The Soviets already tried doing that with dolphins. They best they managed was to train them to patrol ports. They would bump their nose into a diver that wasn't supposed to be there. If they had a poison spike they could have been used to kill. They also did research into "wiretapping" their brains and turning them into something similar to the sharks in this story.
I think that shark are way cool though, they just need lasers on their heads, and you can't beat that...
You forgot Russia and also many other countries that are still a part of the wold, but are not necessarily in Europe.
Cell phones in Europe worked very well in the early 90's and not so well in the US, because the carriers couldn't talk to each other. Europens made fun of America's backward fractured wireless infrastructure. Also I think they would have loved to have discovered CDMA, as it utilizes the spectrum much better, and you need that when you have more and more customers that also want faster and faster data access, but they said it was imposible to get CDMA working. Qualcomm, an American company did in the early 90's, patented it, and voila -- Verizon and Sprint have been using it for many years now.
The GSM carriers now are frantically trying to upgrade to 3G standard, which is a CDMA based, so Qualcomm will be getting even more royalties from its patents comming straight from the people who said their standard was "impossible". This means that Europeans eventually will also use CDMA, at this point, the tables have turned and they are the ones behind and need to catch up. That is the price you pay for premature standarization and enforced lack of competition.
Take the average American, how many times they travel internationally per year where they _have_ to have their cell phones with them? (Vacations don't count as most people probably don't need to have a constant mobile link to US while on exploring the Louvre).
So you have that 0.01% of business customer population on one hand. And then you have limited spectrum, interference, the need to provide increasingly high data rates, and keep the costs competitive for the rest 99.99% of customers. I am sure it would be possible to lease or rent a GSM phone just for traveling to Europe.
The problem is also with Europe. They have standardized on GSM. There is nothing wrong with that but it was more of a political move and they just didn't believe CDMA is possible in theory. Qualcomm proved them wrong. But of course, that meant that anyone using CDMA would have to pay Qualcomm, which is an American company, so the European wireless industry would be tied to and dancing to the tune of Americans. So standartization on GSM was more of a way to protect the EU market against the incursion/influence of the US.
GSM in US will eventually have to be replaced. The replacement will be WCDMA or as the GSM companies want to market-call it UMTS (using the word CDMA is just too painful for them , as it somehow signifies a win of the competitors).
How exactly do you compare hardware? Both have different CPUs, different memory controllers and different operating systems. My old pentium II can handle Linux just fine, but Win XP runs very slow on it. So just saying "See both have 256Mb RAM" doesn't mean anything in term of end user responsiveness or performance.
In all likelyhood it was a GSM phone, like the ones from T-Mobile or Cingular. CDMA phones will be much less likely to cause such interference. I used to have a Nokia GSM phone. When I would put in on my desk by my computer tower once a minute or so I would here these clicking noises coming from my speakers. That is because the GSM phones will have to burst a packet quickly into an available timeslot thus there are intermetent high spikes of RF energy.
The phones that use CDMA (Verizon for ex.) transmit continuously and don't need such a maximum power output as GSM phones. I have a CDMA phone now and there is no interference, I even tried putting it very close the speakers or to the motherboad.
So the problem is of course, which cell phones were used in the study? GSM phones cause interference even with my computer. It seems that if the said PhD student used only CDMA phones, he would not have had much of a thesis to write. I hope he really clarified the difference and used a good mix of cell phone technologies to study interference. I could not find his actual thesis, so as far as I am concerned, this study is just as valid as a fairy tale.
The good news that most companies that use GSM will be forced to move to CDMA (UMTS, WCDMA), because CDMA uses the available spectrum more efficiently. So in a about 5 years perhaps the situation will be different, but there will also be more people using cell phones -- so who knows...
My company's CAD/CAE/CAM application used to be 1+ million lines of code (C,C++, and FORTRAN) back in 2000, so 35K lines of Java isn't that much at all...
I am partial towards the red squirrels. I grew up in Russia and through all my childhood, in all the cartoons and childrens' books, the squirrel was a red squirrel. So for me that is how a scquirrel is supposed to look. After I came to US, I only saw the gray squirrels, and they just looked "wrong" to me.
But, on a serious note, would it still be evolution if humans would interfere and introduce new species? Would that still be "nature doing its thing" because we are a part of nature or would that be some sort of a "bad" thing.
