Servos? Impractical. Detect the bullet's zone with omni-doppler. Detect the bullet's path with radar triangulation at three different frequencies and three different points in the firing zone; radar out and back, not a significant portion of the flight time. Three triangulations required to determine flight path (because it won't be a straight line); these can be done extremely quickly; match intercept; Optically switch the laser to the appropriate angle (drop n mirrors simultaneously so the mirrors providing the correct angle are exposed); not a significant part of the flight time; wait until intercept match; fire; Bullet gone.
BTW, the key to this kind of intercept isn't to point the laser at wherever the bullet is; it is to fire the laser when the bullet crosses where the laser is nominally pointed. Add to this close-in intercept. These two techniques reduce the number of required aim points by bazillions. More lasers also reduce the number of mirrors/laser/zone required; they also give simultaneous zone coverage.
The downside is that right now, this would take a lot of optical hardware and high energy lasers are annoyingly unportable. But it could be done with existing tech, there's no magic here.
Too many problems/inexplicable crashes to bother... hence the use of Opera and OmniWeb. Both of which really work well, btw. And OmniWeb wins the UI competition hands down with that gorgeous hyper-functional tab interface. But, just fyi in case you actually care, when I run FF5, I run it with no plugins / extensions. Native out of the install package, tabs moved down to where they should be, no other particular changes. And as for the memory leaks, they've been around for years... you leave FF running under OSX and it will consume insane amounts of memory, regardless of how you set cache, etc.
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I've been using OSX Firefox for a long time, and brother, right now, it is *seriously* broken. Were it my product, it'd be time to stop with the new features and FIX it before going on. It behaves pathologically when trying to answer posts on slashdot; it crashes after viewing flicker lightbox streams for more than a hundred or so images; it doesn't take the first click on a tab close button; and I have seen the "well, this is embarrassing" crash announcement more times than I could be bothered to count since ff5 came out.
Just make it work well, ok guys? I'd be happy if I never saw another feature, but it didn't crash, leak memory, mis-position, or mis-render a page.
[goes back to using Opera while waiting]
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
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Yeah. Except that's not what happens. What happens is that the additional money goes into the pockets of the executives directly, or into their benefit packages, or into the corporate jet fleet, or an additional leased car for the prez, all depending on what level corporation we're talking about. The only "trickle down" we get from big business when tax rates change is when they piss on our heads and try to explain that it's actually rain.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
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If you were a Christian, you would know that the New Testament supersedes the old.
If you were a Christian who actually read the bible, you would know that Christ specifically said (beginning @ Matthew 5:17 )
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law
The "law" Christ is talking about here is the rules in the Old Testament. So if you're a Christian, you always have been, and will continue to be, are 100% subject to the rules in the OT, according to Christ, until heaven and the earth have disappeared. Now, if you want to ignore Christ's position, that's fine, but in that case you are hardly a Christian. You're just a theological crow, picking and choosing what suits you from the NT. Christ wouldn't give you the time of day. Keep that in mind next time you eat pork or shellfish, wear clothing of mixed fibers, decide not to circumcise your kid, etc.
There is more along those line in the NT, from Paul, for example, where he says (Romans 3:31) "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, WE ESTABLISH THE LAW.", but obviously Christ himself is the one who set the standard. We also know that Christ himself was a pretty devout Jew; he observed the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. So any claims that "Christians are exempt from the laws of the OT" is purest bunkum.
If you want to counter what Christ said, make sure you counter it with something else Christ said; if a rank and file person contradicts Christ, and you take their word over his... then again, you're no Christian.
The New Testament: The one book most Christians have never read.
Christ, do you people have no real friends that you know in real life?
Of course I do. But why would I interact with them online when I can invite them over for pizza and a movie, or Thursday night chess, or a good martial arts workout? Also, what is the premise behind the strange idea that you could not find me by using my online handle? If I don't TELL you what that handle is, you can safely assume that it is of no concern to me that you don't "find" me. It may even be my intent. What the heck is this imaginary "right to find" or perhaps "pathological need to find", anyway?
What's the problem with someone checking a box in their profile that says "using handle" -- all your "friends" who want you to find them (you know, the ones playing Farmville LOL) can still find you, what's the problem? Why do you need to find this OTHER person?
Sorry -- the price for squashing anonymity is too high, and the reasons to do it entirely too commercial and/or nonsensical.
The idea that such a site is only for people who are "trying to find you" is dead in the water. What if I set up a page, and inform my family, perhaps by email, that the page is there and I'll welcome family conversations there, but no one else? Perhaps I'm not interested in the people I knew in high school at all, eh? Or at work, for that matter.
I think it's perfectly understandable why facebook and Google+ don't want pseudonyms.
Well, of course it is. That information is worth money to Google and Facebook (and those they're going to sell the names to), and it is a direct path to increased power for the government. What's not to like?
