Old laptops are still plenty useful. I know a few people who would love to have an old laptop, and I love refurbishing these things for people who can use them. Hell, a nice PIII would be a welcome replacement for my old PII.
I don't know what state you're in, but in California, it almost certainly doesn't work that way. I can't say with complete certainty about the state universities, but state departments send their outdated equipment to the Department of General Services. DGS then auctions the usable hardware to the public--you can find auction dates on their Web site. What they do with nonfunctioning equipment I'm less sure about, but I believe they turn it over to computer recycling companies.
(I'm in the IT group for a state department; in fact I'm the one here who sends equipment to DGS.)
The proposed bill is perfectly reasonable and acceptable on its face, but it won't be implemented as written. It's not intended to be, and I think you know that. It's a bit of sleight of hand that will let the bill slip by because it says "scientific", but that part will be thrown out the window from the get-go. The whole point of this is to allow unscientific ideas to be taught as if they had scientific credibility.
I'm not confused, and I'm not sure you are either. We've seen these kinds of shenanigans again, and we're not fooled.
Dude! No! This sort of thing is contagious, and it spreads. When they succeed in one area, they try the same thing in another.
Also remember this sort of thing isn't concentrated in the South; it's all over the Midwest (all over the Red States, really), creationists are active here in California, and let's not forget the Discovery Institute is in Washington State. Containment isn't an option here.
That's all true. The thing is that the "just a theory" crowd isn't thinking the same way you are: accept the theory currently supported by the evidence, but only tentatively, and be ready to change your mind if new evidence comes along. The "just a theory" people pick and choose theories that they don't want to accept, based on things other than evidence--usually because they think the Bible contradicts it. They then confuse a scientific theory with what's called a theory in everyday language and tell everyone who will listen that since it's only a theory, it's no more credible than the Bible (or whatever alternative explanation they're trying to replace it with). Then they try to punch some holes in the theory they're attacking, assuming that, having just equated the two, knocking down their opponent will make their explanation more believable.
The trouble is that you're trying to fight fair against someone who's not.
The pro-evolution forces used to be in favor of academic freedom. No longer.
You're kidding, right? Is it ok, then, to teach alchemy, astrology, Holocaust denial, and flat earth if the teachers believe in those things?
Clearly, academic freedom doesn't mean teach anything you feel like teaching. As someone pointed out above, we have standards to ensure that a certain basic level of education is being taught in public schools. Creationism and Intelligent Design don't belong in the public school curriculum because they're not scientific. They don't meet the qualifications to be scientific (testability, falsifiability, and an honest willingness to go where the evidence leads them).
Now, if they did come up with solid, testable hypotheses, rigorous methods, and honestly followed the trail of evidence, and if tests of their hypotheses began to show significant results, they would be welcomed into the corpus of scientific knowledge. Acceptance would come gradually, of course, and reluctantly at first, but it would come, and it would then be taught in schools. But it has to be solid and legitimate before it can be taught to schoolchildren--and what they've brought before the public so far has been neither solid nor legitimate. They've used a lot of tricks and sleight of hand to try to bypass that sciencey stuff, generally by going straight to school boards or the government itself in an attempt to get around the system.
On its surface, sure, it would be just fine, since it specifically refers to "present scientific information". The problem is that the law (if it passes) won't be followed that way, because it's not intended to be followed that way. It's a sleight of hand: "scientific" is a stand-in that equates to "what you personally believe", but sounds good on the surface so it's easier to deflect scrutiny.
A lot of the problem is that the people behind this bill, and even many of the teachers it targets, don't understand what "scientific" really means, and don't care. They confuse the trappings of science (fancy white coats and dry vocabulary) with the actual process itself, and think that if they wrap themselves in the appearance, that makes it reality. (Corporate America does this sort of thing in its own sphere: talk about the importance of superior customer service, then judge help desks on how many calls they take, rather than how many problems they solve or accounts they save.)
No, this is why religious groups should have no say in education--public-school education, at the very least. And why religious groups should have little say in government. I miss the days when separation of church and state really meant something--and, more importantly, the American public actually thought it was important.
One nitpick: technically, 40% of the Senate can block passage of a bill. Once a senator starts a filibuster, other senators can call for a vote to invoke cloture. Cloture requires a 60% majority and, if passed, ends the filibuster.
