"You have a very scary position. Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West argued that the only thing that can counter the power of money in "parliamentarism" was "blood and soil." Within the context of Hitler's subsequent rise, emphasizing the German race and its mystical connection with the land, Spengler's words become a very stark warning, not a model to follow."
You obviously don't understand spengler, or you wouldn't have passed off such trite nonsense, his point was the only real counter to corruption and rule by the rich historically speaking, is blood.
"Soros's criticisms of capitalism are particularly rich, insofar as he goes out of his way to cause turmoil."
Look soros admits the british pound and he said if it wasn't him it would have been someone else, it's not like he's hiding from these facts. Don't act like you have the moral highground here, what soros knows about markets runs rings around most economists in having produced evidence that he knows.
"Soros's manipulation of the Thai Bhat set off the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 that spread around the world, ultimately resulting in the hyperinflation of the Russian Ruble in 1998 and their default on IMF loans."
Which is the biggest load of bullshit ever. Look George soros is on record for the british pound, because if it wasn't him it would have been someone else. Let's face that fact please, George soros is not the only currency speculator in the world. His influence is rather minmal compared to millions of speculators. It's absolute nonsense that he caused the asian crisis. It's bullshit plain and simple.
"This is the same Soros that is funding Moveon.org, hates Bush and his allies with a passion and has funded the democrats before this election to the tune of at least $20-30 million dollars?"
And what was the context of his support? Did you ask or even read about why he did such things? Just saying "he gave money to so and so" without any kind of context on why he did what he did is meaningless ideological smear tactics.
"We're supposed to trust Mr Liberal, there? No thanks."
Again, this betrays any insight or intelligence into the matters at hand. My post didn't say he was a perfect man, but it is obvious you know very little about George soros besides what you want to see in the man. Try meeting him and going through interviews to find out why he did what he did instead of just mindlessly saying "so and so did this", anyone can point fingers and frame facts in such a way to make someone look bad. The real world is more complicated then the black and white fantasy land most conservative and other ideologues live in.
"So yeah, I'm exceedingly opposed to letting anyone like Buffett or Soros run anything in the government. They already manipulate it now to their benefit and get rich off tax and bailout bills, so the last thing they need is to be made a "benevolent dictator"."
Soros and buffet are nowhere near in the same league, I've met Mr Soros personally and I can tell you he is not in the same league as your typical billionaire in the slightest. He set up conferences in how the political process of america is manipulated, see here: http://www.linktv.org/programs/orwell_deceiving
He publishes books constantly criticizing the the deficiencies of the capitalist system. (Just google or search on amazon for his name) and he also funds the soros foundation that has done a hell of a lot of good for people in the world and in america - http://www.soros.org/
Just because a person is rich doesn't mean that they are all about money, nor does it mean they are perfect. If you've actually watched interviews of Mr Soros or read any of his books and researched into the man, you'd get a much better picture then the superficial version and vague notions that he is just "some greedy rich dude". People should read some of his books and actually research before they smear a man you know nothing about. He is not perfect, but no one is, and since america is all about hyper belief in capitalism. Americans deserve to get the real world capitalism good and hard - they deserve to get the ideals they worship - greed, status, beauty, hyper individualism and being rich, and therefore deserve a bunch of rich people who believe greed is good ruling them.
If the american people want change they should be ignoring the law, outright revolting and going after these people with mob justice. It is astounding how ignorant most people are of history. Oswald spenglers decline of the west should be required reading for every student before they enter the world.
Oswald knew the only thing that can counter greed and oppression of the corruption of the rich is bloodshed and lawless disobedience, like the destruction of property, the intimidation of the corrupt men in the law profession and the corrupt judges, people did this during the depression, but most people today are too comfortable, selfish and individualistic to set aside their differences and fearful for their lives to oust these people. The rich live in a world radically different and sheltered from the real world of the masses and the more distant from this world they become the more myopic and distorted their thinking and vision becomes.
"Intolerant fundies are simply a very vocal minority."
Unfortunately you're not even on my level... it would take years of reading for you to catch up unfortunately, when I mean "uninformed" I mean lacking in insight into humanity and human nature and it's inherent defectiveness. It's not merely intolerant fundies, go look at the ravings of mr scot here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/
These people still believe and spread things that are not true and fuckup their kids lives with their rather primitive morality, not only that most people in your red state wouldn't even qualify as christian because that is how bad they are at thinking and reading the bible (if they do at all), when it comes to things that psychologically comfort them which they refuse to let go of. They're mostly secular people with a crazy religious bent who can't let go of the blanket of religion that keeps them warm at night.
It still doesn't absolve them of the fact that they are a bunch of liars who harm the world by their lies and inflict their primtivism on others and most importantly - their children. Tolerance is not a virtue here, it is a vice that has come out of the enlightenment view of reason and humanity, human beings are not nice creatures. They are primitive and feral to the bone. Millons of years and we still have war and poverty ffs. All men are primitive and I'll be glad once we start moving away from man 1.0, human beings (that is v1.0) are a failed race, of this I am certain. I don't buy the myth that people are good people, if they were good they would restrain their feral impulses and we wouldn't live in capitalist society where we have people eat $10,000 dinners and some man has to live on the street homeless, the fact that we have homeless people at all proves that mankind is not very nice or capable of controlling itself as a species. That fact alone speaks volumes of how not good we are because most people are a bunch of selfish hyper individualistic animals.
People are naturally prejudice as we know, but it signals a deeper more disturbing message about humans being the descendents of animals -- i.e. we are more wild animal then humane. Considering we allow people to have billions of dollars while some disabled man or woman may suicide over not being able to pay the bills. This shows us just how messed up human beings really are and how ignorant / apathetic they are in reality despite all the flashy words, inspiring messages and whatnot. And also how fearful they are of commiting to building relationships with others they perceive as "the other" even when they haven't done anything wrong.
People who believe illusions and lies are the problem in this world, people who will make dumb ass decisions that keep the world mired in confusion and the ethical backwardness it is in must be called on it. The reason teh world is so fucked up is because we allow the buck to pass, the war in iraq could have been shortened if all americans got up and caused the biggest shitstorm teh world has ever seen but most are apathetic plebes who couldn't give a rats ass for a bunch of what they might consider "brown people" in another country.
The truth is humans suck so lets not sugarcoat it ok? Millions of years, we're still at war with one another, some one or all human beings have something desperately wrong with them that needs to be fixed.
You are very young, or not very well informed... they are the people who would kill you at jesus's command without question. I've actually lived among these people so I have every right to want to get rid of this bullshit. I've been deep into christian territory so please keep your compassion for a bunch of lunatics to yourself, many of these are people who hope you burn in hell and would kill rape and pillage for their god (see: the old testament). Most christians aren't even christian according to the bible actually teaches anyway... I know I've read and studied it profusely as I was forced to as a child. That shit gave me nightmares as a kid.
Understand how f'd up these people are. Then come back and try to tell me how loving these people really are. These people are 100% mentally ill, they outnumber us so the founding fathers of america were forced to make compromises and so we must still today. It's not loving to believe what is false and spread what is false and harm and maim young childrens minds and give them false beliefs that will fuck with their sexuality, self image, and enjoyment of life and the false hopes and false dreams which will shatter their lives later, go see: http://ex-christian.net/
You are uninformed opinion on matters of grave and serious historical consequence.
Who do you think voted for george bush, and is going to vote for the likes of McCain and sarah dumbass palin? Anyone who's going to vote to drag the US into a war to protect israel to fulfill bible prophecy is a fucking loon, and no I won't respect them, or the source of what is fucking up this planet. They are partially responsible for fucking up the US government and this fact must be faced.
Your words are empty, because it is not being a zealot to defend what is true. Insult is the cry of the man who has no argument and so trusts his biology and feral impulses that he cannot see clearly, so ensconced in the lies that his body and mind tells him that he cannot think therefore he cannot be listened to because he does not understand himself.
Human beings have justified war, poverty, oppression for millions of years, most people do nothing to alleviate it even when they have the power. Human beings have had millions of years, and they are still where they were thousands of years ago, with larger and more modern spears and bigger swords. The error in this equation is man 1.0 and his stone age hunger for mysticism and lies, over the long hard road of truth and uncertainty.
"Being so heavily prejudiced against people with religious views means you stand no chance of really understanding them or, more importantly, convincing them as to why they're wrong."
Religions people = trapped and blinded by their deformed biology, for anyone that ritualizes and believes in a higher power with some moral code or text and worships such beings, these people are stone aged people in a modern world, they must simply go extinct naturally as the dinosaurs did.
Being prejudiced against what is false is a just thing, being a prejudice against what is true is a bad thing. There is ultimate truth, in fact if there wasn't you couldn't think. Is something is there? yes(it is absolutely true) or it is not (no it is not). You couldn't have so much as a single perception, or navigate around objects in your daily environment. There is a standard for truth, mankind is too primitive as a whole to grasp it which is not my problem, I don't give a rats ass about "convincing" or "understanding" people so mired in their own ignorance and poor biology one can't hope to dig them out. Their like autistic children trapped in bodies and minds that distort reality, if I had the power I would prevent such things from occuring but I don't unfortunately. I believe in healing people rather then "eliminating them" but if they are going to drag the world into war, primitive tribalism and social strife, I will stand against such people.
Their inferior bodies and minds are the problem, they will die out, just like the dinosaurs died out. Just because their are many religions and gods, does not mean I have to respect them, or reach out to them. Religion is the cry of the powerless feral creature against his lack of intelligence and strength of will to overcome the decay that will befall him and his comrades in nature.
Religion, when I use the term, I mean against religious people that stick their noses up at what is true and try to indoctrinate their children into their backward untruths that lead this world to constant strife, interpersonal relations and war. Religion isn't the only problem man has, man is inferior all the way through - his biology is the problem. And scientists and engineers of the future will do their best to improve our descedents so that we can do away with our feral aspects of our biology, the evolutionary dredge that will be culled from us whether you want it to be or not. You cannot stop this process, it will occur, and religion for most will die away, and new philosophies will emerge congruent with what is true.
"I would say this is another potential blow to young-Earth creationists,"
YEC'ism is a matter of who they are born to(i.e. christian parents) and whether or not they are born with the intelligence to escape it. Many YEC'ers are indoctrinated into it, one way to reduce YEC, would be by preventing christian folk from outbreeding the secular. Outbreed them and outnumber them and via social pressure of numbers they will be increasingly be marginalized and they will die out. The real problem is human nature though, being born into weak bodies and minds that are susceptible to such propagandistic bs. We really need to get on biological engineering and designer kids so they will be intelligent enough not to buy this shit and then grow up and become adults who still buy this shit.
I was sad that even Betty page bought into christian bullshit... pretty, great personality, and even did good in school but in that one way she was dumb as rocks apparently. People compartmentalize, it's a fear of death thing unfortunately. It's been theorized that religion is an evolutionary reaction to awareness of ones own death.
"Which is worse: a password that you can remember, or changing passwords every 30/60/90 days to a new password such that you can never keep up, and thus need to write it down *somewhere*?"
What's needed is an automated kind of passkey that's universally accepted at all (important) sites, so you don't have to know your password and the app takes care of it for you. I've been thinking about this ever since I started using Roboform http://www.roboform.com/
This prevents one from needing to remember passwords but it does nothing for password changes, etc. The thing is that if the world was populated by the imaginary cool caring people, we wouldn't need security and to begin with. We need security because there are too many people who are assholes.
... in gmail is most likely because of the ads! I see ads in my newsfeedbar and on the side when I'm reading email. That is why they are not going to google gear gmail in my opinion, whether this will change or not I am uncertain but they certainly gain a hell of a lot of insight into what a user wants by being able to use gmail to comb the emails for context relative ads. Most people don't give a flying f-ck what comes in and goes out of their email, they use it like any other communication device. Many personal things are said by email partially for convenience and partially because of the stupidity of the majority of end users. As always ignorance and convenience trumps privacy when it comes to the internet.
... and no one will care. The truth is the only way you'd care about version #'s, is if your software isn't that good or desirable to begin with. Add value and design something people want to buy and people will buy it.
"did firefox open with a bang? it sure as hell did not."
I hear what you're saying, but there are an awful lot of plugins I use in firefox. I love the speed and good engineering behind chrome, but I detest it for its lack of usability and missing basic features. This is google we are talking about here as well lets not forget! To me there are many google applications that don't get enough love as it is that I use.
... the biggest one being lack of "opening with a bang", if I was google and dropping a new browser into the market I'd want to make the best product possible and make sure the users needs were being met, speed and a spartan interface is not enoough.
If chrome were a browser serving customers, it would miss the mark by a large margin. They have good engineering but no sense of meeting their customers needs.
... the truth is time and latency sensitive apps will always need "thick" clients, latency insensitive apps can use "thin" clients. These back and forth illusionary arguments ignore the fundamental need for redundancy of computational power in the hands of individuals who depend on them.
The truth is both are needed, they compliment one another and the needs of those who use them. Consider 3D rendering software like 3D studio max, you can do network renders and local renders, both are necessary depending on then needs of the person at the time they are using the application.
"A pile of fish, vegetable, and spices in a grocery store have a general value. In their unprocessed form, they are worth little."
This is the illusion though, you're confusing desire with value. Economics has bastardized the concept of 'value' just because the word value redefined and used in a particular way doesn't mean it mean it has any bearing on reality. It is merely an artifact of language. Another problem is that you're pulling a red herring, I'm saying ALL VALUE already existed to begin with, you can't "add" value, to something that ALWAYS has value, i.e. the stuff everything is made of. The illusion is that things don't 'have value', human beings are terribly confused unfortunately. All value already existed, what they mean is - the value that exists I do not currently want, not that it does not have value. There is a difference, the illusion is that something 'loses' value, rather then merely going back to potential value to be reshaped again - the value is always there all the way through.
When I buy food in a restaurant, the chef adds value to the ingredients by preparing them in a knowledgable way."
You're confusing what I've said, everything he needs already exists -- all that value already is, all value is derived from previously existing stuff that already existed. Again he's not adding value, he's just reshaping what already existed. You're not understanding the argument - I can't make things out of silicon or glass if I don't have any to begin with, therefore all that is being done is reshaping what already is -- actualizing the pre-existing value that was already their in stored potential form.
Note on "their plants", farmers did not create plants, in fact nobody is creating value, all they are doing is reshaping pre-existing value. This myth of "added value" is a bit of idealogical misunderstanding, you can't get value if you don't have any value to begin with - all value was already their in nature.
"As I tell students on the first day of the course, there are no promises that they will fall in love with math, but they may be able to glimpse a life where they do not have to hate it. Math is unlike many other subjects in that one failure may cause a lifelong disbelief in one's mathematical skills. But it doesn't always have to be that way. It took me a long time to learn what a joy this discipline can be."
The real problem though is the way math is expressed and approached, I take the geometric approach to mathematical concepts and principles. I've been doing research into numerals and how numbers are expressed, and expressing 5 or 7 as a geometric shape enhances understanding a lot of the time when doing basic calculations since you can see the parts of the number itself in the shape at a glance. Arabic numerals tend to mask a lot of hidden mathematical relationships. Not only that our current system of math is merely one way to express math, there are other more enightening systems that I've been looking into and plan to write about when I get the time.
Math unfortunately has expressed in a such a jargonistic fashion when it doesn't have to be, math can be taught in many ways in terms of other things, like music, art and color, geometry, etc... it doesn't have to be taught in the way it is mostly taught from textbooks and curricula today, even though their are pockets of lucky schools and teachers that realize this.
"Make it financially rewarding to learn and teach math."
I disagree, when I was in school math was so divorced from everyday life. I only began to appreciate math once I had to implement things in the real world like vectors and 3D geometry using programming, etc. Not only that but there are many ways to teach math and math principles instead of what is prescribed out of some boring ass textbook.
The biggest thing they don't teach is how to think about math and how those equations were derived. If there's one thing about math I hated is that the original men and women who figured out much of what is taught us over the last 1000 years, their whole thought process by how they discovered and reasoned their way their is totally omitted. Not only that but a geometric interpretation of a lot of math is left out of math textbooks, so you get a bunch of equations and algebra, etc, etc totally divorced from context.
"It's not a lie if all the best intelligence from around the world said it was true."
Wrong, the truth always is true, therefore anyone claiming to know when the don't, is a lie. I'm sorry but any half-truth is by necessity a lie. Would you say 1 is greater then 2, and say "if all the best intelligence from around the world says 1 is greater then 2 it is not a lie!".
Sorry but a truth is a truth despite human deficiency.
... I mean seriously, it prevents battery standards from emerging by embedding the battery into the device itself. Small flash MP3 players have been using AAA and AA for a while, that is one thing that made me ditch hard disk based mp3 players was the lack of easily replaceable batteries.
"There are genetic factors that influence intelligence, as well as environmental factors. The notion that everyone is born equal is unfortunately not true. (people are much more accepting that physical differences are genetic, but not mental...)"
The truth is intelligence is not well understood, not only that but IQ is a crude measure of intelligence, many gifted and high IQ people have terrible empathizing skills, this doesn't mean they are incapable of getting along with people but the majority of gifted people are introverts.
Of course their are differences in mental ability but being 'more intelligent' is not a universally applicable trait amongst the gifted i.e. their intelligence is focused on some area, and in some general domain of general ability, but is not 'universally better' in many ways. There are way more things to consider in intelligence besides how one does in some curriculum that most likely is poorly expressed and designed.
No one has monopoly on the truth and discovery, also society plays an enormous role in the development of intelligence, consider school: What would a bunch of moderate IQ kids look like if they were given extra time to pursue their interests without any economics efficiency, or traditional curriculum chopping their talents off at the knees? I know such people in real life and despite their lower IQ scores they are way better then many academics I know.
I also wonder how intelligent a person could become just using the internet from day one outside of culture.
Technically we should be wanting to clone this guy because he's a math genius, and answers to math problems spontaneously arise out of his subconscious without having to think, but I really doubt if we cloned him the clone would turn out the same ability as daniel.
There is nobody on earth right now that understands fully the nature of intelligence. Not only that, but most people are intelligent enough to function and survive, but it's the modern way of life that takes this from them. i.e. social pressure to conform to some unrealistic standard. If anything society is totally fucked from the top to the bottom, to the most 'enlightened' to the most 'stupid'.
"Bottom line, I don't think ads coming into games is that bad of a thing, but they have to be done tastefully and not detract from the title your playing."
This is really key, I really hope they don't screw it up but knowing the asshats that run game publishers...
They have to be in good taste and fit the context, although I really wonder about the context of having ads in say like WoW or other fantasy games when technically it's a 'pre-technological' world.
"This is the major reason why we still unfortunately need paper journals. We need somebody to read it and say yes this follows basic scientific procedures and to the best of his/her knowledge there are no mistakes."
Darwin did not do any of this with the origin of the species and many scientific ideas from the past came out in lay/not overseen books for the reader. The fact that ideas are peer reviewed or not is quite irrelevant to it's truth. In fact peer review is flawed now knowing what we know about human reasoning, and the fact that reasoning is not as the enlightenment had us believe.
Most scientists don't even have a clue what has been discovered in the neurological sciences over the last 30 years and how it undermines the enlightenment's view of reason and enlightenment's view of science and education. Most people still operate under the enlightenment's false view of reason.
Slashdot Mirror
"You have a very scary position. Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West argued that the only thing that can counter the power of money in "parliamentarism" was "blood and soil." Within the context of Hitler's subsequent rise, emphasizing the German race and its mystical connection with the land, Spengler's words become a very stark warning, not a model to follow."
You obviously don't understand spengler, or you wouldn't have passed off such trite nonsense, his point was the only real counter to corruption and rule by the rich historically speaking, is blood.
"Soros's criticisms of capitalism are particularly rich, insofar as he goes out of his way to cause turmoil."
Look soros admits the british pound and he said if it wasn't him it would have been someone else, it's not like he's hiding from these facts. Don't act like you have the moral highground here, what soros knows about markets runs rings around most economists in having produced evidence that he knows.
"Soros's manipulation of the Thai Bhat set off the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 that spread around the world, ultimately resulting in the hyperinflation of the Russian Ruble in 1998 and their default on IMF loans."
Which is the biggest load of bullshit ever. Look George soros is on record for the british pound, because if it wasn't him it would have been someone else. Let's face that fact please, George soros is not the only currency speculator in the world. His influence is rather minmal compared to millions of speculators. It's absolute nonsense that he caused the asian crisis. It's bullshit plain and simple.
"This is the same Soros that is funding Moveon.org, hates Bush and his allies with a passion and has funded the democrats before this election to the tune of at least $20-30 million dollars?"
And what was the context of his support? Did you ask or even read about why he did such things? Just saying "he gave money to so and so" without any kind of context on why he did what he did is meaningless ideological smear tactics.
"We're supposed to trust Mr Liberal, there? No thanks."
Again, this betrays any insight or intelligence into the matters at hand. My post didn't say he was a perfect man, but it is obvious you know very little about George soros besides what you want to see in the man. Try meeting him and going through interviews to find out why he did what he did instead of just mindlessly saying "so and so did this", anyone can point fingers and frame facts in such a way to make someone look bad. The real world is more complicated then the black and white fantasy land most conservative and other ideologues live in.
"So yeah, I'm exceedingly opposed to letting anyone like Buffett or Soros run anything in the government. They already manipulate it now to their benefit and get rich off tax and bailout bills, so the last thing they need is to be made a "benevolent dictator"."
Soros and buffet are nowhere near in the same league, I've met Mr Soros personally and I can tell you he is not in the same league as your typical billionaire in the slightest. He set up conferences in how the political process of america is manipulated, see here: http://www.linktv.org/programs/orwell_deceiving
He publishes books constantly criticizing the the deficiencies of the capitalist system. (Just google or search on amazon for his name) and he also funds the soros foundation that has done a hell of a lot of good for people in the world and in america - http://www.soros.org/
Just because a person is rich doesn't mean that they are all about money, nor does it mean they are perfect. If you've actually watched interviews of Mr Soros or read any of his books and researched into the man, you'd get a much better picture then the superficial version and vague notions that he is just "some greedy rich dude". People should read some of his books and actually research before they smear a man you know nothing about. He is not perfect, but no one is, and since america is all about hyper belief in capitalism. Americans deserve to get the real world capitalism good and hard - they deserve to get the ideals they worship - greed, status, beauty, hyper individualism and being rich, and therefore deserve a bunch of rich people who believe greed is good ruling them.
If the american people want change they should be ignoring the law, outright revolting and going after these people with mob justice. It is astounding how ignorant most people are of history. Oswald spenglers decline of the west should be required reading for every student before they enter the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West
Oswald knew the only thing that can counter greed and oppression of the corruption of the rich is bloodshed and lawless disobedience, like the destruction of property, the intimidation of the corrupt men in the law profession and the corrupt judges, people did this during the depression, but most people today are too comfortable, selfish and individualistic to set aside their differences and fearful for their lives to oust these people. The rich live in a world radically different and sheltered from the real world of the masses and the more distant from this world they become the more myopic and distorted their thinking and vision becomes.
"Intolerant fundies are simply a very vocal minority."
Unfortunately you're not even on my level... it would take years of reading for you to catch up unfortunately, when I mean "uninformed" I mean lacking in insight into humanity and human nature and it's inherent defectiveness. It's not merely intolerant fundies, go look at the ravings of mr scot here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/
These people still believe and spread things that are not true and fuckup their kids lives with their rather primitive morality, not only that most people in your red state wouldn't even qualify as christian because that is how bad they are at thinking and reading the bible (if they do at all), when it comes to things that psychologically comfort them which they refuse to let go of. They're mostly secular people with a crazy religious bent who can't let go of the blanket of religion that keeps them warm at night.
It still doesn't absolve them of the fact that they are a bunch of liars who harm the world by their lies and inflict their primtivism on others and most importantly - their children. Tolerance is not a virtue here, it is a vice that has come out of the enlightenment view of reason and humanity, human beings are not nice creatures. They are primitive and feral to the bone. Millons of years and we still have war and poverty ffs. All men are primitive and I'll be glad once we start moving away from man 1.0, human beings (that is v1.0) are a failed race, of this I am certain. I don't buy the myth that people are good people, if they were good they would restrain their feral impulses and we wouldn't live in capitalist society where we have people eat $10,000 dinners and some man has to live on the street homeless, the fact that we have homeless people at all proves that mankind is not very nice or capable of controlling itself as a species. That fact alone speaks volumes of how not good we are because most people are a bunch of selfish hyper individualistic animals.
People are naturally prejudice as we know, but it signals a deeper more disturbing message about humans being the descendents of animals -- i.e. we are more wild animal then humane. Considering we allow people to have billions of dollars while some disabled man or woman may suicide over not being able to pay the bills. This shows us just how messed up human beings really are and how ignorant / apathetic they are in reality despite all the flashy words, inspiring messages and whatnot. And also how fearful they are of commiting to building relationships with others they perceive as "the other" even when they haven't done anything wrong.
People who believe illusions and lies are the problem in this world, people who will make dumb ass decisions that keep the world mired in confusion and the ethical backwardness it is in must be called on it. The reason teh world is so fucked up is because we allow the buck to pass, the war in iraq could have been shortened if all americans got up and caused the biggest shitstorm teh world has ever seen but most are apathetic plebes who couldn't give a rats ass for a bunch of what they might consider "brown people" in another country.
The truth is humans suck so lets not sugarcoat it ok? Millions of years, we're still at war with one another, some one or all human beings have something desperately wrong with them that needs to be fixed.
You are very young, or not very well informed... they are the people who would kill you at jesus's command without question. I've actually lived among these people so I have every right to want to get rid of this bullshit. I've been deep into christian territory so please keep your compassion for a bunch of lunatics to yourself, many of these are people who hope you burn in hell and would kill rape and pillage for their god (see: the old testament). Most christians aren't even christian according to the bible actually teaches anyway... I know I've read and studied it profusely as I was forced to as a child. That shit gave me nightmares as a kid.
Understand how f'd up these people are. Then come back and try to tell me how loving these people really are. These people are 100% mentally ill, they outnumber us so the founding fathers of america were forced to make compromises and so we must still today. It's not loving to believe what is false and spread what is false and harm and maim young childrens minds and give them false beliefs that will fuck with their sexuality, self image, and enjoyment of life and the false hopes and false dreams which will shatter their lives later, go see: http://ex-christian.net/
You are uninformed opinion on matters of grave and serious historical consequence.
Who do you think voted for george bush, and is going to vote for the likes of McCain and sarah dumbass palin? Anyone who's going to vote to drag the US into a war to protect israel to fulfill bible prophecy is a fucking loon, and no I won't respect them, or the source of what is fucking up this planet. They are partially responsible for fucking up the US government and this fact must be faced.
Your words are empty, because it is not being a zealot to defend what is true. Insult is the cry of the man who has no argument and so trusts his biology and feral impulses that he cannot see clearly, so ensconced in the lies that his body and mind tells him that he cannot think therefore he cannot be listened to because he does not understand himself.
Human beings have justified war, poverty, oppression for millions of years, most people do nothing to alleviate it even when they have the power. Human beings have had millions of years, and they are still where they were thousands of years ago, with larger and more modern spears and bigger swords. The error in this equation is man 1.0 and his stone age hunger for mysticism and lies, over the long hard road of truth and uncertainty.
"Being so heavily prejudiced against people with religious views means you stand no chance of really understanding them or, more importantly, convincing them as to why they're wrong."
Religions people = trapped and blinded by their deformed biology, for anyone that ritualizes and believes in a higher power with some moral code or text and worships such beings, these people are stone aged people in a modern world, they must simply go extinct naturally as the dinosaurs did.
Being prejudiced against what is false is a just thing, being a prejudice against what is true is a bad thing. There is ultimate truth, in fact if there wasn't you couldn't think. Is something is there? yes(it is absolutely true) or it is not (no it is not). You couldn't have so much as a single perception, or navigate around objects in your daily environment. There is a standard for truth, mankind is too primitive as a whole to grasp it which is not my problem, I don't give a rats ass about "convincing" or "understanding" people so mired in their own ignorance and poor biology one can't hope to dig them out. Their like autistic children trapped in bodies and minds that distort reality, if I had the power I would prevent such things from occuring but I don't unfortunately. I believe in healing people rather then "eliminating them" but if they are going to drag the world into war, primitive tribalism and social strife, I will stand against such people.
Their inferior bodies and minds are the problem, they will die out, just like the dinosaurs died out. Just because their are many religions and gods, does not mean I have to respect them, or reach out to them. Religion is the cry of the powerless feral creature against his lack of intelligence and strength of will to overcome the decay that will befall him and his comrades in nature.
Religion, when I use the term, I mean against religious people that stick their noses up at what is true and try to indoctrinate their children into their backward untruths that lead this world to constant strife, interpersonal relations and war. Religion isn't the only problem man has, man is inferior all the way through - his biology is the problem. And scientists and engineers of the future will do their best to improve our descedents so that we can do away with our feral aspects of our biology, the evolutionary dredge that will be culled from us whether you want it to be or not. You cannot stop this process, it will occur, and religion for most will die away, and new philosophies will emerge congruent with what is true.