So no, we don't need pseudonymous social networking - because having a separate identity for every website to which you log in defeats the purpose of social networking, which is to enable users to communicate with each other across websites.
What you're missing here is that your purpose for social networking sites isn't necessarily the same as other people's purposes. For instance, if a young lady is being oppressed in a country where her rights consist of the right to be set on fire and have her genitals mutilated, perhaps she might have a use for anonymous speech, you think?
Or, again for instance, if you are espousing a viewpoint that is not popular with the SS, sorry, I mean "homeland security", perhaps you would prefer they didn't show up at your door without a warrant, guns ablaze or ready to toss your sorry butt into a cell, sans phone call, lawyer, with your very own free ticket to the new Washington sport of water-boarding, as they are lately prone to do from time to time.
There are other reasons as well; some families might social networking accounts as places to meet in relative (no pun intended) privacy, with only family members allowed to see and post.
So let's not get too o/c about what social networking "is for." Like most things to do with computers, there are many other outlooks besides our own. Let's leave room for those -- it's all around better that way.
So yes, we do need it -- and its gradual loss is very much not a good thing. Except for corporations and the government. Corporations like Facebook. And Google. Imagine that.
Why do I need your real name, or the thing you claim is your real name? What, exactly, am I to do with it that is legitimate use? Am I to look up your address so as to stalk you? Seriously, why do I, as a social website member, need anything other than some unique identifier so conversations can be directed? Frankly, I don't need your real name, nor do I want it. The question here really is: Who does want your real name -- and why?
Facebook and Google want your real name. They want it because they're going to sell it; it, and the habits they associate with it, by tracking every move you make that they are able to. They're going to sell it to corporations; give it to the government; etc. If you're ok with that, then fine, give 'em your real name. What I wonder, really, is why you'd be ok with that. Too young to remember McCarthyism, perhaps? Don't understand the reasons why privacy was given such primacy in the constitution? Just plain... dim? It's an interesting question, certainly.
There's another important issue here: Anonymity can be a worthy tool for social reaction and revolution when the individual expresses a minority or otherwise unpopular opinion; some of the other nasty habits of society include ostracization; limiting availability of jobs; sabotaging retirement; false accusations, false imprisonment, inappropriate listing on the no-fly, no-buy, and the sexual/violent offender (AKA as the you're-fucked) lists; singling out for "attention" from the local (or not local) cops; vandalism; burning crosses on the lawn; DOS, etc.
While true free speech cloaked in anonymity definitely opens the door for the proverbial "Internet Superturd", suppressing it isn't something that uniformly does good. For instance, Google+'s recent insistence on "real id" effectively eliminates any viewpoint that is sufficiently off-center to present a personal risk at a level unacceptable to the speaker. This in turn means that as the speaker's social load and dependencies increase - family, depending upon keeping one's job, political position, etc. - the more effectively they are muzzled in a "real id" environment.
Another example is Facebook's TOS where they forbid anyone on the s/v offender's list from joining; anyone put on that list is now locked out and locked to the bottom level of society; doesn't matter that they've paid their debt to society by serving time, paying fines, whatever the judge decided: they're permanently locked out, not to mention often having to live under a bridge or in a camp. That kind of ostracism is way too powerful a tool to use against someone who is supposedly free to walk around; they'll never re-integrate, they can't. If you're going to treat someone that badly, you'd better have the sense to put them in jail and keep them there or else you're just grooming a very, very angry person whom someone will unhappily meet on a dark and stormy night. Unfortunately, this only treats the unfairly listed -- kids having sex across age lines, polygamists, pee-ers in bushes, etc. -- even worse. By far the best solution is to treat payment of sentencing debt as 100% presumed rehabilitation unless shown otherwise. The government shows no sign of being responsible here either, nor forcing corporations like facebook to be responsible, which again brings us back to the need for pushback. And given the lynch mob mentality associated with these matters, anonymity is definitely called for.
In general right now, our government is doing a lot of things it shouldn't be doing, and these activities are currently pushing hard against individual rights of free speech, free travel and privacy. IMHO, anything that does away with anonymity under these circumstances is extremely unwise.
Oh, they know what it is -- it's that OS that doesn't advertise. So the editorial (commercial benefit) question is, Windows or OSX?
Doesn't matter, though, because serious server types wouldn't give this article their valuable time. They know the Mac is Un*x, and software admin on a Mac is substantially similar to other unices. The real issues are hardware issues. Want (currently) 24 usable threads (12 hyperthreaded cores) ? Lean towards the Mac. Want failover PSUs and hot swappable drives? Lean towards other hardware (and of necessity, away from the Mac.) Got a relatively small system to set up, a Mac is fine. Even a small one. Regulatory concerns... not so fine. Lion is kind of sucky (speaking as a Mac guy), it's really a consumer GUI downgrade, bringing the disadvantages of IOS to OSX, courtesy of some sweat-lodge-addled lunatic at Apple, but it really doesn't matter, because the server heart of OSX isn't GUI based anyway. Anyone who requires "server GUI tools" is only worth an LOL anyway in a serious server environment. The OSX GUI server tools don't retain changes made other than those they directly support... they'll wipe out your subtleties in one click, and so no serious IT department would even *consider* using them -- having said that, there are a fair number of point-n-click IT departments out there without complex setups and no need for them, either.
