MajesticTreeFrog

Except this view misses a large part of how things work. It takes money to make money, etc. Those with money have an easier time making more money than those who dont. For instance, a person with money a year ago could have invested it in apple and trippled their money in a year(sadly my parents who have money didn't listen to my advice). The laws of the US, at least, are weighted towards keeping the existing wealthy people wealthy, because those people pay the politicians to do so. Granted, this doesn't prevent some from beating the odds and 'making it', but these statistical anomalies should not make you think that this 'can happen to anyone'. Yes, drive and such helps, but luck and the right friends help a lot more. Believe me, I have benefited so many times from the latter and had the former be useless on as many occasions.

This is not true. Only mostly true. Buddhism does not have this issue. Nor does hinduism(I think..Could be wrong). In fact, it is mainly the 'western religions' taht exhibit this problem.

My monitor is a 15" flat panel. Um, as for HTML and webpages, it should really do that automatically, though it depends on how it is coded, especially with CSS. But in terms of straight up HTML, it should expand to screen resolution automatically.

Just to clarify, Janes and Buddists are in no way related. At all. Ever. Totally different religions entirely. Don't take this to mean we don't like each other. Indeed there are many similarities between the two groups. However, this is a common misconception and I would like it cleaned up. Also, if you got that info from a textbook please let me know which one so that I can let them know their error.

As in many cases, I think the answer lies in the middle path. On one hand, we must recognize and honor human work, skill, and such as per a capitalistic system. On the other hand, we must recognize that not all people are disadvantaged of their own choices. They may be born into a poor family, or even have had some *BLEEP* luck. To do this society must seek a balance. Helping those in need without putting undue burden on those with a great deal. Oddly, doing so is actually more effective than a straight capitalistic system or communism in terms of social and economic stability, having not the slowly grinding problems of communism nor the sudden market failures and corruption of pure capitalism. Programs that fit this view are things like weak affirmative action, progressive taxation, and need based scholarships combined with aptitude based grants, as well as such institutions as social security which keep large segments of the population from suddenly becoming destitute (which causes extreme social unrest and inefficiency).

Fine, if nobody else with start off this topic... I am a buddhist utilitarian. Rule utilitarianism specifically. I base my view on my understanding of suffering from a buddhist standpoint and then am a utilitarian whose measure of utility is minimum suffering long term. The rules involved, unsurprisingly, are more or less extensions of the 5 precepts.

Do realize its not just about raw performance but price/performance. AMD is significantly cheaper than intel. Thus, for the same amount of money you can get more power. Also, dual core AMD 64s are coming out now. This will easily crush intel.

What I want is for someone to make a better music player than the ipod. Not because I don't like apple (because I do), but because there really just isn't any competition in the marketplace. There are certainly lots of players, but most of the suck. A couple good players at good prices would make everything cheaper and better and force apple (among others) to hurry up with better/more feature rich products.Oh well, at least apple keeps revamping things on their own. Its nice of them.

The whole free thinker thing is just spin. In general, it is the way certain atheists refer to themselves. It implies that that if you aren't one then you are indeed a closed thinker or some other thing with negative connotations.However, they aren't alone in this. It is in response to so many (usually christians) asking if they are saved. Implying that if they aren't, they are lost or in danger or some other thing with negative connotations.Neither group is likely to stop because they both think they are right. Now, I should reveal here that I am an atheist in the sense that I do not believe there is a god, and I believe that I am a free thinker, in whatever sense people want to take that. However, I think both groups need to stop, as this sort of thing cheapens debate and is a bane to society and even 'free thinking'. It leads to people taking sides, and feeling at war with one another. Once they have decided that they are at war, only conflict and suffering can result. Considering both groups claim to have societies best interests at heart, they would be wise to back off.

When a couple of religious all claim to be the 'final word' on a god's message, while claiming that there is only one(so there is no way that there are simply different gods involved) then conflict is sure to occur. Even worse, religions tend to act as a sort of group entity, and see people leaving the religion as an attack and respond in kind. Also, there are the politics of power. Other religions are a threat to the power of those in leadership positions in any given church. It is no surprise that those leaders, feeling threatened, try to end the threat.

I think things would be much better if copyright was reduced in time to something like 50 years. Then more stuff would be open and there would be less excuse to pirate. Also, people couldn't mooch from the past, so there would be more incentive to make not-crap(as in everything just about on the US radio these days). Yeah, **** the holywood/music people. I say this as a person who WORKS for said. Most of the time the money goes to the least important people.

I was saying that the homosexuality vs society thing is not true, since homosexuals are part of society. Seeing it otherwise causes needless conflict.

Well, I was actually talking about the line between rules people follow vs ones they break. For instance, people get upset about homosexuality, and want to pass laws and such against it because it is 'against god'. However, so is adultery, divorce, and so on. Not to mention things like women's rights. Yet our culture is not getting nearly so inflamed about those things. Also, as you mention it is dangerous to assume one knows what god meant. This has always bothered me about most theists. The arrogance to think one knows what the almighty wants, especially for others. I think that if (assuming the existence of god, which I do not normally) god wanted no homosexuality, he would be a bit more proactive about it. For instance, no homosexual animals, no interest in homosexuality on the parts of humans, etc.

Yes, but couldn't that also apply to homosexuality? Still, divorce, adultery and so on are treated radically different now than how they are in the bible. Not only in laws but also in people's personal attitudes. Once again, HOW is the line drawn. It still strikes me as rather arbitrary, or really, whatever seems stragest to people is the 'most immoral'. It always feels to me that people are deciding what is important in "god's" morality.

You do realize that doing this would mean that many many people would die. It would cause more problems than doing nothing. For instance, lets say a man who owns a business committs adultery, and you kill him. Now you have destroyed the livelyhood of all those who work for him. Do they diserve to suffer this way? Especially if they knew nothing? Not only that, but remember the witch trials that occured in America. It is easy to accuse someone of something like that. Imagine a pair of people who are really good friends, one a man the other a woman. Now, if someone is angry at them, they can accuse them of sleeping together and possibly have them killed if enough people believe. Now the entire community has committed murder. HMmm. I wonder what the penalty for that is.... Now things are even worse. The extreme punishment thing just doesn't work. It is even more silly today than it was back in biblical times.

Wait, how is homosexuality obviously any more or less immoral gross or evil than heterosexuality? Does the bible make it crystal clear? By your own post it appears you yourself don't have a solid handle on exactly what is allowed.

Just a question for all the many many christians out there. How exactly are your beliefs constructed? For instance, I know many christians believe homosexuality is wrong due to passages in the bible, but the bible also outlaws all sorts of things (like shaving your beard) that nobody mentions. Is there a reason for this? Which parts are important and which aren't?

What do you mean the 'timer not working?' Do you mean the system clock. I think this misunderstanding is why you haven't gotten any responses yet.

Have you ever used OSX for any length of time? There is a lot more to an OS than the 'theme' as you put it, or even the existence of the dock.

Ok, I know you think windows is full of security problems. And it is. But its not THAT bad. Not by a long shot. Go ahead and update everything. That will actually make it more secure than your bunker style reaction.

hey MSE, what are you doing in thailand? I have wanted to visit for a while, but never could figure out a good reason/way to go.

That is not true. If you live in an apartment complex where some idiot has an unsecured access point then you can definitely do that. I do it all the time. Sometimes I wonder why I pay for my own net connection.

Fedora is more for serious linux users. The normal 'beginner' linux's are Mandrake and Knoppix and Ubuntu. Ubuntu in particular is pushing for userfriendliness. I can't say too much more because I stopped caring about linux after getting a Mac. But I suggest those. Ubuntu in particular will ship you CDs of thier distro for free.

Indeed. There is also a version of SNES9x for Mac OSX. Not to mention ports of linux emulators.

That, my friend, is actually adrenaline. Easy mistake to make, so its cool. Happens all the time. Well, other people. Nothing says the 'meaning of life' for a cat has anything to do with the 'meaning of life' for a human. Heck, nothing says that the meaning of life for one person has to be the same for another. However, humans are rather similar to one another, so they seem a much better point of comparison than some random animal species. Maybe monkeys? On the other hand, it sounds like what people are looking for is some transcendant meaning, some secret thing behind everything else, just waiting hoping needing to be found in order to put all things into some cosmically perfect and clear order. Sadly, such things are not to be found by looking for them, but by seeing them without needing to look. These are the things people normally term religious experiences (when they don't confuse that with adrenaline as well. Damn adrenaline, pesky little bugger). A mistake people often make with religious experiences is that they try to force them into their preexisting view of the world. Christians meet god, Muslims Allah, Zorostrians meet Zoroaster, etc etc. Feeling that this experience vindicates how they have believed all these years, and therefore throwing away all the benefits of this experience other than thier certainty (which is therefore immediately misplaced).