Tell you what, they keep breaking upgrades the way they do and people won't be doing that either. Network Manager is still broken in Jaunty, with two weeks to go.
Glad to know that I'm not the only one who's becoming disenchanted with Ubuntu. I've been running it since Hoary and the past few releases have been stinkers for me. I've been running x86_64 since 7.10, though, so that's undoubtedly part of the problem. I keep hoping that as x86_64 becomes a bit more mainstream on the desktop that the QA will improve.
We'll see how 9.04 goes, and if it's as flaky as 8.10 has been, I guess I'll go check out whatever the new distros are. I might even go back to straight Debian (5.0 came out and I didn't even notice!)...
Then the idiot delivery woman keeps throwing papers in the middle of the street, where they get squashed by passing cars (or disappear completely).
Remember paperboys? Sigh. I'm old enough that I can claim to have been one of the last of that breed.
From what I heard, they phased them out in the years after I stopped doing it (late 80s, early 90s) because kids just weren't reliable about managing themselves. It wasn't that complicated, but it did require commitment to doing the same thing at the same time(s) every day.
The pay was peanuts, but it felt good at 11 to have some income on my own other than my allowance. And having an endless supply of rubber bands meant that I became a deadly shot with them (against assorted flying insects, anyhow).
So, where do you suppose the "Earth as a solid surfaced planet covered with water" came from?
Don't know yet. Working on it. We don't need to fill the gaps with "God", though.
There is no scientific explanation for the origin of matter.
None yet. Doesn't mean there won't be. Don't bother arguing. c.f. "Argument From Ignorance"
The creationist view (no matter which if any religious viewpoint it comes from) at least puts forth some sort of answer to that question, though it is necessarily not a scientific answer,
... And as such, it does not belong in a science class. That's the whole point of this discussion -- whether or not non-scientific ideas about creation should be taught in science classes.
as the beginnings of the universe are not something that can be observed and tested (and it is understood to the pupil that a hypothesis without testability, observability and repeatability is not science).
A thought exercise for you: What if, in 500 years, human knowledge in physics advances such that we are able to actually create a new universe? And in effecting said creation, we're able to observe conditions in the new universe which match hypotheses about what conditions were like in our universe at the time of its creation?
Does that prove beyond a doubt, 100%, our theories about the creation of universes (ours and others)? No, of course not. But it would give us quite a bit of confidence about our theories, wouldn't it...
This is the same principle at work in evolutionary biology and many other areas today. We observe facts, build a hypothesis to explain these facts, and then test the hypothesis. If we can't find a reason to discard the hypothesis, then we promote it to a theory, which is really just a useful model for explaining observable phenomena.
Based on what we can observe, NOW, we can use our observations to build a testable hypothesis about how species evolve. It happens all the time, all around us. Sometimes it happens very slowly, sometimes it happens very quickly. When it happens quickly, it's easier for us to observe. Given that the theory serves as a useful model for explaining what we observe now, it is a logical extension of the theory to explain changes in the fossil record.
It's really not any more complicated than that.
That answer for most would be "An intelligent designer who is not bound by the scientific laws of space/time/physics created matter and proceeded to create the universe and the earth and all that is in them. As the designer exists outside of the laws we know and understand, he is able to do these things in a way which is beyond our understanding."
... Why is this a valid answer? It's a feel-good answer, unsupported by any data. But it's arbitrary and holds no logical weight next to any other wild-ass idea about creation. I could firmly believe with all my heart that the universe is a dingleberry on the ass of an invisible pink unicorn, but my fervent belief _does_not_make_it_so_.
From what I understand they have issues with the probability of non-life becoming life (abiogenesis)
Argh!
I am so tired of this canard. The theory of Evolution has ZERO to say about the origins of LIFE. The theory of Evolution is about the Origin Of Species. How one species gradually becomes a different species, by way of evolutionary pressures (e.g. changing environments, etc.)
Science (currently) has no solid way of testing theories about how non-life becomes life, and therefore there are no firm theories, simply hypotheses unsupported by facts. That's not to say that these hypotheses were all pulled out of asses... But until we have a way to reproducibly test a hypothesis, it is not promoted to a theory, which is another way of saying "an idea which serves as a useful model for explaining observable facts."
Repeat: The Theory Of Evolution does not address the Origin Of Life. God-ists can keep their pet ideas about how the universe and life were created -- for now safely unchallenged by evil Science.
I saw it last night. I'll admit that I didn't read the novel when it was trendy to do so... Never really got into the whole comics thing. Not that I look down on them -- I just chose to escape into non-graphic media (i.e. as much sci-fi as the local library had) during my formative years.
However, I did make a point of buying and reading the novel before I saw the film. Loved the novel. Inhaled it in one sitting because I just happened to be too sick to deal with normal weekend responsibilities.
As others have said, 90% of the film is pure fan service, and likely incomprehensible to someone who didn't read the novel. I'm not complaining, in fact I was awe-struck at how well the director managed to retain the core themes, art design, and overall feeling of the story. I can see, though, why the film won't do well in the end.
It wasn't made for your average "Superhero" movie-goer. The whole point of the story wasn't to set up a superhero franchise. There won't be a Watchmen IV in 10 years. It was an exploration of the characters themselves, and in that respect has more in relation to a biographical drama than a blockbuster action flick. In other words, snooze-fest for most.
Yes, there was a lot of nudity and some sex. To be honest, though, I barely noticed it. I guess having already read the novel, I just wasn't surprised to see a giant blue dong onscreen every once in a while. Nudity doesn't much bother me anyhow. As a well-adjusted adult, I can separate nudity from sexuality. The actual sex scenes were necessary, although a little gratuitous (at least the second one was). The violence was also necessary, as it served to set the tone.
Neutering the adult content would certainly have made the film more accessible in the sense that it could have gotten a PG-13 rating, but it would have made even less sense and alienated its true target audience even more.
