there are many areas that microsoft doesn't control
So far. In the other areas they do control, they started out not controlling them and now they do. This is, in part, because they broke their competitors' software. Watch for it to happen in any of the areas you listed when they decide to muscle their way into them. Just look at their entire history for proof.
Just think of how many IIS security holes are listed as "windows security holes".
You honestly don't see how this example is an argument against you? Since until recently it was impossible to uninstall IIS, it *is* a windows security hole. As in if you run windows (nt/2k anyway) you have this security problem.
Again as I pointed out throughout your previous post, the OEM who installed this would be responsible for supporting it. So if vendors had been able to drop in their own replacement which was not susceptible to these issues then the reduction in exploits is a bad thing by your reasoning.
Imagine this, someone buys a machine from compaq and its running "modular windows" and has the "real audio module" installed in place of the "windows media player module" and a person can't get thier sound file to play. Who will they call? MS for sure and MS will have to give its best effort to solve real's problem in order keep its image of support for windows
You clearly have no concept of anything being discussed here. If some one buys a machine from Compaq then Compaq is responsible for the support. This is how it is now this is how it has always been and this is how it will remain in the future. If they installed the "Real Audio Module" it is because they think it is better than the "Windows Media player module" and will cause less support problems for them. Also since they are installing the system this way, they will be intimately familiar with it.
They will not call MS. If they did, then MS would certainly give their "best effort" to solve the problem not because they want to maintain their "image of support for windows" which they do not have, but because the first thing they will do is get your credit card # so they can charge you $150/hour (or whatever it is now). Now in the case of a modular windows customized by a vendor, this would, in fact, be reasonable. This is how it works today when the vendor has no control over windows so it is MS's responsibility to support it but they don't.
Scenario 2 is someone has windows without the internet module installed and calls in asking "how do I get online, windows is supposed to do that" and ms has to explain that because they got a version without that module installed they will need to go purchase the module (or worse yet an actual complete version of windows). Bad scenario to be in.
Again, you are showing your inability to grasp simple concepts. MS would be providing the stripped down version to OEMs like Compaq, Dell, etc. They will be responsible for *all* support just as they are now. They understand that most of their customers want to get on the internet. Since they want to stay in business they will provide this functionality. In the interest of providing the most trouble free system to keep support costs down they will have the ability to put in the software components that they have proven to themselves to be the best. Contrast that with the situation today where no matter how much it costs them when the latest Microsoft virus hits and *every one* of their customers is susceptible they have no recourse. Now if they decided to drop in Mozilla (for example) they have full access to the source code to modify any things they see as problematic. If this creates any problems, then they *and only they* are responsible for the support costs. Just like they are today.
What will certainly happen if modular windows is required is that people will have to learn how to use a far larger set of skills.
This is, of course, untrue like the rest of your post. If it were true, it would actually be a good thing in every way, but sadly it isn't true. It would force them to learn a slightly different set of "skills". They aren't actually even skills, just *slightly* different interfaces. If you can use IE you can use Mozilla with no new "skills". The interfaces are nearly identical which makes sense since MS designed it to duplicate Netscape's interface.
I am 100% opposed to having windows with major components being plugable unless MS can control the bar for accepting a module as "certified".
Why? They have no responsibility whatsoever for supporting said modules. What incentive do they have to certify a module from another company that actually works. Their best strategy in this case would be to *only* certify modules that did *not* work.
Its MS's image on the line and they are being forced to put that image in the hands of other companies that won't be affected as much by a failure.
No, it is the image of the company from whom you buy the computer that is on the line. Currently every OEM is forced to put their images in the hands of a convicted criminal organization who makes design decisions based primarily on illegally extending a monopoly position. This is *very* bad for every company involved except MS.
To recommend lynx in place of IE makes your post seem either elitist in the extreme or you as quite obtuse. Why no mention of Mozilla or even Netscape?
This is tantamount to suggesting driving classes replace modern, automatic transmission and power steered cars with a crank-started, foot-shifted, hand-throttled Model T Ford.
Actually you are ignoring the market here: education. Lynx would be by far the best choice for a web browser. They should be using it for research, and to find information *not* to look at pretty pictures and video and get flooded with pop up advertising. They are welcome to use the internet for whatever purposes they (or more appropriately their parents) deem ok on their own time. There is really nothing they should be doing that requires a graphical browser.
This always makes me do a double take when I'm driving through Oregon. In California, it's possible to find a place with full serve gas, but in Oregon it's required exclusively by law everywhere. I'm just curious, do you know why this is so there?
So then we are going from the "guilty until proven innocent" point of view?
Not at all. First of all, I am not the justice system and neither are you. Second, people and almost every other animal on the planet have the ability to learn from experience. MS was (presumably) innocent at some point in the distant past. Since that time they have over and over and over *proven* themselves guilty of various illegal acts. Further after admitting their guilt and signing decrees stating that they would no longer do them, they promptly went right on committing them. Now does this mean that they are automatically guilty of the next thing of which they are accused?
Of course not. What it does mean though is that anyone who has more intelligence than a bug will accept that the possibility of them being guilty of doing what they have done every other time is a real one. Also having 2 brain cells to rub together would force one to look at any action they take whether there is any obvious illegal implications or not with a great deal of suspicion.
You think so? 1 in five vendors, only 2 of which are in the fortune 500
What relevance does the fortune 500 have to the issue? How many of these companies even make *any* products that are at all related to computers? I'm sure bummed that I can't use my Caterpillar video card.
MS the king of standards... nope. Better than most, yes.
A little advice, making blatantly false statements that are in fact utterly ridiculous is too obvious to make a proper troll. MS is known in the standards arena *primarily* for conciously breaking them. I know, I know IHBT
Let's stay out of trouble here and take it offline" that might have been obvious. But to simply say "No more replies" "Let's take this off the airwaves" could just as easily be "Stop wasting time with this ignorant waste of resources and get back to work"
No, not at all.Your last statement says that the discussion will stop, whereas the first two specifically state that the conversation *will* continue, just not where it will leave evidence.
He simply states - take it offline
As it would seem you well knew.
So I still can't say that this one line statement is a clear indictment of wrong doing by the VP.
Certainly this is true. Luckilly, unless you have spent your entire life under a rock (or a bridge perhaps?), you have a whole wealth of evidence at your disposal. Given the fact that almost every decision they have made in the entire history of the company has been poor from a technical standpoint, but very good from a (quite often illegal) marketing standpoint, it becomes reasonable to look at anything they do with a great deal of suspicion. This isn't prejudiced in any way. To not assume until proven otherwise that anything they do is slimy is the act of a fool since that is their standard operating procedure.
gee, KDE 3 sure looks a lot like XP, funny that. I am so glad there is so much creativity in the OSS scene
Actually, KDE3 looks exactly like KDE2 which looks just like Win95 which looks just like every version of MacOS prior to the latest. There is little creativity in any UI stuff in the computer field sadly.
Essentially, you seem to think it's rather cruel of God to create us with the ability to do each other wrong, the ability to reject him and with the tendency to want simple, singular statements and binary proofs, while at the same time he says we won't realise our full potential when we don't choose *not* to do those things.
Firstly, I don't think it's cruel, I think it is petty. Secondly, he doesn't say we won't reach our full potential, he says that he will send us to burn for all eternity. Huge difference. The point is he made *all* the rules. So given the space of all possible rules, he made us in such a way as to naturally act against all of his rules and then says we'll burn if we don't follow them. Then to top it off, he picks and chooses exactly who will even be presented with the rules. For example, most of the people in the world hadn't even heard of this particular god until far along in the lifespan of humanity.
As a nice example: he created gravity. Now, if you step out of a window, are you then "punished" for not honoring gravity as part of his creation, or are you just experiencing the natural consequence of your own decision?
This is so unrelated that I'm surprised that you would even bother presenting such a fragile straw man. Gravity can be observed and tested with repeatable affects. We can watch what happens to someone who jumps out of a window. God doesn't allow any such rationality to intrude into his sphere. No one suffers in any way for disobeying him on earth. It's only after we die that it happens so we can't even serve as an example.
To me, those two ways of saying it are completely interchangeable.
I hope you can see now that they are not in any way interchangable.
If you take this a bit further, it seems you think it's cruel of him to create you as a truly free man, who is responsible for his actions, which must be according to certain principles that are intrinsic to the way he has created things if we want to build on it further in a meaningful way.
