Comment Re:If it was a religion? (Score 1) 392
"Red Hat Lutherans
OK.
[Stephen pops a bag of corn and sits happily back to watch the debate
"Red Hat Lutherans
OK.
[Stephen pops a bag of corn and sits happily back to watch the debate
> 95% of the Japanese are Christians.
???? Is that a typo? Estimates vary, but I've never seen one that said that more than 5% of the Japanese population is Christian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Japan
The Never-To-Be-Questioned-Wiki says that it's about 1%.
> If an average vacuum tube lasted 6 months
This is a common misunderstanding about reliability, whether talking about solid-state or tubes. In fact, any manufacturer worth his/her salt can predict, with surprisingly accuracy, the number of failures over time -- say, 1% in the first month, 10% by the end of the first year, and so on. How they do this is fascinating to those who are interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_assurance
Thus, you can buy electronics, made in the same factory, by the same people, but one branded "Sharp" and the other with an off-brand name -- identical units -- but one has a 90-day warranty, while the other is 1 year. The latter will probably cost more because ('ere's the secret) the cost of the warranty is factored into the price of the unit. (Moral: a longer warranty does NOT necessarily mean a better-built device. Another secret that "They" won't tell you.)
In this case:
1. You test each tube thoroughly before it's even approved for use in the computer. (This testing is one reason why "mil-spec" components cost so much.)
2. Since each tube is about the same age when the computer is first built, there will be a *window* when you expect to begin having cascade failures. You schedule PM (i.e., tube replacement) to occur *before* that window. For each of those 60,000 tubes, there's a replacement log.
This is a great example of how statistics can mislead. When the first really big computers were proposed, there were indeed some who argued that they'd never work, because with 10,000's of tubes, they'd be constantly breaking down. But real-life proved them wrong, thankfully.
> go to work down to the mill
In the snow and rain. Uphill BOTH ways. And we LIKED IT.
GET OFF MY LAWN!
>> "I own two machines which cannot be upgraded for very good reasons."
> What are those?
Plenty of reasons. Khyber's comment below about hardware drivers is one. If you have a sweet server that's still chugging along, you feel no need to replace or upgrade it. If you did, though, you'd have a time finding drivers for it.
Another reason is if you're using a very expensive software package that simply won't work with anything newer than Windows XP. Then it's not just a simple matter of upgrading Windows, but having to shell out tons of money for other software upgrades at the same time. Until the economy turns around, that ain't gonna happen.
We've run across cases where a software vendor will say, "don't install anything newer than service pack 2." We handle it by completely isolating these machines from the Internet and disallowing the use of external, user-supplied storage (which most smart admins do anyway, on general principle).
Here's a piece of trivia for you: one of the key audio streaming companies* for broadcast radio stations, as late as last year, made it clear in their contract that they would ONLY support Windows XP. We dropped them for that reason, but folks, this was in 2012. That kind of stuff still happens, too, and again, blame the economy.
This admittedly won't affect most users, but it does affect some of us.
(*actually, to be technically correct, they're an ad-insertion company -- they insert commercial inventory in your online stream -- but I figured everyone's eyes would glaze over if I tried to get that detailed.)
@girlintraining:
Very, very interesting. My only observation would be that the police would be likely to accept what Target told them; I wouldn't think there is active collusion between them.
But if we accept the premise that this is a coverup, I have a rather pertinent question.
I don't shop at Target stores. I don't like them. But sometimes, my wife and I *do* use their online site. During the dates in question, we may have sent a Target gift card (via said Website) to a family member.
If this is a coverup, it'd be nice to know the actual details. I'd like to know if *we* are at risk. We have a couple of those "credit protection" plans on all of our accounts, but it'd still be nice to know.
> I have yet to meet the synthesizer that can even remotely duplicate the dulcet noises of the old-fashioned dead trees and metal strings of my grand piano.
That's true to someone who is sitting at the piano, playing it.
But remember, when you're talking about *recorded* music, you should compare that to the sound of a properly-miked grand piano vs. a properly-sampled piano. Both sounds are ultimately stored and then played back through speakers, and test after test have shown that most listeners can't tell the difference (and/or just plain don't care).
From my own experience, I can get the sounds I want from digital synthesis and sampling, but it does take a lot more work. However, the benefit is that I DON'T have a giant grand piano and a drum kit in my small home studio. I'm willing to accept that tradeoff.
> Yet people like you
Stereotype much?
I hate big government AND I hate big corporations. (I'm an equal-opportunity curmudgeon.) So yes, I will complain about the GM bailout, but I will also complain about the military buying weapon systems that it arguably doesn't need and will almost certainly never use.
> You seem to be under the impression that the Russians by large are atheists
I never said that. You decided that I must believe that and then prepared an (admittedly interesting) discussion about it.
What I said was actually quite simple. Facts:
1. STALIN and those around him were committed atheists. They were serious. Forget what historians have tried to divine about his beliefs (or lack thereof) and go read what the dudes actually wrote. They weren't playing or pretending.
2. As a result of that viewpoint, Stalin and his cohorts sincerely believed that, since there was no God and no afterlife, the only thing that mattered was the here and now. If that meant that you were obstructionist to their view of the future, you were (at best) persecuted or even killed.
The point I was making here was that Stalin horribly persecuted gays, even though he was an avowed and sincere atheist -- so the idea that religion automatically results in anti-gay philosophy is a terrible oversimplification.
Then I stand corrected on that technical point. (Seriously.) I try to respect the difference between atheist, agnostic and free-thinker.
He probably ought to watch what t-shirts he wears at some of these events. Just sayin'
I know, I know. He mostly attacks *religion* and not specifically the existence of God. For that matter, I attack organized religion myself. Have very little use for it.
What I especially object to are Dawkin's famous statements such as, "I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world." That completely ignores that all through history there have been those who were intensely curious about nature BECAUSE they believed in a Supreme Being. They wanted to see how He did it.
> That's fine for you, but I'm gay, and the overwhelming majority of arguments against my freedom and rights have religion at their base.
That may be technically true, but do keep this in mind: The Soviet Union under Stalin -- officially atheistic (and he would gleefully kill you to DEATH if you even suggested otherwise) (yes, my tongue is in cheek -- partially) -- persecuted gays and lesbians FAR worse than the United States ever has. Stalin and Co. considered it a "bourgeois affectation" and killed them by the trainload.
To this day, the Russian Federation continues to restrict gay and lesbian rights
I understand your frustration, but be careful about believing (yes, I chose that word deliberately -- heh) bromides and truisms simply because of that frustration.
> he would say that theism works against our interests more than it helps
Dawkins especially believes that Christians have no business working in science. The oft-quoted example is how years ago, geological strata were described as "pre flood" (or ante-diluvian, to use the right term) and "post flood." This is used as an example of how science was deliberately hampered by religious people who insisted that there was a flood, complete with a boat filled with animals and a guy named Noah.
He's right about that example, but the fact is, there have been cases where anti-theism has done just as much harm to the cause of science. I cover two (of many) examples at my homepage (look for the Introduction to The Case For A Creator, if you're interested).
John Maddox, long-time editor of Nature magazine, is one example. Same as Dawkins, he was convinced that there was no God and that belief in same was actually harmful. During his tenure at Nature, you would NOT see an article favorable to the Big Bang theory (especially after the Catholic Church endorsed it), because Maddox didn't want to give any aid to the "religious nuts." (His term, not mine.) The Big Bang implied a beginning and he hated the very idea.
Hated it with a passion. He allowed his hatred for that theory to affect the objectivity of an otherwise very well-respected journal.
I remember it well. When the COBE results were announced in the 1990's, people whose primary source of scientific information was Nature mag suddenly found themselves a bit behind the curve.
> PS: If you're a terrorist reading this
I'm NOT defending the NSA, but remember that this type of communication requires
(a) freeze the assets of the terrorists so that they're constantly strapped for cash
(b) via drone strikes and etc., make it clear that when they DO try to meet to arrange things, they'll possibly be blown up
(c) look at every single communication between the groups when they DO try to arrange things.
That's their plan, anyway. But anyone with any sense at all should have known that, once all of that surveillance was in place, it would be abused. As it has been.
Counter argument: if the government had *allowed* details of the surveillance to leak, it might deter the terrorists. Kind of like during the Cold War, the US and Soviets *wanted* each side to at least have a rough idea of their capabilities, to further discourage anyone with an itchy finger on the Big Red Button.
But the truth is, intelligence agencies want to know everything. Absolutely everything. It's just like a dog licking his privates: if he can, he will. Likewise, if they can monitor everything you do, they will. They can't resist it.
> So, Microsoft finally does something no geek could object to and the FSF's response is "even if this looks like a good thing, this can't be a good thing because it's proprietary".
Ah, I finally get to use a car analogy!
Your car has broken down and you can't fix it, because you don't have a machine that will interpret the failure codes. The manufacturer will only provide those codes to their own shops.
After complaints, the manufacturer offers free roadside assistance.
That's laudable. Give them snaps for that. But I'd still rather have the service information so that I can go to Autozone, buy the parts myself and fix it myself, if I choose to do so.
> I wonder if they have a sign outside the door to the labs at these universities that say "forget teaching students, we need money! Welcome to the R&D Dept."
Not sure about the sign, but they do have staffers whose primary function is to snarf grant money for said university.
One of my friends years ago made his living doing that very thing.
And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones
