His point (if you read the thread) is that loading ndiswrapper by itself might be fine as far as GPL is concerned, but the moment you load a binary windows driver in ndiswrapper the combination is no longer GPL and should mark the kernel as tainted. Since this is the very purpose of ndiswrapper, the fact that the wrapper sans driver is GPL is not very relevant. Yes, there might be an anomaly of GPL windows drivers - but then you'd have the source code to port it to Linux, making it a very short-lived anomaly.
The way I see it, this impacts crashes. Tainted kernels are harder to debug for crashes due to closed-source binary blobs. Ndiswrapper+windriver has said blobs, hence it would make sense to mark the kernel as tainted (as in maintainers of GPLONLY symbols not too willing to debug a crash when a binary-only blob uses them). But I'm not a kernel dev so feel free to educate me if my understanding is wrong.
Re:Great news
on
Sun Buys MySQL
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· Score: 5, Informative
Oracle bought both InnoDB and BerkeleyDB. Those still happen to be two of the better engine options of MySQL.
In the Finder on MacBook Air, under Devices, select the icon that says Remote Disc. Click on the computer you enabled, and then double-click to open the software DVD. Now proceed with the installation just as if you had a built-in optical drive.
Now, as wonderful as EFI can be, I don't think it brings Finder up when it can't find a partition to boot from. Or even that it brings up a working wifi connection in such a case. So could you now help an old man understand how apple would achieve such a feat (or point me to exactly where it said it did)?
But making up particles no one has ever seen just because you don't understand what you are seing is fitting facts to the data.
You do realize that science is 'just' fitting theoretical models to data, do you? And that, while a model survives by being able to fit more types of data, it usually starts by fitting one or a handful?
Scientists often discuss new theories, etc, and in that context dark matter has it's place, but to claim it exists - as this story does - without being able to actually measure anything is quite silly and premature.
You are in error here. There are observations seeing dark matter (see here for example) - it's just that they don't provide information on what it is. And ultra-low cross-section particles are not as fantastic as you seem to make them - just because we don't know they exist we shouldn't rule them out. Or in. File it as usually under 'maybe' until further testing.
Because that music tax would only go to RIAA-owned artists.
There is an interesting argument here that even Universal's artists might not get a cut from that money - namely, if their contract with the label doesn't explicitly stipulate a cut from licensing electronic devices, they're all fucked over. At least if the current behavior (i.e. iTunes licensing splits) are something to judge by.
You hear the hot stove argument because it's tangible and obvious, not because it's "in in one of those ubiquitous books"
At the risk of repeating my other post - your stove argument is obvious to you. Feel free to tell me how a freshly-created being, without representations of anything, would understand what 'burning hot' is, nevermind death. And that skirts completely issues like why an omniscient being would place the Tree in Eden at all, knowing beforehand that it will be eaten from - and, having done that, how is eating from the Tree a 'sin' and exiling Adam 'punishment.'
I will never fully understand God - any more than my dog will ever fully comprehend me - *but* His actions make far more sense to me than any other explanation of the operation of the universe and of people within that universe than does any other explanation I've ever heard. God is *not* capricious.
Well, that is your belief and you have full freedom to have it. Hopefully, it doesn't preclude an inquisitive mind. Hence, if I may, regarding your sig, I would ask in Heisenberg's stead: how do you look at an electron? Think about it and perhaps the answer to your question will become more obvious.
There is a distinct difference between discerning whether something is good or evil, and understanding that a boundary has been set and should not be crossed.
I'm afraid I don't agree in this particular case. Let me clarify.
My 20 month old son does not discern that touching a hot stove will burn him, but he does comprehend that he must not touch the stove.
How is that? Unless he has a pre-acquired representation of what an interdiction is, he will touch it. A restriction is such only if comprehensible. God saying 'you will die' is meaningless if the listener never encountered death. He might as well have meant something as harmless as 'you'll fall asleep for an hour' for what they could tell. If your toddler faced restrictions before (that he probably ignored and suffered consequences) then he'll know what a restriction means. Otherwise, there's no meaning in 'don't touch this,' so he will not even realize what it is that you told him.
This is not about wanting to disobey, but about wholly not udnerstanding what disobeying means and brings. Especially since the interdiction was not absolute: "the day you eat from it you will die" certainly is not the same as "you shalt never eat from it for it brings death." If anything, this suggests to Adam that he will eat from the tree.
Wow, is there any substance behind your name-calling? TFA was not about "waaaah! now I gotta shell out lotsa moies fer a new Vista-loaded peecee.' Of course money has to come from somewhere. The question remains, what does it buy and how is it so catastrophic if one does not spend them that way.
So let's see:
Hardware costs - without Vista, old machines will get upgraded at the regular pace of the business using them. Purchases still happen. Most businesses will buy new Vista computers as needed, as nobody wants to throw away money for no reason. The difference between current hardware buying rate and post-Vista buying rate does not look likely to be $20B (MS states that ~50% of costs are hardware) - assuming ~2k/desktop of costs in hardware (for the sake of simplicity) that would mean ~ 10 million desktops bought up and above the current buying rates in just 6 countries. How likely is that?
Software costs - unless there is a compelling need to upgrade, software-wise, the money is thrown away. Besides, on the business side one pays the MS 'rent' (aka enterprise volume license) yearly regardless so there is no 'new' cash flow there.
