I always hated the term "favorites" used by Internet Explorer, because I often add sites that aren't my "favorites" but I want to easily return to. For instance, is my bank website a "favorite?" No. Neither is Amazon, nor most of the other sites I would add.
The more neutral Netscape term "bookmarks" is much better for that purpose.
1) And that CUNY study? Does it take into account that many black Southern Baptists are becoming Muslims? And the biggest immigrant groups in the US today are Hispanic Catholics (and Protestants) and Muslims from the Middle East and SE Asia?
That CUNY study is nationwide, not just in New York. If you don't believe their results, you could try to reproduce them instead of whining, "it can't be true because... uh... MY GUT INSTINCT!"
2) I don't need to cite references
Uh... you do if you're trying to convince us of your point. (Which is, to remind you, that religious groups are growing in strength in the US.) To say that religious groups exist and have influence means nothing until you can show how that influence has changed over time. Religious groups have *always* existed and had influence in the US... all the actual studies show this influence is going down over time, not up.
What's really crazy is that Slashdot is the first site to condemn (for instance) a theory that says the Earth was covered by Noah's flood. They'd go on and go about how the science doesn't support it. And yet when someone makes a remark that Christian groups are exerting more influence, they're willing to take it on faith... look who's modded up in this conversation and who's not. I've never seen anything so hypocritical.
The more I ask for supporting evidence, the more flimsy the responses get. Now I'm supposed to believe something is true because of a joke?
That so many Slashdotters are willing to believe (and moderate up!) a statement that has absolutely no supporting evidence is ridiculous. There is no surge of religious sentiment in the US, period. I haven't seen a single study anywhere that suggests there is.
"Banning gay marriage?" Gay marriage has always been banned. It's only recently that it's legal anywhere in the world.
Maybe less a growth in numbers and more a growth in power and influence.
I'd still like to see some objective evidence of that. That's all that I'm saying. I'm not even saying you're *wrong*, I just want to see it before I believe it.
Well, there may not be an actual upswing in the amount of people... but there sure as hell seems to be a huge rise in the relative influence of religious conservatives in the US.
Yes, but a lot of things "seem" true and aren't. That toilets flush clockwise on one hemisphere and counter-clockwise on the opposite one seems true to millions of people, but it's not.
Between the ongoing "we can teach creationism as if it's valid science"
That's been ongoing since at least the 1920s (when was the Scopes trial?) Nobody's arguing that the debate isn't ongoing, the argument is whether the strength of the pro-creationism side has increased in recent years. If it hasn't, then the ongoing debate isn't an indicator of anything except the status quo.
Certainly, the religious right gets to say all sorts of hateful, vile crap, and the mainstream media doesn't view them as cooks. It views them as having an informed position.
That's because the mainstream media wants to get them on next week's show also so they get the ratings boost. Calling them wackjobs would scare them away, and they'd have to find something else for sweeps week. It's no different than Adam Corolla calling up that crazy religious wacko every couple of weeks on his radio show, except he's honest with himself and calls it "entertainment" not "news."
I chose single examples rather then produce an entire page of links, I am actually doing other things at the moment.
I don't need an entire page of links, just a single relevant one. The only one that MAY be relevant is the book review you linked to, but I'm not willing to comment on that until I've read the book myself.
Seems to me you just don't want to admit any problems.
Of course not. The US is flawed in many, many ways. But the way to solve those problems is to gather scientific evidence to understand the problem completely, not to make unfounded claims that have no relevance to the issue at hand.
And just for the record, I'd like to repeat again that I am not a Christian. I don't practice any religion, and I'd classify myself as agnostic if push came to shove.
You [the United States, presumably-- I'm not religious, nor do I export anything] are currently exporting extreme religions (yup, that's what a lot of uk people think of the Johovahs witnesses that come calling, nut jobs to be avoided at all costs),
To support your point that the US is exporting extreme religions, you link to an article about a church elder who abused a kid. How does that show extreme religions being exported in any way, shape or form? In what way does it prove that "uk people" are avoiding Jehovah's Witnesses? Hell, how do you even define what "extreme religions" are? How does it show anything other than, "hey one guy did one bad thing!"
