Some aspects of Intellegent Design are unprovable and therefore, outside the realm of science. However, some is provable. For example, in Forenzics, was this fire started by a person?
What parts are provable? And how does your forensics example fit in?
Much of the Bible is unprovable. Christians do not always agree on what bits are literal, and what is figurative. Those who believe it do not generally do so for scientific reasons. But they don't like the unchallenged assertion that what they believe is completely untrue.
I can't speak for everybody, but I feel many people who don't think ID should be taught in school, such as myself, don't feel that way because they believe it is "completely untrue" but because it is not science. I think most rational people would admit religion cannot be defined as strictly true or false, so what you believe is a non-issue. Science deals with facts.
There is growing unease at the almost evangelical promotion and defence of evolution (often spelt with a capital E) as though it was more than a theory.
You say that as if being a theory was somehow a bad thing. Gravity is a theory. Classical (Newtonian) physics is all theory. Electromagnetism is theory. All three of these things have been shown to be incomplete and all of them fall apart under some cases: Gravity fails at the quantum level. Newtonian physics fail at very high (relativistic) speeds and also at atomic/subatomic scales. Electromagnetism fails at the quantum level as well. Does this mean they are wrong? Will all of the bridges collapse and radios suddenly stop working? No. A scientific theory is understood to be an explanation - often a set of smaller theories - as to how things work. Not "truth". At some point a theory has been tested enough that it becomes useful for developing other theories and for applying to real life designs. If the theory fails at some point after that, it does not magically invalidate everything that was built on it.
If tomorrow God himself shows up and spills the beans that will not make evolution any less "true" in the sense that it explains the world we live in good enough to be useful.
The same can not be said of religion.
Darwin and Newton were both Bible believing Christians, so don't dis us too much.
But unlike so many of the vocal self-labeled "Christians" out there trying to put us back into the medieval social caste system, they actually had the open mind many nutcases accuse others of not having: They did not let their personal beliefs prevent them from seeing the world around them for what is rather than what they used to think it was. Their science and religion lived peacefully together, certainly influenced but not overpowered each other. If nothing else the bible thumpers should at least learn THAT from them.
Is it possible that "God" created everything explicitly? ("God" In quotes because, you know, the typical christian God is not the only possibility!) Sure. It's also possible that Thor sits in the clouds, making lighting bolts with his mighty hammer. That's certainly a simpler explanation than all that crud about electrons and ionization and everything!
From your other post, so I only make one reply:
Also, I think it is reasonable to teach the short-comings of an incomplete theory like evolution. That will show students the process of science.
Even the periodic table has been changed, forked, revised, and challenged... but apparently you seem to fully accept atomic theory just fine while evolution is somehow incomplete and inconsistent. Why not just go back to earth, fire wind and water? Even atomic theory falls apart at some point because it does not explain what the atom is made of! (Sure, protons and neutrons and electrons, and those are made of quarks, but what are quarks made out of? What about those? etc.)
Unless of course evolution has become a pseudo-religious believe (because we must reject any notion of God's creation)
The first path still requires you to argue for the existance of God, where he came from (if he created the universe, where was he before the universe existed? etc) and argue that there is/isn't multiple Gods. None of which is quantifyable and therefore is basically useless from a scientific viewpoint, because you can neither test them or predict from them!
So Occam's Razor hardly applies here because you need to make just as many - if not more - assumptions to make it work.
Even then it wouldn't function as a science. You cannot scientifically qualify "any intelligent being" - it is just a more generic superstition instead of a specific religion. Aliens, God, whatever... unless you can scientifically qualify it (identify, test and predict) it will never be scientific.
Except that wit the resolution of any of the cameras currently available, objects like the lander and rover would be less than pixel wide. IE: Basicaly invisible.
So unless you have the cash to move one of those secret spy satellites from earth or lunar orbit (Because they are too far away if left in earth orbit), the only way you're going to see them is to go land on the moon again. =Smidge=
That's pretty much what I was getting at, thank you.
With all the "unusable by most people" stuff out there, someone just coming into the OSS scene is going to be very turned off trying to find something usable. This is especially important when it comes to businesses looking into possible OSS solutions.
Unfortunately the "bazaar" method leaves no room to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. =Smidge=
More likely, the open-source approach, meaning the pride developers take in making good (or at least decent) code, the peer review of said code, and quick fixing when a bug is found, will prevent a decline.
