It's dangerous to praise a decision with political ramifications - something good can be twisted into something bad on the next iteration. Still and all, the language is encouraging, and poses the rhetorical question:
"How messed up is the US when we have to take cues on privacy laws from, of all people, the Germans?"
As another poster pointed out about informational self-determination, the Germans are discussing the implications of privacy. US courts are still diddling over whether privacy expectation is even "constitutional".
As long as we're striving for the purity of our linguistic fluids, let me point out, Webster, that
enamoring
is the present participle of "enamor", which is a transitive verb that requires a direct object, usually denoted by a prepended "of" or "with". So your question undoubtedly was "what is it concerning cussing of which you are so enamored?" (if you insist on retaining the adjectival form).
That said, I am offended at your lack of proper grammar. Seriously - why are you so enamored with bad grammar?
Personally, I think it's a pride thing, like "No one can tell me what the proper rules of English grammar are!" How about voluntarily learning the proper language rules to avoid illiterate speech when you can? [When you can what? Let's not even get started on the rest of the sentence structures] Would you really use a boatload [nice censor - I think you were looking for "shitload"] of split infinitives and pronouns without referents around schoolkids learning English, your girlfriend, her parents? Would you praise atheists skeptics in a room full of fundamentalists?
If you don't care about how your language, and especially the purported contribution of your speech, is presented to other people, why should anyone care about what you find offensive?
Some people need to be offended. You, for instance. Do you care why people do it?
Maybe they think it's awesome. Maybe they are exploring the boundaries of what is socially acceptable - this is important for developing children. Maybe they are immature. Perhaps they are suffering from a greater emotional pain and so "politeness" and not offending you take a lower priority.
You are not their judge. I agree with you to this extent - it's not pleasant when you hear people casually cursing in public. It degrades the quality of the public discourse. But those people are dealing with their own demons - be it emotional or mental disturbance, or a plain lack of education. In all instances, your being offended means jack shit to them. You want to stop people cursing - do the hard thing: fix society. Otherwise, please STFU, already.
At any rate, there's certainly no reason to be using expletives as common adjectives.
Sorry, this is according to whom, exactly? The rest of what you wrote is so much emotional fluff. It comes down to that quote: YOU believe people should not use expletives. Well good for you. The Mormons will make you an honorary member. You can get a free bar of soap from the local PTA to wash the mouths of young children.
Seriously, who appointed you the language police? It's not your opinion - it's your arrogance in assuming that your standard ought to apply to anyone besides yourself.
You don't like expletive-based adjectives? Terrific - don't use them. Don't like it when someone else uses them - change the channel. If you believe that use of such linguistic constructions in a wide-spread and socially permissible fashion is evidence of the dire state of our society, you may well be right. But counter-indicating their use with a "shouldn't be" is as useful as pissing against the wind.
I think for that last one, you're thinking of Russian oil barons. The penultimate would be the Democratic congress on health care. And the ante-penultimate would be/. on anything MS related (s/studies/stories/).
That said, by and large, I agree with the cynicism. Still, there is a Unified Theory floating out there somewhere - and we should find it.
Hm, I see your point. The trick would then be to get everyone to agree what those specific goals are. Won't that be just a huge clusterf*** of special interest!
All of this sounds like a grand design, but here's the issue with the "milestones/goals" part of it: what we are doing in space today, what we are planning to do in the near term, has all been accessible since roughly the 80's. We go up, launch a sat, occasionally visit a space station. IANARS (IANA Rocket Scientist) but it seems that we are just refining techniques - the diminishing returns of the current state of the art, if you will.
For there to be a next wave, we have to make some fundamental scientific progress. E.g. a space elevator is not merely a matter of improved engineering, we need some real breakthroughs in material sciences. I'm not trying to say "oh it's all hopeless" - not at all. Engineering can take you far, but the world's most advanced steam-engine train is still going to lose to the Shinkansen.
If you really believe in "let's all get together, sing kumbaya, and oh, build some stuff together", I think we'd be better off investing all that money into fundamental research. Can you imagine what (to use your number) $60B/year invested in the world's best minds would do in a decade? The only tiny wrinkle is that fundamental research doesn't exactly go with 'milestones' and 'deliverables'.
So, to some extent, I can see the critics' point. They're complete political whores, no doubt, but seriously, what ARE we doing up there?
This "Theorem" completely categorizes finite simple groups - in effect the "building blocks" of Group Theory. It is one of the great triumphs of 20th century mathematics. It's also in the area of 15000 pages long, and represents the combined efforts of scores of mathematicians who worked on it. It is confidently believed to be correct, but seeing as very few people really understand the majority of this "theorem" in detail, it's their word that it "works".
I realize this is slightly OT. The discussion of "intelligent, powerful women", with (presumably) not Lara Croft-esque endowments made me recall "Mahoromatic". The main character, a female ex-combat android (Mahoro-chan), is smart, certainly powerful, helpful, etc.. The series gets great mileage out of her competition for the attentions of a young man (incidentally a weak eyeglasses-wearing nerd) with a sultry teacher whose physical characteristics are best described as "fevered dreams of GAINAX desginers" (ob picture: Saori-sensei (if someone reading this is new to/., well-endowed anime girls score in the middle range of the "GAINAX bounce-o-meter" scale:-D).
