...which includes a number of men ejaculating onto a man or woman. Still entirely objective, but not appropriate for a 7-yo imo. If my kid came up to me and asked what bukkakke was, I'd be willing to mention it was about sex, but not go into the details the article does. I appreciate your 'honesty' in this respect. </sarcasm>
Yes, but most consumers aren't going to limit themselves solely to Metallica songs, they will usually want a number of artists. This means the consumer can say "The price Metallica is being sold for is too high, so I'll buy some Led Zeppelin instead." Of course, they may say "The price for Metallica is high, but I want it bad enough that I'll pay that much anyway." This is due to the value of the product. The only impact supply has is whether both outlets have a given product for sale - if they do, neither one is going to run out of copies. Another consideration is whether there is an equivalent product from elsewhere. In this situation, 'equivalent' means anything that a given consumer would want to have that fulfills the same need and would come from the same part of their budget. That can be thought of as affecting demand, if you will.
You'd think so, but how much do you want your 7-yo learning about bukkakke? Granted, I don't know if that's the site Mac uses, or if they use the Wiktionary. I'm a fan of completeness, but some things can wait to be discovered (and some things can wait forever:P).
...the resellers have to compete with each other to buy their music. Which likely gives rise to higher prices for the labels. This is based on the law of supply and demand. Of course, given the supply is infinite, demand will have little impact on its value. Which is why prices are going down with more locations to purchase from - the artificial restrictions on supply are being removed. If this keeps up digital music will soon be sold at a value close to what the consumer thinks it's worth, which is about the last thing the music cartel wants. Things they want less include people not paying anything for music and being in a stranglehold by a single supplier (a familiar feeling for music buyers).
...two optimal players would simply agree to a draw before the first move (a good strategy in thermonuclear warfare, it is said). For a second I was terrified when I realized that one of the players available for the game of thermonuclear war was suboptimal. Then I was relieved that there were no other players currently able to step up to the plate.
Given the simplicity of the computer guided cockroach, I'd be unsurprised if someone said "Let's find a rather large flying bug that can handle the weight of the circuitry and make a flying spy bug." And given that it was about 10 years ago that the cockroach was demonstrated, it's not a huge stretch to think it would be available for field testing at this point. And if it's done right, the hardware could be reclaimed when the wetware wears out, which reduces cost.
None of this answers the question of why, though. All your statements about easier ways to do this still stand.
Either way, it's evidence that religion repress science. Which was the point:)...I agree with what you say about generalising to all of religion - I tend to respect Buddhism for example. Um, you can't have it both ways. Religion can repress science, but so can any other tradition, or simply fear of change, which I stated before.
I don't follow what you mean by "scientific dogmatists" - are you saying that they would argue that gravity is always exactly 9.8m/s^2 ? I'm saying people will happily quote studies that support their ignorant views, but then equally happily dismiss studies that contradict them. Or, they will happily (and vehemently) quote the latest study on a subject, even if it totally contradicts the previous study that they were happily (and vehemently) quoting. It's dogma (or picking and choosing in the previous example) - the word came from on high and they'll blindly follow it without doing any thinking on their own. I don't expect most who fall into either of those camps would even know that g=9.8m/s^2.
Not quite sure if blaming Islam is a bad generalising though. Excuse me, these are the same countries with the same religion who were the leaders in a number of fields some centuries ago!!! Did you even read the article? Sure, Islam in it's current incarnation in most places seems to be very repressive to objective thinking of the world around them. But 700 years ago many of it's followers were leaders in their fields. So is it following Islam that's the problem, or how it's currently interpreted? I'd say the latter, and the former indicates that religion need not be scientifically repressive. Which was my point in the first place.
Well, the good thing about your anecdotal evidence is that it portrays a larger group. It's still anecdotal evidence, and straw polling. After all, did the free thinkers speak up or did they realize they're living under a fundamentalist religious regime and keep their heads down. You know, the vocal minority idea. The polling data was also poor (one religion, one country, one university).
