Yes, because Idiocracy was such a great documentary.
How many people here were born so far inside the ivory tower that they don't realize that Idiocracy is complete BS? Personally, I'm tired of hearing that, 'Well in Idiocracy, blah, blah, blah, fucking poor people.' Ok, maybe lower income people are reproducing faster, I personally don't have that particular statistic, but for the sake of argument, lets just say that they are. You want to know what's going to happen as the poor begin to outnumber the rich?
Nothing. There might be temporary recession of sorts, but after that the offspring of the lower classes will fill in the empty hole in society left by the lack of upper class offspring. And guess what, they'll do it just as well as the upper class's progeny had been doing, proving once and for all that sociobiology is classist (and racist and sexist, for that matter) pseudoscience. Of course, this is assuming that the upper class doesn't fabricate some sort of barrier to impede the upward social mobility in order to keep secure their position at the top, and as history tells us, the rich taking advantage of the poor by denying them the opportunity to improve their live is not unheard of.
Sigh, if only Stephen Gould were alive to mock that movie.
Huh? Inflammation raises the temperature of a specific part of the body to kill, or at least inhibit the growth of, the infecting pathogen. It's not good for the organism, but its not good for the causative agent, either.
I can't say I understand what you mean when you say that a system as complex as the immune system (what with all the differentiated cells, specific antibodies, cytokines directing cells, the compliment system, the antigen recognition and memorization of the adaptive immune response, ect., all preformed with no outside direction by nonthinking cells that are highly complex machines on their own) is indicative of randomness. Personally, I always thought that such a finely tuned molecular clockwork was evidence to the contrary.
It's not about terrorism. That's what lethal weapons are for. This is for destructive rioters, mobs, criminals, ect. Maybe I'm just misinformed, and if that's the case please tell me what, where, and when I missed the government going truely totalitarian on someone, and give me a link to the story, but I don't recall anytime in recent memory when something like this was used to subdue a peaceful crowd, or as you put it, 'control the domestic herd.'
Of course, this can, at some point, will be misused, just as any law enforcement tool will eventually be misused, but would you rather have them misuse something lethal?
You're half right. Evolutionary theory states that the best random mutations survive. Due to their superiority, the survival of organisms with beneficial mutations(and therefore, their ability to pass on their genes) is not random, however, the existence of their desirable traits is purely random.
In other words, the brain in its entirety, as a compilation of traits, would not be random, but each and every individual function would be. I believe that the point that the parent poster was trying to make was the improbability of a collection of random beneficial mutations, each one highly unlikely to emerge in the first place, forming an organ as complex as the brain, which, due to its extreme complexity, is still not fully understood, nor can it be replicated.
As the old phrase goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The technology's nice and all, but I'd saw the trick is getting people to look into this sort of thing, and take action, beforehand. I say this because in my area there was an old bridge that many people used regularly, however, it was a well known fact that it was deteriorating. The city, however, didn't want to spend the money to fix it, and it was years before anything was done (despite the fancy new road nobody wanted or needed that was built just minutes away). That bridge could have possibly collapsed, and everyone knew it. This new technology might make detection easier, but as long as the almighty buck is king, no amount of technology can compensate for human nature.
You do realize that is a change in a single trait, not the development of a set of new interfunctioning ones (like the AC's fish), right? Saying that creationists deny easily observable microevolution is stereotypical and rather ignorant. I don't see how belief in creationism or evolution plays a part in the understanding of intergenerational microbial physiology.
Could you please define intelligence? Seriously, what is it? Ever noticed how it can be quantified into a single, definite number, but its definition can mean so many things, namely, education. Interesting article by some guy here
I once heard an interesting argument (can't find the link, sorry). If someone breaks into your house, uninvited, in many states it would be illegal to kill that person. You wait for the guy to leave, and use force only if necessary. If you invite the guy in, then kill him, its flat out murder. Well, if someone has sex, and it results in a pregnancy, then that person has taken an action that, in a sense, invited the baby in, and, if instead of waiting for it to leave, the mother aborts it, how is that any different from murder? Is it because the baby was not yet sentient? Well, neither are dogs, which are (rightfully) illegal to inhumanly kill because they feel pain, and, unlike the dog, the baby will be sentient given time. Oh, and if you think abortions are humane, you don't know much about them. Hey, maybe you think it's OK to slice up something and suck its brains out while its still alive, but I don't. Thats usually called torture.
Oh, and that argument aside, killing another human being, unless its in self defense or whatever, is still murder. You can't just go and change the definition of human to get around that.
We could just give the orphans a really, really late abortion. Hey, its not like that's murder or anything. Abortion and murder have slightly different definitions, so its fine.
This could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. If those astronauts were drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, the shit really would have hit the fan.
So, if you're being investigated, and you're hiding data pertinent to the investigation, of course thats criminal. Its just like physical evidence: if you have it, and you're hiding it from the authorities, they're obviously going to throw the book at you.
And that, 'Are we no longer allowed to have any secrets, even on our own systems?' line is pretty sensationalist. Thats like declaring that it will soon be illegal to own a safe because a court issued a search warrant of someone's house.
Lets just hope that doctors who use this algorithm still throughly examine every patient before beginning treatment, because, while probably useful, I doubt its as effective as a full examination by a professional. I kinda wonder if this would be used in lesser insurance policies to substitute extensive examinations. Premium insurance plan gets a full examination prior to treatment, the plans that cost less have the cancer run through an equation, and a treatment is printed out.
Its just niche marketing. Most people on this site are leaning to the left, so by putting out news that appeals to them, no matter how stupid the story may be (for example, the Fox news story from yesterday fits into that category), it strengthens the fan base. Slashdot does have ads, you know. (And before the accusations start to fly, no, I'm not a Bush fan.)
Probably the same reason people play the lottery. They think that if they keep playing (aka. throwing away money), it will pay off if they keep playing/they'll recoup their losses. Have you ever seen someone look unhappy and buy a ticket, scratch it off, and discard it, or one of those people buy a bunch of state lotto tickets? I'd bet that a lot have, more or less, the same look and motivating force. You know how cigarettes say, 'Warning: May cause lung cancer?' Maybe casinos should have a sign that says, 'Warning: There are better ways to make money.'
Desktops are usually more powerful, have more storage capacity, have bigger screens, and cost less than notebooks. Sure, being portable is nice, but methinks as long as there's a demand for the best, most cutting edge machine (and as long as developers produce games like Half Life 2 have massive hardware requirements to run), there will still be a desktop market. Besides, just because people are currently buying notebooks doesn't mean that they won't buy a new desktop as time passes. It probably just means that more people are getting both.
That seems a bit extreme to call it conspiracy and fraud. Lots of MS related things don't work half the time. Is it a conspiracy when IE doesn't load an image?
It may be worth noting that the first three paragraphs of the article were ranting about how much Microsoft sucks, so at least we know there was no bias.
It will be like the monster of the week episodes. There'll be some monster/mutant/ghost/miscellaneous paranormal phenomenon/entity to center the movie around, but no extraterrestrials or global conspiracy covering up said extraterrestrials .
Is there controversy over the fact that someone is making, testing, improving, and preparing a worm that could be used to infect systems, or controversy because Macs can be infected by this worm?
Anybody who is smart and accomplished can go to to a good school, if not Duke in particular. You can always borrow the money. Many, many, if not all good schools now have need-blind admissions. Thats assuming you get in to begin with. They may not discriminate against the lower class, but they certainly favor the upper class. So does education in general. Does anyone really believe that an average/poor kid going to a regular school has anywhere near the odds of going to a high ranking university as a rich kid going to a great high school?
*Most* people with connections can get in even if they are not so smart Fixed it for you.