In practice, though, this doesn't happen as often as you might want to believe. If this were true you'd think we wouldn't be finding the same exploits cropping up in every brand of software X (especially things like forums).
And for every OSS trophy project you'll find a thousand half-assed weekend hacks that never make it past Alpha stage because, to the developer, posting it on sourceforge or whatever is more important that making a program usable to more than just himself. That's the reality of OSS development and that's what you're going to have to deal with. Everyone wants to be the one with the big idea, and be the one in charge, and so they all spend their time reinventing the same crooked wheel. =Smidge=
I prefer subtitles 9 out of 10, because more often than not the acting (not the translation) is pretty bad. The experience is just as much how the words are spoken than the actual words. You need energy, emotion and inflection in the voice to get the full effect. Unless you have good voice actors instead of just voices and a good director overseeing the dub process, the characters become flat chatterboxes. (And for some reason they tend to find the most shrill voices for children... arg!)
That's a nice strawman ya got there. Where the hell did fuel cells come into this? And batteries? Did you know that the US grows almost no sugar cane at all (making it a poor choice for biofuel source)?
Don't forget energy required to plant, fertilize, irrigate, harvest and process the corn. (This includes preparing the fields and cleaning up between crops.) Then tack on energy required to handle, store, distribute and dispense the resultant fuel.
See, everyone seems to forget those parts.
With petroleum oil, you are working from an existing reserve. Part of the energy goes back into extracting the energy, but because there are much fewer steps and the density of the source energy is so high ("high quality" source) you come out ahead.
Sunlight will get you no more than about 150 watts per square foot, which is almost nothing. (And that's before you did anything to capture it!) So unless you can harvest that energy in a method that takes less than that to produce a usable fuel, you will have to put energy into the system from somewhere else... like petroleum.
I still say making biodiesel from algae is the best prospect... =Smidge=
To be perfectly honest, having the internet run by a group where most of the members don't have much of a technology infastructure isn't very comforting either.
Shit, some don't even have running water for most of their population, let alone electricity. =Smidge=
I'm a big supporter of Biodiesel myself. Especially the idea put forth in that link with using high-oil algae which can be grown in the ocean, eliminating land restrictions and irrigation problems.
For things you need real petrolatum oils for, you can use Thermal Depolymerization to create a light crude oil product from nearly any biological waste (offal, manure, other agricultural wastes) and scrap plastics. We already have the means to convert the resulting produce to whatever we need to manufacture lubricants, plastics etc.
Both are 100% renewable and carbon-neutral. AND it would require virtually no change in domestic energy infrastructure except getting people to buy diesel instead of gasoline engine vehicles. =Smidge=
"Should", "Could" and "Would" don't have ANY tense.
A: "What do you want to to do tonight?" B: "We could go see a movie, but I think we should just rent something... that would be cheaper."
Also, "have" in "should have" is not a verb either. It's another modifier. Usually the verb follows after, with "(sh|c|w)ould have" suggesting a possible alternative to a past action.
"He would have left a bigger tip if he had change." "You could have turned left on main street as a shortcut." "You should have read the manual first."
The verb determines tense. There is only a handful of exceptions where the "have" is the acting verb, and is always used as a possessive for the subject.
"The jar should have holes in the lid." "The car could have a larger engine if you want that option." "He would have more time if he stopped surfing slashdot."
You are absolutely correct that language evolves. However, you can't honestly claim that substituting "of" for "have" in any of the above examples is sensible, readable english because 'of' is a preposition. It might be acceptable in speech from the slurring of "should've" but that does not make it grammatically correct. =Smidge=
I'd really be impressed when thay get a microwave oven to fluff meringue. All this time I've been using a whisk!;)
Still, I think it's interesting that things like cell phones are as standard as they are. That old joke about standards beign so great because there are so many to choose from... tends to ring true.
Of course, the other joke is how standards codify obsolescence. What do you think this will do to hte ability to upgrade later? (Especially things people don't replace every year, like... microwave ovens!) =Smidge=
I think I'm going to play Devil's Advocate with this one.:) -----
How about I sell software AND hardware/service/customizations? Then I get all those revenue streams!
The only reason OSS development costs might be lower is because someone has already done the work. Basically, they're getting people like you to develop code for them for free, and they turn around and sell it (though perhaps not directly). All they have to do to keep their slaves working happily is not put the code under lock and key, which would be impossible to do anyway because it's already public.
