--- The more I hear of this the more I think we should declare the lot of them "Common Carriers"---
Indeed true, what is the difference between a telephone line and any Internet connection? For a long time, in the beginning, telephone lines via dial-up carried Internet traffic as well as voice. So now, what is the difference, except that we speeded things up a bit? Since the same lines carry both voice and other material, they should still be common carriers. If the FCC had declared the Internet communications providers as common carriers right at the beginning, we would now have none of this controversy. No act of Congress is required for the FCC to decide, albeit belatedly, that there is no difference between a telephone line and an Internet line. In this regard it is a common carrier highway just like a physical highway.
----what scientists currently believe are the explanation for how the world is ---
Indeed, scientists BELIEVE! It seems that every culture has its religion and the associated high priests. It just so happens to be that in the Western religion of secular humanism, the high priests are labeled "scientists". In every culture and society, the high priests of necessity are always held in high esteem.
There are two mythologies about nature. One of them is our modern 21st century myth and the other one is ancient in that it was held and still is held by much if not most humanity. The modern mythology says that the universe is an accident and is the only thing that exists and is real. The modern myth of secularism and materialism teaches that this world is all there is. Those that have embraced this, live for wealth and power.
There are many mythologies, modern as well as ancient, but they all hold in common, that whatever exists came into being from something else. The Earth rests on turtles all the way down or came from a mathematical thing called a singularity. The ancient mythologies mostly insist that this world is not important, but the world to come is. Modern science did not rise out of cultures that embrace these mythologies, but from a Christian culture and society, that taught the existence of a transcendent rational Creator.
Only the biblical creation account tells us that everything came into being out of nothing. Only the Bible teaches us, that material world is important and valuable.
Eastern religions concentrate on the hereafter, elevating the spiritual and consider the material somewhat of a prison to be ultimately set free from. God of the Bible is interested in all of creation, both material and immaterial. Jesus, being God, came into this material world and was physically resurrected in a new arrangement of matter.
If someone gives you a complicated machine or device, are you primarily interested in how or when it was made? More likely, you would be more interested to know what it does, who gave it to you and why. This is what the Bible is primarily all about. It tells us who made the universe, why he did and our place in it. When and how he did it is not nearly as important to our existence than to answer the question why we are here and how to use this gift of life properly.
Education is about teaching truth that is applicable to life right now. Speculating about how and when things began is nice, but not crucial to how we live our lives here and now.
---we weren't needing to sell that capacity to Californians---
Actually, the Pacific Northwest, Washington and Oregon would love to sell their cheaply generated wind and hydropower to California at a high price. However the truth of the matter is that the power lines going to California are maxed out, especially in the summer. California is hot and needs a lot of air conditioning power in the summer, while in the winter the Northwest uses excess power from California for heating.
The correct way to deal with this problem would be to build more power lines, but that effort runs straight into NIMBY which greatly increases the cost which ultimately comes out of the electricity prices. Also, the terrain over which these power lines run is very rugged and isolated, greatly increasing the cost to build them. A lot of places where the power lines would go are also very scenic, causing the people who live in those places to fight them tooth and nail, because we want to preserve the beautiful scenery. All of these reasons combine to make it extremely expensive and therefore highly unlikely that additional power lines would be constructed anytime soon.
Everybody wants to plug their electrical gadgets into a working outlet, but object to the necessary environmental impact of adding to the power infrastructure.
There are several aspects in which the Bible, especially the Gospel, is very unique. One of them, probably the biggest difference is that all other religions, with not a single exception, teach their followers how to approach God or whatever else they may call the goal of their religion. Only the Christian gospel of Jesus Christ is exactly the opposite. It is God, out of love, reaching out to us humans, by becoming human himself. There is nothing anyone of us could do for God. All he has ever asked and is still asking is that we should truly trust him and depend on him. This is where the first humans failed and those who refuse to believe God's word still fail. Only the God of the Bible commands people love him and through Jesus Christ has given human beings the ability to do that. Other religions, such as the Muslim's Allah commands strict obedience, not love.
The founders of all other religions are still in the grave. None of the other religions, not even one, dare to even make the claim that the one they are following was physically, bodily raised from death. It was the fact of the Resurrection, that transformed a bunch of scared followers of Jesus to enable them to fundamentally change their world and subsequently human history down to our very own day. Other religions, such as the Muslims have a dead prophet, but Christians love, adore and serve the living Lord.
Only in the Bible do we get history written down accurately in advance. It not only accurately foretells many details of what happened in the life of Jesus Christ, but is literally being fulfilled before our eyes. For example, it accurately foretells that the Jewish people would be scattered all over the earth, but in the last days be gathered out of all nations into their ancient land. Biblical prophecy about Jerusalem again being the capital city of a sovereign nation of Israel has come true. Zechariah's prophecy about Jerusalem becoming a bone of contention to all nations all around the world is echoed almost every day in the headlines of the news-media. Does it not strike you illogical, that the tiny nation of Israel with only 8200 km is such a bone of contention, the subject of unreasoning hatred of nations occupying millions of square kilometers? Yet this was predicted by Jesus Christ would happen to his people.
-----I'd dearly LOVE to believe in the Christian faith------
This is because your Creator God has put within you a deep yearning for himself. To achieve that peace and happiness your heart is crying out for, you only have to trust and believe him, nothing more. Once you do that, his Spirit will indwell you, enabling you to love him, live for him and your fellow man right here on earth. Once you graduate the University of Earth by death, you will be, as Jesus told his disciples,"where I am you will be also, for I am going to prepare a place for you".
It is not at all unreasonable or illogical to believe in the transcendent God who created the universe and loves you. I am a retired electrical engineer. I have spent most of my working life at Stanford University building and testing complex apparatus which enabled a number of scientists to earn Nobel prizes while discovering the secrets of creation. To be a Christian does not mean you have to check your brain at the door of the church. The apostle Paul, in the Bible, the book of Romans, admonishes Christians:
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your RESONABLE service. Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your MIND, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.
As a Christian, I believe in a reasonable God who expects that belief in his offer of grace and love is a logical thing to do. I sincerely hope, that in reading the Bible, you too will come to the conclusion, such as I have, that the offer of God's grace is also there for you.
---- Why exactly do you think that's an either/or proposition?----
The word evolution is a very elastic word. If the world and everything in it is a product of time and chance, then it specifically contradicts the Bible. Anyone who does not believe in God, can offer no explanation for what exists, other than time and chance.
Only a belief in God can offer purpose and meaning for your life. If Carl Sagan was right, if the cosmos is all there is and ever will be, then there is no meaning to life. If there is no God beyond the universe, (one verse) then life truly is "a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing".
Suppose someone gives you a gift, a package. You open it and find a beautiful but complicated device or appliance. Is your first thought to determine when or how it was made? Probably not. Foremost, you would like to know who gave it to you and why. Hopefully it comes with some instructions telling you what it is good for and how to use it. You might ignore the instructions and try to figure it out on your own. In doing so, you could damage or totally ruin the gift.
God gave you the gift of life and wants you to operate this life correctly in his beautiful, complex universe. Doesn't it stand to reason that he would have included an instruction manual? I believe this instruction manual is the Bible, a very unique book. In it he tells you not only how to operate this thing called life, but also why he gave this life to you in the first place.
He gives a lot of detail, but the bottom line is that he loves you and created you in such a manner that you can love him in return. Ask your stepfather and friends WHY they believe in God.
Actually, according to Genesis, God first made birds, including chickens, which then reproduced. In the case of birds, such as chickens, they do this by laying eggs.
Of course, anyone who believes in evolution rather than God, won't accept this.
I would think that Apple would not lose an enormous amount of profit, if they simply offered the case they now sell for $30 free to anybody who experiences dropped calls on the new shiny iGadget. That should silence a lot of squawks. Meanwhile they can come up with a durable clear insulating coat to put over the bare metal antenna of future phones. That would prevent sweaty hands from shorting out a weak signal to the point where the call drops or can't be made. A better, more truthful signal indicator would also be helpful.
A simple inexpensive diode bridge would allow all cells to be inserted one way or the opposite way. The aluminum wad would still work also. For most devices, the diodes would probably be cheaper than royalty on this patent. Even with this patent, multiple cells still have to be inserted either all one way or the other way. Putting them in helter-skelter would still not work. Besides, anyone incapable of inserting batteries into a device correctly, should probably not be using it at all.
....when the sea was several hundred feet higher?....
