ok, sorry, i did not realize that this was meant as a response to the allocation of money and i agree (i was not the one posting the original argument however). Only thing one *could* still bring forward is that once people have a certain minimum level of living standard, even if obscenely lower than the rich ones, as is the case in many western countries, it is a bit less evil to spend the country's resources on prestige projects. However I personally see this point slightly differently anyways: an investment in high-tech will probably have a positive net-effect on the Chinese economy and hence, on the economical conditions of its citizens. Macro-economics is not a zero-sum game anyways like e.g. the economics of a private household.
One point about the citation about poverty: I have trouble understanding how poverty is defined and even compared across countries. There are probably hundreds of definitions, some based on the median or mean income a certain subset of the population, some based on absolute income in some currency, some based on the value of a loaf of bread or similar. So while the "turbo-capitalsim of the communist dictatorship" model of doing things in China has certainly improved the situation of many, it is hard to judge from such numbers how exactly and for many people exactly things changed. And of course: 8% of a billion is still a quite large number.
You are right, there is homelessness, starvation, poverty and inequality in the western world. You might however want to compare the numbers and the extent of the problem and you might want to also compare individual freedom, state terror, mass death penalties, and democracy between the western world and China. I suggest you come back then and try again with a sarcastic comment.
What is the problem of a forum where people share opinions under their own identities in a responsible way? This does not mean that every internet forum has to require real identities it just means that some forum owners might choose to have contributors only post under true identities. This could have a number of benefits, apart from getting rid of the most notorious trolls. One important benefit is that legal responsability shifts from the forum owner to the poster: in many cases (depending on country) forum owners can be held responsible for illegal posts or can be sued by affected persons or companies. If the poster is personally identifiable then either the responsability directly shifts to that person or that person can at least be made responsible for consequences the forum owner has to face because of his posting. Apart from all this I am pretty sure that discussions would become a bit more civilized if posters write under their real identities. And what is wrong with that?
Maybe I missed this, but could somebody fill me in on the really important details? No, not whether he was framed or is an embarrassement to geeks, but:
1) what is the license of the existing ReiserFS4 code? 2) Who owns the copyright? 3) how much of the code and how much of the design is there? 4) What would be necessary for others to pick up and continue the work? 5) Could Reiser and/or his company perform the necessary legal steps to let others continue, e.g. for a certain monetary compensation, if necessary?
A lot of money probably has already gone into this project and I cannot understand why one should abandon it if it is promising (which I cannot really judge).
All animals and crops used today are the result of mutations that changed an original wild form to something more desirable for man. Wolves do not bark, dogs do.
It is hard to understand what you mean by "(even hypothetical) mutation-by-mutation walkthroughs". Clearly, if you look at the paleontological evidence of species through time it is easy to see the development of many structures, whatever your idea of "complex" is.
I am not really sure what you are questioning here. And what do you mean by "prediction at all scales"?
... which is of course entirely psychological. For me personally, it is hard to put myself into that place, because it is very easy for me to have a couple of unanswered questions and definitely easier than make up some fairy tale stuff about humanoid god-things that did it all. But there is obviously some kind of gene in us all that is hard to impossible to overcome with ratio. And it probably works in the way how you described.
But then, people firmly believe in zodiacs and bad omens and homoepathy and alien abductions, so why should we be surprised?;)
This is nonsense. Of course death is the end of existence. But why shouldn't things matter why one lives if that is the case? I'd say, things matter a infinitely much more because if live is would only be the finite part of an endless live, THEN life really wouldn't matter.
So far, I have yet to see any convincing arguments that mutation can produce innovative changes. That is because you do not look.
Hint: mutation or any form of biological evolution does not produce innovative changes. It just produces changes. The pressure of survival in the ecological niche influences which of these changes have a bigger likelhood to survive. Because of how such ecological niches work, it is usually something that looks more "innovative" to human eyes, but not always. It has happened often during evolution that something complicated or seemingly "innovative" was lost again, simply because it was not needed in the ecological niche any more. Evolution is not at all about some directed development towards some sort of "highest" lifeform. It is merely about adaption and development and a seeming development towards "higher" lifeform is a mere epiphenomenon.
And it baffles me every day why people get so happy in believing in a "higher power" that created "it all" without any necessity or evidence whatsoever. Why does it make anyone more happy to believe in his religion's special version of some imaginary god who did it all instead of just the universe itself? In reality there is no need to believe in a higher power or god. The concept of god (any version of it) is useless and *much more* complex as an explanation than what is explained by it. And why do those who continue to babble about "higher power" or "god" never every despair in trying to explain the existence of their "higher power" or "god"?
