Spot on, it's basically a modern version of Friends with a few popular science references. It's not about science, it's character and relationship-based and easily digestible.
Without military force, [they] developed the art of religious coercion and control, and the Roman empire eventually became the Holy Roman empire.
Perceptions are interesting, my understanding was completely the reverse, that as the empire declined the church had to pick up the slack of looking after the population, and so developed the attributes of a state rather than being a pacifist religion.
And the money continued to flow to Rome, for centuries....
A good point, it helps explains how the empire survived for centuries after its territory had ceased expanding. I think we see the same effects today within former colonial powers like Britain and France. The trade connections don't disappear just because they no longer officially own the country.
the myth tells people what they want to hear: A good morality tale, supporting their own particular morality.
To be fair we're all subject to this. Everyone has a particular understanding of how the world, and people, work, borne of years of experience. Any story that goes against our understanding is naturally suspect, and rightly so in most cases. Imagine if you adjusted your view of the world to accommodate every Facebook story on the miracles of coconut oil or what have you.
The people of Crimea however should get to decide where Crimea goes. The only thing Russia can do is either offer to annex or refuse to offer to annex if the Crimean people wish to be part of Russia.
How far should this be taken? Should the majority-Ukrainian sub-districts within Crimea get to decide if their sub-district is part of Ukraine or Russia? How about individual Ukrainian households within Russian-dominated sub-districts?
Managing populations is messy and there is no clear moral principle around geography, but Crimea was a Ukrainian state, under a constitution that required a nation-wide referendum. The question is, at what point are things so bad that you should violate another country's sovereignty?
Russia clearly did more than offering to annex. They actually ran the referendum after sending their military in semi-covertly, ensuring history books will forever question the legitimacy of the vote.
It is actually about 'playing in' the wood. This is more noticeable with acoustic guitars (and violins) - they will sound radically better after even a few months of playing due to the vibrations changing the wood. I suspect it softens the wood allowing the instrument to vibrate better across its entire mass but don't know the details.
There are diminishing returns, and I do agree that thinking a 70 year old guitar is intrinsically better than a 5 year old guitar is mostly psychological.
If you actually believe in people's rights to have private views that are not acceptable to some, then you have to accept that they will take action based on those views. That's the whole point of having views and protecting people's non-mainstream opinions right?
This would be insightful if you clarified that you meant political action. Clearly, you are not allowed to physically disrupt a legal gay wedding any more than you can lynch a black person simply because your views call for it.
But I do agree, there's no point in saying "this is a democracy, so you are free to believe A so long as you never tell any one nor act on it". Future mind-reading tech would soon reveal what that 'liberty' was really worth.
Sort of, the problem is that the people don't want their leaders to represent all of society. They want them to hold the same personal beliefs they do and really believe in their agenda. So we get
"The only clear solution is X, because of A, B and C. Opposing arguments D, E and F are completely stupid and my political opponents are crazy." instead of
"I have come up with a solution I believe is the best compromise for all parties. It is a slightly better compromise than my opponent's."
You will note that in the ideal situation, personal beliefs are irrelevant. Eich was not in an ideal workplace.
Don't anti-discrimination hiring laws override freedom of association for businesses? A business can't refuse to hire a qualified employee, whether CEO or cleaner, based on their race, religion, sexual orientation or political views, so it makes little sense to boycott a company for following this law.
Any criticism could damage their reputation, their ability to get work
The argument is that people should be allowed to express opinions and criticise opposing opinions, but not discriminate in hiring practices based on those opinions (this is professionalism). You are trying to argue this is an inconsistent position because people will discriminate and therefore, by their own argument, criticism could not be allowed either. It doesn't follow, it's a confusion of 'should' and 'will'.
What you are actually trying to argue is that some opinions are so blatantly wrong or harmful that they should be banned, or at least not be able to be publicly expressed, and that non-discrimination policies should not apply to those opinions.
People blithely unaware they're acting much the same as those who opposed civil rights laws in the first place.
I don't think it's hypocritical be to 'intolerant of intolerance', but you're spot on here.
Ironically, the Mozilla employees calling for his resignation have actually created a discriminatory workplace. He is a single employee at the company whose political/religious views led him to make a private donation. The fact that his role is CEO is irrelevant. The employees are saying "We want our hiring policies to discriminate based on political and religious views".
The question is, what is it tracking? Money has intrinsic value because it is useful, so this has the possibility to distort the 4 goats = 1 cow equation. There's also the problem that bartering can occur. Maybe this circumvents the tracking, but I think of money as an IOU, so you could say it tracks debt (which doesn't change when bartering happens).
observations of the atmosphere at all levels show warming consistent with even decades-old models of AGW
This is surprising as old models cannot take into account recent efforts to reduce emissions, or at least reduce the rate of increase of emissions.
Unless of course all that policy has had a negligible effect, but that can't be right - a quick scan of my local supermarket reveals that 90% of products are now environmentally friendly.
Sort of related. If I add some meaningless drivel here then slashdot won't consider my comment to have too few characters per line. Somewhat ironic that a story about elegant code forces code to be condensed onto less lines.
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int i;
switch (argc - 1) { case 0: printf("No args\n"); break;
case 1: printf("One arg\n"); if (strcmp(argv[1], "hello") == 0) { printf("Hello yourself!\n"); break;
for(i = 0; i < 5; ++i) { case 2: printf("Two args\n"); } break;
case 3: printf("Three args\n"); break;
default: printf("More args than I can count\n"); break; } }
Interesting update, I do wonder if Russia is shooting itself in the foot by taking Crimea. Without them, surely the chances of Ukraine electing a Russian-sympathetic government would drop?
This seems completely opposite to reality to me. The extra control and input flexibility that comes from a keyboard and mouse allows for a greater variety of games, notably MMORPGs and RTSs, which have very little presence on consoles. Consoles are mostly for FPSs and racing games.
I believe almost all CAD and 3D modelling software are OpenGL based.
Probably true. I work on software with a CAD focus and we use Direct3D only because of misinformation. The product was converted from a custom language with C (and OpenGL) to.NET, and the designers at the time were given the impression by Microsoft that OpenGL would shortly be deprecated under.NET.
Ironically, Microsoft actually deprecated Managed DirectX so we rewrote in managed C++.
Actually cats will purr when they are about to die (e.g. fatally wounded or ill, when they have given up). On music by animals in general it's hard to say, since humans use music as art/entertainment. Most animal 'music' is more for communication or attracting a mate, but of course you could say that's really what human art is about too (as the musicians you met during your bar gigging years would no doubt attest).
It's not a DISlike of music, it's just no interest.
This is popping up a bit and is very interesting since usually I've heard the opposite story - people actively dislike music because it tells them how they should feel.
To me music taps into something primal within our understanding of sound. The reaction to sudden, loud notes after a quiet passage is probably the most obvious example that we can link to our survival experience, but all languages have their own musical elements (prosody) and some are even tonal, where the pitch alters the meaning of the word. This is why it seems musical appreciation should be universal.
So a question, do you understand the emotional content of music and simply not care (that sounds almost paradoxical), or is the lack of interest from not being able to 'parse' it? If you understand it, to what extent? If not, how does this apply to lanuages? For example, do you fail to find French beautiful and German harsh, and how do you fare at picking up tone in spoken language?
By that logic, we should mandate a pay gap. If women are paid 25% less than men it will make motherhood much more attractive.
I do agree with Xest however. Unless we want to return to resource wars (well, obvious ones) the world population has to level out and perhaps reduce. Currently this is predicted to occur around 2050. We're probably going to have to get used to a different standard of living. Of some irony is the fact that feminism, with women entering the workforce, has propped up economic growth over the past 7 decades.
It's a philosophical term meaning the same level of consciousness/dignity etc. Related to the sense of right and wrong, but more stemming from the notion that morality is what sets humans apart from other creatures.
Firstly, so many people drink shit coffee that how you make it is irrelevant
Yep, I'm cringing reading through this discussion of Americans debating which coffee is best.
What's next, Canadians arguing over whether the most offensive word is "damn" or "bum"?
Karma-burning out of the way, what you describe sounds like it would be very mild coffee, poured quickly over the grounds rather than steeped? Typically coffee snobs go for Italian espresso which is far stronger. The principles are;
1. Beans must be fresh. One week after roasting is the optimal time (the beans de-gas), and they should be ground on demand. Supermarket beans are often sitting there for months.
2. The grinder is more important than the machine. You want a very consistent grind that doesn't raise the heat of the beans. So saying I've A/B-ed an expensive burr grinder with a cheap one and couldn't notice the difference in the end cup.
Another interesting style is Toddy's cold-brewed. You simply place a lot of grounds in a large plunger, fill it with cold water and leave it in the fridge for 12 hours. Plunge and pour into another container, keeping the coffee in the fridge (stays fresh for a week) to use as a base. Pour some into your cup, heat in the microwave and add milk and sugar as desired. Because it was extracted with cold water the taste is incredibly smooth with very little bitterness.
Gendered words have the purpose of reinforcing the sound of the word or phrase, like alliteration, since typically the gender of nouns and articles/adjectives agree. The notion of gender loses meaning when applied to neutral things like cars, but the assignment is typically done based on the spelling of the word, not arbitrarily.
Slashdot Mirror
Spot on, it's basically a modern version of Friends with a few popular science references. It's not about science, it's character and relationship-based and easily digestible.
Without military force, [they] developed the art of religious coercion and control, and the Roman empire eventually became the Holy Roman empire.