This still leaves nothing to show that it isn't a generalization, and a poor one at that. g=9.8m/s^2 is a generalization, but a good one (yes, there are places where g!=9.8m/s^2, even correcting for altitude - I wonder what the scientific dogmatists would say?).
I'm not saying that being raised with dogmatic thinking doesn't lead to closed-mindedness. What I am saying is that not all religions lead to dogmatic attitudes, and that dogmatic attitudes aren't exclusive to religious circles. So why continue the generalizations?
And yes, blaming Islam is almost as much a generalization as blaming religion. If you were to say "Islam in its current incarnation is harming scientific advance in states where it is the mandated religion," I'd agree with you. Of course, I'd also be agreeing with the article's author. After all, he did mention it's in a decline, and that Islamic countries were the scientific leaders in certain fields previously.
One can have faith and empiricism at the same time. The trick is knowing which a given situation calls for. When I want to know how something works, empiricism is the best tool. If I want to know why things are the way they are, empiricism may be inadequate (although still valuable imo).
In short, and as has been said before in one way or another, keep faith out of science and in philosophy.
...it requires a fundamentalist theist to have dogma that infringes scientific thought. Why is there a perpetual claim that religious belief negates scientific thought? This article is about the Arabs of 700 years ago. From what I've heard, they were pretty religious, too. check it out, Mohammad was born a good 500 years before this, and Islam was already going strong. I hear the Egyptians were pretty religious - they sure spent a lot of money on it. Let me tell you, mummies aren't cheap, or easy (hmm, a method of embalming incorporating scientific methods and religious beliefs). The tombs (massive engineering and artistic feats) cost a bit more.
There are a number of reasons why people choose not to think scientifically. Some do it for religion, some do it for tradition (one and the same in some circumstances), some do it from fear of the unknown, some just don't want to think too much. Note that those in the last category can very easily be scientific dogmatists, holding a firm belief that whatever we know right now is the true knowledge and the peak of perfection, and anything else is heresy.
Face it, what you're expressing is an irrational belief that religion makes a person's intellect inferior from those that aren't religious, and a tendency to generalize. Try to accept the fact that people do a lot of stupid things for a variety of reasons, and believing in or following a self-destructive religion is no more irrational than assuming that the uncontrolled ingestion of mind-altering chemicals is a healthy long-term plan.
Jabber claims to have military-grade security, and you can host your own server. Those two options alone should increase privacy and decrease man-in-the-middle attacks. If it's set up right, it shouldn't matter who controls the server (including the govt) as far as man-in-the-middle attacks are concerned.
...clearly they can be purchased separately, so they can be supported separately. At which time people would be up in arms about them supplying add-ons that didn't work on all Office products. What? The ones it didn't work on weren't activated? I'm sure that bit of information would be ignored in the slashdot discussion. Just like the fact that Visio is a part of Office was ignored in this one.
If you look at MS's site, you'll find that Visio is considered an Office product. So, to clarify, he activated Office, installed (but did not activate) a new part of Office, and now it won't let him install Office add-ons. This is entirely an Office issue. You may not like what they're doing, but this has no bearing on whether it will have problems with an unactivated non-Office product. If it did, I would be mightily pissed.
(Unless one of those products somehow combusted and burned down a pack of orphanages, resulting in worse publicity and lawsuits.) So you're saying there's a chance. I can live with that. *goes off to buy a bunch of old XBoxes to send to orphanages*
Alright, I'll accept all of what you said there with the exception of the last paragraph. When you fail in your job by breaking the law, more than just discipline should be considered. How about charges? Just because they're allowed to carry tasers doesn't give them a pass if they use them inappropriately. Even without charges, dismissal should be considered. When you stand around and let your co-worker break the law, discipline should be a minimum. You can't tell me that one of those cops couldn't have stopped the other from using it. At least one of them wasn't too busy to stop doing his job. If it was the group leader who used the taser, that's even more serious, IMO.
The attitude that people can be given power over others and not be held responsible for their use of that power is the cause of far too many of the atrocities humanity has suffered. If people can't handle the power, remove it from them.
If you do non-constructive things that irritate and inconvenience me, should I be allowed to punch you in the head? The nature of a free society is that you can be a jerk and the authorities are still required to follow the law. Would you have been okay with it if they'd applied the nightstick instead of the taser? How about a few boots? From everything I'm hearing, we have a student who's a chronic ass and some cops or rent-a-cops who don't know how to do their job. Since being an ass isn't illegal and assault is, I'd like to know your justification for defending the cops.
Well, you point would almost be interesting if it weren't for the pact that work was done on Hurd less than 2 years ago. Obviously someone (RMS) at GNU thought it was worth working on in spite of the fact that Linux was flourishing (relative to Hurd, at least). Either the release of Linux mattered in the time-line of the GNU kernel or it didn't. I think it's pretty clear that it deprioritized the project, but iirc RMS was working on a kernel tentatively named alix well before linux was released. Linus started later and finished first. You can't entirely blame the GNU kernel's long development time-line on Linux's inception. Good for him, and computer users in general. Good for us, as well, what RMS did.
And as far as the "A needs B, but B doesn't need A" argument, that would only be the case if "B" had no equivalent replacements (there are for some pieces, some of which are even free - I'm not going to do a case-by-case study). Moreover, if it was difficult to replace "B" with "C" or "D", I'd have to question the design of "B", especially if "C" and "D" were easily interchangeable. We do want to be able to replace parts of the OS when better alternatives come along, don't we?
...almost completely finished... When I hear that, I don't think they're still going to be working on that one last part for 16 years after an alternative component comes along. That's like saying your new car is complete - all it needs is the engine to be built. From the ground up. Sure, it makes for a lousy car without the brakes, but it's equally (or more) lousy without the engine.
A dick who makes his own decisions and deals with the consequences. Also, a dick who has very poor risk-reward assessment skills. If you don't believe me, ask him. If he can't answer, well, that's pretty much the answer right there, isn't it?
On the other hand, I find it QUITE surprising that the Wii can so handily outsell the 360 when its game library is, all things considered, horribly outmatched. While I do like a lot of games, and have been playing over the years, I haven't had a console in a long time. I wouldn't call myself a hardcore gamer anymore, and I'm not adverse to dropping $60 on a game, but I've mostly been playing on my PC. When the Wii was announced, I was curious. When I heard about Twilight Princess, I was going to get it. In 3 months, I had it - by then the consoles were lasting on the shelves until noon.
This has left a huge gap in my console game library, which the Wii filled quite well. I can get games for the virtual console from a variety of old consoles, I can play all the games from the last generation console, and I'm open for future games that fully utilize the Wii. This is just great for me. Having a shortage of games is not a question. Perhaps a shortage of current-gen, but that's not my criteria of a good game. And note that XBox 360 and PS3 can't play all the games from the last generation. That's bound to piss off some customers (and disappointed me - my #2 choice was PS2). And with all those games from $5 to $20, Nintendo will get plenty of money out of me.
How nice it is to see ordinary, good people who can manage the responsibility of having vast sums of money without it going to their heads... Frankly, with the amount they're paid, being able to save travel time to the nearest commercial airport for them and their various executives probably comes out as a good business decision. Kind of like how BillG would be taking a loss to stop and pick up a $100 bill.
Slashdot Mirror
...which includes a number of men ejaculating onto a man or woman. Still entirely objective, but not appropriate for a 7-yo imo. If my kid came up to me and asked what bukkakke was, I'd be willing to mention it was about sex, but not go into the details the article does. I appreciate your 'honesty' in this respect.</sarcasm>
Yes, but most consumers aren't going to limit themselves solely to Metallica songs, they will usually want a number of artists. This means the consumer can say "The price Metallica is being sold for is too high, so I'll buy some Led Zeppelin instead." Of course, they may say "The price for Metallica is high, but I want it bad enough that I'll pay that much anyway." This is due to the value of the product. The only impact supply has is whether both outlets have a given product for sale - if they do, neither one is going to run out of copies. Another consideration is whether there is an equivalent product from elsewhere. In this situation, 'equivalent' means anything that a given consumer would want to have that fulfills the same need and would come from the same part of their budget. That can be thought of as affecting demand, if you will.