I'd say, everything points to born-in insanity and irrationality that somehow developed during evolution.
While there might be biologists who claim that evolution is answering the question about why life exists, it is simply a false claim to say that this would be the standard. Unlike creationists, theists, and other whackos, most scientists know what they do not know. Sometimes they accept a weak theory as a in place of a simple "dont know", but overall, most biologists will tell you that the question of why life exists is not answered. Also, we do not know why the universe works the way it does, or why it even exists. There are scientists who think they know more about that but some of them are nearly as crazy as creationists.
The bottom line is: the scientific community is well aware that 1) we do not know a lot about why life has come into being and 2) god is not the answer and explains nothing at all.
Of course it is nonsense that he assumed a god beyond any necessity.
All rational theories are better off without some imaginary god from some ages-old story book. There is hardly anything more useless than the idea of some god to explain things.
I understand that people want to answer the why question. Why is there something rather than nothing? What I do not understand is why the are satisfied by answering it with something that makes things even more complicated: the question "why is there a god" or even "why is there a christian god" or even "why is there a lutheranian christian god" is not easier but much much more complex than "why is there a universe". Simply because we have evidence for a universe but no evidence for a god, christian god, or lutheranian christian god, let alone any evidence why among all gods ever thought out by humans the lutheranian christian god should be the one that actually exists and is responsible for EVERYTHING.
What is beyond me is how people can feel comfortable with such a monstrous, unnecessary crazyness for only a second when the universe alone is a much simpler, much more beautiful and much less confusing monstrousness than any god-story every was.
I will never understand the arrogance of religious people. The arrogance of putting "faith" in the particular story taught by their religion over all rational thinking, over all (lack of) evidence, in a word, over all else. There are hundreds (historically thousands or more) of competing stories other people have "faith" in, and those people are equally sure that their story is the correct one. Noone of those people has ever seen any of their gods, has not even had the slightes, tiniest indication for the existence of anything remotely similar to a "god". Yet, these people insist that their god must exist. Why does god exist? Why is their religion just like it is? These people do not feel the need to answer any of this. They just "have faith".
They use their story and their god as an explanation of what they do not understand. Yet, this explanation is still harder to understand and there is even less indication for it than for the things they try to explain with it. What makes the existence of a god more likely than the existence of the universe? Why do these people feel more comfortable with an unexplainable god than with an unexplainable universe?
Did they ever consider that this comfort comes from the fact that their imaginary god is humanoid, intelligent, like man?
People who believe in god are like children who think that the ball runs down the hill because the ball wants to go there out of his own will.
Just because the "establishment" does not want to discuss totally futile nonsense like the squaring of a circle or perpetuum mobiles, this does not mean they have closed minds. Its is just extremely boring and a useless waste of time to go through the same nonsense over and over again.
Creationims is nonsense. It adds nothing to scientific insight. Theism is useless. It adds nothing to scientific insight.
Yes, scientists can be very closed minded and stubborn and even stupid. And "the scientific community" can falsely disregard insights and new ideas for a while. That has happened and still happens all the time.
But creationism is so fundamentally wrong and nonsensical in so many ways that the contrary can be said: somebody actively supporting anything that so fundamentally goes against all scientific rational thinking disqualifies him- or herself as a scientist.
A physicist building a perpetuum mobile should get fired. A biologist teaching creationism or ID should get fired on similar grounds.
This is essentially what most catholics seem to believe in.
However, that theory has no explanation for why something like a god is needed in the first place. If god is the explanation and "sets the initial conditions", what makes that theory any more plausible than the universe just was with this conditions? Just came into existence? If you propose some X to explain Y, what is the benefit if you cannot at all explain X? Why do people always seem to feel more comfortable with not being able to explain the existence of some (usually humanoid) "god" than being equally unable to explain the existence of the universe? And why do people insist so desperately on something there has never, ever been even the slightest indication or hint for?
but I can tell you: kids will laugh at you when you come with this list. Kids want to play the games all other kids play. Kids want to use the software and features all others use. If that software isn't available for Linux, Windows is the choice. And once you got raised with Windows, why ever make the switch to Linux?
My credo is: as soon as software for young people will be available for Linux, *then* it will be a real alternative and it *will* become ready for the masses. (and then hardware vendors will probably finally provide Linux drivers for their stuff).
I disagree. Apart from all the hardware your mother obviously doesn't need but a significant amount of potential desktop users wants, the software problem should not be underestimated. Especially for young users, games are important. The discrepancy between available games under Windows and Linux is enormous. And there are little things that make a big difference, e.g. a MSN client that has feature parity with the one under Linux: this sounds stupid, but for many users its those things that make a difference. All their friends do video chats with MSN. If they use Linux, they can't do that.
The list is quite long really. We Linux users (I am using Linux for both work and private) should not ignore the reality just because we do not like it.
I really truely wish Linux was ready, but the truth is: only in rare, exceptional cases can you really have some average user use Linux.
Ready for the masses? Unfortunately not. Not until those who manufacture hardware provide Linux drivers of the same quality and functionality for their stuff as for Windows (and sometimes OSX). And not until the Linux guys do everything to support hardware manufacturers to create such drivers, if they wish, in the form of closed source software.
Yes, things have become much much better. There are more drivers available than ever, through reverse engineering, through silent help from manufacturers and a few companies even do provide drivers.
But the differences are still huge. In many cases the available features are much limited under Linux: for example even mainboard features like fan RPM sensorsm, CPU temperature sensors etc. are sometimes missing or only partly available. Office combos: the majority does not work at all or only very limited. Many mobile phones only work in a very limited way, no software for email/adress sync available, sometimes not even drivers to access the data somehow. My Garmin tracking GPS only works under Windows, software only available for Windows. External USB devices like record players, tv, radios, and many more exotic devices are completely unusable under Linux. GDI printers are still a problem.
And there is one more issue: anything related to protected media content is a problem. Most players and encoders for DVDs and MP3s are currently still illegal or in a grey area under Linux. Player for HD-DVD will be even more of a problem. DRM media are a problem.
Personally I live with those limitations: I use a postscript B/W printer, I use a different (Windows) computer to get maps into my Garmin and I essentiall ignore other limitations. But for many users, these limitations are more important. For a significant number, they are unacceptable.
If Linux wants to become a real competitor to Windows, it will have to give up some of its ideological "pureness". That means: welcome closed source under Linux. Welcome closed source drivers. Make it so that they wont mess up the system, but welcome any attempt of third parties (hardware and software companies) to actually make money with desktop Linux.
Currently, hardly any company sees the potential of making money with desktop Linux users. This is the ONLY real problem. Ubuntu Hardy won't change that.
I am used to professors giving out their lecture material for free or just the cost of copying and i am used to students sharing lecture notes for free or just the cost of copying. All people involved in this are greedy and I am happy that I don't have to be in their class. I hope these people fight for years and spend all their time and money on this pathetic issue.
Has anyone better in physics than me already calculated what is the maximum theoretically achievable efficiency? Would be interesting to see how close we already are.
Homework assignments are nearly always bullshit. If somebody did not understand what he was taught, a traditional homework assignment will not help him much. And if he did understand it, the assignment is a waste of time that will only de-motivate the intelligent students by forcing them to do the same boring stuff all over again.
A study group where answers are exchanged and explained is actually one of the few ways how a homework task can be constructive for those students who are still interested to learn something: other students are taking there the part of what the teacher should have done in the first place: make the students understand the problem and even those who only ask questions will at least have to formulate their questions in an understandable way.
To formulate it differently: a homework task is ONLY of any value to the students, if they can do whatever research and asking around they need. The task of a homework should not be to examine and test the students, but to give them the opportunity to *use* what they have learned in an interesting and insight-providing way.
I am often shocked to learn what anachronistic and counter-prodcutive views teachers do show in cases like this one.
Luckily many pages don't need Javascript or at least not a lot of JS to render. What I find more important are the lockups I get because of limitations to multi-threading in FF, at least under Linux. There are situations where one window locking up means all windows lock up. There are situations where some initial connection to a host being stuck means all of the browser locks up. One can only guess, because FF does not indicate what the problem is -- but more frequently than is funny, I have FF get unresponsive, not re-painting windows anymore and just eating up CPU and memory without reacting until I kill it. This sucks and this doesn't seem to have changed in FF 3.
... not simply ignore Wikipedia? Knowledge is not anything that is compatible with believing in fairy tales anyways. They could just create their own wiki and be happy about filling it with crap and no pictures of mohammed at all. And that goes for all the religious nutheads, be they muslims, christians, yews or hindu, or whatever kind of fairy tale they prefer. Predominantly those whose fairy tales have their origin in some oriental cameleer tribes though, because those are the worst and most dangerous it seems.
Slashdot Mirror
Not usable for me.
ok, sorry, i did not realize that this was meant as a response to the allocation of money and i agree (i was not the one posting the original argument however).
Only thing one *could* still bring forward is that once people have a certain minimum level of living standard, even if obscenely lower than the rich ones, as is the case in many western countries, it is a bit less evil to spend the country's resources on prestige projects.
However I personally see this point slightly differently anyways: an investment in high-tech will probably have a positive net-effect on the Chinese economy and hence, on the economical conditions of its citizens.
Macro-economics is not a zero-sum game anyways like e.g. the economics of a private household.
One point about the citation about poverty: I have trouble understanding how poverty is defined and even compared across countries. There are probably hundreds of definitions, some based on the median or mean income a certain subset of the population, some based on absolute income in some currency, some based on the value of a loaf of bread or similar. So while the "turbo-capitalsim of the communist dictatorship" model of doing things in China has certainly improved the situation of many, it is hard to judge from such numbers how exactly and for many people exactly things changed.
And of course: 8% of a billion is still a quite large number.
You are right, there is homelessness, starvation, poverty and inequality in the western world.
You might however want to compare the numbers and the extent of the problem and you might want to also compare individual freedom, state terror, mass death penalties, and democracy between the western world and China. I suggest you come back then and try again with a sarcastic comment.
What is the problem of a forum where people share opinions under their own identities in a responsible way? This does not mean that every internet forum has to require real identities it just means that some forum owners might choose to have contributors only post under true identities.
This could have a number of benefits, apart from getting rid of the most notorious trolls.
One important benefit is that legal responsability shifts from the forum owner to the poster: in many cases (depending on country) forum owners can be held responsible for illegal posts or can be sued by affected persons or companies. If the poster is personally identifiable then either the responsability directly shifts to that person or that person can at least be made responsible for consequences the forum owner has to face because of his posting.
Apart from all this I am pretty sure that discussions would become a bit more civilized if posters write under their real identities. And what is wrong with that?
Maybe I missed this, but could somebody fill me in on the really important details? No, not whether he was framed or is an embarrassement to geeks, but:
1) what is the license of the existing ReiserFS4 code?
2) Who owns the copyright?
3) how much of the code and how much of the design is there?
4) What would be necessary for others to pick up and continue the work?
5) Could Reiser and/or his company perform the necessary legal steps to let others continue, e.g. for a certain monetary compensation, if necessary?
A lot of money probably has already gone into this project and I cannot understand why one should abandon it if it is promising (which I cannot really judge).
All animals and crops used today are the result of mutations that changed an original wild form to something more desirable for man. Wolves do not bark, dogs do.
It is hard to understand what you mean by "(even hypothetical) mutation-by-mutation walkthroughs". Clearly, if you look at the paleontological evidence of species through time it is easy to see the development of many structures, whatever your idea of "complex" is.
I am not really sure what you are questioning here. And what do you mean by "prediction at all scales"?
... which is of course entirely psychological. For me personally, it is hard to put myself into that place, because it is very easy for me to have a couple of unanswered questions and definitely easier than make up some fairy tale stuff about humanoid god-things that did it all.
;)
But there is obviously some kind of gene in us all that is hard to impossible to overcome with ratio. And it probably works in the way how you described.
But then, people firmly believe in zodiacs and bad omens and homoepathy and alien abductions, so why should we be surprised?
This is nonsense. Of course death is the end of existence. But why shouldn't things matter why one lives if that is the case? I'd say, things matter a infinitely much more because if live is would only be the finite part of an endless live, THEN life really wouldn't matter.
Hint: mutation or any form of biological evolution does not produce innovative changes. It just produces changes. The pressure of survival in the ecological niche influences which of these changes have a bigger likelhood to survive. Because of how such ecological niches work, it is usually something that looks more "innovative" to human eyes, but not always. It has happened often during evolution that something complicated or seemingly "innovative" was lost again, simply because it was not needed in the ecological niche any more.
Evolution is not at all about some directed development towards some sort of "highest" lifeform. It is merely about adaption and development and a seeming development towards "higher" lifeform is a mere epiphenomenon.
And it baffles me every day why people get so happy in believing in a "higher power" that created "it all" without any necessity or evidence whatsoever. Why does it make anyone more happy to believe in his religion's special version of some imaginary god who did it all instead of just the universe itself?
In reality there is no need to believe in a higher power or god. The concept of god (any version of it) is useless and *much more* complex as an explanation than what is explained by it.
