no one has "observed" evolution in the same way we observe a snake molting or a comet
Depends on how you define "evolution". In the simplest , literal sense, even speciation is not required for evolution. Just an appropriate change over time is enough.
In the most detailed sense, biologists do not even agree as to the exact mechanism of evolution. So observation is out of question.
So while talking about science being a formal method, learn one of the first steps - not using ambiguous words without precise formal definition. A whole field of study isn't "observed" typically - specific phenomena of it are. Speciation has been observed in fruit flies. Measurable reproductive nucleic acids change has been observed with bacteria. "Evolution" is each of these, all of these, or more.
Similarly, no one has "observed" a comet precise to picometers. Nor has anyone observed the role of all the molecules involved in a snake's body while molting.
If you think that there's a good chance that people won't properly debate the NSA after you've released the information, if you don't trust the American people to take it all in and take responsible steps one way or the other, there's absolutely no reason to release the information in the first place
There is if you think leaking the information is just the beginning, and over coming decades there is a chance that the public by analyzing this information will vote and behave appropriately to improve the freedom situation.
Meanwhile, one can still distrust NSLs, gitmos, lack of a trial, secret trial etc.
Can't be called working. It would be like my 6 year old "working" with vernier calipers - there has to be an understanding of the subject matter, and resulting pursuit of success, for something to be called "work".
You think THAT. You think exactly that. Actually I think you think THAT. I think you think exactly that.
When Shakespeare said "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet", it meant that "Shakespeare thought that that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet".
(I think) It is a shortcut to make conversation not infinitely boring to skip the I think, you think non-sense because one cannot express anyone else's opinion. (I think) In expressing other people's opinion, people are expressing their own opinion of the other person's opinion.
Mostly true, but I don't think Afghans would behave like this as a group. It was not for nothing that 3 successive superpowers couldn't subdue an impoverished people. Basically when culture removes the fear of death, no one can subdue the people.
Still, i think if you want privacy then shut the phone down and have a private voice conversation with someone at a restaurant
How? What about the CCTV with mike at the restaurant ? What if I want the very fact that I conversed with someone (and with someone in particular) to be private ?
While I am not great at spreadsheets, isn't it necessary to store data interleaved with logic/code if you use a spreadsheet? If it is, spreadsheets are naturally unfit for achieving high degrees of correctness and verifying if they have reached.
You are ignoring one of the most important players in the moral dilemma - the protagonist. The driver in a human driven car, and the programmer / roboticist / manufacturer in an automated car.
The protagonist should do what is best for himself. Typically this means least legal troubles for himself. Swerving in any direction means intentionally hitting someone in that direction - probably what someone is not present at the time you started swerving. Or you didn't expect that someone to be present there. The legal defence for inaction is much stronger than for any action.
First and foremost, why would such a thing evolve?
This is a wrong question. There are numerous aspects of living beings that could have been different without necessarily having an effect on survivability. Many different proteins could have carried oxygen, some probably better than haemoglobin, still specifically haemoglobin carries oxygen in many animals.
Similarly, "such a thing" is just one of the cases which helped animals survive. Something else could also have helped us survive and thrive, but the "such a thing" happened, and there need not be a reason why among all these things, just the "such a thing" evolved and not others.
If consciousness doesn't drive human behavior why do I perceive myself to be conscious?
Wrong question again. Having calcium phosphate in bones doesn't drive human behaviour either, still people have have calcium phosphate in bones. Having 2 (and not 3, not 4) hands doesn't drive human behaviour, still most humans perceive themselves to have 2 hands.
Agreed that lack of proper competition is the reason for high tariff , I would go so far as to say the only reason other than low population density in the US.
As for metered or unmetered - that is because of a general expectation of stupidity in customers, high cost of customer service, and the impossibility of explaining technicalities in advertisements. It has nothing to do with getting people to use more internet - as most service providers benefit from people using less and paying more. They don't even hide it - the hints of their being an undisclosed upper limit do more to stop technologically illiterate customers from using more, than an unmetered connection does to encourage them.
I call it stupidity, and not merely uninitiated - ness, because electricity meters are similar, but people were not expected to be so stupid back then. Admittedly connection costs vs per unit costs are higher in electricity than internet, the expectation that a layman cannot be expected to know what a gigabyte means, is also a large part of it.
the "smart gun" appears to be a solution in search of a problem.
Agreed with other statements, but a perfect "smart gun" would be cool, and more useful than non-smart guns.
Currently one can train for using guns. One of the training subjects is "gun retention" - exactly the topic being discussed. It might be rare for one's gun to be used against oneself, but that is because gun holders take extreme care so that it doesn't happen. Not having to take so extreme a care when already stressed can only help the gun holder.
