The rule we use around the shop is what my boss calls the Front Porch Test, which really comes from the pet world. It goes something like this: When naming a pet, imagine yourself standing on your front porch calling loudly for your pet (presumably a dog, as cats come around when they want;). If you would feel stupid if your neighbor were to hear you yelling the proposed name, then don't pick that name. We apply the same logic to application/system names. Works pretty well for us.
There are exceptions, however. More accurately, we have our inside names and the names we tell our customers. For example, we have one web app that allows our users to search for orders in the system, which they call Order Finder, a nice, generic, informative name. The URI for the app is/dwmo, which reflects our internal name, "Dude, Where's My Order.":)
"An experimental surgery using stem cells from adult organs is showing promise in helping patients paralyzed with spinal cord injuries."
I'm no doctor, but I think they said stem cells from adult organs, and, even if the reporter hasn't a clue, there are also several stories regarding the successes of umbilical cord extractions, which are also not embryonic.
I never said notepad was unstable or unusable. I just said that it wasn't good, which happens to be my opinion, and, is therefore undebatable.:) Furthermore, it was a snide joke. Don't take it so seriously.
If I *have* to use Windows, I use gvim to edit text files. Notepad is an *extremely* basic, no frills, almost no functionality text "editor." Given its feature set, to use "good" to describe it boggles my mind.
Why waste time re-implementing something that already works fine? Also, explorer.exe doesn't really qualify as userland. Sure, it's not the kernel, but it's as close as you get in userland.
Wait. Did you just say that notepad, mspaint, explorer, etc. work "just fine"?! Head. Spinning. Must. Lay. Down.
For what it's worth, CakePHP lets you the same thing RoR does, without having to learn Ruby. Having said that, the "this php app is horribly written. Thank goodness for this completely different framework and language that are not an e-commerce package" comment is a bit of a non sequitur if you ask me, and I think that was kv9's point.
jason
No, "when we conclude that intelligence created the first cell or the human brain, it's not simply because we lack evidence of a natural explanation; it's also because we have positive, emperically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause". (Geisler/Turek).
If we wake up and see "Take out the garbage -- Mom" on the kitchen table, but didn't see someone write it there, we don't decide that random chance, wind, and a randomly occuring box of Alphabits cereal made a formation that happened to contain a message. Previous observations tell us that when we see some sort of message, there's always an intelligence behind the message, so we can safely assume that Mom, though we didn't see her then or now, wrote the message.
As to your second point, ID does not need evolution in any way to stand. True, ID is offered as a counter-explanation to the idea of abiogenesis and macro-evolution, but it does not depend on either its existence or refutation (though they can't both be right). To the extent that a modern scientist can, if the idea of evolution is taken completely out of the picture, an examination of the evidence can reasonably lead to Intelligent Design, just as it could lead to the development of the theory of evolution.
I would contend, though, that it takes more faith to believe that everything we see is the product of random chance than it takes to believe that there is some sort of external intelligence that started all of this, whether it's the God of the Bible, Allah, or little green men from space.
No, it cannot. Whatever proof you might come up with to disprove ID will simply be countered with, "Well, He must've put it there." You cannot disprove a theory that begins and ends with faith.
You're confusing ID with creationism. They're close, but not quite the same. ID would be disproven, though you're right that faith would be much harder to dispell.
ID proponents show, using scientific, philosophical and logical means, that the chances that abigenesis and macroevolution are the cause of life are just too miniscule to believe. Applying Occam's Razor, a creator of some sort (strict ID does not suggest who the creator might be) is the obvious conclusion.
I think you missed the overall point that ID supporters tend to ignore mountains of scientific evidence for the flimsy psuedo-science they try to fool people with.
What evidence proves that ID is incorrect? You say there's a mountain. Give me, say, three pieces of evidence that inarguably disprove ID.
I think a more practical criterion works better, such as whether a framework lets us accomplish useful work as perceived by humans. Modern science let us do marvelous things; can your intelligent designer heal as many sick or build electrical infrastructure?
ID does not preclude modern science. It merely disputes the ideas of Darwin and others as to the *origin* of things. Everything else stays pretty much the same, so, as an ID supporter, I can still use my computer to respond to your post.:)
You do realize that evolution itself is not very scientific? It can't be proved either, because it can't be reproduced. Many have tried, but not have succeeded. So it's on the basis of *faith* that evolutionists cling to their theory, even though it is riddled with holes and contradictions.
And ID has a very good rational, scientific and philosophical foundation and does not depend on any one religion's creation story. It can be applied to the Christian, Muslim, or American Indian (I'm guessing;) theologies just as easy. In fact, ID doesn't even claim a particular religion. It just says the universe points to some sort of creator. End of story. Various proponents may take it further and promote their own religion, but that's not ID, strictly speaking.
(And, yes, I'm a Christian who happens to believe that Faith, while not 100% provable, as little is, is still based on reason and understanding and is not a blind faith. Faith? Certainly. Blind? Not at all).
It's tough to make crime pay much better than that.
Plan a wedding -- at least set the date. On the day of, jump on a Greyhound. Tell the police you've been kidnapped. Wait a few days. Get booked on The Today Show. Make half a mil. All that in less than week. The other way, you have to "work" for half a year...
I think by public use, they meant something like roads, bridges, etc. that are publically "owned." What looks like is happening here is that private land is being grabbed by the local government and sold to another private entity, who will in turn allow the public access. That access, however, is ultimately held hostage to the will of its new owner. As soon as it sis determined that public access is not needed, it can be revoked. At that point, the seized land is no longer for public use (as if it ever truly were).
What this is is another nail in the coffin of the idea of property rights. We own what we own until the government decides it can make better use of it. Georgia has had several high profile cases of this recently. YOu can check out Neal Boortz's "Neal's Nuze" archives for some good info on it. In fact, you'll probably be able to get his take on this in the moring.
The people are the ones trying to get other theories taught as flawed.
That's the nature of disagreement and discourse. "Hey, I think that theory/idea/design/whatever, here's my alternative."
Scientific ideas are testable and based upon evidence. There is no evidence to support this hypothesis.
There are plenty of scientists who think otherwise. As my original port tried to convey, though, that sort of discussion doesn't happen on/. It's straw man central here...
Slashdot Mirror
I think what you mean is, "At least I have chicken!" :)
Ugh. Enough of this stupid quote. Godwin? Care to come up with something new?
The JVM and Write Once Debug Everywhere has no real place in the Free Software world.
How did you come to that conclusion?
This question brought to you by the letters Q, E, and D.
Hybrid drives? Is that where it's solid state at low transfer rates, but kicks into magnetic media under heavy loads? And will they be as ugly as sin?
The rule we use around the shop is what my boss calls the Front Porch Test, which really comes from the pet world. It goes something like this: When naming a pet, imagine yourself standing on your front porch calling loudly for your pet (presumably a dog, as cats come around when they want ;). If you would feel stupid if your neighbor were to hear you yelling the proposed name, then don't pick that name. We apply the same logic to application/system names. Works pretty well for us.
/dwmo, which reflects our internal name, "Dude, Where's My Order." :)
There are exceptions, however. More accurately, we have our inside names and the names we tell our customers. For example, we have one web app that allows our users to search for orders in the system, which they call Order Finder, a nice, generic, informative name. The URI for the app is
"An experimental surgery using stem cells from adult organs is showing promise in helping patients paralyzed with spinal cord injuries."
I'm no doctor, but I think they said stem cells from adult organs, and, even if the reporter hasn't a clue, there are also several stories regarding the successes of umbilical cord extractions, which are also not embryonic.
Would you mind relaying to me which stem cell trials are curing paralysis?
Like one? It's not perfect, as the article points out, but it's working for some people, which seems to satisfy your criteria.
I never said notepad was unstable or unusable. I just said that it wasn't good, which happens to be my opinion, and, is therefore undebatable. :) Furthermore, it was a snide joke. Don't take it so seriously.
I wonder what that Plan B could B.
Wicket
If I *have* to use Windows, I use gvim to edit text files. Notepad is an *extremely* basic, no frills, almost no functionality text "editor." Given its feature set, to use "good" to describe it boggles my mind.
jason
Why waste time re-implementing something that already works fine? Also, explorer.exe doesn't really qualify as userland. Sure, it's not the kernel, but it's as close as you get in userland.
Wait. Did you just say that notepad, mspaint, explorer, etc. work "just fine"?! Head. Spinning. Must. Lay. Down.
For what it's worth, CakePHP lets you the same thing RoR does, without having to learn Ruby. Having said that, the "this php app is horribly written. Thank goodness for this completely different framework and language that are not an e-commerce package" comment is a bit of a non sequitur if you ask me, and I think that was kv9's point. jason
First off, that's the God-Of-The-Gaps argument.
No, "when we conclude that intelligence created the first cell or the human brain, it's not simply because we lack evidence of a natural explanation; it's also because we have positive, emperically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause". (Geisler/Turek).
If we wake up and see "Take out the garbage -- Mom" on the kitchen table, but didn't see someone write it there, we don't decide that random chance, wind, and a randomly occuring box of Alphabits cereal made a formation that happened to contain a message. Previous observations tell us that when we see some sort of message, there's always an intelligence behind the message, so we can safely assume that Mom, though we didn't see her then or now, wrote the message.
As to your second point, ID does not need evolution in any way to stand. True, ID is offered as a counter-explanation to the idea of abiogenesis and macro-evolution, but it does not depend on either its existence or refutation (though they can't both be right). To the extent that a modern scientist can, if the idea of evolution is taken completely out of the picture, an examination of the evidence can reasonably lead to Intelligent Design, just as it could lead to the development of the theory of evolution.
I would contend, though, that it takes more faith to believe that everything we see is the product of random chance than it takes to believe that there is some sort of external intelligence that started all of this, whether it's the God of the Bible, Allah, or little green men from space.
No, it cannot. Whatever proof you might come up with to disprove ID will simply be countered with, "Well, He must've put it there." You cannot disprove a theory that begins and ends with faith.
You're confusing ID with creationism. They're close, but not quite the same. ID would be disproven, though you're right that faith would be much harder to dispell.
ID proponents show, using scientific, philosophical and logical means, that the chances that abigenesis and macroevolution are the cause of life are just too miniscule to believe. Applying Occam's Razor, a creator of some sort (strict ID does not suggest who the creator might be) is the obvious conclusion.
For a good discussion of ID, check out this book: The Privileged Planet
ID can be disproven if someday natural laws are discovered to create specified complexity. To date, there have been many efforts, and all have failed.
OK. I'll bite.
I think you missed the overall point that ID supporters tend to ignore mountains of scientific evidence for the flimsy psuedo-science they try to fool people with.
What evidence proves that ID is incorrect? You say there's a mountain. Give me, say, three pieces of evidence that inarguably disprove ID.
jason
I'm not a Milky Way fan, anyway: too much coconut.
(with apologies to Mr. Costanza)
I think a more practical criterion works better, such as whether a framework lets us accomplish useful work as perceived by humans. Modern science let us do marvelous things; can your intelligent designer heal as many sick or build electrical infrastructure?
:)
ID does not preclude modern science. It merely disputes the ideas of Darwin and others as to the *origin* of things. Everything else stays pretty much the same, so, as an ID supporter, I can still use my computer to respond to your post.
"proven" even. That's what I get for posting from work. I'm not even going to look at the rest of my post... ;)
You do realize that evolution itself is not very scientific? It can't be proved either, because it can't be reproduced. Many have tried, but not have succeeded. So it's on the basis of *faith* that evolutionists cling to their theory, even though it is riddled with holes and contradictions.
;) theologies just as easy. In fact, ID doesn't even claim a particular religion. It just says the universe points to some sort of creator. End of story. Various proponents may take it further and promote their own religion, but that's not ID, strictly speaking.
And ID has a very good rational, scientific and philosophical foundation and does not depend on any one religion's creation story. It can be applied to the Christian, Muslim, or American Indian (I'm guessing
(And, yes, I'm a Christian who happens to believe that Faith, while not 100% provable, as little is, is still based on reason and understanding and is not a blind faith. Faith? Certainly. Blind? Not at all).
It's tough to make crime pay much better than that.
Plan a wedding -- at least set the date. On the day of, jump on a Greyhound. Tell the police you've been kidnapped. Wait a few days. Get booked on The Today Show. Make half a mil. All that in less than week. The other way, you have to "work" for half a year...
I think by public use, they meant something like roads, bridges, etc. that are publically "owned." What looks like is happening here is that private land is being grabbed by the local government and sold to another private entity, who will in turn allow the public access. That access, however, is ultimately held hostage to the will of its new owner. As soon as it sis determined that public access is not needed, it can be revoked. At that point, the seized land is no longer for public use (as if it ever truly were).
What this is is another nail in the coffin of the idea of property rights. We own what we own until the government decides it can make better use of it. Georgia has had several high profile cases of this recently. YOu can check out Neal Boortz's "Neal's Nuze" archives for some good info on it. In fact, you'll probably be able to get his take on this in the moring.
...because there are those in the Linux "community" (even "editors" of a popular news site) that insist and calling boxes "boxen?" Who knows...? :)
:)
Seriously. That has to be one of the most annoying "l33t" things to do, especially in a headline.
Flame on!
The people are the ones trying to get other theories taught as flawed.
/. It's straw man central here...
That's the nature of disagreement and discourse. "Hey, I think that theory/idea/design/whatever, here's my alternative."
Scientific ideas are testable and based upon evidence. There is no evidence to support this hypothesis.
There are plenty of scientists who think otherwise. As my original port tried to convey, though, that sort of discussion doesn't happen on