I was disappointed with the ending, but as others have pointed out, the director probably did the best he could, given the limitations of the format. Establishing the backstory necessary to make the novel's ending work would have made the film at least half an hour longer, and even then it probably would have seemed ridiculous.
In the end, I don't think that anyone on the creative side ever really expected it to be a blockbuster. On the financing side, sure... They always do. I suspect that the folks on the creative side were surprised that they got the money to do it, and just jumped at the opportunity. I'm glad that they managed to avoid watering it down too much. And I will be shocked if we ever see something like this get that kind of budget again.:)
The single biggest annoyance for me is the lack of a way to search my email. I use IMAP and have server-side filtering into folders, but I still need to search for stuff every once in a while.
I've worked around it by creating special folders like "Travel" so that I can quickly find itineraries and crap when I'm on the road, but that's kind of retarded. I'd much rather search for e.g. AXIOM in the sender field.
If you really listen to what Dawkins is saying, his problem isn't so much with what people choose to believe, in and of itself. It's that human nature steers us toward allowing what we believe to shape our thinking. Scientists are trained to look at evidence as "purely" as possible, with a minimum of personal beliefs and preconceptions. Doesn't always happen that way, exactly, but that's the ideal.
The problem with religion, in general, is that it tends to shape peoples' perceptions to disregard evidence which is incompatible with the religion. Reasoning is discarded in favor of foregone conclusions, e.g. "Why is the Sun yellow? God made it that way. End of story." This is the opposite of scientific thinking, and it's anti-progress. Some religions do better than others at dealing with questions, but in the end, you can only go so far before the answer becomes "$DIETY did it."
As Dawkins himself has stated, we can't prove whether $DIETY did or didn't do whatever the question was. In the end, it's irrelevant. $DIETY is unnecessary. Perhaps there was some "higher power" who created our universe, but logically it does not make sense that $DIETY cares about whether or not I follow some arbitrary set of rules for how I live my life, whom I love, or whether or not I believe in him/her/it.
This is the core of Dawkins' position. His aspersions cast toward religious adherents are based in frustration about their willful ignorance. I tend to share his viewpoints, if you hadn't guessed that already.
People don't like to be told that they're willfully ignorant, and so he's portrayed as an incendiary jerk.
Maybe that's so, but I don't know how you can be sure. Granted, Microsoft has made some bad decisions, but I'm pretty sure they are "trying to make money on their proprietary code" and it's working. In fact tons of software companies make money on closed source. Or you do you mean selling the actual code and not the finished product?
Listen, I'm not saying that OSS will completely kill proprietary software. What I am saying is that it has and will continue to destabilize existing markets, while it creates and enables new ones.
For some specific niches, closed-source software can provide a competitive advantage, at least in the short term. But in many cases, software is just a loss-leader for other stuff like hardware, services or proprietary data sets. It just doesn't make sense to pay a whole staff of developers to reinvent an Open Source wheel.
In the case of Microsoft, I think that times are going to be tough over the next few years. They've got a huge pile of cash to ease the pain, though. I think a lot of that has more to do with the shift toward lightweight computing and cloud services, though.
So where's the drop-in replacement for Photoshop? Sure some may be able to get by using GIMP but if you're a pro photographer who does print media then GIMP does not cut it.
This is kind of missing the point... There have been other replies that echoed what you just stated. Sure, there are some things that the GIMP doesn't do that Photoshop does. Just as there are some things that Oracle does that MySQL/PostgreSQL don't, etc. etc.
The fact is, though, that the Open Source options in these markets are undoubtedly hurting the proprietary vendors. More so in some cases than others. Do I think that MySQL is going to kill Oracle? No, but I do think that MySQL has cut into Larry Ellison's jetfighter budget more than a little.
When I started my career back in the 90s, the first startup I worked at had Oracle running on Solaris. This was for some random web crap running Perl. We paid for those -- they weren't pirated. We even paid for Oracle support a few times. These days, wasting capital on that stuff would be crazy.
When I say that Open Source is eating the proprietary vendors' lunch, I mean that the OSS alternatives are pushing them into tighter verticals and demolishing the low-middle sections of those markets. One could argue that the people in those sections would have pirated anyway, and that's true to some extent.
One doesn't have to look much further than Sun to see how OSS has demolished a once-mighty giant. (Open)Solaris is technically superior to Linux, but it's been continually marginalized to specific market verticals (financials and data warehousing with Oracle, mostly).
... decided if I'm going to put the tyme and effort into programming my own software it may be worthwhile to sell what I come up with to others.
As a service or as binaries? Just worth pointing out that you don't have to give away your source code if you're not distributing anything. A common misconception about the GPL is that it somehow compels developers who incorporate any GPL-licensed code into always giving away their code. The only time that comes into play is when you distribute the code. The primary goal of the GPL is to enable the end-users, if they choose to be enabled (e.g. modifying behavior, fixing bugs, security audits, etc.)
Right, but then everybody gets your improvements. Where's the competition in that?
With BSD you get a solid base for your product and it's not infected with the GPL.
This old clinker again... Closed-source competition is so 1980s.
Software is a commodity. Any intelligent company now is not trying to make money on their proprietary code. They're making money on hardware to run their code, or services to support their code, or data to feed their code.
Sure, for certain niche markets, closed source can give a company a competitive advantage for a while... But if the market is "hot" enough, Open Source will eventually be there to eat its lunch. This has been happening over and over again for the past two decades. Were you asleep?
Let me ask you this: Have you ever written code and released it to the public? Was it used? I have. As a developer making contributions to public projects, I am much more inclined to contribute under the GPL than other licenses. Most of the world feels the same, hence the popularity of the GPL (and similar "viral" licenses) over the BSD-style licenses.
Yes, but maybe that is not "over-investigating". Maybe that is deliberately trying to make more money by being dishonest.
I understand that folks are cynical. People tend to be particularly cynical about professionals (lawyers, doctors, mechanics, etc.) because their deep domain knowledge is hard for outsiders to attain, but anyone can learn just enough to be dangerous or at least play armchair expert.
