"Some of the hardest work that any of us have ever done. We haven't had a whole lot of sleep, and we've been extremely busy and really happy."
The more you have to occupy your time, the less idle time you have to hang around with the other astronauts and start saying things like "So... think we'll make it back?"
"We Australians feel left out. Every time there is a "terror" scare in, say, the US or UK, our forces switch to Super-Ultra-Crazy-High-Look-At-Us-We're-Targets-To o-No-Really-We-Are alert."
Your government is saying that for the same reason why the governments of, say, Des Moines, Santa Fe, Biloxi, and the State of Wyoming try to paint themselves as "T3h Next B1g Targetz!:" they want money.
It's been suggested that the cotton gin failed to catch on until slavery was abolished in the United States. Slavery/serfdom/etc. has also been blamed for why nobody took Hiro's idea of a steam engine and ran with it until millenia later.
On the one hand, we have recent event whittling away at the rights of both white- and blue-collar workers, from "no compete" contracts to laws allowing employers to prevent employees from fraternizing after working hours (at least accordin to Slashdot). On the other hand, we have overly zealous unions that can work to prevent employers from adopting technologies that would replace human workers (I've heard anecdotes of labor unions in the Port of Los Angeles fighting automation). Mix in a government giving US companies all the immigrant and offshoring opportunities they want, is it any surprise that the US is sliding behind in robotics in particular and technology in general?
Technology only succeeds when it is cheaper to use than human labor, and human labor is pretty damned cheap in the US.
Somebody would also have to develop a steroid-taking robot, a shoe-marketing robot, managerial robots, overpaid striking robots, and a prima donna robot in order to truly recreate "t3h drama of sportz."
If you were going to be in an unpowered descent through a vertical distance of around 250 miles (not to mention the horizontal distance), you'd be a little concerned, too.
Here in nearby Daytona Beach, we've been having near-daily thunderstorms. The clouds caused the abort of the landing because, once you do your deorbit burn, Houston can't say "Oh, wait, it's raining now, better turn around and go back into orbit."
"Since it's highly doubtful that Sony can prohibit the resale of the japanese PSP consoles in Hong Kong no matter if on the local market or for export,"
It is true, the sales themselves cannot be stopped. However, as UK importers have learned recently to their chagrin, you selling them can be stopped. All Sony has to do is claim that you are using their trademark on the term "PSP" without their permission, and you'll be forced to sell "popular black handheld video game unit from a major manufacturer of electronic devices," something that just doesn't get many hits in a search engine.
"While splitting water to get hydrogen and oxygen is not new, this product will likely make the technology more accessible to the masses"
"Accessible?" You mean until they get their power bill! I have my doubts about this technology's ability to compete on a kWh/kWh basis with an electric space heater, which is what this device seems to be marketed to replace.
"and might hopefully show that hydrogen is a more attractive fuel than petroleum-based fuels."
Why? The H2 is made and consumed on-site, there's no storage or transportation of the H2 involved. It's a farce to call it a fuel in this instance, the energy source is the electricity.
All in all, like most fireplaces, it's designed more to be a pretty light show than to actually put out heat. Of course, if you had it in a system that used forced-air convection, you woudln't that interested in trying to use O2 content to tweak the color of the flame. Coming to a Sharper Image catalog near you!
"An agnostic claims that they cannot know if there is a god or gods."
You're picking and choosing. You're trying to use a modern definition of the word "atheism" to include "weak atheism," while requiring that "agnosticism" be used in its classical, "strong agosticism" sense. Aside from cherry-picking, your loose use of the term effectively precludes the strong atheists, who most certainly hold a belief on the subject.
Your broad definition of atheism can either include agnosticism or strong atheism, but not both.
"The choice between a theist and an atheist outlook is a completely black-and-white question and issue; either you believe, or you don't."
Only if you if you ignore the stance of the strong atheists. The strong atheists believe, it is just that their belief is that the theists are wrong. If you're going to limit atheism to a lack of belief, then you are trying to put strong atheists and theists into the same camp.
"Ambivalence is not being able to decide, which is something else again"
Then what if I were to use the word "apathetic?" Your "lack of belief" mantra seems to equate to those who don't care enough about the healing powers of pyramids enough to either believe or disbelieve the claims. And so as not to mince words, I am using "disbelieve" here to mean "believe the powers do not exist."
Essentially, there is belief, disbelief, and non-belief. You're trying to equate the last two in your definition of atheism.
"But that doesn't mean such a thing exists entirely outside the universe, nor does it mean that it cannot have effects inside the universe."
I'm defining universe in the scientific sense. It is the objective reality that can be measured. Anything that can affect something within the universe is by definition measurable, and therefore within the realm of science.
However, there are plenty of things that fall into the definition of the supernatural. An easy one, since you mentioned a god "creating the world," is anything that happened "before" or "outside" of the Big Bang. Anything and everything that was measurable was (measurably) compressed, and any sort of catalyst that might have been involved in causing our expansion is outside of the realm of science, therefore "supernatural."
Also falling into the supernatural are the internal workings of the human mind. If you do not act upon a thought in some verifiable way, how can you demonstrate that a thought existed? At best, medical technology can show that you are thinking of something at a particular moment, but quantum mechanics suggests that, unless you act on your thoughts, your thoughts both exist and do not exist until someone else looks for signs of your thinking.
As for ghosts or visions or anything else of that matter, any experience that you have that cannot be recreated in another human being using physical means, anything that you cannot proove exists or did exist, is supernatural.
"Most people in the U.S. don't want to know how corrupt their government has become."
OK...
" In this thread from yesterday, someone claims "Christianity has matured - it's a peaceful religion" when the U.S. government, a government of a Christian country, has killed more than 3,000,000 people since the end of the Second World War. "
WTF? Other than to act as flamebait, what is the purpose of having this sentence follow the last? Is this some sort of argument that all corruption in the US government stems from Christians? Do you bother even with transitions to try to explain how this warrant and behavior by the government stems from a Christian belief set? No, you just throw this blurb out there with no attempt to transition from one sentence to the next, apparently in the hopes of getting modded up, in one of the most disjointed paragraphs I've seen on here in a while.
This was during the papacy of John Paul II, who had a relatively accepting view on evolution. In light of the new pope, I don't see such an accepting view on evolution surviving in any Catholic institutions by the end of the decade, at least not without a(nother) schism.
"One more thing you forgot to mention. Intelligent design is the hypothesis that SOMETHING created all of this."
Alright, then where is this "something?" If the cornerstone of intelligent design is that there was intelligence involved, then the only sure way to prove or disprove it is to look for this intelligence. The problem is that, unable to actually find this intelligence, the argument's supporters can only say "Well, we just haven't found it yet," making it inherently unfalsifiable. The same case can be made for the existance of an aether, but nobody is seriously considering teaching this alongside of special relativity.
"And don't tell me about some scientists that are religious, real ones aren't. "
Just because he tried to support the idea of a heliocentric system doesn't mean Galileo stopped considering himself a Catholic. And I doubt his successor in England, whose theory on gravity stood until the Twentieth Century was much of an athiest. Heck, he even worked on alchemy.
If you're truly a proponent of science (instead of, say, scientism), you should try to avoid ad hominem attacks. As far as science is concerned, it doesn't matter one whit what is going on inside a person's mind, only the verifiable observations of the external world.
"Lack of belief in a god or gods is not a religion."
Because what you described is agnosticism. Atheism isn't a lack of belief, it is a belief of lack.
Lack of belief in the healing powers of crystals/pyramids is called "ambivalence." Belief of lack, however, is what is supportable through science.
"Likewise, it may be that prayer hasn't been shown to work as yet because it doesn't work unless you (etc.)... and at that point, one would be likely to believe a supernatural influence actually exists."
No it would not. The only things that can affect the natural world are themselves natural. The supernatural, by definition, is something that exists outside the natural universe.
"That would be, a bit one-sided, don't you think?"
Yes, and that's the way it should be. Aid is aid, not payment for allowing the federal military to operate on-campus. And the federal government is there to serve (among other people) the state and private schools, not the other way around.
If you want to split hairs on two words, fine. However, there are numerous parts of the constitution that drive home the fact that, within the Union, the military is not allowed to go where they are not wanted. Unless these grants are specifically in exchange for hosting military activities (providing student housing to ROTC, allowing drilling on school property, etc.), there is nothing the federal government can do about it unless they can convince the state to cede part of the state university to it. Without express permission, the militiary had best come with a warrant and be authorized to act as a posse comitatus.
I suppose you also feel the federal government has the right to name officers in the state militias because federal money is involved.
Re:$60 Games will make me rent from now on.
on
Xbox 360 for $300
·
· Score: 1
"If a game is going to cost $60, it had better get 9/10 or 10/10 reviews from nearly everywhere,"
Oh, don't worry, they will. Where do you think that extra $10 will go? It's not like the price of stamping DVDs suddenly jumped $10.
Slashdot Mirror
"Some of the hardest work that any of us have ever done. We haven't had a whole lot of sleep, and we've been extremely busy and really happy."
The more you have to occupy your time, the less idle time you have to hang around with the other astronauts and start saying things like "So... think we'll make it back?"
I take that to be a good thing, since it means gunfire is so rare for these people that they actually believe that a sonic boom is an example.
Unless by "gun" they mean "artillery piece," just... no.
"Good publicity for them among people who want to see the space program continue."
This is Slashdot, where we believe the only thins that should be sent into space are robots.
"We Australians feel left out. Every time there is a "terror" scare in, say, the US or UK, our forces switch to Super-Ultra-Crazy-High-Look-At-Us-We're-Targets-To o-No-Really-We-Are alert."
Your government is saying that for the same reason why the governments of, say, Des Moines, Santa Fe, Biloxi, and the State of Wyoming try to paint themselves as "T3h Next B1g Targetz!:" they want money.
It's been suggested that the cotton gin failed to catch on until slavery was abolished in the United States. Slavery/serfdom/etc. has also been blamed for why nobody took Hiro's idea of a steam engine and ran with it until millenia later.
On the one hand, we have recent event whittling away at the rights of both white- and blue-collar workers, from "no compete" contracts to laws allowing employers to prevent employees from fraternizing after working hours (at least accordin to Slashdot). On the other hand, we have overly zealous unions that can work to prevent employers from adopting technologies that would replace human workers (I've heard anecdotes of labor unions in the Port of Los Angeles fighting automation). Mix in a government giving US companies all the immigrant and offshoring opportunities they want, is it any surprise that the US is sliding behind in robotics in particular and technology in general?
Technology only succeeds when it is cheaper to use than human labor, and human labor is pretty damned cheap in the US.
Somebody would also have to develop a steroid-taking robot, a shoe-marketing robot, managerial robots, overpaid striking robots, and a prima donna robot in order to truly recreate "t3h drama of sportz."
If you were going to be in an unpowered descent through a vertical distance of around 250 miles (not to mention the horizontal distance), you'd be a little concerned, too.
Here in nearby Daytona Beach, we've been having near-daily thunderstorms. The clouds caused the abort of the landing because, once you do your deorbit burn, Houston can't say "Oh, wait, it's raining now, better turn around and go back into orbit."
"Since it's highly doubtful that Sony can prohibit the resale of the japanese PSP consoles in Hong Kong no matter if on the local market or for export,"
It is true, the sales themselves cannot be stopped. However, as UK importers have learned recently to their chagrin, you selling them can be stopped. All Sony has to do is claim that you are using their trademark on the term "PSP" without their permission, and you'll be forced to sell "popular black handheld video game unit from a major manufacturer of electronic devices," something that just doesn't get many hits in a search engine.
When was the last time you saw any piece of hardware that ran Mac OS have a large library of games available for it?
"While splitting water to get hydrogen and oxygen is not new, this product will likely make the technology more accessible to the masses"
"Accessible?" You mean until they get their power bill! I have my doubts about this technology's ability to compete on a kWh/kWh basis with an electric space heater, which is what this device seems to be marketed to replace.
"and might hopefully show that hydrogen is a more attractive fuel than petroleum-based fuels."
Why? The H2 is made and consumed on-site, there's no storage or transportation of the H2 involved. It's a farce to call it a fuel in this instance, the energy source is the electricity.
All in all, like most fireplaces, it's designed more to be a pretty light show than to actually put out heat. Of course, if you had it in a system that used forced-air convection, you woudln't that interested in trying to use O2 content to tweak the color of the flame. Coming to a Sharper Image catalog near you!
"An agnostic claims that they cannot know if there is a god or gods."
You're picking and choosing. You're trying to use a modern definition of the word "atheism" to include "weak atheism," while requiring that "agnosticism" be used in its classical, "strong agosticism" sense. Aside from cherry-picking, your loose use of the term effectively precludes the strong atheists, who most certainly hold a belief on the subject.
Your broad definition of atheism can either include agnosticism or strong atheism, but not both.
"The choice between a theist and an atheist outlook is a completely black-and-white question and issue; either you believe, or you don't."
Only if you if you ignore the stance of the strong atheists. The strong atheists believe, it is just that their belief is that the theists are wrong. If you're going to limit atheism to a lack of belief, then you are trying to put strong atheists and theists into the same camp.
"Ambivalence is not being able to decide, which is something else again"
Then what if I were to use the word "apathetic?" Your "lack of belief" mantra seems to equate to those who don't care enough about the healing powers of pyramids enough to either believe or disbelieve the claims. And so as not to mince words, I am using "disbelieve" here to mean "believe the powers do not exist."
Essentially, there is belief, disbelief, and non-belief. You're trying to equate the last two in your definition of atheism.
"But that doesn't mean such a thing exists entirely outside the universe, nor does it mean that it cannot have effects inside the universe."
I'm defining universe in the scientific sense. It is the objective reality that can be measured. Anything that can affect something within the universe is by definition measurable, and therefore within the realm of science.
However, there are plenty of things that fall into the definition of the supernatural. An easy one, since you mentioned a god "creating the world," is anything that happened "before" or "outside" of the Big Bang. Anything and everything that was measurable was (measurably) compressed, and any sort of catalyst that might have been involved in causing our expansion is outside of the realm of science, therefore "supernatural."
Also falling into the supernatural are the internal workings of the human mind. If you do not act upon a thought in some verifiable way, how can you demonstrate that a thought existed? At best, medical technology can show that you are thinking of something at a particular moment, but quantum mechanics suggests that, unless you act on your thoughts, your thoughts both exist and do not exist until someone else looks for signs of your thinking.
As for ghosts or visions or anything else of that matter, any experience that you have that cannot be recreated in another human being using physical means, anything that you cannot proove exists or did exist, is supernatural.
"Most people in the U.S. don't want to know how corrupt their government has become."
OK...
" In this thread from yesterday, someone claims "Christianity has matured - it's a peaceful religion" when the U.S. government, a government of a Christian country, has killed more than 3,000,000 people since the end of the Second World War. "
WTF? Other than to act as flamebait, what is the purpose of having this sentence follow the last? Is this some sort of argument that all corruption in the US government stems from Christians? Do you bother even with transitions to try to explain how this warrant and behavior by the government stems from a Christian belief set? No, you just throw this blurb out there with no attempt to transition from one sentence to the next, apparently in the hopes of getting modded up, in one of the most disjointed paragraphs I've seen on here in a while.
That infrastructure you refer to is on my land.
This was during the papacy of John Paul II, who had a relatively accepting view on evolution. In light of the new pope, I don't see such an accepting view on evolution surviving in any Catholic institutions by the end of the decade, at least not without a(nother) schism.
"One more thing you forgot to mention. Intelligent design is the hypothesis that SOMETHING created all of this."
Alright, then where is this "something?" If the cornerstone of intelligent design is that there was intelligence involved, then the only sure way to prove or disprove it is to look for this intelligence. The problem is that, unable to actually find this intelligence, the argument's supporters can only say "Well, we just haven't found it yet," making it inherently unfalsifiable. The same case can be made for the existance of an aether, but nobody is seriously considering teaching this alongside of special relativity.
"And don't tell me about some scientists that are religious, real ones aren't. "
Just because he tried to support the idea of a heliocentric system doesn't mean Galileo stopped considering himself a Catholic. And I doubt his successor in England, whose theory on gravity stood until the Twentieth Century was much of an athiest. Heck, he even worked on alchemy.
If you're truly a proponent of science (instead of, say, scientism), you should try to avoid ad hominem attacks. As far as science is concerned, it doesn't matter one whit what is going on inside a person's mind, only the verifiable observations of the external world.
Why do you assume that faith in something supernatural must automatically affect one's ability to accept the natural world?
"Lack of belief in a god or gods is not a religion."
Because what you described is agnosticism. Atheism isn't a lack of belief, it is a belief of lack.
Lack of belief in the healing powers of crystals/pyramids is called "ambivalence." Belief of lack, however, is what is supportable through science.
"Likewise, it may be that prayer hasn't been shown to work as yet because it doesn't work unless you (etc.)... and at that point, one would be likely to believe a supernatural influence actually exists."
No it would not. The only things that can affect the natural world are themselves natural. The supernatural, by definition, is something that exists outside the natural universe.
"Metroid Prime 3 itself will reportedly take advantage of a number of new features in the Revolution, including the controller..."
And I suppose next you'll tell me it takes advantage of the a/v out on the back of the box?
"All three companies have their own goals and histories to consider when it comes to the business of games. "
Sony's goal: spend more money than Microsoft
Microsoft's goal: spend more money than Sony
Nintendo's goal: profit
I asked for a source, you gave an answer that did not contain any sources. I, in my sig, am not the one trying to attribute words to anybody.
How about new technology that can be used to write better scripts?
"That would be, a bit one-sided, don't you think?"
Yes, and that's the way it should be. Aid is aid, not payment for allowing the federal military to operate on-campus. And the federal government is there to serve (among other people) the state and private schools, not the other way around.
If you want to split hairs on two words, fine. However, there are numerous parts of the constitution that drive home the fact that, within the Union, the military is not allowed to go where they are not wanted. Unless these grants are specifically in exchange for hosting military activities (providing student housing to ROTC, allowing drilling on school property, etc.), there is nothing the federal government can do about it unless they can convince the state to cede part of the state university to it. Without express permission, the militiary had best come with a warrant and be authorized to act as a posse comitatus.
I suppose you also feel the federal government has the right to name officers in the state militias because federal money is involved.
"If a game is going to cost $60, it had better get 9/10 or 10/10 reviews from nearly everywhere,"
Oh, don't worry, they will. Where do you think that extra $10 will go? It's not like the price of stamping DVDs suddenly jumped $10.