Intelligence has to do with many things, not just your ability to win in a strategic or tactical game(politics). Emotional intelligence and ethical intelligence are high up there on the list for me as things to look for when asking whether someone is intelligent. Remember, ethics is a field of philosophy; it is possible to reason through to decide whether your actions are just and right. Karl Rove fails in this aspect; he will do anything if it means winning (there is a long list of questionable tactics he has used to win). In my mind, he fails the intelligence test because he fails to see the consequences of his own actions, and to reason them out within any accepted ethical system. Granted, truth-functional logic is limited when it comes to deciding a course of action, but that does not mean you have to abandon it completely as Karl Rove has been shown to do(Remember push polling against McCain in the South Carolina primary? There are numerous other things that fail to pass the ethics test ). It's really easy to win when you cheat.
Miniaturization is a problem, but it seems mostly for people trying to make many-purpose devices like these ones. It's not as difficult to build a very usable, very tiny interface on something that only performs one or a few specialized functions, such as the iPod or a cell phone. Trying to make a productivity tool, however, requires some ingenious compromise of size and functionality. Make it too small with two few buttons, it's too hard and not worthwhile for people to pick it up and learn. Make it too big with too many and it ceases to be truly portable.
I've thought about this for awhile and for the life of me I can't seem to come up with a compelling way of making a small, multi-purpose interface with a dealable learning curve. For these devices to succeed they have to be amenable to absolute manipulation in the same way that standard, non-digital physical objects are, and that's a mighty challenge that I don't think anyone has been able to succeed at to date.
One more thing: if science could explain supernatural occurence, they would cease to be supernatural, since what is natural is predictable, whereas what is supernatural is unpredictable. If would could find a good predictive model for supernatural events, then we would be doing so on the basis of other phenomena which are natural. Thus, supernatural events would be natural.
I do not think that the failure to explain supernatural or spiritual experiences is a failure or limitation of science. It's an epistemological limitation - a "vision" or "hallucination" is not veritably real, and inherently subjective. Scientific measurement instrumentation, remember, is an extension of our senses, and since neither our senses nor instrumentation can peer into the viewpoint of other minds. The dichotomy between subjective and objective is a philosophical, epistemic fact, not something that can be overcome by objective empiricism, which is the foundation principle of science.
Now if there were some incontrovertible objective evidence of supernatural intervention that scientific instrumentation could detect, that would be another story. So, yes, the idea of a supernatural entity is untestable - it is not natural, it is supernatural. And science is firmly grounded in the natural.
First off, this isn't designed to shoot down ICBMs - it's designed to shoot down TBMs, which are not exactly uncommon and become more widespread by the day.
First: The major security threat that we have to defend ourselves against is (as has been hammered into my head for 5 years by the current government and the media) terrorism. Now, the airborne threat that terrorists are likely to deliver is via jet, since a grassroots terrorist organization is unlikely to have the financial means or the infrastructure to design, build, and launch missiles of any kind. A missile defense laser of the kind described in the article is neither designed to take down a jet used as a missile or an ICBM, if what you say is true.
We are also unlikely to experience a missile threat from any well-defined enemy state, since a well-formed state incurring the wrath of the United States (the major economic power in the world) hasn't been a good idea for a while now. Again, the likelihood of an airborne missile attack of ANY kind, not just nuclear, has been greatly diminished since after the cold war. We are no longer in the age of wars between powers, but now in the age of many ill-defined, subversive cells fighting against a superpower(us) who have means available to them that do not include standard missiles of the kind that would be delivered by an enemy state.
Second off, nuclear weapons are about as likely to arrive via a shipping container as I am to grow a second head. (National leaders typically want such weapons closely controlled, because they are articles of statecraft, not weapons. There's a reason why virtually every nation that has built or sought to build nuclear weapons also seeks to build missiles.)
National leaders of rogue states are by and large more interested in profit and less in protecting the articles of statecraft. They can't and shouldn't be trusted to develop nuclear weapons and keep them safe from rogue terrorists with whom their religious beliefs or ideologies are aligned. Many leaders do not want to deliver a clear missile attack which would incite the direct and immediate wrath of the United States, but rather to give untraceable aid to terrorists who support insidious sneak attacks against public infrastructure in the United States. A subsequent attack is more likely to be delivered through trade routes and not through the US airspace which is purportedly well-protected by air guard(though I have my doubts after 9/11.)
It accounts for 30% of the discretionary spending - but for only about 10% of the total spending. (The goverment has sytematically mislead the people about the true size of the federal budget, and how much goes to social programs, by classifying entitlements as 'non-discretionary spending' and not reporting it as part of the budget.)
I'm pretty sure the 10% figure that you cite does not include the current costs of previous military spending, or the costs of social spending that are a direct result of military spending. The government is more interested in misleading us about the percentage of actual spending that they say goes towards social programs and other things when it actually goes towards defense spending. Moreover, either way, the disclosed spending on the department of defense is in the 2006 federal budget is $447.4 billion
In 2002, this number was $343.2 billion.
"These figures typically do not include combat figures, so 2001 onwards, the Afghan war, and 2003 onwards, the Iraq war costs are not in this budget. As of early 2006, Congress had already approved an additional funding total of $300 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As Chris Hellman, researcher of many of these statistics, also notes, when adjusted for inflation the request for 2007 together with that needed
You can be a deist and a scientist. Many evolutionary scientists would agree with your idea of a creator. A scientist's religious beliefs are always supposed to be left out of his inquiry into the objective world, but that does not mean he cannot form a religious belief from judicious study of the world.
However, that is not what intelligent design theorists are proposing. Intelligent design theorists propose that there are certain "lock and key" mechanisms that cannot have arisen because of random mutations and thus are evidence that an intelligent designer(read: God) is playing an *active* role in evolution. They are very much saying "These structures are too complicated for me to understand on the basis of natural phenomena alone, so I must posit a supernatural entity." This is anti-scientific for many reasons:
1) Good science never resorts to positing a supernatural entity to explain observations because the existence of a supernatural entity is an *untestable* hypothesis. You can't predict the existence of a supernatural entity and then verify it, because the intelligent designer in ID, for instance, is an invisible hand.
2) Science aims to find not just explanatory models but *predictive models*. Explanatory models such as intelligent design are coherent and hang together, but they fail to pass the test that natural selection passes, namely, does it offer a good prediction of what evolution will happen in the future? The answer with regard to natural selection is unequivocally yes, while the answer with regard to intelligent design is unequivocally no. Remember how Darwin *predicted* the existence of certain organisms adapted to certain purposes? Have you ever heard of an intelligent design theorist predicting anything accurately? No, because you cannot possibly entertain any ideas about what a supernatural entity such as an intelligent designer will do in the future.
3) Science will never concede that there is no more to know about a subject, while an intelligent design proponent necessarily does. Science will also never assert the 100% absolute irrefutability of one of its hypotheses, while supporters of intelligent design(The less scientific members of that crowd, at least) definitely do. Science accounts for its own fallibility that intelligent design does not.
These weapons may have been useful and valuable in the cold war era to cancel an airborne nuclear threat from our of our communist rivals. In this day and age, when nuclear weapons and other explosives are less likely to be airborne and more likely to arrive in a shipping container on one of our ports, doesn't it seem like we're going even further down the path of excessive militarization?? The military-industrial complex accounts for 30% of government spending, and it's because we keep launching projects like these airborne missile defense lasers that the upward trend continues. I agree that it's important to have technology in defense , but pouring all these resources into military technology that doesn't make a whole lot of strategic sense when we could be putting money into, say, education and health care, and actual national security concerns - doesn't it make you stop for a second and think?
On the other hand, at least the airborne defense lasers fulfill the actual premise of a "defense budget" - it is meant to defend us, and not to invade or destroy other countries, though I could see its purpose being perverted there as well.
sarcasm This is just old-fashioned pork barrel politics. Except, now they're not even pretending: instead of saying a $2,000,000,000 "bridge to nowhere" serves an actual purpose they are just going to outright spend $73,000,000 with the explicit purpose of making a pile of debris on the moon. I bet they name it after Senator Ted Stevens(R-Alaska) or Bill Frist(R-Tenn). At least Bill Frist has some experience on conducting science at a distance. "Frist Water-Seeking Mission to the Moon" sounds kind of catchy. Kind of. Maybe? Ok, no./sarcasm
This is conduct, not speech.
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Apple vs Bloggers
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· Score: 4, Insightful
To me, Apple's defense of its trade secrets is warranted and does not constitute violation of free speech.
Certain business language such as stock trading information, executive orders, are priveleged outside of the realm of free speech. That is, utterances such as someone giving insider trading information can have active results that cause harm to people; it thus qualifies as conduct, since it has a locutionary force that separates it from harmless, mundane speech. Similarly, an executive telling an accountant to shred documents regarding financial figures is a violation of business conduct laws, and a general telling his subordinates to murder innocent civilians violates war crimes laws.
This is no different. Disclosing trade secrets has done and does do appreciable damage to the company for whom they are secrets.
Whether or not it is sensible for Apple to go after blogs to protect its trade information is a matter I haven't really decided on. However, to me, it makes sense in the same way as Rudolph Guiliani's policy of going after small-time lawbreakers to deter the bigger offenses - go after jaywalking, so that it looks like you're tough on crime in general. Similarly, Apple is obviously protecting what appears like trivial information about an upcoming product to prevent bloggers from thinking they can get away with disclosing larger trade information.
Apple obviously made the wager that allowing people to disclose trade secrets at all damages them in such a way that all the free advertising in the world can't make up for. I'm not sure I would have made the same wager, but I can respect Apple's decision to make it.
Actually Dick Cheney commissioned a customized version of Duck Hunt from Nintendo to satisfy his hawkish impulses when he's not pre-emptively invading other countries.
It's called Lawyer Hunt, and rumors have it that Nintendo is going to release a commercial version of the product next year. It features a customized bird spray controller and decoy pigeons that are supposed to distract the player while Lawyers scurry across the screen. After shooting 10 regular tax attorneys and/or criminal prosecutors, the player enters a special scenario where they get to shoot Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as he attempts to deliver subpoenas and indictments to the front door of the White House. Using the bird spray rifle and an assortment of assault rifles and pistols, Cheney loves to mess those lawyers up real bad! The credits feature an animation of the injured lawyers apologizing to Cheney for being shot by him.
From TFA: "I was the longest holdout for the crank being on the laptop. I was wrong," he said, adding, "If you're a 10-year-old, maybe you can get your four-year-old to pedal for you."
The kids are having intercourse younger and younger these days! I waited until at least 12 years old before I procreated.
Sorry to nitpick, but quantum "fluctuations" are not random. People often confuse the terms "random" and "probabilistic" when they talk about quantum physics. A "random" system is a system where any outcome of measurement is just as likely as any other outcome. However, quantum particles are more likely to be at the expectation value of position than at any other place, though there is a NON-zero probability of it being anywhere else in the system. So quantum "fluctuations"(I'm not sure what you mean by this) are NOT random, because some outcomes of measurement are vastly more likely than others. The only requirement for a quantum particle is that the probability of it being SOMEWHERE is 1.
Quantum particles are associated with probability WAVES that fluctuate with time. When we say wave-particle duality we mean that the particle does NOT have a definite classical trajectory but instead a WAVE of probability associated with it that describes the positions, energies, and momentums at which the particle is most likely to be. This is called a wave function; it is a solution to Schrodinger's differential wave equation and its square is a probability curve.
Depending on your interpretation, quantum mechanics does indicate some things about reality such as there is an ONTOLOGICAL limit on what we can know for certain about objective reality such that it appears meaningless to talk about an absolute objective reality at all. That is, reality changes by being observed. However, unlike general relativity which does indeed EXPLAIN gravity by saying that gravity is identical with a curved space-time geometry, you are quite right in saying that quantum mechanics does not explain anything. Nor does particle theory or E&M explain why there are electric and magnetic forces without beginning to conjure up force-carrying particles and the like. They are currently trying to explain all these things by means of string theory.
I disagree. This is a popular Nietzschean view the denies the existence of empirical reality in favor of radical "idealism." I'm more of a Kantian who declared that objects appear to us as subject to the conditions of perceiving them at all. However, these conditions are the same for everybody.
I contend that reality is the intersection of viewpoints, and that we look at something, we see it as it appears to everybody, even though we are by no means looking at an "object in itself" - we are looking at a representation of the object in our minds. You can therefore locate reality as the intersection of common perception, as the common cause for all of our interpretations of it. When something happens out there in reality. We can only perceive it as it appears to us.
The philosophical proof Kant offers for this epistemological viewpoint is hard to understand. Basically he says that objects in themselves must exist outside of our subjective experiencing of them because something must persist, and since there is no "enduring self" it must be the objects in themselves. I won't offer a more complete explanation it but I suggest you look at "A Critique of Pure Reason" - a magnificent work.
A philosopher has said that it is a "scandal" for philosophy that the existence of objective reality has never been conclusively proven. It is difficult to determine if Kant overcame this scandal, but his argument is very persuasive to me. Either way, we have evidence that there is an objective reality, even though we can't prove its existence by pure thought alone.
The problem is that intelligent design is *not* a competing theory. It is religion masquerading as science. For scientific purposes, the board has no duty to offer a "fair" perspective regarding the "debate." There is no meaningful scientific debate here.
Intelligent design fails every single test for what constitutes science. 1) It has to invoke an agent in order to explain phenomena that *can* and *are* explained on natural terms alone. 2) It is not predictive - this is fundamental. In order for a proposition to be accepted as a theory it must somehow predict observed phenomenon. 3) Intelligent design "theorists" aren't hypothesizing or theorizing. They are asserting that the intelligent designer exists and then looking for evidence to support the idea that the intelligent designer exists. They are manipulating and selecting evidence to prove a hypothesis. In science, it is the hypothesis that must be flexible, NOT the evidence. A true scientist has no attachment to his hypothesis and so will not be compelled to manipulate or alter evidence but to adjust is hypothesis to reflect the evidence. Intelligent design beliefs therefore do not conform to the stipulations of the scientific method.
Even when science encounters a boundary on what can be known it will REFUSES to hypothesize a deity or intelligent designer because this is by definition an UNTESTABLE hypothesis. The uncertainty principle, the event horizon, - all positions of science . However, if it is suddenly discovered that you CAN know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time with complete certainty, they will have to abandon the uncertainty principle. Similarly, there is so much evidence that evolution DOES explain supposedly "irreducibly complex" structures that ID theorists (if they were true scientists) should abandon their hypothesis that an intelligent agent designed life forms. However, they choose to cling to their hypothesis because they feel that their faith RESTS on it. (This is absurd for other reasons, but I will not go into them because the topic here is science, not religion.)
Many scientists do believe in God. But they are scientists precisely because they know when to leave their personal beliefs out of the picture for the sake of being better scientists.
Re:Sheezus, enough with the conceit already...
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Going To Boot Camp
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· Score: 1
You can't really say that the word "plague" mischaracterizes the steady escalation of viruses, spyware, and other nuisances that slow many Windows machines to a halt. I can't tell you how many times I've had to fix someone's Windows machine by reformatting and reinstalling Windows because the computer is beyond help by traditional means(anti-virus software and spyware removal programs often come up short at this point, even if you can diagnose what the actual problem is). Face it, there is a pathological "decay process" built into Windows for most layusers(note I am not in any way talking about Slashdotters - I'm talking about the 70% of Windows users or so who know much much less about computers than you do.) The typical user buys the box brand new, it runs well, it's spry, it's young. After a while things start slowing down as adware and spyware accumulate. Eventually the computer gets a virus and dies. It's like Alzheimer's for computers. The difference is the Windows installation has a much shorter life expectancy than the average dementia patient.
I am not entirely sure that this same phenomenon won't happen with Macs once Apple grabs a larger portion of the market. Already there have been worms and viruses for OS X that I've heard about. They have since turned into non-issues. It's only a matter of time and market-share before more security holes are exploited and spyware starts accumulating on the OS X hard drive. However, from experience I tend to trust Apple will be better equipped to address these issues than Microsoft is, partly because Apple knows what hardware its system runs on, understands the business importance of the tightly integrated "just works" perception of its products, and seems to keep abreast of all of the security threats that face UNIX systems and OSes in general.
Obviously I'm not going to be able to talk you out of your faith, since it is obviously important to you. The problem I see with your comment is that it is simply the regurgitation of Bible verse. Argue something on its own terms. One problem with religion is not faith but the fact that religious text are explicitly infallible - it is impossible to refute them on their own terms. So you're naturally going to "win" in your mind any argument about which the Bible has something to say by citing Biblical verse. Since the Bible makes any moral or ethical debate pointless, why quote it instead of thinking out the ethical issues independently? You'll make a much better case for your point of view by engaging the terms of what you are arguing against instead of simply citing Bible text and making moral and ethical assertions. This is in part why the "thinking" crowd is becoming increasingly secular: Christianity and other religion often argue for themselves unpersuasively. It is not because the "thinking" crowd are better but because so little analysis is given by people of faith about their own faith. Pascal said that Faith is not against Reason, it is above it. I say that Faith can be aided by reason. There have been great Christian philosophers and theist philosophers who are capable of making incredibly cogent rational arguments(Sir Thomas Aquinas, Kierkegaard, Augustine, Descartes, and Dante - (some might call him a "living" philosopher). Follow their example instead of blindly citing Biblical verse. Questioning faith is not heresy but a crucial part of having faith at all. I say the unexamined faith is not worth having. Second, You seem to side here with a common result of asceticism : deny yourself pleasure, because it somehow makes you weak and base. I happen to be a fan of compassion, selflessness, forgiveness, all Christian values and all results of an 'ascetic ideal'. In this way I tease out the substance of Christianity and live in what some may call a "Christian way". However, many religions promote the same values without using the same mythological signifiers. So the values of Christianity can be heard with even without absolute devotion to the church. Is it more important to worship Christ or to live well while worshipping Christ?
(This post reflects solely the opinion of its author).
This was a great film year, the best in recent memory.
Munich, Brokeback Mountain, King Kong, Syriana, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line, Batman Begins, the Squid and the Whale?
I know I'm missing a few too.
I mean, please! I was hard pressed to pick just five of those for the Best Picture nomination. I was even more hard pressed to pick the winner out of the five that did get nominated(although I can tell you one thing: I would not have picked Crash)./.'ers, IMHO, can no longer claim mediocrity as a reason for diminished ticket sales. Let's face it, the new media theater is in the home.
Who said that nuclear power would be a quick-fix? It may not solve the climate change problem right away but there are other immediate benefits that make it very worth while.
For instance, it would reduce dependence on foreign oil, which always makes sense.
if the number of nuclear power plants goes up, the demand for oil burning power plants will go down. Thus, the demand for oil goes down. As you know, oil causes more deaths from resultant military and economic conflicts over its supply and its profits than nuclear power ever could, even after a meltdown or contamination. It therefore makes sense for *human rights* and for economic reasons for every country to aggressively pursue a non-oil-consuming energy policy. One way to streamline such a transition would be to invest in nuclear power technology.
Moreover, risks as they are now are not necessarily risks as they are in the future. Funding nuclear research could potentially make safer nuclear containment and waste-storage technologies. Eventually the technology could become so advanced that the net risk to human lives inside Britain would be close to zero, or still less risk than oil poses to the average Brit. While a complete conversion to nuclear power right now might not be a risk worth taking, at least some conversion with some funding of future technology to make nuclear power acceptably safe could work(to the point where the benefits outweigh the risks).
If there was say, an international coalition for nuclear power technology that maybe organized an effort to store nuclear waste in one location on earth or to shoot it out of orbit every year, or say, into the moon or sun, - instead of under a mountain in Nevada - most likely the international cooperation would result in a very cost effective nuclear solution.
In any case, nuclear power(fission) is definitely something that should be pursued more actively than it currently is.
The two statements are completely different. Ignoring the fact that yes, I think that Microsoft should be *allowed* to create programs for their own operating system, that wasn't the issue nor is it the issue with their monopoly ruling. They were found guilty of building a separate program into their operating system, thereby forcing users to use it instead of a competitor and locking competitors out of the business.
It would be a different story if Apple *forced* you to use and buy their nice leather case. Yes, the iPod comes with a protective case(or did, I think, when I bought one), but that doesn't mean it forces you to use it, or to buy one of their higher-end cases. It leaves you the option of going elsewhere to buy a leather case.
Moreover, their monopoly in the music market does not rule out the option of another competitor making a superior product and gaining market share. What Apple has done has made a quality (not to mention beautiful) product not only popular but a *cultural trend.* That's just good marketing, not anti-competitive tactics.
Why would Apple want to embark on the road of media conglomeration? They are a technology company, with a nascent retail business for music and computer goods. They don't manufacture content, nor do I see a reason why they should start doing so. Just because the founder of a company is multi-faceted does not mean his company is. Moreover, a merger of this sort would require much consideration about risks- risks that I see harming both Apple and Disney if they are taken. It would be a rash idea for Apple to start taking steps towards becoming a huge conglomerate. I see that it would seriously harm their efficiency and effectiveness in the technology market.
Why would the tightly managed, neatly integrated technology company want to introduce the complexity of manufacturing content into its workflow, other than for monopolistic purposes? That sounds like it would be Apple biting off more than it can chew. Better to over-extend the CEO than to over-extend the entire corporate structure.
Apple is good at technology. Disney is good(?) at content.
Apple should not buy Disney for the same reason that Apple and Pixar should not merge. They are two distinct businesses with two different missions, who specialize in two completely different areas of the market. As long as they can cooperate effectively as separate entities, they should remain separate entities.
Ms. Abdala sounds like a spoiled nutjob who thinks that her thoughtless gall in her personal life should automatically transfer to her professional career. The fact that cattiness is framed positively and rewarded in today's business world is disheartening. There is a difference between being bold and confident and being petty. Moreover, just because you have gall does not mean you are always correct. As a man whose initials are JK once said in a widely watched debate, "You can be confident and you can be wrong." The type of gall that Ms. Abdala displays here may be good in the court-room but it can also be dangerous when administrating a business. A lack of concern for other people's feelings or thoughts is just as bad - probably more - than an over-concern for them. A good worker has the confidence to stand up for their own opinions bravely when they know they are right, and to take genuine opportunities. She also knows when to shut up and cooperate, for crissake. I really hope that Ms. Abdala's outrageous bluntness is not rewarded with a fast-track career.
Did not mean to post the last comment anonymously. Nor did I mean to italicize the part starting with "You make a giant self-contradiction."
Secondly, I didn't address your critique of Mr. Biden.
First, You're right. The presidency is a hard position to occupy. That is why we demand that our candidates be up to the task, usually. For some reason Mr. Bush's flaws fell through the cracks of our electoral process(apparently counting the votes honestly, at least the first time around, did too).
Secondly, Mr. Biden is a very honest, respected and respectable Democratic senator. My father knows him personally.
Thirdly, since a quote from a very competent Senator regarding a personal encounter with our president is apparently not credible enough for you, here are some more quotes regarding the attitudes, personality, and consequent abilities of our dear administration:
As Whitman told me on the day in May 2003 that she announced her resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: ''In meetings, I'd ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!'' (Whitman, whose faith in Bush has since been renewed, denies making these remarks and is now a leader of the president's re-election effort in New Jersey.)
-2. Same article from New York Times magazine in 2004:
[Hungarian-born Holocaust-survivor and Democratic congressman from California] Tom Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.''
