if you are doing research its probably in an academic environment, and probably a competetive one, and if you use numpy the matlab folks are going to code circles around you.
[shrug] This hasn't been my experience at all, but rather quite the opposite -- that I'm done with my programs and having a beer while the MATLAB users are still struggling and cursing. Believe me, I'm not averse to paying for a product that's worth the money (e.g., Mathematica for symbolic work) but it is my considered opinion, after using both MATLAB and numpy for quite some time, that this really is a case where the F/OSS alternative is genuinely better than the commercial product.
Care to explain how numpy is better than matlab? I'm not trolling, I'm actually about to start numerical processing for my research, and I'm stuck on the fence between using matlab (which we have on all our lab computers) and python, which i'd have the luxury of doing at home since it's free. i barely know either one, so i don't really have any loyalty to either side yet.
Basically, I like numpy because it's Python, and I like Python. More generally, I like having a general-purpose programming language when I'm writing real programs. MATLAB is good at crunching numbers and nothing else; numpy is almost as good (and in my experience, often faster) at crunching numbers, and it's also good at everything else Python is good at. String handling, DBI, and any data structure more complex than matrices, to name the examples I deal with most, are just unbelievably painful in MATLAB, IMO, but they're unbelievably easy in Python/numpy.
I do as much as possible of my work (bioinformatics) in Numerical Python. It's really nice to have the power of a general-purpose programming language as well as a numerical feature set that has equivalents for nearly every special-purpose MATLAB function I've ever needed. YMMV.
And people whose house was on fire, or getting broken into, or who were having a heart attack... very often couldn't dial those numbers, and people died as a result. There's a big difference between dialing some arbitrary seven-digit* number in an emergency, even if you've got it on a sticker on your phone, and dialing a three-digit number which gets drilled into people practically from birth.
* In some areas, such as Denver, with "area-code overlay," a regular local call is ten digits. Even worse.
Explaining the problem in a language the PHB's understand is impossible, as long as they choose to listen only to suitspeak. It is their fault; I don't think most of them are so inherently stupid that they can't understand, just that they choose not to. Treating this entirely voluntary behavior on their part as a law of nature is, IMO, a serious mistake.
A consultant can come in and say, "Buy product A, which costs $B, and will save the company $C dollars per year!" And the MBA's will tend to believe him, because, well, he wears a suit.
But then engineer has to say, "Actually, product A sucks. Specifically, it won't save us any money at all, because it breaks all the time. On the other hand, product D, which costs $E [where E > B], will save us $F/yr. [where F < C]. I know this isn't as impressive as what the consultant promised you, but you see, product D works."
And management says, "Okay, why does D work so much better than A?" (subtext: a guy in a suit told us something different, and now you're telling us he's a liar, you hippie?)
Engineer: "Well, you see, D uses components x, y, and z, which are much more reliable than the equivalents in A..."
Management: "We'll go with A. And by the way, it's your job to make it work within the budget the consultant says it'll cost, and if not, we'll fire you. Thanks for your input, though! It's been great!" [handshakes all around]
Do I have an axe to grind? Hell, yes, I do. I have a serious problem with suits who think an MBA makes them fit to judge technical problems, who don't listen to the people who do know how to judge technical problems, and who instinctively trust other liars in suits over honest people who just want to get the job done. The suits are the ones who wrecked the tech boom, and we would be living in a far better world today without them.
And you're right, this has long been a source of frustration to me. Fortunately, I solved the problem by finding a good job with a successful company run by technical people who trust my judgement (and who know better than to give power to suits, because the truth of the matter is that "business problems" are so mindlessly simple than any geek worthy of the name can handle them in his sleep.) However, I know far too many people who haven't been that lucky.
A consultant can come in and say, "Buy product A, which costs $B, and will save the company $C dollars per year!" And the MBA's will tend to believe him, because, well, he wears a suit.
But then engineer has to say, "Actually, product A sucks. Specifically, it won't save us any money at all, because it breaks all the time. On the other hand, product D, which costs $E [where E > B], will save us $F/yr. [where F works."
And management says, "Okay, why does D work so much better than A?" (subtext: a guy in a suit told us something different, and now you're telling us he's a liar, you hippie?)
Engineer: "Well, you see, D uses components x, y, and z, which are much more reliable than the equivalents in A..."
Management: "We'll go with A. And by the way, it's your job to make it work within the budget the consultant says it'll cost, and if not, we'll fire you. Thanks for your input, though! It's been great!" [handshakes all around]
Do I have an axe to grind? Hell, yes, I do. I have a serious problem with suits who think an MBA makes them fit to judge technical problems, who don't listen to the people who do know how to judge technical problems, and who instinctively trust other liars in suits over honest people who just want to get the job done. The suits are the ones who wrecked the tech boom, and we would be living in a far better world today without them.
And you're right, this has long been a source of frustration to me. Fortunately, I solved the problem by finding a good job with a successful company run by technical people who trust my judgement (and who know better than to give power to suits, because the truth of the matter is that "business problems" are so mindlessly simple than any geek worthy of the name can handle them in his sleep.) However, I know far too many people who haven't been that lucky.
I think the point you missed is that these "people who control the purse strings" have no idea how to answer the question "How much is it going to cost and what's the benefit to the business?", precisely because they consider "the underlying bits and pieces" beneath their concern. What's worse, they think that they do know the answer, because they learned in their MBA programs that high-priced consultants are always right and those greasy bearded hippie engineers are just geeks whose scary technobabble should be ignored.
Because in the real world, the behavior of companies like Enron and DeBeers is where capitalism leads without government regulation. Free-market ideologues like to tell us that "the market will take care of it," but very often, it doesn't.
you are presenting what is, however accurate a presentation of some particular subgroup's arguments it is or isn't, just this one specific thing: viewpoints that could only be attributed to young Earth, Biblical creationism
I deliberately included the arguments of "old Earth creationists" as well, the ones who acknowledge the age of the Earth and "microevolution," but draw a distinction between that and "macroevolution" -- which of course is what kicked off this whole subthread in the first place. "Intelligent Design" is a subset of old Earth creationism, BTW, but disguised with carefully misused scientific terminology to pretend that it's something else.
I agree that not all religions are creationist. However, I will note that all religions (that I'm aware of) do make specific, scientifically testable claims about the nature of reality -- and that when these claims are put to the test, they are inevitably shown to be false, which leads to wailing, gnashing of teeth, and the type of sophistry I talked about above.
I have had these exact same arguments with endless creationists (and yes, that includes ID). Those are the arguments they use, weak as they are. All I'm doing is holding the absurdity up to the light.
I only wish I were "inventing" the arguments (or the people). In fact, I was summarizing them. If you feel my summary was inaccurate, please tell me how.
laws can't be passed to require people to use Windows
I agree with pretty much everything else you say, but I'd warn about being too complacent on this point. Now, I seriously doubt any law is going to be passed saying that Windows is the only OS people are allowed to use -- but what Microsoft may be able to do, and will certainly try to do, is a) take advantage of our absurdly permissive patent system to control simple, obvious features which are necessary to make software usable, and b) exploit the bugaboos of the moment (currently terrorism and "piracy", it may be something else tomorrow) to bully and/or bribe lawmakers into passing laws mandating "security" restrictions for consumer systems which -- surprise! -- Microsoft has locked up in patents and licenses. The F/OSS world ignores this at its peril.
Funny, last time I had this argument, the creationists were arguing that speciation had never been observed, and that that was macroevolution; "microevolution" was what they were calling change within species. Congratulations -- you folks are evolving quickly.
The totally nonexistent distinction between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" is a classic example of the way religious believers are constantly forced to "move the goalposts" by scientific evidence. The game goes something like this:
Religion: God created every living thing in its current form in six days.
Science: Actually, the Earth is a whole lot older than any literal reading of the Book of Genesis can account for, and here's the proof.
Religion: Um... okay... so the "days" were really, really long. But He still created everything in the form it has today. That's what we meant to say all along.
Science: Actually, populations of living things change all the time, and here's the proof.
Religion: Um... okay... so change can occur within species. But species themselves do not change, and they are the "kinds" referred to in the Bible. That's what we meant to say all along.
