As the inventor of the Immortality Device, I basically just tell people what I honestly think. I think my device makes you immortal. And I am being honest. My proof is lots of people used the device and gave testimonials. If you don't accept testimonials as proofs, you won't accept any proof as proof.
Self-deception, unchecked (and obviously anti-common sense) scientific-sounding theories (with liberal religious jargon like "soul interspersed), and functionless merchandise. Alex Chui sells billions of dollars worth of merchandise a year. Along with the rest of the Alternative medicine crowd.
http://www.quackwatch.com/
What's really sad is not this lone wacko, but the thousands of people be they selling homeopathy, Accupuncture, or Aura/Touch/Aroma/Therapy. These non-healers all make their money the same way, by claiming testimonials are scientific evidence (they are not, and will never be), by claiming wierd non-scientific theories, which are wrong if anyone bothers to look closer than a cursory glance (but most people see the scientific-looking jargon and just stop reading further, satisfied that the producer of the non-remedy thought more about it than they will).
This man's business is just as wrong-headed as scientology. The only difference is that it is less popular. If he had his way, everyone would buy his immortality device, and would then buy his happiness stick, and his extacy food, and his, well, you get the idea.
He could be making up wierd, wrong, theories for his whole life, which is exactly what local tribal healers have always done, and which is why we live about twice as long as most of the ancient tribal cultures.
But these tribal doctors never really go away, and they have been brought, along with the gullable population, into a world in which most of the people can readily (through the general knowledge dispersal channels) see through such basic, stupid schemes to sell useless junk.
How many dreamcatchers have you bought?
This is what it all comes down to: As long as the internet can allow fraud like alex chiu's website and
http://www.scientology.com/
http://www.homeopathy.com/ to make their unchecked, wrong-headed, stupid scientific-sounding logic, than the population who tries to find out how to live forever will be denied finding THE REAL INFORMATION with search engines.
If half the internet information is lies, than will the internet ever really help advance mankind? Alex Chui was one of the first of a bad breed of liars to take their dis-services to the web. I hope it stops eventually.
I don't have to live 130 years in order to tell you what my device does. We gather scientific evidence (testimonials) in order to base our assumptions.
I think even if I did the research mentioned above, it would be a total waste of money because if those people don't believe in the testimonials, they won't believe in the research at all.
Well. I just carry this stuff as long as I can carry.
Shoot, he contradicts himself so many times, it's incredible. But what's worse is that he will keep on selling useless crap and dispensing useless theories and advice until someone stops him. (or people stop buying.) If he should go back to China, he'd be prosecuted there. America's too friendly to alternative-non therapies. But China could actually do something about him.
But what's really sad is the whole multi-billion dollar fraud-based industry in America.
Here's an idea: we build pyramids instead of graves. Sure it will cost the taxpayers and businesses more, but think of the extra money we can pay to the workers!
There's plenty of work for contractors to do in NYC, and the pipes can be exposed and repaired later. Give me a break!
And what do you think the difference between an old,rusty iron isulator for the fiber cable is and a new, shiny plastic one? Neither will be truly functional, just space holders to keep the other stuff out of the fiber system.
If Linux/BSD/MacOSX/Whatever is a better OS than Microsofts, then let them compete in the marketplace, not in the courts.
Red Hat, Macintosh, and some other OSes are for purchase at your local staples.
Please be advised not everyone wants to see a company destroyed just because they are a (sometimes mean and unfair) competitor. Maybe just hurt a little.
Doesn't the disclaimer say that "comments are owned by the poster?" Does that hold if the poster is anonymous or not?
I don't know. I wish I had the guts that the folks at www.xenu.net have. But I don't know if a "religion" like Scientology can be killed or hurt by the presence or absence of a comment on slashdot, but it can't hurt them to have the legal clout to remove a message.
Wonder if they'd remove mine if I had done the same...
Steve Milloy is an idiot:
http://skepdic.com/refuge/junkscience.html
has the specifics. He has a mind that automatically rejects any scientific study, real or false, which seems to threaten conservative, corporate interests as false by definition.
He rejects ALL studies against DDT while enthusiastically embracing pro-DDT stories. He rejects ALL studies supporting global warming, wrong or right, while accepting studies that are ambiguous or disagree with the Global Warming Theory. Why does he do this? Because he isn't interested in what's real and what isn't, he's just a conservative Rush Limbaugh type zealot who only sees what he wants to see.
I used to read his site, and for a while shared his simple-minded, market-oriented view of the world. But what we do affects others, whether it be second-hand smoking or supporting polluting companies. And regardless of his head-in-the-sand beliefs, we must be responsible to ourselves and our planet.
. How do you get a system that marks information sites as factual or not factual when the population-at-large can't even decide on what they think is factual?
Only have skeptical, scientific minds rate the information, and ignore other people who aren't as careful or scientific. "www.skepdic.com" is what I'm talking about.
Of course, this will tell you whether astrology works, whether zombies are real, and whether the person selling "make money fast from home with no effort" is really truly sincere. Which you may know anyway.
But if you want to know if quantum computing will be practical or who should be president or whether a Macintosh computer is faster doing calculations than your ibm compatable running windows or linux, then you've got to go fish.
-Ben
P.S. Also if you are a creationist, my advice would be to build an ark, wait for the flood, and then go fishing from your new boat. Or, accept that there is a REAL OBJECTIVE world outside all religions which you should live within. That should be what the internet ultimately achieves.
Slashdot isn't the best place for complete intellectual honesty and skeptically judging all claims scientifically. ("Linux is best" best for what? "Best for me now, workers soon, and eventually your grandmother. Open source is the answer, and will bring about a new cyber utopia where we all know everything and are free to do anything.") But it is differently biased and probably more free-thought accepting than, say, a MSDN site. Still, remember there is a real objective world outside of computers, operating systems, and even the internet, which we should try to learn more about.
That's what you get when you work for a contract on a project, and don't have paperwork to back it up! Next time get it in writing. Especially for security work.
And he's hardly the first youngster to get royally screwed this way by his teacher! It's only rare because it happened in High School and not College.
I mean, no company should have ANY rights as to their text being read aloud or not. If this holds up, our freedom of speech will literally be erased at a stroke! Corporate Bastards.
All right, for arguments sake, I MIGHT understand if a company said specific corporate secrets (like passwords) cannot be read aloud BY EMPLOYEES as a necessary security precaution (if they have reason to be really paranoid). But CONSUMERS getting BOOKS that the company demanding this DOESN'T HAVE EVEN COPYRIGHT ON? Does this, for example mean, that if I have the book in my right hand and the laptop in the other I can't speak because I might be reading from the laptop? Yes it does. It may also preclude analysis like reading "Once upon a time a princess picked flowers in a meadow" and saying out loud "A long time ago a young girl played in a field."
Let's face it, getting businesses to move is many times harder than getting people to move.
So let's make a "trademark free" zone like.discus where a person can register a domain like microsoft.ffa and NEVER be penalized for any otherwise legal content on there.
Surely, this system might take the sting off of people claiming guinessbeersucks.com must be taken back or they will go broke, so joe blow must give it back and has no rights to it. Just take guinessbeer.ffa and be set for life with your audience. Of course the corporations themselves would be prohibited from owning their own trademarks there.
Also, we still need a.kids and a.sex domain areas. I don't care if some people say "well what about artistic nudity, where should we put that?" Well, duh, figure it out on a case by case basis depending on standard law backed up by psychological study. Or just do it anyway you want to, already. I'm sick of the indecisiveness that makes kids suffer whitehouse.com while adults suffer a complete and total lack of knowledge of what to expect on the internet. If we can categorize into organizations and comercial traffic (already an extreemely fuzzy mix), we should go right ahead and categorize by topic, discussion, and appropriateness. It may not be great, but future filters won't have to worry about filtering out Dick Armey's website!
I consider this the only interesting point of discussion here.
We all brazenly assume people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. But I have always found the most "into-it" people, including me, have some trouble with reality.
Whether the people who play this way were out of touch with reality and therefore play compulsively, or simply play compulsively for another reason and then become out of touch with reality is interesting to me personally. I believe the first is closer to the truth.
Many other compulsive hobbies, like reading, poetry, other games, or obviously D&D other hobbies over the years have been used for these purposes. Video Games, in their current incarnation are only slightly more interactive and encompassing, though some would argue less so than D&D.
And I have always longed to find a way back there as a Java Software Engineer. Preferably a way with my current American Salary. Has anyone else successfully achieved this? It has always been my hope that someday I could bring my American expertise to a new venue and perhaps build websites or applications there for use around the world. But Australia would definately be a preferred work environment for me.
I agree. Why not simply have the form send an https e-mail directly to the third party e-mailer? (I'm sure clever people here can think of a better solution) That would be offering the best possible protection on the internet.
Many animals have the ability to see Ultraviolet and Infrared light. Humans don't. Why is it that species before us like apes, monkeys, and orangatangs never got this super-sight ability?
Maybe it just isn't as useful as we think it is. After the millions of years of evolution we have undergone, we've got pretty groovy bodies and senses as it is. Perhaps Tetrachromatic vision was just an also-ran in the procession of senses that made it to the current draft.
It's possible that it would confuse, add little, and otherwise mess up our ability to see the world. Sure Infrared would kick ass for seeing though solid objects and at night, but there is also a possibility it would be too much of a good thing. Maybe hearing or smell was just more useful than these abilities. The brain cannot efficiently listen on all channels of reality. It has 3 or so channels for hearing and sight, 4 for taste and smell, and maybe 4 channels for touch. (a total of 21) Maybe another channel fed into the brain would overload it in many circumstances and therefore make a person less functional than, say, a trichromat who really used those senses well. Perhaps if we could shut off any new senses more selectively...
We are talking about human rights, whether the humans use the net or not - mandatory recording of all web use by all ISPs is a travesty of justice. It's like forcing all shopkeepers to mount cameras on their doorways in case any store gets robbed. I don't want to live in a completely monitored society online or off just yet.
We fought the good fight - and we won concessions.
And then we could build a beowulf cluster of these!
Goodbye Karma.
A large, networked system of analog neurons might just do the trick here as for creating a system with the intellegence of a mouse. But absent any good way to deliver, register, and respond to stimulus, this would be one crazy machine. It simply wouldn't have enough information to act, any way to deal with information sent to it, or any way to figure out whether its actions were appropriate or inappropriate (it would need a complex systems of rewards and punishments and some sort of inherant internal mapping of neurons to stimuli and responses.) To wit, experiments have shown that if you cluster a bunch of analog neurons together, it will think random thoughts until you bother to shut it off.
Plus it would need to "eat", self-repair, purge unneeded inputs (both by discarding unsupported hypothesises [Is this a cat? It does not look like a cat. It is not a cat.] and if it eats it will have to poop), and eventually defend itself against hazards. In other words, mice will be "better" for a long long time.
If we found and studied one then the theory could be proven. Or disproved. Yes, it would probably require a jurassic-park like experiment to figure this out, but that may be doable. (or not)
Many important biological issues are brought up by the gigantism of dinosaurs. Many people have theories that they were not erect, or smart, or fast, or land-based, or that they were warm or cold-blooded. But they are just theories. Nothing will be proven until we actually see one in action. Other than birds, we simply do not have any huge lizards around to find out about.
Also, millions of years ago, we believe the air was much warmer (which might have led to more land being underwater, or not). But, the air pressure may have been vastly different, the tree height different, the foliage different, the predators different. We don't know, except that probably a lot WAS IN FACT different from how the Earth now is.
So until we know the basics, like ambient air pressure, we cannot know what the dinosaurs were like. (If the air pressure was higher, and therefore the atmostphere thicker and more bouyant, then gigantism would be easier to achieve.)
The elections were all fixed by a huge computer somewhere which tabulates based on closed-source code. Horrors!
It must be rigging the polls and primaries and other things too, spontaneously deciding if the democrats or republicans should be in charge, based on... uh...
I wouldn't really know who else but the combined efforts of all the people of America capable of pulling off a vote heist like that. This is ludicrous and NOT interesting. Modern daily poll tracking does more than just annoy, it also shows exactly where votes are. And no tabulating machines are used everywhere, which makes this system impossible to enact. There are so many reasons why this would not work in reality.
Why vote Nader if you don't want him to be President?
What is his stance on why he should be Commander in Chief? Why does he deserve to command foreign policy? What would he do as President to overcome his low stature as a diplomat? How will he work with a congress divided between two parties he has no influence in?
