Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred.
Half right.
Your right about the species part, populations that no longer breed with each other is the generally used definition for species. However you're wrong about the MACRO-evolution part.
Evolution does not say macro-evolution has occurred, because there's no such thing in evolution. It's like talking about macro-gravity or macro-electricity or macro-atoms.
There's no such thing as macro-evolution. Evolution says that there are small changes, and that they accumulate over time. Over a larger amount of time there is a larger number of changes. However there is absolutely NO evolutionary line dividing "micro" from "macro". And the evolution-denialists pushing this micro vs macro thing have failed to ever identify any such line. It is a fictional line, they simply wishfully believe that it must be floating around out there somewhere.
Is there a "macro" difference between lions and tigers? Some of them will try to say yes, and others will will say no and try to push the line somewhere else. The fact is that no such dividing line exists, and evolution-denialists can't come up with any coherent agreement on where that line lies, much less any coherent explanation of what the line is and exactly how "macro" evolution is actually different than "micro", and what the barrier is between them. There is no barrier, and they have been absolutely incapable of identifying one.
The best they've got is "gee, a horse looks a LOT different than a fish, so I'm gonna call that MACRO". Yeah, and a molecule with a million carbon atoms looks and behaves a hell of a lot different than a molecule with two carbon atoms. The former is a tiny diamond, the latter is a gas molecule. So by that logic there is some sort of dividing line between micro-chemistry and macro-chemistry.... they accept micro-chemistry but macro-chemistry is wrong and impossible.
Yes, there's huge number of tiny differences between horses and fish, but none that constitute any sort of impassible MACRO evolutionary barrier. They can't say what that supposed barrier is or where it is or how it works. They just don't understand it and moreover they don't WANT to understand it. They are too busy presuming to tell God how He is and is not allowed to run things. They decided that if evolution is true, if that is how God choose to do things, then they decided God is forbidden to exist.
Science has no axiom either way on the existence or non-existence of God. Anyone utilizing either one in their reasoning is going to produce scientifically invalid junk.
I would like to propose a particular axiom however. One that I do personally apply. That axiom is: We are not being deliberately deceived by any God or being with God-like powers.
Why do I accept and apply that axiom? Because if it is false then we may as well be in the Matrix, nothing we see can be trusted, nothing we sense can be trusted, nothing we know can be trusted, noting we remember can be trusted. Everything around us could be deception, our very memories can be fraudulent. Any thought and any communication becomes pointless without that axiom.
So I assert that axiom is implicit in any communication. I decline to waste my time attempting to communicate with anyone who is unwilling to accept that as an axiom.
). I am simply suggesting that scientists simply be honest that they start with such materialist assumptions and that those assumptions do, whether they realize it or not, affect their ultimate interpretations of the data and their conclusions.
Based on that first axiom and all of my senses and memories, I assert there is a material world. Based on that first axiom and all of my senses and memories and understanding, I assert that material world operates according to various natural laws and natural mechanisms.
There may or may not be a God, but if there is a God that God created that natural world and those he created that material world and those natural mechanisms. And by the first axiom, that natural world and the evidence it provides s and those natural laws and those natural mechanisms, they are not crafted to be deliberately deceptive.
If you dig in the arctic or antarctic ice, you will see that it contains yearly layers. During the summer a thin layer of dust and pollen blown in from across the globe settle on the surface, and that surface bakes under the sun for 6 months visibly changing it's texture. During the winter another layer of snow is laid down. You can did and count down layers and find traces of volcanic ash blown in from every major eruption in history. If you dig down 1929 layers you can find traces of ash from the famous 79 A.D. eruption that destroyed Pompeii. Each layer equals one year.
If you keep digging, there are approximately one hundred thousand visible countable layers (actually there's about 800,000 years worth by the time you get to the bottom, but the layers get squeezed to thin to be individually detectable). Each layer has a trace of dust and pollen, and at irregular intervals you can find trace ash from a hundred thousand years of prehistoric volcanoes.
By any rational standard, God or no God, the earth must be at minimum 100,000 years old. Anyone who claims the earth is ~6,000 years old is just plain wrong. That right there invalidates a large percentage of the people denying evolution.
At this point I would like to split evolution into two areas. The validity of evolution as a description of biological history, and the validity of evolution as a process. I'll discuss historical biology second, and evolution-as-a-process first.
As an abstract process, evolution will apply to essentially anything that meets four critical criteria. It requires (1) replication with (2) inheritance of traits with (3) some limited mutation of those traits,and (4) trait-based selection to repeat the cycle. A cycle of 1 replication, 2 inheritance, 3 mutation, 4 selection.
It happens to be very easy to implement those four steps in software and data on a computer. Digitally implemented evolution. In computer science this field is called Genetic Algorithms. Software algorithms that "do" the evolutionary process. I happen to be a programmer and I have in fact personally preformed experiments with the process of evolution, and I have personally witnessed the results. As an abstract process, as a mathematical process, as an in
Do you have an idea what the probability is that a fish can evolve into a horse? I'll give you a hint. Your probability of winning next 23 consecutive lotteries is significantly higher than that a fish will evolve into a horse.
Ah! Thank you! hat is an excellent example for explaining just how statistically certain evolution is.
You see, there's not just one person buying lottery tickets. If you stand in the front entrance of the lottery office, a lottery winner will walk in the door essentially every week. Not just 23 weeks in a row, but essentially every week of every year for four billion years.
That's how evolution works. Millions and billions of new lottery tickets each week, and the evolution lottery office collects up all of those winners and passes them on to the next generation, for new lottery winners to pile up on top of them. Evolution is a pile of winning lottery tickets 200-billion-weekly-tickets tall.
Actually evolution is even more powerful and even more certain than that, but there isn't really any need to go into genetic recombination here (taking half of one losing lottery ticket and pasting it onto half of another losing lottery ticket to MANUFACTURE a new winning lottery ticket). The basic validity of evolution is demonstrated by your own example as-is. The CERTAINTY of "23 consecutive lotter[y]" wins and more shows just how easy evolution is.
And not to mention the physical evidence which absolutely proves evolution as historical fact, such as the absolutely continuous complete fossil record tracing diverse modern species of Foraminifera back to their common ancestor tens of millions of years ago.
Scientifically the argument over evolution is over. All that is left are public relations disinformation campaigns against evolution, political battles over the issue, and ignorant misinformed ideological opposition to evolution.
