Uh, the slashdot summary is pretty lousy. After RTFA I am still a bit confused, can someone at slashdot please provide an "english" translation of the problems and how dangerous they are to normal users? The
second link in the article, containing brief descriptions of bugs, might be useful, although perhaps still quite technical.
One bug that is perhaps easy to communicate to the "normal user" is AE30, where the bug might cause
some software running on Core Duo during the dehibernation to reload data from the wrong memory location. It's labeled as "potentially catastrophic", and I imagine that after the wrong reload,
more or less anything can happen: some program crashing, OS crashing, to, who knows, maybe even some
exploits can be programmed to use this bug...
The label - addiction, disorder etc. - is unimportant. In any of these cases targeting negative behavior is important Ok, "targeting negative behavior" is important. Sounds a bit military, no? Let's derive a vocabulary:
disorder --- war
health --- peace
negative behavior --- bad guy
treatement --- war plan
drug --- weapon
drug treatment --- precise bombing
side-effects --- collateral damage
What about using officially prescribed Prozak/Codein/Morphin at the same cost? Such stuff also happens... It doesn't matter where you get a drug. If you use it inappropriately it's bad. If you use it appropriately it's okay. Of course it matters: this is in part what the legal vs illegal drug
bussiness is all about.
There is something very tautological-moralistic in all these
discussions: appropriate=good, inapropriate=bad; normal=good,
abnormal=bad; drugs with prescriprion = good, illegal drugs = bad;
negative function = bad, normal function = good, and so on... If
doctors keep on prescribing Codeine/Morphine over and over to the
point of the patient becoming first addicted and then addicted to the
point of being in danger of dying (yes, it happened, and who could tell that marijuana would not have been a better choice?), well,
there is some breach of responsibility that is not entirely on the
patient's side.
As another example of an element of arbitrariness, let's take the example of:
Someone who drinks alcohol once a week at dinner is not addicted. Someone who drinks compulsively and gets withdrawal if they stop drinking is addicted. and replace "drinks alchol" with "eats food": Someone who eats
compulsively and gets withdrawal if they stop eating is addicted.
Fine, but again, addiction here is defined via "compulsion" and
"withdrawal", words that have attached to them meaning of "bad"
activities (so, yes, the label is very important here). If one says: "I haven't eaten dinner and I feel really
hungry, I must eat something", well, how can one tell
if the person is addicted to food or not?
If you look at the DSM-IV (it's available online) you will see what I mean. Mental illness is a spectrum. I'm not sure why all this insisting on reading the "DSM IV"? Anyhow, I couldn't find the free version of the book
on the internet, and wikipedia says:
The DSM advises that laypersons should consult the DSM only to obtain information, not to make diagnoses, and that people who may have a mental disorder should be referred to psychiatric counseling or treatment. Uf, that's a bit crazy, no? I mean, if somebody "may have a mental disorder",
does that not mean that the possibility of the mental disorder is always
present? What if somebody consults DSM to get an idea whether something that
that person feels is not right with him/her (there are hundreds of choices to pick from), and then after making a layman's
diagnosis (one that DSM exactly forbids) goes to the professional, and the
professional tells: "well, you have indeed the disorder you thought you have"?
Which also means: "yes, you have the disorder, and you are very good at correctly
detecting it, which is my job, therefore you were not supposed to do it, but it's
good for you that you did it."
Or: "no, don't worry, nothing is wrong with you--you were not supposed to do the diagnosis, but it's good for you that you did it anyway, for I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with you that I can tell."
Federal agents are visiting some of the New England's top universities... to warn university heads about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research.
I wonder what would those be?
The article says that the FBI is asking people to watch out for certain behaviors. Who is less free because of that? What are they less free to do? What freedom has been taken away? Ok Sherlock, here is one for you:
say your collegue from the class and her boyfriend want to go for a summer vacation to Syria: you know, they'll lend in Germany, then take a bit of travel through west europa, east europa, turkey, then syria, and in reverse back to US. You also find, say unintentionally overhear, that they're not going to report or even tell the actual destination of their travel to anybody. What do you do under the duties of a watchful citizen?
And you think that the FBI gets off on following up on completely useless tips? No, I think they'll be following up only the useful tips. Useful to them, which means to us, or something like that...
