I wouldn't assume that at all. The MSWindows port of GTK/GIMP still looks like the Linux/Unix version. From what I can tell, GTK will look the same no matter what platform you're on - this is awful from a UI perspective and will keep GTK from being used by serious UI designers. Use WxWindows, it's better in this regard.
Actually, a better solution for the bigger planes may be to have the passenger section lift off the rest of the plane. Again this woould be quite an engineering accomplishment, but would probably be less prone to failures than jettisoning luggage or fuel or the wings.
How about designing a plane that jettisons fuel and luggage? Heck maybe even the wings at the last minute (as the chute is deployed). I realize adding such complexity to a plane's design would probably only result in more failures (eg. a wing falls off). It is just a thought. I am just pointing out that while a plane has many things that make it heavy, in an emergency situation there is the option of jettisoning some of the weight. Yea, yea, I just hope its not my house that gets hit by the 747 wing.
As long as the original post reference Jesus, I might as well. He said its easy to be kind to those that "deserve it", e.g. Habitat For Humanity and other non-profit orgs doing "good", anyone can do that. But, He said, it *is* something altogether different when you are kind to those who do not deserve it. This is the difference between the way most men think and the way Jesus thought.
I think a major problem is the way we thing of programs as monolithic objects. I liked most of his ideas and I think the first step to getting there is to make the desktop document centric. You don't open applications, you open documents. The "environment" will find an appropriate viewer/editor. All tools that operate on the view should be pluggable (spellcheck, wordcounter, etc). Just like in drawing programs you have effects plugins. In this way it is not a matter of loading and unloading these huge monolithic programs - the environment can have fine-grained control over what is cached and what isn't. If you don't do X, the plugin that knows how to do X is never loaded.
Actually, until we perfect the phase-cloak our enemies will always be able to modify their main deflector dish to detect the tachyon particals from our engine emissions......or something like that:)
Why couldn't you code a 3D game in java? The torque game engine that tribes was written in has a core of C++ code that is basically scripted into the "game" by a scripting language they rolled themselves(looks kinda like javascript). I don't know why they didn't just use JAVA through JNI - except that their gui component scripts are more elegant than java. Games have to be so "MOD"ular these days that a big piece of monolithic C code just isn't going to cut (assuming you want a mod community to develop). JAVA is a perfect plugin language. I would not be surprised at all if some future games are released with a class library for JAVA extensions. For one, it would give all those out of work JAVA programmers something to do:)
Personally, I think that JAVA is to the point where the whole game could be written in JAVA (of course calling OpenGL through JNI). I don't think it would be all that slow, and if it did why not just include gcc on the game CD and a process to compile the game engine into native code (optimized for the local system).
Why java? because I like designing programs not writing them, and C/C++ makes writing them painful.
There's plenty of work on this - it is just done in simulations in an artificial world. It's much faster to prototype this way than to actually have physical robots. Many different designs and algorithms can be tried quickly and fairly inexpensivly. The lessons learned in these simulations will no doubt be "downloaded" into the "positronic matrices" of all future androids:)
I guess my key gripe is *having* to go *look*. I am not against this but it will typically mean that I will not get the best processor I could be. Just because I don't want a dual doesn't mean I do want a 500Mhz. But no $650 isn't a bad price to pay for a 500Mhz running Mac OS X (even if I buy the OS seperately). My point was that apple is missing a potentially *huge* market by forcing people like me to go buy used machines. You would think they would want me to buy a new machine from them - it puts money in their pocket and gets me on my way to becoming a Mac evangalist.
I am a linux user and I tried to buy a mac, but they just don't have the combo of hardware I want for the price I am willing to pay. In a nutshell, I don't need another monitor or LCD, so the eMac/iMac is out. I don't need/want a laptop (but if someone wants to give me one I'll take it). I do not need a dual processor box. This eliminates the G4 towers which at $1700 were already eliminated anyway. What I want is a single processor 1GHz unit with no display with the ability to upgrade ram, hd, and potentially the video card for around $1000. I looked a little on eBay for something prior to the dual towers but couldn't find anything.
I don't think I am all that different from most slashdotters. I think if apple offered such a deal they'd get a lot more people "switching". The real problem is that Apple wants you to switch on their terms, not yours.
Actually I believe I've read in several places that his wife supports him. Either she comes from a rich family or she's a very well paid professional - I don't know/remember which. Of course I have a terrible memory so I might be remembering this and its actually about some comlpetely different...
I know other have been saying it, but I wanted to make it clear, especially since the original post says that since he can't find any patents on his idea he feels pretty good. That's only the first step. You gotta look for prior art. This isn't as easy as going to the Patent Office's website and doing a couple automated seaerches. This is what you pay a law firm to do. You should work closely with your law firm to come up with the documents that describe your idea. Then they'll take the description and go search for existing patents *and* prior art. A good law firm will do some very intense searching because when its all over they'll sign something for you that says "this patent doesn't infringe on any existing ideas to the best of our knowledge". Management will pay big bucks for this piece of paper because when the laywers come knocking from another indvidual or company, you get to send them to your law firm. And if your patent is defeated because it infringed, or your lose your protection because prior art existed, you can get your firm to pay you for damages (um, sue their ass) since they "promised" you were in the clear. Its another level of protection that a good firm will provide (yes it is expensive).
This is strangely reminicent of an old "Carmen" song/story. If you know who I am talking about, you'll know what I am talking about:) Otherwise, mod me down...
The reason God doesn't appear on the 6 o'clock news is because He loves us. Follow me here:
1. God created us to be involved in a joyfilled relationship with Him. Typically, there isn't much joy in a relationship where one of the parties involved is holding a gun to other's head insisting that they be "friends". Yes, God could "make" us love him, but he doesn't. Think of the King in some comedy where the entire court spends its time grovelling at the throne, either because they want a favor or because they simply don't want to be thrown out, etc. God doesn't want this kind of relationship with His creation.
2. The Bible says that even if He did appear to us, many would still not "believe". The best example of this are all the people that witnessed Jesus performing miracles and still refused to believe - in fact they killed Him. And for those that still refused to believe in God, they would face an even more severe punishment. This is clear in the Bible. Christ said that the judgment of those of Sodom and Gomorra would be less severe than those who watched him perform miracles and still didn't believe. The converse is also true and illustrated by the Christ's encounter Doubter Thomas after the resurrection. Thomas had to literally put his finger in the wounds before he would believe (sounds like a slashdoter), to which Christ says "you have seen and believe, but blessed are those who have not seen, yet still believe."
So, God does not appear on the 6 o'clock news in order to maximize the Joy experienced in relationship with Him, while minimizing the punishment for those who do not believe. I found in my studies that this is a major theme of the Bible. There are dozens upon dozens of verses that talk about the way God will judge.
Cheers.
One problem I always see is people coming at this whole debate from the wrong direction. You can't ask questions like "what about the Native Americans, etc" because that is second guessing the God of the Bible. God said that we (all mankind) will be unimpressed with his job as God, in fact, we'll think we can do a better job. This is how "man" elevates himself above God - this is "original sin". Everytime we put God on trial as you did in your post we are falling into the trap of diefying ourselves above God.
What the Bible lays out is a plan for sinful man to approach a perfect God - that plan begins with humilty not hubris. Put simply, it begins with us admitting that God is God and we are not. Once that step is taken the other issues can be confronted, but not until.
As for the judgment of the people of the world, both before and after Christ; in Luke Christ says (paraphrased) that all men will be judged according to what has been given, to those who are given much, much will be expected, and to those whom little was given, little will be expected. In the end, God will judge - not you, and not me (thank God).
While I agree with your basic point, your example is actually a pretty good counter-argument. By looking at revenues, they are measuring how much money a company is making. I can assure you that while NBC, ABC, and FOX may be available to you for free, they have *many* other sources of revenue. That's the whole problem with any sort of Linux business model - the multipliers that are in effect by selling digital copies of a product just aren't there when you are building a service company. The amount of revenue a company makes selling services and possibly advertisments will never compare to what a company can make by selling something that has the potential to pay for its development and marketting a million times over....
Actually unless I am mistaken the "No electronic Theft (Net)" act passed in late 1997 probably does make your little collection illegal. Intended to close the so-called LaMacchia loop-hole, this law limits the amount of copyright material that can be copied or distributed. If the data copied or distributed has a retail value of $2500 it is an illegal copying. It is also not enough to simply say that "well my CD collection is only worth $500" - assuming you copy it multiple times. If you have a copy at home and work then you have made $1000 dollars worth of copies. If I am not mistaken (and I may be) LaMacchia was distributing software online and when he got taken to court he got off on the "technicality" that he was not making any money off the distribution and copying.
Well, generally I lean toward being a fundamentalist, but that's less and less everyday:) And here are my opinions...
My beliefs are rooted in notion that there are no innocent people (beings/aliens/whatever) - the Bible clearly states this. All creatures are inherently wicked. By wicked I mean that ultimately we are more or less self-centered and see no need for God. This is precisely what is meant by the Fall of Man: man sees no need for God. This is why the first step to being saved is realizing that you do need God (call it repentance, or what have you).
But what's is more interesting is that the Bible says we were designed to have a relationship with God. In fact, you know the hole within you that you think can be filled with the finite things of this world - well, it can only be filled with the infinite pleasures that flow from God. If you do not believe this, live a few more years seeking the things of this world.
So where do aliens fit into this? Well I certainly believe that an infinite God has more than enough love to go around.
