So what were the browser wars (round 1) about? Why did Microsoft expend so much effort in fighting Netscape? Why does Microsoft bother with Media Player? Why are they fighting the EU over that one? The issues are as relevant as they are now.
3. The whole "browser as your desktop" idea has faded away. MS is no longer in danger of losing its OS or productivity-suite sales to a browser company.
Sure, but the truth lies in the middle somewhere. The browser can provide a platform for development and we may see more and more apps being developed for the browser.
I think you may have that backwards. Moving off windows is too big a step for most people to make at once. On the other hand moving to firefox is a step towards moving off windows. Why? Because it is cross platform, it means one less app that is unfamiliar if people move to a new OS.
Firfox is bad news for Microsoft. There are no two ways about it.
I'm interested to see what Microsoft is going to do. There are under pressure from a lot of directions at the moment: 1. Browser wars have restarted. What is interesting about this is they have restarted with so little warning. 2. Security. MS is trying to address this with XP SP2, but this is still a huge issue for MS. 3. Longhorn. This is a huge issue for a number of reasons, first off the delay in shipping it. Secondly the fact that it is a rewrite, new API, *lots* of new code == lots of new problems. Thirdly due to performance considerations (this may be less of an issue). The interesting thing about Longhorn is that there are parallels (Netscape)
The next 6 months or so are going to be very interesting. If MS isn't careful they could lose signifigant market share, which I for one won't be crying about.
I live in the same house as 4 other techincally illiterate people (2 parents, 2 sisters). I pushed everyone to mozilla about 3 months ago and haven't had any complaints.
You can also remove the link to IE from the desktop. Everyone knows to click on godzilla for the web now.
My other big beef is the way windows handles mounting new file systems. When you pop in a CD, windows exporer becomes non-reponsive until the CD is mounted. WTF? Putting in the CD does not imply I want to use immediately. Even if I want to use it immediatly, why should this disable windows explorer? Same with network respources.
The display of filesystems should be separated from the mouting of them.
Laptop open and running and I spilt a glass of water over it (after tripping over a power cable in a dark room).
I called IBM (I have a thinkpad) and was told to take off the keyboard and dry it with a hair dryer. Works fine. I was a bit worried though, particularly when I saw the water pooling around the processor.
I have to say I am really enjoying this. I don't often get the chance to debate the point with someone. For some reason on/. people seem to give up and drop the point rather than arguing it, which rather a pity.
Anyway back to the point at hand.
I don't see a distinction between beliefs and objective facts. If I cannot back up my beliefs with objective facts then I will modify those beliefs. If I do not I am inconsistent. I stand by that and live by that as far as I can. That means if you can convince me that I am wrong, than I must alter my beliefs accordingly.
However if this truth is imposed on the world by by the God that created the world, THEN I HAVE NO NEED TO IMPOSE IT ON OTHERS (THAT WAS ALREADY DONE BY GOD). If I (or you) feel a need to impose this 'truth' on others then it was NOT imposed on them by GOD.
The situation as laid out in the bible is as follows: God has given everyone a conscience which to some extent guides peoples lives (eg most people agree murder is bad) and God also works in and through the world to change people. Christians are his ambassadors and representatives in this world. Christians are sent to tell other people the truth and help them towards that truth.
Incidentally that truth has much more to do with relationship with God than with particular moral behaviour. I think people often get the wrong impression of Christians a lot, particularly in the States (I am assuming that you live in the US).
You make a good point on imposing views on another person.
My take on this is that in some cases it is right to impose a view on someone else, in other cases it is not. There are degrees in between, so that in some cases you may make one of the choices more attractive than the other. This is a difficult decision to make and not one that can be taken lightly and the top priority must be the good of all concerned. I guess I see there is a spectrum of options. At one end there is imposing a view, at the other we have hands off.
A few point on this: 1. It is generally very hard to impose a view one another person or people group. We are talking about abortion here, so looking back to times when abortion was illegal, it was still possible to get an abortion. It was more dangerous and it was harder to have an abortion, but it was certainly possible. 2. Thing rarely fall at one end of the spectrum or the other. The point I was making earlier on all decision affecting others comes in here. So by making one decision I make it harder or easier for a decision to be made. 3. Sometimes something is harmful enough to warrant strong intervention.
What I'd like to see happen WRT abortion is to provide mandatory counselling before and after. I'd like the different options to be explained. I'd like the government to make it more attractive financially for someone to carry the baby to full term. I'm not suggesting that the counselling be used as a way of trying to convince people to go one way or the other, I'd see it is something that explains the different options. Something that helps people through making the decision. Something that makes sure they the are making a decision of their own accord rather than being pushed to it by a boyfriend or family. I'd see that as a step in the right direction. I admit I'd be a lot happier if things moved further than that but I'd see that as a step in the right direction.
