"Would it be fair for somebody to create an identical statue? Probbaly not, that's copying. But you expect it to be ok to photograph it? That's also a copy."
No, it's a photograph. A copy would be something exactly like the original. But a statue or sculpture is a three dimensional object. There's no 2D photo you can take of a 3D object that doesn't miss at least 50% of it. Which is to say, there's information contained in the original that can't all be contained in any one photograph.
Besides, there's information contained in the photograph that, in effect, should be the intelleectual property of whoever took the picture. Photography is just as much an art as is sculpture, you know.
OK, so photographs of a statue are out, even though they all miss over 50% of the information contained in the artwork. Where does it end? Can I take a *black and white* photograph? Can I do a wall-street-journal-style woodcut? Can I *sketch* the Bean? How vividly am I allowed to describe it? I mean, I can give a pretty good verbal synopsis of what the Bean looks like - in fact, I would venture to say that since I can verbally describe what is on all four sides, my description of it might be more of an infringement than a simple photo of two. Am I allowed to *imagine* it - or is that "mental infringement" because a "copy" existed in my neurons?
Where does it end? When will we put our feet down and stop this endless exageration of what a "copy" is? A photo is not the same thing as a sculpture any more than an MP3 is the same as a CD. A representation is not a copy. It's a representation. If a picture was the same as being there, nobody who ever saw a picture of Niagara Falls would ever go.
Hell, if a picture was the same as being there, my 43 disc pr0n collection could be making me a lot of money down on the corner...
"Maybe Chicagoans should organize a mass civil disobedience action, and turn up by the thousands all wearing sequinned jackets and REALLY shiny shoes."
I'll apologize in advamce for being off-topic. And I realize I'm taking a position that's very unpopular here. And no I'm not a troll. And yes, ME was the worst piece of shit MS ever released.
But I've found 98se, when properly tweaked and with 98lite installed, to be incredibly reliable for a variety of applications.
Before I got a copy of 2000, I was running Apache on 98se/98lite with IE uninstalled and had, like, weeks of uptime. Of course I didn't have much traffic, either. But between 98lite and various other common tweaks, you can get three nines if you don't have your hear up your ass or a huge amount of traffic. The only time that box rebooted was when the power went out.
98se is the only OS I'll use for my audio/visual workstation just because it's the only OS a lot of high-end audio/visual apps will recognize. I used to work for a studio that spent tens of thousands of dollars on a pro-level digital multitrack system (ensoniq PARIS) that will ONLY run on 98se. Not 95, not XP, not 2K, not MacOS. Not even the first edition of 98. ONLY 98se.
Oh, and all those pesky viruses that have been hitting XP and 2000 users? Don't apply to 98. I can't think of the last virus that came out that I actually had to worry about (no IE or OE on my machine). Especially if you uninstall IE (which is one thing 98lite does). With 98 you only have to do major upgrades one every few months.
No, you wanna talk about the most unstable, porous, pink-hotpants-in-the-Mission OS ever made, you wanna talk about XP. I know people who have machines almost three times as fast as mine who run XP, and their...machines...cccrrrraaawwwwllllll... even when they're not being infected by some new 24-hour flu. My 1.2GHz athlon *screams* running 98se/lite. That means everything to somebody whose professional reputation depends partly on how many tracks you can record at once. It's not about the round buttons or.NET integration or flowery backgrounds or transparencies or being cool for using a UNIX-derived kernel - it's about the *overhead*. It's about being able to tell your computer to only devote CPU cycles to a few things and not have to worry about 40-60 system-critical processes.
My favorite was when TimeWarner called me up to try to sell me voip. I worked in a datacenter at the time, so I'm not a network genius by any means, but I knew enough to give the poor telemarketer five minutes worth of a detailed explanation of why, based on the poor performace (tiling) of their digital cable channels and their RoadRunner service, and their obvious inability or unwillingness to provide the infrastructure needed to provide the services they were more than happy to take my money for (bigger, faster switches), I would be giving them money for a voip service that was virtually guaranteed to have skips and dropouts at about the same time hell froze over.
It was the only time in my life that a telemarketer hasn't argued with me. All she said was, "Thank you, sir. Goodbye." It was beautiful.
" This just goes to show you that when television gets better, less people watch it."
I used to watch STE, but once it was in a time slot against "the happy colors show" I knew I'd never see it again. Then "the happy colors show" became "a box full of puppies" which in turn gave way to "animal close-ups with a wide angle lens". But seriously, have you seen what this kid Craig is doing? He's a freakin' genius...
Seems to me it's a lose-lose situation. On the one hand, until it's hacked, you have users not being able to have their machine do what they want it to do. That's obviously bad thing number one.
But number two comes a couple years down the road from widespread adoption, when some critical flaw in TCPA is found by hackers, TCPA is hacked, and innocent businesses that have come to depend on it for security are disrupted and exploited. And then we're looking around all doe-eyed, like, "but they said it was unbreakable security, they said it was trusted computing!" TCPA is just antoher level of command heirarchy, and subject to hack.
"Trusted computing" has got to be one of the most insidious marketing doublespeaks I've ever heard in my life. All "Trusted Computing" consists of is computers who don't trust me.
"It is irrelevant whether any proof is of any benefit to you or not."
I disagree. Logic owes it's existance in the world, it's realization in textbooks like yours, to the fact that humans needed it to survive.
"You might think of logical proof as being analogous to rocks. Maybe you don't believe in rocks, but they still exist and one could still land on your head or even kill you instantly."
Unless I don't think it's a rock, I think it's the evil god Meepzork smiting me for chronic masturbation. Then I don't know it's a rock, no matter how much you "prove" it to me.
"Your believe system is irrelevant."
Only to you.
"Far from splitting hairs, the difference between proof and accepted theory is my point."
That's what I'm saying - you're talking about pure, abstract logic divorced from reality or practical application. And that's fine, pure theory is necessary. I'm talking about people's perception of the givens underlying any logic. My original point that started this whole argument was that logic is only as good as the givens it's based on, any logic proceeding from flawed information is therefore flawed. Which you put much more succinctly with this example:
"Proposition 1: 'All unicorns are white.' Proposition 2: 'This is a unicorn.' Conclusion: 'This is white.'"
Which is exactly what I was saying - everybody knows there's brown, yellow and black unicorns as well as white ones, so the logic following from it is flawed. Everybody also knows that what the observer is looking at is most probably not a unicorn, so the logic following from it is flawed from the other direction as well. To me it's a perfect example.
"You are merely using the word in an informal, imprecise sense, and so, you are using language unsuitable for discussing science."
Sue me. Words are imprecise things and so are people. I never claimed to be a scientist, a logician, or even as well-educated as you. Besides, I'm sure you don't know the difference between balanced and unbalanced consoles, or how to read figured bass notation. So let's not play that game.
"there is no such thing as "human logic."
Bullshit. Human logic is logic as it's executed by humans, just as machine logic is logic as it's executed by machines. Both are applied logic rather than abstract logic, and so both have flaws.
I don't think we're disagreeing about anything, just looking at it from different perspectives and focusing on different things. You're saying (i think) "the logic is sound in and of itself even if it's based on faulty data" and I'm saying "logic, no matter how logical, that follows from bad data is functionally useless".
2) There are more ways to serve your nation at war than jerking your knee or making yourself a target. Ask Tom Paine, who had a significant influence on the Revolution by writing pamphlets, or Ben Franklin, who did the same by publishing them. Funny that those who love to wrap themselves in the banner of the "marketplace of ideas" are the most afraid of other people's... because I don't agree with you I'm automatically unpatriotic. Must. Not. Think. Keep. Mind. Closed.
3) "dangerous, unpredictable"
Those weren't my words, my words were "hackable, abusable." But I'm bored enough, let's go through this. Seeing as how they're designed to kill people, I certainly hope they're dangerous, or else my tax dollars are being wasted. And as for unpredictable - cars aren't unpredictable either, yet millions die in auto accidents... what kind of insurance policies does Uncle Sam take out on these babies, I wonder? Talk about your high liability premiums...
4) Anything that uses digital (or analog) signal transmissions for it's control system is hackable. I didn't say "easily hackable", I said "hackable". It could take several months, a year maybe, like CSS did. But there's nothing that's digital that's not hackable. Then, when one hacker's figured it out he tells his friends.... come on now, you're pretending to be smart, you know how this goes...
5) I said they were remote-controlled. You got mad and said no, they're remote controlled. I don't understand, you appear to just want to have an excuse to be mad at me.
6) The sheer abdication of human responsibility involved here is staggering. License to kill is something that has been, and should be, granted only to those whove demonstrated the highest degree of responsibility and who are held to the highest degrees of accountability. Now machines that are under the control of Private Johnson - or was it Private Meeks? Where did those remote-control logs get to again... Damn, must have lost them. Oh well. I guess now we'll never really know who killed the Ambassador, just a coincidence that he was a political enemy of the Administration... I mean, as a civilian motorist, I'm required to have a licence plate. If these things are only going to be used in the name of all that is True and Good, why not have licence plates on them too? What is there to hide?
7) I wasn't equating plug and play with p'n'p as a serious assertion, dumbass. I was making a joke. A JOKE. That's why it got modded funny, idiot. Why do right-wingers have *no* sense of humor?
8) Do you really think my feelings toward MS are *totally divorced* from their actions?! If they don't want people to be unhappy with their behavior then their behavior should change. Evidently it's not breaking their hearts that geeks tend to not love them to death.
9) You fanatical right-wing knee-jerkers are dismantling democracy just as fast as you can, and you're going to miss it when it's gone.
10) Your posting this AC means one of two things - either you're ashamed of your points (which I doubt) or else you're afraid of my response.
1) As I said before, even mathematical proofs are useless to me if I don't believe in zero. Seems to me this "universal truth" that you speak of would have to apply to everybody, regardless of belief system... 2) you're splitting semantic hairs between proof and accepted theory, which is fine, I guess. 3) I do indeed know what proof is. The difference we're having is that you are viewing "proof" in a very narrow, mathematical/logical sense, while I'm viewing "proof" in a much broader context as it applies to human behavior, and therefore to human logic. 4) At least I know how to turn my italics off...;)
"f you take a class in Classical Logic, one of two things likely will happen. You will either come out of the class saying that logic is simply a matter of opinion; or, you will pass the class."
I never said logic is just a matter of opinion. I said that logic is always as fallible as the propositions/givens/axioms it is based on, as it inevitably is. And ultimately, all logic is always built on a previously existing belief system - the part that comes after the assumption can be as logical as you please, if it's built on a faulty assumption than it really doesn't matter.
"Proposition 1: 'All unicorns are white.' Proposition 2: 'This is a unicorn.' Conclusion: 'This is white.'"
Thank you for making my point for me.
Every piece of "logic" is based on an unproven premise. Logic is not infallible and fails when given bad input.
I'm not saying media should never be mixed, I'm just saying that requirements are different for TV shows than for video games. This difference seems like it would naturally result in a show that's much closer to "home improvement" or "full house" than to the Sims video game, because theirs is a business model with proven success.
Really, what's the point? Why not just have "home improvement" or "full house"? What strength is the Sims name going to lend to the show in the marketplace? Do they actually think us hardcore Sims addicts are gonna get our nose out of our CRT long enough to watch it?
Lost seems like neat idea, D.H. is just tittilatory crap IMHO. 24 is another one.
But for every one of these new "smart" shows (and there's still plenty of room for smarts in all of 'em if you ask me) there's still 15 vapid sitcoms or reality shows. Hopefully we've seen TV "hit bottom" in terms of the kind of crap that the public can tolerate, and we're now coming back up the other side of the "happy colors show/box full of puppies" curve (the modern equivalent of which I suppose would have to be the "Animal close-ups with a wide angle lens" curve).
What you need to understand is that this belief (which, incidentally, I share) doesn't give you or anybody else the right to subvert PUBLIC schools (sticker all you want in private ones) to any particular agenda, be it pro- or anti- religion. The loving God we both believe in gave us our brains because he wants us to use them. Ignoring the best conclusions of the best scientists we've ever had on Earth (evolution) is not an act of love towards God. In fact, it's a slap in God's face because it's us choosing to turn a blind eye to all the wonderous detail of the universe. I'll let you in on a little secret - God is not afraid of evolution. So why are you?
Because men have told you to be?
I forget where, but it's in the Bible that God WANTS US TO ASK QUESTIONS. And he wants us to listen to HIM, directly, through prayer and following the intrinsic math of right and wrong written inside our hearts, rather than getting all huffy and paranoid because of shitheads like Jerry Falwall and Pat Robertson. Is your God the God of love - or of fear?
and i say that as an ardent Sims fan (hell, I bought a new video card just so I could PLAY sims 2). The demands of today's TV entertainment are such that any TV show that's true to the game will BOMB MASSIVELY. TV is about 6-minute chucks of instant gratification and resolving every problem within a half hour. The Sims is about neither of these. If this gets off the ground it will become just another Hanna-Barbara-ish cookie cutter cartoon show, where the only similarity it has to the Sims is in the name (I Robot anyone?) and the characters go through the same tired, demographically neutered plot contrivances as on every other show.
"Proof is not just a bunch of assertions, nor is it arbitrary."
Says you. Now think back to all the things in the past that have been "proven" (like the Sun revolving around the Earth, space being filled with "ether"... hell, the Nazis thought they "proved" that Jews were inferior). Now you're going to say those weren't proofs because there was stuff they didn't know back then.
Well, there's also stuff we don't know now. We are still basing our "proof" and "logic", at the end of the day, on assumptions and postulations. And we keep finding out how wrong some of them are (just ask any astronomer, or any particle physicist).
"There is actually a methodical process of determining the truth or falsity of statements; this is called, 'logic.'"