How can "shoplifters watch the employees" WITHOUT looking at them? Looking at them is a prerqeuisite for 'watching' them. Wher eis the line drawn between 'looking' and 'watching'?? do we really have to go through all of this again? I dunno about shoplifters, but anyhow there is no line drawn between looking and watching. That's basically what's so exciting about watching: since you're looking, you might as well be watching! for us! or yourself! You can watch without looking: sun-glasses, cameras (come in two varieties: photo and video), peripheral vision, mirrors, semi-transparent mirrors, binoculars, telescopes, shadows, other people's behavior, satellites, phones, hats, notebooks, veils, internet... visually impaired? get the glasses! blind? ears, man, you can even watch with your ears! hell, sometimes you can pretty much know where somebody is without any looking or watching whatsoever. Did I mention smell?
Let me see if I get this right:
People are missing the forest for the trees here. That's kind what addictions are all about: trees, forest, wild animals, birds, flowers, and so on...
The point is NOT the substance/act itself being inherently harmful, but rather an individual's USE of something that is harmful. So, the point is not the game/playing but the use of game/playing?
What is then the use of playing computer game?
Food is a wonderful thing, yet there are those individuals who's attitudes and behaviors with respect to food are destructive. It's the destructive behavior that's the 'disorder' not the food itself. Let me try to understand this one: you are probably not saying that that those individuals that have destructive "attitudes and behaviors with respect to food" have
disorders, right?
Using stimulants like amphetamines to treat certain medical conditions is appropriate. Using them to get high at the cost of your family and career is inappropriate. What about using officially prescribed Prozak/Codein/Morphin at the same cost? Such stuff also happens...
Take a look at the DSM IV - the classification book for mental disorders. In order to qualify as a disorder, something usually has to have a significant negative impact on someone's function. So, "disorder" = "significant negative impact", that surely clarifies things, (maybe not on "someone's function", let's say for the sake of agreement on someone's life...
is "someone's function" equal to "someone's life"?)
I see no difference between compulsive gaming that affects one's life, and compulsive hair pulling that affects one's life. Indeed. I mean insofar as they are both compulsive activities that affect one's life!
n the case of video games, one thing that people become physically addicted to is the natural 'high' or 'rush' that is obtained through the release of endorphins and other neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine (which produce similar effects in the brain to that of opiates) when the subject 'beats' the game. Oh wow shiish, would you care to share which games/opiates you're talking about?
I'd like to try them, naturally only as a part of a fully controlled scientific experiment...
How could any responsible and culturally literate individual not be somewhat of a relativist? Given that there is never any absolutes and no action has any inherent meaning, it's time we stepped out of the dark ages. That is far from a given[...]
It's a far cry from admitting your fallibility (refraining from ever thinking you are absolutely right) to denying objectivity (asserting that there is no absolute truth or absolute good to strive to understand or attain). The latter is relativism; the former is simply not absolutism. The former seems to be pretty close to Christianity.
Relativism is a metaphysical doctrine (talking about what actually is, or in this case, is not) denying objectivity, i.e. denying that there is something which really is true independent of anyone's opinions; absolutism is an epistemological doctrine (talking about knowledge, understanding of belief) denying subjectivity, i.e. denying that one's access to that independent truth is incomplete and colored by one's perspective. Thus, one can be both objective and subjective, as scientists strive to be. Then again, lots has been said all over books and press of scientists being objective, not subjective--subjective is there almost always secondary. In any case, you're talking about some kind of ontological-epistemological relativism, because from what you say it seems that ontological and epistemological are somewhat independent, and one can pick and string together whichever doctrines one finds suitable from these two disciplines.
I very much doubt that one could ask the same, because, well, Brasil is across the seven seas from Portugal. Which has absolutely nothing to do with if the languages spoken there are two variations of the same language or two different languages.
This is not true for Dutch and German, neither is it true for Dutch and English or German and English. Ok, so my example has absolutely nothing to do with it, but nonetheless can be translated
into an example that in some sense could have something to do with it:
You could ask the same question with regards to Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands and on the Dutch Antiles. I had to consult Wikipedia about this one: it says "Official languages [of The Netherlands Antilles (Dutch: Nederlandse Antillen), previously known as the Netherlands West Indies or Dutch Antilles/West Indies are:] Dutch, English, Papiamento.
Just look the density of languages that we mention: starting with Dutch, English and German,
then extending it to Portugese, Brasilian-Portugese, Vlamish, and eventually Dutch Antiles-Dutch and Papiamento (about which Wikipedia says: "Papiamento is a language that has been evolving through the centuries and absorbed many words from other languages like Spanish, Dutch, English, African dialects, and Portuguese.")... If we were to continue this for a year or so into the future we would have encountered the Wikipedia's:
The Netherlands Antilles is to be disbanded on December 15, 2008. The idea of the Netherlands Antilles as a state never enjoyed full support of all islands. Political relations between islands were often strained. After a long struggle, Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986, to form its own state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The desire for secession has also been strong in Sint Maarten.
The whole business of risk management is tricky exactly because it is hard to define
what the risk is. Economists tried to get risk into their formulas without success, and no
matter how self-understandable the concept might be, when an accident occurs all kinds of other things
start to work. You say
It's one thing if someone deliberately avoids their responsibility and in so doing cause an accident. It's quite another when an accident occurs through no real fault of a diligent and responsible person. and I of course agree, but I am not sure how this logic can be translated/applied to pretty much any
real-life accident. First off, notice that, by their very definition, corporations are societies that are trying to limit their responsibility. And how to determine whether a particular Co, by trying to limit their responsibility, is also trying to avoid it? What if the risk management is just one among other strategies to limit the responsibility?
Furthermore, we shouldn't neglect other logics of accident. Let's assume that it is undisputed that a particular accident was:
the accident that occurred was one that any honest person would accept was a reasonable possibility, and furthermore, one which people so accept as a possibility every single day. and that the responsibility was established beyond any doubt of anybody. Very idealized situation, but let's assume in its spirit that, for instance, after an accident and a court settlement a large amount of money was awarded to a person X suing a company Y.
Like in the news: X got severely injured and after going to the court got awarded from Y a large amount of money.
Isn't there something strange/perverse/bizarre about this even if there is nothing left to be clarified about the responsibility of people involved?
Accidents happen. They are erratic events which we cannot predict, but nonetheless accept the possibility of. This reminds me of the Atom Egoyan's movie The Sweet Hereafter, where the lawyer is trying to rally people to sue after a nasty accident, and when somebody asks him why should they sue since it was an accident after all, he replies that to him word accident means nothing, but rather that somebody somewhere in some company decided to save some money and thereby make the school bus involved in the accident less safe...
Then, what is the difference between understanding the language and using it correctly in the example of the Brazilian-Portuguese and Portuguese? You could ask the same about say Dutch and Vlamish (which is by all definitions a member of the family of Dutch languages, and very similar tho not identical). Its not the same as asking the same question about say Dutch and German, or French and Italian. I very much doubt that one could ask the same, because, well, Brasil is across the seven seas from Portugal.
Most of us here get more then a few years of foreign language education, starting in primary school, and actually get to practise what they learn.
That is why you are understood here regardless of speaking German, English or Dutch, or whatever silly mix of those you might come up with. Yes, I enjoy speaking English with people in Europa. They, depending on country, do develop their
own dialects and subdialects and versions of English, and I've no doubt that education has great deal
to do with it, as well as practice in talking with people like... um... me and my friends I wrote
about.
For example, when you write:
Next time when in Amsterdam, try not being stoned all the time like the typical visitor, and you might notice that since most Dutchies understand English pretty well and will at least understand some German, they will also understand your 'Dutch' as a result. after I wrote what I wrote in my previous posts, I feel almost guilty: have
I provided enough practice of English language for this guy (as you know, although 3rd person singular,
it is referring to you) so that he, apart from using English correctly, can also understand
the written English, and, more importantly, understand what I've been writing? Should I tell him simply that I have never been in Amsterdam except at the airport while waiting for another plain? But was this
sentence simple enough? He might just read it as a logical fallacy, who knows? Or should I be just
educational, like by trying to tell him that he does not need first to reduce Amsterdam and its foreign
visitors to standard cultural stereotypes in order to say something, presumably other than
smoking. Did I induce him to start writing about smoking marijuana when I was merely talking about the
trippy feeling of some people when (trying to) speak Dutch having only some knowledge of English and German?
Maybe I am just too hard on him, for when he talks about "silly mixes" of languages that are nonetheless understood by people, is it not that integer numbers of languages are becoming more like rational, or even real numbers, like in "speaking 4/3 languages"?
We always talk about the RIAA as an entity, but there is probably only a relatively few individuals that are heading up all of this nonsense. Nope your wrong. This is corporate policy. In this case the entity it's self really is to blame. But as far as I know, RIAA is not a corporation. They must be accountable to someone.
I don't quite get what similarity to what I'm talking about you're talking about: French and Italian and...? Which other language? If you need a 3rd language to understand the point, take portuguese for example.
The point is that even though some languages are similar, they are not the same language, and speaking one doesn't mean you automatically speak or understand the other one (or ones), let alone use it correctly. Which reminds me of my initial question: when one speaks English, German and Dutch, how many languages one
speaks? Is this the same number as when one speaks English, Dutch and Portuguese?
Then, what is the difference between understanding the language and using it correctly in the example
of the Brazilian-Portuguese and Portuguese?
Amsterdam eh? tell them to stop smoking and try again. Try again what? Etc: Questions pile ohne Ende...
I don't think your parallel parallels that well what's up in Germany. Maybe this should be somewhat closer: First, there was a large influx of SuSe Lunux into the goverment sector (Over 500 German government agencies using open source). Then, a few years later, SuSe turns commercial.
I don't think your parallel parallels that well what's up in Germany. Maybe this should be somewhat closer: First, there was a large influx of SuSe Lunux into the goverment sector (Over 500 German government agencies using open source). Then, a few years later, SuSe turns commercial.
How many languages is that? I mean, Dutch being a mixture of English and German as some say... Historically, Dutch, German and English do have some common roots, that is true of course.
Your argument however is similar to saying that someone who speaks French and Italian speaks only one language since they are similar and come from the same roman origins. I don't quite get what similarity to what I'm talking about you're talking about: French and Italian and...? Which other language?
It's like this: when I brush up on my German I'm gonna take a trip to Amsterdam and then... WHAM!
Friends with the knowledge of both English and German but no knowledge of Dutch tell me it's a very trippy experience to talk Dutch!
I used to like the ideas of string theory, but after what, 15-20 years of work, not a single observable prediction has been made by the theory. Heck, we don't even have a theory has such yet, more like a plethora of them, and a few that suggest they're all correct!
Anyone making suggestions opposing the current cosmological framework using string theory had better have something more than vague mathematical foundations if they want to convince anyone. They sure won't convince me anytime soon. Then maybe this alternative theory is something you've been looking for all those years!
One way to look at it is to notice the progress achieved: first it was the question of what it is, then there was many, then one,
then again many theories, now these guys are trying to give a cosmology that would be based on
the string theory. I mean mathematically: imagine they work out all the mathematics and
get the theory of universe where membranes collide, dark energy explained, etc... this is
pretty much what the string theory was expected to deliver, and now it is getting there.
I thought branes (hypothetically) caused the big bang, and inflation is something that happened after the big bang. There are indeed two questions involved, that of the "beginning" and that of the large-scale uniformity
of the universe. From what I could decipher from the interview, both theories differ in answers to both questions: the "new" theory claims that the big bang is the collision of two (mem)branes, everything
expands uniformly because there is no point-like singularity and everything is smooth and uniform
because that is just an (observed) property. As the universe expands, the dark energy is like a potential
energy of a spring between two membranes that gets more and more stretched and eventually takes over
and starts bringing membranes back together and their collision repeats.
Inflation fits observations very well, including the amount of observed dark energy, but has no answers about the origin of dark energy, and everything expands forever, the new theory is not yet worked out mathematically.
Now he's in a self-imposed sort of exile at the Max Planck Institut fur Astrophysik in Germany That's a rather prestigious place to spend your exile. Or maybe this is just a corner in the far end of the universe? Maybe this was the perfect spot
for him to observe It.
Given the uncanny ability of maths to model the Universe I am inclined to say let the maths wizzes have their big hairy formulas, on the rare occasions when they do find a basic truth it always has spectacular consequences for science. The question then is where/when/how does the basic truth come out of this process?
