The "official" definition comes from the highest authority: The Bible itself
I don't believe that the supplied link supports your point. It certainly doesn't give any biblical definition for a cult.
Taking a quick look back, to help you better understand my examination of it, we'll examine first the claim made in #2. I quote: "Biblically, a cult may be defined as those that have added to, changed, or eliminated those things that are considered the fundamentals of Bible doctrine." The author then lists things they consider essential doctrine. The passages listed lend nothing to the assertion.
Continuing to the linked #13: In #13.3, the original assertion is appended to "A biblical definition of a cult is also those that do not believe" After nothing more than reasserting the doctrine of the trinity. Again, the assertion is not supported Biblically. (Quite frustrating, as it's essential to the entire argument!).
In #13.11 quote: "any that teach that a person is saved by works or works and faith, certainly is a cult," is not supported -- that is, the "certainly is a cult" part. This wouldn't be a problem, if the original assertion (as seen in #2, #13.1, and #13.3) were supported by something other than nothing. They do the same thing again in #13.13.
What is especially strange, is all the warnings against deception; All the while the biblestudyonline.org article does everything but provide a biblical definition of cult.
I love it when people rebuke christians using the Bible and then have no idea what they are talking about.
Well, my goal wasn't to "rebuke" your or Christians in general; I'm a Christian myself. As for the verses I listed, if you've bothered to read them, they're all warnings about false teaching. As you're well aware, there are many many different Christian denominations each with their own, often very different, ideas. Questioning what you hear from your own group or from other groups is an invaluable tool in determining what is and is not truth, as far as anyone is able to know it.
To quote Jesus: you sir, do err for you know not scripture. Plus you place wikipedia as superior to the Bible.
I don't see how I claimed that wikipedia to be superior to the bible. Perhaps it's because it does not define "cult" in same manner as the curious one from biblestudyonline.org?
That was weak birdshot, so go back and study the Bible better before you use it to rebuke a christian who has received the Holy Spirit.
I wasn't on the offensive! It's clear that you feel as though you've been attacked -- I do not know why. You also appear to either feel superior to me or you're afraid of my post, both equally without foundation (as far as I can tell). Check out Proverbs 16:5 and 2 Corinthians 10:13, you may find them very helpful.
It is people like you who give christians a bad name.
Why do you express such hostility? I've done nothing to attack either you, Christianity, or Christians in general. I'd like to know how what I've posted gives "Christians a bad name".
The official definition of a cult is an organization that rejects Jesus Christ, uses their own "scriptures" as superior to the King James Bible, discourages their members from reading the Bible, and then poses as a religion.
I don't know who made this particular definition "official" but I'd reject any such definition that classifies EVERY non-christian religion as a "cult". Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. ALL meet your #1 criteria; they reject Jesus Christ.
Why is "cult" in quotes? Only because you use it in the vulgar (common) sense. Follow this link for a better understanding.
For future reference: Double-check anything else your church/pastor tells you. SEE Matthew 24:11, 2 Peter 2:1, Isaiah 9:16, 1 John 4:1
You might want to mention, if you have any intentions of sending that message, that filtering pornography and child pornography is impossible and why.
I run a public computer lab. In order to "protect the children" and insure a safe and nonthreatening environment we've developed some sophisticated monitoring and filtering software. It does an excellent job, but it's VERY far from perfect.
Neither you nor I can write a computer program that accepts an image as input and determines if the image is pornographic (or close enough to it to warrant blocking) -- it's simply impossible. A.xxx TLD and a bit of public education ought to "corral" the majority of porn so that it may be easily filtered at schools, libraries, and other public facilities. -- It's not perfect, but it sure as hell would help.
To claim that smoking isn't "fun" is patently absurd! You don't acquire a nicotine addiction from just smoking a few - why, if it wasn't a pleasurable experience no one would bother smoking after trying it out for the first time.
The idea that you can simply switch the nicotine delivery mechanism and eventually derive the same "fun" is ridiculous. I'm just going to assume here that you have absolutely NO experience with cigarettes (or addiction at all). A good bit of the smoking fun comes from the ritual.
You can't quit smoking by simply replacing the nicotine delivery mechanism. The gum, patch, inhaler, lozenge, and the like simply do not work that way. They do absolutely nothing to stop the desire to smoke. The only product I've found that works to reduce the 'need' is Ariva. It's an excellent substitute in a pinch (fantastic for airplanes) though it's not something you could switch over to.
