Is eleventeen an 11 with a one in front of it, as in 111. Or is it a counting thing where tenteen=20 eleventeen=21, twelveteen=22, thirteenteen=23...?
Just wunderin, cause I only want to highlight the right one.
You can't highlight it because I've patented highlighting it. So it doesn't matter what eleventeen is (and that at least is the truth), and I'm not going to help you violate my patent by telling you!
Now, whether Microsoft (or anyone) should be allowed to patent such thing... I don't know.
I think I know, and the answer is "Hell no!" They're patenting identifying numbers so as to then make them stand out. It is absolutely ludicrous that this should be patented, i.e. an idea that nobody else is allowed to use. I've scanned the patent application and I can't tell what, exactly, is the supposed "invention". Did they invent wanting to identify numbers in text? Did they invent wanting to make certain data stand out? These are nothing more than feature bullet points, not original inventions.
Even their implementation suggests nothing more than an interesting case study for the Perl Cookbok. Rather than keeping a table of all possible words that represent numbers, they identify parts of words that can be combined to form numbers. E.g. it recognizes "one" and "two" and "thousand" and can combine them to form "one thousand" rather than having to have a table with "one thousand", "two thousand", "eleventeen thousand" etc. This is so blatantly obvious -- who in their right mind would think of the infinitely-size-table method as plausible in the first place? The implementation of this concept may involve some actual work, but that implementation would be covered by copyright. As a concept -- what patents cover -- there is absolutely nothing here.
I don't really care if its microsoft doing this, whether it's a defensive patent or not. This is ludicrous. This is the kind of thing that stifles development, not encourages it. Like most software patents, there is no real invention, just a feature request. But what do you expect when you allow patents on math? Not even new math, just old math combined in some way because you're calculating something different. You get A + B and somebody thinks A + B * C is unique and needs protection. Ludicrous.
And by the way, "a method for identifying numbers in text including non-standard expressions like 'eleventeen'" is my patent-pending invention. I bet I'm the first person to ever want to do this, which is all I need to get a patent!
So does the extra 30mph of going 55 versus 25 if you have a blowout. Or are you saying that 55 is a safe speed at which to have a blowout on the highway?
Travelling at any significant speed is going to be dangerous if you get in a wreck, 55 or 85. Energy is proportional to velocity squared, so going from 25 to 55 you more than quadruple the energy in any accident. Going from 55 to 85 doubles the energy again, a big jump but still half as much as the jump from residential speeds to the old highway limit. Neither speed is a good speed at which to hit something.
Obviously with driving what is "safe" varies continuously with conditions of the road, traffic, and your car, and 85 is safe only in specific sets of those conditions. However it would be wrong to say that 85 is inherently unsafe while 55 is not.
That better picture is not neccessairly a good thing (because it exposes flaws, etc), the space is a waste without the higher picutre (you really think people will be generating new 25 hour HD-DVDs of porn? They'd be VERY expensive).
What do you mean? You could put the whole first season of Twenty Whore on one disk!
Is war inevitable, space weapons or not? 3,000 years of history says it is.
Which is more practical, pretending that war won't happen or accepting that it will?
History tells us that war will occur. It does not tell us that any particular conflict is unavoidable. It does not tell us that we are incapable of creating a war where none would have occured with our own actions. History tells us that a particular war is innevitable only when one side believes that it is.
So when you are deciding whether it is practical to just accept that war will happen, you must take into account whether your practical preparations for this hypothetical war will in fact create the circumstances in which a real war will occur.
The only possible enemies against whom militarizing space would be relevent are Russia, China, and potentially in the future India or Pakistan. Mostly likely would be China.
Is war with China inevitable? If we treat China as if war with them is inevitable, then it will be. Militarizing space under the assumption that we will get into a war with a space power only makes that more likely as it will be seen as an act of agression -- and they would be right, because as you yourself say we would be doing it to prepare for the "inevitable" war.
I'm all for maintaining the ability to launch weapons into space should the need arise. I'm all for improving our launch capability across the board, such that militarization would be made easier as well. I am not for sticking a flag into the vacuum of space and declaring it ours under threat of military retaliation. I am not for provoking those who are not yet even enemies.
We must balance the ability to wage war with the diplomacy and restraint necessary to prevent it.
That's right! Everyone who currently has oil and can sell it for $63/barrel! None of their fields became more expensive to drill, so to them it's just more profit.
And don't worry! We're building what will be our three largest permanent foreign military bases in Iraq. So when we really do need that oil, we'll have the facilities to grab it.
And who gets paid to rebuild the pipelines and other oil infrastructure in Iraq when it gets blown up?
Funny how all three groups are at least in part the same people.
The situation in Iraq only doesn't make sense as an oil grab if you mistakenly think it was done for your benefit.
There's no point in further discussing ID because you've completely removed all the science from it.
As if there ever was any to begin with, and your avoidance of the actual issue isn't helping.
ID has absolutely nothing to do with *your* definition of God nor does it have anything to do with what you *believe* is possible or not.
Exactly. That was all an irrelevent side track that you brought up. I was just trying to make the distinction between a supernatural God and natural Aliens as the Designer.
So please, stop acting like I'm dragging religion into this issue and address the actual logic. Here it is again in hopefully even clearer form. Please let me know where you have a problem.
