I actually noticed the spelling and wasn't familiar with it. I glazed over it as perhaps a mobile device auto-complete error or perhaps a non-native English speaker, either way not really caring. But after seeing this response I just looked it up and learned something new. Thanks!
Your mistake is that you think atheists declare there is proof there is no god, they never will, in essence agnostics are just 'politically correct' atheists.
I've actually heard self-proclaimed atheists make such a claim. I generally shrug it off and think of it as no different than self-proclaimed Christians saying/doing very anti-Christian things. (That is not to say that one much be perfect to be a Christian, but to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what Christianity is makes the claim a bit disingenuous.)
The last time I heard such a statement was somebody saying, "Science has disproven the existence of God." To which I naturally replied, "Really? What test was performed?" We then got into a short debate on the scientific method. Turns out this particular atheist was just some random blow-hard who wanted his passing whim of an opinion to be heard. I guess religious groups aren't the only ones with zealous outlying cultists who make the rest of them look bad.
There are definitely different "flavors" of atheists out there. There are those who do not believe in God, and there are those who firmly believe in no God. Many of my friends sit comfortably in the former category. Those in the latter category have an admirable amount of faith, even if they deny having it. Much like people who do believe in God (or any god), it's the few who leave us with a sour feeling about the subject whom we remember most, unfortunately.
I thought about this a long time ago, actually. It always bugged the crap out of me that they spent much of the third movie driving to the point that the time machine is a terrible thing and must be destroyed before it tears the universe a new one. At the end of the movie this is accomplished splendidly, only to immediately find that Doc Brown has created a new one.
Instead of a fourth movie, I propose a short series. The story is that Marty realizes that Doc Brown must be stopped, so he teams up with the other paradox Martys and they use the various paradox leftover Deloreans to hunt Doc Brown through time. More paradoxes create more people and equipment to replenish what will inevitably be terrible losses in this war.
The series would be terrible, and I would _love_ it.
By your logic we can reduce the effect of the fine by having them pay it in 50-kroner notes. That way they only have to pay 40 of them instead of 2,000 of them. 40 is less, so it's not as big a deal.
Given a large enough sample set, even the least likely of occurrences becomes highly probable. The universe and several billion years make up a pretty large sample set.
Fair enough. I guess in keeping with the parent post it's more a question of the psychological definition of being "suicidal" rather than the definition of the word suicide. The former may have more of a psychological medical definition than the latter. And even then there would be a lot of interpretation involved in the evaluation of the patient.
The net result is the same. The recipient of the heart, and their loved ones, will be forever grateful. The guy's true motives are between him and any god he believes in.
I wouldn't say "willingly inviting death" but I see the point you're making.
I'm reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H where a soldier was brain-dead due to too much shrapnel turning his head to swiss cheese. The doctors were waiting for his body to fully die (all other functions were still going, but slowly fading) because they needed to harvest some tissue to save someone else. The soldier's friend, recovering from his own injuries, was upset that they were just waiting like vultures to butcher his friend.
The priest asked him if his friend was the kind of guy who would jump on a grenade to save his buddies. The soldier responded that, yes, his dying friend would have done that without a second thought. "Well," the priest said, "that's what he's doing right now." He died back on the battlefield, the rest of his body just hasn't figured it out yet.
This guy is facing a similar decision, he just wants to make it himself while he can before someone else has to make it for him.
Accepting the inevitability of death isn't exactly the same as being suicidal. We all know we're going to die, most of us just ignore that fact in our daily lives. But when someone is directly facing that reality they may choose to want to make it "mean something" as in this guy's case.
"Suicidal" means wanting to die. I doubt this guy wants to die, but he does want his inevitable death to mean something to someone.
Define "private." There's nothing private about the fact that a person has friends and socializes with those friends. Why should such information be treated as some kind of top-secret embarrassment that must be hidden at all times?
If I were hiring for such a company, I'd be a little suspicious of a candidate who never tells anything to anyone. (Consider how conspicuous and ineffective an "intelligence agent" Colonel Flagg was in the M*A*S*H serious.) They probably favor the candidate who can tell the difference between "something which should be kept secret" and "something which doesn't matter and can be public knowledge." (And, God willing, "something which should be public knowledge, but that's another case entirely.)
the self-righteous goody-goody people in our society who never drink, never screw, never do anything wrong at all
Man, if only that were the case. Then they would be nothing more than an evolutionary anomaly that would take exactly one generation to correct.
Re:Learning Without a Negative Response?
on
The End of Forgetting
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
So don't put your dirty laundry on the internet.
The key problem here is that, in cases such as the given example, it's not dirty laundry. The social issue at hand isn't so much the retention of information, but the ability (or, in this case, inability) of people in society to properly parse and understand that information.
A company would seriously be fooling itself if it thinks it preserved some kind of integrity by not hiring someone who occasionally unwinds with friends at a party. They already have employees who do that, they just ignore the fact that they don't actively know about it. The fact that they can't distinguish between the two is a problem.
Slashdot doesn't filter them out very effectively, it's forever plagued by them. What it does have is ways for knowledgeable users (it's entire userbase) to reduce the noise and bring out the signal, all the while knowing full well what trolls are and how to ignore them. A local newspaper has a much smaller and much less savvy audience and needs to actually filter it out somehow, which can be exceedingly difficult if even possible at all.
The computer is just a tool. I'd think it has no direct effect on education whatsoever. Smart kids with supportive parents will gain a great deal from having a computer. Dumb kids with dumber parents will spend hours on Youtube, twitter etc and learn nothing of consequence.
Exactly. If the parents are buying the computer as a teacher in the same sense that they bought the TV as a babysitter then they're doing it wrong. Kids who want to learn and grow will see it as a tool to help them perform that task, whereas kids who want to play Farmville and watch YouTube will see it as a tool to help them perform _that_ task.
Perhaps the presence of the computer in the home strengthens the divide, but the divide has already been there. The student has to want to learn. There are exceptions, but generally (at least in American culture) low-income households and neighborhoods don't place a very high social value on education, and kids pick up on that at a much earlier age than a home PC can affect.
The threat of violence is much closer to "violent" than "non-violent." If one believes that the person asking for (or demanding, in your example) money has a firearm, compliance with their demands would probably be the wise choice. I would, however, characterize a willingness to give money to anybody who calls me on the phone as an unwise choice.
My thoughts exactly. If Facebook is stronger than your religion, then your religion could use a little strengthening. It reminds me of when a guy at a church I used to attend said that he saw The Da Vinci Code in the theater and it "challenged his faith." I suggested that he challenge his faith more often, it could really use the exercise.
My thoughts exactly. I don't think they put quite the effort into the first iPad that they really could have because its success on the market was so questionable. The device was a risk to say the least. But the sales numbers speak for themselves at this point and it's probably proven to be worth more investment from Apple.
Speaking for myself, I don't see the iPad really justifying its price tag right now. That's just speaking in terms of my own gadget budget and gadget needs. But I'm definitely counting on future releases to make product a _lot_ better. Maybe the next one will be worth the $600 or so. And/or maybe the release of the next one will drive down the prices of the legacy one if there's such a gap in the specs. It's all just speculation of course, but I'd be willing to bet money that the next iPad will be pretty awesome (for definitions of awesome which fit within the iDevice ecosystem, so the average Slashdotter can apply their own metrics there).
I'm not an expert on this by any means, but here's my two cents...
Try not to think of it in terms of light trying to escape in a straight line and just not being strong enough to do it. Instead, think of the straight line as not being straight. Gravity wells curve space-time (a Google Images search for "spacetime" will yield some familiar diagrams of spheres resting on a fabric), and the event horizon of a singulatiry is the point in that curvature where it's so "steep" that it curves back in upon itself. This is difficult to show in the aforementioned diagrams, because it's less about the picture and more about the math behind it.
Basically, from behind the event horizon it's impossible to escape not because you don't have enough force to get away but because all paths lead back to the singularity.
