Account for my English it's my second language. Don't pick on words.
Some background:
First, I think we all agree that solid science relies on facts (or, emperical data) and comes up with a plausible hypothesis to try to explain their relationships (like, cause and effect, interdependence etc) and once the hypothesis is shown to predict relyably the outcome of a certain process, the law is stated with a theory to support it (that is, a 'law' simply states how things shoud work - 'unsupported body falls until it meets the ground' and a 'theory' explains the mechanism). So, we have the distinction between 'facts', 'hypothesis', 'law' and 'theory' layed out here.
Clear minded science, obviously, should look at evidence first and form a theory basing on that.
'Facts', in turn, is something which can be observed and repeated.
So, on to the topic: here's how the evolution theory roughly goes:
Everything started with a Big Bang (infinitely dense 'cosmic egg' less then a protom in size exploded into out universe)
Basic chemical elements were formed
With the course of time matter formed itself into galaxies, stars and planets
On earth, the chemical elements of primordial soup, under the influence of radiation and electrical discharges, formed more complex ones, which in turn started to self-replicate
...and evolved into first living cell
...which in turn evolved into more complex organisms
and on to the humans, in a process called 'macroevolution' (as opposed to 'microevolution', which goes on presently within the boundaries of spieces)
Correct me if I'm wrong on this outline (well that was a rough one anyway).
An interesting observation: there is no factual prove of any of these steps having taken place . (the obligatory disclaimer: read before you flame).
Big Bang: cannot be repeated or observed. Hence, it's not domain of science in the first place (yes you can speculate and theorize, but science deals with facts). Besides, you know what this 'cosmic egg' is? An ultimate black hole. Black holes are not known to explode. Instead they collapse in themselves because of own gravitational pull.
Spontaneous formation (not proven for same reasons - impossibility to observe): oft-quoted second law of thermodynamics: chaos increases. Big Bang is a gross violation of it, as is formation of cosmic bodies and self-organization of matter.
Imagine an explosion. Stuff goes in all directions, approx. the same speed. Because in case of Big Bang, there's nothing to hit, the matter would fly in all directions forever, without hitting anything and without stopping, without forming anything. To particles cannot collide if they have the same speed.
Generation of more complex chemical compounds. Not proven. Generation of amino-acids from the elements in primordial soup is chemically impossible. First: water is deadly for their stability (if those *were* ever formed, they would instanteniously dissolve). Second: amino-acids are composed entirely of 'right-hand' compounds (chirality: elements having same chemical characteristics but being mirror image of each other). So, if needed compounds were indeed formed by chance, the result would be 50-50, which would cancel the whole reaction altogether.
Abiogenesis - creation of life from non-life. Not proven.
Macroevolution (development of more complex organisms from simpler ones): sorry, not proven. First, there are no 'intermediate' forms found. Every single one is complete and functional. Darwinism states that evolution is a gradual process, taking millions of years. Hence, almost 100% of fossils should be intermediate forms, with clear links. The links are missing.
In case with man, the fossils which are credited as being intermediate forms are few and far between. Besides the fact that they are reconstructed from just a few bones, they all are recognized to be whether an ape or a human.
Use of microevolution as explanation for macroevolution is a stretch. Microevolution goes on within spieces, on existing genetical material, while macroevolution supposedly creates new spieces. There's no fossil or evidential proof for that.
Well here were few suspicions about the theory of evolution which so many hold as fact today. I tried to show that every step is taken on faith and is not proven scientifically (e.g. with facts) but instead explained away with more theories or ignored.
The suggestion is to rather have no theory at all than a lousy one, which is based solely on naturalistic world view of most of scientific community and s.c. 'public'. The fact that 'we are here after all' does not prove evolution yet.
That seems truly odd that you Americans have to pay for incoming calls. They say rapid spread of cell phones in Europe is partly due to no charge for incoming call - you can always answer a phone without worrying about your bill.
Here in Finland the prepaid cards are not as popular however.. it costs about 3 times more than in a normal contract (42 vs 14 cents, respectively) and I haven't seen a *real* person with such a card for lo-ong time now.
Not to mention that roaming in Europe is something you don't even need to know about - it just works. (don't go roaming to Russia, though - the prices are astronomic, I hear. One of the most expensive networks in the world, they say).
There is still one analog network in Scandinavia (NMT450) which is used mostly in less-populated areas (such as Lapland) due to its vast coverage (it's safe to say that you can still make a call from any point in Finland, however remote it is) but the analog network is being replaced by digital one. It's just as well 'cause it covers all the cities and roads and where else could you be? Analog cell phones are rare, expensive and hard to come by, there's really no reason to buy one, unless you're a hunter or something of a type.
