The connection between terrorism and movies is plausible. I mean, I'm pretty sure that "Battlefield Earth", "Catwoman", and "The Love Guru" all have to be part of some kind of Al Qaeda plot.
If they didn't have a problem with scientific theories then Dawkins wouldn't be a problem to them.
I have a big problem with Dawkins, and I'm an athiest. The problem with Dawkins is that he is simply intolerant of any other viewpoint. He's convinced that he's got the one true answer and that anyone who understands the world differently is in error, and must be converted to his way of thinking. Alternative ways of understanding the world and seeking to answer life's questions have no value, they simply represent falsehoods that must be stamped out at any cost. Hrm... sound familiar?
Dawkins is what I'd call an Evangelical Atheist. Now, I don't think that anyone can argue that a lot of awful things have been done in the name of religion, and have been encouraged by religion, organized and otherwise. But Dawkins holds that religion has never done any good at all, and he's unwilling to rationally consider the possibility that religion could also, at least sometimes, be beneficial for people and societies. He has a deep-seated faith in his lack of faith. He's an intolerant hypocrite... in professing to fight the fundamentalists, he's become one himself.
I think Dawkins and other evangelical atheists ultimately hurt the cause of those trying to promote an understanding of evolution. The problem is that the fundamentalists are arguing that the Bible and the Origin of Species are incompatible ways of seeing the world, so you have to choose one. They say you've got to choose Jesus over Darwin. The evangelical atheists agree that the two texts are incompatible, and they say you've got to choose Darwin over Jesus. Well, there are a lot of people in the middle- people who aren't anti-science, but don't want to give up their faith, either. If you tell those people they must choose between God and natural selection, what do you think they're going to choose?
The other issue is, well, multiculturalism. The United States is based around the idea that people with very different beliefs should be able to practice (or not practice) as they choose, and that as long as their faith (or lack thereof) isn't practiced in a way as to infringe on other's rights, you can do what you want. For Jews, Muslims, Christians, Cthulhu worshippers and atheists to get along... well, it's not easy. It takes a hell of a lot of "live and let live". Some parties aren't living up to their social obligation to treat others respectfully. You don't have to like or even respect their beliefs, but you must respect the individual's right to believe what they choose. Many evangelical Christians have been pretty bad about trying to shove their beliefs down other people's throats, so they haven't been living up to their side of the bargain. Now we've got atheists like Dawkins who are doing the same thing- trying to shove their lack of belief down people's throats. It's a Holy Atheist Crusade. Either way, it's intolerance, and something we could do with less of.
I just want to say... I told you so. I said it on election night and I'll say it again here, loud and clear, for everyone to hear: Obama stole the election. That may not go over well in some parties. But there is simply no way he could have won the popular vote or the electoral college. My polling models and my simulations all point to one unavoidable conclusion: the winner of the 2008 presidential election, and the rightful president, is Ralph Nader.
Portal. Endlessly jumping through hoops and they keep raising them higher and higher. You're promised it will all be worth it if you can navigate through this fiendish maze... but after a while, you start to wonder, what's the purpose of it all? Is your promised reward just a lie?
No, the study is on navel lint, the lint that accumulates in the navel. Naval lint would be the lint that accumulates on warships, or on members of the Navy. For instance, if you take the wetsuit of a SEAL and put it in the drier, and then clean out the lint trap, the result will be naval lint. Now, if you clean out the belly button of an Admiral, the result is naval navel lint. Or perhaps navel naval lint.
Libertarianism is the new Communism. It's an ideology that sounds nice on paper, but doesn't really work in real life. The idea that unrestrained capitalism can, by itself, lead to a fair and functional society is a fairy tale. It's a religiously held belief with no basis in reality- Free Market Fundamentalism. As you point out, the current economic meltdown is an example of why this faith in free markets is misplaced. The experience in Iraq over the past few years is another example of why free markets don't cure all ills. It's hard to run a business if your customers are afraid to walk across the street without getting shot or blown up by a car bomb, let alone drive across town. It's hard to run a business if organized crime and militias are trying to extort money from you. It's hard to run a business if the power, water, and sewage aren't functional half the time. It's hard to run a business if there's not a functional judiciary to enforce contracts and resolve disputes.
The reality is that the free market needs certain things to be able to function. Infrastructure like roads, bridges, electricity. Security from internal and external threats. A judiciary that can enforce the rules that a market functions by. If libertarianism really worked, then Somalia- which lacks a strong central government- would be a thriving society, not a failed state. And frankly, I just think that Free Market Fundamentalism a repugnant ideology. It basically says, "the hell with all of you guys, I'm going to do whatever is best for me" and then attempts to rationalize this behavior and say that, in fact, immature, short-sighted selfishness is some kind of a virtue.
On the other hand, previous experiences suggest this might not be such a bad thing. It didn't actually do much damage last year when a secret biowarfare lab accidentally released the Mnemonivirus and we had a global Amnesia Plague. Remember that?
You guys should not be joking about this. Deleting painful memories is an incredibly dangerous thing, as I can tell you from experience, and in the long run it will only make things worse than they were before. The reason why it's so dangerous is because... ah hell, I can't remember. But anyway, I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea.
So you can even give a dead person facial expressions? This technology seems to have no limits in it applications. I mean, I'll bet you could even get Keanu Reeves to display emotions.
OK, let me correct that statement: this technology seems to have almost no limits in its applications.
This reminds me of the study on that data downloaded from the Diablo II servers. After several years of research, they concluded that the data consisted of 60 terabytes of "clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick..."
In response to this story, John McCain said that he doesn't really get this newfangled "telegraph" technology and he relies on his wife and aides for that kind of thing.
Traditional snap traps work pretty well. Mousetraps for mice, but obviously you need a larger, more powerful trap to kill a rat, so you'll need rat traps for rats. As far as bait, peanut butter works great for attracting rodents, but it helps to really spread it over and under the trigger so they can't simply lick it off without setting off the trap. They aren't perfect: sometimes they miss the rodent. Probably the most unpleasant thing is when the trap doesn't quite finish the job, and you've got a rodent with a broken back or a broken limb struggling to free itself. So they're not for the squeamish... but they're a hell of a lot more humane than glue traps, in my opinion. I also recommend a name brand trap like Victor, which are a lot more effective and less likely to malfunction than the cheap no-name ones. You'd be surprised but there are actually companies that can't put together a decent mousetrap.
There are also electronic rat traps- rat zappers. The rat touches a metal plate, completes a circuit, and gets a high voltage shock that electrocutes it. I haven't used them. The manufacturer boasts a "90% kill rate" which doesn't sound all that much better than you'd get with a good snap trap set properly. Given that you can buy 10 rat traps for the cost of one zapper (and even more mouse traps) I think you'd get a lot more bang for your buck going with snap traps.
As far as poison goes, I'd honestly rather live with live rodents than a bunch of dead rodents slowly rotting away and stinking up the building.
Obama clearly prefers negotiation to the military option, but he clearly recognizes that in some situations, force is necessary. The guy may make some flowery speeches, but he's nobody's fool. Take a look at the headlines. Two brigades- 30,000 troops- are headed to Afghanistan. And just days after taking office, a Predator was used to strike at targets in Pakistan. Other nations are going to be watching his actions closely, and the message he's sending is pretty simple: we're willing to work with you, but don't fuck with us.
it seems like each and every time Blizzard has filed a suit over something related to "violating the terms of their EULA", they've been handed a victory.
You, know, this could just be a coincidence, but a couple of weeks ago I was in Northrend and I ran into an orc named "JudgeCampbell". He had some pretty sweet weapons and armor he was showing off, including a Judicial Robe of Invicibility and a Judge's Battle Gavel of The Dragon, which did an unreal amount of damage. Also, he had all these really powerful spells I'd never even heard of before, such as "Contempt of Court" and "Summon Bailiff". To top it all off, he had like 200,000 gold. I asked where he'd gotten all this stuff and he said he'd just "found it all in some dungeon". It sounded kind of fishy to me, but I didn't think anything much of it at the time.
Exactly, it's stylish. And the lack of functionality is a small price to pay for broadcasting our coolness. It's all about being seen, so who cares if you can't see?
It's important that a society continually challenge itself with ambitious, audacious projects. But is manned space flight really the best way to do that anymore? The first manned flight occurred almost 50 years ago, in 1961. The first moon landing took place in 1969, and the first space station, Salyut, was in orbit in 1971. Since the median age of the American populace is 36.6 years, that means that more than half of the American population was born after 1972. Think about that for a second.
Over half of the American population was born after manned flights had become fairly routine, after men had walked on the moon, and after the first space stations were launched. Many more were too young to remember when Neil Armstrong uttered his famous "That's one small step" speech. So most of America has grown up in an environment where spaceflight is a given, an accepted fact. Shuttle missions, space stations, even another moon walk... none of these are going to inspire America, any more than it would to build a giant clipper ship, a trans-continental railroad, or to attempt a solo flight across the Atlantic.
For the public to get behind a manned space program in a serious way, that program has to push the frontiers in some way. It's got to do something that hasn't already been done 40 or 50 years ago.
Wait a minute... Midnight Commander is a Unix console file manager? Dammit! I just figured that with an awesome sounding name like "Midnight Commander" it had to be some kind of a sweet new action game, and so I pre-ordered a copy for my XBox.
My proposed addition to this bill: when a warrantless wiretap is conducted by the NSA, they are required to play the sound of the Constitution being ripped up into little pieces and then burned.
It just strikes one as a bit hypocritical for our representatives to be worrying about improper use of cell phones by some random pervert, when the NSA's domestic surveillance operations have systematically violated our civil liberties on an industrial scale over the past few years.
Stanley Stumpkowitz stared intently into the flat-screen monitor. It was quiet except for the persistent rattle of the keyboard. Unix commands flew from his fingers, his hands gliding across the keys with the grace of a concert pianist. His face was bathed in an eery, bluish white light, which vaguely flickered as the ASCII scrolled up the screen. His eyes narrowed. His teeth clenched.He would catch that hacker even if it killed him.
Suddenly, he stopped. Was it... no! Impossible! Someone was at the door. Every nerve in his body was aware but his body was as still and silent as a week-old corpse. He waited, but he could sense that the person was still there. They must know I'm down here, thought Stanley. There came a knock. But he did nothing. He waited, it seemed like an eternity. He had expected them to come after him... but not this soon. Now, there was the sound of a hand on the door. The door slowly opened. He said nothing. Stealth was his only option.
"Stanley! Stanley S. Stumpkowitz!" came the voice, demanding.
"Yes?" he replied, hesitantly.
"That TV program you like. Babulon Five? The Science Fiction Channel is having a marathon. I thought you would like to know."
"OK. Thanks!" said Stanley, "I'll set the DVR."
"I made you some soup."
"That's OK. I'm not hungry," he replied
"You're a growing boy. You need to eat!"
"I'm 37, mom. I don't need you telling me what to eat."
"Fine. Be that way. Just ignore me. Break your mother's heart." The door closed. The machine-gun rattle of plastic-on-plastic resumed as his fingers and the keys set into an easy rhythm.
I'm sorry. I'm sure Dan's a really nice guy, and for that matter, I'm sure that he's someone most of us would have far more in common with than most so-called "cool" people. And given that he works with technology for a living, he scores as cool in our books. It's just a smartass joke, and of course, given that I'm posting on Slashdot, I don't have any illusions about where I fall on society's "cool" vs. "lame" spectrum. And I completely agree that the idea behind this software is pretty awesome.
That being said, the consensus here seems to be that (a) the results may leave something to be desired from an artistic standpoint, and (b) the marketing doesn't make most of us want to run out and buy this product. But in its current form I could see kids having fun with this software, and I'd be interested in seeing where it goes in the future.
Oh, come on people; this is an obvious hoax. It's a clever scheme by the marketing department at Apple, aimed at portraying Microsoft as a bunch of uncool, clueless, out-of-touch dorks. Nobody could really be as lame as the guy in this video.
Yeah, I know a little about Quantum, but this kind of teleportation stuff still confuses me. I know there is some kind of logic argument that shows that no actual information can be relayed by this means, but how exactly is the information being transfered? Is it at lightspeed, or something weirder?
More importantly, does this kind of teleportation make the same cool sound as the teleportation the original "Star Trek"?
Slashdot Mirror
The connection between terrorism and movies is plausible. I mean, I'm pretty sure that "Battlefield Earth", "Catwoman", and "The Love Guru" all have to be part of some kind of Al Qaeda plot.
I have a big problem with Dawkins, and I'm an athiest. The problem with Dawkins is that he is simply intolerant of any other viewpoint. He's convinced that he's got the one true answer and that anyone who understands the world differently is in error, and must be converted to his way of thinking. Alternative ways of understanding the world and seeking to answer life's questions have no value, they simply represent falsehoods that must be stamped out at any cost. Hrm... sound familiar?
Dawkins is what I'd call an Evangelical Atheist. Now, I don't think that anyone can argue that a lot of awful things have been done in the name of religion, and have been encouraged by religion, organized and otherwise. But Dawkins holds that religion has never done any good at all, and he's unwilling to rationally consider the possibility that religion could also, at least sometimes, be beneficial for people and societies. He has a deep-seated faith in his lack of faith. He's an intolerant hypocrite... in professing to fight the fundamentalists, he's become one himself.
I think Dawkins and other evangelical atheists ultimately hurt the cause of those trying to promote an understanding of evolution. The problem is that the fundamentalists are arguing that the Bible and the Origin of Species are incompatible ways of seeing the world, so you have to choose one. They say you've got to choose Jesus over Darwin. The evangelical atheists agree that the two texts are incompatible, and they say you've got to choose Darwin over Jesus. Well, there are a lot of people in the middle- people who aren't anti-science, but don't want to give up their faith, either. If you tell those people they must choose between God and natural selection, what do you think they're going to choose?
The other issue is, well, multiculturalism. The United States is based around the idea that people with very different beliefs should be able to practice (or not practice) as they choose, and that as long as their faith (or lack thereof) isn't practiced in a way as to infringe on other's rights, you can do what you want. For Jews, Muslims, Christians, Cthulhu worshippers and atheists to get along... well, it's not easy. It takes a hell of a lot of "live and let live". Some parties aren't living up to their social obligation to treat others respectfully. You don't have to like or even respect their beliefs, but you must respect the individual's right to believe what they choose. Many evangelical Christians have been pretty bad about trying to shove their beliefs down other people's throats, so they haven't been living up to their side of the bargain. Now we've got atheists like Dawkins who are doing the same thing- trying to shove their lack of belief down people's throats. It's a Holy Atheist Crusade. Either way, it's intolerance, and something we could do with less of.
signed,
Ralph Nader
Portal. Endlessly jumping through hoops and they keep raising them higher and higher. You're promised it will all be worth it if you can navigate through this fiendish maze... but after a while, you start to wonder, what's the purpose of it all? Is your promised reward just a lie?
No, the study is on navel lint, the lint that accumulates in the navel. Naval lint would be the lint that accumulates on warships, or on members of the Navy. For instance, if you take the wetsuit of a SEAL and put it in the drier, and then clean out the lint trap, the result will be naval lint. Now, if you clean out the belly button of an Admiral, the result is naval navel lint. Or perhaps navel naval lint.
The reality is that the free market needs certain things to be able to function. Infrastructure like roads, bridges, electricity. Security from internal and external threats. A judiciary that can enforce the rules that a market functions by. If libertarianism really worked, then Somalia- which lacks a strong central government- would be a thriving society, not a failed state. And frankly, I just think that Free Market Fundamentalism a repugnant ideology. It basically says, "the hell with all of you guys, I'm going to do whatever is best for me" and then attempts to rationalize this behavior and say that, in fact, immature, short-sighted selfishness is some kind of a virtue.
On the other hand, previous experiences suggest this might not be such a bad thing. It didn't actually do much damage last year when a secret biowarfare lab accidentally released the Mnemonivirus and we had a global Amnesia Plague. Remember that?
You guys should not be joking about this. Deleting painful memories is an incredibly dangerous thing, as I can tell you from experience, and in the long run it will only make things worse than they were before. The reason why it's so dangerous is because... ah hell, I can't remember. But anyway, I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea.
OK, let me correct that statement: this technology seems to have almost no limits in its applications.
This reminds me of the study on that data downloaded from the Diablo II servers. After several years of research, they concluded that the data consisted of 60 terabytes of "clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick..."
In response to this story, John McCain said that he doesn't really get this newfangled "telegraph" technology and he relies on his wife and aides for that kind of thing.
There are also electronic rat traps- rat zappers. The rat touches a metal plate, completes a circuit, and gets a high voltage shock that electrocutes it. I haven't used them. The manufacturer boasts a "90% kill rate" which doesn't sound all that much better than you'd get with a good snap trap set properly. Given that you can buy 10 rat traps for the cost of one zapper (and even more mouse traps) I think you'd get a lot more bang for your buck going with snap traps.
As far as poison goes, I'd honestly rather live with live rodents than a bunch of dead rodents slowly rotting away and stinking up the building.
Obama clearly prefers negotiation to the military option, but he clearly recognizes that in some situations, force is necessary. The guy may make some flowery speeches, but he's nobody's fool. Take a look at the headlines. Two brigades- 30,000 troops- are headed to Afghanistan. And just days after taking office, a Predator was used to strike at targets in Pakistan. Other nations are going to be watching his actions closely, and the message he's sending is pretty simple: we're willing to work with you, but don't fuck with us.
Except the species isn't extinct. The species Capra pyrenaica is still alive, it's just that one subspecies, Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica is extinct.
You, know, this could just be a coincidence, but a couple of weeks ago I was in Northrend and I ran into an orc named "JudgeCampbell". He had some pretty sweet weapons and armor he was showing off, including a Judicial Robe of Invicibility and a Judge's Battle Gavel of The Dragon, which did an unreal amount of damage. Also, he had all these really powerful spells I'd never even heard of before, such as "Contempt of Court" and "Summon Bailiff". To top it all off, he had like 200,000 gold. I asked where he'd gotten all this stuff and he said he'd just "found it all in some dungeon". It sounded kind of fishy to me, but I didn't think anything much of it at the time.
Exactly, it's stylish. And the lack of functionality is a small price to pay for broadcasting our coolness. It's all about being seen, so who cares if you can't see?
Over half of the American population was born after manned flights had become fairly routine, after men had walked on the moon, and after the first space stations were launched. Many more were too young to remember when Neil Armstrong uttered his famous "That's one small step" speech. So most of America has grown up in an environment where spaceflight is a given, an accepted fact. Shuttle missions, space stations, even another moon walk... none of these are going to inspire America, any more than it would to build a giant clipper ship, a trans-continental railroad, or to attempt a solo flight across the Atlantic.
For the public to get behind a manned space program in a serious way, that program has to push the frontiers in some way. It's got to do something that hasn't already been done 40 or 50 years ago.
Wait a minute... Midnight Commander is a Unix console file manager? Dammit! I just figured that with an awesome sounding name like "Midnight Commander" it had to be some kind of a sweet new action game, and so I pre-ordered a copy for my XBox.
It just strikes one as a bit hypocritical for our representatives to be worrying about improper use of cell phones by some random pervert, when the NSA's domestic surveillance operations have systematically violated our civil liberties on an industrial scale over the past few years.
Suddenly, he stopped. Was it... no! Impossible! Someone was at the door. Every nerve in his body was aware but his body was as still and silent as a week-old corpse. He waited, but he could sense that the person was still there. They must know I'm down here, thought Stanley. There came a knock. But he did nothing. He waited, it seemed like an eternity. He had expected them to come after him... but not this soon. Now, there was the sound of a hand on the door. The door slowly opened. He said nothing. Stealth was his only option.
"Stanley! Stanley S. Stumpkowitz!" came the voice, demanding.
"Yes?" he replied, hesitantly.
"That TV program you like. Babulon Five? The Science Fiction Channel is having a marathon. I thought you would like to know."
"OK. Thanks!" said Stanley, "I'll set the DVR."
"I made you some soup."
"That's OK. I'm not hungry," he replied
"You're a growing boy. You need to eat!"
"I'm 37, mom. I don't need you telling me what to eat."
"Fine. Be that way. Just ignore me. Break your mother's heart." The door closed. The machine-gun rattle of plastic-on-plastic resumed as his fingers and the keys set into an easy rhythm.
That being said, the consensus here seems to be that (a) the results may leave something to be desired from an artistic standpoint, and (b) the marketing doesn't make most of us want to run out and buy this product. But in its current form I could see kids having fun with this software, and I'd be interested in seeing where it goes in the future.
Oh, come on people; this is an obvious hoax. It's a clever scheme by the marketing department at Apple, aimed at portraying Microsoft as a bunch of uncool, clueless, out-of-touch dorks. Nobody could really be as lame as the guy in this video.
No no, he's not dead, he's restin'! Remarkable record label, the Warner Music Group, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
More importantly, does this kind of teleportation make the same cool sound as the teleportation the original "Star Trek"?
It is special.