If somebody with more knowledge/expertise on the subject can correct/elaborate, please do.
Your logic is broken. I presume neither party would like bin Laden, but I don't think that would make him a good nomination.
Granted, I could have elaborated more. But I assumed any reader would know what I meant.
Have you heard why people don't like her?
And how much of that was actually her? Or how much of it was her job as Solicitor General? It's a far cry from arguing the position of one's employer to actually holding one's own position on such matters.
It always sounds like a good choice when neither side is happy with the possibilities.
That's a refreshing bit for me right there. I'll admit that I don't follow politics much and don't really know anything about this person. But if neither dominant party thinks she's toeing the line enough then that's _exactly_ the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.
Agreed. Just deliver the product you sold me, that's all.
My main concern whenever I hear of these caps is, what about bandwidth I can't control? Does it count against me if someone DDOSes me? (A site I was hosting for development purposes was once DDOSed by Google's crawler for a few days, that burns through a few gigs no problem.) Does it count against me when the next big worm hits and I'm getting hit with useless requests? (Remember Nimda? I was on an early cable connection with AT&T and my Apache logs were showing about 10-20 Nimda requests per second for nearly a week, some of which were from AT&T's own servers.) Will software updates (Windows Update, virus scanner updates, and any number of patches and new versions of various software packages) count against me? After all, keeping software up to date is a vital step in preventing malicious software from running amok on the network and consuming bandwidth.
If they want to keep me as a customer, they best be prepared to answer these questions. The DSL in my area is actually pretty competative with Time Warner, and competition from the likes of Verizon are looming in the distance.
It's maybe half the pixils of a 30-inch cinema display (be it Apple's or someone else's). DVI connections can handle plenty more than that, and there is no shortage of video cards that can do it. Cute toy, but hardly super-high-res.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually noticed the spelling and wasn't familiar with it. I glazed over it as perhaps a mobile device auto-complete error or perhaps a non-native English speaker, either way not really caring. But after seeing this response I just looked it up and learned something new. Thanks!
Your mistake is that you think atheists declare there is proof there is no god, they never will, in essence agnostics are just 'politically correct' atheists.
I've actually heard self-proclaimed atheists make such a claim. I generally shrug it off and think of it as no different than self-proclaimed Christians saying/doing very anti-Christian things. (That is not to say that one much be perfect to be a Christian, but to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what Christianity is makes the claim a bit disingenuous.)
The last time I heard such a statement was somebody saying, "Science has disproven the existence of God." To which I naturally replied, "Really? What test was performed?" We then got into a short debate on the scientific method. Turns out this particular atheist was just some random blow-hard who wanted his passing whim of an opinion to be heard. I guess religious groups aren't the only ones with zealous outlying cultists who make the rest of them look bad.
There are definitely different "flavors" of atheists out there. There are those who do not believe in God, and there are those who firmly believe in no God. Many of my friends sit comfortably in the former category. Those in the latter category have an admirable amount of faith, even if they deny having it. Much like people who do believe in God (or any god), it's the few who leave us with a sour feeling about the subject whom we remember most, unfortunately.
I thought about this a long time ago, actually. It always bugged the crap out of me that they spent much of the third movie driving to the point that the time machine is a terrible thing and must be destroyed before it tears the universe a new one. At the end of the movie this is accomplished splendidly, only to immediately find that Doc Brown has created a new one.
Instead of a fourth movie, I propose a short series. The story is that Marty realizes that Doc Brown must be stopped, so he teams up with the other paradox Martys and they use the various paradox leftover Deloreans to hunt Doc Brown through time. More paradoxes create more people and equipment to replenish what will inevitably be terrible losses in this war.
The series would be terrible, and I would _love_ it.
I do.
I really don't think you do.
By your logic we can reduce the effect of the fine by having them pay it in 50-kroner notes. That way they only have to pay 40 of them instead of 2,000 of them. 40 is less, so it's not as big a deal.
with a series of infinitely improbable
Given a large enough sample set, even the least likely of occurrences becomes highly probable. The universe and several billion years make up a pretty large sample set.
