I'm not sure there's really any clash here between science and religion. Most Christians I know accept the theory of evolution anyway, so I don't think the idea of synthetic bacteria is going to shake the faith of many people.
On the subject of souls, many intellectually sophisticated Christians believe that the soul is connected irrevocably to our brains. (As opposed to the dualist viewpoint of a disembodied soul). Thus the "soul" is another word for our rational self, which has emerged through evolution.
Of course this now opens up the question, using this definition, can artificial life (clones or new species for instance) have souls? Can robots have souls? Certainly big issues.
I can understand what the IFPI is trying to do here (I don't agree with it of course), but exactly where does legal accountability stop? If you can be sued for linking to a file, what about to a page containing files, and so on? Why do I get the feeling that this issue is going to spend a long, long time in legal limbo?
Linux is well on it's way to being competition though. Right now it is far too difficult for the average user, but obviously it's improving quickly. Just look at what Caldera, Red Hat, and soon Corel have done (or are doing). Linux is not currently direct competition for Windows in the home user market, but that could change in a very short time period. Also, Linux isn't the only potential competition....my favorite darkhorse candidate is BeOS. Of course it's important to note that as of right now, Be and Linux don't exactly have large slices of desktop OS market share, regardless of future potential.
As for regulating Windows as an essential utility, what grounds would there be? Surely the average business user can do all their work just as well on MacOS? I don't mean to sound pro-MS here, but I think we need to consider what course of action best serves the public and the computer industry as a whole. And I'm not sure that basically destroying MS would be the best solution.
Well, this is certainly depressing. But in a way I suppose that all of us knew this was coming, deep in the back of our minds. Amiga will probably never die, but whether it will actually live again is another question altogether.
Personally I've long since decided that the successor to the Amiga spirit is Be. In fact, I was originally hoping that the new Amiga would be BeOS based. Wouldn't a G4 Amiga machine running BeOS be nice? Oh well, it's a moot point now I suppose.
I'm sure some people will say that this is nothing special, but I imagine it could be another step towards the ubiquity of PDAs. It provides features people want (like memory) at a substantially lower price. It'll be interesting to see how Palm responds, anyway. And undoubtedly good for the consumer in the long run.
I want to see a full set of specs, but I have to admit I'm tempted to break down and go for the 8mb/$249 model.
While I'm not going to get too excited about the specs until there's an official announcement (LCD for under $1000 sounds too good to be true), a graphite & white iMac would be a great move for Apple. Alot of businesses would probably give a more "respectable" looking iMac serious consideration, especially in conjunction with G4 servers and AirPort. I imagine this would be a tempting combo for many small/medium sized companies.
I never would've expected it 2 years ago, but Apple really does seem to be firing on all cylinders now. I'm mostly an x86 user, but for the sake of competition, it's good to have Apple back.
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More anti-Jehova ammunition for those boring Sunday mornings.
How so? It's anti-creationism, certainly, but that doesn't make it anti-theism. Keep in mind that many theists are firmly anti-creationist as well.
I'm not sure there's really any clash here between science and religion. Most Christians I know accept the theory of evolution anyway, so I don't think the idea of synthetic bacteria is going to shake the faith of many people.
On the subject of souls, many intellectually sophisticated Christians believe that the soul is connected irrevocably to our brains. (As opposed to the dualist viewpoint of a disembodied soul). Thus the "soul" is another word for our rational self, which has emerged through evolution.
Of course this now opens up the question, using this definition, can artificial life (clones or new species for instance) have souls? Can robots have souls? Certainly big issues.
I was referring to the issue of links to copyright infringing material in general, not this particular case.
I can understand what the IFPI is trying to do here (I don't agree with it of course), but exactly where does legal accountability stop? If you can be sued for linking to a file, what about to a page containing files, and so on? Why do I get the feeling that this issue is going to spend a long, long time in legal limbo?
Linux is well on it's way to being competition though. Right now it is far too difficult for the average user, but obviously it's improving quickly. Just look at what Caldera, Red Hat, and soon Corel have done (or are doing). Linux is not currently direct competition for Windows in the home user market, but that could change in a very short time period. Also, Linux isn't the only potential competition....my favorite darkhorse candidate is BeOS. Of course it's important to note that as of right now, Be and Linux don't exactly have large slices of desktop OS market share, regardless of future potential.
As for regulating Windows as an essential utility, what grounds would there be? Surely the average business user can do all their work just as well on MacOS? I don't mean to sound pro-MS here, but I think we need to consider what course of action best serves the public and the computer industry as a whole. And I'm not sure that basically destroying MS would be the best solution.
I agree that Be has alot of the old Amiga flavor, and really I'm beginning to think it's the only way forward for long-suffering Amiga fans.
Anyway, not sure how many (if any?) Amiga people are working at Be, but Jean-Louis Gassee's license plate used to read "AMIGA96", I believe.
Well, this is certainly depressing. But in a way I suppose that all of us knew this was coming, deep in the back of our minds. Amiga will probably never die, but whether it will actually live again is another question altogether.
Personally I've long since decided that the successor to the Amiga spirit is Be. In fact, I was originally hoping that the new Amiga would be BeOS based. Wouldn't a G4 Amiga machine running BeOS be nice? Oh well, it's a moot point now I suppose.
I'm sure some people will say that this is nothing special, but I imagine it could be another step towards the ubiquity of PDAs. It provides features people want (like memory) at a substantially lower price. It'll be interesting to see how Palm responds, anyway. And undoubtedly good for the consumer in the long run.
I want to see a full set of specs, but I have to admit I'm tempted to break down and go for the 8mb/$249 model.
While I'm not going to get too excited about the specs until there's an official announcement (LCD for under $1000 sounds too good to be true), a graphite & white iMac would be a great move for Apple. Alot of businesses would probably give a more "respectable" looking iMac serious consideration, especially in conjunction with G4 servers and AirPort. I imagine this would be a tempting combo for many small/medium sized companies.
I never would've expected it 2 years ago, but Apple really does seem to be firing on all cylinders now. I'm mostly an x86 user, but for the sake of competition, it's good to have Apple back.