You're right, but he has a point also. In Pakistan there are horrific domestic violence figures (look em up), and yet nobody says much of anything. That is indeed because of political correctness.
Absolutely agree, but neither party seems to be willing to make serious moves towards energy independence despite the fact it's the single greatest national security problem. Best look to Israel, and it's green startups to get the ball rolling. They have a very serious vested interested in cutting off the blood supply to their enemies, who also happen to be ours.
Iran exports Shia terror as well. Just look at Hezbollah. Iran even supports Sunni Hamas (although they have tried disastrously to shift them towards Shia Islam). Perhaps in a way it's our fault, but back then we weren't thinking that far ahead and were more concerned with containing the soviets. Shit happens.
The source is Sahih (authentic) Bukhari which in Islam is considered authentic only unless contradicted by the Qur'an (and in this case, is not... and is actually supported in other ahadith). Here's a tip: if you wouldn't trust what a Scientologist has to say about their "religion" then why trust a Muslim source? If you want to find the truth, go to the religious texts themselves.
Depends on your interpretation of Islam. There are interpretations of Islam that view male homosexuality as permissible so long as the boy has no hair. Google Pashtun sexuality.
But at the same time this made Catholicism easier to harness. You pressure the top and the body follows. Decentralized religions are like a virus with no cure.
Citation needed. Can you show me an example of when contradicting the Qur'an, or even reliable hadith was acceptable? To this day doctors in the middle east dance around their religion's dictates that, for example, semen originates from between the backbone and the ribs, or that camel urine is a beneficial medicine (Sahih Bukhari, Ablutions (Wudu'), Volume 1, Book 4, Number 234). There are even doctors in the middle east who peddle and practice this bullshit. Sorry but your assertion that Islam is compatible with science is total and utter fucking bullshit.
It's a well-engineered virus is what it is. What the hell do you think the world would look like if Islam took over the world? You think it would be any better than communism. The only advantage, in the big picture, would be that it would wipe out all other religion and, when the Mahdi doesn't come back, would eventually die out, but in the process it would bring us back to the dark ages and erase thousands of years of our culture -- thrown on the bonfires of Shariah.
If poverty causes religion, how then do you explain the wealthy Saudis who flew themselves into the twin towers? Well to do engineers who plot to blow up time square? Military psychologists who shoot up bases? Take a look at the profiles of your average terrorist. If what you're saying is true, it doesn't add up. Don't let your political views blind you to reality. Read the Qur'an and the Sira and Sunnah. Then tell me what they do has nothing to do with religion. Tell me the reason women are stoned has nothing to do with the very clear commands to do so. Tell me the domestic violence against women has nothing to do withe Qur'an 4:34, and it's accepted interpretation in arabic (i.e. beat/strike/scourge is not a mistranslation).
Correction. Society needed (past tense) religion. It's a vestigial organ that, if properly designed, shrinks and disappears entirely when society matures. Some religions, on the other hand, are more like cancerous tumors, spreading uncontrollably and ultimately killing the host. The further it spreads, the harder and less palatable it is to eradicate. Unfortunately that's also when it becomes necessary.
Unorganized religion can be just as dangerous. At least with organized religion you can apply pressure to the top and control or kill the beast. When people follow some scribble they call the immutable word of god, it's not so easy.
Before the second half of the 20th century, total war was considered normal. It's not anymore. Even back then, the targeting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was seen as a last resort and one that would ultimately save lives when you consider how many would have otherwise been lost, civilian and otherwise, were there an invasion. The terrorists may call it asymmetrical warfare (they do not, they call it Jihad, which we pretend has nothing to do with religion), but the reality is the civilized world long ago abandoned such tactics.
All this is missing the point, however. The point is that only religious lunatics and cult members blow themselves up, whether Shinto, Muslim, or Tamil Tiger. There are almost no exceptions at all. Even civilian bombings in the "troubles" in Northern Ireland were in part religiously motivated, or at least sustained by religion. In this modern age, you have to be religious, you have to be insane to blow up civilians and think it's a good act, or in the very least part of god's plan. Rational people do not do it and cannot be convinced to do it, especially in the context we're talking about. Therefore it's perfectly rational to weed out those susceptible to become violent before the real recruiters do. It also seeds mistrust in the community and creates an atmosphere where people are afraid to publicly or privately seek out terrorism for fear of incarceration. This is a very good thing which actually does keep us safe. Abandon it at your own risk, or rather the risk to innocent civilians.