How about finding a demographic study that shows the religion gaining influence over time, or perhaps an opinion poll from UK citizens about their acceptance of Jehovah's Witnesses? Those might actually be more relevant to your initial point than this 1-page newspaper article you Googled.
There's nothing on that website about funding. For all I know the entire thing is a single guy with a lot of free time, and given the quality of the website that seems a good guess.
Then again, let's assume it is being funded by someone... so what? Unless you prove that the amount of funding goes towards finding Noah's Ark is increasing over time, this does nothing to support the original point.
(Or perhaps you think it should be illegal to fund searches for mythical objects? I, and a lot of other Americans, happen to believe in freedom. If someone wants to spent money to find the flying spaghetti monster, who am I to stop them? They can do what they want.)
the links between americans extreme religions and isreal/funding of end time stuff
This link goes to a book review. I haven't read the book. If anybody reading this has, please comment on it.
(I will say that President Bush is not a "fervent Christian fundamentalist." If would be interesting to see what definition of "fundamentalist" includes President Bush.)
The Muslim world operating under Sharia during the Middle Ages is actually quite famous for the scientific and mathematic advances made far in advance of other civilizations at the time-- and you would be hard-pressed to find a more religious society.
You are currently exporting extreme religions (yup, that's what a lot of uk people think of the Johovahs witnesses that come calling, nut jobs to be avoided at all costs), and working in other countries to prop up creationism.
Link?
Also there's the funding going to the search for the Ark, and the money being sent to Israel to fund the end time preparation.
Citation?
Also lots of colleges and universities in the US are having to spend time just convincing religious students to learn scientific subjects, including needing support groups and reassuring people that you can believe in god and study science.
Proof?
The very fact that the US is having to deal with holding back the upswelling of anti science philosophy in the classroom is evidence.
Evidence?
Replying to vague assertions with no evidence by making more slightly more specific assertions with no evidence isn't going to convince anybody, I'm afraid. Could you please back up at least one of the points above before proceeding any further in this conversation? Thank you.
Not wanting to be nasty or anything, but America is going through a bit of a religious experience at the moment, with people rejecting science by the million.
"Hi. My name is Evidence. I'm missing. Can you find me?"
See, for instance, this summary of many studies of Christianity in the United States. Here are a couple nice representative quotes:
"There does not seem to be revival taking place in America. Whether that is measured by church attendance, born again status, or theological purity, the statistics simply do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions." George Barna.
14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together.
For some reason, people have gotten the idea in their head that there's some kind of huge Christian uprising or takeover happening in the US, and it's simply not there at all. Sorry. Given that you don't bother to support your initial point, I'm going to just ignore the rest of the post. Hope you don't mind.
after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...
Apparently the Russions developed wormhole technology! An object can be both in front of and behind a jet at the same time! I hope they don't share this technology with the Chili-ans!
Apparently, the Chili-ans have already developed the highly vaunted A-340 rear-view mirror technology. (Seriously, how do you see something 5 miles BEHIND a A-340 from the pilot seat?)
Or maybe this is just the worst summary ever. Although I'm a fan of anybody who can completely offend 160 million people in a single paragraph by misspelling the name of their nations.
I'd buy it in a flash except the short-sighted developers won't let you pay for it with anything other than PayPal. I'm sure as hell not giving any money to PayPal, so I use TextWrangler.
Ironic, because the iPod is one of the few modern devices that has a dial on it. (Sure they call it a "clickwheel" but we all know it's just a glorified dial!
Ok, and if I have a program which was the only program that translated Word documents into Finnish, then scrambled the words randomly, then output haikus based on it... by definition that would be a "flagship app?"
No, I still think anything "flagship" should be the most important application for the system, the one that's used to sell it. Macs aren't sold to be DVRs, so I don't see how any DVR program could be "flagship" on the platform.