You'd think so, but how much do you want your 7-yo learning about bukkakke? Granted, I don't know if that's the site Mac uses, or if they use the Wiktionary. I'm a fan of completeness, but some things can wait to be discovered (and some things can wait forever :P).
...the resellers have to compete with each other to buy their music. Which likely gives rise to higher prices for the labels. This is based on the law of supply and demand. Of course, given the supply is infinite, demand will have little impact on its value. Which is why prices are going down with more locations to purchase from - the artificial restrictions on supply are being removed. If this keeps up digital music will soon be sold at a value close to what the consumer thinks it's worth, which is about the last thing the music cartel wants. Things they want less include people not paying anything for music and being in a stranglehold by a single supplier (a familiar feeling for music buyers).
...two optimal players would simply agree to a draw before the first move (a good strategy in thermonuclear warfare, it is said). For a second I was terrified when I realized that one of the players available for the game of thermonuclear war was suboptimal. Then I was relieved that there were no other players currently able to step up to the plate.Given the simplicity of the computer guided cockroach, I'd be unsurprised if someone said "Let's find a rather large flying bug that can handle the weight of the circuitry and make a flying spy bug." And given that it was about 10 years ago that the cockroach was demonstrated, it's not a huge stretch to think it would be available for field testing at this point. And if it's done right, the hardware could be reclaimed when the wetware wears out, which reduces cost.
None of this answers the question of why, though. All your statements about easier ways to do this still stand.
Well, the good thing about your anecdotal evidence is that it portrays a larger group. It's still anecdotal evidence, and straw polling. After all, did the free thinkers speak up or did they realize they're living under a fundamentalist religious regime and keep their heads down. You know, the vocal minority idea. The polling data was also poor (one religion, one country, one university).
This still leaves nothing to show that it isn't a generalization, and a poor one at that. g=9.8m/s^2 is a generalization, but a good one (yes, there are places where g!=9.8m/s^2, even correcting for altitude - I wonder what the scientific dogmatists would say?).
I'm not saying that being raised with dogmatic thinking doesn't lead to closed-mindedness. What I am saying is that not all religions lead to dogmatic attitudes, and that dogmatic attitudes aren't exclusive to religious circles. So why continue the generalizations?
And yes, blaming Islam is almost as much a generalization as blaming religion. If you were to say "Islam in its current incarnation is harming scientific advance in states where it is the mandated religion," I'd agree with you. Of course, I'd also be agreeing with the article's author. After all, he did mention it's in a decline, and that Islamic countries were the scientific leaders in certain fields previously.
No it isn't. ;-)
One can have faith and empiricism at the same time. The trick is knowing which a given situation calls for. When I want to know how something works, empiricism is the best tool. If I want to know why things are the way they are, empiricism may be inadequate (although still valuable imo).
In short, and as has been said before in one way or another, keep faith out of science and in philosophy.
...it requires a fundamentalist theist to have dogma that infringes scientific thought. Why is there a perpetual claim that religious belief negates scientific thought? This article is about the Arabs of 700 years ago. From what I've heard, they were pretty religious, too. check it out, Mohammad was born a good 500 years before this, and Islam was already going strong. I hear the Egyptians were pretty religious - they sure spent a lot of money on it. Let me tell you, mummies aren't cheap, or easy (hmm, a method of embalming incorporating scientific methods and religious beliefs). The tombs (massive engineering and artistic feats) cost a bit more.There are a number of reasons why people choose not to think scientifically. Some do it for religion, some do it for tradition (one and the same in some circumstances), some do it from fear of the unknown, some just don't want to think too much. Note that those in the last category can very easily be scientific dogmatists, holding a firm belief that whatever we know right now is the true knowledge and the peak of perfection, and anything else is heresy.
Face it, what you're expressing is an irrational belief that religion makes a person's intellect inferior from those that aren't religious, and a tendency to generalize. Try to accept the fact that people do a lot of stupid things for a variety of reasons, and believing in or following a self-destructive religion is no more irrational than assuming that the uncontrolled ingestion of mind-altering chemicals is a healthy long-term plan.