Science: Actually, new species do arise from existing species, and here's the proof.
Religion: Um... okay... so some species can evolve into others, but only within taxonomic families. Families are the "kinds" referred to in the Bible, and are eternal. Except for humans, of course, which are different from all other animals. That's what we meant to say all along.
Science: Actually, humans aren't all that different from other animals, and here's the proof.
An even better historical analogy, I think, is the Byzantine courtesan. These women were quite respectable and on occasion powerful -- one even became an Empress.
Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of. The second thing I thought was that when Apple runs out of cat names, maybe they should go with other animal names for the OS releases like... oh, say... "Wolverine."
There's nowhere in the South of England that can reasonably be described as "less developed." The "running water" crack was a reflection of the stereotypical Londoner's attitude toward anything south of the Thames.
Charter schools aren't just any corporation. They receive taxpayer money to do a job usually performed by government bodies (public schools) and are therefore acting as an arm of government. So yeah, I'd say this is a First Amendment issue.
And, since the existing stem cell lines are pretty much useless due to contamination, this boils down to a ban on effective research. Meanwhile, fertility clinics destroy embryos that will never be implanted or have the potential to become human beings -- each one a potential source of a new stem cell line -- every day. This is insanity.
The short version is, if you discriminate against members of group X, you cut yourself off from the contributions which potentially valuable members of group X can make. It doesn't matter, particularly, what group X is -- if you discriminate against blacks, or Jews, or homosexuals, or any other large identifiable group of people, you can be damn sure that there are at least some people in that group who would otherwise be happy to work for you and would do a very, very good job. You're limiting the talent pool.
At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I invite you to consider how differently WW2 might have turned out if Germany hadn't forced all of its Jewish scientists into exile (those who were perceptive enough to see which way the wind was blowing and get out while they still could, I mean.) An awful lot of them ended up working for the US government on a little project in New Mexico.
Slashdot Mirror
if you are doing research its probably in an academic environment, and probably a competetive one, and if you use numpy the matlab folks are going to code circles around you.
[shrug] This hasn't been my experience at all, but rather quite the opposite -- that I'm done with my programs and having a beer while the MATLAB users are still struggling and cursing. Believe me, I'm not averse to paying for a product that's worth the money (e.g., Mathematica for symbolic work) but it is my considered opinion, after using both MATLAB and numpy for quite some time, that this really is a case where the F/OSS alternative is genuinely better than the commercial product.
Care to explain how numpy is better than matlab? I'm not trolling, I'm actually about to start numerical processing for my research, and I'm stuck on the fence between using matlab (which we have on all our lab computers) and python, which i'd have the luxury of doing at home since it's free. i barely know either one, so i don't really have any loyalty to either side yet.
Basically, I like numpy because it's Python, and I like Python. More generally, I like having a general-purpose programming language when I'm writing real programs. MATLAB is good at crunching numbers and nothing else; numpy is almost as good (and in my experience, often faster) at crunching numbers, and it's also good at everything else Python is good at. String handling, DBI, and any data structure more complex than matrices, to name the examples I deal with most, are just unbelievably painful in MATLAB, IMO, but they're unbelievably easy in Python/numpy.
I do as much as possible of my work (bioinformatics) in Numerical Python. It's really nice to have the power of a general-purpose programming language as well as a numerical feature set that has equivalents for nearly every special-purpose MATLAB function I've ever needed. YMMV.
And people whose house was on fire, or getting broken into, or who were having a heart attack ... very often couldn't dial those numbers, and people died as a result. There's a big difference between dialing some arbitrary seven-digit* number in an emergency, even if you've got it on a sticker on your phone, and dialing a three-digit number which gets drilled into people practically from birth.
* In some areas, such as Denver, with "area-code overlay," a regular local call is ten digits. Even worse.
Explaining the problem in a language the PHB's understand is impossible, as long as they choose to listen only to suitspeak. It is their fault; I don't think most of them are so inherently stupid that they can't understand, just that they choose not to. Treating this entirely voluntary behavior on their part as a law of nature is, IMO, a serious mistake.
(reposted, with proper formatting this time)
..."
You're still not getting it.
A consultant can come in and say, "Buy product A, which costs $B, and will save the company $C dollars per year!" And the MBA's will tend to believe him, because, well, he wears a suit.
But then engineer has to say, "Actually, product A sucks. Specifically, it won't save us any money at all, because it breaks all the time. On the other hand, product D, which costs $E [where E > B], will save us $F/yr. [where F < C]. I know this isn't as impressive as what the consultant promised you, but you see, product D works."
And management says, "Okay, why does D work so much better than A?" (subtext: a guy in a suit told us something different, and now you're telling us he's a liar, you hippie?)
Engineer: "Well, you see, D uses components x, y, and z, which are much more reliable than the equivalents in A
Management: "We'll go with A. And by the way, it's your job to make it work within the budget the consultant says it'll cost, and if not, we'll fire you. Thanks for your input, though! It's been great!" [handshakes all around]
Do I have an axe to grind? Hell, yes, I do. I have a serious problem with suits who think an MBA makes them fit to judge technical problems, who don't listen to the people who do know how to judge technical problems, and who instinctively trust other liars in suits over honest people who just want to get the job done. The suits are the ones who wrecked the tech boom, and we would be living in a far better world today without them.
And you're right, this has long been a source of frustration to me. Fortunately, I solved the problem by finding a good job with a successful company run by technical people who trust my judgement (and who know better than to give power to suits, because the truth of the matter is that "business problems" are so mindlessly simple than any geek worthy of the name can handle them in his sleep.) However, I know far too many people who haven't been that lucky.
You're still not getting it.
..."
A consultant can come in and say, "Buy product A, which costs $B, and will save the company $C dollars per year!" And the MBA's will tend to believe him, because, well, he wears a suit.
But then engineer has to say, "Actually, product A sucks. Specifically, it won't save us any money at all, because it breaks all the time. On the other hand, product D, which costs $E [where E > B], will save us $F/yr. [where F works."
And management says, "Okay, why does D work so much better than A?" (subtext: a guy in a suit told us something different, and now you're telling us he's a liar, you hippie?)
Engineer: "Well, you see, D uses components x, y, and z, which are much more reliable than the equivalents in A
Management: "We'll go with A. And by the way, it's your job to make it work within the budget the consultant says it'll cost, and if not, we'll fire you. Thanks for your input, though! It's been great!" [handshakes all around]
Do I have an axe to grind? Hell, yes, I do. I have a serious problem with suits who think an MBA makes them fit to judge technical problems, who don't listen to the people who do know how to judge technical problems, and who instinctively trust other liars in suits over honest people who just want to get the job done. The suits are the ones who wrecked the tech boom, and we would be living in a far better world today without them.
And you're right, this has long been a source of frustration to me. Fortunately, I solved the problem by finding a good job with a successful company run by technical people who trust my judgement (and who know better than to give power to suits, because the truth of the matter is that "business problems" are so mindlessly simple than any geek worthy of the name can handle them in his sleep.) However, I know far too many people who haven't been that lucky.
I think the point you missed is that these "people who control the purse strings" have no idea how to answer the question "How much is it going to cost and what's the benefit to the business?", precisely because they consider "the underlying bits and pieces" beneath their concern. What's worse, they think that they do know the answer, because they learned in their MBA programs that high-priced consultants are always right and those greasy bearded hippie engineers are just geeks whose scary technobabble should be ignored.
Because in the real world, the behavior of companies like Enron and DeBeers is where capitalism leads without government regulation. Free-market ideologues like to tell us that "the market will take care of it," but very often, it doesn't.
you are presenting what is, however accurate a presentation of some particular subgroup's arguments it is or isn't, just this one specific thing: viewpoints that could only be attributed to young Earth, Biblical creationism
I deliberately included the arguments of "old Earth creationists" as well, the ones who acknowledge the age of the Earth and "microevolution," but draw a distinction between that and "macroevolution" -- which of course is what kicked off this whole subthread in the first place. "Intelligent Design" is a subset of old Earth creationism, BTW, but disguised with carefully misused scientific terminology to pretend that it's something else.
