I shouldn't respond to my own post but I wanted to clarify something. I mentioned that I specified a specific scenario which I did but I did it in another message to the same topic so if you go looking for what I described you won't see it in this thread. I apologize for any confusion. The gist of the scenario I described in another post to this article though was this: you had played powerball lottery all your life and never won but one day you decided to play all 1s and you actually said to people you knew that you would win this time and you end up winning. The odds of that happening exactly as described that particular time are better than a human evolving from nothing.
It is beyond me to speculate about why a creator would make the world appear to be one thing and then require his adherents to insist it was another. That sounds to me like a cruel game and even less likely than intelligence as random happenstance.
Humans are imperfect, fallible, biased beings. We observe our environment and create theories to describe our environment. We assume that our observations for our origins do not deceive us, for we are perfect in our minds. We also assume our interpretation of our observations are correct. But some of these observations differ in some respects from what is considered by many to be a record of how our environment got here. Does that mean the record of how our environment got here is wrong or just maybe that our observations (and/or our interpretations) are incorrect? Your statement of the creator making a world appear to be one thing when it is really another implies that you are blaming the creator for the inconsistency. But we humans are the imperfect ones. Why aren't we blaming ourselves for the inconsistency? Are we that arrogant? I'd have to say that many of us are that arrogant and many don't care as long as it means they don't have to subscribe to any religious viewpoint. If we were really perfect we wouldn't have to observe to find out anything. We would just know.
It's interesting how a comment calling an organization a hate machine w/o any evidence is rated insightful. Who do they hate and why and what proof is there that they do so?
Rather than arguing about the cause of climate change, we need to focus on solutions to the problems it is creating, and monitoring of the climate.
I'll offer a different opinion. I think we do need to focus on the cause of the climate change. The climate changes all the times. We all know it does so locally and it does globally as well. Smaller changes feed into the bigger system. That has happened since before there were humans. If we are not able to cause additional changes then there is nothing we need to do since the climate will continue to run on automatic for eternity. Of course (and unfortunately), there are people who think we have somehow made a dent in the global climate and, in addition, any small local change must be an indication of their theory that encompasses the entire globe. Again, small changes are always occurring, both good and bad. They aren't indicative of anything. If we spend billions on the assumption we can fix something we didn't even cause then we are just idiots. We have to come to terms with the fact we aren't causing climate changes and spend money elsewhere. We still need to change our reliance on oil and it doesn't hurt to help the environment but to do so under (or even spend more money because of) the assumption the changing climate is our fault is misguided.
One example that we are not changing the global climate:
Joughin, I., and Tulaczyk, S., 2002 Positive mass balance of the Ross Ice Streams, West Antarctica," Science 295: 476-80
"Side-looking radar measurements show West Antarctic ice is increasing at 26.8 gigatons/yr. Reversing the melting trend of the last 6,000 years."
I have a few others but the point is that Antarctica is getting colder.
The anthropic principle is a worthless cop-out full of circular logic that doesn't explain anything. The universe is the way it is because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here. That doesn't explain anything. It's strange that people who are pro-evolution always state that there was time for life to evolve but they never prove how. You'll never find them showing all possible configurations using integrals and they are the ones who have to provide the evidence considering it's their own theory and conjecture they have to support.
If that's what you think then that is your problem. I'm not a fundamentalist. My sig isn't any different than someone using a sig that mentions something to do with evolution.
So you like the rest of the article but the thing that disagrees with your view is the part that makes you question whether the guy is reliable? Why would you pick the only thing that you just happen to disagree with? The guy's article is in what I presume to be a prestigious or semi-prestigious journal. I bet you also think that anyone who doesn't think global warming is real is a quack? Remember, sensational (not boring) news spreads and makes money (or gets money through funding). Going against the grain takes true belief in what you are arguing for. Remember Y2K and killer bees? Those turned out to be duds. Don't believe in the hype on any topic and don't question a single sentence someone else says just because they happen to disagree with your view. It makes you turn into an arrogant ass because you imply that whatever side you take in an argument must be the correct side. As for references, this link talks about the actual probablity and this link (PDF) says those odds are too high for time to provide any help.
If you have an (almost) infinite quantity of space and matter, then the chances of things like that happening due to chance are sort of inevitable. Then again, maybe the entire UNIVERSE is alive!
You would be right except for the small problem of the chances of it happening are so small that even given eternity the probability of things like that happening is essentially 0 (1 in 10^200). If you want references I have them. There are just too many things that need to happen in just the right order at just the right time that the chances are too small to begin with for those occurrences to happen by chance. You have a better chance of having always played the Powerball lottery your whole life and one day buying a single ticket, playing all 1s and actually stating that this time you will win the jackpot, and then actually winning.
