On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 08:28:13 -0400, bad sector wrote:

> On 10/24/24 18:25, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:40:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> But the whole mess is all part of people taking up *moral* positions.
>>
>> No, the whole mess is all part of people rationalizing their moral
>> positions based on religion. Keep your religion out of your morality,
>> and things become a lot simpler.
>
> The word 'religion' lost its clarity or use a long time ago ...

I use it with a specific meaning: those who follow a holy book that tells
them their particular sky fairy is the only true sky fairy, all other sky
fairies are false.

They can’t all be right on the first point; they can all be right on the
second.

On 10/26/24 16:41, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 08:47:01 -0400, bad sector wrote:
>
>> The responsibility for protecting its own falls on sovereign governments
>> so when oriental cheap-labour combined with subsidies allowed them to
>> undercut then western governments should have countered not by
>> subsidising (you cannot cut out a hole) but by completely interdicting
>> those imports.
>
> That’s how things used to be done in the bad old days, when most of the
> “consumer” goods we take for granted were rare and expensive luxuries that
> could be afforded only by the rich. That is, where they existed at all.
>
> Do you really want to go back to those days?

Probably, people were DIY qualified then. Nowadays you go into a
'specialized' computer store and ask for some info all you get is an
insulted look and "do I look like Goggle to you?". I rebuilt my first
car in my late teens with next to no tools, today youth say "the ashtray
is full, how much a month for a gaming bluetooth display with four
wheels?", they need a smartphone to know how to shit. Globalization?
Give them a little poverty instead (very likely to come anyway).

"On September 20, 1917, the Income War Tax Act, 1917 received Royal
Assent and, in one form or another, has been with us ever since. Since
it was meant as a temporary measure, it was to be reviewed a year or two
after the end of the war to assess whether it was still necessary and
suitable." NB 'temporary'.

On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 18:01:01 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> This contrasts with your typical math text book, which starts out with a
> few pages of trivial statements before making the jump to the edge of
> the universe, cued by that magical phrase "It is obvious that..."

Back in the days of “New Maths”, you started out with set theory and built
up from there.

It made sense to me, as a middle-school kid. Somehow it fell out of
favour ...

On 2024-10-26 3:32 a.m., 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> On 10/22/24 8:21 PM, CrudeSausage wrote:
>> On 2024-10-22 8:00 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 09:18:00 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:
>>>
>>>> So you're in favour of slave labour because you can get your hobby
>>>> computer for less?
>>>
>>> Strange. I thought you wanted to take jobs away from those running those
>>> manufacturing lines in the third world. Now you’re trying to sympathize
>>> with them as “slave labour”?
>>
>> Do you purposefully misunderstand what you read? It is very clear that
>> the labour being used to produce less expensive computers is slave
>> labour. I have _always_ been in favour of products being sold in the
>> West being produced in the West. I would _never_ advocate for anything
>> sold here to be manufactured anywhere else, especially since it turns
>> out to be slave labour.
>
>
>   With Linux, it's less "slave" labor as "dedicated volunteer"
>   labor.

What the volunteers have been able to accomplish is quite impressive,
either way.

--
CrudeSausage
Paleoconservative, Catholic, Christ is king.

On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 09:56:59 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>
>> Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>>
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>>>
>>>> Weak cryptography is easy to fix. The hard part to fix is weak random
>>>> numbers.
>>>
>>> Other way round. A bad RNG can be swapped out for a better one with
>>> little or no impact on anything else.
>>
>> Unfortunately, you can never be sure your RNG is good.
>
> You can’t be 100% certain of anything.

Can you be sure of that?

On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 19:27:34 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:

> What the volunteers have been able to accomplish is quite impressive,
> either way.

And Torvalds has to bear his share of credit (or blame, if you prefer) for
that.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 19:27:34 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:
>
>> What the volunteers have been able to accomplish is quite impressive,
>> either way.
>
>And Torvalds has to bear his share of credit (or blame, if you prefer) for
>that.

Linus is a *god*, he'd literally have to murder someone for me to lose
any respect for him. The world owes him more than can be repaid.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 18:01:01 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> This contrasts with your typical math text book, which starts out with a
> few pages of trivial statements before making the jump to the edge of
> the universe, cued by that magical phrase "It is obvious that..."

Don't I know that phrase all too well... It reminds me of my high school
algebra teacher. "You skip steps and don't show your work. Usually you get
the right answer but if you don't I have no idea where you went wrong."

I'll admit I still don't have much patience for videos where someone
spends five minutes shuffling stuff around the equals sign, multiplying or
dividing here and there. Some things are kind of obvious.

On 2024-10-26, Relf <Usenet@Jeff-Relf.Me> wrote:

> rBowman: Heidegger asked 'Why are there beings at all rather than nothing?'
> in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' . . . my head started to hurt.
>
> As the cosmos goes from infinitely hot/dense to infinitely cold/sparse,
> "residual eXergy" (potential entropy) fuels both "life" (games) & gravity.

"Our whole universe was in a hot dense state..."

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

On 2024-10-26, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 08:28:13 -0400, bad sector wrote:
>
>> On 10/24/24 18:25, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:40:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> But the whole mess is all part of people taking up *moral* positions.
>>>
>>> No, the whole mess is all part of people rationalizing their moral
>>> positions based on religion. Keep your religion out of your morality,
>>> and things become a lot simpler.
>>
>> The word 'religion' lost its clarity or use a long time ago ...
>
> I use it with a specific meaning: those who follow a holy book that tells
> them their particular sky fairy is the only true sky fairy, all other sky
> fairies are false.
>
> They can’t all be right on the first point; they can all be right on the
> second.

Two men say they're Jesus; one of them must be wrong.
-- Dire Straits

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 18:34:34 -0400, bad sector wrote:

> On 10/26/24 16:41, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 08:47:01 -0400, bad sector wrote:
>>
>>> The responsibility for protecting its own falls on sovereign
>>> governments so when oriental cheap-labour combined with subsidies
>>> allowed them to undercut then western governments should have
>>> countered not by subsidising (you cannot cut out a hole) but by
>>> completely interdicting those imports.
>>
>> That’s how things used to be done in the bad old days, when most of the
>> “consumer” goods we take for granted were rare and expensive luxuries
>> that could be afforded only by the rich. That is, where they existed at
>> all.
>>
>> Do you really want to go back to those days?
>
> Probably, people were DIY qualified then.

You want to set up a school where those of a mechanical bent can go to
learn how to put together an Iphone from basic raw materials? Master the
art of doing surface-mount soldering by hand? Assemble a billion-
transistor chip from raw silicon? Join the layers of a phone camera sensor
using nothing more than a glue gun and tweezers, perhaps? Test the results
with a multimeter that they learn to build by hand as part of the course?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 02:06:21 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state..."

As I look around, I see some in this noisegroup who still seem to be in
that state ...

On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 02:06:22 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> Two men say they're Jesus; one of them must be wrong.
> -- Dire Straits

Actually, lots of people are named Jesus. For real.

Fun fact: the Old Testament property said “He shall be called Emmanuel”.
He wasn’t.

On 10/26/24 6:01 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 26/10/2024 08:01, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>> On 10/26/24 1:51 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On 26 Oct 2024 05:45:31 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> About the time Heidegger asked 'Why are there beings at all rather than
>>>> nothing?' in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' my head started to hurt.
>>>> That
>>>> was sentence 1, chapter 1. It didn't get better from there on.
>>>
>>> Did he mention the Anthropic Principle at all?
>>>
>>> That’s a controversial one. Fred Hoyle used it to predict the
>>> existence of
>>> an energetic state of the carbon atom without which heavier elements
>>> could
>>> not be synthesized.
>>
>>
>>    All philosophy is bullshit - including this philosophy  :-)
>>
>>
> That is the reaction of 99% of those who are exposed to it.
>
> But it isn't.  It has tools enabling you to think in extremely different
> ways.

That's what LSD is for :-)

Sorry, bullshit. That's the most useful take.

> The problem is most people think it purports to reveal Truth, but it
> doesn't. It is however and interesting study of Lies.

Lies/mistakes and long LONG "justifications" of said lies/mistakes.

Waste of bandwidth.

On 10/26/24 6:21 AM, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 26 Oct 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 26/10/2024 08:01, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>> On 10/26/24 1:51 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>> On 26 Oct 2024 05:45:31 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> About the time Heidegger asked 'Why are there beings at all rather
>>>>> than
>>>>> nothing?' in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' my head started to hurt.
>>>>> That
>>>>> was sentence 1, chapter 1. It didn't get better from there on.
>>>>
>>>> Did he mention the Anthropic Principle at all?
>>>>
>>>> That’s a controversial one. Fred Hoyle used it to predict the
>>>> existence of
>>>> an energetic state of the carbon atom without which heavier elements
>>>> could
>>>> not be synthesized.
>>>
>>>
>>>    All philosophy is bullshit - including this philosophy  :-)
>>>
>>>
>> That is the reaction of 99% of those who are exposed to it.
>>
>> But it isn't.  It has tools enabling you to think in extremely
>> different ways.
>> The problem is most people think it purports to reveal Truth, but it
>> doesn't. It is however and interesting study of Lies.
>
> Another advantage is familiarity with arguments and lines of reasoning.
> If I had a penny for every time some technologist thought that he came
> up with a brand new argument, for it only to turn out that it was
> discussed 1000 years ago, I'd be rich!

"Tech" kinda adheres to the "connectionist" paradigm.
It builds on other sci-tech and practical knowledge
in a roughly-ascending spiral. Lots of things were
mostly re-invented - twice or thrice.

On 10/26/24 10:21 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 02:06:21 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state..."
>
> As I look around, I see some in this noisegroup who still seem to be in
> that state ...

Normally these groups are VERY quiet. But then it's only
about a week before elections.

As for the universe, it USED to be in a 'hot dense state',
but has cooled-off considerably. If 'dark energy' calx are
correct we're already on the downside - headed for icy doom.

On Sun, 27 Oct 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 10/26/24 10:21 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 02:06:21 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state..."
>>
>> As I look around, I see some in this noisegroup who still seem to be in
>> that state ...
>
> Normally these groups are VERY quiet. But then it's only
> about a week before elections.
>
> As for the universe, it USED to be in a 'hot dense state',
> but has cooled-off considerably. If 'dark energy' calx are
> correct we're already on the downside - headed for icy doom.

Don't tell this to our young activists! They will stop going to school if
they heard what you just said!

On 26/10/2024 19:01, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2024-10-26, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 02:37:52 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 26 Oct 2024 01:08:05 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> Welcome to the problems of metaphysics
>>>
>>> Next stop: that wonderful fallacy known as “you can’t prove a negative”
>>> ...
>>
>> About the time Heidegger asked 'Why are there beings at all rather than
>> nothing?' in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' my head started to hurt. That
>> was sentence 1, chapter 1. It didn't get better from there on.
>
> This contrasts with your typical math text book, which starts out with
> a few pages of trivial statements before making the jump to the edge
> of the universe, cued by that magical phrase "It is obvious that..."
>
My nephew is a Native German speaker with a native German father and
stepfather. He studied philosophy at an English university.

I asked him whether he read Kant in the original German. He said no, he
found the English translations *easier to understand*.

There is an apocryphal saying that "All the problems of French
philosophy would have been solved if they had written them down in German"

Heidegger is unmitigated shit really. I gave up after a chapter or two.
Wittgenstein says that the mark of a true philosopher is that he will
have thrown a book written by a famous philsopher into the corner,
unfinished, more than once

'Why are there beings at all rather than nothing?' is simply answered:

'Because if there weren't no one could ask such an unanswerable
question'. Even asking 'why' in the context of the universe is a
massively anthropocentric statement. 'Why' applies to human beings, not
the world . Taoists say it better.

"The Tao is that which exists through itself" (Tao being the sort of
essence of being-ness).

Or Wittgenstein "The world is everything that is the case"

Right on chum, I would never have guessed.

Nietzsche is more tongue in cheek and amusing:

“Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has one
solution: it is called pregnancy. "

But philosophers like Hume, Kant and so on have extreme implication for
philosophy of science, as they show conclusively that no theory as such
can ever be proven to be true.

This shocking fact moves science from a repository of true facts, to a
collection of explanations whose sole justifications are they they are
mutually consistent and seem to work.

This is important to understand when you are at the bleeding edge of
physics.

--
Microsoft : the best reason to go to Linux that ever existed.

On 26/10/2024 21:25, Relf wrote:
> rBowman: Heidegger asked 'Why are there beings at all rather than nothing?'
> in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' . . . my head started to hurt.
>
> As the cosmos goes from infinitely hot/dense to infinitely cold/sparse,
> "residual eXergy" (potential entropy) fuels both "life" (games) & gravity.

Ah, but that doesn't answer Heidegger's stupid question. Which is in any
case a *leading* question that assumes that the question 'why anything?'
*has* an answer.

You are merely quoting another metaphysical *narrative*

The more accessible form of Heidegger general whine might be quoted as
"Why was *I* born"?

To which the answer can be either 'cos your mom and dad had a Big Bang
on a saturday night' or 'because the Big Bang contained implicitly the
fact of your existence, and you are just doing what was pre-ordained'

Neither of which are particularly satisfying.

In fact if you delve deep enough you come to understand that the
question 'why?' is an utterly human one, doesn't apply to the Universe
at large and if extrapolated beyond its applicable context to Universal
Purpose will likely lead you to a supernatural solution like 'Cos God
did it'

The real philosophers are not those who attempt to answer unanswerable
questions, but those who clearly identify which questions are in fact
unanswerable, and like bomb disposal experts plant little flags saying
'here be mines'. Or 'a critique of Pure Reason'

--
The biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On 27/10/2024 02:06, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2024-10-26, Relf <Usenet@Jeff-Relf.Me> wrote:
>
>> rBowman: Heidegger asked 'Why are there beings at all rather than nothing?'
>> in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' . . . my head started to hurt.
>>
>> As the cosmos goes from infinitely hot/dense to infinitely cold/sparse,
>> "residual eXergy" (potential entropy) fuels both "life" (games) & gravity.
>
> "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state..."
>
I know that feeling...

--
"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women"

On 27/10/2024 05:35, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> On 10/26/24 10:21 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 02:06:21 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state..."
>>
>> As I look around, I see some in this noisegroup who still seem to be in
>> that state ...
>
>   Normally these groups are VERY quiet. But then it's only
>   about a week before elections.
>
>   As for the universe, it USED to be in a 'hot dense state',
>   but has cooled-off considerably. If 'dark energy' calx are
>   correct we're already on the downside - headed for icy doom.
>
Well so says the metaphysics of the classical scientific world view.

We are surfing a wave of entropy created by the big bang and will all
end up washed up the beach gasping and then die.

Of course the metaphysics of the classical scientific world view is
only a man made theory, when it comes down to it. And can neither be
proven true or false.

--
"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women"

tnp: entropy created by the big bang

The "big bang" was fueled by "residual eXergy" (potential entropy).

On 27/10/2024 11:18, Relf wrote:
> tnp: entropy created by the big bang
>
> The "big bang" was fueled by "residual eXergy" (potential entropy).

Or was it the other way around?

Where did the 'residual eXergy' come from?

Or was it simply God Swill?

--
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on
its shoes.

Charlie Gibbs wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 2024-10-26, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 08:28:13 -0400, bad sector wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/24/24 18:25, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:40:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> But the whole mess is all part of people taking up *moral* positions.
>>>>
>>>> No, the whole mess is all part of people rationalizing their moral
>>>> positions based on religion. Keep your religion out of your morality,
>>>> and things become a lot simpler.
>>>
>>> The word 'religion' lost its clarity or use a long time ago ...
>>
>> I use it with a specific meaning: those who follow a holy book that tells
>> them their particular sky fairy is the only true sky fairy, all other sky
>> fairies are false.
>>
>> They can’t all be right on the first point; they can all be right on the
>> second.
>
> Two men say they're Jesus; one of them must be wrong.
> -- Dire Straits

"Industrial Disease", one of my favorite songs!

Now, warning lights are flashing down at quality control
Somebody threw a spanner, they threw him in the hole
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle, and the walls came down
There's a meetin' in the boardroom, they're tryin' to trace the smell
There's a leakin' in the washroom, there's a sneak-in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
Goodness me, could this be industrial disease?

Caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
Refusing to be pacified, it's him they blame the most
Watchdog got rabies, the foreman got the fleas
Everyone concerned about industrial disease
There's panic on the switchboard, tongues in knots
Some come out in sympathy, some come out in spots
Some blame the management, some the employees
Everybody knows it's the industrial disease

Yeah, now the work force is disgusted, downs tools, walks
Innocence is injured, experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages, everyone agrees that
These are classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze
On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless, theology is worse
History boils over, there's an economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean "industrial disease"

--
Debian Hint #39: Improve bash's tab-completion by installing the
bash-completion package.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 02:06:22 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> Two men say they're Jesus; one of them must be wrong.
>> -- Dire Straits
>
> Actually, lots of people are named Jesus. For real.
>
> Fun fact: the Old Testament property said “He shall be called Emmanuel”.
> He wasn’t.

I got a chuckle watching a Premier League game. The commentators were
commentating about Gabriel Jesus (pronouced hay-soos), and the Irish (I think)
commentator kept calling him Jesus (gee-zuzz). Made for funny play-by-play.

If Jesus came back today and saw where we're at, he would crap his robe.

--
Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream...