I couldn't agree more about ESVA. It is working like a champ for us. We don't get false positives, and spam is such a rare occurrence that when one of our users actually gets a spam every few months or so, they kind of panic and don't know what to do.
Like many others, I am concerned about the age of ESVA and the delays in getting 2.0 out the door. I am nearly at the point where I am going to start looking elsewhere. Perhaps IPCop and Copfilter on a dedicated firewall/anti-spam box.
FYI, ESVA makes use of MailWatch. Also, I assume you're talking about relay-recipients and postfix? That feature is worth its weight in gold. I have a php script on a cron job that pulls all valid SMTP addresses from our Exchange server and creats the relay-recipients list and applies it. So that way I don't have to worry about manually updating anything when new employees come on board.
The new hardware people will be using with the new system will be fast enough...
I'm sorry. You lost me. Are you saying that new hardware will be fast enough to run both the new Windows and emulate an older version? Just like current hardware is fast enough to run Vist- *SNICKER* *COUGH* *ROTFLMAO* That's a good one!
I have verified that on every computer on our network that had IE7 installed, it doubled application load times. Browsing network shares took longer as well. When you have departments working 50-60 hour weeks, this kind of performance hit is totally unacceptable. I don't know if Microsoft has fixed this yet or not, but unless and until they do, we can't afford to have our productivity killed like that.
How's that for a reason not to upgrade?
P.S.--I completely understand that IE7 is more secure. If MS could fix the performance problem, I'd roll it out in a heartbeat.
It's IMPOSSIBLE that you, being a saint appointed by GOD HIMSELF, would ever have defective hardware!?
Wow. That was totally uncalled for and does nothing but weaken your position.
That said, I will agree that defective hardware is absolutely a possibility, albeit a very remote one.
I have not personally witnessed "Vista on dozens of computers" (more like half a dozen now), but I can tell you that I have talked to a handful of people who use it, or those whose good friends bought a computer with Vista on it. Without exception, every single one of those people complains that Vista "runs slow". A friend who works for a large, national IT supplier reports that his clients who have bought Vista complain to him that it's slow, and UAC is extremely annoying.
I find it rather interesting that first, you griped because I didn't provide even anecdotal evidence. So I have given you lots of anecdotal evidence. Now you dismiss it as defective hardware without ever laying hands on the laptop. Sorry, but I don't think anyone's Windows troubleshooting skills are that good.
Wow, not only do you not provide any data, you don't even provide an anecdote to back that up.
My apologies. I should have spelled it out in black and white for you. Instead of saying:
Even crappy P4, 1GHZ, 256MB RAM, on-board video computers run XP better than a brand new Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and a 256MB video card runs Vista (it was running Vista Business Premium)
I should have said: One of our engineers brought in his "brand new Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and a 256MB video card" that "was running Vista Business Premium". He wanted me to install Inventor 2008 on it so he could transfer the license and do some work from home.
At one point, opening the control panel, I could have counted a slow "One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi" as I watched the icons slowly pop up one by one. I waited over a minute for all the icons to appear before I could continue.
The actual install? IT TOOK OVER AN HOUR!!!
Overall, the performance was agonizingly slow. Again, I alluded to this slowness when I said
Even crappy P4, 1GHZ, 256MB RAM, on-board video computers run XP better than...
Surely you can infer how this would kill productivity. In addition to the user sitting around and waiting on the OS (which is a huge waste of time in and of itself), a properly run corporate environment forces its users to be part of the built-in Windows Users group. These users cannot install or uninstall software. So take my salary, plus the salary of whoever's computer is getting worked on, and multiply it by a factor of say, five. That's what it would take to do maintenance with Vista. The payoff? Marginally better security (we're already locked down pretty tight) and a rearranged UI. It's not like the jump from Windows 98 to 2000. That was easily worth the productivity cut (which wasn't as bad as the cut we'd take with Vista). Security was leaps and bounds better in 2000 than 98. The same cannot be said of Vista vs. XP in a locked-down corporate environment.
Like I said before. Vista does little more than increase operational costs and decrease productivity. These drawbacks far outweigh any of Vista's over-hyped "benefits".
You respond civilly to ad hominem attacks. You use reason and intelligent thought. Furthermore, those who have a clue agree with you. You are obviously new here.