The US black culture is a native culture. It did not come from Africa. It is a result of over a century of slavery, prejudice, and an impossible situation where no matter what a person's merit was by birth, they could not succeed the same as a white counterpart. We taught the blacks they were worthless and needed to depend on their white masters and they internalized that. We made it so they could not succeed in life without either accepting a second class status in society, or rebelling and resorting to crime. It's hardly an argument that the white culture is superior when the deck is stacked like that. More like the white culture was better at being parasitic, unable to survive on it's own without a slave workforce. If you want to be frank, such a culture is not strong and, unable to survive on it's own, does not deserve to survive. It needs to be strengthened. This happens by adopting successful traits from other cultures (obviously not accepting everything, which is the mistake most who would call themselves multiculturalists make).
Strengthening of one's society by this process is not suicidal, nor is it genocidal. It's the only chance our society, and indeed our species will ever have to evolve and survive. We need positive diversity. Obviously if aspect A of culture X is poisonous in culture X, it's going to be bad for culture Y as well. On the other hand, if aspect B of culture X mitigates the damage from aspect A, it might be a good addition to culture Y. You're talking about tradition -- Wanting to hold onto the past out of some arrogant idea that your culture got it right on all counts. What about the work ethic and respect for elders in Japanese culture? The latin hospitality? The Israeli will, guile, and fortitude? Are these not positive traits? Even net unsuccessful cultures can have positive aspects. It's our job in the west to say "this is unacceptable here", or conversely, "that's a good idea. We should try that out". The hubris of "we've been doing this like this for hundreds of years and so will you!" encourages nothing but societal stagnation. It's the exact opposite of evolution. And so you know i'm well past 25.
The reason is simple. While profiling Muslims is a good idea in theory, it's also impossible as you can't tell a person is a Muslim just by looking at them. If we profile only the Arab variety, the terrorists will simply choose a bomber who is asian, or better yet, white and have a greater, not a lesser, chance of success precisely because of the profiling. It creates a blindspot that's easily exploited. This is the reason random searches are better, yes, even if it results in the odd old-lady or child to be searched. Old ladys and children have been used as suicide bombers. Pregnant women too. Just as the Israelis.
And just to respond to your comments on multiculturalism, i'd ask what exactly is the problem with multiculturalism as long as the cultures don't bring harmful changes to the parent society? The US is a great example of a country where multiculturalism has been a success. We have Italians and Koreans and Chinese and Russian and African and South American... All americans. They all integrate, yes, but they also keep their heritage and I see nothing wrong with that as long as heritage does not involve stoning women to death or a "prophet" who beds 9 year olds.
I would have no problem whatsoever profiling Muslims, given the percentage of terrorist actions committed by them. The problem is you can't tell a Muslim by looking at one and the ones likely to blow shit up are not going to show it if there is any such profiling system in place. It works on El-Al because they can have such a large whitelist. If you're a Jew with an Israeli passport, you're very unlikely to self-detonate and as such get superficial one on one screening. If you're anybody else, you get a longer interview process with your smarter-than-average trained screener who has had microexpression training. You can't really do this in the west as you have no such whitelist.
I have no problem with the FBI's honeypot tactics. It prevents potential terrorists from finding real sponsors and doing real harm. Were the FBI not doing what they do, these potential terrorists would be recruited and would kill people. Thus, as far as i'm concerned, a potential terrorist is as guilty as an active terrorist. Before you accuse me of supporting entrapment and some-such, ask yourself what it would take to convince you to blow up a building and kill hundreds of civilians. If you're a sane, rational, non-religious person, the answer is nothing whatsoever. If, on the other hand, religion has rotted out your brain, then you're a potential danger and must be removed from society, preferably in a body-bag. As far as i'm concerned, prison only allows the disease to spread.
Well. That's my point. The desktop mode that has always been there is fine, and MS even made a few improvements, but Metro is just horrible with a mouse and keyboard. In a way I think Microsoft tried to copy Apple and went way, way, too far. I run OSX as well on my laptop and the changes Apple has made with say... launchpad are neither obtrusive or forced on the user. I don't use it or like it but my mac won't boot to it and force me to run a "finder" app to get back to the UI i'm used to. Mission Control as a replacement for exposé is a also genuine improvement. The things Microsoft removed or replaced with windows 8 make the experience cumbersome with a keyboard and mouse and can't be disabled without installing third party software.
... and you're running it on a touch screen machine, which is why you're not tearing your hair out. It's a nice tablet UI. For a desktop PC, it sucks. It sucks hard.
