken on purpose. The failure is this. I can't present the mechanism for how it works. You can't present any evidence that it's not possible. However, because I can't prove it does work, you take that as proof that it doesn't work, and that's broken.
To counter, I can simply present gravity. It's easy to see that gravity works. Two massive bodies attract each other in very predictable ways. Ready for the twist? Nobody on Earth can tell you why. That's right, nobody. There are plenty of theories, but not a single one of them can be conclusively proven. The fact that nobody understands why gravity works does not mean that it doesn't. I can't conclusively prove that ceramic yard gnomes are not the mechanism for gravitation, so I can't directly refute a theory that states that yard gnomes cause gravity. However, I can present a theory (like graviton particles or dark matter or whatever) that's more likely based on the evidence.
To get back to the point, the most likely mechanism in science for the development of the species is currently evolution driven by natural selection. And before you get started, any theory based on the Bible isn't science, it's theology. "Because God said so" doesn't work in science, so feel free to argue that it's how things happened, but don't present it as evidence that ev
Re:It's pretty amazing when you think about it.
on
Making Tracks on Mars
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Do the AnswersInGenesis people know that you're trying to defend their point of view? Maybe you should just link to the site and leave it at that. Yours has to be one of the worst arguments for your point I've seen in a long time, and that's saying something. Let's take a few swings, shall we?
> People have been discussing Asimov's three laws of robotics for decades. But we're no closer to robots with synthetic intelligence than we were in the glory days of AI research. (i.e. we're not close at all).
And you know this exactly how? In 1899, the vast majority of the world's brightest minds were openly saying that there was very little left to learn in the realm of physics, since Newtonian mechanics had been quite thoroughly explored by that point. It only took six years to turn that on its ear, and nobody (not even Einstein) knew it was coming. How you propose to know what technological or innovative breakthroughs will or won't occur in AI is beyond my understanding. As simple (to us) a device as the steam engine took more than 300 years to develop, and societies as far back as the Romans had the materials to make it happen, just not the innovation.
> There is no evidence these projects that you say are "going on now to create life at a molecular level" are likely to succeed.
Nice spin, but to reverse it, there's also no evidence that they're likely to fail, either. See above. Isn't acting clairvoyant a violation of Christian ethics?
> See this for reasons why the 1950s Miller experiment was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions...
Since that particular experiment doesn't have much to do with current efforts (because, y'know, it was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions) this point is irrelevant. If they simply wanted to replicate the old experiment, then they'd have done so.
> You must have considered the apparently unique earth we have: it's wonderfully balanced Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen cycles, the temperature and the position of earth w.r.t. to the sun, the qualities of water, and the wonder that is the water cycle,the wonderful balance of plant and animal life...
I'm familiar with this argument, but it's not valid because it's two-sided. You argue that the Earth is perfectly designed for humans, and I argue that humans developed specifically to survive Earth conditions, and these things support both points, so they support neither point.
>...the mysteries of an apparent Cambrian explosion in the fossil record?
I agree that there's no good explanation for this as yet. Again, though, it doesn't disprove any reasonable theory, it puts bumps in the road for the theories. Whether we will learn what caused it will remain for time to tell, but I see no reason to accept the young-Earth theory on the strength of this alone, and so far it's the only thing you mentioned that I can't answer directly.
> Consider how the continents were one supercontinent to begin with (as the Bible describes in Genesis) or how the Bible, rather off-handedly, describes the earth as a sphere (Book of Job).
In a book the size and scope of the Bible, you will find plenty of references to stuff that turns out to be true. However, you must counter mentions in the Bible of stuff that turned out false as well, if you care to use it as a scientific reference. You might start by Googling for "geocentrism".
> And then there are the smaller details: look up and consider how the sun, and the the moon have the same relative size...
What? What relevance could this possibly have? If you think this is anywhere approaching a good piece of evidence in defense of the existence of God, you're going to be very easy to dismiss. Besides, they're not all that close, unless 20 percent different is "close enough".
> how all humanly-recorded history begins 5000 years ago...
> How many times are you willing to see your kid beaten to a bloody pulp by 2, 3, 4, 5 or more others, just because you think your system will work?
That's funny. This is the post-Columbine, zero-tolerance world. The rules you grew up with don't really apply any more, and the police take such a dim view of school violence these days that we have problems around my way with overcompensation, where some kid will claim he was beaten up and the "perpetrators" get to deal with the cops unless they can prove they didn't do it. So, it'd only take once to get the bullies chucked out, and then let their parents try to talk their kids back into school past a school board member holding that printout in his hand.
> Seriously, why go to the parants of the child...Go to the police, you have harrassing documents, the police will entertain it
That's too extreme a measure in all but the most egregious cases. Besides, most of this sort of thing won't amount to a threat in a legal sense (calling someone fat or outing them on a crush doesn't qualify as a threat) so your case would have to be extreme to begin with. The first step should be the harasser's parents, because the purpose of the first letter is to let the harasser know that he or she isn't anonymous, and that the message isn't going just to their intended target but to adults as well. It's the proverbial "shot across the bow" to stop the harassment before it gets as far as threats. If your child is being threatened, or this first step doesn't work, then you ramp up the response, but sending the first letter to the brass is jumping the gun unless it's a direct threat.
