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Bryan

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Everything posted by Bryan

  1. Try looking at it this way: an inch is a specific distance between two points. The exact location of these two points is omitted. You can apply that manner of thinking to all abstract concepts, though I don't see how it's particularly useful.
  2. Check out this website: DrHurd.com. I've read The Truth About Addiction and Recovery and The Small Book, both of which take a more volitional approach to addictive behavior. The Small Book spends a great deal of time debunking traditional 12-step programs and how they are flawed for atheists.
  3. An electron is still an electron regardless of whether or not you can determine its exact nature.
  4. You want easy, here's how to do it in python: import random x = random.randint(1,6)[/code]
  5. I don't know if this actually corroborates the story but this is from their website:
  6. The gesture idea is a similar concept to the touchpad on the newer Apple laptops (like the brand-spankin' new PowerBook I'm using right now ). By moving two fingers up or down on the touchpad it scrolls the text on the screen; two fingers to the left is the back button on the browser; two to the right is forward. It works so well, I actually like using the touchpad better than a mouse.
  7. Do they actually have a working prototype of this keyboard, or are those just artist's conceptions of what this keyboard could look like?
  8. All the episodes of Star Trek are in a military context. The medium of exchange aboard a star ship would be different than if you were a normal citizen living on the surface of a planet. Off the top of my head, I don't recall anything specific about the government of the Federation, or if there even is a specific government of the Federation. Don't the individual planets, for the most part, govern themselves?
  9. Check out some of the books from the reading list on Dr. Hurd's website. I found some excellent books about addiction there.
  10. genus - the complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental-- differentia - that characterize a unique individual source: http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/we...1?s=personality
  11. I am confused as to how you can trick yourself into believing things that you "figure not to be true or unlikely to happen". Are you setting goals that you know that you will never achieve, or just setting extremely lofty goals?
  12. There is only one reality, it is our responsibility to perceive it and interpret our perceptions accurately. Galileo did just this, he looked at reality as it is, and deduced that the common views about Earth were wrong. He didn't make up his own reality. As there is only one reality, there is only one truth. Do you have specific things you believe to be true or were you just giving that as a general example? Your court example doesn't follow, it's a separate issue dealing with the burden of proof in law.
  13. People who say they talk to God are either frauds or delusional (or both). But this topic leads me to another question. On those Christian TV networks, I've seen people faint when the preachers touch their foreheads. Allegedly, they feel the power of God is some crap. Are these people simply faking or is it something similar to hypnosis?
  14. There's a difference between indifference and active support. In a previous post you said, "elling pretty much anything is moral (with the obvious exception of nuclear weapons and the like), and I'd include heroin and cocaine in that without a second thought." Selling them heroin and cocaine would definitely help them perform an immoral action, specifically the action of destroying their mind and body.
  15. It is possible to use marijuana recrationally/socially/moderately (however you want to phrase it). The reason that you've never heard of people using other than to get real high is because most people (especially younger people) are not going to go the risk of obtaining marijuana, transporting it, and smoking it unless they want to get real high. The cost/benefit ratio is way too high for most recreational users. I would imagine that during prohibition, the average drinker consumed a lot more alcohol in one sitting than in times before and after prohibition.
  16. In the essay that Dawn referenced in the initial post, Quinn discussing blowing up a dam and assassinating Senators that advocate "ecocide". He equates human beings to salmon, and the US Government to Nazi Germany. If this isn't anti-technology/capitalism, what is? Let me see if I follow your chain of civilization advancement: 1. planet exists 2. Homosapians 3. Civilization 4.'Technological Civilization' [in scare quotes?] 5. Civilization with weapons that can wipe out humanity How does number 5 follow the others? The nuclear bomb is not an indicator of advancement in civilization. So mankind should return to caves because of nuclear weapons?? Do you have any evidence of other high-technological societies that have not been able to sustain themselves? What legitimate evidence do you have that mankind won't be able to sustain? Useful to whom? In the above referenced essay, Quinn doesn't make a single valid point. It is the equivalent to emotional vomit. Why should anyone take anything he says seriously?
  17. Here is a semi-Objectivist review of Star Wars: Episode III: A Sith Lord Deals in Pragmatism The author, Ari Armstrong, touches on a lot of the points brought up on this thread.
  18. The religious right is a truly disturbed bunch. I feel a need to be decontaminated after reading that. What leadership has Tom Tancredo exhibited aside from jumping on a soap box every time an immigration issue comes up?
  19. I would have like to seen more of all the Jedi/Sith characters through the first three episodes. Episode I would have been so much better if it focused on the Jedi council and the ancient battle between the Jedis and the Siths instead of focusing so much little Anakin and that unmentionable squid-lizard thing.
  20. Yeah that quote struck a nerve with me too. But despite Lucas' flawed moral philosophy SW:Ep 3 was thoroughly enjoyable.
  21. I thought I would throw in my two cents and bring this thread further off-topic. Your above comment makes me wonder what goes through the liquor store cashier's head when my alcoholic mother stumbles in there at 8am and writes a check for a handle of cheap vodka. I don't think that marijuana and alcohol are even in the same realm of comparison. Alcohol is a much more serious drug than marijuana. Marijuana just gets a "bad wrap" because the only people who use it regularly are drug addicts. If marijuana was accepted socially the same way alcohol is, there would be a lot of people who could use it semi-responsibly the same way they do with booze. Give hard-core drug addict an unlimited supply of weed, he'd live a boring unproductive life for several years. Give that same drug addict an unlimited supply of alcohol, and he'd be dead in six months.
  22. It means that you should consult a fish regarding what should be done about communism.
  23. 1) Chinese - pizza takes too long for take-out 2) Beatles - pop music at it's finest 3) Chevy - my first car was an '85 Monte Carlo (I named him Bitey, because he was the big one) 4) Dog - used to be a cat person until I spent some time around a Siberian Husky 5) Night person - my ideal time to sleep is from 3am to noon (sadly I have to be to work at 9 )
  24. I disagree that the story is boring, it has the potential to be made into a good movie. The problem is that any movie adapted from a novel never measures up to the original story told in the novel. A perfect example of this is the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, which was actually one of the better novel adaptations I've seen. The movie was enjoyable, but was nothing compared to the book. I feel that an Atlas Shrugged would suffer the same fate. Regardless of how good it is, it will be a disappointment. How can you possibly cast John Galt?
  25. Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, saved millions of Japanese lives along with thousands of American lives. Think about what would have happened if the big bombs had not been dropped, the islands would have been blockaded by US naval ships, leading to mass starvation of the Japanese population. A larger overal tonnage of "TNT" would have been dropped on heavier populated areas (e.g. thousands of smaller bombs over Tokyo), not to mention all the lives lost when US soldiers finally invaded on foot. Dropping the atomic bombs destroyed the Japanese will to fight, the necessary condition of winning a war. You can't judge the morality of war in the same context as peacetime. The only moral way to wage war is to end it as quickly and efficiently as possible, sparing as many lives on your own side as you possibly can.
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