"Apparently your experience in the real world is limited."
It is not, thank you. What you said probably is true, but then again, you are talking about Linux. If one is a Linux user, you can be sure he/she knows how to use his/her 'boxen', in spite of his/her gender. In the world of Regular Windows Users things are different, though. And those users make up the extreme majority of world's computer users. And do I ever have a wide experience from that world. So, my point is there is a certain difference between Joe and Jane Sixpack users and Linux geeks.
"Experimentation is *the* way that users learn stuff."
True. But it's kids and teens only who do that. If you're any older than that, and a female at that (no offense to all the ladies here, just something I've noticed in real life), you're scared of computers, and absolutely do not experiment, n00b or not. That's why the OS X approach is the best way to go: you can experiment if you want and find new stuff. But you can also be conservative as heck and manage to avoid screwing things up with some advanced features turned on by default (and which a computer-scared user wouldn't find anyway). Geez, doing a right-click and remembering what it does is too much for many Joe and Jane Doe users.
"Is this what the blogosphere is like?? Is it really ruled by Mac-obsessed almost-hipsters with unwise facial hair and diagonal black-and-white photos of themselves?"
Maybe. But what's wrong with being Mac-obsessed? (Being almost-hip follows automagically.)
What's up with all these robotic animal stories recently? Within a couple of days, we've had stories of robo-seals, robo-snakes and now robo-deer. Should I welcome our new robotic animal overlords? Was that Dr. Eggman I just saw?
Finland, with its public schools, has one of the best literacy rates and most lauded school systems in the world. The problem is not the fact that it's the gummint that runs things. It's just how they run it. You can do things well or you can fsck it all up.
"Actually...A surprising number of people do not want to have the URL of some sites appear in the drop-down box, so they resort to just using Google to access said URLs."
"Score 2: Interesting"??? Some mods obviously have trouble to distinguish "Interesting" from "Funny".
And yeah, penguins possibly can't disappear from anywhere else than the Southern Hemisphere, because they don't live anywhere else. Except in a some desktop 'boxen'. They are too lively to be put into laptops.
Thank you, fellow OS X user, for making my day with this comment. Unfortunately, I must sue you for the loss of my MacBook's keyboard due to a sudden, violent outburst of tea you just caused.
"It is hard to see why anyone would want to access the information on the chip."
Then I say, it is hard to see why they needed to introduce such a thing as an e-passport. Or why we've got passports at all. Have these guys got any detectable brain activity going on when they open their mouths?
I, in my cushy bed of Western comfort, could do with less also, and try to do so on a daily basis. This isn't about personal feelings good and bad, but the well-being of this planet, and thus, ultimately, the survival of us as a species.
The global ecosystem is so infinitely complex that no-one knows how the disappearance of a species will ultimately affect the whole thing. Locally things are known better, and the outcome of extinctions depends entirely on the organism in question. Some are ecologically more important than others. A river dolphin probably isn't situated high on the importance ladder of its ecosystem, but its extinction tells us more about ourselves: as a large mammal, the dolphin is one of those cute, fuzzy animals, and if even they can be driven into extinction just like that without much regard, can we trust ourselves to take note when species even more ecologically important, but lesser in their psychological impact factor, are pushed off the edge?
Sure, species have gone and always will go extinct. But for reasons I've stated in many other posts here, I don't think we should add to that natural die-off through our actions.
As for my answer to the problem, on this I'm actually with George W. Bush himself (besides his statement that fish and human beings can co-exit peacefully): technological advancement will, in the long run, enable us to have a high standard of living without putting the environment in jeopardy. We just need to be careful that in the process that environment doesn't get too exhausted of biodiversity.
Evolution is the observed natural phenomenon of lifeforms becoming different through time. Religion is organised worship of a supernatural being.
Troll? Hardly. Being honest doesn't qualify as trolling.
