Since most European and American scientists before the twentieth century (and quite a few after) would have called themselves "Christian," this statement seems more than a bit silly; it is certainly demonstrative of a abysmal ignorance of history, science, and Christianity.
Not at all. Any scientist calling himself other than a Christian would have had no career in Galileo's lifetime (in Europe, that is). Such was the nature of the times.
Though probably founded more on political than religious grounds,
It was the Church that sentenced Galileo to house arrest, because the Church considered his ideas heresy. Call it Politics if you want, but the fact is that the Church opposed the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun on religious grounds, and persecuted Galileo for publishing the idea. This despite the fact that the Pope and Galileo were on very good terms.
However, this attitude was not typical of the Church as a whole for all of its history. At other times, the Church acted to safeguard, compile and disseminate scientific knowledge and to subsidize scholarship and scientific research.
I agree. But I was speaking only of the conflicts between Science and Christianity, i.e. when the Church officially disagreed with scientific conclusions for religious reasons. Denial, and occasionally even persecution, were its response, and Science usually proved to be correct. Not a great record, and the main reason many of us roll our eyes when the Church denies Evolution, claims the Earth is 6000 years old, etc.
This will dramatically decrease our dependance on oil and probably extend the life of oil until the year 2200 or something.
Yes, and I suppose you have a ready store of hydrogen? You were planning a trip to the sun, perhaps?
Only by switching to nuclear, solar, or convection power will we end our need for hydrocarbons.
Likewise, with "Moore's law", we will definately steamroll right past the 16 nanometer limit with Nanotechnology by dealing with stuff in picometers(!).
Actually, it's a 5nM limit, and no, nanotechnology will not overcome the laws of physics.
Since evolution is a family of theories, I'll choose one - abiogenesis.
Abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is an explanation of how life evolved, not how it started.
But the basic gist of it is this: given what we know, to build the smallest useful DNA chain by random trial and error would require more atoms than the entire universe contains.
No. The number of combinations (4^4000) is more than the number of atoms in the universe, but you would only need 4000 of each base to try them all.
Science doesn't prove anything!. It explains.
Correct.
Witness the manner in which evolution has been used by atheists to justify their lack of belief in God.
They may use it as an argument against Christianity, but atheists generally don't believe in Christianity because of Evolution specifically. It's just one more conflict in a long line of conflicts between Science and Christianity. And historically, Christianity always seems to come up on the losing side.
Today, the idea of evolution is as firmly entrenched in the common mind as a geocentric universe was in Galileo's time.
Case in point. The Earth as the center of God's universe was the only acceptable viewpoint as far as the Church was concerned. Only very recently has the Church even admitted to being wrong for Galileo's persecution.
Incidentally, Galileo's publishing problems were political, not religious. In his work, he advocated a Heliocentric model for prediction purposes only, and went so far as to suggest that nothing in his model should be construed as a definitive statement regarding the Heavens.
No. He argued that there was nothing in the Bible that was at odds with the Copernican model. From this site:
On the 24th of February 1616 the consulting theologians of the Holy Office characterized the two propositions: that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth has a diurnal motion of rotation, the first as "absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture," and the second as "open to the same censure in philosophy, and at least erroneous as to faith."
Two days later Galileo was, by command of the pope (Paul V.), summoned to the palace of Cardinal Bellarmin, and there officially admonished not thenceforward to "hold, teach or defend" the condemned doctrine.
In 1632 he published a book advocating it, under the impression that the religious climate had changed. He was brought before in Inquisition, and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.
Actually, in the annotations to the game Kasparov won (#3), there are a couple moves that Kasparov makes that they attribute specifically to the fact that his opponent is a computer.
At one point it becomes clear (to observers) that Fritz's only chance is to attack a particular pawn, but Fritz doesn't see it because it's too far down the search space. Kasparov actually makes a move to protect the pawn to further muddle the search space. Fritz ends up doing not much of anything because it can't see that loss is imminent.
