I had a severe accident on a motorcycle - as a result of this I paralyzed my right arm. All the doctors I consulted told me that there was very little chance that I would even get sensation back in my arms and almost no chance of ever getting back any activity.
Within 3 months of this, I got back not just the sensation but also activity in my hand. I am now back to being right-handed.
Also, I have a friend of mine who survived cancer. At its peak, he was down to just 14 Kgs in weight. Doctors gave him 0% chance of survival.
So I won't put too much trust on the probabilities bandied about by anyone. Anyone who is ill deserves to be given the best chance at fighting the odds.
It isn't right to expect these people to just curl up and die just because it may be inconvenient to others that they try and beat the odds.
But if you are an atheist and believe that human live does not have any inherent value, then I guess it is reasonable to expect humans to just extinguish themselves at the first hint of trouble.
However, this world wasn't built on such weak principles.. but it may still be undone by them.
Each person has the RIGHT to try and live. No one is OBLIGATED to just give up and die.
I admire the tenacity of people who are willing to fight it out even against tremendous odds.
I am surprised at the fatalistic tone of so many posts on slashdot. I am sure you will feel quite differently about death if it was your parent/son/daughter/sibling who was terminally ill.
I have had members of my family who have committed suicide. I only wish they had not. Many of the things that overwhelmed them could have been handled - but in a moment of weakness, they succumbed and gave up. They took, what they thought was, the easy way out.
I will even go as far as to say that it is the duty of each person to try and live - not necessarily for themselves, but at the very least for their loved ones.
I agree completely. My mother-in-law who suffers from cancer stays with my wife and I. She is going through her second episode of cancer.
I can attest to the fact that she finds it possible to carry on only because of her faith. If she didn't have faith, she would have given up and died long ago.
Most people on Slashdot do not seem to realize that people handle terminal illness very differently. Many just give up and then death comes very quickly. Some just don't quit - no matter how hard it gets. Mental toughness goes a long way in keeping one alive.
I am guessing many of the more religious people probably don't quit as easily as those who are not religious.
It appears that scientists have reserved the right to make absolute statements without the requirement to provide the evidence to support the statements.
The other alternative is to consider the possibility that evolution doesn't quite explain how octopuses came about.
Octopuses have eyes very similar to human eyes but even better suited to low light conditions and this despite the fact that the Octopuses and humans have no common ancestors who also had eyes.
No one talks about "Darwinism" except the creationists. The reasons he gives are exactly the reasons they invented the term - it's far easier to discredit a dead guy from 100 years ago than it is a scientific concept.
I've only ever heard evolution described as evolution. The only people I've heard talking about 'Darwinism' are: -Scientists talking about the historical theory -Creationists -The occasional truly ignorant journalist.
Most creationists will agree that evolution on the micro scale does occur. You don't need to be a scientist to understand how breeding has been used for horses, dogs, food grains etc.
Macro-evolution, on the other hand, is what is being debated.
Now, evolutionists may come out and say that macro evolution and micro evolution follow one and the same process and cannot really be distinguished.
But this is an assertion which must be proven.
Also, you imply that the religious did not have anything whatsoever to do with advancing science. Do you really think that all of science only evolved after Darwin? It may be a good idea to read up about many of the great scientists - not all of them were atheists.. many were deeply religious. Examples include Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur..
Something else that you seem to miss is that the ancients knew about seasons - actually, they had very accurate knowledge of the cosmos and were able to track the path of the sun and the stars very accurately. Just read up about the Inca, the Maya and the Egyptian pyramids. Also, read up on the temples in Asia and how many of them were really astronomical observatories.
This is an understatement. People are losing jobs by the millions and here we have a person who claims to be heralding the change but who thinks nothing about spending over $100 million on his "inauguration".
There has not been a single Presidential inauguration in history which has been this over the top.
Would it have been too much to expect the president-elect to even display a modicum of empathy with those who are suffering? Obama needn't have opted for a ceremony which is a toned down version of the regular presidential inauguration (a low key ceremony would have been appropriate given the current economic climate), but he has opted for the extreme other end of the scale and gone in for a completely overblown ceremony.
And yet we are all expected to believe that things are going to be much better now that Obama is the president.
I thought you were thinking of watching some inauguration (wasn't thinking of the presidential inauguration) and hence all the notes on how to record the video.
However, if you are just going to be streaming a TV show, it is best to just watch a plain old TV. If you want a really big display, use a projector.
I have used Adobe Flash Media Encoder for live streaming in large halls.
The setup I have used is something like this:
Stuff you need:
1. Get a decent camera with a firewire port. 2. Get a laptop with a firewire port. You can use a desktop too. Lets call this the "Encoder Laptop." 3. Load Adobe Flash Media Encoder on it. It is available free from Adobe. 4. Get an account with a Flash streaming service such as Serverroom.us (I have used their service and I recommend them). 5. Get a mixer for handling the audio. 6. Get a cable for connecting the audio from the mixer to the "Encoder laptop" 7. Get a firewire cable for connecting the camera to the "Encoder Laptop"
The process:
1. Connect the camera to the "Encoder Laptop" using a firewire cable.
2. Pass the audio from the mixer to the laptop's microphone / line input.
3. Start up Adobe Flash Media Encoder on this laptop.
4. Select the camera as the video source. Select the microphone / line in as the audio source.
5. Set up the address of the streaming server to point to your account with any streaming service (example Serverroom). You can also test this using justin.tv or ustream.tv.
The other option would be to run your own streaming server locally. You can download the Adobe Flash Media Server or the Wowza Media Server. Red 5 is yet another option but I am not sure how well it handles H.264 of VP6 streams.
All you need to display the stream would be to get yourself a computer with Flash plugin installed and then you can setup a player such as the JW Player (check on the web) to connect to the streaming server to play the stream.
I have worked with projects for Iranian customers. They have all the gear you would think an IT setup would need - Blade/Rack servers, OSs (MS), databases (SQL Server, Oracle) etc.
There are some pretty large firms in Iran and it would be foolish to consider Iran a small market.
If you think Clinton had nothing to do with this mess, please read up on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act which got the economy into the mess it is in now. Democrats are pretty slick at tiptoeing around this bit of history.
You have touched upon a topic which is very rarely discussed.
The conditions that the Indian migrant workers endure in the middle-east is beyond believable. It is true slave labour in more ways than one.
Most people who travel to the middle-east from India and the neighbouring nations come from poor backgrounds - they are the construction workers, clerks and so on. They are quite different from those who travel to the west (IT professionals, doctors etc).
Also, they aren't adequately represented by the Indian (Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Afghani) government. And the employers (called "sponsors") in the middle-east exploit this to the hilt.
* The employers will normally confiscate the passport of the employees as soon as they arrive. Women who come into these countries as nurses, maids etc are very regularly sexually exploited once their passports have been taken from them.
* If the employee tries to go back home without getting the permission of their employer, they can and most likely will be arrested. This happens not just to the labourers but also to some white collar professionals.
* The living conditions in the middle-east are absolutely deplorable. I have heard of cases where over a dozen labourers were squeezed into a small approx. 24x24 ft living quarters with just a small air-conditioner which is woefully inadequate in the desert climate.
* Many labourers get under $100 a month.. this is in a place where the cost of living is really high.
* Also, it is very difficult to change employers. The Arab employers completely subjugate them and the employees have no option but to endure these conditions till the time that they can leave the nation and since their travel papers are with their employers, they will need to wait out their contract terms.
Those who travel from India and the neighbouring nations are quite often aware of these extreme conditions but nonetheless choose to endure them because of extreme poverty.
Why attack the man personally? Discuss the comments based on its merits rather than attacking the person who voiced it no matter what their background or accomplishments.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently Tata is planning to bring out its http://www.tatanano.com/Nano in an all electric model as well.
Right. I guess it is true when someone said that those who don't believe in God will be quick to believe anything else.
I had a severe accident on a motorcycle - as a result of this I paralyzed my right arm. All the doctors I consulted told me that there was very little chance that I would even get sensation back in my arms and almost no chance of ever getting back any activity.
Within 3 months of this, I got back not just the sensation but also activity in my hand. I am now back to being right-handed.
Also, I have a friend of mine who survived cancer. At its peak, he was down to just 14 Kgs in weight. Doctors gave him 0% chance of survival.
So I won't put too much trust on the probabilities bandied about by anyone. Anyone who is ill deserves to be given the best chance at fighting the odds.
It isn't right to expect these people to just curl up and die just because it may be inconvenient to others that they try and beat the odds.
But if you are an atheist and believe that human live does not have any inherent value, then I guess it is reasonable to expect humans to just extinguish themselves at the first hint of trouble.
However, this world wasn't built on such weak principles.. but it may still be undone by them.
Each person has the RIGHT to try and live. No one is OBLIGATED to just give up and die.
I admire the tenacity of people who are willing to fight it out even against tremendous odds.
I am surprised at the fatalistic tone of so many posts on slashdot. I am sure you will feel quite differently about death if it was your parent/son/daughter/sibling who was terminally ill.
I have had members of my family who have committed suicide. I only wish they had not. Many of the things that overwhelmed them could have been handled - but in a moment of weakness, they succumbed and gave up. They took, what they thought was, the easy way out.
I will even go as far as to say that it is the duty of each person to try and live - not necessarily for themselves, but at the very least for their loved ones.
The only person who is an arsehole here is you.
I agree completely. My mother-in-law who suffers from cancer stays with my wife and I. She is going through her second episode of cancer.
I can attest to the fact that she finds it possible to carry on only because of her faith. If she didn't have faith, she would have given up and died long ago.
Most people on Slashdot do not seem to realize that people handle terminal illness very differently. Many just give up and then death comes very quickly. Some just don't quit - no matter how hard it gets. Mental toughness goes a long way in keeping one alive.
I am guessing many of the more religious people probably don't quit as easily as those who are not religious.
It appears that scientists have reserved the right to make absolute statements without the requirement to provide the evidence to support the statements.
The other alternative is to consider the possibility that evolution doesn't quite explain how octopuses came about.
Octopuses have eyes very similar to human eyes but even better suited to low light conditions and this despite the fact that the Octopuses and humans have no common ancestors who also had eyes.
If you have a site license for XP, you can directly install XP on the computers. Why did you have to pay the downgrade fees?
No one talks about "Darwinism" except the creationists. The reasons he gives are exactly the reasons they invented the term - it's far easier to discredit a dead guy from 100 years ago than it is a scientific concept.
Citation needed.
Dawkins himself uses the term quite a lot.
I've only ever heard evolution described as evolution. The only people I've heard talking about 'Darwinism' are:
-Scientists talking about the historical theory
-Creationists
-The occasional truly ignorant journalist.
Richard Dawkins himself uses the term:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/09/darwin.dawkins1
Most creationists will agree that evolution on the micro scale does occur. You don't need to be a scientist to understand how breeding has been used for horses, dogs, food grains etc.
Macro-evolution, on the other hand, is what is being debated.
Now, evolutionists may come out and say that macro evolution and micro evolution follow one and the same process and cannot really be distinguished.
But this is an assertion which must be proven.
Also, you imply that the religious did not have anything whatsoever to do with advancing science. Do you really think that all of science only evolved after Darwin? It may be a good idea to read up about many of the great scientists - not all of them were atheists.. many were deeply religious. Examples include Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur ..
Something else that you seem to miss is that the ancients knew about seasons - actually, they had very accurate knowledge of the cosmos and were able to track the path of the sun and the stars very accurately. Just read up about the Inca, the Maya and the Egyptian pyramids. Also, read up on the temples in Asia and how many of them were really astronomical observatories.
What about the King of Bhutan who voluntarily gave up monarchy despite the Bhutanese pleading with him to stay on as the monarch?
This "coronation" stuff is overdone
This is an understatement. People are losing jobs by the millions and here we have a person who claims to be heralding the change but who thinks nothing about spending over $100 million on his "inauguration".
There has not been a single Presidential inauguration in history which has been this over the top.
Would it have been too much to expect the president-elect to even display a modicum of empathy with those who are suffering? Obama needn't have opted for a ceremony which is a toned down version of the regular presidential inauguration (a low key ceremony would have been appropriate given the current economic climate), but he has opted for the extreme other end of the scale and gone in for a completely overblown ceremony.
And yet we are all expected to believe that things are going to be much better now that Obama is the president.
Sorry for replying to myself.
I thought you were thinking of watching some inauguration (wasn't thinking of the presidential inauguration) and hence all the notes on how to record the video.
However, if you are just going to be streaming a TV show, it is best to just watch a plain old TV. If you want a really big display, use a projector.
I have used Adobe Flash Media Encoder for live streaming in large halls.