-3.Same article in the New York Times magazine from 2004
Such challenges -- from either Powell or his opposite number as the top official in domestic policy, Paul O'Neill -- were trials that Bush had less and less patience for as the months passed. [...] Top officials, from cabinet members on down, were often told when they would speak in Bush's presence, for how long and on what topic. The president would listen without betraying any reaction. Sometimes there would be cross-discussions -- Powell and Rumsfeld, for instance, briefly parrying on an issue -- but the president would rarely prod anyone with direct, informed questions.
--http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wilkerson.htmlFr om Lawrence Wilkerson, chief aide to Colin Powell who played a major part in planning the invasion of Iraq, in PBS interview with David Brancaccio
I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel? Thirty-one years in the United States Army and I more or less end my career with that kind of a blot on my record? That's not a very comforting thing.
Not entirely sure how much more eyewitness accounts of Bush's attitude, person
Slashdot Mirror
Intelligence has to do with many things, not just your ability to win in a strategic or tactical game(politics). Emotional intelligence and ethical intelligence are high up there on the list for me as things to look for when asking whether someone is intelligent. Remember, ethics is a field of philosophy; it is possible to reason through to decide whether your actions are just and right. Karl Rove fails in this aspect; he will do anything if it means winning (there is a long list of questionable tactics he has used to win). In my mind, he fails the intelligence test because he fails to see the consequences of his own actions, and to reason them out within any accepted ethical system. Granted, truth-functional logic is limited when it comes to deciding a course of action, but that does not mean you have to abandon it completely as Karl Rove has been shown to do(Remember push polling against McCain in the South Carolina primary? There are numerous other things that fail to pass the ethics test ). It's really easy to win when you cheat.
Miniaturization is a problem, but it seems mostly for people trying to make many-purpose devices like these ones. It's not as difficult to build a very usable, very tiny interface on something that only performs one or a few specialized functions, such as the iPod or a cell phone. Trying to make a productivity tool, however, requires some ingenious compromise of size and functionality. Make it too small with two few buttons, it's too hard and not worthwhile for people to pick it up and learn. Make it too big with too many and it ceases to be truly portable.
I've thought about this for awhile and for the life of me I can't seem to come up with a compelling way of making a small, multi-purpose interface with a dealable learning curve. For these devices to succeed they have to be amenable to absolute manipulation in the same way that standard, non-digital physical objects are, and that's a mighty challenge that I don't think anyone has been able to succeed at to date.
One more thing: if science could explain supernatural occurence, they would cease to be supernatural, since what is natural is predictable, whereas what is supernatural is unpredictable. If would could find a good predictive model for supernatural events, then we would be doing so on the basis of other phenomena which are natural. Thus, supernatural events would be natural.
I do not think that the failure to explain supernatural or spiritual experiences is a failure or limitation of science. It's an epistemological limitation - a "vision" or "hallucination" is not veritably real, and inherently subjective. Scientific measurement instrumentation, remember, is an extension of our senses, and since neither our senses nor instrumentation can peer into the viewpoint of other minds. The dichotomy between subjective and objective is a philosophical, epistemic fact, not something that can be overcome by objective empiricism, which is the foundation principle of science. Now if there were some incontrovertible objective evidence of supernatural intervention that scientific instrumentation could detect, that would be another story. So, yes, the idea of a supernatural entity is untestable - it is not natural, it is supernatural. And science is firmly grounded in the natural.
First: The major security threat that we have to defend ourselves against is (as has been hammered into my head for 5 years by the current government and the media) terrorism. Now, the airborne threat that terrorists are likely to deliver is via jet, since a grassroots terrorist organization is unlikely to have the financial means or the infrastructure to design, build, and launch missiles of any kind. A missile defense laser of the kind described in the article is neither designed to take down a jet used as a missile or an ICBM, if what you say is true.
We are also unlikely to experience a missile threat from any well-defined enemy state, since a well-formed state incurring the wrath of the United States (the major economic power in the world) hasn't been a good idea for a while now. Again, the likelihood of an airborne missile attack of ANY kind, not just nuclear, has been greatly diminished since after the cold war. We are no longer in the age of wars between powers, but now in the age of many ill-defined, subversive cells fighting against a superpower(us) who have means available to them that do not include standard missiles of the kind that would be delivered by an enemy state.
National leaders of rogue states are by and large more interested in profit and less in protecting the articles of statecraft. They can't and shouldn't be trusted to develop nuclear weapons and keep them safe from rogue terrorists with whom their religious beliefs or ideologies are aligned. Many leaders do not want to deliver a clear missile attack which would incite the direct and immediate wrath of the United States, but rather to give untraceable aid to terrorists who support insidious sneak attacks against public infrastructure in the United States. A subsequent attack is more likely to be delivered through trade routes and not through the US airspace which is purportedly well-protected by air guard(though I have my doubts after 9/11.)
I'm pretty sure the 10% figure that you cite does not include the current costs of previous military spending, or the costs of social spending that are a direct result of military spending. The government is more interested in misleading us about the percentage of actual spending that they say goes towards social programs and other things when it actually goes towards defense spending. Moreover, either way, the disclosed spending on the department of defense is in the 2006 federal budget is $447.4 billion
In 2002, this number was $343.2 billion.
You can be a deist and a scientist. Many evolutionary scientists would agree with your idea of a creator. A scientist's religious beliefs are always supposed to be left out of his inquiry into the objective world, but that does not mean he cannot form a religious belief from judicious study of the world.
However, that is not what intelligent design theorists are proposing. Intelligent design theorists propose that there are certain "lock and key" mechanisms that cannot have arisen because of random mutations and thus are evidence that an intelligent designer(read: God) is playing an *active* role in evolution. They are very much saying "These structures are too complicated for me to understand on the basis of natural phenomena alone, so I must posit a supernatural entity." This is anti-scientific for many reasons:
1) Good science never resorts to positing a supernatural entity to explain observations because the existence of a supernatural entity is an *untestable* hypothesis. You can't predict the existence of a supernatural entity and then verify it, because the intelligent designer in ID, for instance, is an invisible hand.