In any case, like I stated above, Apple does everything in their power to prevent crappy software on the system, but there's absolutely nothing they can do about programmers who are really dedicated to making crappy software. Blaming Apple for one crummy program is like blaming Microsoft for Adobe Reader's crappy programming. It makes no sense.
Federal laws override state laws. I thought everyone knew that.
Of course, the problem is that the federal government is so huge now that it has laws for practically everything, thus removing a lot of state freedoms (as you've experienced first-hand.) The US needs a nice long few decades of shrinking the federal government. (Hint: don't elect Clinton.)
Some VR game with, apparently, the BEST PRESS AGENT EVAR!
Seriously, they're in the news every damned day with stories like this. And yet the only people who actually play Second Life are furry pedophile rapists. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but that's the reputation the game has. How the hell do they get all this press? Sexual favors?
Before everyone gets bent out of shape, let me remind you that:
1) This was a 'advisory' vote with no legal change whatsoever. 2) This occurred in exactly ONE county in ONE state in the entire United States. 3) Whose local government is apparently full of retards.
How about we start worrying when we see this happening in 5% of the counties instead of just one? Or at a state level?
There's an undocumented feature where you can "anchor" the Dock on the left/top side of the screen, and it works much better that way for me. On my laptop with the smaller 1024x768 monitor, I put the Dock vertically along the left edge, then "anchor" it to the top of the screen and turn the icon size down to 32 or so.
Unfortunately, I just uninstalled Dev tools a few days ago, so I can't open the.plist file now to look up what the name of this hidden option is. Sorry.:(
I've never heard of "EyeTV". In what way is it a "flagship program?"
When I think flagship program, I would think something like Dreamweaver, or Photoshop, or Office. Or one of Apple's first-party applications like Aperture or Pages. If anything, I'd say the current flagship application for Macintosh is iTunes, honestly.
The thing you have to remember is that any programmer on any system can make an awful UI. The difference is that, on average, Macintosh applications have a better UI. That doesn't mean EVERY Mac application is better than EVERY PC application.
What does MST3K have to do with this article? Is "Ze" played by the same actor or something? (I've never seen, nor heard of, the show before reading this article.)
Could the moderator who marked this "Interesting" please instead post why it's interesting?
Then run away now. Both the X11 and the "Aquafied" version totally stink. Terrible usability, horribly slow... unfortunately, there's no good Office alternative for Macintosh right now.
A) That's just trading one tax for another. If the tax rate is "too low" (and I don't think it is, considering how much the Washington State government throws away in the form of Sound Transit among other things), then it should be raised.
B) Adding a state income tax would: 1) Increase the amount of paperwork everyone in the state has to do-- that sucks 2) Not lower any associated local taxes. Sure, the optimist would say "well since we have a income tax now, the sales tax will lower to 4%." It won't. We'll just be paying more tax overall.
In any case, Washington doesn't need more tax revenue, it needs to stop throwing money in the toilet over moronic ideas that will never work.
(It disgusts me that our state throws so much money away on transit plans, like Sound Transit and the Monorail, while at the same time balks at the idea of fixing the Alaskan Way viaduct-- a viaduct that literally poses a threat to life and limb! Everyone knows in the state it'll crumble to dust at the first sign of an earthquake, killing hundreds, and the government doesn't want to pay for it. Replacing the viaduct should be the number one priority in Seattle right now, yes, even above the sculpture garden.)
(That said, the sculpture garden looks very nice.)
Slashdot Mirror
I always hated the term "favorites" used by Internet Explorer, because I often add sites that aren't my "favorites" but I want to easily return to. For instance, is my bank website a "favorite?" No. Neither is Amazon, nor most of the other sites I would add.
The more neutral Netscape term "bookmarks" is much better for that purpose.
1) And that CUNY study? Does it take into account that many black Southern Baptists are becoming Muslims? And the biggest immigrant groups in the US today are Hispanic Catholics (and Protestants) and Muslims from the Middle East and SE Asia?
