Of course it does, there is ample gravity for an atmosphere. The magnetic field isn't really the issue for an atmosphere, its the shielding from solar radiation that the magnetic field helps with. Without one, life will have a hard time taking hold, and living on the surface will be problematic.
Jesus. You just don't get it. TPB does NOT HOST ANY CONTENT. At all! It simply provides a place for a torrent file to be hosted. The torrent file is NOT infringing content.
They simply set up a torrent tracker. For whatever purposes anybody wants to use it for. Interestingly, many of the large file sets out there are infringing content, and torrents happen to be a good way of distributing that data. However, ALL content is hosted on USERS hard drives, not a drip on TPB. Not ever. All of the content is shared between users, they simply have a mechanism to find each other via the torrent protocol, of which a tracker is a crucial part.
It doesn't really matter that most of the content is infringing. It only matters if TPB causes that infringement. If they are culpable, then so is google. Its as simple as that. You need to understand what bittorrent IS. It is peer-to-peer file sharing. The PEERS are infringing. TPB just chose a really bad name for their tracker site.
Of course, because scribblings on tombs don't tell us the entire history of said civilization, then there cannot possibly be any events which aren't in full evidence.
Whatever, its all a big conspiracy and religious wackos are just trying to fool you. Its not like tobacco and coca were actually found on mummies or anything. Oh wait, they were.
We don't even have any idea exactly how the pyramids were built, or if they were built by slaves, or any number of things we do not know about their civilization from scratches on walls and dirt and graves. Just conjecture and supposition, with a great many competing hypothesis.
Does it even matter? Its interesting data, doesn't require an inquisition to proves its meaning. There are a great many things we will never, ever know about ancient egypt. Which is actually almost EVERYTHING about them. Deal with it.
Whats the big deal, are you so sure that over the thousands of years these civilizations existed, nobody ever made a boat trip across the atlantic?
They weren't about to paint their tombs with farm records. I'm sure all kinds of cross pollination happened all over the planet in the thousands and thousands of years these large trading civilizations existed. Why is that so amazing, unbelievable or even that interesting?
Just because some young civilization that now claims to have done everything first (europe) wants to be remembered as FIRST to cross the oceans, doesn't make it so. I'm sure the Egyptians, in all their many many years, could build some ships to make the journey. Entire Egyptian dynasties came and went in a time span dwarfing the few centuries that europe has been out of the stone age.
I am going to use whatever options are available to me, not just the "proper" ones that you have decided are ok because some corporation told you it is the correct route.
I have no problem downloading content, especially if it "harms" Tom Cruise.
I most definitely WILL make my own mind up on what is right and wrong. I behave in society according to the rules I have about right/wrong, not what I am told to do.
I DO purchase media, when I WANT the producer to receive my money. I can choose who my money goes to, I can also choose to view for free things I want to view even when I do not want the producer to make money from it.
There are a great many laws I do not agree with, and also disobey. I am not a sheep, I can and will do as I see fit, too bad you are so shackled with rules and bullshit to see that you actually are an individual that can make his own choices. I do not harm people. I do not hurt others. I do not steal THINGS. Just because my actions violate some bizarre broken business model, means nothing to me. Give me a reason to give you my money, and I will. Otherwise go away.
Of course, I am so bad and evil and the problem with society. Because I do not walk the line, praise the powers and worship the dollar. And you know what? There is NOTHING you can do about it. NOTHING.
Ok, then your solution is? Piracy isn't going away, if its a real problem then the solution is to change the business model. Its the only solution. You cannot stop piracy. It doesn't matter how wrong, immoral, whatever you may think it is, the fact remains it is not going away.
So now what? Piracy is bad, mmkay? Thats not gonna work.
Honestly I do not think it is near the problem folks make it out to be. I know many many people with computers who cannot figure out how to pirate movies, books, mp3's, etc. They try, and get a huge pile of RAR files, and stare blankly. Or they get a "dvd" in divx format and have no idea what to do with it. We are talking a tiny portion of the media buying public who actually can and does pirate. The less tech savvy also infect themselves with trojans and malware instead of downloading some new game. How many people out there are modding their consoles to play downloaded games?
The tiny fraction of the market that can pirate will continue to do so, regardless of the measures taken against it.
By purchasing a single share, you are forcing them to print and mail you all their shareholder material, which costs far more than the profit you earn from that single share. If everyone on slashdot bought a single share, it could put a serious dent in their asses.
You have to shame the idiots buying crap from spam. If spam didn't make money, their would be no spam. Its not the spam that is the problem, its that it is a viable business model. You can't stop people from making money from something that works, and obviously works really well.
Obviously you haven't been to mardi gras lately. Nothing has change, absolutely NOTHING. Cameras have been flashing as often as girls in New Orleans for many many years.
The "lovely era" of girls flashing people in the street during Mardi Gras is more lively than ever. Last year, as often as I pulled out my camera there were untold girls turning around showing their tits, its what drunk youngins do during Mardi Gras. Pictures be damned.
I'm not even an old perv, just a tourist freaking out on the spectacle. Mardi Gras sucks, believe me, but its the puke and piss filled streets that really bring you down. Tits just do not make up for that.
Thats funny because all the CFL's I have at home have lasted for YEARS. The only one that has ever burned out is the one in my fridge, after 4 years. They have lasted far far longer than any other bulb I have ever used, with a huge savings in electricity usage.
I don't know what kind of crap CFL's you buy but the ones I have work perfectly, with vast lifespans. I just bought them at home depot or wherever.
Study up on the terrorists who founded this country then. They are at war with us, they are POW's if anything. Which means they have rights and are to be treated a certain way according to the geneva convention.
If we are at war, then who are we at war with? An enemy, which means they are POW's.
Keep calling it a war, and keep calling "them" terrorists. Words mean everything, read your Orwell.
Do you expect the people living in a country we invaded and are occupying to sit idly by?
What would you do if chinese troops marched down your street and tried to "free" you? Would you defend your friends and family in any way you could? Try to put yourself in their shoes for once.
Again, read up on the tactics used by american revolutionaries, or the underground resistance in nazi occupied europe, or the vietnam war. Its war, bad shit happens.
Or you could stop calling it a war.
As for the despicable acts committed against innocent civilians - read up on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Want to talk about bombing schools, churches and women and children?
You know, I have a friend who was imprisoned in Afghanistan during the 70's/80's. A "terrorist" nation.
He was never tortured or treated improperly EVER. When the soviets invaded and took over the prison, THEY never tortured nor harmed him, in fact treatment got even better. 20 years in a foreign prison and the only bad thing to happen to him was an opium addiction.
Its funny hearing his story, because he was a good american boy, afraid of the bad guys and especially of the soviets. When they marched through the prison he freaked out, only to find they were genuinely interested in his well being. The soviet general who toured the place stopped specifically at his cell and talked to him, because he was american. He received medical treatment, fresh clothing and good food, plus a promise that his sentencing would be looked at and he was released a few years later, from a life sentence (for smuggling hashish.) I've never seen somebody more changed by an experience, going from good ol' american boy to seeing the truth: the USA is the biggest fucking fascist state on earth. All from being locked up in a foreign country. You can tell a lot about a society by how they treat their prisoners. He never once saw anybody raped or tortured. Now, american prisons on the other hand...
Most people would be very very surprised to know the stats on prison violence and rape in the US versus the rest of the world. We have the most inhumane conditions for prisoners of almost anywhere on the planet. Not to mention the fact we have the highest per capita prison population on earth.
The America people believe exists from watching tv, does, in fact, not exist except on tv.
Not to mention nuclear weapons, oh yeah baby. We have used them. On innocent civilians. Twice. Nobody else can claim that prize.
Oh well. Just bomb more brown people. That will fix your life so you can buy more video games in which you kill brown people.
What "terrorists"? What, exactly, have the "terrorists" done? Who do they rape, kill and murder? Where and when is this happening?
Well, ok, the us army rapes and murders people based on religious and political beliefs. We call it war.
But these people in cuba? Do you know what they have done? What have they been charged with? What crimes did they commit? Do you even know who they are, where they come from, or what is being done to them?
NO, you dont. But its ok, they are "terrorists." Because the tv told you so.
Bush IS a war criminal. By any modern, humane definition of the term, by the UN's own definition. We hung Saddam. We hung the war criminals tried at Nuremberg.
I just love this new term, "terrorist" it is so meaningless and vague. Lets hope someday you are tagged with it and then we'll see where you stand.
You see, murderers and rapists are tried and sentenced, in any country. These poor people are not charged with any crime, are not sentenced to any punishment.
Yet sick stupid motherfuckers like you continue to sit by while it happens. Hopefully someday you will know what its like. Hopefully.
Sorry that you have such a huge gap in your understanding of chemistry. Simply because you denigrate the science with snide remarks doesn't mean in makes no sense. What makes more sense, that some magical creature snapped its fingers (or tentacles) and all life appeared?
Ok, so you reject the formation of cellular life forms from simpler molecular structures.
Rejecting speciation on the other hand is simply ignorance. The fossil record is there for all to see. It shows in a clear, highly detailed, step by step nature, in chronological order, how life evolved. From single cells to human beings and redwoods. The slow formation of jaws, backbones, arms, legs, fins, lungs, etc. etc. is all there, every single step. You know how we know it took a very long time? Because we can SEE that it took a very long time! On smaller time scales we can even see bacteria evolve, in our life times.
