tidal energy, solar energy, wind energy, etc that would deliver real change by reducing C02 emissions.
The scary thing here is the following question: If you add power generated by 'clean' sources to the grid, will people stop using 'dirty' power, or just use more power?
I think the fundamental problem is that even if you add new, clean sources to the grid (or off the grid, whatever), you're probably not going to take away from the current levels of existing emissions. All that will be done is a change in the increase, because despite what treaties say, it is very unlikely that current emission levels will drop; the only way that's possible is if the rate of increase of total production of alternative sources outpaces the growth of consumption, allowing the old emissions-generating methods to be taken off-line. If the rate of consumption is the same as or exceeds the growth of "alternative" sources, you cannot reduce the existing emissions base.
I think that's the economic hardship that is spoken of - you cannot maintain existing output unless you are able to grow new technologies fast enough to allow old technologies to be taken offline - and there is real economic loss in taking machinery offline before it's lifespan has expired. It's unlikely that we'll actually have any technologies which actually reduce consumption in a meaningful quantity over a short (say, 25 year) timeframe. Sure, new construction may be more efficient than old construction, but that's still adding load to the system - unless you replace or retrofit the old no new technology will help the existing situation.
Remember, per-capita energy consumption may decrease, but what matters is total consumption (if increase in population is greater than decrease in per-capita, there is no gain). I'd even like to see world per-capita energy use, not just broken down by "major offending nations" and see what that looks like.
It's not so much the Rosetta stone, but the fact that a "Rosetta stone" has a built-in context - it's obviously communication or artwork of some kind. If you have a big pile of digital data, what is it? An image? Compressed text? Audio? Just a sequence of numbers? The thing "printed" information gives you is that the presentation of the data gives you an idea of what it is - we don't yet have any digital data formats for which the presentation of the data gives an idea of the content; in fact, most digital storage mechanisms present all types of information in identical manner.
That's the real challenge - devising a digital storage format in which presentation can be used to apply context to the data.
I agree that buying stock is not the same as selling a console (at a loss). However, both are valid investements; if you consider selling a loss-leader as "advertisement" then there's no problem; most companies do indeed count advertising as an investment. Also, you don't have to invest in "tangible goods" to be an investment - education also comes to mind as an "intangible" investment...
You know, I doubt Sony counts this as a "loss" - they probably book it as an "investment".
Think of it like this: if I spend $1000 on stock, I didn't "lose" $1000 - I invested it, with the hopes of getting more than $1000 back at some point in the future, but my returns are not guaranteed, just as Sony's returns are not. If Sony thinks that by spending (cost - revenue) per unit now will get them (cost + returns) later through game licensing, they don't consider it a loss, but a risky investment. It's only a "loss" at the end of the product cycle if (total sales - total cost) is negative when they stop selling.
I would think that any business-savvy folks would recognize this, but apparently the media is portraying this in a very one-sided manner and getting quite a few people to bite on the misinformation (units costing more than sale price is probably a fact - but it isn't a useful fact in and of itself).
That said, I don't know if the PS3 will end up being an investment for a gain or for a loss - and neither does anyone else.
Actually, I just realized that an animal cannot evolve; only populations can evolve. For instance, there were always some combination of small-legged and large-legged lizards in the cited example. However, what has changed was the distribution of those sub-characteristics within the overall population.
What really gets me is what 'behaviour' has to do with anything when there is simply an environmental change.
Note that I think this is distinct from evolution by mutation, which is the actual addition of characteristics; subtraction of characteristics I don't think is really 'evolution' in the sense that most people think (for instance, if all of a certain trait has been killed off, if the influence that killed it off is removed, it's not going to simply come back without another mutation somewhere (discounting things like recessive traits, of course).
That's what people *say* but I'm not entirely sure. I've been doing a bit of engine-start calibration recently, and mostly it depends on the calibration. Let's say to start an engine, you get a primer pulse of 100ms, then 5 revolutions of fuel before hitting idle speed, then you're running normal (on a warm engine, so there's none of that goofy warm-up stuff).
Let's say, for instance, that running at idle you have fuel pulses of 4 ms. Let's say this is a 4 cylinder. So, the primer pulse is 400 ms of fuel (100ms x 4 injectors), then you get 5 x 4 x 4ms before running at all, which is another 80 ms, so 480 ms worth of fuel. For a single cylinder, this is 120ms; if a normal event is 4 ms, that means that's 30 events worth of fuel, or 60 revolutions. At an idle speed of 500 RPM, that's only 60/500 of a minute to use the same amount of fuel. Even if a normal pulse width is 1 ms instead of 4 at idle, that only brings it up to 240/500 of a minute to break even.
So, it really depends on how the vehicle is calibrated; how the catalytic converter behaves, what the "warm-up logic" for the vehicle is, etc.
Hrm...I thought I did a pretty good job of indicating that I thought the conflicting uses were "you use it" versus "it's not being used", not "you use it" versus "I use it"...that's the key sticking point I think. So, hopefully this will clarify a bit for our faithful readers;)
I think the key is my use of the phrase "simultaneous states" over "simultaneous uses" because I think that's a key difference; physical objects can only have one state at a time, while 'idea' objects can have multiple states simultaneously. I would say that there are three basic 'Characteristics' of an entity, and I'll call them 'use', 'location', and 'cohesion'. 'Use' can take the value "being used" or "not being used" - where "being used" may indeed encompass several sub-uses (for instance, growing corn and sleeping in the field) but you can't have a pot being used and not used at the same time. For 'Location' I'd say the two values are 'at location A' and 'not at location A'. Again, a pot can be on the stove or in the cupboard, but not both (for most common sizes of pots, and for stoves that aren't in cupboards, eh?). And for 'Cohesion' I'd take that to be 'Intact' and 'Broken' (or maybe 'pristine' and 'damaged')- so you can have a pot that is a pot, or just a collection of metal fragments (which means it's probably not a pot any more).
However, for 'idea' objects, they have no conflict between any of the state characteristics - ideas can be in multiple locations at once, they can be used in one location while not being used in another (or even at the same location!), and you can have both a complete and incomplete set of information simultaneously.
Again, I don't think we need arbitration on simultaneous uses (what happens when something is "in use", but only on the three Characteristics that I mentioned - basically arbitrating between transitions of the states of each Characteristic. I don't see how any of those limitations apply to information, so I don't know how any "property rules" can reasonably apply (without social constructs, that is).
Anyway, this has actually been a very useful conversation from my standpoint as far as working out some kinks in my ideas regarding property. I thank everyone participating in this thread for the input and counterpoints to keep the brain cells working.
I agree that there are 'orthogonal uses' which are possible, but I don't think that has anything to do with property rights. My point was that 'property rights' should be structured to only apply to situations with exclusive states, and that when it comes to ideas there are no 'physically' exclusive states and so property concepts do not apply.
The scarcity with the cornfield is that there is only one cornfield in contention: it can be used for sleeping or not for sleeping, but not simultaneously. That is why permission is required - to choose between exclusive states.
When it comes to ideas, they can be used (or not) simultaneously, so there is no need for arbitration between states.
That is the difference between "hard" property and things like ideas, or music - one has 'exclusive' use (you can divide up the field into all kinds of little smaller segments, but the argument still holds for each part) where ideas do not have 'exclusive' use - there is nothing inherent to an idea which limits simultaneous usage. Only "records" of information are scarce - the actual media on which an idea is recorded. That's why I don't have a problem with fundamental copyright - because it protects the copies, not the information on the copies (even though I think the current system has a different view; as soon as copyright became "you cannot do this activity" it is no longer protecting a physical property but is limiting behavior).
An interesting concept, making the ability to decide who can and cannot use something scarce...I don't think that answers the question of what is scarce or not. In your example, what is scarce is permission, not the thing which the permission controls. That, I think, is the fundamental issue with curent IP law: it artificially adds a layer of scarcity to otherwise non-scarce resources.
'Physical' property rights govern economically scarce items. 'Intellectual' goods are not economically scarce. I made a long post a while ago about how what is scarce in the 'intellectual' field is those posessing the intellect - not the fruits of their intellect. The reason for this: what is the opportunity cost to the producer of an idea of more people having access to that idea? There is no direct, immediate reduction of the ability of an idea producer to produce more ideas if someone else knows a fact (granted, there are secondary and other side-effects, like who gets resources to continue developing ideas, but that doesn't have any bearing on the 'protectability' of any given idea).
I think the GP is quite insightful when he talks about a specific 'more efficient' means of, say, mowing a lawn. Reductio ad absurdum is actually a quite useful tool in this case, I think.
If it's easily distributed than it's not of value.
I think what you mean is "If it's easily copied than(sic) it's not of value."
Distribution doesn't have anything to do with it, except that changes how much the distributor is willing to charge you for bringing said thing from wherever something was made to wherever you are; that 'value' is in terms of how much you're willing to give up to go fetch said thing for yourself. For things like recorded information, distribution and copying costs are almost zero - because they are the same physical phenomenon. Material goods, however, cannot be duplicated by transfer; this fact is often overlooked.
The only way to validly interpret the Bible is actually by using the Bible. Sounds a little strange, but the only 'contradiction's that people find are because of the tendency to look at the parts rather than the whole. Look at the words of Christ - sometimes he spoke in parables (definitely not literal stories) and other times he spoke literally. Think about life in the present: when do you know to interpret things literally versus figuratively?
Regarding your difficulty in reconciling the OT laws with Christ's statement that he "did not come to change any of the old law": that difficulty is not in thinking that if we don't follow those laws then we can't be 'clean' - the point is that those laws are still in effect, but Christ's work on the cross took care of the consequences of not following those laws to the letter (read up on the purpose of the Law - described greatly in Romans and Hebrews). Reference the section in Acts where Christ tells Peter explicitly to eat 'unclean' food. Also reference the section where Christ sits down in the temple, and look back to what that means in the OT (referenced in Hebrews). Also remember to reference Paul's writings where he talks about how "just because all your sins are forgiven doesn't mean you can sin all you want!" - not because it will change your basic stance with God, but because it changes the fruits of your labor and how others see God.
For every "contradiction" that people claim can be found in the Bible, there has been a repudiation; also remember that there is no argument that people now have that has not been proposed many times in the past 2000-plus years, and they have all been proven insubstantial.
You know, it's not a secret. There's this book that really easy to get, you can read it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions. The trick is to really just read it and see what it says rather than see what it says about pre-conceived notions or how it does or does not support some particular viewpoint.
That's a great thing - there is this final authority on the matter, and that final authority is not the opinion of one or many men. And, if you don't want to use just one translation, you can compare all of them that are out there, and even (if you're really gung-ho about learning if something is or is not true) learn Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic - or maybe just this version which lists the (ancient) word and its possible translations in line with an English (or whatever your native language) text.
But that's the thing: anyone that tells you that you cannot on your own is selling something. That's not to say you'll understand everything (I know I don't) but there's nothing there that says "Only certain people have the priviledge to interpret this."
So, you can either just take the television and media stereotypes, or even the words (good or bad) of those around you at face value, or do a little legwork yourself. It is not, nor has it ever been, supposed to be 'blind' faith. In fact, a good bit of it is related to how to not be blind about the world...
The only flaw in your analogy is that Christianity states that it's not up to humans to fix things, but that God fixed things already (through Christ - hence "Christ"ianity). Oh, I guess that wasn't the only flaw - in the Christian "Judgement Day", everyone will be judged, not just "the infidels". This will be done, however, in a truly just manner and, oddly enough, isn't based on how much "good" or "bad" you have done. (By the way, Christianity also does not have any bit of sacrifice, in the Old Testament sense at any rate. Then again, there is no activity that you can do without some "sacrifice" - if you post on/. you're sacrificing time you could spend doing something else, for instance.)
