My overriding thought at this moment is that for us to discuss further, we are going to branch wider and wider. There's a lot here for us to discuss, so I'm going to be short on some points. It may even be worth us leaving this discussion alone - slashdot I find it a poor medium for these discussions
My understanding is that philosophers talk about "possible worlds". And these "possible worlds" includes the universe. When I refer to universe, I refer to that spacial/temporal realm in which we humans are confined. Anything that is outside of space and time (for example, I contend, numbers) is not contained purely within the universe. A timeless and spaceless creator would be outside the universe. God, as defined as timeless and spaceless, is within a "possible world" but is outside our universe.
Actually, in philosophy the term "universe" is generally used to refer to "all possible universes". You don't seem to understand how this blows your argument of a 'causeless cause'. If God exists in a universe outside of the "mainstream" universe this begs the question of the creation of THAT universe.
Sure, people have motivations and justifications for their reasons - but not good justifications. Just subjective ones that fail if put up to a different subjective standard.
Exactly.
You and I differ on a much more fundamental point - is there a God? We can discuss that without getting into the questions of whether the Christian God is the true God, or whether we should offer praise to Zeus instead. Let us first establish whether there is a God.
I'm perfectly willing to concede this point, as long as we strictly limit said God to those attributes that can be inferred by logical arguments (created the "mainstream" universe, really powerful, really knowledgeable) as opposed to evidence. I don't personally buy these arguments, but I'm willing to concede them. But this really doesn't get you anywhere. Let's call this diety Creator.
The problem that we now come to is you would probably like to add more attributes to Creator. The most important is called "interventionism". The idea that Creator mucked about with the "mainstream" universe after it's creation. This isn't something that can be logically inferred. You have to rely on evidence, and this is where the idea of proving the Christian god by logical argument begins to crumble.
I would very much like to read these documents, if you can recall what they are (esp. if you have weblinks).
The two most famous are Prophyry's "Against the Christians" and Celsus' "On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians". Both are obscure academic publications, though you can get translations on Amazon. Both are basically reconstructions based on Christian counter-arguments. Celsus' is more readable.
Regarding motivations - Paul, and all the Apostles, had little to gain from Christianity. Paul lived out his days under house arrest, and other apostles met horrible deaths as Martyrs. If I was creating a new religion for fun and profit, I would hardly be willing to die for its cause. That to me says, at least, that Paul believed what he wrote.
You don't clearly understand the personal motivations that come with being a cult leader, and the fact that most of them end up buying into their own hype. Or Paul could have just been crazy. And the motivations certainly could have been confused. Many people questioned David Koresh's motivations, but in the end he died for his beliefs.
So, your argument here is that the knowledge of philosophers today is much greater than that of those in the past?
Of course it is, mainly because modern philosophers have READ the earlier philosophers and know what they knew. Plato, Aristotle, Augustin
The United States isn't "doing nothing" in regards to China at all. The US is in fact propping up the Communist dictatorship with it's trade policies.
If the United States wanted democracy in China it would be easy. All we would have to do is threaten a trade embargo unless the PRC instituted democratic reforms. We could easily convince (or force) most of our allies to join us, even Russia even we played hardball. Of course, those democratic reforms would probably mean higher wages, which would mean all the cheap crap we buy from China would be more expensive. And we wouldn't want that would we?
To say it's up to us to find our own reason for being is not really accurate. If the universe is all that there is, then the truth is that there is no reason for being.
By definition, the universe is everything including any hypothetical god(s). To say one can't find meaning in the universe is to say that there is no meaning in anything because the universe is EVERYTHING.
People yearn to know why, and they ask the somewhat vague question of "what is the meaning of existence?" If you say it's up to us to find our own reason for being, then you are trying to give an answer to that appeal which doesn't really satisfy. You make it sound like there is an answer (within ourselves) when in fact you believe that there is no reason, there is no meaning.
You're confusing issues of "What is The Truth?", as in the absolute truth for anyone, with issues of motivation "Why should I keep going?". I'm talking about the latter. A "reason for being" is a reason not to jump off the nearest cliff, not "the truth".
Rather than getting into a debate about origins, which is destined to go nowhere, there is a much more basic question here which can be answered - is there a God? If that can be satisfied, then most or all of the other points you are making (about our reason for being, about the nature of morality, etc) will be addressed.
Climb out of your denial and actually read the text of Genesis. ALL early Jews, Christians, prophets, etc. believed that Genesis was either entirely or mostly factual and ALL of their religious teachings are based on this. Abrhamic religious make absolutely no sense whatever if you remove the "fall" since they're all about punishment. The fundamental point of Abrahamic religions is that humanity is "sinful" and needs to be "redeemed" by God and that any punishments humanity may suffer from him or (very important) his followers are justified. Christians also seem to miss the point of the Abraham and Isac story (Jews and Muslims get it), which is that the ONLY morality and the ONLY virtue is "obedience to God".
The crap I get from modern Christians is that Genesis is an allegory, or mythical. That's fine, but a allegory of what? What events? We know that nothing even remotely like the events of the Garden of Eden ever happened in reality. As for myth, that's the same as saying it's fiction.
I hate to keep harping on this, but Christianity (and Judism and Islam) are based WHOLLY on Genesis. If Genesis is fictional, these religions are clearly nonsense. And Genesis is clearly fictional.
It's very hard to predict or justify any ulterior motives, that were unrecorded, of men long dead.
Not as hard as you think. All we have to do is look at modern day "prophets" like Sun Yung Moon, David Koresh, Matarishi Yogi, Mary Baker Eddy, etc. Based on the fact that ALL of these guys are liars, crazy, or con artists (frequently all three) one can infer that past "prophets" were much the same.
Though in the case of Christianity you don't have to infer this because, despite the best efforts of the church, we still have fragments of contemporary criticism of early Christians by Roman skeptics. And, funny enough, they say EXACTLY the same things skeptics of modern "prophets" do today.
