Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. That's it. That's all of it. It's not "rejection of belief", and it's not the "position there are no deities."
Theism: belief in a god or gods. That's it. That's all of it. It's not just YWHA, it's not just Quetzalcoatl, it's not just Odin. A god or gods. Any one, or any combination. There you go.
The root 'a' means "without."
So atheism means "without belief in a god or gods."
There is no book, no canon, no mantra. Nothing about it speaks to rejection or assertion or anything at all, in fact. It's the state of lacking these specific beliefs. It's what a baby has, or a dog has. No belief. It's like having no money. Either you have it, or you don't. And when you don't, talking about what kind of money you have... that's intellectually bewildered. Likewise, when you don't hold a belief, to say it's this or it's that... it's nothing. Either you have it, which makes you a theist, because that's what a theist is, or you don't, which makes you an atheist, because that's what an atheist is.
Anything else - is something else and doesn't even address the issue.
Rejection of someone's belief? That's all you, or whomever. Assertion of some state or lack thereof? That's all you, or whomever. It's not atheism.
Can you be atheist - without belief in a god or gods - and hold such views? Of course - because atheism doesn't say yea or nae about that, or anything else. You can be atheist and like peanut butter sandwiches; you can be atheist and send people to gulags; you can be atheist and with, or without knowledge.
And while knowledge and meaning are both, however cursorily, on the table, you're either atheist, or you're not. Agnostic is not a third position - it doesn't even deal with the same question, which is belief. It deals with knowledge. It's not a modifier, either, it's about what you (think you) know, which does not speak to belief at all; "atheist agnostic" is just like "atheist peanut butter assembler" and "theist agnostic" is just like "theist peanut butter assembler."
Historically speaking, theists, being both in the majority and in control of most media and definition sources, have usually characterized atheism in a way most convenient, or perhaps familiar, to them. You'll find it called out as "disbelief" in many places, and you'll find people claiming "it's a religion" and "it's a belief" just as often. All are incorrect, and serve, if anything, as a wall between actual understanding of the issue at hand, and the fog of name-calling that stands in for idea exchange in most conversations about this. And that's not to say that there aren't atheists out there who have bought into the idea that lack of belief is somehow belief, or disbelief. There are. Maximum clarity requires isolating every idea in this space and understanding it at a fundamental level. What you do not want to do is start tacking modifiers like "hard" or "soft" or "agnostic" or "peanut butter assembler" onto a basic position as if it were actually a fundamental position in itself. Because it isn't. Any more than "peanut butter liking lego builder" is a basic position.
By all means, hold whatever ideas you want to. What I'm saying here, basically, is that if you can identify which ideas actually accrue to what fundamental facets of your mental state, your education, your social outlook and so on, you'll be much clearer headed overall, and you're likely to be able to understand others much better as well.
That, and Wikipedia's atheism article is a mess.:)
Sleep deprivation should be in that list. As should emotional condition, financial pressure, etc.
The whole thing is bullshit designed to enrich law enforcement and the alcohol industry, while skimming votes from the vast pool of low-functioners terrified by every bogyman the media throws in their faces.
But hey, when the majority elects the rich and allows them to be guided by money and "consideration", this is what they inevitably get.
When they keep electing them, then I know the majority is just a bunch of idiots.
For me it's not a matter of trust; it's a matter of Federal law. The industry I work in is heavily regulated by the Feds and drug tests are mandatory.
For (you) it's not a matter of trust; it's a matter of arbitrary stupidity imposed by legislators with no respect whatsoever for personal and consensual choice, exacerbated by the financial benefits of kowtowing to the law-enforcement cabal and the re-election benefits of frightening low-functioning voters. The industry (you) work in is heavily regulated by the Feds and drug tests are mandatory.
FTFY
To paraphrase what someone smart said above: impaired on the job or when driving, etc.? That's other-person-relevant and reasonably subject to scrutiny and so forth. Impaired outside of the job, on your own time, for instance safe at home in front of the TV? That should be entirely your business.
The drug laws as currently written are batshit, and the legislators, law enforcement, and sycophantic corporations, are acting wrongfully and harmfully. Period.
The problem with Wikipedia - as I see it - is that it is no longer an open space for collecting whatever-quality information from the general public; and it cannot, ever, reach anywhere near the new goal it has set for itself, which is a hig-quality, peer-reviewed site with accurate and/or balanced content. Basically, they shot themselves in the foot by reaching (way) too high.
Anyone with any sense knows that counting on Wikipedia for fundamental accuracy is, and has always been, hugely hit-and-miss. As it stands now, some pages by their very nature settle out at one extreme or another; one I am familiar with is the page on Atheism, which begins with one accurate sentence, and then wanders off into absolute theist-oriented nonsense before the paragraph is done. The page has a history of being locked to change, while presenting incredibly distorted views of the subject matter. It can't stay accurate, even if it were to be edited to be so at any one point in time, because atheists understand atheism to be one thing, and theists understand it to be another, and never the twain shall meet. When the editors freeze it, though, then it ends up in whatever extreme it was last edited in and... we have an echo chamber.
Some pages are reasonably accurate, typically those that engender little or no controversy. Others are like the atheism page, pretty much tripe that you'd have to say "oh, no way" if you wanted to provide someone an accurate reference to the matter therein. Knowing which is which requires someone expert on the subject matter before they even arrive; and that makes the pages into an echo chamber at best, and completely misleading at worst.
I have no objection to a net resource that is not accurate (that pretty much describes the whole Internet universe, in my opinion) but I am uncomfortable with a resource that claims accuracy, but can't actually reach that goal, and worse, as in this example, actually promotes nonsense. It's too reminiscent of Fox News "entertainment" take on reporting for me.
They have other severe problems. Put up an image you took, and they will very likely take it down. They're absolutely insane about attribution and so on; I used to try to provide high-quality, relevant source images in the areas I am qualified to do so, but the static level from "editors" never sank below a deafening roar, and my images were as likely to be deleted as not. I have better things to do with my time than try to fight those kinds of battles, especially as there's no winning against such opponents.
Someday, it is my hope that someone will start a wikipedia-like site (the code is available, though the cost of a site like this is high) and keep their eye on the ball: collecting information from the people at large, without claiming any particular level of ultimate accuracy that is impossible to actually achieve. An information free-for-all is one thing; a kingdom ruled by a small cadre of anally retentive assholes is entirely another.
Copyright law and that lowest class of human beings, lawyers (and legislators, but really, I repeat myself), aren't helping either.
Still, I bet they were just beaming with pleasure, excitement lighting up their faces, coloring everything they said, reflecting their deep satisfaction with the realization of what was originally just a glint in their eyes. Their laser-like focus on area efficiency illuminates just what it takes to blaze through challenges like this; it's not just about brilliance, it's about focus and resolution. Clearly, this was a very bright idea, sourced from a rainbow of possibilities.
Mine (on a 2002 3/4t Chevy Avalanche) has separate coaxial feeds; both go to inputs on the radio. One comes from the spiral, one comes from the whip. It may well be that yours is cosmetic; on the other hand, that may not be chrome - it could just be plastic, like many things are these days. Can't say without prodding your antenna and cabling. But I have been over mine, and it's definitely two separate elements.
Some people, hearing such claims, realize that eating and paying the bills, not to mention planning for the future, aren't actually inconsequential issues, even if the claim is made in a perfectly hyperbolic manner.
You, for instance, may have a very strong lean towards X; however, somewhere in your outlook, likely you're thinking that money will be handy in your pursuit of X. Related, you may be annoyed - to say the least - if someone decides, in a very preemptive manner, that they wish to interfere with your income stream(s.)
Pardon me for not shedding any tears, as the RIAA/MPAA members have upped the ante by thoroughly twisting, contorting, and abusing the original meaning of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution
Pardon me for not shedding any tears, as the congress members have upped the ante by thoroughly twisting, contorting, and abusing the original meaning of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution
Marketing to those who habitually gravitate towards non-remunarative content. It's like marketing any free thing; without a reason to buy or re-buy, or enter into a separate cost-based consumer channel, it's an expense, not an income booster. The question is, as always, does youtube lead in that direction, or does it primarily replace purchases with free-to-the-consumer downloads? While, as TFC says, monitizing ads that lead elsewhere than into the artist's pocket?
