Google "SIP Fax", "Fax over IP", or "IP Address Fax"... you should find a fair few machines. Pretty much any decent office MFP will have these functions these days, even without the analog fax option installed.
While nice in theory, it has a downside... I'm originally from NZ but haven't lived there in a long time. When I did though, I was once talking to a guy on IRC who was pretty seriously talking about doing some rather nasty things involving explosives and a jet liner... While I couldn't be certain if he was serious or not, I decided to do the right thing and let the police know about it.
What happened for doing my civic duty? Well, the police turn up at my house with a search warrant citing "attempted murder and breach of the telecommunications act" (interesting combo, but yes, that's what it said) and took all my computers away to "investigate". Several months later, I finally got them back, with the HDD wiped on a couple and the power switch physically broken on one.
I made a complaint to the police complaints authority, but was essentially ignored the whole time.
Only minor plus was I got in the Southland Times (newspaper) and it raised a fair bit of attention with the general public (enough that people recognised me on the street for a few months)
Back on the topic at hand: If you did do something like you suggest, I'd expect similar treatment would ensue...
Incidentally, I did encounter someone recently who was attempting to build a properly Germanic tongue from the ground up, but was having an awful time scraping together a clean, bare wordlist to use.
If you like, feel free to pass on my contact details: email is my username without the "ide" at Google's well known mail service. I'd actually find it quite fun to assist in something like that.
I think the reason they're so rare is, frankly, because the phonotactic patterns of Germanic languages make them inherently less beautiful to the ear, particularly for those who grew up living with them. In most language synthesis projects, I've found that there's a desire to produce something that sounds foreign; thus, presumably, the people most qualified to build a Germanic conlang (natural speakers) are those least motivated to do so.
Sadly that's probably true. I'm a native English speaker but within the Germanic group, I speak both Dutch and German as well, in addition to having a fair bit of experience with Old English (Saxon) and a fair knowledge of the North Germanic (Scandanavian) structures/concepts.
Personally, I quite like the sound of Germanic languages, when they're spoken with a clear accent (despite my Dutch being fairly reasonable and having lived in Amsterdam in the past, I still really don't like the Amsterdam accent where it sounds like everyone has a mouth full of cotton wool as they talk. The "crisper" accents in Dutch are far more pleasant.)
It appears I recollected an occasion on which Shakespeare did in fact use a word with the letters "woot", committed it to memory, and assumed that digging up the first dictionary that came to mind would settle the question properly without remembering any other detais. For what it's worth, this is what I should have been pointing to. At any rate, both accomplish my point: that "woot" has had a meaning in the English language for hundreds of years before the neologism was coined.
I wasn't actually aware he used "woot" at all, but what's more interesting is that it appears he isn't even using it in the middle English sense. His usage appears to be a neologism (or at least "neo" in his time) as an alternative of the second person present for "willen"/"willan" - "wilt" (to want).
It's not terribly surprising though, as Shakespeare was a bit free and easy with language at the best of times (allowing for some excellent puns sometimes, but also more often than not, just making a mess of things)
And bravo for rendering a grammatically valid structure; I spent five minutes pondering over how to cram it into the third person and the present tense and never considered dumping the stupid auxiliary verb. My linguistics background is mostly in the extremely synthetic breed of conlang, and as such I tend to stumble with subtle realities of legitimate linguistics.
I'd probably be more interested in constructed languages if someone came up with a really nice Germanic one. It seems all the really popular ones are heavily Romance oriented though. Not that I have anything against the romance languages (I speak French pretty well, and can at least read most of the more common languages in the family like Spanish, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, etc), just that I tend to prefer the Germanics for clarity.
And there was an English language and "woot" before... well, before a lot of things. I guess your high school English teacher doesn't woot Shakespeare?
I hate to correct someone with my favourite name (actually "Samantha" is my daughter's name too), but being a linguistics freak with a passion for the indo-european group, I just can't help myself here.
1- Shakespeare did not speak or write middle English.
2- Even accepting that you're mixing modern and middle English in that sentence, you've already got a primary verb with "doesn't" (to do), so that should be "doesn't witen" rather than "doesn't woot". "woot not" or "not woot" depending on your sentence structure also could've worked.
For example, test for other people in the room. Now, test for gods. This much should be obvious.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's quite that straightforward. After all, how do I go about testing for other people in the room? What if they're wearing some kind of invisibility cloak that they invented? How about if I've been hyptonised to not see them? etc, etc.
I reject on principle that any test I perform is necessarily correct, accurate and covers all eventualities. I am human and therefore flawed.
I however ALSO reject on principle that no test can be defined that tests for the existence of a god. Simply we don't yet have such tests since the definition keeps slipping ("God of the gaps"). If eventually everything in the universe is empirically tested (impossible for us to do, but that doesn't mean it can't in theory be done), and no god has appeared, then the only answer left is that the god is outside of the universe AND does not interact with it in any way. Being both outside of the universe and not interacting with it in any way is identical to not existing.
(relatedly, but not identically: if humans have "souls" and after death these go off to "heaven" which is also outside of the universe and doesn't interact with it in any way, then I'd contest that these souls have nothing to do with the person that they used to be attached to - they couldn't retain memory since that's a function of the brain, which is a part of this universe)
By "if there were" I meant "if there were known to be", which I assumed was obvious, but on second thoughts maybe isn't. My apologies.
Sorry, after re-reading, I see what you were meaning. It wasn't obvious the first time around. However that doesn't really help your case... if "there were known to be gods" (or invisible pink unicorns) that would also change how we view the universe. There aren't "known" to be gods though... only "believed".
I would not agree that the set of assumptions is flawed. Just different. Seeing it as flawed is a result of the limitations of your POV. I(and most people religious people I know) do not reject Occams razor, but I disagree that it leads to atheism. The application of any of these rules we set ourselves depends on the context in which we apply them. I have never encountered a religion that states that God(or gods) created (or were created by ) a universe that did not follow a fairly consistent set of rules. Whether God (or gods) can break these rules is another question entirely. And breaking them at least often indicates an illogical god. Else why create them?
That's a very good question, and leads to the same question of why the god in question needs to be there at all. If they create a universe that behaves according to a set of rules and then never break those rules (whether they can or not), then what's the empircal difference between the god existing and not existing? And that brings us back to Occam's razor...
For most religions science is a valid way of studying god(s) creation. Unless you count the fundamentalists, but while vocal they are often hardly representative. You seem to only see the two extremes, when in reality most people seem to fall closer to middle ground. Just because someone believes in God or gods does not mean they reject science. The two aren't necessarily incompatible.
My stepfather is a very scientific minded man. He's also a minister in the Anglican church. I'm definitely aware that the two are not incompatible. However, you still haven't said anything that would make me think he or any other religious person has really endeavoured to examine their beliefs in a logical and rational way.
However what specific problem do you have with religions? Sure they won't all be complete without unprovable assumptions, but that is true of anything, if Godel was right. Being american, I'm guessing the fundies..