> Side note though: If your kid is putting videos of themselves on the net; you need to take them to a psycologist- fast, or some internet predator is going to eat them.
I agree, but with the note that if your kid is sending videos of herself to classmates, you've already screwed up pretty badly, so I'm pretty sure your advice would fall on deaf ears anyway..
> You were never a kid were you? THis is called being a tattle tale and it makes the punishment WORSE.
There's a difference in reasonability in this case. Firstly, the thing to note is that most kids will be really mean when they think nobody (adult) is listening, but will tone it down when they find out they're not alone. The mere fact that there's a grownup on the other end of the IM will make most kids back off. Secondly, these are harassments, not threats. Sure, it can cause a backlash, but if the kid in question comes down harder, you can always do the same again, and if it gets bad enough to escalate to threats, then the letter gets mailed to the local police instead of Johnny McNasty's parents. I guarantee that it'll subside when the Man shows up on the McNasty's doorstep to discuss it.
I have a better answer for the abuse, if it gets bad enough to be affecting your child that strongly. Find out the screen names/IM handles in question. Ask your child to find out who they are in real life. Print out the offending messages on real paper. Mail them to the parents of the children in question. Sure, you'll find some parents who won't care, but the vast majority of people will respond to this by confronting their kids with the evidence. These kids will back off fast when they realize that the stuff they say online can find its way back to mom and dad.
> If someone is "stupid" enough to leave their diary lying around a publisher can steal it, do they deserve to have it published in the daily newspaper?
Not applicable to the situation at hand. She passed the video to the boy herself, which established a desire to distribute. Having your diary stolen doesn't establish this desire.
> The girl's legal rights were violated: specifically, her copyright to her video. Regardless of what he thought of the contents, it was illegal for her "boyfriend" to publish her work without her consent.
Incorrect. If she didn't apply for a copyright, or at the very least include some notice not to distribute in the video or otherwise, she didn't establish any reasonable desire to copyright, so enforcing it would be problematic at best. More importantly, copyright violation is a civil tort, so she would have to demonstrate monetary loss due to his distribution, like for example if she was charging for distribution and he gave it away. No such monetary loss occurred, so there's no case for copyright infringement.
More to the point, however, is her recourse. If she truly wanted to make him pay for doing what he did, she could have reported him to the local police. A video of a 13-year-old girl masturbating is child pornography anywhere in the U.S., and by putting the video up on a P2P network, he's guilty of distribution, which is a felony offense. While he was sitting in reform school for five years, he'd have time to reflect on how "not nice" his action was. Also, any classmate who taunted her with comments about seeing the video would be subject to arrest for posession, so the story would die quickly.
Sure does, but that doesn't relate to Einstein any more than the firebombing of Dresden relates to the Wright brothers. Einstein wasn't involved in the Manhattan project, and even if he had been, nuclear weapons haven't killed millions of people, even by the most extreme estimates.
> For example, it would not have been socially acceptable for a woman to wear a gstring bikini in public in the 1930s. However, fasion and social acceptance changed in small increments to the point where it's completely acceptable and normal today.
This would only generalize the slippery slope argument in the particular case that some social force has been actively trying to get women to wear g-string bikinis since the thirties. The concept of the slippery slope as an argument really requires intent on the part of the force or entity pushing down the slope. It's easy to say everything is a slippery slope if you consider everything from your conclusion to be "uphill" in terms of your argument, but to say that means every slippery slope argument is false for that very reason is itself fallacious, by the fallacy of incorrect association.
Would you care to provide a list of the court dockets detailing the convictions for the crimes you accuse? See, the policy of "innocent until proven guilty" applies equally to everyone, including scummy senators, and the problem here is that someone who did not qualify for the list on legal grounds ended up on the list in error. Sorry, but the only accusation that's ever stood the test of prosecution is plagiarism, and last I checked it's not reasonable to prevent someone from flying for that.
Sure, Kennedy has been very low-life, but that's not the real issue presented here. The real issue is that someone got on the no-fly list incorrectly, and the question arises as to whether someone in the same position as him but without his influence would be able to correct the error, and whether the error indicates a fundamental flaw in the no-fly list to begin with. Try to stay on target here.
> Yes, I realize that off-road vehicles need higher clearance and need to use public roads to get offroad, but we see the results of non-standard bumper heights everyday, including here.
Sorry, but RTFA. The solar car was lacking in bumpers, and the vehicle he hit was not an SUV, it was a minivan, which has standard bumpers.
> What, like scaled composites, who've actually flown the entire mission to and from 100Km successfully?
[SMACK!] His comment is to the effect that only his team was really in a position to beat Scaled Composites, and since he's on the ground for a month, he questions whether any other team is in a position to beat out Scaled Composites.
> People have the right to travel between the two cities and it can be argued that this right is being infringed upon by requiring a license(Priveledge).