There are a lot of things that you can do in a lot of games that screw over your teammates, which are perfectly legal. However if you are playing on a team you are supposed to be assisting your teammates, or at a minimum not hurting them. If someone is harming his teammates then, depending on the game, there are many perfectly legal ways for those teammates to respond to that legal-but-undesired play. I don't do it often, but there have been times where I have perfectly legally responded to such players. Times where a player gets booted from the team, or where that is not possible where I have started deliberately fragging my own troublesome teammate, or where killing teammates is impossible, assisting the enemy in killing the troublesome teammate. Or often I will simply switch over to the opposite team and specifically target that player. Most games that I play I obsessively work my way to an extreme expert level of skill, so yes, having me on the other team specifically targeting you will seriously ruin your day.
If you suck, fine, I'll try to teach you or I will work around you. If ignore team play but fight productively, fine. If you exploit and victimize your teammates, that is legal but those teammates can legally victimize you back.
Perhaps it would have been better if he had said "My son does not know the meaning of team play" rather than saying "fair play", but he has a legitimate point. This is a father trying to teach his son the meaning of good team play.
I think a good solution is that you build/buy things to take over various micromanagement tasks. In the beginning of the game you manually direct your gatherer units to collect what and where. Wen you start getting too busy, and have the money available, you hire a foreman or management building to automate that task. Give it an interface to set management priorities and controls - to prioritize the collection of one resource vs another, to set how far and how risky workers should be allowed to be sent, and for the manager to intelligently manage/retreat workers that come under attack.
You can then progressively hire managers to take over additional tasks as you shift attention to higher level activities like attack and defense.
Punch the Monkey. Punch the Monkey! Punch the Monkey!Punch the MonkeyPunchtheMonkeyPunchtheMonkey! PunchtheMonkeyPUNCHTHEMONKEYTHEMONKEYTHEMONKEYMONKEYMONKEY!
Thank you for your brilliant well reasoned argument for why virtually all books, movie, and TV should be criminal to distribute or possess. They carry various messages such as killing people is exciting and is OK, and they are compelling to those who are susceptible. The boundary line may be drawn too stringently against free speech, but that is necessary to prevent Rambo from making some susceptible person commit some criminal act.
I have a number problems with the reasoning of your post, but I'd just like to address one. It seems to me your primary point is that this is good an legitimate because the purpose is to reduce the market and thus financial motivation for additional actual criminal acts against actual children.
Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't the most effective way to completely obliterate the financial motive/market be to (1) deny any copyright on such materials (2) decriminalize possession and free download of such materials?
And then there's shock, horror, step (3) redirect all of those police and prosecutorial resources against actual criminals preforming actual acts of abuse against actual children? I know, that one is really radical and insane. What nutter would want to divert money and resources towards rescuing victimized children?
You know what? I wish ALL criminals were so accomodating as to distribute photographic documentation of all their crimes. It would be so much easier to catch and convict bank robbers and muggers and rapists if they were all to photograph their crimes and to be so astoundingly dumb as to distribute that handy-dandy evidence against them on the internet for everyone - including the police - to freely obtain them. Like the idiots who videotape themselves beating the crap out of someone and then upload that video to Youtube. Or those idiots who commit serial arson and videotape it, etc etc etc.
Some people are more concerned with censoring and criminalizing anything that offends them - such as images of Mohammad - than with actually protecting children and rescuing actual victims.
Cute post. I'm not audience you were writing for, quite the contrary, but I have to say that what you wrote "worked" in that by the end of the post I definitely had to stop and radically reconsider what I intended to say to you:) Hopefully it will work as well for the intended audience. Mod +1 Thoughtfully Provocative.
It is -- and should be IMO -- illegal to portray children having sex.
Please forgive my abysmally poor artistic skills.
This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old boy lying down:
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This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old girl lying down:
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This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old boy lying down on top of a 16 year old girl, having sex:
=
If you think I have committed an actual criminal act and that you have some right to pull out a gun and and attempt to imprison me with deadly force then you are dangerous and deluded, and I well defend myself with equally deadly force. And if you think you have some right pull out a gun and kill or imprison someone else for drawing fiction just because they have better art skills than me, then you are just as dangerous and deluded.
You're no better than the Taliban-types that claim it is a criminal act to draw fictional images of Mohammad, and presume they have some fucked-up right to murder or imprison people for drawings, or to run around blowing up random building and random innocent people just because some drawing offends them. Some people have this fucked up notion that they have some right to use force, injure, imprison, or even kill anyone who offends them. Ooooo... a picture of a woman without a veil on her face.... that's porn... pull out a gun and imprison the pornographer.... and shoot to kill if he resists arrest.
Rogue individuals or groups engaging in violence should be treated as a police matter.
If the local territory is unwilling or unable to reasonably pursue such people as an internal police matter, then the people/nation being attacked must externally militarily deal with it.
Or would you like to present an argument that an individual or group should be permitted to engage in unending limitless murder? And that the people being murdered have no right to actively defend themselves?
The military option is far messier and much less effective than domestic policing, it is not an option to take lightly, but when no reasonable policing option is available then the military option is the final resort.
Punishing a city of 500,000 people for the actions of 10 is absurd.
And actually the situation is worse than you suggest. Hamas is the democratically elected government in Gaza. Hamas considers themselves at war with Israel, and Hamas is engaging in military rocket attacks on Israel. So the government is actually waging war on Israel and the people who democratically elected that government are at war with Israel.
So yeah, if one were to seriously respect the legitimacy of the Palestinian democratic elections, then we are talking about war being waged and Israel having every right to respond with full military war.
Yes, it sucks when civilians suffer or get killed in war, but the citizens of a nation are inevitable and legitimate casualties when that nation wages war, and those people are particularly responsible when they democratically elect a government with the explicit policy of waging a war.
If Israel (and US) wanted to be serious, why don't start by respecting the result of the Palestinian election, and acknowledge that hamas won it.
It would be a really really ugly way to deal with the situation, but I can't help wondering if that might not turn out to be the best solution available.
If we were to be SERIOUS about respecting the election, I mean really serious and accepting it at full face value that Hamas is the official government and legitimately democratically representing the population, then there's something that you have overlooked. Hamas's position is that they are at war with Israel, and if they are the Palestinian government, and they are militarily attacking Israel, then that is a nation waging war on Israel. These Hamas missile attacks on Israel constitute an official Nation vs Nation war.
