As a religious man who also believes in rigorous science, I appreciate your assessment: "science is about understanding the natural environment around us. Theism is philosophical and addresses the mind and spirit which also explains some of the deeper questions."
Unfortunately, it is my experience that the most militant opponents of religious thinking will suggest that it is inappropriate to talk about things like "the spirit" or to consider anything except for observable evidence to answer questions like, "why are we here?" I've spoken with many people who are offended or who think poorly of me because I even bother dwelling on matters of the spirit, since "the spirit" is an unscientific idea, unworthy of space in a rational person's brain.
I think that there may be a flaw in your logic. You say, "all elephants should be able to trace their ancestry back to a single creature that is NOT an elephant." Let's talk about horses and donkeys, though, because they better illustrate the point I'd like to make.
Suppose you have the line of descendency that contains all species of the genus Equus from some arbitrary point in the past to the modern day. At some point, an aberrant offspring served as the trunk of line of animals that would lead to modern day donkeys. Even if you found the "first" donkey, how would you say with utmost certainty that it was the first? You're looking for a common ancestor, though, that was neither donkey nor horse. I think you're overspecifying the problem. I think that the common ancestor of both donkeys and horses was a horse. To find find the nearest non-horse ancestor, you just trace back along the horse line until you find something that you're willing to say "Okay, that's not a horse anymore" and you have what you're looking for.
That's true, but casinos aren't there to provide a fair game and they never have been. They're there to provide the illusion of a fair game and to make money while doing it. The money you lose while gambling is the cost of the entertainment you're receiving from the casino. If you're successfully avoiding losses through something you're doing, then, to the casino, it's like you're trying not to pay them for their services.
Any of the "Year's Best" collections, edited by Gardner Dozois are really good. In my experience, the stories selected for that collection are not just good science fiction, but they reinforce lessons from a "regular" English class about good writing. One of the dangers of the genre is a tolerance for below-average writing. One story that I first read in one of those collections that I particularly enjoyed was "A Dry, Quiet War," by Tony Daniel.
Another poster recommended the saga of Pliocene Exile, by Julian May. It's really excellent, but you're committing to 4 or more books if you do that. I don't think, for example, that The Many Colored Land (first in the series) stands up on its own. Unfortunately, this is true of a lot of genre fiction. I'm always on the lookout for singleton volumes of science fiction and fantasy. Stranger in a Strange Land probably qualifies, but it's long and heavy enough to merit the study of an entire semester by itself.
If I had to throw down a quick and dirty list, I'd say go with two or three of these five novels: Ender's Game, A Wrinkle in Time, The Hobbit, The Time Machine, and Neverwhere; and then add a selection of short stories.
I would love to run for city council or state legislature. Less of a problem at the municipal level, but part of what holds me back is that I am not a professional politician. I won't say what people want to hear; I will tell the straight up truth. I don't have a background in law. I'm an engineer; I want to solve problems. I sincerely don't think that I could win against a dedicated career politician so I don't want to waste my money trying.
I can't speak specifically to tradespeople in Australia, but I think that part of the problem associated with the rising cost of education and the decreasing quality (in America) is associated with lack of direction for students that would like to pursue a trade instead of academia.
I have an academic degree, but I couldn't pour a concrete foundation for a house. Nonetheless, that is a valuable skill to possess and I think it's unfortunate that we discourage our young people from pursuing trades like that. Anecdotally, I have a friend who is not well suited to academics, but who's a construction whiz. When I was younger, I tended to think of him as slow. Now that I've grown up and have some adult perspective, I admire his character and accomplishments, even if what he does requires a manual skill set rather than an academic one.
I'm sort of young (considerably closer to 30 than I am to 20.) Probably not naive, though. More jaded and nihilistic than anything else. If playing office politics is what it takes to succeed or even just to keep my job, I'd rather get fired. I'm not altogether happy with the job I have now. If I were to engage in even a modicum of self-promotion, I could probably find a better position in the same company. That game sickens me, though. It fills me with disgust for the status quo and contempt for the people who play it. Naivety would suggest that I believe that my idealism is shared by others or that it ever will be. I recognize that it isn't, however, never will be, and that as a result, I will languish on the bottom rung forever. C'est la vie.
