nothing's localized so precisely that you can selectively remove one function completely while leaving all others intact.
Tell that to Henry M's doctors. They might disagree with you that it's possible to go in and remove the ability to build new semantive declarative memories while sparing procedural & implicit ones.
PZ Myers had a bit of commentary on this news on his blog, pharyngula.
I'd encourage everyone here to read the post, as well as some of the comments from readers below. The press release is self-contradictory, and extremely vague in terms of details. I'm not expecting too much, but like PZ, I'll give the actual paper a read whenever I can find it.
Who knows, maybe they've found something truly revolutionary... but you can't tell from the press clipping. Ask yourself how often you've seen something science related in the paper, then found out that it bears very little resemblence to reality when you go to read the actual scientist's research papers on the subject?:P
I'd be willing to wager that half of all computer users don't even know what SSD stands for.
I don't have access to the proper statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that a substantial number of people walking into Best Buy wouldn't be able to tell you what HDD stands for. That said, I agree that it'll be a while before SSDs really take the crown away from plain old HDDs. They're simply too expensive per GB for most uses.
The complex and storyline-based nature of the game means that gameplay often focuses on resolution of quest and story objectives through selection from available dialogue choices, rather than combat. Simply stopping and having a long (often very long) chat with one of the other members of the player's group can often advance the game more (and reveal more surprising things) than hours of combat and questing in other games. In fact, there are only four or so required combat encounters within the game, while contemporary role-playing games have tens or hundreds. All other encounters can be resolved or avoided through dialogue or stealth.
Planescape: Torment is notable for the quality and quantity of textual dialogue it contains. It is estimated that the game's script contains around 800,000 words. A review in the New York Times noted that, "The game's level of detail and its emotional impact have prompted some players to cast about for literary peers."
It has some pretty witty dialogue too, and it's an interesting universe. You may be familiar with the general principles if you ever dabbled in D&D, though naturally some adaptations were made to make sure it worked better as a computer game.
It has some issues(for one, finding a legitimate copy). There were some bugs in the final shipped version and it's not supported anymore, but fans have fixed a few more of the bugs and have a patch available(linked in the wikipedia article, reference 9).
You are of course free to slaughter all sorts of things in the game(though there are consequences for killing lots of townfolk or dabus' in particular). But you don't have to by any stretch of the imagination, and usually you shouldn't just stick your knife in things for fun. Heck, the final boss fight at the end of the game can be resolved in a couple different ways through dialogue(and this approach gives IMO by far the most satisfying ending). Wisdom is by far the most important stat in the game for The Nameless One, followed by Int and then Cha.
I'd heartily recommend it, as do some game reviewing companies for what that's worth.
No, before you roll your eyes so hard you sprain something, hear me out. Try to get an estimate for how prolific this particular spammer is, and then make them legibly write out every e-mail they have ever sent by hand, using crappy 5 cent pens that splutter and run dry frequently.
I'm a weak atheist, but I think that the goal of 'a candidate's religious orientation does not matter' isn't really a desirable one. If someone's religion explicitly commands abhorrant things(eg: kill anyone who wears the colour blue) then we should be rather wary of electing them to office. The religious views of people do influence their thoughts and actions, and those actions can affect me rather directly. Religion itself isn't the issue, rather the type of religion someone belongs to(and the beliefs it advocates) is.
As well, I'd argue that there have already been atheist/agnostic people as president of the USA. While seperate, many of the founding fathers were at the least deists, believing that God has no influence on the universe, having set it in motion.
However I agree that someone who went around openly proclaiming they don't believe in God would stand very very little chance of getting elected as president currently.
After all, atheists are usually really elitist, right? -_- While the movie had some issues, I've long been fond of a quote from senator Gracchus in the film Gladiator.
"I do not pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people."
Why should it be a bad thing for someone to be from the "elite"(whatever that means) as long as they're trying their best to be FOR the people?
Truly, an inspiring tale of intellectual growth and of skeptical inquiry into the nature of reality.
As a longtime student, it always brings some warm fuzzies to my heart to hear of how others have done their bit to advance the knowledge of humanity by challenging the status quo.
