war, disease, famine, and poverty killing thousands daily
Much of it caused by people fighting over beliefs in non-existent entities. I think my sympathies lie with the people arguing peacuefully about things that actually do exist.
If they'd tried to use solid explosives the airlines would ban you from taking any kind of solid onto a plane. That would be a bit of a bummer.
What I'm waiting for is the underwear bomber. Maybe someone will figure out how to make a bomb using knicker elastic. Then we'll all be banned from wearing underwear.
When I went for my run this morning I probably emitted a lot more additional CO2 than that produced by a power station keeping my bluetooth devices awake for a day. I ought to grab an envelope so I can carry out the computation more accurately.
Next to nothing. The power required to maintain a wireless link is minute even compared to the draw from switched-off DVD players, kitchen appliances and bedside clock/radios that still use power-wasting transformers to maintain enough current to keep a clock running. By carpooling every day (which I do) I probably save more energy than 100 households might waste in wireless devices. You need to learn some elementary physics before you're qualified comment on energy usage.
...then all it takes is for one enterprising company out there to produce a half decent game and they'll be raking in money. In fact, all they have to do is port a half decent game from another platform. Or maybe I'm just naïve in assuming that the market has any kind of efficiency like this.
Do you realise how little power is required to maintain a minimal bluetooth connection? Get some perspective. Driving a motor vehicle for just a few minutes probably draws vastly more power than a bluetooth device for a few months.
I don't think video games are the most important thing in the world. But I think that a life without any form of fun is empty and barely worth living. That fun can be in many forms and for me, one form of fun is video games.
I also value physical objects. I value my body most of all because without it I would be nothing. I find it exceedingly strange for someone to claim that physical objects are not 'meaningful'.
I also should point out that that the majority of physical objects that people in our society value are valued because they are physical necessities. When you step beyond necessities you'll find that people mostly value non-material goods like art, literature, music and relationships. They want an iPod, not because they want material goods, but because they want music. They want a cellphone or computer to keep in touch with friends or relatives. And they want a video game because they want to test and exercise their skill or intelligence.
OK. Better example: here. This story is reported as "Satan worshiper executed for triple murders". Even when a Christian serial killer claims to have been carrying out God's work you'll never see a story like "Christian executed for murders". It's a clear example of religious bias in the media.
You really don't get it do you? You think that 'classy' has something to do with quality. You think that by knowing that Shakespeare wrote dick jokes you've somehow burst some kind of bubble and revealed that Shakespeare was as trashy as any other playwright. You are very mistaken. One of the greatest pieces of literature in the English literature, Ulysses by James Joyce, was censored because it contained things like extended sections like someone going for a crap. Despite the obscurity of some of the language, nobody who rates that book highly is confused by what these scenes are about. Nobody who has any sense thinks that because a piece of trashy literature might refer to bodily functions this somehow means it's as good as Ulysses. Same goes whether its a play by Aristophanes, a poem by Chaucer, a painting by Manet or a novel by Thomas Pynchon.
Whether a piece of art is about dicks or courtly love, whether it was produced by starving students or for commercial gain, these things are completely orthogonal to the quality of a work of art. And games aren't crap art because they're made by companies out for profit or because they're about aliens and big cars. They're crap art because...well...they're crap art.
Material posessions don't mean jack in the long run.
Anyone can make statements. "The moon is made of cheese", "2+2=5". Easy. What's more interesting is when you make statements that you can justify. Maybe if you bothered to justify what you say it'd sound like more than just trite cliches.
Really, when it comes down to it, stuff doesn't matter much at all.
And this one really stands in need of a lot of justification.
According to you, 'stuff' doesn't matter. According to you abstractions like 'high scores' also mean nothing to you. It seems to me that you must live an incredibly meaningless and valueless life.
As for expanding space, is that idea, in fact, testable?
Yes, the link I gave earlier discusses this issue. It might not be easy to test but it's not some wacky new idea - it just drops straight out of standard textbook general relativity.
Empty space has energy, particles and antiparticles pop out all the time.
Don't take all that stuff about particles and antiparticles popping out of empty space too literally. That's crude English language being used as a substitute for a well defined formal theory. That theory predicts that if you stick an unaccelerated particle detector in a vacuum it will detect zero particles. So a vacuum is, for all intents and purposes, exactly what you expect from a vacuum.
FTL travel is possible because you can move 99% the speed of light and the stretching of the universe puts you over the top?
The distance between two objects can increase at faster than the speed of light. But nobody has figured out how to exploit such an effect to build an FTL drive. The closest thing is here.
They're the kind of pompass (sic) asses who laud the brilliance and insight of an Italian opera even though they don't speak a word of Italian
People who are fans of opera tend to be fairly familiar with the librettos so Italian really isn't a prerequisite.
