Yeah, I have actually written to Dell about this instead of just accepting it, and though I received an initial response back, I did not receive back a response when I requested they use a vendor-neutral technology like Javascript instead.
I'm guessing that you carefully explained to them why it wasn't working for you, and what they could do about it. That was kind and well-intentioned; you did most of the initial work for them. I'm sure that whoever read your emails realized that you were another of those linuks kooks that have been pestering them, and trashed your email.
If you had written a snail-mail letter to the president of the company, saying something like:
I went to your website to order, and I clicked and clicked and nothing happened. My friend told me it's because I wasn't using some Microsoft browser. I wanted to buy one of your machines, but I got something else instead. Dude, I'm not getting a Dell.
You would have been recognized as part of their target demographic (unsophisticated, has money), and they would have seen a need for action. There would have been a memo from on high saying: ``Find out what happened, and make sure it never happens again.''
We will still need journals for peer review, sadly.
BZZZZZZZZZZT! WRONG! We still need peer review, but what does that have to do with the journals?
The editors are professors who are supported by their universities. Their editorship fulfills the ``service to the profession'' portion of their job requirements, and brings some prestige to their department. It's generally considered to be easier to get published in a journal if the editor's office is just down the hall from yours, and he's heard your presentation of your ideas at one of the faculty brown-bag lunches. In short, the Universities support the editors, not the journals.
The reviewers are past and potential contributors. They work free of charge, and again, that's part of their university job description.
Yes, I know that the journals do have some paid employees. They seem to be associated with the print side of the business: they deal with subscriptions and money and such. If you are a contributor, you deal with volunteers who have.edu email addresses.
If Blackwell Publishers dumped Econometrica, the Econometric Society, which is funded largely by personal membership, could simply put its journal online, by subscription or free. Everything would continue as before: Eddie Deckel could still edit, the reviewers could still review, and the papers could still be made available with the imprimatur of the Society. They might lose out on some revenue from the journal, but I doubt that would be an insurmountable problem. I imagine that most of us could afford to double our dues, if we had to.
You're an academic, and you know all this stuff, but I'm saying it for the slashdotters, most of whom figure that they'll get involved in some science, like java programming, when they finally get to college.
How do you feel about Joan of Arc? At her trial, it was reported (by her) that her Angels addressed her as "Daughter of God"....
Jesus also referred to Himself as the ``son of Man''. Be careful about taking these things out of context. I don't recall that Joan claimed to be God. As I recall, she only claimed to be doing His work.
As for ``how I feel about her'', remember she was a pre-reformation Catholic. That means that she probably wasn't quite a Christian in the sense we use that label today. Though most of what the church taught was sound, most of what the laiety learned was not. Church doctrine had a great deal in it to appeal to superstitous pagans, and by picking and choosing what they believed, many (obviously not all) people who were not considered heretics had some very non-biblical beliefs. That included a lot of the church hierarchy, which is why Martin Luther's little essay caused such a big stir. So, I have no idea exactly what she believed, or what might have been going through the minds of the men who burned her. I would suggest that she was politically inconvenient to a politicised church, and a heretic because she paraphrased what she chose to remember of what her priest had told her. The point here is that there have been some long periods of history when the Catholic church wasn't particularly closely connected to the Body of Christ (the people who, in God's opinion, are following Him). So, Joan of Arc, and the Church that burned her, are not necessarily relevant to a discussion of Christianity.
No doubt most theologians would argue that the "royal sacrifice" represented by the crucifiction could not be valid if Christ were less than divine.
``Royal sacrifice''? I'd never heard that phrase before. I've always heard it referred to as a ``perfect sacrifice'', which is what God always expected, throughout the old testament. As for divinity, it wasn't Christ's divinity that made it a perfect sacrifice, it was His perfection. As I said, throughout the old testament God required that a sacrifice for sin be perfect, and unblemished. You couldn't sacrifice a sickly runt to appease God, you had to sacrifice a valuable critter. So, Jesus lived a sinless life, and was unblemished by sin. That, not His divine nature, is what made Him a perfect sacrifice, suitable to pay for all our sins. If He had been sinful like you or me, then His sacrifice would be of no more account than yours or mine. I certainly don't think that my death will save the world, no matter how painful or messy it might be.
As for your ``... note that "most crusades" were NOT against the Muslims'', I'm not sure about ``most''. There were five official crusades, I think, plus the children's crusade, against the Muslims? I know that there were several offical crusades against heretics, but I thougt it was fewer than five. The only one that I can think of was against the Albignesians (spelling?) in France. I have never bothered to make a study of the history of Christian heresy, but as I recall they were gnostics, and believed that salvation came through learning the ``mysteries'', rather than through faith. That's not different deities, quite, but it's getting closer. Of course, in doing this, the Catholics ignored Jesus' commandment to love and forgive their (and His) enemies, and that's just as heretical (in my eyes) as were the heretics who ignored His teaching about salvation.
What you really mean is that if they are both RIGHT, then Allah is not God!
No, I meant what I said.
One More Time:
Christ said that He was the Son of the God of the Jews, and God incarnate. Mohammed said he wasn't. They can't both be right.
If Mohammed were right about Christ's divinity, then Christ's father, whom the Christians worship, isn't Allah, the God of the Jews and Muslims. We wouldn't know who God is, but if Mohammed were right, we'd know who he isn't.
If Mohammed is wrong about Christ's divinity, then this Allah whom the Muslims worship, and who Muhammed claimed inspired (i.e., dictated) the Quran is clearly not the God of the Jews and Christians. Again, we don't know who Allah is, but we know who he isn't.
Either way, whoever's right, the two deities are different.
Q.E.D.
As for the difference between Lutherans and Baptists, yes it's trivial, and they'd be the first to tell you that. Both believe that Christ is the holy, living, died-and-resurrected Son of God, that He lived a perfect life, and died to pay for our sins, that His ressurection is a sign of our (Lutheran's and Baptist's and all other's who trust in Him) salvation. Quibbles over the Eucharist are trivial to those who believe that. They agree, for sound reasons, that they worship the same God.
