Uh... What? No, junior, you're not old for a gamer. Computer games have been around since the 60s.
Popular computer games have been around since the late 70s. REALLY popular games have been around since the 80s. Ever hear of Atari? Colecovision? C=64? Amiga? etc. etc.
One big mistake that a lot of people make is in assuming that they should wait around until someone tells them what to do.
Look for things that need to be done, and do them. This could be Open Source projects (I personally know lots of folks who have gotten started on successful careers this way), or just finding stuff to do at your current employer.
You work in QA? Figure out ways to automate things, improve test harnesses, data collection, etc. etc. How deeply do you understand the product(s) you're testing? Do you just read docs and test plans? Read the code, too! Understand what's really going on. You can learn almost as much (probably more, at first) from reading others' code as you can writing your own.
Alternatively, you could just bluff your way into a junior development position and sink or swim. That's probably a bit higher stress, and you run the risk of peeing in your own Cheerios if you are in a small community.
In any case, just do it. Also, do it while you're young and single. That's the time to be ambitious and driven. It's a lot easier to put in 16-hour days learning your craft when you don't have to worry about anyone else's needs.
I agree with this sentiment. There's no sport in making fun of people with mental illness. It's at the same level as mocking a kid with Downs' syndrome who can't do calculus. These people who write these crazy emails? They're not having a gag, they have something busted in their head. They honestly believe their bizarre nonsense, and it causes them (and those around them) a lot of anguish.
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What's worst is that often these folks with schizophrenia started off as highly intelligent people. Schizophrenia usually starts showing itself between ages 18-24 for males. Just as they are starting to show promise in college, for example, they start to worry about strange things and act bizarrely. It goes downhill quickly from there. Why do you think most "street people" are gibbering fools? Most of them are schizophrenic to varying degrees. The illness makes it impossible for the sufferer to function in society. How can you go to work every day when you believe that there is a gang waiting for an opportunity to murder you? There is no reasoning these beliefs away. Schizophrenia is a biological condition, just like diabetes or multiple sclerosis. You can't just sit someone down and explain to them that their firmly-held beliefs don't make sense.
. For their parents and friends, it is painful to watch the person they loved become a hollow shell of their former self. For true, hard-core schizophrenia, there is no cure. There is medication that can alleviate some of the symptoms, but it comes with harsh side-effects (weight gain, uncontrollable tremors, etc.) In many cases, the medication buys the sufferer just enough insight to realize the awful truth that they are literally losing their mind. Suicide is common.
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Think about that, next time you're giggling about one of these emails.
The "Immaculate Conception" is a Catholic concept which claims that Mary was born without sin. It is not a universally accepted Christian teaching by any stretch of the imagination.
You may want to tone down the arrogance in the future, you aren't helping your case.
You're right. I used the wrong term for the virgin birth story, where God got some virgin (who may or may not have been born without sin) pregnant with His own Son, who is also Himself, and He did it so that His own Son could be killed and resurrected and believethed in and give us all everlasting life. There goes the rest of my argument!
You know what? I don't know all the finer points of Scientology or Islam, or Hinduism, or Sikhism either. Does that change my argument that they're all based in arbitrary, inconsistent belief systems? No, it doesn't.
As for my arrogance... How am I being arrogant, exactly? Am I arrogant because I pointed out that Christian mythology has borrowed heavily from other, earlier mythologies? Or is it because I suggest that clinging to a fixed belief system is irrational? Or what?
But the fact of the matter is that you and people like you are trying to change the country to fit your view of what it should be, and it's different than it was in the past, and it's not as good for religious people and their families as what you're trying to do.
You seem to be claiming that I am (and others like me are) somehow trying to take religion away from others. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but I will say that my motivation is not to kill religion.
I do not, repeat DO NOT care what people believe, privately. My next-door neighbors, who are very nice people with whom we often socialize, believe in smudging and dowsing and charm trinkets to ward away "bad karma." I think that stuff's silly, but as long as they don't propose that it should be taught in public schools, I don't care.
Would it be OK for them to set up a business that operated by spreading their ideas, encouraging people to pay a voluntary "weekly membership fee", and getting a tax-exempt status from the government? No, of course it wouldn't. But how is that any different than churches? The only difference is that some arbitrary belief systems have been around longer than others.
Getting back to your suggestion that I'm somehow being hypocritical by ignoring the fact that "billions of people share a belief in God"... I don't have a problem with it. You are begging the question of which God, but that's OK, it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Can I prove that I'm right? Of course not. I don't need to, though, because I'm not evangelizing. I don't care whether or not anyone else chooses to disbelieve based on what I've said. All I care about is whether or not those who do believe can impose their belief system on me and my children.
If religion stayed at home and in the church, concessions could be made and a lot of the hostilities would cease.
To someone whose personal faith rules out the possibility of God then there can be no rational explanation for God. However, my belief in God does in fact rest on a wide variety of evidence. Read the books. Some of them make some good points.
In fact, my personal "faith" (oh how religious apologists love that logical diversion) does not rule out the possibility of God. I do not profess to have proof against the existence of God. Nor do I claim to "know" in my heart of hearts that there is no God.