That point can't be argued rationally. Say I live in Smalltown, and I want to travel to Big City. I walk myself to the bus station, buy a ticket, get on the bus, try to sleep, and soon, the bus pulls into Grand Off-to-the-side Station in Big City. I get off the bus, catch the subway to midtown, and visit Aunt Millie.
Now, would you care to tell me how not having a driver's license would prevent any of this? Or are you really trying to tell me that driving myself is the only way to travel, with no exceptions?
More to the point, though, I know someone who rode a bicycle from New York City to Seattle, and he never set foot nor tire on an interstate freeway. You need to do more research.
> If you measure success as,"I'm warm, breathing, and have a place to live" then yes, I've been successful.
I measure success as "left a bad job because it was a bad job, and got a different job." Your comment was that he has no room to comment on quitting unless he's quit and had a bad experience of it. Well, you did just that, and so did he. So why are you telling him not to comment?
> The issue is with employee agreements. If a programmer works on writing decompilers for an unethical employer and takes a stand to leave, should that programmer not be able to write decompilers for his own profit?
Nice try, but that's not the crux of the case. The crux of the case is that he provided no reasonable evidence that he had come up with the idea for a decompiler before he worked for Alcatel, that Alcatel had hired him to do decompiling work, and that therefore they owned the decompiler he invented. Note that this does not preclude him from writing a different decompiler, so your examples following aren't good analogies. They simply laid claim to the decompiler he wrote because they claimed he wrote it while employed for that purpose by them, and the only thing he presented in his defense was his say-so that it predated his employ at Alcatel.
> Can you legally tell a carpenter that he cannot work with wood? Can you tell a trucker they cannot drive? Can we tell a salesman that it is now illegal to sell a product? Why is it that the people who devote effort to refining a highly technical skill can be legally forced to remain in a state of unhappiness with an unfair employer?
These examples are not useful, because they aren't good analogies for the case at hand. I can't forbid a carpenter to work with wood, but if I hire a carpenter to build a better truss frame, and then he designs a better truss frame, and he agreed that any designs he came up with were the company's, then I would be well within my rights to forbid him to use that truss frame design if he left for another construction company. If he argued that he invented it on his own time before coming to work for me, then the burden of proof is on him to show something to that effect. If he's good enough to design an even better frame after he leaves, he can use that one instead.
> I work in the scientific industry and one of my biggest peeves is that my employers always demand that I sign away my property rights to any patents that I procure while employed with them.
Then you need to leave your current job (leaving behind any patents you already have), get a new job, and when you get that job, be sure to avoid such contract stipulations.
> The trolls say,"If you don't like it, then leave." But what good does it do me to leave if my employee agreement forbids me from using that knowledge for myself?
Oh, I get it. You want out of your employment contract after you already signed it. Well, tough. If you can get patents working for companies that don't require such contracts, then go to those companies. If you can't earn a patent on anything without the help of companies that demand such contracts, then you don't have room to complain that they're getting the benefit. You're certainly welcome to use your knowledge to your own benefit. The first step, however, is to get out from under any current contracts that prevent that. If you find that impossible because you painted yourself into a financial corner, then that's a problem you need to solve first. If you're so good that you could make a living off of inventing and patenting stuff, getting investment capital is your ticket out of debt. If not, then again you don't have room to complain.
I was going to try to make my point tactfully, but bluntness seems to be necessary in this case. Your entire statement is hyperpessimistic crap. Sentence by sentence:
> Unfortunately, pride and "doing the right thing" don't put food on the table or clothes on the kids' backs.
Your implication is to have pride and do the right thing, or get the job. These things aren't mutually exclusive. Edit the contract. Pick another employer. Sorry, but saying (or implying) that signing such an agreement is necessary to get a job is wrong.
> Employees need employers MUCH more than employers need employees.
Again, entirely wrong. The need is mutual. Saying "I need a job more than company X needs a worker" is simply ignoring that there are lots of other employers (including doing contract work or working for yourself). Call me idealistic if you care to, but I've worked for a bank, a publishing company and a small tech company, and ended up doing computer work at all of them, because that's where my skill set leads me. Can't get a tech job? Get a non-tech job, and soon your employer will see your tech skill and move you to the tech jobs, because they benefit more putting you there. Employer won't move you to the tech jobs? Maybe you're not in the right industry after all.
> And the fact that everyone does this kind of contract means you will have to leave the field of technology completely to stand up for your rights.
Yet again, crap. Not everybody does these contracts, and I've found that many employers will allow changes with no complaint at all. Some won't, but I'd want to avoid such companies anyway.
> I doubt we can get enough people to give up their jobs at nice tech companies to go flip burgers and pump gas just to make a point to all the employers of the world.
Last one, and it's a doozy. I like your idea that the tech world is "tech job" or "flip burgers" with nothing in between. It sounds like you just have a severe lack of imagination, or little idea how many "tech jobs" there are out there. My gateway to a tech job was in one case "bank teller" and in the next, "editor". Both paid pretty well for the work, and neither is what you'd think for entry level into a tech job, eh? Show a little more initiative, or at least some spine. Perhaps the reason your experience leads you to believe that "everyone does this kind of contract" is because you've never changed it and handed it back.
