I've got 50 karma to back it up. Don't worry about it.
I make up for my fundamentalism by being a raving Free-software fanatic and a lunatic libertarian who advocates the legalization of drugs. On slashdot, it all balanaces out.
Feel free to believe whatever you want, just don't call it science or I'll tell you how you should pray.
Sounds good, only I prefer I have the liberty to call it what I want as long as I don't impose any of it on you. In other words, we all leave each other alone, and we're good. It'd be nice if people could agree to that.
Happens every time I mention religion; don't worry about it. In fact, it just happened earlier this week; check my recent posting history.
Although it is a rather common view, and in no way to critique you at all, may I suggest, respectfully, to investigate further and deeper the meaning of "day" throughout the Bible?
Hehe. You sound scared I'm going to blow a fuse for the suggestion or something.:)
Been there, done that. Read my post real closely, and I basically said, "I'm pretty sure it's 6000 years, but if I'm wrong, no biggie." Implicit in that was "Yes, I've read all about the possible meanings of the word 'day,'" and "It's entirely possible I misunderstood."
I do know for a fact that there are some screwballs out there claiming all kinds of crazy extra meaning for ancient Hebrew words. Some people know just enough Hebrew and Greek to be dangerous. So to me, Genesis 1 looks like the intended context is literal (though possibly not telling us the full story). But if something else was meant, it just means I failed to get something that was probably supposed to be obvious. No biggie.
The big arguments about "day" take poetic prophetic passages and say, "See, 'day' doesn't always literally mean 'day'. Well, no it doesn't, but in general when it's not being used in prophecy, it does.
A very basic description is the use of "judgment day". There is no indication it means anything other than a certain, undefined time period.
Actually I tend to think of it as more of a "judgment instant," although I'm sure it will feel like it lasts for eternity. But I think we'll be outside of time itself at that point, so the distinctions begin to break down.
Bending over and prepping myself for the modslap for daring to speak about religion again...
Incidentally, only on Slashdot can you get modded up for obsessing over the use of "a" instead of "the." (Which is why I guess grammar nazis like me like the site...)
The difference between the headline and the first line is pretty vast, although the headline is clearly trying to hint at the truth rather than mislead, by using the word "a" intead of "the."
What the first line says is that a theory about how certain events played out after the big bang had been "confirmed." What the headline sounds like is "the Big Bang has finally been proved!" But note that it says "a Big Bang theory." Here's the writer of the headline trying to give himself an out. I cut him some slack; I'm sure he's working with a limited 80 column field or so. In other words, technically what he said was that "a theory about the Big Bang has been confirmed," but he made it just a little too sensationalistic, which is probably going to lead to a whole string of, "See? NASA has confirmed the creationists are _wrong_!" posts that have nothing to do with this. But since everyone likes to see a good tussle between the creationists and the more evolutionary-minded here on slashdot, I'm not even sure that's a bad thing.
Incidentally, I'm a fundamentalist, and I lean toward a literal understanding of Genesis and a 6000-year earth (although I'm not adamant about it and easily accept that I might be misunderstanding things), and even I accept that the "Big Bang" is probably a pretty good model for what happened. (I just think the timescale may be way off, and that we have a long way to go before we truly understand.) So for anyone who did misread the headline and thought you finally had complete triumph over all the creationist wackos, I hate to burst your bubble.:)
That freaked me out; I thought you had a link to prove it was really in there!
I knew it was not. I was politely offering dada21 the opportunity to check himself and discover that it was not. And he's already acknowledged he hadn't had his morning coffee and misspoke.
Because I dared to appear knowledgeable about the Bible. It's part of the cost here on slashdot. I'm automatically a troll. Because apparently anyone knowledgeable about the Bible is automatically a jerk trying to come in and force everyone to convert or die.
It's okay, I have a 50 karma. Or 49 now, or so. It'll be back up soon. I'm used to it.:)
Personally, I particularly enjoy challenging people when they claim the Bible says something it does not. But with dada21, it's simply good-natured ribbing.:)
I think what he meant was that handing computers to poor uneducated people in third world countries is not magic pixie dust that will somehow stop all the other crap they are enduring due to authoritarian governments that prevent them from doing simple things they need to do like farming, or are busy trying to exterminate them in genocidal wars, etc.
The poster would certainly agree that owning a computer taught him a lot. But he's trying to say we can't just throw cheap computers at the problem to make it better.
I would never fund anyone in another country, never again. When I was younger I funded some Ehtiopian charity group, and a few years later had the opportunity to visit Ethiopia. The charity group's office was luxurious and the people working for it lived a very nice life. They found an opportunity: take advantage of idiots in other countries who can't hold the charity accountable. The people the charity was meant to help received very little of the finance and support promised, and what little they did receive did not give them any hope for the future.
Again, the Bible offers a model here. In the Bible, a church would send support to another church in a foreign land during times of trouble (such as famine), through a trusted person (such as the apostle Paul). The book of Acts relates at least one such church to church contribution, and I'm pretty sure First or Second Corinthians (maybe both) has Paul speaking about how he made sure to take witnesses along with him on such endeavors so everyone could know for sure the money got to the poor people who needed it. Starting point for reading would be Acts 11:27-30.
The Bible offers the old fish cliche -- give a man a fish and he'll eat today, teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever.
Did you mean that cliche literally came from the Bible? I don't think so, but if you want to offer a reference, I'll check.
It does teach that charity from the church should proceed by the rule that "For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone will not work, neither let him eat." (II Thessalonians 3:10) I'd say that allows us to infer the same concept. But the saying itself did not originate there, to my knowledge.
Rather than rely on your doctor's advise for what is best for you, we have to wait for bureaucrats to accept a drug as safe.
Amazingly in this country, abortion is a private choice between a thirteen year old and her doctor, but my liberty to make my drug choices a private decision between me and my doctor is infringed.
Am I the only one who thinks it's ludicrous to protect a right to abortion and make marijuana illegal?
Unfortunately the government has the wool over your eyes a bit: inflation is a way for the government to tax you in a hidden way.
Since I am an anarcho-capitalist opposed to government, taxation, and manipulations of the market and the money supply, I think you may be mistaken about the government having the wool over my eyes on this.:) And perhaps about what I was saying, as well.
Of course I feel that all taxation is immoral and theft, so I can never support it or allow my representatives to feel that they are representing me in doing so...
However, I wish the taxers would at least consider indexing the brackets so that they float. I wouldn't trust them if they were inflation-indexed, because of course the government can lie about inflation. But they could set them based on percentage of the population, say persons making X number of standard deviations above or below the mean.
All banks that are part of the central banking system (the Federal Reserve) are required by the Federal Reserve to stick something called a money multiplier. I believe the current money multiplier is 12% or so, but it varies.
Actually the multiplier is the reciprocal of the minimum reserve. So in the case where the reserve is 12%, the multiplier is 1/.12 = 8.333. Which means that if all banks keep that reserve, 1 million real dollars will multiply into $8,333,333. Cool huh? (Not.)
I remembered the principle of how this worked from high school economics, but I actually had to work out the math myself (well, with Wikipedia's article on infinite series) to figure out that it was the reciprocal.
Thank you. I remember smelling something fishy when they taught me in high school economics that we could magically pick the right box of goods and determine a number to show what inflation was.
Question answered.
Now I regard the price of gold as a better indicator. Or the M3 money supply divided by U.S. gold holdings, but too late for that.
The employees take all the risk because they will be fired, not the CEO.
I work at a monstrously large company that fired its CEO a few years ago for screwing up big time. We are so much better off. I'm still here, and he's not. I've been here eight years.
You could do your business a favor by reading some basic book on macroeconomics.
You could do your personal financial situation a favor by checking out everything the parent poster has to say on the subject, as well as this book which I know he is going to point you to: http://www.mises.org/money.asp
I've pointed you before to Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter, which is a great way for salaried employees to start building the important perspective you're talking about. He's got an article about how to handle performance reviews that talks about basing your review on the profit you actually make for the company.
However, trust is very important for an economy. I. e. you wouldn't buy anything without some trust,
Right. You buy stuff when you have that kind of trust. So, for example, you check out the product for flaws before you buy it. And you buy from people that you know well enough to know they are selling something that isn't flawed, or with flaws disclosed.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, in addition to being a fundamentalist, I also support the legalization of pot. Thought you might find that cool.
I've got 50 karma to back it up. Don't worry about it.
I make up for my fundamentalism by being a raving Free-software fanatic and a lunatic libertarian who advocates the legalization of drugs. On slashdot, it all balanaces out.
Feel free to believe whatever you want, just don't call it science or I'll tell you how you should pray.