That being all said and done however, we don't recommend using the cygwin version of PostgreSQL for "Production" quality databases, nor high load levels. The cygwin emulation layer introduces a few limitations, namely the lack of being able to tune PostgreSQL to the same performance levels of a Unix system, and we're also not sure how well the data integrity features of Windows + cygwin + PostgreSQL work in the event of a system crash, hardware failure, etc.
also:
The next version of PostgreSQL after that, to be called either version 7.5 or version 8.0 will definitely support windows natively.
and:
The main PostgreSQL project plans to add support for a native Windows version with our 7.5 or 8.0 release. This will probably be released in early 2004, with that time estimate being based on 7.4 being due for release near the end of 2003.
Maybe they want a closed system for their next box so Linux won't run on it.
I seriously doubt they made a major engineering decision based on the relatively small number of people putting linux on their Xbox. And we all know that Linux will end up on whatever they come out with anyway.
I'd be interested to know what actually drove this decision though. Supposedly the advantage of the Xbox was the fact that it used off-the-shelf PC parts and had a Windows environment to make it easy on developers. A custom chip changes the game quite a bit.
Your commiting to buy something (a real tangible something) at some future date for a price you specify today. If that thing becomes more or less valuable by the time you are obligated to buy it then you win or lose money. Generally you sell your contract before the due date, and there is always someone who needs/uses the product that picks it up at the end.
What you've just described is a bet that the price will increase. While there are non-speculative reasons to use the futures market (i.e. mitigation of risk to the buyer or seller), there's plenty of price speculators who do exactly what you described. Is it gambling?
I think this is a fancy way to disguise pure gambling as a legitimate financial instrument.
A legitimate financial instrument like, say, a derivative? Who decides what is legitimate?
This isn't insightful at all. Markets have bubbles, markets can be gamed, amd participants can be misinformed. We know this already.
The question is whether they are better than the "expert" opinion, or if perhaps they are informative enough to be used in conjunction with the expert opinion. Only a fool would claim that an information market could predict the future with absolute certainty. But can they do a good job? Experiments to date seem to say yes.
Say there's a bet on there for "When will the next terrorist attack be?" Obviously someone is going to see the opportunity to make money off of any real situation and create a self-fulfilling prophecy...
Hogwash. No terrorist would log on to a defense sponsored application and provide indications of their plans. The entire point of the market was to gather information, not let people make a buck off of terrorism.
There are plenty of current markets that would be far more effective for that anyway.
In the short range, high speed category, I fail to see any advantage to bluetooth aside from not needing line of sight,
That's a huge advantage in my opinion. Wireless headphones that need line of sight are a no go, and synching devices is a lot less of a hassle when you don't need line of sight. Remotes that don't need line of sight would be cool, though you could probably use AM for those.
DARPA typically only funds projects or research that may be useful commercially as well as militarily.
Yesterday's decentralized military communications system is today's internet. Today's robot-driven combat vehicle is tomorrow's smart car.
That's why DARPA projects are public -- we get to use the technology too. Or perhaps you'd rather we just threw the money into some secret black box projects, never to see the light of day?
The technology actually is pretty neat, but it's sadly built down to a price. I'd like to see higher quality alternatives which would dim lights more smoothly.
I think I read somewhere that the problem is that they are (necessarily) solid state, and it's hard to make a good solid state dimmer.
I believe you can also buy X10 home control technology from Radio Shack, under one of their brands.
Yep, just go to radioshack.com and click on "security and home automation." I checked at one of their physical locations once, and they didn't seem to have much, but the website seems to have everything.
Aside from home automation, X10 can also save you a ton of electrical work. You can put in a 3-way switch where it isn't wired for it, or put a wireless switch where there's no wires at all.
Non-American citizens have no inherant rights to a speedy (or any) trial in America.
They should if we're the ones detaining them, and we truly believe our laws are just. Deport them or charge them, but holding them indefinitely is wrong.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. "
People who do a lot of talking on their phone at work could really cut down on their minutes.
Also, it would be extremely usefull if you send a lot of data. Think about web browsing cell phones, or cell/wireless PC cards.
UPS already uses this for those tablet thingies they have -- they use cell on the road, and their warehouses all have wireless networks. Saves them a bunch of money.
Other than housing costs, however, I would tend to agree with your premise. Wages are always relative to what you can buy with them.
Housing isn't some magical thing that is exempt from the laws of supply and demand. Prices will always reflect what people are willing and able to pay.
Because it's not illegal for executives to sell stock. Even if their company is suing IBM.
The SEC would only investigate if there was strong evidence that executives were cooking the books, or leaking inside info to outsiders. As long as they themselves are filing trading plans in advance of selling, they are fine.
On the other hand, a shareholder lawsuit is entirely possible (especially if they lose the case).
From what I could tell after the last "big" news, executives started dumping stock.
If you were at SCO, and suddenly your stock/options were no longer under water, wouldn't you sell too?
Slashdot Mirror
Since most European and American scientists before the twentieth century (and quite a few after) would have called themselves "Christian," this statement seems more than a bit silly; it is certainly demonstrative of a abysmal ignorance of history, science, and Christianity.
Not at all. Any scientist calling himself other than a Christian would have had no career in Galileo's lifetime (in Europe, that is). Such was the nature of the times.
Though probably founded more on political than religious grounds,
It was the Church that sentenced Galileo to house arrest, because the Church considered his ideas heresy. Call it Politics if you want, but the fact is that the Church opposed the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun on religious grounds, and persecuted Galileo for publishing the idea. This despite the fact that the Pope and Galileo were on very good terms.
However, this attitude was not typical of the Church as a whole for all of its history. At other times, the Church acted to safeguard, compile and disseminate scientific knowledge and to subsidize scholarship and scientific research.
I agree. But I was speaking only of the conflicts between Science and Christianity, i.e. when the Church officially disagreed with scientific conclusions for religious reasons. Denial, and occasionally even persecution, were its response, and Science usually proved to be correct. Not a great record, and the main reason many of us roll our eyes when the Church denies Evolution, claims the Earth is 6000 years old, etc.
This will dramatically decrease our dependance on oil and probably extend the life of oil until the year 2200 or something.
Yes, and I suppose you have a ready store of hydrogen? You were planning a trip to the sun, perhaps?
Only by switching to nuclear, solar, or convection power will we end our need for hydrocarbons.
Likewise, with "Moore's law", we will definately steamroll right past the 16 nanometer limit with Nanotechnology by dealing with stuff in picometers(!).
Actually, it's a 5nM limit, and no, nanotechnology will not overcome the laws of physics.
Abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is an explanation of how life evolved, not how it started.
But the basic gist of it is this: given what we know, to build the smallest useful DNA chain by random trial and error would require more atoms than the entire universe contains.
No. The number of combinations (4^4000) is more than the number of atoms in the universe, but you would only need 4000 of each base to try them all.
Science doesn't prove anything!. It explains.
Correct.
Witness the manner in which evolution has been used by atheists to justify their lack of belief in God.
They may use it as an argument against Christianity, but atheists generally don't believe in Christianity because of Evolution specifically. It's just one more conflict in a long line of conflicts between Science and Christianity. And historically, Christianity always seems to come up on the losing side.
Today, the idea of evolution is as firmly entrenched in the common mind as a geocentric universe was in Galileo's time.
Case in point. The Earth as the center of God's universe was the only acceptable viewpoint as far as the Church was concerned. Only very recently has the Church even admitted to being wrong for Galileo's persecution.
Incidentally, Galileo's publishing problems were political, not religious. In his work, he advocated a Heliocentric model for prediction purposes only, and went so far as to suggest that nothing in his model should be construed as a definitive statement regarding the Heavens.
No. He argued that there was nothing in the Bible that was at odds with the Copernican model. From this site:
In 1632 he published a book advocating it, under the impression that the religious climate had changed. He was brought before in Inquisition, and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life.
They're all computer software, right?
The problem isn't necessarily that Redhat is using Fedora -- it's that they're attempting to trademark it, and restrict others from using it.
Actually, in the annotations to the game Kasparov won (#3), there are a couple moves that Kasparov makes that they attribute specifically to the fact that his opponent is a computer.
At one point it becomes clear (to observers) that Fritz's only chance is to attack a particular pawn, but Fritz doesn't see it because it's too far down the search space. Kasparov actually makes a move to protect the pawn to further muddle the search space. Fritz ends up doing not much of anything because it can't see that loss is imminent.
also:
and:
If Congress wants to abide by a treaty it agrees to then it would have to pass laws that implement the provisions of the treaty.
All treaties that the U.S. enters into are ratified by Congress. They are law.
Maybe they want a closed system for their next box so Linux won't run on it.
I seriously doubt they made a major engineering decision based on the relatively small number of people putting linux on their Xbox. And we all know that Linux will end up on whatever they come out with anyway.
