Offspring with Down's are less likely to survive and reproduce, so mothers who had and primarily utilized late fertility would actually be less likely to successfully continue their lineage. Mothers who primarily used their fertility early would be more successful.
Irrelevant, since late reproduction can't go back in time and affect the genes of earlier offspring. If it were an either/or choice, sure, early reproduction would be a more effective strategy, but you know, it doesn't really work that way. If there's selective pressure against late reproduction (which is not the same thing as pressure in favor of early reproduction) you need a mechanism which has an effect on earlier, healthier offspring. Group selection provides such a mechanism; individual selection does not.
And believe me, I understand the argument just fine. One of the things I understand, which you apparently do not, is that to make a sweeping statement like "group selection has been debunked" is intellectually dishonest when in fact it's a subject of active debate in the evolutionary biology (not evo-psych, which I agree is pseudoscientific garbage) research community. As the saying goes, you have the right to your opinion, but not your own facts; and the facts are far from settled in this case.
If they meant to do it, it's still incompetence, since they apparently just FORGOT TO MENTION it to the people whose job it is to detect actual outside attacks.
To anyone who's spent any time dealing with military computer security, unfortunately, this really isn't a surprise.
What many people don't realize is what is called an "advance" is not a payment to the author in advance of future sales of a book, it is a loan against future sales of a book. And often it is a loan at a fairly high percentage rate. Most publishing houses only run (e.g. "print") a book for about three years. If the sales for a given book haven't been as good as projected, it is entirely possible for the author to actually owe the publisher money at the end of the run.
Where did you get this idea? Neither I nor any writer I know has ever signed a contract that specified repayment on a portion of the advance. If the book doesn't "earn out," the publisher writes off the remaining portion of the advance as a loss, and that's it. Maybe it works this way in some publishing niches, I don't know, but it's by no means standard. Such awful terms are common in the music industry, I understand, but not in publishing.
I think when a post which is factually wrong gets modded up to +5 informative, it if fair to moderate as overrated. Does a wrong post deserve +5 informative?
This. By having a "+1 informative" moderation option, Slashdot is pretty much creating a system for voting on the truth of statements, without any way to vote on falsehood. For completeness' sake, it ought to go both ways.
Would a "-1 wrong" moderation option be abused? Of course it would, just like any downmod option. But it would also be a useful way for moderators to show exactly why they're downmodding a factually incorrect post that's been modded as informative by someone who just doesn't know any better.
In general, "+1 informative" is one of the better-used mods, IMO. When reading posts talking about subjects I know a lot about, I see that most of the posts modded as informative actually are; it seems reasonable to assume that the posts on subjects I don't know a whole lot follow the same pattern. But it would be nice to have something to do about the not-infrequent exceptions. Right now, "-1 overrated" is about the only option there is.
We know this because a variation of it worked for a very long time in Ancient Greece. Nobody thinks the trade wars would have lasted in the long-term (because it's a stupid idea).
War is usually a stupid idea; in order for a war to happen, at least one (and usually both, or all) sides must act against their long-term self-interest. This fact has never kept us from fighting them.
Hi. American here. We tried this in 1789. It leads to massive corruption. The correct answer is a set of Republics, representing no more than a quarter million people each, or a small number of square miles, in the case of a City-State. Ancient Greece had this figured out and was relatively stable for a couple thousand years. Free trade among the Republics should be insisted upon by the populous.
Hi, another American here. We tried this in 1781. It didn't work, which is why replaced it with the Constitution a few years later.
There seem to be a couple of metastable points along the continuum from complete separation to complete unity. A very loose set of agreements that don't in any way override national sovereignty, like the old EEC, or on a larger scale the UN, is one; a federation is another. Confederation, however appealing in may sound in principle, doesn't seem to work very well in practice.
That's a very good question, and it should lead you to consider that maybe "aluminum case and a 50% markup" isn't all there is to Apple's success. But it probably won't.
Ah, idealism! The proposed law, with Clause 1 in place, and enforced, doesn't sound too bad. Do you really think that's the way it would work? In the real world, any software liability law would be written by lobbyists working for Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, EA, et al., and there is no way in hell it would make life easier for open source developers than for the big commercial developers.
using words like truther and denier just brings in stupid partisan bullshit in what SHOULD be a healthy debate
This would be much more convincing if the rest of your post weren't exactly the kind of ignorant, paranoid rant that causes people to be labeled deniers in the first place.
the part where if I drive my car I'm going to kill the world with melting glaciers, and if you tell me not to drive my car you're a communist hippie bent on world domination
False equivalence: the number of people who say things like the first is far, far smaller than the number who say things like the second.
And here we see the degeneration of a meme in action. Pseudo-intellectual denialism (with spurious references to "global cooling" included) is one thing, but when you see bullshit-spouting denialists who can't even keep the bullshit they're supposed to be spouting straight, it's just pathetic. It's kind of like the way there are apparently large numbers of people who truly, honest to God believe that 50% of Americans pay no taxes. I honestly have to wonder: are you so stupid that you can't remember your Fox News talking points, or do you just not care?
People having life time jobs make less than people willing to work on a day-by-day basis, with twice the hours, triple the productivity, working in any location the job requires? Really?
You have no idea what you're talking about. None. Permanent federal and state employees invariably work harder, and produce more, for less money, than contractors brought in from a consulting firm whose CEO happens to be some senator's brother-in-law.
this could be one of the leading-edge effects that's already known about with photons - the leading edge can arrive faster than c, but the rest of the packet is slowed down so the velocity averages out at c.
Doesn't that mean you're still sending a signal faster than light, though? If you send off a packet of photons, and I can detect the leading edge of the packet faster than I could if you'd sent just a single photon, then it seems to me we've invented FTL communication. Obviously we haven't, so can you explain in layman's terms what's going on?
I'm saying that those who expect people w/ higher incomes to pay more have class envy, regardless of what they're actually earning. It's the attitude that qualifies it.
Or maybe you don't understand other people's thinking nearly as well as you think you do.
Statistically, it's been demonstrated that the top 5% of all income earners pay 50% of all taxes, while the bottom 70% pay less than 5% of all taxes. And it's not even like the top 5% has 50% of all the income/wealth, however one wants to see it - it's more like 20%.
Any time you start a statement with "Statistically...", you'd better be ready to back up your claims with something more than a bunch of hand-wavey numbers. Speaking as a statistician, I'd like to see your sources and your methodology. If you have any.
Also, your statement that without the government defending them, the rich would quickly become poor, you're suggesting that the government is/should be an extortion racket, like the mafia.
Um, no, he's describing the way the world works. Without effective government, out-and-out extortion rackets -- with all of the government's power and ruthlessness, but without even its minimal answerability to the people -- take over. One thing that liberals and conservatives can generally agree on is that one of the main purposes of government is to keep people who want to kill you and take your stuff from doing so; and obviously, the rich have a lot more to take. Are you seriously arguing with this proposition?
Patents were never designed to do any such thing. It may have been post hoc rationalized as something to increase inventiveness
In the US, at least, this just isn't true, since the legal justification for patents (and copryights, and trademarks) is spelled out in the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." It's true, of course, that any rational person can now see that the arcane, jerry-rigged, and corrupt body of IP law doesn't actually work to that end, but the intention was clear enough. And in fact, I'd argue that patents on physical inventions do serve the stated purpose. It's when we allow patents on things like software, accounting tricks, and DNA sequences that we run into trouble, and go far beyond what the people who wrote those words ever intended.
Given the size of the average big box store, and the number of shelving units therein, I'm skeptical that windows would provide much light for most of the store. They'd also make heating and cooling a lot more expensive, probably more than wiping out whatever energy savings the store realized on lighting.
The (arithmetic) mean, which is probably what you're thinking of, is only one type of average: mean, median, harmonic mean, etc. The Dow Jones is a weighted mean; weights can be calculated in such a way as to minimize the effects of outliers. If there's a problem, it's with the way they calculate the weights, not with the concept of an "average" in general.
On the other hand, it might not have had as much to do with respect for evidence as i would like to think, and more to do with growing up and out of the preconceived notions I'd held on to so dearly as a teen.
Fair enough, and it may be that OP is young enough to have that excuse (her.sig certainly lends weight to that hypothesis.) But there are plenty of people who are more than old enough to know better who insist on holding on to such beliefs in the face of all evidence to the contrary. This is a problem not limited to questions of animal intelligence, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Offspring with Down's are less likely to survive and reproduce, so mothers who had and primarily utilized late fertility would actually be less likely to successfully continue their lineage. Mothers who primarily used their fertility early would be more successful.
Irrelevant, since late reproduction can't go back in time and affect the genes of earlier offspring. If it were an either/or choice, sure, early reproduction would be a more effective strategy, but you know, it doesn't really work that way. If there's selective pressure against late reproduction (which is not the same thing as pressure in favor of early reproduction) you need a mechanism which has an effect on earlier, healthier offspring. Group selection provides such a mechanism; individual selection does not.
And believe me, I understand the argument just fine. One of the things I understand, which you apparently do not, is that to make a sweeping statement like "group selection has been debunked" is intellectually dishonest when in fact it's a subject of active debate in the evolutionary biology (not evo-psych, which I agree is pseudoscientific garbage) research community. As the saying goes, you have the right to your opinion, but not your own facts; and the facts are far from settled in this case.
It's more likely to prevent the addition of tons of offspring with Down's.
Which would be an example of that "group selection" you so confidently stated was "debunked" a couple of posts ago.
If they meant to do it, it's still incompetence, since they apparently just FORGOT TO MENTION it to the people whose job it is to detect actual outside attacks.
To anyone who's spent any time dealing with military computer security, unfortunately, this really isn't a surprise.
What many people don't realize is what is called an "advance" is not a payment to the author in advance of future sales of a book, it is a loan against future sales of a book. And often it is a loan at a fairly high percentage rate. Most publishing houses only run (e.g. "print") a book for about three years. If the sales for a given book haven't been as good as projected, it is entirely possible for the author to actually owe the publisher money at the end of the run.
Where did you get this idea? Neither I nor any writer I know has ever signed a contract that specified repayment on a portion of the advance. If the book doesn't "earn out," the publisher writes off the remaining portion of the advance as a loss, and that's it. Maybe it works this way in some publishing niches, I don't know, but it's by no means standard. Such awful terms are common in the music industry, I understand, but not in publishing.
I think when a post which is factually wrong gets modded up to +5 informative, it if fair to moderate as overrated. Does a wrong post deserve +5 informative?
This. By having a "+1 informative" moderation option, Slashdot is pretty much creating a system for voting on the truth of statements, without any way to vote on falsehood. For completeness' sake, it ought to go both ways.
Would a "-1 wrong" moderation option be abused? Of course it would, just like any downmod option. But it would also be a useful way for moderators to show exactly why they're downmodding a factually incorrect post that's been modded as informative by someone who just doesn't know any better.
In general, "+1 informative" is one of the better-used mods, IMO. When reading posts talking about subjects I know a lot about, I see that most of the posts modded as informative actually are; it seems reasonable to assume that the posts on subjects I don't know a whole lot follow the same pattern. But it would be nice to have something to do about the not-infrequent exceptions. Right now, "-1 overrated" is about the only option there is.
Slashdot is the only discussion forum I've been to that, through its moderation system, encourages arguments and bickery instead of discussion.
Have you met the internet?
Nowhere in the actual story does it say that Jobs was 'found' dead... yet somehow that's what the summary says.
The wording of the summary is a paraphrase of a long-running Slashdot meme. Just a little gallows humor for us old-timers.
We know this because a variation of it worked for a very long time in Ancient Greece. Nobody thinks the trade wars would have lasted in the long-term (because it's a stupid idea).
War is usually a stupid idea; in order for a war to happen, at least one (and usually both, or all) sides must act against their long-term self-interest. This fact has never kept us from fighting them.
Hi. American here. We tried this in 1789. It leads to massive corruption. The correct answer is a set of Republics, representing no more than a quarter million people each, or a small number of square miles, in the case of a City-State. Ancient Greece had this figured out and was relatively stable for a couple thousand years. Free trade among the Republics should be insisted upon by the populous.
Hi, another American here. We tried this in 1781. It didn't work, which is why replaced it with the Constitution a few years later.
There seem to be a couple of metastable points along the continuum from complete separation to complete unity. A very loose set of agreements that don't in any way override national sovereignty, like the old EEC, or on a larger scale the UN, is one; a federation is another. Confederation, however appealing in may sound in principle, doesn't seem to work very well in practice.
That's a very good question, and it should lead you to consider that maybe "aluminum case and a 50% markup" isn't all there is to Apple's success. But it probably won't.
No, sorry, I remember the 70's and global cooling was all the rage then. Search 'global cooling 1970s'. Global Warming has been since the 90's.
You remember what Fox News tells you to remember. Before you tell people to try a search like that, you probably ought to try the search yourself.
