First of all, quit calling abiogenesis 'macro-evolution' because there's no such thing as macro- or micro-evolution. Just abiogenesis and evolution. If you insist that there is a difference between abiogenesis and 'macro-evolution' please tell me what that is.
Second, you ask, "how does anyone prove that something that has never been observed can't happen?" Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head with that one. Nobody has ever observed any intelligence in the act of creating new life, either. Even if somebody did, nobody would believe them in a scientific context because it's not repeatable. What we do observe, however is mountains of evidence that show how complex systems evolved from much simpler systems. Just because we don't have all of the holes filled in yet, it doesn't follow that it must be god and give up. You can't posit that something looks impossible therefore god did it; all it means is that we haven't figured out why, and it's possible that we may not.
Third, you say, "genes carrying information doesn't validate macro-evolution." Yes it does, if by macro-evolution you mean the idea that something complex like humans evolved from much simpler single-celled organisms.
Intelligent design is a meme designed to give a pseudo-scientific sheen to religion and trick people into doing what I'm doing right now: talking about god. But if I don't fight this nonsense then I run the risk of getting burned at the stake as an atheist when the idiot revolution comes back into town. It's never been science, and if you believe that it is then you are allowing yourself to be duped by religious zealots. You can believe in god all you want, just don't try to force me to. And quit trying to pretend that it isn't about god: show me a single person who believes in your 'intelligent designer' and doesn't think it's god. Who is it, if it's not god? Aliens? Anything as complex as a non-god intelligent designer REQUIRES GOD to explain it under your own logic.
You people need to quit trying to justify your beliefs at the expense of the truth. Just have faith that god exists, and allow science to go on exploring our world in a rational way. The two are not mutually exclusive. You can't prove god exists, neither can science disprove it; the two endeavors describe fundamentally different things. You say, "i understad the macro-evolutionist tie to science in the sense that science assumes god doesn't exist, THEREFORE, evolution must be true." You understand incorrectly; evolution has nothing to do with the question of god's existence and everything to do with evidence. You are the one trying to prove the existence of god here. Science doesn't assume that god doesn't exist, it actually has absolutely nothing to say on the matter.
I've been in bands that have covered Coldplay, Radiohead, The Beatles, Beck, The Pixies, etc. and we've never got in trouble for playing them live at crowded bars. In fact, when you start out, it's advised to include about 50% originals and 50% covers so that the music is accessible to anyone who might be there just for a drink.
I think that the bar owner has to pay a fee to a licensing agency like BMI if they play music in the bar, which I believe is inclusive of your band playing cover songs. I'm not a music industry lawyer though.
The part my friend doesn't include is how he guessed a trick was performed and won a necklace from him!"
What the hell does this mean? From the sound of it, Woz performed the old linking rings trick, and because the author guessed how it was done he won a necklace.
While reading your response it brought to mind how childish modern corporations are. They don't care what their public perception is as long as it isn't important to their bottom line. This stupid patent struggle (and most of the other ones we hear about these days) is like two children arguing about who gets to sit in the front seat when one of them has clearly yelled "shotgun" before the other.
The scary thing is that these children are currently running the world.
Clearly, the lowest common denominator would be anyone less fortunate than you are. And the common good would be to marginalize those people as much as possible. Just as long as you're above the cutoff line for lowest common denominator, there shouldn't be any problems, should there?
Oh wait, were you making a joke? Sometimes my Republican-dar isn't sensitive enough.
Generating costs estimated at 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, putting it in the lead pocket-book-wise not just of wind and solar, but of conventional power as well.
One way to tell that it's pseudo-science is that they claim that it's way more cost-effective than conventional energy sources. If that were really the case, it would merit a front page New York Times article. They also don't mention how they arrive at the 2.5c/kWh figure -- for turbines, isn't that a factor of how long the thing lasts, and maintenance costs, not to mention initial purchase price? I'm sure if I gave it a lifetime of 200 years, the cost/kWh would be virtually free.
I hear you. To make my point clearer: how many people do you think would have bought the theatrical release if the extended version had been released first? I got both, but only because I wasn't aware of the extended version; I figured they'd use the same release schedule for the other two movies, and only bought the (later) extended versions of those. By releasing two versions for each movie, they created an opportunity to squeeze a bit more money out of the market by counting on die-hard fans to purchase both instead of just one. At the very least, what they did was produce two slightly different products from the same source material to appeal to slightly different but overlapping markets; in providing a choice they ended up selling more boxes than if they hadn't.
On a related note, check out this article, which kind of undercuts my argument since that bastard won't release the original trilogy as seen in theaters. On the other hand, I'm sure he made an awful lot of money on that re-re-release.