The fact is, that just the opposite was true in ages past. If you want evidence of this, just get yourself a National Geographic map of the world's oceans. There you will see the continents, the continental shelves and the deep abysmal ocean basins. There you will also see clearly depicted on such maps the continued course of many of the world's rivers, such as the Amazon, the Mississippi and the Nile and others. This of course could not be if the riverbed has not at some point been on dry land rather than underwater such as they are today. This underwater riverbed tracing is especially prominent for the Amazon River. Because the continental shelf is rather wide on the east coast of South America, the riverbed tracing is unusually deep and long.
In ages past, the continental shelves all over the world were dry and the oceans were confined to the deep ocean basins. Today the water covering the continental shelves is only hundreds of feet deep, whereas in the deep ocean basins in water depth is measured in thousands of feet.
The few hundred feet of water above the continental shelves, can easily be held, with room to spare in a much warmer humid atmosphere. Water holding capacity of the air increases dramatically with temperature. Furthermore, presently the majority of the moisture is held in the lower 20,000 feet of the atmosphere. If the earth and its atmosphere warms up, this threshold of altitude also rises, making that much more air capable of holding that much more moisture.
Thus, if the earth did get warmer, as it once was, the ocean's levels would go down, making more space for all land animals. The assumption that global warming in the long-term is detrimental, is based upon the idea of extrapolating present conditions by faulty mathematical model assumptions, not upon observations.
Even if we had been observing the climate for 400 or 500 years, which we obviously have not, that would be a miniscule amount of time, compared to the geologic timescales involved in long-term climate of the earth.
It would be so nice if that were true! The fact is that our so-called scientists have intentionally forgotten that all these fossil fuels were produced by sunshine converted by photosynthesis in plants. Therefore, all the stored carbon we are now liberating must have been available in the air to those plants growing ages ago upon this planet. If mankind were to release every single carbon atom that was sequestered underground, the conditions on earth would have to revert to whatever they were at the time when the fossil fuels were formed.
We do know from science as well as everyday life, that plants grow much better in a warm environment. Isn't that why we build hothouses? Who is to say that turning the entire earth into a gigantic hothouse will not be beneficial to mankind and all other living creatures in the long run?
In that list you gave, is there any that will infect a Mac without the user being involved in some way? I have never heard of a Mac getting infected by anything at all whatsoever unless the user gives some sort of permission. Does visiting just any arbitrary infected website ever infect a Mac? For our users to give an administrator password is impossible, because none of our users have that information.
You left out every renter everywhere sending a 1099 to the IRS telling them how much rent they paid to the landlord. Maybe the mountain of paper they would get would bury them.
If you and everybody else who shops at Wal-Mart and other big stores like them would cease doing so, it would have the same effect without government intervention. If everything that Wal-Mart sells that is made in Chinese and other sweatshops were to suddenly disappear into thin air, their stores would be empty, except maybe for some of their grocery departments.
Of course,/.ers don't shop at Wal-Mart anyway. They can afford to shop at Nordstrom's or Macy's.
Here is an example how the Slashdot moderation system is totally broken. Obviously, the moderator disagrees with a rational presentation of a mathematical fact. I suppose though, that as long as the site gets enough hits, to make advertisers happy, nothing will be done about it.
Because of this screwed up moderation system, I too have been moderated into oblivion by those trolls who disagree with me. If the people that run the site really cared about objective fact filled posting or free speech in general, they would fix this glaring shortcoming of this site. However since they are a business, like any other business, the biggest consideration is the bottom line. Truth and justice are never considered.
...They might be convertable to synchrotron radiation generators...
That is what they have done at the Stanford linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). They are using such radiation to probe fast chemical reactions involving DNA, how proteins are constructed and folded.
Maybe a tiny number of/. readers will, but the majority of users of any platform, except maybe Linux, want their videos to play correctly. This is what Apple's devices all generally do well. The majority of buyers of these gadgets don't care whether there is flash, bash or crash inside them, but that they work and enable their users to do what they bought them for. If the toaster doesn't toast, the washer doesn't wash and the iron doesn't iron, nobody would buy them. It is obvious to all but a number of techies, here on/. and other tech websites, that Apple's products are worth buying by the millions. Apple and their stockholders are laughing all the way to the bank while the/. crowd argues about technological stuff which most users don't care about even a tiny little bit. They vote with their wallets.
...else we will not be represented in our governments....
Anyone who thinks that the people are still being represented by our so-called representatives and senators is dreaming. If that were really true, that healthcare bill would have never passed. One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. As long as people vote for the same politicians over and over again, there will be no change in any arena of government. If you want change, real change, not the kind that Obama has in mind, vote against every single politician now in office at all levels of government.
Of course this doesn't guarantee that the newly elected competitors will be much better, but it'll take the newcomers a while to re-establish the old boy network with all the connections to the moneybags that now run the country. Maybe before that happens some good things will get done.
.....the universe started out as a singularity....
Which is a mathematical construct which has never been seen or experienced in physical reality. It is based upon extrapolating observations backwards in time by means of mathematical modeling. It is based on faith, faith in mathematics and computer models. Faith in God is in part based on a book, the Bible. It is based on the belief that in it he revealed things about himself, reality and the purpose of everything including our lives. Both the Big Bang and Christianity are based on faith. The two beliefs have simply different bases, but are both beliefs.
It's really very simple. First there was nothing ---- and then it exploded! All you have to do is believe that, because that in essence is what the Big Bang theory is in actuality.
....Start a movement to stop our corrupt government.....
One way to do this is to vote out of office EVERY incumbent, no matter who it is. Sure you might get rid of a few good ones, very few. The inexperienced newcomers would take a while to reestablish their connections with the moneyed interests. During that time at least, they might possibly represent the voters rather than the rich moneybags that are now running our government. Everyone in government would also of course get the message that they better listen to the people who elect them, rather than those who shovel money in their direction in order to help them stay in office.
Neither the ELECTED nor the UNelected in government pay any attention to what the people want. If the congress critters did pay attention to the people, that healthcare bill would've never passed. Nowadays, politicians only pay attention to money. They don't even care little bit of what the people really want.
...IMO, the paperless office isn't going to happen....
Until someone invents a way to read digital bits without electricity. To read the data written on paper requires only eyeballs and a light source. Most people I know have those.
I can still read a 25 year old paper document, but I have some documents recorded on 8 inch floppies which neither I nor anyone else I know can read. Fortunately I still have them printed on paper.
Slashdot Mirror
--- The more I hear of this the more I think we should declare the lot of them "Common Carriers"---
Indeed true, what is the difference between a telephone line and any Internet connection? For a long time, in the beginning, telephone lines via dial-up carried Internet traffic as well as voice. So now, what is the difference, except that we speeded things up a bit? Since the same lines carry both voice and other material, they should still be common carriers. If the FCC had declared the Internet communications providers as common carriers right at the beginning, we would now have none of this controversy. No act of Congress is required for the FCC to decide, albeit belatedly, that there is no difference between a telephone line and an Internet line. In this regard it is a common carrier highway just like a physical highway.
----what scientists currently believe are the explanation for how the world is ---
Indeed, scientists BELIEVE! It seems that every culture has its religion and the associated high priests. It just so happens to be that in the Western religion of secular humanism, the high priests are labeled "scientists". In every culture and society, the high priests of necessity are always held in high esteem.
There are two mythologies about nature. One of them is our modern 21st century myth and the other one is ancient in that it was held and still is held by much if not most humanity. The modern mythology says that the universe is an accident and is the only thing that exists and is real. The modern myth of secularism and materialism teaches that this world is all there is. Those that have embraced this, live for wealth and power.
There are many mythologies, modern as well as ancient, but they all hold in common, that whatever exists came into being from something else. The Earth rests on turtles all the way down or came from a mathematical thing called a singularity. The ancient mythologies mostly insist that this world is not important, but the world to come is. Modern science did not rise out of cultures that embrace these mythologies, but from a Christian culture and society, that taught the existence of a transcendent rational Creator.
Only the biblical creation account tells us that everything came into being out of nothing. Only the Bible teaches us, that material world is important and valuable.
Eastern religions concentrate on the hereafter, elevating the spiritual and consider the material somewhat of a prison to be ultimately set free from. God of the Bible is interested in all of creation, both material and immaterial. Jesus, being God, came into this material world and was physically resurrected in a new arrangement of matter.
If someone gives you a complicated machine or device, are you primarily interested in how or when it was made? More likely, you would be more interested to know what it does, who gave it to you and why. This is what the Bible is primarily all about. It tells us who made the universe, why he did and our place in it. When and how he did it is not nearly as important to our existence than to answer the question why we are here and how to use this gift of life properly.
Education is about teaching truth that is applicable to life right now. Speculating about how and when things began is nice, but not crucial to how we live our lives here and now.
---we weren't needing to sell that capacity to Californians---
Actually, the Pacific Northwest, Washington and Oregon would love to sell their cheaply generated wind and hydropower to California at a high price. However the truth of the matter is that the power lines going to California are maxed out, especially in the summer. California is hot and needs a lot of air conditioning power in the summer, while in the winter the Northwest uses excess power from California for heating.
The correct way to deal with this problem would be to build more power lines, but that effort runs straight into NIMBY which greatly increases the cost which ultimately comes out of the electricity prices. Also, the terrain over which these power lines run is very rugged and isolated, greatly increasing the cost to build them. A lot of places where the power lines would go are also very scenic, causing the people who live in those places to fight them tooth and nail, because we want to preserve the beautiful scenery. All of these reasons combine to make it extremely expensive and therefore highly unlikely that additional power lines would be constructed anytime soon.
Everybody wants to plug their electrical gadgets into a working outlet, but object to the necessary environmental impact of adding to the power infrastructure.
----The Bible isn't that unique----
There are several aspects in which the Bible, especially the Gospel, is very unique. One of them, probably the biggest difference is that all other religions, with not a single exception, teach their followers how to approach God or whatever else they may call the goal of their religion. Only the Christian gospel of Jesus Christ is exactly the opposite. It is God, out of love, reaching out to us humans, by becoming human himself. There is nothing anyone of us could do for God. All he has ever asked and is still asking is that we should truly trust him and depend on him. This is where the first humans failed and those who refuse to believe God's word still fail. Only the God of the Bible commands people love him and through Jesus Christ has given human beings the ability to do that. Other religions, such as the Muslim's Allah commands strict obedience, not love.
The founders of all other religions are still in the grave. None of the other religions, not even one, dare to even make the claim that the one they are following was physically, bodily raised from death. It was the fact of the Resurrection, that transformed a bunch of scared followers of Jesus to enable them to fundamentally change their world and subsequently human history down to our very own day. Other religions, such as the Muslims have a dead prophet, but Christians love, adore and serve the living Lord.
Only in the Bible do we get history written down accurately in advance. It not only accurately foretells many details of what happened in the life of Jesus Christ, but is literally being fulfilled before our eyes. For example, it accurately foretells that the Jewish people would be scattered all over the earth, but in the last days be gathered out of all nations into their ancient land. Biblical prophecy about Jerusalem again being the capital city of a sovereign nation of Israel has come true. Zechariah's prophecy about Jerusalem becoming a bone of contention to all nations all around the world is echoed almost every day in the headlines of the news-media. Does it not strike you illogical, that the tiny nation of Israel with only 8200 km is such a bone of contention, the subject of unreasoning hatred of nations occupying millions of square kilometers? Yet this was predicted by Jesus Christ would happen to his people.
-----I'd dearly LOVE to believe in the Christian faith------
This is because your Creator God has put within you a deep yearning for himself. To achieve that peace and happiness your heart is crying out for, you only have to trust and believe him, nothing more. Once you do that, his Spirit will indwell you, enabling you to love him, live for him and your fellow man right here on earth. Once you graduate the University of Earth by death, you will be, as Jesus told his disciples,"where I am you will be also, for I am going to prepare a place for you".
It is not at all unreasonable or illogical to believe in the transcendent God who created the universe and loves you. I am a retired electrical engineer. I have spent most of my working life at Stanford University building and testing complex apparatus which enabled a number of scientists to earn Nobel prizes while discovering the secrets of creation. To be a Christian does not mean you have to check your brain at the door of the church. The apostle Paul, in the Bible, the book of Romans, admonishes Christians:
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your RESONABLE service.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your MIND, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.
As a Christian, I believe in a reasonable God who expects that belief in his offer of grace and love is a logical thing to do. I sincerely hope, that in reading the Bible, you too will come to the conclusion, such as I have, that the offer of God's grace is also there for you.
---- Why exactly do you think that's an either/or proposition?----
The word evolution is a very elastic word. If the world and everything in it is a product of time and chance, then it specifically contradicts the Bible. Anyone who does not believe in God, can offer no explanation for what exists, other than time and chance.
Only a belief in God can offer purpose and meaning for your life. If Carl Sagan was right, if the cosmos is all there is and ever will be, then there is no meaning to life. If there is no God beyond the universe, (one verse) then life truly is "a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing".
