what's that movie called again ? If the profits outweigh the cost of the lawsuit...
Fight club?
"You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall. If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt. If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall."
Perhaps we can modify it for the case at hand:
A) Estimated public significance of a particular unethical behavior
B) Probability of the unethical behavior being revealed to the public
C) Estimated cost of repairing damaged image due to unethtical behavior
A * B* C = X , which is what it costs to act unethically. If X is greater than the profit we stand to make by acting unethically, we act ethically. But if X is less than estimated profit... MWUAHAHAHA
All knowledge has it's hard, strict, logic and mathematic side, and a more artistic, soft side.
Your post, especially this part made me snicker. I'm sure you believe indignation has some mathematical algorithm associated with it too, right?
The extent to which professedly "rational" people will become overwhelmingly *emotional* in defending their strictly logical rationality just tickles me. As Eddie Vedder wrote in the song "Not For You"... When you hate something... doncha do it too?
You are an asshole, and so you post angry, off topic comments to slashdot Oh the irony:)
If it burns 200 calories an hour on average, then you'd only have to use it for like 3.2 hours a day. Because, you know, burning 640 calories should be enough for anybody.
Seriously though, if they were manufactured to generate electricity, I wonder how much energy an average corporate office would generate?
Its not surprising to me that many people fall back to the "minors have inferior judgment" argument for explaining why there are laws prohibiting them from exercising the same freedoms as adults. Consider the following questions:
Which population is more likely to succumb to peer pressure: minors or adults?
Which population is more likely to understand the impact of various behaviors on health: minors or adults?
Which population is more likely to be genuinely concerned with their own health: minors or adults?
I think most people are going to answer adults in each case. Now, I was careful to use the phrase 'more likely' above for good reason. We all know some adults that act more immature than 12 year olds, and we know some minors who already have more gray hairs than Granpa Frank. The problem with smoking and drinking laws is not that there is different rules for different groups, that concept seems obvious to me. Some cases warrant treating groups differently, especially when it comes to minors and adults. I don't think any sane individual is going to effectively argue that an average 12 year old has the same capacity for judgment than an average 32 year old does.
The problem with these laws is in the way we quantify the differences between groups. Its easier to play the averages and assume that age closely correlates to more maturity and common sense, but there is always the idiots and the geniuses on the edges of the statistical curve that are exceptions to the rule.
Understand that this is coming from someone who is male, unmarried, and who used to be younger than 25. I got raped on car insurance, even though I had neither recieved a traffic ticket nor had ever been responsible for an accident. In that case, I was one of the out-liers, paying a premium for insurance due to the careless driving behavior of the average unmarried male under the age of 25. So I am all for coming up with better criteria to discern between groups, but given the lazy ass nature of mankind, I think we will always just stick with the averages.
You should read earlier comments before posting and making yourself look silly.
Well, seeing as I did do some reading, I really don't feel I made myself look silly at all. From what I have read, here and other places, in order for the approval to have been set automatically to install on this patch, the WSUS admin must have already approved the superceeded update for WDS 2.x. Granted, Microsoft is admitting that the WDS 3.x package should not have been considered a revision to the WDS 2.x update. But If anything here is silly, its an Admin approving an update to a product that isn't even installed in their environment.
This is more of a case of poor server administration than a "snafu" on the part of Microsoft. Windows Server Update Services can be configured so that it does NOT automatically approve ANY update for install. It requires an admin to go in and approve each individual update for install.
I am guessing that these sys admins were just lazy and turned automatic "install" approval on. My WSUS server hasn't even downloaded the update because I have configured it to only get updates classified as "security" or "critical" updates. And being a regular WSUS Admin myself, the statement "even though administrators configured systems not to use the program" doesn't even make any sense.
All you have to do is configure WSUS to either:
Not download non-security related updates at all -or-
Not automatically approve new updates for install.
In fact I believe 2) is the default option anyway, which lends support to the "lazy sys admin" theory.
If they weren't using WSUS, and instead have their clients pointed to M$ for Automatic Updates... we'll they deserve whatever happens to them at that point. If you want control over what gets installed on your clients, don't give up control of what gets installed on your clients.
I am the Sys Admin for ensuring that our roughly 1800 desktops and notebooks get updated with the latest updates. Microsoft's strategy is the very least of my concerns. The patches show up on WSUS the Wednesday morning after they are released. I read up on them, noting any "caveats" in the KB articles and inform our help desk if I find anything signficant. Then, I set my approvals and decline any superseded updates. The clients check in and install the updates over night. I am not sure where all this talk about long nights with Red Bull and whatever come into play. If we have mission critical systems, we withold approval for that group for a week or so until we are confident that there are no undisclosed "caveats." Super simple.