Perceptions are interesting, my understanding was completely the reverse, that as the empire declined the church had to pick up the slack of looking after the population, and so developed the attributes of a state rather than being a pacifist religion.
And the money continued to flow to Rome, for centuries....
A good point, it helps explains how the empire survived for centuries after its territory had ceased expanding. I think we see the same effects today within former colonial powers like Britain and France. The trade connections don't disappear just because they no longer officially own the country.
the myth tells people what they want to hear: A good morality tale, supporting their own particular morality.
To be fair we're all subject to this. Everyone has a particular understanding of how the world, and people, work, borne of years of experience. Any story that goes against our understanding is naturally suspect, and rightly so in most cases. Imagine if you adjusted your view of the world to accommodate every Facebook story on the miracles of coconut oil or what have you.
The people of Crimea however should get to decide where Crimea goes. The only thing Russia can do is either offer to annex or refuse to offer to annex if the Crimean people wish to be part of Russia.
How far should this be taken? Should the majority-Ukrainian sub-districts within Crimea get to decide if their sub-district is part of Ukraine or Russia? How about individual Ukrainian households within Russian-dominated sub-districts?
Managing populations is messy and there is no clear moral principle around geography, but Crimea was a Ukrainian state, under a constitution that required a nation-wide referendum. The question is, at what point are things so bad that you should violate another country's sovereignty?
Russia clearly did more than offering to annex. They actually ran the referendum after sending their military in semi-covertly, ensuring history books will forever question the legitimacy of the vote.
It is actually about 'playing in' the wood. This is more noticeable with acoustic guitars (and violins) - they will sound radically better after even a few months of playing due to the vibrations changing the wood. I suspect it softens the wood allowing the instrument to vibrate better across its entire mass but don't know the details.
There are diminishing returns, and I do agree that thinking a 70 year old guitar is intrinsically better than a 5 year old guitar is mostly psychological.
since even passing the sound over an HDMI link will cause the signal to be degraded
Can you explain this? I would have thought the signal would remain digital and at its original sampling rate.
If you actually believe in people's rights to have private views that are not acceptable to some, then you have to accept that they will take action based on those views. That's the whole point of having views and protecting people's non-mainstream opinions right?
This would be insightful if you clarified that you meant political action. Clearly, you are not allowed to physically disrupt a legal gay wedding any more than you can lynch a black person simply because your views call for it.
But I do agree, there's no point in saying "this is a democracy, so you are free to believe A so long as you never tell any one nor act on it". Future mind-reading tech would soon reveal what that 'liberty' was really worth.
Sort of, the problem is that the people don't want their leaders to represent all of society. They want them to hold the same personal beliefs they do and really believe in their agenda. So we get
"The only clear solution is X, because of A, B and C. Opposing arguments D, E and F are completely stupid and my political opponents are crazy." instead of
"I have come up with a solution I believe is the best compromise for all parties. It is a slightly better compromise than my opponent's."
You will note that in the ideal situation, personal beliefs are irrelevant. Eich was not in an ideal workplace.
Don't anti-discrimination hiring laws override freedom of association for businesses? A business can't refuse to hire a qualified employee, whether CEO or cleaner, based on their race, religion, sexual orientation or political views, so it makes little sense to boycott a company for following this law.
Any criticism could damage their reputation, their ability to get work
The argument is that people should be allowed to express opinions and criticise opposing opinions, but not discriminate in hiring practices based on those opinions (this is professionalism). You are trying to argue this is an inconsistent position because people will discriminate and therefore, by their own argument, criticism could not be allowed either. It doesn't follow, it's a confusion of 'should' and 'will'.
What you are actually trying to argue is that some opinions are so blatantly wrong or harmful that they should be banned, or at least not be able to be publicly expressed, and that non-discrimination policies should not apply to those opinions.
People blithely unaware they're acting much the same as those who opposed civil rights laws in the first place.
I don't think it's hypocritical be to 'intolerant of intolerance', but you're spot on here.
Ironically, the Mozilla employees calling for his resignation have actually created a discriminatory workplace. He is a single employee at the company whose political/religious views led him to make a private donation. The fact that his role is CEO is irrelevant. The employees are saying "We want our hiring policies to discriminate based on political and religious views".
Money is merely a tracking device
The question is, what is it tracking? Money has intrinsic value because it is useful, so this has the possibility to distort the 4 goats = 1 cow equation. There's also the problem that bartering can occur. Maybe this circumvents the tracking, but I think of money as an IOU, so you could say it tracks debt (which doesn't change when bartering happens).
observations of the atmosphere at all levels show warming consistent with even decades-old models of AGW
This is surprising as old models cannot take into account recent efforts to reduce emissions, or at least reduce the rate of increase of emissions.
Unless of course all that policy has had a negligible effect, but that can't be right - a quick scan of my local supermarket reveals that 90% of products are now environmentally friendly.
Sort of related. If I add some meaningless drivel here then slashdot won't consider my comment to have too few characters per line. Somewhat ironic that a story about elegant code forces code to be condensed onto less lines.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int i;
switch (argc - 1)
{
case 0:
printf("No args\n");
break;
case 1:
printf("One arg\n");
if (strcmp(argv[1], "hello") == 0)
{
printf("Hello yourself!\n");
break;
for(i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
{
case 2:
printf("Two args\n");
}
break;
case 3:
printf("Three args\n");
break;
default:
printf("More args than I can count\n");
break;
}
}
return 0;
}
Honestly not sure what to think of the guy. On the one hand he's suppressing free speech, but on the other he's blocking Twitter.
Interesting update, I do wonder if Russia is shooting itself in the foot by taking Crimea. Without them, surely the chances of Ukraine electing a Russian-sympathetic government would drop?
This seems completely opposite to reality to me. The extra control and input flexibility that comes from a keyboard and mouse allows for a greater variety of games, notably MMORPGs and RTSs, which have very little presence on consoles. Consoles are mostly for FPSs and racing games.
I believe almost all CAD and 3D modelling software are OpenGL based.
Probably true. I work on software with a CAD focus and we use Direct3D only because of misinformation. The product was converted from a custom language with C (and OpenGL) to .NET, and the designers at the time were given the impression by Microsoft that OpenGL would shortly be deprecated under .NET.
Ironically, Microsoft actually deprecated Managed DirectX so we rewrote in managed C++.
The last prick it played
I see you did not feel the need to correct this line :)
They don't purr when they are upset do they?
Actually cats will purr when they are about to die (e.g. fatally wounded or ill, when they have given up). On music by animals in general it's hard to say, since humans use music as art/entertainment. Most animal 'music' is more for communication or attracting a mate, but of course you could say that's really what human art is about too (as the musicians you met during your bar gigging years would no doubt attest).
It's not a DISlike of music, it's just no interest.
This is popping up a bit and is very interesting since usually I've heard the opposite story - people actively dislike music because it tells them how they should feel.
To me music taps into something primal within our understanding of sound. The reaction to sudden, loud notes after a quiet passage is probably the most obvious example that we can link to our survival experience, but all languages have their own musical elements (prosody) and some are even tonal, where the pitch alters the meaning of the word. This is why it seems musical appreciation should be universal.
So a question, do you understand the emotional content of music and simply not care (that sounds almost paradoxical), or is the lack of interest from not being able to 'parse' it? If you understand it, to what extent? If not, how does this apply to lanuages? For example, do you fail to find French beautiful and German harsh, and how do you fare at picking up tone in spoken language?
By that logic, we should mandate a pay gap. If women are paid 25% less than men it will make motherhood much more attractive.
I do agree with Xest however. Unless we want to return to resource wars (well, obvious ones) the world population has to level out and perhaps reduce. Currently this is predicted to occur around 2050. We're probably going to have to get used to a different standard of living. Of some irony is the fact that feminism, with women entering the workforce, has propped up economic growth over the past 7 decades.
What the hell does "morally equal" even mean?
It's a philosophical term meaning the same level of consciousness/dignity etc. Related to the sense of right and wrong, but more stemming from the notion that morality is what sets humans apart from other creatures.
Firstly, so many people drink shit coffee that how you make it is irrelevant
Yep, I'm cringing reading through this discussion of Americans debating which coffee is best.
What's next, Canadians arguing over whether the most offensive word is "damn" or "bum"?
Karma-burning out of the way, what you describe sounds like it would be very mild coffee, poured quickly over the grounds rather than steeped? Typically coffee snobs go for Italian espresso which is far stronger. The principles are;
1. Beans must be fresh. One week after roasting is the optimal time (the beans de-gas), and they should be ground on demand. Supermarket beans are often sitting there for months.
2. The grinder is more important than the machine. You want a very consistent grind that doesn't raise the heat of the beans. So saying I've A/B-ed an expensive burr grinder with a cheap one and couldn't notice the difference in the end cup.
Another interesting style is Toddy's cold-brewed. You simply place a lot of grounds in a large plunger, fill it with cold water and leave it in the fridge for 12 hours. Plunge and pour into another container, keeping the coffee in the fridge (stays fresh for a week) to use as a base. Pour some into your cup, heat in the microwave and add milk and sugar as desired. Because it was extracted with cold water the taste is incredibly smooth with very little bitterness.
Gendered words have the purpose of reinforcing the sound of the word or phrase, like alliteration, since typically the gender of nouns and articles/adjectives agree. The notion of gender loses meaning when applied to neutral things like cars, but the assignment is typically done based on the spelling of the word, not arbitrarily.