Ooh! I want in on this one. You forgot reflexology (unless that's part of "healing touch types.") I dated a girl - an army medic, in fact - who believed that a properly conducted hand/foot massage could treat pain (and possibly disease) elsewhere in the body.
There are inefficiencies to both scenarios and I won't blindly accept your assertion that free markets are better at creating desired improvements than legislation and regulation. A company that wants to get into any market to make a specific improvement is either going to be at the mercy of patent holders or will need to reinvent the wheel to solve all sorts of design problems that existing companies have already solved. It is my opinion that barriers to entry are creating a situation that is harmful to consumers. We want cars or coffee makers or anything that are accessible to any repair person we might choose. If all of the existing players have intentionally taken away that capability, there are only a few general avenues that can be pursued: start a new company to meet the unfulfilled want, use economic incentives to persuade manufacturers to offer the functionality you want, have the government regulate to force manufacturers to offer the functionality you want.
In this case, it seems that philosophically, you find the intervention of government the most unpalatable of the possible options. Many other people find it unpalatable to pay more for something that they feel entitled to. Note that I chose the word "entitled" deliberately. It is the philosophical crux of this argument. Are people entitled to the information necessary to repair their own purchased goods? The legislature of the state of Massachusetts seems to think that the answer is "yes" and I, among others, happen to agree with them.
I had to repair my Saturn twice because the company wouldn't release information to a mechanic. My clutch went out on the highway and the mechanic told me that it was either the master cylinder or the slave cylinder, but they didn't have the diagnostic tools to verify which and they were getting the runaround from the manufacturer. Something like $200 to replace the slave cylinder or $500 to replace the master cylinder. I had them replace the slave cylinder and in the process, they had to repressurize the system anyway, which let me complete my trip. It turns out that the master cylinder was actually the problem, though. When I took it to a Saturn dealership to have it repaired, they told me, "Oh yeah. We see this problem all the time on this model." They couldn't have shared that with the mechanic and saved me $200, huh?
This post makes me sad. I was always disappointed when somebody with a slightly higher latency would join a Counterstrike game I was in and the other players would vote him out so that they could all retain their better latency. People out in the boonies are no less deserving of games than anybody else.
You're both wrong. The gap is there on purpose. It's part of the design of the helmet that helps to reduce the lethality of projectile strikes. It just so happens that it also intensifies the effects of pressure waves. The goal now is for them to see whether they can retain the effectiveness against projectiles while mitigating the problem with pressure waves.
This is a very apt analogy, but it also suggests the whole point of this research. Suppose you could design a restraining device that protected you from colliding with the windshield as effectively as seat belts currently do but which posed less threat of shoulder injury. Wouldn't that be worth doing? Likewise, they're investigating the shortcomings of current helmet designs to see if they can reduce the risk of secondary injuries (from shock waves) without reducing their primary effectiveness (against projectiles.)
Presumably, he would prefer having an extra $1,250.00 of discretionary money rather than having two laptops. It's not a cut-and-dry scenario. Yes, having a computer that is 100% for company use solves the privacy / data ownership problem, but it leaves him materially poorer. The gist of the question, I gather, is whether there is a reasonably safe way to receive monetary compensation for the computer without compromising his personal data security.
The summary says that if they fail to detect gravitational waves with the next experiment, many theorists will be unsettled. There's something that I don't understand about this kind of an experiment, though. How do they know that the equipment they've built actually does what it's designed to do? We've never detected one before, so all we're going on is the model. Failure to detect gravitational waves could suggest that the model of the universe is wrong. Isn't it also possible, however, that the equipment we've constructed to measure this event doesn't actually behave in the way it's supposed to behave? If we don't detect gravitational waves, it would be a lot less unsettling to believe that the instrument designers made a mistake than to believe that general relativity has a hole in it. (General Relativity has been a solid model for a long time. Gravitational wave detectors, on the other hand, have not worked yet.)
While they make the situation better for everybody, the people breaking the rules benefit the most. This is sort of like the "tragedy of the commons," with a twist. In the tragedy of the commons, the people who don't break the rules don't derive any benefit. In this situation, they're at least a little bit better off than if nobody broke the rules. Everybody has an incentive to try to be in that 40%, though. (Some people, like me, follow the rules dogmatically and altruistically.) I guess what's called for is some sort of automagic lottery system by which 40% of drivers in high-traffic situations are notified in real-time that they are being encouraged to drive more aggressively. AI researchers, get on that.
Abraham, Moses, and Job were supposed to have spoken with God. The prophets heard his voice. Jesus performed miracles and claimed to be one with the Father. Although the chroniclers of the scriptures were not necessarily present for these events, they were much closer, historically, to the action than we are.
As for the "purpose" of the Bible, if you begin with the assumption that God does not exist and that it is a manual for right living, then I agree with you. The introduction of God into the mix doesn't really add anything.
I do not, however, believe that the Bible is just a manual for right living. For lack of a better analogy, I believe that it is a letter from God to humanity, telling us that he is there and waiting for us to choose to seek him out. Right living is a proper response to communion with God (but by no means is communion with God a necessary condition of right living.) It is not the ultimate purpose of the scriptures, though.
To me, this sounds like an aesthetic argument. You look at this list and say, "All of these things are absurd. Believing in them without tangible evidence is foolish." I look at the list and say, "Except for God, these things are absurd. Belief in any of these things, except for God, without tangible evidence is foolish."
You may declare that the lack of evidence for God's existence makes him absurd, but then you would be begging the question. I do not find the proposition of God's existence to be absurd and, therefore, I think that he does merit consideration for being real, despite the lack of hard evidence.
I choose to acknowledge Christian scriptures as acceptable soft evidence. Like any testimonial, acceptance of the evidence must be based on the perceived reliability of the account and the trustworthiness of the person delivering the testimonial. Again, it would be begging the question to claim that the authors of the scriptures are unreliable because they have written such obvious absurdities as the scriptures. I choose, as a matter of faith (and I recognize the core of irrational behaviour in doing so), to recognize scriptures as reliable and trustworthy.
You're joking, but that is actually a very clever idea. Although I'm pretty quick on my Ctrl key, Alt usually still gives me pause and I'm a total n00b, so I scarcely even understand Meta. Mapping them to foot pedals, though, would be kind of hot. I'd start writing articles in VI if I had a rig like that, just for the sheer coolness.
Guild Wars allows instantaneous travel to any location in the gameworld that you've already visited. EVE Online does not. This is fine because in Guild Wars, the game revolves around the adventure. It's okay for players to be hopping around quickly because the designers want the players collaborating on missions and quests, not walking. EVE Online, on the other hand, features an economy. With instantaneous travel, you lose arbitrage, piracy, shiping companies, etc. and key aspects of the economy cease to exist. I don't know about WoW, where it may be arbitrary, but in the two MMO's with which I have any experience, the decision to or to not allow instantaneous travel seems appropriate for the gameplay model.
You say, "it would soon fall out of favor for something that would be more offensive." That's technically true, but I think that looking at the way it would happen is revealing. The new word, Belgium, for example, wouldn't be intrinsically offensive. Some words were created offensive because somebody wanted a word that was "filthy." Consider fornication versus fucking or feces versus shit.
Some other words are offensive because of religious objections, but in fairness, the ideas behind the words wouldn't exist if it weren't for religion. Consider, for example, "God damn it." You hear it often enough that you don't think about it, but it's a curse. The speaker is asking God to condemn the object of his wrath. It's become rather commonplace and nobody really thinks about that meaning anymore, but consider how offended you'd be if somebody said it and actually meant it. That's some pretty bitter hatred!
If the variety of rubber in question already exists and can be manufactured by some other means, but the patent claimant has devised a different method of synthesizing that rubber, then I'd classify that as a discovery, not an invention.
Slashdot Mirror
As a religious man who also believes in rigorous science, I appreciate your assessment: "science is about understanding the natural environment around us. Theism is philosophical and addresses the mind and spirit which also explains some of the deeper questions."
