While you are correct in that FF is leaps and bounds ahead of IE in terms of standards compliance, it's worth noting that FF still doesn't pass the ACID2 test like Opera and some others do.
Pray tell, what can you do in Windows that you can't do with a well-configured Linux box? I've been using Linux exclusively for about a year now, and although I'm just a college student, I really haven't found any software that's lacking. That of course doesn't mean that I'm using the same brands of software (e.g. MS Office vs. OpenOffice), and I'm not much of a gamer anymore, but overall I've found Linux to be far less restrictive in available software compared to Windows. So long as you're willing to make minor adjustments (and, really, the adjustments aren't as bad as you might think), I bet you'll discover the same thing.
If you were really serious about security, you'd then smash the gentlman to bits. Who knows what he learned while handling it?
Here at Acme, we also smash the gentleman who smashed the gentleman to bits. This day in age, you never know how information can travel, with bribery and all...
In a world that brought us self-cleaning ovens among other gadgets, I would assume that mankind is intelligent enough to build a self-cleaning spherical-wheeled robot. Then again, we all know what happens when you assume things...
When my four-year-old gets ahold of fingerpaint and showcases her "talent" on a piece of construction paper, I see it as randomization. She sees it as a masterpiece. Who's right?
The answer: We both are. It just depends on your point of view.
Obviously, a flaw in the central server would be much worse than this, but that's no excuse for a flaw of this magnitude. Had Diebold made any attempt whatsoever to secure their rigging- err... voting machines, the worst possible scenario would be that a smart electrical engineer with inside access would be able to modify the hardware behind the scenes. As is, all it takes is one Joe Sixpack voter with a screwdriver and a flash device.
My question is this: Why in the world would you not implement a paper trail? WHY!?
I've been using Tor with Gaim for several months now, and rarely notice any slowdowns. I do occasionally get disconnected (for no more than a few seconds), but I've yet to determine whether that's because of Tor or just my crappy wireless connection.
And there should be a law that any time a new bill is passed, 2 old bills / laws have to be removed.
I love this idea, but I think it would take a long time to have any noticeable effect. The only change would be the lack of publication of those "silly laws" books (e.g. a law that prohibits tying an alligator to a fire hydrant).
It seems I've misconstrued my statements again. I didn't mean to try and compare any of the examples I gave to the Bible; I was simply curious about your definition of "solid historical evidence." Just looking for a few examples of what you'd consider good evidence and what you'd consider bad evidence, and why.
I'm tempted to refute a couple of your arguments, but let's get back on track (as if this discussion isn't Offtopic enough already!) Many people who criticize the biblical gospels, on the basis that there isn't enough non-biblical evidence to support them, will readily accept other writings as holding at least a fair degree of truth. Look at ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, for example. Who studies those and says, "they don't mean anything, they're just pictures"? There is some archaeological evidence to allow us to guess things about their culture, but there's also no shortage of archaeological evidence supporting some of the Bible's stories. If you're looking for evidence to support all of the stories, you won't find it. How do you find widespread proof of something which only two or three people witnessed?
This isn't to say that the Bible contains no exaggerations, but I think anyone who claims that there aren't enough hard facts to support it as a whole is looking too much at the details (I'm talking about people who argue things like, "one gospel said his name was Joseph, and another gospel said his name was Joe") and not enough at the big picture.
Suffice to say, there isn't any particularly good reason to think that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses (unreliable or no) or are solid historical records.
Okay, I know that you're incorrect, but I don't know the best way to convince you of that. So, let me ask you this - how do you define "solid historical record"? Is the Declaration of Independence a solid historical record? Are the accounts of Tacitus, or Josephus, or Alexander the Great, solid historical records? What about the Rosetta Stone?
I'm not quite sure which post you were replying to, but I think you may have misinterpreted my arguments. Again, the names I referred to (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) were only to clarify the names of the books, not their authors. I never said that the disciples actually wrote those books. If you read my most recent post, you'll see that I have suggested a time period of 30 years between Christ's death and the authorship of the gospels - which would obviously fit within your 20-40 year estimate.
The standard estimates for the dates of the gospels is Mark in the 70's, Matthew and Luke in the 80's, and John in the 90's - which would seem to fairly coincide with the Wikipedia article. Assuming these dates, we could reasonably hypothesize a 40-50 year time period after Jesus' death.
