Re:This is nothing new...
on
Sunlight in a Tube
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· Score: 5, Informative
Actually, this is different than simple redirected light. Check out this link for more information. Basically, it runs the sunlight through fiberoptic cables to light fixtures that work much like our current light bulbs. These means that you won't have to have serious architectural redesigns of buildings to get the same effect. It also will generate electricity that can be used for other applications (powering computers?). It is basically a hybrid approach to lighting.
Yes, it is. No, "from Montana and against heavy swearing" was not the clue. The indicator is that you equate hip hop with "a string of obsenities and verbal abuse". Ignorance isn't the most remote conclusion.
But it is perhaps the most narrow-minded one.
You completely misunderstood my point. No one (not even you) has the time to research and listen to every music style, every musician, every song written on the entire planet. We all (yes, you included) listen to the genres that intrigue us the most or that we have had the most direct contact with. Some go deeper into a few genres. Some go more broad covering many genres but none of them deeply. No one can claim to know everything.
I am a vocalist and piano player as well as a song writer. I enjoy singing and writing harmonies. My vocal songs tend to have a more classical bent to them, though some of them have more of a rock feel if it suits the lyrics. Therefore, I am really not naturally drawn to rap music because it has less emphasis on vocal and harmonic arrangements(though I have heard some that I actually kindof liked -- just not enough to purchase or listen to on a regular basis). In order to find the few good bands that exist, I would have to spend hours sifting through all of the bad ones unless one comes to my attention in a forum like this. To assume that just because I have not come across one of these bands that I am now a backward hick is incredibly narrow minded. In fact, I would argue that the more "cultured" people (ie opera fans, historical scholars, academia, etc.) would been even less likely to have heard of some geek doing rap. I am sure that there are some fields that I know more about than you, but that does not mean that I would label you an ignorant for not knowing it as well as I. I have chosen to spend my time in other musical genres, in honing my writing and playing ability, and researching my own interests. Does this make me an ignorant? Perhaps, but I can guarantee you that you have just as big of a set of ignorances as anyone else in this world. As they say, the more you know the more you realize that you don't know much.
Thank you for the recommendation of the new music. I will try to set aside some time to listen to them as it is always good to hear something new.
And this isn't prejudicial? Just because I am from Montana and am against heavy swearing I have a hic accent? The fact is that an intelligent arguement or statement can be seriously damaged when it contains a lot of swearing. People are more willing to listen when obscenities are absent. It is the same thing in Hollywood where those who seem to lack real talent tend to rely upon the cheap tricks of smut and vulgarity. Very few people are actually able to use these things in a truly creative, comedic way, and I find that I inevitably enjoy entertainment that avoids such traps.
As I said in my post, I "probably" would rather listen to fingernails on a chalk board (though in retrospect, this was probably too strong of a statement). I did not, however, discount the chance that I may just like this guy. I have come across some rap that I thought was quite clever in its word-play and was relatively clean and creative, but sadly, it seemed to be in the minority. Another poster has pointed me to his website, so I think I may just check him out (although, I see from some of the lyrics that he does have a bit of swearing -- *sigh* not a death-nail, but a possible warning sign).
I was asking a legitimate question -- one that was not answered in the main post. My comments were my initial reaction to the post, and from my early moderations and many other people in this forum, it appears I am not alone. I am glad to have learned more about this artist, and knowing that his music is freely downloadable, I may just give him a try.
As a side note, rap has never been and never will be my preferred style of music. I love strong melodies and harmonies more than a heavy beat, and lean more toward music with orchestral scores. This is probably as big of a reason as any why I have never heard of mc chris.
Re:What in the World?
on
Ask mc chris
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· Score: 1
So, if Star Wars is relevant on/. is, by extension, an artist who crafts songs about Star Wars relevant? I say yes, others say...
That actually makes sense. I just wish that they had bothered to explain a bit more for those of us who are "out of the loop".