Support - these will be the same support organisations that currently work with Win 2k and XP. No 'new' jobs here, simply new use for old ones.
Retraining - this is money thrown away if there is no net productivity improvement. And security will not have a big plus for business users, as a sane IT policy to handle security should be in place anyway.
Looking at how 'fast' XP spread after launch, a massive buying spree just for the sake of upgrading is unlikely. Add to that hardware requirements (meaning simply upgrading your computer is not an option in far too many cases) and I would say people will buy Vista preloaded on PCs that would have been otherwise bought with XP anyway. Then this looks like MS issuing Win XP SP3 and calling it a major reason for 'new' cash flow. Now, given that MS is spinning "this is the cash flow we expect Vista to generate" into "this is the excess cash flow we expect Vista to generate and you'll never get it it you don't allow us to do whatever we like" I would indeed call it a major piece of FUD.
On the other hand, I don't see why MS should have mentioned F/OSS in this paper. Certainly one is not supposed to make a case for the opposition in such cases. My problem is with them grossly misrepresenting their own case.
Well, I stopped reading when he explained the 'force difference' by using the Lorentz force formula and feeding into it the microwave group velocity. On the first page, that is.
Anyone cares to venture a guess for what electric charge he had in mind for q in said formula? At this point an answer on/. is bound to be at least as competent as his paper.
Property rights are causal. The reason corporations/peopel create things is because they can control them/profit from them. If they could not control/profit from them, the creation would have been nonexistent or greatly diminished.
That is a sad, tired argument - and all you can hope with it is the 'repeat it until people believe it' strategy. 'Intelectual property' rights are granted by the state for a limited period of time to encourage creation. In return for this protection, when the time expires the protected content should fall back into public domain so that the state (as in 'society at large') can benefit from them (you know, cross-polination type, or as some say 'standing on the soulders of giants'). DRM prevents that, as it does not have a built-in 'expiry date', effectively preventing the society from receiving any real benefits from allowing DRM. And don't give me that 'no DRM, no creation' crap - culture started well before DRM and Gutenberg's press did not ruin it at all, quite the contrary.
I say that even in the hugely improbable case that the RIAA members go banckrupt from lack of DRM (although the fact that they didn't already should clue one in) - bring it on! It should lower the market access price for many producers of good music (aka artists) that nowadays have to go indie.
Sorry to keep pulverizing this dead horse, but ideas like this matter. (Unless of course everyone else on this thread is correct, in which case they don't;-)
Actually, I think they matter regardless of who is right. A contrary opinion can teach one quite a bit;)
I think others define morality as what works toward whatever outcome they prefer, or sometimes just whatever arbitrary norms the current society enforces. I don't see any reason I should feel obligated to follow either kind of system. I might do it to avoid bad results imposed on my for disobeying, but I would not do it "just because it is the right thing to do." To me, this is the same as saying the morals as I understand them do not exist. Thus my ancient original question: "Why should anyone give a sh*t?"
Just to add a small piece here. 'just because it is the right thing to do' - how do you know what is 'the right thing'? you were taught, you learned from your experiences. How can you trust those teaching right and wrong? you were not born with an innate right/wrong compass, just look at small children's notions of right and wrong, they don't make the distinction this way and have to be told about it. So you give a shit because you were taught to. As I see it, your meaning is that an abolute view of morals does not question its origins; they must be right. My question was, what makes something right? with the proposed answer that 'it is right from a particular perspective and for particular goals, but not necessarily for every perspective/goal,' thus making the notions of right and wrong relative. I don't agree that this removes all value from the right/wrong distinction, but this is a longer argument. So ideally I would do something because 'it's the right thing to do in this case' and try to have an understanding of why it is so in practial terms; in practice, I'm human too:-) Speaking of human - I would think that if God has a moral system, it probably applies to Him and mortals like us have too different an existence to be able to follow it, even if we knew it.
One who thinks there is a creator God will approach it differently from one who doesn't.
Agreed; still, different religions give you different moral systems, even if they believe in a Creator. So I would add that someone believing God is Good will have a different moral system than someone believing God is the source of everything, both good and bad. But perhaps I should stop before this gets completely orthogonal to the topic (not that it would have much overlap left already) If you want to continue, perhaps we should take it elsewhere (a journal post?)
I was about to write another long answer when I took a second look at your post further up the thread. Your statement about the absolute moral compass that can be wrong (or broken clock that shows the 'right' hour twice a day) is sort of self contradictory. The broken clock by itself in fact never shows the right hour; you need a working clock to say 'now the hour is right.' An absolute moral compass cannot be wrong by itself, as it is what defines right and wrong; you need another compass to judge by in order to state it wrong. Which makes it be non-absolute. Unless by 'absolute' you meant 'undoubted by its owner' - in which case we've been arguing in uncorrelated directions.
We can search for the moral truth as best as we can, and strive to do what is right. Or we can give up and say that morality is relative, and that we have no standing to make any moral statement about anything someone else does, not matter how clearly awful it is.
You do not define a procedure to recognize the 'moral truth' here. Society provides one. If that one is correct, what point is there in searching? if not, how can you tell? as that is usually the moral code you grew up with. If the 'moral truth' is something absolute, then you should be able to recognize it when presented to you, according to some criteria. What are those? And if you are searching for the absolute yardstick for good and bad, why are you doing it?
