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It's dishonest to try painting the objections to claims of AV perfection

It's dishonest to demand perfection. All it needs to do is be better than humans, and in urban environments where granny is likely to step out in front of a car, the speed limit is likely to be 45 or lower, and at those speeds cars can stop faster than you can think.

No, but thousands of cognitive psychologists have.

Really? Somehow I doubt you're summarizing their results accurately, anyway.

If you have an objective, scientific definition of "intelligence" (and you just implied you did), the world would like to hear it. Just a moment ago, you were citing folk 'wisdom,' so forgive me if I seem a bit reluctant to take you seriously.

Social 'sciences' can't be taken seriously. This applies to psychology as well as it does to random studies that reach conclusions that you or I personally agree with. Scientific consensus and replicating studies is a check on human error and outright quackery.

I said why it's not acceptable: because having sex with children harms them. Citation from scientific literature

Oh, no. When they largely get rid of the subjective criteria, subjective and biased data gathering methods, and the act of coming to arbitrary conclusions based on data (which they gathered using ridiculous methods), maybe psychology could be taken seriously as a science. As it is, it doesn't have nearly as much rigor as a field like physics. These things are especially prevalent when it comes to 'controversial' topics like this where lots of people get emotional. Anyone providing citations to psychology studies to 'win' in a debate is just a damn fool.

When you learn some psychology

Good idea.

Yeah. That's all. Nothing more than that!

Yes, exactly. Do you have a problem with that definition?

I have bad news for you, but you have a serious mental illness.

I have bad news for you, but you're not even part of the already dubious pseudoscience club. How can you scientifically diagnose random people over the Internet as having mental illnesses simply because they disagree with you? That's quite an interesting ability you have there. Even in the pseudoscience club, a lot of work goes into diagnosing people using certain criteria. Would you care to inform them of your amazing scientific shortcut?

You can start here -> http://www.arachnoid.com/psych...

Completely different situation. In programming discussions are how to optimise the processes involved, the problem with psychology its that they aren't sure if they're working on computers or breakfast cereal boxes with a few rectangles drawn on them. The main value that psychologist bring to the table today is to fulfill the role of that good friend who isn't afraid to lay out a few home truths. Of course if you already have such a friend, the need to attend a psychologist is naturally obviated...

So, I'm just going to leave this here.

Psychology: never put your trust in a field where people can make stuff up and have it accepted as canon by everyone else: http://www.arachnoid.com/psych...

So what would happen if aliens made an appearance?

That very much depends on the aliens.

Nice friendly Vulcan types with an interest in the betterment of intelligences in general would have a very different effect on global civilisation and this yahoo's "consciousness" than Battle for LA type aliens, or even random leviathan seeder drones sent out to terraform likely worlds into Cybertron-alikes to serve as industrial waystations for the sleeper colonists drifting through the cold void millions of years in their wake.

OK. Well there is where our beliefs diverge substantially. Psychology isn't science, ergo none of their definitions involve science. You seem to have bought into the idea that there are "soft sciences." The term soft science is merely a term that people throw around when they want to add some legitimacy to their field of study, and figure that tagging along with the respected science community will give them a leg up in their arguments.

Note that I am not saying that psychology isn't useful; mereley that it does not meet the basic qualifications necessary to be categorized as a science.

Read "Confessions of a Long-Distance Sailor" before you go.

http://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html

Paul Lutus sailed around the world over the course of four years. He posted a free book online so you can read about his adventures:

http://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html

He was tempted to rename his sailboat "Entropy" because things kept breaking, so I recommend you carry tools and essential spares (whatever those might be for your ship).

Also, you should be armed, and you should be trained in the use of your weapons. Paul Lutus had a close encounter with a pirate; after he made it clear he was armed, the pirate decided to go somewhere else. As is often the case with firearms, it wasn't necessary to kill anyone or even shoot the firearm, but having it present made all the difference. This incident is described in day 5 in this page:

http://arachnoid.com/sailbook/Chapter_6_--_Darwin_to_Sri_Lanka.html

He says on the above page that he was often below-decks, reading, and he was very lucky he was on deck and saw the pirate coming. He wondered what would have happened if the pirate had actually gotten on board his sailboat before he knew anything was up... nothing good, surely. Is there any sort of proximity alert system you can get for your ship, that would alert if anyone approached?

