You were making sense right up until the point where you called "Saving Private Ryan" 'Great Cinema'
SPR is in the same exact category as the new "Episodes" - big, loud and so pretentious and self-important that it manages to miss how immensely lame, cliche and boring it is.
There I've said it - Spielberg is an overrated poseur and so is Lucas.
PS I'd also disagree on the "decently entertaining script" part, but I guess that's subjective.
I need to get the Pro version of their stinking player just to see a large (well, larger, slightly) version of their trailer which is designed to make me shell out the $10 (lets face it, by that time it'll be at least $10) to see a movie? In effect an ad?
That's asking a bit much after putting out a movie that was, for all intents and purposes, a large steaming pile of... well you get the idea.
Am I the only one who could care less about Episode II? </rant>
Gnome seems to be the accepted choice that the commercial Unixes are going with, while...
Which is really rather strange, as nowadays KDE is a lot faster and more stable than Gnome (while Gnome has more of the flashy, fancy stuff). Nautilus is a good example- beautiful, but so very slow (it's getting there though).
Anyway, I started with Gnome myself, but have switched to KDE since - as far as day to day utility goes, there is just no comparison.
eh, need to start somewhere;) If someone can't grasp Darwins proposition (I have not met a single creationist who actually fully understands the theory of evolution), they will hardly be able to make heads or tails of the current mess. The very basics still stand - and one very important one relates to what was said in the post I originaly replied to with this.
As much as all of our distinctions (between species, kingdoms, orders, right and wrong, blue and orange, beer and pizza) are arbitrary, yes, yes it is.
I actually meant "fun" to read, not necessarily "funny," by that comment.
I know enough about his work to know that it's not really my kind of thing - I tend to enjoy the more serious literature (you know - the elitist stuff of snobbish 'intellectuals')
That's basically incorrect. You are in fact the target audience of my first post. Meteorite is not a diminiutive of meteor - consult my original post for the relationship between the two words.
I didn't say anything about what I think about what we are doing. I didn't say anything about what I think we should be doing.
What I said was that what's going on is not a Good Thing and that crying for more people to die (especially those who can reasonably be described as not our enemies, yet are grouped with them because of nationality, religion or headgear) is not going to make it better.
That's of course my opinion only, some people may feel that what's going on is very good.
Yes, that's the attitude! we really need more people like this!
Do you realize that really bad things are currently happening with absolutely no possible good ending to them, no matter how you look at it? I've been consistently sickened by what people have to say in the last month.
If I remember correctly (though I may be getting threads confused) I wasn't the one making assumptions, I was the one against assumptions being made about things we don't know. Especially assumptions involving broad generalizations. People were making statements like that a big fscking (are there filters here or somesuch?) rock killed all the dinosaurs and therefore their adaptability to their environment doesn't matter. That's plain counter productive.
"Doesn't make us more fit, but does help out" is an oxymoron - that which helps out, makes us more fit in a specific situation. There is actually no disagreement here - just your usual inexactness of words causing confusion. "Mammals got lucky because the environment favoured their traits" and "Mammals were better adopted (and therefore better fit) for their environment" say exactly the same thing. I would still hold that "lucky" is a term laden with human connotations that make it inappropriate for the current topic - but hey, that's just me.
Getting back to the big rock thing for a sec - since when do we have geological records to 60 million years ago with a resolution to 50 years? (hey maybe there's been advances I don't know about) And no, being in decline doesn't prove anything, and neither does having a big hole in the ground. I wasn't arguing for such "proofs" I was arguing against them.
check your facts:
dinosaurs - around 160 million years
mammals - around 200 million years, first mammals actually appeared not all that much later (geologically speaking) than dinosaurs.
And early eukaryotes probably evolved around 2 billion years ago, so what? Nature isn't a popularity contest, there's no 'best' species. But it is a well known fact that simpler organisms tend to do better (as far as propagation goes) then more complex ones; not always, but it's a tendency.
And a catastrophic event isnt' necessarily the road to extinction either.
Whatever the case may be, I am only trying to make one point - the statement "a giant rock hit the earth and that killed all the dinasaurs, had it not hit, they would be alive today" is incorrect. That's all I am saying. The declining numbers are thought to indicate diminishing appropriate food supplies and the changing (cooling) climate. Rock or no rock, dinosaurs could not have survived to present day.
