$9 GodTheory versus SCIENCE || Google and Skype w: Hotspots
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=06/02/06/0410244
Google and Skype in Startup to Link Hotspots: "Aliens
(Score:5, Informative)
by Qwell (684661) Alter Relationship on Monday February 06, @12:34AM (#14648886)
The guys from FON were recently at ETel in San Francisco. There are also Aliens, which are the people who are willing to pay for access.
Linuses: People who will let others (Aliens and other Linuses) use their links, if they in turn can use other Linuses links.
Bills: People who will let others (Aliens) use their links, for a percentage of the profits.
Aliens: People who are willing to pay Bills to use their links (and since they pay, they can use Linuses links), but aren't willing to share their own connections.
For more information about the different types of users, see http://en.fon.com/info/linus-meet-bill-meet-an-ali en.php [fon.com]
--
As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers."
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All this and I didn't even RTFA.
Hardly anybody RTFA. Mesh networks with multiple outlets to the general Internet threaten the entire status quo; the telecom companies fear this and that is exactly why we all need to promote it. Your ability to get your bits in and out of your neighborhood network is terrifying to the established telecom monopolies as well as the giant media companies. This is what we have to work to implement immediately.
'potential' for 'innocence' from CENSORED blogging: less jail time for
anti-tyrant bloggers BECAUSE its hard to 'prove' THEY did the transmission
when the node is public and [must be also inherently] randomizing>
Liability?
(Score:5, Insightful)-----
doh:
Re:What can they offer me I can't do myself?
(Score:3, Interesting)a) other people use that network connection rather than just you
b) FON will know who they are and have contact details for them
That is the reason I don't share my connection, fear that at some point I will have to prove my innocence and what I HAVEN'T done. We all know how hard it is to PROVE a negative is such cases
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Isn't this a marketing opportunity....
(Score:5, Funny)--------
Now where did I leave that copy of 1984?????
In the drawer of the table in the alcove, comrade.
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What about the stalker who works ....
(Score:5, Insightful)I'm sure that many people will accept this kind of intrusion into their privacy, simply because it will be a condition of employment. That giant stick that has been bashing holes in our personal privacy for some time now.
This technology will undoubtedly provide some useful services, but it will also be abused. My guess is that it will take quite a lot of abuse before proper rules and restrictions are put in place so that people can control when they are being monitored.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra [raybenjamin.com]
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Re:Old but with a new twist.
(Score:5, Interesting)believe that you are given a magic 'truth/morality compass' by the holy spirit and therefore have the magical ability to determine the rightness of science without resort to arguments or facts
You said it perfectly. It's not just the religious crowd that feel this way, although I'm sure it's much more prevelant among them. Hopefully in the near future this belief you speak of will wear off... Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but it seems it wears a little thinner with each passing day. Then things like I.D. come up and throw us back a few centuries in progress.
Don't suppose you have any ideas on what it takes to facilitate this change?
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Re:Old but with a new twist.
(Score:5, Insightful)I've heard it said that the repubs don't like scientists because they tend to vote democratic, but they've really brought that on themselves. Their real problem with science - and indeed with Reason in general - is that it often limits their power, which in their minds should be total and absolute now that they have all three branches of government locked up. Their only serious opponent now is Truth, at least until the next elections.
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Re:Old but with a new twist.
(Score:5, Insightful)This is the difference between science and politics.
In politics, the only thing that matters is the impression that you create. People vote for the impression, and live with the result.
In science, we try to keep politics to the minimum, and experimental investigation of empirical reality is one of the primary means of doing so. So a scientist, unaware of the impressions created by the two political parties in the U.S., looking at the data, would conclude that Democrats were the party of fiscal probity and Republicans were the party of spending money like drunken cowboys.
That people continue to trot out this incredible statement that the Republicans are less likely to run up a huge deficit and Democrats are less likely to balance the budget, when for the past twenty years exactly the opposite has been true, is a measure of how alien and anomalous science is in human experience.
This is why science is precious and must be defended. It is the only way we know of getting past impressions to something that at the very least is not the diametric opposite of the truth.
~0:-{= A funny picture for an eye leaves the whole world... err...