I'm astonished that I have yet to see the best reason not to roll out Vista in a business environment mentioned. The answer is quite simple.
Vista kills productivity, yet offers no real value in return.
In order to run Vista where I work, we would have to replace every single machine we have. That's over 100 desktops and laptops--not cheap. Granted, some of those computers need to be replaced, but that's beside the point. Even crappy P4, 1GHZ, 256MB RAM, on-board video computers run XP better than a brand new Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and a 256MB video card runs Vista (it was running Vista Business Premium). Why in the @#$%! should we pay a boatload of money to slash our workers' productivity? As far as I can see, there is absolutely no business case for Vista whatsoever. Until such a day as there is, then you can bet your bottom dollar I won't allow a move to Vista to kill ours.
Granted, from a technological standpoint, Vista is crap. But that's not the argument to make to your superiors when opposing it. Show them how it will hurt your bottom line. That'll get their attention.
Before you dismiss this as a troll or flamebait, please hear me out. All of our clients are XP on a Win 2K3 domain. We held off for a while before starting to upgrade IE 6 to IE 7. Shortly after the rollout, I started getting a lot of complaints that "the network is slow".
Because some other stuff was going on as well, I didn't think to associate the slowdown with IE 7. Then one day I got a call from someone trying to open up a Visio file in Visio Viewer. So I went to troubleshoot. Much to my surprise, I discovered that Visio Viewer uses IE to open files. In this case, the file never opened. So I tried another one. After 17 seconds, it finally opened.
I noticed this computer had IE 7 on it. So for grins I tried opening the file several more times and timed it each time. It took about 17 seconds every time. So then I rolled IE back to IE 6. Then I tried opening the file. Eight seconds. The file that wouldn't open up before? Now it opened after 12 seconds. It wasn't looking very good for IE 7.
Our engineers were among those complaining about a slow network. So I went to one of their computers and opened up Inventor 11 and timed it. From the double-click to ready status was 2:19. I did this a couple more times for verification and got the same results. IE 7 was installed, so I uninstalled it. I reloaded Inventor. 1:16.
I repeated this testing on several other engineering computers, and each time, rolling back IE 7 to IE 6 cut the startup time roughly in half. Some applications it knocked down to 1/3 of the time to load.
After ditching IE 7 on all our computers, everyone noticed that "the network" was much faster. Soon thereafter, I noticed problems with WMP 11. Needless to say, I got rid of that piece of @#$%! from our network as well. Seeing that Vista comes with IE 7 and WMP 11, I wager that therein lies the problem--or at least part of it.
As another poster has mentioned, Microsoft decided to rewrite the TCP/IP stack in Vista. When I heard that my first thought was, "That's a mistake." They ditched a fairly mature and stable implementation for one of their own making. Forget the fact that it's Microsoft for a moment, has anyone seen a complete code rewrite/reimplementation come out nice on the first try? Now what about Microsoft? Have they ever come out with some sort of "new" technology and had it work really well the first time around? Is it any wonder, then, that Vista is turning out to be such a turd?
Biology is an inductive science. You can't make a mathematical proof. A proof that the Earth isn't going to fall into the sun tomorrow can't be done deductively. You can't do anything in the real world deductively really, there are no made-up absolute postulates like in mathematics. However its not wildly speculative to think that the world will continue revolving around the sun. Through observation physics has theorized the rules governing the Earth's revolution. We can use these theories to make predictions (like that we won't fall into the sun).
Just an observation--no criticism implied. You don't have much of a math background, do you? If you did, you would know that many theorems are proven only via inductive reasoning. And the whole argument about the world continuing to revolve around the sun, you might find Bayes' Theorem of interest. You could use it to mathematically "prove" to a high enough degree of confidence that the earth will continue to revolve around the sun.
Perhaps my understanding of the Theory of Evolution is deficient. What I understand is the theory is as follows:
We believe all life originated from one organism, whose offspring, over billions of years, gradually became more diverse and complex, adapting to their surroundings, giving rise to new organisms. If this theory is correct, then we will be able to observe organisms adapting, changing, evolving today. Since we do in fact observe this phenomenon, and find fossil records of similar changes, then the supposition is correct.
Logically, this is a case of If A, then B. Since B is observed, A is true. Unfortunately, this only works on A, If and Only If B.
My problem, which still has yet to be addressed, is how does A follow B in this case? From where I sit, while A is not out of the question, I don't see A as a logical consequence of B.