And why do those who continue to babble about "higher power" or "god" never every despair in trying to explain the existence of their "higher power" or "god"?
I'd say, everything points to born-in insanity and irrationality that somehow developed during evolution.
While there might be biologists who claim that evolution is answering the question about why life exists, it is simply a false claim to say that this would be the standard. Unlike creationists, theists, and other whackos, most scientists know what they do not know. Sometimes they accept a weak theory as a in place of a simple "dont know", but overall, most biologists will tell you that the question of why life exists is not answered. Also, we do not know why the universe works the way it does, or why it even exists.
There are scientists who think they know more about that but some of them are nearly as crazy as creationists.
The bottom line is: the scientific community is well aware that 1) we do not know a lot about why life has come into being and 2) god is not the answer and explains nothing at all.
Of course it is nonsense that he assumed a god beyond any necessity.
All rational theories are better off without some imaginary god from some ages-old story book. There is hardly anything more useless than the idea of some god to explain things.
I understand that people want to answer the why question. Why is there something rather than nothing?
What I do not understand is why the are satisfied by answering it with something that makes things even more complicated: the question "why is there a god" or even "why is there a christian god" or even "why is there a lutheranian christian god" is not easier but much much more complex than "why is there a universe". Simply because we have evidence for a universe but no evidence for a god, christian god, or lutheranian christian god, let alone any evidence why among all gods ever thought out by humans the lutheranian christian god should be the one that actually exists and is responsible for EVERYTHING.
What is beyond me is how people can feel comfortable with such a monstrous, unnecessary crazyness for only a second when the universe alone is a much simpler, much more beautiful and much less confusing monstrousness than any god-story every was.
I will never understand the arrogance of religious people. The arrogance of putting "faith" in the particular story taught by their religion over all rational thinking, over all (lack of) evidence, in a word, over all else.
There are hundreds (historically thousands or more) of competing stories other people have "faith" in, and those people are equally sure that their story is the correct one.
Noone of those people has ever seen any of their gods, has not even had the slightes, tiniest indication for the existence of anything remotely similar to a "god". Yet, these people insist that their god must exist.
Why does god exist? Why is their religion just like it is?
These people do not feel the need to answer any of this. They just "have faith".
They use their story and their god as an explanation of what they do not understand. Yet, this explanation is still harder to understand and there is even less indication for it than for the things they try to explain with it.
What makes the existence of a god more likely than the existence of the universe?
Why do these people feel more comfortable with an unexplainable god than with an unexplainable universe?
Did they ever consider that this comfort comes from the fact that their imaginary god is humanoid, intelligent, like man?
People who believe in god are like children who think that the ball runs down the hill because the ball wants to go there out of his own will.
Just because the "establishment" does not want to discuss totally futile nonsense like the squaring of a circle or perpetuum mobiles, this does not mean they have closed minds. Its is just extremely boring and a useless waste of time to go through the same nonsense over and over again.
Creationims is nonsense. It adds nothing to scientific insight. Theism is useless. It adds nothing to scientific insight.
Yes, scientists can be very closed minded and stubborn and even stupid. And "the scientific community" can falsely disregard insights and new ideas for a while. That has happened and still happens all the time.
But creationism is so fundamentally wrong and nonsensical in so many ways that the contrary can be said: somebody actively supporting anything that so fundamentally goes against all scientific rational thinking disqualifies him- or herself as a scientist.
A physicist building a perpetuum mobile should get fired. A biologist teaching creationism or ID should get fired on similar grounds.
This is essentially what most catholics seem to believe in.
However, that theory has no explanation for why something like a god is needed in the first place. If god is the explanation and "sets the initial conditions", what makes that theory any more plausible than the universe just was with this conditions? Just came into existence?
If you propose some X to explain Y, what is the benefit if you cannot at all explain X?
Why do people always seem to feel more comfortable with not being able to explain the existence of some (usually humanoid) "god" than being equally unable to explain the existence of the universe?
And why do people insist so desperately on something there has never, ever been even the slightest indication or hint for?
but I can tell you: kids will laugh at you when you come with this list. Kids want to play the games all other kids play. Kids want to use the software and features all others use. If that software isn't available for Linux, Windows is the choice.
And once you got raised with Windows, why ever make the switch to Linux?
My credo is: as soon as software for young people will be available for Linux, *then* it will be a real alternative and it *will* become ready for the masses. (and then hardware vendors will probably finally provide Linux drivers for their stuff).
I disagree. Apart from all the hardware your mother obviously doesn't need but a significant amount of potential desktop users wants, the software problem should not be underestimated.
Especially for young users, games are important. The discrepancy between available games under Windows and Linux is enormous.
And there are little things that make a big difference, e.g. a MSN client that has feature parity with the one under Linux: this sounds stupid, but for many users its those things that make a difference. All their friends do video chats with MSN. If they use Linux, they can't do that.
The list is quite long really. We Linux users (I am using Linux for both work and private) should not ignore the reality just because we do not like it.
I really truely wish Linux was ready, but the truth is: only in rare, exceptional cases can you really have some average user use Linux.
Ready for the masses? Unfortunately not. Not until those who manufacture hardware provide Linux drivers of the same quality and functionality for their stuff as for Windows (and sometimes OSX). And not until the Linux guys do everything to support hardware manufacturers to create such drivers, if they wish, in the form of closed source software.
Yes, things have become much much better. There are more drivers available than ever, through reverse engineering, through silent help from manufacturers and a few companies even do provide drivers.
But the differences are still huge. In many cases the available features are much limited under Linux: for example even mainboard features like fan RPM sensorsm, CPU temperature sensors etc. are sometimes missing or only partly available.
Office combos: the majority does not work at all or only very limited.
Many mobile phones only work in a very limited way, no software for email/adress sync available, sometimes not even drivers to access the data somehow.
My Garmin tracking GPS only works under Windows, software only available for Windows.
External USB devices like record players, tv, radios, and many more exotic devices are completely unusable under Linux.
GDI printers are still a problem.
And there is one more issue: anything related to protected media content is a problem. Most players and encoders for DVDs and MP3s are currently still illegal or in a grey area under Linux. Player for HD-DVD will be even more of a problem. DRM media are a problem.
Personally I live with those limitations: I use a postscript B/W printer, I use a different (Windows) computer to get maps into my Garmin and I essentiall ignore other limitations. But for many users, these limitations are more important. For a significant number, they are unacceptable.
If Linux wants to become a real competitor to Windows, it will have to give up some of its ideological "pureness". That means: welcome closed source under Linux. Welcome closed source drivers. Make it so that they wont mess up the system, but welcome any attempt of third parties (hardware and software companies) to actually make money with desktop Linux.
Currently, hardly any company sees the potential of making money with desktop Linux users. This is the ONLY real problem. Ubuntu Hardy won't change that.
Fix that.
I am used to professors giving out their lecture material for free or just the cost of copying and i am used to students sharing lecture notes for free or just the cost of copying.
All people involved in this are greedy and I am happy that I don't have to be in their class. I hope these people fight for years and spend all their time and money on this pathetic issue.
Has anyone better in physics than me already calculated what is the maximum theoretically achievable efficiency?
Would be interesting to see how close we already are.
Homework assignments are nearly always bullshit. If somebody did not understand what he was taught, a traditional homework assignment will not help him much. And if he did understand it, the assignment is a waste of time that will only de-motivate the intelligent students by forcing them to do the same boring stuff all over again.
A study group where answers are exchanged and explained is actually one of the few ways how a homework task can be constructive for those students who are still interested to learn something: other students are taking there the part of what the teacher should have done in the first place: make the students understand the problem and even those who only ask questions will at least have to formulate their questions in an understandable way.
To formulate it differently: a homework task is ONLY of any value to the students, if they can do whatever research and asking around they need. The task of a homework should not be to examine and test the students, but to give them the opportunity to *use* what they have learned in an interesting and insight-providing way.
I am often shocked to learn what anachronistic and counter-prodcutive views teachers do show in cases like this one.
Luckily many pages don't need Javascript or at least not a lot of JS to render.
What I find more important are the lockups I get because of limitations to multi-threading in FF, at least under Linux. There are situations where one window locking up means all windows lock up. There are situations where some initial connection to a host being stuck means all of the browser locks up. One can only guess, because FF does not indicate what the problem is -- but more frequently than is funny, I have FF get unresponsive, not re-painting windows anymore and just eating up CPU and memory without reacting until I kill it.
This sucks and this doesn't seem to have changed in FF 3.
... not simply ignore Wikipedia? Knowledge is not anything that is compatible with believing in fairy tales anyways. They could just create their own wiki and be happy about filling it with crap and no pictures of mohammed at all.
And that goes for all the religious nutheads, be they muslims, christians, yews or hindu, or whatever kind of fairy tale they prefer. Predominantly those whose fairy tales have their origin in some oriental cameleer tribes though, because those are the worst and most dangerous it seems.