I think we have to distinguish between 'life' as a concept and 'living organisms'. Life is an abstraction - it is the 'quality' that is common to all life processes, ie the processes that we know from living organisms.
The only thing that is reasonably clearly defined is 'living orgnism'; and as several posts have already pointed out, viruses can't quite be called living organisms; not because the don't display life, but because they are too simply to qualify as organisms. However, they do have life proceses - eg. they reproduce.
How can one define the concept 'life'? It is a difficult one - there are many that feel it would be too narrow to define it simply as the set of chemical processes that we know from biology; among other things, there is no sharp boundary between simple non-organic chemistry and 'life-chemistry'. There are some that define life as chemical evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_evolution) - this theory has the advantage that it can be generalised; all that is needed is a good generalisation of 'chemistry'.
You may say so, but in practise it is different: democracy simply means that you get to elect your leaders, who then governs in whichever way they like. It's not practical to have too finegrained a democracy, where every decision has to be voted on; even if the difficulties involved in arranging elections were overcome, there's still the matter of getting everybody (or indeed anybody) to take an interest in things.
In many ways I think a more pragmatic view of democracy is warranted: democracy is simply a tool for selecting leaders, the purpose of which is to counteract the tendency towards the corruption that seems to develop when leaders are not held accountable for their beahviour. But of course, democracy isn't enough to secure a fair society - all the powers in society should be kept from exercising undue influence on each other: the famous 'separation of powers', but I think we need to add newsmedia and big business as two new 'powers' in addition to the legislative, executive and judiciary powers.
To a capitalist or a socialist, obeying orders -- even if the intended aim is not achieved -- is considered more important than achieving aims.
What kind of unqualified nonsense is this? 'Capitalism' and 'Socialism' as commonly used (outside USA at least) are simply ideas about how society ought to function, basically; political ideas embodying the principles of selfishness rsp. unselfishness. What you are talking about is something else - not sure what to call it, but the popular term seems to be 'totalitarianism', which can be practised in any context. Just to make a point, there are certain directions within Christianity that claim their religion is more important than anything else; in fact, this is arguably a fundamental trait of all Christianity - same thing as far as I can see.
Good heavens, man, is this really the best you can manage? Talk about displaying your ignorance. But perhaps this is the way Americans think? A quick comparison:
Communism:
- in America the manifestation of anything evil, repressive or stupidly unrealistic is labelled 'communism'. Satan is a Communist, no doubt. Nobody knows why.
- in the rest of the world 'Communism' is a political viewpoint, something about sharing etc etc.
Capitalism:
- in America the manifestation of anything good, true and beautiful. God is definitely a capitalist. Again, nobody really knows why this is the case, but if you ask wuaetions or express dissent, then you are a Communist!!
- in the rest of the world 'Capitalism' is another political viewpoint, something about money, but who really cares?
Democracy:
- in America, a synonym for 'capitalism', 'freedom' and doing what your priest/pastor/church leader tells you.
- in the rest of the world this is simply a method for choosing who should lead the country.
To an American an expression such as 'communist democracy' is an oxymoron, something that makes no sense. To the rest of the world this is not inherently contradictory, and indeed there are examples of countries that approach this - Denmark, Sweden and Norway have at times not been far from that.
The very strange and indeed scary thing is that America - or at least their president - think they have to go out in the world and teach everybody else how to think. But how can one even comtemplate such a thing when Americans are mentally so far from the rest of us?
"Just as you would tune your car, our skilled engineers have strived to tune many parts of GNOME to be as fast as possible. Several important components of the GNOME desktop are now measurably faster, including text rendering, memory allocation, and numerous individual applications. Faster font rendering and memory allocation benefit all GNOME and GTK+ based applications without the need for recompilation. Some applications have received special attention to make sure they are performing at their peak."
Give us a break, please. 'Our skilled engineers': leave this kind of selfpraise to the likes of Microsoft.
However, if GNOME is faster, more stable and smaller, that IS good. But I am not too optimistic about the way GNOME has developed so far. They have been going too much for coolness, oversimplification and aping Windows, cutting out useful functionality rather than making those things configurable options. It is all very well trying to appeal to end users, but it has meant pissing us up and down, who are more compentent than the entry level user. And there is no real need for that. Take this small example:
At one point, when you moved or resized a window, you would see a little box with coordinates, which was useful at least to me, because I like to bundle up some of my windows in a script and display them in the same positions every time I start them. This feature has disappeared; no explanation, no good reason, and it is not possible to get it back by setting an option somewhere. Even an obscure option buried in a file deep inside GNOME would have been OK with me, but no. It is of course just a small thing, but it demonstrates an attitude: 'We alone know what is good and right'. Plus they and their software are totally and utterly unapproachable: no documentation (other than the Disney-style end-user stuff), just to mention one thing.