Of course compared to your pretend-world of deductive reasoning it might look like wild speculation. I'm a Computer Science major and I've dealt with anti-science math folks before.:) And yes, he would have denied being anti-science too. I would argue that deductive reasoning is more valid and quite different then the faith-based reasoning of religious people. They think believing in things without evidence is something to be proud of.
Obviously, you don't know me. I'm the most skeptical person my friends and acquaintances know. I rarely take anyone's word for anything--especially when it comes to science. I believe nothing without some sort of evidence. Ask my wife. My skepticism frustrates her to no end. Anti-science? Ha! Anti faulty logic--whether it be deductive or inductive--is closer to the truth than your assertion;-)
Hey! An intelligent response. Thank you for that. Let me respond by clarifying a few things:
First, I never stated that I was anti-evolution. Actually, I acknowledged that evolution that crosses the species line has been well-documented. I accept that as fact. How does that make me anti-evolution, then?
Yes, I did make up the other terms. So? I'm still awaiting a satisfactory answer to the question, though.
Your average chicken does have a dinosaur as a ancestor. The fact that dinosaurs eventually grew wings and feathers is now well documented. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuvuuia_deserti or just the scaly reptilian feet that birds have. So thats some cross-class evolution.
I read the article you mentioned. I have no reason to question any of the facts presented. I find the wording in the conclusion rather interesting: "These findings show that, though poorly preserved, Shuvuuia likely possessed a coat of feathers."
In other words, there's no positive proof this dinosaur had feathers--just a high probability. For the sake of argument, let's say that there is no other possible explanation and that this dinosaur definitely had feathers.
How would this be proof that the chicken descended from it? It appears that the argument is as follows: This dinosaur had feathers. Chickens have feathers. Because dinosaurs are older than chickens, and the Theory of Evolution says that Chickens must have evolved from dinosaurs, then that proves chickens evolved from dinosaurs.
Please pardon me if I mischaracterize the argument, but it appears to be no different than the circular argument that one hears from Christians who say the Bible is true because it says it is. To me, it would appear that parts of the Theory of Evolution suffer from the same circular logic. Correlation does not, after all, prove causation.
So am I anti-evolution? Not at all. It just appears to me that the whole of it has not been demonstrably proven to be fact. I'm not anti-science, or anti-evolution. As one who holds a B.S. in Mathematics, all I am asking for is to see the proof. Lacking that, I see much of what is covered by the Theory of Evolution to be as wildly speculative and unproven as that which comes from religious fundamentalists.
FYI, I don't take the book of Genesis literally. The idea that God created the earth in six 24-hour periods our out of nothing isn't a conjecture to which I subscribe. So if you think I'm a "literalist", then you, my anonymous friend are delusional, and therefore have good reason not to put your name to the above post.
Obviously, it's very popular to bash those who believe the Bible here on/. Although I disagree with much of what is taught in the name of religion, I don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and bash believers. That's bigotry and should be beneath civilized society. So what if I kill my karma for saying what I have. Bigotry deserves to be criticized.
Now for my questions. From the outset, let me state that I don't believe the earth is only 6,000 years old. So answer me the following questions because I would like to know:
What if God used old materials to make the earth? It could still be 6,000 years old, right, but tests on the material would show that it was older than that, could they not? Kind of like if I built a house from granite this year. It would only be a few months old, but if I carbon dated the granite, it would be billions of years old. The simple fact that the materials from which the earth is made are billions of years old does not mandate that the earth itself is billions of years old, does it? BTW, here's a question for Christians: how long were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Since they couldn't die, who's to say it wasn't for billions of years? And where does it say God created the earth out of nothing?
Moving on...there is no doubt that cross-species "evolution" occurs. It's been proven over and over again. But where is the evidence for cross-kingdom evolution? Or cross-phylum evolution? Cross-class? Cross-order? Cross-family? Cross-genus? Because when people say they don't believe in evolution, they are saying they don't believe all life originated from a single species. Where has that been proven in a laboratory?
So what say you? Does anyone have any intelligent answers, or are will it be more of the "Christians are such idiots" kind of responses that moderators love to rate highly?
I've never personally tried it, but BackupPC looks like it might be able to do the job. AdminsParadise offers the ability to get this set up and running quickly, and it appears to be rather pain free. Oh, and did I mention that BackupPC is licensed under the GPL?
Do any of you have any experience with this setup? If so, how well does it work?
Yet Chinese negotiators got everything they asked for. Price reductions? They pay about 10% of what other governments do per seat. Control? They not only have access to the source code, they have to right to alter it to suit their purposes.
I am rather surprised no one else has mentioned how scary this is. Think about it. The Chinese government has access to Windows source code. Most governments use MS products. We all know how many zero-day exploits there are in MS offerings that originate from groups/people without access to the source code. Repeat after me (in Chinese). "All your base are belong to us!"
Here's another reason to be scared. Would you put it past the Chinese government to do the following: Modify Windows and include rootkits that would allow them total access to users of their version of Windows. Knowing how rampant piracy is in China (and probably Taiwan as well), somehow the improved version of Windows makes its way into the pirated software scene. Now, anyone who installs it has given the government 100% free and clear access to their computers. Go ahead and use TOR to surf the net. The government pwnz j00! Your butt is now in jail for doing stuff the government doesn't want you to do.
The truth of the matter is this: Microsux just screwed a ton of people by giving the Chinese government access to Windows source code.
I agree that it sounds crazy. I'm just passing along the information I was given. Your impression telling you that there's no way IBM would bid an Intel chip makes a lot of sense. It's not been their standard M.O. in the past. All I know is that Cray won the bid with Opterons, the e-mails I read gave unfavorable reviews of Woodcrest chips, and that Woodcrest is supposed to kick the snot out of Opteron. In any case, the fact that Cray won the bid with an Opteron-based supercomputer should be more than a little eye-opening.
In any case, based on the things I have witnessed with my own eyes, I stand by my assertion that IBM used Intel chips in their bid.
This is actually related to this story that ran on Slashdot a month ago. Turns out the Inquirer article that everyone ripped to shreds for being light on details was right all along. (I saw sanitized excerpts from e-mails regarding the incident, so I can tell you that Intel's Woodcrest chips performed abysmally in the DOE's testing compared to the Opterons.) The competitor that lost was IBM and the reason was because of problems with Woodcrest. The supercomputer in question will be running on 24,000 quad core Opterons. I will leave it up to the rest of you to draw your own conclusions from this.
Consider WideBand instead of Cisco. Their Gold Support is so good, that often the first you hear of a problem is an e-mail from them notifying you that they fixed it. And since they're 100% American made and supported, you'll never call and talk to someone who barely speaks English. No, I don't now nor have I ever worked for them. We just use thier products and couldn't be happier.
Wideband makes Layer-3 switches that beat comparable Cisco routers hands down. With their nMU (pronounced "NetMU") it makes easy things easy and difficult things easy too. With their 28-port switches, you can get full-duplex, non-blocking Gigabit transfers on all ports simultaneously. And did I mention that they can even do Gigabit over CAT-3 and barbed wire? Also, if you use the nMU control your switches, none of them even need IP addresses. Good luck trying to hax0r a switch with no IP address. Throw in the fact that all their stuff is made in the USA (no off-shore customer support) and costs much less than comparable Cisco gear that doesn't perform nearly as well, and you have yourself a superior product. If you are expanding or replacing your network infrastructure, consider WideBand over Cisco. You'll be glad you did.
***Disclaimer***
I do not now, nor have I ever worked for WideBand, but we use their gear where I work. BTW, there were some guys who ran a Cisco shop in the training class I was in that WideBand offered. Last I heard, they were replacing all their switches with WideBand gear. IMNSHO, WideBand is the best kept secret in networking
You forgot to mention the greatest compelling argument in favor of what Cleanflix does. Every night of the week, practically, you can watch edited forms of movies at no charge on national televison. Heck, not only do the networks cut out all the 'naughty bits', but they add advertisements, from which they make a huge profit. If you want to talk about mangling the creative intent of the director, etc., you simply cannot beat what they do when they air a movie on national television. Those in Hollywood who oppose what Cleanflix does are hypocrites. Personally, I think their actions are motivated by religious bigotry.