Again, not cruel: petty, petulant, and several other very bad wholly *human* things. It's not about freedom it's about control. It gets a bit difficult to debate this rationally (for either of us) since we are working off of a different set of axioms. To you it's a given that god exists I haven't chosen to accept this axiom seeing no need for it as it adds no new information. I'll state again a question from my previous post: Look at it for a second as if his existence wasn't a given. Further assume you control some primitive tribe. Can you come up with a better way to enslave the minds of the people under your rule?
IMHO this is a very liberating concept, and the way I see it, this way he also frees you from all kinds of religious laws and obligations (sacrifice, paying money) that people force on each other and themselves: The only thing it liberates you from is the said religious laws in the second half of your sentence. While similar religious laws existed prior to your god coming on the scene many of them were put into place as a result of your god. In fact, he created many of those repressive laws himself. I'm sure that you will say that he didn't and men did saying it was him. So follow up on this thought. If perjury in a court of law is bad, then surely misrepresenting yourself as god is even worse. So these people are acting against the interests of god. Yet these are the people who wrote the bible. So you have people who have completely discredited themselves in your eyes, and yet you ignore that when you accept evena single word from the bible as true. That my friend is not liberation.
But why would you think it's absurd that God, if he exists, apparently gives us freedom to do those things? It seems that he did, and he's willing to stick with it, even in the face of the worst evils we do. This isn't what I find absurd. No offense intended, but there is what I have noticed to be a universal blind spot for christians. God is *all* powerful and *all* knowing. Christians generally have no problem saying this but they find it impossible to actually accept it and follow it to its conclusion. Since he made all the rules and everything else, he created it all in such a way as to send the people to hell who go there. You can talk about free will all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that he knew before he even created the universe that Billy Joe Jim Bob over there would be condemned to burn forever. In fact he created the rules in such a way as to ensure that.Yeah, yeah, I know, he (BJJB) could have chosen otherwise but that is the blind spot I'm talking about. God made the world and BJJB in such a way as to ensure that he wouldn't. This is what it means to be all powerful and knowing. Or to give an example of a real person take me for example. I was "created" in such a way as to make it impossible for me to submit myself to a belief system that has throughout its history been responsible for more evil than any other single entity in the history of the world. From the burning of the Library of Alexandria (the willful destruction of the single greatest repository of knowledge of the ancient world) to the destruction of the cultures of countless peoples, the burning alive of anyone who didn't *choose* to accept their enslavement Now you will say that that those were the acts of men, but ask yourself what is more reasonable: That an all powerful all knowing being who loves everybody created such a belief system with such potential for abuse and created the people in such a way that they would abuse it (again choice is a red herring here since he made everything in such a way as to ensure that those are the choices that would be made). Or, that people being what they are created the system to allow themselves to abuse it?
Hey, is there a patent on the process of separating fools from their money by means of comvincing hoaxes?
Damn. If you could get it your only problem would be figuring out the problems associated with making more money than it is possible for the world to produce.
I've read that somebody patented attaching wind-turbine type generators to the top of your car to gain back energy and make the car more efficient.
Does the second law absolutely throw this out, or is it theoretically possible? I mean it could generate electricity, but there would be drag on the car, friction in the components etc. but it's not really a closed system either. Any ThermoDynamiGeeks care to comment?
In fact, the *church* has earned quite a bit of trust, by coming down so hard on the *american branch*'s scandal.
In point of fact they haven't done shit
We're not talking about a hospital. We're talking about a multinational organization with moral purposes (that runs, among other things, hospitals) that has a proven track record of sticking to what they mean.
You mean saying that god loves everybody yet condemning homosexuals even though god made them that way? You mean saying killing is wrong and then killing everybody they can that disagrees with them? You mean saying they're trying to help people and then preventing them from using *any* contraceptives thus condemning them to poverty?
Moral purposes my left butt cheek. Their purpose is to expand their power structure. Try to come up with a (rational this time, not just spouting crap) example of their "moral purposes" that can't be shot down with a junior high school level of history.
Re:No. Do not trust a priest. Or any authority.
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The Magic Box Hoax
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I just said that, in doing the wrong thing, their morals were at least in the right place.
You are a truly sickening person.