No! This is not a time to protest-vote, not for me anyway. If I vote for a man to be President, he should in some way resemble a national leader with an ability to conduct foreign, not just national, policy. I will vote _only_ for someone I want to actually be President. Not this populist gadfly who I simply cannot take seriously.
Corporate America loves this stuff. Now we are even more beholden to the large companies with copyrights on many different items. All large companies with lots of copyrights have more options now. They can raise the price on their books or software, and heavily prosecute everyone who doesn't buy their stuff but tries to steal it. There is no public good to this law. Much like the USPTO, congress no longer follow their charter of being OUR servants. They are the servants of the corporations with the money.
And is anyone wonderring why corporations seem to be owning more and more of America? Most of you work for big companies. Buy stuff made from big companies, pay extra for their entertainment and services. I see that trend continuing, perhaps forever. If we can't mount an effective defense to laws like this, the laws will only get worse (like the cybercrimes treaty). Soon the only legal activities will be company sponsored and expensive. Perhaps this is because of human over-expansion (there is less space "outside" to play in, everything is over-crowded and therefore "fun" and "recreation" tends to be controlled, indoors, and will encroach on someone elses space who will gladly charge for your activities). I don't see these trends reversing. As the Earth gets more crowded, we are losing more freedom (ostensibly to companies, but that's only because they make the movies,games, and tv shows and we can no longer take a vacation to escape. Not enough free spacce.) Globally, this decrease in personal freedom will continue as we run out of space to do things in.
According to @Home,
"These are our confidential and copyrighted documents shared with our cable partners and not intended for the public."
What reason do we have to disbelieve them? If Wesley could claim freedom of speech, it's trumped by confidentiality and copyright law!
Surely you must admit the law is not on Wesley's side.
Unless, perhaps, he was a journalist, and was acting under freedom of the press. Is he a journalist, or a speaker? Seems like a speaker to me. Still, noone should doubt where the law stands. (Firmly on the side of those with the money).
Slashdot Mirror
Self-deception, unchecked (and obviously anti-common sense) scientific-sounding theories (with liberal religious jargon like "soul interspersed), and functionless merchandise. Alex Chui sells billions of dollars worth of merchandise a year. Along with the rest of the Alternative medicine crowd.
http://www.quackwatch.com/
What's really sad is not this lone wacko, but the thousands of people be they selling homeopathy, Accupuncture, or Aura/Touch/Aroma/Therapy. These non-healers all make their money the same way, by claiming testimonials are scientific evidence (they are not, and will never be), by claiming wierd non-scientific theories, which are wrong if anyone bothers to look closer than a cursory glance (but most people see the scientific-looking jargon and just stop reading further, satisfied that the producer of the non-remedy thought more about it than they will).
This man's business is just as wrong-headed as scientology. The only difference is that it is less popular. If he had his way, everyone would buy his immortality device, and would then buy his happiness stick, and his extacy food, and his, well, you get the idea. He could be making up wierd, wrong, theories for his whole life, which is exactly what local tribal healers have always done, and which is why we live about twice as long as most of the ancient tribal cultures.
But these tribal doctors never really go away, and they have been brought, along with the gullable population, into a world in which most of the people can readily (through the general knowledge dispersal channels) see through such basic, stupid schemes to sell useless junk.
How many dreamcatchers have you bought?
This is what it all comes down to: As long as the internet can allow fraud like alex chiu's website and http://www.scientology.com/ http://www.homeopathy.com/ to make their unchecked, wrong-headed, stupid scientific-sounding logic, than the population who tries to find out how to live forever will be denied finding THE REAL INFORMATION with search engines.
If half the internet information is lies, than will the internet ever really help advance mankind? Alex Chui was one of the first of a bad breed of liars to take their dis-services to the web. I hope it stops eventually.
-Ben
I don't have to live 130 years in order to tell you what my device does. We gather scientific evidence (testimonials) in order to base our assumptions.
I think even if I did the research mentioned above, it would be a total waste of money because if those people don't believe in the testimonials, they won't believe in the research at all.
Well. I just carry this stuff as long as I can carry.
Shoot, he contradicts himself so many times, it's incredible. But what's worse is that he will keep on selling useless crap and dispensing useless theories and advice until someone stops him. (or people stop buying.) If he should go back to China, he'd be prosecuted there. America's too friendly to alternative-non therapies. But China could actually do something about him.
