Slashdot Mirror

You are correct
While full details on the difference are in the links,
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars...
http://science.kennesaw.edu/~r...

The primary distinction is summarized in the second article as :

Some scientists will tell you that the difference between them is that a law describes what nature does under certain conditions, and will predict what will happen as long as those conditions are met. A theory explains how nature works. Others delineate law and theory based on mathematics -- Laws are often times mathematically defined (once again, a description of how nature behaves) whereas theories are often non-mathematical. Looking at things this was helps to explain, in part, why physics and chemistry have lots of "laws" whereas biology has few laws (and more theories). In biology, it is very difficult to describe all the complexities of life with "simple" (relatively speaking!) mathematical terms.

Regardless of which definitions one uses to distinguish between a law and a theory, scientists would agree that a theory is NOT a "transitory law, a law in waiting". There is NO hierarchy being implied by scientists who use these words. That is, a law is neither "better than" nor "above" a theory. From this view, laws and theories "do" different things and have different roles to play in science.

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TLDR, I was mistaken and misremembered.

You're analogy compared them to making drugs illegal wherein all users of drugs are criminals; hence by comparison in your analogy, all users of computers are criminals. As I said, bad analogy. Use your brain.

No, drug users are not necessarily all criminals. Take for instance Cocaine. Coca (the plant used to make Cocaine) used to be found in "Coca Cola" in minute quantities. Its use was then fully legal. It's only in 1970 that people had to be licensed to administer it and that it became illegal for most of the population. Still now, Cocaine is still legal in the United States "for legitimate medical uses, such as local anesthesia for some eye, ear, and throat surgeries." [citation]

Saying that "drugs are illegal because all drug users are criminals" is circular reasoning.

That's a different scenario.

• Philip Morris said cigarettes were non-addicting. They didn't say they were addictive but that the addiction can be overcome. This is a possible red herring for the current discussion.
• Smoking a cigarette and taking in nicotine is the same act as smoking a cigarette and taking in nicotine. Committing simulated violence in a game and committing an actual act of violence against an actual person are not the same act. Any attempt at making one of these equivalent to the other, as one is a tautology and one is the very link in question, show that you are begging the question of the link from simulated violence to commission of actual acts of violence.
• Even if someone becomes physiologically addicted to committing simulated violence in a computer game, there remains a difference between that addiction and performing an actual physical act against an actual living person.
• The causal link between simulated violence in computer games and actual acts of violence is exactly what is at question. You are begging that question. (You cannot assume a priori the answer to a question and use that answer as support for answering the question. That's the fallacy of circular reasoning) or "begging the question".)
• Your use of demonizing Philip Morris and comparing myself to that company appears to be the genetic fallacy or somethign related to it.
• The press linking a few game players to crimes and that meaning all players of violent video games commit violent acts is the spotlight fallacy.
• Even if there's a correlation between players of violent video games and commissions of violent acts, one still has to consider and rule out the fallacies of confusing cause and effect, post hoc, ignoring a common cause, and even division (since the link between the two would likely to be stronger for certain types of people (like those with a mental failure distinguishing between fantasy and reality already)).
• Saying that either games cause real violence or they don't is a fallacy in itself, that of false dilemma. Surely even if playing violent video games is a contributing factor to actual violent acts, it is unlikely to be a sole or final cause. It is also unlikely to be a major cause compared to more significantly correlated contributing factors. It is unlikely to be the same level of contributing factor for people with different mentalities and different levels of faculties.

If you want to argue logically, please get your factual information correct and police your statements for logical fallacies.

You can read the "flimsy" details for yourself at the links below.

Federal Lawsuit
http://students.kennesaw.edu/~tbarne18/barnescomplaint.pdf

Valdosta State University Expels Student for Peacefully Protesting New Parking Garages
http://thefire.org/index.php/article/8531.html

T. Hayden Barnes' Letter to the Editor of VSU 'Spectator,' April 19, 2007
http://thefire.org/index.php/article/8525.html

Photo Collage on T. Hayden Barnes' Facebook.com Page
http://thefire.org/index.php/article/8530.html

The President of the University obtained copies of my counseling records, illegally, but he obtained them nonetheless. The records and three independent mental health professionals have overwhelming stated I was not a threat to myself or others. I have all my screws, thank you very much.

See the Federal lawsuit here http://students.kennesaw.edu/~tbarne18/barnescomplaint.pdf

See the Federal lawsuit here http://students.kennesaw.edu/~tbarne18/barnescomplaint.pdf

Unfortunately, I'm already having to take out student loans to attend another University.

See the complaint: http://students.kennesaw.edu/~tbarne18/barnescomplaint.pdf

Actually students of private schools may have some recourse in some states. Judges have ruled that student handbooks, codes of conduct, etc. are contracts between the student and the college/universityl.

If you read the complaint in Barnes v. Zaccari, you will see we allege breach of contract in addition to First Amendment, due process, and ADA violations.

http://students.kennesaw.edu/~tbarne18/barnescomplaint.pdf

Hayden

Depends what you're looking for. If you want to do it "convenient and cheap", you might be interested in the program I'm pursuing. I'm half-way plus through a Masters of Science in Applied Computer Science with a concentration in Information Assurance at Columbus State University, Columbus, GA. It's an on campus degree, but enough of the courses are offered remotely, they also offer a distance learning version. You probably understand the trade-offs of not being in a face-to-face class, but I'll still end up with a M.S. from an accredited state university and be exposed to everything from Forensics to Auditing to Penetration testing to Network security, etc. And the price is UNBELIEVABLY inexpensive!!
http://cs.colstate.edu/html_hi/programs/grad.aspx/
Price - approx $5000 plus books
Another choice is to get a computer-related degree from "wherever" and add expertise through programs like this:
http://www.kennesaw.edu/coned/sci/index.htm/
You will get more up-to-date info through seminars like these and more practical "real life" applications than through most academic courses which need to cover a broader spectrum and use published books (which already puts them 6-18 months behind the most current tools).

Either genetic modification is OK or it isn't

That is a textbook either/or fallacy. You lumped all forms of genetic engineering together into its root category and then challenged the "slashbots" to provide an absolutist stance of either being for or against the whole root category, when there are multiple forms of genetic engineering that you could support/oppose individually (for instance, genetic engineering toward humans and genetic engineering toward plants).

Here's an example of where your "reasoning" takes you: "I'm so sick of people who think that provoking a war just to boost the economy is bad, but then they support war against a country who attacked us! Either you support war or you don't! Which one is it, people?"

Galileo wrote about this more than three and a half centuries ago in Discorsi and sketched a nice illustration comparing femurs from different animals of different sizes. In his illustration, the longer femur was about 2.5 times longer but about 10 times wider. As S.J. Gould wrote in his "Size and Shape" essay in Ever Since Darwin:

He (Galileo) argued that the bone of a large animal must thicken disproportionately to provide the same relative strength as the slender bone of a small creature.

In that same essay, Gould also explained in his clear way the relationship between growing larger (length), surface area (length x length), and volume (length x length x length). In addition to bone strength, many other functions of animals that depend upon surfaces must serve the entire volume of the body. In a gorilla, digested food passes to the body through the surfaces of the small intestine. Oxygen is absorbed through the surfaces of the lungs.

So King Kong's leg bones would need to be much, much thicker. His chest cavity and intestine area would also need to much, much bigger to support his oxygen and digestion needs. That would be a very oddly-shaped ape. Don't let that ruin the movie, though.

second item should have a .mov on it instead of a .mp3: real link, no change to my last remark as I wasn't comparing them via those links.

How about a 5;33 second clip down to 1.9 megs.

Source: Massive Attack - Teardrop

AAC(with .mov wrapper): Massive Attack - Teardrop

The song is more than listenable, I had both playing simultaneous and switched between the streams, I could tell very little difference.

If someone is dying for a Real Audio version... :-P

Oh, if you like that song, Mezzanine by Massive Attack is a wonderful album, Available here

How about a 5;33 second clip down to 1.9 megs.

Source: Massive Attack - Teardrop

AAC(with .mov wrapper): Massive Attack - Teardrop

The song is more than listenable, I had both playing simultaneous and switched between the streams, I could tell very little difference.

If someone is dying for a Real Audio version... :-P

Oh, if you like that song, Mezzanine by Massive Attack is a wonderful album, Available here

(See subject.) (via frankie's journal)

UML lets you use an Activity Diagram for this as well. Typically activity diagrams are used to document a business process. Activity diagrams explicitly include synchronization and timing information. Sometime that's better than using a DFD as you know that a particular action must complete before its successor starts. Sometimes, it's worse because you may represent synchronization in the model that is simply an artifact of the current process. For example, I worked on cell phone point of sale system that would not let the sales rep take money until the phone activation was completed. This syncrhonization point was't really required for the business process (and actually caused lost sales when the activation system was slow or down), but had crept in through an activity diagram that listed activation as a pre-requisite for billing.

