Finally, last I checked, George Washington's birthday as listed in Wikipedia is, in fact, correct, so that's not a good example by any means.
But what are you checking it against? Common knowledge? You're own personal research? Another encyclopedia?
This question is neither aimed at being pro- or anti-wikipedia, just meant to point out a general problem/issue with "information" and "facts" in general, which is that there isn't a real way of knowing what constitutes a "reliable source". Each and every source is capable of both mistakes and deception, whether it be your own senses, your rational faculties, the smartest person on earth, or a commonly cited book. It all seems to boil down to whether we feel we can "trust" the source.
What's not to be overlooked here is that the sort of trust necessary is a function of the purpose of the information. If I'm curious and want to know about heart surgery, I'd like my information to be somewhat correct, but the details are likely to be fairly unimportant. If, however, I'm going in for heart surgery, I'd hope that the surgeon's source of information (even if it's his own memory) is highly detailed on the issues about "how to do the surgery". Still a different sort of information is important for the doctor who is teaching young surgeons or the researcher pioneering new methods of surgery. While the surgeon himself only needs to know the "how" of surgery well enough to complete the operation without incident, or to handle complications which may arise, the teacher and researcher must understand the "why" well enough to explain to others and look for more efficient techniques.
So while, for most of us, common consensus would be sufficient to substantiate George Washington's birthday, if I were a historian attempting to evaluate some confusion surrounding his birth, I might have to do quite a bit of research to confirm that no mistake was made and no deception took place. Even after the most thorough research, the resulting information would be a best guess on the perceived reliability of ones sources.
All of this is to say that no "reference materials" like dictionaries and encyclopedias should be taken as completely authoritative, but taken with a grain of salt, how much salt depending on the reference material. I, for one, don't put much trust in the Wikipedia for settling contentious arguments, since I know full well that if I wanted to argue that Washington's birthday was on a different day, I could change the Wikipedia entry, and so could the person I was arguing with. Such a maneuver would be far more difficult with the Encyclopedia Britanica, so I might give it more consideration, but I have also noted, when reviewing materials in which I do have some expertise, encyclopedia entries never show much expertise in the fields they're handling.
On the other hand, if there is a topic that I'm curious about, I find that, for the level of necessary trust for satisfying curiosity, the Wikipedia is a good source and has some advantages over some other encyclopedias (such as carrying very recent information).
Sure, there are ways to handle it, but my point was more about the inherent difference in investment and difficulty of making a misleading web page vs. building a entire fake restaurant, as well as the difference in difficulty of covering your tracks after the fact.
Building a restaurant means leasing a space, buying materials, passing building/health codes, paying a staff. After that large an investment, you have a better chance at making money by operating the restaurant then stealing your customer's credit cards. If you did steal credit cards, there would be credit applications, someone's name on the lease, and the owner would lose his investment.
But building a website takes half a brain and an hour of work with a text-file editor. Sure you need some web space to post it, but that can be gotten around.
So what I'm saying is, yes, there are ways to be careful on the web. However, if you believe your in as much danger handing over your credit card at a random restaurant as you are putting your credit card into random websites, I don't believe you've really evaluated the situation.
I can think of one difference: I know that the restaurant I'm in is the restaurant I mean to be in. As far as I know, there hasn't been much reason to worry about "fake" restaurants that take your credit card numbers and then don't bring you food, and when you call the authorities, the storefront evaporates. I guess someone could try a scam like that, but I haven't heard of it being much of a problem.
But web pages? Most people can't really tell the difference between a real store's site and a fake page designed to look like a real store's site. Plus the ettiquite of net behavior isn't as firmly set in people's mind. If the waiter from the restaurant shows up on your doorstep saying, "Ummm.... yeah, I'm gonna need your credit card for a few more minutes, for the restaurant, I mean," you'd know it was fishy. But a convincing-looking e-mail claiming to be from ebay, people don't know the difference between that and a real e-mail from ebay.
The key here is not to making it technically impossible to steal something, but to strongly discourage it.
