While I guess this is only fair on MS's part, I have a filter in Evolution that automatically trashes anything with an e-mail address with "hotmail" in it. So I guess turn about is fair play.
Noooo. He was a "rip off", technically a parody of Steamboat Bill a Buster Keaton silent film. In fact Steamboat Willie is considered the first widely distributed cartoon, it starred Mickey Mouse and is the focus of almost all of Disney's attempts to extend Copyright in the States. What I did not realize is that Steamboat Willie is actually in the public domain in Canada and Australia.
Of course I can't take any real credit for this knowledge it comes from Wikipedia,
"terrible" is going a little far don't you think? After all I wasn't making a comparision against the whole of the revenue stream of car manufacturing simply the idea of not being able to service your own vehicle.
At the same time it isn't as bad as you seem to think . Why would a car company give their car away for free? The only reason "Free Software" does is because it is sooooo damn easy to copy AND the GPL almost makes it a requirement. In reality many people sell "Free" software(Redhat being just one company), more importantly they sell the packaging of free software. Similarly car companies sell you the package that is a car, technically you could simply go out and build your own, I have a fairly good friend who could "easily" do this(easy for him not for the rest of us).
Wow, why don't you just admit your wrong, it's much easier and it doesn't make you look silly. Come on now really let's have a look shall we,
"Of course they're going go unleash the WMDs. Why would they not?"
'Don't worry, it's safe to let private armies carry these guns, because we promise that our gunmen won't shoot anyone in that building.'
So your really going to argue that someone talking about private armies shooting(or not) at buildings is "worse" than someone talking about "unleashing" Weapons of MASS destruction? It is obvious that when it comes to RMS you have your sensibility meter pegged far too high. Either that or you view WMD's as much more impersonal than "gunmen shooting at buildings", which wouldn't be the first time I've seen it, unfortunately WMD's are FAR worse than any gunman and convey a much worse outcome(to me anyway).
Actually I think you just hit that nail on the head. This is the only criteria that should be used to determine support. Why? Because if there are enough interested developers they will do the work necessary for the survival of their platform. There is of course one caveat to that which really boils down to "if there are enough devoted developers". You can have a small number of developers who do amazing work to keep their platform viable or a large number doing smaller amounts of work. Either way it can amount to the same and the majority isn't "inconvenienced" unnecessarily.
Here's a quote I always found enlightening, maybe it will help you change your point of view on Stallman.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
By the way there are very few people in the software community as "bright" as Stallman, he has by all accounts a genius level IQ. This also makes him somewhat less than socially adept. But by any means he has done more for this world than any "Anonymous Coward" such as yourself can even hope to accomplish.
It is extremely important that Stallman remains "unreasonable" in his view of software patents and copyright, the businesses he is up against are equally unreasonable. Consider all these patent "giveaways" and how people are praising these companies all over the place for their "generosity". The fact is that these same companies are doing their best to ensure that they and only they have patents to give away to begin with. I consider IBM to be one of the most forward thinking companies in regards to open source as we have in our current world, but even they are backing the Software Patents directive in the EU with gusto. When it all comes out in the wash these companies look at OS as a revenue stream only and this must always be kept in mind.
OS/Free Software is valuable other than as a revenue stream, businesses don't care about that, even IBM. Keeping your eye on the ball in this situation is vitally important, often Stallman is the ONLY one reminding you where the ball actually is.
Oh and Stallman's premise isn't that Free Software promotes sharing, it's that Free Software removes you from vendor/proprietary lock-in. The standard example is with cars. The comparison being, if cars were like proprietary software you wouldn't be able to work on your own car and you would HAVE to take it back to the manufacturer to get ANY service. Thank god they aren't this way although car manufacturers have tried their best to make it so. The fact that you don't understand that this is Stallman's underlying position says more about your own bias than Stallman's.
The way the MPAA and RIAA are going I think it would be best described as a global maxima! Cha-ching! Thank-you very much, I'm here all week, 3 shows nightly.
Yes methods are currently patentable, the question was open regarding reforming this which is what I was speaking to.
As to your points 1) we agree on 2) I was implying that manufacturing processes currently in use in other areas(e.g. semi-conductor manufacturing) but applied to solar cell production, wouldn't be patentable(even now I presume). Sorry I wasn't clear.
3) You won't like my response but "that's too bad". That's what patents are supposed to do, for instance it's long been known that "doping"(the addition of small amounts of one chemical to another not the use of drugs) is useful in many contexts. You shouldn't(and can't as far as I know) be able to patent "doping", but a particular machine for doping or combination of doping chemicals may be patentable. If someone finds a way around your machine, well that's what innovation is about. In fact that's what drives innovation. It's the fact that "method" patents are pervasive that appears to have stifled innovation. There's no incentive for anyone to invent a new machine because even if they do they can't use it because "it's essentially the same method". 4) I was obviously too vague "thing" in my context isn't meant to imply a "method". If that's all the invention is than again I say 'too bad'. I know the current climate is against me, but I'm arguing against it. 5) That was half of my point. But even if you have a great idea this doesn't mean that it "should" be patentable even if you can make it work in practice. For instance, I think it would be a "great idea" to clean my house. Big deal, I can't patent "cleaning houses". Thinking on this point, leads to this "great idea". I think it would be a "great idea" to coat everything in my house in a thin layer of teflon, thus making it easier to clean my house. In practice there are many difficulties. But let's run with this, let's say that I start by just wanting a non-stick paint. So I decide just to add a little teflon to the paint. Maybe this works maybe it doesn't. If it does work but all I did was mix the teflon with the paint, I don't see how that is patentable. But, if I had to bond the teflon to the paint molecules in a very specific arrangement or create a new chemical compound that incorporates the paint & teflon molecules, or create a new machine to cause the teflon & paint molecules to bond, than IMHO, that should be patentable.
I'm not sure that this is a good argument against removing "method" patients. Just because "most patents have some method attached" doesn't tell me method patents are a good thing. It could point to the idea that people have stopped truely innovating and simply patenting otherwise obvious changes to existing methods.
Furthermore just because it has "some method" to it, doesn't make the method patented, it's the other parts of the idea that likely make it patentable. For instance in your example of making cheaper solar cells, if all that is done is to take existing methods and reorder them or apply them in a different context doesn't or shouldn't(IMO) make it patentable. However, it's likely that the new process would require a new machine, a new chemical composition or some other new "thing" that has never been seen before, that is what would be patentable.
Lastly, just because something may be a "good idea" doesn't necessarily mean it should get a patent or even deserve to get one.
What country are you in? If it's Canada I'd like to get in on that, if it's not I'd like to hear what your doing to get the ear of your government on this.
I have always thought that this type of thing isn't as far fetched as it seems. While you may have been trying to be a bit facetious if you consider that the MPAA and RIAA act in ways that in other contexts may be called "collusion" I don't see how it is they get away with some of the things they do.
For instance the CSS encryption on DVD's is "approved" by the MPAA and adopted for use by it's members. How is that not collusion? While it may seem that having many different "standards" would be bad for consumers that's just the way it is. But they didn't give the consumer a choice. They simply acted as an oligopoly and agreed not to release any DVD's without the use of this encryption scheme. I would have thought this kind of thing would be against the rules.
Far be it from me to tell Apple what they need to do when a lead developer of KHTML is already doing it.
Re:Its only the bad things we head about?
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I wonder how much of your post represents the views of a single Apple apologist as opposed to someone who understands what "communication" really means.
You seem to believe that the Apple engineers offer is sincere. Do you even have a clue as how much work the Apple Engineer is suggesting the KHTML guys do in order simply to be able to merge their changes in to WebCore? Than in the end the KHTML developers would still be at the mercy of Apple's decisions because Apple would have complete control over the WebCore development process. So than there would need to be a fork of WebCore.
