It was dogmatic faith that Stalin used, not atheism. Absolute unquestioning faith in the communist dialectic.
Christianity demands obedience from its god, and so did Stalin's dogma. Dictators don't tolerate competition for loyalty. Unless that social group is aligned with them, they can expect to be persecuted.
But still, let's skip over atheism and get right to rationalism. All rationalists are atheists, but not all atheists are rationalists. I don't feel comfortable being aligned with people who believe in homeopathy and crystals, just because they don't believe in a god.
The religious have co-opted the word Atheist in the same way they have tainted the word 'theory', distorting the meaning to fit their own agenda. According to them atheists "believe in nothing, have no purpose, and are devoid of morality".
Okay, so I'm amoral. Morals are stupid. Evaluative reasoning is superior in all respects. "Does it hurt anyone else." "Is it good for you?" etc. etc. is so much better than "God says its wrong."
And lastly to address the claim about Columbine girl. Christian girl was shot for being Christian. Jock boy was shot for being a jock. Klebold and Harris confronted their victims about their outward expression of themselves. Klebold's family was religious, and in religious circles that makes him religious whether he got a say in the matter or not.
It's a nice thought, but even the big name publishers don't have any luck going over 9.99. That used to be the price for "premium" big budget titles, and now the app store won't even support that price.
When your income on a game doesn't even cover the expense of the hardware to develop it on, you miss every penny.
Our game, Roadkill Cafe, went on sale in July. Great reviews and terrible sales. At $2 the reviews said that the game was a bargain. People still didn't buy it. We lowered the price to a dollar, and still the sales sucked. In the meantime at least 1500 pirates downloaded it the weekend the crack came out.
The number of pirates is likely higher, because when we made the game free for a weekend two weeks ago, 20,000+ people downloaded but only half have ever submitted a high score. (We collect score, username, serial number and that's it). We don't attribute it to people staying off the grid though. It would seem to be a trend of Touch users not being online nearly as often as iPhone users.
Our total income on the game is around $600 now, for the work of 4 people. And only $250 of that is accessible because of the way apple breaks up the stores for payout.
I worked (through a contract company) at the Ontario Ministry of Health during the Y2K crunch, doing upgrades and support, handling a small team of guys. It was a decent place to work, but the waste is incredible. We were getting paid 18 to 20 bucks an hour, but the companies handling us were either 2 or 3 deep. And each one took a cut. One overheard phone call indicated that the top company in the food chain was getting over a hundred dollars an hour for some of us. And another guy who was getting paid directly was whining on the phone about only making 125 dollars an hour managing the operation... though none of us ever saw him lift a finger to actually manage anything. The managers we reported to were great though. So the contract companies took way too much money. That was issue number one. The other was that for the amount of cubicles they had filled, it sure didn't seem like there was enough work to keep everyone busy. And as government employees they get good pay and LOTS of vacation. And some people were getting paid WAAAY too much for what they were doing at work. Nothing like finding gigabytes of japanese teenagers pissing on things, and bestiality porn on a directors computer. They must have buried that little discovery because when I Googled him last he was still working there.
Of course, on the plus side, since I was one of the more experienced guys I tended to stick by the phone to manage and support the other team members, and got to read Slashdot all day between phone calls and running down to help when one of the guys ran into trouble.
Texas has no interest in educating students. Current development there is to take Neil Armstrong out of the textbooks, and put Rush Limbaugh in. And that's not a joke.
Creationists are pushing religion on Texas students, and when they win their opponents resign. Resigning doesn't make a point. It just opens up the positions for new Creationists to step in.
If you know a kid in school in Texas right now, help them, and move them to another state.
Not as fun as figuring out some massive kluge to do the job, but if it's a book that you can easily find used copies of just cut the binding off or remove the pages with a razor blade, and photograph them flat. Some of the ebook-torrent scans use that method. It destroys the book but makes for cleanly readable scans.
