'That's a law that should be more proactive than reactive.'
I fail to see a justification for the law at all, let alone taking additional measures! There are many legitimate reasons to spoof caller ID. For instance, if I configure a voip system in an office I usually configure the system to show the phone number of the main line on caller id, regardless of which line is actually being used to connect. I have now spoofed caller id and this would make that illegal.
How about we just have laws that make using callerid spoofing illegal if it used to commit fraud.... oh wait, we already have laws against using ANY deception to illicit unfair gain.
'claiming you can bench 200 lbs when you can barely press half that is not illegal'
Yup, and its not fraud. Lying and fraud are NOT synonymous. A Fraud is a deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain. Deception in and of itself is neither fraud nor illegal.
'Should impersonating a police officer, identity theft, false advertising and passing fake checks all have the same punishment?'
Ummm... yes? Of course some of those things would be done for the purpose of accomplishing other crimes and that is where additional charges come in. There are also penalty ranges for crimes so that a judge can look at the specific offense. The more severe offenses like false advertising should actually carry multiple charges of fraud.
In any case, any law which makes a tool illegal rather than bad actions performed with the tool is a bad law.
'Caller ID spoofing probably doesn't fall into any existing category of fraud, so this form of fraud can be presently engaged in with impunity.'
That's because caller id spoofing ISN'T fraud it is a harmless deception. If you use that deception to illicit an unfair gain then you have committed fraud and would have committed a criminal act without this law.
Fraud is illegal and there are laws to will send any fraudster to jail. Therefore a law that bans a legitimate function that could be used to facilitate fraud only serves to make otherwise legitimate actions criminal.
Beyond that, I fail to see any significant damage one could perpetrate using caller ID spoofing. The only thing I know of is a cellphone provider that uses a known insecure system (callerid) to authenticate its voicemail system. Here is a thought, make the cell provider fix the system and leave callerid alone.
'Calculations (assuming 12-20 million 'illegals,' not including their children that you would also have to deport):
12 million / 300 million = 4% (1 in 25)
20 million / 300 million = 7% (1 in 14)'
Why would we assume 20 million illegals again? For the most part the children are born here, they are citizens. You deport the illegals, not the citizens. Fortunately we have a substantial backlog of parents wanting to adopt.
'I would assume most of those marching are actually legal (the 'illegals' are too scared to draw attention to themselves).'
I wouldn't make that assumption. Illegal aliens aren't cowering in fear in California, they walk the streets openly. Even if we were to accept that 4% of the population is illegal, at least 95% of those are in California. Hell, no small number of them are in LA.
'I would also assume you are not serious about calling for these people to be executed'
All illegal aliens? Of course not. Anyone who walks down the streets of the United States, proclaims loyalty to a foreign state and waves its flag and then proceeds to claim that they will conquer our nation? Absolutely, they should be shot on sight. That is a declaration of war against our culture, our people, and our nation. I couldn't care less if you want to take down our government but the moment you declare your hostility to the actual citizens and our way of life you should be dealt with quickly, efficiently, and without remorse.
Please don't misunderstand. I have nothing against legal immigrants from any nation. I don't have any issues with immigration in general and I certainly have nothing against hispanics. Although I am partial to the hispanic females (I like the skin and eyes, sue me). I also don't believe illegal immigrants should be killed simply for entering the country illegally. I am referring only to traitors who declare war on our people and culture.
I think we need to implement strong border protection methods. I think active deportation needs to be adopted, I think those deported should be printed and marked in a manner that is clearly visible in any encounter. Of course anyone in the country illegally should be barred from returning if caught. Anyone applying for employment, public services, trying to open a bank account, etc should be printed and prints submitted for a check against the deportee database (afterwards all prints taken should be destroyed to protect the rights of innocent citizens).
I also think we should grant the mexican government substantial relief aid with stipulations. The more mexican illegals we find, the less they get. We should also strongly encourage them to enact criminal penalties for those who are turned over to them by our authorities. Another requirement would be a formal declaration by the government of Mexico that it releases any claims on the territory of California.
Last (as in after doing all of the above) I think we should start a healthy immigration program for Mexicans. This program should include mandatory classes and testing. First and foremost anyone immigrating to the United States must learn english with a reasonable degree of proficiency. Mexicans should be familiarized with our labor laws and minimum wage requirements. They should also be instructed on TYPICAL wages for a variety of jobs and education requirements. Finally, after all is approved, tests passed and two oaths, one disavowing any allegence or association with their former nation and another swearing loyalty to the people and the constitution of the united states (as well as to use only the american english language in public); at this point they should be bussed into the United States.
These immigrants should be bussed in a manner that scatters them all over the United States. This prevents the kind of pocket communities and ghettos that have prevented immigrants from fully integrating with our society and culture in the past. This is particularly important if we are ever to allow large numbers to immigrate from Mexico since their culture could quickly begin to dominate our own rather than the immigrants integrating and our culture absorbing the best of what the Mexicans bring with them.
'With due respect, I have to disagree. If a project or vendor takes security seriously, they'll design the software so that it has zero security bugs.'
With due respect that is impossible. In fact, it is impossible to ever find all the security bugs in a program of any complexity.
'However, people designing control systems for airplanes, hospital medical equipment used in lifesaving situations, and so forth, actually do a fair job of delivering software which has zero security issues.'
No, they do a fair job of delivering software that recieves no substantial examination for security issues.
'This level of quality isn't undoable for more widely used general-purpose software-- some of DJB's software has close to a perfect security record, for example'
In every vulnerability discussion you have a DJB proponent speak up. There are flaws with the DJB claims but I won't go into them specifically. It's been done before, it will be done again, and it serves no purpose.
All the perfect and near perfect security records you have mentioned have the same fundemental problem. None of them have been informed of or patched the critical remotely exploitable vulnerability I discovered and have been using since two weeks after their software was released. I have not informed them or posted it on any hacking boards because... wait for it... I'M NOT AN IDIOT.
I think this hypothetical scenerio happens more than the reported vulnerabilities.
'close to being "bug free" or "secure"....'
There is no such thing as bug free or secure. They are myths, the best you can hope for bugs that are difficult to exploit and obscure.
You might have a claim if you said 1 in every 20 people were hispanic but most hispanics are legal. We are talking about the illegal immigrants. Fortunately, most illegals are hispanic and they are mostly concentrated in certain areas.
At this rate, we can actually just wait for them to form another march. It is unfortunate that they marched in Cali though. If they had marched in Florida then concealed carry weapons holders could have opened fire. It is legal for you to use your weapon to stop felonies and treason is on the list. If waving a mexican flag and proclaiming that you are going to take over our country isn't treason I can't imagine what is.