Lastly, why didn't this sudden catastrophy kill off mammals then?
Yes, the large meteorite impact is a hypothesis - stating it as fact is what I called 'nonsense.' As with most things in nature, huge enormous changes (e.g. extinction of hundreds or thousands of species) cannot be atributed to a single factor.
Thanks for the refresher of basic properties of dinosaurs - I am sure some people here needed that. (btw, 'may have been warm blooded' is a bit of an overstatement - evidence exists that they weren't all strictly cold blooded in our current definition of it)
There is no such thing as "got lucky" in nature. See the relevant post on "fit" vs. "adaptable" - much of this is really what you call things. But the fact remains that mammals have now survived much longer than dinosaurs, their biggest advantage is traditionaly thought to be that their are truly warmblooded (speculation on peculiarities of dinosaurs in thsi area notwithstanding) and therefore more adaptable to colder (and generally more diverse) climates.
Size has nothing to do with anything here (you yourself mentioned that the majority of dinosaurs weren't exactly huge), I don't even see how the effects of a meteorite impact affect larger animals more. But as I've said earlier, the numbers of dinosaurs (all across their species) had been drastically declining for something like 10 million years before the famed impact. 1,500+ (most likely alot more) species populating many diverse ecological niches of the earth are not a tiny, middle eastern civilization - it takes a lot more than a big rock from space to wipe them out.
In the end we get back to most basic evolutionary definitions - so far mammals have outlived dinosaurs by around 50-60 million years - yes, they are more adaptable, if nothing else.
Yes, there is evidence that a meteorite hit the Yucatan peninsula, that's certainly true.
There's also evidence that a broad range of species of dinosaurs had been declining in numbers for many millions of years before that event. A meteorite hitting, doesn't mean that's what caused their extinction.
yeah, apparently for the "warm blooded" side of things, new evidence include rib-cage and other bone structres being similar to modern day warm blooded animals, and not those of reptiles. I think the prevailing hypothesis currently is the "inbetween" state.
Lexical difference: I was including "adaptability" under "fitness" - i.e. 'a creature better able to adapt is more fit in a changing environment'
So yes, we are more adaptable than dinosaurs and that's why we are here and they are not.
And we weren't just talking about 'humans' vs. 'dinosaurs' - it's 'mammals' vs. 'dinosaurs'; mammals have been around for about 200 million years (yes, you can quote me on that).
Anyway, I would like to see something to back up the whole 'sudden, drastic change' thing - it was certainly drastic, but sudden? (unless it involves comets - then I don't want to see it)
All very true (very interesting about the Africans, I've been interested in flood myths for some time; btw Utnapishtim 0wnz j00! heh), but a meteorite smacking down in the middle of such a civilization will do the job as well.
Not to say that I think that (or anything else) is the case, since I don't know enough about it, but why dismiss it outright? Meteorites to strike earth, the results are usually not good for those around at the time - what's so outlandish about this?
Reminds me of a law in the 1800s sometime (forget which country) that stated that occurences of rocks falling onto the earth from the sky should not be reported because they are obviously false, since there aren't any rocks in the sky.
Where does everyone keep getting this "meteorite (that, btw, is what a meteor that strikes Earth is called)/comet impact" nonsense? That is as much a wild and unsubstantiated by evidence hypothesis as anything else someone might make up!
In addition to mammals being more compact (requiring less food), agile, giving birth to live offsping, etc. they (well, we) are most importantly warm blooded, which allows them to cope better with the aforementioned changing (gradually, not by space junk hitting it) climate of the earth.
One celled organisms were the dominant (and only) form of life on earth for billions of years - so what? And that dinosaurs' "descendents" are better adopted than they are, well, that's a good thing for the next evolutionary "generation" to be.
Oh, and you argue that mammals are not superior to dinosaurs because the didnosaurs didn't survive this meteorite impact (had one indeed taken place), but mammals did? I don't see the logic.
By definition almost, anything that's alive today is more "fit" than anything that is not.
Slashdot Mirror
...a CD-ROM, a mobo, a CPU AND an HD?? why, I've never seen anything like it! ;)
You were making sense right up until the point where you called "Saving Private Ryan" 'Great Cinema'
SPR is in the same exact category as the new "Episodes" - big, loud and so pretentious and self-important that it manages to miss how immensely lame, cliche and boring it is.
There I've said it - Spielberg is an overrated poseur and so is Lucas.
PS I'd also disagree on the "decently entertaining script" part, but I guess that's subjective.
I need to get the Pro version of their stinking player just to see a large (well, larger, slightly) version of their trailer which is designed to make me shell out the $10 (lets face it, by that time it'll be at least $10) to see a movie? In effect an ad?
That's asking a bit much after putting out a movie that was, for all intents and purposes, a large steaming pile of... well you get the idea.
Am I the only one who could care less about Episode II?
</rant>
Gnome seems to be the accepted choice that the commercial Unixes are going with, while...
Which is really rather strange, as nowadays KDE is a lot faster and more stable than Gnome (while Gnome has more of the flashy, fancy stuff). Nautilus is a good example- beautiful, but so very slow (it's getting there though).
Anyway, I started with Gnome myself, but have switched to KDE since - as far as day to day utility goes, there is just no comparison.
>Charles Darwin was clearly a genus in... oh come on, I don't think he is even a species...
eh, need to start somewhere ;) If someone can't grasp Darwins proposition (I have not met a single creationist who actually fully understands the theory of evolution), they will hardly be able to make heads or tails of the current mess. The very basics still stand - and one very important one relates to what was said in the post I originaly replied to with this.
As much as all of our distinctions (between species, kingdoms, orders, right and wrong, blue and orange, beer and pizza) are arbitrary, yes, yes it is.
I actually meant "fun" to read, not necessarily "funny," by that comment.
I know enough about his work to know that it's not really my kind of thing - I tend to enjoy the more serious literature (you know - the elitist stuff of snobbish 'intellectuals')
yes, I was slightly inaccurate in my original post (eh, what are you gonna do?), but I believe that the first reply corrected that mistake.
That's basically incorrect. You are in fact the target audience of my first post. Meteorite is not a diminiutive of meteor - consult my original post for the relationship between the two words.
I didn't say anything about what I think about what we are doing. I didn't say anything about what I think we should be doing.
What I said was that what's going on is not a Good Thing and that crying for more people to die (especially those who can reasonably be described as not our enemies, yet are grouped with them because of nationality, religion or headgear) is not going to make it better.
That's of course my opinion only, some people may feel that what's going on is very good.
yeah, happens; sorry.
I'll go do my Greek homework, that'll be more productive anyway.
Yes, that's the attitude! we really need more people like this!
Do you realize that really bad things are currently happening with absolutely no possible good ending to them, no matter how you look at it? I've been consistently sickened by what people have to say in the last month.
If I remember correctly (though I may be getting threads confused) I wasn't the one making assumptions, I was the one against assumptions being made about things we don't know. Especially assumptions involving broad generalizations. People were making statements like that a big fscking (are there filters here or somesuch?) rock killed all the dinosaurs and therefore their adaptability to their environment doesn't matter. That's plain counter productive.
"Doesn't make us more fit, but does help out" is an oxymoron - that which helps out, makes us more fit in a specific situation. There is actually no disagreement here - just your usual inexactness of words causing confusion. "Mammals got lucky because the environment favoured their traits" and "Mammals were better adopted (and therefore better fit) for their environment" say exactly the same thing. I would still hold that "lucky" is a term laden with human connotations that make it inappropriate for the current topic - but hey, that's just me.
Getting back to the big rock thing for a sec - since when do we have geological records to 60 million years ago with a resolution to 50 years? (hey maybe there's been advances I don't know about) And no, being in decline doesn't prove anything, and neither does having a big hole in the ground. I wasn't arguing for such "proofs" I was arguing against them.
check your facts:
dinosaurs - around 160 million years
mammals - around 200 million years, first mammals actually appeared not all that much later (geologically speaking) than dinosaurs.
And early eukaryotes probably evolved around 2 billion years ago, so what? Nature isn't a popularity contest, there's no 'best' species. But it is a well known fact that simpler organisms tend to do better (as far as propagation goes) then more complex ones; not always, but it's a tendency.
yep - only so much we actully know.
And a catastrophic event isnt' necessarily the road to extinction either.
Whatever the case may be, I am only trying to make one point - the statement "a giant rock hit the earth and that killed all the dinasaurs, had it not hit, they would be alive today" is incorrect. That's all I am saying. The declining numbers are thought to indicate diminishing appropriate food supplies and the changing (cooling) climate. Rock or no rock, dinosaurs could not have survived to present day.
Lastly, why didn't this sudden catastrophy kill off mammals then?
Yes, the large meteorite impact is a hypothesis - stating it as fact is what I called 'nonsense.' As with most things in nature, huge enormous changes (e.g. extinction of hundreds or thousands of species) cannot be atributed to a single factor.
Thanks for the refresher of basic properties of dinosaurs - I am sure some people here needed that. (btw, 'may have been warm blooded' is a bit of an overstatement - evidence exists that they weren't all strictly cold blooded in our current definition of it)
There is no such thing as "got lucky" in nature. See the relevant post on "fit" vs. "adaptable" - much of this is really what you call things. But the fact remains that mammals have now survived much longer than dinosaurs, their biggest advantage is traditionaly thought to be that their are truly warmblooded (speculation on peculiarities of dinosaurs in thsi area notwithstanding) and therefore more adaptable to colder (and generally more diverse) climates.
Size has nothing to do with anything here (you yourself mentioned that the majority of dinosaurs weren't exactly huge), I don't even see how the effects of a meteorite impact affect larger animals more. But as I've said earlier, the numbers of dinosaurs (all across their species) had been drastically declining for something like 10 million years before the famed impact. 1,500+ (most likely alot more) species populating many diverse ecological niches of the earth are not a tiny, middle eastern civilization - it takes a lot more than a big rock from space to wipe them out.
In the end we get back to most basic evolutionary definitions - so far mammals have outlived dinosaurs by around 50-60 million years - yes, they are more adaptable, if nothing else.
Yes, there is evidence that a meteorite hit the Yucatan peninsula, that's certainly true.
There's also evidence that a broad range of species of dinosaurs had been declining in numbers for many millions of years before that event. A meteorite hitting, doesn't mean that's what caused their extinction.
yeah, apparently for the "warm blooded" side of things, new evidence include rib-cage and other bone structres being similar to modern day warm blooded animals, and not those of reptiles. I think the prevailing hypothesis currently is the "inbetween" state.
"Origin of the Species" is now required reading for anyone using the word 'evolution' in their posts.
Lexical difference: I was including "adaptability" under "fitness" - i.e. 'a creature better able to adapt is more fit in a changing environment'
So yes, we are more adaptable than dinosaurs and that's why we are here and they are not.
And we weren't just talking about 'humans' vs. 'dinosaurs' - it's 'mammals' vs. 'dinosaurs'; mammals have been around for about 200 million years (yes, you can quote me on that).
Anyway, I would like to see something to back up the whole 'sudden, drastic change' thing - it was certainly drastic, but sudden? (unless it involves comets - then I don't want to see it)
All very true (very interesting about the Africans, I've been interested in flood myths for some time; btw Utnapishtim 0wnz j00! heh), but a meteorite smacking down in the middle of such a civilization will do the job as well.
Not to say that I think that (or anything else) is the case, since I don't know enough about it, but why dismiss it outright? Meteorites to strike earth, the results are usually not good for those around at the time - what's so outlandish about this?
Reminds me of a law in the 1800s sometime (forget which country) that stated that occurences of rocks falling onto the earth from the sky should not be reported because they are obviously false, since there aren't any rocks in the sky.
So anything coming from space that leaves a crater, is a meteorite.
Where does everyone keep getting this "meteorite (that, btw, is what a meteor that strikes Earth is called)/comet impact" nonsense? That is as much a wild and unsubstantiated by evidence hypothesis as anything else someone might make up!
In addition to mammals being more compact (requiring less food), agile, giving birth to live offsping, etc. they (well, we) are most importantly warm blooded, which allows them to cope better with the aforementioned changing (gradually, not by space junk hitting it) climate of the earth.
One celled organisms were the dominant (and only) form of life on earth for billions of years - so what? And that dinosaurs' "descendents" are better adopted than they are, well, that's a good thing for the next evolutionary "generation" to be.
Oh, and you argue that mammals are not superior to dinosaurs because the didnosaurs didn't survive this meteorite impact (had one indeed taken place), but mammals did? I don't see the logic.
By definition almost, anything that's alive today is more "fit" than anything that is not.