I also love the unnecessary hyperbole - not "little satellites", "mini satellites" or even "microsatellites", but nanosatellites? Are they really one-billionth the size of a regular satellite?
Considering that "satellite" is not a standard unit of measurement, "nanosatellite" can be colloquially understood to mean "comparatively tiny satellite" by those of us who don't have giant sticks shoved up our arses.
but I was surprised that after all of the Penny-Arcade comics about World of Warcraft that Bilzzard wasn't there
That's probably because Blizzard has its own convention, Blizzcon, happening at the end of October, and either don't want to spare the resources to have a presence at another con so close to it (and yet quite far from Blizzard's offices in Irvine), or don't want to divide the attention of their fans.
My best mishap was installing the alpha video driver on an NT 3.51 box thinking that it was just an alpha driver. Of course since this Alpha meant DEC and this was an x86 box, the server barfed pretty hard.
Ha ha ha! Oh, Taco! You and your hi-larious shenanigans.
I simply don't find it credible that you would accept that as evidence.
*shrug* It's idle speculation, since none of those things have happened to me.
Is it reasonable to suggest that there is NO creator? Can you logically say that without having all knowledge? I don't think that's a rational point of view.
I don't either, but that's not my point of view. My point of view is that it's irrational to claim that anything exists or is true if you lack evidence for it. That includes God, Elvis sightings, or the notion that adding a new freeway to a particular urban area will decrease congestion.
Wouldn't it be more intellectually honest to say that
a) you do not know whether there is or is not a God, and
b) you're unwilling to consider any evidence that might convince you otherwise?
Only a tiny amount of "evidence" (in the sense of physical or experiential evidence) has ever been presented to me. Most of what is usually called "evidence" are actually arguments, and all of them (so far) have been tautological at best. You're welcome to present whatever arguments or evidence you like, and I will duly consider them.
(I'm happy to continue this conversation here, or if you'd rather continue it in email, feel free. My email address is matt at waggoner dot com.)
*sigh* Fine. How about this: God himself descends from the heavens and performs a bunch of incontrovertible, literally inexplicable miracles in front of me. That'd probably do it.
Given what I know about the origins of religious belief (explanations conjured by ancient tribespeople to explain the cruel world they lived in, assisted by regions of the brain that evolved to help us organize via "shared" "religious" experiences), it would be silly to establish a standard of evidence for the existence of deities that were quite definitely made up. It's like asking me what evidence would be sufficient to convince me that Santa Claus exists, or the Tooth Fairy.
They wouldn't show... Chicago? The one with Richard Gere that won Best Picture three years ago? Is Newport, RI populated entirely by people who hate musicals or something?
I went in to the documentary hoping to see some science, but it turned out to be mostly pretty pictures and emotionally loaded nonsense.
Documentaries are not, and are not meant to be, scientific research papers. If you want numerical facts about penguins, there's a lot of resources for them -- but one thing that scientific abstracts can't* do that films can is provoke a strong emotional response. Think about how many kids will want to learn about penguins after seeing MotP.
* I'm sure you could write a scientific abstract that could provoke a strong emotional response, but that is rarely the intent of the authors. That is always the intent of good filmmakers.
It's entirely possible that a modest rate of homosexuality actually helps a (highly socialized) species survive, in that it decreases the the possibility of overpopulation, decreases the amount of (potentially disruptive) competition for females, and frees up some extra individuals from the burdens of child rearing so that they can devote their efforts to other things that are useful to the species as a whole (e.g. defending the group from invaders/predators).
Significant research has shown that later children in the birth order are progressively more likely to be homosexual. It would indicate that homosexuality evolved for population control reasons, or maybe it's a genetic selection thing -- when the same couple has had several children, they're not really increasing the fitness of the overall gene pool as much with each additional child as they were with the first few, so it helps genetic fitness to have those later children be less likely to reproduce.
But those cable/DSL lines are private property, paid for and owned by private companies. Am I willing to destroy the concept of property rights just so there can be "competing" cable companies? No way.
It's thornier than that -- that "private property" is being run over public land, and the telcos and cable companies are the only ones allowed to run those lines there. (As I understand it; I could be completely wrong.)
this uses water and fuel (the bulkiest of the supplies) as additional shielding, but it still carries a much elevated risk of irradiation and/or cancer than staying put on earth.
Yes, however they also have a much higher chance of getting to be on Mars, whereas those of us who stay on Earth have zero chance of being on Mars, and are all going to eventually get cancer anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
If anything about reality becomes like that godawful piece of shit movie Red Planet, I will blow up the Earth. I mean it.
Heathen! How could you forget "hyper"?
I have discovered a truly marvelous arse-stick-removing technique, however this Slashdot post is too small to contain it.
It's definitely a stunning development.
Offtopic, but your subject line has to be the first time I've ever seen anyone quote that particular line from "Airplane" :)
*sigh* Fine. How about this: God himself descends from the heavens and performs a bunch of incontrovertible, literally inexplicable miracles in front of me. That'd probably do it.
Given what I know about the origins of religious belief (explanations conjured by ancient tribespeople to explain the cruel world they lived in, assisted by regions of the brain that evolved to help us organize via "shared" "religious" experiences), it would be silly to establish a standard of evidence for the existence of deities that were quite definitely made up. It's like asking me what evidence would be sufficient to convince me that Santa Claus exists, or the Tooth Fairy.
They wouldn't show... Chicago? The one with Richard Gere that won Best Picture three years ago? Is Newport, RI populated entirely by people who hate musicals or something?
* I'm sure you could write a scientific abstract that could provoke a strong emotional response, but that is rarely the intent of the authors. That is always the intent of good filmmakers.
No it isn't -- fire can't propagate spherically in a completely empty vacuum at the speed of light :)
Settle down, Beavis. The GP didn't bash all electric or hybrid cars, just the EV1.
No, clearly the name "PS3" is merely a number in base 29 (digits: 0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS). So in reality, it'll cost $22,710!
I'm looking forward to the DRM-enabled Mickey Mouse. ;)
"Minor planet" != "planet"