I know I know, Mexican's believe california is rightfully part of mexico and belongs to them. That is treason too. AFAIK its the only federal crime that demands the death penalty. These people should consider themselves lucky if we only deport them.
It doesn't matter if the vulnerability counts are vendor acknowledged or third party. Vulnerability counts only tell you how many flaws were found and fixed. There is no particular reason to belive this correlates to how many were found and exploited by 'the bad guys'.
It's flimsy but I suppose you could say that recognizing reported flaws and patching them quickly shows a project or vendor takes security seriously but that is all these vulnerability reports are good for. You could say that more reported vulnerabilities means that a program became that much more secure but even that is dubious. And of course it goes without saying that claiming a program is more secure because it had fewer vulnerabilities reported defies all logic.
'stop selling Windows on their computers? Not going to happen.'
They will if they are smart. Remember, we aren't talking about a minor element in the windows empire. The major PC vendors ARE the pillars the hold the empire up. Dell and HP only need a viable operating system, there is no particular reason it needs to be windows.
'once established as basically the only operating system vendor for PCs, Microsoft can then branch off into selling PCs, and capturing even more profits.'
And that is exactly what will happen. Microsoft won't simply branch though, they chose a company that produces actual hardware, not a company that assembles PC's. The reason is obvious, Microsoft will do what they always do. PC's are basically a collection of standards, some published, some de facto. It works out because none of the vendors can add operating system support for something that the other vendors can't use. It has remained in Microsoft's interest not to give that kind of edge to a single vendor while alienating the others. But what happens when the vendor who wants a proprietary edge is Microsoft?
'There is really no reason why not, except potential antitrust litigation (but that seems less of a bother for them, recently).'
Unfortunately the vendors probably won't grow balls. The real story is that if Dell and HP stopped selling windows tomorrow, neither would stop selling PC's. Both have a massive mindshare that is as large as Microsoft's if not larger. I'd say larger, most people know they have a dell or a compaq and have no clue what operating system they run.
'Why? Why should the game stop at a point that you choose?'
The game doesn't stop at the point I choose, the game STARTS at the point I defined. Skilling up in tradeskills, camping and grinding to raise gold for an epic mount, etc are all comparable to distributing armies and setting up the board before you can play a game of risk.
At the endgame portion (the real game) everyone is of roughly equal power, everyone is maxed in their tradeskill and abilities. Everything before that is just setting up the board so you can play the actual game that starts at that point.
'Because its a game and is supposed to reward skill and effort??'
Skill yes, effort is supposed to be built in. The more effort you expend the more skillful you can become. Grinding comes into play when the game implements some repetative task that you must spend hours performing and that essentially requires no skill.
'Seriously, you must be some kind of sociopath not to understand how cheating at games is morally wrong.'
Actually you must be right. I don't believe in either innate morality or innate wrongness. I also don't see how any action that doesn't give an edge over another player is cheating. Using programs like vent and websites with details on quests gives you an advantage in gameplay over other players and would certainly meet my definition of cheating but most of the same people whining about a purchased epic mount are happy to cheat in those ways.
'Let's play chess and allow some noob to buy his way to grand master.'
I fail to see why a grand master would care what people call the noob. It isn't as if they are going to stop having respect for his abilities and it isn't as if the noob is going to miraculously be able to compete with the grand master. After all, it is supposed to be about enjoying chess, not about earning titles or trophies.
'Would there still be a point to the game?'
Of course there would. At least as long as you don't put words in my mouth and setup a strawman. I never claimed rampant cheating of any sort wouldn't be bad for everyone and impact their gameplay. So saying that rampant cheating would do is a stawman argument. We aren't talking about rampant cheating of any kind, we are talking about activities that give no final advantage in the game over other players and gold transfers in particular.
So in that world it goes like this. We are friends. You have more time than money, I have more money than time. The result is that I only play a couple hours a week but I pay you to play my character along with yours. Our characters more or less advance at an equal pace, you have money to feed your kids, and when I play I have a character that is on par with everyone else so I can enjoy the game. When things like mounts come up and so forth, again, I pay you to do the grinding. I play enough to experience my character and learn how to play and to have realized that all quests are just reworded variations of the same handful of quests.
Now we are both lvl 70, we both know how to play our characters, we are both equiped. You have a little more money than you would have and I get to play the actual game that comes after all the grinding. Ahead of me is countless hours of enjoyment spent solving puzzles, working in massive efforts to defeat bosses and gain rare treasures. If I am good I can get a guild that doesn't punish infrequent players and if I can only spend one night a week playing, I get the same level of enjoyment during that time as everyone else. Your reward for playing for 7 nights where I only play one? That's easy, you get seven nights worth of enjoyment compared to my one. It isn't a job the time you spend on the game isn't an investment, it is supposed to the part you are enjoying. You aren't entitled to something more simply because you had fun for 8 hrs and I only had fun for 2.
'why don't they just start you at lvl 70 and fully keyed, and then you just head off to instances.'
Because you have to learn how to play the game and your character. That is why I suggested shortening the process to a couple days worth of playing.
'the top without earning it'
Of course they do. This is a game not a job. Let's leave the 'earning' part at the office and skip right to playing like we do with other games.
'It's very open-ended as to what "grind" is. Different for everyone.'
Sure, there are some people who enjoy having a job and working as well. The fact is that the current system only caters to those with your idea of grinding where a system that allowed transfers would cater to everyone. Hate leveling? Buy a 70. Hate farming (and most farmers are regular players, not bots or sweat shops) then buy the gold for your epic mount instead of farming it yourself.
I played the first real MMORPG, Sierra's 'The Realm', long before EQ was a twinkle in anyone's eye. There was no gold trade to speak of. Everything was still camped, the economy was still always inflated, people still macro'd, people still hacked and duped, etc. These games are built around the concept of grinding for gain. The idea of genuine challenges and puzzles was removed long ago (although it is present to small degree in WOW when teams try to devise the solutions to slaying bosses on raids) and replaced with repetative tasks that anyone could complete but if you spend days and days performing these repetative tasks that are all essentially the same you can achieve any end in the game.
Real money transfers don't hurt the game, they just give people something else to blame for the same old problems. Someone camping your spot? Must be a sweat shop farmer. Join a pickup ground and get someone who speaks poor english? Damn gold farmers. Couldn't be one of the many non-english speakers who play on US servers but don't farm gold. And the camper couldn't be one of the MILLIONS of legitimate players farming for one of the many things the game forces you to farm to gain eh?