Suppose someone gives you a gift, a package. You open it and find a beautiful but complicated device or appliance. Is your first thought to determine when or how it was made? Probably not. Foremost, you would like to know who gave it to you and why. Hopefully it comes with some instructions telling you what it is good for and how to use it. You might ignore the instructions and try to figure it out on your own. In doing so, you could damage or totally ruin the gift.
God gave you the gift of life and wants you to operate this life correctly in his beautiful, complex universe. Doesn't it stand to reason that he would have included an instruction manual? I believe this instruction manual is the Bible, a very unique book. In it he tells you not only how to operate this thing called life, but also why he gave this life to you in the first place.
He gives a lot of detail, but the bottom line is that he loves you and created you in such a manner that you can love him in return. Ask your stepfather and friends WHY they believe in God.
I have never heard a GOOD evolutionary explanation how this ties in with natural selection, the supposed driving mechanism for evolution.
Actually, according to Genesis, God first made birds, including chickens, which then reproduced. In the case of birds, such as chickens, they do this by laying eggs.
Of course, anyone who believes in evolution rather than God, won't accept this.
....you should have the few extra dollars....
I would think that Apple would not lose an enormous amount of profit, if they simply offered the case they now sell for $30 free to anybody who experiences dropped calls on the new shiny iGadget. That should silence a lot of squawks. Meanwhile they can come up with a durable clear insulating coat to put over the bare metal antenna of future phones. That would prevent sweaty hands from shorting out a weak signal to the point where the call drops or can't be made. A better, more truthful signal indicator would also be helpful.
A simple inexpensive diode bridge would allow all cells to be inserted one way or the opposite way. The aluminum wad would still work also. For most devices, the diodes would probably be cheaper than royalty on this patent. Even with this patent, multiple cells still have to be inserted either all one way or the other way. Putting them in helter-skelter would still not work. Besides, anyone incapable of inserting batteries into a device correctly, should probably not be using it at all.
....when the sea was several hundred feet higher?....
The fact is, that just the opposite was true in ages past. If you want evidence of this, just get yourself a National Geographic map of the world's oceans. There you will see the continents, the continental shelves and the deep abysmal ocean basins. There you will also see clearly depicted on such maps the continued course of many of the world's rivers, such as the Amazon, the Mississippi and the Nile and others. This of course could not be if the riverbed has not at some point been on dry land rather than underwater such as they are today. This underwater riverbed tracing is especially prominent for the Amazon River. Because the continental shelf is rather wide on the east coast of South America, the riverbed tracing is unusually deep and long.
In ages past, the continental shelves all over the world were dry and the oceans were confined to the deep ocean basins. Today the water covering the continental shelves is only hundreds of feet deep, whereas in the deep ocean basins in water depth is measured in thousands of feet.
The few hundred feet of water above the continental shelves, can easily be held, with room to spare in a much warmer humid atmosphere. Water holding capacity of the air increases dramatically with temperature. Furthermore, presently the majority of the moisture is held in the lower 20,000 feet of the atmosphere. If the earth and its atmosphere warms up, this threshold of altitude also rises, making that much more air capable of holding that much more moisture.
Thus, if the earth did get warmer, as it once was, the ocean's levels would go down, making more space for all land animals. The assumption that global warming in the long-term is detrimental, is based upon the idea of extrapolating present conditions by faulty mathematical model assumptions, not upon observations.
Even if we had been observing the climate for 400 or 500 years, which we obviously have not, that would be a miniscule amount of time, compared to the geologic timescales involved in long-term climate of the earth.
....Climate Change is a Science ....
It would be so nice if that were true! The fact is that our so-called scientists have intentionally forgotten that all these fossil fuels were produced by sunshine converted by photosynthesis in plants. Therefore, all the stored carbon we are now liberating must have been available in the air to those plants growing ages ago upon this planet. If mankind were to release every single carbon atom that was sequestered underground, the conditions on earth would have to revert to whatever they were at the time when the fossil fuels were formed.
We do know from science as well as everyday life, that plants grow much better in a warm environment. Isn't that why we build hothouses? Who is to say that turning the entire earth into a gigantic hothouse will not be beneficial to mankind and all other living creatures in the long run?
why is it then that I have gotten free updates to iPhoto through software update?
In that list you gave, is there any that will infect a Mac without the user being involved in some way? I have never heard of a Mac getting infected by anything at all whatsoever unless the user gives some sort of permission. Does visiting just any arbitrary infected website ever infect a Mac? For our users to give an administrator password is impossible, because none of our users have that information.
You left out every renter everywhere sending a 1099 to the IRS telling them how much rent they paid to the landlord. Maybe the mountain of paper they would get would bury them.
If you and everybody else who shops at Wal-Mart and other big stores like them would cease doing so, it would have the same effect without government intervention. If everything that Wal-Mart sells that is made in Chinese and other sweatshops were to suddenly disappear into thin air, their stores would be empty, except maybe for some of their grocery departments.
Of course, /.ers don't shop at Wal-Mart anyway. They can afford to shop at Nordstrom's or Macy's.
Here is an example how the Slashdot moderation system is totally broken. Obviously, the moderator disagrees with a rational presentation of a mathematical fact. I suppose though, that as long as the site gets enough hits, to make advertisers happy, nothing will be done about it.
Because of this screwed up moderation system, I too have been moderated into oblivion by those trolls who disagree with me. If the people that run the site really cared about objective fact filled posting or free speech in general, they would fix this glaring shortcoming of this site. However since they are a business, like any other business, the biggest consideration is the bottom line. Truth and justice are never considered.
...They might be convertable to synchrotron radiation generators...
That is what they have done at the Stanford linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). They are using such radiation to probe fast chemical reactions involving DNA, how proteins are constructed and folded.
....the more people will scream about it....
Maybe a tiny number of /. readers will, but the majority of users of any platform, except maybe Linux, want their videos to play correctly. This is what Apple's devices all generally do well. The majority of buyers of these gadgets don't care whether there is flash, bash or crash inside them, but that they work and enable their users to do what they bought them for. If the toaster doesn't toast, the washer doesn't wash and the iron doesn't iron, nobody would buy them. It is obvious to all but a number of techies, here on /. and other tech websites, that Apple's products are worth buying by the millions. Apple and their stockholders are laughing all the way to the bank while the /. crowd argues about technological stuff which most users don't care about even a tiny little bit. They vote with their wallets.
...else we will not be represented in our governments....
Anyone who thinks that the people are still being represented by our so-called representatives and senators is dreaming. If that were really true, that healthcare bill would have never passed. One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. As long as people vote for the same politicians over and over again, there will be no change in any arena of government. If you want change, real change, not the kind that Obama has in mind, vote against every single politician now in office at all levels of government.
Of course this doesn't guarantee that the newly elected competitors will be much better, but it'll take the newcomers a while to re-establish the old boy network with all the connections to the moneybags that now run the country. Maybe before that happens some good things will get done.
.....the universe started out as a singularity....
Which is a mathematical construct which has never been seen or experienced in physical reality. It is based upon extrapolating observations backwards in time by means of mathematical modeling. It is based on faith, faith in mathematics and computer models. Faith in God is in part based on a book, the Bible. It is based on the belief that in it he revealed things about himself, reality and the purpose of everything including our lives. Both the Big Bang and Christianity are based on faith. The two beliefs have simply different bases, but are both beliefs.
....With the big bang I have other problems....
It's really very simple. First there was nothing ---- and then it exploded! All you have to do is believe that, because that in essence is what the Big Bang theory is in actuality.
....Start a movement to stop our corrupt government.....
One way to do this is to vote out of office EVERY incumbent, no matter who it is. Sure you might get rid of a few good ones, very few. The inexperienced newcomers would take a while to reestablish their connections with the moneyed interests. During that time at least, they might possibly represent the voters rather than the rich moneybags that are now running our government. Everyone in government would also of course get the message that they better listen to the people who elect them, rather than those who shovel money in their direction in order to help them stay in office.
....the UNELECTED 4th branch of government:...
Neither the ELECTED nor the UNelected in government pay any attention to what the people want. If the congress critters did pay attention to the people, that healthcare bill would've never passed. Nowadays, politicians only pay attention to money. They don't even care little bit of what the people really want.
No kitchen sink, refrigerator or dishwasher
...IMO, the paperless office isn't going to happen....
Until someone invents a way to read digital bits without electricity. To read the data written on paper requires only eyeballs and a light source. Most people I know have those.
I can still read a 25 year old paper document, but I have some documents recorded on 8 inch floppies which neither I nor anyone else I know can read. Fortunately I still have them printed on paper.