To act in accordance with their supposed morals, they should have publically admitted the sins, allowed the human waste responsible to publicly beg forgiveness *and* face the legal consequences of his actions. You know, give unto god that which is god's and give unto Ceasar that which is his? Justice in a country on earth is that country's Ceasar's. What any sane, moral person or organization would have done *at the very fucking least* is to keep children away from such a monster forgiven or not. There is a huge difference between forgiving someone and inflicting them on someone else's children. The fact that this has happened more times than I can remember ( but a *lot* ) in my lifetime and the church has consistently taken action to protect their name rather than the people they claim to protect is sick. The fact that in at least several of the cases they acted by moving the scum to a different country making extradition difficult is, I'm sure, merely a coincidence.
I was polite in a previous unrelated post, but you are one sick, deluded fuck.
. Part two is convincing the Creator to give you a mighty big break and let you off all of the sins ("bad stuff", "crimes against God", or just the roman "stuff that pisses God off") that you have committed.
This is the really big dichotomy between myself and christians like yourself (not an insult in any way, just a generalization of this statement vs other types of christians).
Feel free to correct my interpretation of what you're saying. You believe that there is an all-powerful being who created everything, who had all possible information at his disposal. So he creates us with all of our desires as they are and specifically forbids us from acting on them. Further, he provides with intellects that work in such a way as to require proof to accept something and then actively denies us that proof. Furthermore, he makes that blind acceptance of that unprovable thing the sole requirement for gaining salvation. So if you don't spend your entire life fighting against the nature that he put in you then you are bad?!?
Seriously, think for a while if there is any thing, person, or institution in the world that you would even think twice about laughing in the face of if they tried to sell you such a slanted piece of crap.
Yes, I know, he's god and he loves you.
*If* I believed in him and *if* I thought that that was what he was all about, then I would still laugh in his face and expose him for the petty little shit he was because maybe I would burn, but at least I would have integrity.
Look at it for a second as if his existence wasn't a given. Further assume you control some primitive tribe. Can you come up with a better way to enslave the minds of the people under your rule?
Post a reputable link to a story about this and maybe people will beleive what you're saying.
Sorry for the delay in responding. Hopefully you check your user page for replies. Anyhow, a quick search found this article
This isn't where I originally found the information, but it is a good summary of a lot of the relevant information. Don't let the fact that the site is the "world socialist web site" allow you to disregard it out of hand. It was my first visit to the site which I found through a google search. They have references to all of their statements in the story.
If you do read this, please post at least an acknowledgement so I know I didn't waste my time posting this so late.
My current printer cost me $50CDN ($100 - $50 MIR), while the cartridges alone for the printer would've cost me >$80CDN.
You are confusing price and cost. What, to you, is the cost of something is the price at which the manufacturer chooses to sell it. The actual cost to the manufacturer is a completely different thing. Generally the cost is well below the price with some exceptions most commonly video game systems. Whether or not this is the case with printers, I don't know, but your analysis of it is incorrect for the above reasons.
Today a/. poster posted a comment in good faith which was revealed by another/. poster to be mistaken. Amazingly, the original poster quickly admitted his mistake and went on with his life. While similar things have happened in the past, never in the experience of this reporter has it been done so quickly and honestly with such correct use of contractions.
A few years ago I tried tackling The Elegant Universe
Awesome book.
I remember reading that one of the fundamental parts of string theory is the idea that distance (space-time) is quantized (much like energy) and there is a lower limit to how close two things can be, and when you try to bring them closer you actually bring them further apart
The quantization of distance allows General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to be merged without the hideousness that happens when a continuous space is assumed. It seems reasonable (to me, my degree is in math, not physics) and pretty slick. The distance thing is a property of the mathematics. if you replace r with 1/r or vice versa in the equations, the results are unchanged. I haven't actually seen the mathematics involved, but it would make for a pretty bizarre universe not that we would notice any difference.
You said that you tried tackling the book, which would seem to imply you didn't finish it. I would recommend looking at a little bit of group theory. Specifically symmetry groups. You don't really need to get too deep into it, just get a feel for what they are. This should help you have a better appreciation of the book.
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there are many areas that microsoft doesn't control
So far.
In the other areas they do control, they started out not controlling them and now they do. This is, in part, because they broke their competitors' software.
Watch for it to happen in any of the areas you listed when they decide to muscle their way into them. Just look at their entire history for proof.
Just think of how many IIS security holes are listed as "windows security holes".
You honestly don't see how this example is an argument against you?
Since until recently it was impossible to uninstall IIS, it *is* a windows security hole. As in if you run windows (nt/2k anyway) you have this security problem.