Activity diagrams are actually part of the UML replacement for flowcharts. State diagrams and sequence diagrams (plus, to a lesser extent collaboration diagrams (which are sort of a translation of sequence diagrams mapping objects spatially and time through notation) nostly complete the picture of UML things that replace flowcharts.

There is no straight analogy in OO for a flow chart or DFD. But activity diagrams (here, here, and here) serve a similar function. They provide a high level of abstraction that can be done with a picture.

One poster said to use a "high level language". I agree, at least with the first two words. I mildly disagree at the word "language". Some people think better in words, others think better in pictures.

What's important is that you don't try write your detailed code using pictures. People who map one set of things to a picture will map a different set of things to a language. So it is difficult to draw pictures that then create exactly the code (language) desired.

Keep the pictures (activity diagrams) high level but leave the details for coding by hand.

Having said that, I shall now waffle: If you're very good at thinking in pictures, UML does provide some detailed diagrams for run-time aspects of software.

• State Diagrams (here and here)
• Sequence Diagrams (here and here)
• and
• Collaboration Diagrams (here and here)

Drew

There is no straight analogy in OO for a flow chart or DFD. But activity diagrams (here, here, and here) serve a similar function. They provide a high level of abstraction that can be done with a picture.

One poster said to use a "high level language". I agree, at least with the first two words. I mildly disagree at the word "language". Some people think better in words, others think better in pictures.

What's important is that you don't try write your detailed code using pictures. People who map one set of things to a picture will map a different set of things to a language. So it is difficult to draw pictures that then create exactly the code (language) desired.

Keep the pictures (activity diagrams) high level but leave the details for coding by hand.

Having said that, I shall now waffle: If you're very good at thinking in pictures, UML does provide some detailed diagrams for run-time aspects of software.

• State Diagrams (here and here)
• Sequence Diagrams (here and here)
• and
• Collaboration Diagrams (here and here)

Drew

There is no straight analogy in OO for a flow chart or DFD. But activity diagrams (here, here, and here) serve a similar function. They provide a high level of abstraction that can be done with a picture.

One poster said to use a "high level language". I agree, at least with the first two words. I mildly disagree at the word "language". Some people think better in words, others think better in pictures.

What's important is that you don't try write your detailed code using pictures. People who map one set of things to a picture will map a different set of things to a language. So it is difficult to draw pictures that then create exactly the code (language) desired.

Keep the pictures (activity diagrams) high level but leave the details for coding by hand.

Having said that, I shall now waffle: If you're very good at thinking in pictures, UML does provide some detailed diagrams for run-time aspects of software.

• State Diagrams (here and here)
• Sequence Diagrams (here and here)
• and
• Collaboration Diagrams (here and here)

Drew

There is no straight analogy in OO for a flow chart or DFD. But activity diagrams (here, here, and here) serve a similar function. They provide a high level of abstraction that can be done with a picture.

One poster said to use a "high level language". I agree, at least with the first two words. I mildly disagree at the word "language". Some people think better in words, others think better in pictures.

What's important is that you don't try write your detailed code using pictures. People who map one set of things to a picture will map a different set of things to a language. So it is difficult to draw pictures that then create exactly the code (language) desired.

Keep the pictures (activity diagrams) high level but leave the details for coding by hand.

Having said that, I shall now waffle: If you're very good at thinking in pictures, UML does provide some detailed diagrams for run-time aspects of software.

• State Diagrams (here and here)
• Sequence Diagrams (here and here)
• and
• Collaboration Diagrams (here and here)

Drew

Whether you like that or not, it is likely the way it will be. Sure, some people would say, "well I wouldn't want to work for a draconian company like that anyway." Some others would say, "I have been unemployed for months, perhaps I should take the job and swallow my pride."

Sorry, allow me to clarify. We would be happy to support a Solaris machine getting connected, and configuring any software that you might like to use with it. However if you seriously think that I would support Oracle for you...well you are almost correct. I would be happy to help you find resources such as UCDavis, Kennesaw, and Oracle-Tutorial to help you out. However if you think that supporting Internet Software and doing full out support for Programming/Database Management can be confused, then you're never going to have an Internet connection because there is no ISP that will be right for you. I have helped customers figure out faults in their webpages, etc before, and I am sure I will do it again, however I think you may have taken my posting a little too far out of context :)

They don't even seem to have looked at freshmeat. The section "pong for your PC" holds just 3 or what for WinDos, so I went to freshmeat to find me a linux pong. I was really glad to find a pong for ncurses at this page. I had to change the Makefile to look for -lncurses instead of -lcurses, but it runs, and is really really funny. Does anyone else know of good Linux pong clones?