SCTP is another transport protocol that is in the works. It allows for multiple streams of data between multihomed computers. The streams may be in order or out of order which allows for related data to be transported reliably without head of line blocking. If a strictly ordered stream is necessary, that may be bundled in with the out of order streams.
Quite a nifty protocol. Quite beast to try and write;-). It might make the grid more easily usable in many situations instead of adding retransmissions into the application protocol.
Many folks think it is quite justified to feel bad (though perhaps not precisly guilty) when they play an evil character. If we have any notion of "good" then we should be repulsed by evil to some degree. If someone denys any absolute morality, then there is no reason to feel anything because it's all meaninless as it is all relative.
I completely agree that movies, books, rpgs and music especially, let us feel, live, and express ourselves beyond our immediate circustances! They are fantastic outlets and very healthy, though that doesn't seem to come into question. Again, it's the quesion of moral absolutes. If there are no moral aboslutes then there was no holocost. If there are moral absolutes then there is a source of them that needs to be found out. Either way you look at it, we're prompted to probe deeper into our own existance. I'm starting to sound like Q from Star Trek's "All Good Things" so I'll break off now.:-)
For the gazillionth time in history we're off to make God in our own image.:-)
Don't forget that God is the definative moral plumb line against which everyone of us fails to hit the mark. God also loves what he has created and offers us a way back to him. I don't see Google being anything close to these far more appealing attributes of God.
My opinion of the NY Times keeps falling hard and fast, but this is just an editorial page.
Having listed what I believe is quite reasonable criteria, where is the moral variation admist drastic climactic change??? Most groups of peoples that practice murder, when asked about it, agree that it is wrong. Who taught them that? Who "brainwashed" them to think murder was wrong?
This leads to the final item, if a group of people practice murder, this is a clear method of propogating the behavior to future generations. Evolution fails in the presence of irrducible complexity, and this is an example of it. To reach a point of a non-murdering society, that society must endure in an environment which is based on killing-to-presevere. Your claim doesn't hold up, this has been debunked time and again and you are deluding yourself or have yourself been brainwashed by a society that does everything in its power to shift any sort of ultimate responcibility from itself.
Also note, that depsite endoctrination by Sesame street and other "traditional value" centered shows, people still grow up corrupted. We are living everyday admist contradictions of values and we keep this balance generation after generation. The pendullum swings about some, but we are hovering over a general center balanced in strife. This -- does -- not -- fit -- your -- model. Your theory has no predictability and no sustaining arguments but only by conjecture and outdated and outmoded post modernistic theories and methods has it lingered in our higher education to cloud your analysis.
One final point for you is that you cannot equate macro evolution to evolving social configurations unless you acctually think that morals are derived from genetic code. People still bicker over nature-vs-nurture but all the evolutionists I've encountered agree that morals do not match up against current macro evolutionary theory. If biological macro evolution is indeed correct, we must square this inconsistency or modify the theory.
Apart from the argument I do not appreciate indirect personal slights or flippantly spat out arguments.
So, why have morals not changed? Any student of history will tell you they are cyclical and we, as a species keep revisiting the same things over and over again. What do you think?
I should point out that ethical "dilemmas" only come about in the presense of incomplete and inaccurate ethical models. For example, in my experience as a believing Christian, (oh no, he used the C-word on slashdot), I've never gotten hung up on any of the clasical "dilemmas." The moral system in the Bible is very complete and I believe it is accurate to morality.
That being said, morals are absolutes. They are not open for interpretation or revision but because humans are fallen moral creatures, we often know the good that we should be doing, but we don't and we do our best to justify it.
Specifically regarding technology, there really aren't that many new dilemmas for the person with the well defines moral and correct moral system.
I would give a few good books by some authors that do address "society coming to grips w/ techonology" but I think I've seen everything I would have posted already. The orange/white book by the folks @ UDel is very good. Ironically and very disapointing, no one from their core Computer Science staff is associated with the book.
Yah know, I JUST got LDAP working last night and am in precisely your position.:-) I'm planning on crafting up the tools I need in Perl either to manipulate openldap a little bit more nicely or to just connect to the server and do the work directly. Perl is cool like that.:-) Hope this helps!
I'm sorry if my writting implied that I demand physical proof that isn't available. Both arguments are not currently provable; Evolution remains a theory as do most Intelligent Design ideas.
Well, I think we're at the point where we agree to dissagree.:-) Thanks for the intelligent talk! It's good to be challenged in what I spout out around here. Regards,
Holes in the evolutionary chain is acceptable, but we can't find the chain. Given the nature of the purposed evolutionary process there should be a lot more fossiles of the transitive steps. The deficiency in the system is the lack of the chain, not just a few forms, but a great many of them.