As with much of the rest of the legal corpus. But the voters keep electing the rich, and they keep writing law that favors the rich. It's not a mystery. It's profound validation of the concrete social and economic effects of the Gaussian.
It is important to music listeners (you?) because income is what motivates many artists to produce music (initially and on a continuing basis), and this is an issue that directly affects artist income. It is not by any means the only issue, but it is not a minor one either, either in their perception or in actuality.
Your Sony is probably FM-only. Can you point to a reference that indicates it supports AM without attaching an external SDR? I'd be very interested in such a reference.
No, the best AM (and shortwave) reception is achieved with an SDR, a loop antenna such as the pixel pro, and good SDR software. Car radios are terrible, generally speaking. Also, the noise issues you speak of are not generally addressed at the radio in a car; that's about shielding the radiators and filtering the power supply. It's a very rare car radio that actually implements any form of active noise suppression (which is just one of the areas SDR hugely exceeds their performance.) Most people have never experienced a high-quality AM receiver, ever. With analog techniques, it's very hard to make such a thing.
Also, can the automated process be compromised? Seems like if you can get a site's certs, you can probably compromise the cert-obtaining automation as well, no?
So far, though, those $20 dongles require quite a lot of additional CPU power to do WFM demodulation, which requires a minimum of 180 Khz bandwidth (in the US, WFM is allocated 200 KHz slots, within which 75% modulation is the legal maximum, which, using Carson's rule, results in about 180 KHz of bandwidth use.) They require even more to to analog television, which are (were) allocated six MHz per channel.
It has to do with the wavelength of the signal, and the approach to the EM field. A ferrite antenna (actually a particular case of a loop antenna) couples to the magnetic field. A whip couples to the electric field. You can learn more about loop antennas and the differences from whip and dipole and other antennas via Google, if you're really interested.
So how are cars receiving AM without 160 meter long antennas?
While the whip antenna on a car is short, it has a substantial ground plane to work against (the body of the car.) This increases the signal level developed between ground and the antenna input. Sometimes the actual antenna is not as short as you might initially think, either; look closely, and on many car antenna systems, you'll see a fine wire that spirals up the outside of the whip; that's the AM broadcast band antenna, not the whip itself. The whip is just used as a mechanical support when receiving AM. This approach provides significantly stronger signals to the radio.
In order to obtain signals of a similar strength in a portable radio, the usual approach is to wind a lot of wire around a ferrite core and make it resonate with the appropriate matching capacitance. With proper design, this can result in a highly effective narrow-band (just a few channels), tunable, directional antenna capability.
Antennas aside, most car radios don't have very good AM sections. Just as with home stereo and theater receivers, manufacturers tend to not treat AM seriously. Historically speaking, there have been exceptions. For instance, Sansui produced an AM / FM tuner that had a pretty good AM section in it; early tube receivers also typically tried to do a good job. A good AM band receiver has control over IF bandwidth, and in a truly modern design, this is done with a software defined radio, so that the bandwidth is precisely controllable and essentially devoid of roll-off.
Apart from that, I've never seen a phone with an FM chip that wasn't activated but maybe its lower end phones.
It can be a decision made by the carrier.
For instance, the Galaxy S7, definitely a higher end device, has FM receiver hardware. Sprint enabled it when the S7 was shipped; T-Mobile enabled it during an S7 system update; Verizon has not enabled it as of this posting.
And of course, I enjoy FM, and my S7 came from Verizon.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll try.
Atheism is the lack of belief in a god or gods. That's it. That's all of it. It's not "rejection of belief", and it's not the "position there are no deities."
Theism: belief in a god or gods. That's it. That's all of it. It's not just YWHA, it's not just Quetzalcoatl, it's not just Odin. A god or gods. Any one, or any combination. There you go.
