My confusion is with the premium subscription - I just seems to me that for the price you pay every month, you don't really come away with much.
No ads. Better quality. Perhaps that doesn't matter much to you (and tbh, it doesn't matter to me either - the ads are hardly intrusive and until I'm going to play music through my expensive stereo, 160kb/s in ogg is more than enough) but for some people, those two (or even just one) can be reason enough to pay the small fee.
I can sort of appreciate the utility of the free, ad supported version but why in the hell would you pay a monthly subscription for access to music when:
a). you can only play it through spotify and lose access as and when you stop renewing your monthly subscription (as I understand it)
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You have a huge catalogue of movies at your fingertips - as long as you pay for the right. I don't find the idea of paying a small fee to have a lot of content accessible pretty much whenever you want (as opposed to when the tv channels (movies) or radio (music) decides to play it) that outrageous.
b). you have to surrender your bandwidth not only for streaming songs (although I think it does make use of a local cache) but also as a node in the spotify p2p network
I don't think this is relevant. I don't notice any bandwidth-problems at all. Maybe it would have been a point 10 years ago, but today, when my friends laugh at me for "only" having a 12Mbit connection, I don't think we need to worry about that.
c). you don't get access to some mega bands (e.g. Metallica, ACDC, Pink Floyd etc.)
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You don't have every movie ever made available, but you don't expect that either. The point is that you do have a lot available - when you want it. If you really want to listen to Metallica, buy their CDs or wait for the Spotify catalogue to grow.
Noone said Spotify would be the alpha and omega of all your music needs. It just provides a large catalogue for you - either for free, or for a small fee (for which you also get better sound quality btw, 320kb/s instead if 160kb/s if you wish). If a song you want to listen to is not on there, or if you really want to own it so you can listen to it everywhere, noone's stopping you from buying the CD.
Personally, I use the free version (for now). I like the idea that I have a lot of the music I listen to available and that I can listen to it at work. I like the fact that if a friend recommends a band to me, I can more often than not just check it out immediately.
* Two same-gendered humans can't make a viable offspring. * Prepubescent children, post-menopausal women, and many other humans are sterile.
This is just a problem due to the way you stated the definition. Both issues go away if you rephrase it as "two species are the same if it is possible to find two individuals (one from each of course) that are able to produce fertile offspring".
* Sometimes two "species" could create viable offspring, but they don't. (E.g., different mating dances preclude them mating, but in a lab, sperm A and egg B make a viable offspring.) * Sometimes A can mate with B, and B with C, but A cannot mate with C directly. (A Chihuahua cannot mate with a Great Dane. It's physically impossible.)
But the definition simply requires the individuals to be able to mate, not to actually do it. So those points are also non-issues - as you actually say, fertile offspring in a lab would be enough. It's more about the genes than the mechanics of mating.
* The nontransitivity above (A, B, and C) is generally true of ALL creatures if you're allowed to go back in time. Go back far enough, and our ancestors could mate with chimp ancestors. A little farther and we share ancestors!
But you're not allowed to go back in time. Species evolve over time and what was true 3 million years ago doesn't have to be true today. This is about classifying individuals as they currently are, it's not a debate about origins or a lesson in history (also valid questions of course, but not applicable within this context).
* What about the poor asexual creatures? How do they have "species"?
I'm not sure what happens when you get into single-cell organism or bacteria territory - in all other cases, I'd still argue that compatibility of the genes as evidenced in the lab is enough.
In the end, I'm sure there are many problems with any definition of species, like with most other things in biology. But I'm not so sure you cited good examples. Not that I have better ones, of course - but IANAB;)
Some small part of me was hoping for the opposite effect, just for the amusement value... but I guess sometimes things in this world really are as they should be:)
we have duly noted your recent reconsideration of Pluto and its classification. We appreciate this sign of good-will and will take it into account in our upcoming invasion of Earth.
Although I can make no promises at this point, I am able to inform you that sparing your lives is currently viewed favourably amongst our population.
Yours sincerely,
Gral Rex,
Minister of Earth Affairs, Government of Pluto
p.s. to the rest of mankind: You are all still toast.
Now, the game fails to work unless you adjust your system's clock
Now not only is the game broken due to a broken DRM implementation, but even the logic behind the DRM is broken since it at least this part can be circumvented by adjusting the system clock (!!). What was the point of even bothering with this then?
Although, actually, wouldn't this now make changing your system time an offence under the DCMA?
I never thought I'd post those two words together in one sentence, but yeah.... epic fail.
But saying "God according to scriptures" is a little different from talking about deities in general. Ultimately what's gonna make or break this argument is how you define deity in the first place but in general, how we create life says nothing about how we were created.
In your specific case, the flaw - if you can call it that - in your argument is that technically, only the statement "only God can create life" has become complicated. If you maintain that it is true, then you can conclude that we are, in fact, God. Which is probably blasphemy, so your way out is either to claim that the life we created is somehow inferiour to God's work or that, really, it was God who created the life we thought we created (with us being merely tools in the process or whatever).
And if neither of the above works for you, there is of course always the "It's the Devil's work" catch-all which conveniently can take care of anything that we're not supposed to be able to do while nullifying any damage it might have done to the concept of God as per scriptures.
If, alternatively, you decide that "only God can create life" is false based on this new evidence, things are even simpler - no need to invoke the Devil, God keeps existing and the fault lies with whoever formulated that statement by obviously misinterpreting what the Lord had meant him to write down.
Long story short, no, this will not even disprove a God according to scriptures. There is always a way out for those who wish to maintain his existence. In the end (I forget who said this, but it's very true), you cannot defeat by reason that which is not based on reason.
Nope, this does not serve as a proof that a deity is unnecessary, since the research is based on observations of life. In other words, even if this is successful, already existing life was a prerequisite.
You would have a proof that life can create life through observation and replication, but nothing more. You're still faced with the question of where the life that created life came from.
So you build something vaguely cone-shaped and because it's December, it gains +1 Christmassy? I mean, it's a bunch of platters stacked onto each other. I actually think it's pretty cool (especially the bottom part - gotta love the semi-chaotic shinyness. Not so much a fan of the top or the fact that it isn't exactly straight), but I wouldn't call it a Christmas tree.
In fact, if you scrape the Christmas idea, redesign the top and add more blue LEDs into the thing, you could just end up with a nifty piece of art that's for life, not just for Chrstmas;)
No this is one step beyond thoughtcrime. Toughtcrime is about thoughts that might lead to crime. This is about material which might lead to thoughtcrime.
Ino other words, the logic here goes: while Bart and Lisa are clearly not real children having sex, they might put funny ideas about real children into your head and hence this needs to be stopped.
For him to use "these days" in that way evidently indicates that he meant it as opposed to the "good old days when dinosaurs ruled the world".
So I guess he's been around for a while:)
What would help me a lot more is the ability to quickly switch to a particular window in mind:
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121349 [kde.org]
Even if you don't have all your windows maximized, it would save a fair bit of time. Alt-Tab only works well if you are switching between two windows.
Another semi-solution I guess, but KDE has the option to "show Window list". I've mapped that to Window+W. It doesn't get you a subset of windows, it gets you all windows grouped by desktop, but if all the windows you need are on one desktop, then that kinda does the trick. And if not, it's still an easy-to-read list
Right. Which is why it's not a good argument. The issue is the "arbitrary other thing". Saying "any thing could possess feature X" is different from saying "there exists a thing which could possess feature X". Basically, it's universal vs existential quantifiers.
Example: Humans have reasonable vision. By the original line of reasoning, that means rocks could have reasonable vision too, which is clearly not the case. However, there exist some things which could develop a similar vision (moles for instance if they had to adapt to a different environment).
See the difference? You may think I'm just nitpicking but it's an important one.
So basically, you're saying that, if human possesses $PROPERTY, $WHATEVER possesses $PROPERTY?
That's not a well thought-trough argument. I guess you were trying to say that there is no reason, (except if by definition) that a soul would be exclusive to humans - which is of course valid.
When was the last time you heard someone say, "Sega is way better than Nintendo!" or "Nu-uh, Sega beats the pants off Nintendo!"
I think that pretty much stopped when Sony entered the scene.
Funny little related anecdote though... way back in the mid-90s when said animosity was going very strong with the Megadrive and the SNES fighting on the front lines, a French game magazine (I think it was Player One, but not sure) ran an April Fool's joke that was basically a 2 page article on how Sega and Nintendo were ending their rivalry and would henceforth be cooperating. The article came complete with (fake, obviously) screenshots of a new game featuring both Sonic and Mario (they basically pasted Mario into screenshots from Sonic and Sonic into screenshots from Super Mario World). Made us laugh a lot.