> Unless you've actually had to go through the gamut then you have no room to talk. The gamut? Here's the video game description...The game is written such that it will be at least eight months until an employer gives you an opportunity for an interview.
When I couple this with your previous statement of, "Rather than suggest that other people should take a stand on the issue and risk their careers, perhaps you should try it first and report on the benefits of unemployment" you come out as extremely cynical. I point out that even under the dire circumstances you suffered, you came out of it on the other side. Having been successful at it, you then suggest he not encourage others to do it as well. How do you define that if not as cynicism? Sure, it's tough to stand up for yourself. If it was easy, it wouldn't be an issue. Still, since he and you both made it through joblessness, it stands to reason that it's not universally worse than any alternative.
> Most keyboards I've taken apart either have a fairly specialized switch molded directly into the base plastic, or use a rather complicated system of guide wire slides and a simple membrane switch. Neither of these is really suited for reproduction or modification by the average tinkerer.
Then a redefinition of "modification" is needed here. In the keyboards I've disassembled, I found it not difficult (not simple, but simple enough) just to saw the board apart through the base. Keep in mind that this makes for a lot of work resoldering the connections, and you have to be able to build a funtional keyboard from components, so it's not a project for someone simply modding an existing keyboard. But if you're willing to do the wiring and chip-work, you can cut the keys down to the bed and use the spring/contact assemblies, and position and cap them however you like.
I agree that it's not a simple tinkering job, but it's not as tough as it seems at first blush. Get yourself some information on wiring up a keyboard controller and bust out your soldering iron, and you can have the keyboard of your dreams for very little money.
> If you think a completely free and open society can survive in the face of an enemy that is dedicated to spreading their fairy tales across the world and will murder billions to sccomplish that, well, you are naive beyond human comprehension.
When you can tell me why this statement doesn't apply to the rule of Great Britain or the Catholic church of his era, I'll consider the statement countered.
> It was tricky to smuggle a 6 pound artillery piece through customs, ya know?
It was also possible to burn down half of a city with a powder keg and favorable weather. Your point? The biggest threat to citizens at that time wasn't a musket, it was a totalitarian government willing to oppress them for convenience. That's still true today.
> As an aside I want to go into a movie theater with an empty camcorder (no tape). Would I still be committing a crime? Could I go to jail? Would it even make it to trial?
I'd guess that it wouldn't. The law forbids using a camcorder to record the film, but if you weren't recording, it's tough to convict you. What's likely is that they'd say you discarded the tape to avoid getting caught with it, and when you made it obvious you were doing it for a protest, they'd hit you with some misdemeanor charge for a fine (maybe disturbing the peace or some such) and wash their hands of it.
> And in keeping with that, they certainly should have the right to strip-search anybody that they choose.
The funny part is that they do have a right to strip-search people or forbid them access to their property. They have to notify you beforehand, but there's no law that says they can't post a sign on the door that says they can strip search you if you enter. Of course, that would be economic suicide due to loss of business and the potential for (civil) lawsuits, but the whole "all bags are subject to search" concept is legal because it is a private business.
Slashdot Mirror
These are the two parts you need to understand. The Fourth Amendment......and the Ninth Amendment...These describe how the right to privacy already exists, and how the Constitution prevents laws that abrogate that right.
Virg
> -- What you "know" of God does nothing to invalidate what I believe.
> It does. But you wouldn't know that.
I was going to go on with the retort, but this comment pretty much closes the door, and makes it pointless to continue the dance. Have fun with your faith.
Virg
Here we go again. You'll have to pardon my irritation, but you're still hyperextending, and you're far from being the first, and it gets tiresome to go over this again and again. But, once more we go...
You point out that the Souix tribe's description of a thunderbird that matches a description of a pteronadon is proof that humans and dinosaurs lived concurrently. To that I say it proves that one tribe saw one dinosaur, even if it truly was a dinosaur, which I'm willing to allow for. Heck, there are those that think that the Loch Ness monster (again, if it exists) it likely to be a saurian animal. But again, this is a hyperextension. One dinosaur isn't proof of concurrence by any stretch. There were many, many dinosaurs all over the planet. There are many, many people all over the planet. There's no more than a tiny handful of descriptions of first-hand accounts of encounters. If humans and dinosaurs shared the planet, and the planet was only about 5000 years old, there'd be a lot more than that. There are no descriptions of dinosaurs in Egyptian culture. None in Sumerian culture. None in Inca culture. Do you really expect that one account, even if it's completely accurate, is enough to prove the widespread commingling that you so stubbornly posit? Would you accept that from any scientist?
Virg
> I studied AI while working toward an MS in Computer science a few years ago.
:( Here are my reasons for the apparently arbitrary 5800 ring count: the Bible says that the existing world was destroyed in a deluge that occured about 5000 years ago. Now most trees add one tree ring a year. In extremely rare cases, trees have been known to grow more than a single ring a year. Hence, I chose the 5800 ring count (to sufficiently account for ring aberrations). Now, I probably should not have stated 5800 -- 5100-5200 rings should be sufficient. :)
My pointing out the thinking of physicists in 1899 was to demonstrate that even those who have studied a field extensively can't usually predict watershed changes in the field any better than layfolks, so it's a bad exercise to say "we're no closer to..." about it. Studying AI makes you better informed about the current state of AI, but it doesn't help you predict the future.
