Actually I know someone who was looking into this exact issue a while ago.
The question was whether robots should be used in aged care. This was for Japan, which is a world leader in robots. She went to a conference with a whole lot of techies (she was, I think, a psychologist), basically asking the question whether they should do this. This is a particular issue in Japan where respect for elders a and parents is a major issue. She was a little shocked to find that the question wasn't actually being addressed. People were more concerned about whether it could be done than whether it should be done.
Unfortuantely she has gone to Afghanistan with her husband for a while, so I think she has stopped working on this.
Have you read the article? By the criteria I use, perl is a bad language.
I've been thinking, it might be a good idea to fork a new version of perl. Called maybe rational perl. Drop half the syntax, fix the classes and implement some decent comparison operators.
Besides my UID is lower than yours so I must be right.
Yes but they are execising their freedom of speech in the wrong way. You should only exercise freedom of speech if you are right. Sheesh, is that so hard to understand?
I'm talking about how the Bible explains simple questions that may arise by just observing the world. You see diversity in living beings and science provides what can thought of as a rational answer, while the Bible just says God created everybody. My idea of a rational thought is when you observe something and you come up with a theory for it and then you prove or disprove your theory by further observations. The Bible fails this test badly.
Excuse me, but I think you may have missed a major point in what I wrote. The bible says that God created everything. It does not say how He created it. There is no conflict (to my mind) between evolution and the bible. There may be some issues about aspects of evolution.
Personally I've thought about this a lot and concluded there's no way either science or religion can provide a wholesome answer. I've reached a state where I don't completely believe or disbelieve in God and kinda stoppped thinking about this. But if you follow the way of science you'll atleast endup finding out more about the natural world. I agree that science fails BADLY when it comes to questions of ethics and morality and I think that's kinda where one can seek some guidance from religions. But I don't agree when you say believing the Bible completely is rational. Rationality arises from questioning any postulate before believing, which is exactly what you're NOT supposed when it comes to religion
You are suggesting that I don't test what I believe. We are going in circles. Why do people somehow say that religion must involve blind belief? That people should suspend all reason? What utter rubbish.
I'm getting frustrated, as I feel you are putting words into my mouth. I get the feeling that with this discussion that you are casting me as a strawman of views you disagree with. You aren't addressing the points I am making, you are addressing issues that you seem to have with Christians. That is fine, but it seems you don't actually need me for the discussion.
Oracle has a very poor record when it comes to responding to bugs (and I mean security issues). Serious bugs have sat unpatched for over a year in the past. They also have had an antagonistic relationship with security researchers. There have been slashdot articles about this before.
I'd go so far as to say that Oracle is worse than Microsoft when it comes to responding to vulns.
Says you. Provide evidence please. Both for the fact that I haven't looked very hard and evidence of historical or literary failings.
But of course -- any rational person would come to the same conclusion, right? I mean, obviously, all those people (you know, like 80% of them) in the rest of the world are just irrational, because they haven't chosen Christianity.
You are excluding a lot of people who haven't read the bible.
But I do know some people who have read the bible, understood the claims, understood the implications and haven't chosen Christianity. In most cases this has been a case of deciding they don't want to give up control of their life. I accept that decision as rational. For them the cost of being a Christian (accepting God as ruler) is too great. I don't think it is a particulary good decision but I accept it as rational.
Just curious -- but have you actually studied any other religious texts and applied your same rigorous selection process? Or was it just that when you were young, Christianity was the only thing you were exposed to, and thus made your "rational" choice of beliefs before you even knew of the other choices? Or before you even knew you were making a "choice"?
I thought so.
Gee, you are awfully quick no jump to conclusions there, again.
Just once in my life, I'd love to hear a "Christian" admit that "yeah, it's just what I grew up with. I never really thought about it that much." I find it galling that these people (not necessarily the parent poster) see fit to tell others how to live based on a decision that they made with about as much conscious thought as their 'decision' to like whatever foods their parents prepared for them as children. Instead, it's always some rationalizing bullshit posturing about how and why they came to be enlightened.
Well I'm not a "Christian" but I am a Christian. I'll say it for you now: yeah, it's just what I grew up with. I never really thought about it that much. Ok I did think about it, but not as much as I should have. But having grown up I tested what I had learnt as a child. I think about it now. If I cannot justify what I believe I have no right to believe it. If I do not test and check what I believe then I have no right to believe it.
FTA: Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 - the software doesn't really expire
Gee thats *really* kind of them. The way it's worded suggests that if their business model didn't allow you to use Office 2003 they would have no problems stopping you using older versions of Office.
When I started my undergraduate degree (1997) it was kind of new. It had been started only 4 years before. At that point you began doing Mechanical Engineering and after 1 year had the choice of transferring into to Mechatronics, ie there was no first year for mechatronics. For the second year, it was identical to Mech Eng, except you dropped Materials for a dedicated Mechatronics subject. After that it tended to diverge quite a bit.
Now it is a completely separate degree from the first year. It also needs better marks to get into and tends to attract brighter students.
Effectively it still has a lot in common with Mechanical Engineering, but you drop a lot of materials, fluid flow and thermodynamics in favour of more Electrical Engineering. You also tend to do far more programming. You could get through a Mech Eng degree while being uncomfortable with coding. Not so with Mechatronics.
Perhaps the kind of degree it is is best illustrated by a couple of the final year subjects. We were given a 16 bit intel microprocessor on an evaluation board and given a number of tasks to program in assembler, stuff like generating light patterns, talking down the serial port etc. Then to redo the projects in C. All of this would involve handling interrupts and working with the hardware of the chip to handle signals in an out. As a final project we were required to bring this together and hook up: - a scale running into an amp - LCD screen - keypad And build an acual scale. This is harder than it sounds. Then we needed to build an interface in windows on C, talking to the "scale" over the serial port.
For the other subject we had a motor with I think an rotary positioning sensor. This spoke to a PC over, you guessed it, a serial port. You were required to build a number of differnt control systems to control the rotation of the motor (closed loop, open loop etc). This included working with an interrupt library and a graphics library to generate graphs representing the state of the motor over time.
It was a good degree, and the lecturers really knew their stuff. The place had some pretty strong links to industry, which is generally a good thing in engineering.
Haha thanks for the lesson. Love the ad hominem attack.
I've got more than sufficient education on inertial systems...
Clearly not....when you get out of high school, look me up
Gee, somehow I forgot to look up up 10 years ago, how remiss of me.
Ok I'll make it simple for you, so that with some high school physics and some elementary logic you can understand.
Lets being by assumimg you aren't an idiot and use SI units.
All sensors have some error. So lets take an example. I have a accelerometer, with a 0.1 m/s/s error that isn't moving (to make life simpler). To get a speed you need to integrate (multiply by time), to get position you need to integrate twice.
Lets also say you are taking measurements every second (slow I know, but this is an example and I want it to be simple).
With that error after one measurement you know both speed and position with an accuracy of 0.1 m/s and 0.1m respectively (+/-), over 1000 measurements, you know your speed and position to within 100 m/s and 100 m respectively (+/-). That is pretty large.
So say we introduce something that has a large error (like GPS), but is give absolute measurements like say GPS or an odomoter. GPS has an error (now that the noise is switched off) of +/-10m. Well gee over 1000 seconds that is pretty darn good when compared 100m over 1000 seconds. On the other hand over 1 second that is pretty bad. So you use a Kalmal Filter to combine the values. This corrects the error introduced by the Interial Navigation System (INS).
No matter how well "engineered" your system is you cannot escape the fact that interial sensors (gyros are Inertial too BTW) contain error (like all sensors do), but in the case of INS, the error compounds. You may be able to engineer a system so that the compound error is acceptable, but you cannot escape the compound error. So in essence, you don't know what you are talking about. Why don't you just pull your head and admit that you were wrong?
Cool. It looks like the ACFR, where I did my BE, has been involved in DARPA. I haven't been in contact with any of them since I left uni, so I don't know what the project is. It isn't surprising that UTS is involved, the guy who heads UTS's Mechatronics dept is a former ACFR man.
The ACFR has for some time had a bit to do with vehicles. The've used a UTE as a testing platform for a while. Most of their work has been to do with industry, mining trucks and straddle carriers. They've done some solid work though.
