Evolution is not a religion. Evolution is a fact. The theory of natural selection is the best theory we have to explain this fact.
It seems a very odd argument to liken a belief in the supernatural to a simple fact about the natural world. About the same as equating the belief that gravity is the attractive force between masses is a religion.
Atheists are generally much less arrogant than the religious. Most religious people will tell you their beliefs are the only truth and way. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored. The complete lack of evidence for the existence of any gods is also ignored.
Atheists on the other hand often are knowledgeable not only about the religion they grew up with, but many others. They generally are willing to admit that they could be wrong, you just have to find some strong evidence and they will change their mind.
Science can deal with all the domains that religion deals with. Some religions give you bad reasons to believe good things. Most give you bad reasons to believe silly things. Some give you bad reasons to believe bad things.
Science, and modern secular philosophy, gives you good reasons to believe things including morality.
Most people who consider themselves good Christians cherry pick what they will believe from the bible. How do they do this cherry picking? The same way the secular humanists do: science and secular rationalism as developed since the Enlightenment. None of my Christian neighbours have tried to stone me to death for not observing the Sabbath, and I expect this is because they use the same reasoning as I to reject that old rule as bad.
30,000 die in accidents in the USA each year. If 3000 are due to distractions then that would be a 10% improvement.
Driving while distracted is dangerous. I'm not sure why anyone would want to endanger themselves and others to something that is not necessary. You should not be eating, doing the crossword, phoning, or anything else that distracts you for more than a second. If your GPS doesn't talk, don't use it while driving, use it before the trip starts. You can adjust the radio, or heat, turn on the wipers and other short simple tasks.
You have to remember just how limited the hardware was back then. A good video card only offered a frame buffer with ZERO hardware acceleration. Everything was done in software, and the software ran on a machine that was so incredibly slow that only the tightest, hand-optimised assembly programming using all sorts of tricks had any hope of rendering even the simplest fake 3d or good quality 2d. Then on the sound side there was hardware support, but every card was different, and you had to provide a driver for every common sound card with your game.
How slow was a 386? We rendered 10 seconds of 3D video on a 386, it took 3 days. We then got a hold of a shiny new 486, the same render took only 3 hours now. Your phone is a lot faster than that 486.
How limited was that 386? DOS, and 640Kb limit. DOS extenders were not yet common, so it was xms or ems to get at more memory. You could use flat mode dos, a bastard 32 bit mode often called unreal mode, but then you could not make any dos calls in the game (no big deal as you likely already replaced the int9 handler and mouse handlers) so saving the game meant dropping back into real mode. A BIG hard drive was 30mb. Your game shipped on 1.2Mb floppies.
As a programmer working in the field at the time, I was AMAZED at what they accomplished with the first 3d ultima. Wasn't until Wolfenstien that real-time 3d was greatly improved.
It is illegal in BC, Canada to store any personal information on any server physically residing in the USA. This law is an acknowledgement that the USA Patriot act can lead to Canadian information, protected by Canadian laws, being revealed without judicial oversight.
We don't care if it is a cloud or not, it can't be stored in the USA.
Russia did not fail because it gave the bare necessaries to the destitute while everyone else worked. It failed because it tried to implement a command economy. They ended up with unproductive things like factory A making metal ingots, sending them to factory B that make them into pots and pans which sent them to factory C that melted them into ingots and sent them back to factory A. All the factories made their quotas, bonuses all around, and nothing useful done. A common saying in the Soviet Union was "we pretend to work, and you pretend to pay us".
Canada, most of western Europe, and the USA sort of, do in fact provide a base income to anyone who needs it. If you want more you work. This works because all those countries are a mix of free market capitalism and socialism. Each country picks a different balance of taxes, socialism, and free market policies depending on the prevailing culture and social norms.
Copyright does not protect copying in exchange for distribution. You are thinking of patents which protect an idea in exchange for sharing it. Copyright is an absolute right that prevents any copying to permitted by the copyright holder with only fuzzy exceptions for fair use.
Whoever modded the parent up should do a little reading.
Copyright is NOT some sort of basic human right. Copyright is an entirely artificial, and temporary, right that limits our basic right to freely share ideas. The reason to limit copying was to give the artist a better chance at making money with his creation, and thus encourage the artist to create more. Commercial copying was rampant when copyright laws were first introduced.
Copyright laws are now completely unreasonable. No artist is going to create anything after he is dead. The current laws only enrich large corporations. Copyright law is broken and needs an overhaul. 20 years limits, DRM that expires with the copyright, banning region coding as a limit on trade, and not allowing copyright to be assigned away from the artist would be a good start.
Balls of all types were banned at my kids middle school due to a kid getting ball in the face. This ban lasted one week when the school was flooded with calls from irate parents telling them that they are being idiots. I called the school, and wrote the to local school board. In this case it was a single over zealous vp at this one school.
Solyent Green was based on the Harry Harrison novel "Make room! Make Room!"
Everyone is not going to want the real thing. My kids love processed nuggets and strips of "meat", and dislike having to cut up and bone real meat when they cook. I prefer real meat, but that is what I grew up with.
