I had to deal with this myself once (tracked down a stolen laptop). The local ordinance is called "receipt of stolen property" and is a crime, but it requires knowledge that that the property is stolen or a preponderance of evidence that the individual should have reasonably known that the property was stolen.
But being in possession of stolen property is enough to give an officer probable cause and you'll probably be charged with something.
the BSA's stance is that merely being gay or non-Christian means you are not fit to lead children.
Disclaimer - I am a Christian
Perhaps the BSA's stance is more likely that being non-Christian means you are not fit to lead children in a Christian organization.
True, the BSA does not operate a church, and most troops are not overtly evangelical. But the BSA most definitely views themselves as a Christian organization, ministering to the public. It makes sense that individuals in leadership uphold values of the organization.
Thanks for the reference. Interesting reading. FWIW, Fox's affiliate news organization (which was involved in the referenced BGH incident) and FoxNews Channel are not the same, though some may choose to avoid that point. The precipitating post implicates "Fox News", which I assume is a reference to FNC, not Channel 13 in Florida and the executive at Fox Corp with oversight of the locals:
Unrelated note: you do realize, don't you, that Fox News has successfully argued in court that it should not be held accountable for factual errors in its reports because it presents 'opinion and commentary', not 'news', programming?
For the GP to assert FNC is guilty for the sins of a local news affiliate and parent Fox Corp is a clear cases of guilt by association. Certainly we can do better than that. In a similar situation, would you blame CNN for sins perpetrated by Warner Brothers 2 News in Colorado and Time Warner because CNN happens to be owned by Time Warner? I think not. What makes the Fox case seem more justifiable than the CNN hypothetical is the use of the name "Fox" in all three organizations - FNC, Fox Corp, and Fox 13 in Florida. Just because they share a corporate brand does not mean they are any more related than CNN is to WB2.
I didn't assume anything, nor meant to imply that I did. Your post sounded like you were talking about a very specific event, and I'm curious to read about it. Perhaps the only assumption I made is that searching for "lies" and "fox news" is probably about as likely to turn up a clean list of trustworthy information as a search for "liberal" and "npr". Searches like that result in such large sets of both good and bad results that it's unlikely I'll find the event or events you based your post on.
And though my one word reply was unnecessarily brief, being called an ass and lazy in response is unfair. There's no need for that. I just didn't feel that asking for a reference justified a lot of words. So I'll try again, sans brevity:
I'd like to read up on the incident to which you are referring. Would you provide a reference to a description of the event, please?
Mayors and governors, in a functioning democracy at least, are accountable to their constituents.
Are you implying that the Bush administration is a functioning democracy? <ducks>
Seriously, though, you have to account for the fact that eventually a group of people ideologically opposed to you will assume power in the government. These are the people you may unwittingly give the power to monopolize your communications. With private corporations at least I have choice and competition. With rare exception, in places where muni WiFi seems to make sense there's competition for internet access. It is not likely that a single private corporation will assume a full monopoly in these markets. If you don't like the policies of one provider, use another.
Need I point out a particular current event that illustrates the power that government can wield over communication?
Muni WiFi shoud fail for the sake of free speech. It's always boggled my mind to see the amount of support on/. for muni WiFi. With the general (and healthy) distrust of government in this forum, why should we desire to ask a government to own and operate a primary channel of the public's communication? Do you really want mayors and governors loyal to the Bush administration to have significant say in who has access to look inside your internet connection?
I'm a Fundie, and the faith you describe is not the faith I believe God asks of me. In fact, the hammer analogy is a good depiction of the type of faith I subscribe to. I'm unaware of any part of the Bible that claims salvation is based on belief without evidence. Quite the contrary, Christ's authority to teach was "proven" (fundie speak - "testified to") by performing physical miracles for all present to see. Not feeling the need to go into great detail here (it's late and I'm tired), but suffice it to say that God is the creator of reason, proof, evidence and is not afraid to use any of it. For someone seemingly as engaged in the debate as you are, it could make for an interesting intellectual study to read up on the biblical concept of faith.
If you disbelieve it, that's fine. But know what you're making a decision about. Don't willingly choose to disbelieve a caricature.
They can do anything interactive. They can integrate more powerful applications with TV. They can do all sorts of interactive applications. Come on people, innovate.
Innovate? This ain't the old Bell Lab. The last time the telcos innovated, all we got was hosted voicemail. Ever hear of AIN - the Advanced Intelligent Network? It was a huge push to "enable services" in the phone network. Except the phone companies seemingly forgot to actually think up services that people wanted - they were too busy patting themselves on the back for SS7. Now all the industry rage is IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem. Yet again, a bunch of engineers cooking up a service delivery framework without a clue as to what people will actually fork over money for.
No. I'm afraid the telco concept of innovation at this point is to seek revenge against the cable companies for offering phone service five years earlier. The best way to do that? Just offer what the cable companies do and hope people will switch out of desperation.
There is no shortage of models for how common carrier can be enforced without hindering innovation.
I'd be cautious in linking your argument to the innovation of the telephone providers over the years, especially the last few decades. What new, innovative telephone services have emerged in the last 30 years? Touch tone. Voice quality improvements. Hosted voicemail. DSL. Perhaps the only truely important innovation worth any signifiant praise has been wireless, mobile telephony. 30 years. One market-shifting innovation. Hardly a glowing example of corporate ingenuity for such a long time.
The interesting thing about common carrier is that it matches up pretty well with previous posters' comments that would seem to be in disagreement with your position. CC allows regulated and unregulated services to co-exist (e.g. dial tone and DSL), and to even be bundled (spankyouverymuch, qwest). If the US were to implement a CC equivalent for internet service, it should allow for value add service to exist on top of the regulated service. This is, by definition, not "neutral".
VoIP in the US is not taxed. The only regulation extended to VoIP providers in the US is on interconnection to the PSTN, in which case the provider must also make Enhanced 9-1-1 service available. e.g. Skype-to-Skype is not regualted by the gov't.
I own an SB, and I love it, but I'm not impressed with the quality of SlimServer itself. The basic architecture of SB/SlimServer rocks. The fact that the major functionality lives in the computer with the SB as a thin client is a great way to go. But the software implementation is slow, it has a clumsy web interface, and it has some weird functionality warts. Examples:
- Internet radio - if I want to listen to the local NPR affiliate, I have to setup a playlist with just that radio station listed. Why not just have an "Internet Radio Stations" top level function?
- Playlist management - Why do I have to ask the server to rescan the playlist directory? And when I do so, why does it take 5 minutes and cause a 30 sescond outage? This is only with 10 or so small playlists on a 3GHz machine. Playlists are lightweight - they don't need to be indexed for performance like MP3s.
- Podcasts - what could be simpler than adding a podcast downloader? The PodcastBrowser plugin connects on demand, leaving you susceptible to internet flakiness while listening.
I love my SqueezeBox, I really do. They'll have to rip it from my cold, dead hands. But SlimServer on its own is no gem. It needs to be as easy to use as (or perhaps *fully* integrated with) iTunes, Windows Media Center, etc before the average home will be able to truely enjoy its awesomeness. I'm a little afraid if what Logitech will do, but I'm also cautiosly optimistic.
Does SPAM referring to "unsolicited email" confuse consumers, or misrepresent the corporate's product to unfairly compete? In this case the SPAM trademark applies to a canned meat product. The term is also in general use to refer to unsolicited email. They are separate industries, and consumers are unlikely to confuse unsolicited email with a canned meat product. Similarly, there are no concerns over unfair competition by imitation. Thus there is little harm to the consumer, nor a real concern to the corporation.
It's hard for me to say that Hormel has no concern when "spam" was a unique word (unlike "windows" and "apple") that would have resulted in relevant search results referring to their product, but now refers exclusively to annoying email.
Under current Trademark systems, what you say is all very true. But the widespread use of the internet by consumers has introduced a change that challenges the usefulness of the "industries" concept of trademark. People used to find products and services almost exclusively by category, by way of tools like yellow pages, trade magazines and advertisements in certain contexts. Those tools are still used, but a new method of finding goods has emerged - the keyword search. And the trade-specific nature of trademarks has lost some usefulness to the consumer because of it. As a consumer, I expect a search for "ipod" to reference the Apple Computer Corp music player product, not toothpaste, buttons, or canned meat.
there were never any scientists with a burning need to tear apart embryos just because they seemed like nice spare parts to use
No one ever accused anyone of wanting to tear apart embryos, per se. Similarly, conservatives don't object to stem cell research, per se. This particular controversy centers around the value that the embryos represent. I value both the research's potential and the embryo, as you probably do as well. My relative values for the two probably differ from yours. I value the embryos more than the research's potential. But that is not to say I don't value medical research, and that I'm against the use of stem cells to do the research. And I certainly don't believe that scientists want to destroy embryos. If stem cell research can be performed without the destruction of embryos, and it does not lead to farming embryos, then I'm just as excited as anyone else.
The irony in all this is that if more embryos that were eventually destroyed without being studied, were instead studied...
This leads to a secondary concern - that this situation creates pressure if the "stock" runs low. I don't have numbers, but I don't think we have a very large supply of frozen human embryos on the path to destruction. Sure, there's a bunch, but if there's not enough to satisfy the research then there'll be pressure to create more. Additionally, there may be pressure to create modified embryos that exhibit qualities not normally part of human development (enhancement, suppression, etc). All of these are serious ethical issues that warrant caution. And these are not issues that science and research can resolve - these are moral value issues, and for that reason we can be sure to have a wide spectum of disagreement.
"The internet has always had rules. One of those rules is that even if you own a pipe, you're not allowed to tell people what they can put through that pipe."
I call BS. Years ago ISPs started blocking SMTP traffic to combat spam originating from their broadband lines. TACOS often include terms that prohibit certain types of activities, specifically criminal activities. Many broadband offerings don't allow for routing of UDP packets to the subscriber (limiting VoIP as a byproduct). Broadband carriers have long been telling people what they can do with their pipes. Subscribers have long been OK with these limitations.
I'm all in favor of the effects that the Net Neutrality folks are seeking, but I'm unconvinced that we want to invite government regulation to the party. Decent consumer education is probably more effective - teach people to shop for "neutral broadband" service and you'll achieve the same goal without inviting bureaucrats to architect the evolution of the internet. And remember, Neutrality is not the goal, but rather the strategy. The goal is to perpetuate the current market which has the property of allowing the little guy and the big guy to appear the same. If that goal can be obtained without the current view of Neutrality, then why not?
On the flip side, if my telco wants to sell me a 100Mbps connection, with 10Mbps for general internet and 90Mbps for their VoIP and their TV, I may be inclined to subscribe. That sounds like a nice product offering. The fact that Vonage has to play on the 10Mbps portion of the pipe does not concern me, and I view this as a much lesser evil than government lawyers getting into the ISP business.
Oh, BTW, you can get HDTV down the same wire too:-)
Bingo - I just attended the big Telecom love fest in vegas, and the whole show was IPTV-this and IPTV-that. The reason the bandwith providers are pushing high bandwith to your residence is not so you can download internet pr0n faster. It's so they can offer you television, VoIP*, internet access, and potentially other value-add services via that bandwith. The industry seems to be targeting approx. 100Mbps to the residence for so-called "triple-play" service.
* VoIP over their private network and gatewayed to the PSTN, not VoIP over internet - at least not yet
Can a man live inside of a fish for three days? Was Eve fashioned out of Adam's rib?
Sure - so long as God made it happen. We Fundies still believe that God can do things outside the norm - miracles. Water/wine. Healing blindness with spit. Weird things, to be sure - I wouldn't expect anyone to think otherwise. If God wants to break the laws of physics, biology, chemistry - that's his prerogative. Certainly many non-believers don't like the "miracle" escape clause - but it is what it is and it would be dishonest to explain it away as anything else.
Which bible do you read, and why?
NIV, typically. Because it's in modern English, and with the aid of other tools like inter-linears, paraphrases, commentaries and other modern language translations, one can get a really great context of what the author wrote without being a biblical translator.
Do you think the Romans (who canonized the Bible...
Sure they canonized it, but they didn't modify the text that was chosen. They also failed, if they tried at all, to scrub the world clean of the texts that didn't make the cut, so we can all read what wasn't picked if we're in doubt. Study of these non-canonized texts can often times be enlightening, but there are typically obvious bits that show they're in direct conflict with the canonized set. Jesus killing kids because they inconvenienced him and such - not exactly in line with the rest of scripture.
Why do you go to church on Sunday instead of the Sabbath, or Saturday?
Don't know offhand, I'd have to look up a history of that. Probably because Jesus resurrected on a Sunday. I doubt it relates much to the authority of scripture.
Why do most of the Christian holidays coincide exactly with pagan holidays that are centuries older?
