Wait, are you saying that I need to have some knowledge to post on a subject? I missed that one in the fine print. Must be another one of those lawyer tricks.
Addressed to several people who have replied to the parent post
Most of these responses give a truly informative overview of why so many non-*nix users (MS and Apple) think we are a bunch of snot nosed arrogant kids.
When a person makes a list of complaints, bogus or not (and his/hers are well composed compared to most complaints), that person and their complaints should be respected. You know what most of my clients have complained about linux the most? Not the roughness of the OS, but the roughness of the people they run into who claim to be linux people. I often wonder about the truth of the jokes about the average slashdotter working in a closet and living in their mom's basement when I read replies like these. Being mean accomplishes nothing but ill will. That keeps people from wanting to deal with linux or OSS at all.
If you want to sell linux to others, you have to be sellable yourself first. Most people do not follow the advice of someone who acts like a self-important dweeb. That is why most companies have such a large investment in their public image. Now, please invest in your own so that we may all more easily further the world's acceptance of linux.
For the child, the same reason that a child can not enter into a legally binding contract, consent to sex or many other things that children are not legally entitled. Most children do not have a comprehension of their actions in a situation like this. It is part of parenting to teach the children as they grown older to learn right and wrong.
For the music labels involved with the RIAA to allow this action to continue shows an abysmal lack of moral judgement on their part, as well as a poor understanding of the moral values of many people in this country. I can not believe that the offending 7 year old has done enough fiscal damage to warrant the collateral damage that subjecting her to a cross examination or labeling her as a criminal will accomplish. I hope they choke on this little fish and start to die as an organization.
Up till now, I have been simply satisfied by cancelling all of our media purchasing subscriptions and not buying from any artists/studios related to the MPAA or the RIAA. Now, I will start to point everyone I know to articles like this. Time to turn up the heat. Maybe that huge decline in sales of CDs can be further amplified to a huge decline in sales overall to participating artists and labels. I know the group of churches I attend will be very interested in seeing this news. Many christians have a way of polarizing when children are involved.
You just need to watch one of his presentations to realise he is a nutjob. I have seen several of his movies. I just pointed you to the wiki for a nice neat summary without making you wade through 12 hours of his videos, he had posted some on youtube. I do not hold a person's greatness by their credentials, but by their own actions and words. His words and actions are what him a loon. I saw his videos before I ever read anything on him. He is a discredit to science and Christianity.
Like some other right wing Christians, his conscience could also be against paying taxes
And Christ said "render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's".. Talking aobut taxes given to a government that you can not support for moral reasons.
On Creationist ideas... watch these simple explanations.. They are quite illuminating. Then, imagine that God did things that early man did not understand. On the Adam was so smart thing. Re-read genesis and see if Adam comes across as being that smart.
Boy, this feels like Troll, but you got me on a good night. I am sick and tired of watching charlatans rip the guts out of what is good in the Bible for their own selfish motivations. SO, I am going to really step in it tonight.
Please, do your homework about the people you follow. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. If this is who I think this is, I have heard him speak. He is not a scientist or honest, and his knowledge is incorrect, inaccurate and misleading. He may use words that sound like he knows what he is talking about, but he messes up on the basics of the theories, definitions and then misquotes things! He is either a fool he think he is smart or a deranged idiot. I would be inclined to listen to his ideas if he got the things he claims to know correct. I doubt he is with God.
I will not argue that God did or did not create the Universe. It is not arguable. It is only believable. I am fine with that. God has given us a beautiful gift - the Universe. By studying it, how it works and where it/we have come from, we do honor God. By perverting those discoveries, by not learning to decide what in the Bible is fact and what is story, we dishonor God. Yes, God created the universe. How he did it is known by him and summarized in the Bible - no details given! (What is a day in the Universe anyway? Is it a day on Earth, a day on Jupiter? What context for day do we use? It is not defined!!!) If God wanted evolution, we have it. If not, it just looks like it. Whatever it is, God deemed and it is so. It is up to us to discover it. We are not going to discover much if we keep jumping back to a book based on three to six thousand year old understandings of God's world. The Bible teaches us much, but not about auto mechanics, computing, electricity and most of what our society currently uses technologically or scientifically. What the Bible does give us, which is infinitely more important is how to live life right. How to manage money, treat other people, how to lead, right and wrong, how to learn and study, how to observe and research and so on.