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Meet George Deutsch
(Score:5, Informative)
on Monday February 06, @06:51AM (#14649930) (http://agh2o.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 13, @11:28PM)
His memo reads:
"The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator." "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."
Religious issues at NASA. I only wish this were some loony story, but it appears legit.
Given his young age (twenty four), you might imagine George Deutsch having an impeccable resume. He graduated in 2003 from Texas A&M with a degree in journalism, then in 2004 was an intern in the Bush-Cheney re-election "war room". Here is a link [salon.com] to some of his articles he wrote while at the Texas A&M Battalion.
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http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/02/george_
These people's religion vitiates *everything*
(Score:5, Insightful)In a theocracy, religion gets inserted into every area of life, with the aim being to reinforce the power of those in charge. That's what these people want. They want scientists to be running scared from the local party representative. It's their very own Cultural Revolution, albeit with different idols to worship. And it can happen, even here.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority/
[damn RIGHT that is what the bastards are REALLY doing//jks].
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Balance the argument
(Score:5, Funny)====================
IT's not about whether it is a theory
(Score:5, Insightful) <mark@mwiley.org> on Monday February 06, @08:53AM (#14650534) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday May 17, @08:12AM)
Does the minister of your local church teach the controversy? Or does he teach that ID is right and everything else is wrong? Should he be forced to teach the controvercy and not impose any particular idea?
A minister of a church can teach whatever idea he wants, including ID, because it is an institution of religious philosophy and that is what they do.
On the other hand, NASA is an institute of science. What they do there is science research. They will refer to all sorts of scientific ideas there because it is part of their job. Discussing ID is not part of their job because it is not relevent to what they are doing. So they shorthand the word "theory" out for brevity and convenience.
So:
1. Which institutions should be allowed to stick to their basic reason for existance and be allowed to narrowly focus on that topic (be it theology or research)?
2. which institutions should be forced to "teach the controvercy" even though it may not be relevent to them?
Should churches be forced to "teach the controvercy" rather than just teach genesis? Or is "teaching the controvercy" only something the other side should? Should they be allowed to shorten their discussions so they focus only on those aspects that are important and relevant to them?
I'm not looking for right or wrong. I'm looking for consistency. If you have a rule, apply it the same everywhere, not just where it is most convenient to one point of view.
Kiddies to the left of me. Lawyers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with GNU.
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Re:Sad really
(Score:5, Insightful)Given the way things are going, this might be a better way to bet your career at that age, than siding with the left wing.
==The Vatican
(Score:5, Insightful)The Vatican are wise to do so. Big reason: they screwed up horribly over Galileo, they took way too long to catch on to the whole Darwin thing, and they don't want to look like fools again. The Vatican is therefore keen to show the world that religion can coexist with a rational understanding of the universe.
So: they are interested in scientific research, especially when it treads on ground that used to be exclusively God's. They loved the Big Bang; it's a singular creation event of absolutely enormous glory and power. Relativity and cosmology all come down, in the end, to something not far from Let there be light! No wonder the Vatican are happy. That's a tremendously impressive god, with a fabulous sense of style.
And how about evolution? How much cleverer of God to set up the system such that life can build itself! And on such a simple principle, too. That's the work of not just an intelligent designer, but a competent one. Much better than the clumsy, cack-handed work of a god who has to do everything himself.
Now, if you're an ancient religious organisation, planning to still be around and relevant a thousand years from now, isn't this the way you'd go about it? You don't fight against the discoveries made about the world by reason; Augustine understood that. You incorporate them. You show that they're fully consistent with what you've taught all along - if only you take a larger, more enlightened view of things. A view so much closer to God's, don't you think? And how better to understand God than to understand his works?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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Stop it,
(Score:5, Insightful)===================
Re:Balance the argument
(Score:5, Insightful)BTW I demand you spend equal time to the FSM, invisible pink elephants and every other devine creature some idiot might have thought of
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Sounds like theocracy gone awry.
(Score:5, Insightful)Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
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Re:presidential appointee
(Score:5, Informative)The parent is right, he's a hack. This kid's email is being blown way out of proportion here. A 24 year old with a degree in journalism would be laughed out of my office had he those comments to me, I don't care who appointed him. That's true of at least 99% of my coworkers.
His email was in regards to a web site for kids being made by a contractor that he must be the government monitor for. My guess that his management gave him that to do because as a new guy, it was something where if he screwed up it wouldn't cause too many problems. Like you do with the new guy anywhere else. Although by landing in the NY times they apparently failed in their objective - I'm certain there were a few heart attacks when this story rolled out.
It's not some systematic, sinister work by the administration - it's a kid who pulled some strings to get his first job, and you are witnessing him screwing up. Big time.
Worst...sig...ever!
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A Little Over Blown
(Score:5, Insightful)Throwing the word "theory" after big bang is technically the right treatment for the word. It is a theory. It is a pretty damn strong theory, but theory none the less.
As far as the PR office stuffing a reference to the presidential vision on space exploration in every single press release, while irritating, really isn't much of a crime in my opinion. Press releases are not scientific journals; they are the PR office at work. Part of the PR offices job is to drum up support for various initiatives. Claiming everything under the sun could help the study of other plants is probably technically correct. The NASA earth scientist are really just pissed that they got their work mentioned in the context that it could do something good for the presidential vision. NASA earth science and the rest of NASA have always had a problem with each other. I am not terribly surprised to see them feuding over the wording of press releases.
As far as earth sciences taking a hit and going under major restructuring, this shouldn't come as a surprise. The president pretty explicitly stated that NASA was to be realigned to focus on manned missions to space. Unsurprisingly, the means cuts in everything unrelated. Now, you might very well disagree with this, but it is certainly not secret sinister plot.
The only thing "scary" going on that the NYT article brought up is that they let some 24 year old idiot who clearly has no idea what he is doing into NASA's PR office. This "gem" shows pretty clearly that his head is deeply implanted up his ass.
The Big Bang is "not proven fact; it is opinion," Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, "It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator."
It continued: "This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most."
Now yes, the big bang theory IS a theory and should e called as such. That said, it isn't called a theory for religious reasons. Further, this fucking moron seems to be under the delusion that the big bang theory is something that religious folks don't like. Most Christians absolutely LOVE the big bang theory as it upset the long held scientific belief that the universe was forever and stats that the universe has a beginning.
Honestly, I think the news story here is that an idiot 24 year old kid got appointed into a job way over his head and acted like a moron.==/////////////////////////////////////
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Re:A Little Over Blown
(Score:5, Funny)Pass the popcorn!===================
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This is awesome. A large powerful nation giving itself a lobotomy.
Actually, that happened back in November 2000. There was followup surgery in 2004.
At present, prognosis for recovery isn't good.
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I'm very happy
(Score:5, Funny)Cheers!
Och
(Sarcastic mood. Sorry)============
Redundant language & A call for a resignation
(Score:5, Insightful)However being forced to add the word theory to every mention of the phrase "big bang" provides no real benefit in delivering clear and understandable explanations of scientific discoveries or ideas. Simply using the phrase "big bang" does not give anyone the false impression we are discussing an absolute fact, you would hope most people would be educated well enough to have at least some grasp of the underlying science and the way language is used and be able to avoid jumping to incorrect conclusions.
Instead you would have to suspect that anyone advocating this policy has an ulterior motive and in this case the muppet involved has been so kind as to outline his motive for us. Surprisingly from someone who would seem to be in a position where he was supposed to help scientists present their work clearly and coherently to the public he is instead more concerned with pushing his own private religious agenda than the job he is, presuambly, supposed to be doing.
I don't know the guy but already I don't like him. Whether I like him or not is irrelevant however, I think there is enough evidence here of him abusing his position for him to do the honourable thing and resign, or be fired.====
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Re:See a trend here?
(Score:1)Ignorance and incompetence. The only question is how much more damage we'll take before 2008?[ Reply to This | Parent ]Well, what did you expect. For the last twenty years the Republican mantra has been "Government doesn't work!" How long did you think it would take for some Norquist-driven genius to move from that ideology to one of "Let's nake sure government doesn't work!" Anyone who thinks that there were not qualified Republicans able to run these departments is a complete f*ckwit. Anyone who can't see that this goes beyond incompetance to sabotage has blinders on.
As a Republican I'm joining with independents and Democrats to run all these fuckers out of office, then, hopefully, we can start engaging in meaningful discussions during the years we're going to spend cleaning up the mess that's going to be left behind.
Well, it's sure taken you f*ckers enough time...
--The world does not stand still. So, if you're not a progressive, you're a regressive.
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Sure your a republican.
(Score:1)But it is nice to see another person changing to voting 'grid lock'.[ Reply to This | Parent ]The key is to leave the government near broke. It will keep them out of trouble.
Nobody with eyes and ears can claim the corporation for public broadcasting was unbiased before 2000.
Nore that the Clinton admin was particularly good at anything (besides protecting themselves).
We just have to make sure none of these bastards get any more of our money.
- Re:Sure your [sic] a republican. by David Rolfe (Score:1) Monday February 06, @07:32PM
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Re:See a trend here?
(Score:1)Puts 24 year old campaign worker in charge of PR at NASA. ROFL! If it wasn't so creepy and pathetic it would be funny.
It kinda reminds me of Paul Reiser's character in Aliens - put in charge of a military mission (no military experience) to rescue colonists from a dangerous alien organism (no xenobiology experience) - and in the end screws up and gets everyone killed (except for Bishop, Ripley, and Newt - though Ripley gets infected anyway, and were Bishop human, he certainly wouldn't have survived getting ripped in half by the queen).
This is why you don't put hacks in charge of important things, and why buttkissing cronies are going to be the downfall of this civilization.--
Picture me giving a damn, I said "never!"
Re:Honestly...
(Score:5, Insightful) on Monday February 06, @07:11AM (#14649993) .../...
The problem is not the media being right or left and who listens to it, so much as it is people not agreeing with what they are hearing, so they attach labels to justify their own ignorance of the facts. Surely G.W. cannot be wrong if we say the sources are "leftist media", and surely G.W. cannot be right if we say the sources are "rightist media".
But of course, I hope you have an open enough mind to challenge your view on traditional media because right now you do not sound much better then the "right wing nuts" and "left wing loonies" to which you refer.
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Re:Big Bang is not a "theory"
(Score:5, Interesting)Ok, normally I don't respond to trolls, but I'm not quite through my first coffee of the day, so what the heck...
First off, the observations of the CMB and the Hubble flow demonstrate that the Universe was smaller and hotter in the past. It's pretty simple physics, I'm sure you can figure it out without hurting yourself.
Second, you must be channelling Halton Arp: he tends to pull numbers out of his *ss without any data to back them up. He also tends to point at random line-of-sight alignments of objects at different distances and make weird claims about how those objects support his bogus claim of the day.
Third, superluminal motions are a geometric effect and do not show real 'faster than light' motions. This was explained in the 60s.
Fourth, time for more coffee.
Have a nice day!
#include "cunning_plan.h"
Re:Two sides to every issue
(Score:5, Insightful) on Monday February 06, @08:28AM (#14650394) (http://www.30doradus.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 24, @11:31PM)
This yahoo's attempt to insert "theory" after "Big Bang" in press releases is not out of want for scientific rigor; it is the point of a very disturbing wedge, one whose ultimate goal is a society in which everything is subservient to theology, even the physical sciences. We are sliding down the slippery slope, toward Sagan's Demon-Haunted Land.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
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Re:Overkill
(Score:5, Insightful) on Monday February 06, @08:18AM (#14650331) (http://alieninsurance.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday October 31, @04:12PM)
The problem is that the current administration has taken a perfectly good word ("theory") and corrupted it to mean something entirely different. That's a political trick they are quite good at; consider how they have corrupted other perfectly good words to mean something bad, like "liberal" and "fiscal responsibility."
They have redefined "theory" to include things that are *not* scientific, like intelligent design, and the "theory" of the Liberal Global Warming Hoax Conspiracy. By selectively changing the definitions of words, they can couch the debate in a way more favorable to their political ends. In this case, it is a complete discrediting of science as a method of obtaining Truth, when in fact only the Bible has the ability to give us Truth.
Instead of the enlightened viewpoint you express, most of these people are not interested in using science to discover the face of God. Most of them realize if they do that, the world will not be 8,972 years old like they think; the rapture will most likely not happen in our lifetimes; and worse, the difference between good and evil is not so clear-cut as the difference between Us and Them. Oh, and maybe the US isn't God's Chosen Ones. Maybe the whole world is God's Chosen Ones.
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And where will that leave them?
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Re:So what?
(Score:5, Insightful)An analogy: if I take my car to the mechanic and he says that my defrobinator is broken, but won't suggest a course of action, I'll never go to him again. I expect my mechanic to not only find the problem but also *fix* it.
I'd be concerned about the scientist's biases if he were suggesting a course of action counter to what the research indicated, but if his thoughts follow that research, what's the concern? That he's biased towards facts and away from myth?
Progress is the job of a scientist. Improving the human condition and furthering our knowledge of universe. 'Presenting research' is the method, not the goal.
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Actually...
(Score:5, Interesting)The original poster seems to have it in his mind that there is a pre-existing space, in which at some point (0,0,0) at time 0 there was an explosion, and from which since then all the matter in the Universe has been receding. It's a common misconception. Certainly he is correct in his view that, if this is the case, then therefore the glow of the Big Bang, as seen by Penzias and Wilson and later by COBE and WMAP, ought to be racing out ahead of us all, a shell of light further out than the shell of matter, and quite invisible to us.
The mistake is in the initial assumptions. The Big Bang is not an explosion IN space, it is an explosion OF space.
Here's a gross oversimplification for purposes of visualisation: let us picture a toy Universe with only one space dimension and one time dimension, containing twelve galaxies. The space dimension curves around on itself, like the face of a clock. For someone living in this Clockland, the directions around the circle constitute Space, while the directions toward or away from the centre constitures Time. The twelve galaxies sit at the twelve hour points.
Now, let's expand this Universe. Enlarge the clock face. What happens? All twelve galaxies stay right where they are in space, right on the hour marks. They have not moved around the clock at all. But, because the face has become larger overall, the distance between them has increased.
An intelligent observer in this Universe would notice the other galaxies receding away from him, and if he were of Einstein-level intellect he might well deduce that this was down to an overall expansion of all of space. Should Clockland also contain a Hubble, they might then realise that by back-tracking the expansion, they could estimate a date at which all twelve galaxies were together at the centre, and at which all points in space were equivalent.
Now, we might ask, which point in Clockland was the location of the Big Bang? Where is the centre of expansion? Nowhere. Or everywhere. From our vantage point we can see that the centre of expansion is the centre of the clock face, that's easy - but that's not a point in Clockland's space. It is, however, a point in the past of every part of Clockland. In a sense, everywhere in Clockland can claim to have been the location of the Big Bang, because at that time, the whole of Clockland was the same place - right at the centre.
And had a flash of light been emitted at some point in Clockland's past, as the hot gas that filled the universe became transparent, it would not escape and run ahead of the galaxies. It would remain within the circle of the world, but would gradually become redshifted, as the expansion of space stretched out its wavelength.
This is something like what's happening with the Big Bang. The galaxies aren't moving significantly through space (though they do drift somewhat); space is expanding between them. No point in the Universe of space is the centre of expansion.
It's an absolute bugger to get your head around, I admit, but that's general relativity for you. I should also add that the Clockland analogy is also potentially misleading: we don't know if the Universe curves back on itself like this, and indeed we have good reason to think it does not. Things work out similarly with an infinite, open universe - but that's even harder to picture
[[and you all can just go straight to hell TODAY if you fuck around with science ONE MORE TIME/js]]
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posted by USSSlavebation @ 2/07/2006 01:04:00 pm
See a trend here?
(Score:5, Insightful)Puts political fund raisers in charge of Corporation For Public Broadcasting because a politically independent organization just can't be trusted to be unbiased.
Puts Haliburton in charge of Iraq reconstruction. We're still there, the electricity still doesn't work very often.
Puts 24 year old campaign worker in charge of PR at NASA. ROFL! If it wasn't so creepy and pathetic it would be funny.
Ignorance and incompetence. The only question is how much more damage we'll take before 2008? As a Republican I'm joining with independents and Democrats to run all these fuckers out of office, then, hopefully, we can start engaging in meaningful discussions during the years we're going to spend cleaning up the mess that's going to be left behind.
Prestige is just fossilized inspiration.
- Paul Graham