Well, I don't know about Humanism, but I suppose it's fairly close to what I currently believe. Not that that's not subject to change.
Creationism
Explains the "beginning" where everything came from before and immediately after the creation of the world as we know it.
in contrast Humanism
There is no theory that explains the beginning. We just don't know
Well, not so sure there. There's quite a few theories that attempt to explain such things. But even if we assume that there's not, what's your point?
Creationism
Explains the "end" immediately before and immediately after the end of the world
Humanism
THere is no forseeable end except by some eventual Extinction Level Event or extreme Catstrophe or by the earth winding down.
Well, current scientific observation predicts that after a while the Sun will turn into a red giant and swallow the earth, and a while after that the Universe will start to cool and grow cold as it expands, until it's eventually so cold and entropic that no life will be able to live. But that's not for quiiiite a while yet. Does that come under "Earth winding down"?
Creationism
Genealogical record dating from the birth of mankind
humanism
Evolution evidenced by faulty "fossil records" of which some have been exposed as fakes. There is no biological record indicating the descendency from primates
Um, there is a biological record. As for fakes, well, I think there have been considerably more fake religious artifacts than faked fossils. But that's beside the point.
The problem with certain creationists is that they keep moving the proverbial goal posts about. Say if you have species A and species B. A creationist points out that there's nothing connecting them. Then scientists find species C, which is a clear inbetween state between A and B. Ah, the creationist says, but there's clearly no link between A and C, or C and B. Then D is found, which matches A and C, and E, which matches C and B. The creationist continues in this vein, until everyone becomes fed up.
See, fossils are rare. They're really rare. Think about how many fossils there have been found of reasonably large (ie. not measured in inches) creatures upon the earth. 10'000? Now how many large creature have lived. 10'000'000'000? 100'000'000'000? 1'000'000'000'000? 1'000'000'000'000'000 Even more? There's only been a handful of hominid fossils found, of humans or ape-like ancestors. There's been a hell of a lot of humans about.
Frankly, the whole missing link argument has been discredited so, so, so many times. I suggest you look up talk origins on google, which will refute your points better than I.
creationism
explains the reasons behind physical and genetic detorioration in man "see 'entropy'"
Humanism
goes against scientific laws and says that widespread genetic mutations produced positive effects. Which one takes more "FAITH" to believer Humanism or Creationism.?
Okay, you did catch the bit where I said that scientific "laws" aren't set in stone? And you did catch the bit where I pointed out that no such law refutes evolution anyway.
My point is this; the scientific method is about proving things wrong. Scientists don't try and prove things correct, as Creationists do, they try and prove things wrong. Here you have immensely intelligent people trying their best to prove things wrong. Einstein proved Newton (and a lot of other people) wrong, and was hailed as one of the greatest minds of all time. There are people who would literally give their right arm to prove Einstein wrong. If an established scientific theory is shown to be incorrect, then the one who discovered this will go down in the history books.
Evolution hasn't be shown to be incorrect. All Creationist arguments so far have been shown to be bogus. Of course, Creationists don't seem to care, and repeat the same arguments, even if they've been
The difference there is that MPlayer has produced very very strong evidence that KISS is in the wrong. To date, SCO has produced nothing.
Note, by the way, that the same Mplayer developers who complain that their IP is getting ripped off, also quite happily pirate other peoples' software and distribute it on their website in violation of the copyright, licensing and distribution agreements that come with that software.
This is said often, but I've yet to find a source demonstrating the evidence this. Perhaps you could show me where you learnt this from? If you're going to argue further, I'd appreciate a source.
In any case, the MPlayer group distibute copyrighted material (separate from MPlayer itself, I might add), but all such material is freely downloadable elsewhere. Without knowing the licenses for all the codecs it uses, I can't comment whether it is illegal or not.
Furthermore, why haven't the copyright holders done anything about it? Surely they must know by now. In any case, because all the codecs are freely downloadable on the web, it wouldn't be too hard to create a script to grab all the packages for the user, and then to take out the dlls needed. The effect would be the same, and once you've downloaded all the packages, you can put the dlls upon your machine however you like. I guess it's just easier to package them in a zip.
In addition, to my knowledge, none of the authors of the copyrighted Win32 codecs have released their libraries for Linux, so Mplayer is not reducing their profits, nor benefitting unfairly from their efforts. Mplayer is taking freely released codecs that can be downloaded for no charge, and placing them in a zip. KISS is benefitting unfairly from Mplayer's efforts. It's using their code to profit without giving the maintainers anything in return.
Doubtless if any of the copyright holders actually asked MPlayer about it, they'd comply, and instead create a script which would jump through the required legal hoops for the user. But since the codecs are released free on purpose, I couldn't see the point of any party doing this. Surely it's in their interests to see that their codecs are used by the widest range of people possible.
I think the main reason why people buy Windows is the same reason why the Apple Mac lost out to the IBM PC in the early days of the industry. It was software. The Mac had a better interface, was easier to use, but didn't have half as much software for it.
People don't buy Windows because they like the interface. They buy Windows because it plays the games they want to play, because it has Microsoft Word and Excel that read the.doc and.xls file formats. They don't want Windows, they want all the stuff which runs on top of it.
Frankly, I'd imagine the average user couldn't care less about their OS, just so long as it runs their software.
If it weren't for Microsoft and IE, Netscape would still be *selling* some POS based on Netscape 4.x instead of starting the Mozilla project.
Soo... you're saying that if it weren't for Microsoft, there would be no competition at all for Netscape? Huh?
As I said; capitalism. If IE hadn't come along and created an artifical monopoly, then Netscape would have to compete fairly with other companies. The average home browser would probably be a hell of a lot better.
I don't want to use Apple's overpriced Mac hardware either.
And why is it overpriced? Supply and demand. If everyone started using Macs, for whatever reason, the price would drop.
I also don't want to see the OSS brand of lockin where nobody can develop anything non-OSS anymore because they get accused of stealing from a competing product that has its source plastered all over.
Ah yes, but all such accusations have been, more or less, entirely on the money. OSS developers don't go around accusing companies here there and everywhere that they've stolen their code. And when they do accuse, they usually have a lot of evidence for it, and show the evidence straight up. As opposed to, say, SCO.
I'd postulate here that you have no idea what you're talking about, or that you're a troll.
I'd like to see real competition without the "all or nothing" attitude of the OSS community where they believe that they must be the only thing on the block or just a niche OS for elitists.
Not everyone shares Stallman's aims, you know. There is a strong argument, however, about open sourcing the core OS. If your OS is open source, then it isn't controlled by any one company. If your OS isn't controlled by any one company, then you don't get companies like MS abusing their position.
Looks to me like the OP saw the irony in the fact that the UK *is* part of the EU, yet is persuing a policy apparently at variance with the EU.
You missed a post there, mate. I was replying to a post that said in its entirity, and I quote: "Actually, the UK is not part of the EU."
It was modded +2 informative, it's now at -1. Which is why you're not seeing it. Try clicking on "parent" on my post and you'll see what I mean.
Mind you, it still grates when/. posters refer to "England's Prime Minister", etc. How difficult can it be to understand one country comprising several states?
Britain isn't one country comprising several states. It's several countries with a central government. England isn't a state, it's a country. As is Scotland and Wales, and I'm fairly sure Northern Ireland is too. If memory serves, Great Britain is made up of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the UK is Britain and Northern Ireland.
But yep, no such thing as England's prime minister.
You know what I would like to see... is that Microsoft just pull all copies out of all of Europe and then let Europe experience the horror of trying to use Linux. Sure Linux is good for us nerds, but lets see how much of an uprise there is when the internet market in Europe takes a dive because the mom and pop shops can no longer use the ineternet to place orders and mom and dad can no longer buy their goods off line because they can't figure out how to launch the internet browser.
Creating a good OS isn't hard. Look at BeOS. If Microsoft did pull out all it's copies from Europe, then there'd be a race to see who could fill the gap in the market. Capitalism, you see, when not abused by monopolies, responds well to situations like that. People could use OSX, or a few billion could be thrown toward Linux, and the problem would be solved. The only difficulty is lock-in. If you remove that, Microsoft wouldn't stand too much of a chance. Look at IE compared to Firebird. Clearly the latter is superior, but the former is more widely used. Why? Because Microsoft bundles it in.
You guys all have Microsoft to thanks for the advancement of the internet on the masses and if you think anything else you are crazy and blind. The internet would still be something that is used in the back of corporations down in the basement if it wasn't for Microsoft giving everybody a PC that they could easily use.
This is the same Microsoft that missed the whole start of the home internet revolution? If Microsoft wasn't around, that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be easy-to-use PCs. Hell, there's always Macs, even if you can't accept the possibility that other companies and individuals can design OSes much better than Microsoft can.
