Singling out religion as the culprit for mankind's tendency to find idiotic excuses to justify violence is absurd. It's like blaming gunpowder manufacturers every time someone gets shot.
Its actually less rational than blaming gunpowder manufacturers every time someone gets shot, since the manufacture of gunpowder is a necessary element in someone getting shot (even if not a proximate or culpable cause), whereas people -- as your own post reveals -- are quite capable of finding, and regularly find, idiotic excuses to justify violence without appeal to religion or religious identity.
Its more like blaming gunpowder manufacturers every time someone dies by violence.
Depends. If you define Christian as "one who believes christ was the son of god and came to save mankind", then Hitler was most definately not a Christian.
We're discussing Dawkins comments about the role of religious identity as an arbitrary basis to divide people into "us" and "them". Arguing that Hitler failed to meet any particular theological criteria for being a faithful Christian is not helpful to the attempt to refute Dawkins characterization; indeed, it would seem to undermine the argument that religious identity is one of the "least arbitrary" labels used to motivate "us" v. "them" distinctions because it "reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for", since it highlights the vast gulf between religious identity used to motivate "us" v. "them" distinctions and the underlying philosophy that is supposedly indicated by association with the religion.
Hitler directed his Nazi propaganda apparatus to find a way to, in effect, replace "Christmas" with "Hitler Day". This objective is not indicative of a genuine Christian belief.
But, nonetheless, Hitler's use of a Christian "us" identity (including the pressure his regime exerted on Christian Churches) and a non-Christian (and, most significantly, Jewish) "them" identity (targetting not only actual Jews, but also tarring other enemies with association with Jews, through portrayals of both conscious collaboration and being duped by Jewish conspiracy) is pretty typical of the way religious identity is used to divide people into "us" v. "them". (You see almost identical things being done with religious identity -- with Islam replacing Christianity, but Judaism still the enemy -- by authoritarian regimes today that are either overtly Islamist, or even mostly-secular totalitarian regimes in areas where the population is largely Muslim; and closely parallel things -- with Christianity retained in the "us" role, but Islam and/or secularism/atheism the leading "them" labels -- in a weaker form in the US; historically, almost exactly the same thing -- with the Christian "us" being specifically Catholic -- was pretty the hallmark of the Spanish Inquisition.)
He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for.
Its pretty much as arbitrary as most other identity labels; it is neither "one of the least arbitrary" (as you put it), or one of the "most arbitrary" (as TFS -- incorrectly, incidentally, as the transcript shows -- characterizes Dawkins position. Dawkins, characterizes identity labels in general as arbitrary, and characterizes religion as both "the principal" label used in motivating war, and "the most dangerous" one -- neither of which, IMO, is accurate, but that's a different argument.)
While philosophies are often tied to religions, religious identities rarely map particularly well to substantial differences in "underlying philosophy and values", and particularly the (perceived) differences in religions that are motivate us v. them distinctions are rarely even accurate.
But considering the weight, expense, hassle**, and inefficiency of the reflector, LEDs would come out ahead being naturally "spotlighty" ?
** : To retain efficiency, now not only the light bulb but the reflector also has to be cleaned.
I don't think you understand. CFL spotlight bulbs have the reflective surface as part of the inside of the bulb around the flourescent tube. LED spotlights might be lighter (never compared that) than CFLs, but they are definitely more expensive, and there is no difference in hassle.
Breaking a legally-binding agreement that they entered into rather than raising an actual defense against charges that they violated European antitrust law.
Apple does the same thing with OSx, and forget iOS
Which legally-binding agreement entered into to settle past charges does Apple break with OS X and/or iOS?
I think the recent EU action demonstrates why that is not an actual benefit Microsoft receives from defying the rules it agreed to in settling the EU antitrust action.
Would "Hey guys, look at what Apple is doing!" be a valid defense?
No. First, because "someone else is also breaking the same law" is not a legally valid defense (in some cases, it may be a strategy to avoid or reduce charges you are facing, if the other someone is perceived by the government to be worse than you, and your cooperation actually makes it easier to hold them accountable.)
