Slashdot Mirror

It's not really quite clear what the breakthrough is here. But I'm fairly certain it doesn't involve a group velocity (i.e. information transmission) greater than c.

You're right, it isn't. This article makes me sick. If people take shit like this seriously they can't be blamed for not being able to differentiate real science from quantum woo.

It's better to just ignore than try to correct it.

Teleportation is a real phenomenon, albeit a bit old. This is not their breakthrough. The breakthrough is doing it with a cat state (the name is a reference to Schrödinger's cat; this kind of state was inspired in it). These states are usually very fragile, and strongly entangled, hence the interest.

Also other breakthrough is doing it with the measurement of the number of photons and position. This is a promising technique, that I am personally working with at the moment to test Bell inequalities, because of its high resistance to noise. But I don't think it is very exciting to the general public...

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Courtier's_Reply

Why is the Republican party imploding into insanity?

Mainstream conservatives are caught in a double bind. It's becoming more and more clear that reality conflicts with their deeply-held belief system. The mental effort to change deeply-held beliefs is greater than the effort to belief irrational things.

The fact is that megacorporations are destroying the planet in their pursuit of profit. But conservatives know that laissez-faire capitalism is God's own favorite economic system. Therefore, climate change is a hoax, trees cause more pollution than cars, and "drill baby drill!"

The fact is that our current economic meltdown is the legacy of Reganomincs -- tax cutting,deficit spending, and policies favoring the rich. The fact is that the economy has done better under Democrats than under Republicans. But conservatives know that the Gipper stands just behind Jesus in greatness. Therefore, there must be shadowy forces at work that are responsible for the current mess.

The fact is that U.S. foreign policy is brutal and stupid and usually aids repression rather than freedom. But conservatives know that the U.S. is God's own favorite nation, His Chosen People. Therefore anyone who opposes our wars of aggression and our propping up of dictators is a terrorist sympathizer. (Prior versions had "Stalinist" rather than "terrorist".)

The fact is that America's health care system is pretty lousy compared to other developed nations. But conservatives know that You Ess Ay! You Ess Ay! You Ess Ay! is Number One! in everything. Therefore any attempt to change things must be a government takeover of health care that's going to give us death panels.

On just about every issue since the 1960s, the bulk of the conservative movement has been on the wrong side -- civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, the environment, the economy, war. There's only two things to do in that situation: abandon the conservative movement, or go nuts.

You kids and your argumentum ad cellarium!

You don't understand. Citizendium's own policies actively promote pseudoscience in many areas.

2. Hire real experts, real writers, professional editors. Toss the agenda-driven wankers and college kids.

Sanger tried that. It didn't work. Doesn't mean he hasn't given up yet. (NB: RationalWiki is NOT affiliated with Wikipedia; it was started as a response to Conservapedia (a large group of nutjobs with a wiki, also unaffiliated with Wikipedia)).

I've yet to see an anthropogenic global warming "skeptic" who wasn't just a denier JAQing off. I mean seriously, what is there to be skeptical about?

The entire scientific method is based on skepticism. Every theory is only good until it's falsified.

What are we supposed to do? NOT try to falsify AGW theories?

Your attitude is an attack on the very basis of science.

What part of the IPCC Working Group 1 report is wrong?

The parts based on the previously-assumed effects of increased CO2 - the parts that this new research invalidates to some degree.

The Earth is getting warmer, it's due to our carbon emissions ...

Says what? Computer models based on observed correlations? A few decades of correlations on a 4.5 billion-year-old planet? With no independent experimental verification?

I've yet to see an anthropogenic global warming "skeptic" who wasn't just a denier JAQing off. I mean seriously, what is there to be skeptical about? What part of the IPCC Working Group 1 report is wrong? The Earth is getting warmer, it's due to our carbon emissions, and all that's left to argue about is what the impact will be.

You can kinda sorta be "skeptical" about how negative of an impact that will be, but again I've yet to see anyone who's managed to make a good argument that more carbon and warmer average temperatures will somehow be good for us in general. And no, "carbon is plant food!" is not a good argument.

At RationalWiki we have a decent and well sourced write-up of CP:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia

Yup, they truly are batshit crazy - even by WorldNetDaily standards. The folks at WND were unimpressed when Andy (the owner of CP) turned Jesus in to a champion of capitalism and free-market principles. It's worth noting that WND is itself on the lunatic fringe of conservatism - with most of their advertising aimed at people stocking-up on supplies in advance of the impending UN invasion of America. CP pretty much replaced Jesus with Andy/Reagan in all but name.

The professor values page is part of Andy's long-running grudge against academia. Note that it's primarily a list of academics linked to negative behaviour. I could tomorrow write a similar article entitled "Car Mechanic Values" in which I'd provide a list of car mechanics who've killed and otherwise behave badly. Andy and sampling bias are close friends - which is odd given that Andy is fond of pointing out that he's done more courses in statistics than people who ask awkward questions such as "How did you choose your sample set?"

Offtopic:this
ObTopic: new RFC: To perform a (D)DoS, one MUST go through 4chan first.

Uh huh, you lucked out - a good chiropractor is basically a physical therapist without that accreditation, or an actual physical therapist going by another name for some reason. It doesn't really matter that the fundamental chiropractic theory is complete and utter unsubstantiated bullshit equivalent to Chi or ghost stories; if the treatment works, after all, it works (though I and I'm sure many other people have philosophical objections to that, it's hard to come up with pragmatic ones).

Unfortunately, not all chiropractors are as good as yours, and not all people who go to chiropractors are as lucky as you. There's definitely bad chiropractors out there, who say that their manipulations can cure literally everything. I mean, don't you remember the three or four Slashdot articles about the British Chiropractor Association suing Simon Singh for libel? They sued him because he said that a lot of their claims were bogus (literally, they sued him for using that word), and they eventually dropped the case because the claims are bogus.

Here's the problem, though: you can't tell which kind it will be before you go to them. Sure, you can look up reviews and ask your friends, but that is pretty meaningless; unless your friends are trained medical professionals, they're not really going to have a good idea of whether or not the chiropractor knows wtf they're doing. If you were designing a house, you wouldn't just find a random architect on Yelp - you'd make sure you found one who had a good reputation and was a licensed architect. The problem with chiropractors, though, is that there's very little if any regulation on who can call themselves a chiropractor, and there's almost no educational requirements; Joe Random off the street can basically just decide he's a chiropractor one day and open up shop, which is not how it works for the MD you so casually disregard.

"Fine," you say, "it doesn't really matter! From a pragmatic standpoint, they're not really hurting anyone, right? Either they cure you, or they send you off to a real doctor who does." Unfortunately, it often doesn't work like that; in terms of actual medical problems, the time a chiropractor spends trying to fix you by adjusting your sublaxations and crackin' your bones is time that's wasted unless you actually had certain classes of muscular or skeletal problem. If you had, say, severe joint pain and spent a couple of weeks going to a chiropractor instead of going to a doctor, the chiropractor might not even know to look for lupus. In the worst cases, unethical chiropractors might refrain from referring a patient with problems they can't handle to a doctor, simply because there's really no standards of conduct for them.

And even then, the contention that what they can only harm you by delaying treatment might not even be true! It's been argued (quite convincingly, I think) that certain kinds of chiropractic manipulations on the neck can cause stroke.

So yeah, it boils down to this: the actual art chiropractors practice (i.e, chiropractic) is a sham and a scam with absolutely no medical backing. Though there are actual chiropractors that know enough to heal you out there, there is no way of guaranteeing that any specific chiropractor won't try to adjust your neck and potentially give you a stroke, or give you bad advice that doesn't work, or string you along and delay effective treatment.

If you don't believe me, check your chiropractor's website or pamphlets - if they're in the USA, I bet you anything that they have something like the Quack Miranda Warning somewhere in there. And if they don't, they're not just a chiropractor - they almost certainly have some sort of real medical certification, which means that they don'

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo

They're heavily into creationism too. To the point where if a creationist says "we have scientists", they usually mean engineers. This is called the Salem Hypothesis.

Except it's dead, Jim. It failed and died. And the people that are left are pseudoscientists who convinced Dr Sanger they have credentials.

I would submit that judging by the results, CZ is not a good model to follow.

It's terribly sad, but Citizendium died some time ago. It has about 20 regulars left. Larry Sanger had to be phoned by one of the constables when he couldn't be found for three weeks and they needed him to approve holding a charter vote.

"Creationists claim that everything needs a cause, including the universe, then posit a god as the necessary cause and immediately proclaim that that god is immune to the "everything needs a cause" claim."

Citation needed. I've never heard that proclamation. There are many theories out there to why a god exists and why we exist in relation to them. You just dismissed them in favor of an illogical one.

It usually isn't explicitly stated. Thomistic cosmological argument

It isn't really sarcasm. If you complain that some things (emails, IP packets) get priority over others, the solution is to drop all priorities and treat all entities as equal. When you don't see important email messages in the spam or your VoIP calls cut out because of someone downloading porn, you'll see why it's important to give some pieces of information more priority over others.

How about snail mail neutrality? Demand an end to overnight packages!

What does it say when we can't tell a sarcastic comment about net neutrality from a legitimate one?

Reading your post Poe's law comes to mind... Are you just kidding?

Sceptics are adept at making really quite fetching mincemeat sculptures of religion, alternative medicine and the new age, but we need some serious attention paid to the transhumanist/singularist/cryonicist belief cluster. Because these are smart people, they are likely our friends, they share a lot of our notions and they are proving that the main use apes with delusions of grandeur like ourselves put intelligence to is being stupid with far greater efficiency.

Obligatory RationalWiki plug: Cryonics. I was actually neutral-to-positive on the subject until a friend started looking seriously into spending $120k on freezing his head and I started looking seriously into what he was getting into. And goddamn, it's woo all the way down. Woo by people who are ridiculously smarter than you or me and use it to be dumb. How do you fight that sort of woo? Piece by piece, of course. So I have to learn the bollocks on its own terms to take it down (at which point you see goalpost-moving, reversal of burden of proof, etc., all the things apes with delusions of grandeur do so well). And it's just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

tl;dr: Singularitarians talk as much utter bollocks as creationists, climate change deniers, New Age hippies and the tobacco industry. There needs to be more analysis and dissection of said bollocks.

Try the other one:

Poe's law (religious fundamentalism) — "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."[5] named after Nathan Poe who formulated it on christianforums.com in 2005.[6] Although it originally referred to creationism, the scope later widened to religious fundamentalism.[7]

or the one from http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law

Poe's Law points out that it is hard to tell parodies of fundamentalism (or, more generally, any crackpot theory) from the real thing, since they both seem equally insane. Conversely, real fundamentalism can easily be mistaken for a parody of fundamentalism.

Hmmm...it's tough to tell if your post is an example of Poe's Law or not. Either you're a complete crackpot, or you're a brilliant satirist.

Third parties airing their opinions in the public debate is an 'end-run' around our political system?

"Third parties"? Interesting that you would phrase it that way. In our political system, there is the electorate and the elected. By definition, anyone not of those two groups would be outside of our political system and thus not entitled to engage in it. To suggest that a piece of paper, which is all a corporation really is, is entitled to the same level of Constitutional freedoms as a living, breathing human being is, well, inane. What's next? The right to bear arms? "Dear employees, in accordance with our company's 2nd Amendment rights, all employees are being issued a sidearm for use in protecting corporate IP..."

Why are you so afraid of free speech?

Question cocked and loaded, huh?

Do you think the American people are too stupid to see corporate speech and decide for themselves?

Yes.

Another Poe's Law casualties.

Poe's Law points out that it is hard to tell parodies of fundamentalism (or, more generally, any crackpot theory) from the real thing, since they both seem equally insane. Conversely, real fundamentalism can easily be mistaken for a parody of fundamentalism.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law

google or wikipedia can help you with the concept of a general-purpose computer.

With regard to your personal attack and argument from adverse consequences, resorting to this sort of thing shows you have no real basis for your position.

My Dad can exercise his rights under copyright law with his VCR. Not with his comcast DVR (CGMS). Certainly not with his HD recorder (HDCP). If he wants to hack around these restrictions, he must develop everything himself. Nobody can sell him equipment to circumvent an access-control technology (DMCA)--even for the purpose of exercising his rights under the law.

Will you have the right to connect your general-purpose computer to the internet next year? Almost certainly.
Will your ISP permit only connection of "trusted" or locked-down "appliance" type devices in the near future? Why would they do such a thing? Bandwidth costs money. Defending lawsuits costs money. So the answer is maybe. Depends on what you do about it.
Consumer rejection killed DivX. TCPA has so far been a flop due to both political and technical reasons. Lack of interest made V-Chip largely irrelevant. Sony got egg on its face for their rootkit. BUT...
DMCA, CGMS, HDCP and any number of draconian to the point of bizarre restrictions on games are right here in front of you today.

RMS may successfully appeal to the crackpot geeks (one of which I am proud to call myself) on /. with The Right to Read, but this is preaching to the choir.

So, again--
It is important that the general public be aware of these sorts of shenanigans.
And that they make their outrage known by walking away from the culprit vendors and speaking simply, directly, and clearly to other potential customers.

Saying:
That "app" you just paid $9.99 for in your iPhone--do you know that in any other environment--including your own laptop computer, you can have this and an almost infinite number of others like it for free? ...
This accomplishes a whole lot more than saying "Well, as long as I can build a computer from parts there is no problem!"

Real-world tests by Wired, Engadget, etc. all show that you can have 4 bars and great signal. Hold the phone and have zero signal.

What real-world use are you talking about? I'm not even activating my iPhone 4 until I get my bumper in the mail I just ordered.

I also hate this notion that Apple products always just work.

Moderators: parent post is insightful?

1) You haven't even activated it and so you can't even verify the claims yourself, so you are basing your views on self-admitted anger about previous products and other people's reports only. And all that despite the fact that you could choose to gather actual good data simply by activating it and being a good nerd and doing your own tests? To focus on the phrase "real-world tests" and then mock the possibility of you actually doing real-world tests seems to denigrate the scientific method, and the approach of geekiness in general. Unlike you, I actually activated my iPhone 4, have made tons of calls with BETTER reception than my iPhone 3G. And I even downloaded the speedtest.net app and tested with left hand, right hand, and not touching the phone, and didn't see much of a real world difference when holding it **naturally**. I am open to the possibility that there is more of a problem for some people, but everyone I know with an iPhone 4 does not have this problem when they hold the phone naturally. (my experience is consistent with the excellent anantech article based on a fairly thorough and nerdy testing process.

2) I have gotten crappy reception a few times, but as an experiment put the phone down on a non-conductive table and demonstrated that the AT&T crappy reception is independent of any antenna touching issue. I can still say that AT&T sucks ass, but that doesn't mean that it's some touching-the-phone issue.

3) And then you quote WIRED to back up your vitriol. WIRED, like most of the media, for the most part has been reporting about other people's reports, not their own testing, and in summarizing their experience WIRED says "And in our own tests, as well as the reports of many readers, the antenna problem is not especially serious.". That is hardly the indictment you make it out to be in your post. I'd go so far as to say your post is entirely misleading about Wired's assessment.

3) Showing low bars doesn't == more dropped calls. The excellent anantech article has demonstrated this using a fairly thorough testing process.

Your post almost seems like a Poe's Law post in the voice of a Mac Hater.

Man, did I ever just get smacked by Poe's Law I honestly cannot tell if you're being serious, making a joke, trolling, or what.

At least the tobacco industry has mostly given up claiming smoking isn't bad for you. Now their shills are working for the climate change deniers. Yes, it's the same shills.

So, those would be Ad Hominem and Guilt By Association logical fallacies? Why did you include this at all? Who they used to work for or that they are being paid at all has no influence on whether or not the information they present is factual.

RationalWiki (unfinished) comparative example: A comparative guide to science denial.

And why did you include this? It's another Guilt By Association fallacy.

There are reasonable people with reasonable questions about the science behind human caused climate change, and you aren't going to do anything except turn them away from the true science by attacking them personally. I prefer to educate those that have incorrect perceptions, rather than personally attack them.

Creationists, climate change deniers, the tobacco industry ... they all use the same arguments. You can go through The Fine Art of Baloney Detection and find the examples right to hand.

At least the tobacco industry has mostly given up claiming smoking isn't bad for you. Now their shills are working for the climate change deniers. Yes, it's the same shills.

RationalWiki (unfinished) comparative example: A comparative guide to science denial.

Don't forget http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=JunkScience.com

Creationists, climate change deniers, the tobacco industry ... they all use the same arguments. You can go through The Fine Art of Baloney Detection and find the examples right to hand.

At least the tobacco industry has mostly given up claiming smoking isn't bad for you. Now their shills are working for the climate change deniers. Yes, it's the same shills.

RationalWiki (unfinished) comparative example: A comparative guide to science denial.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law

(also, YHBT)

In this CBS News link, it is reported that Rosenberg--like almost everyone else in Park City--is actually fron Los Angeles. This is also covered in the complaint filing. CBS news writes that she was walking down the middle of the road when she was hit. This is a VERY busy multi-lane road, with a lot of SUVs full of Californians rushing to Deer Valley driving well over the posted speed limit. Does anyone else find it ironic that the person filing a lawsuit under what is basically the Nuermberg Defense is Jewish? Or at least has a Jewish name....