That passage is clearly talking about food. So unless you are eating penises, this doesn't really apply. I guess it says eating pensis is ok. Where and how you got the penis might be an issue though...
There's no way you can rationally deduce more than half the stuff the bible says starting from the origin of earth, diversity on earth, extinction of animals, origin of this universe - almost every single field science is striving to answer. I understand if you say that you believe the 'principles' stated in the Bible makes sense, which obviously is very subjective. But how can you believe something without being able to question it when there's mounting evidence against almost every natural phenomenon as explained in it.
There is a major misconception about the bible and the origins of the earth. This also ties in with science.
The problem is that many Christians misunderstand the purpose of the bible. The bible is not a timeless scientific document. It is God's timeless word to mankind about relationship with him. Mankind's greatest need is not science, it is relationship with God. By giving us the bible God is giving us what we really need.
Now this means that the science is tied to the understanding of the people at that time. This means that some things are flat out wrong. For example Genesis 1 talks about God separating the water below from the water above. That comes from the belief at the time that the earth was floating in water. Equally the literary styles used by the bible are rooted in that time and place. As an example of this, look at some of the gospels. Mark reports events out of order deliberatly to make a point. For example a section of Jesus' teaching is surrounded by miracles that illustrate that teaching. In John there are 2 references to clearing the temple, one right at the beginning of John. However this clearly happened near the end of Jesus' ministry. I could go on.
For some Christians this is seen to weaken the bible. That is not the case, and literal interprations can be as dangerous as loose non-literal interpretations.
Now occasionally the bible and science do conflict in meaningful ways, an example of this would be where there are moral issues, which largely science does not address. Equally some of what the bible says can have implications in the science world. For example the bible suggests it is unlikely that we will ever stop people from dying.
Getting back to the natural phenomenon reported in the bible, I take it we are talking about miracles of various sorts. I'm not sure I totally understand the question. Are you saying that they didn't/couldn't have occurred, or that there are natural explanations for them? In answer to the first option, God created the world, he can intervene in it to alter it. In answer to the second option, I personally don't think it matters much. If God chose to use events we can now explain, all well and good. Eg parting of the red sea. Some believe that this was actually the tide and the red sea. It doesn't actually matter because the main point is that the Hebrews escaped. Whichever way it goes the timing was miraculous.
However, you're raising multiple conflicting arguments why Christians do not follow Kosher. One argument is how Jesus feed everyone from Mosaic law, meaning they could eat whatever. Another is that you should live among and follow the Gentiles' way. Don't these cause division in the faith or call into question the Bible when it contradicts itself like this?
Actually what I am saying is that it isn't important. The passage from Jesus says that the mosiac law does not apply. There are plenty of others, for example Galatians on the issue of circumcision. Galations is fantastic also because it talks about the circumcision group, as a "lobby" group. I just love it. Humour aside, the passage from Paul is talking about the same issue from a different direction. Paul is saying that because it isn't important don't let it be a barrier for people who see this as an issue. That is, we are freed from the law, but we may choose to live by the requirements of the law so that other people may not lose respect for the gospel.
A concrete example of applying this passage would be a Christian working amoung muslims. There is no law that prohibits Christians from drinking alcohol, in fact there are some passages that explicitly permit this (one psalm talks about God creating "wine to gladden the hearts of men", and in Timothy Paul suggests that he drink some wine for his health), in moderation. However if you were a Christian working amoung muslims, if you drank this might immediately cause them to disregard what you say. In that situation, because it isn't important, the appopriate thing to do would be not to drink at all. Equally s/muslim/jew/ and s/alcohol/pork/
BTW, I'm only on top of this issue at the moment because I've recently led a bible studies on the 1 Cor passage.
Coming from a Catholic background, I was told not to be literal with the bible, due to its imperfections and changes.
I think you have to be really careful with calling the bible imperfect. If the bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is God's word to mankind, then how could it be imperfect? Though I'd certainly agree that there can be imperfections in the translations and interpretations. There are also some areas where it isn't certain that some sections are part of the original manuscripts (eg John 8:1-11).
Equally the Catholic church is (from my perspective) a little strange in that it gives equal weight to church tradition and to the bible. In practice this can mean that church tradition wins when there is a conflict. I could give examples, but I think that is a discussion for another day.
