The point the parent was making is that it's conceivable to have a design spec in which *there shouldn't be any triangles* and thus the fault (bug) is not in the code that doesn't work with triangles.
That is, enumerating subtypes may be bad design style but doesn't constitute a tangible bug in and of itself.
I love the substitution principle. I don't understand the extent of her contributions to the field: particularly, how novel they were and what the world of computer science would be like today if she never existed. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Are all theists this paranoid? Do you really think there's a great atheist conspiracy to track your comments and respond, and if necessary, call in backup?
Great atheist.. wha..? I'm not a theist, as I thought I made clear in my first post. Why would I think there's a conspiracy? In my last post I was merely remarking on our differing levels of support for the man, and outlined why I thought he could be called "confrontational".
Quote mining, eh?
Huh? No, those are words I pulled from an interview I heard recently online. I didn't have the luxury of a transcript, or at least I didn't know if I did - that was from memory (less than a week prior).
Typical creationist tactic.
What the fuck are you talking about? What are you, an atheist or a theist? Which do you think I am?
And why are you so hostile to my (very mild, at that) criticism of a man? You can't just argue your point without speculating that.. well, I have no idea what you were even trying to insinuate. I just know it was decidedly strange for a Dawkins supporter to go after style and characterization instead of pure substance and force of argument.
I don't understand why you need a bootloader in the BIOS. It's not enough to have one on the MBR of the primary disk? It'd be a nice feature to have, yes, but hardly a necessary one.
I'd prefer BIOS and motherboard vendors get their act together on reducing the time between powerup and entering the boot loader. My ASUS board takes way too long; it's half my boot time (although some of that may be delays in grub loading itself).
(Read this after my reply below (accidentally posted AC) to your higher comment.)
Even if there are valid competing theories, they're not mainstream enough for the legislature to have been referring to anything besides ID. For that I fault them, since it underscores a general political bias against objective fact-finding and learning.
The resolution says Dawkins'
public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma
"Diversity of thinking" at least has the form of a proper complaint against him. Furthermore, the complaint is correct in so far as one includes non-science under the umbrella of "diversity". I don't think science has an obligation to not hurt people's feelings. If we accept a narrower view of "diversity" and just include scientific ideas, then I'm not sure how you would substatiate the claim.
But to attack a scientist because the evidence doesn't jive well with various cultures? Or because it doesn't match the thinking of a majority of the citizens of the state? They're not condemning Dawkins for being scientifically intolerant, they're condemning him for not compromising his views and representation of the evidence to suit the unscientific majority.
I understand that you're trying to guard against a complacency in science that we need not challenge our existing ideas. But from what I've seen of Dawkins so far, your attacks are misplaced. You had a better claim against him when you called him inflammatory, but he is not unscientific.
I find it funny that my Dawkins apologist tone was apparently harsh enough to warrant a second Dawkins apologist to step in.
Dawkins refers to the beliefs that many people base their entire lives on as "infantile", and their God as an "imaginary friend". I defend his right to use those terms to express the clarity with which an objective viewer might see Christains' beliefs revealed as glorified superstition. But insulting someone's faith, even if it's justified, isn't the best way to convert them.
Nexuiz is notoriously unoptomized in its model vertex count and perhaps other areas. I wouldn't be surprised if it's CPU bound in ways that other games aren't.
Thanks for the substantiation. I'd heard of Limbaugh shoveling crap about the Democrats' position on it, but nothing nearly as reliable as a series of quotes a guy pasted in a comment thread on the Internet.;)
Seriously, I didn't realize that anyone was still actually considering reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine. I'll be a bit more alert when I hear Democratic talking points.
For the record, I generally recognize the authority of the FCC to impose the doctrine at its discretion, but wish that it didn't have that power and instead focused on increasing diversity of ownership.
I had something of a WTF moment when I read your reply; it took me a moment to realize that you believe there are serious scientific alternatives to evolution.
The school could invite speakers to discuss Lamarckian Evolution, but I don't see the merit of discussing disproven theories from hundreds of years ago for the sake of "diversity".
In this case, the legislators are incorrect in their implication that there are viable scientific alternatives to the theory of evolution. The only one that comes close, in popularity and not merit of course, is ID, which is a religious viewpoint.
Therefore, I don't understand how you can claim religion is not involved here.
As for Dawkins "inflammatory statements torwards anyone with an opposing view": Dawkins attacks meritless propositions, challenging their supporters to reply with a rational counterargument. I don't see why intelligent discourse should be curbed simply to avoid being perceived as inflammatory.
My "anxiety" by the way is anti-anti-science. I have nothing against religion in the broad sense, when it does not interfere with our efforts to better understand the universe.
Replace evolution with holocaust denial and you'll see the basis the government entities have to condemn if not banish expressions that are protected under the First Amendment.
> Unfortunately, it is a thinly veiled threat to the president of the university
The reason they mentioned that the university is publicly funded was to establish their jurisdiction over its actions, as the legislature would have no business condemning a private entity for its beliefs except in the broad sense in which, for example, the UN can condemn human rights violations.
> Maybe enough bad debt, cold and hunger will finally get people to realize that real science can be a vehicle to productive jobs and accept that their 6000 year old Earth hypothesis doesn't hold water.
No, if anything hard times will make people turn to religion more than before.
That was my first reaction to him too, but I heard a second interview with him that softened me up to the fairness of his stern argument.
His saving grace is that his disrespect is directed at ideas and not people, except in so far as people are obligated to defend their ideas. His claims are a call to action for theists to respond with a rational counter argument.
That's a war they most often can't win, for Dawkins, like any well-spoken intellectual, is very good at rationally arguing a point, while his challengers are normally motivated by raw emotion and belief. Their only chance is to change the terms of debate away from Dawkins' centerpiece.
That said, I agree that his confrontational style may be ineffective at getting people to like him. In fact, I dislike the word atheism as a description for my own beliefs in part because it conjures up images of people like Dawkins. But nonbelievers need strong proponents of rationalism to counter religious evangelicalism.
Eh? I've heard an interview and a lecture by Dawkins (neither one live), and I don't think I ever heard him attack individuals, except for the actions their beliefs may lead them to.
He is directly insulting/dismissive to broad classes of theists, but he doesn't make unqualified categorical anti-theist claims that he can't back up. For instance, for those who believe in an active God as opposed to a one-time non-interventionist Creator, he calls this an infantile belief in an imaginary friend. For the Creationists who don't have anything to do with an active God, he'll use more reserved terms directed at accurately describing their systems of beliefs and reasoning. "Infantile" in that case would not apply, but "unsophisticated" might.
The point is, he doesn't attack people for anything they don't have an obligation to defend.
Their problem is that they wanted their own crap theories represented at the conference as well, and probably given equal weight. If they did that then the legislature wouldn't feel the need to censure (not censor) the university.
I don't understand why religious types would ever want a fair representation next to the likes of Dawkins. They'd get their clocks cleaned each time.
A quick Wikipedia check reveals that you're mixing the memorial with the Freedom Tower. The Tower was started in 2006, and the memorial will be done by 2011.
Not necessarily. I downloaded Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song" from a torrent without ever uploading a single byte of it. In fact I believe that's my one and only slashdot journal entry.
For me, Lars is the epitome of luddite elitism. I remember being enraged when I heard that Metallica signed a deal with Apple to distribute through iTunes - years after everyone else already had made similar deals. The idea that they were just willing to reject a new generation of technology and listeners based solely on their misdirected anger from a previous entanglement...
Whether or not that was the reason, that is the role Lars has assumed in my mind, and I can easily rationalize keeping him there until he just outright admits he's been wrong this entire time. If he wants to wage a culture war against my generation and my technology, then he made himself my enemy.
In fact: I'm applying Reverse Chuck Norris Jokes to him. Lars Ulrich sucks dick for taxi cab fare and walks home.
Slashdot Mirror
The point the parent was making is that it's conceivable to have a design spec in which *there shouldn't be any triangles* and thus the fault (bug) is not in the code that doesn't work with triangles.
That is, enumerating subtypes may be bad design style but doesn't constitute a tangible bug in and of itself.
I love the substitution principle. I don't understand the extent of her contributions to the field: particularly, how novel they were and what the world of computer science would be like today if she never existed. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Are all theists this paranoid? Do you really think there's a great atheist conspiracy to track your comments and respond, and if necessary, call in backup?
Great atheist.. wha..? I'm not a theist, as I thought I made clear in my first post. Why would I think there's a conspiracy? In my last post I was merely remarking on our differing levels of support for the man, and outlined why I thought he could be called "confrontational".
Quote mining, eh?
Huh? No, those are words I pulled from an interview I heard recently online. I didn't have the luxury of a transcript, or at least I didn't know if I did - that was from memory (less than a week prior).
Typical creationist tactic.
What the fuck are you talking about? What are you, an atheist or a theist? Which do you think I am?
And why are you so hostile to my (very mild, at that) criticism of a man? You can't just argue your point without speculating that.. well, I have no idea what you were even trying to insinuate. I just know it was decidedly strange for a Dawkins supporter to go after style and characterization instead of pure substance and force of argument.
You're confusing the hell out of me.
Man, the lengths some people will go to to not read the article.
I don't understand why you need a bootloader in the BIOS. It's not enough to have one on the MBR of the primary disk? It'd be a nice feature to have, yes, but hardly a necessary one.
I'd prefer BIOS and motherboard vendors get their act together on reducing the time between powerup and entering the boot loader. My ASUS board takes way too long; it's half my boot time (although some of that may be delays in grub loading itself).
The point is that the app most people want to run is likely on the web, so you're dealing with mozilla, not GNU.
Jack Thompsons ego must be rolling around in his sanity's grave right about now...
(Read this after my reply below (accidentally posted AC) to your higher comment.)
Even if there are valid competing theories, they're not mainstream enough for the legislature to have been referring to anything besides ID. For that I fault them, since it underscores a general political bias against objective fact-finding and learning.
The resolution says Dawkins'
public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma
"Diversity of thinking" at least has the form of a proper complaint against him. Furthermore, the complaint is correct in so far as one includes non-science under the umbrella of "diversity". I don't think science has an obligation to not hurt people's feelings. If we accept a narrower view of "diversity" and just include scientific ideas, then I'm not sure how you would substatiate the claim.
But to attack a scientist because the evidence doesn't jive well with various cultures? Or because it doesn't match the thinking of a majority of the citizens of the state? They're not condemning Dawkins for being scientifically intolerant, they're condemning him for not compromising his views and representation of the evidence to suit the unscientific majority.
I understand that you're trying to guard against a complacency in science that we need not challenge our existing ideas. But from what I've seen of Dawkins so far, your attacks are misplaced. You had a better claim against him when you called him inflammatory, but he is not unscientific.
Er, I don't know why my post came up as AC, but that is indeed mine.
I find it funny that my Dawkins apologist tone was apparently harsh enough to warrant a second Dawkins apologist to step in.
Dawkins refers to the beliefs that many people base their entire lives on as "infantile", and their God as an "imaginary friend". I defend his right to use those terms to express the clarity with which an objective viewer might see Christains' beliefs revealed as glorified superstition. But insulting someone's faith, even if it's justified, isn't the best way to convert them.
Nexuiz is notoriously unoptomized in its model vertex count and perhaps other areas. I wouldn't be surprised if it's CPU bound in ways that other games aren't.
Thanks for the substantiation. I'd heard of Limbaugh shoveling crap about the Democrats' position on it, but nothing nearly as reliable as a series of quotes a guy pasted in a comment thread on the Internet. ;)
Seriously, I didn't realize that anyone was still actually considering reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine. I'll be a bit more alert when I hear Democratic talking points.
For the record, I generally recognize the authority of the FCC to impose the doctrine at its discretion, but wish that it didn't have that power and instead focused on increasing diversity of ownership.
I had something of a WTF moment when I read your reply; it took me a moment to realize that you believe there are serious scientific alternatives to evolution.
The school could invite speakers to discuss Lamarckian Evolution, but I don't see the merit of discussing disproven theories from hundreds of years ago for the sake of "diversity".
In this case, the legislators are incorrect in their implication that there are viable scientific alternatives to the theory of evolution. The only one that comes close, in popularity and not merit of course, is ID, which is a religious viewpoint.
Therefore, I don't understand how you can claim religion is not involved here.
As for Dawkins "inflammatory statements torwards anyone with an opposing view": Dawkins attacks meritless propositions, challenging their supporters to reply with a rational counterargument. I don't see why intelligent discourse should be curbed simply to avoid being perceived as inflammatory.
My "anxiety" by the way is anti-anti-science. I have nothing against religion in the broad sense, when it does not interfere with our efforts to better understand the universe.
Replace evolution with holocaust denial and you'll see the basis the government entities have to condemn if not banish expressions that are protected under the First Amendment.
> Unfortunately, it is a thinly veiled threat to the president of the university
The reason they mentioned that the university is publicly funded was to establish their jurisdiction over its actions, as the legislature would have no business condemning a private entity for its beliefs except in the broad sense in which, for example, the UN can condemn human rights violations.
> Maybe enough bad debt, cold and hunger will finally get people to realize that real science can be a vehicle to productive jobs and accept that their 6000 year old Earth hypothesis doesn't hold water.
No, if anything hard times will make people turn to religion more than before.
That was my first reaction to him too, but I heard a second interview with him that softened me up to the fairness of his stern argument.
His saving grace is that his disrespect is directed at ideas and not people, except in so far as people are obligated to defend their ideas. His claims are a call to action for theists to respond with a rational counter argument.
That's a war they most often can't win, for Dawkins, like any well-spoken intellectual, is very good at rationally arguing a point, while his challengers are normally motivated by raw emotion and belief. Their only chance is to change the terms of debate away from Dawkins' centerpiece.
That said, I agree that his confrontational style may be ineffective at getting people to like him. In fact, I dislike the word atheism as a description for my own beliefs in part because it conjures up images of people like Dawkins. But nonbelievers need strong proponents of rationalism to counter religious evangelicalism.
Uhhh.. what?
Eh? I've heard an interview and a lecture by Dawkins (neither one live), and I don't think I ever heard him attack individuals, except for the actions their beliefs may lead them to.
He is directly insulting/dismissive to broad classes of theists, but he doesn't make unqualified categorical anti-theist claims that he can't back up. For instance, for those who believe in an active God as opposed to a one-time non-interventionist Creator, he calls this an infantile belief in an imaginary friend. For the Creationists who don't have anything to do with an active God, he'll use more reserved terms directed at accurately describing their systems of beliefs and reasoning. "Infantile" in that case would not apply, but "unsophisticated" might.
The point is, he doesn't attack people for anything they don't have an obligation to defend.
Names and citations, please.
Their problem is that they wanted their own crap theories represented at the conference as well, and probably given equal weight. If they did that then the legislature wouldn't feel the need to censure (not censor) the university.
I don't understand why religious types would ever want a fair representation next to the likes of Dawkins. They'd get their clocks cleaned each time.
A quick Wikipedia check reveals that you're mixing the memorial with the Freedom Tower. The Tower was started in 2006, and the memorial will be done by 2011.
Not necessarily. I downloaded Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song" from a torrent without ever uploading a single byte of it. In fact I believe that's my one and only slashdot journal entry.
Was Metallica actually at the forefront of online distribution? That contradicts everything preached to me by slashdot articles.
Resolve this dilemma by telling me what to believe.
For me, Lars is the epitome of luddite elitism. I remember being enraged when I heard that Metallica signed a deal with Apple to distribute through iTunes - years after everyone else already had made similar deals. The idea that they were just willing to reject a new generation of technology and listeners based solely on their misdirected anger from a previous entanglement...
Whether or not that was the reason, that is the role Lars has assumed in my mind, and I can easily rationalize keeping him there until he just outright admits he's been wrong this entire time. If he wants to wage a culture war against my generation and my technology, then he made himself my enemy.
In fact: I'm applying Reverse Chuck Norris Jokes to him. Lars Ulrich sucks dick for taxi cab fare and walks home.