I am an atheist in the sense that I am a-theist. I am without a belief in a higher power. I don't need it in order to love and be loved. I don't need it in order to get up every morning, appreciate my wife and children, and go to work every day. Belief in a higher power is unnecessary and irrelevant to me.
I simply reject the premise that I must live my current life in a certain way in order to have any chance at some kind of afterlife. I don't believe in an afterlife, because I see no proof of an afterlife. Since I don't believe in an afterlife, I have no reason to jump through a particular set of hoops designed to get me into a given afterlife.
In the end, isn't that what all religions boil down to? Yes, there are arguments to be made about doing good while on Earth etc. etc. But really, it's carrot and stick. Believe (and tithe, and spread the meme), and live eternally in God's grace and mercy. Doubt, and go to Hell (or whatever the PC term for not going to Heaven is these days).
Can you rationalize the "correctness" of your particular brand of Carrot & Stick, without resorting to tautologies? No, you can't. You believe what you want to believe, and you find evidence for your belief system, because that's what the human mind excels at. Evidence which conflicts with your belief system is discarded.
But the idea that some random woman was impregnated by an unseen, all-powerful deity (hello, Greek mythology anyone?), and that the offspring of this union is somehow his own father and who sent himself to be sacrificed as part of some scheme to absolve us all of original sin makes sense?
No, that makes no sense to me either, but then I'm a Christian; that's not what Christians believe.
Oh, no? Please inform me as to what aspect of the Immaculate Conception I've misunderstood. I guess 10 years in private Christian schools wasn't enough to get the "correct" version of the dogma through my thick skull.
If that's not fundamentalism, I don't know what is. That is just a quick example. If I cared to, I could find more supporting evidence. Are you seriously claiming that politics in the US are not strongly influenced by fundamentalist Christian beliefs?
You might have missed it, but there was a monumental court case heard as recently as 2005. The crux of the case was whether or not a creationist-based explanation for life as we know it could be taught in public school science classes as an alternative to the theory of evolution. In 2005!
Fundamentalists are a minority? Maybe, but they're frighteningly influential. If they'd keep their nonsense out of my tax-funded schools, I wouldn't be so "militant." Yes, I'm threatened by them. I fear for my child's future as a free-thinking individual in this "one nation under God."
I'm afraid you lost me right there. You are setting up a dichotomy between "real scientists" and "dogmatic religionists" as if there were no other category.
Typical. I'll make it simple for you. There really is a dichotomy between those of us who use logic and reason to shape our thinking, and those of you who pick and choose the bits of science which don't conflict with your faith.
You say you are a "scientist by training", but that you believe in the Bible as the infallible Word of God. I'll skip the tired old arguments about internal Biblical contradictions and just ask this: Why is it that your personal faith is the correct faith? Have you studied religions other than your own? All your rationalizations about WHY you believe what you believe ultimately boil down to personal faith. It feels right to you.
You believe what you want to believe, and I have to respect that. What I don't have to respect is an opinion that a faith-based explanation for anything is as equally valid as a scientific-based explanation. That's nonsense.
I find it interesting and illuminating that you chose not to respond to the rest of my post. I'm sure you shrug off those alternative creation stories as rubbish, not fit for consideration.... But the idea that some random woman was impregnated by an unseen, all-powerful deity (hello, Greek mythology anyone?), and that the offspring of this union is somehow his own father and who sent himself to be sacrificed as part of some scheme to absolve us all of original sin makes sense?
Sigh. There's no reaching folks like you. You lack insight, and you are willfully ignorant. A very close friend of mine works as a medical doctor in a locked-ward psychiatric hospital. As she puts it, "The ones who say they're crazy really aren't. Usually they're there to get drugs or get a break from the street. It's the ones who insist that they've got a gold orb in their head to receive transmissions from the Freemasons (actual example) who really need help."
Plenty of other people think that science is compatible with religion and spirituality because they address different concerns.
I'm not sure who these "plenty of other people" are, exactly, but I suspect they're not real scientists if they're comfortable with allowing dogmatic religion to coexist alongside science.
For many folks, religion is a nice story about what happens when we die. And some stuff about not being assholes to each other while we're alive. That's not incompatible with science.
The problem comes in when religious nutbars (a certain vice-presidential candidate comes to mind) push an agenda that is hostile to scientific evidence which contradicts their worldview. And those people have become an increasingly vocal presence in US politics.
Please don't forget that it was only 3 years ago, in 2005, that we had serious Federal (!!) court proceedings to decide whether or not a creationist worldview could be taught alongside scientific theory as an equivalently valid explanation for the existence of life as we know it.
That is scary, scary stuff. Maybe not scary if you believe in that crap, but imagine if a court had ruled that ALL creation "theories" had to be taught alongside evolution. Are you comfortable with the idea of your children being taught that the world came from fragments of a proto-god's egg? Or that we are effectively a supernatural wet spot after an orgy among creator gods? I could go on for a while, or even make up shit on my own. Where do you draw the line?
The bottom line is that science and religion are compatible in the same sense that science and literature are compatible. If we all agreed on that, the world would be a much less crazy place.