You're right, insomuch that "continuous" is not the right term from a mathematical viewpoint. As a fellow/.er who majored in Mathematics, I propose we rename it Discrete Partial Attention. As anyone who has been on the receiving end of a "conversation" (perhaps about the cute outfits she's seen on sale at some store and how much each one costs with great details on how the garments are constructed) with a significant female other can attest to, there are distinct moments where you are actually pay full attention. These occur when she asks, "Are you listening to me? What did I just say? You aren't listening, are you? You don't really love me. If you really loved me you would actually listen to me instead of wasting all your time on that stupid dot-slash website."
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I couldn't agree more about ESVA. It is working like a champ for us. We don't get false positives, and spam is such a rare occurrence that when one of our users actually gets a spam every few months or so, they kind of panic and don't know what to do.
Like many others, I am concerned about the age of ESVA and the delays in getting 2.0 out the door. I am nearly at the point where I am going to start looking elsewhere. Perhaps IPCop and Copfilter on a dedicated firewall/anti-spam box.
FYI, ESVA makes use of MailWatch. Also, I assume you're talking about relay-recipients and postfix? That feature is worth its weight in gold. I have a php script on a cron job that pulls all valid SMTP addresses from our Exchange server and creats the relay-recipients list and applies it. So that way I don't have to worry about manually updating anything when new employees come on board.
Life is good!
I'm sorry. You lost me. Are you saying that new hardware will be fast enough to run both the new Windows and emulate an older version? Just like current hardware is fast enough to run Vist- *SNICKER* *COUGH* *ROTFLMAO* That's a good one!
You're obviously new here. That would be every government on the planet except for the United States--which is The Devil Incarnate(TM).
I have verified that on every computer on our network that had IE7 installed, it doubled application load times. Browsing network shares took longer as well. When you have departments working 50-60 hour weeks, this kind of performance hit is totally unacceptable. I don't know if Microsoft has fixed this yet or not, but unless and until they do, we can't afford to have our productivity killed like that.
How's that for a reason not to upgrade?
P.S.--I completely understand that IE7 is more secure. If MS could fix the performance problem, I'd roll it out in a heartbeat.
Wow. That was totally uncalled for and does nothing but weaken your position.
That said, I will agree that defective hardware is absolutely a possibility, albeit a very remote one.
I have not personally witnessed "Vista on dozens of computers" (more like half a dozen now), but I can tell you that I have talked to a handful of people who use it, or those whose good friends bought a computer with Vista on it. Without exception, every single one of those people complains that Vista "runs slow". A friend who works for a large, national IT supplier reports that his clients who have bought Vista complain to him that it's slow, and UAC is extremely annoying.
I find it rather interesting that first, you griped because I didn't provide even anecdotal evidence. So I have given you lots of anecdotal evidence. Now you dismiss it as defective hardware without ever laying hands on the laptop. Sorry, but I don't think anyone's Windows troubleshooting skills are that good.
My apologies. I should have spelled it out in black and white for you. Instead of saying:
Even crappy P4, 1GHZ, 256MB RAM, on-board video computers run XP better than a brand new Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and a 256MB video card runs Vista (it was running Vista Business Premium)I should have said: One of our engineers brought in his "brand new Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and a 256MB video card" that "was running Vista Business Premium". He wanted me to install Inventor 2008 on it so he could transfer the license and do some work from home.
At one point, opening the control panel, I could have counted a slow "One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi" as I watched the icons slowly pop up one by one. I waited over a minute for all the icons to appear before I could continue.
The actual install? IT TOOK OVER AN HOUR!!!
Overall, the performance was agonizingly slow. Again, I alluded to this slowness when I said
Even crappy P4, 1GHZ, 256MB RAM, on-board video computers run XP better than...Surely you can infer how this would kill productivity. In addition to the user sitting around and waiting on the OS (which is a huge waste of time in and of itself), a properly run corporate environment forces its users to be part of the built-in Windows Users group. These users cannot install or uninstall software. So take my salary, plus the salary of whoever's computer is getting worked on, and multiply it by a factor of say, five. That's what it would take to do maintenance with Vista. The payoff? Marginally better security (we're already locked down pretty tight) and a rearranged UI. It's not like the jump from Windows 98 to 2000. That was easily worth the productivity cut (which wasn't as bad as the cut we'd take with Vista). Security was leaps and bounds better in 2000 than 98. The same cannot be said of Vista vs. XP in a locked-down corporate environment.
Like I said before. Vista does little more than increase operational costs and decrease productivity. These drawbacks far outweigh any of Vista's over-hyped "benefits".
