Let's not put words into each other's mouths.
Obviously, Miller's experiment was a crude
approximation of the conditions under which life
is thought to have emerged. For one thing, those
conditions were not constant over the entire
surface of the planet; for another, they were
not constant over time. The fact that "life"
did not appear in Miller's beaker is not
surprising -- that is not what he set out to
achieve in the first place. My intent was simply
to show the absurdity of the claim that because
life didn't appear in Miller's beaker, somehow
abiogenesis is disproved. I mentioned two major
differences between Miller's conditions and
those of the Earth (size and time); obviously I
should have mentioned more for those unable or
unwilling to extrapolate. Also note that I never
claimed that "life" would "inevitably" have developed over several billion years in an
Earth-sized beaker, just that the results would
have been "different", which I think is a
reasonable assumption.
The fact
that we may have genetic sequences in common with bacteria is not in
itself proof
The odds that these identical sequences evolved
in different organisms completely independently
of one another are infinitesimally small. Either
they were placed there by design, or one evolved
from the other.
we're also composed in part from minerals like iron, and
I see nobody suggesting that human beings evolved from rock.
Iron exists in relative abundance throughout the
universe, whether there is life or not. The
existence of a genetic sequence, on the other
hand, is inseparable from the existence of life.
If molecules could assemble
themselves properly by just being near each other, it would have taken
me 6 days instead of 6 years in graduate school to get a Ph.D. in
synthetic organic chemistry...
Note that I said that they "can" assemble
themselves, not that they often do. My point is
simply that there is a chance, however small,
that the proper mix of chemicals can occur under
the proper conditions to create the proper kind
of organic molecule. The more time you allow for
these conditions to occur, the more likely it is
that they will do so. Car parts, on the other
hand, can not form bonds of their own accord no matter how much time you give them.
Molecules can. This is my basis for rejecting the
analogy.
we control the conditions to opitimize the environment to give us a
preferred outcome...
Exactly, and that's what you have to do to
achieve these results on human timescales. But
at the risk of repeating myself, we're not talking
about human timescales.
How about when SiO2 is liquid, or even gaseous? A silicon-based
lifeform might just need a higher operating temeprature....
The phase isn't the problem, it's those pesky
unpaired electrons. SiO2 has four, CO2 has none. Thus, SiO2 molecules tend to group together in long polymer chains.
Another problem with silicon is that the Si-Si
bond is unstable in the presence of water.
If I had all the components of a car (not assembled) I would not have
a car until they were placed in the right order, with the right
alignment, and the right torque applied to them.
This is a slightly misleading analogy, as the
components of a car cannot "automatically"
assemble themselves in the right order, alignment,
and torque. Molecules can, just by being placed
near each other.
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component
materials in 'ideal' circumstances doesn't even give the building
blocks of life.
No. At best, his experiments proved that the
building blocks of life do not appear (relatively)
instantaneously. No one ever said they did. Give
him a few billion years, and a beaker as big as
the Earth, and I think you would see different
results.
isn't it arrogant
to say that all life depends on carbon?
Perhaps, but it's not unreasonable to assume that
carbon-based life is much more likely than
any other. Carbon can form a staggering variety
of chemical bonds, the most important of which
is (arguably, to life on Earth) CO2. Many have
looked to silicon as a possible substitute, but an SiO2 molecule has
four unpaired electrons (since it does not form double bonds as does CO2), thus instead of becoming
a gas like CO2, it tends to become quartz:-)
In other words, people look to carbon for a
reason. This is not to say that life cannot
exist based on some as-yet-unimagined chemistry,
but carbon seems the best candidate.
One example of this would be marxism, which
since most of those systems have fallen, can be said to be a flawed
system. This can hardly be taken as scientific proof.
Agreed, and I would think that an AAAS witness/advisor
would simply not take a position on such an
issue, either way.
NO, not servers. I can run *clients* that consistently use every last
drop of the advertised traffic.
You could, hypothetically. But I don't think this is a real-world concern. More to the point, I've
never heard of a telco prohibiting this in their
TOS, whereas they do often prohibit running servers.
