I wonder how it came to be that one would be permitted to check web-based email in the hospital's pediatric cardiac surgery department?
And exactly why wouldn't be allowed? It's not like the computer is sitting in the surgery theater.
It's connected to sensitive hospital records. That's more than enough reason to lock it down and not allow web browsing or the execution of arbitrary programs.
Whitelist, don't blacklist, it's the first rule of security.
Except when you're mandated to provide general internet access.
If for whatever silly reason you need to provide general, unprotected internet access, you do that with seperate machines, isolated from the hospital medical record stuff.
Whichever way you spin this, it's a horrible, gaping hole in the security of the hospital's computer system. The people who set it up and authorised it need to be fired and replaced by people who know something about (the need for) security.
There's quite a bit of difference between abstract expectations and knowing something for real and dealing with it. The expectation that there's probably life somewhere out there is very different from the certain knowledge that there's an intelligent civilisation just like us on that planet right there.
There's no way that's not going to make an impact.
2) Indeed, the idea of the soul being "God's image" is old, but that's not the point, really. The point is that if another race of intelligent beings was found somewhere else in the universe, it would topple the idea of humans being the top of the food chain.
Wasn't the point of a food chain that it's a circular thing? We're being eaten by bugs and worms (and the occasional shark) and all that? But even if we are at the top of the food chain on our planet, how would life on a different planet change that? They're bound to be in exactly the same dominant position on their planet as we are on ours.
Believers would have to find some other way to explain how we were still God's favored ones (which is almost certainly what "in God's image" was meant to imply).
That's not at all certain. I just gave you an excellent alternative theory (that fits the bill much better, IMO).
And they'd do it by saying something like our soul is more advanced than the soul of the beings that we encounter.
A "more advanced soul"? What does that even mean? I think the discussion (in Christian circles at least) is much more likely to be about whether they have their own original sin (or maybe ours applies to them too?), whether they're in need of salvation too, whether Jesus' death on the cross applies to them too (or maybe they've had their own messiah?), etc. There's no need to make up (new) weird nonsense to keep believing in anything, it just raised new theological questions.
If they have an advanced civilisation and dominate their planet in the same way we do, it's a good bet that they have a similar favoured position in God's eyes as we do. The big question is: did they fall like we did (having stuff like sin, crime and politics) or did they not fall, which means they'd be some sort of perfect beings without crime and suffering. (Yeah, I'm betting on the first one here.)
Of course having established that they're just as sinful as we are, some people will want to push their religion on the aliens, causing all sorts of new suffering.
1) Human beings are animals. Nothing distinguishes us from them, per se.
Nothing? Seriously? Are you saying other animals are just as capable of developing our level of culture and art? Of abstract discussion? Of undersatanding science? Of controlling fire, inventing cars and computers?
We're (most of the time) thinking animals, but that's it.
That's a pretty big "it" if you ask me.
And it's not even clear that we're the only thinking animals, depending on how you deinfe "rational thought". Other animals use tools, make decisions, etc.
And you really don't see a difference between their tools and decisions and ours?
What actually seems to distinguish us the most from other animals is written communication. If chimps, whales, or dolphins ever start writing things down, though, we might be in deep shit.:)
And your claim is that that is not related to rational thought?
Really, the difference we're talking about here is not one of gradual steps, it's one of many orders of magnitude.
No sooner will the discovery be made than you'll have theologians "discovering" that the thing "made in God's image" is the soul, not the body
The idea that "God's image" is not about the body is hardly a new one. 3 dimensional bodies are part of this universe. God, as creator of this universe, by necessity isn't. My guess is that "God's image" is about rational though, as that's what distinguishes us from animals.
Um, can you name a religion that insists there is no life on other planets? I'm not aware of any,
Neither am I, but I'm sure the discovery of an intelligent civilisation would spark some discussion about their status in regards to sin and salvation in some religions.
I thought the BBC was funded with public money. Why would they care about DRM? The British taxpayer already paid for it, right?
For some mysterious reason, the BBC has been trying to keep foreigners from watching their shows, which might be understandable considering they aren't paying the British TV fees, but I still don't understand what's in it for the BBC. They're just investing a lot of money into making their TV less accessible.
What do you mean "presumptuous"? This is how science works: based on past observations, you construct a theory of how things should work. Then you make new observations that contradict your theory, and you revise it. That's what we're seeing here.
I'm impressed by the speed at which the WASP team makes these "impossible" discoveries, though. A few days ago there was news about WASP-17b that orbited around its sun in the wrong direction, and now WASP-18b orbits too close to its sun. Cool stuff.
