Slashdot Mirror

https://xkcd.com/1589/

Problem solved.

Obligatory XKCD cite: https://xkcd.com/1321/

who cares? Geography isn't a serious science

Also obligatory.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/radi...

Relevant XKCD for comparisons of radiation levels:
https://xkcd.com/radiation/

https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

Right! Make it a standard.
https://xkcd.com/927/

You're confusing calculus with art history.

Calculus is essential to differential equations, which in turn is necessary to model the physical world. No scientific or engineering education is complete without it.

Computer modeling - throwing together observations and polynomials of presumed drivers - on occasion may make a significant correlation between f(input) and output. Don't depend on it, and don't use it for extrapolation. If you want to understand the mechanisms behind the real world, (nonlinear) differential equations are essential, and calculus is essential to differential equations.

The xkcd on purity applies to more than just purity https://xkcd.com/435/

Is as accurate as TornadoGuard?

First of all: Relavant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1050/ Second: The reason math is so crucial is not because many of us use abstract math in daily life but that it is such a good determinator of other skills. If you are bad at math you are probably bad at CS and engineering as well. It is in fact a basic skill, and a crucial part of a good education for any person in what they call STEM. And where if matters, college, you don't have to take math if you don't want to. Getting rid of Algebra II is good though, Trig/Elementary Caculus should be the high school standard. Taking Algebra II recently gained me nothing anyway.

Occam's Razor encourages us to look for more ordinary explanations first.

Yes, if we apply Occam's Razor, we can deduce that this is just Zorlax the Mighty trying to connect on LinkedIn.

A Mole of Moles: What would happen if you were to gather a mole (unit of measurement) of moles (the small furry critter) in one place?
https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/

https://xkcd.com/605/

if we extrapolate backwards, we can find that early Earth had a day that lasted just 6.5 hours.

How simplistic is such a backwards extrapolation?

https://xkcd.com/605/ (most of you won't even need to click the link, I'm sure)

From what I've seen, unless they are trying to make a peaceful presentation on a college campus that doesn't align 100% with whatever the SJW safe-spacers are agitated about this minute, they won't get banned.

Yaaaaawwwwwn.

Godwin had nothing on the more recent (and far more tedious) likelihood that virtually any thread over a few comments long- regardless of the subject- will feature some tedious pillock finding a spurious excuse (#) to turn it into a rant about Social Justice Warriors.

Refuse to call Trump a nazi though? Well in that case, Twitter [my emphasis] will make sure you don't go around ruining the first amendment with speech or anything.

Now I'm genuinely trying to figure out if this whole post is actually meant to be a satire on ignorant right wing Americans, or if you're really just that ignorant.

Look, do I have to post the link to the obligatory XKCD explaining who and what the First Amendment does- and more importantly *doesn't*- apply to? Do I? Do I?

Okay, then. Obligatory XKCD.

(No, not really. But if you're going on about the First Amendment like that and you *still* don't know the basic facts that the actual XKCD comic spells out, I doubt it's worth you wasting your time with difficult facts you're clearly unlikely to retain, or were never interested in learning in the first place.)

(#) Okay, this isn't actually true- they rarely bother with a worthwhile excuse, they just turn the subject to SJWs because something something something.

From what I've seen, unless they are trying to make a peaceful presentation on a college campus that doesn't align 100% with whatever the SJW safe-spacers are agitated about this minute, they won't get banned.

Yaaaaawwwwwn.

Godwin had nothing on the more recent (and far more tedious) likelihood that virtually any thread over a few comments long- regardless of the subject- will feature some tedious pillock finding a spurious excuse (#) to turn it into a rant about Social Justice Warriors.

Refuse to call Trump a nazi though? Well in that case, Twitter [my emphasis] will make sure you don't go around ruining the first amendment with speech or anything.

Now I'm genuinely trying to figure out if this whole post is actually meant to be a satire on ignorant right wing Americans, or if you're really just that ignorant.

Look, do I have to post the link to the obligatory XKCD explaining who and what the First Amendment does- and more importantly *doesn't*- apply to? Do I? Do I?

Okay, then. Obligatory XKCD.

(No, not really. But if you're going on about the First Amendment like that and you *still* don't know the basic facts that the actual XKCD comic spells out, I doubt it's worth you wasting your time with difficult facts you're clearly unlikely to retain, or were never interested in learning in the first place.)

(#) Okay, this isn't actually true- they rarely bother with a worthwhile excuse, they just turn the subject to SJWs because something something something.

Actually.. Randall Munroe (xkcd.com) discusses the genetic implications of this in his book What if? https://whatif.xkcd.com/book/ . Kinda scary.

https://xkcd.com/1022/

Reminds me of this XKCD https://xkcd.com/870/

XKCD covered this and came to the conclusion that laser propulsion just isn't practical, even by the lofty standards of theoretical intrastellar space travel.

Wi-Fi is a portmanteau of wireless and high-fidelity. The "fidelity" in high-fidelity refers to faithful reproduction of sound.

Wireless Fidelity strikes me as a malamanteau, unless you consider its digital nature to be the "fidelity" part. Ditto for Li-Fi IMHO.

Izzatzo? Randall Munroe seems to agree with Dyson that global warming is not our top priority http://what-if.xkcd.com/146/ .
In practice there are many reasonable ways to disagree about global warming. Dyson has reasonable doubts about the projections and about how damaging global warming is. He strongly believes draconic measures to restrict CO2 output are a very bad idea. So bad that he's willing to accept a few disasters such as disappearing glaciers. He doesn't think global warming is catastrophic enough to warrant draconic measures. So the discussion includes different levels.

Freeman Dyson doesn't believe human activity is causing global climate change, nor does he believe a changing climate is necessarily harmful. Historically, warmer times have been better times.

"Generally speaking, I'm much more of a conformist, but it happens I have strong views about climate because I think the majority is badly wrong, and you have to make sure if the majority is saying something that they're not talking nonsense." - Freeman Dyson.

If Freeman Dyson says your maths are rubbish -- They are.

If Freeman Dyson thinks the majority is badly wrong then he should actually put in some work to show them the error of their ways. Meanwhile a lot of talented scientists who study climate would say that Dyson doesn't know what he's talking about. This xkcd comes to mind.

Nah mate, we ain't grokkin that, not in my house, y'feel me? Peace.

https://xkcd.com/771/

Thanks, that's an interesting primer.

I jumped over some parts and plan to go back and reread, so forgive me if an answer was mentioned, but I have a question that has bugged me: Why can't we come up with a single text standard that works for everyone? Is it just the standard problem with standards?

http://xkcd.com/538/

"Mostly social engineering"

I don't have a problem with the specific thing that Apple is being asked to do. They aren't being asked to break the encryption they are being asked to change the firmware on the device to one that doesn't have an artificial throttle on the number of brute force attempts per second; and to disable the wipe command that is engaged with 10 wrong guesses.

I'm glad you're not the only one judging this then, because I have a problem with this. It would essentially mean that security could be defeated, which means it could be done by corrupt officials or corrupt Apple employees.

Sorry, maybe if Feds wanted info from the San Bernardino "terrorists" they shouldn't have shot them up and arrested them instead for questioning later using the guaranteed $5 exploit: https://xkcd.com/538/

I guess when you just gun down everyone you might lose key data!

That Fucking Article is dumbfer than A Bunch of Rocks

https://what-if.xkcd.com/141/

Normal light interacts with the atmosphere through Rayleigh scattering. You may have heard of Rayleigh scattering as the answer to "why is the sky blue." This is sort of true, but honestly, a better answer to this question might be "because air is blue." Sure, it appears blue for a bunch of physics reasons, but everything appears the color it is for a bunch of physics reasons.[2]

[2] When you ask, "Why is the statue of liberty green?" the answer is something like, "The outside of the statue is copper, so it used to be copper-colored. Over time, a layer of copper carbonate formed (through oxidation), and copper carbonate is green." You don't say "The statue is green because of frequency-specific absorption and scattering by surface molecules."

https://xkcd.com/927/

https://xkcd.com/327/

More seriously, there is usually no need and no point to embedding fonts. If it's not renderable in good old LANG=POSIX ASCII 7-bit flat text, or it has images and needs to include them in a plain HTML document, but can't be rendered with prettification and excessive layout, then it's a *bad document* and should be sent back to its author to learn how to write legible English in a legibal format.

If the document is not in English, OK, I can see a use for more formatting. Mathematical equations and chemistry notation, also OK if needed. But that is the *only* excuse for not using graphics free presentation. A QA checklist does *NOT NEED 37 fonts!!!*.

Taxing the rent-seekers that would literally* drown in the coming profits will be necessary. Necessary to KEEP giving them hilarious, robogrown profits, but whatever, UBI means the rest won't starve. Probably.

With that said, there's a few supplements that should've been a citizen's dividend in the first place. The Manna guy names a few, though some are just rebranding existing taxes as citizen's due: http://marshallbrain.com/robot...

* https://xkcd.com/1260/

You mean this : https://xkcd.com/978/ ?

Well, if it's energy waves, it can be used to communicate. I've seen that postulated in at least two SF stories.