Unfortunately, it is my experience that the most militant opponents of religious thinking will suggest that it is inappropriate to talk about things like "the spirit" or to consider anything except for observable evidence to answer questions like, "why are we here?" I've spoken with many people who are offended or who think poorly of me because I even bother dwelling on matters of the spirit, since "the spirit" is an unscientific idea, unworthy of space in a rational person's brain.
I think that there may be a flaw in your logic. You say, "all elephants should be able to trace their ancestry back to a single creature that is NOT an elephant." Let's talk about horses and donkeys, though, because they better illustrate the point I'd like to make.
Suppose you have the line of descendency that contains all species of the genus Equus from some arbitrary point in the past to the modern day. At some point, an aberrant offspring served as the trunk of line of animals that would lead to modern day donkeys. Even if you found the "first" donkey, how would you say with utmost certainty that it was the first? You're looking for a common ancestor, though, that was neither donkey nor horse. I think you're overspecifying the problem. I think that the common ancestor of both donkeys and horses was a horse. To find find the nearest non-horse ancestor, you just trace back along the horse line until you find something that you're willing to say "Okay, that's not a horse anymore" and you have what you're looking for.
That's true, but casinos aren't there to provide a fair game and they never have been. They're there to provide the illusion of a fair game and to make money while doing it. The money you lose while gambling is the cost of the entertainment you're receiving from the casino. If you're successfully avoiding losses through something you're doing, then, to the casino, it's like you're trying not to pay them for their services.
Any of the "Year's Best" collections, edited by Gardner Dozois are really good. In my experience, the stories selected for that collection are not just good science fiction, but they reinforce lessons from a "regular" English class about good writing. One of the dangers of the genre is a tolerance for below-average writing. One story that I first read in one of those collections that I particularly enjoyed was "A Dry, Quiet War," by Tony Daniel.
Another poster recommended the saga of Pliocene Exile, by Julian May. It's really excellent, but you're committing to 4 or more books if you do that. I don't think, for example, that The Many Colored Land (first in the series) stands up on its own. Unfortunately, this is true of a lot of genre fiction. I'm always on the lookout for singleton volumes of science fiction and fantasy. Stranger in a Strange Land probably qualifies, but it's long and heavy enough to merit the study of an entire semester by itself.
If I had to throw down a quick and dirty list, I'd say go with two or three of these five novels: Ender's Game, A Wrinkle in Time, The Hobbit, The Time Machine, and Neverwhere; and then add a selection of short stories.
I would love to run for city council or state legislature. Less of a problem at the municipal level, but part of what holds me back is that I am not a professional politician. I won't say what people want to hear; I will tell the straight up truth. I don't have a background in law. I'm an engineer; I want to solve problems. I sincerely don't think that I could win against a dedicated career politician so I don't want to waste my money trying.
I can't speak specifically to tradespeople in Australia, but I think that part of the problem associated with the rising cost of education and the decreasing quality (in America) is associated with lack of direction for students that would like to pursue a trade instead of academia.
I have an academic degree, but I couldn't pour a concrete foundation for a house. Nonetheless, that is a valuable skill to possess and I think it's unfortunate that we discourage our young people from pursuing trades like that. Anecdotally, I have a friend who is not well suited to academics, but who's a construction whiz. When I was younger, I tended to think of him as slow. Now that I've grown up and have some adult perspective, I admire his character and accomplishments, even if what he does requires a manual skill set rather than an academic one.
I'm sort of young (considerably closer to 30 than I am to 20.) Probably not naive, though. More jaded and nihilistic than anything else. If playing office politics is what it takes to succeed or even just to keep my job, I'd rather get fired. I'm not altogether happy with the job I have now. If I were to engage in even a modicum of self-promotion, I could probably find a better position in the same company. That game sickens me, though. It fills me with disgust for the status quo and contempt for the people who play it. Naivety would suggest that I believe that my idealism is shared by others or that it ever will be. I recognize that it isn't, however, never will be, and that as a result, I will languish on the bottom rung forever. C'est la vie.