You believe your fairy tales, based on pure ignorance and silly analogies, and I'll believe the science. The formation of complex hydrocarbons from simpler structures that has been seen in the lab, right before our very eyes. I don't need your fairy tales to take away the beauty of nature and the amazing feat that we are here discussing this. Just because it is beautiful and wondrous doesn't mean it can't be understood.
BTW, do you reject time in the same way as for planet formation? Formation of heavy elements in stars?
I mean, come on, how can a single fertilized cell smaller than you can see, turn into a blue whale?
How can simple transistors power machines that let us communicate?
Magic, it must be, because YOU don't understand it. How sad.
Billions of years and random molecules is exactly what is needed to allow for the creation of self-replicating cells. Even cells didn't just appear one day. Small collections of hydrocarbons came together and did something, for instance make copies of themselves. Any highly complex molecule that could make a copy of itself would be far more abundant than a structure that did not. So we have stable molecules that are not highly reactive and can mechanically make copies of themselves. At this scale tiny changes and imperfections in the structure would have profound impact on its abilities. Some of these would be beneficial and would quickly dominate. Eventually we had molecules that could create other types of molecules, if these other types of molecules proved beneficial to the surrounding environment they would expand in number, else the negative effects would cause them to dwindle or their creation mechanism to cease. It goes on and on and on from there. It is not so hard to grasp when looked at from these tiny scales. The creation of a protein from an mRNA molecule's blueprint is not nearly as complex as the creation of an automobile. It is quite a simple and understood process actually.
We are talking great amounts of time for this chemistry to take place. It does not violate the second law of thermodynamics because "life" generally needs an energy source once it had grown beyond simple Brownian motion to achieve the chance occurrences that allowed self-replication. Life eats. It reduces complexity.
We had a chain of complex, random processes. Eventually nucleic acids were produced with the right sequence to replicate, etc. etc. with millions and millions of steps and much time to do this in.
Google macromolecules, phospholipids and evolution for a start. It is quite a fascinating process and takes no leaps of faith and follows all modern laws of physics. Just because you don't understand it doesn't it makes no sense.
Sorry, you are wrong. Easter Eggs are not documented, by definition. They generally ARE authorized. They are for the customer to find, and having been in project management for large commercial software projects, I know full well how authorized they are. They are fully tested, fully implemented features. Just not documented.
The software I have seen these implemented in, some times, costs more than your annual salary for a single license. You bet your ass management is aware of them. You think a lower level manager or developer wants to be sued by a major aerospace corporation for a bug in an easter egg that caused a major disaster? Yet they are still there. Sometimes very cleverly hidden and many times will never be discovered.
In fact, the original poster stated quite clearly "if you have complete control over the final product." That implies management, not a code monkey. It also implies management approval and encouragement.
Generally, the easter eggs I have seen and even implemented were no done by code jockeys, they were put there by the management of the team. Large, commercial software projects almost always have something of this sort. One of a kind contract software almost always does not. It depends on the project. It is not immature to implement something like this, anymore than it is to have credits in a video game or in a movie. Ever seen a dvd easter egg? Putting some folks into a small easter egg project is a way of rewarding overworked developers as well.
It all depends on the project, your level of responsibility in the project, etc. Easter eggs on large projects are definitely a management decision. Generally they even have to pass code review and QA.
Just because YOU have never had the opportunity to implement one because of the nature of your work, doesn't mean it is immature and unprofessional. Besides, most of the projects I have ever worked on have been extremely interesting, complicated and yes, were works of art in some fashion. BTW, I have seen easter eggs in FEA software that most definitely DOES have lives on the line, if you enjoy flying in airplanes or driving in cars. In fact, ALL of the major CFD and FEA packages have easter eggs in them.
Every drop of water on earth has been here for billions of years. What you drink today has been part of blood, oceans, urine, feces, vomit, plants, semen and anything else containing water.
I have not had a single failed login attempt on an ssh server since I moved the port numbers. Obviously nobody is doing port scans on my systems, just automated ssh login attempts.
Evolution works because there is no other theory that explains what we've observed. Intelligent Design does not count, because it provides no testable predictions.
Evolution is what it is because nothing else can explain observation. It flows from the facts. It is not a hypothesis. It is a theory. Which means it is testable with experiment, and fits all observed facts. Nothing has ever been shown to prove otherwise. Ergo, it is fact.
All depends on why you reject it. Everyone I've seen reject evolution has done so for stupid, dogmatic reasons, but you are making stupid, dogmatic statements about science.
How so? Is all fact open for debate? This subject is closed. It is not dogma. Is relativity dogma? Are plate tectonics dogma? What did I say that was stupid and dogmatic? Because I don't question every fact?