Saying I couldn't care about somebody having to change his/her job because of a species on a brink of extinction doesn't qualify as hating humans. I don't buy into them-vs-us thinking. And, since you like putting words into my mouth: nowhere did I say the people of China don't deserve the same opportunity we have. Sorry if something I said made you think so.
If calling people for killing off species due to pure negligence (it's not like nothing couldn't have been done about it, with practically no human sacrifice [figuratively speaking, not as in Aztecs]) makes me a holier-than-thou elitist environmantalist, then yes, I'm one.
Keep on burning those strawmen, chump. Say, do you enjoy insulting people with telling them, without a rational basis to your thoughts, that they support a genocide of all mankind?
People can't seem to think straight these days. Like someone said in this debate, it's not like saving a species from extinction by limiting human activity in certain areas amounts to eating babies. At least try to be reasonable.
YOU are saying I hate humanity. I deem your insulting comment simply false, being a member of a human rights organisation. YOU say there's nothing you ppl could do to save yourselves in my eyes. Again, false. We should stop driving species to extinction. Simple as that. It's not like we can't do anything about it, or as if we had to sacrifice human lives for it.
But I do despise holier-than-thou creationists talking out of their asses.
I won't choose a side in your black & white creationist false dichotomy. Evolution, like science in general, says nothing about ethics. Also, it's you who's mistaken: nowhere did I say natural selection == evolution. It's one of its components. Creationists shouldn't teach people about evolution (especially not those in the field of paleontology). As for why we should care about the extinction of species, read my other posts in this topic. I won't start repeating myself ad nauseam because of you and your creationist BS.
Ah, not this again. Well, surviving for a very long time as a species can mean lots of things. For example, the species might be superiorly adapted to the environment it lives in, or the conditions in the said environment might have stayed very stabile for a very long time, or both. Or, it just happens to be damn lucky. Remember, species only evolve if there's a selective pressure working on their population thru time. Obviously there were no serious selective pressures on the White Dolphin during the past 20 mill. years. Nothing evolutionally inconsistent about staying the same species for a long period of time.
I find the extinction of the White Dolphin due to human negligence a highly sad and tragic event. I also found the overlord joke funny. At worst that only means I haven't been desensitised to/. running gags yet, despite the years.
And this is a reply to a post where I wrote that I didn't say people should suffer because of saving a species. First, read the text you are replying to, then count to ten, then take a deep breath, then think - it's easy, really... and then type. Thank you.
I definitely understand your point, but as I said in another reply, we know better - we can make choices. Other animals may and do exterminate other species, but they do that without realizing it. However, I don't share your view of life's pointlessness because of the destruction of planet Earth in the figurative hands of the expanding Sun. After all, each one of us will die sooner or later, but most of us still don't consider our lives pointless. Death is just a natural part of the life of living beings - and the existence of planets, too.
Sure, the White Dolphin would also have gone extinct,sooner or later with or without our interference. I just find the way it happened to be a disgrace, for reasons stated in my other replies.
BTW, dodos weren't delicious. They tasted horrible, and were not widely used for human food. Human-introduced pigs and other feral animals were their doom.
There is a limit to evolutionary adaptation. No large mammal could pull off a feat like these dolphinss would have had to to survive.
The difference is that we as humans have the ability to make different choices. And as such, in my opinion we have the moral duty to utilize that unique ability. It is also a result of evolution, you know. We just know better, and to quench that trait because of some short-term gain is pathetic.
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"Apparently your experience in the real world is limited."
It is not, thank you. What you said probably is true, but then again, you are talking about Linux. If one is a Linux user, you can be sure he/she knows how to use his/her 'boxen', in spite of his/her gender. In the world of Regular Windows Users things are different, though. And those users make up the extreme majority of world's computer users. And do I ever have a wide experience from that world. So, my point is there is a certain difference between Joe and Jane Sixpack users and Linux geeks.
"Experimentation is *the* way that users learn stuff."