Europe isn't a borg collective. There are people who have difference opinions. Believe me, more people than not don't like Gates in England. Just because the Queen has given away a KBE doesn't mean that everyone's falling over themselves to grovel at his feet.
As I recall, the US government wasn't particularly harsh on Microsoft. Does that mean all USians adore their products?
There are various conjectures as to where energy came from, but to a large extent it may be beyond the realms of measurement, and thus, outside the realms of science. Scientific theories must be provably false, and it may be impossible to answer.
Also, you question may be meaningless. If time is a function of the Universe, which it probably is, then at no point has there not been energy in the Universe. You can go back to the very beginning of time, and see that there's energy. So where did energy come from? Well, it's always been around. Asking what happened *before* the beginning of time is a none-starter. There was no before.
I will give to a short version of why I think Monkeys didn't create the world.
Apple trees as opposed to only banana trees, zookeepers, and "Planet of the Apes" exist.
And yet the dominant form of life on this planet is descended from apes, and bananas are the most popular fruit in the US and Europe.
The universe as a whole won't lose energy. But parts in it will.
Conversely, parts in it will gain energy. What's your point?
The present state of things in our universe is decidely different than a thousand years ago.
It's fractionally different, not *that* different. It's not to hard to see how different it is, after all, we can just look up in the sky at objects 1000 light years away.
But look at the overall picture of our solar system. we can intelligently look at the ways things are degrading now. Estimate what they would have to be to support life and exist in the past and do the same for the future to find out a lot more than we know now. Instead of chasing conjecture theories. Simply because we know things are degrading at a measurable "speed".
Huh? Well, yes, I suppose things are degrading at a measurable speed, but it largely dependant on the Sun. The Sun's energy is the main thing used by life to reduce the amount of entropy on Earth. So things will only start to degrade when the Sun starts to end it's lifecycle. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old by current estimates, and we'll start to have problems with the Sun in another 5 billion. Until then, the Sun will spill out heat, increasing entropy overall, and life will use that energy in a minute part of the Solar System to reduce entropy a little.
So in another 5 billion years, yes, maybe you'll have a point.
HA HA HA What ever happened to Newton's First law of thermodynamics?
Oh dear.
Energy is conserved never destroyed... the universe can be looked at as a closed system. To say that at one point in "time" there was no energy and then all of a sudden there was energy and that energy made a "big bang" which spawned complex life forms and planetery systems is ludricrous.
Big bang theory says nothing about there being no energy at one point in time. Indeed, the only part you see to have gotten right is the "big" part, and the "bang" part.
Plus how does someone explain the second law of thermo where energy is "diffused" or spread out? Sure there are arguments that can be made that suggest entropy created complex structures but come on! how can someone say entropy is somewhat responsible for the universe as we know it and millions of other star systems as we know it? No... energy patterns degrade and change to less complex energy patterns. Like complex leaves decaying and turning to less complex matter that is used by trees and other things "so are days of our lives" can't get "something" from "nothing"
Accepting the Second Law holds, it still doesn't show anything. Entropy doesn't always increase. That would be stupid. My CPU is decidedly less random than the silicon it was made from.
The law states: "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state". In other words the entropy of a closed system only increases overall. It says nothing about entropy decreasing within a local area of the overall system, just so long as the total entropy is never reduced.
I severely doubt that Canopy's involvement swayed Bruce's decision. As he said, it's because Gnome and KDE are pretty damn close to one another in terms of functionality, at least if you consider just a simple desktop, and Gtk is LGPL and Qt is not. In other words, easier to develop commercial products for Gnome. No, the irony of that is not lost on me:)
Personally, I'm a KDE fan. Gnome just doesn't match up to it, in my opinion. As as a coder who's poked about with both systems, Qt is so, so much ahead of Gtk, and KDE put better together as a whole. Which is sorta nice to know.
However, as long as Gnome and KDE get more compatable with one another, I'm hardly one to complain. Open source software isn't much pressured by commericalism, so we don't have a Windows vs. Mac scenario. Applications can be easily used on both platforms. There's no lock in. And the more the two projects cooperate with one another, the happier everyone will be.
Unless military satellites are a hell of a lot more advanced than they let on, I doubt they have much capability to perminate several miles of water or thick jungles and forests. Mars, on the other hand, has not a lot obscuring it at all.
Besides which, I'd debate your assertion that the eart is mapped that accurately, in real time. Sure, satellites can map a particular part of the earth with such accuracy, but they don't keep cameras pointed at every part of the planet at the same time. That would just be unrealistic.
Uhh.. I'm sure you're not including military mapping. Military topographical maps are quite accurate.