Re:What in the World?
on
Ask mc chris
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· Score: 1
*sigh* I cannot even type my sarcasm right today. I need more sleep... or caffeine....
What in the World?
on
Ask mc chris
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Many of you are no doubt familiar with the works of MC Chris.
No doubt >/sarcasm<
He's probably most well known as the high pitched rapper...
Not just a rapper, but a "high pitched" one. I would probably rather listen to finger-nails on a chalk board. Truthfully, I find very, very little of rap music even remotely tolerable. Somehow I have a hard time seeing a string of obsenities and verbal abuse as "art", which seems to be what most of the rappers are all about.
on the track 'Fett's Vette' that you probably have an MP3 of somewhere.
Uh, I have never heard of this song, but I am from Montana so...
Now what does this have to do with Slashdot again? Is Slashdot turning into an MTV forum or something? Is this someone I really should know about?
(Side note: I'm generally on the side of the French in these little Franco-American spats. I saw a SUV that had a "Boycott France" bumper sticker today, and considered sticking a note under his wiper that said something to the effect of "Y'know, you have the French to thank for the philosophy of free speech that allows you to show that sticker without danger of your tires getting slashed...")
I do not mean to start a France-bashing fest, but your logic here is flawed. Just because someone who happened to be French developed an idea of free speech (which cannot be traced solely to French soil anyway) is not an excuse to overlook current wrongs. The United States did great things during and after World War II in defeating Nazi Germany and spending billions to rebuild Europe, yet they have great animosity toward us now because of they do not like our recent actions.
Many high-profile Frenchmen have been shown to have made millions (possibly billions) off of Iraq's oil-for-food program, which has made their lack of support against Iraq seem rather duplicitous. Were they against action against Iraq because such actions were wrong or because it might hurt their pocketbook? It certainly doesn't look good for them when you consider the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis found in mass graves and ties to various terrorist organizations. This is why people are boycotting France. It is not that they have not done great things in the past. They are just doing bad things in the present.
Regardless, the point is that it is STILL ILLEGAL to abuse. Until you can get people to stop breaking the law voluntarily (via fair pricing and good business practices)
I think the point your getting at here is that we live in an imperfect world. The fact is that there will always be someone who will break the law. In order to stop all crime, you have to place very strict, cumbersome laws and practices -- and even then someone will find a way around them(we humans are quite resourceful when it comes to finding new and devious ways to circumvent authority). The key is finding the balance between discouraging crime and maintaining the usability and popularity of your product to your customers.
It has been my experience that it is much better to lean toward ignoring piracy for the sake of our law abiding customers rather than to hurt everybody to stop the few bad apples. Our customers end up being much happier, and we also get fewer support calls. Win-win.
Actually, a while back I heard that the three worst majors for homework were as follows:
Architecture (also known archi-torture)
Computer Science (debugging is a pain)
Physics
This may have changed, but from my experience in school (I had roommates in Architecture and Physics and I was in CS), it certainly seemed likely. Of course, we didn't have Java or C# at that point, and Visual Basic was brand new. Programming has been getting increasingly easier with higher level languages and improved debugging tools, so I would not be surprised to see Computer Science is no longer as near the top of the list.
I had a slight bit of interest left in this film before I read this text. Now I am completely appalled. I have no desire to see this movie or give Lucas another dime of my money.
In order to send the message to Lucas that we expect more from our movies, I suggest that we all have a Lord of the Rings trilogy marathon in our respective cities on the opening weekend of Star Wars. This way we will all get to see a truly great set of films that retain good acting, a great script, and truly phenominal special effects -- all of which should have been in Star Wars.
Seriously, we should boycott this film and send the message that we won't settle for mediocre films.
Absolutely incorrect. The absolute best government system in our world (given its flaws) is a benevolent monarchy. It is by far more effecient than the Republic and can cause a great amount of good in a very short period of time.
...considering Marvel has banked $50 million alone (from SpiderMan)...
Stan Lee gets 10% of the profit Marvel makes from selling the rights to his creations, not profits of the movies themselves. So he doesn't have to worry about the movie-making accounting. The question would be if Marvel can play tricks to reduce their reported profits. Of course, for past films, these figures have already been reported and cannot now be changed.
They had such a great opportunity to write out the founding of the Federation, The Romulan War...etc all events we know to have happened... But they just had had had to mess it up with time travel.
Agreed. One of the things that was starting to annoy me with the Star Trek series was that the story was being lost to technology. With each new season, they continued to progress so quickly with technology that they could not keep consistency in their universe. When I first heard of it, I looked at Enterprise as a burst of fresh air. Yes, we knew what was going to happen (mostly), but that would just allow us to get more into the characters and the world around them. Instead, they added advanced technology and disrupted the universe.
Why do so many TV show and movie makers think that Sci-Fi is exclusively about technology? Good Sci-Fi uses the technology as a backdrop to character development and asking interesting questions. Technology is a vehicle not the destination.
Much of the body of the Bible was written in letters by a schizophrenic who was born a hundred years after Christ's death.
On what grounds are you making this claim? All of the authors of the New Testament were alive during the time of Christ, and all of the books were written within 70 years of the death of Jesus. The entire Old Testament was written at least four hundred years prior to the birth of Jesus. Regardless of whether or not you believe what they wrote or agree with the currently accepted Biblical canon, the historical evidence for authorship in the first century is very strong.
Stoned any gays lately? Or adulterers?
No, and the reason is quite simple. The Old Testament law was a list of civil laws that governed the nation of Israel. This was their constitution, if you will, and the laws were enforced by their government. We as individuals, however, do not have the right to execute justice reserved for the government. The Ten Commandments, on the other hand, are personal commandments. This is why we are told not to murder, but the nation of Israel is instructed to perform capital punishment. One is for the person; the other is for the individual. This is how it has always been, at least from a Biblical perspective.
Not even a God has that level of intelligence (which is likely why we have free will, if you believe in religion and God).
If God had enough foresight to develop a highly complex system of physics laws and properties for the entire universe that allow for the existence of a vast variety of life, are incredibly consistent (even in its randomness), and did not result in mutual destruction within five minutes of existense would have more than enough foresight to determine the "evolution" of a single species over a few centuries.
Have you ever really thought about what it would take to design our universe? The laws of physics are actually quite basic and simple (though we are just scratching the surface of understanding them), and yet they scale incredibly, are quite predictable, and allow a vast variety of options be it in life or matter itself. When you consider the special properties of water, the nature of light, the complexity and variety of DNA, our universe is truly amazing. Even designing an complex operating system can be a daunting task for an individual, and its complexity in miniscule compared to designing a system of laws that work to the scale and accuracy of our present universe.
Now if you believe that there is a God who invented and created this place (either in a 6-day creation or by setting evolution in motion), He would almost certainly have an understanding of how the creation would progress. Afterall, He had to design it so that it could. For us simple created beings to possibly have some claim on the level or limitation of an all-powerful God is more than a bit presumptious.
Of course, if you do not believe in God, this is all pretty much a moot point.;-)
I long for the days when I used to be able to get a simple cell phone with a simple interface, contact phone book, and good reception -- for less than $25 dollars a month! Cell phones are getting so ridiculous that I finally gave up on them. You have to pay at least $45 a month (after taxes...), and for what? Internet access that I don't use. Games that I don't play. Instant text that costs me even more.
I wonder if a bare-bones plan with simple, easy to use phones (not glorified PDA's/cameras/gaming consoles) would actually do quite well in today's market for people like me that don't need all of the frills. I know people have talked about this before, but why aren't the cell phone companies listening?
Part of the problem is the fact that we teach foreign languages too late in the education cycle -- high school and junior high. If we really want to teach children to be multilingual, we need to start in the elementary years when their minds are more adept at learning language. By the time kids are in high school, this learning advantage is gone, and they have to learn languages the hard way.
Once you learn one other language, it becomes much easier to pick up additional languages since your brain is already "programmed" to be multi-lingual. If we even taught one foreign language (say Spanish due to the very large hispanic population in this country) in kindergarden along with English, it would make it that much easier for them to pick up additional languages as they saw fit later on in their education. I think we should make an additional language mandatory in elementary school. The language could be chosen on a state or district level according to the communities influences (ex. French in the northeast, German in Pennsylvania, Spanish in the Southwest and Florida).
In my opinion, the best solution is to simply give the kid the tools he or she needs to get started, and see what happens from there.
My dad took a little more direct tactic. When we got our new computer when I was in the fifth grade, he proclaimed that he was not going to buy any games. If we wanted games, we would have to make them ourselves, so I started working on very primitive games using BASIC. My dad later changed his mind(?) and purchased games for us for Christmas, but by then, it was already too late for me. I was hooked. I started with a statistics based baseball game and then moved onto a windows based teachers gradesheet program. I went on to get a CS degree and have become a decent application designer/developer. It all started with my dad giving me a little push to see what I could do. Go Dad!
I would argue that you might need to give kids that little push (in one way or another). With all of the advanced games and applications out there, they may see little need or desire to even learn how to create on their own.
The CargoLifter web site resembles a dot-com with too much venture capital and a bad business concept. The product isn't ready, but the theme park and the visitor's center are open.
Quite honestely, I do not know. Why did He create the universe at all. It is not as if He needed it. I suspect the truth relies somewhere in the realm of creating a being that could choose to follow Him and so that He could communicate and relate with them -- somewhat like a RPG developer. It would be much more thrilling to be able to create a truly AI game character that you could talk to and relate with rather than a scripted character with no freedom of choice -- who will choose to interact with you simply because that was how they were programmed. The problem, of course, with creating something that has choice is that it can then choose to reject you. God had to accept the bad consequences by giving the ability to reject Him in order to gain the advantage of a closer relationship with those who would choose to accept Him.
I don't know if I will ever understand completely why God does what He does, but I hope to ask Him someday.
Do you really think that the Christian God (should he exist) thought far enough ahead to include people in the bible who numerological name conversions would apply in English?
Although I absolutely agree with you in regards to these crackpot code schemes, your reasoning here is flawed. The Christian God, as taught in the Bible, is omniscient (all-knowing) as well as sovereign (in control). He is outside of time and knows exactly what the future holds. Therefore, He certainly could think "far enough ahead" (especially if he thought "far enough ahead" to design the vastly complex yet strangely simple physical model on which our universe runs), and prophecy would be utterly worthless if He could not. However, every fulfilled prophecy is perfectly clear in the text when viewed from the future. There is not a single example of an encrypted message in the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament.
Therefore, while God certainly could have done it, there is no reason to believe that He has. Perhaps more focus should be placed on what is clearly stated in the Bible rather than looking for some "secret code" that probably doesn't even exist. I have found that most people who are looking for the codes do not even have basic understanding of the fundamental tenants of Christianity.
His name is Mark Amunrud. Unfortunately, he does not have research online (I understand that it is coming soon). He currently is the president of the Montana Bible College in Bozeman, MT. If I find any information of his online, I will let you know.
If, however, he has to tweak the Bible in order to fit its words into established reality, via the mechanism of "mistranslation", then the Bible becomes fallible, and EVERY word in it is suspect.
Perhaps I misstated my post. His study began with a careful tranlsation of Genesis 1 whereby he determined that the translation (from Hebrew into English) was not done correctly. This is not doubting the authenticity of the Bible, but rather getting a clearer understanding of what it is actually saying. Once he realized the error, it then lead him on the path that led to new theories about science and creation as well as correlations with scientific studies. It was not trying to make the Bible fit with science, but rather discovering that Bible actually predicted it.