I think my point is that people (at least in the anime world) are aware of the "endowment" issue, and do work into their stories. Oh, and along similar lines, last I checked, neither Dagger nor Yuna were possessed of erm...oversize front-mounted radar housings. Now, Lulu, on the other hand... but I digress. So, not every female lead is necessarily Lara Croft, but a certain percentage of them will be, because let's face it - sometimes you have to imagine yourself, and your surroundings to have "heroic proportions";-D
Because the legal system has, and always will be, hijacked for the benefit of those with money/power.
Proposals such as this "collect road toll" are nothing more than thinly veiled excuses presented by Homeland Security to spy on American citizens. It's not that the DHS will "eventually use it" - it *is* a DHS proposal. The only creative bit is how do you phrase it in an acceptable way to sell it to people first, and then escalate it as a security device afterwards.
I am certain the DOT has no interest in this matter as a "toll issue". Nowhere in law is there anything that says that people ought to pay for roads proportional to how much they use them. If this rationale held up, I should be able to avoid paying school tax because I have no children going to school.
I find it funny how people like the parent always bleat about "well, the law is the law", somehow managing to ignore 200 years of political corruption. That a bunch of political flacks in DC managed to go through the formal motions of putting the law in place doesn't mean we should enshrine the product of the movement of their political bowels as "Law" (though I admit, it'll get enforced as such). People like the parent always say "try changing the law". I believe that that criticism will become valid only when politicians are held accountable for the laws they pass.
Accountability for passed laws is actually something that doesn't exist. Consider: if Congress passes a law that is struck down as unconstitutional, then the politicians were trying to sneak by something that is technically illegal. Is anyone held accountable? Is any restitution paid to people who suffered under this unjust law? Of course not!
There's an even bigger problem - by most accounts, most Senators/Congressmen don't read the actual bills they sign into law. Supposedly, most lawmakers did not read the Patriot Act when it was signed. Wasn't that a wonderful little cherry the American people got. Frankly, the only job of the lawmakers is to create good laws. Not reading the proposals to me represents criminal negligence of the worst possible sort - these people are literally playing with people's lives, for the police/DHS will certainly use any bad law to its fullest extent.
Without any sort of accountability, trying to change laws is basically a semi-futile endeavor, because the very people you are appealing to for help....just....dont....care. And recalling them is no help - they've had time to get bribes from lobbyists/whoever, made their connections, and can live happily thereafter. That's no punishment. So, until the day that actual accountability exists, crying "change the laws" is pointless.
America is heavily overburdened with laws. When we have the expectation that "Everyone is guilty of Something", then everyone is a criminal. This basically destroys any respect anyone has for the law. Consider - the modern attitude toward law is not "I am a good person for obeying the law. I am proud to obey the law because the law is just". The current attitude is more like "Today I didn't get caught doing anything wrong. Stupid f*cking politicians". Honestly, do you know *anyone* who is proud to be a law-abiding citizen. Not because of punishment. Not because of fear. Out of a genuine respect for "The Law"? Anyone? I don't, myself. People aren't stupid - they know most of the current law is bullshit. The part that's not bullshit is drowned in the lake of steaming excrement. In these conditions, enforcement must come out of fear, not out of a moral commitment to justice. And once you deal in fear, any attempt at being reasonable is doomed to failure - e.g. like your proposal to "change the law"
People reply to silly rhetoric with silly rhetoric because anyone paying attention to the original hype doesn't have the attention span to understand reasoned argumentation. Since you have chosen to argue for ID on a scientific ground, the discussion can proceed there. I shall do my best herewith:
The "technical claim", if you will, of ID is (in my understanding) that evolution fails to explain major structural changes and only explains incremental changes. ID therefore claims to be the "missing element" - that the major changes are so complex that they require an external "directing force". Do I have this right so far (I really am trying to be honest and thorough)?
If we completely strip away the identificaiton of this "directing force" with the deity of your choice, we are left with (Revised Claim 1) "there is more than the process of Darwinian evolution that happens when species evolve". (I'm sweeping the "directing force" issue under the rug: we can regard Evolution itself as a 'directing force' that drives the "minor changes") I really can't argue with this claim. I don't know whether this Revised Claim 1 is true or not, but it sounds like a plausible question to ask. If it can be shown that Darwinian Evolution fails to account for the major developmental changes in species, and this analysis is accepted and is verifiable by other scientists, then by all means, we have an Important New Question in biology. New Darwins can have a field day coming up with scientific theories for the major evolutionary leaps. Conversely, if Darwinian Evolution can be shown to account for the major changes, then there's no problem. We shouldn't enshrine scientific theories as unchallengeable.
When looked at this way (i.e. Evolution possibly fails to account for certain observed changes) there is really no problem with ID (as stated in Revised Claim 1, or something reasonably close to it). Personally, I'm not convinced that the "highly unlikely changes occur, therefore evolution has problems" claim holds up. What's the meaning of "highly unlikely" against the background of random mutation carried over millenia? Perhaps "major changes" are the "biological limit" of many small changes. I don't know - I'm not a biologist/statistician. But as I said, it's a valid question to ask, and scientists should be able to give an answer, or start developing new theories.
In this sense, ID isn't a scientific theory (since it actually doesn't answer anything). All it does is raise an interesting question. Not a problem. I'm actually kind of curious about it myself. Let's put it to the scientists and let them work it out.
In the meantime, we still have the social impact question. In the spirit of serious discussion, please tell me: do you honestly believe ID is *not* being used by certain unscrupulous Christians with an agenda to push the "Evolution is wrong, God is the answer" thing into the classroom? Do you honestly believe the clarity of the (valid) scientific question will be preserved in an environment so politically charged, especially against the background of a high school classroom, with parents/administrators/axe grinders/fundamentalists all breathing down each other's necks?
