I think this is the tricky part here, though - will a little-known open source math library be used for, say, target software in a M109A6 howitzer? I think it's a bit unlikely.
> How could you prove I set out > to intentionally make that error?
The problem is that a typical open source project maintainer will not be concerned with _why_ a patch contains buggy code. Instead, he'll run the current suite of tests, they'll fail, and he'll reject the patch.
> How long would one need to invest to > get the trust of a submitter?
Of course, any system is fallible. But how long would it take for a person with bad intentions to be hired by a commercial company? Or, better yet, for a current employee to be bribed? That'd be a much faster route. And who would ever catch the hidden evil, since the code would only be readable by a select few?
Open source processes aren't failsafe - but neither are commercial company processes.
> How long would it take for a badly > intentioned person to take over as a > maintainer?
Same as above, I feel.
Incidentally, thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. This is a good issue to discuss, I think.
> How hard would it be to build in a small > tiny bit of error that would only be > useful in cases of calibration of > high-tech weapons?
I think it'd be tricky, because it would break other high-precision things as well. And the other folks using the open source project would say "hey, this fellow Fred just submitted a patch. something looks odd about it. Fred, why does line 314 do a bit shift without checking the foobar?" And then the patch would be rejected.
> If 3000 lines of dense mathematically > rich C were checked in
I doubt any maintainer would accept such a patch. I don't accept patches for PMD without reading them, and if I got a 3K line patch I'd reject it out of hand.
Thanks for the thoughtful post. I'm torn between doing a point by point reply and posting something sort of general. I guess I hesitate to do the point-by-point thing because I bet you can Google up all sorts of discussions on the Trinity, old/new earth creationist, Gospel document dating, and the free will/omniscience issue as well as I can.
I think what I find most convincing about the Bible is the way it rings true with what I see around me. If the Bible claimed that everything was great and life was a bowl of cherries, it wouldn't fit life. Or it could claim that there was some kernel of secret knowledge that could only be obtained after years of study and meditation and mentoring. But it doesn't.
Instead, the Bible says that evil exists, and all people sin, and that sin must be paid for. These are all things that I see around me, even in my children, who, without any tutoring on my part, run to me shouting "tommy took my bear! he needs to go to his room!". They know that something unfair was done, and that it needs to be addressed somehow.
I'm afraid that this was a very unsatisfying reply... I apologize. I've been thinking about how to reply since I read your post last night, and this is the best I could come up with. Cheers!
I thought some more about this last night. I think that there's something to what you say about Eve - after all, the Bible says that she was deceived, but just that "Adam ate". And only after Adam ate were their eyes opened. So it kind of seems like Eve was less responsible than Adam. Not sure if that's extrapolating too much... dunno.
Also, another approach to this discussion is to see what our conclusions are - you know, the logic thingy where you assume the opposite (pi is finite, or whatever) and then go from there to find a contradiction. So if God "set up" Adam and Eve in the Garden and deliberately put a trap there for them, what does that say about God? It doesn't seem to jive with the rest of Scripture.
> I speak very plainly and honestly about this > matter whom it may offend
Oh, I didn't mean that those words were offensive. I meant, saying that something is impossible is a very strong statement. Because it's rather hard to know what's possible and what's not. I was surprised to here you make such a definite statement. It's not, well, as pragmatic, I guess, as your other comments earlier in this thread regarding other cosmological possibilities.
> The only evidence that backs this up is > that there exist people who believe it
Oh, I don't know. There's a fair bit of evidence that Jesus existed. And he appears to have said and done some remarkable things. It's all about evaluating historical evidence. After all, how do we know that, say, Christopher Columbus existed?
True, an appeal to authority is not an argument. I guess I felt you were getting a little frustrated, and I wanted to note that this ground has been trod before.
> How could she have had knowledge > of what evil is, before eating > of the tree???
God could have given it to her.
> The tree is what gave the > knowledge of what evil is!
Or took away the ability to not sin.
> it is the very thing that gave > Adam and Eve the knowledge of evil.
I think we're arguing over the meaning of "knowledge of good and evil".
> Eve sinned the very moment
Well, no, first she noted that God had prohibited it. The serpent had to convince her to do wrong.
> she'd have eaten it on her own long before
Hm. Wouldn't that contradict the account in Genesis?
> So I don't think there's any use > in my posting further
> you ignored [...] you're reading what you > want to see [...] too large a leap
Hm. I'm not making this stuff up; this is what Augustine said. Of course, he may have been wrong, and it's good we're examining his arguments, but this is not a newly hatched viewpoint that we're discussing...
> She could not have had knowledge > of sin or evil before eating of it.
To the contrary, she could have had knowledge of what evil was, while retaining the ability to not sin.
> there's more direct support for > "Eve was amoral before eating"
God gave Adam and Eve a specific command and expected them to obey it, and they apparently did so for some period of time. Doesn't this chain of events support them having some moral faculties?
