I know throwing apple out there is a bit inflammatory around here but it proves the point. There are plenty of bad options out there without even pointing out Microsoft.
Who cares if it's inflammatory? It's true. Just because there are a lot of Apple apologists doesn't change a thing. I've often said that I don't mind Apple so much as it's fan club disgusts me. That said, if IBM hadn't launched Microsoft into power in 1984, Apple would be the Microsoft of today.
Let us not forget this last, but definitely *not* least argument against this "Einstein was religious" nonsense:
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein
IMO, MacTel could be a Linux killer, or at least help keep it a niche OS instead of a major mainstream competitor.
No. I, for one, won't "switch" to Mac because it is not truly and completely Free as in Freedom. Even if MacOSX was GPL'ed in it's entirety, I would still not switch. There are some people who don't believe MacOS is a superior platform (see my sig, and yes I've used MacOS extensively, even programmed in it).
Re:Philsophy for high schoolers
on
Improving Education?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Can you imagine trying to have a debate in a high school philosophy class about abortion?
I don't know about you, but we did exactly this when I was in high school (1992-1996). Not that it didn't get a little inflammatory, but was still amazingly civilized, especially for high school students, and more importantly, compared to some of the flame fests called "public debate" these days.
One of my friends was on the "pro-life" side. I was on the "pro-choice" side. We remained friends , even afterwards, and probably still would be good friends today if we had kept in touch. If you ask me, that's what's causing all the problems today: there is no respect for your "opponents"; there is no attempt to understand the other sides' arguments. In the end, discussion is stifled for fear of offending someone, and people never learn valuable consensus building skills.
What lower the crimes is when you know that you are going to be caught regardless. If you know there is a big posibility of nothing happening to you, then you will do anything that is ilegal.
Not necessarily. I know that if I throw trash out the window on the highway, I probably won't be caught. But I don't do it, because I believe that it is wrong to do. However, I copy music because I don't believe it is wrong. In fact, I believe it is good: if I like the music, I will look into more of the same, and probably purchase it. If I don't, I will delete it, and the money I would have wasted on music I don't like will now go to something more worthwhile.
Why don't you, and this guy start talking about when the Linux userbase will be large enough for games to be directly ported.
Trying to foist me on a troll to get us both embroiled in a flamefest, eh? Not very sporting. How about this: why don't you put your money where your mouth is (like I have) and actually BUY some Linux games that have been "directly ported".
It's not "pie-in-the-sky dreaming", and no it's not a gamer's paradise either, but for now, I have more games for native Linux than I have time to play, and more are being ported allthetime.
Great, scathing review, which will justify all of us not buying this book. However, when one reads a review nitpicking all the details the author got wrong, then says . ..
The writer name-drops Philip C. Dick
(emphasis mine)
. . . you have to wonder if all the mistakes he was complaining about were due to his own innattention to detail. Pot calling the kettle black, and all that.
. . . is outlaw spitting in your friend's mouth. Then it will never happen again! Oh, wait, I forgot: some people are stupid enough to agree to let you spit in their mouth; same thing goes with spyware (and it's about as distasteful).
Well, I suppose we can't blame them for trying. But there are already too many laws, including ones that would take care of spyware handily if only they were enforced.
Hey, as long as you are going to be pedantic and take this argument to the extreme . ..
"I go to a convenience store and use my Star Trek Replication Device to copy a can of Diet Coke, without taking away the existing Diet Coke. I like it so much that the next day, I replicate a case. I tell my friend that I like Diet Coke, and he replicates his own case. Now none of us buy Diet Coke, and they stay perfectly solvent because of their own replicators. Everyone will invent new soft drinks, since it's easy to create things from scratch with molecular construction."
Wow, someone is a Roger Penrose fanboy. First the original comment I was responding to gets down-modded to hell, then my little innocent comment gets the flamebait treatment. And after I even asked for proof of these accusations against Penrose.
As a way of responding to all the various trolls that followed up:
I claim that perpetual motion machines are impossible. Does that merit a "-1, Troll" in your mind?
No, actually, that merits a "-1, Pedantic" in my mind. Are perpetual motion machines impossible? Very probably. I suppose now you'll spout off something about Newton's second law or somesuch, never mind that later physicists (ie, Einstein) have shown that Newton's laws aren't perfect models of the universe at smaller scales.
I assert it is impossible for you to take flight by flapping your ears.
-1, Reductio ad Absurdam. And I suppose next you'll argue that heavier than air flight is impossible. Tell me, why do I bother responding to Anonymous Trolls again?
Just curious, but do you a slashdot-style rating on everyone that you talk to?