Fully respecting the election means treating it as full Nation vs Nation war, it means for Israel stop treating the Palestinians and Hamas with gentle gloves, it means for Israel to respond to these war attacks on Israel with full war in response, it means for Israel to to take their army off the leash. Any non-combatant Palestinian civilians would still be civilians, but they would be enemy civilians of an enemy nation waging a war. You don't deliberately attack an enemy nation's civilians, but you don't apologize or hesitate over enemy civilian casualties when fighting the combatants of a nation waging war on you.
I don't think there's anyone anywhere has the slightest doubt of the military results of full direct unrestricted warfare between the Israeli army and Hamas's forces. Israel's army outmatches Hamas's capabilities by a hundred-to-one and more. Israel's full military would roll in and Palestinians would learn what the REAL meaning of occupation. And much like when Germany was defeated, Hamas would be outlawed just as the Nazi party was outlawed, and Martial Law imposed. Insurgents would get their wish to fight and try to kill Israelis, but rather than blowing up Israeli women and children in supermarkets with their rockets, they would face martial law and the full force of an actual occupying Israeli army head on.
It would be ugly as hell, lots of innocent civilians would be killed, but I'm not completely certain it wouldn't be better than the eternal cycle of terrorist attacks and messy limited military strikes. Maybe.... just maybe after officially losing a war and being officially conquered and Hamas obliterated... maybe just maybe Israeli martial law rule and reconstruction can finally impose a full two state solution and impose a functional peaceful government for Palestinian self-rule, build a viable Palestinian nation. Maybe.
It would be very very very ugly, but it's not like anything else has been productive. It's not like the current situation with Hamas launching rockets into Israel is anything but bad for the Palestinian people.
Note that I'm not advocating making a full war out of it, as I repeatedly said it would be really really ugly and I have no idea if it would ultimately wind up better or worse, but I did want to answer you. You did say the Hamas election should be taken seriously and respected. I just wanted to make you aware that Hamas is waging war on Israel, and if Hamas's attacks are attacks of the official government then that means the Palestinian people are officially waging war, that the Palestinian people as a whole are officially waging war as a nation, and that the nation of Israel can, must, and will wage war back, and Israel will win.
A peaceful resistance movement with good global PR would do them so much more good than firing random rockets.
Vigorously agreed.
Any thoughts on reaching even the modest goal of 50% of Palestinians becoming intolerant of the blowing up of their own children in futile efforts towards Jewish genocide? Because that is the fundamental problem - the substantial majority of them actively or passively support spiteful genocidal self destructive violence.
Of course, then they would have to compete with the pro-Zionism lobby groups for mindshare.
You're not helping.
I happen to be an atheist. That means beyond any doubt that I consider any Jewish claim on the land is a complete load of crap. It also means I consider any Muslim claims equally fictional. And that absolutely goes for any Christian getting involved based on some Biblical crap.
The fact is that for thousands of years the region has had a mixed population, including a substantial Jewish percentage. Yes, many more Jews moved there in the wake of the Nazis, and the fact is that most of them moved there peacefully buying homes or moving in with other Jews or whatnot. And the fact is that almost the entire Israeli population there today were born there. Anyone who intends "drive them into the sea" Jewish Genocide is per-se unreasonable in the most extreme, and their voice and desires warrant exactly ZERO consideration in discussions towards compromise and resolution. Anyone who demands merely violently "drive them away" to live in some magical undefined "anywhere but here", that is only moderately less unreasonable than wanting to genocidally drive them into the sea.
Zionism as a justification for anything on EITHER side is a load of crap. Zionism as an ideology to justify Israel is a load of crap, and all of the anti-zionism rants to demonize Israel and Jews is a load of crap. Israel *is* a nation with millions of innocent native citizens who have elected an imperfect but legitimate democracy. Starting with the zionism thing is really really unhelpful.
Reasonable is Live and Let Live.
Reasonable is some sort of two state solution.
I am completely on board with cleaning up those areas where Israel is behaving badly. I am all on board with Israel doing a better job policing radicals and criminals on their own side. However it is impossible to cast Israel as the bad guy when terroristic violence is endemic and accepted on the Palestinian side. There are always violent rogues and criminals in any population, and such violence must be dealt with either as an internal police matter or externally as a military matter. Israel is by-and-large willing and and able to police rogue and criminal elements on their own side. The Palestinian side is unwilling and/or unable to police violence from their own side. There'd a very substantial part of the population on the Palestinian side with no interest in any reasonable solution - with no interest in Live and let Live - people who simply desire blind slaughter. And the rest of the population supports or tolerates it.
When 51% of the Palestinian population decides to end the tolerance of their own violent individuals, then dealing with violent individuals can begin to shift to an internal policing matter rather than an Israeli military matter. And at that point things will rapidly begin to improve for the Palestinians. Two sides actually willing and able to pursue Live and Let Live resolutions to problems.
It will be much easier to place focus on legitimate Palestinian grievances when there's no genocidal elephant rampaging around the room.
You make a lot of very good points and I learned a lot from this. Thanks.
Wow, impressive:)
There's a famous quote you might have heard... "I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I didn't have the time to make it shorter". Well, I'd like to coin a new one. I'm sorry my post was so harsh, but I didn't have the time to make it more polite. Chuckle. You responded better than my flammish tone really deserved.
I have more to write, actually mostly agreeing with your latest post, but I'm about to pass out. Neeeeeed sleeeeeeeeeep. I'll follow up with another post probably tomorrow.
I'm a bit baffled by your question. Is there any dispute whatsoever that a DRM file is inherently inferior to a DRM-free file?
An MP3 file will play in any MP3 player ever made, and can be played by pretty well any software player released in the last decade, with no hassles no limitations no restrictions and no complications of any sort. It's a simple normal general purpose unrestricted functionality file. An iTunes DRM file can only be played in Apple-brand players, and even there it suffers from a variety of issues that don't exist for DRM-free files.
10 bucks the whole story was made up on the spot.
While I don't know the other poster and have no particular reason to assertively believe him, I also have absolutely no reason or indication to disbelieve him. It is an entirely reasonable and normal family story. Someone buys an ordinary MP3 player, any of countless possible brands, a player which may or may not support AAC files, and then the gift-giver and the gift-receiver are both surprised to discover that the music sold by the biggest most famous music store on the internet is deliberately locked and crippled, deliberately prohibited from playing on an ordinary name-brand music player.