Ooh! I want in on this one. You forgot reflexology (unless that's part of "healing touch types.") I dated a girl - an army medic, in fact - who believed that a properly conducted hand/foot massage could treat pain (and possibly disease) elsewhere in the body.
There are inefficiencies to both scenarios and I won't blindly accept your assertion that free markets are better at creating desired improvements than legislation and regulation. A company that wants to get into any market to make a specific improvement is either going to be at the mercy of patent holders or will need to reinvent the wheel to solve all sorts of design problems that existing companies have already solved. It is my opinion that barriers to entry are creating a situation that is harmful to consumers. We want cars or coffee makers or anything that are accessible to any repair person we might choose. If all of the existing players have intentionally taken away that capability, there are only a few general avenues that can be pursued: start a new company to meet the unfulfilled want, use economic incentives to persuade manufacturers to offer the functionality you want, have the government regulate to force manufacturers to offer the functionality you want.
In this case, it seems that philosophically, you find the intervention of government the most unpalatable of the possible options. Many other people find it unpalatable to pay more for something that they feel entitled to. Note that I chose the word "entitled" deliberately. It is the philosophical crux of this argument. Are people entitled to the information necessary to repair their own purchased goods? The legislature of the state of Massachusetts seems to think that the answer is "yes" and I, among others, happen to agree with them.
I had to repair my Saturn twice because the company wouldn't release information to a mechanic. My clutch went out on the highway and the mechanic told me that it was either the master cylinder or the slave cylinder, but they didn't have the diagnostic tools to verify which and they were getting the runaround from the manufacturer. Something like $200 to replace the slave cylinder or $500 to replace the master cylinder. I had them replace the slave cylinder and in the process, they had to repressurize the system anyway, which let me complete my trip. It turns out that the master cylinder was actually the problem, though. When I took it to a Saturn dealership to have it repaired, they told me, "Oh yeah. We see this problem all the time on this model." They couldn't have shared that with the mechanic and saved me $200, huh?
This post makes me sad. I was always disappointed when somebody with a slightly higher latency would join a Counterstrike game I was in and the other players would vote him out so that they could all retain their better latency. People out in the boonies are no less deserving of games than anybody else.
You're awesome and shall ever be considered a friend of Gospelhead for this lyrical delight.
You're both wrong. The gap is there on purpose. It's part of the design of the helmet that helps to reduce the lethality of projectile strikes. It just so happens that it also intensifies the effects of pressure waves. The goal now is for them to see whether they can retain the effectiveness against projectiles while mitigating the problem with pressure waves.
This is a very apt analogy, but it also suggests the whole point of this research. Suppose you could design a restraining device that protected you from colliding with the windshield as effectively as seat belts currently do but which posed less threat of shoulder injury. Wouldn't that be worth doing? Likewise, they're investigating the shortcomings of current helmet designs to see if they can reduce the risk of secondary injuries (from shock waves) without reducing their primary effectiveness (against projectiles.)
Presumably, he would prefer having an extra $1,250.00 of discretionary money rather than having two laptops. It's not a cut-and-dry scenario. Yes, having a computer that is 100% for company use solves the privacy / data ownership problem, but it leaves him materially poorer. The gist of the question, I gather, is whether there is a reasonably safe way to receive monetary compensation for the computer without compromising his personal data security.
The summary says that if they fail to detect gravitational waves with the next experiment, many theorists will be unsettled. There's something that I don't understand about this kind of an experiment, though. How do they know that the equipment they've built actually does what it's designed to do? We've never detected one before, so all we're going on is the model. Failure to detect gravitational waves could suggest that the model of the universe is wrong. Isn't it also possible, however, that the equipment we've constructed to measure this event doesn't actually behave in the way it's supposed to behave? If we don't detect gravitational waves, it would be a lot less unsettling to believe that the instrument designers made a mistake than to believe that general relativity has a hole in it. (General Relativity has been a solid model for a long time. Gravitational wave detectors, on the other hand, have not worked yet.)
Stephen Colbert would approve of the term "sciencey fiction."