Hypothesis: ID allows for an Intelligent Designer such as a natural alien life form from our universe, as opposed to a God or Wizard or Beings From Another Universe. This was the distinction you originally brought up, and which I dispute.
ID Postulate*: We can infer the existence of a Designer from the fact that certain structures such as Intelligent Life are irreduceably complex and thus must have been created. They cannot arise solely through natural processes.
Univers Postulate: The universe is of a finite age.
Proof by Contradiction:
Step 1: Assume aliens are the designer.
Step 2: Aliens are natural life forms (by Hypothesis).
Step 3: These aliens could not have become intelligent naturally and must have been Designed (by ID Postulate).
Step 4: There are an infinite number of preceeding alien species Designers to account for each subsequent species (by Hypothesis, Step 3 and induction).
Step 5: You cannot have an infinite sequence of Designed/Designer in a finite amount of time, and so we have a contradiction (by Step 4 and the Universe Postulate).
Step 6: The Hypothesis that ID can be valid with only alien life forms as Designers is false. Q.E.D.
* I'm taking this as a postulate only because the whole discussion is moot if this is not true.
You're still making a massive assumption about "God". Anyone that is sufficiently more technologically capable than us can appear to be a God.
My definition of God for the purpose of this thread (including my previous posts) is any supernatural entity - i.e. one above or not subject to the laws of our universe in some way.
God could be some omniscient, all powerful being, or he could be a group of people with the ability to modify life here on this planet.
But the second case is impossible according to ID. That's my whole point. Intelligence is "irreduceably complex" and thus can not have arisen naturally. Therefore this group of people must either 1) be supernatural or 2) these people and their intelligence arose naturally, and the premise of ID is incorrect.
If 2) is the case, then ID is wrong and there is no reason to presume any designer, supernatural God or merely technologically advanced "God" to explain our existence.
Therefore ID implies that the Designer must be supernatural. Not in a "really technologically advanced" way but in a "not born of this universe" way because ID precludes a technologically advanced race from arising naturally.
One can believe in God all they want and they can imagine him any way they want but it is still nothing more than imagination until actual scientific evidence is found that supports his existance.
That's fantastic, but not even relevent to the discussion at hand. We were discussing ID, and whether it is possible that the "designer" ID hypothesises could be natural life from another planet. I am arguing that this is not possible, and that "aliens did it" is just a lame attempt to make ID seem like it isn't just as faith-based as the belief in God Himself.
So to reiterate my point in a way that attempts to prevent such meaningless sidetracking:
ID says intelligent life cannot arise naturally and must be designed. This inherently implies that the designer must not themself be natural. Aliens are right out.
You managed to completely dodge the issue this time, but please let's try to address the issue at hand.
Please go back and re-read what ID is all about. You're saying things that fundamentalists are saying instead of what the truth is.
Sorry, I'm not claiming anything about ID that isn't backed up by your wiki link. I'm just also drawing the logical conclusion that if the postulates of ID are true then the Designer must be supernatural.
Intelligent Design (or ID) is the controversial assertion which states that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by positing an intelligent designer(s). The majority of ID advocates state that their focus is on detecting evidence of design in nature, without regard to who or what the designer might be.
What "certain features" are we talking about? Right, intelligent life, which shows signs of "irreduceable complexity".
Having intelligent life from another planet doesn't solve that problem, hence you have an inherent contradiction if you claim non-supernatural aliens are the cause of life on earth.
Just as one can say "Then where did aliens come from?", one can also say with the exact same logic "Then where did god come from?"
Yes, but ID begins by postulating that intelligence as manifested in our universe is too complex to be natural and thus requires a designer. Thus the only possible designer is one not in our universe, aka a god. If it were possible for some other intelligence to arise naturally, why not ours, and thus the whole premise of ID collapses.
This is the only possible inference of ID that isn't self-contradictory. The Intelligent Designer is a God.
Just as one can say "Then where did aliens come from?", one can also say with the exact same logic "Then where did god come from?"
No, it isn't the same logic, because once you invoke a supernatural power all bets are off and you can use whatever explanation you like. "Where did the aliens come from?" however strikes directly at the heart of ID, which is its fundamental observation that life is too complex to have arisen naturally.
Claiming "It might be aliens" contradicts the assumption they are making in the first place that intelligence is too complex to be natural. Saying "It might be aliens" is nothing but a disingenious distraction.
Arguments MUST be rational and logical.
Yes. And the logical conclusion of ID is that if the D exists it is supernatural. Claiming the designer might be natural life from another planet is not logical.
That's my whole point: "It might be aliens" is not rational. It is nothing but an attempt to make ID not seem like an attempt to justify some form (not even necessarily Christian) of Creationism where a supernatural being made everything happen. But it is, and doesn't make any sense unless it is.
ID is not a theory. It is not even a hypothesis. It is an assertion, an idea, and nothing more until scientific work can be done on it. That of course is impossible for the same reasons some parts of the theory of evolution are impossible to prove or disprove.
At least we agree that ID is nothing more than an assertion.
No part of ID is proveable or unproveable. There can be no scientific work done on it because it is not science. If this isn't true, please explain one falsifiable hypothesis of ID.
Now please, what parts of evolutionary theory cannot be disproven? That would clearly be a part of the theory that should be rejected just as we reject ID. Of course it's only part you claim, putting it in an entirely separate category from ID.
True, but at the same time God had to come from somewhere too, so using God as the creator still only pushes the First Cause one step back as well.