Hm. I feel like the word "prediction" implies uncertainty. I can predict that the Yankees will win the World Series, but I don't have foreknowledge that they will.
> I write software for a living
cout << "Birds of a feather, to be sure.\n";
> Programs are my "creations".
I agree, saying that computer programs have free will is silly. But I don't feel that the "me->program, God->people" analogy holds together. It stands to reason that we can only create things lesser than ourselves, and a computer program is less than a person. God created people, and we're less than God.
> I'm just having discussions with people
Touche! I was caught up in a moment of levity, it seems.
> except for the touching. > Is that what you're nitpicking over?
Exactly.
> How do you know that she was "slipping"?
It seems unlikely that she would be confused upon this, the one prohibition that was recorded at this point.
> how could she have known?
Augustine explains the doctrine of sin using a 4 part formula - "posse peccare, posse non peccare, non posse, non peccare" (possible to sin and possible to not sin before the fall; not possible to not sin after the fall). So before Eve ate the fruit, she knew what sin was, but was able to not sin.
In Ephesian 2:4-5, the Bible says "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ". So Christians are saved because God draws them, not because they're chasing down God trying to find them. Rather, we tend to run away from God and avoid him as much as possible. That's why sometimes folks refer to the Hound of Heaven.
Here's a question for you, though - why should God save any of us? Babies/adults/whatever? What claim do we have over God that he should care for us?
Slashdot Mirror
> if you look at sourceforge stats
Yup, but remember, there are other homes out there that sort of dilute the SF numbers - i.e., RubyForge and LuaForge.
...wrote "Open Sources", which you can read/buy here. He's a fairly savvy fellow...
...hm. Ah well... guess I'll be sticking with VIM/Ruby.
> how wack is that?
To coin a phrase, LOL.
The Marianas Trench - is it dope, or is it wack?
> a less-than highly used library
I think this is the tricky part here, though - will a little-known open source math library be used for, say, target software in a M109A6 howitzer? I think it's a bit unlikely.
> How could you prove I set out
> to intentionally make that error?
The problem is that a typical open source project maintainer will not be concerned with _why_ a patch contains buggy code. Instead, he'll run the current suite of tests, they'll fail, and he'll reject the patch.
> How long would one need to invest to
> get the trust of a submitter?
Of course, any system is fallible. But how long would it take for a person with bad intentions to be hired by a commercial company? Or, better yet, for a current employee to be bribed? That'd be a much faster route. And who would ever catch the hidden evil, since the code would only be readable by a select few?
Open source processes aren't failsafe - but neither are commercial company processes.
> How long would it take for a badly
> intentioned person to take over as a
> maintainer?
Same as above, I feel.
Incidentally, thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. This is a good issue to discuss, I think.
> How hard would it be to build in a small
> tiny bit of error that would only be
> useful in cases of calibration of
> high-tech weapons?
I think it'd be tricky, because it would break other high-precision things as well. And the other folks using the open source project would say "hey, this fellow Fred just submitted a patch. something looks odd about it. Fred, why does line 314 do a bit shift without checking the foobar?" And then the patch would be rejected.
> If 3000 lines of dense mathematically
> rich C were checked in
I doubt any maintainer would accept such a patch. I don't accept patches for PMD without reading them, and if I got a 3K line patch I'd reject it out of hand.
> added a little brother 13 months later.
Congratulations, very nice!
We've got # 5 on the way now... but fortunately our oldest is out of diapers, and our twins are _almost_ out.
> a generic pail that uses plain kitchen
> bags and was easier to use.
We've got a pail upstairs and a genie downstairs... you're right, the refills do add up.
I'm just glad there's a Costco in our area... so we can buy diapers/muffins/milk in bulk.
> my 3 toddlers
So true. When my wife had twins I was amazed at the sheer frequency of the diapers. That diaper genie lid was constantly revolving...
....as SCO's stock skis ever downwards.
Try Ruby with the Korundum bindings - example code is here.
Thanks for the thoughtful post. I'm torn between doing a point by point reply and posting something sort of general. I guess I hesitate to do the point-by-point thing because I bet you can Google up all sorts of discussions on the Trinity, old/new earth creationist, Gospel document dating, and the free will/omniscience issue as well as I can.
I think what I find most convincing about the Bible is the way it rings true with what I see around me. If the Bible claimed that everything was great and life was a bowl of cherries, it wouldn't fit life. Or it could claim that there was some kernel of secret knowledge that could only be obtained after years of study and meditation and mentoring. But it doesn't.
Instead, the Bible says that evil exists, and all people sin, and that sin must be paid for. These are all things that I see around me, even in my children, who, without any tutoring on my part, run to me shouting "tommy took my bear! he needs to go to his room!". They know that something unfair was done, and that it needs to be addressed somehow.
