And so in 2012 began another chain of "you use x? I only need y!" discussion that, after being derailed by a man with little to add but grammar and spelling critiques, ended with some guy who controls his computer by making electrical contacts with a paper clip he found in a dumpster, getting feedback from the inbuilt speaker of his 386SX, and cannot fathom why anyone could justify the bloat of a keyboard and a monitor? Of course I always upstage him by pointing out that I had to create the universe before I built my first PC.
If crackers aren't using vulnerabilities, borne of either bugs or configuration issues, then what are they using? Some kind of magical abilities unknown even I'm unaware of? I think my son they you are romanticising crackers.
Believe what you will, but many of us have direct experience with God. Despite the fact that you don't believe elephants are possible, I've been to the zoo.
Honestly, that wasn't Me you had an experience with, and personal revelation is strictly a personal thing. There's no shortage of people in this world with "direct experience" of other gods (boo), aliens, sinister governmental agents, demons and whatever other junk they heard about on Discovery. And please don't equate belief in Me with elephants. Elephants in a zoo are an easily verifiable proposition and as such require little in the way of faith. I am pretty much invisible and will be whatever my believers want me to be.
When I intervene in this world I leave behind no clear evidence of divine action. For thousands of years people have felt the need to arm-up and enforce my will, or kill each other over minutiae. Do they not think that I'd be doing that myself if I really was bothered by women showing too much ankle or by guys who like it up the pooper? I was not made by humanity, but in the absence of clear instructions and a description of me, certainly my multifarious images are. The fun part is in dying and finding out what I'm really like, which incidentally in your case won't be too soon. Treat people right and don't get too hung up on the bowing and scraping. There'll be plenty of time to ask me questions when you're dead, and certainly at that point you want to have some pretty good answers when I ask "what did you do to make yourself and your fellow man happy?"
These guys are a bit loopy, not like the sensible people who believe that the divine creator of the universe incarnated himself so he could sacrifice himself to himself to atone for sins originating from a woman who got tricked by a talking snake, and that I have a personal interest in listening to their thoughts that are magically beamed in to my head. Sam Harris has a funny take on this:
“George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd.”
Trust me, the hairdryer doesn't help, and neither does standing up and making so much noise you'd think that I'm hard of hearing. Just pray quietly, ideally without taking your hands from the steering wheel.
The problem is Theism and Atheism are both based on ignorance (a belief or lack of belief, not Truth nor facts.) Agnosticism is a step in the right direction -- wisdom _begins_ when you realize you know nothing. Only the mystic has Truth (due to experience.)
Sure, if you want to base your world view on fortune cookies, clichéd quotes from old kung fu movies, meaningless platitudes and pseudo-profundity! Agnosticism is a lack of belief, so it's really no different to atheism as you described it. Ask the simple question, "Do you believe in God?" An atheist will answer negatively, while the agnostic may try to claim that they simply cannot know. The agnostic is perhaps trying to reasonable, or attempting to claim the high ground, yet they are atheists as defined by you. Belief in god is a dichotomy. You can't half believe in a god or half disbelieve in it. Sure you can have varying levels of belief, but it ultimately comes down to a binary proposition. Do you or do you not believe in Me?
Religion is what people want it to be. It's ignorant to believe that wanting to build a big old pile of money is fake religion. I'm sure it feels real enough to its followers, as it probably did when the Solar Temple's members abandoned their physical forms to go hitch a ride on Halley's Comet. Is Ted Haggard irreligious because he enjoy(ed) meth and male hookers, while by day preaching damnation? No, he's just a dick. Is Benny Hinn a crook? Yes, but people believe in him. Is the Pope and a large part of the Catholic church a bunch of scheming control freaks who'd put the church above everything else - even the people for whom the church was originally intended to protect? Of course they are. They think that a god who incarnated himself to wander the world as an itinerant rabbi of modest means would wish that his church spend so much money on keeping his apostles in luxury robes and with well stocked wine cellars. Even still, a spark of Peter remains, and for billions of people this is very much their religion.
