The Star Trek universal translator, on the other hand, was capable of translating between English and previously unknown alien languages. Because of the principle of l'arbitraire du signe and the frequent use of idioms in human speech
Wait... so they're encrypting the channels and then releasing the way to unencrypt it to open source projects? What exactly would be the gain here? I mean, the only thing it will do is mean that third party PVR makers will be put out of commission whenever the cable company changes it's standard... oh, I see.
And then immediately after, they set up hundreds to thousands of shell companies and transfer copyrights around and around whenever they hit that limit and you're back to square one. Oh, and for added fun, you'll get multiple DMCA notices from subsidiaries of the same company when they can't keep track of their own movement and which subsidiary owns what.
The earlier event which really decimated higher learning in the Middle East: The Sack of Baghdad by the Ilkhanate. Essentially the center of learning in the Muslim world was utterly destroyed. Libraries were burned down, books were tossed into the river, scientists and philosophers were massacred, and a canal and irrigation system that was built up over a period of thousands of years was completely dismantled. If you wanted to parallel it to an event in Europe, the closest analogue might be the sack of Rome (though even that isn't really comparable, as Rome had already fallen far from it's heights).
Perhaps you missed all the recent news items about all those government agencies that are stocking-up on huge quantities of ammunition?
You mean that Social Security Administration ammunition story last week? It's a non-story. They've got 295 agents that make arrests, execute warrants, and investigate fraud and just happen to carry guns when doing so because people committing social security fraud aren't always nice and friendly. Given that it's around 600 bullets per agent, which includes all the ammo they'll use for training in a given year, it's not some extraordinary amount.
The TV tried to tell me the puzzles were all solved, yet there are no solution possible.
The TV is a notoriously poor venue to get information from.
Philosophers will teach you that much, assuming you will take the time to listen and learn.
If you think most philosophers will say that all the puzzles are solved, you haven't met many philosophers. Even the most fervent philosophy professors I've met would stop short of saying that their views are bulletproof. By it's nature, philosophy it a field without a whole lot of hard evidence. If there were a rigorous way to gather concrete evidence and draw falsifiable conclusions for some question X, we'd stop saying question X was a philosophical question and instead say it's a scientific one.
They are many, and complex, and from every side that claims to know an answer.
I don't know for certain that there is or isn't any gods. I'm not even sure that they're a coherent enough concept to say for sure whether they exist or not. If a tribe in the south pacific points to a wood totem and calls it their god, then sure, it exists, but it has no relevance to most people's notion of a god. A child's notion of a god as a sky wizard is very different from a theologians idea of a omnimax deity, which is just as different as a philosophers notion of a divine watchmaker, which is just as different as someone else's notion of a pantheistic one-with-everything entity . Some views are clearly wrong. Some views can be rationally discussed and debated. Some views are self-contradictory to the point where you can't reasonably ask the question.
After years of work I came to the same conclusion the vast majority of Philosophers have, which is that there is probably a creator.
[Citation needed] Also, even if true, argument from authority. On top of that, without a consensus on the properties of such a being you haven't really gotten anywhere.
Debating with atheists, I was surprised to find that even though they claimed that "science denies the need for a creator" there was no fact in those statements.
Science requires a falsifiable claim and sufficient evidence gathered to show that the claim holds up under scrutiny. Exactly how would I go about falsifying your claim to a creator? What evidence could I give you that would make you say you were wrong? What evidence have you gathered so far that might support your claim? What if I claimed there were a committee of creators instead of just one, how would you determine which of us is right?
If you take the time to try and answer the question for yourself, you may be surprised at how low the probability there is for the Universe not needing a creator.
There is insufficient data to make any claims at all regarding such a probability. State your evidence. Here's a hint: "Well, it's just too perfect" isn't evidence.
If you decide the Universe needs a creator, Theology becomes important.
Why? Even if I spotted you the existence of a creator, there would still be nothing you could say about that creator. Look at it this way: I'm sitting on a chair. What can you tell me about the chair I'm sitting in? How many legs does it have? Does it have arm rests? What's it made of? Does it swivel? Is it comfortable? How could you even answer the questions without being able to touch or see or use any method to measure the chair?
assuming some very basic thoughts common to nearly all Theology have some validity
Such as?
Evil does not have to convert a person to evil to harm them permanently, they simply need to fool people in to not believing.