The reasons I have given ARE scientific, because the reasons were listed as the testable, provable real things that make up evolution. Observable natural selection. The fossil record. Speciation. The DNA record. etc. etc.
Just because I say that people are stupid if they disagree with fact, does that make me dogmatic? Not at all. If you disagree with me on the cellular structure of a potato, just because, well, you are being stupid. I can show you in a microscope the provable fact of that structure. Same goes for something like evolution.
Certainly, things like quantum gravity are open ended discussions, because we have no theory to fit all facets of observation in that realm. Something like evolution is simply not debatable, unless new, before now unknown facts come to light that do not fit observation and experiment. Since these things have yet to surface, I will call anybody who rejects evolution an idiot, because they are. For whatever reason, because there is NO valid reason. Plain and simple.
You are totally confusing science fact, with belief and religious dogma. I do not believe anything about evolution or science. Belief has nothing to do with it. I do not have faith in science. I do not accept it because I feel I must to support some other agenda. I accept it because it is what reality is, it is what is testable and observable. At the very least it is the quest to understand what is testable and observable.
This boils down to people arguing about things that they didn't observe, and can't really know. Creationism (at least the Christian kind) requires faith that something written thousands of years ago by people who also didn't witness the events is true. "Evolutionism" requires faith in the work of hundreds of scientists interpreting the present and making educated guesses about the past. No one saw man created out of dirt and breathed to life by God, but by the same token, no one saw a single-celled organism spring to life in the primordial soup and continue re-writing itself until it became a human.
Of course we have seen it. Its all around us. Its in the fossil record. By your logic, nobody has actually seen galaxies evolve because they are looking into the past via the fossil record of the universe - radiation (light, xrays, etc.)
Evolution can be easily traced back to the earliest creatures capable of leaving imprints of themselves behind. The entire process of developing lungs, limbs, spines, etc. etc. is all right there. Each step of the way. It is not a mystery. Just because it doesn't happen in a timespan and a place you personally can witness doesn't make it not so. The sun didn't form before your eyes did it? Did the mountains spring up so you could witness? Is geology a supposition? An educated guess?
You can demonstrate evolution in the lab with bacteria. You can demonstrate complex hydrocarbons doing all sorts of magical stuff in the lab (how life came to be in the first place.)
Tracing the biology of animals of this planet is a well known, well documented science. It is FACT, because the facts are right there in front of the entire worlds eyes, should they choose to look. Fish moving onto land, developing lungs, etc.
We have broken down the DNA code very well at this point, and can trace our origins that way as well. We can see where we differ and what we share with trees, worms, bacteria, dogs and elephants. Natural selection (the mechanism behind evolution) is everywhere as well. Look at dog and cat breeds. Cattle. Plants. Insects. You name it, you can change the creature itself by breeding.
Evolution is science. It is what the facts tell us. This is not a philosophical debate. There are no two sides. It is not a guess. It is about stupidity and blind faith. You can't reject evolution any more than you can reject combustion, or gravity. If people DO reject it, they are simply being ignorant and stupid. Plain and simple.
Basing "science" on something written thousands of years ago by people who were so far from us in their knowledge of the world is ridiculous. It is absurd. Why not simply observe the world? Observe what is right in front of our faces, and learn from it.
Its only rare in the sense that you have to be in the right place at the right time. There are billions of galaxies scattered all over the universe in all sorts of orientations. If you could choose your vantage point, you could see any number of these. We can't choose our vantage point, so for them to line up just so is pretty rare. Its like seeing a rainbow. You have to catch it at the precise time and angle for you to see anything.
Back in the day I was all about just being who I was (am). I wasn't ashamed of it (still not) and as you said, proudly wore my freakishness on my sleeve. A lot of us were like that, the old days on usenet were the wild west. You had scientists posting under their real names how to purify heroin for gods sake hehe. Talking about bizarre sex fetishi, discussing all manner of weirdo crap. University professors, research scientists, government workers, military types, etc. etc. It was just discussion groups, it was so fringe that nobody ever imagined it would go mainstream and come back to haunt them. Oh the heady days of the 70's and 80's in the computer subculture. We were elite (so we thought) and acted with impunity. Luckily I DID have a "handle" that I posted truly incriminating stuff as, in phrack, etc. but still... That was all before I ever went through a security clearance and had to sit down and explain this shit. Believe me, in those situations they most certainly dig that crap up, if they can.
What I want to know is, what douchebag decided to make BACKUP TAPES of usenet? Why in the world would you want to archive that stuff? 99% of it is inane nonsense, but some of us decided to be anal about it all and back it up. God.