Sounds good, only I prefer I have the liberty to call it what I want as long as I don't impose any of it on you. In other words, we all leave each other alone, and we're good. It'd be nice if people could agree to that.
And where did Cain find that wife of his anyway?
Cain screwed his sister. And I imagine he had a good time doing it.
I just love you fundamentalists telling God what he can and can't do.
I love you atheists knee-jerking and noticing I'm religious and failing to read the entire post and realize I said exactly the opposite of that.
To the mods: why was the parent marked Flamebait?
Happens every time I mention religion; don't worry about it. In fact, it just happened earlier this week; check my recent posting history.
Although it is a rather common view, and in no way to critique you at all, may I suggest, respectfully, to investigate further and deeper the meaning of "day" throughout the Bible?
Hehe. You sound scared I'm going to blow a fuse for the suggestion or something. :)
Been there, done that. Read my post real closely, and I basically said, "I'm pretty sure it's 6000 years, but if I'm wrong, no biggie." Implicit in that was "Yes, I've read all about the possible meanings of the word 'day,'" and "It's entirely possible I misunderstood."
I do know for a fact that there are some screwballs out there claiming all kinds of crazy extra meaning for ancient Hebrew words. Some people know just enough Hebrew and Greek to be dangerous. So to me, Genesis 1 looks like the intended context is literal (though possibly not telling us the full story). But if something else was meant, it just means I failed to get something that was probably supposed to be obvious. No biggie.
The big arguments about "day" take poetic prophetic passages and say, "See, 'day' doesn't always literally mean 'day'. Well, no it doesn't, but in general when it's not being used in prophecy, it does.
A very basic description is the use of "judgment day". There is no indication it means anything other than a certain, undefined time period.
Actually I tend to think of it as more of a "judgment instant," although I'm sure it will feel like it lasts for eternity. But I think we'll be outside of time itself at that point, so the distinctions begin to break down.
Bending over and prepping myself for the modslap for daring to speak about religion again...
Incidentally, only on Slashdot can you get modded up for obsessing over the use of "a" instead of "the." (Which is why I guess grammar nazis like me like the site...)
The difference between the headline and the first line is pretty vast, although the headline is clearly trying to hint at the truth rather than mislead, by using the word "a" intead of "the."
What the first line says is that a theory about how certain events played out after the big bang had been "confirmed." What the headline sounds like is "the Big Bang has finally been proved!" But note that it says "a Big Bang theory." Here's the writer of the headline trying to give himself an out. I cut him some slack; I'm sure he's working with a limited 80 column field or so. In other words, technically what he said was that "a theory about the Big Bang has been confirmed," but he made it just a little too sensationalistic, which is probably going to lead to a whole string of, "See? NASA has confirmed the creationists are _wrong_!" posts that have nothing to do with this. But since everyone likes to see a good tussle between the creationists and the more evolutionary-minded here on slashdot, I'm not even sure that's a bad thing.
Incidentally, I'm a fundamentalist, and I lean toward a literal understanding of Genesis and a 6000-year earth (although I'm not adamant about it and easily accept that I might be misunderstanding things), and even I accept that the "Big Bang" is probably a pretty good model for what happened. (I just think the timescale may be way off, and that we have a long way to go before we truly understand.) So for anyone who did misread the headline and thought you finally had complete triumph over all the creationist wackos, I hate to burst your bubble. :)
Does anyone have any thoughts to how we can facilitate contract acceptance for transactions where we can't sign it?
Cryptographic signatures seem like they might do the trick, though you might need to have them registered somewhere to prove your identity.
That freaked me out; I thought you had a link to prove it was really in there!
I knew it was not. I was politely offering dada21 the opportunity to check himself and discover that it was not. And he's already acknowledged he hadn't had his morning coffee and misspoke.
Because I dared to appear knowledgeable about the Bible. It's part of the cost here on slashdot. I'm automatically a troll. Because apparently anyone knowledgeable about the Bible is automatically a jerk trying to come in and force everyone to convert or die.
It's okay, I have a 50 karma. Or 49 now, or so. It'll be back up soon. I'm used to it. :)
I hear it done both ways, frequently.
Personally, I particularly enjoy challenging people when they claim the Bible says something it does not. But with dada21, it's simply good-natured ribbing. :)
I think what he meant was that handing computers to poor uneducated people in third world countries is not magic pixie dust that will somehow stop all the other crap they are enduring due to authoritarian governments that prevent them from doing simple things they need to do like farming, or are busy trying to exterminate them in genocidal wars, etc.