> Advances in "AI" (a badly named field) are very interesting to me - I hope to see them continue to occur for some time. I said synthetic intelligence (as in "pass the Turing test" intelligence) is unlikely. That belief is based on the current state of AI research and my understanding of the Bible.
See above, and remember that your understanding of the Bible doesn't speak very well toward what we'll discover in the field of AI.
> Its sad to see you angry without just cause.
I almost don't want to get into this, because it's such a bothersome dance, but I must ask you one thing. If all the trees on Earth were destroyed by a deluge, where'd the new trees come from? Most importantly, though, why do you say that there's nothing stopping them from living longer? Random chance virtually guarantees that any living object will die due to accident or disease give enough time. Sure, there's no one specific thing that guarantees that a tree will die in 5000 years but the amount of luck an immobile living object would need to fail to have anything lethal occur to it in that span of time would be significant. The fact that the number of trees that measure past 4000 years can be counted in single digits indicates that a tree some significant amount older than them would be even more rare, to the likely point of non-existence. Again I present, you've given no reasonable argument that the age of the Earth can be determined by the age of trees in any case.
> Please back that up with suitable observations of an evolutionary process adding information to the genome.
This is my just cause for being angry, by the way. It's a broken argument, and you present it broken on purpose. The failure is this. I can't present the mechanism for how it works. You can't present any evidence that it's not possible. However, because I can't prove it does work, you take that as proof that it doesn't work, and that's broken.
To counter, I can simply present gravity. It's easy to see that gravity works. Two massive bodies attract each other in very predictable ways. Ready for the twist? Nobody on Earth can tell you why. That's right, nobody. There are plenty of theories, but not a single one of them can be conclusively proven. The fact that nobody understands why gravity works does not mean that it doesn't. I can't conclusively prove that ceramic yard gnomes are not the mechanism for gravitation, so I can't directly refute a theory that states that yard gnomes cause gravity. However, I can present a theory (like graviton particles or dark matter or whatever) that's more likely based on the evidence.
To get back to the point, the most likely mechanism in science for the development of the species is currently evolution driven by natural selection. And before you get started, any theory based on the Bible isn't science, it's theology. "Because God said so" doesn't work in science, so feel free to argue that it's how things happened, but don't present it as evidence that ev
Do the AnswersInGenesis people know that you're trying to defend their point of view? Maybe you should just link to the site and leave it at that. Yours has to be one of the worst arguments for your point I've seen in a long time, and that's saying something. Let's take a few swings, shall we?
...the mysteries of an apparent Cambrian explosion in the fossil record?
> People have been discussing Asimov's three laws of robotics for decades. But we're no closer to robots with synthetic intelligence than we were in the glory days of AI research. (i.e. we're not close at all).
And you know this exactly how? In 1899, the vast majority of the world's brightest minds were openly saying that there was very little left to learn in the realm of physics, since Newtonian mechanics had been quite thoroughly explored by that point. It only took six years to turn that on its ear, and nobody (not even Einstein) knew it was coming. How you propose to know what technological or innovative breakthroughs will or won't occur in AI is beyond my understanding. As simple (to us) a device as the steam engine took more than 300 years to develop, and societies as far back as the Romans had the materials to make it happen, just not the innovation.
> There is no evidence these projects that you say are "going on now to create life at a molecular level" are likely to succeed.
Nice spin, but to reverse it, there's also no evidence that they're likely to fail, either. See above. Isn't acting clairvoyant a violation of Christian ethics?
> See this for reasons why the 1950s Miller experiment was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions...
Since that particular experiment doesn't have much to do with current efforts (because, y'know, it was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions) this point is irrelevant. If they simply wanted to replicate the old experiment, then they'd have done so.
> You must have considered the apparently unique earth we have: it's wonderfully balanced Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen cycles, the temperature and the position of earth w.r.t. to the sun, the qualities of water, and the wonder that is the water cycle,the wonderful balance of plant and animal life...
I'm familiar with this argument, but it's not valid because it's two-sided. You argue that the Earth is perfectly designed for humans, and I argue that humans developed specifically to survive Earth conditions, and these things support both points, so they support neither point.
>
I agree that there's no good explanation for this as yet. Again, though, it doesn't disprove any reasonable theory, it puts bumps in the road for the theories. Whether we will learn what caused it will remain for time to tell, but I see no reason to accept the young-Earth theory on the strength of this alone, and so far it's the only thing you mentioned that I can't answer directly.
> Consider how the continents were one supercontinent to begin with (as the Bible describes in Genesis) or how the Bible, rather off-handedly, describes the earth as a sphere (Book of Job).
In a book the size and scope of the Bible, you will find plenty of references to stuff that turns out to be true. However, you must counter mentions in the Bible of stuff that turned out false as well, if you care to use it as a scientific reference. You might start by Googling for "geocentrism".