I'm going to have to look for that Nat'l Geo article because it sounds like hooey:P As an owner of snakes, and someone who has friends that keep 'hots' (venomous snakes), that story makes no sense. Most snakes would prefer to be left alone and won't actively chase you, but cobras and a few other species have been known to actively go after people in their territory. They will also react to sudden movements or scent cues instinctively. My boa constrictor is a very calm specimen, typical of the breed, but even the slightest hint of rodent scent and she will fling herself across the cage faster than you would expect. This feeding reaction is typical in all the species I've kept. I would not want to take that kind of risk with a snake that can kill you in minutes or hours. It's a common practice for showmen who use cobras in India to defang them (known as venomoids in herp circles) or to actually sew their mouths shut. The presence of a cobra in itself would likely be a deterrent to mice, so I wouldn't be surprised if they used one of those methods. But it would be insanity to let an intact cobra loose in ones house.
Out here on the opposite coast, another kind of weed is flourishing. Japanese Knotweed. The stuff grows insanely fast and spreads rhizomatically, so it's a bitch to kill. And the really sad thing is that when it's 8 feet tall and in blossom it must look like the catch of the day for the cops, because they keep flying over to check out the encroaching patch.
Well... no. Babies found in dumpsters prove that someone can abandon a baby. It doesn't prove that those babies were loved or will be loved in the future.
More accidents occur at or near home. Also, just how many tourists are killed by "terrorism" each year? I would bet that you have more chance of being killed by a triangular piece of toast through the eye than a terrorist attack.
Even if the tax break never equals 100% that money is now going to something the donating company supports, rather than into government coffers where it will be spent on things like Haliburton and male prostitutes. Now that the democrats are in power, what do they spend tax dollars on? Starbucks and rose colored glasses?
That works in an english or math class, but what about when it's a class about something technical? I was 10 years old when a teacher took me out of class to set up the Vic 20 the school had just purchased. I set it up for him, and then explained what he needed to do to teach the intro lesson plan, and he took the simple solution. He put me in front of two classrooms of kids and had me do the presentation. I didn't even bother taking computer class in high school because the teachers couldn't even edit batch files. *And I've never learned to program* I've just been an informed user.
Teachers should be at least up to date on the basic technologies that the students are expected to use outside school.
I haven't bought music since 2000, thanks to this lovely law. (Oops, one exception. I bought Jenny Owen Youngs CD from her website - directly from her, when it was self produced)
And I won't buy music again until it goes off the books.
Enjoy my levy, corporate assholes.
Too bad musicians let these guys represent them, when the trend is for the publishers to keep the money whatever way possible.
Games don't need to get shorter... story arcs do. Imagine if GTA 4, had 3 short character campaigns instead of one long one. I enjoyed the story, but never got around to finishing the game. A lot of games have been guilty of taking a story that's only worth a couple of hours and stretching it out to fit a 20 or 30 hour game. It's not necessary. But of course if a publisher sees that your game has more than one story, they're going to say "Let's package this up as individual games, and sell them at full price, even if they only have 5 to 7 hours of gameplay".
Don't forget "The 'Run!' Show", starring Jennifer Garner. More commonly known as "Alias", the show involved an agent who thought she worked for the CIA but probably didn't. But maybe she was being tricked by other people into thinking she didn't work for the CIA... blah blah blah. I wouldn't know what the true story arc is because I quickly tired of the "alarm goes off, Jennifer has to run now" that occured in every single episode. They were so set on the archetype that the "heroine" can't actually kill anyone that they didn't seem to have any way to provide her with depth or additional storylines.
The Canadian system seems to work okay, although somewhat bloated. The primary issue here now is a shortage of doctors. The reason being that there is so much money to be made south of the border that it would be crazy to stay if you're in it for the cash. There's no reason someone should end up 4000 dollars in debt just to set and wrap a broken arm. It's nuts!
A directed energy weapon, applied surreptitiously to the WBC, might be mistaken for a smiting from "God" and be inferred as a directive to stop their ways. Just a suggestion. A highly entertaining suggestion if YouTube footage is made available.