You raised a couple of other points, one on the Bible.
I think you underestimate the bible as a book. On any terms it is quite a remarkable book. Few books make the same claims. Few books have been so thoroughly tested. You compare it to contemporary fiction, what is the difference between books written now and books written in the last 2000 years? Why do so few other books survive? I say that the bible has been thoroughly tested, you assert that I am standing on sand. Are you aware that there is more documentary evidence that Jesus lived than that Julius Caesar (by a factor of
1) You seem to be implying - by making two statements with only one difference - that it is possible to ACCIDENTALLY push a woman WITH MALICE toward the fetus. Accidentally removes the malice aspect, malice removes the accidental aspect
I may not be expressing myself very well. I'll try to say it another way. Suppose a woman is pregnant, she is pushed and miscarries. There are three options: 1. The woman was pushed with intent to harm her alone (ie unaware that she is pregnant), the loss of the baby is incidental. That is the object is not to harm the fetus. 2. The woman is pushed with intent to make her miscarry. An example of this might be a boyfriend who doens't want to take resposibility for the child and is not a country that offers abortions. In this case any damage to the woman is incidental. The object is not to harm the woman 3. The woman is pushed with intent to harm her and the child. Damage to both is deliberate.
I know that this is a fine point and the reality is that in real life things don't fall into such clean cut categories, I am merely trying to point out that even in the case where mailce is intended, it may not be directed at all parties.
Onto point 2.
I seem to have this argument a lot on/. You assume that there is no absolute truth. Possibly assert might be a better word to use than assume. I infer from your argument that you believe that all truth is subjective, ie what is true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me.
I disagree. Why are religous beliefs and morality treated in a different way to scientific beliefs? It is an objective truth that pi is 3.14159.... . Is is not an objective truth that murder is wrong?
As this truth is subjective to me, I have no right to impose it on others. However if this truth is imposed on the world by the God who created it, then it is truth.
I use the bible as my primary source because it is the primary source of that truth. I believe the bible because it has been extensively tested by archeologists, histories, literature specialists and scientists and it has checked out on all of those tests. That is my foundation of real evidence.
Take however you will.
Getting back to abortion, I made a comment in this thread to that effect. The decisions we all make affect others. Nobody lives in a vacuum. My beliefs on murder have an effect on other people. Your beliefs on ownership of intellectual property have an effect on others. I oppose abortion because it has an effect on someoe I consider to be a person. Using your own argument, how can a mother have the right to make a decision that imposes her beliefs on her unborn child.
Let's try to get into the real world here. Every decision you make has an effect on people around you.
Let me tell you a bit of a story about the country I live in. The native inhabitants of Australia are referred to as Aborigines. From early on in Australia's history it was noticed that alcohol had an apalling effect on aborigines (I have heard of similar problems with Eskimo people and American Indians). So legislation was passed banning the sale of alcohol to Aborigines.
During the 70s this was repealed and was hailed as a great victory for free choice. The aborigines were no longer having their decisions made for them. The effect of repealing this legislation on Aboriginal communities has been horrific. To the extent that aboriginal communities are now voluntarily creating alcohol free zones. We are coming full circle at the cost of thousands of lives.
I wasn't aware that the poster was referring to conjoined twins when he said that. This does introduce something new for me to chew over. I don't have an answer for that right now.
You claim that something has a soul "because it is part of a human being." This would imply that if I chopped off my leg and attached it to life support, it would have a soul. Now is this a new soul, part of my soul, etc? Where did it come from and where does it go when I have my leg reattached? What if it was attached to somebody else?
You are arguing the same thing I am arguing. I am arguing that a soul is part of a human being, one that can only be removed by death:-). That was the point of the comment about a sense of humour and amputated legs.
Looking at a few different translations I get the impression that passage is talking about a situation where two men are having a punch up and the damage to the woman is accidental, rather than saying that two men are having a long running feud as part of that one man attacks the other's wife.
In fact looking at it again, the passage does not state the woman involved is in fact married to either of the men involved. Hence we are really talking about a situation where a woman miscarries as a result of an accident (ie no malice).
You said it right there. God gave every human choice, a.k.a. free will. Any other human trying to impose thier choices on another is subverting Gods will.
Absolutely. However to some extent we all impose our decisions on others. For example my decision to not burn copies of games and CDs places pressure on friends of mine who do. I'm not directly saying to them that they shouldn't, it just isn't something that I do. Noboby lives their life in a vacuum.
It gets more difficult at a government level. Government legistation has an effect on people's beliefs. Tax breaks for single mothers, or tax breaks for families. Penalties for murder. Drug laws. In attempting to provide what is best for society you choose one viewpoint over another.
Anyway getting back to your original point, I am appalled when I hear stories of missionaries (truthful or not) offering food to starving people if they become Christians. To think of doing such a thing is deeply disturbing.
Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't put that very well.
The distinction I was trying to make is that there is a difference between malice directed at the woman and malice directed at the fetus (or fetus + woman). For example a person may push the woman without realising she is pregnant.
Is that any clearer (in terms of malice)?
What I was trying to say before (less than clearly) was something along these lines: 1. The woman pushed accidentally (no malice directed towards her (damage to woman & fetus is accidental). 2. The woman pushed with malice, however malice is not directed towards the fetus (damage to woman non-accidental, damage to fetus accidental).
I'm not sure how important this distinction is.
I'd be interested to see that passage in the original Hebrew (I don't know Hebrew, but I know a few people who do). Looking at a few different translations I get the impression that passage is talking about a situation where two men are having a punch up and the damage to the woman is accidental, rather than saying that two men are having a long running feud as part of that one man attacks the other's wife.
There are further complications. Fertilized eggs can stop dividing after any number of divisions and persist indefinitely, unborn. Soul?
And this is different from dying in what way exactly? I think you are assuming that life begins at birth.
A cell clump (1 soul?) can split into two (2 souls?) and in rare cases fuse back together (1 soul again?)
What makes you think that a soul is somehow tied to a number of cells? I am getting the impression that you are somehow assuming that all there is what we can see and touch. That is a pretty narrow assumption. What you are saying is similar to saying that someone who had a great sense of humour now has less of a sense of humour now that they have had a leg amputated.
I can already see you getting out the scales to weigh a soul.
Two types of people promote belief in souls: malicious liars and those who refuse to think. I mean you.
Well I'm not malicious so that cuts out the first one. I guess that option that I might be wrong just doesn't fit into your list. That aside it appears to me more that you have made an assumption which is flawed.
And yet so many of the "christian" persuasion absolutley will not adopt except for the perfect child and most love the death penalty.
I don't support the death penalty. In the country in which I live (Australia) very few people support the death penalty, Christians or not. I'm also not in a position to adopt children. I'd be very interested to see statistics on the religous beliefs of those who adopt children. Your argument loses some weight if proportionally more children are adopted by Christians. Also adopting a child is a huge step involving major disruption to three lived (parents + child) and is fraught with problems. Taking the time to try to make that work out is likely to improve things for both child and parents.
On another note if you strongly believe in your convictions you should speak up for them and be willing to put your name on them. Posting snide (and inaccurate) attacks whil hiding behind AC says a lot about the kind of person you are.
Every person (ie made in image of God) has a soul, so yes.
Why would it have a soul?
Because it is part of being a human.
Why would God give a soul to a fetus that was never even going to be born? He's omnipotent, so he'd know it wasn't going to be born right? Doesn't make a lick of sense to me
That is a good question. But you might equally ask why he gives a soul to a baby that dies just after birth? Or why give a soul to someone who dies at the age of 5? I don't have a good answer, but a soul is part of being a human, and a fetus is a human.
There are other similar "problems" raised by the bible. For example God creates someone knowing that they will reject him. Why does he bother? The answer is that he wants everyone to have a choice, and even though he knows what the answer is, he wants to give everyone a fair chance to make a decision.
I don't completely understand it. I don't know why God does some of the things that he does, but I don't have a real problem with that. We are limited, there are some things that we just cannot understand completely (there are generally referred to as holy mysteries).
A distinction must be drawn between an accidental miscarriage and a deliberate miscarriage. I read the passage quoted as leaning more towards an accidentcal. BTW accidental can occur on two levels: 1. The woman was pushed accidentally. 2. The woman was pushed accidentally with no malice intended to the fetus.
As a Christian I believe (with biblical evidence) that people are created on the image of God. This is a statement of relationship (ie it describes our position in relationship to God) as much anything else. To put it another way, people were created as differnent and special by God. A fetus is also created in the image of God, hence I oppose abortion. The same definition covers mentally or physically disabled people also.
I'd have to dig a little to bring up passages relating to this (I don't have references on me right now) but if you're willing to wait ~10 hours til I get home and have time to dig this up I can provide some. From memory this book covers the topic pretty effectively. I own it but haven't read it yet, although it was very highly reccomended.
Hmmm. You make some very good points. I may have to revise my position on XML databases. Indexing may certainly solve some of parsing problems inherent in XML, although this is likely to have other side effects. The database would need to maintain an internal index on each record/row/whatever, which might well add to the size of the database. I'm just thinking aloud here.
I also see the benefit of the flexibility of XML. Black boxes objects and all that. For example when you reach a user object, just pass in the contents of the tag to some sort of class factory (or an equivalent mechanism). As more information is added only the user object needs to change.
Arguably performance problems with XML may drop as more and more people implement systems using XML, something similar happened for RDBMSes, so long as there isn't some feature of XML that is inherent in its design that makes it perform poorly. Your comment on indexing counters what I believed was an XML performance killer.
