And you conclude that from those buggy BNFs you linked to? Or something else?
The "buggy BNF" for Ruby is listed in Ruby's documentation. Matz himself probably wrote it. You want to call the BNF for Java "buggy," fine. First of all, look at the actual BNF instead of the hypertext:
here. Second of all, there's another Java BNF here that's even hairier. Third, have you programmed with both languages? It's freaking obvious that Java's more complex if you have. There are many more lines to accomplish the same tasks, and commands like System.out.println() accomplish the same thing as print in Ruby. If you look at code from both languages side by side, Java will have more lines, more commands, and longer commands. The only time this might not be the case is when you're doing something that involves heavy use of libraries, and perhaps Ruby doesn't have a mature library for whatever you're doing.
Ruby:
puts 'Hello World!'
Java (must be in file: "Hello.java"):
public class Hello {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello world!");
}
}
Er, hello? I know you were only criticizing the BNF's I cited, but think we can put all this "java is simpler" garbage to rest now.
Correction: Ruby's BNF has only 39 productions
on
Beyond Java
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· Score: 1
You must be kidding. Please explain to me how those to pages show java as being more complex.
No, I'm not kidding. Do you want me to explain how to read BNF, or are you saying that the BNF doesn't conclusively, empirically prove Ruby has a simpler syntax than Java? Java's BNF has 64 productions, Ruby's has 44. Case closed.
I'm not saying that means anything past that fact, I'm just correcting misinformation. I like both languages, and they both have their uses.
Re:That's why C is still the best
on
Beyond Java
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· Score: 1
With C, you can have the security of strong typing, with the power of dynamic typing, by using casts.
Not the same thing. Also requires a lot of manual memory management, which is a bigger source of bugs than those a weakly typed compiler misses. I prefer static, strong typing, but I have to point this out.
You can write Perl in C, just use one of the several string manipulation and regexp libraries available.
Specifically, lex can allow you to create parsers and other regex machines trivially. But it's still easier to do it with Perl or particularly awk.
Why stay locked forever in a language designed for beginners?
What language are you referring to? C++ was designed as a beginner's language (or at least Stroustrop had an academic approach in the design), as was Smalltalk. Java might be taught as an introductory language (my program taught C++) in some places, but that doesn't make it a language for "beginners." It's a widely-used, enterprise-grade language that allows for rapid development of secure apps, it's not some toy.
Languages are just tools. You use the right language for the job. If you're building an enterprise-grade Web application that has changing requirements, heavy dependence on a middleware layer, and must be portable, perhaps Java is what you need. If you're writing drivers or client-side software for a known platform, then C would be what you use. I'm not saying these are the only applications for these languages, those are just examples.
Sure, C is the most powerful higher-level language. That doesn't mean it's cost-effective for every project.
WTF? Look at the BNFs for each language: Java is NOT simpler than Ruby.
Re:Never understand when people say OSS is secure
on
Mitnick on OSS
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· Score: 1
While we're touting anecdotal data, how about OpenBSD? Its source is fully exposed, and "Only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years!"
One thing that gives extra incentive for people in the OSS world to write code that hasn't really been mentioned much is pride: you don't want to look like an idiot, and your code is subject to peer review. Peer review is what drives scientific innovation, including OSS. Plus, the aforementioned public scrutiny and comparatively relaxed working conditions also help. Closed-source and proprietary software such as Oracle, IOS, and yes, Windows XP frequently have very dangerous bugs. You cite OS X as an example of a secure OS (which is itself debatable), but even it is largely open source in terms of areas of culnerability: sure, Aqua is proprietary, but Darwin, where most exploits take place, is WFO. The kernel itself, XNU, is Mach/FreeBSD. (Having a microkernel and the port rights that come with it probably has something to do with OS X's security too, btw).
A good design is secure by its very nature and by the way it's used, not through obscurity. Security through obscurity has been disproved as an effective methodology time and again. A good design can reveal its inner workings without exposing itself to more risk than is offset by the improvements garnered from peer review. If you use stack randomization, role-based access control, type enforcement, and other proven methods to secure your server, and also make it difficult for a would-be intruder to discover exactly what kind of server you have, then it doesn't really matter if your server software's source code is exposed, does it?
This is by no means a scientific poll, but I went to securityfocus and ran a vulnerability search for IIS and then Apache. IIS returned 259 results, and Apache returned 330, both going back to early 1996. These are vulnerabilities, not exploits. The point is, that Apache having just 61 more vulnerabilities, when the source code is fully exposed and it is a much more prevalent Web server, casts doubt on your argument. There are more vulnerabilities (but not that many more), but fewer exploits, and vulnerabilities are fixed faster.