But what's really sad is the whole multi-billion dollar fraud-based industry in America.
-Ben
Here's an idea: we build pyramids instead of graves. Sure it will cost the taxpayers and businesses more, but think of the extra money we can pay to the workers!
There's plenty of work for contractors to do in NYC, and the pipes can be exposed and repaired later. Give me a break!
And what do you think the difference between an old,rusty iron isulator for the fiber cable is and a new, shiny plastic one? Neither will be truly functional, just space holders to keep the other stuff out of the fiber system.
-Ben
If Linux/BSD/MacOSX/Whatever is a better OS than Microsofts, then let them compete in the marketplace, not in the courts.
Red Hat, Macintosh, and some other OSes are for purchase at your local staples.
Please be advised not everyone wants to see a company destroyed just because they are a (sometimes mean and unfair) competitor. Maybe just hurt a little.
-Ben
Doesn't the disclaimer say that "comments are owned by the poster?" Does that hold if the poster is anonymous or not?
I don't know. I wish I had the guts that the folks at www.xenu.net have. But I don't know if a "religion" like Scientology can be killed or hurt by the presence or absence of a comment on slashdot, but it can't hurt them to have the legal clout to remove a message.
Wonder if they'd remove mine if I had done the same...
-Ben
Mopeds.
-Ben
Steve Milloy is an idiot:
http://skepdic.com/refuge/junkscience.html
has the specifics. He has a mind that automatically rejects any scientific study, real or false, which seems to threaten conservative, corporate interests as false by definition.
He rejects ALL studies against DDT while enthusiastically embracing pro-DDT stories. He rejects ALL studies supporting global warming, wrong or right, while accepting studies that are ambiguous or disagree with the Global Warming Theory. Why does he do this? Because he isn't interested in what's real and what isn't, he's just a conservative Rush Limbaugh type zealot who only sees what he wants to see.
I used to read his site, and for a while shared his simple-minded, market-oriented view of the world. But what we do affects others, whether it be second-hand smoking or supporting polluting companies. And regardless of his head-in-the-sand beliefs, we must be responsible to ourselves and our planet.
-Ben
. How do you get a system that marks information sites as factual or not factual when the population-at-large can't even decide on what they think is factual?
Only have skeptical, scientific minds rate the information, and ignore other people who aren't as careful or scientific. "www.skepdic.com" is what I'm talking about.
Of course, this will tell you whether astrology works, whether zombies are real, and whether the person selling "make money fast from home with no effort" is really truly sincere. Which you may know anyway.
But if you want to know if quantum computing will be practical or who should be president or whether a Macintosh computer is faster doing calculations than your ibm compatable running windows or linux, then you've got to go fish.
-Ben
P.S. Also if you are a creationist, my advice would be to build an ark, wait for the flood, and then go fishing from your new boat. Or, accept that there is a REAL OBJECTIVE world outside all religions which you should live within. That should be what the internet ultimately achieves.
Slashdot isn't the best place for complete intellectual honesty and skeptically judging all claims scientifically. ("Linux is best" best for what? "Best for me now, workers soon, and eventually your grandmother. Open source is the answer, and will bring about a new cyber utopia where we all know everything and are free to do anything.") But it is differently biased and probably more free-thought accepting than, say, a MSDN site. Still, remember there is a real objective world outside of computers, operating systems, and even the internet, which we should try to learn more about.
That's what you get when you work for a contract on a project, and don't have paperwork to back it up! Next time get it in writing. Especially for security work.
And he's hardly the first youngster to get royally screwed this way by his teacher! It's only rare because it happened in High School and not College.
-Ben
http://www.skepdic.com/auras.html
-Ben
I mean, no company should have ANY rights as to their text being read aloud or not. If this holds up, our freedom of speech will literally be erased at a stroke! Corporate Bastards.
All right, for arguments sake, I MIGHT understand if a company said specific corporate secrets (like passwords) cannot be read aloud BY EMPLOYEES as a necessary security precaution (if they have reason to be really paranoid). But CONSUMERS getting BOOKS that the company demanding this DOESN'T HAVE EVEN COPYRIGHT ON? Does this, for example mean, that if I have the book in my right hand and the laptop in the other I can't speak because I might be reading from the laptop? Yes it does. It may also preclude analysis like reading "Once upon a time a princess picked flowers in a meadow" and saying out loud "A long time ago a young girl played in a field."