There. Is. No. Business. Case. For. Vista.
You respond civilly to ad hominem attacks. You use reason and intelligent thought. Furthermore, those who have a clue agree with you. You are obviously new here.
Your Slashdot user ID is hereby revoked.
I'm astonished that I have yet to see the best reason not to roll out Vista in a business environment mentioned. The answer is quite simple.
Vista kills productivity, yet offers no real value in return.
In order to run Vista where I work, we would have to replace every single machine we have. That's over 100 desktops and laptops--not cheap. Granted, some of those computers need to be replaced, but that's beside the point. Even crappy P4, 1GHZ, 256MB RAM, on-board video computers run XP better than a brand new Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and a 256MB video card runs Vista (it was running Vista Business Premium). Why in the @#$%! should we pay a boatload of money to slash our workers' productivity? As far as I can see, there is absolutely no business case for Vista whatsoever. Until such a day as there is, then you can bet your bottom dollar I won't allow a move to Vista to kill ours.
Granted, from a technological standpoint, Vista is crap. But that's not the argument to make to your superiors when opposing it. Show them how it will hurt your bottom line. That'll get their attention.
You got that saying wrong. I believe it's, "Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
Before you dismiss this as a troll or flamebait, please hear me out. All of our clients are XP on a Win 2K3 domain. We held off for a while before starting to upgrade IE 6 to IE 7. Shortly after the rollout, I started getting a lot of complaints that "the network is slow".
Because some other stuff was going on as well, I didn't think to associate the slowdown with IE 7. Then one day I got a call from someone trying to open up a Visio file in Visio Viewer. So I went to troubleshoot. Much to my surprise, I discovered that Visio Viewer uses IE to open files. In this case, the file never opened. So I tried another one. After 17 seconds, it finally opened.
I noticed this computer had IE 7 on it. So for grins I tried opening the file several more times and timed it each time. It took about 17 seconds every time. So then I rolled IE back to IE 6. Then I tried opening the file. Eight seconds . The file that wouldn't open up before? Now it opened after 12 seconds. It wasn't looking very good for IE 7.
Our engineers were among those complaining about a slow network. So I went to one of their computers and opened up Inventor 11 and timed it. From the double-click to ready status was 2:19. I did this a couple more times for verification and got the same results. IE 7 was installed, so I uninstalled it. I reloaded Inventor. 1:16 .
I repeated this testing on several other engineering computers, and each time, rolling back IE 7 to IE 6 cut the startup time roughly in half. Some applications it knocked down to 1/3 of the time to load.
After ditching IE 7 on all our computers, everyone noticed that "the network" was much faster. Soon thereafter, I noticed problems with WMP 11. Needless to say, I got rid of that piece of @#$%! from our network as well. Seeing that Vista comes with IE 7 and WMP 11, I wager that therein lies the problem--or at least part of it.
As another poster has mentioned, Microsoft decided to rewrite the TCP/IP stack in Vista. When I heard that my first thought was, "That's a mistake." They ditched a fairly mature and stable implementation for one of their own making. Forget the fact that it's Microsoft for a moment, has anyone seen a complete code rewrite/reimplementation come out nice on the first try? Now what about Microsoft? Have they ever come out with some sort of "new" technology and had it work really well the first time around? Is it any wonder, then, that Vista is turning out to be such a turd?
Just an observation--no criticism implied. You don't have much of a math background, do you? If you did, you would know that many theorems are proven only via inductive reasoning. And the whole argument about the world continuing to revolve around the sun, you might find Bayes' Theorem of interest. You could use it to mathematically "prove" to a high enough degree of confidence that the earth will continue to revolve around the sun.
Perhaps my understanding of the Theory of Evolution is deficient. What I understand is the theory is as follows:
We believe all life originated from one organism, whose offspring, over billions of years, gradually became more diverse and complex, adapting to their surroundings, giving rise to new organisms. If this theory is correct, then we will be able to observe organisms adapting, changing, evolving today. Since we do in fact observe this phenomenon, and find fossil records of similar changes, then the supposition is correct.
Logically, this is a case of If A, then B. Since B is observed, A is true. Unfortunately, this only works on A, If and Only If B.
My problem, which still has yet to be addressed, is how does A follow B in this case? From where I sit, while A is not out of the question, I don't see A as a logical consequence of B.