I'm with you on the rest. Although like others I'm increasingly frustrated with the Democrats, and have been toying more and more with voting third party.
(Contrary to popular opinion, third party can be the strongest vote you ever cast--except that the point isn't to win an election, but to influence the next one. It doesn't take a lot of votes for a third party to get the attention of the major party it's taking votes from, at which point the major party starts to realize it needs to poach something from the third party, or otherwise win back the votes it's losing.)
Not that I'm planning to vote third party, but I'm thinking more and more about doing it.
No, the Coelacanth has had lots of change over the past 400 million years. Coelacanth is an order, not a species (or even a genus). There have been numerous species of Coelacanth over time, and the modern ones didn't exist way back when. Even today, the two known populations are separate species.
That's good, out-of-the-box thinking, but it's not quite right. As others mentioned, individuals don't evolve; groups of individuals evolve. Individuals do change over time, but evolution refers to changes more at the genetic level, which can only take place in groups. My first thought on this is that the data may have been affected more by rates of reproduction--insects evolve much faster than humans because their generations are much shorter, for instance. But there may be something else going on here, too, related to the regulated metabolisms of mammals.
From the way it sounds, your options aren't too good. But you do have options. It sounds like the phone-line quality won't support 56k (I assume you aren't still on a 28.8 modem). But if you get a second phone line and modem, you could multilink your Internet connection--that roughly doubles (or better) your connection speed. There's software out there that can accomplish that for you.
Uh, no. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free anyone. It announced that all slaves in Confederate-held territory (that is, those the US gov't didn't have any control over) were now free. We continued to round up escaped slaves in Union-held territory and return them to their masters. The slaves weren't freed until 1865, after Lincoln.
I'm with you on the rest though. Peer review is what keeps people honest and code secure.
My experience is the same as yours. If your mother won't be using it very much, Tracfone is the way to go. You end up paying about $1 a minute ($2/min roaming), less if you buy minutes in bulk, and your minutes don't expire if you don't use them. In fact, even if your plan expires (you have to buy at least 10 units/month) but you have minutes unused, you keep them when you reactivate.
My only real complaint is that the phone doesn't warn you when your plan is about to expire. It does show the expiration date on the front, but it doesn't beep at you or anything when that date is coming near. So I've expired twice and had to renew. The last time they told me my phone was no longer supported, but they shipped me a new phone at no charge, and even included a postage-paid envelope to return my old one.
The point isn't that this is a place for us to live. The big deal here is that it's the closest we've found to an Earth-size planet yet, which brings us closer (we hope) in our search for extraterrestrial life. It's not that we're planning to live there--we're hoping to find life in places like that. More accurately, it's closer to the sort of place where we hope to find life.
Personally, I don't find it all that exciting as a candidate for life. If I understand these things correctly, when the star expanded to a red giant it likely stripped off the planet's atmosphere. But it is exciting that we've found something so close to the Earth in size. Considering how hard it is to spot planets (by whatever method you use) from distances of light-years, that's pretty impressive.
Nonsense. The government doesn't just "print more money" to increase its revenue. The repercussions from doing that are well-known and severe; there's a whole structure in place to prevent that kind of irresponsibility, including the Federal Reserve, etc. And even if it weren't for that, the gov't is divided into lots of departments that get their money budgeted to them. The Dep't of Education, for instance, doesn't print money, and won't get more on a "just because" basis.
Not to mention printing money isn't even an option for state and local governments.
As for raising taxes, just like that, to increase the government's revenue--they don't do that. Elected representatives know very well what the repercussions of that would be. A lot of them wouldn't want to anyway, and others wouldn't care enough to take the heat for it: increased borrowing is much more likely.
Anyway, from my experience in state government and the corporate world, I can say it's easier (and faster) to get purchases approved in the private sector. It's also easier to steal from your employer and get away with it.
I think after all the shit the US has gone through in the last 30-40 years, it's pretty clear to everyone that 1) Energy is Everything, 2) Oil is bad, mmkay, and 3) America's heart might be in the right place, but it's foreign policies blow.