I think OSS is the most insecure software out there. Think of it. Anybody could take RedHat's source code, create their own distro filled with back doors and zombie daemons, and then distribute this OS supposedly under the guise of a secure RedHat release
So your point is that the means of distribution that some OSS used (being internet downloads, I suppose) is what makes OSS more vulnerable? Don't you think people might notice the checksums don't match? What's to stop someone from altering the installer for Windows XP and distributing a modified volume-license w4r3z edition of that with the same sorts of vulnerabilities?
You can dream up such scenarios, but the facts unfortunately get in the way. The security records of F/OSS are comparable and often much better than that of their proprietary competitors.
Not to let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory, but "Giant" isn't referring to size, it's the species: Giant Pacific Octopus ( Enteroctopus dofleini). But, considering giant octopi can be 23 feet wide at 73kg, I'd say it's a good appellation either way.
which highlights the rudeness in my own post. I must first apologize for that.
Actually, I thought you were quite civil, but thanks anyway, and I apologize in turn for any pedanticism or rudeness on my part.
As far as references go, I generally read Biblical Archaeology Review on a sporadic basis, and it's a very even-handed and scientific publication. They tend to skew pro-Christianity if there is any question on an issue, but they are much more fair than other publications.
There is a lot of scholarship on documents referencing Christ, I cannot tell you where I've read about the Talmudic writings and Tacitus, Josephus, et al specifically because I have read so much about them over the years. I think the best place to start is Google, which could then point you to peer-reviewed articles and perhaps Amazon books on the topic.
As a math guy, I am constrained to point out that Jesus probably died around 30 A.D., which would cut the time in half. But even a couple of hundred years, in my understanding, is not a great deal of time when you're talking about the transmission of old texts. Anyway, I'm definitely not an expert.
Of course you are correct on the math, that was a hangover from my youth, when I thought AD stood for "after death" and not "anno dei." I still occasionally brain fart on that.
Neither am I an expert, but generally I think these texts were oral traditions first, then scattered textual records, some of which appear to have drawn from a source proto-gospel which is referred to as "Q" (which is an abbreviation for some German word, cannot remember what). The point is, the texts first had to be subject to at least several decades of human error or deliberate manipulation in transmission, and then the texts that were included in the official cannon were decided by human institutions. In other words, even if one assumes that the story of Jesus is true, it's very difficult to know what parts of the story are true, due to the vagaries of humans: their imperfection (meaning mistakes in transcription or accidental omissions) and the agendas of the church forefathers (some scholars believe firmly that Jesus spoke 20% or fewer of the words attributed to him in the Gospels, and that the rest was words put in his mouth). I can think of an example of stuff that is suspected of being fake: the whole "doubting Thomas" story, which only appears in John, is thought by Elaine Pagels (whom you should consider reading, she's very interesting) to be an agenda-driven fabrication taking a shot at the Thomists, whose much different interpretation of Jesus (the Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic gospel) did not make it into the cannon. Such possible manipulations, or even mistakes, we have to accept as, if not fact, possibility. That this happened for so many years exposes the documents to a lot of manipulation.
Is it possible for a kernel of truth to survive? Oh course. Is it possible for the truth to be reported perfectly? I don't think so, outside of mystical guidance, which has to be rejected out of hand from a scientific standpoint. I suppose that somewhere in between those extremes lies the truth, and that analysis of the Bible and source documents that did not make it into the Bible might give us a more accurate picture of early Christianity.
snip... Blind faith just isn't going to cut it.
Well, I have to level with you, I said that, but that's not really what I believe. That's not to say I was lying, I was simply saying I think that way of thinking is fine for some people. I said that in deference to anyone else who might be reading and their religious sensibilities. I don't want to stir up people's religiosity any more than I already have. It's simply too personal of a thing, and pointless to debate.
Have you really checked out the dozen or so "outside" documents that Christians regularly discuss? Yes, the Josephus article looks doctored, but you can even extract from it a subset of the content that looks plausible and tells you things about Christ. The most interesting one to stick in my memory is a different Jewish document which describes Christ performing 'astounding acts through the use of evil power.' Basically, it's a hostile source that accepts the events themselves, but tries to discredit them based on the source of Christ's power. I'd cite, but I've loaned out my copy of "The Case for Christ"
As a matter of fact, I have reviewed the specious types of documents to which you refer, and no serious Christian or secular scholars take them seriously--that's why they only appear in poorly-researched polemic works like the one you describe and not Biblical Archaeology Review. The cited passage is not from a contemporary document, it's from nearly two centuries after Christ was allegedly crucified. Tacitus was one hundred years before that, but still a century after Jesus' lifetime--well after Christianity was well-established. There's a reference from Pliny the Younger from 11 years after that. Then there are Talmudic references are even newer than the one you mention.
There; I just did.
I'm afraid you didn't, but I'd be interested if you could provide solid evidence, though I think I would have heard about it if it existed. The latest thing is the James ossuary, whose authenticity is in debate, and which is certainly inconclusive even if authentic, as Biblical Archaeology Review says that there must have been around 20 men names James with brothers names Jesus in Jerusalem at the time of its interment. Assuming it's legitimate, and assuming the Jesus in question is Christ, that would be the earliest mention of his name, at 63 A.D. 63 years is a long time, and that would be the closest mention we've found.
Also, I would point out that your earlier argument against Jesus' miracles (and resurrection) based on the fact that these things don't happen in nature appears circular. If God exists as a power outside of nature, and He has the power to alter our world, then Christ's miracles are not difficult to believe (and see above source). Only the a priori assumption that God does not exist or posess such power makes the miracles impossible. But that assumption is essentially the same as the conclusion
Well, you can call it a circular argument if you want, but I never said God didn't exist, miracles couldn't happen, or even that Jesus didn't exist. My only point is that when one is discussing unprecedented events, especially when far removed from those events or any evidence that they happened, the burden of proof is upon the person claiming those unprecedented events occurred. That seems like a fair logical rule to me. Otherwise, there's absolutely no reason to reject the mythologies of other religions.
I can almost prove to you that we do not think we live in a mystical world with the following example: if the Chinese had some intelligence on our nuclear technology, would you think that it was through espionage, or through psychics reading our top nuclear physicists' minds? Almost everyone would assume espionage. That leaves the defense that the world was different in Jesus' time, but looking at phrenology and other superstitions like witchcraft through history, it appears that we have a better grasp of reality in our current, materialist context than did our forbears in their mystical one. So perhaps the world was different in Jesus' time, but Occam's Razor suggests that people, not the world, were different.
I only brought it up in the first place because a Christian was sitting there saying someone else was "bonkers" for a theory of events yet to come--not even a prophecy, just a theory. I was simply pointing out how ridiculous his own
It's easy to say "no official texts" when you categorize anything that backs it up as "unofficial".
Straw man. I discounted the Josephus document alone, as I'm fairly certain most historians you talk to would. I never called it "unofficial," but it almost certainly was doctored. Even if this document were accepted as factual, it's not by any means conclusive.
All you need to do is produce ONE Roman or Jewish record--both cultures were assiduous record-keepers, though of course the temple was destroyed. The only records that exist are faith-based documents written decades (I think 5 at the earliest?) after Jesus' alleged crucifixion. It seems unlikely that at least ONE record that is not driven by an agenda would not persist.
you will find that almost all of Christ's miracles were reproductions of earlier miracles done by Moses and the Prophets. This was done on purpose to let people know that he was the promised one.
By Occam's Razor, I would submit that those stories were told and then recorded by people who were themselves familiar with the Old Testament. They had 50 years to refine them and incorporate them into Mark's book. That's certainly not proof or even evidence of any kind.
Christ certainly was not ascetic, not were his followers, but having wealth is not the same as living a hedonistic lifestyle. Christ himself had no place he could call home, nor many more possesions than he carried on his person, but any ministry has to have money in order to survive, and Christ's was no exception. How could Judas have stolen from the till if there was no money in it?
Christ regularly fasted and was very poor and was willingly tortured to death and for his entire evangelical life lived on alms and died a virgin. Sounds ascetic to me. I'm not suggesting that Jesus' crew would have had no money, but I am suggesting that he would have lived from day to day, "as the birds do." There would necessarily be a till for the daily donations, and perhaps there would even be money left in the till at the end of the day, particularly if there was a lot of mission work or travel to be done and no time for begging. After all, there were many mouths to feed.
But the Gospels have a rich record of Jesus saying not to accumulate wealth.
Yet some of the most important, positive characters in the Bible were extraordinaily wealthy. Abraham, King David and Solomon for example.
Different Testament, different Covenant. Are you suggesting that Jesus' teachings are exactly the same as the Old Testament teachings? Jesus was a radical. Jesus told his followers to give away their wealth in order to follow him. Jesus himself was poor, and himself is supposed to be the ideal upon which Christians model themselves. Jesus specifically spoke against wealth several times in the NT and negatively contrasted the world the the inner world of the spirit. I simply don't see how the pursuit of wealth is reconcilable with Christianity, particularly when it comes at someone else's expense.
Social security is silly. Christianity is silly. Fine. In one of the two, you force me to accept your beliefs. In the other, I don't force you to accept anything. That's the end of that debate. You force me, I don't force you. Who is more correct in their beliefs?
It's not at all the end of the debate, because I wasn't debating Christianity's veracity in the first place. I was just letting you know how ridiculous it sounds for a mystic to make another person out to be some kind of wingnut.
