Dak

I said strain. not true. the change may be small genetically, but is specifically chosen to confer a large phenotypic difference; if people have bothered planting fields of GM crops, then we can assume that the modification is not insignificant. not neccesarily. just because we know that gene x does y, doesn't neccesarily mean that we can predict with any certainty what the ecological repercussions of all, say, wheat suddenly doing y twice as much as previously because the GM-x gene has been introduced to the wild. anyhoo, my point wasn't that GM will initiate the apocolypse, just that i'm not sure we're good enough at ecology to say with any certainty what'd happen if the local ecosystem was suddenly changed in any given way. obviously, ecosystems change over time, and generally are fine with that, but GM could potentially change ecosystems suddenly; the only other examples of this that i can think of (eg introducing new species) can result in general doom for members of the ecosystem.

true. reguarding individual meal safety, it's no more risky than any other food/drink/drug/etc. what conserns me is that, by using GM crops, you are suddenly introducing a new strain of species into the environment, which history has shown can potentially have extremely unsettling effects on the local ecosystem; and afaik no-ones actually worked out what the risks are as far as that's conserned. like YT said earlyer, i'm worried about the greed: it's easy to think of GM crops as 'science' because they utilise science to work, but that doesn't neccesarily mean that the statement 'GM crops are safe to the environment' has been scientifically proven; i'm a tad worried that people are doing it because it's profitable, not because it's good.

when i said detect, i meant not only 'detect the bit that happens to be the centre', but also 'detect the bit that is the centre, soley by the fact that it is the centre' (i.e., detect the centre by any special qualities it posesses by being the centre). imagine the following train: - - - x - - - x = centre A B now, B removes the carriages above it: - x - - x - A B A now instantaniously detects a centre (and thus the signal from B), IF the centre can be directly detected as the centre? I'm more interested in why not, rather than suggesting the above is the case btw. i'd guess that any way of measuring the centre would require waiting for any changes to propogate through the 'train', which would happen at < c.

so If you could make a devise that somehow detected the centre of the train, and placed it 100 miles away from the trains centre, and the train went at 100mph dropping carriages, wouldn't the centre of the train be detected just slightly under an hour later? i.e., wouldn't information have been transmitted faster than 100mph, even tho it's phisical container (the train) was only going 100mph? in theory, couldn't you transmit inforomation like this at a rate faster than 100mph? or, with the OP, faster than the speed of light if the centre of the photon (photon group?) could be detected? btw, by 'information' i'm meaning that you could transmit a signal from trainstation to train-centre-detector. not sure wether that'd count as information in the phisics sence.

don't jews have their own country, which is bigger than luxembourg?

umm... science holds that evolution is the only known way in which life forms can change over time to become other lifeforms (sort of)... therefore, when, from eg the fossil record, we see life changing in form over time it is assumed that this is evolution. If you can demonstrate another mechanism by which life could change over time, then this would negate the above; if you can show a change in life-form that happened that is inconsistant with evolution then this would throw evolution's monopoly into question. however, no-one has done either of the above.

yes, buuuuut, my point is that in computer security "under normal circumstances x isn't possible" isn't very useful as several hacks revolve around exploiting unusual circumstances. iow, "normally x isn't possible" roughly equals "it was designed to try to stop you doing x"... x is still possible, tho, whenever a situation is found that exposes a design flaw.

I am in your forums, moving your threads!!!1 should probably have mentioned it.

lots of things cause AIDS (tho it might not be called AIDS when non-HIV-induced to avoid confusion): irradiation, for example, will cause a mass cull of immune cells, thus causing aids. htlv (human t-lymphotrophic virus) will, iirc, cause AIDS (or at least something very similar). in theory, any lymphotoxin will cause AIDS. however, in virtually every observed case of AIDS: HIV is present the degree of AIDS correlates with the level of HIV the number of CD4+ cells is inversly correlated with the HIV virion count the progression of AIDS correlates with the strain of HIV (eg, if anti-HIV drugs are administored and AIDS is suppressed, the re-emergence of strong AIDS symptoms will correlate with the emergence of HIV, within the individual, that is resilient to the anti-HIV drugs being administored). furthermore, it's observed that if someone is exposed to HIV, they will often become infected, and then get AIDS. not to mention that you'd be hard pressed, if HIV did not cause AIDS, to explain how, exactly, the HIV virion can cull CD4+ (observed in vitro) cells without causing an immunodeficiencey complex, what with the CD4+ helper-t-cells kinda being important for a functioning cellular aquired immune system. so: several things can cause AIDS, HIV definately being one of them, and being the most common.

agreed. i asked because HP reminded me of dahl to varying degrees in places, tho i should point out i haven't read dahl in a very long time (might dig out some of his books and re-read them, thinking about it). the villians, tho, i think are definately dahlesque in their casual sadism. you'd be guessing wrong.