Non-technical people hear about the new music stuff and they hear MP3s. All the music players are called MP3 players. So obviously they they want MP3 players and they want MP3 music to play in those MP3 players. Apple is merely one of many brands selling MP3 players. People hear "iPod" and they hear that it is an MP3 player. Apple sells MP3 players and Apple sells music for those MP3 players. What normal person would ever imagine the totally FUBARed situation where Apple was selling something OTHER than MP3 music for MP3 players? It's the iTunes store that is doing something bizarre and unexpected. For a typical non-techie person, who the hell ever heard of an AAC file? Much less heard of a DRMed AAC file? iTunes is selling music for MP3 players - but that music is not an MP3 and it does not work in an MP3 player.
I find it very odd that you even ask how or why a DRM file is inferior to a non-DRM file, and it doubly peculiar that invent this positive assertion that this guy is lying. The only basis I can even imagine to affirmatively doubt his story would be based and a ridiculous assumption that everyone automatically buys an iPod, or an equally ridiculous assumption that everyone already possesses the knowledge that iTunes does not sell normal music files - where a normal music file is an MP3 as far as any average non-techie person has ever heard.
There is absolutely nothing unlikely about his story, dubious in the content of his post, there is absolutely no hint pointing to him lying, there is no sane set of assumptions where anyone would expect this couldn't or wouldn't happen to ordinary random people. All I can come up with to explain your affirmative assertion that he's lying is an emotional reaction on your part. You simply don't like it, you simply don't like that it points up a legitimate problem, and you simply want to exclude it. Wish it away. It's not real, the uncomfortable conflict vanishes in a puff of smoke, and everything in Lars-reality-land is happy and sunny.
I'm not asserting I have some special knowledge or belief that he is telling the truth - it is just the normal working presumption, but I am saying there is something very very wrong in your positive belief that he's lying.
Well, if you want it in the abstract I'd say it's because he discovered that Apple was selling an inferior product.
You can speculate on the various ways one might become informed of that fact and even the possibility that under different circumstances one might never trip across and become aware of the defects in that product, but fundamentally the issue is that DRM files are Defective By Design and the customer had that fact smack him in the face.
Yeah, you can say that a player than can play both MP3s and AACs is a better/more capable player product, but that does not change the fact that MP3 is the ubiquitous format, that non-DRM AAC is a widely unsupported format, and that DRM AAC is a just plain deliberately defective format. At most you can say his wife should have gotten an MP3 player with broader format support AND he should have bought MP3 music.
You shouldn't rant about legalities when you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.
I am not a lawyer, but I have in fact read the entire Title 17 US Copyright law, as well as many court rulings and Supreme Court rulings on copyright law, and more. For an amature, I have uncommon expertise in the subject.
You don't own any of this stuff. You license a right to use it.
False, and false.
Under copyright law you are in fact the owner of the particular copy that you bought. The law is explicit on this point, distinguishing between the ownership of the copyright itself as opposed to the ownership of particular copies, and that transfer in ownership of recording medium does in fact equal a transfer in ownership of the particular copy recorded on that medium.
Under copyright law you do not need any license to use something, and with rare exceptions, you receive absolutely no license whatsoever when you buy a copyrighted work.
I am going to simplify some legal details here, but copyright restricts essentially three things (1) The creation of new copies (including derivatives), (2) public performance, and (3) distribution. Copyright does not restrict anything other than those three activities, and even those three categories are not blanket restrictions. All three categories are subject to all sorts of exemptions an limitations.
When you buy a book you receive no license whatsoever, because you need no license. You own that copy and you have every right to read it, or to do (almost) anything you wish with it. You need no license to read it because copyright does not extend to any sort of right to read. It doesn't even matter if you own some particular book - if you can see the text you are perfectly free to read that text. There is no such thing as a "right to read" or a "right to use".
When you buy a vinyl record or a CD you receive no license whatsoever, because you need no license. You own that copy and you have every right to play it and listen to it, or to do (almost) anything you wish with it. You need no license to play it or listen to it because copyright does not extend to any sort of right to play or listen. It doesn't even matter if you own some particular record or CD - if you can hear it then you are perfectly free to listen to that music. There is no such thing as a "right to play" or a "right to listen" or a "right to use".
When you buy videotape you receive no license whatsoever, because you need no license. You own that copy and you have every right to play it and watch it, or to do (almost) anything you wish with it. You need no license to play it or watch it because copyright does not extend to any sort of right to play or watch. It doesn't even matter if you own some particular videotape - if you can see it then you are perfectly free to listen to that music. There is no such thing as a "right to play" or a "right to watch" or a "right to use".
The only time you need a license is for SOME kinds of copying and for SOME kinds of public performances and for SOME kinds of distribution.
In fact when you buy software on a CD, you in fact become the owner of that copy of that software, and in fact you need no license at all to install and run that software. Installing and running software does technically involve copying, but US law Title 17 Section 117 explicitly states that you need no license at all for the copying you do when you install and run software. Yes, it is common practice for software nowadays to come with an EULA, but legally it has absolutely no basis or validity in copyright law. An EULA is nothing more than a CONTRACT OFFER, and you are perfectly free to decline that contract offer. In most cases you neither want nor need anything offered by EULA contract offers, and most particularly you do NOT need any EULA license grant to install and run software. Installing and running software explicitly does NOT need any license. The entire game with EULAs is that they try to find ways to claim y
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If an individual strays too far genetically, God drops a rock on it.
>Thunk<
OUCH!
Anyone got an aspirin? My head's killing me!
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Over time these two populations no longer breed amongst each other. By my understanding, evolution defines them as two separate species and state that MACRO-evolution has occurred.
Half right.
Your right about the species part, populations that no longer breed with each other is the generally used definition for species. However you're wrong about the MACRO-evolution part.
Evolution does not say macro-evolution has occurred, because there's no such thing in evolution. It's like talking about macro-gravity or macro-electricity or macro-atoms.
There's no such thing as macro-evolution. Evolution says that there are small changes, and that they accumulate over time. Over a larger amount of time there is a larger number of changes. However there is absolutely NO evolutionary line dividing "micro" from "macro". And the evolution-denialists pushing this micro vs macro thing have failed to ever identify any such line. It is a fictional line, they simply wishfully believe that it must be floating around out there somewhere.