That's just flagrant over-complication. I just sit here in a volcanic vent, living off environmental hydrogen sulfide. No gills, no fins, no mobility, yet I get the job done. Now *that* is server administration.
Problem is only solved if the winds are running at an angle exactly parallel to the louvers. Otherwise, they serve as baffles and apply leverage to the tower while also adding turbulence. And winds change angle and velocity constantly. You'd likely be better off simply designing the tower to be smooth, circular, and very strong.
You should be able to put a 100" display up in almost any room; just take anything out of the way and hang the projector from the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. Screens.... any white wall will do. And any flat (must be flat!) white paint will do.
A really large display is just as easy, but you need a building with almost a 2-story exposure. We were super lucky and got an old, empty church on two lots for almost nothing, but I've been in lots of other houses where it was an available choice. We're huge gamers and movie watchers, so there wasn't much con/discussion once we saw that wall. I suppose if there is more conventional decorating / furnishing that's important to someone, this does require the wall to be entirely clear and that might be a project killer... but for us, it's worth it.
I've got a couple friends that have DLP projection systems with newer, brighter projectors, they're really pretty awesome. And they cost less than LCDs, too. this 135" guy is one of those... he started out with a 720p projector, now has a 1080p one. Check out the integrated cabinet/screen he built.
Even the most basic cabinet/screen building skills can save more money than the projector even costs.
As far as maintainance... we use ours every day, and replace the bulb every few years when it dims. Probably amounts to twenty five cents a day, max.
Dark rooms... nighttime, baby.:^) Seriously, I don't watch during the daylight hours, so it's not an issue. But blackout shades are super cheap down at wham-a-lart if you need 'em.
Because I wouldn't want your suicide on my conscience. You can buy a projector like mine for less than most LCDs cost, and empty walls are free; but you're permanently stuck with your tiny, squirrely balls and that dwarf dick of yours.
Oh, wait, you were just trolling. Sorry for outing your tiny genitalia. Too late now, though.:^)
Projection systems create even less waste, allow for much larger images, and can generally be refurbished with nothing more complicated than a new bulb.
When my family gathers around for a movie, my 200" diagonal display allows me to include several generations. But the actual display hardware only consumes about 1/3 a cubic foot. The "display" is just wall space, which isn't going anywhere or being used for anything else.
Lol.. there is real evidence that a man called Jesus (that's a Greek transposition because his hebrew name had no direct translation), was active in the times that Jesus was supposed to be active
LOL - no there isn't. There are some *very* spotty and vague mentions from well after the time Jesus was supposed to be running around, but none at all between 0-30 AD.
You need to learn what contemporaneous means.
Most of the non-supernatural parts of the stories about Jesus is most likely an accurate representation of a real person.
What do you have to actually back that claim up with? Saying it is one thing; backing it up... well, we can observe that the best religious scholars in the world haven't been able to do it as yet; but I'm giving you all the rope you need here. What'cha got?
Remember the timeline here: Jesus died on the cross in 30 AD, according to the story. So anything you bring has to come from that time period, 0-30 AD. People born after he died -- like Josephus -- never met the man... they don't count at all, because all they can do is report what others told them.
I assume that you've arbitrarily decided to ignore Josephus here, yes?
No:
...Josephus, AKA Yosef Ben Matityahu A.D. (37 ~100+. Not at all contemporaneous with the time Christ was reported (by the bible) to have lived. Never saw Jesus; never saw any act he may have performed, miraculous or otherwise; wasn't there for the crucifixion or the tomb cracking; can't testify as to his birth, life or death. All this person's sources were second hand at best. Being born in 37 AD, the story ended seven years before he was even conceived.
cowboy/etc.: The jury is assigned the role of deciding to ignore the law, or not; to ignore the accusation, or not; to find guilt, or not. That's part of their job in the system. Just like part of the judge's job is to do the sentencing once the jury has reported. The reason that they were assigned this job is because when the system ran without jurors, it was abused by the authorities, repeatedly and consistently. There are many laws that are simply wrong; examples such as slavery come immediately to mind -- the authorities made those laws, and they were completely, inexcusably wrong. Prohibition is another one. Gun keep/bear laws are another one. The inversion of the commerce clause is another one. Ex post facto laws are another one. I could go on for quite some time. The jury serves as a check in a system that is, otherwise, almost entirely without them. This was the intent. It doesn't make the jurors criminals; quite the contrary. It is designed to let them stop the government from doing harm to the accused when the government is acting criminally.
The takeaway here is very simple: Some laws are wrong; therefore enforcement of them is also wrong. The system uses the jury to try and catch this particular problem. And to paraphrase a very important concept: better that wrongdoers go free than good people suffer at the hands of tyrants. This is the very problem at the root of our current justice system: we have a lot of bad law, and a lot of people are suffering from it. As a juror, a citizen's duty is clear: you are not only to judge the case on its merits, but also the law itself. Look it up, don't take my word for it. It'll make you a much better juror.
There's a difference between "there is no hard evidence that this person existed" and "there is hard evidence this person did not exist". We're in the former situation. While it's possible there was no such person, that involves more assumptions and convoluted explanations than assuming that there was a person who was in fact teaching people
Not at all. Here's where we are. 1) There is no contemporaneous evidence for this person. At all. Doing anything. 2) The only other reports we have of this person arise from a work of blatantly obvious fiction, followers of the cult that produced this work of fiction, or are derived directly therefrom, such as the complaints of the Romans about the cult.
The leap from this state to "this person probably existed" is nonsensical; wishful thinking at best. There's nothing "weak" about assuming nothing proved when nothing has been proven. You want to assert a positive truth, you don't get there by quoting a fairy story, you do it by dropping hard evidence on the table -- but in this case, to date, there is none. The reason I keep bringing the fairy story up is because that, and the followers of that, are the only places that we find reports of Jesus -- so the source is highly relevant as to said report's probable veracity.
Did you ever read the book review I linked to?
Yes. I'm not really interested in proving Jesus didn't exist; I'm not making any such claims. I'm interested in Christians (or anyone else, for that matter) proving he *did* exist. Trying to prove a negative is not a useful way to spend time. Christians and Christian apologists (and the ignorant) make the claim he did exist; I say, fine, show me why I should accept such an assertion. My position is: "To date, there is no contemporaneous proof that Jesus existed", and that's all I lay on the table. Never, ever has a Christian (or anyone else) stepped up and provided any cite or reference that in any way backs up the claim for Jesus's existence, or even begins to take my statement off the table. The path you take, which is to claim that because he's mentioned in a book of fiction, he probably existed, is an empty apologetic in a very thin disguise. It simply doesn't hold up.
Jesus is literally equivalent to Harry Potter. Both appear only in fictional books about magic, and people talking about these same books, and about people who read these books, and talking about the authors of these books; claiming either one -- Potter or Christ -- actually exists requires something more than an entry in a list of dramatis personæ. You can try to provide that, in which case I'd be happy to look at your position, or you can continue to push an empty cart from which you try to sell me apples, but I'm getting weary of looking at the empty cart, I have to say.
The difference between the cases you cite and the Jesus case is that his story includes various historical events that are verifiable from other sources
Look; the use of real places and events in fiction is so common as to be absolutely unremarkable. You're arguing, in effect, that Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October was real because the CIA, the US Navy, the Soviet Union, and Washington are all real. Get over it; fiction writers use historical and geographic context all the time. It doesn't suffice to verify the existence of Jesus any more than it does Jack Ryan; Harry Potter is no more real because the book says he "lived in London"; Inspector Clouseau no more real for the verifiable existence of Paris; Athena no more real because Greece was a real country... etc., etc., etc.
As for Hannibal, I know nothing much about him, and don't feel qualified to comment specifically; but in general, since he wasn't a supernatural figure and his alleged words aren't being directly used to try and change the laws of the society I live in, I don't think I'm concerned with his reality or lack thereof. I *will* say that I have no doubt whatsoever that history is full of exaggerations, aggrandizement, unjustified discounting, recording errors and outright fiction. That goes for way back when, and echos right up to the present with lies about how the Vietnam war was started, arguments with Cuba, our aggression towards Iraq, and so on. History is not this bright trail of truth they present it as in grade school. The older a tale is, the less cause I have to have significant confidence in it. And that's without even a hint of magical nonsense.
Yes? We know of Pontius, do we not? A man of considerably less stature, and ability, and magic, than Jesus was supposed to have. Same time frame. Also others. But no evidence at all of Jesus. Now, add to that the only place he appears -- ever -- is in the Christian mythology, either directly as in the gospels, or indirectly as complaints about the doings of the cult, complaints made primarily by the Romans. He's a character in a work of fiction. Claiming that is evidence for his actual existence (which is what you are doing) makes exactly the same kind of sense as claiming Jack Ryan from Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October was a real dude. Which is to say, none. You get back to me when there is ANYTHING that backs up his existence outside of the Christian mythology. Appearing in a work of fiction as the main magical character is a tip you are like Harry Potter, not that you're like Abraham Lincoln. In the interim, it is you who are making a fool of yourself; you're simply sucking up to Christian mythology because you've not done your homework.
To recap: No contemporaneous evidence. None. This is not a decent starting point for presuming anything assertive about a real human being.
No, I'm not arguing that at all. I'm saying there's no contemporaneous evidence for Jesus at all. Zero. Christians start from there, and all they can add to the state of "no evidence for" is a story about magic. That's not worthy of even paying attention to. That was my point.
Occam's razor, btw, says this about magical stars of myths: the safe bet is the other way. Anubis? No. Vishnu? No. Kali? No. Zeus? No. Odin? No. Azaka-Tonnerre? No. The angel Moroni? No. And Jesus? Still... no.
Slashdot Mirror
Servos? Impractical. Detect the bullet's zone with omni-doppler. Detect the bullet's path with radar triangulation at three different frequencies and three different points in the firing zone; radar out and back, not a significant portion of the flight time. Three triangulations required to determine flight path (because it won't be a straight line); these can be done extremely quickly; match intercept; Optically switch the laser to the appropriate angle (drop n mirrors simultaneously so the mirrors providing the correct angle are exposed); not a significant part of the flight time; wait until intercept match; fire; Bullet gone.
BTW, the key to this kind of intercept isn't to point the laser at wherever the bullet is; it is to fire the laser when the bullet crosses where the laser is nominally pointed. Add to this close-in intercept. These two techniques reduce the number of required aim points by bazillions. More lasers also reduce the number of mirrors/laser/zone required; they also give simultaneous zone coverage.
The downside is that right now, this would take a lot of optical hardware and high energy lasers are annoyingly unportable. But it could be done with existing tech, there's no magic here.
Too many problems/inexplicable crashes to bother... hence the use of Opera and OmniWeb. Both of which really work well, btw. And OmniWeb wins the UI competition hands down with that gorgeous hyper-functional tab interface. But, just fyi in case you actually care, when I run FF5, I run it with no plugins / extensions. Native out of the install package, tabs moved down to where they should be, no other particular changes. And as for the memory leaks, they've been around for years... you leave FF running under OSX and it will consume insane amounts of memory, regardless of how you set cache, etc.
LOL "Christians"
I've been using OSX Firefox for a long time, and brother, right now, it is *seriously* broken. Were it my product, it'd be time to stop with the new features and FIX it before going on. It behaves pathologically when trying to answer posts on slashdot; it crashes after viewing flicker lightbox streams for more than a hundred or so images; it doesn't take the first click on a tab close button; and I have seen the "well, this is embarrassing" crash announcement more times than I could be bothered to count since ff5 came out.
Just make it work well, ok guys? I'd be happy if I never saw another feature, but it didn't crash, leak memory, mis-position, or mis-render a page.
[goes back to using Opera while waiting]
Yeah. Except that's not what happens. What happens is that the additional money goes into the pockets of the executives directly, or into their benefit packages, or into the corporate jet fleet, or an additional leased car for the prez, all depending on what level corporation we're talking about. The only "trickle down" we get from big business when tax rates change is when they piss on our heads and try to explain that it's actually rain.
If you were a Christian who actually read the bible, you would know that Christ specifically said (beginning @ Matthew 5:17 )
The "law" Christ is talking about here is the rules in the Old Testament. So if you're a Christian, you always have been, and will continue to be, are 100% subject to the rules in the OT, according to Christ, until heaven and the earth have disappeared. Now, if you want to ignore Christ's position, that's fine, but in that case you are hardly a Christian. You're just a theological crow, picking and choosing what suits you from the NT. Christ wouldn't give you the time of day. Keep that in mind next time you eat pork or shellfish, wear clothing of mixed fibers, decide not to circumcise your kid, etc.
There is more along those line in the NT, from Paul, for example, where he says (Romans 3:31) "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, WE ESTABLISH THE LAW.", but obviously Christ himself is the one who set the standard. We also know that Christ himself was a pretty devout Jew; he observed the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. So any claims that "Christians are exempt from the laws of the OT" is purest bunkum.
If you want to counter what Christ said, make sure you counter it with something else Christ said; if a rank and file person contradicts Christ, and you take their word over his... then again, you're no Christian.
The New Testament: The one book most Christians have never read.
Of course I do. But why would I interact with them online when I can invite them over for pizza and a movie, or Thursday night chess, or a good martial arts workout? Also, what is the premise behind the strange idea that you could not find me by using my online handle? If I don't TELL you what that handle is, you can safely assume that it is of no concern to me that you don't "find" me. It may even be my intent. What the heck is this imaginary "right to find" or perhaps "pathological need to find", anyway?
What's the problem with someone checking a box in their profile that says "using handle" -- all your "friends" who want you to find them (you know, the ones playing Farmville LOL) can still find you, what's the problem? Why do you need to find this OTHER person?