The point is, if you can't provide it, don't advertise it.
The do not advertise the right to run servers, nor
to share the bandwidth among unlimited
computers/households.
The adults are going to know something's up when a little girl
comes up to them with two barbie dolls and asks them which one
they prefer
Adults are better at censoring their impulses.
They know they're not "supposed" to show a racial
bias, thus they suppress it. On the other hand,
it could be the case that people genuinely lose
their racial biases as they get older/better
educated. Most likely a bit of both.
I find white women more attractive than black women
(which has nothing to do with racial preference)
You lost me here. A preference based solely
on race isn't a racial preference?
Please explain.
Oh, I thought we were talking about DSL, not cable
modem. That clears things up a bit.
But even so, I'm going to go out on a limb and
assume that since it appears in the TOS, it is
not illegal. Of course, it could be the case
that it just hasn't been challenged yet, in which
case it should be. But in the
absence of title and section (and a law degree),
I'm going to give the cable companies the benefit
of the doubt. I'm reasonably confident that at
least their own lawyers looked it over
and approved it. In any event, a TOS clause like
this doesn't seem (to me) to violate the
spirit of the law.
So I suppose the washing machine doesn't save time?
Yes and no. It saves time, but it uses
energy, which must be paid for with time
spent at work. Not to mention the cost of the appliance itself, hookups, maintenance, periodical replacement, etc.
Also, before the days of washing machines, people
would wear their clothes several times before
washing them. Today, most of us wash our clothes,
sheets, towels, etc. after just one use. The
time that would have been saved has been eaten
away by the very culture of cleanliness that
washing machines helped to create.
All things considered, we probably spend as much time (incl. money-time) doing laundry as ever. We could have saved time, but instead we decided to do more laundry.
(This isn't entirely off-topic, as it begs
an analogy with desktop PC users and the
way their habits change over time.)
The lack of limitation on the TV lines is due to Federal law.
You've just answered your own
question ("Why is the network any different?").
It's different because it is not regulated by
the same (any?) laws, thus the TOS can limit
whatever it wants to limit.
Besides, it isn't just a question of what's
coming into your house; it's also a
question of what you're sending out.
Charge by the byte, multiplied by the speed.
This is gets away from the "unlimited access"
idea that we've all grown accustomed to, but
it is the only fair solution that comes to mind.
Run all the servers you want, but pay for the
privilege. You're the ones driving up the price
of DSL as it is.
If a
DSL company advertises to me that I can get a 640k downstream and 384k
upstream (just pulling numbers out of my bum) for $49.95 a month, then
I should be entitled to use every last drop of that bandwidth in any
way that I see fit.
Let's be realistic... If they were to price
bandwidth based on this principle, it would be
a lot more expensive, which isn't really
fair to the average customer. The relatively
low price depends on people not running
servers 24/7.
The question is whether or not that TOS is legal. (IANAL) - The cable
company can't say anything about the signal once it enters your house
for TV channels. Why is the network any different?
Because they say so, in their TOS. They can
place any limitations they want, as long as they
get you to agree to them. (IANAL)
some home wannabee engineer will NEVER be able
to get his mixes to sound like the big boys... PERIOD.
One thing that audio elitists need to realize is
that a "wannabee engineer" doesn't have to be the
best. He just has to be good enough, and it's
getting cheaper and cheaper to achieve a
good-enough sound at home. There comes a point
at which it is no longer worth going to the
pros -- not because they won't do a better job,
but because the difference in quality isn't great
enough to justify the ridiculous cost. And not
to burst any bubbles, but the role of the
engineer is always, always secondary to the
material you're recording. I'd much rather listen
to a Zappa bootleg than the latest overproduced
dreck from some boy-band.
Do you think the fact that I read in the Bible
about Lot fucking his teenage daughters
(Genesis 19,33) will make me fuck my own
daughters?