What the hell is so hard for Apple to release constructive patch fixes?
Re:Learning about Apple
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And the KHTML guys have decided to "leave it" and explain why. If Apple gets a black eye out of it so be it.
Apple could have tried to be a little more community spirited rather than just ignoring the needs of the very people they relied on to save them millions in development cost. How hard would it have been to include real comments in their patches rather than pointing to a bug database number?
Your second point here is really the most telling with regards to QM. I must retract the statement that quantum mechanics "allows for the creation of the universe...", which is clearly hogspit, there not being a "universe" for quantum mechanics to describe.
However, I still maintain that "something from nothing" is "plausible" in our universe so not entirely without merit for the creation of our universe, even if that means postulating a different theory for describing the "nothingness" that existed "before" space-time.
You stated earlier that it is more "plausible" to believe in a creator than believe in something "creating itself", well who/what created the creator? How plausible is it to believe "it" existed "before" the universe? Simply existing, "world without end,amen"(sorry my former Catholic upbringing creeping in).
Sorry, but "creationism" raises far more questions than it solves and is far less plausible in my opinion.
In an odd way I have to thank you, I wasn't entirely sure it was Bertrand Russell, it's been a while since I "knew" this. But I had thought that he had at least "proved" the 1+1 conjecture, because at the time I remember thinking "well he got the hard part", thinking of course that it was "downhill" from there, e.g. 1+1=2 => 1+2 = 3 should be "trivial". Guess my memory isn't as good as I thought.
Unless the field has progressed significantly since I last looked the best that "logic" could produce was that 1+1=2. If I'm not mistaken Bertrand Russell effectively had a nervous breakdown after developing a monstrous "proof" of this assertion. But I admit I haven't kept up with the field so it's possible logic has "proven" mathematics, which is the fundamental tool used to analyze the universe.
Secondly, while I almost didn't post my original, because I know that "mathematics"(and thus presumably logic) is more "fundamental" than Physics, I see both logic & mathematics as only "tools" to be used by scientists. In fact many pure mathematicians hate it when physicists "discover" a way to put a seemingly "useless" mathematical theory to good use to help explain the universe.
1) Quantum Mechanics indeed shows/postulates that something can "cause itself to exist", its not phrased that way of course. Their called "Vacuum Fluctuations", the idea being that there is a finite probability that "empty space" will see the creation of a particle and its anti-particle(thus conservation of energy is preserved). In fact this occurs "all the time"(given the size of the universe). So quantum mechanics, one of the best tested "theories" ever developed, allows for the creation of the universe from nothing.
2) Regardless of where you place your creator, inside or outside the universe, finite or infinite, the question will automatically arise as to the fundamental nature of this creator and where did "it" come from? The creator's existence and what made the creator(assuming one exists) would answer how our universe was created but not "why?", in fact determining what created the creator would lead to a better understanding of "why" the creator created us.
At any rate, my main point is that current fundamental theories of Physics allow for the creation of the universe "on it's own", so your problem with things "creating themselves" is your own problem and certainly not sciences'.
"In fact, a true religion has a lot in common with science - it's a continual proofing to make sure the belief holds"
First, what in your opinion is a "true" religion. I contend that ALL major world religions if started today would be considered "cults" long before they would be accepted as a "mainstream" religion. No ability to test this really, but study the history of various world religions and cults of recent(e.g. since the '60s) culture and tell me how there is any real fundamental difference.
Secondly as a former Catholic I can tell you there is no "proofing"(presumably you equate this to the "scientific" method) in religions. Consider that the most fundamental tenant of Catholicism, the "great mystery" was decided upon by a bunch of bishops of their day to appease the Roman Emperor(I believe it was Constantine) because he was fed up with people debating over whether Jesus Christ was God or his Son(how could he be both?). If your not in the know as to what the "great mystery" is, just search Google for the Nicean Creed. There is no attempt to "proove" this or even question it.
That doesn't even go in to things like priests not able to marry or women not being priests. Neither of those can be supported by "faith" or reference to the Bible, they were "invented" by the leaders of the church at various points in history.
In fact I believe religion is as far away from science as two subjects could possibly be.
Except that his paper was a review of 1000 other papers to determine their level of acceptance of the theory that humans are the "cause" of global warming.
As a scientist probably used to publishing papers I'm fairly certain he has qualifications on how to read papers to detemine what it is they claim. Note that he isn't claiming to be doing scientific research in the area of climatology, only that he can read papers too and his analysis shows a stark contrast to the original which claimed "wide spread consensus".
Oh, and papers can/should never be rejected because of a person's qualifications, they can or should only be rejected because the research is somehow faulty. Richard Feynman was a renowned Physicist but also did research in Biology, does it make his research faulty simply because he didn't have a degree in Biology?
Ah, now this is better, a reasoned argument against their use, or at least a sharing of concerns, rather than previous off handed remarks automatically decrying the law(not saying you did).
As for your arguments(in no particular order), 1) abuse and erosion of civil liberties for the rest of us. Even prison can be abused, witness the incarceration of suspected "terrorists" without due process. Defined rules or not the government is able to abuse those rules when the populous sleeps, it is the price of "eternal vigilance" that we have a democracy(note that I'm Canadian so the "we" is a global "we"). I don't believe it would be necessarily "easy" to extend an RFID tag on criminals to the rest of us any more than incarceration without due process would be. The law appropriately written must require a criminal act to be enforced. That we need to ensure that the law isn't extended is the business of our respective constitutions but ultimately our peoples. Our Supremes in Canada would find it hard(dare I say impossible) to uphold a law requiring ALL people to have a tag inserted. In fact I would think even your Supremes would have a major problem even the "conservative" ones.
2) "If tagging is NECESSARY...letting them out too early". This may in fact be the case, but I have a much bigger problem with the current practice in Canada of what effectively is an "indefinite" sentence. Basically such offenders are usually incarcerated for a defined period(say 5 years as a guess), after which they are "analyzed" and if it is determined that they are a "dangerous offender" they can be kept in jail. While I understand the sentiment, this seems to me to be patently wrong and way to easy to abuse. A criminal is effectively being punished indefinitely for crimes they MAY commit. If the crime is so heinous that it deserves longer incarceration than the law should be changed to make the maximum longer, period! However, this is still better than the practice of "outing" sex offenders. Again, these criminals have done their time, either leave them alone or pass a law requiring this disclosure, but give us the rules of the game. This has changed of course and laws are being enacted to force sex offenders to register with the police when moving in to an area, but the "outing" used to be done without such a law, sort of like a double penalty.
As for the abuse of the tags, this is more of a "technological" argument in that such abuse could be mitigated or even removed from possibility with use of appropriate encryption on the tags. As well as appropriate enforcement against such abuse(e.g. refusing to sell to someone is discrimination). Having said this however, before I would support the "tagging" of criminals it must be shown that the technology that would be used could not be easily abused in the manners you mention. Which could lead to a better quality of life for offenders who really have rehabilitated. Specifically because they would not be easily "outed" or required to be "outed" by the law. Thus the police would know who they were but the general populace wouldn't, detectors could be placed strategically to ensure these offenders would be noticed if they entered certain areas of parks, school grounds, or other areas where children congregate.
Lastly, it would probably go over better if it was a condition of parole, for instance "either accept this tagging for life or stay in jail another 10 years, your choice." Something like that.
At any rate, I'm not convinced that tagging is appropriate or workable but all my first posts wanted was for people to stop and think before they reacted to a "removal of civil liberties", ignoring incarceration as being even worse.
Slashdot Mirror
While I guess this is only fair on MS's part, I have a filter in Evolution that automatically trashes anything with an e-mail address with "hotmail" in it. So I guess turn about is fair play.
In other words I couldn't care less.
