- squidranch -
My bad. I am not trying to hijack your thread, and I am sorry you precieved it that way. The reason I asked was that the other polls you mentioned: sexuality, food, pets, etc seemed like things that everyone (or almost everyone) could take part in. This seems very specific. I was just suguesting that it could have been phrased more broadly and produced some interesting discussion as a result. Please consider this the end of this subthread.
The quote is from David Cross's album entitled "It's Not Funny" not his website. Although I have to agree with you that the design of said sight is confusing and needs much work.
re: autoantonyms Only the most permissive dictionaries include "figuratively" as a possible meaning of literally. As The American Heritage Dict says:
"This practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself. If it did, the word would long since have come to mean 'virtually' or 'figuratively' but rather from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive, as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended."
Thanks for the very cool link none the less. I was not aware that there were such things as autoantonyms.
Microsoft employs more than 55,000 people. I looked around but I couldn't find any info on how many departments there are within Microsoft, but I am sure that each one is large enough that the personal email handlers of Bill Gates do not even come close to being a department. With some software filtering + a black list to pick out all the obvious spam and a whitelist to make sure internal MSFT emails reach him half a dozen people could do it even if there were 4 million/day.
I am also skeptical about the 4 million emails quote, but obviously there is no way I can prove that short of sticking a packet sniffer on his mail server.
Why is it so popular to bash science? I think that it is immediately evident that science and technology are not worthless. The lives of billions of people have been imeasurably improved, and they can expect to enjoy their improved lives for fully TWICE as long.
Obviously science has enabled some significant evils in its time, but I think if you do your utilitarian calculus you will find that science has introduced a lot more hedons than dolors into the world.
It is frusterating to be attacked from the right for supporting material atheism and evolution, and then turn arround and be attacked by the left for being an "evil unfeeling technocrat".
Zemat can you offer any insight as to why you believe science is worthless.
I find the question of what topics are Science vs. what topics are Philosophy to be very odd. Any proposition that is fair game for science is necessarialy also fair game for philosophy because, science is a type of philosophy. All sciences are subdiciplines of metaphysics. The original scientists certainly believed this. They even went so far as to call themselves natural philosophers.
Science has simply agreed to limit itself to the study of things that can be observed and tested (read: Empericism). Are questions about what is right and wrong suddenly not part of philosophy because there is a subdicipline called ethics?
I seem to remember a more recent NPR segment on this topic, but I did find this older one entitled Malaria Cases Drop as S. Africa Resumes DDT Use. It is about 5 mins long and requires RealPlayer or Windows Media.
- squidranch - My bad. I am not trying to hijack your thread, and I am sorry you precieved it that way. The reason I asked was that the other polls you mentioned: sexuality, food, pets, etc seemed like things that everyone (or almost everyone) could take part in. This seems very specific. I was just suguesting that it could have been phrased more broadly and produced some interesting discussion as a result. Please consider this the end of this subthread.
posted by brainwave 19 years ago
Just out of curiousity why is this poll about buddhists in particular?
posted by brainwave 19 years ago
In "And you thought that you had a spam problem."
The quote is from David Cross's album entitled "It's Not Funny" not his website. Although I have to agree with you that the design of said sight is confusing and needs much work.
posted by brainwave 19 years ago
re: autoantonyms Only the most permissive dictionaries include "figuratively" as a possible meaning of literally. As The American Heritage Dict says: "This practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself. If it did, the word would long since have come to mean 'virtually' or 'figuratively' but rather from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive, as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended." Thanks for the very cool link none the less. I was not aware that there were such things as autoantonyms.
posted by brainwave 19 years ago
Microsoft employs more than 55,000 people. I looked around but I couldn't find any info on how many departments there are within Microsoft, but I am sure that each one is large enough that the personal email handlers of Bill Gates do not even come close to being a department. With some software filtering + a black list to pick out all the obvious spam and a whitelist to make sure internal MSFT emails reach him half a dozen people could do it even if there were 4 million/day. I am also skeptical about the 4 million emails quote, but obviously there is no way I can prove that short of sticking a packet sniffer on his mail server.
posted by brainwave 19 years ago
In "I'm a fly, and I can't get out of this fly-bottle..."
Why is it so popular to bash science? I think that it is immediately evident that science and technology are not worthless. The lives of billions of people have been imeasurably improved, and they can expect to enjoy their improved lives for fully TWICE as long. Obviously science has enabled some significant evils in its time, but I think if you do your utilitarian calculus you will find that science has introduced a lot more hedons than dolors into the world. It is frusterating to be attacked from the right for supporting material atheism and evolution, and then turn arround and be attacked by the left for being an "evil unfeeling technocrat". Zemat can you offer any insight as to why you believe science is worthless. I find the question of what topics are Science vs. what topics are Philosophy to be very odd. Any proposition that is fair game for science is necessarialy also fair game for philosophy because, science is a type of philosophy. All sciences are subdiciplines of metaphysics. The original scientists certainly believed this. They even went so far as to call themselves natural philosophers. Science has simply agreed to limit itself to the study of things that can be observed and tested (read: Empericism). Are questions about what is right and wrong suddenly not part of philosophy because there is a subdicipline called ethics?
posted by brainwave 19 years ago
In "Environmental Porn ..."
PETA porn, (warning may not actually count as porn): Tiger Girls
Commando Chicks
Lettuce Ladies
Broccoli Boys
posted by brainwave 19 years ago
In " What the World Needs Now Is DDT"
I seem to remember a more recent NPR segment on this topic, but I did find this older one entitled Malaria Cases Drop as S. Africa Resumes DDT Use. It is about 5 mins long and requires RealPlayer or Windows Media.
posted by brainwave 20 years ago
(limited to the most recent 20 comments)