Again as I pointed out throughout your previous post, the OEM who installed this would be responsible for supporting it. So if vendors had been able to drop in their own replacement which was not susceptible to these issues then the reduction in exploits is a bad thing by your reasoning.
Imagine this, someone buys a machine from compaq and its running "modular windows" and has the "real audio module" installed in place of the "windows media player module" and a person can't get thier sound file to play. Who will they call? MS for sure and MS will have to give its best effort to solve real's problem in order keep its image of support for windows
You clearly have no concept of anything being discussed here.
If some one buys a machine from Compaq then Compaq is responsible for the support. This is how it is now this is how it has always been and this is how it will remain in the future. If they installed the "Real Audio Module" it is because they think it is better than the "Windows Media player module" and will cause less support problems for them. Also since they are installing the system this way, they will be intimately familiar with it.
They will not call MS. If they did, then MS would certainly give their "best effort" to solve the problem not because they want to maintain their "image of support for windows" which they do not have, but because the first thing they will do is get your credit card # so they can charge you $150/hour (or whatever it is now). Now in the case of a modular windows customized by a vendor, this would, in fact, be reasonable. This is how it works today when the vendor has no control over windows so it is MS's responsibility to support it but they don't.
Scenario 2 is someone has windows without the internet module installed and calls in asking "how do I get online, windows is supposed to do that" and ms has to explain that because they got a version without that module installed they will need to go purchase the module (or worse yet an actual complete version of windows). Bad scenario to be in.
Again, you are showing your inability to grasp simple concepts.
MS would be providing the stripped down version to OEMs like Compaq, Dell, etc. They will be responsible for *all* support just as they are now. They understand that most of their customers want to get on the internet. Since they want to stay in business they will provide this functionality. In the interest of providing the most trouble free system to keep support costs down they will have the ability to put in the software components that they have proven to themselves to be the best. Contrast that with the situation today where no matter how much it costs them when the latest Microsoft virus hits and *every one* of their customers is susceptible they have no recourse. Now if they decided to drop in Mozilla (for example) they have full access to the source code to modify any things they see as problematic. If this creates any problems, then they *and only they* are responsible for the support costs. Just like they are today.
What will certainly happen if modular windows is required is that people will have to learn how to use a far larger set of skills.
This is, of course, untrue like the rest of your post. If it were true, it would actually be a good thing in every way, but sadly it isn't true.
It would force them to learn a slightly different set of "skills". They aren't actually even skills, just *slightly* different interfaces. If you can use IE you can use Mozilla with no new "skills". The interfaces are nearly identical which makes sense since MS designed it to duplicate Netscape's interface.
I am 100% opposed to having windows with major components being plugable unless MS can control the bar for accepting a module as "certified".
Why? They have no responsibility whatsoever for supporting said modules. What incentive do they have to certify a module from another company that actually works. Their best strategy in this case would be to *only* certify modules that did *not* work.
Its MS's image on the line and they are being forced to put that image in the hands of other companies that won't be affected as much by a failure.
No, it is the image of the company from whom you buy the computer that is on the line. Currently every OEM is forced to put their images in the hands of a convicted criminal organization who makes design decisions based primarily on illegally extending a monopoly position. This is *very* bad for every company involved except MS.
Microsoft wants to create an easy enviroment for people to add programs to their computers.
The huge flashing thing right in front of you that you are ignoring is the point.
They, in fact, are doing everything that they can to prevent this.
Unless it's their software.
To recommend lynx in place of IE makes your post seem either elitist in the extreme or you as quite obtuse. Why no mention of Mozilla or even Netscape?
This is tantamount to suggesting driving classes replace modern, automatic transmission and power steered cars with a crank-started, foot-shifted, hand-throttled Model T Ford.
Actually you are ignoring the market here: education.
Lynx would be by far the best choice for a web browser. They should be using it for research, and to find information *not* to look at pretty pictures and video and get flooded with pop up advertising. They are welcome to use the internet for whatever purposes they (or more appropriately their parents) deem ok on their own time. There is really nothing they should be doing that requires a graphical browser.
My suggesstion: try the state of Oregon.
This always makes me do a double take when I'm driving through Oregon. In California, it's possible to find a place with full serve gas, but in Oregon it's required exclusively by law everywhere.
I'm just curious, do you know why this is so there?
"We saw the MacQuarium and said, 'Let's put a bong inside one instead,'" Agapornis said. "We were probably stoned."
;-)
Now this quote needs to go in the "Duh!" file
So then we are going from the "guilty until proven innocent" point of view?
Not at all. First of all, I am not the justice system and neither are you. Second, people and almost every other animal on the planet have the ability to learn from experience. MS was (presumably) innocent at some point in the distant past. Since that time they have over and over and over *proven* themselves guilty of various illegal acts. Further after admitting their guilt and signing decrees stating that they would no longer do them, they promptly went right on committing them.
Now does this mean that they are automatically guilty of the next thing of which they are accused?
Of course not.
What it does mean though is that anyone who has more intelligence than a bug will accept that the possibility of them being guilty of doing what they have done every other time is a real one. Also having 2 brain cells to rub together would force one to look at any action they take whether there is any obvious illegal implications or not with a great deal of suspicion.
You think so? 1 in five vendors, only 2 of which are in the fortune 500
What relevance does the fortune 500 have to the issue? How many of these companies even make *any* products that are at all related to computers?
I'm sure bummed that I can't use my Caterpillar video card.
MS the king of standards... nope. Better than most, yes.
A little advice, making blatantly false statements that are in fact utterly ridiculous is too obvious to make a proper troll. MS is known in the standards arena *primarily* for conciously breaking them.
I know, I know IHBT
Let's stay out of trouble here and take it offline" that might have been obvious. But to simply say "No more replies" "Let's take this off the airwaves" could just as easily be "Stop wasting time with this ignorant waste of resources and get back to work"
No, not at all.Your last statement says that the discussion will stop, whereas the first two specifically state that the conversation *will* continue, just not where it will leave evidence.
He simply states - take it offline
As it would seem you well knew.
So I still can't say that this one line statement is a clear indictment of wrong doing by the VP.
Certainly this is true. Luckilly, unless you have spent your entire life under a rock (or a bridge perhaps?), you have a whole wealth of evidence at
your disposal. Given the fact that almost every decision they have made in the entire history of the company has been poor from a technical standpoint, but very good from a (quite often illegal) marketing standpoint, it becomes reasonable to look at anything they do with a great deal of suspicion. This isn't prejudiced in any way. To not assume until proven otherwise that anything they do is slimy is the act of a fool since that is their standard operating procedure.
gee, KDE 3 sure looks a lot like XP, funny that. I am so glad there is so much creativity in the OSS scene
Actually, KDE3 looks exactly like KDE2 which looks just like Win95 which looks just like every version of MacOS prior to the latest.
There is little creativity in any UI stuff in the computer field sadly.
Essentially, you seem to think it's rather cruel of God to create us with the ability to do each other wrong, the ability to reject him and with the tendency to want simple, singular statements and binary proofs, while at the same time he says we won't realise our full potential when we don't choose *not* to do those things.
Firstly, I don't think it's cruel, I think it is petty. Secondly, he doesn't say we won't reach our full potential, he says that he will send us to burn for all eternity. Huge difference. The point is he made *all* the rules. So given the space of all possible rules, he made us in such a way as to naturally act against all of his rules and then says we'll burn if we don't follow them. Then to top it off, he picks and chooses exactly who will even be presented with the rules. For example, most of the people in the world hadn't even heard of this particular god until far along in the lifespan of humanity.
As a nice example: he created gravity. Now, if you step out of a window, are you then "punished" for not honoring gravity as part of his creation, or are you just experiencing the natural consequence of your own decision?
This is so unrelated that I'm surprised that you would even bother presenting such a fragile straw man. Gravity can be observed and tested with repeatable affects. We can watch what happens to someone who jumps out of a window. God doesn't allow any such rationality to intrude into his sphere. No one suffers in any way for disobeying him on earth. It's only after we die that it happens so we can't even serve as an example.
To me, those two ways of saying it are completely interchangeable.
I hope you can see now that they are not in any way interchangable.
If you take this a bit further, it seems you think it's cruel of him to create you as a truly free man, who is responsible for his actions, which must be according to certain principles that are intrinsic to the way he has created things if we want to build on it further in a meaningful way.
Again, not cruel: petty, petulant, and several other very bad wholly *human* things. It's not about freedom it's about control. It gets a bit difficult to debate this rationally (for either of us) since we are working off of a different set of axioms. To you it's a given that god exists I haven't chosen to accept this axiom seeing no need for it as it adds no new information.
