I agree that a big monopoly is the end of the line. A monopoly is to capitalism what cancer is to a formerly healthy individual. (sorry, borrowed from a parallel post, but he had it wrong.)
Nonetheless, I would argue that capitalism isn't a feel-good idealist system. Capitalism is what results from people dealing honestly with each other.
On the other hand, it is no secret that when people start to believe that their strength is their wealth, then they also begin to steal from each other, and you descend into feudalism. Pol Pot, here we come.
Capitalism is the blessing that we had from those all-to-few groups like the Amish, like William Penn's colony, like hardworking American farmers who *didn't* steal from the Indians [and there were many of those]. These people built integrity that happened to take the form of a system.
On the other hand you have the Puritans, who stimulated King Philip's War and slaughtered the Indians who helped them just a generation before.
They gave us a lot of the bad effects of the Industrial Revolution that Thoreau wrote about; they gave us a number of robber barons, were a strong force for the War of Northern Agression, and in the end converted our Constitutional Republic into the first stages of an Empire.
And, you might say, it has led to this. Not capitalism, but *neoliberal capitalism*. There's a world of difference.
You described it well enough that I got a basic idea of your answer. I think you understand ISP bandwidth overbooking pretty well.
However, maybe you don't know the world of apples.
Burst costs can be exactly like an apple.
Normal usage: Take apple, take bite, chew, swollow. Take another bite, chew swollow. Repeat until apple is consumed. Throw out core.
Burst usage: Take apple, put in mouth. With two fingers, shove hard. Spend time calculating costs.
> > WARNING: THIS IS THE KIND OF THING TO BE DONE > ONLY BY PROFESSIONAL WEBSERVER ADMINS, WHEN MY > INTENET CONNECTION IS DOWN. FOR THOSE OF YOU > AT HOME, DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT TRY THIS AT > HOME! >
(And actually, I'm joking about the webserver admins. Please, you guys don't try it either. I am spelling this out for you so that you do not mistake my intent).
(1) Start with the Mandelbrot Set or the Julia Set, calculated to a resolution p (say, granularity of 0.0001.
(2) Calculate the curvature (curve-centered curvature, not x-axis-centered curvature) as a function of position along the line, down to a resolution of 2p.
(3) Take the fast-fourier transform of this data
(4) Use the FFT data to see if you can predict the FFT for lower levels.
My guess is that it won't be predictable -- but I don't know. It might be.
BTW...:
Snowflakes almost definitely aren't fractal. Rather, their development is probably going to be controlled by the semiconducting nature of the outer layer of ice as it freezes, and charges separating as widely as they can.
Nor are trees fractal. They have their rules, but those rules aren't within the definition of what fractal. Rather, fractals can help one generate convincing images of trees, but the similarity stops there.
Just a question from a guy who appreciates fractals for their artistry -- and can program a mandelbrot set -- but really doesn't understand the math.
How, exactly, do you calculate that something has 1.6 dimensions? Or is this something you measure?
I actually can visualize 2.9976 dimensions: just use as your spatial grid an interaction of very reactive particles that require 3 charges, and much less reactive particles that require 2 charges --
but I don't see how you'd calculate or measure this kind of thing in real life.
Sorry. I get my information off the Drudge Report. He in turn took his information from more standard sources like CNN -- but that doesn't mean that they were correct.
I remember reading about such things as keeping the inmates standing for long periods, sleep deprivation torture, recently. At the time of capture, there was stuff about hauling them in unventilated tractor trailers and leaving them to roast (that from www.rawa.org). To be honest, I have not been there in either location, and do not know for sure whether this is true.
However, I also read about Jose Padilla -- and I have no reason to believe that is false, either.
In the end, I go back to my first paragraph: Yeah, there is paranoia. Some of it may be justified; I'm not sure which is and which isn't.
I'm not currently in America -- but yeah, paranoia is getting bad there... or.. I dunno. Some of it's paranoia, and some of it's justified.
For example, evidence does show that Vicki Weaver was targeted (read crosshairs, murder) because she was the outspoken racist in the Ruby Ridge incident.
Donald P. Scott (LA Times, 1991/2) really was murdered for his land.
A guy named Lamplugh really did have ATF agents burst in in jackboots, crush his kitten to death to make a point, terrorize his family, and he was innocent of anything, just a gun dealer who wouldn't help them set up someone else on false charges, yada yada yada. The list goes on.
That was *before* Bush. Now, they really are hauling people away to Cuba, in the dead of night, and torturing them there, just like the Argentinan "disappearance squads". How many it is, the government refuses to say. But it *is* happening.
Is it paranoia? It's hard to tell.
Considering the flap about the child-abuse cases in the Catholic Church in Boston, I have to wonder how far down the line we Catholics are. I'm not too sure. But when you get to a police state, it does tend to extend its grip.
You of course will need chemicals and chemistry equipment. I expect that you could call the local high school and find out where to get them -- and the high school teacher could suggest where you might get a nice sampling. I can't help a lot there.
But perhaps I could suggest a book, instead:
Laboratory Experiments for General Chemistry, 4ed by Hunt, Block, and McKelvy http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/deta il/-/0030 32906X/qid=1041495102/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-128032 3-3723057?v=glance&s=books
This one is extremely useful in that it:
(1) Lists the equipment needed for each (so you can go through, find the experiments that you can do) (2) Lists tons of safety and first-aid information, with standardized icons for each item (3) provides lab reports to fill out, which will help you understand the experiments (4) The experiments are actually rather standard; not all of them require special equipment.
One word of caution: After produced the book, my brother noted that one of the experiments, standard to most College Chemistry Lab courses, is wrong:
Experiment 13, the Burning of a Candle.
My brother claims that the experiment purports to demonstrate the stoichiometry of combustion; in reality, it demonstrates the heat given off by candles, and the ideal gas law PV=NRT. He said that he demonstrated this by attempting the experiment in several different ways, one with 3 candles close together (burning hotter), one with three candles farther apart (burning cooler).
I haven't done that experiment myself in his way. But I thought I should mention that.
Let's see... my roommate was a guy who just didn't feel ready for the University, and therefore went to a 2yr college, and *really* learned the basics well.
He then came in to the Va Tech EE program (Electrical engineering), and found himself tutoring his classmates for money.
He then graduated, went into their computer engineering program, and has a PhD in that now. I have no idea whether he is successful now, but I suspect he is.
I suspect that a lot of other things, such as distractions, matter more than which college you go to.
On the other hand, if you want to do the bare minimum, just get by, and get a great job based on connections and nothing else, I'm sure Harvard or Yale or even MIT would be great!
Likewise, if you're really good, think that you will do great research, and yet want a Nobel prize, better have those good universities (and thesis professor) under your name: it *does* make a difference there.
And anything political? Again, the good universities can be important, though more important is to "have the right views". Character, behavior, and skill all matter not a whit there, for *both* sides of the Officially Approved American Political Party.
Anyhow, I'm probably wrong in most of this. Everything I said here is an opinion, not stated fact, and I've been known to be wrong before. I'm often wrong [but did not invent Data... that was Al Gore. He's the other often wrong.]
Okay, okay, this is offtopic. But I do have a question, and maybe you can answer it.
My brother told me something that I never thought could be tested.
Politically, he's a believer in the different branches of government: the congress [power of the people] the Senate [power of ethnic groups], the presidency [power of the charismatic leader], the judges [power of wise counsel], the media [power of information], and the purchased house [power of money].
Anyhow, he said that if you ignore one branch or another, or if the branch is rendered incapable, then you risk the country's failure in one way or another. Usually, it is that the ignored branch overwhelms the rest of the government (as $$$ are overwhelming the US government).
But specifically, he said that the effect of not having a Senate, or having an ineffective Senate, was that you got the Babel effect: people recreated their language to separate themselves.
Well, I knew that language got recreated -- but I didn't ever see a specific test case until now. But now I see one, so let me ask: Did Norway/Denmark not have a Senate, or was it somehow rendered ineffective?
I guess that item (c), the desire to force good on everyone, whether they want it or not, eliminates a lot of people who would otherwise be fundamentalist. I suppose it eliminates me, because I'm under the (Catholic, not Calvinist) impression that God game man free will. But that isn't to say that I don't believe everyone should follow the good. I *do* think everyone should. I just don't think everyone will [I've seen to much otherwise].
As for (a) believes in absolute good and evil, I do. I further think that our shades of gray come from mental myopia, often related to our previous choices and our ego.
For (b), I believe I do know which is which, *usually*, through a combination of scripture, an ability to think, experience, and out of those, conscience. God would know all the time; I'm not God, and have my own myopias... but try not to give the myopia too much practice.