Anarcho-capitalism is not a myth, it merely means "no government / volutary cooperation with mutual profit." Are there places that require the use of force? Possibly -- but the only way I'll accept a monopoly on force is after I see how things go with everything else.
A "monopoly on force," just like the ability for private individuals to amass capital, is impossible in an anarchist system.
Profit is not ever only good for one party
That's an insane proposition. Are you suggesting that no one has ever paid for something they don't need, or that in fact might even be bad for them? Or how about having to pay too much for something you're entitled to get cheaper, because cronyism left you with one option? Are you familiar with the attempts to privatize Bolivia's water supply? People were forced to pay through the nose for the basic human right of potable water. That was capitalism. that was profit going to one party at the expense of another. Yeah, the Bolivians benefitted by having access to water that wouldn't give them cholera, but that doesn't mean this was a just system. They have repatriated the water treatment facility and now run it themselves, as they should. I can stay in Bolivia and cite another example. They were basically forced by the IMF and World Bank to sell off their oil reserves to Enron for pennies on the dollar of what they were worth. A few people at the top benefitted (though not nearly as much as they should have), but even though they got some money, it was essentially theft--they deserve to use the wealth of their natural resources to better their country, and capitalism unchecked relieved them of that right. Capitalism, like everything else, has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. You cannot make simplistic, generalized platitudes such as the above and remain truthful and realistic.
A population doubling is a Godsend! Think of it: twice as many brilliant inventors to come up with new ways to feed and organize the world.
I don't think you understand math very well. There are only so many undiscovered possibilities to feed the world. Perhaps a doubling of the population will get us those answers faster (though I would submit more because of necessity than numbers). There's no evidence that suggests that those answers include solutions that will allow us to grow for ever, and there's certainly no evidence for another substance with the stability and energy density of petroleum.
Furthermore, there is direct historical evidence that murder, insanity, disease, warfare, economic instability, starvation, genocide, moral depravity, theft, and all sorts of societal ills correlate to population. In the past century, we have had two catastrophic world wars that made the combined wars in our world history (which were increasingly catastrophic in proportion to population) collectively pale by comparison in terms of loss of life (65 million in just the latter war) and property.
Or do you think that doubling the population means doubling the poor? I don't see that happening.
No, not literally, but mainly. Everyone knows that the population boom has been occurring mainly in undeveloped countries. There is actually negative population growth in Germany, and some other industrialized countries are close to ZPG.
The most successful capitalists are usually against employment, at least in regards to themselves.
No, the most successful capitalists are against employment solely in regards to themselves. If they didn't have employees, or if the capital they held shares in did not have employees, they would have nothing.
That said, I was thinking of his statement as a dig against employment generally and not personally, so I see your (and probably his) point.
I run XP and OS X. I think it will be nice to either dual-boot and/or have really fast virtualization of XP in OS X. So, I guess if the latter is good enough, there would be no need for the former, aside from games.
Re:Doomsday can come only from governments
on
Forecasting Doomsday
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· Score: 5, Insightful
And people think us Christ followers are bonkers.
I'm not saying you're bonkers, but you contradict yourself several times in this post and put forth some strange ideas. Also, before you call other people "bonkers," consider your faith in a god/man who allegedly, two thousand years ago, according to no official texts, and only to the writings of his followers (don't cite me the fabricated Josephus passage please), brought back dead people, healed the blind and leprous, and walked on water, then resurrected from the dead, each of which are unprecedented events in all of proven, reliable human history. You accept a patently ridiculous story with objectively much less probability of being true than what this guy is positing (at least in terms of the prediction, I'm not to familiar with the underlying Gaia framework), so think twice before you call him out--it kind of sounds silly.
I hate the idea of working as a salaried employee
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote),
Obviously the two statements are contradictory enough to warrant an explanation. There is no such thing as a "capitalist anarchy." Anarcho-Capitalism is a fabricated ideology that is self-contradictory. All it means as far as I can tell is massive deregulation and civil libertarianism. That looks to me like a recipe for drug warlords, arms dealers, and crooked businessmen running roughshod over everyone. If you applied it to the current system without redistributing wealth, it would be catastrophic and unfair.
Anarchy means the abolition of hierarchy. Capitalism is by definition a hierarchical system. Never the twain shall meet: they are mutually exclusive. You could call yourself a Libertarian (with a capital 'L'), in the sense of the Libertarian party, and perhaps in the sense of personal freedom. But with the former you would be pushing a Social Darwinist ideal, which seems at odds with your Christianity.
creating communities of people who love one another but are no adverse to profit or personal gain
But doesn't profit almost always come at someone else's expense? I understand there is a way that equal parties can exchange equal goods and mutually benefit, but "profit" and "personal gain" were, if anything, discouraged by Jesus.