Stop and think about it a minute. In a game like WoW, when would you buy gold? When you need gold. If you don't have the gold but you need the gold, then how are you going to get said gold? You are going go farm it at the most profitable spot you can think of. If you buy it from a gold shop, how did they get it? They farmed it and probably managed to get it with LESS farming than it would have taken you, thus less camping. If the only time a farmer can make a sale is when you would have needed to farm anyway the net effect is the same or less farming than if the players were doing it themselves.
Nonsense, Dell and HP are in the business of selling computers. Linux is a very viable computer operating system. What would happen if Dell and HP/Compaq stopped offering windows based PC's tomorrow and only offered Linux based PC's? People wouldn't stop buying PC's, 3 months from now I doubt Dell and HP would be behind, actually their sales would probably be higher. Windows sales on the other hand would plummet. Microsoft needs hardware manufacturers to pre-load their operating system in order to maintain their monopoly. Hardware manufacturers just need a viable and feature rich operating system.
That might be extreme but a firm clean break is the best way to break the Microsoft monopoly and that is only change PC vendors have.
'Even if Microsoft were successful, it wouldn't mean that EVERYONE would jump to buying from Microsoft.'
Yes it would. Microsoft has utilized the same general business philosophies since its inception and there no reason to believe their ideas have changed. It starts with distributing commodity PC's, the next step is propertary hardware functionality with built in windows support (partnering with Zenith suggests this since Zenith is traditionally a company that designs hardware, not a PC vendor). All the sudden PC manufacturers who have always utilized industry standards and have no infrastructure to add comparable hardware functionality are struggling. I'm confident the microsoft marketing machine will come up with something, it doesn't have to be especially difficult but it does have to be very visible to the end user.
Now, you need windows to fully take advantage of Microsoft computers and you need Microsoft computers to fully take advantage of windows. Unless vendors made a firm break like I suggested they now have higher priced (because of the windows tax) pc's that do less IN THE EYES OF THE CONSUMER. If Microsoft doesn't storm the market they will at the very least make steep inroads and do so at the expense of their biggest partner.
Just goes to show what ultimately comes of partnering with Microsoft.
'Microsoft would not hamstring their own OS because they could never hope to compete with the output capability of Dell, et al.'
Why not? They may not have the infrastructure or... the asian division of Microsoft (or their new partner zenith that nobody was watching) could have already built it. Either way, a PC assembly line isn't exactly that miraculous. Get a pallet of each widget, a conveyor belt, and a couple asian laborers at each station. A rack setup to clone harddrives. Rubber stamp them until you have filled a warehouse the size of an airplane hanger. By the time you get permits, supply lines (all of which would come from companies microsoft already works closely with btw), hiring, and shipping taken care of; all done with a spare no expense attitude, you could blitzkreig it in a couple months.
'Microsoft wants their OS to run EVERYWHERE.'
That's the bright idea yes, the one has gotten Microsoft to where they are today. It is the opposite of the Apple and Sun concept (which is what my post was about). If Microsoft makes any serious move in this direction they are on dangerous ground. Any PC vendor would have to be insane to let windows be a cornerstone produce in their business if Microsoft is positioning themselves as a competitor.
'Why compete for the low-end? Dell and HP have no business trying to sell $400 and $500 PCs.'
Dell and HP sell $400-$500 PC's like hot cakes. Why would they have no business doing so? Nobody sells any quantity of $900+ systems without mindshare and nobody gets mindshare without selling to the average joe. The average joe buys $400-$500 PC's, not $900+ PC's. Besides that, Dell and HP are by definition commodity PC vendors, they always have been. You can't buy a ferrari computer from either vendor and you never could. Actually Dell and HP ARE the low end and they are proof of why the low end is definately something you should chase. You
'It creates real world economies that produce hordes of third-world sweat shops farming in areas where I'd like to just be enjoying myself with other gamers. Farmers suck.'
It creates real world economies that produce IMAGINARY hordes of third-world sweat shops. First, for every commercial gold farmer you encounter, you imagined you encounter fifty. The same is true of spots that are camped. 99.9999% of campers are regular players. Most farming is done by regular players who are trying to rack up enough gold to purchase an epic mount or just to cover the outrageous costs of repair in raids. As for the sweat shop, enough with your feigned indignation; gold farmers earn a pitiance HERE but that pitiance is a comfortable wage in their local economy. Personally I think they are irrelevant but if you really want to bring the moral impact of those workers into the situation then I think we have to look at the real situation. These people have what are good paying jobs and you want to take those jobs away.
'These things would be a rarity if not for real world value driving them.'
Maybe you have never played an MMORPG without any mentionable real world market for items and accounts. I have. Everything is still camped all the time, drops are a pain in the ass, there are players who will camp a spot and take a needed drop for no other reason than to screw up your game. 'Honest' players farming for 'legitimate' reasons are vast hordes that swallow any impact actual farmers have to nothing.
'I want everyone else to obey the rules as well.'
What do you care? If my actions don't have a negative effect on you then why do you want to have a negative effect on the way I want to play MY game?
'If you have more gold than I do, I don't want it to be because your mommy gives you a nice cash allowance.'
Why? What's it to you?
'I want it to be because you're all pasty faced from a lack of sunlight because you put the time in on the game.'
I don't really see a need to touch that one.
'The shittiest part, though, is the constant reminder that you can't even be allowed to agree with a group of folks on how to play a god damned game without cheating -- then go enjoy yourself.'
I fail to see why not? You go enjoy yourself, its as simple as choosing not to have your enjoyment be contingent upon how others are enjoying themselves.
'hose your enjoyment doing things to you and your GAME'
You still haven't come up with the part where someone is doing something to you. All you have established is that you are annoyed that someone else is having fun in a different way. Is it just that they aren't following the TOS? Would you suddenly be okay with gold trading if the TOS were changed?
'I don't enjoy playing tennis with losers who cheat.'
I would if the 'cheating' were comparable. Personally I don't consider anything that doesn't provide someone with a practical bottom line advantage over other players to be cheating. Your argument reminds me of boot camp in the military. You could get these wipes in the shop that you run over your boots and they would gleam but they were banned. They forced you to polish your boots the old fashioned way. They considered using the wipes to be cheating. Was there anything wrong with using wipes? No. Would I have been upset if someone managed to score and use the wipes? Of course not, I'm not a jealous asshole out to spoil it for everyone else. Besides the blame for the problem with the wipes wouldn't fall on the people who managed to get away with using them despite the rules, the blame falls on the ones who are making the bad rules.