Let us use the Bible for what it is intended. How to live life. How to have faith in God and yourself. Let us not turn back to the dark ages when the Bible was used as a tool of ignorance. I do not believe that God would like us to use His book as a tool for ignorance. Science is the study of God's universe, its rules, and how it works. Science is the study of God's physical world laws! The Bible does not spell many of those out if any at all. Scientific endeavors are a strong form of worship. But, not a religion unto themselves. They are merely another way to know God. I have an essay on this. I will try to remember to post it here.
BTW, as you go running down the New Earth Road, let me remind you of another disaster that was followed for a long time, because some past *experts* like the one you mentioned saw it in the bible.. Flat Earth followers.
1 Chronicles 16:30: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable."
Psalm 93:1: "Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm..."
Psalm 96:10: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable..."
Psalm 104:5: "Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken."
Isaiah 45:18: "...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast..."
And, there was that thing from Churches for a long time that the heavens revolved around the Earth. They said that was from the Bible as well. Someone mentioned Galileo. How about Da Vinci?
Oh, and yeah. Evolution is not a religion. It proffers no concepts about before birth, or after death. It does not deal with any *facts* that are not measurable. It does not deal with God (or the presence or lack thereof). It merely makes observations on what has been observed (research, experiment) and tries to make sense of them (theory).
Galileo also won out over time. He used science. He presented facts that were at first strongly resisted or ignored, then over time evaluated, re-evaluated and then confirmed. Same thing is going on with the theory of evolution. The bubbles theory (I have not read on it) may be another theory with strong evidence. Cool. I am under no illusion that science has proven evolution. It merely strongly supports the theories as they are now defined.
Tesla was another person who suffered such. Most people thought he was truly nuts with that AC idea of his.
Canned responses are not incomplete responses. A good canned response would cover evolution, bubbles, creationism et al. It would explain what is and is not known/assumed/believed. That is also why I mentioned a wiki. Then, it is able to be updated as new ideas and information are presented. Which, makes it a very dynamic canned response, so not really canned at all. It would merely help in the reduction of copious amounts of redundant postings.
Most things are a religion to some (like NASCAR or Wrestling). Putting up an entry to cover the facts surrounding the theories would be anti-religion. Religion is about control and limitation of choice. It is about limiting one's accepted interpretation of reality to whatever the religious group espouses without regards for reality or differing evidence (not theory). In that sense, there are groups of people who are religious on the issue. Evolution has a large amount of measured evidence behind it. Nothing conclusive yet, but a large amount of suggestive evidence. That takes it out of the realm of religion.
-InnerWeb
He has broken many laws, has flaunted violations of the constitution, due process and human rights. If an example is not made of this kind of behavior, then all it says to the next president is "Hey, go for it!"
President Clinton was impeached for lying about an extra-marital affair with someone who worked for him. Both are bad, but insignificant when compared to the current leaderships transgressions. I do not welcome back the age of robber-barons. I do not welcome any semblance of government that benefits business at the gross expense of individuals. I do not welcome any government that destroys freedom in the name of safety. I do not welcome any government that lies about information to start a war.
The good thing about a republic/democracy is that we can vote these people out. The bad thing is that if the reward for conducting government this way is not counterbalanced by a greater negative/loss, then it will be done again, with more frequency and to greater extents.
Children see what is happening in this country and learn about our nation, our values and how they are expected to behave in the future based on what we allow much more so than what we say. Ever notice how children pick up many/most of their parents/friends bad behavior? The more public and repeated a thing is without comparable punishment, the more likely they are to be okay with it.
Hmm.. Glanced at the websites. Can any of these be integrated with a windows or *nix machine? X10 can (I know it is cheap). If these solutions could, then I might be more interested in them personally.
Things I can do with X10 -
Make a phone call to modify settings (via asterisk)
Hit a website to view status/modify settings
Link cameras with lights for security - sensor ir tripped, lights come on, cameras record - affordably.
Automate watering of the plants and trees we have inside.
Control baffling in the central air system.
Do all this in a scripting language (perl, python,...)
Do all of this with only one system, not several independant systems that will not work together well.
There are many things I do not like about X10, but then there are many things I have been able to do with X10 that I simply can not (or do not know how to) do with anything else. I do not consider myself an expert by any means, only a hobbyist. But, we hobbyists are buying the technology and making it do interesting things (like Mr House.)
Please share with us how to do these things with the other systems, I would be very intered in reading them. I would love to go to a system that does not use the power lines to work. I would rather use wirerless or run new wire (not hard in my house).
Evolution is a theory. A well backed theory with *lots* of evidence to point us in that direction. It could all be misunderstood, but no other explanation has one thousandth the facts behind it. No, reading from the Bible is not it. And certain ex science teachers who have not a clue about science are not it either.
Scientists date the rock by the fossils contain within
No, carbon dating and other forms of measuring radioactive decay are used. They are rather precise and very consistent. They even have different ways of dating by using different target elements to measur to verify the dates found.
Jeesh. I think it is time for a slashwiki to handle all of this nonsense. We can then just point to the answer already scribed.
For many, once married, sexual conquests are either a thing of the past or you are in an open relationship, cheating or swinging. For the vast majority of us ex-jocks (yes jocks can be nerds), we enjoyed those days, and are often left wondering just what we did to ourselves when we said "I do." It is another case of not reading the EULA before installing the package.
Hmm. I think I am going to jump in here. My apologies up front for spelling, grammar and other syntactic issues, I am tired, it is late. If I get a chance, this might be a good topic to do a serious essay, but for now, a loosely grouped rambling of thoughts. But, don't hold you breath. 8-)
Anyone with some serious data mining background knows what you can do with large volumes of data. There are already corporate databases that dwarf what was just being discussed (I have worked on a few). Some of these databases are built on compliance requirements (think financial markets, insurance, medical...). Some of these databases are built on business requirements (think marketing, customer tracking,...).
Now, think of all the mismatched junk mail you have received that has somehow selected you as a potential buyer of a product based on data in some databases(s) (not adult or dubious pharmaceuticals, but real products). The key is not to scrutinize every individual. The objective is to spot trends, relationships and other seemingly *tangential* data patterns. Once some *specified* criteria has been matched, then a deeper inspection into the data/individual(s) would occur, looking for other patterns, connections, locations, etc. This is how investigative research works - much like targeted marketing. This is also known as building a case - you build evidence of something.
All of this seems quite innocent until you stop to think about how your circle of friends puts you close to crime without your knowledge. The average person is guilty of very little though few are guilty of nothing. Most people do not know what laws/rules/standards they have violated. Many people wind up in violation of zoning, tax, traffic and safety laws without ever knowing. Think about this, do you have any friends or associates who have done something illegal? Odds are you do whether you know or not. You are now potentially linked to criminal activity. Remember many prosecutors win their cases on circumstantial evidence. No smoking gun per se, just information that demonstrates a *link* to the purported criminal activity. On its own, this is just a little thing.
Another problems with a tool like this is the power it focuses in the hands of those who can gain access to it. It is grossly unbalancing in the political and business world. Those who have access to this information now have the ability to much more easily discern what their competition is doing (unfair competitive advantage), find potential oversights (unfair competitive advantage), and discover potential legal issues that would otherwise never be worth paying attention to (the courtroom is as much a part of conducting business as is creating viable products).
You might want to believe that this can never happen with information held by the government. I think there is plenty of evidence out there that abuse of government held information happens on a regular basis. Just because it is illegal, does not mean people in the position of guarding it will not abuse it. It happens through theft (think of all the veterans information stolen recently), inappropriate use of government resources, and abuse of the legal system.
As an example, a very small database relatively speaking, credit reporting agencies. How accountable are they for the information they contain and for whom they hand the information out to? Not very. Yet, these databases have an immense impact on our lives. They are a major part of determining everything from the cost of living (loans for houses, cars, and much more ) to your employability (security clearance, trustworthiness). How often do they contain errors introduced by outside agencies? If my own records have errors or false information on them, I must spend my time tracking these down and proving that the information is incorrect. The companies involved will not do it for me. It is a process that eats up time, is very difficult to manage. Simply filling out a dispute will not
If free will is nothing more than the ability to make non-deterministic decisions, I would say that Stanley in a future version could be *given* free will. I would even say that complex rules based systems can exhibit free will as well (though we tend to call them bugs or unexpected features).
Much of the research I have read that theorizes that we do not really have free will is based on the assumption that if we know enough about a person, their biology, their societal formation, their beliefs, etc. we can predict with great (if not 100%) accuracy their future decisions.
Maybe that is possible. Maybe not. We have so much more we need to learn about the brain and the body. It may turn out to be that simple, in which case, the cures for all mental health issues will be at our collective fingertips and crime will become nonexistant.
With everything I have read and coded myself so far, I am certain that the potential for that is a long way off. So, for now, we are beings of free will - in a sense. Many of us are also very easily groomed, brainwashed and messed with. It may be that to have free will, you need to have something else as well.
Passport is not dead... Passport is undead.
Now, maybe they are trying to get little developers to get used to it, incorporate it and promote it. Sounds like a coven of vampires. Hasn't Halloween already passed us?
I already only pay $.50 to $1.00 per movie for most movies at Family Home Video. There have only been 6 out of the 43 movies I have seen I would have paid more for this summer. Before Family home Video came along with its reasonable pricing, I only watched about 4 movies per year.
Why would I want to pay more? True, I sometimes have to go back to get a DVD replaced, but that has never been an issue, and they always make it right! The last time I went to a movie theater, it cost us nearly $40.00 for the movies and the snacks. The snack selection was horrible and the movie environment was cramped and uncomfortable compared to what I am now used to at home. There were rude people in the audience and the sound was not near as good as my home system.
At home, I have two large couches, a very large wide screen display for the movie, clean 8 speaker sound system with sub-woofers. The seating is extremely comfortable, the other people watching the movie are almost always polite and quiet. Best of all, the snacks and drinks actually taste good (and normally aren't cr*p food).
I get the $100.00 experience at home for less than $5.00, and I get the $5.00 experience at the theater for $40.00. If they movie and theater execs can not figure that one out, they will almost never see me in the theater.
You mean Bill Gate's mother and father (very close friends of the CEO of IBM and his wife at the time) and Bill Gates grandparents. Bill was an excellent programmer by most of what I have read, but the business deals that made him what he is today were his parents and grandparents. Not really a bad deal, and enough of the *right* situation to make most people insanely jealous.
One of the greatest strengths a person can have is to know their weaknesses and to let other people do that part or the business for them (always hire people better and smarter than yourself). Mr Gates started with a set of assets that very very few people ever see, let alone have. Hundreds of millions in cash, the right political connections with his granparents and parents, and an interest if not top notch understanding of code.
Mr Gates, aka Microsoft, did many right things to get where he/they are. He may have stood on the shoulders of giants to get there, but that is how it normally is. Since then, MS has done many illegal, immoral and unethical things. In the end, they are a business, and a business's primary (if nor only) objective is to profit. They have done that very well where others have floundered, squandered and failed.
I rarely us MS products myself - my children and I do play computer games and I need to see how the MS world sees things with web browsers and front ends. I use the best tool for the job. Most of the time, it has been Solaris, BSD or Linux (most recently). Sometimes it is windows. I have converted many of my clients from a pure MS plan to a hybrid of MS and *nix or pure *nix. They have saved a large amount of money.
But, in the end, many of their customers still use MS and so they cater to it. The problem with most people, both Open Source and Closed Source is they forget the client determines the usage, not the developer nor the company. That is why MS spends so much money marketing to people to convince them to decide to use MS. If it *feels* good for the client and they can see a *justification*, then they will probably go with it.
I wonder how much money the RIAA has made off of this for the labels. They seem to be police, judge, jury, and collections for profit. I wonder how much of their record profits are from these lawsuits.
Well, I know the RIAA has helped me. I have purchased no new media in over a year now (never downloaded it). And it has helped the local band scene as many people I know go watch the bands and purchase the CDs where the bands play rather than feed the beast. Overall it is less expensive and I have made more friends.
My kids, and many of their friends are growing up on live performances from local artists. We have been to Beef and Board (a very *nice* playhouse), the local small playhouses, the parks, ethnic presentations, and much more. I never could have forced them to go to these things until the RIAA (and now MPAA) stepped in. I never thought I would live to see the day where the labels would make that happen.
People tend to work by goals. If they have something to attain, they tend to attain it. If they see nothing to attain, they tend to do nothing. If we discover a potentially *liveable* planet, the competition to get there will start and things will start to progress much faster.
Yep, I missed that. Sorry, I wasn't building a quarter million dollar document that will have a dramatic impact on people's live for the next 30 to 100 years. It might actually have mattered then. But, tanks for the gud laugh!
Have you had one a house built lately? It is amazing at how incompetent so many of these builders are anymore. Walls are not even near straight, corners are more than 15 degrees off, floors are more than 2 inches off of level.
I worry less about the ability of the guy named "spike" to do math than I do about the guy's ability to read, follow directions and make accurate measurements.
I have had far too many friends go through nightmares getting houses built. I would rather have someone who understands the basics of geometry and trig enough to undertand why things have to be measured correctly and cut correctly (and then actually do it)!