There aren't many modern Christian holidays (excepting the Catholics - they've got a bunch). Christmas - not accounted for in scripture all - purely tradition. If it happens to intentionally coincide with a pagan holiday or anything else, it only impugns the observers, not scripture. Easter - directly related to Passover, which is part of the Hebrew calendar of events. Christ died on Passover, and resurrected the following Sunday.
...are non-trinitarians going to hell?
Yes. Sadly. The only requirements for salvation are to believe Jesus for who he is, what he did, and accept it. There is no obligation to do anything but accept a gift given freely. Jesus and Jehovah are the same (this is the trinity thing). To believe Jesus was anything but God, is to disagree with who Jesus himself claimed to be. Anything else is a false Gospel - the book of Galatians deals directly with this topic.
What if you aren't baptized?
Not a requirement for salvation. Required, yes - in the same manner that I require my son to obey me, but not as a condition that I love him. Baptism is a requirement of believers, but for reasons other than salvation.
Why do you think there are so many sects of Christianity if the bible is so crystal clear?
I've never heard anyone claim it's crystal clear - some parts are, but others are quite complex and involved. As to the sectarianism of Christianity - because the world is sinful and Christians are not immune. We disagree often on matters of truth (trinity, baptism, roles of women, deity of Christ, and so on). To be intellectually honest, one has to agree that the fact that Christians disagree does not change the truthfulness or untruthfulness of any given claim. This is true in science as well.
To elaborate further on the last question, we Fundies actually believe that Satan exists and has been given privi
I'm all for voting with our wallets. To achieve maximum effect, a nice-sounding term needs to be coined to motivate the customers who don't make it a habit to monitor their ISP's behavior. (Just think of what the word "podcasting" is doing for RSS.) Note that such a term doesn't even need to be technically accurate.
It's important because Jesus refers to the same body of text to help derive his authority. If the truthfulness of Christ's authority is not absolute, then we as Christians have no basis upon which to claim exclusivity on the really important things - God's love for us and his salvation from our sins. In short, God said it, Christ repeated it, I believe it - if you have a problem with the text, the problem is with Christ, not with what I believe. A part of me hopes that sounds a little harsh, as I think too many Christians try to prove their case without the help of Christ. The non-believing world has problems with what is taught in scripture, especially what is taught by Christ, not what I choose to believe or not believe. If the world has a problem with the content, no amount of blaming me for believing it is going to change the situation. Christians need to understand this, and redirect the argument straight back to the source - God & Christ.
Along those lines, Genesis is by all rational readings authored in a manner that appears intended to depict history, not fantasy. If you don't believe it or don't want to believe it, perhaps you are better served to reconsider the resurrection and whether you're willing to belive Christ really died and really came back to life. Paul even says that if there was no resurrection, then we have believed in vain, "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." 1 Cor 15:14. Certainly if God raised Christ from the dead, he could do other miracles as well, including the creation.
Just as in the techno-security realm, we talk about "chains of trust", in the realm of scriptural text we talk about chains of authenticity or chains of truth. People dig on Fundies all the time because we're so "absolute" about things - but what we are attempting is the same that any scientist or philosopher attempts - consistency, predictability, and logical progression. It's just that when I do it I'm a "fundamentalist", but when a scientist does it s/he's thorough.
I wish I could answer your other questions, which might be (over)simplified in asking why a Good god lets Bad things happen. I have an answer or two for myself, but I can't point you to the Book of Tough Questions chapter 5 verse 12, so I won't claim to have been given some authority to speak on that topic. Suffice it to say we probably agree as Christians that we live in a fallen world and God chose not to lay out for us all the reasons why.
(Disclaimer - I don't know ID, but I'm open to it because I'm one of those evangelical fundie types who reads Genesis literally.)
I think the evolution/ID debate is controversial because:
Fundies like me believe that science and religion are not separable.
Fundies and evolution types agree that there is only one reality, and we should do our best to understand it in full truth. (Most of us agree that truth is knowable, though the post-modernists in our midst may object.)
Fundies and evolution types do not agree on many foundational assumptions. (Take age & maturity for example - as a Fundie, I believe God can create things that are both young and mature. Just for kicks, read Genesis literally and ask yourself how old Adam was the day he was created. The text implies he was only a day old, but mature enough to feed himself and even to "know" a woman - wink wink, nudge nudge.)
