Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I agree with you to a degree. Science isn't going to get rid of people's need to believe in god any time soon. But it may do away with specific metaphysical constructs put forth by specific religions. As far as I can tell evolution does just this with the notion of original sin. Original sin is a (the?) core principle in the christian religion. It is why Jesus died for us and without it I'm not sure what it would mean to be christian. Maybe you are right and religions can change over time to find relevance in modern times, though if this is true why don't they change the books? The bible is still chock full of things that just don't make sense but nobody wants to remove any of it. They seem content to just skip over it. Wouldn't it be better to have holy books that people can believe in from cover to cover?
So what does the end game look like? What will religion in general be like when (someday) science answers all the questions it can and all we are left with are things like "why is there something instead of nothing"? A god that is left just answering questions like this would be so vague and impersonal that I'm not sure why anyone would pray to him.
lol. I have a hunch you also believe that Noah crammed a bunch of animals onto a boat to save them from a global flood. And you want to point fingers about "irresponsible science"?!? *sigh*
It's true that science is not well equipped at the moment to answer questions like "why is there something instead of nothing?" and it is fine if people want to say that this is god at work but that's a very different roll for god than the christian god takes. This god just set everything in motion and stepped back to watch it all play out. The christian god (and most other gods) are much more hands on. Christians expect their god to be involved with creation by answering prayers etc. More than that, christian doctrine teaches that we are at the center of his creation. We have souls and other animals don't for example and this gives us special dignity. From an evolutionary point of view this makes no sense. We are either a small dead branch on the greater tree of life or we are part of something else that is yet to be evolved. Either way, from an evolutionary viewpoint, we are clearly not the center of any grand plan.
The main problem that evolution posses for christianity though is the circumstances of christ's death and the importance of it. From an evolutionary point of view the concept of original sin makes zero sense. Without a garden of eden style fall from grace there is no original sin. Without original sin Jesus did not die to save us from "all of our sins".
Christians who say they believe in evolution either don't understand the implications or they partition their mind in a way that keeps the two from meeting. My hunch is they just don't think about it much and those that do don't care.
I would only like to add that "I don't know" is a perfectly rational scientific answer to hard questions. As unsatisfying as it is there is no reason to make up answers or believe the answers other people make up.
My boss had a TI Powerbook. After a full year of steady use in and out of his bag every day there was a LOT of paint flaking off. That wouldn't have bothered me though. What would have bothered me was the two times it had to be sent back for mb repairs and the bad wifi reception.
"...and occasionally paying attention to my kid." To take the time pressure off you should have just made gold farming one of their chores. Set a 100gp weekly quota or something. That way you could have spent less actual time playing but still have time to raid.
You clearly are confused, or just a republican. The symptoms are identical so it's hard to say for sure. A lie is not ok just because it wasn't told while under an oath.
The gp was on target but left off one thing. The Republicans have managed to convince a large number of gullible people to vote against their own best interests on "religious" grounds. Now that's dumb.
First of all, why do we need to "move forward eventually"? What's the rush? There is no problem with taking a few days to hand count votes. Secondly, if the paper coming out the back does not match what is in the machine which do you believe? They both came out of the same machine. Did the machine count wrong in the first place or did it just print wrong? How do we know the machine didn't print wrong numbers AND count wrong numbers?
If the memory is removable MS is calling this ReadyBoost. It's kind of like ReadyDrive except it only caches the reads. If the memory is on the drive it caches both reads and writes. I'm not sure about if it's on the MB.
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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When Wikipedia Fails
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Ha, it's a stretch to call a story about how bush disserted his unit to work on his father's campaign a fabrication. Yes, the forged document was fabricated but the funny thing is that in this case it doesn't make the story any less true. bush is a disgrace to this country.
"There's a fatwa against terrorism." Are there not also fatwas in support of terrorism? The one against Salmon Rushdie comes to mind. I know it's been reversed but while it was in place even liberal minded Muslims like Cat Stevens (I forget his new name) would not renounce it.
"And most of them have crosses on them." I agree that the christians have a great deal of blood on their hands too and their holy texts are just as intolerant and in need of change. My statements as such has fallen on deaf ears with them as well. My point here is really that it's disingenuous to claim to be a moderate of a religion where the holy texts that support the religion are not moderate at all. If the moderates really want to distance themselves from the extremists they need to change the books. As it stands it's just that the extremists really read and believe all the parts that moderates are willing to skip over.
Take for example the christians who want the ten commandments posted in court and schools. Even many moderates will say they believe our laws in the USA are based on these commandments. When I ask them if they also feel the punishments proscribed in the bible should be applied as well they falter. Many seem to have forgotten that the penalty for most, if not all of them is death. The simple fact is that most moderate christians have to skip over most of the old testament and read selectively from the new testament to maintain their "moderate" frame of reference. So they should just change the books. It's no worse than selectivly reading them anyway.
It's true that some moderates denounce specific terrorist acts. It's also true that not much if anything is being done to address the source of the attacks. Polling data world wide shows that in the parts of the world where Islam is the dominant religion, the concept of martyrdom is widely accepted. Until Muslims agree to change their holy texts that are the basis for martyrdom the fringe actions of a few moderates will not be seen as a genuine call for change.
Like I said. I didn't think you would agree and that's ok. The system didn't side in your favor so you cry foul. Human nature I guess. Apple has been very successful using 3rd party slave labor to make a killing on their iPods. So even by your measure they are very unethical. I agree with you there.
No exception needs to be made for Bill because I don't agree that your assertion fits. It's not like he robbed a bank and shot people in the process. He was just very successfully competitive in a very competitive industry. There are two ways to think about it. If you are on the side that thinks his company was falsely accused you will see the settlements as all parties being able to put it behind them and move on. If you are of the mind (as I think you are) that MS has done a great wrong and was rightly convicted the fact that all parties came to settlement means the social harm has been atoned for. Either way it is behind us. I don't really think you will agree with me and that's fine. The truth is that the courts have spoken and those who feel they were harmed (wrongly or rightly) have settled. If you really think he is evil and just set up his charity work to get on the good side of public opinion why does he continue? If he wanted to he could sit back and be a prick with his money like Steve Jobs. On the other hand, Steve hasn't been successful enough to do nearly as much social good so it doesn't really matter.
Nice straw man you've got there. I didn't say it doesn't matter in general. I said it doesn't matter in this case. He's also given a lot more than 2 percent. So out of everything I've said you picked one point and asked an irrelevant question in response. Yawn.
He gave to charity long before the trial. Stock does have a real value. So giving away lots of stock = giving away lots of money. He's already given away over 60% of his net worth which is way more than any regular joe I know. His foundation is his AND his wifes. Yes she has a lot to do with it but where does the money come from. Hint...NOT FROM HER! Their foundation (I just learned this today form NPR) is funding 90% of the world effort to get rid of polio. That's one effort of many but if they succeed at just that one it will be huge. It matters not what you think of MS and how he got his money. He's doing a lot of good things with it. His wife doesn't get all the credit either. His father also had a lot to do with it growing up.
400,000 crash reports per day? Just curious, what is your source for this figure? MS has long been VERY tight lipped about how many they get, even internally. It's also not just OEMs that can get this data. Anyone who puts a driver through WHQL can get the data back on their driver. It is useful too. When my driver crashes and someone reports it I can get the minidump file to see what the problem was.
The 64bit version requires a dual layer DVD to burn to. So at the moment they won't fit. It could be that they will compress it down to work in the end.
That's Mt Hood off in the distance with the Columbia river down below. So it looks like it was taken from one of the bluffs along the gorge on the Washington side of the river. My best guess anyway.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you said the same thing when XP came out and you were running win2k. Like most people, you will upgrade when you by a new system that comes with it pre-installed.
Here are just a few off the top of my head: The race on the salt flats ala Star wars episode one. Goblin sales guy that squeals "I got what you need!" Have to hear it to really know what I'm talking about. The dwarven shooting range. Gnomish Battle chicken. Many of the/silly and/dance emotes.
In general I think Blizzard has always had a good sense of humor. Remember the Cow Level in Diablo II? Comedy gold right there.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I agree with you to a degree. Science isn't going to get rid of people's need to believe in god any time soon. But it may do away with specific metaphysical constructs put forth by specific religions. As far as I can tell evolution does just this with the notion of original sin. Original sin is a (the?) core principle in the christian religion. It is why Jesus died for us and without it I'm not sure what it would mean to be christian. Maybe you are right and religions can change over time to find relevance in modern times, though if this is true why don't they change the books? The bible is still chock full of things that just don't make sense but nobody wants to remove any of it. They seem content to just skip over it. Wouldn't it be better to have holy books that people can believe in from cover to cover?
So what does the end game look like? What will religion in general be like when (someday) science answers all the questions it can and all we are left with are things like "why is there something instead of nothing"? A god that is left just answering questions like this would be so vague and impersonal that I'm not sure why anyone would pray to him.
lol. I have a hunch you also believe that Noah crammed a bunch of animals onto a boat to save them from a global flood. And you want to point fingers about "irresponsible science"?!?
*sigh*
It's true that science is not well equipped at the moment to answer questions like "why is there something instead of nothing?" and it is fine if people want to say that this is god at work but that's a very different roll for god than the christian god takes. This god just set everything in motion and stepped back to watch it all play out. The christian god (and most other gods) are much more hands on. Christians expect their god to be involved with creation by answering prayers etc. More than that, christian doctrine teaches that we are at the center of his creation. We have souls and other animals don't for example and this gives us special dignity. From an evolutionary point of view this makes no sense. We are either a small dead branch on the greater tree of life or we are part of something else that is yet to be evolved. Either way, from an evolutionary viewpoint, we are clearly not the center of any grand plan.
The main problem that evolution posses for christianity though is the circumstances of christ's death and the importance of it. From an evolutionary point of view the concept of original sin makes zero sense. Without a garden of eden style fall from grace there is no original sin. Without original sin Jesus did not die to save us from "all of our sins".
Christians who say they believe in evolution either don't understand the implications or they partition their mind in a way that keeps the two from meeting. My hunch is they just don't think about it much and those that do don't care.
I would only like to add that "I don't know" is a perfectly rational scientific answer to hard questions. As unsatisfying as it is there is no reason to make up answers or believe the answers other people make up.
My boss had a TI Powerbook. After a full year of steady use in and out of his bag every day there was a LOT of paint flaking off. That wouldn't have bothered me though. What would have bothered me was the two times it had to be sent back for mb repairs and the bad wifi reception.
"...and occasionally paying attention to my kid."
To take the time pressure off you should have just made gold farming one of their chores. Set a 100gp weekly quota or something. That way you could have spent less actual time playing but still have time to raid.
LOL! So now you are backing up your arguments with links to Wikipedia?!?
*sigh* and I thought Steven Colbert was only kidding about Wikiality.
Good post. Well said.
One off topic nit with the last sentence "has no non-rational (financial , religious or similar) reason..."
Believing in something for religious reasons would be non-rational.
You clearly are confused, or just a republican. The symptoms are identical so it's hard to say for sure.
A lie is not ok just because it wasn't told while under an oath.
The gp was on target but left off one thing. The Republicans have managed to convince a large number of gullible people to vote against their own best interests on "religious" grounds. Now that's dumb.
First of all, why do we need to "move forward eventually"? What's the rush? There is no problem with taking a few days to hand count votes.
Secondly, if the paper coming out the back does not match what is in the machine which do you believe? They both came out of the same machine. Did the machine count wrong in the first place or did it just print wrong? How do we know the machine didn't print wrong numbers AND count wrong numbers?
If the memory is removable MS is calling this ReadyBoost. It's kind of like ReadyDrive except it only caches the reads. If the memory is on the drive it caches both reads and writes. I'm not sure about if it's on the MB.
Ha, it's a stretch to call a story about how bush disserted his unit to work on his father's campaign a fabrication. Yes, the forged document was fabricated but the funny thing is that in this case it doesn't make the story any less true.
bush is a disgrace to this country.
"There's a fatwa against terrorism."
Are there not also fatwas in support of terrorism? The one against Salmon Rushdie comes to mind. I know it's been reversed but while it was in place even liberal minded Muslims like Cat Stevens (I forget his new name) would not renounce it.
"And most of them have crosses on them."
I agree that the christians have a great deal of blood on their hands too and their holy texts are just as intolerant and in need of change. My statements as such has fallen on deaf ears with them as well. My point here is really that it's disingenuous to claim to be a moderate of a religion where the holy texts that support the religion are not moderate at all.