So I guess I'd almost qualify. I think the reason why people sometimes want to force others into morality, is because they are quite correctly aware that if you do evil things or stupid things, it *does impact me*. There is no such thing as a "victimless" crime: society absorbs the cost of such crimes so that they are hard to see -- but they do have victims. So some people feel that the solution is to force moral behavior. Of course, forcing moral behavior on others is also a "victimless" crime with real victims, since it attempts to remove the free will that God gave men and women. At first, it appears to be good; later, it goes bad if not abandoned, and can actually become very destructive.
blockquote:This [RBLs against dialup ISPs that source spam] puts undue pressure on a potentially responsible ISP and causes a disproportionate amount of inconvenience on the part of the affected ISPs customers. Why are they being punished? Should they automatically have to shop for a new access provider, reconfigure their computer and inform everybody in their addressbook of the new email address provided by the new ISP? Large ISPs are almost always going to be immune from RBL operators. If an RBL operator was to put the smtp servers of AOL, Earthlink, AT&T and a few other cable providers onto the RBL, the value of the filter would be reduced and many users would start wondering why they can no longer communicate with users at these large ISPs. RBL usage necessarily hurts small and medium size organizations whose proportional value in the network is small but who can easily be damaged by being listed on an RBL.
It occurs to me that one way to avoid the spam is to keep a record of all outgoing emails on the backup servers, for (say) 1 week. Also, don't take accounts without a real, physical address, phone number, and either a real name or a corporate identity.
Finally, part of the user agreement should be that "if you send spam through us that gets us put on an RBL, you agree to pay damages of $1 per spam sent, $10 per spam if the number of spam emails was over 5000". Do that, and you can collect after a while.
As for me, I've found that I can set my Mozilla to block emails that contain the words "opt-in". Usually it works, but sometimes Mozilla misses it. I'm not sure why.
No, an explosion is easy. A high-yield explosion is difficult. Drop two moderately large pieces of uranium in the same water bath, and you'll get an explosion. That perhaps could set off TNT.
My dad, Ph.D. in fusion at U. of Wisconsin [1972: his statement that fusion won't be practical in 50 years got him kicked out of the field by all the 10-year people] tells me that this really happened in a lab, and a couple of lab workers were irradiated. Before they died, they were screaming "help me, I'm burning up." They weren't -- it was the damaged nerves in their skin firing. [Sorry, no refs here] High price to pay for a mistake, trying to save some time.
But I think you could concievably get an explosion.
But I could be wrong -- I'm often wrong [and no, I didn't invent Data. That was Al Gore.]
I too am inclined to think that there is no conspiracy, but I would not be hugely surprised to find that the initial blast was nuclear in nature. I could imagine where the government would be transporting nuclear materials, and in an effort to keep it secret, labeled it as something else. Then you just place a few of the loads of purified uranium to close together, maybe on either side of a bilge, and --- presto. Instant munitions accident.
But at that, the majority of the accident would still be conventional.
Has anyone other than me, though, noticed that Stephen King borrowed heavily from Tolkien?
Anything from the fortune telling sphere's of the Wizard's Rainbow (Rose Red, Talisman, Eyes of the Dragon, Black Tower series) being essentially Silmarils, the communication and fortune-telling balls of Middle-Earth... or the journey to the cracks of doom being copied by the Talisman's journey to take the sphere from the hotel... or a number of other tings.
Anyhow, it always seemed clear to me that King drew a lot of material wholesale from Tolkien.
I agree that not all children's books "come and go". I'm pretty sure that C.S. Lewis' children's books (Narnia chronicals) will last, whereas his space trilogy will only hang on as "also written by Lewis". Tolkien's Lord of the Rings will last. Alice in Wonderland, as you note, will last.
On the other hand, J.K. Rowling's work has come. I won't be sorry to see it go, if go it does. Some things have more depth and value than others.
As for me? My definition of art is: "Art is the skill of communication. Some things, like sex and death, are easy to communicate, and do not themselves demonstrate skill. Other things are difficult to communicate, yet a skillful artist can still do so." Thus I rate art in terms of several things: Personal value (do I like it? do I like its message?) Skill value (was this easy to do? Or hard to do? Did I understand it?) and Social value (Is this good for society?). There are many times when a work will pass with flying colors in one area, and flunk another. The great artists, in my opinion, should usually do well in all three. If an artist doesn't, he/she usually won't get recognized, and thus won't be classified as a great artist.
(1) What do you mean by fundamentalism?
(2) Is it necessarily true, then, that fundamentalists don't have [or, being charitable don't use] the brains that God gave them?
(3) Is it possible that there is actually a different split here?
I ask, because I'm a pretty fundamentalist kindof personality myself, similar to Baptist fundamentalists, but I'm a Catholic, and a very conservative one.
But I've not only prayed my way into this position, or been led into it: part of it was that I thought my way into this position. But back when I was in my early college years, I wasn't active enough to go to church regularly, for example.
