It has been said before, and i will repeat it; Wikippedia needs to implement account-only editing to become a remotely credible information source! The people who argue against this say that "some people ar too coy to make an account just to edit, wich means we might miss out on their valuable contribution otherwise". Surely having a more controllable userbase is far more important than the need to accomadate people who are not willing to immediately commit. And I dont think that the risk of people being banned becuase someone else vandalised with that ip address, should cripple the whole damn endeavour. They will get over it, I would get over it; it wouldnt stop vandalism sure, because there ar ways around being banned, but a greater proportion of legit users would endeavour to get around a banned IP address than vandals.
I havent discussed all the issues of the debate. Comment and i will elaborate and/or change my opinion given a convincing argument against my (very rushed) one.
Robyn Williams: Professor Derek Denton from the University of Melbourne has just published something of a critique of intelligent design in The Age newspaper, suggesting that some parts of our bodies are so botched that it's an insult to poor old God to hold him responsible.
Derek Denton: There is obvious evidence against such an idea operating in living creatures. The gut is supported by being enclosed in a big membrane called the peritoneum. The peritoneum is attached to the backbone. This is fine for a four footed animal, however, given an animal with an upright posture, for example us, the gut falls to the bottom of the abdominal cavity. The common outcome may be various types of hernia, prolapse of the uterus and vaginal wall and haemorrhoids.
The big maxillary sinuses or cavities are behind the cheeks on either side of the face. They have the drainage hole in the top, which is not much of an idea in terms of using gravity to assist drainage of the fluid. Ear, nose and throat specialists sometimes have to knock a hole through the side of the nose near the bottom of the sinus to help drainage of puss. Apart from horses, which have a very small opening, most four-footed animals operating with head down rarely get sinus problems. It would seem that knowledge of gravity has not been a strong point in the repertoire of the intelligent designer.
The digestive system of grass and herbage eating animals includes a large organ next to the secum, the vermiform appendix in which cellulose is digested. In the human it's rudimentary, it gets matter caught in it, becomes inflamed sometimes causing sever peritonitis and death. Why the intelligent designer put it in at all is conjectural, unless in fact it is an evolutionary remnant from an earlier beneficial function.
One of the marvels of backboned animals is the eye. Indeed, Dr William Paley, a clergyman, whose writings were used to challenge Darwin considered it as the shining example of intelligent design. Paley likened the situation to that of finding a watch abandoned in an open field: it must have a maker who formed it for a purpose. The eye might be compared with a designed instrument such as a telescope, he concludes, 'that there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it'. That is the eye must have had a designer just as the telescope had.
In considering the eye as the marvel, there are facts now known which were not known in Paley's time, about 1801. In our eye and of all other vertebrates the optic nerve carries over a million fibres each leading from a cell in the retina. It is part of a system receiving data from about 125 million photocells. Whereas it would seem a designer would point the photo cells towards the source of light with the wires leading back to the brain, it would be poor design to have the photo cells pointing away from the light with their nerve processes departing on the side nearest the light. This is what happens in all vertebrate eyes, the wires or nerve processes have to travel across the surface of the retina to a place where they all go through a hole, creating what is called the blind spot, to form the optic nerve. The design principle is really not very good. The extremely interesting fact is that with the octopus the wires from the photocells don't point to the light but do indeed go backwards. The octopus eye in this respect is a better-designed effort by the putative intelligent designer than the eye of mammals. How did this come about?
Well, Ernst Mayr, the great Harvard biologist argued that photo receptors in some form evolved independently some 40 to 60 times in animals ranging from worms, molluscs to vertebrates. In the octopus eye it is formed by an infolding of the surface cells on the head, which become thickened to form eye components and it i
According to scientists, teachers, and civil libertarians, the Taliban has invaded Ohio. Creationists have devised a theory called "Intelligent Design" (ID) and are trying to get Ohio's Board of Education to make sure it's taught alongside Darwinism. Unlike creationism, ID accepts that the Earth is billions of years old and that species evolve through natural selection. It posits that life has been designed but doesn't specify by whom. Liberals call ID a menace that will sneak religion into public schools. They're exactly wrong. ID is a big nothing. It's non-living, non-breathing proof that religion has surrendered its war against science.
