Hey, don't count me among the fear-struck militaristically obsessed bunch, but an aggressively expansionist campaign of wars both solves both the disparate proportion of men to women, and gives the men something to do to keep them occupied.
Erg, I can't find a nice article without any effort whatsoever, but the US still holds the spam prize. Russia might not mind the spam drop caused by fragmentation, though. *Insert Soviet Russia joke here*
Sorry to have to resort to this, but you've personally verified that the software you're using has no backdoors/open security flaws/etc? You trust all of the employees on the network?
I know how you feel; I'd never trust somebody else with my documents (I'm even uneasy about my email being stored on Google's servers (though most of it is encrypted)). For the vast majority of users, though, this is more secure than their own computer.
I see how it's not very compatible with an office environment, but if Google follows the same model as they did with their search technology, they'll probably offer an appliance that will sit behind the company's firewall and keep all of the documents there. Then you have the advantage of locally stored documents and the advantage of not paying the licensing fees for a boatload of MS Office installs.
Re:RIAA Sues a Guilty Person
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
But that misses the whole point of this article, in addition to the creepy and disturbing implication of yours that being the subject of a lawsuit automatically means you are guilty. The entire point of this article is that the RIAA is taking deliberate steps to sue a 14 year old girl for an obscene amount of money.
Thankfully, we don't have an article on Slashdot every time the RIAA sues somebody... The point of the article is that it is emotionally charged, albeit in a nauseating 'Won't somebody think of the children!?' sort of way.
I disagree about the knife. A quality multitool is a far better choice. Having a screwdriver, pliers, saw, awl, tweezers, can opener, etc., as well as a high quality knife blade for only a few ounces more is a win. The key here is "quality." Never skimp on survivial gear.
I'll definitely second that. While a quality leatherman type tool is extremely valuable, even a quality swiss army knife pays off quickly. I have a nice quality swiss army knife with a large, strong, locking blade that I've used nearly daily for over ten years. It is showing no signs of throwing in the towel, and comes in handy constantly (I have a philips screwdriver, not a corkscrew). It never leaves my side.
The gun is a good idea. If you plan to become proficient, a.22 is a great survival gun because it is small, lightweight, the ammo is small and lightweight, and it is cheap (the gun itself, the ammo and the cost of practicing).
I have to strongly recommend against eating mushrooms you've identified using a field guide. Although there a a few simple rules to help you avoid mushrooms that are certainly poisonous, being certain that they are not poisonous is much more difficult. I've been out mushroom hunting with mycologists before, and even they are a bit wary of eating things that they are not 100% sure of. For what my word is worth, I'd recommend sticking to plants and animals. They are much easier to positively identify.
Maybe I'm just missing something, but I didn't think that poor call quality was what sucked about yesterdays cells. I though that it was short battery life, no or slow data. Under perfect conditions, most digital networks I've tried sound very similar to the old analog networks (under perfect conditions). Under poor conditions, though, (pretty much all of the time for me, and I'm not in the boonies) digital sucks serious ass, while analog sucks just a little bit. A little hissing now and then is perfectly tolerable, but the gibberish that most cell phones these days produce fairly regularly is not even workable.
In what is arguably the ultimate aspect of a cellular phone, why do todays phones perform worse than yesterdays phones?
(I don't even have a landline anymore. It's always a treat to use someone elses.)
It really seems pretty simple to me (and I agree with aaron1 about this just being a non-issue to distract people away from the real issues; in my opinion, this issue will never be resolved because it is too effective in distracting and dividing the hoi polloi): if the embryo, fetus, whatever can be taken from the mother and can survive on its own, it is an individual. Otherwise, it is part of the mother's body and is hers to do as she pleases. To say that it is a human individual because it may (barring complications, chance, accident, etc) someday become a human is silly. You may as well just go with the Monty Python "Every sperm is sacred" approach and outlaw anything that prevents a child from being produced. Welcome to modern times, when sex is used for more than just procreation. Or do you believe that the only legal use of sex should be for the production of offspring? Well, how about you live by your moral standards and leave me to live by my own. That's freedom.
I see your point, but I'd really have to say that the main winner is the military-industrial complex. So far, we've spent about $200 billion on this war, but this money doesn't just turn into war. It's spent on war. It goes directly into the pockets of those owning, building, and maintaining the war apparatus. To a large extent, this is not a whole lot of people. It is a fact: wars make the wealthy (a subset of them anyway) much more wealthy. The longer this war drags on, the more of the public's money goes into the accounts of some already very wealthy people. And it's easy money, too. It's taken from the populous by force and we (sad, but true) have very little say in how it is spent.
It's not entirely on topic, but otherwise sound arguments (which doesn't exactly fit the GP) are reduced to rubble by silly little factual mistakes such as this. I've seen this particular mistake quite a bit on Slashdot lately and it needs to stop spreading. As soon as you start calling the Romans the Holy Roman Empire around people who know what they're talking about, you're going to get needlessly torn up and your argument will be quickly discounted.
I know you're trolling, but just to avoid any (please, hopefully nonexistent) confusion out there... The article is referring to electromagnetic waves and whales use sound waves to navigate. Not the same thing...
Disney films were particularly good at doing this, despite the fact that the renderings are not "realistic" (Mickey mouse has four fingers, etc.)
Hmm, In a cartoon about a talking mouse who is wearing clothes and having adventures with other talking clothes-wearing animals, it was the number of fingers on his hands that struck you as unrealistic?
Thanks, that was great! Redundant, I guess. But the best jokes are often unintended... (Emotion doesn't show too well in type all of the time: there was no malice intended in the forming of this post)
Yeah. I have to agree with you on that. In the absence of data, disbelief is definitely the natural response, if not the most rational. If, like in your paint example, a certain occurrence is extremely unlikely or even impossible according to the prevailing paradigm, disbelief is certainly rational, even.
The place where I think this breaks down, however, is where there is no experience, data, or understanding at all of a certain occurrence. I would certainly put God into that category because, outside of a vague conception, I have no idea what a God really even is! I certainly have no real experience of one, and by certain definitions of it, God itself is outside of my capability to understand. Just like I have no idea what a pixie really is or how it remains invisible. It's not as if pixies are usually not invisible, or above your head is not the usual habitat for them. Really, having zero experience with pixies, I can't positively make any generalizations about them. And if they're invisible, I certainty can't prove whether there's one over your head or not.
Practically, the existence of a pixie over your head doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect on you or the world around you, so it really doesn't matter. That's what I had gathered about agnosticism (referring to God): by definition, there is no way we'll ever (at least while we're alive, I guess) get any proof of the existence or non-existence of God, so who cares?
It seems clear to me that the logical position of not having evidence one way or another is to assume disbelief rather than belief.
I've had this discussion with an atheistic friend before, and we have not yet successfully sorted it out.
Basically, I think that a good deal of skepticism is reasonable in situations when there is not enough data available, but you act as if there are only two choices: belief and disbelief. There is clearly another choice, and it is the most rational choice in the absence of data either way: suspension of belief.
As in:
For example, I don't believe there is an invisible pixie that floats above my head, called Gerald. I have no evidence that there isn't one, but nor do I require any.
It seems to me that the most logical position is to neither believe or disbelieve until there evidence to support a particular side. Actually, it is quite possible that there really is an invisible pixie above your head. Simply because you cannot observe it (meaning you have no evidence), does not mean that it does not exist (that there exists evidence to the contrary). To say that the lack of evidence is in fact evidence to the contrary is a logical fallacy.
As a rational mind, the most local thing to do in the absence of data is refuse to come to a conclusion. Atheism, which is the positive statement that there exists no god (or weakly, the disbelief in a god), is not so logically rigorous as the suspension of any statement or conclusion until proper evidence is available (perhaps never).
You see, disbelief (which is distinct from skepticism) is an absolute conclusion. It is the negative of belief. If God undeniably makes itself apparent to you tomorrow, your disbelief would have been the wrong conclusion, while suspension of belief (even skepticism) would have never have been in contrary to the evidence. (This is the vague reader "you", not you in particular. You claim to have evidence to the contrary, which would make your disbelief a rational decision.)
If the Ancients were told about invisible radio waves that passed through their bodies and carried voices and pictures across distances incredibly quickly, they would have no evidence to believe or disbelieve that. For them to disbelieve it would be foolish, because we know it to be true. Their lack of evidence of the existence of radio waves does make it rational for them positively disbelieve or deny the existence of said waves.
That's my point. The friend that I was referring to previously is a physicist and fancies that atheism is the scientific approach to the problem of God. I say that there is nothing whatsoever scientific about coming to decisions based on an absence of data.
What you're describing is Agnosticism, which is distinctly different from Atheism.