For those not in the know, you can actually buy nicotine free cigarettes I smoked the nicotine free variant for three or four months before quitting (eventually stepping down the number smoked) The nicotine addiction was LONG gone by the third week -- the desire for the act of smoking stays. (If Quest cigarettes didn't taste awful, I'd probably still be smoking them!)
Why do so may smoker who quit relapse? Well, that's easy -- smoking is FUN. It's true. Believe it or not, smokers don't smoke because they need to feed an addiction (it's easy to get off the nicotine bit) it's because they genuinely enjoy smoking. I know a few cigar smokers (that usually smoke 1 or 2 cigars per week) that don't use any other tobacco product. They certainly aren't feeding an addiction; they simply like smoking. You'll find quite a few pipe smokers without a nicotine addiction, just a desire to do something they enjoy.
Well said! It seems that the anti-tobacco lobby has managed to get people REALLY upset of the issue. Reading the comments on here, it seems that people simply haven't bothered to do any research into the matter at all. Even the article claims that Nicotine is "deadly" which is just total nonsense. (Addictive, yes. Deadly, no.) The propaganda, however, just seems to be getting worse every year as the anti-smoking groups start using less science and more nonsense. Even Michael Siegal, a top public health advocate, thinks things are a bit out of hand.
Nicotine has been known to have positive benefits for some time now. It's no wonder at all that we're starting to see new applications for it. An excellent overview
I wonder how the responses would be different if the article was caffeine...
$50 bucks will get you unlimited voice from Cellular One, another $15 will give you unlimited data. I don't know about text messages, as I never use them. Getting close eh?
2006-11-07 was the date for the US mid-term elections. A Republican controlled House and Senate became a Democrat controlled House and an evenly split Republican-Democrat Senate (with the exception of two independents, which effectively make a Democrat controlled Senate). The parent poster believes that this is bad for the country.
I refuse to communicate with people who use 'txtspeak'. If what you have to say is so unimportant that you can't bother to use whole words, I have no interest your message.
If you hate 'txtspeak', encourage your friends and colleagues to use whole words! Tell them that 'txtspeak' makes them look like poorly educated slobs. Tell them 'txtspeak' is unprofessional. Tell them it's the work of the devil, if that's what it takes.
Lecture videos are avaliable for a number of courses at ocw.mit.edu. Another poster commented that OCW content was very poor. This may have been true early on, but it's clearly getting better.
UC Berkeley now has video/audio lecutres avaliable for a number of their courses at webcast.berkeley.edu
I think the reason nobody has made (to my knowledge)the cell modem, is because they can cell (sell!) you a PCMCIA plug in and bill you for the modem service as an independent service.
Er, my discount Sony Ericcson J300a phone works great as a usb modem. I can use it to dial a local ISP or connect directly through my phones existing internet connection. (I have an unlimited data plan for $15/m). My provider (Cellular One) gladly sell me a PCMCIA card that does the same thing for $80/m -- but I'd rather just pay $15.
Er, you could do this with verizon, if they didn't 'cripple' their phones.
The biggest problem with 'the church' today is the disturbing number of uneducated ministers. The original mission of Harvard and Yale was to educate future clergy!
Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt. --Paul Tillich
A seminary, if it's any good, will turn out more atheists than pastors.
The average American home only uses about 10kW per year
What? My refrigerator is 500W (0.5kW) -- It therefore uses 12kWh per DAY.
I have a 60W lightbulb I use to see at night -- It's on for about 5 hours a day. That's 300Wh per day or 0.3kWh per day -- 9kWh per month -- 109kWh per year.
You mentioned this twice in your post -- It's not very clear what you mean. Watt is a measure of power (Power [in watts] = Voltage x Current [volt-ampers] -or- p=ie) Energy, on the other hand, is generally thought about in terms of how much power is used over time (er, watts per hour)
To clarify: Energy is Power distributed over time and Power is the rate at which energy is expended.
I'm going to guess that you mean to say that you can buy a wind-generator at a cost <$1 per watt at peak-output. That doesn't add up -- a quick look at 10kW to 20kW (peak) turbine with a Jacobs UL508 control and 80ft Tower costs about $40,000 or between $2 and $4 per Watt. This says nothing about the limited operating temperatures (35 to 110 degrees F. perhaps -20 to 130 deg. F. would be okay.)
Let's do some simple math to see why this sucks. Assuming that a 10kW to 20kW setup costs me $40,000 and my electric bill is ~$80/month it would take 500 months or 41.6 years to break-even -- that's with no maintenance or replacement costs.
I said "popular" applications done in Ajax. Almost all the things listed fall under the 'prototype' category.
Well, Gmail wouldn't be as useful to me (though you could do webmail other ways, they wouldn't be as good). Oh, and the application I'm currently assigned to at work (which is popular where I work, I suppose)
And they are generally crap compared to their desktop equivenents. Google Spreadsheets? Hmm, I can download a dozen free/shareware spreadsheet programs which will all peform better than whatever Google can hack together in a web browser.
Yeah, as I said in an earlier post in this thread, the solutions suck. Which is *why* we need new standards.
So they lack 'collaboration" features. Who cares?
People who need to get work done. My current work project, for example, is all about collaboration.
One of the biggest problem you're going to have with any web application is accessing local files and other resources. The only thing that makes the web even marginally secure is the sandboxed nature of whatever you are viewing... which serves as its greatest weakness when it comes to generalized application development. So for any applicaiton that isn't directly tied to a network service such as email or a blog, you're going to have problems.... no matter what standards you adopt.
I don't think you really understand how people intend to use these kinds of tools. If you would, please discribe to me how you think people intend to use web-applications.
"Accessing local files" isn't a problem (saving or transmitting, I do it all the time). It's trivial to sandbox local disk writes -- even with tight security (though at present, there is no facility for sandboxing local disk writes). I'm not sure what the other resources you're refering to are, but all the ones I can imagine you'd need are already easily exposed to a web application.
I'm also not too sure what you mean by "directly tied to a network service" -- do you think people indend to use web applications the same way they use local desktop applications? More imporantly, do you think they'll even WANT to use these kinds of applications 'off-line'?
Okay, we've probably been in agreement for most of this discussion -- the only difference being your idea of 'the web'.
When I think about 'the web' I think about a world-wide collection of documents, forms, and applications all linked together (a 'world-wide web', if you will.) In my vision of 'the web' HTML and http mean nothing more than the names of two standards currently used to actualize the web. The web for me, then, can be rebuilt on new standards -- html, http, and other existing standards being unnecessary to my definition.
Have no fear, I certainly do not equate 'the web' with 'the internet'. However, 'the web' is undoubtably where people expect to find applications, which is why my focus was on 'the web'.
As for ajax:
What popular AJAX applicaiton out there couldn't be done with more traditional development styles?
Consider web-based office applications Without Ajax, these kinds of applications wouldn't be practical. Sure, you could make a web-based spreadsheet app without javascript and XMLhttpRequest, but it would be very unusable. (If you aren't specificly refering to web development styles when you say 'development styles' then my answer is 'nothing'.)
I'd imagine this entire conflict boils down to a difference in definition and not necessarily a difference in opinion.
I give up -- you're incapable of understanding my point.
1) I did not imply that internet=web (that was your random interpretation) 2) I never said ajax was 'unique' (read the sentence again) 3) 'look beyond the browser' is exactly what I'm doing!
This isn't difficult -- I think you're arguing for the sake of arguing.
I'm not suggesting we limit ourselves to the "web browser" that relies on a "on a stateless protocol". I was suggesting that as the needs of web users have changed, so NEW standards need to be developed -- this includes protocols, formats, languages, even the "application player" you mention (which, BTW, could easily be launched by a brower, inside a browser, or implemented as part of a native format). That is, it's time we begin to abandon the old web and start BUILDING the new web!
We're goign to be putting up with shitty Javascript/HTML desktop application wannabes for a few years until people figures out what a terrible idea it is.
Most people already KNOW that these "shitty Javascript/HTML" apps are a terrible solution -- but, as I pointed out in my earlier post -- they were developed because these are the kinds of things people want to happen on the web. People want to access their documents and applications from anywhere -- That's part of what the so-called "web 2.0" is all about. Right now, we don't have the necessary standards to realize those applications.
Ajax is exciting to a good number of developers not because it's a new and cool idea, but because they've finally been given "permission" to do some of the things they've been wanting to do all along (the rule before, iirc, was to use as little or no js if at all possible). Ajax means that it's finally okay to develop unique, rich, interactive applications for the web.
