Comment A lead in what? (Score 1) 800
Wow! Apple has a two year lead in the... talking... cell-phone
YAWN!
Wake me when they start treating it as if it were a real computer rather than a toy.
Wow! Apple has a two year lead in the... talking... cell-phone
YAWN!
Wake me when they start treating it as if it were a real computer rather than a toy.
I agree one hundred percent! The point of a debate is to way public opinion.
Unfortunately for all of those who want public opinion to matter in science, it doesn't.
(sigh). Let's go over this once more.
1) God gives man a bunch a rules to live by.
2) One of the rules is that "If you disobey God, then you will suffer horribly."
3) Another law is "If you kill then you will suffer horribly."
4) God goes to Abraham and asks him to kill his son.
5) God watches as Abraham decides he would rather cheese off God for killing his own son then for disobeying him.
6) At the last moment God says to Abraham "Psych! Just messin' with you, homey"
Please answer this question: Would Abraham have suffered horribly for killing his son, or would God just let that one slide?
For extra points answer these questions:
If God randomly gives someone a conflicting set of instructions and expects that person to know which instruction to follow 'just because', then is God a rational being?
If God is not a rational being does it make sense to trust his promises and threats?
If God is not rational and does not keep his promises or threats then is it rational to worship Him?
Well, um, except that those 'moral' teachings are A) either so obvious no one would bother to write them down or so ambiguous as to be nearly useless (Don't Kill, Sure thing. Don't covet your neighbor's oxen? You'll need to clarify that one) B) the moral teachings come wrapped in centuries of social and political manipulation (some of which arrived at the end of a sword) and c) the newest part of the book the teachings are based on comes from a time when 'the world' was the Roman Empire, communications went no faster or farther than the fastest ship or horse, and mental illness was proof of demon possession.
I promise I won't kill anyone unless it's in self-defence and that I will try to not mess with the lives of my neighbors or get too angry when they mess with mine. That pretty much covers the major topics of the moral code. As for the invisible guy who judges my eternal soul after I die -- not so much.
I expect movies involving super heroes, space wars, cave men, and/or cowboys to be on the same realism level as Saturday morning cartoons. The director only has under two hours to tell a story. Some short cuts must be taken. A hand-held laser weapon is a great way of defending your hero even if it could NEVER work in real life. Movies are fantasy after all.
Authors, on the other hand, have no such excuses. I want physics in a book to match physics in the real world and when the author wants the physics to serve the story line I want the damned thing labeled 'Fantasy' -- even if James Patterson wrote it.
I went to school in the early 90s for a non-IT degree but wound up in IT because it paid more. I know seven of people who went the CS route, started out in that field and either burned out (3) or were shunted into support by managers who wanted to keep the head count but needed different roles filled (4). The truth is that as you age you want something more settled than job hopping and minding your own IRA and health insurance. Taking that IT job with the big corporation looks mighty good about then.
So yourself a favor and go the safe route now. Keep your hand in on CS projects outside the company and always float your CV/Resume around. You never know when the next tech boom will happen.
Let me try spinning this
GOVERNMENT IT WORKERS PAID LESS THAN SAME WORKERS IN PRIVATE SECTOR
Obama claims government tightening belt
PRIVATE SECTOR CONTRACTORS BILKING THE US
Senate hearings commence in two weeks
GOVERNMENT UNIONS KEEPING COSTS DOWN
Union leaders praised for austerity
GOVERNMENT UNION WORKERS FORCED TO WORK FOR LESS THAN PRIVATE SECTOR
Bill O'Reily attacks unions for not protecting worker's rights
Here's what I think the 'real' spin should be:
WORKERS AT DIFFERENT COMPANIES PAID DIFFERENTLY
Film at eleven.
Yes but "they overwhelmingly benefit one corp". What exactly is the confusion here? Your life, liberty, freedom and government have been bought and paid for by mega-corporations, citizen. Smile and e happy you can serve your corporate overlords.
Umm, no. Twenty years ago my wife began having these bizarre pains whenever she ate. She was tested for different non-allergy problems and nothing turned up. Then some doctor told her she might have an allergy to a food. This was acceptable since her mom had an allergy to shell fish (iodine sensitivity).
Two years later she was STILL having problems despite testing for wheat, all sorts of fruit, meat, and even alcohol. She was really suffering by this time and she couldn't figure out what was causing it. Finally a friend of hers suggested that she might be allergic to corn. She stopped eating corn (no small feat in the US) and she felt better. She still suffered. Then she found an article on line about cross-sensitivity to different foods and that corn allergy sufferers usually suffer from soy allergies, too. Twelve years of no corn and no soy and she is much happier.
You see, the doctors really didn't know about the corn allergies. It wasn't something they ran into a lot (it's like some ungodly small percentage of the population) but there were enough people on the internet, even back in the late nineties, to educate my wife about it. Did she wind up trying a lot of wrong diagnosis? Sure, but there were a lot of those from the doctors. Did she reach the correct conclusion by luck? Not really since she gave each diagnosis a fair trial (science).
So, you see, we aren't really weaker. We have a greater breadth of information to sift for truth, and while you might hear of massed-idiots with cuckoo beliefs you never hear of the ones and twos self-diagnosing correctly using the 'net. And yet there is the giant background roar of people who now know what they are allergic to because they have more information.
IANA M.D., but it seems to me that when people around your are actually DYING from serious illnesses like cholera, scarlet fever, small pox and many, many more, the medical professionals (who were not in any way gathering statistical information in the 1800s) would tend to disregard all instances of allergies as imagined illnesses. Actual life threatening epidemics sweeping the country EVERY YEAR have a way of sharpening the focus of those who deal human suffering. Are allergy rates rising? Sure, why not. I'd like to see your stats but I'm flexible on this. Are allergy rates higher than in the 1800s? Who knows. There aren't any stats.
Please don't state your OPINIONS as facts. That's what started this mess in the first place.
I am also old enough to remember chicken pox 'parties' where stupid parents would force their perfectly healthy children to 'go play' with fever-ridden children in horrible itchy agony. I bet you never actually contracted measles or chicken pox from one of those 'parties'.
Again, please bring me the stats on the number of people per year who don't 'survive' multiple vaccine injections. I'm curious as to what that would be. Do you think it would be higher or lower than the number of people killed in car accidents each year, or killed by lightning, or killed in trout-fishing accidents, or suffocated by eating too many marshmallows. My lord, lets outlaw Campfire Marshmallows in that case. Talk about your knee-jerk reactions.
Oh, and by the way, I have this for you about Rubella from Wikipedia:
"During the epidemic in the US between 1962–1965, Rubella virus infections during pregnancy were estimated to have caused 30,000 still births and 20,000 children to be born impaired or disabled as a result of CRS (congenital rubella syndrome)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella
Thank you but I for one respect life and want everyone to have a fair chance of being born WITHOUT PREVENTABLE BIRTH DEFECTS. Obviously you feel differently and that's your right.
My point exactly. Every endeavor had good as its aim but somewhere along the road to a better world the law of unintended consequences jumps out and hijacks the caravan. DDT was fantastic and it DID save lives. Communism is a wonderful theory to show the inherent evils of capitalism. High Fructose Corn Syrup is a great and cheap way to make sweet, low-cost foods. All of these things are good but the damage wreaked by these big ideas outweighs any benefits we could possibly obtain.
Oh, and the items on your list are the flip side of the coin. These are the things that -- so far -- no one has managed to screw up. With the exception of atomic energy. I think one might go on my list after this year.
Communism
Fascism
Eugenics
Killing off all bothersome insects with DDT
Endless suburbs
A car in every garage
The Atomic Bomb
Perfect White Bread
Cheap sweeteners
Eliminating all infectious disease with antibiotics
I know I don't trust big ideas because those ideas are usually the ones that lead to big problems.
THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE
