God, if one exists, is an innately supernatural and immaterial being. He would have to be if he created the whole natural universe right?
If by 'supernatural', you mean 'outside', that's correct, I suppose, but we need to know what frame of reference you're using. Outside the solar system? Then maybe God is an extinct alien race that seeded our planet eons ago. Outside the galaxy? Outside the Universe? Well, it gets abstract enough from there to fit our usual unspoken notion of God as something/someone way beyond our comprehension who can do whatever he/she/it wants but who, for whatever reason, knowable or otherwise, is soley interested in the plight of the hairless apes of planet Earth! With a Being so Infinitely Powerful, no wonder wars are fought almost daily to pronounce exactly whose side God is on!
That this otherworldly completely super-natural (outside what we know as natural) being should then leave as the only clue to it's existence a book of colorful but highly debatable 'rules for conduct' (be it the Bible or the Koran), and then threaten all who disobey or disbelieve with some sort of extra-dimensional torture for eternity sounds remarkably 'natural', if not downright human!
Perhaps God, being super-natural, chooses to express him/her/it self this way so as to be 'knowable' to humans. That may be so, but it doesn't strike me as the kind of super-natural Being I care to share a beer with!
On the other hand, when a carpenter builds (creates) a house, he or she is still subject to certain laws involving both the carpenter and the house. If the stairs are not 'created' properly, and the carpenter stands on them, then he will suffer accordingly, with absolutely no quarter given whatsoever to the otherwise admirable fact that he 'created' the house.
Hell, we 'created' the atomic bomb. Does that mean it can't bite us in the ass?
Should carpenters who build religions be held unaccountable in respect to their creations?
Where religion can go wrong (and at times has), is when religion inspires adherents to 'keep religion going' rather than simply 'keep going'. Mimetics, I believe, deals with ideas as 'living entities' that seek to further their own existence much as the rest of us do. Religious thinking can lead to obsessive/paranoid thinking, though it by no means does so neccessarily. We have witch trials, ethnic cleansing and the Inquisition to illustrate this. We also have charities, fellowship and goodwill to express the benefits of religious thinking.
That's why, I believe, religion must never be suppressed, but must also never be allowed to rule. Without religion, men can become cold and calculating to excess. When it rules, people are forgotten, and palaces and pyramids are erected at their expense.
Intelligence, reasoning, consciousness and imagination - some of the things that separate us humans (to one degree or another) from our animal brethren here on earth - are, I believe, a toolkit of mutations that has proven (so far) to be superbly effective at insuring our survival.
Where other animals tend to specialize, in terms of diet, climate and whatnot, humans are built to adapt and infest all the nooks and crannys of the globe. An earlier species of human (neanderthal) got squeezed out by us due to the fact that they were strict vegetarians, with large teeth for grinding things up. We have molars for grinding AND incisors for tearing (meat). We also have no compunctions about pouncing on a fly-and-maggot-ridden kill or carrion and carting it off to the wife and kids.
All animals specialize and we are no different. Thing is, we specialize in NOT specializing! I think this led to the consciousness 'mutation' due to the development of our imagination (forebrain) which was constantly working out scenarios involving potential threats and possible tactics to overcome them. Eskimos had to 'figure out' how to not freeze and get fish from beneath the ice. Elsewhere, tribesmen had to 'figure out' how get screeching monkeys down from the trees and into their stomachs. Meanwhile, lions, tigers and bears were everywhere. Paranoia is nothing new. It's what got us here!
What we have now, with cities, literature, religions and whatnot, are like the creamy head on a pint of Guinness. So thick and rich we can draw a smiley face on it, which we do, and call it God, which is fine, because one of the side-effects of consciousness, imagination and self-awareness is the awareness of Death and Oblivion. It is root to the very nature of self-awareness to want to 'keep going', beneath which is also the drive to 'keep the race going', which is why some folks commit suicide and/or sacrifice themselves for their brothers. The notion of God helps us focus on the 'keep going' part rather than the Death and Oblivion part. For some, the notion of God lets them relenquish their hold on the Death and Oblivion fixation for the first time, which is why there is such a feeling of release and exhaltation upon becoming 'saved' or 'enlightened'.
Hopefully, our imaginative forebrain won't create a paranoid delusion that inspires us to do ourselves in completely. The fore-brains of cultists who believe that commiting suicide will magically take them to a waiting spaceship hiding behind a comet have worked against them. They have come to view the world as such an overwhelmingly threatening and evil place that an absurd fantasy seemed like 'the only way out'. Oh well. I guess we should thank them for sacrificing themselves, as their over-active and over-paranoid forebrains were a bad mutation for the race as a whole. The happy medium lies somewhere between the farmer who says "Yep. That thar cow is dead." and the fringe-science-conspiracy-addict who says, "It was done by Aliens! There going to invade! We have to prepare!" One of those two will go home, eat, and have a good night's sleep, while the other is likely to electrocute himself while rigging his compound with an electric fence. Even if the aliens *do* invade, a good night's sleep and a full belly will go a long way to save your hide!
What are they doing at RH? With all the fiscal support they've been getting, I'd expect some pretty amazing advances in terms of installs and upgrades. Oh well. It's not my problem and I have nothing to contribute, so I'll just shut me gob!
Consider that we may not yet be 'out of the woods' in regards to Y2K / Leap-year issues, which could well be incremental. Details? I have none, for I too, lack a Clue....
Transit of packets is a genuine problem on servers hit by DoS, and rerouting these packets to low-level systems is imperative.
Exactly. The solution lies in what I like to call the Primary Array Network Transaction Service, a wrapper of sorts for the GRITS subsystem. When you put the GRITS into the PANTS, you'll find that most of your DoS woes disappear, to be replaced by a sensation of warm satisfaction.
The default is full access--restricting access takes effort and cash.
Good point, but I think the 'effort and cash' is worthwhile and well-spent. As a taxpayer, I will vote in favor of restricted access.
Porn/freakshow sites are all but impossible to avoid in all but the most carefully worded search queries. Such sites would be an embarassment and a distraction in a library setting.
If the software used ends up being an Open-source collaborative effort, all the better, but I don't buy the "right-wing fundamentalists are trying to take away our freedom" bullshit for a second. Grow up already!
Freedom without restrictions is Anarchy. 'Anarchy' (the real kind, not the spikey mohawk kind,) never lasts for long, as it is merely the first step to a new Totalitarianism. -K. Wilcox
The problem with putting censorware in a public library is that it is public. Doing so implies that you either know what everyone passing through the library wants, or that you consider yourself to be morally superior to everyone else, a position I can't condone.
It doesn't matter what 'everyone passing through the library wants', or on anyone's being 'morally superior' or anything else. It's up to the voters and/or the commities elected by the voters. My local library does not give me unrestricted access to back issues of Huster, and I don't expect it to give me access to bigtits.com either. If you want to let your kids view porn, fine, let them do it at home.
can not see how anyone in their right mind can imagine that one-size-fits-all censorware is reasonable.
A lot of folks can't see how anyone in their right mind would want their kids to look at porn without some sort of filtering or supervision. Everyone's a weirdo to someone else, I reckon'.
History is made by folks willing to risk their balls. Sometimes people who risk their balls lose them. When they ask for volunteers, you don't need to raise your hand. Someone else always will, for their own reasons, which will always be senseless and inscrutable to you.
But like black ink in a glass of clear water, it only takes a few to turn the whole thing grey. Most of the 'racist' comments are just childish button-pushing on the part of the posters. Such is life.
That's why we need a moonbase. We could engineer something akin to a surface-mounted rotating donut which would let folks spend at least their sleeping and recreation hours in an earth-like (or even slightly stronger) gravity.
Slashdot Mirror
God, if one exists, is an innately supernatural and immaterial being. He would have to be if he created the whole natural universe right?
If by 'supernatural', you mean 'outside', that's correct, I suppose, but we need to know what frame of reference you're using. Outside the solar system? Then maybe God is an extinct alien race that seeded our planet eons ago. Outside the galaxy? Outside the Universe? Well, it gets abstract enough from there to fit our usual unspoken notion of God as something/someone way beyond our comprehension who can do whatever he/she/it wants but who, for whatever reason, knowable or otherwise, is soley interested in the plight of the hairless apes of planet Earth! With a Being so Infinitely Powerful, no wonder wars are fought almost daily to pronounce exactly whose side God is on!
That this otherworldly completely super-natural (outside what we know as natural) being should then leave as the only clue to it's existence a book of colorful but highly debatable 'rules for conduct' (be it the Bible or the Koran), and then threaten all who disobey or disbelieve with some sort of extra-dimensional torture for eternity sounds remarkably 'natural', if not downright human!
Perhaps God, being super-natural, chooses to express him/her/it self this way so as to be 'knowable' to humans. That may be so, but it doesn't strike me as the kind of super-natural Being I care to share a beer with!
On the other hand, when a carpenter builds (creates) a house, he or she is still subject to certain laws involving both the carpenter and the house. If the stairs are not 'created' properly, and the carpenter stands on them, then he will suffer accordingly, with absolutely no quarter given whatsoever to the otherwise admirable fact that he 'created' the house.
Hell, we 'created' the atomic bomb. Does that mean it can't bite us in the ass?
Should carpenters who build religions be held unaccountable in respect to their creations?
Kind of like UNIX ; )
Where religion can go wrong (and at times has), is when religion inspires adherents to 'keep religion going' rather than simply 'keep going'. Mimetics, I believe, deals with ideas as 'living entities' that seek to further their own existence much as the rest of us do. Religious thinking can lead to obsessive/paranoid thinking, though it by no means does so neccessarily. We have witch trials, ethnic cleansing and the Inquisition to illustrate this. We also have charities, fellowship and goodwill to express the benefits of religious thinking.
That's why, I believe, religion must never be suppressed, but must also never be allowed to rule. Without religion, men can become cold and calculating to excess. When it rules, people are forgotten, and palaces and pyramids are erected at their expense.
Such is life.
Intelligence, reasoning, consciousness and imagination - some of the things that separate us humans (to one degree or another) from our animal brethren here on earth - are, I believe, a toolkit of mutations that has proven (so far) to be superbly effective at insuring our survival.
Where other animals tend to specialize, in terms of diet, climate and whatnot, humans are built to adapt and infest all the nooks and crannys of the globe. An earlier species of human (neanderthal) got squeezed out by us due to the fact that they were strict vegetarians, with large teeth for grinding things up. We have molars for grinding AND incisors for tearing (meat). We also have no compunctions about pouncing on a fly-and-maggot-ridden kill or carrion and carting it off to the wife and kids.
All animals specialize and we are no different. Thing is, we specialize in NOT specializing! I think this led to the consciousness 'mutation' due to the development of our imagination (forebrain) which was constantly working out scenarios involving potential threats and possible tactics to overcome them. Eskimos had to 'figure out' how to not freeze and get fish from beneath the ice. Elsewhere, tribesmen had to 'figure out' how get screeching monkeys down from the trees and into their stomachs. Meanwhile, lions, tigers and bears were everywhere. Paranoia is nothing new. It's what got us here!
What we have now, with cities, literature, religions and whatnot, are like the creamy head on a pint of Guinness. So thick and rich we can draw a smiley face on it, which we do, and call it God, which is fine, because one of the side-effects of consciousness, imagination and self-awareness is the awareness of Death and Oblivion. It is root to the very nature of self-awareness to want to 'keep going', beneath which is also the drive to 'keep the race going', which is why some folks commit suicide and/or sacrifice themselves for their brothers. The notion of God helps us focus on the 'keep going' part rather than the Death and Oblivion part. For some, the notion of God lets them relenquish their hold on the Death and Oblivion fixation for the first time, which is why there is such a feeling of release and exhaltation upon becoming 'saved' or 'enlightened'.
Hopefully, our imaginative forebrain won't create a paranoid delusion that inspires us to do ourselves in completely. The fore-brains of cultists who believe that commiting suicide will magically take them to a waiting spaceship hiding behind a comet have worked against them. They have come to view the world as such an overwhelmingly threatening and evil place that an absurd fantasy seemed like 'the only way out'. Oh well. I guess we should thank them for sacrificing themselves, as their over-active and over-paranoid forebrains were a bad mutation for the race as a whole. The happy medium lies somewhere between the farmer who says "Yep. That thar cow is dead." and the fringe-science-conspiracy-addict who says, "It was done by Aliens! There going to invade! We have to prepare!" One of those two will go home, eat, and have a good night's sleep, while the other is likely to electrocute himself while rigging his compound with an electric fence. Even if the aliens *do* invade, a good night's sleep and a full belly will go a long way to save your hide!
Interesting stuff.
Keep Going!
What are they doing at RH? With all the fiscal support they've been getting, I'd expect some pretty amazing advances in terms of installs and upgrades. Oh well. It's not my problem and I have nothing to contribute, so I'll just shut me gob!
Consider that we may not yet be 'out of the woods' in regards to Y2K / Leap-year issues, which could well be incremental. Details? I have none, for I too, lack a Clue....
Transit of packets is a genuine problem on servers hit by DoS, and rerouting these packets to low-level systems is imperative.
Exactly. The solution lies in what I like to call the Primary Array Network Transaction Service, a wrapper of sorts for the GRITS subsystem. When you put the GRITS into the PANTS, you'll find that most of your DoS woes disappear, to be replaced by a sensation of warm satisfaction.
I was wondering the same thing. Feb 29th is close at hand. Wonder if that has anything to do with it?
...I've been hearing good things about Zimbu the Monkey. Which one of you is Zimbu the Monkey?
I just thought I'd clarify that for everyone!
: )
Alas, what a stifling culture we live in. How I yearn to run free and shit myself like I did when I was young!
The default is full access--restricting access takes effort and cash.
Good point, but I think the 'effort and cash' is worthwhile and well-spent. As a taxpayer, I will vote in favor of restricted access.
Porn/freakshow sites are all but impossible to avoid in all but the most carefully worded search queries. Such sites would be an embarassment and a distraction in a library setting.
If the software used ends up being an Open-source collaborative effort, all the better, but I don't buy the "right-wing fundamentalists are trying to take away our freedom" bullshit for a second. Grow up already!
Freedom without restrictions is Anarchy.
'Anarchy' (the real kind, not the spikey mohawk kind,) never lasts for long, as it is merely the first step to a new Totalitarianism. -K. Wilcox
The problem with putting censorware in a public library is that it is public. Doing so implies that you either know what everyone passing through the library wants, or that you consider yourself to be morally superior to everyone else, a position I can't condone.
It doesn't matter what 'everyone passing through the library wants', or on anyone's being 'morally superior' or anything else. It's up to the voters and/or the commities elected by the voters. My local library does not give me unrestricted access to back issues of Huster, and I don't expect it to give me access to bigtits.com either. If you want to let your kids view porn, fine, let them do it at home.
can not see how anyone in their right mind can imagine that one-size-fits-all censorware is reasonable.
A lot of folks can't see how anyone in their right mind would want their kids to look at porn without some sort of filtering or supervision. Everyone's a weirdo to someone else, I reckon'.
Link 3D photo technology with this and those Natalie Portman statues could become a reality.
Add a trouser-full of grits (don't forget to tie-off the cuffs first) and you've got yourself a party!
; )
"Stop talking nonsense and drink your blue milk. You boys and your talk of outer-space. It kills me!"
Reinforcements will arrive soon. Renew your subscription to SOF and await further contact.
Good. Maybe they'll make better use of it than we have.
History is made by folks willing to risk their balls. Sometimes people who risk their balls lose them. When they ask for volunteers, you don't need to raise your hand. Someone else always will, for their own reasons, which will always be senseless and inscrutable to you.
Life does NOT come with a chin-strap.
Will they shoot him down upon re-entry?
Yes, along with his family, pets and everyone on his Internet mailing list. Next question please.
But like black ink in a glass of clear water, it only takes a few to turn the whole thing grey. Most of the 'racist' comments are just childish button-pushing on the part of the posters. Such is life.
Brought to you by the Random White Supremist Diatribe Generator!
Kung Pao Chicken and Crab Rangoon can make up for a lot of shortcomings, in my book.
Silly. Everyone knows that Robinson Crusoe was written by Stephen King. I mean, "Duh"!
...on to some 16 color pirate game.
Tai Pan by any chance? For a game with almost NO moving pictures, it was a blast!
That's why we need a moonbase. We could engineer something akin to a surface-mounted rotating donut which would let folks spend at least their sleeping and recreation hours in an earth-like (or even slightly stronger) gravity.