"Y'know, it occurs to me that anti-evolutionists don't just have a problem with evolution, but also geology, cosmology, carbon dating, physics. Any I missed?"
Critical thought? Although all fundamentalists can claim this distinction...
" I'd bet anything that if we saw more linux pcs at stores like best buy and walmart, the cheaper linux PC would CLOBBER in sales, because people really do care about cost.
I completely disagree. Many would much rather have an easy to use computer with great support. No doubt. I used to work at a "computer store", and "what can this do for me" and "what happens when I need help" was by far the more asked questions. The price was the last question. Besides, with Apple making computers that are on par with similar PCs today as far as price goes (and no, Apple does not make cheap VERSIONS of their computers, so stop the flame bus now), the only thing, and I mean the only thing Linux would give a general computer user is a good price, and that's simply not good enough.
Imagine your mother, grandmother, father, little kid, etc... running Linux at home... oh the humanity. It just wouldn't happen, at least not today. Not willing to switch from Windows, and want a cheap computer? Fine, Best Buy is down the road. Want a computer with a great OS, great bundled apps, and great support for both the hardware and software, under one roof? Get a Mac. Linux is still in the niche desktop market, aimed at geeks, nothing more.
Want free software for Mac without going to piratebay? See VersionTracker. You'll find 10's of thousands of pieces of software, for free, that do almost anything you want.
If/. became the place where all frivolous lawsuits are posted as articles, even just the ones against Apple, it wouldn't have time to do anything else.
"I have hated downloading music within iTunes only to be told that I cannot make a mix mp3 CD"
Yes, you can, right from iTunes.
iTunes preferences - Advanced - Burning. Select MP3 Disc as the format. Make playlist - Burn. I do this all the time and works in my car (MP3 player also)
I could spend many hours in the day correcting people's ignorance of the functionality of iTunes... oh well.
Apparently my brain is exhaustively preparing me for the possibility of having sex with Jessica Alba. All I can say, is that I'm very, very prepared...
"So what? Answer me this: In America, who has sovereignty? We the actual citizens, or foreigners?"
Neither, large multi-national corporations do. And they like the 120 year stance, so let's all get used to it... there are too many "critical thought impaired" citizens with voting cards in the country. Sorry.
Um, on a Mac, and you could even do this with the old G3 iMacs that had firewire, any FW external hard drive could be used as the boot drive. For PCs, yes, you are correct, but we weren't talking about PCs...
"how different is this to dialing ahead with your order from a cell phone?"
Because now you can buy your favorite "whatzit" and have the it tell you when it's ready to pick up, already paid for with just one click. It's the same, yes, but the mechanics of making it easier can be patented. "I know of a way to keep you from having to dial a phone number, talk to a guy that hopefully gets the order right, have to either use cash or give your number to this guy, etc..."
As stated previously, summaries about patents like this can be flame targets for the very reason you posted in the first place.
The original Macintosh, from 1984 was an all-in-one. It's been their mantra under Steve, and will continue to be. Having an easy to use computer that you can also move at will by just unplugging one power cord, moving it, and then just plugging it back in is nice, and always has been. The question is why have all other attempts at duplicating this idea sucked so much, for so long?
Wait, your case was dismissed after you proved you corrected the infraction, and this is an issue? I was pulled over and arrested because my car hadn't taken an emissions test. First time I had heard of it for our county. I had the car tested that afternoon, showed the judge that I had my license back, the emissions test report, saw that I did not have a history of this sort of thing and she dismissed it.
I really don't understand how this could possibly be wrong for a judge to do. These judges see so little responsibility being taken that rewarding those that literally correct their infraction before the court date, with no record, is simply the right thing to do in some cases, like an emissions test or a vaccination. Once you have either there is no issue any more. Consider yourself being "forced" by our society into fixing an issue that it thought you should, little earlier than it seemed you would have.
... enter: Critical thought. Check the source, get corroboration, etc...
Stories like these all point to the same thing, a discussion about how harmful certain avenues of information are since we do not teach critical thought in our schools. Wikipedia,/., YouTube, etc...