Creationism used to be assertive and powerful. Darwinism wasn't allowed in schools. As Darwin gained the upper hand, conservatives fought to preserve creationism alongside evolution. They lost the war on both fronts. Courts struck down the teaching of creationism on the grounds that it mixed church and state. Meanwhile, scientific evidence discredited the belief that the Earth was created in six days and was only 6,000 years old. Like the Taliban, creationists were washed up. Their only hope was to flee to the mountains, shave their beards, change their clothes, and come back as something else.
Continue Article
What they've come back as is the Intelligent Design movement. Gone are the falsifiable claims of a six-day creation and a 6,000-year-old Earth. Gone is the God of the Bible. In their place, ID enthusiasts speak of questions, mysteries, and possibilities. As to whether God, the Force, or ET created us, ID is agnostic. "We simply ask the question as to whether something can form naturally or if there must have been something more, a designer," Robert Lattimer, an ID proponent in Ohio, told the Columbus Dispatch. "Our main contention is that [evolution-focused curriculum] standards are purely naturalistic and leave no room for the possibility that part of nature can be designed."
This soft-headed agnosticism matches the soft-headed arguments for including it in the curriculum. They're the same arguments leftists have made for ebonics. According to ID proponents, the committee in charge of Ohio's science curriculum is too "homogenous" and lacks "diversity." It marginalizes alternative "points of view" to which students should be "exposed." A conservative state senator says some people "think differently, and all those ideas should be explored." A conservative member of the state education board says Ohioans deserve a science curriculum "they can all be comfortable with."
Behind these pleas for diversity is the kind of educational relativism conservatives normally despise. "Biological evolution, like creationism and design, cannot be proved to be either true or false," writes one ID enthusiast in Ohio. Since evolution is an "unproven theory," says another, "belief in it is just as much an act of faith as is belief in creationism or in the theory of intelligent design."
The response of liberals, teachers, and scientists has been hysterical. They accuse the ID movement of peddling "intolerance," fronting for the Christian right, and trying "to force a narrow religious ideology into our schools." If Ohio lets ID into its curriculum, they prophesy, the state will become an "international laughingstock," triggering a corporate exodus, a decline in property values, and the collapse of Ohio's standard of living. They refuse to acknowledge a difference between ID and creationism. "This is just a new paint job on the same old Edsel," says an Ohio University physiologist.
The analogy is inside out. Creationists haven't repainted their Edsel. They've taken out the engine and the transmission. Without distinctive, measurable claims such as the six-day creation, the 6,000-year-old Earth, and other literal interpretations of the Bible, creationism no longer material
Probably more a case of bad design than a coding error, but in sure many of us have experienced the crippling pain of resolution changes in games etc. that do now defualt back to the original working one, leaving you with an unintelligible smear of a display, forcing you to have to fumble around blindly, vainly hoping that the menu sounds will help you restore the resolution. That last happened to me with NFSU2, and it is f***ing unacceptable for any non-amature software maker to cause this type of rage.....!
The single biggest problem stopping greater linux penetration? "Why are there so many versions". Focus the linux open source community on one or two distros max, then i really believe everything else will fall into place. Call it Unilin, or Monux, all that free will leads to alot of code redundancy when someone has already done it.
I wont be too hastey to discredit anyone, but often with this type of scenario, where many reputable scientist outright dismiss a given claim, it is usually because the person/s claiming given thing are desperately trying to get funding for themselves or their insitution by pandering often farcical claims to gullable bush-like administrations or investors, at the ultimate personal sacrifice of credibility. Examples may include "hafnium power", "cold fusion" and
Of course, the argument will inevitable become one of "great new ideas are always scorned, and ours is no different", but the chances of that being true is very low indeed.
I am so frustrated, i just forgot my third and best example of pseudoscience. If i remember it, i will re-post, otherwise, what are some other notable examples of pseudoscience you know? (i know a few, i just cant remember)
It is a basic human instinct to aggresively persue what is in short supply (i.e. want what you can have, a.k.a. : "wow, its sold out, it must be really good")
I am perfecting the fine art of stating the obvious.
These are all top quality programs. I am particularly fond of the ABC (Australian) program, I'm going to bookmark them all. Also check out this link from the ABC site titled "inferior design" (I just love sticking it to the conservative religious scum of the world:) http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/inferiordes ign/default.htm
from what i know, Viewsonic ("sonic"...WTF?)is budget, very budget. That said, there are many ways an lcd manufacturer can throttle response time, but at the expense of picture quality and the like.
While all this longevity is great for science, i just hope the space community doesnt start to actually rely on them just as they are most likely to die.
Australian media are simplyfying the term "VoIP" to just "voice over internet", considered to be easier to understand. Additionally, "vee~owe~eye" is, i consider, more inclined for common usage (ie outside of power user zones) than "vooipp", as the latter is a very quickly spoken word that does not illict the same visual body motions of the lower face which are much easier to lip read. oh, and of course that acronym would be so much sweeter...VoISA...mmmm
Japan intends to build an orbiting solar station by 2040. The planned satellite is to be equipped with two giant solar panels, each being 1*3 km in dimension, and will weigh about 20,000 tonnes, thats impressive
Back to the topic, i wonder how much cold-war flaunting the shuttle represented at the cost of practicality...
...There is a clause in the relevant international patent agreement that says a country can break patents if it will prevent or reduce a humanitarian crisis. From my vague memory, the pharma's were non-too happy about Brazil(?) breaking such patents to combat their countries AIDS epidemic. Similarly in South Africa.
"This type of scam, originally known as the "Spanish Prisoner Letter" [2], has been carried out since at least the sixteenth century via ordinary postal mail.">>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_f raud
And you thought two gpus's were hot? Well not anymore with this new motherboard hotty (with pics) supporting not 2 or 3, but 4 (OMFG!) gpus via 2* SLI. Of course all this technowhoring glory comes at a cost, with 4 GPUS likely to force most average gamers into submissive bondage for a month or ten, not to mention what it will take to prevent such a toasty little box from going critical!
"Developing the space elevator will require large amounts of financial capital over the next 10-15 years. At the present, LiftPort Inc. is in the early start-up stages, and like any start-up, has strong financial needs in order to achieve our goal of building the space elevator. If you would like to help support our efforts by making a donation, please click the link below. We thank you for your support."
It makes me feel so good to know i've helped a newborn business down the path of global domination!
Slashdot Mirror
Finally! now i can utilise by blistering 32K connection :P
It has been said before, and i will repeat it; Wikippedia needs to implement account-only editing to become a remotely credible information source! The people who argue against this say that "some people ar too coy to make an account just to edit, wich means we might miss out on their valuable contribution otherwise". Surely having a more controllable userbase is far more important than the need to accomadate people who are not willing to immediately commit. And I dont think that the risk of people being banned becuase someone else vandalised with that ip address, should cripple the whole damn endeavour. They will get over it, I would get over it; it wouldnt stop vandalism sure, because there ar ways around being banned, but a greater proportion of legit users would endeavour to get around a banned IP address than vandals.
I havent discussed all the issues of the debate. Comment and i will elaborate and/or change my opinion given a convincing argument against my (very rushed) one.
Is this the end of derivative, untalented music, or the beginning?...
Taken from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s14932 25.htm
Robyn Williams: Professor Derek Denton from the University of Melbourne has just published something of a critique of intelligent design in The Age newspaper, suggesting that some parts of our bodies are so botched that it's an insult to poor old God to hold him responsible.
Derek Denton: There is obvious evidence against such an idea operating in living creatures. The gut is supported by being enclosed in a big membrane called the peritoneum. The peritoneum is attached to the backbone. This is fine for a four footed animal, however, given an animal with an upright posture, for example us, the gut falls to the bottom of the abdominal cavity. The common outcome may be various types of hernia, prolapse of the uterus and vaginal wall and haemorrhoids.
The big maxillary sinuses or cavities are behind the cheeks on either side of the face. They have the drainage hole in the top, which is not much of an idea in terms of using gravity to assist drainage of the fluid. Ear, nose and throat specialists sometimes have to knock a hole through the side of the nose near the bottom of the sinus to help drainage of puss. Apart from horses, which have a very small opening, most four-footed animals operating with head down rarely get sinus problems. It would seem that knowledge of gravity has not been a strong point in the repertoire of the intelligent designer.
The digestive system of grass and herbage eating animals includes a large organ next to the secum, the vermiform appendix in which cellulose is digested. In the human it's rudimentary, it gets matter caught in it, becomes inflamed sometimes causing sever peritonitis and death. Why the intelligent designer put it in at all is conjectural, unless in fact it is an evolutionary remnant from an earlier beneficial function.
One of the marvels of backboned animals is the eye. Indeed, Dr William Paley, a clergyman, whose writings were used to challenge Darwin considered it as the shining example of intelligent design. Paley likened the situation to that of finding a watch abandoned in an open field: it must have a maker who formed it for a purpose. The eye might be compared with a designed instrument such as a telescope, he concludes, 'that there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it'. That is the eye must have had a designer just as the telescope had.