But there is no "direction" to evolution. Evolution does not "seek" "higher" forms.Instead, the pressures of evolution tend to select organisms who are better survivors in their particular environment.
Yet, in a sense it does. The basic teaching of evolution is that life forms have been continually improving over millions of years so that we are a highly evolved life-form and much improved. Without this principle, evolution cannot explain have single celled organism (who could have lived just fine in that state for eternity) would evolve into a highly complex organisms. How else can you explain this transformation than some sort of direction?
This is also why I brought up the point of micro-evolution vs macro-evolution. Evolution exists. This is a fact that has been seen time and again. Certain species have adapted to their environment, however, they have not changed their fundamental genus (there may be changes in species depending on how you define it). However, macro-evolution (for example, birds evolving from reptiles) is a totally different concept. This is not just talking about physical appearance and attributes but rather the evolution of actual DNA strands. The problem here is that for an organism to reproduce, it has to have a compatible partner with an identical DNA structure. Even if the DNA structure could change in a mutation, the likelyhood of finding an exact DNA structure match at the same time in the opposite gender is exceedingly unlikely. However, for evolution to work, you would have to have macro-evolution take place.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, this is different than simple redirected light. Check out this link for more information. Basically, it runs the sunlight through fiberoptic cables to light fixtures that work much like our current light bulbs. These means that you won't have to have serious architectural redesigns of buildings to get the same effect. It also will generate electricity that can be used for other applications (powering computers?). It is basically a hybrid approach to lighting.
But it is perhaps the most narrow-minded one.
You completely misunderstood my point. No one (not even you) has the time to research and listen to every music style, every musician, every song written on the entire planet. We all (yes, you included) listen to the genres that intrigue us the most or that we have had the most direct contact with. Some go deeper into a few genres. Some go more broad covering many genres but none of them deeply. No one can claim to know everything.
I am a vocalist and piano player as well as a song writer. I enjoy singing and writing harmonies. My vocal songs tend to have a more classical bent to them, though some of them have more of a rock feel if it suits the lyrics. Therefore, I am really not naturally drawn to rap music because it has less emphasis on vocal and harmonic arrangements(though I have heard some that I actually kindof liked -- just not enough to purchase or listen to on a regular basis). In order to find the few good bands that exist, I would have to spend hours sifting through all of the bad ones unless one comes to my attention in a forum like this. To assume that just because I have not come across one of these bands that I am now a backward hick is incredibly narrow minded. In fact, I would argue that the more "cultured" people (ie opera fans, historical scholars, academia, etc.) would been even less likely to have heard of some geek doing rap. I am sure that there are some fields that I know more about than you, but that does not mean that I would label you an ignorant for not knowing it as well as I. I have chosen to spend my time in other musical genres, in honing my writing and playing ability, and researching my own interests. Does this make me an ignorant? Perhaps, but I can guarantee you that you have just as big of a set of ignorances as anyone else in this world. As they say, the more you know the more you realize that you don't know much.
Thank you for the recommendation of the new music. I will try to set aside some time to listen to them as it is always good to hear something new.
And this isn't prejudicial? Just because I am from Montana and am against heavy swearing I have a hic accent? The fact is that an intelligent arguement or statement can be seriously damaged when it contains a lot of swearing. People are more willing to listen when obscenities are absent. It is the same thing in Hollywood where those who seem to lack real talent tend to rely upon the cheap tricks of smut and vulgarity. Very few people are actually able to use these things in a truly creative, comedic way, and I find that I inevitably enjoy entertainment that avoids such traps.
As I said in my post, I "probably" would rather listen to fingernails on a chalk board (though in retrospect, this was probably too strong of a statement). I did not, however, discount the chance that I may just like this guy. I have come across some rap that I thought was quite clever in its word-play and was relatively clean and creative, but sadly, it seemed to be in the minority. Another poster has pointed me to his website, so I think I may just check him out (although, I see from some of the lyrics that he does have a bit of swearing -- *sigh* not a death-nail, but a possible warning sign).
