IIRC windows on Alpha could run 32 bit binaries due to a translation layer called FX!32. It's amazing how similar that seems to be to the WoW64 layer in windows x64 edition. The Alpha is dead, long live the Alpha!
Personally I came to a adult informed decision after doing a physics degree. It is brilliantly self consistant and complete, and the way in which the Old Testament predicts what Jesus did hundreds or even thousands of years before he was even born is hard to ignore.
As to why turn to faith, well one reason is that life is just better that way. I don't worry about death, I don't worry too much about wealth or success, I'm happy because I know that the dude that created the universe and spent 15 billion years waiting for us loves me. I don't worry about revenge, I don't hate people, I don't hold grudges. Every time I see something good or beautiful I rejoice and praise God, I am not a prisoner of guilt because I know that every sin I commit out of weakness has been forgiven, I know that I don't have to work to gain God's love or acceptance (but I choose to out of love for my father, God) because his love is an unconditional gift. I praise God that because of Jesus' death on the cross, I have the right to call God "Abba" (roughly "Daddy"), and to expect my prayers answered (sometimes He answers no, in the same way as a responsible parent would deny their child an M16). I have the loving support of the brotherhood of Christ in his church, and that has been such a blessing to me in the year since I became a Christian. Lastly I believe I experience fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit who lives in me. I believe He guides me and makes my heart leap with joy when I see the work of His hand in nature and in people.
All-in-all, it's a good life, and that in itself is something I find to be quite astounding. It is easy to imagine a fake religion that puts all kinds of heavy burdens and obligations upon its followers, it is quite another matter to design a religion that works so well when lived properly, while remaining so self consistant.
But look at how people are reacting to the tsunami. People are being generous and realising that everything we strive for like money, posessions, stability and even life are tenuous and fragile, and it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye. Peoples reaction to this disasters has restored my faith in humanity to some extent, and I hope that it will now lead to people looking for deeper meaning in their lives. If that happens then it could even be argued that this disaster was a good thing. After all, God works in mysterious ways.
Depends how you define proof. There is a wealth of evidence which seems to point to some form of evolution being the mechanism by which humans appeared, and little or no evidence which disproves an evolutionary theory (which in itself evolves to encompass new evidence). Further more, there is other scientific theory which is even close to describing how we came to be the way we are.
Apes to humans is easy, you just have to look at how similar we are genetically, even fish to humans is quite possible because the parathyroid gland, which controls calcium levels in the blood may well have evolved from fish gills.
I think missing links are to be expected given that fossilisation is hard, and doesn't happen very often and we've only searched a very small percentage of the earth for such fossils.
I should say, I am a christian AND I believe that Genesis is true, in a poetic sense, which is really what genesis is. To understand Genesis you have to think about what the original audience was supposed to hear. Specifically how Genesis differs from the contemporary creation myths where the world was often created as a relic of battles between competing gods, such as the moon gods and sun gods etc. I really don't think the ancient Israelites would have understood if Moses had said
"In the begininng was the singularitly of the Planck era. Around the time of ~10-43 s, the perfect symmetry of the Planck era was broken, giving birth to space, time and gravity. The energy density of the universe at this time dropped below the critical Planck energy ~1019 GeV (~1032 K), resulting in a restriction or limitation of possible transformations between forms. Interactions that mix the gravitational force with the other forces require a minimum energy of ~1019 GeV. As the average energy density of the universe dropped below this critical threshold, these interactions were no longer possible, and so gravity, space and time emerged as stable structures of manifestation. Just as ice comes into being by cooling water below a critical freezing temperature, when the universe cooled below this "freezing temperature" of ~1032 degrees, the threads of reality spontaneously self-organized into a coherent fabric of space and time."
I believe Genesis tells us and the ancient jews exactly what we need to know to understand God's love for us, but to me the fact that God waited 15 billion years from the Big Bang before really getting started, and that the Universe is such an amazing place just adds to His glory, not detracts.
Just to clarify slightly, the UK's anti-terror detention law didn't exactly get busted, just declared incompatible with human rights law. The way that British law works is that it asserts that British law overrules all other law, so if parliment says "this is the law" then it is the law and it is almost impossible to get it reversed except by a further act of parliment. This is why the detainees in question are still being held pending a palimentary review of the law.
I'm a software developer on a project containing nearly a million lines of code. The thought that at some time in the future I would have to search through a mountain of patents to check that every single line of code is non-infringing is terrifying. It would be like allowing novelists to patent plot devices, or a sentence structure that has a particular emotive effect, and so I thank you and our Polish friends for having the courage and principles to stand against the forces of lawyers and big business. They want to take the joy out of what is essentially a cooperative and artistic job, which just happens to produce a product that can make some people very rich (but usually not the people who actually have the talent).