Existing web standards are inadequate -- there is no disagreement here! New, simple/clean, easy-to-implement standards can really change the way we work with the web and consider the browser.
Slowness of javascript is right -- but let's attack it for its many other more serious flaws:)
More seriously, YouOS is important for reasons that aren't necessarily apparent at first. The demo on the site and the interest in the project leads me to believe two things: 1) People want a simple open application development platform for the web and 2) We need NEW and BETTER web standards!
Before I get flamed:
There will always be a need for native code -- that is obvious. However, the need for truly cross-platform network accessable applications is growing and growing quickly. Yes, Sun had the right idea when they created Java, but the language and platform just don't fit this need very well.
Slashdot Mirror
An excellent start! Someone with time should start some kind of wiki for projects like this...
Agreed, LyX will change the way you think about word processing. I honestly don't know how I managed without it.
Hardly fair -- it costs me ~$105 a month for unlimited data/talk...
Why are you angry? Electronics tend to drop in price. This price drop should come as no surprise.
I don't believe that the supplied link supports your point. It certainly doesn't give any biblical definition for a cult.
Taking a quick look back, to help you better understand my examination of it, we'll examine first the claim made in #2. I quote: "Biblically, a cult may be defined as those that have added to, changed, or eliminated those things that are considered the fundamentals of Bible doctrine." The author then lists things they consider essential doctrine. The passages listed lend nothing to the assertion.
Continuing to the linked #13: In #13.3, the original assertion is appended to "A biblical definition of a cult is also those that do not believe" After nothing more than reasserting the doctrine of the trinity. Again, the assertion is not supported Biblically. (Quite frustrating, as it's essential to the entire argument!).
In #13.11 quote: "any that teach that a person is saved by works or works and faith, certainly is a cult," is not supported -- that is, the "certainly is a cult" part. This wouldn't be a problem, if the original assertion (as seen in #2, #13.1, and #13.3) were supported by something other than nothing. They do the same thing again in #13.13.
What is especially strange, is all the warnings against deception; All the while the biblestudyonline.org article does everything but provide a biblical definition of cult.Well, my goal wasn't to "rebuke" your or Christians in general; I'm a Christian myself. As for the verses I listed, if you've bothered to read them, they're all warnings about false teaching. As you're well aware, there are many many different Christian denominations each with their own, often very different, ideas. Questioning what you hear from your own group or from other groups is an invaluable tool in determining what is and is not truth, as far as anyone is able to know it.I don't see how I claimed that wikipedia to be superior to the bible. Perhaps it's because it does not define "cult" in same manner as the curious one from biblestudyonline.org?I wasn't on the offensive! It's clear that you feel as though you've been attacked -- I do not know why. You also appear to either feel superior to me or you're afraid of my post, both equally without foundation (as far as I can tell). Check out Proverbs 16:5 and 2 Corinthians 10:13, you may find them very helpful.Why do you express such hostility? I've done nothing to attack either you, Christianity, or Christians in general. I'd like to know how what I've posted gives "Christians a bad name".
I don't know who made this particular definition "official" but I'd reject any such definition that classifies EVERY non-christian religion as a "cult". Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. ALL meet your #1 criteria; they reject Jesus Christ.
Why is "cult" in quotes? Only because you use it in the vulgar (common) sense. Follow this link for a better understanding.
For future reference: Double-check anything else your church/pastor tells you. SEE Matthew 24:11, 2 Peter 2:1, Isaiah 9:16, 1 John 4:1
You might want to mention, if you have any intentions of sending that message, that filtering pornography and child pornography is impossible and why.
.xxx TLD and a bit of public education ought to "corral" the majority of porn so that it may be easily filtered at schools, libraries, and other public facilities. -- It's not perfect, but it sure as hell would help.
I run a public computer lab. In order to "protect the children" and insure a safe and nonthreatening environment we've developed some sophisticated monitoring and filtering software. It does an excellent job, but it's VERY far from perfect.
Neither you nor I can write a computer program that accepts an image as input and determines if the image is pornographic (or close enough to it to warrant blocking) -- it's simply impossible. A
To claim that smoking isn't "fun" is patently absurd! You don't acquire a nicotine addiction from just smoking a few - why, if it wasn't a pleasurable experience no one would bother smoking after trying it out for the first time.