Corporate Bastards.
-Ben
Let's face it, getting businesses to move is many times harder than getting people to move.
.discus where a person can register a domain like microsoft.ffa and NEVER be penalized for any otherwise legal content on there.
.kids and a .sex domain areas. I don't care if some people say "well what about artistic nudity, where should we put that?" Well, duh, figure it out on a case by case basis depending on standard law backed up by psychological study. Or just do it anyway you want to, already. I'm sick of the indecisiveness that makes kids suffer whitehouse.com while adults suffer a complete and total lack of knowledge of what to expect on the internet. If we can categorize into organizations and comercial traffic (already an extreemely fuzzy mix), we should go right ahead and categorize by topic, discussion, and appropriateness. It may not be great, but future filters won't have to worry about filtering out Dick Armey's website!
So let's make a "trademark free" zone like
Surely, this system might take the sting off of people claiming guinessbeersucks.com must be taken back or they will go broke, so joe blow must give it back and has no rights to it. Just take guinessbeer.ffa and be set for life with your audience. Of course the corporations themselves would be prohibited from owning their own trademarks there.
Also, we still need a
-Ben
I consider this the only interesting point of discussion here.
We all brazenly assume people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. But I have always found the most "into-it" people, including me, have some trouble with reality.
Whether the people who play this way were out of touch with reality and therefore play compulsively, or simply play compulsively for another reason and then become out of touch with reality is interesting to me personally. I believe the first is closer to the truth.
Many other compulsive hobbies, like reading, poetry, other games, or obviously D&D other hobbies over the years have been used for these purposes. Video Games, in their current incarnation are only slightly more interactive and encompassing, though some would argue less so than D&D.
-Ben
And I have always longed to find a way back there as a Java Software Engineer. Preferably a way with my current American Salary. Has anyone else successfully achieved this? It has always been my hope that someday I could bring my American expertise to a new venue and perhaps build websites or applications there for use around the world. But Australia would definately be a preferred work environment for me.
-Ben
I agree. Why not simply have the form send an https e-mail directly to the third party e-mailer? (I'm sure clever people here can think of a better solution) That would be offering the best possible protection on the internet.
-Ben
Many animals have the ability to see Ultraviolet and Infrared light. Humans don't. Why is it that species before us like apes, monkeys, and orangatangs never got this super-sight ability?
Maybe it just isn't as useful as we think it is. After the millions of years of evolution we have undergone, we've got pretty groovy bodies and senses as it is. Perhaps Tetrachromatic vision was just an also-ran in the procession of senses that made it to the current draft.
It's possible that it would confuse, add little, and otherwise mess up our ability to see the world. Sure Infrared would kick ass for seeing though solid objects and at night, but there is also a possibility it would be too much of a good thing. Maybe hearing or smell was just more useful than these abilities. The brain cannot efficiently listen on all channels of reality. It has 3 or so channels for hearing and sight, 4 for taste and smell, and maybe 4 channels for touch. (a total of 21) Maybe another channel fed into the brain would overload it in many circumstances and therefore make a person less functional than, say, a trichromat who really used those senses well. Perhaps if we could shut off any new senses more selectively...
-Ben
It's one of the most expensive and best fireworks show ever!
Personally I was getting tired of the up-again down-again yo-yoing of Mir.
-Ben
We can't let the good fight go unreported.
We are talking about human rights, whether the humans use the net or not - mandatory recording of all web use by all ISPs is a travesty of justice. It's like forcing all shopkeepers to mount cameras on their doorways in case any store gets robbed. I don't want to live in a completely monitored society online or off just yet.
We fought the good fight - and we won concessions.
-Ben
And then we could build a beowulf cluster of these!
Goodbye Karma.
A large, networked system of analog neurons might just do the trick here as for creating a system with the intellegence of a mouse. But absent any good way to deliver, register, and respond to stimulus, this would be one crazy machine. It simply wouldn't have enough information to act, any way to deal with information sent to it, or any way to figure out whether its actions were appropriate or inappropriate (it would need a complex systems of rewards and punishments and some sort of inherant internal mapping of neurons to stimuli and responses.) To wit, experiments have shown that if you cluster a bunch of analog neurons together, it will think random thoughts until you bother to shut it off.
