According to reports a meteor event this size happens once every 50-100 years. Still don't think that's a reason to waste money when they are so many other natural and man-made disasters with so much more potential for death and destruction (not to mention all of those dying from preventable causes like starvation, disease, and war).
Why would anyone want to spend spend any money, let alone trillions, on "defending" against a meteor that basically broke a bunch of windows and didn't cause any fatalities?
And even the many injuries were almost all caused by people who, when seeing a big explosion, naively went to their windows not realizing the shockwave was a minute or two behind. Pretty sure a few PSAs on TV would be as effective prevention as military hardware for that.
Just sell/license it to another guy named "Ron Paul" and change the content to something unrelated to the former Congressman. Then if this Ron Paul wants the domain, he buy it off of someone with unarguably the same rights to the name that he has.
Or evading the social responsibilities necessary for a well-functioning *civilization* - placing your uncompromising basic principles above helping the less fortunate in need seems to be fairly evil in itself.
My biggest problem with him is that he is only in favor of personal freedoms that don't conflict with his particular religious beliefs. Though I wouldn't call that "suicidal", just somewhat hypocritical and clearly not Libertarian.
2. The assertion "only evolution occurs", which is untestable and unscientific, and seems to have as its only apparent benefit that it's seen as a necessary premise for atheism. Need causal exclusivity to be true, therefore it is, need it to be scientific, therefore it is, though it factually fails on both counts.
You really think the *only* benefit of trying to assert that DNA only changes as a result of all of the extremely well defined mechanisms that have been discovered rather than an all powerful being who occasionally feels like substituting a few nucleotides for shits and giggles is support for religious debate? Wow.
If you want to assume that all of the "laws" of physics humanity has worked so hard to define can be arbitrarily broken by a completely unseeable, unknowable force at will, then what's the point? You can pretty much prove or disprove any theory at that point. That's why it's futile to combine science and religion in the same argument.
Yes. One 19th century tinker with no knowledge about the underlying physics or mechanics behind his work vs. several million biologists who have after over 150 years acquired a massive preponderance of evidence and have near complete knowledge of every mechanism of the theory to a molecular level. Those are pretty much equivalent.
Anyway, I'm done debating. Sorry if I came off as a bit insulting in my other post, but I feel kind of like a mathematician arguing an inductive proof with someone who just keeps repeating "but, you haven't TESTED n+2!"
Evolution can't tell me what conditions to subject rats to so that I end up with something that isn't a rat.
Of course it can. You just have to understand that long term evolution is a macroscopic process resulting from changes in DNA. Increase the mutations, breed many generations, and expose those generations to selective pressure. It's really not that hard to understand. And "isn't a rat" is a fairly silly, non-scientific, though also easy to determine. The definition of a species is somewhat subjective, but generally is that members can interbreed and have fertile offspring. Change the rat's DNA so much that it can breed with other organisms with that change but not original rats and there you go.
And it can't tell me how many generations it'll take
That's an even sillier argument. Theories of statistics can't tell you how many tries it will take to get heads when flipping a quarter, but that doesn't mean statistics is not testable. If I told you I'd give you 1:10 odds (ie. you get $1 for a $10 bet) that the next coin flip is heads, would you take it? How about if I gave you those odds that over 1M coin clips the results are between 0.49 and 0.51? (Hint: you should take the bet. And that's a prediction).
And anyway it basically can tell you how many generations it will take - it will take as many as necessary to cause exactly the mutations needed to achieve the change you are looking for. You might be able to speed that up via mutagens and increased selective pressure, or once (it's only a matter of time) humans can trivially map the entire gene sequence and function for an organism and have the technology to modify them, it could be one generation (as it is these thing are already being done, just not as efficiently as they could). But it's all the same to the DNA.
Evolution can't tell me where to dig to find a creature whose bones are part way between a form believed to be a descendent of another.