I like having a regular schedule for updates. But I wouldn't mind a little more frequency. Why not the first and third tuesday of every month? Sounds reasonable to me.
Now if were only that easy for all the other software vendors out there like Adobe (Acrobat / Flash), Sun (Java), and so on. Where are their enterprise patch management solutions? Why can't I configure my Java clients to check into to one of my servers to automatically apply security updates? Instead I have to spend more money on a 3rd party patch management solution. And I haven't found one yet that is as reliable and simple as WSUS.
People who push causal links between stimulus x and behavior y forget something. We are not pigeons. We are not dogs. We have all the older brain structures, granted. We can be and are conditioned to do certain behaviors all the time. But what we have that animals don't is higher cortical regions. We have parts of the brain to stop and ask: "Wait, is this really how I want to respond to this situation?" Granted, sometimes the stimulus is so overpowering it prevents us from accessing these more evolved brain functions.
The fact of the matter is, all forms of stimulus influence behavior. The question is, how strongly do violent video games act as an influencer for violent behavior? If we look at how insanely popular games like the GTA series are, I think its pretty safe to assume that the influence is insignificant. Otherwise there would be huge problems with the car insurance industry.
Yes gaming can arouse the SNS. So can getting cut off while you are driving down the freeway. Neither has a causal link to violent behavior. It makes you feel like you WANT to kill someone. But again, we have higher cortical functioning that can intervene on behaviors done by reflex and allow us to behave by more rational processes.
Lets ban children from watching, listening to, or reading the news. There are all kinds of accounts of anti-social behaviors contained in the news. Shouldn't we be "protecting the children" from that too?
Besides, are social problems like school related shootings really being encouraged by video games, or is it possible that massive news coverage plays a larger role? I mean, I take what I see on TV to be a lot more "real" and "possible" than anything I see on a video game.
Only an AC could make such a ridiculous post. You describe MMO's as if they are casinos. There is a big difference here... MMO's aren't designed to profit from the amount of time you play during the month. They get their $x per month whether you play 2 hours a month or 48.
My comments are coming from someone who at one time played 3 to 4 accounts simultaneously in the orignal EQ. I had over 200 days played on my "main" alone. Was I addicted? I would say yes. But how is that any different from people who spent 200 days over the same time period watching television or reading books? The true sign of an addiction, in my "practical" opinion, is when the behavior becomes harmful to the individual, but they continue the harmful behavior anyway.
The Buddha had a simple explanation of what it means to be wise: its learning to avoid the behaviors we WANT to perform when we know that they are ultimately bad for us, and about embracing the behaviors we would prefer NOT to perform when we know that they are ultimately good for us. But how do we learn whether a given behavior is good for us or not? You learn by performing that behavior and paying attention to the results. Given that, I know a group of recovering alcoholics that have a saying: "If you believe that a drink is the answer you are looking for, let me buy you your next round." The trick about human beings is that we typically must hit a "rock bottom", reaching a critical mass of suffering before we are finally willing to make a personal change.
The point here is that the problem is not in the objects of the behavior, the problem is with the person performing the beahvior. Removing the casino doesn't heal the gambler's addiction. Prohibition does not cure the alchoholic. Nor does limiting game time alleviate the gamer's obsession.
These regulations from China are not about the psychological well being of the children.
They are about mind and behavior control. The less time the populace is exposed to the outside world, the more time the government can indoctrinate them to fall in line with their inner world.
Comparing this building to the colosseum in Rome is quite a bit absurd. The colosseum has a much greater cultural significance than this building. Not only that but it has architectural significance as well. I hardly see how this compares to an office building, even if it once housed the business that would encourage the growth of a "tech sector" in that area of the country.
Comparing the building to modern sports arenas is perhaps more on the level. Its no longer out of the ordinary to have super structures like these in major cities. Not only that, these venues are no longer as dominant in culture as they were back when the colosseum was active. The majority of fans now enjoy watching sports from the comfort of their own sofas or their favorite pubs.
My tuning begins before even installing the OS. I make the C: drive about 20 to 40 gigs, depending on available space. If I have multiple drives, I might dedicate C: to one. The point is, I always will create another partition or two, usually D: for data, G: for games, and J: for junk. That way if I need to format and reinstall the OS or back up important data, its much easier to deal with. Data I want to back up goes on D:, for example.
I will place the page file on J: as well. J: is for things where I don't care if files are fragmented or optimized so much. The pagefile goes on before any other data and is static in size, so I don't figure fragmentation is a problem there.
After windows is installed, I obviously update to the latest hotfix level, install missing drivers, directx 9.x and etc. This is probably the most time consuming step.
I always change the start menu to "Classic" so the "My Computer" and "My Net Places" are on the desktop. And I don't care for the "improved" start menu so "classic" is a quick and easy fix. I usally take the bitmap off the background as well.
From there I go through the services and disable all the lame ones that I never really found useful, like the wireless one (where my PC doesn't have a wireless device installed). I used to have a batch file for that to make it more convenient, but I am too lazy to make a Cd or have a usb key to make it available.
After that, if I am on a home network, I will set up a XFER share (usually on J:) with everyone ALL permissions. That makes it easy to share files, and its standard across any of my PCs on the network. I might do things like statically assign the IP, in case I need to for NAT / port forwarding.
Thats about it, all my tweaks are generally function related over form. I don't need my OS to be pretty and gadgety looking. Give me a shortcut on either my desktop (if its EXTREMELY common for me to use) or on my start menu and I am good. All in all it takes me the better part of an afternoon to get it set up and ready to go.
I could not determine from reading the article that Hawkings suggested the universe came from nothing. Unless there is something more obvious in the webcast, I suspect this is just a bad interpretation of what he was trying to communicate
To the philosophical issue of "nothing", I will say this. There is no such thing as nothing! Much has been said about nothing, but insofar as nothing is intended to mean "no thing", then what the hell are we even talking about? Seriously, as soon as you have given a point of reference to something that is suppposedly "nothing", then it can no longer be an instance of "nothing". Evaluate the following statement: "nothing doesn't exist." You should realize that if nothing DID exist, it would no longer be "nothing", but instead be some existent THING.
The idea of nothing is just a psychological device that humans use to blanket their psyches from the anxiety produced by the unknown and the not understood. The term "nothing" is akin to cosmological terms like "black holes", "dark matter", and "dark energy". I suggest that the real reason these things are "black" and "dark" is because the light of human awareness has yet to illuminate what is actually going on there.
So terms like "nothing" really only mean... "We intuit that something is going on, but as of yet we cannot fathom what that might be." Instead of saying "we simply don't understand what is going on at this time" we give things an almost occult identity: "it must be dark matter!". This is why, ultimately, I classify science in the same category as religion. When we cannot understand something, we posit a "mysterious force" that we "believe" must be there in order to explain the world that is around us.
The reason why the "hard problems" of science continue to be "hard problems" is because you cannot solve a problem with the same limited mind that created it. We keep asking "where did the universe come from?" because we still believe that time and existence are linear. We believe that things have a "set beginning" and a "set end". We believe all things are effects of some previous cause. We believe these things so much in the same manner that people used to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe. And just like then, when someone points out that maybe that is NOT the way things actually work, they get branded a lunatic.
First, according to article, the rats were first "trained" to fear both tones. Thus, you don't have to administer the drug before the stimulus has been conditioned to produce a fear response and you don't have to administer the drug during the fear conditioning. Therefore, this is not a proactive treatment, but a retroactive one. You would not use this drug to train a ruthless, emotionless army. The article says nothing about the drug preventing or blocking the future association of neutral stimuli with a fear response provoked by a stressful stimuli.
Second, the drug is administered and then the "conditioned" stimuli is introduced while the subjects are under the influence of the drug. Later when the drugged subjects were tested, they showed no fear response for the stimuli they rehearsed while drugged. And the fear response was only removed for the stimuli that was introduced during the drugging, leaving other conditioned responses intact.
Now, as is often the case with news articles on research, the article's claim is misleading. This research does not actually imply that you can selectively remove a fearful memory. The research design only targetted conditioned, associative responses, which are a subset of the larger category of memories. There is memory for the event in itself and there is memory for associating the event as the cause of some unpleasant effect. But all the research shows is that the the link between the conditioned stimuli and the fear response has been broken. There may still be "episodic" memory for the original stimuli and the unpleasant. Unfortunately, we cannot interview the rats and ask them if they remember the details of their conditioning prior to the drugging.
On to humans... if the drug does not remove the "episodic" memory of the "traumatic" stimulus, it might not be all that advantageous to remove the "fear" response in the first place. Imagine what it might be like to feel NOTHING when you are recalling a mortar round tearing your friend into pieces beside you. That might be a lot more sinister than feeling stressed. But what you do in the case of PTSD is administer the drug and then play sounds like cars back firing, ballons popping, and etc. That way you help the patient to unlearn the "stress response" for neutral, non-related stimuli without affecting the original memory and association.
