Exactly. I'm hoping that by now, big countries are smart enough to realize that nuking people isn't a good idea. I'm much more afraid of terrorists or a wacko leader than any large country.
Since photons reflect off the sides of optical fiber without changing polarity then reflecting off of a satellite would not change their polarity either.
Er.. that was exactly my question.. and you didn't answer it at all.
WHY don't they change polarity when reflecting off of the side of the fiber? I mean, the whole point of polarizing sunglasses is because sunlight gets polarized horizontally when they reflect off of the ground, so why doesn't it get repolarized when it hits the side of the fiber?
So how exactly does polarization get preserved in fiber optics? I never took any optics, but it seems to me like it'd get repolarized every time it hit a wall of the fiber.. What am I doing wrong?
Also, how does it get retransmitted from the satellite? Or does it just get bounced? If the latter, again how does polarization get preserved? Don't mirrors also repolarize?
Pardon, but it doesn't seem like you actually gave any ALTERNATIVE to medical science. People are being put on drugs with horrible side effects that don't actually fix the problem they're supposed to, and paying through the nose for the priviledge, because some doctor said so. Then you're just dealing with a bad doctor. Doesn't mean all of medical science is corrupt just because there are some bad doctors out there. Phrenology, anyone? Huh? Phrenology was never a "science" any more than alchemy was. What's your point?
A useful statement of Occam's razor: "When you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better."
I cannot imagine the predictions made by "This is a hoax." and "This is real." to be very similar.
I think a more accurate depiction of the scenario which DOES fit Occam's razor would be:
"Someone is making a hoax, thus resulting in this webpage." and "Someone is working on Jesux for real, thus resulting in this webpage."
The conclusions seem much more similar now, don't they? I mean, we're really discussing "why this page exists". That the page already exists is the already extant conclusion. Much like how the world exists is already known, but whether it came about through God or not is the topic of discussion.
So is your solution that nothing should ever be reported, because, well, it might be a hoax, and the media shouldn't report hoaxes? Or to immediately stop reporting something as soon as it is discovered to be a hoax, thus increasing the number of people left believing it?
I think that items which are obviously hoaxes should not be reported on. (The word "obviously" is left to interpretation.. obviously.)
However, if a hoax is already huge, then I think it's okay to report on the phenomenon, and to inform people that it's a hoax, certainly. But in this case, I don't believe this was a huge hoax at all.
As I already said, I think this Jesux case was fuzzier than most. I was mainly thinking of the multitude of blatant vaporware projects out there that are actually hoaxes.
I think that in general, the media should refrain from reporting on hoaxes, because attention is precisely what these people want.
Baseball, for instance, has a policy of never pointing cameras and people who run on to the field. It cut that out really quickly.
Now, before you tell me to cool off, if this guy openly admitted it was a joke, then I would've been perfectly fine with/. reporting on it as a humor topic. As it was, however, it was attempting to be deceptive and trying to get attention throuhg gullibility.
Ug.. That's annoying, because even if the look is easily changeable, the FEEL won't be. And I think there's nothing worse than a Mac application, especially one I'll use so much, that doesn't feel like a Mac application.
Common UI within an OS exists for a REASON!
Especially since right now it feels like it's an X app.. I mean, even the text-fields don't work in the standard Mac way!
*sigh*
It'll really suck if Mozilla finally comes out and the UI is so crappy.
Then again, I suppose I should stop complaining and just take the code and make my own Mac UI-friendly version or something.:P
Well, here's hoping SOMEONE out there does that...
So is that horrible blue/gray UI what's actually going in to the program, or is it just transitional? I would much rather have a more classic interface that actually matches the OS.
Yeah, I sometimes want Javascript, for things like popups (which really ought to have "go" buttons), but because popups are everywhere now, I'd love an option to specifically disable popups but leave the rest of Javascript on.
As it is, I just leave it off and turn it on only when necessary. (And I'm actually missing less than I thought I would; most sites still work fine.)
No it's correct. Compare e.g. with "You've lost mail"...
No, actually. It would be "You've gotten mail." The only reason it works for lost is that the past participle form of "lost" is the same as the past tense form.
There's a HUGE difference between swatstikas and trench coats. The swastikas were a symbol of an ideology. Anyone wearing a swastika probably subscribed to that ideology in some way. Trenchcoats are nearly a type of fashion that are NOT linked to any ideology involving hurting people. You might as well ban GAP vests just because someone wearing a GAP vest killed someone. (Not that banning GAP vests would be altogether bad..)
