Re:Warning : Ignorance in the name of piety
on
Digital Biology
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· Score: 1
By the way you should not so smugly say that evolution has overwheling evidence, I have seen tracks of man and dinosaur side by side.
I thought even the creationists were abandoning this piece of "evidence". See this site for details.
Besides, even if you proved dinosaurs and man did have some overlap in the chronology of life on Earth, it certainly doesn't prove a six-day creation, or a 6000-year-old Earth. Once again, Creationists show their lack of comprehension not only of the scientific process, but also of simple logic.
I work for a small HMO, and we are one of the insurance options for Federal Government employees in our state. *All* data that goes back and forth between us and the Feds is supposed to be encrypted with PGP. They even specify which PGP version we are supposed to use.
It will be interesting to see what happens now. I wonder if they will consider using GPG eventually?
The makers of that system forgot about one thing: Windows itself is already a circumvention device. Just press Print Screen, start MS Paint, import the clipboard, and then save, OCR, or print the document.
If SSSCA passes, Windows will have to be modified so that Print Screen does not work when a protected document is visible. It will also have to put hooks into any program that reads or writes from the hard drive to make sure it's not copying a protected work. Norton Ghost will be illegal. Hex editors would be illegal. Compilers would either be illegal, or would have to somehow trap all input/output routines to prevent your programs from reading copyrighted materials. It'll be a very sad day.
The authority to pass it might be under the Commerce Clause, but...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. "
If software is speech (still up for debate) the SSSCA is unconstitutionally abridging the freedom of speech.
Interesting to note that SUV rollovers in the past ten years have killed about five times as many people as terrorist activities. It's time for the "War On Unsafe Vehicles" - where the hell is Ralph Nader?
Good point. All the music that is heavily marketed falls into two or three pigeonholes, and the artists are interchangable within their categories (Brittney/Christina/whoever, N*Sync/Backstreet Boyz/98 Degrees, Creed/Staind/Days of the New).
Another problem with the mass-market music is the record companies don't want to bother with anything but the mega-stars. For God's sake, they dumped Mariah Carey because she "only" sold two million records?!?
Some of us/. readers, though, are a bit different from the general public (no, really?). I'd bet some of us have slacked off on buying CDs lately *because* of the RIAA attacking Napster, not because having Napster around inspired us to buy more CDs. This sort of vote-with-your wallet mentality isn't as widespread as we would like to believe it is. I'm sure there are plenty of folks out there who just said, "Darn, I can't download Brittney anymore. I guess I'll have to moan and complain until Mom buys me the CD now."
6 megatons? You must not be very thirsty. I'll take a 375ml bottle of antiwater, please. This, of course, hass a mass of 375g, and annihilates with 375g of matter. Total mass = 750g or.75kg
e = mc^2 e =.75kg * (3*10^8m/s)^2 e = 6.75*10^16 joules
A megaton is roughly 4*10^15 joules. So, it's about 17 megatons. Perhaps you were only drinking a coffee cup of antiwater?
Anyone remember the old CED Videodiscs? They were 12" analog video discs that came in a plastic cartridge. You inserted the cartridge into the player, it retracted the disc and spit the cartridge back out. Halfway through the movie, you'd have to stick the cartridge back in so the player could eject the disc, and you'd flip it to play the other side.
Needless to say, it didn't catch on too well. The quality was only slightly better than VHS, and the discs were cumbersome to store. And of course it was read-only.
How about if someone makes the point that it was fairly common knowledge that the world was round in Columbus's day, and the 'naysayers' told him it was too big around for him to make it to India. And they were right, Columbus's estimate of the earth's size was wrong. And it would have proven fatally wrong, except that he happened to run into another continent on his way around.
Please read the DMCA before you continue to sprout off non-sense. It's about circumventing copyprotection schemes and CSS is not the only one in existance.