Second, because there doesn't appear to even be a colorable claim that Apple isn't doing what Microsoft is accused of doing, to wit, violating an agreement with the EU that was entered into as part of the settlement of a past antitrust action. The specific browser choice requirement Microsoft faces isn't a generally applicable rule, its a special restriction that Microsoft agreed to as part of settling charges of illegally leveraging a monopoly in the past.
So, why doesn't the same rule apply to OS X, iOS, Android, etc.? They also come with preinstalled browser.
The rule is not a rule about operating systems that come with a pre-installed browser, it is a rule set in an agreement that Microsoft entered into with the EU as part of the settlement of charges related to Microsoft illegally leveraging an existing monopoly in the personal computer operating system market.
The makers of the operating systems you make have not entered into similar agreements, or even been charged with the same offense.
Its like asking why parole terms that apply to a particular convict don't apply to other citizens who haven't been convicted of (or even charged with) the crime that the convict was convicted of, much less subjected to similar parole terms.
Also, it is possible to make LED spotlights to handle that strange modern trend of building lots of spotlights into ceilings. CFL cannot do that.
If you have a lightsource and an appropriately curved reflector, you have a spotlight. This can definitely be done with CFLs. I'm pretty sure of that, since my house has those ceiling spotlight mounts (originally with halogens, but replaced with CFLs when we bought the house.)
I always tell them: "If you think you won't ever use much math, you probably won't. And your bank account probably won't get big enough to require many decimals."
I'm having trouble imagining how a bank account balance is going to require more than one decimal to express, regardless of how big it gets.
This is not simple data compression or error control coding. This is network coding, e.g., see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_network_coding and how it can increase the capacity in the butterfly network over traditional packet routing schemes, counter to our intuition for flow networks/water pipes.
So, what your saying is, the internet is not like a series of tubes? Maybe its more like a big truck you can just dump stuff on?
But there is a connection, MIT, Caltech, Harvard and the universities in Europe are all universities.
Removing the word "other" implies every university in Europe was involved.
No it doesn't. "A team of researchers from MIT, Caltech, and universities in Europe" does not, even a little bit, imply that the "team of researchers" included researchers from every university in Europe. Whereas "A team of researchers from MIT, Caltech, and other universities in Europe" definitely states that MIT, Caltech, and the other universities from which the researchers on the team come are all in Europe, which is just a little bit wrong.
Well, actually, it was largely approved the first time, in an earlier patent that Apple filed (which was only granted after this one was filed), that's one of the reasons many of the claims in this patent are being rejected.
I suspect that the reason for the restriction to Apple devices is to assure that the first wave of third-party online reporting about the announcement is from a group biased to be more generally favorable to Apple products, to set the tone of the response.
It's reminds me of all the doom and gloom over the Ribbon UI and how people would never accept and it'll be the downfall of Office.
In reality, I've been in three companies now which have transitioned from Office 2003 to one of the versions with the ribbon.
Which one? 2007 or 2010? I ask because it makes a pretty huge difference, because the main objections, when you actually got down to the details beyond the "Ribbon sucks" complaints, weren't really to the ribbon as a UI paradigm, they were with the not having the things that were in the old file menu readily available in an obvious place, and some other issues with the clarity and organization of the ribbon with regard to common commands, both of which were addressed in 2010; the Ribbon wasn't a bad idea, but it wasn't particularly well executed in 2007 (I thought it was a net step forward even so for me, but then I'm also the kind of person who will explore the UI pretty deeply, find where things are hidden, and find the tools to customize it, not the average user.)
Those sounding the alarm about the difficulty in making the transition to Windows 8, especially on traditional computers, should check out Adam Desrosiers' son Julian, a 3-year-old kid who uses Windows 8 like a champ. 'I read these tech pundits and journalists discussing how hard it's gonna be for the general public to learn the new UI of Windows 8,' says Desrosiers. 'Nonsense. The long and short of it is: If my 3 years old son can learn Windows 8 through very moderate usage, anybody with half a brain can do so too.'
To a very large extent, user interfaces are a visual and gestural language. Young children acquire languages much, much faster than adults, because brains at the stage of development are configured for language acquisition. While I really don't think that the difficulty of learning the new UI is the main problem with Windows 8, this response to those who are raising that issue is nonsense.
The point that I have issue with is that all the sites affected can only sit back and wait and hope that things get back to normal.
Well, no. They likely could do lots of other things -- they probably will choose not to do much else if Amazon doesn't take a ludicrously long time to fix the problem because that's easier than the other things they can do, and if they can't do anything else its not because they used the cloud, but because they both used didn't do contingency planning that enabled them to address Amazon failures other than by waiting for Amazon to fix them.
This is no different than any other hosting scenario, including your own data center. There are always external facilities (e.g., your network providers) that can fail, and you can either spend the effort to make a contingency plan to deal with their failures or simply accept the risk of their failure.
I like to own the equipment I use and when it breaks my people are on it and I can ask them what is going on and a time frame.
Owning the equipment seems to be a non-sequitur. Whether you own the equipment or not, or whether the relationship is employee-employer or a non-employment contract relationship, you can have someone you can ask what is going on and a time frame. Of course, depending on who you having working for you (and, again, this is true regardless of whether you own the hardware and regardless of whether your relationship to the people responsible to you for the systems is an employee-employer or a contract relationship) you might not get a good response, but the solution to that is to choose well when you choose who to work with.
Google's announced a number of times that their long-term plan is to converge Android with Chrome OS in the long term.
If so, what's the holdup?
What hold up? The plan is proceeding apace. I wouldn't really expect full integration to occur until sometime after Portable Native Client is in general release in Chrome (I was actually a bit surprised they went with ARM-based Chromebooks before that.)
To sell Chromebook, Google needs to ship the Chromebook with Android and add a touchscreen so that the device is not perceived as inferior to a tablet + bluetooth keyboard.
They may need that to sell Chromebook to you, but they may be happy enough not doing that. They are probably quite happy to continue selling Android tablets -- including ones that people will by bluetooth keyboards for -- to people who prefer them to Chromebooks.
Not to mention you can't even do anything to "unbrick" when there is no net, you are just SOL. And who thought $250 was a good price?
Its a good price for the core of the target market, which is people who are committed to Google's web-based app ecosystem. The $249 price includes, after all, $119.76 worth of storage in Google Drive (100GB @ 4.99/mo * 12 mo.)
So I just don't see how Google's plans work out long term unless they want to get into the ISP and carrier business
Not only does Google "want to get into" the ISP business, Google is in the ISP business, with the leading edge of that being the Google Fiber deployment in Kansas City. As far as wireless, there is a reason that Google was one of the big movers pushing the FCC to open up spectrum "white spaces" left by the digital TV conversion to data use, and (successfully) competed to become one of the "white spaces" administrators when the FCC did decide to open that spectrum.
How is this different from any generic netbook that comes out around the same price range (with a x86 processor may I add)?
You get the CLOUD, son. The CLOUD. All your data can be stored in the CLOUD
Sure, your joking... but that's pretty much true. The $249 price of the Chromebook includes $119.76 (100GB @ $4.99/mo * 24mo) of Google Drive storage. So, the big difference between what you get for $250 with the Chromebook and a "similarly priced" netbook is, indeed, "the cloud".
Think of the hardware as a $129.24 optional add-on to 2 years of 100GB of Google Drive storage.
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Its actually less rational than blaming gunpowder manufacturers every time someone gets shot, since the manufacture of gunpowder is a necessary element in someone getting shot (even if not a proximate or culpable cause), whereas people -- as your own post reveals -- are quite capable of finding, and regularly find, idiotic excuses to justify violence without appeal to religion or religious identity. Its more like blaming gunpowder manufacturers every time someone dies by violence.
We're discussing Dawkins comments about the role of religious identity as an arbitrary basis to divide people into "us" and "them". Arguing that Hitler failed to meet any particular theological criteria for being a faithful Christian is not helpful to the attempt to refute Dawkins characterization; indeed, it would seem to undermine the argument that religious identity is one of the "least arbitrary" labels used to motivate "us" v. "them" distinctions because it "reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for", since it highlights the vast gulf between religious identity used to motivate "us" v. "them" distinctions and the underlying philosophy that is supposedly indicated by association with the religion.