Convergence is no acceptable. It is a problem in Evolution that is real and current. For some critter to develope a fix to a problem or challenge in an environment is one thing, but to have a random process produce that same solution in an isolated instance should be raising eyebrows.
As for entropy and evolution, I posed an interesting note that one is breaking the basic law of the other. The counter argument you offer is a classic from a Rhetoic book and is incorrect. You can not throw the baby out with the bath water and say, "Well, if God made things, cleary science has no place or use in our world." That is the wrong-headed attitudes that some religions have taken, but it is not my position and it is not rational. You have not answered the question, nor am I insisting that you do. It was an observation that should thought on and used to enlighten your perspective. I even qualify that there may be pricipals that we don't know of yet that say that random change should get more complex, but we don't know of it yet, and I'm suspicious that it doesn't exist. Even so, I gave your argument the option as a possibility because as a good scientist interested in truth, that is what I do and how I think.
Well there are my rebuttles. Regarding the steroetypes you mention towards the end, many have applied those to both Christian and non-Christian folk. In either case, they have no place in this conversation. I regard you as a thinking individual which his own mind.
As for the profound statement of some of God's characters, consider the leagal situation the Bible paints us in. No one is perfect, but prefection is demanded, and is provided. Conceptually speaking, it is pretty profound. As for proofs for God, a whole lot exist. If you are really interested in a rational explination for God you can read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis for the philisophical argument and Evidence that Demands a Verdict and Case for Christ for the scientific/historical arguements. Good reading to Christian and non-Christian. If you want to maintain any credibility in this business, you had better be able to explain yourself in terms majority likes, and in my business, it's mostly science, archeology and facts of one sort or another. It also leads to some great intellectual sparing.;-)
You clearly have not read the literature on this.
I've attempted to be somewhat even handed and you reply with slights to my character. Don't bother answering the following questions, because they are pending issues, but you may want to consider them before you come up against some one who knows the score of both camps.
So what is the reason for the systematic defficiency in the archeological record (there should a LOT of "missing links," more than we are finding.)?
Why is convergence "reasonable"? For evolution to make one form, that's fine, but to recreate that form in two species... EXACTLY?? Even evolutionists balk at that. Those are rediculous chances, even for the huge timeline modern science gives Earth's inhabitable existance.
As for proof for Creationism (which is not Intelligent Design, again, read up on this if you want to but heads) we have about as much "proof" as the Evolutionists bring to the table. Much can be found at The Institute for Creation Research which is stricly Creationist in it's perspective and assumptions.
Also, doesn't it bother you that more complicated animals are produced from Evolution? The Universe likes more entropy, not less. More complex is just not how things work, and any scientist will tell you that the Universe doesn't like making exceptions in paradigm. I'll not say that it can't be the case, but it is a red flag that most wide-minded folks are aware of, but that is all it is, a red flag, not a proof.
Finally, I seriously hope you will look into the "fairy tale" you mention. The point of Genesis is not to befuddle scientific but to point out that we are a nasty race by nature, breaking away from the God that made us. The whole of the Christian Bible is there to make the case that we don't have to remain opposed to God and we don't even have to pay for what we've done before. Jesus takes care of all that via the work of the cross. God remains Holy and Just and Loving, and I've not found another statement of God that equals this in it's logical sense, reflections in the observable world, and the change it's made in my life. My faith is based on something more than air and talking head.;-)
Well, you really hit on the point. You don't need a "vested interest" to see that evolution is not a clear cut system and has some very non-trivial problems like irreducible complexity and convergence of forms! Many very non-Biblical scientists do not find evolution valid, they are the "Intelligent Design" folks in which Creationists are a subset.
As a side note, evolution was popularized by a political agenda.:-) Random bit of history. Agenda's aside, I feel many Biologists are irresponcibily latching onto what is a good theory, but not a very good one at all, once the hype and antagonism is gone. Even if I wasn't a Christian, I don't think I could think I could swallow some of the ideas evolution pushes.
Critically speaking, the challenge in not being met because they have shown nothing that a creationist can't use to prove that the life was designed. Nor do they show that evolution is viable or real, just that the facts seem to fit nicely with what we think evolution would look like, presuming it is the correct method.
Just keeping us all honest.;-)
Just for curiosity sake, I don't think evolution is correct. Figure I should show my colors in a forum like this.:-)
Re:This raises some frightening questions
on
Battlefield Lasers
·
· Score: 1
Military folk have a refreshingly clear moral code. Killing people is bad, but many times necessary. Killing people should be done quickly and coldly -- no zest for death, just do it and get it done with; keep your kids and neighbors safe. At least, that is the general concensus... you have special officers some times and I hope they never never get any type of command opertunity. I talked with one guy from Switzerland (I think it was) who told me about one of these guys he went through training with. It was funny until they did an exercise where he shot child-dummies. Granted, you may have to shoot them anyway to protect yourself (suicide bombings) but you just don't go about plugging humans! I'm on a tangent...
Oh well, I guess my suggestion/answer is morals -- they have some of them still in the army. Thankfully moral relativists only seem to run talk shows and teach university classes. I'm not sure I'm confortable in universities, though...
We're not pulling out all vulnerability to troops, especially if we are talking about an internal revolutionary war. In that case there are many more elements to consider. Revolutions are dirty because intelligence lines are more complicated and security is more breachable, not matter how hard you try. Some folks just change side and don't tell their superiors!
This particular type of technology doesn't seem to threatening a revolutionary war because we couldn't get rockets anyway. If we could get rockets, we probably would have the connections to get some more nifty fancy stuff-- like these lasers. The article doesn't go into how to design around a hit on the rocket -- think war head and the problem doesn't seem to be solved by this system; Or think gasseous payload. This is no magic bullet. It DOES seem like a nice way to keep our troops safe from conventional artilary, though!
Personally, I'm suspicious that this is more a PR thing that real alaysis of the situation. Given some obvious work arounds, why would a potential enemy get a heads up so soon? If we met up with a truely depsarate enemy that could manufacture arms of their own and had sufficiant disregard for human life, they could slap some thing on to rocket body that could slip through this system, or at least cause some collateral damage.
I'm tempted to think that either the private sector is close to this tech anyway, and so there's no use keeping it secret or it has other, more tactically useful uses, like covert detonation of arms depots. THAT is something you can't work around as easily.
The obvious defense is reflective coats, but then a stalite/plane can see it in a second -- bing -- target of opertunity. Even if you put a cloth cover over that coating you still have a building that reacts very differently to radioations of differing wavelengths. A satalite could tell that it aint-no-pile-o-rocks. The other is to use anything non-reflective, and then you can use black-body radiation to your advantage using a 2-4 person ghost team at 3 am. If they are low enough to the ground, the device's output would be tough to localize and you destroy a the arms fuling the oposition's war and don't kill many of their troops. Now THAT is a desirable outcome for most modern campaigns! Destroy the tools to wage war and keep the humans safe! More importantly, you DON'T put arms depots in a civilized area. You can't trust the local populous (spys) and in the Taliban's case, you REALLY can't trust the local populous.
Note that the above is me speculating while very sleepy. I didn't think too too deeply, so there may be some logical quirks, but you get the idea. Hope this helps! (Hope that makes sense...*yawn*... even when I preview this I'm bleary-eyed....)
Teaching Computers overseas to folks w/o a base.
on
Volunteer Work Abroad?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
ESI (Educational Services International) is a group that primarily teaches conversational English to countries with out a large monetary base. They also have a computer course they are working on. This is computer science more than "click here and a paperclip should appear.":-)
They are an evangelical group which means they are there to show the love of Christ via action. They are not a mass-evangelical group. The idea is that they do a good thing in God's name, and folks get curious and start looking at they why behind the actions. So, if you are a Christian, this is a very good group. They teach in Russia and China primarily, but the computer courses are based more in the near Eastern areas. Hope this helps!
Video games DO contain some really messed up concepts. Ratine systems provide parents with info so if there IS a real threat to a young child, then the parent can prevent the interaction.
The alternatives are not as "free" as rating systems unless you are suggesting that anything that goes on a store shelf is fit for a child to get in their mind.
The bottom line I think is that the cynicism was pretty inappropriate, IMHOP. I don'thave time to research video games and I don't want to say,"Nope, no video games for you kids, you may pick up a really nasty one by mistake." They should have some video games! They should NOT have Gore-Blaster IV: Chainsaw edition.
The cynisims implys that incorrect views (or some very irresponcible views) are held by some people.
If you run your feedline through a sufficiently hefty amplifier, I'm sure you could cook while surfing eliminating the need for a microwave! Fixing dinner would require at least an email check or two.:-) (Just don't stand to close...)
Optimization for a compiler is directed at chip-generation, not necessarily ISA's. Remember that FU latencies are the big problem in the pipeline, and since Transmeta is a RISC, this is kinda neat!:-)
Maybe arch-enemy isn't the best word for it (unless I"m mis-reading interpretting the political banter between the two).
Trans-meta makes a chip that supports the x86 architechture using code-mophing which is very VERY similar to micro-coding. It's acctually not a "new" idea, but it's a new method of an old idea which was a clever implementation of an older idea (the micro-code thing again).
Anyway, the bone of contension with Intel and Transmeta (as far as I understand it to be) is that Transmeta is shooting for an x86 architecture that is lowpower and quick. Low power is key because of embedded systems (which are growing fast, particularly with Linux as a foundation OS) and laptops just don't match the battery life I get from my G3 (hehehe./me wintel free too.:-) )
Anyway, they both are shooting at the same market. Transmeta is touting power-savings (which if they can show moderate performance, makes them very tempting), especially in the new and upcoming wave of embedded systems. Why x86 ISA? Well, I guess it's because taking on Moterola isn't a smart idea with their already RISC chip ISAs and already VERY good power consumption.