Lallafa had lived in the forests of the Long Lands of Effa. He lived there, and he wrote his poems there. He wrote them on pages made of dried habra leaves, without the benefit of education or correcting fluid. He wrote about the light in the forest, and what he thought about that. He wrote about the darkness in the forest and what he thought about that. He wrote about the girl who had left him and precisely what he thought about that....
Then, shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words to that effect.
They traveled the time waves; they found him, and did indeed persuade him. In fact they persuaded him to such effect that he became extremely rich at their hands, and the girl about whom he was otherwise destined to write with such precision never got around to leaving him, and in fact they moved out of the forest to a rather nice pad in town and he frequently commuted to the future to do talk shows, on which he sparkled wittily.
He never got around to writing the poems, of course, which was a problem but an easily solved one. The manufacturers of correcting fluid simply packed him off for a week somewhere with a copy of a later edition of his book and stacks of dried habra leaves to copy them out onto, making the odd deliberate mistake and correction on the way.
Many people now say that the poems are suddenly worthless. Others argue that they are exactly the same as they always were, so what's changed? The first people say that that isn't the point. They aren't quite certain what the point is, but they are quite sure that that isn't it. They set up the Campaign for Real Time to try to stop this sort of thing going on. Their case was considerably strengthened by the fact that a week after they had set themselves up, news broke that not only had the great Cathedral of Chalesm been pulled down in order to build a new ion refinery, but that construction of the refinery had taken so long, and had had to extend so far back into the past in order to allow ion production to start on time, that the Cathedral of Chalesm had now never been built in the first place. Picture postcards of the cathedral suddenly became immensely valuable."
Well if I assert that you clearly have no hope of comprehending what life is, does that give me the right to arbitrarily deprive you of it?
Can you honestly say you know what life is, including its meaning, purpose and goal?
Perhaps the point of life is not to contribute towards society, and that society is simply the support structure in which we choose to live. Perhaps the true point of life is for each individual to make the best of what they have been given, and that is independent of an individuals mental capacity.
Now you may say that no life has meaning in and of itself beyond what we contribute to society, but that view implies there is no human soul, or God, which makes you a member of the approx 25% of society which thinks that. By your own standards you are operating as a seemingly mentally unwell or disfunctional part of the system and should renounce your right to life for the good of humanity.
But if I'm only printing 20-30 disks a year then the price or a printer plus ink is much more than the cost of the media I'm burning. A cheap, clean and simple labelling that may add $2-3 to the price of the drive plus a small amount to each disk then it is a massively cheaper option.
umm perhaps I don't have a specially enabled ink jet printer, and I don't want to have to spend loads on overpriced ink.
Reading their FAQ it seems they expect most drives, or at least most drive manufacturers, to incorporate this HP created tech, and if the price premium is minimal then it might be usable.
The point is that the drink driver has no way of knowing when he may or may not be putting someone else at risk, and no-one else know whether or not the driver of the next vehicle is drunk or not. It not the interference per say that is the issue, but the reckless disregard for the safety of other people, and the potential for harm that your action caused. Notice the word potential, which means that you have to take into account those things that were unknown or unknowable to the actor at the time of his dangerous actions. In the case of a drunk that include the possible presence of other people, not the actual presence of other people.
The problem with what you propose is that someone would have to be killed before a habitual drink driver was taken of the streets, which has got to be a crazy way to run a country.
Also consider the example where you are on the side walk and within 200 ft...he's drunk, you feel threated, but he doesn't hit you and continues on..what harm have you suffered? You got scared? It seems to me that people pay to scare themselves (movies, amusement parks, etc)...but if you are scared against your will, should that be a crime too?
what if you suffered a heart attack, or were put so on edge that you walked in front of another car while crossing the road? I think actual damage inflicted should be counted for damages, but society cannot allow people to endanger other people without a very good reason.
I think it is right and proper for a government to outlaw actions that have a good chance of hurting innocent bystanders
Actually deliberately being scared against your will can be against the law. Threatening behavior and making threats are both illegal.
There are all kinds of things that COULD harm you, but do we start banning everything?
depends upon the relative risks and benefits. Speeding, knives, guns, smoking in a public place. All these things are up for discussion here.
I'd really like to see the # of people killed by a non-drunk driver compared with a drunk one.