That was my point. Who would have thunk it, posting to usenet 20 years ago, that it would all still be here, searchable by anybody. Google says they will delete posts for you but I have tried, they always deny the request for some odd reason. Oh well, the next time around, when the new fangled interuse web thingy comes around, I'll remember not to use my real name.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course it does, there is ample gravity for an atmosphere. The magnetic field isn't really the issue for an atmosphere, its the shielding from solar radiation that the magnetic field helps with. Without one, life will have a hard time taking hold, and living on the surface will be problematic.
Jesus. You just don't get it. TPB does NOT HOST ANY CONTENT. At all! It simply provides a place for a torrent file to be hosted. The torrent file is NOT infringing content.
They simply set up a torrent tracker. For whatever purposes anybody wants to use it for. Interestingly, many of the large file sets out there are infringing content, and torrents happen to be a good way of distributing that data. However, ALL content is hosted on USERS hard drives, not a drip on TPB. Not ever. All of the content is shared between users, they simply have a mechanism to find each other via the torrent protocol, of which a tracker is a crucial part.
It doesn't really matter that most of the content is infringing. It only matters if TPB causes that infringement. If they are culpable, then so is google. Its as simple as that. You need to understand what bittorrent IS. It is peer-to-peer file sharing. The PEERS are infringing. TPB just chose a really bad name for their tracker site.
Of course, because scribblings on tombs don't tell us the entire history of said civilization, then there cannot possibly be any events which aren't in full evidence.
Whatever, its all a big conspiracy and religious wackos are just trying to fool you. Its not like tobacco and coca were actually found on mummies or anything. Oh wait, they were.
We don't even have any idea exactly how the pyramids were built, or if they were built by slaves, or any number of things we do not know about their civilization from scratches on walls and dirt and graves. Just conjecture and supposition, with a great many competing hypothesis.
Does it even matter? Its interesting data, doesn't require an inquisition to proves its meaning. There are a great many things we will never, ever know about ancient egypt. Which is actually almost EVERYTHING about them. Deal with it.
Whats the big deal, are you so sure that over the thousands of years these civilizations existed, nobody ever made a boat trip across the atlantic?
They weren't about to paint their tombs with farm records. I'm sure all kinds of cross pollination happened all over the planet in the thousands and thousands of years these large trading civilizations existed. Why is that so amazing, unbelievable or even that interesting?
Just because some young civilization that now claims to have done everything first (europe) wants to be remembered as FIRST to cross the oceans, doesn't make it so. I'm sure the Egyptians, in all their many many years, could build some ships to make the journey. Entire Egyptian dynasties came and went in a time span dwarfing the few centuries that europe has been out of the stone age.
I am going to use whatever options are available to me, not just the "proper" ones that you have decided are ok because some corporation told you it is the correct route.
I have no problem downloading content, especially if it "harms" Tom Cruise.
I most definitely WILL make my own mind up on what is right and wrong. I behave in society according to the rules I have about right/wrong, not what I am told to do.
I DO purchase media, when I WANT the producer to receive my money. I can choose who my money goes to, I can also choose to view for free things I want to view even when I do not want the producer to make money from it.
There are a great many laws I do not agree with, and also disobey. I am not a sheep, I can and will do as I see fit, too bad you are so shackled with rules and bullshit to see that you actually are an individual that can make his own choices. I do not harm people. I do not hurt others. I do not steal THINGS. Just because my actions violate some bizarre broken business model, means nothing to me. Give me a reason to give you my money, and I will. Otherwise go away.
Of course, I am so bad and evil and the problem with society. Because I do not walk the line, praise the powers and worship the dollar. And you know what? There is NOTHING you can do about it. NOTHING.
Ok, then your solution is? Piracy isn't going away, if its a real problem then the solution is to change the business model. Its the only solution. You cannot stop piracy. It doesn't matter how wrong, immoral, whatever you may think it is, the fact remains it is not going away.
So now what? Piracy is bad, mmkay? Thats not gonna work.
Honestly I do not think it is near the problem folks make it out to be. I know many many people with computers who cannot figure out how to pirate movies, books, mp3's, etc. They try, and get a huge pile of RAR files, and stare blankly. Or they get a "dvd" in divx format and have no idea what to do with it. We are talking a tiny portion of the media buying public who actually can and does pirate. The less tech savvy also infect themselves with trojans and malware instead of downloading some new game. How many people out there are modding their consoles to play downloaded games?
The tiny fraction of the market that can pirate will continue to do so, regardless of the measures taken against it.
By purchasing a single share, you are forcing them to print and mail you all their shareholder material, which costs far more than the profit you earn from that single share. If everyone on slashdot bought a single share, it could put a serious dent in their asses.