Nor are my brains missing from other areas of life. Right now, I'm looking at a patent-and-marketing agreement for a revolutionary optimization of a *very* common computer algorithm that is normally as slow as molassas. Back in college, I was the structural designer for the team aircraft that won the 1992 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics contest. Entering college, I was a National Merit Scholar with a 1530 combined SAT score.
Just as intelligent, as I remember, were the Texas couple in which the mother went completely crazy, decided that her bad parenting had ruined her kids' lives, and drowned her kids in a bathtub... but they, too, as I remember, were fundamentalist.
Not that crazy corresponds to fundamentalism any better than stupid does... actually, I suspect crazy links better to intelligent.
But I just wonder if you have your line demarcated correctly. I'm guessing that sometimes intelligent people see and understand physical, social, and moral relationships that less intelligent people miss -- and that, too, can lead to a kind of fundamentalism (depending on what you mean by fundamentalism).
I have a question : *HAS* the US instituted these pollution credits yet? Because if it has... I'm here in Lithuania, a great place to grow trees, and I'd love to start buying up land and planting trees.
That said, I didn't get this from such a source. I got this from a Russian exchange student, back in 1993.
That said, *I consider that this site I mentioned goes way too far in tying a Biblical prophecy to "current events"*. That is not to say that they are wrong or right -- I don't know. Just suffice it to say that historically significant events usually have analogs everywhere.
But seeing such a thing *should* make a person stop and think twice, especially about whether their own lives are right.
I'm sorry. Did you forget Lithuania? It seems to me that Lithuania, not Estonia, was at the center of the maximum fallout path. Right over Klaipeda, if I remember correctly.
Chernobyl is named for a small, bitter herb, "chernoblis", that grows in the region. Of course, that's the Ukranian word. In English, the herb is called "wormwood."
No joke.
Of course, to quote my father when he heard that, "That's nonsense. Chernobyl wasn't a star. A star is a...
Ummm... these studies are often misdesigned to give the desired result.
If, for example, you only take 22 infected male monkeys, strap condoms on them, and mix them with 22 female monkeys (or 100 female monkeys) and then watch the infections pass, you will necessarily conclude that the transmission of STDs is reduced.
If, on the other hand, you go out into society, and study two completely identical societies [caveat: we're already into fantasy] except that one has condoms pushed, and another has abstinence pushed, then there is a chance that you will see far more sexual activity in the former... and more STDs.
Now, I have no idea what a proper study would be. However, you can deliberately misdesign a study to predefine the results you want... and that does happen. Of course, when you do this you are clearly getting no new information out, and the study is political, not scientific. What you are instead doing is getting literature out to support your desired political opinion.
Hmmm.. "legitimize" was a rather misbegotten word, wasn't it?
I'm going to answer this one. I give a 95% or better chance that you will not agree, but this answer is close to the conservative Catholic view of sex. I'm not sure what other views correspond to each other group.
Sex is good, and legitimate, when it is not separated from the other parts of life to which it is inherently linked. This is rather like saying that a powered automobile engine is good and legitimate when the automobile is hooked up to other specific parts, like a throttle control, emissions reduction equipment, also brakes, and such.
In the case of sex, the sex is inherently tied, (and it is believed to be tied especially in human psychology), to reproduction. It is also tied to the basic family structure. So you don't definitively separate it from those two things, and sex is good.
Condoms, abortion, artificial insemination, and cloning all separate the sex from the reproductive act, and serve to make each appear like a package that you can pick up at the store, use, and discard. However, using and discarding ignores the fact that these things are tied to you, and the way you think and behave. So the conservative Catholic tends to be more holistic about sex.
So as part of birth regulation, Catholics take a more holistic approach. I think that that approach is better than most.
In general, I tend to think the more holistic view is the best view -- and not just in sex. Work, friendships, exercise, nutrition, health, and entertainment can all benefit from a more holistic attitude as well.
Ummm... to get a reasonable cross-section, you really need the D-T reaction. Aside from that, when you talk about the abundance of D- being enough to power human civilization until who knows when, you aren't talking about the percentage incidence, or how you will isolate it.
That takes a ton of effort (thus energy) right there.
Condoms do lead to more sex, by legitimizing sex (as does pornography). As part of that, one must remember that *sex can kill*. I seem to remember reading some Washingtom Post articles about AIDS-transmission parties. True or not, sex can kill through STDs. Nor is it always voluntary.
And guns *do* legitimize killing (in case nobody noticed the upcoming Iraq Wars sequel, "Clone of the Attack". ).