Fast forward a decade and a bit though, and that joke has become reality. Who'd have thought at the time.
Yeah, I used to do that all the time. The only issue - every time I needed to actually answer those questions, the only thing I knew for sure was which answer was the wrong one... but I could never remember what I actually put in:)
Interested to hear of senior academics perspectives
Well, I'm not senior, but as a medium academic, I think you pretty much nailed it. I think it's worth mentioning, within the "it's gonna take forever to get published" context, that many journals do offer pretty speedy advance online publication. Which, in today's world, is really all that matters.
Slashdot Mirror
No ads. Better quality. Perhaps that doesn't matter much to you (and tbh, it doesn't matter to me either - the ads are hardly intrusive and until I'm going to play music through my expensive stereo, 160kb/s in ogg is more than enough) but for some people, those two (or even just one) can be reason enough to pay the small fee.
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You have a huge catalogue of movies at your fingertips - as long as you pay for the right. I don't find the idea of paying a small fee to have a lot of content accessible pretty much whenever you want (as opposed to when the tv channels (movies) or radio (music) decides to play it) that outrageous.
I don't think this is relevant. I don't notice any bandwidth-problems at all. Maybe it would have been a point 10 years ago, but today, when my friends laugh at me for "only" having a 12Mbit connection, I don't think we need to worry about that.
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You don't have every movie ever made available, but you don't expect that either. The point is that you do have a lot available - when you want it. If you really want to listen to Metallica, buy their CDs or wait for the Spotify catalogue to grow.
Noone said Spotify would be the alpha and omega of all your music needs. It just provides a large catalogue for you - either for free, or for a small fee (for which you also get better sound quality btw, 320kb/s instead if 160kb/s if you wish). If a song you want to listen to is not on there, or if you really want to own it so you can listen to it everywhere, noone's stopping you from buying the CD.
Personally, I use the free version (for now). I like the idea that I have a lot of the music I listen to available and that I can listen to it at work. I like the fact that if a friend recommends a band to me, I can more often than not just check it out immediately.
Does the Enterprise ever go on patrol along the neutral zone and nothing happens?
If I remember right, the AC has an (internal) UID of 666 - which would by higher than CmdrTaco's 1 :)
This is just a problem due to the way you stated the definition. Both issues go away if you rephrase it as "two species are the same if it is possible to find two individuals (one from each of course) that are able to produce fertile offspring".
But the definition simply requires the individuals to be able to mate, not to actually do it. So those points are also non-issues - as you actually say, fertile offspring in a lab would be enough. It's more about the genes than the mechanics of mating.
But you're not allowed to go back in time. Species evolve over time and what was true 3 million years ago doesn't have to be true today. This is about classifying individuals as they currently are, it's not a debate about origins or a lesson in history (also valid questions of course, but not applicable within this context).
I'm not sure what happens when you get into single-cell organism or bacteria territory - in all other cases, I'd still argue that compatibility of the genes as evidenced in the lab is enough.
In the end, I'm sure there are many problems with any definition of species, like with most other things in biology. But I'm not so sure you cited good examples. Not that I have better ones, of course - but IANAB ;)
I don't think you need to use "probably" in that statement - you're absolutely right:
:)
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mozilla.com: This document was successfully checked as XHTML 1.0 Strict!
Some small part of me was hoping for the opposite effect, just for the amusement value... but I guess sometimes things in this world really are as they should be
People of Illinois,
we have duly noted your recent reconsideration of Pluto and its classification. We appreciate this sign of good-will and will take it into account in our upcoming invasion of Earth.
Although I can make no promises at this point, I am able to inform you that sparing your lives is currently viewed favourably amongst our population.
Yours sincerely,
Gral Rex,
Minister of Earth Affairs, Government of Pluto
p.s. to the rest of mankind: You are all still toast.
I think you'll find that the "ou" variant is not just for the French.
:) Mee ech mengen ech dierf daat an dësem Fall.
Just nitpicking
I'm not sure you need 4.
Now not only is the game broken due to a broken DRM implementation, but even the logic behind the DRM is broken since it at least this part can be circumvented by adjusting the system clock (!!). What was the point of even bothering with this then?
Although, actually, wouldn't this now make changing your system time an offence under the DCMA?
I never thought I'd post those two words together in one sentence, but yeah.... epic fail.