But any process requires input. Ever hear of the GIGO effect? All logic is based on givens. For example, assume that I don't believe in science, math, or any other branch of "Western" logic because it conflicts with my religious beliefs (and yes, I am playing Devil's advocate here). Assume I honestly don't believe that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Assume I don't hold as immutable that 1 is always greater than zero. Hell, assume I don't believe in zero.
Now, prove anything to me. You can't do it.
"Only statements that test true according to the rules of logic are true."
That statement would more accurately read, "only statements that we perceive as testing true according to the rules of logic as we currently understand and apply them may be called true...without us feeling like giant assholes, which we are anyway."
Anytime humankind is convinced that it holds the aboslute truth in its hand, be it spiritual truth or scientific, is a very dangerous time for both science and scientists.
We have only to look back to the human race's bloody, bloody past of persecutions and wars based on things like Copernicus v Galileo to realize two things: that the standard for "passing the tests of logic" has changed significantly over time, and that said standard is likely to change even more in the future. Seems to me like what you appear to have is absolute faith not only in logic, but the immutability of it. Last time I checked, having aboslute faith in something qualified as a belief system.
Do you think it's possible to extend ardor for science and logic into the realm of zealotry? Do you think that absolute faith in the infallibility and immutability of today's logic qualifies as such? And what do you think Galileo would have had to say about that? History is filled with scientists who were right but unpopular, and whose blood tended to flow rapidly and frequently. Science has just as much blood on it's hands as religion does, due to bad input into the process of logical testing.
"What is more, statements that test true according to the rules or logic ARE TRUE. It isn't a matter of opinion."
Ah, scientific intolerance. My friend, everything is subject to opinion. Life is subject to opinion. Religion is subject to opinion. And yes, even science is subject to opinion. If logic is so immutable than why do so many respectable, intelligent scientists disagree? They're all following logic. They're just not all doing it the same. Who's right and who's wrong? Time will tell. It might take a few hundred years, it certainly has before.
"In fact, the reason that you are able to participate in this forum is that the evaluation of truth and falsity of expressions can be tested by machines."
Funny, I can think of plenty of times where/. got hosed up in some manner. I guess this means logic tests aren't infallible, huh? Almost like any logical system you provide with bad input will fail.
I'm not saying that I personally don't beleive in logic - I do - but I am saying that the key word in that statement is "believe". All rational thought is predicated on earlier
My point is that if I choose not to believe in science it doesn't matter what you prove. And theory and proof are similar in that they are both predicated on givens. It doesn't matter how conclusive the proof is of someone just doesn't subscribe to the principles that underlie conventional science or mathematics (hard to do, I know).
"No, in that you are wrong. Bertrand Russell spent several years and actually proved, in the real and rigorous sense of the word, that 1+1 = 2."
Only if you believe that two comes after one. There are underlying assumtions (axioms?) that any rational thought is predicated upon, be it mathematical or spiritual.
Just recently I bought the Sims 2, only to find that I then had to go out and buy a new video card just to play it! Couldn't return it cuz I'd already opened it... Bastards... $150 video game, basically...
funny that you should use the Beatles for an example, who recently released an album called "let it be naked". Said album is a remix, remaster and re-release of the exact same recordings and performances that were used on the 1969 album "let it be". Granted, they didn't call it "let it be II" but they might as well have.
Massive Attack is another group who springs to mind. After the release of their landmark albun "Protection" they farmed the multitrack masters out to dub producer extraordinaire Mad Professor, and released the results as another album, "No Protection". To continue on artistic themes (and financial success) Meatloaf reprised his classic "Bat Out of Hell" album with "Bat Out of Hell 2: Back Into Hell". The Beach Boys released "Shut Down Vol. 2" in 1963. There's plenty of sequels to great albums out there, both thematic and sonic.
When you upgrade an app, you're making changes to various pieces of code in order to better suit your previously existing needs. You're doing the exact same thing when you replace "let it be" with "let it be naked" in your CD player.
yeah, it'd be a lot of fun to hack the frequency up or down on the toothbrush, to preference. No two people would like the same frequency, I'll bet. And oh, the anti-DMCA things we could DO with a beowulf cluster of sonic toothbrush dildoes... (or is that dildoe?)
Slashdot Mirror
"Would it be fair for somebody to create an identical statue? Probbaly not, that's copying. But you expect it to be ok to photograph it? That's also a copy."
No, it's a photograph. A copy would be something exactly like the original. But a statue or sculpture is a three dimensional object. There's no 2D photo you can take of a 3D object that doesn't miss at least 50% of it. Which is to say, there's information contained in the original that can't all be contained in any one photograph.
Besides, there's information contained in the photograph that, in effect, should be the intelleectual property of whoever took the picture. Photography is just as much an art as is sculpture, you know.