I respectfully submit that the ID issue has never been presented in it's true aspect of a valid scientific question regarding the Theory of Evolution. Even the terminology "ID theory" already betrays this essential confusion. ID was, from the outset, hijacked as a religion vs. science scapegoat, to give religious types some media exposure. ID as it is used today is nothing more than cheap political provocation. ID as a valid question is barely being discussed, and this is quite a pity, because it is a valid question that deserves to be investigated.
One final word - as soon as the "directing force" that accounts for the major changes in species is identified with a divine agent, this alters ID as a question, and makes it a claim. Such claim is to be rejected scornfully, since it basically tries to substitute faith for scientific reasoning - which is exactly what I feel the proponents of ID in Kansas are trying to do.
I hate to disagree with you, but "the state of being full of hate" is "the state of being full of hate". The link you gave defined "hateful", which I don't have a problem with. The -ness suffix creates a noun out of whatever it is appended to. Since the word you're changing already has a core noun meaning, appending the "-ness" makes no sense. Hence, "hate = hatefullness mod -ness"
Oh, and if you do a google search on hatefullness....the first link is "Hatefullness of Christianity". It's funny that most of the links mentioning "hatefullness" talk about Christianity. That alone makes the word suspect in my mind - why would a supposedly general word show up only in this one context. This supports the idea that the woman using it originally to critisize this professor is from a die-hard pro-Christian faction - after all, she's using their language.
I can acknowledge that some people seem to be using the word. But if you stop, take a deep breath, and think about it, I think it becomes rather obvious the word is just a corruption, along the lines of "irregardless".
No, "everyone here on slashdot" (whoever that is) complains that ID is put forth as a "scientific theory".
You see, Creationism can't be taught in schools officially because it's a religious belief, and we have separation of church and state (short short version). So, Creationism, version 2, relabeled "Intelligent Design" is put forth (to the best of my understanding) as a *scientific theory*. Since it's now "scientific", the claim goes, it can be taught in schools as an alternative theory to evolution.
That's what the critics are complaining about - that it's being pushed through as being "scientific", though at it's core (the criticism goes) it's nothing more than Creationism wrapped in pseudo-scientific language. Presumably, the course would take the "scientific theory" angle and attack ID in terms of science (i.e. to be a theory it must be verifiable by experiments, be predictive, etc..) A real pity it got canned over some (from what I understand) private emails.
I just have to mention this, thought: In one of the articles, someone criticizing this professor says "he is so full of hatefullness for religion". George Carlin moment here: WTF is "hatefullness"? Would that be something similar to...I don't know..."hate"? This person must have studied at the George W. Bush school of "Higherest Linguistication of the English Language".
Did anyone else think: "Well, certainly wasps can sniff *money* better than dogs, but bombs?...", before figuring out that article was talking about the other kind of "wasp"?
1) Change Oracle's status to "Charity" 2) Donate $100B to the Oracle Charity Fund 3) Change Oracle's status back to "For Profit Corporation" 4) Profit!!!
There's something wrong up there though.... what could it be ??????
Unfortunately, the site requires registration, and won't let you download anything for two weeks (or so it was when I registered). I'm sorry I don't have direct links. Still, it's a good site, they have tons of great amv's. Anyway, in two weeks, your dream can come true.:-)
Re: Dragonball as a Superman-like story, Japanified.
While I'm not disagreeing with you, consider this: Goku, the main character, is loosely based on the character of "Son Goku" of the "Journey to the West" story (old, old story from China). Son Goku is a creature born of the Earth (not a man, nor animal, nor god). As such, he is considered a "heretical" being, i.e. his existence is a heresy. It doesn't help that he is insanely strong, masters Buddhist arts and thereby becomes immortal. The gods punish him for a series of offenses by locking him up on a mountain top (they get a really holy Buddhist bodhisatva to help capture him), and after 500 years he is released by and accompanies a travelling priest who must make a journey Westwards (to India) to receive certain holy scriptures. Naturally, many monsters/troubles stand in their way. The plot is long, and gets very convoluted. One of the funniest/best anime interpretations of this story is the "Gensoumaden Saiyuki", or "Saiyuki" for short. Bottom line, though, is that DBZ probably doesn't need Superman. It does the "12 second planetary explosion takes 30 episodes to complete" and "powerup, trashtalk, powerup" 5 episode plot all by itself.
I'm glad they didn't put him in jail - after all he developed bittorrent, so it would make sense to sue him, right? Right?
From what I recall, he never came out saying "here's a great tool to get your m0v13s on!". He just developed it and let it run. If all that the MPAA will do in terms of bothering him is to have him state officially "I won't tell people how to find movies", that's great.
(After all, it's not like people don't know where to find such things if they are the spawn of Satan and are looking to violate MPAA's valuable copyrighted material:-) )
Back in 1972 there was a French movie called "Un Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire" (The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe). In the movie, the chief of French secret service lays a trap for his rival - he convinces him that a particular man is a dangerous and cunning secret agent that is planning to expose the rival's dirty secrets. This rival then goes crazy trying to investigate this "agent". The truth is that the man is, in fact, what he appears to be - a clumsy orchestra player. The movie is summed up with these lines:
"...because when looked at closely enough, every man's life is suspicious".
