Judging by the success of the Atkins and South Beach diets...
What, the success of damaging the health of millions of people? High protein diets increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, kidney damage, and osteoporosis. And weight loss on high-protein diets comes from water loss (as your body tries to urinate out the toxic byproducts of ketosis) and reduced caloric intake, not any magical property of protein.
These diets get one thing right, in that they encourage avoiding foods that spike blood sugar. Everything else about them is dangerously wrong.
Want to know the long-term consequences of using protein and fat to fuel your metabolism rather than clean-burning carbohydrates? Ask a diabetic about the wonderful effects they get to experience.
That much is true, since most people are unaware of both the risks and the prevalence of GM crops.
Yet this is exactly analogous to what the GM-labeling people want -- information that is only useful for making irrational decisions. There is *no* evidence that genetic engineered foods can harm you,
First, many people are more concered about the long term ecological impact of GM crops than about personal health risks. Besides the problem of GM crops escaping into the wild and displacing original species, risks to wild animals (like birds and butterflies) from toxins produced by GM crops, and increased use of pesticides on "Roundup Ready" crops, there are risks of gene transfer into other organisms - including disease organisms.
Thrid, GM food crops have no real benefit except inflating profits of multinational corporations at the exepense of third-world farmers. The idea that third world farmers should plant "golden rice" rather than go back to those local crops rich in vitamin A that were displaced by globalization - where third world nations have to grow food that can be exported for the profit of others, rather than feed their own populations - would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
Choosing to avoid GM food is not only a rational decision, it is the only rational decision.
But unlike mathematicians, programmers are taught to think not in terms of absolute proof, but in terms of working metaphors
In the Computer Science cirriculum I studied, we did formal proofs of correctness. We learned mapping abstract data types to concrete implementations. We didn't discuss "working metaphors" at all.
Programmers are "average" folks; they have to be, since programming is a profession of millions of people, many without college degrees.
And that's the problem. Many, if not most, people developing software are simply not qualified to do it. It's like we have the guys working at Jiffy Lube designing cars.
Then object-oriented programming took off. Developers could, for the first time, create programming constructs that resembled elements of the real world -- in name, characteristics, and relationships to other objects
OO techniques have failed exactly because software objects have very little to do with real objects. While OO languages and principles can be useful, most of the gain is simply encapsulation and abstration.
it was speculated that even if we planted corn on every inch of the US from east to west, we still wouldn't have enough to produce the ethanol to power our *cars*
Ethanol can be made from any plant matter. Got lawn clippings? Fallen leaves? Waste paper? Wood chips and sawdust are readily available from industry. Much of what we currently take up landfil;l space with, could be used to produce fuel.
And I'd gladly replant most of my front yard with hemp (if they'd let me) or corn or some other fast-growing crop if I had a digester/still/fuel-cell combination in the back yard. Biomass in, power out. I think we could see something like that become common in the next decade or two.
The Simpsons isn't a cartoon! It's a graphic video.
See how dumb that sounds?
Only because you got it wrong. As the terms are generally used, The Simpsons is a cartoon. OTOH, Princess Mononoke is animation. All cartoons are animated, not all animation is cartoons.
Similarly with comic books versus graphic novels. Your monthly issue of Batman is a comic book. Arkham Asylum is a graphic novel.
Let me get this right. A guy physically residing in the States is earning money from a service whose primary and almost sole intent is to facilitate the commission of a crime
No, you don't have it right. The intent of this service is to protect privacy.
Yes, the service could be used to anonymously perform illegal activities; it could also be used to anonymously send important information to law enforcement.
You're arguing the same negativity about Hubble's replacement as they were about Hubble's ability to supplement or replace ground-based observatories.
Not at all. I'm not saying don't lauch Webb!
Service costs money, and NASA only has so much of it to go around. They're making a pragmatic decision to save funds for the next 'scope rather than spend it to extend the life of Hubble.
But that's not the case that they're making! They're claiming safety issues, not cost issues.
Just drive the old one until the wheels fall off, then buy your new one. Spending $10,000 to repair an old car is silly when you're not far from buying a new one altogether.
Except that in this case, there's a substantial possibility that your new car will blow up or suffer a serious breakdown on the way home.
Launch failure rate is 5 to 10%; then consider the number of space science missions that have suffered partial or total failures after launch. Counting both U.S. and Soviet/Russian missions since 1980, we have Hubble itself, Phobos 1 and 2, Mars Observer, Clementine, Mars 96, Mars Climate Orbiter, and Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2.
Given these conditions - and that your "new car" isn't scheduled to be ready until 2011 at the earliest anyway - if you rely on your car it would be wise to make the investment to keep the "old car" running until the new one is safely home. Especially if you can make good use of two cars anyway.
I'd also point out that a lunar observatory would give nearly all the same advantages (no atmos. distortion, no X-ray filtering, etc.) of an orbiting 'scope with much easier maintenance requirements.
Total agreement there. We should have had a small research base there a long time ago; if Apollo had been more than a "beat the Russians" game there'd be men and women up there now looking out at the stars in a crystal-clear sky.
Right in my home network I had to prioritze RTP packets (VoIP) so that other people in the house couldn't screw up my phone conversations
And exactly as the authors state, in so doing you de-optimized the network for other people in the house. It sounds to me like you're abusing the network ressources that other people want to use. ("Screw your ping time! I'm on the phone!")
I like Roger Zelazny's "Agnostic's Prayer" from Creatures of Light and Darkness
Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.
If you assume, as Pascal did, that there is only One God and He allows for confusion about HOW to worship him, then the wager makes sense.
Except that that's not at all what Pascal was assuming. He assumed that if there was a god, it was the Catholic god. He made no allowance for differences in faith, which is exactly one of it's major flaws.
Like subject their kids to a lengthy court battle so they won't have to pray in school? (Sorry, off-topic.)
WTF are you talking about??? Both religious and non-religious persons have stood up for religious freedom in our schools and thus against school prayer (including the modern form of the Pledge of Allegiance). Yes, fighting for liberty has been known to create a few inconveniences like lengthy court battles.
If one is to have a religion, they one MUST believe that their religion is more-correct than those that do not believe. Otherwise, they aren't having a religion at all--just a mere social function.
They one MUST believe that? Or else what? I don't think it's up to you to decide other people's relationship to their religion.
I guess what I've been searching for, since I am pretty much an atheist (the type who thinks God may or may not exist, since no one's proven either way), is a secular church.
You might check out the Ethical Society. Maybe also some forms of Buddhism, especially Zen; Unitarian Universalists; or some Pagan groups.
The problem with modern secularism is that it has not adequately established at a good theory of secular morality...If we do not believe in a Divine Judge, then how do we determine what is right and what is wrong?
There are secular theories of ethics, such as utilitarianism and Kantian rationalism. There's also amoralism, which says that that whole idea of attaching labels like "right" and "wrong" to the actions of others is at best a waste of time, and generally recommends cultivating compassion instead. (Not because you'll be punished if you don't - "Feel compassion or I'll knock your block off!" - but because you'll find life more pleasant if you do.) A lot of Taoism and Zen Buddhism takes this non-dualitic approach, as to many secular philosophers.
A good theory of morality would establish guidelines that society should follow.
Don't confuse morality with mores and laws. Morality says "This is wrong", mores say "We will shun you if you do this", and laws saw "We will use force against you if you do this".
He attacked many other nations: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, and others
Yes, over a decade ago. Since then Iraqis have been starving to death under the burden of sanctions. The American invasion encountered paper-thin resistance from Iraqi troops. Even at its height, Saddam's regime was little more than an annoying ankle-biting terrier, not a real attack dog; and the ankle-biter's teeth fell out a long time ago.
but technically allah and jehovah are supposedly the same guy.
From the "believe or go to hell" perspective, not really. (Of course, from the most extreme parts of that doctrine, the Catholic god and the Baptist god and the Methodist god are different too.)
If you think everything in this universe happened by accident then I guess you don't understand just what is contained in this universe to know it's too complicated to not be planned.
On the contrary, the Universe is too complicated to be planned! Planned things are simple and regular.
Hmm... two references to the same Almighty, and one to a made-up religion.
From the "believe my dogma or go to hell" perspective - which is the context of Pascal's Wager and thus of this discussion - they're different. And all religions are made up. Discordians are just more honest about it than most.
And, as best I recall, only a few major religions have a "belive this or you're going to hell" clause
Pascal's Wager is founded on it.
Relgion just helps "the rest of us" become very-very good while avoiding being very-very-bad.
Except that atheists and agnostics don't seem to be any worse than those who follow a religious dogma. And many people have done a lot of very very bad things in the name of religious dogma.
If you enjoy your religion, great. (I enjoy my Zen Pagan Taoist Atheist Discordianism immensely.) But don't think it makes you more correct or in any way better than those who don't share it.