That CUNY study is nationwide, not just in New York. If you don't believe their results, you could try to reproduce them instead of whining, "it can't be true because... uh... MY GUT INSTINCT!"
2) I don't need to cite references
Uh... you do if you're trying to convince us of your point. (Which is, to remind you, that religious groups are growing in strength in the US.) To say that religious groups exist and have influence means nothing until you can show how that influence has changed over time. Religious groups have *always* existed and had influence in the US... all the actual studies show this influence is going down over time, not up.
What's really crazy is that Slashdot is the first site to condemn (for instance) a theory that says the Earth was covered by Noah's flood. They'd go on and go about how the science doesn't support it. And yet when someone makes a remark that Christian groups are exerting more influence, they're willing to take it on faith... look who's modded up in this conversation and who's not. I've never seen anything so hypocritical.
The more I ask for supporting evidence, the more flimsy the responses get. Now I'm supposed to believe something is true because of a joke?
That so many Slashdotters are willing to believe (and moderate up!) a statement that has absolutely no supporting evidence is ridiculous. There is no surge of religious sentiment in the US, period. I haven't seen a single study anywhere that suggests there is.
"Banning gay marriage?" Gay marriage has always been banned. It's only recently that it's legal anywhere in the world.
Maybe less a growth in numbers and more a growth in power and influence.
I'd still like to see some objective evidence of that. That's all that I'm saying. I'm not even saying you're *wrong*, I just want to see it before I believe it.
Well, there may not be an actual upswing in the amount of people ... but there sure as hell seems to be a huge rise in the relative influence of religious conservatives in the US.
Yes, but a lot of things "seem" true and aren't. That toilets flush clockwise on one hemisphere and counter-clockwise on the opposite one seems true to millions of people, but it's not.
Between the ongoing "we can teach creationism as if it's valid science"
That's been ongoing since at least the 1920s (when was the Scopes trial?) Nobody's arguing that the debate isn't ongoing, the argument is whether the strength of the pro-creationism side has increased in recent years. If it hasn't, then the ongoing debate isn't an indicator of anything except the status quo.
Certainly, the religious right gets to say all sorts of hateful, vile crap, and the mainstream media doesn't view them as cooks. It views them as having an informed position.
That's because the mainstream media wants to get them on next week's show also so they get the ratings boost. Calling them wackjobs would scare them away, and they'd have to find something else for sweeps week. It's no different than Adam Corolla calling up that crazy religious wacko every couple of weeks on his radio show, except he's honest with himself and calls it "entertainment" not "news."
I chose single examples rather then produce an entire page of links, I am actually doing other things at the moment.
I don't need an entire page of links, just a single relevant one. The only one that MAY be relevant is the book review you linked to, but I'm not willing to comment on that until I've read the book myself.
Seems to me you just don't want to admit any problems.
Of course not. The US is flawed in many, many ways. But the way to solve those problems is to gather scientific evidence to understand the problem completely, not to make unfounded claims that have no relevance to the issue at hand.
And just for the record, I'd like to repeat again that I am not a Christian. I don't practice any religion, and I'd classify myself as agnostic if push came to shove.
jehovah's witnesses are so nice (not)
d %5B157%5D=x-157-537000
R L&_udi=B6WSN-4J79KGF-4&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F10 %2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c& _acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid= 10&md5=f91bf7d1e0b2f400ab976e4834c79692
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2123546.stm
To remind you of your original point:
You [the United States, presumably-- I'm not religious, nor do I export anything] are currently exporting extreme religions (yup, that's what a lot of uk people think of the Johovahs witnesses that come calling, nut jobs to be avoided at all costs),
To support your point that the US is exporting extreme religions, you link to an article about a church elder who abused a kid. How does that show extreme religions being exported in any way, shape or form? In what way does it prove that "uk people" are avoiding Jehovah's Witnesses? Hell, how do you even define what "extreme religions" are? How does it show anything other than, "hey one guy did one bad thing!"
