Dak

definately. i've considered linking to talkorigins when talking to GW denyers before. egs: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA111.html http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA111_1.html http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA041.html [edit] I'm not actually knowledgable in climatology, but i can still spot the bullshit, because it's identicle to the bullshit that evolution gets from creationists. thats how similar it is

who is calling it virtual rape?

no i'm not. to calrify, as 'evolution' can mean so many things: i'm talking about a natural process whereby information can generally become more complex over time without the need for an intelligent agent. biological evolution is an example of evolution. genetic programs are another. there are no doubt countless systems, each of which utilise the underlying mechanisms of 'raw' evolution, which is what i'm talking about. that's true. an evolving system cannot evolve from a non-evolving system. however -- correct me if i'm wrong -- you seem to be defining 'alive' as 'can evolve', which makes your statement a tautology. my example of self-replicating RNA could evolve, and i'd personally still not call it alive. hence, a non-living thing that can evolve. you're correct in that the RNA would have to be generated aevolutionarily, but incorrect to claim that evolution cannot drive non-life to life. once you have an evolution-capable non-life, evolution could drive it to become life (somewhat obviously). equally obviously, you'd need a non-evolutionary system to generate that first evolution-capable non-life.

that's irrelevent. all that matters is that: a/ they're not alive, yet are evolving (so, evolution can work on non-life), and b/ they may eventually become life (again?). replace viruses with my RNA example above, if you want, or with genetic programming, which is unquestionably non-living. the point is that evolution (as in, not neccesarily biological evolution described by the modern synthesys, but the basic phenomena of evolution) can effect non-life and increase it's complexity, potentially forming life from non-life. wether that happened or not, and exactly how it would work, is not currently known, but evolution was possably/probably involved at some point prior to it becoming 'life' and at least partially drove the transition from 'non-life' to 'life'. so i'd say that "we don't know how/if/to what extent evolutionary forses can turn non-life --> life" is correcter than "evolution does not turn non-life --> life". yes, sorry: i didn't realise you were giving a specific hypothetical example of something that could tentatively be considered alive, yet does not evolve.

that's not entirely true. at some point, evolution starts having an effect, and it's not proven required that this point be after life has formed. viruses are one example of non-life that clearly evolves. it's hypothetically possible that, given enough time, viruses could evolve into something that qualifies properly as life. so, evolution could well play a (non-exclusive) role in the formation of life from non-life. in fact, i believe a large thrust of abiogenesis theory is trying to figure out how evolution could apply to non-life, is it not? if the RNA molecules degraded, then there would be evolutionary forses increasing the frequency of stable RNA molecules in your example, as the more stable ones would exist for longer, and thus replicate more, than the other RNA molecules. any variation that increases stability without lowering the rate of copying would find itself gradually increasing in frequency with time. either way, it's definately true that the modern synthesis (i.e., the current theory of evolution) doesn't apply to non-life --> life.

i only half agree with this. sticking with buying audio cds as an example, what'r my options? to buy from a megacorp at extortionate rates, to go without music, or to buy online (with the megacorps making a concerted effort to prevent the latter from being an option)... there exist hardly any small music vendors that i can use my purchasing power to promote. now that online music purchase is becoming easyer, i suspect audio cds will drop in price, but before then there was little choice, and little choice == little consumer power. but i agree that lack of thought when buying is a huge contributer to the problem. good point. megacorps can manufacture and distribute cheaper and more effectively than multiple smaller companies; but, they can also get away with charging more. it seems that, more often than not, the two combine to be overall more expensive for the consumer, but that might be a false perception. innovation is arguably more feasable with megacorps, so maybe there's a 'trickle-down' effect that compensates? tho even then it seems the innovation isn't neccesarily geared towards benifiting the consumer. health insurance crisis?

really? so, if a company popped up offering, say, cd's for half their current price (easily doable, whilst still making a profit) that people wouldn't flock to buy from that record-shop, as opposed to HMV, virgin, etc? the demand for cheaper anything is allways there, but its not allways met. back to your op, i think multiple smaller buisnesses are where market forses are really felt. if there are 20 local cd shops, then the cheapest one is going to get the customers, so prices are driven down (within reason). with just a few megacorporations dominating the industry, they keep prices high. why lower them to beat the opposition? the opposition will just lower their prices too, and then you'll both be making less. better to keep prices high, and squish any smaller startup companies that might come along and ruin the setup.