Americans don't even know what "left" is, because your right wing republicans are a bunch of fucking nuts who believe secret prisons, Jesus, and Homeland Security are the way to go. Your "leftist" democrats are a bunch of corporate shills, and are basically old republicans who discovered that rights for gays and minorities are okay.
People at this very moment are screaming that socializing health insurance will destroy the American health care system... which is actually just a bunch of hugely profitable HMOs deciding who gets to live and who gets to die. Yes, that's so much better. Why find common ground that's best for the public when you can get together mobs of people and storm the debates to disrupt them. American politics provides no end of entertainment to the rest of the world.
Anyway, back on track to the article. Whatever the content of the site of the complainant, it's good to see a law being revisited. If only laws were created with expiration dates of less than a generation. Make the politicians work for their money, and keep the legal system consistent with social development.
One of my neighbors has an interesting way of leaving his network open for use. You just have to agree with his point of view. He named his network for a dot-com that I'd never heard of. So I visited it last night. It turned out to be a fundamentalist islamic website that has a very low opinion of science, evolution, and atheists. So just for fun I figured I'd try and guess the key to his network. I debated whether to use "truth" or "allah" for my first attempt. I settled on 'truth'. Successful connection on first attempt. I almost wet myself laughing.
And then I disconnected. Because while I think the guy must be an utter moron, I don't intend to use his services for any nefarious purposes, including squishing him.
Slashdot Mirror
Home sapiens religiatushomophobius?
I just discovered Larry Craig!
It was dogmatic faith that Stalin used, not atheism.
Absolute unquestioning faith in the communist dialectic.
Christianity demands obedience from its god, and so did Stalin's dogma. Dictators don't tolerate competition for loyalty. Unless that social group is aligned with them, they can expect to be persecuted.
But still, let's skip over atheism and get right to rationalism. All rationalists are atheists, but not all atheists are rationalists. I don't feel comfortable being aligned with people who believe in homeopathy and crystals, just because they don't believe in a god.
The religious have co-opted the word Atheist in the same way they have tainted the word 'theory', distorting the meaning to fit their own agenda. According to them atheists "believe in nothing, have no purpose, and are devoid of morality".
Okay, so I'm amoral. Morals are stupid. Evaluative reasoning is superior in all respects. "Does it hurt anyone else." "Is it good for you?" etc. etc. is so much better than "God says its wrong."
And lastly to address the claim about Columbine girl. Christian girl was shot for being Christian. Jock boy was shot for being a jock. Klebold and Harris confronted their victims about their outward expression of themselves. Klebold's family was religious, and in religious circles that makes him religious whether he got a say in the matter or not.
It's a nice thought, but even the big name publishers don't have any luck going over 9.99.
That used to be the price for "premium" big budget titles, and now the app store won't even support that price.
When your income on a game doesn't even cover the expense of the hardware to develop it on, you miss every penny.
Our game, Roadkill Cafe, went on sale in July. Great reviews and terrible sales.
At $2 the reviews said that the game was a bargain. People still didn't buy it.
We lowered the price to a dollar, and still the sales sucked.
In the meantime at least 1500 pirates downloaded it the weekend the crack came out.
The number of pirates is likely higher, because when we made the game free for a weekend two weeks ago, 20,000+ people downloaded but only half have ever submitted a high score. (We collect score, username, serial number and that's it). We don't attribute it to people staying off the grid though. It would seem to be a trend of Touch users not being online nearly as often as iPhone users.
Our total income on the game is around $600 now, for the work of 4 people. And only $250 of that is accessible because of the way apple breaks up the stores for payout.
So yes, every $2 counts.
Do not antagonize the crazy Americans. They may send you Celine Dion.
It took us decades to get rid of her.
Signed,
Canada
I worked (through a contract company) at the Ontario Ministry of Health during the Y2K crunch, doing upgrades and support, handling a small team of guys.