As others pointed out, Mars is a lot easier to map than the earth, as, well, there's not really anything to obscure orbital photographs. The Earth has lots of things, such as forests, jungles and water, which make maps hard. So yes, Mars will be mapped more accurately than Earth.
Of course once Mars has strategic military importance (or oil) these maps will be available only to King George and his friends.
Well, until Bush invades the EU, I don't think there's much chance of that. This is an ESA mission, remember?
Unless you happen to be talking about a dead English monarch.
With the advancement of 3D, we saw the loss of such awesome games like old Lucasarts adventure games. They switched to 3D, and have never felt the same since.
I don't know about you, but coming from a fan of Lucasarts adventure games, Grim Fandango was one of their best works. Going 3D certainly didn't affect the quality of their games.
I get your point, but 3D isn't the work of the devil, either. There are some damn good games and movies that use computer graphics.
I thought so too. LEDs, or arrays of them, certainly can be powerful enough to match regular lightbulbs. Not sure about the power behind the LEDs in the pictures; as you say, the illumination in the apartment seems to be stuck on mood lighting.
I assume you don't acutally mean "standard" but "common".
Unofficially standard;)
Does it have pointers or not? (Yes it does - and yes they are restricted - and the issues that that cuases is not overly severe).
It has references, which aren't the same thing. C++ has references (e.g. char&) and pointers (e.g. char*). And yes, when I say it makes "pointers safer" I mean referencing. Whatever:)
Java is a FAR, FAR, FAR, beter ___LANGUAGE___ than C++ - ignore the Vm, the libraries, etc... and look at the language - Java is way better.
I have. I've used Java and C++ in two rather large projects. And I really can't see why Java is that much better. Or, indeed, that much different.
I don't have to worry about pointers going astray (but then again, I don't have pointers full stop), or garbage collection, but apart from that, what's the difference? Ignoring the libraries, that the only thing I can think of that's different. Well, except that C++ has multiple inheritence, and so forth.
Perhaps I've missed something. Could you explain why it is "way better"? Remember to ignore the Vm, the libraries and just to focus on the language.
C++ would have been stillborn if it was not C-like - Java would have been if it was not C++ like.
Agreed. That doesn't make Java a good language, though; that's just a reason why it's bad.
That said, I've never really understood that argument. I mean, how long does it take to learn a new language? A few hours for an experienced programmer, really. Making Java C++ may have saved a day or so of programming time on one programming project, but that's nothing compared to how long software takes to develop. On the other hand, companies rarely act in a logical fashion when it comes to software.
If speed isn't an issue, why is Java's design rooted in C++? There are far better designed languages than Java around. If I wasn't looking for a fast application, I'd probably consider using Python.
Java offers little advantage over C++. It has a garbage collector, has some useful libraries built in, and cross-platform compatability, and to some degree, makes pointers safer (at the loss of functionality). But that's about it. The Java libraries don't do anything so special that there isn't a standard C++ library to match it. And Java lacks pointers, polymorphism, and yet, for some rather obscure reason, keeps basic types.
I'm not saying C++ is a good language. It isn't, really. But nor is Java, by any stretch of the imagination. C++ has certain features, such as basic types, that are the legacy of C, and in some programs, are needed for speed purposes. Java has them because... Well, actually, there isn't a compelling reason to have them at all. And that's just one feature of the language. Java isn't very well thought out at all.
I wouldn't say I was an anti-Java zealot, but I can't see many advantages to using Java.
Just because there are people who criticise the US, doesn't really make it right to be joyful over other people's failures. The Beagle 2 failure was just that, a failure. It can hardly be considered a success to anyone, not even NASA, as no-one gains from the disaster. However, everyone had a lot to gain from the mission. EU and US scientists have lost a lot of data that could have helped us understand whether we are alone in the Universe or not.
So yep, the US is still number one, whatever that's worth, but we know less much about Mars then we would have done had Beagle succeeded in its aims. That doesn't sound like something anyone should be proud about.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I don't know about Humanism, but I suppose it's fairly close to what I currently believe. Not that that's not subject to change.
Creationism
Explains the "beginning" where everything came from before and immediately after the creation of the world as we know it.
in contrast Humanism
There is no theory that explains the beginning. We just don't know
Well, not so sure there. There's quite a few theories that attempt to explain such things. But even if we assume that there's not, what's your point?
Creationism
Explains the "end" immediately before and immediately after the end of the world
Humanism
THere is no forseeable end except by some eventual Extinction Level Event or extreme Catstrophe or by the earth winding down.