Individually, any of these systems may appear to do good things in individual cases. And the arguments for them always center around certain immediate benefits without considering the wider picture. The bigger truth is that such systems lead to a society full of anxiety, fear, and guilt, with arbitrary and random enforcement of the rules. There's a word for such conditions - the word is "despotism".
Re:s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/
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Top 20 Geek Novels
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· Score: 1
Well....if you want to talk connected universes here....:-)
Moon is a Harsh Mistress world becomes inducted (forcibly) into the main "Future History" world via it's connection to The Rolling Stones, where the little red-haired girl from MIAHM is now a grandmother. She then gets rejuvenated when Lazarus Long, using the "world machine" from Number of the Beast pops into that universe, and subsequently, as you point out, appears in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (which is itself connected with Lazarus Long). Furthermore, I could be wrong, but I believe Jubal appears in The Cat also.
Actually, using the "world machine", he pretty much ties almost all his major novels together (albeit sometimes tenuously: recall a very brief line in Time Enough For Love when Lazarus says something like "there was once a man whose brain was transplanted into a woman's body. He died, of course - rejection" referring to "I Will Fear No Evil"). Some of the worlds are not explicitly connected to Future History, but their histories are potentially compatible with it, especially considering the "six discoverers of the Moon" hypothesis (I think he explains this in Number of the Beast). Examples of this would be Door Into Summer, Double Star, Red Planet, Podkayne of Mars, etc.. Of the important, major worlds, I believe only Starship Troopers is completely incompatible with Future History. Of the minor stories, some are also not compatible, for instance Sixth Column would contradict the American Ayatollahs/Covenant thread and The Puppet Masters just does not fit in. Finally some of the minors appear totally unrelated, e.g. Glory Road, Tunnel In The Sky. However, a large section of the opus is, or becomes, connected via the Lazarus Long thread.
And to address your other point, I believe issues of morality are certainly geek issues. For reference, I cite ESR's Jargon File. In "A Portrait of J. Random Hacker", in the section on "other interests" he mentions that some of the non-computer interests of geeks include linguistics, music, mathematics and... philosophy. I would argue this further. I believe geeks are pretty much the only section of the population in which "being smart" is acceptible. This simply means we acknowledge our intelligence, and want to use it to satisfy our curiosity about the world. This frequently leads us to the hard sciences (math, chem, physics) and the natural modern extention of math is comp. sci. and hacking. (I'm not trying to be too technical here, just connecting trends). We reject dogmatic postulation, e.g. "this version of history is right because I said so", relying instead on logic and reason. Regretfully, modern (American) society seems to find this (i.e. logic, reason, thinking independantly) shocking, annoying and blameworthy, and we can see this in its treatment of "geeks". But really, all we are are just people who like to think and learn. And in this, more general sense, issues like morality, are quite relevant. Further, things like literature, art, music, all become relevant. Being a geek should not be restricted to "sitting 24/7 and hacking". It should be a way of becoming a greater human being. Hakkingu-do - The Way of the Hacker.
Wow....that went really far afield. Sorry about that. Anyway, be smart, write good code, read good books.:-)
Re:s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/
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Top 20 Geek Novels
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I must respectfully comment on a few of your claims. While I agree with you that Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a wonderful book, I find that your comments about it being "better" than Stranger in a Strange Land, and that Stranger is "a less mature work" to be a little bit...let's say highbrow. First - what are your qualifications in judging one work "less mature" than another? Second, you say Heinlein "succumbs" to the authorial mouthpiece temptation. Whether it is something that one "succumbs" to is, I feel, debatable, but let's consider this from a different angle:
If Jubal is an "authorial mouthpiece", and this is bad, then please elaborate on the roles of Lazarus Long in Time Enough For Love (and almost any other novel he's in), Lt. Col Dubois in Starship Troopers, Prof. De La Paz in Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Boss in Friday, the main character's friend (can't remember his name, he eventually becomes a major) in Revolt in 2100. The list goes on. In almost every serious book that Heinlein wrote (and many of the less-serious, pure fun ones), there is an older/mentor type character that is, effectively, the author's voice. Sometimes this function is distributed (consider Number of the Beast - which almost explicitly switches the authorial mouthpiece), it is sometimes absent initially, but then comes out at the end (e.g. Job: A Comedy of Justice, with the Devil being the mouthpiece). If you feel the "authorial mouthpiece" is a failing, I wonder how you regard the rest of Heinlein's work. And I emphasize - Prof. De La Paz is yet another "mouthpiece".
Finally, I believe your thesis is confused. MIAHM is primarily a political work - it examines the moral and practical questions of political and ruling structures. SIASL is primarily a work on individual morality - one's relationship to oneself, his surroundings, and humanity in general. Likewise, Time Enough For Love examines aspects of morality in love and sexuality, and Starship Troopers examines an individual's responsibility to his country. I feel that they can not be compared in terms of which is a "better" book. I can acknowledge that we can discuss how polished, complete, or "mature" if you will, a work is. And in some sense, I do agree that Stranger is a bit rougher than Moon is a Harsh Mistress. But I hope you will agree that in discussing the works of such a great master, we should exhibit a bit more circumspection in our speech, rather than postulating blithely that A is a "much better book" than B.
Seriously, though. Heinlein argues that the first anti-geriatric treatment would be blood grown in-vitro. Recall story a few days ago about blood grown from skin cells? Now this stuff plus advances in cloning. Immortality in 3, 2, 1....
Slashdot Mirror
+1 Informative
It's dangerous to praise a decision with political ramifications - something good can be twisted into something bad on the next iteration. Still and all, the language is encouraging, and poses the rhetorical question:
"How messed up is the US when we have to take cues on privacy laws from, of all people, the Germans?"
