Or instead of cable, they could use radio or BPL (yes, I know, boo, hiss, it messes up the ham radios). My parents live 15 miles from the nearest town and have something resembling broadband speeds through wireless. It isn't nearly as fast as the 2-3 Mbit/s that people in cities get on their cable modems and DSL lines, but it's a heck of a lot better than dialup.
It's hard for me to understand the real incentive in govt subsidized broadband in the US, anyway. (I am of course open to suggestions.) All my parents do with their high speed connection is look at inane webpages a little faster and play javascript/flash games a little sooner than they did when they just had dialup.
Computational fluid dynamics. The most common manifestation of this would be weather models, although it can also be used to model petroleum resevoirs, airplane wings, and the list goes on and on. The system is broken up into little chunks. What's going on in each little chunk depends on what goes on in all the the other chunks. And we are talking about millions and millions of chunks.
Color me unimpressed. Specially modified "dual mode" pickups and construction equipment roll up and down the train tracks outside my work all the time. The supposed breakthrough of providing propulsion through contact between the road wheels and the rail isn't even new. That's how they work. The only thing special about this is that they're proposing to move people and freight using dual-mode vehicles. Something tells me this has been considered and rejected before.
I don't know any Hebrew, but I would like to comment on your criticism of this post.
There is no polite way to say this, so I'll just be blunt. You are wrong to feel that appealing to the original languages is "manipulation." The bible was not written in English, and serious study of the bible is almost always based on the original languages. You are placing weight on an English translation that most Christians wouldn't place on it. To put it another way, you are bashing a straw-man, and then dismissing the genuine article without any real engagement when your fallacy is pointed out.
The simple fact is, unless you know something about the Hebrew, you are not in a position to casually dismiss this argument.
I think if you appreciated all this, appeals to the original language would seem less manipulative to you. The trouble with most amateur skepticism is that everyone thinks they're experts, and when the argument moves out of their depth, instead of listening, they moan and complain (or in your case, mock) that their opponents aren't playing by the rules they've made up.
Interestingly, a perusal of even an English dictionary reveals that the word "perfect" has many definitions. Moral perfection is not necessarily (or even commonly) implied, so far as I can tell.
With regard to Enoch and others who "ascended" to heaven, a portion of Calvin's commentary on John 3:13:
"'No one hath ascended to heaven.' He again exhorts Nicodemus not to trust to himself and his own sagacity, because no mortal man can, by his own unaided powers, enter into heaven, but only he who goes thither under the guidance of the Son of God. For to ascend to heaven means here, "to have a pure knowledge of the mysteries of God, and the light of spiritual understanding." For Christ gives here the same instruction which is given by Paul, when he declares that
the sensual man does not comprehend the things which are of God, (1 Corinthians 2:16;)
and, therefore, he excludes from divine things all the acuteness of the human understanding, for it is far below God."
I suspect Calvin, if presented with your challenge, would be somewhat confused. The assumption of Enoch and Elijah into heaven as historical events, he would say, were not what Jesus had in mind. Forcing that meaning onto Jesus' words makes nonsense of what he seems to be saying to Nicodemus. (Beyond the flow of the immediate text, I would add that it also makes no sense in light of the fact that Jesus had himself not yet bodily ascended. Also, Jesus claims that he is "in heaven" presently, which certainly seems to suggest that he doesn't intend his words to be understood in a physical sense.)
Supposing the "the world" is defined narrowly enough, and we have no other reason to believe one way or another, you are correct.
But my point was and is, "religious" explanations of phenomena are not necessarily supplanted by "scientific" explanations, even if we suppose scientific explanations to be 100% accurate, as far as they go. People are not bound to become less religious simply because we learn more about the physical world. That was the original assertion/assumption of the great great (?) grandparent.
Whatever the tree did for/to them, Adam and Eve had some knowledge of moral categories prior to eating from it. Eve at least understood the notion of punishment. Possibly they understood abstractly what evil/disobedience was, but had no experience of guilt or shame. It's an interesting point!
