This is an unanswerable question, like "is more production really better?" Like every other rational question, it becomes a matter of marginal costs and benefits.
Additional options are always better until the marginal cost (in researching/comprehending the option) becomes greater than the marginal benefit provided by the option. Thus, options with low marginal benefits and/or high research costs are not better, and other options are. For example:
Which windowing system do you want? a. KDE b. Gnome c. Fluxbox
This is an example where more options are probably bad, because each additional option has huge research costs associated with them - that is, it takes a lot of effort to find out exactly why a person would prefer one or the other.
Which background color do you prefer: a. Light gray b. Dark gray c. Gray
Here, more options is probably still not better because while the research costs are low, the marginal benefit to being able to choose a slightly different shade of gray are so tiny as to be outweighed by the effort of having to even answer the question.
Choose a keyboard layout: a. US/English b. UK/English c. German d. French e. Russian
Here is an example or more options are better. It's clear what the differences are, making research costs low, and the benefits to choosing the correct keyboard layout are huge.
Is the requirement of sleep enforced by our brains because it is (a) an irreducibly necessary part of living for physiological or neurochemical reasons, like breathing, or (b) a behavior that was evolutionarily advantageous in the wild?
If (a), then these kinds of drugs are very troubling. If (b), then I would probably have no more qualms taking these than, say, a pain-killer.
Ah, yes, I meant prokaryote of course, thank you for the correction.
So, is the theory that sleep is evolutionarily explained by the fact that all (animal?) orders require some restorative periods of inactivity, and thus the higher orders have retained mutations that enforce a period of inactivity? This would make sense inasmuch as it would prevent beings that have developed an ego from driving themselves to exhaustion. On the other hand, there is much more going on in the brain than mere unconsciousness during periods of sleep, and even assuming it is true that animals with no brain to speak of still need periods of rest, there is apparently still something more going on in the brain during sleep that mere unsonsciousness doesn't provide. The alternative, I suppose, is that this is merely a secondary effect of the mechanisms which evolved to enforce periods of rest.
Really fascinating stuff to speculate about - I look forward to real answers.
It does seem severely evolutionarily disadvantageous, doesn't it? Honest question, for anybody who knows: what is the lowest order of animal life that requires sleep? Eukaryotes don't sleep, do they? Do worm? Jellyfish? Is there some connection between higher-order brain activity and the need to sleep, and does it differ by species?
I'd suggest something more collapsable and more sparingly reliant on just icons on the less used features. The other suggestion I'd make is to make the OO.o interface more "modal" in a way. As much as I hate 'vi' and it's modality, I think modes could be done right for Office apps. Again, you have all of the most common functionality available in the default mode with little or no space devoted to less popular features.
Xbox has always supported memory cards. Your friend should have bought one, stuck it in the top of the controller, and transferred his savegames from the HDD to the memory card using the dashboard.
I'll vote for base-12. Sure, it isn't any more convenient in binary calculations, but it's way better than base-10 for everyday use, being evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4,and 6 instead of just 2 and 5. Lots of people are already used to thinking in dozens and grosses. All it would take is a couple of extra numerals, say a square, stylized "X" for 10 and a backwards 3 (a stylized "E") for 11.
Even if that's true, I still would have known that it wasn't the right thing to do, without regard to whether it inconvenienced me. If you truly believe that even slanderous words are a good and sufficient reason to brutally beat someone "to a bloody pulp," I sincerely hope you end up dead or imprisoned sooner, rather than later.
I think the whole point of being governed by atheists is that the decison making process would be based much more on reason and logic, not dogma and blind belief.
But that relies on a hidden assumption - that dogma and belief are exclusive properties of religion. This is a demonstrably erroneous assumption.
"God told me to do it" would no longer be a valid excuse for invading another country (or anything else, for that matter).
That has never been - by itself - a valid reason for policy in the U.S., so that's not really a very good reason.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to have religious beliefs - simply that those beliefs have no part to play in rational goverment.
I question how much even atheists really believe this. No part at all? You are claiming that deep feelings about morality and justice that come from any source which cannot be logically deduced have no part to play in public policy, even if shared by the vast majority of the population. Do you realize how radical this is? "Beliefs" about such things as the rights of man and the nature of justice underlie our very system of government.
what happens to the US economy if china decides to say "uh, lads, pay now please"?
What, do you think the U.S. just borrows money from Chinese loan sharks? The U.S. is in "debt" to China because China has purchased U.S. Treasury Bonds. You can't just demand that a bond be paid for the length of its term. Bonds don't work that way. If China wants their money now, they'll simply sell the bonds to someone else.
There are few times in my life I have ever really wanted to do serious physical violence to someone, but I really wanted to kick that vicar to a bloody pulp for the shit he spouted. The main reason I didn't do so wasn't respect for anyone present, but pure selfishness; I just didn't want to make a mess of my posh suit.
Thanks so much for demonstrating that us atheists aren't really sociopathic misanthropes...oh, wait...
If Microsoft wants to truly be known as a "green" company, then they should design the next version of Windows so that it runs on less hardware than what is currently required
But they've already done this. Windows Embedded CE can run on lots of very low-power hardware and is more than capable of running basic business productivity tasks. The only missing link seems to be an OEM low-power device with a high-resolution display adapter and all the other connectors that PC's normally have.
Proportionally, it should be drawing ~60% more power.
The cores are not similar enough to be compared that way. It's like saying that since a diesel locomotive has 12 cylinders and my Honda has 4, the locomotive ought to use 3 time as much fuel as my Honda.
Ignoring the losses for storage in a battery (e.g.: heat produced during the charging of batteries) how would it increase the consumption? Specifics please.
You don't ignore the losses for storage in a battery, e.g. the OP's "not 100% efficient" comment.
You cannot say, "Everyone go out and kill a white man."
You are incorrect. You certainly CAN say "Everyone go out and kill a white man," and even mean it 100%, so long as your saying does not create an imminent danger and is likely to do so. (This was settled in Brandenburg v. Ohio.) So, saying it to an angry mob of radicals who you expect to follow your orders - probably not OK. Giving orders to a criminal enterprise - not OK. But saying it as your opinion in a speech, editorial, or yes, on the internet - that is your right as a free man.
but the second you say that he should be beaten or killed you can be arrested.
No, that's wrong. You can only be arrested if you say that AND your speech has the effect of creating an imminent danger that he will ACTUALLY be beaten and arrested. Basically, you have to be inciting an angry mob or giving orders to hit men. Simply advocating violence, even subversion, is 100% legal.
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Canadians on the other hand, for the most part, have some faith in their government to do the right thing.
Well, I guess we know who's really using "faith-based" government.
Ban religious books?
I think you might have a good idea there...
Sure, round them all up and toss them in the bonfire. We'll march around it and sing songs and chants! It'll be a fun time!
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then.
This is an unanswerable question, like "is more production really better?" Like every other rational question, it becomes a matter of marginal costs and benefits.
Additional options are always better until the marginal cost (in researching/comprehending the option) becomes greater than the marginal benefit provided by the option. Thus, options with low marginal benefits and/or high research costs are not better, and other options are. For example:
This is an example where more options are probably bad, because each additional option has huge research costs associated with them - that is, it takes a lot of effort to find out exactly why a person would prefer one or the other.Here, more options is probably still not better because while the research costs are low, the marginal benefit to being able to choose a slightly different shade of gray are so tiny as to be outweighed by the effort of having to even answer the question.Here is an example or more options are better. It's clear what the differences are, making research costs low, and the benefits to choosing the correct keyboard layout are huge.I guess it boils down to this:
Is the requirement of sleep enforced by our brains because it is
(a) an irreducibly necessary part of living for physiological or neurochemical reasons, like breathing, or
(b) a behavior that was evolutionarily advantageous in the wild?
If (a), then these kinds of drugs are very troubling. If (b), then I would probably have no more qualms taking these than, say, a pain-killer.
Ah, yes, I meant prokaryote of course, thank you for the correction.
So, is the theory that sleep is evolutionarily explained by the fact that all (animal?) orders require some restorative periods of inactivity, and thus the higher orders have retained mutations that enforce a period of inactivity? This would make sense inasmuch as it would prevent beings that have developed an ego from driving themselves to exhaustion. On the other hand, there is much more going on in the brain than mere unconsciousness during periods of sleep, and even assuming it is true that animals with no brain to speak of still need periods of rest, there is apparently still something more going on in the brain during sleep that mere unsonsciousness doesn't provide. The alternative, I suppose, is that this is merely a secondary effect of the mechanisms which evolved to enforce periods of rest.
Really fascinating stuff to speculate about - I look forward to real answers.
It does seem severely evolutionarily disadvantageous, doesn't it? Honest question, for anybody who knows: what is the lowest order of animal life that requires sleep? Eukaryotes don't sleep, do they? Do worm? Jellyfish? Is there some connection between higher-order brain activity and the need to sleep, and does it differ by species?
Congratulations, you just described Office 2007.
It's like putting too much air in a balloon!
Xbox has always supported memory cards. Your friend should have bought one, stuck it in the top of the controller, and transferred his savegames from the HDD to the memory card using the dashboard.
I'll vote for base-12. Sure, it isn't any more convenient in binary calculations, but it's way better than base-10 for everyday use, being evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4,and 6 instead of just 2 and 5. Lots of people are already used to thinking in dozens and grosses. All it would take is a couple of extra numerals, say a square, stylized "X" for 10 and a backwards 3 (a stylized "E") for 11.
Or a Canon i850 and Scanjet 4370 like my mom. :(
Even if that's true, I still would have known that it wasn't the right thing to do, without regard to whether it inconvenienced me. If you truly believe that even slanderous words are a good and sufficient reason to brutally beat someone "to a bloody pulp," I sincerely hope you end up dead or imprisoned sooner, rather than later.
I think the whole point of being governed by atheists is that the decison making process would be based much more on reason and logic, not dogma and blind belief.
But that relies on a hidden assumption - that dogma and belief are exclusive properties of religion. This is a demonstrably erroneous assumption.
"God told me to do it" would no longer be a valid excuse for invading another country (or anything else, for that matter).
That has never been - by itself - a valid reason for policy in the U.S., so that's not really a very good reason.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to have religious beliefs - simply that those beliefs have no part to play in rational goverment.
I question how much even atheists really believe this. No part at all? You are claiming that deep feelings about morality and justice that come from any source which cannot be logically deduced have no part to play in public policy, even if shared by the vast majority of the population. Do you realize how radical this is? "Beliefs" about such things as the rights of man and the nature of justice underlie our very system of government.
what happens to the US economy if china decides to say "uh, lads, pay now please"?
What, do you think the U.S. just borrows money from Chinese loan sharks? The U.S. is in "debt" to China because China has purchased U.S. Treasury Bonds. You can't just demand that a bond be paid for the length of its term. Bonds don't work that way. If China wants their money now, they'll simply sell the bonds to someone else.
There are few times in my life I have ever really wanted to do serious physical violence to someone, but I really wanted to kick that vicar to a bloody pulp for the shit he spouted. The main reason I didn't do so wasn't respect for anyone present, but pure selfishness; I just didn't want to make a mess of my posh suit.
Thanks so much for demonstrating that us atheists aren't really sociopathic misanthropes...oh, wait...
But if you're writing POSIX code for portability purposes, why would you be using native Win32 functions?
If Microsoft wants to truly be known as a "green" company, then they should design the next version of Windows so that it runs on less hardware than what is currently required
But they've already done this. Windows Embedded CE can run on lots of very low-power hardware and is more than capable of running basic business productivity tasks. The only missing link seems to be an OEM low-power device with a high-resolution display adapter and all the other connectors that PC's normally have.
The cores are not similar enough to be compared that way. It's like saying that since a diesel locomotive has 12 cylinders and my Honda has 4, the locomotive ought to use 3 time as much fuel as my Honda.
You don't ignore the losses for storage in a battery, e.g. the OP's "not 100% efficient" comment.
You cannot say, "Everyone go out and kill a white man."
You are incorrect. You certainly CAN say "Everyone go out and kill a white man," and even mean it 100%, so long as your saying does not create an imminent danger and is likely to do so. (This was settled in Brandenburg v. Ohio.) So, saying it to an angry mob of radicals who you expect to follow your orders - probably not OK. Giving orders to a criminal enterprise - not OK. But saying it as your opinion in a speech, editorial, or yes, on the internet - that is your right as a free man.
Googe for "XAML" and be enlightened.
These are Chinese hacker infantry, who steal money from the internet to fund the war against the GLA.
it is independent judges deciding on who breaks them.
You misspelled "juries," for the U.S. at least.
but the second you say that he should be beaten or killed you can be arrested.
No, that's wrong. You can only be arrested if you say that AND your speech has the effect of creating an imminent danger that he will ACTUALLY be beaten and arrested. Basically, you have to be inciting an angry mob or giving orders to hit men. Simply advocating violence, even subversion, is 100% legal.