Is there a "macro" difference between lions and tigers? Some of them will try to say yes, and others will will say no and try to push the line somewhere else. The fact is that no such dividing line exists, and evolution-denialists can't come up with any coherent agreement on where that line lies, much less any coherent explanation of what the line is and exactly how "macro" evolution is actually different than "micro", and what the barrier is between them. There is no barrier, and they have been absolutely incapable of identifying one.
The best they've got is "gee, a horse looks a LOT different than a fish, so I'm gonna call that MACRO". Yeah, and a molecule with a million carbon atoms looks and behaves a hell of a lot different than a molecule with two carbon atoms. The former is a tiny diamond, the latter is a gas molecule. So by that logic there is some sort of dividing line between micro-chemistry and macro-chemistry.... they accept micro-chemistry but macro-chemistry is wrong and impossible.
Yes, there's huge number of tiny differences between horses and fish, but none that constitute any sort of impassible MACRO evolutionary barrier. They can't say what that supposed barrier is or where it is or how it works. They just don't understand it and moreover they don't WANT to understand it. They are too busy presuming to tell God how He is and is not allowed to run things. They decided that if evolution is true, if that is how God choose to do things, then they decided God is forbidden to exist.
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Science has no axiom either way on the existence or non-existence of God.
Anyone utilizing either one in their reasoning is going to produce scientifically invalid junk.
I would like to propose a particular axiom however. One that I do personally apply. That axiom is:
We are not being deliberately deceived by any God or being with God-like powers.
Why do I accept and apply that axiom? Because if it is false then we may as well be in the Matrix, nothing we see can be trusted, nothing we sense can be trusted, nothing we know can be trusted, noting we remember can be trusted. Everything around us could be deception, our very memories can be fraudulent. Any thought and any communication becomes pointless without that axiom.
So I assert that axiom is implicit in any communication. I decline to waste my time attempting to communicate with anyone who is unwilling to accept that as an axiom.
). I am simply suggesting that scientists simply be honest that they start with such materialist assumptions and that those assumptions do, whether they realize it or not, affect their ultimate interpretations of the data and their conclusions.
Based on that first axiom and all of my senses and memories, I assert there is a material world.
Based on that first axiom and all of my senses and memories and understanding, I assert that material world operates according to various natural laws and natural mechanisms.
There may or may not be a God, but if there is a God that God created that natural world and those he created that material world and those natural mechanisms. And by the first axiom, that natural world and the evidence it provides s and those natural laws and those natural mechanisms, they are not crafted to be deliberately deceptive.
If you dig in the arctic or antarctic ice, you will see that it contains yearly layers. During the summer a thin layer of dust and pollen blown in from across the globe settle on the surface, and that surface bakes under the sun for 6 months visibly changing it's texture. During the winter another layer of snow is laid down. You can did and count down layers and find traces of volcanic ash blown in from every major eruption in history. If you dig down 1929 layers you can find traces of ash from the famous 79 A.D. eruption that destroyed Pompeii. Each layer equals one year.
If you keep digging, there are approximately one hundred thousand visible countable layers (actually there's about 800,000 years worth by the time you get to the bottom, but the layers get squeezed to thin to be individually detectable). Each layer has a trace of dust and pollen, and at irregular intervals you can find trace ash from a hundred thousand years of prehistoric volcanoes.
By any rational standard, God or no God, the earth must be at minimum 100,000 years old. Anyone who claims the earth is ~6,000 years old is just plain wrong. That right there invalidates a large percentage of the people denying evolution.
At this point I would like to split evolution into two areas. The validity of evolution as a description of biological history, and the validity of evolution as a process. I'll discuss historical biology second, and evolution-as-a-process first.
As an abstract process, evolution will apply to essentially anything that meets four critical criteria. It requires (1) replication with (2) inheritance of traits with (3) some limited mutation of those traits,and (4) trait-based selection to repeat the cycle. A cycle of 1 replication, 2 inheritance, 3 mutation, 4 selection.
It happens to be very easy to implement those four steps in software and data on a computer. Digitally implemented evolution. In computer science this field is called Genetic Algorithms. Software algorithms that "do" the evolutionary process. I happen to be a programmer and I have in fact personally preformed experiments with the process of evolution, and I have personally witnessed the results. As an abstract process, as a mathematical process, as an in
Do you have an idea what the probability is that a fish can evolve into a horse? I'll give you a hint. Your probability of winning next 23 consecutive lotteries is significantly higher than that a fish will evolve into a horse.
Ah! Thank you!
hat is an excellent example for explaining just how statistically certain evolution is.
You see, there's not just one person buying lottery tickets.
If you stand in the front entrance of the lottery office, a lottery winner will walk in the door essentially every week. Not just 23 weeks in a row, but essentially every week of every year for four billion years.
That's how evolution works. Millions and billions of new lottery tickets each week, and the evolution lottery office collects up all of those winners and passes them on to the next generation, for new lottery winners to pile up on top of them. Evolution is a pile of winning lottery tickets 200-billion-weekly-tickets tall.
Actually evolution is even more powerful and even more certain than that, but there isn't really any need to go into genetic recombination here (taking half of one losing lottery ticket and pasting it onto half of another losing lottery ticket to MANUFACTURE a new winning lottery ticket). The basic validity of evolution is demonstrated by your own example as-is. The CERTAINTY of "23 consecutive lotter[y]" wins and more shows just how easy evolution is.
And not to mention the physical evidence which absolutely proves evolution as historical fact, such as the absolutely continuous complete fossil record tracing diverse modern species of Foraminifera back to their common ancestor tens of millions of years ago.
Scientifically the argument over evolution is over. All that is left are public relations disinformation campaigns against evolution, political battles over the issue, and ignorant misinformed ideological opposition to evolution.