Thanks for the comments, this has given me quite a bit to chew over. I think I need to do some further research on this and work it through.
I certainly believe that there are other effective methods of storing data, however in most cases XML is not an effective method for storing data.
I have no problem with storing known small amounts of data in XML. For example Microsoft's use of XML to store metadata in IIS, but IMO this is a rare case.
I note you have not addressed my point about scalibility.
The post I replied to said: In fact, that's exactly what a good XML database will do.
I think XML has some benfits when you are talking about data transfer, not in other cases. The load on parsing is too high, you are hibbling the DB before you even begin.
My beef with XML databases is twofold. One is that I'm not sold on XML as a way of representing data. My second beef is that the way that database stores the data is independant of how that information is returned.
Getting back to small solutions, the problem with small databases is that they grow. And grow. You know how it is with software. After a while you are in a world of pain with a skyscraper built on a foundation made for a two bedroom house.
I would not. The behaviour should be the same in either case (back off, go another way), so why make things hugely complicated for no gain? The pegs (or whatever) I suggested are not "markers"; they _are_ obstacles, just like sticks and balls. They just happen to be obstacles that have been placed intentionally, to stop the machine from going somewhere it shouldn't.
Sorry I had the wrong end of the stick. That is certainly easier than what I was suggesting.
And, as I said, at least for the first design round, forget all about mapping. As the parent mentions, good mapping is still at the level of PhD projects.
A couple of friends of mine ran their own SLAM projects for their honors projects. They didn't do anything particularly stellar in terms of new research, but they did get a working SLAM implementation. Mind you one of them got the unversity medal so I'm not saying they are typical students. But I digress.
What I meant though is that while good mapping is Phd territory, map following is not. Even it derived expirmentally (ie roll forward for 5m, swivel left 45 degrees etc). The problem is getting an accurate estimate of position without resorting to a Karman filter.
While this is more difficult to do than using simple AI (bump into object, reverse swivel 15 degrees, forward until bump into another object), you are more likely to get better coverage of the lawn itself.
Third, tune the environment. If you have a fence, that will work fine. For flowerbeds, ponds, cobra pits and other garden features that you don't want it to run into, set evenly spaced (rounded!) wooden pegs at the edges, so the bumper has something to run into. If you think pegs will be ugly, be creative: rocks, small fencing, whatever. It needs to be only as high as the bumper - which we alreadey set at the level of the grass.
There may be some confusion between natural obstacles and the "markers" you have added to the lawn/grass. Trees drop sticks, kids throw balls, rocks etc. It might be a good idea to try to use markers that are sufficiently different from the environment to remain distinguishable.
You would need to select an appropriate marker would vary based on the sensor package you use. For example scanning laser + reflective strips. You could do something similar with a couple (or more) of fixed radio transmitters. They wouldn't need to be in the lawn, they would just be needed for the robot to localise itself.
Another thing, make it easy on yourself and load the map of the grass into the robot from the start. This means that you can use your markers for localisation, which would mean less markers. It also makes the AI for the robot a lot less difficult. With a robot using that configuration you could solve issues like controlling the thing, sensing the envorinment and basic collision detection before moving onto stage 2. Stage 2 being having the robot mapping the environment, then cutting the lawn based on that map.
I'm not sure you want to be getting into the mapping and and locatisation stuff through. I'm afraid I am a lowly undergraduate robotics student. When I graduated most of the guys who were hanging around to do a PHD were researching more efficient methods to map and localise environments (in particular implementations of SLAM - Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping).
I never DID figure out why they didn't mout a rear-pointing machinegun on fighters
1. Weight. An MG + Ammo weighs a signifigant amount. 2. Aiming. How do you aim the thing? For the time you'd basically need another person which means more weight. 3. From 1 and 2, more weight means less speed. Ever wonder why the ME 262 was considered one of the greatest planes of the war? Speed. As another poster said "speed is king". In fact during WW2 altitude was king, because it could be converted to speed at will, while speed decreases.
There were some fighters with rear mounted MGs. For example during the Battle of Britian BF110s were designed fighters (althought they could carry a bomb load) and had a rear mounted MG and gunner. They didn't do so well against the Spitfires and Hurricanes.
Even worse, does Airbus (or Boeing for that matter) manufacture every single of a million parts in a plane themselves?
I've been to the Hawker De Havilland factory in Sydney, Australia and they make Boeing and Airbus parts. From memory among other things they make flaps for the C130 and wing tips for one of the Airbus planes. I am pretty sure they also made part of the wing of the 777.
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So what were the browser wars (round 1) about? Why did Microsoft expend so much effort in fighting Netscape? Why does Microsoft bother with Media Player? Why are they fighting the EU over that one? The issues are as relevant as they are now.