The fact is, there are jerks in any field, but as another poster has said, most people are honest. The media likes a good story, though, and we like to hear those good stories. No one wants to hear about the thousands of doctors who do their jobs properly. Everyone wants to hear about the evil doctor who padded his bills or the accountant who skimmed his clients' accounts.
With regard to doctors, how do you think that an ER doc is going to make more money by ordering a CT? They're paid a salary. They don't get commissions on number of CTs ordered. The reality is that most imaging services are run by organizations external to the hospital. The equipment may be on-site, but many hospitals these days work with radiology practices rather than having their own on-staff radiologists. I'm sure the hospital does make some money on it, but I'd be willing to bet the cost of a CT that the doc was just covering his ass. Malpractice insurance is expensive, and it gets more expensive if you're sued (even if you don't lose).
but when we do I'm tempted to NOT have all of those things.
... Yeah. That will last a long time, I'm sure.
My parents had road trips when they were kids without all of this tech, and we did without as kids, too. Why should my kids get to not enjoy the boredom and conversation?
As others have pointed out... They and we made do because we HAD to.
After you've been on a few 8-hour drives with a 3yo, come back and let us know how that "conversation" is working out for you.:)
I wonder what the PIN Number was that they all used in those ATM Machines. Maybe they used a custom PCB Board to prototype the hack. Then they downloaded the plans onto a CD Disc. I'll bet they literally died after they got away with all the cash.
Anyways, I could care less.
Re:Why people watch movies..
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Daemon
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2) Action scenes that can really happen. Let's see the fight scene where it takes a whole bunch of punches to really hurt someone, and guess what? They still generally don't get knocked out.
FWIW, the Jason Bourne movies have reasonably realistic fight sequences. There are definitely some over-the-top elements, but if you're willing to believe that the guy is a world-class covert operator, they're not too bad. I'm a fan of the close-in, brutal, useful(!) styles like Krav Maga and Kenpo, though. Perhaps I'm more forgiving because I'm just happy to see these types of styles used instead of the typical "movie martial arts" crap.
A lot of the other action is... not so realistic. But fun, nonetheless. I thought so, anyhow.:)
I say to be truly objective, teach evolution's strengths and weaknesses and put ID in the curriculum (strengths and weaknesses) too.
Sure, in a philosophy class. ID has no place in a science class. It's not science. In order for a theory to be scientifically useful, it has to be falsifiable.
Even if one ignores the fact that ID is just Creationism dressed in a lab coat, and focuses on the "science" of the idea, it quickly becomes apparent that ID is not a useful theory when it comes to explaining the facts of evolution. We can't falsify it, which is to say that we cannot conceivably find a set of facts which show ID to be false.
Natural Selection, on the other hand, could be falsified if a set of facts regarding evolution were to show that the predictions made by the theory did not occur. It's quite simple, really. Science relies on this process of observation, hypothesis, and testing constantly. Unlike religion, there is no true dogma. All scientific theories are in danger of being falsified and thrown out, if facts are found which truly contradict the predictions of the theory.
ID, on the other hand, ultimately boils down to "a supernatural event occurred." We can dance around what that event was, exactly, though we all know that the approved answer is "God did it." We can't test this, however. We will never be able to find facts which either support or falsify the theory. One may believe in something, personally, but this is not the same as finding a fact via scientific testing of a theory.
Surely you must see that ID has no place in a science classroom... Are you comfortable with teaching ALL ideas about how things came to be, or just your brand of bedtime story?
As you no doubt know, that wasn't my point... as far as I know, there has not been any observed macro-evolution, thus the debate is less observation and more philosophy. And then, of course, we start arguing about what defines "micro" and "macro," what defines a "species," etc...
Have you seen an electron with your own eyes? No? And yet, I'll bet you would accept an explanation of electrical theory (especially if you were going to make a job out of it and your life depended on it)...
Where did that theory of electricity come from? Did it spring, fully-formed from the head of some scientist, who presented it to the Science Cabal to be accepted as holy writ?
Or maybe, it was built up over time, based on numerous observations by multiple people. My point, though, is that even though no one has seen an electron with their own eyes, it is accepted as fact that they exist with a certain set of characteristics. Why? Because it fits with the theory, and no one has found compelling evidence to the contrary.
Now, for Evolution, the original big idea came from Darwin (though I'm sure he must have been influenced by prior work) that species, isolated geographically, tend to diverge over time, creating new species. The mechanism by which this speciation seems to occur is called natural selection.
Darwin gets the credit for the whole idea, but the reality is that many people working over time have refined, and modified it. More importantly, many people have confirmed that the theory is the best explanation for what they are observing. No one has come up with a better explanation using the scientific method.
So, finally, to address your point that no one has observed "macro" evolution... This is silly. It is happening all around us, constantly. The fact that you don't live long enough to see it in anything other than bacteria is not a flaw in the theory, it's a flaw in your lifespan.
I very much beg to differ there. If you think scientific "proof" doesn't include, at the very least, some amount of belief, I think you are very wrong. For example - if this or that was proven in science, makes it into a science book, and is proven wrong later... what would you call it? Was it proven? 100% sure? It was wrong, so it apparently wasn't actually 100% sure.
You seem to be living up to your handle. Others have tried, and failed. I figure, I'm bored, waiting for some code to compile, so I'll take a whack at the pinata!
As someone else eloquently explained, scientific theories can never be proven, only disproven.
Note that there are some very specific meanings to these words, in the context of science (which has roots in philosophy). Most people hear about proof for a theory and assume that the theory is being presented as 100% incontrovertible fact. And then these people (yourself included, apparently) crow about the hypocrisy of science and the shams being perpetuated when a theory is disproven. In other words, the thinking seems to be "Well, Theory A was PROVEN last year, and now it's been DISPROVEN! Science is a lie! All theories are equally valid, including my wild idea about how to travel through time/dinosaurs coexisted with humans/noah's ark existed/etc!"
Let's break it down (again):
1. Observe some phenomenon 2. Hypothesize something about said phenomenon 3. Search for evidence which supports/disproves hypothesis
If the body of evidence found (via research) supports the hypothesis and doesn't kill it, then voila, you have your own personal theory. Now go and publish your paper for peer review, which works like:
4. Publish paper with hypothesis + supporting evidence 5. Watch as your scientific peers attempt to eviscerate your theory and prove it wrong, stupid, and otherwise useless as a contribution to the pool of human knowledge
If no one can find evidence to disprove your theory, then congratulations, you have your own theory (hopefully named after you, or something catchy, anyhow). Maybe you'll get a Nobel, or a nice lab somewhere with go-fers, or at least a nice bonus.
Your theory will be used as fact until something comes up to question its usefulness as an explanation for whatever phenomenon was the starting point of this magical journey. Why? Because at some point you have to stop asking so many damn questions and just (logically) assume some things for the sake of argument. Until we build the Omni-Mind 8000 which interfaces with the quantum brane junction and knows everything, we'll just have to deal with the human mind and all its limitations. Having a body of educated guesses about why things do what they do allows folks to get some damn work done without having to build up a whole freaking theory of everything whenever they want to do something.
Now you just have to hope that some aspiring grad student a few years down the road doesn't revisit your theory and blow it all to hell with better equipment that finds inconsistencies with your theory.
As has been pointed out by others, this most certainly does imply that everything we know via the scientific method could be wrong! The thing is, though, that theories which stand the test of time (e.g. Evolution) do so because they are consistent with what we can observe. To date, no one has found credible evidence to support an alternate explanation for the origin of species. If you can cook something up, find evidence for it, and, most importantly, it survives the gauntlet of people looking for any logical reason to kill it, then more power to you!
Get it? It's not a religion. It's not an arbitrary belief system. It's not the same as whatever you go to church for. It is a process which we as a species have reached common consensus on as the best way to advance human knowledge.
Quick hint: it's perfectly possible to believe both in God and in the Big-Bang - they're not at all mutually exclusive as long as you look at the bible as a book full of allegories instead of trying to believe that the English translation is literally the word of Jesus.
The problem is that for many religious folks, a black-and-white-but-only-if-i-ignore-contradictions belief is easier. Your proposal (which is typical of Catholics, I think) requires a much more nuanced and thoughtful approach to belief. Also, Catholicism has a whole class of people who come up with ways to make faith more palatable to the masses (just believe what the priest tells you to believe, don't think about it too much yourself, you haven't studied scripture the way we have, etc.)... Whereas I think that the evangelical brands of Christianity tend to take a more individualistic, my-way-or-the-highway (to hell) approach.
Personally, I grew up in a deeply fundamentalist (read: batshit crazy) church -- the same flavor as Sarah Palin's church, incidentally. Anyhow, as I developed into a young adult and started thinking for myself, I started seeing more and more inconsistencies.
At some point, after having been to college and learning a lot more about anthropology and other soft/hard sciences, I came to the conclusion that I had no more reason to adhere to the Judeo-Christian faith than any other particular belief system. They all became equally illogical and pointless, to me.
I suppose for people who weren't exposed to such a caustic brand of belief, faith can just be something familiar and comforting. Unfortunately, there are always those who take things too far.
Who's gonna hire you if you're the kind of person who did phone support?
Working the phones is often a foot-in-the-door kind of job. There's no shame in starting on the phones... If you're still there after 10 years, though, that's kinda bad.
I started on helpdesk in college, then worked the phones at another job, then worked my way into a junior sysad role at the same company. Left that job, worked as sysad/web monkey, then moved into senior sysad roles, leading teams of other sysads.
In my last role as the tech guy in a small biz partnership, I hired my successor off of the phones at another company. He'd just finished college, and I could tell that he was bright and ambitious. I knew he was bright because he did well in the technical interview, and I knew he was ambitious because he'd found ways to challenge himself on and off the job (which isn't easy to do in big callcenters).
In short, if you're going to skip the diploma (or even if you do get one), be prepared to put some time in the trenches in order to demonstrate your worth. The people who do hiring are most interested in seeing what you've done, not what you say you can do.
And when it inevitably dies (because, let's face it, you'll go through two+ every three years), you have to call the manufacturer and beg to have it fixed.
I've had my 360 Elite for 2-ish years now. No problems with it. Maybe it continues to work OK because, I dunno, I'm not retarded and don't keep it in a poorly-ventilated AV box or down on the carpet/floor to fill with dust bunnies?
Not saying that people haven't had problems with 360s in the past... Those were well-published. Most 360 owners (and PS3 I guess) are fine, though.
I got off the gaming PC treadmill 3-4 years ago and haven't looked back. My computers are for work, and the consoles are for play. Easy.
Google "Pavel Tsatsouline" or just go to dragondoor.com. The Russians have known about stuff like this for decades. If you're looking to lose the nerd physique like I did, pickup some kettlebells from the site. Mine are worth their weight in gold.
Seconding this notion... The dragondoor site looks awfully like something you'd see advertised late at night or in the back of cut-rate magazines.
The exercise is incredible, though. You won't look like a booby-builder, but you'll be STRONG. No more back problems. No more knee problems. Just strong strong strong. Like, worked on a farm all your life strong.
I have two 16kg bells and a 24kg bell. The big boy is 53lb of evil fun. I like to flip it up and catch it over my shoulder. Try doing that if all you ever do is machine training.:)
Posting anonymously (over an SSH proxy too) so Labour can't see what I'll be voting for in the next election and try to change my mind or the result (again).
Slashdot Mirror
Tell you what, they keep breaking upgrades the way they do and people won't be doing that either. Network Manager is still broken in Jaunty, with two weeks to go.
Glad to know that I'm not the only one who's becoming disenchanted with Ubuntu. I've been running it since Hoary and the past few releases have been stinkers for me. I've been running x86_64 since 7.10, though, so that's undoubtedly part of the problem. I keep hoping that as x86_64 becomes a bit more mainstream on the desktop that the QA will improve.
We'll see how 9.04 goes, and if it's as flaky as 8.10 has been, I guess I'll go check out whatever the new distros are. I might even go back to straight Debian (5.0 came out and I didn't even notice!)...
Then the idiot delivery woman keeps throwing papers in the middle of the street, where they get squashed by passing cars (or disappear completely).
Remember paperboys? Sigh. I'm old enough that I can claim to have been one of the last of that breed.
From what I heard, they phased them out in the years after I stopped doing it (late 80s, early 90s) because kids just weren't reliable about managing themselves. It wasn't that complicated, but it did require commitment to doing the same thing at the same time(s) every day.
The pay was peanuts, but it felt good at 11 to have some income on my own other than my allowance. And having an endless supply of rubber bands meant that I became a deadly shot with them (against assorted flying insects, anyhow).
Sigh... zzzwha? Gerroff mah lawn you damn kids!
Gah... Get the quote right if you're going to quote something!
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the war room!"
So, where do you suppose the "Earth as a solid surfaced planet covered with water" came from?
Don't know yet. Working on it. We don't need to fill the gaps with "God", though.
There is no scientific explanation for the origin of matter.
None yet. Doesn't mean there won't be. Don't bother arguing. c.f. "Argument From Ignorance"
The creationist view (no matter which if any religious viewpoint it comes from) at least puts forth some sort of answer to that question, though it is necessarily not a scientific answer,
... And as such, it does not belong in a science class. That's the whole point of this discussion -- whether or not non-scientific ideas about creation should be taught in science classes.
as the beginnings of the universe are not something that can be observed and tested (and it is understood to the pupil that a hypothesis without testability, observability and repeatability is not science).
A thought exercise for you: What if, in 500 years, human knowledge in physics advances such that we are able to actually create a new universe? And in effecting said creation, we're able to observe conditions in the new universe which match hypotheses about what conditions were like in our universe at the time of its creation?
Does that prove beyond a doubt, 100%, our theories about the creation of universes (ours and others)? No, of course not. But it would give us quite a bit of confidence about our theories, wouldn't it...
This is the same principle at work in evolutionary biology and many other areas today. We observe facts, build a hypothesis to explain these facts, and then test the hypothesis. If we can't find a reason to discard the hypothesis, then we promote it to a theory, which is really just a useful model for explaining observable phenomena.
Based on what we can observe, NOW, we can use our observations to build a testable hypothesis about how species evolve. It happens all the time, all around us. Sometimes it happens very slowly, sometimes it happens very quickly. When it happens quickly, it's easier for us to observe. Given that the theory serves as a useful model for explaining what we observe now, it is a logical extension of the theory to explain changes in the fossil record.
It's really not any more complicated than that.
That answer for most would be "An intelligent designer who is not bound by the scientific laws of space/time/physics created matter and proceeded to create the universe and the earth and all that is in them. As the designer exists outside of the laws we know and understand, he is able to do these things in a way which is beyond our understanding."
... Why is this a valid answer? It's a feel-good answer, unsupported by any data. But it's arbitrary and holds no logical weight next to any other wild-ass idea about creation. I could firmly believe with all my heart that the universe is a dingleberry on the ass of an invisible pink unicorn, but my fervent belief _does_not_make_it_so_.
From what I understand they have issues with the probability of non-life becoming life (abiogenesis)
Argh!
I am so tired of this canard. The theory of Evolution has ZERO to say about the origins of LIFE. The theory of Evolution is about the Origin Of Species. How one species gradually becomes a different species, by way of evolutionary pressures (e.g. changing environments, etc.)
Science (currently) has no solid way of testing theories about how non-life becomes life, and therefore there are no firm theories, simply hypotheses unsupported by facts. That's not to say that these hypotheses were all pulled out of asses... But until we have a way to reproducibly test a hypothesis, it is not promoted to a theory, which is another way of saying "an idea which serves as a useful model for explaining observable facts."
Repeat: The Theory Of Evolution does not address the Origin Of Life. God-ists can keep their pet ideas about how the universe and life were created -- for now safely unchallenged by evil Science.
I saw it last night. I'll admit that I didn't read the novel when it was trendy to do so... Never really got into the whole comics thing. Not that I look down on them -- I just chose to escape into non-graphic media (i.e. as much sci-fi as the local library had) during my formative years.
However, I did make a point of buying and reading the novel before I saw the film. Loved the novel. Inhaled it in one sitting because I just happened to be too sick to deal with normal weekend responsibilities.
As others have said, 90% of the film is pure fan service, and likely incomprehensible to someone who didn't read the novel. I'm not complaining, in fact I was awe-struck at how well the director managed to retain the core themes, art design, and overall feeling of the story. I can see, though, why the film won't do well in the end.
It wasn't made for your average "Superhero" movie-goer. The whole point of the story wasn't to set up a superhero franchise. There won't be a Watchmen IV in 10 years. It was an exploration of the characters themselves, and in that respect has more in relation to a biographical drama than a blockbuster action flick. In other words, snooze-fest for most.
Yes, there was a lot of nudity and some sex. To be honest, though, I barely noticed it. I guess having already read the novel, I just wasn't surprised to see a giant blue dong onscreen every once in a while. Nudity doesn't much bother me anyhow. As a well-adjusted adult, I can separate nudity from sexuality. The actual sex scenes were necessary, although a little gratuitous (at least the second one was). The violence was also necessary, as it served to set the tone.
Neutering the adult content would certainly have made the film more accessible in the sense that it could have gotten a PG-13 rating, but it would have made even less sense and alienated its true target audience even more.
I was disappointed with the ending, but as others have pointed out, the director probably did the best he could, given the limitations of the format. Establishing the backstory necessary to make the novel's ending work would have made the film at least half an hour longer, and even then it probably would have seemed ridiculous.
In the end, I don't think that anyone on the creative side ever really expected it to be a blockbuster. On the financing side, sure... They always do. I suspect that the folks on the creative side were surprised that they got the money to do it, and just jumped at the opportunity. I'm glad that they managed to avoid watering it down too much. And I will be shocked if we ever see something like this get that kind of budget again. :)
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard is that if they ask you if you know a certain technology or language, to always say yes.
You should qualify who you mean by "they"... If by "they" you mean the HR drone who's playing buzzword bingo during a pre-screen, sure that might fly.
If you're in a technical interview and say you know something that you don't, expect to be humiliated by an even halfway-competent interviewer.
I've been on both sides, and honesty is always the best policy in a technical interview.
The single biggest annoyance for me is the lack of a way to search my email. I use IMAP and have server-side filtering into folders, but I still need to search for stuff every once in a while.
I've worked around it by creating special folders like "Travel" so that I can quickly find itineraries and crap when I'm on the road, but that's kind of retarded. I'd much rather search for e.g. AXIOM in the sender field.
Oh, well.
If you really listen to what Dawkins is saying, his problem isn't so much with what people choose to believe, in and of itself. It's that human nature steers us toward allowing what we believe to shape our thinking. Scientists are trained to look at evidence as "purely" as possible, with a minimum of personal beliefs and preconceptions. Doesn't always happen that way, exactly, but that's the ideal.
The problem with religion, in general, is that it tends to shape peoples' perceptions to disregard evidence which is incompatible with the religion. Reasoning is discarded in favor of foregone conclusions, e.g. "Why is the Sun yellow? God made it that way. End of story." This is the opposite of scientific thinking, and it's anti-progress. Some religions do better than others at dealing with questions, but in the end, you can only go so far before the answer becomes "$DIETY did it."
As Dawkins himself has stated, we can't prove whether $DIETY did or didn't do whatever the question was. In the end, it's irrelevant. $DIETY is unnecessary. Perhaps there was some "higher power" who created our universe, but logically it does not make sense that $DIETY cares about whether or not I follow some arbitrary set of rules for how I live my life, whom I love, or whether or not I believe in him/her/it.
This is the core of Dawkins' position. His aspersions cast toward religious adherents are based in frustration about their willful ignorance. I tend to share his viewpoints, if you hadn't guessed that already.
People don't like to be told that they're willfully ignorant, and so he's portrayed as an incendiary jerk.
Maybe that's so, but I don't know how you can be sure. Granted, Microsoft has made some bad decisions, but I'm pretty sure they are "trying to make money on their proprietary code" and it's working. In fact tons of software companies make money on closed source. Or you do you mean selling the actual code and not the finished product?
Listen, I'm not saying that OSS will completely kill proprietary software. What I am saying is that it has and will continue to destabilize existing markets, while it creates and enables new ones.
For some specific niches, closed-source software can provide a competitive advantage, at least in the short term. But in many cases, software is just a loss-leader for other stuff like hardware, services or proprietary data sets. It just doesn't make sense to pay a whole staff of developers to reinvent an Open Source wheel.
In the case of Microsoft, I think that times are going to be tough over the next few years. They've got a huge pile of cash to ease the pain, though. I think a lot of that has more to do with the shift toward lightweight computing and cloud services, though.
So where's the drop-in replacement for Photoshop? Sure some may be able to get by using GIMP but if you're a pro photographer who does print media then GIMP does not cut it.
This is kind of missing the point... There have been other replies that echoed what you just stated. Sure, there are some things that the GIMP doesn't do that Photoshop does. Just as there are some things that Oracle does that MySQL/PostgreSQL don't, etc. etc.
The fact is, though, that the Open Source options in these markets are undoubtedly hurting the proprietary vendors. More so in some cases than others. Do I think that MySQL is going to kill Oracle? No, but I do think that MySQL has cut into Larry Ellison's jetfighter budget more than a little.
When I started my career back in the 90s, the first startup I worked at had Oracle running on Solaris. This was for some random web crap running Perl. We paid for those -- they weren't pirated. We even paid for Oracle support a few times. These days, wasting capital on that stuff would be crazy.
When I say that Open Source is eating the proprietary vendors' lunch, I mean that the OSS alternatives are pushing them into tighter verticals and demolishing the low-middle sections of those markets. One could argue that the people in those sections would have pirated anyway, and that's true to some extent.
One doesn't have to look much further than Sun to see how OSS has demolished a once-mighty giant. (Open)Solaris is technically superior to Linux, but it's been continually marginalized to specific market verticals (financials and data warehousing with Oracle, mostly).
... decided if I'm going to put the tyme and effort into programming my own software it may be worthwhile to sell what I come up with to others.
As a service or as binaries? Just worth pointing out that you don't have to give away your source code if you're not distributing anything. A common misconception about the GPL is that it somehow compels developers who incorporate any GPL-licensed code into always giving away their code. The only time that comes into play is when you distribute the code. The primary goal of the GPL is to enable the end-users, if they choose to be enabled (e.g. modifying behavior, fixing bugs, security audits, etc.)
Right, but then everybody gets your improvements. Where's the competition in that?
With BSD you get a solid base for your product and it's not infected with the GPL.
This old clinker again... Closed-source competition is so 1980s.
Software is a commodity. Any intelligent company now is not trying to make money on their proprietary code. They're making money on hardware to run their code, or services to support their code, or data to feed their code.
Sure, for certain niche markets, closed source can give a company a competitive advantage for a while... But if the market is "hot" enough, Open Source will eventually be there to eat its lunch. This has been happening over and over again for the past two decades. Were you asleep?
Let me ask you this: Have you ever written code and released it to the public? Was it used? I have. As a developer making contributions to public projects, I am much more inclined to contribute under the GPL than other licenses. Most of the world feels the same, hence the popularity of the GPL (and similar "viral" licenses) over the BSD-style licenses.
Yes, but maybe that is not "over-investigating". Maybe that is deliberately trying to make more money by being dishonest.
I understand that folks are cynical. People tend to be particularly cynical about professionals (lawyers, doctors, mechanics, etc.) because their deep domain knowledge is hard for outsiders to attain, but anyone can learn just enough to be dangerous or at least play armchair expert.