As another poster pointed out about informational self-determination, the Germans are discussing the implications of privacy. US courts are still diddling over whether privacy expectation is even "constitutional".
As long as we're striving for the purity of our linguistic fluids, let me point out, Webster, that
enamoring
is the present participle of "enamor", which is a transitive verb that requires a direct object, usually denoted by a prepended "of" or "with". So your question undoubtedly was "what is it concerning cussing of which you are so enamored?" (if you insist on retaining the adjectival form).
That said, I am offended at your lack of proper grammar. Seriously - why are you so enamored with bad grammar?
Personally, I think it's a pride thing, like "No one can tell me what the proper rules of English grammar are!" How about voluntarily learning the proper language rules to avoid illiterate speech when you can? [When you can what? Let's not even get started on the rest of the sentence structures] Would you really use a boatload [nice censor - I think you were looking for "shitload"] of split infinitives and pronouns without referents around schoolkids learning English, your girlfriend, her parents? Would you praise atheists skeptics in a room full of fundamentalists?
If you don't care about how your language, and especially the purported contribution of your speech, is presented to other people, why should anyone care about what you find offensive?
Some people need to be offended. You, for instance. Do you care why people do it?
Maybe they think it's awesome. Maybe they are exploring the boundaries of what is socially acceptable - this is important for developing children. Maybe they are immature. Perhaps they are suffering from a greater emotional pain and so "politeness" and not offending you take a lower priority.
You are not their judge. I agree with you to this extent - it's not pleasant when you hear people casually cursing in public. It degrades the quality of the public discourse. But those people are dealing with their own demons - be it emotional or mental disturbance, or a plain lack of education. In all instances, your being offended means jack shit to them. You want to stop people cursing - do the hard thing: fix society. Otherwise, please STFU, already.
At any rate, there's certainly no reason to be using expletives as common adjectives.
Sorry, this is according to whom, exactly? The rest of what you wrote is so much emotional fluff. It comes down to that quote: YOU believe people should not use expletives. Well good for you. The Mormons will make you an honorary member. You can get a free bar of soap from the local PTA to wash the mouths of young children.
Seriously, who appointed you the language police? It's not your opinion - it's your arrogance in assuming that your standard ought to apply to anyone besides yourself.
You don't like expletive-based adjectives? Terrific - don't use them. Don't like it when someone else uses them - change the channel. If you believe that use of such linguistic constructions in a wide-spread and socially permissible fashion is evidence of the dire state of our society, you may well be right. But counter-indicating their use with a "shouldn't be" is as useful as pissing against the wind.
-1 Arrogant, easily offended, sheltered ninny.
I think for that last one, you're thinking of Russian oil barons. The penultimate would be the Democratic congress on health care. And the ante-penultimate would be /. on anything MS related (s/studies/stories/).
That said, by and large, I agree with the cynicism. Still, there is a Unified Theory floating out there somewhere - and we should find it.
Hm, I see your point. The trick would then be to get everyone to agree what those specific goals are. Won't that be just a huge clusterf*** of special interest!
Nice Heinlein reference, too :)
All of this sounds like a grand design, but here's the issue with the "milestones/goals" part of it: what we are doing in space today, what we are planning to do in the near term, has all been accessible since roughly the 80's. We go up, launch a sat, occasionally visit a space station. IANARS (IANA Rocket Scientist) but it seems that we are just refining techniques - the diminishing returns of the current state of the art, if you will.
For there to be a next wave, we have to make some fundamental scientific progress. E.g. a space elevator is not merely a matter of improved engineering, we need some real breakthroughs in material sciences. I'm not trying to say "oh it's all hopeless" - not at all. Engineering can take you far, but the world's most advanced steam-engine train is still going to lose to the Shinkansen.
If you really believe in "let's all get together, sing kumbaya, and oh, build some stuff together", I think we'd be better off investing all that money into fundamental research. Can you imagine what (to use your number) $60B/year invested in the world's best minds would do in a decade? The only tiny wrinkle is that fundamental research doesn't exactly go with 'milestones' and 'deliverables'.
So, to some extent, I can see the critics' point. They're complete political whores, no doubt, but seriously, what ARE we doing up there?
Classification of Finite Simple Groups and here
This "Theorem" completely categorizes finite simple groups - in effect the "building blocks" of Group Theory. It is one of the great triumphs of 20th century mathematics. It's also in the area of 15000 pages long, and represents the combined efforts of scores of mathematicians who worked on it. It is confidently believed to be correct, but seeing as very few people really understand the majority of this "theorem" in detail, it's their word that it "works".
I realize this is slightly OT. The discussion of "intelligent, powerful women", with (presumably) not Lara Croft-esque endowments made me recall "Mahoromatic". The main character, a female ex-combat android (Mahoro-chan), is smart, certainly powerful, helpful, etc.. The series gets great mileage out of her competition for the attentions of a young man (incidentally a weak eyeglasses-wearing nerd) with a sultry teacher whose physical characteristics are best described as "fevered dreams of GAINAX desginers" (ob picture: Saori-sensei (if someone reading this is new to /., well-endowed anime girls score in the middle range of the "GAINAX bounce-o-meter" scale :-D).