As a side note, a lot of people would like to se the x86 architechture quietly dissappear because of hardware issues. Not "problems" but just bottlenecks and general house-cleaning has to be done before we have another VAX.:-) Well... it's not THAT bad... but it's a little ugly.
What I think is being pointed out is that on-cpu time will be shorter. This has some nice pluses to it, even if the kernel doesn't get the nice optimizations of it all. I would love a faster apache server, even if my kernel is (reletivly speaking) more pokey.:-)
Re:Science must be testable
on
God's Debris
·
· Score: 1
Well, not to sound post-modernistic, but some of it lies in how you define the world. The reason I replied to the parent message is that the world "faith" has a horribly different meaning when you compare someone's definition of it (and hense, reasoning from it) with our use of the world. We use the world in language correctly, but we have this ill-concieved notion that faith has no reasoning behind it -- as if it were some randomly chosen point of view. A curosry look at history will show the folly in following ideas with out any reason! The dictionary does validate your definition as one of several meanings; it is a definition, but it is not exclusive to the idea of having some grounds for faith.
The Bible says that faith is having hope in what you do not see. Seeing does not mean we have no proof, it simply says that direct observation does not preclude something. It's the same idea as object-permenance in 1 year olds. Mom leaves the room, she no longer exists! I should cry. By age 4 we have a sort of faith (based on statistics) that Mom is coming back, and perhaps will have a cookie for me to snack on!
Well, the bottom line is that the faith should be grounded on some believed facts, or we are acting very irrationally. The dictionary does support both definitions, but I frankly am not interested in what I could mean -- I have said what I do mean. My faith, and faith in the context of my posts means there is a basis to it -- a set of axioms to the logic. You can see this in the form of DeCarte's work who doubted EVERYTHING up to his own existance, and worked from there and ended up with a God in the picture Any reilgion that requires blind faith is very very suspicious in it's accurate description of reality.
Why is an accurate description of reality importatnt? Because if there is a God that made this world, then this world reflects and ordered-systematic god. Looking at our world through science there is a LARGE amount of order to be seen... and ALL clustered here on Earth. We are a cosmic outlier, to be sure. If there is a god behind this universe, he is an ordered god. Any other source of creation would not create a universe like this. Why do I "know" that? Because of primitive logic. A being cannot be what they are not. A random god could not make an ordered world unless order was some where to be seen first. You have to convince yourself of the validity of this statement before you can go further with the reasoning. It sounds like double talk, but it's where we have to start. Once we lay all the foundational logic we have a world that MUST reflect who created it in some way. The Christian God is bound by his justice and holyness to punish us for bad things we do BUT is also love, and so has given us a way out. Note that God cannot compromise his justice, even the almighty Christian God. It breaks logic primitives, which necessarily breaches all existances. Random begets random; Good begets good etc etc. Breaking these statements requires post-modernistic reasoning (which you can form your own opinion as to the value of).
So by the previously stated, a religion that reflects a God that is of the same nature of this world is true. A religion that does not reflect this must either provide a reason WHY or it's wrong. The secular version of all this is a World View and it has 3 parts:
Where did we come from (purpose/meaning of life)
what's wrong with the world (if anything)
how do we fix it?
Well, that's far more than I wanted to write. I've tried to keep my opinions out of this because I really want to prompt the questions. You can prove some things about God, but true, his existance is a matter of faith. If you want a long list of reasons that do not prove this, but form a basis for faith in the Christian God, I can give you several book titles by some bright folks.
CS Lewis is the traditional reccomendation, and provides entertaining prose to boot! His logic is great to read (if you like logic). It's akin to a Algorithms person googling over the beauty of merge sort.:-)
Re:Science must be testable
on
God's Debris
·
· Score: 1
What people think of faith varies wildly too. Some believe that is it believing without reason, but faith must be based on some previous observation (or you have a groundless and worthless faith!).
If a doctor did a marvolous job of helping us with disease A and disease B, then we will surely think him able to do well against disease C. This is a matter of faith. There is no scientific principal that dictates that he will do well, but we think he should.
Sorry if I seem pedantic, but if I say I have faith in God, then I mean I have proof that the God I think is around is the one from the Christian Bible and this faith I have in him is for what hasn't yet happened. For example, I can give you no proof that Christ will come back and judge us, but I have faith that he will because of all the other things in the Bible that I am convicened are true.
Groundless faith won't stay challenges, especially in the IT/IT-education world. We're a trying bunch with matters we don't find logical (or at least reasonable).:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting and shameless plug:
SCTP is another transport protocol that is in the works. It allows for multiple streams of data between multihomed computers. The streams may be in order or out of order which allows for related data to be transported reliably without head of line blocking. If a strictly ordered stream is necessary, that may be bundled in with the out of order streams.