Because for the most parts Atheists are not organized and a minority they haven't had the chance to organize into a violent group. However it they were organized and rather high they could get violent. Except fighting for God, they will just use a different call. Fight for Reason or Fight for Science, Fight for Darwin... It really doesn't matter people of any group are all messed up.
Personally, I am somewhere in the middle of Group one and Group two. I would be more firmly in the camp of Group two (i.e. live and let live), except that here in the US, anyhow, the other side is insistent in forcing their worldview on me. And so I feel that I must return the favor.
What irritates the piss out of me about fundamentalists is that they pick and choose the bits of science that fit their small-minded view of reality. If their appendix is infected and about to burst, they'll happily accept the intervention of modern medicine which is based on... biology, which is based on... science! Germ theory, sterilization, antibiotics, cauterization, etc. etc. None of that came from the Bible. They'll even use their computers (all that theory and math? based in logic...) to post on/. in defense of their belief system.
Science is a thinking system, rather than a belief system... Those of us who understand the scientific method use it as a malleable model for understanding our world. It's not set in stone, although much of what we use for models is based on previous work by many people. It's all based in logic and empirical observation.
Paradigm shifts do happen, but they're relatively rare. Because we know that current theories have been agreed upon by many smart people, we resist radical ideas that challenge the status quo. That's not to say that changes can't happen, though. New theories which last long enough to become paradigm shifters have survived the gauntlet of experts attempting to kill the idea. It's all about proof and rigorous logic.
Do I claim to know that there is no God? Of course not. I can't prove it, any more than I can prove that there isn't an invisible pink unicorn standing next to all of us. I don't need a god, though, any more than I need an invisible pink unicorn. It's functionally irrelevant. Do I claim to know how/why we're here? No, and anyone who claims to know is a liar or is misguided.
(Directed at any fervent believers who have read this far...)
Do I need to make something up in order to live my life every day? No. And neither do you.
Remember that for every one of your close-held beliefs about the supernatural, there are billions of folks out there who believe something entirely different. Think about that. Is everyone but you wrong? If your answer to that is "yes", then you need to grow up. We'll be waiting for you at the adults' table when you're ready.
Heh. I remember those movies. They showed them to 1st-graders at my (baptist) school. I'm positive of the timing, because I went to a different school after 1st grade.
Think about that. I wouldn't show that shit to seniors. Small wonder I'm so screwy, 25 years later.
Thinking freely for 10 years now. Bleah, sounds like I'm in recovery. Oh, wait, I am. Brainwashees Anonymous.
I stopped writing the stuff years ago because I realised that I was only making things worse. Perl encourages big ball of mud development. It's specifically designed as a "glue" language which lets you stick things together, in fact it's a sticking plaster language which allows you to paper over cracks which would be far better filled in another way.
Just another comment from a fellow old-head... I've come around to the same perspective. I've spent a good chunk of my career writing Perl, as a sysadmin (primarily), web monkey, and other stuff.
These days, I still use Perl, but in a very limited capacity. It's useful as a better awk/sed (when I need both sets of functionality and want to shorten a pipeline). It's sometimes useful for quicky hacks that are too complicated for shell (although this is rare). I've used it as a stand-in for netcat on remote systems that don't have nc.
For writing most tools, I use bash. In the end, I've found that it's faster, more maintainable, and more reliable to tie together well-written chunks of code (GNU userspace), than to try and do it all myself or use CPAN. For doing anything web-related, I use Rails. For stuff that's not a good fit for shell scripts, I use Ruby or Python.
Perl is like a really great swiss army knife, particularly when it comes to dealing with text. Like any swiss army knife, it's great in a pinch, but doesn't really hold up to serious use compared to tools that were designed for specific tasks.
I mean this in the nicest way possible... Please put up or shut up. You think the TSA/NSA/CIA/UnnamedTripleBlack reads/.? Maybe they do.
My point stands, however. There are a gazillion flaws in TSA's supposed security, and the fact is that they don't care. They KNOW that they're not really providing security. They don't care. Their job is to provide the appearance of security, because that's what Congress wants them to do.
Congress controls the purse strings, which means that if they make Congress look good, they get more money for more layers of bureaucracy, and the folks with interests in outside security companies get money for more high-tech security chicanery. And of course, if Congress looks good to the sheeple who elect them, they get to stay in office and avoid getting real jobs.
Do you really think that you've come up with something in your daydreaming that the "turr'ists" haven't? Anyone who really wanted to get around security could. The reason we haven't had another 9/11 isn't because of the TSA...
It's because it's difficult to herd cats, especially when you've got the entire intelligence apparatus of the US Gov't looking for the herds of cats who might try to blow something up. The 9/11 hijackers would be trivially easy to find now, in this age of PATRIOT and US-VISIT and substantially increased NSA/CIA budgets.
I agree with your sentiments and I recently discovered a security flaw and I fear that if it is ever known that the type of counter measures that would be required would make the current silliness pale in comparison.