People would lead far better lives if they spent more time pondering real things that can make life more pleasant here. What do you think I value more - people who spend their lives navel gazing and spewing fortune cookie inspired trash like your post, or those who focus on the practical realities of trying to make this world a little more pleasant for themselves and their fellow man? I'm not looking for goats or gurus, just sheep.
First, nations have little control over the laws in other nations.
In theory, my son. The United States has demonstrated a fond willingness for using carrots and sticks to influence the decisions of foreign governments that should pay more attention to those they are elected to represent. The US isn't by any strength the only country playing this game. Look at China's involvement in Africa. For the US though, a country claiming liberty and freedom as their defining characteristics, it's a little less excusable than Beijing doing business with some truly odious regimes. The shining city on the hill is a home to tyrants unafraid to use state funds to prop-up business interests to the detriment of the electorate.
My son, I doubt very much that this would happen. The State Department sees extradition as an almost one-way-street. It seems pretty unlikely that we'd be seeing white American teenagers being handed over to strange foreign barbarians for copyright violations. Granted it's possible for more serious crimes. Most extraditions are for non-nationals and typically for something more serious than running a website linking to copyrighted materials. Can anyone seriously in envisage a white American being extradited to the UK for illegally hosting BBC shows, even if they're rolling in the shekels?
The US gets a particularly easy ride with the UK, and less so with most other European countries. Blair, despite claiming to be one of my followers, has perhaps picked up one of those mis-printed Bibles containing the phrase "rend unto the United States State Department that which is not theirs." Trust me on this, if there was a Hell (you really think an all loving Me would even consider creating such a place?), Blair would have long ago earned himself a VIP pass to an eternity of pitch forks and Celine Dion soundtracks.
But how do they tell the difference between a true expert and someone blowing smoke? There are a lot of charlatans out there who either don't know what they're talking about, or worse know what they're talking about but will recommend overspec'ing, underspec'ing, or a specific vendor becaus it maximizes the consultants payoff. The boad needs to be a check on this. Which means a responsible board person nees to do some research.
Well exactly how does the question posted help here? It's too vague for anyone to offer meaningful advice.
Let's say a heroic Slash user, in response to the board member's vague spec, suggests they go with x solution. The expert hired says that x won't work because of y. What does our intrepid board member do now? It seems that the expert and the Internet man are in disagreement, which is hardly fucking surprising given the vagueness of the project. My suggestion? Go to a contractor and tell them you want to buy internets for your condo.
That's Thailand, but don't let that put you off avoiding Malaysia as a holiday destination. Malaysia has Islam has its state religion, but claims to offer freedom of religion. Now, as you can imagine I don't agree with Islam, yet I'm sanguine on the whole thing. Sure, I spent the best part of a day nailed to a tree for these people, and they then go off following some schizophrenic local warlord. Sorry, that seems really ungrateful to me, and don't get me started on those Mormons and their crazy notion that they'll one day become space gods.
They have freedom of religion, yet by law Malaysians of a certain ethnic original are automatically Muslims. Under some pretty common interpretations of Islam, to leave Islam is to be invite death. Yes, great freedom of religion there. Next time I come to Earth I'll sure want a nice holiday before I get back to work. I know Thailand and Malaysia are pretty low on the list of places I'd like to visit, and so they should be for anyone not wanting their money to support these guys who make my old neighbors in Nazareth (you know who you are!) seem progressive by comparison.
They tend to forget these things in their tourism adverts. To be fair, the U.S. rarely mentions the genital groping TSA when looking for tourists, and they rarely publicize the notion of "constitution free zones" wherever Bush/Obama decide that discarding freedom in the face of a marginal and unlikely threat is the right thing to do. Perhaps Spain is where I'll head to. Good food (the olives in Heaven are disappointing) and wines, and the women are exceptional if you can stand the tempers.
Pakistan blocks yet another place for failing to obey diktats from the stone-age. Maybe they'll just discard everything with origin from the Renaissance onwards.
I'm guessing they'll be holding on to the modern weaponry.
True, and I personally find it a bit creepy that they took that to be the symbol of my religion. Incidentally, I'm definitely not the blond haired guy of fair complexion, with blue eyes, well groomed face and a fairly snappy wardrobe that most modern Christians know. My appearance, like the most common understandings of hell, owes more to later writers and artists than to the reality of my day or my teachings. I think most Christians, on seeing me walking towards them, would cross the street.
You can actually find bible verses that 1 state that the earth is ROUND 2 is in orbit and if you look at things in context are actually scientifically sound (not counting the times when the various "players" pulled down the console and used "cheat codes" or were operating in a very literal GODMODE).
And you can find Bible verses that can be interpreted to depict a flat Earth, and/or stars being small enough to fall to Earth. Similar hits and misses can be found in the scripture of pretty much religion, not mention various ancient texts unrelated to religion. Anyway, it's not an issue except for people claiming biblical inerrancy. Trust me, when my dad inspired those words he didn't intend for them to all be taken so literally. If he wanted to be literal, the entire New Testament could have been written in a few hours and easily understood by all.
the real trick is the first 20 picoseconds of TIME can not be approached using Science but must be approached using Logic And Faith.
That's just hand waving. Even if science can't give us a picture of that moment, I fail to see how logic and faith can do much. I can have faith that the first 20 picoseconds of time was a purple dinosaur, which doesn't really give us anything more than giggles and perhaps some comfort. I can construct a valid logical argument that all cats are called Paula. Logic and faith are fine, so long as we don't accept them as an alternative to sound scientific enquiry.
Nikolic's profile on his campaign site seems to almost entirely given over to describing his military experience. A decent military record is certainly a positive trait, yet a bit strange when overplayed to the exclusion of almost everything else. Did he miss his chance for a position in Myanmar, and is now settling for Tasmania?
Hell, slashdot comments show you that a whole lot of folks here haven't ever tried it or they'd realize how crappy Windows really is (Windows is improving, but is still nowhere near Linux in useability, customability, and features).
Sure, if you're the kind of guy who believes that the only reason people use Notepad is because they haven't given vi a good enough try. What are MS's inherent flaws that make virus writing easy? Which versions of Windows are we talking about here, and how are the myriad of Linux distros unaffected by similar flaws?
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I think the mods missed your humour tags.
And so in 2012 began another chain of "you use x? I only need y!" discussion that, after being derailed by a man with little to add but grammar and spelling critiques, ended with some guy who controls his computer by making electrical contacts with a paper clip he found in a dumpster, getting feedback from the inbuilt speaker of his 386SX, and cannot fathom why anyone could justify the bloat of a keyboard and a monitor? Of course I always upstage him by pointing out that I had to create the universe before I built my first PC.
If crackers aren't using vulnerabilities, borne of either bugs or configuration issues, then what are they using? Some kind of magical abilities unknown even I'm unaware of? I think my son they you are romanticising crackers.
Believe what you will, but many of us have direct experience with God. Despite the fact that you don't believe elephants are possible, I've been to the zoo.
Honestly, that wasn't Me you had an experience with, and personal revelation is strictly a personal thing. There's no shortage of people in this world with "direct experience" of other gods (boo), aliens, sinister governmental agents, demons and whatever other junk they heard about on Discovery. And please don't equate belief in Me with elephants. Elephants in a zoo are an easily verifiable proposition and as such require little in the way of faith. I am pretty much invisible and will be whatever my believers want me to be.
When I intervene in this world I leave behind no clear evidence of divine action. For thousands of years people have felt the need to arm-up and enforce my will, or kill each other over minutiae. Do they not think that I'd be doing that myself if I really was bothered by women showing too much ankle or by guys who like it up the pooper? I was not made by humanity, but in the absence of clear instructions and a description of me, certainly my multifarious images are. The fun part is in dying and finding out what I'm really like, which incidentally in your case won't be too soon. Treat people right and don't get too hung up on the bowing and scraping. There'll be plenty of time to ask me questions when you're dead, and certainly at that point you want to have some pretty good answers when I ask "what did you do to make yourself and your fellow man happy?"
“George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd.”
Trust me, the hairdryer doesn't help, and neither does standing up and making so much noise you'd think that I'm hard of hearing. Just pray quietly, ideally without taking your hands from the steering wheel.