The idea that you can simply switch the nicotine delivery mechanism and eventually derive the same "fun" is ridiculous. I'm just going to assume here that you have absolutely NO experience with cigarettes (or addiction at all). A good bit of the smoking fun comes from the ritual.
You can't quit smoking by simply replacing the nicotine delivery mechanism. The gum, patch, inhaler, lozenge, and the like simply do not work that way. They do absolutely nothing to stop the desire to smoke. The only product I've found that works to reduce the 'need' is Ariva. It's an excellent substitute in a pinch (fantastic for airplanes) though it's not something you could switch over to.
For those not in the know, you can actually buy nicotine free cigarettes I smoked the nicotine free variant for three or four months before quitting (eventually stepping down the number smoked) The nicotine addiction was LONG gone by the third week -- the desire for the act of smoking stays. (If Quest cigarettes didn't taste awful, I'd probably still be smoking them!)
Why do so may smoker who quit relapse? Well, that's easy -- smoking is FUN. It's true. Believe it or not, smokers don't smoke because they need to feed an addiction (it's easy to get off the nicotine bit) it's because they genuinely enjoy smoking. I know a few cigar smokers (that usually smoke 1 or 2 cigars per week) that don't use any other tobacco product. They certainly aren't feeding an addiction; they simply like smoking. You'll find quite a few pipe smokers without a nicotine addiction, just a desire to do something they enjoy.
Well said! It seems that the anti-tobacco lobby has managed to get people REALLY upset of the issue. Reading the comments on here, it seems that people simply haven't bothered to do any research into the matter at all. Even the article claims that Nicotine is "deadly" which is just total nonsense. (Addictive, yes. Deadly, no.) The propaganda, however, just seems to be getting worse every year as the anti-smoking groups start using less science and more nonsense. Even Michael Siegal, a top public health advocate, thinks things are a bit out of hand.
Nicotine has been known to have positive benefits for some time now. It's no wonder at all that we're starting to see new applications for it. An excellent overview
I wonder how the responses would be different if the article was caffeine...
A working link:_ o_d.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/103/294929001_b67b0b5225
$50 bucks will get you unlimited voice from Cellular One, another $15 will give you unlimited data. I don't know about text messages, as I never use them. Getting close eh?
2006-11-07 was the date for the US mid-term elections. A Republican controlled House and Senate became a Democrat controlled House and an evenly split Republican-Democrat Senate (with the exception of two independents, which effectively make a Democrat controlled Senate). The parent poster believes that this is bad for the country.
I refuse to communicate with people who use 'txtspeak'. If what you have to say is so unimportant that you can't bother to use whole words, I have no interest your message.
If you hate 'txtspeak', encourage your friends and colleagues to use whole words! Tell them that 'txtspeak' makes them look like poorly educated slobs. Tell them 'txtspeak' is unprofessional. Tell them it's the work of the devil, if that's what it takes.
Change the world!
Sounds like the plot to one of the "Back to the Future Movies"...
Lecture videos are avaliable for a number of courses at ocw.mit.edu. Another poster commented that OCW content was very poor. This may have been true early on, but it's clearly getting better.
UC Berkeley now has video/audio lecutres avaliable for a number of their courses at webcast.berkeley.edu
Sometimes you can find lectures from MIT and Berkeley at video.google.com. For example, Physics for future Presidents
Er, my discount Sony Ericcson J300a phone works great as a usb modem. I can use it to dial a local ISP or connect directly through my phones existing internet connection. (I have an unlimited data plan for $15/m). My provider (Cellular One) gladly sell me a PCMCIA card that does the same thing for $80/m -- but I'd rather just pay $15.
Er, you could do this with verizon, if they didn't 'cripple' their phones.
A seminary, if it's any good, will turn out more atheists than pastors.
What? My refrigerator is 500W (0.5kW) -- It therefore uses 12kWh per DAY.
I have a 60W lightbulb I use to see at night -- It's on for about 5 hours a day. That's 300Wh per day or 0.3kWh per day -- 9kWh per month -- 109kWh per year.
Where did you get this weird figure?
You mentioned this twice in your post -- It's not very clear what you mean. Watt is a measure of power (Power [in watts] = Voltage x Current [volt-ampers] -or- p=ie) Energy, on the other hand, is generally thought about in terms of how much power is used over time (er, watts per hour)
To clarify: Energy is Power distributed over time and Power is the rate at which energy is expended.