Oh, that sure helped to answer the original question? Good.:-)
Re:A remark from Don Knuth on the subject..
on
"e-mail" vs "email"
·
· Score: 2
Not to mention other pains associated with typing email addresses in general. For instance, in finnish layout (which i have), dot, comma and dash are on the bottom row on the right. So, i have to reach *back* for all these much needed characters (also in URLs). Guess how many times was it www-comma-something? And guess how easy it is to always figure out what went wrong?:-)
Another joy of finnish layout: the @ sign is an AltGr character on "2" key. So, to type an email address, beside name, i have to reach for an invisible dot (well, my hit rate rises however:-) and do the one-of-a-kind Ctrl + Alt + 2 trick to get the @-sign. That's worse than typing "database".
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A remark from Don Knuth on the subject..
on
"e-mail" vs "email"
·
· Score: 5
I find this note from Don Knuth enlightning:
A note on email versus e-mail
Newly coined nonce words are often spelled with a hyphen, but the hyphen disappears when the words become widely used. For example, people used to write ``non-zero'' and ``soft-ware'' instead of ``nonzero'' and ``software''; the same trend has occurred for hundreds of other words. Thus it's high time for everybody to stop using the archaic spelling ``e-mail''. Think of how many keystrokes you will save in your lifetime if you stop now! The form ``email'' has been well established in England for several years, so I am amazed to see Americans being overly conservative in this regard. (Of course, ``email'' has been a familiar word in France much longer than in England --- but for an entirely different reason.)
MYTH: Mobile phones are so powerful they literally fry your brain. FACT: Mobile phone safety standards are set to minimize heating in the brain to fractions of a degree - less than that which results from normal physical exercise. MYTH: The incidence of brain tumors is rising because of mobile phone usage. FACT: World recognized authorities have not found any link between mobile phone usage and health risks. MYTH: Using a mobile phone gives the user headaches. FACT: The causes of headaches are numerous. There's no evidence of a direct link between mobile phone usage and headaches. MYTH: Nobody is really investigating the possible health dangers associated with mobile phone usage. FACT: In excess of USD 50 million has been spent on EMF research. In addition to the research program through Wireless Technology Research (WTR) in the U.S., the WHO runs an EMF project. The European Commission is also planning funding of EMF research under its 5th framework program.
and to sum ot up:
According to highly-renowned international bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO): "Current scientific evidence indicates that exposure to low levels of RF (Radio Freaquency) fields, including those emitted by mobile phones and their base stations, is unlikely to induce or promote cancers." (Source WHO Fact Sheet 193 May 1998.)
And a few words about microwave oven analogy - the oven consumes ~700-1k watt while the phone signal strength is barely 1watt (unless you wrap an antenna from an old analog car phone around your heada, which will provide you with 10 - 15W). The heating effect is just a fraction of a degree, as mentioned earlier.
Why, all right we use them to talk; but especially teens send SMS-s alot - that's cheaper than talking you know. Especially now with predictive input...
...so once a spaceship utilizing this particular property of bad news was constructed, but because of how badly it was received wherever it went ('cause of the news it normally brought), there was no point in going there in the first place, so the idea was abandoned altogether..
We are writing test suits for 3G protocols (software for mobile communications) and the downside of the whole process is that the standards are not yet finilized and our code has to be changed every time there is a change in the standard. So there's a motto on one of the office walls: "Keeping with the standards is just like walking on water: it's much easier when it's frozen"
Apple produces superior hardware (how many more of early Apples are still running today comparing to 8x80s? why Apple gets so much more kick out of a MHz?) and people are putting (subjectively) superior OS on the HW just to get more juice out of it + of course, the hack value. Remember Linux for Apple ][ or 8080 - not a lot of use but was done just for the sake of it.
1) How many corporate pages EVER link outside their site?
I would say it would be a generally bad idea for them to link outside, as the ultimate goal is to keep visitors inside as long as possible. That's an absolute no-no in corporate web page design to link outside..
Can't help wondering: how about all the meteors and miscellaneous bits and pieces travelling in space? Wouldn't even a single of those wreck the whole thing? Even if the sail is only punctured, I am sure maneuverability suffers greatly.
I see two possible explanations:
Danger of flying junk is only relevant on Earth's orbit
Chances of the sail getting hit are small due to relative size of the sail (and any number divided by infinity is equal to...)
Gutenberg Project comes to mind. As far as I understand it, it's the largest electronic text archive (vanilla ASCII) consisting of text in public domain (no copyright or copyright expired), active since 1971.