You don't get it, obviously. He's a writer for PC magazine, and his story is being posted on/. I'm not saying he's a loser, I'm just saying this entire story is beyond silly due to the fact that he actually is one guy. This is quite obviously a flame piece to get hits to the site. How does this stuff get on/.? Was it the catchy headline?/. is fishing for hits too I suppose?
Probably...
If one of my devices doesn't just "work" in Linux, or if Windows crashes or simply makes me avoid certain aspects of it due to it's complete unintuitiveness and decide to throw them both out the window, it would make me as silly as this guy.
" it seems that motivation, effort, and the skills needed to apply effort are way more important than raw IQ."
More important to what end? Making money? I'd rather my child be happy than smart. Some may say one leads to the other, but I'm not so sure...
Money does not bring happiness, and working 12 hours a day doesn't either. Some of the happiest people I know aren't that smart.
With that said, what has worked for me (I have an extraordinarily intelligent child) was merely giving him much freedom when he was very young. If he wanted to flick that switch, I would let him. If he wanted to touch that thing, I would let him, etc... he had boundaries, for sure, but when it came to him wanting to discover something, I let nothing get in the way. It seemed to start working from a very young age. He could turn on the computer and start to move the mouse while watching the cursor on the screen at one year old, because I would let him watch me and I would let him try to copy it.
The other, very imporant thing we did (IMO), was to let him get out of his own messes. If he got stuck somewhere, we would hold back as long as we could to let him get out of it himself. By the time he was one, if he fell down and seemed to hurt himself, he would just get back up and start moving again. Other parents were floored when they saw that...
But, as other's have stated, everyone is different, but there certainly seem to be some things that condone happiness and intelligence that many just don't seem to realize.
"I agree completely, except the part where you claim that not all creationists are dumb."
Ignorant, close-minded, indoctrinated haters of critical thought, completely void of understanding all that we have learned via the scientific process that has been underway for centuries, yes, but many of them are not dumb.
"There's a thousand and one makers of x86 clones, but only one that has the apple branding, reputation and the capability to legally run OSX."
...design of hardware, support of the OS and hardware under one roof, and a place to go and learn (ProCare) and get your problems looked at for free (Genius Bar). The small price difference (it is small, not to beat an already dead horse) is worth it IMO.
My entire post was to direct the attention to the environments that life is being found, yes, on this particular planet, in extreme heat, pressures, cold, lack of light, air, etc... if this doesn't broaden our "factors for life", and therefore statistical probability of life in any place of extreme conditions (obviously then, in more places in this Universe), then your statistical analysis fails. We can certainly determine, with more accuracy with every new planet found, whether or not these same conditions are prevalent elsewhere, at which point these probabilities will become more accurate. Your "points" may be true, be we are talking about probabilities, and the changing of their accuracies.
What is the name of the theory that says that in this environment, on this particular planet, this is how life evolves. Elements of life, possibly seeded, took paths of least resistance in this environment, throw in over 4 billion years, and this is what you get at this point.
In fact, new extremophiles are constantly being found living in environments we previously thought to be impossible, or at least very unlikely. Life just seems to be the norm in this Universe, or at least it seems that way. Realizing the relatively young age of the planet we happen to live on (a child in history of the Universe), the Drake Equation should see Ne going up every time we find life living in places that are extreme, or when we find new ways life could emerge, widening are rigid list of things that need to be in place to support life as we would describe it.
At our current rate, we will soon be able to use probability alone to suggest intelligent life elsewhere, IMO.
"*shrug*, civilians die during war. It sucks, but that's the reality. How would you suggest fighting insurgents that blend into the population without having civilian injuries or deaths?"
The sheer difference in magnitude suggests that it's much more than that. However, even aside from your point, was any civilian death worth the cause? In my estimation, absolutely not. We've spent.5 Trillion dollars to piss off the world, create more terrorists and strain our troops that should be looking for OB. Remember, Saddam wasn't an enemy, even when he gassed the Kurds (in fact we helped quell international outrage), until he broke the rules and invaded Kuwait.
"Do I have legitimate gripe that the Arab media is focusing too much on the civilian deaths and not enough on the deaths of our troops?"
If you think that the overwhelming civilian death toll is worth the deaths of our invading troops, then I suppose so. I also suppose that's where you and many other's differ.
"Because that's what Americans care about."
Is being jingoistic and uncaring about other human beings that happen to have born on a different spot on this planet a good thing? I'm not so sure...
"Because I'll go out on a limb and say that the population is going to suffer a lot more when we leave, if for no other reason then the various sects will fall upon themselves without us being around to stop them."
I agree with you. Leaving the extraordinary mess we've made now would make us irresponsible in the extreme. We would also lose our last drop of respect in the world, if we had a drop to lose.
"In fact, they probably suffer more, because whatever you can say about American actions in Iraq, we don't have death squads roaming neighborhoods and engaging in random killings."
I'm not sure if you are referring to Iraq or what, but the violence will surely calm down once the areas are "cleared" of their religious rival in their new lawless society we've given them.
"Why allowing it to split along ethic and/or religious lines is off the table is beyond me. Should we have invaded Yugoslavia and forced that country to remain united?"
Your ignorance of what happened in Yugoslavia withstanding, when neighbors (and I mean neighbors, right next door, etc...) have people vying for power in a lawless world (and religion in this area was a perfect catalyst), it's a bad thing. Period.
"If you have a better topic of discussion for American media then "Should we pull our boys out?" I'm all ears."
There is nothing we can do. We literally have to sink our money into this until we utterly fail, or we somehow pull out of it with at least a semblance of normalcy. But leaving is not an option. That, I firmly realize.
Slashdot Mirror
"Y'know, it occurs to me that anti-evolutionists don't just have a problem with evolution, but also geology, cosmology, carbon dating, physics. Any I missed?"
Critical thought? Although all fundamentalists can claim this distinction...
"About the only things that may still be private, are the thoughts in your own head."
Don't be to sure about that...
" I'd bet anything that if we saw more linux pcs at stores like best buy and walmart, the cheaper linux PC would CLOBBER in sales, because people really do care about cost.
I completely disagree. Many would much rather have an easy to use computer with great support. No doubt. I used to work at a "computer store", and "what can this do for me" and "what happens when I need help" was by far the more asked questions. The price was the last question. Besides, with Apple making computers that are on par with similar PCs today as far as price goes (and no, Apple does not make cheap VERSIONS of their computers, so stop the flame bus now), the only thing, and I mean the only thing Linux would give a general computer user is a good price, and that's simply not good enough.
Imagine your mother, grandmother, father, little kid, etc... running Linux at home... oh the humanity. It just wouldn't happen, at least not today. Not willing to switch from Windows, and want a cheap computer? Fine, Best Buy is down the road. Want a computer with a great OS, great bundled apps, and great support for both the hardware and software, under one roof? Get a Mac. Linux is still in the niche desktop market, aimed at geeks, nothing more.
Want free software for Mac without going to piratebay? See VersionTracker. You'll find 10's of thousands of pieces of software, for free, that do almost anything you want.
No, you plug your iPod into your TV, and watch. You just have to purchase the AV cord for it.
Dumbest, article, ever.
/. became the place where all frivolous lawsuits are posted as articles, even just the ones against Apple, it wouldn't have time to do anything else.
If
"I have hated downloading music within iTunes only to be told that I cannot make a mix mp3 CD"
Yes, you can, right from iTunes.
iTunes preferences - Advanced - Burning. Select MP3 Disc as the format. Make playlist - Burn. I do this all the time and works in my car (MP3 player also)
I could spend many hours in the day correcting people's ignorance of the functionality of iTunes... oh well.
Apparently my brain is exhaustively preparing me for the possibility of having sex with Jessica Alba. All I can say, is that I'm very, very prepared...
"So what? Answer me this: In America, who has sovereignty? We the actual citizens, or foreigners?"
Neither, large multi-national corporations do. And they like the 120 year stance, so let's all get used to it... there are too many "critical thought impaired" citizens with voting cards in the country. Sorry.
Um, on a Mac, and you could even do this with the old G3 iMacs that had firewire, any FW external hard drive could be used as the boot drive. For PCs, yes, you are correct, but we weren't talking about PCs...
"how different is this to dialing ahead with your order from a cell phone?"
Because now you can buy your favorite "whatzit" and have the it tell you when it's ready to pick up, already paid for with just one click. It's the same, yes, but the mechanics of making it easier can be patented. "I know of a way to keep you from having to dial a phone number, talk to a guy that hopefully gets the order right, have to either use cash or give your number to this guy, etc..."
As stated previously, summaries about patents like this can be flame targets for the very reason you posted in the first place.
The original Macintosh, from 1984 was an all-in-one. It's been their mantra under Steve, and will continue to be. Having an easy to use computer that you can also move at will by just unplugging one power cord, moving it, and then just plugging it back in is nice, and always has been. The question is why have all other attempts at duplicating this idea sucked so much, for so long?
Funny. Yes, funny stuff.
Wait, your case was dismissed after you proved you corrected the infraction, and this is an issue? I was pulled over and arrested because my car hadn't taken an emissions test. First time I had heard of it for our county. I had the car tested that afternoon, showed the judge that I had my license back, the emissions test report, saw that I did not have a history of this sort of thing and she dismissed it.
I really don't understand how this could possibly be wrong for a judge to do. These judges see so little responsibility being taken that rewarding those that literally correct their infraction before the court date, with no record, is simply the right thing to do in some cases, like an emissions test or a vaccination. Once you have either there is no issue any more. Consider yourself being "forced" by our society into fixing an issue that it thought you should, little earlier than it seemed you would have.
... enter: Critical thought. Check the source, get corroboration, etc...
/., YouTube, etc...
Stories like these all point to the same thing, a discussion about how harmful certain avenues of information are since we do not teach critical thought in our schools. Wikipedia,
" However, you'll note that the Yahoo article's a week and half old"
/. recently...
As discussed here, and it also mentions that the model that was at #1 was last years model, heavily discounted.
This is a bogus story... on par for
You don't get it, obviously. He's a writer for PC magazine, and his story is being posted on /. I'm not saying he's a loser, I'm just saying this entire story is beyond silly due to the fact that he actually is one guy. This is quite obviously a flame piece to get hits to the site. How does this stuff get on /.? Was it the catchy headline? /. is fishing for hits too I suppose?
Probably...
If one of my devices doesn't just "work" in Linux, or if Windows crashes or simply makes me avoid certain aspects of it due to it's complete unintuitiveness and decide to throw them both out the window, it would make me as silly as this guy.
" it seems that motivation, effort, and the skills needed to apply effort are way more important than raw IQ."
More important to what end? Making money? I'd rather my child be happy than smart. Some may say one leads to the other, but I'm not so sure...
Money does not bring happiness, and working 12 hours a day doesn't either. Some of the happiest people I know aren't that smart.
With that said, what has worked for me (I have an extraordinarily intelligent child) was merely giving him much freedom when he was very young. If he wanted to flick that switch, I would let him. If he wanted to touch that thing, I would let him, etc... he had boundaries, for sure, but when it came to him wanting to discover something, I let nothing get in the way. It seemed to start working from a very young age. He could turn on the computer and start to move the mouse while watching the cursor on the screen at one year old, because I would let him watch me and I would let him try to copy it.
The other, very imporant thing we did (IMO), was to let him get out of his own messes. If he got stuck somewhere, we would hold back as long as we could to let him get out of it himself. By the time he was one, if he fell down and seemed to hurt himself, he would just get back up and start moving again. Other parents were floored when they saw that...
But, as other's have stated, everyone is different, but there certainly seem to be some things that condone happiness and intelligence that many just don't seem to realize.
"I agree completely, except the part where you claim that not all creationists are dumb."
Ignorant, close-minded, indoctrinated haters of critical thought, completely void of understanding all that we have learned via the scientific process that has been underway for centuries, yes, but many of them are not dumb.
Oh wait... I see your point.
