yeah, that AC was a moron... but maybe he accidentally made a decent point: if enough people follow hard links to their policy page, they might realize that they are getting a bad rep for insanely stupid policies.
Whenever I see anything about the Celerons and there purposefully being crippled, i.e. less cache, lower bus speeds, underclocking (look ma' I coined a new word), I always feel like it's a rip off.
Two points: 1) less cache can often be easier to produce, as Intel can get better yields, which means lower cost to manufacture... so you're not getting ripped off at all. 2) Underclocking (it's a word) is actually good for the customer, because you get the same proformance at a lower cost. Look at what AMD did (does?) with their low-end Athlons -- they make so many high-speed ones (for volume production), but they can't sell them all at a high price so ship them at lower-speed -- the customer gets a better deal than before (esp if you know how to identify and properly clock it)! Win-Win.
fine a company that makes 100's of billions a year? Nope they only made $8.7 billion last year. And the government can fine them any amount they want to.
3Com/USR/Palm has shown that
Umm... 3Com bought Palm and USR, and didn't get broken up at all (It still owns all of USR, and most of Palm). And 3Com's performance has been terrible recently with the exception of the wonderful Palm.
They could force MS to quasi-open source their software but ask Red Hat how terrible that is for business
This didn't really deserve a response, but whatever. YOU MUST BE LIVING IN A HOLE OR SOMETHING BUDDY, Red Hat is a great company with an extremely high market valuation, which means investors think it will grow by leaps and bounds.
is that Be is trying to get us to wet our appetite for the main product by offering a limited version to try for free. Hey, it's a good strategy for me, I would never shell out the $50+ bux to test out BeOS when I got Win2k and Linux already. But now I can check it out for free, and who knows?
but I can't see it going much anywhere on Windows. It's not, and never will be, wide spread enough or important enough to hide security bugs.
You seem to forget that AOL now owns Netscape, and has hated Microsoft for some time. How long after NS6 will AOL release a version of their software instead of IE5. Or how long until they have a set-top box based on Linux and Mozilla? Most likely in the next two year, IMHO, and AOL is a BIG chunkc of the newbie market.
No. Slashdot is into spreading the word about new distribution technologies for digital content. The underlying assumption (presumption?) behind this question could just as well ask, "Is Goodyear soliciting bank robberies?" (since, after all, auto tires can be used in getaway vehicles).
Well, what about a gun maker that advertises "resistant to finger prints" or markets in a way to ensure arrival of guns to minors? I know we are talking about different levels of morality (theft != guns) but the point remains that manufacturers bear some responsibility to their products, especially when the use is obviously illegal.
How long will it take for people to realize this is not an issue of copyright v. theft, or bandwidth v. theft of services? As Cosmo said in Sneakers, "It's about who controls the information -- what we see and hear, how we work, what we think -- It's all about the information."
That's bullshit and we all know it. Napster, Gnutella, DivX, anything new that comes along: they are all used primarily for entertainment, plain and simple. We ain't talking about political news or relious freedoms or anything serious. We're talking about people stealing South Park and Britney Spears for their own fucking pleasure, just to save a buck or two. It's that plain, as much as you all hate to admit it!
I think someone (Hemos?) made an error and accidentally attributed the date as "sunday" instead of the more correct "monday". Because I checked at 6:00 PST (9:00 EST) and it was not yet posted... at least not to the front page.
I actually thought that/. did post something on that topic... but a quick search proved that you were indeed right, Mr. Coward. Postings of Caldera Linux since January have been limited to IPO news.
Of course, that might be caused by two factors: 1) RH is much more widely used, therefore the news is more more "newsworthy" when RH gets updated (I personally care more because I use it, and not OpenLinux) and 2)/. works by submissions, if nobody posted that as a good article, it wouldn't have been posted. Anybody out there post the eServer or eDesktop as a new submission when the news broke?
As for the reiablility of/. as a news source, I figure they are not perfect, but pretty darned good. How do other large companies deal with this: I know ABC has a policy of not reporting on Disney Corp because of the conflict of interest. And Microsoft (MSNBC, Slate) always puts disclaimers of bias when they report on themselves, and are eager to post news of competitors to avoid the impression of being oppressively biased. While other companies... from Viacom to VA Linux to AOL Time Warner, make no reference at all to cross-ownership. Which is best? Probably the best policy is to report the bias (a la MSNBC) and err on the side of caution by aggressively reporting news of competitors.
(I guess that's why I get my Linux news ELSEWHERE...)
One might assume that you get some of your news from/., because you had to visit the site in order to make a posting!
