I'm not sure I follow. Sure, it's historical evidence, not scientific evidence. Of course it should be held up to the same scrutiny as any other historical evidence, and the conclusion you come to may be that it's insufficient - even laughable, depending on what your examination of it reveals.
It seems counterproductive, though, to beg the question by calling it a "wild claim" and "mythological" right out of the gate.
For example, both a "floor plan of an ancient villa" and an account of observable, physical events (what the New Testament purports to be) seem to me to fall into the same category of documentation of something from a long time ago that we can no longer directly observe.
It sounds like you and the GP might be attaching different meanings to the word morality, perhaps? It seems like people use the word in a number of ways:
1) what every individual *ought* to do, independent of whether they actually do it or not (it sounds like this was the GP's meaning?)
2) actions individuals can take to further certain kinds of goals (commonly things like the well-being of other individuals or a group, personal fulfillment, etc.), with the desirability of those goals purely a matter of personal preference
3) things that individuals can be observed to actually do in certain situations (e.g. helping others), which could in theory vary just as widely as any other behavior
(Let me know if I'm missing a meaning... these are just the ones I can think of.)
It seems to me that the GP was using morality in the first sense. I don't have any real opinion on correlation between crime and religion, but it does seem like it would be hard to arrive at the first kind of morality without some kind of deity or authority figure to appeal to. While I disagree with a lot (most?) of what the GP said, it does seem impossible to me to start with a secular worldview and arrive at the first kind of morality - an absolute, "external" obligation or duty for an individual to behave a certain way regardless of their preferences or what they actually do.
I realize there are plenty of philosophers who would disagree, but I can't think of a way to elevate their positions beyond the level of pointing out that other individuals share similar preferences and/or behaviors. Since it seems like that doesn't rise to the level of a universal obligation to behave a certain way, it would appear that you're using the word "morality" to mean different things.
You want the geek spin on vinyl, here's my best shot: when you store an audio waveform on vinyl, you're actually cutting a physical, scaled down replica of the original waveform into your storage medium. You're _never_ going to get a more precise representation of the original analog waveform than a freshly-cut record.
That's not true. With an appropriate sampling rate and bit depth, a digital sound file can describe the original wave form to greater precision than the margin of error due to the manufacturing process of cutting or stamping the record, let alone the playback process. If nothing else, remember that the "resolution" of a record's groove is limited at an atomic level (although I'm sure records cannot be practically manufactured with nearly that level of tolerance).
The problem with claims like this is that they're not falsifiable in any meaningful way. Of course it can be argued that vinyl is "warmer" and more "nuanced" - all depending on your definition of "warm" and "nuanced". What is true is that when accurate reproduction of the source sound is the goal, digital is used nearly exclusively.
This is entirely separate, of course, from the issue of the quality of compressed sound files, such as those most commonly found on iPods. Depending on the algorithm and the amount of the compression used, it can certainly have a dramatic influence on the sound quality - in some cases making it clearly lower quality than records.
If you write standard compliant software / websites / whatever, you don't have to care that much about software versions.
You've never developed a web site for older versions of Mozilla or IE, have you? It's a really nice idea for standards to make it so you don't have to worry about browser versions, and I (and a lot of other web developers) wish that was true, but it isn't. Unless you mean the standards that the browser was written to, in which case - given how a lot of browsers were designed - that's the same thing as saying eight year old technology at best, or no standards at all at worst.
And, unlike Perl, it's very easy to do complicated things in simple, legible code
The issue with Perl isn't that it's particularly hard to do complicated things with simple, legible code (not more so than a lot of other languages, anyway), but that it's very, very easy to do something extremely quickly, which often - but not always - means code that makes sense at the time but isn't necessarily readable, or leads to overly terse code. Yes, Perl makes it easy to do things wrong (and a lot of people out there do use Perl to make unreadable programs), but that doesn't mean that it can't be used to do things correctly as well as any other language.
It seems to me that a lot of these things are simply a factor of how much someone's material is getting read. Traditionally, the mainstream media is given special treatment because they have a wide audience. If there are bloggers with a wide audience, then it only makes sense that they would get the same treatment, and it's no secret that the audience for blogs is large and probably growing. It doesn't seem to me that it's a question of ideology or even what format writes in. As the summary says, it's an "influence peddling universe", and people are going to go after whoever controls that influence, whether blogger or reporter.
"But their method could also be applied to a broad range of applications, like discovering a new galaxy, monitoring transactions for fraud or identifying the carrier of a virulent disease among millions of people."