2) Science aims to find not just explanatory models but *predictive models*. Explanatory models such as intelligent design are coherent and hang together, but they fail to pass the test that natural selection passes, namely, does it offer a good prediction of what evolution will happen in the future? The answer with regard to natural selection is unequivocally yes, while the answer with regard to intelligent design is unequivocally no. Remember how Darwin *predicted* the existence of certain organisms adapted to certain purposes? Have you ever heard of an intelligent design theorist predicting anything accurately? No, because you cannot possibly entertain any ideas about what a supernatural entity such as an intelligent designer will do in the future.
3) Science will never concede that there is no more to know about a subject, while an intelligent design proponent necessarily does. Science will also never assert the 100% absolute irrefutability of one of its hypotheses, while supporters of intelligent design(The less scientific members of that crowd, at least) definitely do. Science accounts for its own fallibility that intelligent design does not.
These weapons may have been useful and valuable in the cold war era to cancel an airborne nuclear threat from our of our communist rivals. In this day and age, when nuclear weapons and other explosives are less likely to be airborne and more likely to arrive in a shipping container on one of our ports, doesn't it seem like we're going even further down the path of excessive militarization?? The military-industrial complex accounts for 30% of government spending, and it's because we keep launching projects like these airborne missile defense lasers that the upward trend continues. I agree that it's important to have technology in defense , but pouring all these resources into military technology that doesn't make a whole lot of strategic sense when we could be putting money into, say, education and health care, and actual national security concerns - doesn't it make you stop for a second and think?
On the other hand, at least the airborne defense lasers fulfill the actual premise of a "defense budget" - it is meant to defend us, and not to invade or destroy other countries, though I could see its purpose being perverted there as well.
Mod Parent (-1, McCarthyist)
sarcasm This is just old-fashioned pork barrel politics. Except, now they're not even pretending: instead of saying a $2,000,000,000 "bridge to nowhere" serves an actual purpose they are just going to outright spend $73,000,000 with the explicit purpose of making a pile of debris on the moon. I bet they name it after Senator Ted Stevens(R-Alaska) or Bill Frist(R-Tenn). At least Bill Frist has some experience on conducting science at a distance. "Frist Water-Seeking Mission to the Moon" sounds kind of catchy. Kind of. Maybe? Ok, no. /sarcasm
To me, Apple's defense of its trade secrets is warranted and does not constitute violation of free speech.
Certain business language such as stock trading information, executive orders, are priveleged outside of the realm of free speech. That is, utterances such as someone giving insider trading information can have active results that cause harm to people; it thus qualifies as conduct, since it has a locutionary force that separates it from harmless, mundane speech. Similarly, an executive telling an accountant to shred documents regarding financial figures is a violation of business conduct laws, and a general telling his subordinates to murder innocent civilians violates war crimes laws.
This is no different. Disclosing trade secrets has done and does do appreciable damage to the company for whom they are secrets.
Whether or not it is sensible for Apple to go after blogs to protect its trade information is a matter I haven't really decided on. However, to me, it makes sense in the same way as Rudolph Guiliani's policy of going after small-time lawbreakers to deter the bigger offenses - go after jaywalking, so that it looks like you're tough on crime in general. Similarly, Apple is obviously protecting what appears like trivial information about an upcoming product to prevent bloggers from thinking they can get away with disclosing larger trade information.
Apple obviously made the wager that allowing people to disclose trade secrets at all damages them in such a way that all the free advertising in the world can't make up for. I'm not sure I would have made the same wager, but I can respect Apple's decision to make it.
Actually Dick Cheney commissioned a customized version of Duck Hunt from Nintendo to satisfy his hawkish impulses when he's not pre-emptively invading other countries. It's called Lawyer Hunt, and rumors have it that Nintendo is going to release a commercial version of the product next year. It features a customized bird spray controller and decoy pigeons that are supposed to distract the player while Lawyers scurry across the screen. After shooting 10 regular tax attorneys and/or criminal prosecutors, the player enters a special scenario where they get to shoot Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as he attempts to deliver subpoenas and indictments to the front door of the White House. Using the bird spray rifle and an assortment of assault rifles and pistols, Cheney loves to mess those lawyers up real bad! The credits feature an animation of the injured lawyers apologizing to Cheney for being shot by him.
From TFA: "I was the longest holdout for the crank being on the laptop. I was wrong," he said, adding, "If you're a 10-year-old, maybe you can get your four-year-old to pedal for you."
The kids are having intercourse younger and younger these days! I waited until at least 12 years old before I procreated.
Sorry to nitpick, but quantum "fluctuations" are not random. People often confuse the terms "random" and "probabilistic" when they talk about quantum physics. A "random" system is a system where any outcome of measurement is just as likely as any other outcome. However, quantum particles are more likely to be at the expectation value of position than at any other place, though there is a NON-zero probability of it being anywhere else in the system. So quantum "fluctuations"(I'm not sure what you mean by this) are NOT random, because some outcomes of measurement are vastly more likely than others. The only requirement for a quantum particle is that the probability of it being SOMEWHERE is 1.
Quantum particles are associated with probability WAVES that fluctuate with time. When we say wave-particle duality we mean that the particle does NOT have a definite classical trajectory but instead a WAVE of probability associated with it that describes the positions, energies, and momentums at which the particle is most likely to be. This is called a wave function; it is a solution to Schrodinger's differential wave equation and its square is a probability curve.
Depending on your interpretation, quantum mechanics does indicate some things about reality such as there is an ONTOLOGICAL limit on what we can know for certain about objective reality such that it appears meaningless to talk about an absolute objective reality at all. That is, reality changes by being observed. However, unlike general relativity which does indeed EXPLAIN gravity by saying that gravity is identical with a curved space-time geometry, you are quite right in saying that quantum mechanics does not explain anything. Nor does particle theory or E&M explain why there are electric and magnetic forces without beginning to conjure up force-carrying particles and the like. They are currently trying to explain all these things by means of string theory.
Don't even get me started about the jobs these viruses are taking away from American citizens.
I disagree. This is a popular Nietzschean view the denies the existence of empirical reality in favor of radical "idealism." I'm more of a Kantian who declared that objects appear to us as subject to the conditions of perceiving them at all. However, these conditions are the same for everybody. I contend that reality is the intersection of viewpoints, and that we look at something, we see it as it appears to everybody, even though we are by no means looking at an "object in itself" - we are looking at a representation of the object in our minds. You can therefore locate reality as the intersection of common perception, as the common cause for all of our interpretations of it. When something happens out there in reality. We can only perceive it as it appears to us. The philosophical proof Kant offers for this epistemological viewpoint is hard to understand. Basically he says that objects in themselves must exist outside of our subjective experiencing of them because something must persist, and since there is no "enduring self" it must be the objects in themselves. I won't offer a more complete explanation it but I suggest you look at "A Critique of Pure Reason" - a magnificent work. A philosopher has said that it is a "scandal" for philosophy that the existence of objective reality has never been conclusively proven. It is difficult to determine if Kant overcame this scandal, but his argument is very persuasive to me. Either way, we have evidence that there is an objective reality, even though we can't prove its existence by pure thought alone.
The problem is that intelligent design is *not* a competing theory. It is religion masquerading as science. For scientific purposes, the board has no duty to offer a "fair" perspective regarding the "debate." There is no meaningful scientific debate here. Intelligent design fails every single test for what constitutes science. 1) It has to invoke an agent in order to explain phenomena that *can* and *are* explained on natural terms alone. 2) It is not predictive - this is fundamental. In order for a proposition to be accepted as a theory it must somehow predict observed phenomenon. 3) Intelligent design "theorists" aren't hypothesizing or theorizing. They are asserting that the intelligent designer exists and then looking for evidence to support the idea that the intelligent designer exists. They are manipulating and selecting evidence to prove a hypothesis. In science, it is the hypothesis that must be flexible, NOT the evidence. A true scientist has no attachment to his hypothesis and so will not be compelled to manipulate or alter evidence but to adjust is hypothesis to reflect the evidence. Intelligent design beliefs therefore do not conform to the stipulations of the scientific method. Even when science encounters a boundary on what can be known it will REFUSES to hypothesize a deity or intelligent designer because this is by definition an UNTESTABLE hypothesis. The uncertainty principle, the event horizon, - all positions of science . However, if it is suddenly discovered that you CAN know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time with complete certainty, they will have to abandon the uncertainty principle. Similarly, there is so much evidence that evolution DOES explain supposedly "irreducibly complex" structures that ID theorists (if they were true scientists) should abandon their hypothesis that an intelligent agent designed life forms. However, they choose to cling to their hypothesis because they feel that their faith RESTS on it. (This is absurd for other reasons, but I will not go into them because the topic here is science, not religion.) Many scientists do believe in God. But they are scientists precisely because they know when to leave their personal beliefs out of the picture for the sake of being better scientists.
You can't really say that the word "plague" mischaracterizes the steady escalation of viruses, spyware, and other nuisances that slow many Windows machines to a halt. I can't tell you how many times I've had to fix someone's Windows machine by reformatting and reinstalling Windows because the computer is beyond help by traditional means(anti-virus software and spyware removal programs often come up short at this point, even if you can diagnose what the actual problem is). Face it, there is a pathological "decay process" built into Windows for most layusers(note I am not in any way talking about Slashdotters - I'm talking about the 70% of Windows users or so who know much much less about computers than you do.) The typical user buys the box brand new, it runs well, it's spry, it's young. After a while things start slowing down as adware and spyware accumulate. Eventually the computer gets a virus and dies. It's like Alzheimer's for computers. The difference is the Windows installation has a much shorter life expectancy than the average dementia patient.
I am not entirely sure that this same phenomenon won't happen with Macs once Apple grabs a larger portion of the market. Already there have been worms and viruses for OS X that I've heard about. They have since turned into non-issues. It's only a matter of time and market-share before more security holes are exploited and spyware starts accumulating on the OS X hard drive. However, from experience I tend to trust Apple will be better equipped to address these issues than Microsoft is, partly because Apple knows what hardware its system runs on, understands the business importance of the tightly integrated "just works" perception of its products, and seems to keep abreast of all of the security threats that face UNIX systems and OSes in general.
Obviously I'm not going to be able to talk you out of your faith, since it is obviously important to you.
The problem I see with your comment is that it is simply the regurgitation of Bible verse. Argue something on its own terms. One problem with religion is not faith but the fact that religious text are explicitly infallible - it is impossible to refute them on their own terms. So you're naturally going to "win" in your mind any argument about which the Bible has something to say by citing Biblical verse.
Since the Bible makes any moral or ethical debate pointless, why quote it instead of thinking out the ethical issues independently? You'll make a much better case for your point of view by engaging the terms of what you are arguing against instead of simply citing Bible text and making moral and ethical assertions. This is in part why the "thinking" crowd is becoming increasingly secular: Christianity and other religion often argue for themselves unpersuasively. It is not because the "thinking" crowd are better but because so little analysis is given by people of faith about their own faith. Pascal said that Faith is not against Reason, it is above it. I say that Faith can be aided by reason. There have been great Christian philosophers and theist philosophers who are capable of making incredibly cogent rational arguments(Sir Thomas Aquinas, Kierkegaard, Augustine, Descartes, and Dante - (some might call him a "living" philosopher). Follow their example instead of blindly citing Biblical verse. Questioning faith is not heresy but a crucial part of having faith at all. I say the unexamined faith is not worth having.
Second, You seem to side here with a common result of asceticism : deny yourself pleasure, because it somehow makes you weak and base. I happen to be a fan of compassion, selflessness, forgiveness, all Christian values and all results of an 'ascetic ideal'. In this way I tease out the substance of Christianity and live in what some may call a "Christian way". However, many religions promote the same values without using the same mythological signifiers. So the values of Christianity can be heard with even without absolute devotion to the church. Is it more important to worship Christ or to live well while worshipping Christ?