Without wealthy donors, the whole system breaks down, and it's just a matter of how you create them. You can tax the unwilling, maintain a huge alumni base, and bet that students will stay closer to the school, thus more likely to donate. In case you don't get the hint, I'm talking about state schools. (Smaller) private schools need to ensure a larger proportion of wealthy alums, and allowing family connections to count makes that easier, not to mention the good will from the alumni. You're not saying that the legacy policy is a good thing, and that the rest of us peons should be satisfied going wherever we can afford, are you?
hard to win a debate..making so many grammatical mistakes and typos that everyone reading questions your education Argumentum ad Hominem...people use it when they know you're right, but can't find a rebuttal. Almost like modding an insightful post flamebate/troll/offtopic.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, because Idiocracy was such a great documentary.
How many people here were born so far inside the ivory tower that they don't realize that Idiocracy is complete BS? Personally, I'm tired of hearing that, 'Well in Idiocracy, blah, blah, blah, fucking poor people.' Ok, maybe lower income people are reproducing faster, I personally don't have that particular statistic, but for the sake of argument, lets just say that they are. You want to know what's going to happen as the poor begin to outnumber the rich?
Nothing. There might be temporary recession of sorts, but after that the offspring of the lower classes will fill in the empty hole in society left by the lack of upper class offspring. And guess what, they'll do it just as well as the upper class's progeny had been doing, proving once and for all that sociobiology is classist (and racist and sexist, for that matter) pseudoscience. Of course, this is assuming that the upper class doesn't fabricate some sort of barrier to impede the upward social mobility in order to keep secure their position at the top, and as history tells us, the rich taking advantage of the poor by denying them the opportunity to improve their live is not unheard of.
Sigh, if only Stephen Gould were alive to mock that movie.
Huh? Inflammation raises the temperature of a specific part of the body to kill, or at least inhibit the growth of, the infecting pathogen. It's not good for the organism, but its not good for the causative agent, either.
I can't say I understand what you mean when you say that a system as complex as the immune system (what with all the differentiated cells, specific antibodies, cytokines directing cells, the compliment system, the antigen recognition and memorization of the adaptive immune response, ect., all preformed with no outside direction by nonthinking cells that are highly complex machines on their own) is indicative of randomness. Personally, I always thought that such a finely tuned molecular clockwork was evidence to the contrary.
It's not about terrorism. That's what lethal weapons are for. This is for destructive rioters, mobs, criminals, ect. Maybe I'm just misinformed, and if that's the case please tell me what, where, and when I missed the government going truely totalitarian on someone, and give me a link to the story, but I don't recall anytime in recent memory when something like this was used to subdue a peaceful crowd, or as you put it, 'control the domestic herd.'
Of course, this can, at some point, will be misused, just as any law enforcement tool will eventually be misused, but would you rather have them misuse something lethal?
You're half right. Evolutionary theory states that the best random mutations survive. Due to their superiority, the survival of organisms with beneficial mutations(and therefore, their ability to pass on their genes) is not random, however, the existence of their desirable traits is purely random.
In other words, the brain in its entirety, as a compilation of traits, would not be random, but each and every individual function would be. I believe that the point that the parent poster was trying to make was the improbability of a collection of random beneficial mutations, each one highly unlikely to emerge in the first place, forming an organ as complex as the brain, which, due to its extreme complexity, is still not fully understood, nor can it be replicated.
As the old phrase goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The technology's nice and all, but I'd saw the trick is getting people to look into this sort of thing, and take action, beforehand. I say this because in my area there was an old bridge that many people used regularly, however, it was a well known fact that it was deteriorating. The city, however, didn't want to spend the money to fix it, and it was years before anything was done (despite the fancy new road nobody wanted or needed that was built just minutes away). That bridge could have possibly collapsed, and everyone knew it. This new technology might make detection easier, but as long as the almighty buck is king, no amount of technology can compensate for human nature.
You do realize that is a change in a single trait, not the development of a set of new interfunctioning ones (like the AC's fish), right? Saying that creationists deny easily observable microevolution is stereotypical and rather ignorant. I don't see how belief in creationism or evolution plays a part in the understanding of intergenerational microbial physiology.