Noooo. He was a "rip off", technically a parody of Steamboat Bill a Buster Keaton silent film. In fact Steamboat Willie is considered the first widely distributed cartoon, it starred Mickey Mouse and is the focus of almost all of Disney's attempts to extend Copyright in the States. What I did not realize is that Steamboat Willie is actually in the public domain in Canada and Australia.
Of course I can't take any real credit for this knowledge it comes from Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Willie
As a Canadian I guess I can now use "Steamboat Willie" with abandon...
Bullshit! :-)
"terrible" is going a little far don't you think? After all I wasn't making a comparision against the whole of the revenue stream of car manufacturing simply the idea of not being able to service your own vehicle.
At the same time it isn't as bad as you seem to think . Why would a car company give their car away for free? The only reason "Free Software" does is because it is sooooo damn easy to copy AND the GPL almost makes it a requirement. In reality many people sell "Free" software(Redhat being just one company), more importantly they sell the packaging of free software. Similarly car companies sell you the package that is a car, technically you could simply go out and build your own, I have a fairly good friend who could "easily" do this(easy for him not for the rest of us).
Wow, why don't you just admit your wrong, it's much easier and it doesn't make you look silly. Come on now really let's have a look shall we,
"Of course they're going go unleash the WMDs. Why would they not?"
'Don't worry, it's safe to let private armies carry these guns, because we promise that our gunmen won't shoot anyone in that building.'
So your really going to argue that someone talking about private armies shooting(or not) at buildings is "worse" than someone talking about "unleashing" Weapons of MASS destruction? It is obvious that when it comes to RMS you have your sensibility meter pegged far too high. Either that or you view WMD's as much more impersonal than "gunmen shooting at buildings", which wouldn't be the first time I've seen it, unfortunately WMD's are FAR worse than any gunman and convey a much worse outcome(to me anyway).
"...or just interest level of the developers?"
Actually I think you just hit that nail on the head. This is the only criteria that should be used to determine support. Why? Because if there are enough interested developers they will do the work necessary for the survival of their platform. There is of course one caveat to that which really boils down to "if there are enough devoted developers". You can have a small number of developers who do amazing work to keep their platform viable or a large number doing smaller amounts of work. Either way it can amount to the same and the majority isn't "inconvenienced" unnecessarily.
Here's a quote I always found enlightening, maybe it will help you change your point of view on Stallman.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
By the way there are very few people in the software community as "bright" as Stallman, he has by all accounts a genius level IQ. This also makes him somewhat less than socially adept. But by any means he has done more for this world than any "Anonymous Coward" such as yourself can even hope to accomplish.
It is extremely important that Stallman remains "unreasonable" in his view of software patents and copyright, the businesses he is up against are equally unreasonable. Consider all these patent "giveaways" and how people are praising these companies all over the place for their "generosity". The fact is that these same companies are doing their best to ensure that they and only they have patents to give away to begin with. I consider IBM to be one of the most forward thinking companies in regards to open source as we have in our current world, but even they are backing the Software Patents directive in the EU with gusto. When it all comes out in the wash these companies look at OS as a revenue stream only and this must always be kept in mind.
OS/Free Software is valuable other than as a revenue stream, businesses don't care about that, even IBM. Keeping your eye on the ball in this situation is vitally important, often Stallman is the ONLY one reminding you where the ball actually is.
Oh and Stallman's premise isn't that Free Software promotes sharing, it's that Free Software removes you from vendor/proprietary lock-in. The standard example is with cars. The comparison being, if cars were like proprietary software you wouldn't be able to work on your own car and you would HAVE to take it back to the manufacturer to get ANY service. Thank god they aren't this way although car manufacturers have tried their best to make it so. The fact that you don't understand that this is Stallman's underlying position says more about your own bias than Stallman's.
Oh this is too good to pass up...
The way the MPAA and RIAA are going I think it would be best described as a global maxima! Cha-ching! Thank-you very much, I'm here all week, 3 shows nightly.