Sure, artistic tinkering is nice and all. Get that movie to match up more exactly with your vision just like a software update. The reason that this happens is because it is profitable. How many people bought the first DVD of Lord of the Rings and then bought the extended version when it came out months later? An 'updated' release allows the movie companies to pretend that there's something really new and start a marketing campaign. Not unlike drug companies finding 'new' uses for their drugs in order to extend the patent.
As long as people keep buying them, they'll keep producing them.
I think this part of the law is traditionally interpreted as applying to towels and keychains. Otherwise they'd have to imprison almanac and encyclopedia publishers as well.
People will sue the people who have the money to pay. You don't sue a peon coder because frankly, you're not going to get your damages even if you win.
Exactly. Sue the guy who designed the doors because they're too easy to open with a screwdriver and a hammer. This is what updates are for: if the car manufacturer is worried about getting sued over their crappy doors, they recall the cars and fix them. This does not guarantee that every car will get fixed, but it puts the liability back onto the car owner to bring their car in for the 'upgrade' like a bug fix.
More likely, "Sorry, but you had a genetic predisposition for carpal tunnel syndrome which makes it a pre-existing condition that our health care plan will not fund."
Is there a way for me to get into the guts of the selection process and tweak it directly? For example, when I click on "Why did you pick this song?" it tells me some complex junk that looks interesting, but what I really want to do is tweak the individual characteristics: if I like a song because of it's rhythm guitar and that shows up as a characteristic, I want to give more individual weight to that characteristic. Or if I hate the rhythm guitar I want to be able to discard that without losing the other characteristics. The "I like it" and "I don't like it" (while user-friendly) doesn't give me any fine-tuning.
The line really looks like a depression in that one, whereas in the false colour image it could be a protrusion.
If you rotate this photo 180 degrees the shadows and highlights may make more sense. The light is coming from the lower right of the picture, which may be disorienting as we expect light to come from the top of a photo and it becomes an optical illusion that makes craters look like plateaus and fault lines look like alien worms on the surface.
All this time I thought iPods were really cool, but now I find out they're unoriginal! Now I hate iPods. I only like things which bear no resemblance at all, accidental or otherwise, to any product previously created in the entire world.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the previous story on /., Vista will be vulnerable to bloat.
the human body (and its ancestors) evolved in environments in which food was scarce
An awful lot of the developing world would say that food is STILL pretty scarce.
First of all, quit calling abiogenesis 'macro-evolution' because there's no such thing as macro- or micro-evolution. Just abiogenesis and evolution. If you insist that there is a difference between abiogenesis and 'macro-evolution' please tell me what that is.
Second, you ask, "how does anyone prove that something that has never been observed can't happen?" Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head with that one. Nobody has ever observed any intelligence in the act of creating new life, either. Even if somebody did, nobody would believe them in a scientific context because it's not repeatable. What we do observe, however is mountains of evidence that show how complex systems evolved from much simpler systems. Just because we don't have all of the holes filled in yet, it doesn't follow that it must be god and give up. You can't posit that something looks impossible therefore god did it; all it means is that we haven't figured out why, and it's possible that we may not.
Third, you say, "genes carrying information doesn't validate macro-evolution." Yes it does, if by macro-evolution you mean the idea that something complex like humans evolved from much simpler single-celled organisms.
Intelligent design is a meme designed to give a pseudo-scientific sheen to religion and trick people into doing what I'm doing right now: talking about god. But if I don't fight this nonsense then I run the risk of getting burned at the stake as an atheist when the idiot revolution comes back into town. It's never been science, and if you believe that it is then you are allowing yourself to be duped by religious zealots. You can believe in god all you want, just don't try to force me to. And quit trying to pretend that it isn't about god: show me a single person who believes in your 'intelligent designer' and doesn't think it's god. Who is it, if it's not god? Aliens? Anything as complex as a non-god intelligent designer REQUIRES GOD to explain it under your own logic.
You people need to quit trying to justify your beliefs at the expense of the truth. Just have faith that god exists, and allow science to go on exploring our world in a rational way. The two are not mutually exclusive. You can't prove god exists, neither can science disprove it; the two endeavors describe fundamentally different things. You say, "i understad the macro-evolutionist tie to science in the sense that science assumes god doesn't exist, THEREFORE, evolution must be true." You understand incorrectly; evolution has nothing to do with the question of god's existence and everything to do with evidence. You are the one trying to prove the existence of god here. Science doesn't assume that god doesn't exist, it actually has absolutely nothing to say on the matter.
Intelligent Design: "God" didn't make the universe, but he enjoys meddling with it.
I think you meant to say:
Intelligent Design: "God" didn't necessarily make the universe, but somebody did. Probably the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Proof that Americans don't have a monopoly on ignorance!
I think that the bar owner has to pay a fee to a licensing agency like BMI if they play music in the bar, which I believe is inclusive of your band playing cover songs. I'm not a music industry lawyer though.