OK, so photographs of a statue are out, even though they all miss over 50% of the information contained in the artwork. Where does it end? Can I take a *black and white* photograph? Can I do a wall-street-journal-style woodcut? Can I *sketch* the Bean? How vividly am I allowed to describe it? I mean, I can give a pretty good verbal synopsis of what the Bean looks like - in fact, I would venture to say that since I can verbally describe what is on all four sides, my description of it might be more of an infringement than a simple photo of two. Am I allowed to *imagine* it - or is that "mental infringement" because a "copy" existed in my neurons?
Where does it end? When will we put our feet down and stop this endless exageration of what a "copy" is? A photo is not the same thing as a sculpture any more than an MP3 is the same as a CD. A representation is not a copy. It's a representation. If a picture was the same as being there, nobody who ever saw a picture of Niagara Falls would ever go.
Hell, if a picture was the same as being there, my 43 disc pr0n collection could be making me a lot of money down on the corner...
"Maybe Chicagoans should organize a mass civil disobedience action, and turn up by the thousands all wearing sequinned jackets and REALLY shiny shoes."
And disco balls.
What are these "bride" things of which you speak, and where can I download one?
No, the public only has the right to pay for it with tax dollars.
Explain to me again how I can't take pictures of something I helped pay for?
"98, the most unstable OS"
.NET integration or flowery backgrounds or transparencies or being cool for using a UNIX-derived kernel - it's about the *overhead*. It's about being able to tell your computer to only devote CPU cycles to a few things and not have to worry about 40-60 system-critical processes.
I'll apologize in advamce for being off-topic. And I realize I'm taking a position that's very unpopular here. And no I'm not a troll. And yes, ME was the worst piece of shit MS ever released.
But I've found 98se, when properly tweaked and with 98lite installed, to be incredibly reliable for a variety of applications.
Before I got a copy of 2000, I was running Apache on 98se/98lite with IE uninstalled and had, like, weeks of uptime. Of course I didn't have much traffic, either. But between 98lite and various other common tweaks, you can get three nines if you don't have your hear up your ass or a huge amount of traffic. The only time that box rebooted was when the power went out.
98se is the only OS I'll use for my audio/visual workstation just because it's the only OS a lot of high-end audio/visual apps will recognize. I used to work for a studio that spent tens of thousands of dollars on a pro-level digital multitrack system (ensoniq PARIS) that will ONLY run on 98se. Not 95, not XP, not 2K, not MacOS. Not even the first edition of 98. ONLY 98se.
Oh, and all those pesky viruses that have been hitting XP and 2000 users? Don't apply to 98. I can't think of the last virus that came out that I actually had to worry about (no IE or OE on my machine). Especially if you uninstall IE (which is one thing 98lite does). With 98 you only have to do major upgrades one every few months.
No, you wanna talk about the most unstable, porous, pink-hotpants-in-the-Mission OS ever made, you wanna talk about XP. I know people who have machines almost three times as fast as mine who run XP, and their...machines...cccrrrraaawwwwllllll... even when they're not being infected by some new 24-hour flu. My 1.2GHz athlon *screams* running 98se/lite. That means everything to somebody whose professional reputation depends partly on how many tracks you can record at once. It's not about the round buttons or
(ducks)
My favorite was when TimeWarner called me up to try to sell me voip. I worked in a datacenter at the time, so I'm not a network genius by any means, but I knew enough to give the poor telemarketer five minutes worth of a detailed explanation of why, based on the poor performace (tiling) of their digital cable channels and their RoadRunner service, and their obvious inability or unwillingness to provide the infrastructure needed to provide the services they were more than happy to take my money for (bigger, faster switches), I would be giving them money for a voip service that was virtually guaranteed to have skips and dropouts at about the same time hell froze over.
It was the only time in my life that a telemarketer hasn't argued with me. All she said was, "Thank you, sir. Goodbye." It was beautiful.
" This just goes to show you that when television gets better, less people watch it."
I used to watch STE, but once it was in a time slot against "the happy colors show" I knew I'd never see it again. Then "the happy colors show" became "a box full of puppies" which in turn gave way to "animal close-ups with a wide angle lens". But seriously, have you seen what this kid Craig is doing? He's a freakin' genius...
Seems to me it's a lose-lose situation. On the one hand, until it's hacked, you have users not being able to have their machine do what they want it to do. That's obviously bad thing number one.
But number two comes a couple years down the road from widespread adoption, when some critical flaw in TCPA is found by hackers, TCPA is hacked, and innocent businesses that have come to depend on it for security are disrupted and exploited. And then we're looking around all doe-eyed, like, "but they said it was unbreakable security, they said it was trusted computing!" TCPA is just antoher level of command heirarchy, and subject to hack.