Please see my reply to him:
"Maybe the confusion is in my wording, which I intended to be taken as an anthropomorphism. Not that this omnipotent being has a hand and an arm and threw a lightning bolt in the way that a man throws a baseball, but that this being, as creator of the universe and its "laws," could conceivably will lightning strikes in something like the fashion that you or I will our alarm clocks to go off at a particular time, or mix ingredients into cake batter so it will turn out a certain way. Knowing the material causes of lightning sheds no light whatsoever on this matter."
What's interesting (really!) is that you point out that science is limited to answering HOW something happens, and acknowledge that religion answers WHY questions. That was close to my point in the first post. (Although, I would go a step further and claim that there is no good reason to claim that HOW questions can't be answered by religion, as well.)
Maybe the confusion is in my wording, which I intended to be taken as an anthropomorphism. Not that this omnipotent being has a hand and an arm and threw a lightning bolt in the way that a man throws a baseball, but that this being, as creator of the universe and its "laws," could conceivably will lightning strikes in something like the fashion that you or I will our alarm clocks to go off at a particular time, or mix ingredients into cake batter so it will turn out a certain way. Knowing the material causes of lightning sheds no light whatsoever on this matter.
It's difficult for me to understand how science and religion can co-exist without some interference. Attempts to explain how they can are usually either based on the assumption or lead to the conclusion that HOW statements put forward by scientists are always to be preferred over religious HOW statements. As a conservative Christian (not necessarily a synonym for "young earth creationist"), I find this view unacceptable.
At the same time, I don't think that the prevailing religious view should always trump what scientists think in anyone's mind. Even though the Christian has God's inerrant Word (which does make HOW statements), he does not have an infallible interpreter.
So, the position we find ourselves in occasionally is a conflict between the dominate view(s) of the bible and the dominate scientific view(s). I am not aware of a good, systematic way of resolving every difficultly, but my personal method is to consider the relative merits of each on their own turf, to the extent that I am qualified to do so. How probable is this view of the biblical data verses How probable is this view of the scientific data?
In considering things this way, I am fairly comfortable affirming an old universe (15 or so billion years old), but remain agnostic about evolution.
Yes, I agree. And I'll ask you the same question as I asked him.. do you have a point, or are you just adding apparently extraneous information to the thread?
I think the parent's point (I might be wrong) is that fundamentally the sin was that Eve did whatever the hell she wanted, in spite of being told not to. The hidden assumption in this exchange is that the pursuit of knowledge is always a good excuse to do whatever the hell one wants, but it so obviously isn't that I don't think any examples are necessary.
Re:Semi-serious?
on
Game with God
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· Score: 3, Insightful
As history shows, technology (read science) and religion don't mix well.
In fact, most early scientists (in the modern sense) were Christians, and "did science" because of their belief in a rational God who created a rational universe with understandable natural laws.
Even now, many scientists regularly attend religious services (a statistic I read a few years ago placed the number only slightly beneath that of the general public in the US).
A common theme of modern western myths is the conflict between Science (with a capital S) and religion. While there are a few examples for which this explanation plays well, like the Scopes trial, not even all of the examples normally trotted out (Galileo) support it very well. Like most legends or myths, they tell us more about what people want to be true than what actually is true.
Your final paragraph is full of common misconceptions. Historically, Greek mythology didn't die out because of modern scientific explanations of gravity and the like. But the more fundamental problem is your misidentification of the type of answers science is capable of giving and what this implies about religion. It may very well be the case that lightning bolts are being cast by an omnipotent being. Our understanding of the natural causes of lightning suggest nothing either way. In explaining "why" lightning struck something to a person who has such a religious belief, he may very well say to you, "It's very interesting how God did that!"
The advances you so hastily ascribe to "science" stand on the shoulders of Christendom. Contrary to your backwards and indeed bigotted view of "religion," the positive influence of Christianity on ideas like individual rights and the scientific method (many/most of the original scientists WERE "religious nuts" who started doing science because of the conviction that the God who made everything is rational and so the laws of nature are also rational and discoverable) is hard to miss.
