For example, it is illegal to create computer-generated child pornography. Why!? Provided that it gives people who are into such things a release, and no children are harmed, I have no problem with it.
Maybe because computer-generated child pornography could potentially encourage such a person to "act on it." It's back to the whole video game debate - is it okay for me to have a virtual reality in which I repeatedly commit violent acts of murder? Does that increase the possibility that I might one day go out there and make my virtual reality, reality? If there's even such a possibility, I believe it's better to err on the side of caution. But hey, I'm not the one making the laws.
The Vatican says that ID is not science, but that doesn't mean that the Vatican thinks ID is "bunk." You basically imply that anything which is not science should be dismissed as absurd... which is, in my opinion, just as blind and faith-based as those "religious nuts" you consider so unenlightened.
The nice thing about text is that you can speedread or skim over the boring parts
Agreed.
The summer before my freshman year at Cornell we all had to do this alcohol education program online - lame, lame, lame. What really sucked is that parts of it involved watching videos. If I really had wanted to be educated about alcohol use and abuse, I would have been much happier reading text at my own pace rather than listening to some bubbly 20-something trying to sound happy and interesting. As it was, I (and pretty much everyone I talked to) just let the video play in the background with the sound off while doing something else.
The point? Keep it simple. If it doesn't need video, don't use it, because no one will take the time to watch.
Most people who quote the Bible to me are fundies, many of whom hate the Roman Catholic Church, and they get REALLY pissed when I can give them enough history to show them it was that very same church that is responsible for what was put in and left out of the Bible.
Yes, it's true that the Council of Laodicea put the "canon" together in the 4th century, but the books of the New Testament (the gospels, Paul's epistles, other writings of the apostles) were being used by the early church in the first and second centuries, long before any semblance of the Roman Catholic Church came about. Any publication has behind it a series of people - author(s), editor(s), publisher(s), etc. The fundamental difference between claiming the authority of the Bible and claiming the authority of my math textbook is that I believe the authority of the Bible goes above and beyond the authority and reason of man - and that is something you cannot prove or disprove with logic. That's just faith.
The next big spacecraft will have to be designed by people who haven't done it before.
To say that a lack of teachers makes a task impossible or too difficult is to deny the pioneering nature of the human spirit that made the space program possible in the first place. It may be true that nobody knows how, but I'm willing to bet that someone is going to figure it out pretty quickly.
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Oh my goodness, Sam Cassell posts on /.
For example, it is illegal to create computer-generated child pornography. Why!? Provided that it gives people who are into such things a release, and no children are harmed, I have no problem with it.
Maybe because computer-generated child pornography could potentially encourage such a person to "act on it." It's back to the whole video game debate - is it okay for me to have a virtual reality in which I repeatedly commit violent acts of murder? Does that increase the possibility that I might one day go out there and make my virtual reality, reality? If there's even such a possibility, I believe it's better to err on the side of caution. But hey, I'm not the one making the laws.
The Vatican says that ID is not science, but that doesn't mean that the Vatican thinks ID is "bunk." You basically imply that anything which is not science should be dismissed as absurd... which is, in my opinion, just as blind and faith-based as those "religious nuts" you consider so unenlightened.
Or command+R for us mac users, you insensitive clod!
No, no. It should be "Although a fable of Sci-Fi space travel,"
The nice thing about text is that you can speedread or skim over the boring parts
Agreed.
The summer before my freshman year at Cornell we all had to do this alcohol education program online - lame, lame, lame. What really sucked is that parts of it involved watching videos. If I really had wanted to be educated about alcohol use and abuse, I would have been much happier reading text at my own pace rather than listening to some bubbly 20-something trying to sound happy and interesting. As it was, I (and pretty much everyone I talked to) just let the video play in the background with the sound off while doing something else.
The point? Keep it simple. If it doesn't need video, don't use it, because no one will take the time to watch.
Most people who quote the Bible to me are fundies, many of whom hate the Roman Catholic Church, and they get REALLY pissed when I can give them enough history to show them it was that very same church that is responsible for what was put in and left out of the Bible.
Yes, it's true that the Council of Laodicea put the "canon" together in the 4th century, but the books of the New Testament (the gospels, Paul's epistles, other writings of the apostles) were being used by the early church in the first and second centuries, long before any semblance of the Roman Catholic Church came about. Any publication has behind it a series of people - author(s), editor(s), publisher(s), etc. The fundamental difference between claiming the authority of the Bible and claiming the authority of my math textbook is that I believe the authority of the Bible goes above and beyond the authority and reason of man - and that is something you cannot prove or disprove with logic. That's just faith.
The next big spacecraft will have to be designed by people who haven't done it before.
To say that a lack of teachers makes a task impossible or too difficult is to deny the pioneering nature of the human spirit that made the space program possible in the first place. It may be true that nobody knows how, but I'm willing to bet that someone is going to figure it out pretty quickly.