Jabber claims to have military-grade security, and you can host your own server. Those two options alone should increase privacy and decrease man-in-the-middle attacks. If it's set up right, it shouldn't matter who controls the server (including the govt) as far as man-in-the-middle attacks are concerned.
I've always wanted to devise a replacement to arabic numerals that would be (barely) readable by humans and trivial for OCR. This would be it.
...clearly they can be purchased separately, so they can be supported separately. At which time people would be up in arms about them supplying add-ons that didn't work on all Office products. What? The ones it didn't work on weren't activated? I'm sure that bit of information would be ignored in the slashdot discussion. Just like the fact that Visio is a part of Office was ignored in this one.If you look at MS's site, you'll find that Visio is considered an Office product. So, to clarify, he activated Office, installed (but did not activate) a new part of Office, and now it won't let him install Office add-ons. This is entirely an Office issue. You may not like what they're doing, but this has no bearing on whether it will have problems with an unactivated non-Office product. If it did, I would be mightily pissed.
*goes off to buy a bunch of old XBoxes to send to orphanages*
I figured it woud be more like this.
Alright, I'll accept all of what you said there with the exception of the last paragraph. When you fail in your job by breaking the law, more than just discipline should be considered. How about charges? Just because they're allowed to carry tasers doesn't give them a pass if they use them inappropriately. Even without charges, dismissal should be considered. When you stand around and let your co-worker break the law, discipline should be a minimum. You can't tell me that one of those cops couldn't have stopped the other from using it. At least one of them wasn't too busy to stop doing his job. If it was the group leader who used the taser, that's even more serious, IMO.
The attitude that people can be given power over others and not be held responsible for their use of that power is the cause of far too many of the atrocities humanity has suffered. If people can't handle the power, remove it from them.
If you do non-constructive things that irritate and inconvenience me, should I be allowed to punch you in the head? The nature of a free society is that you can be a jerk and the authorities are still required to follow the law. Would you have been okay with it if they'd applied the nightstick instead of the taser? How about a few boots? From everything I'm hearing, we have a student who's a chronic ass and some cops or rent-a-cops who don't know how to do their job. Since being an ass isn't illegal and assault is, I'd like to know your justification for defending the cops.
Well, you point would almost be interesting if it weren't for the pact that work was done on Hurd less than 2 years ago. Obviously someone (RMS) at GNU thought it was worth working on in spite of the fact that Linux was flourishing (relative to Hurd, at least). Either the release of Linux mattered in the time-line of the GNU kernel or it didn't. I think it's pretty clear that it deprioritized the project, but iirc RMS was working on a kernel tentatively named alix well before linux was released. Linus started later and finished first. You can't entirely blame the GNU kernel's long development time-line on Linux's inception. Good for him, and computer users in general. Good for us, as well, what RMS did.
And as far as the "A needs B, but B doesn't need A" argument, that would only be the case if "B" had no equivalent replacements (there are for some pieces, some of which are even free - I'm not going to do a case-by-case study). Moreover, if it was difficult to replace "B" with "C" or "D", I'd have to question the design of "B", especially if "C" and "D" were easily interchangeable. We do want to be able to replace parts of the OS when better alternatives come along, don't we?
...almost completely finished... When I hear that, I don't think they're still going to be working on that one last part for 16 years after an alternative component comes along. That's like saying your new car is complete - all it needs is the engine to be built. From the ground up. Sure, it makes for a lousy car without the brakes, but it's equally (or more) lousy without the engine.In short, a freedom-loving moron is who.
This has left a huge gap in my console game library, which the Wii filled quite well. I can get games for the virtual console from a variety of old consoles, I can play all the games from the last generation console, and I'm open for future games that fully utilize the Wii. This is just great for me. Having a shortage of games is not a question. Perhaps a shortage of current-gen, but that's not my criteria of a good game. And note that XBox 360 and PS3 can't play all the games from the last generation. That's bound to piss off some customers (and disappointed me - my #2 choice was PS2). And with all those games from $5 to $20, Nintendo will get plenty of money out of me.
Well, it generally depends on your font, but I'll give you that.