3. The whole "browser as your desktop" idea has faded away. MS is no longer in danger of losing its OS or productivity-suite sales to a browser company.
Sure, but the truth lies in the middle somewhere. The browser can provide a platform for development and we may see more and more apps being developed for the browser.
I think you may have that backwards. Moving off windows is too big a step for most people to make at once. On the other hand moving to firefox is a step towards moving off windows. Why? Because it is cross platform, it means one less app that is unfamiliar if people move to a new OS.
Firfox is bad news for Microsoft. There are no two ways about it.
I'm interested to see what Microsoft is going to do. There are under pressure from a lot of directions at the moment:
1. Browser wars have restarted. What is interesting about this is they have restarted with so little warning.
2. Security. MS is trying to address this with XP SP2, but this is still a huge issue for MS.
3. Longhorn. This is a huge issue for a number of reasons, first off the delay in shipping it. Secondly the fact that it is a rewrite, new API, *lots* of new code == lots of new problems. Thirdly due to performance considerations (this may be less of an issue). The interesting thing about Longhorn is that there are parallels (Netscape)
The next 6 months or so are going to be very interesting. If MS isn't careful they could lose signifigant market share, which I for one won't be crying about.
My experience has been a little different.
I live in the same house as 4 other techincally illiterate people (2 parents, 2 sisters). I pushed everyone to mozilla about 3 months ago and haven't had any complaints.
You can also remove the link to IE from the desktop. Everyone knows to click on godzilla for the web now.
Amen to that.
My other big beef is the way windows handles mounting new file systems. When you pop in a CD, windows exporer becomes non-reponsive until the CD is mounted. WTF? Putting in the CD does not imply I want to use immediately. Even if I want to use it immediatly, why should this disable windows explorer? Same with network respources.
The display of filesystems should be separated from the mouting of them.
I did this just last week.
Laptop open and running and I spilt a glass of water over it (after tripping over a power cable in a dark room).
I called IBM (I have a thinkpad) and was told to take off the keyboard and dry it with a hair dryer. Works fine. I was a bit worried though, particularly when I saw the water pooling around the processor.
I have to say I am really enjoying this. I don't often get the chance to debate the point with someone. For some reason on /. people seem to give up and drop the point rather than arguing it, which rather a pity.
Anyway back to the point at hand.
I don't see a distinction between beliefs and objective facts. If I cannot back up my beliefs with objective facts then I will modify those beliefs. If I do not I am inconsistent. I stand by that and live by that as far as I can. That means if you can convince me that I am wrong, than I must alter my beliefs accordingly.
However if this truth is imposed on the world by by the God that created the world, THEN I HAVE NO NEED TO IMPOSE IT ON OTHERS (THAT WAS ALREADY DONE BY GOD). If I (or you) feel a need to impose this 'truth' on others then it was NOT imposed on them by GOD.
The situation as laid out in the bible is as follows: God has given everyone a conscience which to some extent guides peoples lives (eg most people agree murder is bad) and God also works in and through the world to change people. Christians are his ambassadors and representatives in this world. Christians are sent to tell other people the truth and help them towards that truth.
Incidentally that truth has much more to do with relationship with God than with particular moral behaviour. I think people often get the wrong impression of Christians a lot, particularly in the States (I am assuming that you live in the US).
You make a good point on imposing views on another person.
My take on this is that in some cases it is right to impose a view on someone else, in other cases it is not. There are degrees in between, so that in some cases you may make one of the choices more attractive than the other. This is a difficult decision to make and not one that can be taken lightly and the top priority must be the good of all concerned. I guess I see there is a spectrum of options. At one end there is imposing a view, at the other we have hands off.
A few point on this:
1. It is generally very hard to impose a view one another person or people group. We are talking about abortion here, so looking back to times when abortion was illegal, it was still possible to get an abortion. It was more dangerous and it was harder to have an abortion, but it was certainly possible.
2. Thing rarely fall at one end of the spectrum or the other. The point I was making earlier on all decision affecting others comes in here. So by making one decision I make it harder or easier for a decision to be made.
3. Sometimes something is harmful enough to warrant strong intervention.
What I'd like to see happen WRT abortion is to provide mandatory counselling before and after. I'd like the different options to be explained. I'd like the government to make it more attractive financially for someone to carry the baby to full term. I'm not suggesting that the counselling be used as a way of trying to convince people to go one way or the other, I'd see it is something that explains the different options. Something that helps people through making the decision. Something that makes sure they the are making a decision of their own accord rather than being pushed to it by a boyfriend or family. I'd see that as a step in the right direction. I admit I'd be a lot happier if things moved further than that but I'd see that as a step in the right direction.
You raised a couple of other points, one on the Bible.