That aside what may have been meant is that you should not interpret the bible literally. I agree with this, although care must be taken. It is possible to interpret the bible in a way that suits you. Equally reading the bible literally can be dangerous. At the very least I'd have to tell my wife to take her wedding ring off and throw out the pearl earings her parents gave her. In that case Paul is telling women to dress modestly, braided hair, pearls, gold being examples.
It is very easy to take a few Christians and generalise and say that all Christians are like that. In addition some groups of "Christians" would not recognise others are Christians. I imagine that some Seveth Day Adventists would not consider that I am a Christian (Autralian Anglican church, evangelical).
Anyway, my real issue with what you were saying: Christianity lost all its dietary rules and other Judaism-like commandments because frankly their texts aren't as well-preserved as Islam's. In fact the texts are well preserved, there other reasons for not having dietary requirements. Some other passsages are even more radical: "For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some." 1 Corinthians 9:19-22
As I understand it, the texts of the OT were extremely contraversial...
OK I don't honestly know the background the selection of the old testament as well as the new. The controvesy that I am aware of centered more around Song of Songs. Frankly this is largely a question that a jewish person might be better equipped to answer that.
What I do know is that it is worth being careful comparing contemporary (to OT) literature and going too far. The fact that styles, structure and even stories may be the same does not mean that the message is the same.
An example of this is the creation story in Genesis. This is very similar (IIRC) to other creation stories for the region. What is interesting is where it difers. As each thing is created it does not mention the god in charge of that area of creation, which the other accounts do. The point of this is that the creation story is told using styles and stories that are familiar but the differences emphasise the point even more....but only if you aren't one of those "the bible is literal truth" guys...
I'm not, otherwise I'd be telling my wife to take her wedding ring off because it is against 1 Timothy 2.
No, I'm something much more dangerous: I have a good mind and I believe that all scripture is the word of God.
Religion was used not only as a way to keep the people who need fairy stories to maintain morality in line spiritually, but also socially.
I'd seriously suggest reading some of the history. I'm sorry but I some of what you are saying betrays a lack of knowledge of the history of "the church", particulary early history.
What you are saying assumes that it was always in a dominant position. That is it was used by rulers as a means of keeping the populace down. However until the time of Constantine it was in no way associated with government, or even gained government recognition. Christians and Christianity were persecuted. Just google Nero for example, and remember that the Roman empire controlled most of the known world at the time.
In addition I'm not sure I really explained the criterial all that well. In most cases the councils that approved the books were just approving what was currently common practice (I said "accepted by the church at large"). Note that this was common practice before Constantine, the first Christian ruler was in place. This is hardly a question of pressure.
I don't mean to offend sensibilities and I'm stating the following as my opinion. The Bible as it stands today is nothing but a load of old fairy stories. In saying that, I think it should be kept around to keep the amoral masses in line. It's much easier than having to identify and counteract amoral people who discover Taoism.
I'm not offended. I'm just disappointed that you would dismiss the bible out of hand like that. I'm not sure what is your basis for deciding that it is a bunch of fairy tales, but that view not seem to be shared by historians.
They'll generally give you pretty good readings for a single movement, like 'the object just moved 1 meter forwards', however as soon as you turn or travel a long distance, they suffer from drifting, skidding, and general measurement errors.
That's true of odometers, but again with accelerometers it's just a matter of engineering your system properly. (The USAF equips its fighters with inertial navigation systems - and they remain accurate through a bloody dogfight!.)
No the OP was right. It is also true of accelerometers. And the fact that they are measuring data during a dog fight it irrelevant, it is the amount of time/distance they are measuring data. They include a random walk error that is small for a short time/distance, but compounds over time.
You will find that typically this is corrected with something that can give an absolute position (eg GPS). Your absolute positioning device typically also has a know error. The values from both of these are generally married using a Kalman Filter or Extented Kalmna Filter.
I've written code to do this in the past.
I suggest that you do some research on inertial navigation and inertial guidance - because what you say is true at the level of the casual gamer, its not true (as you imply) of accelerometers in general.
I suggest that you also do some. 4 years of Mechatronic Engineering would be good start.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I know someone who was looking into this exact issue a while ago.