I should add that you state your case in a way that isn't likely to win you any kind of meaningful support, despite your points having some validity. I like many Merchant Ivory productions and believe them to be better than most Hollywood productions. But I'm not so much of a fool as to think that a film is good simply because it features genteel Englishmen and women. I would never have chosen Merchant Ivory as examples of "high art" in film. But I'm almost tempted to say that you dismiss their productions because they feature genteel Englishmen and women - just as egregious an error.
Good movies can be about flesh-eating aliens from outer space or about well brought up young women making their debuts in 19th century England.
These images were modified in a completely incompetent manner. Many people out there are actually skilled in manipulating photos. You might light to bear this in mind as you read the news.
Virtually EVERY news report from ANY source is either exaggerated
True 'unbiased' reporting is a myth.
You're conflating two issues here. Manipulating the evidence isn't bias, it's manipulating the evidence, a far more heinous crime. Two different reporters can present the same facts in different ways, eg. by describing the same group of people as terrorists or freedom fighters. Arguably there is nothing wrong with this. Different audiences have different values and this ought to be reflected by biases in reporting. This is good healthy stuff and what democracy is all about.
But no matter how much you bias your reporting you shouldn't be faking photographs like this.
Slashdot Mirror
gmail is much faster than Mail.app on my PowerBook. Of course YMMV.
What I'm waiting for is the underwear bomber. Maybe someone will figure out how to make a bomb using knicker elastic. Then we'll all be banned from wearing underwear.
From which I conclude that you are your own daughter. This is hurting my head to think about.
When I went for my run this morning I probably emitted a lot more additional CO2 than that produced by a power station keeping my bluetooth devices awake for a day. I ought to grab an envelope so I can carry out the computation more accurately.
Wonderful!
What matters, of course, is not the percentage change for one little subcomponent, but percentage changes for your entire consumption.
...then all it takes is for one enterprising company out there to produce a half decent game and they'll be raking in money. In fact, all they have to do is port a half decent game from another platform. Or maybe I'm just naïve in assuming that the market has any kind of efficiency like this.
I'm amazed by how many puritans there are on /. for whom game playing is a dirty little sin that "doesn't matter".
Do you realise how little power is required to maintain a minimal bluetooth connection? Get some perspective. Driving a motor vehicle for just a few minutes probably draws vastly more power than a bluetooth device for a few months.
I also value physical objects. I value my body most of all because without it I would be nothing. I find it exceedingly strange for someone to claim that physical objects are not 'meaningful'.
I also should point out that that the majority of physical objects that people in our society value are valued because they are physical necessities. When you step beyond necessities you'll find that people mostly value non-material goods like art, literature, music and relationships. They want an iPod, not because they want material goods, but because they want music. They want a cellphone or computer to keep in touch with friends or relatives. And they want a video game because they want to test and exercise their skill or intelligence.
...can a board game ever be high art?
OK. Better example: here. This story is reported as "Satan worshiper executed for triple murders". Even when a Christian serial killer claims to have been carrying out God's work you'll never see a story like "Christian executed for murders". It's a clear example of religious bias in the media.
Whether a piece of art is about dicks or courtly love, whether it was produced by starving students or for commercial gain, these things are completely orthogonal to the quality of a work of art. And games aren't crap art because they're made by companies out for profit or because they're about aliens and big cars. They're crap art because...well...they're crap art.
According to you, 'stuff' doesn't matter. According to you abstractions like 'high scores' also mean nothing to you. It seems to me that you must live an incredibly meaningless and valueless life.
Luckily Apple use better principles to direct their development than simply considering what gets you excited.
I should add that you state your case in a way that isn't likely to win you any kind of meaningful support, despite your points having some validity. I like many Merchant Ivory productions and believe them to be better than most Hollywood productions. But I'm not so much of a fool as to think that a film is good simply because it features genteel Englishmen and women. I would never have chosen Merchant Ivory as examples of "high art" in film. But I'm almost tempted to say that you dismiss their productions because they feature genteel Englishmen and women - just as egregious an error.
Good movies can be about flesh-eating aliens from outer space or about well brought up young women making their debuts in 19th century England.
- A Mind Forever Voyaging
Admittedly it's not a very long list, but it's accurate, complete, and most importantly of all, non-empty.You understand my point at least - even if we use different examples.
...discussed here where you can buy stock in your favorite flu virus. Apparently it performs well in predicting flu outbreaks.
These images were modified in a completely incompetent manner. Many people out there are actually skilled in manipulating photos. You might light to bear this in mind as you read the news.
But no matter how much you bias your reporting you shouldn't be faking photographs like this.
...article about?