I don't know how that applies to nature - because nature is both a cause of and response to human behavior, and nature cannot itself cause humans to get "right" with nature again. "Nature" also has no impetus to become "pristine" again - there is no physical forcing function to make things "environmentally sound" (and what does that mean anyway?). As far as "natural" "Judgment Day" would go, I don't know that there's any judging going on other than the consequences of the laws of physics. Incidentally, those are also completely impartial.
I don't disagree that 'environmentalism' is a religion, however. There are a lot of things that are religions, but aren't necessarily "spiritual" in nature.
An honest question: at what point do formats cease being 'proprietary' and become 'open'? At some point in history, even DVD was 'proprietary' - the average consumer did not have tools to generate content and store it on that medium. And what about the old cartridge-based consoles - those were 'proprietary' media as well, and not many people complained about that.
There is really nothing new about companies choosing different formats for their devices; I don't understand why there is so much deliberation at this particular instance. If it is a question of price, then the market bears that out.
I personally feel that all other discussion is really just people hearing themselves speak, because media choice doesn't have more than a secondary effect on quality of content (only where media limits data quantity and access rates is there an effect - the rest is up to the skill of the content creators).
Any suggestions? "Solutions" like "stop driving" or "use mass transit" are not acceptable to the public in most places. You can't even say "use centralized power generation and electric cars" because that has several downsides as well: limited range, vast increase in the use of heavy-metal batteries (unless those little ultracapacitor things come online any time soon), centralized generation is a single point of failure, and other side effects.
Remember, none of the pollution "problem" is technical; we have the technology that would fix all the problems. The difficulty is in the politics, not the technology.
All the components in the repository would already be debugged though.
Doesn't matter; you still have to debug the interface between components, and that is actually a very difficult task. I've not seen a hard number, but I've heard estimates that the complexity is something like O(n^2) where n is the number of components that interface. My guess is it's more like a geometric progression than n^2, though.
Re-using a part that wasn't necessarily designed for the specific task at hand often has unexpected consequences (sometimes positive, but usually quite negative).
My take is that this 'advanced' functionality doesn't belong in the CPU, as such. A CPU should be a wholly transparent entity that causes information to flow around, not be something that I can poke and prod at (yes, I know how much fun that is). I think perhaps the problem here is that by 'CPU' I really do mean a 'CPU' - a driver for the interlink between CPUs, even if on the same core, is really something different. However, now that I think of it that way, I don't know that I have such a problem with things.
I've never considered an OS as a 'driver' for a processor; I've always looked at a processor as a fixed-ability piece of hardware, and for good reason: reliability. The more knobs you have on something, the more likely it is to be broken.
the only real debate is whether or not man is directly responsible for it.
Why don't we put the question to rest and just set every forest in the world on fire? Then we'd know for sure that man was the cause of the disaster!;)
Which is worse for the environment: An SUV that drives 6000 miles/year, or my car which drives 23000 miles/year? An SUV typically gets, say, a generous 15 mpg. My car gets 36 hwy. Over the course of a year, that SUV will use 400 gallons of fuel. My car will use almost 640 gallons (at best). And if, say, I tried to use my car to do what a truck could do in 6000 miles, would I have to take more trips? If so, then the SUV might still come out on top, depending on usage.
People complaining about type of vehicle are barking up the wrong tree-you have to look at total impact, not just the "shock" value. Now, per unit distance, sure, an SUV is less efficient than my hatchback. But what really matters in terms of energy consumption and pollution is over time, not over space! So you want to be more efficient: live closer to where you work, shop, and recreate. (Incidentally, I'm in the process of doing that, because I can't stand my commute - and the environmental/economic benefits are a nice bonus and do factor into my consideration, but I admit they are not the primary driving factor.)
In other words, this post has been brought to you by the Make Sure Your Assumptions are Correct and Your Comparisons are Valid Coalition.
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The scary thing here is the following question: If you add power generated by 'clean' sources to the grid, will people stop using 'dirty' power, or just use more power?
I think the fundamental problem is that even if you add new, clean sources to the grid (or off the grid, whatever), you're probably not going to take away from the current levels of existing emissions. All that will be done is a change in the increase, because despite what treaties say, it is very unlikely that current emission levels will drop; the only way that's possible is if the rate of increase of total production of alternative sources outpaces the growth of consumption, allowing the old emissions-generating methods to be taken off-line. If the rate of consumption is the same as or exceeds the growth of "alternative" sources, you cannot reduce the existing emissions base.
I think that's the economic hardship that is spoken of - you cannot maintain existing output unless you are able to grow new technologies fast enough to allow old technologies to be taken offline - and there is real economic loss in taking machinery offline before it's lifespan has expired. It's unlikely that we'll actually have any technologies which actually reduce consumption in a meaningful quantity over a short (say, 25 year) timeframe. Sure, new construction may be more efficient than old construction, but that's still adding load to the system - unless you replace or retrofit the old no new technology will help the existing situation.
Remember, per-capita energy consumption may decrease, but what matters is total consumption (if increase in population is greater than decrease in per-capita, there is no gain). I'd even like to see world per-capita energy use, not just broken down by "major offending nations" and see what that looks like.
It's not so much the Rosetta stone, but the fact that a "Rosetta stone" has a built-in context - it's obviously communication or artwork of some kind. If you have a big pile of digital data, what is it? An image? Compressed text? Audio? Just a sequence of numbers? The thing "printed" information gives you is that the presentation of the data gives you an idea of what it is - we don't yet have any digital data formats for which the presentation of the data gives an idea of the content; in fact, most digital storage mechanisms present all types of information in identical manner.
That's the real challenge - devising a digital storage format in which presentation can be used to apply context to the data.
I agree that buying stock is not the same as selling a console (at a loss). However, both are valid investements; if you consider selling a loss-leader as "advertisement" then there's no problem; most companies do indeed count advertising as an investment. Also, you don't have to invest in "tangible goods" to be an investment - education also comes to mind as an "intangible" investment...
You know, I doubt Sony counts this as a "loss" - they probably book it as an "investment".
Think of it like this: if I spend $1000 on stock, I didn't "lose" $1000 - I invested it, with the hopes of getting more than $1000 back at some point in the future, but my returns are not guaranteed, just as Sony's returns are not. If Sony thinks that by spending (cost - revenue) per unit now will get them (cost + returns) later through game licensing, they don't consider it a loss, but a risky investment. It's only a "loss" at the end of the product cycle if (total sales - total cost) is negative when they stop selling.
I would think that any business-savvy folks would recognize this, but apparently the media is portraying this in a very one-sided manner and getting quite a few people to bite on the misinformation (units costing more than sale price is probably a fact - but it isn't a useful fact in and of itself).
That said, I don't know if the PS3 will end up being an investment for a gain or for a loss - and neither does anyone else.
Actually, I just realized that an animal cannot evolve; only populations can evolve. For instance, there were always some combination of small-legged and large-legged lizards in the cited example. However, what has changed was the distribution of those sub-characteristics within the overall population.
What really gets me is what 'behaviour' has to do with anything when there is simply an environmental change.
Note that I think this is distinct from evolution by mutation, which is the actual addition of characteristics; subtraction of characteristics I don't think is really 'evolution' in the sense that most people think (for instance, if all of a certain trait has been killed off, if the influence that killed it off is removed, it's not going to simply come back without another mutation somewhere (discounting things like recessive traits, of course).
Since when is the US health care system a free market?
That's what people *say* but I'm not entirely sure. I've been doing a bit of engine-start calibration recently, and mostly it depends on the calibration. Let's say to start an engine, you get a primer pulse of 100ms, then 5 revolutions of fuel before hitting idle speed, then you're running normal (on a warm engine, so there's none of that goofy warm-up stuff).