I think you underestimate the bible as a book. On any terms it is quite a remarkable book. Few books make the same claims. Few books have been so thoroughly tested. You compare it to contemporary fiction, what is the difference between books written now and books written in the last 2000 years? Why do so few other books survive? I say that the bible has been thoroughly tested, you assert that I am standing on sand. Are you aware that there is more documentary evidence that Jesus lived than that Julius Caesar (by a factor of
1) You seem to be implying - by making two statements with only one difference - that it is possible to ACCIDENTALLY push a woman WITH MALICE toward the fetus. Accidentally removes the malice aspect, malice removes the accidental aspect
/. You assume that there is no absolute truth. Possibly assert might be a better word to use than assume. I infer from your argument that you believe that all truth is subjective, ie what is true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me.
I may not be expressing myself very well. I'll try to say it another way. Suppose a woman is pregnant, she is pushed and miscarries. There are three options:
1. The woman was pushed with intent to harm her alone (ie unaware that she is pregnant), the loss of the baby is incidental. That is the object is not to harm the fetus.
2. The woman is pushed with intent to make her miscarry. An example of this might be a boyfriend who doens't want to take resposibility for the child and is not a country that offers abortions. In this case any damage to the woman is incidental. The object is not to harm the woman
3. The woman is pushed with intent to harm her and the child. Damage to both is deliberate.
I know that this is a fine point and the reality is that in real life things don't fall into such clean cut categories, I am merely trying to point out that even in the case where mailce is intended, it may not be directed at all parties.
Onto point 2.
I seem to have this argument a lot on
I disagree. Why are religous beliefs and morality treated in a different way to scientific beliefs? It is an objective truth that pi is 3.14159.... . Is is not an objective truth that murder is wrong?
As this truth is subjective to me, I have no right to impose it on others. However if this truth is imposed on the world by the God who created it, then it is truth.
I use the bible as my primary source because it is the primary source of that truth. I believe the bible because it has been extensively tested by archeologists, histories, literature specialists and scientists and it has checked out on all of those tests. That is my foundation of real evidence.
Take however you will.
Getting back to abortion, I made a comment in this thread to that effect. The decisions we all make affect others. Nobody lives in a vacuum. My beliefs on murder have an effect on other people. Your beliefs on ownership of intellectual property have an effect on others. I oppose abortion because it has an effect on someoe I consider to be a person. Using your own argument, how can a mother have the right to make a decision that imposes her beliefs on her unborn child.
Let's try to get into the real world here. Every decision you make has an effect on people around you.
Let me tell you a bit of a story about the country I live in. The native inhabitants of Australia are referred to as Aborigines. From early on in Australia's history it was noticed that alcohol had an apalling effect on aborigines (I have heard of similar problems with Eskimo people and American Indians). So legislation was passed banning the sale of alcohol to Aborigines.
During the 70s this was repealed and was hailed as a great victory for free choice. The aborigines were no longer having their decisions made for them. The effect of repealing this legislation on Aboriginal communities has been horrific. To the extent that aboriginal communities are now voluntarily creating alcohol free zones. We are coming full circle at the cost of thousands of lives.
Free choice isn't always a good thing.
I wasn't aware that the poster was referring to conjoined twins when he said that. This does introduce something new for me to chew over. I don't have an answer for that right now.
:-). That was the point of the comment about a sense of humour and amputated legs.
You claim that something has a soul "because it is part of a human being." This would imply that if I chopped off my leg and attached it to life support, it would have a soul. Now is this a new soul, part of my soul, etc? Where did it come from and where does it go when I have my leg reattached? What if it was attached to somebody else?
You are arguing the same thing I am arguing. I am arguing that a soul is part of a human being, one that can only be removed by death
Looking at a few different translations I get the impression that passage is talking about a situation where two men are having a punch up and the damage to the woman is accidental, rather than saying that two men are having a long running feud as part of that one man attacks the other's wife.
In fact looking at it again, the passage does not state the woman involved is in fact married to either of the men involved. Hence we are really talking about a situation where a woman miscarries as a result of an accident (ie no malice).
You said it right there. God gave every human choice, a.k.a. free will. Any other human trying to impose thier choices on another is subverting Gods will.
Absolutely. However to some extent we all impose our decisions on others. For example my decision to not burn copies of games and CDs places pressure on friends of mine who do. I'm not directly saying to them that they shouldn't, it just isn't something that I do. Noboby lives their life in a vacuum.
It gets more difficult at a government level. Government legistation has an effect on people's beliefs. Tax breaks for single mothers, or tax breaks for families. Penalties for murder. Drug laws. In attempting to provide what is best for society you choose one viewpoint over another.
Anyway getting back to your original point, I am appalled when I hear stories of missionaries (truthful or not) offering food to starving people if they become Christians. To think of doing such a thing is deeply disturbing.
Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't put that very well.
The distinction I was trying to make is that there is a difference between malice directed at the woman and malice directed at the fetus (or fetus + woman). For example a person may push the woman without realising she is pregnant.