As to relative morality, if you're in my house I expect you to behave according to my rules or I will kick you out. This is the principle upon which society makes its moral judgements: there are some rules and all of us who agreed to share the playgorund have to observe them or suffer consequences. That does not make the rules absolute - only pertaining to this playground and this moment in time. And if someone comes with a new rule, the existing players may choose to adopt it or reject it; in a democracy, the majority would normally decide on that; in different regimes, the procedure is different. But relativeness does not make morals unenforceable; merely not enforceable everywhere. Besides, if someone is free to do something that I consider awful, then I am as free to react to it in what manner I see fit. That (and the 'awful' label) is my moral statement.
Your words make it clear that you think some moral systems are better than others. If so, then morals are not relative.
I'll try to answer this, as it seems the main point of your reply. My 2cents' worth of opinion is that a moral system is not an end, it is a means to an end. The end is to manage to fit (and survive) in a given society/culture/system. We are taugth 'the rules' of what is good, bad, allowed, punished in that system since childhood. Now, some might claim the rules were cast down in stone by some divinity (or otherwise revealed to some visionary in the distant past) as a way to reach some promised reward or avoid punishment after death. That may or may not be relevant to a particular individual. But the point is, these rules change in time, inevitably, since society itself evolves. One can claim that the basics do not change; but even they sometimes do. Take for instance death: 'thou shalt not kill' is valid... except when you're talking death penalty, or war; now in modern times some cultures have abolished death penalty and some do not condone war, but this is hardly uniform across Christianity.
Now, assuming you buy this picture, different moral systems can be more or less fit for a given environment. But since different environments are not truly isolated, they will change in time, which means the moral systems that are taught there should ideally also evolve. But micro-details are not uniform: some people will accept change, some will ignore it, some will outright fight, either for or against it. That is due to different moral systems confronted with the same phenomenon that fell outside of their traditional categories. So what makes the difference between moral systems in the same envronment is less often how they deal with the acknowledged rules and more often how they handle exceptions that were not originally covered.
Ultimately, I would say, Man evolves, slowly as it happens - not towards good or evil, but towards states that are more advantageous for its life. A good moral system would help Man in this process; a bad one would oppose it. Thus, it follows for me that a good moral system is flexible enough to expand and accomodate new/unforseen circumstances, while a bad one tries to cut those circumstances down its size. Things get even uglier when the moral system ends up trying to protect a system that feels threatened by anything outside its boundaries, since it ends up putting the structure above the people it is made of and thus oppressing them.
As to moral judgements, those are made by society, not individuals. The rules of the game are the ones set by various majorities in various times. Individuals interpret those rules as they see fit for their survival. You are not directly threatened if someone shoplifts from a store, but if theft becomes widespread then your own property would eventually get targeted as well.
Ok, I've monopolized the soapbox long enough. I hope I was at least somewhat coherent:-)
If there is no moral compass, no right and wrong, then why should anyone give a sh*t about anything?
Perhaps the GP did not make his point too clear? There is no absolute moral compass. Everybody has a personal moral compass, but they don't point in the same direction for a simple reason. Morals are not absolute, they are acquired through education and are dependent on the cultural environment in which one lives. Take Christianity for instance: burning people for having a different belief system (witches, cathari, or other types of heretics) was 'right' in the Middle Ages, but wrong both before and after that period - an absolute moral compass would have to had backflipped quite a bit throughout history. And this is only in Christian culture - shocking as it might come to people like the author of this post up this thread, there are other cultures as well - which have moral systems quite different from Christianity in many cases. And just because someone says their system is the better/only/true one does not make it automatically true, be it the Pope ot some average joe on/.
Now, as to why people give a shit, it's because their personal moral compass. However, you might want to make a distinction between people who say 'this is wrong from my perspective' and the ones who say 'this is wrong, period.' The first cathegory can potentially realize that their moral system is imperfect and use their own judgement to adjust it; the second one, believing that what they have as moral code is the absolute truth, will be a lot less likely to allow changes to it. Also, the first cathegory of people will be a lot less likely to burn anyone at stake due to mismatching moral systems than the second one, for the same reason.
I would lay the blame on those who teach morals without emphasizing their relativeness. It is funny how you can trace this to the same type of fundamentalists who believe everything else (science, that is; other religions should probably be outright banned) should be taught as relative, but their particular brand of faith is the absolute truth. Makes one wonder what type of controversy is compatible with an attitude of 'everyone should be equal, but we should be more equal than others.' On the other hand, having to assume responsability for your moral system requires both a working, thinking brain and the courage to make, acknowledge and learn from one's mistakes - and thinking people are somewhat less amenable to blind, faith-based control and manipulation.
So, in these wonderfull socialist guncontrol happy countries the argument stands as if you count the people who cannot take it anymore and kill themselves, you get a higher rate then if you don't count them so we have to seperate them.
Are you trying to say that suicide is a crime? because otherwise I cannot say how you'd possibly have the option of counting them in the country's crime rate.
I do nature stuff and water shots often require a massive number of shots to get the one I came for.
Indeed they do. Sports, too. Or, for that matter, any session that goes after the unplanned for;-) On the other hand, more controlled sessions (studio, but not only) require fewer shots and more planning. As I said, you shoot as much as needed and not just fill your media with noise 'because you can.' Now, as you pointed out, the definition of 'as much as needed' varies from session to session and from photographer to photographer.
If you do not shoot 500 pictures or more at a family gathering "because you can"
If you shoot 500+ pictures at one event because you can you're a monkey with a finger reflex, not a photographer. A photographer would only shoot as many pictures as needed.
If you do not have a camera body that costs over $1200
I can up your troll just fine - if your hasselblad doesn't have a digital back you are not doing pro digital photography (after all, that's what you're droning about with 'then you can't understand the difference between Aperture and Photoshop' 'cause Aperture is 'for photographers') Do you still qualify? Craftmanship is not a matter of the tool and conversely throwing money at pro photo gear does not a photographer make (they used to say philosophum non facit barba)
If you have absolutely no problem deleting pictures you've taken
So you keep all those 500+ pictures per event? That says something about your discerning ability... remind me never to ask you about your photos. Heck, if you shoot 500+ pics on a daily basis, you don't even see most of them. Or you meant 500+ once in a blue moon, when you play 'photographer'?
If you never take your memory card out of your camera
yep, 2x 20D (with USB2 connectors, so transfer time is not a big issue) loaded with 8GB cards (to fit about 900 RAW pics each) cannot possibly help you understand... wait, nevermind. Perhaps you didn't think someone could actually be using more than one camera (the horror!!!)
If you use AOL's webmail to send people pictures of your dog
ah, indeed. I seem to have been wasting my time after all. You are absolutely right - pictures of your dog won't do at all. Now, pictures of your cat, on the other hand...
How you got +5 Insightful is perhaps a testimony of how much apple section mods know about photography - because it certainly has no relevance for the 'insight' of your post.
By the report the G5 processors are just as fast as the fastest x86.
Sorry, unsupported assertion. Opterons *50 aren't the fastest Opteron procs around, as some already pointed out. But nevermind that. Look at how gcc 4.0 lowers the x86 fp scores. Also, consider the fact that gcc 4.0.0 introduced changes in handling x86 vector code that apparently were not all for the better judging from the numbers (bugs too - see this one for instance) and that IBM made significant contributions on the Power/AltiVec side of gcc 4.
The one thing G5 seems to be doing better is fmadd - hardly a surprise, as SSE/SSE2/SSE3 have no single instruction equivalent. Otherwise, clock-for-clock the scores are not that impressive - and in fact, when using fdiv, some are rather weak: a 2.7GHz G5 about 25% slower than a 2.4GHz K8? Mind you, in raw flops a top-pumped Xeon would do better than the Opterons, too.
I'm sorry, but you misunderstood my reply. May I clarify?
First (last, apparently, but starting with it) I did not say that language aquisition skills were the vague part - please go back and re-read my post. That part I only argued as not a correct gauge for intelligence differences, as there are quite a few more factors playing a part (memory was my example) I completely agree that development curves are not the same for boys and girls early on, but that is no relevant indication about the end point of the development.
Second, I'm sorry to say, but the point about scientific process pertains to your original post as well. More precisely: the article simply stated IQ differences in adults. No conclusions were drawn on general intelligence starting from that, so unless the analysed sample showed a hidden bias that would restrict the affirmation to "differences in a certain category of adults" there's no interpretation to debate[*]. You, however, tried to actively prove that women do not seem less intelligent than men and as far as I could see your facts did not support your assertions. That does not mean all the facts were wrong (although I would question this one: "Female students perform better than their male counterparts in most fields of education through high-school.") merely that you are drawing conclusions that do not follow logically.
In any event, anyone in doubt of the phenomenon I've described can resolve the matter in a few minutes simply by speaking to a few parents. I beg to differ on this one. Parents are notorious for being utterly biased about their children. That would hardly be a valid scientific enquiry.
[*]of course, people are free to interpret themselves the results however they want and debate *that* - which already happened here on/. - but it is not the same thing now, is it?
I'm not sure your argument is 100% relevant. You're talking beginning of the development curve (baby) not asymptotic value (adult). For instance, one could argue that during the initial stages of language aquisition memory is at least as important as intelligence, if not more.
As to the school performance, your statement is to vague to be meaningful - what "most fields"? what environment? indeed, what cultural sample? I would argue that, looking at gender participation in high-school level scientific contests, you're in dire need of clarifying your assertion. (nota bene, this has to do with "perform better [...] in most fields," not with intelligence)
Anyway, my point is you need to be as careful in trying to disprove a theory as when trying to prove it. Gathering data is easy, the devil is in the interpretation details. Also, tossing vague assertions is OK here on/., but if you're doing actual scientific research it kills one's career fairly quickly. So don't hasten to dismiss something just because it's 'controversial' - pretty much all the paradigm shifts that happened in modern science started as controversial theories (although of course the converse does not always hold - not every controversial theory has to be correct)
Besides, I find it more interesting to observe reactions to this - as far as the bbc article says, the man made a satistical analysis on a fairly large sample (80k people, then 20k students) and presented the results: "men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests"; no final statements on intelligence implied, yet people are willing to fight over it anyway. Reminds me of a certain golden apple marked "for the most beautiful" that just happened to start a war.
I think a better question one might ask of this research, to be honest, is "What is wrong with the IQ test that it reveals a gender difference where there ought not to be one?"
Sorry, but this is wrong. You're making an a priori assumption that "there ought not to be one" - the correct question is "What is the meaning of the difference that the IQ test shows between men and women?" Otherwise, lacking more information, what you're doing is fitting facts to the theory (IQ test does not give the answer I want, so it must be wrong) Of course, if you have prior results that verified unambiguously that there's no intellectual difference between men and women, then you would have to go about explaining the origin of the difference in the IQ test. But in that case your question is again ill-posed, as the correct form should rather be "What is wrong with my understanding of the IQ test results?" - meaning the test measured something correctly, but that something was not what you thought it would be.