... but I digress. So, not every female lead is necessarily Lara Croft, but a certain percentage of them will be, because let's face it - sometimes you have to imagine yourself, and your surroundings to have "heroic proportions" ;-D
I think my point is that people (at least in the anime world) are aware of the "endowment" issue, and do work into their stories. Oh, and along similar lines, last I checked, neither Dagger nor Yuna were possessed of erm...oversize front-mounted radar housings. Now, Lulu, on the other hand
Because the legal system has, and always will be, hijacked for the benefit of those with money/power.
....just....dont....care. And recalling them is no help - they've had time to get bribes from lobbyists/whoever, made their connections, and can live happily thereafter. That's no punishment. So, until the day that actual accountability exists, crying "change the laws" is pointless.
Proposals such as this "collect road toll" are nothing more than thinly veiled excuses presented by Homeland Security to spy on American citizens. It's not that the DHS will "eventually use it" - it *is* a DHS proposal. The only creative bit is how do you phrase it in an acceptable way to sell it to people first, and then escalate it as a security device afterwards.
I am certain the DOT has no interest in this matter as a "toll issue". Nowhere in law is there anything that says that people ought to pay for roads proportional to how much they use them. If this rationale held up, I should be able to avoid paying school tax because I have no children going to school.
I find it funny how people like the parent always bleat about "well, the law is the law", somehow managing to ignore 200 years of political corruption. That a bunch of political flacks in DC managed to go through the formal motions of putting the law in place doesn't mean we should enshrine the product of the movement of their political bowels as "Law" (though I admit, it'll get enforced as such). People like the parent always say "try changing the law". I believe that that criticism will become valid only when politicians are held accountable for the laws they pass.
Accountability for passed laws is actually something that doesn't exist. Consider: if Congress passes a law that is struck down as unconstitutional, then the politicians were trying to sneak by something that is technically illegal. Is anyone held accountable? Is any restitution paid to people who suffered under this unjust law? Of course not!
There's an even bigger problem - by most accounts, most Senators/Congressmen don't read the actual bills they sign into law. Supposedly, most lawmakers did not read the Patriot Act when it was signed. Wasn't that a wonderful little cherry the American people got. Frankly, the only job of the lawmakers is to create good laws. Not reading the proposals to me represents criminal negligence of the worst possible sort - these people are literally playing with people's lives, for the police/DHS will certainly use any bad law to its fullest extent.
Without any sort of accountability, trying to change laws is basically a semi-futile endeavor, because the very people you are appealing to for help
America is heavily overburdened with laws. When we have the expectation that "Everyone is guilty of Something", then everyone is a criminal. This basically destroys any respect anyone has for the law. Consider - the modern attitude toward law is not "I am a good person for obeying the law. I am proud to obey the law because the law is just". The current attitude is more like "Today I didn't get caught doing anything wrong. Stupid f*cking politicians". Honestly, do you know *anyone* who is proud to be a law-abiding citizen. Not because of punishment. Not because of fear. Out of a genuine respect for "The Law"? Anyone? I don't, myself. People aren't stupid - they know most of the current law is bullshit. The part that's not bullshit is drowned in the lake of steaming excrement. In these conditions, enforcement must come out of fear, not out of a moral commitment to justice. And once you deal in fear, any attempt at being reasonable is doomed to failure - e.g. like your proposal to "change the law"
"...I'm looking through you..."
People reply to silly rhetoric with silly rhetoric because anyone paying attention to the original hype doesn't have the attention span to understand reasoned argumentation. Since you have chosen to argue for ID on a scientific ground, the discussion can proceed there. I shall do my best herewith:
The "technical claim", if you will, of ID is (in my understanding) that evolution fails to explain major structural changes and only explains incremental changes. ID therefore claims to be the "missing element" - that the major changes are so complex that they require an external "directing force". Do I have this right so far (I really am trying to be honest and thorough)?
If we completely strip away the identificaiton of this "directing force" with the deity of your choice, we are left with (Revised Claim 1) "there is more than the process of Darwinian evolution that happens when species evolve". (I'm sweeping the "directing force" issue under the rug: we can regard Evolution itself as a 'directing force' that drives the "minor changes") I really can't argue with this claim. I don't know whether this Revised Claim 1 is true or not, but it sounds like a plausible question to ask. If it can be shown that Darwinian Evolution fails to account for the major developmental changes in species, and this analysis is accepted and is verifiable by other scientists, then by all means, we have an Important New Question in biology. New Darwins can have a field day coming up with scientific theories for the major evolutionary leaps. Conversely, if Darwinian Evolution can be shown to account for the major changes, then there's no problem. We shouldn't enshrine scientific theories as unchallengeable.
When looked at this way (i.e. Evolution possibly fails to account for certain observed changes) there is really no problem with ID (as stated in Revised Claim 1, or something reasonably close to it). Personally, I'm not convinced that the "highly unlikely changes occur, therefore evolution has problems" claim holds up. What's the meaning of "highly unlikely" against the background of random mutation carried over millenia? Perhaps "major changes" are the "biological limit" of many small changes. I don't know - I'm not a biologist/statistician. But as I said, it's a valid question to ask, and scientists should be able to give an answer, or start developing new theories.
In this sense, ID isn't a scientific theory (since it actually doesn't answer anything). All it does is raise an interesting question. Not a problem. I'm actually kind of curious about it myself. Let's put it to the scientists and let them work it out.
In the meantime, we still have the social impact question. In the spirit of serious discussion, please tell me: do you honestly believe ID is *not* being used by certain unscrupulous Christians with an agenda to push the "Evolution is wrong, God is the answer" thing into the classroom? Do you honestly believe the clarity of the (valid) scientific question will be preserved in an environment so politically charged, especially against the background of a high school classroom, with parents/administrators/axe grinders/fundamentalists all breathing down each other's necks?
