I'd get you an evil meter, but it might not be calibrated, anyone has a pure 1000 kiloNazi signal to check with? The Cheyney reading is off the meter...
Well, speaking as an evangelical Lutheran, I interpret the Lot story as an example that God's grace does not depend on human goodness. The only difference between Lot and the people who died in Sodom and Gomorrah is that Lot had a saving faith. However, he was a lazy, drunken sot who depended on his rich uncle and his heavenly Father to bail him out. We cannot be virtuous enough for God; it takes God's act to save us. I believe it is through Christ on the Cross. I hope this explains our point of view. Thank you.
The NSA, by the way, is getting an increased security presence outside the post. The Anne Arundel County police continually station police cars on Route 32 to discourage people from slowing down or stopping around the NSA. Of course, they also help catch the drunks doing 90 on Route 32 on Fridays and Saturdays.
I have thought about this, and I wouldn't agree that consciousness is strictly a property of matter; if you have a sufficiently stable substrate with differences in energy potential, it is possible for an organized system to have quasi-nervous action, which leads to thought. (I was thinking of the nature of thought because I was answering my own hypothetical question, "How do angels or other immaterial creatures think?")
Matter doesn't have consciousness unless it's organized into life, which in turn must have a nervous system. It's an emergent property that depends on this organization. So, the question becomes not "Is matter sufficient to create consciousness" to "What sort of organization or system is required for consciousness?"
There the question becomes interesting. Is organization inevitable? Or does it require a first impulse, a Prime Mover?
To address a second point in your post, the knowledge of God:
Those of us who are of faith realize that revealed knowledge is not the same as the common knowledge given to all of us; it is productive to try to fuse the two sorts of knowledge for the mental exercise, but it is fruitless. As St. Thomas Aquinas noted, all truth points to the same source, so in the long run there is a resolution of the apparent paradoxes.
Philosophy only gets us so far, as to either accept a First Mover or to deny all causality when a chain of thought is extended long enough. I accept a First Mover, because I believe in causality. (Note: this is not meant to be a rigorous analysis.)
Is the universe God? That depends on the definition of the universe and God. Is the universe merely all we can detect through the senses, or does it include concepts? Is God a Person, or an impersonal force, or is God everything? If God is everything, that means that either God is not good, or there is no evil. And so we go on for hours and hours, illuminating our sources of thought, but not solving the issue.
I am really interested in this research. If one can create cellular life, then what an accomplishment! Cells are life, the rest of it is commentary.
You don't want to use sails on a commercial vessel. To take advantage of a changeable wind and sea condition, a ship's master has to constantly adjust the trim of the sails. This is a very labor-intensive task, involving highly skilled workers. You can't do it without tying knots. Right now men are cheaper than robots, but ship owners are under constant economic pressure to keep costs down--shipping is very, very competitive, and ship owners are notoriously cheap. (Listen to a group of Coast Guard inspectors talk in shop and you'll hear stories that would chill you.)
Economics dictate fast, reliable transits, and that requires motor transit and as few crew as possible.
You mean EMP, don't you? And to generate that much EMP, you need a hydrogen bomb, which is going to be traceable because you need to detonate it in the air, and that means the USAF is going to pay a call on the country or countries that launched the weapon.
But then, if the Christians disappear as they say they will, wouldn't it mean that they were right? And there would be an Antichrist and a Great Tribulation? If only Christians disappear, it infers that their POV is the correct one, everyone else is wrong, and things go bad quickly.
Re:Beginning of the end?
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SCO Loses
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· Score: 1
True, but Linux is winning the server wars. The current model seems to be MS on the workstation and Linux on the server.
Why is anti-piracy "bs?" Movies cost money to make. People put time and money into making these products, and they have a right to be compensated for their services. People sink money into real estate, projectors, wages, insurance, and popcorn equipment, and they have the right to be compensated for their services. We aren't talking Brad Pitt and his $30 million for a picture; we're talking about the film technicians and the movie theater employees, neither of which are on the gravy train. Those are the ones piracy hurts.
If you don't like the prices a company offers for its services, you can find an alternative or do without. You don't have the right to steal the product.
Canada has had the highest number of camcorder incidents, particularly in Quebec, according to the National Association of Theater Owners. It is getting to the point where Canada might not get first released pictures unless they prevent theft of services.
