You are right, I don't have any proof you are not God. Therefore it is possible that you are.
Nevertheless you seem to have no problem arguing with me, so I conclude that you do not consider the possibility that I am God in any practically meaningful way.
But people, scientists specifically, accept the existing of unobserved, unmeasured and thus unproven theories.
Not at all. Scientists will always dismiss a theory that does not explain their observations better than everything else. You have to present an observation that contradicts other theories, or demonstrate that your theory explains all currently known observation in a more simple/generalized way. If there is an observation that is predicted by your theory but not others, someone has to perform an experiment that would determine which prediction is correct -- this is the closest thing to a "proof" that science can use. Everything beyond that is an idle speculation, and religion falls completely into that range as long as its relationship to scientific method is concerned.
Scientists used strings and dark matter because it explains other observed but unexplained phenomena.
"Observed" does not mean "seen with a telescope". "Dark matter" is one of possible explanations of some observed phenomena. It's a hypothesis, and not even a very detailed one, that basically states that there is more matter in the Universe than what we can reliably measure with simple methods that we currently use. The alternatives are many, and they all are much more complex -- such as, that laws of physics are not exactly the same as we know, what is, though also possible, not nearly as simple. Also no one writes books that describe how hard a husband is allowed to beat his wife (or even how to navigate a spaceship) based on the existence of dark matter.
Eventually dark matter was "observed", or at least it's effect have been measured.
No. "Dark matter" hypothesis was initially proposed when an observation of its possible effect was made in the first place. There were subsequent observations consistent with this hypothesis, however at this point there is not enough both theories and observed data to make clear conclusions, so it can be at best seen as an area of ongoing research.
Strings are still a matter of debate.
There is no "debate". There are no two theoretical physicists in a room perpetually yelling at each other stating their belief or disbelief in string theory or inventing various fallacious "proofs" that then are instantly rebutted by the other side. It is accepted that string theory is consistent with known observations. It's also accepted that string theory is not much better than other possible alternatives, and that it's not yet feasible to perform an experiment that can invalidate it or its alternatives, so again, it's an area of ongoing research. Better yet, since so far nothing anywhere outside of a small area of physics is actually dependent on string theory being valid or invalid, it has very little effect on anything despite its fundamental nature.
In the same way God serves as a way to explain existential issues such as life, the universe and everything. Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?
By "Why", of course, you don't actually mean "why" (then the answer is trivial) but "for what purpose". This already implies that someone placed you in the world with a particular goal. And it's a meaningless question if such a person does not exist. It's not unlike the question "For what purpose Scandinavia is shaped like a penis, and India is shaped like a breast?" -- despite the wide range of sarcastic answers that such a question can provoke.
If your question is "what goals should I pursue in my life", then I am sure, you are a part of some society that already made your ears bleed on various occasions with frequent advices on that matter -- supernatural beings are quite irrelevant to this.
1. Web server plays no role in data processing, it's a part of interface that implements HTTP protocol, passes requests between backends and clients, and manages resources. In no way it implements data model or logic behind the scripts and backends.
2. Database DOES NOT IMPLEMENT DATA MODEL OF THE APPLICATION. It implements persistent storage model of the application (described in SQL) that is not the same as data model -- a model that is usually more complex, and is implemented in a much more sophisticated language.
3. "View" is presentation of interface over HTTP through HTML(and CSS/Javascript/...) pages and requests produced by those pages through forms and Javascript. What browser does with them is not a part of application running on the server, it's another application that operated on "view" and implements translation between HTTP and GUI. Scripts that it runs are supposed to be very limited in scope, and are treated as untrusted by everything outside of this GUI.
I am sick and tired of people who develop their "software" while believing that they can have data model of their application identical to either GUI structure or database. They always get surprised when they discover fundamental incompatibility between those models and the very purpose of their application -- what is always the case unless the application is a phonebook.
Language for client scripts is standardized not based on its convenience for web site developer. It has to be implemented in all clients, and all implementations have to provide clear separation of actions that happen within interface handled by this language's implementation, an anything that affect client platform's security. More things to implement means more incompatibilities and security holes, so standards have to limit the amount of things to implement and clearly provide limits to their functionality. Microsoft tried to break this principle with ActiveX use in its "web technologies", and ended up destroying compatibility and security even within its own product lines.