Let's say, for instance, that running at idle you have fuel pulses of 4 ms. Let's say this is a 4 cylinder. So, the primer pulse is 400 ms of fuel (100ms x 4 injectors), then you get 5 x 4 x 4ms before running at all, which is another 80 ms, so 480 ms worth of fuel. For a single cylinder, this is 120ms; if a normal event is 4 ms, that means that's 30 events worth of fuel, or 60 revolutions. At an idle speed of 500 RPM, that's only 60/500 of a minute to use the same amount of fuel. Even if a normal pulse width is 1 ms instead of 4 at idle, that only brings it up to 240/500 of a minute to break even.
So, it really depends on how the vehicle is calibrated; how the catalytic converter behaves, what the "warm-up logic" for the vehicle is, etc.
Hrm...I thought I did a pretty good job of indicating that I thought the conflicting uses were "you use it" versus "it's not being used", not "you use it" versus "I use it"...that's the key sticking point I think. So, hopefully this will clarify a bit for our faithful readers ;)
I think the key is my use of the phrase "simultaneous states" over "simultaneous uses" because I think that's a key difference; physical objects can only have one state at a time, while 'idea' objects can have multiple states simultaneously. I would say that there are three basic 'Characteristics' of an entity, and I'll call them 'use', 'location', and 'cohesion'. 'Use' can take the value "being used" or "not being used" - where "being used" may indeed encompass several sub-uses (for instance, growing corn and sleeping in the field) but you can't have a pot being used and not used at the same time. For 'Location' I'd say the two values are 'at location A' and 'not at location A'. Again, a pot can be on the stove or in the cupboard, but not both (for most common sizes of pots, and for stoves that aren't in cupboards, eh?). And for 'Cohesion' I'd take that to be 'Intact' and 'Broken' (or maybe 'pristine' and 'damaged')- so you can have a pot that is a pot, or just a collection of metal fragments (which means it's probably not a pot any more).
However, for 'idea' objects, they have no conflict between any of the state characteristics - ideas can be in multiple locations at once, they can be used in one location while not being used in another (or even at the same location!), and you can have both a complete and incomplete set of information simultaneously.
Again, I don't think we need arbitration on simultaneous uses (what happens when something is "in use", but only on the three Characteristics that I mentioned - basically arbitrating between transitions of the states of each Characteristic. I don't see how any of those limitations apply to information, so I don't know how any "property rules" can reasonably apply (without social constructs, that is).
Anyway, this has actually been a very useful conversation from my standpoint as far as working out some kinks in my ideas regarding property. I thank everyone participating in this thread for the input and counterpoints to keep the brain cells working.
I agree that there are 'orthogonal uses' which are possible, but I don't think that has anything to do with property rights. My point was that 'property rights' should be structured to only apply to situations with exclusive states, and that when it comes to ideas there are no 'physically' exclusive states and so property concepts do not apply.
The scarcity with the cornfield is that there is only one cornfield in contention: it can be used for sleeping or not for sleeping, but not simultaneously. That is why permission is required - to choose between exclusive states.
When it comes to ideas, they can be used (or not) simultaneously, so there is no need for arbitration between states.
That is the difference between "hard" property and things like ideas, or music - one has 'exclusive' use (you can divide up the field into all kinds of little smaller segments, but the argument still holds for each part) where ideas do not have 'exclusive' use - there is nothing inherent to an idea which limits simultaneous usage. Only "records" of information are scarce - the actual media on which an idea is recorded. That's why I don't have a problem with fundamental copyright - because it protects the copies, not the information on the copies (even though I think the current system has a different view; as soon as copyright became "you cannot do this activity" it is no longer protecting a physical property but is limiting behavior).
An interesting concept, making the ability to decide who can and cannot use something scarce...I don't think that answers the question of what is scarce or not. In your example, what is scarce is permission, not the thing which the permission controls. That, I think, is the fundamental issue with curent IP law: it artificially adds a layer of scarcity to otherwise non-scarce resources.
I'll give answering your question a whirl:
'Physical' property rights govern economically scarce items. 'Intellectual' goods are not economically scarce. I made a long post a while ago about how what is scarce in the 'intellectual' field is those posessing the intellect - not the fruits of their intellect. The reason for this: what is the opportunity cost to the producer of an idea of more people having access to that idea? There is no direct, immediate reduction of the ability of an idea producer to produce more ideas if someone else knows a fact (granted, there are secondary and other side-effects, like who gets resources to continue developing ideas, but that doesn't have any bearing on the 'protectability' of any given idea).
I think the GP is quite insightful when he talks about a specific 'more efficient' means of, say, mowing a lawn. Reductio ad absurdum is actually a quite useful tool in this case, I think.
I think what you mean is "If it's easily copied than(sic) it's not of value."
Distribution doesn't have anything to do with it, except that changes how much the distributor is willing to charge you for bringing said thing from wherever something was made to wherever you are; that 'value' is in terms of how much you're willing to give up to go fetch said thing for yourself. For things like recorded information, distribution and copying costs are almost zero - because they are the same physical phenomenon. Material goods, however, cannot be duplicated by transfer; this fact is often overlooked.
The only way to validly interpret the Bible is actually by using the Bible. Sounds a little strange, but the only 'contradiction's that people find are because of the tendency to look at the parts rather than the whole. Look at the words of Christ - sometimes he spoke in parables (definitely not literal stories) and other times he spoke literally. Think about life in the present: when do you know to interpret things literally versus figuratively?
Regarding your difficulty in reconciling the OT laws with Christ's statement that he "did not come to change any of the old law": that difficulty is not in thinking that if we don't follow those laws then we can't be 'clean' - the point is that those laws are still in effect, but Christ's work on the cross took care of the consequences of not following those laws to the letter (read up on the purpose of the Law - described greatly in Romans and Hebrews). Reference the section in Acts where Christ tells Peter explicitly to eat 'unclean' food. Also reference the section where Christ sits down in the temple, and look back to what that means in the OT (referenced in Hebrews). Also remember to reference Paul's writings where he talks about how "just because all your sins are forgiven doesn't mean you can sin all you want!" - not because it will change your basic stance with God, but because it changes the fruits of your labor and how others see God.
For every "contradiction" that people claim can be found in the Bible, there has been a repudiation; also remember that there is no argument that people now have that has not been proposed many times in the past 2000-plus years, and they have all been proven insubstantial.
You know, it's not a secret. There's this book that really easy to get, you can read it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions. The trick is to really just read it and see what it says rather than see what it says about pre-conceived notions or how it does or does not support some particular viewpoint.
That's a great thing - there is this final authority on the matter, and that final authority is not the opinion of one or many men. And, if you don't want to use just one translation, you can compare all of them that are out there, and even (if you're really gung-ho about learning if something is or is not true) learn Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic - or maybe just this version which lists the (ancient) word and its possible translations in line with an English (or whatever your native language) text.
But that's the thing: anyone that tells you that you cannot on your own is selling something. That's not to say you'll understand everything (I know I don't) but there's nothing there that says "Only certain people have the priviledge to interpret this."
So, you can either just take the television and media stereotypes, or even the words (good or bad) of those around you at face value, or do a little legwork yourself. It is not, nor has it ever been, supposed to be 'blind' faith. In fact, a good bit of it is related to how to not be blind about the world...
There is a difference between what Christianity is, and what "any given sect" says Christianity is.
The only flaw in your analogy is that Christianity states that it's not up to humans to fix things, but that God fixed things already (through Christ - hence "Christ"ianity). Oh, I guess that wasn't the only flaw - in the Christian "Judgement Day", everyone will be judged, not just "the infidels". This will be done, however, in a truly just manner and, oddly enough, isn't based on how much "good" or "bad" you have done. (By the way, Christianity also does not have any bit of sacrifice, in the Old Testament sense at any rate. Then again, there is no activity that you can do without some "sacrifice" - if you post on /. you're sacrificing time you could spend doing something else, for instance.)
I don't know how that applies to nature - because nature is both a cause of and response to human behavior, and nature cannot itself cause humans to get "right" with nature again. "Nature" also has no impetus to become "pristine" again - there is no physical forcing function to make things "environmentally sound" (and what does that mean anyway?). As far as "natural" "Judgment Day" would go, I don't know that there's any judging going on other than the consequences of the laws of physics. Incidentally, those are also completely impartial.
I don't disagree that 'environmentalism' is a religion, however. There are a lot of things that are religions, but aren't necessarily "spiritual" in nature.
An honest question: at what point do formats cease being 'proprietary' and become 'open'? At some point in history, even DVD was 'proprietary' - the average consumer did not have tools to generate content and store it on that medium. And what about the old cartridge-based consoles - those were 'proprietary' media as well, and not many people complained about that.
There is really nothing new about companies choosing different formats for their devices; I don't understand why there is so much deliberation at this particular instance. If it is a question of price, then the market bears that out.
I personally feel that all other discussion is really just people hearing themselves speak, because media choice doesn't have more than a secondary effect on quality of content (only where media limits data quantity and access rates is there an effect - the rest is up to the skill of the content creators).
Any suggestions? "Solutions" like "stop driving" or "use mass transit" are not acceptable to the public in most places. You can't even say "use centralized power generation and electric cars" because that has several downsides as well: limited range, vast increase in the use of heavy-metal batteries (unless those little ultracapacitor things come online any time soon), centralized generation is a single point of failure, and other side effects.
Remember, none of the pollution "problem" is technical; we have the technology that would fix all the problems. The difficulty is in the politics, not the technology.
Doesn't matter; you still have to debug the interface between components, and that is actually a very difficult task. I've not seen a hard number, but I've heard estimates that the complexity is something like O(n^2) where n is the number of components that interface. My guess is it's more like a geometric progression than n^2, though.
Re-using a part that wasn't necessarily designed for the specific task at hand often has unexpected consequences (sometimes positive, but usually quite negative).
My take is that this 'advanced' functionality doesn't belong in the CPU, as such. A CPU should be a wholly transparent entity that causes information to flow around, not be something that I can poke and prod at (yes, I know how much fun that is). I think perhaps the problem here is that by 'CPU' I really do mean a 'CPU' - a driver for the interlink between CPUs, even if on the same core, is really something different. However, now that I think of it that way, I don't know that I have such a problem with things.
I've never considered an OS as a 'driver' for a processor; I've always looked at a processor as a fixed-ability piece of hardware, and for good reason: reliability. The more knobs you have on something, the more likely it is to be broken.
Why don't we put the question to rest and just set every forest in the world on fire? Then we'd know for sure that man was the cause of the disaster! ;)
Anyone else disturbed by the fact that even processors now require drivers?
I had a realization the other day:
Which is worse for the environment: An SUV that drives 6000 miles/year, or my car which drives 23000 miles/year? An SUV typically gets, say, a generous 15 mpg. My car gets 36 hwy. Over the course of a year, that SUV will use 400 gallons of fuel. My car will use almost 640 gallons (at best). And if, say, I tried to use my car to do what a truck could do in 6000 miles, would I have to take more trips? If so, then the SUV might still come out on top, depending on usage.
People complaining about type of vehicle are barking up the wrong tree-you have to look at total impact, not just the "shock" value. Now, per unit distance, sure, an SUV is less efficient than my hatchback. But what really matters in terms of energy consumption and pollution is over time, not over space! So you want to be more efficient: live closer to where you work, shop, and recreate. (Incidentally, I'm in the process of doing that, because I can't stand my commute - and the environmental/economic benefits are a nice bonus and do factor into my consideration, but I admit they are not the primary driving factor.)
In other words, this post has been brought to you by the Make Sure Your Assumptions are Correct and Your Comparisons are Valid Coalition.