The theologian Paul Tillich might have responded with what I call the "pointer variable" explanation of organized religion - that all the trappings of organized religion including its scriptures and figures merely "point" to the Ultimate, but are in the end only Penultimate, not the Ultimate itself. So by practicing one religion over another one is merely denying the validity of some pointers with respect to others, but not denying the Ultimate to which those pointers point. Indeed, the continual mistaking of things which were Penultimate for the actual Ultimate itself in human history has been the cause of, in Tillich's words, "great existential dissatisfaction."

There was an exhibit I remember seeing as a kid at the Boston Museum of Science in an area dedicated to exploring the human nervous system that did this. It asked you to attempt to read a paragraph of text into a microphone while your own voice was being fed back to you via headphones, slightly delayed. I remember it being extremely difficult to read the text properly.

I'm currently using the Arduino to construct an effects processor inspired by the long discontinued Waldorf 4-Pole. Writing the software for the envelope generator, display, and LFOs has been a great way to brush up on my long-disused C programming skills. Even though the AtMega168 that the Arduino platform is based on is not a DSP, the hardware seems powerful enough to do some direct digital synthesis; I believe there actually is an open source hardware synthesizer based on the AVR microcontroller.

There's no such thing as a "post-industrial" economy. All the things Stephenson mentions are consequences of industrialized society, not substitutes for industrialized society. Nothing happens without steel, coal, copper, petrochemicals, and precious metals. Without these things industrialized society ceases to exist - music, movies, microcode, and pizza delivery become irrelevant the instant fuel sources become scarce and the lights start going out. The West is now deficient in the raw materials of industrial civilization, while the "undeveloped" world is still relatively rich in them; note how China is making all efforts to secure the resources of Africa for itself while the Western industrial societies deal with the consequences of attempting to make an economy out of speculation and data manipulation rather than production of tangibles. One wonders how long nations that do have fundamental resources will continue to trade them for the ever decreasing quality of product the West has to offer. I'm sure the Chinese are quite capable of producing enough music, movies, and microcode to satisfy themselves without having to pay some "knowledge based economy" for it.

Military vehicles, warships, and aircraft.

In what way is evolution self-evident? Perhaps in hindsight, but it was after all only 150 years ago that the theory was first proposed. The theory doesn't require belief to exist, but unless you work directly with it and can conduct your own analysis on whether it is an accurate model of reality you're always relying on second hand information. A television program, a teacher, a textbook, in the end you have to believe that someone is giving you correct information to the best of their ability.

Guided evolution by "Intelligent Design" is a variable outside any fitness function we would be able to objectively measure - an argument which is used by ID adherents to reject the theory of evolution. That's the idea I was going for.

You admit that it may be unfair to make the comparison between climatology and meteorology for long timescales, but you're willing to take that position anyhow. One might ask oneself "What level of evidence do I need to see to convince myself that climatologists aren't completely mistaken?" If the answer is "It doesn't matter how much" then you've found yourself to be not a skeptic, but a zealot.

Do you believe in the theory of evolution? If so, why? The theory is quite incomplete and there could be many other factors that influenced/influence the development of different species. Do you believe in Big Bang cosmology? If so, why? The theory is quite incomplete and there are many other factors that certainly could have made the universe turn out the way that it has. Unless you happen to be a cosmologist or an evolutionary scientist, all (sane) people really have to go on to form your opinion about these things is what you learn the general consensus among those researching in the fields in question is. I don't think that many members of the Slashdot community question the theory of evolution or the Big Bang theory of cosmology. I certainly don't think many educated people would accuse these scientists in engaging in a conspiracy to tilt the evidence in favor of these theories.

Now, along come climatologists with their data pointing to anthropogenic global warming, and some in the Slashdot community, which ordinarily seems to have great respect for scientists and the scientific method, suddenly not only knows more about the subject than those doing the research but also makes thinly veiled accusations of hidden agendas and scientific malpractice. I'll tell you why this is so - it's all political. It is because if anthropogenic global warming is real than the medicine is obvious - massive government intervention on a scale unprecedented in human history. It's tough medicine to swallow for any freethinking person, but for some it's such an anathema that it's better to try to ignore or discredit the messengers than listen to the message. Because if the message is successfully ignored, and the models of climate scientists are correct, the real horror show for Libertarian types begins 25-50 years from now when governments start to act in a panic; never a good frame of mind for governments to be in when it come to the rights of citizens. At that stage civil liberties will be the last thing on the minds of governments as they try to deal with city-killing hurricanes, severe droughts, crop failures, coastal flooding, resource wars, refugees everywhere, and generally trying to salvage something from a world literally going to hell.

I understand now - the system you describe really does sound like the worst of both worlds. It's too bad, I was looking forward to having some good multiplayer snowmobile battles.

As a casual gamer who has never gotten involved with the "clan" scene, it has always irked me that after buying a game like something from the Battlefield series - which is marketed as an online game - it turns out that to actually play the game online one has to use servers rented or owned by independent parties. One's access to the multiplayer content is then restricted to the whims of the server admins and whomever they deem fit to exercise admin powers. Why should this be so? I agreed to an EULA with Electronic Arts; I didn't agree to anything with the administrators of the InsanE KillaZs 64-player Conquest server. If EA is going to sell something as an online game they should provide a network for that game to be played on, and the terms of play should be clearly stated in the EULA and enforced if necessary by the company. Not subject to the moods of the hardcore gamers whose server rules change on a day-to-day basis.

I've met my fair share of "nerdy girls" who write in similar manner to the example essay cited above. It's been my experience that in addition to being bright they're self-absorbed, easily offended, and absolutely won't ever be interested in having sex (with you, that is.) Probably a fan of Babylon 5 too. I imagine they all come off the same assembly line somewhere.

Your real problems start when you're a Caucasian male from the US. "How will he help make our community a more diverse place?" puzzles Admissions.

This sounds very much like the Titan Assault mode in Battlefield 2142. After playing as commander a few times in that game I came to feel strangely like I had the least power to affect the outcome of anyone - being a squad leader or member in a squad that worked together and communicated well seemed much more effective in determining the outcome of a round. As commander essentially all you could do was initiate satellite tracks and dispatch UAVs, drop supplies and the occasional orbital strike, and use a large menu to attempt to give orders to the squads on your team. The problem is that nobody is under any obligation to actually follow through on those orders, and the small point rewards that squad members would receive for following orders seemed to be outweighed by the lure of "going where the kills are". The best experiences are to be had on servers where following squad leader and commander orders are mandatory or kick. If DUST 514 is going to be fun to play from a commander's perspective I would hope that the rewards or punishments for following/not following orders would be increased, or that the command structure can in some way be enforced.

You're talking about the SlapChop, right?

Anything a white male says which indicates that they don't have the requisite level of self-loathing or consider themselves 9th class citizens.

It could have been worse, it could have been something like "produces 300,000 volts of power, which in watts per second is larger than an aircraft carrier and enough to burn down the entire Library of Congress..."