"I would say this is another potential blow to young-Earth creationists,"
YEC'ism is a matter of who they are born to(i.e. christian parents) and whether or not they are born with the intelligence to escape it. Many YEC'ers are indoctrinated into it, one way to reduce YEC, would be by preventing christian folk from outbreeding the secular. Outbreed them and outnumber them and via social pressure of numbers they will be increasingly be marginalized and they will die out. The real problem is human nature though, being born into weak bodies and minds that are susceptible to such propagandistic bs. We really need to get on biological engineering and designer kids so they will be intelligent enough not to buy this shit and then grow up and become adults who still buy this shit.
I was sad that even Betty page bought into christian bullshit... pretty, great personality, and even did good in school but in that one way she was dumb as rocks apparently. People compartmentalize, it's a fear of death thing unfortunately. It's been theorized that religion is an evolutionary reaction to awareness of ones own death.
"Which is worse: a password that you can remember, or changing passwords every 30/60/90 days to a new password such that you can never keep up, and thus need to write it down *somewhere*?"
What's needed is an automated kind of passkey that's universally accepted at all (important) sites, so you don't have to know your password and the app takes care of it for you. I've been thinking about this ever since I started using Roboform http://www.roboform.com/
This prevents one from needing to remember passwords but it does nothing for password changes, etc. The thing is that if the world was populated by the imaginary cool caring people, we wouldn't need security and to begin with. We need security because there are too many people who are assholes.
... in gmail is most likely because of the ads! I see ads in my newsfeedbar and on the side when I'm reading email. That is why they are not going to google gear gmail in my opinion, whether this will change or not I am uncertain but they certainly gain a hell of a lot of insight into what a user wants by being able to use gmail to comb the emails for context relative ads. Most people don't give a flying f-ck what comes in and goes out of their email, they use it like any other communication device. Many personal things are said by email partially for convenience and partially because of the stupidity of the majority of end users. As always ignorance and convenience trumps privacy when it comes to the internet.
... and no one will care. The truth is the only way you'd care about version #'s, is if your software isn't that good or desirable to begin with. Add value and design something people want to buy and people will buy it.
"did firefox open with a bang? it sure as hell did not."
I hear what you're saying, but there are an awful lot of plugins I use in firefox. I love the speed and good engineering behind chrome, but I detest it for its lack of usability and missing basic features. This is google we are talking about here as well lets not forget! To me there are many google applications that don't get enough love as it is that I use.
... the biggest one being lack of "opening with a bang", if I was google and dropping a new browser into the market I'd want to make the best product possible and make sure the users needs were being met, speed and a spartan interface is not enoough.
If chrome were a browser serving customers, it would miss the mark by a large margin. They have good engineering but no sense of meeting their customers needs.
... the truth is time and latency sensitive apps will always need "thick" clients, latency insensitive apps can use "thin" clients. These back and forth illusionary arguments ignore the fundamental need for redundancy of computational power in the hands of individuals who depend on them.
The truth is both are needed, they compliment one another and the needs of those who use them. Consider 3D rendering software like 3D studio max, you can do network renders and local renders, both are necessary depending on then needs of the person at the time they are using the application.
... http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/
"A pile of fish, vegetable, and spices in a grocery store have a general value. In their unprocessed form, they are worth little."
This is the illusion though, you're confusing desire with value. Economics has bastardized the concept of 'value' just because the word value redefined and used in a particular way doesn't mean it mean it has any bearing on reality. It is merely an artifact of language. Another problem is that you're pulling a red herring, I'm saying ALL VALUE already existed to begin with, you can't "add" value, to something that ALWAYS has value, i.e. the stuff everything is made of. The illusion is that things don't 'have value', human beings are terribly confused unfortunately. All value already existed, what they mean is - the value that exists I do not currently want, not that it does not have value. There is a difference, the illusion is that something 'loses' value, rather then merely going back to potential value to be reshaped again - the value is always there all the way through.
"I don't believe "added value" is a myth.
When I buy food in a restaurant, the chef adds value to the ingredients by preparing them in a knowledgable way."
You're confusing what I've said, everything he needs already exists -- all that value already is, all value is derived from previously existing stuff that already existed. Again he's not adding value, he's just reshaping what already existed. You're not understanding the argument - I can't make things out of silicon or glass if I don't have any to begin with, therefore all that is being done is reshaping what already is -- actualizing the pre-existing value that was already their in stored potential form.
"...their plants release into the atmosphere."
Note on "their plants", farmers did not create plants, in fact nobody is creating value, all they are doing is reshaping pre-existing value. This myth of "added value" is a bit of idealogical misunderstanding, you can't get value if you don't have any value to begin with - all value was already their in nature.
"As I tell students on the first day of the course, there are no promises that they will fall in love with math, but they may be able to glimpse a life where they do not have to hate it. Math is unlike many other subjects in that one failure may cause a lifelong disbelief in one's mathematical skills. But it doesn't always have to be that way. It took me a long time to learn what a joy this discipline can be."
The real problem though is the way math is expressed and approached, I take the geometric approach to mathematical concepts and principles. I've been doing research into numerals and how numbers are expressed, and expressing 5 or 7 as a geometric shape enhances understanding a lot of the time when doing basic calculations since you can see the parts of the number itself in the shape at a glance. Arabic numerals tend to mask a lot of hidden mathematical relationships. Not only that our current system of math is merely one way to express math, there are other more enightening systems that I've been looking into and plan to write about when I get the time.
Math unfortunately has expressed in a such a jargonistic fashion when it doesn't have to be, math can be taught in many ways in terms of other things, like music, art and color, geometry, etc... it doesn't have to be taught in the way it is mostly taught from textbooks and curricula today, even though their are pockets of lucky schools and teachers that realize this.
(books)
http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Comes-Embodied-Brings/dp/0465037712/
http://www.amazon.com/Molecule-Metaphor-Neural-Language-Bradford/dp/0262562359/
http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011/
"Make it financially rewarding to learn and teach math."
I disagree, when I was in school math was so divorced from everyday life. I only began to appreciate math once I had to implement things in the real world like vectors and 3D geometry using programming, etc. Not only that but there are many ways to teach math and math principles instead of what is prescribed out of some boring ass textbook.
The biggest thing they don't teach is how to think about math and how those equations were derived. If there's one thing about math I hated is that the original men and women who figured out much of what is taught us over the last 1000 years, their whole thought process by how they discovered and reasoned their way their is totally omitted. Not only that but a geometric interpretation of a lot of math is left out of math textbooks, so you get a bunch of equations and algebra, etc, etc totally divorced from context.
"It's not a lie if all the best intelligence from around the world said it was true."
Wrong, the truth always is true, therefore anyone claiming to know when the don't, is a lie. I'm sorry but any half-truth is by necessity a lie. Would you say 1 is greater then 2, and say "if all the best intelligence from around the world says 1 is greater then 2 it is not a lie!".
Sorry but a truth is a truth despite human deficiency.
... I mean seriously, it prevents battery standards from emerging by embedding the battery into the device itself. Small flash MP3 players have been using AAA and AA for a while, that is one thing that made me ditch hard disk based mp3 players was the lack of easily replaceable batteries.
"There are genetic factors that influence intelligence, as well as environmental factors. The notion that everyone is born equal is unfortunately not true. (people are much more accepting that physical differences are genetic, but not mental...)"
The truth is intelligence is not well understood, not only that but IQ is a crude measure of intelligence, many gifted and high IQ people have terrible empathizing skills, this doesn't mean they are incapable of getting along with people but the majority of gifted people are introverts.
Of course their are differences in mental ability but being 'more intelligent' is not a universally applicable trait amongst the gifted i.e. their intelligence is focused on some area, and in some general domain of general ability, but is not 'universally better' in many ways. There are way more things to consider in intelligence besides how one does in some curriculum that most likely is poorly expressed and designed.
No one has monopoly on the truth and discovery, also society plays an enormous role in the development of intelligence, consider school: What would a bunch of moderate IQ kids look like if they were given extra time to pursue their interests without any economics efficiency, or traditional curriculum chopping their talents off at the knees? I know such people in real life and despite their lower IQ scores they are way better then many academics I know.
I also wonder how intelligent a person could become just using the internet from day one outside of culture.
With intelligence their are splinter skills all around that cannot be easily measured. Consider Daniel tammet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqLzoiVzEY8&fmt=18
Technically we should be wanting to clone this guy because he's a math genius, and answers to math problems spontaneously arise out of his subconscious without having to think, but I really doubt if we cloned him the clone would turn out the same ability as daniel.
There is nobody on earth right now that understands fully the nature of intelligence. Not only that, but most people are intelligent enough to function and survive, but it's the modern way of life that takes this from them. i.e. social pressure to conform to some unrealistic standard. If anything society is totally fucked from the top to the bottom, to the most 'enlightened' to the most 'stupid'.
"Bottom line, I don't think ads coming into games is that bad of a thing, but they have to be done tastefully and not detract from the title your playing."
This is really key, I really hope they don't screw it up but knowing the asshats that run game publishers...
They have to be in good taste and fit the context, although I really wonder about the context of having ads in say like WoW or other fantasy games when technically it's a 'pre-technological' world.
"This is the major reason why we still unfortunately need paper journals. We need somebody to read it and say yes this follows basic scientific procedures and to the best of his/her knowledge there are no mistakes."
Darwin did not do any of this with the origin of the species and many scientific ideas from the past came out in lay/not overseen books for the reader. The fact that ideas are peer reviewed or not is quite irrelevant to it's truth. In fact peer review is flawed now knowing what we know about human reasoning, and the fact that reasoning is not as the enlightenment had us believe.
Most scientists don't even have a clue what has been discovered in the neurological sciences over the last 30 years and how it undermines the enlightenment's view of reason and enlightenment's view of science and education. Most people still operate under the enlightenment's false view of reason.
The enlightenment fallacy:
(quick version)
http://i35.tinypic.com/10fruxh.jpg
Longer version:
http://www.linktv.org/video/2142