You don't even need to replace "what exists" with the creator. You just need to acknowledge that, if the creator exists, he is part of "what exists" and therefore is included in the argument above already.
Fiar comment. So, instead of prioritising 1-5 extra students, you get 1 extra teaching/clerical assistant to help the kids who are already there, or to free up the prof to do so. That's also good use of $100K.
No. $100K is still $100K whether it's 10% of $1M or 0.1% of $100M.
That $100K/yr will pay for tuition for how many students? 2 or 3 in proper subjects? (What are US tuition rates, anyway?) IMO, that's much more worth having than some warm body propping up Britney Spears's bottom line.
And if this is "many" colleges, that's a lot of kids who could get college scholarship, who aren't.
Are the US taxpayers happy to have their education tax dollars being spent on this, instead of on educating additional students?
Agreed. Scientology are not, for all their faults, naive when it comes to publicity. Usually, they have to trump up a stick to beat their critics with. It's just dumb to hand them one, ready made and ready to go.
"child pornographers will simply alter their images slightly"
Or worse, they will not realise this and instead decide that the best way to avoid the database of pictures is to generate new pictures, perpetrating new abuse on new victims.
To those who say "But we must do something", I say that many times, we have seen "solutions" that worsen the original problem. This may be one of them.
These are the same twats that spread threats about the superbowl getting dirty-bombed and attack epileptics with flashing GIFs.
Note that I didn't say "Anonymous", I said "critics". I'm critical of Scientology, but like the vast majority of critics I'm not a member of Anonymous, or indeed of any anti-Scientology organization.
Anonymous are a small group who are, in many cases, handing Scientology a big brush to tar the rest of us with.
I give it a day or two before Scientology starts augmenting its fraudulent DMCA takedown notices, adding the charge that its critics are "extremists" and thus worthy of censorship.
I once sat opposite Mr Perkins on a train, coming back from Waterloo one evening. He looked busy, so to my lasting regret I didn't disturb him to say "thanks" for the Guide, KYTV, etc. And now I never will be able to, and that makes me sad.
Myself, no idea - I don't have remotely enough information to decide. However, I did find the Skeptoid Episode 4111 interesting in that it at least asks the question.
Larry Niven, 1973. Sure, we don't have the instant travel, but this sounds like it would give much more immediate information than waiting for Jerryberry Jansen to randomly turn up at the incident with a portable TV camera.
Ahh, the ZX81 kit. I was the victim of a faulty transistor in the clock oscillator. From the time I first sent off my hard-earned £50, through the two launch delays, the weekend of building, the agony of debugging the thing, sending it off, getting it back again, and finally to the time I got my £10 service fee back was a scant 10 months.
Back on topic, I'd endorse the idea of getting a plugblock solderless breadboard or three, and a bag of mixed components.
A fellow hanger-on at the B3TA web board coined a phrase to describe the Daily Hate Mail that I really must share:
"It's like an anger sauna."
Like a normal sauna, reading the Mail is like a short trip into a hostile environment. Unpleasant, but you feel great once it's over.
It's also useful if you suffer from low blood pressure. Just start reading, and within 60 seconds you will be red faced and shouting "How does anyone *write* this crap!", with your blood pressure through the roof.
Either that or you're my Mum, who takes its every word as gospel. Sigh.
"As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies, but we are not yet ready to play by the rules."
Sounds like they are not yet in a position to use open-source technologies.
It would be interesting to see if turnabout is fair play. I'd love to have a free high-end smartphone, but that means taking up an expensive monthly airtime contract. Instead, I'll just declare that I am "not yet ready to play by the rules", take the benefit of the free handset now, and later on I'll sign up for a contract when I am ready to play by the rules.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't even need to replace "what exists" with the creator. You just need to acknowledge that, if the creator exists, he is part of "what exists" and therefore is included in the argument above already.
...from the other side of the pond, Obama is the right choice. Palin's stance on creationism alone should be enough to decide this particular issue.
I refer the previous poster to my previous answer, which included the words "proper subjects".
Fiar comment. So, instead of prioritising 1-5 extra students, you get 1 extra teaching/clerical assistant to help the kids who are already there, or to free up the prof to do so. That's also good use of $100K.
No. $100K is still $100K whether it's 10% of $1M or 0.1% of $100M.