Probably a bad statistic to use but 15% of all road deaths in the UK, alcohol was a factor. Now the question is, are more or less than 15% of all road miles driven, driven by drunk drivers? If 1% of all road miles are driven by drunk drivers (which is probably massively too high) then drink drivers are 15 times more likely to cause an accident than sober drivers. I suspect it's actually much less that 0.1% which makes the ratio more than 150 times more likely to die in an accident if you've been drinking than not.
According to dutch figures, if you have a blood alcohol concentration of more that 0.15% you are 200 times more likely to die in a road accident than a sober driver.
surely that depends upon whether or not your farts can be classified as WMDs. That would make your anus an illegal delivery platform, and lunch would be a WMD program. Lock him up I say.
Well take drink driving for example. Driving while drunk is equivalent to playing russian roulette with someone elses head (never mind your own). I think it is probably I good idea to punish people who recklessly or willfully endanger other peoples welfare or other human rights. Where your "right" to be stupid starts to interfere with my "right" to be safe there has to be laws to safeguard the rights of the passive party to the conflict of interest.
Sure, these things are always a balancing act, and often kneejerk legislation goes way too far, but in my experience people who are moaning about their freedoms being eroded are often playing the "rights" card in order that they can selfishly indulge in ignoring other people's rights and freedoms.
well, a 1500g shock would mean stopping from 450 m/s (or 1620 km/h) in 30 milliseconds, and a 450 m/s impact would require a drop from 10.125 km (approx 6.2 miles). In reality it all depends upon how the packaging (and impact surface) deforms and absorbs the impact. Most plastic cases would deform quite a lot, so I suspect you would probably break the case of an iPod before you'd damage this hard disk.
OK you got me. That first statement was probably a troll, and even then I should have said nihilism.
The point is that earlier you said your unconcious consience was driving you towards what was truly beneficial, but unless somehow you are psychic there can be no basis for this without an omniscient God guiding you. I guess what you actually meant was that you are driven towards an inbuilt moral code, but how can you tell right from wrong without an absolute moral code, which must come from the perfect nature of God?
I would also like to distinguish faith and God from religion as a work of fallible men. It is not logical to deny the existance of a perfect God from the failures of imperfect men.
I tell you what, this has been interesting, and I suspect this topic will be locked soon, but I've been reading many articles on wikipedia. I must admit, that while I find the argument and discussion fascinating I am firmly in the Fideism camp, which means there is no way I can prove God to a sceptic unless you first take a leap of faith.
What use is a conscience without an immortal soul? If there is no God, no heaven, no afterlife, then in many ways people are insubstantial and don't matter. Why should anyone elses feelings concern you you if feelings are just a bio-chemical imbalance or something. Why should you care that someone is dying or hungry or sick, because their life is as pointless as yours.
Isn't the natural consequence of atheism ultimately Sadism, where the only thing that has value is your own pursuit of pleasure?
As for death being unappealing, well, I'm confident that death is not the end, so I don't fear it (so long as it doesn't hurt too much), in fact many Christians end up looking forward death at the end of a long life.
So you are saying that there is no possibility of ever having a nonbiased conversation on religion?
That is exactly what I am saying. This is not an issue where sitting on the fence is a neutral position. It is an active position where you are saying you believe there is no God. In many ways the committed atheist has the hardest job, because every day you have to get up and convince yourself that life is worth living.
Such as, "my parents believed, and I respect them, so I will too." I believe there are plenty of people who do it without good reason; "good" being the key word there. They may have bad reasons too.
I think that without a good reason, you don't really believe, you only think that you do. I'd say a lot of people who call themselves Christian are really just members of a nice comfortable club where they get to talk about how good they are while having tea and cakes. They're after spiritual air conditioning and don't really grasp what it really means to follow Jesus. Jesus said you cannot be friends with the world while following Him, so putting God in a little box you get out once a week to make yourself feel better is not real Christianity, especially if you spend the rest of the week hoarding cash and ripping off the poor.
I am deeply sceptical about the so-called Christian Right in America. It seems to be that they are far too cosy with big business and corporations whose single goal is to make money at any cost, and have no qualms about treading on the little guy to get there. They are also far too judgemental, when in fact there is no room in Christianity for that. Jesus hung out with prostitutes and social outcasts and called the political and religious leaders hypocrites in some of his most inflammatory language.
Oh, really? Where does he live? Pennsylvania? That's a stupid statement, if you seriously think he's alive, you're not as smart as I thought. Believing in God is one thing. Believing someone lived for 2000 years is lunacy.
Depends upon your definition of life. If you're looking at a simply biological, physical existence in the universe, then perhaps not (but not definitely not. Revelation promises that in the last days God will create a new earth and new heaven, and create new and perfect bodies for everyone). If you consider the essence of life as being your soul then yes. Of course, if Jesus is both fully man and fully God, as Christians believe, then there is no reason why He can't do what he likes. Just because our bodies will die, it is no reason to assume His will.
