The PS2 Linux was a completely different beast - it wasn't an advertised feature.
However, the PS3 was advertised as allowing OtherOS installation and also as allowing access to the PSN (which is required for certain games). As I've paid for games that require access to the PSN, Sony are stealing a feature from me.
My choice was either to continue using OtherOS and lose access to games that I've bought or to continue using it as a console and losing access to OtherOS.
Buying any further Sony products is the last thing I'd do. I'm seriously considering selling my PS3 and trading it in for an XBox 360.
As long as science does not say religion is wrong, then there is not problem.
The main problem is that creationism cannot be classed as wrong or right - there's no evidence either way. That is why it doesn't belong in a science classroom. By all means discuss it in a religious studies classroom - I've got no problem with people's personal religions, I just don't agree with forcing it upon them.
When people claim that science proves creationism wrong, they are not using "prove" in any kind of rigorous manner. My own opinion is that the wealth of detail about the universe that science has uncovered has eroded religion's position of describing the physical world. Some religions don't try to cover that ground (as far as I know, buddhism doesn't provide a creation story), but where they do they don't make a whole lot of sense to me.
From what I remember, the bible's description of rainbows (a sign of the covenant that the earth will never be flooded again) is somewhat shallower than the incredible amount of detail that science can specify about the behaviour of light and diffraction. There certainly doesn't seem to be the same controversy over what should be taught about the nature of light in science classrooms.
How would you disprove the relationship between a Pongidae and homo or that they were in fact two distinct species? While we are close at observing some aspects of evolution in nature and in the lab, we haven't really saw it unless we start changing definitions specifically for that event. There are quite a few things in science that you cannot disprove yet the evidence supports the theory's point.
It's very tricky to prove/disprove a relationship between two species without living populations as the definition of a species is not very precise. In a lot of ways, a "species" is just a convenient grouping of individuals that makes it easier to talk about them. The amount of data that you can get from one fossil tends to be limited to the physical form of a creature and there's a lot of guesswork to try to figure out where creatures should fit in our model of what happened.
It's pretty easy to design experiments to verify/disprove evolution in a lab - you can apply different selective pressures to a population (typically bacteria/insects or something with a rapid reproductive cycle) and observe what happens to see if it matches the theory or not. There has been so many variations of experiments involving selective pressure and it's effect on populations that it's inconceivable that evolutionary theory is completely broken. As far as I know, there's very few cases where a scientific theory cannot be invalidated (string theory being the only one I can think of).
Well, if the entire world through a series of reported events claimed that invisible pink unicorns existed because of eye witness statements over the past several thousand yours, yes, I think it would be permissible to mention invisible pink unicorns in the classroom.
If all we have is eye witness statements, then pink invisible unicorns would probably be part of cryptozoology as eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable. I don't think that cryptozoology belongs in a science classroom either, although there is a much stronger argument for it being there than creationism. e.g. Evidence could easily be gathered for the existence of the Loch Ness monster, but so far the evidence (faked photos, eye witness accounts) is too weak for most people to accept that it exists.
Also, I don't believe anyone who claims to have "seen" a pink invisible unicorn as they cannot be seen. The whole point about pink invisible unicorns is not whether they exist or not, but on the complete lack of methods to determine their existence. You may choose to believe or disbelieve someone who claims to have experienced one, and when lots of people believe it, it can be generally accepted as true. Even when accepted as true, their study
I don't know how your senses tell you that there is a God, but I've never wanted to kill myself and I'm an atheist. Maybe your need to find meaning has led to your belief and I'm glad that you've found it useful.
I don't think that anyone completely lacks any critical thinking, but it does seem to be a vanishing commodity these days. I've got no idea about apologetics, but a quick glance at their website gave me an impression of religious articles with some crackpot ideas. That's just my initial opinion though, I haven't read anything beyond the titles - it might have some really intelligent articles for all I know.
