I agree that parents should teach their kids to... hmm, think and figure out what they believe and why. It's very important. I agree that not withstanding criticism, even if wrongly given, is not good. And to say that you don't value your faith (in anything? you don't believe anything that you aren't absolutely sure of and have proven and have seen proven, etc? hmm) also says something:) It sounds as though you are an atheist, although I don't know for that sure. Is that true? If so, how have you proven that God does not exist... or has anyone proven that God does not exist? If not, then are you not not believing that God does not exist?
Morals are subjective, yes... at least to some extent, and as far as humanity goes, it is subjective. Whether or not there is an objective "absolute" of morality is a different discussion, though. However, to say that morals/ethics are important and yet to say they are relative is an interesting conundrum. Why should I follow yours? Why should you have them in the first place? Simply because of social constructs? And what is morality based on truth, in your opinion (I'm curious:))?
I think you misunderstand me when it comes to respect and "threats and intimidation." There's a lot that could be discussed here, but here's a few; first off, young children do not understand as much as adults. Sometimes "threats" or corporal punishment appears to be the only thing that really changes their behavior. I personally think that's ok. No, not abuse; not excssive, not domestic violence, etc... please don't misconstrue this. I am simply saying that three year old is not going to understand the "reasoning" like an adult presumably would. As for using a God figurehead to brute-force obedience? That's not at all what I believe. Do I believe in punishment for what theologians call "sin"? Yes. Do I tell people they need to obey ME for that reason? No. If you asked me what my religion would tell you, an "unbeliever," I would tell you to read the Bible. Not obey me, not obe yanother man, not obey a church or a church figure or a pope or an Imam or whatever. There's a lot more that could be said, of course, and the Bible certainly does talk a lot about obedience... what I find most interesting, though, is the concept that without obeying God, you are completely free to do anything you want. The Bible rather argues that you're a "slave" either way. The question is, who (or what) are you a slave to. I oculd type for a lot longer on those concepts... at any rate, I think you might find it a bit different than you are thinking it is.
Plus, I would argue that a human making another person "believe" in God is stupid and doesn't do anything but give them bitterness and resistance. And if you keep someone in ignorance to "pull one over them," that does nothing. I would rather have someone honestly believe or honestly disbelieve than be deceived either way.
I'm not saying everything has to be a learning opportunity; however, holidays did originally mark things that apparently our government thought we should remember. I don't force anyone to celebrate them. I like celebrating them. I think kids should remember some things, though... if, for no other reason, to keep them from repeating history. Unfortunately, it looks like we are increasingly forgetting our history and beginning to repeat it.
I agree; I don't want the government deciding my meals. Or my health care =)
I agree, mutual respect is good. I can respect you and completely disagree with you. I can respect you and try to convince you of something. and vice versa. I am just as human - and in my "religion," I am no different except by God's grace - than you are, so being self-righteous or holier-than-thou or arrogant is stupid and hypocritical. And I'm sure you'll agree with me there;):) hehe
Not just dangers, how about some social aspects, too?
Religion: respect must be earned from their kids how exactly? And why don't kids have to earn their parents' respect instead of demanding their "rights" (i.e., money, an iPod, permission to do whatever, etc)? Furthermore, you appear to believe that religion has had nothing to do with education, curiosity, knowledge, and intelligence. Interesting. What version of history did you study?
Certainly, there have been many religions/cults/groups/what-have-you that have been very "bad" for people in general, but to lump all religion into one box is like saying that all science is bad because we found a wing of it... like, say, macro-economics or something? Anyways, to say that parents should not be allowed to teach their kids what they believe to be true just because you don't believe it and the government doesn't believe it is, IMO, part of the problem here.
If it takes a government or a "consensus" or "scientists" or whatever to decide what is "true" and then to only allow parents to teach that to their kids, then... that's major badness right there. Science has been wrong, consensus have been wrong, scientists are wrong all the time, religions have been wrong... everything involving humans have been wrong. And there are aspects of various people's beliefs that are not proven and are debated to this day, such as political concepts. I suppose parents shouldn't be allowed to teach their kids what they think about capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, monarchies, dictatorships, etc. And while we're at it, telling them that the Hollocaust happened would be bad, since there are some "historians" that debate that, too!
