The problem is you're making a generalisation. This is the crux of a number of arguments I have read on slashdot. Someone has some personal experience, which they then proclaim as anecdotal evidence that the same experience applies universally.
There are innumerable counter examples that people could come up with that support exactly the opposite conclusion you have drawn.
The point is, not all old people go out and buy autoroute or use encarta. Some of them only use a web browser and word processor, and will only ever use a web browser and word processor. Those old people would stand to benefit a great deal from having Linux on their PC, as they would be able to carry on doing everything they want, with the added bonus of being totally immune to malware. The same would go for getting them a Mac, which has the only downside of costing a hell of a lot of money vs. $0 for a linux install.
Not that this counter example somehow denies the existence of scenarios such as your experience, but it does counter your conclusion that Linux is useless to all old people.
It is when it only serves to cloud the public's perception of the scientific method, introduce misconceptions that hamper the acceptance of well supported theories and foster incorrect reasoning enabling charlatans and junk science to take advantage of the fact that the general public aren't aware that "the respective analogies only go so far".
The fact that anthropomorphisation can made certain complex ideas easier to digest does not mean that it is always a good idea. And the case that was being made is one of those situations where an anthropomorphic analogy was inappropriate, because rather than making a complex idea more accessible, it was lazing attributing humanised characteristics to part of a system which does not actually exhibit those characteristics.
yeah but what fails is the 32x games, the 64dd games etc, because they rely on you having the add on which not many people do. HD-DVD is different because the 360 add-on is not its only platform. DVD didnt fail because you had to buy a dongle to watch them on the Xbox, and the add-on-ness of the 360 hd player wont cause HD-DVD to fail. if it does fail it'll be a larger set of problems than that.
as for the sales of the add-on, there is no large critical mass required - as long as MS dont overproduce them and sell the minimum amount needed to cover costs then it wont be a problem.
It was not my intention to debate the "evidence" of creationism, only to point out that it does exist.
But he just explained that those examples you gave are not valid. They arent evidence because they arent true. Every single piece of evidence presented to bolster the notion of creationism by attempting to discredit scientific facts is demonstrably wrong. It is also a false dilemma. Proving all of science to be wrong would not prove that god created the universe.
I never said I agreed with it, but most people here have not taken the time to even consider that there may be other view points with valid, logical and scientifically backed reasoning.
I've heard both sides of the argument and you have to agree that both sides have valid points as well as theories that don't make sense.
The creationist side ONLY has theories that don't make sense. And "science" isnt some kind of gospel edict that scientists have faith in. Science consists of varied points of view with logical scientific backed reasoning. But at the end of the day, one of those points of view come out on top as having the most evidence behind it. Thus a consensus is reached. A consensus that can be revised should more evidence come up in favour of a different point of view. "Intelligent Design" has been and can be reviewed as a scientific theory and it has been found to be JUNK SCIENCE. It doesnt hold any water. The "evidence" presented by the IDers has been peer reviewed the world over and it's GARBAGE. This ploy of appealing to "fairness" and "balance" is a political ruse to sway people who are ignorant of the fact that the entire case has been evaluated fairly and in a balanced way, and was found to be INCORRECT.
While you and others have done a pretty good job of "debunking" most of the creationist view, I have yet to hear anyone debunk the first law of thermodynamics. If energy (and matter) is never created nor destroyed, nothing can exist without that law at any scale being broken at some point.
He just explained that to you, but you havent understood. Scientific "Laws" are not etched into the fabric of the universe. They are used to describe the behaviour of a particular well defined system. In the same way that Newton's Laws dont apply when you approach the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics dont apply when you are talking about the beginning of the universe, because they weren't written to describe it. They describe the lower energy universe we occupy today. This is another example of creationists confusing the layman with intellectually dishonest misrepresentations of what science is and what it says.
I'm not saying I know who, how or why, but I am saying that not all Creationist theories have been "debunked endlessly".
Present one that hasnt been debunked then. And dont just reiterate the ones that have just been debunked in front of you.
And saying that these "laws" don't apply because they break down at extreme scales is as much as a cop out as saying God did it.