> And then there are the smaller details: look up and consider how the sun, and the the moon have the same relative size...
What? What relevance could this possibly have? If you think this is anywhere approaching a good piece of evidence in defense of the existence of God, you're going to be very easy to dismiss. Besides, they're not all that close, unless 20 percent different is "close enough".
> how all humanly-recorded history begins 5000 years ago...
> How many times are you willing to see your kid beaten to a bloody pulp by 2, 3, 4, 5 or more others, just because you think your system will work?
That's funny. This is the post-Columbine, zero-tolerance world. The rules you grew up with don't really apply any more, and the police take such a dim view of school violence these days that we have problems around my way with overcompensation, where some kid will claim he was beaten up and the "perpetrators" get to deal with the cops unless they can prove they didn't do it. So, it'd only take once to get the bullies chucked out, and then let their parents try to talk their kids back into school past a school board member holding that printout in his hand.
Virg
> Seriously, why go to the parants of the child...Go to the police, you have harrassing documents, the police will entertain it
That's too extreme a measure in all but the most egregious cases. Besides, most of this sort of thing won't amount to a threat in a legal sense (calling someone fat or outing them on a crush doesn't qualify as a threat) so your case would have to be extreme to begin with. The first step should be the harasser's parents, because the purpose of the first letter is to let the harasser know that he or she isn't anonymous, and that the message isn't going just to their intended target but to adults as well. It's the proverbial "shot across the bow" to stop the harassment before it gets as far as threats. If your child is being threatened, or this first step doesn't work, then you ramp up the response, but sending the first letter to the brass is jumping the gun unless it's a direct threat.
> Side note though: If your kid is putting videos of themselves on the net; you need to take them to a psycologist- fast, or some internet predator is going to eat them.
I agree, but with the note that if your kid is sending videos of herself to classmates, you've already screwed up pretty badly, so I'm pretty sure your advice would fall on deaf ears anyway..
Virg
> You were never a kid were you? THis is called being a tattle tale and it makes the punishment WORSE.
There's a difference in reasonability in this case. Firstly, the thing to note is that most kids will be really mean when they think nobody (adult) is listening, but will tone it down when they find out they're not alone. The mere fact that there's a grownup on the other end of the IM will make most kids back off. Secondly, these are harassments, not threats. Sure, it can cause a backlash, but if the kid in question comes down harder, you can always do the same again, and if it gets bad enough to escalate to threats, then the letter gets mailed to the local police instead of Johnny McNasty's parents. I guarantee that it'll subside when the Man shows up on the McNasty's doorstep to discuss it.
Virg
I have a better answer for the abuse, if it gets bad enough to be affecting your child that strongly. Find out the screen names/IM handles in question. Ask your child to find out who they are in real life. Print out the offending messages on real paper. Mail them to the parents of the children in question. Sure, you'll find some parents who won't care, but the vast majority of people will respond to this by confronting their kids with the evidence. These kids will back off fast when they realize that the stuff they say online can find its way back to mom and dad.
Virg
> If someone is "stupid" enough to leave their diary lying around a publisher can steal it, do they deserve to have it published in the daily newspaper?
Not applicable to the situation at hand. She passed the video to the boy herself, which established a desire to distribute. Having your diary stolen doesn't establish this desire.
> The girl's legal rights were violated: specifically, her copyright to her video. Regardless of what he thought of the contents, it was illegal for her "boyfriend" to publish her work without her consent.
Incorrect. If she didn't apply for a copyright, or at the very least include some notice not to distribute in the video or otherwise, she didn't establish any reasonable desire to copyright, so enforcing it would be problematic at best. More importantly, copyright violation is a civil tort, so she would have to demonstrate monetary loss due to his distribution, like for example if she was charging for distribution and he gave it away. No such monetary loss occurred, so there's no case for copyright infringement.
More to the point, however, is her recourse. If she truly wanted to make him pay for doing what he did, she could have reported him to the local police. A video of a 13-year-old girl masturbating is child pornography anywhere in the U.S., and by putting the video up on a P2P network, he's guilty of distribution, which is a felony offense. While he was sitting in reform school for five years, he'd have time to reflect on how "not nice" his action was. Also, any classmate who taunted her with comments about seeing the video would be subject to arrest for posession, so the story would die quickly.
Virg
> does the manhattan project ring a bell?
Sure does, but that doesn't relate to Einstein any more than the firebombing of Dresden relates to the Wright brothers. Einstein wasn't involved in the Manhattan project, and even if he had been, nuclear weapons haven't killed millions of people, even by the most extreme estimates.
Again I ask, what sense in that statement?
Virg
> Hell even Einstein had great honor, but contributed to the death of millions.
I agree with your main point, but what do you mean by this? This statement makes no sense.
Virg
> For example, it would not have been socially acceptable for a woman to wear a gstring bikini in public in the 1930s. However, fasion and social acceptance changed in small increments to the point where it's completely acceptable and normal today.