Muslims describe Allah very plainly as not being the Father of Jesus, while Jesus said quite plainly that the God of the Jews is His Father, and He is God. Different deities.
As for where the Quran says that Jesus isn't Allah's son, there's a sura(? or book, or chapter, or something) which deals specifically with that Jesus guy, and brushes him off as a prophet. In that sura, it explicitly says that Allah has no son. I'd say that's equivalent to saying that Jesus isn't the son of Allah. Want a reference? Dig out your Quran and find it: mine's put away. If you're too lazy to do that, consider that if Christ were merely a prophet, he already wasn't the Son of God and God incarnate, as He claimed to be. Saying that Christ was merely a prophet is equivalent to saying that He wasn't the Son of God.
Either Jesus is wrong, or Muhammed is wrong, therefore God is not Allah?
Perhaps I should have put that more clearly: ... therefore His (Jesus's) Father is not Allah. Jesus said that His father was the God of the Jews.
Note that "merely" doesn't usually describe the prophets.
Remember, Christ told us that He was the Son of God, and in a very real sense, was God. Mohammed said that was blasphemy. Compared to being the Son of God, and God incarnate, ``merely'' is a generous adjective for a prophet.
If Mohammed was right, then Christianity is absolutely wrong. So, going only by this one, fundamental-to-Christianity point, it is either the case that Muslims and Jews believe in the same God (as Mohammed said), or that Christians and Jews believe in the same God (as Christ said), and impossible that all three believe in the same God. Christ told us that the only way to the Father (God) is through Him. If Christ was a liar, that was a stupid, evil, arrogant thing to say. If Christ was telling the truth, then... it's not arrogant at all.
And, no, Peoples of the Book cannot be unbelievers.
I wonder if I have confused ``unbeliever'' with ``blasphemer''? Or were your not-too-strict Muslim friends telling you a mix of what they wanted to be true about Islam and what they hoped would make you comfortable with them? I have my notes on the Quran packed away (I hope I still have them!), but I'm quite sure I remember explicit instructions on when to kill Muslims, Christians and Jews. I think I remember that they were referred to as ``unbelievers'' (still people of the book), but perhaps there was another label. The important point is that the Quran directs Muslims to kill ``people of the book'' (definitely including some Muslims!) when they've gotten Mohammed sufficiently irritated. That I'm sure I remember correctly.
A number of Omanis told me that Christians and Jews (there were expatriate Jews in Oman, but no Israelis) were "people of the book", and should not be harmed.
My Turkish friends told me something similar, but admitted there were some ``ifs'' and ``buts'' attached. The Turks used janissaries, but I don't think that was due to any proscriptions on killing people of the book. Certainly, I never heard that Saladin, or his soldiers weren't Muslim.
The Muslim world was traditionally more tolerant of Jews that Inquisition-era Europe.
I would say that Muslims in the modern-day Middle East have taken a lesson from Inquisition-era Europe on tolerance of Jews and other ``people of the book''. Certainly, events of the past 50 years have shown that today, Muslims are willing to slander and murder Jews and Christians, in the Middle East, Africa, and where ever they get a chance. Just as we shouldn't judge the modern West by the Spanish Inquisition, we shouldn't judge the modern Muslim world by the Bagdad Caliphate.
Bringing this back on-topic, could I suggest that your research resembles Ken Brown's?
Sure you could! I'll suggest right back that you're wrong. It sounds to me as if we have similar levels of expertise. I spent hours when I should have been working on my dissertation talking religon with my Muslim office-mates. They dealt with the awkward parts of the Quran (like ``kill the unbelievers'') the way nominal Christians deal with the awkward parts of the bible (like ``love your neighbor''): they ignored them.
You might be right about the descent versus sacrifice bit. It's been a few years since I read the Quran, and that was never an important point to me, or the Muslims I was discussing it with.
Muslims do, in general, believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet. They do not believe he was the Messiah. Since the Jews also disbelieve that Jesus (note that I do not use Christ, which is a title for the Messiah) of Nazareth was the Messiah, I do not see this as a reason for holding that Islam believes in a different God.
The Jews seem to be willing to accept the idea that the Messiah, whoever he may eventually be, could be the Son of God. There are many who have accepted that Jesus was the Messiah (starting with the apostles) and remained Jews. Therefore, I wouldn't say that the Jews worship another God than the Christians, especially since Jesus claimed to the the Son of their God.
The Muslims, on the other hand, have explicitly rejected the notion that Allah ever had a son. The Quran addresses this point specifically: Jesus was a prophet, never the son of Allah, and saying otherwise is blasphemy. Jesus might have been wrong in his claim to be the Son of God, or Mohammed might have been wrong in saying that he was merely a prophet, but both cannot be right. Therefore, Allah cannot be the God described in the bible and torah.
Definitely, we (Christians) and they (Muslims) worship different Gods: we worship the God of the Jews (or the Father of Christ, if Christ was wrong about them being the same), while the Muslims worship Allah.
Note that Islam considers all three (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) "Peoples of the Book".
Even people of the book can be unbelievers. If we hear and don't believe, we're unbelievers, and Muslims are instructed, many times over, to kill unbelievers.
The ones which are also available on the website are: Why Nerds are Unpopular, Hackers and PAinters, What You Can't Say, The Other Road Ahead, The Hundred YEar Language, BEating the Averages, Revenge of the Nerds and Design and Research.
The ones which seem to be missing from the website (i.e, the ones for which youwould have to buy the book!) include Good Bad Attitude, How to Make Wealth, Mind the Gap, A Plan for Spam, Taste for Makers, Programming LAnguages Explained, The Dream Language.
There are also some on the website which are not in the book.
I had the table of contents from the book and the list of essays from the website reproduced here, but the lameness filter (designed to ensure lameness, I guess) kept saying that the characters per line was 36.