Is it because, the US Bar Association is protecting its members by making the legal "language" aka Legalese hard to understand or is because most US judges are fucking retarded and can't put a coherent sentence together?
Perhaps, just perhaps, that's not an "or" question? I'm going to go waaaaay out on a limb and say that the answer to your question(s) is just "Yes." Yes the bar association is trying to cover the ass of their members, and yes a fair number of US judges seem to make mind-bogglingly weird decisions.
Actually, something totally inert isn't an ideal placebo for most purposes. What you want is a psychoactive placebo like niacin(vitamin B3). Something that gives a mild side effect(eg: dry mouth, increased thirst, etc...).
The presence of some side effect helps convince the patient that the Magic Wonder Drug must really be powerful and doing a great job! After all, see how it's making me feel all weird?
Are you suggesting that black people face exactly the same problems with the same toolset as whites or asians or east indians or, or...?
There's plenty of variation within each race(eg: from Bill Gates to some white-trash hick), but looking at aggregate demographics, whites and blacks are still different in numerous ways. Of course those differences will influence their political views.
I like to think that I care about the needs of people aside from me and those like me, but in moments of honest reflection I'd say that those concerns are secondary to my concerns about what I and my own family will face. I want things to go well for everyone, but not if small gains to them will cause hardship to those I actually know and love.
As for Obama getting a higher % of black voters than Kerry, I'm not too shocked. Kerry was certainly high in the ranks of the least black people I've ever seen on TV. As such, I would expect difficulty identifying with him as compared with identifying with Obama. The more you can identify with someone the easier is is to make that person's wants and needs and fights your own. As I posted it elsewhere in this discussion, I think that kin selection and whatnot are still active in the human race. I'd be surprised if black people couldn't identify more with Obama than they could Kerry.
My point(and the earlier poster's point I believe) was that black support for democrats is to be expected. There will be some black people voting for the republican guy, and some particularly affluent white people voting for the democrat, but they're not an accurate reflection of the behaviour of their respective groups.
People tend to like people who are similar to themselves. The old saw "birds of a feather" bit actually rings true a fair amount of the time. Of course, there's no guarantee that the person who looks vaguely similar to me actually DOES share my views, but if I have no other information to go with, then it's probably a better indicator of who to go with than a coin toss.
Genetics and life experience work together to shape our looks, and those two things also shape our attitudes and actions.
The best explanation is though that despite the great efforts we go through to try and train it out of people, all other things being equal they still prefer in-groups to out-groups. The root of this likely comes from things such as kin selection and the generally tribal nature of early man.
I believe the parents was attempting to draw attention to the traditional affiliation of black voters and the democrat party. Yes, I'd expect that a very substantial number of black people will vote for Obama. But a very substantial number of black people voted for Kerry(because he's a Democrat and that party's supposed policies appeal to the broad demographic of "black voters").
tl;dr The fact that many black voters are saying they're going to vote for the democrat candidate shouldn't be all that shocking.
True! Why, the mere idea that someone could provide their creative work for free and expect to make a living off of it is absurd to the highest degree.
OK, off to go read my webcomics now. Oh. Wait a sec... Quite a few of the comics I read are the author's principle/sole form of income, aren't they? They release their creative works for free, and then people send them money out of thanks for their work, or buy merchandise or whatever. Sure, the vast majority of them do sink into obscurity, but there are more than a handful of successful webcartoonists.
One other option is to provide government grants to a certain subset of artists. Some countries around the world do this because they believe that promoting the arts is a worthy thing.
By my estimate, it fails on non-mainstream topics, be they obscure or just complicated.
eh, I don't claim to have any sort of great data on how accurate non-mainstream topics are, but anecdotally I've helped write up some pages on not-terribly-important bits of neuroscience that I think are fairly solid. Was writing a paper for a neuroscience of pleasure seminar one day and when I got tired of writing, decided to see what WP had to say on the topic just for laughs.