Maybe Ken Burns will revisit that period of the galactic history and we'll get a more neutral viewpoint of the conflict.
Depending on how long ago and how far away, we might be getting a neutral viewpoint of it right now.
it means intentionally taking your own life
Fair enough. I guess in keeping with the parent post it's more a question of the psychological definition of being "suicidal" rather than the definition of the word suicide. The former may have more of a psychological medical definition than the latter. And even then there would be a lot of interpretation involved in the evaluation of the patient.
The net result is the same. The recipient of the heart, and their loved ones, will be forever grateful. The guy's true motives are between him and any god he believes in.
I wouldn't say "willingly inviting death" but I see the point you're making.
I'm reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H where a soldier was brain-dead due to too much shrapnel turning his head to swiss cheese. The doctors were waiting for his body to fully die (all other functions were still going, but slowly fading) because they needed to harvest some tissue to save someone else. The soldier's friend, recovering from his own injuries, was upset that they were just waiting like vultures to butcher his friend.
The priest asked him if his friend was the kind of guy who would jump on a grenade to save his buddies. The soldier responded that, yes, his dying friend would have done that without a second thought. "Well," the priest said, "that's what he's doing right now." He died back on the battlefield, the rest of his body just hasn't figured it out yet.
This guy is facing a similar decision, he just wants to make it himself while he can before someone else has to make it for him.
Accepting the inevitability of death isn't exactly the same as being suicidal. We all know we're going to die, most of us just ignore that fact in our daily lives. But when someone is directly facing that reality they may choose to want to make it "mean something" as in this guy's case.
"Suicidal" means wanting to die. I doubt this guy wants to die, but he does want his inevitable death to mean something to someone.
Define "private." There's nothing private about the fact that a person has friends and socializes with those friends. Why should such information be treated as some kind of top-secret embarrassment that must be hidden at all times?
If I were hiring for such a company, I'd be a little suspicious of a candidate who never tells anything to anyone. (Consider how conspicuous and ineffective an "intelligence agent" Colonel Flagg was in the M*A*S*H serious.) They probably favor the candidate who can tell the difference between "something which should be kept secret" and "something which doesn't matter and can be public knowledge." (And, God willing, "something which should be public knowledge, but that's another case entirely.)
the self-righteous goody-goody people in our society who never drink, never screw, never do anything wrong at all
Man, if only that were the case. Then they would be nothing more than an evolutionary anomaly that would take exactly one generation to correct.
So don't put your dirty laundry on the internet.
The key problem here is that, in cases such as the given example, it's not dirty laundry. The social issue at hand isn't so much the retention of information, but the ability (or, in this case, inability) of people in society to properly parse and understand that information. A company would seriously be fooling itself if it thinks it preserved some kind of integrity by not hiring someone who occasionally unwinds with friends at a party. They already have employees who do that, they just ignore the fact that they don't actively know about it. The fact that they can't distinguish between the two is a problem.
Slashdot doesn't filter them out very effectively, it's forever plagued by them. What it does have is ways for knowledgeable users (it's entire userbase) to reduce the noise and bring out the signal, all the while knowing full well what trolls are and how to ignore them. A local newspaper has a much smaller and much less savvy audience and needs to actually filter it out somehow, which can be exceedingly difficult if even possible at all.
The computer is just a tool. I'd think it has no direct effect on education whatsoever. Smart kids with supportive parents will gain a great deal from having a computer. Dumb kids with dumber parents will spend hours on Youtube, twitter etc and learn nothing of consequence.
Exactly. If the parents are buying the computer as a teacher in the same sense that they bought the TV as a babysitter then they're doing it wrong. Kids who want to learn and grow will see it as a tool to help them perform that task, whereas kids who want to play Farmville and watch YouTube will see it as a tool to help them perform _that_ task. Perhaps the presence of the computer in the home strengthens the divide, but the divide has already been there. The student has to want to learn. There are exceptions, but generally (at least in American culture) low-income households and neighborhoods don't place a very high social value on education, and kids pick up on that at a much earlier age than a home PC can affect.