I was merely referencing their common roots, both (all three) claim Abraham (Ibrahim) as their (great * x )-patriarch, and one of his sons
Yes, they do have that in common, but that seems an awfully petty similarity in light of the fact that they quite literally worship different deities.
Maybe the best way to contrast the two (i.e., Judeo/Christian versus Islam) is found in Matthew 22:36-40. Compare that summary of everything in the Old Testament to what Mohammed said in the Quran.
... based on Judeo-Christian (and by extension Muslim) story of creation in Genesis.
Don't confuse the Jews and Christians with the Muslims. It's fashionable nowadays to claim that all three groups worship the same God under different names, but that's simply untrue of the Muslims, by their own Quran.
Yes, I know that Mohammed quoted the bible: he did so mostly in order to refute it. He claimed that the Jews had gotten their history wrong in the Pentateuch (he said that the Jews were descendents of Ishmael, rather than Isaac), and that Christ was not the Son of Allah. That last one shows us that whatever Allah might be, he's not the God described in the Christian bible. Please notice that I'm not telling you who's right; I'm telling you that it's one or the other (or neither, but definitely not both).
The Jews and Christians are the ``unbelievers'' that Mohammed repeatedly exhorts Muslim faithful to kill.
In addition to the other machines listed by other responses, Tandy made the Tandy 2000 with the 80186 CPU. It was a real screamer compared to the IBM PC. The only thing which I saw equal it for speed at that time was an overclocked Kaypro 2 (Zilog Z80 at 8MHz).
The '186 was a 16bit CPU which ran at 6MHz (versus 4.77MHz for the 8/16bit hybrid 8088 in the IBM PC), and, among other improvements, had a number of VLSI support chips integrated, which kept the system cost down.
RedHat 9- was running a 17" CRT, changed to an LCD, X wouldn't start.
That sounds odd to me. I'm guessing that the old XF86Config-4 file had a default mode line that the new monitor couldn't handle? What did you have to change? Were you able to boot into single-user mode? If you put the old monitor back on with the old config file, did X start?
I recently put on an extra video card and extra monitor, and was terribly disappointed that X didn't automagically set up a dual-headed desktop when I booted. It took me several minutes of reading the manpage to get the config file right. I think that was the first time in a long time I've had to intervene to get hardware working right.
... the population in Sweden,... actually want this social security network that the taxes pay for. When I go to the dentist, I know I will be able to afford it, I will not need to sell my car or remortgage the house to pay the dentists bill. I rate that as a good thing.
So, why are you here instead of there? That's a serious question. I'm not trying to be mean, or suggest that you should get out, I'm trying to understand the difference between your words and your actions.
I have a German friend who loves to extoll the virtues of socialized medicine, and claims he wants it here. He could have had it back home in Germany, but the culture there didn't fit his chosen lifestyle. He could have had his lifestyle and his socialised medicine in Britain or Canada, but he chose to come to the U.S. When I asked him why he didn't go to a commonwealth country, his answer (paraphrased) was that he liked the intended effects of socialism and socialised medicine, but not the unintended effects. He liked being able to get a job easily, he liked being able to choose his doctor, and he evidently thinks that's not worth sacrificing to get the security he could have had in the Commonwealth countries or Germany.
So, I'm wondering if you're like my friend, who loves socialism, but doesn't choose to live under it? Or are you suffering here until your Swedish employer lets you rotate home (and either way, I hope you're enjoying it here)? Inquiring minds want to know!
Teaching is hardly a "cushy job"... Low pay, long hours, huge stress...
Low pay compared to what? Back in the 1950s and '60s, there wasn't a teacher shortage, and pay was low. In 1955, there were an average of 30 students perteacher, and the average teacher's salary was just under $24,000 in 1992 dollars. By 1992, there were an average of 19 (elementary) and 14 (secondary) students per teacher, while salaries averaged almost $35,000, in those same 1992 dollars. The work load (measured in students) has gone down, while the pay has increased by almost 50%. In 1991, private schools paid an average of $21,000, while public school teachers were making $33,000 on average. Private schools don't have a teacher shortage. Public schools have a teacher shortage, but I don't think it's caused by low pay.
People go into teaching for one of two reasons: either they really, passionately care about educating other people's children, or they realize that they don't have the brains and ambition to make it in a more lucrative field. Either way, low pay isn't going to keep them out.
Huge stress? If you really care about helping children to educate themselves, you would find teaching hugely stressful. The public schools are intended to prevent (or at least succede best at preventing) children from educating themselves. On the other hand, if you don't much care sbout the kids, there isn't much stress in most schools. You work your hours, you forget about work until tomorrow. It's just like any other semi-skilled trade.
Long hours? Again, if you really care about the kids, you'll put in a lot of hours. You may well work more than the typical 2000 hours in a year, but it's only for nine months. If you don't care about the kids, you're probably working less than 2000 hours in nine months.
Think about all this: the people who really care about kids and education do find teaching stressful and time-consuming. The bums who are just in it for the money, because it's the easiest gig they can find, find it less time-consuming and less stressful. Offering more money isn't going to do much for the caring group, since they aren't in it for the money, and all of them are already teaching. Offering more money will bring in a better class of bums, who will be more capable, and thus able to slack off more effectively.
Give teachers the money the deserve,...
I think we've covered this one already.
... fund classrooms and education properly...
In the 19989-1990 school year, Harvard paid $7,800 per student in operating expenses. In that same year, Boston public schools paid $7,700 in operating expenses per student. No one says that Harvard is underfunded, and I think we'd all expect that educating college students should cost a lot more than elementary kids, so I think that the ``public schools are underfunded'' theory is a non-starter.
There's lots of problems with public education in the US but privatizing it won't fix it.
Our system doesn't work, despite being adequately funded (and perhaps over funded), so you want to throw more money at it? That sounds like a good working definition of insanity.
As a data point - all those countries that totally kick our ass when it comes to the education of thier children don't do it with privatized voucher systems.