I've never had the urge to load a bunch of personal data onto a flash drive, then bring it to work with me where it will simply sit in my pocket, waiting for me to go home and plug the drive back in. I seriously doubt that anyone would do that, mainly because it would be a pointless waste of time.
What's a pointless waste of time about having a flash drive on you? I think it's just smart to always have a USB stick on you. I had one on my key ring.
Hmm when our coworkers leave we usually get together after work for pizza and beer to see them off. I guess some work environments are less friendly than others.
Same here. And they get at least a month's notice, so they have the time to finish what they're working on and look for a new job.
I'm still shocked every time I hear how paranoid some American companies treat their employees. If I saw a co-worker treated like that, I'd quit immediately.
And given that my taxes are paying these people's salaries (that is, you and I are "the company"), I'd really rather them not. Granted, I do wish that they would convey correct information, and I don't expect government workers to go zombie-like through the day without taking a break now and then, but still, I am glad that rampant goofing off in this particular manner is discouraged.
If listening to music during work makes them more productive, I have no problem with it. I think misinforming courses are a bigger waste of taxpayer money.
IANAL but legally is it not theft but copyright infringement? Therefor the government is misrepresenting its own laws?
You hit the nail on the head there. Theft is defined in most laws as depriving someone of the use of something, which is only relevant to scarce objects, unlike information like music. Downloading music without permission doesn't deprive anyone of anything, it just violates someone's legal monopoly on distributing that music. Which is illegal, but not quite the same thing as taking something away from someone.
Downloading with permission (because it's free, PD, CC or permission is implicitly given (for example, because it's part of a course you're required to watch)), is perfectly lega of course.
That's interesting. Though, my impression is that, pragmatically speaking, it's one and the same: if you're against Israel-as-a-state's policy, then you're more-or-less against the existence of Israel and a Jewish people at all.
No, that's the whole point. Being against the policies of a government is not the same as being against the existence of a country. Do you think the people who are against Obama are against the US? Do you think the people who were against Bush were against the US? You can disagree with the policies of a government without being against the existence of a state.
But even if you are against the existence of a state, that doesn't have to mean that you're against an ethnic group, some of which happen to live in that state. There are Jews who don't think the state of Israel was a very good idea. Are they antisemites?
And that's before even mentioning the fact that Arabs are also a Semitic people.
There's a huge, huge gap between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. But anti-Zionism doesn't sound quite as evil as enti-Semitism, so Zionists are stealing that word to make their political opponents look bad. But that's changing the meaning of a word into something completely different from the original meaning.
The last 30 years have made it pretty clear that their Arab/Muslim neighbors are dead-set against their existence - culturally, religiously, ethnically, and so on.
Some of them, certainly. A very vocal and militant minority. But many Arabs couldn't care less, as long as Israel didn't oppress some Arabs so much. There are certainly a lot of Palestinians who just want peace.
Exactly. I don't blame Microsoft for realising the original photo might not be the most effective choice for a particular local market, but making such a stupid ugly hack job out of it is just unforgivable. Proper localised ads are a much more effective, and in the case of a simple photo, shouldn't be too expensive either.
If being anti-Semite or a Russophobe isn't "racist", then what is it?
I don't know about Russophobes, but lately I've been getting the impression that the meaning of antisemite has changed from "someone who hates Jews" to "someone who disagrees with the policies of the government of Israel", which would make antisemitism a political opinion rather than racism.
I have black hair, and can also relate pretty well to people with red or brown hair.
Is it possible you were born in a country where lots of people have red or brown hair? That matters a lot. It's not about looking different from someone, it's about looking different from everybody else. I can relate to blacks, Asians and Arabs but I'm sure the fact that I had a few black, Asian and Arab classmates in school helped a lot. Were I to meet someone with blue skin, I might have a bit more trouble relating to them (but I'll have it easier than someone who's never met anyone with a different skin colour in his life).
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I wonder how it came to be that one would be permitted to check web-based email in the hospital's pediatric cardiac surgery department?
And exactly why wouldn't be allowed? It's not like the computer is sitting in the surgery theater.
It's connected to sensitive hospital records. That's more than enough reason to lock it down and not allow web browsing or the execution of arbitrary programs.
Except when you're mandated to provide general internet access.
If for whatever silly reason you need to provide general, unprotected internet access, you do that with seperate machines, isolated from the hospital medical record stuff.
