How do you figure you're getting windows for free? I guarantee that the vendor is paying Microsoft for the license (even if it's heavily discounted), and they're not going to just swallow that cost - it will get passed on to you. True. But I have noticed from experience that regular vendors don't lower their prices just because they've taken out a component from the configuration. Suddenly, you'll find that RAM or disk space has just gotten a teeny bit more expensive for no apparent reason:P.
Good points both of them. However, the first point doesn't really criticize my views as I never referred to the "solitary genius in the basement". Science has progressed beyond that. The thing is, we tend to lose perspective on how big the world really is. Even a thousand spiffy research institutes churning out amazing discoveries and innovations counts (alas) as a TEENY-TINY minority compared to the vast numbers of people that live on the earth. THAT is the point I was getting at. I was also trying to make the prediction that qualitatively speaking, this cannot change. (i.e. thousands may become tens of thousands, but it will plateau before it becomes a high enough number).
Excellent point about social progress. However, as much as I admire how the social sciences have become more and more rigorous and have actually a bit of predictive power (in economic theory for instance), there is a big difference between the social and physical sciences when applied to society as a whole:
The effects of technological innovations can be assimilated in a society that does not progress in any other way, for example in the areas of superstition or fundamentalist religion. People use modern technological marvels for the purpose of evangelism, an irony not lost on me. Progress in social sciences however, REQUIRES that society as a whole accept that progress in a conscious manner, something that is NOT trivial. This, more than anything else is the reason why there exists the woeful disparity between the two.
So, while social progress is ABSOLUTELY essential, I don't think the time scales for the two types of progress are ANYWHERE near the same. To paraphrase what Isaac Asimov once wrote, the social inertia of an entire planet does not lend itself to engineering on human timescales. So, we need a political structure in place that can have slow but steady forward momentum and will do the job in a few centuries (instead of the ones we have now which tend to average the progress to zero).
Unrelated personal note: Please sign up and/or log in. I certainly would appreciate more rational people like you in here;-).
I feel your pain. But you should know that throught history, the people who really contributed to the advancement of the human race (many a time ignoring the flames licking their feet as they stood at the stake) constituted a tiny minority of humanity (at best). As such, innovation and the frontier spirit has remained the domain of a significant few, rather than the multitudinous drones that form the background noise on this lil rock we call home. If that sounds elitist, it really isn't. All I'm saying is that there is no pre-ordained reason why the human race should or shouldn't have a profound future. What is true (and what we should accept and move on) is that only a small fraction of humanity will ever recognize profundity when they see it:P. And please don't fel bad about your country, it is really a global phenomenon. Until a few centuries ago, the operative word was "anti-science" - i.e. active hostility against science. Then even the most retarded of the drones realized that science was the goose that laid the golden eggs and you didn't even have to acknowledge the goose! - just grab the eggs and praise god (I don't abuse my capitals thank you very much:P) for the bounty:P. So now we live in a period where anti-science has been replaced by apathy to science. It's a sort of knee-jerk reaction to the fact that the world owes the scientific community a heavy debt and is trying to welsh out of it;-). No matter, no one's in a hurry. Time enough for us to evolve fully.
|I'd sooner go live in Saudi Arabia than in a hellhole like the state of Bihar
Really? True that Bihar is rampant with Naxalite/Ranvir Sena lawlessness, but Saudi Arabia chops your hand off for stealing a loaf of bread and beheads you for watching movies.
Quoting just half of my sentences is intellectually honest I suppose:P. Read the original sentence. Also, consider for a moment which is scarier: a corrupt and extremist government that represses its own people or a populace that manages quite well on its own which is the point I was going for with Bihar. That was one scary place in the news during my childhood. Besides, I actually DID live in Saudi Arabia for a while a decade ago and as long as you stay away from the Arabs (:P. We lived in an Indian camp) it's quite safe and not quite unpleasant. Again, Read the original sentence. Further, when people tell you to make a choice between two horrible things, perhaps it's ok to decline them both ja? See the last paragraph in this post.
|People are making ranked lists now
Yes. See the US Congressional reports on India, and compare them to other countries in the region.
|How do you even prove such a thing
Easily. We have checks and balances in our political system that other developing countries do not have. Democracy CAN be quantified and relativized.
... We have done the best that we can do so far.
The "other countries in the region" are a bit of a joke when it comes to democracy. Precisely my point - if that's all that India aspires to, it's striving for mediocrity and I know it can do better. Yes, apparently you can quantify democracy. I'm saying I don't buy the efficacy of the indices! As for "relativizing", I don't know what you mean by that:P and I'm sure the OED doesn't as well.
If you don't like the government "doing nothing to stop the loonies" then vote for a new one. It's you people who voted for the likes of the UPA who let the "human rights" mafia led by that terrorist Arundhati Roy spare Mohammed Afzal and repeal POTA.
Are you deliberately ignoring things I said? Did I not say that I don't live there anymore and that I haven't followed the Indian news in gory detail? And please don't presume to know who people vote for. Perhaps if you stopped labeling people as "anarchists" and trying to divine their voting preferences based on one post and one issue, you might stand a better chance of going beyond cliched arguments. Arundhati Roy is a well-meaning nut who, as all well-meaning nuts do, lost it one fine day and became a rebel without a cause:P. The Michael Moore of India:P.