Here's another data point: they all spend far less per student on education than we do. In 1989, of the countries which showed higher test score for schoolkids than did the U.S., all spent less. Spanish kids scored higher than U.S. kids, but Sapin spent only $938 per kid. Of course Spain is a low-cost place, so Japan and Germany might be fairer comparisons. They spent $2,243 and $2,487, respectively, to outscore us. We spent $4083 per student that year. We spent nearly twice as much as money, to get far less. Don't try to tell us the U.S. public schools just need more money! I'd say that what they need is to be abolished.
The article is not all crap, but the idea that it's American diversity that breeds innovation is PC crap. The innovation that we've seen in this country has come, most of all, from the freedom to fail.
Businessmen can run one company into the ground, and turn right around and start another to pay off the debts. Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement. The culture in America allows people to take chances. A few of them pay off. In most countries, failure is not socially acceptable, and so people just don't take such big chances there.
America's ``diversity'' has helped, of course. It has allowed weird-os and immigrants fresh off the boat to make something of themselves. We would have forced a lot of talent to go to waste without that tolerance of difference. Still, I suspect that the diversity hasn't made nearly as much difference (during the last 50 years or so) as our free labor markets. The fact that it's easy to fire means it's safe to hire. If you want to start a business, you can quit your job and do it. You'll be able to find another job if you need it, because it's easy to hire. You'll be able to hire workers if you need them, because they don't need jobs for life (which no startup can offer), and you can hire, because it doesn't require the sort of long-term commitment that no startup can offer.
Then there's the large market and (until recently) educated workforce within our borders, the ready availability of capital, and so on. Most of all, we had, at least into the 1930s, free markets for goods, commodities, labor and capital, to an extent that few countries have ever matched. Even today, in the middle of a long slide into socialism, we have more economic freedom than many countries.
... they, however, ALWAYS "leave the door open" to other possible explanations that may appear in future that are better. Always. (This is all in refreshing contrast to religions like Christianity, where you are in fact expected to 100% completely believe something regardless of whether or not there is really evidence for it.)
So close, and yet so far from being right. I think you have a pretty good grasp of how science is supposed to work, but your grasp of Christianity is not quite so strong, grasshopper.
You are close. God expects you to seek Him through (i.e., because of) faith. The bible tells us this plainly. Once you choose to believe, you will find all the proof you need.
One of the things which first prompted me to doubt my unbelief was the realization that everything which I considered to be a proof that there was no God was being used by Christians to prove that there is a God. The logic was the same, but the underlying premises had one significant difference: we athiests assumed that there was no God, while the Christians assumed that there was one God, almighty, who cares for each of us, has a plan for each of us, and is deeply grieved when we turn our backs on Him[1]. That led each group to different conclusions from the same facts. Eventually, I realized that there are no testable hypotheses about God: we can't devise an experiment to trap Him and force Him to reveal Himself. Once I had chosen to believe I found that He does justify our faith.
The point to Christianity is not that ``... you are in fact expected to 100% completely believe something regardless of whether or not there is really evidence for it.'' The point here is that God wants you to first seek Him. If you seek Him, you will find Him. He'll see to that.
[1] We Christians believe that there is one God, who has three aspects (three different ways we can experience Him; that's all that trinity stuff), and who cares enough about us that He's deeply hurt when we place our fallible judgement ahead of His perfect judgement. Since He treats us with respect we haven't earned, He allows us to estrange ourselves from Him. Since He loves us, He is always ready to forgive us and welcome us back. Here's the vital part: unless you are perfect, by God's standards (and you aren't: He didn't make you that way), you can't spend eternity with Him. The good news is, He will take care of that, if you care enough to ask Him. Go to my website, get my email address, and write me if you want to know more.
Well, if ``something'' fools you into getting way less than you needed, and could have had, then I'd have to say that ``something'' is worse than nothing. Schooling can go a long way to prevent education.
Education is learning to think, and that's something that you need to spend a lot of time alone to do. You need to spend a lot of time alone with books, and a lot of time alone writing, to clarify your thoughts. None of that is going to happen in a typical public school.
>>I swear if the school my kid attends ever starts pushing computers in front of him, I'll switch to homeschooling where I can trust he'll be reading actual books.
>Do it anyway. He'll get a better education that way.
I was going to say you were right, but then I realized that you're wrong. The kid won't get a better education, he'll get an education! Schools are about schooling, and education is not included.
There are very few good teachers, but those few are responsible for all the education which happens in the schools. For a good view of what schooling is all about, and how it differs from education, see John Taylor Gatto's essay, The Six-Lesson School Teacher.
However, there is a market for low cost home computers that Linix could help to fill if the educational software that kids use (such as the Reader Rabbit series) could run on Linux.
Reader Rabbit and his ilk are the only reason we still have a Windows computer in the house (but never on the net!). That won't last forever: either our kids will outgrow that, or Wine will get good enough. Our youngest is 1, so they have about 17 years to liberate our family from Windows, or it's too late.
>> One bright spot here, I suppose, is that if you were really working from home 100% of the time, you could, with a little creative use of flex time, hold two jobs at once.
>Wow, you call that a bright spot? Or did my sarcasm detector not go off?:)
I don't know if it was a failure in your sarcasm detector, since I'm not entirely sure whether I was being sarcastic!
That seems like a bright spot, since having two jobs means you're half as likely to get laid off[1]. Having to avail yourself of that option would certainly stink, but not having the option and wishing for it would have to be stinkier.
[1] That assumes getting laid off from company A is independent of getting laid off from company B. If A and B are in the same industry, that's implausible.
It is because of nasty, evil, self-opinionated, racist morons like you, whom I suspect of being white...
That's an interesting suspicion. The only people whom I have ever heard use the term ``nigger'' were American blacks, so I might have suspected something else.
You're right that the original post was a nasty troll, but not just for the racism. I'd say that the second paragraph ``Africa is lost. Build an electric fence around the entire continent... is really more hateful than the first.
Go back more than a couple of hundred years and I'd bet you will find that most people had very little worklife-familylife separation. People lived on the farms that they worked on or you lived above their shop.
If you look into it, I believe that you will find that in those days, the farm or shop in which one lived was generally one's own. Yes, you lived with your work, but it was yours. Any profit which resulted from your work went into your pocket. Most of the non-owners who lived ``on the job'' were apprentices, who lived with the master, ate at his table, kept his hours, and were sometimes treated as members of the family.
Owners had a bit of independence: they could work the times, and ways, that seemed most profitable, or least painfull. Their business or farm might fail, but it would stand or fall on their own merits: there was no management to drive it into the ground for them.
Allowing an impersonal, anonymous, bureaucratic employer to further erase the distinction between your time and his time may not turn out to be as nice as the original system was. You will have most of the disadvantages of corporate employment (insecurity, office politics, scary rumors, ad nauseaum), but now it will be happening farther away: more distance means more uncertainty. Furthermore, working at home will mean that your employer can shift the burden of office rent onto you. Also, most folks currently spend over an hour each day commuting: who's going to get the benefit of that time saved?
One bright spot here, I suppose, is that if you were really working from home 100% of the time, you could, with a little creative use of flex time, hold two jobs at once.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm guessing that you carefully explained to them why it wasn't working for you, and what they could do about it. That was kind and well-intentioned; you did most of the initial work for them. I'm sure that whoever read your emails realized that you were another of those linuks kooks that have been pestering them, and trashed your email.
If you had written a snail-mail letter to the president of the company, saying something like:
You would have been recognized as part of their target demographic (unsophisticated, has money), and they would have seen a need for action. There would have been a memo from on high saying: ``Find out what happened, and make sure it never happens again.''BZZZZZZZZZZT! WRONG! We still need peer review, but what does that have to do with the journals?
The editors are professors who are supported by their universities. Their editorship fulfills the ``service to the profession'' portion of their job requirements, and brings some prestige to their department. It's generally considered to be easier to get published in a journal if the editor's office is just down the hall from yours, and he's heard your presentation of your ideas at one of the faculty brown-bag lunches. In short, the Universities support the editors, not the journals.
The reviewers are past and potential contributors. They work free of charge, and again, that's part of their university job description.
Yes, I know that the journals do have some paid employees. They seem to be associated with the print side of the business: they deal with subscriptions and money and such. If you are a contributor, you deal with volunteers who have .edu email addresses.
If Blackwell Publishers dumped Econometrica, the Econometric Society, which is funded largely by personal membership, could simply put its journal online, by subscription or free. Everything would continue as before: Eddie Deckel could still edit, the reviewers could still review, and the papers could still be made available with the imprimatur of the Society. They might lose out on some revenue from the journal, but I doubt that would be an insurmountable problem. I imagine that most of us could afford to double our dues, if we had to.
You're an academic, and you know all this stuff, but I'm saying it for the slashdotters, most of whom figure that they'll get involved in some science, like java programming, when they finally get to college.
Jesus also referred to Himself as the ``son of Man''. Be careful about taking these things out of context. I don't recall that Joan claimed to be God. As I recall, she only claimed to be doing His work.
As for ``how I feel about her'', remember she was a pre-reformation Catholic. That means that she probably wasn't quite a Christian in the sense we use that label today. Though most of what the church taught was sound, most of what the laiety learned was not. Church doctrine had a great deal in it to appeal to superstitous pagans, and by picking and choosing what they believed, many (obviously not all) people who were not considered heretics had some very non-biblical beliefs. That included a lot of the church hierarchy, which is why Martin Luther's little essay caused such a big stir. So, I have no idea exactly what she believed, or what might have been going through the minds of the men who burned her. I would suggest that she was politically inconvenient to a politicised church, and a heretic because she paraphrased what she chose to remember of what her priest had told her. The point here is that there have been some long periods of history when the Catholic church wasn't particularly closely connected to the Body of Christ (the people who, in God's opinion, are following Him). So, Joan of Arc, and the Church that burned her, are not necessarily relevant to a discussion of Christianity.
No doubt most theologians would argue that the "royal sacrifice" represented by the crucifiction could not be valid if Christ were less than divine.
``Royal sacrifice''? I'd never heard that phrase before. I've always heard it referred to as a ``perfect sacrifice'', which is what God always expected, throughout the old testament. As for divinity, it wasn't Christ's divinity that made it a perfect sacrifice, it was His perfection. As I said, throughout the old testament God required that a sacrifice for sin be perfect, and unblemished. You couldn't sacrifice a sickly runt to appease God, you had to sacrifice a valuable critter. So, Jesus lived a sinless life, and was unblemished by sin. That, not His divine nature, is what made Him a perfect sacrifice, suitable to pay for all our sins. If He had been sinful like you or me, then His sacrifice would be of no more account than yours or mine. I certainly don't think that my death will save the world, no matter how painful or messy it might be.
As for your ``... note that "most crusades" were NOT against the Muslims'', I'm not sure about ``most''. There were five official crusades, I think, plus the children's crusade, against the Muslims? I know that there were several offical crusades against heretics, but I thougt it was fewer than five. The only one that I can think of was against the Albignesians (spelling?) in France. I have never bothered to make a study of the history of Christian heresy, but as I recall they were gnostics, and believed that salvation came through learning the ``mysteries'', rather than through faith. That's not different deities, quite, but it's getting closer. Of course, in doing this, the Catholics ignored Jesus' commandment to love and forgive their (and His) enemies, and that's just as heretical (in my eyes) as were the heretics who ignored His teaching about salvation.
No, I meant what I said.
One More Time:
Christ said that He was the Son of the God of the Jews, and God incarnate. Mohammed said he wasn't. They can't both be right.
If Mohammed were right about Christ's divinity, then Christ's father, whom the Christians worship, isn't Allah, the God of the Jews and Muslims. We wouldn't know who God is, but if Mohammed were right, we'd know who he isn't.