I'll state again a question from my previous post:
Look at it for a second as if his existence wasn't a given. Further assume you control some primitive tribe. Can you come up with a better way to enslave the minds of the people under your rule?
IMHO this is a very liberating concept, and the way I see it, this way he also frees you from all kinds of religious laws and obligations (sacrifice, paying money) that people force on each other and themselves:
The only thing it liberates you from is the said religious laws in the second half of your sentence.
While similar religious laws existed prior to your god coming on the scene many of them were put into place as a result of your god. In fact, he created many of those repressive laws himself. I'm sure that you will say that he didn't and men did saying it was him. So follow up on this thought. If perjury in a court of law is bad, then surely misrepresenting yourself as god is even worse. So these people are acting against the interests of god. Yet these are the people who wrote the bible.
So you have people who have completely discredited themselves in your eyes, and yet you ignore that when you accept evena single word from the bible as true. That my friend is not liberation.
But why would you think it's absurd that God, if he exists, apparently gives us freedom to do those things? It seems that he did, and he's willing to stick with it, even in the face of the worst evils we do.
This isn't what I find absurd. No offense intended, but there is what I have noticed to be a universal blind spot for christians. God is *all* powerful and *all* knowing. Christians generally have no problem saying this but they find it impossible to actually accept it and follow it to its conclusion. Since he made all the rules and everything else, he created it all in such a way as to send the people to hell who go there. You can talk about free will all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that he knew before he even created the universe that Billy Joe Jim Bob over there would be condemned to burn forever. In fact he created the rules in such a way as to ensure that.Yeah, yeah, I know, he (BJJB) could have chosen otherwise but that is the blind spot I'm talking about. God made the world and BJJB in such a way as to ensure that he wouldn't. This is what it means to be all powerful and knowing.
Or to give an example of a real person take me for example. I was "created" in such a way as to make it impossible for me to submit myself to a belief system that has throughout its history been responsible for more evil than any other single entity in the history of the world. From the burning of the Library of Alexandria (the willful destruction of the single greatest repository of knowledge of the ancient world) to the destruction of the cultures of countless peoples, the burning alive of anyone who didn't *choose* to accept their enslavement Now you will say that that those were the acts of men, but ask yourself what is more reasonable:
That an all powerful all knowing being who loves everybody created such a belief system with such potential for abuse and created the people in such a way that they would abuse it (again choice is a red herring here since he made everything in such a way as to ensure that those are the choices that would be made).
Or, that people being what they are created the system to allow themselves to abuse it?
--The plural of spouse is spice
So if you have more than one spouse your life will have added spice? Damn, I have got to try that one out on my girlfriend.
Of course not: we can't be discriminating against topologists, now can we? ;-)
At least a topologist can tell the difference between his ass and *two* holes in the ground.
Hey, is there a patent on the process of separating fools from their money by means of comvincing hoaxes?
Damn. If you could get it your only problem would be figuring out the problems associated with making more money than it is possible for the world to produce.
I've read that somebody patented attaching wind-turbine type generators to the top of your car to gain back energy and make the car more efficient.
Does the second law absolutely throw this out, or is it theoretically possible? I mean it could generate electricity, but there would be drag on the car, friction in the components etc. but it's not really a closed system either. Any ThermoDynamiGeeks care to comment?
In fact, the *church* has earned quite a bit of trust, by coming down so hard on the *american branch*'s scandal.
In point of fact they haven't done shit
We're not talking about a hospital. We're talking about a multinational organization with moral purposes (that runs, among other things, hospitals) that has a proven track record of sticking to what they mean.
You mean saying that god loves everybody yet condemning homosexuals even though god made them that way?
You mean saying killing is wrong and then killing everybody they can that disagrees with them?
You mean saying they're trying to help people and then preventing them from using *any* contraceptives thus condemning them to poverty?
Moral purposes my left butt cheek.
Their purpose is to expand their power structure.
Try to come up with a (rational this time, not just spouting crap) example of their "moral purposes" that can't be shot down with a junior high school level of history.
I just said that, in doing the wrong thing, their morals were at least in the right place.
You are a truly sickening person.
To act in accordance with their supposed morals, they should have publically admitted the sins, allowed the human waste responsible to publicly beg forgiveness *and* face the legal consequences of his actions. You know, give unto god that which is god's and give unto Ceasar that which is his? Justice in a country on earth is that country's Ceasar's.