You call yourself a "Christ follower" and then talk about a gold fetish. Jesus was strictly ascetic, and it's supposedly the Christian credo to try to be as much like Christ as possible. That means that "you cannot serve God and wealth" and therefore should give away all your worldly possessions. Christians attempt all sorts of distortions and intellectual wild goose chases to get around this, but wealth and Christianity, and therefore Capitalism, are not just incompatible, but diametrically opposed explicitly by the Gospel's teachings.
Simon showed that more people means more wealth, more innovation and long lives for everyone. Look at China. They were on the verge of overpopulation, but it wasn't the mass numbers that was killing them -- it was government and communism.
This is so outlandishly detached from reality that I don't even know where to begin. China's in a heap of shit right now. Their growth is amazing, but it is also provably unsustainable. They appear to be in an intractable and dangerous situation, all BECAUSE of their massive population quickly transitioning from agrarianism to urban life. Furthermore, when oil starts running out, China and other (artificially) petro-agriculturally-inflated populations in the Third World will start dying by the millions due to starvation and sanitation issues.
Communism offered them shortened lives with no reason to want to live -- freedom gives everyone a reason to work together to try to live longer together.
Core Image in OS X offloads a lot of the GUI stuff to the graphics processor. To get all the eye candy (sorry, usability improvements) you can't have a particularly old card. Vista is doing the same thing.
That's not exactly true. Core Image provides the real-time framework for certain filters to execute on pixels. This includes, for a GUI example, the ripple when a widget is added to Dashboard, but it could also include filters in a Cocoa image manipulation program. Developers can trivially add the built-in effects to video and image manipulation packages. Similarly, Core Audio can easily be incorporated by developers into their own apps.
What you're describing sounds more like Quartz Extreme, which renders 2D screen elements as OpenGL textures. The idea is to offload as much of the drawing process to the graphics card as possible by using the often idle 3D hardware.
iTMS music plays exclusively (in theory) in iTunes and on the iPod. The reason there are more legitimate downloads from iPod users is that they have the best, and most popular, music store and the easiest integration. It isn't some moral high ground. Why is/. continually posting moronic, non-stories? (And why am I reading them??)
As a scientist, he was actually kind of sketchy. He did some great experimental research, but also was very convinced of some really sketchy things when he should have known better, as a scienist.
If that undermines his legacy as a scientist, then you have to also apply that (IMO strange) estimation to several other, previously considered great, scientists. There are plenty of puzzling cases where great scientists have been convinced of things that should have been clearly false to them, even by their own findings. There have even been cases where scientists were basically proven to be wrong, and continued to either defend or reformulate their wrong hypothesis or claim they never said it, or perhaps said it as a Socratic exercise or a joke. There are also plenty of cases where great scientists have done incredible work and made great discoveries, but have failed to put things together and draw the obvious, final conclusion.
Einstein, for a prominent example, should have also known better than to reject quantum mechanics when his own work suggested it, and he certainly should never have made the entirely unscientific statement regarding this rejection: "God does not play dice."
His mathematical abilities are what allowed him to make the scientific discoveries, not his brilliance as a scientist.
Well then how do you explain insights into physical phenomena that Newton discovered that are governed by very simple math? Consider the laws of motion, and equations like F = ma. That requires the type of A-HA! insight that goes beyond math. Science and philosophy were the same domain in Newton's time, and his insights were philosophical AND mathematical. Newton did a lot of research and discussed theories with his peers and published. As much as the era would allow, he was a scientist, and a brilliant one.
A lot of the things he did were sitting around waiting to be connected up by the math, once the Calculus arrived on the scene.
That's an odd thing to say, since Newton invented Calculus. Oh, sure, you can rightly say that Leibniz discovered it slightly before Newton, but since he didn't publish his findings, Newton was forced to discover it for himself.
Newton was a prodigious asshole, but he was also the most profound physicist, and among the best mathematicians, of all time.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps that's why Google is interested in buying dark fiber.
Ruby:
puts 'Hello World!'
Java (must be in file: "Hello.java"):
public class Hello {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello world!");
}
}
Er, hello? I know you were only criticizing the BNF's I cited, but think we can put all this "java is simpler" garbage to rest now.
SSIA
I'm not saying that means anything past that fact, I'm just correcting misinformation. I like both languages, and they both have their uses.
Languages are just tools. You use the right language for the job. If you're building an enterprise-grade Web application that has changing requirements, heavy dependence on a middleware layer, and must be portable, perhaps Java is what you need. If you're writing drivers or client-side software for a known platform, then C would be what you use. I'm not saying these are the only applications for these languages, those are just examples.
Sure, C is the most powerful higher-level language. That doesn't mean it's cost-effective for every project.
WTF? Look at the BNFs for each language: Java is NOT simpler than Ruby.