Just remember what Pascal said: If you believe and you are wrong, you've at least led a good life; if you believe and you're right, heaven is on your way. If you don't believe and you're right, you've lived your life the way you wanted to; but if you're wrong....which outcomes pan out the best?
If I believe what? You tell me I'm going to hell if I don't believe in Jehovah...that guy tells me I'm going to hell if I don't believe in Allah...that guy tells me I'm destined for the land of Thud if I don't believe in Eris.
You also assume that I can choose to believe. Even though I try to believe six impossible things before breakfast, some propositions I just can't swallow - say, that Elvis Presley is alive and living on the Moon in a love nest with Marilyn Monroe. Or most of mainstream religious dogma.
Pascal's Wager is absolutely no help at all.
This of course ignores that if there were a deity that created beings, endowed them with the capacity for logic, failed to provide evidence of its own existence, then punished those beings that failed to believe in it, said deity would be sick and twisted, not deserving of worship but in need of intense psychotherapy. (Hmm, now that does sound like a believable proposition. "God's not dead, he's just very very sick in the head.")
Innocent, no. Victim of a smear campian, yes. He didn't have the WMD program he was accused of; he probably didn't gas the Kurds everyone "knows" he did.
Scumbag? Sure. Significant threat to other nations? Nope.
Read the stories in the search results and you'll find plenty of cases of people being fired, suspended, or arrested for expresing their view on Bush's illegal aggression. Please stop pretending that this isn't happening.
But then I see the Iraqis discovering another hidden mass grave in Iraq and realize the world over there is better off with Saddam gone.
Only if something significantly better replaces him, and the cost to do so was less than the cost to wait until he died on his own. Neither of these looks to be true; an illegal war (setting very bad precedent) leaving thousands dead to set the stage for Iraq to either fall apart into tribalism or be taken over by hard-line religious zealots.
I will point out that all of these arguments were used against Hubble itself when the project was first proposed.
There were people arguing during the design of the Hubble that we shouldn't abandon our existing orbital telescopes because the Hubble might fail? What orbital telescopes where they talking about?
The scientists most responsible for deep space observation have been the ones to design the specs for the new telescope.
Which they did under the assumption of an operating Hubble.
I wouldn't trust a chimp inside this thing, much less the cream of the American astronaut corps.
Great. Then you won't argue that it's safe to go to the ISS but not to the Hubble. That's the argument being made by NASA officials, and that is being criticized here.
Every SINGLE one of your sources was an editorial from fringe extremists groups with a long repupation of making things up.
If you have evidence that any of these stories are incorrect or "made up", please post. Indeed, it might be nice if you substantiated your claim that any of these sources have a long reputation of fabrication. (You might even try working up the guts to do so under a name other than "Anonymous Coward".)
A group organized a parade. Outsiders wanted to crash and insert themselves into the parade.
RTFA. The anti-war group had registered and had a signed contract permitting them to march.
Where I live, several pro-war Bush supporters were arrested for trying to demonstrate at an anti-war rally last year.
There have been occasions where pro-war demonstrators were prevented from protesting anti-war events, usually under claims of safety issues. I absolutlely do not support anyone being denied their freedom of speech, and such denial of free speech to pro-war demonstrators is absolutely unacceptable. It is, however, about an order of magnitude less common than supression of anti-war (and thus anti-government) viewpoints.
While not depriving people outright of their freedom of speech...
But it does outright deny the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances". You can't petition the government from a far away 'protest zone'.
Don't spread the myth. The only ones who were harassed or arrested were the ones who engaged in violence, criminal trespass, or other actions which went beyond speaking their minds.
Bullshit.
You're the one spreading a myth, bud. A few minutes with Google puts the lie to your claim:
Slashdot Mirror
PHP has create_function().
What, the success of damaging the health of millions of people? High protein diets increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, kidney damage, and osteoporosis. And weight loss on high-protein diets comes from water loss (as your body tries to urinate out the toxic byproducts of ketosis) and reduced caloric intake, not any magical property of protein.
These diets get one thing right, in that they encourage avoiding foods that spike blood sugar. Everything else about them is dangerously wrong.
Want to know the long-term consequences of using protein and fat to fuel your metabolism rather than clean-burning carbohydrates? Ask a diabetic about the wonderful effects they get to experience.
That much is true, since most people are unaware of both the risks and the prevalence of GM crops.
