How dare they try to interfere with our Repubocrat-icracy! 3rd parties should be illegal, they interfere with the duopoly in the American government.
Seriously, though, there has got to be a better way to deal with third parties. We don't want every crackpot in the country involved, but there are several parties (Reform, Libertarian, Green, and others) that outght to be able to have a chance to participate. I think the 5% rule might be a good start.
The debates are so rigidly structured that they pretty much amount to duelling stump speeches anyway. I vote for a free-for-all no-holds-barred cage match. All these rules about candidates not being able to address each other and where they can walk, etc, is just ridiculous.
I think it was instructions from Kerry's French Overlords, whom he, for one, welcomes. It probably reads:
1. Jan 20, 2005: Surrender 2. ???? 3 Profit!!!!
Also, Bush wasn't wearing a wire, he had a surgical implant into his motor cortex and Dick Cheney was controlling him with a $10 Radio Shack universal remote. Bush didn't do so well, because they didn't find the code for "Republican President" until halfway through the debate. In the second half, Cheney was distracted by the idea of a Beowulf cluster of brush-clearing Texan automatons, and kept letting the face controls slide, you insensitive clod.
p.s. If you want real discussion about politics, you probably shouldn't read/.
Is the freedom you enjoy not worth anything to you?
Re:Redundant Systems and Fluid Dynamics
on
Fluid Logic Chips
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· Score: 1
Materials engineering and all the wacky new properties of various compounds they are discovering is one of the most interesting parts of technology today to me.
Between carbon nanotubes, superconducting materials, materials that freeze when they get warmer and Einstein-Bose condensates, etc, etc, it's a fascinating time.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is somehow turned into a serious technology solution. Whooda thinkit?
Re:Redundant Systems and Fluid Dynamics
on
Fluid Logic Chips
·
· Score: 1
So what kind of fluid would be reasonable to use in space, where it would probably require a heat source just to remain liquid... helium, perhaps?
Re:Actually, More Fragmented Market
on
The Long Tail
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· Score: 1
"Choose (Kerry) or Loose"
I'll take "Loose" 'cause I've been putting on some weight.
Anyone who compares this stupid mistake on a Web page with a lead news story using evidence only an idiot or a hopelessly biased partisan would believe has no sense of proportion. Of course, the Fox thing was stupid and wrong, but they weren't pursuing this story for five years and putting it on the air in a desperate attempt to affect the election before the story becomes (more) irrelevant.
And this is far from the first time that Dan Rather ran stories with evidence that only an imbecile would believe. Does anyone remember "The Wall Within"?
That's a cop out. Many conscientious objectors served valiantly as medics or in other capacities that did not require them to kill. These people were as brave and honorable as those who fought on the front lines, with whom they worked. (In a way more so, because they couldn't defend themselves)
We really didn't learn any lessons from Vietnam at all did we?
Sure we did. The only people who are talking about the draft are the ones who are using the idea in a deceitful attempt to scare people into voting against the President.
Hopefully it won't occur to him that you use a urine-based biometric reader.
Back in the day (c. 1987) a friend (Jenny) was working on another friend's (Bill) computer writing her paper. Bill had cats named Jeremy and Silver. While Jenny was writing the paper in WordStar, Silver walked across the keyboard and managed to close the program without saving, which if I recall was Ctrl-K, X with maybe an N necessary to answer "Do you want your cat to destroy your work?"
Being the good old DOS days however, Bill was able to use debug to retrieve the paper from the computer's memory, saving hours of retyping. In many ways, I miss those days.
You have a good point and you're absolutely right. However, in the 21st century how do we get past this stage without someone having to (or wanting to) annihilate the other?
When the state-of-the-art is a sword or a crossbow, it's one issue, but with weapons of mass destruction, it's a much scarier prospect.
Re:Actually, More Fragmented Market
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 1
Really you have to go back to 30 to 40 years ago. After all, 20 years ago we had CNN, MTV (which was worth watching then), HBO, and lots of other stuff.
But your point is still valid.
Perhaps, there is something to this "No Spin" thing.
Even if there is a spin, apparently it's a spin that's almost unique in TV news and more in agreeement with the watchers. Also, unlike almost every other TV news organization in the world, Fox News hasn't been around enough to be caught faking major stories (or maybe they just aren't doing it).
Re:More Democratic Market
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 1
Word-of-Mouth and actual sampling were the only way I ever discovered music, especially since my tastes evolved beyond the confines of commercial radio as much as commercial radio devolved beneath the tastes of anyone who takes it seriously.