Yes, it can. That's how so many of the existing bones have been found in a relatively small region of the world. Archaeologists didn't just dig billions of random holes around the planet and cross their fingers.
And it can't reliably tell me what those bones will look like when I do find them.
Seriously, just give it up. You don't even need to be a biologist to prove this statement wrong, 5 minutes on Google would do it. Sigh. Will there be the occasional surprise? Absolutely, because due to its underlying mechanisms some aspects of evolution are RANDOM. But if you think that disproves anything or discredits the theory, back to that coin flipping experiment for you...
What are you talking about?? Isn't a very good theory in who's opinion, yours? Or the Texas School Board? Because pretty much the entire field of biology disagrees with your statement.
It has been observed and/or tested with predictable results in the wild and in the lab. Not to mention the fact that almost every food you eat is the result of evolutionary processes as a result of both accidental and intentional human intervention.
No, it's not like that at all. Ford didn't choose Phillips over Robertson because Phillips was better, he did it because Robertson wouldn't license the patent and wanted to be the sole supplier. Phillips, on the other hand, did license it, and the rest is history.
On the other hand, this crackpot was so desperate to find someone to license his "drive" to he gave up trying to sell it to any American companies and tried out China...
Peak of the market? Bull (no pun intended). Look it up, don't make up "facts". Peak of RIMM's stock value, maybe, but that was the POINT OF THE DISCUSSION. Peak of the NASDAQ was in 2000, and the CURRENT market is the highest it's been since then. Their performance more than 5 years ago is irrelevant, and 5 years is as good a window as any since it was about the time the iPhone came out and RIMM started to tank.
Besides, this was all stemming from a comparison of RIMM and Amazon. Here's an even more relevant chart.. Over those 5 years, the NASDAQ is up 36%, Amazon up 235% and RIM down 80%.
He's going to college. Isn't the point of going to college to take courses?
If he really wants to learn more about programming before/outside of college, the best way IS to be a self-starter and use the near infinite resources of the Internet to do it. If he doesn't want to do that, why force him? In either case, if as you say the local programming classes aren't very good, why not just let him wait to take one when he starts in the fall?
Absolutely, I'm sure those 30K / 1M = 1 out of 30 soldiers who were wounded feel much better about those statistics, not including all of those with PTSD, etc.
Well, harmless as long as you didn't invade and occupy it for ten years.
Yes, brilliant point, in which case Russia and China must have even more harmless militaries since they have not been invaded and occupied for almost 70 years!
Android may not be the only mobile OS or the best mobile OS, but it's the only FREE mobile OS. And one which now has a huge app store. If you think any CE company would want to pay for their OS over a free one with great app support, you have probably already hit yourself too many times.
For chrissakes, Windows phone outsold Blackberry last quarter. Unless that's what you are talking about in terms of other mobile solutions, your sarcasm is badly misplaced...
That's a good point. 125,000 well equipped loyal soldiers (give or take) would be a hell of a lot worse than a few thousand insurgents in Iraq. I hate to Godwin the discussion but there are parallels, of course...
I don't know if the Iraqi soldiers were "harmless" as much as "had no loyalty to Saddam Hussein and his family".
I'd imagine a fair number of Iranian soldiers feel the same way about the Ayatollah, but it's hard to say when it's a matter of loyalty to a religious leader vs a secular dictator.
Only thing this will do is bust people using unregulated space. We will probably hear about it being applied to kids strapping cameras to their RC airplanes.
Actually, it won't even do that (which is why this whole article is so stupid). It was just a resolution, not a law. Basically the Charlottesville, VA (population 43,000) city council just put out an opinion piece. Yawn.
Slashdot Mirror
According to reports a meteor event this size happens once every 50-100 years. Still don't think that's a reason to waste money when they are so many other natural and man-made disasters with so much more potential for death and destruction (not to mention all of those dying from preventable causes like starvation, disease, and war).
