A computer programs simply models what we have already conceived, and so they aren't useful for solving philosophic debates. However, learning computer science can be helpful in learning logical steps that solve many practical problems. Though it doesn't really help you think outside of the box, I find that it is far more useful than philosophy.

In my own definition, phylosophy is nothing more than the systematic removal of common sense and then trying to argue about who is the most wrong. Most of the questions are completely foolish. There are some, however, that are interesting even while they are useless. This is the reason why a computer model would not be useful. Computers are practical, and most philosophical models would be optamised out by the compiler.

There are some philosophical conclusions that happen to be correct. So what of them? Sadly, there are others that contradict those, so a person would be lost as to which to believe and apply. Fortunately, for all useful and correct wisdom, the Bible has provided the answers. I might be wrong in this, but I suppose that if you were to pick any philosophical question and searched dilligently through nothing more than the book of Proverbs, you would find the solution.

While I imagine that a super railgun isn't the best thing to spend money on, I can think of much worse things. Some of the things that would be worse are the things that we have already been spending our non-existant money on like stimulus packages, company bailouts, and more entitlement spending. These things are certain to crash our economy and we're seeing the effects.

Right now, I'm not a big fan of spending anything that we don't have to. With those other things, the only thing that we get from the spending is negative incentives. At least with military spending, we gain a little more firepower. While we are not doing well in the Middle East, the reason is politics and not weaponry. Right now, Russia and China are getting awful friendly and pushing a few buttons to see how strong our resolve is. More firepower is always better. Also, our military spending is a tiny drop in our deficit spending. If we manage to keep the manufacture in the U.S., then we'll have the benefit of boosting the economy a little. Sure, it wouldn't be enough to pay for the expense, but it would be more practicle than spending on "green" jobs.

Overall, I guess that I agree, it isn't a great expenditure. I just think that there are worse things. Really, we aren't too interested in defense right now anyway. Obama is making deals with Russia to make us get rid of our defenses. I'm just praying that we'll make it through the year without too much damage.

You see this as a bad thing, and personally, I agree. However, it's probably time to face reality. In this long September, the internet has taken a new shape: a hive mentality. Gone are the days where we just grab whatever information we come across because it is unique and exciting.

The net has simply become too large for that. These days, people seek features to cut down the signal to noise ratio. This in itself isn't a bad thing, but it's based on taste, and the taste is that of the majority who only care about the latest cute hampster video or what happened on American Idol. It's only natural that some of that "noise" will be useful information. I was on a torrent site the other day looking for programming texts. I was lucky if I could find more than a handful of seeders.

The key is to encourage people in our own niche group to participate in sharing information. Let the masses have Facebook and Twitter, but we must take part in distributed file sharing while there is time.

I know that it's asking to get modded down to imply that what wikileaks is doing is a bad thing, but right now I really dislike wikileaks. Most particularly the part about leaking governments' private documents. Before, I kinda liked them and even considered helping them out. Back then, all I knew about were things like revealing Scientology reports so that people could know more about what they really teach. I also didn't mind letting out information about harful businesses practicies. However, releasing private reports of how one country has estimated another and such is just a little too dirty for me.p>

I think of it like a game of cards. Everybody is sitting around playing a nice game, some win, some loose, but they all are in agreement of what the rules are. Nobody looks at each other's hands, and so they can play at leasure. Now, if somebody had a card or two hidden away, then nobody would mind if somebody were to tell on them. However, if you had some guy walking behind the players telling each other what cards they held, then it would only be right to put the cards down for a minute and get rid of that problem first because it's impracticle to conduct business, even good business, with him there.

Personally, I resent people calling people like this hackers. There is a big difference from being curious to learn something new and being an idiot. This guy is being a jerk. Hackers learn an innovate. How much brain power does it take to post on Twitter? However, there is a part of me that wants to say that people should really check their sources and not believe something they read on a social networking site.

It's about midnight here. I was stuffed earlier today with everybody else. However, as I work 3rd shift, in a short while I plan to get stuffed again. Truthfully, I probably shouldn't eat so much, but it's the one day of the year that seems acceptable. Which is kind of ironic considering how Thanksgiving was originally a day of fasting.

I miss the day when computers were for people who could think. I fondly remember that very brief period where businesses hadn't learned how to exploit the web. For the most part, it was a novelty to them and the left it to the nerds. Sure, at that point the web was a lot of top 10 lists and novelty polls, and most pages had a guest book to sign and a view counter, but that's how we liked it. I'm sure it's all through rose colored glasses, but at least I don't believe we had lawsuits like this.

Reporting vulnerabilities is a lot different than making software to exploit them. Certainly, finding vulnerabilities is whitehat work, but there is a process to go through to make a reasonable attempt to make product vendors aware of flaws before releasing tools to exploit them. My point, however, is that rather than just presenting him as an ordinary guy, they chose to portray him as a "Whitehat Hacker". With all the misinformation on what a Hacker is, I think we should use a little more discretion. I propose that it may be his travel that sparks interest, and not just his vocation.

It seems to me that the "whitehat" lable is simply to make people feel sorry for him. This might work a little for a slashdot article, but if writing software to crack SSL was "whitehat" then that just helps to prove the case against most "hackers" (so-called by the media). Furthermore, he was being searched by customs after returning from a know drug smuggling point. This kind of thing is just muddying the waters when it comes to a much needed honest debate about security vs. privacy. It only makes my side (the pro privacy side) look week.

Nevertheless, I am still opposed to all of the misguided screenings from the government. I can see why customs might want to physically look through his laptop, but I strongly oppose them attempting to look at the data. I'm not sure what contraband they think could be in the data comming into the states. As for the TSA screenings being talked about lately, my concern is that when they do catch a terrorist, they let them go. IIRC, the underware bomber didn't even have his own passport and was allowed to board. Recently, we see a known war criminal tried and almost aquitted in a civil court. The way I see it, the governemnt doesn't care if we are safe, they just want more power to control.

I've never used Gentoo personally, but I feel that I don't have much of a reason. For learning and tinkering there is LFS, which to a greater extent is impractical for real work. That's where Arch comes in. It's customisable enough to do anything that I want while still having a great package manager. For a more typical instalation I use Fedora.

Basically, Gentoo seems to occupy that end of the spectrum between LFS and Arch that I don't seem to need or want. However, I'm still tempted to try it at least once.

What do you mean? Gentoo is so much faster than Linux From Scratch, or so I've been told. I still don't have the CD burner working in LFS yet.

I'll admit that I was tired when I posted, but the points still stand. First, as for homosexuality, it is wrong, the same as stealing or any other sin, in the new testament as well as the old (Romans, etc). A homosexual man has every right to marry a woman the same as any other man does. Marriage is not about fulfilling sexual lusts. The question is why would somebody who doesn't care about the Bible want to get married. Why not just have a civil union rather than redefine marriage?

Your point does stand, though, that there's plenty of things that people do wrong that are just as damning since breaking one law breaks them all. The point of the law as a school master is to show people what righteousness is and that none of us are good and in need of salvation. Although we should strive to follow it, we are all worthy of death. The gospel is that even people who have done wrong can be forgiven, but that doesn't make the wrong right. Loving a sinner doesn't mean accepting their sin. How much love is it to lie to somebody?

If you will read that passage in Deut 22, you will find that the rape (lay hold on) is not excused, but that the remedy is that the man be forced to marry her. In fact, a few verses earlier in a case where a man raped (force) an engaged woman, the man would be put to death. Yes, I think that we would be better as a nation under the OT law, but since we aren't I don't think that we should legislate morality. I wouldn't support a law prohibiting homosexuals from sin, only I don't want to be legally required to recognise it.

The "bride of Christ" is the church (all born again believers) whether or not thy are married. Marriage is a picture of that divine union which is why it is so important to defend its sanctity.

I'm not aware of any scripture declaring that life begins with a breath. If you know of such, please share it as that would be important. I do know that there are penalties for harming a pregnant woman if harm come to the child.

For a moment, I had started to write to defend American culture, but then a quick moment of thought revealed that you are correct. That wasn't the way in my grandparents' time (from what I hear), but it certainly is the case these day. In the U.S. we live in a culture of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. On top of that we have a political system where common sense takes a back seat to party squables and a media that looks only for the sensational. That's why political ads here focus on the negative: people would rather vote "against" somebody than for somebody.

I do disagree with your explination for the problem. I say that it's not a matter of too little ambiguity, but too much. There should be a sharply defined line that one should not cross. In this case, I don't see how the man would have crossed it. What crime did he commit? It's only since it is left to ambiguity that a judge could rule him a criminal. Traditionally, we were a nation of laws in America, and I think that worked well. That has changed with more and more unconstitutional "legislating from the bench" making us more like a common law system. Don't like the law banning homosexual "marriage"? Just ask a judge to remove that law for you. Want to kill a baby? Don't worry, a few judges is all it takes to make the law go away. I believe that it is exactly this that leads people to sensationalism. They've learned that if you make something emotional enough (e.g. "Think fo the children!") then that rigid line can disappear.

No, vampires stop after you're dead.

It's interesting that you assume that it would be Republicans and conservatives trying to enforce copyrights. I'll grant that most Republicans and conservatives dislike the spread of immorality, but I tend to think of the copyright crowd as the Democrats. Republicans are more pro business (many are free market, though), so I can see your confusion. Democrats are about big government and want congress to control everything from what we eat to what we believe. Also, at least here in th U.S., the big media companies (excluding Fox News) are almost exclusively left leaning. I think the Republicans would say "I think porn is awful, but as long as we don't have to watch it, I'd fight for their right to make it."