Put another way and assuming chance was nice to us once already, if it is so inevitable, then why, even in our local Solar System, did it only happen once? Why have we not found another Earth somewhere else in the observable universe? If chances are low but there are so many locations throughout the universe (to offset the low chances of a *particular* location having life exist by chance) where those chances can come alive, why did they only come alive in 1 location (assuming your chance theory again is the cause)?
If we ever have a computer powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, would, would the simulation qualify as human?
In reality, yes, of course. Legally and socially are other matters entirely.
Uh yeah, just as much as my PC running Microsoft Flight Simulator X qualifies my computer as a Boeing 747.
they didn't outsource to the southeastern US. My brother used to work at a call center in WV taking cable TV calls for people who lived in the south (e.g. Georgia, Alabama) and they would complain as expected when their cable was cut off. Of course what was surprising was when they admitted to not paying their bill and still had to question why the cable was cut off. What is funny is that when their account was back in good status they would call back in to have their service "cut back on". I never understood the rationale for their terminology.
You're crazy if you think the education system teaches programmers how to write good code. They can't even teach math and english well. Good programmers are mentored by other programmers.
You must be crazy if that's what you got out of my message. I didn't say the education system currently teaches programmers how to write good code. I said nothing stops them from doing so, whether they know how to is a different issue.
Humans have evolved to find Newtonian mechanics intuitive! (especially in translational cases, somewhat less in rotational ones) If someone throws a ball, you can quickly figure out approximately where it is going to land. You have no need to do calculations, because its evolutionarily hardwired into your brain. Watching a movie which doesn't accurately display a free-falling bus is not going to erase that.
Uh yeah, all higher order species just happened to have evolved just the right way to know how to time their movements to perform an action (catching a ball for a human, catching a frisbee for a dog, rotating to land on their paws for a cat). I guess you must have evolved past the rest of us in order to go out on that long limb w/o falling, huh? That "hardwired" capability sure does seem to be awfully convenient. Do you have any details on that or does it just magically work in the brain?
Although lack of physics realism in movies is a problem I find that the lack of believable technology is a bigger problem as was the case with Die Hard 4. I know I'm better at knowing what is possible with technology than I am with physics so movies that make the technology seem too convenient (and critical) to the plot are worse to me than those that exaggerate physics. Exaggerating physics to me is almost fun. You can break out of the norm. Who likes playing a game where the gravity is half that of Earth? Maybe if I was a physicists (and smart enough to understand it) I'd feel stronger about movies exaggerating physics rather than technology. I've seen Die Hard 4, Bourne Ultimatum, Transformers, and Ocean's 13. Out of those 4 I'd have to rank Bourne and Transformers as the best movies. No technology was used to the extreme (except for maybe the tracking capabilities of the NSA in the Bourne movie but I didn't mind it because of the great action) in those movies. Ocean's 13 and Die Hard 4 just relied too much on breaking technological bounds and it wasn't even done from a theoretical standpoint (unlike the time travel done in Deja Vu using wormholes). Just my 2 cents.
It isn't Intel's job to train programmers to do things right. That is the responsiblity of the education system. Nothing stops the education system from still teaching proper programming and design skills.
What made the IA-64 such a disaster was that it was slow running X86 code.
IA-64 did x86 in hardware only because the instruction set did not support x86. So not only was it not supported at all in software but the support that was there was slow. That was its downfall. By retaining x86 compatibility with its 64 bit CPUs, AMD was able to jump into the 64-bit world with a better reception.
"Admitting" seems a bit strong. There is no evidence yet of them denying the matter. It just takes time for reports to come in and see that there is a pattern forming and *realize* all those issues may not be coincidence. "Admitting" to there being an issue implies they were trying to cover up something. At least that's the way I view it. I don't see any wrongdoing, yet.
Global warming happens because people are taking huge masses of carbon that's stored for millions years under the ground and release it to the atmosphere.
Global warming caused by humans is only a theory. If our atmosphere is so horrible right now I have to wonder how the earth even cooled down in very the beginning to the temperature it is at now. We can't come close to creating the type of atmosphere that existed when the earth was created. We must be pretty arrogant to think we can make a dent in the atmosphere now. Oh and by the way, you may want to look up global cooling. We've had that in the past as well as other episodes of global warming which basically means any global warming that is occuring is natural so there is no reason to run around with our heads cut off and making death threats against and questioning the credentials of those who don't agree.
Yeah I can see them forwarding this very useful detailed billing info on to the NSA.
Security Analyst: Sir, we just received a report from AT&T that a customer just downloaded a data file on July 27 at 3:21 p.m which was downloaded from someone named Data Transfer. It was also transfered to someone named Data Transfer. What's worse is that it was done for free.
Security Analyst Boss: Call DHS. We have a terrorist on our hands. Until they get here though we must attack first due to the specificity given in this report indicating Data Transfer is involved. He is a well known terrorist who is armed/dangerous and has a firearm registered in his name with a history of domestic violence.
its $0.005 per kb - half a cent per kilobit,or 4 cents per kilobyte (more like 5 cents if you include data tranfer overhead, etc). In other words, $50 per megabyte.
Oh no, not again with data rates. Do we need to call Verizon to make sure the math is right?
However, the depreciating dollars do not exclusively affect China. It affects everyone with dollar denominated assets, especially Americans. Just look at the increasing prices of basic necessities like food and gas in recent years.
Although you could argue the empirical behind gas going up in price is due to the dollar depreciating I take a difference stance on the matter. First, food goes up in price more multiple reasons but a big one is due to the cost of transportation, i.e. gas. When gasoline goes up other companies have to raise prices to compensate. As far as gasoline going up in price, this is due to multiple reasons. I believe the biggest reason is the asshole investors/speculators/analysts who jack up the oil prices because the National Hurricane Center simply produces a report on their guess for the current year's hurricane predictions. Then oil prices go up again because an actual hurricane develops 3000 miles away. Then prices go up again when the hurricane gets close to the States. Prices go up because of conflict in Nigeria or the mere *possibility* that shipping lanes in the Middle East could be blocked. Prices go up again when an oil refinery has a fire or needs maintenance work done so it has to shutdown. This year couldn't have been the only year refineries need maintenance; why prices went up this time because of it is purely for greed. The investors jack up the prices and then sell when they think they took advantage of the system to the greatest extent possible.
Companies like Exxon, Sunoco, BP, and others are partly at fault but for the longest time, and especially the last couple years, it's investors who dictate the price of oil/gasoline contracts who are making gas prices go up and the bad thing is they don't go down to where they used to be. As you can see by this chartgas prices will have minor fluctuations where July's price, for example, may be lower than June's but July of given year will almost always be higher than the Julys of previous years. Analysts always look for reasons to make prices go up. Of course, now we have issues of global demand with it every increasing as China needs more oil and gasoline taxes imposed by the state/federal government are never going away (and may go up due to the supposed need of saving money for revamping the nation's infrastructure). It's always something.
Come on, seriously! I realize it's cliche on/. to bash big money but it's not like they're employing slave labour to produce these films or robbing money right out of people's wallets at gun point. You're talking as if they're exploiting a group of people and forcing them to do something against their will. They're bloody movies! If you don't like them don't go see them. It's really as simple as that.
It's ironic. I bet these same people who feel compelled to see a movie are the same ones who call people of religion "sheeple". Ain't hypocrisy grand?
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I shouldn't respond to my own post but I wanted to clarify something. I mentioned that I specified a specific scenario which I did but I did it in another message to the same topic so if you go looking for what I described you won't see it in this thread. I apologize for any confusion. The gist of the scenario I described in another post to this article though was this: you had played powerball lottery all your life and never won but one day you decided to play all 1s and you actually said to people you knew that you would win this time and you end up winning. The odds of that happening exactly as described that particular time are better than a human evolving from nothing.
Humans are imperfect, fallible, biased beings. We observe our environment and create theories to describe our environment. We assume that our observations for our origins do not deceive us, for we are perfect in our minds. We also assume our interpretation of our observations are correct. But some of these observations differ in some respects from what is considered by many to be a record of how our environment got here. Does that mean the record of how our environment got here is wrong or just maybe that our observations (and/or our interpretations) are incorrect? Your statement of the creator making a world appear to be one thing when it is really another implies that you are blaming the creator for the inconsistency. But we humans are the imperfect ones. Why aren't we blaming ourselves for the inconsistency? Are we that arrogant? I'd have to say that many of us are that arrogant and many don't care as long as it means they don't have to subscribe to any religious viewpoint. If we were really perfect we wouldn't have to observe to find out anything. We would just know.
The email subject line said "Anna Kournikova noode pikchurs". Nuff said.
It's interesting how a comment calling an organization a hate machine w/o any evidence is rated insightful. Who do they hate and why and what proof is there that they do so?