The fact is, there are jerks in any field, but as another poster has said, most people are honest. The media likes a good story, though, and we like to hear those good stories. No one wants to hear about the thousands of doctors who do their jobs properly. Everyone wants to hear about the evil doctor who padded his bills or the accountant who skimmed his clients' accounts.
With regard to doctors, how do you think that an ER doc is going to make more money by ordering a CT? They're paid a salary. They don't get commissions on number of CTs ordered. The reality is that most imaging services are run by organizations external to the hospital. The equipment may be on-site, but many hospitals these days work with radiology practices rather than having their own on-staff radiologists. I'm sure the hospital does make some money on it, but I'd be willing to bet the cost of a CT that the doc was just covering his ass. Malpractice insurance is expensive, and it gets more expensive if you're sued (even if you don't lose).
We haven't started having kids yet,
... Obviously.
but when we do I'm tempted to NOT have all of those things.
... Yeah. That will last a long time, I'm sure.
My parents had road trips when they were kids without all of this tech, and we did without as kids, too. Why should my kids get to not enjoy the boredom and conversation?
As others have pointed out... They and we made do because we HAD to.
After you've been on a few 8-hour drives with a 3yo, come back and let us know how that "conversation" is working out for you. :)
I wonder what the PIN Number was that they all used in those ATM Machines. Maybe they used a custom PCB Board to prototype the hack. Then they downloaded the plans onto a CD Disc. I'll bet they literally died after they got away with all the cash.
Anyways, I could care less.
2) Action scenes that can really happen. Let's see the fight scene where it takes a whole bunch of punches to really hurt someone, and guess what? They still generally don't get knocked out.
FWIW, the Jason Bourne movies have reasonably realistic fight sequences. There are definitely some over-the-top elements, but if you're willing to believe that the guy is a world-class covert operator, they're not too bad. I'm a fan of the close-in, brutal, useful(!) styles like Krav Maga and Kenpo, though. Perhaps I'm more forgiving because I'm just happy to see these types of styles used instead of the typical "movie martial arts" crap.
A lot of the other action is ... not so realistic. But fun, nonetheless. I thought so, anyhow. :)
I say to be truly objective, teach evolution's strengths and weaknesses and put ID in the curriculum (strengths and weaknesses) too.
Sure, in a philosophy class. ID has no place in a science class. It's not science. In order for a theory to be scientifically useful, it has to be falsifiable.
Even if one ignores the fact that ID is just Creationism dressed in a lab coat, and focuses on the "science" of the idea, it quickly becomes apparent that ID is not a useful theory when it comes to explaining the facts of evolution. We can't falsify it, which is to say that we cannot conceivably find a set of facts which show ID to be false.
Natural Selection, on the other hand, could be falsified if a set of facts regarding evolution were to show that the predictions made by the theory did not occur. It's quite simple, really. Science relies on this process of observation, hypothesis, and testing constantly. Unlike religion, there is no true dogma. All scientific theories are in danger of being falsified and thrown out, if facts are found which truly contradict the predictions of the theory.
ID, on the other hand, ultimately boils down to "a supernatural event occurred." We can dance around what that event was, exactly, though we all know that the approved answer is "God did it." We can't test this, however. We will never be able to find facts which either support or falsify the theory. One may believe in something, personally, but this is not the same as finding a fact via scientific testing of a theory.
Surely you must see that ID has no place in a science classroom... Are you comfortable with teaching ALL ideas about how things came to be, or just your brand of bedtime story?
You don't have kids of your own yet, do you?
What I would have said to your son is the following:
"Son, I asked you to take it easy on me since bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah. Bwah bwah, bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah. Bwah, bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah! Bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah, bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah bwah. Bwah bwah bwah bwah, bwah bwah bwah bwah.
Fixed it for you.
As you no doubt know, that wasn't my point... as far as I know, there has not been any observed macro-evolution, thus the debate is less observation and more philosophy. And then, of course, we start arguing about what defines "micro" and "macro," what defines a "species," etc...
Have you seen an electron with your own eyes? No? And yet, I'll bet you would accept an explanation of electrical theory (especially if you were going to make a job out of it and your life depended on it)...
Where did that theory of electricity come from? Did it spring, fully-formed from the head of some scientist, who presented it to the Science Cabal to be accepted as holy writ?
Or maybe, it was built up over time, based on numerous observations by multiple people. My point, though, is that even though no one has seen an electron with their own eyes, it is accepted as fact that they exist with a certain set of characteristics. Why? Because it fits with the theory, and no one has found compelling evidence to the contrary.
Now, for Evolution, the original big idea came from Darwin (though I'm sure he must have been influenced by prior work) that species, isolated geographically, tend to diverge over time, creating new species. The mechanism by which this speciation seems to occur is called natural selection.
Darwin gets the credit for the whole idea, but the reality is that many people working over time have refined, and modified it. More importantly, many people have confirmed that the theory is the best explanation for what they are observing. No one has come up with a better explanation using the scientific method.
So, finally, to address your point that no one has observed "macro" evolution... This is silly. It is happening all around us, constantly. The fact that you don't live long enough to see it in anything other than bacteria is not a flaw in the theory, it's a flaw in your lifespan.
I very much beg to differ there. If you think scientific "proof" doesn't include, at the very least, some amount of belief, I think you are very wrong. For example - if this or that was proven in science, makes it into a science book, and is proven wrong later... what would you call it? Was it proven? 100% sure? It was wrong, so it apparently wasn't actually 100% sure.
You seem to be living up to your handle. Others have tried, and failed. I figure, I'm bored, waiting for some code to compile, so I'll take a whack at the pinata!
As someone else eloquently explained, scientific theories can never be proven, only disproven.