Sorry -- the price for squashing anonymity is too high, and the reasons to do it entirely too commercial and/or nonsensical.
The idea that such a site is only for people who are "trying to find you" is dead in the water. What if I set up a page, and inform my family, perhaps by email, that the page is there and I'll welcome family conversations there, but no one else? Perhaps I'm not interested in the people I knew in high school at all, eh? Or at work, for that matter.
Well, of course it is. That information is worth money to Google and Facebook (and those they're going to sell the names to), and it is a direct path to increased power for the government. What's not to like?
What you're missing here is that your purpose for social networking sites isn't necessarily the same as other people's purposes. For instance, if a young lady is being oppressed in a country where her rights consist of the right to be set on fire and have her genitals mutilated, perhaps she might have a use for anonymous speech, you think?
Or, again for instance, if you are espousing a viewpoint that is not popular with the SS, sorry, I mean "homeland security", perhaps you would prefer they didn't show up at your door without a warrant, guns ablaze or ready to toss your sorry butt into a cell, sans phone call, lawyer, with your very own free ticket to the new Washington sport of water-boarding, as they are lately prone to do from time to time.
There are other reasons as well; some families might social networking accounts as places to meet in relative (no pun intended) privacy, with only family members allowed to see and post.
So let's not get too o/c about what social networking "is for." Like most things to do with computers, there are many other outlooks besides our own. Let's leave room for those -- it's all around better that way.
So yes, we do need it -- and its gradual loss is very much not a good thing. Except for corporations and the government. Corporations like Facebook. And Google. Imagine that.
Why do I need your real name, or the thing you claim is your real name? What, exactly, am I to do with it that is legitimate use? Am I to look up your address so as to stalk you? Seriously, why do I, as a social website member, need anything other than some unique identifier so conversations can be directed? Frankly, I don't need your real name, nor do I want it. The question here really is: Who does want your real name -- and why?
Facebook and Google want your real name. They want it because they're going to sell it; it, and the habits they associate with it, by tracking every move you make that they are able to. They're going to sell it to corporations; give it to the government; etc. If you're ok with that, then fine, give 'em your real name. What I wonder, really, is why you'd be ok with that. Too young to remember McCarthyism, perhaps? Don't understand the reasons why privacy was given such primacy in the constitution? Just plain... dim? It's an interesting question, certainly.
plus one!eleventy11!!
There's another important issue here: Anonymity can be a worthy tool for social reaction and revolution when the individual expresses a minority or otherwise unpopular opinion; some of the other nasty habits of society include ostracization; limiting availability of jobs; sabotaging retirement; false accusations, false imprisonment, inappropriate listing on the no-fly, no-buy, and the sexual/violent offender (AKA as the you're-fucked) lists; singling out for "attention" from the local (or not local) cops; vandalism; burning crosses on the lawn; DOS, etc.
While true free speech cloaked in anonymity definitely opens the door for the proverbial "Internet Superturd", suppressing it isn't something that uniformly does good. For instance, Google+'s recent insistence on "real id" effectively eliminates any viewpoint that is sufficiently off-center to present a personal risk at a level unacceptable to the speaker. This in turn means that as the speaker's social load and dependencies increase - family, depending upon keeping one's job, political position, etc. - the more effectively they are muzzled in a "real id" environment.
Another example is Facebook's TOS where they forbid anyone on the s/v offender's list from joining; anyone put on that list is now locked out and locked to the bottom level of society; doesn't matter that they've paid their debt to society by serving time, paying fines, whatever the judge decided: they're permanently locked out, not to mention often having to live under a bridge or in a camp. That kind of ostracism is way too powerful a tool to use against someone who is supposedly free to walk around; they'll never re-integrate, they can't. If you're going to treat someone that badly, you'd better have the sense to put them in jail and keep them there or else you're just grooming a very, very angry person whom someone will unhappily meet on a dark and stormy night. Unfortunately, this only treats the unfairly listed -- kids having sex across age lines, polygamists, pee-ers in bushes, etc. -- even worse. By far the best solution is to treat payment of sentencing debt as 100% presumed rehabilitation unless shown otherwise. The government shows no sign of being responsible here either, nor forcing corporations like facebook to be responsible, which again brings us back to the need for pushback. And given the lynch mob mentality associated with these matters, anonymity is definitely called for.
In general right now, our government is doing a lot of things it shouldn't be doing, and these activities are currently pushing hard against individual rights of free speech, free travel and privacy. IMHO, anything that does away with anonymity under these circumstances is extremely unwise.
Oh, they know what it is -- it's that OS that doesn't advertise. So the editorial (commercial benefit) question is, Windows or OSX?