Quite a nifty protocol. Quite beast to try and write ;-). It might make the grid more easily usable in many situations instead of adding retransmissions into the application protocol.
Did anyone notice that the email that went out to the mailing list had a bad signature???
I think you wrote that comment off too quickly.
Many folks think it is quite justified to feel bad (though perhaps not precisly guilty) when they play an evil character. If we have any notion of "good" then we should be repulsed by evil to some degree. If someone denys any absolute morality, then there is no reason to feel anything because it's all meaninless as it is all relative.
I completely agree that movies, books, rpgs and music especially, let us feel, live, and express ourselves beyond our immediate circustances! They are fantastic outlets and very healthy, though that doesn't seem to come into question. Again, it's the quesion of moral absolutes. If there are no moral aboslutes then there was no holocost. If there are moral absolutes then there is a source of them that needs to be found out. Either way you look at it, we're prompted to probe deeper into our own existance. I'm starting to sound like Q from Star Trek's "All Good Things" so I'll break off now. :-)
Don't forget that God is the definative moral plumb line against which everyone of us fails to hit the mark. God also loves what he has created and offers us a way back to him. I don't see Google being anything close to these far more appealing attributes of God.
My opinion of the NY Times keeps falling hard and fast, but this is just an editorial page.
- random change
- a means of propogating those changes
- a selection process
Having listed what I believe is quite reasonable criteria, where is the moral variation admist drastic climactic change??? Most groups of peoples that practice murder, when asked about it, agree that it is wrong. Who taught them that? Who "brainwashed" them to think murder was wrong?This leads to the final item, if a group of people practice murder, this is a clear method of propogating the behavior to future generations. Evolution fails in the presence of irrducible complexity, and this is an example of it. To reach a point of a non-murdering society, that society must endure in an environment which is based on killing-to-presevere. Your claim doesn't hold up, this has been debunked time and again and you are deluding yourself or have yourself been brainwashed by a society that does everything in its power to shift any sort of ultimate responcibility from itself.
Also note, that depsite endoctrination by Sesame street and other "traditional value" centered shows, people still grow up corrupted. We are living everyday admist contradictions of values and we keep this balance generation after generation. The pendullum swings about some, but we are hovering over a general center balanced in strife. This -- does -- not -- fit -- your -- model. Your theory has no predictability and no sustaining arguments but only by conjecture and outdated and outmoded post modernistic theories and methods has it lingered in our higher education to cloud your analysis.
One final point for you is that you cannot equate macro evolution to evolving social configurations unless you acctually think that morals are derived from genetic code. People still bicker over nature-vs-nurture but all the evolutionists I've encountered agree that morals do not match up against current macro evolutionary theory. If biological macro evolution is indeed correct, we must square this inconsistency or modify the theory.
Apart from the argument I do not appreciate indirect personal slights or flippantly spat out arguments.
So, why have morals not changed? Any student of history will tell you they are cyclical and we, as a species keep revisiting the same things over and over again. What do you think?
Hi all,
I should point out that ethical "dilemmas" only come about in the presense of incomplete and inaccurate ethical models. For example, in my experience as a believing Christian, (oh no, he used the C-word on slashdot), I've never gotten hung up on any of the clasical "dilemmas." The moral system in the Bible is very complete and I believe it is accurate to morality.
That being said, morals are absolutes. They are not open for interpretation or revision but because humans are fallen moral creatures, we often know the good that we should be doing, but we don't and we do our best to justify it.
Specifically regarding technology, there really aren't that many new dilemmas for the person with the well defines moral and correct moral system.
I would give a few good books by some authors that do address "society coming to grips w/ techonology" but I think I've seen everything I would have posted already. The orange/white book by the folks @ UDel is very good. Ironically and very disapointing, no one from their core Computer Science staff is associated with the book.
Hope this helps!
br
Yah know, I JUST got LDAP working last night and am in precisely your position. :-) I'm planning on crafting up the tools I need in Perl either to manipulate openldap a little bit more nicely or to just connect to the server and do the work directly. :-) Hope this helps!
Perl is cool like that.
I'm sorry if my writting implied that I demand physical proof that isn't available. Both arguments are not currently provable; Evolution remains a theory as do most Intelligent Design ideas.
:-) Thanks for the intelligent talk! It's good to be challenged in what I spout out around here.
Well, I think we're at the point where we agree to dissagree.
Regards,
You did not answer one of my arguments.
;-)
Holes in the evolutionary chain is acceptable, but we can't find the chain. Given the nature of the purposed evolutionary process there should be a lot more fossiles of the transitive steps. The deficiency in the system is the lack of the chain, not just a few forms, but a great many of them.