The root 'a' means "without."
So atheism means "without belief in a god or gods."
There is no book, no canon, no mantra. Nothing about it speaks to rejection or assertion or anything at all, in fact. It's the state of lacking these specific beliefs. It's what a baby has, or a dog has. No belief. It's like having no money. Either you have it, or you don't. And when you don't, talking about what kind of money you have... that's intellectually bewildered. Likewise, when you don't hold a belief, to say it's this or it's that... it's nothing. Either you have it, which makes you a theist, because that's what a theist is, or you don't, which makes you an atheist, because that's what an atheist is.
Anything else - is something else and doesn't even address the issue.
Rejection of someone's belief? That's all you, or whomever. Assertion of some state or lack thereof? That's all you, or whomever. It's not atheism.
Can you be atheist - without belief in a god or gods - and hold such views? Of course - because atheism doesn't say yea or nae about that, or anything else. You can be atheist and like peanut butter sandwiches; you can be atheist and send people to gulags; you can be atheist and with, or without knowledge.
And while knowledge and meaning are both, however cursorily, on the table, you're either atheist, or you're not. Agnostic is not a third position - it doesn't even deal with the same question, which is belief. It deals with knowledge. It's not a modifier, either, it's about what you (think you) know, which does not speak to belief at all; "atheist agnostic" is just like "atheist peanut butter assembler" and "theist agnostic" is just like "theist peanut butter assembler."
Historically speaking, theists, being both in the majority and in control of most media and definition sources, have usually characterized atheism in a way most convenient, or perhaps familiar, to them. You'll find it called out as "disbelief" in many places, and you'll find people claiming "it's a religion" and "it's a belief" just as often. All are incorrect, and serve, if anything, as a wall between actual understanding of the issue at hand, and the fog of name-calling that stands in for idea exchange in most conversations about this. And that's not to say that there aren't atheists out there who have bought into the idea that lack of belief is somehow belief, or disbelief. There are. Maximum clarity requires isolating every idea in this space and understanding it at a fundamental level. What you do not want to do is start tacking modifiers like "hard" or "soft" or "agnostic" or "peanut butter assembler" onto a basic position as if it were actually a fundamental position in itself. Because it isn't. Any more than "peanut butter liking lego builder" is a basic position.
By all means, hold whatever ideas you want to. What I'm saying here, basically, is that if you can identify which ideas actually accrue to what fundamental facets of your mental state, your education, your social outlook and so on, you'll be much clearer headed overall, and you're likely to be able to understand others much better as well.
That, and Wikipedia's atheism article is a mess. :)
Sleep deprivation should be in that list. As should emotional condition, financial pressure, etc.
The whole thing is bullshit designed to enrich law enforcement and the alcohol industry, while skimming votes from the vast pool of low-functioners terrified by every bogyman the media throws in their faces.
But hey, when the majority elects the rich and allows them to be guided by money and "consideration", this is what they inevitably get.
When they keep electing them, then I know the majority is just a bunch of idiots.
Which is where we are today.
For (you) it's not a matter of trust; it's a matter of arbitrary stupidity imposed by legislators with no respect whatsoever for personal and consensual choice, exacerbated by the financial benefits of kowtowing to the law-enforcement cabal and the re-election benefits of frightening low-functioning voters. The industry (you) work in is heavily regulated by the Feds and drug tests are mandatory.
FTFY
To paraphrase what someone smart said above: impaired on the job or when driving, etc.? That's other-person-relevant and reasonably subject to scrutiny and so forth. Impaired outside of the job, on your own time, for instance safe at home in front of the TV? That should be entirely your business.
The drug laws as currently written are batshit, and the legislators, law enforcement, and sycophantic corporations, are acting wrongfully and harmfully. Period.
Yes, clearly they're trying to promote dysentery among the masses.
They should have linked "AR-based visualization"
Not everyone knows what Armadillo-Rhinoceros-based visualization is. It's pretty much zoo-centric terminology.
The problem with Wikipedia - as I see it - is that it is no longer an open space for collecting whatever-quality information from the general public; and it cannot, ever, reach anywhere near the new goal it has set for itself, which is a hig-quality, peer-reviewed site with accurate and/or balanced content. Basically, they shot themselves in the foot by reaching (way) too high.
Anyone with any sense knows that counting on Wikipedia for fundamental accuracy is, and has always been, hugely hit-and-miss. As it stands now, some pages by their very nature settle out at one extreme or another; one I am familiar with is the page on Atheism, which begins with one accurate sentence, and then wanders off into absolute theist-oriented nonsense before the paragraph is done. The page has a history of being locked to change, while presenting incredibly distorted views of the subject matter. It can't stay accurate, even if it were to be edited to be so at any one point in time, because atheists understand atheism to be one thing, and theists understand it to be another, and never the twain shall meet. When the editors freeze it, though, then it ends up in whatever extreme it was last edited in and... we have an echo chamber.
Some pages are reasonably accurate, typically those that engender little or no controversy. Others are like the atheism page, pretty much tripe that you'd have to say "oh, no way" if you wanted to provide someone an accurate reference to the matter therein. Knowing which is which requires someone expert on the subject matter before they even arrive; and that makes the pages into an echo chamber at best, and completely misleading at worst.
I have no objection to a net resource that is not accurate (that pretty much describes the whole Internet universe, in my opinion) but I am uncomfortable with a resource that claims accuracy, but can't actually reach that goal, and worse, as in this example, actually promotes nonsense. It's too reminiscent of Fox News "entertainment" take on reporting for me.
They have other severe problems. Put up an image you took, and they will very likely take it down. They're absolutely insane about attribution and so on; I used to try to provide high-quality, relevant source images in the areas I am qualified to do so, but the static level from "editors" never sank below a deafening roar, and my images were as likely to be deleted as not. I have better things to do with my time than try to fight those kinds of battles, especially as there's no winning against such opponents.
Someday, it is my hope that someone will start a wikipedia-like site (the code is available, though the cost of a site like this is high) and keep their eye on the ball: collecting information from the people at large, without claiming any particular level of ultimate accuracy that is impossible to actually achieve. An information free-for-all is one thing; a kingdom ruled by a small cadre of anally retentive assholes is entirely another.
Copyright law and that lowest class of human beings, lawyers (and legislators, but really, I repeat myself), aren't helping either.
Still, I bet they were just beaming with pleasure, excitement lighting up their faces, coloring everything they said, reflecting their deep satisfaction with the realization of what was originally just a glint in their eyes. Their laser-like focus on area efficiency illuminates just what it takes to blaze through challenges like this; it's not just about brilliance, it's about focus and resolution. Clearly, this was a very bright idea, sourced from a rainbow of possibilities.
[runs away, trailing frightened shadow]
Mine (on a 2002 3/4t Chevy Avalanche) has separate coaxial feeds; both go to inputs on the radio. One comes from the spiral, one comes from the whip. It may well be that yours is cosmetic; on the other hand, that may not be chrome - it could just be plastic, like many things are these days. Can't say without prodding your antenna and cabling. But I have been over mine, and it's definitely two separate elements.
Definitely not.
Some artists do; some artists don't.
Some people, hearing such claims, realize that eating and paying the bills, not to mention planning for the future, aren't actually inconsequential issues, even if the claim is made in a perfectly hyperbolic manner.
You, for instance, may have a very strong lean towards X; however, somewhere in your outlook, likely you're thinking that money will be handy in your pursuit of X. Related, you may be annoyed - to say the least - if someone decides, in a very preemptive manner, that they wish to interfere with your income stream(s.)
Pardon me for not shedding any tears, as the congress members have upped the ante by thoroughly twisting, contorting, and abusing the original meaning of the Copyright Clause of the Constitution
FTFY
Marketing to those who habitually gravitate towards non-remunarative content. It's like marketing any free thing; without a reason to buy or re-buy, or enter into a separate cost-based consumer channel, it's an expense, not an income booster. The question is, as always, does youtube lead in that direction, or does it primarily replace purchases with free-to-the-consumer downloads? While, as TFC says, monitizing ads that lead elsewhere than into the artist's pocket?