That said, I would be happy to get rid of all guns, so long as we start with the most evil people, since guns also empower. So it would have been fine for Germany to get rid of guns if they had first had the German *government* and *army* and SS Troopers get rid of their guns. Likewise, we first have to get the guns out of the hands of the most power-hungry Americans, the government... and then I'm sure that the second Amendment will become unnecessary.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that a big monopoly is the end of the line. A monopoly is to capitalism what cancer is to a formerly healthy individual. (sorry, borrowed from a parallel post, but he had it wrong.)
Nonetheless, I would argue that capitalism isn't a feel-good idealist system. Capitalism is what results from people dealing honestly with each other.
On the other hand, it is no secret that when people start to believe that their strength is their wealth, then they also begin to steal from each other, and you descend into feudalism. Pol Pot, here we come.
Capitalism is the blessing that we had from those all-to-few groups like the Amish, like William Penn's colony, like hardworking American farmers who *didn't* steal from the Indians [and there were many of those]. These people built integrity that happened to take the form of a system.
On the other hand you have the Puritans, who stimulated King Philip's War and slaughtered the Indians who helped them just a generation before.
They gave us a lot of the bad effects of the Industrial Revolution that Thoreau wrote about; they gave us a number of robber barons, were a strong force for the War of Northern Agression, and in the end converted our Constitutional Republic into the first stages of an Empire.
And, you might say, it has led to this. Not capitalism, but *neoliberal capitalism*. There's a world of difference.
You described it well enough that I got a basic idea of your answer. I think you understand ISP bandwidth overbooking pretty well.
However, maybe you don't know the world of apples.
Burst costs can be exactly like an apple.
Normal usage: Take apple, take bite, chew, swollow. Take another bite, chew swollow. Repeat until apple is consumed. Throw out core.
Burst usage: Take apple, put in mouth. With two fingers, shove hard. Spend time calculating costs.
>
> WARNING: THIS IS THE KIND OF THING TO BE DONE
> ONLY BY PROFESSIONAL WEBSERVER ADMINS, WHEN MY
> INTENET CONNECTION IS DOWN. FOR THOSE OF YOU
> AT HOME, DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT TRY THIS AT
> HOME!
>
(And actually, I'm joking about the webserver admins. Please, you guys don't try it either. I am spelling this out for you so that you do not mistake my intent).
Okay, here's an interesting project for you:
:
(1) Start with the Mandelbrot Set or the Julia Set, calculated to a resolution p (say, granularity of 0.0001.
(2) Calculate the curvature (curve-centered curvature, not x-axis-centered curvature) as a function of position along the line, down to a resolution of 2p.
(3) Take the fast-fourier transform of this data
(4) Use the FFT data to see if you can predict the FFT for lower levels.
My guess is that it won't be predictable -- but I don't know. It might be.
BTW...
Snowflakes almost definitely aren't fractal. Rather, their development is probably going to be controlled by the semiconducting nature of the outer layer of ice as it freezes, and charges separating as widely as they can.
Nor are trees fractal. They have their rules, but those rules aren't within the definition of what fractal. Rather, fractals can help one generate convincing images of trees, but the similarity stops there.
Just a question from a guy who appreciates fractals for their artistry -- and can program a mandelbrot set -- but really doesn't understand the math.
How, exactly, do you calculate that something has 1.6 dimensions? Or is this something you measure?
I actually can visualize 2.9976 dimensions: just use as your spatial grid an interaction of very reactive particles that require 3 charges, and much less reactive particles that require 2 charges --
but I don't see how you'd calculate or measure this kind of thing in real life.
I remember reading about such things as keeping the inmates standing for long periods, sleep deprivation torture, recently. At the time of capture, there was stuff about hauling them in unventilated tractor trailers and leaving them to roast (that from www.rawa.org). To be honest, I have not been there in either location, and do not know for sure whether this is true.
However, I also read about Jose Padilla -- and I have no reason to believe that is false, either.
In the end, I go back to my first paragraph: Yeah, there is paranoia. Some of it may be justified; I'm not sure which is and which isn't.
I'm not currently in America -- but yeah, paranoia is getting bad there... or .. I dunno. Some of it's paranoia, and some of it's justified.
For example, evidence does show that Vicki Weaver was targeted (read crosshairs, murder) because she was the outspoken racist in the Ruby Ridge incident.
Donald P. Scott (LA Times, 1991/2) really was murdered for his land.
A guy named Lamplugh really did have ATF agents burst in in jackboots, crush his kitten to death to make a point, terrorize his family, and he was innocent of anything, just a gun dealer who wouldn't help them set up someone else on false charges, yada yada yada. The list goes on.
That was *before* Bush. Now, they really are hauling people away to Cuba, in the dead of night, and torturing them there, just like the Argentinan "disappearance squads". How many it is, the government refuses to say. But it *is* happening.