Paul Lutus is a computer geek as well (he wrote GraForth and some other stuff; see his web site) so you might try contacting him for advice on tech gear. I have no idea whether he is likely to reply or not.

steveha

Paul Lutus sailed around the world over the course of four years. He posted a free book online so you can read about his adventures:

http://arachnoid.com/sailbook/index.html

He was tempted to rename his sailboat "Entropy" because things kept breaking, so I recommend you carry tools and essential spares (whatever those might be for your ship).

Also, you should be armed, and you should be trained in the use of your weapons. Paul Lutus had a close encounter with a pirate; after he made it clear he was armed, the pirate decided to go somewhere else. As is often the case with firearms, it wasn't necessary to kill anyone or even shoot the firearm, but having it present made all the difference. This incident is described in day 5 in this page:

http://arachnoid.com/sailbook/Chapter_6_--_Darwin_to_Sri_Lanka.html

He says on the above page that he was often below-decks, reading, and he was very lucky he was on deck and saw the pirate coming. He wondered what would have happened if the pirate had actually gotten on board his sailboat before he knew anything was up... nothing good, surely. Is there any sort of proximity alert system you can get for your ship, that would alert if anyone approached?

Paul Lutus is a computer geek as well (he wrote GraForth and some other stuff; see his web site) so you might try contacting him for advice on tech gear. I have no idea whether he is likely to reply or not.

steveha

Based upon an intersting theory about how life may have started on Mars in the first place, sending people, plants, even a few rodents that might get loose would mostly be going back home rather than genuine contamination.

More than likely a few hunks of the Earth filled with bacteria and other life from the Earth made it to Mars as recently as the K-T event that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Concerns about contamination of the Martian ecology, as much that it may have, is way overblown and likely is already there, if not from stray meteors then from all of the spacecraft that have been landing or crashing into the surface of Mars over the past several decades.

Of all the things to worry about on Mars, this is dead last in terms of priority and is going to happen no matter how hard we may try to stop it, presuming that Mars isn't already contaminated as I've noted above. I'd put it very unlikely that Mars is as pristine as is claimed.

More resources means people will think they can make more people. Which, of course, will be worse in the long run since underground water never lasts forever, and it will be a larger population to starve.

What Africa needs is education, not more water to be exported to other countries.

I personally think it's a bit inconsiderate to basically say there should be less Africans. The number of Africans in existance is not the root cause of their problem. My first thought was "what non-African nation is going to lay claim to this water supply while Africans continue to die?"

More resources means people will think they can make more people. Which, of course, will be worse in the long run since underground water never lasts forever, and it will be a larger population to starve.

What Africa needs is education, not more water to be exported to other countries.

The ones most seriously in need of education are westerners who think there's any hope of educating Africans. I'd start with this.

More resources means people will think they can make more people. Which, of course, will be worse in the long run since underground water never lasts forever, and it will be a larger population to starve.

What Africa needs is education, not more water to be exported to other countries.

"Anachrophilia" ?

Did you, perchance, mean Arachnophilia?

I assume he meant Arachnophilia.

No, I hadn't heard of it before either. I just Googled harder.

Is this what you mean?

Arachnophilia

Interesting- I wonder how that affects Paul Lutus' argument:
"But randomness is the point, it's not a side effect (and it is definitely random). Because of the random nature of the process, all possible biological forms get an equal chance. Without randomness, evolution wouldn't create what we see around us." (http://www.arachnoid.com/reader_exchanges/mental_health_and_evolution.html#MHE_I)

Maemo "runs linux" and you don't get multiple users.

Wrong. You can login as root and then create new users: http://www.arachnoid.com/linux/nokia/

Maemo runs a real distro, while Android runs the kernel with a different userland (not Gnu).

Psychology isn't a science

I don't have time or space to outline here precisely why Sociology and Psychology are **NOT** Science, but these links outline it pretty succinctly: http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/ http://www.arachnoid.com/what_is_science/index.html

I don't have time or space to outline here precisely why Sociology and Psychology are **NOT** Science, but these links outline it pretty succinctly: http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/ http://www.arachnoid.com/what_is_science/index.html

Studies mean nothing without data.

Just the fucking UK being the fucking UK again.

Some years back, a gentleman named Paul Lutus wrote an incredibly great tide-prediction programs that runs on PCs, handheld devices, etc. -- http://www.arachnoid.com/JTides/index.html. It's very accurate (output corresponds extremely well with government-published tables) and is completely free.

The program uses individual data sets from many parts of the world, since local data related to bottom topography, basin shape, etc. are important to accurate local prediction.

So far, so good. The US government, and those of many other countries, make this information available to the public free of charge. But not the Brits. Oh, no -- they hit Mr. Lutus with a C&D stating that such government-collected data was "Crown Property" and that it would not be made available to him, even though he was not making any commercial use of it. (He made his fortune early in the dotcom era, then got out. He currently spends his time sailing around the world and writing excellent free software. See his site for a lot more.)

His only option was to regretfully delete the "Crown Property" from his subsequent distributions. So, tough shit, sailors using "Crown Waterways" -- if you fetch up on a sandbar because you didn't know he stage of the tide, use your iPhome to let the Head Bitch know of your displeasure.

Ok, here's a question: Has this happened in the past?

It doesn't take long playing with simple, fun orbit simulators to see that while most planetesimals get glommed, a few get chucked. Escape velocity from the Sun at Mars distance is WAY MORE* (technological term) than Jupiter could perturb. Some things tossed could have 'very long' periods, but still not escape. THAT would be news.

And yes, I am a rocket scientist and yes, I HAVE done the math.

Vcircular * sqrt(2) = Vescape! 41% is too much, even for Jupiter.

I have been able to falsify your lies about psychology;

Absolutely not. A number of studies positively correlate astrological signs to behavioral traits or physical ailments. A Canadian study "concluded" that Libras are more likely to break their pelvis, Pisces are more likely to suffer heart problems etc and so forth. It was done primarily as an illustration to show what pseudoscience is. All the data was 100% valid, and the conclusions were, if you conclude as you do, valid. You can't.

Why does psychology fail the tests of scientific discipline? I think that this article sums it up to a degree. The two most glaring problems discussed in the article to me are "does research change practice" and "are there any falsifiable core theories defining the field".

Nothing against psychologists, by all means. They do a fine job on a lot of levels. That doesn't mean that what they do is science however.

No.

It sure as shit isn't helping your own people.

There is a very fine program called JTides which makes tidal predictions. The author made a fortune early on, writing commercial software. He no longer needs to make money, so has written a number of programs which he dispenses for free. JTides is one of these. It depends on data collected by national governments regarding various topographical conditions and measurements made in their waters.

Early editions of the program included this data for not-so-Great Britain. Then they clamped down and declared the data to be "Crown Property" (a haughty little phrase that roughly means the same as "a dog pissing on all the rocks in its territory"). Consequently the author added a notification in his program saying that GB tide predictions would no longer be coming from his program as he was unwilling to pay "The Crown" for data to be used in a free program.

Nice going, Bitch Elizabeth.

By the way, check out his free wares at http://www.arachnoid.com/ -- select one of the Careware links on the left. It's very worthwhile, well-written stuff.

Here is how you can beat the ban of humans on Mars:

Just go lobby the Congress into believing that the arid, Afghanistan-looking planet is a socialist state that painted itself all red, supplies illegal immigrants and exports products that could cause severe health problems. You don't even need to suggest it is in development of nuclear weaponry, once Mars gets the attention, any journalist looking for quick fame will release a "breaking news" that our spy satellites have found bomb testing sites. Not to mention the famous "they'll follow us home" scenario study with countless versions of simulations that can be slipped into the appendix section.

Then in no time you will see some 250,000 men up on the planet automatically without NASA having to spend/ask for a dime.

Whenever discussions about beliefs (of any sort, religious or not) arise anywhere, I tend to point people to the following website:

http://www.arachnoid.com/levels/index.html

It has a nice overview of how humans perceive the world, or better yet, how everyone's worldview is formed. Not knowing these distinctions can be fatal to your intellectual development. Those who founded this country realized the power of thought, speech, science, etc. and the fact that certain types of speech can generate beliefs which are not backed by any sort of factual/scientific knowledge. This is why they probably produced the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (my belief).

It is the height of hubris for some individual, commercial or governmental entity to demand political correctness/tolerance from Wal-Mart because their beliefs differ from mine, or the 1200 people who posted on this thread (again, my belief, since the game doesn't harm me in any sort of physical way - and it is free to try and convert me into anything, if it can...).

Ultimately, all religions converge on the one and only one issue that plagues humans to this day, and will probably continue to plague us forever - "Does god exist?". Well, I have no idea - however, I _believe_ in the _belief_ that God does exist. Note I did not say I believe that God exists - which would imply some 'truthiness' or (false, weasly) authority in my statement (of which there isn't any).

And I'll tell you why God exists - because there is no freaking way I will ever be able to know the answer to every question that ever bugged me, or why things are the way they are, why electricity flows from positive to negative, why a pile of carbon-based compounds is called a 'human', etc etc. God knows the answers, and if I can get closer to God by educating myself in the ways that God (and other humans like me, and better than me, for the last N thousand years) created for me, whether it be computer science (which is what I studied), physics, chemistry, language and/or all combined, then that's what I'll do.

What I won't do is ask you to believe any of what I said. 'Cause I could be lying too.

So now, you can believe what you will.

College students want a cheap but stylish machine, yet they don't want to lose their "gaming" functionality.

For Christ's sake!!!!! Priorities are definitely fucked here!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe they should read this before making any big buying decisions.

Oh, that's right. This is Slashdot. Mea culpa.

/rant

Found the guy's webpage, he is Paul Lutus, who wrote the Apple Writer for the Apple II, and now has a HTML editor called Arachnophillia. His homepage is here, and here is his sailing story.

Truly an interesting guy.

Found the guy's webpage, he is Paul Lutus, who wrote the Apple Writer for the Apple II, and now has a HTML editor called Arachnophillia. His homepage is here, and here is his sailing story.

Truly an interesting guy.

Found the guy's webpage, he is Paul Lutus, who wrote the Apple Writer for the Apple II, and now has a HTML editor called Arachnophillia. His homepage is here, and here is his sailing story.

Truly an interesting guy.

"There is one thing you absolutely must know about modern advertising. No matter how true any single advertisement is, modern advertising itself, taken as a whole, tells a lie - that you need the thing being advertised. It is a lie because consumer goods of real value do not need to be advertised...."

--Paul Lutus, from Consumer Angst

About psychology diagnostics:
http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/index.html

About Asperger's Syndrome:
http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/aspergers.html

HTH.

About psychology diagnostics:
http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/index.html

About Asperger's Syndrome:
http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/aspergers.html

HTH.

First, we would need to launch a mission to Mars, manned or unmanned, to secure and return to earth core samples that might provide evidence for or against DNA as the organizing scheme for the Mars life form. Having accomplished the return of a biological sample and determined the presence or absence of DNA, we are then faced with a quandary.

Read the full Article

If this is true, we shouldn't worry too much.

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Interesting article. Here is a clickable link.

I agree with most of it. I take issue with a few points, though.

But the majority of real-world examples are an illusory, not real, replacement of a prior product on the basis of overwhelming merit: Electric toothbrushes. Anti-lock brakes. Automotive Air bags. Electric bug zappers (they don't work against mosquitoes). Sonic bug repellers (they don't work at all).

I'm glad I have airbags and antilock brakes in my car. If the author thinks they don't do what they say they do, he'd better cite some evidence before I'll believe him.

in order to consume as we do, we must first be programmed to regard everyday experiences as completely unsatisfactory. This aspect of marketing has a lot in common with traditional religious practices:

• The truth is hidden from view.
• Your reward lies in the hereafter.
• True happiness in only available to the initiated, the "insiders."
• Everyday reality is a sham, a waste of time, an illusion.
• We are all defective, our personal experiences have no legitimacy without the validation of priests.

This anti-religion digression contradicts the authors original point that consumerism is something new, and certainly is a subjective opinion not shared by everyone, and might vary considerably by religion (they aren't all the same no matter what people try to say), though his comments are probably valid for most forms of folk religion (in which people pray to their god, go to church, etc.. in exchange for immediate material blessings - though that would contradict his second bullet point). It's hard to say what he meant by "traditional religious practices".