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I think you missed an important point. He said:
When we were playing Halo2 as team members
There are a lot of things that you can do in a lot of games that screw over your teammates, which are perfectly legal. However if you are playing on a team you are supposed to be assisting your teammates, or at a minimum not hurting them. If someone is harming his teammates then, depending on the game, there are many perfectly legal ways for those teammates to respond to that legal-but-undesired play. I don't do it often, but there have been times where I have perfectly legally responded to such players. Times where a player gets booted from the team, or where that is not possible where I have started deliberately fragging my own troublesome teammate, or where killing teammates is impossible, assisting the enemy in killing the troublesome teammate. Or often I will simply switch over to the opposite team and specifically target that player. Most games that I play I obsessively work my way to an extreme expert level of skill, so yes, having me on the other team specifically targeting you will seriously ruin your day.
If you suck, fine, I'll try to teach you or I will work around you. If ignore team play but fight productively, fine. If you exploit and victimize your teammates, that is legal but those teammates can legally victimize you back.
Perhaps it would have been better if he had said "My son does not know the meaning of team play" rather than saying "fair play", but he has a legitimate point. This is a father trying to teach his son the meaning of good team play.
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I think a good solution is that you build/buy things to take over various micromanagement tasks. In the beginning of the game you manually direct your gatherer units to collect what and where. Wen you start getting too busy, and have the money available, you hire a foreman or management building to automate that task. Give it an interface to set management priorities and controls - to prioritize the collection of one resource vs another, to set how far and how risky workers should be allowed to be sent, and for the manager to intelligently manage/retreat workers that come under attack.
You can then progressively hire managers to take over additional tasks as you shift attention to higher level activities like attack and defense.
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You had a lawn?
Back in my day we had a blade of grass.
And we had to water it by hand. Uphill both ways.
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Punch the Monkey.
Punch the Monkey. Punch the Monkey!
Punch the Monkey!Punch the MonkeyPunchtheMonkeyPunchtheMonkey!
PunchtheMonkeyPUNCHTHEMONKEYTHEMONKEYTHEMONKEYMONKEYMONKEY!
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Thank you for your brilliant well reasoned argument for why virtually all books, movie, and TV should be criminal to distribute or possess. They carry various messages such as killing people is exciting and is OK, and they are compelling to those who are susceptible. The boundary line may be drawn too stringently against free speech, but that is necessary to prevent Rambo from making some susceptible person commit some criminal act.
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I have a number problems with the reasoning of your post, but I'd just like to address one. It seems to me your primary point is that this is good an legitimate because the purpose is to reduce the market and thus financial motivation for additional actual criminal acts against actual children.
Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't the most effective way to completely obliterate the financial motive/market be to (1) deny any copyright on such materials (2) decriminalize possession and free download of such materials?
And then there's shock, horror, step (3) redirect all of those police and prosecutorial resources against actual criminals preforming actual acts of abuse against actual children? I know, that one is really radical and insane. What nutter would want to divert money and resources towards rescuing victimized children?
You know what? I wish ALL criminals were so accomodating as to distribute photographic documentation of all their crimes. It would be so much easier to catch and convict bank robbers and muggers and rapists if they were all to photograph their crimes and to be so astoundingly dumb as to distribute that handy-dandy evidence against them on the internet for everyone - including the police - to freely obtain them. Like the idiots who videotape themselves beating the crap out of someone and then upload that video to Youtube. Or those idiots who commit serial arson and videotape it, etc etc etc.
Some people are more concerned with censoring and criminalizing anything that offends them - such as images of Mohammad - than with actually protecting children and rescuing actual victims.
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the titular character remains perenially twelve.
Huh huh huh. Heay Beavis! He said Tit!
Huh huh huh, yeah, he said she has tits and she's twelve huh huh huh!
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Pfffft! You have no taste!
I walk around ancient ruins wacking-off to the tons of porn on the walls all the time.
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Cute post. I'm not audience you were writing for, quite the contrary, but I have to say that what you wrote "worked" in that by the end of the post I definitely had to stop and radically reconsider what I intended to say to you :) Hopefully it will work as well for the intended audience. Mod +1 Thoughtfully Provocative.
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It is -- and should be IMO -- illegal to portray children having sex.
Please forgive my abysmally poor artistic skills.
This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old boy lying down:
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This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old girl lying down:
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This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old boy lying down on top of a 16 year old girl, having sex:
=
If you think I have committed an actual criminal act and that you have some right to pull out a gun and and attempt to imprison me with deadly force then you are dangerous and deluded, and I well defend myself with equally deadly force. And if you think you have some right pull out a gun and kill or imprison someone else for drawing fiction just because they have better art skills than me, then you are just as dangerous and deluded.
You're no better than the Taliban-types that claim it is a criminal act to draw fictional images of Mohammad, and presume they have some fucked-up right to murder or imprison people for drawings, or to run around blowing up random building and random innocent people just because some drawing offends them. Some people have this fucked up notion that they have some right to use force, injure, imprison, or even kill anyone who offends them. Ooooo... a picture of a woman without a veil on her face.... that's porn... pull out a gun and imprison the pornographer.... and shoot to kill if he resists arrest.
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Hmmm, I'm not sure if you did get what I meant, or if my joke was too minimalist.
I was alluding to Bush's "Free Speech Zones" which were - to quote your post I was replying to - "a place to effectively quarantine his detractors".
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It's a Free Speech Zone.
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Rogue individuals or groups engaging in violence should be treated as a police matter.
If the local territory is unwilling or unable to reasonably pursue such people as an internal police matter, then the people/nation being attacked must externally militarily deal with it.
Or would you like to present an argument that an individual or group should be permitted to engage in unending limitless murder? And that the people being murdered have no right to actively defend themselves?
The military option is far messier and much less effective than domestic policing, it is not an option to take lightly, but when no reasonable policing option is available then the military option is the final resort.
Punishing a city of 500,000 people for the actions of 10 is absurd.
And actually the situation is worse than you suggest. Hamas is the democratically elected government in Gaza. Hamas considers themselves at war with Israel, and Hamas is engaging in military rocket attacks on Israel. So the government is actually waging war on Israel and the people who democratically elected that government are at war with Israel.
So yeah, if one were to seriously respect the legitimacy of the Palestinian democratic elections, then we are talking about war being waged and Israel having every right to respond with full military war.
Yes, it sucks when civilians suffer or get killed in war, but the citizens of a nation are inevitable and legitimate casualties when that nation wages war, and those people are particularly responsible when they democratically elect a government with the explicit policy of waging a war.
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If Israel (and US) wanted to be serious, why don't start by respecting the result of the Palestinian election, and acknowledge that hamas won it.
