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Dell Vostro 3500 series: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3500/fs
Great bang for the buck. Bought one after my Sony VAIO crapped out after only 2 years use ... 
As far as the debate concerning Radeon chipsets ... Since AMD bought ATi and started branding under the AMD label, the driver quality has gotten much, much better. I run Radeon cards in my desktops without any appreciable issues.
Cheers.
Well Marian, I think you're views are mostly anthropocentric, Man at the center of his own universe. That's cool. A lot of people seem to think that way these days and as long as it works for them, that's cool for them too.
On a few points from your post:
I think you're confusing emotion with morality. Emotional responses are more related to an individuals state of mind. Ie; killing someone in the heat of passion when they know it's immoral to do so would be more of an emotional response.
The controversy in the socio-biological study of morality I believe comes not so much from going against religion, but that there hasn't been enough data studied to give the studies any acceptable credibility.
Science is not the "be all, end all" for answers in the world. It can help us prove the physical, but it doesn't disprove the supernatural.
I assumed you saw 'Men in Black" and the quote would be read in the proper context. It was meant to point out that what we may accept as fact today, may be not be fact tomorrow.
Anyway, as has been pointed out, and rightly so, these threads tend to continue on, covering the same ground over and over. So, it's been fun, but this will be my last post on the matter. It's back to work for me.
Live long and prosper.
@unknownuser said:
The law should not, and would not IMO apply to your hypothetical situation, as assisted suicide should never have been considered.
Considered by who? The individual or the court? The argument has been made that the decision should be up to the individual. If they see their future as hopeless and they know the full disclosure of what they can expect while the disease progresses, then it could be their choice to end their life early and escape from the later stages of the disease. If they wish to enlist the aid of someone for assistance that's their decision.
If I read your comment correctly, then you're advocating that the courts should make the decision?
Cheers.
@dale said:
@unknownuser said:
I think most people have the strength in them to know what is truly moral without the need or support of religion.
And from whence do people learn their morality?
Cheers.
So, I'm trying to understand, am I correct in assuming that you think choosing to end your own life rather than face grave suffering is immoral? (AS the lawyers would say my thoughts are intended "Without Prejudice" )
No, not at all. I'm saying that "morality" is not something that is innate. It is something that is learned.
However, Marian and Starling75 provide an interesting insight. Very well, so if we accept that "morality" in Man is a by-product of his "evolution" (which only opens yet another can of worms) then can we say his moral code is constant and immutable? Is it infallible? I don't think so, even after tens of thousands of years of evolution ... All one needs to do is study some recent history to bear this out. WWI and WWII were not wars over "religious" principals. Please check the wikipedia citations for either of them. You'll find Militarism, Imperialism and Nationalism to be among the leading causes. These are socio-economic systems created BY men to control and influence men. So much for innate morality.
I find this line to be of particular interest from the Starling75's wikipedia citation:
"The emerging fields of evolutionary biology and in particular sociobiology have demonstrated that, though human social behaviors are complex, the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals. Sociobiological explanations of human behavior are still controversial."
You note the use of words such as "emerging fields" and "controversial" being used to describe the work being done. Sorry, but this explanation of human morality is certainly not "the final word". In fact, I would consider less so as it places humans at the level of "other social animals" to explain the roots of our behavior. Why not? One can look at a family of apes or monkey and draw all the "conclusions" they want. Science, while it proposes to search for truth, runs on speculation, theories and hypothesis.
I think "K" in Men in Black summed it up nicely:
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
Well gents, if that's the level of "moral superiority" you find comfortable, then what can I say? For myself, I'll set my sights a little higher ...
To answer Marian's questions:
@unknownuser said:
Do you sincerely believe it is moral to continue living when the price of your life is the lives or well being of others?
The "price" of my life is neither the lives nor the well being of others. They will feel as they will and they make their own choices. No one forces them, and neither would I judge them for what they do, or don't do. To be involved in the life of one terminally ill is a personal choice. That being said, I find it infinitely more comfortable to know that I can go to my Lord and find solace in times of anguish and pain instead of some pub to drink myself blind.
@unknownuser said:
Is it moral to continue living at all costs, knowing that you will soon die anyway at the price of increasing the pain of your loved ones?
See above.
Cheers.
@solo said:
@unknownuser said:
thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife is another commandment, should we also get the government to make a law with some serious jail time for those that transgress here?
No more than we should enact laws allowing assisted suicide. Besides, the prisons are having trouble coping with the huge load a serious criminal offenders now ... No room.
@unknownuser said:
I think most people have the strength in them to know what is truly moral without the need or support of religion.
And from whence do people learn their morality?
Cheers.
@solo said:
@unknownuser said:
How does your law hold up in these cases?
The same way they do when executing a wrongfully convicted killer (thanks to DNA testing), In Texas we get a lot of that as they loooove the death sentence and it's supported by the churches here. So I guess 'oops' is all that's offered unless the family is wealthy (which they normally are not) and sue the state.
Well, there you go ... More litigation, more adjustments to the law, more arguments, more controversy, more compromises ...
To me it's just a lot simpler to adhere to: "Thou shalt not kill" and get on with my life.
Cheers.
BTW, one other thought: What happens if a doctor tells a person that they have a terminal disease with a protracted and painful degenerative stage. The person cannot stand the thought of going through the suffering as described by the physician and has an assisted suicide because he or she cannot do the deed themselves.
Then, they find out the doctor was wrong in his diagnosis and the person could have either been cured or there may have been treatments outside of the physicians knowledge. Ok, I know, there should be second opinions, etc. But the point is, people can, and do, survive "terminal" illnesses against all the odds given to them by physicians.
How does your law hold up in these cases?
Cheers
@escapeartist said:
@idahoj said:
Again, I can't see it. "Religious beliefs" are part of our society and has been for a very long time. Whether we admit it or not, people tend to use "religious filters" to guide them through their everyday life. Just look at the swearing in process for a person's testimony. They place their hand on a Bible and "swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. SO HELP YOU GOD." This implies not only a higher standard of moral conduct, but in a way, a worse punishment from God for what is basically breaking a Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor". It also provides a "common ground" for accepting testimony as we all, or most of us, accept God's judgment over Man's.
I'm afraid I must disagree. You seem to imply that regardless of belief all of our decision making is directed by religion in some way, and you use the law as an example. The law is secular and applies to everyone regardless of belief, there is no acceptance of any doctrine, no worship necessary for this to be true. Regardless of the history behind the making of the law. The "...so help me God" statement is irrelevant to an atheist and carries weight only with those who believe it to. Implication of a higher standard is also something I must disagree with very strongly, this alludes to the argument that people would be savages without religion to guide society.
Actually I would consider your last statement to be very true. My argument is that Man isn't capable of any "moral code" other than what is convenient for him at that particular point in time. His "higher standards" are prone to the erosion of time and societal pressures. Man is too changeable, too prone to make and break societal rules (in which I include both penal and civil codes of law) depending on the current socio-economic situation he finds himself in.
The question of assisted suicide fits in this for me. We can make laws that would currently satisfy the needs of society to allow/disallow a human to kill another under the "proper circumstances". Ok, well and good for now. But what about the future when people might think it's NOT so acceptable?
Take the issue of capital punishment. It seems to go in and out of "style" depending on the whims and wills of the people and government. Or abortion. The circumstances for allowing/disallowing abortions are under constant argument. Is the life of the mother at stake, does the fetus show signs of development that would prevent it from having a "normal life", etc.
Man is not born with an innate sense of discerning "good" from "evil". It's learned. You can invoke Darwin if you like, "The survival of the fittest". If we simply consider Man to be just another animal of this planet, then killing would be a normal part of his makeup. Or running away, I guess, to be pursued by other humans who have no qualms about terminating him in their own survival interests.
So, yes, I believe that without a "higher standard" our society would degenerate eventually into something like anarchy with each man and woman defining their own code of morality. Or perhaps a dictatorship with a central power figure dictating how people should think and act ...
Cheers.
Hi Mike, I guess I just can't resist a good debate ... 
@mike lucey said:
I think you make my argument for me in many ways. It should be up to each citizen to follow their own true conscience in these matters. It one wants to abide by their 'faith', that is their choice and right. My 'faith' would allow me to be involved in assisted suicide under certain regulated circumstances.
For an individual to make this choice, I agree. As well, if someone wished to assist, then yes, it's their choice too. As TIG points out, it's an individuals "free will" in both cases. A person of faith would, or should, recognize that for both people, it will be God who judges them ultimately.
@unknownuser said:
As far as such a civil law being open to abuse goes, well all civil laws are open to abuse and are broken all the time. That is why we have courts and prisons in place.
Yes. Absolutely. The penalties for violating civil law are much less severe than criminal. Of course, it's possible for a civil suit to escalate to criminal and therein lies a big issue. Civil law is very different from criminal and I think if there were any disputes about an assisted suicide, it must fall to the penal codes and not the civil code for trial. Civil law is simply not equipped to litigate in situations that are potentially capital crimes, such as murder.
@unknownuser said:
The more I think about it the more I feel it must not be a religious matter in any way. In my mind, religious influence has to be removed from State matters in order to be fair to all its citizens. Most of the Western World now has multi-belief citizenship. Surely the Law should respect all their believes and the only way I can see this achieved is to take particular religious beliefs out of the equation. Here in Ireland they could start with the Bible when taking an oath in Court and substitute a personal affirmation under pain of penalty. It might have more of an effect.
Again, I can't see it. "Religious beliefs" are part of our society and has been for a very long time. Whether we admit it or not, people tend to use "religious filters" to guide them through their everyday life. Just look at the swearing in process for a person's testimony. They place their hand on a Bible and "swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. SO HELP YOU GOD." This implies not only a higher standard of moral conduct, but in a way, a worse punishment from God for what is basically breaking a Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor". It also provides a "common ground" for accepting testimony as we all, or most of us, accept God's judgment over Man's.
Cheers.
@unknownuser said:
I think the religious end of things has to be left out of the debate. It should purely be a civil matter!
If one leaves out the "religious" end of things, then how fair to those of us of faith would the application of the law be? Am I to be discriminated against because of my convictions? Would it be fair to only consider the secular aspects of the problem without due diligence in determining the spiritual aspects? The law is expected to be fairly applied to everyone, regardless of sex, age, faith, etc ...
On the pragmatic side: if a person wishes to end his or her life, that's their business. However, if you allow others to assist, then it sets a dangerous precedent for the future. It's all well and good to have "Living Wills" and the like, or to see that euthanasia is administered under strict control and supervision. But what happens when unscrupulous people start to abuse the law? It'll happen, it always does. Allowing this to become a civil law issue would be a disaster IMO. Civil law is MUCH less strict and uses an entirely different set of rules to determine judgments.
@unknownuser said:
Then there is no point, as the only real objections are from folks that are religious.
As far as there being no point. Well, I believe that really is a faith question. I know personally that there is a point, but it takes faith to see it. I can't convey it any other way that would make sense.
Anyway, nice chatting about this with you guys but I think I'll mosey along...
Cheers.
@unknownuser said:
Being neither religious nor spiritual and having little faith in mankind and even less in the boogeyman I am very curious why religious folks, 'Christians' in this country need the government to impose laws to prevent folks doing things that their doctrine objects to, why not live and let live and those who call themselves Christians refrain from such actions, put your faith where your mouth is and not force it upon us who do not share your obsessions with the supernatural.
This is pretty much how most people view the situation. What they don't comprehend, and this is no slight to you personally Solo, is that one can have faith and seek God's Truth without being either "religious" nor a "Christian".
Jesus taught no ecclesiastical doctrines, nor did he teach any theology. His followers were not called "Christians" until much later and that was by others to label them as "followers of Christ", and not part of an "organized (as we know it today) church". The Christ did however have both His 12 chosen apostles, and many followed Him as disciples, believing in His message of the Good News about the Kingdom of God. My wife and I don't attend any particular church, we consider ourselves His disciples and strive to follow the Word of God as put forth in His Scriptures. Anyone who truly understands God's Truth doesn't need to impose their will, beliefs or views, "religious" or not, upon anyone.
But, there will always be those, both secular and "of faith" who feel that they must ...
Cheers.
Please read my post with an open mind and respect my view on this question. Subjects like these tend to be a bit ticklish ... Thanks.
A preamble: I take my faith in God as a serious aspect of my life. It influences me in many ways, and I take infinite comfort in what God has promised His children and in His Truth. That being said:
Suicide and "assisted suicide" is a sin. And while I'm pragmatic to understand the suffering and other complications of living with a terminally ill person, euthanasia or suicide is still not an option IMO. We see the hurt and anguish of family and friends through eyes accustomed to this world, and not until a person is deceased do we say "Go with God", or "He or she is in a better place". I have been through this with members of my family and it is a hard, hard thing to bear...
God gives us all the opportunity to come to know Him, all through our lives. While some may say, "Why does God allow a person to suffer?", that's not His intent. Up until a persons last breath, they have the opportunity to surrender to God and know His forgiveness and love. In the midst of suffering, we can know Truth and absolute peace. Euthanasia or suicide can deprive a person of accepting God's love before they are ready to accept Him in their heart.
It's a hard path to God's Truth, and pain and suffering is part of it when it's necessary to bring a person to salvation.
@dave r said:
This stuff is cool. Now someone needs to come up with a plugin to do all the hyrdodynamic calclulations.
Using Curviloft is pretty cool. But frankly, I find using Delftship: http://www.delftship.net/ and Carlson's Hull Design for hard chine hulls: http://www.carlsondesign.com/ programs quicker and they have the advantage to doing the requisite hydrostatic calculations too. Both have been mentioned, I think, in another thread and both are free. Understandably, this means learning at least one other program and you lose the "intergrated" SU-only solution. You gets some, you gives some...
By way of example: currently I'm using Carlson's program to work out a "stitch n glue" design for a turn of the century Mississippi river skiff, which is a hard chine hull form. Once the design is finished in Hull Designer, I save the resulting .hul file, import it into Delftship and then export it from there as an .obj. Import it into SU using the .obj import plugin and there you go! So far, I haven't had any problems getting the Delftship .obj files imported, even when I tested some fairly complex hulls.
I don't mean to detract from using Curviloft, but if one needs the hydrostatic information, I'm simply suggesting an alternative method.
Cheers.
Just downloaded and installed SU8 free into it's own directory. No conflicts so far with my pre-existing SU7 install (didn't think there would be but you can never tell when something messes with the Windows registry file).
Now to start moving and testing the 7.x plugins and scripts ...
Cheers.
Yeah, I started programming from the command line a long time ago. Folks since those days have gotten used to "point n click" interfaces ... 
BTW, POVray for Windows does have a nice IDE with integrated help, etc. It's even possible to add custom libraries and code for insertion into your .pov files... It's a bit advanced but a great time saver.
Cheers.
@zacchia said:
Thanks for the Exporter. PovRay i could never use because of the interface. With the SUExporter it works. But i am wondering about PovRay: Is it not an old renderer and other newer engines are much better or is this wrong?
As a die-hard POVray user, I can tell you it's been around for over 20 years and that it was one or the very first rendering engines produced. Right now, it's undergoing new development to take advantage of newer PC technologies, like multi-core CPUs and increased RAM capabilities amongst other things. It's also getting a new radiosity model and several other improvements for rendering outputs.
As for one rendering engine being "better" over others, it's relative. The real power in POVray lies in its text-based SDL (Scene Description Language). The SDL allows you access every facet of POVray and to create user-defined macros and #define procedures to extend its capabilities. Not only that, but POVray also includes built in procedures for radiosity, sophisticated illumination models and a lot more. There are things you can do in POVray that are difficult, if not nigh impossible to do in other rendering engines. Animating textures and surface finishes comes to mind...
I encourage anyone thinking about POVray to go the main site: http://www.povray.org/ and check out the Hall of Fame. There are renderings in there that rival any other that I've seen from other rendering engines. Personally, I consider a render to be only as good as the effort that goes into making the scene and it's elements. POVray allow me to tweak a scene down to the most minute aspect to make it precisely the way I want it to look.
I have used a number of other rendering engines over the years, but I consistently return to POVray for the amount of customizing and control it affords in my rendering work.
A great place to find current information on the new version 3.8x is here: http://news.povray.org/groups/
Cheers.
Basically, there are two ways to approach using SU and POVray with Didier's plugin.
The first, and most simple, is to create your object(s) and texture them in the usual SU fashion. Open the SU texture dialogs, assign textures, materials and colors the way you normally would. Then, using the plugin, you can change the glossiness, matt, phong, add lighting, etc then render.
The plugin will create a directory, write a .pov file, copy the necessary textures and then do the rendering, placing the rendered image in the directory.
I find that using this first method will get me into the ballpark for the way I want to set up lighting, material and etc. If the results, which can be very good initially, are what you want, then TA-DA!, you're there.
The second, or additional method. When I have the scene pretty well setup, I load the .pov file directly into the POVray IDE and hand tweak it to get my final rendering settings perfected. Didier's plugin does a very credible job, but POVray has dozens of ways of combining colors, textures, finishes and special operations to create very impressive renderings. I've yet to see ANY plugin for ANY other modeling program, ie, Wings3D for example, that allowed one to access all the configuration settings and rendering language from a plugin.
So, hand tweaking the .pov file is usually necessary if you want to take the scene to the next level. It's a simple text-based format, so it's easy to modify.
BTW, Didier has included a very nice .pdf in the download that covers quite a bit of his plugin, and there are .pdf files for the a POVray tutorial and complete language reference available from the POVray site. You can also access the tutorial and reference from inside the POVray IDE as well.
Hope this may prove helpful.
Cheers.
FWIW, I've been using Didier Bur's POVray plugin, of which he has announced a new version here: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=29589 along with POVray: http://www.povray.org/
But, as rclub24 points out, individual tastes and needs really come into play. I've been a POVray user for over 10 years so I know the application and it's syntax inside and out. That influences me a great deal and it's very comfortable to use.
Didier's plugin works very well, but I find it's still necessary to "hand tweak" the final .pov files a bit to get the best out of them for final renders.
The Twilight Render system: http://www.twilightrender.com/ is my second favorite, well integrated into SU, fairly simple to get good results and inexpensive to purchase.
Another consideration is that I use SU7 under WinXP and Ubuntu Linux with WINE. Both render programs work very well in WINE with SU so that's another plus in my book.
Cheers.