But I very much like to see his measurements too, just in case. And if someone wants to enlighten me in which ways those measurements are wrong, or mis-interpreted, then please, please, please tell me just that: exactly which measurements calculations are wrong.
A recent example of wrong data (ignore the jornalistic filling).
I'd like to see the whole global warming stuff just for once discused based on the facts, and _only_ the facts.
Haven't had time to do that myself, but if interested you might want to sift through the papers on arxiv.org.
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His point (if you read the thread) is that loading ndiswrapper by itself might be fine as far as GPL is concerned, but the moment you load a binary windows driver in ndiswrapper the combination is no longer GPL and should mark the kernel as tainted. Since this is the very purpose of ndiswrapper, the fact that the wrapper sans driver is GPL is not very relevant. Yes, there might be an anomaly of GPL windows drivers - but then you'd have the source code to port it to Linux, making it a very short-lived anomaly.
The way I see it, this impacts crashes. Tainted kernels are harder to debug for crashes due to closed-source binary blobs. Ndiswrapper+windriver has said blobs, hence it would make sense to mark the kernel as tainted (as in maintainers of GPLONLY symbols not too willing to debug a crash when a binary-only blob uses them). But I'm not a kernel dev so feel free to educate me if my understanding is wrong.
Oracle bought both InnoDB and BerkeleyDB. Those still happen to be two of the better engine options of MySQL.
Um. Where did you see that one? I read
Now, as wonderful as EFI can be, I don't think it brings Finder up when it can't find a partition to boot from. Or even that it brings up a working wifi connection in such a case. So could you now help an old man understand how apple would achieve such a feat (or point me to exactly where it said it did)?
Its a computer connected to "Teh Intarweb" - its supposed to have open ports.
Not if it just acts as a client, as most "consumer" machines do.
Well, you need at least incoming udp:68, at least if you want it to receive the initial response from the DHCP server.
But making up particles no one has ever seen just because you don't understand what you are seing is fitting facts to the data.
You do realize that science is 'just' fitting theoretical models to data, do you? And that, while a model survives by being able to fit more types of data, it usually starts by fitting one or a handful?
Scientists often discuss new theories, etc, and in that context dark matter has it's place, but to claim it exists - as this story does - without being able to actually measure anything is quite silly and premature.
You are in error here. There are observations seeing dark matter (see here for example) - it's just that they don't provide information on what it is. And ultra-low cross-section particles are not as fantastic as you seem to make them - just because we don't know they exist we shouldn't rule them out. Or in. File it as usually under 'maybe' until further testing.
There is an interesting argument here that even Universal's artists might not get a cut from that money - namely, if their contract with the label doesn't explicitly stipulate a cut from licensing electronic devices, they're all fucked over. At least if the current behavior (i.e. iTunes licensing splits) are something to judge by.
You hear the hot stove argument because it's tangible and obvious, not because it's "in in one of those ubiquitous books"
At the risk of repeating my other post - your stove argument is obvious to you. Feel free to tell me how a freshly-created being, without representations of anything, would understand what 'burning hot' is, nevermind death. And that skirts completely issues like why an omniscient being would place the Tree in Eden at all, knowing beforehand that it will be eaten from - and, having done that, how is eating from the Tree a 'sin' and exiling Adam 'punishment.'
I will never fully understand God - any more than my dog will ever fully comprehend me - *but* His actions make far more sense to me than any other explanation of the operation of the universe and of people within that universe than does any other explanation I've ever heard. God is *not* capricious.
Well, that is your belief and you have full freedom to have it. Hopefully, it doesn't preclude an inquisitive mind. Hence, if I may, regarding your sig, I would ask in Heisenberg's stead: how do you look at an electron? Think about it and perhaps the answer to your question will become more obvious.
I'm afraid I don't agree in this particular case. Let me clarify.
How is that? Unless he has a pre-acquired representation of what an interdiction is, he will touch it. A restriction is such only if comprehensible. God saying 'you will die' is meaningless if the listener never encountered death. He might as well have meant something as harmless as 'you'll fall asleep for an hour' for what they could tell. If your toddler faced restrictions before (that he probably ignored and suffered consequences) then he'll know what a restriction means. Otherwise, there's no meaning in 'don't touch this,' so he will not even realize what it is that you told him.
This is not about wanting to disobey, but about wholly not udnerstanding what disobeying means and brings. Especially since the interdiction was not absolute: "the day you eat from it you will die" certainly is not the same as "you shalt never eat from it for it brings death." If anything, this suggests to Adam that he will eat from the tree.
So let's see:
Looking at how 'fast' XP spread after launch, a massive buying spree just for the sake of upgrading is unlikely. Add to that hardware requirements (meaning simply upgrading your computer is not an option in far too many cases) and I would say people will buy Vista preloaded on PCs that would have been otherwise bought with XP anyway. Then this looks like MS issuing Win XP SP3 and calling it a major reason for 'new' cash flow. Now, given that MS is spinning "this is the cash flow we expect Vista to generate" into "this is the excess cash flow we expect Vista to generate and you'll never get it it you don't allow us to do whatever we like" I would indeed call it a major piece of FUD.