Convergence is no acceptable. It is a problem in Evolution that is real and current. For some critter to develope a fix to a problem or challenge in an environment is one thing, but to have a random process produce that same solution in an isolated instance should be raising eyebrows.
As for entropy and evolution, I posed an interesting note that one is breaking the basic law of the other. The counter argument you offer is a classic from a Rhetoic book and is incorrect. You can not throw the baby out with the bath water and say, "Well, if God made things, cleary science has no place or use in our world." That is the wrong-headed attitudes that some religions have taken, but it is not my position and it is not rational. You have not answered the question, nor am I insisting that you do. It was an observation that should thought on and used to enlighten your perspective. I even qualify that there may be pricipals that we don't know of yet that say that random change should get more complex, but we don't know of it yet, and I'm suspicious that it doesn't exist. Even so, I gave your argument the option as a possibility because as a good scientist interested in truth, that is what I do and how I think.
Well there are my rebuttles. Regarding the steroetypes you mention towards the end, many have applied those to both Christian and non-Christian folk. In either case, they have no place in this conversation. I regard you as a thinking individual which his own mind.
As for the profound statement of some of God's characters, consider the leagal situation the Bible paints us in. No one is perfect, but prefection is demanded, and is provided. Conceptually speaking, it is pretty profound. As for proofs for God, a whole lot exist. If you are really interested in a rational explination for God you can read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis for the philisophical argument and Evidence that Demands a Verdict and Case for Christ for the scientific/historical arguements. Good reading to Christian and non-Christian. If you want to maintain any credibility in this business, you had better be able to explain yourself in terms majority likes, and in my business, it's mostly science, archeology and facts of one sort or another. It also leads to some great intellectual sparing.
You clearly have not read the literature on this. I've attempted to be somewhat even handed and you reply with slights to my character. Don't bother answering the following questions, because they are pending issues, but you may want to consider them before you come up against some one who knows the score of both camps.
So what is the reason for the systematic defficiency in the archeological record (there should a LOT of "missing links," more than we are finding.)?
Why is convergence "reasonable"? For evolution to make one form, that's fine, but to recreate that form in two species... EXACTLY?? Even evolutionists balk at that. Those are rediculous chances, even for the huge timeline modern science gives Earth's inhabitable existance.
As for proof for Creationism (which is not Intelligent Design, again, read up on this if you want to but heads) we have about as much "proof" as the Evolutionists bring to the table. Much can be found at The Institute for Creation Research which is stricly Creationist in it's perspective and assumptions.
Also, doesn't it bother you that more complicated animals are produced from Evolution? The Universe likes more entropy, not less. More complex is just not how things work, and any scientist will tell you that the Universe doesn't like making exceptions in paradigm. I'll not say that it can't be the case, but it is a red flag that most wide-minded folks are aware of, but that is all it is, a red flag, not a proof.
Finally, I seriously hope you will look into the "fairy tale" you mention. The point of Genesis is not to befuddle scientific but to point out that we are a nasty race by nature, breaking away from the God that made us. The whole of the Christian Bible is there to make the case that we don't have to remain opposed to God and we don't even have to pay for what we've done before. Jesus takes care of all that via the work of the cross. God remains Holy and Just and Loving, and I've not found another statement of God that equals this in it's logical sense, reflections in the observable world, and the change it's made in my life. My faith is based on something more than air and talking head. ;-)
Well, you really hit on the point. You don't need a "vested interest" to see that evolution is not a clear cut system and has some very non-trivial problems like irreducible complexity and convergence of forms! Many very non-Biblical scientists do not find evolution valid, they are the "Intelligent Design" folks in which Creationists are a subset.
:-) Random bit of history. Agenda's aside, I feel many Biologists are irresponcibily latching onto what is a good theory, but not a very good one at all, once the hype and antagonism is gone. Even if I wasn't a Christian, I don't think I could think I could swallow some of the ideas evolution pushes.
As a side note, evolution was popularized by a political agenda.
Critically speaking, the challenge in not being met because they have shown nothing that a creationist can't use to prove that the life was designed. Nor do they show that evolution is viable or real, just that the facts seem to fit nicely with what we think evolution would look like, presuming it is the correct method.
;-)
:-)
Just keeping us all honest.
Just for curiosity sake, I don't think evolution is correct. Figure I should show my colors in a forum like this.
Military folk have a refreshingly clear moral code. Killing people is bad, but many times necessary. Killing people should be done quickly and coldly -- no zest for death, just do it and get it done with; keep your kids and neighbors safe. At least, that is the general concensus... you have special officers some times and I hope they never never get any type of command opertunity. I talked with one guy from Switzerland (I think it was) who told me about one of these guys he went through training with. It was funny until they did an exercise where he shot child-dummies. Granted, you may have to shoot them anyway to protect yourself (suicide bombings) but you just don't go about plugging humans! I'm on a tangent...