Note that there are some very specific meanings to these words, in the context of science (which has roots in philosophy). Most people hear about proof for a theory and assume that the theory is being presented as 100% incontrovertible fact. And then these people (yourself included, apparently) crow about the hypocrisy of science and the shams being perpetuated when a theory is disproven. In other words, the thinking seems to be "Well, Theory A was PROVEN last year, and now it's been DISPROVEN! Science is a lie! All theories are equally valid, including my wild idea about how to travel through time/dinosaurs coexisted with humans/noah's ark existed/etc!"
Let's break it down (again):
1. Observe some phenomenon
2. Hypothesize something about said phenomenon
3. Search for evidence which supports/disproves hypothesis
If the body of evidence found (via research) supports the hypothesis and doesn't kill it, then voila, you have your own personal theory. Now go and publish your paper for peer review, which works like:
4. Publish paper with hypothesis + supporting evidence
5. Watch as your scientific peers attempt to eviscerate your theory and prove it wrong, stupid, and otherwise useless as a contribution to the pool of human knowledge
If no one can find evidence to disprove your theory, then congratulations, you have your own theory (hopefully named after you, or something catchy, anyhow). Maybe you'll get a Nobel, or a nice lab somewhere with go-fers, or at least a nice bonus.
Your theory will be used as fact until something comes up to question its usefulness as an explanation for whatever phenomenon was the starting point of this magical journey. Why? Because at some point you have to stop asking so many damn questions and just (logically) assume some things for the sake of argument. Until we build the Omni-Mind 8000 which interfaces with the quantum brane junction and knows everything, we'll just have to deal with the human mind and all its limitations. Having a body of educated guesses about why things do what they do allows folks to get some damn work done without having to build up a whole freaking theory of everything whenever they want to do something.
Now you just have to hope that some aspiring grad student a few years down the road doesn't revisit your theory and blow it all to hell with better equipment that finds inconsistencies with your theory.
As has been pointed out by others, this most certainly does imply that everything we know via the scientific method could be wrong! The thing is, though, that theories which stand the test of time (e.g. Evolution) do so because they are consistent with what we can observe. To date, no one has found credible evidence to support an alternate explanation for the origin of species. If you can cook something up, find evidence for it, and, most importantly, it survives the gauntlet of people looking for any logical reason to kill it, then more power to you!
Get it? It's not a religion. It's not an arbitrary belief system. It's not the same as whatever you go to church for. It is a process which we as a species have reached common consensus on as the best way to advance human knowledge.
Certainly there are those who try
Quick hint: it's perfectly possible to believe both in God and in the Big-Bang - they're not at all mutually exclusive as long as you look at the bible as a book full of allegories instead of trying to believe that the English translation is literally the word of Jesus.
The problem is that for many religious folks, a black-and-white-but-only-if-i-ignore-contradictions belief is easier. Your proposal (which is typical of Catholics, I think) requires a much more nuanced and thoughtful approach to belief. Also, Catholicism has a whole class of people who come up with ways to make faith more palatable to the masses (just believe what the priest tells you to believe, don't think about it too much yourself, you haven't studied scripture the way we have, etc.)... Whereas I think that the evangelical brands of Christianity tend to take a more individualistic, my-way-or-the-highway (to hell) approach.
Personally, I grew up in a deeply fundamentalist (read: batshit crazy) church -- the same flavor as Sarah Palin's church, incidentally. Anyhow, as I developed into a young adult and started thinking for myself, I started seeing more and more inconsistencies.
At some point, after having been to college and learning a lot more about anthropology and other soft/hard sciences, I came to the conclusion that I had no more reason to adhere to the Judeo-Christian faith than any other particular belief system. They all became equally illogical and pointless, to me.
I suppose for people who weren't exposed to such a caustic brand of belief, faith can just be something familiar and comforting. Unfortunately, there are always those who take things too far.
Who's gonna hire you if you're the kind of person who did phone support?
Working the phones is often a foot-in-the-door kind of job. There's no shame in starting on the phones... If you're still there after 10 years, though, that's kinda bad.
I started on helpdesk in college, then worked the phones at another job, then worked my way into a junior sysad role at the same company. Left that job, worked as sysad/web monkey, then moved into senior sysad roles, leading teams of other sysads.
In my last role as the tech guy in a small biz partnership, I hired my successor off of the phones at another company. He'd just finished college, and I could tell that he was bright and ambitious. I knew he was bright because he did well in the technical interview, and I knew he was ambitious because he'd found ways to challenge himself on and off the job (which isn't easy to do in big callcenters).
In short, if you're going to skip the diploma (or even if you do get one), be prepared to put some time in the trenches in order to demonstrate your worth. The people who do hiring are most interested in seeing what you've done, not what you say you can do.
And when it inevitably dies (because, let's face it, you'll go through two+ every three years), you have to call the manufacturer and beg to have it fixed.
I've had my 360 Elite for 2-ish years now. No problems with it. Maybe it continues to work OK because, I dunno, I'm not retarded and don't keep it in a poorly-ventilated AV box or down on the carpet/floor to fill with dust bunnies?
Not saying that people haven't had problems with 360s in the past... Those were well-published. Most 360 owners (and PS3 I guess) are fine, though.
I got off the gaming PC treadmill 3-4 years ago and haven't looked back. My computers are for work, and the consoles are for play. Easy.
Google "Pavel Tsatsouline" or just go to dragondoor.com. The Russians have known about stuff like this for decades. If you're looking to lose the nerd physique like I did, pickup some kettlebells from the site. Mine are worth their weight in gold.
Seconding this notion... The dragondoor site looks awfully like something you'd see advertised late at night or in the back of cut-rate magazines.
The exercise is incredible, though. You won't look like a booby-builder, but you'll be STRONG. No more back problems. No more knee problems. Just strong strong strong. Like, worked on a farm all your life strong.
I have two 16kg bells and a 24kg bell. The big boy is 53lb of evil fun. I like to flip it up and catch it over my shoulder. Try doing that if all you ever do is machine training. :)
Posting anonymously (over an SSH proxy too) so Labour can't see what I'll be voting for in the next election and try to change my mind or the result (again).
Whoops!