Google search for "bugs" returns 163,000,000
windows AND bugs: 41,000,000
linux AND bugs: 39,100,000
Then we subtract:
windows AND linux AND bugs: 3,570,000
TOTAL: 76,530,000
Windows and Linux together account for about 47% of the bugs in the world. The number of individual insects estimated to be alive in the world at any one time is 10 quintillion, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's 4,700,000,000,000,000,000 of the Windows or Linux variety.
Get to work, programmers.
(You should see my friend's stereo speakers.)
Do they blow women's clothes off?
So what? How is this relevant to anything?
While reading your response it brought to mind how childish modern corporations are. They don't care what their public perception is as long as it isn't important to their bottom line. This stupid patent struggle (and most of the other ones we hear about these days) is like two children arguing about who gets to sit in the front seat when one of them has clearly yelled "shotgun" before the other.
The scary thing is that these children are currently running the world.
Clearly, the lowest common denominator would be anyone less fortunate than you are. And the common good would be to marginalize those people as much as possible. Just as long as you're above the cutoff line for lowest common denominator, there shouldn't be any problems, should there?
Oh wait, were you making a joke? Sometimes my Republican-dar isn't sensitive enough.
Generating costs estimated at 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, putting it in the lead pocket-book-wise not just of wind and solar, but of conventional power as well.
One way to tell that it's pseudo-science is that they claim that it's way more cost-effective than conventional energy sources. If that were really the case, it would merit a front page New York Times article. They also don't mention how they arrive at the 2.5c/kWh figure -- for turbines, isn't that a factor of how long the thing lasts, and maintenance costs, not to mention initial purchase price? I'm sure if I gave it a lifetime of 200 years, the cost/kWh would be virtually free.
I agree. But if anyone DID put the mp3 genie back in the bottle, it would have to be iTunes and not the government.
What with all the recent turbulence, I'm sure he's just under a lot of pressure.
I hear you. To make my point clearer: how many people do you think would have bought the theatrical release if the extended version had been released first? I got both, but only because I wasn't aware of the extended version; I figured they'd use the same release schedule for the other two movies, and only bought the (later) extended versions of those. By releasing two versions for each movie, they created an opportunity to squeeze a bit more money out of the market by counting on die-hard fans to purchase both instead of just one. At the very least, what they did was produce two slightly different products from the same source material to appeal to slightly different but overlapping markets; in providing a choice they ended up selling more boxes than if they hadn't.
On a related note, check out this article, which kind of undercuts my argument since that bastard won't release the original trilogy as seen in theaters. On the other hand, I'm sure he made an awful lot of money on that re-re-release.
Sure, artistic tinkering is nice and all. Get that movie to match up more exactly with your vision just like a software update. The reason that this happens is because it is profitable. How many people bought the first DVD of Lord of the Rings and then bought the extended version when it came out months later? An 'updated' release allows the movie companies to pretend that there's something really new and start a marketing campaign. Not unlike drug companies finding 'new' uses for their drugs in order to extend the patent.
As long as people keep buying them, they'll keep producing them.
I think this part of the law is traditionally interpreted as applying to towels and keychains. Otherwise they'd have to imprison almanac and encyclopedia publishers as well.
Yes! Excellent idea. Serenity the musical. I can't wait.
People will sue the people who have the money to pay. You don't sue a peon coder because frankly, you're not going to get your damages even if you win.
Exactly. Sue the guy who designed the doors because they're too easy to open with a screwdriver and a hammer. This is what updates are for: if the car manufacturer is worried about getting sued over their crappy doors, they recall the cars and fix them. This does not guarantee that every car will get fixed, but it puts the liability back onto the car owner to bring their car in for the 'upgrade' like a bug fix.
Whatever happened to holding the people who exploit vulnerabilities responsible?
More likely, "Sorry, but you had a genetic predisposition for carpal tunnel syndrome which makes it a pre-existing condition that our health care plan will not fund."
Is there a way for me to get into the guts of the selection process and tweak it directly? For example, when I click on "Why did you pick this song?" it tells me some complex junk that looks interesting, but what I really want to do is tweak the individual characteristics: if I like a song because of it's rhythm guitar and that shows up as a characteristic, I want to give more individual weight to that characteristic. Or if I hate the rhythm guitar I want to be able to discard that without losing the other characteristics. The "I like it" and "I don't like it" (while user-friendly) doesn't give me any fine-tuning.
The line really looks like a depression in that one, whereas in the false colour image it could be a protrusion.
If you rotate this photo 180 degrees the shadows and highlights may make more sense. The light is coming from the lower right of the picture, which may be disorienting as we expect light to come from the top of a photo and it becomes an optical illusion that makes craters look like plateaus and fault lines look like alien worms on the surface.
All this time I thought iPods were really cool, but now I find out they're unoriginal! Now I hate iPods. I only like things which bear no resemblance at all, accidental or otherwise, to any product previously created in the entire world.