Paul was, however, a heavily educated man. You could hardly say he is ignorant on spiritual and religious matters at the least. He would almost certainly be well versed in philosophy as well. He wasn't a tax collector - he was a Pharisee -
Shows what happens when you post too quickly. For some reason I briefly confused Paul and Matthew. Be that as it may, my point stands.
Saul/Paul was educated in Jewish law, literate, and well-read by contemporary standards. This makes his education somewhat inferior to that of a 19th century junior high school student. Get some perspective. Why do you consider a heretical 1st century Jew's opinions of morality and spirituality definitive? Do you follow 1st century medicine? When was the last
Christianity tells us about our state as creatures that rebelled against their Maker, and it tells us our Maker's plan to redeem us.
Things which simply did not happen. This is a fantasy, or more properly, a myth. Genesis is a collection of myths, many of which have moral instructions, but myths just the same. The Garden of Eden did not exist. Adam and Eve did not exist. "Original sin" does not exist. These are simple facts, as much as Jews/Christians/Muslims might not like it to be so.
The Christian fixation on guilt is simply a method of social control. By telling people they are worthless and "fallen", and that the only way to be happy/prosperous/immortal/etc. is through following THEM and doing what THEY say, you can control them.
First is that it is not a "blithe" excuse to say we are all sinners. Paul states in the Scriptures that those who were chosen by God were the despised and the fools of the world. If one who calls himself a Christian can find himself proud because of his faith, then he is a fool. We of all people should be most acutely aware of our failings - and be humble as a result, not finding pride in anything.
I consider it pretty damn blithe to quote a crazed 1st Century Roman tax collector as an authority on anything, let alone the fundamental nature of the universe. Paul might have been pretty eloquent at times, but a poet does not a physicist make. And Paul was proud. He considered himself important enough to tell other Christians how to live, didn't he?
The fact that those who are called Christians have, according to you, the same crime and divorce rates is a very saddening thing. But it doesn't change anything about the truth.
The truth being that "Christian morality" doesn't make people any more moral, and it's based on fiction, which makes it pointless. Well, there is one purpose. Christians can use it as a weapon against others to make themselves feel better. Righteousness feels good. Getting a bit back on topic, it feels much better to whine about how video games are somehow responsible for teens wanting to have sex. It's much easier than facing the hard reality that the whiners are just jealous.
The fact is that there are things that we ought not to do. We all have a rough idea what those things are. However, just like our physical senses and perceptions of the physical world can be wrong and misguided, so can our senses of the moral laws of the universe. Thus there is not a universal understanding among humans of right and wrong - but there are common threads, and most people share understanding on the basics.
If you've ever studied ethics, you know it's a lot harder to get from "vague moral sense" to a concrete system of morality than you seem to think. And they're not "moral laws of the universe". Do the "moral laws of the universe" apply to viruses and bacteria? What youre reffering to is called "human social instinct" and is a product of our wonderfully complex brains.
Though the atheist may condemn these activities as painful, a hindrance to society, etc, he has no objective grounds on which to call them wrong. Perhaps the atheist sees altruism as his chance to aid humans in evolution - but ultimately that is a worthless goal. It has no meaning, and no "good" about it. It, quite simply, just is.
And Christians, though in denial, are in exactly the same position. In theory (again, this is a hypothetical) Christians follow an omnipotent deity who created the universe and then created humanity. Why did he do this? No fucking clue. Genesis only hints that god might have been lonely, which makes no sense because he would have had no basis for comparison. So are we entertainment? Pets? Christianity answers this as follows:
"Why are we here?"
"To serve God."
"Why should I serve God?"
"Because he loves you."
"Why should I care if God loves me?"
"Because if he doesn't love you, very bad things will happen."
Being a Christian isn't about telling people how to live their lives. It's telling people the truth about who we are and our condition.
No, it's about telling people how to live their lives. Studies and surveys show that Christians (of any stripe) are no more "moral" (crime, divorce, etc.) than anyone else. In fact, these same studies show that atheists and agnostics are consistently more "moral" than theists. Probably because they're also more intelligent (on average) and perhaps think things through a bit more. Christians use blithe excuses like "everyone's a sinner" to excuse their hypocracy, or even worse, designate a few "sins" that they don't like to personally engage in as being "the ultimate evil" and focus on those. Christians are heroin addicts warning people about the dangers of drinking.
In defense of WalMart, it is certainly quite possible that the workers becoming unionized and demanding more could make a store not profitable. It's debateably what is causing the headaches some of our domestic auto producers are having.
This is total crap. Wal-Mart closed the store mere DAYS after it unionized, months after the CEO made statems saying he would never allow a Wal-mart to unionize. Since then, Wal-mart has had to accept unionization in Canada and elsewhere, where their strongarm tactics (death threats, etc.) aren't tolerated.
That said, in offense of WalMart, the problem I have is they sell inferior products. Even the brand names
You are learning the sad truth "you get what you pay for". Wal-Mart sells cheap crap. If I want cheap crap, I shop there. If I don't want cheap crap I shop at a more reputable retailer (which is almost anyone except the dollar stores).
No, the UMD was intended to be a format proprietary to the PSP for copy-protection purposes. There has been no push to integrate it into other Sony consumer electronics, computers, or to encourage other manufacturers to use it. A better comparison would be Memory Stick, the proprietary but "licensed" flash technology. A few other vendors use it, but it's basically lost the battle to Secure Digital/MultiMedia Card.
I understand the main reason there hasn't been a redesign of the origional XBOX is due to legal issues surrouding the hardware, specifically the NVIDIA chipset. Supposedly this is also why there is no hardware emulation in the 360.
I'd also reccomend the ultra-obscure Grailquest series, mainly for it's sense of humor. As other's mentioned Steve Jackon's Sorcery is also good and Dever and Chalk's Lone Wolf probably represents the apex of the genre.
Lingo sucks ass, based on my experience and the experience of many others. Call quality and drops are horrible, I would say slightly inferior to the FREE Internet phone services. It's cheaper, but you get what you pay for. Customer service, and service in general, is dramatically better on Vonage and ther other more expensive VoIP systems. Check out VoIP forums for more horror stories.