I'll offer a different opinion. I think we do need to focus on the cause of the climate change. The climate changes all the times. We all know it does so locally and it does globally as well. Smaller changes feed into the bigger system. That has happened since before there were humans. If we are not able to cause additional changes then there is nothing we need to do since the climate will continue to run on automatic for eternity. Of course (and unfortunately), there are people who think we have somehow made a dent in the global climate and, in addition, any small local change must be an indication of their theory that encompasses the entire globe. Again, small changes are always occurring, both good and bad. They aren't indicative of anything. If we spend billions on the assumption we can fix something we didn't even cause then we are just idiots. We have to come to terms with the fact we aren't causing climate changes and spend money elsewhere. We still need to change our reliance on oil and it doesn't hurt to help the environment but to do so under (or even spend more money because of) the assumption the changing climate is our fault is misguided.
One example that we are not changing the global climate:
Joughin, I., and Tulaczyk, S., 2002 Positive mass balance of the Ross Ice Streams, West Antarctica," Science 295: 476-80 "Side-looking radar measurements show West Antarctic ice is increasing at 26.8 gigatons/yr. Reversing the melting trend of the last 6,000 years."I have a few others but the point is that Antarctica is getting colder.
The anthropic principle is a worthless cop-out full of circular logic that doesn't explain anything. The universe is the way it is because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here. That doesn't explain anything. It's strange that people who are pro-evolution always state that there was time for life to evolve but they never prove how. You'll never find them showing all possible configurations using integrals and they are the ones who have to provide the evidence considering it's their own theory and conjecture they have to support.
If that's what you think then that is your problem. I'm not a fundamentalist. My sig isn't any different than someone using a sig that mentions something to do with evolution.
So you like the rest of the article but the thing that disagrees with your view is the part that makes you question whether the guy is reliable? Why would you pick the only thing that you just happen to disagree with? The guy's article is in what I presume to be a prestigious or semi-prestigious journal. I bet you also think that anyone who doesn't think global warming is real is a quack? Remember, sensational (not boring) news spreads and makes money (or gets money through funding). Going against the grain takes true belief in what you are arguing for. Remember Y2K and killer bees? Those turned out to be duds. Don't believe in the hype on any topic and don't question a single sentence someone else says just because they happen to disagree with your view. It makes you turn into an arrogant ass because you imply that whatever side you take in an argument must be the correct side. As for references, this link talks about the actual probablity and this link (PDF) says those odds are too high for time to provide any help.
You would be right except for the small problem of the chances of it happening are so small that even given eternity the probability of things like that happening is essentially 0 (1 in 10^200). If you want references I have them. There are just too many things that need to happen in just the right order at just the right time that the chances are too small to begin with for those occurrences to happen by chance. You have a better chance of having always played the Powerball lottery your whole life and one day buying a single ticket, playing all 1s and actually stating that this time you will win the jackpot, and then actually winning.
Put another way and assuming chance was nice to us once already, if it is so inevitable, then why, even in our local Solar System, did it only happen once? Why have we not found another Earth somewhere else in the observable universe? If chances are low but there are so many locations throughout the universe (to offset the low chances of a *particular* location having life exist by chance) where those chances can come alive, why did they only come alive in 1 location (assuming your chance theory again is the cause)?
Uh yeah, just as much as my PC running Microsoft Flight Simulator X qualifies my computer as a Boeing 747.
they didn't outsource to the southeastern US. My brother used to work at a call center in WV taking cable TV calls for people who lived in the south (e.g. Georgia, Alabama) and they would complain as expected when their cable was cut off. Of course what was surprising was when they admitted to not paying their bill and still had to question why the cable was cut off. What is funny is that when their account was back in good status they would call back in to have their service "cut back on". I never understood the rationale for their terminology.
And would that be for her enjoyment or your own?
You must be crazy if that's what you got out of my message. I didn't say the education system currently teaches programmers how to write good code. I said nothing stops them from doing so, whether they know how to is a different issue.
Soap on a rope is very popular with those who like strange sex toys (e.g beads).
Uh yeah, all higher order species just happened to have evolved just the right way to know how to time their movements to perform an action (catching a ball for a human, catching a frisbee for a dog, rotating to land on their paws for a cat). I guess you must have evolved past the rest of us in order to go out on that long limb w/o falling, huh? That "hardwired" capability sure does seem to be awfully convenient. Do you have any details on that or does it just magically work in the brain?
Although lack of physics realism in movies is a problem I find that the lack of believable technology is a bigger problem as was the case with Die Hard 4. I know I'm better at knowing what is possible with technology than I am with physics so movies that make the technology seem too convenient (and critical) to the plot are worse to me than those that exaggerate physics. Exaggerating physics to me is almost fun. You can break out of the norm. Who likes playing a game where the gravity is half that of Earth? Maybe if I was a physicists (and smart enough to understand it) I'd feel stronger about movies exaggerating physics rather than technology. I've seen Die Hard 4, Bourne Ultimatum, Transformers, and Ocean's 13. Out of those 4 I'd have to rank Bourne and Transformers as the best movies. No technology was used to the extreme (except for maybe the tracking capabilities of the NSA in the Bourne movie but I didn't mind it because of the great action) in those movies. Ocean's 13 and Die Hard 4 just relied too much on breaking technological bounds and it wasn't even done from a theoretical standpoint (unlike the time travel done in Deja Vu using wormholes). Just my 2 cents.
It isn't Intel's job to train programmers to do things right. That is the responsiblity of the education system. Nothing stops the education system from still teaching proper programming and design skills.
IA-64 did x86 in hardware only because the instruction set did not support x86. So not only was it not supported at all in software but the support that was there was slow. That was its downfall. By retaining x86 compatibility with its 64 bit CPUs, AMD was able to jump into the 64-bit world with a better reception.
"Admitting" seems a bit strong. There is no evidence yet of them denying the matter. It just takes time for reports to come in and see that there is a pattern forming and *realize* all those issues may not be coincidence. "Admitting" to there being an issue implies they were trying to cover up something. At least that's the way I view it. I don't see any wrongdoing, yet.
Global warming caused by humans is only a theory. If our atmosphere is so horrible right now I have to wonder how the earth even cooled down in very the beginning to the temperature it is at now. We can't come close to creating the type of atmosphere that existed when the earth was created. We must be pretty arrogant to think we can make a dent in the atmosphere now. Oh and by the way, you may want to look up global cooling. We've had that in the past as well as other episodes of global warming which basically means any global warming that is occuring is natural so there is no reason to run around with our heads cut off and making death threats against and questioning the credentials of those who don't agree.
Surprisingly, no but then again I like it kinky.
Yeah I can see them forwarding this very useful detailed billing info on to the NSA.
Security Analyst: Sir, we just received a report from AT&T that a customer just downloaded a data file on July 27 at 3:21 p.m which was downloaded from someone named Data Transfer. It was also transfered to someone named Data Transfer. What's worse is that it was done for free.
Security Analyst Boss: Call DHS. We have a terrorist on our hands. Until they get here though we must attack first due to the specificity given in this report indicating Data Transfer is involved. He is a well known terrorist who is armed/dangerous and has a firearm registered in his name with a history of domestic violence.
Oh no, not again with data rates. Do we need to call Verizon to make sure the math is right?
Although you could argue the empirical behind gas going up in price is due to the dollar depreciating I take a difference stance on the matter. First, food goes up in price more multiple reasons but a big one is due to the cost of transportation, i.e. gas. When gasoline goes up other companies have to raise prices to compensate. As far as gasoline going up in price, this is due to multiple reasons. I believe the biggest reason is the asshole investors/speculators/analysts who jack up the oil prices because the National Hurricane Center simply produces a report on their guess for the current year's hurricane predictions. Then oil prices go up again because an actual hurricane develops 3000 miles away. Then prices go up again when the hurricane gets close to the States. Prices go up because of conflict in Nigeria or the mere *possibility* that shipping lanes in the Middle East could be blocked. Prices go up again when an oil refinery has a fire or needs maintenance work done so it has to shutdown. This year couldn't have been the only year refineries need maintenance; why prices went up this time because of it is purely for greed. The investors jack up the prices and then sell when they think they took advantage of the system to the greatest extent possible.
Companies like Exxon, Sunoco, BP, and others are partly at fault but for the longest time, and especially the last couple years, it's investors who dictate the price of oil/gasoline contracts who are making gas prices go up and the bad thing is they don't go down to where they used to be. As you can see by this chartgas prices will have minor fluctuations where July's price, for example, may be lower than June's but July of given year will almost always be higher than the Julys of previous years. Analysts always look for reasons to make prices go up. Of course, now we have issues of global demand with it every increasing as China needs more oil and gasoline taxes imposed by the state/federal government are never going away (and may go up due to the supposed need of saving money for revamping the nation's infrastructure). It's always something.
It's ironic. I bet these same people who feel compelled to see a movie are the same ones who call people of religion "sheeple". Ain't hypocrisy grand?