Your reaction is almost (but not quite) as stupid as that of the teacher. How big of a fool do you have to be in order to make generalizations about an entire society on the basis of a single fact-free article which speaks about an overreaction on the part of a few individuals?
I might also mention that, here in Canada, my school was evacuated about 13 years ago.... because a teacher looked in a locker and saw a cardboard box filled with electronics and plasticine. I guess the terrorists won back then, and in a different country too!
Stop being such a melodramatic jackass, and use your head for a change. People have been having stupid over-reactions since long before the first hominid discovered how to throw a rock. Your own response to this article is a perfect example of man's tendency to make foolish judgments based on insufficient data.
By floating this, he's ensured that participants in these groups, who by definition are more suspicious than most, will now be paranoid that their peers are government infiltrators.
So, status-quo, then?
Not that I disagree in a general sense... known government infiltration would tend to make people more paranoid.... but if you've seen what the 9/11 movement is up to these days, you'd realize that they really can't get any more paranoid. The "thermate" guys are convinced that the CIT-heads are government disinfo, the WAC-os think that anyone who denies controlled demolition is a plant, and the Judy-Laser-Beam-Woods fans are just off in their own world, pretty much ignoring everyone else. The purveyors of other conspiracy theorists are slightly less paranoid... but only slightly. These movements thrive on paranoia, and no amount of government intervention is going to change that - either positively or negatively.
Personally I think they'd have much better luck if they invested more money in psychiatric research, instead of blowing it on infiltrating these self-imposed insane-asylums.
I know - which is actually quite confusing. They can make a smartphone Less than 2 inches thick, and it has a camera and screen built into it, what makes this headset so special?
It's a military requirement - every gizmo has to be 10 times as big as the civilian equivalent, must weigh at least 5 times as much, and must look like something out of an 80's sci-fi movie. If you can bundle that with a really clumsy and unresponsive interface, you're pretty much guaranteed military customers. 5 years ago I had the option of using a military GPS - which was about half the size of a phone-book, and lost the signal every time it rained - or buying a civilian version which could fit in my shirt pocket and worked pretty much everywhere. Guess which one I went with:)
The other (more serious) reason is that it's clearly an early model. Research-in-progress is usually a bunch of commercial components wired up in an ad-hoc manner. If they ever get a market-ready version, I'd imagine it would be a lot smaller.
The newer aircraft are pretty much idiot-proof, anyway. Once you get rid of analog sensors/gauges and the old cam-and-roller based controllers, troubleshooting gets a lot easier. Now you just plug in to the on-board diagnostic system, and 9 times out of 10 it'll tell you exactly what the problem is. I'm not sure that this "ARMAR" technology would make the process any easier or faster.
The amount of extra distance you can ship without generating extra waste is a function of the shipping method and is certainly not going to be 1:1
That's correct, and yes, I assumed equivalent shipping methods. However, using different shipping methods only makes your case worse, since ships and trains tend to produce less waste per tonne-kilometer. Check here if you don't believe me.
Unless you're assuming that the Chinese light-bulbs are being shipped via air-mail, changing the assumptions I used in my estimate will only extend the distance you can ship your bulbs while maintaining the same level of fuel usage/CO2 emission.
Here's a quick comparison: 1 tonne of Chinese made bulbs from Beijing to California, vs 1 tonne of American bulbs from California to, say, Nebraska.
Case 1: Distance = 9,800km, CO2 = 14 g/km Case 2: Distance = 1,900km, CO2 = 120 g/km.
Case 1 Trip CO2 Output: 137.2 kg Case 2 Trip CO2 Output: 228.0 kg
Ergo, shipping your bulbs from California to Nebraska by truck generates almost twice as much CO2 as shipping the same bulbs from China to California via boat, even though the trip is 5 times shorter.
The death-ray myth was re-busted, despite the brave efforts of the MIT team. And the sniper incident got upgraded to "plausible", which is quite a bit different than "HA, YOU WERE WRONG!!!". I find the sniper thing particularly annoying because, even if it's true, it isn't indicative of any exceptional skill - such a shot would be a complete fluke.
On the other hand, sure, they've made mistakes. Who hasn't? I'm not sure why you'd bring that up. Are you trying to suggest that because they were wrong before, they must be wrong about this particular myth also? Or that they're not a reliable source of information?... ?????
Negligible, and can be recycled. Tungsten is also a heavy metal, FYI. Incandescent bulbs contain far more tungsten than the mercury content in CFL's, and normal bulbs aren't recycled.
Approximately 0.0234 mg of mercury—plus carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—releases into the air per 1 kwh of electricity that a coal-fired power plant generates. Over the 7500-hour average range of one CFL, then, a plant will emit 13.16 mg of mercury to sustain a 75-watt incandescent bulb but only 3.51 mg of mercury to sustain a 20-watt CFL (the lightning equivalent of a 75-watt traditional bulb). Even if the mercury contained in a CFL was directly released into the atmosphere, an incandescent would still contribute 4.65 more milligrams of mercury into the environment over its lifetime.
2) not made in US (shipping offsets power savings)
One CFL bulb lasts about 8 times as long as a normal bulb. Let's assume that you're using crappy ones which only last 4 times as long - even with the shorter lifespan, you can ship a CFL bulb 4 times the distance of an incandescent bulb without generating any extra waste.
To add to that, there is at least one CFL manufacturer that has plans to start manufacturing inside the US. Unless you're of the opinion that US industry is completely incompetent, there should be plenty more following suit.
3) pollution much higher in manufacturing over incandescent.
Source?
We would save a lot more of the environment by streamlining power generation and transport in the US and Europe than changing every light bulb to LED or CFL.
Doubtful. Once again, some stats would be nice.
The biggest problem with our power system is the fact that many of our methods of generating power are so terrible for the environment.
Then start lobbying for more nuclear power.
Even assuming 100% clean sources, it makes no sense to use more electricity than we need to, so CFL's (and eventually LED's) are still the superior choice. Not to mention the fact that using low-power lighting makes home-solar more feasible by reducing the amount of current that you need to produce.
If you have a different opinion than me, I love an honest debate. Being a dick, on the other hand, is not necessary. And, it erodes your point.
Fair enough, but if you expect a serious discussion you need to be able to offer more than personal opinions and unsupported declarations. In my experience, the anti-CFL crowd is mostly composed of ideologues who are incapable of doing basic research and are unwilling to abandon their preconceptions regardless of the facts. That's not really an excuse for me "being a dick" to you, but it does tend to make me weary of people who voice such opinions. I'm willing to listen to you, as long as you're willing to try and present some evidence to support your claims. Otherwise, we're both be wasting our time.
No, people disagreeing with you is not a troll. At worst they're just wrong. In this case, though, he's absolutely right. I also gave up on linux recently, largely due to issues similar to his. I really wanted to use it as my full-time OS, and I went for about 2 months without booting into windows even once. In the long run, though, the numerous small deficiencies (combined with a X-server memory leak that nobody seemed to know how to fix) were just too much to put up with. Windows 7 works out of the box, and doesn't go out of it's way to frustrate me on a regular basis. I can't say the same for any flavor of Linux. They have their uses, but as a full time desktop OS they've still got some work to do.
I am not on the battery powered car bandwagon. I'm also not on the compact fluorescent bandwagon either, I think both of these technologies do more damage to the environment than their "bad" alternatives.
Opinions are like assholes - everyone's got one, and yours aint special. The facts and figures, on the other hand, show that you have no idea what you're talking about. You anti-CFL weirdos are particularly confounding, since there's absolutely no complaint which can be made against CF bulbs that even comes close to being rational. You're the power industry equivalent of anti-vaxers.
If you think that you can make some factual points to support your claims then please do so. Otherwise, please take the time to educate yourself on these topics before spouting off about your rejection of "the bandwagon".
The cap is lower than actual possible damage by several orders of magnitude.
According to our understanding of quantum theory, there's a non-zero chance that the next time you fart a black hole may pop out of your ass and swallow the earth. I therefore demand that you immediately obtain enough insurance to cover the cost of rebuilding the earth, or immediately depart our planet. Thank you.
Really, Three Mile Island is to Nuclear Accidents what the Undiebomber is to terrorism. A bit of a wake-up call, and somewhat amusing in retrospect, but no actual threat and definitely not a real disaster. The same number of people died in both incidents, and a greater number were injured in the latter.
That doesn't really deserve an answer. The tradition of blaming Jews for stealing all of your money/gold/land/oil/water/whatever is a long but not very distinguished one. Unless you've got some actual stats, we have nothing to discuss.
If my removable media gets a scratch or starts to degrade, chances are I'll be able to recover the parts of the disc that aren't corrupted by myself.