When contemplating the balance between preserving privacy and enforcing the law, I think its best to reflect on a brilliant quote by Nietzsche: "He who fights with monsters should take care lest he thereby become a monster." The fact that some people can tolerate, and even worse commendate the actions of a vigilante is appalling. Two wrongs have never made a right, except in the minds of those who believe in a perverted sense of justice.
Many people are completely fine with these tactics when employed against child molesters. But if we truly were to advocate this sort of behavior, do you think it would really stop with child molestation? Once we got enough of THOSE bad guys off the street, whats to stop the next "gevious offense to society" from taking its place?
And while looking for child molesters, if we happen to uncover someone who likes to practice recreational pharmacology, do we expect our vigilante to overlook this much more minor offense? Perhaps... But perhaps some employers would be very interested information like that when evaluating prospective employees. They may be interested enough to pay a fair amount of money for information like that. Is your vigillante so morally upright as to not be seduced into profiting from their social espionage?
This guy installed a trojan virus on 3000+ computers to spy on them in hopes of catching a predator. How many emails did he read about what was going to be eaten for dinner? How many about who was taking the kids to the soccer game? There is something dark and creepy about the whole topic. In a very serious way, we was molesting the privacy of several people in trying to discover something awful about them.
What do you say of a man who stalks people, searching for something dark and evil about them? I call that a man who struggles with the darkness in his own mind, who is really looking for the monster festering within him. One must take care when fighting monsters that he doesn't become one in the process, indeed.
With the Wii's success, one could only hope that developers will start paying more attention to gameplay innovation rather than graphical innovation. I think the success of Nintendo's new console underscores a revolution that has been waiting to take place in the gaming industry: an emphasis on playability and fun over impressive visuals. Now, if we could just combine next-gen visuals with next-gen gameplay -- a gamers' nirvana!
As I recall, Microsoft had already begun development on a major service pack before Vista hit retail shelves. Are we really all that suprised to discover that there are some issues with the new O/S? This is just another example of a commercial beta release, if you ask me. I seem to recall that "Testers urge Microsoft to extend Vista Beta" news stories were a dime a dozen on several IT news sites after Microsoft confirmed the release date.
In regards to gaming performance and WHQL drivers, I tend to think that a significant number of PC gamers are smart enough to try updating video drivers if their video performance is buggy or slow. Maybe I am giving PC gamers too much credit? I just figure if you are unable to learn how to properly configure your O/S for optimal gaming performance, there is a large and far less technically inclined console market waiting for your business.
In regards to addiction, basically, there are two types of reinforcements for behaviors, namely:
Positive reinforcement (induction of pleasant feelings - you feel better)
Negative reinforcement (cessation of negative feelings - you feel better)
When engaged in any behavior, if a person is reinforced through either mechanism, they are more likely to continue to perform that behavior. However, most addictions arise out of behaviors that initially promote negative reinforcement but are eventually linked to the surfacing of negative affects (feelings).
To use alcohol as an example, drinking may reduce stresses, inhibitions, and anxieties (negative reinforcement), but if consumed in excess, will lead to negative results such as a hang over or in extreme cases, the shakes. In the case of alcohol, we have the cliché "You just need a little of the hair of the dog that bit you." Basically, consuming more alcohol will postpone or temporarily alleviate the negative consequences of drinking too much alcohol, which is itself more negative reinforcement. Now we are able to appreciate the cyclical nature of addiction.
With this understanding, its possible to see how something like the internet can become addicting. We need to look no further than MMORPGs to illustrate the point. In SOME cases, people who are unsatisfied with ther "real" social life will engage in online play. This has the effect of removing their feelings of dissatisfaction (negative reinforcement) while quite possibly harming their "real life" social life. Thus, the player must lean even more heavily on gaming to alleviate the feelings of dissatisfaction with his/her "real life".
Now, whether "Internet Addiction" could ever qualify as a medical condition... I have little to say there. I am ever suspicious toward the practice of "medicine", I believe they call it a "practice" for a reason.
Just in case the end-boss is David Blaine and he animates a giant stone Abraham Lincoln, the way to beat him is to build a giant stone John Wilkes Booth.
There is a poster where I work. It reads: "The greatest security device ever created." Beneath that is a picture of a human brain. Unfortunately, the human brain is also the greatest security vulnerability ever created.
When you have behavior like computer users with administrator rights clicking "OK" on the "Install smiley faces now!" pop up, the vast majority of security breaches are due to poorly trained computer users and system/network administrators. If OS/X or Linux owned the desktop marketshare that Windows does, it still would not improve the behavior of the users and admins. I haven't found an O/S yet that trains people not to do stupid things on their computers.
Dedicated servers don't browse the web and install weather tracker toolbars, so they are a completely different discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
Fight club?
Perhaps we can modify it for the case at hand:
A) Estimated public significance of a particular unethical behavior
B) Probability of the unethical behavior being revealed to the public
C) Estimated cost of repairing damaged image due to unethtical behavior
A * B* C = X , which is what it costs to act unethically. If X is greater than the profit we stand to make by acting unethically, we act ethically. But if X is less than estimated profit... MWUAHAHAHA
Your post, especially this part made me snicker. I'm sure you believe indignation has some mathematical algorithm associated with it too, right?
The extent to which professedly "rational" people will become overwhelmingly *emotional* in defending their strictly logical rationality just tickles me. As Eddie Vedder wrote in the song "Not For You"... When you hate something... doncha do it too?
You are an asshole, and so you post angry, off topic comments to slashdot Oh the ironyI know... Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
If it burns 200 calories an hour on average, then you'd only have to use it for like 3.2 hours a day. Because, you know, burning 640 calories should be enough for anybody.
Seriously though, if they were manufactured to generate electricity, I wonder how much energy an average corporate office would generate?
440,000 square feet? Anyone else surprised that these data centers aren't 640K square feet?
Its not surprising to me that many people fall back to the "minors have inferior judgment" argument for explaining why there are laws prohibiting them from exercising the same freedoms as adults. Consider the following questions:
I think most people are going to answer adults in each case. Now, I was careful to use the phrase 'more likely' above for good reason. We all know some adults that act more immature than 12 year olds, and we know some minors who already have more gray hairs than Granpa Frank. The problem with smoking and drinking laws is not that there is different rules for different groups, that concept seems obvious to me. Some cases warrant treating groups differently, especially when it comes to minors and adults. I don't think any sane individual is going to effectively argue that an average 12 year old has the same capacity for judgment than an average 32 year old does.
The problem with these laws is in the way we quantify the differences between groups. Its easier to play the averages and assume that age closely correlates to more maturity and common sense, but there is always the idiots and the geniuses on the edges of the statistical curve that are exceptions to the rule.
Understand that this is coming from someone who is male, unmarried, and who used to be younger than 25. I got raped on car insurance, even though I had neither recieved a traffic ticket nor had ever been responsible for an accident. In that case, I was one of the out-liers, paying a premium for insurance due to the careless driving behavior of the average unmarried male under the age of 25. So I am all for coming up with better criteria to discern between groups, but given the lazy ass nature of mankind, I think we will always just stick with the averages.
Well, seeing as I did do some reading, I really don't feel I made myself look silly at all. From what I have read, here and other places, in order for the approval to have been set automatically to install on this patch, the WSUS admin must have already approved the superceeded update for WDS 2.x. Granted, Microsoft is admitting that the WDS 3.x package should not have been considered a revision to the WDS 2.x update. But If anything here is silly, its an Admin approving an update to a product that isn't even installed in their environment.
This is more of a case of poor server administration than a "snafu" on the part of Microsoft. Windows Server Update Services can be configured so that it does NOT automatically approve ANY update for install. It requires an admin to go in and approve each individual update for install.
I am guessing that these sys admins were just lazy and turned automatic "install" approval on. My WSUS server hasn't even downloaded the update because I have configured it to only get updates classified as "security" or "critical" updates. And being a regular WSUS Admin myself, the statement "even though administrators configured systems not to use the program" doesn't even make any sense.
All you have to do is configure WSUS to either:
In fact I believe 2) is the default option anyway, which lends support to the "lazy sys admin" theory.
If they weren't using WSUS, and instead have their clients pointed to M$ for Automatic Updates... we'll they deserve whatever happens to them at that point. If you want control over what gets installed on your clients, don't give up control of what gets installed on your clients.
The first iteration of the "multi-core" OS will be barely functionable.
The second iteration will be usable, but bug ridden.
By the third or forth iteration, it will be an O/S worth running.
I am the Sys Admin for ensuring that our roughly 1800 desktops and notebooks get updated with the latest updates. Microsoft's strategy is the very least of my concerns. The patches show up on WSUS the Wednesday morning after they are released. I read up on them, noting any "caveats" in the KB articles and inform our help desk if I find anything signficant. Then, I set my approvals and decline any superseded updates. The clients check in and install the updates over night. I am not sure where all this talk about long nights with Red Bull and whatever come into play. If we have mission critical systems, we withold approval for that group for a week or so until we are confident that there are no undisclosed "caveats." Super simple.
I like having a regular schedule for updates. But I wouldn't mind a little more frequency. Why not the first and third tuesday of every month? Sounds reasonable to me.
Now if were only that easy for all the other software vendors out there like Adobe (Acrobat / Flash), Sun (Java), and so on. Where are their enterprise patch management solutions? Why can't I configure my Java clients to check into to one of my servers to automatically apply security updates? Instead I have to spend more money on a 3rd party patch management solution. And I haven't found one yet that is as reliable and simple as WSUS.
People who push causal links between stimulus x and behavior y forget something. We are not pigeons. We are not dogs. We have all the older brain structures, granted. We can be and are conditioned to do certain behaviors all the time. But what we have that animals don't is higher cortical regions. We have parts of the brain to stop and ask: "Wait, is this really how I want to respond to this situation?" Granted, sometimes the stimulus is so overpowering it prevents us from accessing these more evolved brain functions.
The fact of the matter is, all forms of stimulus influence behavior. The question is, how strongly do violent video games act as an influencer for violent behavior? If we look at how insanely popular games like the GTA series are, I think its pretty safe to assume that the influence is insignificant. Otherwise there would be huge problems with the car insurance industry.
Yes gaming can arouse the SNS. So can getting cut off while you are driving down the freeway. Neither has a causal link to violent behavior. It makes you feel like you WANT to kill someone. But again, we have higher cortical functioning that can intervene on behaviors done by reflex and allow us to behave by more rational processes.
Lets ban children from watching, listening to, or reading the news. There are all kinds of accounts of anti-social behaviors contained in the news. Shouldn't we be "protecting the children" from that too?
Besides, are social problems like school related shootings really being encouraged by video games, or is it possible that massive news coverage plays a larger role? I mean, I take what I see on TV to be a lot more "real" and "possible" than anything I see on a video game.
Only an AC could make such a ridiculous post. You describe MMO's as if they are casinos. There is a big difference here... MMO's aren't designed to profit from the amount of time you play during the month. They get their $x per month whether you play 2 hours a month or 48.
My comments are coming from someone who at one time played 3 to 4 accounts simultaneously in the orignal EQ. I had over 200 days played on my "main" alone. Was I addicted? I would say yes. But how is that any different from people who spent 200 days over the same time period watching television or reading books? The true sign of an addiction, in my "practical" opinion, is when the behavior becomes harmful to the individual, but they continue the harmful behavior anyway.
The Buddha had a simple explanation of what it means to be wise: its learning to avoid the behaviors we WANT to perform when we know that they are ultimately bad for us, and about embracing the behaviors we would prefer NOT to perform when we know that they are ultimately good for us. But how do we learn whether a given behavior is good for us or not? You learn by performing that behavior and paying attention to the results. Given that, I know a group of recovering alcoholics that have a saying: "If you believe that a drink is the answer you are looking for, let me buy you your next round." The trick about human beings is that we typically must hit a "rock bottom", reaching a critical mass of suffering before we are finally willing to make a personal change.
The point here is that the problem is not in the objects of the behavior, the problem is with the person performing the beahvior. Removing the casino doesn't heal the gambler's addiction. Prohibition does not cure the alchoholic. Nor does limiting game time alleviate the gamer's obsession.
These regulations from China are not about the psychological well being of the children. They are about mind and behavior control. The less time the populace is exposed to the outside world, the more time the government can indoctrinate them to fall in line with their inner world.
Comparing this building to the colosseum in Rome is quite a bit absurd. The colosseum has a much greater cultural significance than this building. Not only that but it has architectural significance as well. I hardly see how this compares to an office building, even if it once housed the business that would encourage the growth of a "tech sector" in that area of the country.
Comparing the building to modern sports arenas is perhaps more on the level. Its no longer out of the ordinary to have super structures like these in major cities. Not only that, these venues are no longer as dominant in culture as they were back when the colosseum was active. The majority of fans now enjoy watching sports from the comfort of their own sofas or their favorite pubs.
My tuning begins before even installing the OS. I make the C: drive about 20 to 40 gigs, depending on available space. If I have multiple drives, I might dedicate C: to one. The point is, I always will create another partition or two, usually D: for data, G: for games, and J: for junk. That way if I need to format and reinstall the OS or back up important data, its much easier to deal with. Data I want to back up goes on D:, for example.
I will place the page file on J: as well. J: is for things where I don't care if files are fragmented or optimized so much. The pagefile goes on before any other data and is static in size, so I don't figure fragmentation is a problem there.
