DISQUS

Unfortunately what ozzy is saying reflects the opinions of a lot of ignorant religious people about Atheism.

Like ozzy, they have been fed lies and fear about Atheists, and all they know is to spew it verbatim ignoring all evidence to the contrary. And there's plenty.

Ozzy, Atheists do have moral values. In fact, Atheists' moral values are not affected by what some Ka'di or some Rabbi or some Pope says, so in a sense, they are stronger and more resistant to corruption.

But that's not going to help you, Ozzy. You're not seriously going to study the moral life of countless people who helped humanity and are Atheists. You are going to sit there reading this comment and gloat at the "Atheist infidel" that's writing it and feel all warm and superior and fuzzy inside; and that's okay with me.

Just as long as you don't follow some crazy idea and try to hurt me or my way of life - you can say and write whatever you want.

-- Arik

Pretty narrow minded article.

First, I know several homosexual couples that are not distinctly "top" and "bottom". In the community lingo, they're "switch".

Second, in a lot of relationships there is a dominant partner and a submissive (or less dominant) partner. At work, in social gathering etc. The genders play a lesser role - a more dominant woman in a work environment is not uncommon. In a sexual context there are many heterosexual relationships in which the woman is dominant and the man is submissive. I don't see why a homosexual relationship should be any different.

Third, what do you characterize as "feminine" or "masculine"? What makes a "boy" lesbian or a "girl" lesbian? If the answer is dominance vs. submissiveness, go to previous argument.

Fourth - regarding kenotic's point about bisexuality - my opinion about it is that for bisexuals, there are factors in attraction that are not gender specific. While the gender may play a role, other factors overwhelm it to the point of insignificance. If true, this assumption breaks your theory down completely because it defines a whole new dimension to attraction between people outside of the feminine / masculine theory. Or perhaps, to look at it another way, that factor for the bisexual becomes THE definition of masculine / feminine.

Fifth: You are not the first person to have questions about sexuality, and not the first person to try to answer them. In fact there's an entire institute dedicated to just such questions and research about the answer - the Kinsey institute. I suggest you read up on some of those topics before forming an opinion, so you may stand on the shoulders of giants.

-- Arik

They have an RSS feed. Knowing what I do you can probably guess I have been reading it with great interest.

-- Arik

A network analysis D&D? Ouch.

Nice list, Daniel. I think you should float all the easy questions to the top, so that you can vet the incompetent early in the process.

What I like to ask a candidate is "what are you best at? what do people come to you about when they need help?" and then drill down into the bits and bytes on that topic. That shows me if they take what they do seriously enough to have an in-depth understanding of it. Also, at some point in time my questions inevitably exceed their knowledge (I might ask about things I don't know about...) and then I expect them to tell me they don't know and will find out. If they try to BS me... NEXT!

Also as mentioned I like to ask about the bigger picture, what does it all mean from an organizational point of view.

-- Arik

The new UI has done two things for me:

1. Prevented me from seeing when new messages are sent in chat (the only thing that happens is the red flag, which might be on for other reasons)

2. Lets me see very few contacts in each screen-full

While I agree that it's very nice during a call, the rest of the time the UI just fills a lot of screen asset with useless details and magnified icons.

-- Arik

Nice!

I had the opposite thing happen to me the other day.

I stopped to buy something to chew on for a drive in San Mateo in a gas station. The attendant asked me where my accent was from, I said Israel, so he asked me if I was a Jew.

I usually don't say that to people in the US, because of the high rate of believers, but I figured my contact with this guy was very brief so I answered Atheist.

His eyes widened and he asked some of the usual questions (so what happens when you die etc). Then in comes a guy who's wet from the rain asking for jumper cables. The attendant had some in the shop in the back but he said he can't open it at night because he's the only one there.

Although I didn't have any on me, I offered to help him out. I drove him around to find cables, and eventually we found some guy who was willing to lend us the cables, I drove him to his car, we jump-started his car with mine. I gave him my business card and he promised to keep in touch. I refused the money he offered.

As I drove back to the gas station to get my candy (I finished the previous one and shared it with the other guy), the attendant was very surprised that me out of all people helped that guy. I said, "you'll probably say I was sent by god to help him" and he was again surprised I guessed what was on his mind.

Then a few days later I get the following mail, to my work address:

-- start quote --
Subject: A Question About the life?

Hi Arik

I hope you don't mind the direct contact.
i have a question which always becomes nightmare for me is it true that one day i will not be alive?
if it's true then why we are crazy to collect those things which will not go with us Please suggest me or will you forward this note along, or suggest to me who the best person is to know this?

Thank you so much!

[name removed]
[address removed]
Santa Clara
CA 95054 USA

-- end quote --

I don't really remember the guy's name, so I don't know for certain that it was him, but the timing works out. I don't usually get personal messages from people I don't know.

Weird.

-- Arik

Those pesky world-wide deployed DNS servers. So flaky.

-- Arik

Well, I'll be the last to condemn a person's belief (unless it says they should hurt me), but this is praying on the weak. Connects very nicely with the stories about US soldiers in Iraq handing out silver coins with quotes from the scriptures... In Arabic...

Thanks for the link.

-- Arik

Well, if you're interested the conversation in Arabic, when it's not "ouch that hurts" is along the lines of "Did you shoot the Jew?"

You can see that their posture is all wrong, they lean away from the gun instead of into the gun. The guy at the end does it almost perfect.

-- Arik

Basically the playing field changes from having advantage by controlling information to having advantage by knowing what information is important and what isn't.

I suggest you read "Snowcrash" by Neal Stephenson, where the "hero" turns himself into what's called in the book a "gargoyle". Won't spoil it for you by telling you what it is.

-- Arik

Daniel,

You simply have to see the movie "Idiocracy" by Mike Judge.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

-- Arik

You don't actually have to shut it down.

You can take a laptop that you, presumably, got illegally in sleep mode, cool its memory chip as it's sleeping; then pop it off its holder and into a new computer with the software.

-- Arik

Must have been some drive

-- Arik

Well.

It's not really selective access if you give it to so many ranges. Specifically to a highly hackable platform, that can run generic software. Either open your service to everyone or to no one.

Or tunnel the services through something, say SSH. Or use some port knocking thing.

Never say never.

One day you may have kids.

-- Arik

What about the movies that you expect to be good and are in fact good? I'm pretty sure there are a few of those around.

-- Arik

Hi Daniel,

I was about to write something about jumping to conclusions based on scant evidence, and it wasn't going to be as scathing as exabyte's, but I'll let this one go now.

Personally, I don't believe in the human impact on global warming. It is a matter of belief, as I'm not an expert in the subject. I just heard a few things here and there and developed a theory of my own.

But darn it, I don't mind if the rest of the world believe in it. Even if it has zero impact in real life. Because the sooner people stop using fossil fuels, the better we are.

To me, every time I put gas in my car, I'm contributing to OPEC, and every time I'm contributing to OPEC I'm helping fund terrorists. If fossils fuels fall into disuse, the price per barrel drops to $2.5 and its use is mostly in the polymer industry, most of the funding for terrorism stops. I value that more than stopping the CO2 emissions, which I believe are insignificant anyway.

So stop global warming now! Reduce the carbon footprint! Yay Al Gore!

Me? An agenda?

-- Arik

(note: If you didn't get it, it's a metaphor)

@Daniel

So what? Do YOU come from the standpoint of Christianity?

If you accept the "right" statements as true, you can have any standpoint you want. People arguing are explaining their own inner, subjective, truth. Does it matter?

I thought you can at least see that both sides are true; in their own way.

@DavidG

FYI there is a concept of heaven and hell in Judaism, and it is actively used to intimidate people into becoming more religious. Jews are interested in the afterlife, and it is definitely a driving force.

The difference is that Judaism isn't trying to convert non-Jews. But if you were born in the Jewish NATION, i.e. of Jewish lineage, you're considered as a member of the Jewish religion by Jews, regardless of what you choose to believe, and they will try with all their might to "convert" you to more orthodox Judaism. Oh boy will they ever. Very annoying.

-- Arik

There is no possible next step.

That person has expanded their list of things they accept based on faith (call them axioms or however you make axiom plural) to include their personal subjective experience. From thereon anything you say can be reduced to:

<ol>
<li>Your statement is a scientific hypothesis</li>
<li>If your statement is true, then this (deduced) list of statements is true</li>
<li>One of those statements contradicts my subjective experience</li>
<li>My subjective experience is true, because it's an axiom.</li>
<li>Ergo by negative example your statement is false</li>
</ol>

I'll show you what I mean:

<ol>
<li>A person cannot walk on water because he is heavier than water. Hmm... Let's see.</li>
<li>If a person cannot walk on water, and Jesus was a person, then that means Jesus did not walk on water. Then the description of Jesus walking on water is wrong, hence the New Testament is wrong.</li>
<li>My subjective experience is that the New Testament is true, and you're claiming that the new testament is false.</li>
<li>Based on the axiom that the new statement is true, the deduced statement that the New Testament is wrong is itself wrong.</li>
<li>Ergo by negative example your hypothesis is wrong</li>
</ol>

2 points if you can detect the steps I've skipped in the proof. I hope you can see how that argument and any argument like it will be pointless.

-- Arik

I wonder why you even care.

-- Arik

Unfortunately, with these kind of questions there'll never be a conclusive study.

The artificial sweeteners are a very high profit industry. As such, a lot of money goes to make sure that a company's products are sold. As a layman you have no idea which of the scientific studies were constructed to fit Ajinomoto's idea of truth, Tate & Lyle's or any of the other incumbents.

Think of any controversy which is highly profitable to at lest one side, and you'll discover scientific papers "proving" either side. Tobacco, cellphone use, greenhouse gasses. When money is involved, it's difficult to find an objective opinion just by reading the media. Not unless you're personally involved.

-- Arik

@Zhasper,

It's not the undigested opinions that matter to me; it's Daniel's constant attempts at using them to elicit responses from people. That's emotional manipulation. It's not - "here is what I think, what do you think?" - it's "this is the way it is, so there, in your face". Daniel has admitted in the past to using these tactics to elicit responses, and I just don't think it's fair.

Reading this post I was going in my mind - who does this guy think he is, an impromptu expert on international relations? - and then it dawned on me that this is yet another attempt at manipulation, so I abandoned my attempts at phrasing a proper response, and responded like I did. I then proceeded to unsubscribe from the RSS feed.

I only came back now because I got an email from Daniel, to the email address I left in my comment, saying he responded.

@Daniel,

I'm sorry but I will not relate to the contents of your message, joke or no joke. I have told you in the past that I dislike the way you elicit responses from people, but I kept playing the game. This time I think you overdid it, for me.

As an Israeli, it kinda caught my eye having a huge Israeli flag in my blogroll. Then I read your post, and I got angry there for a few seconds. Yes, you hit a nerve in a subject I am emotional about. It's not the first time.

But I have put a stop to it, and unsubscribed from your feed. NOT because you're either pro or anti Israel or whatever. Hey, I can hold my own in a discussion about subjects I'm passionate about. It's because you're using (maybe unwittingly but I don't think so) the emotions of people reading your blog to elicit a response; and I had had enough of that.

Regarding the joke issue - I don't care that it was a joke. I don't care if you like or dislike Israel, I don't care if you have Israeli friends or if you like the war stories or appreciate the Mossad. Joke or not, your way of having an argument is not to my liking; So, I can either cope or disengage. Is staying subscribed valuable enough for me to cope? I don't think so.

I wasn't going to persist in persuading you to do otherwise, because my previous attempts have failed. I was going to just silently disappear. This very comment was caused only by your email. contemplated writing all that in a private message, but since the content of your email was simply "I responded to your comment" - I assumed you want to take it out in this public forum.

Take care,

-- Arik

I thought I'd say something, but then I thought better of it: What's the use, it's not like you'll listen.

It's not as if you actually do the research, or write things like: I didn't do the research, and this looks strange to me. What do you think?

It looks like you just write in the spur of the moment, spewing whatever undigested idea you had onto your blog. Why should I invest in writing a long coherent argument if the next time you'd just do it again? I give up.

-- Arik

Oh yeah,

I certainly believed what I was told as a kid. With all my heart. The questions came later.

-- Arik

Hahaha!

That's so cute!

Just show you how kids would believe anything and do anything.

-- Arik