Re:Transparent Windows: learn from Apple's Mistake
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How Vista Disappoints
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Menus and just about everything but the borders are opaque. He's complaining about a TINY problem with the Aero skin, basically that the frontmost window doesn't have anything glaring to designate it (basically, all you get is the "red X" close icon in the top-right corner), like an opaque Title Bar (at the top pf the window). He's also using Explorer windows which for some reason have no titles, in windows with text titles the text in the active window is "glowy". This could be solved by an MS graphic designer in 10 minutes. I think that users will have no problems adjusting because the UI is, in practice, virtually identical to WinXP's. Frankly, I don't think they changed ENOUGH, like doing something about the System Tray.
I expect Aero and the Media Center UI to improve dramatically before release because improving it is really easy. I'm more disappointed in the missing features like auto-defrag, WinFS, or really ANY improved search function (guess I'm going to have to get used to Google Desktop).
As other posters have noted, much of the really exciting stuff in Vista is very opaque to users because it involves new development tools and environments.
Systemically, Palladium was in the stone age. As other posters have said, Kevin Siembieda (and also Eric Wuijck, creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ninjas and Superspies) created some truly interesting worlds, particularly RIFTS. But his games were hobbled by mechanics that closely resembled those of 1st edition AD&D (which the Palladium (fantasy) RPG was a direct rip-off of) and never really improved much. The skill system was broken, the leveling system was broken, and combat was intermitably complicated and SLOW. Palladium really hasn't made an interesting product since Mystic China.
I tried to correct this several times by converting Palladium games to other systems, first my own (which sort of vaguely resembled Ars Magica), then GURPS, and then D20. Each time when I started to gather collaborators on the 'net Maryann Siembieda would get wind of it and threaten me. Apparently she was under the impression that converting to GURPS or D20 would result in the company's trademarks being transferred to Steve Jackson/Wizards of the Coast. Of course that was nonsense, but it did scare off my collaborators.
Don't get me wrong, Kevin is a nice guy. I've met him. I just think that he (like many in the gaming business) has never really had a great handle on the "business" side of things. I still think Palladium should have gotten into the (obviously lucrative) D20 market, as I told both Kevin and Maryann. Sinking tons of money into a N-GAGE game probabyl wasn't smart either. Does anyone know if it was any good?
So I for one WELCOME Palladium Books going out of business. It probably means I won't be threatened if I try to convert RIFTS or TMNT again. If I still have any interest.
Another suggestion might be FreeOTFEhttp://www.freeotfe.org/ which is just about the only encryption product I'm aware of that fully supports both Linux and Windows (no 9x) for creating and opening volumes.
I will unplug my internet connection and live in a cave before I buy a "Mac" installed on some beige box AlienDellWare piece of shitbox
You ARE aware that pretty much all laptops are made by a handful of Taiwanese ODMs, right? The new MacBooks are made by Asus, the older Powerbooks were made by Quanta (I think). Asus is also currently making Sony and Samsung laptops. I'm not 100% sure on this as these relationships change all the time. The point is that Apple computers are made by the same ODM companies also make Dell and Alienware systems and most consumer "brand name" PCs. So all that is REALLY different is the software and support, and the limitations associated with a single vendor.
One power cord runs the whole system. One. The case is practically seamless and is almost as easy to move around my home as my old powerbook was.
As opposed to the horror of 2 power cords? I GUESS there is an ease-of-use benefit there (and in general from having an integrated monitor), but the primary advantage I'd see to an all-in-one design is cost, and new iMacs aren't cheap. I like the SFF concept better, like we see in the Shuttle HPCs or Apple's Mac mini (which IS cheap).
Thats the biggest issue I have with Windows. I can run tools to get a pretty good idea if an issue is hardware related (memtest, burn-in tools, power monitoring, hard disk diagnostic, etc..) but if it is *not* and it *is* a Windows problem, where do you honestly start?
Just because you don't know what you're doing doesn't mean it's impossible to diagnose problems.
Close to 90% of all non-hardware issues w/Windows is the result of malware... it might *seem* clean only to have the issue reappear soon after (either from attaching to an app or user (going to website or receiving infected email)).
Exactly, which is why smart Windows technicians try not to run such tools from within that particular Windows install, they'll use a Windows (or Linux) LiveCD or something else to attack the problem from "the outside". This approach usually works pretty well.
The remaining 10% end up being a mix, including startup issues where there is a lack of any information on how to address the issue.
They're called logs, read them. Windows has a very robust logging mechanism called the "Event Viewer", it's part of the Microsoft Management Console. The fastest way to get to it is to right-click on "My Computer" and select "Manage". You can also dologged boots if the system is puking during boot, you hit "F8" during the boot sequence.
Another poster, who doesn't apparently understand the concept, commented that the lack of "CPU overhead" or software implementation will "limit it's usefulness". This is nonsense. Modern (hell, just about ALL) encryption algorithms are designed with hardware implementations in mind, and can perform quite well. Hardware performance was in fact a key issue in the AES competition.
You cannot really "prove" there is a God. But you cannot "prove" there is no God.... In fact, Atheism is a form of belief system. It starts with the presumption there is no God. But how can you scientifically conclude there is no God if you cannot prove there isn't a God?
This is the mother of all straw men.
First off, NOBODY makes the claim that all possible gods don't exist. One can certainly quibble about the existence of certain gods (I'd tend to focus on the extremely low credibility of so-called "prophets"), but that isn't saying that all possible gods don't exist.
Second, the term "god" is so poorly defined as to make the term almost meaningless, so saying "God does not exist". is the same thing as saying "Almost anything does not exist". It's a nonsense statement.
Atheism, note that "A", is the "lack of theism". Or the "lack of positive belief in the existence of one or more gods", sometimes (incorrectly) called agnosticism. Atheists don't believe in god(s) in the same way the (most) people don't believe in faeries or that that Elvis is still alive. That's it.