If Mohammed is wrong about Christ's divinity, then this Allah whom the Muslims worship, and who Muhammed claimed inspired (i.e., dictated) the Quran is clearly not the God of the Jews and Christians. Again, we don't know who Allah is, but we know who he isn't.
Either way, whoever's right, the two deities are different. Q.E.D.
As for the difference between Lutherans and Baptists, yes it's trivial, and they'd be the first to tell you that. Both believe that Christ is the holy, living, died-and-resurrected Son of God, that He lived a perfect life, and died to pay for our sins, that His ressurection is a sign of our (Lutheran's and Baptist's and all other's who trust in Him) salvation. Quibbles over the Eucharist are trivial to those who believe that. They agree, for sound reasons, that they worship the same God.
Muslims describe Allah very plainly as not being the Father of Jesus, while Jesus said quite plainly that the God of the Jews is His Father, and He is God. Different deities.
As for where the Quran says that Jesus isn't Allah's son, there's a sura(? or book, or chapter, or something) which deals specifically with that Jesus guy, and brushes him off as a prophet. In that sura, it explicitly says that Allah has no son. I'd say that's equivalent to saying that Jesus isn't the son of Allah. Want a reference? Dig out your Quran and find it: mine's put away. If you're too lazy to do that, consider that if Christ were merely a prophet, he already wasn't the Son of God and God incarnate, as He claimed to be. Saying that Christ was merely a prophet is equivalent to saying that He wasn't the Son of God.
Perhaps I should have put that more clearly: ... therefore His (Jesus's) Father is not Allah. Jesus said that His father was the God of the Jews.
Note that "merely" doesn't usually describe the prophets.
Remember, Christ told us that He was the Son of God, and in a very real sense, was God. Mohammed said that was blasphemy. Compared to being the Son of God, and God incarnate, ``merely'' is a generous adjective for a prophet.
If Mohammed was right, then Christianity is absolutely wrong. So, going only by this one, fundamental-to-Christianity point, it is either the case that Muslims and Jews believe in the same God (as Mohammed said), or that Christians and Jews believe in the same God (as Christ said), and impossible that all three believe in the same God. Christ told us that the only way to the Father (God) is through Him. If Christ was a liar, that was a stupid, evil, arrogant thing to say. If Christ was telling the truth, then ... it's not arrogant at all.
And, no, Peoples of the Book cannot be unbelievers.
I wonder if I have confused ``unbeliever'' with ``blasphemer''? Or were your not-too-strict Muslim friends telling you a mix of what they wanted to be true about Islam and what they hoped would make you comfortable with them? I have my notes on the Quran packed away (I hope I still have them!), but I'm quite sure I remember explicit instructions on when to kill Muslims, Christians and Jews. I think I remember that they were referred to as ``unbelievers'' (still people of the book), but perhaps there was another label. The important point is that the Quran directs Muslims to kill ``people of the book'' (definitely including some Muslims!) when they've gotten Mohammed sufficiently irritated. That I'm sure I remember correctly.
My Turkish friends told me something similar, but admitted there were some ``ifs'' and ``buts'' attached. The Turks used janissaries, but I don't think that was due to any proscriptions on killing people of the book. Certainly, I never heard that Saladin, or his soldiers weren't Muslim.
The Muslim world was traditionally more tolerant of Jews that Inquisition-era Europe.
I would say that Muslims in the modern-day Middle East have taken a lesson from Inquisition-era Europe on tolerance of Jews and other ``people of the book''. Certainly, events of the past 50 years have shown that today, Muslims are willing to slander and murder Jews and Christians, in the Middle East, Africa, and where ever they get a chance. Just as we shouldn't judge the modern West by the Spanish Inquisition, we shouldn't judge the modern Muslim world by the Bagdad Caliphate.
Bringing this back on-topic, could I suggest that your research resembles Ken Brown's?
Sure you could! I'll suggest right back that you're wrong. It sounds to me as if we have similar levels of expertise. I spent hours when I should have been working on my dissertation talking religon with my Muslim office-mates. They dealt with the awkward parts of the Quran (like ``kill the unbelievers'') the way nominal Christians deal with the awkward parts of the bible (like ``love your neighbor''): they ignored them.
Muslims do, in general, believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet. They do not believe he was the Messiah. Since the Jews also disbelieve that Jesus (note that I do not use Christ, which is a title for the Messiah) of Nazareth was the Messiah, I do not see this as a reason for holding that Islam believes in a different God.
The Jews seem to be willing to accept the idea that the Messiah, whoever he may eventually be, could be the Son of God. There are many who have accepted that Jesus was the Messiah (starting with the apostles) and remained Jews. Therefore, I wouldn't say that the Jews worship another God than the Christians, especially since Jesus claimed to the the Son of their God.
The Muslims, on the other hand, have explicitly rejected the notion that Allah ever had a son. The Quran addresses this point specifically: Jesus was a prophet, never the son of Allah, and saying otherwise is blasphemy. Jesus might have been wrong in his claim to be the Son of God, or Mohammed might have been wrong in saying that he was merely a prophet, but both cannot be right. Therefore, Allah cannot be the God described in the bible and torah.
Definitely, we (Christians) and they (Muslims) worship different Gods: we worship the God of the Jews (or the Father of Christ, if Christ was wrong about them being the same), while the Muslims worship Allah.
Note that Islam considers all three (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) "Peoples of the Book".
Even people of the book can be unbelievers. If we hear and don't believe, we're unbelievers, and Muslims are instructed, many times over, to kill unbelievers.
The ones which are also available on the website are: Why Nerds are Unpopular, Hackers and PAinters, What You Can't Say, The Other Road Ahead, The Hundred YEar Language, BEating the Averages, Revenge of the Nerds and Design and Research.
The ones which seem to be missing from the website (i.e, the ones for which youwould have to buy the book!) include Good Bad Attitude, How to Make Wealth, Mind the Gap, A Plan for Spam, Taste for Makers, Programming LAnguages Explained, The Dream Language.
There are also some on the website which are not in the book.