So does robbing somebody with an unloaded gun.
The threat of violence is much closer to "violent" than "non-violent." If one believes that the person asking for (or demanding, in your example) money has a firearm, compliance with their demands would probably be the wise choice. I would, however, characterize a willingness to give money to anybody who calls me on the phone as an unwise choice.
My thoughts exactly. If Facebook is stronger than your religion, then your religion could use a little strengthening. It reminds me of when a guy at a church I used to attend said that he saw The Da Vinci Code in the theater and it "challenged his faith." I suggested that he challenge his faith more often, it could really use the exercise.
My thoughts exactly. I don't think they put quite the effort into the first iPad that they really could have because its success on the market was so questionable. The device was a risk to say the least. But the sales numbers speak for themselves at this point and it's probably proven to be worth more investment from Apple.
Speaking for myself, I don't see the iPad really justifying its price tag right now. That's just speaking in terms of my own gadget budget and gadget needs. But I'm definitely counting on future releases to make product a _lot_ better. Maybe the next one will be worth the $600 or so. And/or maybe the release of the next one will drive down the prices of the legacy one if there's such a gap in the specs. It's all just speculation of course, but I'd be willing to bet money that the next iPad will be pretty awesome (for definitions of awesome which fit within the iDevice ecosystem, so the average Slashdotter can apply their own metrics there).
Dear non-US mobile providers,
Please do not look to US mobile providers for ideas. You will only encourage them. Thank you.
Sincerely,
A US citizen who wants his options to get better.
I'm not an expert on this by any means, but here's my two cents...
Try not to think of it in terms of light trying to escape in a straight line and just not being strong enough to do it. Instead, think of the straight line as not being straight. Gravity wells curve space-time (a Google Images search for "spacetime" will yield some familiar diagrams of spheres resting on a fabric), and the event horizon of a singulatiry is the point in that curvature where it's so "steep" that it curves back in upon itself. This is difficult to show in the aforementioned diagrams, because it's less about the picture and more about the math behind it.
Basically, from behind the event horizon it's impossible to escape not because you don't have enough force to get away but because all paths lead back to the singularity.
If somebody with more knowledge/expertise on the subject can correct/elaborate, please do.
I really didn't understand that they were checking for PUBIC lice.
It's how they make sure the kids are presentable for their class pictures.
Your logic is broken. I presume neither party would like bin Laden, but I don't think that would make him a good nomination.
Granted, I could have elaborated more. But I assumed any reader would know what I meant.
Have you heard why people don't like her?
And how much of that was actually her? Or how much of it was her job as Solicitor General? It's a far cry from arguing the position of one's employer to actually holding one's own position on such matters.
It always sounds like a good choice when neither side is happy with the possibilities.
That's a refreshing bit for me right there. I'll admit that I don't follow politics much and don't really know anything about this person. But if neither dominant party thinks she's toeing the line enough then that's _exactly_ the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.
Agreed. Just deliver the product you sold me, that's all.
My main concern whenever I hear of these caps is, what about bandwidth I can't control? Does it count against me if someone DDOSes me? (A site I was hosting for development purposes was once DDOSed by Google's crawler for a few days, that burns through a few gigs no problem.) Does it count against me when the next big worm hits and I'm getting hit with useless requests? (Remember Nimda? I was on an early cable connection with AT&T and my Apache logs were showing about 10-20 Nimda requests per second for nearly a week, some of which were from AT&T's own servers.) Will software updates (Windows Update, virus scanner updates, and any number of patches and new versions of various software packages) count against me? After all, keeping software up to date is a vital step in preventing malicious software from running amok on the network and consuming bandwidth.
If they want to keep me as a customer, they best be prepared to answer these questions. The DSL in my area is actually pretty competative with Time Warner, and competition from the likes of Verizon are looming in the distance.
It's maybe half the pixils of a 30-inch cinema display (be it Apple's or someone else's). DVI connections can handle plenty more than that, and there is no shortage of video cards that can do it. Cute toy, but hardly super-high-res.