How long will it be until the first GW phone call with nothing but heavy breathing? Or the first GW phishing email?

https://xkcd.com/1642/

https://xkcd.com/341/

Re. the cartoon - I guess that could happen, if you typed fast enough. One time at work I was standing next to my boss A, as he was talking to B on the phone. During the phone call, a quake whose epicenter was closer to B struck. B got all excited, saying "Hey, we're having an earthquake!" Then the shaking hit where A and I were. So A found out about the quake before he felt it.

This one also applies:
https://xkcd.com/937/

obligatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/723/

https://xkcd.com/376/

The universe started in 1970. Anyone claiming to be over 38 is lying about their age.

" Maybe its a split between those of use who see computers as a tool for work vs those that see them as entertainment."

I was 16 in 1992. If you were under 8 or over 18, or didn't have brothers or sisters that age at this time, you probably missed this stuff.

Now you want scary... Skifree came out only 5 years before the debut of Slashdot.... And Slashdot is getting close to 20 years old.

https://xkcd.com/1393/

SkiFree was a bona fide classic. It even has an XKCD comic!

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=skifree&es_sm=93

FFS .. what is /. coming to? Mentioning that a topic has an XKCD related cartoon yet not even linking to the original source

Even the ACs here are getting lamer.

But yeah, I'm with the OP on this one. I predate Windows in total for working with computers and I have no idea about skiFree. Maybe its a split between those of use who see computers as a tool for work vs those that see them as entertainment.

He was quick off the mark with this one, probably had it prepared: https://xkcd.com/1642/

> Doofus. e-ink doesn't use toner, it uses ink. You don't put toner carts into your ink-jet printer, do you?

Obligatory xkcd quote

XKCD

To be fair, Slashdot's summary is not worse than the paper's summary.

There's a long list of issues with their methodology, and they make a fair assessment of these in the "Threats" part, which BTW should be discussed in the article, and not in the appendices.

As a whole, this paper reeks "We wanted to show how / how much women were discriminated against in Open Source. Our findings showed the opposite, so we kept making up criteria until one would exhibit (barely) the bias we wanted to denounce."

Of course when you're doing that, you're just begging to fall for this.

Non-exhaustive list of other issues I noticed:
- Weighing issues: for example, how many commits from outsiders vs insiders. Given that, overall, women get better acceptance, I can conclude than insiders commit more than outsiders (in their dataset)
- Missing stats (for example, we get gendered stats on whether a pull request is linked to an issue, but no insider / outsider distinction)
- Plain old lies in the summary ("when a woman’s gender is identifiable, they are rejected more often" vs "Women have lower acceptance rates as outsiders when they are identifiable as women.")
- Failure to mention that the error bars are for the strict dataset. I suppose this is standard practice, but the dataset error bars are probably swamped by the non-representativity of the dataset in the first place, and the methodology shortcomings, which means that they're misleading (nobody cares about their dataset). They don't make any effort to evaluate these errors (obviously that would be the hard part), and leave us with some hand-waving like "we are somewhat confident that robots are not substantially influencing the results".
- Graphs that start at 60% to exaggerate differences (without using broken axis)
- Using "theory" for "hypothesis"

https://xkcd.com/1295/

Clean is misleading here

But we need to get around the same stigma that has hamstrung fission reactors - that "radioactive" means "cancerous death" to the electorate.

Snowballs thrown... no, YOU'RE misleading!!!

But seriously, people like you are the true problem. Everyone else, let's try to understand the actual facts about radiation. Obligatory xkcd:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Actually you are being unintentionally misleading. Certain radioisotopes can be ingested via metabolic processes, for example plutonium chloride is very water soluble and is readily absorbed. Within the body the radioisotope continues to emit radiation and some become organically bound to cells and other parts of the body and that's when the damage occurs, cumulative, slowly and, over time.

Dempending on what and where the radioisotope gets deposited, it eventually means cancerous death for some however it can also mean disease that manifests in the next generation ( transgenic) because of damage it does to the DNA of unborn children.

That's why these artificially made elements don't belong in the environment and keeping them contained is a question of how good our engineering is.

Personally I'm hoping Fusion works because it will produce far less waste products than the industrial processes of Fission reactors.

Everyone else, let's try to understand the actual facts about radiation. Obligatory xkcd:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Radionuclides emit radiation. What you need to understand is the behaviour of radionuclides in the environment. Until you do xkcd comics are only going to explain external radiation exposure to you. The difference between internal and external exposure is one damages you and the other probably won't do much of anything to you.

What radionuclides do in the body and how they get there is the understanding required, you insensitive clod.

Clean is misleading here

But we need to get around the same stigma that has hamstrung fission reactors - that "radioactive" means "cancerous death" to the electorate.

Snowballs thrown... no, YOU'RE misleading!!!

But seriously, people like you are the true problem. Everyone else, let's try to understand the actual facts about radiation. Obligatory xkcd:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/