Whereas in the late 80's I thought my days of discovering new music was limited to haunting used record stores and reading obscure buyer's guides, I now find that there is moreinformationout there than I know what to do with.
This incredibly granular democratization is true for all forms of culture, whether it's music, movies, politics, TV, religion or any other bizarre interest you might find.
And as far as Red Dwarf goes, it's apples and oranges. Comparing the Red Dwarf books to the HHGG books isn't fair, you should probably compare the TV show to the original HHGG radio show. I enjoyed the books, but they're definitely different. Besides, I think Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are better than both.
What you're describing is generally known as "agnosticism".
Atheism by sheer virtue of its etymology means a belief that God does not exist.
I think some people simply can't grasp that someone might simply not believe in any kind of God and they try to paint this stance as being just as irrational as any other religion.
I think that some people cannot grasp the idea that a belief in God and practice of religion can be as rational as any empiricist.
I just wish that religious people would simply understand that not believing in (to atheists) fairy tales does not mean atheism is some other kind of irrational belief.
Atheism, by definition, is far less rational because of the greater logical difficulty of proving a negative. But I don't mean to get bogged down in semantics. They are two different flavors of faith.
Agnosticism, which is what you seem to call by the name "atheism" is simply choosing not to decide, which at best is a cop out, and at worst is cowardice. Faith in things unseen is a sine qua non of our existence. I have never seen India, yet there is no doubt in my mind it exists. I have never seen atoms, yet there is no doubt in my mind they exist. I have never seen Abraham Lincoln, yet there is no doubt in my mind he existed. This idea reaches its apex in the Holographic Principle in physics (and rooted in philosophical tradition since the days of Plato), which says, essentially (IANAP), there's no way to know anything is real, so we have to go on what we can perceive, which can be reduced to a quantity of information dictated by the space through with we perceive. Yet without this belief, we cannot really function. Reality is subjective until you smack your face into a wall.
It is quite reasonable and rational to consider that there are things we cannot perceive or understand but that do exist. Similarly, it is reasonable and rational to consider that these things do not exist. We must judge the logic of these ideas based on the evidence available to us, whether it is empirical proof, or less concrete things such as stories, traditions or moral codes, but in the end you have to trust your gut because ultimately you can't completely trust any other perception. That's faith, whether you decide one way or the other, but it's also rational, critical thinking.
You're absolutely right. The difference between us Christians and those Muslims, is that we Christians moved past that stage.
Sure there are nutcases who bomb abortion clinics or shoot doctors... there is no lack of denouncement of these deluded and evil acts in any church I've been in.
No one is perfect, but there is a huge cultural difference here. Some of us are moving into the third millennium, making progress despite being imperfect, while others are mired in the first.
The hugest irony is that a thousand years ago, the Muslim world was the source of much (even most) scientific and philisophical advancement at the time. The Dark Ages in Europe were never as dark as many believe, but the Middle East was a huge source of artistic creativity and intellectual advancement.
That is a very gratuitous assertion. I think Scalia fits Bush's descriptions perfectly. It's people like Blackmun who were just making it up as they went along. It doesn't matter what your ideas are or how you think things _should_ be (that's Congress's job), it matters what the Constitution or the laws _say_.
Because we should be free to insult anything and anyone. I for one don't find that fact that hundreds of millions of people adhere to a religion that is philosophically stuck in the eighth century (minus all the scientific and cultural progress they were making back then), all that compelling a reason for its merit.
We would not put up with anyone insulting Christianity
What planet are you from?
When will you Atheists realise that your beliefs are just as much a religion as anthing you find in the Bible or the Quran?
On this we agree.
I suppose I'll get shot down in flames for pointing this out, but the levels of Islamophobia and general religious intolerance at slashdot are staggering.
Perhaps, but I do not need to be afraid that I or my children will be nuked, poisoned or infected by militant Buddhists, or Presbyterofascists, or Mormon suicide bombers, because they don't exist. There are no rabbis, or bishops issuing death warrants.
While there certainly have been Christian, et al, terrorists, they pale in significance by orders of magnitude to those of Islam. No bigotry in this statement, just facts.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! You have a future in presidential debating!
How dare they try to interfere with our Repubocrat-icracy! 3rd parties should be illegal, they interfere with the duopoly in the American government.
Seriously, though, there has got to be a better way to deal with third parties. We don't want every crackpot in the country involved, but there are several parties (Reform, Libertarian, Green, and others) that outght to be able to have a chance to participate. I think the 5% rule might be a good start.