Is that any clearer (in terms of malice)?
What I was trying to say before (less than clearly) was something along these lines:
1. The woman pushed accidentally (no malice directed towards her (damage to woman & fetus is accidental).
2. The woman pushed with malice, however malice is not directed towards the fetus (damage to woman non-accidental, damage to fetus accidental).
I'm not sure how important this distinction is.
I'd be interested to see that passage in the original Hebrew (I don't know Hebrew, but I know a few people who do). Looking at a few different translations I get the impression that passage is talking about a situation where two men are having a punch up and the damage to the woman is accidental, rather than saying that two men are having a long running feud as part of that one man attacks the other's wife.
There are further complications. Fertilized eggs can stop dividing after any number of divisions and persist indefinitely, unborn. Soul?
And this is different from dying in what way exactly? I think you are assuming that life begins at birth.
A cell clump (1 soul?) can split into two (2 souls?) and in rare cases fuse back together (1 soul again?)
What makes you think that a soul is somehow tied to a number of cells? I am getting the impression that you are somehow assuming that all there is what we can see and touch. That is a pretty narrow assumption. What you are saying is similar to saying that someone who had a great sense of humour now has less of a sense of humour now that they have had a leg amputated.
I can already see you getting out the scales to weigh a soul.
Two types of people promote belief in souls: malicious liars and those who refuse to think. I mean you.
Well I'm not malicious so that cuts out the first one. I guess that option that I might be wrong just doesn't fit into your list. That aside it appears to me more that you have made an assumption which is flawed.
And yet so many of the "christian" persuasion absolutley will not adopt except for the perfect child and most love the death penalty.
I don't support the death penalty. In the country in which I live (Australia) very few people support the death penalty, Christians or not. I'm also not in a position to adopt children. I'd be very interested to see statistics on the religous beliefs of those who adopt children. Your argument loses some weight if proportionally more children are adopted by Christians. Also adopting a child is a huge step involving major disruption to three lived (parents + child) and is fraught with problems. Taking the time to try to make that work out is likely to improve things for both child and parents.
On another note if you strongly believe in your convictions you should speak up for them and be willing to put your name on them. Posting snide (and inaccurate) attacks whil hiding behind AC says a lot about the kind of person you are.
Are you saying that a fetus has a soul?
Every person (ie made in image of God) has a soul, so yes.
Why would it have a soul?
Because it is part of being a human.
Why would God give a soul to a fetus that was never even going to be born? He's omnipotent, so he'd know it wasn't going to be born right? Doesn't make a lick of sense to me
That is a good question. But you might equally ask why he gives a soul to a baby that dies just after birth? Or why give a soul to someone who dies at the age of 5? I don't have a good answer, but a soul is part of being a human, and a fetus is a human.
There are other similar "problems" raised by the bible. For example God creates someone knowing that they will reject him. Why does he bother? The answer is that he wants everyone to have a choice, and even though he knows what the answer is, he wants to give everyone a fair chance to make a decision.
I don't completely understand it. I don't know why God does some of the things that he does, but I don't have a real problem with that. We are limited, there are some things that we just cannot understand completely (there are generally referred to as holy mysteries).
A distinction must be drawn between an accidental miscarriage and a deliberate miscarriage. I read the passage quoted as leaning more towards an accidentcal. BTW accidental can occur on two levels:
1. The woman was pushed accidentally.
2. The woman was pushed accidentally with no malice intended to the fetus.
As a Christian I believe (with biblical evidence) that people are created on the image of God. This is a statement of relationship (ie it describes our position in relationship to God) as much anything else. To put it another way, people were created as differnent and special by God. A fetus is also created in the image of God, hence I oppose abortion. The same definition covers mentally or physically disabled people also.
I'd have to dig a little to bring up passages relating to this (I don't have references on me right now) but if you're willing to wait ~10 hours til I get home and have time to dig this up I can provide some. From memory this book covers the topic pretty effectively. I own it but haven't read it yet, although it was very highly reccomended.
Hmmm. You make some very good points. I may have to revise my position on XML databases. Indexing may certainly solve some of parsing problems inherent in XML, although this is likely to have other side effects. The database would need to maintain an internal index on each record/row/whatever, which might well add to the size of the database. I'm just thinking aloud here.
I also see the benefit of the flexibility of XML. Black boxes objects and all that. For example when you reach a user object, just pass in the contents of the tag to some sort of class factory (or an equivalent mechanism). As more information is added only the user object needs to change.
Arguably performance problems with XML may drop as more and more people implement systems using XML, something similar happened for RDBMSes, so long as there isn't some feature of XML that is inherent in its design that makes it perform poorly. Your comment on indexing counters what I believed was an XML performance killer.
Thanks for the comments, this has given me quite a bit to chew over. I think I need to do some further research on this and work it through.