That sort of attitude Microsoft is what pushed me away from Windows years back - in the beginning it was great fun hacking away at DOS, but Microsoft pushed a lot of us away with their attitudes and secrecy. When I first switched to Linux it wasn't because Linux was evidently better, but because I couldn't stand what Microsoft and Windows had become. And the GNOME people seem to be doing the same. This kind of things actually matter to some.
I would recommend neither. Learning to program is more about learning to understand the nature of programming than about beginning to use a language - a good programmer should be able to learn a programming language as he goes along.
The best language for learning how to program properly is C. C allows you to get close to the actual HW and OS, two things that are important to understand well for a proper programmer; also C does not protect you against making the errors that are necessary in order for you to learn; there is no better way to learn than by solving a problem. And finally, C is as close as you can get to assembler without being bound to a single HW architecture.
The only way to really solve this problem is to stop wasting energy. The way to think about this is: if you have to live with using only 5% of the energy that you use now, what will you choose to use it on? Take it as a thought experiment - you're not allowed to invent ways to produce your own energy; assume that this has already been done. So what will you keep? A car? Your fridge? Your computer? How about not buying stuff that comes in unnecessary packaging? Avoiding ready made meals, drinks, snacks etc?
Perhaps 5% is not what we will have to live with in the future, it could be more or less, but I suspect it won't be far off at least for our children.
Not really, strictly speaking. Evolution happens because in any environment some entities will survive and some won't. The 'weakest' are defined by their non-survival, simply. This distinction is critical to the understanding of evolution - evolution is not something that happens only to living organisms, it is a trivial consequence of the interaction between two opposite trends: a constructive trend and a deconstructive trend.
The same evolution happens in other systems - say, the system of 'scientific thought': new ideas are constructed and then subjected to an environment that tries to break them down by disproving them. Other examples are religion and political systems; evolution happens everywhere.
dot china, dot com and dot net in Chinese language
Please note the 'in Chinese' here. This is not about taking over the internet or splitting it up, to the urreparable detriment of all humankind, or any such nonsense. This is simply because not long ago it became possible to use more than 7bit ASCII as part of domain names, and now the Chinese make it possible to have domains with names written in Chinese; this is, in case you should be in any doubt, still their native language and it is going to be helpful for Chinese companies and users. All in all a positive move.
But of course this discussion has already descended into the usual, mindless crap about 'splitting the internet', and how eveil communists are.
Random massacres and crazy people running wild has to be caused by computer games. One thing's certain, it has nothing to do with the widespread and easy availability of guns of all kinds.
Communism doesn't work because some people will realize that they don't have to work hard and still get the same benefits.
Democracy doesn't work because of greed.
Socalist governments don't work for the combined reasons of above.
Monarcy doesn't work because you are the victim to the whims of 1 person.
So what do we do? Start from the basic concept of communism, add some of the best things from capitalism etc. The big problem always seems to be that societies are not trying to evolve and improve. What we need is to be pragmatic and put all stupid ideals and religious views to one side for a while and simply learn to do things better. USA has a long way to go in this direction; so do China, Europe, Russia and all the others; better get moving, don't you think?
How about changing their style: stop randomly detaining and torturing people, being honest instead of putting on a sanctimonious face while engaging in all sorts of underhanded activities, etc etc. In short - clean up their act altogether. Fat chance of that happening, though. Not until the American people decide to lynch the lot.
You can't propagandise a whole nation into thinking your way. Think back to the Soviet Union - they had a whole captive population (who at least initially trusted their government), almost isolated from the outside world, and the propaganda machine turned up to full power; plus they were good at it, but it still failed. So how big are the chances that this inept, bumbling lot will be able to change the minds of a nation of people who are mostly hostile, simply with propaganda?
Unfortunately tha same decree of similarity can be demostrated between the US and Nazi Germany, or Israel or Nazi Germany if one is so inclined. That sort of arguments prove nothing, except that you're trying to pick a fight, or perhaps hope to score some cheap points by repeating the same sort of stupid, uninformed drivel as all the other rednecks.