no, the point of contention is your implication that the fact that you don't like it (without even having bothered to read it) qualifies it as being crap. your opinion is that it's crap, but you've been presenting it as a statement -- 'books that aren't to my taste are crap'. which is fundamentally bigoted. what i'm actually saying is 'let us have our stuff that you don't enjoy, and don't presume to call it crap just because you don't like it'. possibly with 'bitch' added to the end I mean, I really can't stand shakespear, but i don't call it crap; rather, i recognise the fact that i, personally, don't enjoy reading screen-plays in outdated english, and so obviouly wont enjoy shakespear. I'm suggesting you should acknowledge that you just don't like non-'intelectual' books so obvioudly wont like HP, without HP neccesarily being shit. out of interest, what's your oppinion of dahl?

yeah, but most security vulnerabilities are when people find abnormal ways to get around such measures. unauthorised access to data open in another tab via cache: http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2007/mfsa2007-03.html I believe this one should allow your script to treat all pages as it's childeren? http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2007/mfsa2007-21.html reeeeeeeeeally unlikely in my (amature) oppinion, but still a theoryoretically real threat.

see now this is why i was getting annoyed with you earlyer. why is it so hard, for a professed liberal, to accept that people have different tastes, and the fact that their tastes are not the same as yours does not make their tastes inferiour? not everyone likes intelectual books and there is nothing wrong with that. it is not required (by, presumably, your liberal philosophy) that you relate, just that you don't view their tastes (reading for fun as opposed to intelectual betterment) as inferior to yours because they are not yours. off topic, but shakespear wrote plays. anyone who suggests that they are good books should be shot (i mean you, english teachors). I have never heard anyone claim that. actually, i feel i should defend rowling here. I like reading modern classics (1984 for example), modern but interesting books (i'd consider mcnab to belong in here) and more light-weight 'fun' books (HP and dahl for eg), but theres a difference between 'light-weight' and vacouse. the goose bump books that you mentioned earlyer are light-weight and vacouse (read some when i was a kid), but stuff from rowling and dahl are competently light-weight. it's like the difference between terminator and something with the rock in it: both are light-weight blow-shit-up films, but the terminator is a light-weight blow-shit-up film done well; stuff with the rock in is just wank. so yeah, as has been said, not intelectually lah-de-dah != empty and vacuous.

herme, if you go to the firefox homepage and look at the list of updates/security fixes, you should get an idea of what's possible via browser exploits. iirc, i've seen a few security holes patched that could, in theory, be used to spy on other open tabs, so maybe it'd be an idea not to multi-task. capn's right, tho, the risk is minimal. use a non-IE browser and keep it updated, along with your OS, and use stuff like an anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall etc. btw, possibly the best idea if you don't do online banking that often is to reboot into a live-CD, something like puppy linux or xubuntu whenever you do online banking.

hah! even I find that unforgivably stupid.

however, heterosexuals (which i'm using to mean people attracted to adult members of the opposite sex) do not have their sexualities repressed: their sex drive is there and fully encouraged by society, so internet pictures would act as an outlet, maybe, but would not encourage anyone to be heterosexual; it would not stimulate any dormant desires. for paedoes, tho, the desire is repressed and discouraged by most aspects of society: internet pictures could, therefore, stimulate an otherwize latent desire, and actually result in more child-rape. i remember this from a previous debate on the subject on SFN: the question of wether child-porn images act as an outlet (redusing likelyhood of activity) or as a stimulant/gateway thing (increasing likelyhood of activity). without the question answred, i'd veer towards saying that no, existing pictures should not be legalised.

as charon said, the name kinda hints what it's for. mutations cause polymorphisms in the length of the fragments that result from restriction. RFLP measure these. tbh, searching wiki for RFLP should give you a relitively good overview, and allow you to go on and learn about them properly. if there's any specific bits that you don't understand, then ask away and we'll help you learn.

normally i'd agree with you, and with most the IPCC publications I do; however, do you have any specific reason to treat the most recent as science? last i heard, there were some moanings from the scientists responsable for it about ommitions due to political pressure and misrepresentation of the scientific consensus.

further why would a process that works hard to maintain that high fidelity allow at some point for many a random mutation whose very nature, we are not quite sure of to allow for this 'budding' so to speak from a primogenitor into such things as butterflies, and rabbits, fishes and trees, lizards and humans, stars and glaxies, lakes and mountains etc etc etc. yes, i'd agree, it's gibberish. did you get it from a creationist site, or something? you could translate the first part into something sane, but i'm not sure there's much point given the end...

that's up to the individual posters to deal with maturely. to put it bluntly, if they're immature enough to get pissed off over what's said in one forum, and bear a grudge which allows it to flow over into another forum, they can **** off. we don't want immature childeren on this site. otoh, we'd be able to ban people from just the P&R subforum, so we should be able to nip that in the butt. I suspect that all the mods would come down heavily on people who post religion stuff outside of the P&R forums as long as everyone who's against it takes this attitude, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem (that's why we'd make it easy to filter out the P&R postings) the place died due to lack of moderator interest, which allowed the standard of conversation to degenerate towards the end.

you're judging based on what others say without having read it, in other words. so how, given how popular it is and how many people like it, are you reaching the conclusion that it's not actually good? based on the small number of people who don't like it? what makes them right and the majority wrong? if most of the many, many people who read the book whos sole purpose was to entertain enjoyed it, and a few who read the book didn't and complained that is wasn't entertaining in a sufficiently intellegent and pompus way, then why latch onto what they say whilst ignoring the majority, who said it was good? and the 'point' of harry potter wasn't to be literrarily showy, just to be an enjoyable story (which, imo, it succeded at). iow, you think that the fact that loads of adults read a childs book makes those adults childish? why not: loads of adults and childeren read the book, ergo it's not a childs book? the author apparently didn't aim the books at adult or child, and enough adults read them that you can't really call them kids books. and which matters how? anyway, given that you're going on others oppinions, again i have to wonder why, exactly, you're accepting the minority of people who critisise the above and assuming that they're right, whilst the majority (who enjoyed it) are infantile and wrong; why not: the majority enjoyed the books (ergo they're good), and those who critisised it don't know what they're talking about. or even a synthesys: 'from a literary pov, it's got somewhat repetetive plots and the prose is somewhat pedestrian, but the books are -- overall -- still good'? why the determination to fob the popular book off as crap? btw, don't you think that "static charectors" is almost definately wrong, given that half the main charectors change from 11 to 17 during the course of the books? you've allready touched upon the fact that the seriez has elements of a comming of age story; you can't do that without charector development, y'know. so because some people who read the books are basically geeks, the storys must be crap? surely then, the works of shakespear and homer must be pretentiouse crap because of their fans?

says someone with a kids tv charector as an avitar. lots of 'kids' books are enjoyable irreguardless of age. NIMH and mockingbird from your list (tho im not sure what makes mokingbird a kids book), the hobbit/lotr (as eco said), all roald dahl, terry pratchette (according to some), etc etc etc; all of these are good. but it does often decrease it, apparently: ---- I wouldn't be so polite; but i would point out that they're commiting some kind of anti-bandwagon fallicy (it's popular, therefore it's crap), and, like cap'n, i'd assume you're mistaking pretentiousness for intelligence. has it ever occoured to you that the above books (including HP) might be popular because -- bum bum bum -- they're good, and that you might disagree because you have crap tastes? after all, you've not actually given a reason for your dislike of HP in this thread: you've said that there are 'better' books, but you haven't actually said what makes HP inferior -- in fact, you admit to not having read it -- nor justified your assumption that books have to be 'high callibre works of literary greatness' to be worthwhile. you seem, in all honesty, to be dismissing it due to snobbery, which is not what id consider having good tastes.

being books, the HP seriez would unavoidably be literature what is it about the books on you're list that makes them 'literature'?

yes, religion has you comming and going: if god exists, there'd be no evidence of his existance; else if he doesn't exist, there'd be no evidence of his existance. so what can we deduce from the lack of evidence of god? this bit's induction, which is never 100% reliable (which makes you're whole argument unreliable)*; espescially as if there did exist non-detectable eliphants, then we'd not have any evidence of them. john has a point -- the possibility that an invisable eliphant/unicorn/god/whatever could exist, and that we can't disprove this, don't mean that we should rationally refrain from reaching the conclusion that they don't exist; however, he's also shot himself in the foot somewhat if he's trying to pass it off as science: scientifically, we shouldn't accept the invisable elephant/unicorn/god/etc due to the lack of evidence, but we certainly can't scientifically disprove them; the invisable elephant, unicorn, and god all remain valid scientific possibilities that are not currently accepted due to a total lack of evidence that they actually exist. iow, science is agnostic to them. otoh, science is just one way of thinking, and in some areas (such as this) doesn't do much to answre the question. ---- * but only if we're being pedantic

that's true -- without any evidence in favour, you're left with 'could be, could not be' -- but that doesn't neccesarily translate as weak atheism per se (i.e., an 'abscence of belief'). all it requires is the acknoledgement that we don't know for sure. you could, i think, believe that the (lack of) evidence inplies that god is unlikely to exist to the point where you can justify believing in his non-existance, whilst still acknowledging that you could be wrong (after all, abscence of evidence != evidence of abscence, even if it can == suggestion of abscence). that's my take, anyway. @ OP: 'strong' atheist, with a nod towards agnostisism I suppose. [edit] by the by, i would assume that with a thread title of 'how many of you are atheist', your poll might over-represent the number of atheists here[/edit]