"Bull. Neither men not women are "hardwired" for anything, other than a few relexive responses which, revealingly, are the same across the gender line."
go read some books on genetics and brain/thinking research. you will see that we are MUCH more hardwired then we would like to admit.
lot (most?) of the hard-wired stuff can be overruled by conscious thinking but only if you are aware of it being hardwired, otherwise you think you want it (the way it's hardwired)!
I am not going to give specific data here but it is easy enough to find books on this (both 'real' science and popular (but still fairly precise) science). I liked the Living with our genes book.
(in following text: dynamic = recognized in runtime and also generic (to certain extend))
working with C++ I usually get the feeling of being tied up - in a sense that it is not dynamic enough. For lack of better explanation let me give example of more dynamic languages: smalltalk, perl. of course, those are interpreted languages (and that's the main reason they are so dynamic).
In C++ I have basically no meta-information - which would allow me to do something with class (any class).
The templates seem to address this problem, but templates are just a fancy code generator (everything's still done at compile time, so while it's more generic it's not really dynamic).
"I'm sorry, but learning ANY kind of abstract communication requires a conciousness"
why would it? I can imagine neural network learning some kind of abstract communication yet you'd probably wold not say it is conscious...
"To me, this is a plausable indication of a conciousness"
how does this invalidate the point of the book? or how is it relevant at all? just because the human is not the only conscious being does not mean that the consciousness is not what he writes about (I have not read the book, just the review)
"but that doesn't stop me from believing that there are minds in this Universe infinitely more powerful than my own"
but what started you believing it? I can undestand if you'd say there MIGHT be some such being(s), but what makes you believe that it's so?
also, even if there is such a being, what does it have to do with religion? it is not necessary that it is some kind of god...
"Thus, on any given scale you care to use, there -is-, indeed, a being that you could call supreme, at least within that respect"
yes, but that does not mean this would be god. it would be simply alien being smarter then us, it might exist and it might not exist. or it might be one of us, if there are noaliens. does that mean that one of us would be god???
"...ENTIRLEY within the realms of physical science to talk about someone creating a Universe"
lets' say we would be able to create new universe (by achieving the big bang conditions). would that mean we are gods? I don't think so. just like creating paper plane from piece of paper does not make us gods...
the famous khan you are referring to is probably Dzingis Khan (not sure about the english spelling, AFAIK the 'dz' should be pronounced like 'j' in jungle, both 'i' like in 'pit' and 'g' like in 'egg' (the first one or the second one:-))
I have this old Atari Portfolio and I use it as a terminal for my linux machine via serial cable (null modem) (at home, no other computer to telnet from). why don't you get something like this? I guess palm pilot or other PDA could be used as well...
you know you just have to have one of those gizmos anyway (if you don't have few already:-)
if you make the key long enough there is no way they can crack it. cracking of an ecrypted data is basically NP problem (well, if your encryption algorithm is any good) and there is no way to decrypt it but knowing the key or using the brute force. using the brute force requires more resources then they technically can have. even theoretically.
as of now you have greater chance to getting you data destroyed because of HW/SW failure then by virus (in the *nix world). you should back up all the data you don't want to loose.
did I mention backup?
I know this is a bit redundand but since it still comes up over and over I think there is need to spread the truth...
I said that taking the crayons is not the solution to the problem, in best case the temporary one.
you said the same, that they temporarily lost the crayons and you also made another solution. so where do you disagree with me?
regarding soapboxes and cronies: there's no need to offend me. also, the 'not tell me how to raise my kids' is very bad attitude. if others won't tell you, how will you know? you do not have to do what other people tell you, that's obvious, but it would be good if you'd think about it and not offend people who discuss the issue...
"Are you then in favor of allowing printed porn and graphic violence in sections of our public libraries accessible to children?"
I think that it is a larger issue of how badly the whole sex issue is treated by society. if the naked butt is considered a danger to society it is definitely a sign that society is in danger:-) I am in favour of solving this larger problem rather then dealing with little issue where exactly the naked butt can be displayed. I do not mind if the kids cannot get to porn but I don't like the community or whoever else to dictate others what to do/see/think etc... (that of course has limits, criminal behavoiur is criminal behaviour).
the community is the worst level for this - you have few vocal people terorizing the rest... whoever decides should be unbiased, since the members of the community are biased, it should be made clear what community can decide (if we are talking about city community)... there are some things that can only be decided by community (do we repair the road or school or ?).
I guess in general I agree with you but this community terrorism is getting on my nerves...
well, most of the european countries were democratic or at least not totalitarian regimes - germany, czechoslovakia (now czech and slovakia), hungary, poland, even russia was not totalitarian regime...
since I am from slovakia I can tell you that it is really nice example, it was fairly industrial democratic republic (since 1917), right after ww2 the democracy was lost over the time of few years.
germany is another example, they were fairly democratic too, the military was stronger but not much different than rest of the europe (and they basically started wars because they were less militant then rest of the europe, they had almost no colonies, unlike GB, France, Spain etc...).
most of the (east) european countries were some form of kingdom, but not really a totalitarian regime... for example austria, hungary, czech, slovakia were almost the same... (from grand point of view). even the ones where totalitarian (hardcore) regime developed from fairly non-democratic regime (russia,...) is still a good example of how the freedoms and right are lost one by one...
it's not about what's your weight. it's about the relative amount of muscle tissue anf fat tissue. so while your body weight might stay the same you are most probably getting more muscles and less fat... (even though after while your absolute weight might decrease, depending on what kind of excercize you do).
I would definitely say do more and eat more. the more you do the harder it is to overeat, the more efficient your metabolism becomes and you're getting rid of lot of garbage in your system.
also, if you excercise a lot the body tends to regulate what you eat better (that's more my personal experience then research backed fact).
"My point, though, is that what a library carries and makes available should be a community decision"
that would be a majority oppressing minority (or more like vocal majority oppressing the rest). if it's public library only the person should determine what he'she sees there (unless it's the space constraint, but that's not the case for internet).
why should the community have a right to say what people look at on the internet???
if the kids are to be protected for unsuitable material, do it without constraining adult users.
you guys are missing the point. the issue is not about children. the children are being used as a mean to oppress everybody.
parents should educate their kids, that's obvious. they can allow or not allow them to do/see certain things. that's all OK and well within the duties of parents.
it is not OK the whole public to be censored. check the history of almost any totalitarian regime (specifically the ones that developed in previously democratic countries) to see where this leads to.
I am not really against not allowing children to view unsuitable material but not at cost of diminishing rights of adults. the obvious solution would be to turn on or off the filtering software depending the age of person using it. there is number of solutions, but for some reason they choose the one that interferes with general public the most. that should be a hint on what they are up to.
the quote has nothing to do with nazis, it does not compare big business to nazis! read the quote! it shows, on a fairly extreme example, that you need to care about thing that are not directly influencing you. the nazis are just a random circumstance in this quote!
and while we're at it, how many people died because of tobacco industry? industry knowing that tobacco kills... and hiding the results of research etc...
the thread is obviously a zombie:-) dead but walking...
any idiot who puts a coffe in the lap and then spills it should get their ass kicked.
the coffe is supposed to be hot, that's how the coffee is made, that's the whole point of fresh coffee, if somebody cannot deal with hot coffee then the given somebody should _not_ deal with hot coffee. get a coke.
the lady in the case put a lot of people into dangerous situation because of her stupidity. she should have been prosecuted (AFAIK it all happened in her car).
soon somebody will sue a match company stating that the flame was too hot...
When the Nazis came for Gypsies, I did not speak up, for I was not a Gypsy; when they came for Jews, I did not speak up, for I was not a Jew; when they came for homosexuals, I did not speak up, for I was not a homosexual; and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me.
-- German pastor, Martin Neimmeller
you'd better get worked up...
if you need more hints:
- it is not about DVDs
- even if it were, sooner or later you will have DVD (so you will be influenced by what's happening today) [unless you get lucky and die...]
you care about popularity of OS you choose because the more popular (number of installations) it is the more hardware support it has. and you usually want hardware support (for good graphics card (that's more X issue than OS), sound cards, network card, usb devices, pnp cards, etc...). that's general situation, in some particular cases you indeed might not be interested in popularity...
Slashdot Mirror
jazz was recently GPL'd (betaversion was out for some time, stable version 4.0 was released few days ago).
erik
"Slavery of any sort (even robotic slavery) is just plain Wrong."
yes man, free your computer!
erik
"Keep is spelled k-e-e-p, BTW."
:-)))
that's true but keap is spelled k-e-a-p
erik
life WILL get you and everybody else:-))
erik
"Bull. Neither men not women are "hardwired" for anything, other than a few relexive responses which, revealingly, are the same across the gender line."
go read some books on genetics and brain/thinking research. you will see that we are MUCH more hardwired then we would like to admit.
lot (most?) of the hard-wired stuff can be overruled by conscious thinking but only if you are aware of it being hardwired, otherwise you think you want it (the way it's hardwired)!
I am not going to give specific data here but it is easy enough to find books on this (both 'real' science and popular (but still fairly precise) science). I liked the Living with our genes book.
erik
(in following text: dynamic = recognized in runtime and also generic (to certain extend))
working with C++ I usually get the feeling of being tied up - in a sense that it is not dynamic enough. For lack of better explanation let me give example of more dynamic languages: smalltalk, perl. of course, those are interpreted languages (and that's the main reason they are so dynamic).
In C++ I have basically no meta-information - which would allow me to do something with class (any class).
The templates seem to address this problem, but templates are just a fancy code generator (everything's still done at compile time, so while it's more generic it's not really dynamic).
Is corba solution?
Any comments on this?
erik
"I'm sorry, but learning ANY kind of abstract communication requires a conciousness"
why would it? I can imagine neural network learning some kind of abstract communication yet you'd probably wold not say it is conscious...
"To me, this is a plausable indication of a conciousness"
how does this invalidate the point of the book? or how is it relevant at all? just because the human is not the only conscious being does not mean that the consciousness is not what he writes about (I have not read the book, just the review)
"but that doesn't stop me from believing that there are minds in this Universe infinitely more powerful than my own"
but what started you believing it? I can undestand if you'd say there MIGHT be some such being(s), but what makes you believe that it's so?
also, even if there is such a being, what does it have to do with religion? it is not necessary that it is some kind of god...
"Thus, on any given scale you care to use, there -is-, indeed, a being that you could call supreme, at least within that respect"
yes, but that does not mean this would be god. it would be simply alien being smarter then us, it might exist and it might not exist. or it might be one of us, if there are noaliens. does that mean that one of us would be god???
"...ENTIRLEY within the realms of physical science to talk about someone creating a Universe"
lets' say we would be able to create new universe (by achieving the big bang conditions). would that mean we are gods? I don't think so. just like creating paper plane from piece of paper does not make us gods...
erik
"To me, it's really not that different from a generic corporation's Internet usage policy."
how come you miss the fact that corporation's computers are corporation's computers and they can do whatever they please with them?
the goverment computers are our computers and government should do whatever we please.
is this simple enough?
erik
1: the previous post talked about kosovo, not about wwII. it's the people in kosovo who were raped and murdered etc...
2: the genocide was definitely known during wwII. the racial purity was official ideology of nazis. maybe the exact numbers where not known...
erik
the famous khan you are referring to is probably Dzingis Khan (not sure about the english spelling, AFAIK the 'dz' should be pronounced like 'j' in jungle, both 'i' like in 'pit' and 'g' like in 'egg' (the first one or the second one:-))
erik
I have this old Atari Portfolio and I use it as a terminal for my linux machine via serial cable (null modem) (at home, no other computer to telnet from). why don't you get something like this? I guess palm pilot or other PDA could be used as well...
you know you just have to have one of those gizmos anyway (if you don't have few already:-)
erik
if you make the key long enough there is no way they can crack it. cracking of an ecrypted data is basically NP problem (well, if your encryption algorithm is any good) and there is no way to decrypt it but knowing the key or using the brute force. using the brute force requires more resources then they technically can have. even theoretically.
erik
now that you started - how many words for snow do they have? :-)
erik
"... but you could still lose all of your files."
backup. ever heard of backup?
as of now you have greater chance to getting you data destroyed because of HW/SW failure then by virus (in the *nix world). you should back up all the data you don't want to loose.
did I mention backup?
I know this is a bit redundand but since it still comes up over and over I think there is need to spread the truth...
erik
what's the problem?
I said that taking the crayons is not the solution to the problem, in best case the temporary one.
you said the same, that they temporarily lost the crayons and you also made another solution. so where do you disagree with me?
regarding soapboxes and cronies: there's no need to offend me. also, the 'not tell me how to raise my kids' is very bad attitude. if others won't tell you, how will you know? you do not have to do what other people tell you, that's obvious, but it would be good if you'd think about it and not offend people who discuss the issue...
erik
"Are you then in favor of allowing printed porn and graphic violence in sections of our public libraries accessible to children?"
I think that it is a larger issue of how badly the whole sex issue is treated by society. if the naked butt is considered a danger to society it is definitely a sign that society is in danger:-) I am in favour of solving this larger problem rather then dealing with little issue where exactly the naked butt can be displayed. I do not mind if the kids cannot get to porn but I don't like the community or whoever else to dictate others what to do/see/think etc... (that of course has limits, criminal behavoiur is criminal behaviour).
the community is the worst level for this - you have few vocal people terorizing the rest... whoever decides should be unbiased, since the members of the community are biased, it should be made clear what community can decide (if we are talking about city community)... there are some things that can only be decided by community (do we repair the road or school or ?).
I guess in general I agree with you but this community terrorism is getting on my nerves...
erik
well, most of the european countries were democratic or at least not totalitarian regimes - germany, czechoslovakia (now czech and slovakia), hungary, poland, even russia was not totalitarian regime...
...) is still a good example of how the freedoms and right are lost one by one...
since I am from slovakia I can tell you that it is really nice example, it was fairly industrial democratic republic (since 1917), right after ww2 the democracy was lost over the time of few years.
germany is another example, they were fairly democratic too, the military was stronger but not much different than rest of the europe (and they basically started wars because they were less militant then rest of the europe, they had almost no colonies, unlike GB, France, Spain etc...).
most of the (east) european countries were some form of kingdom, but not really a totalitarian regime... for example austria, hungary, czech, slovakia were almost the same... (from grand point of view). even the ones where totalitarian (hardcore) regime developed from fairly non-democratic regime (russia,
erik
"After the first two months I lost no weight."
it's not about what's your weight. it's about the relative amount of muscle tissue anf fat tissue. so while your body weight might stay the same you are most probably getting more muscles and less fat... (even though after while your absolute weight might decrease, depending on what kind of excercize you do).
I would definitely say do more and eat more. the more you do the harder it is to overeat, the more efficient your metabolism becomes and you're getting rid of lot of garbage in your system.
also, if you excercise a lot the body tends to regulate what you eat better (that's more my personal experience then research backed fact).
erik
"Have you ever tried to explain to a two year old why he shouldn't color on the walls?"
it's not easy but taking the colors from h(im|her) is not the right thing to do.
(yes, it might be a temporary solution)
erik
"My point, though, is that what a library carries and makes available should be a community decision"
that would be a majority oppressing minority (or more like vocal majority oppressing the rest). if it's public library only the person should determine what he'she sees there (unless it's the space constraint, but that's not the case for internet).
why should the community have a right to say what people look at on the internet???
if the kids are to be protected for unsuitable material, do it without constraining adult users.
erik
you guys are missing the point. the issue is not about children. the children are being used as a mean to oppress everybody.
parents should educate their kids, that's obvious. they can allow or not allow them to do/see certain things. that's all OK and well within the duties of parents.
it is not OK the whole public to be censored. check the history of almost any totalitarian regime (specifically the ones that developed in previously democratic countries) to see where this leads to.
I am not really against not allowing children to view unsuitable material but not at cost of diminishing rights of adults. the obvious solution would be to turn on or off the filtering software depending the age of person using it. there is number of solutions, but for some reason they choose the one that interferes with general public the most. that should be a hint on what they are up to.
erik
the quote has nothing to do with nazis, it does not compare big business to nazis! read the quote! it shows, on a fairly extreme example, that you need to care about thing that are not directly influencing you. the nazis are just a random circumstance in this quote!
and while we're at it, how many people died because of tobacco industry? industry knowing that tobacco kills... and hiding the results of research etc...
the thread is obviously a zombie:-) dead but walking...
erik
any idiot who puts a coffe in the lap and then spills it should get their ass kicked.
the coffe is supposed to be hot, that's how the coffee is made, that's the whole point of fresh coffee, if somebody cannot deal with hot coffee then the given somebody should _not_ deal with hot coffee. get a coke.
the lady in the case put a lot of people into dangerous situation because of her stupidity. she should have been prosecuted (AFAIK it all happened in her car).
soon somebody will sue a match company stating that the flame was too hot...
erik
When the Nazis came for Gypsies,
I did not speak up, for I was not a Gypsy;
when they came for Jews,
I did not speak up, for I was not a Jew;
when they came for homosexuals,
I did not speak up, for I was not a homosexual;
and when they came for me,
there was no one left to speak up for me.
-- German pastor, Martin Neimmeller
you'd better get worked up...
if you need more hints:
- it is not about DVDs
- even if it were, sooner or later you will have DVD (so you will be influenced by what's happening today) [unless you get lucky and die...]
erik
you care about popularity of OS you choose because the more popular (number of installations) it is the more hardware support it has. and you usually want hardware support (for good graphics card (that's more X issue than OS), sound cards, network card, usb devices, pnp cards, etc...). that's general situation, in some particular cases you indeed might not be interested in popularity...
erik