RedHat is a good example. Stand on the backs of hundreds of geeks, take their code, package it in a pretty box with a book and sell it. The geeks are happy about doing the work as long as the source code is freely available, which is fine because only geeks would want it or even know what to do with it.
Where free labor is not available, you can still pay developers to work on OSS code, but you still come out ahead because a lot of work has already been done by others for free.
The only incentive I can see, from the perspective of a software company, is that potential 'free labor' aspect. Especially if I'm a startup company who can take a nearly complete OSS product and use it to slingshot my own development process. If I'm an existing large company that deals exclusively in proprietary software that I've developed in house, then it's a much tougher sale to make.
And that's the question I asked: Why should I donate my code, that I spent money to produce and generates revenue for me, to the public collective? How does giving away my research help my bottom line? Especially if I'm a mid-sized company that deals exclusively in software. =Smidge=
That would be using a cell phones as a modem. I want to use one as a dial-up receiver. Can a cell phone be connected to a computer and set to receive incomming connections?
One thing I've always wanted to do was have internet access on the-the-road and on-the-cheap. This seems like a possible way to do it.
WiFi doesn't have the range, and dedicated systems are expensive. With this I could get a cell phone (which I would use to some degree anyway) and possibly use it as a cell modem to connect to my computer at home, and route through that to access my broadband internet from there. If nothing else I'd be able to retreive documents and send home pictures and stuff while out on job sites, and get maps while on the road without investing in a dedicated GPS/Nav system. Slow, yeah... but I wouldn't be playing LAN games or streaming media anyway!
I think he meant from the producer's perspective. That's a decent argument for someone to convert to OSS, but what about an argument for producing OSS?
Slashdot Mirror
Some aspects of Intellegent Design are unprovable and therefore, outside the realm of science. However, some is provable. For example, in Forenzics, was this fire started by a person?
What parts are provable? And how does your forensics example fit in?
Much of the Bible is unprovable. Christians do not always agree on what bits are literal, and what is figurative. Those who believe it do not generally do so for scientific reasons. But they don't like the unchallenged assertion that what they believe is completely untrue.
I can't speak for everybody, but I feel many people who don't think ID should be taught in school, such as myself, don't feel that way because they believe it is "completely untrue" but because it is not science. I think most rational people would admit religion cannot be defined as strictly true or false, so what you believe is a non-issue. Science deals with facts.
There is growing unease at the almost evangelical promotion and defence of evolution (often spelt with a capital E) as though it was more than a theory.
You say that as if being a theory was somehow a bad thing. Gravity is a theory. Classical (Newtonian) physics is all theory. Electromagnetism is theory. All three of these things have been shown to be incomplete and all of them fall apart under some cases: Gravity fails at the quantum level. Newtonian physics fail at very high (relativistic) speeds and also at atomic/subatomic scales. Electromagnetism fails at the quantum level as well. Does this mean they are wrong? Will all of the bridges collapse and radios suddenly stop working? No. A scientific theory is understood to be an explanation - often a set of smaller theories - as to how things work. Not "truth". At some point a theory has been tested enough that it becomes useful for developing other theories and for applying to real life designs. If the theory fails at some point after that, it does not magically invalidate everything that was built on it.
If tomorrow God himself shows up and spills the beans that will not make evolution any less "true" in the sense that it explains the world we live in good enough to be useful.
The same can not be said of religion.
Darwin and Newton were both Bible believing Christians, so don't dis us too much.
But unlike so many of the vocal self-labeled "Christians" out there trying to put us back into the medieval social caste system, they actually had the open mind many nutcases accuse others of not having: They did not let their personal beliefs prevent them from seeing the world around them for what is rather than what they used to think it was. Their science and religion lived peacefully together, certainly influenced but not overpowered each other. If nothing else the bible thumpers should at least learn THAT from them.
Is it possible that "God" created everything explicitly? ("God" In quotes because, you know, the typical christian God is not the only possibility!) Sure. It's also possible that Thor sits in the clouds, making lighting bolts with his mighty hammer. That's certainly a simpler explanation than all that crud about electrons and ionization and everything!
From your other post, so I only make one reply:
Also, I think it is reasonable to teach the short-comings of an incomplete theory like evolution. That will show students the process of science.
Even the periodic table has been changed, forked, revised, and challenged... but apparently you seem to fully accept atomic theory just fine while evolution is somehow incomplete and inconsistent. Why not just go back to earth, fire wind and water? Even atomic theory falls apart at some point because it does not explain what the atom is made of! (Sure, protons and neutrons and electrons, and those are made of quarks, but what are quarks made out of? What about those? etc.)