In the US (where this debate is centered), we have a legal construct that keeps gov't from establishing a religion. Evolution types view ID as religious.
Fundie types object when they believe their children are asked to contradict the things they are trying to teach in the home, especially when the source of the conflicting information is not disclaimed. If you ask my kid how old the earth is, and expect an answer that contradicts my view and I have a problem. HOWEVER, and this is vitally important to many Fundie types, if you ask my kid how old evolution theory teaches the earth is, and I'm cool. Teach my kid evolution. Test him on it. Just don't require my child to testify that evolutions is true in order to get the grade.
To date, there has not been a good public example where a local gov't (i.e. state education system / school board) has been willing to establish and enforce such a discalimer as described by #5 (really, it's simply a citation of the source, not even a disclaimer). The infamous "only-a-theory sickers" placed in textbooks was a not-so-subtle attempt to provide such a disclaimer.
My solution to all of this - get the government out of the buisiness of providing classroom teaching. Yes education is vitally important and must be available to all equally and fairly. But the classrooom is and always will be a proving ground for many forms of ideology both good and bad. Send your kids to an evolution only school, I'll send mine to one that presents Genesis as history and evolution as a competing secular theory, and someone else will snd their kids to a school that puts all origins teaching on the same footing. After all, given enough time, won't the weakest teaching strategies will be selected out?
Since many IP devices are WiFi enabled already, I propose a network of WiFi location beacons. Just like APs broadcast SSIDs, why not make cheap, autonomous GPS/WiFi devices that simply rebroadcast their GPS location via WiFi? Deploy them by the truckload into major cities and let the laptops and the WiFi phones of the world choose to listen if they want.
This would provide a solution to the FCC's stated desires (providing E-911 to VoIP), while avoiding the mess that a network-based location tracking system would cause. A client-driven system needs to exist so that location determination and transmission is under complete control of the client.
I'm interested in throwing ideas around about this concept - wifigps@gmail.com if you want to discuss at length.
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I had to deal with this myself once (tracked down a stolen laptop). The local ordinance is called "receipt of stolen property" and is a crime, but it requires knowledge that that the property is stolen or a preponderance of evidence that the individual should have reasonably known that the property was stolen.
But being in possession of stolen property is enough to give an officer probable cause and you'll probably be charged with something.
Disclaimer - I am a Christian
Perhaps the BSA's stance is more likely that being non-Christian means you are not fit to lead children in a Christian organization.
True, the BSA does not operate a church, and most troops are not overtly evangelical. But the BSA most definitely views themselves as a Christian organization, ministering to the public. It makes sense that individuals in leadership uphold values of the organization.
Exactly.
University seeks to make computing more accessible to people. News at eleven.
Thanks for the reference. Interesting reading. FWIW, Fox's affiliate news organization (which was involved in the referenced BGH incident) and FoxNews Channel are not the same, though some may choose to avoid that point. The precipitating post implicates "Fox News", which I assume is a reference to FNC, not Channel 13 in Florida and the executive at Fox Corp with oversight of the locals:
For the GP to assert FNC is guilty for the sins of a local news affiliate and parent Fox Corp is a clear cases of guilt by association. Certainly we can do better than that. In a similar situation, would you blame CNN for sins perpetrated by Warner Brothers 2 News in Colorado and Time Warner because CNN happens to be owned by Time Warner? I think not. What makes the Fox case seem more justifiable than the CNN hypothetical is the use of the name "Fox" in all three organizations - FNC, Fox Corp, and Fox 13 in Florida. Just because they share a corporate brand does not mean they are any more related than CNN is to WB2.
I didn't assume anything, nor meant to imply that I did. Your post sounded like you were talking about a very specific event, and I'm curious to read about it. Perhaps the only assumption I made is that searching for "lies" and "fox news" is probably about as likely to turn up a clean list of trustworthy information as a search for "liberal" and "npr". Searches like that result in such large sets of both good and bad results that it's unlikely I'll find the event or events you based your post on.
And though my one word reply was unnecessarily brief, being called an ass and lazy in response is unfair. There's no need for that. I just didn't feel that asking for a reference justified a lot of words. So I'll try again, sans brevity:
I'd like to read up on the incident to which you are referring. Would you provide a reference to a description of the event, please?
Reference?