two points: 1/ when it comes to stuff like anti-trust, vendor lockin, monopoly abuse, etc, there are no market solutions. the job of the govournment in a totally free market is to interfere with buisnesses just enough to ensure the that above don't happen. 2/ personally, i think the problem with megacorps is that they're too powerful, and can, to an extent, overcome market forses. like i said, why are so many megacorp dominated industrys so bad, from a consumer pov?

I thought one of the points of HDTVs was that they had onboard encryption stuff. so, yeah, the signal will still be scrambled en route from the DVD player to the HDTV. afaik, modern TVs can play at HD resolution... it's just that the DVDs wont send the HD signal to the TV unless it reports as a HDTV, and then will send it encrypted. Not sure about that tho...

cool, hope digg survives. anti-copy stuff (etc) sucks. I (and most normal users) may not be able to copy stuff (preventing lots of stuff that i'm legally entitled to do), but the pirates certainly can (thus invalidating the whole system). course, if i want to make any (legal) copies of something i own (backup copies, copys on different medias, etc), i now have to download it via bit-torrent, thus helping the pirating system survive so, yeah, anti-copy stuff is stoopid, and the quicker the HD-DVD encryption system is completely torn to tatters, the better.

imo, money should be: you contribute to society you get payed an amount dependant on your contribution then you can take from society by spending money iow, the more you put into society, the more you can get from it. mega-corporations are designed to make a relitively small number of people inordinately rich, at any costs (not neccesarily by providing a useful service to society), and those people don't even have to do anything (but can, rather, employ others to manage their buisness for them). this, imo, is wrong. whatever economic setup is adopted, i think it should be focused on benifiting society as a whole. why is it not the case that market forses have resulted in mega-corporations that actually act in the best possible manner for the public? a good example is the music industry: retardedly high profits on CD sales (not exactly best for consumer) small % of profits actually go to band (not exactly best for artists) small % of profits actually go to people who do the day-to-day running of the buisness (not best for most workers involved in buisness) large % of profits go to people who do crap all to run the company/make the music (shareholders, who literally do nothing) copy protection, which demonstratably artificially limits what you can/cannot do with your legally bought copy of the cd, without actually slowing piracy down (not exactly good for consumer) standards wars, with adoption of new formats based on who's got the biggest company, rather than whats actually best (see: beta-max vs vhs) resistance to online music sharing, even the legal stuff, even tho there's demonstratably a desire to get music like this (again, not good for the consumer) now, fair enough, we actually get music, so the music insustry is performing it's function and providing society with a service, but i cant help but feel it could be done in a better way, whereby society gets cheaper music, the people who actually make the music, press the cds, etc, get a bigger cut, and the music format/delivery method is the one that's actually the best, rather than the one that makes the company most money. the last point in the list above is quite relevent: it's in societys best interests to have music available on CD at shops, and in didjital format via download as that's more convienient for people, and coporations are actively trying to prevent this because it's bad for them. the reason that it's bad for them is there's currently an 'unspoken cartel', whereby companies charge shitloads for cds, so market forses demonstratably wont drive them much cheaper. online music is available for about 50p/track, is not megacorp dominated, and market forses will act to keep prices low, whilst the artists get a bigger cut. so, everyone wins. except the current big names in music distribution, who are actively trying to stop this, so they can make money, and to hell with the artists and consumers who dijital distribution would benifit. when it comes to megacorps, i think it's plain that capitalism failst to work anywhere near ideally. wether this can be stopped, and wether it's the fault of capitalism, megacorporations, or consumers, i don't know.