What if there were a malevolent creator that gained power by belief? In such a case it could be considered evil to convince people to believe. The problem is, there's no basis for
like many cities san jose was and is struggling its budget and has laid off workers, cut worker wages, cut pensions and benefits, and cut city services. that didn't stop them from building a new $400M city hall right at the peak of the economic downturn.
To anyone not reading the wikipedia link, the economic downturn in question is the one in the the early 2000s. (just for clarification)
I don't have the luxury of spending money I don't have
Sure you do. It's called a loan. Lots of people get them. They finance all sorts of things, like homes, cars, college educations, etc. Most people with mortgages have a far worse ratio of debt to income than the federal government and pay much higher rates.
Why the fuck can't game companies understand this?
The people managing game companies are by and large just like every other manager: extroverts who think that everyone else thinks like them. Also, they're idiots who don't understand what they're managing.
But praise be to the few gaming companies that actually understand their customer base (Valve and Paradox spring to mind).
Say whatever one may, no-one - maybe not even the author - can "improve" on a specific artistic creation
What about video games? Clearly they can transmit and produce emotions, tell a story, etc, etc, as good as any other art form. But just as clearly, they can be patched, modified, and may have to synch to technical advances. Was Portal an artistic creation or an engineering creation?
The TSA granted itself the exemption for valid reasons that must remain classified for National Security reasons, so you'll have to trust us on that.
Sounds totally legit guys. Nothing to see here, no sir. I'll just pick up that can.
TSA Counsel believes that the National Security determinations set forth in the classified memorandum give the TSA full authority to disregard any court orders requiring notice and comment rulemaking.
If an agency can ignore court orders unilaterally, exactly what is stopping them from doing any illegal thing that they want to do? Surely we can at least have a set of independent judges with security clearances who can preside over cases where "national security" comes up.
Having traffic plate scanners all over the place seems like an extension of case #2 where the police are checking license plates on their own... but simply using technology to speed up the process. Where is the line? Is it the automation and efficiency?
It's the difference between tracking any given person and tracking every given person.
The brain is a mathematical engine. When you catch a fly ball you are solving a differential equation. Intuitively.
Doubtful. It's much more likely that the brain applies very simple rules for when a ball is coming towards you:
If the ball looks like it's moving left, move left. If the ball looks like it's moving right, move right. If the ball looks like it's sinking in your view, move forward. If the ball looks like it's rising in your view, move back.
If you do these things and the standard line up your glove between the ball and your eyes to catch it, then you've got a pretty darn good chance of catching the ball, no need to have the brain doing any sort of Diff Eq. Most motion actually follows heuristics and best guesses like this way more than any sort of mathematical precision.
Really? Because I just don't see it happening. Why go to the trouble of trying to run a sharing ring with 500 people when pirating is just as easy and doesn't mean you have to give up the game after you're done?
The need to strip search is for a arrstable offense resulting in detention in a prison facility. If you find yourself going to prison, you will be subjected to the search. Don't like it? Well, don't break the law.
This isn't about prison (which is for convicted criminals), this is jail, which you can go to merely for being suspected of a crime. You don't have to actually break the law. You usually don't even get to see a judge or your lawyer first. Forty years ago this is something we would've accused the Soviets of and criticized them for it while saying that America is better than that. Now we'll get people doublethinking that it's freedom.
My philosophy classes were about robots, computers, brains, and logic. Never had to read Nietzsche, Bacon, Aristotle, or Kant. Still managed to get a major in it (and computer science, guess which one I actually use). That's what I get for doing philosophy at an engineering college.
I'll be a'ok with the argument that human rights flow from people to corporations just as soon as legal responsibility flows back from corporations to people. If we as a society accept the legal fiction that corporations are a separate entity from the people running them then the entire argument that the rights flow from the actual humans to the corporation falls apart. At that point it isn't legally just a group of people getting together to send out a message, it's something wholly separate.
Slashdot Mirror
The Star Trek universal translator, on the other hand, was capable of translating between English and previously unknown alien languages. Because of the principle of l'arbitraire du signe and the frequent use of idioms in human speech
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.
Wait... so they're encrypting the channels and then releasing the way to unencrypt it to open source projects? What exactly would be the gain here? I mean, the only thing it will do is mean that third party PVR makers will be put out of commission whenever the cable company changes it's standard... oh, I see.