My (biased Christian) point of view is that:

• The truth is available to anyone interested in looking for it. This might involve a bit of reading and talking to people but it's not hidden in the sense of being some sort of big secret.
• Your reward is partially in the hereafter, but your relationship with God is a reward in itself.
• True happiness comes from a good relationship with God, but life can still suck a lot even so.
• Most aspects of everyday reality aren't as important as we make them out to be, but our relationships with and love of God and other people is relevant.
• We are defective, but Jesus died as punishment for our mistakes. Priests (or pastors, or whatever you happen to call your members of clergy) serve no official role other than organization and education (most large groups of people need to have some sort of leader to function)

-jim

First of all, Psychology is definitely a science.

Just because someone doesn't think that psychiatry/psychology is science doesn't automatically make them a Scientologist. Maybe you should do a little research before you go spouting off like you know what the fuck you're talking about.

But then again, I suppose that according to your logic that Paul Lutus is a Scientologist too.

The main reason Slashdotters dislike MS is because they go by actual psychological studies which are created by analysing the way people work (or dont, as the case often is).

Despite Microsoft's press releases to the contrary, Windows machines are not secure and need decent firewall and antivirus software. I see others have already mentioned the Kerio firewall, so I'll just add that it can be easily extended with Sponge's excellent, freely available filters. (I'm using set 2, but there are versions that are both more or less rigorous). I've also AVG Antivirus installed it seems to work well enough.

Some other useful free utilities:

Tclockex
A small utility that greatly increases the usefullness of the system tray clock. You can have the date as well as the time, as well as a resource monitor that lets you know at a glance how the system is doing.

AboutTime"
A little applet that sets the system clock from a list of time servers. Works well and unobtrusively.

7-zip
An easy to use explorer plug-in that understands most kinds of compressed files.

CDex
A great tool for ripping / converting CDs and mp3s.

X-teq>
A very powerful utility that lets you change pretty much everything that's changeable in Windows. Allows you to set Windows update registration done, which would only be useful to pirates and won't be mentioned here.

The Proxomitron
A web proxy that strips out ads, pop-ups and other garbage.

I'm more familiar with Redhat, but I have no doubt Mandrake will come out of the box with programs that are functionally equivalent to the ones listed here.

Just had a glance at HPcalc.org, and noticed that specifications for a new calculator, the HP49G+ are up. There's been talk that HP is releasing a new super calc, and this seems to be it.

It has a 75mhz ARM processor, SD card storage, IRDA, an improved keyboard and screen and several other HP features, such as RPN

Naturally, these specs are not set in stone, but it seems legit (check out This PDF file!) This calculator seems to be the TI-killer that HP supporters have been waiting for.

Just had a glance at HPcalc.org, and noticed that specifications for a new calculator, the HP49G+ are up. There's been talk that HP is releasing a new super calc, and this seems to be it.

It has a 75mhz ARM processor, SD card storage, IRDA, an improved keyboard and screen and several other HP features, such as RPN

Naturally, these specs are not set in stone, but it seems legit (check out This PDF file!) This calculator seems to be the TI-killer that HP supporters have been waiting for.

Just had a glance at HPcalc.org, and noticed that specifications for a new calculator, the HP49G+ are up. There's been talk that HP is releasing a new super calc, and this seems to be it.

It has a 75mhz ARM processor, SD card storage, IRDA, an improved keyboard and screen and several other HP features, such as RPN

Naturally, these specs are not set in stone, but it seems legit (check out This PDF file!) This calculator seems to be the TI-killer that HP supporters have been waiting for.

Just had a glance at HPcalc.org, and noticed that specifications for a new calculator, the HP49G+ are up. There's been talk that HP is releasing a new super calc, and this seems to be it.

It has a 75mhz ARM processor, SD card storage, IRDA, an improved keyboard and screen and several other HP features, such as RPN

Naturally, these specs are not set in stone, but it seems legit (check out This PDF file!) This calculator seems to be the TI-killer that HP supporters have been waiting for.

Just had a glance at HPcalc.org, and noticed that specifications for a new calculator, the HP49G+ are up. There's been talk that HP is releasing a new super calc, and this seems to be it.

It has a 75mhz ARM processor, SD card storage, IRDA, an improved keyboard and screen and several other HP features, such as RPN

Naturally, these specs are not set in stone, but it seems legit (check out This PDF file!) This calculator seems to be the TI-killer that HP supporters have been waiting for.