While they make the situation better for everybody, the people breaking the rules benefit the most. This is sort of like the "tragedy of the commons," with a twist. In the tragedy of the commons, the people who don't break the rules don't derive any benefit. In this situation, they're at least a little bit better off than if nobody broke the rules. Everybody has an incentive to try to be in that 40%, though. (Some people, like me, follow the rules dogmatically and altruistically.) I guess what's called for is some sort of automagic lottery system by which 40% of drivers in high-traffic situations are notified in real-time that they are being encouraged to drive more aggressively. AI researchers, get on that.
Abraham, Moses, and Job were supposed to have spoken with God. The prophets heard his voice. Jesus performed miracles and claimed to be one with the Father. Although the chroniclers of the scriptures were not necessarily present for these events, they were much closer, historically, to the action than we are.
As for the "purpose" of the Bible, if you begin with the assumption that God does not exist and that it is a manual for right living, then I agree with you. The introduction of God into the mix doesn't really add anything.
I do not, however, believe that the Bible is just a manual for right living. For lack of a better analogy, I believe that it is a letter from God to humanity, telling us that he is there and waiting for us to choose to seek him out. Right living is a proper response to communion with God (but by no means is communion with God a necessary condition of right living.) It is not the ultimate purpose of the scriptures, though.
To me, this sounds like an aesthetic argument. You look at this list and say, "All of these things are absurd. Believing in them without tangible evidence is foolish." I look at the list and say, "Except for God, these things are absurd. Belief in any of these things, except for God, without tangible evidence is foolish."
You may declare that the lack of evidence for God's existence makes him absurd, but then you would be begging the question. I do not find the proposition of God's existence to be absurd and, therefore, I think that he does merit consideration for being real, despite the lack of hard evidence.
I choose to acknowledge Christian scriptures as acceptable soft evidence. Like any testimonial, acceptance of the evidence must be based on the perceived reliability of the account and the trustworthiness of the person delivering the testimonial. Again, it would be begging the question to claim that the authors of the scriptures are unreliable because they have written such obvious absurdities as the scriptures. I choose, as a matter of faith (and I recognize the core of irrational behaviour in doing so), to recognize scriptures as reliable and trustworthy.
You're joking, but that is actually a very clever idea. Although I'm pretty quick on my Ctrl key, Alt usually still gives me pause and I'm a total n00b, so I scarcely even understand Meta. Mapping them to foot pedals, though, would be kind of hot. I'd start writing articles in VI if I had a rig like that, just for the sheer coolness.
Guild Wars allows instantaneous travel to any location in the gameworld that you've already visited. EVE Online does not. This is fine because in Guild Wars, the game revolves around the adventure. It's okay for players to be hopping around quickly because the designers want the players collaborating on missions and quests, not walking. EVE Online, on the other hand, features an economy. With instantaneous travel, you lose arbitrage, piracy, shiping companies, etc. and key aspects of the economy cease to exist. I don't know about WoW, where it may be arbitrary, but in the two MMO's with which I have any experience, the decision to or to not allow instantaneous travel seems appropriate for the gameplay model.
You say, "it would soon fall out of favor for something that would be more offensive." That's technically true, but I think that looking at the way it would happen is revealing. The new word, Belgium, for example, wouldn't be intrinsically offensive. Some words were created offensive because somebody wanted a word that was "filthy." Consider fornication versus fucking or feces versus shit.
Some other words are offensive because of religious objections, but in fairness, the ideas behind the words wouldn't exist if it weren't for religion. Consider, for example, "God damn it." You hear it often enough that you don't think about it, but it's a curse. The speaker is asking God to condemn the object of his wrath. It's become rather commonplace and nobody really thinks about that meaning anymore, but consider how offended you'd be if somebody said it and actually meant it. That's some pretty bitter hatred!
If the variety of rubber in question already exists and can be manufactured by some other means, but the patent claimant has devised a different method of synthesizing that rubber, then I'd classify that as a discovery, not an invention.
Students can't pass the class without showing up, though. Attendance is mandatory. Didn't you read the syllabus?
I'm either being totally serious or extremely sarcastic. You decide which.