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Comment Re:Not all religions are bad (Score 1) 910

And what is objective moral truth in a theistic context?

The will of God(s) as communicated through the prophets. [...] I think religious opinion is pretty unified on that point.

If you use the broader definition of "theistic": Wrong. That's only true of religions that have prophets. With many others (esp. tribal ones), it is "this is what our ancestors have done". With some others religions (esp. the famous eastern ones), discussing what's morally "right" could be no different from how non-theists discuss what's morally "right" -- this is the best case scenario, and not what usually happens. In any case, there are no prophets who are assumed to have communicated the will/word of god.
If you use the narrower definition of "theistic", i.e. "God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe": Wrong. Theistic opinion may still be unified on that point. Religious opinion is not.

Comment Re:AC vs DC (Score 1) 468

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents

The advantage of AC for distributing power over a distance is due to the ease of changing voltages using a transformer. Available power is the product of current × voltage at the load. For a given amount of power, a low voltage requires a higher current and a higher voltage requires a lower current. Since metal conducting wires have an almost fixed electrical resistance, some power will be wasted as heat in the wires. This power loss is given by Joule's laws and is proportional to the square of the current. Thus, if the overall transmitted power is the same, and given the constraints of practical conductor sizes, high-current, low-voltage transmissions will suffer a much greater power loss than low-current, high-voltage ones. This holds whether DC or AC is used.
Converting DC power from one voltage to another requires a large spinning rotary converter or motor-generator set, which was difficult, expensive, inefficient, and required maintenance, whereas with AC the voltage can be changed with simple and efficient transformers that have no moving parts and require very little maintenance. This was the key to the success of the AC system. Modern transmission grids regularly use AC voltages up to 765,000 volts.[11] Power electronic devices such as the mercury arc valve and thyristor made high-voltage direct current transmission practical by improving the reliability and efficiency of conversion between alternating and direct current.
Alternating-current transmission lines have losses that do not occur with direct current. Due to the skin effect, a conductor will have a higher resistance to alternating current than to direct current; the effect is measurable and of practical significance for large conductors carrying thousands of amperes. The increased resistance due to the skin effect can be offset by changing the shape of conductors from a solid core to a braid of many small wires. However, total losses in systems using high-voltage transmission and transformers to reduce the voltage are very much lower than DC transmission at working voltage.

Comment Re:Better off not working for them... (Score 1) 379

No, what gets voted to power is likely to be something most people can live with.

I have never ever ever seen voting work this way! (If I have understood you correctly.) From what I have seen, what gets voted to power is what most people think will benefit them the most.

Equality for all has never been my ideal, and it does not even make sense to me. If you are better than me at work, it only makes sense that you get a higher pay, and/or get to make bigger decisions, etc. (and vice versa). Equality in the eyes of the legal system is something I do care about, and believe can be achieved.

Other than that, thanks for the proof! :-)

Comment Re:Better off not working for them... (Score 1) 379

It is clear to me that the government had no business sending the email to his employer. The government officials involved can and must be held accountable for this. I will not make assumptions about TF1.

What gets voted to power is a good indication of what is right? Stop this world...

"It's freedom for the few rich owners, and serfdom for everyone else"? No. Eventually, either everybody has liberty or nobody has liberty. (I have made my choice.) Anything else is unstable, and will eventually move towards no-liberty. I have a truly marvellous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.

Comment Re:Better off not working for them... (Score 1) 379

Did I give the impression that I would fire just doctors for holding this opinion? I would fire janitors and administrative staff too if they give a bad service to <insert arbitrary subgroup - pick examples from race, religtion, political leaning> patients or their families.

Bad business move? Coming back to the main issue: am I not at liberty to make what you think are bad business moves?

Though you may think that I picked a bad example (I don't) my main point remains: I recognize the liberty of everyone... not just of people who can get fired.

Comment Re:Better off not working for them... (Score 1) 379

Umm... No! Corporations are a danger to liberty only if they control politicians and get laws changed against liberty. What happened in TF1 is just not an example of that!

"Also if this precedent is allowed to stand..." My god! What about the liberty of TF1? Do you think only low-level employees should have liberty? If I ran a hospital, I would certainly get rid of all my anti-abortion employees - as this belief would affect their performance in the job I expect them to do.
Supercomputing

E=mc^2 Verified In Quantum Chromodynamic Calculation 268

chirishnique and other readers sent in a story in AFP about a heroic supercomputer computation that has verified Einstein's most famous equation at the level of subatomic particles for the first time. "A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms. ... [T]he mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five per cent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 per cent? The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons. ... [E]nergy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905." Update: 11/21 15:50 GMT by KD : New Scientist has a slightly more technical look at the accomplishment.
Sun Microsystems

SCO Fiasco Over For Linux, Starting For Solaris? 264

kripkenstein writes "We have just heard that the SCO fiasco is finally going to end for Linux. But Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at DesktopLinux.com points out that the favorable result for Linux may cause unpleasant consequences for rival open-source operating system OpenSolaris: 'At one time, Sun was an SCO supporter ... Sun's Jonathan Schwartz — then Sun VP of software and today Sun's president and CEO — said in 2003 that Sun had bought "rights equivalent to ownership" to Unix. SCO agreed. In 2005, SCO CEO Darl McBride said that SCO had no problem with Sun open-sourcing Unix code in what would become OpenSolaris. "We have seen what Sun plans to do with OpenSolaris and we have no problem with it," McBride said. "What they're doing protects our Unix intellectual property rights." Sun now has a little problem, which might become a giant one: SCO never had any Unix IP to sell. Therefore, it seems likely that Solaris and OpenSolaris contains Novell's Unix IP.'"

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