Yes, I even read the whole Response to Matzke article. I very much appreciated the analysis, since I could follow Dembski better than Matzke! (It was significantly shorter too, so that helps.) However, ripped apart is much too strong a chracterization. I am not a biologist (IANAB?), but I am literate enough to follow Dembski (but not Matzke). I found his arguments to be very weak, in fact, they only reinforced my thinking that Matzke could be on the right track. What Matzke wrote is only a hypothesis, and could very easily be proved to have errors (Dembski did not do so), but finding mistakes there still wouldn't prove ID. I do agree with Dembski that Matzke's explaination was not testable, so I will give him that. But please, let us keep this sub-thread in perspective.
A creationist claimed that flagella are an example of Intelligent Design, as Darwinian evolution theory couldn't offer a possible explanation.
Matzke was cited, and his is a reasonable possible explaination
Dembski's reasonable complaints about Matzke's explanation is cited.
Now we are debating if Dembski debunking of Matzke was complete!
However, the fact that reasonable people can argue about this demonstrates that the original assertion (flagella are an example of ID) is wrong!
Only four minor shifts of function - all in the correct order, and only after all the requisite pieces have been evolved into place. Doesn't that sound statistically implausible?
Actually, this is pretty mundane for evolution over a long period of time.
Doesn't that sound at all like constructing [an explanation]
after the fact to fit the observed end state?
Um, that is exactly what was requested! What did you want, an exposition of the thousand-fold evolutionary dead-ends that no one is interested in? Ironically, what you are almost describing is intelligent design which is usually a technique employed by the creationists.
I call on Occam's Razor, and deduce that it's much more likely that the flagellum was created in place, rather than evolved through a bizarre sequence of highly improbable random events.
Anyway, what was that about evolution not being able to cause a turbine to be created? I definitely agree with you on that point!
How this dogma gets modded up to 5 is beyond me. Maybe it's be divine will? <sarcasm/> Most Christians don't have a problem with evolution. I hope for your sake that your faith is not rooted in there being something like hard evidence for (so called) creation science. Personally, I am grateful that real scientists are taking these claims more seriously. I wasn't surprised that someone also mentioned bombardier beetle. There are numerous explanations, this merely being the first one I turned up: A Rebuttal of Behe.
Keep in mind that the Creationists need only one counter example to prove Darwin wrong. They can't even do that! I very much appreciate this explanation of Intelligent Design.
If you rest a torn muscle, it gets better. We thought if you could find a way of resting an acutely sick heart it might get better too
For six extraordinary days Julie Mills, a 21-year old student, survived in a hospital bed with no pulse and no heartbeat.
As she prepares to go back to college, almost fully recovered and take her place in medical history, her doctors have described how an artificial heart kept her alive, pumping her blood smoothly through her body in a continuous flow.
Her own heart, swollen and inflamed because of a virus infection, was allowed to rest completely and, as the cardiac experts hoped, it was simply given time to recover.
Aside from 911/e911, another important thing government regulation does is to ensure accessibility to people with disabilities. This was the conclusion from a panel of experts at a recent public forum on VoIP.
The spoken user interface should go hand-in-hand with having an OS (and included shipping apps) that is useable without a mouse. The current voice output of Panther is useless to a blind person because keyboard support (even with "full keyboard access" enabled) is so poor.
Think about, we are all using an interface designed for three-handed beings. Both hands on the home row, with your 2nd right hand on the mouse. This is one thing Windows gets right: you can do just about everything without a mouse, and often the keyboard centric way to do things is faster.
So here's my idea for an impressive demo at an Apple keynote address: Steve pulls the mouse out from the keyboard -- and continues with a routine demo of the Finder, Safari, iTunes, Garage Band, and iChat!
iTunes 4.5 (and thus ITMS) for Windows still isn't accessible for blind folks who rely on a screen reader like JAWS or WindowEyes. Those folks are stuck with Napster or Walmart. Let's hope 5.0 fixes this.
The link cited in the previous story lead points to whatever is the current City Paper feature. The better read is Out of Africa: International Scam Artists Steal Big Money Through a New Telephone Service for the Deaf -- and AT&T and the State of Maryland Benefit.
And I can't believe no one has posted the link to the Internet Relay under discussion! Feel free to try it yourself...
> What three-finger-salute does one use to force a reboot from the keyboard now?
According to this it's Control-Command-Eject. I've used that with Jaguar. It doesn't seem to work with Panther. But maybe my computer is foobar'd!
As many, many have said: choices, changes, exercise, personal preference, lots of factors.
The 3M joystick mouse seemed like a good idea, but most of the people we had try it didn't like it. We have just started using the Evoluent Vertical Mouse and so far the feedback has been extremely positive.