'It affects me because I know about it.'
That is a choice. It doesn't affect you in any material way (in a real or virtual way). Especially on a game like WOW where there is no PvP worth mentioning and no consequence to PvP.
'Why should I enjoy sharing a game world with cheaters?'
Why should you care?
'Rationalize all you want with "I work hard out of the ga
'Sun and Apple have made quite a good bit of business with this model. I am more surprised that Microsoft did not try this years ago.'
I'm not, Microsoft's profits have dwarfed those of Sun and Apple combined and have relied on NOT doing this. Don't you think Microsoft selling PC's without paying themselves any licensing costs is going to have the likes of Dell and HP jumping the Microsoft ship faster than you can blink?
You would have to be crazy to promote windows when Microsoft has an inside edge on windows that assures nobody will have a computer that runs as well as those from Microsoft. Microsoft can do anything they want, including intentionally altering windows in ways that will cause it to misbehave on competitor hardware. This is a conflict of interest so glaring that is insane.
MS might get away with India... or not if the hardware companies are bright. But if MS takes this very far you will see a great deal more HP and Dell support for Linux and customization of Linux to work perfectly with their own hardware.
In what way? Someone having an easier time than you is not something that affects you. There are ways to violate the terms of service that hurt you like hacking your account or hacking in a way that impacts PvP but there are zillions of ways to violate the terms of service that don't hurt you at all.
First. There is no correlation between the TOS and fair play. Just as there is no correlation between obeying the law and doing what is right in the real world. It is possible to break the law without doing wrong and it is possible to break the TOS without doing wrong.
Second. What effects are those? Buying and selling gold certainly doesn't hurt anyone. That part where you grind and work hard for something in the game to earn it and get pissed when I buy it is not you feeling the effects. That is just you being an asshole. My difficulty or lack thereof in acquiring a reward does NOT impact you or have anything to do with how easy or difficult it was for you to obtain the same thing. You need to stop grinding your teeth whenever someone has a better lot than you and start worrying about YOUR fortune.
Perhaps the reason I bought the item/gold was because while you were grinding in the game, I was grinding in the real world earning the money I used to buy said item/gold.
The problem is the grind, not the people violating the TOS. Leveling should be more of an introductory tutorial to the game and your character and should last a couple days. Gold should fall off trees, and everyone should start at maximum skill in tradeskills. As long as parts of the game are work rather than play, I am going to choose alternative methods that let me bypass them. Me doing so, doesn't affect you in the slightest.
'As to your question about income tax, because our typical seller is earning roughly enough to pay for his WoW subscription, we see selling on Sparter as analogous to selling on eBay, putting on a garage sale, or running a great lemonade stand.'
Yes and someone who profits from selling gold is ALREADY required to pay income taxes in accordance with the laws in their jurisdiction. Nobody is concerned about that.
My wife has a number of level 70 characters in wow, they have very valuable epic gear and her characters make and burn through boatloads of gold. She might buy a small amount of starting gold if she wants to start play on a new server (being poor sucks) but otherwise doesn't engage in gold trade.
I don't want to live in a world where my wife is taxed in the real world for being successful in a game. This service turns virtual currency into another form of actual currency. Currently if my wife earns 10,000 gold in a game she isn't taxed because it is funny money. This turns the funny money into currency and when you earn currency you are required to pay income tax on it, this would make earning golds no less taxable than earning any other foreign currency like euros.
Honestly I see no problem with in-game transfers, the point of the game is to get past all forms of grind (including farming) as quickly as possible so that you can get to raids and actual gaming. This lets those who have the means skip the boring grind crap that gets in the way of the gameplay. Honestly, I think the problem is that game publishers fail to act BY REMOVING THE GRIND when they see people buying gold and/or items to avoid said grind.
Almost, it might take longer to mature them but you can grow humans with special traits as well. You would have saved a substantial amount of time if you had bred humans and matured them 6 years and tested this on them in the first place. You could skip all the nonsense and just continue dosing and monitoring for long term trials.
'atheistic'
You say that like it's a bad thing.
'But mice and dogs do have many analogous responses to most things as humans'
And they have just as many responses that are NOT analogous to humans. People are sometimes surprised to discover the veterinary medications are mostly the same ones used for humans. They are handed that analogous responses jazz as the reason but it isn't true. The reason isn't that we share responses, the reason is that the drugs were tested on the animals before us. There are likely many miracle drugs hiding that have no impact on lab animals.
Personally, I fail to see an ethical dilemma in testing on consenting adults. There are an abundance of them in Asia. In fact, if you accept a double consent from both parent and child you might save the lives of many female children in asia... suddenly they could become quite valuable.
'Unfortunatly, there's no much of a solution to that since we can't have people randomly ingesting chemical experiments just to see.'
I fail to see why not, we don't exactly have a people shortage. There is no ethical dillema if the people are willing and informed (or are 6 or less and have a willing guardian, older than that and they may not be coherent enough to say yes but they are definately coherent enough to say no). Personally I recommend trials in Asia. I hear they have something of a population issue there.
'Not to mention that positing a Creator doesn't get you anywhere, since there's no explanation for how the Creator came into being.'
EXACTLY. Unless the creator just always was... and if a being so vast, powerful, and complex that it could have created our universe 'just always was' why couldn't the comparatively simple universe always have been?
Even with the computing power weather would be impossible to calculate. It isn't because of a lack of understanding either. In order to calculate weather you don't just need to know how weather works, you need to have precise data on every variable across the globe and these measurments would need to be taken to a resolution that is simply insane. If you had a fast enough machine, it could even catch up with current weather from that point, but your snapshot would have to be exact and all measurements would have to be taken simultaneously.
THAT is what we can't do. Even if we could mount instrumentation in every square meter of the earth AND its atmosphere to get our current status map and we configured the machine to predict the interactions of those currents we would still be lost. Aside from tracking the output of the sun, the weather system would need to account for ocean currents, tides, bonfires and heating systems, volcanoes, body heat, pig sex, etc.
That is right my friend, every time you pull out and shoot a load on her stomach the weather system would have to take it into account, because the air disturbed might be the first of a chain of complex interactions that leads to a hurricane that devestates louisana... again (because there are actually people so ignorant that they are going to rebuild a city in the same bad location).
Slashdot Mirror
'That's a law that should be more proactive than reactive.'
I fail to see a justification for the law at all, let alone taking additional measures! There are many legitimate reasons to spoof caller ID. For instance, if I configure a voip system in an office I usually configure the system to show the phone number of the main line on caller id, regardless of which line is actually being used to connect. I have now spoofed caller id and this would make that illegal.