In considering the eye as the marvel, there are facts now known which were not known in Paley's time, about 1801. In our eye and of all other vertebrates the optic nerve carries over a million fibres each leading from a cell in the retina. It is part of a system receiving data from about 125 million photocells. Whereas it would seem a designer would point the photo cells towards the source of light with the wires leading back to the brain, it would be poor design to have the photo cells pointing away from the light with their nerve processes departing on the side nearest the light. This is what happens in all vertebrate eyes, the wires or nerve processes have to travel across the surface of the retina to a place where they all go through a hole, creating what is called the blind spot, to form the optic nerve. The design principle is really not very good. The extremely interesting fact is that with the octopus the wires from the photocells don't point to the light but do indeed go backwards. The octopus eye in this respect is a better-designed effort by the putative intelligent designer than the eye of mammals. How did this come about?
Well, Ernst Mayr, the great Harvard biologist argued that photo receptors in some form evolved independently some 40 to 60 times in animals ranging from worms, molluscs to vertebrates. In the octopus eye it is formed by an infolding of the surface cells on the head, which become thickened to form eye components and it i
Taken from http://www.slate.com/id/2062009/
An appropriate picture http://gokubi.com/images/unintelligible.jpg
According to scientists, teachers, and civil libertarians, the Taliban has invaded Ohio. Creationists have devised a theory called "Intelligent Design" (ID) and are trying to get Ohio's Board of Education to make sure it's taught alongside Darwinism. Unlike creationism, ID accepts that the Earth is billions of years old and that species evolve through natural selection. It posits that life has been designed but doesn't specify by whom. Liberals call ID a menace that will sneak religion into public schools. They're exactly wrong. ID is a big nothing. It's non-living, non-breathing proof that religion has surrendered its war against science. Creationism used to be assertive and powerful. Darwinism wasn't allowed in schools. As Darwin gained the upper hand, conservatives fought to preserve creationism alongside evolution. They lost the war on both fronts. Courts struck down the teaching of creationism on the grounds that it mixed church and state. Meanwhile, scientific evidence discredited the belief that the Earth was created in six days and was only 6,000 years old. Like the Taliban, creationists were washed up. Their only hope was to flee to the mountains, shave their beards, change their clothes, and come back as something else. Continue Article What they've come back as is the Intelligent Design movement. Gone are the falsifiable claims of a six-day creation and a 6,000-year-old Earth. Gone is the God of the Bible. In their place, ID enthusiasts speak of questions, mysteries, and possibilities. As to whether God, the Force, or ET created us, ID is agnostic. "We simply ask the question as to whether something can form naturally or if there must have been something more, a designer," Robert Lattimer, an ID proponent in Ohio, told the Columbus Dispatch. "Our main contention is that [evolution-focused curriculum] standards are purely naturalistic and leave no room for the possibility that part of nature can be designed." This soft-headed agnosticism matches the soft-headed arguments for including it in the curriculum. They're the same arguments leftists have made for ebonics. According to ID proponents, the committee in charge of Ohio's science curriculum is too "homogenous" and lacks "diversity." It marginalizes alternative "points of view" to which students should be "exposed." A conservative state senator says some people "think differently, and all those ideas should be explored." A conservative member of the state education board says Ohioans deserve a science curriculum "they can all be comfortable with." Behind these pleas for diversity is the kind of educational relativism conservatives normally despise. "Biological evolution, like creationism and design, cannot be proved to be either true or false," writes one ID enthusiast in Ohio. Since evolution is an "unproven theory," says another, "belief in it is just as much an act of faith as is belief in creationism or in the theory of intelligent design." The response of liberals, teachers, and scientists has been hysterical. They accuse the ID movement of peddling "intolerance," fronting for the Christian right, and trying "to force a narrow religious ideology into our schools." If Ohio lets ID into its curriculum, they prophesy, the state will become an "international laughingstock," triggering a corporate exodus, a decline in property values, and the collapse of Ohio's standard of living. They refuse to acknowledge a difference between ID and creationism. "This is just a new paint job on the same old Edsel," says an Ohio University physiologist. The analogy is inside out. Creationists haven't repainted their Edsel. They've taken out the engine and the transmission. Without distinctive, measurable claims such as the six-day creation, the 6,000-year-old Earth, and other literal interpretations of the Bible, creationism no longer material
The annual N*sync vacation was strongly resisted by locals.
