The problem with FireFox is the extensions. People want a good browser, not fiddle around hunting for what exists. Power users do that, sure, but not regular users.
One way of overcoming this would be to select the most useful extensions and release a version of Firefox that comes with them preinstalled. Then of course we have the problem of deciding which extensions to include.
But by continuously adding more & more, you get people complaining about useless features and bloat. Extensions are great, but the problem is that many are badly coded and/or don't integrate well with the rest of the browser.
One possibility for overcoming this would be for Mozilla to code their own extensions which would be officially supported. Such extensions could have rigorous quality checks whilst providing functionality not deemed universal enough to incorporate directly into Firefox itself.
Don't confuse spiritualists with the followers of cack-brained cults of personality stretching back to the who-humped-who of camel shepherds three millenia ago. The former have an honest interest in the truth of the matter, the latter are warped probably beyond any return, in a very real and psychological fashion.
Wait a second! That's a very arrogant, comfortable postion to take: Rejecting out of hand all those monotheists like that. 'Three millennia' is also a very European way of measuring time, isn't it? Shame on you! And 'warped in a very psychological fashion'. Hey leave those western psychological 'theories' out of it, you cultural imperialist, you!
When postmodernists attack! You define science as 'Western European'. Then there's no way to reason with you, since you don't believe in objective truth and probably think empiricism is an oppressive, imperialistic and chauvanist doctrine to keep other cultures' "ways of knowing" down. How awful it must be for you to have to use the tools of the Western European oppressors (I notice you're not using the faith-based, psychic internet. And I'm sure you visit the local shaman whenever you get sick. Good luck with that..)!
The urge to confine humans to being just meat machines is almost as dangerous as the urge to praise the sky wizard of your choice; it reduces people to little more than automatons in the eyes of rational men, and it is my firm belief that we are far more than the sum of our parts. Not that I have any particular evidence for that. Yet.
"It is unwise to believe a propostition when there are no grounds whatever for supposing it true" - Bertrand Russell
I know that many people don't like to think of themselves as 'meat machines' - but what has this got to do with whether they are or not? The urge you speak of is the urge to go where the facts take us; and all the evidence we have points in the materialist direction, so, whilst we should certainly remain open to the possibility of some kind of radical paradigm shift, we must work under the assumption that paranormal phenomena can be explained in a manner consistant with the huge volume of evidence we have about the way the world works.
-> Copernican revolution (Earth not the center of the Universe)
-> Darwinian revolution (Humans not special; intimately related to all other life and products of the trial and error of evolution)
-> Neuroscientific/Psychological revolution (Human brains operate via physical causes, not by magic)
Each of these demotions has been hard for many to accept, if they even accept them at all. But they don't require anybody's assent. There isn't a vote to determine whether they true or not.
People overestimate their own abilities and memories (and importance), and underestimate their ability to form patterns where none exist. They are prone to every manner of logical fallacy. Show me a psychic who can tell us something really useful and specific, not one who asks if I know anyone whose name begins with 'M', or "Does the number 8 mean anything to you?" Also, it would be nice if they could predict unlikely events before they actually happened (11/09/2001 or 26/12/2004, anyone?)!
But what really irks me is the accusation of arrogance, so often made against materialists - we're not the ones who think humanity is the crowning acheivement of the creator of the universe, who made everything with us in mind! Also, I certainly don't know any materialists who see other people as 'little more than automatons'. In fact, it seems to be the ones who believe in souls and life after death who are the most dangerous right now, and who have the least respect for the lives of others.
Being on the Moon entails no greater risk than being in low Earth orbit. In fact, the risk would initially be much lower, since orbiting man-made space debris is a far larger threat to astronauts circling the Earth than interplanetary materials are.
Maybe the reason that "Opera is the fastest, most compact browser for the Windows environment" is precisely because they are a tiny, well-integrated development team, without a big financial sponsor?
The Theory of Negligent Design, according to Stanislaw Lem
Scene: The Rhohchian's have sponsored a motion to accept Earth as a
member of the Galactic Council, but the Iridian representative
challenges the motion by relating the true story of humankind's
origins...
"I shall now put a few final questions to the honorable delegation
from Rhohchia! Is it not true that many years ago there landed on the
then dead planet of Earth a ship carrying your flag, and that, due to a
refrigerator malfunction, a portion of its perishables had gone bad? Is
it not true that on this ship there were two spacehands, afterwards
stricken from all the registers for unconscionable dealing with duckweed
liverworts, and that this pair of arrant knaves, these Milky Way
ne'er-do-wells, were named Gorrd and Lod? Is it not true that Gorrd
and Lod decided, in their drunkenness, not to content themselves with
the usual pollution of a defenseless, uninhabited planet, that their
notion was to set off, in a manner vicious and vile, a biological
evolution the likes of which the world had never seen before? Is it not
true that both these Rhohches, with malice aforethought, devised a way
to make of Earth - on a truly galactic scale - a breeding ground for
freaks, a cosmic side show, a panopticum, an exhibit of grisly prodigies
and curios, a display whose living specimens would one day become the
butt of jokes told even in the outermost Nebulae? Is it not true that,
bereft of all sense of decency and ethical restraint, both these
miscreants then emptied on the rocks of lifeless Earth six barrels of
gelatinous glue, rancid, plus two cans of albuminous paste, spoiled, and
that to this ooze they added some curdled ribose, pentose, and levulose,
and - as though that filth were not enough - they poured upon it three
large jugs of a mildewed solution of amino acids, then stirred the
seething swill with a coal shovel twisted to the left, and also used a
poker, likewise bent in the same direction, as a consequence of which
the proteins of all future organisms on Earth were Left-handed?! And
finally, is it not true that Lod, suffering at the time from a runny
nose and - moreover - egged on by Gorrd, who was reeling from an
excessive intake of intoxicants, did willfully and knowingly sneeze into
that protoplasmal matter, and, having infected it thereby with the most
virulent viruses, guffawed that he had thus breathed 'the bloody breath
of life' into those miserable evolutionary beginnings?! And is it not
true that this leftwardness and virulence were thereafter transmitted
and handed down from organism to organism, and now afflict with their
continuing presence the innocent representatives of the race Artefactum
Abhorrens, who gave themselves the name of 'homo sapiens' purely out of
simple-minded ignorance? And therefore is it not true that the Rhohches
must not only pay the Earthling's initiation fee, to the tune of a
billion tons of platinum, but also compensate the unfortunate victims of
their planetary incontinence - in the form of Cosmic Alimony?!"
- from Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, "The Eighth Voyage," 1976 Avon
Press paperback, pp. 42-43.
Lockheed - weren't they also the ones who put a switch in upside down that caused the Genesis solar wind capsule to fail to deploy it's parachute properly? Keep doing business with those guys, NASA - it makes YOU look good..
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you should break a few real windows too - gives people jobs..
But by continuously adding more & more, you get people complaining about useless features and bloat. Extensions are great, but the problem is that many are badly coded and/or don't integrate well with the rest of the browser.
One possibility for overcoming this would be for Mozilla to code their own extensions which would be officially supported. Such extensions could have rigorous quality checks whilst providing functionality not deemed universal enough to incorporate directly into Firefox itself.
You invented a new phrase! Hey Darkman, Keep walkin', dude!
When postmodernists attack! You define science as 'Western European'. Then there's no way to reason with you, since you don't believe in objective truth and probably think empiricism is an oppressive, imperialistic and chauvanist doctrine to keep other cultures' "ways of knowing" down. How awful it must be for you to have to use the tools of the Western European oppressors (I notice you're not using the faith-based, psychic internet. And I'm sure you visit the local shaman whenever you get sick. Good luck with that..)!
I know that many people don't like to think of themselves as 'meat machines' - but what has this got to do with whether they are or not? The urge you speak of is the urge to go where the facts take us; and all the evidence we have points in the materialist direction, so, whilst we should certainly remain open to the possibility of some kind of radical paradigm shift, we must work under the assumption that paranormal phenomena can be explained in a manner consistant with the huge volume of evidence we have about the way the world works.
-> Copernican revolution (Earth not the center of the Universe)
-> Darwinian revolution (Humans not special; intimately related to all other life and products of the trial and error of evolution)
-> Neuroscientific/Psychological revolution (Human brains operate via physical causes, not by magic)
Each of these demotions has been hard for many to accept, if they even accept them at all. But they don't require anybody's assent. There isn't a vote to determine whether they true or not.
People overestimate their own abilities and memories (and importance), and underestimate their ability to form patterns where none exist. They are prone to every manner of logical fallacy. Show me a psychic who can tell us something really useful and specific, not one who asks if I know anyone whose name begins with 'M', or "Does the number 8 mean anything to you?" Also, it would be nice if they could predict unlikely events before they actually happened (11/09/2001 or 26/12/2004, anyone?)!
But what really irks me is the accusation of arrogance, so often made against materialists - we're not the ones who think humanity is the crowning acheivement of the creator of the universe, who made everything with us in mind! Also, I certainly don't know any materialists who see other people as 'little more than automatons'. In fact, it seems to be the ones who believe in souls and life after death who are the most dangerous right now, and who have the least respect for the lives of others.
Being on the Moon entails no greater risk than being in low Earth orbit. In fact, the risk would initially be much lower, since orbiting man-made space debris is a far larger threat to astronauts circling the Earth than interplanetary materials are.
But Mepis is the most amateurish distro I've ever tried - all the menus are ugly as hell, and full of spelling mistakes; it's embarrassing, frankly.
You can use ports just as easily on PC-BSD as you can on DesktopBSD. PBI's are an extra option.
D-M-C-A It's fun to get stuck with some D-M-C-A....
Someone should've patented charging late fees. Then Blockbuster would really be screwed..
Maybe the reason that "Opera is the fastest, most compact browser for the Windows environment" is precisely because they are a tiny, well-integrated development team, without a big financial sponsor?
The Theory of Negligent Design, according to Stanislaw Lem
...
Scene: The Rhohchian's have sponsored a motion to accept Earth as a member of the Galactic Council, but the Iridian representative challenges the motion by relating the true story of humankind's origins
"I shall now put a few final questions to the honorable delegation from Rhohchia! Is it not true that many years ago there landed on the then dead planet of Earth a ship carrying your flag, and that, due to a refrigerator malfunction, a portion of its perishables had gone bad? Is it not true that on this ship there were two spacehands, afterwards stricken from all the registers for unconscionable dealing with duckweed liverworts, and that this pair of arrant knaves, these Milky Way ne'er-do-wells, were named Gorrd and Lod? Is it not true that Gorrd and Lod decided, in their drunkenness, not to content themselves with the usual pollution of a defenseless, uninhabited planet, that their notion was to set off, in a manner vicious and vile, a biological evolution the likes of which the world had never seen before? Is it not true that both these Rhohches, with malice aforethought, devised a way to make of Earth - on a truly galactic scale - a breeding ground for freaks, a cosmic side show, a panopticum, an exhibit of grisly prodigies and curios, a display whose living specimens would one day become the butt of jokes told even in the outermost Nebulae? Is it not true that, bereft of all sense of decency and ethical restraint, both these miscreants then emptied on the rocks of lifeless Earth six barrels of gelatinous glue, rancid, plus two cans of albuminous paste, spoiled, and that to this ooze they added some curdled ribose, pentose, and levulose, and - as though that filth were not enough - they poured upon it three large jugs of a mildewed solution of amino acids, then stirred the seething swill with a coal shovel twisted to the left, and also used a poker, likewise bent in the same direction, as a consequence of which the proteins of all future organisms on Earth were Left-handed?! And finally, is it not true that Lod, suffering at the time from a runny nose and - moreover - egged on by Gorrd, who was reeling from an excessive intake of intoxicants, did willfully and knowingly sneeze into that protoplasmal matter, and, having infected it thereby with the most virulent viruses, guffawed that he had thus breathed 'the bloody breath of life' into those miserable evolutionary beginnings?! And is it not true that this leftwardness and virulence were thereafter transmitted and handed down from organism to organism, and now afflict with their continuing presence the innocent representatives of the race Artefactum Abhorrens, who gave themselves the name of 'homo sapiens' purely out of simple-minded ignorance? And therefore is it not true that the Rhohches must not only pay the Earthling's initiation fee, to the tune of a billion tons of platinum, but also compensate the unfortunate victims of their planetary incontinence - in the form of Cosmic Alimony?!"
- from Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, "The Eighth Voyage," 1976 Avon Press paperback, pp. 42-43.
Lockheed - weren't they also the ones who put a switch in upside down that caused the Genesis solar wind capsule to fail to deploy it's parachute properly? Keep doing business with those guys, NASA - it makes YOU look good..