I have always wondered about the "protected species". It seems that if evolution is what has been happening we should not have to worry about protecting species. We are the evolved species and we should be able to do whatever we want. Eventually we will nuke ourselves during some WWIII and then perhaps the squirrels or the monkeys can take over. Or should we regard ourselves above evolution...?
Anyway, I guess I am not replying to your post specifically anymore, just thinking (writing) out loud...
He will care when he finds out his mega new super wrestlemania game will only run on this "Vista thing" and he will have to shell out the $$$ for it
That is how MS has been making money with Office. As soon as someone upgrades and sends the new version of documents to everyone, everyone else is forced to upgrade and so on...
Create a worm that will send text messages to Verizon customers. Before they'll know what is going on, there will be hundreds of thousands of pissed off customers. Everybody will sue/break their contract/yell/put strain on tech support/etc.
Good point and thanks for correction. English is a third language for me.
Your post made me think. The question of "can countries/societies/nations grow and mature?" is pretty good. In a certain ways they can, I guess that is what we call 'progress'. It is much easier though to say that a person is mature than to say that a country is mature. At the same time I would probably argue that very few, or almost no present day nations would be considered "mature". Looking at external politics is like looking at children play: "Oh, so you'll expel my ambassador -- Fine! We'll impose an embargo then!" and so on.
It is well known that large groups of people regress as a group in terms of behavior and morality compared to individuals. So if there are a number of fairly average individuals, when they are in a crowd, the crowd as a whole is very likely to act very immaturely, they will vandalize stuff, pillage, kill indiscriminately and so on. After it is done, everyone goes home and sleeps just fine. Not much guilt, not much shame. So I wonder if countries act the same way.
I think the figurative image of the world politics, with countries represented as kids on the playground, would be pretty amusing.
I am from Moldova and everthing in that program is true. When you see it on TV, it seems like it is remote, in some part of the world you have never been to, or it seems that the journalists just wanted to sensationalize and dramatize the events to produce a greater effect with the audience. But that is how things trully are in the poorest country in Europe.
Honestly, a lot of those women knew they would be prostituting themsleves. Western non governmental organisations put ads in the media, on TV and radio to make sure that everyone in the villages understands what the classifieds like "Looking for women 18-21 to work abroad as waitress, good pay, get rich quick" mean. What many naive girls don't know is how bad it is going to be. If some manage to come back, they'll never admit that they knew they were going to be prostitutes, they'll often say "they lied to me, I thought I was going to work as a nanny or waitress" because it is easier to be accepted that way.
It is also freaky to personally know girls that you have been in a classroom with that are now sex slaves in Italy, Turkey and other places. Makes me sick, but I guess after a while you get calloused about it, and say "it's just how things are" back home.
BTW, one of the reasons Turkey is a big favorite for pimps to send Moldovan girls there is that the American troops from the NATO base, pay good money for hookers, so the profit is good. That is probably not something you'll hear from an American news channel...
In general though. This problem is serious in developing countries. Here, in U.S. they have the urban legend of the guy waking up in the hotel in a tub full of ice and with a missing kidney. But the poorest countries in Europe like Moldova and Albania, have large black markets for kidneys and probably other organs and tissues. In U.S. nobody in their right mind will give their kideny away for $1000, but when someone makes only $40 a month, $1000 is very tempting. There are villages where almost every other adult has sold one of the kidneys to a mobile surgical unit run by mafia. The organs then find their way to Turkey and then to the rich recepients all of over the world, who are willing to pay large sums of money to get ahead of the line.
So what exaclty would stop you from ordering a 100 pack of blank CD from U.S. Or come visit, go to Microcenter or some office store and get youself a 5 year supply of blank CDR for you, your family and friends. Unless, of course the CMI nazis would find you out at the border, beat you down, rape your family and kill your dog all for a pack of blank CDRs...
With this computer you can play the new Duke Nukem 10x faster even though it's turned off. On the second thought, you can do the same with your computer at home, just close your eyes and focus...
If the company puts up an image of being nice and declares "do no evil" but then turns around and agrees to cooperate with the Chinese government, who is clearly evil, they are making a joke of themselves. The media and everyone caught on, Google saw the image of niceness fade away, they told everyone that they just wanted to get their foot in the door there so they can help bring democracy and spur social change in the Communist China. Almost everyone bought it, but Google's image still stays tarnished. What should Google do? Of course, announce that they are hiring someone to spend $1.1bn just on charity. Now, at last, Google has fixed it's public image! Yey!
[ have written about this in another response above, so, I might repeat myself a little bit]
The underlying assumption here is that Google somehow can be "nice" or it can be "evil". In fact not just Google but any company. As individuals we like to anthropomorphize companies (i.e. give them human characteristics). We say Microsoft is "evil", Google is "nice", while in fact, all the companies are just machines to generate revenue. Any large corporation though will (or will not) want to spend resources into making the consumers believe that the corporate entity has good qualities. Google made it their main strategy to do that. That has helped them make the money they made. The good technology has helped them gain new customers, but the "niceness" has probably helped them make devoted followers and admirers, starting from the Slashdot geek up to the 50 year old something baby boomer. Keeping that image but also wanting to access the Chinese market is a tough thing. I just wish they didn't claim that they would "do no evil", otherwise they seem hypocritical.
Try to imagine that Microsoft had made the decision Google had made. Everyone would be saying "Of, course, what else do you expect, they are evil". That would be inaccurate, because it would have only been a business decision. Being nice is just not a priority for Microsoft, this might or might not hurt them. At least they don't claim to be great benefactors and defenders of democracy and such.
You've been brainwashed by the media and Google, my friend.
Sometimes the "very simplyified"(sic) position is the correct one. (Perhaps Occam's razor applies to ideas too...).
You say that:
If the answer is NO, then you cant have any influence on China. You are assuming that the reason Google wants to be in China is to have influence _on_ China. Are you saying that because you have heard Google execs repeat it to the media or do you actually work for Google?
Google is a company, with billions and billions of dollars -- the only real motive of Google is to make more billions of dollars. It doesn't want to change China, it doesn't want to change anything if it doesn't make more money. As simple as that. Corporations will go to great lengths to present themselves as charitable and nice, but they are not individuals with feelings and personalities, they are just money making _machines_. If they don't make money -- they die.
Have you ever wondered how come major companies donate millions to the local PBS stations, local museums, and sponsor public events, but not too many companies will donate those millions to a local homeless shelter? Often companies will donate $100,000 to a charity then spend $1,000,000 advertizing the donation. Isn't it interesting how after the uproar in the media about Google and China, all of the sudden they advertize how they will hire someone to spend $1.1bn on charity? A coincidence? One of the biggest things that made Google what it is, their image of "nice", they will spend many billions of dollars to fix that image.
You say:
To change anything there you have to be there. To be there you have to obey their laws and even if that includes censorship.
Again, you are assuming that Google wants to change something, to me it seems that Google wants a bigger market. Ok, I'll buy that "to be there they have to support censorship". But what if they had to support executions without a trial -- is that still "ok", just to "gain might" as you say? Where does it stop?
You say:
You sit in your armchair and yell: "Google is promoting/supporting censorship" therefor Google is EVIL. So, what exactly are you doing? Nothing, imho.
Well, I don't think you oppinion is very humble. I am not yelling that Google is EVIL(sic). I never said that in my post. To me corporate entities are not evil or good, they are just money making machines, they have no souls. It is you and many others who want to believe that companies are like people and are good, nice, honest or evil, ruthless, and cruel. Companies themselves will do anything to make people believe that they are nice and good and all. It is called marketing and PR.
Governments on the other hand can be evil, if the are not kept in check by the people. Governments will murder and imprison people that don't agree with it, while companies cannot do that (at least in US).
But in the case of Google, they screwed up by first claiming that they will do "no evil" (google speak) but then they side with a government that is known to be evil. Media and everyone called them on it. They justified it that they are a great champion for democracy and they just want to infiltrate the Chinese market and bring about great social changes. That was still not enough, the image of "niceness" was still fading. Google announces they will set aside $1.1bn for charity -- you figure it out...
Cause we all know it couldn't possibly be that they produce pure shit, nothing worth spending $19.95 for a DVD or spending $10 to see it in the movie theatre. I have recently been hitting the library for some nice film classics, some film noir, some Hitchcock -- that was the golden age of cinema, none of this Ben Aflec and J. Lo crap.
Or how about just not making their images accessible without a password. A search engine just does the searching and reporting of what's out there. If people are stupid enough to put their copyrighted materials, images and other crap on the web, why are they surprised that Google picked it up and indexed -- that is what Google does. "Don't want your stuff indexed -- don't put it on the web without any kind of access authentication."
I might not like Google as much recently, in light of their position with China, but I hope they win this case. Every business out there hates Google, they came seemingly out of nowhere and went straight to the top, even as the huge tech bubble burst. So what do others do now? They are suing them of course -- the Great American Way! Some are suing that their site isn't high enough in the rankings, others that their site is too high and people can see too much of their crap.
As far as cremation and protestanism goes, I don't think that the protestants didn't believe in resurection, as that would make them not particularly Christian. But it seems that the acceptance of the practice of cremation underlies a general movement toward denial of the body, or somehow emphasizing the importance of the soul over the body, or to put it in more lay term -- saying that the body, with the bodily needs and functions is somehow "bad" and can be burned and anihilated, and only the soul is "good".
The early Christians didn't as much want to have the body intact for the resurection, because I think they knew the body would decompose in the ground, so logically they should have mummified it like the Egyptians. Also, there would be a problem with the bodies of martyrs, like those who have been torn appart by lions in the Roman arenas, or those that have died in a fire. The reason that they insisted on burying the body was 1) because they saw the human body as something basically good and an integral part of a human being. To burn it would somehow show a denial of the importance of the body, 2) because cremation was a popular pagan way of disposing of the body, and the early Christians wanted to distance themselves from the pagan way of life.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that shark are way cool though, they just need lasers on their heads, and you can't beat that...
Cell phones in Europe worked very well in the early 90's and not so well in the US, because the carriers couldn't talk to each other. Europens made fun of America's backward fractured wireless infrastructure. Also I think they would have loved to have discovered CDMA, as it utilizes the spectrum much better, and you need that when you have more and more customers that also want faster and faster data access, but they said it was imposible to get CDMA working. Qualcomm, an American company did in the early 90's, patented it, and voila -- Verizon and Sprint have been using it for many years now.
The GSM carriers now are frantically trying to upgrade to 3G standard, which is a CDMA based, so Qualcomm will be getting even more royalties from its patents comming straight from the people who said their standard was "impossible". This means that Europeans eventually will also use CDMA, at this point, the tables have turned and they are the ones behind and need to catch up. That is the price you pay for premature standarization and enforced lack of competition.
The problem is also with Europe. They have standardized on GSM. There is nothing wrong with that but it was more of a political move and they just didn't believe CDMA is possible in theory. Qualcomm proved them wrong. But of course, that meant that anyone using CDMA would have to pay Qualcomm, which is an American company, so the European wireless industry would be tied to and dancing to the tune of Americans. So standartization on GSM was more of a way to protect the EU market against the incursion/influence of the US.
GSM in US will eventually have to be replaced. The replacement will be WCDMA or as the GSM companies want to market-call it UMTS (using the word CDMA is just too painful for them , as it somehow signifies a win of the competitors).
The phones that use CDMA (Verizon for ex.) transmit continuously and don't need such a maximum power output as GSM phones. I have a CDMA phone now and there is no interference, I even tried putting it very close the speakers or to the motherboad.
So the problem is of course, which cell phones were used in the study? GSM phones cause interference even with my computer. It seems that if the said PhD student used only CDMA phones, he would not have had much of a thesis to write. I hope he really clarified the difference and used a good mix of cell phone technologies to study interference. I could not find his actual thesis, so as far as I am concerned, this study is just as valid as a fairy tale.
The good news that most companies that use GSM will be forced to move to CDMA (UMTS, WCDMA), because CDMA uses the available spectrum more efficiently. So in a about 5 years perhaps the situation will be different, but there will also be more people using cell phones -- so who knows...
The door then responds: tat tat
My company's CAD/CAE/CAM application used to be 1+ million lines of code (C,C++, and FORTRAN) back in 2000, so 35K lines of Java isn't that much at all...
But, on a serious note, would it still be evolution if humans would interfere and introduce new species? Would that still be "nature doing its thing" because we are a part of nature or would that be some sort of a "bad" thing.
I have always wondered about the "protected species". It seems that if evolution is what has been happening we should not have to worry about protecting species. We are the evolved species and we should be able to do whatever we want. Eventually we will nuke ourselves during some WWIII and then perhaps the squirrels or the monkeys can take over. Or should we regard ourselves above evolution...?
Anyway, I guess I am not replying to your post specifically anymore, just thinking (writing) out loud...
That is how MS has been making money with Office. As soon as someone upgrades and sends the new version of documents to everyone, everyone else is forced to upgrade and so on...
Come to think of it, I already copyrighted your idea from your post.
Your post made me think. The question of "can countries/societies/nations grow and mature?" is pretty good. In a certain ways they can, I guess that is what we call 'progress'. It is much easier though to say that a person is mature than to say that a country is mature. At the same time I would probably argue that very few, or almost no present day nations would be considered "mature". Looking at external politics is like looking at children play: "Oh, so you'll expel my ambassador -- Fine! We'll impose an embargo then!" and so on.
It is well known that large groups of people regress as a group in terms of behavior and morality compared to individuals. So if there are a number of fairly average individuals, when they are in a crowd, the crowd as a whole is very likely to act very immaturely, they will vandalize stuff, pillage, kill indiscriminately and so on. After it is done, everyone goes home and sleeps just fine. Not much guilt, not much shame. So I wonder if countries act the same way.
I think the figurative image of the world politics, with countries represented as kids on the playground, would be pretty amusing.
I haven't seen two siblings that never thought, what do you expect from 6+ billions that have to share the same planet...
Honestly, a lot of those women knew they would be prostituting themsleves. Western non governmental organisations put ads in the media, on TV and radio to make sure that everyone in the villages understands what the classifieds like "Looking for women 18-21 to work abroad as waitress, good pay, get rich quick" mean. What many naive girls don't know is how bad it is going to be. If some manage to come back, they'll never admit that they knew they were going to be prostitutes, they'll often say "they lied to me, I thought I was going to work as a nanny or waitress" because it is easier to be accepted that way.
It is also freaky to personally know girls that you have been in a classroom with that are now sex slaves in Italy, Turkey and other places. Makes me sick, but I guess after a while you get calloused about it, and say "it's just how things are" back home.
BTW, one of the reasons Turkey is a big favorite for pimps to send Moldovan girls there is that the American troops from the NATO base, pay good money for hookers, so the profit is good. That is probably not something you'll hear from an American news channel...
In general though. This problem is serious in developing countries. Here, in U.S. they have the urban legend of the guy waking up in the hotel in a tub full of ice and with a missing kidney. But the poorest countries in Europe like Moldova and Albania, have large black markets for kidneys and probably other organs and tissues. In U.S. nobody in their right mind will give their kideny away for $1000, but when someone makes only $40 a month, $1000 is very tempting. There are villages where almost every other adult has sold one of the kidneys to a mobile surgical unit run by mafia. The organs then find their way to Turkey and then to the rich recepients all of over the world, who are willing to pay large sums of money to get ahead of the line.
So what exaclty would stop you from ordering a 100 pack of blank CD from U.S. Or come visit, go to Microcenter or some office store and get youself a 5 year supply of blank CDR for you, your family and friends. Unless, of course the CMI nazis would find you out at the border, beat you down, rape your family and kill your dog all for a pack of blank CDRs...
With this computer you can play the new Duke Nukem 10x faster even though it's turned off. On the second thought, you can do the same with your computer at home, just close your eyes and focus...
I think it is better to be consistent.
If the company puts up an image of being nice and declares "do no evil" but then turns around and agrees to cooperate with the Chinese government, who is clearly evil, they are making a joke of themselves. The media and everyone caught on, Google saw the image of niceness fade away, they told everyone that they just wanted to get their foot in the door there so they can help bring democracy and spur social change in the Communist China. Almost everyone bought it, but Google's image still stays tarnished. What should Google do? Of course, announce that they are hiring someone to spend $1.1bn just on charity. Now, at last, Google has fixed it's public image! Yey!
[ have written about this in another response above, so, I might repeat myself a little bit]
The underlying assumption here is that Google somehow can be "nice" or it can be "evil". In fact not just Google but any company. As individuals we like to anthropomorphize companies (i.e. give them human characteristics). We say Microsoft is "evil", Google is "nice", while in fact, all the companies are just machines to generate revenue. Any large corporation though will (or will not) want to spend resources into making the consumers believe that the corporate entity has good qualities. Google made it their main strategy to do that. That has helped them make the money they made. The good technology has helped them gain new customers, but the "niceness" has probably helped them make devoted followers and admirers, starting from the Slashdot geek up to the 50 year old something baby boomer. Keeping that image but also wanting to access the Chinese market is a tough thing. I just wish they didn't claim that they would "do no evil", otherwise they seem hypocritical.
Try to imagine that Microsoft had made the decision Google had made. Everyone would be saying "Of, course, what else do you expect, they are evil". That would be inaccurate, because it would have only been a business decision. Being nice is just not a priority for Microsoft, this might or might not hurt them. At least they don't claim to be great benefactors and defenders of democracy and such.
Sometimes the "very simplyified"(sic) position is the correct one. (Perhaps Occam's razor applies to ideas too...).
You say that: If the answer is NO, then you cant have any influence on China. You are assuming that the reason Google wants to be in China is to have influence _on_ China. Are you saying that because you have heard Google execs repeat it to the media or do you actually work for Google?
Google is a company, with billions and billions of dollars -- the only real motive of Google is to make more billions of dollars. It doesn't want to change China, it doesn't want to change anything if it doesn't make more money. As simple as that. Corporations will go to great lengths to present themselves as charitable and nice, but they are not individuals with feelings and personalities, they are just money making _machines_. If they don't make money -- they die.
Have you ever wondered how come major companies donate millions to the local PBS stations, local museums, and sponsor public events, but not too many companies will donate those millions to a local homeless shelter? Often companies will donate $100,000 to a charity then spend $1,000,000 advertizing the donation. Isn't it interesting how after the uproar in the media about Google and China, all of the sudden they advertize how they will hire someone to spend $1.1bn on charity? A coincidence? One of the biggest things that made Google what it is, their image of "nice", they will spend many billions of dollars to fix that image.
You say: To change anything there you have to be there. To be there you have to obey their laws and even if that includes censorship.
Again, you are assuming that Google wants to change something, to me it seems that Google wants a bigger market. Ok, I'll buy that "to be there they have to support censorship". But what if they had to support executions without a trial -- is that still "ok", just to "gain might" as you say? Where does it stop?
You say: You sit in your armchair and yell: "Google is promoting/supporting censorship" therefor Google is EVIL. So, what exactly are you doing? Nothing, imho.
Well, I don't think you oppinion is very humble. I am not yelling that Google is EVIL(sic). I never said that in my post. To me corporate entities are not evil or good, they are just money making machines, they have no souls. It is you and many others who want to believe that companies are like people and are good, nice, honest or evil, ruthless, and cruel. Companies themselves will do anything to make people believe that they are nice and good and all. It is called marketing and PR.
Governments on the other hand can be evil, if the are not kept in check by the people. Governments will murder and imprison people that don't agree with it, while companies cannot do that (at least in US).
But in the case of Google, they screwed up by first claiming that they will do "no evil" (google speak) but then they side with a government that is known to be evil. Media and everyone called them on it. They justified it that they are a great champion for democracy and they just want to infiltrate the Chinese market and bring about great social changes. That was still not enough, the image of "niceness" was still fading. Google announces they will set aside $1.1bn for charity -- you figure it out...
1. Earn a heck of a lot of money 2. Support censorship in China, piss everyone off 3. Spend $1.1bn on charity 4. ??? 5. Google is the good guy again
Amen!
Cause we all know it couldn't possibly be that they produce pure shit, nothing worth spending $19.95 for a DVD or spending $10 to see it in the movie theatre. I have recently been hitting the library for some nice film classics, some film noir, some Hitchcock -- that was the golden age of cinema, none of this Ben Aflec and J. Lo crap.
If they had asked you about the realtime pictures of Uranus, you should have worried even more...
/sorry, had to be said
I might not like Google as much recently, in light of their position with China, but I hope they win this case. Every business out there hates Google, they came seemingly out of nowhere and went straight to the top, even as the huge tech bubble burst. So what do others do now? They are suing them of course -- the Great American Way! Some are suing that their site isn't high enough in the rankings, others that their site is too high and people can see too much of their crap.
The early Christians didn't as much want to have the body intact for the resurection, because I think they knew the body would decompose in the ground, so logically they should have mummified it like the Egyptians. Also, there would be a problem with the bodies of martyrs, like those who have been torn appart by lions in the Roman arenas, or those that have died in a fire. The reason that they insisted on burying the body was 1) because they saw the human body as something basically good and an integral part of a human being. To burn it would somehow show a denial of the importance of the body, 2) because cremation was a popular pagan way of disposing of the body, and the early Christians wanted to distance themselves from the pagan way of life.