And I do not, so basing your arguments on the premise that yours is the only true god is logically wrong,
No it is not bad logic, once you accept that it is not possible to make an objective choice. Whatever god you believe in, worshiping another would be a sin. Because I believe in God, I believe that anyone worshiping anything else is a sin. Likewise a Hindu would also say that I am a sinner for worshipping my God, not his. I say you are a sinner for worshipping yourself. Everyone would make the same assertion relative to his or her own belief, there is no logical way anyone can honestly worship two gods.
Okay, good, at least you don't take it ALL verbatim. The question then is, what is literal & what isn't? Jonah & Job are stories, but Jesus rose from the dead and he's still alive today? That's the truth?
I didn't say I thought some of the Bible is untrue. I think it is all true, but not pure fact. For example, I believe Job is "True", in the sense of what happened to him, although the conversation between God and the Devil at the start is either parable or revelation, who is to say which. What matters is that it fits with Gods character, and that it resonates with the Holy Spirit with us.
Now this will sound even whackier to the sceptic, but I believe that it the Holy Spirit that guides us and makes certain things stand out. Perhaps a certain word will jump off the page as you re
>I will not take biased surmisings by CHRISTIANS >as proof of God's existence.
I'm afraid you're going to have to, because no one is independent on this. You either believe, and are biased, or don't believe, and are biased. On the other hand, no one believes in God without good reason
>Kill whoever you want: as long as you confess, >you'll be saved.
I wouldn't count on it. How can your repentence be genuine if it was planned?
>But if one is brash enough to live a good life >without talking to a 2000-year dead guy, well, >you're going to hell!
Bingo. (except the part about Jesus being dead)
>If you believe in any gods, why not the great >Vishnu? Praying to a non-Hindu god is obviously a >sin!
I'm sure it would be if you were a Hindu, but there is only one god, so either me or the Hindu is wrong and I assert that the Hindu is wrong. It would make no sense for me to worship Vishnu, because I'd be saying that Vishnu is more powerful than God, which would be nonsense, and insulting to God.
>Yet you still think you are qualified to "teach" >us about your religion when you haven't even >studied your own sacred text to the fullest?
I am simply telling you some of the things which changed my mind, and some of the things I have learnt since. I'm not sure I would use the word "sacred" about the Bible, it is after all, only a vehicle for God's word, not the word itself. Far more sacred is the relationship between me and God. That is what changes people, and my life is mindblowingly better since I gave up my prideful assertion that I could somehow work everything out myself. The joy I feel now and especially when I see God working in people and events just makes everything else pale into insignificance. I may not be "qualified" exactly, and I might make mistakes and even get things wrong, but I try, and that is all God wants me to do.
1) Don't forget that in the days after Jesus was killed they were all pretty downhearted. After all, they didn't understand that he had to die, and so they believed that they had all placed their trust in a false messiah. Then something turned them all around to the extent that they were willing to submit to persecution, torture and death. Something changed them, and without a further explaination that can stand up to scrutiny I think Occams Razor would actually support the resurection as the most likely reason for the about face.
2) There will always be disagreement in interpretation, but people are flawed, and that doesn't change the fundamental truth.
3) I can't prove that it happened any more than you can prove it didn't. What is important is what it tells us about the nature of God. If He says something you darned well better pay attention, cos He doesn't make idle threats.
4)Woah there cowboy, I am not a creationist and I don't think any good reading of Genesis supports that view (we had a very interesting talk on this issue at church just last Sunday). In fact, in the Hebrew Genesis reads like a poem (I'm told) and probably came from Moses, but it is possible to view the six days of creation in terms of stages of the planets evolution. Personally I don't think science CAN disprove the existance of God. Science says what and how, but has nothing to say about why or who. As it happens I believe in the Big Bang theory as a physicist, but am open to other interpretations, and I don't think it matters much really.
I also don't think God could leave us with incontravertable evidence of his existance without taking away our choice to have faith in Him, which is what he put us here for in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC windows on Alpha could run 32 bit binaries due to a translation layer called FX!32. It's amazing how similar that seems to be to the WoW64 layer in windows x64 edition. The Alpha is dead, long live the Alpha!
Since it was pronounced "Eff Emm" Eff begins with a vowel. If you were going to say "Frequency modulation transmitter" then yes, "a" would be correct.
Personally I came to a adult informed decision after doing a physics degree. It is brilliantly self consistant and complete, and the way in which the Old Testament predicts what Jesus did hundreds or even thousands of years before he was even born is hard to ignore.
