Appeal to Authority is only a fallacy when the cited authority isn't qualified to express the stated opinion.
So says The Skeptic's Dictionary, and if they say so, it must be true.
5 (B) in particular makes this read like a broader version of hate crime laws.
Interestingly, the main argument I've heard against these laws is that it's hard to know the state of mind of the criminal when (s)he committed the act. Therefore, a crime committed against a member of a minority group cannot be determined to have been intended to represent an attack on all members of that group.
And yet this law merely requires that the act appear to be so intended.
And I'd bet that a large number of the folks who oppose hate crime laws supported this one.
Without lifting a finger to check my facts (i.e., I might be wrong somewhere...)
Objects 1000 ly away are inside of, or darned close to, our own galaxy. The distance to such objects is not measured by redshift, because a) they're moving in roughly the same direction we are, astronomically speaking, and b) redshift is used when measuring distrances in the millions or billions of light years; it'd be darned hard to measure the redshift of an object just 1000 ly away, even if it did have a redshift value that was in keeping with the Hubble redshift measurements.
Do you assume that global warming means that temperatures will rise uniformly across the globe?
Do you assume that global warming would cause no shift in weather patterns?
Do you assume that any shifts in weather patterns would not be disruptive to agriculture?
Do you assume that disruptions in agriculture can be easily accomodated, say by rapidly shifting agricultural production to different parts of the globe (assuming, of course, that there would be vast new tracks of arable farmland as a result of changed weather patterns)?
If the answer to any of these questions is "no", then global warming should make you nervous.
If your answer to any of these is "yes", then it's you, not the environmental scientists, who have some explaining to do. They seem like pretty shaky assumptions.
while I would say I'm leaning towards the GB way...I'm not set in stone on that. I'm still listening
So what would it take to convince you that you really, really don't want to vote for George W. Bush?
What kinds of arguments would it take?
Would any of these get the point across?
SCO vs. Novell doesn't establish that SCO has any copyrighted material in Linux, let alone enough material to demand royalties from the user base. As you say, it argues only that SCO rightfully owns certain copyrights to certain System V sources. That's a long way from showing that Linux violates those copyrights.
Nor would the IBM case, since all that's been argued (at least in public) is that IBM somehow violated some nebulous right SCO has by contributing IBM's own copyrighted material to Linux.
Q: In all of its various court cases (IBM, AZ, DC, Novell, etc.), how many of SCO's claims, if decided in SCO's favor, would affirm SCO's public assertions that it has the legal right to claim royalties from Linux users?
A: None. In every single case, each and every one of SCO's legal claims covers issues that are specific to SCO's relationship (or lack thereof) with its adversary. In other words, none of these cases sets a legal precedent that's binding over the general Linux user base.
... but if I had any wisdom to spare, I wouldn't be up at 12:30 AM writing this.
So many of the responders didn't even read your post. Oh, they may have seen the letters, and groued them into words, but what they read was in their own heads, not yours.
You sound pretty level-headed; just judging from your post, you have nothing to "get over". You weren't comparing yourself to anyone else; you weren't asking for people to bow down to you.
You wrote of "intensity". I'd guess that if you had to use one word to describe yourself, you might even choose that word over "intellegence". What matters to you isn't being the best or the brightest; else you would have mentioned that somewhere in your post! Your need is to be able to keep exploring and learning... preferably with other like-minded souls.
If I have any wisdom to offer, it's this: There are more people like you than you may realize... but finding them isn't always easy. Choose your college well. Ivy-league schools aren't necessarily the best choices for you, though I'm not putting them down by saying so. Look for a place where people are there to learn, not to achieve.
... understanding "derivative work" is another.
If I correct the spelling and grammar in your post, I've created a derivative work. I can't repost it without your permission.
If I add my own insight to the corrected version of your post, I've created a derivative work. I can't repost it without your permission.
If I extract my own insight from that derivative version, such that none of your own words are left, it's no longer a derivative work. It's mine, all mine, and I can do what I bloody well please with it.
Sometimes, there *is* truth to be found on/.