Are you implying that the Bush administration is a functioning democracy? <ducks>
Seriously, though, you have to account for the fact that eventually a group of people ideologically opposed to you will assume power in the government. These are the people you may unwittingly give the power to monopolize your communications. With private corporations at least I have choice and competition. With rare exception, in places where muni WiFi seems to make sense there's competition for internet access. It is not likely that a single private corporation will assume a full monopoly in these markets. If you don't like the policies of one provider, use another.
Need I point out a particular current event that illustrates the power that government can wield over communication?
Muni WiFi shoud fail for the sake of free speech. It's always boggled my mind to see the amount of support on /. for muni WiFi. With the general (and healthy) distrust of government in this forum, why should we desire to ask a government to own and operate a primary channel of the public's communication? Do you really want mayors and governors loyal to the Bush administration to have significant say in who has access to look inside your internet connection?
I'm a Fundie, and the faith you describe is not the faith I believe God asks of me. In fact, the hammer analogy is a good depiction of the type of faith I subscribe to. I'm unaware of any part of the Bible that claims salvation is based on belief without evidence. Quite the contrary, Christ's authority to teach was "proven" (fundie speak - "testified to") by performing physical miracles for all present to see. Not feeling the need to go into great detail here (it's late and I'm tired), but suffice it to say that God is the creator of reason, proof, evidence and is not afraid to use any of it. For someone seemingly as engaged in the debate as you are, it could make for an interesting intellectual study to read up on the biblical concept of faith.
If you disbelieve it, that's fine. But know what you're making a decision about. Don't willingly choose to disbelieve a caricature.
Innovate? This ain't the old Bell Lab. The last time the telcos innovated, all we got was hosted voicemail. Ever hear of AIN - the Advanced Intelligent Network? It was a huge push to "enable services" in the phone network. Except the phone companies seemingly forgot to actually think up services that people wanted - they were too busy patting themselves on the back for SS7. Now all the industry rage is IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem. Yet again, a bunch of engineers cooking up a service delivery framework without a clue as to what people will actually fork over money for.
No. I'm afraid the telco concept of innovation at this point is to seek revenge against the cable companies for offering phone service five years earlier. The best way to do that? Just offer what the cable companies do and hope people will switch out of desperation.
I'd be cautious in linking your argument to the innovation of the telephone providers over the years, especially the last few decades. What new, innovative telephone services have emerged in the last 30 years? Touch tone. Voice quality improvements. Hosted voicemail. DSL. Perhaps the only truely important innovation worth any signifiant praise has been wireless, mobile telephony. 30 years. One market-shifting innovation. Hardly a glowing example of corporate ingenuity for such a long time.
The interesting thing about common carrier is that it matches up pretty well with previous posters' comments that would seem to be in disagreement with your position. CC allows regulated and unregulated services to co-exist (e.g. dial tone and DSL), and to even be bundled (spankyouverymuch, qwest). If the US were to implement a CC equivalent for internet service, it should allow for value add service to exist on top of the regulated service. This is, by definition, not "neutral".
VoIP in the US is not taxed. The only regulation extended to VoIP providers in the US is on interconnection to the PSTN, in which case the provider must also make Enhanced 9-1-1 service available. e.g. Skype-to-Skype is not regualted by the gov't.
I own an SB, and I love it, but I'm not impressed with the quality of SlimServer itself. The basic architecture of SB/SlimServer rocks. The fact that the major functionality lives in the computer with the SB as a thin client is a great way to go. But the software implementation is slow, it has a clumsy web interface, and it has some weird functionality warts. Examples:
- Internet radio - if I want to listen to the local NPR affiliate, I have to setup a playlist with just that radio station listed. Why not just have an "Internet Radio Stations" top level function?
- Playlist management - Why do I have to ask the server to rescan the playlist directory? And when I do so, why does it take 5 minutes and cause a 30 sescond outage? This is only with 10 or so small playlists on a 3GHz machine. Playlists are lightweight - they don't need to be indexed for performance like MP3s.
- Podcasts - what could be simpler than adding a podcast downloader? The PodcastBrowser plugin connects on demand, leaving you susceptible to internet flakiness while listening.
I love my SqueezeBox, I really do. They'll have to rip it from my cold, dead hands. But SlimServer on its own is no gem. It needs to be as easy to use as (or perhaps *fully* integrated with) iTunes, Windows Media Center, etc before the average home will be able to truely enjoy its awesomeness. I'm a little afraid if what Logitech will do, but I'm also cautiosly optimistic.