Got to agree with you there, except that I don't think America's heart is in the right place. We like to think we're all about doing the right thing, and we love to tell everyone how benevolent we are, but when it comes right down to it, the United States does what it pleases in the world, and what it pleases is usually determined by what's in its narrow short-term interests. We overthrow (or help to overthrow) democratically-elected governments, and support or prop up brutal dictators who are friendly to us. Then twenty or thirty years later we stare in naive astonishment that the people of that country are angry at us.
Well, that's good, Nyeerrmm. It's foolish to think that the Bible can or should be taken literally, especially in the thirdhand translations that we English speakers use. As you pointed out re. the ex-girlfriend, those who make the claim typically pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to take literally, and which they'd rather ignore as "figurative".
Another explanation I've heard recently for the thinness of the Martian atmosphere involves its lack of a magnetic field. Our spinning iron core generates our magnetic field, but Mars is much smaller than Earth and its core solidified long ago, leaving the planet without a magnetic field. Now that field shelters us and our atmosphere from a good deal of radiation, and the solar wind, so it's thought that without one to protect it, much of the planet's atmosphere would be stripped away, leaving it very thin, as it is now.
Either way, the lack of a magnetic field will be a concern to any aspiring terraformers: colonies will be exposed to elevated levels of radiation.
Hahaha! That's retarded. Are you still in school, by any chance?
The choice of software is dictated by the IT staff to mid/upper management? I can tell you two things from personal experience: that's not how it works in the corporate world, and it's not how it works in (CA) state government. The IT staff is relied on to make informed recommendations, but management decides what's best for its bottom line--Total Cost of Ownership and all that. They generally go with proprietary solutions because they'd rather pay for support they know will be there than take a chance on something free/inexpensive that might leave them high and dry at a critical moment. And most end users are familiar with Windows, which means there's an extra (training) cost associated with *nix.
Also, by "follow the money", people here are talking about keeping their jobs. Not everyone can get a job that uses their OS of choice. And if they don't like the OS they have to support, that doesn't necessarily mean they hate their job--chances are they enjoy it but have to put up with a particular annoyance. That's life. It's also professionalism.
Slashdot Mirror
...for appropriately flagging Web sites promoting creationism, astrology, homeopathy, and other such nonsense.
Old laptops are still plenty useful. I know a few people who would love to have an old laptop, and I love refurbishing these things for people who can use them. Hell, a nice PIII would be a welcome replacement for my old PII.
I don't know what state you're in, but in California, it almost certainly doesn't work that way. I can't say with complete certainty about the state universities, but state departments send their outdated equipment to the Department of General Services. DGS then auctions the usable hardware to the public--you can find auction dates on their Web site. What they do with nonfunctioning equipment I'm less sure about, but I believe they turn it over to computer recycling companies. (I'm in the IT group for a state department; in fact I'm the one here who sends equipment to DGS.)
The proposed bill is perfectly reasonable and acceptable on its face, but it won't be implemented as written. It's not intended to be, and I think you know that. It's a bit of sleight of hand that will let the bill slip by because it says "scientific", but that part will be thrown out the window from the get-go. The whole point of this is to allow unscientific ideas to be taught as if they had scientific credibility. I'm not confused, and I'm not sure you are either. We've seen these kinds of shenanigans again, and we're not fooled.
Dude! No! This sort of thing is contagious, and it spreads. When they succeed in one area, they try the same thing in another. Also remember this sort of thing isn't concentrated in the South; it's all over the Midwest (all over the Red States, really), creationists are active here in California, and let's not forget the Discovery Institute is in Washington State. Containment isn't an option here.
That's all true. The thing is that the "just a theory" crowd isn't thinking the same way you are: accept the theory currently supported by the evidence, but only tentatively, and be ready to change your mind if new evidence comes along. The "just a theory" people pick and choose theories that they don't want to accept, based on things other than evidence--usually because they think the Bible contradicts it. They then confuse a scientific theory with what's called a theory in everyday language and tell everyone who will listen that since it's only a theory, it's no more credible than the Bible (or whatever alternative explanation they're trying to replace it with). Then they try to punch some holes in the theory they're attacking, assuming that, having just equated the two, knocking down their opponent will make their explanation more believable. The trouble is that you're trying to fight fair against someone who's not.
You're kidding, right? Is it ok, then, to teach alchemy, astrology, Holocaust denial, and flat earth if the teachers believe in those things?