Good point, especially since that's pretty much how "security" works. You make the prospect of doing something "bad" seem scary and dangerous to those who don't know what they're doing. For those who do know what they're doing, you're just hoping the risk:reward ratio will be high enough that they won't bother.
The first thing I disagree with is his assertion of how useful Linux would be when running under Windows. Is anyone crying for this?
Well, at least some people would like to see improved ability to run Linux apps on Windows, I guess... It has its usefulness, but then again, usually when people run Linux they *don't* want to run Windows, so no, I don't think this is a threat to Linux.
His second assertion that Microsoft could create a flavor of Linux with their driver-base that people would adopt is just as loony.
I think this is why people think Dvorak is either stupid or intentionally trolling for publicity. The fact is, Microsoft supporting Linux in any way only makes Linux stronger. Your average Slashdot geek isn't going to be any less anti-MS, and an MS Linux distro wouldn't diminish the benefits of going with a distro that's totally free (both beer and speech). The only thing it would do is making it harder for MS to break interoperability with other Linux distros without violating the GPL.
What he's saying is, if Microsoft starts supporting Linux that Linux will go away?
Yes. If Microsoft takes over Linux, Linux will become such an annoying POS that we'll all have to switch to some BSD or something, and Linux will go away.
See, it's all better. When you buy your computer, that's the OS you get to use for the entire life of the computer and certainly no one at Microsoft tech support or anywhere else would ever ask you to reinstall. Have a nice day.
Yeah... except for the fact that the first thing you really should do when you buy a new system is wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows to get rid of all the crap that OEMs load your computer up with. No.... I don't want musicmatch jukebox or Real Media Player.
There are differences between making an X server that enables people to use fancy 3D effects, making a GUI that uses fancy 3D effects, making a GUI that forces people to use fancy 3D effects, and ceasing support on GUIs that don't use 3D effects.
While I agree that OSS developers shouldn't stop supporting older hardware, that doesn't mean developers shouldn't also try to utilize the all the features and power of newer computers. There's no reason why the "few" OSS out there can't "catch up"with Windows (the quotes are there for a reason).
I might be misunderstanding what your asking for, but something like this already exists in both iCal and Evolution. You can subscribe to a calendar that's hosted on a server. Then, when you're viewing calendars, you have a sidebar with the list of calendars you have access to. Each calendar is assigned its own color, and the appointments for each persons calendar appear in the same calendar. The appointments are shown in the color associated with the calendar it's from so you can tell which appointment is whose. You can view all of them at once, or just one, or whatever combination you like. Not only can you subscribe to someone else's calendar, but you can create multiple personal calendars (home/work/whatever), each with it's own color, and do the same thing.
Like I said, I don't know if that's what you're asking for, but if you are, it's already available on OSX with iCal and Linux with Evolution. Evolution is also being ported to Windows. Also, I wouldn't be surprised to Sunbird had similar capabilities, but I don't use Sunbird, so I'm not sure.
Hell, give me neither cable and knock an additional $20 off the price (what Apple is charging for the cable). In fact, let me buy an ipod without the software CD or the white headphones, no accessories whatsoever, and knock another couple bucks off. Just an iPod in a box. Then, if I have multiple iPods, I'm only buying the dock and cable once. (They don't all need to charge and sync at the same time)
Force them them to use something else, and they no longer just know how to use windows, but how to use a *computer*.
I totally agree. If you're going to be teaching "computer literacy", it's better if you can incorporate multiple operating systems, not for the sake of being a politically-correct geek or pro-Linux advocacy, but because it will help them understand computers better.
For one thing, I don't consider a person "computer literate" because they can start MS Word and type a letter. If someone don't find it easy to sit down in front of any one of the more popular modern GUIs (Gnome, KDE, Windows, or OSX), find the word-processor, and type a letter, save it, and then find the saved file, they aren't computer literate. All of these DEs use common interface elements, and they should be figure-out-able even if you've never used them before so long as you *actually* understand how to use any of the other DEs.
In addition, seeing how the different DEs handle things would be helpful in understanding what's actually going on. I know lots of Windows users who don't really know what the start menu is. I mean, they use it all the time, but they don't know that it's a convention created to make your programs easier to find, they believe that it's as simple as "If I want to access Microsoft Word, it comes up when I click on start." Since they've only been exposed to Windows, they don't understand that a computer could exist without a start menu. It would be a useful training technique to stick these people in front of a Mac, for example, and point out that the Dock serves a similar purpose-- easy access to your apps along the side of your screen (default bottom). The applications aren't actually located there, but it's just a shortcut. Likewise, you can compare Windows Shortcuts and Macintosh Aliases, or the menu along the top of the screen vs. attached to each window. Understanding the differences and similarities should demonstrate that, though each of these conventions serve a purpose, they are conventions that can be understood rather than a memorized interaction.
Now before someone jumps down my throat saying, "We're talking about basic computer literacy, not trying to force people to be computer geeks," it's not as though I'm talking about making people build Linux from scratch. All I'm saying is that you give people an introduction to some of the major desktop environments so they can see what's different and what's the same. Comparing and contrasting two things is a great way to understand both things better. Many computer UI elements are conventional, some of them arbitrary, some of them even changing. The start menu from Windows 95 is not the same as the one from XP. Files are located in different places. Menus have become self-ajusting, and features have been added/removed/altered. But all of them have similarities: files, shortcuts/aliases, menus, heirarchical file systems of directories/folders, a program to browse the file system (nautilus, finder, explorer), etc.
I'm not asking that users understand how, exactly these things work, but I also think that even a Windows-only user should understand these things well enough to sit down in front of KDE or Gnome without too much confusion before we call them "computer literate". If you want users to be "literate" enough to deal with the differences between even different versions of Windows, they really need to have *some* idea about how things work, and why they are the way they are.
But as an Apple stockholder, I don't see what Apple gets out of the deal.
Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but if the rumors of a iTMS-like store for movies are true, then Apple would probably be looking for a [relatively] cheap hardware device to stream movies to, so that you wouldn't need a computer for every TV, you'd just need a set-top box. Something like what the Airport Express does for streaming music to your stereo, but with movies. Now, this would be a new device, and so Apple would either need to build it from scratch, or buy a company that makes a similar product and modify the product for their purposes. Building from scratch is a lot slower, so if they wanted to get the venture off the ground fast, buying the tech would be the better option.
Ok, dude, don't cry about it. It'll be ok. No one's challenging you now. Go to your safe place. Your happy place. Breathe in, breathe out. Calm... all is happy and calm.
Listen, Dude. You yourself seem to be awfully offended that a person might exist who isn't immediately convinced that there's this magical substance called "dark matter". For all your complaining that everyone is religious, you don't know me. You're the one jumping to conclusions. You're the one insisting that everyone in the world agrees with you about substances exhibiting seemingly magical properties, substances that aren't proven to exist, jumping on the back of anyone who even suggests that we're not sure what they are, or if there's actually a substance at all. Dude.
There's disagreement *within* the scientific community about "dark matter" and "dark energy". You don't need to be a religious nut. In fact, to claim that we really *know* what the deal is with "dark matter", you pretty much need to be the sort of nut who believes every over-hyped "discovery" that "scientists discover". Dude.
It's not that I'm a believer, it's that I'm cynical. I'm cynical about unproven scientific theories that even the experts in that field will admit they don't really understand or they're not even confident about it. And I feel the same sort of annoyance at people who believe everything written in a scientific journal as that annoyance you feel towards those who believe everything written in the bible. Yes, even scientists can be wrong. And yes, there are disagreements between scientists. Dude.
Because knowledge implies certainty in some degree, that would be fair. But it would be wrong to say that you have "no idea" what is in the box.
So... wait. Given my example, let's say you ask me what's in the box, and I say, "seems to be something small and hard. Not too heavy, though." You insist again that I tell you, specifically, what's actually in the box. You demand an answer and I say, "Dude, I have no idea." Are you going to then jump down my throat and call me a religious nut? You don't know me, dude.
Nothing escapes the event horizon. Not even "invisible" radiation, whatever that is.
Whatever that is? Xrays, microways, infrared and UV, i.e. anything outside the visible spectrum is "invisible" radiation. No?
Not that it really clears up the post you're responding to, who seemed to think he was drawing a meaningful distinction between "light" and "visible radiation". Last I checked, light was the visible portion of the EM radiation spectrum. Oh well...
You're blurring the distinction between lack of knowledge and lack of certainty. We "have an idea". We don't have certainty.
We have multiple ideas without certainty that any of them are accurate. Imagine you gave me a box, and said, "tell me what's inside." Without looking in it, I evaluate the weight, I shake it, whatever, and I get the idea that, from my observations, it might make sense that it was a cell phone. Of course, it could also be a rock about the same size and weight as a cell phone. Or it could possibly be a hunk of wood. However, I admit that I'm not certain which one of those things it is, and further, I admit there's a possibility that it might not be any of them.
Given this example, would it be fair to say that "I don't know what's in the box"? I have some ideas about what it might be, some ideas that might make sense, but if someone says that I don't know what's in the box, are they wrong?
There are a bunch of physical phenomena (prominently, the motion of galaxies) that physicists have been unable to explain given the matter that we're capable of detecting. Therefore scientists have named that unknown factor, the cause of the unexplained phenomena, "dark matter" while they attempt to discover what it is. There are many competing theories, none of which is known to be true. It's also possible none of them are true.
...would you argue with that. I mean, loosely, that's the deal, right? In other words, we don't know.
How many would be enough for you? If you say N I'll modify my statement from one to N. If no N will satisfy you then the word 'gravity' serves little purpose and we might as well drop it from the lexicon.
Nope. No number N would be sufficient. Apples going towards earth could be explained by some law that makes apples go towards earth. There were ancient theories that talked about tendencies either "downward" or "toward the center", neither of which were really gravity, especially when considered this tendency was paired-with/opposed-by a tendency that forced things into circular motion. The sheer fact of apples moving towards the ground, even if we wanted an explanation for why apples *always* go toward the ground, could be explained by a law that "apples are attracted to ground". That's not gravity.
When people talk about gravity, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, they are referring to the universal gravitation from Newton's theories of physics. For it to be gravity, it requires more than that apples attract ground, it requires that matter attracts matter, and it requires the sort of rules that comprehend the fact that the pull of the sun is less of an influence than the pull of the earth (which has to do with distance) and the fact that the earth pulls the apple greater than your hand does (which requires mass).
If they're talking about "things go down", well, in fact, that is not the same as gravity. Part of the reason things go down, after all, is air-pressure. You know, not everything goes down. Helium balloons go up, planes go up, and birds go up.
I can't think of any religion that has one or more gods and doesn't define them as some manner of supernatural being.
Well, in many forms of religion, it more or less comes down to a recognition of forces and powers that are beyond your understanding. If by "being" you mean "something which is" and by "supernatural" you mean "beyond the purview of human knowledge/understanding", then I suppose what you say is true. Religions tend to talk about "supernatural beings". However, this is not the same as indicating that all religions talk about super-heros that live in the sky on clouds, telling us what to do and judging our actions.
So, no, assuming you're not talking about some niche religion, cult, or your own personal beliefs, it's not the same and doesn't adequately define the TYPICAL view of "god".
I think by "typical" you're indicating "prominent" and "widely publicized". However, part of that is because religions and religious people without highly-defined and judgmental super-hero-type gods, first of all, they don't have highly-structured rules and belief-systems, which means they aren't monolithic. It's easier to talk about what Catholics believe than it is to talk about what gnostics/Buddhists believe, since with Catholics you can pretty much cite the pope as an authority, but gnostics won't agree and there is no authority.
Further, the groups that get the most press and will impress you as most clearly "religious" are the vocal/noisy/imposing ones. The ones who are the sort you're annoyed with. They'll go on TV and tell you you're evil for whatever. It's the religious nuts who blow up abortion clinics and World Trade Centers that get on the news as representing "religious action". They guy down the street who gave to the poor and turned the other cheek, but goes silently about his business without even telling you that he did these things from faith, he's not getting on the news.
The fact is, there are religions that are less definitive, more fluidly practiced, and don't bother to try to convince you. Religious people of this sort are not-at-all uncommon, but they won't necessarily talk to you about it, since they aren't trying to win followers. They especially won't talk to you about it if your the sort of person who goes around complaining about how stupid religious people are.
So while I understand that you're unaccustomed to recognizing religious except when it's prominent, monolithic, and offensive to you, I don't see why that means all the other religious-types out there are necessarily a-typical. Maybe they're just not obvious.
Well, normal matter has been seen, and some have speculated that (at least) some of the gravitational effects attributed to "dark matter" might merely be normal matter that doesn't give off (much) light, i.e. brown dwarfs and planets (including other non-star dense objects), clouds of diffuse hydrogen, etc. However, once these things are discovered as "normal matter", they are no longer "dark matter".
The question is, once we account for all the "normal matter", will we have enough "normal matter" to account for the gravitational effects we see (according to our current understanding of gravity). Many scientists say, according to their estimates, no, which then still requires a place-holder of "dark matter". However, in this sense, rather than "dark matter", we might call it, "that unknown thing which we don't know what it is but somehow causes these unexplained gravitational effects". Or maybe we could all it, "WTF?! matter". "Dark matter" sounds catchier, though.
Slashdot Mirror
A company who knows the trust and good will of its customers is more valuable than a couple hundred thousand?
But what are you checking it against? Common knowledge? You're own personal research? Another encyclopedia?
This question is neither aimed at being pro- or anti-wikipedia, just meant to point out a general problem/issue with "information" and "facts" in general, which is that there isn't a real way of knowing what constitutes a "reliable source". Each and every source is capable of both mistakes and deception, whether it be your own senses, your rational faculties, the smartest person on earth, or a commonly cited book. It all seems to boil down to whether we feel we can "trust" the source.
What's not to be overlooked here is that the sort of trust necessary is a function of the purpose of the information. If I'm curious and want to know about heart surgery, I'd like my information to be somewhat correct, but the details are likely to be fairly unimportant. If, however, I'm going in for heart surgery, I'd hope that the surgeon's source of information (even if it's his own memory) is highly detailed on the issues about "how to do the surgery". Still a different sort of information is important for the doctor who is teaching young surgeons or the researcher pioneering new methods of surgery. While the surgeon himself only needs to know the "how" of surgery well enough to complete the operation without incident, or to handle complications which may arise, the teacher and researcher must understand the "why" well enough to explain to others and look for more efficient techniques.
So while, for most of us, common consensus would be sufficient to substantiate George Washington's birthday, if I were a historian attempting to evaluate some confusion surrounding his birth, I might have to do quite a bit of research to confirm that no mistake was made and no deception took place. Even after the most thorough research, the resulting information would be a best guess on the perceived reliability of ones sources.
All of this is to say that no "reference materials" like dictionaries and encyclopedias should be taken as completely authoritative, but taken with a grain of salt, how much salt depending on the reference material. I, for one, don't put much trust in the Wikipedia for settling contentious arguments, since I know full well that if I wanted to argue that Washington's birthday was on a different day, I could change the Wikipedia entry, and so could the person I was arguing with. Such a maneuver would be far more difficult with the Encyclopedia Britanica, so I might give it more consideration, but I have also noted, when reviewing materials in which I do have some expertise, encyclopedia entries never show much expertise in the fields they're handling.
On the other hand, if there is a topic that I'm curious about, I find that, for the level of necessary trust for satisfying curiosity, the Wikipedia is a good source and has some advantages over some other encyclopedias (such as carrying very recent information).
Building a restaurant means leasing a space, buying materials, passing building/health codes, paying a staff. After that large an investment, you have a better chance at making money by operating the restaurant then stealing your customer's credit cards. If you did steal credit cards, there would be credit applications, someone's name on the lease, and the owner would lose his investment.
But building a website takes half a brain and an hour of work with a text-file editor. Sure you need some web space to post it, but that can be gotten around.
So what I'm saying is, yes, there are ways to be careful on the web. However, if you believe your in as much danger handing over your credit card at a random restaurant as you are putting your credit card into random websites, I don't believe you've really evaluated the situation.
Or take a literary cliche, and *don't* add a twist. Now *that* would be a twist on the standard-literary-cliche-with-a-twist cliche.
I thought "taking a standard literary cliche, but adding a 'twist'," was the most standard literary cliche.
But web pages? Most people can't really tell the difference between a real store's site and a fake page designed to look like a real store's site. Plus the ettiquite of net behavior isn't as firmly set in people's mind. If the waiter from the restaurant shows up on your doorstep saying, "Ummm.... yeah, I'm gonna need your credit card for a few more minutes, for the restaurant, I mean," you'd know it was fishy. But a convincing-looking e-mail claiming to be from ebay, people don't know the difference between that and a real e-mail from ebay.
Good point, especially since that's pretty much how "security" works. You make the prospect of doing something "bad" seem scary and dangerous to those who don't know what they're doing. For those who do know what they're doing, you're just hoping the risk:reward ratio will be high enough that they won't bother.
Well, at least some people would like to see improved ability to run Linux apps on Windows, I guess... It has its usefulness, but then again, usually when people run Linux they *don't* want to run Windows, so no, I don't think this is a threat to Linux.
His second assertion that Microsoft could create a flavor of Linux with their driver-base that people would adopt is just as loony.
I think this is why people think Dvorak is either stupid or intentionally trolling for publicity. The fact is, Microsoft supporting Linux in any way only makes Linux stronger. Your average Slashdot geek isn't going to be any less anti-MS, and an MS Linux distro wouldn't diminish the benefits of going with a distro that's totally free (both beer and speech). The only thing it would do is making it harder for MS to break interoperability with other Linux distros without violating the GPL.
Yes. If Microsoft takes over Linux, Linux will become such an annoying POS that we'll all have to switch to some BSD or something, and Linux will go away.
Yeah... except for the fact that the first thing you really should do when you buy a new system is wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows to get rid of all the crap that OEMs load your computer up with. No.... I don't want musicmatch jukebox or Real Media Player.
Ok, Nat, we all know you have a /. login under your own name. No more of this "Peter Cooper" stuff.
While I agree that OSS developers shouldn't stop supporting older hardware, that doesn't mean developers shouldn't also try to utilize the all the features and power of newer computers. There's no reason why the "few" OSS out there can't "catch up"with Windows (the quotes are there for a reason).
Like I said, I don't know if that's what you're asking for, but if you are, it's already available on OSX with iCal and Linux with Evolution. Evolution is also being ported to Windows. Also, I wouldn't be surprised to Sunbird had similar capabilities, but I don't use Sunbird, so I'm not sure.
Hell, give me neither cable and knock an additional $20 off the price (what Apple is charging for the cable). In fact, let me buy an ipod without the software CD or the white headphones, no accessories whatsoever, and knock another couple bucks off. Just an iPod in a box. Then, if I have multiple iPods, I'm only buying the dock and cable once. (They don't all need to charge and sync at the same time)
Force them them to use something else, and they no longer just know how to use windows, but how to use a *computer*.
I totally agree. If you're going to be teaching "computer literacy", it's better if you can incorporate multiple operating systems, not for the sake of being a politically-correct geek or pro-Linux advocacy, but because it will help them understand computers better.
For one thing, I don't consider a person "computer literate" because they can start MS Word and type a letter. If someone don't find it easy to sit down in front of any one of the more popular modern GUIs (Gnome, KDE, Windows, or OSX), find the word-processor, and type a letter, save it, and then find the saved file, they aren't computer literate. All of these DEs use common interface elements, and they should be figure-out-able even if you've never used them before so long as you *actually* understand how to use any of the other DEs.
In addition, seeing how the different DEs handle things would be helpful in understanding what's actually going on. I know lots of Windows users who don't really know what the start menu is. I mean, they use it all the time, but they don't know that it's a convention created to make your programs easier to find, they believe that it's as simple as "If I want to access Microsoft Word, it comes up when I click on start." Since they've only been exposed to Windows, they don't understand that a computer could exist without a start menu. It would be a useful training technique to stick these people in front of a Mac, for example, and point out that the Dock serves a similar purpose-- easy access to your apps along the side of your screen (default bottom). The applications aren't actually located there, but it's just a shortcut. Likewise, you can compare Windows Shortcuts and Macintosh Aliases, or the menu along the top of the screen vs. attached to each window. Understanding the differences and similarities should demonstrate that, though each of these conventions serve a purpose, they are conventions that can be understood rather than a memorized interaction.
Now before someone jumps down my throat saying, "We're talking about basic computer literacy, not trying to force people to be computer geeks," it's not as though I'm talking about making people build Linux from scratch. All I'm saying is that you give people an introduction to some of the major desktop environments so they can see what's different and what's the same. Comparing and contrasting two things is a great way to understand both things better. Many computer UI elements are conventional, some of them arbitrary, some of them even changing. The start menu from Windows 95 is not the same as the one from XP. Files are located in different places. Menus have become self-ajusting, and features have been added/removed/altered. But all of them have similarities: files, shortcuts/aliases, menus, heirarchical file systems of directories/folders, a program to browse the file system (nautilus, finder, explorer), etc.
I'm not asking that users understand how, exactly these things work, but I also think that even a Windows-only user should understand these things well enough to sit down in front of KDE or Gnome without too much confusion before we call them "computer literate". If you want users to be "literate" enough to deal with the differences between even different versions of Windows, they really need to have *some* idea about how things work, and why they are the way they are.
Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but if the rumors of a iTMS-like store for movies are true, then Apple would probably be looking for a [relatively] cheap hardware device to stream movies to, so that you wouldn't need a computer for every TV, you'd just need a set-top box. Something like what the Airport Express does for streaming music to your stereo, but with movies. Now, this would be a new device, and so Apple would either need to build it from scratch, or buy a company that makes a similar product and modify the product for their purposes. Building from scratch is a lot slower, so if they wanted to get the venture off the ground fast, buying the tech would be the better option.
I don't know, just a thought.
Ok, dude, don't cry about it. It'll be ok. No one's challenging you now. Go to your safe place. Your happy place. Breathe in, breathe out. Calm... all is happy and calm.
There's disagreement *within* the scientific community about "dark matter" and "dark energy". You don't need to be a religious nut. In fact, to claim that we really *know* what the deal is with "dark matter", you pretty much need to be the sort of nut who believes every over-hyped "discovery" that "scientists discover". Dude.
It's not that I'm a believer, it's that I'm cynical. I'm cynical about unproven scientific theories that even the experts in that field will admit they don't really understand or they're not even confident about it. And I feel the same sort of annoyance at people who believe everything written in a scientific journal as that annoyance you feel towards those who believe everything written in the bible. Yes, even scientists can be wrong. And yes, there are disagreements between scientists. Dude.
Because knowledge implies certainty in some degree, that would be fair. But it would be wrong to say that you have "no idea" what is in the box.
So... wait. Given my example, let's say you ask me what's in the box, and I say, "seems to be something small and hard. Not too heavy, though." You insist again that I tell you, specifically, what's actually in the box. You demand an answer and I say, "Dude, I have no idea." Are you going to then jump down my throat and call me a religious nut? You don't know me, dude.
Whatever that is? Xrays, microways, infrared and UV, i.e. anything outside the visible spectrum is "invisible" radiation. No?
Not that it really clears up the post you're responding to, who seemed to think he was drawing a meaningful distinction between "light" and "visible radiation". Last I checked, light was the visible portion of the EM radiation spectrum. Oh well...
We have multiple ideas without certainty that any of them are accurate. Imagine you gave me a box, and said, "tell me what's inside." Without looking in it, I evaluate the weight, I shake it, whatever, and I get the idea that, from my observations, it might make sense that it was a cell phone. Of course, it could also be a rock about the same size and weight as a cell phone. Or it could possibly be a hunk of wood. However, I admit that I'm not certain which one of those things it is, and further, I admit there's a possibility that it might not be any of them.
Given this example, would it be fair to say that "I don't know what's in the box"? I have some ideas about what it might be, some ideas that might make sense, but if someone says that I don't know what's in the box, are they wrong?
Nope. No number N would be sufficient. Apples going towards earth could be explained by some law that makes apples go towards earth. There were ancient theories that talked about tendencies either "downward" or "toward the center", neither of which were really gravity, especially when considered this tendency was paired-with/opposed-by a tendency that forced things into circular motion. The sheer fact of apples moving towards the ground, even if we wanted an explanation for why apples *always* go toward the ground, could be explained by a law that "apples are attracted to ground". That's not gravity.
When people talk about gravity, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, they are referring to the universal gravitation from Newton's theories of physics. For it to be gravity, it requires more than that apples attract ground, it requires that matter attracts matter, and it requires the sort of rules that comprehend the fact that the pull of the sun is less of an influence than the pull of the earth (which has to do with distance) and the fact that the earth pulls the apple greater than your hand does (which requires mass).
If they're talking about "things go down", well, in fact, that is not the same as gravity. Part of the reason things go down, after all, is air-pressure. You know, not everything goes down. Helium balloons go up, planes go up, and birds go up.
Well, in many forms of religion, it more or less comes down to a recognition of forces and powers that are beyond your understanding. If by "being" you mean "something which is" and by "supernatural" you mean "beyond the purview of human knowledge/understanding", then I suppose what you say is true. Religions tend to talk about "supernatural beings". However, this is not the same as indicating that all religions talk about super-heros that live in the sky on clouds, telling us what to do and judging our actions.
So, no, assuming you're not talking about some niche religion, cult, or your own personal beliefs, it's not the same and doesn't adequately define the TYPICAL view of "god".
I think by "typical" you're indicating "prominent" and "widely publicized". However, part of that is because religions and religious people without highly-defined and judgmental super-hero-type gods, first of all, they don't have highly-structured rules and belief-systems, which means they aren't monolithic. It's easier to talk about what Catholics believe than it is to talk about what gnostics/Buddhists believe, since with Catholics you can pretty much cite the pope as an authority, but gnostics won't agree and there is no authority.
Further, the groups that get the most press and will impress you as most clearly "religious" are the vocal/noisy/imposing ones. The ones who are the sort you're annoyed with. They'll go on TV and tell you you're evil for whatever. It's the religious nuts who blow up abortion clinics and World Trade Centers that get on the news as representing "religious action". They guy down the street who gave to the poor and turned the other cheek, but goes silently about his business without even telling you that he did these things from faith, he's not getting on the news.
The fact is, there are religions that are less definitive, more fluidly practiced, and don't bother to try to convince you. Religious people of this sort are not-at-all uncommon, but they won't necessarily talk to you about it, since they aren't trying to win followers. They especially won't talk to you about it if your the sort of person who goes around complaining about how stupid religious people are.
So while I understand that you're unaccustomed to recognizing religious except when it's prominent, monolithic, and offensive to you, I don't see why that means all the other religious-types out there are necessarily a-typical. Maybe they're just not obvious.
Achk, but this is all off-topic anyhow.
How 'bout you enlighten us. What is dark matter?
The question is, once we account for all the "normal matter", will we have enough "normal matter" to account for the gravitational effects we see (according to our current understanding of gravity). Many scientists say, according to their estimates, no, which then still requires a place-holder of "dark matter". However, in this sense, rather than "dark matter", we might call it, "that unknown thing which we don't know what it is but somehow causes these unexplained gravitational effects". Or maybe we could all it, "WTF?! matter". "Dark matter" sounds catchier, though.