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stopmion C++ 11 Approved

maybe because reflection/introspection is done via "Objective C's dynamic behaviours and message passing"?

stopmion The Apple iPad 2 Review

hi,

in case of sites which have just a couple of paragraphs per page, link to the print-version of it

but in cases like this which has a lot of content/analysis/graphs per page, please link to the main article

they deserve our support through ads

stopmion Fancy: first bootstrapped language targeting Rubinius VM other than Ruby

think of them as apostrophes

stopmion Toyota, The Media Owe You an Apology

thanks!

didn't know 'cause this was a while back..

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

sorry, decided to give examples instead.

*i had originally asked for examples of phenomena

i don't think i need predicate logic notation to get that :D

the reason i said phenomena-inexplicable was because there are a lot of claims made by religions that were later found to be from other natural causes.

ex. in christianity:

- diseases were supposed to be curses and punishments till the germ theory was discovered

- creation story does not hold with modern evidence

- there are contradictions between biblical incidents and historic records(bethlehem census, great flood, etc.)

- the nature of heaven, hell, souls are supposed to be unanalysable

- without an understanding of astronomy, there are implications that heaven was located above the clouds(angels with wings, looking down from heaven, etc.)

- jesus had conducted exorcisms in the bible, they are considered silly now

so, professing to be religious and accept scientific discoveries at the same time seems difficult..

"What I don't do is condescend, or paint with a brush broad enough to cover everyone in a class of humanity I seem not to have taken the time or effort to understand."

there is a reason the debate _has_ to happen:

- accepting religious opinions as respectable has led to a majority of americans to consider evolution as untrue.

- education policies are being influenced to paint evolution as just-a-theory with undertones that it is a fringe group with a political agenda

- religious people who believe in and look forward to an armageddon have been in charge of a massive number of nuclear warheads

- stem cell research has been set back by almost a decade

- abortion clinic doctors have been shot

- the representative of god on earth has said 'child-molestation is bad, condoms are worse'

- the catholic church has systematically protected child-molesters under them

- the islamic world has become more extremised because the clever american government thought it would be a machiavelli move against the ussr. we know how that turned out

if the result is that people think atheists are condescending, small price to pay if we can get fewer people to blow each other up because their imaginary friend says so.

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

"I don't mind people disagreeing with theism, or talking about it. What I don't like is the implicit attitude, which can often be, "you believe in something other than pure hard science, and I don't, so I'm smarter.""

unfortunate, because the usual representation of the believers in media are tea-partiers/creationists etc. or the ones who voted for bush because "he prays and asks god for his decisions, so he's good"

but it could also be because, to become a non-religious person from a religious person requires a _lot_ of reading/searching for answers(evolutionary biology, reading about other religions, cognitive-biases etc)

"But you're probably just too self-righteous to even read this inspiring post"

assertion without proof. ad-hominem. delusional.

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

source please? that was in response to a rabbi.. was he trying to be diplomatic?

so he was.. agnostic?

"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment." from: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7921.html

are agnostics believers? you are still assuming einstein is infallible. einstein believing in god would not really prove the existence of god

he also did not believe in black-holes etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein#Einstein.27s_controver...

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

"You are fixated on everything being about truth and facts and who's right"

would you rather i countered an argument with untruths and lies?

what i'm trying to say is, if you are willing to give credibility to any assertion which is without proof, then you have to give an equal amount to credibility to _all_ assertions without proof

i.e, all religions equally, fairies, leprechauns, elfs, russel's teapot, a furry-god, Elvis still alive, alien-invasions and abductions, etc..

and problems arise then, if you give credibility to _all_ religions, there will be contradictions

- they have different creation stories and timelines

- multiple 'unique' prophets

- multiple 'chosen' tribe/people

etc..

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

heh.. or recruiting people to jump into the lion's den at the zoo to give it a hug?

edited my parent comment to make it clearer

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

creation-myths, souls etc.

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

einstein-god relationship has been proven false repeatedly. it has stuck around because people keep mass-forwarding stuff like that..

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly." from http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691023689?ie=UTF8&tag=...

and a letter in which he wrote about his disbelief was auctioned a couple of years back: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/12/peopleinscienc...

i said "_could_ result in confirmation bias". that is, make confirmation bias more probable, not absolute..

""Why was the universe created?" Do you think science will ever answer this question?"

hopefully, some day, if we work towards it..

should we instead give up and resign ourselves to the fact that a wizard did it?

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

but it is relevant in the scientific community..

if you are religious/spiritual, then you have to believe some phenomena are inexplicable, as they are performed/commanded by some entity we cannot comprehend

it just doesn't usually encourage the kind of inquisitive/iconoclastic/skeptical attitude that scientists need

and if you are doing research, it could also result in confirmation bias

why do you think it is not relevant? you could explain that instead of condescendingly accusing the OP of being condescending.

stopmion Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

"that which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof"

and why give weight to the ramblings of the religious but not to all schizophrenics?

shouldn't we give both views equal respect without calling to reason?

edit: referring to the "difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences/delusions/hallucinations" symptoms when i said schizophrenics

stopmion Toyota, The Media Owe You an Apology

i am unaware of this.. can you point to a few links/resources?

stopmion Microsoft just bought Nokia for $0

but other companies like htc, motorola etc. can also manufacture WP7 phones.

and nokia cannot make too many changes to functionality even if allowed as it would fragment the WP7 app-market. even gui based changes would kill the ui-consistency that MS is touting..

so i do not understand how nokia is differentiating itself by becoming a WP7 phone manufacturer...

stopmion Google Chrome Cheat Sheet: Tips and Tricks

also known as ctrl+T

;-)

stopmion Yahoo to Let 140 Employees Go

thanks

should have googled that though, sorry

stopmion Yahoo to Let 140 Employees Go

Off topic: Is there a reason why all the words start with a capitalized letter instead of just the first?

Or is it an accepted convention?

stopmion Comparing concurrent frameworks

Can't csp be implemented by actor-model semantics? Or are there differences beyond the sync/async communication?

edit: not defending the article, just curious