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, are you saying that I need to have some knowledge to post on a subject? I missed that one in the fine print. Must be another one of those lawyer tricks.
-InnerWebAddressed to several people who have replied to the parent post
Most of these responses give a truly informative overview of why so many non-*nix users (MS and Apple) think we are a bunch of snot nosed arrogant kids.
When a person makes a list of complaints, bogus or not (and his/hers are well composed compared to most complaints), that person and their complaints should be respected. You know what most of my clients have complained about linux the most? Not the roughness of the OS, but the roughness of the people they run into who claim to be linux people. I often wonder about the truth of the jokes about the average slashdotter working in a closet and living in their mom's basement when I read replies like these. Being mean accomplishes nothing but ill will. That keeps people from wanting to deal with linux or OSS at all.
If you want to sell linux to others, you have to be sellable yourself first. Most people do not follow the advice of someone who acts like a self-important dweeb. That is why most companies have such a large investment in their public image. Now, please invest in your own so that we may all more easily further the world's acceptance of linux.
Rant Off
-InnerWebFor the child, the same reason that a child can not enter into a legally binding contract, consent to sex or many other things that children are not legally entitled. Most children do not have a comprehension of their actions in a situation like this. It is part of parenting to teach the children as they grown older to learn right and wrong.
For the music labels involved with the RIAA to allow this action to continue shows an abysmal lack of moral judgement on their part, as well as a poor understanding of the moral values of many people in this country. I can not believe that the offending 7 year old has done enough fiscal damage to warrant the collateral damage that subjecting her to a cross examination or labeling her as a criminal will accomplish. I hope they choke on this little fish and start to die as an organization.
Up till now, I have been simply satisfied by cancelling all of our media purchasing subscriptions and not buying from any artists/studios related to the MPAA or the RIAA. Now, I will start to point everyone I know to articles like this. Time to turn up the heat. Maybe that huge decline in sales of CDs can be further amplified to a huge decline in sales overall to participating artists and labels. I know the group of churches I attend will be very interested in seeing this news. Many christians have a way of polarizing when children are involved.
-InnerWebYou just need to watch one of his presentations to realise he is a nutjob. I have seen several of his movies. I just pointed you to the wiki for a nice neat summary without making you wade through 12 hours of his videos, he had posted some on youtube. I do not hold a person's greatness by their credentials, but by their own actions and words. His words and actions are what him a loon. I saw his videos before I ever read anything on him. He is a discredit to science and Christianity.
Here is one of his seminars.
Enjoy and learn about the man.
Like some other right wing Christians, his conscience could also be against paying taxes
And Christ said "render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's".. Talking aobut taxes given to a government that you can not support for moral reasons.
On Creationist ideas... watch these simple explanations.. They are quite illuminating. Then, imagine that God did things that early man did not understand. On the Adam was so smart thing. Re-read genesis and see if Adam comes across as being that smart.
- The end has a very important quote.
- Another explanation of another method for determining dates, but more complicated. Read the comments below it for some other interesting insights.
-InnerWebBoy, this feels like Troll, but you got me on a good night. I am sick and tired of watching charlatans rip the guts out of what is good in the Bible for their own selfish motivations. SO, I am going to really step in it tonight.
This Kent Hovind?
Please, do your homework about the people you follow. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. If this is who I think this is, I have heard him speak. He is not a scientist or honest, and his knowledge is incorrect, inaccurate and misleading. He may use words that sound like he knows what he is talking about, but he messes up on the basics of the theories, definitions and then misquotes things! He is either a fool he think he is smart or a deranged idiot. I would be inclined to listen to his ideas if he got the things he claims to know correct. I doubt he is with God.
I will not argue that God did or did not create the Universe. It is not arguable. It is only believable. I am fine with that. God has given us a beautiful gift - the Universe. By studying it, how it works and where it/we have come from, we do honor God. By perverting those discoveries, by not learning to decide what in the Bible is fact and what is story, we dishonor God. Yes, God created the universe. How he did it is known by him and summarized in the Bible - no details given! (What is a day in the Universe anyway? Is it a day on Earth, a day on Jupiter? What context for day do we use? It is not defined!!!) If God wanted evolution, we have it. If not, it just looks like it. Whatever it is, God deemed and it is so. It is up to us to discover it. We are not going to discover much if we keep jumping back to a book based on three to six thousand year old understandings of God's world. The Bible teaches us much, but not about auto mechanics, computing, electricity and most of what our society currently uses technologically or scientifically. What the Bible does give us, which is infinitely more important is how to live life right. How to manage money, treat other people, how to lead, right and wrong, how to learn and study, how to observe and research and so on.
Let us use the Bible for what it is intended. How to live life. How to have faith in God and yourself. Let us not turn back to the dark ages when the Bible was used as a tool of ignorance. I do not believe that God would like us to use His book as a tool for ignorance. Science is the study of God's universe, its rules, and how it works. Science is the study of God's physical world laws! The Bible does not spell many of those out if any at all. Scientific endeavors are a strong form of worship. But, not a religion unto themselves. They are merely another way to know God. I have an essay on this. I will try to remember to post it here.
BTW, as you go running down the New Earth Road, let me remind you of another disaster that was followed for a long time, because some past *experts* like the one you mentioned saw it in the bible.. Flat Earth followers.
And, there was that thing from Churches for a long time that the heavens revolved around the Earth. They said that was from the Bible as well. Someone mentioned Galileo. How about Da Vinci?
Oh, and yeah. Evolution is not a religion. It proffers no concepts about before birth, or after death. It does not deal with any *facts* that are not measurable. It does not deal with God (or the presence or lack thereof). It merely makes observations on what has been observed (research, experiment) and tries to make sense of them (theory).
Galileo also won out over time. He used science. He presented facts that were at first strongly resisted or ignored, then over time evaluated, re-evaluated and then confirmed. Same thing is going on with the theory of evolution. The bubbles theory (I have not read on it) may be another theory with strong evidence. Cool. I am under no illusion that science has proven evolution. It merely strongly supports the theories as they are now defined.
Tesla was another person who suffered such. Most people thought he was truly nuts with that AC idea of his.
Canned responses are not incomplete responses. A good canned response would cover evolution, bubbles, creationism et al. It would explain what is and is not known/assumed/believed. That is also why I mentioned a wiki. Then, it is able to be updated as new ideas and information are presented. Which, makes it a very dynamic canned response, so not really canned at all. It would merely help in the reduction of copious amounts of redundant postings.
Most things are a religion to some (like NASCAR or Wrestling). Putting up an entry to cover the facts surrounding the theories would be anti-religion. Religion is about control and limitation of choice. It is about limiting one's accepted interpretation of reality to whatever the religious group espouses without regards for reality or differing evidence (not theory). In that sense, there are groups of people who are religious on the issue. Evolution has a large amount of measured evidence behind it. Nothing conclusive yet, but a large amount of suggestive evidence. That takes it out of the realm of religion. -InnerWeb
About impeaching the president...
He has broken many laws, has flaunted violations of the constitution, due process and human rights. If an example is not made of this kind of behavior, then all it says to the next president is "Hey, go for it!"
President Clinton was impeached for lying about an extra-marital affair with someone who worked for him. Both are bad, but insignificant when compared to the current leaderships transgressions. I do not welcome back the age of robber-barons. I do not welcome any semblance of government that benefits business at the gross expense of individuals. I do not welcome any government that destroys freedom in the name of safety. I do not welcome any government that lies about information to start a war.
The good thing about a republic/democracy is that we can vote these people out. The bad thing is that if the reward for conducting government this way is not counterbalanced by a greater negative/loss, then it will be done again, with more frequency and to greater extents.
Children see what is happening in this country and learn about our nation, our values and how they are expected to behave in the future based on what we allow much more so than what we say. Ever notice how children pick up many/most of their parents/friends bad behavior? The more public and repeated a thing is without comparable punishment, the more likely they are to be okay with it.
-InnerWebHmm.. Glanced at the websites. Can any of these be integrated with a windows or *nix machine? X10 can (I know it is cheap). If these solutions could, then I might be more interested in them personally.
Things I can do with X10 -
There are many things I do not like about X10, but then there are many things I have been able to do with X10 that I simply can not (or do not know how to) do with anything else. I do not consider myself an expert by any means, only a hobbyist. But, we hobbyists are buying the technology and making it do interesting things (like Mr House.)
Please share with us how to do these things with the other systems, I would be very intered in reading them. I would love to go to a system that does not use the power lines to work. I would rather use wirerless or run new wire (not hard in my house).
-InnerWebEvolutionism is a RELIGION.
Evolution is a theory. A well backed theory with *lots* of evidence to point us in that direction. It could all be misunderstood, but no other explanation has one thousandth the facts behind it. No, reading from the Bible is not it. And certain ex science teachers who have not a clue about science are not it either.
Scientists date the rock by the fossils contain within
No, carbon dating and other forms of measuring radioactive decay are used. They are rather precise and very consistent. They even have different ways of dating by using different target elements to measur to verify the dates found.
Jeesh. I think it is time for a slashwiki to handle all of this nonsense. We can then just point to the answer already scribed.
-InnerwebFor many, once married, sexual conquests are either a thing of the past or you are in an open relationship, cheating or swinging. For the vast majority of us ex-jocks (yes jocks can be nerds), we enjoyed those days, and are often left wondering just what we did to ourselves when we said "I do." It is another case of not reading the EULA before installing the package.
-InnerwebWelcome to the Hotel Microsoft.
We are prgorammed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you may never leave.
jk
- InnerWeb
Hmm. I think I am going to jump in here. My apologies up front for spelling, grammar and other syntactic issues, I am tired, it is late. If I get a chance, this might be a good topic to do a serious essay, but for now, a loosely grouped rambling of thoughts. But, don't hold you breath. 8-)
Anyone with some serious data mining background knows what you can do with large volumes of data. There are already corporate databases that dwarf what was just being discussed (I have worked on a few). Some of these databases are built on compliance requirements (think financial markets, insurance, medical...). Some of these databases are built on business requirements (think marketing, customer tracking, ...).
Now, think of all the mismatched junk mail you have received that has somehow selected you as a potential buyer of a product based on data in some databases(s) (not adult or dubious pharmaceuticals, but real products). The key is not to scrutinize every individual. The objective is to spot trends, relationships and other seemingly *tangential* data patterns. Once some *specified* criteria has been matched, then a deeper inspection into the data/individual(s) would occur, looking for other patterns, connections, locations, etc. This is how investigative research works - much like targeted marketing. This is also known as building a case - you build evidence of something.
All of this seems quite innocent until you stop to think about how your circle of friends puts you close to crime without your knowledge. The average person is guilty of very little though few are guilty of nothing. Most people do not know what laws/rules/standards they have violated. Many people wind up in violation of zoning, tax, traffic and safety laws without ever knowing. Think about this, do you have any friends or associates who have done something illegal? Odds are you do whether you know or not. You are now potentially linked to criminal activity. Remember many prosecutors win their cases on circumstantial evidence. No smoking gun per se, just information that demonstrates a *link* to the purported criminal activity. On its own, this is just a little thing.
Another problems with a tool like this is the power it focuses in the hands of those who can gain access to it. It is grossly unbalancing in the political and business world. Those who have access to this information now have the ability to much more easily discern what their competition is doing (unfair competitive advantage), find potential oversights (unfair competitive advantage), and discover potential legal issues that would otherwise never be worth paying attention to (the courtroom is as much a part of conducting business as is creating viable products).
You might want to believe that this can never happen with information held by the government. I think there is plenty of evidence out there that abuse of government held information happens on a regular basis. Just because it is illegal, does not mean people in the position of guarding it will not abuse it. It happens through theft (think of all the veterans information stolen recently), inappropriate use of government resources, and abuse of the legal system.
As an example, a very small database relatively speaking, credit reporting agencies. How accountable are they for the information they contain and for whom they hand the information out to? Not very. Yet, these databases have an immense impact on our lives. They are a major part of determining everything from the cost of living (loans for houses, cars, and much more ) to your employability (security clearance, trustworthiness). How often do they contain errors introduced by outside agencies? If my own records have errors or false information on them, I must spend my time tracking these down and proving that the information is incorrect. The companies involved will not do it for me. It is a process that eats up time, is very difficult to manage. Simply filling out a dispute will not
Why can Stanley not have free will?
If free will is nothing more than the ability to make non-deterministic decisions, I would say that Stanley in a future version could be *given* free will. I would even say that complex rules based systems can exhibit free will as well (though we tend to call them bugs or unexpected features).
Much of the research I have read that theorizes that we do not really have free will is based on the assumption that if we know enough about a person, their biology, their societal formation, their beliefs, etc. we can predict with great (if not 100%) accuracy their future decisions.
Maybe that is possible. Maybe not. We have so much more we need to learn about the brain and the body. It may turn out to be that simple, in which case, the cures for all mental health issues will be at our collective fingertips and crime will become nonexistant.
With everything I have read and coded myself so far, I am certain that the potential for that is a long way off. So, for now, we are beings of free will - in a sense. Many of us are also very easily groomed, brainwashed and messed with. It may be that to have free will, you need to have something else as well.
Enough rambling for tonight.
-Innerweb
My god man! Do you expect an education at school?
-InnerwebNow, maybe they are trying to get little developers to get used to it, incorporate it and promote it. Sounds like a coven of vampires. Hasn't Halloween already passed us?
;-)
innerwebI've noticed that most of the computers I have to fix with Viri, Trojans and adware all seem to use that msn search. I wonder...
jk..
innerweb
Oh sorry, this room is abuse. Argument is next door.
-innerweb
"*In fact that's a oversimplification. Wealth can be generated from means not directly related to the workers. e.g. investments."
How many investments produce income without workers working? I can not think of any.
-digirydeI already only pay $.50 to $1.00 per movie for most movies at Family Home Video. There have only been 6 out of the 43 movies I have seen I would have paid more for this summer. Before Family home Video came along with its reasonable pricing, I only watched about 4 movies per year.
Why would I want to pay more? True, I sometimes have to go back to get a DVD replaced, but that has never been an issue, and they always make it right! The last time I went to a movie theater, it cost us nearly $40.00 for the movies and the snacks. The snack selection was horrible and the movie environment was cramped and uncomfortable compared to what I am now used to at home. There were rude people in the audience and the sound was not near as good as my home system.
At home, I have two large couches, a very large wide screen display for the movie, clean 8 speaker sound system with sub-woofers. The seating is extremely comfortable, the other people watching the movie are almost always polite and quiet. Best of all, the snacks and drinks actually taste good (and normally aren't cr*p food).
I get the $100.00 experience at home for less than $5.00, and I get the $5.00 experience at the theater for $40.00. If they movie and theater execs can not figure that one out, they will almost never see me in the theater.
InnerWeb
Thanks!
InnerWeb
One of the greatest strengths a person can have is to know their weaknesses and to let other people do that part or the business for them (always hire people better and smarter than yourself). Mr Gates started with a set of assets that very very few people ever see, let alone have. Hundreds of millions in cash, the right political connections with his granparents and parents, and an interest if not top notch understanding of code.
Mr Gates, aka Microsoft, did many right things to get where he/they are. He may have stood on the shoulders of giants to get there, but that is how it normally is. Since then, MS has done many illegal, immoral and unethical things. In the end, they are a business, and a business's primary (if nor only) objective is to profit. They have done that very well where others have floundered, squandered and failed.
I rarely us MS products myself - my children and I do play computer games and I need to see how the MS world sees things with web browsers and front ends. I use the best tool for the job. Most of the time, it has been Solaris, BSD or Linux (most recently). Sometimes it is windows. I have converted many of my clients from a pure MS plan to a hybrid of MS and *nix or pure *nix. They have saved a large amount of money.
But, in the end, many of their customers still use MS and so they cater to it. The problem with most people, both Open Source and Closed Source is they forget the client determines the usage, not the developer nor the company. That is why MS spends so much money marketing to people to convince them to decide to use MS. If it *feels* good for the client and they can see a *justification*, then they will probably go with it.
InnerWeb
I wonder how much money the RIAA has made off of this for the labels. They seem to be police, judge, jury, and collections for profit. I wonder how much of their record profits are from these lawsuits.
Well, I know the RIAA has helped me. I have purchased no new media in over a year now (never downloaded it). And it has helped the local band scene as many people I know go watch the bands and purchase the CDs where the bands play rather than feed the beast. Overall it is less expensive and I have made more friends.
My kids, and many of their friends are growing up on live performances from local artists. We have been to Beef and Board (a very *nice* playhouse), the local small playhouses, the parks, ethnic presentations, and much more. I never could have forced them to go to these things until the RIAA (and now MPAA) stepped in. I never thought I would live to see the day where the labels would make that happen.
InnerWeb
People tend to work by goals. If they have something to attain, they tend to attain it. If they see nothing to attain, they tend to do nothing. If we discover a potentially *liveable* planet, the competition to get there will start and things will start to progress much faster.
Innerweb
InnerWeb
I worry less about the ability of the guy named "spike" to do math than I do about the guy's ability to read, follow directions and make accurate measurements.
I have had far too many friends go through nightmares getting houses built. I would rather have someone who understands the basics of geometry and trig enough to undertand why things have to be measured correctly and cut correctly (and then actually do it)!
InnerWeb