I'm not sure that many people will ever visit that particular article, or some of the others I've worked on, nor that they're written in a particularly fancy style... But they were decent pages last I'd looked(had been fleshed out a bit more and restyled by some other people)
I think that certain obscure topics might actually stand a good chance of having factually correct if unweildy articles. The people who are most likely to be looking at those pages and hence editing them are the people who have an interest in that field. Stuff in between obscure and common are likely to attract quite a few hacks I'd think, but without sufficient eyes to rigorously and quickly evaluate everything posted.
y'know what? I'm bored out of my skull, maybe I'll go pick some part of the brain, plug it in, and see what upgrades I can make. See you guys again in 6 hours(by which point I'll doubtless be looking at the 'wet t-shirt contest' article or Taylor Hanson's):P
1. Punch in the place you want to be. 2. It "dials" to see which of the [X] receiving platforms are unoccupied there 3. Magic happens. 4. You're standing on a teleport pad roughly where you want to be, get off, and someone else probably arrives soon after you.
As long as I'm dreaming I'd like a pony and a fully functional gynoid with a remote control.
Of course they do. You, personally, might not have voted for the incomptents that are pushing for this sort of thing/not actively working to make it illegal... But many of your peers did.
I'd say that in at LEAST 2/3rds of the conversations I've ever had with Americans about the 2nd amendment, they bring up the idea that a well armed populace will keep the government from doing illegal things, because the populace will call them to account. I'm not suggesting that shooting people is the appropriate response to luggage being stolen, but I've never once gotten a satisfactory answer as to what will cause the people to rise up. It seems to me that the ability to own shitloads of guns hasn't been used very effectively over the history of the USA to enforce the constitution or the rights of human beings. It still might in the future, but I'm not optimistic. As long as American Idol is still playing, and Walmart is still selling clothes for cheap, the vast majority of the American people seem unwilling to risk their own comfortable lives over things like the contitution, their rights or more particularly, the rights of others.
Even reading that first in context, I still think it's despicable. Would not this be a "better" thing for God to have said? "Listen to what your husband says, and consider his counsel sincerely. And yet, if he what he says is bad do not blindly accept it but rather explain why you disagree in a calm and rational manner. Strive to understand his reasons, and to help him to understand your own. It is through such discussion of differences of opinion and the formation of compromise when needed that shall serve you well."
Actually, 's/husband/fellow human beings' for that above.
As for the 2nd, it simply punishes her FURTHER by saying that she should have to live the rest of her life with a man who is so repugnant. The man is a rapist. Not the foundation for a happy life together. God might well have said that the rapist be put to death(after all, many MANY sins end up earning the offender this) and that the woman be held blameless/be compensated. All I see this doing is making it such that the vile rapist gets pretty much unrestricted access to continue to rape her for the rest of their lives. It might not be the absolute worst outcome possible, but it's hardly the best that God could come up with. Hell, it's not the best that PEOPLE could come up with.
Ah, nice. Should teach me to copy/paste from other places without double checking each of them myself(had done some, but certainly not all). Will try to make time to do the others myself later.
As for Christianity not being called a religion of peace, perhaps not to you... But I've certainly heard it described as such by people up here(Canada). Nor have I or would I claim that all evil done in the world was at the behest of religion. Atheists are capable of being absolute bastards much religious people. Not sure that I'd say that what happened in Russia or China is the result of too much sceptical inquiry into the nature of the universe, or rational debate though. I've got a housemate right now who's from Beijing. To hear him talk of Hu Jintao or the political scene there in general is to see a cult of personality, not skepticism. Don't really know anyone from Russia. *shrug*
When I read that parable, I hear Jesus explaining that he(the nobleman) is soon going to be leaving. When he returns, he will check up on what we've done with our time. Those who have done as he commanded will be rewarded, and those who question his authority will be punished. 'Take all his stuff, give it to the good and godly individuals who did as I command. And as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and(AA) slaughter them before me.'
eh, from what I saw the GP was saying that Islam can't be a religion of peace because the Qur'an says icky things like that. My point is that sure it can, *if* people ignored most of what it says(like people ignore most of what the Bible says).
I'm not much of a fan of religion in general. Tend to think it's a horrible institution. However I am also of the opinion that Islam is a particularly terrible religion. It's not because the book says to go out and do terrible things though(as the GP would suggest by his post) as many other religions also say similar things. It's to do with other factors, such as the way the church is organized, and a few specific articles of faith in Islam(eg: glorifying martyrdom). There have been suicide bombers in a large variety of faiths, but some of them seem somewhat more resistant to the idea than others. Buddhism for instance is fairly peaceful. In WW2 there were indeed Buddhists willing to blow themselves up to kill the enemy, but by and large the members of that particular religion don't think that strapping some explosives to themselves is the best way to get what they want.
Dunno, seems like a pretty odd thing for a peaceful religion to say sure. Of course, cherry picking to find offensive things in the Quar'an isn't any better than quote mining the Bible. I think that there should be more of a push to get people to actually read their religious texts, in my extremely informal sampling of my friends/classmates/housemates/etc it seems that there's very little of that amongst those who describe themselves as belonging to a certain religion.
Proverbs 20:30 Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.
- Hence, Jesus was *really* pure when he finally got crucified? And bullies in schools are just trying to make their victims more godly?
Deuteronomy 7:1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations... then you must destroy them totally. 2 Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
- Peaceful indeed.
Leviticus 21:18 For no one who has a defect shall approach: a blind man, or a lame man, or he that hath a flat nose, of anything superfluous.
- Shun those with physical abnormalities. And yet, Jesus supposedly hung around with the blind, lepers, clubfooted people all the friggen time?
Ephesians 5:22-23 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the saviour of the body. 1 Timothy 2:11-12 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.
- That's right. Get back in the kitchen! Get back to submitting and quit telling me to take out the garbage.
Deuteronomy 22:5 A woman shall not wear man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your GOD. Deuteronomy 22:28 If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.
- Pants are bad but rape is OK as long as you pay for it and marry her.
Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
- Jesus explaining what he wants people to do when he returns.
Leviticus 25:45 Moveover the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. Numbers 31:17-18 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves. Isaiah 13:15-16 Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished.
- "Stab all those people over there, bash the head's of their babies in against a rock, then rape their women(especially the young cute virgins)." Sounds more like the order of a corrupt general than an omnibenevolent diety.
Leviticus 20:18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness, he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood. And both of them shall be cut off from among their people.
- Because we all know that menstrual blood is icky and if people fuck when she's on the rag they should be killed.
Exodus 21:20-21 And if a man smite his slave, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished
I'm no expert in Game Theory, but it seems to me that the sensible choice would be to send Obama a letter or call him or talk to him on the trail, explain that you want change made to the DMCA. Explain that this is a very important thing to your way of looking at it, and that the DMCA stifles creativity, economy, etc... In fact, it's so important that you'll vote for McCain if Obama doesn't work on the DMCA.
There's something to be said for being honest and actually following through with your plan to vote for McCain, but the more pragmatic, realist side of me says that's not a wise move. It's a secret ballot system and it's not like Obama can check if you actually DID vote for McCain. To my mind it'd make more sense to vote for a Third Party candidate that supports your views. Then after the election the strategists for the Dems/Reps can see the actual number of votes that are being "lost" that they could gain if they adopted policies similar to those of that third party.
IndustrialComplex got 430,000 votes? hmm. Since those people voted for someone who had very little chance of getting in, they clearly care about the actual policies and are highly involved in the political scene(hence more likely to donate money/volunteer). Maybe we should see how we could lure those people away to our side, they'd be a useful tool.
When voting for a third party that you can believe in you don't lend direct support to someone you never wanted to vote for in the first place. If you vote for McCain, then you're publicly telling the entire world that you want McCain. The world is indeed watching, and the US needs the world just as much as we need the US.
tl;dr I'll agree that we HAVE to take positions on issues like this, but I disagree with you on tactics. Tell Obama you'll vote for his Enemy #1 to scare him and try to blackmail him, but then vote for someone that you actually like.
Slashdot Mirror
nothing's localized so precisely that you can selectively remove one function completely while leaving all others intact.