2. "Model-view-controller" is a misnomer.
Properly it should be called "model-view", there is no "controller". Internal representation of data the program operates on is the "model". Interface between program and everything outside provides "view". Program itself would exist regardless of someone calling it "controller" or not, because without a program nothing would be there to implement model, view, and their relationship, so their description would not be applicable to anything at all. No other term specifies both design principle and simultaneously treats the mechanism that implements it as a component of the principle -- it's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and Z axis.
You also have no proof that I am not God. So what?
One does not need a proof of non-existence of things that never were in any form observed. In fact, God is the single entity that ever was "defended" by this kind of argument -- not even religious people dare to apply it anywhere else in their lives.
And since there is no way to determine if it is happening, there is absolutely no point considering its possibility. Otherwise nothing excludes another equally pointless alternative, solipsism.
There is a point analyzing things when there is some evidence of them. Otherwise one would have to spend infinite amount of time inventing and imagining all imaginable crap.
I know nothing about God. I also don't know anyone who knows anything about God. When no one knows anything about some entity, and no one can propose a way to get any verifiable knowledge about it, a reasonable conclusion is that the entity does not exist in reality.
I know some people's beliefs about God, and I find those beliefs to be unwarranted, stupid and harmful, for the above mentioned reason. Therefore my signature can be taken both figuratively and literally.
I tried to run it on XO under wine, and it looks like an example how not to make a game for XO -- OpenGL used for everything, even in 2D side-view mode, eye-candy transitions that remain enabled in low-graphics mode, and, of course, the fact that you need Wine to run it.
XO has no 3D acceleration, and even though it can use software rendering, game should either use 2D graphics only, or assume that it will have very slow rendering speed. It's possible to do polygon drawing with simple 3D projection/occlusion in software for the purpose of drawing mechanisms like ones in this game, however just passing things to OpenGL and expecting hardware to do the right thing won't work.
I am not a fan of Flash, however I have not seen any problems with Flash on Linux since they ended the enormous version lag that broken some sites when Windows hd flash 8 and Linux port stopped development at 7. Flash on Linux is a massive resource eater, has idiotic installation procedure, often has to be updated because of security bugs, however it has exactly the same problems on Windows. It is more crappy and unfixable than most Linux software, however this says more about the level of quality that is considered acceptable on Windows rather than about any deficiencies specific to a Linux port.
As for Youtube, why would a Linux user want to use their flash-based player? Install latest version of clive, mplayer and xclip, and run this script after selecting or copying Youtube URL:
#!/bin/sh cd "$HOME" cd Desktop 2>/dev/null xterm -bg "#ffffff" -fg "#000000" -cr "#800000" -ah -fa "DejaVu Sans Mono" -fs 14 -g 80x6 -T "Video Download" \ -e sh -c \ 'xclip -o | clive "--player=mplayer -fs %i" --play=src --mask=custom'
(assign it to some panel launcher or menu in your desktop environent).
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both reality and theory. There are actually multiple points or levels to this.
1. On what "determinism" is.
Apparently for some people "determinism" is possibility to make an absolutely precise prediction of the outcome of any process (as measured by us) based of perfect knowledge of starting conditions (assumed to be possible also in the form that can be measured). This is our intuitive understanding of the Universe that has neither random processes nor some nebulous supernatural forces that mess with everything without being perceivable or predictable. With this definition of "determinism", it's easy to conclude that based on our observations Universe is not "ituitively deterministic".
The problem is, this answer says nothing about what it really is, and apparently some people make the conclusion that there is "something" that contains information describing everything precisely but hides this information from all possible observers or arbitrarily affects it. This is not a reasonable assumption -- a much more simple explanation is that there is true randomness in the world, so an observer, no matter how thorough, can not predict all outcomes in any way other than as a set of probabilities. "Hidden" information does not have to exist -- not unless something completely extraneous has to be present in the picture such as "intuitively omniscient" god(s), "destiny", ability of simple objects to exhibit consciousness in the same form as our complex brains do, etc.
Better yet, it turns out that as long as we change the definition of "determinism" to being able to precisely predict probabilities, we can see that in this definition "deterministic" view is actually cosistent with observations, and therefore can be used as a foundation of a scientific theory. The other possibility is, of course, some massive supernatural system manipulating reality behind the scenes, however this is unnecesarily complex, and contributes nothing to our understanding of the world, being yet another instance of "God did this!" explanation.
2. On probability in quantum mechanics.
When quantum mechanics describes everything in reality through functions that determine probabilities, it makes a claim so fundamental, it does not have to derive it from our intuitively familiar "understanding" of nature. Our "intuitive understanding" is less fundamental, and therefore all that is matter is theory's predictions' consistency with reality.
There is nothing unreasonable about this idea: we can take any system/part of the universe, describe it probablistically, and get correct probablistic description of outcome of any process in it as long as we know the starting conditions (or distribution of their probabilities), yet whenever we need to describe a larger system, to be absolutely precise we have to expand the original probablistic model to a larger system (that includes any equipment used for measurement and observation). It sounds weird, however it's not too difficult to understand that as long as we are dealing with large systems that produce few very likely outcomes, we can make valid "intuitive" approximation of only taking into account those likely outcomes.
It does fly in the face of seeing "intuitive" view of Universe as something that can be described in a non-probablistic manner, however counterintuitive is not the same as wrong -- it only means that our intuitive understanding of nature was formed based on things that don't look probablistic. What we already know, is correct because this is how things look at macroscopic scale. Had anyone thought, what would it take to perform a valid Schroedinger's cat experiment in reality -- that is, to make a box so opaque or isolated from everything, that it would be truly impossible (not merely technically infeasible) to determine what happened inside by passive observation without opening it? This is how much would be required to produce a truly counterintuitive macroscopic outcome.
Oh yeah, "occupied". Baltic countries had their brief "independence" after WWI, revolution and civil war in Russia, after centuries of membership in -- guess what? -- Russian Empire. By definitions like this Moscow is now occupied by Ukraine.
Obviously, this is not taught to proud American patriots now.
You win. Your inexorable logic and firm grasp of history have convinced me that the citizens of Russia's smaller neighbors have no reason to be alarmed; that being occupied by the Soviet Union was something akin to living in Disneyland for 50 years;
You sound exactly like a person who would tell me that I am currently in Mexico occupied by US (California).
and that all this has been covered up by an anti-Russian conspiracy comprised of Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, the Associated Press
Take into account that for half a century a large part of US culture was based entirely on hostility toward USSR. Would you expect your media, that lives or dies by having access to government officials ahead of competing news outlets, to actually tell you the truth when it's not convenient for American politicians and their corporate sponsors/masters? Didn't war in Iraq teach you anything about quality of information you get from your press when government finds it convenient to lie? Or are you so dumb, you can't put those two propaganda campaigns together?
and every other media outlet except for Russia's state-owned ones. Well played, comrade!
I don't need Russian press to tell me what I have or have not seen when I lived in USSR. As opposed to Americans, I do not trust opinions of authorities, media and celebrities above my own eyes and ears.
There's a lot of open-source software that manages to be good enough to encourage people to use it as their main platform (anything built on Java for example).
"Cutting edge" in development tools is now "how to make something that allows a monkey to write shitty software" and "how to support a terribly mis-designed infrastructure product that never should've been invented in the first place". To write decent software "cutting edge" such as MS Development Studio or Eclipse is useless cruft.
What is funny, this DirectX implementation runs on top of -- guess what? -- OpenGL. And often outperforms actual Microsoft DirectX implementation.... and I just told guys from/b/ to keep their memes out of Slashdot, so I can't use "lulz" and "epic fail" without sounding like a hypocrite. Damn.
I'm no fan of US politics either if you wanna know. In fact, narrow minded people like you who separate the world into America and Russia are the reason conflicts like that occur.
My opinions about Baltic states' governments would be absolutely irrelevant if it wasn't based on their actions. The fact is, it's they promote a kind of ethnic retaliation against Russians who live in those countries, and make meaningless but loud accusations toward Russia every time their American masters give them a cue. That is hostile, unwarranted and dishonorable, and my (or anyone's) opinion changes nothing about this fact. At no point they dare to accuse Germany (that actually occupied them and brought nothing but harm, death and destruction) or US (that is using them as expendable "allies" in messing with both Russia and EU).
It's every russian's ultimate goal to hate America and all the other western civilized countries that according to you suck up to it.