"Science" has rarely met with any significant resistence from "religion" in the Western world (please do some research before you trot out stories about Galileo - something besides Russel's account or accounts derived from his), and science has done far less for us than you might think.
Science has not, for example, made people generally more happy. It's just replaced the old miseries with new ones.
At least Marx could call religion the "opiate of the masses."
Typically the people who have gone most astray and done the most harm were, like you, anti-religious. The 20th century was the bloodiest in the history of the world (some would say bloodier than all other centuries combined) mostly because of men like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, who murdered many tens of millions of people. The worst criminals apparently motivated by religion (who are most of the time motivated by greed or megalomania, in reality) pale by comparison, and stand out because their acts contrast so strongly with the reality of what they claim to represent.
Perhaps it is our arrogance that insists that we are so special, life of other planets is unlikely.
Possibly. It's also true that consideration of the possibility of extra-terrestrial life has taken on a religious character.
The truth is, we don't know where life came from, and that bugs some people on a level deeper than just scientific curiosity. If life is so common as to show up twice in the same solar system, many will feel about it the same sentiment expressed by (I think) Huxley when he said that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
I think whether or not Moore is right to do what he's doing is something we're just going to disagree about. I think I understand your argument, but as I see it, it would have been no big deal for Moore to say, "Alright, I'll name it something different.." just out of common decency and respect for Bradbury. It seems Moore just said, "Screw that.. it's my right to use this title, whether he likes it or not." That just rubs me the wrong way.
I would like to briefly defend myself on the subject of what I was originally arguing verses what I'm arguing now.
My original comment was a response to a quote from Moore in the post immediately above it, in which Moore said he was cool with people downloading and sharing his movie, so long as they didn't make money from his labors. My reply was intended to point out that it seems a little hypocritical for him to ask that when he is making money using the ideas of another person who has asked him not to. I never intended to say that Moore's sole purpose in titling his movie was just to make money. I honestly think he has bigger fish to fry, and the money is just a nice side benefit. Admittedly, "capitalize" was a poor choice of words.
(Also admittedly, the analogy wasn't all that great in light of our subsequent discussion. There is a difference between wholesale piracy and alluding to someone else's title.)
It's difficult for me to understand why you feel completely comfortable insisting that I am only saying the things I'm saying because of some political motivation or dislike for Moore, but seem eager to give Moore the benefit of the doubt. Particularly when I have absolutely nothing to gain except.. I dunno.. intellectual control over some tiny corner of the internet while Moore is certainly trying to influence a Presidential election on an enormous scale.
Anyway, when I say "capitalize," I don't mean monetarily, although I'm sure he's raking in the money, too. I understand that Moore is trying to "draw a direct parallel" between his work and Bradbury's.
I just disagree that this is a perfectly legitimate thing to do over the objections of the original author. Moore is saying something about the situation portrayed in his movie, and is employing Bradbury's title to re-enforce/illustrate that. Bradbury is saying, in effect.. Hey, I wrote that book, and I know what I meant, and you are misusing my title. Whether that's because Moore has pressed it into service in his political agenda, or because he thinks Moore's film is a steaming pile of crap from an artistic point of view and would prefer that his title not be dragged through it, or even if it is a money issue, I don't think it makes much difference.
Nothing illegal is going on. Bradbury may even be completely wrong, whatever he thinks. But it just seems really peculiar to me that the same guy who is giving deference to a book refuses to take seriously the wishes of its author. It just isn't very gentlemanly. Moore has, in my mind, shown acute willingness to make his point at all costs, and this is just another example of that.
I think that if anyone is in a position to know whether his title is being legitimately used, it's Bradbury. There's nothing strictly illegal about what Moore did, but he's still a bastard.
If he were parodying Bradbury's work, I'd feel that way a lot less. But the fact that he is capitalizing on it by way of suggesting that there is some commonality or agreement, when Bradbury apparently thinks there isn't, is dirty.
I didn't claim (and it isn't necessary to what I've said) that Microsoft desires to be an honest bearer of good will.