How about we just have laws that make using callerid spoofing illegal if it used to commit fraud.... oh wait, we already have laws against using ANY deception to illicit unfair gain.
'claiming you can bench 200 lbs when you can barely press half that is not illegal'
Yup, and its not fraud. Lying and fraud are NOT synonymous. A Fraud is a deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain. Deception in and of itself is neither fraud nor illegal.
'Should impersonating a police officer, identity theft, false advertising and passing fake checks all have the same punishment?'
Ummm... yes? Of course some of those things would be done for the purpose of accomplishing other crimes and that is where additional charges come in. There are also penalty ranges for crimes so that a judge can look at the specific offense. The more severe offenses like false advertising should actually carry multiple charges of fraud.
In any case, any law which makes a tool illegal rather than bad actions performed with the tool is a bad law.
'Caller ID spoofing probably doesn't fall into any existing category of fraud, so this form of fraud can be presently engaged in with impunity.'
That's because caller id spoofing ISN'T fraud it is a harmless deception. If you use that deception to illicit an unfair gain then you have committed fraud and would have committed a criminal act without this law.
Fraud is illegal and there are laws to will send any fraudster to jail. Therefore a law that bans a legitimate function that could be used to facilitate fraud only serves to make otherwise legitimate actions criminal.
Beyond that, I fail to see any significant damage one could perpetrate using caller ID spoofing. The only thing I know of is a cellphone provider that uses a known insecure system (callerid) to authenticate its voicemail system. Here is a thought, make the cell provider fix the system and leave callerid alone.
You seem to be confusing the grinding with the playing that comes after. There is a point where that grinding ends and playing begins.
'number of illegals is about 12 million.'
Excellent, we can just have the ones who did the counting round them up then.
'Calculations (assuming 12-20 million 'illegals,' not including their children that you would also have to deport):
12 million / 300 million = 4% (1 in 25)
20 million / 300 million = 7% (1 in 14)'
Why would we assume 20 million illegals again? For the most part the children are born here, they are citizens. You deport the illegals, not the citizens. Fortunately we have a substantial backlog of parents wanting to adopt.
'I would assume most of those marching are actually legal (the 'illegals' are too scared to draw attention to themselves).'
I wouldn't make that assumption. Illegal aliens aren't cowering in fear in California, they walk the streets openly. Even if we were to accept that 4% of the population is illegal, at least 95% of those are in California. Hell, no small number of them are in LA.
'I would also assume you are not serious about calling for these people to be executed'
All illegal aliens? Of course not. Anyone who walks down the streets of the United States, proclaims loyalty to a foreign state and waves its flag and then proceeds to claim that they will conquer our nation? Absolutely, they should be shot on sight. That is a declaration of war against our culture, our people, and our nation. I couldn't care less if you want to take down our government but the moment you declare your hostility to the actual citizens and our way of life you should be dealt with quickly, efficiently, and without remorse.
Please don't misunderstand. I have nothing against legal immigrants from any nation. I don't have any issues with immigration in general and I certainly have nothing against hispanics. Although I am partial to the hispanic females (I like the skin and eyes, sue me). I also don't believe illegal immigrants should be killed simply for entering the country illegally. I am referring only to traitors who declare war on our people and culture.
I think we need to implement strong border protection methods. I think active deportation needs to be adopted, I think those deported should be printed and marked in a manner that is clearly visible in any encounter. Of course anyone in the country illegally should be barred from returning if caught. Anyone applying for employment, public services, trying to open a bank account, etc should be printed and prints submitted for a check against the deportee database (afterwards all prints taken should be destroyed to protect the rights of innocent citizens).
I also think we should grant the mexican government substantial relief aid with stipulations. The more mexican illegals we find, the less they get. We should also strongly encourage them to enact criminal penalties for those who are turned over to them by our authorities. Another requirement would be a formal declaration by the government of Mexico that it releases any claims on the territory of California.
Last (as in after doing all of the above) I think we should start a healthy immigration program for Mexicans. This program should include mandatory classes and testing. First and foremost anyone immigrating to the United States must learn english with a reasonable degree of proficiency. Mexicans should be familiarized with our labor laws and minimum wage requirements. They should also be instructed on TYPICAL wages for a variety of jobs and education requirements. Finally, after all is approved, tests passed and two oaths, one disavowing any allegence or association with their former nation and another swearing loyalty to the people and the constitution of the united states (as well as to use only the american english language in public); at this point they should be bussed into the United States.
These immigrants should be bussed in a manner that scatters them all over the United States. This prevents the kind of pocket communities and ghettos that have prevented immigrants from fully integrating with our society and culture in the past. This is particularly important if we are ever to allow large numbers to immigrate from Mexico since their culture could quickly begin to dominate our own rather than the immigrants integrating and our culture absorbing the best of what the Mexicans bring with them.
'With due respect, I have to disagree. If a project or vendor takes security seriously, they'll design the software so that it has zero security bugs.'
With due respect that is impossible. In fact, it is impossible to ever find all the security bugs in a program of any complexity.
'However, people designing control systems for airplanes, hospital medical equipment used in lifesaving situations, and so forth, actually do a fair job of delivering software which has zero security issues.'
No, they do a fair job of delivering software that recieves no substantial examination for security issues.
'This level of quality isn't undoable for more widely used general-purpose software-- some of DJB's software has close to a perfect security record, for example'
In every vulnerability discussion you have a DJB proponent speak up. There are flaws with the DJB claims but I won't go into them specifically. It's been done before, it will be done again, and it serves no purpose.
All the perfect and near perfect security records you have mentioned have the same fundemental problem. None of them have been informed of or patched the critical remotely exploitable vulnerability I discovered and have been using since two weeks after their software was released. I have not informed them or posted it on any hacking boards because... wait for it... I'M NOT AN IDIOT.
I think this hypothetical scenerio happens more than the reported vulnerabilities.
'close to being "bug free" or "secure"....'
There is no such thing as bug free or secure. They are myths, the best you can hope for bugs that are difficult to exploit and obscure.
You might have a claim if you said 1 in every 20 people were hispanic but most hispanics are legal. We are talking about the illegal immigrants. Fortunately, most illegals are hispanic and they are mostly concentrated in certain areas.
At this rate, we can actually just wait for them to form another march. It is unfortunate that they marched in Cali though. If they had marched in Florida then concealed carry weapons holders could have opened fire. It is legal for you to use your weapon to stop felonies and treason is on the list. If waving a mexican flag and proclaiming that you are going to take over our country isn't treason I can't imagine what is.