I suppose some people are anti-Jesus freaks in the same way that some people are anti-Barney freaks. They're both annoying fictional characters.
"Right of sale" gives you the right to RESELL any software that you've paid for. Case law has backed this, much to the chagrin of software companies, movie studios, and record labels. That's why you can buy used CDs and video games. It is perfectly, 100%, legal for you to sell software you've paid for on eBay. I do it all the time.
And yes, companies HAVE paid lots of money for violating software contracts, in almost every case it's because they were using it without paying (or more often, paying ENOUGH). The only part of EULAs that really seems solid is the "use at your own risk" disclaimers. Companies haven't been very successful (in a long while anyway) at suing software companies because some bug damaged their business.
Just because it's printed on a sheet of paper in offical-sounding legalese doesn't make it the LAW.
The viability of EULAs and "pack-in" licences has never REALLY been tested in court, there is little case law on the subject. But existing case law seems to rule against them on numerous grounds, the chief three being:
1) Agreeing to a contract normally requires ACTIVE consent, and "pack-in licences" or practically non-optional licences like those of OEM computers only offer "implied consent" (the user consents to the contract by using the item).
2) Contracts are required to be in understandable languange. There is case law showing that sufficiently vague or confusing contracts are void. Legal scholars have offered wide disagreements as to the interpretation of EULAs, which imples that they won't stand up in court.
3) Many of these contracts include provisions that are illegal in one way or another in various juristictions. If part of a contract is illegal is is often ruled illegal in total.
Really, they're just a tool for intimidation and a defense against liability.
That was my first reaction. This thing eats up a lot of room in a case, more than an SLI rig I would think (which strikes me as the competitor). Are you better off with this or with 2 X1600s in CrossFire?
I'm not saying they would invade, but two countries that come to mind with the potential to attack are Singapore and Indonesia. Within Australian defence circles, Indonesia is looked at on a daily basis. Also Singapore has a defence budget that makes our GDP look like pocket change
Indonesia, in addition to being battered by natural disasters, in currently fighting 2 (or is it 3?) civil wars. In fact, Australia recently invanded East Timor. Singapore is effectively a city-state that spends 1/4th as much money on defense and has 1/6th the GDP of Australia. The Singapore enonomy is totally dependent on trade and would collapse after a FEW MONTHS of blockade. Really, this is ridiclous. It's like claiming Hong Kong is going to invade Japan.
Australia (like Europe and the United States) faces little real threat from foreign agressors, and that includes China. The real threat is internal instability.
I think you're missing the point. This device has the potential to expand the market for digital music players to those that don't have computers. I know LOTS of people that are interested in iPods and other players but are intimidated by computers. iPods are a lot easier to use than general purpose computers. And hopefully this device will be easy to use too.
However, I'm pretty dubious of Zettabyte's ability to successfully market this thing to this target audience. They really need to team up with Wal-mart or one of the other big-box retailers to push this thing.
OEM licensing runs ~$10 for a copy of XP, or 2% of the total cost of the machine, effectively free.
Nonsense. OEM licensing is typically much closer to $99 or so. One can see this in action at say, Fry's or Wal-Mart. Walmart will sell a system for $350 with XP Home and the EXACT SAME SYSTEM with Linspire (or another Linux) for $250.
The "Windows tax" is a significant chunk of the cost of low-end PCs (sub-$500 range), which is where the real money in consumer PCs is.
Of course, you're absoultely right about the Linux techs. The software cost is NOTHING next to the support cost, and if you have to spend big bugs to retrain your support staff (and you WILL, if they aren't already Linux experts) it isn't worth it.
OTOH, I disagee that because "Dell's support" has standardized on Windows that's a reason to buy Dells. Dell support sucks ass. All OEM support sucks ass, all the time. I've learned the hard way if you want good support you have to BUY it, and in THIS regard I think Windows has the edge because not only because you have good documentation (I thought the KnowledgeBase and TechNet sucked until I started using other vendors solutions), decent support from Microsoft (IF you pay for it), and a vast range 3rd-party support form lots of vendors. I've found this field outstrips anything for any particular flavor of Linux (RedHat comes closest by far). FWIW, Sun also provides good support for Solaris with a few glaring exceptions (precompiled binaries... rant, rant) but 3rd-parties tend to fill the gap.
I personally don't feel the US Republicans nor the UK Labor leadership "lied" about WMDs. Worst-case, they were wrong, because they trusted the wrong intel and chose to err on the side of keeping WMD capacity out of Saddam's hands.
Then you're ignoring the incontravertable evidence of the Downing Street and White House memos (minutes), which show that "the intelligence was being fixed around the policy". You don't seem to remember the endless public campaigning about the WMD threat by Cheney, Condi, and others. Especially Condi (and Bush's) famous "you don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud", even though they knew incontravertably that Iraq did not have nuclear capability. Or the smear campaigns against dissenters like Scott Ritter, Joe Wilson, Hans Blix, etc.
Iraq did not have any WMD capability. The UN inspection process combined with the sanctions and "no fly zones" had strangled Iraq's WMD capability (and military in general). The Bush, Blair, and their crew knew this but CHOOSE to use this particular issue to push the case for war with Iraq. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said, "it was the only issue everyone could agree on".
Now maybe you think this deception was justified in light of the "success" in liberating Iraq. That's fine. But there is no doubt that this was a deception. I don't think this is a "partisan reality". Bill Clinton was pretty damn deceptive at times too. However, if you want to stick your head in the sand I can't stop you.
Then again, I've had it out for Bush ever since he screwed McCain in the 2000 primary.
Slashdot Mirror
My overriding thought at this moment is that for us to discuss further, we are going to branch wider and wider. There's a lot here for us to discuss, so I'm going to be short on some points. It may even be worth us leaving this discussion alone - slashdot I find it a poor medium for these discussions
Meh. Pretty off-topic tho. I supposed I could bump it to one of the mailing lists like atheist-talkhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/atheist- talk/.
My understanding is that philosophers talk about "possible worlds". And these "possible worlds" includes the universe.