But, nonetheless, Hitler's use of a Christian "us" identity (including the pressure his regime exerted on Christian Churches) and a non-Christian (and, most significantly, Jewish) "them" identity (targetting not only actual Jews, but also tarring other enemies with association with Jews, through portrayals of both conscious collaboration and being duped by Jewish conspiracy) is pretty typical of the way religious identity is used to divide people into "us" v. "them". (You see almost identical things being done with religious identity -- with Islam replacing Christianity, but Judaism still the enemy -- by authoritarian regimes today that are either overtly Islamist, or even mostly-secular totalitarian regimes in areas where the population is largely Muslim; and closely parallel things -- with Christianity retained in the "us" role, but Islam and/or secularism/atheism the leading "them" labels -- in a weaker form in the US; historically, almost exactly the same thing -- with the Christian "us" being specifically Catholic -- was pretty the hallmark of the Spanish Inquisition.)
Its pretty much as arbitrary as most other identity labels; it is neither "one of the least arbitrary" (as you put it), or one of the "most arbitrary" (as TFS -- incorrectly, incidentally, as the transcript shows -- characterizes Dawkins position. Dawkins, characterizes identity labels in general as arbitrary, and characterizes religion as both "the principal" label used in motivating war, and "the most dangerous" one -- neither of which, IMO, is accurate, but that's a different argument.)
While philosophies are often tied to religions, religious identities rarely map particularly well to substantial differences in "underlying philosophy and values", and particularly the (perceived) differences in religions that are motivate us v. them distinctions are rarely even accurate.
I don't think you understand. CFL spotlight bulbs have the reflective surface as part of the inside of the bulb around the flourescent tube. LED spotlights might be lighter (never compared that) than CFLs, but they are definitely more expensive, and there is no difference in hassle.
Breaking a legally-binding agreement that they entered into rather than raising an actual defense against charges that they violated European antitrust law.
Which legally-binding agreement entered into to settle past charges does Apple break with OS X and/or iOS?
I think the recent EU action demonstrates why that is not an actual benefit Microsoft receives from defying the rules it agreed to in settling the EU antitrust action.
No. First, because "someone else is also breaking the same law" is not a legally valid defense (in some cases, it may be a strategy to avoid or reduce charges you are facing, if the other someone is perceived by the government to be worse than you, and your cooperation actually makes it easier to hold them accountable.)
Second, because there doesn't appear to even be a colorable claim that Apple isn't doing what Microsoft is accused of doing, to wit, violating an agreement with the EU that was entered into as part of the settlement of a past antitrust action. The specific browser choice requirement Microsoft faces isn't a generally applicable rule, its a special restriction that Microsoft agreed to as part of settling charges of illegally leveraging a monopoly in the past.
The rule is not a rule about operating systems that come with a pre-installed browser, it is a rule set in an agreement that Microsoft entered into with the EU as part of the settlement of charges related to Microsoft illegally leveraging an existing monopoly in the personal computer operating system market.
The makers of the operating systems you make have not entered into similar agreements, or even been charged with the same offense.
Its like asking why parole terms that apply to a particular convict don't apply to other citizens who haven't been convicted of (or even charged with) the crime that the convict was convicted of, much less subjected to similar parole terms.
If you have a lightsource and an appropriately curved reflector, you have a spotlight. This can definitely be done with CFLs. I'm pretty sure of that, since my house has those ceiling spotlight mounts (originally with halogens, but replaced with CFLs when we bought the house.)
I'm having trouble imagining how a bank account balance is going to require more than one decimal to express, regardless of how big it gets.
So, what your saying is, the internet is not like a series of tubes? Maybe its more like a big truck you can just dump stuff on?