I'm afraid that this was a very unsatisfying reply... I apologize. I've been thinking about how to reply since I read your post last night, and this is the best I could come up with. Cheers!
> what God's intentions were with
> putting the tree there, either.
Perhaps He wanted to give them an opportunity to choose to obey him...
> the possibility that God had something
> else in mind
C.S. Lewis explores the idea of a planet where the life forms didn't fall in Perelandra . Good stuff...
> I used to work on Cougaar
Sweet. It's open source under a BSD license now... good times!
You're welcome!
...right here.
I thought some more about this last night. I think that there's something to what you say about Eve - after all, the Bible says that she was deceived, but just that "Adam ate". And only after Adam ate were their eyes opened. So it kind of seems like Eve was less responsible than Adam. Not sure if that's extrapolating too much... dunno.
Also, another approach to this discussion is to see what our conclusions are - you know, the logic thingy where you assume the opposite (pi is finite, or whatever) and then go from there to find a contradiction. So if God "set up" Adam and Eve in the Garden and deliberately put a trap there for them, what does that say about God? It doesn't seem to jive with the rest of Scripture.
> bothered to learn python
WxRuby ain't bad, neither.
And XMLSpy won the BileBlog best Java book award!
> And I meant them.
I'm curious, though - what about Christianity do you feel is impossible? Not implausible, or distateful... but impossible?
> I speak very plainly and honestly about this
> matter whom it may offend
Oh, I didn't mean that those words were offensive. I meant, saying that something is impossible is a very strong statement. Because it's rather hard to know what's possible and what's not. I was surprised to here you make such a definite statement. It's not, well, as pragmatic, I guess, as your other comments earlier in this thread regarding other cosmological possibilities.
> The only evidence that backs this up is
> that there exist people who believe it
Oh, I don't know. There's a fair bit of evidence that Jesus existed. And he appears to have said and done some remarkable things. It's all about evaluating historical evidence. After all, how do we know that, say, Christopher Columbus existed?
> contrary religions
Right, they certainly all can't be true.
> Appealing to authority
True, an appeal to authority is not an argument. I guess I felt you were getting a little frustrated, and I wanted to note that this ground has been trod before.
> How could she have had knowledge
> of what evil is, before eating
> of the tree???
God could have given it to her.
> The tree is what gave the
> knowledge of what evil is!
Or took away the ability to not sin.
> it is the very thing that gave
> Adam and Eve the knowledge of evil.
I think we're arguing over the meaning of "knowledge of good and evil".
> Eve sinned the very moment
Well, no, first she noted that God had prohibited it. The serpent had to convince her to do wrong.
> she'd have eaten it on her own long before
Hm. Wouldn't that contradict the account in Genesis?
> So I don't think there's any use
> in my posting further
Ok.
> Adam and Eve had a childlike naivete
Why do you say that?
> you ignored [...] you're reading what you
> want to see [...] too large a leap
Hm. I'm not making this stuff up; this is what Augustine said. Of course, he may have been wrong, and it's good we're examining his arguments, but this is not a newly hatched viewpoint that we're discussing...
> She could not have had knowledge
> of sin or evil before eating of it.
To the contrary, she could have had knowledge of what evil was, while retaining the ability to not sin.
> there's more direct support for
> "Eve was amoral before eating"
God gave Adam and Eve a specific command and expected them to obey it, and they apparently did so for some period of time. Doesn't this chain of events support them having some moral faculties?
Hm. I feel like the word "prediction" implies uncertainty. I can predict that the Yankees will win the World Series, but I don't have foreknowledge that they will.
> I write software for a living> Programs are my "creations".
I agree, saying that computer programs have free will is silly. But I don't feel that the "me->program, God->people" analogy holds together. It stands to reason that we can only create things lesser than ourselves, and a computer program is less than a person. God created people, and we're less than God.
> I'm just having discussions with people
Touche! I was caught up in a moment of levity, it seems.
> except for the touching.
> Is that what you're nitpicking over?
Exactly.
> How do you know that she was "slipping"?
It seems unlikely that she would be confused upon this, the one prohibition that was recorded at this point.
> how could she have known?
Augustine explains the doctrine of sin using a 4 part formula - "posse peccare, posse non peccare, non posse, non peccare" (possible to sin and possible to not sin before the fall; not possible to not sin after the fall). So before Eve ate the fruit, she knew what sin was, but was able to not sin.
> Eve was completely amoral before eating
No, but she was able _not_ to sin.
> Aren't Christians saved by believing in Jesus?
In Ephesian 2:4-5, the Bible says "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ". So Christians are saved because God draws them, not because they're chasing down God trying to find them. Rather, we tend to run away from God and avoid him as much as possible. That's why sometimes folks refer to the Hound of Heaven.
Here's a question for you, though - why should God save any of us? Babies/adults/whatever? What claim do we have over God that he should care for us?