I don't know why you associate critical thinking with atheists, as critical thinking is most often applied in other areas of life rather than religion. I would argue that you some level of critical thinking is very useful in reading a blueprint, i.e. if there are any discrepancies in the measurements then it's generally cheaper to find out about them before building. I'm sure code monkeys can churn out perl scripts to match a well written spec, but I'd much rather have someone who can understand the bigger picture and suggest alternative approaches. Similarly, an office clerk who figures out a more efficient way of doing their job tends to be more valuable than someone who blindly does exactly what is asked of them.
I think critical thinking with no idea of politics or tact is a bad combination and doesn't help teams. There's a right and wrong way to go about changing things and rocking the boat, but a lot of successful businesses are made by questioning how things are done.
Critical thinking is partly a function of intelligence and partly learnt. It can be taught by showing plenty of examples and examining the reasoning behind them (it has to be practiced as well). A well thought out argument can be followed and understood by others and often supported by evidence which then gives it a lot more weight than just a personal opinion.
Schools have religious studies for learning about god(s) and there are always plenty of religious organisations for learning about God. Science classrooms are not the place for discussing creationism except maybe to provide an example of non-science along with astrology and homeopathy.
Creationism shouldn't be taught in a science classroom because it's not science. It makes no testable predictions and thus isn't science.
It's relatively easy to disprove something in science - if an experiment doesn't match our current understanding, then there must be a problem with how we think things work. e.g. you can perform Mendel's pea plant experiment and if you get significantly different results (and your methodology isn't faulty), then we have to revise our model of genetic inheritance.
There's been plenty of scientific ideas that were once thought to be true, but when experimental data contradicts it, it has to be thrown out. A classic example is the luminiferous aether hypothesis that was abandoned when Einstein's special relativity was found to be a far more accurate model. Belief doesn't really enter into it - there's just different models that attempt to describe different aspects of the universe.
Creationism, though, is a religious belief and thus proof isn't required or indeed possible. You're right that a scientific theory can't discredit creationism the same way that you can't disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns. I think you'd be rightly upset if a biology class started teaching about invisible pink unicorns rather than plant cell membranes with the explanation that they're just swapping one belief with another. Invisible pink unicorns might or might not exist, but the observable universe is precisely the same either way, so it is meaningless to argue over it - it's just a matter of faith as to whether they exist or not.
This is why creationism shouldn't be taught in a science classroom.
Any reputable theory (except maybe string theory) has experiments (even thought experiments) that can give results which would cast doubt/disprove a theory.
Nonsense. Anyone who is going to be in the position to impact the future will have went to college and the topic is covered there quite well. Your grasping for straws here. No one graduating high school will ever invent the newest drug or cure any disease that a high school level of biology or science will give them. They will have taken college or they will find someone who was in college to further anything they might come close to finding. Furthermore, the kids who would want to go into a field where this knowledge might remotely be deemed important, are the same kids who already know the knowledge. Knowing about creation, religion, or anything contrary to science does not stop kids from critically thinking.
As long as we don't let them vote, then we'll be okay
What I don't understand is how this is any better than full disk encryption (e.g. LUKS, truecrypt etc).
If you remove a LUKS partition and put it in a different machine, you're not going to be able to get anything from it unless you know the passphrase. Even mounting the platters in a different casing won't help you get around encryption, whereas this design relies on the controller.
Also, encryption allows the user to recover data in case of motherboard failure. I just don't see what the benefit of these drives are.
I wish a similarly well written post could be made by a creationist to give us an interesting discussion, but it seems that the critical thinkers all seem to be on the evolution "side". I wonder why that is?
Teaching kids to just believe anything as "it's a matter of faith"?
Teaching kids to ignore what their own senses/experiences tell them and instead believe some stuff written in a book ages ago that makes no rational sense?
I always thought that schools are about education, not indoctrination. If "God" wants to be in schools, he can damn well give the lessons himself (unless he's too busy planting fossils to test our faith).
The crucial matter is that creationism is a belief/point of view but is wanting to be taught as a science which it blatantly isn't (e.g. new evidence should produce an adjustment/refinement of the current best theory)
They did have a choice as they could have played cat and mouse with upgrading firmwares to try to prevent Geohot's attack as it wasn't a complete attack. However, the PS3 platform has now been completely hacked as Sony are now in a position of trying to revoke their signing key which isn't a practical thing to do.
I think they made a grave mistake with how they handled the whole affair as they more or less forced hackers to compromise the entire code signing kaboodle. Also, suing Geohot is a bad PR move as it calls attention to the fact that the PS3 system is now permanently compromised.
Sony didn't have to remove the OtherOs to protect their platform - in fact, the efforts to crack the platform intensified when they did that. I used to be a Sony customer and occasionally used the OtherOs option on my PS3 to play around with the system and that was one of the reasons that I bought a PS3. I'm now annoyed that Sony have removed an advertised feature from my console (I also use it to play games), so in future, I'm going to look to pirate PS3 games as I don't want Sony to get any more of my money
I can understand metabolic rate adjusting - that makes complete sense, but why would digestion rate need to be adjusted (except for food poisoning/illness reasons)?
Surely the digestive system gets more energy out of processing fat than it puts in, otherwise dieting would be very easy indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
The PS2 Linux was a completely different beast - it wasn't an advertised feature.
However, the PS3 was advertised as allowing OtherOS installation and also as allowing access to the PSN (which is required for certain games). As I've paid for games that require access to the PSN, Sony are stealing a feature from me.
My choice was either to continue using OtherOS and lose access to games that I've bought or to continue using it as a console and losing access to OtherOS.
Buying any further Sony products is the last thing I'd do. I'm seriously considering selling my PS3 and trading it in for an XBox 360.
I paid for OtherOS and PSN access. Why should I have to choose when I bought both?
I'll take that wager - everyone I know who complains about OtherOs removal did use it.
The big problem with windows is the file locking. To update a file in use, often the only way to do so is with a reboot.
Linux just skips the whole binaries through the web browser thing which trains users in the worst possible behaviour for avoiding malware.
The software repositories are signed so Linux does validate that software is coming from where you think it's coming from.
The key is in the abuse of a monopoly. Having a monopoly isn't a crime, abusing a monopoly is a crime.
OtherOS was directly advertised as a feature. They've slightly amended the page, but the details are still there: http://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/index.html
Is that supposed to be English?
The port isn't the problem - it's the OS that auto-plays that's the problem
As long as science does not say religion is wrong, then there is not problem.
The main problem is that creationism cannot be classed as wrong or right - there's no evidence either way. That is why it doesn't belong in a science classroom. By all means discuss it in a religious studies classroom - I've got no problem with people's personal religions, I just don't agree with forcing it upon them.
When people claim that science proves creationism wrong, they are not using "prove" in any kind of rigorous manner. My own opinion is that the wealth of detail about the universe that science has uncovered has eroded religion's position of describing the physical world. Some religions don't try to cover that ground (as far as I know, buddhism doesn't provide a creation story), but where they do they don't make a whole lot of sense to me.
From what I remember, the bible's description of rainbows (a sign of the covenant that the earth will never be flooded again) is somewhat shallower than the incredible amount of detail that science can specify about the behaviour of light and diffraction. There certainly doesn't seem to be the same controversy over what should be taught about the nature of light in science classrooms.
How would you disprove the relationship between a Pongidae and homo or that they were in fact two distinct species? While we are close at observing some aspects of evolution in nature and in the lab, we haven't really saw it unless we start changing definitions specifically for that event. There are quite a few things in science that you cannot disprove yet the evidence supports the theory's point.
It's very tricky to prove/disprove a relationship between two species without living populations as the definition of a species is not very precise. In a lot of ways, a "species" is just a convenient grouping of individuals that makes it easier to talk about them. The amount of data that you can get from one fossil tends to be limited to the physical form of a creature and there's a lot of guesswork to try to figure out where creatures should fit in our model of what happened.
It's pretty easy to design experiments to verify/disprove evolution in a lab - you can apply different selective pressures to a population (typically bacteria/insects or something with a rapid reproductive cycle) and observe what happens to see if it matches the theory or not. There has been so many variations of experiments involving selective pressure and it's effect on populations that it's inconceivable that evolutionary theory is completely broken. As far as I know, there's very few cases where a scientific theory cannot be invalidated (string theory being the only one I can think of).
Well, if the entire world through a series of reported events claimed that invisible pink unicorns existed because of eye witness statements over the past several thousand yours, yes, I think it would be permissible to mention invisible pink unicorns in the classroom.
If all we have is eye witness statements, then pink invisible unicorns would probably be part of cryptozoology as eye witness accounts are notoriously unreliable. I don't think that cryptozoology belongs in a science classroom either, although there is a much stronger argument for it being there than creationism. e.g. Evidence could easily be gathered for the existence of the Loch Ness monster, but so far the evidence (faked photos, eye witness accounts) is too weak for most people to accept that it exists.
Also, I don't believe anyone who claims to have "seen" a pink invisible unicorn as they cannot be seen. The whole point about pink invisible unicorns is not whether they exist or not, but on the complete lack of methods to determine their existence. You may choose to believe or disbelieve someone who claims to have experienced one, and when lots of people believe it, it can be generally accepted as true. Even when accepted as true, their study
In this case, it looks like the requirements were only met by one company, but they chose the other one anyway.
I don't know how your senses tell you that there is a God, but I've never wanted to kill myself and I'm an atheist. Maybe your need to find meaning has led to your belief and I'm glad that you've found it useful.
I don't think that anyone completely lacks any critical thinking, but it does seem to be a vanishing commodity these days. I've got no idea about apologetics, but a quick glance at their website gave me an impression of religious articles with some crackpot ideas. That's just my initial opinion though, I haven't read anything beyond the titles - it might have some really intelligent articles for all I know.
I don't know why you associate critical thinking with atheists, as critical thinking is most often applied in other areas of life rather than religion. I would argue that you some level of critical thinking is very useful in reading a blueprint, i.e. if there are any discrepancies in the measurements then it's generally cheaper to find out about them before building. I'm sure code monkeys can churn out perl scripts to match a well written spec, but I'd much rather have someone who can understand the bigger picture and suggest alternative approaches. Similarly, an office clerk who figures out a more efficient way of doing their job tends to be more valuable than someone who blindly does exactly what is asked of them.
I think critical thinking with no idea of politics or tact is a bad combination and doesn't help teams. There's a right and wrong way to go about changing things and rocking the boat, but a lot of successful businesses are made by questioning how things are done.
Critical thinking is partly a function of intelligence and partly learnt. It can be taught by showing plenty of examples and examining the reasoning behind them (it has to be practiced as well). A well thought out argument can be followed and understood by others and often supported by evidence which then gives it a lot more weight than just a personal opinion.
Schools have religious studies for learning about god(s) and there are always plenty of religious organisations for learning about God. Science classrooms are not the place for discussing creationism except maybe to provide an example of non-science along with astrology and homeopathy.
Creationism shouldn't be taught in a science classroom because it's not science. It makes no testable predictions and thus isn't science.
It's relatively easy to disprove something in science - if an experiment doesn't match our current understanding, then there must be a problem with how we think things work. e.g. you can perform Mendel's pea plant experiment and if you get significantly different results (and your methodology isn't faulty), then we have to revise our model of genetic inheritance.
There's been plenty of scientific ideas that were once thought to be true, but when experimental data contradicts it, it has to be thrown out. A classic example is the luminiferous aether hypothesis that was abandoned when Einstein's special relativity was found to be a far more accurate model. Belief doesn't really enter into it - there's just different models that attempt to describe different aspects of the universe.
Creationism, though, is a religious belief and thus proof isn't required or indeed possible. You're right that a scientific theory can't discredit creationism the same way that you can't disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns. I think you'd be rightly upset if a biology class started teaching about invisible pink unicorns rather than plant cell membranes with the explanation that they're just swapping one belief with another. Invisible pink unicorns might or might not exist, but the observable universe is precisely the same either way, so it is meaningless to argue over it - it's just a matter of faith as to whether they exist or not.
This is why creationism shouldn't be taught in a science classroom.
Any reputable theory (except maybe string theory) has experiments (even thought experiments) that can give results which would cast doubt/disprove a theory.
Nonsense. Anyone who is going to be in the position to impact the future will have went to college and the topic is covered there quite well. Your grasping for straws here. No one graduating high school will ever invent the newest drug or cure any disease that a high school level of biology or science will give them. They will have taken college or they will find someone who was in college to further anything they might come close to finding. Furthermore, the kids who would want to go into a field where this knowledge might remotely be deemed important, are the same kids who already know the knowledge. Knowing about creation, religion, or anything contrary to science does not stop kids from critically thinking.
As long as we don't let them vote, then we'll be okay
Having sex with?
What I don't understand is how this is any better than full disk encryption (e.g. LUKS, truecrypt etc).
If you remove a LUKS partition and put it in a different machine, you're not going to be able to get anything from it unless you know the passphrase. Even mounting the platters in a different casing won't help you get around encryption, whereas this design relies on the controller.
Also, encryption allows the user to recover data in case of motherboard failure. I just don't see what the benefit of these drives are.
I wish a similarly well written post could be made by a creationist to give us an interesting discussion, but it seems that the critical thinkers all seem to be on the evolution "side". I wonder why that is?
A quick question:
Is there any feasible way, any possible evidence that could ever "disprove" creationism?
We'll always need people to flip burgers, clean toilets etc.
How about a complete lack of critical thinking?
Teaching kids to just believe anything as "it's a matter of faith"?
Teaching kids to ignore what their own senses/experiences tell them and instead believe some stuff written in a book ages ago that makes no rational sense?
I always thought that schools are about education, not indoctrination. If "God" wants to be in schools, he can damn well give the lessons himself (unless he's too busy planting fossils to test our faith).
The crucial matter is that creationism is a belief/point of view but is wanting to be taught as a science which it blatantly isn't (e.g. new evidence should produce an adjustment/refinement of the current best theory)
There's lots of stuff that will want to write to "Program Files" which you don't want a limited user account to be able to do.
They did have a choice as they could have played cat and mouse with upgrading firmwares to try to prevent Geohot's attack as it wasn't a complete attack. However, the PS3 platform has now been completely hacked as Sony are now in a position of trying to revoke their signing key which isn't a practical thing to do.
I think they made a grave mistake with how they handled the whole affair as they more or less forced hackers to compromise the entire code signing kaboodle. Also, suing Geohot is a bad PR move as it calls attention to the fact that the PS3 system is now permanently compromised.
Sony didn't have to remove the OtherOs to protect their platform - in fact, the efforts to crack the platform intensified when they did that. I used to be a Sony customer and occasionally used the OtherOs option on my PS3 to play around with the system and that was one of the reasons that I bought a PS3. I'm now annoyed that Sony have removed an advertised feature from my console (I also use it to play games), so in future, I'm going to look to pirate PS3 games as I don't want Sony to get any more of my money
I can understand metabolic rate adjusting - that makes complete sense, but why would digestion rate need to be adjusted (except for food poisoning/illness reasons)?
Surely the digestive system gets more energy out of processing fat than it puts in, otherwise dieting would be very easy indeed.