Ah, idealism! The proposed law, with Clause 1 in place, and enforced, doesn't sound too bad. Do you really think that's the way it would work? In the real world, any software liability law would be written by lobbyists working for Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, EA, et al., and there is no way in hell it would make life easier for open source developers than for the big commercial developers.
using words like truther and denier just brings in stupid partisan bullshit in what SHOULD be a healthy debate
This would be much more convincing if the rest of your post weren't exactly the kind of ignorant, paranoid rant that causes people to be labeled deniers in the first place.
the part where if I drive my car I'm going to kill the world with melting glaciers, and if you tell me not to drive my car you're a communist hippie bent on world domination
False equivalence: the number of people who say things like the first is far, far smaller than the number who say things like the second.
howling about a man-made ice age in the seventies
And here we see the degeneration of a meme in action. Pseudo-intellectual denialism (with spurious references to "global cooling" included) is one thing, but when you see bullshit-spouting denialists who can't even keep the bullshit they're supposed to be spouting straight, it's just pathetic. It's kind of like the way there are apparently large numbers of people who truly, honest to God believe that 50% of Americans pay no taxes. I honestly have to wonder: are you so stupid that you can't remember your Fox News talking points, or do you just not care?
People having life time jobs make less than people willing to work on a day-by-day basis, with twice the hours, triple the productivity, working in any location the job requires? Really?
You have no idea what you're talking about. None. Permanent federal and state employees invariably work harder, and produce more, for less money, than contractors brought in from a consulting firm whose CEO happens to be some senator's brother-in-law.
Because if we had, Apple would be selling the iFTL right now.
Thanks, that helps.
this could be one of the leading-edge effects that's already known about with photons - the leading edge can arrive faster than c, but the rest of the packet is slowed down so the velocity averages out at c.
Doesn't that mean you're still sending a signal faster than light, though? If you send off a packet of photons, and I can detect the leading edge of the packet faster than I could if you'd sent just a single photon, then it seems to me we've invented FTL communication. Obviously we haven't, so can you explain in layman's terms what's going on?
I'm saying that those who expect people w/ higher incomes to pay more have class envy, regardless of what they're actually earning. It's the attitude that qualifies it.
Or maybe you don't understand other people's thinking nearly as well as you think you do.
Statistically, it's been demonstrated that the top 5% of all income earners pay 50% of all taxes, while the bottom 70% pay less than 5% of all taxes. And it's not even like the top 5% has 50% of all the income/wealth, however one wants to see it - it's more like 20%.
Any time you start a statement with "Statistically ...", you'd better be ready to back up your claims with something more than a bunch of hand-wavey numbers. Speaking as a statistician, I'd like to see your sources and your methodology. If you have any.
Also, your statement that without the government defending them, the rich would quickly become poor, you're suggesting that the government is/should be an extortion racket, like the mafia.
Um, no, he's describing the way the world works. Without effective government, out-and-out extortion rackets -- with all of the government's power and ruthlessness, but without even its minimal answerability to the people -- take over. One thing that liberals and conservatives can generally agree on is that one of the main purposes of government is to keep people who want to kill you and take your stuff from doing so; and obviously, the rich have a lot more to take. Are you seriously arguing with this proposition?
Patents were never designed to do any such thing. It may have been post hoc rationalized as something to increase inventiveness
In the US, at least, this just isn't true, since the legal justification for patents (and copryights, and trademarks) is spelled out in the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts ..." It's true, of course, that any rational person can now see that the arcane, jerry-rigged, and corrupt body of IP law doesn't actually work to that end, but the intention was clear enough. And in fact, I'd argue that patents on physical inventions do serve the stated purpose. It's when we allow patents on things like software, accounting tricks, and DNA sequences that we run into trouble, and go far beyond what the people who wrote those words ever intended.
I didn't know "Indian" was a race.
It's as meaningful a racial grouping as any other.
Corollaries are left as an exercise for the reader.
Given the size of the average big box store, and the number of shelving units therein, I'm skeptical that windows would provide much light for most of the store. They'd also make heating and cooling a lot more expensive, probably more than wiping out whatever energy savings the store realized on lighting.
Do they know what an "average' is?
Do you?
The (arithmetic) mean, which is probably what you're thinking of, is only one type of average: mean, median, harmonic mean, etc. The Dow Jones is a weighted mean; weights can be calculated in such a way as to minimize the effects of outliers. If there's a problem, it's with the way they calculate the weights, not with the concept of an "average" in general.
On the other hand, it might not have had as much to do with respect for evidence as i would like to think, and more to do with growing up and out of the preconceived notions I'd held on to so dearly as a teen.
Fair enough, and it may be that OP is young enough to have that excuse (her .sig certainly lends weight to that hypothesis.) But there are plenty of people who are more than old enough to know better who insist on holding on to such beliefs in the face of all evidence to the contrary. This is a problem not limited to questions of animal intelligence, of course.