I had the table of contents from the book and the list of essays from the website reproduced here, but the lameness filter (designed to ensure lameness, I guess) kept saying that the characters per line was 36.
Yes, they do have that in common, but that seems an awfully petty similarity in light of the fact that they quite literally worship different deities.
Maybe the best way to contrast the two (i.e., Judeo/Christian versus Islam) is found in Matthew 22:36-40. Compare that summary of everything in the Old Testament to what Mohammed said in the Quran.
Don't confuse the Jews and Christians with the Muslims. It's fashionable nowadays to claim that all three groups worship the same God under different names, but that's simply untrue of the Muslims, by their own Quran.
Yes, I know that Mohammed quoted the bible: he did so mostly in order to refute it. He claimed that the Jews had gotten their history wrong in the Pentateuch (he said that the Jews were descendents of Ishmael, rather than Isaac), and that Christ was not the Son of Allah. That last one shows us that whatever Allah might be, he's not the God described in the Christian bible. Please notice that I'm not telling you who's right; I'm telling you that it's one or the other (or neither, but definitely not both).
The Jews and Christians are the ``unbelievers'' that Mohammed repeatedly exhorts Muslim faithful to kill.
Ok, I vote we make it official:
X.org is pronounced ``ZORG!'' and XFree86 is pronounced ``dead''.
All in favor say ``ZORG!''. If we all say it often enough, it'll stick.
The '186 was a 16bit CPU which ran at 6MHz (versus 4.77MHz for the 8/16bit hybrid 8088 in the IBM PC), and, among other improvements, had a number of VLSI support chips integrated, which kept the system cost down.
That sounds odd to me. I'm guessing that the old XF86Config-4 file had a default mode line that the new monitor couldn't handle? What did you have to change? Were you able to boot into single-user mode? If you put the old monitor back on with the old config file, did X start?
I recently put on an extra video card and extra monitor, and was terribly disappointed that X didn't automagically set up a dual-headed desktop when I booted. It took me several minutes of reading the manpage to get the config file right. I think that was the first time in a long time I've had to intervene to get hardware working right.
That's ``twin primes'', not ``prime twins''. So, no, there is not an infinite supply of hot double dates.
So, why are you here instead of there? That's a serious question. I'm not trying to be mean, or suggest that you should get out, I'm trying to understand the difference between your words and your actions.
I have a German friend who loves to extoll the virtues of socialized medicine, and claims he wants it here. He could have had it back home in Germany, but the culture there didn't fit his chosen lifestyle. He could have had his lifestyle and his socialised medicine in Britain or Canada, but he chose to come to the U.S. When I asked him why he didn't go to a commonwealth country, his answer (paraphrased) was that he liked the intended effects of socialism and socialised medicine, but not the unintended effects. He liked being able to get a job easily, he liked being able to choose his doctor, and he evidently thinks that's not worth sacrificing to get the security he could have had in the Commonwealth countries or Germany.
So, I'm wondering if you're like my friend, who loves socialism, but doesn't choose to live under it? Or are you suffering here until your Swedish employer lets you rotate home (and either way, I hope you're enjoying it here)? Inquiring minds want to know!
Totally off topic, but hey. :)
Me, too. :(
Low pay compared to what? Back in the 1950s and '60s, there wasn't a teacher shortage, and pay was low. In 1955, there were an average of 30 students perteacher, and the average teacher's salary was just under $24,000 in 1992 dollars. By 1992, there were an average of 19 (elementary) and 14 (secondary) students per teacher, while salaries averaged almost $35,000, in those same 1992 dollars. The work load (measured in students) has gone down, while the pay has increased by almost 50%. In 1991, private schools paid an average of $21,000, while public school teachers were making $33,000 on average. Private schools don't have a teacher shortage. Public schools have a teacher shortage, but I don't think it's caused by low pay.
People go into teaching for one of two reasons: either they really, passionately care about educating other people's children, or they realize that they don't have the brains and ambition to make it in a more lucrative field. Either way, low pay isn't going to keep them out.
Huge stress? If you really care about helping children to educate themselves, you would find teaching hugely stressful. The public schools are intended to prevent (or at least succede best at preventing) children from educating themselves. On the other hand, if you don't much care sbout the kids, there isn't much stress in most schools. You work your hours, you forget about work until tomorrow. It's just like any other semi-skilled trade.
Long hours? Again, if you really care about the kids, you'll put in a lot of hours. You may well work more than the typical 2000 hours in a year, but it's only for nine months. If you don't care about the kids, you're probably working less than 2000 hours in nine months.
Think about all this: the people who really care about kids and education do find teaching stressful and time-consuming. The bums who are just in it for the money, because it's the easiest gig they can find, find it less time-consuming and less stressful. Offering more money isn't going to do much for the caring group, since they aren't in it for the money, and all of them are already teaching. Offering more money will bring in a better class of bums, who will be more capable, and thus able to slack off more effectively.
Give teachers the money the deserve, ...
I think we've covered this one already.
In the 19989-1990 school year, Harvard paid $7,800 per student in operating expenses. In that same year, Boston public schools paid $7,700 in operating expenses per student. No one says that Harvard is underfunded, and I think we'd all expect that educating college students should cost a lot more than elementary kids, so I think that the ``public schools are underfunded'' theory is a non-starter.
There's lots of problems with public education in the US but privatizing it won't fix it.
Our system doesn't work, despite being adequately funded (and perhaps over funded), so you want to throw more money at it? That sounds like a good working definition of insanity.
As a data point - all those countries that totally kick our ass when it comes to the education of thier children don't do it with privatized voucher systems.
Here's another data point: they all spend far less per student on education than we do. In 1989, of the countries which showed higher test score for schoolkids than did the U.S., all spent less. Spanish kids scored higher than U.S. kids, but Sapin spent only $938 per kid. Of course Spain is a low-cost place, so Japan and Germany might be fairer comparisons. They spent $2,243 and $2,487, respectively, to outscore us. We spent $4083 per student that year. We spent nearly twice as much as money, to get far less. Don't try to tell us the U.S. public schools just need more money! I'd say that what they need is to be abolished.
Crawl back under your rock, you NEA shill.
Businessmen can run one company into the ground, and turn right around and start another to pay off the debts. Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement. The culture in America allows people to take chances. A few of them pay off. In most countries, failure is not socially acceptable, and so people just don't take such big chances there.
America's ``diversity'' has helped, of course. It has allowed weird-os and immigrants fresh off the boat to make something of themselves. We would have forced a lot of talent to go to waste without that tolerance of difference. Still, I suspect that the diversity hasn't made nearly as much difference (during the last 50 years or so) as our free labor markets. The fact that it's easy to fire means it's safe to hire. If you want to start a business, you can quit your job and do it. You'll be able to find another job if you need it, because it's easy to hire. You'll be able to hire workers if you need them, because they don't need jobs for life (which no startup can offer), and you can hire, because it doesn't require the sort of long-term commitment that no startup can offer.
Then there's the large market and (until recently) educated workforce within our borders, the ready availability of capital, and so on. Most of all, we had, at least into the 1930s, free markets for goods, commodities, labor and capital, to an extent that few countries have ever matched. Even today, in the middle of a long slide into socialism, we have more economic freedom than many countries.
So close, and yet so far from being right. I think you have a pretty good grasp of how science is supposed to work, but your grasp of Christianity is not quite so strong, grasshopper.
You are close. God expects you to seek Him through (i.e., because of) faith. The bible tells us this plainly. Once you choose to believe, you will find all the proof you need.
One of the things which first prompted me to doubt my unbelief was the realization that everything which I considered to be a proof that there was no God was being used by Christians to prove that there is a God. The logic was the same, but the underlying premises had one significant difference: we athiests assumed that there was no God, while the Christians assumed that there was one God, almighty, who cares for each of us, has a plan for each of us, and is deeply grieved when we turn our backs on Him[1]. That led each group to different conclusions from the same facts. Eventually, I realized that there are no testable hypotheses about God: we can't devise an experiment to trap Him and force Him to reveal Himself. Once I had chosen to believe I found that He does justify our faith.
The point to Christianity is not that ``... you are in fact expected to 100% completely believe something regardless of whether or not there is really evidence for it.'' The point here is that God wants you to first seek Him. If you seek Him, you will find Him. He'll see to that.
[1] We Christians believe that there is one God, who has three aspects (three different ways we can experience Him; that's all that trinity stuff), and who cares enough about us that He's deeply hurt when we place our fallible judgement ahead of His perfect judgement. Since He treats us with respect we haven't earned, He allows us to estrange ourselves from Him. Since He loves us, He is always ready to forgive us and welcome us back. Here's the vital part: unless you are perfect, by God's standards (and you aren't: He didn't make you that way), you can't spend eternity with Him. The good news is, He will take care of that, if you care enough to ask Him. Go to my website, get my email address, and write me if you want to know more.
Well, if ``something'' fools you into getting way less than you needed, and could have had, then I'd have to say that ``something'' is worse than nothing. Schooling can go a long way to prevent education.
Education is learning to think, and that's something that you need to spend a lot of time alone to do. You need to spend a lot of time alone with books, and a lot of time alone writing, to clarify your thoughts. None of that is going to happen in a typical public school.
>Do it anyway. He'll get a better education that way.
I was going to say you were right, but then I realized that you're wrong. The kid won't get a better education, he'll get an education! Schools are about schooling, and education is not included.
There are very few good teachers, but those few are responsible for all the education which happens in the schools. For a good view of what schooling is all about, and how it differs from education, see John Taylor Gatto's essay, The Six-Lesson School Teacher.
If you write a macro in Excel, you should be ashamed of yourself. You should wash your hands, too.
Seriously, there are good reasons not to use Excel.
Reader Rabbit and his ilk are the only reason we still have a Windows computer in the house (but never on the net!). That won't last forever: either our kids will outgrow that, or Wine will get good enough. Our youngest is 1, so they have about 17 years to liberate our family from Windows, or it's too late.
>Wow, you call that a bright spot? Or did my sarcasm detector not go off? :)
I don't know if it was a failure in your sarcasm detector, since I'm not entirely sure whether I was being sarcastic!
That seems like a bright spot, since having two jobs means you're half as likely to get laid off[1]. Having to avail yourself of that option would certainly stink, but not having the option and wishing for it would have to be stinkier.
[1] That assumes getting laid off from company A is independent of getting laid off from company B. If A and B are in the same industry, that's implausible.
That's an interesting suspicion. The only people whom I have ever heard use the term ``nigger'' were American blacks, so I might have suspected something else.
You're right that the original post was a nasty troll, but not just for the racism. I'd say that the second paragraph ``Africa is lost. Build an electric fence around the entire continent ... is really more hateful than the first.
If you look into it, I believe that you will find that in those days, the farm or shop in which one lived was generally one's own. Yes, you lived with your work, but it was yours. Any profit which resulted from your work went into your pocket. Most of the non-owners who lived ``on the job'' were apprentices, who lived with the master, ate at his table, kept his hours, and were sometimes treated as members of the family.
Owners had a bit of independence: they could work the times, and ways, that seemed most profitable, or least painfull. Their business or farm might fail, but it would stand or fall on their own merits: there was no management to drive it into the ground for them.
Allowing an impersonal, anonymous, bureaucratic employer to further erase the distinction between your time and his time may not turn out to be as nice as the original system was. You will have most of the disadvantages of corporate employment (insecurity, office politics, scary rumors, ad nauseaum), but now it will be happening farther away: more distance means more uncertainty. Furthermore, working at home will mean that your employer can shift the burden of office rent onto you. Also, most folks currently spend over an hour each day commuting: who's going to get the benefit of that time saved?
One bright spot here, I suppose, is that if you were really working from home 100% of the time, you could, with a little creative use of flex time, hold two jobs at once.