Can Brutus I's stories REALLY be considered AI? After all, if they feed it "plot structure", aren't they in large part writing the story for it? What would really be amazing is if it could actaully come up with novel story structures and plots and that sort of thing.
Otherwise, it's just a matter of degree more complex than Mad-Libs.
I think it's neat and all, but I hardly think it's a big deal.
We dont have free speech in the UK? I think we get away with quite alot. Though Im glad we dont tolerate speeches of the like that the klu klux klan can give. If my country ever tolerates hateful shit like that, I'll leave.
Listen to yourself! "I like free speech, except when I vehemently disagree with someone," is basically what you're saying! The whole POINT of free speech is that EVERYTHING is free. If you leave even one loophole, the whole thing is useless! One moment people are only restricting Neo-Nazis, but what's the prevent people from saying what YOU say is "hateful" and restrict YOUR speech?
The thing is, the validity of ideas should be decided by the people, not the government. There are a lot of people out there with ideas I really despise, but you know what? Most people aren't like that! Their influence is limited if their ideas do not appeal.
The only danger is in their ideas appealing for the wrong reasons.. A lot of these people appeal to the insecure and so forth who can't make up their own minds well because they're confused, but that just means we should be helping these people. I think the line between what is a valid political philosophy and what is "bad" is far too blurred for the gov't to make the decision.
I totally agree that this is a major problem with the moderation system as it stands. Perhaps when people get moderation points, you should force them to browse without scores. For anyone who gets points but doesn't want them, they could have an option to "discard remaining points" and go back to viewing with scores.
Exactly. Western Europe/Scandinavia is much more liberal in its culture than the puritanically based U.S., but the one reason I still like this country is the First Amendment.
Every time I read about the limits of free speech in England or the limits of free religion in Germany (despite the evilness of the Church of Scientology), it makes me realize why I put up with the Religious Right in this country. I know that even with their current power, it'll take a LOT for them to topple that First Amendment, and in the long run, basic freedoms are far more important than current liberties.
I mean, sure, they're making more sense now by allowing pot (i.e. Netherlands) and whatnot.. but what about when my beliefs fall under the few things they find unacceptable?
I think it would've been better if they just let the gov't impose really stupid draconian rules that are completely unenforceable, because now, people will think that it's actually workable, simply because the symptoms won't be as obvious.
Why on Earth would you need to "write a program" to "prove" that 355/113 is about equal to pi? Can't you just use the "divide" function on any old ordinary $2 calculator?
Hell, you can just divide it by hand in a few seconds and find out that's it's accurate to 6 decimal places. And the value of pi isn't a theory. It doesn't need to be "proved".
What is the "source" for moral truth? There's no canonical source, but there isn't one in science. So the answer, in the moral case too, is "honest inquiry".
That's a METHOD, not a SOURCE. Using honest inquiry, how do you know you've arrived at the "truth"? You can poke holes in the arguments of really weak arguments, but there are lots of arguments where you can't poke such obvious holes, and many other arguments where the matter just gets exceedingly complex. Are you saying there's an absolute answer to everything? How do you know you've arrived at that answer?
Have an argument with a Flat-Earther sometime: he'll have a response to every one of your arguments, so you can't "prove" the earth is round either.
You NEVER definitively "prove" anything in science.. You only test a hypothesis enough that it makes more sense to believe it than not, and you call it a theory.. It will ALWAYS be subject to overthrow. Newtonian mechanics seemed great for a long time, but it wasn't perfect, and subject to argument.. it just made more sense to believe it than not.
The best a flat-earther could do is say that all your data is faked and/or incorrect.. and when you get down to it, it's certainly POSSIBLE that by some bizarre coincidence, all our data just HAPPENS to be wrong.. it's just not very reasonable to believe so, because the evidence is so overwhelming.
This sort of experimental data does not apply to basic morality anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. I'm hoping that by now, big countries are smart enough to realize that nuking people isn't a good idea.
I'm much more afraid of terrorists or a wacko leader than any large country.
Yeah.. I agree that the "Let's Beowolf it!" response to every /. article is getting a tad bit old...
Since photons reflect off the sides of optical fiber without changing polarity then reflecting off of a satellite would not change their polarity either.