As to why turn to faith, well one reason is that life is just better that way. I don't worry about death, I don't worry too much about wealth or success, I'm happy because I know that the dude that created the universe and spent 15 billion years waiting for us loves me. I don't worry about revenge, I don't hate people, I don't hold grudges. Every time I see something good or beautiful I rejoice and praise God, I am not a prisoner of guilt because I know that every sin I commit out of weakness has been forgiven, I know that I don't have to work to gain God's love or acceptance (but I choose to out of love for my father, God) because his love is an unconditional gift. I praise God that because of Jesus' death on the cross, I have the right to call God "Abba" (roughly "Daddy"), and to expect my prayers answered (sometimes He answers no, in the same way as a responsible parent would deny their child an M16). I have the loving support of the brotherhood of Christ in his church, and that has been such a blessing to me in the year since I became a Christian. Lastly I believe I experience fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit who lives in me. I believe He guides me and makes my heart leap with joy when I see the work of His hand in nature and in people.
All-in-all, it's a good life, and that in itself is something I find to be quite astounding. It is easy to imagine a fake religion that puts all kinds of heavy burdens and obligations upon its followers, it is quite another matter to design a religion that works so well when lived properly, while remaining so self consistant.
But look at how people are reacting to the tsunami. People are being generous and realising that everything we strive for like money, posessions, stability and even life are tenuous and fragile, and it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye. Peoples reaction to this disasters has restored my faith in humanity to some extent, and I hope that it will now lead to people looking for deeper meaning in their lives. If that happens then it could even be argued that this disaster was a good thing. After all, God works in mysterious ways.
Depends how you define proof. There is a wealth of evidence which seems to point to some form of evolution being the mechanism by which humans appeared, and little or no evidence which disproves an evolutionary theory (which in itself evolves to encompass new evidence). Further more, there is other scientific theory which is even close to describing how we came to be the way we are.
Apes to humans is easy, you just have to look at how similar we are genetically, even fish to humans is quite possible because the parathyroid gland, which controls calcium levels in the blood may well have evolved from fish gills.
I think missing links are to be expected given that fossilisation is hard, and doesn't happen very often and we've only searched a very small percentage of the earth for such fossils.
I should say, I am a christian AND I believe that Genesis is true, in a poetic sense, which is really what genesis is. To understand Genesis you have to think about what the original audience was supposed to hear. Specifically how Genesis differs from the contemporary creation myths where the world was often created as a relic of battles between competing gods, such as the moon gods and sun gods etc. I really don't think the ancient Israelites would have understood if Moses had said
"In the begininng was the singularitly of the Planck era. Around the time of ~10-43 s, the perfect symmetry of the Planck era was broken, giving birth to space, time and gravity. The energy density of the universe at this time dropped below the critical Planck energy ~1019 GeV (~1032 K), resulting in a restriction or limitation of possible transformations between forms. Interactions that mix the gravitational force with the other forces require a minimum energy of ~1019 GeV. As the average energy density of the universe dropped below this critical threshold, these interactions were no longer possible, and so gravity, space and time emerged as stable structures of manifestation. Just as ice comes into being by cooling water below a critical freezing temperature, when the universe cooled below this "freezing temperature" of ~1032 degrees, the threads of reality spontaneously self-organized into a coherent fabric of space and time."
I believe Genesis tells us and the ancient jews exactly what we need to know to understand God's love for us, but to me the fact that God waited 15 billion years from the Big Bang before really getting started, and that the Universe is such an amazing place just adds to His glory, not detracts.
Just to clarify slightly, the UK's anti-terror detention law didn't exactly get busted, just declared incompatible with human rights law. The way that British law works is that it asserts that British law overrules all other law, so if parliment says "this is the law" then it is the law and it is almost impossible to get it reversed except by a further act of parliment. This is why the detainees in question are still being held pending a palimentary review of the law.
except that this is the one in which we live, so the chance that we live in a universe which has just the right conditions for us to evolve is also 1.
I did, and this is what I said:
I'm a software developer on a project containing nearly a million lines of code. The thought that at some time in the future I would have to search through a mountain of patents to check that every single line of code is non-infringing is terrifying. It would be like allowing novelists to patent plot devices, or a sentence structure that has a particular emotive effect, and so I thank you and our Polish friends for having the courage and principles to stand against the forces of lawyers and big business. They want to take the joy out of what is essentially a cooperative and artistic job, which just happens to produce a product that can make some people very rich (but usually not the people who actually have the talent).
Blatant karma whoring, but still...