I know I know, Mexican's believe california is rightfully part of mexico and belongs to them. That is treason too. AFAIK its the only federal crime that demands the death penalty. These people should consider themselves lucky if we only deport them.
It doesn't matter if the vulnerability counts are vendor acknowledged or third party. Vulnerability counts only tell you how many flaws were found and fixed. There is no particular reason to belive this correlates to how many were found and exploited by 'the bad guys'.
It's flimsy but I suppose you could say that recognizing reported flaws and patching them quickly shows a project or vendor takes security seriously but that is all these vulnerability reports are good for. You could say that more reported vulnerabilities means that a program became that much more secure but even that is dubious. And of course it goes without saying that claiming a program is more secure because it had fewer vulnerabilities reported defies all logic.
'stop selling Windows on their computers? Not going to happen.'
They will if they are smart. Remember, we aren't talking about a minor element in the windows empire. The major PC vendors ARE the pillars the hold the empire up. Dell and HP only need a viable operating system, there is no particular reason it needs to be windows.
'once established as basically the only operating system vendor for PCs, Microsoft can then branch off into selling PCs, and capturing even more profits.'
And that is exactly what will happen. Microsoft won't simply branch though, they chose a company that produces actual hardware, not a company that assembles PC's. The reason is obvious, Microsoft will do what they always do. PC's are basically a collection of standards, some published, some de facto. It works out because none of the vendors can add operating system support for something that the other vendors can't use. It has remained in Microsoft's interest not to give that kind of edge to a single vendor while alienating the others. But what happens when the vendor who wants a proprietary edge is Microsoft?
'There is really no reason why not, except potential antitrust litigation (but that seems less of a bother for them, recently).'
Unfortunately the vendors probably won't grow balls. The real story is that if Dell and HP stopped selling windows tomorrow, neither would stop selling PC's. Both have a massive mindshare that is as large as Microsoft's if not larger. I'd say larger, most people know they have a dell or a compaq and have no clue what operating system they run.
'Why? Why should the game stop at a point that you choose?'
The game doesn't stop at the point I choose, the game STARTS at the point I defined. Skilling up in tradeskills, camping and grinding to raise gold for an epic mount, etc are all comparable to distributing armies and setting up the board before you can play a game of risk.
At the endgame portion (the real game) everyone is of roughly equal power, everyone is maxed in their tradeskill and abilities. Everything before that is just setting up the board so you can play the actual game that starts at that point.
'Because its a game and is supposed to reward skill and effort??'
Skill yes, effort is supposed to be built in. The more effort you expend the more skillful you can become. Grinding comes into play when the game implements some repetative task that you must spend hours performing and that essentially requires no skill.
'Seriously, you must be some kind of sociopath not to understand how cheating at games is morally wrong.'
Actually you must be right. I don't believe in either innate morality or innate wrongness. I also don't see how any action that doesn't give an edge over another player is cheating. Using programs like vent and websites with details on quests gives you an advantage in gameplay over other players and would certainly meet my definition of cheating but most of the same people whining about a purchased epic mount are happy to cheat in those ways.
'Let's play chess and allow some noob to buy his way to grand master.'
I fail to see why a grand master would care what people call the noob. It isn't as if they are going to stop having respect for his abilities and it isn't as if the noob is going to miraculously be able to compete with the grand master. After all, it is supposed to be about enjoying chess, not about earning titles or trophies.
'Would there still be a point to the game?'
Of course there would. At least as long as you don't put words in my mouth and setup a strawman. I never claimed rampant cheating of any sort wouldn't be bad for everyone and impact their gameplay. So saying that rampant cheating would do is a stawman argument. We aren't talking about rampant cheating of any kind, we are talking about activities that give no final advantage in the game over other players and gold transfers in particular.
So in that world it goes like this. We are friends. You have more time than money, I have more money than time. The result is that I only play a couple hours a week but I pay you to play my character along with yours. Our characters more or less advance at an equal pace, you have money to feed your kids, and when I play I have a character that is on par with everyone else so I can enjoy the game. When things like mounts come up and so forth, again, I pay you to do the grinding. I play enough to experience my character and learn how to play and to have realized that all quests are just reworded variations of the same handful of quests.
Now we are both lvl 70, we both know how to play our characters, we are both equiped. You have a little more money than you would have and I get to play the actual game that comes after all the grinding. Ahead of me is countless hours of enjoyment spent solving puzzles, working in massive efforts to defeat bosses and gain rare treasures. If I am good I can get a guild that doesn't punish infrequent players and if I can only spend one night a week playing, I get the same level of enjoyment during that time as everyone else. Your reward for playing for 7 nights where I only play one? That's easy, you get seven nights worth of enjoyment compared to my one. It isn't a job the time you spend on the game isn't an investment, it is supposed to the part you are enjoying. You aren't entitled to something more simply because you had fun for 8 hrs and I only had fun for 2.
'why don't they just start you at lvl 70 and fully keyed, and then you just head off to instances.'
Because you have to learn how to play the game and your character. That is why I suggested shortening the process to a couple days worth of playing.
'the top without earning it'
Of course they do. This is a game not a job. Let's leave the 'earning' part at the office and skip right to playing like we do with other games.
'It's very open-ended as to what "grind" is. Different for everyone.'
Sure, there are some people who enjoy having a job and working as well. The fact is that the current system only caters to those with your idea of grinding where a system that allowed transfers would cater to everyone. Hate leveling? Buy a 70. Hate farming (and most farmers are regular players, not bots or sweat shops) then buy the gold for your epic mount instead of farming it yourself.
I played the first real MMORPG, Sierra's 'The Realm', long before EQ was a twinkle in anyone's eye. There was no gold trade to speak of. Everything was still camped, the economy was still always inflated, people still macro'd, people still hacked and duped, etc. These games are built around the concept of grinding for gain. The idea of genuine challenges and puzzles was removed long ago (although it is present to small degree in WOW when teams try to devise the solutions to slaying bosses on raids) and replaced with repetative tasks that anyone could complete but if you spend days and days performing these repetative tasks that are all essentially the same you can achieve any end in the game.
Real money transfers don't hurt the game, they just give people something else to blame for the same old problems. Someone camping your spot? Must be a sweat shop farmer. Join a pickup ground and get someone who speaks poor english? Damn gold farmers. Couldn't be one of the many non-english speakers who play on US servers but don't farm gold. And the camper couldn't be one of the MILLIONS of legitimate players farming for one of the many things the game forces you to farm to gain eh?