One thing that gives extra incentive for people in the OSS world to write code that hasn't really been mentioned much is pride: you don't want to look like an idiot, and your code is subject to peer review. Peer review is what drives scientific innovation, including OSS. Plus, the aforementioned public scrutiny and comparatively relaxed working conditions also help. Closed-source and proprietary software such as Oracle, IOS, and yes, Windows XP frequently have very dangerous bugs. You cite OS X as an example of a secure OS (which is itself debatable), but even it is largely open source in terms of areas of culnerability: sure, Aqua is proprietary, but Darwin, where most exploits take place, is WFO. The kernel itself, XNU, is Mach/FreeBSD. (Having a microkernel and the port rights that come with it probably has something to do with OS X's security too, btw).
A good design is secure by its very nature and by the way it's used, not through obscurity. Security through obscurity has been disproved as an effective methodology time and again. A good design can reveal its inner workings without exposing itself to more risk than is offset by the improvements garnered from peer review. If you use stack randomization, role-based access control, type enforcement, and other proven methods to secure your server, and also make it difficult for a would-be intruder to discover exactly what kind of server you have, then it doesn't really matter if your server software's source code is exposed, does it?
This is by no means a scientific poll, but I went to securityfocus and ran a vulnerability search for IIS and then Apache. IIS returned 259 results, and Apache returned 330, both going back to early 1996. These are vulnerabilities, not exploits. The point is, that Apache having just 61 more vulnerabilities, when the source code is fully exposed and it is a much more prevalent Web server, casts doubt on your argument. There are more vulnerabilities (but not that many more), but fewer exploits, and vulnerabilities are fixed faster.
So your point is that the means of distribution that some OSS used (being internet downloads, I suppose) is what makes OSS more vulnerable? Don't you think people might notice the checksums don't match? What's to stop someone from altering the installer for Windows XP and distributing a modified volume-license w4r3z edition of that with the same sorts of vulnerabilities?You can dream up such scenarios, but the facts unfortunately get in the way. The security records of F/OSS are comparable and often much better than that of their proprietary competitors.
...or his first name wasn't Morning?
Not to let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory, but "Giant" isn't referring to size, it's the species: Giant Pacific Octopus ( Enteroctopus dofleini). But, considering giant octopi can be 23 feet wide at 73kg, I'd say it's a good appellation either way.
Here's how to remove it.
Actually, I thought you were quite civil, but thanks anyway, and I apologize in turn for any pedanticism or rudeness on my part.
As far as references go, I generally read Biblical Archaeology Review on a sporadic basis, and it's a very even-handed and scientific publication. They tend to skew pro-Christianity if there is any question on an issue, but they are much more fair than other publications.
There is a lot of scholarship on documents referencing Christ, I cannot tell you where I've read about the Talmudic writings and Tacitus, Josephus, et al specifically because I have read so much about them over the years. I think the best place to start is Google, which could then point you to peer-reviewed articles and perhaps Amazon books on the topic.
Of course you are correct on the math, that was a hangover from my youth, when I thought AD stood for "after death" and not "anno dei." I still occasionally brain fart on that.
Neither am I an expert, but generally I think these texts were oral traditions first, then scattered textual records, some of which appear to have drawn from a source proto-gospel which is referred to as "Q" (which is an abbreviation for some German word, cannot remember what). The point is, the texts first had to be subject to at least several decades of human error or deliberate manipulation in transmission, and then the texts that were included in the official cannon were decided by human institutions. In other words, even if one assumes that the story of Jesus is true, it's very difficult to know what parts of the story are true, due to the vagaries of humans: their imperfection (meaning mistakes in transcription or accidental omissions) and the agendas of the church forefathers (some scholars believe firmly that Jesus spoke 20% or fewer of the words attributed to him in the Gospels, and that the rest was words put in his mouth). I can think of an example of stuff that is suspected of being fake: the whole "doubting Thomas" story, which only appears in John, is thought by Elaine Pagels (whom you should consider reading, she's very interesting) to be an agenda-driven fabrication taking a shot at the Thomists, whose much different interpretation of Jesus (the Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic gospel) did not make it into the cannon. Such possible manipulations, or even mistakes, we have to accept as, if not fact, possibility. That this happened for so many years exposes the documents to a lot of manipulation.
Is it possible for a kernel of truth to survive? Oh course. Is it possible for the truth to be reported perfectly? I don't think so, outside of mystical guidance, which has to be rejected out of hand from a scientific standpoint. I suppose that somewhere in between those extremes lies the truth, and that analysis of the Bible and source documents that did not make it into the Bible might give us a more accurate picture of early Christianity.