This would only generalize the slippery slope argument in the particular case that some social force has been actively trying to get women to wear g-string bikinis since the thirties. The concept of the slippery slope as an argument really requires intent on the part of the force or entity pushing down the slope. It's easy to say everything is a slippery slope if you consider everything from your conclusion to be "uphill" in terms of your argument, but to say that means every slippery slope argument is false for that very reason is itself fallacious, by the fallacy of incorrect association.
Virg
Would you care to provide a list of the court dockets detailing the convictions for the crimes you accuse? See, the policy of "innocent until proven guilty" applies equally to everyone, including scummy senators, and the problem here is that someone who did not qualify for the list on legal grounds ended up on the list in error. Sorry, but the only accusation that's ever stood the test of prosecution is plagiarism, and last I checked it's not reasonable to prevent someone from flying for that.
Sure, Kennedy has been very low-life, but that's not the real issue presented here. The real issue is that someone got on the no-fly list incorrectly, and the question arises as to whether someone in the same position as him but without his influence would be able to correct the error, and whether the error indicates a fundamental flaw in the no-fly list to begin with. Try to stay on target here.
Virg
> Yes, I realize that off-road vehicles need higher clearance and need to use public roads to get offroad, but we see the results of non-standard bumper heights everyday, including here.
Sorry, but RTFA. The solar car was lacking in bumpers, and the vehicle he hit was not an SUV, it was a minivan, which has standard bumpers.
Virg
> What, like scaled composites, who've actually flown the entire mission to and from 100Km successfully?
[SMACK!] His comment is to the effect that only his team was really in a position to beat Scaled Composites, and since he's on the ground for a month, he questions whether any other team is in a position to beat out Scaled Composites.
Pay attention.
Virg
> People have the right to travel between the two cities and it can be argued that this right is being infringed upon by requiring a license(Priveledge).
That point can't be argued rationally. Say I live in Smalltown, and I want to travel to Big City. I walk myself to the bus station, buy a ticket, get on the bus, try to sleep, and soon, the bus pulls into Grand Off-to-the-side Station in Big City. I get off the bus, catch the subway to midtown, and visit Aunt Millie.
Now, would you care to tell me how not having a driver's license would prevent any of this? Or are you really trying to tell me that driving myself is the only way to travel, with no exceptions?
More to the point, though, I know someone who rode a bicycle from New York City to Seattle, and he never set foot nor tire on an interstate freeway. You need to do more research.
Virg
> If you measure success as,"I'm warm, breathing, and have a place to live" then yes, I've been successful.
I measure success as "left a bad job because it was a bad job, and got a different job." Your comment was that he has no room to comment on quitting unless he's quit and had a bad experience of it. Well, you did just that, and so did he. So why are you telling him not to comment?
> The issue is with employee agreements. If a programmer works on writing decompilers for an unethical employer and takes a stand to leave, should that programmer not be able to write decompilers for his own profit?
Nice try, but that's not the crux of the case. The crux of the case is that he provided no reasonable evidence that he had come up with the idea for a decompiler before he worked for Alcatel, that Alcatel had hired him to do decompiling work, and that therefore they owned the decompiler he invented. Note that this does not preclude him from writing a different decompiler, so your examples following aren't good analogies. They simply laid claim to the decompiler he wrote because they claimed he wrote it while employed for that purpose by them, and the only thing he presented in his defense was his say-so that it predated his employ at Alcatel.
> Can you legally tell a carpenter that he cannot work with wood? Can you tell a trucker they cannot drive? Can we tell a salesman that it is now illegal to sell a product? Why is it that the people who devote effort to refining a highly technical skill can be legally forced to remain in a state of unhappiness with an unfair employer?
These examples are not useful, because they aren't good analogies for the case at hand. I can't forbid a carpenter to work with wood, but if I hire a carpenter to build a better truss frame, and then he designs a better truss frame, and he agreed that any designs he came up with were the company's, then I would be well within my rights to forbid him to use that truss frame design if he left for another construction company. If he argued that he invented it on his own time before coming to work for me, then the burden of proof is on him to show something to that effect. If he's good enough to design an even better frame after he leaves, he can use that one instead.
> I work in the scientific industry and one of my biggest peeves is that my employers always demand that I sign away my property rights to any patents that I procure while employed with them.
Then you need to leave your current job (leaving behind any patents you already have), get a new job, and when you get that job, be sure to avoid such contract stipulations.
> The trolls say,"If you don't like it, then leave." But what good does it do me to leave if my employee agreement forbids me from using that knowledge for myself?
Oh, I get it. You want out of your employment contract after you already signed it. Well, tough. If you can get patents working for companies that don't require such contracts, then go to those companies. If you can't earn a patent on anything without the help of companies that demand such contracts, then you don't have room to complain that they're getting the benefit. You're certainly welcome to use your knowledge to your own benefit. The first step, however, is to get out from under any current contracts that prevent that. If you find that impossible because you painted yourself into a financial corner, then that's a problem you need to solve first. If you're so good that you could make a living off of inventing and patenting stuff, getting investment capital is your ticket out of debt. If not, then again you don't have room to complain.