Well, current scientific observation predicts that after a while the Sun will turn into a red giant and swallow the earth, and a while after that the Universe will start to cool and grow cold as it expands, until it's eventually so cold and entropic that no life will be able to live. But that's not for quiiiite a while yet. Does that come under "Earth winding down"?
Creationism
Genealogical record dating from the birth of mankind
humanism
Evolution evidenced by faulty "fossil records" of which some have been exposed as fakes. There is no biological record indicating the descendency from primates
Um, there is a biological record. As for fakes, well, I think there have been considerably more fake religious artifacts than faked fossils. But that's beside the point.
The problem with certain creationists is that they keep moving the proverbial goal posts about. Say if you have species A and species B. A creationist points out that there's nothing connecting them. Then scientists find species C, which is a clear inbetween state between A and B. Ah, the creationist says, but there's clearly no link between A and C, or C and B. Then D is found, which matches A and C, and E, which matches C and B. The creationist continues in this vein, until everyone becomes fed up.
See, fossils are rare. They're really rare. Think about how many fossils there have been found of reasonably large (ie. not measured in inches) creatures upon the earth. 10'000? Now how many large creature have lived. 10'000'000'000? 100'000'000'000? 1'000'000'000'000? 1'000'000'000'000'000 Even more? There's only been a handful of hominid fossils found, of humans or ape-like ancestors. There's been a hell of a lot of humans about.
Frankly, the whole missing link argument has been discredited so, so, so many times. I suggest you look up talk origins on google, which will refute your points better than I.
creationism
explains the reasons behind physical and genetic detorioration in man "see 'entropy'"
Humanism
goes against scientific laws and says that widespread genetic mutations produced positive effects. Which one takes more "FAITH" to believer Humanism or Creationism.?
Okay, you did catch the bit where I said that scientific "laws" aren't set in stone? And you did catch the bit where I pointed out that no such law refutes evolution anyway.
My point is this; the scientific method is about proving things wrong. Scientists don't try and prove things correct, as Creationists do, they try and prove things wrong. Here you have immensely intelligent people trying their best to prove things wrong. Einstein proved Newton (and a lot of other people) wrong, and was hailed as one of the greatest minds of all time. There are people who would literally give their right arm to prove Einstein wrong. If an established scientific theory is shown to be incorrect, then the one who discovered this will go down in the history books.
Evolution hasn't be shown to be incorrect. All Creationist arguments so far have been shown to be bogus. Of course, Creationists don't seem to care, and repeat the same arguments, even if they've been
See MPlayer vs. KISS.
The difference there is that MPlayer has produced very very strong evidence that KISS is in the wrong. To date, SCO has produced nothing.
Note, by the way, that the same Mplayer developers who complain that their IP is getting ripped off, also quite happily pirate other peoples' software and distribute it on their website in violation of the copyright, licensing and distribution agreements that come with that software.
This is said often, but I've yet to find a source demonstrating the evidence this. Perhaps you could show me where you learnt this from? If you're going to argue further, I'd appreciate a source.
In any case, the MPlayer group distibute copyrighted material (separate from MPlayer itself, I might add), but all such material is freely downloadable elsewhere. Without knowing the licenses for all the codecs it uses, I can't comment whether it is illegal or not.
Furthermore, why haven't the copyright holders done anything about it? Surely they must know by now. In any case, because all the codecs are freely downloadable on the web, it wouldn't be too hard to create a script to grab all the packages for the user, and then to take out the dlls needed. The effect would be the same, and once you've downloaded all the packages, you can put the dlls upon your machine however you like. I guess it's just easier to package them in a zip.
In addition, to my knowledge, none of the authors of the copyrighted Win32 codecs have released their libraries for Linux, so Mplayer is not reducing their profits, nor benefitting unfairly from their efforts. Mplayer is taking freely released codecs that can be downloaded for no charge, and placing them in a zip. KISS is benefitting unfairly from Mplayer's efforts. It's using their code to profit without giving the maintainers anything in return.
Doubtless if any of the copyright holders actually asked MPlayer about it, they'd comply, and instead create a script which would jump through the required legal hoops for the user. But since the codecs are released free on purpose, I couldn't see the point of any party doing this. Surely it's in their interests to see that their codecs are used by the widest range of people possible.
Oh, this is all way over my head :) - it's a principality then.
It's a country as well. Link.
