Well, with the way it's been going, you'll soon have no choice but to rely on cloud services.
Everything is a goddamn service now - even my fingerprint reader wants an Internet connection - yeah, screw you Authentec!
Even managing multiple WP sites now has to be done via a third party service: https://managewp.com/ (I've got nothing against them, they're very good - in fact, there is no better local alternative, which is what makes me sad/angry).
And I only found out after starting to manually block connections with a firewall... Authentec's TrueSuite became a must-install for some reason if you want to use their drivers and device on Windows.
One connection is for the software updates, and there are 2 other that I have no idea what they're used for. The TrueSuite app has an app store link and the features to export and import the fingerprint scans... So much for security...
Let's hope it is at least their software that they wrote that tries to make the connection and not something riding piggy back.
Fingerprint readers would make for a pretty good tool if you want to apprehend people on the lam, especially since you can lift their fingerprint, their location and a date/timestamp all at once. And they're self selecting in that the kind of people more likely to be doing naughty stuff would also be more likely to invest in such things as fingerprint readers.
And again, out of the user's real control... Sure, the security seems sound, but you still put all your eggs in someone else's basket, so to say, with any such cloud service.
Well, 8 seems better at managing memory and processor time... completely ignoring the awful Metro UI and the weird driver incompatibilities, that's about the only good change...
Believing something does not make it true... And hey, if the world was created 6000 years ago by some omnipotent being and made to look like it's several billion years old for some reason, I'm cool with that, but showing me a book written by humans as proof is just goddamn stupid.
I'd consider myself a creationist, but I never understood why so many creationists argue for a 10,000 year old earth. If you'll permit me quoting the Bible, here, to explain my point: there is every logical possibility of 60 billion years occurring between $WHEN_TIME_STARTED and $BIBLICAL_FIRST_DAY_WHICH_MUST_BE_NO_MORE_THAN_10_000_YEARS_AGO.
> In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
<hypothesis: stars are created here. some 60 odd billion years go here, giving plenty of time for starlight to reach the earth>
> 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
[Also, not really interested in getting into discussions of which scenario is more likely or whether I'm a fracking idiot. I just wanted to point out that I find it an intellectual curiosity that many creationists get so hung up on the young earth thing, since I'm not convinced that a 60 billion year old earth & biblical literalism are mutually exclusive.]
I thought people were trolling when they claimed the Earth was 6000 years old and it was a good troll, then I found out they really believe in it.
Anyway, the problem with taking Genesis 1 as a historic record is the greatest misinterpretation of the Bible, and created so much trouble for creationists.
If you accept an old earth (and I assume a similarly accurate timescale for how long life has been around), how would you expect life not to evolve? Given that much time, it's really just inevitable. How could it possibly not happen?
If you're a catholic-style "theistic evolution" type, then I suppose that is another thing. I'm mostly just curious how you stretch a non-evolution creation/development of life out over more than a couple thousand years. Catholics do it by just calling evolution "divinely guided" or whatever. Of the origin thoughts that involve deities, "young earth/no evolution" and "old earth/theistic evolution" seem the most logical to me.
That touches on one of the biggest conceptual problems holding people back from understanding evolution. The timescale is big. Really big. Bigger than human brains are typically capable of handling. I sometimes think that teaching shared ancestry as a starting point is the wrong approach, and that we should focus instead of the science of how old the universe must be (based on things like astronomy and earth science) and how iterative adaptive systems reflect changes over billions of years.
From there, people can arrive at common ancestry all on their own.
Among Christians, the "first day of creation is 6000 years ago" theory didn't really gain prominence until the early 1900s, as a part of the Christian Fundamentalist movement (which pushed strong literalism), which itself was a reaction to the Liberal Christianity movement of the late 1800s (which pushed the idea that all of scripture was figurative). Wikipedia has fairly straightforward summaries of the history of both groups.
Consider this very modern-sounding quote:
>> "For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? and again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally."
That was written by Origen of Alexandria, probably around 250 AD (part of http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.v.v.ii.html ). I've found sentiments of that nature are common among very ancient Christians, as well as among Jews of the same era.
I don't mind creationism being taught side by side with evolution. But replacing the latter with the former is plain idiotic/dumb/stupid.
Obviously, if you teach them side by side, anyone with half a brain will sooner or later realize that creationism is simply bullsheet, which is probably why these people want to silence the inconvenient (for them) truth...
I think this is a naive view. If they're taught side-by-side by a teacher who strongly supports creationism, the instruction will be influenced by that bias and the students may not receive the information they need to make an informed decision.
Even an atheist teacher teaching creationism alongside science is introducing a pro-creationism bias. Merely having them in the same classroom, let alone the same class is lending creationism far more credibility than it deserves. Mentioning it at all is a bias in favor of it; based on merit it deserves far less.
Exactly, save creationism for a world religions class and evolution for the science class. They cannot be compared in the context of science because creationism is outside of the scientific process.
True, but try to tell that to the millions of people who believe creationism IS science... To make it simple, just let the kids choose and decide for themselves...
> To make it simple, just let the kids choose and decide for themselves...
No, that's not how it works. By that logic we also would have to teach about ghosts, dwarfs, <stroke>astronomy</stroke>astrology, or just claims made by other religions or folklore. There's a reason we teach our children sciences. They are objective, observable, testable, falsifiable, etc. We want a rational society, not despotism.
The millions of people who believe creationism IS science are wrong. It's imperative for people to let them know (politely, of course) that they are wrong, especially in the science classroom
Food is so important, yet so cheap that farmers can not sustain themselves. When people really start starving, food costs will rise and farmers will be the new rich.
There is no overpopulation. Overpopulation of urban centers, yes, overpopulation of useable land - no.
We'll have trouble sustaining the current growth, and the way money are spent on useless and short term stuff is alarming, but that will most likely lead to another recession instead of collapse.
That's my opinion on just these matters - the article is a great piece of information that needs to be read by everyone.
Of all U.S. government policies that stand little chance of being reversed, the cheap food policy stand tall. As Bob Marley said, "A hungry mob is an angry mob." Nothing threatens the status quo more than the unavailability of food. Plus, individual farmers have little power. They have always relied on government to prevent them from being completely impoverished by the distributors, or in more modern times, by the seed technology companies.
I've heard that Iowa can feed two United States (if we were content to eat only corn and beans). SO agriculture can be very powerful. If necessary we could make huge changes in production in a year (growing season) and respond to pressure.
Its politics alone that determine who starves and who enjoys the benefits of technological society.
Everything is a goddamn service now - even my fingerprint reader wants an Internet connection - yeah, screw you Authentec!
Even managing multiple WP sites now has to be done via a third party service: https://managewp.com/ (I've got nothing against them, they're very good - in fact, there is no better local alternative, which is what makes me sad/angry).