"Trusted computing" has got to be one of the most insidious marketing doublespeaks I've ever heard in my life. All "Trusted Computing" consists of is computers who don't trust me.
"It is irrelevant whether any proof is of any benefit to you or not."
I disagree. Logic owes it's existance in the world, it's realization in textbooks like yours, to the fact that humans needed it to survive.
"You might think of logical proof as being analogous to rocks. Maybe you don't believe in rocks, but they still exist and one could still land on your head or even kill you instantly."
Unless I don't think it's a rock, I think it's the evil god Meepzork smiting me for chronic masturbation. Then I don't know it's a rock, no matter how much you "prove" it to me.
"Your believe system is irrelevant."
Only to you.
"Far from splitting hairs, the difference between proof and accepted theory is my point."
That's what I'm saying - you're talking about pure, abstract logic divorced from reality or practical application. And that's fine, pure theory is necessary. I'm talking about people's perception of the givens underlying any logic. My original point that started this whole argument was that logic is only as good as the givens it's based on, any logic proceeding from flawed information is therefore flawed. Which you put much more succinctly with this example:
"Proposition 1: 'All unicorns are white.'
Proposition 2: 'This is a unicorn.'
Conclusion: 'This is white.'"
Which is exactly what I was saying - everybody knows there's brown, yellow and black unicorns as well as white ones, so the logic following from it is flawed. Everybody also knows that what the observer is looking at is most probably not a unicorn, so the logic following from it is flawed from the other direction as well. To me it's a perfect example.
"You are merely using the word in an informal, imprecise sense, and so, you are using language unsuitable for discussing science."
Sue me. Words are imprecise things and so are people. I never claimed to be a scientist, a logician, or even as well-educated as you. Besides, I'm sure you don't know the difference between balanced and unbalanced consoles, or how to read figured bass notation. So let's not play that game.
"there is no such thing as "human logic."
Bullshit. Human logic is logic as it's executed by humans, just as machine logic is logic as it's executed by machines. Both are applied logic rather than abstract logic, and so both have flaws.
I don't think we're disagreeing about anything, just looking at it from different perspectives and focusing on different things. You're saying (i think) "the logic is sound in and of itself even if it's based on faulty data" and I'm saying "logic, no matter how logical, that follows from bad data is functionally useless".
Eh?
1) I'm an excellent marksman, thanks
2) There are more ways to serve your nation at war than jerking your knee or making yourself a target. Ask Tom Paine, who had a significant influence on the Revolution by writing pamphlets, or Ben Franklin, who did the same by publishing them. Funny that those who love to wrap themselves in the banner of the "marketplace of ideas" are the most afraid of other people's... because I don't agree with you I'm automatically unpatriotic. Must. Not. Think. Keep. Mind. Closed.
3) "dangerous, unpredictable"
Those weren't my words, my words were "hackable, abusable." But I'm bored enough, let's go through this. Seeing as how they're designed to kill people, I certainly hope they're dangerous, or else my tax dollars are being wasted. And as for unpredictable - cars aren't unpredictable either, yet millions die in auto accidents... what kind of insurance policies does Uncle Sam take out on these babies, I wonder? Talk about your high liability premiums...
4) Anything that uses digital (or analog) signal transmissions for it's control system is hackable. I didn't say "easily hackable", I said "hackable". It could take several months, a year maybe, like CSS did. But there's nothing that's digital that's not hackable. Then, when one hacker's figured it out he tells his friends.... come on now, you're pretending to be smart, you know how this goes...
5) I said they were remote-controlled. You got mad and said no, they're remote controlled. I don't understand, you appear to just want to have an excuse to be mad at me.
6) The sheer abdication of human responsibility involved here is staggering. License to kill is something that has been, and should be, granted only to those whove demonstrated the highest degree of responsibility and who are held to the highest degrees of accountability. Now machines that are under the control of Private Johnson - or was it Private Meeks? Where did those remote-control logs get to again... Damn, must have lost them. Oh well. I guess now we'll never really know who killed the Ambassador, just a coincidence that he was a political enemy of the Administration... I mean, as a civilian motorist, I'm required to have a licence plate. If these things are only going to be used in the name of all that is True and Good, why not have licence plates on them too? What is there to hide?
7) I wasn't equating plug and play with p'n'p as a serious assertion, dumbass. I was making a joke. A JOKE. That's why it got modded funny, idiot. Why do right-wingers have *no* sense of humor?
8) Do you really think my feelings toward MS are *totally divorced* from their actions?! If they don't want people to be unhappy with their behavior then their behavior should change. Evidently it's not breaking their hearts that geeks tend to not love them to death.