I think the main reason why people buy Windows is the same reason why the Apple Mac lost out to the IBM PC in the early days of the industry. It was software. The Mac had a better interface, was easier to use, but didn't have half as much software for it.
.doc and .xls file formats. They don't want Windows, they want all the stuff which runs on top of it.
People don't buy Windows because they like the interface. They buy Windows because it plays the games they want to play, because it has Microsoft Word and Excel that read the
Frankly, I'd imagine the average user couldn't care less about their OS, just so long as it runs their software.
Ah, such a wonderful attitude of international friendship.
If anyone should be "kicked out" of the EU, my vote would be for ill-informed xenophobic morons. But then, that's just my opinion.
If it weren't for Microsoft and IE, Netscape would still be *selling* some POS based on Netscape 4.x instead of starting the Mozilla project.
Soo... you're saying that if it weren't for Microsoft, there would be no competition at all for Netscape? Huh?
As I said; capitalism. If IE hadn't come along and created an artifical monopoly, then Netscape would have to compete fairly with other companies. The average home browser would probably be a hell of a lot better.
I don't want to use Apple's overpriced Mac hardware either.
And why is it overpriced? Supply and demand. If everyone started using Macs, for whatever reason, the price would drop.
I also don't want to see the OSS brand of lockin where nobody can develop anything non-OSS anymore because they get accused of stealing from a competing product that has its source plastered all over.
Ah yes, but all such accusations have been, more or less, entirely on the money. OSS developers don't go around accusing companies here there and everywhere that they've stolen their code. And when they do accuse, they usually have a lot of evidence for it, and show the evidence straight up. As opposed to, say, SCO.
I'd postulate here that you have no idea what you're talking about, or that you're a troll.
I'd like to see real competition without the "all or nothing" attitude of the OSS community where they believe that they must be the only thing on the block or just a niche OS for elitists.
Not everyone shares Stallman's aims, you know. There is a strong argument, however, about open sourcing the core OS. If your OS is open source, then it isn't controlled by any one company. If your OS isn't controlled by any one company, then you don't get companies like MS abusing their position.
"the EU (therefore by extension the UK)"
/. posters refer to "England's Prime Minister", etc. How difficult can it be to understand one country comprising several states?
Looks to me like the OP saw the irony in the fact that the UK *is* part of the EU, yet is persuing a policy apparently at variance with the EU.
You missed a post there, mate. I was replying to a post that said in its entirity, and I quote: "Actually, the UK is not part of the EU."
It was modded +2 informative, it's now at -1. Which is why you're not seeing it. Try clicking on "parent" on my post and you'll see what I mean.
Mind you, it still grates when
Britain isn't one country comprising several states. It's several countries with a central government. England isn't a state, it's a country. As is Scotland and Wales, and I'm fairly sure Northern Ireland is too. If memory serves, Great Britain is made up of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the UK is Britain and Northern Ireland.
But yep, no such thing as England's prime minister.
The UK is very much part of the EU. Please don't mod things as informative just because they might look like they know what they're talking about.
You know what I would like to see ... is that Microsoft just pull all copies out of all of Europe and then let Europe experience the horror of trying to use Linux. Sure Linux is good for us nerds, but lets see how much of an uprise there is when the internet market in Europe takes a dive because the mom and pop shops can no longer use the ineternet to place orders and mom and dad can no longer buy their goods off line because they can't figure out how to launch the internet browser.
Creating a good OS isn't hard. Look at BeOS. If Microsoft did pull out all it's copies from Europe, then there'd be a race to see who could fill the gap in the market. Capitalism, you see, when not abused by monopolies, responds well to situations like that. People could use OSX, or a few billion could be thrown toward Linux, and the problem would be solved. The only difficulty is lock-in. If you remove that, Microsoft wouldn't stand too much of a chance. Look at IE compared to Firebird. Clearly the latter is superior, but the former is more widely used. Why? Because Microsoft bundles it in.
You guys all have Microsoft to thanks for the advancement of the internet on the masses and if you think anything else you are crazy and blind. The internet would still be something that is used in the back of corporations down in the basement if it wasn't for Microsoft giving everybody a PC that they could easily use.
This is the same Microsoft that missed the whole start of the home internet revolution? If Microsoft wasn't around, that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be easy-to-use PCs. Hell, there's always Macs, even if you can't accept the possibility that other companies and individuals can design OSes much better than Microsoft can.
Europe isn't a borg collective. There are people who have difference opinions. Believe me, more people than not don't like Gates in England. Just because the Queen has given away a KBE doesn't mean that everyone's falling over themselves to grovel at his feet.
As I recall, the US government wasn't particularly harsh on Microsoft. Does that mean all USians adore their products?
What theory does explain where energy came from?
There are various conjectures as to where energy came from, but to a large extent it may be beyond the realms of measurement, and thus, outside the realms of science. Scientific theories must be provably false, and it may be impossible to answer.
Also, you question may be meaningless. If time is a function of the Universe, which it probably is, then at no point has there not been energy in the Universe. You can go back to the very beginning of time, and see that there's energy. So where did energy come from? Well, it's always been around. Asking what happened *before* the beginning of time is a none-starter. There was no before.
I will give to a short version of why I think Monkeys didn't create the world.
Apple trees as opposed to only banana trees, zookeepers, and "Planet of the Apes" exist.
And yet the dominant form of life on this planet is descended from apes, and bananas are the most popular fruit in the US and Europe.
Makes more sense than some religions.
The universe as a whole won't lose energy. But parts in it will.
Conversely, parts in it will gain energy. What's your point?
The present state of things in our universe is decidely different than a thousand years ago.
It's fractionally different, not *that* different. It's not to hard to see how different it is, after all, we can just look up in the sky at objects 1000 light years away.
But look at the overall picture of our solar system. we can intelligently look at the ways things are degrading now. Estimate what they would have to be to support life and exist in the past and do the same for the future to find out a lot more than we know now. Instead of chasing conjecture theories. Simply because we know things are degrading at a measurable "speed".
Huh? Well, yes, I suppose things are degrading at a measurable speed, but it largely dependant on the Sun. The Sun's energy is the main thing used by life to reduce the amount of entropy on Earth. So things will only start to degrade when the Sun starts to end it's lifecycle. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old by current estimates, and we'll start to have problems with the Sun in another 5 billion. Until then, the Sun will spill out heat, increasing entropy overall, and life will use that energy in a minute part of the Solar System to reduce entropy a little.
So in another 5 billion years, yes, maybe you'll have a point.
Suddenly, being a republic sounds a little bit nicer.
Never the less where did the energy come from?
The big bang theory does not claim to explain where the Universe came from. Just how it started.
So where did the energy come from? Giant space gnome monkeys?
I'd be interested in knowing why you think that a Universe created by God is any more plausible than a Universe created by giant space gnome monkeys.
HA HA HA What ever happened to Newton's First law of thermodynamics?
Oh dear.
Energy is conserved never destroyed... the universe can be looked at as a closed system. To say that at one point in "time" there was no energy and then all of a sudden there was energy and that energy made a "big bang" which spawned complex life forms and planetery systems is ludricrous.
Big bang theory says nothing about there being no energy at one point in time. Indeed, the only part you see to have gotten right is the "big" part, and the "bang" part.
Plus how does someone explain the second law of thermo where energy is "diffused" or spread out? Sure there are arguments that can be made that suggest entropy created complex structures but come on! how can someone say entropy is somewhat responsible for the universe as we know it and millions of other star systems as we know it? No... energy patterns degrade and change to less complex energy patterns. Like complex leaves decaying and turning to less complex matter that is used by trees and other things "so are days of our lives" can't get "something" from "nothing"
Accepting the Second Law holds, it still doesn't show anything. Entropy doesn't always increase. That would be stupid. My CPU is decidedly less random than the silicon it was made from.
The law states: "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state". In other words the entropy of a closed system only increases overall. It says nothing about entropy decreasing within a local area of the overall system, just so long as the total entropy is never reduced.
I severely doubt that Canopy's involvement swayed Bruce's decision. As he said, it's because Gnome and KDE are pretty damn close to one another in terms of functionality, at least if you consider just a simple desktop, and Gtk is LGPL and Qt is not. In other words, easier to develop commercial products for Gnome. No, the irony of that is not lost on me :)
Personally, I'm a KDE fan. Gnome just doesn't match up to it, in my opinion. As as a coder who's poked about with both systems, Qt is so, so much ahead of Gtk, and KDE put better together as a whole. Which is sorta nice to know.
However, as long as Gnome and KDE get more compatable with one another, I'm hardly one to complain. Open source software isn't much pressured by commericalism, so we don't have a Windows vs. Mac scenario. Applications can be easily used on both platforms. There's no lock in. And the more the two projects cooperate with one another, the happier everyone will be.
Unless military satellites are a hell of a lot more advanced than they let on, I doubt they have much capability to perminate several miles of water or thick jungles and forests. Mars, on the other hand, has not a lot obscuring it at all.
Besides which, I'd debate your assertion that the eart is mapped that accurately, in real time. Sure, satellites can map a particular part of the earth with such accuracy, but they don't keep cameras pointed at every part of the planet at the same time. That would just be unrealistic.
Who modded this guy informative?
Uhh.. I'm sure you're not including military mapping. Military topographical maps are quite accurate.
As others pointed out, Mars is a lot easier to map than the earth, as, well, there's not really anything to obscure orbital photographs. The Earth has lots of things, such as forests, jungles and water, which make maps hard. So yes, Mars will be mapped more accurately than Earth.
Of course once Mars has strategic military importance (or oil) these maps will be available only to King George and his friends.
Well, until Bush invades the EU, I don't think there's much chance of that. This is an ESA mission, remember?
Unless you happen to be talking about a dead English monarch.
Your choice of OS doesn't make your system secure. What makes a system secure is a user that has a clue.
To a large extent, yes. But some systems are easier to secure than others.
With the advancement of 3D, we saw the loss of such awesome games like old Lucasarts adventure games. They switched to 3D, and have never felt the same since.
I don't know about you, but coming from a fan of Lucasarts adventure games, Grim Fandango was one of their best works. Going 3D certainly didn't affect the quality of their games.
I get your point, but 3D isn't the work of the devil, either. There are some damn good games and movies that use computer graphics.
I thought so too. LEDs, or arrays of them, certainly can be powerful enough to match regular lightbulbs. Not sure about the power behind the LEDs in the pictures; as you say, the illumination in the apartment seems to be stuck on mood lighting.
I assume you don't acutally mean "standard" but "common".
;)
:)
Unofficially standard
Does it have pointers or not? (Yes it does - and yes they are restricted - and the issues that that cuases is not overly severe).
It has references, which aren't the same thing. C++ has references (e.g. char&) and pointers (e.g. char*). And yes, when I say it makes "pointers safer" I mean referencing. Whatever
Java is a FAR, FAR, FAR, beter ___LANGUAGE___ than C++ - ignore the Vm, the libraries, etc... and look at the language - Java is way better.
I have. I've used Java and C++ in two rather large projects. And I really can't see why Java is that much better. Or, indeed, that much different.
I don't have to worry about pointers going astray (but then again, I don't have pointers full stop), or garbage collection, but apart from that, what's the difference? Ignoring the libraries, that the only thing I can think of that's different. Well, except that C++ has multiple inheritence, and so forth.
Perhaps I've missed something. Could you explain why it is "way better"? Remember to ignore the Vm, the libraries and just to focus on the language.
C++ would have been stillborn if it was not C-like - Java would have been if it was not C++ like.
Agreed. That doesn't make Java a good language, though; that's just a reason why it's bad.
That said, I've never really understood that argument. I mean, how long does it take to learn a new language? A few hours for an experienced programmer, really. Making Java C++ may have saved a day or so of programming time on one programming project, but that's nothing compared to how long software takes to develop. On the other hand, companies rarely act in a logical fashion when it comes to software.
If speed isn't an issue, why is Java's design rooted in C++? There are far better designed languages than Java around. If I wasn't looking for a fast application, I'd probably consider using Python.
Java offers little advantage over C++. It has a garbage collector, has some useful libraries built in, and cross-platform compatability, and to some degree, makes pointers safer (at the loss of functionality). But that's about it. The Java libraries don't do anything so special that there isn't a standard C++ library to match it. And Java lacks pointers, polymorphism, and yet, for some rather obscure reason, keeps basic types.
I'm not saying C++ is a good language. It isn't, really. But nor is Java, by any stretch of the imagination. C++ has certain features, such as basic types, that are the legacy of C, and in some programs, are needed for speed purposes. Java has them because... Well, actually, there isn't a compelling reason to have them at all. And that's just one feature of the language. Java isn't very well thought out at all.
I wouldn't say I was an anti-Java zealot, but I can't see many advantages to using Java.
Just because there are people who criticise the US, doesn't really make it right to be joyful over other people's failures. The Beagle 2 failure was just that, a failure. It can hardly be considered a success to anyone, not even NASA, as no-one gains from the disaster. However, everyone had a lot to gain from the mission. EU and US scientists have lost a lot of data that could have helped us understand whether we are alone in the Universe or not.
So yep, the US is still number one, whatever that's worth, but we know less much about Mars then we would have done had Beagle succeeded in its aims. That doesn't sound like something anyone should be proud about.