Stop and think about it a minute. In a game like WoW, when would you buy gold? When you need gold. If you don't have the gold but you need the gold, then how are you going to get said gold? You are going go farm it at the most profitable spot you can think of. If you buy it from a gold shop, how did they get it? They farmed it and probably managed to get it with LESS farming than it would have taken you, thus less camping. If the only time a farmer can make a sale is when you would have needed to farm anyway the net effect is the same or less farming than if the players were doing it themselves.
'forms the basis of their economics'
Nonsense, Dell and HP are in the business of selling computers. Linux is a very viable computer operating system. What would happen if Dell and HP/Compaq stopped offering windows based PC's tomorrow and only offered Linux based PC's? People wouldn't stop buying PC's, 3 months from now I doubt Dell and HP would be behind, actually their sales would probably be higher. Windows sales on the other hand would plummet. Microsoft needs hardware manufacturers to pre-load their operating system in order to maintain their monopoly. Hardware manufacturers just need a viable and feature rich operating system.
That might be extreme but a firm clean break is the best way to break the Microsoft monopoly and that is only change PC vendors have.
'Even if Microsoft were successful, it wouldn't mean that EVERYONE would jump to buying from Microsoft.'
Yes it would. Microsoft has utilized the same general business philosophies since its inception and there no reason to believe their ideas have changed. It starts with distributing commodity PC's, the next step is propertary hardware functionality with built in windows support (partnering with Zenith suggests this since Zenith is traditionally a company that designs hardware, not a PC vendor). All the sudden PC manufacturers who have always utilized industry standards and have no infrastructure to add comparable hardware functionality are struggling. I'm confident the microsoft marketing machine will come up with something, it doesn't have to be especially difficult but it does have to be very visible to the end user.
Now, you need windows to fully take advantage of Microsoft computers and you need Microsoft computers to fully take advantage of windows. Unless vendors made a firm break like I suggested they now have higher priced (because of the windows tax) pc's that do less IN THE EYES OF THE CONSUMER. If Microsoft doesn't storm the market they will at the very least make steep inroads and do so at the expense of their biggest partner.
Just goes to show what ultimately comes of partnering with Microsoft.
'Microsoft would not hamstring their own OS because they could never hope to compete with the output capability of Dell, et al.'
Why not? They may not have the infrastructure or... the asian division of Microsoft (or their new partner zenith that nobody was watching) could have already built it. Either way, a PC assembly line isn't exactly that miraculous. Get a pallet of each widget, a conveyor belt, and a couple asian laborers at each station. A rack setup to clone harddrives. Rubber stamp them until you have filled a warehouse the size of an airplane hanger. By the time you get permits, supply lines (all of which would come from companies microsoft already works closely with btw), hiring, and shipping taken care of; all done with a spare no expense attitude, you could blitzkreig it in a couple months.
'Microsoft wants their OS to run EVERYWHERE.'
That's the bright idea yes, the one has gotten Microsoft to where they are today. It is the opposite of the Apple and Sun concept (which is what my post was about). If Microsoft makes any serious move in this direction they are on dangerous ground. Any PC vendor would have to be insane to let windows be a cornerstone produce in their business if Microsoft is positioning themselves as a competitor.
'Why compete for the low-end? Dell and HP have no business trying to sell $400 and $500 PCs.'
Dell and HP sell $400-$500 PC's like hot cakes. Why would they have no business doing so? Nobody sells any quantity of $900+ systems without mindshare and nobody gets mindshare without selling to the average joe. The average joe buys $400-$500 PC's, not $900+ PC's. Besides that, Dell and HP are by definition commodity PC vendors, they always have been. You can't buy a ferrari computer from either vendor and you never could. Actually Dell and HP ARE the low end and they are proof of why the low end is definately something you should chase. You
'It creates real world economies that produce hordes of third-world sweat shops farming in areas where I'd like to just be enjoying myself with other gamers. Farmers suck.'
It creates real world economies that produce IMAGINARY hordes of third-world sweat shops. First, for every commercial gold farmer you encounter, you imagined you encounter fifty. The same is true of spots that are camped. 99.9999% of campers are regular players. Most farming is done by regular players who are trying to rack up enough gold to purchase an epic mount or just to cover the outrageous costs of repair in raids. As for the sweat shop, enough with your feigned indignation; gold farmers earn a pitiance HERE but that pitiance is a comfortable wage in their local economy. Personally I think they are irrelevant but if you really want to bring the moral impact of those workers into the situation then I think we have to look at the real situation. These people have what are good paying jobs and you want to take those jobs away.
'These things would be a rarity if not for real world value driving them.'
Maybe you have never played an MMORPG without any mentionable real world market for items and accounts. I have. Everything is still camped all the time, drops are a pain in the ass, there are players who will camp a spot and take a needed drop for no other reason than to screw up your game. 'Honest' players farming for 'legitimate' reasons are vast hordes that swallow any impact actual farmers have to nothing.
'I want everyone else to obey the rules as well.'
What do you care? If my actions don't have a negative effect on you then why do you want to have a negative effect on the way I want to play MY game?
'If you have more gold than I do, I don't want it to be because your mommy gives you a nice cash allowance.'
Why? What's it to you?
'I want it to be because you're all pasty faced from a lack of sunlight because you put the time in on the game.'
I don't really see a need to touch that one.
'The shittiest part, though, is the constant reminder that you can't even be allowed to agree with a group of folks on how to play a god damned game without cheating -- then go enjoy yourself.'
I fail to see why not? You go enjoy yourself, its as simple as choosing not to have your enjoyment be contingent upon how others are enjoying themselves.
'hose your enjoyment doing things to you and your GAME'
You still haven't come up with the part where someone is doing something to you. All you have established is that you are annoyed that someone else is having fun in a different way. Is it just that they aren't following the TOS? Would you suddenly be okay with gold trading if the TOS were changed?
'I don't enjoy playing tennis with losers who cheat.'
I would if the 'cheating' were comparable. Personally I don't consider anything that doesn't provide someone with a practical bottom line advantage over other players to be cheating. Your argument reminds me of boot camp in the military. You could get these wipes in the shop that you run over your boots and they would gleam but they were banned. They forced you to polish your boots the old fashioned way. They considered using the wipes to be cheating. Was there anything wrong with using wipes? No. Would I have been upset if someone managed to score and use the wipes? Of course not, I'm not a jealous asshole out to spoil it for everyone else. Besides the blame for the problem with the wipes wouldn't fall on the people who managed to get away with using them despite the rules, the blame falls on the ones who are making the bad rules.
'It affects me because I know about it.'