Clearly, academic freedom doesn't mean teach anything you feel like teaching. As someone pointed out above, we have standards to ensure that a certain basic level of education is being taught in public schools. Creationism and Intelligent Design don't belong in the public school curriculum because they're not scientific. They don't meet the qualifications to be scientific (testability, falsifiability, and an honest willingness to go where the evidence leads them).
Now, if they did come up with solid, testable hypotheses, rigorous methods, and honestly followed the trail of evidence, and if tests of their hypotheses began to show significant results, they would be welcomed into the corpus of scientific knowledge. Acceptance would come gradually, of course, and reluctantly at first, but it would come, and it would then be taught in schools. But it has to be solid and legitimate before it can be taught to schoolchildren--and what they've brought before the public so far has been neither solid nor legitimate. They've used a lot of tricks and sleight of hand to try to bypass that sciencey stuff, generally by going straight to school boards or the government itself in an attempt to get around the system.
On its surface, sure, it would be just fine, since it specifically refers to "present scientific information". The problem is that the law (if it passes) won't be followed that way, because it's not intended to be followed that way. It's a sleight of hand: "scientific" is a stand-in that equates to "what you personally believe", but sounds good on the surface so it's easier to deflect scrutiny. A lot of the problem is that the people behind this bill, and even many of the teachers it targets, don't understand what "scientific" really means, and don't care. They confuse the trappings of science (fancy white coats and dry vocabulary) with the actual process itself, and think that if they wrap themselves in the appearance, that makes it reality. (Corporate America does this sort of thing in its own sphere: talk about the importance of superior customer service, then judge help desks on how many calls they take, rather than how many problems they solve or accounts they save.)
No, this is why religious groups should have no say in education--public-school education, at the very least. And why religious groups should have little say in government. I miss the days when separation of church and state really meant something--and, more importantly, the American public actually thought it was important.
"You have failed me for the last time, flash drive..."
One nitpick: technically, 40% of the Senate can block passage of a bill. Once a senator starts a filibuster, other senators can call for a vote to invoke cloture. Cloture requires a 60% majority and, if passed, ends the filibuster. I'm with you on the rest. Although like others I'm increasingly frustrated with the Democrats, and have been toying more and more with voting third party. (Contrary to popular opinion, third party can be the strongest vote you ever cast--except that the point isn't to win an election, but to influence the next one. It doesn't take a lot of votes for a third party to get the attention of the major party it's taking votes from, at which point the major party starts to realize it needs to poach something from the third party, or otherwise win back the votes it's losing.) Not that I'm planning to vote third party, but I'm thinking more and more about doing it.
No, the Coelacanth has had lots of change over the past 400 million years. Coelacanth is an order, not a species (or even a genus). There have been numerous species of Coelacanth over time, and the modern ones didn't exist way back when. Even today, the two known populations are separate species.
That's good, out-of-the-box thinking, but it's not quite right. As others mentioned, individuals don't evolve; groups of individuals evolve. Individuals do change over time, but evolution refers to changes more at the genetic level, which can only take place in groups. My first thought on this is that the data may have been affected more by rates of reproduction--insects evolve much faster than humans because their generations are much shorter, for instance. But there may be something else going on here, too, related to the regulated metabolisms of mammals.
Instructions for XP: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307849
From the way it sounds, your options aren't too good. But you do have options. It sounds like the phone-line quality won't support 56k (I assume you aren't still on a 28.8 modem). But if you get a second phone line and modem, you could multilink your Internet connection--that roughly doubles (or better) your connection speed. There's software out there that can accomplish that for you.
Uh, no. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free anyone. It announced that all slaves in Confederate-held territory (that is, those the US gov't didn't have any control over) were now free. We continued to round up escaped slaves in Union-held territory and return them to their masters. The slaves weren't freed until 1865, after Lincoln.
I'm with you on the rest though. Peer review is what keeps people honest and code secure.
My experience is the same as yours. If your mother won't be using it very much, Tracfone is the way to go. You end up paying about $1 a minute ($2/min roaming), less if you buy minutes in bulk, and your minutes don't expire if you don't use them. In fact, even if your plan expires (you have to buy at least 10 units/month) but you have minutes unused, you keep them when you reactivate. My only real complaint is that the phone doesn't warn you when your plan is about to expire. It does show the expiration date on the front, but it doesn't beep at you or anything when that date is coming near. So I've expired twice and had to renew. The last time they told me my phone was no longer supported, but they shipped me a new phone at no charge, and even included a postage-paid envelope to return my old one.
The point isn't that this is a place for us to live. The big deal here is that it's the closest we've found to an Earth-size planet yet, which brings us closer (we hope) in our search for extraterrestrial life. It's not that we're planning to live there--we're hoping to find life in places like that. More accurately, it's closer to the sort of place where we hope to find life. Personally, I don't find it all that exciting as a candidate for life. If I understand these things correctly, when the star expanded to a red giant it likely stripped off the planet's atmosphere. But it is exciting that we've found something so close to the Earth in size. Considering how hard it is to spot planets (by whatever method you use) from distances of light-years, that's pretty impressive.
Nonsense. The government doesn't just "print more money" to increase its revenue. The repercussions from doing that are well-known and severe; there's a whole structure in place to prevent that kind of irresponsibility, including the Federal Reserve, etc. And even if it weren't for that, the gov't is divided into lots of departments that get their money budgeted to them. The Dep't of Education, for instance, doesn't print money, and won't get more on a "just because" basis. Not to mention printing money isn't even an option for state and local governments. As for raising taxes, just like that, to increase the government's revenue--they don't do that. Elected representatives know very well what the repercussions of that would be. A lot of them wouldn't want to anyway, and others wouldn't care enough to take the heat for it: increased borrowing is much more likely. Anyway, from my experience in state government and the corporate world, I can say it's easier (and faster) to get purchases approved in the private sector. It's also easier to steal from your employer and get away with it.
I think after all the shit the US has gone through in the last 30-40 years, it's pretty clear to everyone that 1) Energy is Everything, 2) Oil is bad, mmkay, and 3) America's heart might be in the right place, but it's foreign policies blow. Got to agree with you there, except that I don't think America's heart is in the right place. We like to think we're all about doing the right thing, and we love to tell everyone how benevolent we are, but when it comes right down to it, the United States does what it pleases in the world, and what it pleases is usually determined by what's in its narrow short-term interests. We overthrow (or help to overthrow) democratically-elected governments, and support or prop up brutal dictators who are friendly to us. Then twenty or thirty years later we stare in naive astonishment that the people of that country are angry at us.
It's nonsensical, really, to talk about a "meteoric rise"--since meteors don't rise; they fall.
Well, that's good, Nyeerrmm. It's foolish to think that the Bible can or should be taken literally, especially in the thirdhand translations that we English speakers use. As you pointed out re. the ex-girlfriend, those who make the claim typically pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to take literally, and which they'd rather ignore as "figurative".
Another explanation I've heard recently for the thinness of the Martian atmosphere involves its lack of a magnetic field. Our spinning iron core generates our magnetic field, but Mars is much smaller than Earth and its core solidified long ago, leaving the planet without a magnetic field. Now that field shelters us and our atmosphere from a good deal of radiation, and the solar wind, so it's thought that without one to protect it, much of the planet's atmosphere would be stripped away, leaving it very thin, as it is now. Either way, the lack of a magnetic field will be a concern to any aspiring terraformers: colonies will be exposed to elevated levels of radiation.
Nah, that would leave plenty of dry land--remember, Mars isn't flat.
Hahaha! That's retarded. Are you still in school, by any chance?
The choice of software is dictated by the IT staff to mid/upper management? I can tell you two things from personal experience: that's not how it works in the corporate world, and it's not how it works in (CA) state government. The IT staff is relied on to make informed recommendations, but management decides what's best for its bottom line--Total Cost of Ownership and all that. They generally go with proprietary solutions because they'd rather pay for support they know will be there than take a chance on something free/inexpensive that might leave them high and dry at a critical moment. And most end users are familiar with Windows, which means there's an extra (training) cost associated with *nix.
Also, by "follow the money", people here are talking about keeping their jobs. Not everyone can get a job that uses their OS of choice. And if they don't like the OS they have to support, that doesn't necessarily mean they hate their job--chances are they enjoy it but have to put up with a particular annoyance. That's life. It's also professionalism.