I certainly hope you didn't give any strange ideas to the people who modded that informative.... ;)
But saying "God according to scriptures" is a little different from talking about deities in general. Ultimately what's gonna make or break this argument is how you define deity in the first place but in general, how we create life says nothing about how we were created.
In your specific case, the flaw - if you can call it that - in your argument is that technically, only the statement "only God can create life" has become complicated. If you maintain that it is true, then you can conclude that we are, in fact, God. Which is probably blasphemy, so your way out is either to claim that the life we created is somehow inferiour to God's work or that, really, it was God who created the life we thought we created (with us being merely tools in the process or whatever).
And if neither of the above works for you, there is of course always the "It's the Devil's work" catch-all which conveniently can take care of anything that we're not supposed to be able to do while nullifying any damage it might have done to the concept of God as per scriptures.
If, alternatively, you decide that "only God can create life" is false based on this new evidence, things are even simpler - no need to invoke the Devil, God keeps existing and the fault lies with whoever formulated that statement by obviously misinterpreting what the Lord had meant him to write down.
Long story short, no, this will not even disprove a God according to scriptures. There is always a way out for those who wish to maintain his existence. In the end (I forget who said this, but it's very true), you cannot defeat by reason that which is not based on reason.
Nope, this does not serve as a proof that a deity is unnecessary, since the research is based on observations of life. In other words, even if this is successful, already existing life was a prerequisite.
You would have a proof that life can create life through observation and replication, but nothing more. You're still faced with the question of where the life that created life came from.
So you build something vaguely cone-shaped and because it's December, it gains +1 Christmassy? I mean, it's a bunch of platters stacked onto each other. I actually think it's pretty cool (especially the bottom part - gotta love the semi-chaotic shinyness. Not so much a fan of the top or the fact that it isn't exactly straight), but I wouldn't call it a Christmas tree.
;)
In fact, if you scrape the Christmas idea, redesign the top and add more blue LEDs into the thing, you could just end up with a nifty piece of art that's for life, not just for Chrstmas
No this is one step beyond thoughtcrime. Toughtcrime is about thoughts that might lead to crime. This is about material which might lead to thoughtcrime.
Ino other words, the logic here goes: while Bart and Lisa are clearly not real children having sex, they might put funny ideas about real children into your head and hence this needs to be stopped.
For him to use "these days" in that way evidently indicates that he meant it as opposed to the "good old days when dinosaurs ruled the world". So I guess he's been around for a while :)
Have you met Aineko? ;)
Another semi-solution I guess, but KDE has the option to "show Window list". I've mapped that to Window+W. It doesn't get you a subset of windows, it gets you all windows grouped by desktop, but if all the windows you need are on one desktop, then that kinda does the trick. And if not, it's still an easy-to-read list
Right. Which is why it's not a good argument. The issue is the "arbitrary other thing". Saying "any thing could possess feature X" is different from saying "there exists a thing which could possess feature X". Basically, it's universal vs existential quantifiers.
Example: Humans have reasonable vision. By the original line of reasoning, that means rocks could have reasonable vision too, which is clearly not the case. However, there exist some things which could develop a similar vision (moles for instance if they had to adapt to a different environment).
See the difference? You may think I'm just nitpicking but it's an important one.
So basically, you're saying that, if human possesses $PROPERTY, $WHATEVER possesses $PROPERTY?
That's not a well thought-trough argument. I guess you were trying to say that there is no reason, (except if by definition) that a soul would be exclusive to humans - which is of course valid.
Err... and then what?
It's not like you could use that photocopy to later on to check whether or not someone flipped your vote...
*head explodes*
I think that pretty much stopped when Sony entered the scene.
Funny little related anecdote though... way back in the mid-90s when said animosity was going very strong with the Megadrive and the SNES fighting on the front lines, a French game magazine (I think it was Player One, but not sure) ran an April Fool's joke that was basically a 2 page article on how Sega and Nintendo were ending their rivalry and would henceforth be cooperating. The article came complete with (fake, obviously) screenshots of a new game featuring both Sonic and Mario (they basically pasted Mario into screenshots from Sonic and Sonic into screenshots from Super Mario World). Made us laugh a lot.
Fast forward a decade and a bit though, and that joke has become reality. Who'd have thought at the time.
Yeah, I used to do that all the time. The only issue - every time I needed to actually answer those questions, the only thing I knew for sure was which answer was the wrong one... but I could never remember what I actually put in :)