However, there is evidence supporting a theory that they were actually written earlier:
Biblically, Paul is a central figure in the book of Acts (which was written by Luke) - however, the book of Acts mentions nothing whatsoever about Paul's death, which suggests that it was written before this occurred, in year 62. Acts is the second of Luke's two-part work, the first part being the book of Luke. We know that Luke has borrowed portions of the book of Mark, which suggests that Mark was written no later than about year 60.
This reduces our 40-50 year gap to a mere 30 years. Even with an average life expectancy of 40 years, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that at least some of the firsthand witnesses (and opponents of the witnesses who would argue against any false writings) would have been alive at the time the books were written.
An eyewitness testimony in itself means very little. In a murder case, if you were the prosecutor, you wouldn't go in front of a jury with one witness and no other evidence. History and archaeology are no different.
If you can show me that Mormonism has the same depth and degree of evidence supporting it as the scenarios described in the Bible, then I will concede to your analogy. Otherwise, you may as well save your breath (or in this case, fingers).
By those names, I was referring to the names of the gospels themselves, not the people who wrote them. As for the Q document, no portions of such a document have ever been discovered - it is a hypothesis that some of Jesus' teachings and sayings were written down into this collection, which was a common literary practice at that time. The Q document, if you assume that it did exist, is regarded to be a second source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Existence of it or not, I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that the gospels were variations on one or two originals.
Do you think you could be more specific? I'm no expert, but I have done some research on the topic, and if I remember correctly, at the very least the authors of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were thought not only to have written their testimonies shortly (meaning within several years) after Christ's death and resurrection, but to have also been alive and present while the events were happening. I'm assuming you have evidence to the contrary, because certainly a blanket statement like that cannot be supported without any empirical evidence, right? So, would you mind offering it?
Slashdot Mirror
Asking purely out of curiosity, not out of disagreement (I've never used BSD)... What can BSD do that Linux can't?
While you are correct in that FF is leaps and bounds ahead of IE in terms of standards compliance, it's worth noting that FF still doesn't pass the ACID2 test like Opera and some others do.
Sounds from the development machines at work
Pray tell, what can you do in Windows that you can't do with a well-configured Linux box? I've been using Linux exclusively for about a year now, and although I'm just a college student, I really haven't found any software that's lacking. That of course doesn't mean that I'm using the same brands of software (e.g. MS Office vs. OpenOffice), and I'm not much of a gamer anymore, but overall I've found Linux to be far less restrictive in available software compared to Windows. So long as you're willing to make minor adjustments (and, really, the adjustments aren't as bad as you might think), I bet you'll discover the same thing.
Somehow, I don't think the first sound replacement will be that of a pig squealing, if ya know what I mean...
If you were really serious about security, you'd then smash the gentlman to bits. Who knows what he learned while handling it?
Here at Acme, we also smash the gentleman who smashed the gentleman to bits. This day in age, you never know how information can travel, with bribery and all...
In a world that brought us self-cleaning ovens among other gadgets, I would assume that mankind is intelligent enough to build a self-cleaning spherical-wheeled robot. Then again, we all know what happens when you assume things...
Nooooo! Evil will infest the land of Hyrule once again!
Redesign, re-randomization... same thing.
When my four-year-old gets ahold of fingerpaint and showcases her "talent" on a piece of construction paper, I see it as randomization. She sees it as a masterpiece. Who's right?
The answer: We both are. It just depends on your point of view.
Obviously, a flaw in the central server would be much worse than this, but that's no excuse for a flaw of this magnitude. Had Diebold made any attempt whatsoever to secure their rigging- err... voting machines, the worst possible scenario would be that a smart electrical engineer with inside access would be able to modify the hardware behind the scenes. As is, all it takes is one Joe Sixpack voter with a screwdriver and a flash device.
My question is this: Why in the world would you not implement a paper trail? WHY!?
I've been using Tor with Gaim for several months now, and rarely notice any slowdowns. I do occasionally get disconnected (for no more than a few seconds), but I've yet to determine whether that's because of Tor or just my crappy wireless connection.
Oooh, I know, I know!
By allowing companies to install spyware through holes in Internet Explorer?
Yes, and yes - but you can't have her, because she doesn't like guys named dJOEK.
:-p
Ooooh, it's torture, isn't it?
$1.4 billion is approximately, what, 2-3% of Bill Gates' net worth? If you ask me, that fine still isn't nearly enough.