We think you are nancies because you did revolt against your government when the patriot act was passed. We think you are nancies because you sue each other over anything and everything. We think you are nancies because you allow you government to do border searches over 100km from the border. We think you are nancies because you allow security theatre at your airports. We think you are nancies because you allow your police to "papers please". We thin you are nancies because you allow the police to stop you taking picture of public buildings. I could go on.
I look at all your republican candidates (except Romney) and think you guys are just plain crazy.
Sorry, no, a surgical strike would not have worked. There is so much money to be made in illegal drugs that killing the current gangs just makes room for new gangs. Corruption, facilitated by drug money, is the reason why the Mexican cartels flourish.
Legalizing all drugs would cut off all most all of the gangs funds. Other criminal activities wouldn't bring in even a thousandth of what they make selling drugs. No money, no power. You'd still have to round up the current psychopaths, but with the drug money gone there would not be a large pool of young violent men ready to step in every time you take one out.
When prohibition in the USA ended the violence around the alcohol trade vanished almost over night.
Your dictionary entry says exactly what the guy you are disagreeing with says. I'm not sure what you hoped to say there.
There is lots of evidence there are no gods. There is lots of evidence that many of the things holy books say happened very likely did not. Lets take the christian god who is supposed to be: omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. If such a being existed why is there so much evil in the world that such a being would easily be able to prevent? Every time a child dies of cancer it is evidence that this god does not exist.
I used to do all math in my head, then I got a slide rule. I don't know, I just seem to lose a feel for numbers. Sure, I could do calculations faster, but that good old fashioned number feel was gone.
But why would being poorer at mental calculation be a bad thing now that we do have calculators? As long as all that brain power gets used usefully, that is, allocated to a higher level function, I say it is all good.
I can just imagine someone back when the printing press was invented complaining that reading and reasonably priced books is going to ruin every ones memories as no one will be memorising epic poems when they can just read them.
Things change. Different skills become valuable. This is not something to worry about as long as new and useful skills are learned.
By irreversible they mean that we will hit the point where we cannot prevent a 2 degree Celsius average global temperature increase. If we hit 2 degrees then enough bad things happen that widespread human suffering will be unavoidable.
We will be able to fix things up if we spend a hundred times than it would cost to prevent it in the first place, but the damage would already be done.
Slashdot Mirror
Evolution is not a religion. Evolution is a fact. The theory of natural selection is the best theory we have to explain this fact.
It seems a very odd argument to liken a belief in the supernatural to a simple fact about the natural world. About the same as equating the belief that gravity is the attractive force between masses is a religion.
There are lots of fundie Muslims.
Muslim believes saying merry christmas worse than murder
Atheists are generally much less arrogant than the religious. Most religious people will tell you their beliefs are the only truth and way. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored. The complete lack of evidence for the existence of any gods is also ignored.
Atheists on the other hand often are knowledgeable not only about the religion they grew up with, but many others. They generally are willing to admit that they could be wrong, you just have to find some strong evidence and they will change their mind.
Science can deal with all the domains that religion deals with. Some religions give you bad reasons to believe good things. Most give you bad reasons to believe silly things. Some give you bad reasons to believe bad things.
Science, and modern secular philosophy, gives you good reasons to believe things including morality.
Most people who consider themselves good Christians cherry pick what they will believe from the bible. How do they do this cherry picking? The same way the secular humanists do: science and secular rationalism as developed since the Enlightenment. None of my Christian neighbours have tried to stone me to death for not observing the Sabbath, and I expect this is because they use the same reasoning as I to reject that old rule as bad.
Isn't it time to change your countries motto from "Land of the Free" to "Land of the big corporations"?
30,000 die in accidents in the USA each year. If 3000 are due to distractions then that would be a 10% improvement.
Driving while distracted is dangerous. I'm not sure why anyone would want to endanger themselves and others to something that is not necessary. You should not be eating, doing the crossword, phoning, or anything else that distracts you for more than a second. If your GPS doesn't talk, don't use it while driving, use it before the trip starts. You can adjust the radio, or heat, turn on the wipers and other short simple tasks.
BC Privacy act
see 30.1
You have to remember just how limited the hardware was back then. A good video card only offered a frame buffer with ZERO hardware acceleration. Everything was done in software, and the software ran on a machine that was so incredibly slow that only the tightest, hand-optimised assembly programming using all sorts of tricks had any hope of rendering even the simplest fake 3d or good quality 2d. Then on the sound side there was hardware support, but every card was different, and you had to provide a driver for every common sound card with your game.
How slow was a 386? We rendered 10 seconds of 3D video on a 386, it took 3 days. We then got a hold of a shiny new 486, the same render took only 3 hours now. Your phone is a lot faster than that 486.
How limited was that 386? DOS, and 640Kb limit. DOS extenders were not yet common, so it was xms or ems to get at more memory. You could use flat mode dos, a bastard 32 bit mode often called unreal mode, but then you could not make any dos calls in the game (no big deal as you likely already replaced the int9 handler and mouse handlers) so saving the game meant dropping back into real mode. A BIG hard drive was 30mb. Your game shipped on 1.2Mb floppies.
As a programmer working in the field at the time, I was AMAZED at what they accomplished with the first 3d ultima. Wasn't until Wolfenstien that real-time 3d was greatly improved.
It is illegal in BC, Canada to store any personal information on any server physically residing in the USA. This law is an acknowledgement that the USA Patriot act can lead to Canadian information, protected by Canadian laws, being revealed without judicial oversight.
We don't care if it is a cloud or not, it can't be stored in the USA.
Russia did not fail because it gave the bare necessaries to the destitute while everyone else worked. It failed because it tried to implement a command economy. They ended up with unproductive things like factory A making metal ingots, sending them to factory B that make them into pots and pans which sent them to factory C that melted them into ingots and sent them back to factory A. All the factories made their quotas, bonuses all around, and nothing useful done. A common saying in the Soviet Union was "we pretend to work, and you pretend to pay us".
Canada, most of western Europe, and the USA sort of, do in fact provide a base income to anyone who needs it. If you want more you work. This works because all those countries are a mix of free market capitalism and socialism. Each country picks a different balance of taxes, socialism, and free market policies depending on the prevailing culture and social norms.
Copyright does not protect copying in exchange for distribution. You are thinking of patents which protect an idea in exchange for sharing it. Copyright is an absolute right that prevents any copying to permitted by the copyright holder with only fuzzy exceptions for fair use.
Whoever modded the parent up should do a little reading.
Copyright is NOT some sort of basic human right. Copyright is an entirely artificial, and temporary, right that limits our basic right to freely share ideas. The reason to limit copying was to give the artist a better chance at making money with his creation, and thus encourage the artist to create more. Commercial copying was rampant when copyright laws were first introduced.
Copyright laws are now completely unreasonable. No artist is going to create anything after he is dead. The current laws only enrich large corporations. Copyright law is broken and needs an overhaul. 20 years limits, DRM that expires with the copyright, banning region coding as a limit on trade, and not allowing copyright to be assigned away from the artist would be a good start.
Balls of all types were banned at my kids middle school due to a kid getting ball in the face. This ban lasted one week when the school was flooded with calls from irate parents telling them that they are being idiots. I called the school, and wrote the to local school board. In this case it was a single over zealous vp at this one school.
This was also in Canada, but the west coast.
I dislike Romney, I just don't think he is crazy.
Solyent Green was based on the Harry Harrison novel "Make room! Make Room!"
Everyone is not going to want the real thing. My kids love processed nuggets and strips of "meat", and dislike having to cut up and bone real meat when they cook. I prefer real meat, but that is what I grew up with.
We think you are nancies because you did revolt against your government when the patriot act was passed. We think you are nancies because you sue each other over anything and everything. We think you are nancies because you allow you government to do border searches over 100km from the border. We think you are nancies because you allow security theatre at your airports. We think you are nancies because you allow your police to "papers please". We thin you are nancies because you allow the police to stop you taking picture of public buildings. I could go on.
I look at all your republican candidates (except Romney) and think you guys are just plain crazy.
Only drug money gives them the funds to act like de facto governments. Take away the money and the actual government can step back in.
Legalization certainly ended the Mafia involvement in the alcohol trade in the USA.
Why would this be different?
Sorry, no, a surgical strike would not have worked. There is so much money to be made in illegal drugs that killing the current gangs just makes room for new gangs. Corruption, facilitated by drug money, is the reason why the Mexican cartels flourish.
Legalizing all drugs would cut off all most all of the gangs funds. Other criminal activities wouldn't bring in even a thousandth of what they make selling drugs. No money, no power. You'd still have to round up the current psychopaths, but with the drug money gone there would not be a large pool of young violent men ready to step in every time you take one out.
When prohibition in the USA ended the violence around the alcohol trade vanished almost over night.
Your dictionary entry says exactly what the guy you are disagreeing with says. I'm not sure what you hoped to say there.
There is lots of evidence there are no gods. There is lots of evidence that many of the things holy books say happened very likely did not. Lets take the christian god who is supposed to be: omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. If such a being existed why is there so much evil in the world that such a being would easily be able to prevent? Every time a child dies of cancer it is evidence that this god does not exist.
I used to do all math in my head, then I got a slide rule. I don't know, I just seem to lose a feel for numbers. Sure, I could do calculations faster, but that good old fashioned number feel was gone.
But why would being poorer at mental calculation be a bad thing now that we do have calculators? As long as all that brain power gets used usefully, that is, allocated to a higher level function, I say it is all good.
I can just imagine someone back when the printing press was invented complaining that reading and reasonably priced books is going to ruin every ones memories as no one will be memorising epic poems when they can just read them.
Things change. Different skills become valuable. This is not something to worry about as long as new and useful skills are learned.
Wealth and education bring birth rates down. Solve poverty and you solve the population problem.
By irreversible they mean that we will hit the point where we cannot prevent a 2 degree Celsius average global temperature increase. If we hit 2 degrees then enough bad things happen that widespread human suffering will be unavoidable.
We will be able to fix things up if we spend a hundred times than it would cost to prevent it in the first place, but the damage would already be done.