When I refer to universe, I refer to that spacial/temporal realm in which we humans are confined. Anything that is outside of space and time (for example, I contend, numbers) is not contained purely within the universe. A timeless and spaceless creator would be outside the universe.
God, as defined as timeless and spaceless, is within a "possible world" but is outside our universe.
Actually, in philosophy the term "universe" is generally used to refer to "all possible universes". You don't seem to understand how this blows your argument of a 'causeless cause'. If God exists in a universe outside of the "mainstream" universe this begs the question of the creation of THAT universe.
Sure, people have motivations and justifications for their reasons - but not good justifications. Just subjective ones that fail if put up to a different subjective standard.
Exactly.
You and I differ on a much more fundamental point - is there a God? We can discuss that without getting into the questions of whether the Christian God is the true God, or whether we should offer praise to Zeus instead. Let us first establish whether there is a God.
I'm perfectly willing to concede this point, as long as we strictly limit said God to those attributes that can be inferred by logical arguments (created the "mainstream" universe, really powerful, really knowledgeable) as opposed to evidence. I don't personally buy these arguments, but I'm willing to concede them. But this really doesn't get you anywhere. Let's call this diety Creator.
The problem that we now come to is you would probably like to add more attributes to Creator. The most important is called "interventionism". The idea that Creator mucked about with the "mainstream" universe after it's creation. This isn't something that can be logically inferred. You have to rely on evidence, and this is where the idea of proving the Christian god by logical argument begins to crumble.
I would very much like to read these documents, if you can recall what they are (esp. if you have weblinks).
The two most famous are Prophyry's "Against the Christians" and Celsus' "On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians". Both are obscure academic publications, though you can get translations on Amazon. Both are basically reconstructions based on Christian counter-arguments. Celsus' is more readable.
Regarding motivations - Paul, and all the Apostles, had little to gain from Christianity. Paul lived out his days under house arrest, and other apostles met horrible deaths as Martyrs. If I was creating a new religion for fun and profit, I would hardly be willing to die for its cause. That to me says, at least, that Paul believed what he wrote.
You don't clearly understand the personal motivations that come with being a cult leader, and the fact that most of them end up buying into their own hype. Or Paul could have just been crazy. And the motivations certainly could have been confused. Many people questioned David Koresh's motivations, but in the end he died for his beliefs.
So, your argument here is that the knowledge of philosophers today is much greater than that of those in the past?
Of course it is, mainly because modern philosophers have READ the earlier philosophers and know what they knew. Plato, Aristotle, Augustin
The United States isn't "doing nothing" in regards to China at all. The US is in fact propping up the Communist dictatorship with it's trade policies.
If the United States wanted democracy in China it would be easy. All we would have to do is threaten a trade embargo unless the PRC instituted democratic reforms. We could easily convince (or force) most of our allies to join us, even Russia even we played hardball. Of course, those democratic reforms would probably mean higher wages, which would mean all the cheap crap we buy from China would be more expensive. And we wouldn't want that would we?
To say it's up to us to find our own reason for being is not really accurate. If the universe is all that there is, then the truth is that there is no reason for being.
By definition, the universe is everything including any hypothetical god(s). To say one can't find meaning in the universe is to say that there is no meaning in anything because the universe is EVERYTHING.
People yearn to know why, and they ask the somewhat vague question of "what is the meaning of existence?" If you say it's up to us to find our own reason for being, then you are trying to give an answer to that appeal which doesn't really satisfy. You make it sound like there is an answer (within ourselves) when in fact you believe that there is no reason, there is no meaning.
You're confusing issues of "What is The Truth?", as in the absolute truth for anyone, with issues of motivation "Why should I keep going?". I'm talking about the latter. A "reason for being" is a reason not to jump off the nearest cliff, not "the truth".
Rather than getting into a debate about origins, which is destined to go nowhere, there is a much more basic question here which can be answered - is there a God? If that can be satisfied, then most or all of the other points you are making (about our reason for being, about the nature of morality, etc) will be addressed.
Climb out of your denial and actually read the text of Genesis. ALL early Jews, Christians, prophets, etc. believed that Genesis was either entirely or mostly factual and ALL of their religious teachings are based on this. Abrhamic religious make absolutely no sense whatever if you remove the "fall" since they're all about punishment. The fundamental point of Abrahamic religions is that humanity is "sinful" and needs to be "redeemed" by God and that any punishments humanity may suffer from him or (very important) his followers are justified. Christians also seem to miss the point of the Abraham and Isac story (Jews and Muslims get it), which is that the ONLY morality and the ONLY virtue is "obedience to God".
The crap I get from modern Christians is that Genesis is an allegory, or mythical. That's fine, but a allegory of what? What events? We know that nothing even remotely like the events of the Garden of Eden ever happened in reality. As for myth, that's the same as saying it's fiction.
I hate to keep harping on this, but Christianity (and Judism and Islam) are based WHOLLY on Genesis. If Genesis is fictional, these religions are clearly nonsense. And Genesis is clearly fictional.
It's very hard to predict or justify any ulterior motives, that were unrecorded, of men long dead.
Not as hard as you think. All we have to do is look at modern day "prophets" like Sun Yung Moon, David Koresh, Matarishi Yogi, Mary Baker Eddy, etc. Based on the fact that ALL of these guys are liars, crazy, or con artists (frequently all three) one can infer that past "prophets" were much the same.
Though in the case of Christianity you don't have to infer this because, despite the best efforts of the church, we still have fragments of contemporary criticism of early Christians by Roman skeptics. And, funny enough, they say EXACTLY the same things skeptics of modern "prophets" do today.
Paul was, however, a heavily educated man. You could hardly say he is ignorant on spiritual and religious matters at the least. He would almost certainly be well versed in philosophy as well. He wasn't a tax collector - he was a Pharisee -
Shows what happens when you post too quickly. For some reason I briefly confused Paul and Matthew. Be that as it may, my point stands.