The question was whether robots should be used in aged care. This was for Japan, which is a world leader in robots. She went to a conference with a whole lot of techies (she was, I think, a psychologist), basically asking the question whether they should do this. This is a particular issue in Japan where respect for elders a and parents is a major issue. She was a little shocked to find that the question wasn't actually being addressed. People were more concerned about whether it could be done than whether it should be done.
Unfortuantely she has gone to Afghanistan with her husband for a while, so I think she has stopped working on this.
If you look at the polls, these aren't the radicals... in America. There are other countries.
prescott?
Have you read the article? By the criteria I use, perl is a bad language.
I've been thinking, it might be a good idea to fork a new version of perl. Called maybe rational perl. Drop half the syntax, fix the classes and implement some decent comparison operators.
Besides my UID is lower than yours so I must be right.
But these non-believers are per definition sinners and not innocents, so that's alright! :-p
Actually, according to Christian theology everyone is a sinner.
Yes but they are execising their freedom of speech in the wrong way. You should only exercise freedom of speech if you are right. Sheesh, is that so hard to understand?
I have a proverb for you:
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Bill Gates. Oh wait, he was the college drop out...
I'm talking about how the Bible explains simple questions that may arise by just observing the world. You see diversity in living beings and science provides what can thought of as a rational answer, while the Bible just says God created everybody. My idea of a rational thought is when you observe something and you come up with a theory for it and then you prove or disprove your theory by further observations. The Bible fails this test badly.
Excuse me, but I think you may have missed a major point in what I wrote. The bible says that God created everything. It does not say how He created it. There is no conflict (to my mind) between evolution and the bible. There may be some issues about aspects of evolution.
Personally I've thought about this a lot and concluded there's no way either science or religion can provide a wholesome answer. I've reached a state where I don't completely believe or disbelieve in God and kinda stoppped thinking about this. But if you follow the way of science you'll atleast endup finding out more about the natural world. I agree that science fails BADLY when it comes to questions of ethics and morality and I think that's kinda where one can seek some guidance from religions. But I don't agree when you say believing the Bible completely is rational. Rationality arises from questioning any postulate before believing, which is exactly what you're NOT supposed when it comes to religion
You are suggesting that I don't test what I believe. We are going in circles. Why do people somehow say that religion must involve blind belief? That people should suspend all reason? What utter rubbish.
I'm getting frustrated, as I feel you are putting words into my mouth. I get the feeling that with this discussion that you are casting me as a strawman of views you disagree with. You aren't addressing the points I am making, you are addressing issues that you seem to have with Christians. That is fine, but it seems you don't actually need me for the discussion.
Oracle has a very poor record when it comes to responding to bugs (and I mean security issues). Serious bugs have sat unpatched for over a year in the past. They also have had an antagonistic relationship with security researchers. There have been slashdot articles about this before.
I'd go so far as to say that Oracle is worse than Microsoft when it comes to responding to vulns.
IDN has implications for phishing.
You mean: It can only be better for me, in the long run, if we all end up using my alphabet.
Then you haven't looked very hard.
Says you. Provide evidence please. Both for the fact that I haven't looked very hard and evidence of historical or literary failings.
But of course -- any rational person would come to the same conclusion, right? I mean, obviously, all those people (you know, like 80% of them) in the rest of the world are just irrational, because they haven't chosen Christianity.
You are excluding a lot of people who haven't read the bible.
But I do know some people who have read the bible, understood the claims, understood the implications and haven't chosen Christianity. In most cases this has been a case of deciding they don't want to give up control of their life. I accept that decision as rational. For them the cost of being a Christian (accepting God as ruler) is too great. I don't think it is a particulary good decision but I accept it as rational.
Just curious -- but have you actually studied any other religious texts and applied your same rigorous selection process? Or was it just that when you were young, Christianity was the only thing you were exposed to, and thus made your "rational" choice of beliefs before you even knew of the other choices? Or before you even knew you were making a "choice"?
I thought so.
Gee, you are awfully quick no jump to conclusions there, again.
Just once in my life, I'd love to hear a "Christian" admit that "yeah, it's just what I grew up with. I never really thought about it that much." I find it galling that these people (not necessarily the parent poster) see fit to tell others how to live based on a decision that they made with about as much conscious thought as their 'decision' to like whatever foods their parents prepared for them as children. Instead, it's always some rationalizing bullshit posturing about how and why they came to be enlightened.