What I dispute is that research is automatically wrong simply because Microsoft funded it (evil though it may be), or that these think-tanks can automatically be accused of selling out to the highest bidder. Your argument might make us suspicious, but it hardly constitutes real evidence.
What's obnoxious about it is that I think not a small part of what drives people to make these assumptions is a slashdot/Linux/OSS hubris - How could these people POSSIBLY think that OSS is wrong? No honest, thinking human being can disagree with us! They're TAINTED for agreeing with Microsoft and MUST be WRONG!
Moderately priced home machines (that have pumps) achieve the ideal pressure of 9 bar (if this guy is really drinking it by the mug full I doubt he is preparing it properly, but that's beside the point). And properly prepared espresso typically has far more caffeine by mass/volume than drip-brewed coffee.
There is no obvious appearence of impropriety. That's what I'm saying. The fact that MS funded the research does not automatically mean that it's bad or wrong.
Actually the very same argument (which you ignored) applies, and you are suffering from the same lack of imagination as the parent.
Suppose a company does give money to the election campaign of some politician. Must we conclude that this politician will vote in ways that favor the company because of the contribution? Isn't it possible (and even more accurate) to say that the reason the company contributed to start with was not to curry favor, but because they want to help the guy who agrees with them? This is not to deny that the sort of thing you are talking about happens.. I'm just saying it's stupid to assume that's always what's going on.
I think it's a little obnoxious to automatically assume that because these people are receiving funds from Microsoft, their conclusions are hopelessly biased in its favor.
There is disagreement here about something that is really too big and complicated for any person to reasonably claim to know definite answers. (please don't hurt me,/. Inquisition.. I am a loyal OSS proponent.. I AM a loyal OSS proponent) Even if MS expected certain conclusions because of how the opinions expresesd by these groups have trended in the past, this does not amount to payola.
Slashdot Mirror
Or instead of cable, they could use radio or BPL (yes, I know, boo, hiss, it messes up the ham radios). My parents live 15 miles from the nearest town and have something resembling broadband speeds through wireless. It isn't nearly as fast as the 2-3 Mbit/s that people in cities get on their cable modems and DSL lines, but it's a heck of a lot better than dialup.
It's hard for me to understand the real incentive in govt subsidized broadband in the US, anyway. (I am of course open to suggestions.) All my parents do with their high speed connection is look at inane webpages a little faster and play javascript/flash games a little sooner than they did when they just had dialup.
Computational fluid dynamics. The most common manifestation of this would be weather models, although it can also be used to model petroleum resevoirs, airplane wings, and the list goes on and on. The system is broken up into little chunks. What's going on in each little chunk depends on what goes on in all the the other chunks. And we are talking about millions and millions of chunks.
Color me unimpressed. Specially modified "dual mode" pickups and construction equipment roll up and down the train tracks outside my work all the time. The supposed breakthrough of providing propulsion through contact between the road wheels and the rail isn't even new. That's how they work. The only thing special about this is that they're proposing to move people and freight using dual-mode vehicles. Something tells me this has been considered and rejected before.
I don't know any Hebrew, but I would like to comment on your criticism of this post.
There is no polite way to say this, so I'll just be blunt. You are wrong to feel that appealing to the original languages is "manipulation." The bible was not written in English, and serious study of the bible is almost always based on the original languages. You are placing weight on an English translation that most Christians wouldn't place on it. To put it another way, you are bashing a straw-man, and then dismissing the genuine article without any real engagement when your fallacy is pointed out.
The simple fact is, unless you know something about the Hebrew, you are not in a position to casually dismiss this argument.
I think if you appreciated all this, appeals to the original language would seem less manipulative to you. The trouble with most amateur skepticism is that everyone thinks they're experts, and when the argument moves out of their depth, instead of listening, they moan and complain (or in your case, mock) that their opponents aren't playing by the rules they've made up.
Interestingly, a perusal of even an English dictionary reveals that the word "perfect" has many definitions. Moral perfection is not necessarily (or even commonly) implied, so far as I can tell.