Saul/Paul was educated in Jewish law, literate, and well-read by contemporary standards. This makes his education somewhat inferior to that of a 19th century junior high school student. Get some perspective. Why do you consider a heretical 1st century Jew's opinions of morality and spirituality definitive? Do you follow 1st century medicine? When was the last
Christianity tells us about our state as creatures that rebelled against their Maker, and it tells us our Maker's plan to redeem us.
Things which simply did not happen. This is a fantasy, or more properly, a myth. Genesis is a collection of myths, many of which have moral instructions, but myths just the same. The Garden of Eden did not exist. Adam and Eve did not exist. "Original sin" does not exist. These are simple facts, as much as Jews/Christians/Muslims might not like it to be so.
The Christian fixation on guilt is simply a method of social control. By telling people they are worthless and "fallen", and that the only way to be happy/prosperous/immortal/etc. is through following THEM and doing what THEY say, you can control them.
First is that it is not a "blithe" excuse to say we are all sinners. Paul states in the Scriptures that those who were chosen by God were the despised and the fools of the world. If one who calls himself a Christian can find himself proud because of his faith, then he is a fool. We of all people should be most acutely aware of our failings - and be humble as a result, not finding pride in anything.
I consider it pretty damn blithe to quote a crazed 1st Century Roman tax collector as an authority on anything, let alone the fundamental nature of the universe. Paul might have been pretty eloquent at times, but a poet does not a physicist make. And Paul was proud. He considered himself important enough to tell other Christians how to live, didn't he?
The fact that those who are called Christians have, according to you, the same crime and divorce rates is a very saddening thing. But it doesn't change anything about the truth.
The truth being that "Christian morality" doesn't make people any more moral, and it's based on fiction, which makes it pointless. Well, there is one purpose. Christians can use it as a weapon against others to make themselves feel better. Righteousness feels good. Getting a bit back on topic, it feels much better to whine about how video games are somehow responsible for teens wanting to have sex. It's much easier than facing the hard reality that the whiners are just jealous.
The fact is that there are things that we ought not to do. We all have a rough idea what those things are. However, just like our physical senses and perceptions of the physical world can be wrong and misguided, so can our senses of the moral laws of the universe. Thus there is not a universal understanding among humans of right and wrong - but there are common threads, and most people share understanding on the basics.
If you've ever studied ethics, you know it's a lot harder to get from "vague moral sense" to a concrete system of morality than you seem to think. And they're not "moral laws of the universe". Do the "moral laws of the universe" apply to viruses and bacteria? What youre reffering to is called "human social instinct" and is a product of our wonderfully complex brains.
Though the atheist may condemn these activities as painful, a hindrance to society, etc, he has no objective grounds on which to call them wrong. Perhaps the atheist sees altruism as his chance to aid humans in evolution - but ultimately that is a worthless goal. It has no meaning, and no "good" about it. It, quite simply, just is.
And Christians, though in denial, are in exactly the same position. In theory (again, this is a hypothetical) Christians follow an omnipotent deity who created the universe and then created humanity. Why did he do this? No fucking clue. Genesis only hints that god might have been lonely, which makes no sense because he would have had no basis for comparison. So are we entertainment? Pets? Christianity answers this as follows:
"Why are we here?"
"To serve God."
"Why should I serve God?"
"Because he loves you."
"Why should I care if God loves me?"
"Because if he doesn't love you, very bad things will happen."
"But if he loves me, why would he le
Being a Christian isn't about telling people how to live their lives. It's telling people the truth about who we are and our condition.
No, it's about telling people how to live their lives. Studies and surveys show that Christians (of any stripe) are no more "moral" (crime, divorce, etc.) than anyone else. In fact, these same studies show that atheists and agnostics are consistently more "moral" than theists. Probably because they're also more intelligent (on average) and perhaps think things through a bit more. Christians use blithe excuses like "everyone's a sinner" to excuse their hypocracy, or even worse, designate a few "sins" that they don't like to personally engage in as being "the ultimate evil" and focus on those. Christians are heroin addicts warning people about the dangers of drinking.
In defense of WalMart, it is certainly quite possible that the workers becoming unionized and demanding more could make a store not profitable. It's debateably what is causing the headaches some of our domestic auto producers are having.
This is total crap. Wal-Mart closed the store mere DAYS after it unionized, months after the CEO made statems saying he would never allow a Wal-mart to unionize. Since then, Wal-mart has had to accept unionization in Canada and elsewhere, where their strongarm tactics (death threats, etc.) aren't tolerated.
That said, in offense of WalMart, the problem I have is they sell inferior products. Even the brand names
You are learning the sad truth "you get what you pay for". Wal-Mart sells cheap crap. If I want cheap crap, I shop there. If I don't want cheap crap I shop at a more reputable retailer (which is almost anyone except the dollar stores).
I think the point is moot since Wal-Mart is CURRENTLY selling desktop PCs with Xandros and Linspire installed.http://www.walmart.com/search/browse-ng. do?ics=12&ico=0&ref=125875.126125+500500.429429600 3
p roduct_id=4324056.
They don't appear to sell any boxed distros (at least I haven't seen any), but they sell lots of Linux books that include distroshttp://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?
I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart, but they are simply NOT "anti-Linux". If anything, their emphasis on minimal cost makes them Linux-friendly .
No, the UMD was intended to be a format proprietary to the PSP for copy-protection purposes. There has been no push to integrate it into other Sony consumer electronics, computers, or to encourage other manufacturers to use it. A better comparison would be Memory Stick, the proprietary but "licensed" flash technology. A few other vendors use it, but it's basically lost the battle to Secure Digital/MultiMedia Card.
I understand the main reason there hasn't been a redesign of the origional XBOX is due to legal issues surrouding the hardware, specifically the NVIDIA chipset. Supposedly this is also why there is no hardware emulation in the 360.
I'd also reccomend the ultra-obscure Grailquest series, mainly for it's sense of humor. As other's mentioned Steve Jackon's Sorcery is also good and Dever and Chalk's Lone Wolf probably represents the apex of the genre.