Well I'm not a "Christian" but I am a Christian. I'll say it for you now: yeah, it's just what I grew up with. I never really thought about it that much. Ok I did think about it, but not as much as I should have. But having grown up I tested what I had learnt as a child. I think about it now. If I cannot justify what I believe I have no right to believe it. If I do not test and check what I believe then I have no right to believe it.
FTA:
Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 - the software doesn't really expire
Gee thats *really* kind of them. The way it's worded suggests that if their business model didn't allow you to use Office 2003 they would have no problems stopping you using older versions of Office.
When I started my undergraduate degree (1997) it was kind of new. It had been started only 4 years before. At that point you began doing Mechanical Engineering and after 1 year had the choice of transferring into to Mechatronics, ie there was no first year for mechatronics. For the second year, it was identical to Mech Eng, except you dropped Materials for a dedicated Mechatronics subject. After that it tended to diverge quite a bit.
Now it is a completely separate degree from the first year. It also needs better marks to get into and tends to attract brighter students.
Effectively it still has a lot in common with Mechanical Engineering, but you drop a lot of materials, fluid flow and thermodynamics in favour of more Electrical Engineering. You also tend to do far more programming. You could get through a Mech Eng degree while being uncomfortable with coding. Not so with Mechatronics.
Perhaps the kind of degree it is is best illustrated by a couple of the final year subjects. We were given a 16 bit intel microprocessor on an evaluation board and given a number of tasks to program in assembler, stuff like generating light patterns, talking down the serial port etc. Then to redo the projects in C. All of this would involve handling interrupts and working with the hardware of the chip to handle signals in an out. As a final project we were required to bring this together and hook up:
- a scale running into an amp
- LCD screen
- keypad
And build an acual scale. This is harder than it sounds. Then we needed to build an interface in windows on C, talking to the "scale" over the serial port.
For the other subject we had a motor with I think an rotary positioning sensor. This spoke to a PC over, you guessed it, a serial port. You were required to build a number of differnt control systems to control the rotation of the motor (closed loop, open loop etc). This included working with an interrupt library and a graphics library to generate graphs representing the state of the motor over time.
It was a good degree, and the lecturers really knew their stuff. The place had some pretty strong links to industry, which is generally a good thing in engineering.
Haha thanks for the lesson. Love the ad hominem attack.
...when you get out of high school, look me up
I've got more than sufficient education on inertial systems...
Clearly not.
Gee, somehow I forgot to look up up 10 years ago, how remiss of me.
Ok I'll make it simple for you, so that with some high school physics and some elementary logic you can understand.
Lets being by assumimg you aren't an idiot and use SI units.
All sensors have some error. So lets take an example. I have a accelerometer, with a 0.1 m/s/s error that isn't moving (to make life simpler). To get a speed you need to integrate (multiply by time), to get position you need to integrate twice.
Lets also say you are taking measurements every second (slow I know, but this is an example and I want it to be simple).
With that error after one measurement you know both speed and position with an accuracy of 0.1 m/s and 0.1m respectively (+/-), over 1000 measurements, you know your speed and position to within 100 m/s and 100 m respectively (+/-). That is pretty large.
So say we introduce something that has a large error (like GPS), but is give absolute measurements like say GPS or an odomoter. GPS has an error (now that the noise is switched off) of +/-10m. Well gee over 1000 seconds that is pretty darn good when compared 100m over 1000 seconds. On the other hand over 1 second that is pretty bad. So you use a Kalmal Filter to combine the values. This corrects the error introduced by the Interial Navigation System (INS).
No matter how well "engineered" your system is you cannot escape the fact that interial sensors (gyros are Inertial too BTW) contain error (like all sensors do), but in the case of INS, the error compounds. You may be able to engineer a system so that the compound error is acceptable, but you cannot escape the compound error. So in essence, you don't know what you are talking about. Why don't you just pull your head and admit that you were wrong?
Cool. It looks like the ACFR, where I did my BE, has been involved in DARPA. I haven't been in contact with any of them since I left uni, so I don't know what the project is. It isn't surprising that UTS is involved, the guy who heads UTS's Mechatronics dept is a former ACFR man.