As with much of the rest of the legal corpus. But the voters keep electing the rich, and they keep writing law that favors the rich. It's not a mystery. It's profound validation of the concrete social and economic effects of the Gaussian.
It is important to music listeners (you?) because income is what motivates many artists to produce music (initially and on a continuing basis), and this is an issue that directly affects artist income. It is not by any means the only issue, but it is not a minor one either, either in their perception or in actuality.
Your Sony is probably FM-only. Can you point to a reference that indicates it supports AM without attaching an external SDR? I'd be very interested in such a reference.
No, the best AM (and shortwave) reception is achieved with an SDR, a loop antenna such as the pixel pro, and good SDR software. Car radios are terrible, generally speaking. Also, the noise issues you speak of are not generally addressed at the radio in a car; that's about shielding the radiators and filtering the power supply. It's a very rare car radio that actually implements any form of active noise suppression (which is just one of the areas SDR hugely exceeds their performance.) Most people have never experienced a high-quality AM receiver, ever. With analog techniques, it's very hard to make such a thing.
Agreed. However, the GP brought it up, so I addressed it.
Also, can the automated process be compromised? Seems like if you can get a site's certs, you can probably compromise the cert-obtaining automation as well, no?
And these attacks, uses of compromised certificates, are they common enough to justify this level of paranoia?
So far, though, those $20 dongles require quite a lot of additional CPU power to do WFM demodulation, which requires a minimum of 180 Khz bandwidth (in the US, WFM is allocated 200 KHz slots, within which 75% modulation is the legal maximum, which, using Carson's rule, results in about 180 KHz of bandwidth use.) They require even more to to analog television, which are (were) allocated six MHz per channel.
As the author of SdrDx I have reason to know. :)
I am sure, however, that the currently large CPU requirements could be gotten around with some additional specialized hardware.
However, there are obvious financial reasons why a carrier would prefer you use bandwidth to receive information. So I wouldn't hold my breath.
Ah, slashcode. :)
At low frequencies, yes, it is.
It has to do with the wavelength of the signal, and the approach to the EM field. A ferrite antenna (actually a particular case of a loop antenna) couples to the magnetic field. A whip couples to the electric field. You can learn more about loop antennas and the differences from whip and dipole and other antennas via Google, if you're really interested.
While the whip antenna on a car is short, it has a substantial ground plane to work against (the body of the car.) This increases the signal level developed between ground and the antenna input. Sometimes the actual antenna is not as short as you might initially think, either; look closely, and on many car antenna systems, you'll see a fine wire that spirals up the outside of the whip; that's the AM broadcast band antenna, not the whip itself. The whip is just used as a mechanical support when receiving AM. This approach provides significantly stronger signals to the radio.
In order to obtain signals of a similar strength in a portable radio, the usual approach is to wind a lot of wire around a ferrite core and make it resonate with the appropriate matching capacitance. With proper design, this can result in a highly effective narrow-band (just a few channels), tunable, directional antenna capability.
Antennas aside, most car radios don't have very good AM sections. Just as with home stereo and theater receivers, manufacturers tend to not treat AM seriously. Historically speaking, there have been exceptions. For instance, Sansui produced an AM / FM tuner that had a pretty good AM section in it; early tube receivers also typically tried to do a good job. A good AM band receiver has control over IF bandwidth, and in a truly modern design, this is done with a software defined radio, so that the bandwidth is precisely controllable and essentially devoid of roll-off.
It can be a decision made by the carrier.
For instance, the Galaxy S7, definitely a higher end device, has FM receiver hardware. Sprint enabled it when the S7 was shipped; T-Mobile enabled it during an S7 system update; Verizon has not enabled it as of this posting.
And of course, I enjoy FM, and my S7 came from Verizon.
Broadcast AM (@ ~1MHz) is somewhat tougher to receive without a considerably more substantial antenna as compared to broadcast FM (@ ~ 100 MHz.)