I certainly believe that there are other effective methods of storing data, however in most cases XML is not an effective method for storing data.
I have no problem with storing known small amounts of data in XML. For example Microsoft's use of XML to store metadata in IIS, but IMO this is a rare case.
I note you have not addressed my point about scalibility.
The post I replied to said:
In fact, that's exactly what a good XML database will do.
I think XML has some benfits when you are talking about data transfer, not in other cases. The load on parsing is too high, you are hibbling the DB before you even begin.
My beef with XML databases is twofold. One is that I'm not sold on XML as a way of representing data. My second beef is that the way that database stores the data is independant of how that information is returned.
Getting back to small solutions, the problem with small databases is that they grow. And grow. You know how it is with software. After a while you are in a world of pain with a skyscraper built on a foundation made for a two bedroom house.
I'm confused. I heard the words "XML" and "database" in the one sentence. Then I read "good" and realised you don't know what you are talking about.
I would not. The behaviour should be the same in either case (back off, go another way), so why make things hugely complicated for no gain? The pegs (or whatever) I suggested are not "markers"; they _are_ obstacles, just like sticks and balls. They just happen to be obstacles that have been placed intentionally, to stop the machine from going somewhere it shouldn't.
Sorry I had the wrong end of the stick. That is certainly easier than what I was suggesting.
And, as I said, at least for the first design round, forget all about mapping. As the parent mentions, good mapping is still at the level of PhD projects.
A couple of friends of mine ran their own SLAM projects for their honors projects. They didn't do anything particularly stellar in terms of new research, but they did get a working SLAM implementation. Mind you one of them got the unversity medal so I'm not saying they are typical students. But I digress.
What I meant though is that while good mapping is Phd territory, map following is not. Even it derived expirmentally (ie roll forward for 5m, swivel left 45 degrees etc). The problem is getting an accurate estimate of position without resorting to a Karman filter.
While this is more difficult to do than using simple AI (bump into object, reverse swivel 15 degrees, forward until bump into another object), you are more likely to get better coverage of the lawn itself.
No joke, people in Australia are putting on artifical grass. It has more to do with restrictions on water use here, but it is happening.
Third, tune the environment. If you have a fence, that will work fine. For flowerbeds, ponds, cobra pits and other garden features that you don't want it to run into, set evenly spaced (rounded!) wooden pegs at the edges, so the bumper has something to run into. If you think pegs will be ugly, be creative: rocks, small fencing, whatever. It needs to be only as high as the bumper - which we alreadey set at the level of the grass.
There may be some confusion between natural obstacles and the "markers" you have added to the lawn/grass. Trees drop sticks, kids throw balls, rocks etc. It might be a good idea to try to use markers that are sufficiently different from the environment to remain distinguishable.
You would need to select an appropriate marker would vary based on the sensor package you use. For example scanning laser + reflective strips. You could do something similar with a couple (or more) of fixed radio transmitters. They wouldn't need to be in the lawn, they would just be needed for the robot to localise itself.
Another thing, make it easy on yourself and load the map of the grass into the robot from the start. This means that you can use your markers for localisation, which would mean less markers. It also makes the AI for the robot a lot less difficult. With a robot using that configuration you could solve issues like controlling the thing, sensing the envorinment and basic collision detection before moving onto stage 2. Stage 2 being having the robot mapping the environment, then cutting the lawn based on that map.
I'm not sure you want to be getting into the mapping and and locatisation stuff through. I'm afraid I am a lowly undergraduate robotics student. When I graduated most of the guys who were hanging around to do a PHD were researching more efficient methods to map and localise environments (in particular implementations of SLAM - Simultaneous Localisation And Mapping).
Oh come on. Where the hell is he going to get sheep in England?
You could have them shipped in from New Zealand.
I never DID figure out why they didn't mout a rear-pointing machinegun on fighters
1. Weight. An MG + Ammo weighs a signifigant amount.
2. Aiming. How do you aim the thing? For the time you'd basically need another person which means more weight.
3. From 1 and 2, more weight means less speed. Ever wonder why the ME 262 was considered one of the greatest planes of the war? Speed. As another poster said "speed is king". In fact during WW2 altitude was king, because it could be converted to speed at will, while speed decreases.
There were some fighters with rear mounted MGs. For example during the Battle of Britian BF110s were designed fighters (althought they could carry a bomb load) and had a rear mounted MG and gunner. They didn't do so well against the Spitfires and Hurricanes.
Even worse, does Airbus (or Boeing for that matter) manufacture every single of a million parts in a plane themselves?
I've been to the Hawker De Havilland factory in Sydney, Australia and they make Boeing and Airbus parts. From memory among other things they make flaps for the C130 and wing tips for one of the Airbus planes. I am pretty sure they also made part of the wing of the 777.