However, I've seen grass and trees grow back quite nicely where an asphalt road has been torn up. So, it's not irreversible; food crops can grow again.
In the same way, we can encourage the growth of local crops (such as periwinkle where I am) that will serve as a better ground cover than grass. All we need to do is to have homeowners' associations declared terrorist groups.
1. The wall is a far way from being complete. When it is complete, it will not be a physical barrier. Go over to Free Republic and hear all the complaints about this. Many of them want a strong physical barrier with guard posts and minefields; others just want a good fence. 2. We're not stopping people from leaving the United States. 3. If you did LSD in the 1960s, the 2000s are the ultimate bad trip!
Because the biggest group opting out of public education are homeschooling parents, who are politically and legally activist about keeping the Board of Education away from their children.
Well, we could always do what Plato suggested in "The Republic" and restrict the training of thinking, reasoning, and creativity to the intellectual elite that is capable of the mental tasks required. Everyone else can study to be a rapper, a pro basketball player, or a football wife.
That seems to be the apparent course of American public education.
Would the extensive use of software games help students learn? I don't think so. Perhaps, instead, we should be paring down lessons. We should teach students how to use phonics instead of merely whole word recognition. We should have students write coherent sentences and paragraphs. We should make students learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide without a calculator. I would allow abacuses (or abaci, if you insist on Latin nominative plurals); others might not. We should use fewer bloated textbooks with multiple colors and sidebars.
Computers might help if the software was aimed in helping the fundamental skills at a pace where the student could learn. I don't see that coming soon. Too many students would merely go to the Internet and build their own custom shoes.
(The poster worked for a year plus as a substitute teacher in middle school and is accordingly jaded.)
The original story was told in the story "Answer" in the early 1950s by Frederic Brown in the pulps; I have the book, "Angels and Spaceships." (Dutton, 1954); the story is at http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm
Slashdot Mirror
I'd get you an evil meter, but it might not be calibrated, anyone has a pure 1000 kiloNazi signal to check with? The Cheyney reading is off the meter...
Well, speaking as an evangelical Lutheran, I interpret the Lot story as an example that God's grace does not depend on human goodness. The only difference between Lot and the people who died in Sodom and Gomorrah is that Lot had a saving faith. However, he was a lazy, drunken sot who depended on his rich uncle and his heavenly Father to bail him out. We cannot be virtuous enough for God; it takes God's act to save us. I believe it is through Christ on the Cross. I hope this explains our point of view. Thank you.
"Harcourt! Harcourt Fenton Mudd! Have you been drinking again?..."
The NSA, by the way, is getting an increased security presence outside the post. The Anne Arundel County police continually station police cars on Route 32 to discourage people from slowing down or stopping around the NSA. Of course, they also help catch the drunks doing 90 on Route 32 on Fridays and Saturdays.
In the illustration, there was an escape rocket.
No, the world lives in fear of backpacks carried by men who mutter "Allah Akbar!" judt before the set off the explosives in it.
Having said that, the Anarchist's Cookbook is really a lousy manual. My Infantry Officer Basic Course offered much better formulas for explosives.
I just patented that.
I have thought about this, and I wouldn't agree that consciousness is strictly a property of matter; if you have a sufficiently stable substrate with differences in energy potential, it is possible for an organized system to have quasi-nervous action, which leads to thought. (I was thinking of the nature of thought because I was answering my own hypothetical question, "How do angels or other immaterial creatures think?")
Matter doesn't have consciousness unless it's organized into life, which in turn must have a nervous system. It's an emergent property that depends on this organization. So, the question becomes not "Is matter sufficient to create consciousness" to "What sort of organization or system is required for consciousness?"
There the question becomes interesting. Is organization inevitable? Or does it require a first impulse, a Prime Mover?
To address a second point in your post, the knowledge of God:
Those of us who are of faith realize that revealed knowledge is not the same as the common knowledge given to all of us; it is productive to try to fuse the two sorts of knowledge for the mental exercise, but it is fruitless. As St. Thomas Aquinas noted, all truth points to the same source, so in the long run there is a resolution of the apparent paradoxes.
Philosophy only gets us so far, as to either accept a First Mover or to deny all causality when a chain of thought is extended long enough. I accept a First Mover, because I believe in causality. (Note: this is not meant to be a rigorous analysis.)