Actually, as seen in the DeCSS case, the courts have decided it illegal to circumvent an *access control* technology, which is what CSS is. CSS doesn't prevent copying a DVD, it prevents viewing it on devices whose manufacturers haven't paid their license fee to the DVD cartel.
Since WPA (or any key system) could also be construed as an access control technology (it doesn't prevent copying, it prevents unauthorized use), it is possible that the DeCSS case could be used as precedent to make keygens illegal to write or distribute or even link to.
If all the intervening sized breeds were to go extinct, it would be physiologically impossible for them to exchange genes - they would be different species.
I beg to differ... I think given the chance, they would find a way. And someone, somewhere, would take a picture and it would wind up on the Internet. But I digress....
I think there'd have to be more than a *physiological* barrier before any biologist would consider them different species. But, here's an idea for an experiment:
Take two very dissimilar breeds of dogs. Get a huge population (thousands if possible) of each and keep them in isolation from each other. Slowly change their environments in different ways over a very long period of time. At various intervals, take members out of both populations and attempt to breed them (use artifical insemination if they can't or won't physically mate.
If at some time we find the two populations can no longer interbreed to create viable offspring, we finally have evidence of speciation. Of course, that still won't *prove* that all life on Earth evolved, and Creationists can still argue that some species might have been created rather than evolved.
On the other hand, if the two populations never fail to produce offspring, it's strong evidence that speciation either doesn't happen, or just takes so incredibly long that it can't account for the diversity of life on Earth without some outside help, and the current theory of evolution would have to be re-thought.
Unfortunately, this is a very impractical experiment, and would require a very long time to get results. It's hard to get funding for any scientific research lasting longer than the span between political elections, much less an experiment which would take generations. Not to mention the immense cost of dog food, and maintaining two radically different environments for the separate populations.
Erm, the "answer" is obvious to me, and I'm not a biblical literalist. After the flood, at some point people made boats and went to Australia. This is obviously true, or there wouldn't have been aborigines. Well, they could have carried the kangaroos and koalas with them, right?
Big whoop. I'm offering a prize of 1,000,000,000 (that's one billion) US dollars to anyone who can provide me with empirical evidence that the world was created exactly according to Genesis. This, of course, includes proving the existence of God, since He is a vital part of the account.
English isn't one of the easiest languages to learn, actually. There are more exceptions than there are rules, both in grammar and spelling. I think Spanish or French are probably easier for a non-native speaker to learn than English.
I only wish I remembered more of my French from high school. I could sort of follow along reading the parent posts, but I'd be lost trying to listen to a native French speaker.
The problem with the menu system is that software coming from anyone other than Mandrake or Debian won't use it, and you end up having to create all these menu files. I wish there was just a way for update-menus to be told not to fudge up menu entries that it didn't create. Then at least Mandrake could put the KDE menus where they belong, and I could just install StarOffice and QuakeIII and have my icons. As it is, I just turned the menu thing off.
Actually, it would be even better if KDE/Gnome/WindowMaker et al would just agree on a single location for menu entry files. Then there wouldn't be a need for another package just to update menus. Seems like that would be a good thing for a standards document to specify, actually.
At the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL they used to sell "Astronaut Ice Cream". It was a freeze-dried, flavored glob (on a stick, IIRC) that melted in your mouth and tasted vaguely like warm melted ice cream. I remember it seemed like the coolest thing in the world, of course, I was like 11 years old.
They may still sell it. I can't remember whether I saw it last time I was there, about 5 or 6 years ago.
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By the way you should not so smugly say that evolution has overwheling evidence, I have seen tracks of man and dinosaur side by side.
I thought even the creationists were abandoning this piece of "evidence". See this site for details.
Besides, even if you proved dinosaurs and man did have some overlap in the chronology of life on Earth, it certainly doesn't prove a six-day creation, or a 6000-year-old Earth. Once again, Creationists show their lack of comprehension not only of the scientific process, but also of simple logic.
And which version do they specify that you use?
