I wrote one of those at school. It had sentence 'templates' and pulled words out into a database. I never had enough time to feed it sentences, but I guess an IRC or usenet feed would be amazing.
I have to agree with other posters: documentation is essential. I work in a (UK) lab environment where documentation is very hot. Off the top of my head, here are the guidelines we follow:
Lab books should be properly bound and have sequential page numbers
Each page should be dated and signed by the researcher and a witness/supervisor
Blank spaces should be crossed through and initialed/signed
Computer printouts should be glued in, not just kept on disk
Any crossings-out/deletions should leave the original text readable. No tippex/whiteout
Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and explained where unclear
That's probably not an exhaustive list, and the poster of the article may know this already. Hopefully it will be useful to somebody.
From the Fool.com article:- 'Each applicant gets their own secret key with which to unscramble the DVD so it can be played. And if one of those keys were to fall into the "wrong hands," then future DVD disks could be made so that key wouldn't work on them anymore.' Does this mean that if the MPAA decides that e.g. Panasonic had broken their licensing agreement, then newly released DVDs would simply stop working on their players? Surely this level of market controll is ridiculous. Sorry if this has already been discussed...
Are you serious about this? I think that if you actually are a Christian, there's good cause to believe that the study in question is meaningless and pointless. God says many times in the Bible "do not put me to the test" and he meant it. The New Testament is full of instances of Jesus healing people; but it is also full of instances of Jesus _not_ healing people, for instance when he went to his home town, Bethlehem, the Bible reports that he did not perform many miracles because the people lacked faith (go and look it up). Biblical healing is all about a two- or three- way dialogue: between the sick, God, and possibly a third person (the "intercessor" in this study). And it's all about God's will: he's not there to be tested to see whether prayer works - if it's God's plan to heal someone right now then he will; if it's not then he won't. I don't know about the scientific and statistical accuracy of this study, but I do know that as a Bible believing Christian who has experienced personally and seen in others God's healing, I can easily discredit this study from a spiritual point of view as having no bearing on the healing power of God. Also may I point out that the poster made no "sickening attack on Christianity" but simply stated his/her opinion that the study was lacking in scientific objectivity.
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I wrote one of those at school. It had sentence 'templates' and pulled words out into a database. I never had enough time to feed it sentences, but I guess an IRC or usenet feed would be amazing.
- Lab books should be properly bound and have sequential page numbers
- Each page should be dated and signed by the researcher and a witness/supervisor
- Blank spaces should be crossed through and initialed/signed
- Computer printouts should be glued in, not just kept on disk
- Any crossings-out/deletions should leave the original text readable. No tippex/whiteout
- Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and explained where unclear
That's probably not an exhaustive list, and the poster of the article may know this already. Hopefully it will be useful to somebody.From the Fool.com article:- 'Each applicant gets their own secret key with which to unscramble the DVD so it can be played. And if one of those keys were to fall into the "wrong hands," then future DVD disks could be made so that key wouldn't work on them anymore.' Does this mean that if the MPAA decides that e.g. Panasonic had broken their licensing agreement, then newly released DVDs would simply stop working on their players? Surely this level of market controll is ridiculous. Sorry if this has already been discussed...
Are you serious about this? I think that if you actually are a Christian, there's good cause to believe that the study in question is meaningless and pointless. God says many times in the Bible "do not put me to the test" and he meant it. The New Testament is full of instances of Jesus healing people; but it is also full of instances of Jesus _not_ healing people, for instance when he went to his home town, Bethlehem, the Bible reports that he did not perform many miracles because the people lacked faith (go and look it up). Biblical healing is all about a two- or three- way dialogue: between the sick, God, and possibly a third person (the "intercessor" in this study). And it's all about God's will: he's not there to be tested to see whether prayer works - if it's God's plan to heal someone right now then he will; if it's not then he won't. I don't know about the scientific and statistical accuracy of this study, but I do know that as a Bible believing Christian who has experienced personally and seen in others God's healing, I can easily discredit this study from a spiritual point of view as having no bearing on the healing power of God. Also may I point out that the poster made no "sickening attack on Christianity" but simply stated his/her opinion that the study was lacking in scientific objectivity.