Plus it would need to "eat", self-repair, purge unneeded inputs (both by discarding unsupported hypothesises [Is this a cat? It does not look like a cat. It is not a cat.] and if it eats it will have to poop), and eventually defend itself against hazards. In other words, mice will be "better" for a long long time.
-Ben
If we found and studied one then the theory could be proven. Or disproved. Yes, it would probably require a jurassic-park like experiment to figure this out, but that may be doable. (or not)
-Ben
Many important biological issues are brought up by the gigantism of dinosaurs. Many people have theories that they were not erect, or smart, or fast, or land-based, or that they were warm or cold-blooded. But they are just theories. Nothing will be proven until we actually see one in action. Other than birds, we simply do not have any huge lizards around to find out about.
Also, millions of years ago, we believe the air was much warmer (which might have led to more land being underwater, or not). But, the air pressure may have been vastly different, the tree height different, the foliage different, the predators different. We don't know, except that probably a lot WAS IN FACT different from how the Earth now is.
So until we know the basics, like ambient air pressure, we cannot know what the dinosaurs were like. (If the air pressure was higher, and therefore the atmostphere thicker and more bouyant, then gigantism would be easier to achieve.)
Maybe not. We don't know.
-Ben
The elections were all fixed by a huge computer somewhere which tabulates based on closed-source code. Horrors!
It must be rigging the polls and primaries and other things too, spontaneously deciding if the democrats or republicans should be in charge, based on... uh...
I wouldn't really know who else but the combined efforts of all the people of America capable of pulling off a vote heist like that. This is ludicrous and NOT interesting. Modern daily poll tracking does more than just annoy, it also shows exactly where votes are. And no tabulating machines are used everywhere, which makes this system impossible to enact. There are so many reasons why this would not work in reality.
-Ben
Why vote Nader if you don't want him to be President?
What is his stance on why he should be Commander in Chief? Why does he deserve to command foreign policy? What would he do as President to overcome his low stature as a diplomat? How will he work with a congress divided between two parties he has no influence in?
No! This is not a time to protest-vote, not for me anyway. If I vote for a man to be President, he should in some way resemble a national leader with an ability to conduct foreign, not just national, policy. I will vote _only_ for someone I want to actually be President. Not this populist gadfly who I simply cannot take seriously.
-Ben
Corporate America loves this stuff. Now we are even more beholden to the large companies with copyrights on many different items. All large companies with lots of copyrights have more options now. They can raise the price on their books or software, and heavily prosecute everyone who doesn't buy their stuff but tries to steal it. There is no public good to this law. Much like the USPTO, congress no longer follow their charter of being OUR servants. They are the servants of the corporations with the money.
And is anyone wonderring why corporations seem to be owning more and more of America? Most of you work for big companies. Buy stuff made from big companies, pay extra for their entertainment and services. I see that trend continuing, perhaps forever. If we can't mount an effective defense to laws like this, the laws will only get worse (like the cybercrimes treaty). Soon the only legal activities will be company sponsored and expensive. Perhaps this is because of human over-expansion (there is less space "outside" to play in, everything is over-crowded and therefore "fun" and "recreation" tends to be controlled, indoors, and will encroach on someone elses space who will gladly charge for your activities). I don't see these trends reversing. As the Earth gets more crowded, we are losing more freedom (ostensibly to companies, but that's only because they make the movies,games, and tv shows and we can no longer take a vacation to escape. Not enough free spacce.) Globally, this decrease in personal freedom will continue as we run out of space to do things in.
-Ben
According to @Home,
"These are our confidential and copyrighted documents shared with our cable partners and not intended for the public."
What reason do we have to disbelieve them? If Wesley could claim freedom of speech, it's trumped by confidentiality and copyright law!
Surely you must admit the law is not on Wesley's side.
Unless, perhaps, he was a journalist, and was acting under freedom of the press. Is he a journalist, or a speaker? Seems like a speaker to me. Still, noone should doubt where the law stands. (Firmly on the side of those with the money).
-Ben