It's actually quite a complex issue. Firstly there are valid points saying that high participation is not, in itself, proof of a good system. A system in which 40% of people vote and those 40% (magically somehow) are unbiased and informed will probably produce better results than 80% where the majority are voting based on widely inaccurate stereotypes and how photogenic candidates are.
Absolutely. I spent some years living in Australia (though not from there originally, and not there anymore). One thing I found appalling is that citizens are REQUIRED to vote. You actually get a fine if you don't go out and vote.
This system causes a very large number of people who absolutely do not understand or care to go out and vote. If they were voting truly randomly, we could assume it wouldn't influence the results, but of course we know they are not voting completely randomly: they vote for the person who looked best on TV, or on a poster somewhere, or whose name they heard the most often at the office, etc.
The end result is that the major parties get significantly more votes than they would if voting were not mandatory and the people who actually care about who they're voting for are drowned about by the ignoring and uncaring majority.
While you're technically correct, the problem is that you then end up needing to do that for pretty much everything to be consistent, which is just a massive drain on time and common sense. If I say "There are no people in this office other than me", what I really mean is "There are no people in this office other than me, as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe.".
The above is a very flawed way of thinking. "there are no people in the office other than me" and "there are no gods" are hardly comparable statements.
I consider them to be fairly comparable... both are statements of the existence or non-existence of some things. Where it falls down is perhaps that "there being people in my office" is on the balance of probability, a much likelier thing than "there are gods"; but aside from that, the core of the statements is basically the same.
When you make a strong claim like "There are no gods" and stop there, you are essentially trolling. People care if there are or aren't gods, whereas nobody really cares how many people are in the office.
Whether people care or not is totally irrelevant to the facts of the universe. Either there ARE people in my office, or there are not. Either there ARE gods, or there are not. The amount of emotional investment by people in these things has no bearing on that at all.
It does of course have a bearing on how people will react to those statements (hence your reference to trolling, which I don't totally disagree with), but not to the validity of the statements themselves.
So, when having a conversation that is not directly about the existence of gods, I'm more likely to phrase it a little better to avoid sounding like a bigot; but when directly discussing the existence of gods, I'd rather just speak plainly to avoid misunderstandings.
The number of people in your office doesn't influence the way we look at the universe. It has very little impact whatsoever. Additionally you may notice I was replying to cas200 who made the statement that "believing in "God" is *precisely* as irrational as believing in Invisible Pink Unicorns - no more, no less." Which is a very debatable statement. And as far as I can see is a false statement.
If there were invisible pink unicorns ( invisible and pink?!) that would change the way we view the universe.
Only if people believed in them... if there really were invisible pink unicorns, and no-one believed in them then the way we view the universe would be exactly the same as it is now. This is the same as gods. If there really are gods, then I'm wrong and you're right, but their existence or not doesn't change how I view the universe since my belief hasn't changed. If there really aren't any, then I'm right and you're wrong, but since there's no way for you to really KNOW they aren't there, you'll continue believing in them and continuing seeing the universe the way you do.
So basically, the existence or non-existence of something has nothing to do with how people perceive the universe, but rather the belief in the existence of something. This is the other side of the coin to my other statement that could be summed up by saying the that belief in something has no bearing on actual existence.
But the number of people who believe in such is small, so claiming they don't exist is unlikely to be a successful troll. And nobody so far has offered a belief system that has pink unicorns in it on a significant scale to be analyzed. Again, the two statements are not comparable.
The point you still miss, is a equally rational person starting from a different viewpoint(read set of working assumptions) will reach different conclusions about the nature of the universe.
I would argue that the person is working from a flawed set of as
Religious people just see the universe as a majestic creation deserving awe, wonder and further study.
Some religious people just see the universe as a majestic creation deserving awe, wonder and further study. Other religious people see it as "the stuff that God put around us so we've got somewhere to be".
Equally some atheists (such as myself) see the universe as a majestic thing deserving awe, wonder and further study. Other atheists see it as "the stuff that happens to be around us so we've got somewhere to be".
I just take fault with people on both sides to whom the universe is a closed book.
So do I... but I think it's dishonest to say that the religious see the beauty in the universe more than atheists. I would even contend it's the other way around. Many "famous" atheists have expressed quite loudly their awe at the beauty of this universe we live in, and many atheists are so because they're the "questioning types" who are also inherently MORE likely to want to study it further than the "non questioning types" (note: I'm not saying all religious folk are the non-questioning type, but I would put good money down that the percentage is higher).
Rather say (from your POV) God is not likely. While even that is debatable, it is at least more honest.
While you're technically correct, the problem is that you then end up needing to do that for pretty much everything to be consistent, which is just a massive drain on time and common sense. If I say "There are no people in this office other than me", what I really mean is "There are no people in this office other than me, as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe.". After all, I can't really rule out that there is someone hiding in one of the cupboards, or that a colleague hasn't recently invented an invisibility cloak and is just remaining quiet.
It's the same when I say "There are no gods". What I really mean is that as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe, there are no gods. It just gets a bit cumbersome to say so. I would hazard a guess that the majority of people making similar statements mean similar things.
How much 'concentration' does driving actually require? it's pretty damn simple for me.
It's pretty damn simple for me too... but the point is that if you're NOT concentrating, you'll have slower reactions in the rare cases that something does come up requiring more than the minimum of attention that "normal driving" requires. Therefore, I'd rather be giving it the greatest amount of concentration available at any given time just in case of these rare cases.
So what is it about hands-free phones that makes people thing that they're somehow safer? And of course, by "safer", I mean "slightly less dangerous".
Basically, they're a somewhat lower distraction. As you state, it's the distraction of the conversation that's the primary problem. I don't know whether that's true or not, but regardless of that, a hands free phone doesn't require you to concentrate on moving your hands off the steering wheel; pressing buttons; looking at the screen to dial; etc. (note: I am specifically talking about the type where you press a button on your steering wheel or dash; speak the name of the person to call; and then talk. The type where you have to do all the normal stuff to make the call before it's really "hands-free" isn't in my personal definition of "hands-free")
I do have a hands-free kit in my car (the type I describe in my note), but I still prefer not to use it. In the rare cases I do use it, I specifically tell the other party that I'm driving and that if I don't answer them when they talk to me, please wait until I say something before bothering me as I'm probably concentrating on the road.
However, pilots have something that your average driver does not, an absolute minimum of 40 hours of one-on-one instruction from a pilot who is VASTLY more experienced than the student, with 60 hours being the average, before they are ever allowed to carry passengers by themselves. If they complete their Instrument Rating, which focuses on communications even more, the number of hours jumps to 120 on average. And the testing involves a 60 question random generated written exam, a 3-4 hour oral exam, followed by 1-2 hours of flight exam. Whereas your average student driver has about 5 hours of instruction in a car with multiple other students, some tutelage from the parents, and a test so simple with a passing threshold so low that an ape could pass by randomly mashing the keyboard, before being allowed on the road alone. And we wonder why people can't drive. They've never been properly trained how!
The solution is unfortunately still not as simple as that. Germany has significantly lower accident rates than the US (regardless of whether you look at it per capita or distance travelled), but it's still FAR higher than it should be. To get a drivers licence in Germany is significantly harder than in the US. Must be 17 years old to start the process (often 18), 14 theory classes, minimum of 12 practical lessons although often much more (all with an accredited driving school - not just with your parents or so), theoretical test of 30 or so random questions, and finally a practical test that can last up to a couple of hours. Not QUITE as hard as the pilots licence that you describe, but getting close. The thing is that accidents still happen. This is primarily because people just get accustomed to driving to the point that they think they can do it without paying too much attention. 99.9% of the time, they're right... they CAN do it without paying much attention (and that's what makes them even more accustomed to it). It's the 0.1% of the time that something unexpected happens that causes the accidents. Trying to get people to be vigilant the rest of the time in order to get them to avoid these rare cases is something I don't think anyone has quite figured out yet.
It's anecdotal only, but I've found that people from places where driving is a bit more "chaotic" are often significantly better to reacting to the surprises - they're required to pay more attention more of the time and so don't get quite so comfortable as people in places where driving is more structured. Not that I'd suggest we all start driving chaotically to try to improve things - of course it wouldn't. I can't say I know a solution, but in my point of view, it does appear to be a significant part of the problem.
The same studies also show that it's about the same level as talking with a passenger, as I recall. It is certainly equally distractive to have a baby whine at you because it has lost its dummy, believe me.
When my baby cries while I'm driving, I pull over, calm her down and then continue. I completely agree that it's a huge distraction and that's why I don't continue to drive while it's happening.
This is nothing... I was driving from St.Louis to Springfield, Ill and I happened to look over and saw someone reading the newspaper while driving. This kind of shit is not abnormal.
Simply the fact that anyone can seriously consider selling this, is what scares me the most.
The worst part is that they try to push it as being "safe" (granted, I'll say it's safer than using an iPad while it is not mounted somewhere, but simply using an iPad AT ALL while driving (except as a navigation system, music player, or so on that you're not physically interacting with) is totally moronic)
They should just have added an extra octet to IPv4. IPv6 is overly complicated, who wants to remember the internal IPv6 address range? sure, let's ping::::::3e:1f:00:7a - oh wait, I have one colon too many.
Sadly, this does bring up a very valid point. A lot of 'peripheral' network equipment tends to get addressed by address directly (more out of habit and laziness on the IT admin part than anything, but one shouldn't underestimate that!). I work as a software developer in the MFP (think: networked office printer/scanner/fax/copier devices) industry. By customer request, all the software I create tends to show your list of devices by IP address first. Of course, both my software and the devices it works with fully support both DNS and IPv6, so typing a hostname or IPv6 address will work, but if the customers don't set the devices up to USE these functions, we can't exactly force them.
Of course, the 'local network' world can probably stick to IPv4 for a fair bit longer (or theoretically indefinitely) while the connections out then make use of IPv6; however as more people hear buzzwords like 'cloud', more and more previously 'internal' things are going to start having connections to the outside and there's a big potential for mess.
Now, why don't people just happily type in IPv6 addresses? They're too hard to remember as the parent points out. Well, why don't they use DNS? Because doing so requires a DNS server (fine in bigger offices, but a bit overkill for a 10 person shop with only a couple of devices)
Adding octets to the IPv4 format as the parent suggests would've been a much 'easier' transition for most people. Sure there's a lot that would need to have been considered, but it's probably not dissimilar to the amount required for consideration with the current IPv6 way of doing things.
And yes, I'm aware one could theoretically write a complete IPv6 address with dotted quad style notation, but if no-one else does and the majority of software didn't support it, then doing so would be a bit dumb.
Too bad about the "Germany" bit. If you were in an English-speaking country, you'd have just given me enough information to find out your street address, phone number, likely your recent travel and moving history, the names of your parents (including your mother's maiden name), and possibly some photographs of you.
Google might tell you a fair bit of that info already. Photographs definitely; travel/moving most likely; Address maybe not (since I only moved pretty recently) and phone number not yet (it should be at dastelefonbuch.de, but for some reason it doesn't appear to be listed... maybe I forgot to tick a box somewhere)
From that, it would be possible to impersonate you for any number of purposes, most of them illegal (accessing your current financial accounts, setting up new accounts in your name for money laundering, using your identity on forged official documents, etc.)
Nope, not really. Even with that info, you're still lacking any kind of ID to say you're me, which is required anywhere I've ever lived to be able to access accounts, set up new accounts, use my identify on official documents (forged or otherwise), etc.
Honestly, are there places in the world you can set up a bank account or do other financial or governmental business WITHOUT showing some kind of ID?
Of course, with enough info you could probably create a good enough fake ID and other documents for basic stuff, but unless you're also willing to break in to my mailbox daily to steal any confirmation letters, or go through the hassle of renting a new apartment in my name before telling all of my services that you want access to that I've moved, you're not going to be able to do a great deal of damage. And, more to the point, the whole exercise would cost you far more than you'd gain. I did mention I'm married and have a 3 month old daughter - that kind of precludes me having any money;)
I don't think giving your real name on the internet is a good idea, at all. Because of the special way Internet work, some criminal can collect a lot of information about you, and use that information against you. Where you live, what are you friends, what is the name of your childrens, his age,...
Hi, my name is Benjamin de Waal. My alias here is "yttriumoxide", but elsewhere I usually go by "YttriumOx" or similar.
I currently live in Hannover, Germany. Specifically, in the suburb called "Heideviertel". However I was born in Dunedin, New Zealand and have travelled rather extensively, including living in 5 countries so far and visiting somewhere in the region of 40 (I have a list somewhere, but not with me right now).
I have a lot of friends all over the world, on account of having lived in many different places.
My wife's name is Steffi (Stefanie) and my 3 month old daughter is Sam (Samantha).
Honestly, I don't feel in the slightest bit insecure about "criminals" getting this information or "using it against me" (and no-one has ever effectively explained to me how this information could be used against me anyway (or especially "why" it would be) other than what I consider to be paranoid ramblings). You can search online for the above information and probably find out a lot more about me, including seeing pictures, learning about my interests (including illegal activities), finding out what I do for a job and what I've done in the past, etc. None of this bothers me. If I didn't expect it to be public, I wouldn't have put it online to begin with.
It's not a kludge, it's not a bodged add-on, it's an extensible, intelligent, well integrated piece of technology that's part of a wider architecture that makes more sense than any other OS architecture I've seen above kernel level.
Indeed. I came from a long line of AmigaOS based systems, after which I finally "gave up" and got an XP based laptop after being forced through Win2k at work. That drove me mad for awhile and after significant playing with Desktop Linux (just never feels "right" to me... very happy with it on my servers, but not my dekstop), now I've got mostly Macs in the house.
