Yeah, you are right, 'cause the Americans weren't also working on the same stuff...stupid Americans, as soon as they see someone else working on something they stop and give up, right?
Abreu is arguing from the point of view that a religion is akin to a philosophy. As such it, isn't a pyramid scheme. Binarylarry is arguing from the point of view that a religion is the corporeal establishment which "enforces" the religion. As such, many religions act like a pyramid scheme.
The point is that you two are talking about two almost, but not quite, entirely disconnected notions.
Maybe all Western monotheistic religions practice a certain amount of coercion and control. From what I understand of Buddhism, this isn't so.
My take is that Western religions tend to be run by a bunch of old men who somehow get hot under the collar that someone, somewhere might be doing something of which they do not approve. In this sense, the religion is more or less the innocent by-stander, they'd have used some other excuse if religion wasn't so handy.
In another sense, Western religions lend themselves to misuse and some have misuse of people burned into their holy books. Christianity in the sense of just what is written in the four Gospels (and no more), compared to Islam as written in the Koran, is relatively mild. Islam is downright evil in what it officially condones in its main book.
Wow, that's the first time I've seen Oracle used as a verb. You've been Oracled on must mean something like Larry has peed on your rose bushes (egads, not again). Solaris probably will get Oracled on.
I think you need to consider a time scale. One could have made that same remark re practicalities 100 years ago. But when I look back at the math that was done 100 years ago, I find very little of it unused. Physics is similar. Quantum theory was basically useless when it was developed...until now. Evolution was useless, now we use it to predict the course of flu epidemics.
Science and math form a web, and it is impossible to predict just how those future practicalities correspond to any one particular theory. It isn't even clear how one does that with current practical devices, they rely on so much that went on before in very complicated relationships.
I think the problem you raised is one important component of why American science and engineering is failing.
There are several aspects of that component. Grade school and high school teachers do not value math and science. They got there because they graduated from Schools of Education. Those schools generally dumb down their curriculum because otherwise they wouldn't have any students taking their courses. Most Universities with Schools of Education have math course specifically for Education Majors which are dumbed down.
Another aspect is the rise of Business School Product into the ranks of running corporations. Business School Product is as interchangeable as the product they produce. An education to these folks has no intrinsic value other than what someone will pay them for it. Much of science and engineering reward is simply is simply the thrill of discovery and scratching the itch that made you curious. Business School Product have no such underlying will to know for the thrill of knowing. It is unsurprising they look down on real scientists and engineers; and when they get into a position to decide on science and engineering issues in companies, they are ill-equipped to handle it and will think of anyone who does "get it" as a threat to be eliminated.
Our TV-video game-intarwebs culture also feeds into the problem. We have created a generation that has the attention span of a gnat because they are too busy "multi-tasking". Multi-tasking is a Business School Product notion that to be valuable it to look valuable.
Apple's fanatical base isn't big enough to make it successful if by that you mean the Mac base. The reason Apple is successful is because they have a UI many people find intuitive and the rest have UI's that could knock a dead buzzard off a shit wagon at 20 paces.
Yeah, if it wasn't for Government we might have drugs on the marketplace that caused heart attacks or something.
I never said the government was perfect. However, if you wish to see what it would be like without government regulation, take the bad drugs that manage to slip by and multiply that by the number of nice upstanding organizations pushing those remedies on the infomercials. I like the ones with the LEDs for curing muscle pain the best.
I don't think you read what I wrote. I was complaining about monopolies that are issued and backed up by the Government, i.e: cable & telephone franchise agreements. I was not complaining about regulation. That's a separate issue. If you hate monopolies so much then why aren't you down at your local city hall demanding that they end the practice of granting them?
I'm against monopolies too regardless of how they got created. I only said "Government intervention CAN be A reason free market capitalism SOMETIMES broken (ack: breaks) down". I didn't deny it can cause problems, just that not all government regulation causes problems or that all the free market problems are caused by regulation. And how do you know I'm not down at my local city hall demanding they end the practice of granting them?
Interestingly enough the companies that got "too big to fail" are in some of the most regulated (insurance, banking) industries that are out there.
I never said the regulation was adequate, in fact I hinted that in several instances it wasn't. And in these particular instances, I do feel that government regulators have fallen down on the job by allowing mergers which have decreased competition.
I'm sorry that you are so confused that you actually believe we have a free market for telecommunications services in this country.
I never implied that we had a free market for telecom in this country. Did you even read what wrote or merely respond because someone disagreed with you?
Government intervention CAN be A reason free market capitalism SOMETIMES broken down. Ever tried to compete against Microsoft in the free market? Yep, that knife in your back hurts, doesn't it. Government regulation is what helps keeps bad pharmaceuticals off the "free market". Now, we could let the market decide, after awhile...when enough people have died...the company pushing the bad drugs gets no customers. This is a case of the free market not putting a value on human life that most of us, at those of us who aren't free market nutjobs, would like it to. There are many other examples.
The "free" in free market refers to freedom of entry and exit, it doesn't necessarily refer to freedom from government regulation. Government regulation is necessary because of monopolies although lately it seems to have fallen off the job. The reason the economy went over the cliff wasn't because of regulation, it was pure capitalistic greed. More regulation is necessary or else we wind up again in the situation where companies are too big to be allowed to fail. Here again, the free market is not valuing competition the way we need it to.
You are right, there will be countermeasures, but expecting Al Queda to develop and field them is not likely to happen. For the other guys, the U.S. has nastier stuff.
He sometimes writes articles for theRegister. His style can best be summed up as "Collected a Rory for most gratuitous use of the word 'f**k' in an online rag."
I think I know a way for this marketing extravaganza to succeed wildly: M$ threatens to send every one a Party Pack unless they 'upgrade' to Windows 7. I know it is satanic, but it just might do the trick.
It wasn't Apophis that delivered the asteroid, it was Anubis. By the time Anubis did the naughty deed, Apophis had already met his end when the Replicators took over his ship, sent it towards some planet but the SG team took out it braking system and it became one hell of an meteor. C'mon, everyone knows this...errr...or is it just me. I gotta get out more often...
In cases like this, the best thing to do is to look kindly at the techno-weenie and in a reassuring voice, tell them this is an outrage and that you will personally get to the bottom of the problem and return them a spanking new program with their new features delicately programmed to provide pleasure and warmth. You go away and wile away the time doing your important work. Periodically you send them progress reports with little tidbits about how they will be accessing the new features and, gee, they'd have them already if it wasn't so difficult to program. Because you like them, you are willing to go through hell and high water to get the job done just to see the look of satisfaction on their faces. After a month, you triumphantly release the brand spanking new program and walk them through their brand spanking new features.
In about a week, they will have forgotten about how to use the new features and request them again....rinse and repeat the above prescription. You'll be their new god. This is merely Business Product School 101 course material...how to look impressive without doing a damn thing.
Gates in charge wouldn't have changed anything. MS is simply a drunken mummy blindly running into things, incapable of serious strategy. Software complexity left Gates in the dust long before he realized he was in over his head and left. The only job he had left to do that he was capable of was kicking a few asses when something was late or so screwed up a 5 year old could have set it straight.
It wasn't U.S. Intelligence agencies that lied about Iraq, it was the administration which cherry picked the information. Anyhow, let's for the moment assume that Bush hadn't taken out Saddam and now Iran is caught building the bomb. The oil price spike in the last several years would have given Saddam plenty of money for arms. Our 'allies', the Euro-weenies were busy attempting to sell Saddam anything he liked at the time sanctions where breaking down in 2001. Saddam would be busy building his own nukes.
Let the match begin, in this corner we have a bunch of religious nutjobs who believe they can bring back the third Imam if they click their heels and think of nuclear war. This other corner, we have Saddam and his cronies who believe in their destiny to destroy the State of Israel and have already had a previous misunderstanding with the Persians.
yes, and Israel has had nukes for how long, let's count the countries in the mid-east who are demanding nukes because Israel has them. uh...that would be zero. Persia doesn't count since it isn't in the mid-east and Iran only stumps for the "kill-the-Jews" vote because they believe it will make Shi'ites stronger against the Sunnis. It seem Syria had a brief flirtation with nukes before Israel set them back, but it is unclear just why they wanted the nuke plant and we failed to hear them crying about not being able to defend Syria without nukes.
", I'm just not interested in the scientifically-invalid non-sequitur inference of "only evolution occurs"."
What? It isn't the case of science saying only evolution occurs (nice strawman you have there), it is the case that science is saying only evolution has a significant amount of evidence to back it up. If you are proposing an alternative, then we'll need to see the evidence. If not, then science doesn't give a rat's patootie about what you are saying.
Well, if you were a good practicing Jew, you would spell it G-d. That would be the English letter G followed by a English symbol - followed by an English letter D. It isn't retarded, it is Jewish. Last I checked, English had symbols too, you might like to try them sometime.
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Yeah, you are right, 'cause the Americans weren't also working on the same stuff...stupid Americans, as soon as they see someone else working on something they stop and give up, right?
Abreu is arguing from the point of view that a religion is akin to a philosophy. As such it, isn't a pyramid scheme. Binarylarry is arguing from the point of view that a religion is the corporeal establishment which "enforces" the religion. As such, many religions act like a pyramid scheme.
The point is that you two are talking about two almost, but not quite, entirely disconnected notions.
Maybe all Western monotheistic religions practice a certain amount of coercion and control. From what I understand of Buddhism, this isn't so.
My take is that Western religions tend to be run by a bunch of old men who somehow get hot under the collar that someone, somewhere might be doing something of which they do not approve. In this sense, the religion is more or less the innocent by-stander, they'd have used some other excuse if religion wasn't so handy.
In another sense, Western religions lend themselves to misuse and some have misuse of people burned into their holy books. Christianity in the sense of just what is written in the four Gospels (and no more), compared to Islam as written in the Koran, is relatively mild. Islam is downright evil in what it officially condones in its main book.
Wow, that's the first time I've seen Oracle used as a verb. You've been Oracled on must mean something like Larry has peed on your rose bushes (egads, not again). Solaris probably will get Oracled on.
Yep, just turn on CSpan when some Congress-critter is bloviating about the latest outrage s/he thinks is worth milking.
I think you need to consider a time scale. One could have made that same remark re practicalities 100 years ago. But when I look back at the math that was done 100 years ago, I find very little of it unused. Physics is similar. Quantum theory was basically useless when it was developed...until now. Evolution was useless, now we use it to predict the course of flu epidemics.
Science and math form a web, and it is impossible to predict just how those future practicalities correspond to any one particular theory. It isn't even clear how one does that with current practical devices, they rely on so much that went on before in very complicated relationships.
I think the problem you raised is one important component of why American science and engineering is failing.
There are several aspects of that component. Grade school and high school teachers do not value math and science. They got there because they graduated from Schools of Education. Those schools generally dumb down their curriculum because otherwise they wouldn't have any students taking their courses. Most Universities with Schools of Education have math course specifically for Education Majors which are dumbed down.
Another aspect is the rise of Business School Product into the ranks of running corporations. Business School Product is as interchangeable as the product they produce. An education to these folks has no intrinsic value other than what someone will pay them for it. Much of science and engineering reward is simply is simply the thrill of discovery and scratching the itch that made you curious. Business School Product have no such underlying will to know for the thrill of knowing. It is unsurprising they look down on real scientists and engineers; and when they get into a position to decide on science and engineering issues in companies, they are ill-equipped to handle it and will think of anyone who does "get it" as a threat to be eliminated.
Our TV-video game-intarwebs culture also feeds into the problem. We have created a generation that has the attention span of a gnat because they are too busy "multi-tasking". Multi-tasking is a Business School Product notion that to be valuable it to look valuable.
Apple's fanatical base isn't big enough to make it successful if by that you mean the Mac base. The reason Apple is successful is because they have a UI many people find intuitive and the rest have UI's that could knock a dead buzzard off a shit wagon at 20 paces.
Hear, hear! You get this year's Rory Award for Gratuitous use of the Word 'Fuck' in on the Intarwebs.
And why is MS producing plugins for a rival web browser? I know, Ballmer got all warm and fuzzy one day and decided to let Mozilla feel the love.
Yeah, if it wasn't for Government we might have drugs on the marketplace that caused heart attacks or something.
I never said the government was perfect. However, if you wish to see what it would be like without government regulation, take the bad drugs that manage to slip by and multiply that by the number of nice upstanding organizations pushing those remedies on the infomercials. I like the ones with the LEDs for curing muscle pain the best.
I don't think you read what I wrote. I was complaining about monopolies that are issued and backed up by the Government, i.e: cable & telephone franchise agreements. I was not complaining about regulation. That's a separate issue. If you hate monopolies so much then why aren't you down at your local city hall demanding that they end the practice of granting them?
I'm against monopolies too regardless of how they got created. I only said "Government intervention CAN be A reason free market capitalism SOMETIMES broken (ack: breaks) down". I didn't deny it can cause problems, just that not all government regulation causes problems or that all the free market problems are caused by regulation. And how do you know I'm not down at my local city hall demanding they end the practice of granting them?
Interestingly enough the companies that got "too big to fail" are in some of the most regulated (insurance, banking) industries that are out there.
I never said the regulation was adequate, in fact I hinted that in several instances it wasn't. And in these particular instances, I do feel that government regulators have fallen down on the job by allowing mergers which have decreased competition.
I'm sorry that you are so confused that you actually believe we have a free market for telecommunications services in this country.
I never implied that we had a free market for telecom in this country. Did you even read what wrote or merely respond because someone disagreed with you?
Government intervention CAN be A reason free market capitalism SOMETIMES broken down. Ever tried to compete against Microsoft in the free market? Yep, that knife in your back hurts, doesn't it. Government regulation is what helps keeps bad pharmaceuticals off the "free market". Now, we could let the market decide, after awhile...when enough people have died...the company pushing the bad drugs gets no customers. This is a case of the free market not putting a value on human life that most of us, at those of us who aren't free market nutjobs, would like it to. There are many other examples.
The "free" in free market refers to freedom of entry and exit, it doesn't necessarily refer to freedom from government regulation. Government regulation is necessary because of monopolies although lately it seems to have fallen off the job. The reason the economy went over the cliff wasn't because of regulation, it was pure capitalistic greed. More regulation is necessary or else we wind up again in the situation where companies are too big to be allowed to fail. Here again, the free market is not valuing competition the way we need it to.
You are right, there will be countermeasures, but expecting Al Queda to develop and field them is not likely to happen. For the other guys, the U.S. has nastier stuff.
"Now we just need to understand what it was that we saw." Brittney Spears videos! The future is pissed at us for allowing her.
He sometimes writes articles for theRegister. His style can best be summed up as "Collected a Rory for most gratuitous use of the word 'f**k' in an online rag."
I think I know a way for this marketing extravaganza to succeed wildly: M$ threatens to send every one a Party Pack unless they 'upgrade' to Windows 7. I know it is satanic, but it just might do the trick.
It wasn't Apophis that delivered the asteroid, it was Anubis. By the time Anubis did the naughty deed, Apophis had already met his end when the Replicators took over his ship, sent it towards some planet but the SG team took out it braking system and it became one hell of an meteor. C'mon, everyone knows this...errr...or is it just me. I gotta get out more often...
It's approximately 1/4 the size of a U.S. Senator's ego. And they think it is the asteroid we should be concerned with...
In cases like this, the best thing to do is to look kindly at the techno-weenie and in a reassuring voice, tell them this is an outrage and that you will personally get to the bottom of the problem and return them a spanking new program with their new features delicately programmed to provide pleasure and warmth. You go away and wile away the time doing your important work. Periodically you send them progress reports with little tidbits about how they will be accessing the new features and, gee, they'd have them already if it wasn't so difficult to program. Because you like them, you are willing to go through hell and high water to get the job done just to see the look of satisfaction on their faces. After a month, you triumphantly release the brand spanking new program and walk them through their brand spanking new features.
In about a week, they will have forgotten about how to use the new features and request them again....rinse and repeat the above prescription. You'll be their new god. This is merely Business Product School 101 course material...how to look impressive without doing a damn thing.
Gates in charge wouldn't have changed anything. MS is simply a drunken mummy blindly running into things, incapable of serious strategy. Software complexity left Gates in the dust long before he realized he was in over his head and left. The only job he had left to do that he was capable of was kicking a few asses when something was late or so screwed up a 5 year old could have set it straight.
It wasn't U.S. Intelligence agencies that lied about Iraq, it was the administration which cherry picked the information. Anyhow, let's for the moment assume that Bush hadn't taken out Saddam and now Iran is caught building the bomb. The oil price spike in the last several years would have given Saddam plenty of money for arms. Our 'allies', the Euro-weenies were busy attempting to sell Saddam anything he liked at the time sanctions where breaking down in 2001. Saddam would be busy building his own nukes.
Let the match begin, in this corner we have a bunch of religious nutjobs who believe they can bring back the third Imam if they click their heels and think of nuclear war. This other corner, we have Saddam and his cronies who believe in their destiny to destroy the State of Israel and have already had a previous misunderstanding with the Persians.
yes, and Israel has had nukes for how long, let's count the countries in the mid-east who are demanding nukes because Israel has them. uh...that would be zero. Persia doesn't count since it isn't in the mid-east and Iran only stumps for the "kill-the-Jews" vote because they believe it will make Shi'ites stronger against the Sunnis. It seem Syria had a brief flirtation with nukes before Israel set them back, but it is unclear just why they wanted the nuke plant and we failed to hear them crying about not being able to defend Syria without nukes.
Oh, and Hezbollah starting the last war with Israel doesn't count as Iran starting the war because they Hezbollah isn't Iran's lapdog? Grow up.
Yeah, 'cause, y'know, terrorists with a nuke would be worried about retaliation...
", I'm just not interested in the scientifically-invalid non-sequitur inference of "only evolution occurs"."
What? It isn't the case of science saying only evolution occurs (nice strawman you have there), it is the case that science is saying only evolution has a significant amount of evidence to back it up. If you are proposing an alternative, then we'll need to see the evidence. If not, then science doesn't give a rat's patootie about what you are saying.
Well, if you were a good practicing Jew, you would spell it G-d. That would be the English letter G followed by a English symbol - followed by an English letter D. It isn't retarded, it is Jewish. Last I checked, English had symbols too, you might like to try them sometime.