Is it paranoia? It's hard to tell.
Considering the flap about the child-abuse cases in the Catholic Church in Boston, I have to wonder how far down the line we Catholics are. I'm not too sure. But when you get to a police state, it does tend to extend its grip.
You of course will need chemicals and chemistry equipment. I expect that you could call the local high school and find out where to get them -- and the high school teacher could suggest where you might get a nice sampling. I can't help a lot there.
a il/-/0030 32906X/qid=1041495102/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-128032 3-3723057?v=glance&s=books
But perhaps I could suggest a book, instead:
Laboratory Experiments for General Chemistry, 4ed
by Hunt, Block, and McKelvy
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/det
This one is extremely useful in that it:
(1) Lists the equipment needed for each (so you can go through, find the experiments that you can do)
(2) Lists tons of safety and first-aid information, with standardized icons for each item
(3) provides lab reports to fill out, which will help you understand the experiments
(4) The experiments are actually rather standard; not all of them require special equipment.
One word of caution: After produced the book, my brother noted that one of the experiments, standard to most College Chemistry Lab courses, is wrong:
Experiment 13, the Burning of a Candle.
My brother claims that the experiment purports to demonstrate the stoichiometry of combustion; in reality, it demonstrates the heat given off by candles, and the ideal gas law PV=NRT. He said that he demonstrated this by attempting the experiment in several different ways, one with 3 candles close together (burning hotter), one with three candles farther apart (burning cooler).
I haven't done that experiment myself in his way. But I thought I should mention that.
Let's see... my roommate was a guy who just didn't feel ready for the University, and therefore went to a 2yr college, and *really* learned the basics well.
He then came in to the Va Tech EE program (Electrical engineering), and found himself tutoring his classmates for money.
He then graduated, went into their computer engineering program, and has a PhD in that now. I have no idea whether he is successful now, but I suspect he is.
I suspect that a lot of other things, such as distractions, matter more than which college you go to.
On the other hand, if you want to do the bare minimum, just get by, and get a great job based on connections and nothing else, I'm sure Harvard or Yale or even MIT would be great!
Likewise, if you're really good, think that you will do great research, and yet want a Nobel prize, better have those good universities (and thesis professor) under your name: it *does* make a difference there.
And anything political? Again, the good universities can be important, though more important is to "have the right views". Character, behavior, and skill all matter not a whit there, for *both* sides of the Officially Approved American Political Party.
Anyhow, I'm probably wrong in most of this. Everything I said here is an opinion, not stated fact, and I've been known to be wrong before. I'm often wrong [but did not invent Data... that was Al Gore. He's the other often wrong.]
Okay, okay, this is offtopic. But I do have a question, and maybe you can answer it.
My brother told me something that I never thought could be tested.
Politically, he's a believer in the different branches of government: the congress [power of the people] the Senate [power of ethnic groups], the presidency [power of the charismatic leader], the judges [power of wise counsel], the media [power of information], and the purchased house [power of money].
Anyhow, he said that if you ignore one branch or another, or if the branch is rendered incapable, then you risk the country's failure in one way or another. Usually, it is that the ignored branch overwhelms the rest of the government (as $$$ are overwhelming the US government).
But specifically, he said that the effect of not having a Senate, or having an ineffective Senate, was that you got the Babel effect: people recreated their language to separate themselves.
Well, I knew that language got recreated -- but I didn't ever see a specific test case until now. But now I see one, so let me ask: Did Norway/Denmark not have a Senate, or was it somehow rendered ineffective?
I guess that item (c), the desire to force good on everyone, whether they want it or not, eliminates a lot of people who would otherwise be fundamentalist. I suppose it eliminates me, because I'm under the (Catholic, not Calvinist) impression that God game man free will. But that isn't to say that I don't believe everyone should follow the good. I *do* think everyone should. I just don't think everyone will [I've seen to much otherwise].
As for (a) believes in absolute good and evil, I do. I further think that our shades of gray come from mental myopia, often related to our previous choices and our ego.
For (b), I believe I do know which is which, *usually*, through a combination of scripture, an ability to think, experience, and out of those, conscience. God would know all the time; I'm not God, and have my own myopias... but try not to give the myopia too much practice.
So I guess I'd almost qualify. I think the reason why people sometimes want to force others into morality, is because they are quite correctly aware that if you do evil things or stupid things, it *does impact me*. There is no such thing as a "victimless" crime: society absorbs the cost of such crimes so that they are hard to see -- but they do have victims. So some people feel that the solution is to force moral behavior. Of course, forcing moral behavior on others is also a "victimless" crime with real victims, since it attempts to remove the free will that God gave men and women. At first, it appears to be good; later, it goes bad if not abandoned, and can actually become very destructive.