(This post reflects solely the opinion of its author).
/.'ers, IMHO, can no longer claim mediocrity as a reason for diminished ticket sales. Let's face it, the new media theater is in the home.
This was a great film year, the best in recent memory.
Munich, Brokeback Mountain, King Kong, Syriana, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line, Batman Begins, the Squid and the Whale?
I know I'm missing a few too.
I mean, please! I was hard pressed to pick just five of those for the Best Picture nomination. I was even more hard pressed to pick the winner out of the five that did get nominated(although I can tell you one thing: I would not have picked Crash).
Who said that nuclear power would be a quick-fix? It may not solve the climate change problem right away but there are other immediate benefits that make it very worth while.
For instance, it would reduce dependence on foreign oil, which always makes sense.
if the number of nuclear power plants goes up, the demand for oil burning power plants will go down. Thus, the demand for oil goes down. As you know, oil causes more deaths from resultant military and economic conflicts over its supply and its profits than nuclear power ever could, even after a meltdown or contamination. It therefore makes sense for *human rights* and for economic reasons for every country to aggressively pursue a non-oil-consuming energy policy. One way to streamline such a transition would be to invest in nuclear power technology.
Moreover, risks as they are now are not necessarily risks as they are in the future. Funding nuclear research could potentially make safer nuclear containment and waste-storage technologies. Eventually the technology could become so advanced that the net risk to human lives inside Britain would be close to zero, or still less risk than oil poses to the average Brit. While a complete conversion to nuclear power right now might not be a risk worth taking, at least some conversion with some funding of future technology to make nuclear power acceptably safe could work(to the point where the benefits outweigh the risks).
If there was say, an international coalition for nuclear power technology that maybe organized an effort to store nuclear waste in one location on earth or to shoot it out of orbit every year, or say, into the moon or sun, - instead of under a mountain in Nevada - most likely the international cooperation would result in a very cost effective nuclear solution.
In any case, nuclear power(fission) is definitely something that should be pursued more actively than it currently is.
And when nuclear fusion comes? Can we say party?
The two statements are completely different. Ignoring the fact that yes, I think that Microsoft should be *allowed* to create programs for their own operating system, that wasn't the issue nor is it the issue with their monopoly ruling. They were found guilty of building a separate program into their operating system, thereby forcing users to use it instead of a competitor and locking competitors out of the business.
It would be a different story if Apple *forced* you to use and buy their nice leather case. Yes, the iPod comes with a protective case(or did, I think, when I bought one), but that doesn't mean it forces you to use it, or to buy one of their higher-end cases. It leaves you the option of going elsewhere to buy a leather case.
Moreover, their monopoly in the music market does not rule out the option of another competitor making a superior product and gaining market share. What Apple has done has made a quality (not to mention beautiful) product not only popular but a *cultural trend.* That's just good marketing, not anti-competitive tactics.
Why would Apple want to embark on the road of media conglomeration? They are a technology company, with a nascent retail business for music and computer goods. They don't manufacture content, nor do I see a reason why they should start doing so. Just because the founder of a company is multi-faceted does not mean his company is. Moreover, a merger of this sort would require much consideration about risks- risks that I see harming both Apple and Disney if they are taken. It would be a rash idea for Apple to start taking steps towards becoming a huge conglomerate. I see that it would seriously harm their efficiency and effectiveness in the technology market. Why would the tightly managed, neatly integrated technology company want to introduce the complexity of manufacturing content into its workflow, other than for monopolistic purposes? That sounds like it would be Apple biting off more than it can chew. Better to over-extend the CEO than to over-extend the entire corporate structure. Apple is good at technology. Disney is good(?) at content. Apple should not buy Disney for the same reason that Apple and Pixar should not merge. They are two distinct businesses with two different missions, who specialize in two completely different areas of the market. As long as they can cooperate effectively as separate entities, they should remain separate entities.
+5, Brilliant!
Ms. Abdala sounds like a spoiled nutjob who thinks that her thoughtless gall in her personal life should automatically transfer to her professional career. The fact that cattiness is framed positively and rewarded in today's business world is disheartening. There is a difference between being bold and confident and being petty. Moreover, just because you have gall does not mean you are always correct. As a man whose initials are JK once said in a widely watched debate, "You can be confident and you can be wrong." The type of gall that Ms. Abdala displays here may be good in the court-room but it can also be dangerous when administrating a business. A lack of concern for other people's feelings or thoughts is just as bad - probably more - than an over-concern for them. A good worker has the confidence to stand up for their own opinions bravely when they know they are right, and to take genuine opportunities. She also knows when to shut up and cooperate, for crissake. I really hope that Ms. Abdala's outrageous bluntness is not rewarded with a fast-track career.
Secondly, I didn't address your critique of Mr. Biden.
First, You're right. The presidency is a hard position to occupy. That is why we demand that our candidates be up to the task, usually. For some reason Mr. Bush's flaws fell through the cracks of our electoral process(apparently counting the votes honestly, at least the first time around, did too).
Secondly, Mr. Biden is a very honest, respected and respectable Democratic senator. My father knows him personally.
Thirdly, since a quote from a very competent Senator regarding a personal encounter with our president is apparently not credible enough for you, here are some more quotes regarding the attitudes, personality, and consequent abilities of our dear administration:
-1. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH. html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=890a96189e162076&ex=1 255665600&partner=rssuserlandArticle by Ron Suskind from the New York Times magazine, "Without a Doubt", dated 10/17/2004: (from Christie Whitman, GOP ex-EPA administrator)
-2. Same article from New York Times magazine in 2004:
-3.Same article in the New York Times magazine from 2004
--http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wilkerson.htmlFr om Lawrence Wilkerson, chief aide to Colin Powell who played a major part in planning the invasion of Iraq, in PBS interview with David Brancaccio
Not entirely sure how much more eyewitness accounts of Bush's attitude, person