The first link you provide says that the Office of National Statistics has created a code so that it was easier to count the fsckwits that wrote "Jedi" or "Jedi Knight" on the census form.
This is simply an internal code for grouping reponses, not a recognition of its status as a religion.
"Hey, here we see some primitive creatures, and now, BOOM, here are gazillions of more complex ones. Now we see some even more complex ones, yeah, I know there is no good evidence, but BELIEVE IT"
It seems to be stupid, but hey, it's how Darwinism is teached, as something completely right. It doesn't matter if no one can proof anything, because it's pretty religious.
I looked at your characterisation of evolution and the evidence for it and thought: you are totally ignorant of evolution and paleontology.
Then I looked at your syntax and spelling, and realised that you are simply ignorant.
There is certainly a huge amount of evidence for evolution; for example, just take human evolution: go to a library and look up Tatersall, Ian. Becoming Human: Evolution and human uniqueness. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998. You may also want to look up Eldredge, Niles. The triumph of evolution and the failure of creationism. New York: Henry Holt, 2001.
What I find extremely amusing is that your caricature of evolution is in fact the "reasoning" the Creation "Scientists" [sic] and Fundamentalist Christians use when talking about their own take on how the world is as it is.
You dismiss evolution as "pretty religious", which implies that relying on religion or belief is a poor method of argument, which is accurate. Shame that Creationism simply has religion or belief as its only bolster in this argument. You are hoist with your own petard.
Slight problems with your "argument": firstly, you commit a logical fallacy - argumentum ad hominem. Simply because Java is supported or advocated by someone who was (I would say wrongly) convicted does not make Java a bad language. It says nothing about Java at all in fact. The fact that you have committed a logical fallacy means that your conclusion is spurious. (As if common sense doesn't already!)
Secondly, Naughton, whatever his crime was, was convicted by entrapment. He did not actually rape anyone, nor did he have sex with anyone. He was entrapped into meeting an FBI agent who was posing as an underage girl, as the story you linked to makes pretty plain. Next time you want to illustrate a point, it might be useful to link to a story that actually supports your argument.
Oh, and by the way, I'm a C++ programmer, which says nothing about my sexual habits. Or maybe I didn't read the EULA that came with my compiler that has a clause: "In agreeing to use this software, you confirm that you are not a child rapist." Maybe I also missed the lecture at uni where the professor made us swear that we were not child rapists before we learned C++?
I can't see how you can justify saying Access had some Mac heritage simply because Fox Software released a Macintosh version. This is akin to saying George Washington is an ancestor of mine because he is a human.
Also Access had been released well before MS acquired Fox Software; I remember working with Access 1.1 about the time that the acquisition happened (IIRC).
My view is that MS bought Fox to marginalise the product out of the market and to grab the Rushmore search engine.
I presume you are referring to the Piri Reis map. I'd suggest that Plato had nothing to do with it. Pretty much all the serious archaelogical study of this has shown that it is not at all accurate. For a debunking, see http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/FOG9.html.
Anything that involves Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods (his degree is, by the way, in sociology, not anything related to archaeology or history), I'd take a barrel full of salt before believing. For a debunking of the book, see http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/wildside.shtm l.
Basically the man is a fraud. His basic premise is "I think this based on my naive intuition - I am well informed, so I don't have to do any research into the technical aspects of archaeology, nor do I need to actually prove my theory with any evidence. It's up to the archaeologists to disprove my theory. However, what they say is only subjective opinion (not based on a lifetime or multiple lifetimes of research and discovery, of course).
Yes, let's look at the US. Museums are piracy houses. Look at all that art they hang without paying the descendents of the original artists. And libraries? These are hypocritical institutions.
Every museum purchases the majority of the artwork that they display. The rest is donated. All libraries buy a copy of the books they have on their shelves. In Australia, each author gets money for the number of times their book is borrowed; I assume that other Western countries have a similar system in place. All this is due to copyright laws.
Video rental stores, neither pays a portion of each rental to the IP owner.
Again, the video chains pay for the videos and royalties are paid on hires as they happen.
And all those classical music CDs made without paying anyone. More hypocritical behaviour.
Copyright is not infinitely long; I assume you are referring to works composed by composers such as Beethoven, Bach, and the rest - if they had copyright, it would have expired 50 years after their death unless extended by their estate. I suppose payments made to the musicians and conductor aren't counted. Neither would paying the recording studio, sound engineers, etc.
Programmers? How many FPS games are there? Did they all "steal" from makers of Wolfenstein 3D? What you call "copying ideas" others may call competition.
You are obviously totally ignorant of what copyright is: you cannot copyright an idea. You can copyright the particular implementation of an idea. So, the code to Wolfenstein 3D is copyright; the idea of a FPS is not, that's why there are so many around (funny thing that).
As for your photographer, maybe he should WORK TO PROMOTE AND PROFIT FROM HIS WORK... It's like patenting something and then doing nothing for 20 years. You have no "right to profit" from an invention.
So basically you are saying that to create in the first instance is not work. Once it is created, the artist can no longer rely on getting money for the effort that they put in to create that work. Most artists can only afford to become artists because they work and promote themselves through exhibiting.
Also, why would someone bother to spend time creating something only to sit on it for 20 years? Can you give an example of someone so foolish? I know of some patents that were bought by companies who then did nothing with them (basically to stifle competition), but the originator of the work was paid for it.
How are you employed? I bet that you want your boss to pay you at the end of the day. The inventor is not paid while they are working on inventing; neither the artist while they are creating. Their creation is what they get paid for and they want the price to reflect the value they put into the work.
You have to WORK AT IT.