I'd be interested to know what actually drove this decision though. Supposedly the advantage of the Xbox was the fact that it used off-the-shelf PC parts and had a Windows environment to make it easy on developers. A custom chip changes the game quite a bit.
Your commiting to buy something (a real tangible something) at some future date for a price you specify today. If that thing becomes more or less valuable by the time you are obligated to buy it then you win or lose money. Generally you sell your contract before the due date, and there is always someone who needs/uses the product that picks it up at the end.
What you've just described is a bet that the price will increase. While there are non-speculative reasons to use the futures market (i.e. mitigation of risk to the buyer or seller), there's plenty of price speculators who do exactly what you described. Is it gambling?
I think this is a fancy way to disguise pure gambling as a legitimate financial instrument.
A legitimate financial instrument like, say, a derivative? Who decides what is legitimate?
This isn't insightful at all. Markets have bubbles, markets can be gamed, amd participants can be misinformed. We know this already.
The question is whether they are better than the "expert" opinion, or if perhaps they are informative enough to be used in conjunction with the expert opinion. Only a fool would claim that an information market could predict the future with absolute certainty. But can they do a good job? Experiments to date seem to say yes.
Ah, life insurance: a bet which you hope to lose.
Say there's a bet on there for "When will the next terrorist attack be?" Obviously someone is going to see the opportunity to make money off of any real situation and create a self-fulfilling prophecy...
Hogwash. No terrorist would log on to a defense sponsored application and provide indications of their plans. The entire point of the market was to gather information, not let people make a buck off of terrorism.
There are plenty of current markets that would be far more effective for that anyway.
In the short range, high speed category, I fail to see any advantage to bluetooth aside from not needing line of sight,
That's a huge advantage in my opinion. Wireless headphones that need line of sight are a no go, and synching devices is a lot less of a hassle when you don't need line of sight. Remotes that don't need line of sight would be cool, though you could probably use AM for those.
DARPA typically only funds projects or research that may be useful commercially as well as militarily.
Yesterday's decentralized military communications system is today's internet. Today's robot-driven combat vehicle is tomorrow's smart car.
That's why DARPA projects are public -- we get to use the technology too. Or perhaps you'd rather we just threw the money into some secret black box projects, never to see the light of day?
The technology actually is pretty neat, but it's sadly built down to a price. I'd like to see higher quality alternatives which would dim lights more smoothly.
I think I read somewhere that the problem is that they are (necessarily) solid state, and it's hard to make a good solid state dimmer.
I believe you can also buy X10 home control technology from Radio Shack, under one of their brands.
Yep, just go to radioshack.com and click on "security and home automation." I checked at one of their physical locations once, and they didn't seem to have much, but the website seems to have everything.
Aside from home automation, X10 can also save you a ton of electrical work. You can put in a 3-way switch where it isn't wired for it, or put a wireless switch where there's no wires at all.
Non-American citizens have no inherant rights to a speedy (or any) trial in America.
They should if we're the ones detaining them, and we truly believe our laws are just. Deport them or charge them, but holding them indefinitely is wrong.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. "
People who do a lot of talking on their phone at work could really cut down on their minutes.
Also, it would be extremely usefull if you send a lot of data. Think about web browsing cell phones, or cell/wireless PC cards.
UPS already uses this for those tablet thingies they have -- they use cell on the road, and their warehouses all have wireless networks. Saves them a bunch of money.
And you forgot to mention they're also solar powered. It's one of the fastest supercomputers, but only during the day.
Other than housing costs, however, I would tend to agree with your premise. Wages are always relative to what you can buy with them.
Housing isn't some magical thing that is exempt from the laws of supply and demand. Prices will always reflect what people are willing and able to pay.
How is this not flagging anything with the SEC?
Because it's not illegal for executives to sell stock. Even if their company is suing IBM.
The SEC would only investigate if there was strong evidence that executives were cooking the books, or leaking inside info to outsiders. As long as they themselves are filing trading plans in advance of selling, they are fine.
On the other hand, a shareholder lawsuit is entirely possible (especially if they lose the case).
From what I could tell after the last "big" news, executives started dumping stock.
If you were at SCO, and suddenly your stock/options were no longer under water, wouldn't you sell too?