Not faith in a remote intelligence that somehow orders everything, but faith that the laws and order that we observe on this small planet also apply over all time and all space. You have not been to IO to personally observe the volcano's. You have faith that the instruments that returned photographs's were not doctored.
You are partially correct: I have no personal experience of the volcanoes on Io, yet I believe that it is very likely that said volcanoes exist. Why? I'm going into depth to prove a point and demonstrate reasonable process.
I know that volcanoes in general exist (I've been volcanic craters at Mt. St. Helens and Maui). I also understand the principles of photography, so accurate (non-doctored) pictures of Io would be easy to obtain: go to an observatory and you can look at Io from there. There is a remote possibility that every observatory in the world could go through a complex conspiratorial plan to create illusions of Io, but this seems unlikely given lack of motive and the amount of effort required for this. Further, I know that NASA does in fact launch missions into space, as I personally seen one lift-off and have talked to friends who have seen others. As well, I know an engineer at Boeing who works in some aspect of aerospace design.
To recap, I know: volcanoes exist, photographs can be easily taken from earth that show volcanoes, spacecraft that take pictures are launched from Earth. Now as I alluded to earlier, there is a remote possibility of a giant coverup, which would include launching empty spacecraft into orbit, fakes from observatories over the whole world, all without motive. However, I weigh the odds in my head, and decide that most likely the pictures are real. Of course, if a top NASA scientist comes out and says: "there are no volcanoes on Io, we faked those" then I will quickly re-think my assumptions, and re-evaluating the whole process (bearing in mind the possibly that said scientist is lying). Do I need faith? No! I just use a combination of probabilities and personal experience to get the most likely result (always subject to change).
One aside point: the laws that apply to Earth (Newtonian Physics) actually don't apply to the much of rest of the world (everything tends to break down at the extremes). That's why more advanced technical theories such relativity and string theory were developed... because reason required them.
Saying that you only believe what you can see/touch/hear/measure/understand means that you don't belive in science in a field where you are not an expert. We believe in science because it is consistent and open to change. As Karl Popper has said, things can only really be scientifically true if they could also be false with different data, but that is not the reality of most work in science. You don't see much published that says some experiment didn't prove our hyposthesis. But more great science has come of experiments that failed than those that just confirmed prevailing wisdom (Michelson-Morley, Darwin's finches etc.)
I stand by my statement that I only believe what I can see/hear/touch/measure/understand. Yet I believe in a lot of things where I am not an expert in the field! This is because they don't contradict what is part of my personally verifiable experience, and provide analogy that is logical and not internally contradictory. You are absolutely correct that much knowledge can be gathered from failed experience and failed hypotheses... it's an important part of understanding! But that failure demonstrates that the scientific process is working... even if the failures does not get published (because who wants to hear a theory that is proven not to explain reality?).
Science has faith in Occam's Razor, science has faith in the laws of thermodynamics, science has faith that mathematics can adequately describe physical phenomena.
Ockham's Razor is not a faith, or even a belief. It is a "razor", or a way to simplify a belief system. Basically Ockham's Razor says, if there are two explanations for an event, choose the most simple one. For example, "Why is there a yellow dotted line in the middle of the road by my house?" there are two explanations: "(1) someone from the government painted them on there, like every other street in my city" or "(2) they are the blood of space aliens, who died upon entry to Earth when they burned up in the atmosphere, but left a trail of yellow blood which co-incidentally fell on my street". Each once is theoretically possible... but Ockham's Razor says: "believe in (1) because its more simple". Now, if new evidence comes to light (say the space aliens come to earth for vengeance over their losses over at Blanca St in Vancouver), then the razor would not apply, because they are not equal explanations of the evidence any longer. It does not take faith to use this razor: it's just a really good method for approaching the world, you can take it or leave it.
As for the laws of thermodynamics: those are based on empirical evidence. Didn't you take science classes in high school? If anything new came up, they aren't laws any more. It's that simple, no faith required.
Regarding mathematics: obviously math can't describe all physical phenomenon. But it does help up model physical phenomenon to help us understand and explain the world around us so that we can better predict the world in the future. For some phenomenon, charts might better model phenomenon, or some other method that doesn't spring to mind. That's all we can really ask from science, we don't need faith to accept modeling techniques.
The difference between scientific faith and relgious faith is that science is willing to change its dogma if it finds a counter example, but most religions will deny the counter example if it disagrees with dogma. But even religions gradually change belief over time, witness the Catholic churces acceptance of evolution.
But the real point of that story is that for over a hundred years, religious leaded persuaded followers (quite a term eh?) to trust faith that the literal creation story was to be believed (btw still preached by many religious fundamentalists). The pope says "believe in this because I say it's true" and it remains "true" until decades later the new pope changes his mind and say "now I say this other thing, and you should believe in it because I say it's true".
Alternatively, Darwin said "after looking at empirical evidence, it seems likely that evolution is the process life was created on Earth". Now this was hotly debated as scientists looked at available evidence and tweaked the theory until it could explain how we came to be the way we are today. With science, a change in belief will only occur when new evidence is presented that contradict a theory, or if a better explanation is come across. For example, if a flaming pillar of light and wind came down to Earth and spoke to the world, and claimed to be God, and promptly started creating new species... then I could see some new theories being developed by scientists that would include the new flaming God creation.
So again, I don't see how reason requires faith. It requires compiled intelligence, but nothing that contradicts observable data, and nothing that cannot be changed upon the arrival of new evidence.
Perhaps, but I doubt that you have ever seen/touched/heard the origin of life. Yet you probably believe that there was one.
Yes, I have heard several arguments of how the work came to be based on reason. You see, people look at the world as it is, and try to think up of a way of how it could come to be. Then they create a "theory", which is a possible explanation for how/why things are the way they are. The theory that best explains and predicts future events is the most reasonable theory. Now an unreasonable theory is "the earth was created in 7 days by God" on the basis of a several thousand year old book. Not only is there no evidence that supports that argument, but there is evidence against that argument (talkorigins.org). To believe in it then, would require faith. A more objective method would require examing alternatives theories a choosing one that seems to best explain things.
Actually, I was referring to the often-heard argument that "God is unknowable, and therefore we can't use reason to understand God". This argument is a cop-out, an excuse for not thinking and despicable IMHO. But more generally, any good explanation should be simple enough to convey its message to most people without having to resort to technical terms. For example Big Bang / String Theory / Evolution / Relativity. I don't understand them entirely... but they can be explained to me in simple terms that can be conveyed via analogy or verified in some manner. If a scientist (or theologian) was to say "I have a theory, but I can't explain it to you" it has little or no value.
**If you want to continue this discussion, email me.
faith and reason are not, by nature mutually exclusive. There is nothing special about religion that precludes the use of human reason to discover the world. Likewise, there is nothing special about reason which precludes faith.
I would argue the opposite -- that faith and reason are in complete opposition at all times. If you have a reasonable argument for believing in something (as in: there it is, I can see/touch/hear it), you don't require any faith. And if you rely on faith to believe in something, it is only because you have no good reason (I can't see/touch/hear/measure/understand it, but the bible tells me so).
Again, faith is the opposite of reason, and are always in direct contradiction.
Plus, FreeBSD is at least as stable as SCO OpenServer.
Doesn't that counter the whole rest of your post? I mean, why would anyone pay thousands of dollars for a *NIX that they could get from a free product like BSD when they are equally stable? I have to admit, I've never used SCO, but to get a company to shell out thousands of dollars, they gotta offer something more than "equal in stability to FreeBSD".
Now Tarantella, on the other hand, is a different story...
why don't people read all of the comments before they post.
It's happened to me before, by accident. Sometimes, I read the given posts and then start writing a long post, while someone else will have posted a similar idea in the meantime -- makes me look stupid through no fault of my own.
What we need is to set the "redundant" moderation to not affect Karma, so that we can quickly clean up redundant posts without hurting those who accidentally get caught in the time lapse.
If he got the slot for free, wouldn't it have been much more worthwhile to tell people why the source was made instead of just showing it?
Well, that wouldn't make the news, would it? It would be a boring commercial, and with only 30 seconds not much could be explained. So they decided to do something pseudo-controversial and gain worldwide attention. And isn't that the point of advertising?? Plus... the MPAA and the RIAA will probably pay attention to stunts like this.
I agree -- network admins don't get enough respect. But how would you ever test for it properly? I mean, mapping efficient networks is not something that can easily be quantified like programming.
I suppose the real prize good network admins get is the nice little paycheques in the mail, and the stock options (if you're lucky). It will have to suffice! =)
Private health care isn't that expensive in the US -- and usually the taxes are lower (depends on the state) so it is a wash if you make enough money to be in a decent tax bracket. And in the IT industry, odds are you make enough money to qualify for that! =)
A lot of people work on contract and have to provide their own medical -- it's not that big of a deal.
Normally I don't respond to offtopic posts -- but I had to post this for the record.
There is another side to the Mumia story, check out this National Post story. The NP is Canada's major national newspaper -- and this is a good balanced article that counters a lot of hype surrounding the case.
I see your point, especially for some subjects. But for others, it can be a valuable skill to quickly search the internet and find data to help you answer a probelm-solving question.
Let's say the question was: "examine the health effects of second hand smoke". You would have to consider: The possibility that the site contained wrong, or misleading information, the time it would take to search various sites, and other information you have gathered throughout the class.
it would be a relatively small matter to record the search strings
Yes, of course, for search strings. I was (and the original author was) talking about links, as in A HREF tags. You can't track those without a redirector
*will* be tracking the number of clicks made on each URL in the database
Well, unless someone else here can prove me wrong, they can't actually tell how many times people clicked on an link. The only way to do it is to redirect the URL through a CGI script, and they aren't doing that yet. If there is another way, please let me know!
Besides, the SEC filing mentions nothing about tracking clicks -- the company seems more concerned about getting people to come to the site and buy products through an affiliate network.
This seems like a really weak company to me -- they at least have to find a way to make enough money to pay Google and for bandwidth, otherwise they are going under mighty fast.
I will start with two statements that most everyone should agree with.
1) There is nothing wrong, legally or morally, with music encoded into MP3s, or the distribution of music encoded in the MP3 format.
2) Artists (and their agents, the record labels) have the legal and moral right to demand payment in exchange for their product, like any other legal business.
Everyone is all up in arms over the MP3 format because it seems that the two points above are in conflict, as MP3 files are quickly and readily shared, often illegally. But there is a simple solution that requires no new laws to be formed.
The goverments of the world need to combine forces to create a clearinghouse organization that would have the power to force an ISP to remove digtal media content (software, music, video, etc) that is illegally copied. Call them the ICE (International Copyright Enforcers).
If an artist came across their materials that were illegally available on the web, they could report it to ICE and shut the site down. This means that if an artist (say Mariah Carey) really wants to protect against her music being copied, she or her record label could hunt down MP3 music (via web searches and napster, etc) and report violating sites to ICE. But if another artist (say Skippy Martens) didn't care about his music, there would be no reporting to ICE, and thus no problem.
This puts the ball in the artist's court: if they want to stop illegal copying -- go find it and tell us about it. But don't blame the media format (MP3) or the distribution channel (Napster) because those are legally neutral.
Now, this would work because if I can find illegal MP3s, so could the artists. And the labels (not to mention software companies) would be more than happy to have a small staff of people devoted to hunting illegal files. And if you want to rip MP3s, make several copies -- that's fine as long as no one can find it (and why would the artists care about it if no one can find it?).
Um, no. Contrary to what opposing propaganda may claim, communism is about economic equality. It isn't about violence. Bolchevism (not sure of the English spelling), the doctrine of the original Soviets, did advocate the violent and immediate overthrow of the old Russian regime, but that has nothing to do with scientific socialism as originated by Marx.
While there is nothing theoretical that says Communism must be non-violent -- practically it has to be. In the end, there will have to be people with guns to enforce any sort of procedure of eliminating private property. Or, put another way: They have to come at me with guns before they take away my house, those lousy pinko bastards! =) Whereas socialism works more subtly, achieving some degree of equality without resorting to violence.
(Disclaimer: I am a libertarian, not a communist. Do not flame.)
Me too, but being a libertarian doesn't mean you get exempted from flames! =)
That sounds interesting! One major question though: what are the controls to prevent cheating (ie bringing in someone to post on your behalf)?
It seems to me that it wouldn't be such a big deal for an "interest-related" degree such as Religious Studies, compared with a "job-related" degree, which might involve more cheating.
no... I was clearly talking about cloning of animals -- and that has not been done for a thousand years, so far as I know. That's why it's news.
Is this really progress?!?!?!
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: If you want to die as a result of refusing medical technology, that is certainly your choice, and I respect that (as long as you are consistant by being a vegan as well) and have no quarrel with you. Some of us, however, are in no rush for a premature death when technology exists today that can benefit us. We as humans have a pretty strong instinct for survival -- so I'd say it's progress when we come up with a new method of surviving.
Our 6 billion and rapidly growing population isn't going to disappear, it's going to be our downfall. ESPECIALLY if modern medicine keeps everyone alive.
That argument makes no sense... modern medicine and technology has allowed our population to grow to its current levels -- increased longevity, food production methods, efficient production of goods and services -- and I can't see how it's contributing to our downfall at all. In fact, I don't think we are heading towards a downfall at all, but instead the reverse. Our society is more tolerant and peaceful, with more leisure time, and more comforts, and is more available to the general population that any other time in history... and it's a trend that will likely continue well into the future.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah, that AC was a moron... but maybe he accidentally made a decent point: if enough people follow hard links to their policy page, they might realize that they are getting a bad rep for insanely stupid policies.
Whenever I see anything about the Celerons and there purposefully being crippled, i.e. less cache, lower bus speeds, underclocking (look ma' I coined a new word), I always feel like it's a rip off.
Two points: 1) less cache can often be easier to produce, as Intel can get better yields, which means lower cost to manufacture... so you're not getting ripped off at all. 2) Underclocking (it's a word) is actually good for the customer, because you get the same proformance at a lower cost. Look at what AMD did (does?) with their low-end Athlons -- they make so many high-speed ones (for volume production), but they can't sell them all at a high price so ship them at lower-speed -- the customer gets a better deal than before (esp if you know how to identify and properly clock it)! Win-Win.
fine a company that makes 100's of billions a year?
Nope they only made $8.7 billion last year. And the government can fine them any amount they want to.
3Com/USR/Palm has shown that
Umm... 3Com bought Palm and USR, and didn't get broken up at all (It still owns all of USR, and most of Palm). And 3Com's performance has been terrible recently with the exception of the wonderful Palm.
They could force MS to quasi-open source their software but ask Red Hat how terrible that is for business
This didn't really deserve a response, but whatever. YOU MUST BE LIVING IN A HOLE OR SOMETHING BUDDY, Red Hat is a great company with an extremely high market valuation, which means investors think it will grow by leaps and bounds.
is that Be is trying to get us to wet our appetite for the main product by offering a limited version to try for free. Hey, it's a good strategy for me, I would never shell out the $50+ bux to test out BeOS when I got Win2k and Linux already. But now I can check it out for free, and who knows?
but I can't see it going much anywhere on Windows. It's not, and never will be, wide spread enough or important enough to hide security bugs.
You seem to forget that AOL now owns Netscape, and has hated Microsoft for some time. How long after NS6 will AOL release a version of their software instead of IE5. Or how long until they have a set-top box based on Linux and Mozilla? Most likely in the next two year, IMHO, and AOL is a BIG chunkc of the newbie market.
No. Slashdot is into spreading the word about new distribution technologies for digital content. The underlying assumption (presumption?) behind this question could just as well ask, "Is Goodyear soliciting bank robberies?" (since, after all, auto tires can be used in getaway vehicles).
Well, what about a gun maker that advertises "resistant to finger prints" or markets in a way to ensure arrival of guns to minors? I know we are talking about different levels of morality (theft != guns) but the point remains that manufacturers bear some responsibility to their products, especially when the use is obviously illegal.
How long will it take for people to realize this is not an issue of copyright v. theft, or bandwidth v. theft of services? As Cosmo said in Sneakers, "It's about who controls the information -- what we see and hear, how we work, what we think -- It's all about the information."
That's bullshit and we all know it. Napster, Gnutella, DivX, anything new that comes along: they are all used primarily for entertainment, plain and simple. We ain't talking about political news or relious freedoms or anything serious. We're talking about people stealing South Park and Britney Spears for their own fucking pleasure, just to save a buck or two. It's that plain, as much as you all hate to admit it!
I think someone (Hemos?) made an error and accidentally attributed the date as "sunday" instead of the more correct "monday". Because I checked at 6:00 PST (9:00 EST) and it was not yet posted... at least not to the front page.
I actually thought that /. did post something on that topic... but a quick search proved that you were indeed right, Mr. Coward. Postings of Caldera Linux since January have been limited to IPO news.
/. works by submissions, if nobody posted that as a good article, it wouldn't have been posted. Anybody out there post the eServer or eDesktop as a new submission when the news broke?
/. as a news source, I figure they are not perfect, but pretty darned good. How do other large companies deal with this: I know ABC has a policy of not reporting on Disney Corp because of the conflict of interest. And Microsoft (MSNBC, Slate) always puts disclaimers of bias when they report on themselves, and are eager to post news of competitors to avoid the impression of being oppressively biased. While other companies... from Viacom to VA Linux to AOL Time Warner, make no reference at all to cross-ownership. Which is best? Probably the best policy is to report the bias (a la MSNBC) and err on the side of caution by aggressively reporting news of competitors.
/., because you had to visit the site in order to make a posting!
Of course, that might be caused by two factors: 1) RH is much more widely used, therefore the news is more more "newsworthy" when RH gets updated (I personally care more because I use it, and not OpenLinux) and 2)
As for the reiablility of
(I guess that's why I get my Linux news ELSEWHERE...)
One might assume that you get some of your news from
You are partially correct: I have no personal experience of the volcanoes on Io, yet I believe that it is very likely that said volcanoes exist. Why? I'm going into depth to prove a point and demonstrate reasonable process.
I know that volcanoes in general exist (I've been volcanic craters at Mt. St. Helens and Maui). I also understand the principles of photography, so accurate (non-doctored) pictures of Io would be easy to obtain: go to an observatory and you can look at Io from there. There is a remote possibility that every observatory in the world could go through a complex conspiratorial plan to create illusions of Io, but this seems unlikely given lack of motive and the amount of effort required for this. Further, I know that NASA does in fact launch missions into space, as I personally seen one lift-off and have talked to friends who have seen others. As well, I know an engineer at Boeing who works in some aspect of aerospace design.
To recap, I know: volcanoes exist, photographs can be easily taken from earth that show volcanoes, spacecraft that take pictures are launched from Earth. Now as I alluded to earlier, there is a remote possibility of a giant coverup, which would include launching empty spacecraft into orbit, fakes from observatories over the whole world, all without motive. However, I weigh the odds in my head, and decide that most likely the pictures are real. Of course, if a top NASA scientist comes out and says: "there are no volcanoes on Io, we faked those" then I will quickly re-think my assumptions, and re-evaluating the whole process (bearing in mind the possibly that said scientist is lying). Do I need faith? No! I just use a combination of probabilities and personal experience to get the most likely result (always subject to change).
One aside point: the laws that apply to Earth (Newtonian Physics) actually don't apply to the much of rest of the world (everything tends to break down at the extremes). That's why more advanced technical theories such relativity and string theory were developed... because reason required them.
Saying that you only believe what you can see/touch/hear/measure/understand means that you don't belive in science in a field where you are not an expert. We believe in science because it is consistent and open to change. As Karl Popper has said, things can only really be scientifically true if they could also be false with different data, but that is not the reality of most work in science. You don't see much published that says some experiment didn't prove our hyposthesis. But more great science has come of experiments that failed than those that just confirmed prevailing wisdom (Michelson-Morley, Darwin's finches etc.)
I stand by my statement that I only believe what I can see/hear/touch/measure/understand. Yet I believe in a lot of things where I am not an expert in the field! This is because they don't contradict what is part of my personally verifiable experience, and provide analogy that is logical and not internally contradictory. You are absolutely correct that much knowledge can be gathered from failed experience and failed hypotheses... it's an important part of understanding! But that failure demonstrates that the scientific process is working... even if the failures does not get published (because who wants to hear a theory that is proven not to explain reality?).
Science has faith in Occam's Razor, science has faith in the laws of thermodynamics, science has faith that mathematics can adequately describe physical phenomena.
Ockham's Razor is not a faith, or even a belief. It is a "razor", or a way to simplify a belief system. Basically Ockham's Razor says, if there are two explanations for an event, choose the most simple one. For example, "Why is there a yellow dotted line in the middle of the road by my house?" there are two explanations: "(1) someone from the government painted them on there, like every other street in my city" or "(2) they are the blood of space aliens, who died upon entry to Earth when they burned up in the atmosphere, but left a trail of yellow blood which co-incidentally fell on my street". Each once is theoretically possible... but Ockham's Razor says: "believe in (1) because its more simple". Now, if new evidence comes to light (say the space aliens come to earth for vengeance over their losses over at Blanca St in Vancouver), then the razor would not apply, because they are not equal explanations of the evidence any longer. It does not take faith to use this razor: it's just a really good method for approaching the world, you can take it or leave it.
As for the laws of thermodynamics: those are based on empirical evidence. Didn't you take science classes in high school? If anything new came up, they aren't laws any more. It's that simple, no faith required.
Regarding mathematics: obviously math can't describe all physical phenomenon. But it does help up model physical phenomenon to help us understand and explain the world around us so that we can better predict the world in the future. For some phenomenon, charts might better model phenomenon, or some other method that doesn't spring to mind. That's all we can really ask from science, we don't need faith to accept modeling techniques.
The difference between scientific faith and relgious faith is that science is willing to change its dogma if it finds a counter example, but most religions will deny the counter example if it disagrees with dogma. But even religions gradually change belief over time, witness the Catholic churces acceptance of evolution.
But the real point of that story is that for over a hundred years, religious leaded persuaded followers (quite a term eh?) to trust faith that the literal creation story was to be believed (btw still preached by many religious fundamentalists). The pope says "believe in this because I say it's true" and it remains "true" until decades later the new pope changes his mind and say "now I say this other thing, and you should believe in it because I say it's true".Alternatively, Darwin said "after looking at empirical evidence, it seems likely that evolution is the process life was created on Earth". Now this was hotly debated as scientists looked at available evidence and tweaked the theory until it could explain how we came to be the way we are today. With science, a change in belief will only occur when new evidence is presented that contradict a theory, or if a better explanation is come across. For example, if a flaming pillar of light and wind came down to Earth and spoke to the world, and claimed to be God, and promptly started creating new species... then I could see some new theories being developed by scientists that would include the new flaming God creation.
So again, I don't see how reason requires faith. It requires compiled intelligence, but nothing that contradicts observable data, and nothing that cannot be changed upon the arrival of new evidence.
Perhaps, but I doubt that you have ever seen/touched/heard the origin of life. Yet you probably believe that there was one.
Yes, I have heard several arguments of how the work came to be based on reason. You see, people look at the world as it is, and try to think up of a way of how it could come to be. Then they create a "theory", which is a possible explanation for how/why things are the way they are. The theory that best explains and predicts future events is the most reasonable theory. Now an unreasonable theory is "the earth was created in 7 days by God" on the basis of a several thousand year old book. Not only is there no evidence that supports that argument, but there is evidence against that argument (talkorigins.org). To believe in it then, would require faith. A more objective method would require examing alternatives theories a choosing one that seems to best explain things.
Actually, I was referring to the often-heard argument that "God is unknowable, and therefore we can't use reason to understand God". This argument is a cop-out, an excuse for not thinking and despicable IMHO. But more generally, any good explanation should be simple enough to convey its message to most people without having to resort to technical terms. For example Big Bang / String Theory / Evolution / Relativity. I don't understand them entirely... but they can be explained to me in simple terms that can be conveyed via analogy or verified in some manner. If a scientist (or theologian) was to say "I have a theory, but I can't explain it to you" it has little or no value.
**If you want to continue this discussion, email me.
faith and reason are not, by nature mutually exclusive. There is nothing special about religion that precludes the use of human reason to discover the world. Likewise, there is nothing special about reason which precludes faith.
I would argue the opposite -- that faith and reason are in complete opposition at all times. If you have a reasonable argument for believing in something (as in: there it is, I can see/touch/hear it), you don't require any faith. And if you rely on faith to believe in something, it is only because you have no good reason (I can't see/touch/hear/measure/understand it, but the bible tells me so).
Again, faith is the opposite of reason, and are always in direct contradiction.
Isn't it strange that that episode was aired only a couple of days ago?
Not really that strange, considering that there are about five episodes on per day! =)
Plus, FreeBSD is at least as stable as SCO OpenServer.
Doesn't that counter the whole rest of your post? I mean, why would anyone pay thousands of dollars for a *NIX that they could get from a free product like BSD when they are equally stable? I have to admit, I've never used SCO, but to get a company to shell out thousands of dollars, they gotta offer something more than "equal in stability to FreeBSD".
Now Tarantella, on the other hand, is a different story...
why don't people read all of the comments before they post.
It's happened to me before, by accident. Sometimes, I read the given posts and then start writing a long post, while someone else will have posted a similar idea in the meantime -- makes me look stupid through no fault of my own.
What we need is to set the "redundant" moderation to not affect Karma, so that we can quickly clean up redundant posts without hurting those who accidentally get caught in the time lapse.
If he got the slot for free, wouldn't it have been much more worthwhile to tell people why the source was made instead of just showing it?
Well, that wouldn't make the news, would it? It would be a boring commercial, and with only 30 seconds not much could be explained. So they decided to do something pseudo-controversial and gain worldwide attention. And isn't that the point of advertising?? Plus... the MPAA and the RIAA will probably pay attention to stunts like this.
I agree -- network admins don't get enough respect. But how would you ever test for it properly? I mean, mapping efficient networks is not something that can easily be quantified like programming.
I suppose the real prize good network admins get is the nice little paycheques in the mail, and the stock options (if you're lucky). It will have to suffice! =)
Private health care isn't that expensive in the US -- and usually the taxes are lower (depends on the state) so it is a wash if you make enough money to be in a decent tax bracket. And in the IT industry, odds are you make enough money to qualify for that! =)
A lot of people work on contract and have to provide their own medical -- it's not that big of a deal.
Normally I don't respond to offtopic posts -- but I had to post this for the record.
There is another side to the Mumia story, check out this National Post story. The NP is Canada's major national newspaper -- and this is a good balanced article that counters a lot of hype surrounding the case.
I see your point, especially for some subjects. But for others, it can be a valuable skill to quickly search the internet and find data to help you answer a probelm-solving question.
Let's say the question was: "examine the health effects of second hand smoke". You would have to consider: The possibility that the site contained wrong, or misleading information, the time it would take to search various sites, and other information you have gathered throughout the class.
I actually think its a great idea.
it would be a relatively small matter to record the search strings
Yes, of course, for search strings. I was (and the original author was) talking about links, as in A HREF tags. You can't track those without a redirector
*will* be tracking the number of clicks made on each URL in the database
Well, unless someone else here can prove me wrong, they can't actually tell how many times people clicked on an link. The only way to do it is to redirect the URL through a CGI script, and they aren't doing that yet. If there is another way, please let me know!
Besides, the SEC filing mentions nothing about tracking clicks -- the company seems more concerned about getting people to come to the site and buy products through an affiliate network.
This seems like a really weak company to me -- they at least have to find a way to make enough money to pay Google and for bandwidth, otherwise they are going under mighty fast.
I will start with two statements that most everyone should agree with.
1) There is nothing wrong, legally or morally, with music encoded into MP3s, or the distribution of music encoded in the MP3 format.
2) Artists (and their agents, the record labels) have the legal and moral right to demand payment in exchange for their product, like any other legal business.
Everyone is all up in arms over the MP3 format because it seems that the two points above are in conflict, as MP3 files are quickly and readily shared, often illegally. But there is a simple solution that requires no new laws to be formed.
The goverments of the world need to combine forces to create a clearinghouse organization that would have the power to force an ISP to remove digtal media content (software, music, video, etc) that is illegally copied. Call them the ICE (International Copyright Enforcers).
If an artist came across their materials that were illegally available on the web, they could report it to ICE and shut the site down. This means that if an artist (say Mariah Carey) really wants to protect against her music being copied, she or her record label could hunt down MP3 music (via web searches and napster, etc) and report violating sites to ICE. But if another artist (say Skippy Martens) didn't care about his music, there would be no reporting to ICE, and thus no problem.
This puts the ball in the artist's court: if they want to stop illegal copying -- go find it and tell us about it. But don't blame the media format (MP3) or the distribution channel (Napster) because those are legally neutral.
Now, this would work because if I can find illegal MP3s, so could the artists. And the labels (not to mention software companies) would be more than happy to have a small staff of people devoted to hunting illegal files. And if you want to rip MP3s, make several copies -- that's fine as long as no one can find it (and why would the artists care about it if no one can find it?).
Um, no. Contrary to what opposing propaganda may claim, communism is about economic equality. It isn't about violence. Bolchevism (not sure of the English spelling), the doctrine of the original Soviets, did advocate the violent and immediate overthrow of the old Russian regime, but that has nothing to do with scientific socialism as originated by Marx.
While there is nothing theoretical that says Communism must be non-violent -- practically it has to be. In the end, there will have to be people with guns to enforce any sort of procedure of eliminating private property. Or, put another way: They have to come at me with guns before they take away my house, those lousy pinko bastards! =) Whereas socialism works more subtly, achieving some degree of equality without resorting to violence.
(Disclaimer: I am a libertarian, not a communist. Do not flame.)
Me too, but being a libertarian doesn't mean you get exempted from flames! =)
That sounds interesting! One major question though: what are the controls to prevent cheating (ie bringing in someone to post on your behalf)?
It seems to me that it wouldn't be such a big deal for an "interest-related" degree such as Religious Studies, compared with a "job-related" degree, which might involve more cheating.
We have done it for thousands of years.
no... I was clearly talking about cloning of animals -- and that has not been done for a thousand years, so far as I know. That's why it's news.
Is this really progress?!?!?!
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: If you want to die as a result of refusing medical technology, that is certainly your choice, and I respect that (as long as you are consistant by being a vegan as well) and have no quarrel with you. Some of us, however, are in no rush for a premature death when technology exists today that can benefit us. We as humans have a pretty strong instinct for survival -- so I'd say it's progress when we come up with a new method of surviving.
Our 6 billion and rapidly growing population isn't going to disappear, it's going to be our downfall. ESPECIALLY if modern medicine keeps everyone alive.
That argument makes no sense... modern medicine and technology has allowed our population to grow to its current levels -- increased longevity, food production methods, efficient production of goods and services -- and I can't see how it's contributing to our downfall at all. In fact, I don't think we are heading towards a downfall at all, but instead the reverse. Our society is more tolerant and peaceful, with more leisure time, and more comforts, and is more available to the general population that any other time in history... and it's a trend that will likely continue well into the future.