Too, public transportation doesn't work in cities that are laid out over a large area, e.g. Los Angeles.
Bullshit. There are large metropolitan areas in Europe with much various population densities with perfectly functioning public transportation systems. I won't give any examples, because you can pick any big city or urban formation in Western Europe. And how exactly is taking congested motorway to travel long distance within urban sprawl is more efficient than traveling by local train or metro? Or bus, provided that there are bus lanes?
Public transportation works everywhere in civilized world except US. And that's because fuel is too cheap there.
In Europe, however, I think most people would in day to day speech use the word simply to refer to a state that has a president in stead of a king or a queen (or such).
That is interesting, because I was born in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (I still live in Europe), and I always considered the fact that the member states of Soviet Union were called republics to be a mere mockery. I have always had the same feelings for all the other Communist states and their use of the term. Perhaps, if I wouldn't have had a first hand experience of living in a republic devoid of democracy I would hold the same view as in the quote above... Mind that I have not paid much attention to the way people from "old" Europe interpret word republic.
Did some brushing up on the exact roots and meaning of the term "republic". In short, I find it to be wrong that "republic" is used in political theory to include authoritarian regimes with only nominal participation of electorate. As soon as majority of electorate is manipulated by persecution from incumbent governments, in my eyes - such states cease to be republics.
This view of mine does not contradict an original meaning of "republic", I believe.
Term "democracy" which in my opinion is very close to "republic" semantically, has not been bastardized by political scientists during the last 70 years or so for a simple reason that it is not used as a primary label for political systems.
This discussion is starting to drift into the realm of linguistics and how words change their meaning over time...
Did you ever notice how most countries that explicitely label themselves "Democratic" are in fact totalitarian police states?
Exactly. Labeling something Democratic does not mean redefining the meaning of word "Democracy". Same goes for "Republic". Your previous post did not in any way deal with possible real differences between those two terms. That in turn provoked me to write an irritated reply, since GDR has both "democratic" and "republic" in it, and it was neither democratic nor republic... duh...
However, my version of beliefs or theories has passed some of the same scrutiny from the scientific community but doesn't get taught (and it isn't creation either).
Would you mind elaborating on that? I am intrigued.
As for evolution being acceptable theory and ID not (for teaching in science class), we have to first agree whether the scientific method should be the main principle for teaching any science in schools.
And what I think, as do many others, happens in many American high-scools, is that scientific method as a main guide for teaching science, is replaced by something else. Methods ID proponents and creationists may be as systematic and consistent with themselves as scientific method is, but they are different. And we have already seen, that what ID people really want is to redefine science as such. Something is rotten, I say. And let us not engage in dialectics, truth is out there, it is to be found by research not blind faith.
I don't like to write long comments, so I shall be curt. Your argument is fundamentaly broken for a very simple reason (and no, it isn't because you don't spellcheck). Evolution is being taught as a viable theory because it has passed a vigorous scrutiny by general scientific community.
Now, do not underestimate the discipline imposed by the peer review. Evolution is based on observation, analysis of species and their environment. It is very trustworthy, even if it's wrong. ID or creationism, however, has not gone through the same sieve of peer review and scientific scrutiny as has evolution. Creationism has no room in biology class, it's a humanist endeavour and belongs in religion or philosophy class.
Now back to evolution - if someone will prove evolution wrong (in particular the theory of origins of Homo Sapiens), if this proof will indeed pass the rigorous peer reviews, it will displace the teaching of evolution as we know it, or in the very least augment it, just like the notions of quantum mechanics where added to physics curriculum.
Creationism is not disprovable, it is not falsifiable. It is an ideology with no roots in real world. Thus it has no place in Biology class.
This may sound strange from someone who doesn't see the difference in teaching evolution or creation. We make the same leap of faith in both and both are probably wrong.
I hope you either change your mind or stay away from doing science.
Do you really think that by choosing not to help Russia with space technology development they will force them to change the situation?
Has the thought ever crossed your mind that it is not as easy as you may think to make the changes in the region? Did you ever think that most of Russia's policies, both internal and external are not based on ulterior motives? Has it occured to you that stability it the post-Soviet sphere is of tantamount importance to the wellbeing of the region? Do you want Russian Federation and its neighbours to turn into Balkans?
People who are in power in Russia are *not* stupid. Russian people are *not* stupid. Perhaps they actually know what they are doing? Finally, if you think that Russians are evil and deserve to be punished, then think for a second, is the track record of Western countries and EU members in particular much (if at all) cleaner than the track record of Russia?
Russia is a complex country, in a complex region, it has complex problems, these problems require complex solutions, sometimes painful ones. I don't claim that there is no room for improvement in the way Russia handles its affairs, but to consider the country to be *much* worse than Western superpowers would be hypocricy.
It would be false analogy, since people in Yugoslavia have been fucking each other in the ass, with no side being the pure evil and no side being pure good. Certainly, the Serbs, managed to do more trouble, but that's just because there's more of them.
The Jews in Germany, on the other hand, were just doing business and living their lives. That is until Germans decided to vent their inferiority complex on the Jews.
Furthermore, Yugoslav economy was in a very nice state before 1990, so their behaviour is even less understandable.
2. Falsifiability. What cannot in principle be shown to be not true cannot be scientifically proven.
Now of course, I tried to refute your claim using basical tools of scientific method. And I accept that you may not consider my refutation satisfactory. But sometimes common sense is the best we have...
What he meant is that the mainstream American media is full of superstitioun and pseudo-science. What the poster most probably implied by that was that this is weakening the critical thinking ability of the American youth. Acceptance of "supernatural" explanations would in turn make them more susceptible to belief in absurd theories like ID, as well as certain forms of belief in God. It's easy to fool an untrained and mislead mind.
From myself I can add, that I think that it is possible to be religious and rational at the same time, but it's a hard work, and not everyone has intellectual capacity to pull it off.
Actually I have a question about this. My computer computer science teacher claimed that breaking keys using quantum computing will be fast. However, he also stated that quantum computing, at least the way it is thought to work, will not facilitate solving NP problems, like a traveling salesman problem.
My question is the following, when applied to using quantum computing to travelling salesman problem: Why wouldn't it be possible to merely try all the routes simultaneously, and have the shortest one survive? (with the resulting time complexity of that hypothetical "quantum algorithm" being merely the length of the longest route)
You are wrong, and not only that. You made be think of Bill G is a bit of a Robin Hood. Why? He steals from the rich AND gives to the poor. What do I mean? Think about it - where have you seen a 3rd world citizen who buys licensed software?
So there!
In Russian, at least, word "slava" means honor. And that's the word people in that country tend to associate with "Slav"... Feel free to enlighten me on the ethymology of the word "Slav", though.
First you develop your toolbox, than you can start being creative. It's just like learning piano, first you learn to play what other people composed, and then if you are good, after many years of hard work you can become a composer yourself.
And Salvador Dali once said that first you have to learn to emulate the great masters of the past before you can become great yourself.
It's absolutely the same with math. True, the domain of existing knowledge is huge, yet, once you have mastered it, math stops being a matter of rote learning and memorization and becomes an instrument in your hands.
Slashdot Mirror
Bullshit. There are large metropolitan areas in Europe with much various population densities with perfectly functioning public transportation systems. I won't give any examples, because you can pick any big city or urban formation in Western Europe. And how exactly is taking congested motorway to travel long distance within urban sprawl is more efficient than traveling by local train or metro? Or bus, provided that there are bus lanes?
Public transportation works everywhere in civilized world except US. And that's because fuel is too cheap there.
That is interesting, because I was born in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (I still live in Europe), and I always considered the fact that the member states of Soviet Union were called republics to be a mere mockery. I have always had the same feelings for all the other Communist states and their use of the term. Perhaps, if I wouldn't have had a first hand experience of living in a republic devoid of democracy I would hold the same view as in the quote above... Mind that I have not paid much attention to the way people from "old" Europe interpret word republic.
This view of mine does not contradict an original meaning of "republic", I believe.
Term "democracy" which in my opinion is very close to "republic" semantically, has not been bastardized by political scientists during the last 70 years or so for a simple reason that it is not used as a primary label for political systems.
This discussion is starting to drift into the realm of linguistics and how words change their meaning over time...
Also, I apologize for my original rudeness.
Exactly. Labeling something Democratic does not mean redefining the meaning of word "Democracy". Same goes for "Republic". Your previous post did not in any way deal with possible real differences between those two terms. That in turn provoked me to write an irritated reply, since GDR has both "democratic" and "republic" in it, and it was neither democratic nor republic... duh...
Do you even know what GDR stands for, dumbass?
Highly recommended.
Would you mind elaborating on that? I am intrigued.
As for evolution being acceptable theory and ID not (for teaching in science class), we have to first agree whether the scientific method should be the main principle for teaching any science in schools.
And what I think, as do many others, happens in many American high-scools, is that scientific method as a main guide for teaching science, is replaced by something else. Methods ID proponents and creationists may be as systematic and consistent with themselves as scientific method is, but they are different. And we have already seen, that what ID people really want is to redefine science as such. Something is rotten, I say. And let us not engage in dialectics, truth is out there, it is to be found by research not blind faith.
Dude, do you ever listen to RMS?