Unless of course evolution has become a pseudo-religious believe (because we must reject any notion of God's creation)
So what created the creator?
=Smidge=
The first path still requires you to argue for the existance of God, where he came from (if he created the universe, where was he before the universe existed? etc) and argue that there is/isn't multiple Gods. None of which is quantifyable and therefore is basically useless from a scientific viewpoint, because you can neither test them or predict from them!
So Occam's Razor hardly applies here because you need to make just as many - if not more - assumptions to make it work.
=Smidge=
Even then it wouldn't function as a science. You cannot scientifically qualify "any intelligent being" - it is just a more generic superstition instead of a specific religion. Aliens, God, whatever... unless you can scientifically qualify it (identify, test and predict) it will never be scientific.
=Smidge=
Man, somebody in the whitehouse is on crack
Cocaine, actually...
=Smidge=
This is what I hate about majority rule. Just because 51% of people believe in something, the other 49% is represented to have those same beliefs.
Not only that, but if 51% or more of a group believes something it does not make it correct; factually or otherwise.
=Smidge=
The phisher can't get the image from the bank's site without logging in as you first.
You have given the phisher your login credentials in part 1.
=Smidge=
Except that wit the resolution of any of the cameras currently available, objects like the lander and rover would be less than pixel wide. IE: Basicaly invisible.
So unless you have the cash to move one of those secret spy satellites from earth or lunar orbit (Because they are too far away if left in earth orbit), the only way you're going to see them is to go land on the moon again.
=Smidge=
That's pretty much what I was getting at, thank you.
With all the "unusable by most people" stuff out there, someone just coming into the OSS scene is going to be very turned off trying to find something usable. This is especially important when it comes to businesses looking into possible OSS solutions.
Unfortunately the "bazaar" method leaves no room to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were.
=Smidge=
More likely, the open-source approach, meaning the pride developers take in making good (or at least decent) code, the peer review of said code, and quick fixing when a bug is found, will prevent a decline.
In practice, though, this doesn't happen as often as you might want to believe. If this were true you'd think we wouldn't be finding the same exploits cropping up in every brand of software X (especially things like forums).
And for every OSS trophy project you'll find a thousand half-assed weekend hacks that never make it past Alpha stage because, to the developer, posting it on sourceforge or whatever is more important that making a program usable to more than just himself. That's the reality of OSS development and that's what you're going to have to deal with. Everyone wants to be the one with the big idea, and be the one in charge, and so they all spend their time reinventing the same crooked wheel.
=Smidge=
I prefer subtitles 9 out of 10, because more often than not the acting (not the translation) is pretty bad. The experience is just as much how the words are spoken than the actual words. You need energy, emotion and inflection in the voice to get the full effect. Unless you have good voice actors instead of just voices and a good director overseeing the dub process, the characters become flat chatterboxes. (And for some reason they tend to find the most shrill voices for children... arg!)
=Smidge=
That's a nice strawman ya got there. Where the hell did fuel cells come into this? And batteries? Did you know that the US grows almost no sugar cane at all (making it a poor choice for biofuel source)?
=Smidge=
Don't forget energy required to plant, fertilize, irrigate, harvest and process the corn. (This includes preparing the fields and cleaning up between crops.) Then tack on energy required to handle, store, distribute and dispense the resultant fuel.
See, everyone seems to forget those parts.
With petroleum oil, you are working from an existing reserve. Part of the energy goes back into extracting the energy, but because there are much fewer steps and the density of the source energy is so high ("high quality" source) you come out ahead.
Sunlight will get you no more than about 150 watts per square foot, which is almost nothing. (And that's before you did anything to capture it!) So unless you can harvest that energy in a method that takes less than that to produce a usable fuel, you will have to put energy into the system from somewhere else... like petroleum.
I still say making biodiesel from algae is the best prospect...
=Smidge=
To be perfectly honest, having the internet run by a group where most of the members don't have much of a technology infastructure isn't very comforting either.
Shit, some don't even have running water for most of their population, let alone electricity.
=Smidge=
I'm a big supporter of Biodiesel myself. Especially the idea put forth in that link with using high-oil algae which can be grown in the ocean, eliminating land restrictions and irrigation problems.