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Appeal to Authority is only a fallacy when the cited authority isn't qualified to express the stated opinion. So says The Skeptic's Dictionary, and if they say so, it must be true.
Interestingly, the main argument I've heard against these laws is that it's hard to know the state of mind of the criminal when (s)he committed the act. Therefore, a crime committed against a member of a minority group cannot be determined to have been intended to represent an attack on all members of that group.
And yet this law merely requires that the act appear to be so intended.
And I'd bet that a large number of the folks who oppose hate crime laws supported this one.
By referring to Stallman's "defenders", you're implicitly admitting that he is being attacked. And yet you call the defenders "hostile" ?
I'm going to patent the keyword Something, so that code can be made even easier to write:
Then, since Everything is Something, I'm going to sue Everybody for Everything.
Without lifting a finger to check my facts (i.e., I might be wrong somewhere...)
Objects 1000 ly away are inside of, or darned close to, our own galaxy. The distance to such objects is not measured by redshift, because a) they're moving in roughly the same direction we are, astronomically speaking, and b) redshift is used when measuring distrances in the millions or billions of light years; it'd be darned hard to measure the redshift of an object just 1000 ly away, even if it did have a redshift value that was in keeping with the Hubble redshift measurements.
I'll start with the last comment first:
Do you assume that global warming means that temperatures will rise uniformly across the globe?
Do you assume that global warming would cause no shift in weather patterns?
Do you assume that any shifts in weather patterns would not be disruptive to agriculture?
Do you assume that disruptions in agriculture can be easily accomodated, say by rapidly shifting agricultural production to different parts of the globe (assuming, of course, that there would be vast new tracks of arable farmland as a result of changed weather patterns)?
If the answer to any of these questions is "no", then global warming should make you nervous.
If your answer to any of these is "yes", then it's you, not the environmental scientists, who have some explaining to do. They seem like pretty shaky assumptions.
So what would it take to convince you that you really, really don't want to vote for George W. Bush? What kinds of arguments would it take? Would any of these get the point across?
It gets worse. If you don't fine-tune your runtime's heap size for each app, then you'll discover just how slow GC can be.
Setting the runtime heap size to the size of your machine's RAM might be a natural thing to do, but in a good many cases it's completely wrong.
Nor would the IBM case, since all that's been argued (at least in public) is that IBM somehow violated some nebulous right SCO has by contributing IBM's own copyrighted material to Linux.
Q: In all of its various court cases (IBM, AZ, DC, Novell, etc.), how many of SCO's claims, if decided in SCO's favor, would affirm SCO's public assertions that it has the legal right to claim royalties from Linux users?
A: None. In every single case, each and every one of SCO's legal claims covers issues that are specific to SCO's relationship (or lack thereof) with its adversary. In other words, none of these cases sets a legal precedent that's binding over the general Linux user base.
So many of the responders didn't even read your post. Oh, they may have seen the letters, and groued them into words, but what they read was in their own heads, not yours.
You sound pretty level-headed; just judging from your post, you have nothing to "get over". You weren't comparing yourself to anyone else; you weren't asking for people to bow down to you. You wrote of "intensity". I'd guess that if you had to use one word to describe yourself, you might even choose that word over "intellegence". What matters to you isn't being the best or the brightest; else you would have mentioned that somewhere in your post! Your need is to be able to keep exploring and learning... preferably with other like-minded souls.
If I have any wisdom to offer, it's this: There are more people like you than you may realize... but finding them isn't always easy. Choose your college well. Ivy-league schools aren't necessarily the best choices for you, though I'm not putting them down by saying so. Look for a place where people are there to learn, not to achieve.
That isn't much, but it'll have to do.
... understanding "derivative work" is another. If I correct the spelling and grammar in your post, I've created a derivative work. I can't repost it without your permission. If I add my own insight to the corrected version of your post, I've created a derivative work. I can't repost it without your permission. If I extract my own insight from that derivative version, such that none of your own words are left, it's no longer a derivative work. It's mine, all mine, and I can do what I bloody well please with it. Sometimes, there *is* truth to be found on /.