You have to shame the idiots buying crap from spam. If spam didn't make money, their would be no spam. Its not the spam that is the problem, its that it is a viable business model. You can't stop people from making money from something that works, and obviously works really well.
Obviously you haven't been to mardi gras lately. Nothing has change, absolutely NOTHING. Cameras have been flashing as often as girls in New Orleans for many many years.
The "lovely era" of girls flashing people in the street during Mardi Gras is more lively than ever. Last year, as often as I pulled out my camera there were untold girls turning around showing their tits, its what drunk youngins do during Mardi Gras. Pictures be damned.
I'm not even an old perv, just a tourist freaking out on the spectacle. Mardi Gras sucks, believe me, but its the puke and piss filled streets that really bring you down. Tits just do not make up for that.
Thats funny because all the CFL's I have at home have lasted for YEARS. The only one that has ever burned out is the one in my fridge, after 4 years. They have lasted far far longer than any other bulb I have ever used, with a huge savings in electricity usage.
I don't know what kind of crap CFL's you buy but the ones I have work perfectly, with vast lifespans. I just bought them at home depot or wherever.
Study up on the terrorists who founded this country then. They are at war with us, they are POW's if anything. Which means they have rights and are to be treated a certain way according to the geneva convention.
If we are at war, then who are we at war with? An enemy, which means they are POW's.
Keep calling it a war, and keep calling "them" terrorists. Words mean everything, read your Orwell.
Do you expect the people living in a country we invaded and are occupying to sit idly by?
What would you do if chinese troops marched down your street and tried to "free" you? Would you defend your friends and family in any way you could? Try to put yourself in their shoes for once.
Again, read up on the tactics used by american revolutionaries, or the underground resistance in nazi occupied europe, or the vietnam war. Its war, bad shit happens.
Or you could stop calling it a war.
As for the despicable acts committed against innocent civilians - read up on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Want to talk about bombing schools, churches and women and children?
You know, I have a friend who was imprisoned in Afghanistan during the 70's/80's. A "terrorist" nation.
He was never tortured or treated improperly EVER. When the soviets invaded and took over the prison, THEY never tortured nor harmed him, in fact treatment got even better. 20 years in a foreign prison and the only bad thing to happen to him was an opium addiction.
Its funny hearing his story, because he was a good american boy, afraid of the bad guys and especially of the soviets. When they marched through the prison he freaked out, only to find they were genuinely interested in his well being. The soviet general who toured the place stopped specifically at his cell and talked to him, because he was american. He received medical treatment, fresh clothing and good food, plus a promise that his sentencing would be looked at and he was released a few years later, from a life sentence (for smuggling hashish.) I've never seen somebody more changed by an experience, going from good ol' american boy to seeing the truth: the USA is the biggest fucking fascist state on earth. All from being locked up in a foreign country. You can tell a lot about a society by how they treat their prisoners. He never once saw anybody raped or tortured. Now, american prisons on the other hand...
Most people would be very very surprised to know the stats on prison violence and rape in the US versus the rest of the world. We have the most inhumane conditions for prisoners of almost anywhere on the planet. Not to mention the fact we have the highest per capita prison population on earth.
The America people believe exists from watching tv, does, in fact, not exist except on tv.
Not to mention nuclear weapons, oh yeah baby. We have used them. On innocent civilians. Twice. Nobody else can claim that prize.
Oh well. Just bomb more brown people. That will fix your life so you can buy more video games in which you kill brown people.
What "terrorists"? What, exactly, have the "terrorists" done? Who do they rape, kill and murder? Where and when is this happening?
Well, ok, the us army rapes and murders people based on religious and political beliefs. We call it war.
But these people in cuba? Do you know what they have done? What have they been charged with? What crimes did they commit? Do you even know who they are, where they come from, or what is being done to them?
NO, you dont. But its ok, they are "terrorists." Because the tv told you so.
Bush IS a war criminal. By any modern, humane definition of the term, by the UN's own definition. We hung Saddam. We hung the war criminals tried at Nuremberg.
I just love this new term, "terrorist" it is so meaningless and vague. Lets hope someday you are tagged with it and then we'll see where you stand.
You see, murderers and rapists are tried and sentenced, in any country. These poor people are not charged with any crime, are not sentenced to any punishment.
Yet sick stupid motherfuckers like you continue to sit by while it happens. Hopefully someday you will know what its like. Hopefully.
Sorry that you have such a huge gap in your understanding of chemistry. Simply because you denigrate the science with snide remarks doesn't mean in makes no sense. What makes more sense, that some magical creature snapped its fingers (or tentacles) and all life appeared?
Ok, so you reject the formation of cellular life forms from simpler molecular structures.
Rejecting speciation on the other hand is simply ignorance. The fossil record is there for all to see. It shows in a clear, highly detailed, step by step nature, in chronological order, how life evolved. From single cells to human beings and redwoods. The slow formation of jaws, backbones, arms, legs, fins, lungs, etc. etc. is all there, every single step. You know how we know it took a very long time? Because we can SEE that it took a very long time! On smaller time scales we can even see bacteria evolve, in our life times.
You believe your fairy tales, based on pure ignorance and silly analogies, and I'll believe the science. The formation of complex hydrocarbons from simpler structures that has been seen in the lab, right before our very eyes. I don't need your fairy tales to take away the beauty of nature and the amazing feat that we are here discussing this. Just because it is beautiful and wondrous doesn't mean it can't be understood.
BTW, do you reject time in the same way as for planet formation? Formation of heavy elements in stars?
I mean, come on, how can a single fertilized cell smaller than you can see, turn into a blue whale?
How can simple transistors power machines that let us communicate?
Magic, it must be, because YOU don't understand it. How sad.
Billions of years and random molecules is exactly what is needed to allow for the creation of self-replicating cells. Even cells didn't just appear one day. Small collections of hydrocarbons came together and did something, for instance make copies of themselves. Any highly complex molecule that could make a copy of itself would be far more abundant than a structure that did not. So we have stable molecules that are not highly reactive and can mechanically make copies of themselves. At this scale tiny changes and imperfections in the structure would have profound impact on its abilities. Some of these would be beneficial and would quickly dominate. Eventually we had molecules that could create other types of molecules, if these other types of molecules proved beneficial to the surrounding environment they would expand in number, else the negative effects would cause them to dwindle or their creation mechanism to cease. It goes on and on and on from there. It is not so hard to grasp when looked at from these tiny scales. The creation of a protein from an mRNA molecule's blueprint is not nearly as complex as the creation of an automobile. It is quite a simple and understood process actually.
We are talking great amounts of time for this chemistry to take place. It does not violate the second law of thermodynamics because "life" generally needs an energy source once it had grown beyond simple Brownian motion to achieve the chance occurrences that allowed self-replication. Life eats. It reduces complexity.
We had a chain of complex, random processes. Eventually nucleic acids were produced with the right sequence to replicate, etc. etc. with millions and millions of steps and much time to do this in.
Google macromolecules, phospholipids and evolution for a start. It is quite a fascinating process and takes no leaps of faith and follows all modern laws of physics. Just because you don't understand it doesn't it makes no sense.
Oh yea... Check out this link: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html
Yes, these are easter eggs on almost every single type of IC device known.
Sorry your job is so unfulfillable and you are unable to leave your mark on the world. For the above engineers, such is not the case.
Sorry, you are wrong. Easter Eggs are not documented, by definition. They generally ARE authorized. They are for the customer to find, and having been in project management for large commercial software projects, I know full well how authorized they are. They are fully tested, fully implemented features. Just not documented.
The software I have seen these implemented in, some times, costs more than your annual salary for a single license. You bet your ass management is aware of them. You think a lower level manager or developer wants to be sued by a major aerospace corporation for a bug in an easter egg that caused a major disaster? Yet they are still there. Sometimes very cleverly hidden and many times will never be discovered.
In fact, the original poster stated quite clearly "if you have complete control over the final product." That implies management, not a code monkey. It also implies management approval and encouragement.
Generally, the easter eggs I have seen and even implemented were no done by code jockeys, they were put there by the management of the team. Large, commercial software projects almost always have something of this sort. One of a kind contract software almost always does not. It depends on the project. It is not immature to implement something like this, anymore than it is to have credits in a video game or in a movie. Ever seen a dvd easter egg? Putting some folks into a small easter egg project is a way of rewarding overworked developers as well.
It all depends on the project, your level of responsibility in the project, etc. Easter eggs on large projects are definitely a management decision. Generally they even have to pass code review and QA.
Just because YOU have never had the opportunity to implement one because of the nature of your work, doesn't mean it is immature and unprofessional. Besides, most of the projects I have ever worked on have been extremely interesting, complicated and yes, were works of art in some fashion. BTW, I have seen easter eggs in FEA software that most definitely DOES have lives on the line, if you enjoy flying in airplanes or driving in cars. In fact, ALL of the major CFD and FEA packages have easter eggs in them.
Every drop of water on earth has been here for billions of years. What you drink today has been part of blood, oceans, urine, feces, vomit, plants, semen and anything else containing water.
I have not had a single failed login attempt on an ssh server since I moved the port numbers. Obviously nobody is doing port scans on my systems, just automated ssh login attempts.
Evolution is what it is because nothing else can explain observation. It flows from the facts. It is not a hypothesis. It is a theory. Which means it is testable with experiment, and fits all observed facts. Nothing has ever been shown to prove otherwise. Ergo, it is fact.
