Your tone and post has made me go back and read fully your original, which I apologise for not doing before. I was expecting the usual Christian nonsense, and so I didn't even read it because certain attitudes really wind me up these days. I used to be a Christian myself due to my upbringing, and I believed it all fervently for a couple of decades, but now I don't.
I see you don't subscribe to a human-like god, and I consider that reasonable. I agree that it's just as absurd to state that a god definitely doesn't exist as it does to state that one does. If there is no evidence either way, then to make an irrefutable assumption about it is dumb, on both sides. As you pointed out though, there are certain things that we can rule out, like a visible god, or one making Christians better off than other people, etc.
If you say that those laws came in with the Big Bang, you must acknowledge that the laws may in fact be dynamic, and all science which relies on the assumption that they are static (ie, viewing distant stars with the assumption that speed of light=c) gets thrown into question; and you still havent accounted for the ball of stuff.
I admit I haven't looked a whole lot into the supposed conditions for the big bang, not for a few years at least. I have read about what you're saying about the universal constants and so forth. I have no problem with the concept of the Universe collapsing and re-banging, the rules changing each time, countless other universes/dimensions/whatever. I wasn't saying that the ball of stuff is necessary stable as in it stays inert, I'm just saying that I find it more likely that stuff with no particular order eventually comes to order itself. I believe in the idea of a "god" coming to exist via that type of mechanism, but I find specifically the Abramic notions of a god with human traits that has always existed and is unchanging (that's what the bible claims) rather absurd.
We definitely can't account for the stuff. All we can say is that it's here. We can make up stories about gods and creators too, but it's patently obvious that at least 99.99999% of the stories we make up have no bearing on what really happened. Probably more like 100%. Even when it comes to science we do basically have to guess what happened beyond what we can measure, but to simply say that we can't exist without a god is making a massive recursive assumption - you then have to explain how that god can exist without another god. It's completely circular. So is saying "stuff always existed" in a way, but it's not quite as bizarre as claiming that life must have a creator rather than it being possibly for life/order to emerge from disorder.
It is all kind of absurd if you think about it. We are the Universe arguing about its own existence.. and eventually it will all be gone/meaningless/reset.
For evidence, see any living creature. The slightest little issue, and that creature is dead. It is much more likely that a random arrangement of "stuff" will result in something unintelligent, dead, and definitely not in the habit of creating Universes. If you subscribe to the idea that anything that can exist does exist in some dimension somewhere, then yes, your god could exist. But also there would exist somewhere with an identical universe, but no god.
I get that you're trying to be all deep and pretend like logic and rules don't have to exist outside of our Universe, but some form of order has to exist for things to be in a stable enough state to actually create a Universe.
The only people being unscientific are the ones that say "you're wrong, because.. uh.. magic.. that we could never possibly comprehend, so let's not try!".
Yes, it's a vertigo inducing concept to consider that something has always existed, but the reason I don't accept that a god has always existed is that there is no evidence for such. If you were to accept that something has always existed, why would you think that it would be a fully formed intelligence rather than a bunch of "stuff" that randomly knocks around until something interesting happens?
But, to your first point, God didn't create himself, he simply always was
Okay, then to your point: the big bang wasn't the start of reality, reality simply always was, and there happened to be a big bang.
An unordered system is not likely to become ordered over time
That may not be true on a global scale (ie our Universe will likely eventually succumb to heat death), but simple molecules can aggregate, and become self replicating, and thus create order. We have observed these molecules forming in gas clouds in space. There is evidence supporting order arising from "disorder", but absolutely none for a god that is anything like a human (ie the bible says we were made in god's image). All religions are man made.
you are postulating the possibility that something can create itself, which is... impossible (in my opinion)
Then where did your god come from?
It works both ways. It's far more likely that something simple and relatively unstructured has always existed, and has come to order itself gradually, than some human-like god has always existing. A god could have evolved, but an intelligent god just happening to exist is as likely as that whole watchmaker thingy that theists love to talk about.
What part of SAMBA having been around for 20 years, being in use in many commercial products, SAMBA 4 having been based on Microsoft specifications and having been tested at Microsoft's labs makes you think that this is in any way "untested".
When you've been developing a new version of your software for 10 years, I don't think you're in a rush to release it until it counts as "tested".
A direct Active Directory replacement based on Microsoft specs, and multiple incompatible SQL dialects based on whatever the hell the vendor wanted to do, have basically nothing in common.
I said "as far as servers go". There are already perfectly viable alternatives to SQL Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, IIS, etc. Now there's an easy route to migrate Active Directory to a more secure, reliable and free OS. I'm not making insane claims, just pointing out the facts.
I'm not saying it will happen overnight, but if SAMBA 4 can do what it claims, there's no reason to think that it will simply go unnoticed, from small businesses to organisations with massive multi-tree setups. MS' licensing is expensive.
You'd only need a Windows box to administer the rest to start with, but better tools will be made - the current Windows administrative tools may actually work on WINE I suspect. If not, I'll consider making some myself. Which probably means that someone more involved is already on the case:p
Good thing I'm the boss then:p I don't hate MS as much as when I was a student, but I'm definitely going to look into this. I'm not going to completely get rid of our Windows servers right now either. But when Server 2003 goes out of support, I expect I won't be upgrading.
I've done Windows Server and Exchange installs and upgrades without assistance. I did need help the first time I messed up Exchange I'll admit, but it's not that bad once you figure it out and do your research.
This just makes it way, way easier to provide network service redundancy (all the VMs you can eat) and simplify backup/restore procedures without paying for extra licenses. I think it's great.
I don't think you're trolling there, but I don't think you can speak for the "market" in its entirety. If SAMBA 4 works as advertised, it would be dumb to not care. At any level.
ActiveSync/DirectPUSH is one of the few things that MS has done right on mobile. It helped to get rid of Blackberries, so that's fair enough. RIM make MS look like tech Jesus.
Exactly:) I'd rather not have me or my employer fined or given a criminal record for this kind of thing, so I want to ensure that we are fully legal. Of course all the licensing BS and cost just makes it a royal PITA to upgrade, so our network is still running 2003 Server/Exchange. I was considering Server 2008 soon as 2003 will be out of maintenance in a few years, but.. I like this better! Still have to decide what to do with email, but there are some nice mature options out there compared to last time I seriously considered switching (~6 years ago).
You don't sound like you have much of a clue either to be honest; when you buy server licenses, you also need to buy "client" licenses to go with them. These are in addition to normal desktop Windows licenses (as far as I'm aware at least). Though if you're using a non-MS implementation of the server, I don't see why you should need the client licenses too. If you do, that's still a hefty cost, but at least you shouldn't need to upgrade them every few years when running SAMBA.
By retarded monkeys yes. Their installation CD requires IE. The software items had the worst designed interface I have ever seen. I really doubt it will work with any other SQL server.
If you try porting an app from one DB server to another you'll find out that there are some significant differences between SQL implementations too in terms of available functions, data types, etc.. it's possible to keep things generic, but I doubt most developers do so.
I already have loads of client licenses, but this means no more server licensing, so it will be significantly cheaper for small businesses to build a small network with full redundancy, and massively cheaper to build out large networks. Get this onto Ubuntu Server with a friendly interface, and MS will be close to dead in the water as far as servers go.
Having said that, or accounts software (shudder) requires SQL server, but it will be nice to move that off to a VM and have all other network services running on Linux at last. Thankyou SAMBA team:)
I wonder what it would be like to live in a world that simply relies and trusts in the goodness of your neighbors.
I don't think that existed 100 years ago. I don't think that exists anywhere. Not in our society, nor in the animal world. Anything that trusts too much gets wiped out sooner or later.
100 years ago the world may have been more free economically, but issues of race and gender were a lot worse than what we have in most of today's supposedly "civilised" society.
Just had a Google about the last issue and found that if you use "compact view" or "icon view" in Nautlius, it will only select the file name without the extension.. however you don't get the other info columns. Kind of annoying that they can't just use that behaviour for all view modes (where you can press F2 twice rather than once if you really do want to select the entirety of the filename).
Well, that's just the thing. I did have my shortcuts set there. I used to use super-t for opening a terminal. However, Unity used super-t to open the trashcan, and it really pissed me off that I couldn't change that behaviour. Maybe can change it now, but I don't see the point in switching back to Ubuntu when Mint has a much nicer aesthetic all round.
I just meant that I actually prefer Windows 7 UI to Unity. Windows doesn't have the same configuration options as Linux window managers, but the Windows 7 dock does a pretty decent job. I also am happy that they've at last let you create new folders in Win7 with shift+ctrl+n. That's one thing I get annoyed at not having whenever I'm on XP, after getting so used to it with Ubuntu/Mint. I don't understand how the same guy that led the design of Windows 7 could have screwed things up so much with 8. One theory I've had is that maybe MS intentionally make alternating releases shitty to encourage people to upgrade when they get a new machine with the shitty OS?
One tiny little detail where I've noticed Win7 has an edge over XP and Nautilus is that it only selects the "name" of a file rather than the extension as well when renaming a file. It's little details like that that developers need to focus on for good usability IMO. So easy to do, but nice for users.
Yeah that is about when the average female starts to think a solid mate who will provide for her and care about her, is a tad more important than playing idiotic mindgames, teasing, and whoring for attention
Counter-point: it's also when your average geek has settled into a well paying job/career.
Slashdot Mirror
Your tone and post has made me go back and read fully your original, which I apologise for not doing before. I was expecting the usual Christian nonsense, and so I didn't even read it because certain attitudes really wind me up these days. I used to be a Christian myself due to my upbringing, and I believed it all fervently for a couple of decades, but now I don't.
I see you don't subscribe to a human-like god, and I consider that reasonable. I agree that it's just as absurd to state that a god definitely doesn't exist as it does to state that one does. If there is no evidence either way, then to make an irrefutable assumption about it is dumb, on both sides. As you pointed out though, there are certain things that we can rule out, like a visible god, or one making Christians better off than other people, etc.
If you say that those laws came in with the Big Bang, you must acknowledge that the laws may in fact be dynamic, and all science which relies on the assumption that they are static (ie, viewing distant stars with the assumption that speed of light=c) gets thrown into question; and you still havent accounted for the ball of stuff.
I admit I haven't looked a whole lot into the supposed conditions for the big bang, not for a few years at least. I have read about what you're saying about the universal constants and so forth. I have no problem with the concept of the Universe collapsing and re-banging, the rules changing each time, countless other universes/dimensions/whatever. I wasn't saying that the ball of stuff is necessary stable as in it stays inert, I'm just saying that I find it more likely that stuff with no particular order eventually comes to order itself. I believe in the idea of a "god" coming to exist via that type of mechanism, but I find specifically the Abramic notions of a god with human traits that has always existed and is unchanging (that's what the bible claims) rather absurd.
We definitely can't account for the stuff. All we can say is that it's here. We can make up stories about gods and creators too, but it's patently obvious that at least 99.99999% of the stories we make up have no bearing on what really happened. Probably more like 100%. Even when it comes to science we do basically have to guess what happened beyond what we can measure, but to simply say that we can't exist without a god is making a massive recursive assumption - you then have to explain how that god can exist without another god. It's completely circular. So is saying "stuff always existed" in a way, but it's not quite as bizarre as claiming that life must have a creator rather than it being possibly for life/order to emerge from disorder.
It is all kind of absurd if you think about it. We are the Universe arguing about its own existence.. and eventually it will all be gone/meaningless/reset.
For evidence, see any living creature. The slightest little issue, and that creature is dead. It is much more likely that a random arrangement of "stuff" will result in something unintelligent, dead, and definitely not in the habit of creating Universes. If you subscribe to the idea that anything that can exist does exist in some dimension somewhere, then yes, your god could exist. But also there would exist somewhere with an identical universe, but no god.
I get that you're trying to be all deep and pretend like logic and rules don't have to exist outside of our Universe, but some form of order has to exist for things to be in a stable enough state to actually create a Universe.
The only people being unscientific are the ones that say "you're wrong, because.. uh.. magic.. that we could never possibly comprehend, so let's not try!".
Yes, it's a vertigo inducing concept to consider that something has always existed, but the reason I don't accept that a god has always existed is that there is no evidence for such. If you were to accept that something has always existed, why would you think that it would be a fully formed intelligence rather than a bunch of "stuff" that randomly knocks around until something interesting happens?
But, to your first point, God didn't create himself, he simply always was
Okay, then to your point: the big bang wasn't the start of reality, reality simply always was, and there happened to be a big bang.
An unordered system is not likely to become ordered over time
That may not be true on a global scale (ie our Universe will likely eventually succumb to heat death), but simple molecules can aggregate, and become self replicating, and thus create order. We have observed these molecules forming in gas clouds in space. There is evidence supporting order arising from "disorder", but absolutely none for a god that is anything like a human (ie the bible says we were made in god's image). All religions are man made.
you are postulating the possibility that something can create itself, which is... impossible (in my opinion)
Then where did your god come from?
It works both ways. It's far more likely that something simple and relatively unstructured has always existed, and has come to order itself gradually, than some human-like god has always existing. A god could have evolved, but an intelligent god just happening to exist is as likely as that whole watchmaker thingy that theists love to talk about.
What part of SAMBA having been around for 20 years, being in use in many commercial products, SAMBA 4 having been based on Microsoft specifications and having been tested at Microsoft's labs makes you think that this is in any way "untested".
When you've been developing a new version of your software for 10 years, I don't think you're in a rush to release it until it counts as "tested".
A direct Active Directory replacement based on Microsoft specs, and multiple incompatible SQL dialects based on whatever the hell the vendor wanted to do, have basically nothing in common.
I said "as far as servers go". There are already perfectly viable alternatives to SQL Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, IIS, etc. Now there's an easy route to migrate Active Directory to a more secure, reliable and free OS. I'm not making insane claims, just pointing out the facts.
I'm not saying it will happen overnight, but if SAMBA 4 can do what it claims, there's no reason to think that it will simply go unnoticed, from small businesses to organisations with massive multi-tree setups. MS' licensing is expensive.
If the Linux servers can't support AD
You'd only need a Windows box to administer the rest to start with, but better tools will be made - the current Windows administrative tools may actually work on WINE I suspect. If not, I'll consider making some myself. Which probably means that someone more involved is already on the case :p
Of course. Either extreme is likely to end up in failure. But "simply trusting" will never work long term in any non-trivial social structure.
Good thing I'm the boss then :p I don't hate MS as much as when I was a student, but I'm definitely going to look into this. I'm not going to completely get rid of our Windows servers right now either. But when Server 2003 goes out of support, I expect I won't be upgrading.
I've done Windows Server and Exchange installs and upgrades without assistance. I did need help the first time I messed up Exchange I'll admit, but it's not that bad once you figure it out and do your research.
This just makes it way, way easier to provide network service redundancy (all the VMs you can eat) and simplify backup/restore procedures without paying for extra licenses. I think it's great.
I don't think you're trolling there, but I don't think you can speak for the "market" in its entirety. If SAMBA 4 works as advertised, it would be dumb to not care. At any level.
ActiveSync/DirectPUSH is one of the few things that MS has done right on mobile. It helped to get rid of Blackberries, so that's fair enough. RIM make MS look like tech Jesus.
Exactly :) I'd rather not have me or my employer fined or given a criminal record for this kind of thing, so I want to ensure that we are fully legal. Of course all the licensing BS and cost just makes it a royal PITA to upgrade, so our network is still running 2003 Server/Exchange. I was considering Server 2008 soon as 2003 will be out of maintenance in a few years, but.. I like this better! Still have to decide what to do with email, but there are some nice mature options out there compared to last time I seriously considered switching (~6 years ago).
You don't sound like you have much of a clue either to be honest; when you buy server licenses, you also need to buy "client" licenses to go with them. These are in addition to normal desktop Windows licenses (as far as I'm aware at least). Though if you're using a non-MS implementation of the server, I don't see why you should need the client licenses too. If you do, that's still a hefty cost, but at least you shouldn't need to upgrade them every few years when running SAMBA.
By retarded monkeys yes. Their installation CD requires IE. The software items had the worst designed interface I have ever seen. I really doubt it will work with any other SQL server.
If you try porting an app from one DB server to another you'll find out that there are some significant differences between SQL implementations too in terms of available functions, data types, etc.. it's possible to keep things generic, but I doubt most developers do so.
I already have loads of client licenses, but this means no more server licensing, so it will be significantly cheaper for small businesses to build a small network with full redundancy, and massively cheaper to build out large networks. Get this onto Ubuntu Server with a friendly interface, and MS will be close to dead in the water as far as servers go.
Having said that, or accounts software (shudder) requires SQL server, but it will be nice to move that off to a VM and have all other network services running on Linux at last. Thankyou SAMBA team :)
Oh hell yes
The original question was
I wonder what it would be like to live in a world that simply relies and trusts in the goodness of your neighbors.
I don't think that existed 100 years ago. I don't think that exists anywhere. Not in our society, nor in the animal world. Anything that trusts too much gets wiped out sooner or later.
100 years ago the world may have been more free economically, but issues of race and gender were a lot worse than what we have in most of today's supposedly "civilised" society.
Just had a Google about the last issue and found that if you use "compact view" or "icon view" in Nautlius, it will only select the file name without the extension.. however you don't get the other info columns. Kind of annoying that they can't just use that behaviour for all view modes (where you can press F2 twice rather than once if you really do want to select the entirety of the filename).
Well, that's just the thing. I did have my shortcuts set there. I used to use super-t for opening a terminal. However, Unity used super-t to open the trashcan, and it really pissed me off that I couldn't change that behaviour. Maybe can change it now, but I don't see the point in switching back to Ubuntu when Mint has a much nicer aesthetic all round.
I just meant that I actually prefer Windows 7 UI to Unity. Windows doesn't have the same configuration options as Linux window managers, but the Windows 7 dock does a pretty decent job. I also am happy that they've at last let you create new folders in Win7 with shift+ctrl+n. That's one thing I get annoyed at not having whenever I'm on XP, after getting so used to it with Ubuntu/Mint. I don't understand how the same guy that led the design of Windows 7 could have screwed things up so much with 8. One theory I've had is that maybe MS intentionally make alternating releases shitty to encourage people to upgrade when they get a new machine with the shitty OS?
One tiny little detail where I've noticed Win7 has an edge over XP and Nautilus is that it only selects the "name" of a file rather than the extension as well when renaming a file. It's little details like that that developers need to focus on for good usability IMO. So easy to do, but nice for users.
Maybe calcium protects against oral cancer? :p
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Only one of them was into that type of thing, so we'll never know.
Yeah that is about when the average female starts to think a solid mate who will provide for her and care about her, is a tad more important than playing idiotic mindgames, teasing, and whoring for attention
Counter-point: it's also when your average geek has settled into a well paying job/career.