Oh well, I guess my suggestion/answer is morals -- they have some of them still in the army. Thankfully moral relativists only seem to run talk shows and teach university classes. I'm not sure I'm confortable in universities, though...
We're not pulling out all vulnerability to troops, especially if we are talking about an internal revolutionary war. In that case there are many more elements to consider. Revolutions are dirty because intelligence lines are more complicated and security is more breachable, not matter how hard you try. Some folks just change side and don't tell their superiors!
This particular type of technology doesn't seem to threatening a revolutionary war because we couldn't get rockets anyway. If we could get rockets, we probably would have the connections to get some more nifty fancy stuff-- like these lasers. The article doesn't go into how to design around a hit on the rocket -- think war head and the problem doesn't seem to be solved by this system; Or think gasseous payload. This is no magic bullet. It DOES seem like a nice way to keep our troops safe from conventional artilary, though!
Personally, I'm suspicious that this is more a PR thing that real alaysis of the situation. Given some obvious work arounds, why would a potential enemy get a heads up so soon? If we met up with a truely depsarate enemy that could manufacture arms of their own and had sufficiant disregard for human life, they could slap some thing on to rocket body that could slip through this system, or at least cause some collateral damage.
I'm tempted to think that either the private sector is close to this tech anyway, and so there's no use keeping it secret or it has other, more tactically useful uses, like covert detonation of arms depots. THAT is something you can't work around as easily.
The obvious defense is reflective coats, but then a stalite/plane can see it in a second -- bing -- target of opertunity. Even if you put a cloth cover over that coating you still have a building that reacts very differently to radioations of differing wavelengths. A satalite could tell that it aint-no-pile-o-rocks. The other is to use anything non-reflective, and then you can use black-body radiation to your advantage using a 2-4 person ghost team at 3 am. If they are low enough to the ground, the device's output would be tough to localize and you destroy a the arms fuling the oposition's war and don't kill many of their troops. Now THAT is a desirable outcome for most modern campaigns! Destroy the tools to wage war and keep the humans safe! More importantly, you DON'T put arms depots in a civilized area. You can't trust the local populous (spys) and in the Taliban's case, you REALLY can't trust the local populous.
Note that the above is me speculating while very sleepy. I didn't think too too deeply, so there may be some logical quirks, but you get the idea.
Hope this helps!
(Hope that makes sense...*yawn*... even when I preview this I'm bleary-eyed....)
ESI (Educational Services International) is a group that primarily teaches conversational English to countries with out a large monetary base. They also have a computer course they are working on. This is computer science more than "click here and a paperclip should appear." :-)
They are an evangelical group which means they are there to show the love of Christ via action. They are not a mass-evangelical group. The idea is that they do a good thing in God's name, and folks get curious and start looking at they why behind the actions. So, if you are a Christian, this is a very good group. They teach in Russia and China primarily, but the computer courses are based more in the near Eastern areas. Hope this helps!
Is it just me, or does this sound like one of the Macross Movies with the computer generated singer?
... and once we have this protocultur what do we do with the legacy culture???
Wille this give us protocultur...
Just some slight criticism:
Video games DO contain some really messed up concepts. Ratine systems provide parents with info so if there IS a real threat to a young child, then the parent can prevent the interaction.
The alternatives are not as "free" as rating systems unless you are suggesting that anything that goes on a store shelf is fit for a child to get in their mind.
The bottom line I think is that the cynicism was pretty inappropriate, IMHOP. I don'thave time to research video games and I don't want to say,"Nope, no video games for you kids, you may pick up a really nasty one by mistake." They should have some video games! They should NOT have Gore-Blaster IV: Chainsaw edition.
The cynisims implys that incorrect views (or some very irresponcible views) are held by some people.
If you run your feedline through a sufficiently hefty amplifier, I'm sure you could cook while surfing eliminating the need for a microwave! Fixing dinner would require at least an email check or two. :-) (Just don't stand to close...)
Doh... thanks (and sorry to those the previous post mislead)!
Optimization for a compiler is directed at chip-generation, not necessarily ISA's. Remember that FU latencies are the big problem in the pipeline, and since Transmeta is a RISC, this is kinda neat! :-)
Maybe arch-enemy isn't the best word for it (unless I"m mis-reading interpretting the political banter between the two).
Trans-meta makes a chip that supports the x86 architechture using code-mophing which is very VERY similar to micro-coding. It's acctually not a "new" idea, but it's a new method of an old idea which was a clever implementation of an older idea (the micro-code thing again).
Anyway, the bone of contension with Intel and Transmeta (as far as I understand it to be) is that Transmeta is shooting for an x86 architecture that is lowpower and quick. Low power is key because of embedded systems (which are growing fast, particularly with Linux as a foundation OS) and laptops just don't match the battery life I get from my G3 (hehehe. /me wintel free too. :-) )
Anyway, they both are shooting at the same market. Transmeta is touting power-savings (which if they can show moderate performance, makes them very tempting), especially in the new and upcoming wave of embedded systems. Why x86 ISA? Well, I guess it's because taking on Moterola isn't a smart idea with their already RISC chip ISAs and already VERY good power consumption.
As a side note, a lot of people would like to se the x86 architechture quietly dissappear because of hardware issues. Not "problems" but just bottlenecks and general house-cleaning has to be done before we have another VAX. :-) Well... it's not THAT bad... but it's a little ugly.
What I think is being pointed out is that on-cpu time will be shorter. This has some nice pluses to it, even if the kernel doesn't get the nice optimizations of it all. I would love a faster apache server, even if my kernel is (reletivly speaking) more pokey. :-)
Well, not to sound post-modernistic, but some of it lies in how you define the world. The reason I replied to the parent message is that the world "faith" has a horribly different meaning when you compare someone's definition of it (and hense, reasoning from it) with our use of the world. We use the world in language correctly, but we have this ill-concieved notion that faith has no reasoning behind it -- as if it were some randomly chosen point of view. A curosry look at history will show the folly in following ideas with out any reason! The dictionary does validate your definition as one of several meanings; it is a definition, but it is not exclusive to the idea of having some grounds for faith.
The Bible says that faith is having hope in what you do not see. Seeing does not mean we have no proof, it simply says that direct observation does not preclude something. It's the same idea as object-permenance in 1 year olds. Mom leaves the room, she no longer exists! I should cry. By age 4 we have a sort of faith (based on statistics) that Mom is coming back, and perhaps will have a cookie for me to snack on!
Well, the bottom line is that the faith should be grounded on some believed facts, or we are acting very irrationally. The dictionary does support both definitions, but I frankly am not interested in what I could mean -- I have said what I do mean. My faith, and faith in the context of my posts means there is a basis to it -- a set of axioms to the logic. You can see this in the form of DeCarte's work who doubted EVERYTHING up to his own existance, and worked from there and ended up with a God in the picture Any reilgion that requires blind faith is very very suspicious in it's accurate description of reality.
Why is an accurate description of reality importatnt? Because if there is a God that made this world, then this world reflects and ordered-systematic god. Looking at our world through science there is a LARGE amount of order to be seen... and ALL clustered here on Earth. We are a cosmic outlier, to be sure. If there is a god behind this universe, he is an ordered god. Any other source of creation would not create a universe like this. Why do I "know" that? Because of primitive logic. A being cannot be what they are not. A random god could not make an ordered world unless order was some where to be seen first. You have to convince yourself of the validity of this statement before you can go further with the reasoning. It sounds like double talk, but it's where we have to start. Once we lay all the foundational logic we have a world that MUST reflect who created it in some way. The Christian God is bound by his justice and holyness to punish us for bad things we do BUT is also love, and so has given us a way out. Note that God cannot compromise his justice, even the almighty Christian God. It breaks logic primitives, which necessarily breaches all existances. Random begets random; Good begets good etc etc. Breaking these statements requires post-modernistic reasoning (which you can form your own opinion as to the value of).
So by the previously stated, a religion that reflects a God that is of the same nature of this world is true. A religion that does not reflect this must either provide a reason WHY or it's wrong. The secular version of all this is a World View and it has 3 parts:
Where did we come from (purpose/meaning of life)
what's wrong with the world (if anything)
how do we fix it?
Well, that's far more than I wanted to write. I've tried to keep my opinions out of this because I really want to prompt the questions. You can prove some things about God, but true, his existance is a matter of faith. If you want a long list of reasons that do not prove this, but form a basis for faith in the Christian God, I can give you several book titles by some bright folks. CS Lewis is the traditional reccomendation, and provides entertaining prose to boot! His logic is great to read (if you like logic). It's akin to a Algorithms person googling over the beauty of merge sort. :-)
What people think of faith varies wildly too. Some believe that is it believing without reason, but faith must be based on some previous observation (or you have a groundless and worthless faith!).
If a doctor did a marvolous job of helping us with disease A and disease B, then we will surely think him able to do well against disease C. This is a matter of faith. There is no scientific principal that dictates that he will do well, but we think he should.
Sorry if I seem pedantic, but if I say I have faith in God, then I mean I have proof that the God I think is around is the one from the Christian Bible and this faith I have in him is for what hasn't yet happened. For example, I can give you no proof that Christ will come back and judge us, but I have faith that he will because of all the other things in the Bible that I am convicened are true.
Groundless faith won't stay challenges, especially in the IT/IT-education world. We're a trying bunch with matters we don't find logical (or at least reasonable). :-)