No, mathematically it's called a parabola or a hyperbola, I don't know many mathematicians who would call it a "hill".
Yes methods are currently patentable, the question was open regarding reforming this which is what I was speaking to.
As to your points 1) we agree on 2) I was implying that manufacturing processes currently in use in other areas(e.g. semi-conductor manufacturing) but applied to solar cell production, wouldn't be patentable(even now I presume). Sorry I wasn't clear.
3) You won't like my response but "that's too bad". That's what patents are supposed to do, for instance it's long been known that "doping"(the addition of small amounts of one chemical to another not the use of drugs) is useful in many contexts. You shouldn't(and can't as far as I know) be able to patent "doping", but a particular machine for doping or combination of doping chemicals may be patentable. If someone finds a way around your machine, well that's what innovation is about. In fact that's what drives innovation. It's the fact that "method" patents are pervasive that appears to have stifled innovation. There's no incentive for anyone to invent a new machine because even if they do they can't use it because "it's essentially the same method".
4) I was obviously too vague "thing" in my context isn't meant to imply a "method". If that's all the invention is than again I say 'too bad'. I know the current climate is against me, but I'm arguing against it.
5) That was half of my point. But even if you have a great idea this doesn't mean that it "should" be patentable even if you can make it work in practice. For instance, I think it would be a "great idea" to clean my house. Big deal, I can't patent "cleaning houses". Thinking on this point, leads to this "great idea". I think it would be a "great idea" to coat everything in my house in a thin layer of teflon, thus making it easier to clean my house. In practice there are many difficulties. But let's run with this, let's say that I start by just wanting a non-stick paint. So I decide just to add a little teflon to the paint. Maybe this works maybe it doesn't. If it does work but all I did was mix the teflon with the paint, I don't see how that is patentable. But, if I had to bond the teflon to the paint molecules in a very specific arrangement or create a new chemical compound that incorporates the paint & teflon molecules, or create a new machine to cause the teflon & paint molecules to bond, than IMHO, that should be patentable.
I'm not sure that this is a good argument against removing "method" patients. Just because "most patents have some method attached" doesn't tell me method patents are a good thing. It could point to the idea that people have stopped truely innovating and simply patenting otherwise obvious changes to existing methods.
Furthermore just because it has "some method" to it, doesn't make the method patented, it's the other parts of the idea that likely make it patentable. For instance in your example of making cheaper solar cells, if all that is done is to take existing methods and reorder them or apply them in a different context doesn't or shouldn't(IMO) make it patentable. However, it's likely that the new process would require a new machine, a new chemical composition or some other new "thing" that has never been seen before, that is what would be patentable.
Lastly, just because something may be a "good idea" doesn't necessarily mean it should get a patent or even deserve to get one.
What country are you in? If it's Canada I'd like to get in on that, if it's not I'd like to hear what your doing to get the ear of your government on this.
I have always thought that this type of thing isn't as far fetched as it seems. While you may have been trying to be a bit facetious if you consider that the MPAA and RIAA act in ways that in other contexts may be called "collusion" I don't see how it is they get away with some of the things they do.
For instance the CSS encryption on DVD's is "approved" by the MPAA and adopted for use by it's members. How is that not collusion? While it may seem that having many different "standards" would be bad for consumers that's just the way it is. But they didn't give the consumer a choice. They simply acted as an oligopoly and agreed not to release any DVD's without the use of this encryption scheme. I would have thought this kind of thing would be against the rules.
WOW, could you be any more obtuse?
It's unnecessary for me to do this. Zack Rusin has done it already in his blog here,
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/blog/14
Far be it from me to tell Apple what they need to do when a lead developer of KHTML is already doing it.
I wonder how much of your post represents the views of a single Apple apologist as opposed to someone who understands what "communication" really means.
You seem to believe that the Apple engineers offer is sincere. Do you even have a clue as how much work the Apple Engineer is suggesting the KHTML guys do in order simply to be able to merge their changes in to WebCore? Than in the end the KHTML developers would still be at the mercy of Apple's decisions because Apple would have complete control over the WebCore development process. So than there would need to be a fork of WebCore.