As far as I can understand that, "Piranha" is not installed by default and you have it only if you *want* it; and once you took the pain to install it, the least thing would be to change the default password.. is it really a backdoor or a lazy user? If s/he's got enough insight to install the thing in the first place, that seems quite unprobable to me that s/he would leave it at that.
... "simple things are simple and complecated things are possible". You want text processing - go for it, it's still as simple as it used to be; you want classes, they are there, too - in case you need them.
The concept behind Perl is it is an 'orthogonal' language, or comparable to human language in that, that it evolves, accomodates new concepts and generally is not self-contained from the beginning (as most other programming languages), but rather represents a framework on which to build.
* drop-down menus' style is clearly Mac-like. this gives noticeable speed gain: dropping the menu not only selects current item (as often elsewhere) but puts it against your mouse pointer (so accidental click doesn't ruin anything: it only selects what you already have).
* toolbars are as well more Mac-ish, and why this is important? most monitors are horizontal rectangles, that is, with the long side on bottom; so that vertical screen real estate is 'more expensive'. have few toolbars in MS Word and there's not much space left for actual document. vertical toolbars are much less obtrusive (coz most documents look like, well, vertical rectangles).
Great! all i wait is Mac-like menu bar (which in some measure is already present in KDE) and consistency, please?
a remark from my time meta-moderating: that's true that 6 out of 10 posts were trolls. that's a sorry loss of moderation points (for moderators, not meta moderators..). seems like slashdot is going through same period as internet did in 1993 - from a subculture it went mainstream, inviting not-so-responsible folk. quality of posts has decreased, yes. pity i can't contribute to it, quality. i like to browse at 4, but my comments rarely reach 2. but that makes sense, however.
It appears to me that UNIX multiuser model is very well suited for school / institute / univercity environment, with users having own login, home directory and the programs installed centrally. As it is now, in the polytechnic where i studied (http://www.ketol.tokem.fi) has about 300 machines running win95. The probelms, as i percieve, are:
Students are installing a lot of programs - that litters the hd and plain old just takes up memory, as many of these programs want to sit in systray.
When you keep your files on a system drive (which you will want to do, coz chances are you don't get the same computer the next time), there always is a danger that your files will get deleted - there's just no way to protect them.
There was an attempt to use winnt, but it took too much memory to run so that nothing much was left for programs. Besides, separate logins weren't created which essentially nullified the benefit of having a multiuser os.
So, ability to have own homedirectory, login, and inability to screw anything up (beyound your ~/, that is) is something which is needed and that linux can provide. Sun ray 1 appears very attractive in such an environment as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Account for my English it's my second language. Don't pick on words.
Some background:
First, I think we all agree that solid science relies on facts (or, emperical data) and comes up with a plausible hypothesis to try to explain their relationships (like, cause and effect, interdependence etc) and once the hypothesis is shown to predict relyably the outcome of a certain process, the law is stated with a theory to support it (that is, a 'law' simply states how things shoud work - 'unsupported body falls until it meets the ground' and a 'theory' explains the mechanism). So, we have the distinction between 'facts', 'hypothesis', 'law' and 'theory' layed out here.
Clear minded science, obviously, should look at evidence first and form a theory basing on that.
'Facts', in turn, is something which can be observed and repeated.
So, on to the topic: here's how the evolution theory roughly goes:
Correct me if I'm wrong on this outline (well that was a rough one anyway).
An interesting observation: there is no factual prove of any of these steps having taken place . (the obligatory disclaimer: read before you flame).
Well here were few suspicions about the theory of evolution which so many hold as fact today. I tried to show that every step is taken on faith and is not proven scientifically (e.g. with facts) but instead explained away with more theories or ignored.
The suggestion is to rather have no theory at all than a lousy one, which is based solely on naturalistic world view of most of scientific community and s.c. 'public'. The fact that 'we are here after all' does not prove evolution yet.
I invite discussion.
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The first page deals mostly with the enclosure cabinet and *the second* deals with the wiring. So he did wire it up after all.
__________________________________________
Here in Finland the prepaid cards are not as popular however.. it costs about 3 times more than in a normal contract (42 vs 14 cents, respectively) and I haven't seen a *real* person with such a card for lo-ong time now.
Not to mention that roaming in Europe is something you don't even need to know about - it just works. (don't go roaming to Russia, though - the prices are astronomic, I hear. One of the most expensive networks in the world, they say).
There is still one analog network in Scandinavia (NMT450) which is used mostly in less-populated areas (such as Lapland) due to its vast coverage (it's safe to say that you can still make a call from any point in Finland, however remote it is) but the analog network is being replaced by digital one. It's just as well 'cause it covers all the cities and roads and where else could you be? Analog cell phones are rare, expensive and hard to come by, there's really no reason to buy one, unless you're a hunter or something of a type.
Oh, that sure helped to answer the original question? Good. :-)
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
Not to mention other pains associated with typing email addresses in general. For instance, in finnish layout (which i have), dot, comma and dash are on the bottom row on the right. So, i have to reach *back* for all these much needed characters (also in URLs). Guess how many times was it www-comma-something? And guess how easy it is to always figure out what went wrong? :-)
Another joy of finnish layout: the @ sign is an AltGr character on "2" key. So, to type an email address, beside name, i have to reach for an invisible dot (well, my hit rate rises however :-) and do the one-of-a-kind Ctrl + Alt + 2 trick to get the @-sign. That's worse than typing "database".
__________________________________________
I find this note from Don Knuth enlightning:
A note on email versus e-mail
Btw, "Micro-soft" had a hyphen too..
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</i>
Thanks.
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Regardless, everyone can use a headset.
Here's a good summary (with more links) on mobile phone safety
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I would say it would be a generally bad idea for them to link outside, as the ultimate goal is to keep visitors inside as long as possible. That's an absolute no-no in corporate web page design to link outside..
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- Slashdot
- The rest
'The rest' can be further subdivided into 3 parts:- News sites Slashdot links to
- Non-new sites which get slashdotted
- News sites talking about Slashdot
- The other category would be "None of the above " but in that case we don't really care to count, do we.
And of course I have to mention that this study of mine is highly unbiased, openminded, and generally guaranteed to be 100% completely accurate.__________________________________________
I see two possible explanations:
- Danger of flying junk is only relevant on Earth's orbit
- Chances of the sail getting hit are small due to relative size of the sail (and any number divided by infinity is equal to...)
but still that leaves me wondering...__________________________________________
Gutenberg Project comes to mind. As far as I understand it, it's the largest electronic text archive (vanilla ASCII) consisting of text in public domain (no copyright or copyright expired), active since 1971.
As far as I can understand that, "Piranha" is not installed by default and you have it only if you *want* it; and once you took the pain to install it, the least thing would be to change the default password.. is it really a backdoor or a lazy user? If s/he's got enough insight to install the thing in the first place, that seems quite unprobable to me that s/he would leave it at that.
The concept behind Perl is it is an 'orthogonal' language, or comparable to human language in that, that it evolves, accomodates new concepts and generally is not self-contained from the beginning (as most other programming languages), but rather represents a framework on which to build.
-!.
BeOS's got a new logo and the list of the new features is here. Still more detail in here (complete list actually).
No, I am not working for Nokia. Sorta.
http://linuxmall.com/news/feature s/000322zipspeak
...unless the year is devidible by 400. 1900 wasn't a leap year.
few observations about KWord's interface:
* drop-down menus' style is clearly Mac-like. this gives noticeable speed gain: dropping the menu not only selects current item (as often elsewhere) but puts it against your mouse pointer (so accidental click doesn't ruin anything: it only selects what you already have).
* toolbars are as well more Mac-ish, and why this is important? most monitors are horizontal rectangles, that is, with the long side on bottom; so that vertical screen real estate is 'more expensive'. have few toolbars in MS Word and there's not much space left for actual document. vertical toolbars are much less obtrusive (coz most documents look like, well, vertical rectangles).
Great! all i wait is Mac-like menu bar (which in some measure is already present in KDE) and consistency, please?
a remark from my time meta-moderating: that's true that 6 out of 10 posts were trolls. that's a sorry loss of moderation points (for moderators, not meta moderators..). seems like slashdot is going through same period as internet did in 1993 - from a subculture it went mainstream, inviting not-so-responsible folk. quality of posts has decreased, yes. pity i can't contribute to it, quality. i like to browse at 4, but my comments rarely reach 2. but that makes sense, however.
It appears to me that UNIX multiuser model is very well suited for school / institute / univercity environment, with users having own login, home directory and the programs installed centrally. As it is now, in the polytechnic where i studied (http://www.ketol.tokem.fi) has about 300 machines running win95. The probelms, as i percieve, are:
There was an attempt to use winnt, but it took too much memory to run so that nothing much was left for programs. Besides, separate logins weren't created which essentially nullified the benefit of having a multiuser os.
So, ability to have own homedirectory, login, and inability to screw anything up (beyound your ~/, that is) is something which is needed and that linux can provide. Sun ray 1 appears very attractive in such an environment as well.