Of course compared to your pretend-world of deductive reasoning it might look like wild speculation. I'm a Computer Science major and I've dealt with anti-science math folks before.Obviously, you don't know me. I'm the most skeptical person my friends and acquaintances know. I rarely take anyone's word for anything--especially when it comes to science. I believe nothing without some sort of evidence. Ask my wife. My skepticism frustrates her to no end. Anti-science? Ha! Anti faulty logic--whether it be deductive or inductive--is closer to the truth than your assertion ;-)
Hey! An intelligent response. Thank you for that. Let me respond by clarifying a few things:
First, I never stated that I was anti-evolution. Actually, I acknowledged that evolution that crosses the species line has been well-documented. I accept that as fact. How does that make me anti-evolution, then?
Yes, I did make up the other terms. So? I'm still awaiting a satisfactory answer to the question, though.
Your average chicken does have a dinosaur as a ancestor. The fact that dinosaurs eventually grew wings and feathers is now well documented. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuvuuia_deserti or just the scaly reptilian feet that birds have. So thats some cross-class evolution.I read the article you mentioned. I have no reason to question any of the facts presented. I find the wording in the conclusion rather interesting: "These findings show that, though poorly preserved, Shuvuuia likely possessed a coat of feathers."
In other words, there's no positive proof this dinosaur had feathers--just a high probability. For the sake of argument, let's say that there is no other possible explanation and that this dinosaur definitely had feathers.
How would this be proof that the chicken descended from it? It appears that the argument is as follows: This dinosaur had feathers. Chickens have feathers. Because dinosaurs are older than chickens, and the Theory of Evolution says that Chickens must have evolved from dinosaurs, then that proves chickens evolved from dinosaurs.
Please pardon me if I mischaracterize the argument, but it appears to be no different than the circular argument that one hears from Christians who say the Bible is true because it says it is. To me, it would appear that parts of the Theory of Evolution suffer from the same circular logic. Correlation does not, after all, prove causation.
So am I anti-evolution? Not at all. It just appears to me that the whole of it has not been demonstrably proven to be fact. I'm not anti-science, or anti-evolution. As one who holds a B.S. in Mathematics, all I am asking for is to see the proof. Lacking that, I see much of what is covered by the Theory of Evolution to be as wildly speculative and unproven as that which comes from religious fundamentalists.
FYI, I don't take the book of Genesis literally. The idea that God created the earth in six 24-hour periods our out of nothing isn't a conjecture to which I subscribe. So if you think I'm a "literalist", then you, my anonymous friend are delusional, and therefore have good reason not to put your name to the above post.
Obviously, it's very popular to bash those who believe the Bible here on /. Although I disagree with much of what is taught in the name of religion, I don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and bash believers. That's bigotry and should be beneath civilized society. So what if I kill my karma for saying what I have. Bigotry deserves to be criticized.
Now for my questions. From the outset, let me state that I don't believe the earth is only 6,000 years old. So answer me the following questions because I would like to know:
What if God used old materials to make the earth? It could still be 6,000 years old, right, but tests on the material would show that it was older than that, could they not? Kind of like if I built a house from granite this year. It would only be a few months old, but if I carbon dated the granite, it would be billions of years old. The simple fact that the materials from which the earth is made are billions of years old does not mandate that the earth itself is billions of years old, does it? BTW, here's a question for Christians: how long were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Since they couldn't die, who's to say it wasn't for billions of years? And where does it say God created the earth out of nothing?
Moving on...there is no doubt that cross-species "evolution" occurs. It's been proven over and over again. But where is the evidence for cross-kingdom evolution? Or cross-phylum evolution? Cross-class? Cross-order? Cross-family? Cross-genus? Because when people say they don't believe in evolution, they are saying they don't believe all life originated from a single species. Where has that been proven in a laboratory?
So what say you? Does anyone have any intelligent answers, or are will it be more of the "Christians are such idiots" kind of responses that moderators love to rate highly?
I've never personally tried it, but BackupPC looks like it might be able to do the job. AdminsParadise offers the ability to get this set up and running quickly, and it appears to be rather pain free. Oh, and did I mention that BackupPC is licensed under the GPL?
Do any of you have any experience with this setup? If so, how well does it work?
It's nice to know at least one person here on /. respects me.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself!