It's certainly not going to make most
people who read that passage commit incest, but
I'm willing to bet that it has been used by some
to justify and excuse their own
pre-existing inclinations. Reading such a
passage may be enough to make the right (or wrong)
kind of person go from mere thought into action.
There is a false dichotomy at work here by which
some people assume that in order for something
to have a meaningful effect, it must affect all
people equally. Even if TV violence or Biblical
incest has a negative effect on only one person in
ten thousand, that is still a problem.
But I don't advocate censorship; I'm simply
trying to inject a little reason into the
discussion.
I don't think it's about revenge, or at least
not just about revenge. etoy.com has plenty of
valid reasons for fearing that eToy will cause
trouble for them in the future. I see this more
as a preemptive strike.
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Let's not put words into each other's mouths. Obviously, Miller's experiment was a crude approximation of the conditions under which life is thought to have emerged. For one thing, those conditions were not constant over the entire surface of the planet; for another, they were not constant over time. The fact that "life" did not appear in Miller's beaker is not surprising -- that is not what he set out to achieve in the first place. My intent was simply to show the absurdity of the claim that because life didn't appear in Miller's beaker, somehow abiogenesis is disproved. I mentioned two major differences between Miller's conditions and those of the Earth (size and time); obviously I should have mentioned more for those unable or unwilling to extrapolate. Also note that I never claimed that "life" would "inevitably" have developed over several billion years in an Earth-sized beaker, just that the results would have been "different", which I think is a reasonable assumption.
The odds that these identical sequences evolved in different organisms completely independently of one another are infinitesimally small. Either they were placed there by design, or one evolved from the other.
we're also composed in part from minerals like iron, and I see nobody suggesting that human beings evolved from rock.
Iron exists in relative abundance throughout the universe, whether there is life or not. The existence of a genetic sequence, on the other hand, is inseparable from the existence of life.
Note that I said that they "can" assemble themselves, not that they often do. My point is simply that there is a chance, however small, that the proper mix of chemicals can occur under the proper conditions to create the proper kind of organic molecule. The more time you allow for these conditions to occur, the more likely it is that they will do so. Car parts, on the other hand, can not form bonds of their own accord no matter how much time you give them. Molecules can. This is my basis for rejecting the analogy.
we control the conditions to opitimize the environment to give us a preferred outcome...
Exactly, and that's what you have to do to achieve these results on human timescales. But at the risk of repeating myself, we're not talking about human timescales.
The phase isn't the problem, it's those pesky unpaired electrons. SiO2 has four, CO2 has none. Thus, SiO2 molecules tend to group together in long polymer chains.
Another problem with silicon is that the Si-Si bond is unstable in the presence of water.
This is a slightly misleading analogy, as the components of a car cannot "automatically" assemble themselves in the right order, alignment, and torque. Molecules can, just by being placed near each other.
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component materials in 'ideal' circumstances doesn't even give the building blocks of life.
No. At best, his experiments proved that the building blocks of life do not appear (relatively) instantaneously. No one ever said they did. Give him a few billion years, and a beaker as big as the Earth, and I think you would see different results.
Perhaps, but it's not unreasonable to assume that carbon-based life is much more likely than any other. Carbon can form a staggering variety of chemical bonds, the most important of which is (arguably, to life on Earth) CO2. Many have looked to silicon as a possible substitute, but an SiO2 molecule has four unpaired electrons (since it does not form double bonds as does CO2), thus instead of becoming a gas like CO2, it tends to become quartz :-)
In other words, people look to carbon for a reason. This is not to say that life cannot exist based on some as-yet-unimagined chemistry, but carbon seems the best candidate.
Agreed, and I would think that an AAAS witness/advisor would simply not take a position on such an issue, either way.
What happens when someone sues the AAAS, and they need an expert witness? :-)
You could, hypothetically. But I don't think this is a real-world concern. More to the point, I've never heard of a telco prohibiting this in their TOS, whereas they do often prohibit running servers.
The point is, if you can't provide it, don't advertise it.
The do not advertise the right to run servers, nor to share the bandwidth among unlimited computers/households.
Now who's overgeneralizing?