our cells also produce telomerase-inhibitase, which slows down the action of telomerase. this means that telomerase can keep up with normal cell duplication, but not with cancer's duplication; anything that inhibits or removes telomerase-inhibitase (and thus allows telomerase to keep up with cancers replication) is, in actual fact, a (secondary?) carsonogen. so yeah, making there effectively be more telomerase action would probably be a bad idea, possibly even over the short-term. with ageing, is it actually anything to do with telomerase action that iliminates telomeres? when a telomere is copied, it's length goes up or down by a few repetitions. when you're old and lose your telomeres, is that because your telomerase isn't functinoing properly, or is it because, given enough time, you'll get several duplications in a row where the telomere just happens to shrink?

ok, fair enough, that's also a problem. I don't remember seeing it mentioned in this thread (just saying i wasn't ignoring it, not saying it wasn't said). but that doesn't stop the level of training that you're required before owning also being relevent. imo, allowing people to have a weapon designed for killing without requiring training is a reckless and immature attetude; the american 'gun/violence' culture is also immature. so, maybe, both social and govournmental immature attetueds lead to high levels of gun crime? and/or maybe the govournments attetude aggrivates/promotes the social one? no. it represents one side of the story. you're free, as the person arguing the other side, to find stats that argue the other side of the story. as long as the report isn't lying, it's useful. iirc, that stat is mentioned in one of my citations. that was just one specific example, not an overall solution. my point was that it would make them safer; however, anti-gun-regulation people tend to argue against any gun control, even regulations making guns safer. double-safetys obviously wouldn't eliminate gun crime, but why not have them? other that the american aversion to gun regulation? I didn't mention biometric guns as, from our previous discussion about them, i believe it was apparent that they're not consumer-ready yet (could be wrong). yes, i'm fully aware of that. i'm also fully aware that you make sure a gun is unloaded unless it actually needs to be loaded. that way, a gun is safe 'cos it's unloaded, and safe because the user keeps it pointed in a safe direction anyway; that way, both steps have to fail (it has to be loaded and pointed at someone for an accidental discharge to occour). the fact that people aren't required to know this is what concerns me about unregulated gun ownership. sorry, i should have been clearer. 1/ iirc, recently airguns have been classified as firearms, so any crimes with airguns now contribute to firearms statistics, possibly (falsly) increasing the frequency of firearms laws 2/ britain has never been into gun ownership for self-defence, so the argument that once we'd had our right to own guns removed, criminal use of guns went up is unrelated to civillian firearm ownership, which was virtually nill before guns were outlawed anyway. minor point: guns aren't illegal in the UK, you just need a (rarely granted) firearms licence. may i assume that they have high firearms crime rates? i already said that, given the prevalence of guns in the us, outright banning would not work, and that regulation would be better. if they're arguing for an outright ban in the us, then id agree. but gun regulation (including strick enforsment of lockdown rules) certainly wouldn't do any harm. yes, i was assuming people would ignore that bit tbh. 'people kill themselves with guns, so we shouldn't let people have guns' is roughly equivelent to arguing that we should illegalise bridges because people jump off of them. same reason that cars must meet minimum safety requirements. to make them safe. i assume a gun that's fireing mechanism slips too often would be forsed, by the govournment, to be withdrawn from the market? this is just an extention of that idea. then maybe a compromise, with a 'basic gun licence' that allows you to have 'safe' guns, and an 'extended gun licence', that trains you better, and allows you to have the 'unsafe' guns. re: balancing govournment: as already said, protests and strikes can work, and arguably work better. otherwize, gun regulation wouldn't actually stop people owning guns.

please don't post up username/passwords to subscription-only online places, as its probably illegal. also, they'd probably have noticed the massive amounts of different IPs accessing the site at once, and cancelled your subscription. If i'm mistaken and you're allowed to share your logon details, just tell me and i'll undelete the post.

writing? bah. what retard desided to put a silent 'w' in one rite, and a silent 'gh' in another

Plugin name: PerfectDesign(vbPlugin)TM Description: this vb plugin magically detects what your users want, and dynamically redesigns the site on a user-per-user basis. it has a 100% user satisfaction rate. How it works: PerfectDesign(vbPlugin)TM adds every user to the 'banned users' usergroup, greatly simplifying the design prosess. Known bugs: none reported

that be much better, thank ye now, if you just make a new style, and invert the position of the post data, user name, misc, and avitar, everyone should be happy

you want him to practice wrighting badly? --- some basic computer skills would probably serve you better than any familiarity with specific programs. most doctors PCs that ive seen tend to use windows, with bespoke programmes or web-based databases for patient/disease/etc lookup, and whatever's installed for word processing, etc. i'd suggest learning how to touch-type, and getting some basic familiarity with a word processor (microsoft word, openoffice wrighter, whatever), a spread-sheet-thingy (again, matters not which), and a presentation thingy (like powerpoint). knowing how to use a word processor and touch-type will serve you better than specifically knowing how to use MS word, if that makes sence? also, maybe practice looking stuff up on the internet, and in pubmed etc. it's harder than it sounds. that should cover you with basic IT skills for being a doctor.

yup. user title should be somewhere by the username... i'm not sure wether left or right would be better. to the right of the username would be more logical, and the usertitles aren't big enough to put the username too far from the avitar, i don't think.

minor point: evolution, as we currently understand it, does not explain the emergence of life from non-life. evolution is a naturally occouring process, like gravity. there's no reason why it shouldn't happen on another planet, as long as certain base requirements are met. i'm not entirely sure what those are: ability to modify design, retention of design changes based upon the improvement that they confur, etc, probably. it wouldn't neccesarily utilise DNA, tho. as far as non-evolutionary processes creating life; life is incredibly complex, and the only two mechanisms (afaik) that are capable of creating complex life from nothing/relitively simple life are evolution and intelligent design. so, on any planet where complex life exists, i think it's a safe bet that it was either intelligently designed, or evolved from simpler life. (hey, look, ID being mentioned in a science discussion)

that's a bit better; i can catch the avitar out the corner of my eye and tell who it is if they post alot. tho, could it go: post number & time | misc crap | (space) | username ? that seems like it'd be a more logical/readable layout, and keeps the username nearer to the avitar.

I'm with severian as far as usernames/avitars goes. I quite like the avvys on the right; could you switch the username and the misc crap around, so the username is on the right above the avitar?

agentchange, please do not copy/paste absolutely humongoid quantities of text from other websites. copy a few bits if you need to highlight part of the article, or just link to the article itself; there's no need to copy the article in its entirety. thanks.

isn't it the case that, even if we did everything we could to stop GW, there'll be a lag till we see any effect? so, if we do nothing we'll go up by 2C in the next century, then go up by more after that (possibly at an increasing rate), whereas if we sort the problem now we'll just go up by 1C in the next century and then remain stable/recover? so, long term, it's more worth it that the 1C/century saving would suggest? p.s.: albeit

another thing to bear in mind with the UK is that if someone holds up a shop with a replica firearm, or shoots at someone with an air gun, its considered a firearms offence iirc. in addition, it's not as if most people were armed with guns before the ban, so any increase is somewhat irrelevent to the current discussion. If you look throughout the world, and within america, it's quite easy to see that those places where guns are outlawed (uk, for example) or tightly controlled (for eg, california requires licences to carry) there seems to be less gun crime. places like switzerland, often sited as the place that has more guns than america and much less crime, only allows (obligates, actually) its civillians to own guns after they've done their military training. it seems the most gun crimes are in countries/states where people can get guns without training, and don't have to lock them down, thus allowing them to get stolen and find their way into the hands of criminals. http://www.justfacts.com/issues.guncontrol.asp http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/pdf/home.pdf (pdf)(note the amount of guns used to murder or accidentally shoot v those used in self-defence) seems like the best option in america (given how many guns allready exist) is to have tightly controlled gun ownership, for the trained, non-criminal and sane. I don't particularly see (barring appeals to the 2nd amendment) why legislation isn't in place to require that personal-defence guns have a double safety (normal safety + glock-type safety trigger) and double-action (allowing you to keep it chambered by with the hammer forward), and other safety features such as a chamber indicator (tells you if theres a bullet chambered). so yeah: what would be the problem with requiring training pre-ownership, requiring licencing and registering, requiring that guns be locked down when not in use, and requiring that they have certain safety features? that'd allow for gun ownership, whilst making everything safer imo.