Er.. that was exactly my question.. and you didn't answer it at all.
WHY don't they change polarity when reflecting off of the side of the fiber? I mean, the whole point of polarizing sunglasses is because sunlight gets polarized horizontally when they reflect off of the ground, so why doesn't it get repolarized when it hits the side of the fiber?
So how exactly does polarization get preserved in fiber optics? I never took any optics, but it seems to me like it'd get repolarized every time it hit a wall of the fiber.. What am I doing wrong?
Also, how does it get retransmitted from the satellite? Or does it just get bounced? If the latter, again how does polarization get preserved? Don't mirrors also repolarize?
I'm confused.
Pardon, but it doesn't seem like you actually gave any ALTERNATIVE to medical science. People are being put on drugs with horrible side effects that don't actually fix the problem they're supposed to, and paying through the nose for the priviledge, because some doctor said so. Then you're just dealing with a bad doctor. Doesn't mean all of medical science is corrupt just because there are some bad doctors out there. Phrenology, anyone? Huh? Phrenology was never a "science" any more than alchemy was. What's your point?
Slashdotted ATT
/.'ed? I mean, that's usually pretty obvious, no?
/.'ed.. so here's a mirror."
Do we really need people to point out that the link is
Now what IS useful is when people say, "It's
So where are we going to get all the money to go metric?
What are you talking about? All the money is already metric. We have 100 cents in a dollar, and use base ten to count it, don't we?
:P
A useful statement of Occam's razor:
"When you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better."
I cannot imagine the predictions made by "This is a hoax." and "This is real." to be very similar.
I think a more accurate depiction of the scenario which DOES fit Occam's razor would be:
"Someone is making a hoax, thus resulting in this webpage." and
"Someone is working on Jesux for real, thus resulting in this webpage."
The conclusions seem much more similar now, don't they? I mean, we're really discussing "why this page exists". That the page already exists is the already extant conclusion. Much like how the world exists is already known, but whether it came about through God or not is the topic of discussion.
So is your solution that nothing should ever be reported, because, well, it might be a hoax, and the media shouldn't report hoaxes? Or to immediately stop reporting something as soon as it is discovered to be a hoax, thus increasing the number of people left believing it?
I think that items which are obviously hoaxes should not be reported on. (The word "obviously" is left to interpretation.. obviously.)
However, if a hoax is already huge, then I think it's okay to report on the phenomenon, and to inform people that it's a hoax, certainly.
But in this case, I don't believe this was a huge hoax at all.
As I already said, I think this Jesux case was fuzzier than most. I was mainly thinking of the multitude of blatant vaporware projects out there that are actually hoaxes.
I think that in general, the media should refrain from reporting on hoaxes, because attention is precisely what these people want.
/. reporting on it as a humor topic. As it was, however, it was attempting to be deceptive and trying to get attention throuhg gullibility.
Baseball, for instance, has a policy of never pointing cameras and people who run on to the field. It cut that out really quickly.
Now, before you tell me to cool off, if this guy openly admitted it was a joke, then I would've been perfectly fine with
Ug.. That's annoying, because even if the look is easily changeable, the FEEL won't be. And I think there's nothing worse than a Mac application, especially one I'll use so much, that doesn't feel like a Mac application.
:P
Common UI within an OS exists for a REASON!
Especially since right now it feels like it's an X app.. I mean, even the text-fields don't work in the standard Mac way!
*sigh*
It'll really suck if Mozilla finally comes out and the UI is so crappy.
Then again, I suppose I should stop complaining and just take the code and make my own Mac UI-friendly version or something.
Well, here's hoping SOMEONE out there does that...
So is that horrible blue/gray UI what's actually going in to the program, or is it just transitional? I would much rather have a more classic interface that actually matches the OS.
Yeah, I sometimes want Javascript, for things like popups (which really ought to have "go" buttons), but because popups are everywhere now, I'd love an option to specifically disable popups but leave the rest of Javascript on.
As it is, I just leave it off and turn it on only when necessary. (And I'm actually missing less than I thought I would; most sites still work fine.)
No it's correct. Compare e.g. with "You've lost mail"...
No, actually. It would be "You've gotten mail." The only reason it works for lost is that the past participle form of "lost" is the same as the past tense form.
There's a HUGE difference between swatstikas and trench coats.
The swastikas were a symbol of an ideology.
Anyone wearing a swastika probably subscribed to that ideology in some way.
Trenchcoats are nearly a type of fashion that are NOT linked to any ideology involving hurting people.
You might as well ban GAP vests just because someone wearing a GAP vest killed someone. (Not that banning GAP vests would be altogether bad..)
All you had to do was search for "quake 3" with quotes, and you would've been fine.
>>The books I want to read by computers are ones that give me insight into what it's really like to be a computer in a human society.
:)
Now THAT sounds like something worth reading!
Can Brutus I's stories REALLY be considered AI? After all, if they feed it "plot structure", aren't they in large part writing the story for it? What would really be amazing is if it could actaully come up with novel story structures and plots and that sort of thing.
Otherwise, it's just a matter of degree more complex than Mad-Libs.
I think it's neat and all, but I hardly think it's a big deal.
We dont have free speech in the UK? I think we get away with quite alot. Though Im glad we dont tolerate speeches of the like that the klu klux klan can give. If my country ever tolerates hateful shit like that, I'll leave.
Listen to yourself! "I like free speech, except when I vehemently disagree with someone," is basically what you're saying! The whole POINT of free speech is that EVERYTHING is free. If you leave even one loophole, the whole thing is useless! One moment people are only restricting Neo-Nazis, but what's the prevent people from saying what YOU say is "hateful" and restrict YOUR speech?
The thing is, the validity of ideas should be decided by the people, not the government. There are a lot of people out there with ideas I really despise, but you know what? Most people aren't like that! Their influence is limited if their ideas do not appeal.
The only danger is in their ideas appealing for the wrong reasons.. A lot of these people appeal to the insecure and so forth who can't make up their own minds well because they're confused, but that just means we should be helping these people. I think the line between what is a valid political philosophy and what is "bad" is far too blurred for the gov't to make the decision.
I totally agree that this is a major problem with the moderation system as it stands. Perhaps when people get moderation points, you should force them to browse without scores. For anyone who gets points but doesn't want them, they could have an option to "discard remaining points" and go back to viewing with scores.
I'm pretty sure that there currently are patents on genetically modified foods and such in the U.S.
Exactly. Western Europe/Scandinavia is much more liberal in its culture than the puritanically based U.S., but the one reason I still like this country is the First Amendment.
Every time I read about the limits of free speech in England or the limits of free religion in Germany (despite the evilness of the Church of Scientology), it makes me realize why I put up with the Religious Right in this country. I know that even with their current power, it'll take a LOT for them to topple that First Amendment, and in the long run, basic freedoms are far more important than current liberties.
I mean, sure, they're making more sense now by allowing pot (i.e. Netherlands) and whatnot.. but what about when my beliefs fall under the few things they find unacceptable?
I think it would've been better if they just let the gov't impose really stupid draconian rules that are completely unenforceable, because now, people will think that it's actually workable, simply because the symptoms won't be as obvious.
Why on Earth would you need to "write a program" to "prove" that 355/113 is about equal to pi?
Can't you just use the "divide" function on any old ordinary $2 calculator?
Hell, you can just divide it by hand in a few seconds and find out that's it's accurate to 6 decimal places. And the value of pi isn't a theory. It doesn't need to be "proved".
What is the "source" for moral truth? There's no canonical source, but there isn't one in science. So the answer, in the moral case too, is "honest inquiry".
That's a METHOD, not a SOURCE. Using honest inquiry, how do you know you've arrived at the "truth"? You can poke holes in the arguments of really weak arguments, but there are lots of arguments where you can't poke such obvious holes, and many other arguments where the matter just gets exceedingly complex.
Are you saying there's an absolute answer to everything? How do you know you've arrived at that answer?
Have an argument with a Flat-Earther sometime: he'll have a response to every one of your arguments, so you can't "prove" the earth is round either.
You NEVER definitively "prove" anything in science.. You only test a hypothesis enough that it makes more sense to believe it than not, and you call it a theory.. It will ALWAYS be subject to overthrow. Newtonian mechanics seemed great for a long time, but it wasn't perfect, and subject to argument.. it just made more sense to believe it than not.
The best a flat-earther could do is say that all your data is faked and/or incorrect.. and when you get down to it, it's certainly POSSIBLE that by some bizarre coincidence, all our data just HAPPENS to be wrong.. it's just not very reasonable to believe so, because the evidence is so overwhelming.
This sort of experimental data does not apply to basic morality anyway.