I agree that not all religions are creationist. However, I will note that all religions (that I'm aware of) do make specific, scientifically testable claims about the nature of reality -- and that when these claims are put to the test, they are inevitably shown to be false, which leads to wailing, gnashing of teeth, and the type of sophistry I talked about above.
Right. Which is why iTunes is a total failure, and absolutely nobody else has shown any interest in getting into the online music biz. Right?
...
Oh, wait
I have had these exact same arguments with endless creationists (and yes, that includes ID). Those are the arguments they use, weak as they are. All I'm doing is holding the absurdity up to the light.
I only wish I were "inventing" the arguments (or the people). In fact, I was summarizing them. If you feel my summary was inaccurate, please tell me how.
laws can't be passed to require people to use Windows
I agree with pretty much everything else you say, but I'd warn about being too complacent on this point. Now, I seriously doubt any law is going to be passed saying that Windows is the only OS people are allowed to use -- but what Microsoft may be able to do, and will certainly try to do, is a) take advantage of our absurdly permissive patent system to control simple, obvious features which are necessary to make software usable, and b) exploit the bugaboos of the moment (currently terrorism and "piracy", it may be something else tomorrow) to bully and/or bribe lawmakers into passing laws mandating "security" restrictions for consumer systems which -- surprise! -- Microsoft has locked up in patents and licenses. The F/OSS world ignores this at its peril.
Funny, last time I had this argument, the creationists were arguing that speciation had never been observed, and that that was macroevolution; "microevolution" was what they were calling change within species. Congratulations -- you folks are evolving quickly.
The totally nonexistent distinction between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" is a classic example of the way religious believers are constantly forced to "move the goalposts" by scientific evidence. The game goes something like this:
... okay ... so the "days" were really, really long. But He still created everything in the form it has today. That's what we meant to say all along.
... okay ... so change can occur within species. But species themselves do not change, and they are the "kinds" referred to in the Bible. That's what we meant to say all along.
... okay ... so some species can evolve into others, but only within taxonomic families. Families are the "kinds" referred to in the Bible, and are eternal. Except for humans, of course, which are different from all other animals. That's what we meant to say all along.
... okay ... (etc.)
Religion: God created every living thing in its current form in six days.
Science: Actually, the Earth is a whole lot older than any literal reading of the Book of Genesis can account for, and here's the proof.
Religion: Um
Science: Actually, populations of living things change all the time, and here's the proof.
Religion: Um
Science: Actually, new species do arise from existing species, and here's the proof.
Religion: Um
Science: Actually, humans aren't all that different from other animals, and here's the proof.
Religion: Um
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, pal.
You can go now. We won't stop you. Really.
An even better historical analogy, I think, is the Byzantine courtesan. These women were quite respectable and on occasion powerful -- one even became an Empress.
Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of. The second thing I thought was that when Apple runs out of cat names, maybe they should go with other animal names for the OS releases like ... oh, say ... "Wolverine."
There's nowhere in the South of England that can reasonably be described as "less developed." The "running water" crack was a reflection of the stereotypical Londoner's attitude toward anything south of the Thames.
Charter schools aren't just any corporation. They receive taxpayer money to do a job usually performed by government bodies (public schools) and are therefore acting as an arm of government. So yeah, I'd say this is a First Amendment issue.
We'll see what kind of ethical concerns you have when you're dying of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's.
And, since the existing stem cell lines are pretty much useless due to contamination, this boils down to a ban on effective research. Meanwhile, fertility clinics destroy embryos that will never be implanted or have the potential to become human beings -- each one a potential source of a new stem cell line -- every day. This is insanity.
The short version is, if you discriminate against members of group X, you cut yourself off from the contributions which potentially valuable members of group X can make. It doesn't matter, particularly, what group X is -- if you discriminate against blacks, or Jews, or homosexuals, or any other large identifiable group of people, you can be damn sure that there are at least some people in that group who would otherwise be happy to work for you and would do a very, very good job. You're limiting the talent pool.
At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, I invite you to consider how differently WW2 might have turned out if Germany hadn't forced all of its Jewish scientists into exile (those who were perceptive enough to see which way the wind was blowing and get out while they still could, I mean.) An awful lot of them ended up working for the US government on a little project in New Mexico.