Be sure to read "Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist" by John Piper. Its good stuff.
As some one who was reading/. before VALinux was in the picture I can honestly say you don't know what you're talking about. It has always been pro-linux and anti-microsoft. Perhaps its gotten more so in the last couple of years, but it has never been a bastion of objectivity.
While I agree it appears to be really neat that every language gets to use the same class library, in reality it is not so great. If what you said above is true, then J#(the java language on CLR) should be really neat. But it is not. Microsoft even went through the trouble of creating a whole new "sub" framework so you can call what appears to be "standard" java classes. Again you would think very cool - Now I can write java code that calls CLR library classes as well java classes!
The only problem is that the version of JCL supported is prehistoric - oh, and adding CLR class calls makes your cross-platform java not cross-platform anymore (oh except for 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP...hehehe).
A language is more than its syntax, it is also its library of standard calls. Would anyone be impressed if C was available on the CLR but you had to call System.Console.WriteLine() instead of printf?
So, yes we will see evey language under the sun arrive for the CLR, but you will either be a) writing code that looks more like C# then the target language, or b) writing code that looks like the target language, in which case we loose your suggested benefit of everyone having the same library functionality, or c) writing code that looks very similar to the target language except for a few extensions that were made in order to allow this smaller language to compete with the more popular one, in which case MS has successfully hijacked the smaller langauge.
I've always seen it as a contradiction to hold to the Bible's portrayal of creation while clinging to the belief that it's portrayal is detectable by science. If what the Bible says is true it is almost certainly indetectable to science; "super-natural", in other words "outside of nature".
Further, the seemingly natural origins of the universe do not create "tests of faith" - rather, they allow for Faith. What would happen to Faith if one could prove conclusively (hypothetical) that the Bible was correct in its telling of the story(to the point where no intelligent person could reject it)? Would this not destroy Faith?
I while back my friend had a not so fun run-around with BB. Here is the letter he evetually sent them (kinda long, but so was the ordeal):
Dear Mr. Schulze,
I'm writing to bring your attention to a problem I've had with exchanges and returns with one of your products. I hope Best Buy will address this problem to my satisfaction. This incident has left me extremely angry.
Here's my problem: First I should say I hope someone actually reads this. Given the experience I am about to write about, I doubt it. In case you do, it is customer service issue #XXXXXXXX.
In September of '97 I bought a big screen TV from Best Buy. At that time I was told I should buy the extended warranty because of how helpful Best Buy would be should anything go wrong. One thing I was told was that if ANYTHING happened to the TV, including something like me dropping it and breaking it, the company would fix/replace it. Luckily, I did not have to test this out - but I did read the warranty fairly carefully and I am pretty sure that if I physically broke that TV your warranty would not cover. This was a flat out lie that your salesperson told me.
Anyway, near the end of January I began having problems with the televisions convergence. On January 28th I called and asked what I needed to do to have it repaired. They sent out someone January 31st. He worked on the TV for a while, replaced some chips and decided he could not fix the TV. He called your parts department and ordered some parts. I was told that the parts would be delivered in a week and the man would come back out and fix the TV. No problem, if only it was that easy.
February 16th - I had not ever received the parts two weeks later, so I called your customer service department back and asked where they were. I was told they had been back order but the I should have them by the end of the week. Annoying, but understandable.
February 23rd - I never received the parts, so I called back. I was again told the parts were backordered. I then asked how long the parts would be on back order. I was told they had no idea. At this point, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I spoke with Lisa who told me that the parts were backordered with no expected arrival date. I pointed out that, that could mean 10 years. She said that she had never heard of any parts taking longer than one month to deliver. Annoying, but again not anything someone could easily fix.
March 9th - It had been over a month since the parts were ordered. I called back your customer service and was told the part was still on back-order with no expected arrival date. So, I asked to speak with Lisa again. Now, this upset me: I was told she was not in the office. I explained my situation to the person I was talking to and that I needed to know something. I mean between Sony and Best Buy, somebody should have been able to figure out where the hell these parts were. At this point I was told to hold on. All of the sudden, Lisa comes on the line. Why did the person who answered the phone lie to me and say that she was not there?????? Lisa told me that after our previous conversation she had put in a request to just have the TV replaced, but the request had been denied. When I asked why she said she did not know and that there was no direct way to contact the people who denied the claim. Now, I can understand why you would not directly want customers dealing with your no lemon dept., but why can't your employees call them to find out what is going on? Lisa said the only thing I could do at this point was call the corporate office.
March 9th - Called the corporate office. I spoke to someone there named Marcus. Marcus put me on hold and came back after a while saying that he had figured out what the deal was and that if the parts were not in by the following Tuesday (March 13th) he had given people instructions to just replace the TV.
March 15th - I never heard anything from anyone about the TV so I called back to speak to Marcus. I got what I finally have figured out is the standard response when you ask for someone on a Best Buy phone line that "they are unaway from (a)their desk or (b)the building." I left Marcus a voice mail
March 16th - Never heard back from Marcus so I called back. I was again told that marcus was MIA
March 19th - I called back again. This time I was told Marcus was again unavailable. I explained my situation and was pretty upset about the whole thing. I was told someone would get back to me. Finally, I get a call from Brad Walker telling me that Marcus had gotten my message and tracked him down.
Now this is when I started to get really really irritated. Brad informed me that the parts I had been waiting on for well over a month were no longer available. That would have been OK if what Marcus had told me in the first place had happened (that they would just replace the TV), but instead Brad tells me that they have to send a repair man back out to the house. Why did it take you 6 weeks to tell me that the parts were not and would not ever be available?!?!
March 20th - Repair man comes back to my house. Him and I have a good laugh over what he is expected to do. He has been given instructions to try and repair the TV component by component. The poor guy is replacing individual resistors on my TV in my living room, that's absurd. Furthermore, he doesn't even have an oscilliscope to help him out with the repair. Needless to say, he can't fix the TV.
So, I called Brad back. Originally I was told that they did not think he was available (surprise!), but when I told them I had the repair man in my house and we needed to talk to him, they found Brad. Brad talks to the repair man and informs me that they now need to take my television. I agree, although I had been told that my waiting was over and the silly thing was supposed to have been replaced a week earlier. Brad also tells me that the repair should take 2 weeks and if I don't hear anything to call him back.
March 22 - They come pick up my TV.
April 5th (Over 2 mos since my first call!!!!!) - I tried to call Brad to ask him where my TV was. Again, noone can find Brad.
So, I call the corporate office to talk to Marcus, who is also not available. I finally talk to Sarah explain my whole situation. She tracks down Marcus who tells her that I should fax over some information and he will get the TV replaced.
April 6th - I called to speak with Sarah who is of course, unavailable. I leave a message. I was very surprised that she actually called me back. Of course, she did tell me that I had not faxed her everything she needed. But that if I did fax it before noon, I would get a call back before the end of the day letting me know what to do about my TV. I was a little curious why she did not tell me the previous day that I had not faxed the correct stuff. Right before the end of the day, I called and left Marcus a message saying that I had been told he would call me back and would he please do so.
April 9th - I, of course, never heard anything from anyone. So, I called back and asked to speak to Sarah, who, of course, was unable to be found. I will admit that I started to get a little upset at this point, but I asked the guy who I was talking to if he could try and find her because I was trying to resolve an over two month old situation and she was the only person who seemed to know the current status of things. His response was a pretty rude "I am not going to walk around the building looking for someone for you." You all had wasted over two months of my time - I don't think it would have been much of leap to expect this jerk to put some damn effort into finding the only person who had the information that could help me. Instead I got transferred to Jason Clark. He told me that Marcus was not available but he did see notes about my previous calls and that I should receive a call from Marcus first thing in the morning. He also said that if I did not receive a call from Marcus I should call him back at extension 608.
April 10 - I call and leave a few more messages of course, neither Jason nor Marcus are reachable.
April 11 - I called and said I wanted to speak to someone dammit. Nicole was luckily helpful, she said I probably could not speak to Marcus or Jason directly, but to hold on. She finally comes back with the information I need to replace my TV. So, I went to Best Buy and they let me replace it.
Why did all of this take so long? Why do you guys not return phone calls when you say you will (ever)?? Why is it impossible to reach people even when they specifically tell you to call and try and speak with them?
I will note, the times I actually did speak to most of the customer service people, they were nice and some (esp. Marcus, Lisa, Nicole, Sarah, and Brad) all seemed like they really were going to try and help me out - but you have so much crap involved in your system that it is impossible to get anything resolved.
Finally, I am still really upset over the fact that it took you 6 weeks to admit that you just could not get the replacement parts. What is the deal with that? It does not take that long. Why was I told more than once that the TV would be replaced and then was just given another list of things that had to happen before it would be replaced? Why even after they got to the point of realizing they were not going to be able to fix did it still take a week of calling back to see why noone ever called me - even though I was told I would receive return calls the same day.
I can understand parts being back ordered and I can understand that there are some problems with a large company. But this was ridiculuous. The only reasonable thing I can think of is that you guys figure people will tire of dealing with you and just give up.
I cannot believe that I am the only person who has had these problems. Actually, I know I'm not because as I've been relaying this story to others, a few have told me they had similar experiences with Best Buy.
Here's how you can help: Fire who ever is running your customer service department. This person needs to be replaced with someone who actually understands that if people get handled this badly they are not going to ever buy anything from you again.
Then again, why should that person care. He/she probably has had a working TV for the past couple months, huh?
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I wouldn't assume that at all. The MSWindows port of GTK/GIMP still looks like the Linux/Unix version. From what I can tell, GTK will look the same no matter what platform you're on - this is awful from a UI perspective and will keep GTK from being used by serious UI designers. Use WxWindows, it's better in this regard.
Actually, a better solution for the bigger planes may be to have the passenger section lift off the rest of the plane. Again this woould be quite an engineering accomplishment, but would probably be less prone to failures than jettisoning luggage or fuel or the wings.
How about designing a plane that jettisons fuel and luggage? Heck maybe even the wings at the last minute (as the chute is deployed). I realize adding such complexity to a plane's design would probably only result in more failures (eg. a wing falls off). It is just a thought. I am just pointing out that while a plane has many things that make it heavy, in an emergency situation there is the option of jettisoning some of the weight. Yea, yea, I just hope its not my house that gets hit by the 747 wing.
As long as the original post reference Jesus, I might as well. He said its easy to be kind to those that "deserve it", e.g. Habitat For Humanity and other non-profit orgs doing "good", anyone can do that. But, He said, it *is* something altogether different when you are kind to those who do not deserve it. This is the difference between the way most men think and the way Jesus thought.
i hate it when i waste good sarcasm on you guys :)
You haven't seen it yet, have you? =) It is so pretty.
I think a major problem is the way we thing of programs as monolithic objects. I liked most of his ideas and I think the first step to getting there is to make the desktop document centric. You don't open applications, you open documents. The "environment" will find an appropriate viewer/editor. All tools that operate on the view should be pluggable (spellcheck, wordcounter, etc). Just like in drawing programs you have effects plugins. In this way it is not a matter of loading and unloading these huge monolithic programs - the environment can have fine-grained control over what is cached and what isn't. If you don't do X, the plugin that knows how to do X is never loaded.
Actually, until we perfect the phase-cloak our enemies will always be able to modify their main deflector dish to detect the tachyon particals from our engine emissions... ...or something like that :)
Why couldn't you code a 3D game in java? The torque game engine that tribes was written in has a core of C++ code that is basically scripted into the "game" by a scripting language they rolled themselves(looks kinda like javascript). I don't know why they didn't just use JAVA through JNI - except that their gui component scripts are more elegant than java. Games have to be so "MOD"ular these days that a big piece of monolithic C code just isn't going to cut (assuming you want a mod community to develop). JAVA is a perfect plugin language. I would not be surprised at all if some future games are released with a class library for JAVA extensions. For one, it would give all those out of work JAVA programmers something to do :)
Personally, I think that JAVA is to the point where the whole game could be written in JAVA (of course calling OpenGL through JNI). I don't think it would be all that slow, and if it did why not just include gcc on the game CD and a process to compile the game engine into native code (optimized for the local system).
Why java? because I like designing programs not writing them, and C/C++ makes writing them painful.
There's plenty of work on this - it is just done in simulations in an artificial world. It's much faster to prototype this way than to actually have physical robots. Many different designs and algorithms can be tried quickly and fairly inexpensivly. The lessons learned in these simulations will no doubt be "downloaded" into the "positronic matrices" of all future androids :)
I guess my key gripe is *having* to go *look*. I am not against this but it will typically mean that I will not get the best processor I could be. Just because I don't want a dual doesn't mean I do want a 500Mhz. But no $650 isn't a bad price to pay for a 500Mhz running Mac OS X (even if I buy the OS seperately). My point was that apple is missing a potentially *huge* market by forcing people like me to go buy used machines. You would think they would want me to buy a new machine from them - it puts money in their pocket and gets me on my way to becoming a Mac evangalist.
I don't think I am all that different from most slashdotters. I think if apple offered such a deal they'd get a lot more people "switching". The real problem is that Apple wants you to switch on their terms, not yours.
Actually I believe I've read in several places that his wife supports him. Either she comes from a rich family or she's a very well paid professional - I don't know/remember which. Of course I have a terrible memory so I might be remembering this and its actually about some comlpetely different...
I know other have been saying it, but I wanted to make it clear, especially since the original post says that since he can't find any patents on his idea he feels pretty good. That's only the first step. You gotta look for prior art. This isn't as easy as going to the Patent Office's website and doing a couple automated seaerches. This is what you pay a law firm to do. You should work closely with your law firm to come up with the documents that describe your idea. Then they'll take the description and go search for existing patents *and* prior art. A good law firm will do some very intense searching because when its all over they'll sign something for you that says "this patent doesn't infringe on any existing ideas to the best of our knowledge". Management will pay big bucks for this piece of paper because when the laywers come knocking from another indvidual or company, you get to send them to your law firm. And if your patent is defeated because it infringed, or your lose your protection because prior art existed, you can get your firm to pay you for damages (um, sue their ass) since they "promised" you were in the clear. Its another level of protection that a good firm will provide (yes it is expensive).
This is strangely reminicent of an old "Carmen" song/story. If you know who I am talking about, you'll know what I am talking about :) Otherwise, mod me down...
The reason God doesn't appear on the 6 o'clock news is because He loves us. Follow me here:
1. God created us to be involved in a joyfilled relationship with Him. Typically, there isn't much joy in a relationship where one of the parties involved is holding a gun to other's head insisting that they be "friends". Yes, God could "make" us love him, but he doesn't. Think of the King in some comedy where the entire court spends its time grovelling at the throne, either because they want a favor or because they simply don't want to be thrown out, etc. God doesn't want this kind of relationship with His creation.
2. The Bible says that even if He did appear to us, many would still not "believe". The best example of this are all the people that witnessed Jesus performing miracles and still refused to believe - in fact they killed Him. And for those that still refused to believe in God, they would face an even more severe punishment. This is clear in the Bible. Christ said that the judgment of those of Sodom and Gomorra would be less severe than those who watched him perform miracles and still didn't believe. The converse is also true and illustrated by the Christ's encounter Doubter Thomas after the resurrection. Thomas had to literally put his finger in the wounds before he would believe (sounds like a slashdoter), to which Christ says "you have seen and believe, but blessed are those who have not seen, yet still believe."
So, God does not appear on the 6 o'clock news in order to maximize the Joy experienced in relationship with Him, while minimizing the punishment for those who do not believe. I found in my studies that this is a major theme of the Bible. There are dozens upon dozens of verses that talk about the way God will judge. Cheers.
One problem I always see is people coming at this whole debate from the wrong direction. You can't ask questions like "what about the Native Americans, etc" because that is second guessing the God of the Bible. God said that we (all mankind) will be unimpressed with his job as God, in fact, we'll think we can do a better job. This is how "man" elevates himself above God - this is "original sin". Everytime we put God on trial as you did in your post we are falling into the trap of diefying ourselves above God.
What the Bible lays out is a plan for sinful man to approach a perfect God - that plan begins with humilty not hubris. Put simply, it begins with us admitting that God is God and we are not. Once that step is taken the other issues can be confronted, but not until.
As for the judgment of the people of the world, both before and after Christ; in Luke Christ says (paraphrased) that all men will be judged according to what has been given, to those who are given much, much will be expected, and to those whom little was given, little will be expected. In the end, God will judge - not you, and not me (thank God).
While I agree with your basic point, your example is actually a pretty good counter-argument. By looking at revenues, they are measuring how much money a company is making. I can assure you that while NBC, ABC, and FOX may be available to you for free, they have *many* other sources of revenue. That's the whole problem with any sort of Linux business model - the multipliers that are in effect by selling digital copies of a product just aren't there when you are building a service company. The amount of revenue a company makes selling services and possibly advertisments will never compare to what a company can make by selling something that has the potential to pay for its development and marketting a million times over....
Actually unless I am mistaken the "No electronic Theft (Net)" act passed in late 1997 probably does make your little collection illegal. Intended to close the so-called LaMacchia loop-hole, this law limits the amount of copyright material that can be copied or distributed. If the data copied or distributed has a retail value of $2500 it is an illegal copying. It is also not enough to simply say that "well my CD collection is only worth $500" - assuming you copy it multiple times. If you have a copy at home and work then you have made $1000 dollars worth of copies. If I am not mistaken (and I may be) LaMacchia was distributing software online and when he got taken to court he got off on the "technicality" that he was not making any money off the distribution and copying.
Well, generally I lean toward being a fundamentalist, but that's less and less everyday :) And here are my opinions...
My beliefs are rooted in notion that there are no innocent people (beings/aliens/whatever) - the Bible clearly states this. All creatures are inherently wicked. By wicked I mean that ultimately we are more or less self-centered and see no need for God. This is precisely what is meant by the Fall of Man: man sees no need for God. This is why the first step to being saved is realizing that you do need God (call it repentance, or what have you).
But what's is more interesting is that the Bible says we were designed to have a relationship with God. In fact, you know the hole within you that you think can be filled with the finite things of this world - well, it can only be filled with the infinite pleasures that flow from God. If you do not believe this, live a few more years seeking the things of this world.
So where do aliens fit into this? Well I certainly believe that an infinite God has more than enough love to go around.
Be sure to read "Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist" by John Piper. Its good stuff.
As some one who was reading /. before VALinux was in the picture I can honestly say you don't know what you're talking about. It has always been pro-linux and anti-microsoft. Perhaps its gotten more so in the last couple of years, but it has never been a bastion of objectivity.
While I agree it appears to be really neat that every language gets to use the same class library, in reality it is not so great. If what you said above is true, then J#(the java language on CLR) should be really neat. But it is not. Microsoft even went through the trouble of creating a whole new "sub" framework so you can call what appears to be "standard" java classes. Again you would think very cool - Now I can write java code that calls CLR library classes as well java classes!
The only problem is that the version of JCL supported is prehistoric - oh, and adding CLR class calls makes your cross-platform java not cross-platform anymore (oh except for 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP...hehehe).
A language is more than its syntax, it is also its library of standard calls. Would anyone be impressed if C was available on the CLR but you had to call System.Console.WriteLine() instead of printf?
So, yes we will see evey language under the sun arrive for the CLR, but you will either be a) writing code that looks more like C# then the target language, or b) writing code that looks like the target language, in which case we loose your suggested benefit of everyone having the same library functionality, or c) writing code that looks very similar to the target language except for a few extensions that were made in order to allow this smaller language to compete with the more popular one, in which case MS has successfully hijacked the smaller langauge.
I've always seen it as a contradiction to hold to the Bible's portrayal of creation while clinging to the belief that it's portrayal is detectable by science. If what the Bible says is true it is almost certainly indetectable to science; "super-natural", in other words "outside of nature".
Further, the seemingly natural origins of the universe do not create "tests of faith" - rather, they allow for Faith. What would happen to Faith if one could prove conclusively (hypothetical) that the Bible was correct in its telling of the story(to the point where no intelligent person could reject it)? Would this not destroy Faith?
whatever... shutup Stallman.
I while back my friend had a not so fun run-around with BB. Here is the letter he evetually sent them (kinda long, but so was the ordeal):
Dear Mr. Schulze,
I'm writing to bring your attention to a problem I've had with exchanges and
returns with one of your products. I hope Best Buy will address this problem
to my satisfaction. This incident has left me extremely angry.
Here's my problem: First I should say I hope someone actually reads this.
Given the experience I am about to write about, I doubt it. In case you do,
it is customer service issue #XXXXXXXX.
In September of '97 I bought a big screen TV from Best Buy. At that time I
was told I should buy the extended warranty because of how helpful Best Buy
would be should anything go wrong. One thing I was told was that if
ANYTHING happened to the TV, including something like me dropping it and
breaking it, the company would fix/replace it. Luckily, I did not have to
test this out - but I did read the warranty fairly carefully and I am pretty
sure that if I physically broke that TV your warranty would not cover. This
was a flat out lie that your salesperson told me.
Anyway, near the end of January I began having problems with the televisions
convergence. On January 28th I called and asked what I needed to do to have
it repaired. They sent out someone January 31st. He worked on the TV for a
while, replaced some chips and decided he could not fix the TV. He called
your parts department and ordered some parts. I was told that the parts
would be delivered in a week and the man would come back out and fix the TV.
No problem, if only it was that easy.
February 16th - I had not ever received the parts two weeks later, so I
called your customer service department back and asked where they were. I
was told they had been back order but the I should have them by the end of
the week. Annoying, but understandable.
February 23rd - I never received the parts, so I called back. I was again
told the parts were backordered. I then asked how long the parts would be
on back order. I was told they had no idea. At this point, I asked to
speak to a supervisor. I spoke with Lisa who told me that the parts were
backordered with no expected arrival date. I pointed out that, that could
mean 10 years. She said that she had never heard of any parts taking longer
than one month to deliver. Annoying, but again not anything someone could
easily fix.
March 9th - It had been over a month since the parts were ordered. I called
back your customer service and was told the part was still on back-order
with no expected arrival date. So, I asked to speak with Lisa again. Now,
this upset me: I was told she was not in the office. I explained my
situation to the person I was talking to and that I needed to know
something. I mean between Sony and Best Buy, somebody should have been able
to figure out where the hell these parts were. At this point I was told to
hold on. All of the sudden, Lisa comes on the line. Why did the person who
answered the phone lie to me and say that she was not there?????? Lisa told
me that after our previous conversation she had put in a request to just
have the TV replaced, but the request had been denied. When I asked why she
said she did not know and that there was no direct way to contact the people
who denied the claim. Now, I can understand why you would not directly want
customers dealing with your no lemon dept., but why can't your employees
call them to find out what is going on? Lisa said the only thing I could do
at this point was call the corporate office.
March 9th - Called the corporate office. I spoke to someone there named
Marcus. Marcus put me on hold and came back after a while saying that he
had figured out what the deal was and that if the parts were not in by the
following Tuesday (March 13th) he had given people instructions to just
replace the TV.
March 15th - I never heard anything from anyone about the TV so I called
back to speak to Marcus. I got what I finally have figured out is the
standard response when you ask for someone on a Best Buy phone line that
"they are unaway from (a)their desk or (b)the building." I left Marcus a
voice mail
March 16th - Never heard back from Marcus so I called back. I was again
told that marcus was MIA
March 19th - I called back again. This time I was told Marcus was again
unavailable. I explained my situation and was pretty upset about the whole
thing. I was told someone would get back to me. Finally, I get a call from
Brad Walker telling me that Marcus had gotten my message and tracked him
down.
Now this is when I started to get really really irritated. Brad informed me
that the parts I had been waiting on for well over a month were no longer
available. That would have been OK if what Marcus had told me in the first
place had happened (that they would just replace the TV), but instead Brad
tells me that they have to send a repair man back out to the house. Why did
it take you 6 weeks to tell me that the parts were not and would not ever be
available?!?!
March 20th - Repair man comes back to my house. Him and I have a good laugh
over what he is expected to do. He has been given instructions to try and
repair the TV component by component. The poor guy is replacing individual
resistors on my TV in my living room, that's absurd. Furthermore, he
doesn't even have an oscilliscope to help him out with the repair. Needless
to say, he can't fix the TV.
So, I called Brad back. Originally I was told that they did not think he
was available (surprise!), but when I told them I had the repair man in my
house and we needed to talk to him, they found Brad. Brad talks to the
repair man and informs me that they now need to take my television. I
agree, although I had been told that my waiting was over and the silly thing
was supposed to have been replaced a week earlier. Brad also tells me that
the repair should take 2 weeks and if I don't hear anything to call him
back.
March 22 - They come pick up my TV.
April 5th (Over 2 mos since my first call!!!!!) - I tried to call Brad to
ask him where my TV was. Again, noone can find Brad.
So, I call the corporate office to talk to Marcus, who is also not
available. I finally talk to Sarah explain my whole situation. She tracks
down Marcus who tells her that I should fax over some information and he
will get the TV replaced.
April 6th - I called to speak with Sarah who is of course, unavailable. I
leave a message. I was very surprised that she actually called me back. Of
course, she did tell me that I had not faxed her everything she needed. But
that if I did fax it before noon, I would get a call back before the end of
the day letting me know what to do about my TV. I was a little curious why
she did not tell me the previous day that I had not faxed the correct stuff.
Right before the end of the day, I called and left Marcus a message saying
that I had been told he would call me back and would he please do so.
April 9th - I, of course, never heard anything from anyone. So, I called
back and asked to speak to Sarah, who, of course, was unable to be found. I
will admit that I started to get a little upset at this point, but I asked
the guy who I was talking to if he could try and find her because I was
trying to resolve an over two month old situation and she was the only
person who seemed to know the current status of things.
His response was a pretty rude "I am not going to walk around the building
looking for someone for you." You all had wasted over two months of my
time - I don't think it would have been much of leap to expect this jerk to
put some damn effort into finding the only person who had the information
that could help me. Instead I got transferred to Jason Clark. He told me
that Marcus was not available but he did see notes about my previous calls
and that I should receive a call from Marcus first thing in the morning. He
also said that if I did not receive a call from Marcus I should call him
back at extension 608.
April 10 - I call and leave a few more messages of course, neither Jason nor
Marcus are reachable.
April 11 - I called and said I wanted to speak to someone dammit. Nicole
was luckily helpful, she said I probably could not speak to Marcus or Jason
directly, but to hold on. She finally comes back with the information I
need to replace my TV. So, I went to Best Buy and they let me replace it.
Why did all of this take so long? Why do you guys not return phone calls
when you say you will (ever)?? Why is it impossible to reach people even
when they specifically tell you to call and try and speak with them?
I will note, the times I actually did speak to most of the customer service
people, they were nice and some (esp. Marcus, Lisa, Nicole, Sarah, and Brad)
all seemed like they really were going to try and help me out - but you have
so much crap involved in your system that it is impossible to get anything
resolved.
Finally, I am still really upset over the fact that it took you 6 weeks to
admit that you just could not get the replacement parts. What is the deal
with that? It does not take that long. Why was I told more than once that
the TV would be replaced and then was just given another list of things that
had to happen before it would be replaced? Why even after they got to the
point of realizing they were not going to be able to fix did it still take a
week of calling back to see why noone ever called me - even though I was
told I would receive return calls the same day.
I can understand parts being back ordered and I can understand that there
are some problems with a large company. But this was ridiculuous. The only
reasonable thing I can think of is that you guys figure people will tire of
dealing with you and just give up.
I cannot believe that I am the only person who has had these problems.
Actually, I know I'm not because as I've been relaying this story to others,
a few have told me they had similar experiences with Best Buy.
Here's how you can help: Fire who ever is running your customer service
department. This person needs to be replaced with someone who actually
understands that if people get handled this badly they are not going to ever
buy anything from you again.
Then again, why should that person care. He/she probably has had a
working TV for the past couple months, huh?