They've had a monopoly on that since the rise of the Khilafat al-Rashidun a millenium and a half ago. No other society has even come close (don't cite "the crusades" plz, the crusades were not nearly as violent as the Islamic conquest of India)
Oh FFS, not this tired old thing again. If you notice, YOU brought up the crusades:P. I should say that I AM proud of India, because we have NOT wasted our time in rehashing THOSE old sins and carrying out retaliatory wars in the present. Most of the regions of the world that conspired to pillage India in those days are mere shells of their former selves - dirt poor and starving to death. The great Persian Empire has been reduced to a country that can barely be called alive. Are we now quantifying and "relativizing" the bigotry of different societies? I'll save you the time and stipulate that any society built upon a religion is doomed to extremism. It's evolution. Every religion starts out with moderates and extremists. The former, by their very nature and the inherent systemic flaws in any religion, breed themselves out of existence, leaving the radicals behind, who of course spread like a plague. One can't use the crusades as an argument precisely because the governmental structure that created th
Also, if hackers are geeks and geeks have an inherent tendency to go Linux, they would be idiots to mess up their own world by writing Linux virii:P. So, I would say (even though I'm a windows user), that the Mac seems to be the most secure =D as whatever Mac users are, "geeks" they ain't:P.
Well how about that article that featured on/. recently about using people like hamsters to power the gym lights? Perhaps we need laptops that require you to exercise for a set time to charge your battery =D.
I take back the point about Haggard. Obviously, we DO have nut cases of the same severity or more. I should have referred to the issue of how many mainstream Americans take Haggard seriously (well not anyMORE:P) compared to that Fatwa idiot you mentioned (I did state in my original post that I have not been following the recent bombings).
But please don't feed me that BS about Free Speech in India. That just means that the Government does not censor you. Buddy, when I lived in India, it wasn't the Government I was worried about:P (to a point of course - police beatings of journalists get routine after a while, who cares?:P). It was the self-appointed loonies policing morality on the streets and the Government NOT doing anything about it. It would be as if the fundies in the US were allowed to run amok and the Government refused to act. THERE is your freedom of speech. And I gottta tell you, self-censorship in India goes a long way. At least the fundies aren't allowed to get away with murder in the US (just everything else upto that point:P).
And what the hell is this talk about "most democratic developing country"? People are making ranked lists now? How do you even prove such a thing? It's just a meaningless cliche (i.e. not falsifiable) being traded in the self-congratulatory spam being traded these days or possibly in a politican's speech. Also, if you compare India with the rest of the banana republics on the subcontinent, well of course it's great! Duh!
And what do you even mean by "most democratic"? The word "democracy" just means that we elect our leaders, period! You're either democratic or you're not! How could you be less or more? If you rig the polls, you're not democratic; *cough* which happens A LOT in rural India especially. Proxy voting is another fine example of democracy:P. ANd I'm sure the North Indian states are glowing examples of law-abiding democracies (I think I'm gonna cry:P). I'd sooner go live in Saudi Arabia than in a hellhole like the state of Bihar - well alright I didn't mean that, I may be crazy but I ain't stupid:P. That's why I love the name "Democratic Republic of Congo". Some folks need a friggin dictionary before they name their countries:P. I wish someone would make a nation out of MS. Heck, I'd wanna immigrate =D. LOL.
That will come only when we are developed enough to eschew all violent religious fundamentalism within our society. Geological timescales perhaps? Religion doesn't permit the absence of violence. The arguments for believing that peace and religion can coexist are akin to "guns don't kill people, people kill people". As long as there is religion, there will ALWAYS be a jagoff with a bomb wanting to enter friggin Paradise. The militant muslims just have a monopoly on that at the moment. Competitors will catch up no doubt. So, do we abolish religion then? *Bzzzt* wrong answer - we can't. Only option - get used to it:P.
If the software publisher prefers people to steal their software rather than use alternatives, how is that "theft"? Does the jewelry store prefer that their diamonds get stolen rather than having the thief wear cubic zirconia? Good point! To complete that chain of thought -
That doesn't bode well for what these software developers feel their software is worth:P. Could it be after all these years that software really does NOT have an intrinsic value? That it's no different from baseball cards in terms of how it's priced - i.e. priced as high as people will continue to pay? Sure seems like it. That's the trouble with artificial commodities that contain no raw material, it's hard to justify its price. At least with auto mechanics, you KNOW you're getting screwed and you can't do anything about it - those high labor charges are spelled out in black and white:P. Wouldn't you say that software prices stem PURELY from labor charges for developers (and advertising) and as such once these costs are recovered, the sales constitute pure profit margin? Of course, you now have more development but that will be paid for by future sales. So, for all intents and purposes, one would have to say that software sales are linked to manufacturing costs ONLY upto a point. Reminds me of movie studios in fact;-). I hope OSS folks don't get on this bandwagon. IT really says something about how much you think your produc is worth and in the long run, THAT is the message that MS is sending with BS like this.
Mod parent +1 (or at least 1:P)Insightful. (C'mon! "Troll" is a little harsh LOL)
Precisely. I am an immigrant Indian living in the US and I personally feel insulted by that bias, positive as it may be. It results in a weird kind of prejudice wherein if you do something outstanding people are like "well, duh, they're all like that. Big effing deal:P". And under achievement (relative to the OTHER Indians) is reportedly grounds for deportation in some IT companies. To be perfectly clear, I have experienced the first one personally. Since I don't work in IT (merciful Deus:P), I have only heard of the latter (probably hyperbole so please don't bore me by responding to it all at once:P)
It's quite simple - Gaussian distributions are fairly universal. We have our share of nut cases in India, as also religious fundamentalists that could make Pat Robertson blush (well, that's not possible, but you get my drift. Luckily, no one like Ted Haggard as yet =D), awful movies that seem to be cast out of an industrial mold, and idiots of every variety. Also of note are the "lazyass armchair historians" who feel that it is enough to have a rich heritage but who make no effort on their own part to build a better present or plan for a glorious future.