No, but I thought that analogy would be easier for the slashdot mentality to comprehend. It's more of a scepticism that runs both ways. Think of it as agnostic rationalism.
He didn't claim AI was impossible.
Depends upon how you read it. As others have pointed out, he does indeed seem to take a pretty hardline stance against hard AI, basically saying it's so hard as to be next to impossible, so why bother trying. These same kind of people were screaming five decades ago that putting a man on the moon was impossible.
So Einstein was trolling when he claimed that it's impossible to accelerate to the speed of light?
Ah, I see I'm going to have to sacrifice more than one of physics' sacred cows today. Just as Einstein showed that Newton's physics weren't perfect, someone will probably come along and show that there is a way to travel faster than the speed of light. Einstein was a genius, no doubt, but even he was human, and comparing Penrose to Einstein is bombastic beyond words. Penrose is no Einstein. I doubt he's a genius, either.
I believe Sir Roger suggested AI might be impossible based upon his original notion that the smallest component of thought - which AI was being modelled on, the neuron - wasn't actually the smallest component - but the next level smaller - tubular dimers - which a neuron is comprised of. A most original thinker....
Holy shit! Someone who not only didn't post as an Anonymous Troll, but actually has a cogent argument! I don't recall Penrose arguing that the scale AI was being worked on was wrong, I recall him pretty much saying it's too hard so we shouldn't bother trying. I'll have to re-read his book, but I still think he's just a naysayer who should stick to things he knows better.
Yeah, I think this is the same guy who wrote "The Emperor's New Mind", claiming AI to be impossible (quick note: anyone who claims anything is impossible automatically gets a "-1, Troll" in my mind), and does a lot of hand waving to "prove" it. Interesting, but at the same time, very dull read. I kept falling asleep while reading it, and while I respect the man's contributions to mathematics and physics, let's just say that I question his expertise in computer science. Now that you mention the whole suing for copying of ideas (of which he wasn't the originator), I think I might start questioning his contributions to mathematics as well. Definately no Douglas Hofstadter. You wouldn't happen to have any links on the case against your painter friend?
And this gem: "No court shall have jurisdiction to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security, or order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision."
Can someone please point out exactly where this is? Link, please. I can't seem to find it.
I think the orginal poster is talking about tearing the heart from a 9 foot tall bear with your bare hands then holding it over your head on top of a hill shouting in sheer barbaric primal release.
Even though I'm not a vegetarian, I've often said that if most people had to catch, kill and clean their own meat (even with technological advances), they would be vegetarians. Even my wife gets upset when I cook fish with the heads on.
Still, we can't synthesize meat (yet), and I'm not about to stop eating chicken and fish which are farmed to be eaten.
The bottom line, IMO, is that hey, it's entertainment, not a documentary, and whatever the *thing* is -- whether it's computers or legal procedure or spy technology or whatever -- is supposed to be in service of telling the story and revealing character, not the other way around.
Wow, yeah, that's nice and all, but when they fuck up even really simple things, you have to wonder, how good of story tellers can they be? I mean, it's like continuity errors, or spelling errors on a resume (or a post to slashdot); it's indicative of a deeper problem, and will generally result in rejection of the whole product. It stretches suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, and the backlash maybe an overreaction, but it happens none the less.
As for apologists like you, please don't ask me to check my brain at the door, and stop apologizing for the no talent ass clowns who are too lazy to even do a little research!
Slashdot Mirror
Who cares if it's inflammatory? It's true. Just because there are a lot of Apple apologists doesn't change a thing. I've often said that I don't mind Apple so much as it's fan club disgusts me. That said, if IBM hadn't launched Microsoft into power in 1984, Apple would be the Microsoft of today.
No. I, for one, won't "switch" to Mac because it is not truly and completely Free as in Freedom. Even if MacOSX was GPL'ed in it's entirety, I would still not switch. There are some people who don't believe MacOS is a superior platform (see my sig, and yes I've used MacOS extensively, even programmed in it).
A: No. Next question.
I don't know about you, but we did exactly this when I was in high school (1992-1996). Not that it didn't get a little inflammatory, but was still amazingly civilized, especially for high school students, and more importantly, compared to some of the flame fests called "public debate" these days.
One of my friends was on the "pro-life" side. I was on the "pro-choice" side. We remained friends , even afterwards, and probably still would be good friends today if we had kept in touch. If you ask me, that's what's causing all the problems today: there is no respect for your "opponents"; there is no attempt to understand the other sides' arguments. In the end, discussion is stifled for fear of offending someone, and people never learn valuable consensus building skills.