It's not a question of if, it's a question of "how many times per year". Even the best DVD media I could find has caused me to lose data in the past. Now, if your backup needs are small, you can use something like winrar to archive your files with a recovery record. That way you're using 10%-20% more space than you normally would, but you're much less likely to lose any data. On the other hand, if you've got several terabytes to back up, that isn't really a practical solution.
If my removable hard drive fails, I need a clean room... yadda yadda
That's a valid point, but given the existence of technologies like RAID and ZFS, it's not much of an issue.
You can build a basic file-server for about $300 - that gives you a low-end motherboard and processor and maybe 2 gigs of RAM. For another $500 you can pick up 5 x 1.5TB drives, and put them in a RAID5 or RAIDZ array. That works out to 13 cents per gigabyte, and gives you a 6 terabyte redundant file system which can be used and reused to your hearts content. The odds of failure are so low that they're practically non-existent, but if you're REALLY paranoid (like me) you can make a duplicate server and keep it at a relatives house. So for $1,600 you can have a backup solution that will provide plenty of storage (in my case, enough for two households, with a bit of space left over for my mother and younger siblings), will be extremely simple to use, and which will guarantee that your data survives everything short of a nuclear holocaust. Or you can pay a quarter of the price and have the pleasure of screwing around with 600+ DVD's, which give you no redundancy and no way to verify data integrity without checking them individually on a regular basis.
It's obviously a trade-off. If I had less than 100 gigs of data that I cared about, I'd probably go with DVD"s also. However, it's just not viable for my current needs, and I think more and more people are getting to that point also. What with the prevalence of digital media (audio, video, and now e-books) and with more and more families having digital cameras and high-def digital camcorders, plus multiple computers.. I think more and more people are getting to the point where optical-disk based backup solutions are the inferior choice.
But not only that, there is also the environmental aspect of it too. A blank disk is a bit of reflective material and some die held on a piece of polycarbonate. A hard drive is a complex piece of equipment filled with rare earth metals, magnets, power components, silicon, and plastic. I know its probably not much, but I like to save the environment when I can.
You're right - too many people just chuck their drives after they're done with them. But hard drives ARE recyclable. They're also reusable, whereas CD/DVD/Blueray are write once (unless you're willing to spend a LOT more money for your backups). I'd say the environmental footprint of hard-drives is probably lower in the long run, as long as you do actually take them to be recycled instead of tossing them in the garbage.
Me, I either re-sell my old drives on craigslist, or I give them away to friends and family. When one craps out for good, I take it to nearest electronics-recycling center. Can't really do that with my old backup DVD's.
True enough - I've got an eSATA hard-drive toaster for a similar reason. It's handy to be able to back up the really important data on my old 500 gig SATA disks, and just stick 'em on a shelf in case my main file server goes tits-up.
If both formats were still alive, I think we'd be happily burning our data to 25-33 GB $2 discs on $50 burners today... As it is, they cost five times as much.
You can pick up a 1.5 terabyte HD for about $100-$120 these days. That works out to pretty much exacty the same cost per gigabyte as the price you quoted. So why bother with removable media?
All of these religions are having increasing trouble gaining converts. If they grow they do it by reproduction (which is why Catholicism is running strong — they heavily targeted peoples with high birth rates, then proceeded to tell them they would go to hell if they used birth control. A brilliant strategy.)
The number of Muslims has tripled over the last 30 years. Christianity hasn't grown too much, but it hasn't shrunk either. I think that your statement may be accurate in a general sense, but only because the number of possible converts has shrunk to very low levels. The three largest religions already own two thirds of the worlds population - it's no surprise that, at this point, they're mostly converting eachothers adherents.
I disagree. People only enjoy the wisdom of ancient culture when it has been made more palatable, like Wicca which is a bullshit fabrication but which is made up of ancient traditions.
Agreed - most of the modern day "new age" woo is a perversion of past cultures. They are, however based on "the ideas of ancient people", which is the part of the original post that I was replying to.
Slashdot Mirror
Your reaction is almost (but not quite) as stupid as that of the teacher. How big of a fool do you have to be in order to make generalizations about an entire society on the basis of a single fact-free article which speaks about an overreaction on the part of a few individuals?
I might also mention that, here in Canada, my school was evacuated about 13 years ago .... because a teacher looked in a locker and saw a cardboard box filled with electronics and plasticine. I guess the terrorists won back then, and in a different country too!
Stop being such a melodramatic jackass, and use your head for a change. People have been having stupid over-reactions since long before the first hominid discovered how to throw a rock. Your own response to this article is a perfect example of man's tendency to make foolish judgments based on insufficient data.