What's your big discovery, einstein? I'll bet it's been discovered and posted a dozen times over on the TSA blog... Seriously, it's harder to find aspects of airport security that AREN'T flawed than it is to poke holes in this huge boondoggle that is The Security(Theatre) Administration.
Good luck driving to Germany (from the US). Or New England to California (or Colorado). Maybe you can go across the ocean by tramp steamer... Very romantic.
...like compulsory auto insurance subsidizes the auto insurance industry.
Boo Hoo. OK, how about this: Driving is restricted to those individuals who A. have auto insurance or B. have $100,000 in escrow to cover medical costs for the mother and children they plow into while fiddling with the radio.
There ya go... Now you can stick it to those stupid insurance companies like the rebel you are.
I won't provide any links, so I don't come off as shilling for any particular company. I happen to like the stuff that comes up in the top hits in Google, though.
I've been using kettlebells off and on for most of the last 5 years. The exercises seem kind of crazy, especially when compared to the typical gym machine or freeweight exercises, but they're effective.
Using kettlebells won't give you a bodybuilder (booby-builder) physique, but they will make you STRONG. Like, scary strong. Can you pick up your 50lb child with one arm and lift her over your head? I can (if she's wearing something strong enough, like a snow suit). You wouldn't know it to look at me, though. I'm not overly developed, but KB exercises strengthen core muscles (abs, obliques, back, shoulders, etc.) and force you to learn how to use all of your body to lift things.
The target audience for KBs is usually martial artists and other such folk. I'm your typical computer guy who values his finger dexterity way too much to get into that stuff. But I hated going to the gym, and push-ups weren't doing enough to keep the flab off. Plus, I've always suffered from chronic lower-back pain. My brother (who is into martial arts) introduced me to KBs, and I've been throwing them around ever since.
I'd better stop before this starts sounding too much like an info-mercial. I have no connection to the people selling this stuff, other than that I'm a very happy kettlebeller. Oh, one last thing. Unless you have someone to train with and learn from, make sure that you buy a book, and/or a video. The exercises are incredible, but they take time to learn, and you can hurt yourself if you don't learn proper form and technique. I've never injured myself, fwiw.
If you're American, it's a bit silly to argue with a Brit or really anyone in the Commonwealth about a specific word's usage, spelling, or pronunciation, since all can differ, but still be correct.
Interesting. Well, I'm happy to learn something new. In fact, it seems that the American usage of "deprecate" is a corruption... Hence my confusion about how the original latin meaning seemed to have been lost. That should have been a flag for me, but I've never encountered "self-depreciate" before.
I consider myself pretty well-read, and sensitive to the various cultural permutations of spellings and usages. However, I (incorrectly) assumed that the OP's use of "self-depreciate" was just an inadvertent malapropism, rather than a cultural artifact.
Even though I think it'd be nearly impossible for me to make the mental switch, "self-depreciate" certainly does seem to make a bit more sense, logically. Thanks for pointing that out.
Is there a "mis-informative" mod? Some looser [sic] added a redirection from "self-depreciation" to "self-deprecation". They're not the same word, damn it!
Just admit it... You screwed up. Irrespective of the fact that there is a redirection from "self-depreciation" to "self-deprecation" in wikipedia, they are not synonyms.
Deprecate: v, play down, belittle, disparage, etc.
Depreciate: v, to lower in estimation or esteem, to lower the price or value of, etc.
They are similar words. They both share the "de-" prefix, meaning "away, off, reverse, remove". After that, they have nothing in common, other than a similar spelling.
The etymology of deprecate comes from the latin de- precari, "to pray against", which somehow morphed into the current usage of "to belittle", or "to make obsolete".
The etymology of depreciate comes from the latin de- pretium, "lowered price".
Your insistence that wikipedia is authoritative on this somehow just makes you look even more silly. Especially on/., where amateur linguists and grammar nazis roam unfettered.:P
Any suggestions for a transition to management, which I'm not 100% keen on...
Don't do it unless you really WANT to do it. Don't do it unless you find it interesting, and know you'll excel. Otherwise you'll be mediocre and angsty.
I know I can do it, at least well enough that I've been pushed into it several times. I'm not ready to give up playing in the sandbox just yet, though. I've got 30+ years left in my career (unless I get some fuckyou money somehow) -- I didn't want to waste it by moving into management after only a decade.
The way I see it, unless you've got an MBA and/or are particularly adept at schmoozing, only the middle tiers of management are accessible. Those are the guys who get cleaned out in periodic purges. They're also the guys who call endless meetings to try and make themselves appear useful.
If you're not familiar with the Peter Principle, I suggest you read about it ASAP. One of the best pieces of advice I got was from my father-in-law, who told me that I need to fight being pushed to my level of incompetence at all costs. Find the level just below, and stay there.
That having been said, I think it's possible to raise one's level of incompetence via education (MBA, etc.), if that's the path you want to take. It's a difficult balancing act between pushing yourself to grow, and not growing too fast or past your ultimate capabilities.
Slashdot Mirror
There seems to be so much shit going on with the Internet these days that I am seriously going to get rid of it when I finish university!!!
<cluckin' bell chick>Goodbyyyyeee!</cluckin' bell chick>
I've had good luck with my local FBI office (Ann Arbor) when I received an interstate death threat.