With regard to Enoch and others who "ascended" to heaven, a portion of Calvin's commentary on John 3:13:
"'No one hath ascended to heaven.' He again exhorts Nicodemus not to trust to himself and his own sagacity, because no mortal man can, by his own unaided powers, enter into heaven, but only he who goes thither under the guidance of the Son of God. For to ascend to heaven means here, "to have a pure knowledge of the mysteries of God, and the light of spiritual understanding." For Christ gives here the same instruction which is given by Paul, when he declares that
the sensual man does not comprehend the things which are of God, (1 Corinthians 2:16;)
and, therefore, he excludes from divine things all the acuteness of the human understanding, for it is far below God."
I suspect Calvin, if presented with your challenge, would be somewhat confused. The assumption of Enoch and Elijah into heaven as historical events, he would say, were not what Jesus had in mind. Forcing that meaning onto Jesus' words makes nonsense of what he seems to be saying to Nicodemus. (Beyond the flow of the immediate text, I would add that it also makes no sense in light of the fact that Jesus had himself not yet bodily ascended. Also, Jesus claims that he is "in heaven" presently, which certainly seems to suggest that he doesn't intend his words to be understood in a physical sense.)
Supposing the "the world" is defined narrowly enough, and we have no other reason to believe one way or another, you are correct.
But my point was and is, "religious" explanations of phenomena are not necessarily supplanted by "scientific" explanations, even if we suppose scientific explanations to be 100% accurate, as far as they go. People are not bound to become less religious simply because we learn more about the physical world. That was the original assertion/assumption of the great great (?) grandparent.
Whatever the tree did for/to them, Adam and Eve had some knowledge of moral categories prior to eating from it. Eve at least understood the notion of punishment. Possibly they understood abstractly what evil/disobedience was, but had no experience of guilt or shame. It's an interesting point!
Please see my reply to him: "Maybe the confusion is in my wording, which I intended to be taken as an anthropomorphism. Not that this omnipotent being has a hand and an arm and threw a lightning bolt in the way that a man throws a baseball, but that this being, as creator of the universe and its "laws," could conceivably will lightning strikes in something like the fashion that you or I will our alarm clocks to go off at a particular time, or mix ingredients into cake batter so it will turn out a certain way. Knowing the material causes of lightning sheds no light whatsoever on this matter."
But you haven't refuted it at all.
What's interesting (really!) is that you point out that science is limited to answering HOW something happens, and acknowledge that religion answers WHY questions. That was close to my point in the first post. (Although, I would go a step further and claim that there is no good reason to claim that HOW questions can't be answered by religion, as well.)
Maybe the confusion is in my wording, which I intended to be taken as an anthropomorphism. Not that this omnipotent being has a hand and an arm and threw a lightning bolt in the way that a man throws a baseball, but that this being, as creator of the universe and its "laws," could conceivably will lightning strikes in something like the fashion that you or I will our alarm clocks to go off at a particular time, or mix ingredients into cake batter so it will turn out a certain way. Knowing the material causes of lightning sheds no light whatsoever on this matter.
It's difficult for me to understand how science and religion can co-exist without some interference. Attempts to explain how they can are usually either based on the assumption or lead to the conclusion that HOW statements put forward by scientists are always to be preferred over religious HOW statements. As a conservative Christian (not necessarily a synonym for "young earth creationist"), I find this view unacceptable.
At the same time, I don't think that the prevailing religious view should always trump what scientists think in anyone's mind. Even though the Christian has God's inerrant Word (which does make HOW statements), he does not have an infallible interpreter.
So, the position we find ourselves in occasionally is a conflict between the dominate view(s) of the bible and the dominate scientific view(s). I am not aware of a good, systematic way of resolving every difficultly, but my personal method is to consider the relative merits of each on their own turf, to the extent that I am qualified to do so. How probable is this view of the biblical data verses How probable is this view of the scientific data?
In considering things this way, I am fairly comfortable affirming an old universe (15 or so billion years old), but remain agnostic about evolution.
