So, I just noticed that I had a relationship change. I expected it to be that pudge asshat foing me... which I wouldn't blame him, I foed him myself. But instead, to my surprise, it was Bill Dog, friending me. Now, I don't mean to be ungrateful, or upset in any way... but as I remember, Bill Dog is a strong conservative, while I'm a rabid liberal... and not just this watered down liberalist crap that passes for liberal here in the USA, but a full on democratic socialist.

So, I put an invitation to Bill Dog: if you wouldn't mind, would you be willing to explain why you made the choice to friend me?

Actually, let's do this as an open question. Anyone who is willing to explain why they friend/foed me, I invite your honest and open comments. I promise, I'll keep my mouth shut, and take my medicine as it is. After all, your justification is your honest opinion. :)

Looking at various laws, one can easily misinterpret them, or come to a false conclusion. It's pretty much the reason why you need to consult with a lawyer about this stuff.

I'm referencing here http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FunFacts/ItsTheLaw.html and while some of the laws seem silly or retarded, they can sometimes simply be because of differing jurisdictions.

1. While it seems like he snidely side-stepped the law, he really didn't. "O'Neal's Baloon" does not have the same obvious alcoholic association of "Saloon". I would have suggested changing it to something that still indicates alcohol will be served there... your name is the first thing people see about the location.

2. A wine is sold within 22 states, less than a majority, yet a singling out of two states? Retarded... This wine is apparently now able to be sold in all areas where otherwise permitted, but we we will assume that this article was before then. Likely, the wine was blocked in some states due to having a vulgar name.

3. A perfectly reasonable regulation, considering that you can advertise targeting children, and other stuff.

4. There are numerous federal laws that apply to US citizens while abroad. For instance, one cannot engage in under-age prostitution while abroad, even though foreign laws might allow it. Why do we not see a problem with this, but that preventing foreign exchange students to adhere to American alcohol laws?

5. This is an example of a truly stupid law. The idea that a company cannot indicate where their product can be purchased is reasonably retarded. However, there is no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this.

6. This law would only be enforcible locally. Either one would have to travel to the local area, or they would have to seek extradition. That anyone would actually be charged with this, unless it was extensively or maliciously broken, is unlikely. There is simply no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this.

7. There is no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this. However it is not unreasonable, and was likely abused. For example, I just claim to be a reviewer of alcoholic beverages, and anyone who sends me 10 bottles for free gets a stellar review.

8. This law was misread. There is specifically indicated the ability to refute the charges by proving that the container is empty. Considering it is in the garbage, then this is reasonable to assume. If the parents didn't dump out the alcohol before placing it in the trash, then it's "alcohol abuse" lol. Or, irresponsible parenting, by making the alcohol available to a child.

9. This law was misread. Iowa state law provides that anyone attempting to destroy any liquid in front of a police officer is proof that it was intended for unlawful purposes. This is a perfectly normal law designed to preserve evidence. Requiring police to obtain the liquid that has been destroyed and prove that it was alcoholic and intended for unlawful purpose places a burden on the law system such as to make it unenforceable. Here's a hint... if a police officer is coming up to do, don't destroy evidence right in front of him.

10. Running a tab without a bona fide credit card is illegal. Not an unreasonable law... oh, and this specifically is permitted in private clubs, hotels to registered guests, or "retail sales by the managing entity of a convention center, civic center, or events center."

11. This law is referenced as "General Statutes of Connecticut (Title 3, sec. 30-36)", it is however Title 30. It's not unreasonable to require someone a permit to make mixtures of alcohol even if for pharmaceuticals. They likely must pay a larger fee anyways just to be able to fill prescriptions. This $400/year permit also allows them to sell alcohol for off-premises consumption.

12. This is kind of an arbitrary law, but not unreasonable.

13. They're likely not even allowed to have the alcoholic beverage anyways... this law as stated is not unreasonable.

14. Selling to someone with a false or altered license can get you convicted of sale to a minor. Ok, so what happened, is that the police hired someone who was a legal age, but looked very young. That person went to get alcohol with a fake ID. The person selling saw the fake ID, and still sold the alcohol. As a result, the police arrested him and charged him with sale to a minor. Owner gets off the hook by proving that the "minor" was not actually a minor. Legislature then passes law to make sure that sale without a valid license is an illegal sale period.

15. It is not unreasonable to require that a business, once closed not engage in its business. A good example would be, a bunch of friends are drinking at a bar, and are friends with the owner. The bar closes, the public cannot be served with alcohol anymore, but the friends stay and continue to consume alcohol. They need not really pay at that time, or under the table.