9) You fanatical right-wing knee-jerkers are dismantling democracy just as fast as you can, and you're going to miss it when it's gone.
10) Your posting this AC means one of two things - either you're ashamed of your points (which I doubt) or else you're afraid of my response.
"The TALON robot can be reconfigured in the field by operators using simple pin mounted components and plug-and-play subsystems."
Just so I understand this...
We're giving automatic weapons, and license to kill, to remote-controlled robots that are not only hackable and abusable but that use PLUG'N'PLAY?!?!
I can see the future general now... "Bring me Bill Gates!"
"We must be grateful to EA,"
Hey, you don't have to tell me - I've still got the 5.25" floppy my original sk8 or die for Commodore 64.
"As I said before, you don't know what proof is."
;)
1) As I said before, even mathematical proofs are useless to me if I don't believe in zero. Seems to me this "universal truth" that you speak of would have to apply to everybody, regardless of belief system...
2) you're splitting semantic hairs between proof and accepted theory, which is fine, I guess.
3) I do indeed know what proof is. The difference we're having is that you are viewing "proof" in a very narrow, mathematical/logical sense, while I'm viewing "proof" in a much broader context as it applies to human behavior, and therefore to human logic.
4) At least I know how to turn my italics off...
"f you take a class in Classical Logic, one of two things likely will happen. You will either come out of the class saying that logic is simply a matter of opinion; or, you will pass the class."
I never said logic is just a matter of opinion. I said that logic is always as fallible as the propositions/givens/axioms it is based on, as it inevitably is. And ultimately, all logic is always built on a previously existing belief system - the part that comes after the assumption can be as logical as you please, if it's built on a faulty assumption than it really doesn't matter.
"Proposition 1: 'All unicorns are white.'
Proposition 2: 'This is a unicorn.'
Conclusion: 'This is white.'"
Thank you for making my point for me.
Every piece of "logic" is based on an unproven premise. Logic is not infallible and fails when given bad input.
It's turtles all the way down.
I'm not saying media should never be mixed, I'm just saying that requirements are different for TV shows than for video games. This difference seems like it would naturally result in a show that's much closer to "home improvement" or "full house" than to the Sims video game, because theirs is a business model with proven success.
Really, what's the point? Why not just have "home improvement" or "full house"? What strength is the Sims name going to lend to the show in the marketplace? Do they actually think us hardcore Sims addicts are gonna get our nose out of our CRT long enough to watch it?
Lost seems like neat idea, D.H. is just tittilatory crap IMHO. 24 is another one.
But for every one of these new "smart" shows (and there's still plenty of room for smarts in all of 'em if you ask me) there's still 15 vapid sitcoms or reality shows. Hopefully we've seen TV "hit bottom" in terms of the kind of crap that the public can tolerate, and we're now coming back up the other side of the "happy colors show/box full of puppies" curve (the modern equivalent of which I suppose would have to be the "Animal close-ups with a wide angle lens" curve).
What you need to understand is that this belief (which, incidentally, I share) doesn't give you or anybody else the right to subvert PUBLIC schools (sticker all you want in private ones) to any particular agenda, be it pro- or anti- religion. The loving God we both believe in gave us our brains because he wants us to use them. Ignoring the best conclusions of the best scientists we've ever had on Earth (evolution) is not an act of love towards God. In fact, it's a slap in God's face because it's us choosing to turn a blind eye to all the wonderous detail of the universe. I'll let you in on a little secret - God is not afraid of evolution. So why are you?
Because men have told you to be?
I forget where, but it's in the Bible that God WANTS US TO ASK QUESTIONS. And he wants us to listen to HIM, directly, through prayer and following the intrinsic math of right and wrong written inside our hearts, rather than getting all huffy and paranoid because of shitheads like Jerry Falwall and Pat Robertson. Is your God the God of love - or of fear?
and i say that as an ardent Sims fan (hell, I bought a new video card just so I could PLAY sims 2). The demands of today's TV entertainment are such that any TV show that's true to the game will BOMB MASSIVELY. TV is about 6-minute chucks of instant gratification and resolving every problem within a half hour. The Sims is about neither of these. If this gets off the ground it will become just another Hanna-Barbara-ish cookie cutter cartoon show, where the only similarity it has to the Sims is in the name (I Robot anyone?) and the characters go through the same tired, demographically neutered plot contrivances as on every other show.
"Proof is not just a bunch of assertions, nor is it arbitrary."
/. got hosed up in some manner. I guess this means logic tests aren't infallible, huh? Almost like any logical system you provide with bad input will fail.
Says you. Now think back to all the things in the past that have been "proven" (like the Sun revolving around the Earth, space being filled with "ether"... hell, the Nazis thought they "proved" that Jews were inferior). Now you're going to say those weren't proofs because there was stuff they didn't know back then.
Well, there's also stuff we don't know now. We are still basing our "proof" and "logic", at the end of the day, on assumptions and postulations. And we keep finding out how wrong some of them are (just ask any astronomer, or any particle physicist).
"There is actually a methodical process of determining the truth or falsity of statements; this is called, 'logic.'"
But any process requires input. Ever hear of the GIGO effect? All logic is based on givens. For example, assume that I don't believe in science, math, or any other branch of "Western" logic because it conflicts with my religious beliefs (and yes, I am playing Devil's advocate here). Assume I honestly don't believe that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Assume I don't hold as immutable that 1 is always greater than zero. Hell, assume I don't believe in zero.
Now, prove anything to me. You can't do it.
"Only statements that test true according to the rules of logic are true."
That statement would more accurately read, "only statements that we perceive as testing true according to the rules of logic as we currently understand and apply them may be called true...without us feeling like giant assholes, which we are anyway."
Anytime humankind is convinced that it holds the aboslute truth in its hand, be it spiritual truth or scientific, is a very dangerous time for both science and scientists.
We have only to look back to the human race's bloody, bloody past of persecutions and wars based on things like Copernicus v Galileo to realize two things: that the standard for "passing the tests of logic" has changed significantly over time, and that said standard is likely to change even more in the future. Seems to me like what you appear to have is absolute faith not only in logic, but the immutability of it. Last time I checked, having aboslute faith in something qualified as a belief system.
Do you think it's possible to extend ardor for science and logic into the realm of zealotry? Do you think that absolute faith in the infallibility and immutability of today's logic qualifies as such? And what do you think Galileo would have had to say about that? History is filled with scientists who were right but unpopular, and whose blood tended to flow rapidly and frequently. Science has just as much blood on it's hands as religion does, due to bad input into the process of logical testing.
"What is more, statements that test true according to the rules or logic ARE TRUE. It isn't a matter of opinion."
Ah, scientific intolerance. My friend, everything is subject to opinion. Life is subject to opinion. Religion is subject to opinion. And yes, even science is subject to opinion. If logic is so immutable than why do so many respectable, intelligent scientists disagree? They're all following logic. They're just not all doing it the same. Who's right and who's wrong? Time will tell. It might take a few hundred years, it certainly has before.
"In fact, the reason that you are able to participate in this forum is that the evaluation of truth and falsity of expressions can be tested by machines."
Funny, I can think of plenty of times where
I'm not saying that I personally don't beleive in logic - I do - but I am saying that the key word in that statement is "believe". All rational thought is predicated on earlier
My point is that if I choose not to believe in science it doesn't matter what you prove. And theory and proof are similar in that they are both predicated on givens. It doesn't matter how conclusive the proof is of someone just doesn't subscribe to the principles that underlie conventional science or mathematics (hard to do, I know).
"I'm all in favor of jamming cell phones in theatres."
I seem to remember hearing something about them doing exactly that, like in Europe or something...
"What is proof? It is the logical form showing the only correct answer based on given propositions."
Right. Based on given propositions. It's turtles all the way down.
"No, in that you are wrong. Bertrand Russell spent several years and actually proved, in the real and rigorous sense of the word, that 1+1 = 2."
Only if you believe that two comes after one. There are underlying assumtions (axioms?) that any rational thought is predicated upon, be it mathematical or spiritual.
Just recently I bought the Sims 2, only to find that I then had to go out and buy a new video card just to play it! Couldn't return it cuz I'd already opened it... Bastards... $150 video game, basically...
funny that you should use the Beatles for an example, who recently released an album called "let it be naked". Said album is a remix, remaster and re-release of the exact same recordings and performances that were used on the 1969 album "let it be". Granted, they didn't call it "let it be II" but they might as well have.
Massive Attack is another group who springs to mind. After the release of their landmark albun "Protection" they farmed the multitrack masters out to dub producer extraordinaire Mad Professor, and released the results as another album, "No Protection". To continue on artistic themes (and financial success) Meatloaf reprised his classic "Bat Out of Hell" album with "Bat Out of Hell 2: Back Into Hell". The Beach Boys released "Shut Down Vol. 2" in 1963. There's plenty of sequels to great albums out there, both thematic and sonic.
When you upgrade an app, you're making changes to various pieces of code in order to better suit your previously existing needs. You're doing the exact same thing when you replace "let it be" with "let it be naked" in your CD player.
yeah, it'd be a lot of fun to hack the frequency up or down on the toothbrush, to preference. No two people would like the same frequency, I'll bet. And oh, the anti-DMCA things we could DO with a beowulf cluster of sonic toothbrush dildoes... (or is that dildoe?)