What the hell is so hard for Apple to release constructive patch fixes?
And the KHTML guys have decided to "leave it" and explain why. If Apple gets a black eye out of it so be it.
Apple could have tried to be a little more community spirited rather than just ignoring the needs of the very people they relied on to save them millions in development cost. How hard would it have been to include real comments in their patches rather than pointing to a bug database number?
Your second point here is really the most telling with regards to QM. I must retract the statement that quantum mechanics "allows for the creation of the universe...", which is clearly hogspit, there not being a "universe" for quantum mechanics to describe.
However, I still maintain that "something from nothing" is "plausible" in our universe so not entirely without merit for the creation of our universe, even if that means postulating a different theory for describing the "nothingness" that existed "before" space-time.
You stated earlier that it is more "plausible" to believe in a creator than believe in something "creating itself", well who/what created the creator? How plausible is it to believe "it" existed "before" the universe? Simply existing, "world without end,amen"(sorry my former Catholic upbringing creeping in).
Sorry, but "creationism" raises far more questions than it solves and is far less plausible in my opinion.
In an odd way I have to thank you, I wasn't entirely sure it was Bertrand Russell, it's been a while since I "knew" this. But I had thought that he had at least "proved" the 1+1 conjecture, because at the time I remember thinking "well he got the hard part", thinking of course that it was "downhill" from there, e.g. 1+1=2 => 1+2 = 3 should be "trivial". Guess my memory isn't as good as I thought.
Unless the field has progressed significantly since I last looked the best that "logic" could produce was that 1+1=2. If I'm not mistaken Bertrand Russell effectively had a nervous breakdown after developing a monstrous "proof" of this assertion. But I admit I haven't kept up with the field so it's possible logic has "proven" mathematics, which is the fundamental tool used to analyze the universe.
Secondly, while I almost didn't post my original, because I know that "mathematics"(and thus presumably logic) is more "fundamental" than Physics, I see both logic & mathematics as only "tools" to be used by scientists. In fact many pure mathematicians hate it when physicists "discover" a way to put a seemingly "useless" mathematical theory to good use to help explain the universe.
Two problems with this,
1) Quantum Mechanics indeed shows/postulates that something can "cause itself to exist", its not phrased that way of course. Their called "Vacuum Fluctuations", the idea being that there is a finite probability that "empty space" will see the creation of a particle and its anti-particle(thus conservation of energy is preserved). In fact this occurs "all the time"(given the size of the universe). So quantum mechanics, one of the best tested "theories" ever developed, allows for the creation of the universe from nothing.
2) Regardless of where you place your creator, inside or outside the universe, finite or infinite, the question will automatically arise as to the fundamental nature of this creator and where did "it" come from? The creator's existence and what made the creator(assuming one exists) would answer how our universe was created but not "why?", in fact determining what created the creator would lead to a better understanding of "why" the creator created us.
At any rate, my main point is that current fundamental theories of Physics allow for the creation of the universe "on it's own", so your problem with things "creating themselves" is your own problem and certainly not sciences'.
"In fact, a true religion has a lot in common with science - it's a continual proofing to make sure the belief holds"
First, what in your opinion is a "true" religion. I contend that ALL major world religions if started today would be considered "cults" long before they would be accepted as a "mainstream" religion. No ability to test this really, but study the history of various world religions and cults of recent(e.g. since the '60s) culture and tell me how there is any real fundamental difference.
Secondly as a former Catholic I can tell you there is no "proofing"(presumably you equate this to the "scientific" method) in religions. Consider that the most fundamental tenant of Catholicism, the "great mystery" was decided upon by a bunch of bishops of their day to appease the Roman Emperor(I believe it was Constantine) because he was fed up with people debating over whether Jesus Christ was God or his Son(how could he be both?). If your not in the know as to what the "great mystery" is, just search Google for the Nicean Creed. There is no attempt to "proove" this or even question it.