By floating this, he's ensured that participants in these groups, who by definition are more suspicious than most, will now be paranoid that their peers are government infiltrators.
So, status-quo, then?
Not that I disagree in a general sense ... known government infiltration would tend to make people more paranoid .... but if you've seen what the 9/11 movement is up to these days, you'd realize that they really can't get any more paranoid. The "thermate" guys are convinced that the CIT-heads are government disinfo, the WAC-os think that anyone who denies controlled demolition is a plant, and the Judy-Laser-Beam-Woods fans are just off in their own world, pretty much ignoring everyone else. The purveyors of other conspiracy theorists are slightly less paranoid ... but only slightly. These movements thrive on paranoia, and no amount of government intervention is going to change that - either positively or negatively.
Personally I think they'd have much better luck if they invested more money in psychiatric research, instead of blowing it on infiltrating these self-imposed insane-asylums.
There is a difference. One of those statements is demonstrably false.
True. Bush clearly doesn't have a mustache.
So do Ford, GM, and your local water and power utilities. What's there to counter?
I guess you've never heard of the public education system.
I know - which is actually quite confusing. They can make a smartphone Less than 2 inches thick, and it has a camera and screen built into it, what makes this headset so special?
It's a military requirement - every gizmo has to be 10 times as big as the civilian equivalent, must weigh at least 5 times as much, and must look like something out of an 80's sci-fi movie. If you can bundle that with a really clumsy and unresponsive interface, you're pretty much guaranteed military customers. 5 years ago I had the option of using a military GPS - which was about half the size of a phone-book, and lost the signal every time it rained - or buying a civilian version which could fit in my shirt pocket and worked pretty much everywhere. Guess which one I went with :)
The other (more serious) reason is that it's clearly an early model. Research-in-progress is usually a bunch of commercial components wired up in an ad-hoc manner. If they ever get a market-ready version, I'd imagine it would be a lot smaller.
The newer aircraft are pretty much idiot-proof, anyway. Once you get rid of analog sensors/gauges and the old cam-and-roller based controllers, troubleshooting gets a lot easier. Now you just plug in to the on-board diagnostic system, and 9 times out of 10 it'll tell you exactly what the problem is. I'm not sure that this "ARMAR" technology would make the process any easier or faster.
So it's not just me that sees shows like Mythbusters as an intellectual version of Jackass.
I'm pretty sure that was their intent, so no, you're definitely not the only one.
Or, as Teller once put it when asked about their greatest achievement on "Bullshit":
"Our greatest achievement is presenting skepticism to people with the assistance of obscenity and naked breasts and genitals."
I'm sure Adam Savage would give a similar answer; just replace "obscenity and naked breasts and genitals" with "explosions and goofy antics".
Shows how much you know. Hundreds of slashdot users have been living that lifestyle for at least a decade.
Guess you never heard of UV lamps ...
The question then is why use Outlook for such an awkward, for that tool, setup?
It came pre-installed on the shuttle computers?
The amount of extra distance you can ship without generating extra waste is a function of the shipping method and is certainly not going to be 1:1
That's correct, and yes, I assumed equivalent shipping methods. However, using different shipping methods only makes your case worse, since ships and trains tend to produce less waste per tonne-kilometer. Check here if you don't believe me.
Unless you're assuming that the Chinese light-bulbs are being shipped via air-mail, changing the assumptions I used in my estimate will only extend the distance you can ship your bulbs while maintaining the same level of fuel usage/CO2 emission.
Here's a quick comparison: 1 tonne of Chinese made bulbs from Beijing to California, vs 1 tonne of American bulbs from California to, say, Nebraska.
Case 1: Distance = 9,800km, CO2 = 14 g/km
Case 2: Distance = 1,900km, CO2 = 120 g/km.
Case 1 Trip CO2 Output: 137.2 kg
Case 2 Trip CO2 Output: 228.0 kg
Ergo, shipping your bulbs from California to Nebraska by truck generates almost twice as much CO2 as shipping the same bulbs from China to California via boat, even though the trip is 5 times shorter.
The death-ray myth was re-busted, despite the brave efforts of the MIT team. And the sniper incident got upgraded to "plausible", which is quite a bit different than "HA, YOU WERE WRONG!!!". I find the sniper thing particularly annoying because, even if it's true, it isn't indicative of any exceptional skill - such a shot would be a complete fluke.
On the other hand, sure, they've made mistakes. Who hasn't? I'm not sure why you'd bring that up. Are you trying to suggest that because they were wrong before, they must be wrong about this particular myth also? Or that they're not a reliable source of information? ... ?????
1) mercury (and other heavy metal) content
Negligible, and can be recycled. Tungsten is also a heavy metal, FYI. Incandescent bulbs contain far more tungsten than the mercury content in CFL's, and normal bulbs aren't recycled.
Also, according to Popular Mechanics
Approximately 0.0234 mg of mercury—plus carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—releases into the air per 1 kwh of electricity that a coal-fired power plant generates. Over the 7500-hour average range of one CFL, then, a plant will emit 13.16 mg of mercury to sustain a 75-watt incandescent bulb but only 3.51 mg of mercury to sustain a 20-watt CFL (the lightning equivalent of a 75-watt traditional bulb). Even if the mercury contained in a CFL was directly released into the atmosphere, an incandescent would still contribute 4.65 more milligrams of mercury into the environment over its lifetime.
2) not made in US (shipping offsets power savings)
One CFL bulb lasts about 8 times as long as a normal bulb. Let's assume that you're using crappy ones which only last 4 times as long - even with the shorter lifespan, you can ship a CFL bulb 4 times the distance of an incandescent bulb without generating any extra waste.
To add to that, there is at least one CFL manufacturer that has plans to start manufacturing inside the US. Unless you're of the opinion that US industry is completely incompetent, there should be plenty more following suit.
3) pollution much higher in manufacturing over incandescent.
Source?
We would save a lot more of the environment by streamlining power generation and transport in the US and Europe than changing every light bulb to LED or CFL.
Doubtful. Once again, some stats would be nice.
The biggest problem with our power system is the fact that many of our methods of generating power are so terrible for the environment.
Then start lobbying for more nuclear power.
Even assuming 100% clean sources, it makes no sense to use more electricity than we need to, so CFL's (and eventually LED's) are still the superior choice. Not to mention the fact that using low-power lighting makes home-solar more feasible by reducing the amount of current that you need to produce.
If you have a different opinion than me, I love an honest debate. Being a dick, on the other hand, is not necessary. And, it erodes your point.
Fair enough, but if you expect a serious discussion you need to be able to offer more than personal opinions and unsupported declarations. In my experience, the anti-CFL crowd is mostly composed of ideologues who are incapable of doing basic research and are unwilling to abandon their preconceptions regardless of the facts. That's not really an excuse for me "being a dick" to you, but it does tend to make me weary of people who voice such opinions. I'm willing to listen to you, as long as you're willing to try and present some evidence to support your claims. Otherwise, we're both be wasting our time.
No, people disagreeing with you is not a troll. At worst they're just wrong. In this case, though, he's absolutely right. I also gave up on linux recently, largely due to issues similar to his. I really wanted to use it as my full-time OS, and I went for about 2 months without booting into windows even once. In the long run, though, the numerous small deficiencies (combined with a X-server memory leak that nobody seemed to know how to fix) were just too much to put up with. Windows 7 works out of the box, and doesn't go out of it's way to frustrate me on a regular basis. I can't say the same for any flavor of Linux. They have their uses, but as a full time desktop OS they've still got some work to do.
I am not on the battery powered car bandwagon. I'm also not on the compact fluorescent bandwagon either, I think both of these technologies do more damage to the environment than their "bad" alternatives.
Opinions are like assholes - everyone's got one, and yours aint special. The facts and figures, on the other hand, show that you have no idea what you're talking about. You anti-CFL weirdos are particularly confounding, since there's absolutely no complaint which can be made against CF bulbs that even comes close to being rational. You're the power industry equivalent of anti-vaxers.
If you think that you can make some factual points to support your claims then please do so. Otherwise, please take the time to educate yourself on these topics before spouting off about your rejection of "the bandwagon".
According to our understanding of quantum theory, there's a non-zero chance that the next time you fart a black hole may pop out of your ass and swallow the earth. I therefore demand that you immediately obtain enough insurance to cover the cost of rebuilding the earth, or immediately depart our planet. Thank you.
Three Mile Island wasn't a full meltdown.
Really, Three Mile Island is to Nuclear Accidents what the Undiebomber is to terrorism. A bit of a wake-up call, and somewhat amusing in retrospect, but no actual threat and definitely not a real disaster. The same number of people died in both incidents, and a greater number were injured in the latter.