The setup I have used is something like this:
Stuff you need:
1. Get a decent camera with a firewire port.
2. Get a laptop with a firewire port. You can use a desktop too. Lets call this the "Encoder Laptop."
3. Load Adobe Flash Media Encoder on it. It is available free from Adobe.
4. Get an account with a Flash streaming service such as Serverroom.us (I have used their service and I recommend them).
5. Get a mixer for handling the audio.
6. Get a cable for connecting the audio from the mixer to the "Encoder laptop"
7. Get a firewire cable for connecting the camera to the "Encoder Laptop"
The process:
1. Connect the camera to the "Encoder Laptop" using a firewire cable.
2. Pass the audio from the mixer to the laptop's microphone / line input.
3. Start up Adobe Flash Media Encoder on this laptop.
4. Select the camera as the video source. Select the microphone / line in as the audio source.
5. Set up the address of the streaming server to point to your account with any streaming service (example Serverroom). You can also test this using justin.tv or ustream.tv.
The other option would be to run your own streaming server locally. You can download the Adobe Flash Media Server or the Wowza Media Server. Red 5 is yet another option but I am not sure how well it handles H.264 of VP6 streams.
All you need to display the stream would be to get yourself a computer with Flash plugin installed and then you can setup a player such as the JW Player (check on the web) to connect to the streaming server to play the stream.
I have worked with projects for Iranian customers. They have all the gear you would think an IT setup would need - Blade/Rack servers, OSs (MS), databases (SQL Server, Oracle) etc.
There are some pretty large firms in Iran and it would be foolish to consider Iran a small market.
If you think Clinton had nothing to do with this mess, please read up on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act which got the economy into the mess it is in now. Democrats are pretty slick at tiptoeing around this bit of history.
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2007/11/bill-clintons-role-in-mortgage-crisis.html
I am posting this again because I believe the world needs to see this.
This is what living conditions look like for the migrant workers in the middle-east:
http://www.qatarliving.com/node/14416
Article in the Guardian about this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/08/middleeast.construction
Before the middle-easterners start complaining about things like racial profiling, they will need to address the mess in their own backyard.
Some additional links:
If you want to see some pictures of what the living conditions look like:
http://www.qatarliving.com/node/14416
You have touched upon a topic which is very rarely discussed.
The conditions that the Indian migrant workers endure in the middle-east is beyond believable. It is true slave labour in more ways than one.
Most people who travel to the middle-east from India and the neighbouring nations come from poor backgrounds - they are the construction workers, clerks and so on. They are quite different from those who travel to the west (IT professionals, doctors etc).
Also, they aren't adequately represented by the Indian (Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Afghani) government. And the employers (called "sponsors") in the middle-east exploit this to the hilt.
* The employers will normally confiscate the passport of the employees as soon as they arrive. Women who come into these countries as nurses, maids etc are very regularly sexually exploited once their passports have been taken from them.
* If the employee tries to go back home without getting the permission of their employer, they can and most likely will be arrested. This happens not just to the labourers but also to some white collar professionals.
* The living conditions in the middle-east are absolutely deplorable. I have heard of cases where over a dozen labourers were squeezed into a small approx. 24x24 ft living quarters with just a small air-conditioner which is woefully inadequate in the desert climate.
* Many labourers get under $100 a month.. this is in a place where the cost of living is really high.
* Also, it is very difficult to change employers. The Arab employers completely subjugate them and the employees have no option but to endure these conditions till the time that they can leave the nation and since their travel papers are with their employers, they will need to wait out their contract terms.
Those who travel from India and the neighbouring nations are quite often aware of these extreme conditions but nonetheless choose to endure them because of extreme poverty.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/08/middleeast.construction
Why attack the man personally? Discuss the comments based on its merits rather than attacking the person who voiced it no matter what their background or accomplishments.
The Chandrayaan mission cost India USD 87 million which is just a shade over the cost of a Boeing 737-900ER aircraft (USD 85 million).
That is actually less than half of what the chinese spent (USD 180+ million).
So yes, there is some truth to the fact that this is indeed a very low cost mission.
What about the President of India's website? Abdul Kalam, the former President of India had his own website about 6 years ago.
What makes the Chandrayaan mission interesting is the cost - USD 87 million which is about the same as the price of a Boeing 737-900ER.
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/prices/index.html
If USD 87 million is all it takes to send a mission to the moon, it signifies much lower costs for putting up satellites around the earth.