I'm not going to argue with you - I think you're beyond that, and anybody who has actually studied the subjects or been to China knows that you're talking crap.
My God, sometimes I find it hard to believe that there are people in America who are stupid enough to belive in Bush & Co. or Creationism (aka 'Intelligent Design''); but then I come across this kind of nonsense, and Dubya suddenly seems intelligent by comparison.
Michael Thomas, owner of Colossal Storage, says he's the first person to solve non-contact optical spintronics
Hmm, why is it that I don't feel quite confident about the validity of his claims... Could it be that we hear this type of overconfident hype about 'Real soon now... the greatest invention in history...' all too often?
My intuition says this is not going to hold up. Firstly, this seems to be an ad hoc theory to explain the fact that galaxies rotate too quickly. There's nothing wrong in ad hoc theories as such, but when it comes to theories like Newton's and Einstein's theories for gravity, they are so well tested that I would expect any amendment to be based on something more substantial.
Secondly, Newton's formula for gravity around a point mass (on which Einstein's theory is based) seems to fit very well with one's intuition: think of gravity as a sort of 'substance' that 'emanates' out from the point mass; the amount of 'substance' stays constant as it propagates outward, but the area of the resulting sphere of the substance grow as the square of the distance, so the density of the substance falls off as the inverse square of the radius. It makes sense to, at least; it seems natural. Now, in this intuition, if the force of gravity didn't fall as fast as 1/r^2, some 'substance' must have been added along the way - where does it come from?
This is of course only intuition, but that can be said of both general relativity and quantum mechanics too (in their own circumscribed way). Take Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the intuition here is that all particles are waves, and to measure the properties of one wave/particle, you have to hit it with another. Someone has calculated how good a resuolution you can get from measuring something with waves interactions like that, and from that came Heisenberg's principle; very intuitive, I think.
This amendment to gravitation doesn't seem to have that element of intuition, simply, but perhaps it wasn't explained very well in the article.
Apart from that - dark matter as an explanation isn't very satisfying. It seems to be too much of a big, black box; I can't think that that will be all there is to be said or discovered about 90% of the whole universe, I fully expect that there will be at least 10 times as much detail to discover in physics as we already know. And I'm going to be right there when it happens;-)
I think your considerations fall short when you compare he evolution of life with what you can do even on a massive computer.
1. I'm not sure how to 'translate' it to a computer analogy, but I think it is reasonable to say that each molecule (or pair of molecules or something of that order of size) corresponds roughly to a 'process' in your computer. Think about how many 'molecules' in this sense there are on the planet - even 1 liter contains something like ~10^20 of them, and each 'unit' is able to try to evolve, figuratively speaking. That's a lot - A WHOLE LOT - bigger than any computer we've ever even contemplated, I think.
2. The number of generations, especially on the molecular plane is incredibly vast. And the timeframe is not unlikely to have been something like many billions of years. Earth is about 3 - 5 billion years old; and there are reasons to believe that the first steps towards life had already occurred before that time (amino acids and other essential molecules have been observed in space)
3. Evolution works not only on the molecular plane - the genes - but also on how they are expressed and managed in the cells (see: 'epigenetics'); and for animals that possess culture (eg. whales, apes, oh yes, and humans) evolution also works on that level. IOW, there's a lot more going on that can change a species than just random mutations in the genes; epigenetics for example means that mutations don't necessary have any immediate effect because the gene isn't expressed. In times of environmental stress a number of mutations can suddenly be expressed at once, sometimes causing a large change in a species. Etc etc. Also, changes at the level of epigenetics appear to be heritable.
All in all, I can easily imagine life arising from 'dead matter' - if it actually makes sense to distinguish between dead and living. The more I think about it, the more it seems as if that distinction is a fairly random one.
Where did you learn about science? Oh, you didn't?
Your description of science has nothing to do with what science is about, and one can only hope it is ignorance of the subject that makes you come with such a blatant falsehood.
Yes, there are disciplines in science where you don't work with uncertainty - but that is because it isn't relevant. Some areas of mathematics, like group theory or topology don't consider uncertainty at all, because they don't deal with statistics or anything in the physical world. And if you have ever read and understood an article about just about any subject in physics, you would know that uncertainty calculations are a fundamental part of all discussions. I doubt if you could even get an article about experimental physics published if it didn't discuss the uncertainty of the measurements. The same goes for any other science that deals with measurements in any form.
