Many particle accelerators are doughnut shaped; indeed, it is speculated that God used a particle accelerator to create the universe.
While scientists disagree over exactly what the universe's origins are, religion has provided a consistent answer since the Earth's beginnings, over 6,000 years ago.
Also naturally doughnut shaped:
Anii Cheerios Red blood cells This. This too. Can't forget this. There is also an argument to be made that earthworms are doughnut-shaped when viewed end-on, and further that most life forms incorporate the same underlying architecture.
Or make the commercial break 20 minutes long and play the ads at quarter-speed. That ought to really drill the message into everyone's skulls: "Apply directly to the forehead!"
1. In some cases, the government does a better job.
Roads, for example.
2. Ideally, private industry is motivated by profit, while government is motivated to help civilians.
While emphasis should be placed on ideally in the previous sentence, the basic idea is that the government is more likely to behave altruistically than private industry, if for no reason than because it is more accountable to civilians.
This is why government is entrusted with control of right-of-ways and private industry is not.
Do you really believe that, having independently arrived at a solution of throttling Bittorrent traffic, Comcast is likely to regulate itself any better in the future if left alone? Why? How much time should they be given to arrive at a "self-regulated" state? I suppose they should be allowed to decide that, as well.
I believe the pole that tightrope walkers carry is intended to stabilize their center of gravity over the highwire- like those toy birds that balance their beak on your finger.
and on a further note, science has yet to ever be proven as fact. there's one assumption that is always made and can never be proven (just as one could say a higher power could never be proven, therefore you can only assume there is or there isn't); you assume that a cause will always have the same effect. the only reason people accept this as true is because no one has disproved it. repeated tests are only circumstantial tests at best. don't get me wrong, i fully believe that science is true, but i'm just saying, there's still the same amount of assumption as there is with a higher power and even moreover, you can believe both science and in a higher power. they are not mutually exclusive.
This thread is offtopic and should be modded as such, but just in case anyone comes to slashdot for spiritual guidance...
Science deals with probabilities, not facts, and never claims to present facts. The only assumption made by science is that the universe is capable of being understood using only rational thought, without invoking magic or superstition.
The reason people make this assumption has nothing to with whether or not it has been disproven, since in fact it cannot be disproven. It is because it is a necessary assumption, unlike the assumption of a "higher power" (aka deity). Since such belief in a deity explains nothing and requires further assumptions to be made, I dispute that there is "the same amount of assumption" in either case.
You are correct that you can believe in both science and magic... if you're willing to do both in a half-assed fashion. See Doublethink.
"The first time I heard the expression twenty years ago, "the exception that proves the rule", I thought it had the hallmarks of group think."
In one of his F&SF essays, Isaac Asimov, asserts that the expression assumes the third definition of "prove": "To determine the quality of by testing; try out."
That is really the only sense in which an exception could be said to prove a rule, at any rate. Now I seem to remember the essay applying that idea to the expression:
"The barber cuts everyone in town's hair, except for those who cut their own. Who cuts the barber's hair?"
The Japanese were also forbidden by the terms of surrender to have a military sufficient for anything more than self-defense. Wonder what research could be funded with the money the U.S.A. spends on developing new ways to make dead soldiers.
Admittedly, defense research discovers nifty things like cloaks of invisibility and microwave pain beams... but I wonder if its the most fruitful line of inquiry.
I highly recommend the collections of Asimov's science columns for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He wrote the column monthly for decades, and was given free reign to delve into any aspect of science he pleased. Later, the collections were grouped by subject into books, such as
Many of the essays were collected into a more general book, Asimov On Science
For younger readers, Asimov also wrote a series of books with the subject prefixed with, "How did we find out about...", for example, "How Did We Find Out About Electricity?".
1) Older, barbie-doll size toys, with clothes you could change and such. These are probably what the antediluvians at Fox News are witnessing the corruption of. This toy line was produced from 1942-1982. While this toy line was a success, it predated the tendency of toy manufacturers to sell a storyline with their products, which began in earnest with He-man and the Masters of the Universe, circa 1981. As such, this version of G.I. Joe had no villains to contend against until around 1976, when a line of alien invaders villains, called "Intruders" was introduced in a tacked-on fashion. Since almost no one knows about the Intruders, I submit that a "G.I. Joe vs. The Intruders from Space Movie" would be rather unpopular.
Which leaves us with...
2) A line of toys produced from 1982 until the present day, with a few pauses. This toy line, unlike the original, was based upon the marvel comic book, and utilized a wide array of science-fiction and fantasy devices, such as mad scientists (Dr. Mindbender), masked villains (Cobra and Destro), and even went so far as to integrate Robert E. Howard's myth of a prehuman, reptilian civilization in the animated movie.
The second incarnation of G.I. Joe was inclusive by design (including both the token black and the token female in the original roster), and fought a war on terror that could never end, because Cobra was an undying hydra of a terrorist organization (sound familiar?)
