My immediate response to any subject that is strongly promoted by entertainers, especially Hollywood types, is to immediately write it off as complete nonsense.
This has nothing to do with the merits of the global warming debate, just that I'm sick to death of hearing the ignorant opinions of some uneducated, amoral nitwit just because he can act or sing.
That's not to say that some actors don't know what they are talking about, and that some actors support worthy causes, many do. It's just that Global Warming [cue ominous music] has become a popular cause celebre among the typical Hollywood idiots, who never have anything meaningful to say beyond empty platitudes, that I'm getting really sick of hearing about it.
Oh, and politicians are only marginally better. I'm surprised John Edwards, for instance, isn't promising that the polar caps will magically regenerate if he's elected the way he promised people like Christopher Reeves would (would!) be cured if he was elected.
The problem with topics that are scientific in nature is that you don't hear enough from spokesmen who actually have half a clue what they are talking about. You only hear from politicians, most of whom are ass-ignorant of anything other than politics and have made the topic totally political, celebrities, who are ass-ignorant about everything, or the mass media, who are ass-ignorant of everything but sensationalism, and pushing their own political agenda.
I suppose these congressbastards think they OWN the whole Interweb?!?
Well, they think they own you and me and 300 million other people, or at least everything we produce, so the diagnosis of megalomania has already been established.
Sure we do, what we don't have is a Constitutional government. I think the only thing in the Bill of Rights that isn't routinely violated is quartering soldiers in other people's private property.
Of course, we really have taxes because there is another amendment which gives the government the right to collect income taxes. Someone should propose an amendment to require the government to adhere to the Constitution, just for the sheer irony of it.
Oh yes, GIF is making a roaring comeback for all those 320x200 pinups of Cheryl Tiegs and Lynda Carter stored on single-sided 5-1/4 inch "flippy disks" made with a hole-puncher.
I even knew a guy who has a copy of that awesome "Lena" picture in 16 whole colors! Man that was cool!
The "effect of a tendency?" Is that akin to the "length of a string?"
Yes. With two tin cans, I can communicate over a much broader range with a long string than a short string.
But they are dead wrong, and the "best" they can achieve in their line of analysis is to spiritually mislead people.
Perhaps. But, I personally do not find a conflict between what these geneticists have hypothesized and Christian belief, but your mileage may vary. People have all kinds of built-in psychological biases, like the strong bias towards self-preservation. A person's ability and decision to override that particular bias can serve evil, in the case of suicide, or good, in the case of risking one's life to save others. It doesn't obviate free will although it certainly influences it, just as any of a hundred other psychological tendencies we come equipped with. It is no small facet of Christian belief that one must overcome all kinds of natural tendencies to live a moral life, and yet there is recognition that some instincts and inclinations are beneficial.
That this has been expressed in terms of science does not, in my opinion, come into conflict with a belief in God or the moral obligations that this belief implies. However, like I said originally, it will certainly be seized upon by people with all manner of opinions to support their cases.
Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't make it silly, or as you put it, "mysterious", but I saw the undercurrent.
We have all kinds of put in psychological mechanisms that help us survive, not all of which translate directly into rational thinking. I would suspect that there's a broader, more generic way to describe this psychological predisposition in the belief of a higher being. It could probably be stated more as a belief in a universal order that exists beyond our senses. This covers religion certainly, but also pretty much any other kind of thinking that separates people from animals (so far as we know), including scientific and philosophical thought, all of which are different ways of seeking order in an often chaotic universe.
But I suppose I'm distracting you from mockery with my constructive comments, so I'll stop.
Forget that, right here is a gen-you-wine Panaphonics. Look at all these features:
- Corrugated cardboard "Hyper-stiff" protective box for ensuring your set works as well at home as it did in the factory (Panaphonics is not responsible for punctures, gunshot holes, or tire marks. Water damaged boxes are not an indication of TV set condition.)
- Carrying handle (not recommended for people with back problems, heart conditions, pregnancy or inebriation)
- Pre-attached Power cord (supports state-of-the-art alternating current power in a full range of voltages from 110 to 120, includes a "mock" third prong for that elegant "grounded" look)
- "Rust-proof" plastic housing, guaranteed to withstand up to 10 million picopascals of pressure or a shock force of up to 20,000 nano-gravities, resistant to even undiluted dihydrogen monoxide solvents
- Cable-ready (set can be suspended by a cable for that futuristic "floating" look, mounting hardware not included)
- Submitted for certification to UL and the FCC
The Panaphonics television features the latest in monochromatic phosphor displays that includes our patented Variable Luminance Electron Scanning technology that can be controlled for both Brightness and Contrast with easy to use space-age plastic adjustment controls
Act now and we will throw in a Horizontal Roll Adjustment Potentiometer, for that extra stable picture. (Not available outside Taiwan)
(Wired remote sold separately, product is sold by weight, not volume, content may settle during shipping, UHF not included)
A genetic tendency towards belief does not equal belief. We do have brains you know. We are all capable of believing things that contradict experience or common sense (quantum physics, anyone?).
I think you are grossly overstating the effect of a tendency when you suggest that it trumps free will and the exercise of intellect.
No, because if people are created by God (as I believe), then it would make sense for God to give us a innate tendency to believe in Him, but if we are not created by God, then religion can be explained as a side effect of this psychological tendency.
Of course this won't prevent some people from either side using the fact as proof that they are correct or to badmouth their opponents.
Rick (who wishes we all didn't also have an hardwired tendency to be jerks)
Well, first off I'm not arguing as a Republican. Technically I am because I've put off re-registering as an independent for years, but that's beside the point.
You've missed my point entirely. I'm not saying "educated people tend to vote Democrat". I'm trying to say that the education establishment has a strong influence over curricula, and is not above pushing their own agenda. It's an entirely different thing.
The fact that the education establishment is strongly Democrat-leaning is undeniable. That they are largely incompetent in their jobs by succumbing to every goofy fad that comes out of the schizophrenic fever swamps of self-cloistered high academia, disempowering the rank and file teachers by denying them the tried-and-true tools of their trade and diluting their ranks with union rules that favor cronyism over meritocracy, undermining their authority with ludicrous policies like "zero tolerance" which only breed comtempt for rules, and squandering resources by managing their money like a drunk Congressman at a strip club (or Ted Stevens at a bridge planning meeting), can also be clearly demonstrated across large parts of this country.
We are the richest, most powerful country is the world and yet our education system falls towards the low end of industrialized nations in quality (if not in spending). Given that continuing American pre-eminence in the fields of technology, manufacturing, and innovation in general, hinges largely on our ability as a society to recognize and nurture untapped resources (like budding Ramanujans) among us, it might be a good idea to start teaching our children phrases in Mandarin like, "Do you want fries with that?"
It's sad to think that geniuses may languish among the world's millions of underprivileged children who lack access to education.
Or what passes for education in parts of the world where people supposedly know, and can afford, better... like the U.S..
Hey, the teachers' unions think education in the U.S. is just fine. It adequately prepares you for a career of bitter, unhelpful customer support, lifelong Democrat* voter, and dedicated fan of reality TV.
* I'm not saying all dumb people are Democrats, or all Democrats are stupid, just that the education system has a strong tendency to indoctrinate those values. Plenty of ignorant people vote lockstep Republican too, but that's despite the U.S. education system, not because of it.
I think you mean they have a legal requirement not to unfairly hinder their competitors, not that that changes anything. The monopoly conviction and subsequent "punishment" were a slap on the wrist.
I've come to feel that the net effect of Microsoft's business practices is the same as those of the **AA, it is as if they hate their customers, because they are more concerned with attack their competition that serving the customers.
Of course, in the case of the **AA, they really do hate their customers but that's another rant.
After decades of arduous archaeological work, months of supercomputer time (including hundreds of CPU years using a popular new BOINC module) and the lifetime work of more than a dozen mathematicians, cryptologists, experts in medieval Arabic and early second millenium Muslim culture (which in many ways led the world in science, math, astronomy and philosophy), the incredible Mosque mosaics were finally decoded:
Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine.
Youssef Abu Sufah, a British scholar of 12th century Muslim architecture and amateur mathematician summed up the almost unanimous response of the scientific, mathematical, and historical communities with the following observation:
I think you're mistaken. True AI was 10 years away in the 1950's... from what I've read, NLP didn't seem like it would be such a big problem... at first. It's 30 years away now. The amazing thing about AI research was that for every advance that researchers made, and there have been many, they realized the goal was at least two more advances away then they had previously thought.
Or you could say we had Turing-test AI in the 1960's because Eliza fooled a lot of people.
Sorry this doesn't apply. There's nothing in the First Amendment that means libraries and schools must provide access to specific means of free speech.
It's a stupid law, but invoking the Bill of Rights is a weak argument against it.
It's also equally likely that Apple's products were never fully compatible with XP in the first place. Apple's track record for Windows software isn't exactly what I would call stellar. Of course, neither is Microsoft's, and while Apple shines on their own platform, the Windows versions of software like QuickTime have often left much to be desired.
I think that it will either remain equally restrictive, or it will become less restrictive.
Not if they don't remove that silly DRM clause. The very fact that Stallman et al are willing to use the GPLv3 as a bully pulpit for their political views (with which I happen to agree vis-a-vis DRM, BTW) compromises some of the legitimacy of the license and will make it look to many people like some kind of stand in favor of piracy.
You know it isn't and I know it isn't, but CEOs and lawmakers are not likely to see it that way. And we all know the Microsoft FUD machine is rooting for that clause to be included. IMO, Stallman is marginalizing himself unnecessarily (again), but in this case, there's a danger it will adversely affect the perception of the GPL by a lot of people. Recall the whole point of the article is that a reporter totally misunderstood what the GPL and the FSF are all about.
The problem with all these ideas, unless you could precisely move the "plow" around is that there's just too much space for the junk to be in, i.e., the plow would have to be [pulls number out of nether regions] hundreds of square miles in size to stand a reasonable chance of catching a significant amount of material.
I say we get billg to stitch together 50 billion one dollar bills to make a great big net.
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My immediate response to any subject that is strongly promoted by entertainers, especially Hollywood types, is to immediately write it off as complete nonsense.
This has nothing to do with the merits of the global warming debate, just that I'm sick to death of hearing the ignorant opinions of some uneducated, amoral nitwit just because he can act or sing.
That's not to say that some actors don't know what they are talking about, and that some actors support worthy causes, many do. It's just that Global Warming [cue ominous music] has become a popular cause celebre among the typical Hollywood idiots, who never have anything meaningful to say beyond empty platitudes, that I'm getting really sick of hearing about it.
Oh, and politicians are only marginally better. I'm surprised John Edwards, for instance, isn't promising that the polar caps will magically regenerate if he's elected the way he promised people like Christopher Reeves would (would!) be cured if he was elected.
The problem with topics that are scientific in nature is that you don't hear enough from spokesmen who actually have half a clue what they are talking about. You only hear from politicians, most of whom are ass-ignorant of anything other than politics and have made the topic totally political, celebrities, who are ass-ignorant about everything, or the mass media, who are ass-ignorant of everything but sensationalism, and pushing their own political agenda.
I suppose these congressbastards think they OWN the whole Interweb?!?
Well, they think they own you and me and 300 million other people, or at least everything we produce, so the diagnosis of megalomania has already been established.
If ASCII was good enough for the Apostles Peter and Paul then it ought to be good enough for everyone.
Reminds me of the Saturday Night Live sketch listing the various spellings of "Khadafy".
Sure we do, what we don't have is a Constitutional government. I think the only thing in the Bill of Rights that isn't routinely violated is quartering soldiers in other people's private property.
Of course, we really have taxes because there is another amendment which gives the government the right to collect income taxes. Someone should propose an amendment to require the government to adhere to the Constitution, just for the sheer irony of it.
Oh yes, GIF is making a roaring comeback for all those 320x200 pinups of Cheryl Tiegs and Lynda Carter stored on single-sided 5-1/4 inch "flippy disks" made with a hole-puncher.
I even knew a guy who has a copy of that awesome "Lena" picture in 16 whole colors! Man that was cool!
one might with as much validity claim that all Americans are hardwired for stupidity.
Excuse me, have you looked around?!
The "effect of a tendency?" Is that akin to the "length of a string?"
Yes. With two tin cans, I can communicate over a much broader range with a long string than a short string.
But they are dead wrong, and the "best" they can achieve in their line of analysis is to spiritually mislead people.
Perhaps. But, I personally do not find a conflict between what these geneticists have hypothesized and Christian belief, but your mileage may vary. People have all kinds of built-in psychological biases, like the strong bias towards self-preservation. A person's ability and decision to override that particular bias can serve evil, in the case of suicide, or good, in the case of risking one's life to save others. It doesn't obviate free will although it certainly influences it, just as any of a hundred other psychological tendencies we come equipped with. It is no small facet of Christian belief that one must overcome all kinds of natural tendencies to live a moral life, and yet there is recognition that some instincts and inclinations are beneficial.
That this has been expressed in terms of science does not, in my opinion, come into conflict with a belief in God or the moral obligations that this belief implies. However, like I said originally, it will certainly be seized upon by people with all manner of opinions to support their cases.
Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't make it silly, or as you put it, "mysterious", but I saw the undercurrent.
We have all kinds of put in psychological mechanisms that help us survive, not all of which translate directly into rational thinking. I would suspect that there's a broader, more generic way to describe this psychological predisposition in the belief of a higher being. It could probably be stated more as a belief in a universal order that exists beyond our senses. This covers religion certainly, but also pretty much any other kind of thinking that separates people from animals (so far as we know), including scientific and philosophical thought, all of which are different ways of seeking order in an often chaotic universe.
But I suppose I'm distracting you from mockery with my constructive comments, so I'll stop.
Forget that, right here is a gen-you-wine Panaphonics. Look at all these features:
- Corrugated cardboard "Hyper-stiff" protective box for ensuring your set works as well at home as it did in the factory (Panaphonics is not responsible for punctures, gunshot holes, or tire marks. Water damaged boxes are not an indication of TV set condition.)
- Carrying handle (not recommended for people with back problems, heart conditions, pregnancy or inebriation)
- Pre-attached Power cord (supports state-of-the-art alternating current power in a full range of voltages from 110 to 120, includes a "mock" third prong for that elegant "grounded" look)
- "Rust-proof" plastic housing, guaranteed to withstand up to 10 million picopascals of pressure or a shock force of up to 20,000 nano-gravities, resistant to even undiluted dihydrogen monoxide solvents
- Cable-ready (set can be suspended by a cable for that futuristic "floating" look, mounting hardware not included)
- Submitted for certification to UL and the FCC
The Panaphonics television features the latest in monochromatic phosphor displays that includes our patented Variable Luminance Electron Scanning technology that can be controlled for both Brightness and Contrast with easy to use space-age plastic adjustment controls
Act now and we will throw in a Horizontal Roll Adjustment Potentiometer, for that extra stable picture. (Not available outside Taiwan)
(Wired remote sold separately, product is sold by weight, not volume, content may settle during shipping, UHF not included)
A genetic tendency towards belief does not equal belief. We do have brains you know. We are all capable of believing things that contradict experience or common sense (quantum physics, anyone?).
I think you are grossly overstating the effect of a tendency when you suggest that it trumps free will and the exercise of intellect.
No, because if people are created by God (as I believe), then it would make sense for God to give us a innate tendency to believe in Him, but if we are not created by God, then religion can be explained as a side effect of this psychological tendency.
Of course this won't prevent some people from either side using the fact as proof that they are correct or to badmouth their opponents.
Rick (who wishes we all didn't also have an hardwired tendency to be jerks)
Well, first off I'm not arguing as a Republican. Technically I am because I've put off re-registering as an independent for years, but that's beside the point.
You've missed my point entirely. I'm not saying "educated people tend to vote Democrat". I'm trying to say that the education establishment has a strong influence over curricula, and is not above pushing their own agenda. It's an entirely different thing.
The fact that the education establishment is strongly Democrat-leaning is undeniable. That they are largely incompetent in their jobs by succumbing to every goofy fad that comes out of the schizophrenic fever swamps of self-cloistered high academia, disempowering the rank and file teachers by denying them the tried-and-true tools of their trade and diluting their ranks with union rules that favor cronyism over meritocracy, undermining their authority with ludicrous policies like "zero tolerance" which only breed comtempt for rules, and squandering resources by managing their money like a drunk Congressman at a strip club (or Ted Stevens at a bridge planning meeting), can also be clearly demonstrated across large parts of this country.