And there should be a law that any time a new bill is passed, 2 old bills / laws have to be removed. I love this idea, but I think it would take a long time to have any noticeable effect. The only change would be the lack of publication of those "silly laws" books (e.g. a law that prohibits tying an alligator to a fire hydrant).
It seems I've misconstrued my statements again. I didn't mean to try and compare any of the examples I gave to the Bible; I was simply curious about your definition of "solid historical evidence." Just looking for a few examples of what you'd consider good evidence and what you'd consider bad evidence, and why.
I'm tempted to refute a couple of your arguments, but let's get back on track (as if this discussion isn't Offtopic enough already!) Many people who criticize the biblical gospels, on the basis that there isn't enough non-biblical evidence to support them, will readily accept other writings as holding at least a fair degree of truth. Look at ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, for example. Who studies those and says, "they don't mean anything, they're just pictures"? There is some archaeological evidence to allow us to guess things about their culture, but there's also no shortage of archaeological evidence supporting some of the Bible's stories. If you're looking for evidence to support all of the stories, you won't find it. How do you find widespread proof of something which only two or three people witnessed?
This isn't to say that the Bible contains no exaggerations, but I think anyone who claims that there aren't enough hard facts to support it as a whole is looking too much at the details (I'm talking about people who argue things like, "one gospel said his name was Joseph, and another gospel said his name was Joe") and not enough at the big picture.
So now ol' Ben Franklin can finally see which direction electrons really flow!
Suffice to say, there isn't any particularly good reason to think that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses (unreliable or no) or are solid historical records.
Okay, I know that you're incorrect, but I don't know the best way to convince you of that. So, let me ask you this - how do you define "solid historical record"? Is the Declaration of Independence a solid historical record? Are the accounts of Tacitus, or Josephus, or Alexander the Great, solid historical records? What about the Rosetta Stone?
I'm not quite sure which post you were replying to, but I think you may have misinterpreted my arguments. Again, the names I referred to (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) were only to clarify the names of the books, not their authors. I never said that the disciples actually wrote those books. If you read my most recent post, you'll see that I have suggested a time period of 30 years between Christ's death and the authorship of the gospels - which would obviously fit within your 20-40 year estimate.
The standard estimates for the dates of the gospels is Mark in the 70's, Matthew and Luke in the 80's, and John in the 90's - which would seem to fairly coincide with the Wikipedia article. Assuming these dates, we could reasonably hypothesize a 40-50 year time period after Jesus' death.
However, there is evidence supporting a theory that they were actually written earlier:
Biblically, Paul is a central figure in the book of Acts (which was written by Luke) - however, the book of Acts mentions nothing whatsoever about Paul's death, which suggests that it was written before this occurred, in year 62. Acts is the second of Luke's two-part work, the first part being the book of Luke. We know that Luke has borrowed portions of the book of Mark, which suggests that Mark was written no later than about year 60.
This reduces our 40-50 year gap to a mere 30 years. Even with an average life expectancy of 40 years, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that at least some of the firsthand witnesses (and opponents of the witnesses who would argue against any false writings) would have been alive at the time the books were written.
An eyewitness testimony in itself means very little. In a murder case, if you were the prosecutor, you wouldn't go in front of a jury with one witness and no other evidence. History and archaeology are no different.
If you can show me that Mormonism has the same depth and degree of evidence supporting it as the scenarios described in the Bible, then I will concede to your analogy. Otherwise, you may as well save your breath (or in this case, fingers).
By those names, I was referring to the names of the gospels themselves, not the people who wrote them. As for the Q document, no portions of such a document have ever been discovered - it is a hypothesis that some of Jesus' teachings and sayings were written down into this collection, which was a common literary practice at that time. The Q document, if you assume that it did exist, is regarded to be a second source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Existence of it or not, I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that the gospels were variations on one or two originals.
Do you think you could be more specific? I'm no expert, but I have done some research on the topic, and if I remember correctly, at the very least the authors of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were thought not only to have written their testimonies shortly (meaning within several years) after Christ's death and resurrection, but to have also been alive and present while the events were happening. I'm assuming you have evidence to the contrary, because certainly a blanket statement like that cannot be supported without any empirical evidence, right? So, would you mind offering it?
That sounds reasonable, but which eyewitness might you be referring to?
So are you trying to say that eyewitness accounts cannot be scientific, or are you trying to say that eyewitness accounts cannot be true?