Is the universe God? That depends on the definition of the universe and God. Is the universe merely all we can detect through the senses, or does it include concepts? Is God a Person, or an impersonal force, or is God everything? If God is everything, that means that either God is not good, or there is no evil. And so we go on for hours and hours, illuminating our sources of thought, but not solving the issue.
I am really interested in this research. If one can create cellular life, then what an accomplishment! Cells are life, the rest of it is commentary.
You don't want to use sails on a commercial vessel. To take advantage of a changeable wind and sea condition, a ship's master has to constantly adjust the trim of the sails. This is a very labor-intensive task, involving highly skilled workers. You can't do it without tying knots. Right now men are cheaper than robots, but ship owners are under constant economic pressure to keep costs down--shipping is very, very competitive, and ship owners are notoriously cheap. (Listen to a group of Coast Guard inspectors talk in shop and you'll hear stories that would chill you.)
Economics dictate fast, reliable transits, and that requires motor transit and as few crew as possible.
Good heavens, you can't wait until January 2009?
You mean EMP, don't you? And to generate that much EMP, you need a hydrogen bomb, which is going to be traceable because you need to detonate it in the air, and that means the USAF is going to pay a call on the country or countries that launched the weapon.
But then, if the Christians disappear as they say they will, wouldn't it mean that they were right? And there would be an Antichrist and a Great Tribulation? If only Christians disappear, it infers that their POV is the correct one, everyone else is wrong, and things go bad quickly.
True, but Linux is winning the server wars. The current model seems to be MS on the workstation and Linux on the server.
Or a veteran of the Blue Division.
Never heard of cannon, have you? Or shaped-charge explosives? Or even 21-cm howitzers?
Why is anti-piracy "bs?" Movies cost money to make. People put time and money into making these products, and they have a right to be compensated for their services. People sink money into real estate, projectors, wages, insurance, and popcorn equipment, and they have the right to be compensated for their services. We aren't talking Brad Pitt and his $30 million for a picture; we're talking about the film technicians and the movie theater employees, neither of which are on the gravy train. Those are the ones piracy hurts.
If you don't like the prices a company offers for its services, you can find an alternative or do without. You don't have the right to steal the product.
Canada has had the highest number of camcorder incidents, particularly in Quebec, according to the National Association of Theater Owners. It is getting to the point where Canada might not get first released pictures unless they prevent theft of services.
Who would operate the brush?
That list you posted works well if you substitute "NFL quarterback" for "dog". Except, perhaps, for the decent nose.
But... did the show make enough money to be worth the production costs?
We all know that the way to date stars is to get involved with their publicists first.
However, I've seen grass and trees grow back quite nicely where an asphalt road has been torn up. So, it's not irreversible; food crops can grow again.
In the same way, we can encourage the growth of local crops (such as periwinkle where I am) that will serve as a better ground cover than grass. All we need to do is to have homeowners' associations declared terrorist groups.
1. The wall is a far way from being complete. When it is complete, it will not be a physical barrier. Go over to Free Republic and hear all the complaints about this. Many of them want a strong physical barrier with guard posts and minefields; others just want a good fence.
2. We're not stopping people from leaving the United States.
3. If you did LSD in the 1960s, the 2000s are the ultimate bad trip!
Because the biggest group opting out of public education are homeschooling parents, who are politically and legally activist about keeping the Board of Education away from their children.
Well, we could always do what Plato suggested in "The Republic" and restrict the training of thinking, reasoning, and creativity to the intellectual elite that is capable of the mental tasks required. Everyone else can study to be a rapper, a pro basketball player, or a football wife.
That seems to be the apparent course of American public education.
Would the extensive use of software games help students learn? I don't think so. Perhaps, instead, we should be paring down lessons. We should teach students how to use phonics instead of merely whole word recognition. We should have students write coherent sentences and paragraphs. We should make students learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide without a calculator. I would allow abacuses (or abaci, if you insist on Latin nominative plurals); others might not. We should use fewer bloated textbooks with multiple colors and sidebars.
Computers might help if the software was aimed in helping the fundamental skills at a pace where the student could learn. I don't see that coming soon. Too many students would merely go to the Internet and build their own custom shoes.
(The poster worked for a year plus as a substitute teacher in middle school and is accordingly jaded.)
The original story was told in the story "Answer" in the early 1950s by Frederic Brown in the pulps; I have the book, "Angels and Spaceships." (Dutton, 1954); the story is at http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm