Cadmus

IBM, Oracle, Sun, Netscape, Novell, BEA, ... are not enough?

Good for you. Surely you jest. Spoken like a true Bill Gates fan. I think that your professor either has Microsoft stock or he is pulling your leg.

Once I discovered OOP, I never looked back. Java is my favorite language, as it is so useful.

I think that if you just look on the Internet you will find that a great many people have a unified field theory.

This I am familar with. I have no interest in Microsoft "Java". I have used Visual Studio in the past. C++ is a reasonable alternative for OO concepts. Their choice of C# over Java is interesting. I have friends who are completely in the Microsoft camp. I would not be surprised at such comments from them. I have other friends who are not Microsofties. Such comments would seem ridiculous to them. Can I ask you if you are in the Java camp or the Microsoft camp? Does this have any meaning to you yet?

One election does not a democracy make. This is true for every country on earth.

I work with many IDEs, depending on the circumstances. My most common ones are Oracle JDeveloper and WebSphere Visual Studio. Different ones have different advantages. I have never heard anything about Microsoft Visual Studio supplying a development platform for Java. Is this correct?

I think that you hold noble ideals. For the very reasons that you recognize here, and for many others, I think that these ideals will not be achievable in our lifetime or that of our children, if ever. Are we moving toward these ideals in any fashion now? I don't think so. Bush is not a leader that will move us in the direction of your ideals, I think.

This is quite impossible. Furthermore, it is not desireable. Would you make a list of all of the countries that are currently in violation of this goal? I don't have the time to make such a huge list. Once you have your list, would you like to see Bush make good on his ridiculous speech to take democracy to these countries by force? Even if all compliant countries assisted, if there are any, how possible is it to enforce your rules? I don't mind a strict set of ideals, but enforcement is out of the question.

There are reasons why every society in the world might think that it is free. I have asked Saudis directly about the way that men treat women. I have been told, point blank, that they treat women the way they do because of the tremendous respect that they have for women. In other words, everyone can justify their behavior in lofty terms, and think highly of habits to which they have become accustomed. This of course is true for all nations, including ours. This seems to be quite a different topic entirely. I think that here you have quire a valid point. Just how free are people in the United States? For example, another thread here asks if people think that marijuana should be legailized. Many people on this forum seem to think that the government should deny people the freedom to use marijuana. No matter what their motives, it is clear that these people, and indeed most of us, feel that certain freedoms should be denied to certain members of our society, even if the action involved are personal and involve no one else. We all seem to want freedom, but are willing to deny others certain of their freedoms. Just how free have we become in this country?

I think that Chinese people prefer hot water to cold water for that very reason. Boiling water kills the microorganisms, making their otherwise unhealthy water much healthier. Everyone in China drinks tea, and no one drinks cold water.

Women of course ignored me completely, and I had no interaction with women. Men that I did not know ignored me completely or were for the most part quite friendly. A few were not friendly. Of the men that I did know several were fairly friendly. Some Saudis looked upon me with an air of superiority, as I believe is quite common to do for almost all visitors to Saudi Arabia. I grant that you have the right to define freedom in any way that you wish, such that you may believe this. According to the way that I understand the word freedom, it would be difficult to be further from the truth. Rather than quibble over whether or not this is true, I will ask you if you have ever heard of the culture police. They are the fearful ones in daily life. Or talk to men, or leave the house unescorted, or have any control over their own lives, or ...

I also find their society fascinating. I have been to Saudi Arabia many times. I also read the book by the same name as your posting. I would like to respond to your post, but I have this feeling that your post is actually based on a Monty Python sketch that I once saw, so I am hesitant to take it seriously.

Depending on what you might mean by the words aliens and visits, it would certainly stand to reason that if an intelligent life form were able to make a purposeful visit to earth that their technology would have to be more adavance than ours, as we do not yet have such capability. I doubt that "most scientists" have weighed in on such a question, or that they have come to the conclusion that you mention.

I quite agree. However, this commonly cited example is still commonly known by this name.

Not to the best of my knowledge. I personally think that time travel into the past is not possible. Surely, you are not asking me because you think that I might know if it is possible. Do you think that I might be suggesting that it is possible? However, time travel into the future is not only possible, everyone does it always. It is unavoidable.

This is clearly incorrect. Have you never heard of the twin paradox, for a well-known example? This is also incorrect. Both of your statements are not correct. If you use the children's dictionary, you will get a different definition entirely. This definition is out of date, in a modern scientific context. The other dimensions are not physical. What are you saying? How Newtonian of you. You seem to have a Netwonian understanding of time. This is a quite valid appraoch, but it is not the most modern way of looking at time.

Before I comment, I would like you to clarify. Are you saying that time moves at a constant speed, or that you disagree with his saying that? Did you not say above that time does not stand still. Ergo, er travel through time.

Although not clear from your post, I assume that everyone is expected to recognize this as a joke.

I quite agree. But, who does not hope for success? However, success does not necessarily mean that since we are there we must trust Bush to suddently start acting in a way that will lead to success, however we define it, and so we should just let him does what he and his advisors think best.

I don't think that they are necessarily being thickheaded. Some people are not very deep thinkers, and they let others think for them. They accept what they are told, and they change their mind when they are told differently. Most people believe what they are told in the press, not just in the U.S. but everywhere.

In your first post, I was under the impression that you were speaking of "liberal" extremists. However, here it seems more likely that the one particular set of extremists that you are speaking of includes Bush and his oil buddies. Let's see: "You may think that he is an incredible idiot and a criminal for taking us to war n the first place, but it is too late now, so you MUST support him. Get over it."

Like I said, you do not understand the concept of a mutation. Mutations occur all the time, and they are defnitely not all harmful. When you use the word "mutation", you seem to be thinking "congenital defect". These concepts can be somewhat related, but they are very different. I think that if is obvious to everyone that you do not understand evolution very well. I wonder whether you are really interested in understanding the details or whether you are just trying to poke holes where your lack of knowledge is equated with flaws in evolution.

So, you do not understand the concept of a mutation?