Atheism states that there is no God. Agnosticism refuses to make a decision without evidence. Or perhaps you're referring to what the Wikipedia article describes as Weak Atheism, which is the disbelief in the existence of gods. Lots or terms...
As I've stated before, most medical and scientific equipment is seriously overpriced. What you're paying for is the package all set up and ready to go, the logo on the front (which is often enough obscure anyway), and the option to have a tech from the company drive/fly out and service it for a few grand a visit.
The vast majority of these instruments can be made (from high quality parts no less) for a small fraction of the cost. But then, of course, you have to... make them.
Personally, I dislike the socialistic solution to the problem, but also the capitalistic/insurance solution.
Now in general, I favor small government, but regulation is necessary sometimes (especially with regard to the physical health of the citizens). Frankly, medical care is too expensive. And I'm not just trolling, it really is. It's a scam that starts at the med schools and continues on to the hospitals and the medical equipment producers.
Now, there is need for reliable medical equipment, properly maintained hospitals, and skilled doctors, but that expense has been greatly exaggerated and we're paying too much for it.
And as someone who's worked repairing ambulances and medical equipment, I can't say they're particularly reliable or well maintained. Operating costs were constantly slashed, yet the administrators pay was ever increasing. Of course the cost to visit said hospital never decreased.
My father teaches at a medical university, so I've visited the place occasionally. (I have no interest in being a doctor, but it's fun to sit in on classes. My major was Chemistry, so it is pretty interesting.) It's a nice school, but I fail to see why it carries a $200k price tag. I suppose it's only because you'll graduate to make big money. (Don't even get me into some of the people who go to these schools. They make it quite clear that a passion for medicine or helping people is not their driving interest!)
Anyway, I'll bring this rambling rant to an end: Medicine is about the cash first. If people happen to get helped along the way, then great. Government regulation reining in medical costs to more reasonable levels would solve a great deal of these problems.
We happen to believe that consumers are smart, independent-thinking individuals who decide what they will buy. They do have minds of their own you know.
That's funny. By referring to them as consumers, it seems that you see them first and foremost as an endless source of income in their defining feature as those who exist to consume [your products].
I understand that the term is used to indicate those who purchase the products from the producers, but by constantly and openly referring to your customers as consumers, you seem to cement the idea that people only exist in order to give you money and that no trick is too low in order to achieve that (exploiting emotional and psychological responses in order to sell stuff).
With all of the criticism of the US and its increasingly authoritarian feel (and there's no lack of it coming from me), it's interesting to note that England appears to be much farther ahead of us in the march to 1984.
Even more interestingly, they seem pretty content with that fact. The fact that they're an unarmed populace with an armed (and dangerous!) government seems to please them greatly. The cameras and microphones in public places seem to get constant praise, or at least little outraged criticism (at least here on Slashdot). Some of the biggest gripes I heard in a previous article about the governor chips in cars in lieu of congestion fees were about how they weren't related (speeding in a congestion zone?).
What gives? When the US gets to the level of government involvement that England is currently experiencing, will we be happy with it, too?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah, and promotes the economy.
Hey, don't count me among the fear-struck militaristically obsessed bunch, but an aggressively expansionist campaign of wars both solves both the disparate proportion of men to women, and gives the men something to do to keep them occupied.
Erg, I can't find a nice article without any effort whatsoever, but the US still holds the spam prize. Russia might not mind the spam drop caused by fragmentation, though. *Insert Soviet Russia joke here*
I know how you feel; I'd never trust somebody else with my documents (I'm even uneasy about my email being stored on Google's servers (though most of it is encrypted)). For the vast majority of users, though, this is more secure than their own computer.
I see how it's not very compatible with an office environment, but if Google follows the same model as they did with their search technology, they'll probably offer an appliance that will sit behind the company's firewall and keep all of the documents there. Then you have the advantage of locally stored documents and the advantage of not paying the licensing fees for a boatload of MS Office installs.
Thankfully, we don't have an article on Slashdot every time the RIAA sues somebody... The point of the article is that it is emotionally charged, albeit in a nauseating 'Won't somebody think of the children!?' sort of way.
I'll definitely second that. While a quality leatherman type tool is extremely valuable, even a quality swiss army knife pays off quickly. I have a nice quality swiss army knife with a large, strong, locking blade that I've used nearly daily for over ten years. It is showing no signs of throwing in the towel, and comes in handy constantly (I have a philips screwdriver, not a corkscrew). It never leaves my side.