Lingo sucks ass, based on my experience and the experience of many others. Call quality and drops are horrible, I would say slightly inferior to the FREE Internet phone services. It's cheaper, but you get what you pay for. Customer service, and service in general, is dramatically better on Vonage and ther other more expensive VoIP systems. Check out VoIP forums for more horror stories.
Menus and just about everything but the borders are opaque. He's complaining about a TINY problem with the Aero skin, basically that the frontmost window doesn't have anything glaring to designate it (basically, all you get is the "red X" close icon in the top-right corner), like an opaque Title Bar (at the top pf the window). He's also using Explorer windows which for some reason have no titles, in windows with text titles the text in the active window is "glowy". This could be solved by an MS graphic designer in 10 minutes. I think that users will have no problems adjusting because the UI is, in practice, virtually identical to WinXP's. Frankly, I don't think they changed ENOUGH, like doing something about the System Tray.
I expect Aero and the Media Center UI to improve dramatically before release because improving it is really easy. I'm more disappointed in the missing features like auto-defrag, WinFS, or really ANY improved search function (guess I'm going to have to get used to Google Desktop).
As other posters have noted, much of the really exciting stuff in Vista is very opaque to users because it involves new development tools and environments.
Systemically, Palladium was in the stone age. As other posters have said, Kevin Siembieda (and also Eric Wuijck, creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ninjas and Superspies) created some truly interesting worlds, particularly RIFTS. But his games were hobbled by mechanics that closely resembled those of 1st edition AD&D (which the Palladium (fantasy) RPG was a direct rip-off of) and never really improved much. The skill system was broken, the leveling system was broken, and combat was intermitably complicated and SLOW. Palladium really hasn't made an interesting product since Mystic China.
I tried to correct this several times by converting Palladium games to other systems, first my own (which sort of vaguely resembled Ars Magica), then GURPS, and then D20. Each time when I started to gather collaborators on the 'net Maryann Siembieda would get wind of it and threaten me. Apparently she was under the impression that converting to GURPS or D20 would result in the company's trademarks being transferred to Steve Jackson/Wizards of the Coast. Of course that was nonsense, but it did scare off my collaborators.
Don't get me wrong, Kevin is a nice guy. I've met him. I just think that he (like many in the gaming business) has never really had a great handle on the "business" side of things. I still think Palladium should have gotten into the (obviously lucrative) D20 market, as I told both Kevin and Maryann. Sinking tons of money into a N-GAGE game probabyl wasn't smart either. Does anyone know if it was any good?
So I for one WELCOME Palladium Books going out of business. It probably means I won't be threatened if I try to convert RIFTS or TMNT again. If I still have any interest.
Another suggestion might be FreeOTFEhttp://www.freeotfe.org/ which is just about the only encryption product I'm aware of that fully supports both Linux and Windows (no 9x) for creating and opening volumes.
I will unplug my internet connection and live in a cave before I buy a "Mac" installed on some beige box AlienDellWare piece of shitbox
You ARE aware that pretty much all laptops are made by a handful of Taiwanese ODMs, right? The new MacBooks are made by Asus, the older Powerbooks were made by Quanta (I think). Asus is also currently making Sony and Samsung laptops. I'm not 100% sure on this as these relationships change all the time. The point is that Apple computers are made by the same ODM companies also make Dell and Alienware systems and most consumer "brand name" PCs. So all that is REALLY different is the software and support, and the limitations associated with a single vendor.
One power cord runs the whole system. One. The case is practically seamless and is almost as easy to move around my home as my old powerbook was.
As opposed to the horror of 2 power cords? I GUESS there is an ease-of-use benefit there (and in general from having an integrated monitor), but the primary advantage I'd see to an all-in-one design is cost, and new iMacs aren't cheap. I like the SFF concept better, like we see in the Shuttle HPCs or Apple's Mac mini (which IS cheap).
Thats the biggest issue I have with Windows. I can run tools to get a pretty good idea if an issue is hardware related (memtest, burn-in tools, power monitoring, hard disk diagnostic, etc..) but if it is *not* and it *is* a Windows problem, where do you honestly start?
... it might *seem* clean only to have the issue reappear soon after (either from attaching to an app or user (going to website or receiving infected email)).
Just because you don't know what you're doing doesn't mean it's impossible to diagnose problems.
Close to 90% of all non-hardware issues w/Windows is the result of malware
Exactly, which is why smart Windows technicians try not to run such tools from within that particular Windows install, they'll use a Windows (or Linux) LiveCD or something else to attack the problem from "the outside". This approach usually works pretty well.
The remaining 10% end up being a mix, including startup issues where there is a lack of any information on how to address the issue.
They're called logs, read them. Windows has a very robust logging mechanism called the "Event Viewer", it's part of the Microsoft Management Console. The fastest way to get to it is to right-click on "My Computer" and select "Manage". You can also dologged boots if the system is puking during boot, you hit "F8" during the boot sequence.
As AES is the most widely-implemented and most "standard" algorithm, that's probably what they'll use. Another possibility is MARShttp://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_p rojects.nsf/pages/security.mars.html IBM's AES candidate, but it was supposedly rejected due to difficulties implementing it in hardware.
Another poster, who doesn't apparently understand the concept, commented that the lack of "CPU overhead" or software implementation will "limit it's usefulness". This is nonsense. Modern (hell, just about ALL) encryption algorithms are designed with hardware implementations in mind, and can perform quite well. Hardware performance was in fact a key issue in the AES competition.
You cannot really "prove" there is a God. But you cannot "prove" there is no God. ... In fact, Atheism is a form of belief system. It starts with the presumption there is no God. But how can you scientifically conclude there is no God if you cannot prove there isn't a God?
This is the mother of all straw men.
First off, NOBODY makes the claim that all possible gods don't exist. One can certainly quibble about the existence of certain gods (I'd tend to focus on the extremely low credibility of so-called "prophets"), but that isn't saying that all possible gods don't exist.
Second, the term "god" is so poorly defined as to make the term almost meaningless, so saying "God does not exist". is the same thing as saying "Almost anything does not exist". It's a nonsense statement.