I live in US since 1993 -- moved there after graduation (there were no decent technical jobs anywhere in xUSSR at that point) and ended up working on a long-term projects, so moving away out of merely disliking the government was impractical. Not being a politician I can easily live in a country ruled by the government that I hate as long as it does not shoot at me, however over all this time at no point my opinion of US government managed to improve -- it went further and further downhill. If you think, US is not being run by the filthiest scum that can be found anywhere in the world outside of prisons and mental hospitals, you are deluding yourself.
1. You have studied mostly things applicable to the management. Who in his right mind places an intern into a management position??? 3. If someone is crazy enough to hire a "guest manager" for three months, why deal with massive amount of bureaucracy with immigration process when there are plenty of educated foreigners right under his nose in American universities? 3. Why are you so eager to have internship in US? It's three months, nothing important can be done in three months anyway. Also take into account that US is nothing like the image it projects in its propaganda and movies.
My opinion is shared by hundreds of millions of people -- if we are scary loonies, you should better hide under the bed and take a TV in there, so you can watch Fox News and CNN regurgitating your beliefs.
Poland had Western Belarus and Western Ukraine territories, that USSR taken over at that time. They are still parts of Belarus and Ukraine, and even modern Poland doesn't dare to claim that they were "occupied" or ever were supposed to belong to Poland in the first place.
Killing prisoners of that war was a stupid and uncivilized act, however in no way it was supposed to either help or hurt Germany -- Poland would be taken over by Germany either way, and the last thing USSR wanted is Nazi in Lvov and Grodno. Soon enough it was a moot point because Germany attacked USSR anyway, and Nazi quickly outdid NKVD in each and every kind of cruelty that it practiced. Yet now Polish politicians seem to love Germany and hate Russia.
I'm guessing on the list of countries invaded and occupied for a half-century by the oppressive Stalinist USSR? Seriously, it *surprises* you that these countries aren't crazy about the idea of a newly militaristic Russia invading its neighbors?
USSR ceased to be Stalinist in 1956. That's 35 out of 51 years of non-Stalinist USSR that apparently you know nothing about.
I don't get it. Please explain to me how "sucking up to the U.S." and/or "taking political potshots at Russia" are crimes.
Loud proclaimation of lies in exchange for money and petty harassment of people out of hatred toward their country or ethnicity, or glorification of Nazi are usually not crimes in themselves, even though in some places they are, and for a good reason. Nevertheless they undermine one's credibility everywhere.
You ever notice how there are some people doggedly determined to interpret the world around them in a certain way, reality be damned? If not, you haven't looked in a mirror lately, buddy.
I am sure, you don't think that what you wrote actually applies to yourself. Go, listen to more American propaganda workers, to make yourself more confident in your worldview that was entirely manufactured by them. After all, popular kids do that, so you should, too -- right?
They have done pretty well for themselves after regaining independence and clearly want to avoid becoming part of Russia's sphere of influence. And they did it by allying with whomever has the military capabilities to oppose the Russians - currently the US and Nazi Germany during WW2.
They are tiny, microscopic country, so they can completely live off "assistance" that would be a pocket change for any "real" country or international entity, be it US, EU or, say, India. Any actual economic development would be a bonus.
but you have to realize that many of those volunteers were not fighting alongside the Nazis was not because they supported the SS ideology. They did it because they needed an ally against Soviet Russia in order to maintain their existence as an independent state, not because they were Nazis. This is part of why the Estonians may celebrate Nazi volunteers - not because they were "better Nazi than Germans" as you said, but because they fought against the Russians (and thus for independence).
That would be like joining Al Qaeda to fight American TV censorship. One has to be stupid to make this choice in 1940's, and be completely out of his mind to see it as a great accomplishment now.
War started in 1939. Nazi entered Estonia in 1941. The war lasted until 1945.
1941 certainly was at the beginning of the war.
Also Russians had absolutely nothing to do with occupation of Poland, and WWII had absolutely nothing to do with USSR taking over Baltic countries -- if anything, USSR tried to keep itself out of it as much as possible until Nazi finally attacked it.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right, I don't have any proof you are not God. Therefore it is possible that you are.
Nevertheless you seem to have no problem arguing with me, so I conclude that you do not consider the possibility that I am God in any practically meaningful way.
But people, scientists specifically, accept the existing of unobserved, unmeasured and thus unproven theories.