Morals/ethics: you appear to have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to religion, and anything that MIGHT have something to do with religion is automatically bad. You should look at some of Russia's history. They tried to force atheism. Look what happened. Anyway, to say that morals and ethics are "subjective" and "divisive" is interesting... I guess I shouldn't teach my kids that it's wrong to say, hmmm, murder, rape, pillage, plunder, steal, etc. In fact, if they want to grow up to act just like Microsoft, that's perfectly fine and dandy. Who cares about ethics anyways?
Family values: if you think it's not realistic or is "old fashioned" then I'm not sure you know what I was refering to. 1950s sitcoms != family values. I'm talking about... uh, valuing family. Getting along. Morals/ethics are in there, too. Wait, you don't care about those either, I guess. What DO you care about, besides yourself?
Holidays: holidays are not just time off for school. It can be patriotic, religious, seasonal, etc. It can be a learning opportunity. It can be used to show that our society values certain things... or that the kids' family, at least, values certain things. I value my freedom, and celebrate/participate in July 4th in my community. I value my faith and celebrate Christmas and Easter accordingly. I value being thankful for what this country has been blessed with for the past few hundred years, and celebrate Thanksgiving accordingly. I value and honor veterans and celebrate Memorial Day/Veterans' day accordingly. The fact that you say those holidays are just "time off from school" proves my point; parents have allowed their kids to not care about anything but themselves to the extent that hilidays, which are supposed to use to demark special celebrations for special events, are simply days they can sleep in and play video games. You're using the problem to prove why the solution is wrong?
Food choices: Of course they don't have to eat tofu and celery. They should also know about fast food, corn syrup, how things are processed, that getting your "grains" does not mean "oreo cookies," etc. Heart disease and heart attacks are definitely linked to diet and exercise. World of Warcraft does not count as exerci
Puppy is actually a pretty cool distro for old clunkers... except you do have to know a little bit in case X acts up. My parents used it for a while on an old Celeron with 256mb RAM and it worked well... except if you closed the laptop lid, X died and it would boot to console next.
And for people that have a hard time figuring out what a "file" is, typing things into a terminal is total Greek.:)
Lighthouse Pup is pretty cool, too. Looks very nice. Just in case you want a little more bling.:)
It's not just football, of course. There are a lot of misappropriated priorities.
And parents appear to not care. They would rather feed their kids entertainment to keep them happy (and out of their hair) than to actually take the time, effort, and "pain" to instill the correct priorities and education and whatnot in them. It's easier to give them $3000 in entertainment gifts per year (you know.... ipod, xbox, games, car, etc) than to take the effort to try to influence their priorities.
And then there's the whole thing that we should just let kids do wha tthey want and what comes natural and not "force" our "beliefs" on them... which apparently includes education, drugs, religion, morals, ethics, family values, holidays, food choices, etc. Basically, kids should grow up by themselves! (and "by themselves" we mean "by the government/public school system")
For example, he recognizes Windows Server 2008 R2 as a great OS, but fails to mention Windows 7; Windows 7 and 2008 R2 are on the same code base.
Linux as one group? Seriously, what distro you choose can make or break your Linux experience. Especially depending on your hardware.
Android? Isn't that kinda new to be saying it's amazing already?
Mac OS X bias, too:
It just works. Darwin BSD underneath, mostly luxury on top. The upside is beauty, quietness, control, and stress-free existences. The downside is that it isn't a business plan for computer consultants and virus removers. Onerous is the fact that the most recent release of MacOS-- Snow Leopard-- had a sufficiently large number of post release patches to make our PTSD of Microsoft Windows patching come to mind. Apple's QA now faces a bit of what Microsoft does: so many hardware platforms that QA is difficult as Apple releases new hardware platform variants. The OS isn't pricey, and this isn't about hardware captivity, this is about quality and architectural philosophy in an operating system. Yet MacOS is also the underpinning for the cell/mobile OS to beat on the iPhone. Attention to detail pays.
Sure. It "just works" on Apple approved hardware.:) Luxury on top? Hm. Control? I wasn't aware that Mac OS X allowed you to control your system as much as Linux or Windows. I thought it actually was simpler and didn't allow as much control - which is fine, it's a design decision that many people like, I have no problem with it. And what is "architectural philosophy" anyways? I thought Mac OS X was about being a good OS, not an architectural POC...