That doesn't even go in to things like priests not able to marry or women not being priests. Neither of those can be supported by "faith" or reference to the Bible, they were "invented" by the leaders of the church at various points in history.
In fact I believe religion is as far away from science as two subjects could possibly be.
"What's even more ridiculous is the claim that the Theory of Evolution is the foundation of all science."
Where have you ever seen this claim made? Physics is the foundation of all other sciences.
Except that his paper was a review of 1000 other papers to determine their level of acceptance of the theory that humans are the "cause" of global warming.
As a scientist probably used to publishing papers I'm fairly certain he has qualifications on how to read papers to detemine what it is they claim. Note that he isn't claiming to be doing scientific research in the area of climatology, only that he can read papers too and his analysis shows a stark contrast to the original which claimed "wide spread consensus".
Oh, and papers can/should never be rejected because of a person's qualifications, they can or should only be rejected because the research is somehow faulty. Richard Feynman was a renowned Physicist but also did research in Biology, does it make his research faulty simply because he didn't have a degree in Biology?
Ah, now this is better, a reasoned argument against their use, or at least a sharing of concerns, rather than previous off handed remarks automatically decrying the law(not saying you did).
As for your arguments(in no particular order), 1) abuse and erosion of civil liberties for the rest of us. Even prison can be abused, witness the incarceration of suspected "terrorists" without due process. Defined rules or not the government is able to abuse those rules when the populous sleeps, it is the price of "eternal vigilance" that we have a democracy(note that I'm Canadian so the "we" is a global "we"). I don't believe it would be necessarily "easy" to extend an RFID tag on criminals to the rest of us any more than incarceration without due process would be. The law appropriately written must require a criminal act to be enforced. That we need to ensure that the law isn't extended is the business of our respective constitutions but ultimately our peoples. Our Supremes in Canada would find it hard(dare I say impossible) to uphold a law requiring ALL people to have a tag inserted. In fact I would think even your Supremes would have a major problem even the "conservative" ones.
2) "If tagging is NECESSARY...letting them out too early". This may in fact be the case, but I have a much bigger problem with the current practice in Canada of what effectively is an "indefinite" sentence. Basically such offenders are usually incarcerated for a defined period(say 5 years as a guess), after which they are "analyzed" and if it is determined that they are a "dangerous offender" they can be kept in jail. While I understand the sentiment, this seems to me to be patently wrong and way to easy to abuse. A criminal is effectively being punished indefinitely for crimes they MAY commit. If the crime is so heinous that it deserves longer incarceration than the law should be changed to make the maximum longer, period! However, this is still better than the practice of "outing" sex offenders. Again, these criminals have done their time, either leave them alone or pass a law requiring this disclosure, but give us the rules of the game. This has changed of course and laws are being enacted to force sex offenders to register with the police when moving in to an area, but the "outing" used to be done without such a law, sort of like a double penalty.
As for the abuse of the tags, this is more of a "technological" argument in that such abuse could be mitigated or even removed from possibility with use of appropriate encryption on the tags. As well as appropriate enforcement against such abuse(e.g. refusing to sell to someone is discrimination). Having said this however, before I would support the "tagging" of criminals it must be shown that the technology that would be used could not be easily abused in the manners you mention. Which could lead to a better quality of life for offenders who really have rehabilitated. Specifically because they would not be easily "outed" or required to be "outed" by the law. Thus the police would know who they were but the general populace wouldn't, detectors could be placed strategically to ensure these offenders would be noticed if they entered certain areas of parks, school grounds, or other areas where children congregate.
Lastly, it would probably go over better if it was a condition of parole, for instance "either accept this tagging for life or stay in jail another 10 years, your choice." Something like that.
At any rate, I'm not convinced that tagging is appropriate or workable but all my first posts wanted was for people to stop and think before they reacted to a "removal of civil liberties", ignoring incarceration as being even worse.