gregoreous

Those dummies. They had perfectly good time machines in 1999 and they didn't even use them to visit our enlightened era. I bet they did all their calculations on some old Windows 95 system instead of investing in solid multiple core machines.

Still, they don't hold a candle to Gregor Mendel failing to incorporate DNA in his genetic work, if you can believe it.

Congratulations, and welcome back!

I disagree with his argument of the end of cheap energy. Even if oil were to become very expensive, we could use nuclear power. It is more expensive than natural gas, but it can power the economy. Also, countries with hydro power would have an economic advantage in a post oil world. Countries with these power sources would become manufacturing hubs.

I think if you truly obtain a MSc in statistics, you would no longer be a data scientist but a statistician.

Northern Quebec: say Rouyn-Noranda. Cold, remote and inexpensive and not a long bus ride to Montreal for adventures.

Toronto actually recently passed Chicago in population.

"He essentially defines an act as "good" if it's a net increase in human happiness and well-being."

John Rawls, one of the foremost liberal philosophers of our time spends the bulk of his most famous book arguing agains that very idea. My take away is that from a secular perspective it is impossible to argue from first principles what is good and bad. It's also obviously not a very strong argument. If there was a tiny country that did dispicable things to it's citizens but it had nuclear weapons, by this argument, the 'good' thing would be to allow those citizens to continue to suffer rather then have the world intervene and potentially be obliterated in a nuclear war. However, the citizen's of that country would still be correct to say that the rest of the world was unjust.

I hope you don't mind my taking this post as an open invitation for anyone to reply to, but I thought I should reply as well.

1. I love talking to people with different beliefs. If we have a respectful debate based on our best evidence I assume we will both learn something.

2. Facts are facts. However, I think all people build world views around those facts which interpret those facts in ways that are consistent with their non-scientific beliefs. The scientific method is just a important to me as an agnostic in terms of whether a medical procedure is safe.

3. See answer 2. Many Christians have no trouble with evolution. It was discovered by an Anglican after all. It's true that Darwin lost his faith over the discovery, but after a few years, many Christians just incorporated it into their faith.

4. It is very hard to prove historical facts, but there is good evidence for many arguments (like the resurrection for example; or that the King James Bible was developed by a committee). I think for many Christians, good historical scholarship is fundamental to the sorts of things that they now believe. This works both ways; however. For example, after the Divinci Code came out I was able to quickly discard the sorts of claims it made because the evidence was so bad. Similarly, Richard Dawkins should not give up his day job to become a biblical scholar since he doesn't seem to have the knack for it.

Cheers

I vaguely remember that. I also remember one of the characters recoding his camera on the fly to take pictures of people ogling his computer at a meeting. Not too realistic, but cool.

Surely, there are more than these. I have to confess that Dan Brown would not be my "go to guy" on anything factual.

Looking for a some summer reading? How about leaving a comment below with the author and title of a book in which Linux plays a significant role.

Blackberry just can't seem to catch a break in the media these days. I love that articles are coming out in Britain now about how the BB is yesterdays technology about a year and a half after all these articles came out in the US. The press reaction to the Blackberry reminds me of the Doonesbury cartoon that savaged the Apple Newton and its hand writing recognition software. Even though Apple worked out the bugs in the Newton and it turned out to be a pretty amazing technology, it just couldn't recover as a consumer product. I sort of feel the same way about Blackberry. QNX is an amazing operating system and I worry that it will never reach it's potential if BB gets out of the handset market. Plus, some people argue that BB unlike Apple and Android, lacks integration into a closed app, music, OS system like it's a bad thing. The day when I have to give up my Blackberry and join a smartphone duopoly will be a sad one.