DavidV
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Posts posted by DavidV
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Is there any way to change the "View New Content" link in the top right to instead point to the "Today's Active Topics" link, which seems to be the better choice for the shortcut in the top right - it is more similar to the previous forum's link.
I like it.
Also, displaying a user's Interests in the forum thread may not be so good, as you can see by my own example.
Done.
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There seems to be some problem with the quote tagging feature, where what is quoted isn't highlighted or made obvious in any way. Right now if you look at a post there's no easy way to tell what or if a person is quoting anything and where his own reply starts.
Fixing this would be appreciated.
Fixed.
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There is obviously no rush to fix it, but I am curious, is the chatroom working right now? As when I click on it I get a white separate page that states "The specified application has been disabled". Just want to make sure its not just a personal issue. I like this new theme though!
I'm afraid it's broken and I have no idea how to fix it. I hope SoftwareNerd will take a look. There is a commercial service that's integrated with the forum software that I can purchase, but I want to see if we can fix our version first.
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I've put in a support ticket. Tests of the Facebook integration (see screenshot) would be nice too.
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I could use some assistance finding/making a new default theme for the site. The old ones are not compatible.
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Thanks for reminding me. I fixed it.
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Did the Ayn Rand Institute gain subscribers, or did Glenn Beck gain viewers -- and could it be any other way?
I doubt that many Objectivists watch Glenn Back because, after all, he is not very intellectual. Even if they did, there's not more than a few thousand to watch him. On the other hand, Atlas Shrugged sales jumped from under 200,000 in 2008 to over 500,000 in 2009, in no small part to Glen Beck's recommendation. As long as people read it, the views of the person recommending it really don't matter.
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Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
- Robert A. Heinlein
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I'm wondering if any of you know anything about the legality and morality of jailbreaking an iPhone. "Jailbreaking" is a term for replacing the original software that comes with the iPod or iPhone with a different set of software that is more customisable.
That's one way to do it, but you can also disable the bit of code that checks for an Apple signature before running software. No copying is involved in this case.
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I would like to send out another monthly highlight. Would anyone care to suggest some threads?
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Just an update - the forum is running on a new host. I am working on transferring the rest of the site. If you come across any issues, let us know.
The last file backup was a little dated, so all avatars/file attachments since the end of 2009 will be lost unless you manually download them and re-upload them to the new server. (Nevermind about that.)
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Hey, that's great! Yes I have my own DNS and I will admin.
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I have configured a mirror of the site on my desktop at home at http://forum.rationalmind.net/
It should be up when the DNS updates in a few hours.
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For the last few years, ObjectivismOnline has been hosted by a business that agreed to host my sites in exchange my services. I no longer have an arrangement with them, so I need to find another host ASAP.
If you would like to volunteer it to host this site, I would greatly appreciate it. If you don't mind hosting my personal blogs, that would be great too.
This site has a 500MB MySql database and 2GB of files. It needs MySql 5.x and PHP 5.x support. Perl would be nice too.
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When I saw the topic, I thought "this couldn't possibly refer to global warming.. no one is that insane."
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You should consider submitting your case to FIRE: http://www.thefire.org/cases/submit/
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A 12 year old girl in Saudi Arabia is seeking a divorce from her 80 year old husband. (Girls as young as 8 are regularly sold to and raped all over the Middle East and North Africa- 77 percent in Niger.)
Saudi clerics and judges are defending the marriage on the basis that the Prophet Muhammad married (and had sex with) a nine year old girl.
Apologists in the Islamic and Western world will inevitably argue that selling young girls into sexual bondage may be something that was acceptable 1,400 years ago, but not today.
That this response is offered as a defense of the Quran/Bible/Torah reveals the fatal flaw in their logic:
By what standard is something not morally acceptable today that was acceptable earlier? If a superior standard of morality exists by which we can judge human action, what is the point of “holy books?” If the holy books sanction slavery, rape, murder, genocide (as they all do), then why would anyone claim that they are a source of moral authority?
Even if you disagree with a single instruction of the Bible (such as the command to kill any bride who is not a virgin, or any child who disrespects his parents) then you acknowledge that there exists a superior standard by which to judge moral action, and there is no need to rely on a bunch of primitive, ancient, barbaric fairy tales.
Cross-posted from Metablog -
Here are the notes I used for the talk. There is a video, but it needs editing.
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The proper term for schools run by the government is government schools. The term "public school" is confusing because in Commonwealth countries in means a privately-funded school.
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I will consider some new ideas on our place in the universe by extrapolating some long-range trends into the future. Specifically, there are two trends I will discuss: the expansion of intelligence from the beginning the universe to the information age, and the increasing control that humans have over nature.
Here are some keywords on the topics we’ll cover and discuss after the meetup:
Technological evolution, intelligence expansion, natural versus intelligent evolution, science and pseudoscience, accelerating change, costs and benefits of technology, doomsday scenarios, Malthusianism, Kardashev scale, post-humanism, optimism versus pessimism.
We will meet in the second floor community room of the Central Market in Plano.
Details and RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/ExaminedLife/calendar/12346397/
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As you can see in my profile, I created my account on February 2, 2003. Here is my first post which announced the new site.
Thanks to Ash, Steve, softwareNerd, and everyone else who helped me make the forum a success. :-)
(For the record:)
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Following this week’s Supreme Court ruling, there is much confusion about what legal rights a corporation has and how it is different from other groups:
In a free society, any person has the right to associate with any other person by mutual consent. As long as both parties consent to their transaction, no third party (be it a government or anyone else) has the moral right to prevent or punish their interaction. This is as true for friendships, romantic relationships, and political advocacy as financial transactions. The only difference is that financial transaction exchange material values whereas social interactions exchange non material values.
A business – be it a sole proprietorship or a multinational corporation is a group of people who share a common purpose. Their motive may be profit, but it may be something entirely different (such as changing the world with a new product, or just getting paid to do something cool, such as fly planes or invent new things).
The primary difference between a corporation and any other type of business is limited liability. Anyone who does business with a corporation (be it another business or consumer) agrees that any liability incurred by the corporation covers the assets of the corporation, but not the individual assets of its employees. That is, if Microsoft owes you money, you can’t go after the homes of its employees.
It’s important to understand that limited liability does not apply to criminal law. That is, if an employee of a corporation commits a crime, he is personally liable for his actions. In no way does acting on behalf a corporation shield people from breaking the law. (Of course that is not universally true, but that is a corruption of the law, not a part of limited liability.)
Furthermore, the individuals acting on behalf of a corporation have (or should have) the same rights as individuals acting on behalf of any other group because people do not lose their rights by the nature of the voluntary associations they enter into. It should make no difference whether you act on behalf of yourself, a political pressure group, a sole proprietorship, or a corporation – you do not lose your rights as a human being because you represent a particular association of other human beings acting toward a common purpose. Silencing the speech of an individual because he represents a particular group is censorship – no matter what the purpose of that group is.
Cross-posted from Metablog -
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, "Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well."— Martin Luther King, Jr
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So, a stock that goes up in value in USD's would have to really do something dramatic to just maintain that value of the $1 that I worked for at one time. And that won't happen for every stock, will it?
Unlike a bond, a stock is equity - a share of ownership in a business. The value of that share is a fraction of the the total value of the business. Since the value of a business is measured in nominal dollars, ceteris paribus, the values of stocks rise proportionally with inflation. So stocks are a good hedge against inflation, even if they are a poor hedge against the bear markers that typically come with high inflation. Historically speaking, the value of gold underperforms the stock market because gold just sits there, while businesses actively expand their value. That's why buying gold in the expectation of making a profit is speculation, not an investment.
New Forum Version
in Website Policy and Announcements
Posted
No, that's not possible until the authors of the old skins recreate them for this new version.
I don't think it has any specific purpose. It does not grant any privileges.