If the moderates really want to distance themselves from the extremists they need to change the books. As it stands it's just that the extremists really read and believe all the parts that moderates are willing to skip over.
Take for example the christians who want the ten commandments posted in court and schools. Even many moderates will say they believe our laws in the USA are based on these commandments. When I ask them if they also feel the punishments proscribed in the bible should be applied as well they falter. Many seem to have forgotten that the penalty for most, if not all of them is death.
The simple fact is that most moderate christians have to skip over most of the old testament and read selectively from the new testament to maintain their "moderate" frame of reference. So they should just change the books. It's no worse than selectivly reading them anyway.
It's true that some moderates denounce specific terrorist acts. It's also true that not much if anything is being done to address the source of the attacks. Polling data world wide shows that in the parts of the world where Islam is the dominant religion, the concept of martyrdom is widely accepted. Until Muslims agree to change their holy texts that are the basis for martyrdom the fringe actions of a few moderates will not be seen as a genuine call for change.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/26/ipod-city-admit s-labor-law-violations/
Ok. So they are only forcing their workers to work and extra 80 hours a month for no extra pay. Forced free labor == slavery.
Like I said. I didn't think you would agree and that's ok. The system didn't side in your favor so you cry foul. Human nature I guess.
Apple has been very successful using 3rd party slave labor to make a killing on their iPods.
So even by your measure they are very unethical. I agree with you there.
No exception needs to be made for Bill because I don't agree that your assertion fits. It's not like he robbed a bank and shot people in the process. He was just very successfully competitive in a very competitive industry.
There are two ways to think about it. If you are on the side that thinks his company was falsely accused you will see the settlements as all parties being able to put it behind them and move on. If you are of the mind (as I think you are) that MS has done a great wrong and was rightly convicted the fact that all parties came to settlement means the social harm has been atoned for. Either way it is behind us.
I don't really think you will agree with me and that's fine. The truth is that the courts have spoken and those who feel they were harmed (wrongly or rightly) have settled. If you really think he is evil and just set up his charity work to get on the good side of public opinion why does he continue? If he wanted to he could sit back and be a prick with his money like Steve Jobs. On the other hand, Steve hasn't been successful enough to do nearly as much social good so it doesn't really matter.
Nice straw man you've got there.
I didn't say it doesn't matter in general. I said it doesn't matter in this case. He's also given a lot more than 2 percent.
So out of everything I've said you picked one point and asked an irrelevant question in response. Yawn.
He started the foundation in 1994. The monopoly trial started in May of 1998./ Timeline/
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/AboutUs/QuickFacts
View with suspicion popular the memes.
He gave to charity long before the trial. Stock does have a real value. So giving away lots of stock = giving away lots of money.
He's already given away over 60% of his net worth which is way more than any regular joe I know.
His foundation is his AND his wifes. Yes she has a lot to do with it but where does the money come from. Hint...NOT FROM HER!
Their foundation (I just learned this today form NPR) is funding 90% of the world effort to get rid of polio. That's one effort of many but if they succeed at just that one it will be huge.
It matters not what you think of MS and how he got his money. He's doing a lot of good things with it. His wife doesn't get all the credit either. His father also had a lot to do with it growing up.
400,000 crash reports per day?
Just curious, what is your source for this figure? MS has long been VERY tight lipped about how many they get, even internally.
It's also not just OEMs that can get this data. Anyone who puts a driver through WHQL can get the data back on their driver.
It is useful too. When my driver crashes and someone reports it I can get the minidump file to see what the problem was.
The 64bit version requires a dual layer DVD to burn to. So at the moment they won't fit. It could be that they will compress it down to work in the end.
That's Mt Hood off in the distance with the Columbia river down below. So it looks like it was taken from one of the bluffs along the gorge on the Washington side of the river.
My best guess anyway.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you said the same thing when XP came out and you were running win2k.
Like most people, you will upgrade when you by a new system that comes with it pre-installed.
Here are just a few off the top of my head: /silly and /dance emotes.
The race on the salt flats ala Star wars episode one.
Goblin sales guy that squeals "I got what you need!" Have to hear it to really know what I'm talking about.
The dwarven shooting range.
Gnomish Battle chicken.
Many of the
In general I think Blizzard has always had a good sense of humor. Remember the Cow Level in Diablo II? Comedy gold right there.
Zug Zug