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Do you get a lot of those?
I'm fairly old for a gamer at 26
Uh... What? No, junior, you're not old for a gamer. Computer games have been around since the 60s.
Popular computer games have been around since the late 70s. REALLY popular games have been around since the 80s. Ever hear of Atari? Colecovision? C=64? Amiga? etc. etc.
Sheesh. Now get off my lawn.
One big mistake that a lot of people make is in assuming that they should wait around until someone tells them what to do.
Look for things that need to be done, and do them. This could be Open Source projects (I personally know lots of folks who have gotten started on successful careers this way), or just finding stuff to do at your current employer.
You work in QA? Figure out ways to automate things, improve test harnesses, data collection, etc. etc. How deeply do you understand the product(s) you're testing? Do you just read docs and test plans? Read the code, too! Understand what's really going on. You can learn almost as much (probably more, at first) from reading others' code as you can writing your own.
Alternatively, you could just bluff your way into a junior development position and sink or swim. That's probably a bit higher stress, and you run the risk of peeing in your own Cheerios if you are in a small community.
In any case, just do it. Also, do it while you're young and single. That's the time to be ambitious and driven. It's a lot easier to put in 16-hour days learning your craft when you don't have to worry about anyone else's needs.
I agree with this sentiment. There's no sport in making fun of people with mental illness. It's at the same level as mocking a kid with Downs' syndrome who can't do calculus. These people who write these crazy emails? They're not having a gag, they have something busted in their head. They honestly believe their bizarre nonsense, and it causes them (and those around them) a lot of anguish.
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What's worst is that often these folks with schizophrenia started off as highly intelligent people. Schizophrenia usually starts showing itself between ages 18-24 for males. Just as they are starting to show promise in college, for example, they start to worry about strange things and act bizarrely. It goes downhill quickly from there. Why do you think most "street people" are gibbering fools? Most of them are schizophrenic to varying degrees. The illness makes it impossible for the sufferer to function in society. How can you go to work every day when you believe that there is a gang waiting for an opportunity to murder you? There is no reasoning these beliefs away. Schizophrenia is a biological condition, just like diabetes or multiple sclerosis. You can't just sit someone down and explain to them that their firmly-held beliefs don't make sense.
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For their parents and friends, it is painful to watch the person they loved become a hollow shell of their former self. For true, hard-core schizophrenia, there is no cure. There is medication that can alleviate some of the symptoms, but it comes with harsh side-effects (weight gain, uncontrollable tremors, etc.) In many cases, the medication buys the sufferer just enough insight to realize the awful truth that they are literally losing their mind. Suicide is common.
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Think about that, next time you're giggling about one of these emails.
The "Immaculate Conception" is a Catholic concept which claims that Mary was born without sin. It is not a universally accepted Christian teaching by any stretch of the imagination.
You may want to tone down the arrogance in the future, you aren't helping your case.
You're right. I used the wrong term for the virgin birth story, where God got some virgin (who may or may not have been born without sin) pregnant with His own Son, who is also Himself, and He did it so that His own Son could be killed and resurrected and believethed in and give us all everlasting life. There goes the rest of my argument!
You know what? I don't know all the finer points of Scientology or Islam, or Hinduism, or Sikhism either. Does that change my argument that they're all based in arbitrary, inconsistent belief systems? No, it doesn't.
As for my arrogance... How am I being arrogant, exactly? Am I arrogant because I pointed out that Christian mythology has borrowed heavily from other, earlier mythologies? Or is it because I suggest that clinging to a fixed belief system is irrational? Or what?
But the fact of the matter is that you and people like you are trying to change the country to fit your view of what it should be, and it's different than it was in the past, and it's not as good for religious people and their families as what you're trying to do.
You seem to be claiming that I am (and others like me are) somehow trying to take religion away from others. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but I will say that my motivation is not to kill religion.
I do not, repeat DO NOT care what people believe, privately. My next-door neighbors, who are very nice people with whom we often socialize, believe in smudging and dowsing and charm trinkets to ward away "bad karma." I think that stuff's silly, but as long as they don't propose that it should be taught in public schools, I don't care.
Would it be OK for them to set up a business that operated by spreading their ideas, encouraging people to pay a voluntary "weekly membership fee", and getting a tax-exempt status from the government? No, of course it wouldn't. But how is that any different than churches? The only difference is that some arbitrary belief systems have been around longer than others.
Getting back to your suggestion that I'm somehow being hypocritical by ignoring the fact that "billions of people share a belief in God"... I don't have a problem with it. You are begging the question of which God, but that's OK, it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Can I prove that I'm right? Of course not. I don't need to, though, because I'm not evangelizing. I don't care whether or not anyone else chooses to disbelieve based on what I've said. All I care about is whether or not those who do believe can impose their belief system on me and my children.
If religion stayed at home and in the church, concessions could be made and a lot of the hostilities would cease.
To someone whose personal faith rules out the possibility of God then there can be no rational explanation for God. However, my belief in God does in fact rest on a wide variety of evidence. Read the books. Some of them make some good points.