And then immediately after, they set up hundreds to thousands of shell companies and transfer copyrights around and around whenever they hit that limit and you're back to square one. Oh, and for added fun, you'll get multiple DMCA notices from subsidiaries of the same company when they can't keep track of their own movement and which subsidiary owns what.
The earlier event which really decimated higher learning in the Middle East: The Sack of Baghdad by the Ilkhanate. Essentially the center of learning in the Muslim world was utterly destroyed. Libraries were burned down, books were tossed into the river, scientists and philosophers were massacred, and a canal and irrigation system that was built up over a period of thousands of years was completely dismantled. If you wanted to parallel it to an event in Europe, the closest analogue might be the sack of Rome (though even that isn't really comparable, as Rome had already fallen far from it's heights).
Perhaps you missed all the recent news items about all those government agencies that are stocking-up on huge quantities of ammunition?
You mean that Social Security Administration ammunition story last week? It's a non-story. They've got 295 agents that make arrests, execute warrants, and investigate fraud and just happen to carry guns when doing so because people committing social security fraud aren't always nice and friendly. Given that it's around 600 bullets per agent, which includes all the ammo they'll use for training in a given year, it's not some extraordinary amount.
The TV tried to tell me the puzzles were all solved, yet there are no solution possible.
The TV is a notoriously poor venue to get information from.
Philosophers will teach you that much, assuming you will take the time to listen and learn.
If you think most philosophers will say that all the puzzles are solved, you haven't met many philosophers. Even the most fervent philosophy professors I've met would stop short of saying that their views are bulletproof. By it's nature, philosophy it a field without a whole lot of hard evidence. If there were a rigorous way to gather concrete evidence and draw falsifiable conclusions for some question X, we'd stop saying question X was a philosophical question and instead say it's a scientific one.
They are many, and complex, and from every side that claims to know an answer.
I don't know for certain that there is or isn't any gods. I'm not even sure that they're a coherent enough concept to say for sure whether they exist or not. If a tribe in the south pacific points to a wood totem and calls it their god, then sure, it exists, but it has no relevance to most people's notion of a god. A child's notion of a god as a sky wizard is very different from a theologians idea of a omnimax deity, which is just as different as a philosophers notion of a divine watchmaker, which is just as different as someone else's notion of a pantheistic one-with-everything entity . Some views are clearly wrong. Some views can be rationally discussed and debated. Some views are self-contradictory to the point where you can't reasonably ask the question.
After years of work I came to the same conclusion the vast majority of Philosophers have, which is that there is probably a creator.
[Citation needed]
Also, even if true, argument from authority. On top of that, without a consensus on the properties of such a being you haven't really gotten anywhere.
Debating with atheists, I was surprised to find that even though they claimed that "science denies the need for a creator" there was no fact in those statements.
Science requires a falsifiable claim and sufficient evidence gathered to show that the claim holds up under scrutiny. Exactly how would I go about falsifying your claim to a creator? What evidence could I give you that would make you say you were wrong? What evidence have you gathered so far that might support your claim? What if I claimed there were a committee of creators instead of just one, how would you determine which of us is right?
If you take the time to try and answer the question for yourself, you may be surprised at how low the probability there is for the Universe not needing a creator.
There is insufficient data to make any claims at all regarding such a probability. State your evidence. Here's a hint: "Well, it's just too perfect" isn't evidence.
If you decide the Universe needs a creator, Theology becomes important.
Why? Even if I spotted you the existence of a creator, there would still be nothing you could say about that creator. Look at it this way: I'm sitting on a chair. What can you tell me about the chair I'm sitting in? How many legs does it have? Does it have arm rests? What's it made of? Does it swivel? Is it comfortable? How could you even answer the questions without being able to touch or see or use any method to measure the chair?
assuming some very basic thoughts common to nearly all Theology have some validity
Such as?
Evil does not have to convert a person to evil to harm them permanently, they simply need to fool people in to not believing.
What if there were a malevolent creator that gained power by belief? In such a case it could be considered evil to convince people to believe. The problem is, there's no basis for
like many cities san jose was and is struggling its budget and has laid off workers, cut worker wages, cut pensions and benefits, and cut city services. that didn't stop them from building a new $400M city hall right at the peak of the economic downturn.
To anyone not reading the wikipedia link, the economic downturn in question is the one in the the early 2000s. (just for clarification)
I don't have the luxury of spending money I don't have
Sure you do. It's called a loan. Lots of people get them. They finance all sorts of things, like homes, cars, college educations, etc. Most people with mortgages have a far worse ratio of debt to income than the federal government and pay much higher rates.
Why the fuck can't game companies understand this?
The people managing game companies are by and large just like every other manager: extroverts who think that everyone else thinks like them. Also, they're idiots who don't understand what they're managing.
But praise be to the few gaming companies that actually understand their customer base (Valve and Paradox spring to mind).
Say whatever one may, no-one - maybe not even the author - can "improve" on a specific artistic creation
What about video games? Clearly they can transmit and produce emotions, tell a story, etc, etc, as good as any other art form. But just as clearly, they can be patched, modified, and may have to synch to technical advances. Was Portal an artistic creation or an engineering creation?
The TSA granted itself the exemption for valid reasons that must remain classified for National Security reasons, so you'll have to trust us on that.
Sounds totally legit guys. Nothing to see here, no sir. I'll just pick up that can.
TSA Counsel believes that the National Security determinations set forth in the classified memorandum give the TSA full authority to disregard any court orders requiring notice and comment rulemaking.
If an agency can ignore court orders unilaterally, exactly what is stopping them from doing any illegal thing that they want to do? Surely we can at least have a set of independent judges with security clearances who can preside over cases where "national security" comes up.
Funny then that corporations don't get sent to prison when they commit felonies. Maybe the law is applied a bit more equally to some than to others.
hire a lot more people, and lift many more families out of poverty
You can't lift a country out of poverty by just paying more and more people wages that are below the poverty line.
Having traffic plate scanners all over the place seems like an extension of case #2 where the police are checking license plates on their own... but simply using technology to speed up the process. Where is the line? Is it the automation and efficiency?
It's the difference between tracking any given person and tracking every given person.
In Soviet Russia...
The brain is a mathematical engine. When you catch a fly ball you are solving a differential equation. Intuitively.
Doubtful. It's much more likely that the brain applies very simple rules for when a ball is coming towards you:
If the ball looks like it's moving left, move left.
If the ball looks like it's moving right, move right.
If the ball looks like it's sinking in your view, move forward.
If the ball looks like it's rising in your view, move back.
If you do these things and the standard line up your glove between the ball and your eyes to catch it, then you've got a pretty darn good chance of catching the ball, no need to have the brain doing any sort of Diff Eq. Most motion actually follows heuristics and best guesses like this way more than any sort of mathematical precision.
You know how to boil a frog..you put him in cold water an slowly raise the temperature until he's boiled
Not actually true.
Really? Because I just don't see it happening. Why go to the trouble of trying to run a sharing ring with 500 people when pirating is just as easy and doesn't mean you have to give up the game after you're done?
The US poor person has healthier food, more comfortable lodgings and much better health by almost any measure than the wealthiest king 200 years ago.
The only one of those that may be plausible may be better healthcare. I don't see many poor people living in something like the Palace of Versaille or eating as voraciously as Louis XIV
They did it on Flight 93, on 9/11.
The need to strip search is for a arrstable offense resulting in detention in a prison facility. If you find yourself going to prison, you will be subjected to the search. Don't like it? Well, don't break the law.
This isn't about prison (which is for convicted criminals), this is jail, which you can go to merely for being suspected of a crime. You don't have to actually break the law. You usually don't even get to see a judge or your lawyer first. Forty years ago this is something we would've accused the Soviets of and criticized them for it while saying that America is better than that. Now we'll get people doublethinking that it's freedom.
My philosophy classes were about robots, computers, brains, and logic. Never had to read Nietzsche, Bacon, Aristotle, or Kant. Still managed to get a major in it (and computer science, guess which one I actually use). That's what I get for doing philosophy at an engineering college.
I'll be a'ok with the argument that human rights flow from people to corporations just as soon as legal responsibility flows back from corporations to people. If we as a society accept the legal fiction that corporations are a separate entity from the people running them then the entire argument that the rights flow from the actual humans to the corporation falls apart. At that point it isn't legally just a group of people getting together to send out a message, it's something wholly separate.
What do you expect? Most Americans don't get all that much vacation time. Take away a day or two of time and it's not small fries.
may not receive goods or services for free from any Cuban national, eliminating any attempts to circumvent the regulation based on that premise.
What if you brought along a Canadian friend and they paid for everything (and you documented the entire trip with a video camera)?