Virg
I was going to try to make my point tactfully, but bluntness seems to be necessary in this case. Your entire statement is hyperpessimistic crap. Sentence by sentence:
> Unfortunately, pride and "doing the right thing" don't put food on the table or clothes on the kids' backs.
Your implication is to have pride and do the right thing, or get the job. These things aren't mutually exclusive. Edit the contract. Pick another employer. Sorry, but saying (or implying) that signing such an agreement is necessary to get a job is wrong.
> Employees need employers MUCH more than employers need employees.
Again, entirely wrong. The need is mutual. Saying "I need a job more than company X needs a worker" is simply ignoring that there are lots of other employers (including doing contract work or working for yourself). Call me idealistic if you care to, but I've worked for a bank, a publishing company and a small tech company, and ended up doing computer work at all of them, because that's where my skill set leads me. Can't get a tech job? Get a non-tech job, and soon your employer will see your tech skill and move you to the tech jobs, because they benefit more putting you there. Employer won't move you to the tech jobs? Maybe you're not in the right industry after all.
> And the fact that everyone does this kind of contract means you will have to leave the field of technology completely to stand up for your rights.
Yet again, crap. Not everybody does these contracts, and I've found that many employers will allow changes with no complaint at all. Some won't, but I'd want to avoid such companies anyway.
> I doubt we can get enough people to give up their jobs at nice tech companies to go flip burgers and pump gas just to make a point to all the employers of the world.
Last one, and it's a doozy. I like your idea that the tech world is "tech job" or "flip burgers" with nothing in between. It sounds like you just have a severe lack of imagination, or little idea how many "tech jobs" there are out there. My gateway to a tech job was in one case "bank teller" and in the next, "editor". Both paid pretty well for the work, and neither is what you'd think for entry level into a tech job, eh? Show a little more initiative, or at least some spine. Perhaps the reason your experience leads you to believe that "everyone does this kind of contract" is because you've never changed it and handed it back.
Virg
> Unless you've actually had to go through the gamut then you have no room to talk. The gamut? Here's the video game description...The game is written such that it will be at least eight months until an employer gives you an opportunity for an interview.
When I couple this with your previous statement of, "Rather than suggest that other people should take a stand on the issue and risk their careers, perhaps you should try it first and report on the benefits of unemployment" you come out as extremely cynical. I point out that even under the dire circumstances you suffered, you came out of it on the other side. Having been successful at it, you then suggest he not encourage others to do it as well. How do you define that if not as cynicism? Sure, it's tough to stand up for yourself. If it was easy, it wouldn't be an issue. Still, since he and you both made it through joblessness, it stands to reason that it's not universally worse than any alternative.
Virg
> Most keyboards I've taken apart either have a fairly specialized switch molded directly into the base plastic, or use a rather complicated system of guide wire slides and a simple membrane switch. Neither of these is really suited for reproduction or modification by the average tinkerer.
Then a redefinition of "modification" is needed here. In the keyboards I've disassembled, I found it not difficult (not simple, but simple enough) just to saw the board apart through the base. Keep in mind that this makes for a lot of work resoldering the connections, and you have to be able to build a funtional keyboard from components, so it's not a project for someone simply modding an existing keyboard. But if you're willing to do the wiring and chip-work, you can cut the keys down to the bed and use the spring/contact assemblies, and position and cap them however you like. I agree that it's not a simple tinkering job, but it's not as tough as it seems at first blush. Get yourself some information on wiring up a keyboard controller and bust out your soldering iron, and you can have the keyboard of your dreams for very little money.
Virg
> If you think a completely free and open society can survive in the face of an enemy that is dedicated to spreading their fairy tales across the world and will murder billions to sccomplish that, well, you are naive beyond human comprehension.
When you can tell me why this statement doesn't apply to the rule of Great Britain or the Catholic church of his era, I'll consider the statement countered.
> It was tricky to smuggle a 6 pound artillery piece through customs, ya know?
It was also possible to burn down half of a city with a powder keg and favorable weather. Your point? The biggest threat to citizens at that time wasn't a musket, it was a totalitarian government willing to oppress them for convenience. That's still true today.
Virg
> Wosh = Sound of joke flying right over your head.
Liar! In space, noone can hear you missing the joke.
Virg
> As an aside I want to go into a movie theater with an empty camcorder (no tape). Would I still be committing a crime? Could I go to jail? Would it even make it to trial?
I'd guess that it wouldn't. The law forbids using a camcorder to record the film, but if you weren't recording, it's tough to convict you. What's likely is that they'd say you discarded the tape to avoid getting caught with it, and when you made it obvious you were doing it for a protest, they'd hit you with some misdemeanor charge for a fine (maybe disturbing the peace or some such) and wash their hands of it.
Virg
> And in keeping with that, they certainly should have the right to strip-search anybody that they choose.
The funny part is that they do have a right to strip-search people or forbid them access to their property. They have to notify you beforehand, but there's no law that says they can't post a sign on the door that says they can strip search you if you enter. Of course, that would be economic suicide due to loss of business and the potential for (civil) lawsuits, but the whole "all bags are subject to search" concept is legal because it is a private business.
Virg