It occurs to me that one way to avoid the spam is to keep a record of all outgoing emails on the backup servers, for (say) 1 week. Also, don't take accounts without a real, physical address, phone number, and either a real name or a corporate identity.
Finally, part of the user agreement should be that "if you send spam through us that gets us put on an RBL, you agree to pay damages of $1 per spam sent, $10 per spam if the number of spam emails was over 5000". Do that, and you can collect after a while.
As for me, I've found that I can set my Mozilla to block emails that contain the words "opt-in". Usually it works, but sometimes Mozilla misses it. I'm not sure why.
No, an explosion is easy. A high-yield explosion is difficult. Drop two moderately large pieces of uranium in the same water bath, and you'll get an explosion. That perhaps could set off TNT.
My dad, Ph.D. in fusion at U. of Wisconsin [1972: his statement that fusion won't be practical in 50 years got him kicked out of the field by all the 10-year people] tells me that this really happened in a lab, and a couple of lab workers were irradiated. Before they died, they were screaming "help me, I'm burning up." They weren't -- it was the damaged nerves in their skin firing. [Sorry, no refs here] High price to pay for a mistake, trying to save some time.
But I think you could concievably get an explosion.
But I could be wrong -- I'm often wrong [and no, I didn't invent Data. That was Al Gore.]
I too am inclined to think that there is no conspiracy, but I would not be hugely surprised to find that the initial blast was nuclear in nature. I could imagine where the government would be transporting nuclear materials, and in an effort to keep it secret, labeled it as something else. Then you just place a few of the loads of purified uranium to close together, maybe on either side of a bilge, and --- presto. Instant munitions accident. But at that, the majority of the accident would still be conventional.
You seem to be up on your Tolien.
... or the journey to the cracks of doom being copied by the Talisman's journey to take the sphere from the hotel... or a number of other tings.
Has anyone other than me, though, noticed that Stephen King borrowed heavily from Tolkien?
Anything from the fortune telling sphere's of the Wizard's Rainbow (Rose Red, Talisman, Eyes of the Dragon, Black Tower series) being essentially Silmarils, the communication and fortune-telling balls of Middle-Earth
Anyhow, it always seemed clear to me that King drew a lot of material wholesale from Tolkien.
I agree that not all children's books "come and go". I'm pretty sure that C.S. Lewis' children's books (Narnia chronicals) will last, whereas his space trilogy will only hang on as "also written by Lewis". Tolkien's Lord of the Rings will last. Alice in Wonderland, as you note, will last.
On the other hand, J.K. Rowling's work has come. I won't be sorry to see it go, if go it does. Some things have more depth and value than others.
As for me? My definition of art is: "Art is the skill of communication. Some things, like sex and death, are easy to communicate, and do not themselves demonstrate skill. Other things are difficult to communicate, yet a skillful artist can still do so." Thus I rate art in terms of several things: Personal value (do I like it? do I like its message?) Skill value (was this easy to do? Or hard to do? Did I understand it?) and Social value (Is this good for society?). There are many times when a work will pass with flying colors in one area, and flunk another. The great artists, in my opinion, should usually do well in all three. If an artist doesn't, he/she usually won't get recognized, and thus won't be classified as a great artist.
Just a few questions:
(1) What do you mean by fundamentalism?
(2) Is it necessarily true, then, that fundamentalists don't have [or, being charitable don't use] the brains that God gave them?
(3) Is it possible that there is actually a different split here?
I ask, because I'm a pretty fundamentalist kindof personality myself, similar to Baptist fundamentalists, but I'm a Catholic, and a very conservative one.
But I've not only prayed my way into this position, or been led into it: part of it was that I thought my way into this position. But back when I was in my early college years, I wasn't active enough to go to church regularly, for example.
Nor are my brains missing from other areas of life. Right now, I'm looking at a patent-and-marketing agreement for a revolutionary optimization of a *very* common computer algorithm that is normally as slow as molassas. Back in college, I was the structural designer for the team aircraft that won the 1992 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics contest. Entering college, I was a National Merit Scholar with a 1530 combined SAT score.
Just as intelligent, as I remember, were the Texas couple in which the mother went completely crazy, decided that her bad parenting had ruined her kids' lives, and drowned her kids in a bathtub... but they, too, as I remember, were fundamentalist.
Not that crazy corresponds to fundamentalism any better than stupid does... actually, I suspect crazy links better to intelligent.