How about finding a demographic study that shows the religion gaining influence over time, or perhaps an opinion poll from UK citizens about their acceptance of Jehovah's Witnesses? Those might actually be more relevant to your initial point than this 1-page newspaper article you Googled.
looking for the ark....
http://www.noahsarksearch.com/
There's nothing on that website about funding. For all I know the entire thing is a single guy with a lot of free time, and given the quality of the website that seems a good guess.
Then again, let's assume it is being funded by someone... so what? Unless you prove that the amount of funding goes towards finding Noah's Ark is increasing over time, this does nothing to support the original point.
(Or perhaps you think it should be illegal to fund searches for mythical objects? I, and a lot of other Americans, happen to believe in freedom. If someone wants to spent money to find the flying spaghetti monster, who am I to stop them? They can do what they want.)
the links between americans extreme religions and isreal/funding of end time stuff
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cm
This link goes to a book review. I haven't read the book. If anybody reading this has, please comment on it.
(I will say that President Bush is not a "fervent Christian fundamentalist." If would be interesting to see what definition of "fundamentalist" includes President Bush.)
problems with science in the US classroom
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleU
"Not available" error.
That enough?
Not for me. And I'm not even Christian-- I just have a pretty well-developed BS filter.
The Muslim world operating under Sharia during the Middle Ages is actually quite famous for the scientific and mathematic advances made far in advance of other civilizations at the time-- and you would be hard-pressed to find a more religious society.
You are currently exporting extreme religions (yup, that's what a lot of uk people think of the Johovahs witnesses that come calling, nut jobs to be avoided at all costs), and working in other countries to prop up creationism.
Link?
Also there's the funding going to the search for the Ark, and the money being sent to Israel to fund the end time preparation.
Citation?
Also lots of colleges and universities in the US are having to spend time just convincing religious students to learn scientific subjects, including needing support groups and reassuring people that you can believe in god and study science.
Proof?
The very fact that the US is having to deal with holding back the upswelling of anti science philosophy in the classroom is evidence.
Evidence?
Replying to vague assertions with no evidence by making more slightly more specific assertions with no evidence isn't going to convince anybody, I'm afraid. Could you please back up at least one of the points above before proceeding any further in this conversation? Thank you.
Not wanting to be nasty or anything, but America is going through a bit of a religious experience at the moment, with people rejecting science by the million.
"Hi. My name is Evidence. I'm missing. Can you find me?"
See, for instance, this summary of many studies of Christianity in the United States. Here are a couple nice representative quotes:
"There does not seem to be revival taking place in America. Whether that is measured by church attendance, born again status, or theological purity, the statistics simply do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions." George Barna.
14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together.
For some reason, people have gotten the idea in their head that there's some kind of huge Christian uprising or takeover happening in the US, and it's simply not there at all. Sorry. Given that you don't bother to support your initial point, I'm going to just ignore the rest of the post. Hope you don't mind.
Stupid question:
If the camera in the tail is to detect engine fires... wouldn't it be pointed FORWARD? Towards the engines?
after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...
Apparently the Russions developed wormhole technology! An object can be both in front of and behind a jet at the same time! I hope they don't share this technology with the Chili-ans!
Apparently, the Chili-ans have already developed the highly vaunted A-340 rear-view mirror technology. (Seriously, how do you see something 5 miles BEHIND a A-340 from the pilot seat?)
Or maybe this is just the worst summary ever. Although I'm a fan of anybody who can completely offend 160 million people in a single paragraph by misspelling the name of their nations.
It's a great text editor.
I'd buy it in a flash except the short-sighted developers won't let you pay for it with anything other than PayPal. I'm sure as hell not giving any money to PayPal, so I use TextWrangler.
Ironic, because the iPod is one of the few modern devices that has a dial on it. (Sure they call it a "clickwheel" but we all know it's just a glorified dial!
Ok, and if I have a program which was the only program that translated Word documents into Finnish, then scrambled the words randomly, then output haikus based on it... by definition that would be a "flagship app?"