After windows is installed, I obviously update to the latest hotfix level, install missing drivers, directx 9.x and etc. This is probably the most time consuming step.
I always change the start menu to "Classic" so the "My Computer" and "My Net Places" are on the desktop. And I don't care for the "improved" start menu so "classic" is a quick and easy fix. I usally take the bitmap off the background as well.
From there I go through the services and disable all the lame ones that I never really found useful, like the wireless one (where my PC doesn't have a wireless device installed). I used to have a batch file for that to make it more convenient, but I am too lazy to make a Cd or have a usb key to make it available.
After that, if I am on a home network, I will set up a XFER share (usually on J:) with everyone ALL permissions. That makes it easy to share files, and its standard across any of my PCs on the network. I might do things like statically assign the IP, in case I need to for NAT / port forwarding.
Thats about it, all my tweaks are generally function related over form. I don't need my OS to be pretty and gadgety looking. Give me a shortcut on either my desktop (if its EXTREMELY common for me to use) or on my start menu and I am good. All in all it takes me the better part of an afternoon to get it set up and ready to go.
I could not determine from reading the article that Hawkings suggested the universe came from nothing. Unless there is something more obvious in the webcast, I suspect this is just a bad interpretation of what he was trying to communicate
To the philosophical issue of "nothing", I will say this. There is no such thing as nothing! Much has been said about nothing, but insofar as nothing is intended to mean "no thing", then what the hell are we even talking about? Seriously, as soon as you have given a point of reference to something that is suppposedly "nothing", then it can no longer be an instance of "nothing". Evaluate the following statement: "nothing doesn't exist." You should realize that if nothing DID exist, it would no longer be "nothing", but instead be some existent THING.
The idea of nothing is just a psychological device that humans use to blanket their psyches from the anxiety produced by the unknown and the not understood. The term "nothing" is akin to cosmological terms like "black holes", "dark matter", and "dark energy". I suggest that the real reason these things are "black" and "dark" is because the light of human awareness has yet to illuminate what is actually going on there.
So terms like "nothing" really only mean... "We intuit that something is going on, but as of yet we cannot fathom what that might be." Instead of saying "we simply don't understand what is going on at this time" we give things an almost occult identity: "it must be dark matter!". This is why, ultimately, I classify science in the same category as religion. When we cannot understand something, we posit a "mysterious force" that we "believe" must be there in order to explain the world that is around us.
The reason why the "hard problems" of science continue to be "hard problems" is because you cannot solve a problem with the same limited mind that created it. We keep asking "where did the universe come from?" because we still believe that time and existence are linear. We believe that things have a "set beginning" and a "set end". We believe all things are effects of some previous cause. We believe these things so much in the same manner that people used to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe. And just like then, when someone points out that maybe that is NOT the way things actually work, they get branded a lunatic.
First, according to article, the rats were first "trained" to fear both tones. Thus, you don't have to administer the drug before the stimulus has been conditioned to produce a fear response and you don't have to administer the drug during the fear conditioning. Therefore, this is not a proactive treatment, but a retroactive one. You would not use this drug to train a ruthless, emotionless army. The article says nothing about the drug preventing or blocking the future association of neutral stimuli with a fear response provoked by a stressful stimuli.
Second, the drug is administered and then the "conditioned" stimuli is introduced while the subjects are under the influence of the drug. Later when the drugged subjects were tested, they showed no fear response for the stimuli they rehearsed while drugged. And the fear response was only removed for the stimuli that was introduced during the drugging, leaving other conditioned responses intact.
Now, as is often the case with news articles on research, the article's claim is misleading. This research does not actually imply that you can selectively remove a fearful memory. The research design only targetted conditioned, associative responses, which are a subset of the larger category of memories. There is memory for the event in itself and there is memory for associating the event as the cause of some unpleasant effect. But all the research shows is that the the link between the conditioned stimuli and the fear response has been broken. There may still be "episodic" memory for the original stimuli and the unpleasant. Unfortunately, we cannot interview the rats and ask them if they remember the details of their conditioning prior to the drugging.
On to humans... if the drug does not remove the "episodic" memory of the "traumatic" stimulus, it might not be all that advantageous to remove the "fear" response in the first place. Imagine what it might be like to feel NOTHING when you are recalling a mortar round tearing your friend into pieces beside you. That might be a lot more sinister than feeling stressed. But what you do in the case of PTSD is administer the drug and then play sounds like cars back firing, ballons popping, and etc. That way you help the patient to unlearn the "stress response" for neutral, non-related stimuli without affecting the original memory and association.
When contemplating the balance between preserving privacy and enforcing the law, I think its best to reflect on a brilliant quote by Nietzsche: "He who fights with monsters should take care lest he thereby become a monster." The fact that some people can tolerate, and even worse commendate the actions of a vigilante is appalling. Two wrongs have never made a right, except in the minds of those who believe in a perverted sense of justice.
Many people are completely fine with these tactics when employed against child molesters. But if we truly were to advocate this sort of behavior, do you think it would really stop with child molestation? Once we got enough of THOSE bad guys off the street, whats to stop the next "gevious offense to society" from taking its place?
And while looking for child molesters, if we happen to uncover someone who likes to practice recreational pharmacology, do we expect our vigilante to overlook this much more minor offense? Perhaps... But perhaps some employers would be very interested information like that when evaluating prospective employees. They may be interested enough to pay a fair amount of money for information like that. Is your vigillante so morally upright as to not be seduced into profiting from their social espionage?
This guy installed a trojan virus on 3000+ computers to spy on them in hopes of catching a predator. How many emails did he read about what was going to be eaten for dinner? How many about who was taking the kids to the soccer game? There is something dark and creepy about the whole topic. In a very serious way, we was molesting the privacy of several people in trying to discover something awful about them.
What do you say of a man who stalks people, searching for something dark and evil about them? I call that a man who struggles with the darkness in his own mind, who is really looking for the monster festering within him. One must take care when fighting monsters that he doesn't become one in the process, indeed.
With the Wii's success, one could only hope that developers will start paying more attention to gameplay innovation rather than graphical innovation. I think the success of Nintendo's new console underscores a revolution that has been waiting to take place in the gaming industry: an emphasis on playability and fun over impressive visuals. Now, if we could just combine next-gen visuals with next-gen gameplay -- a gamers' nirvana!
As I recall, Microsoft had already begun development on a major service pack before Vista hit retail shelves. Are we really all that suprised to discover that there are some issues with the new O/S? This is just another example of a commercial beta release, if you ask me. I seem to recall that "Testers urge Microsoft to extend Vista Beta" news stories were a dime a dozen on several IT news sites after Microsoft confirmed the release date.
In regards to gaming performance and WHQL drivers, I tend to think that a significant number of PC gamers are smart enough to try updating video drivers if their video performance is buggy or slow. Maybe I am giving PC gamers too much credit? I just figure if you are unable to learn how to properly configure your O/S for optimal gaming performance, there is a large and far less technically inclined console market waiting for your business.
In regards to addiction, basically, there are two types of reinforcements for behaviors, namely:
When engaged in any behavior, if a person is reinforced through either mechanism, they are more likely to continue to perform that behavior. However, most addictions arise out of behaviors that initially promote negative reinforcement but are eventually linked to the surfacing of negative affects (feelings).
To use alcohol as an example, drinking may reduce stresses, inhibitions, and anxieties (negative reinforcement), but if consumed in excess, will lead to negative results such as a hang over or in extreme cases, the shakes. In the case of alcohol, we have the cliché "You just need a little of the hair of the dog that bit you." Basically, consuming more alcohol will postpone or temporarily alleviate the negative consequences of drinking too much alcohol, which is itself more negative reinforcement. Now we are able to appreciate the cyclical nature of addiction.
With this understanding, its possible to see how something like the internet can become addicting. We need to look no further than MMORPGs to illustrate the point. In SOME cases, people who are unsatisfied with ther "real" social life will engage in online play. This has the effect of removing their feelings of dissatisfaction (negative reinforcement) while quite possibly harming their "real life" social life. Thus, the player must lean even more heavily on gaming to alleviate the feelings of dissatisfaction with his/her "real life".
Now, whether "Internet Addiction" could ever qualify as a medical condition... I have little to say there. I am ever suspicious toward the practice of "medicine", I believe they call it a "practice" for a reason.
Just in case the end-boss is David Blaine and he animates a giant stone Abraham Lincoln, the way to beat him is to build a giant stone John Wilkes Booth.
There is a poster where I work. It reads: "The greatest security device ever created." Beneath that is a picture of a human brain. Unfortunately, the human brain is also the greatest security vulnerability ever created.
When you have behavior like computer users with administrator rights clicking "OK" on the "Install smiley faces now!" pop up, the vast majority of security breaches are due to poorly trained computer users and system/network administrators. If OS/X or Linux owned the desktop marketshare that Windows does, it still would not improve the behavior of the users and admins. I haven't found an O/S yet that trains people not to do stupid things on their computers.
Dedicated servers don't browse the web and install weather tracker toolbars, so they are a completely different discussion.