Not necessarily. I know that if I throw trash out the window on the highway, I probably won't be caught. But I don't do it, because I believe that it is wrong to do. However, I copy music because I don't believe it is wrong. In fact, I believe it is good: if I like the music, I will look into more of the same, and probably purchase it. If I don't, I will delete it, and the money I would have wasted on music I don't like will now go to something more worthwhile.
Trying to foist me on a troll to get us both embroiled in a flamefest, eh? Not very sporting. How about this: why don't you put your money where your mouth is (like I have) and actually BUY some Linux games that have been "directly ported".
It's not "pie-in-the-sky dreaming", and no it's not a gamer's paradise either, but for now, I have more games for native Linux than I have time to play, and more are being ported all the time.
Go ahead, mod me troll if you must, that doesn't mean the reasons listed at the above link are wrong.
(emphasis mine)
. . . you have to wonder if all the mistakes he was complaining about were due to his own innattention to detail. Pot calling the kettle black, and all that.
Why would Star Wars Weenies care about Central Mean Time?
Not only that but the Ionic Breeze doesn't work. So, not only are you saving money, but your solution actually works!
Sharper Image's Ionic Breeze is less than worthless. Please don't plug it as anything other than an ozone generating device.
(hits reload for the nth time today)
Change "some" to "all", and I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Ever seen someone's hand deep fried? Sure, it's not pleasant if it's *your* hand. But it's finger licking good . .
Well, I suppose we can't blame them for trying. But there are already too many laws, including ones that would take care of spyware handily if only they were enforced.
There, that's more like it would really be.
As a way of responding to all the various trolls that followed up:
No, actually, that merits a "-1, Pedantic" in my mind. Are perpetual motion machines impossible? Very probably. I suppose now you'll spout off something about Newton's second law or somesuch, never mind that later physicists (ie, Einstein) have shown that Newton's laws aren't perfect models of the universe at smaller scales.
-1, Reductio ad Absurdam. And I suppose next you'll argue that heavier than air flight is impossible. Tell me, why do I bother responding to Anonymous Trolls again?
No, but I thought that analogy would be easier for the slashdot mentality to comprehend. It's more of a scepticism that runs both ways. Think of it as agnostic rationalism.
Depends upon how you read it. As others have pointed out, he does indeed seem to take a pretty hardline stance against hard AI, basically saying it's so hard as to be next to impossible, so why bother trying. These same kind of people were screaming five decades ago that putting a man on the moon was impossible.
Ah, I see I'm going to have to sacrifice more than one of physics' sacred cows today. Just as Einstein showed that Newton's physics weren't perfect, someone will probably come along and show that there is a way to travel faster than the speed of light. Einstein was a genius, no doubt, but even he was human, and comparing Penrose to Einstein is bombastic beyond words. Penrose is no Einstein. I doubt he's a genius, either.
Holy shit! Someone who not only didn't post as an Anonymous Troll, but actually has a cogent argument! I don't recall Penrose arguing that the scale AI was being worked on was wrong, I recall him pretty much saying it's too hard so we shouldn't bother trying. I'll have to re-read his book, but I still think he's just a naysayer who should stick to things he knows better.
Yeah, I think this is the same guy who wrote "The Emperor's New Mind", claiming AI to be impossible (quick note: anyone who claims anything is impossible automatically gets a "-1, Troll" in my mind), and does a lot of hand waving to "prove" it. Interesting, but at the same time, very dull read. I kept falling asleep while reading it, and while I respect the man's contributions to mathematics and physics, let's just say that I question his expertise in computer science. Now that you mention the whole suing for copying of ideas (of which he wasn't the originator), I think I might start questioning his contributions to mathematics as well. Definately no Douglas Hofstadter. You wouldn't happen to have any links on the case against your painter friend?
I think I found it.
Can someone please point out exactly where this is? Link, please. I can't seem to find it.
Even though I'm not a vegetarian, I've often said that if most people had to catch, kill and clean their own meat (even with technological advances), they would be vegetarians. Even my wife gets upset when I cook fish with the heads on.
Still, we can't synthesize meat (yet), and I'm not about to stop eating chicken and fish which are farmed to be eaten.
Wow, yeah, that's nice and all, but when they fuck up even really simple things, you have to wonder, how good of story tellers can they be? I mean, it's like continuity errors, or spelling errors on a resume (or a post to slashdot); it's indicative of a deeper problem, and will generally result in rejection of the whole product. It stretches suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, and the backlash maybe an overreaction, but it happens none the less.
As for apologists like you, please don't ask me to check my brain at the door, and stop apologizing for the no talent ass clowns who are too lazy to even do a little research!
Duh.