It would be a really really ugly way to deal with the situation, but I can't help wondering if that might not turn out to be the best solution available.
If we were to be SERIOUS about respecting the election, I mean really serious and accepting it at full face value that Hamas is the official government and legitimately democratically representing the population, then there's something that you have overlooked. Hamas's position is that they are at war with Israel, and if they are the Palestinian government, and they are militarily attacking Israel, then that is a nation waging war on Israel. These Hamas missile attacks on Israel constitute an official Nation vs Nation war.
Fully respecting the election means treating it as full Nation vs Nation war, it means for Israel stop treating the Palestinians and Hamas with gentle gloves, it means for Israel to respond to these war attacks on Israel with full war in response, it means for Israel to to take their army off the leash. Any non-combatant Palestinian civilians would still be civilians, but they would be enemy civilians of an enemy nation waging a war. You don't deliberately attack an enemy nation's civilians, but you don't apologize or hesitate over enemy civilian casualties when fighting the combatants of a nation waging war on you.
I don't think there's anyone anywhere has the slightest doubt of the military results of full direct unrestricted warfare between the Israeli army and Hamas's forces. Israel's army outmatches Hamas's capabilities by a hundred-to-one and more. Israel's full military would roll in and Palestinians would learn what the REAL meaning of occupation. And much like when Germany was defeated, Hamas would be outlawed just as the Nazi party was outlawed, and Martial Law imposed. Insurgents would get their wish to fight and try to kill Israelis, but rather than blowing up Israeli women and children in supermarkets with their rockets, they would face martial law and the full force of an actual occupying Israeli army head on.
It would be ugly as hell, lots of innocent civilians would be killed, but I'm not completely certain it wouldn't be better than the eternal cycle of terrorist attacks and messy limited military strikes. Maybe.... just maybe after officially losing a war and being officially conquered and Hamas obliterated... maybe just maybe Israeli martial law rule and reconstruction can finally impose a full two state solution and impose a functional peaceful government for Palestinian self-rule, build a viable Palestinian nation. Maybe.
It would be very very very ugly, but it's not like anything else has been productive. It's not like the current situation with Hamas launching rockets into Israel is anything but bad for the Palestinian people.
Note that I'm not advocating making a full war out of it, as I repeatedly said it would be really really ugly and I have no idea if it would ultimately wind up better or worse, but I did want to answer you. You did say the Hamas election should be taken seriously and respected. I just wanted to make you aware that Hamas is waging war on Israel, and if Hamas's attacks are attacks of the official government then that means the Palestinian people are officially waging war, that the Palestinian people as a whole are officially waging war as a nation, and that the nation of Israel can, must, and will wage war back, and Israel will win.
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A peaceful resistance movement with good global PR would do them so much more good than firing random rockets.
Vigorously agreed.
Any thoughts on reaching even the modest goal of 50% of Palestinians becoming intolerant of the blowing up of their own children in futile efforts towards Jewish genocide? Because that is the fundamental problem - the substantial majority of them actively or passively support spiteful genocidal self destructive violence.
Of course, then they would have to compete with the pro-Zionism lobby groups for mindshare.
You're not helping.
I happen to be an atheist. That means beyond any doubt that I consider any Jewish claim on the land is a complete load of crap. It also means I consider any Muslim claims equally fictional. And that absolutely goes for any Christian getting involved based on some Biblical crap.
The fact is that for thousands of years the region has had a mixed population, including a substantial Jewish percentage. Yes, many more Jews moved there in the wake of the Nazis, and the fact is that most of them moved there peacefully buying homes or moving in with other Jews or whatnot. And the fact is that almost the entire Israeli population there today were born there. Anyone who intends "drive them into the sea" Jewish Genocide is per-se unreasonable in the most extreme, and their voice and desires warrant exactly ZERO consideration in discussions towards compromise and resolution. Anyone who demands merely violently "drive them away" to live in some magical undefined "anywhere but here", that is only moderately less unreasonable than wanting to genocidally drive them into the sea.
Zionism as a justification for anything on EITHER side is a load of crap. Zionism as an ideology to justify Israel is a load of crap, and all of the anti-zionism rants to demonize Israel and Jews is a load of crap. Israel *is* a nation with millions of innocent native citizens who have elected an imperfect but legitimate democracy. Starting with the zionism thing is really really unhelpful.
Reasonable is Live and Let Live.
Reasonable is some sort of two state solution.
I am completely on board with cleaning up those areas where Israel is behaving badly. I am all on board with Israel doing a better job policing radicals and criminals on their own side. However it is impossible to cast Israel as the bad guy when terroristic violence is endemic and accepted on the Palestinian side. There are always violent rogues and criminals in any population, and such violence must be dealt with either as an internal police matter or externally as a military matter. Israel is by-and-large willing and and able to police rogue and criminal elements on their own side. The Palestinian side is unwilling and/or unable to police violence from their own side. There'd a very substantial part of the population on the Palestinian side with no interest in any reasonable solution - with no interest in Live and let Live - people who simply desire blind slaughter. And the rest of the population supports or tolerates it.
When 51% of the Palestinian population decides to end the tolerance of their own violent individuals, then dealing with violent individuals can begin to shift to an internal policing matter rather than an Israeli military matter. And at that point things will rapidly begin to improve for the Palestinians. Two sides actually willing and able to pursue Live and Let Live resolutions to problems.
It will be much easier to place focus on legitimate Palestinian grievances when there's no genocidal elephant rampaging around the room.
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Spider Man, Superman, Iron Man, or random new made-up -Man.
Made-Up-Man, dashing valiantly from cosmetic counter to cosmetic counter, rescuing tragic make-up victims such as Drew Barrymore, Beyoncé, and Christina Aguilera.
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Wow, that's kinda like a line of toys are pretty good once they've been through China for health and safety inspections.
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You make a lot of very good points and I learned a lot from this. Thanks.
Wow, impressive :)
There's a famous quote you might have heard... "I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I didn't have the time to make it shorter". Well, I'd like to coin a new one. I'm sorry my post was so harsh, but I didn't have the time to make it more polite. Chuckle. You responded better than my flammish tone really deserved.
I have more to write, actually mostly agreeing with your latest post, but I'm about to pass out. Neeeeeed sleeeeeeeeeep. I'll follow up with another post probably tomorrow.
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Inferior to what exactly?