In fact, my personal "faith" (oh how religious apologists love that logical diversion) does not rule out the possibility of God. I do not profess to have proof against the existence of God. Nor do I claim to "know" in my heart of hearts that there is no God.
I am an atheist in the sense that I am a-theist. I am without a belief in a higher power. I don't need it in order to love and be loved. I don't need it in order to get up every morning, appreciate my wife and children, and go to work every day. Belief in a higher power is unnecessary and irrelevant to me.
I simply reject the premise that I must live my current life in a certain way in order to have any chance at some kind of afterlife. I don't believe in an afterlife, because I see no proof of an afterlife. Since I don't believe in an afterlife, I have no reason to jump through a particular set of hoops designed to get me into a given afterlife.
In the end, isn't that what all religions boil down to? Yes, there are arguments to be made about doing good while on Earth etc. etc. But really, it's carrot and stick. Believe (and tithe, and spread the meme), and live eternally in God's grace and mercy. Doubt, and go to Hell (or whatever the PC term for not going to Heaven is these days).
Can you rationalize the "correctness" of your particular brand of Carrot & Stick, without resorting to tautologies? No, you can't. You believe what you want to believe, and you find evidence for your belief system, because that's what the human mind excels at. Evidence which conflicts with your belief system is discarded.
No, that makes no sense to me either, but then I'm a Christian; that's not what Christians believe.
Oh, no? Please inform me as to what aspect of the Immaculate Conception I've misunderstood. I guess 10 years in private Christian schools wasn't enough to get the "correct" version of the dogma through my thick skull.
Fundamentalists are actually a minority. They are just a very vocal minority.
Gallup Poll: Almost half of Americans believe God created humans 10,000 years ago
If that's not fundamentalism, I don't know what is. That is just a quick example. If I cared to, I could find more supporting evidence. Are you seriously claiming that politics in the US are not strongly influenced by fundamentalist Christian beliefs?
You might have missed it, but there was a monumental court case heard as recently as 2005. The crux of the case was whether or not a creationist-based explanation for life as we know it could be taught in public school science classes as an alternative to the theory of evolution. In 2005!
Fundamentalists are a minority? Maybe, but they're frighteningly influential. If they'd keep their nonsense out of my tax-funded schools, I wouldn't be so "militant." Yes, I'm threatened by them. I fear for my child's future as a free-thinking individual in this "one nation under God."
I'm afraid you lost me right there. You are setting up a dichotomy between "real scientists" and "dogmatic religionists" as if there were no other category.
Typical. I'll make it simple for you. There really is a dichotomy between those of us who use logic and reason to shape our thinking, and those of you who pick and choose the bits of science which don't conflict with your faith.
You say you are a "scientist by training", but that you believe in the Bible as the infallible Word of God. I'll skip the tired old arguments about internal Biblical contradictions and just ask this: Why is it that your personal faith is the correct faith? Have you studied religions other than your own? All your rationalizations about WHY you believe what you believe ultimately boil down to personal faith. It feels right to you.
You believe what you want to believe, and I have to respect that. What I don't have to respect is an opinion that a faith-based explanation for anything is as equally valid as a scientific-based explanation. That's nonsense.
I find it interesting and illuminating that you chose not to respond to the rest of my post. I'm sure you shrug off those alternative creation stories as rubbish, not fit for consideration. ... But the idea that some random woman was impregnated by an unseen, all-powerful deity (hello, Greek mythology anyone?), and that the offspring of this union is somehow his own father and who sent himself to be sacrificed as part of some scheme to absolve us all of original sin makes sense?
Sigh. There's no reaching folks like you. You lack insight, and you are willfully ignorant. A very close friend of mine works as a medical doctor in a locked-ward psychiatric hospital. As she puts it, "The ones who say they're crazy really aren't. Usually they're there to get drugs or get a break from the street. It's the ones who insist that they've got a gold orb in their head to receive transmissions from the Freemasons (actual example) who really need help."
Plenty of other people think that science is compatible with religion and spirituality because they address different concerns.
I'm not sure who these "plenty of other people" are, exactly, but I suspect they're not real scientists if they're comfortable with allowing dogmatic religion to coexist alongside science.
For many folks, religion is a nice story about what happens when we die. And some stuff about not being assholes to each other while we're alive. That's not incompatible with science.
The problem comes in when religious nutbars (a certain vice-presidential candidate comes to mind) push an agenda that is hostile to scientific evidence which contradicts their worldview. And those people have become an increasingly vocal presence in US politics.
Please don't forget that it was only 3 years ago, in 2005, that we had serious Federal (!!) court proceedings to decide whether or not a creationist worldview could be taught alongside scientific theory as an equivalently valid explanation for the existence of life as we know it.
That is scary, scary stuff. Maybe not scary if you believe in that crap, but imagine if a court had ruled that ALL creation "theories" had to be taught alongside evolution. Are you comfortable with the idea of your children being taught that the world came from fragments of a proto-god's egg? Or that we are effectively a supernatural wet spot after an orgy among creator gods? I could go on for a while, or even make up shit on my own. Where do you draw the line?
The bottom line is that science and religion are compatible in the same sense that science and literature are compatible. If we all agreed on that, the world would be a much less crazy place.
Because for the most parts Atheists are not organized and a minority they haven't had the chance to organize into a violent group. However it they were organized and rather high they could get violent. Except fighting for God, they will just use a different call. Fight for Reason or Fight for Science, Fight for Darwin... It really doesn't matter people of any group are all messed up.
Personally, I am somewhere in the middle of Group one and Group two. I would be more firmly in the camp of Group two (i.e. live and let live), except that here in the US, anyhow, the other side is insistent in forcing their worldview on me. And so I feel that I must return the favor.
What irritates the piss out of me about fundamentalists is that they pick and choose the bits of science that fit their small-minded view of reality. If their appendix is infected and about to burst, they'll happily accept the intervention of modern medicine which is based on ... biology, which is based on ... science! Germ theory, sterilization, antibiotics, cauterization, etc. etc. None of that came from the Bible. They'll even use their computers (all that theory and math? based in logic...) to post on /. in defense of their belief system.
Science is a thinking system, rather than a belief system... Those of us who understand the scientific method use it as a malleable model for understanding our world. It's not set in stone, although much of what we use for models is based on previous work by many people. It's all based in logic and empirical observation.
Paradigm shifts do happen, but they're relatively rare. Because we know that current theories have been agreed upon by many smart people, we resist radical ideas that challenge the status quo. That's not to say that changes can't happen, though. New theories which last long enough to become paradigm shifters have survived the gauntlet of experts attempting to kill the idea. It's all about proof and rigorous logic.
Do I claim to know that there is no God? Of course not. I can't prove it, any more than I can prove that there isn't an invisible pink unicorn standing next to all of us. I don't need a god, though, any more than I need an invisible pink unicorn. It's functionally irrelevant. Do I claim to know how/why we're here? No, and anyone who claims to know is a liar or is misguided.
(Directed at any fervent believers who have read this far...)
Do I need to make something up in order to live my life every day? No. And neither do you.
Remember that for every one of your close-held beliefs about the supernatural, there are billions of folks out there who believe something entirely different. Think about that. Is everyone but you wrong? If your answer to that is "yes", then you need to grow up. We'll be waiting for you at the adults' table when you're ready.
YHBT. HAND.
Heh. I remember those movies. They showed them to 1st-graders at my (baptist) school. I'm positive of the timing, because I went to a different school after 1st grade.
Think about that. I wouldn't show that shit to seniors. Small wonder I'm so screwy, 25 years later.
Thinking freely for 10 years now. Bleah, sounds like I'm in recovery. Oh, wait, I am. Brainwashees Anonymous.
I stopped writing the stuff years ago because I realised that I was only making things worse. Perl encourages big ball of mud development. It's specifically designed as a "glue" language which lets you stick things together, in fact it's a sticking plaster language which allows you to paper over cracks which would be far better filled in another way.
Just another comment from a fellow old-head... I've come around to the same perspective. I've spent a good chunk of my career writing Perl, as a sysadmin (primarily), web monkey, and other stuff.
These days, I still use Perl, but in a very limited capacity. It's useful as a better awk/sed (when I need both sets of functionality and want to shorten a pipeline). It's sometimes useful for quicky hacks that are too complicated for shell (although this is rare). I've used it as a stand-in for netcat on remote systems that don't have nc.
For writing most tools, I use bash. In the end, I've found that it's faster, more maintainable, and more reliable to tie together well-written chunks of code (GNU userspace), than to try and do it all myself or use CPAN. For doing anything web-related, I use Rails. For stuff that's not a good fit for shell scripts, I use Ruby or Python.
Perl is like a really great swiss army knife, particularly when it comes to dealing with text. Like any swiss army knife, it's great in a pinch, but doesn't really hold up to serious use compared to tools that were designed for specific tasks.
Yawn.
I mean this in the nicest way possible... Please put up or shut up. You think the TSA/NSA/CIA/UnnamedTripleBlack reads /.? Maybe they do.
My point stands, however. There are a gazillion flaws in TSA's supposed security, and the fact is that they don't care. They KNOW that they're not really providing security. They don't care. Their job is to provide the appearance of security, because that's what Congress wants them to do.
Congress controls the purse strings, which means that if they make Congress look good, they get more money for more layers of bureaucracy, and the folks with interests in outside security companies get money for more high-tech security chicanery. And of course, if Congress looks good to the sheeple who elect them, they get to stay in office and avoid getting real jobs.
Do you really think that you've come up with something in your daydreaming that the "turr'ists" haven't? Anyone who really wanted to get around security could. The reason we haven't had another 9/11 isn't because of the TSA...
It's because it's difficult to herd cats, especially when you've got the entire intelligence apparatus of the US Gov't looking for the herds of cats who might try to blow something up. The 9/11 hijackers would be trivially easy to find now, in this age of PATRIOT and US-VISIT and substantially increased NSA/CIA budgets.
I agree with your sentiments and I recently discovered a security flaw and I fear that if it is ever known that the type of counter measures that would be required would make the current silliness pale in comparison.
What's your big discovery, einstein? I'll bet it's been discovered and posted a dozen times over on the TSA blog... Seriously, it's harder to find aspects of airport security that AREN'T flawed than it is to poke holes in this huge boondoggle that is The Security(Theatre) Administration.
Good luck driving to Germany (from the US). Or New England to California (or Colorado). Maybe you can go across the ocean by tramp steamer... Very romantic.
JibJab's take on downsizing the iPhone...
...like compulsory auto insurance subsidizes the auto insurance industry.
Boo Hoo. OK, how about this: Driving is restricted to those individuals who A. have auto insurance or B. have $100,000 in escrow to cover medical costs for the mother and children they plow into while fiddling with the radio.
There ya go... Now you can stick it to those stupid insurance companies like the rebel you are.
I won't provide any links, so I don't come off as shilling for any particular company. I happen to like the stuff that comes up in the top hits in Google, though.
I've been using kettlebells off and on for most of the last 5 years. The exercises seem kind of crazy, especially when compared to the typical gym machine or freeweight exercises, but they're effective.
Using kettlebells won't give you a bodybuilder (booby-builder) physique, but they will make you STRONG. Like, scary strong. Can you pick up your 50lb child with one arm and lift her over your head? I can (if she's wearing something strong enough, like a snow suit). You wouldn't know it to look at me, though. I'm not overly developed, but KB exercises strengthen core muscles (abs, obliques, back, shoulders, etc.) and force you to learn how to use all of your body to lift things.
The target audience for KBs is usually martial artists and other such folk. I'm your typical computer guy who values his finger dexterity way too much to get into that stuff. But I hated going to the gym, and push-ups weren't doing enough to keep the flab off. Plus, I've always suffered from chronic lower-back pain. My brother (who is into martial arts) introduced me to KBs, and I've been throwing them around ever since.
I'd better stop before this starts sounding too much like an info-mercial. I have no connection to the people selling this stuff, other than that I'm a very happy kettlebeller. Oh, one last thing. Unless you have someone to train with and learn from, make sure that you buy a book, and/or a video. The exercises are incredible, but they take time to learn, and you can hurt yourself if you don't learn proper form and technique. I've never injured myself, fwiw.
If you're American, it's a bit silly to argue with a Brit or really anyone in the Commonwealth about a specific word's usage, spelling, or pronunciation, since all can differ, but still be correct.
Interesting. Well, I'm happy to learn something new. In fact, it seems that the American usage of "deprecate" is a corruption... Hence my confusion about how the original latin meaning seemed to have been lost. That should have been a flag for me, but I've never encountered "self-depreciate" before.
I consider myself pretty well-read, and sensitive to the various cultural permutations of spellings and usages. However, I (incorrectly) assumed that the OP's use of "self-depreciate" was just an inadvertent malapropism, rather than a cultural artifact.
Even though I think it'd be nearly impossible for me to make the mental switch, "self-depreciate" certainly does seem to make a bit more sense, logically. Thanks for pointing that out.
UGH! How is this moderated "informative"?
Is there a "mis-informative" mod? Some looser [sic] added a redirection from "self-depreciation" to "self-deprecation". They're not the same word, damn it!
google it fool
Just admit it... You screwed up. Irrespective of the fact that there is a redirection from "self-depreciation" to "self-deprecation" in wikipedia, they are not synonyms.
Deprecate: v, play down, belittle, disparage, etc.
Depreciate: v, to lower in estimation or esteem, to lower the price or value of, etc.
They are similar words. They both share the "de-" prefix, meaning "away, off, reverse, remove". After that, they have nothing in common, other than a similar spelling.
The etymology of deprecate comes from the latin de- precari, "to pray against", which somehow morphed into the current usage of "to belittle", or "to make obsolete".
The etymology of depreciate comes from the latin de- pretium, "lowered price".
Your insistence that wikipedia is authoritative on this somehow just makes you look even more silly. Especially on /., where amateur linguists and grammar nazis roam unfettered. :P
Any suggestions for a transition to management, which I'm not 100% keen on ...
Don't do it unless you really WANT to do it. Don't do it unless you find it interesting, and know you'll excel. Otherwise you'll be mediocre and angsty.
I know I can do it, at least well enough that I've been pushed into it several times. I'm not ready to give up playing in the sandbox just yet, though. I've got 30+ years left in my career (unless I get some fuckyou money somehow) -- I didn't want to waste it by moving into management after only a decade.
The way I see it, unless you've got an MBA and/or are particularly adept at schmoozing, only the middle tiers of management are accessible. Those are the guys who get cleaned out in periodic purges. They're also the guys who call endless meetings to try and make themselves appear useful.
If you're not familiar with the Peter Principle, I suggest you read about it ASAP. One of the best pieces of advice I got was from my father-in-law, who told me that I need to fight being pushed to my level of incompetence at all costs. Find the level just below, and stay there.
That having been said, I think it's possible to raise one's level of incompetence via education (MBA, etc.), if that's the path you want to take. It's a difficult balancing act between pushing yourself to grow, and not growing too fast or past your ultimate capabilities.