Well, I have to level with you, I said that, but that's not really what I believe. That's not to say I was lying, I was simply saying I think that way of thinking is fine for some people. I said that in deference to anyone else who might be reading and their religious sensibilities. I don't want to stir up people's religiosity any more than I already have. It's simply too personal of a thing, and pointless to debate.
Josephus is widely regarded as a forgery, and the other two were over a century after Jesus' lifetime, well after Christianity was established.
As a matter of fact, I have reviewed the specious types of documents to which you refer, and no serious Christian or secular scholars take them seriously--that's why they only appear in poorly-researched polemic works like the one you describe and not Biblical Archaeology Review. The cited passage is not from a contemporary document, it's from nearly two centuries after Christ was allegedly crucified. Tacitus was one hundred years before that, but still a century after Jesus' lifetime--well after Christianity was well-established. There's a reference from Pliny the Younger from 11 years after that. Then there are Talmudic references are even newer than the one you mention.
I'm afraid you didn't, but I'd be interested if you could provide solid evidence, though I think I would have heard about it if it existed. The latest thing is the James ossuary, whose authenticity is in debate, and which is certainly inconclusive even if authentic, as Biblical Archaeology Review says that there must have been around 20 men names James with brothers names Jesus in Jerusalem at the time of its interment. Assuming it's legitimate, and assuming the Jesus in question is Christ, that would be the earliest mention of his name, at 63 A.D. 63 years is a long time, and that would be the closest mention we've found.
Well, you can call it a circular argument if you want, but I never said God didn't exist, miracles couldn't happen, or even that Jesus didn't exist. My only point is that when one is discussing unprecedented events, especially when far removed from those events or any evidence that they happened, the burden of proof is upon the person claiming those unprecedented events occurred. That seems like a fair logical rule to me. Otherwise, there's absolutely no reason to reject the mythologies of other religions.
I can almost prove to you that we do not think we live in a mystical world with the following example: if the Chinese had some intelligence on our nuclear technology, would you think that it was through espionage, or through psychics reading our top nuclear physicists' minds? Almost everyone would assume espionage. That leaves the defense that the world was different in Jesus' time, but looking at phrenology and other superstitions like witchcraft through history, it appears that we have a better grasp of reality in our current, materialist context than did our forbears in their mystical one. So perhaps the world was different in Jesus' time, but Occam's Razor suggests that people, not the world, were different.
I only brought it up in the first place because a Christian was sitting there saying someone else was "bonkers" for a theory of events yet to come--not even a prophecy, just a theory. I was simply pointing out how ridiculous his own
All you need to do is produce ONE Roman or Jewish record--both cultures were assiduous record-keepers, though of course the temple was destroyed. The only records that exist are faith-based documents written decades (I think 5 at the earliest?) after Jesus' alleged crucifixion. It seems unlikely that at least ONE record that is not driven by an agenda would not persist.
By Occam's Razor, I would submit that those stories were told and then recorded by people who were themselves familiar with the Old Testament. They had 50 years to refine them and incorporate them into Mark's book. That's certainly not proof or even evidence of any kind. Christ regularly fasted and was very poor and was willingly tortured to death and for his entire evangelical life lived on alms and died a virgin. Sounds ascetic to me. I'm not suggesting that Jesus' crew would have had no money, but I am suggesting that he would have lived from day to day, "as the birds do." There would necessarily be a till for the daily donations, and perhaps there would even be money left in the till at the end of the day, particularly if there was a lot of mission work or travel to be done and no time for begging. After all, there were many mouths to feed.But the Gospels have a rich record of Jesus saying not to accumulate wealth.
Different Testament, different Covenant. Are you suggesting that Jesus' teachings are exactly the same as the Old Testament teachings? Jesus was a radical. Jesus told his followers to give away their wealth in order to follow him. Jesus himself was poor, and himself is supposed to be the ideal upon which Christians model themselves. Jesus specifically spoke against wealth several times in the NT and negatively contrasted the world the the inner world of the spirit. I simply don't see how the pursuit of wealth is reconcilable with Christianity, particularly when it comes at someone else's expense.It's not at all the end of the debate, because I wasn't debating Christianity's veracity in the first place. I was just letting you know how ridiculous it sounds for a mystic to make another person out to be some kind of wingnut.
A "monopoly on force," just like the ability for private individuals to amass capital, is impossible in an anarchist system.
That's an insane proposition. Are you suggesting that no one has ever paid for something they don't need, or that in fact might even be bad for them? Or how about having to pay too much for something you're entitled to get cheaper, because cronyism left you with one option? Are you familiar with the attempts to privatize Bolivia's water supply? People were forced to pay through the nose for the basic human right of potable water. That was capitalism. that was profit going to one party at the expense of another. Yeah, the Bolivians benefitted by having access to water that wouldn't give them cholera, but that doesn't mean this was a just system. They have repatriated the water treatment facility and now run it themselves, as they should. I can stay in Bolivia and cite another example. They were basically forced by the IMF and World Bank to sell off their oil reserves to Enron for pennies on the dollar of what they were worth. A few people at the top benefitted (though not nearly as much as they should have), but even though they got some money, it was essentially theft--they deserve to use the wealth of their natural resources to better their country, and capitalism unchecked relieved them of that right. Capitalism, like everything else, has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. You cannot make simplistic, generalized platitudes such as the above and remain truthful and realistic.
I don't think you understand math very well. There are only so many undiscovered possibilities to feed the world. Perhaps a doubling of the population will get us those answers faster (though I would submit more because of necessity than numbers). There's no evidence that suggests that those answers include solutions that will allow us to grow for ever, and there's certainly no evidence for another substance with the stability and energy density of petroleum.
Furthermore, there is direct historical evidence that murder, insanity, disease, warfare, economic instability, starvation, genocide, moral depravity, theft, and all sorts of societal ills correlate to population. In the past century, we have had two catastrophic world wars that made the combined wars in our world history (which were increasingly catastrophic in proportion to population) collectively pale by comparison in terms of loss of life (65 million in just the latter war) and property.
No, not literally, but mainly. Everyone knows that the population boom has been occurring mainly in undeveloped countries. There is actually negative population growth in Germany, and some other industrialized countries are close to ZPG.
That said, I was thinking of his statement as a dig against employment generally and not personally, so I see your (and probably his) point.
I run XP and OS X. I think it will be nice to either dual-boot and/or have really fast virtualization of XP in OS X. So, I guess if the latter is good enough, there would be no need for the former, aside from games.
I'm not saying you're bonkers, but you contradict yourself several times in this post and put forth some strange ideas. Also, before you call other people "bonkers," consider your faith in a god/man who allegedly, two thousand years ago, according to no official texts, and only to the writings of his followers (don't cite me the fabricated Josephus passage please), brought back dead people, healed the blind and leprous, and walked on water, then resurrected from the dead, each of which are unprecedented events in all of proven, reliable human history. You accept a patently ridiculous story with objectively much less probability of being true than what this guy is positing (at least in terms of the prediction, I'm not to familiar with the underlying Gaia framework), so think twice before you call him out--it kind of sounds silly.
Obviously the two statements are contradictory enough to warrant an explanation. There is no such thing as a "capitalist anarchy." Anarcho-Capitalism is a fabricated ideology that is self-contradictory. All it means as far as I can tell is massive deregulation and civil libertarianism. That looks to me like a recipe for drug warlords, arms dealers, and crooked businessmen running roughshod over everyone. If you applied it to the current system without redistributing wealth, it would be catastrophic and unfair.
Anarchy means the abolition of hierarchy. Capitalism is by definition a hierarchical system. Never the twain shall meet: they are mutually exclusive. You could call yourself a Libertarian (with a capital 'L'), in the sense of the Libertarian party, and perhaps in the sense of personal freedom. But with the former you would be pushing a Social Darwinist ideal, which seems at odds with your Christianity.
But doesn't profit almost always come at someone else's expense? I understand there is a way that equal parties can exchange equal goods and mutually benefit, but "profit" and "personal gain" were, if anything, discouraged by Jesus. You call yourself a "Christ follower" and then talk about a gold fetish. Jesus was strictly ascetic, and it's supposedly the Christian credo to try to be as much like Christ as possible. That means that "you cannot serve God and wealth" and therefore should give away all your worldly possessions. Christians attempt all sorts of distortions and intellectual wild goose chases to get around this, but wealth and Christianity, and therefore Capitalism, are not just incompatible, but diametrically opposed explicitly by the Gospel's teachings.
This is so outlandishly detached from reality that I don't even know where to begin. China's in a heap of shit right now. Their growth is amazing, but it is also provably unsustainable. They appear to be in an intractable and dangerous situation, all BECAUSE of their massive population quickly transitioning from agrarianism to urban life. Furthermore, when oil starts running out, China and other (artificially) petro-agriculturally-inflated populations in the Third World will start dying by the millions due to starvation and sanitation issues.
What you're describing sounds more like Quartz Extreme, which renders 2D screen elements as OpenGL textures. The idea is to offload as much of the drawing process to the graphics card as possible by using the often idle 3D hardware.
Fucken DUH.....
OS X certainly "uses" a microkernel, Mach, but it's not used as a microkernel.
Einstein, for a prominent example, should have also known better than to reject quantum mechanics when his own work suggested it, and he certainly should never have made the entirely unscientific statement regarding this rejection: "God does not play dice."
Newton was a prodigious asshole, but he was also the most profound physicist, and among the best mathematicians, of all time.