True. But it's kids and teens only who do that. If you're any older than that, and a female at that (no offense to all the ladies here, just something I've noticed in real life), you're scared of computers, and absolutely do not experiment, n00b or not. That's why the OS X approach is the best way to go: you can experiment if you want and find new stuff. But you can also be conservative as heck and manage to avoid screwing things up with some advanced features turned on by default (and which a computer-scared user wouldn't find anyway). Geez, doing a right-click and remembering what it does is too much for many Joe and Jane Doe users.
I thought Pavel Bure retired many years ago. And Wyoming doesn't even have an NHL team!
"Is this what the blogosphere is like?? Is it really ruled by Mac-obsessed almost-hipsters with unwise facial hair and diagonal black-and-white photos of themselves?"
Maybe. But what's wrong with being Mac-obsessed? (Being almost-hip follows automagically.)
What's up with all these robotic animal stories recently? Within a couple of days, we've had stories of robo-seals, robo-snakes and now robo-deer. Should I welcome our new robotic animal overlords? Was that Dr. Eggman I just saw?
Finland, with its public schools, has one of the best literacy rates and most lauded school systems in the world. The problem is not the fact that it's the gummint that runs things. It's just how they run it. You can do things well or you can fsck it all up.
"Actually...A surprising number of people do not want to have the URL of some sites appear in the drop-down box, so they resort to just using Google to access said URLs."
I wonder what sites those might be... Not.
"Score 2: Interesting"??? Some mods obviously have trouble to distinguish "Interesting" from "Funny".
And yeah, penguins possibly can't disappear from anywhere else than the Southern Hemisphere, because they don't live anywhere else. Except in a some desktop 'boxen'. They are too lively to be put into laptops.
"Uuuunnlimiteeeed POOOOWWEEERRRRRRR!!!!" So Palpatine is the head honcho at Sony? Now that explains all those rootkits & stuff.
Thank you, fellow OS X user, for making my day with this comment. Unfortunately, I must sue you for the loss of my MacBook's keyboard due to a sudden, violent outburst of tea you just caused.
I'm not blind, you insensitive clod! I'm visionally challenged!
"(Zune's brown color is widely called "Soviet Brown" in the trade and consumer press)."
But in Soviet Russia, iPods are brown and squirt!
"It is hard to see why anyone would want to access the information on the chip."
Then I say, it is hard to see why they needed to introduce such a thing as an e-passport. Or why we've got passports at all.
Have these guys got any detectable brain activity going on when they open their mouths?
A science topic, and there's only one mention of the word "evolution" in it at this point, and zero "creationism". Has /. evolved or something?
I, in my cushy bed of Western comfort, could do with less also, and try to do so on a daily basis. This isn't about personal feelings good and bad, but the well-being of this planet, and thus, ultimately, the survival of us as a species.
The global ecosystem is so infinitely complex that no-one knows how the disappearance of a species will ultimately affect the whole thing. Locally things are known better, and the outcome of extinctions depends entirely on the organism in question. Some are ecologically more important than others. A river dolphin probably isn't situated high on the importance ladder of its ecosystem, but its extinction tells us more about ourselves: as a large mammal, the dolphin is one of those cute, fuzzy animals, and if even they can be driven into extinction just like that without much regard, can we trust ourselves to take note when species even more ecologically important, but lesser in their psychological impact factor, are pushed off the edge?
Sure, species have gone and always will go extinct. But for reasons I've stated in many other posts here, I don't think we should add to that natural die-off through our actions.
As for my answer to the problem, on this I'm actually with George W. Bush himself (besides his statement that fish and human beings can co-exit peacefully): technological advancement will, in the long run, enable us to have a high standard of living without putting the environment in jeopardy. We just need to be careful that in the process that environment doesn't get too exhausted of biodiversity.
Evolution is the observed natural phenomenon of lifeforms becoming different through time. Religion is organised worship of a supernatural being.
Troll? Hardly. Being honest doesn't qualify as trolling.
Saying I couldn't care about somebody having to change his/her job because of a species on a brink of extinction doesn't qualify as hating humans. I don't buy into them-vs-us thinking. And, since you like putting words into my mouth: nowhere did I say the people of China don't deserve the same opportunity we have. Sorry if something I said made you think so.
If calling people for killing off species due to pure negligence (it's not like nothing couldn't have been done about it, with practically no human sacrifice [figuratively speaking, not as in Aztecs]) makes me a holier-than-thou elitist environmantalist, then yes, I'm one.
Keep on burning those strawmen, chump. Say, do you enjoy insulting people with telling them, without a rational basis to your thoughts, that they support a genocide of all mankind?
People can't seem to think straight these days. Like someone said in this debate, it's not like saving a species from extinction by limiting human activity in certain areas amounts to eating babies. At least try to be reasonable.
Hah.
YOU are saying I hate humanity. I deem your insulting comment simply false, being a member of a human rights organisation. YOU say there's nothing you ppl could do to save yourselves in my eyes. Again, false. We should stop driving species to extinction. Simple as that. It's not like we can't do anything about it, or as if we had to sacrifice human lives for it.
But I do despise holier-than-thou creationists talking out of their asses.
I fail to see how using my highly-evolved mental capacity to drive other species to extinction equals to rejoicing in my (supposed) earnings.
It's not like we have "earned" our big brains by hard work. WE had nothing to do with it, and we didn't strive for it. We just got them.
Power, no matter how it was gained, can be used for good or for causing suffering. I abhor the latter choice.
I won't choose a side in your black & white creationist false dichotomy. Evolution, like science in general, says nothing about ethics. Also, it's you who's mistaken: nowhere did I say natural selection == evolution. It's one of its components. Creationists shouldn't teach people about evolution (especially not those in the field of paleontology). As for why we should care about the extinction of species, read my other posts in this topic. I won't start repeating myself ad nauseam because of you and your creationist BS.
Ah, not this again. Well, surviving for a very long time as a species can mean lots of things. For example, the species might be superiorly adapted to the environment it lives in, or the conditions in the said environment might have stayed very stabile for a very long time, or both. Or, it just happens to be damn lucky. Remember, species only evolve if there's a selective pressure working on their population thru time. Obviously there were no serious selective pressures on the White Dolphin during the past 20 mill. years. Nothing evolutionally inconsistent about staying the same species for a long period of time.
I find the extinction of the White Dolphin due to human negligence a highly sad and tragic event. I also found the overlord joke funny. At worst that only means I haven't been desensitised to /. running gags yet, despite the years.
And this is a reply to a post where I wrote that I didn't say people should suffer because of saving a species. First, read the text you are replying to, then count to ten, then take a deep breath, then think - it's easy, really... and then type. Thank you.
I definitely understand your point, but as I said in another reply, we know better - we can make choices. Other animals may and do exterminate other species, but they do that without realizing it. However, I don't share your view of life's pointlessness because of the destruction of planet Earth in the figurative hands of the expanding Sun. After all, each one of us will die sooner or later, but most of us still don't consider our lives pointless. Death is just a natural part of the life of living beings - and the existence of planets, too.
Sure, the White Dolphin would also have gone extinct,sooner or later with or without our interference. I just find the way it happened to be a disgrace, for reasons stated in my other replies.
BTW, dodos weren't delicious. They tasted horrible, and were not widely used for human food. Human-introduced pigs and other feral animals were their doom.
There is a limit to evolutionary adaptation. No large mammal could pull off a feat like these dolphinss would have had to to survive.
The difference is that we as humans have the ability to make different choices. And as such, in my opinion we have the moral duty to utilize that unique ability. It is also a result of evolution, you know. We just know better, and to quench that trait because of some short-term gain is pathetic.