Whichever way you spin this, it's a horrible, gaping hole in the security of the hospital's computer system. The people who set it up and authorised it need to be fired and replaced by people who know something about (the need for) security.
There's quite a bit of difference between abstract expectations and knowing something for real and dealing with it. The expectation that there's probably life somewhere out there is very different from the certain knowledge that there's an intelligent civilisation just like us on that planet right there.
There's no way that's not going to make an impact.
2) Indeed, the idea of the soul being "God's image" is old, but that's not the point, really. The point is that if another race of intelligent beings was found somewhere else in the universe, it would topple the idea of humans being the top of the food chain.
Wasn't the point of a food chain that it's a circular thing? We're being eaten by bugs and worms (and the occasional shark) and all that? But even if we are at the top of the food chain on our planet, how would life on a different planet change that? They're bound to be in exactly the same dominant position on their planet as we are on ours.
Believers would have to find some other way to explain how we were still God's favored ones (which is almost certainly what "in God's image" was meant to imply).
That's not at all certain. I just gave you an excellent alternative theory (that fits the bill much better, IMO).
And they'd do it by saying something like our soul is more advanced than the soul of the beings that we encounter.
A "more advanced soul"? What does that even mean? I think the discussion (in Christian circles at least) is much more likely to be about whether they have their own original sin (or maybe ours applies to them too?), whether they're in need of salvation too, whether Jesus' death on the cross applies to them too (or maybe they've had their own messiah?), etc. There's no need to make up (new) weird nonsense to keep believing in anything, it just raised new theological questions.
If they have an advanced civilisation and dominate their planet in the same way we do, it's a good bet that they have a similar favoured position in God's eyes as we do. The big question is: did they fall like we did (having stuff like sin, crime and politics) or did they not fall, which means they'd be some sort of perfect beings without crime and suffering. (Yeah, I'm betting on the first one here.)
Of course having established that they're just as sinful as we are, some people will want to push their religion on the aliens, causing all sorts of new suffering.
1) Human beings are animals. Nothing distinguishes us from them, per se.
Nothing? Seriously? Are you saying other animals are just as capable of developing our level of culture and art? Of abstract discussion? Of undersatanding science? Of controlling fire, inventing cars and computers?
We're (most of the time) thinking animals, but that's it.
That's a pretty big "it" if you ask me.
And it's not even clear that we're the only thinking animals, depending on how you deinfe "rational thought". Other animals use tools, make decisions, etc.
And you really don't see a difference between their tools and decisions and ours?
What actually seems to distinguish us the most from other animals is written communication. If chimps, whales, or dolphins ever start writing things down, though, we might be in deep shit. :)
And your claim is that that is not related to rational thought?
Really, the difference we're talking about here is not one of gradual steps, it's one of many orders of magnitude.
No sooner will the discovery be made than you'll have theologians "discovering" that the thing "made in God's image" is the soul, not the body
The idea that "God's image" is not about the body is hardly a new one. 3 dimensional bodies are part of this universe. God, as creator of this universe, by necessity isn't. My guess is that "God's image" is about rational though, as that's what distinguishes us from animals.
And if the inhabitants are nothing like humans but have a dominant religion claiming that they were "created in god's image"?
If their capable of rational thought, they'd be entire correct in that belief, according to my relgion.
Um, can you name a religion that insists there is no life on other planets? I'm not aware of any,
Neither am I, but I'm sure the discovery of an intelligent civilisation would spark some discussion about their status in regards to sin and salvation in some religions.
I think you might be disappointed in the actual overall reaction.
I think you're not thinking in the proper scale here. How much of a reaction do you think Copernicus got out of his contemporaries?
Our sleeperships/seedships might greatly enhance the potential survivability of our species. Their sleeperships/seedships might do the opposite.
That realisation might also have a big impact.
I thought the BBC was funded with public money. Why would they care about DRM? The British taxpayer already paid for it, right?
For some mysterious reason, the BBC has been trying to keep foreigners from watching their shows, which might be understandable considering they aren't paying the British TV fees, but I still don't understand what's in it for the BBC. They're just investing a lot of money into making their TV less accessible.
what have you done lately that's bigger than you?
I don't know about him, but I recently joined the international fight against censorship. That, and I'm quite active in my church.
There are ways to contribute to something bigger than yourself without putting yourself and others in unreasonable danger.
Or the third option - the orbit it has now isn't the original orbit.
That's pretty much a given, with that orbit.
What do you mean "presumptuous"? This is how science works: based on past observations, you construct a theory of how things should work. Then you make new observations that contradict your theory, and you revise it. That's what we're seeing here.