Apple tablet prototype pics here and there! But the best idea is the detachable touch screen that merely lifts off the iMac (the dome base serving as the brains and charging cradle). For completeness, there is also the Cintiq ($3500, and a tether to boot) and the AirBoard (Japanese Flash, sorry, it's the best I could do).
For me, this version (9) plays audio on some movies that were previously silent, so I like it.
The parent in this thread was asking about 6.3, available only for Classic. The installer left my Classic version of Windows Media Player 7 alone, so I can't imagine it effecting 6.3. Yes, after the install WiMP 7 for OS X disappeared, but that was the point wasn't it? I never followed the debate about 6.3 having advantages over 7.1, so I can't comment there.
I was mad because the last WiMP file I wanted to play didn't have audio on the Mac. I couldn't be bothered with the uninstall instructions as my "Open Recent" list (in WiMP/File) was a collection of problematic links, and I was too lazy to write them down! I only used WiMP as a last resort, but if QT couldn't open a file, usually 7.1.3 wouldn't either, or the movie would play but without sound. Still, I kept it around.
I just ran the Installer over 7.1.3 (the latest previously available for OS X). No reboot was requested (isn't that odd for a MS product) but it would not run. So I re-installed 7.1.3 (again, without any sort of uninstall) and now I had audio for that BBC program! I re-installed 9 (again, not bothering with the uninstall) and the video still plays. So, I am happy as this version fixes at least some things!
Your lack of privacy (and the larger issue of Identity Theft) is the subject of four out of five of Robert X. Cringely's most recent columns. In his case, the post office screwed up. As usual, he offers several plausible sounding solutions, but the short of it is that we're powerless.
The accessibility features are not being promoted as prominently as they were with Jaguar (in fact, I could not find a direct link to this page), but they are improved. Specifically, Zoom now has adjustable contrast, which makes it work very much like a CCTV magnifier for paper. Full keyboard access has also been tweaked. Both very nice, but someone who is totally blind still can't use OS X.
The portability is key. I have a TI PB and white iBook. The iBook is the one I use all the time. I can't justify the new 12" PB until they put backlighted keys and that model.
1. The demand for headless boxes is probably less than you'd imagine.
This hasn't really been tested since the Cube was priced just a couple hundred dollars too high.
Most Mac buyers are not switchers,
Probably true, but there is still the untapped market which refuses to drop a grand (because they know they can quite a decent Windoze PC for much less than that) and is not sufficiently impressed with the eMac.
so I don't think they are as likely to have a dreamy monitor hanging around
unless they were already buying the PowerMac line, and that's headless.
The switchers might not have decent monitors, but older PowerMac users probably do. I have a sweet ADC CRT on a G4 Gube. I cant justify buying a G5 tower, but I would buy a $700 G5 Cube in a heartbeat.
2. Headless has gotten more complicated to do right and do well. A dirt-cheap headless box would ahve [sic] to be pretty well integrated, but then you face the immediate problem of whether or not to provide DVI connectors, or what size monitor you want to support.
An Apple tower or Cube with an ADC monitor has exactly one less cord than an iMac. (You are basically swapping a cord for the arm.) Steve says that simplicity in set up is the reason the iMac is a success but the Cube was not. This is argument is not credible.
3. A lot of monitors people have lying around to use with a headless box are pretty poor quality, and the one thing Apple
doesn't want is people running Mac OS X and having the result look crappy. [snip]
If apple is really worried about this, they could do what they have done with the latest PowerMacs. They ship with dual video ports: ADC and DVI! If you want to run VGA, you need a special adaptor. This also addresses your point (2).
4. The notebook is the new headless Mac! OK, so it's not really headless, but the low end notebooks (iBook and 12 powerbook) can fill a part of the headless niche, and be notebooks, too. They perhaps aren't optimized for this usage yet, but they can do the job. Or, put it this way: your choice would be a $700 slab or a $999 iBook or a $999 iMac. The difference here is that one of these is
also a notebook, one of thes comes with a very nice LCD monitor, and the other one is just a slab. I don't think it would be such a hot seller.
I agree that the portability or monitor is well worth $300. But it is silly to pay for those features if you dont need them. Besides, the performance of the iBook is really not nearly as good as the iMac.
I for one, and I dont think I am alone, would gladly pay $700 for a slab.
The only reason the G4 Cube was not a roaring success was that it was priced about $200 too much. It will sell like crazy at $100 under the eMac. Used Cubes go for that much on eBay still.
Minor whines about my cube: USB audio slows it down, and there is no audio port. The vertical orientation of the disc drive limited the speed of a replacement DVD-R/W.
The Federal Government won't be purchasing OS X boxes in mass quantity until the operating system is usable by somebody who is blind. E&IT Accessibility Standards
Apple Computer has landed a major customer for its Power Mac G5, with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University confirming Tuesday that it will use 1,100 of the machines as part of a supercomputer cluster now under construction.
I wish this was one less Classic app (it would be my last). Actually, I kept a PC running just for OutLook because too many people sent HTML only messages and the burden of dealing with classic is no less that of a spare PC just for group email.
Without true Exchange support this upgrade is useless for the vast majority of folks using OutLook under. If the Exchange server here supported IMAP and the rest, under X Mail.app iCal.app would be fine.
Slashdot Mirror
- A creationist claimed that flagella are an example of Intelligent Design, as Darwinian evolution theory couldn't offer a possible explanation.
- Matzke was cited, and his is a reasonable possible explaination
- Dembski's reasonable complaints about Matzke's explanation is cited.
- Now we are debating if Dembski debunking of Matzke was complete!
However, the fact that reasonable people can argue about this demonstrates that the original assertion (flagella are an example of ID) is wrong!Keep in mind that the Creationists need only one counter example to prove Darwin wrong. They can't even do that! I very much appreciate this explanation of Intelligent Design.
You guys are not looking hard enough. Artificial heart was surgeon's last hope of saving Julie's Life
Aside from 911/e911, another important thing government regulation does is to ensure accessibility to people with disabilities. This was the conclusion from a panel of experts at a recent public forum on VoIP.
Think about, we are all using an interface designed for three-handed beings. Both hands on the home row, with your 2nd right hand on the mouse. This is one thing Windows gets right: you can do just about everything without a mouse, and often the keyboard centric way to do things is faster.
So here's my idea for an impressive demo at an Apple keynote address: Steve pulls the mouse out from the keyboard -- and continues with a routine demo of the Finder, Safari, iTunes, Garage Band, and iChat!
iTunes 4.5 (and thus ITMS) for Windows still isn't accessible for blind folks who rely on a screen reader like JAWS or WindowEyes. Those folks are stuck with Napster or Walmart. Let's hope 5.0 fixes this.
And I can't believe no one has posted the link to the Internet Relay under discussion! Feel free to try it yourself...
The link cited in the story lead points to the current City Paper feature. The stable url is: Out of Africa
> What three-finger-salute does one use to force a reboot from the keyboard now?
According to this it's Control-Command-Eject. I've used that with Jaguar. It doesn't seem to work with Panther. But maybe my computer is foobar'd!
The 3M joystick mouse seemed like a good idea, but most of the people we had try it didn't like it. We have just started using the Evoluent Vertical Mouse and so far the feedback has been extremely positive.
Apple tablet prototype pics here and there! But the best idea is the detachable touch screen that merely lifts off the iMac (the dome base serving as the brains and charging cradle). For completeness, there is also the Cintiq ($3500, and a tether to boot) and the AirBoard (Japanese Flash, sorry, it's the best I could do).
The parent in this thread was asking about 6.3, available only for Classic. The installer left my Classic version of Windows Media Player 7 alone, so I can't imagine it effecting 6.3. Yes, after the install WiMP 7 for OS X disappeared, but that was the point wasn't it? I never followed the debate about 6.3 having advantages over 7.1, so I can't comment there.
As has been pointed out by others, the Mactopia site still lists the previous (7.1) version, so you should at least be able to return to that. I don't know where you can find 6.3 (if that's what you really need), but here's the answer to the parent question:
Windows Media Player for Mac OS X
WindowsMediaInstaller.hqx
Windows Media Player 7.1 for Mac
WMPlayer7_1_EN.hqx
I just ran the Installer over 7.1.3 (the latest previously available for OS X). No reboot was requested (isn't that odd for a MS product) but it would not run. So I re-installed 7.1.3 (again, without any sort of uninstall) and now I had audio for that BBC program! I re-installed 9 (again, not bothering with the uninstall) and the video still plays. So, I am happy as this version fixes at least some things!
The accessibility features are not being promoted as prominently as they were with Jaguar (in fact, I could not find a direct link to this page), but they are improved. Specifically, Zoom now has adjustable contrast, which makes it work very much like a CCTV magnifier for paper. Full keyboard access has also been tweaked. Both very nice, but someone who is totally blind still can't use OS X.
The portability is key. I have a TI PB and white iBook. The iBook is the one I use all the time. I can't justify the new 12" PB until they put backlighted keys and that model.
I, Cringely had a nice article (and even a follow-up) on this subject last month.
Body Count: Why Moving to India Won't Really Help IT
The Federal Government won't be purchasing OS X boxes in mass quantity until the operating system is usable by somebody who is blind. E&IT Accessibility Standards
I wish this was one less Classic app (it would be my last). Actually, I kept a PC running just for OutLook because too many people sent HTML only messages and the burden of dealing with classic is no less that of a spare PC just for group email. Without true Exchange support this upgrade is useless for the vast majority of folks using OutLook under. If the Exchange server here supported IMAP and the rest, under X Mail.app iCal.app would be fine.