PGP Desktop Security Version 7.0, although they may have recently specified that 7.1 is acceptable as well.
I work for a small HMO, and we are one of the insurance options for Federal Government employees in our state. *All* data that goes back and forth between us and the Feds is supposed to be encrypted with PGP. They even specify which PGP version we are supposed to use.
It will be interesting to see what happens now. I wonder if they will consider using GPG eventually?
It makes me humbled when I think of how much better nature is at this "programming/hardware" design than we are! :)
Of course, keep in mind that Nature has been building brains for millions of years; we've only been doing it for about fifty.
The makers of that system forgot about one thing: Windows itself is already a circumvention device. Just press Print Screen, start MS Paint, import the clipboard, and then save, OCR, or print the document.
If SSSCA passes, Windows will have to be modified so that Print Screen does not work when a protected document is visible. It will also have to put hooks into any program that reads or writes from the hard drive to make sure it's not copying a protected work. Norton Ghost will be illegal. Hex editors would be illegal. Compilers would either be illegal, or would have to somehow trap all input/output routines to prevent your programs from reading copyrighted materials. It'll be a very sad day.
The authority to pass it might be under the Commerce Clause, but...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. "
If software is speech (still up for debate) the SSSCA is unconstitutionally abridging the freedom of speech.
Interesting to note that SUV rollovers in the past ten years have killed about five times as many people as terrorist activities. It's time for the "War On Unsafe Vehicles" - where the hell is Ralph Nader?
Oh, never mind.
Hate to use this link, but it was the quickest one to find.
Curb weight: 6650 - 6734
Good point. All the music that is heavily marketed falls into two or three pigeonholes, and the artists are interchangable within their categories (Brittney/Christina/whoever, N*Sync/Backstreet Boyz/98 Degrees, Creed/Staind/Days of the New).
Another problem with the mass-market music is the record companies don't want to bother with anything but the mega-stars. For God's sake, they dumped Mariah Carey because she "only" sold two million records?!?
Some of us /. readers, though, are a bit different from the general public (no, really?). I'd bet some of us have slacked off on buying CDs lately *because* of the RIAA attacking Napster, not because having Napster around inspired us to buy more CDs. This sort of vote-with-your wallet mentality isn't as widespread as we would like to believe it is. I'm sure there are plenty of folks out there who just said, "Darn, I can't download Brittney anymore. I guess I'll have to moan and complain until Mom buys me the CD now."
6 megatons? You must not be very thirsty. I'll take a 375ml bottle of antiwater, please. This, of course, hass a mass of 375g, and annihilates with 375g of matter. Total mass = 750g or .75kg
.75kg * (3*10^8m/s)^2
e = mc^2
e =
e = 6.75*10^16 joules
A megaton is roughly 4*10^15 joules. So, it's about 17 megatons. Perhaps you were only drinking a coffee cup of antiwater?
Anyone remember the old CED Videodiscs? They were 12" analog video discs that came in a plastic cartridge. You inserted the cartridge into the player, it retracted the disc and spit the cartridge back out. Halfway through the movie, you'd have to stick the cartridge back in so the player could eject the disc, and you'd flip it to play the other side.
Needless to say, it didn't catch on too well. The quality was only slightly better than VHS, and the discs were cumbersome to store. And of course it was read-only.
Eh, you could even just cut them into tiny pieces and bury them in the vegetable garden to recycle them.
yes, but if you put a kid into suspended animation everytime they start to bother you, you would end up supporting them for longer then 18 years!
Who said anything about putting the kids in suspended animation?
How about if someone makes the point that it was fairly common knowledge that the world was round in Columbus's day, and the 'naysayers' told him it was too big around for him to make it to India. And they were right, Columbus's estimate of the earth's size was wrong. And it would have proven fatally wrong, except that he happened to run into another continent on his way around.
To actually answer part of your question, 1337 is leet, short for elite.
Damn, muffed the tag. I should have used the Preview button. :)
And I have to wait two minutes to add this extraneous comment.
Please read the DMCA before you continue to sprout off non-sense. It's about circumventing copyprotection schemes and CSS is not the only one in existance.
Actually, as seen in the DeCSS case, the courts have decided it illegal to circumvent an *access control* technology, which is what CSS is. CSS doesn't prevent copying a DVD, it prevents viewing it on devices whose manufacturers haven't paid their license fee to the DVD cartel.
Since WPA (or any key system) could also be construed as an access control technology (it doesn't prevent copying, it prevents unauthorized use), it is possible that the DeCSS case could be used as precedent to make keygens illegal to write or distribute or even link to.
This reminds me of one of the dumbest Star Trek:TNG episodes - the one where Data tried his hand at romance.
"Are we no longer a couple?"
"No, Data, we're not.
"Then I will delete the appropriate program."
Best dump line ever on TV!
If all the intervening sized breeds were to go extinct, it would be physiologically impossible for them to exchange genes - they would be different species.
I beg to differ... I think given the chance, they would find a way. And someone, somewhere, would take a picture and it would wind up on the Internet. But I digress....
I think there'd have to be more than a *physiological* barrier before any biologist would consider them different species. But, here's an idea for an experiment:
Take two very dissimilar breeds of dogs. Get a huge population (thousands if possible) of each and keep them in isolation from each other. Slowly change their environments in different ways over a very long period of time. At various intervals, take members out of both populations and attempt to breed them (use artifical insemination if they can't or won't physically mate.
If at some time we find the two populations can no longer interbreed to create viable offspring, we finally have evidence of speciation. Of course, that still won't *prove* that all life on Earth evolved, and Creationists can still argue that some species might have been created rather than evolved.
On the other hand, if the two populations never fail to produce offspring, it's strong evidence that speciation either doesn't happen, or just takes so incredibly long that it can't account for the diversity of life on Earth without some outside help, and the current theory of evolution would have to be re-thought.
Unfortunately, this is a very impractical experiment, and would require a very long time to get results. It's hard to get funding for any scientific research lasting longer than the span between political elections, much less an experiment which would take generations. Not to mention the immense cost of dog food, and maintaining two radically different environments for the separate populations.
Erm, the "answer" is obvious to me, and I'm not a biblical literalist. After the flood, at some point people made boats and went to Australia. This is obviously true, or there wouldn't have been aborigines. Well, they could have carried the kangaroos and koalas with them, right?
Big whoop. I'm offering a prize of 1,000,000,000 (that's one billion) US dollars to anyone who can provide me with empirical evidence that the world was created exactly according to Genesis. This, of course, includes proving the existence of God, since He is a vital part of the account.
English isn't one of the easiest languages to learn, actually. There are more exceptions than there are rules, both in grammar and spelling. I think Spanish or French are probably easier for a non-native speaker to learn than English.
I only wish I remembered more of my French from high school. I could sort of follow along reading the parent posts, but I'd be lost trying to listen to a native French speaker.
The problem with the menu system is that software coming from anyone other than Mandrake or Debian won't use it, and you end up having to create all these menu files. I wish there was just a way for update-menus to be told not to fudge up menu entries that it didn't create. Then at least Mandrake could put the KDE menus where they belong, and I could just install StarOffice and QuakeIII and have my icons. As it is, I just turned the menu thing off.
Actually, it would be even better if KDE/Gnome/WindowMaker et al would just agree on a single location for menu entry files. Then there wouldn't be a need for another package just to update menus. Seems like that would be a good thing for a standards document to specify, actually.
At the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL they used to sell "Astronaut Ice Cream". It was a freeze-dried, flavored glob (on a stick, IIRC) that melted in your mouth and tasted vaguely like warm melted ice cream. I remember it seemed like the coolest thing in the world, of course, I was like 11 years old.
They may still sell it. I can't remember whether I saw it last time I was there, about 5 or 6 years ago.