Here is another one for you: why is this uncanny ability of maths given?
Or, to get it more to the topic of the article: the circular vs linear
universe debate is very old, very non-mathematical...
I am not quite getting what are you bitter about? I mean, this is pretty much how
things work in physics: coming up with some formulas that cannot
"even be proven experimentally", and these brane-theorists are just working within the
same framework...
Slashdot Mirror
LOL!
disorder --- war
health --- peace
negative behavior --- bad guy
treatement --- war plan
drug --- weapon
drug treatment --- precise bombing
side-effects --- collateral damage
What about using officially prescribed Prozak/Codein/Morphin at the same cost? Such stuff also happens... It doesn't matter where you get a drug. If you use it inappropriately it's bad. If you use it appropriately it's okay. Of course it matters: this is in part what the legal vs illegal drug bussiness is all about.
There is something very tautological-moralistic in all these discussions: appropriate=good, inapropriate=bad; normal=good, abnormal=bad; drugs with prescriprion = good, illegal drugs = bad; negative function = bad, normal function = good, and so on... If doctors keep on prescribing Codeine/Morphine over and over to the point of the patient becoming first addicted and then addicted to the point of being in danger of dying (yes, it happened, and who could tell that marijuana would not have been a better choice?), well, there is some breach of responsibility that is not entirely on the patient's side. As another example of an element of arbitrariness, let's take the example of: Someone who drinks alcohol once a week at dinner is not addicted. Someone who drinks compulsively and gets withdrawal if they stop drinking is addicted. and replace "drinks alchol" with "eats food": Someone who eats compulsively and gets withdrawal if they stop eating is addicted. Fine, but again, addiction here is defined via "compulsion" and "withdrawal", words that have attached to them meaning of "bad" activities (so, yes, the label is very important here). If one says: "I haven't eaten dinner and I feel really hungry, I must eat something", well, how can one tell if the person is addicted to food or not? If you look at the DSM-IV (it's available online) you will see what I mean. Mental illness is a spectrum. I'm not sure why all this insisting on reading the "DSM IV"? Anyhow, I couldn't find the free version of the book on the internet, and wikipedia says: The DSM advises that laypersons should consult the DSM only to obtain information, not to make diagnoses, and that people who may have a mental disorder should be referred to psychiatric counseling or treatment. Uf, that's a bit crazy, no? I mean, if somebody "may have a mental disorder", does that not mean that the possibility of the mental disorder is always present? What if somebody consults DSM to get an idea whether something that that person feels is not right with him/her (there are hundreds of choices to pick from), and then after making a layman's diagnosis (one that DSM exactly forbids) goes to the professional, and the professional tells: "well, you have indeed the disorder you thought you have"? Which also means: "yes, you have the disorder, and you are very good at correctly detecting it, which is my job, therefore you were not supposed to do it, but it's good for you that you did it."
Or: "no, don't worry, nothing is wrong with you--you were not supposed to do the diagnosis, but it's good for you that you did it anyway, for I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with you that I can tell."
well, there is something imaginary about "failed bombing plots" isn't there?
It's also very interesting that he was making lists for the British government of people he considered pro- and anti-communists after the WW2.
This is not true for Dutch and German, neither is it true for Dutch and English or German and English. Ok, so my example has absolutely nothing to do with it, but nonetheless can be translated into an example that in some sense could have something to do with it: You could ask the same question with regards to Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands and on the Dutch Antiles. I had to consult Wikipedia about this one: it says "Official languages [of The Netherlands Antilles (Dutch: Nederlandse Antillen), previously known as the Netherlands West Indies or Dutch Antilles/West Indies are:] Dutch, English, Papiamento.
Just look the density of languages that we mention: starting with Dutch, English and German, then extending it to Portugese, Brasilian-Portugese, Vlamish, and eventually Dutch Antiles-Dutch and Papiamento (about which Wikipedia says: "Papiamento is a language that has been evolving through the centuries and absorbed many words from other languages like Spanish, Dutch, English, African dialects, and Portuguese.")... If we were to continue this for a year or so into the future we would have encountered the Wikipedia's: The Netherlands Antilles is to be disbanded on December 15, 2008. The idea of the Netherlands Antilles as a state never enjoyed full support of all islands. Political relations between islands were often strained. After a long struggle, Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986, to form its own state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The desire for secession has also been strong in Sint Maarten.
Furthermore, we shouldn't neglect other logics of accident. Let's assume that it is undisputed that a particular accident was: the accident that occurred was one that any honest person would accept was a reasonable possibility, and furthermore, one which people so accept as a possibility every single day. and that the responsibility was established beyond any doubt of anybody. Very idealized situation, but let's assume in its spirit that, for instance, after an accident and a court settlement a large amount of money was awarded to a person X suing a company Y. Like in the news: X got severely injured and after going to the court got awarded from Y a large amount of money. Isn't there something strange/perverse/bizarre about this even if there is nothing left to be clarified about the responsibility of people involved? Accidents happen. They are erratic events which we cannot predict, but nonetheless accept the possibility of. This reminds me of the Atom Egoyan's movie The Sweet Hereafter, where the lawyer is trying to rally people to sue after a nasty accident, and when somebody asks him why should they sue since it was an accident after all, he replies that to him word accident means nothing, but rather that somebody somewhere in some company decided to save some money and thereby make the school bus involved in the accident less safe...
For example, when you write: Next time when in Amsterdam, try not being stoned all the time like the typical visitor, and you might notice that since most Dutchies understand English pretty well and will at least understand some German, they will also understand your 'Dutch' as a result. after I wrote what I wrote in my previous posts, I feel almost guilty: have I provided enough practice of English language for this guy (as you know, although 3rd person singular, it is referring to you) so that he, apart from using English correctly, can also understand the written English, and, more importantly, understand what I've been writing? Should I tell him simply that I have never been in Amsterdam except at the airport while waiting for another plain? But was this sentence simple enough? He might just read it as a logical fallacy, who knows? Or should I be just educational, like by trying to tell him that he does not need first to reduce Amsterdam and its foreign visitors to standard cultural stereotypes in order to say something, presumably other than smoking. Did I induce him to start writing about smoking marijuana when I was merely talking about the trippy feeling of some people when (trying to) speak Dutch having only some knowledge of English and German? Maybe I am just too hard on him, for when he talks about "silly mixes" of languages that are nonetheless understood by people, is it not that integer numbers of languages are becoming more like rational, or even real numbers, like in "speaking 4/3 languages"?
The point is that even though some languages are similar, they are not the same language, and speaking one doesn't mean you automatically speak or understand the other one (or ones), let alone use it correctly. Which reminds me of my initial question: when one speaks English, German and Dutch, how many languages one speaks? Is this the same number as when one speaks English, Dutch and Portuguese?
Then, what is the difference between understanding the language and using it correctly in the example of the Brazilian-Portuguese and Portuguese? Amsterdam eh? tell them to stop smoking and try again. Try again what? Etc: Questions pile ohne Ende...
I don't think your parallel parallels that well what's up in Germany. Maybe this should be somewhat closer: First, there was a large influx of SuSe Lunux into the goverment sector (Over 500 German government agencies using open source). Then, a few years later, SuSe turns commercial.
I don't think your parallel parallels that well what's up in Germany. Maybe this should be somewhat closer: First, there was a large influx of SuSe Lunux into the goverment sector (Over 500 German government agencies using open source). Then, a few years later, SuSe turns commercial.
It's like this: when I brush up on my German I'm gonna take a trip to Amsterdam and then... WHAM! Friends with the knowledge of both English and German but no knowledge of Dutch tell me it's a very trippy experience to talk Dutch!
Anyone making suggestions opposing the current cosmological framework using string theory had better have something more than vague mathematical foundations if they want to convince anyone. They sure won't convince me anytime soon. Then maybe this alternative theory is something you've been looking for all those years! One way to look at it is to notice the progress achieved: first it was the question of what it is, then there was many, then one, then again many theories, now these guys are trying to give a cosmology that would be based on the string theory. I mean mathematically: imagine they work out all the mathematics and get the theory of universe where membranes collide, dark energy explained, etc... this is pretty much what the string theory was expected to deliver, and now it is getting there.
I am not quite getting what are you bitter about? I mean, this is pretty much how things work in physics: coming up with some formulas that cannot "even be proven experimentally", and these brane-theorists are just working within the same framework...