Exactly, which is why neither version of ID is actually an explanation of anything scientific.
If you have faith, then God has always existed (or exists outside of time and thus "always" or "come from" aren't applicable). He described himself as "I am". Of course that's faith, not science.
One more thing you forgot to mention. Intelligent design is the hypothesis that SOMETHING created all of this. Part of Intelligent Design is the possibility that we were all created by intelligent beings from another world.
That makes no sense whatsoever. If we were created by aliens, where did the aliens come from? If a species of aliens could arise, travel to our planet, and create us, then that would be proof that intelligent life can arise on its own, obviating the need for a Designer to explain us in the first place! ID = aliens contradicts itself from the outset. ID = supernatural being not subject to the laws of physics that apparently makes our appearence impossible is the only way the theory can be self-consistent.
Fanatical Christians attempt to twist Intelligent Design to only include God as the possible creator, but that destroys it's standing as science.
ID makes absolutely no sense at all unless the "Designer" is a god. That fundamentalists have decided this Designer is the Christian God is a natural expression of that fact. They haven't "twisted" Intelligent Design at all except to specify which God they think did it.
Oh, yeah, the special prosecutor working on his case before the Grand Jury for an action which could not possibly be a crime. That makes lots of sense. If the answer was this obvious, why hasn't the administration used this obvious defense? Maybe because "Sure he did it but it wasn't a crime" wouldn't fool said special prosecutor? Then again, maybe the prosecutor is only working on a perjury charge. We don't know, but it's pretty obvious that if the answer was as simple as you claim then Rove's lawyer wouldn't have to resort to the "but he didn't mention her by name" defense. Right? If you disagree, call Rove and maybe you can replace his council.
last overseas undercover in 1997 and the name became public in 2003
The question isn't when the name became public, it is when it was leaked to an unauthorized source. Read the law.
the leaker would have to knowingly leak the information with the purpose of causing harm to the agent. Simply leaking the name to providie proof positive that her husband is a liar wouldn't make the leak a crime.
That is simply not true. I hesitate to say lie, but that statement is wrong.
The law is here. There is no mention of intent to cause harm. Section a, which by itself carries a maximum ten year sentence, only specifies that the leaker had classified knowledge of the agent's identity and revealed that identity, knowing it was classified*. Section b carries a five year sentence for when a leaker has access to classified information and learns (I presume this means "is able to deduce" or it would be no different than a) the agent's identity as a result, and leaks the identifying information. Section c, the closest to the misinformation in that article, requires knowledge of an agent's identity being classified and a "pattern of activities" intended to disclose an agents identity while the leaker "has reason to believe" doing so would be harmful to to intelligence activities. This is the most general clause of the law, but still no mention of intent to harm.
The funny thing is that in the second article (which is not the one which contains the misinformation, by the way, despite the arrangement of links and quoted paragraphs) is mostly about how the law is extending beyond its original intent of going after those with classified information and is being used against the press. Well, guess what? The guy the press was protecting is exactly who the law was intended to go after -- those with privileged access to classified information who leak it in the first place.
* This is why Rove disclaimed having seen the memo that was distributed among the rest of the administration about Plame's identity being kept secret. Oh, but it was never a problem to begin with, he just forgot to mention that part. Seriously, call him up and tell him to fire his lawyer.
Surely a terrorist determined to blow himself up would have made for a crowded area, rather than blowing himself up in an open space to no avail when challenged by the police?
Surely a terrorist determined to blow himself up would do so before being apprehended, even if the target of the explosion would be less than ideal. The place where he was when the police announced their presence was sufficiently crowded to make exploding there more ideal than being apprehended and the mission being a failure.
It would be interesting to see in cases of actual suicide bombers how often scenarios like this happen -- the bomber is alerted to and chased by police, and then apprehended without detonating. I would think, but don't know, that most cases of a suicide bomber being caught would involve them being caught off guard and immediately restrained, not chased through their chosen target and eventually tackled.
They pinned him down, he struggled, they panicked, it being quite clear in their minds he was attempting to blow himself and them up. Men tend not to be at their most rational when they think someone's trying to kill them. So they shot him, and only then discovered their mistake.
Exactly, that was pretty much my whole point. The police, already having assumed that he was a suicide bomber, saw his actions as being indicative of a suicide bomb attempt and responded accordingly. That cop thought he was saving his own life and the lives of everyone nearby when he shot an innocent man in the face. The problem is that this irrational course of action was set in motion by the decision to label a guy from the same apartment complex as someone else as a likely terrorist. Having already been assumed to be a terrorist, there is little surprise in the outcome, because the police following him were waiting for anything "suspicious" as a reason to put him down. I posit that the scenario would have been entirely different if the police had been told he was a suspected illegal immigrant with no ties to terrorism.
Lacking these powers would render them incapable of acting against real terrorists.
What powers? And what real terrorists? I fail to see how anything involved in this scenario would have helped to stop a "real terrorist" unless they shot him as soon as they were sure they were following the right guy.
Having them means civilians who act suspiciously are at risk from the police as well. So far the terrorists have proven more of a danger than the police. If this changes, perhaps things will need to be rethought.
PERHAPS?! No, you should definitely think again before the police are even close to being as dangerous as the terrorists they are trying to stop!
Not that it will take much. How many died in the first explosions? It seems that most Britons have taken it in stride, but some law enforcement are way too eager to prevent it from happening again and are fingering anyone they plausibly can (as much as "lives near other suspect" is plausible). Combining such a wide dragnet of suspicion with a shoot-first-questions-later policy is a disaster in the making, and I fear this is only the first example.
First, anyone who knows anything about this story knows the language issue was moot. He spoke English just fine. Who cares? The only relevence his origin has is that 1) he looks different 2) he was illegal, and thus predisposed to flee. The questions thus are: would this have happened if he was legal and would this have happened if he had non-threatening white skin?
If someone yells "STOP, POLICE!" in the subway, I would stop.
Someone, anyone? My understanding is that he is not the only person who ran. That doesn't surprise me, when you're in the location of a previous terror attack and somebody in plain clothes brandishes a gun -- regardless of whether they claim to be police or not!
He wasn't the only one who ran. The reason they chased him down specifically is because they were tailing him because he lived in the same complex as a different suspect*; I.e. they were already suspicious, and thus his actions only served to confirm their pre-conceived ideas.
THAT, by the way, is why we (used to) have so many laws protecting the "accused": because to a police officer, even the average honestly-trying-to-do-good kind, a "suspect" is "the guy who probably did it" and all of the "suspect's" actions are going to be viewed in that light. That police officer probably thought he was fighting evil incarnate when he shot an innocent man in the face. Why? Because he already assumed this was the case.
Which just highlites the fact that the whole scenario was idiotic. If he actually had been a suicide bomber, then he would have detonated his device the second the police revealed themselves. When that didn't happen, when they chased him down and he still hadn't exploded, and then pinned him on the ground face up and he still hadn't exploded, what need was there to shoot him? Only "I'm killing an evil terrorist because that's who Dispatch told me I was chasing -- Me: 1; Terror: 0!" can justify this.
My deepest, sincerest hope is that we will sometime soon stop saying "But my actions are justified because I'm fighting Terrorists!" and start realizing "My actions are not justified because they are completely ineffective at fighting Terorists!" It seems precious few people are able to dissociate fighting terrorism with fighting terrorism effectively. I had hoped and was largely gratified that the British would keep their cool. It does seem that certain elements are following the U.S. in a policy of "whatever we do is right (because it's against Terror!), no matter how stupid and counterproductive".
* Is it only me that is worried that plain clothes officers may tail me and launch a sudden attack which may result in me being shot in the face if I were to, say, panic, because I lived near an actual terrorist suspect? Roving wiretaps were bad enough, but roving shoot-to-kill orders? That's insane!
Yeah, that's all true. Nintendo has done some quite crappy things. I guess the reason I don't hang them for it is because they have never appeared to want to dominate anything but the game console market. Unlike Sony and Microsoft, who appear to want to dominate everything. So Nintendo's antics seem less threatening to me.
I'm still pretty proud of my "unauthorized" copy of Gauntlet for the NES.
Wouldn't they rather a company that actually gets things out in reasonable time frames?
The obvious answer is "Sure, but who would that be?" AMD was a couple years late with K8 as well.
Schedule slips are the name of the game. Granted, Intel's slip with Merced (both on the time scale and on the promised performance) was pretty severe. But since Dell makes most of their bank on the IA32 line with all the Intel marketing dollars, they could easily be persuaded to just let the Itanium fiasco slide.
Though I'd bet you a pint that Dell is the reason why Intel officially launched their iAMD64 parts. "You want us to remain exclusive? Give us a way to counter Opteron, now." is roughly how I think it went. Good thing Intel had Yamhill in their back pocket for a couple years.
You often hear that, but I wonder if it's always a valid line of reasoning. Do you think it's more of a risk for a few malicious people to possibly know about an exploit while the company takes its time fixing the problem, or for the entire world to definitely know about it while the company scrambles to cobble together a quick fix?
That depends. Could "the entire world" do something to mitigate their risk if they knew about the vulnerability? If you don't tell anyone, you're just assuming that there isn't anyone out there already exploiting the bug with customers none the wiser. If there is some way those vulnerable could protect themselves then this is the only responsible thing to do.
Part of the problem, though, is that sometimes the way to protect yourself is to use a different product. The vendor doesn't like that solution very much. I as a user though would rather have that option than just assume the product is bug free or that any bugs that have been found (but not disclosed) are known only by white hats.
What I'm getting at is don't say that this sort of behavior is limited solely to closed source software.
Of course not. Hiding problems to avoid embarassement is pretty common human behavior. The only thing different with a corporation is the profit motive that encourages the same behavior.
Would you rather have the opportunity to fix a security flaw while no one else (but the person who discovered it) knew about it, or would you prefer the person who discovered it announce it to the world and release an exploit first?
The problem with this is that "while no one else knew about it" is always just an assumption. I don't think that's a safe assumption to make. So to me that makes the question: Would disclosing the vulnerability allow people to mitigate the actions of the possible third party who already knows about the bug? If there is something customers could do -- a workaround, disabling a service, or even switching to a different product -- to prevent the vulnerability from being exploited, then I do think announcing the bugs is best.
Slashdot Mirror
Is eleventeen an 11 with a one in front of it, as in 111. Or is it a counting thing where tenteen=20 eleventeen=21, twelveteen=22, thirteenteen=23...?
Just wunderin, cause I only want to highlight the right one.
You can't highlight it because I've patented highlighting it. So it doesn't matter what eleventeen is (and that at least is the truth), and I'm not going to help you violate my patent by telling you!
Now, whether Microsoft (or anyone) should be allowed to patent such thing... I don't know.
I think I know, and the answer is "Hell no!" They're patenting identifying numbers so as to then make them stand out. It is absolutely ludicrous that this should be patented, i.e. an idea that nobody else is allowed to use. I've scanned the patent application and I can't tell what, exactly, is the supposed "invention". Did they invent wanting to identify numbers in text? Did they invent wanting to make certain data stand out? These are nothing more than feature bullet points, not original inventions.
Even their implementation suggests nothing more than an interesting case study for the Perl Cookbok. Rather than keeping a table of all possible words that represent numbers, they identify parts of words that can be combined to form numbers. E.g. it recognizes "one" and "two" and "thousand" and can combine them to form "one thousand" rather than having to have a table with "one thousand", "two thousand", "eleventeen thousand" etc. This is so blatantly obvious -- who in their right mind would think of the infinitely-size-table method as plausible in the first place? The implementation of this concept may involve some actual work, but that implementation would be covered by copyright. As a concept -- what patents cover -- there is absolutely nothing here.
I don't really care if its microsoft doing this, whether it's a defensive patent or not. This is ludicrous. This is the kind of thing that stifles development, not encourages it. Like most software patents, there is no real invention, just a feature request. But what do you expect when you allow patents on math? Not even new math, just old math combined in some way because you're calculating something different. You get A + B and somebody thinks A + B * C is unique and needs protection. Ludicrous.
And by the way, "a method for identifying numbers in text including non-standard expressions like 'eleventeen'" is my patent-pending invention. I bet I'm the first person to ever want to do this, which is all I need to get a patent!
So does the extra 30mph of going 55 versus 25 if you have a blowout. Or are you saying that 55 is a safe speed at which to have a blowout on the highway?
Travelling at any significant speed is going to be dangerous if you get in a wreck, 55 or 85. Energy is proportional to velocity squared, so going from 25 to 55 you more than quadruple the energy in any accident. Going from 55 to 85 doubles the energy again, a big jump but still half as much as the jump from residential speeds to the old highway limit. Neither speed is a good speed at which to hit something.
Obviously with driving what is "safe" varies continuously with conditions of the road, traffic, and your car, and 85 is safe only in specific sets of those conditions. However it would be wrong to say that 85 is inherently unsafe while 55 is not.
That better picture is not neccessairly a good thing (because it exposes flaws, etc), the space is a waste without the higher picutre (you really think people will be generating new 25 hour HD-DVDs of porn? They'd be VERY expensive).
What do you mean? You could put the whole first season of Twenty Whore on one disk!
Well? What did the profile say? My last one came up "Weirdo".
Is war inevitable, space weapons or not? 3,000 years of history says it is.
Which is more practical, pretending that war won't happen or accepting that it will?
History tells us that war will occur. It does not tell us that any particular conflict is unavoidable. It does not tell us that we are incapable of creating a war where none would have occured with our own actions. History tells us that a particular war is innevitable only when one side believes that it is.
So when you are deciding whether it is practical to just accept that war will happen, you must take into account whether your practical preparations for this hypothetical war will in fact create the circumstances in which a real war will occur.
The only possible enemies against whom militarizing space would be relevent are Russia, China, and potentially in the future India or Pakistan. Mostly likely would be China.
Is war with China inevitable? If we treat China as if war with them is inevitable, then it will be. Militarizing space under the assumption that we will get into a war with a space power only makes that more likely as it will be seen as an act of agression -- and they would be right, because as you yourself say we would be doing it to prepare for the "inevitable" war.
I'm all for maintaining the ability to launch weapons into space should the need arise. I'm all for improving our launch capability across the board, such that militarization would be made easier as well. I am not for sticking a flag into the vacuum of space and declaring it ours under threat of military retaliation. I am not for provoking those who are not yet even enemies.
We must balance the ability to wage war with the diplomacy and restraint necessary to prevent it.
That's right! Everyone who currently has oil and can sell it for $63/barrel! None of their fields became more expensive to drill, so to them it's just more profit.
And don't worry! We're building what will be our three largest permanent foreign military bases in Iraq. So when we really do need that oil, we'll have the facilities to grab it.
And who gets paid to rebuild the pipelines and other oil infrastructure in Iraq when it gets blown up?
Funny how all three groups are at least in part the same people.
The situation in Iraq only doesn't make sense as an oil grab if you mistakenly think it was done for your benefit.
There's no point in further discussing ID because you've completely removed all the science from it.
As if there ever was any to begin with, and your avoidance of the actual issue isn't helping.
ID has absolutely nothing to do with *your* definition of God nor does it have anything to do with what you *believe* is possible or not.
Exactly. That was all an irrelevent side track that you brought up. I was just trying to make the distinction between a supernatural God and natural Aliens as the Designer.
So please, stop acting like I'm dragging religion into this issue and address the actual logic. Here it is again in hopefully even clearer form. Please let me know where you have a problem.
Hypothesis: ID allows for an Intelligent Designer such as a natural alien life form from our universe, as opposed to a God or Wizard or Beings From Another Universe. This was the distinction you originally brought up, and which I dispute.
ID Postulate*: We can infer the existence of a Designer from the fact that certain structures such as Intelligent Life are irreduceably complex and thus must have been created. They cannot arise solely through natural processes.
Univers Postulate: The universe is of a finite age.
Proof by Contradiction:
Step 1: Assume aliens are the designer.
Step 2: Aliens are natural life forms (by Hypothesis).
Step 3: These aliens could not have become intelligent naturally and must have been Designed (by ID Postulate).
Step 4: There are an infinite number of preceeding alien species Designers to account for each subsequent species (by Hypothesis, Step 3 and induction).
Step 5: You cannot have an infinite sequence of Designed/Designer in a finite amount of time, and so we have a contradiction (by Step 4 and the Universe Postulate).
Step 6: The Hypothesis that ID can be valid with only alien life forms as Designers is false. Q.E.D.
* I'm taking this as a postulate only because the whole discussion is moot if this is not true.
Yeah, pretty much. Competition, and thus a healthy free market, is the existence of any choice no matter how illusory.
I don't really want to smoke whatever it is that makes him like Windows.
Remember, the reason everyone complains about how something isn't "News for Nerds" is because we are all nerds. Yes, you and me too.
You're still making a massive assumption about "God". Anyone that is sufficiently more technologically capable than us can appear to be a God.
My definition of God for the purpose of this thread (including my previous posts) is any supernatural entity - i.e. one above or not subject to the laws of our universe in some way.
God could be some omniscient, all powerful being, or he could be a group of people with the ability to modify life here on this planet.
But the second case is impossible according to ID. That's my whole point. Intelligence is "irreduceably complex" and thus can not have arisen naturally. Therefore this group of people must either 1) be supernatural or 2) these people and their intelligence arose naturally, and the premise of ID is incorrect.
If 2) is the case, then ID is wrong and there is no reason to presume any designer, supernatural God or merely technologically advanced "God" to explain our existence.
Therefore ID implies that the Designer must be supernatural. Not in a "really technologically advanced" way but in a "not born of this universe" way because ID precludes a technologically advanced race from arising naturally.
One can believe in God all they want and they can imagine him any way they want but it is still nothing more than imagination until actual scientific evidence is found that supports his existance.
That's fantastic, but not even relevent to the discussion at hand. We were discussing ID, and whether it is possible that the "designer" ID hypothesises could be natural life from another planet. I am arguing that this is not possible, and that "aliens did it" is just a lame attempt to make ID seem like it isn't just as faith-based as the belief in God Himself.
So to reiterate my point in a way that attempts to prevent such meaningless sidetracking:
ID says intelligent life cannot arise naturally and must be designed. This inherently implies that the designer must not themself be natural. Aliens are right out.
You managed to completely dodge the issue this time, but please let's try to address the issue at hand.
Please go back and re-read what ID is all about. You're saying things that fundamentalists are saying instead of what the truth is.
Sorry, I'm not claiming anything about ID that isn't backed up by your wiki link. I'm just also drawing the logical conclusion that if the postulates of ID are true then the Designer must be supernatural.
Intelligent Design (or ID) is the controversial assertion which states that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by positing an intelligent designer(s). The majority of ID advocates state that their focus is on detecting evidence of design in nature, without regard to who or what the designer might be.
What "certain features" are we talking about? Right, intelligent life, which shows signs of "irreduceable complexity".
Having intelligent life from another planet doesn't solve that problem, hence you have an inherent contradiction if you claim non-supernatural aliens are the cause of life on earth.
Just as one can say "Then where did aliens come from?", one can also say with the exact same logic "Then where did god come from?"
Yes, but ID begins by postulating that intelligence as manifested in our universe is too complex to be natural and thus requires a designer. Thus the only possible designer is one not in our universe, aka a god. If it were possible for some other intelligence to arise naturally, why not ours, and thus the whole premise of ID collapses.
This is the only possible inference of ID that isn't self-contradictory. The Intelligent Designer is a God.
Just as one can say "Then where did aliens come from?", one can also say with the exact same logic "Then where did god come from?"
No, it isn't the same logic, because once you invoke a supernatural power all bets are off and you can use whatever explanation you like. "Where did the aliens come from?" however strikes directly at the heart of ID, which is its fundamental observation that life is too complex to have arisen naturally.
Claiming "It might be aliens" contradicts the assumption they are making in the first place that intelligence is too complex to be natural. Saying "It might be aliens" is nothing but a disingenious distraction.
Arguments MUST be rational and logical.
Yes. And the logical conclusion of ID is that if the D exists it is supernatural. Claiming the designer might be natural life from another planet is not logical.
That's my whole point: "It might be aliens" is not rational. It is nothing but an attempt to make ID not seem like an attempt to justify some form (not even necessarily Christian) of Creationism where a supernatural being made everything happen. But it is, and doesn't make any sense unless it is.
ID is not a theory. It is not even a hypothesis. It is an assertion, an idea, and nothing more until scientific work can be done on it. That of course is impossible for the same reasons some parts of the theory of evolution are impossible to prove or disprove.
At least we agree that ID is nothing more than an assertion.
No part of ID is proveable or unproveable. There can be no scientific work done on it because it is not science. If this isn't true, please explain one falsifiable hypothesis of ID.
Now please, what parts of evolutionary theory cannot be disproven? That would clearly be a part of the theory that should be rejected just as we reject ID. Of course it's only part you claim, putting it in an entirely separate category from ID.
True, but at the same time God had to come from somewhere too, so using God as the creator still only pushes the First Cause one step back as well.
Exactly, which is why neither version of ID is actually an explanation of anything scientific.
If you have faith, then God has always existed (or exists outside of time and thus "always" or "come from" aren't applicable). He described himself as "I am". Of course that's faith, not science.
One more thing you forgot to mention. Intelligent design is the hypothesis that SOMETHING created all of this. Part of Intelligent Design is the possibility that we were all created by intelligent beings from another world.
That makes no sense whatsoever. If we were created by aliens, where did the aliens come from? If a species of aliens could arise, travel to our planet, and create us, then that would be proof that intelligent life can arise on its own, obviating the need for a Designer to explain us in the first place! ID = aliens contradicts itself from the outset. ID = supernatural being not subject to the laws of physics that apparently makes our appearence impossible is the only way the theory can be self-consistent.
Fanatical Christians attempt to twist Intelligent Design to only include God as the possible creator, but that destroys it's standing as science.
ID makes absolutely no sense at all unless the "Designer" is a god. That fundamentalists have decided this Designer is the Christian God is a natural expression of that fact. They haven't "twisted" Intelligent Design at all except to specify which God they think did it.
ID is not, never was, and never will be science.
Oh, yeah, the special prosecutor working on his case before the Grand Jury for an action which could not possibly be a crime. That makes lots of sense. If the answer was this obvious, why hasn't the administration used this obvious defense? Maybe because "Sure he did it but it wasn't a crime" wouldn't fool said special prosecutor? Then again, maybe the prosecutor is only working on a perjury charge. We don't know, but it's pretty obvious that if the answer was as simple as you claim then Rove's lawyer wouldn't have to resort to the "but he didn't mention her by name" defense. Right? If you disagree, call Rove and maybe you can replace his council.
last overseas undercover in 1997 and the name became public in 2003
The question isn't when the name became public, it is when it was leaked to an unauthorized source. Read the law.
the leaker would have to knowingly leak the information with the purpose of causing harm to the agent. Simply leaking the name to providie proof positive that her husband is a liar wouldn't make the leak a crime.
That is simply not true. I hesitate to say lie, but that statement is wrong.
The law is here. There is no mention of intent to cause harm. Section a, which by itself carries a maximum ten year sentence, only specifies that the leaker had classified knowledge of the agent's identity and revealed that identity, knowing it was classified*. Section b carries a five year sentence for when a leaker has access to classified information and learns (I presume this means "is able to deduce" or it would be no different than a) the agent's identity as a result, and leaks the identifying information. Section c, the closest to the misinformation in that article, requires knowledge of an agent's identity being classified and a "pattern of activities" intended to disclose an agents identity while the leaker "has reason to believe" doing so would be harmful to to intelligence activities. This is the most general clause of the law, but still no mention of intent to harm.
The funny thing is that in the second article (which is not the one which contains the misinformation, by the way, despite the arrangement of links and quoted paragraphs) is mostly about how the law is extending beyond its original intent of going after those with classified information and is being used against the press. Well, guess what? The guy the press was protecting is exactly who the law was intended to go after -- those with privileged access to classified information who leak it in the first place.
* This is why Rove disclaimed having seen the memo that was distributed among the rest of the administration about Plame's identity being kept secret. Oh, but it was never a problem to begin with, he just forgot to mention that part. Seriously, call him up and tell him to fire his lawyer.
Maybe they're pointing the way to anonymous sources: obfuscation. They'll start claiming they have 5000 sources, all named "pidmeoff" or "ih8regs".
Surely a terrorist determined to blow himself up would have made for a crowded area, rather than blowing himself up in an open space to no avail when challenged by the police?
Surely a terrorist determined to blow himself up would do so before being apprehended, even if the target of the explosion would be less than ideal. The place where he was when the police announced their presence was sufficiently crowded to make exploding there more ideal than being apprehended and the mission being a failure.
It would be interesting to see in cases of actual suicide bombers how often scenarios like this happen -- the bomber is alerted to and chased by police, and then apprehended without detonating. I would think, but don't know, that most cases of a suicide bomber being caught would involve them being caught off guard and immediately restrained, not chased through their chosen target and eventually tackled.
They pinned him down, he struggled, they panicked, it being quite clear in their minds he was attempting to blow himself and them up. Men tend not to be at their most rational when they think someone's trying to kill them. So they shot him, and only then discovered their mistake.
Exactly, that was pretty much my whole point. The police, already having assumed that he was a suicide bomber, saw his actions as being indicative of a suicide bomb attempt and responded accordingly. That cop thought he was saving his own life and the lives of everyone nearby when he shot an innocent man in the face. The problem is that this irrational course of action was set in motion by the decision to label a guy from the same apartment complex as someone else as a likely terrorist. Having already been assumed to be a terrorist, there is little surprise in the outcome, because the police following him were waiting for anything "suspicious" as a reason to put him down. I posit that the scenario would have been entirely different if the police had been told he was a suspected illegal immigrant with no ties to terrorism.
Lacking these powers would render them incapable of acting against real terrorists.
What powers? And what real terrorists? I fail to see how anything involved in this scenario would have helped to stop a "real terrorist" unless they shot him as soon as they were sure they were following the right guy.
Having them means civilians who act suspiciously are at risk from the police as well. So far the terrorists have proven more of a danger than the police. If this changes, perhaps things will need to be rethought.
PERHAPS?! No, you should definitely think again before the police are even close to being as dangerous as the terrorists they are trying to stop!
Not that it will take much. How many died in the first explosions? It seems that most Britons have taken it in stride, but some law enforcement are way too eager to prevent it from happening again and are fingering anyone they plausibly can (as much as "lives near other suspect" is plausible). Combining such a wide dragnet of suspicion with a shoot-first-questions-later policy is a disaster in the making, and I fear this is only the first example.
First, anyone who knows anything about this story knows the language issue was moot. He spoke English just fine. Who cares? The only relevence his origin has is that 1) he looks different 2) he was illegal, and thus predisposed to flee. The questions thus are: would this have happened if he was legal and would this have happened if he had non-threatening white skin?
If someone yells "STOP, POLICE!" in the subway, I would stop.
Someone, anyone? My understanding is that he is not the only person who ran. That doesn't surprise me, when you're in the location of a previous terror attack and somebody in plain clothes brandishes a gun -- regardless of whether they claim to be police or not!
He wasn't the only one who ran. The reason they chased him down specifically is because they were tailing him because he lived in the same complex as a different suspect*; I.e. they were already suspicious, and thus his actions only served to confirm their pre-conceived ideas.
THAT, by the way, is why we (used to) have so many laws protecting the "accused": because to a police officer, even the average honestly-trying-to-do-good kind, a "suspect" is "the guy who probably did it" and all of the "suspect's" actions are going to be viewed in that light. That police officer probably thought he was fighting evil incarnate when he shot an innocent man in the face. Why? Because he already assumed this was the case.
Which just highlites the fact that the whole scenario was idiotic. If he actually had been a suicide bomber, then he would have detonated his device the second the police revealed themselves. When that didn't happen, when they chased him down and he still hadn't exploded, and then pinned him on the ground face up and he still hadn't exploded, what need was there to shoot him? Only "I'm killing an evil terrorist because that's who Dispatch told me I was chasing -- Me: 1; Terror: 0!" can justify this.
My deepest, sincerest hope is that we will sometime soon stop saying "But my actions are justified because I'm fighting Terrorists!" and start realizing "My actions are not justified because they are completely ineffective at fighting Terorists!" It seems precious few people are able to dissociate fighting terrorism with fighting terrorism effectively. I had hoped and was largely gratified that the British would keep their cool. It does seem that certain elements are following the U.S. in a policy of "whatever we do is right (because it's against Terror!), no matter how stupid and counterproductive".
* Is it only me that is worried that plain clothes officers may tail me and launch a sudden attack which may result in me being shot in the face if I were to, say, panic, because I lived near an actual terrorist suspect? Roving wiretaps were bad enough, but roving shoot-to-kill orders? That's insane!
Yeah, that's all true. Nintendo has done some quite crappy things. I guess the reason I don't hang them for it is because they have never appeared to want to dominate anything but the game console market. Unlike Sony and Microsoft, who appear to want to dominate everything. So Nintendo's antics seem less threatening to me.
I'm still pretty proud of my "unauthorized" copy of Gauntlet for the NES.
Wouldn't they rather a company that actually gets things out in reasonable time frames?
The obvious answer is "Sure, but who would that be?" AMD was a couple years late with K8 as well.
Schedule slips are the name of the game. Granted, Intel's slip with Merced (both on the time scale and on the promised performance) was pretty severe. But since Dell makes most of their bank on the IA32 line with all the Intel marketing dollars, they could easily be persuaded to just let the Itanium fiasco slide.
Though I'd bet you a pint that Dell is the reason why Intel officially launched their iAMD64 parts. "You want us to remain exclusive? Give us a way to counter Opteron, now." is roughly how I think it went. Good thing Intel had Yamhill in their back pocket for a couple years.
Yeah, in other news, 90% of adults still have jobs, but have "greater enthusiasm" for lounging around drinking their beverage of choice all day.
That's just what they want you to think.
You often hear that, but I wonder if it's always a valid line of reasoning. Do you think it's more of a risk for a few malicious people to possibly know about an exploit while the company takes its time fixing the problem, or for the entire world to definitely know about it while the company scrambles to cobble together a quick fix?
That depends. Could "the entire world" do something to mitigate their risk if they knew about the vulnerability? If you don't tell anyone, you're just assuming that there isn't anyone out there already exploiting the bug with customers none the wiser. If there is some way those vulnerable could protect themselves then this is the only responsible thing to do.
Part of the problem, though, is that sometimes the way to protect yourself is to use a different product. The vendor doesn't like that solution very much. I as a user though would rather have that option than just assume the product is bug free or that any bugs that have been found (but not disclosed) are known only by white hats.
What I'm getting at is don't say that this sort of behavior is limited solely to closed source software.
Of course not. Hiding problems to avoid embarassement is pretty common human behavior. The only thing different with a corporation is the profit motive that encourages the same behavior.
Would you rather have the opportunity to fix a security flaw while no one else (but the person who discovered it) knew about it, or would you prefer the person who discovered it announce it to the world and release an exploit first?
The problem with this is that "while no one else knew about it" is always just an assumption. I don't think that's a safe assumption to make. So to me that makes the question: Would disclosing the vulnerability allow people to mitigate the actions of the possible third party who already knows about the bug? If there is something customers could do -- a workaround, disabling a service, or even switching to a different product -- to prevent the vulnerability from being exploited, then I do think announcing the bugs is best.