Why would anyone want to spend spend any money, let alone trillions, on "defending" against a meteor that basically broke a bunch of windows and didn't cause any fatalities?
And even the many injuries were almost all caused by people who, when seeing a big explosion, naively went to their windows not realizing the shockwave was a minute or two behind. Pretty sure a few PSAs on TV would be as effective prevention as military hardware for that.
Citation provided! Two hours earlier it was trying to create a decent chart from a pivot table.
Just sell/license it to another guy named "Ron Paul" and change the content to something unrelated to the former Congressman. Then if this Ron Paul wants the domain, he buy it off of someone with unarguably the same rights to the name that he has.
Or evading the social responsibilities necessary for a well-functioning *civilization* - placing your uncompromising basic principles above helping the less fortunate in need seems to be fairly evil in itself.
My biggest problem with him is that he is only in favor of personal freedoms that don't conflict with his particular religious beliefs. Though I wouldn't call that "suicidal", just somewhat hypocritical and clearly not Libertarian.
2. The assertion "only evolution occurs", which is untestable and unscientific, and seems to have as its only apparent benefit that it's seen as a necessary premise for atheism. Need causal exclusivity to be true, therefore it is, need it to be scientific, therefore it is, though it factually fails on both counts.
You really think the *only* benefit of trying to assert that DNA only changes as a result of all of the extremely well defined mechanisms that have been discovered rather than an all powerful being who occasionally feels like substituting a few nucleotides for shits and giggles is support for religious debate? Wow.
If you want to assume that all of the "laws" of physics humanity has worked so hard to define can be arbitrarily broken by a completely unseeable, unknowable force at will, then what's the point? You can pretty much prove or disprove any theory at that point. That's why it's futile to combine science and religion in the same argument.
Yes. One 19th century tinker with no knowledge about the underlying physics or mechanics behind his work vs. several million biologists who have after over 150 years acquired a massive preponderance of evidence and have near complete knowledge of every mechanism of the theory to a molecular level. Those are pretty much equivalent.
Anyway, I'm done debating. Sorry if I came off as a bit insulting in my other post, but I feel kind of like a mathematician arguing an inductive proof with someone who just keeps repeating "but, you haven't TESTED n+2!"
Evolution can't tell me what conditions to subject rats to so that I end up with something that isn't a rat.
Of course it can. You just have to understand that long term evolution is a macroscopic process resulting from changes in DNA. Increase the mutations, breed many generations, and expose those generations to selective pressure. It's really not that hard to understand. And "isn't a rat" is a fairly silly, non-scientific, though also easy to determine. The definition of a species is somewhat subjective, but generally is that members can interbreed and have fertile offspring. Change the rat's DNA so much that it can breed with other organisms with that change but not original rats and there you go.
And it can't tell me how many generations it'll take
That's an even sillier argument. Theories of statistics can't tell you how many tries it will take to get heads when flipping a quarter, but that doesn't mean statistics is not testable. If I told you I'd give you 1:10 odds (ie. you get $1 for a $10 bet) that the next coin flip is heads, would you take it? How about if I gave you those odds that over 1M coin clips the results are between 0.49 and 0.51? (Hint: you should take the bet. And that's a prediction).
And anyway it basically can tell you how many generations it will take - it will take as many as necessary to cause exactly the mutations needed to achieve the change you are looking for. You might be able to speed that up via mutagens and increased selective pressure, or once (it's only a matter of time) humans can trivially map the entire gene sequence and function for an organism and have the technology to modify them, it could be one generation (as it is these thing are already being done, just not as efficiently as they could). But it's all the same to the DNA.
Evolution can't tell me where to dig to find a creature whose bones are part way between a form believed to be a descendent of another.
Yes, it can. That's how so many of the existing bones have been found in a relatively small region of the world. Archaeologists didn't just dig billions of random holes around the planet and cross their fingers.
And it can't reliably tell me what those bones will look like when I do find them.