The system you're referring to here is indeed very simple and elegant. It reminds me a lot of what AmigaOS did with the "datatype" system - Apple's Preview feels like the natural successor to Amiga's MultiView for me - a basic "general viewer" for all of the native core types that the architecture understands.
There are of course many things better about the OS X architecture than Amiga's datatype system - most of which come from it being significantly more modern. The one thing I do still miss from the Amiga's datatypes though is that it was so ridiculously easy to write your own. If I needed to make a custom file format for something, I'd do it almost exclusively as datatypes and then be able to work in this format from pretty much any Amiga application that used datatypes (which was the vast majority of them). For non-programmers, they could just download a datatype, copy it to the appropriate system location and "voila" it just worked. I've yet to find an easy way to write my own filetypes for OS X that will then "natively" be usable in Preview and so on.
Indeed. I'm seriously considering a Model S as a replacement car when my little MX-5 starts to age. I WOULD have considered another two seater as I am very much a "sports car" person; but now that my wife and I have a daughter, no new two-seaters for me (actually, I'm only keeping the current one since we ALSO have a Honda Jazz that serves as a family car in the meantime).
The question stands: If a cert or a degree doesn't matter for who you hire, how do you filter your resumes to know who to interview? That's where both work. They don't get you a job, they get you an interview.
Last time we were hiring for a programmer (large international company), we had so few applicants that it simply wasn't worth it for HR to "filter" them in any way before handing them on to me. I set up interviews for each applicant and then asked them a bunch of questions. At no point did their certifications come in to question.
And no, I didn't ask the typical "university knowledge" questions such as "which of these is likely to be the best sorting method for this set of data?" and other such bollocks; instead my questions were things more relevant to real world programming like, "Right, you've just written some really cruddy code as a proof-of-concept and Marketing want to start selling it next week as a real product, what do we do?" and "How long do you think it'd take you to clone the Windows Calculator in a language and environment of your choice?".
To note, when we hire a programmer, we don't just look for drones that can churn out code exactly to a perfectly written spec written by someone that probably could've done the code themselves; instead we look for someone that can interpret badly written fuzzy marketing speak and then use creativity and imagination to meet what Marketing have asked for in the most elegant, flexible and maintainable way. So far, my little team is doing a great job and I'm pretty proud of them.
Final side note: Yes, I say "my team" and I am indeed in charge there, but I'm a developer myself - not a manager... we have a manager (that sits in another office several hundred KM away) to look after paperwork, budgets and so on - I just look after "who's doing what" and passing the paperwork over to the manager (who tends to just approve anything I send his way, which I'm also very thankful for).
You know what's really funny? She didn't seem to have any doubts about the existence of god, jesus, and somebody named 'oh fuck right there just like that please don't stop don't you fucking stop' while I was banging her the other night.
I've seen groups of atheists get up on their high horse about all the things that are wrong about people who believe in something different and then get together and have group discussions about Darwin like some religious figure. They get together and start chatting about how they think people who aren't atheists are morons and how they should basically convert them to their way of thinking. I've seen people who made the choice to believe in atheism speak like a born again christian.
Absolutely correct. And I am as much against this kind of person as those who do it with their belief in a god (I mentioned them already in this post).
I'm not saying you are one of these people, I actually think it's highly likely that you just don't give it much thought, I think that is probably the same for most atheists. Basically that's me as well, I'm not a big fan of organized religion I've seen it do awful things to people and how it's used as a tool.
I completely agree. However, despite what I said in the paragraph above, I will reiterate that I still think your belief in God is irrational, dangerous and overall a bad thing for humanity.
So the point is I don't see how you being an atheist makes you any more of an expert on the matter than anyone else and why you are the parent need to point it out.
It doesn't make me more of an expert and I never claimed it did. It was germane for the OP to state it as he was comparing his lack of belief in god to a lack of religious feelings towards other things. In my response, I was actually somewhat disagreeing with him, and I mentioned that I am an atheist to counter his point as I went on to say that I'm quite certain I would have "religious" parts of my brain activated when presented with certain things I feel a strong attachment and committment to (even irrationally, and even though I realise it is irrational).
As a final aside, I'm sorry if I offended you with my opinions, however I'm not sorry if I offended you with a fundamental truth of the universe. I am however sorry if me not being sorry offends you. (yes, I really do mean that)
As an atheist myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that - I consider the concept of religion to be toxic), I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in rabid Linux users, or rabid Windows users (although admittedly they're a lot harder to find).
As an internet troll myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that) I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in atheists when they see a picture of Dawkins, a smug and self-satisfied French existential movie or a first edition of Origin of the Species.
*ducks, runs*
Really, the *ducks, runs* probably wasn't necessary, as you DO make a valid point. There are a lot of atheists out there who do in fact treat it religiously. While I'm comfortable saying that I do in fact consider anyone who TRULY believes in some kind of invisible sky god to be borderline clinically insane, I do not count myself amongst that type of atheist. I don't go around "preaching" atheism at people, and certainly do not get "excited" by atheist ideas - to me it's simply "basic reality" and about as exciting as the basic reality of a teaspoon (cue "there is no spoon" replies).
As a side note, my wife is religious, however the relatively "weak" kind - she says she's a christian, but when pressed about it will admit to not accepting any of the wilder stories in the bible (including the most fundamental concept of the resurrection of Jesus); says she can't be "sure" if there's a God or not but "believes there is, because it would be really nice if there is" and says that "Christianity is more about the ethics and behaviours than the beliefs themselves". While I really disagree with her, and think the "belief because it would be nice" is pretty idiotic (it'd be really nice if some rich uncle I'd never previously heard of died and left me millions, but no matter how nice the concept is, I'm not going to believe it'll happen!), as well as thinking that she really doesn't have much standing to call herself "Christian" if she doesn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus, our marriage nevertheless works well enough and we have enough in common that this little belief of hers is only a mild annoyance on the rare occasions that it even appears in conversation.
As an atheist myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that - I consider the concept of religion to be toxic), I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in rabid Linux users, or rabid Windows users (although admittedly they're a lot harder to find). The article and summary are heavily focused on Apple, but the core content of the article (and yes, summary) states that it's more about it being a brand that people do build up a "religious" feeling towards.
As an Apple user (typing this on a MacBook Pro) AND as a Linux user, AND as a Windows user for work, I really am quite certain I wouldn't have these kinds of reactions in my brain to seeing Apple logos. i.e. I am not an "Apple devotee" as the article puts it. I do however suspect you'd see these reactions in my brain for the things I am truly passionate about (sometimes irrationally) such as showing me a Dvorak layout keyboard; a linguistic tree; or the flag of my home country. Note that I don't consider myself "excessively" devoted to any of these things, but I can imagine it would trigger something (these things all do trigger an emotional response for example).
Slashdot Mirror
Google "SIP Fax", "Fax over IP", or "IP Address Fax"... you should find a fair few machines. Pretty much any decent office MFP will have these functions these days, even without the analog fax option installed.
While nice in theory, it has a downside... I'm originally from NZ but haven't lived there in a long time. When I did though, I was once talking to a guy on IRC who was pretty seriously talking about doing some rather nasty things involving explosives and a jet liner... While I couldn't be certain if he was serious or not, I decided to do the right thing and let the police know about it.
What happened for doing my civic duty? Well, the police turn up at my house with a search warrant citing "attempted murder and breach of the telecommunications act" (interesting combo, but yes, that's what it said) and took all my computers away to "investigate". Several months later, I finally got them back, with the HDD wiped on a couple and the power switch physically broken on one.
I made a complaint to the police complaints authority, but was essentially ignored the whole time.
Only minor plus was I got in the Southland Times (newspaper) and it raised a fair bit of attention with the general public (enough that people recognised me on the street for a few months)
Back on the topic at hand: If you did do something like you suggest, I'd expect similar treatment would ensue...
Incidentally, I did encounter someone recently who was attempting to build a properly Germanic tongue from the ground up, but was having an awful time scraping together a clean, bare wordlist to use.
If you like, feel free to pass on my contact details: email is my username without the "ide" at Google's well known mail service. I'd actually find it quite fun to assist in something like that.
I think the reason they're so rare is, frankly, because the phonotactic patterns of Germanic languages make them inherently less beautiful to the ear, particularly for those who grew up living with them. In most language synthesis projects, I've found that there's a desire to produce something that sounds foreign; thus, presumably, the people most qualified to build a Germanic conlang (natural speakers) are those least motivated to do so.
Sadly that's probably true. I'm a native English speaker but within the Germanic group, I speak both Dutch and German as well, in addition to having a fair bit of experience with Old English (Saxon) and a fair knowledge of the North Germanic (Scandanavian) structures/concepts.
Personally, I quite like the sound of Germanic languages, when they're spoken with a clear accent (despite my Dutch being fairly reasonable and having lived in Amsterdam in the past, I still really don't like the Amsterdam accent where it sounds like everyone has a mouth full of cotton wool as they talk. The "crisper" accents in Dutch are far more pleasant.)
It appears I recollected an occasion on which Shakespeare did in fact use a word with the letters "woot", committed it to memory, and assumed that digging up the first dictionary that came to mind would settle the question properly without remembering any other detais. For what it's worth, this is what I should have been pointing to. At any rate, both accomplish my point: that "woot" has had a meaning in the English language for hundreds of years before the neologism was coined.
I wasn't actually aware he used "woot" at all, but what's more interesting is that it appears he isn't even using it in the middle English sense. His usage appears to be a neologism (or at least "neo" in his time) as an alternative of the second person present for "willen"/"willan" - "wilt" (to want).
It's not terribly surprising though, as Shakespeare was a bit free and easy with language at the best of times (allowing for some excellent puns sometimes, but also more often than not, just making a mess of things)
And bravo for rendering a grammatically valid structure; I spent five minutes pondering over how to cram it into the third person and the present tense and never considered dumping the stupid auxiliary verb. My linguistics background is mostly in the extremely synthetic breed of conlang, and as such I tend to stumble with subtle realities of legitimate linguistics.
I'd probably be more interested in constructed languages if someone came up with a really nice Germanic one. It seems all the really popular ones are heavily Romance oriented though. Not that I have anything against the romance languages (I speak French pretty well, and can at least read most of the more common languages in the family like Spanish, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, etc), just that I tend to prefer the Germanics for clarity.
And there was an English language and "woot" before... well, before a lot of things. I guess your high school English teacher doesn't woot Shakespeare?
I hate to correct someone with my favourite name (actually "Samantha" is my daughter's name too), but being a linguistics freak with a passion for the indo-european group, I just can't help myself here.
For example, test for other people in the room. Now, test for gods. This much should be obvious.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's quite that straightforward. After all, how do I go about testing for other people in the room? What if they're wearing some kind of invisibility cloak that they invented? How about if I've been hyptonised to not see them? etc, etc.
I reject on principle that any test I perform is necessarily correct, accurate and covers all eventualities. I am human and therefore flawed.
I however ALSO reject on principle that no test can be defined that tests for the existence of a god. Simply we don't yet have such tests since the definition keeps slipping ("God of the gaps"). If eventually everything in the universe is empirically tested (impossible for us to do, but that doesn't mean it can't in theory be done), and no god has appeared, then the only answer left is that the god is outside of the universe AND does not interact with it in any way. Being both outside of the universe and not interacting with it in any way is identical to not existing.
(relatedly, but not identically: if humans have "souls" and after death these go off to "heaven" which is also outside of the universe and doesn't interact with it in any way, then I'd contest that these souls have nothing to do with the person that they used to be attached to - they couldn't retain memory since that's a function of the brain, which is a part of this universe)
By "if there were" I meant "if there were known to be", which I assumed was obvious, but on second thoughts maybe isn't. My apologies.
Sorry, after re-reading, I see what you were meaning. It wasn't obvious the first time around. However that doesn't really help your case... if "there were known to be gods" (or invisible pink unicorns) that would also change how we view the universe. There aren't "known" to be gods though... only "believed".
I would not agree that the set of assumptions is flawed. Just different. Seeing it as flawed is a result of the limitations of your POV. I(and most people religious people I know) do not reject Occams razor, but I disagree that it leads to atheism. The application of any of these rules we set ourselves depends on the context in which we apply them. I have never encountered a religion that states that God(or gods) created (or were created by ) a universe that did not follow a fairly consistent set of rules. Whether God (or gods) can break these rules is another question entirely. And breaking them at least often indicates an illogical god. Else why create them?
That's a very good question, and leads to the same question of why the god in question needs to be there at all. If they create a universe that behaves according to a set of rules and then never break those rules (whether they can or not), then what's the empircal difference between the god existing and not existing? And that brings us back to Occam's razor...
For most religions science is a valid way of studying god(s) creation. Unless you count the fundamentalists, but while vocal they are often hardly representative. You seem to only see the two extremes, when in reality most people seem to fall closer to middle ground. Just because someone believes in God or gods does not mean they reject science. The two aren't necessarily incompatible.
My stepfather is a very scientific minded man. He's also a minister in the Anglican church. I'm definitely aware that the two are not incompatible. However, you still haven't said anything that would make me think he or any other religious person has really endeavoured to examine their beliefs in a logical and rational way.
However what specific problem do you have with religions? Sure they won't all be complete without unprovable assumptions, but that is true of anything, if Godel was right. Being american, I'm guessing the fundies..
It's actually quite a complex issue. Firstly there are valid points saying that high participation is not, in itself, proof of a good system. A system in which 40% of people vote and those 40% (magically somehow) are unbiased and informed will probably produce better results than 80% where the majority are voting based on widely inaccurate stereotypes and how photogenic candidates are.
Absolutely. I spent some years living in Australia (though not from there originally, and not there anymore). One thing I found appalling is that citizens are REQUIRED to vote. You actually get a fine if you don't go out and vote.
This system causes a very large number of people who absolutely do not understand or care to go out and vote. If they were voting truly randomly, we could assume it wouldn't influence the results, but of course we know they are not voting completely randomly: they vote for the person who looked best on TV, or on a poster somewhere, or whose name they heard the most often at the office, etc.
The end result is that the major parties get significantly more votes than they would if voting were not mandatory and the people who actually care about who they're voting for are drowned about by the ignoring and uncaring majority.
While you're technically correct, the problem is that you then end up needing to do that for pretty much everything to be consistent, which is just a massive drain on time and common sense. If I say "There are no people in this office other than me", what I really mean is "There are no people in this office other than me, as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe.".
The above is a very flawed way of thinking. "there are no people in the office other than me" and "there are no gods" are hardly comparable statements.
I consider them to be fairly comparable... both are statements of the existence or non-existence of some things. Where it falls down is perhaps that "there being people in my office" is on the balance of probability, a much likelier thing than "there are gods"; but aside from that, the core of the statements is basically the same.
When you make a strong claim like "There are no gods" and stop there, you are essentially trolling. People care if there are or aren't gods, whereas nobody really cares how many people are in the office.
Whether people care or not is totally irrelevant to the facts of the universe. Either there ARE people in my office, or there are not. Either there ARE gods, or there are not. The amount of emotional investment by people in these things has no bearing on that at all.
It does of course have a bearing on how people will react to those statements (hence your reference to trolling, which I don't totally disagree with), but not to the validity of the statements themselves.
So, when having a conversation that is not directly about the existence of gods, I'm more likely to phrase it a little better to avoid sounding like a bigot; but when directly discussing the existence of gods, I'd rather just speak plainly to avoid misunderstandings.
The number of people in your office doesn't influence the way we look at the universe. It has very little impact whatsoever. Additionally you may notice I was replying to cas200 who made the statement that "believing in "God" is *precisely* as irrational as believing in Invisible Pink Unicorns - no more, no less." Which is a very debatable statement. And as far as I can see is a false statement.
If there were invisible pink unicorns ( invisible and pink?!) that would change the way we view the universe.
Only if people believed in them... if there really were invisible pink unicorns, and no-one believed in them then the way we view the universe would be exactly the same as it is now. This is the same as gods. If there really are gods, then I'm wrong and you're right, but their existence or not doesn't change how I view the universe since my belief hasn't changed. If there really aren't any, then I'm right and you're wrong, but since there's no way for you to really KNOW they aren't there, you'll continue believing in them and continuing seeing the universe the way you do.
So basically, the existence or non-existence of something has nothing to do with how people perceive the universe, but rather the belief in the existence of something. This is the other side of the coin to my other statement that could be summed up by saying the that belief in something has no bearing on actual existence.
But the number of people who believe in such is small, so claiming they don't exist is unlikely to be a successful troll. And nobody so far has offered a belief system that has pink unicorns in it on a significant scale to be analyzed. Again, the two statements are not comparable.
The point you still miss, is a equally rational person starting from a different viewpoint(read set of working assumptions) will reach different conclusions about the nature of the universe.
I would argue that the person is working from a flawed set of as
Religious people just see the universe as a majestic creation deserving awe, wonder and further study.
Some religious people just see the universe as a majestic creation deserving awe, wonder and further study.
Other religious people see it as "the stuff that God put around us so we've got somewhere to be".
Equally some atheists (such as myself) see the universe as a majestic thing deserving awe, wonder and further study.
Other atheists see it as "the stuff that happens to be around us so we've got somewhere to be".
I just take fault with people on both sides to whom the universe is a closed book.
So do I... but I think it's dishonest to say that the religious see the beauty in the universe more than atheists. I would even contend it's the other way around. Many "famous" atheists have expressed quite loudly their awe at the beauty of this universe we live in, and many atheists are so because they're the "questioning types" who are also inherently MORE likely to want to study it further than the "non questioning types" (note: I'm not saying all religious folk are the non-questioning type, but I would put good money down that the percentage is higher).
Rather say (from your POV) God is not likely. While even that is debatable, it is at least more honest.
While you're technically correct, the problem is that you then end up needing to do that for pretty much everything to be consistent, which is just a massive drain on time and common sense. If I say "There are no people in this office other than me", what I really mean is "There are no people in this office other than me, as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe.". After all, I can't really rule out that there is someone hiding in one of the cupboards, or that a colleague hasn't recently invented an invisibility cloak and is just remaining quiet.
It's the same when I say "There are no gods". What I really mean is that as far as I can tell, based on everything my senses tell me, combined with common sense and an admittedly incomplete understanding of the laws of the universe, there are no gods. It just gets a bit cumbersome to say so. I would hazard a guess that the majority of people making similar statements mean similar things.
as I'm probably concentrating on the road.
How much 'concentration' does driving actually require? it's pretty damn simple for me.
It's pretty damn simple for me too... but the point is that if you're NOT concentrating, you'll have slower reactions in the rare cases that something does come up requiring more than the minimum of attention that "normal driving" requires. Therefore, I'd rather be giving it the greatest amount of concentration available at any given time just in case of these rare cases.
So what is it about hands-free phones that makes people thing that they're somehow safer? And of course, by "safer", I mean "slightly less dangerous".
Basically, they're a somewhat lower distraction. As you state, it's the distraction of the conversation that's the primary problem. I don't know whether that's true or not, but regardless of that, a hands free phone doesn't require you to concentrate on moving your hands off the steering wheel; pressing buttons; looking at the screen to dial; etc.
(note: I am specifically talking about the type where you press a button on your steering wheel or dash; speak the name of the person to call; and then talk. The type where you have to do all the normal stuff to make the call before it's really "hands-free" isn't in my personal definition of "hands-free")
I do have a hands-free kit in my car (the type I describe in my note), but I still prefer not to use it. In the rare cases I do use it, I specifically tell the other party that I'm driving and that if I don't answer them when they talk to me, please wait until I say something before bothering me as I'm probably concentrating on the road.
However, pilots have something that your average driver does not, an absolute minimum of 40 hours of one-on-one instruction from a pilot who is VASTLY more experienced than the student, with 60 hours being the average, before they are ever allowed to carry passengers by themselves. If they complete their Instrument Rating, which focuses on communications even more, the number of hours jumps to 120 on average. And the testing involves a 60 question random generated written exam, a 3-4 hour oral exam, followed by 1-2 hours of flight exam. Whereas your average student driver has about 5 hours of instruction in a car with multiple other students, some tutelage from the parents, and a test so simple with a passing threshold so low that an ape could pass by randomly mashing the keyboard, before being allowed on the road alone. And we wonder why people can't drive. They've never been properly trained how!