Could you please define intelligence? Seriously, what is it? Ever noticed how it can be quantified into a single, definite number, but its definition can mean so many things, namely, education. Interesting article by some guy here
I once heard an interesting argument (can't find the link, sorry). If someone breaks into your house, uninvited, in many states it would be illegal to kill that person. You wait for the guy to leave, and use force only if necessary. If you invite the guy in, then kill him, its flat out murder. Well, if someone has sex, and it results in a pregnancy, then that person has taken an action that, in a sense, invited the baby in, and, if instead of waiting for it to leave, the mother aborts it, how is that any different from murder? Is it because the baby was not yet sentient? Well, neither are dogs, which are (rightfully) illegal to inhumanly kill because they feel pain, and, unlike the dog, the baby will be sentient given time. Oh, and if you think abortions are humane, you don't know much about them. Hey, maybe you think it's OK to slice up something and suck its brains out while its still alive, but I don't. Thats usually called torture.
Oh, and that argument aside, killing another human being, unless its in self defense or whatever, is still murder. You can't just go and change the definition of human to get around that.
We could just give the orphans a really, really late abortion. Hey, its not like that's murder or anything. Abortion and murder have slightly different definitions, so its fine.
This could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.
If those astronauts were drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, the shit really would have hit the fan.
So, if you're being investigated, and you're hiding data pertinent to the investigation, of course thats criminal. Its just like physical evidence: if you have it, and you're hiding it from the authorities, they're obviously going to throw the book at you.
And that, 'Are we no longer allowed to have any secrets, even on our own systems?' line is pretty sensationalist. Thats like declaring that it will soon be illegal to own a safe because a court issued a search warrant of someone's house.
Lets just hope that doctors who use this algorithm still throughly examine every patient before beginning treatment, because, while probably useful, I doubt its as effective as a full examination by a professional. I kinda wonder if this would be used in lesser insurance policies to substitute extensive examinations. Premium insurance plan gets a full examination prior to treatment, the plans that cost less have the cancer run through an equation, and a treatment is printed out.
Its just niche marketing. Most people on this site are leaning to the left, so by putting out news that appeals to them, no matter how stupid the story may be (for example, the Fox news story from yesterday fits into that category), it strengthens the fan base. Slashdot does have ads, you know.
(And before the accusations start to fly, no, I'm not a Bush fan.)
Probably the same reason people play the lottery. They think that if they keep playing (aka. throwing away money), it will pay off if they keep playing/they'll recoup their losses. Have you ever seen someone look unhappy and buy a ticket, scratch it off, and discard it, or one of those people buy a bunch of state lotto tickets? I'd bet that a lot have, more or less, the same look and motivating force.
You know how cigarettes say, 'Warning: May cause lung cancer?' Maybe casinos should have a sign that says, 'Warning: There are better ways to make money.'
Desktops are usually more powerful, have more storage capacity, have bigger screens, and cost less than notebooks. Sure, being portable is nice, but methinks as long as there's a demand for the best, most cutting edge machine (and as long as developers produce games like Half Life 2 have massive hardware requirements to run), there will still be a desktop market. Besides, just because people are currently buying notebooks doesn't mean that they won't buy a new desktop as time passes. It probably just means that more people are getting both.
That seems a bit extreme to call it conspiracy and fraud. Lots of MS related things don't work half the time. Is it a conspiracy when IE doesn't load an image?
It may be worth noting that the first three paragraphs of the article were ranting about how much Microsoft sucks, so at least we know there was no bias.
About twice as much as a printer with the cartridge.
I'm tired of hearing that meme. I'm leaving the internet forever!
You'll have to wait until 1/18/08 for a Lost movie...well, you might get a Lost movie, anyway.
It will be like the monster of the week episodes. There'll be some monster/mutant/ghost/miscellaneous paranormal phenomenon/entity to center the movie around, but no extraterrestrials or global conspiracy covering up said extraterrestrials .
Is there controversy over the fact that someone is making, testing, improving, and preparing a worm that could be used to infect systems, or controversy because Macs can be infected by this worm?
They should have to buy $68K worth of CDs, then give the defendant $150,000 for each song on each individual CD.