What any sane, moral person or organization would have done *at the very fucking least* is to keep children away from such a monster forgiven or not.
There is a huge difference between forgiving someone and inflicting them on someone else's children.
The fact that this has happened more times than I can remember ( but a *lot* ) in my lifetime and the church has consistently taken action to protect their name rather than the people they claim to protect is sick. The fact that in at least several of the cases they acted by moving the scum to a different country making extradition difficult is, I'm sure, merely a coincidence.
I was polite in a previous unrelated post, but you are one sick, deluded fuck.
. Part two is convincing the Creator to give you a mighty big break and let you off all of the sins ("bad stuff", "crimes against God", or just the roman "stuff that pisses God off") that you have committed.
This is the really big dichotomy between myself and christians like yourself (not an insult in any way, just a generalization of this statement vs other types of christians).
Feel free to correct my interpretation of what you're saying.
You believe that there is an all-powerful being who created everything, who had all possible information at his disposal. So he creates us with all of our desires as they are and specifically forbids us from acting on them.
Further, he provides with intellects that work in such a way as to require proof to accept something and then actively denies us that proof. Furthermore, he makes that blind acceptance of that unprovable thing the sole requirement for gaining salvation. So if you don't spend your entire life fighting against the nature that he put in you then you are bad?!?
Seriously, think for a while if there is any thing, person, or institution in the world that you would even think twice about laughing in the face of if they tried to sell you such a slanted piece of crap.
Yes, I know, he's god and he loves you.
*If* I believed in him and *if* I thought that that was what he was all about, then I would still laugh in his face and expose him for the petty little shit he was because maybe I would burn, but at least I would have integrity.
Look at it for a second as if his existence wasn't a given. Further assume you control some primitive tribe. Can you come up with a better way to enslave the minds of the people under your rule?
As a parting gift I..... told them my shortcut back to the airport and recommended a bar on the way.
ROFLMAO
I don't know exactly why, but this part of your story still has me wiping tears from my eyes. I suppose it's probably the visual.
Post a reputable link to a story about this and maybe people will beleive what you're saying.
Sorry for the delay in responding. Hopefully you check your user page for replies.
Anyhow, a quick search found this article
This isn't where I originally found the information, but it is a good summary of a lot of the relevant information.
Don't let the fact that the site is the "world socialist web site" allow you to disregard it out of hand. It was my first visit to the site which I found through a google search. They have references to all of their statements in the story.
If you do read this, please post at least an acknowledgement so I know I didn't waste my time posting this so late.
Thanks.
My current printer cost me $50CDN ($100 - $50 MIR), while the cartridges alone for the printer would've cost me >$80CDN.
You are confusing price and cost.
What, to you, is the cost of something is the price at which the manufacturer chooses to sell it.
The actual cost to the manufacturer is a completely different thing.
Generally the cost is well below the price with some exceptions most commonly video game systems.
Whether or not this is the case with printers, I don't know, but your analysis of it is incorrect for the above reasons.
You're right. I'm wrong
/. poster posted a comment in good faith which was revealed by another /. poster to be mistaken. Amazingly, the original poster quickly admitted his mistake and went on with his life.
Today a
While similar things have happened in the past, never in the experience of this reporter has it been done so quickly and honestly with such correct use of contractions.
A few years ago I tried tackling The Elegant Universe
Awesome book.
I remember reading that one of the fundamental parts of string theory is the idea that distance (space-time) is quantized (much like energy) and there is a lower limit to how close two things can be, and when you try to bring them closer you actually bring them further apart
The quantization of distance allows General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to be merged without the hideousness that happens when a continuous space is assumed. It seems reasonable (to me, my degree is in math, not physics) and pretty slick.
The distance thing is a property of the mathematics. if you replace r with 1/r or vice versa in the equations, the results are unchanged.
I haven't actually seen the mathematics involved, but it would make for a pretty bizarre universe not that we would notice any difference.
You said that you tried tackling the book, which would seem to imply you didn't finish it. I would recommend looking at a little bit of group theory. Specifically symmetry groups. You don't really need to get too deep into it, just get a feel for what they are. This should help you have a better appreciation of the book.
l33t hAxOr shalt not say RTFM without at least verifying that a manual exists.,
;-)
LOL
If you could actually enforce this one, I might sign up