I am rather surprised no one else has mentioned how scary this is. Think about it. The Chinese government has access to Windows source code. Most governments use MS products. We all know how many zero-day exploits there are in MS offerings that originate from groups/people without access to the source code. Repeat after me (in Chinese). "All your base are belong to us!"
Here's another reason to be scared. Would you put it past the Chinese government to do the following: Modify Windows and include rootkits that would allow them total access to users of their version of Windows. Knowing how rampant piracy is in China (and probably Taiwan as well), somehow the improved version of Windows makes its way into the pirated software scene. Now, anyone who installs it has given the government 100% free and clear access to their computers. Go ahead and use TOR to surf the net. The government pwnz j00! Your butt is now in jail for doing stuff the government doesn't want you to do.
The truth of the matter is this: Microsux just screwed a ton of people by giving the Chinese government access to Windows source code.
I agree that it sounds crazy. I'm just passing along the information I was given. Your impression telling you that there's no way IBM would bid an Intel chip makes a lot of sense. It's not been their standard M.O. in the past. All I know is that Cray won the bid with Opterons, the e-mails I read gave unfavorable reviews of Woodcrest chips, and that Woodcrest is supposed to kick the snot out of Opteron. In any case, the fact that Cray won the bid with an Opteron-based supercomputer should be more than a little eye-opening.
In any case, based on the things I have witnessed with my own eyes, I stand by my assertion that IBM used Intel chips in their bid.
This is actually related to this story that ran on Slashdot a month ago. Turns out the Inquirer article that everyone ripped to shreds for being light on details was right all along. (I saw sanitized excerpts from e-mails regarding the incident, so I can tell you that Intel's Woodcrest chips performed abysmally in the DOE's testing compared to the Opterons.) The competitor that lost was IBM and the reason was because of problems with Woodcrest. The supercomputer in question will be running on 24,000 quad core Opterons. I will leave it up to the rest of you to draw your own conclusions from this.
Google is your friend.
Consider WideBand instead of Cisco. Their Gold Support is so good, that often the first you hear of a problem is an e-mail from them notifying you that they fixed it. And since they're 100% American made and supported, you'll never call and talk to someone who barely speaks English. No, I don't now nor have I ever worked for them. We just use thier products and couldn't be happier.
Wideband makes Layer-3 switches that beat comparable Cisco routers hands down. With their nMU (pronounced "NetMU") it makes easy things easy and difficult things easy too. With their 28-port switches, you can get full-duplex, non-blocking Gigabit transfers on all ports simultaneously. And did I mention that they can even do Gigabit over CAT-3 and barbed wire? Also, if you use the nMU control your switches, none of them even need IP addresses. Good luck trying to hax0r a switch with no IP address. Throw in the fact that all their stuff is made in the USA (no off-shore customer support) and costs much less than comparable Cisco gear that doesn't perform nearly as well, and you have yourself a superior product. If you are expanding or replacing your network infrastructure, consider WideBand over Cisco. You'll be glad you did.
***Disclaimer***
I do not now, nor have I ever worked for WideBand, but we use their gear where I work. BTW, there were some guys who ran a Cisco shop in the training class I was in that WideBand offered. Last I heard, they were replacing all their switches with WideBand gear. IMNSHO, WideBand is the best kept secret in networking
You forgot to mention the greatest compelling argument in favor of what Cleanflix does. Every night of the week, practically, you can watch edited forms of movies at no charge on national televison. Heck, not only do the networks cut out all the 'naughty bits', but they add advertisements, from which they make a huge profit. If you want to talk about mangling the creative intent of the director, etc., you simply cannot beat what they do when they air a movie on national television. Those in Hollywood who oppose what Cleanflix does are hypocrites. Personally, I think their actions are motivated by religious bigotry.
You're right, insomuch that "continuous" is not the right term from a mathematical viewpoint. As a fellow /.er who majored in Mathematics, I propose we rename it Discrete Partial Attention. As anyone who has been on the receiving end of a "conversation" (perhaps about the cute outfits she's seen on sale at some store and how much each one costs with great details on how the garments are constructed) with a significant female other can attest to, there are distinct moments where you are actually pay full attention. These occur when she asks, "Are you listening to me? What did I just say? You aren't listening, are you? You don't really love me. If you really loved me you would actually listen to me instead of wasting all your time on that stupid dot-slash website."