I was asking a legitimate question -- one that was not answered in the main post. My comments were my initial reaction to the post, and from my early moderations and many other people in this forum, it appears I am not alone. I am glad to have learned more about this artist, and knowing that his music is freely downloadable, I may just give him a try.
As a side note, rap has never been and never will be my preferred style of music. I love strong melodies and harmonies more than a heavy beat, and lean more toward music with orchestral scores. This is probably as big of a reason as any why I have never heard of mc chris.
That actually makes sense. I just wish that they had bothered to explain a bit more for those of us who are "out of the loop".
*sigh* I cannot even type my sarcasm right today. I need more sleep... or caffeine....
No doubt >/sarcasm<
Not just a rapper, but a "high pitched" one. I would probably rather listen to finger-nails on a chalk board. Truthfully, I find very, very little of rap music even remotely tolerable. Somehow I have a hard time seeing a string of obsenities and verbal abuse as "art", which seems to be what most of the rappers are all about.
Uh, I have never heard of this song, but I am from Montana so...
Now what does this have to do with Slashdot again? Is Slashdot turning into an MTV forum or something? Is this someone I really should know about?
I do not mean to start a France-bashing fest, but your logic here is flawed. Just because someone who happened to be French developed an idea of free speech (which cannot be traced solely to French soil anyway) is not an excuse to overlook current wrongs. The United States did great things during and after World War II in defeating Nazi Germany and spending billions to rebuild Europe, yet they have great animosity toward us now because of they do not like our recent actions.
Many high-profile Frenchmen have been shown to have made millions (possibly billions) off of Iraq's oil-for-food program, which has made their lack of support against Iraq seem rather duplicitous. Were they against action against Iraq because such actions were wrong or because it might hurt their pocketbook? It certainly doesn't look good for them when you consider the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis found in mass graves and ties to various terrorist organizations. This is why people are boycotting France. It is not that they have not done great things in the past. They are just doing bad things in the present.
I think the point your getting at here is that we live in an imperfect world. The fact is that there will always be someone who will break the law. In order to stop all crime, you have to place very strict, cumbersome laws and practices -- and even then someone will find a way around them(we humans are quite resourceful when it comes to finding new and devious ways to circumvent authority). The key is finding the balance between discouraging crime and maintaining the usability and popularity of your product to your customers.
It has been my experience that it is much better to lean toward ignoring piracy for the sake of our law abiding customers rather than to hurt everybody to stop the few bad apples. Our customers end up being much happier, and we also get fewer support calls. Win-win.
Actually, a while back I heard that the three worst majors for homework were as follows:
This may have changed, but from my experience in school (I had roommates in Architecture and Physics and I was in CS), it certainly seemed likely. Of course, we didn't have Java or C# at that point, and Visual Basic was brand new. Programming has been getting increasingly easier with higher level languages and improved debugging tools, so I would not be surprised to see Computer Science is no longer as near the top of the list.
Don't forget Safari. With Apple seeming to gain momentum, their browser could potentially start making a dent in market share as well.
Toss the first two and pretend they don't exist... :-)
I had a slight bit of interest left in this film before I read this text. Now I am completely appalled. I have no desire to see this movie or give Lucas another dime of my money.
In order to send the message to Lucas that we expect more from our movies, I suggest that we all have a Lord of the Rings trilogy marathon in our respective cities on the opening weekend of Star Wars. This way we will all get to see a truly great set of films that retain good acting, a great script, and truly phenominal special effects -- all of which should have been in Star Wars.
Seriously, we should boycott this film and send the message that we won't settle for mediocre films.
Absolutely incorrect. The absolute best government system in our world (given its flaws) is a benevolent monarchy. It is by far more effecient than the Republic and can cause a great amount of good in a very short period of time.
From the article
Stan Lee gets 10% of the profit Marvel makes from selling the rights to his creations, not profits of the movies themselves. So he doesn't have to worry about the movie-making accounting. The question would be if Marvel can play tricks to reduce their reported profits. Of course, for past films, these figures have already been reported and cannot now be changed.
Agreed. One of the things that was starting to annoy me with the Star Trek series was that the story was being lost to technology. With each new season, they continued to progress so quickly with technology that they could not keep consistency in their universe. When I first heard of it, I looked at Enterprise as a burst of fresh air. Yes, we knew what was going to happen (mostly), but that would just allow us to get more into the characters and the world around them. Instead, they added advanced technology and disrupted the universe.
Why do so many TV show and movie makers think that Sci-Fi is exclusively about technology? Good Sci-Fi uses the technology as a backdrop to character development and asking interesting questions. Technology is a vehicle not the destination.
On what grounds are you making this claim? All of the authors of the New Testament were alive during the time of Christ, and all of the books were written within 70 years of the death of Jesus. The entire Old Testament was written at least four hundred years prior to the birth of Jesus. Regardless of whether or not you believe what they wrote or agree with the currently accepted Biblical canon, the historical evidence for authorship in the first century is very strong.
No, and the reason is quite simple. The Old Testament law was a list of civil laws that governed the nation of Israel. This was their constitution, if you will, and the laws were enforced by their government. We as individuals, however, do not have the right to execute justice reserved for the government. The Ten Commandments, on the other hand, are personal commandments. This is why we are told not to murder, but the nation of Israel is instructed to perform capital punishment. One is for the person; the other is for the individual. This is how it has always been, at least from a Biblical perspective.
If God had enough foresight to develop a highly complex system of physics laws and properties for the entire universe that allow for the existence of a vast variety of life, are incredibly consistent (even in its randomness), and did not result in mutual destruction within five minutes of existense would have more than enough foresight to determine the "evolution" of a single species over a few centuries.
Have you ever really thought about what it would take to design our universe? The laws of physics are actually quite basic and simple (though we are just scratching the surface of understanding them), and yet they scale incredibly, are quite predictable, and allow a vast variety of options be it in life or matter itself. When you consider the special properties of water, the nature of light, the complexity and variety of DNA, our universe is truly amazing. Even designing an complex operating system can be a daunting task for an individual, and its complexity in miniscule compared to designing a system of laws that work to the scale and accuracy of our present universe.
Now if you believe that there is a God who invented and created this place (either in a 6-day creation or by setting evolution in motion), He would almost certainly have an understanding of how the creation would progress. Afterall, He had to design it so that it could. For us simple created beings to possibly have some claim on the level or limitation of an all-powerful God is more than a bit presumptious.
Of course, if you do not believe in God, this is all pretty much a moot point. ;-)
I long for the days when I used to be able to get a simple cell phone with a simple interface, contact phone book, and good reception -- for less than $25 dollars a month! Cell phones are getting so ridiculous that I finally gave up on them. You have to pay at least $45 a month (after taxes...), and for what? Internet access that I don't use. Games that I don't play. Instant text that costs me even more.
I wonder if a bare-bones plan with simple, easy to use phones (not glorified PDA's/cameras/gaming consoles) would actually do quite well in today's market for people like me that don't need all of the frills. I know people have talked about this before, but why aren't the cell phone companies listening?
Warning: US centric post
Part of the problem is the fact that we teach foreign languages too late in the education cycle -- high school and junior high. If we really want to teach children to be multilingual, we need to start in the elementary years when their minds are more adept at learning language. By the time kids are in high school, this learning advantage is gone, and they have to learn languages the hard way.
Once you learn one other language, it becomes much easier to pick up additional languages since your brain is already "programmed" to be multi-lingual. If we even taught one foreign language (say Spanish due to the very large hispanic population in this country) in kindergarden along with English, it would make it that much easier for them to pick up additional languages as they saw fit later on in their education. I think we should make an additional language mandatory in elementary school. The language could be chosen on a state or district level according to the communities influences (ex. French in the northeast, German in Pennsylvania, Spanish in the Southwest and Florida).
My dad took a little more direct tactic. When we got our new computer when I was in the fifth grade, he proclaimed that he was not going to buy any games. If we wanted games, we would have to make them ourselves, so I started working on very primitive games using BASIC. My dad later changed his mind(?) and purchased games for us for Christmas, but by then, it was already too late for me. I was hooked. I started with a statistics based baseball game and then moved onto a windows based teachers gradesheet program. I went on to get a CS degree and have become a decent application designer/developer. It all started with my dad giving me a little push to see what I could do. Go Dad!
I would argue that you might need to give kids that little push (in one way or another). With all of the advanced games and applications out there, they may see little need or desire to even learn how to create on their own.
Ha, Animats was more right than he even knew!
Yes, I do believe in an omniscient God.
Quite honestely, I do not know. Why did He create the universe at all. It is not as if He needed it. I suspect the truth relies somewhere in the realm of creating a being that could choose to follow Him and so that He could communicate and relate with them -- somewhat like a RPG developer. It would be much more thrilling to be able to create a truly AI game character that you could talk to and relate with rather than a scripted character with no freedom of choice -- who will choose to interact with you simply because that was how they were programmed. The problem, of course, with creating something that has choice is that it can then choose to reject you. God had to accept the bad consequences by giving the ability to reject Him in order to gain the advantage of a closer relationship with those who would choose to accept Him.
I don't know if I will ever understand completely why God does what He does, but I hope to ask Him someday.
Although I absolutely agree with you in regards to these crackpot code schemes, your reasoning here is flawed. The Christian God, as taught in the Bible, is omniscient (all-knowing) as well as sovereign (in control). He is outside of time and knows exactly what the future holds. Therefore, He certainly could think "far enough ahead" (especially if he thought "far enough ahead" to design the vastly complex yet strangely simple physical model on which our universe runs), and prophecy would be utterly worthless if He could not. However, every fulfilled prophecy is perfectly clear in the text when viewed from the future. There is not a single example of an encrypted message in the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament.
Therefore, while God certainly could have done it, there is no reason to believe that He has. Perhaps more focus should be placed on what is clearly stated in the Bible rather than looking for some "secret code" that probably doesn't even exist. I have found that most people who are looking for the codes do not even have basic understanding of the fundamental tenants of Christianity.
His name is Mark Amunrud. Unfortunately, he does not have research online (I understand that it is coming soon). He currently is the president of the Montana Bible College in Bozeman, MT. If I find any information of his online, I will let you know.
Perhaps I misstated my post. His study began with a careful tranlsation of Genesis 1 whereby he determined that the translation (from Hebrew into English) was not done correctly. This is not doubting the authenticity of the Bible, but rather getting a clearer understanding of what it is actually saying. Once he realized the error, it then lead him on the path that led to new theories about science and creation as well as correlations with scientific studies. It was not trying to make the Bible fit with science, but rather discovering that Bible actually predicted it.
Yet, in a sense it does. The basic teaching of evolution is that life forms have been continually improving over millions of years so that we are a highly evolved life-form and much improved. Without this principle, evolution cannot explain have single celled organism (who could have lived just fine in that state for eternity) would evolve into a highly complex organisms. How else can you explain this transformation than some sort of direction?
This is also why I brought up the point of micro-evolution vs macro-evolution. Evolution exists. This is a fact that has been seen time and again. Certain species have adapted to their environment, however, they have not changed their fundamental genus (there may be changes in species depending on how you define it). However, macro-evolution (for example, birds evolving from reptiles) is a totally different concept. This is not just talking about physical appearance and attributes but rather the evolution of actual DNA strands. The problem here is that for an organism to reproduce, it has to have a compatible partner with an identical DNA structure. Even if the DNA structure could change in a mutation, the likelyhood of finding an exact DNA structure match at the same time in the opposite gender is exceedingly unlikely. However, for evolution to work, you would have to have macro-evolution take place.