How so? Is all fact open for debate? This subject is closed. It is not dogma. Is relativity dogma? Are plate tectonics dogma? What did I say that was stupid and dogmatic? Because I don't question every fact?
The reasons I have given ARE scientific, because the reasons were listed as the testable, provable real things that make up evolution. Observable natural selection. The fossil record. Speciation. The DNA record. etc. etc.
Just because I say that people are stupid if they disagree with fact, does that make me dogmatic? Not at all. If you disagree with me on the cellular structure of a potato, just because, well, you are being stupid. I can show you in a microscope the provable fact of that structure. Same goes for something like evolution.
Certainly, things like quantum gravity are open ended discussions, because we have no theory to fit all facets of observation in that realm. Something like evolution is simply not debatable, unless new, before now unknown facts come to light that do not fit observation and experiment. Since these things have yet to surface, I will call anybody who rejects evolution an idiot, because they are. For whatever reason, because there is NO valid reason. Plain and simple.
You are totally confusing science fact, with belief and religious dogma. I do not believe anything about evolution or science. Belief has nothing to do with it. I do not have faith in science. I do not accept it because I feel I must to support some other agenda. I accept it because it is what reality is, it is what is testable and observable. At the very least it is the quest to understand what is testable and observable.
Of course we have seen it. Its all around us. Its in the fossil record. By your logic, nobody has actually seen galaxies evolve because they are looking into the past via the fossil record of the universe - radiation (light, xrays, etc.)
Evolution can be easily traced back to the earliest creatures capable of leaving imprints of themselves behind. The entire process of developing lungs, limbs, spines, etc. etc. is all right there. Each step of the way. It is not a mystery. Just because it doesn't happen in a timespan and a place you personally can witness doesn't make it not so. The sun didn't form before your eyes did it? Did the mountains spring up so you could witness? Is geology a supposition? An educated guess?
You can demonstrate evolution in the lab with bacteria. You can demonstrate complex hydrocarbons doing all sorts of magical stuff in the lab (how life came to be in the first place.)
Tracing the biology of animals of this planet is a well known, well documented science. It is FACT, because the facts are right there in front of the entire worlds eyes, should they choose to look. Fish moving onto land, developing lungs, etc.
We have broken down the DNA code very well at this point, and can trace our origins that way as well. We can see where we differ and what we share with trees, worms, bacteria, dogs and elephants. Natural selection (the mechanism behind evolution) is everywhere as well. Look at dog and cat breeds. Cattle. Plants. Insects. You name it, you can change the creature itself by breeding.
Evolution is science. It is what the facts tell us. This is not a philosophical debate. There are no two sides. It is not a guess. It is about stupidity and blind faith. You can't reject evolution any more than you can reject combustion, or gravity. If people DO reject it, they are simply being ignorant and stupid. Plain and simple.
Basing "science" on something written thousands of years ago by people who were so far from us in their knowledge of the world is ridiculous. It is absurd. Why not simply observe the world? Observe what is right in front of our faces, and learn from it.
Its only rare in the sense that you have to be in the right place at the right time. There are billions of galaxies scattered all over the universe in all sorts of orientations. If you could choose your vantage point, you could see any number of these. We can't choose our vantage point, so for them to line up just so is pretty rare. Its like seeing a rainbow. You have to catch it at the precise time and angle for you to see anything.
Back in the day I was all about just being who I was (am). I wasn't ashamed of it (still not) and as you said, proudly wore my freakishness on my sleeve. A lot of us were like that, the old days on usenet were the wild west. You had scientists posting under their real names how to purify heroin for gods sake hehe. Talking about bizarre sex fetishi, discussing all manner of weirdo crap. University professors, research scientists, government workers, military types, etc. etc. It was just discussion groups, it was so fringe that nobody ever imagined it would go mainstream and come back to haunt them. Oh the heady days of the 70's and 80's in the computer subculture. We were elite (so we thought) and acted with impunity. Luckily I DID have a "handle" that I posted truly incriminating stuff as, in phrack, etc. but still... That was all before I ever went through a security clearance and had to sit down and explain this shit. Believe me, in those situations they most certainly dig that crap up, if they can.
What I want to know is, what douchebag decided to make BACKUP TAPES of usenet? Why in the world would you want to archive that stuff? 99% of it is inane nonsense, but some of us decided to be anal about it all and back it up. God.
That was my point. Who would have thunk it, posting to usenet 20 years ago, that it would all still be here, searchable by anybody. Google says they will delete posts for you but I have tried, they always deny the request for some odd reason. Oh well, the next time around, when the new fangled interuse web thingy comes around, I'll remember not to use my real name.