In short, India is just like any other country, including this one. There's good folks and bad folks. There's eminently sensible people on the one hand and the farking idiots on the other. Am I surprising anyone here?:P
More to the point, I am a member of the social site they mention (Orkut) and it's a little silly that someone actually sues Google for "anti-Indian sentiments". Sheesh, get a thicker skin FFS:P. Why would any sensible person be offended by the comments of some random hate monger? Too much time on their hands I suppose:P. Treat opinions like spam people. You just don't read them all. *roll*
The thing about the underworld dons is a horse of a different color. What non-Indians should know is that the "underworld" in India is NOT exactly analogous to the mafia here or the drug cartels in South America. It's a far worse problem than that. To be more precise, the specific don named Dawood Ibrahim can probably be characterized as the Indian version of Osama Bin Laden crossed with Al Capone. In other words, terrorism coupled with the usual kind of racketeering. And there's more noobs like this guy. The Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay) blasts of 1993 is a good example (I was actually in school near where they happened back then *brrr*). There's some more recent stuff as well, which I have not been following much in the news.
Suffice to say, if Indians wanted to establish something akin to the Patriot Act, these are the dudes who'll be first on the dinner menu:P. So, not SO crazy in this PARTICULAR instance. I would suggest that they not try to close them down though. Illegally hacking into them and monitoring them might be more profitable in the long-term;-). What are Intelligence Agencies for anyway? LOL
Mod parent +1 insightful! Politicians need some real work it seems. They have way too much free time on their hands. Apparently, they've solved all the real problems in their constituencies. I say that county should fire this bozo and get a real representative who can focus on the important things like schools and friggin potholes in the roads. Talk about delusions of grandeur. Who is this guy - Buzz LIghtyear of Star Command? Bah!
IN fact, let's go one step further, could the IAU please stop making inane reclassifications that are absolutely irrelevant to astronomy and get some real scientific work done? I mean, what is this, a scientology organization? Sheesh. Idiots everywhere:P.
Sorry to double-post but I just saw the quotation of the day (or whatever it is) on the bottom of the Slashdot page.
Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody else has thought. Hmm, seems to fit my previous post =D. The patent is a reward for seeing the possibilities in a naturally occuring phenomenon. Hindsight is 20/20 and the devil is in the details. (Damn, call me Mr. Cliche today =D).
if you're trying to link me with creationism you're so far off base it's not even funny.
I try to mock creationism every opportunity I get. Nothing to do with you =D. Please don't take it personally. Maybe the
(*snicker*; sorry =D)
wasn't explicit enough in my post. *shrug*
I'm against patents.
of any kind.
That doesn't mean we should not be looking at nature for ideas and useful
bits & pieces, it just means that when you do *discover* those that you are
not able to go out and stick your name on it and bar everybody else from
using the same without paying you, the original discoverer a royalty.
And thanks for the article about the bacterial wheels. It's a neat story and it makes you wonder whether the original caveman inventor of the wheel would still get his patent. It would be unfair not to as we couldn't really look at bacteria for (possibly) millennia after it was invented by humans. Does that mean that if someone invented a device with no prior knowledge of an existing analogue in nature, you would simply have to hunt for one (without going to the trouble and possesisng the creativity to do the research yourself) and declare his patent void? IN fact, I would say that patents were a bad idea at the dawn of the scientific age because you could invent stuff quite easily without a lot of specialized resources. Hence the flurry of "garage invention" patents and horrible spots on late night cable tv =D. Today, any serious invention (no matter how mundane it may seem you) usually requires a ton of investment to begin with. So what if they exploit what's already present in nature? I'm sure the bacteria don't mind and neither do the sensible molluscs;-).
I probably shouldn't continue this one as this is probably not the place for a "patent debate" and IANAPL =D, but I am curious as to why people would even bother to invent stuff then. Where's the incentive to write good software if any big corporation could simply grab the first copy you sell, reverse engineer it and market it themselves? This is true of any product really, not just software.
The point is, if you do away with patents, the only people who can profit (or heck, even break even) are the ones who can do research, develop a product AND make it market-ready as soon as possible. We know that the resources you need for the two (R&D vs. commercialisation) are quite different. Of course, I really have no problem with dramatically shortening the life of a patent. Quite a reasonable precaution IMO against monopolies. Go generic! =D
Further, lack of a patent system WILL lead to a highly paranoid research community who cannot afford to disclose ANY information about anything until their product hits the market and EVEN AFTERWARDS.
Not to mention the extra junk that manufacturers will need to stuff into their products in order to make it secure from reverse-engineering. This to me is the biggest problem I can envison. Industries WILL do this. It's the only way they can keep their margins. Look forward to the warranty stickers being changed from "removing this will void warranty" to "removing this will melt the processor". Companies will have to stop making things like PCs modular - too much stuff out in the open. Look forward to more idiotic devices like the ones Braun makes where everything is molded shut and no screw access. I can't even get into my stupid electric toothbrush to try to fix it (well, tinker with it at least) without using a saw:p.
Do we really need all that grief? I realize there are serious problems with the patent laws at the moment, but really, forgive me for being trite, throwing the baby out with the bath water is hardly a solution;-). Oh I should add, I find it inevitable that with the dissolution of the patent system, we will simply be presented with a set of anti-reverse-engineering laws. More legislation. Enforcement issues. The politicians have
Hmm, I misunderstood your comment. You do have a valid point. Is it known if mammals, insects and reptiles all have the same neural mechanism. I see mo remember that cold blooded cratures get sluggish in cool weather (the desert lizard thing whose name escapes my mind). Perhaps the sluggishness is not just a metabolic response but also a neural one. I know, long shot, and I don't know why I'm staunchly supporting the article (lol) but I would think it still hinges on whether different organisms have different tolerances as far as temperature regulation goes.
This article is about UK politics. Remember that by British standards, American politics is right wing, or far-right. You need to be very careful when just talking "right" and "left" or "Republican" and "Democrat" if you're comparing UK and US politics. Precisely! In the US, you can't make the usual identification of left = Democrat and right = Republican. That's just not how it works here. The two minima have almost merged into one and any rational method of deciding who lies in which camp has been replaced by the simple process of spontaneous symmetry breaking =D. More to the point and less flippantly, the two camps in the US regularly exchange positions that the traditional definitions of right and left would hold sacrosanct. In the last few years, it has been most obvious in the manner in which the Republican Congress has freely given up even the pretense of caring about a balanced budget. The Democrat example would be the way the so-called leftists have been so hawkish as to put the GOP to shame:P. In any case, US politics represents the beginning of the end of the simplistic classification scheme that has just plainly run its course and is ready for the scrap heap. The UK won't be far behind. Of course, we still have strongly regimented countries like Germany and most of the Scandinavian bloc to show us the way:p. And do I even have a point here? Nah. The correlation coefficients in my post are just as pathetic as the abominable thesis presented in the headline:p. Feel free to mod this "WTF?" =D.
I always like to type my CC SS numbers into public access terminals. Especially ones that run windows. What, they don't write keyloggers for Linux these days?:P You had an excellent point until the "especially" part. *roll* Although, I find the common misconception that your SS number is secure in the first place highly amusing. Do you realize that you give out your SS number at several places (like your place of employment or a school or university) and when it's stored in their databases, it usually comes with your name, DOB and other personal info. These places lose such valuable information all the time. We had a streak of such incidents reported about a year ago and I'm pretty sure that's still the case. The point is, locking up real tight is simply a waste of time as there are several less competent individuals who possess that information about you and are oblivious to security concerns.
Instead, focusing on monitoring your credit and your accounts on a regular basis is probably a better way to protect your identity. A bit of judgement (such as using those disposable credit card numbers with few-day-expiry when shopping online) and clearing the cache on public terminals should be quite effective. The alternative is... well jumping at shadows (although I admit some of them might be quite real;-)). I'm not trying to put anyone down. I just think that there's really not much on an online tax form that constitutes sensitive information (in the manner of numbers, passwords, etc.). Or is there? I'd love some examples =D. You probably have more critical personal information floating out there when you shop at amazon.com from a public terminal.
The second questionable thing about their argument (as I understand it, from a cursory reading) is that it implies that membranes are constantly perched at some sort of phase transition, which is temperature dependent. Then how do they explain that invertebrate neurons fire APs over a wide range of temperatures? You can take fruit flies at 15C and move them to a 35C incubator, and they'll keep walking around just like they were before. Looking at the curves in their PNAS paper, I don't see how that's consistent with their model. Surely environmental temperature and body temperature are two completely different things. If you went out in freezing weather, your body would do all it can to MAINTAIN a normal internal temperature. If it can't you go into hypothermia, affecting (surprise) neural functions as well - you black out, the brain shuts down. Perhaps temperature is MORE important that thought previously. (Please note that I'm speculating on these things. I do NOT know the precise nature of a human blackout). The point is, your body will go through hell just to maintain body temperature, and there's more than one reason for that. This might be another;-).
What you want in a tax software package is functionality. However, an equally important thing is liability. If this OSS burps and does something wrong, I doubt the IRS is gonna listen to your "dog-ate-my-homework" kind of excuse. However, if you do use a package from the list of supported software on the IRS website http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.h tml (chances are, you can find a free one that can e-file for your income level quite easily), at least you're in a position to defend yourself if the thing chokes. If a Linux package is not available at the moment, I'm sure it will be soon. In the meantime though, I would humbly suggest that techies NOT gamble their taxes on this issue:P and seek out a windows machine (wearing a crucifix of course =D). The local library might be a good place. You can always get drunk after and not remember any of it =D.
You forget light pollution, which is a major problem for ground-based telescopes. That's precisely why LISA and LIGO can work on the ground - they're not measuring light, they're trying to measure gravity waves, which (we hope) are strong enough to show up in the interferometer. Space is better for another important reason, especially for new telescopes: it is VERY cold in space (~2.7K). This means you can use superconducting wires with impunity and without the need for a coolant. That itself should be a significant advantage. I do hope they make use of this =D.
What the hell is wrong with British people these days?
"Pip-pip! What should we call our new military satellite system?"
"Jolly good, ol' chap! Let us name it after a fictional military system that runs off the rails and destroys humanity!" Hey, at least it ain't "Star Wars":P
Professional (or potential) Physicists producing research about biology saying nerves work on sound. We have a segregationist here pholks:P. And by the way, they are biophysicists. Interdisciplinary scientists do exist today you know. Next thing you know, those darn chemists will be horning in on biological territory. After all, chemists have no business when it comes to enzymes and ummm proteins and.... oh wait:P
Even the wheel has a direct equivalent in nature....
(when it was thought for years that that was not the case) I would love to know what that equivalent is. I really can't guess what it might be. Don't you dare leave us in suspense at this point! =D
As far as the eel example goes, it's a bad one as you can argue that only for the invention of the electric chair. I can't imagine any other "use" that the eel puts it's electricity to:P. As I've said before, so I say again - invention is not about creation from nothingness; you have that mistaken with genesis (*snicker*; sorry =D); rather it is about control. There's been a couple of nice responses in this sub-thread already so I won't belabor the point, but the difference between invention and appropriation is the difference between the work in TFA and holding a seashell to your ear to hear the ocean;-). 'Nuff said =D.