This weekend my partner and I installed Win8 on a system we built for his elderly mother (it was his idea). She didn't find it particularly intuitive, especially since she was used to 98. The whole screen corners deal isn't ideal for people who aren't used to the concept or aren't comfortable with it. There are a lot of cool ideas in windows 8 but the implementation is crap. I'd recommend it as an upgrade to others only because there are third party start menu replacements and the changes under the hood are decent but in no way would I recommend Metro as a decent UI for a PC to others. Perhaps it doesn't suck so hard on a tablet, but with a keyboard and mouse... blah.
Sure, but keyboards, mice, and touch-screens are not the only input devices. An Xbox 360 is a computer with a very similar UI to windows 8 and has no need at all for a computer or mouse. Install XMBC on a linux box for your media center pc and it's the same deal.
Not only this but you can't half-screen maximize metro apps 50/50 like you can do in windows 7 / Unity by dragging an application to the right or left sides of the screen. Using Metro apps, you can only do it ~80/20, which makes the feature useless unless your app is really useful being displayed as a vertical column on the side of the screen. It's funny they never implemented this feature in Metro considering I thought it was one of the best things they added to Win 7. I very commonly have two browser windows open side by side. You can't do that in Metro.
Personally I hate them. It's basically a flexible plastic film with some sensors underneath that does wear out over time, unlike glass. If you scratch a resistive screen, good luck getting an accurate tap anywhere near the scratch, rendering it useless if you're trying to tap anything small like an on-screen key. I don't dispute that the n900 is a fantastic device for which a capacitive screen probably wouldn't be a good design choice (unless it had a precise stylus like the newer Samsung Notes), but for most phones that you just want to shove in your pocket, it's not a good choice.
My current phone has a capacitive screen made with gorilla glass. I've had it close to two years now and there's not a scratch anywhere on the screen despite taking no extraordinary care and regularly placing it in my pocket sans-case (granted I put my keys in another pocket, but still...). If it was a resistive screen, i'd have to take much more care of it to guard against scratches and pressure damage. I suppose it's a personal preference but now that there are decent stylus capable capacitive screens out there, there's really no reason to hand onto the technology anymore.
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You're right, but he has a point also. In Pakistan there are horrific domestic violence figures (look em up), and yet nobody says much of anything. That is indeed because of political correctness.
Absolutely agree, but neither party seems to be willing to make serious moves towards energy independence despite the fact it's the single greatest national security problem. Best look to Israel, and it's green startups to get the ball rolling. They have a very serious vested interested in cutting off the blood supply to their enemies, who also happen to be ours.
Iran exports Shia terror as well. Just look at Hezbollah. Iran even supports Sunni Hamas (although they have tried disastrously to shift them towards Shia Islam). Perhaps in a way it's our fault, but back then we weren't thinking that far ahead and were more concerned with containing the soviets. Shit happens.
The source is Sahih (authentic) Bukhari which in Islam is considered authentic only unless contradicted by the Qur'an (and in this case, is not... and is actually supported in other ahadith). Here's a tip: if you wouldn't trust what a Scientologist has to say about their "religion" then why trust a Muslim source? If you want to find the truth, go to the religious texts themselves.
Depends on your interpretation of Islam. There are interpretations of Islam that view male homosexuality as permissible so long as the boy has no hair. Google Pashtun sexuality.
But at the same time this made Catholicism easier to harness. You pressure the top and the body follows. Decentralized religions are like a virus with no cure.
Citation needed. Can you show me an example of when contradicting the Qur'an, or even reliable hadith was acceptable? To this day doctors in the middle east dance around their religion's dictates that, for example, semen originates from between the backbone and the ribs, or that camel urine is a beneficial medicine (Sahih Bukhari, Ablutions (Wudu'), Volume 1, Book 4, Number 234). There are even doctors in the middle east who peddle and practice this bullshit. Sorry but your assertion that Islam is compatible with science is total and utter fucking bullshit.
It's a well-engineered virus is what it is. What the hell do you think the world would look like if Islam took over the world? You think it would be any better than communism. The only advantage, in the big picture, would be that it would wipe out all other religion and, when the Mahdi doesn't come back, would eventually die out, but in the process it would bring us back to the dark ages and erase thousands of years of our culture -- thrown on the bonfires of Shariah.