We are the richest, most powerful country is the world and yet our education system falls towards the low end of industrialized nations in quality (if not in spending). Given that continuing American pre-eminence in the fields of technology, manufacturing, and innovation in general, hinges largely on our ability as a society to recognize and nurture untapped resources (like budding Ramanujans) among us, it might be a good idea to start teaching our children phrases in Mandarin like, "Do you want fries with that?"
Or we could try fixing the education system.
It's sad to think that geniuses may languish among the world's millions of underprivileged children who lack access to education.
Or what passes for education in parts of the world where people supposedly know, and can afford, better... like the U.S..
Hey, the teachers' unions think education in the U.S. is just fine. It adequately prepares you for a career of bitter, unhelpful customer support, lifelong Democrat* voter, and dedicated fan of reality TV.
* I'm not saying all dumb people are Democrats, or all Democrats are stupid, just that the education system has a strong tendency to indoctrinate those values. Plenty of ignorant people vote lockstep Republican too, but that's despite the U.S. education system, not because of it.
I think you mean they have a legal requirement not to unfairly hinder their competitors, not that that changes anything. The monopoly conviction and subsequent "punishment" were a slap on the wrist.
I've come to feel that the net effect of Microsoft's business practices is the same as those of the **AA, it is as if they hate their customers, because they are more concerned with attack their competition that serving the customers.
Of course, in the case of the **AA, they really do hate their customers but that's another rant.
Youssef Abu Sufah, a British scholar of 12th century Muslim architecture and amateur mathematician summed up the almost unanimous response of the scientific, mathematical, and historical communities with the following observation:
Really! That one sentence probably applies to 95% of all people... in fact, probably everyone who _isn't_ autistic.
I think you're mistaken. True AI was 10 years away in the 1950's... from what I've read, NLP didn't seem like it would be such a big problem... at first. It's 30 years away now. The amazing thing about AI research was that for every advance that researchers made, and there have been many, they realized the goal was at least two more advances away then they had previously thought.
Or you could say we had Turing-test AI in the 1960's because Eliza fooled a lot of people.
Don't look now, but your upgrade might just be the obscure, little-mentioned "Vista Retro", otherwise known as Windows 2000.
Yeah, it's not like 2 years of beta testing would find those things.
The sad thing is, I can't figure out if I'm being sarcastic or not.
Sorry this doesn't apply. There's nothing in the First Amendment that means libraries and schools must provide access to specific means of free speech.
It's a stupid law, but invoking the Bill of Rights is a weak argument against it.
It's also equally likely that Apple's products were never fully compatible with XP in the first place. Apple's track record for Windows software isn't exactly what I would call stellar. Of course, neither is Microsoft's, and while Apple shines on their own platform, the Windows versions of software like QuickTime have often left much to be desired.
I think that it will either remain equally restrictive, or it will become less restrictive.
Not if they don't remove that silly DRM clause. The very fact that Stallman et al are willing to use the GPLv3 as a bully pulpit for their political views (with which I happen to agree vis-a-vis DRM, BTW) compromises some of the legitimacy of the license and will make it look to many people like some kind of stand in favor of piracy.
You know it isn't and I know it isn't, but CEOs and lawmakers are not likely to see it that way. And we all know the Microsoft FUD machine is rooting for that clause to be included. IMO, Stallman is marginalizing himself unnecessarily (again), but in this case, there's a danger it will adversely affect the perception of the GPL by a lot of people. Recall the whole point of the article is that a reporter totally misunderstood what the GPL and the FSF are all about.
And I think that now that the GPLv3 hysteria has died down a bit, I think people are becoming more accepting.
No, I just think they are waiting for the next draft.
The problem with all these ideas, unless you could precisely move the "plow" around is that there's just too much space for the junk to be in, i.e., the plow would have to be [pulls number out of nether regions] hundreds of square miles in size to stand a reasonable chance of catching a significant amount of material.
I say we get billg to stitch together 50 billion one dollar bills to make a great big net.