First, many people are more concered about the long term ecological impact of GM crops than about personal health risks. Besides the problem of GM crops escaping into the wild and displacing original species, risks to wild animals (like birds and butterflies) from toxins produced by GM crops, and increased use of pesticides on "Roundup Ready" crops, there are risks of gene transfer into other organisms - including disease organisms.
Second, GM crops have not existed long enough to be proven safe. There are unanswered questions about allergens and toxic substances produced by GM crops. You wanna eat 'em? Hey, I support your right to put anything you want into your body - so long as you grow them under biohazard protocols and label them, so that I don't have to assume the risk too.
Thrid, GM food crops have no real benefit except inflating profits of multinational corporations at the exepense of third-world farmers. The idea that third world farmers should plant "golden rice" rather than go back to those local crops rich in vitamin A that were displaced by globalization - where third world nations have to grow food that can be exported for the profit of others, rather than feed their own populations - would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
Choosing to avoid GM food is not only a rational decision, it is the only rational decision.
In the Computer Science cirriculum I studied, we did formal proofs of correctness. We learned mapping abstract data types to concrete implementations. We didn't discuss "working metaphors" at all.
And that's the problem. Many, if not most, people developing software are simply not qualified to do it. It's like we have the guys working at Jiffy Lube designing cars.
OO techniques have failed exactly because software objects have very little to do with real objects. While OO languages and principles can be useful, most of the gain is simply encapsulation and abstration.
Ethanol can be made from any plant matter. Got lawn clippings? Fallen leaves? Waste paper? Wood chips and sawdust are readily available from industry. Much of what we currently take up landfil;l space with, could be used to produce fuel.
And I'd gladly replant most of my front yard with hemp (if they'd let me) or corn or some other fast-growing crop if I had a digester/still/fuel-cell combination in the back yard. Biomass in, power out. I think we could see something like that become common in the next decade or two.
Only because you got it wrong. As the terms are generally used, The Simpsons is a cartoon. OTOH, Princess Mononoke is animation. All cartoons are animated, not all animation is cartoons.
Similarly with comic books versus graphic novels. Your monthly issue of Batman is a comic book. Arkham Asylum is a graphic novel.
No, you don't have it right. The intent of this service is to protect privacy.
Yes, the service could be used to anonymously perform illegal activities; it could also be used to anonymously send important information to law enforcement.
Not at all. I'm not saying don't lauch Webb!
But that's not the case that they're making! They're claiming safety issues, not cost issues.
Except that in this case, there's a substantial possibility that your new car will blow up or suffer a serious breakdown on the way home.
Launch failure rate is 5 to 10%; then consider the number of space science missions that have suffered partial or total failures after launch. Counting both U.S. and Soviet/Russian missions since 1980, we have Hubble itself, Phobos 1 and 2, Mars Observer, Clementine, Mars 96, Mars Climate Orbiter, and Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2.
Given these conditions - and that your "new car" isn't scheduled to be ready until 2011 at the earliest anyway - if you rely on your car it would be wise to make the investment to keep the "old car" running until the new one is safely home. Especially if you can make good use of two cars anyway.
Total agreement there. We should have had a small research base there a long time ago; if Apollo had been more than a "beat the Russians" game there'd be men and women up there now looking out at the stars in a crystal-clear sky.And exactly as the authors state, in so doing you de-optimized the network for other people in the house. It sounds to me like you're abusing the network ressources that other people want to use. ("Screw your ping time! I'm on the phone!")
Those are great things, but they're not the Internet, any more than the printing press is my collection of books.
The things you mention are things you've done with things built onto the ends of the Internet. IP just gets packets from one place to another.
I like Roger Zelazny's "Agnostic's Prayer" from Creatures of Light and Darkness
Except that that's not at all what Pascal was assuming. He assumed that if there was a god, it was the Catholic god. He made no allowance for differences in faith, which is exactly one of it's major flaws.
WTF are you talking about??? Both religious and non-religious persons have stood up for religious freedom in our schools and thus against school prayer (including the modern form of the Pledge of Allegiance). Yes, fighting for liberty has been known to create a few inconveniences like lengthy court battles.
They one MUST believe that? Or else what? I don't think it's up to you to decide other people's relationship to their religion.
There are secular theories of ethics, such as utilitarianism and Kantian rationalism. There's also amoralism, which says that that whole idea of attaching labels like "right" and "wrong" to the actions of others is at best a waste of time, and generally recommends cultivating compassion instead. (Not because you'll be punished if you don't - "Feel compassion or I'll knock your block off!" - but because you'll find life more pleasant if you do.) A lot of Taoism and Zen Buddhism takes this non-dualitic approach, as to many secular philosophers.
Don't confuse morality with mores and laws. Morality says "This is wrong", mores say "We will shun you if you do this", and laws saw "We will use force against you if you do this".But he didn't have the gas that was used in the gassing of the Kurds. However, Iran did.
Yes, over a decade ago. Since then Iraqis have been starving to death under the burden of sanctions. The American invasion encountered paper-thin resistance from Iraqi troops. Even at its height, Saddam's regime was little more than an annoying ankle-biting terrier, not a real attack dog; and the ankle-biter's teeth fell out a long time ago.
On the contrary, the Universe is too complicated to be planned! Planned things are simple and regular.
From the "believe my dogma or go to hell" perspective - which is the context of Pascal's Wager and thus of this discussion - they're different. And all religions are made up. Discordians are just more honest about it than most.
Pascal's Wager is founded on it.
Except that atheists and agnostics don't seem to be any worse than those who follow a religious dogma. And many people have done a lot of very very bad things in the name of religious dogma.
If you enjoy your religion, great. (I enjoy my Zen Pagan Taoist Atheist Discordianism immensely.) But don't think it makes you more correct or in any way better than those who don't share it.
If I believe what? You tell me I'm going to hell if I don't believe in Jehovah...that guy tells me I'm going to hell if I don't believe in Allah...that guy tells me I'm destined for the land of Thud if I don't believe in Eris.
You also assume that I can choose to believe. Even though I try to believe six impossible things before breakfast, some propositions I just can't swallow - say, that Elvis Presley is alive and living on the Moon in a love nest with Marilyn Monroe. Or most of mainstream religious dogma.
Pascal's Wager is absolutely no help at all.
This of course ignores that if there were a deity that created beings, endowed them with the capacity for logic, failed to provide evidence of its own existence, then punished those beings that failed to believe in it, said deity would be sick and twisted, not deserving of worship but in need of intense psychotherapy. (Hmm, now that does sound like a believable proposition. "God's not dead, he's just very very sick in the head.")
Innocent, no. Victim of a smear campian, yes. He didn't have the WMD program he was accused of; he probably didn't gas the Kurds everyone "knows" he did.
Scumbag? Sure. Significant threat to other nations? Nope.
Addressed elsewhere in the thread. Here's a few Google searches to find more incidents:
Read the stories in the search results and you'll find plenty of cases of people being fired, suspended, or arrested for expresing their view on Bush's illegal aggression. Please stop pretending that this isn't happening.
Only if something significantly better replaces him, and the cost to do so was less than the cost to wait until he died on his own. Neither of these looks to be true; an illegal war (setting very bad precedent) leaving thousands dead to set the stage for Iraq to either fall apart into tribalism or be taken over by hard-line religious zealots.
There were people arguing during the design of the Hubble that we shouldn't abandon our existing orbital telescopes because the Hubble might fail? What orbital telescopes where they talking about?
Which they did under the assumption of an operating Hubble.
Great. Then you won't argue that it's safe to go to the ISS but not to the Hubble. That's the argument being made by NASA officials, and that is being criticized here.
If you have evidence that any of these stories are incorrect or "made up", please post. Indeed, it might be nice if you substantiated your claim that any of these sources have a long reputation of fabrication. (You might even try working up the guts to do so under a name other than "Anonymous Coward".)
RTFA. The anti-war group had registered and had a signed contract permitting them to march.
There have been occasions where pro-war demonstrators were prevented from protesting anti-war events, usually under claims of safety issues. I absolutlely do not support anyone being denied their freedom of speech, and such denial of free speech to pro-war demonstrators is absolutely unacceptable. It is, however, about an order of magnitude less common than supression of anti-war (and thus anti-government) viewpoints.
You're the one spreading a myth, bud. A few minutes with Google puts the lie to your claim:
- mass arrests in San Francisco
- Brett Bursey was arrested for "trespassing" while on public property with an antiwar sign - and is now facing federal charges
- Thomas C. Frazier arrested for trying to carry an anti-war sign
- Anti-war veterns not allowed to march
- Protestors arrested after violating unconstitutional restraint of demonstrations in Lafayette Park
- Protestor beaten in Santa Cruz
The Progressive has a page dedicated to the New McCarthyism.