Not at all. Scientists will always dismiss a theory that does not explain their observations better than everything else. You have to present an observation that contradicts other theories, or demonstrate that your theory explains all currently known observation in a more simple/generalized way. If there is an observation that is predicted by your theory but not others, someone has to perform an experiment that would determine which prediction is correct -- this is the closest thing to a "proof" that science can use. Everything beyond that is an idle speculation, and religion falls completely into that range as long as its relationship to scientific method is concerned.
Scientists used strings and dark matter because it explains other observed but unexplained phenomena.
"Observed" does not mean "seen with a telescope". "Dark matter" is one of possible explanations of some observed phenomena. It's a hypothesis, and not even a very detailed one, that basically states that there is more matter in the Universe than what we can reliably measure with simple methods that we currently use. The alternatives are many, and they all are much more complex -- such as, that laws of physics are not exactly the same as we know, what is, though also possible, not nearly as simple. Also no one writes books that describe how hard a husband is allowed to beat his wife (or even how to navigate a spaceship) based on the existence of dark matter.
Eventually dark matter was "observed", or at least it's effect have been measured.
No. "Dark matter" hypothesis was initially proposed when an observation of its possible effect was made in the first place. There were subsequent observations consistent with this hypothesis, however at this point there is not enough both theories and observed data to make clear conclusions, so it can be at best seen as an area of ongoing research.
Strings are still a matter of debate.
There is no "debate". There are no two theoretical physicists in a room perpetually yelling at each other stating their belief or disbelief in string theory or inventing various fallacious "proofs" that then are instantly rebutted by the other side. It is accepted that string theory is consistent with known observations. It's also accepted that string theory is not much better than other possible alternatives, and that it's not yet feasible to perform an experiment that can invalidate it or its alternatives, so again, it's an area of ongoing research. Better yet, since so far nothing anywhere outside of a small area of physics is actually dependent on string theory being valid or invalid, it has very little effect on anything despite its fundamental nature.
In the same way God serves as a way to explain existential issues such as life, the universe and everything. Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?
By "Why", of course, you don't actually mean "why" (then the answer is trivial) but "for what purpose". This already implies that someone placed you in the world with a particular goal. And it's a meaningless question if such a person does not exist. It's not unlike the question "For what purpose Scandinavia is shaped like a penis, and India is shaped like a breast?" -- despite the wide range of sarcastic answers that such a question can provoke.
If your question is "what goals should I pursue in my life", then I am sure, you are a part of some society that already made your ears bleed on various occasions with frequent advices on that matter -- supernatural beings are quite irrelevant to this.
No.
1. Web server plays no role in data processing, it's a part of interface that implements HTTP protocol, passes requests between backends and clients, and manages resources. In no way it implements data model or logic behind the scripts and backends.
2. Database DOES NOT IMPLEMENT DATA MODEL OF THE APPLICATION. It implements persistent storage model of the application (described in SQL) that is not the same as data model -- a model that is usually more complex, and is implemented in a much more sophisticated language.
3. "View" is presentation of interface over HTTP through HTML(and CSS/Javascript/...) pages and requests produced by those pages through forms and Javascript. What browser does with them is not a part of application running on the server, it's another application that operated on "view" and implements translation between HTTP and GUI. Scripts that it runs are supposed to be very limited in scope, and are treated as untrusted by everything outside of this GUI.
I am sick and tired of people who develop their "software" while believing that they can have data model of their application identical to either GUI structure or database. They always get surprised when they discover fundamental incompatibility between those models and the very purpose of their application -- what is always the case unless the application is a phonebook.
1. The author is stupid.
Language for client scripts is standardized not based on its convenience for web site developer. It has to be implemented in all clients, and all implementations have to provide clear separation of actions that happen within interface handled by this language's implementation, an anything that affect client platform's security. More things to implement means more incompatibilities and security holes, so standards have to limit the amount of things to implement and clearly provide limits to their functionality. Microsoft tried to break this principle with ActiveX use in its "web technologies", and ended up destroying compatibility and security even within its own product lines.
2. "Model-view-controller" is a misnomer.
Properly it should be called "model-view", there is no "controller". Internal representation of data the program operates on is the "model". Interface between program and everything outside provides "view". Program itself would exist regardless of someone calling it "controller" or not, because without a program nothing would be there to implement model, view, and their relationship, so their description would not be applicable to anything at all. No other term specifies both design principle and simultaneously treats the mechanism that implements it as a component of the principle -- it's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and Z axis.
You also have no proof that I am not God. So what?
One does not need a proof of non-existence of things that never were in any form observed. In fact, God is the single entity that ever was "defended" by this kind of argument -- not even religious people dare to apply it anywhere else in their lives.
And since there is no way to determine if it is happening, there is absolutely no point considering its possibility. Otherwise nothing excludes another equally pointless alternative, solipsism.
There is a point analyzing things when there is some evidence of them. Otherwise one would have to spend infinite amount of time inventing and imagining all imaginable crap.
I know nothing about God. I also don't know anyone who knows anything about God. When no one knows anything about some entity, and no one can propose a way to get any verifiable knowledge about it, a reasonable conclusion is that the entity does not exist in reality.
I know some people's beliefs about God, and I find those beliefs to be unwarranted, stupid and harmful, for the above mentioned reason. Therefore my signature can be taken both figuratively and literally.
I tried to run it on XO under wine, and it looks like an example how not to make a game for XO -- OpenGL used for everything, even in 2D side-view mode, eye-candy transitions that remain enabled in low-graphics mode, and, of course, the fact that you need Wine to run it.
XO has no 3D acceleration, and even though it can use software rendering, game should either use 2D graphics only, or assume that it will have very slow rendering speed. It's possible to do polygon drawing with simple 3D projection/occlusion in software for the purpose of drawing mechanisms like ones in this game, however just passing things to OpenGL and expecting hardware to do the right thing won't work.
I am not a fan of Flash, however I have not seen any problems with Flash on Linux since they ended the enormous version lag that broken some sites when Windows hd flash 8 and Linux port stopped development at 7. Flash on Linux is a massive resource eater, has idiotic installation procedure, often has to be updated because of security bugs, however it has exactly the same problems on Windows. It is more crappy and unfixable than most Linux software, however this says more about the level of quality that is considered acceptable on Windows rather than about any deficiencies specific to a Linux port.
As for Youtube, why would a Linux user want to use their flash-based player? Install latest version of clive, mplayer and xclip, and run this script after selecting or copying Youtube URL:
#!/bin/sh
cd "$HOME"
cd Desktop 2>/dev/null
xterm -bg "#ffffff" -fg "#000000" -cr "#800000" -ah -fa "DejaVu Sans Mono" -fs 14 -g 80x6 -T "Video Download" \
-e sh -c \
'xclip -o | clive "--player=mplayer -fs %i" --play=src --mask=custom'
(assign it to some panel launcher or menu in your desktop environent).
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both reality and theory. There are actually multiple points or levels to this.
1. On what "determinism" is.
Apparently for some people "determinism" is possibility to make an absolutely precise prediction of the outcome of any process (as measured by us) based of perfect knowledge of starting conditions (assumed to be possible also in the form that can be measured). This is our intuitive understanding of the Universe that has neither random processes nor some nebulous supernatural forces that mess with everything without being perceivable or predictable. With this definition of "determinism", it's easy to conclude that based on our observations Universe is not "ituitively deterministic".
The problem is, this answer says nothing about what it really is, and apparently some people make the conclusion that there is "something" that contains information describing everything precisely but hides this information from all possible observers or arbitrarily affects it. This is not a reasonable assumption -- a much more simple explanation is that there is true randomness in the world, so an observer, no matter how thorough, can not predict all outcomes in any way other than as a set of probabilities. "Hidden" information does not have to exist -- not unless something completely extraneous has to be present in the picture such as "intuitively omniscient" god(s), "destiny", ability of simple objects to exhibit consciousness in the same form as our complex brains do, etc.
Better yet, it turns out that as long as we change the definition of "determinism" to being able to precisely predict probabilities, we can see that in this definition "deterministic" view is actually cosistent with observations, and therefore can be used as a foundation of a scientific theory. The other possibility is, of course, some massive supernatural system manipulating reality behind the scenes, however this is unnecesarily complex, and contributes nothing to our understanding of the world, being yet another instance of "God did this!" explanation.
2. On probability in quantum mechanics.
When quantum mechanics describes everything in reality through functions that determine probabilities, it makes a claim so fundamental, it does not have to derive it from our intuitively familiar "understanding" of nature. Our "intuitive understanding" is less fundamental, and therefore all that is matter is theory's predictions' consistency with reality.
There is nothing unreasonable about this idea: we can take any system/part of the universe, describe it probablistically, and get correct probablistic description of outcome of any process in it as long as we know the starting conditions (or distribution of their probabilities), yet whenever we need to describe a larger system, to be absolutely precise we have to expand the original probablistic model to a larger system (that includes any equipment used for measurement and observation). It sounds weird, however it's not too difficult to understand that as long as we are dealing with large systems that produce few very likely outcomes, we can make valid "intuitive" approximation of only taking into account those likely outcomes.
It does fly in the face of seeing "intuitive" view of Universe as something that can be described in a non-probablistic manner, however counterintuitive is not the same as wrong -- it only means that our intuitive understanding of nature was formed based on things that don't look probablistic. What we already know, is correct because this is how things look at macroscopic scale. Had anyone thought, what would it take to perform a valid Schroedinger's cat experiment in reality -- that is, to make a box so opaque or isolated from everything, that it would be truly impossible (not merely technically infeasible) to determine what happened inside by passive observation without opening it? This is how much would be required to produce a truly counterintuitive macroscopic outcome.
3. On free will.
This i
Oh yeah, "occupied". Baltic countries had their brief "independence" after WWI, revolution and civil war in Russia, after centuries of membership in -- guess what? -- Russian Empire. By definitions like this Moscow is now occupied by Ukraine.
Obviously, this is not taught to proud American patriots now.
You win. Your inexorable logic and firm grasp of history have convinced me that the citizens of Russia's smaller neighbors have no reason to be alarmed; that being occupied by the Soviet Union was something akin to living in Disneyland for 50 years;
You sound exactly like a person who would tell me that I am currently in Mexico occupied by US (California).
and that all this has been covered up by an anti-Russian conspiracy comprised of Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, the Associated Press
Take into account that for half a century a large part of US culture was based entirely on hostility toward USSR. Would you expect your media, that lives or dies by having access to government officials ahead of competing news outlets, to actually tell you the truth when it's not convenient for American politicians and their corporate sponsors/masters? Didn't war in Iraq teach you anything about quality of information you get from your press when government finds it convenient to lie? Or are you so dumb, you can't put those two propaganda campaigns together?
and every other media outlet except for Russia's state-owned ones. Well played, comrade!
I don't need Russian press to tell me what I have or have not seen when I lived in USSR. As opposed to Americans, I do not trust opinions of authorities, media and celebrities above my own eyes and ears.
Dammit! They could've made the first and the only laptop with SLI video card.
Seriously, why not just attach a carrying handle to a desktop and strap LCD monitor on the side?
There's a lot of open-source software that manages to be good enough to encourage people to use it as their main platform (anything built on Java for example).
Microsoft marketing people are getting creative.
"Cutting edge" in development tools is now "how to make something that allows a monkey to write shitty software" and "how to support a terribly mis-designed infrastructure product that never should've been invented in the first place". To write decent software "cutting edge" such as MS Development Studio or Eclipse is useless cruft.
What is funny, this DirectX implementation runs on top of -- guess what? -- OpenGL. And often outperforms actual Microsoft DirectX implementation. ... and I just told guys from /b/ to keep their memes out of Slashdot, so I can't use "lulz" and "epic fail" without sounding like a hypocrite. Damn.
gb2/b/
No 4chan memes on Slashdot, pls. -- or we will post the story of your DNS fortress.
I'm no fan of US politics either if you wanna know. In fact, narrow minded people like you who separate the world into America and Russia are the reason conflicts like that occur.
My opinions about Baltic states' governments would be absolutely irrelevant if it wasn't based on their actions. The fact is, it's they promote a kind of ethnic retaliation against Russians who live in those countries, and make meaningless but loud accusations toward Russia every time their American masters give them a cue. That is hostile, unwarranted and dishonorable, and my (or anyone's) opinion changes nothing about this fact. At no point they dare to accuse Germany (that actually occupied them and brought nothing but harm, death and destruction) or US (that is using them as expendable "allies" in messing with both Russia and EU).
It's every russian's ultimate goal to hate America and all the other western civilized countries that according to you suck up to it.
I live in US since 1993 -- moved there after graduation (there were no decent technical jobs anywhere in xUSSR at that point) and ended up working on a long-term projects, so moving away out of merely disliking the government was impractical. Not being a politician I can easily live in a country ruled by the government that I hate as long as it does not shoot at me, however over all this time at no point my opinion of US government managed to improve -- it went further and further downhill. If you think, US is not being run by the filthiest scum that can be found anywhere in the world outside of prisons and mental hospitals, you are deluding yourself.
1. You have studied mostly things applicable to the management. Who in his right mind places an intern into a management position???
3. If someone is crazy enough to hire a "guest manager" for three months, why deal with massive amount of bureaucracy with immigration process when there are plenty of educated foreigners right under his nose in American universities?
3. Why are you so eager to have internship in US? It's three months, nothing important can be done in three months anyway. Also take into account that US is nothing like the image it projects in its propaganda and movies.
My opinion is shared by hundreds of millions of people -- if we are scary loonies, you should better hide under the bed and take a TV in there, so you can watch Fox News and CNN regurgitating your beliefs.
Poland had Western Belarus and Western Ukraine territories, that USSR taken over at that time. They are still parts of Belarus and Ukraine, and even modern Poland doesn't dare to claim that they were "occupied" or ever were supposed to belong to Poland in the first place.
Killing prisoners of that war was a stupid and uncivilized act, however in no way it was supposed to either help or hurt Germany -- Poland would be taken over by Germany either way, and the last thing USSR wanted is Nazi in Lvov and Grodno. Soon enough it was a moot point because Germany attacked USSR anyway, and Nazi quickly outdid NKVD in each and every kind of cruelty that it practiced. Yet now Polish politicians seem to love Germany and hate Russia.
I'm guessing on the list of countries invaded and occupied for a half-century by the oppressive Stalinist USSR? Seriously, it *surprises* you that these countries aren't crazy about the idea of a newly militaristic Russia invading its neighbors?
USSR ceased to be Stalinist in 1956. That's 35 out of 51 years of non-Stalinist USSR that apparently you know nothing about.
I don't get it. Please explain to me how "sucking up to the U.S." and/or "taking political potshots at Russia" are crimes.
Loud proclaimation of lies in exchange for money and petty harassment of people out of hatred toward their country or ethnicity, or glorification of Nazi are usually not crimes in themselves, even though in some places they are, and for a good reason. Nevertheless they undermine one's credibility everywhere.
You ever notice how there are some people doggedly determined to interpret the world around them in a certain way, reality be damned? If not, you haven't looked in a mirror lately, buddy.
I am sure, you don't think that what you wrote actually applies to yourself. Go, listen to more American propaganda workers, to make yourself more confident in your worldview that was entirely manufactured by them. After all, popular kids do that, so you should, too -- right?
They have done pretty well for themselves after regaining independence and clearly want to avoid becoming part of Russia's sphere of influence. And they did it by allying with whomever has the military capabilities to oppose the Russians - currently the US and Nazi Germany during WW2.
They are tiny, microscopic country, so they can completely live off "assistance" that would be a pocket change for any "real" country or international entity, be it US, EU or, say, India. Any actual economic development would be a bonus.
but you have to realize that many of those volunteers were not fighting alongside the Nazis was not because they supported the SS ideology. They did it because they needed an ally against Soviet Russia in order to maintain their existence as an independent state, not because they were Nazis. This is part of why the Estonians may celebrate Nazi volunteers - not because they were "better Nazi than Germans" as you said, but because they fought against the Russians (and thus for independence).
That would be like joining Al Qaeda to fight American TV censorship. One has to be stupid to make this choice in 1940's, and be completely out of his mind to see it as a great accomplishment now.
Perhaps in Russia they teach the war started on June 22nd 1942 when Germans broke their alliance with you???
Oh, $deity, I didn't even notice that at first.
You think, Germany attacked USSR in 1942? 1942?
Go, kill yourself.
War started in 1939. Nazi entered Estonia in 1941. The war lasted until 1945.
1941 certainly was at the beginning of the war.
Also Russians had absolutely nothing to do with occupation of Poland, and WWII had absolutely nothing to do with USSR taking over Baltic countries -- if anything, USSR tried to keep itself out of it as much as possible until Nazi finally attacked it.
I don't think, Soviet Communists were fond of Wheaties in 1991.