That $100K/yr will pay for tuition for how many students? 2 or 3 in proper subjects? (What are US tuition rates, anyway?) IMO, that's much more worth having than some warm body propping up Britney Spears's bottom line.
And if this is "many" colleges, that's a lot of kids who could get college scholarship, who aren't.
Are the US taxpayers happy to have their education tax dollars being spent on this, instead of on educating additional students?
Agreed. Scientology are not, for all their faults, naive when it comes to publicity. Usually, they have to trump up a stick to beat their critics with. It's just dumb to hand them one, ready made and ready to go.
"child pornographers will simply alter their images slightly"
Or worse, they will not realise this and instead decide that the best way to avoid the database of pictures is to generate new pictures, perpetrating new abuse on new victims.
To those who say "But we must do something", I say that many times, we have seen "solutions" that worsen the original problem. This may be one of them.
What? You haven't read Diaspora by Greg Egan? Shame on you!
It broke, so far no news, but they ordered a replacement from a catalog which was lying around, some company called Electronic Services Unit 16.
The replacement arrived in a small padded envelope, and they've spent the intervening time running tests on it.
These are the same twats that spread threats about the superbowl getting dirty-bombed and attack epileptics with flashing GIFs.
Note that I didn't say "Anonymous", I said "critics". I'm critical of Scientology, but like the vast majority of critics I'm not a member of Anonymous, or indeed of any anti-Scientology organization.
Anonymous are a small group who are, in many cases, handing Scientology a big brush to tar the rest of us with.
I give it a day or two before Scientology starts augmenting its fraudulent DMCA takedown notices, adding the charge that its critics are "extremists" and thus worthy of censorship.
I once sat opposite Mr Perkins on a train, coming back from Waterloo one evening. He looked busy, so to my lasting regret I didn't disturb him to say "thanks" for the Guide, KYTV, etc. And now I never will be able to, and that makes me sad.
This is the UK. Grandma and Gramps are probably, what, 32? 33?
Myself, no idea - I don't have remotely enough information to decide. However, I did find the Skeptoid Episode 4111 interesting in that it at least asks the question.
If you think that this is a small minority, for comparison here are some other groups which are approximately 3% of the British population:
Damn, beat me to it. These are excellently designed and very funny T-shirts. I particularly like the 5-element periodic table one.
Also... Intellgunt Desine shirts available at Landover Baptist's Cafepress shop.
"Flash crowd."
Larry Niven, 1973. Sure, we don't have the instant travel, but this sounds like it would give much more immediate information than waiting for Jerryberry Jansen to randomly turn up at the incident with a portable TV camera.
What I find impressive is that they were able to get detectable amounts of x-rays diffracted off a single virus, with no staining.
Ahh, the ZX81 kit. I was the victim of a faulty transistor in the clock oscillator. From the time I first sent off my hard-earned £50, through the two launch delays, the weekend of building, the agony of debugging the thing, sending it off, getting it back again, and finally to the time I got my £10 service fee back was a scant 10 months.
Back on topic, I'd endorse the idea of getting a plugblock solderless breadboard or three, and a bag of mixed components.
Another way to waste precious, non-renewable helium. And it's annoying, too! Great.
A fellow hanger-on at the B3TA web board coined a phrase to describe the Daily Hate Mail that I really must share:
"It's like an anger sauna."
Like a normal sauna, reading the Mail is like a short trip into a hostile environment. Unpleasant, but you feel great once it's over.
It's also useful if you suffer from low blood pressure. Just start reading, and within 60 seconds you will be red faced and shouting "How does anyone *write* this crap!", with your blood pressure through the roof.
Either that or you're my Mum, who takes its every word as gospel. Sigh.
Mod parent up, please. Skeptoid is #2 on my weekly podcast rotation.
Subscribe to the "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" podcast.
"As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies, but we are not yet ready to play by the rules."
Sounds like they are not yet in a position to use open-source technologies.
It would be interesting to see if turnabout is fair play. I'd love to have a free high-end smartphone, but that means taking up an expensive monthly airtime contract. Instead, I'll just declare that I am "not yet ready to play by the rules", take the benefit of the free handset now, and later on I'll sign up for a contract when I am ready to play by the rules.
OK?
"Yeah, but it's still a bacterium."