The poster would certainly agree that owning a computer taught him a lot. But he's trying to say we can't just throw cheap computers at the problem to make it better.
I would never fund anyone in another country, never again. When I was younger I funded some Ehtiopian charity group, and a few years later had the opportunity to visit Ethiopia. The charity group's office was luxurious and the people working for it lived a very nice life. They found an opportunity: take advantage of idiots in other countries who can't hold the charity accountable. The people the charity was meant to help received very little of the finance and support promised, and what little they did receive did not give them any hope for the future.
Again, the Bible offers a model here. In the Bible, a church would send support to another church in a foreign land during times of trouble (such as famine), through a trusted person (such as the apostle Paul). The book of Acts relates at least one such church to church contribution, and I'm pretty sure First or Second Corinthians (maybe both) has Paul speaking about how he made sure to take witnesses along with him on such endeavors so everyone could know for sure the money got to the poor people who needed it. Starting point for reading would be Acts 11:27-30.
The Bible offers the old fish cliche -- give a man a fish and he'll eat today, teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever.
Did you mean that cliche literally came from the Bible? I don't think so, but if you want to offer a reference, I'll check.
It does teach that charity from the church should proceed by the rule that "For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone will not work, neither let him eat." (II Thessalonians 3:10) I'd say that allows us to infer the same concept. But the saying itself did not originate there, to my knowledge.
Rather than rely on your doctor's advise for what is best for you, we have to wait for bureaucrats to accept a drug as safe.
Amazingly in this country, abortion is a private choice between a thirteen year old and her doctor, but my liberty to make my drug choices a private decision between me and my doctor is infringed.
Am I the only one who thinks it's ludicrous to protect a right to abortion and make marijuana illegal?
Unfortunately the government has the wool over your eyes a bit: inflation is a way for the government to tax you in a hidden way.
Since I am an anarcho-capitalist opposed to government, taxation, and manipulations of the market and the money supply, I think you may be mistaken about the government having the wool over my eyes on this. :) And perhaps about what I was saying, as well.
Of course I feel that all taxation is immoral and theft, so I can never support it or allow my representatives to feel that they are representing me in doing so ...
However, I wish the taxers would at least consider indexing the brackets so that they float. I wouldn't trust them if they were inflation-indexed, because of course the government can lie about inflation. But they could set them based on percentage of the population, say persons making X number of standard deviations above or below the mean.
Of course, the flat tax would be even better.
All banks that are part of the central banking system (the Federal Reserve) are required by the Federal Reserve to stick something called a money multiplier. I believe the current money multiplier is 12% or so, but it varies.
Actually the multiplier is the reciprocal of the minimum reserve. So in the case where the reserve is 12%, the multiplier is 1/.12 = 8.333. Which means that if all banks keep that reserve, 1 million real dollars will multiply into $8,333,333. Cool huh? (Not.)
I remembered the principle of how this worked from high school economics, but I actually had to work out the math myself (well, with Wikipedia's article on infinite series) to figure out that it was the reciprocal.
Thank you. I remember smelling something fishy when they taught me in high school economics that we could magically pick the right box of goods and determine a number to show what inflation was.
Question answered.
Now I regard the price of gold as a better indicator. Or the M3 money supply divided by U.S. gold holdings, but too late for that.
The employees take all the risk because they will be fired, not the CEO.
I work at a monstrously large company that fired its CEO a few years ago for screwing up big time. We are so much better off. I'm still here, and he's not. I've been here eight years.
You could do your business a favor by reading some basic book on macroeconomics.
You could do your personal financial situation a favor by checking out everything the parent poster has to say on the subject, as well as this book which I know he is going to point you to: http://www.mises.org/money.asp
I've pointed you before to Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter, which is a great way for salaried employees to start building the important perspective you're talking about. He's got an article about how to handle performance reviews that talks about basing your review on the profit you actually make for the company.
That's why there are companies like Western Union, Paypal and banks. These entities are under the rule of law, in which you trust.
I most certainly do not.
However, trust is very important for an economy. I. e. you wouldn't buy anything without some trust,
Right. You buy stuff when you have that kind of trust. So, for example, you check out the product for flaws before you buy it. And you buy from people that you know well enough to know they are selling something that isn't flawed, or with flaws disclosed.