It was a decent place to work, but the waste is incredible. We were getting paid 18 to 20 bucks an hour, but the companies handling us were either 2 or 3 deep. And each one took a cut.
One overheard phone call indicated that the top company in the food chain was getting over a hundred dollars an hour for some of us.
And another guy who was getting paid directly was whining on the phone about only making 125 dollars an hour managing the operation... though none of us ever saw him lift a finger to actually manage anything. The managers we reported to were great though.
So the contract companies took way too much money. That was issue number one.
The other was that for the amount of cubicles they had filled, it sure didn't seem like there was enough work to keep everyone busy. And as government employees they get good pay and LOTS of vacation.
And some people were getting paid WAAAY too much for what they were doing at work. Nothing like finding gigabytes of japanese teenagers pissing on things, and bestiality porn on a directors computer.
They must have buried that little discovery because when I Googled him last he was still working there.
Of course, on the plus side, since I was one of the more experienced guys I tended to stick by the phone to manage and support the other team members, and got to read Slashdot all day between phone calls and running down to help when one of the guys ran into trouble.
I wonder if I could get back on there.... :)
No, I'm Spartacus!
I'm suprised that wasn't a tag on the article.
I'm just glad it doesn't rain horses.
Woosh! Pop! :P
That's the sound of the joke passing right over your head, and then collapsing into a singularity.
Texas has no interest in educating students.
Current development there is to take Neil Armstrong out of the textbooks, and put Rush Limbaugh in.
And that's not a joke.
Creationists are pushing religion on Texas students, and when they win their opponents resign. Resigning doesn't make a point. It just opens up the positions for new Creationists to step in.
If you know a kid in school in Texas right now, help them, and move them to another state.
Not as fun as figuring out some massive kluge to do the job, but if it's a book that you can easily find used copies of just cut the binding off or remove the pages with a razor blade, and photograph them flat.
Some of the ebook-torrent scans use that method. It destroys the book but makes for cleanly readable scans.
They're very docile, and not a threat to life, but you wouldn't want to get bit by a fully grown adult. They can definitely leave a mark :)
I think I found the episode in question. "Hiss of Death".
Now to see if it's on out there as a torrent.
I too remember seeing video of a child playing with cobras, but the cobras were all 'muzzled' with thread through their mouths.
I'm going to have to look for that Nat'l Geo article because it sounds like hooey :P
As an owner of snakes, and someone who has friends that keep 'hots' (venomous snakes), that story makes no sense.
Most snakes would prefer to be left alone and won't actively chase you, but cobras and a few other species have been known to actively go after people in their territory. They will also react to sudden movements or scent cues instinctively.
My boa constrictor is a very calm specimen, typical of the breed, but even the slightest hint of rodent scent and she will fling herself across the cage faster than you would expect. This feeding reaction is typical in all the species I've kept. I would not want to take that kind of risk with a snake that can kill you in minutes or hours.
It's a common practice for showmen who use cobras in India to defang them (known as venomoids in herp circles) or to actually sew their mouths shut. The presence of a cobra in itself would likely be a deterrent to mice, so I wouldn't be surprised if they used one of those methods. But it would be insanity to let an intact cobra loose in ones house.
Out here on the opposite coast, another kind of weed is flourishing.
Japanese Knotweed. The stuff grows insanely fast and spreads rhizomatically, so it's a bitch to kill.
And the really sad thing is that when it's 8 feet tall and in blossom it must look like the catch of the day for the cops, because they keep flying over to check out the encroaching patch.
Well... no.
Babies found in dumpsters prove that someone can abandon a baby.
It doesn't prove that those babies were loved or will be loved in the future.
More accidents occur at or near home.
Also, just how many tourists are killed by "terrorism" each year?
I would bet that you have more chance of being killed by a triangular piece of toast through the eye than a terrorist attack.
Even if the tax break never equals 100% that money is now going to something the donating company supports, rather than into government coffers where it will be spent on things like Haliburton and male prostitutes.
