That's not an original argument, and it's common for believers to trot out the "atheists believe in no god, hence atheism is a religion" meme. It doesn't hold water because there are a plethora of gods that most people don't believe in (eg Thor, Neptune, etc) for the good reason that there's no evidence of their existence. Does that make them subscribers to the church of anti-Thor, or anti-Neptune, etc?
Atheists believe that the lack of evidence for gods makes it reasonable to disbelieve, in the same way as most people would disbelieve in Burtrand Russel's teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot). If atheists are religious in their atheism, then all people are religious in their disbelief of the teapot, the FSM, Thor,....
Now, you may argue that one can have 'faith' in the absence of evidence. That's fine. But please don't argue that disbelieving in something because there is no evidence of its existence is an unreasonable position.
New Orleans would def be on my must-see-list if I visited the US. Many of the more famous big cities I could take or leave, but anyone who knows anything about blues or jazz, or American culture generally in the early/mid 20th century knows the importance of what came out of New Orleans.
As other posters have pointed out, it's legal to use whatever force you need to defend yourself, but you'd be crazy to do so if you can run away instead.
"we can rehabilitate him with your tax dollars" Rehab is a heck of a lot cheaper than jail. Get over this biblical eye-for-an-eye thing, and start thinking about harm-minimisation. Do you know how many tax dollars are spent keeping people behind bars?
This is why I try, whenever possible, to buy second-hand computers and phones. Don't be sucked-in: just because you are a nerd doesn't mean you need a quad-core behemoth with 16 GB RAM. A laptop with a P4-M or Centrino CPU is very usable with Ubuntu -- I know, I use one as a multi-track recording studio and general laptop.
I think your sentiments are common, and also apply to other arts like music. Lots of people seem to like immaculate but (IMO) dull music. Personally, I'm happy with a few rough edges, if the ideas are good, because it reminds me that art is made by people. I'm sure this is influenced by the fact that I'm an indie musician myself!:-P
"Will your trend-wad friends not hang with you if you whip out your Acer instead of an iPad? Go get some REAL friends."
I've read similar sentiments on/. a few times now. Are there really people whose friends would "dump" them if they didn't have the latest cool gadget, or is this sort of statement just for dramatic effect? (I'm really hoping it's the latter!)
If you've ever read/heard Murdoch's rants against the BBC (and other public broadcasters) it strongly supports the idea that he views the average person with utter contempt.
Someone should start a social networking site where people can store the credentials of all their other social networking sites for just this sort of purpose. Kind of a meta-social networking site.
Well, we can potentially argue about the semantics of what is engineering or what is science. I'm inclined to think that carbon nanotubes are at such a nascent stage of development that the work that is being done on them is science. We currently lack (I believe, corrections welcome) even a theoretical process for producing carbon nanotube fibers that are hundreds of kilometers long. Once we have such a theoretical process, implementing it becomes an engineering problem, I think.
I'll try and answer you politely. FWIW, using aggressive language, straw-man arguments and swearing does not lend credence to your argument.
"you think you can repeal having to spend energy to transport energy" What? Who said that? I was talking about the way that current energy storage densities are a limiting factor for space exploration.
"I can see it plainly from my backyard every night" So what? You would say similar things about the Atlantic ocean if you we're a Spanish peasant in the 15th century.
"there isn't a damn thing there worth bringing back" The universe is made of the same stuff as Earth. Want more $ELEMENT_X? guess where to look. Apart from that, if we want to harness more energy than the sunlight available on the surface of Earth, we ultimately need to leave the surface (barring radical advances). If we want to continue to increase our population, we'll need a commensurate increase in resources and space, also necessitating space colonisation.
I think you're being quite closed-minded. I'm not talking about sending a fleet of ships half-way across the galaxy here. I'm not a "space nut" (as if that was some kind of insult on a site like/.).
Actually, everything you're discussing there concerns either energy, or energy storage. 1. Where does your electricity come from? 2. Lift capacity is related to both energy and energy storage density. The vehicle needs enough energy to lift its payload out of Earth's gravity well, and the energy needs to be stored in a dense enough form that you're not wasting energy just to propel energy.
This is not "just an engineering problem," as you so glibly assert. There are fundamental technologies that we lack.