Seriously, just give it up. You don't even need to be a biologist to prove this statement wrong, 5 minutes on Google would do it. Sigh. Will there be the occasional surprise? Absolutely, because due to its underlying mechanisms some aspects of evolution are RANDOM. But if you think that disproves anything or discredits the theory, back to that coin flipping experiment for you...
What are you talking about?? Isn't a very good theory in who's opinion, yours? Or the Texas School Board? Because pretty much the entire field of biology disagrees with your statement.
It has been observed and/or tested with predictable results in the wild and in the lab. Not to mention the fact that almost every food you eat is the result of evolutionary processes as a result of both accidental and intentional human intervention.
And, that makes 3 hands... next time I should proofread to limit my trite opening phrases to one per post :)
No, it's not like that at all. Ford didn't choose Phillips over Robertson because Phillips was better, he did it because Robertson wouldn't license the patent and wanted to be the sole supplier. Phillips, on the other hand, did license it, and the rest is history.
On the other hand, this crackpot was so desperate to find someone to license his "drive" to he gave up trying to sell it to any American companies and tried out China...
Peak of the market? Bull (no pun intended). Look it up, don't make up "facts". Peak of RIMM's stock value, maybe, but that was the POINT OF THE DISCUSSION. Peak of the NASDAQ was in 2000, and the CURRENT market is the highest it's been since then. Their performance more than 5 years ago is irrelevant, and 5 years is as good a window as any since it was about the time the iPhone came out and RIMM started to tank.
Besides, this was all stemming from a comparison of RIMM and Amazon. Here's an even more relevant chart.. Over those 5 years, the NASDAQ is up 36%, Amazon up 235% and RIM down 80%.
He's going to college. Isn't the point of going to college to take courses?
If he really wants to learn more about programming before/outside of college, the best way IS to be a self-starter and use the near infinite resources of the Internet to do it. If he doesn't want to do that, why force him? In either case, if as you say the local programming classes aren't very good, why not just let him wait to take one when he starts in the fall?
I think you should go reread how this thread started and then look up the definition of "harmless".
Absolutely, I'm sure those 30K / 1M = 1 out of 30 soldiers who were wounded feel much better about those statistics, not including all of those with PTSD, etc.
Well, harmless as long as you didn't invade and occupy it for ten years.
Yes, brilliant point, in which case Russia and China must have even more harmless militaries since they have not been invaded and occupied for almost 70 years!
And when you RTFA(s) you see that most of the /. summary is just uncited cut and paste from one of the linked sites. Journalism at its finest!
We don't need proof, unsubstantiated blog entries will suffice!
I see your cherry picked chart and raise you a much more relevant one...
Android may not be the only mobile OS or the best mobile OS, but it's the only FREE mobile OS. And one which now has a huge app store. If you think any CE company would want to pay for their OS over a free one with great app support, you have probably already hit yourself too many times.
For chrissakes, Windows phone outsold Blackberry last quarter. Unless that's what you are talking about in terms of other mobile solutions, your sarcasm is badly misplaced...
That's a good point. 125,000 well equipped loyal soldiers (give or take) would be a hell of a lot worse than a few thousand insurgents in Iraq. I hate to Godwin the discussion but there are parallels, of course...
I don't know if the Iraqi soldiers were "harmless" as much as "had no loyalty to Saddam Hussein and his family".
I'd imagine a fair number of Iranian soldiers feel the same way about the Ayatollah, but it's hard to say when it's a matter of loyalty to a religious leader vs a secular dictator.
Iraq was a lot more "harmless" than Iran, but I'm sure the 5000 dead and 30,000 wounded US soldiers would dispute that description.
Only thing this will do is bust people using unregulated space. We will probably hear about it being applied to kids strapping cameras to their RC airplanes.
Actually, it won't even do that (which is why this whole article is so stupid). It was just a resolution, not a law. Basically the Charlottesville, VA (population 43,000) city council just put out an opinion piece. Yawn.