On the other hand, I don't see why MS should have mentioned F/OSS in this paper. Certainly one is not supposed to make a case for the opposition in such cases. My problem is with them grossly misrepresenting their own case.
It is, actually. Called photon gas. In this particular case, not thermalised.
If you want to understand more about it, a good googling starting point would be black body radiation.
Well, I stopped reading when he explained the 'force difference' by using the Lorentz force formula and feeding into it the microwave group velocity. On the first page, that is.
/. is bound to be at least as competent as his paper.
Anyone cares to venture a guess for what electric charge he had in mind for q in said formula? At this point an answer on
That is a sad, tired argument - and all you can hope with it is the 'repeat it until people believe it' strategy. 'Intelectual property' rights are granted by the state for a limited period of time to encourage creation. In return for this protection, when the time expires the protected content should fall back into public domain so that the state (as in 'society at large') can benefit from them (you know, cross-polination type, or as some say 'standing on the soulders of giants'). DRM prevents that, as it does not have a built-in 'expiry date', effectively preventing the society from receiving any real benefits from allowing DRM. And don't give me that 'no DRM, no creation' crap - culture started well before DRM and Gutenberg's press did not ruin it at all, quite the contrary.
I say that even in the hugely improbable case that the RIAA members go banckrupt from lack of DRM (although the fact that they didn't already should clue one in) - bring it on! It should lower the market access price for many producers of good music (aka artists) that nowadays have to go indie.
Sorry to keep pulverizing this dead horse, but ideas like this matter. (Unless of course everyone else on this thread is correct, in which case they don't ;-)
;)
:-) Speaking of human - I would think that if God has a moral system, it probably applies to Him and mortals like us have too different an existence to be able to follow it, even if we knew it.
Actually, I think they matter regardless of who is right. A contrary opinion can teach one quite a bit
I think others define morality as what works toward whatever outcome they prefer, or sometimes just whatever arbitrary norms the current society enforces. I don't see any reason I should feel obligated to follow either kind of system. I might do it to avoid bad results imposed on my for disobeying, but I would not do it "just because it is the right thing to do." To me, this is the same as saying the morals as I understand them do not exist. Thus my ancient original question: "Why should anyone give a sh*t?"
Just to add a small piece here. 'just because it is the right thing to do' - how do you know what is 'the right thing'? you were taught, you learned from your experiences. How can you trust those teaching right and wrong? you were not born with an innate right/wrong compass, just look at small children's notions of right and wrong, they don't make the distinction this way and have to be told about it. So you give a shit because you were taught to. As I see it, your meaning is that an abolute view of morals does not question its origins; they must be right. My question was, what makes something right? with the proposed answer that 'it is right from a particular perspective and for particular goals, but not necessarily for every perspective/goal,' thus making the notions of right and wrong relative. I don't agree that this removes all value from the right/wrong distinction, but this is a longer argument. So ideally I would do something because 'it's the right thing to do in this case' and try to have an understanding of why it is so in practial terms; in practice, I'm human too
One who thinks there is a creator God will approach it differently from one who doesn't.
Agreed; still, different religions give you different moral systems, even if they believe in a Creator. So I would add that someone believing God is Good will have a different moral system than someone believing God is the source of everything, both good and bad. But perhaps I should stop before this gets completely orthogonal to the topic (not that it would have much overlap left already) If you want to continue, perhaps we should take it elsewhere (a journal post?)
I was about to write another long answer when I took a second look at your post further up the thread. Your statement about the absolute moral compass that can be wrong (or broken clock that shows the 'right' hour twice a day) is sort of self contradictory. The broken clock by itself in fact never shows the right hour; you need a working clock to say 'now the hour is right.' An absolute moral compass cannot be wrong by itself, as it is what defines right and wrong; you need another compass to judge by in order to state it wrong. Which makes it be non-absolute. Unless by 'absolute' you meant 'undoubted by its owner' - in which case we've been arguing in uncorrelated directions.
We can search for the moral truth as best as we can, and strive to do what is right. Or we can give up and say that morality is relative, and that we have no standing to make any moral statement about anything someone else does, not matter how clearly awful it is.
You do not define a procedure to recognize the 'moral truth' here. Society provides one. If that one is correct, what point is there in searching? if not, how can you tell? as that is usually the moral code you grew up with. If the 'moral truth' is something absolute, then you should be able to recognize it when presented to you, according to some criteria. What are those? And if you are searching for the absolute yardstick for good and bad, why are you doing it?
As to relative morality, if you're in my house I expect you to behave according to my rules or I will kick you out. This is the principle upon which society makes its moral judgements: there are some rules and all of us who agreed to share the playgorund have to observe them or suffer consequences. That does not make the rules absolute - only pertaining to this playground and this moment in time. And if someone comes with a new rule, the existing players may choose to adopt it or reject it; in a democracy, the majority would normally decide on that; in different regimes, the procedure is different. But relativeness does not make morals unenforceable; merely not enforceable everywhere. Besides, if someone is free to do something that I consider awful, then I am as free to react to it in what manner I see fit. That (and the 'awful' label) is my moral statement.
Your words make it clear that you think some moral systems are better than others. If so, then morals are not relative.
... except when you're talking death penalty, or war; now in modern times some cultures have abolished death penalty and some do not condone war, but this is hardly uniform across Christianity.