The multiculturalization of G.I. Joe that the article complains about actually took place over 20 years ago. Why were there no protests then? Perhaps because we were in the midst of a cold war, and people had something better to do than piss and moan about a toy line/cartoon/movie. Or perhaps because we as a culture realized that if we made certain classes of citizens feel unwelcome in our military, we would:
a) Weaken the military. b) Look like the "unfree", "antidemocratic" culture we were nominally opposing.
Just an idea. I rather lean towards the "better things to do" theory.
I probably got some trivial detail re: G.I. Joe incorrect. I feel I can reliably depend upon the legions of their fandom to correct me. For the most part, though, the above information is accurate, and the linked-to article is a bunch of jingoist hysteria.
Next week on slashdot: The global Zionist conspiracy forces Microsoft to keep its products closed-source!
It is actually the condescending bastids who feel an obligation to explain every joke to every puzzled idiot who are responsible for the spoiled humor you mention in your parting line.
While the clueless can and do add to the humor, nothing ruins a joke like explaining it.
It's the same as XP, but has admin/user privileges straightened out by default, a sandboxed browser, and a beefed up firewall. Do absolutely all drivers/applications work yet? Nope. Do all of mine? Yep.
Contrariwise, you're paying $1-300 for what could be accomplished freely on XP by:
1) Not running as Admin. 2) Installing Comodo, or your preferred software firewall.
Actually, the above steps are probably superior to installing Vista, since they will not produce driver/software problems, and Microsoft's software firewalls are notoriously broken. Presumably, you can rollback Vista to an XP-like state by disabling services, but if that's your goal, why not just start with XP, or XP's daddy, 2K?
Continuing your reasoning, I see few reasons anyone would use XP as an OS over 2K... except Microsoft no longer offers updates for 2K, and Visual Studio plays more nicely with XP (for example, the DirectX SDK hasn't installed on 2K for two years).
This will eventually provide your reason for people to use Vista: They will have little choice.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have no use for greasemonkey, then please post links to the perfectly-designed websites with no room for improvement that you're visiting.
I don't know what McDonald's uses, but lemon juice keeps apple slices from oxidizing.
Many particle accelerators are doughnut shaped; indeed, it is speculated that God used a particle accelerator to create the universe.
While scientists disagree over exactly what the universe's origins are, religion has provided a consistent answer since the Earth's beginnings, over 6,000 years ago.
Also naturally doughnut shaped:
Anii
Cheerios
Red blood cells
This.
This too.
Can't forget this.
There is also an argument to be made that earthworms are doughnut-shaped when viewed end-on, and further that most life forms incorporate the same underlying architecture.
Or make the commercial break 20 minutes long and play the ads at quarter-speed. That ought to really drill the message into everyone's skulls: "Apply directly to the forehead!"
Yes, it is about pushing an agenda of helping children.
Glad we're on the same page.
Do I really think that lawmakers will say, "We should get rid of traffic light cameras, because people are obeying the law and reducing our income from fines."?
Yes.
That's right- look until you can't find 'em.
"It only takes one to raise a stink about it.", goes the popular reasoning.
Because:
1. In some cases, the government does a better job.
Roads, for example.
2. Ideally, private industry is motivated by profit, while government is motivated to help civilians.
While emphasis should be placed on ideally in the previous sentence, the basic idea is that the government is more likely to behave altruistically than private industry, if for no reason than because it is more accountable to civilians.
This is why government is entrusted with control of right-of-ways and private industry is not.
Do you really believe that, having independently arrived at a solution of throttling Bittorrent traffic, Comcast is likely to regulate itself any better in the future if left alone? Why? How much time should they be given to arrive at a "self-regulated" state? I suppose they should be allowed to decide that, as well.
Why, then we'll build an atom constructor to assemble subatomic particles into the necessary elements.
"Will work for electrons."
Did you mean Macromedia?
I believe the pole that tightrope walkers carry is intended to stabilize their center of gravity over the highwire- like those toy birds that balance their beak on your finger.
This thread is offtopic and should be modded as such, but just in case anyone comes to slashdot for spiritual guidance...
Science deals with probabilities, not facts, and never claims to present facts.
The only assumption made by science is that the universe is capable of being understood using only rational thought, without invoking magic or superstition.
The reason people make this assumption has nothing to with whether or not it has been disproven, since in fact it cannot be disproven. It is because it is a necessary assumption, unlike the assumption of a "higher power" (aka deity). Since such belief in a deity explains nothing and requires further assumptions to be made, I dispute that there is "the same amount of assumption" in either case.
You are correct that you can believe in both science and magic... if you're willing to do both in a half-assed fashion. See Doublethink.
In one of his F&SF essays, Isaac Asimov, asserts that the expression assumes the third definition of "prove": "To determine the quality of by testing; try out."
That is really the only sense in which an exception could be said to prove a rule, at any rate. Now I seem to remember the essay applying that idea to the expression:
"The barber cuts everyone in town's hair, except for those who cut their own. Who cuts the barber's hair?"
No great loss. The 3d Castlevania's are rather lackluster, and I wish Konami would pull out the stops and make a 2d CV for a home console.
Anyway, the Lament of Innocence mp3's can be found here, until their server 'splodes.
The Japanese were also forbidden by the terms of surrender to have a military sufficient for anything more than self-defense. Wonder what research could be funded with the money the U.S.A. spends on developing new ways to make dead soldiers.
Admittedly, defense research discovers nifty things like cloaks of invisibility and microwave pain beams... but I wonder if its the most fruitful line of inquiry.
Buying another computer and using it as a netnanny proxy server would be defeated easily by anonymous web proxy servers.
Most netnanny software also blocks anonymizer sites.
I highly recommend the collections of Asimov's science columns for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He wrote the column monthly for decades, and was given free reign to delve into any aspect of science he pleased. Later, the collections were grouped by subject into books, such as
Asimov On Astronomy
Asimov On Chemistry
Asimov On Numbers
Asimov On Physics
Many of the essays were collected into a more general book, Asimov On Science
For younger readers, Asimov also wrote a series of books with the subject prefixed with, "How did we find out about...", for example, "How Did We Find Out About Electricity?".
G.I. Joe came in two flavors:
1) Older, barbie-doll size toys, with clothes you could change and such. These are probably what the antediluvians at Fox News are witnessing the corruption of. This toy line was produced from 1942-1982. While this toy line was a success, it predated the tendency of toy manufacturers to sell a storyline with their products, which began in earnest with He-man and the Masters of the Universe, circa 1981. As such, this version of G.I. Joe had no villains to contend against until around 1976, when a line of alien invaders villains, called "Intruders" was introduced in a tacked-on fashion. Since almost no one knows about the Intruders, I submit that a "G.I. Joe vs. The Intruders from Space Movie" would be rather unpopular.
Which leaves us with...
2) A line of toys produced from 1982 until the present day, with a few pauses. This toy line, unlike the original, was based upon the marvel comic book, and utilized a wide array of science-fiction and fantasy devices, such as mad scientists (Dr. Mindbender), masked villains (Cobra and Destro), and even went so far as to integrate Robert E. Howard's myth of a prehuman, reptilian civilization in the animated movie.
The second incarnation of G.I. Joe was inclusive by design (including both the token black and the token female in the original roster), and fought a war on terror that could never end, because Cobra was an undying hydra of a terrorist organization (sound familiar?)
The multiculturalization of G.I. Joe that the article complains about actually took place over 20 years ago. Why were there no protests then? Perhaps because we were in the midst of a cold war, and people had something better to do than piss and moan about a toy line/cartoon/movie. Or perhaps because we as a culture realized that if we made certain classes of citizens feel unwelcome in our military, we would:
a) Weaken the military.
b) Look like the "unfree", "antidemocratic" culture we were nominally opposing.
Just an idea. I rather lean towards the "better things to do" theory.
I probably got some trivial detail re: G.I. Joe incorrect. I feel I can reliably depend upon the legions of their fandom to correct me. For the most part, though, the above information is accurate, and the linked-to article is a bunch of jingoist hysteria.
Next week on slashdot: The global Zionist conspiracy forces Microsoft to keep its products closed-source!
You ruined the joke. Correction follows.
Jesus was a leprechaun - hung like this!
No, I didn't forget to post anonymously.
Stupid people. Ruining jokes since 500kYA.
It is actually the condescending bastids who feel an obligation to explain every joke to every puzzled idiot who are responsible for the spoiled humor you mention in your parting line.
While the clueless can and do add to the humor, nothing ruins a joke like explaining it.
must... preview...
steps should be as follows:
1) Not running as Admin.
2) Installing Commodo.
3) Installing Firefox.
It's the same as XP, but has admin/user privileges straightened out by default, a sandboxed browser, and a beefed up firewall. Do absolutely all drivers/applications work yet? Nope. Do all of mine? Yep.
Contrariwise, you're paying $1-300 for what could be accomplished freely on XP by:
1) Not running as Admin.
2) Installing Comodo, or your preferred software firewall.
Actually, the above steps are probably superior to installing Vista, since they will not produce driver/software problems, and Microsoft's software firewalls are notoriously broken. Presumably, you can rollback Vista to an XP-like state by disabling services, but if that's your goal, why not just start with XP, or XP's daddy, 2K?
Continuing your reasoning, I see few reasons anyone would use XP as an OS over 2K...
except Microsoft no longer offers updates for 2K, and Visual Studio plays more nicely
with XP (for example, the DirectX SDK hasn't installed on 2K for two years).
This will eventually provide your reason for people to use Vista: They will have little
choice.
The man truly was a genius.
Sure, he's a genius without his interference cap.