Atheism, note that "A", is the "lack of theism". Or the "lack of positive belief in the existence of one or more gods", sometimes (incorrectly) called agnosticism. Atheists don't believe in god(s) in the same way the (most) people don't believe in faeries or that that Elvis is still alive. That's it.
I suppose some people are anti-Jesus freaks in the same way that some people are anti-Barney freaks. They're both annoying fictional characters.
Oh, do you mean thishttp://antivirus.about.com/library/weekly/aa01 2003b.htm case?
Who is spouting misinformation?
"Right of sale" gives you the right to RESELL any software that you've paid for. Case law has backed this, much to the chagrin of software companies, movie studios, and record labels. That's why you can buy used CDs and video games. It is perfectly, 100%, legal for you to sell software you've paid for on eBay. I do it all the time.
And yes, companies HAVE paid lots of money for violating software contracts, in almost every case it's because they were using it without paying (or more often, paying ENOUGH). The only part of EULAs that really seems solid is the "use at your own risk" disclaimers. Companies haven't been very successful (in a long while anyway) at suing software companies because some bug damaged their business.
Just because it's printed on a sheet of paper in offical-sounding legalese doesn't make it the LAW.
IANAL, but...
The viability of EULAs and "pack-in" licences has never REALLY been tested in court, there is little case law on the subject. But existing case law seems to rule against them on numerous grounds, the chief three being:
1) Agreeing to a contract normally requires ACTIVE consent, and "pack-in licences" or practically non-optional licences like those of OEM computers only offer "implied consent" (the user consents to the contract by using the item).
2) Contracts are required to be in understandable languange. There is case law showing that sufficiently vague or confusing contracts are void. Legal scholars have offered wide disagreements as to the interpretation of EULAs, which imples that they won't stand up in court.
3) Many of these contracts include provisions that are illegal in one way or another in various juristictions. If part of a contract is illegal is is often ruled illegal in total.
Really, they're just a tool for intimidation and a defense against liability.
That was my first reaction. This thing eats up a lot of room in a case, more than an SLI rig I would think (which strikes me as the competitor). Are you better off with this or with 2 X1600s in CrossFire?
I'm not saying they would invade, but two countries that come to mind with the potential to attack are Singapore and Indonesia. Within Australian defence circles, Indonesia is looked at on a daily basis. Also Singapore has a defence budget that makes our GDP look like pocket change
Indonesia, in addition to being battered by natural disasters, in currently fighting 2 (or is it 3?) civil wars. In fact, Australia recently invanded East Timor. Singapore is effectively a city-state that spends 1/4th as much money on defense and has 1/6th the GDP of Australia. The Singapore enonomy is totally dependent on trade and would collapse after a FEW MONTHS of blockade. Really, this is ridiclous. It's like claiming Hong Kong is going to invade Japan.
Australia (like Europe and the United States) faces little real threat from foreign agressors, and that includes China. The real threat is internal instability.
I think you're missing the point. This device has the potential to expand the market for digital music players to those that don't have computers. I know LOTS of people that are interested in iPods and other players but are intimidated by computers. iPods are a lot easier to use than general purpose computers. And hopefully this device will be easy to use too.
However, I'm pretty dubious of Zettabyte's ability to successfully market this thing to this target audience. They really need to team up with Wal-mart or one of the other big-box retailers to push this thing.
OEM licensing runs ~$10 for a copy of XP, or 2% of the total cost of the machine, effectively free.
Nonsense. OEM licensing is typically much closer to $99 or so. One can see this in action at say, Fry's or Wal-Mart. Walmart will sell a system for $350 with XP Home and the EXACT SAME SYSTEM with Linspire (or another Linux) for $250.
The "Windows tax" is a significant chunk of the cost of low-end PCs (sub-$500 range), which is where the real money in consumer PCs is.
Of course, you're absoultely right about the Linux techs. The software cost is NOTHING next to the support cost, and if you have to spend big bugs to retrain your support staff (and you WILL, if they aren't already Linux experts) it isn't worth it.
OTOH, I disagee that because "Dell's support" has standardized on Windows that's a reason to buy Dells. Dell support sucks ass. All OEM support sucks ass, all the time. I've learned the hard way if you want good support you have to BUY it, and in THIS regard I think Windows has the edge because not only because you have good documentation (I thought the KnowledgeBase and TechNet sucked until I started using other vendors solutions), decent support from Microsoft (IF you pay for it), and a vast range 3rd-party support form lots of vendors. I've found this field outstrips anything for any particular flavor of Linux (RedHat comes closest by far). FWIW, Sun also provides good support for Solaris with a few glaring exceptions (precompiled binaries... rant, rant) but 3rd-parties tend to fill the gap.
I personally don't feel the US Republicans nor the UK Labor leadership "lied" about WMDs. Worst-case, they were wrong, because they trusted the wrong intel and chose to err on the side of keeping WMD capacity out of Saddam's hands.
Then you're ignoring the incontravertable evidence of the Downing Street and White House memos (minutes), which show that "the intelligence was being fixed around the policy". You don't seem to remember the endless public campaigning about the WMD threat by Cheney, Condi, and others. Especially Condi (and Bush's) famous "you don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud", even though they knew incontravertably that Iraq did not have nuclear capability. Or the smear campaigns against dissenters like Scott Ritter, Joe Wilson, Hans Blix, etc.
Iraq did not have any WMD capability. The UN inspection process combined with the sanctions and "no fly zones" had strangled Iraq's WMD capability (and military in general). The Bush, Blair, and their crew knew this but CHOOSE to use this particular issue to push the case for war with Iraq. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said, "it was the only issue everyone could agree on".
Now maybe you think this deception was justified in light of the "success" in liberating Iraq. That's fine. But there is no doubt that this was a deception. I don't think this is a "partisan reality". Bill Clinton was pretty damn deceptive at times too. However, if you want to stick your head in the sand I can't stop you.
Then again, I've had it out for Bush ever since he screwed McCain in the 2000 primary.