If I flatly refuse to go to China. If the probability of me going to China outside of directly being forced to do so (we are talking about temptation here, not coersion) is 0, what's the probability that something with 0 chance of happening will happen after an infinite number of trials?
You are assuming I am governed entirely by the laws of probability. Having free will, I am not. So long as nothing *forces* me to go to China, I can say "no" forever.
All Adam and Eve had to do was say "no" forever. Nothing forced them to eat the fruit.
Let's put it this way: assuming my probability of succumbing to a particular temptation is 0, what is the probability that after an infinite amount of time, I will have succumbed to that temptation?
Rejecting the Old Testament is rejecting the prophecies that let us know that Jesus was who He claimed to be.
It's rejecting the Ten Commandments, whereas Jesus said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Sure He clarified the commandments into the 2 Great Commandments, but He never suggested that we weren't bound by them.
It's rejecting the history of the Jewish people that lead up to the situation where Jesus was born.
The only thing that the New Testament is clear on that we should reject is the Jewish Ceremonial Law, because that defines sacrifices and behaviors that were necessary before the sacrifice of Jesus.
Rejecting the rest is ignoring 6000ish years of divinely inspired writings and history, to include some prophecies (Daniel) which according to some perspectives have not been fulfilled yet.
Maybe for the sake of humanity and its free will, God chose to ignore His omnicience. That is to say, if He wanted to make humanity with a will that is truly free, in certain instances, He would have to not predetermine everything.
C.S. Lewis in _The Problem of Pain_ suggests that God can do everything that is possible to do, but can't do what is a logical contradiction. So, God couldn't create a hot dog so big even God couldn't eat it. Nor could He make free will in a situation where everything was predetermined in such a way that people were prevented from making mistakes, because that wouldn't truly be free will. _The Problem of Pain_, btw, makes some great logical arguments and is worth a read by even non-Christians.
Imagine it this way: I have sysadmin powers in my house, so I can know what's going on on every computer if I so choose. However for the sake of the freedom of my wife to make her own decisions, and for our trust relationship, I choose to not monitor things as such. It doesn't mean I couldn't, it just means I don't, and our relationship is healthier because of it.
That logic is quite flawed. I could live forever and vow never to visit China, for instance. One can conceive of a world where I go on living but never visit China. So long as nothing forces me to go there, I could quite easily make the choice not to ad infinitum.
Human beings aren't random number sequences and don't follow their rules.
I tend to describe it in terms of Netscape Navigator to toss around a name that most of my relatives using old computers are familiar with.
Something like: "You remember Netscape from a few years ago? Well Firefox is an up-to-date version of Netscape which is being given away for free. Most people don't know much about it, but it's a ton better than IE."
That's about as close to the truth as I can tell without people getting a glazed look on their face. I'd then go on and tell them about how I can make it so they can surf the web without those annoying ads popping up all over the place, which is pretty much enough to make an instant convert.
Doesn't it also depend on the size of the project and consent of contributors?
I mean sure for a handful of developers on a small project it'd be pretty easy to acquire the project, assuming none of them were OS zealots. However, good luck trying to acquire something as big as, say, the Linux kernel.
He's not a budget photographer. He does mostly wedding photography, and he takes a lot of pictures. I think his numbers were somewhere around 700 to 1000 pictures for an average wedding.
Having an LCD screen is in some ways a crutch. Film forces you to get pictures right the first time, and there are lots of occasions when that matters. If you're taking artsy photos, it's not that big of a deal. If you want to get the look on the groom's face just right as he first sees the bride walking down the aisle, you mostly likely don't have time to look at the screen.
I wasn't quite clear that this wasn't the only reason he prefers film, but the point is that digital can be a crutch that allows you to only get 15 good pictures out of 500 rather than a much higher percentage.
He takes a lot of pictures, but let's face it, there are certain very important photos you only get one chance to get right. Falling back on the training wheels of an LCD screen won't help you there. By the time you've looked at the photo on the screen to make sure it's okay, the chance to correct is gone.
I should mention that this is not the only reason he prefers film.
I can't wait do buy one though, simply because of the great learning effect instant feedback can provide.
I have a friend who is a photographer and refuses to use digital (he's also a programmer so it's not because of some fear of modern electronics). His claim is that with regular film you have to learn how to take a picture and get it right the first time, whereas with digital you get instant feedback and can therefore afford to be sloppy.
He laughs about the behavior of digital photographers which he calls "chimping," that is taking a few of the same shot until you get the right one, then hovering over the LCD screen going "ooh oooh oooh."
If you're going to pose every shot, then by all means go digital, but if you want to be sure to catch a particular moment just right, film is the way to go.
The computer will just assume that the user doesn't want the movie muted and probably wants to watch it full-screen.
I hate it when my computer makes these kinds of assumptions.
I don't think that will be true much longer. Every ISP under the sun is touting its new "popup blocking technology" including the likes of AOL, and IE is now blocking popups. Ad blocking is starting to become quite mainstream, and a selling point for the average Joe.
Targeted doesn't always equal intrusive. Targeting can simply mean ads appropriate for their placement. An ad for feminine products wouldn't make as much sense in Playboy as it would on the Oxygen Channel, for instance.
I'd say that reading a book review from a trusted source while having an ad linking to the book on Amazon (via Google Ads or whatever) would be well targeted, unintrusive, and perhaps even helpful to most reasonable people. This is why Google's advertising model works so well as compared to companies that just annoy the heck out of people to catch their eyes or trick them into following a link.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I thought Leave It to Beaver was great also, but it seems as though you have raised it to a level of idolatry.
A good unpatched hack to a widely used web server is way more valuable than a 4 year old console.
Is that Free as in speech or Free as in beer?
Perhaps he is smoking Microsoft SQL Server?
How did he know what would happen this morning when he published the book?
Gee, I would have just compiled 4.0.0 with 3.4.3, then compiled 4.0.0 again with 4.0.0.
I would call that being forced to go to China. We're talking about acts of free will here.
But the Garden of Eden was not about being forced to do anything, it was about succumbing to temptation.
If I flatly refuse to go to China. If the probability of me going to China outside of directly being forced to do so (we are talking about temptation here, not coersion) is 0, what's the probability that something with 0 chance of happening will happen after an infinite number of trials?
You are assuming I am governed entirely by the laws of probability. Having free will, I am not. So long as nothing *forces* me to go to China, I can say "no" forever.
All Adam and Eve had to do was say "no" forever. Nothing forced them to eat the fruit.
Let's put it this way: assuming my probability of succumbing to a particular temptation is 0, what is the probability that after an infinite amount of time, I will have succumbed to that temptation?
I'll bite.
We should make a whole class out of it called "Characterizing Groups by Their Extremes: Stereotypes in the New Millenium."
Here are some possible lessons:
"Muslim Beliefs From the Writings of Bin Laden"
"Liberalism With a Focus on Josef Stalin"
"Conservativism as Presented by Fox News"
Create a God Detecting Device (TM). If it fails to detect God, then God does not exist.
The details of this device are proprietary, and good luck finding Linux drivers.
Rejecting the Old Testament is rejecting the prophecies that let us know that Jesus was who He claimed to be.
It's rejecting the Ten Commandments, whereas Jesus said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." Sure He clarified the commandments into the 2 Great Commandments, but He never suggested that we weren't bound by them.
It's rejecting the history of the Jewish people that lead up to the situation where Jesus was born.
The only thing that the New Testament is clear on that we should reject is the Jewish Ceremonial Law, because that defines sacrifices and behaviors that were necessary before the sacrifice of Jesus.
Rejecting the rest is ignoring 6000ish years of divinely inspired writings and history, to include some prophecies (Daniel) which according to some perspectives have not been fulfilled yet.
Maybe for the sake of humanity and its free will, God chose to ignore His omnicience. That is to say, if He wanted to make humanity with a will that is truly free, in certain instances, He would have to not predetermine everything.
C.S. Lewis in _The Problem of Pain_ suggests that God can do everything that is possible to do, but can't do what is a logical contradiction. So, God couldn't create a hot dog so big even God couldn't eat it. Nor could He make free will in a situation where everything was predetermined in such a way that people were prevented from making mistakes, because that wouldn't truly be free will. _The Problem of Pain_, btw, makes some great logical arguments and is worth a read by even non-Christians.
Imagine it this way: I have sysadmin powers in my house, so I can know what's going on on every computer if I so choose. However for the sake of the freedom of my wife to make her own decisions, and for our trust relationship, I choose to not monitor things as such. It doesn't mean I couldn't, it just means I don't, and our relationship is healthier because of it.
That logic is quite flawed. I could live forever and vow never to visit China, for instance. One can conceive of a world where I go on living but never visit China. So long as nothing forces me to go there, I could quite easily make the choice not to ad infinitum.
Human beings aren't random number sequences and don't follow their rules.
I tend to describe it in terms of Netscape Navigator to toss around a name that most of my relatives using old computers are familiar with.
Something like: "You remember Netscape from a few years ago? Well Firefox is an up-to-date version of Netscape which is being given away for free. Most people don't know much about it, but it's a ton better than IE."
That's about as close to the truth as I can tell without people getting a glazed look on their face. I'd then go on and tell them about how I can make it so they can surf the web without those annoying ads popping up all over the place, which is pretty much enough to make an instant convert.
No, only when they say "First Post"
Doesn't it also depend on the size of the project and consent of contributors?
I mean sure for a handful of developers on a small project it'd be pretty easy to acquire the project, assuming none of them were OS zealots. However, good luck trying to acquire something as big as, say, the Linux kernel.
He's not a budget photographer. He does mostly wedding photography, and he takes a lot of pictures. I think his numbers were somewhere around 700 to 1000 pictures for an average wedding.
Having an LCD screen is in some ways a crutch. Film forces you to get pictures right the first time, and there are lots of occasions when that matters. If you're taking artsy photos, it's not that big of a deal. If you want to get the look on the groom's face just right as he first sees the bride walking down the aisle, you mostly likely don't have time to look at the screen.
I wasn't quite clear that this wasn't the only reason he prefers film, but the point is that digital can be a crutch that allows you to only get 15 good pictures out of 500 rather than a much higher percentage.
He takes a lot of pictures, but let's face it, there are certain very important photos you only get one chance to get right. Falling back on the training wheels of an LCD screen won't help you there. By the time you've looked at the photo on the screen to make sure it's okay, the chance to correct is gone.
I should mention that this is not the only reason he prefers film.
I can't wait do buy one though, simply because of the great learning effect instant feedback can provide.
I have a friend who is a photographer and refuses to use digital (he's also a programmer so it's not because of some fear of modern electronics). His claim is that with regular film you have to learn how to take a picture and get it right the first time, whereas with digital you get instant feedback and can therefore afford to be sloppy.
He laughs about the behavior of digital photographers which he calls "chimping," that is taking a few of the same shot until you get the right one, then hovering over the LCD screen going "ooh oooh oooh."
If you're going to pose every shot, then by all means go digital, but if you want to be sure to catch a particular moment just right, film is the way to go.
My understanding was that 35mm film ~= 10 Megapixels resolution.
How much of that resolution you actually need for a 4x6 print is up in the air, though.
The computer will just assume that the user doesn't want the movie muted and probably wants to watch it full-screen.
I hate it when my computer makes these kinds of assumptions.
I don't think that will be true much longer. Every ISP under the sun is touting its new "popup blocking technology" including the likes of AOL, and IE is now blocking popups. Ad blocking is starting to become quite mainstream, and a selling point for the average Joe.
Targeted doesn't always equal intrusive. Targeting can simply mean ads appropriate for their placement. An ad for feminine products wouldn't make as much sense in Playboy as it would on the Oxygen Channel, for instance.
I'd say that reading a book review from a trusted source while having an ad linking to the book on Amazon (via Google Ads or whatever) would be well targeted, unintrusive, and perhaps even helpful to most reasonable people. This is why Google's advertising model works so well as compared to companies that just annoy the heck out of people to catch their eyes or trick them into following a link.