Yes, a government-built "green city" can change the world, by showing that it can be done, with today's technology and ressources. Meanwhile over here, our rulers meet again and again in climate conferences and come out with nice words and little else. If China shows that it can be done, there will be less excuses left to not do it, now and here.
Yes, I'm aware of solar technology, power-saving technologies, and a whole lot of other stuff. They're great. Their problem is that they would have to grow roughly one order of magnitude faster to turn us around before climate change wipes us out. Because while there's a billion or so to be made in eco-friendly technology, there are several trillions to be made destroying the environment. And that's the dead-lock I'm talking about: Everyone telling everyone else to go first, because nobody is willing to give up a "competitive advantage".
Frankly, this goes to show one thing: That democracy as-we-do-it is a dead end and will lead is straight into self-destruction. Evil dictatorship, on the other hand (China hasn't been a pure communist country for years) can get things done.
Face it: The west is in a dead-lock. We want to save the world, but we can't, because our focus on self-interest and "the market will solve it" very efficiently prevents any common-interest solutions. It's the tragedy of the commons all over again, just on a global scale.
The next step, I fear, will be eco-facism. The system can't heal itself because it's dead-locked. Someone will exploit the situation, promise salvation, and take control. By then, only drastic measures will do, so we will accept them, without further debate because there isn't time for debate. Welcome to facism (again, for some).
Are you forgetting that the meat you raise needs to be fed? Guess what it gets fed with? That's right plants. The same plants that could have been fed directly to vegetarians.
Vegetarians eat grass? Wow, I never knew that. Thanks for teaching me something new today.
Not much. YouTube is just amateur TV, like the "open channel" that we have over here (no idea what it's called where you live, it's a TV station where everyone can go and get a slot of TV time for his home-produced content).
And while I might be condescending, I am dead serious. There is an incredible amount of fakery going on in the most "serious" TV parts. The news, for example, routinely use stock footage instead of actual video.
People are tuning in to experience a real event, not some imagined account of what the fireworks might have looked like.
Only the very dumb watch TV to "experience a real event". Everyone with an IQ above 50 or so watches TV - if at all - for entertainment and shallow information. To "experience a real event", the only actual option is to be there when it happens.
The purpose of fireworks is nice visuals. There's nothing "special" differentiation live/real fireworks from CGI. What difference does it make, really?
I'm not sure if you don't underestimate the supporters. $2000 isn't that much for someone a little well off. I donated half that to the defense in the CSS case back then.
You don't need 10,000 people spending that money, a dozen or so would do, and you can find those easily.
Or maybe they do. For one, this gives you a lot more "connection" to the campaign if you can point to the screen and say "that is my ad" instead of "I made a small donation to the people who run the fund that bought this ad".
Two, politically, it's also an interesting move, because it puts actual people behind the ad campaign instead of some anonymous organisation. We will know when we see the PR in the mainstream press. If they play their cards right, the mainstream media might well write "thousands of people bought ads to protest the FISA act" or something like that. Which, of course, is a lot more headlines material than "some protest organisation protests FISA, as they did before".
One thing often forgotten (which doesn't explain the examples, but many others) is that in Europe, prices are always (AFAIK) given with taxes, while in the US they are (AFAIK) without. Since sales tax in Germany is 19%, that explains quite a bit of difference already.
Yes, exactly. Language being the way it is (i.e. evolving and changing over time), we can only guess at what our ancestors really meant in their writings. As you point out in your "inn" example, cultural contexts of a society alien to us also play an important role and are too often ignored. For example, it was history that taught me that there is an important missing piece in the whole Jesus story: The romans did not actually use crucifiction at that time. They were, however, fairly fond of impaling (which is just as, if not more, painful and long-lasting). It also involves a wodden stake, so this might be another issue of mis-translation.
The "young woman/virgin" issue is something you'll find interesting. There are some inconsistencies within the biblical texts, as in early prophecies (if I remember correctly) in the old testament, the actual word for virgin is used here and there, but the new testament uses the word for "young woman" (as do some parts of the old).
Bible study is probably an interesting topic, if one shares the faith. I don't so I don't go in too deep, I just picked up stuff here and there when it came to disproving some of the zealous fanatics who claim they have the word of their god in their hands, but couldn't read a word of it in its original tongue.:-)
And oh yes, I totally agree on the devil thing. Without devil and hell, the entire xian faith collapses. For love is meaningless without its opposite, and an omnipresent being can by definition not offer the third alternative - ignorance.