You're right. Her efforts would have been better spent building a papier-maché solar system, 'cause that's never been done before.
Adults are better at censoring their impulses. They know they're not "supposed" to show a racial bias, thus they suppress it. On the other hand, it could be the case that people genuinely lose their racial biases as they get older/better educated. Most likely a bit of both.
I find white women more attractive than black women (which has nothing to do with racial preference)
You lost me here. A preference based solely on race isn't a racial preference? Please explain.
But even so, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that since it appears in the TOS, it is not illegal. Of course, it could be the case that it just hasn't been challenged yet, in which case it should be. But in the absence of title and section (and a law degree), I'm going to give the cable companies the benefit of the doubt. I'm reasonably confident that at least their own lawyers looked it over and approved it. In any event, a TOS clause like this doesn't seem (to me) to violate the spirit of the law.
Good question, especially when you ponder the inevitable energy death of the universe.
I'm only half-joking.
Yes and no. It saves time, but it uses energy, which must be paid for with time spent at work. Not to mention the cost of the appliance itself, hookups, maintenance, periodical replacement, etc.
Also, before the days of washing machines, people would wear their clothes several times before washing them. Today, most of us wash our clothes, sheets, towels, etc. after just one use. The time that would have been saved has been eaten away by the very culture of cleanliness that washing machines helped to create.
All things considered, we probably spend as much time (incl. money-time) doing laundry as ever. We could have saved time, but instead we decided to do more laundry.
(This isn't entirely off-topic, as it begs an analogy with desktop PC users and the way their habits change over time.)
That goes without saying.
The lack of limitation on the TV lines is due to Federal law.
You've just answered your own question ("Why is the network any different?"). It's different because it is not regulated by the same (any?) laws, thus the TOS can limit whatever it wants to limit.
Besides, it isn't just a question of what's coming into your house; it's also a question of what you're sending out.
Charge by the byte, multiplied by the speed. This is gets away from the "unlimited access" idea that we've all grown accustomed to, but it is the only fair solution that comes to mind. Run all the servers you want, but pay for the privilege. You're the ones driving up the price of DSL as it is.
Let's be realistic... If they were to price bandwidth based on this principle, it would be a lot more expensive, which isn't really fair to the average customer. The relatively low price depends on people not running servers 24/7.
Because they say so, in their TOS. They can place any limitations they want, as long as they get you to agree to them. (IANAL)
I almost hope this actually happens the way they predict, if for no other reason than to see ®TMark find a way to sabotage it.
Kudzu.
One thing that audio elitists need to realize is that a "wannabee engineer" doesn't have to be the best. He just has to be good enough, and it's getting cheaper and cheaper to achieve a good-enough sound at home. There comes a point at which it is no longer worth going to the pros -- not because they won't do a better job, but because the difference in quality isn't great enough to justify the ridiculous cost. And not to burst any bubbles, but the role of the engineer is always, always secondary to the material you're recording. I'd much rather listen to a Zappa bootleg than the latest overproduced dreck from some boy-band.
They have the patent, so they do have the legal right (IANAL), at least for the time being. What they don't have is the moral right.
What they're doing doesn't exactly qualify as 'dishonest', either, since they are not (necessarily) aware that their patents might be invalid.
I'm not saying they did nothing wrong, but it's more akin to innocent misrepresentation than it is to fraud.
It's certainly not going to make most people who read that passage commit incest, but I'm willing to bet that it has been used by some to justify and excuse their own pre-existing inclinations. Reading such a passage may be enough to make the right (or wrong) kind of person go from mere thought into action.
There is a false dichotomy at work here by which some people assume that in order for something to have a meaningful effect, it must affect all people equally. Even if TV violence or Biblical incest has a negative effect on only one person in ten thousand, that is still a problem.
But I don't advocate censorship; I'm simply trying to inject a little reason into the discussion.
I don't think it's about revenge, or at least not just about revenge. etoy.com has plenty of valid reasons for fearing that eToy will cause trouble for them in the future. I see this more as a preemptive strike.