I find this statement rather amusing considering your argument. The artist or inventor has to work at it to get paid for their work, but it's OK to have someone come along and without putting any work into it, copy their work and sell it as their own.
Slashdot Mirror
The first link you provide says that the Office of National Statistics has created a code so that it was easier to count the fsckwits that wrote "Jedi" or "Jedi Knight" on the census form.
This is simply an internal code for grouping reponses, not a recognition of its status as a religion.
It seems to be stupid, but hey, it's how Darwinism is teached, as something completely right. It doesn't matter if no one can proof anything, because it's pretty religious.
I looked at your characterisation of evolution and the evidence for it and thought: you are totally ignorant of evolution and paleontology.
Then I looked at your syntax and spelling, and realised that you are simply ignorant.
There is certainly a huge amount of evidence for evolution; for example, just take human evolution: go to a library and look up Tatersall, Ian. Becoming Human: Evolution and human uniqueness. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998. You may also want to look up Eldredge, Niles. The triumph of evolution and the failure of creationism. New York: Henry Holt, 2001.
What I find extremely amusing is that your caricature of evolution is in fact the "reasoning" the Creation "Scientists" [sic] and Fundamentalist Christians use when talking about their own take on how the world is as it is.
You dismiss evolution as "pretty religious", which implies that relying on religion or belief is a poor method of argument, which is accurate. Shame that Creationism simply has religion or belief as its only bolster in this argument. You are hoist with your own petard.
Wow! What an effective argument you put up.
"If you use Java, you are a child raper."
Slight problems with your "argument": firstly, you commit a logical fallacy - argumentum ad hominem. Simply because Java is supported or advocated by someone who was (I would say wrongly) convicted does not make Java a bad language. It says nothing about Java at all in fact. The fact that you have committed a logical fallacy means that your conclusion is spurious. (As if common sense doesn't already!)
Secondly, Naughton, whatever his crime was, was convicted by entrapment. He did not actually rape anyone, nor did he have sex with anyone. He was entrapped into meeting an FBI agent who was posing as an underage girl, as the story you linked to makes pretty plain. Next time you want to illustrate a point, it might be useful to link to a story that actually supports your argument.
Oh, and by the way, I'm a C++ programmer, which says nothing about my sexual habits. Or maybe I didn't read the EULA that came with my compiler that has a clause: "In agreeing to use this software, you confirm that you are not a child rapist." Maybe I also missed the lecture at uni where the professor made us swear that we were not child rapists before we learned C++?
Two errors with your post:
I can't see how you can justify saying Access had some Mac heritage simply because Fox Software released a Macintosh version. This is akin to saying George Washington is an ancestor of mine because he is a human.
Also Access had been released well before MS acquired Fox Software; I remember working with Access 1.1 about the time that the acquisition happened (IIRC).
My view is that MS bought Fox to marginalise the product out of the market and to grab the Rushmore search engine.
Anything that involves Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods (his degree is, by the way, in sociology, not anything related to archaeology or history), I'd take a barrel full of salt before believing. For a debunking of the book, see http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/wildside.shtm l.
Basically the man is a fraud. His basic premise is "I think this based on my naive intuition - I am well informed, so I don't have to do any research into the technical aspects of archaeology, nor do I need to actually prove my theory with any evidence. It's up to the archaeologists to disprove my theory. However, what they say is only subjective opinion (not based on a lifetime or multiple lifetimes of research and discovery, of course).
Every museum purchases the majority of the artwork that they display. The rest is donated. All libraries buy a copy of the books they have on their shelves. In Australia, each author gets money for the number of times their book is borrowed; I assume that other Western countries have a similar system in place. All this is due to copyright laws.
Video rental stores, neither pays a portion of each rental to the IP owner.
Again, the video chains pay for the videos and royalties are paid on hires as they happen.
And all those classical music CDs made without paying anyone. More hypocritical behaviour.
Copyright is not infinitely long; I assume you are referring to works composed by composers such as Beethoven, Bach, and the rest - if they had copyright, it would have expired 50 years after their death unless extended by their estate. I suppose payments made to the musicians and conductor aren't counted. Neither would paying the recording studio, sound engineers, etc.
Programmers? How many FPS games are there? Did they all "steal" from makers of Wolfenstein 3D? What you call "copying ideas" others may call competition.
You are obviously totally ignorant of what copyright is: you cannot copyright an idea. You can copyright the particular implementation of an idea. So, the code to Wolfenstein 3D is copyright; the idea of a FPS is not, that's why there are so many around (funny thing that).
As for your photographer, maybe he should WORK TO PROMOTE AND PROFIT FROM HIS WORK... It's like patenting something and then doing nothing for 20 years. You have no "right to profit" from an invention.
So basically you are saying that to create in the first instance is not work. Once it is created, the artist can no longer rely on getting money for the effort that they put in to create that work. Most artists can only afford to become artists because they work and promote themselves through exhibiting.
Also, why would someone bother to spend time creating something only to sit on it for 20 years? Can you give an example of someone so foolish? I know of some patents that were bought by companies who then did nothing with them (basically to stifle competition), but the originator of the work was paid for it.
How are you employed? I bet that you want your boss to pay you at the end of the day. The inventor is not paid while they are working on inventing; neither the artist while they are creating. Their creation is what they get paid for and they want the price to reflect the value they put into the work.
You have to WORK AT IT.
I find this statement rather amusing considering your argument. The artist or inventor has to work at it to get paid for their work, but it's OK to have someone come along and without putting any work into it, copy their work and sell it as their own.
Cool. Better windows for us in Taiwan.
And you deserve Windows.