When asked about more advanced applications for the technology, researchers replied it will probably be "quite a while" before the technology could be used for extremely high noise environments. Said one, "I mean, it's going to be a long time before we're up to finding finding useful comments on Slashdot or something."
I think this is a really good idea for moving any sort of vehicle forward. However, I have an idea that might make it even more efficient... perhaps they could cut off the corners of the wheels to create an octagonal wheel, which would mean less force would be required to turn the wheel. Maybe, somewhere down the line, it could be expanded even further to have more sides and even fewer sharp angles. Now that I think of it, perhaps the edge of the wheel could be configured in some sort of smooth "curve" to eliminate corners altogether... hmmm... imagine what it could evolve into someday.
It looks like these improvements of mine could really take off and go somewhere. I'd better patent it.
"The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations."
Immediately after the denial, however, they added, "But please don't tell the government we said that."
Thanks Bram - that's hepful. I can certainly understand the argument for keeping it to one license for simplicity's sake. Perhaps a less restrictive license could be introduced, the current one kept as the default, and the current license could be billed to users as "You can do at least these things with any sound on this site, some licenses may allow more" - I realize this isn't quite as clear as only one license, but it might be a way of characterizing a second license that would be simpler. Another way to characterize it might be to have every sound licensed under the current license by default, and allow artists to add a second license (which would be less restrictive) - then you could bill all sounds as being licensed under the current license, but if someone wanted to look closer, they could find out if it was released under less restrictive terms as well.
Also, I don't know how wild I would be about a completely public domain license for my own effects - the only hesitation I would have is that I don't want someone to repackage my effects in another effects library and sell them. Maybe a restriction on redistributing wholesale (as a sound effects library)? For what it's worth...
It seems to me that the license under which these sounds are released could use some work - perhaps the creators should be given a choice in how their sounds are licensed? For example, I do a lot of sound design for community theater, where crediting 10-15 different online entities in the program is not always looked on with favor. I would be happy, personally, to release the sound effects that I have created under a license not requiring attribution (at least in some circumstances).
As the author of this comment mentions, the current (only) choice for a license could get in the way of including these sounds in free software projects as well. Maybe an option that allows more freedom in using the effects in commercial works would help alleviate this? Then the artists could choose for themselves how they wanted their work to be licensed.
IANAL (nor even all that well informed) but my understanding of the DMCA is that it doesn't forbid actually circumventing DRM or other protections, but forbids disseminating information to others on how to do so. Feel free to correct me if this isn't right.
I'll probably get modded into oblivion for this, and I may indeed be quite wrong, but is there anything wrong with allowing "materials critical of evolution" to be taught? Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there really no scientific basis for any criticism of evolution? Isn't it only fair - and rather scientific - to explain both supporting and critical evidence? I didn't RTFA, so if they're teaching intelligent design in particular, then that's an entirely different situation...
For those who object to the parent as lacking a sense of humor, I think there's something key to remember: it's easy to laugh at fat people partially because there's a somewhat submerged belief that it's at least partially their fault - I mean, if they would just stop being lazy and get their act together, they'd be fine, right? And, I'm sure, for some of us the issue is indeed simply one of disciplining ourselves to take better care of ourselves - excercise once in a while, watch what we eat, etc - it's true that everyone who's overweight is not a helpless "victim."
However, in a case like this, it seems extremely likely that this person struggled with mental health issues as well - I think that there almost has to be something more going on for someone's skin to graft into a couch - can you even imagine what that would be like? A mental health disorder is most certainly not anyone's fault and is not something a person can overcome by sheer willpower (anyone who thinks otherwise has clearly not overcome mental health issues themselves nor been close to anyone who has).
While there's nothing inherently wrong with finding humor in illness and death (hey - we all have a morbid streak in us), if it's OK to point to the linked article as humorous, then to be consistent it has to be OK to find AIDS, cancer, MS, smallpox, dementia, leprosy, and a multitude of other debilitating diseases to also be funny as well.
That's why you install two hard drives to match the dual cores - then you run the antivirus/spyware scanner on the one that you're not using - i.e. the one without your OS and programs.
At least as easy as on a Windows system to install applications (even ones that don't happen to be included in the distro)
At least as easy as on a Windows system to install and use hardware
So that there are more mature applications that cover something besides an "average" setup
Linux may well be ready for a completely "average" user, who doesn't use any unusual hardware and doesn't need any unusual applications - but how many people do you know who run a completely average system with no special or out of the ordinary needs at all? Of these non-average users, how many are willing to learn how to hunt down libraries and recompile things to get their unusual hardware/software to work? Very simply, with Windows and Mac, you don't have to - they just work out of the box.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure I follow. Sure, it's historical evidence, not scientific evidence. Of course it should be held up to the same scrutiny as any other historical evidence, and the conclusion you come to may be that it's insufficient - even laughable, depending on what your examination of it reveals.
It seems counterproductive, though, to beg the question by calling it a "wild claim" and "mythological" right out of the gate.
For example, both a "floor plan of an ancient villa" and an account of observable, physical events (what the New Testament purports to be) seem to me to fall into the same category of documentation of something from a long time ago that we can no longer directly observe.
It sounds like you and the GP might be attaching different meanings to the word morality, perhaps? It seems like people use the word in a number of ways:
(Let me know if I'm missing a meaning... these are just the ones I can think of.)
It seems to me that the GP was using morality in the first sense. I don't have any real opinion on correlation between crime and religion, but it does seem like it would be hard to arrive at the first kind of morality without some kind of deity or authority figure to appeal to. While I disagree with a lot (most?) of what the GP said, it does seem impossible to me to start with a secular worldview and arrive at the first kind of morality - an absolute, "external" obligation or duty for an individual to behave a certain way regardless of their preferences or what they actually do.
I realize there are plenty of philosophers who would disagree, but I can't think of a way to elevate their positions beyond the level of pointing out that other individuals share similar preferences and/or behaviors. Since it seems like that doesn't rise to the level of a universal obligation to behave a certain way, it would appear that you're using the word "morality" to mean different things.
The open source world is also ready to fight if necessary.
Stallman is waiting.
I do recall 'Thou shalt not kill'
It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
Don't anthropomorphise computers. They hate that.
That's not true. With an appropriate sampling rate and bit depth, a digital sound file can describe the original wave form to greater precision than the margin of error due to the manufacturing process of cutting or stamping the record, let alone the playback process. If nothing else, remember that the "resolution" of a record's groove is limited at an atomic level (although I'm sure records cannot be practically manufactured with nearly that level of tolerance).
The problem with claims like this is that they're not falsifiable in any meaningful way. Of course it can be argued that vinyl is "warmer" and more "nuanced" - all depending on your definition of "warm" and "nuanced". What is true is that when accurate reproduction of the source sound is the goal, digital is used nearly exclusively.
This is entirely separate, of course, from the issue of the quality of compressed sound files, such as those most commonly found on iPods. Depending on the algorithm and the amount of the compression used, it can certainly have a dramatic influence on the sound quality - in some cases making it clearly lower quality than records.If I were a chair, I would not want to work at Microsoft...
It could be dangerous
To cover the cost of the credit card transaction.
Duh.
If you write standard compliant software / websites / whatever, you don't have to care that much about software versions.
You've never developed a web site for older versions of Mozilla or IE, have you? It's a really nice idea for standards to make it so you don't have to worry about browser versions, and I (and a lot of other web developers) wish that was true, but it isn't. Unless you mean the standards that the browser was written to, in which case - given how a lot of browsers were designed - that's the same thing as saying eight year old technology at best, or no standards at all at worst.
And, unlike Perl, it's very easy to do complicated things in simple, legible code
The issue with Perl isn't that it's particularly hard to do complicated things with simple, legible code (not more so than a lot of other languages, anyway), but that it's very, very easy to do something extremely quickly, which often - but not always - means code that makes sense at the time but isn't necessarily readable, or leads to overly terse code. Yes, Perl makes it easy to do things wrong (and a lot of people out there do use Perl to make unreadable programs), but that doesn't mean that it can't be used to do things correctly as well as any other language.
They don't swap files over IM, they don't click nonsense (they've learned the hard way), they don't use gnutella, etc...
Wanna trade families? :)
It seems to me that a lot of these things are simply a factor of how much someone's material is getting read. Traditionally, the mainstream media is given special treatment because they have a wide audience. If there are bloggers with a wide audience, then it only makes sense that they would get the same treatment, and it's no secret that the audience for blogs is large and probably growing. It doesn't seem to me that it's a question of ideology or even what format writes in. As the summary says, it's an "influence peddling universe", and people are going to go after whoever controls that influence, whether blogger or reporter.
"But their method could also be applied to a broad range of applications, like discovering a new galaxy, monitoring transactions for fraud or identifying the carrier of a virulent disease among millions of people."
When asked about more advanced applications for the technology, researchers replied it will probably be "quite a while" before the technology could be used for extremely high noise environments. Said one, "I mean, it's going to be a long time before we're up to finding finding useful comments on Slashdot or something."
I think this is a really good idea for moving any sort of vehicle forward. However, I have an idea that might make it even more efficient... perhaps they could cut off the corners of the wheels to create an octagonal wheel, which would mean less force would be required to turn the wheel. Maybe, somewhere down the line, it could be expanded even further to have more sides and even fewer sharp angles. Now that I think of it, perhaps the edge of the wheel could be configured in some sort of smooth "curve" to eliminate corners altogether... hmmm... imagine what it could evolve into someday.
It looks like these improvements of mine could really take off and go somewhere. I'd better patent it.
"The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations."
Immediately after the denial, however, they added, "But please don't tell the government we said that."
Thanks Bram - that's hepful. I can certainly understand the argument for keeping it to one license for simplicity's sake. Perhaps a less restrictive license could be introduced, the current one kept as the default, and the current license could be billed to users as "You can do at least these things with any sound on this site, some licenses may allow more" - I realize this isn't quite as clear as only one license, but it might be a way of characterizing a second license that would be simpler. Another way to characterize it might be to have every sound licensed under the current license by default, and allow artists to add a second license (which would be less restrictive) - then you could bill all sounds as being licensed under the current license, but if someone wanted to look closer, they could find out if it was released under less restrictive terms as well.
Also, I don't know how wild I would be about a completely public domain license for my own effects - the only hesitation I would have is that I don't want someone to repackage my effects in another effects library and sell them. Maybe a restriction on redistributing wholesale (as a sound effects library)? For what it's worth...
It seems to me that the license under which these sounds are released could use some work - perhaps the creators should be given a choice in how their sounds are licensed? For example, I do a lot of sound design for community theater, where crediting 10-15 different online entities in the program is not always looked on with favor. I would be happy, personally, to release the sound effects that I have created under a license not requiring attribution (at least in some circumstances).
As the author of this comment mentions, the current (only) choice for a license could get in the way of including these sounds in free software projects as well. Maybe an option that allows more freedom in using the effects in commercial works would help alleviate this? Then the artists could choose for themselves how they wanted their work to be licensed.
IANAL (nor even all that well informed) but my understanding of the DMCA is that it doesn't forbid actually circumventing DRM or other protections, but forbids disseminating information to others on how to do so. Feel free to correct me if this isn't right.
I'll probably get modded into oblivion for this, and I may indeed be quite wrong, but is there anything wrong with allowing "materials critical of evolution" to be taught? Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there really no scientific basis for any criticism of evolution? Isn't it only fair - and rather scientific - to explain both supporting and critical evidence? I didn't RTFA, so if they're teaching intelligent design in particular, then that's an entirely different situation...
For those who object to the parent as lacking a sense of humor, I think there's something key to remember: it's easy to laugh at fat people partially because there's a somewhat submerged belief that it's at least partially their fault - I mean, if they would just stop being lazy and get their act together, they'd be fine, right? And, I'm sure, for some of us the issue is indeed simply one of disciplining ourselves to take better care of ourselves - excercise once in a while, watch what we eat, etc - it's true that everyone who's overweight is not a helpless "victim."
However, in a case like this, it seems extremely likely that this person struggled with mental health issues as well - I think that there almost has to be something more going on for someone's skin to graft into a couch - can you even imagine what that would be like? A mental health disorder is most certainly not anyone's fault and is not something a person can overcome by sheer willpower (anyone who thinks otherwise has clearly not overcome mental health issues themselves nor been close to anyone who has).
While there's nothing inherently wrong with finding humor in illness and death (hey - we all have a morbid streak in us), if it's OK to point to the linked article as humorous, then to be consistent it has to be OK to find AIDS, cancer, MS, smallpox, dementia, leprosy, and a multitude of other debilitating diseases to also be funny as well.
The Ethics of Data Brokers
The submitter poses an interesting question, but forgot to include a link where the answer can be found. Here it is.
That's why you install two hard drives to match the dual cores - then you run the antivirus/spyware scanner on the one that you're not using - i.e. the one without your OS and programs.
Linux may well be ready for a completely "average" user, who doesn't use any unusual hardware and doesn't need any unusual applications - but how many people do you know who run a completely average system with no special or out of the ordinary needs at all? Of these non-average users, how many are willing to learn how to hunt down libraries and recompile things to get their unusual hardware/software to work? Very simply, with Windows and Mac, you don't have to - they just work out of the box.
The Story of a Microsoft Patch
A Tragedy in Three Acts