Yes, I agree. And I'll ask you the same question as I asked him.. do you have a point, or are you just adding apparently extraneous information to the thread?
Right.... Do you have a point?
I think the parent's point (I might be wrong) is that fundamentally the sin was that Eve did whatever the hell she wanted, in spite of being told not to. The hidden assumption in this exchange is that the pursuit of knowledge is always a good excuse to do whatever the hell one wants, but it so obviously isn't that I don't think any examples are necessary.
As history shows, technology (read science) and religion don't mix well.
In fact, most early scientists (in the modern sense) were Christians, and "did science" because of their belief in a rational God who created a rational universe with understandable natural laws.
Even now, many scientists regularly attend religious services (a statistic I read a few years ago placed the number only slightly beneath that of the general public in the US).
A common theme of modern western myths is the conflict between Science (with a capital S) and religion. While there are a few examples for which this explanation plays well, like the Scopes trial, not even all of the examples normally trotted out (Galileo) support it very well. Like most legends or myths, they tell us more about what people want to be true than what actually is true.
Your final paragraph is full of common misconceptions. Historically, Greek mythology didn't die out because of modern scientific explanations of gravity and the like. But the more fundamental problem is your misidentification of the type of answers science is capable of giving and what this implies about religion. It may very well be the case that lightning bolts are being cast by an omnipotent being. Our understanding of the natural causes of lightning suggest nothing either way. In explaining "why" lightning struck something to a person who has such a religious belief, he may very well say to you, "It's very interesting how God did that!"
The advances you so hastily ascribe to "science" stand on the shoulders of Christendom. Contrary to your backwards and indeed bigotted view of "religion," the positive influence of Christianity on ideas like individual rights and the scientific method (many/most of the original scientists WERE "religious nuts" who started doing science because of the conviction that the God who made everything is rational and so the laws of nature are also rational and discoverable) is hard to miss.
"Science" has rarely met with any significant resistence from "religion" in the Western world (please do some research before you trot out stories about Galileo - something besides Russel's account or accounts derived from his), and science has done far less for us than you might think.
Science has not, for example, made people generally more happy. It's just replaced the old miseries with new ones.
At least Marx could call religion the "opiate of the masses."
Typically the people who have gone most astray and done the most harm were, like you, anti-religious. The 20th century was the bloodiest in the history of the world (some would say bloodier than all other centuries combined) mostly because of men like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, who murdered many tens of millions of people. The worst criminals apparently motivated by religion (who are most of the time motivated by greed or megalomania, in reality) pale by comparison, and stand out because their acts contrast so strongly with the reality of what they claim to represent.
Perhaps it is our arrogance that insists that we are so special, life of other planets is unlikely.
Possibly. It's also true that consideration of the possibility of extra-terrestrial life has taken on a religious character.
The truth is, we don't know where life came from, and that bugs some people on a level deeper than just scientific curiosity. If life is so common as to show up twice in the same solar system, many will feel about it the same sentiment expressed by (I think) Huxley when he said that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
Well, when enough of them are made, one or two are bound to get a few details correct.
I think whether or not Moore is right to do what he's doing is something we're just going to disagree about. I think I understand your argument, but as I see it, it would have been no big deal for Moore to say, "Alright, I'll name it something different.." just out of common decency and respect for Bradbury. It seems Moore just said, "Screw that.. it's my right to use this title, whether he likes it or not." That just rubs me the wrong way.
I would like to briefly defend myself on the subject of what I was originally arguing verses what I'm arguing now.
My original comment was a response to a quote from Moore in the post immediately above it, in which Moore said he was cool with people downloading and sharing his movie, so long as they didn't make money from his labors. My reply was intended to point out that it seems a little hypocritical for him to ask that when he is making money using the ideas of another person who has asked him not to. I never intended to say that Moore's sole purpose in titling his movie was just to make money. I honestly think he has bigger fish to fry, and the money is just a nice side benefit. Admittedly, "capitalize" was a poor choice of words.
