Well the peace prize is inevitably going to be more subjective than the science ones. Essentially it is a politics prize, though they did apparently draw the line at giving it to Churchill for his war efforts (they gave him a Literature prize instead!). But there are strong reasons for the awards you mention: Kissinger for making peace with China (though ignoring his subversive activities against Chile); Arafat and Peres for their attempt to resolve the Middle East problem. The problem here is that they were a bit premature, as with Obama's prize, which he himself expressed doubts about. You might say it was the equivalent of giving Einstein a prize for 'what we think he'll discover next', but it also has to be seen as the expression of a kind of global sigh of relief at the exit of George Bush.
Al Gore's prize was obviously for the ideas, rather than the man, while for Mother Theresa it was just the opposite.
Tolerance? Who mentioned tolerance? You think Ancient Rome was tolerant? You think the USA is tolerant? Forget history, read the news: Muslim countries are far less a threat to their neighbours.
BTW, since you think that tolerance is important, perhaps you should try to practice it.
As for science, this seems to be a fairly comprehensive summary: http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/sciencehistory.htm
Someone mod parent up please. I couldn't say about point 3, but points 1 & 2 are spot on. I'd also add that maths fails to keep the idiots out of social science, as shown by all the attempts to measure culture.
I would guess that a natural gas generator would last significantly longer at a significantly lower TCO than any currently available battery technology (when at the scale of powering a house)
Yes, as long as we still have natural gas, but that may not be for much longer. One of the major renewables is wind power, which suffers from big problems of variable supply. This may be an answer.
Takes longer, slows down sales. People get frustrated, so elsewhere, McDonalds loses more sales.
No they don't. Everyone has to play by the same rules.
People not satisfied with the amount of milk/sugar they get, bitch at the employees.
So they should find a better way. Opportunity to get a competitive edge and increase product differentiation.
I have an alternative. How about we teach people to be careful with cups of hot liquid?
Much harder than changing the delivery process. How would you even begin?
I mean, 23,999,999 manage to do it without being taught, so hard hard could it be to teach the 24,000,000th person, too??
You're assuming that the world is divided into those who spill their coffee and those who don't. Actually, none of us spill our coffee most the time, but it could happen to anyone. Imagine you just start to take the lid off your coffee and the idiot in the drivers seat decides to accelerate away. OK, blame the driver, but it won't make your scolded crotch feel any better.
'put cup in secure place before attempting to remove lid'
The question is irrelevant. Since McDonald's sell many times more that 24 million cups of coffee, the risk of someone suffering injury is substantial. They should have done a risk analysis. They didn't. They pay.
If this was indeed the only measure, then the conclusion is flawed. Previous studies do not prove that newborn infants look longer at attractive faces (which implies that the studies already have an independent measure of attractiveness) only that they look at some faces longer than others. These are taken to be more attractive, fair enough. But what's more attractive to an infant (how old, by the way?) is not necessarily more attractive to a sexually active adult. So if the finding is that infants look longer at some females than others, then perhaps the conclusion is not that they are more sexy, but that they look more motherly. The results of the latest study would seem to confirm this.
There are lots of studies like this. They grab headlines and look good on the surface, but the closer you look, the more holes you find in them.
RTFA, actually it doesn't say what measures were used, except to assert that they were 'objective'. It's quite reasonable to question this, especially as it also says:
"One finding was that women were generally regarded by both sexes as more aesthetically appealing than men."
This is clearly describing a cultural phenomenon, as well confusing aesthetically appealing with physically attractive. Do you realise that they get funded for producing this kind of trash?
So basically after controlling for everything, pathological status is a predictor of poor school performance. This should surprise no one, as people with mental problems tend to do worse in school.
Not quite. It's the pathological status of the game players that is at issue, not whether or not pathology affects school performance. The study does appear at first sight to be flawed. For instance, how do you control for amount of game play when this would seem to be a symptom of addiction in itself. I drink a pint of beer, OK. I drink ten every night - I'm an addict.
It's dialectics - a gradual change in degree ultimately becomes a qualitative change in type. Do you really think not attending an exam is in the same category as not doing your homework?
could you imagine doing a search on the interweb for Iraq and finding only the "Saddam tried to get yellow cake" or "Iraq has WMDs that terrorists want or can get"
Well, yes I could - if I lived in China (though of course the messages would be different). But I don't think the UK government has the power to do anything like this. Surely, this is just what companies like Amazon do all the time to get to the top of the search list? Isn't that how Google makes its millions?.
It looks to me as if the Register has got this one wrong. The original criticisms were of negative tweaks against extremist sites by the government, as the quote they use in their article illustrates. This is about positive tweaking to promote genuine Islamic sites - and it's only, apparently part of a wider strategy of supporting peaceful interpretations of Islam, exactly what the original report recommended.
Slashdot Mirror
Well the peace prize is inevitably going to be more subjective than the science ones. Essentially it is a politics prize, though they did apparently draw the line at giving it to Churchill for his war efforts (they gave him a Literature prize instead!). But there are strong reasons for the awards you mention: Kissinger for making peace with China (though ignoring his subversive activities against Chile); Arafat and Peres for their attempt to resolve the Middle East problem. The problem here is that they were a bit premature, as with Obama's prize, which he himself expressed doubts about. You might say it was the equivalent of giving Einstein a prize for 'what we think he'll discover next', but it also has to be seen as the expression of a kind of global sigh of relief at the exit of George Bush. Al Gore's prize was obviously for the ideas, rather than the man, while for Mother Theresa it was just the opposite.
Tolerance? Who mentioned tolerance? You think Ancient Rome was tolerant? You think the USA is tolerant? Forget history, read the news: Muslim countries are far less a threat to their neighbours. BTW, since you think that tolerance is important, perhaps you should try to practice it. As for science, this seems to be a fairly comprehensive summary: http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/sciencehistory.htm
While Europe was going through the Dark Ages, Islam was carrying the torch of civilization and culture.
wot about mya dumb ass?
A clear, concise and accurate analysis. Please somebody, mod this up.
1) Please demonstrate in detail a basic logic course without mathematics.
Ok next time I've got a few weeks spare... in the meantime, you might start with Aristotle.
2) Please explain in detail how anyone can enter a mathematics intensive fields, such as engineering, without a firm grounding in mathematics?
Why? Nobody said they could.
Someone mod parent up please. I couldn't say about point 3, but points 1 & 2 are spot on. I'd also add that maths fails to keep the idiots out of social science, as shown by all the attempts to measure culture.
personal information - they own it!
yes, much safer to stick to a respectable banker... er wait...
sounds like it should be easy enuff to set it up to flattr a site more than once?
Some other criminals of note: Sparticus; Jesus of Nazareth; Nelson Mandela.
No, both are warm, just the way I like them.
I would guess that a natural gas generator would last significantly longer at a significantly lower TCO than any currently available battery technology (when at the scale of powering a house)
Yes, as long as we still have natural gas, but that may not be for much longer. One of the major renewables is wind power, which suffers from big problems of variable supply. This may be an answer.
The trouble is, although Firefox is FOSS, most extensions are not.
Takes longer, slows down sales. People get frustrated, so elsewhere, McDonalds loses more sales.
No they don't. Everyone has to play by the same rules.
People not satisfied with the amount of milk/sugar they get, bitch at the employees.
So they should find a better way. Opportunity to get a competitive edge and increase product differentiation.
I have an alternative. How about we teach people to be careful with cups of hot liquid?
Much harder than changing the delivery process. How would you even begin?
I mean, 23,999,999 manage to do it without being taught, so hard hard could it be to teach the 24,000,000th person, too??
You're assuming that the world is divided into those who spill their coffee and those who don't. Actually, none of us spill our coffee most the time, but it could happen to anyone. Imagine you just start to take the lid off your coffee and the idiot in the drivers seat decides to accelerate away. OK, blame the driver, but it won't make your scolded crotch feel any better.
'put cup in secure place before attempting to remove lid'
Where would that be, I wonder?
The question is irrelevant. Since McDonald's sell many times more that 24 million cups of coffee, the risk of someone suffering injury is substantial. They should have done a risk analysis. They didn't. They pay.
If this was indeed the only measure, then the conclusion is flawed. Previous studies do not prove that newborn infants look longer at attractive faces (which implies that the studies already have an independent measure of attractiveness) only that they look at some faces longer than others. These are taken to be more attractive, fair enough. But what's more attractive to an infant (how old, by the way?) is not necessarily more attractive to a sexually active adult. So if the finding is that infants look longer at some females than others, then perhaps the conclusion is not that they are more sexy, but that they look more motherly. The results of the latest study would seem to confirm this. There are lots of studies like this. They grab headlines and look good on the surface, but the closer you look, the more holes you find in them.
RTFA, actually it doesn't say what measures were used, except to assert that they were 'objective'. It's quite reasonable to question this, especially as it also says: "One finding was that women were generally regarded by both sexes as more aesthetically appealing than men." This is clearly describing a cultural phenomenon, as well confusing aesthetically appealing with physically attractive. Do you realise that they get funded for producing this kind of trash?
yes, my dear: "*largely* culturally plastic." It's true that life ain't fair. Some of us read better than others.
So basically after controlling for everything, pathological status is a predictor of poor school performance. This should surprise no one, as people with mental problems tend to do worse in school.
Not quite. It's the pathological status of the game players that is at issue, not whether or not pathology affects school performance. The study does appear at first sight to be flawed. For instance, how do you control for amount of game play when this would seem to be a symptom of addiction in itself. I drink a pint of beer, OK. I drink ten every night - I'm an addict. It's dialectics - a gradual change in degree ultimately becomes a qualitative change in type. Do you really think not attending an exam is in the same category as not doing your homework?
It looks to me as if the Register has got this one wrong. The original criticisms were of negative tweaks against extremist sites by the government, as the quote they use in their article illustrates. This is about positive tweaking to promote genuine Islamic sites - and it's only, apparently part of a wider strategy of supporting peaceful interpretations of Islam, exactly what the original report recommended.
Your point being?
On the contrary, it's the (anonymous) coward's way out.
Except there's nothing shameful about AIDS of course.