DC vs AC wasn't Edison vs Tesla, it was Edison vs Westinghouse. According to wikipedia, Edison chose DC because when he started building power plants there were no AC motors.
During the initial years of electricity distribution, Edison's direct current was the standard for the United States[3] and Edison did not want to lose all his patent royalties. Direct current worked well with incandescent lamps that were the principal load of the day, and with motors. Direct-current systems could be directly used with storage batteries, providing valuable load-leveling and backup power during interruptions of generator operation. Direct-current generators could be easily paralleled, allowing economical operation by using smaller machines during periods of light load and improving reliability. At the introduction of Edison's system, no practical AC motor was available. Edison had invented a meter to allow customers to be billed for energy proportional to consumption, but this meter worked only with direct current. As of 1882 these were all significant technical advantages of direct current.
It had little to do with technology, everything to do with money.
It wasn't a boulder a few meters wide that killed the dinasaurs, it was a rock the size of a large mountain. There is no way we could bring something that massive to earth.
it'll find task specific things in the new control panel
It won't find where to shut off that annoying "tap to click" feature on the notebook... it's not in control panel (where it should be) at all. 7's CP is a step backwards from XP IMO.
Embarrassingly, Linux gave me a similar idiocy yesterday when I discovered that you could make the bar at the bottom disappear; it was the one thing I thought Windows had an edge. I discovered it by accident; you should not have to discover features by accident, nor should you have to hunt for anything. If the widget or setting isn't where one would logically expect it to be, your UI sucks.
I used the word "wealth" in the materialistic sense, the ideas common today that free means worthless, and a person's worth is determined by his wealth.
That isn't my viewpoint, but most seem to hold it these days.
You might find it hillariously stupid...but then, you probably haven't a clue how the people before him gained their wealth to have him born into it.
Actually, I do My late uncle became very wealthy after being raised in poverty.
The fact is...any can acheive wealth if they figure these things I allude to out and execute the plan they arrive at from that knowlege and do it well.
My uncle would likely not have become rich were it not for several coincidences. Had his ship not been bombed and he injured (WWII) or if he hadn't been sent to the same hospital as his future partner there's no telling what would have happened. Also, if intelligence, creativity, and eye-hand coordination didn't run in the family he'd never been rich.
A kid from the ghetto whose mom is a crack whore and who has no dad doesn't stand a chance.
I tend to think that if we do find an intelligent ET, it will be so alien to us that we won't even realize it's intelligent and may not even realise it's alive at all. It's only recently that they discovered that birds can use tools, and that dolphins and whales are remarkably intelligent.
Considering the vast distance betwen even the closest stars, and the incredibly vast distances between galaxies, that the probably that earth is the only place with life is incredibly tiny, and that we're the only intelligence ever, anywhere is also unlikely. But I doubt we'll ever find them, especially in our lifetimes.
Now, if they somehow create an einstein-busting warp drive (or find a loophole in Einstein's equations), then it's a different story.
Similarly, if you say "wolf" when referring to "pulpits", there isn't much communication.
The "wolf" comes from a parable in the bible. Christ said he was the good shepherd who laid down his life for his flock, and warned of "wolves in sheep's clothing." If we're discussing a book you obviously haven't read, there can be little communication as well.
The eyeball just happened? Illogical! The moon happened; then the dog/cat/eyeball did. All, very logical
The moon is logical; it's just a big pile of boulders that gravity pulled together. Any three year old can make a snowball. But an eyeball just happening by chance? Pretty unbelievable.
I overestimated the number of Jews; 13 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the seven billion people alive today. But Muslims, Jews, and Christians share the old testament and worship the same God. A quick google shows that only about a third of the world's population are athiests, agnostics, Hindus, Wiccans, Bhuddists, Confucionists, etc. combined.
Your deity seems to worship death; at least, as is evidenced by the idolatry (crosses and thorn tiaras).
The death of that one man, God's own son, resulted in the life of all men. And note that the one man who was executed to save you also healed the sick who would otherwise die, and raised ones who were already dead. And what's more, he didn't stay dead! Also note that death comes to all of us, although people today seem to think they're somehow immune.
Very much similar; they all reject each other.
On the contrary, the Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet, and he is revered in their religion. The Jews consider him "a Jewish boy who did well" (no citation, a Jew told me that). It isn't the religions that reject each other, it's the people practicing those religions. And even non-Abrahamic religions, such as Bhuddism, hold the same moral values that say stealing, killing, slandering, adultery, are wrong.
I can formulate predictions
So can a computer, but a computer isn't sentient. And note that computer predictions are often better than human predictions. Note that the computer in the linked story was a 1952 Univac, and as the text notes, "a musical Hallmark greeting card has more computing power."
Pick up a history book and you will find plenty of examples of people using religion to coerce and control a subject population.
That's true, but religion isn't the culprit here, any more than a chain saw is the culprit in a murder. That's not what a chain saw is designed to do, but it can be used for it.
You might as well blame state-sanctioned athiesm for the horrors of Stalin or Pol Pot. Of course, it wasn't athiesm that caused those atrocities, any more than it was religion that caused the atrocities you listed.
Surely the majority of the law abiding and true Islamic believers can whip up the same amount of public opposition they use to attack Isreal,the US, and even their own native populations. Why do they not do this against those distorting and using their religion to justify violence?
Cowardice. It takes a brave soul to face torture and death.
The behavior and actions of the Islamic extremists are daily front page news and that negatively effects the entire Islamic religion in other peoples eyes.
True, and disgusting.
The leadership of all religious orders can be just as corrupt and controlling as the leadership of any government in a secular system.
Also true. Humans are corrupt by their very nature, but it isn't religion that made Bin Laden corrupt, and it wasn't athiesm that made Pol Pot corrrupt.
I am not against any religion but when a religion starts trying to control or manipulate those who believe differently or those who do not believe at all they should be exposed and the charge of blasphemy should not be an acceptable excuse for their behavior.
I agree wholeheartedly. And BTW, blasphemy was the crime Jesus of Nazareth was executed for.
Yes, it is. You don't have to have faith that your wife exists, but you must be faithful to her.
Luke 16: 10 -- He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
11If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
12And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
Since when is money a "god"?
You've never heard od the Almighty Dollar? Mammon is worshiped by most Americans; it is what they love and depend on, and they are faithful to their little green god.
Luke 16:13 -- No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Mammon, of course, is the archaic word for money.
Why would "God" be so worried about all these lesser false gods, such as "mother nature"?
If you wrote a complex program, or a large, well written book, or painted a masterpiece, how would you like someone else taking credit for it? If you're married, how would you like walking in on her as she's sucking another guy's dick?
Is it possible omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are not attributes after all?
Can you not put a breakpoint in your code? Can you not examine every byte of your program? Can you not delete, add, or rewrite parts of it? How could the creator of the universe not be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent?
Arguments for sentience would require an agreed upon definition of sentience.
How about Webster's dictionary?
Definition of SENTIENCE 1: a sentient quality or state [useless, self referential definition] 2: feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought First Known Use of SENTIENCE 1839
I could easily program a computer to scream in pain when you presses the "A" key, but the computer would not actually feel anything; computers are incapable of thought, feeling or emotion. Actors in movies convincingly pretend to feel pain when it's just a movie. So prove to me that you have emotions and feel pleasure and pain.
No real reason that robotic missions are impossible.
Voyager has been travelling for forty years and is just now at the edge of the solar system. If it were headed to Proxima Centuri it wouldn't arrive for millinea. It takes ten to twenty minutes, depending on where the respective planets are in their orbits, for a radio signal to reach the Mars rovers.
Holy crap, you're either very young or you haven't been to a hospital in a long time. Ever hear of ether? That used to be used as a anasthetic in surgery. They used cloth and plaster for broken bones, hot as hell if you sweat. They never had defilibrators, OR monitors, stents, artificial joints, CrystaLens implants, MRI, sonograms, cochlear implants... no innovation? Congratulations on the most ignorant comment I've seen today, son.
Food is certainly not innovative
I see you've never been outside a city. Farming technology is nothing like it was 25 years ago. Hell, they have harvesters that run themselves using GPS now. And without farms, there's no food. Without food innovation there'd be a hell of a lot more hunger in the world.
Where do you kids come up with these dumb ideas, anyway?
There are no good arguments in favor of the truth of sentience (please feel free to provide any, if you can). I can no more prove I'm sentient than I can prove God's existance, or you can prove his nonexistance. Religious people are religious because they had an indescribable religious experience, not because they've been brainwashed or browbeaten. Once that happens, disbelief is impossible, no faith necessary. It's athiesm that demands faith; unless you've had a religious experience the only logical position is agnosticism.
Even many organized religions are aware of that, which is why they insist so much on faith.
You misunderstand "faith". It isn't "having faith that God exists, it's "faith" as in being faithful to God and not worshiping another god, such as money or "mother nature" (the Wiccan god).
Most main stream religions seem to pontificate about how God created man in is own image
Only if you only count Abrahamic religions as "mainstream". There are millions upon millions of Bhuddists and Hindus, you know. AND, if and when we do find ET, do you really think he's going to be a Vulcan? Look at the diversity of life on earth, all of which has a common evolution. The sci-fi idea (usually in movies and TV, seldom in literature) that ET will look anything at all like us is ludicrous, even more ludicrous than the insistance that there must be or cannot be life elsewhere.
The main religions of the world which are Christianity and Islam were created are to serve as a control mechanism that allowed the people at the top to gain power and wealth.
That's just flat out incorrect. Christianity is decidedly against power and wealth; and yes, I am a Christian. It is against wealth, greed, pride, narcisism. It is for peace, humility, forgiveness (above all), and happiness. I'll lay a few passages from the Christian bible about wealth and power:
Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
âoeBlessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
That led to his execution.
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
The clock is unimportant for outdoor work. Lots of construction workers go to Felbers (in fact most of them are in construction). In the summer, the roofers start working as soon as it's light enough to see and quit when it gets too hot, at 11:00 am to 2:00 pm depending on the weather (and usually head straight to the bar).
DST is for us desk jockeys to get a little sun, the guys working outside get plenty.
If clear evidence of extraterrestrials is ever found can you imagine the gigantic shit storm it would create?
I'm a Christian, and I think the liklihood that this rock is the only one one bering life is improbable. On the other hand, there are so many here at slashdot that are 100% certain we will find ET. Such faith! Me, I think it's unlikely we'll not find ET sooner or later, but it's not unthinkable that this is the only place with life.
Back in the day anyone claiming the Earth was round and not flat were labeled heretics and killed.
Incorrect; Galleleo was persecuted for saying the earth wasn't the center of the universe, not that it was round. I have herad of no incidents where someone was stoned for not thinking the earth was flat, do you have a citation?
Nixon wasn't impeached, he resigned before impeachment proceedings started. And far from being less than Soylandra, it was far worse a scandal -- Republican burglars broke in and stole Democrat documents with Nixon's blessing, sodomizing the democratic process itself. Soylandra is more like what put Nixon's VP in prison.
So here's a thought : the only way atheists get convinced of atheism is exactly the same way people get convinced of religions.
There was a study recently that I found fascinating. They did MRIs on people's brains, and asked them their religious preferences, which (coming from a bible belt state) were Athiest, agnostic, Protestant, Catholic, and fundamentalist. They found that athiests and fundamentalists had smaller hippocampuses than agnostics, Catholics, or Protestants.
There sure seem to be a lot of evangelical athiests at slashdot, seemingly interjecting religion into every topic, no matter how off the topic they are (and they still get modded up by their fellow zealots).
The most devoutly religious are those who worship money. I'm ok with athiests, I'll pity them and laugh at them while they're pitying and laughing at me, but money worshipers make me sad and angry.
e.g. atheists pushing climate regulation. why ? it won't crash before you're dead
"Survival of the species is everybody's business." -- A Child's Garden of Grass: A Pre-legalization Comedy (audio version)
and had made the interface so that everything wasn't buried 3 dialogs deep
That's one of the problems I have with ALL Microsoft products and one reason why I wouldn't buy a Microsoft phone. MS is terrible at useability, but their marketing department is so good that they've convinced most everybody that they're user-friendly, when they're downright user-hostile.
The only folks I know of who make a worse interface is most of the dweebs who set up DVDs. First you have an unskippable piracy warning, then trailers, often unskippable themselves. Then a menu with two minutes of music before the actual menu comes up -- which contains only two items, the PG rated version of the movie and the unrated version. Then yet another version with "play movie", chapter selection, audio selection, and special features. Go into the special features or chapter selection and it's likely to be several layers deep. IMO it's retarded.
Slashdot Mirror
DC vs AC wasn't Edison vs Tesla, it was Edison vs Westinghouse. According to wikipedia, Edison chose DC because when he started building power plants there were no AC motors.
It had little to do with technology, everything to do with money.
It wasn't a boulder a few meters wide that killed the dinasaurs, it was a rock the size of a large mountain. There is no way we could bring something that massive to earth.
it'll find task specific things in the new control panel
It won't find where to shut off that annoying "tap to click" feature on the notebook... it's not in control panel (where it should be) at all. 7's CP is a step backwards from XP IMO.
Embarrassingly, Linux gave me a similar idiocy yesterday when I discovered that you could make the bar at the bottom disappear; it was the one thing I thought Windows had an edge. I discovered it by accident; you should not have to discover features by accident, nor should you have to hunt for anything. If the widget or setting isn't where one would logically expect it to be, your UI sucks.
I see you have lived a sheltered life
I see you've never read my journals.
Maybe its because i cant punch you in the face if you flipped me the bird?
This is just silly. If you get violent because someone makes a gesture, no matter how rude, you have some serious emotional problems.
Depends on your viewpoint. Riches aren't wealth
I used the word "wealth" in the materialistic sense, the ideas common today that free means worthless, and a person's worth is determined by his wealth.
That isn't my viewpoint, but most seem to hold it these days.
You might find it hillariously stupid...but then, you probably haven't a clue how the people before him gained their wealth to have him born into it.
Actually, I do My late uncle became very wealthy after being raised in poverty.
The fact is...any can acheive wealth if they figure these things I allude to out and execute the plan they arrive at from that knowlege and do it well.
My uncle would likely not have become rich were it not for several coincidences. Had his ship not been bombed and he injured (WWII) or if he hadn't been sent to the same hospital as his future partner there's no telling what would have happened. Also, if intelligence, creativity, and eye-hand coordination didn't run in the family he'd never been rich.
A kid from the ghetto whose mom is a crack whore and who has no dad doesn't stand a chance.
FDA continues to admit it's useless and just likes to thrash its arms about in a non threatening manner.
Yeah? The guy that owned this peanut processing facility went to prison. Useless and non-threatening? Hardly.
I'm offended at Google's immaturity. Minors aren't allowed to have a G+ account, right? Then what's the problem with someone flipping the bird?
Jesus, Google, grow the fuck up.
I tend to think that if we do find an intelligent ET, it will be so alien to us that we won't even realize it's intelligent and may not even realise it's alive at all. It's only recently that they discovered that birds can use tools, and that dolphins and whales are remarkably intelligent.
Considering the vast distance betwen even the closest stars, and the incredibly vast distances between galaxies, that the probably that earth is the only place with life is incredibly tiny, and that we're the only intelligence ever, anywhere is also unlikely. But I doubt we'll ever find them, especially in our lifetimes.
Now, if they somehow create an einstein-busting warp drive (or find a loophole in Einstein's equations), then it's a different story.
Your comment assumed by its wording that poor people are unemployed. The vast majority are not.
Bacon, eggs, butter, and lard are all high in cholesterol, which is what her doctors were warning her about.
Similarly, if you say "wolf" when referring to "pulpits", there isn't much communication.
The "wolf" comes from a parable in the bible. Christ said he was the good shepherd who laid down his life for his flock, and warned of "wolves in sheep's clothing." If we're discussing a book you obviously haven't read, there can be little communication as well.
The eyeball just happened? Illogical!
The moon happened; then the dog/cat/eyeball did. All, very logical
The moon is logical; it's just a big pile of boulders that gravity pulled together. Any three year old can make a snowball. But an eyeball just happening by chance? Pretty unbelievable.
As they say in wikipedia, "Citation needed".
As of the early 21st century, Christianity has around 2.2 billion adherents.[1][2][3] The faith represents nearly one-third of the world's population
Another third are Muslim.
I overestimated the number of Jews; 13 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the seven billion people alive today. But Muslims, Jews, and Christians share the old testament and worship the same God. A quick google shows that only about a third of the world's population are athiests, agnostics, Hindus, Wiccans, Bhuddists, Confucionists, etc. combined.
Your deity seems to worship death; at least, as is evidenced by the idolatry (crosses and thorn tiaras).
The death of that one man, God's own son, resulted in the life of all men. And note that the one man who was executed to save you also healed the sick who would otherwise die, and raised ones who were already dead. And what's more, he didn't stay dead! Also note that death comes to all of us, although people today seem to think they're somehow immune.
Very much similar; they all reject each other.
On the contrary, the Muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet, and he is revered in their religion. The Jews consider him "a Jewish boy who did well" (no citation, a Jew told me that). It isn't the religions that reject each other, it's the people practicing those religions. And even non-Abrahamic religions, such as Bhuddism, hold the same moral values that say stealing, killing, slandering, adultery, are wrong.
I can formulate predictions
So can a computer, but a computer isn't sentient. And note that computer predictions are often better than human predictions. Note that the computer in the linked story was a 1952 Univac, and as the text notes, "a musical Hallmark greeting card has more computing power."
Pick up a history book and you will find plenty of examples of people using religion to coerce and control a subject population.
That's true, but religion isn't the culprit here, any more than a chain saw is the culprit in a murder. That's not what a chain saw is designed to do, but it can be used for it.
You might as well blame state-sanctioned athiesm for the horrors of Stalin or Pol Pot. Of course, it wasn't athiesm that caused those atrocities, any more than it was religion that caused the atrocities you listed.
Surely the majority of the law abiding and true Islamic believers can whip up the same amount of public opposition they use to attack Isreal,the US, and even their own native populations. Why do they not do this against those distorting and using their religion to justify violence?
Cowardice. It takes a brave soul to face torture and death.
The behavior and actions of the Islamic extremists are daily front page news and that negatively effects the entire Islamic religion in other peoples eyes.
True, and disgusting.
The leadership of all religious orders can be just as corrupt and controlling as the leadership of any government in a secular system.
Also true. Humans are corrupt by their very nature, but it isn't religion that made Bin Laden corrupt, and it wasn't athiesm that made Pol Pot corrrupt.
I am not against any religion but when a religion starts trying to control or manipulate those who believe differently or those who do not believe at all they should be exposed and the charge of blasphemy should not be an acceptable excuse for their behavior.
I agree wholeheartedly. And BTW, blasphemy was the crime Jesus of Nazareth was executed for.
Really? Is it?
Yes, it is. You don't have to have faith that your wife exists, but you must be faithful to her.
Luke 16: 10 -- He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
11If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
12And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
Since when is money a "god"?
You've never heard od the Almighty Dollar? Mammon is worshiped by most Americans; it is what they love and depend on, and they are faithful to their little green god.
Luke 16:13 -- No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Mammon, of course, is the archaic word for money.
Why would "God" be so worried about all these lesser false gods, such as "mother nature"?
If you wrote a complex program, or a large, well written book, or painted a masterpiece, how would you like someone else taking credit for it? If you're married, how would you like walking in on her as she's sucking another guy's dick?
Is it possible omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are not attributes after all?
Can you not put a breakpoint in your code? Can you not examine every byte of your program? Can you not delete, add, or rewrite parts of it? How could the creator of the universe not be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent?
Arguments for sentience would require an agreed upon definition of sentience.
How about Webster's dictionary?
Definition of SENTIENCE
1: a sentient quality or state [useless, self referential definition]
2: feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought
First Known Use of SENTIENCE
1839
I could easily program a computer to scream in pain when you presses the "A" key, but the computer would not actually feel anything; computers are incapable of thought, feeling or emotion. Actors in movies convincingly pretend to feel pain when it's just a movie. So prove to me that you have emotions and feel pleasure and pain.
No real reason that robotic missions are impossible.
Voyager has been travelling for forty years and is just now at the edge of the solar system. If it were headed to Proxima Centuri it wouldn't arrive for millinea. It takes ten to twenty minutes, depending on where the respective planets are in their orbits, for a radio signal to reach the Mars rovers.
If there are extraterrestrials found at some point and they are vastly different from us then whose image did God create them in?
Whose image were squids and starfish and platypuses and kiwis created in? And how is a mockingbird any different than an ET life form in this respect?
Medical is not innovative for consumers.
Holy crap, you're either very young or you haven't been to a hospital in a long time. Ever hear of ether? That used to be used as a anasthetic in surgery. They used cloth and plaster for broken bones, hot as hell if you sweat. They never had defilibrators, OR monitors, stents, artificial joints, CrystaLens implants, MRI, sonograms, cochlear implants... no innovation? Congratulations on the most ignorant comment I've seen today, son.
Food is certainly not innovative
I see you've never been outside a city. Farming technology is nothing like it was 25 years ago. Hell, they have harvesters that run themselves using GPS now. And without farms, there's no food. Without food innovation there'd be a hell of a lot more hunger in the world.
Where do you kids come up with these dumb ideas, anyway?
There are no good arguments in favor of the truth of sentience (please feel free to provide any, if you can). I can no more prove I'm sentient than I can prove God's existance, or you can prove his nonexistance. Religious people are religious because they had an indescribable religious experience, not because they've been brainwashed or browbeaten. Once that happens, disbelief is impossible, no faith necessary. It's athiesm that demands faith; unless you've had a religious experience the only logical position is agnosticism.
Even many organized religions are aware of that, which is why they insist so much on faith.
You misunderstand "faith". It isn't "having faith that God exists, it's "faith" as in being faithful to God and not worshiping another god, such as money or "mother nature" (the Wiccan god).
This does kind of have the smell of a big secret about to brake
I think you just said the exact opposite of what you thought you said.
Most main stream religions seem to pontificate about how God created man in is own image
Only if you only count Abrahamic religions as "mainstream". There are millions upon millions of Bhuddists and Hindus, you know. AND, if and when we do find ET, do you really think he's going to be a Vulcan? Look at the diversity of life on earth, all of which has a common evolution. The sci-fi idea (usually in movies and TV, seldom in literature) that ET will look anything at all like us is ludicrous, even more ludicrous than the insistance that there must be or cannot be life elsewhere.
The main religions of the world which are Christianity and Islam were created are to serve as a control mechanism that allowed the people at the top to gain power and wealth.
That's just flat out incorrect. Christianity is decidedly against power and wealth; and yes, I am a Christian. It is against wealth, greed, pride, narcisism. It is for peace, humility, forgiveness (above all), and happiness. I'll lay a few passages from the Christian bible about wealth and power:
That led to his execution.
The clock is unimportant for outdoor work. Lots of construction workers go to Felbers (in fact most of them are in construction). In the summer, the roofers start working as soon as it's light enough to see and quit when it gets too hot, at 11:00 am to 2:00 pm depending on the weather (and usually head straight to the bar).
DST is for us desk jockeys to get a little sun, the guys working outside get plenty.
If clear evidence of extraterrestrials is ever found can you imagine the gigantic shit storm it would create?
I'm a Christian, and I think the liklihood that this rock is the only one one bering life is improbable. On the other hand, there are so many here at slashdot that are 100% certain we will find ET. Such faith! Me, I think it's unlikely we'll not find ET sooner or later, but it's not unthinkable that this is the only place with life.
Back in the day anyone claiming the Earth was round and not flat were labeled heretics and killed.
Incorrect; Galleleo was persecuted for saying the earth wasn't the center of the universe, not that it was round. I have herad of no incidents where someone was stoned for not thinking the earth was flat, do you have a citation?
Nixon wasn't impeached, he resigned before impeachment proceedings started. And far from being less than Soylandra, it was far worse a scandal -- Republican burglars broke in and stole Democrat documents with Nixon's blessing, sodomizing the democratic process itself. Soylandra is more like what put Nixon's VP in prison.
So here's a thought :
the only way atheists get convinced of atheism is exactly the same way people get convinced of religions.
There was a study recently that I found fascinating. They did MRIs on people's brains, and asked them their religious preferences, which (coming from a bible belt state) were Athiest, agnostic, Protestant, Catholic, and fundamentalist. They found that athiests and fundamentalists had smaller hippocampuses than agnostics, Catholics, or Protestants.
There sure seem to be a lot of evangelical athiests at slashdot, seemingly interjecting religion into every topic, no matter how off the topic they are (and they still get modded up by their fellow zealots).
The most devoutly religious are those who worship money. I'm ok with athiests, I'll pity them and laugh at them while they're pitying and laughing at me, but money worshipers make me sad and angry.
e.g. atheists pushing climate regulation. why ? it won't crash before you're dead
"Survival of the species is everybody's business." -- A Child's Garden of Grass: A Pre-legalization Comedy (audio version)
and had made the interface so that everything wasn't buried 3 dialogs deep
That's one of the problems I have with ALL Microsoft products and one reason why I wouldn't buy a Microsoft phone. MS is terrible at useability, but their marketing department is so good that they've convinced most everybody that they're user-friendly, when they're downright user-hostile.
The only folks I know of who make a worse interface is most of the dweebs who set up DVDs. First you have an unskippable piracy warning, then trailers, often unskippable themselves. Then a menu with two minutes of music before the actual menu comes up -- which contains only two items, the PG rated version of the movie and the unrated version. Then yet another version with "play movie", chapter selection, audio selection, and special features. Go into the special features or chapter selection and it's likely to be several layers deep. IMO it's retarded.