If poverty causes religion, how then do you explain the wealthy Saudis who flew themselves into the twin towers? Well to do engineers who plot to blow up time square? Military psychologists who shoot up bases? Take a look at the profiles of your average terrorist. If what you're saying is true, it doesn't add up. Don't let your political views blind you to reality. Read the Qur'an and the Sira and Sunnah. Then tell me what they do has nothing to do with religion. Tell me the reason women are stoned has nothing to do with the very clear commands to do so. Tell me the domestic violence against women has nothing to do withe Qur'an 4:34, and it's accepted interpretation in arabic (i.e. beat/strike/scourge is not a mistranslation).
Correction. Society needed (past tense) religion. It's a vestigial organ that, if properly designed, shrinks and disappears entirely when society matures. Some religions, on the other hand, are more like cancerous tumors, spreading uncontrollably and ultimately killing the host. The further it spreads, the harder and less palatable it is to eradicate. Unfortunately that's also when it becomes necessary.
Unorganized religion can be just as dangerous. At least with organized religion you can apply pressure to the top and control or kill the beast. When people follow some scribble they call the immutable word of god, it's not so easy.
Before the second half of the 20th century, total war was considered normal. It's not anymore. Even back then, the targeting of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was seen as a last resort and one that would ultimately save lives when you consider how many would have otherwise been lost, civilian and otherwise, were there an invasion. The terrorists may call it asymmetrical warfare (they do not, they call it Jihad, which we pretend has nothing to do with religion), but the reality is the civilized world long ago abandoned such tactics.
All this is missing the point, however. The point is that only religious lunatics and cult members blow themselves up, whether Shinto, Muslim, or Tamil Tiger. There are almost no exceptions at all. Even civilian bombings in the "troubles" in Northern Ireland were in part religiously motivated, or at least sustained by religion. In this modern age, you have to be religious, you have to be insane to blow up civilians and think it's a good act, or in the very least part of god's plan. Rational people do not do it and cannot be convinced to do it, especially in the context we're talking about. Therefore it's perfectly rational to weed out those susceptible to become violent before the real recruiters do. It also seeds mistrust in the community and creates an atmosphere where people are afraid to publicly or privately seek out terrorism for fear of incarceration. This is a very good thing which actually does keep us safe. Abandon it at your own risk, or rather the risk to innocent civilians.
The US black culture is a native culture. It did not come from Africa. It is a result of over a century of slavery, prejudice, and an impossible situation where no matter what a person's merit was by birth, they could not succeed the same as a white counterpart. We taught the blacks they were worthless and needed to depend on their white masters and they internalized that. We made it so they could not succeed in life without either accepting a second class status in society, or rebelling and resorting to crime. It's hardly an argument that the white culture is superior when the deck is stacked like that. More like the white culture was better at being parasitic, unable to survive on it's own without a slave workforce. If you want to be frank, such a culture is not strong and, unable to survive on it's own, does not deserve to survive. It needs to be strengthened. This happens by adopting successful traits from other cultures (obviously not accepting everything, which is the mistake most who would call themselves multiculturalists make).
Strengthening of one's society by this process is not suicidal, nor is it genocidal. It's the only chance our society, and indeed our species will ever have to evolve and survive. We need positive diversity. Obviously if aspect A of culture X is poisonous in culture X, it's going to be bad for culture Y as well. On the other hand, if aspect B of culture X mitigates the damage from aspect A, it might be a good addition to culture Y. You're talking about tradition -- Wanting to hold onto the past out of some arrogant idea that your culture got it right on all counts. What about the work ethic and respect for elders in Japanese culture? The latin hospitality? The Israeli will, guile, and fortitude? Are these not positive traits? Even net unsuccessful cultures can have positive aspects. It's our job in the west to say "this is unacceptable here", or conversely, "that's a good idea. We should try that out". The hubris of "we've been doing this like this for hundreds of years and so will you!" encourages nothing but societal stagnation. It's the exact opposite of evolution. And so you know i'm well past 25.
The reason is simple. While profiling Muslims is a good idea in theory, it's also impossible as you can't tell a person is a Muslim just by looking at them. If we profile only the Arab variety, the terrorists will simply choose a bomber who is asian, or better yet, white and have a greater, not a lesser, chance of success precisely because of the profiling. It creates a blindspot that's easily exploited. This is the reason random searches are better, yes, even if it results in the odd old-lady or child to be searched. Old ladys and children have been used as suicide bombers. Pregnant women too. Just as the Israelis.
And just to respond to your comments on multiculturalism, i'd ask what exactly is the problem with multiculturalism as long as the cultures don't bring harmful changes to the parent society? The US is a great example of a country where multiculturalism has been a success. We have Italians and Koreans and Chinese and Russian and African and South American... All americans. They all integrate, yes, but they also keep their heritage and I see nothing wrong with that as long as heritage does not involve stoning women to death or a "prophet" who beds 9 year olds.