No it doesn't. "A team of researchers from MIT, Caltech, and universities in Europe" does not, even a little bit, imply that the "team of researchers" included researchers from every university in Europe. Whereas "A team of researchers from MIT, Caltech, and other universities in Europe" definitely states that MIT, Caltech, and the other universities from which the researchers on the team come are all in Europe, which is just a little bit wrong.
It would be amazing, since a 7.9" linear measure translates to only 27.3% larger area than a 7" linear measure.
Apple actually went after HTC first. They went after Samsung second (but before the HTC case was resolved.)
Well, actually, it was largely approved the first time, in an earlier patent that Apple filed (which was only granted after this one was filed), that's one of the reasons many of the claims in this patent are being rejected.
I suspect that the reason for the restriction to Apple devices is to assure that the first wave of third-party online reporting about the announcement is from a group biased to be more generally favorable to Apple products, to set the tone of the response.
Which one? 2007 or 2010? I ask because it makes a pretty huge difference, because the main objections, when you actually got down to the details beyond the "Ribbon sucks" complaints, weren't really to the ribbon as a UI paradigm, they were with the not having the things that were in the old file menu readily available in an obvious place, and some other issues with the clarity and organization of the ribbon with regard to common commands, both of which were addressed in 2010; the Ribbon wasn't a bad idea, but it wasn't particularly well executed in 2007 (I thought it was a net step forward even so for me, but then I'm also the kind of person who will explore the UI pretty deeply, find where things are hidden, and find the tools to customize it, not the average user.)
To a very large extent, user interfaces are a visual and gestural language. Young children acquire languages much, much faster than adults, because brains at the stage of development are configured for language acquisition. While I really don't think that the difficulty of learning the new UI is the main problem with Windows 8, this response to those who are raising that issue is nonsense.
Well, no. They likely could do lots of other things -- they probably will choose not to do much else if Amazon doesn't take a ludicrously long time to fix the problem because that's easier than the other things they can do, and if they can't do anything else its not because they used the cloud, but because they both used didn't do contingency planning that enabled them to address Amazon failures other than by waiting for Amazon to fix them. This is no different than any other hosting scenario, including your own data center. There are always external facilities (e.g., your network providers) that can fail, and you can either spend the effort to make a contingency plan to deal with their failures or simply accept the risk of their failure.
Owning the equipment seems to be a non-sequitur. Whether you own the equipment or not, or whether the relationship is employee-employer or a non-employment contract relationship, you can have someone you can ask what is going on and a time frame. Of course, depending on who you having working for you (and, again, this is true regardless of whether you own the hardware and regardless of whether your relationship to the people responsible to you for the systems is an employee-employer or a contract relationship) you might not get a good response, but the solution to that is to choose well when you choose who to work with.
What hold up? The plan is proceeding apace. I wouldn't really expect full integration to occur until sometime after Portable Native Client is in general release in Chrome (I was actually a bit surprised they went with ARM-based Chromebooks before that.)
They may need that to sell Chromebook to you, but they may be happy enough not doing that. They are probably quite happy to continue selling Android tablets -- including ones that people will by bluetooth keyboards for -- to people who prefer them to Chromebooks.
Its a good price for the core of the target market, which is people who are committed to Google's web-based app ecosystem. The $249 price includes, after all, $119.76 worth of storage in Google Drive (100GB @ 4.99/mo * 12 mo.)
Not only does Google "want to get into" the ISP business, Google is in the ISP business, with the leading edge of that being the Google Fiber deployment in Kansas City. As far as wireless, there is a reason that Google was one of the big movers pushing the FCC to open up spectrum "white spaces" left by the digital TV conversion to data use, and (successfully) competed to become one of the "white spaces" administrators when the FCC did decide to open that spectrum.
Sure, your joking ... but that's pretty much true. The $249 price of the Chromebook includes $119.76 (100GB @ $4.99/mo * 24mo) of Google Drive storage. So, the big difference between what you get for $250 with the Chromebook and a "similarly priced" netbook is, indeed, "the cloud".
Think of the hardware as a $129.24 optional add-on to 2 years of 100GB of Google Drive storage.
Then you probably don't want to pay for a $250 hardware and cloud-storage bundle that includes $120 worth of cloud storage.
Yes