No it isnt at all. You fundamentally misunderstand science. The "laws" were written from experimentation and research made in the universe as it is now. They only apply to the universe as it is now. A Scientific "law" is not a universal. It only applies to the system it describes. Saying god did it is saying "i know for a fact this thing we cant explain or understand was definitely done by god.". Saying the laws of thermodynamics dont apply at the beginning of the universe is just admitting the reality that we dont know what happens.
Then why not ignore it and mind your own business?
because the unchallenged propagation of poor reasoning like that is bad thing. the more ignorance there is, the more the world is a dangerous place.
I think not being able to prove something is better than thinking you proved something with evidence when you really didn't.
That's why he had to pull you up on the way you were implying that your meaningless thought exercise was any kind of evidence for the existence of God, which it isn't.
Also, a lot of the evidence that scientists use for evolution can be viewed another way as evidence for Creation.
That's a bold claim, the kind that needs to be backed up with some references or at least some examples. And again, it would be irresponsible for me to let you make potentially baseless assertions without challenging you to back up your claims. As an unrelated and more extreme example, i'm sure you wouldnt think that a holocaust denier should not be challenged when making claims like "a lot of evidence for the holocaust can be viewed another way as evidence against it", without presenting a single example for consideration.
By the way, what ever happened to the 3 rules of cell theory, namely the one about all cells can only come from another living cell?
They are rules governing a particular well bounded model. They arent a set of commandments etched into the fabric of the universe. They also dont contradict evolutionary theory whatsoever. What I assume you are thinking about is the origin of life, rather than speciation. The theory of evolution has little to say about the origin of life.
Tell your friends to get their story straight before preaching evolution.
I would encourage you to heed your own advice. Also, evolution isn't a gospel that is preached. It is a scientific fact that can be readily examined by anyone who is genuinely curious about the way the world actually works. Your problem is that your only understanding of evolution is the self-deluding and ignorant propaganda of the intelligent design "movement".
A very important fact of life that would do you well to appreciate, is that you simple CANNOT make a valid judgement of the truth of a proposition if you only listen to one side of the story. Do yourself a favour and open your eyes. Try reading some actual scientific material about evolution and make a genuinely balanced judgement. Don't spend the rest of your life as the mouthpiece of someone else's propaganda.
well then, the ipod is their success. it doesnt really matter where they get their money from. also its 2% more of the PC market than any other fucker has.
yeah, i dont disagree the amount of stars in the universe make it very unlikely we are the only advanced life, i was just pointing out that carl sagan's example doesn't mean anything if it's just plugged full of arbitrary numbers.
of course if 1 in 10 is a really conservative estimate in each case, then it would make some sense, but there is nothing to suggest these are. they just seem to be arbitrary. how does he know its isnt 1 in 100 for three of these things? (perhaps he has reasons, but they arent self-evident, and need presenting to make this mean anything at all)
But only three of those probabilities have to be 1 in 100 for you to end with 1 advanced civilisation. From whose ass does he pull the 1 in 10 probabilities for everything?
Dont get me wrong, i'm entirely open to evidence either way and would be excited by a convincing reason to think there are other intelligent lifeforms, and for all i know such an explanation exists. This isnt one of them though.
If it were backed up with some evidence to suggest each of those probabilities, then it would be interesting.
That isn't entirely fair, as Ubuntu admit that the upgrade process was broken in ways that should have been rectified during testing.
While Edgy is experimental in that it includes lots of new and unfamiliar functionality, it is NOT supposed to be an "unstable" release. Numbered Ubuntu releases are all "Stable". Admonishing people for expecting 6.10 to work is not valid. 6.10 is the version displayed on the homepage as the current release of Ubuntu. Nowhere there does it say "beware: ubuntu 6.10 is unstable and should not be used on production machines; it is also likely to fail during installation".
Dont get me wrong, i'm an ubuntu user, and I dont hold this against them. They've held their hands up and taken steps to avoid this cock-up happening again, but lets not rationalise it away as Edgy being an unstable release, because it is absolutely not. They just made some mistakes, and hopefully they have learnt from them.
My guess would be they are doing as this a response to massive forum activity regarding trying to get closed source video and wireless drivers to work. The rationale is likely to be "how do we make these problems go away"?
So this is the most straightforward solution they came up with. The thing is, this isnt as much of a problem as everyone is making it out to be. If this gets more users on Linux, then it is a good thing. I'm sure if this practice violates the GPL, it will have to be jettisoned as soon as that becomes undeniable. And if it doesn't, then what's the problem?
To put this in perspective, its only people who have the relevant hardware that are going to have these drivers installed on their machines, and even they can remove them. All ubuntu are doing is making it so that stuff works from the word go. If you dont like binary blobs, remove them. Or don't use Ubuntu.
Are you sure it is so black and white? Perhaps sometimes IP holds innovation back, and sometimes enables it. Perhaps that's why the issue is so contested, With one side saying IP is pure evil the other saying IP infringement is pure evil, and neither side ever contemplating that maybe the reason the argument is never concluded is because neither view applies 100% of the time.
Well, since it's their job to attract attention to a product, I would say they are professionals doing their job, rather than spoiled children. Just because their job description is to pander to human stupidity doesn't mean they themselves are stupid.
"In future, once the plans for these TPMs have reached fruition, you will not be able to connect to the internet (because the ISP will insist on a trusted connection) if you disable the TPM.
Well what if you have a DSL router that has a TPM chip but your PC doesnt? Can you get round it that way?
Slashdot Mirror
that's genuinely witty. not something you see everyday on slashdot. :p
The problem is you're making a generalisation. This is the crux of a number of arguments I have read on slashdot. Someone has some personal experience, which they then proclaim as anecdotal evidence that the same experience applies universally.
There are innumerable counter examples that people could come up with that support exactly the opposite conclusion you have drawn.
The point is, not all old people go out and buy autoroute or use encarta. Some of them only use a web browser and word processor, and will only ever use a web browser and word processor. Those old people would stand to benefit a great deal from having Linux on their PC, as they would be able to carry on doing everything they want, with the added bonus of being totally immune to malware. The same would go for getting them a Mac, which has the only downside of costing a hell of a lot of money vs. $0 for a linux install.
Not that this counter example somehow denies the existence of scenarios such as your experience, but it does counter your conclusion that Linux is useless to all old people.
"Is it a bad idea? No."
It is when it only serves to cloud the public's perception of the scientific method, introduce misconceptions that hamper the acceptance of well supported theories and foster incorrect reasoning enabling charlatans and junk science to take advantage of the fact that the general public aren't aware that "the respective analogies only go so far".
The fact that anthropomorphisation can made certain complex ideas easier to digest does not mean that it is always a good idea. And the case that was being made is one of those situations where an anthropomorphic analogy was inappropriate, because rather than making a complex idea more accessible, it was lazing attributing humanised characteristics to part of a system which does not actually exhibit those characteristics.
So, in summary "Is it a bad idea? Sometimes."
too true. its worth pointing out the fate of MegaCD had little effect on the success of the CD audio format, and other players of that format.
yeah but what fails is the 32x games, the 64dd games etc, because they rely on you having the add on which not many people do. HD-DVD is different because the 360 add-on is not its only platform. DVD didnt fail because you had to buy a dongle to watch them on the Xbox, and the add-on-ness of the 360 hd player wont cause HD-DVD to fail. if it does fail it'll be a larger set of problems than that.
as for the sales of the add-on, there is no large critical mass required - as long as MS dont overproduce them and sell the minimum amount needed to cover costs then it wont be a problem.
his obnoxious tone and your pedantry aside, you said it "far surpasses", which the article doesn't.
could he create a being that could and would kill him? Does that being have omnipotence+1?
It was not my intention to debate the "evidence" of creationism, only to point out that it does exist.
But he just explained that those examples you gave are not valid. They arent evidence because they arent true. Every single piece of evidence presented to bolster the notion of creationism by attempting to discredit scientific facts is demonstrably wrong. It is also a false dilemma. Proving all of science to be wrong would not prove that god created the universe.
I never said I agreed with it, but most people here have not taken the time to even consider that there may be other view points with valid, logical and scientifically backed reasoning. I've heard both sides of the argument and you have to agree that both sides have valid points as well as theories that don't make sense.
The creationist side ONLY has theories that don't make sense. And "science" isnt some kind of gospel edict that scientists have faith in. Science consists of varied points of view with logical scientific backed reasoning. But at the end of the day, one of those points of view come out on top as having the most evidence behind it. Thus a consensus is reached. A consensus that can be revised should more evidence come up in favour of a different point of view. "Intelligent Design" has been and can be reviewed as a scientific theory and it has been found to be JUNK SCIENCE. It doesnt hold any water. The "evidence" presented by the IDers has been peer reviewed the world over and it's GARBAGE. This ploy of appealing to "fairness" and "balance" is a political ruse to sway people who are ignorant of the fact that the entire case has been evaluated fairly and in a balanced way, and was found to be INCORRECT.
While you and others have done a pretty good job of "debunking" most of the creationist view, I have yet to hear anyone debunk the first law of thermodynamics. If energy (and matter) is never created nor destroyed, nothing can exist without that law at any scale being broken at some point.
He just explained that to you, but you havent understood. Scientific "Laws" are not etched into the fabric of the universe. They are used to describe the behaviour of a particular well defined system. In the same way that Newton's Laws dont apply when you approach the speed of light, the laws of thermodynamics dont apply when you are talking about the beginning of the universe, because they weren't written to describe it. They describe the lower energy universe we occupy today. This is another example of creationists confusing the layman with intellectually dishonest misrepresentations of what science is and what it says.
I'm not saying I know who, how or why, but I am saying that not all Creationist theories have been "debunked endlessly".
Present one that hasnt been debunked then. And dont just reiterate the ones that have just been debunked in front of you.
And saying that these "laws" don't apply because they break down at extreme scales is as much as a cop out as saying God did it.
No it isnt at all. You fundamentally misunderstand science. The "laws" were written from experimentation and research made in the universe as it is now. They only apply to the universe as it is now. A Scientific "law" is not a universal. It only applies to the system it describes. Saying god did it is saying "i know for a fact this thing we cant explain or understand was definitely done by god.". Saying the laws of thermodynamics dont apply at the beginning of the universe is just admitting the reality that we dont know what happens.
Then why not ignore it and mind your own business?
because the unchallenged propagation of poor reasoning like that is bad thing. the more ignorance there is, the more the world is a dangerous place.
I think not being able to prove something is better than thinking you proved something with evidence when you really didn't.
That's why he had to pull you up on the way you were implying that your meaningless thought exercise was any kind of evidence for the existence of God, which it isn't.
Also, a lot of the evidence that scientists use for evolution can be viewed another way as evidence for Creation.
That's a bold claim, the kind that needs to be backed up with some references or at least some examples. And again, it would be irresponsible for me to let you make potentially baseless assertions without challenging you to back up your claims. As an unrelated and more extreme example, i'm sure you wouldnt think that a holocaust denier should not be challenged when making claims like "a lot of evidence for the holocaust can be viewed another way as evidence against it", without presenting a single example for consideration.
By the way, what ever happened to the 3 rules of cell theory, namely the one about all cells can only come from another living cell?
They are rules governing a particular well bounded model. They arent a set of commandments etched into the fabric of the universe. They also dont contradict evolutionary theory whatsoever. What I assume you are thinking about is the origin of life, rather than speciation. The theory of evolution has little to say about the origin of life.
Tell your friends to get their story straight before preaching evolution.
I would encourage you to heed your own advice. Also, evolution isn't a gospel that is preached. It is a scientific fact that can be readily examined by anyone who is genuinely curious about the way the world actually works. Your problem is that your only understanding of evolution is the self-deluding and ignorant propaganda of the intelligent design "movement".
A very important fact of life that would do you well to appreciate, is that you simple CANNOT make a valid judgement of the truth of a proposition if you only listen to one side of the story. Do yourself a favour and open your eyes. Try reading some actual scientific material about evolution and make a genuinely balanced judgement. Don't spend the rest of your life as the mouthpiece of someone else's propaganda.
why do you reach for your revolver?
how do you hold down a 9 to 5 while pissing around like that?
"The movie industry is so corrupt...if they have any inkling that an idea will turn profit, they proceed without caring about the quality of a film."
In what way is that corrupt? Do they have a legal obligation to produce good movies?
for some reason i thought beau bridges was his dad :)
there is infringement even bruce perens agrees. follow the link in his sig.
well then, the ipod is their success. it doesnt really matter where they get their money from. also its 2% more of the PC market than any other fucker has.
yeah, i dont disagree the amount of stars in the universe make it very unlikely we are the only advanced life, i was just pointing out that carl sagan's example doesn't mean anything if it's just plugged full of arbitrary numbers.
of course if 1 in 10 is a really conservative estimate in each case, then it would make some sense, but there is nothing to suggest these are. they just seem to be arbitrary. how does he know its isnt 1 in 100 for three of these things? (perhaps he has reasons, but they arent self-evident, and need presenting to make this mean anything at all)
i mean who's ass did carl sagan pull them from ;)
But only three of those probabilities have to be 1 in 100 for you to end with 1 advanced civilisation. From whose ass does he pull the 1 in 10 probabilities for everything?
Dont get me wrong, i'm entirely open to evidence either way and would be excited by a convincing reason to think there are other intelligent lifeforms, and for all i know such an explanation exists. This isnt one of them though.
If it were backed up with some evidence to suggest each of those probabilities, then it would be interesting.
That isn't entirely fair, as Ubuntu admit that the upgrade process was broken in ways that should have been rectified during testing.
While Edgy is experimental in that it includes lots of new and unfamiliar functionality, it is NOT supposed to be an "unstable" release. Numbered Ubuntu releases are all "Stable". Admonishing people for expecting 6.10 to work is not valid. 6.10 is the version displayed on the homepage as the current release of Ubuntu. Nowhere there does it say "beware: ubuntu 6.10 is unstable and should not be used on production machines; it is also likely to fail during installation".
Dont get me wrong, i'm an ubuntu user, and I dont hold this against them. They've held their hands up and taken steps to avoid this cock-up happening again, but lets not rationalise it away as Edgy being an unstable release, because it is absolutely not. They just made some mistakes, and hopefully they have learnt from them.
My guess would be they are doing as this a response to massive forum activity regarding trying to get closed source video and wireless drivers to work. The rationale is likely to be "how do we make these problems go away"?
So this is the most straightforward solution they came up with. The thing is, this isnt as much of a problem as everyone is making it out to be. If this gets more users on Linux, then it is a good thing. I'm sure if this practice violates the GPL, it will have to be jettisoned as soon as that becomes undeniable. And if it doesn't, then what's the problem?
To put this in perspective, its only people who have the relevant hardware that are going to have these drivers installed on their machines, and even they can remove them. All ubuntu are doing is making it so that stuff works from the word go. If you dont like binary blobs, remove them. Or don't use Ubuntu.
Are you sure it is so black and white? Perhaps sometimes IP holds innovation back, and sometimes enables it. Perhaps that's why the issue is so contested, With one side saying IP is pure evil the other saying IP infringement is pure evil, and neither side ever contemplating that maybe the reason the argument is never concluded is because neither view applies 100% of the time.
Well, since it's their job to attract attention to a product, I would say they are professionals doing their job, rather than spoiled children. Just because their job description is to pander to human stupidity doesn't mean they themselves are stupid.
"In future, once the plans for these TPMs have reached fruition, you will not be able to connect to the internet (because the ISP will insist on a trusted connection) if you disable the TPM.
Well what if you have a DSL router that has a TPM chip but your PC doesnt? Can you get round it that way?
So the only two options you think there are are "do nothing" or "piss and cry like a three year old because the world isnt fair".
That's probably why you can't understand what i'm talking about.