"There's a thousand and one makers of x86 clones, but only one that has the apple branding, reputation and the capability to legally run OSX."
...design of hardware, support of the OS and hardware under one roof, and a place to go and learn (ProCare) and get your problems looked at for free (Genius Bar). The small price difference (it is small, not to beat an already dead horse) is worth it IMO.
My entire post was to direct the attention to the environments that life is being found, yes, on this particular planet, in extreme heat, pressures, cold, lack of light, air, etc... if this doesn't broaden our "factors for life", and therefore statistical probability of life in any place of extreme conditions (obviously then, in more places in this Universe), then your statistical analysis fails. We can certainly determine, with more accuracy with every new planet found, whether or not these same conditions are prevalent elsewhere, at which point these probabilities will become more accurate. Your "points" may be true, be we are talking about probabilities, and the changing of their accuracies.
You seem to have missed the point.
Billionaires didn't get to be that way by doing things like that. It's a catch 22. Now, if there were a tax break involved...
What is the name of the theory that says that in this environment, on this particular planet, this is how life evolves. Elements of life, possibly seeded, took paths of least resistance in this environment, throw in over 4 billion years, and this is what you get at this point.
In fact, new extremophiles are constantly being found living in environments we previously thought to be impossible, or at least very unlikely. Life just seems to be the norm in this Universe, or at least it seems that way. Realizing the relatively young age of the planet we happen to live on (a child in history of the Universe), the Drake Equation should see Ne going up every time we find life living in places that are extreme, or when we find new ways life could emerge, widening are rigid list of things that need to be in place to support life as we would describe it.
At our current rate, we will soon be able to use probability alone to suggest intelligent life elsewhere, IMO.
"*shrug*, civilians die during war. It sucks, but that's the reality. How would you suggest fighting insurgents that blend into the population without having civilian injuries or deaths?"
.5 Trillion dollars to piss off the world, create more terrorists and strain our troops that should be looking for OB. Remember, Saddam wasn't an enemy, even when he gassed the Kurds (in fact we helped quell international outrage), until he broke the rules and invaded Kuwait.
The sheer difference in magnitude suggests that it's much more than that. However, even aside from your point, was any civilian death worth the cause? In my estimation, absolutely not. We've spent
"Do I have legitimate gripe that the Arab media is focusing too much on the civilian deaths and not enough on the deaths of our troops?"
If you think that the overwhelming civilian death toll is worth the deaths of our invading troops, then I suppose so. I also suppose that's where you and many other's differ.
"Because that's what Americans care about."
Is being jingoistic and uncaring about other human beings that happen to have born on a different spot on this planet a good thing? I'm not so sure...
"Because I'll go out on a limb and say that the population is going to suffer a lot more when we leave, if for no other reason then the various sects will fall upon themselves without us being around to stop them."
I agree with you. Leaving the extraordinary mess we've made now would make us irresponsible in the extreme. We would also lose our last drop of respect in the world, if we had a drop to lose.
"In fact, they probably suffer more, because whatever you can say about American actions in Iraq, we don't have death squads roaming neighborhoods and engaging in random killings."
I'm not sure if you are referring to Iraq or what, but the violence will surely calm down once the areas are "cleared" of their religious rival in their new lawless society we've given them.
"Why allowing it to split along ethic and/or religious lines is off the table is beyond me. Should we have invaded Yugoslavia and forced that country to remain united?"
Your ignorance of what happened in Yugoslavia withstanding, when neighbors (and I mean neighbors, right next door, etc...) have people vying for power in a lawless world (and religion in this area was a perfect catalyst), it's a bad thing. Period.
"If you have a better topic of discussion for American media then "Should we pull our boys out?" I'm all ears."
There is nothing we can do. We literally have to sink our money into this until we utterly fail, or we somehow pull out of it with at least a semblance of normalcy. But leaving is not an option. That, I firmly realize.
Just you wanting to know the answers to your questions makes it an effective advertisement.
It's not. It's an advertisement not so cleverly hidden in a slashdot article. Horrible, yes, shocking, no.