I don't like to write long comments, so I shall be curt. Your argument is fundamentaly broken for a very simple reason (and no, it isn't because you don't spellcheck). Evolution is being taught as a viable theory because it has passed a vigorous scrutiny by general scientific community.
Now, do not underestimate the discipline imposed by the peer review. Evolution is based on observation, analysis of species and their environment. It is very trustworthy, even if it's wrong. ID or creationism, however, has not gone through the same sieve of peer review and scientific scrutiny as has evolution. Creationism has no room in biology class, it's a humanist endeavour and belongs in religion or philosophy class.
Now back to evolution - if someone will prove evolution wrong (in particular the theory of origins of Homo Sapiens), if this proof will indeed pass the rigorous peer reviews, it will displace the teaching of evolution as we know it, or in the very least augment it, just like the notions of quantum mechanics where added to physics curriculum.
Creationism is not disprovable, it is not falsifiable. It is an ideology with no roots in real world. Thus it has no place in Biology class.
*let's off some steam*
I hope you either change your mind or stay away from doing science.
Has the thought ever crossed your mind that it is not as easy as you may think to make the changes in the region? Did you ever think that most of Russia's policies, both internal and external are not based on ulterior motives? Has it occured to you that stability it the post-Soviet sphere is of tantamount importance to the wellbeing of the region? Do you want Russian Federation and its neighbours to turn into Balkans?
People who are in power in Russia are *not* stupid. Russian people are *not* stupid. Perhaps they actually know what they are doing? Finally, if you think that Russians are evil and deserve to be punished, then think for a second, is the track record of Western countries and EU members in particular much (if at all) cleaner than the track record of Russia?
Russia is a complex country, in a complex region, it has complex problems, these problems require complex solutions, sometimes painful ones. I don't claim that there is no room for improvement in the way Russia handles its affairs, but to consider the country to be *much* worse than Western superpowers would be hypocricy.
It would be false analogy, since people in Yugoslavia have been fucking each other in the ass, with no side being the pure evil and no side being pure good. Certainly, the Serbs, managed to do more trouble, but that's just because there's more of them.
The Jews in Germany, on the other hand, were just doing business and living their lives. That is until Germans decided to vent their inferiority complex on the Jews.
Furthermore, Yugoslav economy was in a very nice state before 1990, so their behaviour is even less understandable.
1. Occam's razor. Given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler
2. Falsifiability. What cannot in principle be shown to be not true cannot be scientifically proven.
Now of course, I tried to refute your claim using basical tools of scientific method. And I accept that you may not consider my refutation satisfactory. But sometimes common sense is the best we have...
[...]*
*Long philosophical tirade intentionally omitted.
What he meant is that the mainstream American media is full of superstitioun and pseudo-science. What the poster most probably implied by that was that this is weakening the critical thinking ability of the American youth. Acceptance of "supernatural" explanations would in turn make them more susceptible to belief in absurd theories like ID, as well as certain forms of belief in God. It's easy to fool an untrained and mislead mind.
From myself I can add, that I think that it is possible to be religious and rational at the same time, but it's a hard work, and not everyone has intellectual capacity to pull it off.
Rome fell in 400-500 AD
Actually I have a question about this. My computer computer science teacher claimed that breaking keys using quantum computing will be fast. However, he also stated that quantum computing, at least the way it is thought to work, will not facilitate solving NP problems, like a traveling salesman problem.
My question is the following, when applied to using quantum computing to travelling salesman problem: Why wouldn't it be possible to merely try all the routes simultaneously, and have the shortest one survive? (with the resulting time complexity of that hypothetical "quantum algorithm" being merely the length of the longest route)
Estonian is Fenno-Ugric, not Slavic
You are wrong, and not only that. You made be think of Bill G is a bit of a Robin Hood. Why? He steals from the rich AND gives to the poor. What do I mean? Think about it - where have you seen a 3rd world citizen who buys licensed software? So there!
In Russian, at least, word "slava" means honor. And that's the word people in that country tend to associate with "Slav"... Feel free to enlighten me on the ethymology of the word "Slav", though.
So how do you explain the sacking of Constantinople by the crusaders?
First you develop your toolbox, than you can start being creative. It's just like learning piano, first you learn to play what other people composed, and then if you are good, after many years of hard work you can become a composer yourself.
And Salvador Dali once said that first you have to learn to emulate the great masters of the past before you can become great yourself.
It's absolutely the same with math. True, the domain of existing knowledge is huge, yet, once you have mastered it, math stops being a matter of rote learning and memorization and becomes an instrument in your hands.
Seriously, is there any flaw in this?
What happened to TripMaster Monkey (or what's his name) and news on latest developments in the council?
I hate not to provide a source, but I read somewhere that appendix serves as a habitat for certain bacteria that help in digestion.
Dude. You are over-sensitive.