That doesn't really deserve an answer. The tradition of blaming Jews for stealing all of your money/gold/land/oil/water/whatever is a long but not very distinguished one. Unless you've got some actual stats, we have nothing to discuss.
If my removable media gets a scratch or starts to degrade, chances are I'll be able to recover the parts of the disc that aren't corrupted by myself.
It's not a question of if, it's a question of "how many times per year". Even the best DVD media I could find has caused me to lose data in the past. Now, if your backup needs are small, you can use something like winrar to archive your files with a recovery record. That way you're using 10%-20% more space than you normally would, but you're much less likely to lose any data. On the other hand, if you've got several terabytes to back up, that isn't really a practical solution.
If my removable hard drive fails, I need a clean room ... yadda yadda
That's a valid point, but given the existence of technologies like RAID and ZFS, it's not much of an issue.
You can build a basic file-server for about $300 - that gives you a low-end motherboard and processor and maybe 2 gigs of RAM. For another $500 you can pick up 5 x 1.5TB drives, and put them in a RAID5 or RAIDZ array. That works out to 13 cents per gigabyte, and gives you a 6 terabyte redundant file system which can be used and reused to your hearts content. The odds of failure are so low that they're practically non-existent, but if you're REALLY paranoid (like me) you can make a duplicate server and keep it at a relatives house. So for $1,600 you can have a backup solution that will provide plenty of storage (in my case, enough for two households, with a bit of space left over for my mother and younger siblings), will be extremely simple to use, and which will guarantee that your data survives everything short of a nuclear holocaust. Or you can pay a quarter of the price and have the pleasure of screwing around with 600+ DVD's, which give you no redundancy and no way to verify data integrity without checking them individually on a regular basis.
It's obviously a trade-off. If I had less than 100 gigs of data that I cared about, I'd probably go with DVD"s also. However, it's just not viable for my current needs, and I think more and more people are getting to that point also. What with the prevalence of digital media (audio, video, and now e-books) and with more and more families having digital cameras and high-def digital camcorders, plus multiple computers .. I think more and more people are getting to the point where optical-disk based backup solutions are the inferior choice.
But not only that, there is also the environmental aspect of it too. A blank disk is a bit of reflective material and some die held on a piece of polycarbonate. A hard drive is a complex piece of equipment filled with rare earth metals, magnets, power components, silicon, and plastic. I know its probably not much, but I like to save the environment when I can.
You're right - too many people just chuck their drives after they're done with them. But hard drives ARE recyclable. They're also reusable, whereas CD/DVD/Blueray are write once (unless you're willing to spend a LOT more money for your backups). I'd say the environmental footprint of hard-drives is probably lower in the long run, as long as you do actually take them to be recycled instead of tossing them in the garbage.
Me, I either re-sell my old drives on craigslist, or I give them away to friends and family. When one craps out for good, I take it to nearest electronics-recycling center. Can't really do that with my old backup DVD's.
True enough - I've got an eSATA hard-drive toaster for a similar reason. It's handy to be able to back up the really important data on my old 500 gig SATA disks, and just stick 'em on a shelf in case my main file server goes tits-up.
If both formats were still alive, I think we'd be happily burning our data to 25-33 GB $2 discs on $50 burners today... As it is, they cost five times as much.
You can pick up a 1.5 terabyte HD for about $100-$120 these days. That works out to pretty much exacty the same cost per gigabyte as the price you quoted. So why bother with removable media?
I'd pay $2500 for a good CRT.
It's the best display technology available to man.
I hear ya. It would go great with my Commodore 64 - the best computing platform available to man!
All of these religions are having increasing trouble gaining converts. If they grow they do it by reproduction (which is why Catholicism is running strong — they heavily targeted peoples with high birth rates, then proceeded to tell them they would go to hell if they used birth control. A brilliant strategy.)
The number of Muslims has tripled over the last 30 years. Christianity hasn't grown too much, but it hasn't shrunk either. I think that your statement may be accurate in a general sense, but only because the number of possible converts has shrunk to very low levels. The three largest religions already own two thirds of the worlds population - it's no surprise that, at this point, they're mostly converting eachothers adherents.
I disagree. People only enjoy the wisdom of ancient culture when it has been made more palatable, like Wicca which is a bullshit fabrication but which is made up of ancient traditions.
Agreed - most of the modern day "new age" woo is a perversion of past cultures. They are, however based on "the ideas of ancient people", which is the part of the original post that I was replying to.
Yes, it's an excellent read. If I were to nominate any book to be an "Atheists Bible", that would be it.