It's hard for me to say that Hormel has no concern when "spam" was a unique word (unlike "windows" and "apple") that would have resulted in relevant search results referring to their product, but now refers exclusively to annoying email.
Under current Trademark systems, what you say is all very true. But the widespread use of the internet by consumers has introduced a change that challenges the usefulness of the "industries" concept of trademark. People used to find products and services almost exclusively by category, by way of tools like yellow pages, trade magazines and advertisements in certain contexts. Those tools are still used, but a new method of finding goods has emerged - the keyword search. And the trade-specific nature of trademarks has lost some usefulness to the consumer because of it. As a consumer, I expect a search for "ipod" to reference the Apple Computer Corp music player product, not toothpaste, buttons, or canned meat.
Perhaps Hormel should rename SPAM to iPod...
No one ever accused anyone of wanting to tear apart embryos, per se. Similarly, conservatives don't object to stem cell research, per se. This particular controversy centers around the value that the embryos represent. I value both the research's potential and the embryo, as you probably do as well. My relative values for the two probably differ from yours. I value the embryos more than the research's potential. But that is not to say I don't value medical research, and that I'm against the use of stem cells to do the research. And I certainly don't believe that scientists want to destroy embryos. If stem cell research can be performed without the destruction of embryos, and it does not lead to farming embryos, then I'm just as excited as anyone else.
This leads to a secondary concern - that this situation creates pressure if the "stock" runs low. I don't have numbers, but I don't think we have a very large supply of frozen human embryos on the path to destruction. Sure, there's a bunch, but if there's not enough to satisfy the research then there'll be pressure to create more. Additionally, there may be pressure to create modified embryos that exhibit qualities not normally part of human development (enhancement, suppression, etc). All of these are serious ethical issues that warrant caution. And these are not issues that science and research can resolve - these are moral value issues, and for that reason we can be sure to have a wide spectum of disagreement.
Yeah, but the RIAA'd be all up on your arse.
When Chuck Norris logs on, he doesn't use a password. He just stares at the terminal until it pees the carpet and lets him on.
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
Bingo - I just attended the big Telecom love fest in vegas, and the whole show was IPTV-this and IPTV-that. The reason the bandwith providers are pushing high bandwith to your residence is not so you can download internet pr0n faster. It's so they can offer you television, VoIP*, internet access, and potentially other value-add services via that bandwith. The industry seems to be targeting approx. 100Mbps to the residence for so-called "triple-play" service.
* VoIP over their private network and gatewayed to the PSTN, not VoIP over internet - at least not yet
Sure - so long as God made it happen. We Fundies still believe that God can do things outside the norm - miracles. Water/wine. Healing blindness with spit. Weird things, to be sure - I wouldn't expect anyone to think otherwise. If God wants to break the laws of physics, biology, chemistry - that's his prerogative. Certainly many non-believers don't like the "miracle" escape clause - but it is what it is and it would be dishonest to explain it away as anything else.
NIV, typically. Because it's in modern English, and with the aid of other tools like inter-linears, paraphrases, commentaries and other modern language translations, one can get a really great context of what the author wrote without being a biblical translator.
Sure they canonized it, but they didn't modify the text that was chosen. They also failed, if they tried at all, to scrub the world clean of the texts that didn't make the cut, so we can all read what wasn't picked if we're in doubt. Study of these non-canonized texts can often times be enlightening, but there are typically obvious bits that show they're in direct conflict with the canonized set. Jesus killing kids because they inconvenienced him and such - not exactly in line with the rest of scripture.
Don't know offhand, I'd have to look up a history of that. Probably because Jesus resurrected on a Sunday. I doubt it relates much to the authority of scripture.
There aren't many modern Christian holidays (excepting the Catholics - they've got a bunch). Christmas - not accounted for in scripture all - purely tradition. If it happens to intentionally coincide with a pagan holiday or anything else, it only impugns the observers, not scripture. Easter - directly related to Passover, which is part of the Hebrew calendar of events. Christ died on Passover, and resurrected the following Sunday.