I'm going to guess that you mean to say that you can buy a wind-generator at a cost <$1 per watt at peak-output. That doesn't add up -- a quick look at 10kW to 20kW (peak) turbine with a Jacobs UL508 control and 80ft Tower costs about $40,000 or between $2 and $4 per Watt. This says nothing about the limited operating temperatures (35 to 110 degrees F. perhaps -20 to 130 deg. F. would be okay.)
Let's do some simple math to see why this sucks. Assuming that a 10kW to 20kW setup costs me $40,000 and my electric bill is ~$80/month it would take 500 months or 41.6 years to break-even -- that's with no maintenance or replacement costs.
Wind isn't as cheap as you'd think!
Well, Gmail wouldn't be as useful to me (though you could do webmail other ways, they wouldn't be as good). Oh, and the application I'm currently assigned to at work (which is popular where I work, I suppose)Yeah, as I said in an earlier post in this thread, the solutions suck. Which is *why* we need new standards.People who need to get work done. My current work project, for example, is all about collaboration.I don't think you really understand how people intend to use these kinds of tools. If you would, please discribe to me how you think people intend to use web-applications.
"Accessing local files" isn't a problem (saving or transmitting, I do it all the time). It's trivial to sandbox local disk writes -- even with tight security (though at present, there is no facility for sandboxing local disk writes). I'm not sure what the other resources you're refering to are, but all the ones I can imagine you'd need are already easily exposed to a web application.
I'm also not too sure what you mean by "directly tied to a network service" -- do you think people indend to use web applications the same way they use local desktop applications? More imporantly, do you think they'll even WANT to use these kinds of applications 'off-line'?
Okay, we've probably been in agreement for most of this discussion -- the only difference being your idea of 'the web'.
When I think about 'the web' I think about a world-wide collection of documents, forms, and applications all linked together (a 'world-wide web', if you will.) In my vision of 'the web' HTML and http mean nothing more than the names of two standards currently used to actualize the web. The web for me, then, can be rebuilt on new standards -- html, http, and other existing standards being unnecessary to my definition.
Have no fear, I certainly do not equate 'the web' with 'the internet'. However, 'the web' is undoubtably where people expect to find applications, which is why my focus was on 'the web'.
As for ajax: Consider web-based office applications Without Ajax, these kinds of applications wouldn't be practical. Sure, you could make a web-based spreadsheet app without javascript and XMLhttpRequest, but it would be very unusable. (If you aren't specificly refering to web development styles when you say 'development styles' then my answer is 'nothing'.)
I'd imagine this entire conflict boils down to a difference in definition and not necessarily a difference in opinion.
I give up -- you're incapable of understanding my point.
1) I did not imply that internet=web (that was your random interpretation)
2) I never said ajax was 'unique' (read the sentence again)
3) 'look beyond the browser' is exactly what I'm doing!
This isn't difficult -- I think you're arguing for the sake of arguing.
Most people already KNOW that these "shitty Javascript/HTML" apps are a terrible solution -- but, as I pointed out in my earlier post -- they were developed because these are the kinds of things people want to happen on the web. People want to access their documents and applications from anywhere -- That's part of what the so-called "web 2.0" is all about. Right now, we don't have the necessary standards to realize those applications.
Ajax is exciting to a good number of developers not because it's a new and cool idea, but because they've finally been given "permission" to do some of the things they've been wanting to do all along (the rule before, iirc, was to use as little or no js if at all possible). Ajax means that it's finally okay to develop unique, rich, interactive applications for the web.
Existing web standards are inadequate -- there is no disagreement here! New, simple/clean, easy-to-implement standards can really change the way we work with the web and consider the browser.
Slowness of javascript is right -- but let's attack it for its many other more serious flaws :)
More seriously, YouOS is important for reasons that aren't necessarily apparent at first. The demo on the site and the interest in the project leads me to believe two things: 1) People want a simple open application development platform for the web and 2) We need NEW and BETTER web standards!
Before I get flamed:
There will always be a need for native code -- that is obvious. However, the need for truly cross-platform network accessable applications is growing and growing quickly. Yes, Sun had the right idea when they created Java, but the language and platform just don't fit this need very well.