The solution is unfortunately still not as simple as that. Germany has significantly lower accident rates than the US (regardless of whether you look at it per capita or distance travelled), but it's still FAR higher than it should be.
To get a drivers licence in Germany is significantly harder than in the US. Must be 17 years old to start the process (often 18), 14 theory classes, minimum of 12 practical lessons although often much more (all with an accredited driving school - not just with your parents or so), theoretical test of 30 or so random questions, and finally a practical test that can last up to a couple of hours. Not QUITE as hard as the pilots licence that you describe, but getting close.
The thing is that accidents still happen. This is primarily because people just get accustomed to driving to the point that they think they can do it without paying too much attention. 99.9% of the time, they're right... they CAN do it without paying much attention (and that's what makes them even more accustomed to it). It's the 0.1% of the time that something unexpected happens that causes the accidents. Trying to get people to be vigilant the rest of the time in order to get them to avoid these rare cases is something I don't think anyone has quite figured out yet.
It's anecdotal only, but I've found that people from places where driving is a bit more "chaotic" are often significantly better to reacting to the surprises - they're required to pay more attention more of the time and so don't get quite so comfortable as people in places where driving is more structured.
Not that I'd suggest we all start driving chaotically to try to improve things - of course it wouldn't. I can't say I know a solution, but in my point of view, it does appear to be a significant part of the problem.
The same studies also show that it's about the same level as talking with a passenger, as I recall. It is certainly equally distractive to have a baby whine at you because it has lost its dummy, believe me.
When my baby cries while I'm driving, I pull over, calm her down and then continue. I completely agree that it's a huge distraction and that's why I don't continue to drive while it's happening.
This is nothing... I was driving from St.Louis to Springfield, Ill and I happened to look over and saw someone reading the newspaper while driving.
This kind of shit is not abnormal.
Simply the fact that anyone can seriously consider selling this, is what scares me the most.
The worst part is that they try to push it as being "safe" (granted, I'll say it's safer than using an iPad while it is not mounted somewhere, but simply using an iPad AT ALL while driving (except as a navigation system, music player, or so on that you're not physically interacting with) is totally moronic)
They should just have added an extra octet to IPv4. IPv6 is overly complicated, who wants to remember the internal IPv6 address range? sure, let's ping ::::::3e:1f:00:7a - oh wait, I have one colon too many.
Sadly, this does bring up a very valid point. A lot of 'peripheral' network equipment tends to get addressed by address directly (more out of habit and laziness on the IT admin part than anything, but one shouldn't underestimate that!). I work as a software developer in the MFP (think: networked office printer/scanner/fax/copier devices) industry. By customer request, all the software I create tends to show your list of devices by IP address first. Of course, both my software and the devices it works with fully support both DNS and IPv6, so typing a hostname or IPv6 address will work, but if the customers don't set the devices up to USE these functions, we can't exactly force them.
Of course, the 'local network' world can probably stick to IPv4 for a fair bit longer (or theoretically indefinitely) while the connections out then make use of IPv6; however as more people hear buzzwords like 'cloud', more and more previously 'internal' things are going to start having connections to the outside and there's a big potential for mess.
Now, why don't people just happily type in IPv6 addresses? They're too hard to remember as the parent points out. Well, why don't they use DNS? Because doing so requires a DNS server (fine in bigger offices, but a bit overkill for a 10 person shop with only a couple of devices)
Adding octets to the IPv4 format as the parent suggests would've been a much 'easier' transition for most people. Sure there's a lot that would need to have been considered, but it's probably not dissimilar to the amount required for consideration with the current IPv6 way of doing things.
And yes, I'm aware one could theoretically write a complete IPv6 address with dotted quad style notation, but if no-one else does and the majority of software didn't support it, then doing so would be a bit dumb.
Too bad about the "Germany" bit. If you were in an English-speaking country, you'd have just given me enough information to find out your street address, phone number, likely your recent travel and moving history, the names of your parents (including your mother's maiden name), and possibly some photographs of you.
Google might tell you a fair bit of that info already. Photographs definitely; travel/moving most likely; Address maybe not (since I only moved pretty recently) and phone number not yet (it should be at dastelefonbuch.de, but for some reason it doesn't appear to be listed... maybe I forgot to tick a box somewhere)
From that, it would be possible to impersonate you for any number of purposes, most of them illegal (accessing your current financial accounts, setting up new accounts in your name for money laundering, using your identity on forged official documents, etc.)
Nope, not really. Even with that info, you're still lacking any kind of ID to say you're me, which is required anywhere I've ever lived to be able to access accounts, set up new accounts, use my identify on official documents (forged or otherwise), etc.
Honestly, are there places in the world you can set up a bank account or do other financial or governmental business WITHOUT showing some kind of ID?
Of course, with enough info you could probably create a good enough fake ID and other documents for basic stuff, but unless you're also willing to break in to my mailbox daily to steal any confirmation letters, or go through the hassle of renting a new apartment in my name before telling all of my services that you want access to that I've moved, you're not going to be able to do a great deal of damage. And, more to the point, the whole exercise would cost you far more than you'd gain. I did mention I'm married and have a 3 month old daughter - that kind of precludes me having any money ;)
I don't think giving your real name on the internet is a good idea, at all. Because of the special way Internet work, some criminal can collect a lot of information about you, and use that information against you. Where you live, what are you friends, what is the name of your childrens, his age,...
Hi, my name is Benjamin de Waal. My alias here is "yttriumoxide", but elsewhere I usually go by "YttriumOx" or similar.
I currently live in Hannover, Germany. Specifically, in the suburb called "Heideviertel". However I was born in Dunedin, New Zealand and have travelled rather extensively, including living in 5 countries so far and visiting somewhere in the region of 40 (I have a list somewhere, but not with me right now).
I have a lot of friends all over the world, on account of having lived in many different places.
My wife's name is Steffi (Stefanie) and my 3 month old daughter is Sam (Samantha).
Honestly, I don't feel in the slightest bit insecure about "criminals" getting this information or "using it against me" (and no-one has ever effectively explained to me how this information could be used against me anyway (or especially "why" it would be) other than what I consider to be paranoid ramblings). You can search online for the above information and probably find out a lot more about me, including seeing pictures, learning about my interests (including illegal activities), finding out what I do for a job and what I've done in the past, etc. None of this bothers me. If I didn't expect it to be public, I wouldn't have put it online to begin with.
It's not a kludge, it's not a bodged add-on, it's an extensible, intelligent, well integrated piece of technology that's part of a wider architecture that makes more sense than any other OS architecture I've seen above kernel level.
Indeed. I came from a long line of AmigaOS based systems, after which I finally "gave up" and got an XP based laptop after being forced through Win2k at work. That drove me mad for awhile and after significant playing with Desktop Linux (just never feels "right" to me... very happy with it on my servers, but not my dekstop), now I've got mostly Macs in the house.
The system you're referring to here is indeed very simple and elegant. It reminds me a lot of what AmigaOS did with the "datatype" system - Apple's Preview feels like the natural successor to Amiga's MultiView for me - a basic "general viewer" for all of the native core types that the architecture understands.
There are of course many things better about the OS X architecture than Amiga's datatype system - most of which come from it being significantly more modern. The one thing I do still miss from the Amiga's datatypes though is that it was so ridiculously easy to write your own. If I needed to make a custom file format for something, I'd do it almost exclusively as datatypes and then be able to work in this format from pretty much any Amiga application that used datatypes (which was the vast majority of them). For non-programmers, they could just download a datatype, copy it to the appropriate system location and "voila" it just worked. I've yet to find an easy way to write my own filetypes for OS X that will then "natively" be usable in Preview and so on.
Indeed. I'm seriously considering a Model S as a replacement car when my little MX-5 starts to age. I WOULD have considered another two seater as I am very much a "sports car" person; but now that my wife and I have a daughter, no new two-seaters for me (actually, I'm only keeping the current one since we ALSO have a Honda Jazz that serves as a family car in the meantime).
The question stands: If a cert or a degree doesn't matter for who you hire, how do you filter your resumes to know who to interview? That's where both work. They don't get you a job, they get you an interview.
Last time we were hiring for a programmer (large international company), we had so few applicants that it simply wasn't worth it for HR to "filter" them in any way before handing them on to me. I set up interviews for each applicant and then asked them a bunch of questions. At no point did their certifications come in to question.
And no, I didn't ask the typical "university knowledge" questions such as "which of these is likely to be the best sorting method for this set of data?" and other such bollocks; instead my questions were things more relevant to real world programming like, "Right, you've just written some really cruddy code as a proof-of-concept and Marketing want to start selling it next week as a real product, what do we do?" and "How long do you think it'd take you to clone the Windows Calculator in a language and environment of your choice?".
To note, when we hire a programmer, we don't just look for drones that can churn out code exactly to a perfectly written spec written by someone that probably could've done the code themselves; instead we look for someone that can interpret badly written fuzzy marketing speak and then use creativity and imagination to meet what Marketing have asked for in the most elegant, flexible and maintainable way. So far, my little team is doing a great job and I'm pretty proud of them.
Final side note: Yes, I say "my team" and I am indeed in charge there, but I'm a developer myself - not a manager... we have a manager (that sits in another office several hundred KM away) to look after paperwork, budgets and so on - I just look after "who's doing what" and passing the paperwork over to the manager (who tends to just approve anything I send his way, which I'm also very thankful for).
You know what's really funny? She didn't seem to have any doubts about the existence of god, jesus, and somebody named 'oh fuck right there just like that please don't stop don't you fucking stop' while I was banging her the other night.
You taught my wife to speak English?! Cool!
(seriously, she doesn't)
I've seen groups of atheists get up on their high horse about all the things that are wrong about people who believe in something different and then get together and have group discussions about Darwin like some religious figure. They get together and start chatting about how they think people who aren't atheists are morons and how they should basically convert them to their way of thinking. I've seen people who made the choice to believe in atheism speak like a born again christian.
Absolutely correct. And I am as much against this kind of person as those who do it with their belief in a god (I mentioned them already in this post).
I'm not saying you are one of these people, I actually think it's highly likely that you just don't give it much thought, I think that is probably the same for most atheists. Basically that's me as well, I'm not a big fan of organized religion I've seen it do awful things to people and how it's used as a tool.
I completely agree. However, despite what I said in the paragraph above, I will reiterate that I still think your belief in God is irrational, dangerous and overall a bad thing for humanity.
So the point is I don't see how you being an atheist makes you any more of an expert on the matter than anyone else and why you are the parent need to point it out.
It doesn't make me more of an expert and I never claimed it did. It was germane for the OP to state it as he was comparing his lack of belief in god to a lack of religious feelings towards other things. In my response, I was actually somewhat disagreeing with him, and I mentioned that I am an atheist to counter his point as I went on to say that I'm quite certain I would have "religious" parts of my brain activated when presented with certain things I feel a strong attachment and committment to (even irrationally, and even though I realise it is irrational).
As a final aside, I'm sorry if I offended you with my opinions, however I'm not sorry if I offended you with a fundamental truth of the universe. I am however sorry if me not being sorry offends you. (yes, I really do mean that)
As an atheist myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that - I consider the concept of religion to be toxic), I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in rabid Linux users, or rabid Windows users (although admittedly they're a lot harder to find).
As an internet troll myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that) I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in atheists when they see a picture of Dawkins, a smug and self-satisfied French existential movie or a first edition of Origin of the Species.
*ducks, runs*
Really, the *ducks, runs* probably wasn't necessary, as you DO make a valid point. There are a lot of atheists out there who do in fact treat it religiously. While I'm comfortable saying that I do in fact consider anyone who TRULY believes in some kind of invisible sky god to be borderline clinically insane, I do not count myself amongst that type of atheist. I don't go around "preaching" atheism at people, and certainly do not get "excited" by atheist ideas - to me it's simply "basic reality" and about as exciting as the basic reality of a teaspoon (cue "there is no spoon" replies).
As a side note, my wife is religious, however the relatively "weak" kind - she says she's a christian, but when pressed about it will admit to not accepting any of the wilder stories in the bible (including the most fundamental concept of the resurrection of Jesus); says she can't be "sure" if there's a God or not but "believes there is, because it would be really nice if there is" and says that "Christianity is more about the ethics and behaviours than the beliefs themselves". While I really disagree with her, and think the "belief because it would be nice" is pretty idiotic (it'd be really nice if some rich uncle I'd never previously heard of died and left me millions, but no matter how nice the concept is, I'm not going to believe it'll happen!), as well as thinking that she really doesn't have much standing to call herself "Christian" if she doesn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus, our marriage nevertheless works well enough and we have enough in common that this little belief of hers is only a mild annoyance on the rare occasions that it even appears in conversation.
As an atheist myself (and a relatively "strong" one at that - I consider the concept of religion to be toxic), I wouldn't be surprised to see the same reaction in rabid Linux users, or rabid Windows users (although admittedly they're a lot harder to find). The article and summary are heavily focused on Apple, but the core content of the article (and yes, summary) states that it's more about it being a brand that people do build up a "religious" feeling towards.
As an Apple user (typing this on a MacBook Pro) AND as a Linux user, AND as a Windows user for work, I really am quite certain I wouldn't have these kinds of reactions in my brain to seeing Apple logos. i.e. I am not an "Apple devotee" as the article puts it. I do however suspect you'd see these reactions in my brain for the things I am truly passionate about (sometimes irrationally) such as showing me a Dvorak layout keyboard; a linguistic tree; or the flag of my home country. Note that I don't consider myself "excessively" devoted to any of these things, but I can imagine it would trigger something (these things all do trigger an emotional response for example).