That is a choice. It doesn't affect you in any material way (in a real or virtual way). Especially on a game like WOW where there is no PvP worth mentioning and no consequence to PvP.
'Why should I enjoy sharing a game world with cheaters?'
Why should you care?
'Rationalize all you want with "I work hard out of the ga
'Sun and Apple have made quite a good bit of business with this model. I am more surprised that Microsoft did not try this years ago.'
I'm not, Microsoft's profits have dwarfed those of Sun and Apple combined and have relied on NOT doing this. Don't you think Microsoft selling PC's without paying themselves any licensing costs is going to have the likes of Dell and HP jumping the Microsoft ship faster than you can blink?
You would have to be crazy to promote windows when Microsoft has an inside edge on windows that assures nobody will have a computer that runs as well as those from Microsoft. Microsoft can do anything they want, including intentionally altering windows in ways that will cause it to misbehave on competitor hardware. This is a conflict of interest so glaring that is insane.
MS might get away with India... or not if the hardware companies are bright. But if MS takes this very far you will see a great deal more HP and Dell support for Linux and customization of Linux to work perfectly with their own hardware.
In what way? Someone having an easier time than you is not something that affects you. There are ways to violate the terms of service that hurt you like hacking your account or hacking in a way that impacts PvP but there are zillions of ways to violate the terms of service that don't hurt you at all.
First. There is no correlation between the TOS and fair play. Just as there is no correlation between obeying the law and doing what is right in the real world. It is possible to break the law without doing wrong and it is possible to break the TOS without doing wrong.
Second. What effects are those? Buying and selling gold certainly doesn't hurt anyone. That part where you grind and work hard for something in the game to earn it and get pissed when I buy it is not you feeling the effects. That is just you being an asshole. My difficulty or lack thereof in acquiring a reward does NOT impact you or have anything to do with how easy or difficult it was for you to obtain the same thing. You need to stop grinding your teeth whenever someone has a better lot than you and start worrying about YOUR fortune.
Perhaps the reason I bought the item/gold was because while you were grinding in the game, I was grinding in the real world earning the money I used to buy said item/gold.
The problem is the grind, not the people violating the TOS. Leveling should be more of an introductory tutorial to the game and your character and should last a couple days. Gold should fall off trees, and everyone should start at maximum skill in tradeskills. As long as parts of the game are work rather than play, I am going to choose alternative methods that let me bypass them. Me doing so, doesn't affect you in the slightest.
'As to your question about income tax, because our typical seller is earning roughly enough to pay for his WoW subscription, we see selling on Sparter as analogous to selling on eBay, putting on a garage sale, or running a great lemonade stand.'
Yes and someone who profits from selling gold is ALREADY required to pay income taxes in accordance with the laws in their jurisdiction. Nobody is concerned about that.
My wife has a number of level 70 characters in wow, they have very valuable epic gear and her characters make and burn through boatloads of gold. She might buy a small amount of starting gold if she wants to start play on a new server (being poor sucks) but otherwise doesn't engage in gold trade.
I don't want to live in a world where my wife is taxed in the real world for being successful in a game. This service turns virtual currency into another form of actual currency. Currently if my wife earns 10,000 gold in a game she isn't taxed because it is funny money. This turns the funny money into currency and when you earn currency you are required to pay income tax on it, this would make earning golds no less taxable than earning any other foreign currency like euros.
Honestly I see no problem with in-game transfers, the point of the game is to get past all forms of grind (including farming) as quickly as possible so that you can get to raids and actual gaming. This lets those who have the means skip the boring grind crap that gets in the way of the gameplay. Honestly, I think the problem is that game publishers fail to act BY REMOVING THE GRIND when they see people buying gold and/or items to avoid said grind.
'Just seems like more people and more people want to make a buck no matter who they trample over.'
Last I checked violated the TOS doesn't trample anyone in and of itself.
'None of which are possible with humans'
Almost, it might take longer to mature them but you can grow humans with special traits as well. You would have saved a substantial amount of time if you had bred humans and matured them 6 years and tested this on them in the first place. You could skip all the nonsense and just continue dosing and monitoring for long term trials.
'atheistic'
You say that like it's a bad thing.
'But mice and dogs do have many analogous responses to most things as humans'
And they have just as many responses that are NOT analogous to humans. People are sometimes surprised to discover the veterinary medications are mostly the same ones used for humans. They are handed that analogous responses jazz as the reason but it isn't true. The reason isn't that we share responses, the reason is that the drugs were tested on the animals before us. There are likely many miracle drugs hiding that have no impact on lab animals.
Personally, I fail to see an ethical dilemma in testing on consenting adults. There are an abundance of them in Asia. In fact, if you accept a double consent from both parent and child you might save the lives of many female children in asia... suddenly they could become quite valuable.
'Unfortunatly, there's no much of a solution to that since we can't have people randomly ingesting chemical experiments just to see.'
I fail to see why not, we don't exactly have a people shortage. There is no ethical dillema if the people are willing and informed (or are 6 or less and have a willing guardian, older than that and they may not be coherent enough to say yes but they are definately coherent enough to say no). Personally I recommend trials in Asia. I hear they have something of a population issue there.
Here is a tip, pay them.
'Not to mention that positing a Creator doesn't get you anywhere, since there's no explanation for how the Creator came into being.'
EXACTLY. Unless the creator just always was... and if a being so vast, powerful, and complex that it could have created our universe 'just always was' why couldn't the comparatively simple universe always have been?
'Linux does not have the ability to replicate itself without human intervention'
;)
Neither do humans.
Just thought I'd point that little detail out.
P.S. On a less knee-jerk note rapidly evolving viruses actually can't self-replicate either, they need a host cell.
Even with the computing power weather would be impossible to calculate. It isn't because of a lack of understanding either. In order to calculate weather you don't just need to know how weather works, you need to have precise data on every variable across the globe and these measurments would need to be taken to a resolution that is simply insane. If you had a fast enough machine, it could even catch up with current weather from that point, but your snapshot would have to be exact and all measurements would have to be taken simultaneously.
THAT is what we can't do. Even if we could mount instrumentation in every square meter of the earth AND its atmosphere to get our current status map and we configured the machine to predict the interactions of those currents we would still be lost. Aside from tracking the output of the sun, the weather system would need to account for ocean currents, tides, bonfires and heating systems, volcanoes, body heat, pig sex, etc.
That is right my friend, every time you pull out and shoot a load on her stomach the weather system would have to take it into account, because the air disturbed might be the first of a chain of complex interactions that leads to a hurricane that devestates louisana... again (because there are actually people so ignorant that they are going to rebuild a city in the same bad location).