The debates are so rigidly structured that they pretty much amount to duelling stump speeches anyway. I vote for a free-for-all no-holds-barred cage match. All these rules about candidates not being able to address each other and where they can walk, etc, is just ridiculous.
Yeah, whatever. Now back to the real topic.
/.
I think it was instructions from Kerry's French Overlords, whom he, for one, welcomes. It probably reads:
1. Jan 20, 2005: Surrender
2. ????
3 Profit!!!!
Also, Bush wasn't wearing a wire, he had a surgical implant into his motor cortex and Dick Cheney was controlling him with a $10 Radio Shack universal remote. Bush didn't do so well, because they didn't find the code for "Republican President" until halfway through the debate. In the second half, Cheney was distracted by the idea of a Beowulf cluster of brush-clearing Texan automatons, and kept letting the face controls slide, you insensitive clod.
p.s. If you want real discussion about politics, you probably shouldn't read
Not to mention France and the U.N...
I would volunteer to defend my country at home.
Fair enough, but I would hope the war would never come to here.
Or better yet:
http://server.com/%2Fcon%3A
to get access to the command prompt!
I wouldn't be surprised if there are a half-dozen pieces of code devoted to path parsing in all of Microsoft's bloat.
Is the freedom you enjoy not worth anything to you?
Materials engineering and all the wacky new properties of various compounds they are discovering is one of the most interesting parts of technology today to me.
Between carbon nanotubes, superconducting materials, materials that freeze when they get warmer and Einstein-Bose condensates, etc, etc, it's a fascinating time.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is somehow turned into a serious technology solution. Whooda thinkit?
Kerry's re-enactment of his combat with fake gun fire provided by Senor Spielbergo that was shown at the convention?
Sounds like "A Burns for All Seasons" and I was saying "Boooo!", not "Boooo-urns!".
I just wish Kerry would run on something he's done since most of the electorate was born.
Sounds like you need to GTFJ. ;-)
So what kind of fluid would be reasonable to use in space, where it would probably require a heat source just to remain liquid... helium, perhaps?
"Choose (Kerry) or Loose"
I'll take "Loose" 'cause I've been putting on some weight.
Anyone who compares this stupid mistake on a Web page with a lead news story using evidence only an idiot or a hopelessly biased partisan would believe has no sense of proportion. Of course, the Fox thing was stupid and wrong, but they weren't pursuing this story for five years and putting it on the air in a desperate attempt to affect the election before the story becomes (more) irrelevant.
And this is far from the first time that Dan Rather ran stories with evidence that only an imbecile would believe. Does anyone remember "The Wall Within"?
I will be completely useless
That's a cop out. Many conscientious objectors served valiantly as medics or in other capacities that did not require them to kill. These people were as brave and honorable as those who fought on the front lines, with whom they worked. (In a way more so, because they couldn't defend themselves)
We really didn't learn any lessons from Vietnam at all did we?
Sure we did. The only people who are talking about the draft are the ones who are using the idea in a deceitful attempt to scare people into voting against the President.
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Hopefully it won't occur to him that you use a urine-based biometric reader.
Back in the day (c. 1987) a friend (Jenny) was working on another friend's (Bill) computer writing her paper. Bill had cats named Jeremy and Silver. While Jenny was writing the paper in WordStar, Silver walked across the keyboard and managed to close the program without saving, which if I recall was Ctrl-K, X with maybe an N necessary to answer "Do you want your cat to destroy your work?"
Being the good old DOS days however, Bill was able to use debug to retrieve the paper from the computer's memory, saving hours of retyping. In many ways, I miss those days.
I didn't say it doesn't happen, but Northern Ireland isn't on the scale of World War.
I can, but you have to die. ;-)
You have a good point and you're absolutely right. However, in the 21st century how do we get past this stage without someone having to (or wanting to) annihilate the other?
When the state-of-the-art is a sword or a crossbow, it's one issue, but with weapons of mass destruction, it's a much scarier prospect.
Really you have to go back to 30 to 40 years ago. After all, 20 years ago we had CNN, MTV (which was worth watching then), HBO, and lots of other stuff.
But your point is still valid.
Perhaps, there is something to this "No Spin" thing.
Even if there is a spin, apparently it's a spin that's almost unique in TV news and more in agreeement with the watchers. Also, unlike almost every other TV news organization in the world, Fox News hasn't been around enough to be caught faking major stories (or maybe they just aren't doing it).
Word-of-Mouth and actual sampling were the only way I ever discovered music, especially since my tastes evolved beyond the confines of commercial radio as much as commercial radio devolved beneath the tastes of anyone who takes it seriously.
The Internet has made this much easier for me (as has the recent renaissance of progressive music and instrumental and compositional virtuosity.
Whereas in the late 80's I thought my days of discovering new music was limited to haunting used record stores and reading obscure buyer's guides, I now find that there is more information out there than I know what to do with.
This incredibly granular democratization is true for all forms of culture, whether it's music, movies, politics, TV, religion or any other bizarre interest you might find.
And as far as Red Dwarf goes, it's apples and oranges. Comparing the Red Dwarf books to the HHGG books isn't fair, you should probably compare the TV show to the original HHGG radio show. I enjoyed the books, but they're definitely different. Besides, I think Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are better than both.
Atheism is simply the absence of belief
What you're describing is generally known as "agnosticism".
Atheism by sheer virtue of its etymology means a belief that God does not exist.
I think some people simply can't grasp that someone might simply not believe in any kind of God and they try to paint this stance as being just as irrational as any other religion.
I think that some people cannot grasp the idea that a belief in God and practice of religion can be as rational as any empiricist.
I just wish that religious people would simply understand that not believing in (to atheists) fairy tales does not mean atheism is some other kind of irrational belief.
Atheism, by definition, is far less rational because of the greater logical difficulty of proving a negative. But I don't mean to get bogged down in semantics. They are two different flavors of faith.
Agnosticism, which is what you seem to call by the name "atheism" is simply choosing not to decide, which at best is a cop out, and at worst is cowardice. Faith in things unseen is a sine qua non of our existence. I have never seen India, yet there is no doubt in my mind it exists. I have never seen atoms, yet there is no doubt in my mind they exist. I have never seen Abraham Lincoln, yet there is no doubt in my mind he existed. This idea reaches its apex in the Holographic Principle in physics (and rooted in philosophical tradition since the days of Plato), which says, essentially (IANAP), there's no way to know anything is real, so we have to go on what we can perceive, which can be reduced to a quantity of information dictated by the space through with we perceive. Yet without this belief, we cannot really function. Reality is subjective until you smack your face into a wall.
It is quite reasonable and rational to consider that there are things we cannot perceive or understand but that do exist. Similarly, it is reasonable and rational to consider that these things do not exist. We must judge the logic of these ideas based on the evidence available to us, whether it is empirical proof, or less concrete things such as stories, traditions or moral codes, but in the end you have to trust your gut because ultimately you can't completely trust any other perception. That's faith, whether you decide one way or the other, but it's also rational, critical thinking.
You're absolutely right. The difference between us Christians and those Muslims, is that we Christians moved past that stage.
Sure there are nutcases who bomb abortion clinics or shoot doctors... there is no lack of denouncement of these deluded and evil acts in any church I've been in.
No one is perfect, but there is a huge cultural difference here. Some of us are moving into the third millennium, making progress despite being imperfect, while others are mired in the first.
The hugest irony is that a thousand years ago, the Muslim world was the source of much (even most) scientific and philisophical advancement at the time. The Dark Ages in Europe were never as dark as many believe, but the Middle East was a huge source of artistic creativity and intellectual advancement.
Wha' hoppen?
That is a very gratuitous assertion. I think Scalia fits Bush's descriptions perfectly. It's people like Blackmun who were just making it up as they went along. It doesn't matter what your ideas are or how you think things _should_ be (that's Congress's job), it matters what the Constitution or the laws _say_.
Why should people be allowed to insult Islam
Because we should be free to insult anything and anyone. I for one don't find that fact that hundreds of millions of people adhere to a religion that is philosophically stuck in the eighth century (minus all the scientific and cultural progress they were making back then), all that compelling a reason for its merit.
We would not put up with anyone insulting Christianity
What planet are you from?
When will you Atheists realise that your beliefs are just as much a religion as anthing you find in the Bible or the Quran?
On this we agree.
I suppose I'll get shot down in flames for pointing this out, but the levels of Islamophobia and general religious intolerance at slashdot are staggering.
Perhaps, but I do not need to be afraid that I or my children will be nuked, poisoned or infected by militant Buddhists, or Presbyterofascists, or Mormon suicide bombers, because they don't exist. There are no rabbis, or bishops issuing death warrants.
While there certainly have been Christian, et al, terrorists, they pale in significance by orders of magnitude to those of Islam. No bigotry in this statement, just facts.