Note: I think the main link in this thread has incorrectly summarized the article. I just read the original article and the headline is just plain wrong IMO. I tried to give my interpretation of this work here:
I will say that their physics seems reasonable - one should understand that when we say "sound" there can be several meanings to that word. In the article, they are talking about piezo-electric pulses which I can visualise as a pressure wave that creates voltages between synapses (forgive me if I'm murdering the biology here;-)). Imagine your usual piezo-crystal (a simple example is the one in a wristwatch) that vibrates (pressure waves) when a voltage is applied. Well, the reverse can also happen (this is used in some species of microphones). The way I visualize their model is that a piezo-electric soliton (if I remember my group theory, it's a sort of a quantized sound wave which persists without being destroyed by background noise because it has a topological quantum number asociated with it) travels between synapses leading to a voltage between them. Now, the pressure wave exists in the surrounding medium, which contains the ions in solution. So, at the most one can interpret these findings to mean that neural conduction is more like current in a superconducting wire than electroplating:D. This is the essence of their transport theory (as I understand it).
Another thing to note is that the article is not written as a maverick physicist would. It is written in a way that only a proper experimental physicist would - theory -> prediction -> experiment -> comparison. And the thing they are evaluating is actually the effect of anasthetics on neural transport. So, they are simply not claiming stuff as the news site falsely overhypes. I for one find this article fascinating even though biophysics is not my field.
I don't see how this translates to the sensationalist headline (although it's not the poster's fault, the linked site is a Canadian news site. The fact that it's Canadian is irrelevant:D, but the fact that it's a news site is rather telling. Also, they couldn't reach the authors for comments, which probably explains the awkward spin on the research.
IAAANS (I am also a neuroscientist) and I'm with you on this. TFA sounds pretty crackpot to me. If they really had strong evidence for this it would be published in Nature, not Biophysical Journal.
I'm afraid Nature is rather conservative in that respect and their editorial policy is at least partly based on maintaining or raising their impact factor (it is a highly profitable publication after all). The only way they can do that is by ensuring that only articles that are likely to be frequently cited in the future are published (that's the critical number that figures in the calculation of impact factor). As a result, the argument that any ground-breaking research would be automatically published in Nature is simply not true. Quite the contrary in fact. Now, before people mistake this for flamebait:P, I'm simply saying that Nature prefers the "wait-and-watch" routine, sorta like the Nobel committee, which is notorious for awarding A. Einstein with the prize for the photoelectric effect and not special or general relativity:P. I'm sure Nature will publish these guys a few years down the road after they have garnered enough of a reputation (IF they are correct that is!).
I was just trying to point out the decisions involved in publishing with Nature. If people want to publish something quickly that will spur interest and spawn more research in that particular area, they do NOT publish in Nature; rather they would publish in a more "everyday" journal like Biophys. A Nature publication (unless you research frogs; for some reason frogs are hot in NATURE =D) is sorta like a fine wine. You just can't afford to waste time on it everyday;). Plus, its rather dishearten
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent point about social progress. However, as much as I admire how the social sciences have become more and more rigorous and have actually a bit of predictive power (in economic theory for instance), there is a big difference between the social and physical sciences when applied to society as a whole:
The effects of technological innovations can be assimilated in a society that does not progress in any other way, for example in the areas of superstition or fundamentalist religion. People use modern technological marvels for the purpose of evangelism, an irony not lost on me. Progress in social sciences however, REQUIRES that society as a whole accept that progress in a conscious manner, something that is NOT trivial. This, more than anything else is the reason why there exists the woeful disparity between the two.
So, while social progress is ABSOLUTELY essential, I don't think the time scales for the two types of progress are ANYWHERE near the same. To paraphrase what Isaac Asimov once wrote, the social inertia of an entire planet does not lend itself to engineering on human timescales. So, we need a political structure in place that can have slow but steady forward momentum and will do the job in a few centuries (instead of the ones we have now which tend to average the progress to zero).
Unrelated personal note: Please sign up and/or log in. I certainly would appreciate more rational people like you in here ;-).
I feel your pain. But you should know that throught history, the people who really contributed to the advancement of the human race (many a time ignoring the flames licking their feet as they stood at the stake) constituted a tiny minority of humanity (at best). As such, innovation and the frontier spirit has remained the domain of a significant few, rather than the multitudinous drones that form the background noise on this lil rock we call home. If that sounds elitist, it really isn't. All I'm saying is that there is no pre-ordained reason why the human race should or shouldn't have a profound future. What is true (and what we should accept and move on) is that only a small fraction of humanity will ever recognize profundity when they see it :P. And please don't fel bad about your country, it is really a global phenomenon. Until a few centuries ago, the operative word was "anti-science" - i.e. active hostility against science. Then even the most retarded of the drones realized that science was the goose that laid the golden eggs and you didn't even have to acknowledge the goose! - just grab the eggs and praise god (I don't abuse my capitals thank you very much :P) for the bounty :P. So now we live in a period where anti-science has been replaced by apathy to science. It's a sort of knee-jerk reaction to the fact that the world owes the scientific community a heavy debt and is trying to welsh out of it ;-). No matter, no one's in a hurry. Time enough for us to evolve fully.
|I'd sooner go live in Saudi Arabia than in a hellhole like the state of Bihar Really? True that Bihar is rampant with Naxalite/Ranvir Sena lawlessness, but Saudi Arabia chops your hand off for stealing a loaf of bread and beheads you for watching movies.
Quoting just half of my sentences is intellectually honest I suppose :P. Read the original sentence. Also, consider for a moment which is scarier: a corrupt and extremist government that represses its own people or a populace that manages quite well on its own which is the point I was going for with Bihar. That was one scary place in the news during my childhood. Besides, I actually DID live in Saudi Arabia for a while a decade ago and as long as you stay away from the Arabs (:P. We lived in an Indian camp) it's quite safe and not quite unpleasant. Again, Read the original sentence. Further, when people tell you to make a choice between two horrible things, perhaps it's ok to decline them both ja? See the last paragraph in this post.
|People are making ranked lists now Yes. See the US Congressional reports on India, and compare them to other countries in the region. |How do you even prove such a thing Easily. We have checks and balances in our political system that other developing countries do not have. Democracy CAN be quantified and relativized.
The "other countries in the region" are a bit of a joke when it comes to democracy. Precisely my point - if that's all that India aspires to, it's striving for mediocrity and I know it can do better. Yes, apparently you can quantify democracy. I'm saying I don't buy the efficacy of the indices! As for "relativizing", I don't know what you mean by that :P and I'm sure the OED doesn't as well.
If you don't like the government "doing nothing to stop the loonies" then vote for a new one. It's you people who voted for the likes of the UPA who let the "human rights" mafia led by that terrorist Arundhati Roy spare Mohammed Afzal and repeal POTA.
Are you deliberately ignoring things I said? Did I not say that I don't live there anymore and that I haven't followed the Indian news in gory detail? And please don't presume to know who people vote for. Perhaps if you stopped labeling people as "anarchists" and trying to divine their voting preferences based on one post and one issue, you might stand a better chance of going beyond cliched arguments. Arundhati Roy is a well-meaning nut who, as all well-meaning nuts do, lost it one fine day and became a rebel without a cause :P. The Michael Moore of India :P.
They've had a monopoly on that since the rise of the Khilafat al-Rashidun a millenium and a half ago. No other society has even come close (don't cite "the crusades" plz, the crusades were not nearly as violent as the Islamic conquest of India)
Oh FFS, not this tired old thing again. If you notice, YOU brought up the crusades :P. I should say that I AM proud of India, because we have NOT wasted our time in rehashing THOSE old sins and carrying out retaliatory wars in the present. Most of the regions of the world that conspired to pillage India in those days are mere shells of their former selves - dirt poor and starving to death. The great Persian Empire has been reduced to a country that can barely be called alive. Are we now quantifying and "relativizing" the bigotry of different societies? I'll save you the time and stipulate that any society built upon a religion is doomed to extremism. It's evolution. Every religion starts out with moderates and extremists. The former, by their very nature and the inherent systemic flaws in any religion, breed themselves out of existence, leaving the radicals behind, who of course spread like a plague. One can't use the crusades as an argument precisely because the governmental structure that created th
Also, if hackers are geeks and geeks have an inherent tendency to go Linux, they would be idiots to mess up their own world by writing Linux virii :P. So, I would say (even though I'm a windows user), that the Mac seems to be the most secure =D as whatever Mac users are, "geeks" they ain't :P.
Is that you Nick Naylor? =D
Well how about that article that featured on /. recently about using people like hamsters to power the gym lights? Perhaps we need laptops that require you to exercise for a set time to charge your battery =D.
But please don't feed me that BS about Free Speech in India. That just means that the Government does not censor you. Buddy, when I lived in India, it wasn't the Government I was worried about :P (to a point of course - police beatings of journalists get routine after a while, who cares? :P). It was the self-appointed loonies policing morality on the streets and the Government NOT doing anything about it. It would be as if the fundies in the US were allowed to run amok and the Government refused to act. THERE is your freedom of speech. And I gottta tell you, self-censorship in India goes a long way. At least the fundies aren't allowed to get away with murder in the US (just everything else upto that point :P).
And what the hell is this talk about "most democratic developing country"? People are making ranked lists now? How do you even prove such a thing? It's just a meaningless cliche (i.e. not falsifiable) being traded in the self-congratulatory spam being traded these days or possibly in a politican's speech. Also, if you compare India with the rest of the banana republics on the subcontinent, well of course it's great! Duh!
And what do you even mean by "most democratic"? The word "democracy" just means that we elect our leaders, period! You're either democratic or you're not! How could you be less or more? If you rig the polls, you're not democratic; *cough* which happens A LOT in rural India especially. Proxy voting is another fine example of democracy :P. ANd I'm sure the North Indian states are glowing examples of law-abiding democracies (I think I'm gonna cry :P). I'd sooner go live in Saudi Arabia than in a hellhole like the state of Bihar - well alright I didn't mean that, I may be crazy but I ain't stupid :P. That's why I love the name "Democratic Republic of Congo". Some folks need a friggin dictionary before they name their countries :P. I wish someone would make a nation out of MS. Heck, I'd wanna immigrate =D. LOL.
That will come only when we are developed enough to eschew all violent religious fundamentalism within our society. Geological timescales perhaps? Religion doesn't permit the absence of violence. The arguments for believing that peace and religion can coexist are akin to "guns don't kill people, people kill people". As long as there is religion, there will ALWAYS be a jagoff with a bomb wanting to enter friggin Paradise. The militant muslims just have a monopoly on that at the moment. Competitors will catch up no doubt. So, do we abolish religion then? *Bzzzt* wrong answer - we can't. Only option - get used to itThat doesn't bode well for what these software developers feel their software is worth :P. Could it be after all these years that software really does NOT have an intrinsic value? That it's no different from baseball cards in terms of how it's priced - i.e. priced as high as people will continue to pay? Sure seems like it. That's the trouble with artificial commodities that contain no raw material, it's hard to justify its price. At least with auto mechanics, you KNOW you're getting screwed and you can't do anything about it - those high labor charges are spelled out in black and white :P. Wouldn't you say that software prices stem PURELY from labor charges for developers (and advertising) and as such once these costs are recovered, the sales constitute pure profit margin? Of course, you now have more development but that will be paid for by future sales. So, for all intents and purposes, one would have to say that software sales are linked to manufacturing costs ONLY upto a point. Reminds me of movie studios in fact ;-). I hope OSS folks don't get on this bandwagon. IT really says something about how much you think your produc is worth and in the long run, THAT is the message that MS is sending with BS like this.
Precisely. I am an immigrant Indian living in the US and I personally feel insulted by that bias, positive as it may be. It results in a weird kind of prejudice wherein if you do something outstanding people are like "well, duh, they're all like that. Big effing deal :P". And under achievement (relative to the OTHER Indians) is reportedly grounds for deportation in some IT companies. To be perfectly clear, I have experienced the first one personally. Since I don't work in IT (merciful Deus :P), I have only heard of the latter (probably hyperbole so please don't bore me by responding to it all at once :P)
It's quite simple - Gaussian distributions are fairly universal. We have our share of nut cases in India, as also religious fundamentalists that could make Pat Robertson blush (well, that's not possible, but you get my drift. Luckily, no one like Ted Haggard as yet =D), awful movies that seem to be cast out of an industrial mold, and idiots of every variety. Also of note are the "lazyass armchair historians" who feel that it is enough to have a rich heritage but who make no effort on their own part to build a better present or plan for a glorious future.
In short, India is just like any other country, including this one. There's good folks and bad folks. There's eminently sensible people on the one hand and the farking idiots on the other. Am I surprising anyone here? :P
More to the point, I am a member of the social site they mention (Orkut) and it's a little silly that someone actually sues Google for "anti-Indian sentiments". Sheesh, get a thicker skin FFS :P. Why would any sensible person be offended by the comments of some random hate monger? Too much time on their hands I suppose :P. Treat opinions like spam people. You just don't read them all. *roll*
The thing about the underworld dons is a horse of a different color. What non-Indians should know is that the "underworld" in India is NOT exactly analogous to the mafia here or the drug cartels in South America. It's a far worse problem than that. To be more precise, the specific don named Dawood Ibrahim can probably be characterized as the Indian version of Osama Bin Laden crossed with Al Capone. In other words, terrorism coupled with the usual kind of racketeering. And there's more noobs like this guy. The Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay) blasts of 1993 is a good example (I was actually in school near where they happened back then *brrr*). There's some more recent stuff as well, which I have not been following much in the news.
Suffice to say, if Indians wanted to establish something akin to the Patriot Act, these are the dudes who'll be first on the dinner menu :P. So, not SO crazy in this PARTICULAR instance. I would suggest that they not try to close them down though. Illegally hacking into them and monitoring them might be more profitable in the long-term ;-). What are Intelligence Agencies for anyway? LOL
ZOMFG! Mod parent +100 hilarious! Very nice post Cooley =D
IN fact, let's go one step further, could the IAU please stop making inane reclassifications that are absolutely irrelevant to astronomy and get some real scientific work done? I mean, what is this, a scientology organization? Sheesh. Idiots everywhere :P.
if you're trying to link me with creationism you're so far off base it's not even funny.
I try to mock creationism every opportunity I get. Nothing to do with you =D. Please don't take it personally. Maybe the
(*snicker*; sorry =D)
wasn't explicit enough in my post. *shrug*
I'm against patents. of any kind.
That doesn't mean we should not be looking at nature for ideas and useful bits & pieces, it just means that when you do *discover* those that you are not able to go out and stick your name on it and bar everybody else from using the same without paying you, the original discoverer a royalty.
And thanks for the article about the bacterial wheels. It's a neat story and it makes you wonder whether the original caveman inventor of the wheel would still get his patent. It would be unfair not to as we couldn't really look at bacteria for (possibly) millennia after it was invented by humans. Does that mean that if someone invented a device with no prior knowledge of an existing analogue in nature, you would simply have to hunt for one (without going to the trouble and possesisng the creativity to do the research yourself) and declare his patent void? IN fact, I would say that patents were a bad idea at the dawn of the scientific age because you could invent stuff quite easily without a lot of specialized resources. Hence the flurry of "garage invention" patents and horrible spots on late night cable tv =D. Today, any serious invention (no matter how mundane it may seem you) usually requires a ton of investment to begin with. So what if they exploit what's already present in nature? I'm sure the bacteria don't mind and neither do the sensible molluscs ;-).
I probably shouldn't continue this one as this is probably not the place for a "patent debate" and IANAPL =D, but I am curious as to why people would even bother to invent stuff then. Where's the incentive to write good software if any big corporation could simply grab the first copy you sell, reverse engineer it and market it themselves? This is true of any product really, not just software.
The point is, if you do away with patents, the only people who can profit (or heck, even break even) are the ones who can do research, develop a product AND make it market-ready as soon as possible. We know that the resources you need for the two (R&D vs. commercialisation) are quite different. Of course, I really have no problem with dramatically shortening the life of a patent. Quite a reasonable precaution IMO against monopolies. Go generic! =D
Further, lack of a patent system WILL lead to a highly paranoid research community who cannot afford to disclose ANY information about anything until their product hits the market and EVEN AFTERWARDS.
Not to mention the extra junk that manufacturers will need to stuff into their products in order to make it secure from reverse-engineering. This to me is the biggest problem I can envison. Industries WILL do this. It's the only way they can keep their margins. Look forward to the warranty stickers being changed from "removing this will void warranty" to "removing this will melt the processor". Companies will have to stop making things like PCs modular - too much stuff out in the open. Look forward to more idiotic devices like the ones Braun makes where everything is molded shut and no screw access. I can't even get into my stupid electric toothbrush to try to fix it (well, tinker with it at least) without using a saw :p.