...
Lallafa had lived in the forests of the Long Lands of Effa. He lived there, and he wrote his poems there. He wrote them on pages made of dried habra leaves, without the benefit of education or correcting fluid. He wrote about the light in the forest, and what he thought about that. He wrote about the darkness in the forest and what he thought about that. He wrote about the girl who had left him and precisely what he thought about that.
Then, shortly after the invention of time travel, some major correcting fluid manufacturers wondered whether his poems might have been better still if he had access to some high-quality correcting fluid, and whether he might be persuaded to say a few words to that effect.
They traveled the time waves; they found him, and did indeed persuade him. In fact they persuaded him to such effect that he became extremely rich at their hands, and the girl about whom he was otherwise destined to write with such precision never got around to leaving him, and in fact they moved out of the forest to a rather nice pad in town and he frequently commuted to the future to do talk shows, on which he sparkled wittily.
He never got around to writing the poems, of course, which was a problem but an easily solved one. The manufacturers of correcting fluid simply packed him off for a week somewhere with a copy of a later edition of his book and stacks of dried habra leaves to copy them out onto, making the odd deliberate mistake and correction on the way.
Many people now say that the poems are suddenly worthless. Others argue that they are exactly the same as they always were, so what's changed? The first people say that that isn't the point. They aren't quite certain what the point is, but they are quite sure that that isn't it. They set up the Campaign for Real Time to try to stop this sort of thing going on. Their case was considerably strengthened by the fact that a week after they had set themselves up, news broke that not only had the great Cathedral of Chalesm been pulled down in order to build a new ion refinery, but that construction of the refinery had taken so long, and had had to extend so far back into the past in order to allow ion production to start on time, that the Cathedral of Chalesm had now never been built in the first place. Picture postcards of the cathedral suddenly became immensely valuable."
Well if I assert that you clearly have no hope of comprehending what life is, does that give me the right to arbitrarily deprive you of it?
Can you honestly say you know what life is, including its meaning, purpose and goal?
Perhaps the point of life is not to contribute towards society, and that society is simply the support structure in which we choose to live. Perhaps the true point of life is for each individual to make the best of what they have been given, and that is independent of an individuals mental capacity.
Now you may say that no life has meaning in and of itself beyond what we contribute to society, but that view implies there is no human soul, or God, which makes you a member of the approx 25% of society which thinks that. By your own standards you are operating as a seemingly mentally unwell or disfunctional part of the system and should renounce your right to life for the good of humanity.
But if I'm only printing 20-30 disks a year then the price or a printer plus ink is much more than the cost of the media I'm burning. A cheap, clean and simple labelling that may add $2-3 to the price of the drive plus a small amount to each disk then it is a massively cheaper option.
umm perhaps I don't have a specially enabled ink jet printer, and I don't want to have to spend loads on overpriced ink.
Reading their FAQ it seems they expect most drives, or at least most drive manufacturers, to incorporate this HP created tech, and if the price premium is minimal then it might be usable.
it was the religion thing
The point is that the drink driver has no way of knowing when he may or may not be putting someone else at risk, and no-one else know whether or not the driver of the next vehicle is drunk or not. It not the interference per say that is the issue, but the reckless disregard for the safety of other people, and the potential for harm that your action caused. Notice the word potential, which means that you have to take into account those things that were unknown or unknowable to the actor at the time of his dangerous actions. In the case of a drunk that include the possible presence of other people, not the actual presence of other people.
The problem with what you propose is that someone would have to be killed before a habitual drink driver was taken of the streets, which has got to be a crazy way to run a country.
Also consider the example where you are on the side walk and within 200 ft...he's drunk, you feel threated, but he doesn't hit you and continues on..what harm have you suffered? You got scared? It seems to me that people pay to scare themselves (movies, amusement parks, etc)...but if you are scared against your will, should that be a crime too?
what if you suffered a heart attack, or were put so on edge that you walked in front of another car while crossing the road? I think actual damage inflicted should be counted for damages, but society cannot allow people to endanger other people without a very good reason.
I think it is right and proper for a government to outlaw actions that have a good chance of hurting innocent bystanders
Actually deliberately being scared against your will can be against the law. Threatening behavior and making threats are both illegal.
There are all kinds of things that COULD harm you, but do we start banning everything?
depends upon the relative risks and benefits. Speeding, knives, guns, smoking in a public place. All these things are up for discussion here.
I'd really like to see the # of people killed by a non-drunk driver compared with a drunk one.
Probably a bad statistic to use but 15% of all road deaths in the UK, alcohol was a factor. Now the question is, are more or less than 15% of all road miles driven, driven by drunk drivers? If 1% of all road miles are driven by drunk drivers (which is probably massively too high) then drink drivers are 15 times more likely to cause an accident than sober drivers. I suspect it's actually much less that 0.1% which makes the ratio more than 150 times more likely to die in an accident if you've been drinking than not.
According to dutch figures, if you have a blood alcohol concentration of more that 0.15% you are 200 times more likely to die in a road accident than a sober driver.
If someone dies, that is too late.
Last time I looked in the Starbucks in Bristol, UK, no there was no NY times.
Actually my brother, a barista, informs me that they're not allowed to supply newspapers now for health and safety reasons...
Yeah, thats what I thought too.
surely that depends upon whether or not your farts can be classified as WMDs. That would make your anus an illegal delivery platform, and lunch would be a WMD program. Lock him up I say.
I've just noticed who I'm arguing with (again). One of these days we're gonna have a serious disagreement. ;)
Well take drink driving for example. Driving while drunk is equivalent to playing russian roulette with someone elses head (never mind your own). I think it is probably I good idea to punish people who recklessly or willfully endanger other peoples welfare or other human rights. Where your "right" to be stupid starts to interfere with my "right" to be safe there has to be laws to safeguard the rights of the passive party to the conflict of interest.
Sure, these things are always a balancing act, and often kneejerk legislation goes way too far, but in my experience people who are moaning about their freedoms being eroded are often playing the "rights" card in order that they can selfishly indulge in ignoring other people's rights and freedoms.
well, a 1500g shock would mean stopping from 450 m/s (or 1620 km/h) in 30 milliseconds, and a 450 m/s impact would require a drop from 10.125 km (approx 6.2 miles). In reality it all depends upon how the packaging (and impact surface) deforms and absorbs the impact. Most plastic cases would deform quite a lot, so I suspect you would probably break the case of an iPod before you'd damage this hard disk.
Australia: the only nation to go from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilisation.
OK you got me. That first statement was probably a troll, and even then I should have said nihilism.
The point is that earlier you said your unconcious consience was driving you towards what was truly beneficial, but unless somehow you are psychic there can be no basis for this without an omniscient God guiding you. I guess what you actually meant was that you are driven towards an inbuilt moral code, but how can you tell right from wrong without an absolute moral code, which must come from the perfect nature of God?
I would also like to distinguish faith and God from religion as a work of fallible men. It is not logical to deny the existance of a perfect God from the failures of imperfect men.
I tell you what, this has been interesting, and I suspect this topic will be locked soon, but I've been reading many articles on wikipedia. I must admit, that while I find the argument and discussion fascinating I am firmly in the Fideism camp, which means there is no way I can prove God to a sceptic unless you first take a leap of faith.
What use is a conscience without an immortal soul? If there is no God, no heaven, no afterlife, then in many ways people are insubstantial and don't matter. Why should anyone elses feelings concern you you if feelings are just a bio-chemical imbalance or something. Why should you care that someone is dying or hungry or sick, because their life is as pointless as yours.
Isn't the natural consequence of atheism ultimately Sadism, where the only thing that has value is your own pursuit of pleasure?
As for death being unappealing, well, I'm confident that death is not the end, so I don't fear it (so long as it doesn't hurt too much), in fact many Christians end up looking forward death at the end of a long life.
I wonder, what will your last thoughts be?
So you are saying that there is no possibility of ever having a nonbiased conversation on religion?
That is exactly what I am saying. This is not an issue where sitting on the fence is a neutral position. It is an active position where you are saying you believe there is no God. In many ways the committed atheist has the hardest job, because every day you have to get up and convince yourself that life is worth living.
Such as, "my parents believed, and I respect them, so I will too." I believe there are plenty of people who do it without good reason; "good" being the key word there. They may have bad reasons too.
I think that without a good reason, you don't really believe, you only think that you do. I'd say a lot of people who call themselves Christian are really just members of a nice comfortable club where they get to talk about how good they are while having tea and cakes. They're after spiritual air conditioning and don't really grasp what it really means to follow Jesus. Jesus said you cannot be friends with the world while following Him, so putting God in a little box you get out once a week to make yourself feel better is not real Christianity, especially if you spend the rest of the week hoarding cash and ripping off the poor.
I am deeply sceptical about the so-called Christian Right in America. It seems to be that they are far too cosy with big business and corporations whose single goal is to make money at any cost, and have no qualms about treading on the little guy to get there. They are also far too judgemental, when in fact there is no room in Christianity for that. Jesus hung out with prostitutes and social outcasts and called the political and religious leaders hypocrites in some of his most inflammatory language.
Oh, really? Where does he live? Pennsylvania? That's a stupid statement, if you seriously think he's alive, you're not as smart as I thought. Believing in God is one thing. Believing someone lived for 2000 years is lunacy.
Depends upon your definition of life. If you're looking at a simply biological, physical existence in the universe, then perhaps not (but not definitely not. Revelation promises that in the last days God will create a new earth and new heaven, and create new and perfect bodies for everyone). If you consider the essence of life as being your soul then yes. Of course, if Jesus is both fully man and fully God, as Christians believe, then there is no reason why He can't do what he likes. Just because our bodies will die, it is no reason to assume His will.
And I do not, so basing your arguments on the premise that yours is the only true god is logically wrong,
No it is not bad logic, once you accept that it is not possible to make an objective choice. Whatever god you believe in, worshiping another would be a sin. Because I believe in God, I believe that anyone worshiping anything else is a sin. Likewise a Hindu would also say that I am a sinner for worshipping my God, not his. I say you are a sinner for worshipping yourself. Everyone would make the same assertion relative to his or her own belief, there is no logical way anyone can honestly worship two gods.
Okay, good, at least you don't take it ALL verbatim. The question then is, what is literal & what isn't? Jonah & Job are stories, but Jesus rose from the dead and he's still alive today? That's the truth?
I didn't say I thought some of the Bible is untrue. I think it is all true, but not pure fact. For example, I believe Job is "True", in the sense of what happened to him, although the conversation between God and the Devil at the start is either parable or revelation, who is to say which. What matters is that it fits with Gods character, and that it resonates with the Holy Spirit with us.
Now this will sound even whackier to the sceptic, but I believe that it the Holy Spirit that guides us and makes certain things stand out. Perhaps a certain word will jump off the page as you re
>I will not take biased surmisings by CHRISTIANS >as proof of God's existence.
I'm afraid you're going to have to, because no one is independent on this. You either believe, and are biased, or don't believe, and are biased. On the other hand, no one believes in God without good reason
>Kill whoever you want: as long as you confess, >you'll be saved.
I wouldn't count on it. How can your repentence be genuine if it was planned?
>But if one is brash enough to live a good life >without talking to a 2000-year dead guy, well, >you're going to hell!
Bingo. (except the part about Jesus being dead)
>If you believe in any gods, why not the great >Vishnu? Praying to a non-Hindu god is obviously a >sin!
I'm sure it would be if you were a Hindu, but there is only one god, so either me or the Hindu is wrong and I assert that the Hindu is wrong. It would make no sense for me to worship Vishnu, because I'd be saying that Vishnu is more powerful than God, which would be nonsense, and insulting to God.
>Yet you still think you are qualified to "teach" >us about your religion when you haven't even >studied your own sacred text to the fullest?
I am simply telling you some of the things which changed my mind, and some of the things I have learnt since. I'm not sure I would use the word "sacred" about the Bible, it is after all, only a vehicle for God's word, not the word itself. Far more sacred is the relationship between me and God. That is what changes people, and my life is mindblowingly better since I gave up my prideful assertion that I could somehow work everything out myself. The joy I feel now and especially when I see God working in people and events just makes everything else pale into insignificance.
I may not be "qualified" exactly, and I might make mistakes and even get things wrong, but I try, and that is all God wants me to do.
1) Don't forget that in the days after Jesus was killed they were all pretty downhearted. After all, they didn't understand that he had to die, and so they believed that they had all placed their trust in a false messiah. Then something turned them all around to the extent that they were willing to submit to persecution, torture and death. Something changed them, and without a further explaination that can stand up to scrutiny I think Occams Razor would actually support the resurection as the most likely reason for the about face.
2) There will always be disagreement in interpretation, but people are flawed, and that doesn't change the fundamental truth.
3) I can't prove that it happened any more than you can prove it didn't. What is important is what it tells us about the nature of God. If He says something you darned well better pay attention, cos He doesn't make idle threats.
4)Woah there cowboy, I am not a creationist and I don't think any good reading of Genesis supports that view (we had a very interesting talk on this issue at church just last Sunday). In fact, in the Hebrew Genesis reads like a poem (I'm told) and probably came from Moses, but it is possible to view the six days of creation in terms of stages of the planets evolution. Personally I don't think science CAN disprove the existance of God. Science says what and how, but has nothing to say about why or who. As it happens I believe in the Big Bang theory as a physicist, but am open to other interpretations, and I don't think it matters much really.
I also don't think God could leave us with incontravertable evidence of his existance without taking away our choice to have faith in Him, which is what he put us here for in the first place.