The gun is a good idea. If you plan to become proficient, a .22 is a great survival gun because it is small, lightweight, the ammo is small and lightweight, and it is cheap (the gun itself, the ammo and the cost of practicing).
I have to strongly recommend against eating mushrooms you've identified using a field guide. Although there a a few simple rules to help you avoid mushrooms that are certainly poisonous, being certain that they are not poisonous is much more difficult. I've been out mushroom hunting with mycologists before, and even they are a bit wary of eating things that they are not 100% sure of. For what my word is worth, I'd recommend sticking to plants and animals. They are much easier to positively identify.
Bringing us ever closer to a world full of disposable junk!
Maybe I'm just missing something, but I didn't think that poor call quality was what sucked about yesterdays cells. I though that it was short battery life, no or slow data. Under perfect conditions, most digital networks I've tried sound very similar to the old analog networks (under perfect conditions). Under poor conditions, though, (pretty much all of the time for me, and I'm not in the boonies) digital sucks serious ass, while analog sucks just a little bit. A little hissing now and then is perfectly tolerable, but the gibberish that most cell phones these days produce fairly regularly is not even workable.
In what is arguably the ultimate aspect of a cellular phone, why do todays phones perform worse than yesterdays phones?
(I don't even have a landline anymore. It's always a treat to use someone elses.)
It really seems pretty simple to me (and I agree with aaron1 about this just being a non-issue to distract people away from the real issues; in my opinion, this issue will never be resolved because it is too effective in distracting and dividing the hoi polloi): if the embryo, fetus, whatever can be taken from the mother and can survive on its own, it is an individual. Otherwise, it is part of the mother's body and is hers to do as she pleases. To say that it is a human individual because it may (barring complications, chance, accident, etc) someday become a human is silly. You may as well just go with the Monty Python "Every sperm is sacred" approach and outlaw anything that prevents a child from being produced. Welcome to modern times, when sex is used for more than just procreation. Or do you believe that the only legal use of sex should be for the production of offspring? Well, how about you live by your moral standards and leave me to live by my own. That's freedom.
I see your point, but I'd really have to say that the main winner is the military-industrial complex. So far, we've spent about $200 billion on this war, but this money doesn't just turn into war. It's spent on war. It goes directly into the pockets of those owning, building, and maintaining the war apparatus. To a large extent, this is not a whole lot of people. It is a fact: wars make the wealthy (a subset of them anyway) much more wealthy. The longer this war drags on, the more of the public's money goes into the accounts of some already very wealthy people. And it's easy money, too. It's taken from the populous by force and we (sad, but true) have very little say in how it is spent.
No no. You don't get it. Socialism is ok if the benifitee is rural.
It's not entirely on topic, but otherwise sound arguments (which doesn't exactly fit the GP) are reduced to rubble by silly little factual mistakes such as this. I've seen this particular mistake quite a bit on Slashdot lately and it needs to stop spreading. As soon as you start calling the Romans the Holy Roman Empire around people who know what they're talking about, you're going to get needlessly torn up and your argument will be quickly discounted.
I know you're trolling, but just to avoid any (please, hopefully nonexistent) confusion out there... The article is referring to electromagnetic waves and whales use sound waves to navigate. Not the same thing...
Hmm, In a cartoon about a talking mouse who is wearing clothes and having adventures with other talking clothes-wearing animals, it was the number of fingers on his hands that struck you as unrealistic?
Thanks, that was great! Redundant, I guess. But the best jokes are often unintended... (Emotion doesn't show too well in type all of the time: there was no malice intended in the forming of this post)
Hey, no need to pick on the weak!
Anyway, you've only disproved the Judeo-Christian creation myth, not the existence of God.
Nice to see you here. This is overall quite the disappointing place to be, though!
The place where I think this breaks down, however, is where there is no experience, data, or understanding at all of a certain occurrence. I would certainly put God into that category because, outside of a vague conception, I have no idea what a God really even is! I certainly have no real experience of one, and by certain definitions of it, God itself is outside of my capability to understand. Just like I have no idea what a pixie really is or how it remains invisible. It's not as if pixies are usually not invisible, or above your head is not the usual habitat for them. Really, having zero experience with pixies, I can't positively make any generalizations about them. And if they're invisible, I certainty can't prove whether there's one over your head or not.
Practically, the existence of a pixie over your head doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect on you or the world around you, so it really doesn't matter. That's what I had gathered about agnosticism (referring to God): by definition, there is no way we'll ever (at least while we're alive, I guess) get any proof of the existence or non-existence of God, so who cares?