:-)
I'll try to answer this, as it seems the main point of your reply. My 2cents' worth of opinion is that a moral system is not an end, it is a means to an end. The end is to manage to fit (and survive) in a given society/culture/system. We are taugth 'the rules' of what is good, bad, allowed, punished in that system since childhood. Now, some might claim the rules were cast down in stone by some divinity (or otherwise revealed to some visionary in the distant past) as a way to reach some promised reward or avoid punishment after death. That may or may not be relevant to a particular individual. But the point is, these rules change in time, inevitably, since society itself evolves. One can claim that the basics do not change; but even they sometimes do. Take for instance death: 'thou shalt not kill' is valid
Now, assuming you buy this picture, different moral systems can be more or less fit for a given environment. But since different environments are not truly isolated, they will change in time, which means the moral systems that are taught there should ideally also evolve. But micro-details are not uniform: some people will accept change, some will ignore it, some will outright fight, either for or against it. That is due to different moral systems confronted with the same phenomenon that fell outside of their traditional categories. So what makes the difference between moral systems in the same envronment is less often how they deal with the acknowledged rules and more often how they handle exceptions that were not originally covered.
Ultimately, I would say, Man evolves, slowly as it happens - not towards good or evil, but towards states that are more advantageous for its life. A good moral system would help Man in this process; a bad one would oppose it. Thus, it follows for me that a good moral system is flexible enough to expand and accomodate new/unforseen circumstances, while a bad one tries to cut those circumstances down its size. Things get even uglier when the moral system ends up trying to protect a system that feels threatened by anything outside its boundaries, since it ends up putting the structure above the people it is made of and thus oppressing them.
As to moral judgements, those are made by society, not individuals. The rules of the game are the ones set by various majorities in various times. Individuals interpret those rules as they see fit for their survival. You are not directly threatened if someone shoplifts from a store, but if theft becomes widespread then your own property would eventually get targeted as well.
Ok, I've monopolized the soapbox long enough. I hope I was at least somewhat coherent
If there is no moral compass, no right and wrong, then why should anyone give a sh*t about anything?
/.
Perhaps the GP did not make his point too clear? There is no absolute moral compass. Everybody has a personal moral compass, but they don't point in the same direction for a simple reason. Morals are not absolute, they are acquired through education and are dependent on the cultural environment in which one lives. Take Christianity for instance: burning people for having a different belief system (witches, cathari, or other types of heretics) was 'right' in the Middle Ages, but wrong both before and after that period - an absolute moral compass would have to had backflipped quite a bit throughout history. And this is only in Christian culture - shocking as it might come to people like the author of this post up this thread, there are other cultures as well - which have moral systems quite different from Christianity in many cases. And just because someone says their system is the better/only/true one does not make it automatically true, be it the Pope ot some average joe on
Now, as to why people give a shit, it's because their personal moral compass. However, you might want to make a distinction between people who say 'this is wrong from my perspective' and the ones who say 'this is wrong, period.' The first cathegory can potentially realize that their moral system is imperfect and use their own judgement to adjust it; the second one, believing that what they have as moral code is the absolute truth, will be a lot less likely to allow changes to it. Also, the first cathegory of people will be a lot less likely to burn anyone at stake due to mismatching moral systems than the second one, for the same reason.
I would lay the blame on those who teach morals without emphasizing their relativeness. It is funny how you can trace this to the same type of fundamentalists who believe everything else (science, that is; other religions should probably be outright banned) should be taught as relative, but their particular brand of faith is the absolute truth. Makes one wonder what type of controversy is compatible with an attitude of 'everyone should be equal, but we should be more equal than others.' On the other hand, having to assume responsability for your moral system requires both a working, thinking brain and the courage to make, acknowledge and learn from one's mistakes - and thinking people are somewhat less amenable to blind, faith-based control and manipulation.
So, in these wonderfull socialist guncontrol happy countries the argument stands as if you count the people who cannot take it anymore and kill themselves, you get a higher rate then if you don't count them so we have to seperate them.
Are you trying to say that suicide is a crime? because otherwise I cannot say how you'd possibly have the option of counting them in the country's crime rate.
I do nature stuff and water shots often require a massive number of shots to get the one I came for.
;-) On the other hand, more controlled sessions (studio, but not only) require fewer shots and more planning. As I said, you shoot as much as needed and not just fill your media with noise 'because you can.' Now, as you pointed out, the definition of 'as much as needed' varies from session to session and from photographer to photographer.
Indeed they do. Sports, too. Or, for that matter, any session that goes after the unplanned for
If you do not shoot 500 pictures or more at a family gathering "because you can"
... remind me never to ask you about your photos. Heck, if you shoot 500+ pics on a daily basis, you don't even see most of them. Or you meant 500+ once in a blue moon, when you play 'photographer'?
... wait, nevermind. Perhaps you didn't think someone could actually be using more than one camera (the horror!!!)
...
If you shoot 500+ pictures at one event because you can you're a monkey with a finger reflex, not a photographer. A photographer would only shoot as many pictures as needed.
If you do not have a camera body that costs over $1200
I can up your troll just fine - if your hasselblad doesn't have a digital back you are not doing pro digital photography (after all, that's what you're droning about with 'then you can't understand the difference between Aperture and Photoshop' 'cause Aperture is 'for photographers') Do you still qualify? Craftmanship is not a matter of the tool and conversely throwing money at pro photo gear does not a photographer make (they used to say philosophum non facit barba)
If you have absolutely no problem deleting pictures you've taken
So you keep all those 500+ pictures per event? That says something about your discerning ability
If you never take your memory card out of your camera
yep, 2x 20D (with USB2 connectors, so transfer time is not a big issue) loaded with 8GB cards (to fit about 900 RAW pics each) cannot possibly help you understand
If you use AOL's webmail to send people pictures of your dog
ah, indeed. I seem to have been wasting my time after all. You are absolutely right - pictures of your dog won't do at all. Now, pictures of your cat, on the other hand
How you got +5 Insightful is perhaps a testimony of how much apple section mods know about photography - because it certainly has no relevance for the 'insight' of your post.
By the report the G5 processors are just as fast as the fastest x86.
Sorry, unsupported assertion. Opterons *50 aren't the fastest Opteron procs around, as some already pointed out. But nevermind that. Look at how gcc 4.0 lowers the x86 fp scores. Also, consider the fact that gcc 4.0.0 introduced changes in handling x86 vector code that apparently were not all for the better judging from the numbers (bugs too - see this one for instance) and that IBM made significant contributions on the Power/AltiVec side of gcc 4.
The one thing G5 seems to be doing better is fmadd - hardly a surprise, as SSE/SSE2/SSE3 have no single instruction equivalent. Otherwise, clock-for-clock the scores are not that impressive - and in fact, when using fdiv, some are rather weak: a 2.7GHz G5 about 25% slower than a 2.4GHz K8? Mind you, in raw flops a top-pumped Xeon would do better than the Opterons, too.
I'm sorry, but you misunderstood my reply. May I clarify?
/. - but it is not the same thing now, is it?
First (last, apparently, but starting with it) I did not say that language aquisition skills were the vague part - please go back and re-read my post. That part I only argued as not a correct gauge for intelligence differences, as there are quite a few more factors playing a part (memory was my example) I completely agree that development curves are not the same for boys and girls early on, but that is no relevant indication about the end point of the development.
Second, I'm sorry to say, but the point about scientific process pertains to your original post as well. More precisely: the article simply stated IQ differences in adults. No conclusions were drawn on general intelligence starting from that, so unless the analysed sample showed a hidden bias that would restrict the affirmation to "differences in a certain category of adults" there's no interpretation to debate[*]. You, however, tried to actively prove that women do not seem less intelligent than men and as far as I could see your facts did not support your assertions. That does not mean all the facts were wrong (although I would question this one: "Female students perform better than their male counterparts in most fields of education through high-school.") merely that you are drawing conclusions that do not follow logically.
In any event, anyone in doubt of the phenomenon I've described can resolve the matter in a few minutes simply by speaking to a few parents.
I beg to differ on this one. Parents are notorious for being utterly biased about their children. That would hardly be a valid scientific enquiry.
[*]of course, people are free to interpret themselves the results however they want and debate *that* - which already happened here on
I'm not sure your argument is 100% relevant. You're talking beginning of the development curve (baby) not asymptotic value (adult). For instance, one could argue that during the initial stages of language aquisition memory is at least as important as intelligence, if not more.
/., but if you're doing actual scientific research it kills one's career fairly quickly. So don't hasten to dismiss something just because it's 'controversial' - pretty much all the paradigm shifts that happened in modern science started as controversial theories (although of course the converse does not always hold - not every controversial theory has to be correct)
As to the school performance, your statement is to vague to be meaningful - what "most fields"? what environment? indeed, what cultural sample? I would argue that, looking at gender participation in high-school level scientific contests, you're in dire need of clarifying your assertion. (nota bene, this has to do with "perform better [...] in most fields," not with intelligence)
Anyway, my point is you need to be as careful in trying to disprove a theory as when trying to prove it. Gathering data is easy, the devil is in the interpretation details. Also, tossing vague assertions is OK here on
Besides, I find it more interesting to observe reactions to this - as far as the bbc article says, the man made a satistical analysis on a fairly large sample (80k people, then 20k students) and presented the results: "men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests"; no final statements on intelligence implied, yet people are willing to fight over it anyway. Reminds me of a certain golden apple marked "for the most beautiful" that just happened to start a war.
I think a better question one might ask of this research, to be honest, is "What is wrong with the IQ test that it reveals a gender difference where there ought not to be one?"
Sorry, but this is wrong. You're making an a priori assumption that "there ought not to be one" - the correct question is "What is the meaning of the difference that the IQ test shows between men and women?" Otherwise, lacking more information, what you're doing is fitting facts to the theory (IQ test does not give the answer I want, so it must be wrong) Of course, if you have prior results that verified unambiguously that there's no intellectual difference between men and women, then you would have to go about explaining the origin of the difference in the IQ test. But in that case your question is again ill-posed, as the correct form should rather be "What is wrong with my understanding of the IQ test results?" - meaning the test measured something correctly, but that something was not what you thought it would be.
But I very much like to see his measurements too, just in case. And if someone wants to enlighten me in which ways those measurements are wrong, or mis-interpreted, then please, please, please tell me just that: exactly which measurements calculations are wrong.
A recent example of wrong data (ignore the jornalistic filling).
I'd like to see the whole global warming stuff just for once discused based on the facts, and _only_ the facts.
Haven't had time to do that myself, but if interested you might want to sift through the papers on arxiv.org.
What's next, Google News Beta becoming Google News RC1?
The world has gone crazy, I kid you not!