The ACFR has for some time had a bit to do with vehicles. The've used a UTE as a testing platform for a while. Most of their work has been to do with industry, mining trucks and straddle carriers. They've done some solid work though.
Well if you really want to go there...
That passage is clearly talking about food. So unless you are eating penises, this doesn't really apply. I guess it says eating pensis is ok. Where and how you got the penis might be an issue though...
There's no way you can rationally deduce more than half the stuff the bible says starting from the origin of earth, diversity on earth, extinction of animals, origin of this universe - almost every single field science is striving to answer. I understand if you say that you believe the 'principles' stated in the Bible makes sense, which obviously is very subjective. But how can you believe something without being able to question it when there's mounting evidence against almost every natural phenomenon as explained in it.
There is a major misconception about the bible and the origins of the earth. This also ties in with science.
The problem is that many Christians misunderstand the purpose of the bible. The bible is not a timeless scientific document. It is God's timeless word to mankind about relationship with him. Mankind's greatest need is not science, it is relationship with God. By giving us the bible God is giving us what we really need.
Now this means that the science is tied to the understanding of the people at that time. This means that some things are flat out wrong. For example Genesis 1 talks about God separating the water below from the water above. That comes from the belief at the time that the earth was floating in water. Equally the literary styles used by the bible are rooted in that time and place. As an example of this, look at some of the gospels. Mark reports events out of order deliberatly to make a point. For example a section of Jesus' teaching is surrounded by miracles that illustrate that teaching. In John there are 2 references to clearing the temple, one right at the beginning of John. However this clearly happened near the end of Jesus' ministry. I could go on.
For some Christians this is seen to weaken the bible. That is not the case, and literal interprations can be as dangerous as loose non-literal interpretations.
Now occasionally the bible and science do conflict in meaningful ways, an example of this would be where there are moral issues, which largely science does not address. Equally some of what the bible says can have implications in the science world. For example the bible suggests it is unlikely that we will ever stop people from dying.
Getting back to the natural phenomenon reported in the bible, I take it we are talking about miracles of various sorts. I'm not sure I totally understand the question. Are you saying that they didn't/couldn't have occurred, or that there are natural explanations for them? In answer to the first option, God created the world, he can intervene in it to alter it. In answer to the second option, I personally don't think it matters much. If God chose to use events we can now explain, all well and good. Eg parting of the red sea. Some believe that this was actually the tide and the red sea. It doesn't actually matter because the main point is that the Hebrews escaped. Whichever way it goes the timing was miraculous.
I hope this helps and that it makes sense.
However, you're raising multiple conflicting arguments why Christians do not follow Kosher. One argument is how Jesus feed everyone from Mosaic law, meaning they could eat whatever. Another is that you should live among and follow the Gentiles' way. Don't these cause division in the faith or call into question the Bible when it contradicts itself like this?
Actually what I am saying is that it isn't important. The passage from Jesus says that the mosiac law does not apply. There are plenty of others, for example Galatians on the issue of circumcision. Galations is fantastic also because it talks about the circumcision group, as a "lobby" group. I just love it. Humour aside, the passage from Paul is talking about the same issue from a different direction. Paul is saying that because it isn't important don't let it be a barrier for people who see this as an issue. That is, we are freed from the law, but we may choose to live by the requirements of the law so that other people may not lose respect for the gospel.
A concrete example of applying this passage would be a Christian working amoung muslims. There is no law that prohibits Christians from drinking alcohol, in fact there are some passages that explicitly permit this (one psalm talks about God creating "wine to gladden the hearts of men", and in Timothy Paul suggests that he drink some wine for his health), in moderation. However if you were a Christian working amoung muslims, if you drank this might immediately cause them to disregard what you say. In that situation, because it isn't important, the appopriate thing to do would be not to drink at all. Equally s/muslim/jew/ and s/alcohol/pork/
BTW, I'm only on top of this issue at the moment because I've recently led a bible studies on the 1 Cor passage.
Coming from a Catholic background, I was told not to be literal with the bible, due to its imperfections and changes.