"there isn't anywhere to go in space" -- have you been there? Interesting that you should use the colonisation of the Americas as an example, since the first European expeditions were simply exploring to see what was there -- look at the ROI they acheived! The first companies to successfully engage in commercial space flight within the solar system will make enormous sums of money. I'd wager the same is true of intra-galactic travel also.
What are the patent implications of using Wine vs using Mono? I don't understand it, but there's been discussion on/. before which, to my mind, never formed a clear resolution. It is hard to tell though, because when it comes to Microsoft,/. is fairly polarised...
"The point is we are doing the very things we say we are against when other nations do them. "
I agree with you: it stinks and we should fight it. But the point is that it's not representative of how Western governments operate. We must fight it yes, we must defend freedom yes, but we must also recognise how good we have it -- anything less is to ignore and belittle the achievements of our forefathers, and downplay the benefits of a free society. Western governments are not authoritarian by any reasonable stretch of the word. Let's be intellectually honest and keep it that way!
You're kidding right? How can a law restricting the ability of ISPs to impose restrictions on customers cause a loss of freedom for the customers? What else will guarantee that freedom? The free market? Hasn't worked out so well in the US, from all accounts...
PP's kind of black-and-white thinking annoys me -- of course government can restrict freedom. That's why it's so important to have responsible and accountable government. But government can also underpin freedom. This sort of knee-jerk reaction to any-and-all government regulation seems very narrow-minded to me.
"illegal" means "against the law", not "against the terms and service" set by the ISP. The law restricts the restrictions that can be imposed by ISPs. What you're saying is that the government could make a law saying that (eg) only a single PC can use an connection? So what? Or are you writing from a US perspective where the comms carriers own the government through lobbying?
Slashdot Mirror
...so he was a clone of god?
That's not an original argument, and it's common for believers to trot out the "atheists believe in no god, hence atheism is a religion" meme. It doesn't hold water because there are a plethora of gods that most people don't believe in (eg Thor, Neptune, etc) for the good reason that there's no evidence of their existence. Does that make them subscribers to the church of anti-Thor, or anti-Neptune, etc? Atheists believe that the lack of evidence for gods makes it reasonable to disbelieve, in the same way as most people would disbelieve in Burtrand Russel's teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot). If atheists are religious in their atheism, then all people are religious in their disbelief of the teapot, the FSM, Thor, ....
Now, you may argue that one can have 'faith' in the absence of evidence. That's fine. But please don't argue that disbelieving in something because there is no evidence of its existence is an unreasonable position.
New Orleans would def be on my must-see-list if I visited the US. Many of the more famous big cities I could take or leave, but anyone who knows anything about blues or jazz, or American culture generally in the early/mid 20th century knows the importance of what came out of New Orleans.
As other posters have pointed out, it's legal to use whatever force you need to defend yourself, but you'd be crazy to do so if you can run away instead.
"we can rehabilitate him with your tax dollars"
Rehab is a heck of a lot cheaper than jail. Get over this biblical eye-for-an-eye thing, and start thinking about harm-minimisation. Do you know how many tax dollars are spent keeping people behind bars?
I shave with a double-edged razor. Blades are $25 for 100. Just so you know.
Some charity book-stores already sell their wares online
eg, Oxfam:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/second-hand-store
I'm inclined to the view that the scanner/resellers are providing a service, and are thus justified in marking up the price.
Please tell me when Office was a good tool to "write a 300 page Ph.D. thesis"
You forgot the punchline:
>> WM7 -- life without walls (TM) :-P
Err, didn't the surrounding Arab states attack Israel in the days/weeks after the British left? My understanding is that they "threw the first punch"
(I'm no Israel apologist -- plenty of blame for the current mess rests on their shoulders also, IMO)
This is why I try, whenever possible, to buy second-hand computers and phones. Don't be sucked-in: just because you are a nerd doesn't mean you need a quad-core behemoth with 16 GB RAM. A laptop with a P4-M or Centrino CPU is very usable with Ubuntu -- I know, I use one as a multi-track recording studio and general laptop.
I think your sentiments are common, and also apply to other arts like music. Lots of people seem to like immaculate but (IMO) dull music. Personally, I'm happy with a few rough edges, if the ideas are good, because it reminds me that art is made by people. I'm sure this is influenced by the fact that I'm an indie musician myself! :-P
Exactly. Is it not common knowledge that Apple has used the iPod line to sell laptops and desktops?
"Will your trend-wad friends not hang with you if you whip out your Acer instead of an iPad? Go get some REAL friends."
I've read similar sentiments on /. a few times now. Are there really people whose friends would "dump" them if they didn't have the latest cool gadget, or is this sort of statement just for dramatic effect? (I'm really hoping it's the latter!)
This is the iPhone we're talking about, right? What's the use of downloading apps from IRC if you can't install them?
...some people even think that religious institutions should be exempt from tax!
If you've ever read/heard Murdoch's rants against the BBC (and other public broadcasters) it strongly supports the idea that he views the average person with utter contempt.
Someone should start a social networking site where people can store the credentials of all their other social networking sites for just this sort of purpose. Kind of a meta-social networking site.
Security and privacy would be assured, of course.
Well, we can potentially argue about the semantics of what is engineering or what is science. I'm inclined to think that carbon nanotubes are at such a nascent stage of development that the work that is being done on them is science. We currently lack (I believe, corrections welcome) even a theoretical process for producing carbon nanotube fibers that are hundreds of kilometers long. Once we have such a theoretical process, implementing it becomes an engineering problem, I think.
I'll try and answer you politely. FWIW, using aggressive language, straw-man arguments and swearing does not lend credence to your argument.
"you think you can repeal having to spend energy to transport energy"
What? Who said that? I was talking about the way that current energy storage densities are a limiting factor for space exploration.
"I can see it plainly from my backyard every night"
So what? You would say similar things about the Atlantic ocean if you we're a Spanish peasant in the 15th century.
"there isn't a damn thing there worth bringing back"
The universe is made of the same stuff as Earth. Want more $ELEMENT_X? guess where to look.
Apart from that, if we want to harness more energy than the sunlight available on the surface of Earth, we ultimately need to leave the surface (barring radical advances). If we want to continue to increase our population, we'll need a commensurate increase in resources and space, also necessitating space colonisation.
I think you're being quite closed-minded. I'm not talking about sending a fleet of ships half-way across the galaxy here. I'm not a "space nut" (as if that was some kind of insult on a site like /.).
Actually, everything you're discussing there concerns either energy, or energy storage.
1. Where does your electricity come from?
2. Lift capacity is related to both energy and energy storage density. The vehicle needs enough energy to lift its payload out of Earth's gravity well, and the energy needs to be stored in a dense enough form that you're not wasting energy just to propel energy.
This is not "just an engineering problem," as you so glibly assert. There are fundamental technologies that we lack.
"there isn't anywhere to go in space" -- have you been there? Interesting that you should use the colonisation of the Americas as an example, since the first European expeditions were simply exploring to see what was there -- look at the ROI they acheived! The first companies to successfully engage in commercial space flight within the solar system will make enormous sums of money. I'd wager the same is true of intra-galactic travel also.
What are the patent implications of using Wine vs using Mono? I don't understand it, but there's been discussion on /. before which, to my mind, never formed a clear resolution. It is hard to tell though, because when it comes to Microsoft, /. is fairly polarised...
"The point is we are doing the very things we say we are against when other nations do them. "
I agree with you: it stinks and we should fight it.
But the point is that it's not representative of how Western governments operate. We must fight it yes, we must defend freedom yes, but we must also recognise how good we have it -- anything less is to ignore and belittle the achievements of our forefathers, and downplay the benefits of a free society. Western governments are not authoritarian by any reasonable stretch of the word. Let's be intellectually honest and keep it that way!
exactly. A random delay is merely adding noise to the signal, not removing the signal altogether (in the way that using a consistent delay does)
You're kidding right? How can a law restricting the ability of ISPs to impose restrictions on customers cause a loss of freedom for the customers? What else will guarantee that freedom? The free market? Hasn't worked out so well in the US, from all accounts...
PP's kind of black-and-white thinking annoys me -- of course government can restrict freedom. That's why it's so important to have responsible and accountable government. But government can also underpin freedom. This sort of knee-jerk reaction to any-and-all government regulation seems very narrow-minded to me.
"illegal" means "against the law", not "against the terms and service" set by the ISP. The law restricts the restrictions that can be imposed by ISPs. What you're saying is that the government could make a law saying that (eg) only a single PC can use an connection? So what?
Or are you writing from a US perspective where the comms carriers own the government through lobbying?