Well, I would probably argue that classification of wolves and dogs as being of different species actually surprised me. Given what we know about them, they should probably be reclassified as being of the same specie.
You are probably right about the asexual organisms. I don't see how else they can be classified other than by morphology. Of course, we could change our paradigm there. It is, after all, precisely a situation where (to use the word a bit inaccurately since it is locally constant rather than properly continuous) continuum of intra-specie differences exists.
As for artificial forced breeding. I agree that the definition could be made more precise by saying that members of a species would have to be able to produce an offspring of the same specie. On surface this may seem to be a circular definition, but I'd rather think of it as recursive. That is, it has built into it the requirement that the offsprings have to be fertile and be sufficiently genetically similar to both parents.
Having said this, I am pretty sure that the analogy between human reproductive preferences and Giraffes still holds. The fact that they turned out to be picky doesn't mean that the inter-breeding ones form different species. The offsprings can still breed with Giraffes.
You have problems like dogs (Canis familiaris), and wolves (Canis lupus) being pretty inter-fertile Isn't that because dogs are wolves artificially selected for domestication?
In the end it's just a human definition not a natural law. What? Specie? Or criterion for belonging to a specie.
Then there is the problem of asexual organisms. Is every asexual individual its own species? Being able to interbreed is a sufficient (rather than necessary) condition for being of the same specie.
If they CAN interbreed, they are not different species. Giraffes are very likely just as picky. If you remove cultural influences, are you sure people would breed as freely as we do? Why do some people like brown eyes and some like blue? If you insist that it's entirely cultural, then you'll have to explain why children under 4 have these preferences, too.
Can someone actually verify their "exactly" claim? Doesn't a large part of communication mechanisms in the brain occur through chemical channels? Are they simulating that as well as the electrical network itself?
Of course, I do. But they are contracts to buy/sell something tangible... not palpable, but still tangible. They are just contracts that specify more of the details of how the underlying asset is to be purchased. Option is a bit trickier to explain because you have to pay to enter into the contract itself, but essentially that's all the price of the option is. It is the cost of entering into a contract to buy/sell a real-world property. Again, all investments are gambles because the real world is never completely predictable. But underneath they are still just commerce (as in purchase of thing). Some just involve more complicated purchase terms than others. While gambling does not involve any real world items. It is a contract to be paid based on an outcome of an event.
One could just as easily argue that purchasing US dollars from banks is also gambling. I don't believe US recognizes the claim that money issued by the Federal Reserve is "purchased" from banks. Certainly, its exchange is regulated by different laws than the laws regulating purchasing (as in volitious exchange of money for other possessions as regulated under UCC). Of course, I am not a lawyer.
On a side note, why couldn't a gambling house say that they are doing very short term high margin investments? Because that's not how the gambling contracts are written. They could try that theory, I suppose. But stock ownership is controlled by laws and exchange rules. So these types of contracts may not be legally possible.
I think it would be really cool to have a slot machine where you pick which stock to invest in, pull the handle, wait for the line to go up or down however far you feel like it, and when you let go it cashes out. But this is probably why they don't. Because they don't get to control the odds at which stock market events happen. Worse yet, very-short-term stock market events could be easily manipulated.
Thus using internet to place investments in financial markets it is ufficially forbidden in the USA.:D I know you are kidding, but this opinion is all too common that it might be worth while to point out why it's wrong. Investment is a purchase of something tangible. It's value is determined by the actual value of what whatever you into possession (or partial possession). It is only risky because life in general is. Whereas gambling is a contract to be paid if a certain yet-impossible-to-predict event occurs. No possession exchanges hands in the case of gambling other than the possession of money. In case of investing, only one side of the exchange is money -- the other one is property (well, some contract involving property). I am not a lawyer, but it would be interesting to see if you can side step the Internet gambling restrictions by using gold as currency rather than actual currency. In that case no money would be exchanged. It would just be a contract that states by what rules property is to be exchanged at a future date.
It's a token victory. It just means that that if they do sell mp3 without paying royalties, US won't be able to use WTO to impose sanctions on them. But US doesn't need WTO to impose sanctions. It can just do it. I am not a lawyer.
Ah, why couldn't they allow the second candidate on the list that cared about space... maybe aliens. Maybe someone who has seen a UFO! You are right! Kucinich totally should have been there.
Ghandi was a crook? I knew you couldn't trust guys in togas! Ghandi was only Ghandi because he wouldn't live a slave. Any free man (one who doesn't have to fight coercion that is imposed on him at the point of a gun) who says he is not interested in money is a crook.
But I am beginning to think that conservative might have it right on education, too. Would that student really be worse served if he were home schooled?
And correlation implies causality? How? Maybe it's the cocaine use that drops when social problems go away (and violence to drop when social problems go away, too)? Please, notice that I said "go away" (not "get solved") before you take me for a lunatic that things government should be solving social problems.
Because having no doubt means not needing to further examine. And having full confidence means having no doubt. And not examining further means not asking the question "how does it work?" Once that question is no longer asked, reason stops. I said nothing about logic. I will now... logic is a tool of reason.
The only reason google lost is because the criterion was the most "commonly searched for words". If someone can already search, how likely are they to search for "google"?
"... you jack ass."
"Ad hominem validates the opposing view point. By attacking a man one shows inability to respond to what that man says." Well, now that I had time to think about it, I fully stand by my statement AND by my signature. And it is not even inconsistent. Ad hominem is a type of argument that uses people(usually the opponent), their characters and personalities as evidence of the correctness of one's own argument. Eg, "you are a jack ass so anything you say must be wrong". But that's not what I did. I simply insulted the guy. But I didn't base my argument on that insult. I based my argument on the other facts stated. I did make a conclusion that the guy is a jack ass. But it was one of the conclusions of my argument rather than one of its hypothesis. So it's not an ad hominem. Oh, and the guy was a jack ass.
Yeah, I thought about it. But how do you argue with a guy that states facts to be the opposite of what they were? There does come a point when disinformation is so obvious that it can no longer be called a mistake and must be called a lie. It's one thing to have wrong conclusions. It's quite another to blatantly lie. I guess it's this brazen lying that sent me off the wall. I still think he is a jack ass. There is only one reason people lie about Israel's history -- to call for it's destruction. And that means genocide. And if I don't call those promote genocide jack asses, that would be a statement about me.
Talk about apples and apples.
You're talking about 5% of the GNP, not the budget for the government, which would make it a larger share. Since the Israeli government takes roughly a third (e.g. 32% in 2002), the US contribution would then be at least 15% of the operating budget, not 5%. No, I meant what I said. 5% of the government budget -- not GNP. Israel's government budget is on the order of $60bln:
http://www.mof.gov.il/bud06_ea/2006.pdf. NIS/USD is somewhere between 4.5 and 5. So the budget of 271bln NIS is somewhere
between $54bln and $60bln. US aid in 2005 was $2.58bln: http://shelby.senate.gov/legislation/ForeignAid.pdf. I don't know the 2006 figure. 2.58 is less than 5% of 60. So I stand by what I said.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I would probably argue that classification of wolves and dogs as being of different species actually surprised me. Given what we know about them, they should probably be reclassified as being of the same specie.
You are probably right about the asexual organisms. I don't see how else they can be classified other than by morphology. Of course, we could change our paradigm there. It is, after all, precisely a situation where (to use the word a bit inaccurately since it is locally constant rather than properly continuous) continuum of intra-specie differences exists.
As for artificial forced breeding. I agree that the definition could be made more precise by saying that members of a species would have to be able to produce an offspring of the same specie. On surface this may seem to be a circular definition, but I'd rather think of it as recursive. That is, it has built into it the requirement that the offsprings have to be fertile and be sufficiently genetically similar to both parents.
Having said this, I am pretty sure that the analogy between human reproductive preferences and Giraffes still holds. The fact that they turned out to be picky doesn't mean that the inter-breeding ones form different species. The offsprings can still breed with Giraffes.If they CAN interbreed, they are not different species. Giraffes are very likely just as picky. If you remove cultural influences, are you sure people would breed as freely as we do? Why do some people like brown eyes and some like blue? If you insist that it's entirely cultural, then you'll have to explain why children under 4 have these preferences, too.
Can someone actually verify their "exactly" claim? Doesn't a large part of communication mechanisms in the brain occur through chemical channels? Are they simulating that as well as the electrical network itself?
China leading US on civil rights.
Of course, I do. But they are contracts to buy/sell something tangible... not palpable, but still tangible. They are just contracts that specify more of the details of how the underlying asset is to be purchased. Option is a bit trickier to explain because you have to pay to enter into the contract itself, but essentially that's all the price of the option is. It is the cost of entering into a contract to buy/sell a real-world property. Again, all investments are gambles because the real world is never completely predictable. But underneath they are still just commerce (as in purchase of thing). Some just involve more complicated purchase terms than others. While gambling does not involve any real world items. It is a contract to be paid based on an outcome of an event.
It's a token victory. It just means that that if they do sell mp3 without paying royalties, US won't be able to use WTO to impose sanctions on them. But US doesn't need WTO to impose sanctions. It can just do it. I am not a lawyer.
Ah, why couldn't they allow the second candidate on the list that cared about space... maybe aliens. Maybe someone who has seen a UFO! You are right! Kucinich totally should have been there.
Depends. But generally, yes. If they live a life that can only be sustained with donations from others, then they are crooks.
But I am beginning to think that conservative might have it right on education, too. Would that student really be worse served if he were home schooled?
And correlation implies causality? How? Maybe it's the cocaine use that drops when social problems go away (and violence to drop when social problems go away, too)? Please, notice that I said "go away" (not "get solved") before you take me for a lunatic that things government should be solving social problems.
You are somehow trying to say that a dollar sign is a bad thing? Show me a man who claims not to be interested in money, and I'll show you a crook.
I think you mean House of Representatives. Congress is comprised of both Senate and House of Representatives.
But does Facebook rent movies now? Otherwise, how does this apply (other than stretching the law to mean what you want to mean)?
Because of the alternative.
Because having no doubt means not needing to further examine. And having full confidence means having no doubt. And not examining further means not asking the question "how does it work?" Once that question is no longer asked, reason stops. I said nothing about logic. I will now... logic is a tool of reason.
nOObs? ;)
The only reason google lost is because the criterion was the most "commonly searched for words". If someone can already search, how likely are they to search for "google"?
Yeah, I thought about it. But how do you argue with a guy that states facts to be the opposite of what they were? There does come a point when disinformation is so obvious that it can no longer be called a mistake and must be called a lie. It's one thing to have wrong conclusions. It's quite another to blatantly lie. I guess it's this brazen lying that sent me off the wall. I still think he is a jack ass. There is only one reason people lie about Israel's history -- to call for it's destruction. And that means genocide. And if I don't call those promote genocide jack asses, that would be a statement about me.