I think you have to be really careful with calling the bible imperfect. If the bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is God's word to mankind, then how could it be imperfect? Though I'd certainly agree that there can be imperfections in the translations and interpretations. There are also some areas where it isn't certain that some sections are part of the original manuscripts (eg John 8:1-11).
Equally the Catholic church is (from my perspective) a little strange in that it gives equal weight to church tradition and to the bible. In practice this can mean that church tradition wins when there is a conflict. I could give examples, but I think that is a discussion for another day.
That aside what may have been meant is that you should not interpret the bible literally. I agree with this, although care must be taken. It is possible to interpret the bible in a way that suits you. Equally reading the bible literally can be dangerous. At the very least I'd have to tell my wife to take her wedding ring off and throw out the pearl earings her parents gave her. In that case Paul is telling women to dress modestly, braided hair, pearls, gold being examples.
It is very easy to take a few Christians and generalise and say that all Christians are like that. In addition some groups of "Christians" would not recognise others are Christians. I imagine that some Seveth Day Adventists would not consider that I am a Christian (Autralian Anglican church, evangelical).
Anyway, my real issue with what you were saying:
Christianity lost all its dietary rules and other Judaism-like commandments because frankly their texts aren't as well-preserved as Islam's.
In fact the texts are well preserved, there other reasons for not having dietary requirements. Some other passsages are even more radical:
"For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some."
1 Corinthians 9:19-22
As I understand it, the texts of the OT were extremely contraversial...
...but only if you aren't one of those "the bible is literal truth" guys...
OK I don't honestly know the background the selection of the old testament as well as the new. The controvesy that I am aware of centered more around Song of Songs. Frankly this is largely a question that a jewish person might be better equipped to answer that.
What I do know is that it is worth being careful comparing contemporary (to OT) literature and going too far. The fact that styles, structure and even stories may be the same does not mean that the message is the same.
An example of this is the creation story in Genesis. This is very similar (IIRC) to other creation stories for the region. What is interesting is where it difers. As each thing is created it does not mention the god in charge of that area of creation, which the other accounts do. The point of this is that the creation story is told using styles and stories that are familiar but the differences emphasise the point even more.
I'm not, otherwise I'd be telling my wife to take her wedding ring off because it is against 1 Timothy 2.
No, I'm something much more dangerous: I have a good mind and I believe that all scripture is the word of God.
Religion was used not only as a way to keep the people who need fairy stories to maintain morality in line spiritually, but also socially.
I'd seriously suggest reading some of the history. I'm sorry but I some of what you are saying betrays a lack of knowledge of the history of "the church", particulary early history.
What you are saying assumes that it was always in a dominant position. That is it was used by rulers as a means of keeping the populace down. However until the time of Constantine it was in no way associated with government, or even gained government recognition. Christians and Christianity were persecuted. Just google Nero for example, and remember that the Roman empire controlled most of the known world at the time.
In addition I'm not sure I really explained the criterial all that well. In most cases the councils that approved the books were just approving what was currently common practice (I said "accepted by the church at large"). Note that this was common practice before Constantine, the first Christian ruler was in place. This is hardly a question of pressure.
I don't mean to offend sensibilities and I'm stating the following as my opinion. The Bible as it stands today is nothing but a load of old fairy stories. In saying that, I think it should be kept around to keep the amoral masses in line. It's much easier than having to identify and counteract amoral people who discover Taoism.
I'm not offended. I'm just disappointed that you would dismiss the bible out of hand like that. I'm not sure what is your basis for deciding that it is a bunch of fairy tales, but that view not seem to be shared by historians.
It is remarkable book by any account.
Trying that again, should have previewed.
No. Click the about Us link at the bottom of the page.
But yes it does mean robots.
No. Click the about Us link at the bottom of the page.
But yes it does mean robots.
No the OP was right. It is also true of accelerometers. And the fact that they are measuring data during a dog fight it irrelevant, it is the amount of time/distance they are measuring data. They include a random walk error that is small for a short time/distance, but compounds over time.
You will find that typically this is corrected with something that can give an absolute position (eg GPS). Your absolute positioning device typically also has a know error. The values from both of these are generally married using a Kalman Filter or Extented Kalmna Filter.
I've written code to do this in the past.
I suggest that you also do some. 4 years of Mechatronic Engineering would be good start.