Tell that to Henry M's doctors. They might disagree with you that it's possible to go in and remove the ability to build new semantive declarative memories while sparing procedural & implicit ones.
Lasers, reflectors?
God damnit, now I want to go grab a few of my old friends and play a RIFTS® campaign. Never got around to playing a Glitter Boy.
PZ Myers had a bit of commentary on this news on his blog, pharyngula.
I'd encourage everyone here to read the post, as well as some of the comments from readers below. The press release is self-contradictory, and extremely vague in terms of details. I'm not expecting too much, but like PZ, I'll give the actual paper a read whenever I can find it.
Who knows, maybe they've found something truly revolutionary... but you can't tell from the press clipping. Ask yourself how often you've seen something science related in the paper, then found out that it bears very little resemblence to reality when you go to read the actual scientist's research papers on the subject? :P
I'd be willing to wager that half of all computer users don't even know what SSD stands for.
I don't have access to the proper statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that a substantial number of people walking into Best Buy wouldn't be able to tell you what HDD stands for.
That said, I agree that it'll be a while before SSDs really take the crown away from plain old HDDs. They're simply too expensive per GB for most uses.
How about Planescape: Torment?
The complex and storyline-based nature of the game means that gameplay often focuses on resolution of quest and story objectives through selection from available dialogue choices, rather than combat. Simply stopping and having a long (often very long) chat with one of the other members of the player's group can often advance the game more (and reveal more surprising things) than hours of combat and questing in other games. In fact, there are only four or so required combat encounters within the game, while contemporary role-playing games have tens or hundreds. All other encounters can be resolved or avoided through dialogue or stealth.
Planescape: Torment is notable for the quality and quantity of textual dialogue it contains. It is estimated that the game's script contains around 800,000 words. A review in the New York Times noted that, "The game's level of detail and its emotional impact have prompted some players to cast about for literary peers."
It has some pretty witty dialogue too, and it's an interesting universe. You may be familiar with the general principles if you ever dabbled in D&D, though naturally some adaptations were made to make sure it worked better as a computer game.
It has some issues(for one, finding a legitimate copy). There were some bugs in the final shipped version and it's not supported anymore, but fans have fixed a few more of the bugs and have a patch available(linked in the wikipedia article, reference 9).
You are of course free to slaughter all sorts of things in the game(though there are consequences for killing lots of townfolk or dabus' in particular). But you don't have to by any stretch of the imagination, and usually you shouldn't just stick your knife in things for fun. Heck, the final boss fight at the end of the game can be resolved in a couple different ways through dialogue(and this approach gives IMO by far the most satisfying ending). Wisdom is by far the most important stat in the game for The Nameless One, followed by Int and then Cha.
I'd heartily recommend it, as do some game reviewing companies for what that's worth.
Suggest an improvement?
Make them write lines.
No, before you roll your eyes so hard you sprain something, hear me out.
Try to get an estimate for how prolific this particular spammer is, and then make them legibly write out every e-mail they have ever sent by hand, using crappy 5 cent pens that splutter and run dry frequently.
They get released when they're done.
I'm a weak atheist, but I think that the goal of 'a candidate's religious orientation does not matter' isn't really a desirable one. If someone's religion explicitly commands abhorrant things(eg: kill anyone who wears the colour blue) then we should be rather wary of electing them to office. The religious views of people do influence their thoughts and actions, and those actions can affect me rather directly. Religion itself isn't the issue, rather the type of religion someone belongs to(and the beliefs it advocates) is.
As well, I'd argue that there have already been atheist/agnostic people as president of the USA. While seperate, many of the founding fathers were at the least deists, believing that God has no influence on the universe, having set it in motion.
However I agree that someone who went around openly proclaiming they don't believe in God would stand very very little chance of getting elected as president currently.
After all, atheists are usually really elitist, right? -_- While the movie had some issues, I've long been fond of a quote from senator Gracchus in the film Gladiator.
"I do not pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people."
Why should it be a bad thing for someone to be from the "elite"(whatever that means) as long as they're trying their best to be FOR the people?
Image Properties:
Location: http://www.computerweekly.com/PhotoGalleries/232923/19_20_Jet-pack-Thunderball-1965-Sean-Connery.jpg
Location: http://www.computerweekly.com/PhotoGalleries/232923/34_20_Mini-speedboat-The-World-is-Not-Enough-1999-Pierce-Brosnan.jpg
etc...
Truly, an inspiring tale of intellectual growth and of skeptical inquiry into the nature of reality.
As a longtime student, it always brings some warm fuzzies to my heart to hear of how others have done their bit to advance the knowledge of humanity by challenging the status quo.
Is it because, the US Bar Association is protecting its members by making the legal "language" aka Legalese hard to understand or is because most US judges are fucking retarded and can't put a coherent sentence together?
Perhaps, just perhaps, that's not an "or" question? I'm going to go waaaaay out on a limb and say that the answer to your question(s) is just "Yes." Yes the bar association is trying to cover the ass of their members, and yes a fair number of US judges seem to make mind-bogglingly weird decisions.
Sure, but they'll also suffer about a 40% drop in efficiency ratings.
not truly placebo (something totally inert)
Actually, something totally inert isn't an ideal placebo for most purposes. What you want is a psychoactive placebo like niacin(vitamin B3). Something that gives a mild side effect(eg: dry mouth, increased thirst, etc...).
The presence of some side effect helps convince the patient that the Magic Wonder Drug must really be powerful and doing a great job! After all, see how it's making me feel all weird?
Are you suggesting that black people face exactly the same problems with the same toolset as whites or asians or east indians or, or...?
There's plenty of variation within each race(eg: from Bill Gates to some white-trash hick), but looking at aggregate demographics, whites and blacks are still different in numerous ways. Of course those differences will influence their political views.
I like to think that I care about the needs of people aside from me and those like me, but in moments of honest reflection I'd say that those concerns are secondary to my concerns about what I and my own family will face. I want things to go well for everyone, but not if small gains to them will cause hardship to those I actually know and love.
As for Obama getting a higher % of black voters than Kerry, I'm not too shocked. Kerry was certainly high in the ranks of the least black people I've ever seen on TV. As such, I would expect difficulty identifying with him as compared with identifying with Obama. The more you can identify with someone the easier is is to make that person's wants and needs and fights your own. As I posted it elsewhere in this discussion, I think that kin selection and whatnot are still active in the human race. I'd be surprised if black people couldn't identify more with Obama than they could Kerry.
My point(and the earlier poster's point I believe) was that black support for democrats is to be expected. There will be some black people voting for the republican guy, and some particularly affluent white people voting for the democrat, but they're not an accurate reflection of the behaviour of their respective groups.
People tend to like people who are similar to themselves. The old saw "birds of a feather" bit actually rings true a fair amount of the time.
Of course, there's no guarantee that the person who looks vaguely similar to me actually DOES share my views, but if I have no other information to go with, then it's probably a better indicator of who to go with than a coin toss.
Genetics and life experience work together to shape our looks, and those two things also shape our attitudes and actions.
The best explanation is though that despite the great efforts we go through to try and train it out of people, all other things being equal they still prefer in-groups to out-groups. The root of this likely comes from things such as kin selection and the generally tribal nature of early man.
I believe the parents was attempting to draw attention to the traditional affiliation of black voters and the democrat party.
Yes, I'd expect that a very substantial number of black people will vote for Obama. But a very substantial number of black people voted for Kerry(because he's a Democrat and that party's supposed policies appeal to the broad demographic of "black voters").
tl;dr The fact that many black voters are saying they're going to vote for the democrat candidate shouldn't be all that shocking.
True! Why, the mere idea that someone could provide their creative work for free and expect to make a living off of it is absurd to the highest degree.
OK, off to go read my webcomics now.
Oh. Wait a sec... Quite a few of the comics I read are the author's principle/sole form of income, aren't they? They release their creative works for free, and then people send them money out of thanks for their work, or buy merchandise or whatever. Sure, the vast majority of them do sink into obscurity, but there are more than a handful of successful webcartoonists.
One other option is to provide government grants to a certain subset of artists. Some countries around the world do this because they believe that promoting the arts is a worthy thing.
By my estimate, it fails on non-mainstream topics, be they obscure or just complicated.
eh, I don't claim to have any sort of great data on how accurate non-mainstream topics are, but anecdotally I've helped write up some pages on not-terribly-important bits of neuroscience that I think are fairly solid. Was writing a paper for a neuroscience of pleasure seminar one day and when I got tired of writing, decided to see what WP had to say on the topic just for laughs.
[blank page]
hmm *write write write copy/paste* *source source source*
I'm not sure that many people will ever visit that particular article, or some of the others I've worked on, nor that they're written in a particularly fancy style... But they were decent pages last I'd looked(had been fleshed out a bit more and restyled by some other people)
I think that certain obscure topics might actually stand a good chance of having factually correct if unweildy articles. The people who are most likely to be looking at those pages and hence editing them are the people who have an interest in that field. Stuff in between obscure and common are likely to attract quite a few hacks I'd think, but without sufficient eyes to rigorously and quickly evaluate everything posted.
y'know what? I'm bored out of my skull, maybe I'll go pick some part of the brain, plug it in, and see what upgrades I can make. See you guys again in 6 hours(by which point I'll doubtless be looking at the 'wet t-shirt contest' article or Taylor Hanson's) :P
I'm holding out for personal teleportation tech.
1. Punch in the place you want to be.
2. It "dials" to see which of the [X] receiving platforms are unoccupied there
3. Magic happens.
4. You're standing on a teleport pad roughly where you want to be, get off, and someone else probably arrives soon after you.
As long as I'm dreaming I'd like a pony and a fully functional gynoid with a remote control.
Of course they do. You, personally, might not have voted for the incomptents that are pushing for this sort of thing/not actively working to make it illegal... But many of your peers did.
I'd say that in at LEAST 2/3rds of the conversations I've ever had with Americans about the 2nd amendment, they bring up the idea that a well armed populace will keep the government from doing illegal things, because the populace will call them to account.
I'm not suggesting that shooting people is the appropriate response to luggage being stolen, but I've never once gotten a satisfactory answer as to what will cause the people to rise up. It seems to me that the ability to own shitloads of guns hasn't been used very effectively over the history of the USA to enforce the constitution or the rights of human beings. It still might in the future, but I'm not optimistic. As long as American Idol is still playing, and Walmart is still selling clothes for cheap, the vast majority of the American people seem unwilling to risk their own comfortable lives over things like the contitution, their rights or more particularly, the rights of others.
Even reading that first in context, I still think it's despicable. Would not this be a "better" thing for God to have said?
"Listen to what your husband says, and consider his counsel sincerely. And yet, if he what he says is bad do not blindly accept it but rather explain why you disagree in a calm and rational manner. Strive to understand his reasons, and to help him to understand your own. It is through such discussion of differences of opinion and the formation of compromise when needed that shall serve you well."
Actually, 's/husband/fellow human beings' for that above.
As for the 2nd, it simply punishes her FURTHER by saying that she should have to live the rest of her life with a man who is so repugnant. The man is a rapist. Not the foundation for a happy life together. God might well have said that the rapist be put to death(after all, many MANY sins end up earning the offender this) and that the woman be held blameless/be compensated. All I see this doing is making it such that the vile rapist gets pretty much unrestricted access to continue to rape her for the rest of their lives. It might not be the absolute worst outcome possible, but it's hardly the best that God could come up with. Hell, it's not the best that PEOPLE could come up with.
Ah, nice. Should teach me to copy/paste from other places without double checking each of them myself(had done some, but certainly not all). Will try to make time to do the others myself later.
As for Christianity not being called a religion of peace, perhaps not to you... But I've certainly heard it described as such by people up here(Canada). Nor have I or would I claim that all evil done in the world was at the behest of religion. Atheists are capable of being absolute bastards much religious people. Not sure that I'd say that what happened in Russia or China is the result of too much sceptical inquiry into the nature of the universe, or rational debate though. I've got a housemate right now who's from Beijing. To hear him talk of Hu Jintao or the political scene there in general is to see a cult of personality, not skepticism. Don't really know anyone from Russia. *shrug*
When I read that parable, I hear Jesus explaining that he(the nobleman) is soon going to be leaving. When he returns, he will check up on what we've done with our time. Those who have done as he commanded will be rewarded, and those who question his authority will be punished.
'Take all his stuff, give it to the good and godly individuals who did as I command. And as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and(AA) slaughter them before me.'
How should I be reading that?
eh, from what I saw the GP was saying that Islam can't be a religion of peace because the Qur'an says icky things like that. My point is that sure it can, *if* people ignored most of what it says(like people ignore most of what the Bible says).
I'm not much of a fan of religion in general. Tend to think it's a horrible institution. However I am also of the opinion that Islam is a particularly terrible religion. It's not because the book says to go out and do terrible things though(as the GP would suggest by his post) as many other religions also say similar things. It's to do with other factors, such as the way the church is organized, and a few specific articles of faith in Islam(eg: glorifying martyrdom). There have been suicide bombers in a large variety of faiths, but some of them seem somewhat more resistant to the idea than others. Buddhism for instance is fairly peaceful. In WW2 there were indeed Buddhists willing to blow themselves up to kill the enemy, but by and large the members of that particular religion don't think that strapping some explosives to themselves is the best way to get what they want.
Dunno, seems like a pretty odd thing for a peaceful religion to say sure. Of course, cherry picking to find offensive things in the Quar'an isn't any better than quote mining the Bible. I think that there should be more of a push to get people to actually read their religious texts, in my extremely informal sampling of my friends/classmates/housemates/etc it seems that there's very little of that amongst those who describe themselves as belonging to a certain religion.
Proverbs 20:30 Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.
- Hence, Jesus was *really* pure when he finally got crucified? And bullies in schools are just trying to make their victims more godly?
Deuteronomy 7:1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations ... then you must destroy them totally. 2 Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
- Peaceful indeed.
Leviticus 21:18 For no one who has a defect shall approach: a blind man, or a lame man, or he that hath a flat nose, of anything superfluous.
- Shun those with physical abnormalities. And yet, Jesus supposedly hung around with the blind, lepers, clubfooted people all the friggen time?
Ephesians 5:22-23 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the saviour of the body.
1 Timothy 2:11-12 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.
- That's right. Get back in the kitchen! Get back to submitting and quit telling me to take out the garbage.
Deuteronomy 22:5 A woman shall not wear man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your GOD.
Deuteronomy 22:28 If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.
- Pants are bad but rape is OK as long as you pay for it and marry her.
Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
- Jesus explaining what he wants people to do when he returns.
Leviticus 25:45 Moveover the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession.
Numbers 31:17-18 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Isaiah 13:15-16 Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished.
- "Stab all those people over there, bash the head's of their babies in against a rock, then rape their women(especially the young cute virgins)." Sounds more like the order of a corrupt general than an omnibenevolent diety.
Leviticus 20:18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness, he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood. And both of them shall be cut off from among their people.
- Because we all know that menstrual blood is icky and if people fuck when she's on the rag they should be killed.
Exodus 21:20-21 And if a man smite his slave, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished
There's something to be said for being honest and actually following through with your plan to vote for McCain, but the more pragmatic, realist side of me says that's not a wise move. It's a secret ballot system and it's not like Obama can check if you actually DID vote for McCain. To my mind it'd make more sense to vote for a Third Party candidate that supports your views. Then after the election the strategists for the Dems/Reps can see the actual number of votes that are being "lost" that they could gain if they adopted policies similar to those of that third party.
When voting for a third party that you can believe in you don't lend direct support to someone you never wanted to vote for in the first place. If you vote for McCain, then you're publicly telling the entire world that you want McCain. The world is indeed watching, and the US needs the world just as much as we need the US.
tl;dr I'll agree that we HAVE to take positions on issues like this, but I disagree with you on tactics. Tell Obama you'll vote for his Enemy #1 to scare him and try to blackmail him, but then vote for someone that you actually like.