We should ALL demand that our employers use Ubuntu... every day... until they give in...
Oh boy.
Oh boy.
Your employer pays Microsoft to use Microsoft's OSs. If your employer wants to stop paying Microsoft and use Ubuntu, I'm sure they can. Maybe they don't want to. In which case, demanding it probably won't do too much for you.
Of course, if someone actually demonstrated the same efficiency, no configuration issues, no breakages every time Ubuntu decides to roll out an upgrade, etc., maybe more employers would listen. Or perhaps if Ubuntu offered paid support (do they? I don't know).
There's a reason people pay for Oracle, for example, instead of using the free MySQL. Perhaps there are reasons employers pay for Microsoft instead of using Canonical. (as a user-targeted OS, anyways)
and we would have to tell them that emails can't be tracked like that..
You were wrong!! I can't believe you missed that opportunity!!!1 I just received a check from Bill Gates c/o Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Washington for $1,689.34. It's works! But if you don't forward this to all your friends, someone from Microsoft will come around to collect what you owe!
Hmmm. I don't think Eliza counts as a virtual doctor. She appears to be clueless.
You: Can I get a prescription for Vicodin?
Eliza: Do you want to be able to get a prescription for vicodin?
You: Yes!
Eliza: You are sure?
You: Yes, I am sure. I'm in pain!
Eliza: You are sure?
You: Just give me my pain medications already!!
Eliza: Why do you say your pain medications already?
You: I just wasted $45. Goodbye.
Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?
Out of curiosity... does that make that IP space sort of permanently black-listed? e.g., if the "bad guys" go out of business and "good guys" buy the IP space... how do the new owners clear the IP space of its bad name?
Seems like a shame to start throwing IP space away because there's no way to make it clean again.
IMO, 5 hour battery life is not that great for a netbook with a somewhat underpowered (and low power) cpu, is it? On par with full-size laptops/notebooks but without the power of the full-size laptop/notebook...:)
If that's what you think, then I'm fine with you thinking that. who am I to decide that this or that war was the right thing to do and that there can not be any possibly reasonable argument against it? We may disagree, but such is life.
The problems I have are with people who think war is NEVER an answer, that violence should never be used, and that wacko people (no matter what their beliefs) who want to kill others for power or glory can actually be reasoned with, that they are just misunderstood, that they had an abusive past, or whatever.
And yet war is one of the few things that the Constitution mandates that the federal government "do."
Health care and social programs actually are not mandated. Military forces are.
Priorities, sure. But let's not let our fuzzy good feelings rule here. Some things are more important than being healthy, like being alive. Yes, we can argue whether or not an individual war was necessary, good, etc... but to say that we don't need to have a military or that having a strong military is a waste or that we no longer need wars is, IMO, not only ignorant of history but ignorant of human nature. I don't think you are necessarily saying this, I'm just spouting off on my soapbox while I'm on it:)
I don't know whether or not Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary. I do think that there is definitely a problem of anti-western-civilization terrorism. I don't know everything, nor does any other person on earth... but I think we should all agree, at least, that there are some basic things about humans that lead to them wanting to conquer through violence, which subsequently leads to defense by violence.
Desire for power.
Hatred.
Low view of the worth of human life - except their own.
Desire for power, did I mention that one?
As long as there are people that desire power and are willing and quite happy to kill for it, or desire glory or whatever it is, there will be the unfortunate necessity to protect peace-loving people with war.
If someone thinks everyone is sane and humane enough to talk about differences, I think that someone is very, very, very mistaken and perhaps let the 60s get to them a little too much.
Of course, even the peace-loving hippies in the 60s seemed to get wacko sometime... i.e., Manson...
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, the definition "waltzing"/a waltz has been diminished to the extent that now it just refers to two objects moving together. Hum.
I guess I'm just a cranky music theory lover though.
I will neither pronounce myself in agreement or disagreement of it, because I refuse to discuss that particular issue on Slashdot ;)
Infidel! ;)
(kidding. letting the discussion rest, since I probably won't visit it again, hehe)
We can disagree on religion. Yay for freedom. :)
I agree that parents should teach their kids to ... hmm, think and figure out what they believe and why. It's very important. I agree that not withstanding criticism, even if wrongly given, is not good. And to say that you don't value your faith (in anything? you don't believe anything that you aren't absolutely sure of and have proven and have seen proven, etc? hmm) also says something :) It sounds as though you are an atheist, although I don't know for that sure. Is that true? If so, how have you proven that God does not exist... or has anyone proven that God does not exist? If not, then are you not not believing that God does not exist?
Morals are subjective, yes... at least to some extent, and as far as humanity goes, it is subjective. Whether or not there is an objective "absolute" of morality is a different discussion, though. However, to say that morals/ethics are important and yet to say they are relative is an interesting conundrum. Why should I follow yours? Why should you have them in the first place? Simply because of social constructs? And what is morality based on truth, in your opinion (I'm curious :))?
I think you misunderstand me when it comes to respect and "threats and intimidation." There's a lot that could be discussed here, but here's a few; first off, young children do not understand as much as adults. Sometimes "threats" or corporal punishment appears to be the only thing that really changes their behavior. I personally think that's ok. No, not abuse; not excssive, not domestic violence, etc... please don't misconstrue this. I am simply saying that three year old is not going to understand the "reasoning" like an adult presumably would. As for using a God figurehead to brute-force obedience? That's not at all what I believe. Do I believe in punishment for what theologians call "sin"? Yes. Do I tell people they need to obey ME for that reason? No. If you asked me what my religion would tell you, an "unbeliever," I would tell you to read the Bible. Not obey me, not obe yanother man, not obey a church or a church figure or a pope or an Imam or whatever. There's a lot more that could be said, of course, and the Bible certainly does talk a lot about obedience... what I find most interesting, though, is the concept that without obeying God, you are completely free to do anything you want. The Bible rather argues that you're a "slave" either way. The question is, who (or what) are you a slave to. I oculd type for a lot longer on those concepts... at any rate, I think you might find it a bit different than you are thinking it is.
Plus, I would argue that a human making another person "believe" in God is stupid and doesn't do anything but give them bitterness and resistance. And if you keep someone in ignorance to "pull one over them," that does nothing. I would rather have someone honestly believe or honestly disbelieve than be deceived either way.
I'm not saying everything has to be a learning opportunity; however, holidays did originally mark things that apparently our government thought we should remember. I don't force anyone to celebrate them. I like celebrating them. I think kids should remember some things, though... if, for no other reason, to keep them from repeating history. Unfortunately, it looks like we are increasingly forgetting our history and beginning to repeat it.
I agree; I don't want the government deciding my meals. Or my health care =)
I agree, mutual respect is good. I can respect you and completely disagree with you. I can respect you and try to convince you of something. and vice versa. I am just as human - and in my "religion," I am no different except by God's grace - than you are, so being self-righteous or holier-than-thou or arrogant is stupid and hypocritical. And I'm sure you'll agree with me there ;) :) hehe
The prayers of the thousand left handed mouses users have been answered.
FTFY :)
Not just dangers, how about some social aspects, too?
Religion: respect must be earned from their kids how exactly? And why don't kids have to earn their parents' respect instead of demanding their "rights" (i.e., money, an iPod, permission to do whatever, etc)? Furthermore, you appear to believe that religion has had nothing to do with education, curiosity, knowledge, and intelligence. Interesting. What version of history did you study?
Certainly, there have been many religions/cults/groups/what-have-you that have been very "bad" for people in general, but to lump all religion into one box is like saying that all science is bad because we found a wing of it... like, say, macro-economics or something? Anyways, to say that parents should not be allowed to teach their kids what they believe to be true just because you don't believe it and the government doesn't believe it is, IMO, part of the problem here.
If it takes a government or a "consensus" or "scientists" or whatever to decide what is "true" and then to only allow parents to teach that to their kids, then ... that's major badness right there. Science has been wrong, consensus have been wrong, scientists are wrong all the time, religions have been wrong... everything involving humans have been wrong. And there are aspects of various people's beliefs that are not proven and are debated to this day, such as political concepts. I suppose parents shouldn't be allowed to teach their kids what they think about capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, monarchies, dictatorships, etc. And while we're at it, telling them that the Hollocaust happened would be bad, since there are some "historians" that debate that, too!
Morals/ethics: you appear to have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to religion, and anything that MIGHT have something to do with religion is automatically bad. You should look at some of Russia's history. They tried to force atheism. Look what happened. Anyway, to say that morals and ethics are "subjective" and "divisive" is interesting... I guess I shouldn't teach my kids that it's wrong to say, hmmm, murder, rape, pillage, plunder, steal, etc. In fact, if they want to grow up to act just like Microsoft, that's perfectly fine and dandy. Who cares about ethics anyways?
Family values: if you think it's not realistic or is "old fashioned" then I'm not sure you know what I was refering to. 1950s sitcoms != family values. I'm talking about ... uh, valuing family. Getting along. Morals/ethics are in there, too. Wait, you don't care about those either, I guess. What DO you care about, besides yourself?
Holidays: holidays are not just time off for school. It can be patriotic, religious, seasonal, etc. It can be a learning opportunity. It can be used to show that our society values certain things... or that the kids' family, at least, values certain things. I value my freedom, and celebrate/participate in July 4th in my community. I value my faith and celebrate Christmas and Easter accordingly. I value being thankful for what this country has been blessed with for the past few hundred years, and celebrate Thanksgiving accordingly. I value and honor veterans and celebrate Memorial Day/Veterans' day accordingly. The fact that you say those holidays are just "time off from school" proves my point; parents have allowed their kids to not care about anything but themselves to the extent that hilidays, which are supposed to use to demark special celebrations for special events, are simply days they can sleep in and play video games. You're using the problem to prove why the solution is wrong?
Food choices: Of course they don't have to eat tofu and celery. They should also know about fast food, corn syrup, how things are processed, that getting your "grains" does not mean "oreo cookies," etc. Heart disease and heart attacks are definitely linked to diet and exercise. World of Warcraft does not count as exerci
Puppy is actually a pretty cool distro for old clunkers... except you do have to know a little bit in case X acts up. My parents used it for a while on an old Celeron with 256mb RAM and it worked well... except if you closed the laptop lid, X died and it would boot to console next.
And for people that have a hard time figuring out what a "file" is, typing things into a terminal is total Greek. :)
Lighthouse Pup is pretty cool, too. Looks very nice. Just in case you want a little more bling. :)
It's not just football, of course. There are a lot of misappropriated priorities.
And parents appear to not care. They would rather feed their kids entertainment to keep them happy (and out of their hair) than to actually take the time, effort, and "pain" to instill the correct priorities and education and whatnot in them. It's easier to give them $3000 in entertainment gifts per year (you know .... ipod, xbox, games, car, etc) than to take the effort to try to influence their priorities.
And then there's the whole thing that we should just let kids do wha tthey want and what comes natural and not "force" our "beliefs" on them... which apparently includes education, drugs, religion, morals, ethics, family values, holidays, food choices, etc. Basically, kids should grow up by themselves! (and "by themselves" we mean "by the government/public school system")
For example, he recognizes Windows Server 2008 R2 as a great OS, but fails to mention Windows 7; Windows 7 and 2008 R2 are on the same code base.
Linux as one group? Seriously, what distro you choose can make or break your Linux experience. Especially depending on your hardware.
Android? Isn't that kinda new to be saying it's amazing already?
Mac OS X bias, too:
It just works. Darwin BSD underneath, mostly luxury on top. The upside is beauty, quietness, control, and stress-free existences. The downside is that it isn't a business plan for computer consultants and virus removers. Onerous is the fact that the most recent release of MacOS-- Snow Leopard-- had a sufficiently large number of post release patches to make our PTSD of Microsoft Windows patching come to mind. Apple's QA now faces a bit of what Microsoft does: so many hardware platforms that QA is difficult as Apple releases new hardware platform variants. The OS isn't pricey, and this isn't about hardware captivity, this is about quality and architectural philosophy in an operating system. Yet MacOS is also the underpinning for the cell/mobile OS to beat on the iPhone. Attention to detail pays.
Sure. It "just works" on Apple approved hardware. :) Luxury on top? Hm. Control? I wasn't aware that Mac OS X allowed you to control your system as much as Linux or Windows. I thought it actually was simpler and didn't allow as much control - which is fine, it's a design decision that many people like, I have no problem with it. And what is "architectural philosophy" anyways? I thought Mac OS X was about being a good OS, not an architectural POC...
Oh boy x2 was a mistake. hehe.
We should ALL demand that our employers use Ubuntu ... every day ... until they give in...
Oh boy.
Oh boy.
Your employer pays Microsoft to use Microsoft's OSs. If your employer wants to stop paying Microsoft and use Ubuntu, I'm sure they can. Maybe they don't want to. In which case, demanding it probably won't do too much for you.
Of course, if someone actually demonstrated the same efficiency, no configuration issues, no breakages every time Ubuntu decides to roll out an upgrade, etc., maybe more employers would listen. Or perhaps if Ubuntu offered paid support (do they? I don't know).
There's a reason people pay for Oracle, for example, instead of using the free MySQL. Perhaps there are reasons employers pay for Microsoft instead of using Canonical. (as a user-targeted OS, anyways)
and we would have to tell them that emails can't be tracked like that..
You were wrong!! I can't believe you missed that opportunity!!!1 I just received a check from Bill Gates c/o Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Washington for $1,689.34. It's works! But if you don't forward this to all your friends, someone from Microsoft will come around to collect what you owe!
...
Hmmm. I don't think Eliza counts as a virtual doctor. She appears to be clueless.
I'm not completely sure I'd want to eat ice cream with a random beetle antifreeze in it. ;)
Out of curiosity... does that make that IP space sort of permanently black-listed? e.g., if the "bad guys" go out of business and "good guys" buy the IP space... how do the new owners clear the IP space of its bad name?
Seems like a shame to start throwing IP space away because there's no way to make it clean again.
Its hard to imagine a better example as to why the US system
Just wait. Plenty more examples in years to come if things continue to go the way they are going. :)
...minimalistic electronic music.
Well, if I dish out any, I ought to be able to eat my share, too...
ASCII Artist Level ;)
....
....
....
You
Ah, right. Reading comprehension? Never touch the stuff. :P ;)
IMO, 5 hour battery life is not that great for a netbook with a somewhat underpowered (and low power) cpu, is it? On par with full-size laptops/notebooks but without the power of the full-size laptop/notebook... :)
who said you can get this one for under $300?
If that's what you think, then I'm fine with you thinking that. who am I to decide that this or that war was the right thing to do and that there can not be any possibly reasonable argument against it? We may disagree, but such is life.
The problems I have are with people who think war is NEVER an answer, that violence should never be used, and that wacko people (no matter what their beliefs) who want to kill others for power or glory can actually be reasoned with, that they are just misunderstood, that they had an abusive past, or whatever.
Right, because Christians and republicans are representative of the world's overweight and stupid people.
I know, it's just a joke. Just figured I'd mention it.
And yet war is one of the few things that the Constitution mandates that the federal government "do."
Health care and social programs actually are not mandated. Military forces are.
Priorities, sure. But let's not let our fuzzy good feelings rule here. Some things are more important than being healthy, like being alive. Yes, we can argue whether or not an individual war was necessary, good, etc... but to say that we don't need to have a military or that having a strong military is a waste or that we no longer need wars is, IMO, not only ignorant of history but ignorant of human nature. I don't think you are necessarily saying this, I'm just spouting off on my soapbox while I'm on it :)
I don't know whether or not Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary. I do think that there is definitely a problem of anti-western-civilization terrorism. I don't know everything, nor does any other person on earth... but I think we should all agree, at least, that there are some basic things about humans that lead to them wanting to conquer through violence, which subsequently leads to defense by violence.
As long as there are people that desire power and are willing and quite happy to kill for it, or desire glory or whatever it is, there will be the unfortunate necessity to protect peace-loving people with war.
If someone thinks everyone is sane and humane enough to talk about differences, I think that someone is very, very, very mistaken and perhaps let the 60s get to them a little too much.
Of course, even the peace-loving hippies in the 60s seemed to get wacko sometime... i.e., Manson...
The highway doesn't have the same problem... I assume those cars were moving... :)