(Also admittedly, the analogy wasn't all that great in light of our subsequent discussion. There is a difference between wholesale piracy and alluding to someone else's title.)
It's difficult for me to understand why you feel completely comfortable insisting that I am only saying the things I'm saying because of some political motivation or dislike for Moore, but seem eager to give Moore the benefit of the doubt. Particularly when I have absolutely nothing to gain except .. I dunno.. intellectual control over some tiny corner of the internet while Moore is certainly trying to influence a Presidential election on an enormous scale.
Anyway, when I say "capitalize," I don't mean monetarily, although I'm sure he's raking in the money, too. I understand that Moore is trying to "draw a direct parallel" between his work and Bradbury's.
I just disagree that this is a perfectly legitimate thing to do over the objections of the original author. Moore is saying something about the situation portrayed in his movie, and is employing Bradbury's title to re-enforce/illustrate that. Bradbury is saying, in effect.. Hey, I wrote that book, and I know what I meant, and you are misusing my title. Whether that's because Moore has pressed it into service in his political agenda, or because he thinks Moore's film is a steaming pile of crap from an artistic point of view and would prefer that his title not be dragged through it, or even if it is a money issue, I don't think it makes much difference.
Nothing illegal is going on. Bradbury may even be completely wrong, whatever he thinks. But it just seems really peculiar to me that the same guy who is giving deference to a book refuses to take seriously the wishes of its author. It just isn't very gentlemanly. Moore has, in my mind, shown acute willingness to make his point at all costs, and this is just another example of that.
I think that if anyone is in a position to know whether his title is being legitimately used, it's Bradbury. There's nothing strictly illegal about what Moore did, but he's still a bastard.
If he were parodying Bradbury's work, I'd feel that way a lot less. But the fact that he is capitalizing on it by way of suggesting that there is some commonality or agreement, when Bradbury apparently thinks there isn't, is dirty.
Oh, you mean the way he's misappropriated Bradbury's title and is getting filthy stinking rich?
I wish I had some mod points so I could give you a +1 insightful. I'm going to be thinking about that one for a while.
I didn't claim (and it isn't necessary to what I've said) that Microsoft desires to be an honest bearer of good will.
What I dispute is that research is automatically wrong simply because Microsoft funded it (evil though it may be), or that these think-tanks can automatically be accused of selling out to the highest bidder. Your argument might make us suspicious, but it hardly constitutes real evidence.
What's obnoxious about it is that I think not a small part of what drives people to make these assumptions is a slashdot/Linux/OSS hubris - How could these people POSSIBLY think that OSS is wrong? No honest, thinking human being can disagree with us! They're TAINTED for agreeing with Microsoft and MUST be WRONG!
Moderately priced home machines (that have pumps) achieve the ideal pressure of 9 bar (if this guy is really drinking it by the mug full I doubt he is preparing it properly, but that's beside the point). And properly prepared espresso typically has far more caffeine by mass/volume than drip-brewed coffee.
There is no obvious appearence of impropriety. That's what I'm saying. The fact that MS funded the research does not automatically mean that it's bad or wrong.
Actually the very same argument (which you ignored) applies, and you are suffering from the same lack of imagination as the parent.
Suppose a company does give money to the election campaign of some politician. Must we conclude that this politician will vote in ways that favor the company because of the contribution? Isn't it possible (and even more accurate) to say that the reason the company contributed to start with was not to curry favor, but because they want to help the guy who agrees with them? This is not to deny that the sort of thing you are talking about happens.. I'm just saying it's stupid to assume that's always what's going on.
I think it's a little obnoxious to automatically assume that because these people are receiving funds from Microsoft, their conclusions are hopelessly biased in its favor.
/. Inquisition.. I am a loyal OSS proponent.. I AM a loyal OSS proponent) Even if MS expected certain conclusions because of how the opinions expresesd by these groups have trended in the past, this does not amount to payola.
There is disagreement here about something that is really too big and complicated for any person to reasonably claim to know definite answers. (please don't hurt me,