I respectfully submit that the ID issue has never been presented in it's true aspect of a valid scientific question regarding the Theory of Evolution. Even the terminology "ID theory" already betrays this essential confusion. ID was, from the outset, hijacked as a religion vs. science scapegoat, to give religious types some media exposure. ID as it is used today is nothing more than cheap political provocation. ID as a valid question is barely being discussed, and this is quite a pity, because it is a valid question that deserves to be investigated.
One final word - as soon as the "directing force" that accounts for the major changes in species is identified with a divine agent, this alters ID as a question, and makes it a claim. Such claim is to be rejected scornfully, since it basically tries to substitute faith for scientific reasoning - which is exactly what I feel the proponents of ID in Kansas are trying to do.
lol....Love the "religion" section!
I hate to disagree with you, but "the state of being full of hate" is "the state of being full of hate". The link you gave defined "hateful", which I don't have a problem with. The -ness suffix creates a noun out of whatever it is appended to. Since the word you're changing already has a core noun meaning, appending the "-ness" makes no sense. Hence, "hate = hatefullness mod -ness"
Oh, and if you do a google search on hatefullness....the first link is "Hatefullness of Christianity". It's funny that most of the links mentioning "hatefullness" talk about Christianity. That alone makes the word suspect in my mind - why would a supposedly general word show up only in this one context. This supports the idea that the woman using it originally to critisize this professor is from a die-hard pro-Christian faction - after all, she's using their language.
I can acknowledge that some people seem to be using the word. But if you stop, take a deep breath, and think about it, I think it becomes rather obvious the word is just a corruption, along the lines of "irregardless".
No, "everyone here on slashdot" (whoever that is) complains that ID is put forth as a "scientific theory".
You see, Creationism can't be taught in schools officially because it's a religious belief, and we have separation of church and state (short short version). So, Creationism, version 2, relabeled "Intelligent Design" is put forth (to the best of my understanding) as a *scientific theory*. Since it's now "scientific", the claim goes, it can be taught in schools as an alternative theory to evolution.
That's what the critics are complaining about - that it's being pushed through as being "scientific", though at it's core (the criticism goes) it's nothing more than Creationism wrapped in pseudo-scientific language. Presumably, the course would take the "scientific theory" angle and attack ID in terms of science (i.e. to be a theory it must be verifiable by experiments, be predictive, etc..) A real pity it got canned over some (from what I understand) private emails.
I just have to mention this, thought: In one of the articles, someone criticizing this professor says "he is so full of hatefullness for religion". George Carlin moment here: WTF is "hatefullness"? Would that be something similar to...I don't know..."hate"? This person must have studied at the George W. Bush school of "Higherest Linguistication of the English Language".
Did anyone else think: "Well, certainly wasps can sniff *money* better than dogs, but bombs?...", before figuring out that article was talking about the other kind of "wasp"?
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
Larry Ellison's new business plan:
1) Change Oracle's status to "Charity"
2) Donate $100B to the Oracle Charity Fund
3) Change Oracle's status back to "For Profit Corporation"
4) Profit!!!
There's something wrong up there though.... what could it be ??????
Here you go: :-)
i deoinfo.php?v=49405
i deoinfo.php?v=50219
:-)
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_v
See also:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_v
Unfortunately, the site requires registration, and won't let you download anything for two weeks (or so it was when I registered). I'm sorry I don't have direct links. Still, it's a good site, they have tons of great amv's. Anyway, in two weeks, your dream can come true.
Re: Dragonball as a Superman-like story, Japanified.
While I'm not disagreeing with you, consider this: Goku, the main character, is loosely based on the character of "Son Goku" of the "Journey to the West" story (old, old story from China). Son Goku is a creature born of the Earth (not a man, nor animal, nor god). As such, he is considered a "heretical" being, i.e. his existence is a heresy. It doesn't help that he is insanely strong, masters Buddhist arts and thereby becomes immortal. The gods punish him for a series of offenses by locking him up on a mountain top (they get a really holy Buddhist bodhisatva to help capture him), and after 500 years he is released by and accompanies a travelling priest who must make a journey Westwards (to India) to receive certain holy scriptures. Naturally, many monsters/troubles stand in their way. The plot is long, and gets very convoluted. One of the funniest/best anime interpretations of this story is the "Gensoumaden Saiyuki", or "Saiyuki" for short. Bottom line, though, is that DBZ probably doesn't need Superman. It does the "12 second planetary explosion takes 30 episodes to complete" and "powerup, trashtalk, powerup" 5 episode plot all by itself.
I'm glad they didn't put him in jail - after all he developed bittorrent, so it would make sense to sue him, right? Right?
:-) )
From what I recall, he never came out saying "here's a great tool to get your m0v13s on!". He just developed it and let it run. If all that the MPAA will do in terms of bothering him is to have him state officially "I won't tell people how to find movies", that's great.
(After all, it's not like people don't know where to find such things if they are the spawn of Satan and are looking to violate MPAA's valuable copyrighted material
Back in 1972 there was a French movie called "Un Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire" (The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe). In the movie, the chief of French secret service lays a trap for his rival - he convinces him that a particular man is a dangerous and cunning secret agent that is planning to expose the rival's dirty secrets. This rival then goes crazy trying to investigate this "agent". The truth is that the man is, in fact, what he appears to be - a clumsy orchestra player. The movie is summed up with these lines:
"...because when looked at closely enough, every man's life is suspicious".
Individually, any of these systems may appear to do good things in individual cases. And the arguments for them always center around certain immediate benefits without considering the wider picture. The bigger truth is that such systems lead to a society full of anxiety, fear, and guilt, with arbitrary and random enforcement of the rules. There's a word for such conditions - the word is "despotism".
Well....if you want to talk connected universes here.... :-)
... philosophy. I would argue this further. I believe geeks are pretty much the only section of the population in which "being smart" is acceptible. This simply means we acknowledge our intelligence, and want to use it to satisfy our curiosity about the world. This frequently leads us to the hard sciences (math, chem, physics) and the natural modern extention of math is comp. sci. and hacking. (I'm not trying to be too technical here, just connecting trends). We reject dogmatic postulation, e.g. "this version of history is right because I said so", relying instead on logic and reason. Regretfully, modern (American) society seems to find this (i.e. logic, reason, thinking independantly) shocking, annoying and blameworthy, and we can see this in its treatment of "geeks". But really, all we are are just people who like to think and learn. And in this, more general sense, issues like morality, are quite relevant. Further, things like literature, art, music, all become relevant. Being a geek should not be restricted to "sitting 24/7 and hacking". It should be a way of becoming a greater human being. Hakkingu-do - The Way of the Hacker.
:-)
Moon is a Harsh Mistress world becomes inducted (forcibly) into the main "Future History" world via it's connection to The Rolling Stones, where the little red-haired girl from MIAHM is now a grandmother. She then gets rejuvenated when Lazarus Long, using the "world machine" from Number of the Beast pops into that universe, and subsequently, as you point out, appears in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (which is itself connected with Lazarus Long). Furthermore, I could be wrong, but I believe Jubal appears in The Cat also.
Actually, using the "world machine", he pretty much ties almost all his major novels together (albeit sometimes tenuously: recall a very brief line in Time Enough For Love when Lazarus says something like "there was once a man whose brain was transplanted into a woman's body. He died, of course - rejection" referring to "I Will Fear No Evil"). Some of the worlds are not explicitly connected to Future History, but their histories are potentially compatible with it, especially considering the "six discoverers of the Moon" hypothesis (I think he explains this in Number of the Beast). Examples of this would be Door Into Summer, Double Star, Red Planet, Podkayne of Mars, etc.. Of the important, major worlds, I believe only Starship Troopers is completely incompatible with Future History. Of the minor stories, some are also not compatible, for instance Sixth Column would contradict the American Ayatollahs/Covenant thread and The Puppet Masters just does not fit in. Finally some of the minors appear totally unrelated, e.g. Glory Road, Tunnel In The Sky. However, a large section of the opus is, or becomes, connected via the Lazarus Long thread.
And to address your other point, I believe issues of morality are certainly geek issues. For reference, I cite ESR's Jargon File. In "A Portrait of J. Random Hacker", in the section on "other interests" he mentions that some of the non-computer interests of geeks include linguistics, music, mathematics and
Wow....that went really far afield. Sorry about that. Anyway, be smart, write good code, read good books.
I must respectfully comment on a few of your claims. While I agree with you that Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a wonderful book, I find that your comments about it being "better" than Stranger in a Strange Land, and that Stranger is "a less mature work" to be a little bit...let's say highbrow. First - what are your qualifications in judging one work "less mature" than another? Second, you say Heinlein "succumbs" to the authorial mouthpiece temptation. Whether it is something that one "succumbs" to is, I feel, debatable, but let's consider this from a different angle:
If Jubal is an "authorial mouthpiece", and this is bad, then please elaborate on the roles of Lazarus Long in Time Enough For Love (and almost any other novel he's in), Lt. Col Dubois in Starship Troopers, Prof. De La Paz in Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Boss in Friday, the main character's friend (can't remember his name, he eventually becomes a major) in Revolt in 2100. The list goes on. In almost every serious book that Heinlein wrote (and many of the less-serious, pure fun ones), there is an older/mentor type character that is, effectively, the author's voice. Sometimes this function is distributed (consider Number of the Beast - which almost explicitly switches the authorial mouthpiece), it is sometimes absent initially, but then comes out at the end (e.g. Job: A Comedy of Justice, with the Devil being the mouthpiece). If you feel the "authorial mouthpiece" is a failing, I wonder how you regard the rest of Heinlein's work. And I emphasize - Prof. De La Paz is yet another "mouthpiece".
Finally, I believe your thesis is confused. MIAHM is primarily a political work - it examines the moral and practical questions of political and ruling structures. SIASL is primarily a work on individual morality - one's relationship to oneself, his surroundings, and humanity in general. Likewise, Time Enough For Love examines aspects of morality in love and sexuality, and Starship Troopers examines an individual's responsibility to his country. I feel that they can not be compared in terms of which is a "better" book. I can acknowledge that we can discuss how polished, complete, or "mature" if you will, a work is. And in some sense, I do agree that Stranger is a bit rougher than Moon is a Harsh Mistress. But I hope you will agree that in discussing the works of such a great master, we should exhibit a bit more circumspection in our speech, rather than postulating blithely that A is a "much better book" than B.
would spin in his grave, if he had one :-)
....
Seriously, though. Heinlein argues that the first anti-geriatric treatment would be blood grown in-vitro. Recall story a few days ago about blood grown from skin cells? Now this stuff plus advances in cloning. Immortality in 3, 2, 1