Doesn't matter, though, because serious server types wouldn't give this article their valuable time. They know the Mac is Un*x, and software admin on a Mac is substantially similar to other unices. The real issues are hardware issues. Want (currently) 24 usable threads (12 hyperthreaded cores) ? Lean towards the Mac. Want failover PSUs and hot swappable drives? Lean towards other hardware (and of necessity, away from the Mac.) Got a relatively small system to set up, a Mac is fine. Even a small one. Regulatory concerns... not so fine. Lion is kind of sucky (speaking as a Mac guy), it's really a consumer GUI downgrade, bringing the disadvantages of IOS to OSX, courtesy of some sweat-lodge-addled lunatic at Apple, but it really doesn't matter, because the server heart of OSX isn't GUI based anyway. Anyone who requires "server GUI tools" is only worth an LOL anyway in a serious server environment. The OSX GUI server tools don't retain changes made other than those they directly support... they'll wipe out your subtleties in one click, and so no serious IT department would even *consider* using them -- having said that, there are a fair number of point-n-click IT departments out there without complex setups and no need for them, either.
That's just flagrant over-complication. I just sit here in a volcanic vent, living off environmental hydrogen sulfide. No gills, no fins, no mobility, yet I get the job done. Now *that* is server administration.
Problem is only solved if the winds are running at an angle exactly parallel to the louvers. Otherwise, they serve as baffles and apply leverage to the tower while also adding turbulence. And winds change angle and velocity constantly. You'd likely be better off simply designing the tower to be smooth, circular, and very strong.
You should be able to put a 100" display up in almost any room; just take anything out of the way and hang the projector from the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. Screens.... any white wall will do. And any flat (must be flat!) white paint will do.
A really large display is just as easy, but you need a building with almost a 2-story exposure. We were super lucky and got an old, empty church on two lots for almost nothing, but I've been in lots of other houses where it was an available choice. We're huge gamers and movie watchers, so there wasn't much con/discussion once we saw that wall. I suppose if there is more conventional decorating / furnishing that's important to someone, this does require the wall to be entirely clear and that might be a project killer... but for us, it's worth it.
I've got a couple friends that have DLP projection systems with newer, brighter projectors, they're really pretty awesome. And they cost less than LCDs, too. this 135" guy is one of those... he started out with a 720p projector, now has a 1080p one. Check out the integrated cabinet/screen he built.
Even the most basic cabinet/screen building skills can save more money than the projector even costs.
As far as maintainance... we use ours every day, and replace the bulb every few years when it dims. Probably amounts to twenty five cents a day, max.
Dark rooms... nighttime, baby. :^) Seriously, I don't watch during the daylight hours, so it's not an issue. But blackout shades are super cheap down at wham-a-lart if you need 'em.
Lazy, I can't help ya with.
Because I wouldn't want your suicide on my conscience. You can buy a projector like mine for less than most LCDs cost, and empty walls are free; but you're permanently stuck with your tiny, squirrely balls and that dwarf dick of yours.
Oh, wait, you were just trolling. Sorry for outing your tiny genitalia. Too late now, though. :^)
Projection systems create even less waste, allow for much larger images, and can generally be refurbished with nothing more complicated than a new bulb.
When my family gathers around for a movie, my 200" diagonal display allows me to include several generations. But the actual display hardware only consumes about 1/3 a cubic foot. The "display" is just wall space, which isn't going anywhere or being used for anything else.
LOL - no there isn't. There are some *very* spotty and vague mentions from well after the time Jesus was supposed to be running around, but none at all between 0-30 AD.
You need to learn what contemporaneous means.
What do you have to actually back that claim up with? Saying it is one thing; backing it up... well, we can observe that the best religious scholars in the world haven't been able to do it as yet; but I'm giving you all the rope you need here. What'cha got?
Remember the timeline here: Jesus died on the cross in 30 AD, according to the story. So anything you bring has to come from that time period, 0-30 AD. People born after he died -- like Josephus -- never met the man... they don't count at all, because all they can do is report what others told them.
No:
cowboy/etc.: The jury is assigned the role of deciding to ignore the law, or not; to ignore the accusation, or not; to find guilt, or not. That's part of their job in the system. Just like part of the judge's job is to do the sentencing once the jury has reported. The reason that they were assigned this job is because when the system ran without jurors, it was abused by the authorities, repeatedly and consistently. There are many laws that are simply wrong; examples such as slavery come immediately to mind -- the authorities made those laws, and they were completely, inexcusably wrong. Prohibition is another one. Gun keep/bear laws are another one. The inversion of the commerce clause is another one. Ex post facto laws are another one. I could go on for quite some time. The jury serves as a check in a system that is, otherwise, almost entirely without them. This was the intent. It doesn't make the jurors criminals; quite the contrary. It is designed to let them stop the government from doing harm to the accused when the government is acting criminally.