But I just wonder if you have your line demarcated correctly. I'm guessing that sometimes intelligent people see and understand physical, social, and moral relationships that less intelligent people miss -- and that, too, can lead to a kind of fundamentalism (depending on what you mean by fundamentalism).
I have a question : *HAS* the US instituted these pollution credits yet? Because if it has... I'm here in Lithuania, a great place to grow trees, and I'd love to start buying up land and planting trees.
http://www.endtimeprophecy.net/~tttbbs/EPN-2/Artic les/Articles-Endt/wormwd-1.html
Here's one link that a Google search of "Chernobyl wormwood" turned up:
d 1/ wormwood1.htm
http://www.yowusa.com/Archive/March2002/wormwoo
That said, I didn't get this from such a source. I got this from a Russian exchange student, back in 1993.
That said, *I consider that this site I mentioned goes way too far in tying a Biblical prophecy to "current events"*. That is not to say that they are wrong or right -- I don't know. Just suffice it to say that historically significant events usually have analogs everywhere.
But seeing such a thing *should* make a person stop and think twice, especially about whether their own lives are right.
I'm sorry. Did you forget Lithuania? It seems to me that Lithuania, not Estonia, was at the center of the maximum fallout path. Right over Klaipeda, if I remember correctly.
Chernobyl is named for a small, bitter herb, "chernoblis", that grows in the region. Of course, that's the Ukranian word. In English, the herb is called "wormwood."
...
No joke.
Of course, to quote my father when he heard that, "That's nonsense. Chernobyl wasn't a star. A star is a
!!!
Ummm... these studies are often misdesigned to give the desired result.
If, for example, you only take 22 infected male monkeys, strap condoms on them, and mix them with 22 female monkeys (or 100 female monkeys) and then watch the infections pass, you will necessarily conclude that the transmission of STDs is reduced.
If, on the other hand, you go out into society, and study two completely identical societies [caveat: we're already into fantasy] except that one has condoms pushed, and another has abstinence pushed, then there is a chance that you will see far more sexual activity in the former... and more STDs.
Now, I have no idea what a proper study would be. However, you can deliberately misdesign a study to predefine the results you want... and that does happen. Of course, when you do this you are clearly getting no new information out, and the study is political, not scientific. What you are instead doing is getting literature out to support your desired political opinion.
Hmmm.. "legitimize" was a rather misbegotten word, wasn't it?
I'm going to answer this one. I give a 95% or better chance that you will not agree, but this answer is close to the conservative Catholic view of sex. I'm not sure what other views correspond to each other group.
Sex is good, and legitimate, when it is not separated from the other parts of life to which it is inherently linked. This is rather like saying that a powered automobile engine is good and legitimate when the automobile is hooked up to other specific parts, like a throttle control, emissions reduction equipment, also brakes, and such.
In the case of sex, the sex is inherently tied, (and it is believed to be tied especially in human psychology), to reproduction. It is also tied to the basic family structure. So you don't definitively separate it from those two things, and sex is good.
Condoms, abortion, artificial insemination, and cloning all separate the sex from the reproductive act, and serve to make each appear like a package that you can pick up at the store, use, and discard. However, using and discarding ignores the fact that these things are tied to you, and the way you think and behave. So the conservative Catholic tends to be more holistic about sex.
So as part of birth regulation, Catholics take a more holistic approach. I think that that approach is better than most.
In general, I tend to think the more holistic view is the best view -- and not just in sex. Work, friendships, exercise, nutrition, health, and entertainment can all benefit from a more holistic attitude as well.
Ummm... to get a reasonable cross-section, you really need the D-T reaction. Aside from that, when you talk about the abundance of D- being enough to power human civilization until who knows when, you aren't talking about the percentage incidence, or how you will isolate it.
That takes a ton of effort (thus energy) right there.
Both statements of yours were true.
Condoms do lead to more sex, by legitimizing sex (as does pornography). As part of that, one must remember that *sex can kill*. I seem to remember reading some Washingtom Post articles about AIDS-transmission parties. True or not, sex can kill through STDs. Nor is it always voluntary.
And guns *do* legitimize killing (in case nobody noticed the upcoming Iraq Wars sequel, "Clone of the Attack". ).
That said, I would be happy to get rid of all guns, so long as we start with the most evil people, since guns also empower. So it would have been fine for Germany to get rid of guns if they had first had the German *government* and *army* and SS Troopers get rid of their guns. Likewise, we first have to get the guns out of the hands of the most power-hungry Americans, the government... and then I'm sure that the second Amendment will become unnecessary.
So by all means... get rid of both.