I would have no problem whatsoever profiling Muslims, given the percentage of terrorist actions committed by them. The problem is you can't tell a Muslim by looking at one and the ones likely to blow shit up are not going to show it if there is any such profiling system in place. It works on El-Al because they can have such a large whitelist. If you're a Jew with an Israeli passport, you're very unlikely to self-detonate and as such get superficial one on one screening. If you're anybody else, you get a longer interview process with your smarter-than-average trained screener who has had microexpression training. You can't really do this in the west as you have no such whitelist.
I have no problem with the FBI's honeypot tactics. It prevents potential terrorists from finding real sponsors and doing real harm. Were the FBI not doing what they do, these potential terrorists would be recruited and would kill people. Thus, as far as i'm concerned, a potential terrorist is as guilty as an active terrorist. Before you accuse me of supporting entrapment and some-such, ask yourself what it would take to convince you to blow up a building and kill hundreds of civilians. If you're a sane, rational, non-religious person, the answer is nothing whatsoever. If, on the other hand, religion has rotted out your brain, then you're a potential danger and must be removed from society, preferably in a body-bag. As far as i'm concerned, prison only allows the disease to spread.
Dude was talking about a media center computer, not coding.
Well. That's my point. The desktop mode that has always been there is fine, and MS even made a few improvements, but Metro is just horrible with a mouse and keyboard. In a way I think Microsoft tried to copy Apple and went way, way, too far. I run OSX as well on my laptop and the changes Apple has made with say... launchpad are neither obtrusive or forced on the user. I don't use it or like it but my mac won't boot to it and force me to run a "finder" app to get back to the UI i'm used to. Mission Control as a replacement for exposé is a also genuine improvement. The things Microsoft removed or replaced with windows 8 make the experience cumbersome with a keyboard and mouse and can't be disabled without installing third party software.
Not a complaint... just making note of it. However if you want ads in live-tiles you need look no further than the Xbox 360.
There are a bunch. Even Minesweeper shows ads. You just have to scroll all the way to the right, and there you go.
... and you're running it on a touch screen machine, which is why you're not tearing your hair out. It's a nice tablet UI. For a desktop PC, it sucks. It sucks hard.
This weekend my partner and I installed Win8 on a system we built for his elderly mother (it was his idea). She didn't find it particularly intuitive, especially since she was used to 98. The whole screen corners deal isn't ideal for people who aren't used to the concept or aren't comfortable with it. There are a lot of cool ideas in windows 8 but the implementation is crap. I'd recommend it as an upgrade to others only because there are third party start menu replacements and the changes under the hood are decent but in no way would I recommend Metro as a decent UI for a PC to others. Perhaps it doesn't suck so hard on a tablet, but with a keyboard and mouse... blah.
Sure, but keyboards, mice, and touch-screens are not the only input devices. An Xbox 360 is a computer with a very similar UI to windows 8 and has no need at all for a computer or mouse. Install XMBC on a linux box for your media center pc and it's the same deal.
Not only this but you can't half-screen maximize metro apps 50/50 like you can do in windows 7 / Unity by dragging an application to the right or left sides of the screen. Using Metro apps, you can only do it ~80/20, which makes the feature useless unless your app is really useful being displayed as a vertical column on the side of the screen. It's funny they never implemented this feature in Metro considering I thought it was one of the best things they added to Win 7. I very commonly have two browser windows open side by side. You can't do that in Metro.
Personally I hate them. It's basically a flexible plastic film with some sensors underneath that does wear out over time, unlike glass. If you scratch a resistive screen, good luck getting an accurate tap anywhere near the scratch, rendering it useless if you're trying to tap anything small like an on-screen key. I don't dispute that the n900 is a fantastic device for which a capacitive screen probably wouldn't be a good design choice (unless it had a precise stylus like the newer Samsung Notes), but for most phones that you just want to shove in your pocket, it's not a good choice.
My current phone has a capacitive screen made with gorilla glass. I've had it close to two years now and there's not a scratch anywhere on the screen despite taking no extraordinary care and regularly placing it in my pocket sans-case (granted I put my keys in another pocket, but still...). If it was a resistive screen, i'd have to take much more care of it to guard against scratches and pressure damage. I suppose it's a personal preference but now that there are decent stylus capable capacitive screens out there, there's really no reason to hand onto the technology anymore.