The problem is Theism and Atheism are both based on ignorance (a belief or lack of belief, not Truth nor facts.) Agnosticism is a step in the right direction -- wisdom _begins_ when you realize you know nothing. Only the mystic has Truth (due to experience.)
Sure, if you want to base your world view on fortune cookies, clichéd quotes from old kung fu movies, meaningless platitudes and pseudo-profundity! Agnosticism is a lack of belief, so it's really no different to atheism as you described it. Ask the simple question, "Do you believe in God?" An atheist will answer negatively, while the agnostic may try to claim that they simply cannot know. The agnostic is perhaps trying to reasonable, or attempting to claim the high ground, yet they are atheists as defined by you. Belief in god is a dichotomy. You can't half believe in a god or half disbelieve in it. Sure you can have varying levels of belief, but it ultimately comes down to a binary proposition. Do you or do you not believe in Me?
Religion is what people want it to be. It's ignorant to believe that wanting to build a big old pile of money is fake religion. I'm sure it feels real enough to its followers, as it probably did when the Solar Temple's members abandoned their physical forms to go hitch a ride on Halley's Comet. Is Ted Haggard irreligious because he enjoy(ed) meth and male hookers, while by day preaching damnation? No, he's just a dick. Is Benny Hinn a crook? Yes, but people believe in him. Is the Pope and a large part of the Catholic church a bunch of scheming control freaks who'd put the church above everything else - even the people for whom the church was originally intended to protect? Of course they are. They think that a god who incarnated himself to wander the world as an itinerant rabbi of modest means would wish that his church spend so much money on keeping his apostles in luxury robes and with well stocked wine cellars. Even still, a spark of Peter remains, and for billions of people this is very much their religion.
People would lead far better lives if they spent more time pondering real things that can make life more pleasant here. What do you think I value more - people who spend their lives navel gazing and spewing fortune cookie inspired trash like your post, or those who focus on the practical realities of trying to make this world a little more pleasant for themselves and their fellow man? I'm not looking for goats or gurus, just sheep.
First, nations have little control over the laws in other nations.
In theory, my son. The United States has demonstrated a fond willingness for using carrots and sticks to influence the decisions of foreign governments that should pay more attention to those they are elected to represent. The US isn't by any strength the only country playing this game. Look at China's involvement in Africa. For the US though, a country claiming liberty and freedom as their defining characteristics, it's a little less excusable than Beijing doing business with some truly odious regimes. The shining city on the hill is a home to tyrants unafraid to use state funds to prop-up business interests to the detriment of the electorate.
My son, I doubt very much that this would happen. The State Department sees extradition as an almost one-way-street. It seems pretty unlikely that we'd be seeing white American teenagers being handed over to strange foreign barbarians for copyright violations. Granted it's possible for more serious crimes. Most extraditions are for non-nationals and typically for something more serious than running a website linking to copyrighted materials. Can anyone seriously in envisage a white American being extradited to the UK for illegally hosting BBC shows, even if they're rolling in the shekels?
The US gets a particularly easy ride with the UK, and less so with most other European countries. Blair, despite claiming to be one of my followers, has perhaps picked up one of those mis-printed Bibles containing the phrase "rend unto the United States State Department that which is not theirs." Trust me on this, if there was a Hell (you really think an all loving Me would even consider creating such a place?), Blair would have long ago earned himself a VIP pass to an eternity of pitch forks and Celine Dion soundtracks.
But how do they tell the difference between a true expert and someone blowing smoke? There are a lot of charlatans out there who either don't know what they're talking about, or worse know what they're talking about but will recommend overspec'ing, underspec'ing, or a specific vendor becaus it maximizes the consultants payoff. The boad needs to be a check on this. Which means a responsible board person nees to do some research.
Well exactly how does the question posted help here? It's too vague for anyone to offer meaningful advice.
Let's say a heroic Slash user, in response to the board member's vague spec, suggests they go with x solution. The expert hired says that x won't work because of y. What does our intrepid board member do now? It seems that the expert and the Internet man are in disagreement, which is hardly fucking surprising given the vagueness of the project. My suggestion? Go to a contractor and tell them you want to buy internets for your condo.
That's Thailand, but don't let that put you off avoiding Malaysia as a holiday destination. Malaysia has Islam has its state religion, but claims to offer freedom of religion. Now, as you can imagine I don't agree with Islam, yet I'm sanguine on the whole thing. Sure, I spent the best part of a day nailed to a tree for these people, and they then go off following some schizophrenic local warlord. Sorry, that seems really ungrateful to me, and don't get me started on those Mormons and their crazy notion that they'll one day become space gods.
They have freedom of religion, yet by law Malaysians of a certain ethnic original are automatically Muslims. Under some pretty common interpretations of Islam, to leave Islam is to be invite death. Yes, great freedom of religion there. Next time I come to Earth I'll sure want a nice holiday before I get back to work. I know Thailand and Malaysia are pretty low on the list of places I'd like to visit, and so they should be for anyone not wanting their money to support these guys who make my old neighbors in Nazareth (you know who you are!) seem progressive by comparison.
They tend to forget these things in their tourism adverts. To be fair, the U.S. rarely mentions the genital groping TSA when looking for tourists, and they rarely publicize the notion of "constitution free zones" wherever Bush/Obama decide that discarding freedom in the face of a marginal and unlikely threat is the right thing to do. Perhaps Spain is where I'll head to. Good food (the olives in Heaven are disappointing) and wines, and the women are exceptional if you can stand the tempers.
Indeed, my son. I know everything, and I don't recall IBM ever specifically endorsing Dropbox, iCloud or the other thing for enterprise use.
Pakistan blocks yet another place for failing to obey diktats from the stone-age. Maybe they'll just discard everything with origin from the Renaissance onwards.
I'm guessing they'll be holding on to the modern weaponry.
True, and I personally find it a bit creepy that they took that to be the symbol of my religion. Incidentally, I'm definitely not the blond haired guy of fair complexion, with blue eyes, well groomed face and a fairly snappy wardrobe that most modern Christians know. My appearance, like the most common understandings of hell, owes more to later writers and artists than to the reality of my day or my teachings. I think most Christians, on seeing me walking towards them, would cross the street.
You can actually find bible verses that 1 state that the earth is ROUND 2 is in orbit and if you look at things in context are actually scientifically sound (not counting the times when the various "players" pulled down the console and used "cheat codes" or were operating in a very literal GODMODE).
And you can find Bible verses that can be interpreted to depict a flat Earth, and/or stars being small enough to fall to Earth. Similar hits and misses can be found in the scripture of pretty much religion, not mention various ancient texts unrelated to religion. Anyway, it's not an issue except for people claiming biblical inerrancy. Trust me, when my dad inspired those words he didn't intend for them to all be taken so literally. If he wanted to be literal, the entire New Testament could have been written in a few hours and easily understood by all.
the real trick is the first 20 picoseconds of TIME can not be approached using Science but must be approached using Logic And Faith.
That's just hand waving. Even if science can't give us a picture of that moment, I fail to see how logic and faith can do much. I can have faith that the first 20 picoseconds of time was a purple dinosaur, which doesn't really give us anything more than giggles and perhaps some comfort. I can construct a valid logical argument that all cats are called Paula. Logic and faith are fine, so long as we don't accept them as an alternative to sound scientific enquiry.
Nikolic's profile on his campaign site seems to almost entirely given over to describing his military experience. A decent military record is certainly a positive trait, yet a bit strange when overplayed to the exclusion of almost everything else. Did he miss his chance for a position in Myanmar, and is now settling for Tasmania?
Hell, slashdot comments show you that a whole lot of folks here haven't ever tried it or they'd realize how crappy Windows really is (Windows is improving, but is still nowhere near Linux in useability, customability, and features).
Sure, if you're the kind of guy who believes that the only reason people use Notepad is because they haven't given vi a good enough try. What are MS's inherent flaws that make virus writing easy? Which versions of Windows are we talking about here, and how are the myriad of Linux distros unaffected by similar flaws?