I'm impressed by the speed at which the WASP team makes these "impossible" discoveries, though. A few days ago there was news about WASP-17b that orbited around its sun in the wrong direction, and now WASP-18b orbits too close to its sun. Cool stuff.
I've never had the urge to load a bunch of personal data onto a flash drive, then bring it to work with me where it will simply sit in my pocket, waiting for me to go home and plug the drive back in. I seriously doubt that anyone would do that, mainly because it would be a pointless waste of time.
What's a pointless waste of time about having a flash drive on you? I think it's just smart to always have a USB stick on you. I had one on my key ring.
Hmm when our coworkers leave we usually get together after work for pizza and beer to see them off. I guess some work environments are less friendly than others.
Same here. And they get at least a month's notice, so they have the time to finish what they're working on and look for a new job.
I'm still shocked every time I hear how paranoid some American companies treat their employees. If I saw a co-worker treated like that, I'd quit immediately.
And given that my taxes are paying these people's salaries (that is, you and I are "the company"), I'd really rather them not. Granted, I do wish that they would convey correct information, and I don't expect government workers to go zombie-like through the day without taking a break now and then, but still, I am glad that rampant goofing off in this particular manner is discouraged.
If listening to music during work makes them more productive, I have no problem with it. I think misinforming courses are a bigger waste of taxpayer money.
IANAL but legally is it not theft but copyright infringement? Therefor the government is misrepresenting its own laws?
You hit the nail on the head there. Theft is defined in most laws as depriving someone of the use of something, which is only relevant to scarce objects, unlike information like music. Downloading music without permission doesn't deprive anyone of anything, it just violates someone's legal monopoly on distributing that music. Which is illegal, but not quite the same thing as taking something away from someone.
Downloading with permission (because it's free, PD, CC or permission is implicitly given (for example, because it's part of a course you're required to watch)), is perfectly lega of course.
That's interesting. Though, my impression is that, pragmatically speaking, it's one and the same: if you're against Israel-as-a-state's policy, then you're more-or-less against the existence of Israel and a Jewish people at all.
No, that's the whole point. Being against the policies of a government is not the same as being against the existence of a country. Do you think the people who are against Obama are against the US? Do you think the people who were against Bush were against the US? You can disagree with the policies of a government without being against the existence of a state.
But even if you are against the existence of a state, that doesn't have to mean that you're against an ethnic group, some of which happen to live in that state. There are Jews who don't think the state of Israel was a very good idea. Are they antisemites?
And that's before even mentioning the fact that Arabs are also a Semitic people.
There's a huge, huge gap between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. But anti-Zionism doesn't sound quite as evil as enti-Semitism, so Zionists are stealing that word to make their political opponents look bad. But that's changing the meaning of a word into something completely different from the original meaning.
The last 30 years have made it pretty clear that their Arab/Muslim neighbors are dead-set against their existence - culturally, religiously, ethnically, and so on.
Some of them, certainly. A very vocal and militant minority. But many Arabs couldn't care less, as long as Israel didn't oppress some Arabs so much. There are certainly a lot of Palestinians who just want peace.
Exactly. I don't blame Microsoft for realising the original photo might not be the most effective choice for a particular local market, but making such a stupid ugly hack job out of it is just unforgivable. Proper localised ads are a much more effective, and in the case of a simple photo, shouldn't be too expensive either.
If being anti-Semite or a Russophobe isn't "racist", then what is it?
I don't know about Russophobes, but lately I've been getting the impression that the meaning of antisemite has changed from "someone who hates Jews" to "someone who disagrees with the policies of the government of Israel", which would make antisemitism a political opinion rather than racism.
I have black hair, and can also relate pretty well to people with red or brown hair.
Is it possible you were born in a country where lots of people have red or brown hair? That matters a lot. It's not about looking different from someone, it's about looking different from everybody else. I can relate to blacks, Asians and Arabs but I'm sure the fact that I had a few black, Asian and Arab classmates in school helped a lot. Were I to meet someone with blue skin, I might have a bit more trouble relating to them (but I'll have it easier than someone who's never met anyone with a different skin colour in his life).
The only thing that's missing is an "I'm gay" sign on one of them.
Don't overdo it. A black guy is one thing, but we're still talking Poland here, you know?
Sometimes +5 just isn't enough.
Then why did they keep the Asian guy, and the black hands?
Because they were stupid hacks. You don't seriously believe that a lot of thought went into that Polish version, do you?