Yes. Sadly. The only requirements for salvation are to believe Jesus for who he is, what he did, and accept it. There is no obligation to do anything but accept a gift given freely. Jesus and Jehovah are the same (this is the trinity thing). To believe Jesus was anything but God, is to disagree with who Jesus himself claimed to be. Anything else is a false Gospel - the book of Galatians deals directly with this topic.
Not a requirement for salvation. Required, yes - in the same manner that I require my son to obey me, but not as a condition that I love him. Baptism is a requirement of believers, but for reasons other than salvation.
I've never heard anyone claim it's crystal clear - some parts are, but others are quite complex and involved. As to the sectarianism of Christianity - because the world is sinful and Christians are not immune. We disagree often on matters of truth (trinity, baptism, roles of women, deity of Christ, and so on). To be intellectually honest, one has to agree that the fact that Christians disagree does not change the truthfulness or untruthfulness of any given claim. This is true in science as well.
To elaborate further on the last question, we Fundies actually believe that Satan exists and has been given privi
I'm all for voting with our wallets. To achieve maximum effect, a nice-sounding term needs to be coined to motivate the customers who don't make it a habit to monitor their ISP's behavior. (Just think of what the word "podcasting" is doing for RSS.) Note that such a term doesn't even need to be technically accurate.
webslamming?
netstortion?
bellsouthing?
It's important because Jesus refers to the same body of text to help derive his authority. If the truthfulness of Christ's authority is not absolute, then we as Christians have no basis upon which to claim exclusivity on the really important things - God's love for us and his salvation from our sins. In short, God said it, Christ repeated it, I believe it - if you have a problem with the text, the problem is with Christ, not with what I believe. A part of me hopes that sounds a little harsh, as I think too many Christians try to prove their case without the help of Christ. The non-believing world has problems with what is taught in scripture, especially what is taught by Christ, not what I choose to believe or not believe. If the world has a problem with the content, no amount of blaming me for believing it is going to change the situation. Christians need to understand this, and redirect the argument straight back to the source - God & Christ.
Along those lines, Genesis is by all rational readings authored in a manner that appears intended to depict history, not fantasy. If you don't believe it or don't want to believe it, perhaps you are better served to reconsider the resurrection and whether you're willing to belive Christ really died and really came back to life. Paul even says that if there was no resurrection, then we have believed in vain, "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." 1 Cor 15:14. Certainly if God raised Christ from the dead, he could do other miracles as well, including the creation.
Just as in the techno-security realm, we talk about "chains of trust", in the realm of scriptural text we talk about chains of authenticity or chains of truth. People dig on Fundies all the time because we're so "absolute" about things - but what we are attempting is the same that any scientist or philosopher attempts - consistency, predictability, and logical progression. It's just that when I do it I'm a "fundamentalist", but when a scientist does it s/he's thorough.
I wish I could answer your other questions, which might be (over)simplified in asking why a Good god lets Bad things happen. I have an answer or two for myself, but I can't point you to the Book of Tough Questions chapter 5 verse 12, so I won't claim to have been given some authority to speak on that topic. Suffice it to say we probably agree as Christians that we live in a fallen world and God chose not to lay out for us all the reasons why.
(Disclaimer - I don't know ID, but I'm open to it because I'm one of those evangelical fundie types who reads Genesis literally.)
I think the evolution/ID debate is controversial because:
My solution to all of this - get the government out of the buisiness of providing classroom teaching. Yes education is vitally important and must be available to all equally and fairly. But the classrooom is and always will be a proving ground for many forms of ideology both good and bad. Send your kids to an evolution only school, I'll send mine to one that presents Genesis as history and evolution as a competing secular theory, and someone else will snd their kids to a school that puts all origins teaching on the same footing. After all, given enough time, won't the weakest teaching strategies will be selected out?
Since many IP devices are WiFi enabled already, I propose a network of WiFi location beacons. Just like APs broadcast SSIDs, why not make cheap, autonomous GPS/WiFi devices that simply rebroadcast their GPS location via WiFi? Deploy them by the truckload into major cities and let the laptops and the WiFi phones of the world choose to listen if they want.
This would provide a solution to the FCC's stated desires (providing E-911 to VoIP), while avoiding the mess that a network-based location tracking system would cause. A client-driven system needs to exist so that location determination and transmission is under complete control of the client.
I'm interested in throwing ideas around about this concept - wifigps@gmail.com if you want to discuss at length.
640Kbps ought to be enough for anybody.