For things you need real petrolatum oils for, you can use Thermal Depolymerization to create a light crude oil product from nearly any biological waste (offal, manure, other agricultural wastes) and scrap plastics. We already have the means to convert the resulting produce to whatever we need to manufacture lubricants, plastics etc.
Both are 100% renewable and carbon-neutral. AND it would require virtually no change in domestic energy infrastructure except getting people to buy diesel instead of gasoline engine vehicles.
=Smidge=
"Should", "Could" and "Would" don't have ANY tense.
A: "What do you want to to do tonight?"
B: "We could go see a movie, but I think we should just rent something... that would be cheaper."
Also, "have" in "should have" is not a verb either. It's another modifier. Usually the verb follows after, with "(sh|c|w)ould have" suggesting a possible alternative to a past action.
"He would have left a bigger tip if he had change."
"You could have turned left on main street as a shortcut."
"You should have read the manual first."
The verb determines tense. There is only a handful of exceptions where the "have" is the acting verb, and is always used as a possessive for the subject.
"The jar should have holes in the lid."
"The car could have a larger engine if you want that option."
"He would have more time if he stopped surfing slashdot."
You are absolutely correct that language evolves. However, you can't honestly claim that substituting "of" for "have" in any of the above examples is sensible, readable english because 'of' is a preposition. It might be acceptable in speech from the slurring of "should've" but that does not make it grammatically correct.
=Smidge=
I'd really be impressed when thay get a microwave oven to fluff meringue. All this time I've been using a whisk! ;)
Still, I think it's interesting that things like cell phones are as standard as they are. That old joke about standards beign so great because there are so many to choose from... tends to ring true.
Of course, the other joke is how standards codify obsolescence. What do you think this will do to hte ability to upgrade later? (Especially things people don't replace every year, like... microwave ovens!)
=Smidge=
I think I'm going to play Devil's Advocate with this one. :)
-----
How about I sell software AND hardware/service/customizations? Then I get all those revenue streams!
The only reason OSS development costs might be lower is because someone has already done the work. Basically, they're getting people like you to develop code for them for free, and they turn around and sell it (though perhaps not directly). All they have to do to keep their slaves working happily is not put the code under lock and key, which would be impossible to do anyway because it's already public.
RedHat is a good example. Stand on the backs of hundreds of geeks, take their code, package it in a pretty box with a book and sell it. The geeks are happy about doing the work as long as the source code is freely available, which is fine because only geeks would want it or even know what to do with it.
Where free labor is not available, you can still pay developers to work on OSS code, but you still come out ahead because a lot of work has already been done by others for free.
The only incentive I can see, from the perspective of a software company, is that potential 'free labor' aspect. Especially if I'm a startup company who can take a nearly complete OSS product and use it to slingshot my own development process. If I'm an existing large company that deals exclusively in proprietary software that I've developed in house, then it's a much tougher sale to make.
And that's the question I asked: Why should I donate my code, that I spent money to produce and generates revenue for me, to the public collective? How does giving away my research help my bottom line? Especially if I'm a mid-sized company that deals exclusively in software.
=Smidge=
That would be using a cell phones as a modem. I want to use one as a dial-up receiver. Can a cell phone be connected to a computer and set to receive incomming connections?
=Smidge=
One thing I've always wanted to do was have internet access on the-the-road and on-the-cheap. This seems like a possible way to do it.
WiFi doesn't have the range, and dedicated systems are expensive. With this I could get a cell phone (which I would use to some degree anyway) and possibly use it as a cell modem to connect to my computer at home, and route through that to access my broadband internet from there. If nothing else I'd be able to retreive documents and send home pictures and stuff while out on job sites, and get maps while on the road without investing in a dedicated GPS/Nav system. Slow, yeah... but I wouldn't be playing LAN games or streaming media anyway!
Anyone else ever try to do this?
=Smidge=
I think he meant from the producer's perspective. That's a decent argument for someone to convert to OSS, but what about an argument for producing OSS?
=Smidge=
co
mv
mount
touch
unzip
finger
fsck
yes
yes
umount girl
zip
sleep
or...
Programming is like sex: One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life.
=Smidge=
After reading the article, it seems that the client itself is not the vehicle for infection - it's tainted files. Which client you use is irrelevant.
=Smidge=
"more than twice".
:P
$1.00 > ($0.00 * 2)
=Smidge=
To be fair, the cost of finding and fixing trhe holes should not be included. After all, it was broken before he got there.
Not to mention that they should be found and fixed regardless of any intrusions.
=Smidge=