I've had this discussion with an atheistic friend before, and we have not yet successfully sorted it out.
Basically, I think that a good deal of skepticism is reasonable in situations when there is not enough data available, but you act as if there are only two choices: belief and disbelief. There is clearly another choice, and it is the most rational choice in the absence of data either way: suspension of belief. As in:
It seems to me that the most logical position is to neither believe or disbelieve until there evidence to support a particular side. Actually, it is quite possible that there really is an invisible pixie above your head. Simply because you cannot observe it (meaning you have no evidence), does not mean that it does not exist (that there exists evidence to the contrary). To say that the lack of evidence is in fact evidence to the contrary is a logical fallacy.
As a rational mind, the most local thing to do in the absence of data is refuse to come to a conclusion. Atheism, which is the positive statement that there exists no god (or weakly, the disbelief in a god), is not so logically rigorous as the suspension of any statement or conclusion until proper evidence is available (perhaps never).
You see, disbelief (which is distinct from skepticism) is an absolute conclusion. It is the negative of belief. If God undeniably makes itself apparent to you tomorrow, your disbelief would have been the wrong conclusion, while suspension of belief (even skepticism) would have never have been in contrary to the evidence. (This is the vague reader "you", not you in particular. You claim to have evidence to the contrary, which would make your disbelief a rational decision.)
If the Ancients were told about invisible radio waves that passed through their bodies and carried voices and pictures across distances incredibly quickly, they would have no evidence to believe or disbelieve that. For them to disbelieve it would be foolish, because we know it to be true. Their lack of evidence of the existence of radio waves does make it rational for them positively disbelieve or deny the existence of said waves.
That's my point. The friend that I was referring to previously is a physicist and fancies that atheism is the scientific approach to the problem of God. I say that there is nothing whatsoever scientific about coming to decisions based on an absence of data.
Atheism states that there is no God. Agnosticism refuses to make a decision without evidence. Or perhaps you're referring to what the Wikipedia article describes as Weak Atheism, which is the disbelief in the existence of gods. Lots or terms...
The vast majority of these instruments can be made (from high quality parts no less) for a small fraction of the cost. But then, of course, you have to... make them.
Now in general, I favor small government, but regulation is necessary sometimes (especially with regard to the physical health of the citizens). Frankly, medical care is too expensive. And I'm not just trolling, it really is. It's a scam that starts at the med schools and continues on to the hospitals and the medical equipment producers.
Now, there is need for reliable medical equipment, properly maintained hospitals, and skilled doctors, but that expense has been greatly exaggerated and we're paying too much for it.
And as someone who's worked repairing ambulances and medical equipment, I can't say they're particularly reliable or well maintained. Operating costs were constantly slashed, yet the administrators pay was ever increasing. Of course the cost to visit said hospital never decreased.
My father teaches at a medical university, so I've visited the place occasionally. (I have no interest in being a doctor, but it's fun to sit in on classes. My major was Chemistry, so it is pretty interesting.) It's a nice school, but I fail to see why it carries a $200k price tag. I suppose it's only because you'll graduate to make big money. (Don't even get me into some of the people who go to these schools. They make it quite clear that a passion for medicine or helping people is not their driving interest!)
Anyway, I'll bring this rambling rant to an end: Medicine is about the cash first. If people happen to get helped along the way, then great. Government regulation reining in medical costs to more reasonable levels would solve a great deal of these problems.
Oh, a shame. Mutant reptiles and amphibians provide new and previously unimagined taste sensations.
That's funny. By referring to them as consumers, it seems that you see them first and foremost as an endless source of income in their defining feature as those who exist to consume [your products].
I understand that the term is used to indicate those who purchase the products from the producers, but by constantly and openly referring to your customers as consumers, you seem to cement the idea that people only exist in order to give you money and that no trick is too low in order to achieve that (exploiting emotional and psychological responses in order to sell stuff).
Even more interestingly, they seem pretty content with that fact. The fact that they're an unarmed populace with an armed (and dangerous!) government seems to please them greatly. The cameras and microphones in public places seem to get constant praise, or at least little outraged criticism (at least here on Slashdot). Some of the biggest gripes I heard in a previous article about the governor chips in cars in lieu of congestion fees were about how they weren't related (speeding in a congestion zone?).
What gives? When the US gets to the level of government involvement that England is currently experiencing, will we be happy with it, too?
Because they're on his team.