No, I still think anything "flagship" should be the most important application for the system, the one that's used to sell it. Macs aren't sold to be DVRs, so I don't see how any DVR program could be "flagship" on the platform.
In any case, like I stated above, Apple does everything in their power to prevent crappy software on the system, but there's absolutely nothing they can do about programmers who are really dedicated to making crappy software. Blaming Apple for one crummy program is like blaming Microsoft for Adobe Reader's crappy programming. It makes no sense.
Federal laws override state laws. I thought everyone knew that.
Of course, the problem is that the federal government is so huge now that it has laws for practically everything, thus removing a lot of state freedoms (as you've experienced first-hand.) The US needs a nice long few decades of shrinking the federal government. (Hint: don't elect Clinton.)
I take it that SL is just some VR game?
Some VR game with, apparently, the BEST PRESS AGENT EVAR!
Seriously, they're in the news every damned day with stories like this. And yet the only people who actually play Second Life are furry pedophile rapists. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but that's the reputation the game has. How the hell do they get all this press? Sexual favors?
Out of curiousity, Impeach Bush for what charge exactly?
Before everyone gets bent out of shape, let me remind you that:
1) This was a 'advisory' vote with no legal change whatsoever.
2) This occurred in exactly ONE county in ONE state in the entire United States.
3) Whose local government is apparently full of retards.
How about we start worrying when we see this happening in 5% of the counties instead of just one? Or at a state level?
If iWork had Excel, I'd be in heaven.
Unfortunately, now I have to get by with a copy of ThinkFree Office and use it's crummy Excel clone. At least it's cheap.
I agree with you about the Dock.
.plist file now to look up what the name of this hidden option is. Sorry. :(
There's an undocumented feature where you can "anchor" the Dock on the left/top side of the screen, and it works much better that way for me. On my laptop with the smaller 1024x768 monitor, I put the Dock vertically along the left edge, then "anchor" it to the top of the screen and turn the icon size down to 32 or so.
Unfortunately, I just uninstalled Dev tools a few days ago, so I can't open the
I've never heard of "EyeTV". In what way is it a "flagship program?"
When I think flagship program, I would think something like Dreamweaver, or Photoshop, or Office. Or one of Apple's first-party applications like Aperture or Pages. If anything, I'd say the current flagship application for Macintosh is iTunes, honestly.
The thing you have to remember is that any programmer on any system can make an awful UI. The difference is that, on average, Macintosh applications have a better UI. That doesn't mean EVERY Mac application is better than EVERY PC application.
I don't get it.
What about TV's Frank?
What does MST3K have to do with this article? Is "Ze" played by the same actor or something? (I've never seen, nor heard of, the show before reading this article.)
Could the moderator who marked this "Interesting" please instead post why it's interesting?
Then run away now. Both the X11 and the "Aquafied" version totally stink. Terrible usability, horribly slow... unfortunately, there's no good Office alternative for Macintosh right now.
A) That's just trading one tax for another. If the tax rate is "too low" (and I don't think it is, considering how much the Washington State government throws away in the form of Sound Transit among other things), then it should be raised.
B) Adding a state income tax would:
1) Increase the amount of paperwork everyone in the state has to do-- that sucks
2) Not lower any associated local taxes. Sure, the optimist would say "well since we have a income tax now, the sales tax will lower to 4%." It won't. We'll just be paying more tax overall.
In any case, Washington doesn't need more tax revenue, it needs to stop throwing money in the toilet over moronic ideas that will never work.
(It disgusts me that our state throws so much money away on transit plans, like Sound Transit and the Monorail, while at the same time balks at the idea of fixing the Alaskan Way viaduct-- a viaduct that literally poses a threat to life and limb! Everyone knows in the state it'll crumble to dust at the first sign of an earthquake, killing hundreds, and the government doesn't want to pay for it. Replacing the viaduct should be the number one priority in Seattle right now, yes, even above the sculpture garden.)
(That said, the sculpture garden looks very nice.)