I'm a bit baffled by your question. Is there any dispute whatsoever that a DRM file is inherently inferior to a DRM-free file?
An MP3 file will play in any MP3 player ever made, and can be played by pretty well any software player released in the last decade, with no hassles no limitations no restrictions and no complications of any sort. It's a simple normal general purpose unrestricted functionality file. An iTunes DRM file can only be played in Apple-brand players, and even there it suffers from a variety of issues that don't exist for DRM-free files.
10 bucks the whole story was made up on the spot.
While I don't know the other poster and have no particular reason to assertively believe him, I also have absolutely no reason or indication to disbelieve him. It is an entirely reasonable and normal family story. Someone buys an ordinary MP3 player, any of countless possible brands, a player which may or may not support AAC files, and then the gift-giver and the gift-receiver are both surprised to discover that the music sold by the biggest most famous music store on the internet is deliberately locked and crippled, deliberately prohibited from playing on an ordinary name-brand music player.
Non-technical people hear about the new music stuff and they hear MP3s. All the music players are called MP3 players. So obviously they they want MP3 players and they want MP3 music to play in those MP3 players. Apple is merely one of many brands selling MP3 players. People hear "iPod" and they hear that it is an MP3 player. Apple sells MP3 players and Apple sells music for those MP3 players. What normal person would ever imagine the totally FUBARed situation where Apple was selling something OTHER than MP3 music for MP3 players? It's the iTunes store that is doing something bizarre and unexpected. For a typical non-techie person, who the hell ever heard of an AAC file? Much less heard of a DRMed AAC file? iTunes is selling music for MP3 players - but that music is not an MP3 and it does not work in an MP3 player.
I find it very odd that you even ask how or why a DRM file is inferior to a non-DRM file, and it doubly peculiar that invent this positive assertion that this guy is lying. The only basis I can even imagine to affirmatively doubt his story would be based and a ridiculous assumption that everyone automatically buys an iPod, or an equally ridiculous assumption that everyone already possesses the knowledge that iTunes does not sell normal music files - where a normal music file is an MP3 as far as any average non-techie person has ever heard.
There is absolutely nothing unlikely about his story, dubious in the content of his post, there is absolutely no hint pointing to him lying, there is no sane set of assumptions where anyone would expect this couldn't or wouldn't happen to ordinary random people. All I can come up with to explain your affirmative assertion that he's lying is an emotional reaction on your part. You simply don't like it, you simply don't like that it points up a legitimate problem, and you simply want to exclude it. Wish it away. It's not real, the uncomfortable conflict vanishes in a puff of smoke, and everything in Lars-reality-land is happy and sunny.
I'm not asserting I have some special knowledge or belief that he is telling the truth - it is just the normal working presumption, but I am saying there is something very very wrong in your positive belief that he's lying.
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Why exactly did Apple lose a customer?
Well, if you want it in the abstract I'd say it's because he discovered that Apple was selling an inferior product.
You can speculate on the various ways one might become informed of that fact and even the possibility that under different circumstances one might never trip across and become aware of the defects in that product, but fundamentally the issue is that DRM files are Defective By Design and the customer had that fact smack him in the face.
Yeah, you can say that a player than can play both MP3s and AACs is a better/more capable player product, but that does not change the fact that MP3 is the ubiquitous format, that non-DRM AAC is a widely unsupported format, and that DRM AAC is a just plain deliberately defective format. At most you can say his wife should have gotten an MP3 player with broader format support AND he should have bought MP3 music.
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You shouldn't rant about legalities when you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.
I am not a lawyer, but I have in fact read the entire Title 17 US Copyright law, as well as many court rulings and Supreme Court rulings on copyright law, and more. For an amature, I have uncommon expertise in the subject.
You don't own any of this stuff. You license a right to use it.
False, and false.
Under copyright law you are in fact the owner of the particular copy that you bought. The law is explicit on this point, distinguishing between the ownership of the copyright itself as opposed to the ownership of particular copies, and that transfer in ownership of recording medium does in fact equal a transfer in ownership of the particular copy recorded on that medium.
Under copyright law you do not need any license to use something, and with rare exceptions, you receive absolutely no license whatsoever when you buy a copyrighted work.
I am going to simplify some legal details here, but copyright restricts essentially three things (1) The creation of new copies (including derivatives), (2) public performance, and (3) distribution. Copyright does not restrict anything other than those three activities, and even those three categories are not blanket restrictions. All three categories are subject to all sorts of exemptions an limitations.
When you buy a book you receive no license whatsoever, because you need no license. You own that copy and you have every right to read it, or to do (almost) anything you wish with it. You need no license to read it because copyright does not extend to any sort of right to read. It doesn't even matter if you own some particular book - if you can see the text you are perfectly free to read that text. There is no such thing as a "right to read" or a "right to use".
When you buy a vinyl record or a CD you receive no license whatsoever, because you need no license. You own that copy and you have every right to play it and listen to it, or to do (almost) anything you wish with it. You need no license to play it or listen to it because copyright does not extend to any sort of right to play or listen. It doesn't even matter if you own some particular record or CD - if you can hear it then you are perfectly free to listen to that music. There is no such thing as a "right to play" or a "right to listen" or a "right to use".
When you buy videotape you receive no license whatsoever, because you need no license. You own that copy and you have every right to play it and watch it, or to do (almost) anything you wish with it. You need no license to play it or watch it because copyright does not extend to any sort of right to play or watch. It doesn't even matter if you own some particular videotape - if you can see it then you are perfectly free to listen to that music. There is no such thing as a "right to play" or a "right to watch" or a "right to use".
The only time you need a license is for SOME kinds of copying and for SOME kinds of public performances and for SOME kinds of distribution.
In fact when you buy software on a CD, you in fact become the owner of that copy of that software, and in fact you need no license at all to install and run that software. Installing and running software does technically involve copying, but US law Title 17 Section 117 explicitly states that you need no license at all for the copying you do when you install and run software. Yes, it is common practice for software nowadays to come with an EULA, but legally it has absolutely no basis or validity in copyright law. An EULA is nothing more than a CONTRACT OFFER, and you are perfectly free to decline that contract offer. In most cases you neither want nor need anything offered by EULA contract offers, and most particularly you do NOT need any EULA license grant to install and run software. Installing and running software explicitly does NOT need any license. The entire game with EULAs is that they try to find ways to claim y