Do we really need all that grief? I realize there are serious problems with the patent laws at the moment, but really, forgive me for being trite, throwing the baby out with the bath water is hardly a solution ;-). Oh I should add, I find it inevitable that with the dissolution of the patent system, we will simply be presented with a set of anti-reverse-engineering laws. More legislation. Enforcement issues. The politicians have
Hmm, I misunderstood your comment. You do have a valid point. Is it known if mammals, insects and reptiles all have the same neural mechanism. I see mo remember that cold blooded cratures get sluggish in cool weather (the desert lizard thing whose name escapes my mind). Perhaps the sluggishness is not just a metabolic response but also a neural one. I know, long shot, and I don't know why I'm staunchly supporting the article (lol) but I would think it still hinges on whether different organisms have different tolerances as far as temperature regulation goes.
Instead, focusing on monitoring your credit and your accounts on a regular basis is probably a better way to protect your identity. A bit of judgement (such as using those disposable credit card numbers with few-day-expiry when shopping online) and clearing the cache on public terminals should be quite effective. The alternative is ... well jumping at shadows (although I admit some of them might be quite real ;-)). I'm not trying to put anyone down. I just think that there's really not much on an online tax form that constitutes sensitive information (in the manner of numbers, passwords, etc.). Or is there? I'd love some examples =D. You probably have more critical personal information floating out there when you shop at amazon.com from a public terminal.
What you want in a tax software package is functionality. However, an equally important thing is liability. If this OSS burps and does something wrong, I doubt the IRS is gonna listen to your "dog-ate-my-homework" kind of excuse. However, if you do use a package from the list of supported software on the IRS website http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.h tml (chances are, you can find a free one that can e-file for your income level quite easily), at least you're in a position to defend yourself if the thing chokes. If a Linux package is not available at the moment, I'm sure it will be soon. In the meantime though, I would humbly suggest that techies NOT gamble their taxes on this issue :P and seek out a windows machine (wearing a crucifix of course =D). The local library might be a good place. You can always get drunk after and not remember any of it =D.
You forget light pollution, which is a major problem for ground-based telescopes. That's precisely why LISA and LIGO can work on the ground - they're not measuring light, they're trying to measure gravity waves, which (we hope) are strong enough to show up in the interferometer. Space is better for another important reason, especially for new telescopes: it is VERY cold in space (~2.7K). This means you can use superconducting wires with impunity and without the need for a coolant. That itself should be a significant advantage. I do hope they make use of this =D.
As far as the eel example goes, it's a bad one as you can argue that only for the invention of the electric chair. I can't imagine any other "use" that the eel puts it's electricity to :P. As I've said before, so I say again - invention is not about creation from nothingness; you have that mistaken with genesis (*snicker*; sorry =D); rather it is about control. There's been a couple of nice responses in this sub-thread already so I won't belabor the point, but the difference between invention and appropriation is the difference between the work in TFA and holding a seashell to your ear to hear the ocean ;-). 'Nuff said =D.
I will say that their physics seems reasonable - one should understand that when we say "sound" there can be several meanings to that word. In the article, they are talking about piezo-electric pulses which I can visualise as a pressure wave that creates voltages between synapses (forgive me if I'm murdering the biology here ;-)). Imagine your usual piezo-crystal (a simple example is the one in a wristwatch) that vibrates (pressure waves) when a voltage is applied. Well, the reverse can also happen (this is used in some species of microphones). The way I visualize their model is that a piezo-electric soliton (if I remember my group theory, it's a sort of a quantized sound wave which persists without being destroyed by background noise because it has a topological quantum number asociated with it) travels between synapses leading to a voltage between them. Now, the pressure wave exists in the surrounding medium, which contains the ions in solution. So, at the most one can interpret these findings to mean that neural conduction is more like current in a superconducting wire than electroplating :D. This is the essence of their transport theory (as I understand it).
Another thing to note is that the article is not written as a maverick physicist would. It is written in a way that only a proper experimental physicist would - theory -> prediction -> experiment -> comparison. And the thing they are evaluating is actually the effect of anasthetics on neural transport. So, they are simply not claiming stuff as the news site falsely overhypes. I for one find this article fascinating even though biophysics is not my field.
I don't see how this translates to the sensationalist headline (although it's not the poster's fault, the linked site is a Canadian news site. The fact that it's Canadian is irrelevant :D, but the fact that it's a news site is rather telling. Also, they couldn't reach the authors for comments, which probably explains the awkward spin on the research.
IAAANS (I am also a neuroscientist) and I'm with you on this. TFA sounds pretty crackpot to me. If they really had strong evidence for this it would be published in Nature, not Biophysical Journal.
I'm afraid Nature is rather conservative in that respect and their editorial policy is at least partly based on maintaining or raising their impact factor (it is a highly profitable publication after all). The only way they can do that is by ensuring that only articles that are likely to be frequently cited in the future are published (that's the critical number that figures in the calculation of impact factor). As a result, the argument that any ground-breaking research would be automatically published in Nature is simply not true. Quite the contrary in fact. Now, before people mistake this for flamebait :P, I'm simply saying that Nature prefers the "wait-and-watch" routine, sorta like the Nobel committee, which is notorious for awarding A. Einstein with the prize for the photoelectric effect and not special or general relativity :P. I'm sure Nature will publish these guys a few years down the road after they have garnered enough of a reputation (IF they are correct that is!).
I was just trying to point out the decisions involved in publishing with Nature. If people want to publish something quickly that will spur interest and spawn more research in that particular area, they do NOT publish in Nature; rather they would publish in a more "everyday" journal like Biophys. A Nature publication (unless you research frogs; for some reason frogs are hot in NATURE =D) is sorta like a fine wine. You just can't afford to waste time on it everyday ;). Plus, its rather dishearten