Another point - gun is a distance weapon. Could be useless when distance between combatants is less than 2 feet. But at times the aggression starts when the attacker is at 2 feet distance, maybe even less. So either the self-defender starts shooting everyone within 30 feet of his/her own body, whether or or not they are aggressive. OR they need to be extremely well trained in close range combat, without using the gun because gun could be useless at low distances. Importantly - at that point, the self-defender would have to weigh the option of trying to use guns - if successful the attacker can be killed / wounded / scared / fended off. But at such close ranges, attacker being a professional, can take the gun. So the self-defendant might not even try to use the gun, which means a wasted gun.
Smart guns are more useful. If combat unfortunately becomes a close range one, the gun holder can still try to use the gun. With non-smart gun, there is a big risk even in trying.
In a couple of minutes, with a caliper, only a very rough estimate of body fat can be acquired - exactly the problem you have with BMI. It doesn't measure body composition, but body surface composition. To eliminate the effects of retained water and skin defects, significant training is required.
Health is much too complicated to be defined in such a simple way
But health is too important to be NOT defined in simple ways. Everyone will not study the human body for 10 years. Simple ways to keep healthy, and detect if you could be going wrong are essential. Human body being complex, simple ways don't turn out to be perfect. But I haven't seen a better substitute for BMI.
Duh. There is one degree of freedom - because height does not make one obese/overweight/underweight. BMI is not for measuring body's density - one would use body weight / body volume if that were the purpose, but it is NOT.
And the metric you propose is just not for females. A metric doing 90-95% (your numbers) correct predictions for complex systems like human bodies is doing great - and definitely does not deserve to be replaced by other metrics which pretend meat-balls with low testesterone don't even exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. -- Mahatma Gandhi
CyanogenMod, remove Google apps and stop sync.
no one has "observed" evolution in the same way we observe a snake molting or a comet
Depends on how you define "evolution". In the simplest , literal sense, even speciation is not required for evolution. Just an appropriate change over time is enough.
In the most detailed sense, biologists do not even agree as to the exact mechanism of evolution. So observation is out of question.
So while talking about science being a formal method, learn one of the first steps - not using ambiguous words without precise formal definition. A whole field of study isn't "observed" typically - specific phenomena of it are. Speciation has been observed in fruit flies. Measurable reproductive nucleic acids change has been observed with bacteria. "Evolution" is each of these, all of these, or more.
Similarly, no one has "observed" a comet precise to picometers. Nor has anyone observed the role of all the molecules involved in a snake's body while molting.
If you think that there's a good chance that people won't properly debate the NSA after you've released the information, if you don't trust the American people to take it all in and take responsible steps one way or the other, there's absolutely no reason to release the information in the first place
There is if you think leaking the information is just the beginning, and over coming decades there is a chance that the public by analyzing this information will vote and behave appropriately to improve the freedom situation.
Meanwhile, one can still distrust NSLs, gitmos, lack of a trial, secret trial etc.
They can install hardware bugs which doesn't need wiping operating system.
Can't be called working. It would be like my 6 year old "working" with vernier calipers - there has to be an understanding of the subject matter, and resulting pursuit of success, for something to be called "work".
You mean fiddling with data. Molesting the data.
How idiotic.
THAT. Exactly that
You think THAT. You think exactly that. Actually I think you think THAT. I think you think exactly that.
When Shakespeare said "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet", it meant that "Shakespeare thought that that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet".
(I think) It is a shortcut to make conversation not infinitely boring to skip the I think, you think non-sense because one cannot express anyone else's opinion. (I think) In expressing other people's opinion, people are expressing their own opinion of the other person's opinion.
Mostly true, but I don't think Afghans would behave like this as a group. It was not for nothing that 3 successive superpowers couldn't subdue an impoverished people. Basically when culture removes the fear of death, no one can subdue the people.
Still, i think if you want privacy then shut the phone down and have a private voice conversation with someone at a restaurant
How? What about the CCTV with mike at the restaurant ? What if I want the very fact that I conversed with someone (and with someone in particular) to be private ?
A vast majority of work, even important work, is trivial, and spreadsheets won't have problems with trivial work.
So it's "very little work happens to be important, difficult, and suitable for spreadsheets".
While I am not great at spreadsheets, isn't it necessary to store data interleaved with logic/code if you use a spreadsheet? If it is, spreadsheets are naturally unfit for achieving high degrees of correctness and verifying if they have reached.
If they don't program, what are they doing around large quantities of data?