And no, scientists don't reject concepts wholesale just because they are controversial (what could be more controversial than eg. quantum mechanics or general relativity?), or because they have to deal with uncertainty - that last one is particularly ironic, since the uncertainty principle is such a fundamental part of physics.
I think you're just trying to muddy the waters, so people get confused. Unless this is actually the way you 'think'?
That argument is exactly why there is such a thing as public services. We don't want Tesco roads, where you can only drive if you have a Tesco loyalty card etc. Such things as roads, power supply, telephone lines (and internet), water supply etc should be public services, paid over the tax.
I suppose this idea has more appeal to Europeans and others who are used to TV as a public service rather than a vehicle for commercials. Public service TV often carries programs that have less popular appeal (but far higher quality of information), and of course you're not plagued by stupid adverts every 2 minutes. BBC, for example, broadcast some very good educational programs during the night for you to record and watch later - they include such things as language courses, preparation for national exams etc.
As the system works now there is a number of drawbacks. First of all the need to try to catch the ones who watch TV without paying their license, and secondly the fact that the license fee at the same whether you are rich or poor, which means that eg. old age pensioners, who often have a very small income and perhaps feel they need TV more than most, can have a hard time paying. By making it a tax, both of these issues could be addressed. I like it.
It's all well and good to talk about promoting freedom and democracy, and about companies have a moral obligation to do so, but:
1. What exactly do you mean by 'freedom and democracy'? What if it turns out that people in this or that country actually want communism or islamic theocracy? What if they feel that freedom means something entirely opposed to US interests? Do you still want that? And quite apart from that - democracy is not something you just do. In most countries in Europe it took a long time, often involving conflict; the population needs to be prepared and educated to accept the way democracy works. You just need to look around in the world to see examples.
2. When you talk about the moral obligations of companies, how do you propose to compel them? If you define ethical guidelines and implement them in law, that is going to affect all American companies all over the world and take away what many Americans consider a basic freedom. Apart from that, what if the law of another country conflicts with the American ethical requirements? Shall American companies simply give up on getting into the Chinese market?
But I agree in principle - multinational companies, even American ones, should be restricted by international, ethical guidelines; a lot of companies commit gross indecencies in countries where they can get away with it, and they should simply be put out of business.
There is a strange lack of cohesion in the way managers think. On one hand they trust the company's very future in the hands of their employees; but on the other hand they don't trust those very same people to be able to form a qualified opinion about something in their area of expertise. Is it a version of 'It's in the news, it must be true'?
What they should do, when they read that kind of article is to think 'I should ask my own experts about this before I put my foot too far down my throat'.
A Danish newspaper, who have been at the forefront of an ongoing hetz against immigrants and especially muslims, published a number of cartoons depicting Mohammed in ways that can only have been meant to express contempt. Further, if you have been following Danish news, you will know just how vitriolic and hatefilled the debate has been there for a very long time; and this is prominent politicians we're talking about. This has even been commented on in foreign news, with horror and disgust. To a moslem depicting the profet is totally forbidden, apparently, which the newspaper in question certainly knew; and not surprisingly a group of Danish moslems vented their anger in their home countries.
Personally I think it could have been defused then and there if the newspaper or the prime minister had had the decency and backbone to simply apologize; after all, there is such a thing as simple politeness, and no one would need to give up fundamental freedoms etc. How much would it actually have cost anybody if our PM had said something like: 'It is not Danish policy to insult people of other cultures, and I apologize for the distress these insensitive pictures have been published. However, I can not dictate what the newspapers print'? Not a thing.
Instead there has been a load of stilted nonsense about 'freedom of speech' - what a load of crap. Freedom is not the right to get away with whatever you do - there is a responsibility for all your actions as there should be. If you kick a hornets' nest, you'll get stung.
So, to sum it up: Denmark is festering in xenophobia and inflamed rhetoric; a newspaper decides to try to cash in on stirring up the shit and behave a spoiled brat; instead of being mature and apologize, the West is spiteful. Whatever one may think of the moslem world, this is simply not an honourable way to behave.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we have to distinguish between 'life' as a concept and 'living organisms'. Life is an abstraction - it is the 'quality' that is common to all life processes, ie the processes that we know from living organisms.
The only thing that is reasonably clearly defined is 'living orgnism'; and as several posts have already pointed out, viruses can't quite be called living organisms; not because the don't display life, but because they are too simply to qualify as organisms. However, they do have life proceses - eg. they reproduce.
How can one define the concept 'life'? It is a difficult one - there are many that feel it would be too narrow to define it simply as the set of chemical processes that we know from biology; among other things, there is no sharp boundary between simple non-organic chemistry and 'life-chemistry'. There are some that define life as chemical evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_evolution) - this theory has the advantage that it can be generalised; all that is needed is a good generalisation of 'chemistry'.
You may say so, but in practise it is different: democracy simply means that you get to elect your leaders, who then governs in whichever way they like. It's not practical to have too finegrained a democracy, where every decision has to be voted on; even if the difficulties involved in arranging elections were overcome, there's still the matter of getting everybody (or indeed anybody) to take an interest in things.
In many ways I think a more pragmatic view of democracy is warranted: democracy is simply a tool for selecting leaders, the purpose of which is to counteract the tendency towards the corruption that seems to develop when leaders are not held accountable for their beahviour. But of course, democracy isn't enough to secure a fair society - all the powers in society should be kept from exercising undue influence on each other: the famous 'separation of powers', but I think we need to add newsmedia and big business as two new 'powers' in addition to the legislative, executive and judiciary powers.
To a capitalist or a socialist, obeying orders -- even if the intended aim is not achieved -- is considered more important than achieving aims.
What kind of unqualified nonsense is this? 'Capitalism' and 'Socialism' as commonly used (outside USA at least) are simply ideas about how society ought to function, basically; political ideas embodying the principles of selfishness rsp. unselfishness. What you are talking about is something else - not sure what to call it, but the popular term seems to be 'totalitarianism', which can be practised in any context. Just to make a point, there are certain directions within Christianity that claim their religion is more important than anything else; in fact, this is arguably a fundamental trait of all Christianity - same thing as far as I can see.
But honestly, how many people griping about Bush/Ashcroft today thought that Clinton/Reno were A-OK?
But at least you had no doubt that Clinton had a dick. The only dick Mr W has is that trigger-happy lardbag.
Good heavens, man, is this really the best you can manage? Talk about displaying your ignorance. But perhaps this is the way Americans think? A quick comparison:
Communism:
- in America the manifestation of anything evil, repressive or stupidly unrealistic is labelled 'communism'. Satan is a Communist, no doubt. Nobody knows why.
- in the rest of the world 'Communism' is a political viewpoint, something about sharing etc etc.
Capitalism:
- in America the manifestation of anything good, true and beautiful. God is definitely a capitalist. Again, nobody really knows why this is the case, but if you ask wuaetions or express dissent, then you are a Communist!!
- in the rest of the world 'Capitalism' is another political viewpoint, something about money, but who really cares?
Democracy:
- in America, a synonym for 'capitalism', 'freedom' and doing what your priest/pastor/church leader tells you.
- in the rest of the world this is simply a method for choosing who should lead the country.
To an American an expression such as 'communist democracy' is an oxymoron, something that makes no sense. To the rest of the world this is not inherently contradictory, and indeed there are examples of countries that approach this - Denmark, Sweden and Norway have at times not been far from that.
The very strange and indeed scary thing is that America - or at least their president - think they have to go out in the world and teach everybody else how to think. But how can one even comtemplate such a thing when Americans are mentally so far from the rest of us?
"Just as you would tune your car, our skilled engineers have strived to tune many parts of GNOME to be as fast as possible. Several important components of the GNOME desktop are now measurably faster, including text rendering, memory allocation, and numerous individual applications. Faster font rendering and memory allocation benefit all GNOME and GTK+ based applications without the need for recompilation. Some applications have received special attention to make sure they are performing at their peak."
Give us a break, please. 'Our skilled engineers': leave this kind of selfpraise to the likes of Microsoft.
However, if GNOME is faster, more stable and smaller, that IS good. But I am not too optimistic about the way GNOME has developed so far. They have been going too much for coolness, oversimplification and aping Windows, cutting out useful functionality rather than making those things configurable options. It is all very well trying to appeal to end users, but it has meant pissing us up and down, who are more compentent than the entry level user. And there is no real need for that. Take this small example:
At one point, when you moved or resized a window, you would see a little box with coordinates, which was useful at least to me, because I like to bundle up some of my windows in a script and display them in the same positions every time I start them. This feature has disappeared; no explanation, no good reason, and it is not possible to get it back by setting an option somewhere. Even an obscure option buried in a file deep inside GNOME would have been OK with me, but no. It is of course just a small thing, but it demonstrates an attitude: 'We alone know what is good and right'. Plus they and their software are totally and utterly unapproachable: no documentation (other than the Disney-style end-user stuff), just to mention one thing.
That sort of attitude Microsoft is what pushed me away from Windows years back - in the beginning it was great fun hacking away at DOS, but Microsoft pushed a lot of us away with their attitudes and secrecy. When I first switched to Linux it wasn't because Linux was evidently better, but because I couldn't stand what Microsoft and Windows had become. And the GNOME people seem to be doing the same. This kind of things actually matter to some.
Aha!
..."
"Arise, you prisoners of starvation!
Arise, you wretched of the earth!
imagine a Beowulf cluster of ...
Would you recommend it to a beginner over C#?
I would recommend neither. Learning to program is more about learning to understand the nature of programming than about beginning to use a language - a good programmer should be able to learn a programming language as he goes along.
The best language for learning how to program properly is C. C allows you to get close to the actual HW and OS, two things that are important to understand well for a proper programmer; also C does not protect you against making the errors that are necessary in order for you to learn; there is no better way to learn than by solving a problem. And finally, C is as close as you can get to assembler without being bound to a single HW architecture.
The only way to really solve this problem is to stop wasting energy. The way to think about this is: if you have to live with using only 5% of the energy that you use now, what will you choose to use it on? Take it as a thought experiment - you're not allowed to invent ways to produce your own energy; assume that this has already been done. So what will you keep? A car? Your fridge? Your computer? How about not buying stuff that comes in unnecessary packaging? Avoiding ready made meals, drinks, snacks etc?
Perhaps 5% is not what we will have to live with in the future, it could be more or less, but I suspect it won't be far off at least for our children.
Not really, strictly speaking. Evolution happens because in any environment some entities will survive and some won't. The 'weakest' are defined by their non-survival, simply. This distinction is critical to the understanding of evolution - evolution is not something that happens only to living organisms, it is a trivial consequence of the interaction between two opposite trends: a constructive trend and a deconstructive trend.
The same evolution happens in other systems - say, the system of 'scientific thought': new ideas are constructed and then subjected to an environment that tries to break them down by disproving them. Other examples are religion and political systems; evolution happens everywhere.
dot china, dot com and dot net in Chinese language
Please note the 'in Chinese' here. This is not about taking over the internet or splitting it up, to the urreparable detriment of all humankind, or any such nonsense. This is simply because not long ago it became possible to use more than 7bit ASCII as part of domain names, and now the Chinese make it possible to have domains with names written in Chinese; this is, in case you should be in any doubt, still their native language and it is going to be helpful for Chinese companies and users. All in all a positive move.
But of course this discussion has already descended into the usual, mindless crap about 'splitting the internet', and how eveil communists are.
Random massacres and crazy people running wild has to be caused by computer games. One thing's certain, it has nothing to do with the widespread and easy availability of guns of all kinds.
Communism doesn't work because some people will realize that they don't have to work hard and still get the same benefits.
Democracy doesn't work because of greed.
Socalist governments don't work for the combined reasons of above.
Monarcy doesn't work because you are the victim to the whims of 1 person.
So what do we do? Start from the basic concept of communism, add some of the best things from capitalism etc. The big problem always seems to be that societies are not trying to evolve and improve. What we need is to be pragmatic and put all stupid ideals and religious views to one side for a while and simply learn to do things better. USA has a long way to go in this direction; so do China, Europe, Russia and all the others; better get moving, don't you think?
How about changing their style: stop randomly detaining and torturing people, being honest instead of putting on a sanctimonious face while engaging in all sorts of underhanded activities, etc etc. In short - clean up their act altogether. Fat chance of that happening, though. Not until the American people decide to lynch the lot.
You can't propagandise a whole nation into thinking your way. Think back to the Soviet Union - they had a whole captive population (who at least initially trusted their government), almost isolated from the outside world, and the propaganda machine turned up to full power; plus they were good at it, but it still failed. So how big are the chances that this inept, bumbling lot will be able to change the minds of a nation of people who are mostly hostile, simply with propaganda?
Oh, yes, China and Nazi Germany are SO similar!!!
Unfortunately tha same decree of similarity can be demostrated between the US and Nazi Germany, or Israel or Nazi Germany if one is so inclined. That sort of arguments prove nothing, except that you're trying to pick a fight, or perhaps hope to score some cheap points by repeating the same sort of stupid, uninformed drivel as all the other rednecks.
I'm not going to argue with you - I think you're beyond that, and anybody who has actually studied the subjects or been to China knows that you're talking crap.
My God, sometimes I find it hard to believe that there are people in America who are stupid enough to belive in Bush & Co. or Creationism (aka 'Intelligent Design''); but then I come across this kind of nonsense, and Dubya suddenly seems intelligent by comparison.
Hmm, why is it that I don't feel quite confident about the validity of his claims... Could it be that we hear this type of overconfident hype about 'Real soon now ... the greatest invention in history...' all too often?
My intuition says this is not going to hold up. Firstly, this seems to be an ad hoc theory to explain the fact that galaxies rotate too quickly. There's nothing wrong in ad hoc theories as such, but when it comes to theories like Newton's and Einstein's theories for gravity, they are so well tested that I would expect any amendment to be based on something more substantial.
;-)
Secondly, Newton's formula for gravity around a point mass (on which Einstein's theory is based) seems to fit very well with one's intuition: think of gravity as a sort of 'substance' that 'emanates' out from the point mass; the amount of 'substance' stays constant as it propagates outward, but the area of the resulting sphere of the substance grow as the square of the distance, so the density of the substance falls off as the inverse square of the radius. It makes sense to, at least; it seems natural. Now, in this intuition, if the force of gravity didn't fall as fast as 1/r^2, some 'substance' must have been added along the way - where does it come from?
This is of course only intuition, but that can be said of both general relativity and quantum mechanics too (in their own circumscribed way). Take Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the intuition here is that all particles are waves, and to measure the properties of one wave/particle, you have to hit it with another. Someone has calculated how good a resuolution you can get from measuring something with waves interactions like that, and from that came Heisenberg's principle; very intuitive, I think.
This amendment to gravitation doesn't seem to have that element of intuition, simply, but perhaps it wasn't explained very well in the article.
Apart from that - dark matter as an explanation isn't very satisfying. It seems to be too much of a big, black box; I can't think that that will be all there is to be said or discovered about 90% of the whole universe, I fully expect that there will be at least 10 times as much detail to discover in physics as we already know. And I'm going to be right there when it happens
I think your considerations fall short when you compare he evolution of life with what you can do even on a massive computer.
1. I'm not sure how to 'translate' it to a computer analogy, but I think it is reasonable to say that each molecule (or pair of molecules or something of that order of size) corresponds roughly to a 'process' in your computer. Think about how many 'molecules' in this sense there are on the planet - even 1 liter contains something like ~10^20 of them, and each 'unit' is able to try to evolve, figuratively speaking. That's a lot - A WHOLE LOT - bigger than any computer we've ever even contemplated, I think.
2. The number of generations, especially on the molecular plane is incredibly vast. And the timeframe is not unlikely to have been something like many billions of years. Earth is about 3 - 5 billion years old; and there are reasons to believe that the first steps towards life had already occurred before that time (amino acids and other essential molecules have been observed in space)
3. Evolution works not only on the molecular plane - the genes - but also on how they are expressed and managed in the cells (see: 'epigenetics'); and for animals that possess culture (eg. whales, apes, oh yes, and humans) evolution also works on that level. IOW, there's a lot more going on that can change a species than just random mutations in the genes; epigenetics for example means that mutations don't necessary have any immediate effect because the gene isn't expressed. In times of environmental stress a number of mutations can suddenly be expressed at once, sometimes causing a large change in a species. Etc etc. Also, changes at the level of epigenetics appear to be heritable.
All in all, I can easily imagine life arising from 'dead matter' - if it actually makes sense to distinguish between dead and living. The more I think about it, the more it seems as if that distinction is a fairly random one.
Where did you learn about science? Oh, you didn't?
Your description of science has nothing to do with what science is about, and one can only hope it is ignorance of the subject that makes you come with such a blatant falsehood.
Yes, there are disciplines in science where you don't work with uncertainty - but that is because it isn't relevant. Some areas of mathematics, like group theory or topology don't consider uncertainty at all, because they don't deal with statistics or anything in the physical world. And if you have ever read and understood an article about just about any subject in physics, you would know that uncertainty calculations are a fundamental part of all discussions. I doubt if you could even get an article about experimental physics published if it didn't discuss the uncertainty of the measurements. The same goes for any other science that deals with measurements in any form.
And no, scientists don't reject concepts wholesale just because they are controversial (what could be more controversial than eg. quantum mechanics or general relativity?), or because they have to deal with uncertainty - that last one is particularly ironic, since the uncertainty principle is such a fundamental part of physics.
I think you're just trying to muddy the waters, so people get confused. Unless this is actually the way you 'think'?
That argument is exactly why there is such a thing as public services. We don't want Tesco roads, where you can only drive if you have a Tesco loyalty card etc. Such things as roads, power supply, telephone lines (and internet), water supply etc should be public services, paid over the tax.
Yes, why not?
I suppose this idea has more appeal to Europeans and others who are used to TV as a public service rather than a vehicle for commercials. Public service TV often carries programs that have less popular appeal (but far higher quality of information), and of course you're not plagued by stupid adverts every 2 minutes. BBC, for example, broadcast some very good educational programs during the night for you to record and watch later - they include such things as language courses, preparation for national exams etc.
As the system works now there is a number of drawbacks. First of all the need to try to catch the ones who watch TV without paying their license, and secondly the fact that the license fee at the same whether you are rich or poor, which means that eg. old age pensioners, who often have a very small income and perhaps feel they need TV more than most, can have a hard time paying. By making it a tax, both of these issues could be addressed. I like it.
It's all well and good to talk about promoting freedom and democracy, and about companies have a moral obligation to do so, but:
1. What exactly do you mean by 'freedom and democracy'? What if it turns out that people in this or that country actually want communism or islamic theocracy? What if they feel that freedom means something entirely opposed to US interests? Do you still want that? And quite apart from that - democracy is not something you just do. In most countries in Europe it took a long time, often involving conflict; the population needs to be prepared and educated to accept the way democracy works. You just need to look around in the world to see examples.
2. When you talk about the moral obligations of companies, how do you propose to compel them? If you define ethical guidelines and implement them in law, that is going to affect all American companies all over the world and take away what many Americans consider a basic freedom. Apart from that, what if the law of another country conflicts with the American ethical requirements? Shall American companies simply give up on getting into the Chinese market?
But I agree in principle - multinational companies, even American ones, should be restricted by international, ethical guidelines; a lot of companies commit gross indecencies in countries where they can get away with it, and they should simply be put out of business.
There is a strange lack of cohesion in the way managers think. On one hand they trust the company's very future in the hands of their employees; but on the other hand they don't trust those very same people to be able to form a qualified opinion about something in their area of expertise. Is it a version of 'It's in the news, it must be true'?
What they should do, when they read that kind of article is to think 'I should ask my own experts about this before I put my foot too far down my throat'.
Allow me to comment on this as a Danish citizen.
What happened was
A Danish newspaper, who have been at the forefront of an ongoing hetz against immigrants and especially muslims, published a number of cartoons depicting Mohammed in ways that can only have been meant to express contempt. Further, if you have been following Danish news, you will know just how vitriolic and hatefilled the debate has been there for a very long time; and this is prominent politicians we're talking about. This has even been commented on in foreign news, with horror and disgust. To a moslem depicting the profet is totally forbidden, apparently, which the newspaper in question certainly knew; and not surprisingly a group of Danish moslems vented their anger in their home countries.
Personally I think it could have been defused then and there if the newspaper or the prime minister had had the decency and backbone to simply apologize; after all, there is such a thing as simple politeness, and no one would need to give up fundamental freedoms etc. How much would it actually have cost anybody if our PM had said something like: 'It is not Danish policy to insult people of other cultures, and I apologize for the distress these insensitive pictures have been published. However, I can not dictate what the newspapers print'? Not a thing.
Instead there has been a load of stilted nonsense about 'freedom of speech' - what a load of crap. Freedom is not the right to get away with whatever you do - there is a responsibility for all your actions as there should be. If you kick a hornets' nest, you'll get stung.
So, to sum it up: Denmark is festering in xenophobia and inflamed rhetoric; a newspaper decides to try to cash in on stirring up the shit and behave a spoiled brat; instead of being mature and apologize, the West is spiteful. Whatever one may think of the moslem world, this is simply not an honourable way to behave.