Apparently they were'nt abba fans.
Probably more a case of bad design than a coding error, but in sure many of us have experienced the crippling pain of resolution changes in games etc. that do now defualt back to the original working one, leaving you with an unintelligible smear of a display, forcing you to have to fumble around blindly, vainly hoping that the menu sounds will help you restore the resolution. That last happened to me with NFSU2, and it is f***ing unacceptable for any non-amature software maker to cause this type of rage.....!
The single biggest problem stopping greater linux penetration? "Why are there so many versions". Focus the linux open source community on one or two distros max, then i really believe everything else will fall into place. Call it Unilin, or Monux, all that free will leads to alot of code redundancy when someone has already done it.
I wont be too hastey to discredit anyone, but often with this type of scenario, where many reputable scientist outright dismiss a given claim, it is usually because the person/s claiming given thing are desperately trying to get funding for themselves or their insitution by pandering often farcical claims to gullable bush-like administrations or investors, at the ultimate personal sacrifice of credibility. Examples may include "hafnium power", "cold fusion" and
Of course, the argument will inevitable become one of "great new ideas are always scorned, and ours is no different", but the chances of that being true is very low indeed.
I am so frustrated, i just forgot my third and best example of pseudoscience. If i remember it, i will re-post, otherwise, what are some other notable examples of pseudoscience you know? (i know a few, i just cant remember)
It is a basic human instinct to aggresively persue what is in short supply (i.e. want what you can have, a.k.a. : "wow, its sold out, it must be really good")
I am perfecting the fine art of stating the obvious.
These are all top quality programs. I am particularly fond of the ABC (Australian) program, I'm going to bookmark them all. Also check out this link from the ABC site titled "inferior design" (I just love sticking it to the conservative religious scum of the world :) http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/inferiordes ign/default.htm
People + Religion = Confusion & Counterintuition
http://www.unizh.ch/phar/sleepcd/demo/animals/chap 8/it0112.htm
from what i know, Viewsonic ("sonic"...WTF?)is budget, very budget. That said, there are many ways an lcd manufacturer can throttle response time, but at the expense of picture quality and the like.
While all this longevity is great for science, i just hope the space community doesnt start to actually rely on them just as they are most likely to die.
Whoops! that was me crapping on again, irrelevantly. no doubt soon to be modded as such. >:\
Australian media are simplyfying the term "VoIP" to just "voice over internet", considered to be easier to understand. Additionally, "vee~owe~eye" is, i consider, more inclined for common usage (ie outside of power user zones) than "vooipp", as the latter is a very quickly spoken word that does not illict the same visual body motions of the lower face which are much easier to lip read. oh, and of course that acronym would be so much sweeter...VoISA...mmmm
Japan intends to build an orbiting solar station by 2040. The planned satellite is to be equipped with two giant solar panels, each being 1*3 km in dimension, and will weigh about 20,000 tonnes, thats impressive
Back to the topic, i wonder how much cold-war flaunting the shuttle represented at the cost of practicality...
...There is a clause in the relevant international patent agreement that says a country can break patents if it will prevent or reduce a humanitarian crisis. From my vague memory, the pharma's were non-too happy about Brazil(?) breaking such patents to combat their countries AIDS epidemic. Similarly in South Africa.
"This type of scam, originally known as the "Spanish Prisoner Letter" [2], has been carried out since at least the sixteenth century via ordinary postal mail.">>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_f raud
YAY! no images.
And you thought two gpus's were hot? Well not anymore with this new motherboard hotty (with pics) supporting not 2 or 3, but 4 (OMFG!) gpus via 2* SLI. Of course all this technowhoring glory comes at a cost, with 4 GPUS likely to force most average gamers into submissive bondage for a month or ten, not to mention what it will take to prevent such a toasty little box from going critical!
==Nuclear Power Now!==
" Something big is about to happen."
...Bill Gates reveals he truly is satan?
Goto: http://www.liftport.com/donate.php
...and they are asking for donations, saying:
"Developing the space elevator will require large amounts of financial capital over the next 10-15 years. At the present, LiftPort Inc. is in the early start-up stages, and like any start-up, has strong financial needs in order to achieve our goal of building the space elevator. If you would like to help support our efforts by making a donation, please click the link below. We thank you for your support."
It makes me feel so good to know i've helped a newborn business down the path of global domination!
Hooray for groveling private enterprise!
+5 Cynical
your first mistake was letting such a dull lad play around with the oval office desk buttons.