Now that the democrats are in power, what do they spend tax dollars on? Starbucks and rose colored glasses?
That works in an english or math class, but what about when it's a class about something technical?
I was 10 years old when a teacher took me out of class to set up the Vic 20 the school had just purchased. I set it up for him, and then explained what he needed to do to teach the intro lesson plan, and he took the simple solution. He put me in front of two classrooms of kids and had me do the presentation.
I didn't even bother taking computer class in high school because the teachers couldn't even edit batch files.
*And I've never learned to program* I've just been an informed user.
Teachers should be at least up to date on the basic technologies that the students are expected to use outside school.
I haven't bought music since 2000, thanks to this lovely law. (Oops, one exception. I bought Jenny Owen Youngs CD from her website - directly from her, when it was self produced)
And I won't buy music again until it goes off the books.
Enjoy my levy, corporate assholes.
Too bad musicians let these guys represent them, when the trend is for the publishers to keep the money whatever way possible.
Games don't need to get shorter... story arcs do.
Imagine if GTA 4, had 3 short character campaigns instead of one long one.
I enjoyed the story, but never got around to finishing the game.
A lot of games have been guilty of taking a story that's only worth a couple of hours and stretching it out to fit a 20 or 30 hour game.
It's not necessary.
But of course if a publisher sees that your game has more than one story, they're going to say "Let's package this up as individual games, and sell them at full price, even if they only have 5 to 7 hours of gameplay".
Don't forget "The 'Run!' Show", starring Jennifer Garner.
More commonly known as "Alias", the show involved an agent who thought she worked for the CIA but probably didn't. But maybe she was being tricked by other people into thinking she didn't work for the CIA... blah blah blah.
I wouldn't know what the true story arc is because I quickly tired of the "alarm goes off, Jennifer has to run now" that occured in every single episode. They were so set on the archetype that the "heroine" can't actually kill anyone that they didn't seem to have any way to provide her with depth or additional storylines.
The Canadian system seems to work okay, although somewhat bloated. The primary issue here now is a shortage of doctors. The reason being that there is so much money to be made south of the border that it would be crazy to stay if you're in it for the cash.
There's no reason someone should end up 4000 dollars in debt just to set and wrap a broken arm. It's nuts!
A directed energy weapon, applied surreptitiously to the WBC, might be mistaken for a smiting from "God" and be inferred as a directive to stop their ways.
Just a suggestion.
A highly entertaining suggestion if YouTube footage is made available.
Ah, "leftie". You're so 1980.
Americans don't even know what "left" is, because your right wing republicans are a bunch of fucking nuts who believe secret prisons, Jesus, and Homeland Security are the way to go.
Your "leftist" democrats are a bunch of corporate shills, and are basically old republicans who discovered that rights for gays and minorities are okay.
People at this very moment are screaming that socializing health insurance will destroy the American health care system... which is actually just a bunch of hugely profitable HMOs deciding who gets to live and who gets to die. Yes, that's so much better. Why find common ground that's best for the public when you can get together mobs of people and storm the debates to disrupt them. American politics provides no end of entertainment to the rest of the world.
Anyway, back on track to the article. Whatever the content of the site of the complainant, it's good to see a law being revisited. If only laws were created with expiration dates of less than a generation. Make the politicians work for their money, and keep the legal system consistent with social development.
One of my neighbors has an interesting way of leaving his network open for use. You just have to agree with his point of view.
He named his network for a dot-com that I'd never heard of. So I visited it last night. It turned out to be a fundamentalist islamic website that has a very low opinion of science, evolution, and atheists.
So just for fun I figured I'd try and guess the key to his network.
I debated whether to use "truth" or "allah" for my first attempt.
I settled on 'truth'.
Successful connection on first attempt. I almost wet myself laughing.
And then I disconnected. Because while I think the guy must be an utter moron, I don't intend to use his services for any nefarious purposes, including squishing him.