Frankly, examine your work-processes. E-Mail is not a general filing system, or a task-management system, or anything else that would require you to keep stuff around forever. In fact, doing so is - according to my observation - the #1 reason why most people can't use mail productively.
A tiny fraction of mails actually needs to be kept around for a long time, and I have a folder for those. It's on the order of 0.01% of the total volume. If I had to export that in some format, be it word,.txt or whatever, it would be a tiny hassle.
For everything else, I'd be happy to get the stuff I haven't needed for the past six months automatically deleted, because the chance is 99.99% that I won't need it anymore, anyways, and looking through the pile to check for things that I might still need takes away my valuable time.
Hope this gets done quickly, because the EU and other players are pushing for software patents and one of the main arguments is "harmonisation with the global (read: US) systems".
And I'm very keen on finding out what their next pseudo-argument is gonna be.
First: Thank you for the rare pleasure of having an actual informed, well-spoken counter-argument here.
Now: Bible study is not something I do for a living, so I can't counter you on the facts you present and will accept them as true.
You will, however, very likely agree that you represent a minority. Another minority - but a more numerous one - was the point of my original post. Entire sects within the xian faith believe in "the bible" as the actual word of their god, and they mean whatever version they have, including translations as not all limit the claim to the original hebrew and greek. Changing a single word means heresy to them, even if it is to correct a spelling mistake. These are the people of recent fame that believe there's a secret message encoded in the bible if you count every 40th (or whatever) letter. Of course, with such a belief you must insist on the text integrity with zeal.
That assumption breaks down if the text is revealed as being far from unchanged, and very likely to not even have an "original" version, as it's been a collection all along - as you agree.
The question of meaning is slightly more complicated. Even with the text staying identical, meaning can change. That's a problem well-known in history and literature. The meaning of words changes all the time, sometimes rapidly. "gay", for example, didn't always mean "homosexual". One discussion you're probably familiar with is that the original does not, in fact, make it indisputable that Mary was a virgin, as "almah" means "young woman". My native german has the same artifact: "Jungfrau" means "virgin" but the actual translation is young ("jung") - woman ("Frau").
In addition to the joys of language, religious practice also changes over time. For most of the middle ages, for example, the devil played a much more pronounced and visible role in xian religous practice, than today. Obviously, those are reactions to the external world - a god of eternal love is slightly less believable in a world of early death and plagues, and the evil parts of the believe feature more prominently.
So maybe I was too short in saying the message changed. The full detail is that the text did not change (much, I think there were later "corrections", too), but what it meant and what people were told about it, did.
Who cares about a unified username/password "experience".
I think that would be almost everyone who's tired of remembering (or writing down) a hundred different passwords, as well as everyone who's already using the same password everywhere because (see previous).
A single username/password combination is an idiotic idea which means one site getting compromised compromises ALL websites you've a openID profile. Who thinks of these idiotic ideas?
You.
The people behind OpenID thought of it as a problem to solve and found a solution. Newsflash: If my game (see footer) accepts OpenID as a logon mechanism (and it will, once I get around to coding it), I won't get your actual login data. What I'll get is a way to ask thirdparty.com if you really are dude@thirdparty.com - the actual authentication happens there, not at my site. Since OpenID is distributed, you in reality get less exposure to attackers, because someone cracking me, or Facebook, or Google, will not get any login data for you, not even to the cracked site, unless that site was your provider.
Tom, how has the message of the Bible changed over time?
At least it didn't add "comprehension" recently, it seems.
"literal" meaning, of course, that some sects do in fact believe not in some interpretative "message", but the actual words and even letters being "the" actual word of "the" actual god. Which, obviously, is a pretty shitty argument when it turns out "the word" was changed, mangled, translated and generally subject to human whim for most of its time.
And yes, the "message" has changed quite a bit, too. What early xians found in their bible isn't the same as what medieval xians found, and neither is what xians today find. Or are told to find, in each case.
True, that. All the usual religious suspects will throw a fit, because they know well that common insight into how their religion has evolved over time instead of being conceived in perfection ab initio, will destroy any claim to any higher power being the original source.
If you're one of the nutjobs claiming that the bible is "god's word" in the literal sense, and not a human creation, then evidence that "the bible" doesn't exist, but is a collection that changed over time, is the death-blow to a core pillar of your faith.
