That's exactly right. The very nature of IT means that we're exposed to tons of products. Every time someone insists on particular application for a project, we get exposed to it. This gives us great insight into what does and does not work. Simply inviting some folks from IT during your planning meetings for a new project would end about 90% of these problems.

Aren't there cops dedicated to the investigation of accident scenes. My understanding is that they can already look at a scene and tell who hit who, from what angle, and how fast they were all going based on skid marks, car damage, lay out of wreckage, etc. All this info can be gathered using this evidence and some basic math. What else will a black box tell them that they can't already deduce from the scene?

Your experiment definitely showed adaptation in animals. But you started with mice, and ended up with mice. Just mice with shorter or longer tails. Obviously adaptation happens. But evolution, really, is the transformation of one animal into a completely different animal.

I'd like to see an experiment where you start with a mouse and end up with a dog. Or some other animal.

I'm not sure I'm getting the view out and data out thing. I guess I understand the idea, but if I'm seeing different output then what the next command in the pipe chain is seeing, then how do I know that its receiving the right data in the right format?

The answer to both of your questions... from the Government's perspective is that they shouldn't do anything. Before there was welfare and social security, and subsidized housing people got along some how. They lived with family members until they could get on their feet, went down to their local church or community soup kitchen for assistance. They didn't ask the government for handouts because they were not in the business for giving handouts.

Perhaps with your grandma, health insurance question, I'd say that the government should pass laws that make it, at least harder if not impossible for insurance companies to drop the elderly once they reach that age. But in my mind, this would be "promoting" not "providing" for the general welfare. Now, if grandma didn't have insurance in the first place, that might be a different story.

The problem as I see it is that the US government, democrats and republicans managed to mix up a single word in the first chapter of the constitution. They are here to "promote the general Welfare". Some where along the line they decided to "provide for the general Welfare" rather then promote it.

Medicare and Social security and most of the other social programs come from the wrong idea that the the government should be providing for my welfare. This simply is not the case. The government should be passing laws that make it easier for me to provide for my own welfare.

If the government didn't spend so much time and money attempting to provide for me with these types of programs, perhaps the we wouldn't be in the financial situation that we're in.

See.... observations on human behavior.

In the name of open and honest discussion I just admitted that my view might need some adjustment. Not sure how the makes me a "faggot".

These are all fair and probably correct statements. True that nobody reports on the the guy who discovered a previously unknown settlement from 9K years ago when the last discovery was from 10k. And no... I'm obviously not in the field. The only bases I have for my comments are my observations of the new stories that I see combined with my observations of human behavior through out the years.

Wow!! Mental note to walk on egg shells when ever Daniel Dvorkin is around.

I'm just saying that I find it odd that every single discovery, and not just in the realm of archaelogy, seems to push the dates and times and distances out further and further then the last discovery. I'll admit to having a fair amount of cynicism. I'm not saying that they're being dishonest, I just find it odd is all.

Of course it is 2,500 years earlier. Grants to come to archaeologist who discover the same thing that someone else discovered 5 years ago. I'm sure the next site will show evidence of people being around 20,000 years ago.

An even better one.

Job 36:27-28
27 “He draws up the drops of water,
      which distill as rain to the streams[a];
28 the clouds pour down their moisture
      and abundant showers fall on mankind.

I think the problem is that the people want this data spelled in in one large section. Like we can turn to the book of Hydorphonics chapter 7 version 2. There is tons of scientifically valid info in the Bible. You just have to read it and find those little nuggets of scientific truth. And most of this info was in the bible long before any of it was discovered by scientists.

Not sure why your narrowing the entire Bible down to just the new testament. But here are a few from the old testament. These seem to paint a pretty accurate picture of the water cycle as we know it. It's interesting that these so called "fables" got the water cycle as accurate as they did.

Amos 9:6 "he builds his lofty palace[a] in the heavens and sets its foundation[b] on the earth; he calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the LORD is his name.

Ecclesiastes 1:7 - All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

Ecclesiastes 11:3 - If clouds are full of water, they pour rain on the earth.

Job 26:8 - He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.