16. Public intoxication is a state's right issue, and so it is legislated differently in different states. Once you start looking into laws, you start learning that states really have a lot of discretion to do almost anything that they want.

17. It's often illegal to intentionally cut off even a single part of your child's flesh without a medical license in a real medical procedure, or religious activity. Referenced as: "New Jersy [sic] Alcohol Beverage Control Law (Title 33)" This is actually "New Jersey Permanent Statutes (Title 33)" The best I can find more specific than "the entire Title" is "33:1-12a", but this only applies to wine tastings which require a plenary license. If anyone can find a more specific statute, then I'd be happy to hear.

18. There are specific distinctions in American law between on-premise consumption and off-premises consumption. It would not surprise me if most states prohibit this.

19. This law seems entirely retarded, and the only reference is to "dumblaws.com" ... looking there, I can find the law "referenced" but no reference to the actual law itself. If one can find any case law that specifically states this, I'm going to chalk this up as "this list was compiled by a retard".

20. I'm not willing to look up this reference. However, this law is not unreasonable. If you are selling liquor as your primary business, then do so. One also cannot sell cold beer. Think about this. Person walks in to buy a beer, and it is already cold. What is the reason to have them be cold? So one can drink them immediately.

21. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference.

22. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference. Although I have been told that Washington state law requires an establishment to sell or provide food as long as it is providing alcohol. The reason for this is to allow someone to "work off a buzz" if they must.

23. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference.

24. Texas law provides that alcohol can only be sold during certain hours every day of the week. This has since been removed, probably because they realized that the statement "anytime on Monday" does not mean midnight before 8 a.m.

25. I'm not going to spend the time to review this one. But considering such an obvious contradiction is highly unlikely, I don't think it is true.

26. Law is referenced to "dumblaws", however the entry is no longer available. Likely because it was false.

27. This law is simply referenced to "Florida Statutes"... I'm not going to go track down this law, especially considering the track record of the stuff before. To me, if you're listing "stupid laws", and your reference is anything but the actual statutes, or case law, then you're useless.

28. Difference legislative authorities come to different choices. If you intend to just point out how varied the laws are around the US, then this is as good as any.

29. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference. Although it's entirely possible that animal abuse statutes state that it is illegal to do this. Recall, alcohol is a poison, and humans just have a particular tolerance for it.

30. Note above. It is illegal, because someone did it.

31. Law prohibiting open containers in public apply to nearly the entire United States. Whether in a bucket or not.

32. San Salvador is in another country, specifically El Salvador. The US has some of the most lax drunk driving laws in the world. Do not be surprised.

33. Barring of alcohol while watching exotic dancers is not uncommon in the United States. I know of it being illegal specifically in Washington State and Nevada.

34. This is referenced to "uselessknowledge.com". It is not particularly surprising that someone would pass a discriminatory law like this in the 1940s.

35... 35... oh thank god, I'm done. Those last ones were WORTHLESS...

I'd like to see a "stupid law" webpage that actually requires real verification of the laws before it posts them...

In these times of political conflict, it is most interesting to look back, and witness that, relevant to us today, yet written long ago, the Bible does not stand alone, but also the words of many other people. Though not divine, they may yet be imbued with knowledge and wisdom that remains relevant today. We, as human beings, have struggled and seem doomed to struggle without end for Unity, Justice, and Freedom for our fellow human beings. It fills me with hope though, to realize that we are not beset on all sides only by men who seek the selfish goals of greed and individualism, but we are also surrounded by men who seek the more noble goals to lift up others, and increase the quality of their lives, regardless of their individual worth.
I write this as a prologue to a speech, which could stand powerfully in its own right, and without introduction. This speech is from Charlie Chaplin, performed in The Great Dictator. Although written in 1940, it stands as an incredible piece that cries out for unconditional love, and care of all men. Our actions here affect all who are left once we pass from this world, and all people regardless of creed or belief realize the only noble goal in life is to make life free and beautiful for all men...

So, I leave you with this speech, and beckon you towards the goal of making this world a better place for everyone by providing the fundamentals of human dignity... if you are Christian, then because the Kingdom of God lies not within one man, or a group of men, but in all men... and if you're Atheist, because reason dictates that in any moral system, each person cannot be viewed as anything other than equivalent in worth to any other person.

And now, words once already spoken, yet still well worth repeating:

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness - not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate - has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man - cries for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say: 'Do not despair.' The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!

Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St Luke, it is written the kingdom of God is within man not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful - to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason - a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite!"

Thank you, and if you so believe, may God bless your life, and if you do not so believe, then simply, may your life be blessed

Gen yon panse nan Ayiti. Pi bon, voye HAITI nan 90999 a bay $10 nan Kwe Rouj pou Ayiti. Si ou kap bay, souplà bay!

I was watching "Fringe", the episode "Unearthed". A character in the series spoke some Russian, and I set off to understand exactly what she said. They told us that she says, "my little star", and I caught enough that she said, "govorit" at the end of a sentence. (I'm transliterating here. It's pronounced different because the "go" syllable is unstressed, and thus degrades to an open round vowel between /o/ and /a/, which we perceive as /a/. For English speakers the best writing of it would be "gavorit".)

Well, searching online, I eventually found a script, and I transliterated their transliteration back into Cyrillic... and it broke... of course right? So, it took me a while to play around with things until I finally got it all correct. In Cyrillic characters it is:

Ð¼Ð¾Ñ ÐÐÐÐÐоÑÐÐ. ÐÑо Ñï½Â¾ мноÐ? ÐоÑÐмÑf Ñ Ð½ï½Â мÐÐÑf ÐоÐоÑÐÑï½ÂOE?

Transliterated is: Moya zvezdochka. Chto so mnoy? Pochemu ya nye magu govorit?
A closer English pronuncation: ma-YA zvezDOCHka. shto sa-MNOY? po-CHEH-mu ya nye magu gah-VOR-it?
As presented by the script: maya zvezdochka shto samnoy? Pochimu ya ne magu govorit?

The best English translation that I can offer: "My little star. What is wrong with me? Why can't I talk?"

I'm posting this here, so maybe someone else looking for the same text will find it faster, and if they're less resourceful about language translation than I am, they might be able to actually find an answer at all.

So, I'm watching the Colbert Report, and he mentions that Conservapedia has started a project to Retranslate the Bible using only proper Conservative buzz words. While investigating this, I came across the article for Feminist Bible. In which, they complain that feminist ideas have permeated a number of newer Bible translations. And, well, yeah, Today's New International Version certainly has imposed some Gender-Neutral dialog and terminology.

Here's the problem though, they start talking about James 2:15-16, talking about how English translations make an "ungrammatical" (their words, not mine... I'm a linguist, if it sounds right it's grammatical, it may not be "proper", but it's still grammatical) rendering of a phrase in order to make it sounds more Gender-Neutral. Sure, I totally bet that the TNIV translation has done this, and guess what? It does use the plural personal pronoun to refer to an antecedent of "brother or sister". So, I'm like, "ok, I'll give you that."

But then in the footnotes, I note that they claim that this grammatical error is even in the KJV version, and in most English versions in fact. Ok, now things smell fishy, because KJV translation was done WELL BEFORE any liberal 1984-paranoid feminists could have gotten their hands on it for Gender-Neutral language. So... what's going on here?

I know of a site called BibleServer.com, which is an awesome webpage, because they provide multiple different translations, all easy to access. Ok, first up, the NIV translation. Nope, NIV uses the "grammatical" non-specifically-gendered personal pronoun "him". But, sure enough, KJV does as well. Well, this is really weird, right? Because as I noted before, KJV was well before any potential feminist influence. Well, ok, well, what about trying a different language?

German doesn't normally use their plural pronoun for non-specified or mixed gender, as they have a very DEFINED gender system. In fact, girls are given the pronoun "it", as well as "Omachen" (grandma with a dimunitive). This is because grammatical gender REQUIRES it to be used... it's not anti-feminine, it's not misogynistic, it's just the way the language works. Yet in the Luther 1984 translation, something weird is going on here... they use the 3rd-person singular subjunctive of "haben" => "haette", but they then refer to the singular antecedent with a plural pronoun. What's going on here?

So, let's look up a Spanish translation, "Version La Biblia de Dia". Spanish is a good choice for this, because they only have masculine and feminine, and even if there were a feminist rally, and there were 100 women, and one man in the crowd, the speaker would grammatically and naturally refer to the crowd as "hombres" (men). In Spanish, all non-specific singular pronouns are male, but any and all MIXED gender PLURAL pronouns are male. So, what happens here? Well, here the plural conjugation of "tener" is used: "tienen", and a plural pronoun is used to refer to this "singular" antecedent again. ("les") Ok, now I'm thoroughly confused...

Ok, wait, I know... let's stop all this work, and start walking back in the documents. Let's start with LATIN... good ol' Latin, when I want to know what misogynistic anti-feminists said about a Bible verse, I go to LATIN. Well, here they use the plural conjugation "sunt", and use a plural referent to the a "singular" antecedent again. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!

Ok, that's it... what language was the Epistle of James originally written in? Uh... Greek. Ok, let's go to the ancient greek. James 2, English and Ancient Greek side-by-side. Alright, here we go, we can go looking though this and.... brother... sister... plural conjugation... plural pronoun...

Ok, so, the reason why KJV and "most English translations" have this plural usage here is because the original freaking GREEK had this "grammatical error", not because of an error of the translators.

And Conservapedia rips on NIV all the time for being liberal biased and all, but they're the only people who, BECAUSE of a liberal attitude to update the language, altered the original meaning of the text in order to conform to proper English grammar of the time.

Ok, seriously, these are the same people who are vouching that the KJV meanings have skewed, and that "logos" should be translated with "truth" rather than "word" anymore, etc. And they're talking about how the original meaning is being lost by the modern liberal jerkwads... yet... some of the liberal jerkwads are actually ensuring that the language conforms to modern day grammar, rather than just blithely repeating the same grammatical errors made in the original Greek.

It reminds me of an amusing quote I once read, but cannot find again, so I shall paraphrase: "How fortuitous it was that God learned Greek to write the New Testament... it's however unfortunate that he had not learned the grammar better."

God can't properly agree a pronoun with a singular complex antecedent... isn't this book supposed to be infallible?

I've lurked at /. without posting for ages, mostly because I just don't have the time to interact like I used to.

But I've been clicking through the old RSS feed more and more lately, and when I saw the PAX Plague thread today, I came over to comment, since I'm kind of affected by the whole damn thing. I thought I'd take a look around since I haven't been here in awhile, and I saw that there are freaking ACHIEVEMENTS associated with our accounts. It's silly, and I'm sure it's been here forever, but I thought it was awesome and I was delighted when I read it.

I didn't realize how much I missed Slashdot until I spent some time here today, and I bet that anyone who joined in the last 2 years doesn't even give a shit about my stupid comments or anything, but it felt good to come back here, and feel safely among my people again.

This is a response to a video on Youtube done by a "tooltime9901", who in response to "jezuzfreek777", presents an interesting prompt. What are the "ten commandments" that an atheist should hold. This is so interesting because it comes to the fundamental philosophy of law and morality. Knowing that morality is fairly relative, and that morality cannot be viewed without context of the situation. Thus, there are justifications to killing another human. There are justifications for what would otherwise be considered theft.

Take these as examples. It is well accepted that self-defense is a legitimate justification for causing the death of someone else. Provided that said self-defense was given in a proportioned response. Thus, if someone simply attempts to assault you, you are only justified insofar as assault against that person. However, if an attacker is presenting a force which a reasonable person would find to be equivalent to lethal force, then one is justified in causing that individuals death.

Next, the justification of theft. It is well accepted that aquisition of ones own property is justified, even if the aquisition of that property would otherwise be considered theft. Thus, reaquiring ones own property is justified if someone has your property without your permission. Here is what is interesting though, you are not justified to use force or threat of force to reobtain your own propery. The use of force to obtain property is only permissible when force is being immediately or imminently used against you to obtain property from onesself.

So, we present here the point that we cannot justify a commandment-like proscription against killing another, or obtaining property in the posession of another. While proscriptions of murder and theft themselves are valid, one is then presented with the problem of defining murder and theft such that it accounts for, and allows justifications. This presents a further moral problem in that in defining murder, one can present the definition of "causing without reasonable and fair justification the death of another human being", because then one is presented with the problem of defining what a human being is. One would normally assume this to be an easy task, but recall that often a superior group of people will attempt to justify their actions by denouncing the humanity of another group. Whites denounced Blacks as humans, and thus the justification of slavery of that group, while slavery of whites was generally admonished. As well, the Nazis of Nazi Germany justified the wholesale slaughter of jews and the disabled as those categories of homo sapiens and being insufficient to warrant the protections afforded those of "human beings"

Thus, we are left with the necessity that the only commandment-like proscriptions and perscriptions afforded to us need be necessarily vague, and rather than covering specific details are presented as widely interpreted statements that present the foundation for a legal or moral system to be built upon more exactly. And thus, I can present from that notion the following six commandments, which I feel are reasonable, justifiable and rational. I use the speech of the time of King James in order to present an allegory and allusion to the commandments as they are considered by our modern age.

1. Thou shalt keep the trust of your word.
2. Thou shalt not do harm to others.
3. Thou shalt not endanger others.
4. Thou shalt honor thine obligations.
5. Thou shalt not act with intention to violate a proscription of law.
6. Thou shalt not act with knowledge, or willful ignorance to violate a requirement of law.

These six commandments actually establish the devisions of law within the common law system, and such commandments actually have equivalent notions in the civil law system.

The first commandment, I present as such, because of the importance of the issue. I see perjury and fraud as the fundamentally anti-thesis of reason, which is what a society must fundamentally be based upon. If the system cannot rely upon the word of an individual, then the system itself cannot operate. Thus, since the system must assume that parties are telling the truth, it is a fundamental requirement that this truth be told. This should not be considered to proscribe all lies, as not all lies are damaging to a moral system, however when presenting justification and context to a situation before an impartial party then the necessity of the trust in the words of the parties is paramount. And we should presume that any court, natural or not, would be impartial.

The second commandment presents a fundamental truth. We should not do harm to others. This is presented in commonlaw under the idea of intentional torts, and the third commandment presents a foundation for the idea of negligent torts. In both cases, if someone becomes harmed, either through the acts or the failure to act of another, then that person deserves the right to have their harm redressed.

The fourth commandment seems similar to the first, in that it would seem to require someone to be honest, and this is true, however it is more specific than that. The first commandment establishes the requirement that one be true in their word if there is a trust of that person's word, but it says nothing about when a trust of that person's word is fundmantally necessary. While the first commandment applies obviously where an impartial court is involved, it applies non-trivially to the announcment of obligations to others. This is the American idea of crossing ones fingers while annoucing an obligation, and thus that a trust was never intended in the announcement of that obligation. This commandment however provides that one must always place the trust of ones word in the announcement of an obligation. In the common law system, this commandment thus provides the foundation for contract law.

The fifth, and sixth commandments establish the foundation for criminal law in the common law system. These are specifically different from commandments two and three, in that it establishes that there is a legal doctrine for a society, and individuals are under an obligation (fourth commandment) to obey this "social contract". Thus the legal system should establish two types of criminal law, and while the common law system views both of these types of criminal law as identical, there exists the legal context that one may use a justification that one was unknowing of a specific law in some cases. This commandment thus places that requirement as apparent and opaque, as opposed to the current system that is vague on the issue.

The fifth commandment sets out that there are certain acts that are defined by a legal system to be impermissible. The legal system should define these in such a matter that the acts cause an effect, which the legal system finds intolerable, and thus knowledge of the fact that the action is proscribed is waived by all as being necessary. Only the intent of the action need be defined. The person intended to perform the act, and thus must be punished.

The sixth commandment takes a different tact. It states that the legal system should deem that certain actions must be performed by all within its jurisdiction. Thus, the idea that one must register and obtain a license to operate a motor vehicle on a public street. This requirement, done by the state however, states that it is in the best interest of all to require this, but that failure to perform the requirement does not imply by necessity that a violation of the commandment occured, because there are two parts to this commandment first, the individual must know about the requirement, as no one should be held to perform a requirement without being aware that such a requirement exists. However, this is provided that the individual not be willingly ignorant of the requirement. Thus, a person charged with violating a requirement to obtain a license to drive would not be a violation if the person did not know, and had no reason to know that such a license were necessary.

So, I've probably rambled enough, but this is what I think would be the best foundation for a system of commandments.

Of course... I make a few comments in an essay that attempts to say that the social embarrassment of an individual accused of sexual assault is "vastly greater" than the social embarrassment of the victim being identified.

I objected to this because I have been the victim of sexual assault. Oddly enough, when I comment about that, it's marked as a troll or flamebait.

Not like I should be surprised with how machismo and male-dominated the geek world is. I hope the people modding me down realize that they're being just as sexist as the author, and that they're damaging the credibility of men among women.

This is one of the big reasons why I've wanted to get out of the geek world in my work life. I don't want to deal with this chauvinistic bullshit in the workplace , where I spent 8 hours of my day... at least. Not to mention, there's the expectation that I will spend 60-80 hours a week at work. The whole IT industry is so sexist it disgusts me.

Honestly, I can't believe how stupid SOME men are. Not all of them, I've met quite a few really nice cool caring and understanding guys... however... jesus christ... modding down a girl as a troll because she objects to being told that the social embarrassment of her accused sexual assaulter outweighs her suffering?

Meh, I'm done... I'm just really sick and tired of how sexist men are... it's so frustrating.

I started reading about The Analogy of the Divided Line whereby the reasoning of an individual is divided into four parts.

The first part is the blanket assumption that what is seen is reality.
The second part is the higher order of understanding the particulars of reality.
The third part is an understanding that the objects around us are merely reflections, and that there is something more meaningful that gives a object its reality.
And the last part is inexistential, the understanding that there are things that exist but have no image in reality.

As I was reading this, it occured to me that Arithmetic itself is a wonderful example of this sort of reasoning.

The first level is physically tied arithmetic. Two apples and two apples are four apples, and four rows of five apples makes 20 apples, this is known to be true as you can actually count them.

The second level is route memorization. One knows that the concept of math is more than simply counting numbers, and that many operations have simple systematic answers, that do not require you to count the entirety of the result. Thus,2+2=4 and 4*5=20 because that's what the results of the arithmetic operation are.

The third level is an understanding of the principles behind math. That there is an abstract level behind math, that guides all the principles. You might realize that scalar math is simply 1x1 matrix math. You know that 2+2=4 not because you have been told so, but that the definition of the elements hold that the operation must produce that, but that "+" means much more than simply addition, but can include a number of ideas, such as the idea of logical or, or the construction of a set which strictly supersets both sets used as operands (Union operation). You know that 4*5=20 not because you have been told so, but because you know and understand how multiplication works, and that it is an agumentation of addition, thus n*m = sum(1-n, m), and inserting the values four and five, you retreive 5+5+5+5, which is defined in the context of the vector field we are using is 20.

The final level, is the cause of many people being considered to be raving lunatics. It's the understanding that numbers themselves do not having meaning, but rather that everything is derived from nothing. 0 is the cardinality of the empty set, while 1 is the cardinality of the powerset of the empty set, while 2 is defined as the cardinaltiy of the powerset of one, and that every number N is the cardinality of the powerset of N-1. Maths working in this field are like lambda calculus is to computation, because the lambda operation is the most basic of all operations, and breaking down math into the most basic of all elements, the empty set, you end up able to prove not only that 4*5=20 because it equals sum(1-4, 5) = 5+5+5+5 = 20, but because you know that n+m = incr(1-n, m) (where inc is like the Sigma Summation operator and the Pi Product operator, showing a sequential series of incrementations). Thus you know:
4*5 = sum(1-4, 5
        = 5+5+5+5
        = incr(1-5, 5) + 5 + 5
        = incr(1-(incr(1-5, 5)), 5) + 5
        = incr(1-(incr(1-(incr(1-5, 5), 5), 5)

And knowing that a single incrementation step is defined as
inc(x) = { x=0 : emptyset
                      x!=0 : powerset(f(x-1)) }

Thus that "numbers" are inexistential sets of literally nothing (various combinations (not permutations) of empty sets) and that finally collapsing them to a definition results in us taking the cardinality of the set in order to understand the value. Thus continuing above:
4*5 = incr(1-(incr(1-(incr(1-5, 5), 5), 5)
        = incr(1-(incr(1-inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(5))))), 5), 5)
        = incr(1-(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(5))))))))))), 5)
        = inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(5)))))))))))))))

Inserting the definition of five:
        = inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(inc(emptyset))))))))))))))))))))

By applying the inc function we end up with:
        = powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(powerset(emptyset))))))))))))))))))))

Whose cardinality is 20.

Having defined and proven addition, and the very definition of numbers themselves, you have broken free of any physical manifestation of mathematics. You are truly looking at what mathematics really is a priori, you are not bound to "it is defined this way" or "it was taught to me to be this value" or "I counted it myself", but rather you understand that all of those are merely images and reflections on a cave wall with regard to what really really is math.

You no longer "perform" math based on axioms, instruction, or the crude rudimentary counting, but rather based off of a priori proofs. You know of the existance and nature of math, because you understand what it really is.

At this point, do you become truly enlightened about math, and you understand why such variations as there are exist, because you can extract all of them from nothing.

This feels like a mega-spam entry, and I'm very self conscious about posting it, but I'm excited about this and I wanted to share . . .

I just published my third book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I mention it here because it's all about growing up in the 70s, and coming of age in the 80s as part of the D&D/BBS/video game/Star Wars figures generation, and I think a lot of Slashdot readers will relate to the stories in it.

I published a few of the stories on my blog, including Blue Light Special. It's about the greatest challenge a ten year-old could face in 1982: save his allowance, or buy Star Wars figures?

After our corduroy pants and collared shirts and Trapper Keepers and economy packs of pencils and wide-ruled paper were piled up in our cart, our mom took our three year-old sister with her to the make-up department to get shampoo and whatever moms buy in the make-up department, and my brother and I were allowed to go to the toy department.

"Can I spend my allowance?" I said.

"If that's what you want to do," my mom said, another entry in a long string of unsuccessful passive/aggressive attempts to encourage me to save my money for . . . things you save money for, I guess. It was a concept that was entirely alien to me at nine years old.

"Keep an eye on Jeremy," she said.

"Okay," I said. As long as Jeremy stood right at my side and didn't bother me while I shopped, and as long as he didn't want to look at anything of his own, it wouldn't be a problem.

I held my brother's hand as we tried to walk, but ended up running, across the store, past a flashing blue light special, to the toy department. Once there, we wove our way past the bicycles and board games until we got to the best aisle in the world: the one with the Star Wars figures.

I'm really proud of this book, and the initial feedback on it has been overwhelmingly positive. I've been reluctant to mention it here, because of the spam issue, but I honestly do think my stories will appeal to Slashdotters.

After the disaster with O'Reilly on Just A Geek, I've decided to try this one entirely on my own, so I'm responsible for the publicity, the marketing, the shipping, and . . . well, everything. If this one fails, it will be because of me, not because a marketing department insisted on marketing it as something it's not.

Of course, I hope I can claim the same responsibility if (when?) it finds its audience . . . which would be awesome.

Simple tasks like switching between Firefox and Thunderbird are driving the load on my machine up over 4, and if I'm trying to run Amarok at the same time, it drives it up to 8. In fact, my machine frequently climbs up into the 7-9 range, bringing my apps to a crawl and frustrating the hell out of me.

So I've decided it's time to buy a new computer. I'm going to replace my aging Sony Vaio desktop machine (which runs Linux) with something newer that has more RAM, a faster processor, and a bigger hard drive.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure where to start looking. A quick walk through Circuit City a month or so ago lead me to believe I can get a rather "big" computer for as low as five hundred bucks, which further leads me to believe that if I were to buy something online, I can get a huge pile of RAM, a fast processor, and a big honkin' hard drive for even less.

I run Kubuntu, and use KDE as my desktop (though I occasionally switch to Gnome when I get bored) and I mostly use Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, Amarok, and run PokerStars in wine. I'm looking for something that can do all of that without slowing my machine to a crawl.

Anyone have any suggestions on where to start looking?

Edit: I don't think I have the patience to build my own machine out of individual parts. I also don't have any real loyalty to any particular company or architecture. New Egg has lots of machines with AMD processors, and though I've always had Intel processors because more things seemed to run on x86, that's not as much of an issue as it once was, right?

I'm reminded of some interesting considerations that I've come across about language. It's easily known that I'm very much a student of languages, their use, and their formulation. I find it easy to grasp new ideas relations and words, and modes of communication than it appears almost all are.

I observe my cat Millie fairly often while she "plays" with water. See, I have a tub, and she gets into it, and I turn on the water, and she will attack the water. The thing is, that by her actions, I can see her intent is not to PLAY with the water, but more so to understand the water. She tries to bite it, and paw at it, she is genuinely interested in what water actually is, and what it does, and how it reacts. She won't jump in a bath, or get into the shower with me, so her interest in water is not simply, "she likes water", but definitively that she is studying water, and performing rudimentary experiements on it. Of course, those experiements show much of her instinct and nature rather than more rational though, such as "Can I catch water? Can I bite water? What happens when I attempt to do so?" and "What is wet, and how does it relate to water?"

Being that she has no linguistic capabilities she cannot simply ask what it is, or have it explained to her, and everything that she learns she cannot pass on. At some point humans must have been the same way, where a "scientist" simply poked at something, like water, trying to understand it, what it is, why it is, and how it is. Slowly as we began being able to communicate, ideas were able to pass crudely through much the same way as a pidgin "Water, wet, wet water, me water wet touch", homonids had nothing better to communicate with.

Slowly, hominids' minds adapted and began picking up grammatical features and homonids could then begin to express themselves more widely to others, eventually reaching a critical mass where enough hominids could use a consistent grammar (vocabulary was made consistent from the pigin usage above, a number of animals, especially Dolphins have been shown to grasp at least this little bit of language, especially some great apes) that they were able to communicate more fully. At this, explosive growth of language and communication happened. I would likely say that this change could be as drastic as a few generations, if not simply only one.

After this spontaneous break through of language, people were now able to access and store information from and to other people. Suddenly, I don't need to know X, if enough other people already know X, so that I can contact them easily enough. This specialization of knowledge has continued constantly until this day where no one person anymore could have the same impact that Newton single-handedly had upon Astronomy, Physics, Calculus, and Alchemy (Chemistry). Thinking about it, soon our descendents will at some point (if specialization is allowed to continue) be aware of the same things that Newton can to discover on his own at such an early age that we today would be amazed.

This social network created by language is thus expounding the knowledge available to each individual. More and more we don't need to discover to know, but we can be told to know, and soon simply use without knowledge. This evolution of knowledge is no more evident than with computers, where today we have alive people who had to discover to learn what they know, those that learned what they know from those discoverers, and those that don't know at all, but rather simply use. In the span of simply two or three generations.

In many ways it's like a pyramid scheme. The sooner you get in, the more you "know", because everything built upon what you discovered wouldn't be possible without what you did, thus creating mighty giants at the top of the hill peering down their pyramid, master of their domain. Few other fields exist today in such a primitive state, having had their initial investors lost in the ages even as far back as he who discovered and experimented with fire.

We like to think of the discoverer of fire, or to name him Prometheus, despite that certainly not being his name at the time, because fire is such a fundamental tool and so vitaly to everything we do. But think... who in the myths discovered water? If you want to dive back even deeper into the age of knowledge to the very foundations of protoscience, who was the Millie of humans? What human was the first to wonder about water, and study it, see how it reacts to things, understand that it can be carried, and contained, and not simply taken from the source. Certainly he was before the person who invented pots or other carrying devices, because we needed to understand water fundamentally and then the spark of an idea comes to him, a leaf! I can pour water into a leaf, or other object and carry it. Then someone invents to bowl, and behold, they have a tool which can actually transport water.

We think of water as such a fundamental thing that we all simply know about it, but it is simply aged wisdom so old that we need not even make Myths about who brought mankind water. Fire is an incredibly new technology compared to water. I myself am witnessing the discovery and study of water by a species unable to communicate, and even unable to pass the mirror test.

Should she actually be able to communicate ideas, then she might express an amazingly curious mind, wanting to understand and learn, but only lacks the social ability to pass that knowledge further, or share in the synergistic (sorry for the Buzzword) properties of the society to probe water fully, and understand what it is.

Some day, millenia from now when cats are capable of communication, will they even know the extrodiary exploits of Millie studying water? Will they have even forgotten that such a study of water were even necessary? Our response to Millie's research would be "duh, water is wet, stupid cat." but realize that many of us say now "Duh, 2+2=4", but that simply idea had to be expressed and discovered by someone. There are things so fundamentally basic that we don't even realize that at some point, our ancestors didn't understand it implicitly, because their knowledge extended no further than their own mind, they could not collaborate, or work together to relate things, and create ideas, and notions.

What makes humans unique is our use of communication for this purpose. We are slowly learning that some animals can pass the mirror test, some can learn to communicate in a pidgin, relating needs and wants, but only humans use language to learn to collaborate to work together and overcome problems. But this is simply an allowance afforded us by language, we are simply that lucky to have language, because it is what makes our intelligence and accomplishments possible.

To which thinking about it, the first creature to express an idea to another creature would be the fundamental root of society, and knowledge and wisdom. An animal may be incapable of passing the mirror test, but if it is able to understand the presense of others, then that right there shows an intelligence, which to me is surprising.

Of course, I'm still going to eat meat. Even if they are intelligent, their meat is useful for my life, and I am an animal much like any other. If they can begin to relate to me that they as a species do not deserve to be eaten, then I will do so, but notice, that will require them to have developed a protolanguistic pidgin and thus a capability of rudimentary communication with me. Of course, actually, I'd probably say that any animal capable of pidgin speech is worth keeping at this time, especially if it's spontaneous (Dolphin), but it should still count if it's instructed (Great Apes).

I was reading about Self-Reference on Wikipedia, and I came across an interesting article about Quine's Paradox.

The article essentially deals with the assertion by the infamous Quine that simply being able to assert truth or falsehood can create paradox.

I'm immediately brought to consider MarxistHacker42, who often times I have known to make the assertion that truth or falsehood could not ever be unequivably determined. Rather at best one can simply make assertions of their personal mythos, essentially asserting what they believe to be true.

I would personally say that this provides the ultimate view of scepticism, not of relativism. Since rather than asserting that everyone's personal point of view is true, it asserts that no ones personal point of view is true, nor false, but rather undeterminable.

I've found myself now in life during arguments much more able to handle alternate points of view, and talk to people in general. Knowing that we're not really ever truely working towards a Truth (with capital T) but rather just working towards what we believe.

Of course, the position allows you great freedom. I am able to assert that God exists without having to PROVE it, as everything is unprovable. Prove to me that you even exist, truly, it's never more clear that the only thing that we can prove exists is our own personal existence, and not even anyone else's.

Once you deny true and false, you're free to actually think about what you believe, without regard to if you will create a paradox, or hypocritic assertion. The later being especially important, as we all make hypocritic assertions... my favorite being the hypocritical notion that tolerance is naturally intolerant of intolerance.

Anyways, I've missed these arguments, that challenge my assertions about true and false.

I am absolutely stunned that Slashdot's editors would give credibility to a completely false story, pushed by a paid industry PR professional. As Rugrat said,

The "article" is not an article, but a press release written by an employee of a public affairs company.

"Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company."

For a website that spends so much time and energy combating FUD from Microsoft, and the MPAA and RIAA, it is baffling that FUD that was paid for and is pushed by the oil industry would make the front page here.

Come on, Slashdot. You can do better.