It will be interesting how this will play out in the social/economical dynamics of China.
I think you don't "get" the scale of China. It's four times as large as the USA in population. 350 factories will barely register in the overal economy of a country that size.
But I still think it's a very important step. If it works, then it proves that something can be done, and with any luck will silence some of the nay-sayers.
Then we would run into ergonomic issues surrounding the neck and or touch screen "gorilla arm."
Don't you think that a move to touch-screens would also move the screen away from the "TV" position (in front, at eye level) to a "desktop" position (where the keyboard is today, slightly angled, so you look down/front on it) ?
I'd think so, and that design is already fairly popular outside the office. With flat-screen technology, it becomes a feasable design for the office.
(and yes, I agree the mouse won't disappear)
(and yes, it's been 1 minute since I posted a commment,/. - some people can write with more than two fingers)
Did you ever notice how enormous the letters and icons are on touch screens in grocery stores? I prefer to use my screen real estate better.
Actually - and I agree with the rest you said - this is because those are built so everyone can use them, especially the elderly who may have poor eye-sight and/or shaky hands. The would need the same size if the device were mouse-controlled.
Another analyst who wants to be in the headlines, so he can put it on his resume.
Please. Nobody seriously believes this shit. Multitouch and motion sensors will add more input methods, and become standard for some tasks and devices, but anyone saying that the mouse (or the keyboard, for that matter) will disappear within the forseable future is an idiot. Those who aren't idiots know that a replacement has to offer the same features and at least one more, in order to be accepted. A touchscreen doesn't offer the same features as a mouse, it offers a completely different feature-set. As such, it might be used in addition to, but not instead of, a mouse. Case closed.
yet if that property is intellectual rather than physical, there is huge outcry. Why the double standard?
Because intellectual "property" isn't. It has none of the elements that make up "property" in physical things. Most importantly, it is not exclusive.
People fend off, fight for and die for land because if you use it, then I can't. That's not true of music, we can both have a copy of the same song and be happy.
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Yes, a government-built "green city" can change the world, by showing that it can be done, with today's technology and ressources. Meanwhile over here, our rulers meet again and again in climate conferences and come out with nice words and little else. If China shows that it can be done, there will be less excuses left to not do it, now and here.
Yes, I'm aware of solar technology, power-saving technologies, and a whole lot of other stuff. They're great. Their problem is that they would have to grow roughly one order of magnitude faster to turn us around before climate change wipes us out. Because while there's a billion or so to be made in eco-friendly technology, there are several trillions to be made destroying the environment. And that's the dead-lock I'm talking about: Everyone telling everyone else to go first, because nobody is willing to give up a "competitive advantage".
Frankly, this goes to show one thing: That democracy as-we-do-it is a dead end and will lead is straight into self-destruction. Evil dictatorship, on the other hand (China hasn't been a pure communist country for years) can get things done.
Face it: The west is in a dead-lock. We want to save the world, but we can't, because our focus on self-interest and "the market will solve it" very efficiently prevents any common-interest solutions. It's the tragedy of the commons all over again, just on a global scale.
The next step, I fear, will be eco-facism. The system can't heal itself because it's dead-locked. Someone will exploit the situation, promise salvation, and take control. By then, only drastic measures will do, so we will accept them, without further debate because there isn't time for debate. Welcome to facism (again, for some).
Are you forgetting that the meat you raise needs to be fed? Guess what it gets fed with? That's right plants. The same plants that could have been fed directly to vegetarians.
Vegetarians eat grass? Wow, I never knew that. Thanks for teaching me something new today.
And even if, the sum total would still be less polution. So what's your problem? That the result isn't 100% perfect from the get-go?
Because like many software projects, starting from scratch is easier than re-writing in place if you want to make a fundamental change.
Not much. YouTube is just amateur TV, like the "open channel" that we have over here (no idea what it's called where you live, it's a TV station where everyone can go and get a slot of TV time for his home-produced content).
And while I might be condescending, I am dead serious. There is an incredible amount of fakery going on in the most "serious" TV parts. The news, for example, routinely use stock footage instead of actual video.
People are tuning in to experience a real event, not some imagined account of what the fireworks might have looked like.
Only the very dumb watch TV to "experience a real event". Everyone with an IQ above 50 or so watches TV - if at all - for entertainment and shallow information. To "experience a real event", the only actual option is to be there when it happens.
And the point is?
The purpose of fireworks is nice visuals. There's nothing "special" differentiation live/real fireworks from CGI. What difference does it make, really?
I'm not sure if you don't underestimate the supporters. $2000 isn't that much for someone a little well off. I donated half that to the defense in the CSS case back then.
You don't need 10,000 people spending that money, a dozen or so would do, and you can find those easily.
Your point being? I did explicitly mention it doesn't explain these specific examples.
Or maybe they do. For one, this gives you a lot more "connection" to the campaign if you can point to the screen and say "that is my ad" instead of "I made a small donation to the people who run the fund that bought this ad".
Two, politically, it's also an interesting move, because it puts actual people behind the ad campaign instead of some anonymous organisation. We will know when we see the PR in the mainstream press. If they play their cards right, the mainstream media might well write "thousands of people bought ads to protest the FISA act" or something like that. Which, of course, is a lot more headlines material than "some protest organisation protests FISA, as they did before".
One thing often forgotten (which doesn't explain the examples, but many others) is that in Europe, prices are always (AFAIK) given with taxes, while in the US they are (AFAIK) without. Since sales tax in Germany is 19%, that explains quite a bit of difference already.
Yes, exactly. Language being the way it is (i.e. evolving and changing over time), we can only guess at what our ancestors really meant in their writings. As you point out in your "inn" example, cultural contexts of a society alien to us also play an important role and are too often ignored. For example, it was history that taught me that there is an important missing piece in the whole Jesus story: The romans did not actually use crucifiction at that time. They were, however, fairly fond of impaling (which is just as, if not more, painful and long-lasting). It also involves a wodden stake, so this might be another issue of mis-translation.
The "young woman/virgin" issue is something you'll find interesting. There are some inconsistencies within the biblical texts, as in early prophecies (if I remember correctly) in the old testament, the actual word for virgin is used here and there, but the new testament uses the word for "young woman" (as do some parts of the old).
Bible study is probably an interesting topic, if one shares the faith. I don't so I don't go in too deep, I just picked up stuff here and there when it came to disproving some of the zealous fanatics who claim they have the word of their god in their hands, but couldn't read a word of it in its original tongue. :-)
And oh yes, I totally agree on the devil thing. Without devil and hell, the entire xian faith collapses. For love is meaningless without its opposite, and an omnipresent being can by definition not offer the third alternative - ignorance.
Frankly, examine your work-processes. E-Mail is not a general filing system, or a task-management system, or anything else that would require you to keep stuff around forever. In fact, doing so is - according to my observation - the #1 reason why most people can't use mail productively.
A tiny fraction of mails actually needs to be kept around for a long time, and I have a folder for those. It's on the order of 0.01% of the total volume. If I had to export that in some format, be it word, .txt or whatever, it would be a tiny hassle.
For everything else, I'd be happy to get the stuff I haven't needed for the past six months automatically deleted, because the chance is 99.99% that I won't need it anymore, anyways, and looking through the pile to check for things that I might still need takes away my valuable time.
Hope this gets done quickly, because the EU and other players are pushing for software patents and one of the main arguments is "harmonisation with the global (read: US) systems".
And I'm very keen on finding out what their next pseudo-argument is gonna be.
First: Thank you for the rare pleasure of having an actual informed, well-spoken counter-argument here.
Now: Bible study is not something I do for a living, so I can't counter you on the facts you present and will accept them as true.
You will, however, very likely agree that you represent a minority. Another minority - but a more numerous one - was the point of my original post. Entire sects within the xian faith believe in "the bible" as the actual word of their god, and they mean whatever version they have, including translations as not all limit the claim to the original hebrew and greek. Changing a single word means heresy to them, even if it is to correct a spelling mistake. These are the people of recent fame that believe there's a secret message encoded in the bible if you count every 40th (or whatever) letter. Of course, with such a belief you must insist on the text integrity with zeal.
That assumption breaks down if the text is revealed as being far from unchanged, and very likely to not even have an "original" version, as it's been a collection all along - as you agree.
The question of meaning is slightly more complicated. Even with the text staying identical, meaning can change. That's a problem well-known in history and literature. The meaning of words changes all the time, sometimes rapidly. "gay", for example, didn't always mean "homosexual". One discussion you're probably familiar with is that the original does not, in fact, make it indisputable that Mary was a virgin, as "almah" means "young woman". My native german has the same artifact: "Jungfrau" means "virgin" but the actual translation is young ("jung") - woman ("Frau").
In addition to the joys of language, religious practice also changes over time. For most of the middle ages, for example, the devil played a much more pronounced and visible role in xian religous practice, than today. Obviously, those are reactions to the external world - a god of eternal love is slightly less believable in a world of early death and plagues, and the evil parts of the believe feature more prominently.
So maybe I was too short in saying the message changed. The full detail is that the text did not change (much, I think there were later "corrections", too), but what it meant and what people were told about it, did.
Who cares about a unified username/password "experience".
I think that would be almost everyone who's tired of remembering (or writing down) a hundred different passwords, as well as everyone who's already using the same password everywhere because (see previous).
A single username/password combination is an idiotic idea which means one site getting compromised compromises ALL websites you've a openID profile. Who thinks of these idiotic ideas?
You.
The people behind OpenID thought of it as a problem to solve and found a solution. Newsflash: If my game (see footer) accepts OpenID as a logon mechanism (and it will, once I get around to coding it), I won't get your actual login data. What I'll get is a way to ask thirdparty.com if you really are dude@thirdparty.com - the actual authentication happens there, not at my site. Since OpenID is distributed, you in reality get less exposure to attackers, because someone cracking me, or Facebook, or Google, will not get any login data for you, not even to the cracked site, unless that site was your provider.
Tom, how has the message of the Bible changed over time?
At least it didn't add "comprehension" recently, it seems.
"literal" meaning, of course, that some sects do in fact believe not in some interpretative "message", but the actual words and even letters being "the" actual word of "the" actual god. Which, obviously, is a pretty shitty argument when it turns out "the word" was changed, mangled, translated and generally subject to human whim for most of its time.
And yes, the "message" has changed quite a bit, too. What early xians found in their bible isn't the same as what medieval xians found, and neither is what xians today find. Or are told to find, in each case.
True, that. All the usual religious suspects will throw a fit, because they know well that common insight into how their religion has evolved over time instead of being conceived in perfection ab initio, will destroy any claim to any higher power being the original source.
If you're one of the nutjobs claiming that the bible is "god's word" in the literal sense, and not a human creation, then evidence that "the bible" doesn't exist, but is a collection that changed over time, is the death-blow to a core pillar of your faith.
It will be interesting how this will play out in the social/economical dynamics of China.
I think you don't "get" the scale of China. It's four times as large as the USA in population. 350 factories will barely register in the overal economy of a country that size.
Yes, it's a short-term measure.
But I still think it's a very important step. If it works, then it proves that something can be done, and with any luck will silence some of the nay-sayers.
Then we would run into ergonomic issues surrounding the neck and or touch screen "gorilla arm."
Don't you think that a move to touch-screens would also move the screen away from the "TV" position (in front, at eye level) to a "desktop" position (where the keyboard is today, slightly angled, so you look down/front on it) ?
I'd think so, and that design is already fairly popular outside the office. With flat-screen technology, it becomes a feasable design for the office.
(and yes, I agree the mouse won't disappear)
(and yes, it's been 1 minute since I posted a commment, /. - some people can write with more than two fingers)
Did you ever notice how enormous the letters and icons are on touch screens in grocery stores? I prefer to use my screen real estate better.
Actually - and I agree with the rest you said - this is because those are built so everyone can use them, especially the elderly who may have poor eye-sight and/or shaky hands. The would need the same size if the device were mouse-controlled.
Another analyst who wants to be in the headlines, so he can put it on his resume.
Please. Nobody seriously believes this shit. Multitouch and motion sensors will add more input methods, and become standard for some tasks and devices, but anyone saying that the mouse (or the keyboard, for that matter) will disappear within the forseable future is an idiot. Those who aren't idiots know that a replacement has to offer the same features and at least one more, in order to be accepted. A touchscreen doesn't offer the same features as a mouse, it offers a completely different feature-set. As such, it might be used in addition to, but not instead of, a mouse. Case closed.
yet if that property is intellectual rather than physical, there is huge outcry.
Why the double standard?
Because intellectual "property" isn't. It has none of the elements that make up "property" in physical things. Most importantly, it is not exclusive.
People fend off, fight for and die for land because if you use it, then I can't. That's not true of music, we can both have a copy of the same song and be happy.
That's why the double standard.