The problem isn't so much that Islam is irrational (Christianity is just as irrational), the problem is that Islam works much harder to consume the individual with learning the contents of the Koran, leaving much less time for learning how the world actually works. Then, to any degree that Islam clashes with science, Islam *must* win; that's not irrational, that's a good design feature designed to ensure Islam's continuance. What's irrational is the nonsense content in the book, and there, the bible and the Koran stand shoulder to shoulder.
but as the core assumption is unprovable it is really religious.
Actually, the core assumption was "unprovable" only at the very inception of the scientific method. The vast body of scientific results since then have largely worked to prove the correctness of that assumption. To put it simply, turns out, the universe (at least the parts of it we have been able to get at thus far) is largely orderly, and even when it doesn't seem to be, when we look, we tend to find orderly rules that govern the apparently random behavior.
It's not flamebaits, moderators, it's opinion -- and it's based on demonstratively clear thinking.
If, as in this case, one doesn't understand the difference between legitimate opinion that isn't politically correct and an attempt to rile people up only for the sake of potentially ensuing fuckarow, one shouldn't moderate.
This is one of (several) major problems with slashdot's moderation scheme. There's no accountability, and there's no oversight or correction for junk moderations such as the above, which leads directly to very low quality moderation, which in turns means that in order to have any chance at following quality threads, you have to read at -1, thereby making the entire moderation effort pointless.
tl;dr version: Einstein said that "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
the interpretation of the fish joke where they're in a fish tank.
That's just the victim's failure to understand the joke even after it's been made obvious. Making them all the more the victim. " Did you tell so-and-so the joke?" "yeah, but he didn't get it. Sad."
There's no humor in the idea that they're in a bowl. You can't drive a bowl. There's no alternate cognitive mapping. It's pure linear thinking; not funny at all. But there is dominance in relating a joke someone doesn't get. That's part of what jokes are about. There are only three kinds that I am aware of: one where the victim is the person being told the joke, like the goldfish joke, or where the victim is in the story itself, or where both are true vis this generalized "location" joke (you can swap the locations to any two locations to localize it):
An older couple pulls their car into a full service gas station in [A]. The attendant comes over, asks "fill 'er up"? The man behind the steering wheel says "yes, thanks", while the woman in the passenger seat says "Eh? What'd he say?" Driver leans over, speaks loudly, "Asked about filling us up." Woman: "Oh." So the car is filling up, and the attendant wanders back to the driver side window, asks the driver "Where you from?" Driver: "We're from [B]." Woman: "Eh? What'd he say??" Driver leans over, loudly informs: "He asked where we're from." Woman: "Oh." The attendant, catching on that the lady is very hard of hearing, ducks his head down to the driver's window and in a low, conspiratorial tone says "I was in [B] once... had me the worst lay of my entire life." Woman: "Eh? What'd he say??" Driver leans over, speaks loudly: "He said he knows you."
That joke manages to victimize the woman, the listener, and place [B] in one short story.
No, I meant victim -- not loser, victim. Analogous to a mugging. It isn't about content -- it's what the mechanism of a joke does. It either victimizes the listener, or the subject. If you disagree, all you need to do is provide a counter example.
The "two goldfish in a tank"-joke doesn't have a loser.
Well, let's see.
Do you mean this joke: Q: Two goldfish are in a tank.
A: One says, "Do you know how to drive this thing?"
That definitely has a loser: The person being told the joke is made to think "fish tank" by the context presented by the teller of the joke, and then is ambushed by the teller of the joke specifically by being made to know they were thinking incorrectly -- it's a military tank. The laughter comes from the listener when they realize they were wrong; from the teller at the realization of the listener they've been had. Dominance and submission, both.
Or did you have another "two goldfish" joke?
I'd be really interested in a list of animals where humor has been observed
I just gave you one (abbreviated, but pretty obvious.)
and how that manifests (or can be detected)
Ever see a cat hide from another cat or dog, smack it on the head when it wanders by, and then "run away", but using very high leaps that aren't effective at distancing instead of the ground covering-speed they are actually capable of? That's an ambush, with a victim, delivered as social one-uppance, but clearly below the threshold of actual violence. Dominance. That's humor, straight up. The laughter *is* the "run."
Dolphins not only ambush and prank, they laugh at the victim's discomfort, too. Ask any dolphin handler. It can be pretty rough humor, too. Like, broken-bone rough. That's more of a reflection of just how powerful an animal they are as compared to humans, I think -- the same jokes on other dolphins wouldn't result in that kind of damage. They'll pull you under when you're swimming, spit water in your face, all kinds of dominating pranks.
Parrots... those are considerably harder to explain, as the behavior is, in fact, linked with their use of language, and that varies enormously by the individual parrot. I'm going to punt and say you need to live with one. They're bloody hilarious, though, believe me.
Dogs... they exhibit a wide range of intelligent behaviors (as do cats, for that matter), but as far as humor goes, just play "throw the stick" with one that hasn't been trained to fetch, and see how easy it isn't to get the stick back, and how the dog will tease in the manner of "I have the stick, here, it's almost in your reach, whoops, you're too slow, aren't you?" Straight up dominance, you're the victim, sub-violent. If you enjoy being teased, then we have submission as well (though note how quickly being teased gets old... submission is a hard place to maintain cheerfully.) It's humor.
yet rare or non-existent in the rest of the animal kingdom
First, this has to have been written by someone who has either never lived with dogs and/or cats and/or parrots and/dolphins, or else is emotionally retarded; second, humor is much simpler: as far as I can tell, it is predatory -- there is always a loser in an expression of humor. Making someone, or something, the butt of a joke engenders social ordering, or status. To put it another way, at a certain basic level, humor seems to me to range from mildly to extreme dominating behavior. Try to find a joke that doesn't have a victim, or a "butt"; that's the source of even calling someone the "butt of a joke."
Say... didn't we just see what happens when you build expensive devices upon which human lives depend in an earthquake zone?
Repeat after me, Cali-tards: "Mother earth is going to come and beat California with a cluestick until it rings like a bell. Hey! Know what else rings like a bell? The EARTH does, when there's an EARTHQUAKE. And kiddies... know what happens to really heavy trains full of people when they're going 520mph and the earth shakes like a pissed off hound dog? DEATH. And then there will be wailing and finger pointing. And kids, do you know where the finger is going to point?
The G series is f2.8 which is as fast as most of my good quality glass for the 5d.
It isn't as fast as mine, though. My daily drivers are f/1.2, f/1.4, and f/1.8. And the only thing I regularly wish for is a faster camera. Because I like to shoot at night. You go with/2.8, and you lose 1/2 the hours of the day or put up with a lot more grain than you have to. Still waiting to see what Canon's 5DmkIII will be like... and how the samples from production units of the new 1Dx hold up.
Ummm... how do you use a bigger sensor to get a greater depth of field?
Technically, if you use the same focus distance, you don't. But that's not what happens. Because a full frame (~35mm) sensor, for example, has much more image area than an APS-C sensor, the image isn't framed the same, given the same lens and shooting locus -- you have to get closer with the FF, all other issues being the same. And because you are closer, the lens settings have to change, and the actual depth of field alters (which it would also do with the APS-C sensor if you got closer with it -- but then you'd have different framing.
Basically, because the FF sensor offers different framing, the lens is adjusted differently to get the same photgraphic subject, and that changes the effective DOF.
It's not so much an inherent optical property as it is an optical consequence of identical framing. If you forgo making the framing the same, that is, put up with a closer crop, then the DOF will be the same.
Speaking as an image processing software developer AND a photographer, yes, there is a reason to change.
Lightroom and Aperture (the latter being OSX only atm) offer non-destructive editing that is a huge improvement over any other approach. Don't say no one told ya when you finally get one of those in your hands.
I'm simply not going to them any more. Society has turned them into a manifestation of cowardice and the very worst possible kind of decision-making. I won't support the industry any longer, at least insofar as I have a choice (I'm referring here to the use of my taxes, something out of my control.)
I feel bad for those of you who must fly, I really do. All the jokes we used to make about the nazi's and the soviets and "papers, please", have come home to roost.
I wonder how much longer we'll be free to drive without being subjected to this kind of thing?
He said "to generate electricity." It's burned to move the vehicles.
Yes, exactly: In direct terms, oil is burned in vehicles to generate motive power. This can be done any number of ways, including, critically, by using it to make electricity, then driving electric motors at the wheels, propellers, treads, legs, etc., or further up a drivetrain. Which, when done centrally instead of on a per-vehicle basis, is both more efficient and easier to change as circumstances (regardless of what they are) warrant. This means that (a) we can almost immediately transition to a MUCH more efficient use of oil and (b) from there to the use of whatever power generation mechanism we deem best for us, and (c) without having to change the vehicle fleet again - EVs are power-source agnostic.
Also, so does every gasoline and diesel fueled generator in the world, and that's probably a pretty hefty number.
See the thing is, if the gasoline and diesel burned in individual vehicles was instead burned in power plants, and fed to the vehicles as electricity, there would be a lot less consumption of gasoline and diesel overall, because those larger generation systems are a lot more efficient at getting power to the wheels, even given transmission line losses, charging losses, etc.
And, if the vehicles are electric, they become power-agnostic: you can "burn" anything.... oil, coal, nuclear, sunshine, hydro, congresscritters, and the cars don't have to change at all.
Ok, clearly, burning congresscritters would really be polluting, but the other stuff...
EVs make great sense. manufacturing them such that they serve us well in the roles we like to use them... we're not quite there. Soon, though, clearly.
This is the kind of thing that tends to get the skeptics -- and those the GW proponents call "deniers" -- going.
Clearly, the process has problems; the data isn't as nailed down as many claim; the temperature rises not as predicted; the models flawed; the entire thing politicized to a notable degree. It certainly all seems worthy of paying attention to, when taken together.
...and sex. Don't forget sex. Best sport there ever was, or ever will be. If done right. Warmups at dinner, pre-game show, endless rematches, mid-game show, after game party, it can even involve cheerleader outfits if you're so inclined... much better use of spandex, lace and leather, oooooh yeah.
Oh look, a "-1, disagree" mod. Isn't slashdot's busted-ass anonymous and cowardly moderation cute? Perfect for those too chickenshit to try to respond to the facts in a post.
Apple's stock warranty is one year. Three years as a low-cost option (plus other support.) Me, I wouldn't know what the failure rates are, as my Macbook pro, Mac pro, our two iPads, four iPods, iPhone and and four minis of various ages are still all operating flawlessly.
In contrast to this, all of our Dells have had problems, some of them DOA within days of receiving them (though warranty has covered all of that); one custom-built machine has been back to the builder three times, once for a dead parallel port and twice for power supply problems. That could be anything, though, as the builder had many choices to make and may have made some of them badly. Most of the XP machines have had to be registry cleaned and de-malwared over and over. I do have a little Samsung running Windows 7 that's still problem-free. Though I suspect that's more a reflection of the fact that almost nothing has been installed on it as yet. In any case, part of the problem is there is a very wide range of PC hardware out there, while Apple hardware choice is considerably more circumscribed -- and frankly, I am *very* confident that it's more reliable than PC hardware. But I have to add to this that windows itself is a maintainance sink, and that's simply not true of OSX. Argue all you want, but the bottom line for us has to be written by my daily experience here -- not yours.
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The problem isn't so much that Islam is irrational (Christianity is just as irrational), the problem is that Islam works much harder to consume the individual with learning the contents of the Koran, leaving much less time for learning how the world actually works. Then, to any degree that Islam clashes with science, Islam *must* win; that's not irrational, that's a good design feature designed to ensure Islam's continuance. What's irrational is the nonsense content in the book, and there, the bible and the Koran stand shoulder to shoulder.
Actually, the core assumption was "unprovable" only at the very inception of the scientific method. The vast body of scientific results since then have largely worked to prove the correctness of that assumption. To put it simply, turns out, the universe (at least the parts of it we have been able to get at thus far) is largely orderly, and even when it doesn't seem to be, when we look, we tend to find orderly rules that govern the apparently random behavior.
It's not flamebaits, moderators, it's opinion -- and it's based on demonstratively clear thinking.
If, as in this case, one doesn't understand the difference between legitimate opinion that isn't politically correct and an attempt to rile people up only for the sake of potentially ensuing fuckarow, one shouldn't moderate.
This is one of (several) major problems with slashdot's moderation scheme. There's no accountability, and there's no oversight or correction for junk moderations such as the above, which leads directly to very low quality moderation, which in turns means that in order to have any chance at following quality threads, you have to read at -1, thereby making the entire moderation effort pointless.
It's not quite that simple.
And there is this:
tl;dr version: Einstein said that "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
That's just the victim's failure to understand the joke even after it's been made obvious. Making them all the more the victim. " Did you tell so-and-so the joke?" "yeah, but he didn't get it. Sad."
There's no humor in the idea that they're in a bowl. You can't drive a bowl. There's no alternate cognitive mapping. It's pure linear thinking; not funny at all. But there is dominance in relating a joke someone doesn't get. That's part of what jokes are about. There are only three kinds that I am aware of: one where the victim is the person being told the joke, like the goldfish joke, or where the victim is in the story itself, or where both are true vis this generalized "location" joke (you can swap the locations to any two locations to localize it):
An older couple pulls their car into a full service gas station in [A]. The attendant comes over, asks "fill 'er up"? The man behind the steering wheel says "yes, thanks", while the woman in the passenger seat says "Eh? What'd he say?" Driver leans over, speaks loudly, "Asked about filling us up." Woman: "Oh." So the car is filling up, and the attendant wanders back to the driver side window, asks the driver "Where you from?" Driver: "We're from [B]." Woman: "Eh? What'd he say??" Driver leans over, loudly informs: "He asked where we're from." Woman: "Oh." The attendant, catching on that the lady is very hard of hearing, ducks his head down to the driver's window and in a low, conspiratorial tone says "I was in [B] once... had me the worst lay of my entire life." Woman: "Eh? What'd he say??" Driver leans over, speaks loudly: "He said he knows you."
That joke manages to victimize the woman, the listener, and place [B] in one short story.
No, I meant victim -- not loser, victim. Analogous to a mugging. It isn't about content -- it's what the mechanism of a joke does. It either victimizes the listener, or the subject. If you disagree, all you need to do is provide a counter example.
Well, let's see.
Do you mean this joke:
Q: Two goldfish are in a tank.
A: One says, "Do you know how to drive this thing?"
That definitely has a loser: The person being told the joke is made to think "fish tank" by the context presented by the teller of the joke, and then is ambushed by the teller of the joke specifically by being made to know they were thinking incorrectly -- it's a military tank. The laughter comes from the listener when they realize they were wrong; from the teller at the realization of the listener they've been had. Dominance and submission, both.
Or did you have another "two goldfish" joke?
I just gave you one (abbreviated, but pretty obvious.)
Ever see a cat hide from another cat or dog, smack it on the head when it wanders by, and then "run away", but using very high leaps that aren't effective at distancing instead of the ground covering-speed they are actually capable of? That's an ambush, with a victim, delivered as social one-uppance, but clearly below the threshold of actual violence. Dominance. That's humor, straight up. The laughter *is* the "run."
Dolphins not only ambush and prank, they laugh at the victim's discomfort, too. Ask any dolphin handler. It can be pretty rough humor, too. Like, broken-bone rough. That's more of a reflection of just how powerful an animal they are as compared to humans, I think -- the same jokes on other dolphins wouldn't result in that kind of damage. They'll pull you under when you're swimming, spit water in your face, all kinds of dominating pranks.
Parrots... those are considerably harder to explain, as the behavior is, in fact, linked with their use of language, and that varies enormously by the individual parrot. I'm going to punt and say you need to live with one. They're bloody hilarious, though, believe me.
Dogs... they exhibit a wide range of intelligent behaviors (as do cats, for that matter), but as far as humor goes, just play "throw the stick" with one that hasn't been trained to fetch, and see how easy it isn't to get the stick back, and how the dog will tease in the manner of "I have the stick, here, it's almost in your reach, whoops, you're too slow, aren't you?" Straight up dominance, you're the victim, sub-violent. If you enjoy being teased, then we have submission as well (though note how quickly being teased gets old... submission is a hard place to maintain cheerfully.) It's humor.
First, this has to have been written by someone who has either never lived with dogs and/or cats and/or parrots and/dolphins, or else is emotionally retarded; second, humor is much simpler: as far as I can tell, it is predatory -- there is always a loser in an expression of humor. Making someone, or something, the butt of a joke engenders social ordering, or status. To put it another way, at a certain basic level, humor seems to me to range from mildly to extreme dominating behavior. Try to find a joke that doesn't have a victim, or a "butt"; that's the source of even calling someone the "butt of a joke."
Say... didn't we just see what happens when you build expensive devices upon which human lives depend in an earthquake zone?
Repeat after me, Cali-tards: "Mother earth is going to come and beat California with a cluestick until it rings like a bell. Hey! Know what else rings like a bell? The EARTH does, when there's an EARTHQUAKE. And kiddies... know what happens to really heavy trains full of people when they're going 520mph and the earth shakes like a pissed off hound dog? DEATH. And then there will be wailing and finger pointing. And kids, do you know where the finger is going to point?
At YOU.
"They made me use Windows"
It isn't as fast as mine, though. My daily drivers are f/1.2, f/1.4, and f/1.8. And the only thing I regularly wish for is a faster camera. Because I like to shoot at night. You go with /2.8, and you lose 1/2 the hours of the day or put up with a lot more grain than you have to. Still waiting to see what Canon's 5DmkIII will be like... and how the samples from production units of the new 1Dx hold up.
Technically, if you use the same focus distance, you don't. But that's not what happens. Because a full frame (~35mm) sensor, for example, has much more image area than an APS-C sensor, the image isn't framed the same, given the same lens and shooting locus -- you have to get closer with the FF, all other issues being the same. And because you are closer, the lens settings have to change, and the actual depth of field alters (which it would also do with the APS-C sensor if you got closer with it -- but then you'd have different framing.
Basically, because the FF sensor offers different framing, the lens is adjusted differently to get the same photgraphic subject, and that changes the effective DOF.
It's not so much an inherent optical property as it is an optical consequence of identical framing. If you forgo making the framing the same, that is, put up with a closer crop, then the DOF will be the same.
Unfortunately, it does generate sales, though.
Speaking as an image processing software developer AND a photographer, yes, there is a reason to change.
Lightroom and Aperture (the latter being OSX only atm) offer non-destructive editing that is a huge improvement over any other approach. Don't say no one told ya when you finally get one of those in your hands.
I'm simply not going to them any more. Society has turned them into a manifestation of cowardice and the very worst possible kind of decision-making. I won't support the industry any longer, at least insofar as I have a choice (I'm referring here to the use of my taxes, something out of my control.)
I feel bad for those of you who must fly, I really do. All the jokes we used to make about the nazi's and the soviets and "papers, please", have come home to roost.
I wonder how much longer we'll be free to drive without being subjected to this kind of thing?
Oh, no -- that's a serious pollution hazard -- chiropractors are uniformly toxic.
Yes, exactly: In direct terms, oil is burned in vehicles to generate motive power. This can be done any number of ways, including, critically, by using it to make electricity, then driving electric motors at the wheels, propellers, treads, legs, etc., or further up a drivetrain. Which, when done centrally instead of on a per-vehicle basis, is both more efficient and easier to change as circumstances (regardless of what they are) warrant. This means that (a) we can almost immediately transition to a MUCH more efficient use of oil and (b) from there to the use of whatever power generation mechanism we deem best for us, and (c) without having to change the vehicle fleet again - EVs are power-source agnostic.
So thanks for your reply, and cheers.
Also, so does every gasoline and diesel fueled generator in the world, and that's probably a pretty hefty number.
See the thing is, if the gasoline and diesel burned in individual vehicles was instead burned in power plants, and fed to the vehicles as electricity, there would be a lot less consumption of gasoline and diesel overall, because those larger generation systems are a lot more efficient at getting power to the wheels, even given transmission line losses, charging losses, etc.
And, if the vehicles are electric, they become power-agnostic: you can "burn" anything.... oil, coal, nuclear, sunshine, hydro, congresscritters, and the cars don't have to change at all.
Ok, clearly, burning congresscritters would really be polluting, but the other stuff...
EVs make great sense. manufacturing them such that they serve us well in the roles we like to use them... we're not quite there. Soon, though, clearly.
About 600 million vehicles running headlights, radios, fans, etc., beg to disagree.
This is the kind of thing that tends to get the skeptics -- and those the GW proponents call "deniers" -- going.
Clearly, the process has problems; the data isn't as nailed down as many claim; the temperature rises not as predicted; the models flawed; the entire thing politicized to a notable degree. It certainly all seems worthy of paying attention to, when taken together.
She turned me into a Newt!
Oh look, a "-1, disagree" mod. Isn't slashdot's busted-ass anonymous and cowardly moderation cute? Perfect for those too chickenshit to try to respond to the facts in a post.
Apple's stock warranty is one year. Three years as a low-cost option (plus other support.) Me, I wouldn't know what the failure rates are, as my Macbook pro, Mac pro, our two iPads, four iPods, iPhone and and four minis of various ages are still all operating flawlessly.
In contrast to this, all of our Dells have had problems, some of them DOA within days of receiving them (though warranty has covered all of that); one custom-built machine has been back to the builder three times, once for a dead parallel port and twice for power supply problems. That could be anything, though, as the builder had many choices to make and may have made some of them badly. Most of the XP machines have had to be registry cleaned and de-malwared over and over. I do have a little Samsung running Windows 7 that's still problem-free. Though I suspect that's more a reflection of the fact that almost nothing has been installed on it as yet. In any case, part of the problem is there is a very wide range of PC hardware out there, while Apple hardware choice is considerably more circumscribed -- and frankly, I am *very* confident that it's more reliable than PC hardware. But I have to add to this that windows itself is a maintainance sink, and that's simply not true of OSX. Argue all you want, but the bottom line for us has to be written by my daily experience here -- not yours.