You asked about how many tabs one can fit horizontally, and I replied only to that, that fitting tabs horizontally is idiotic.
No you were talking tabs horizontally, to which I replied.
Fitting tabs horizontally is idiotic anyway for a large number of tabs. Tabs should be vertical.
You're confused. The year is 2014, not 42.
You are ignoring one of the most important players in the moral dilemma - the protagonist. The driver in a human driven car, and the programmer / roboticist / manufacturer in an automated car.
The protagonist should do what is best for himself. Typically this means least legal troubles for himself. Swerving in any direction means intentionally hitting someone in that direction - probably what someone is not present at the time you started swerving. Or you didn't expect that someone to be present there. The legal defence for inaction is much stronger than for any action.
First and foremost, why would such a thing evolve?
This is a wrong question. There are numerous aspects of living beings that could have been different without necessarily having an effect on survivability. Many different proteins could have carried oxygen, some probably better than haemoglobin, still specifically haemoglobin carries oxygen in many animals.
Similarly, "such a thing" is just one of the cases which helped animals survive. Something else could also have helped us survive and thrive, but the "such a thing" happened, and there need not be a reason why among all these things, just the "such a thing" evolved and not others.
If consciousness doesn't drive human behavior why do I perceive myself to be conscious?
Wrong question again. Having calcium phosphate in bones doesn't drive human behaviour either, still people have have calcium phosphate in bones. Having 2 (and not 3, not 4) hands doesn't drive human behaviour, still most humans perceive themselves to have 2 hands.
Agreed that lack of proper competition is the reason for high tariff , I would go so far as to say the only reason other than low population density in the US.
As for metered or unmetered - that is because of a general expectation of stupidity in customers, high cost of customer service, and the impossibility of explaining technicalities in advertisements. It has nothing to do with getting people to use more internet - as most service providers benefit from people using less and paying more. They don't even hide it - the hints of their being an undisclosed upper limit do more to stop technologically illiterate customers from using more, than an unmetered connection does to encourage them.
I call it stupidity, and not merely uninitiated - ness, because electricity meters are similar, but people were not expected to be so stupid back then. Admittedly connection costs vs per unit costs are higher in electricity than internet, the expectation that a layman cannot be expected to know what a gigabyte means, is also a large part of it.
Because this encourages people to use more bandwidth. When people use more bandwidth, it encourages investment in infrastructure
Wrong. When people pay more for using more bandwidth, it encourages investment in infrastructure.
If heavy users and light users pay alike, where would the return on investment on infrastructure come ? Especially with geographical monopolies?
the "smart gun" appears to be a solution in search of a problem.
Agreed with other statements, but a perfect "smart gun" would be cool, and more useful than non-smart guns.
Currently one can train for using guns. One of the training subjects is "gun retention" - exactly the topic being discussed. It might be rare for one's gun to be used against oneself, but that is because gun holders take extreme care so that it doesn't happen. Not having to take so extreme a care when already stressed can only help the gun holder.
Another point - gun is a distance weapon. Could be useless when distance between combatants is less than 2 feet. But at times the aggression starts when the attacker is at 2 feet distance, maybe even less. So either the self-defender starts shooting everyone within 30 feet of his/her own body, whether or or not they are aggressive. OR they need to be extremely well trained in close range combat, without using the gun because gun could be useless at low distances. Importantly - at that point, the self-defender would have to weigh the option of trying to use guns - if successful the attacker can be killed / wounded / scared / fended off. But at such close ranges, attacker being a professional, can take the gun. So the self-defendant might not even try to use the gun, which means a wasted gun.
Smart guns are more useful. If combat unfortunately becomes a close range one, the gun holder can still try to use the gun. With non-smart gun, there is a big risk even in trying.
In a couple of minutes, with a caliper, only a very rough estimate of body fat can be acquired - exactly the problem you have with BMI. It doesn't measure body composition, but body surface composition. To eliminate the effects of retained water and skin defects, significant training is required.
Health is much too complicated to be defined in such a simple way
But health is too important to be NOT defined in simple ways. Everyone will not study the human body for 10 years. Simple ways to keep healthy, and detect if you could be going wrong are essential. Human body being complex, simple ways don't turn out to be perfect. But I haven't seen a better substitute for BMI.
Duh. There is one degree of freedom - because height does not make one obese/overweight/underweight. BMI is not for measuring body's density - one would use body weight / body volume if that were the purpose, but it is NOT.
And the metric you propose is just not for females. A metric doing 90-95% (your numbers) correct predictions for complex systems like human bodies is doing great - and definitely does not deserve to be replaced by other metrics which pretend meat-balls with low testesterone don't even exist.