The takeaway here is very simple: Some laws are wrong; therefore enforcement of them is also wrong. The system uses the jury to try and catch this particular problem. And to paraphrase a very important concept: better that wrongdoers go free than good people suffer at the hands of tyrants. This is the very problem at the root of our current justice system: we have a lot of bad law, and a lot of people are suffering from it. As a juror, a citizen's duty is clear: you are not only to judge the case on its merits, but also the law itself. Look it up, don't take my word for it. It'll make you a much better juror.
Not at all. Here's where we are. 1) There is no contemporaneous evidence for this person. At all. Doing anything. 2) The only other reports we have of this person arise from a work of blatantly obvious fiction, followers of the cult that produced this work of fiction, or are derived directly therefrom, such as the complaints of the Romans about the cult.
The leap from this state to "this person probably existed" is nonsensical; wishful thinking at best. There's nothing "weak" about assuming nothing proved when nothing has been proven. You want to assert a positive truth, you don't get there by quoting a fairy story, you do it by dropping hard evidence on the table -- but in this case, to date, there is none. The reason I keep bringing the fairy story up is because that, and the followers of that, are the only places that we find reports of Jesus -- so the source is highly relevant as to said report's probable veracity.
Yes. I'm not really interested in proving Jesus didn't exist; I'm not making any such claims. I'm interested in Christians (or anyone else, for that matter) proving he *did* exist. Trying to prove a negative is not a useful way to spend time. Christians and Christian apologists (and the ignorant) make the claim he did exist; I say, fine, show me why I should accept such an assertion. My position is: "To date, there is no contemporaneous proof that Jesus existed", and that's all I lay on the table. Never, ever has a Christian (or anyone else) stepped up and provided any cite or reference that in any way backs up the claim for Jesus's existence, or even begins to take my statement off the table. The path you take, which is to claim that because he's mentioned in a book of fiction, he probably existed, is an empty apologetic in a very thin disguise. It simply doesn't hold up.
Jesus is literally equivalent to Harry Potter. Both appear only in fictional books about magic, and people talking about these same books, and about people who read these books, and talking about the authors of these books; claiming either one -- Potter or Christ -- actually exists requires something more than an entry in a list of dramatis personæ. You can try to provide that, in which case I'd be happy to look at your position, or you can continue to push an empty cart from which you try to sell me apples, but I'm getting weary of looking at the empty cart, I have to say.
Look; the use of real places and events in fiction is so common as to be absolutely unremarkable. You're arguing, in effect, that Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October was real because the CIA, the US Navy, the Soviet Union, and Washington are all real. Get over it; fiction writers use historical and geographic context all the time. It doesn't suffice to verify the existence of Jesus any more than it does Jack Ryan; Harry Potter is no more real because the book says he "lived in London"; Inspector Clouseau no more real for the verifiable existence of Paris; Athena no more real because Greece was a real country... etc., etc., etc.
As for Hannibal, I know nothing much about him, and don't feel qualified to comment specifically; but in general, since he wasn't a supernatural figure and his alleged words aren't being directly used to try and change the laws of the society I live in, I don't think I'm concerned with his reality or lack thereof. I *will* say that I have no doubt whatsoever that history is full of exaggerations, aggrandizement, unjustified discounting, recording errors and outright fiction. That goes for way back when, and echos right up to the present with lies about how the Vietnam war was started, arguments with Cuba, our aggression towards Iraq, and so on. History is not this bright trail of truth they present it as in grade school. The older a tale is, the less cause I have to have significant confidence in it. And that's without even a hint of magical nonsense.
Yes? We know of Pontius, do we not? A man of considerably less stature, and ability, and magic, than Jesus was supposed to have. Same time frame. Also others. But no evidence at all of Jesus. Now, add to that the only place he appears -- ever -- is in the Christian mythology, either directly as in the gospels, or indirectly as complaints about the doings of the cult, complaints made primarily by the Romans. He's a character in a work of fiction. Claiming that is evidence for his actual existence (which is what you are doing) makes exactly the same kind of sense as claiming Jack Ryan from Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October was a real dude. Which is to say, none. You get back to me when there is ANYTHING that backs up his existence outside of the Christian mythology. Appearing in a work of fiction as the main magical character is a tip you are like Harry Potter, not that you're like Abraham Lincoln. In the interim, it is you who are making a fool of yourself; you're simply sucking up to Christian mythology because you've not done your homework.
To recap: No contemporaneous evidence. None. This is not a decent starting point for presuming anything assertive about a real human being.
No, I'm not arguing that at all. I'm saying there's no contemporaneous evidence for Jesus at all. Zero. Christians start from there, and all they can add to the state of "no evidence for" is a story about magic. That's not worthy of even paying attention to. That was my point.
Occam's razor, btw, says this about magical stars of myths: the safe bet is the other way. Anubis? No. Vishnu? No. Kali? No. Zeus? No. Odin? No. Azaka-Tonnerre? No. The angel Moroni? No. And Jesus? Still... no.
Also... see my t-shirt.