Anyone who has read Nicholas Nassim Taleb's "Black Swan" will immediately see the problem here. Rare events are almost impossible to predict mathematically with a small statistical set.
Without a solid understanding of the underlying problem (which they still don't have) they are using "testing" to verify the stability of the electrical system. But testing will not and can not effectively assess risk.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. Nothing has been solved.
Statistics like. "85% of board seats are held by men, so clearly there's a long way to go" are highly misleading.
The underlying premise is that all things being equal, the seats should be 50% female. But that premise is silly.
If 75% of women elect to raise families and focus less on their careers (not a real statistic, just an example) then it would stand to reason that 25% would not hold equally senior positions to their male colleagues who pursued only career. And if women more frequently choose majors like psychiatry, French language, Art History and women's studies, then their lack of representation on boards of tech companies would also be justified.
This is the general problem with numerical male:female ratios: They discount the other options which draw women of their own free will, and misrepresent the existing ratio as "repression" of some kind.
The goal is NOT equal representation. It is equal OPPORTUNITY. If board seats were 50% women, that would likely represent male oppression as there are typically more men pursuing careers applicable to those seats than women. When women complain about unequal ratios they are demanding their cake while wanting to eat it too. They are actually demanding unequal favorable treatment for themselves at the expense of men.
Most of them are utter shit. And this one is really no exception. The issue here is that people grant enormous amounts of leeway for something that is "no budget", because they recognize that it's difficult. Lighting and good cinematography can be expensive. But there are workarounds.
There are also certain areas where budget shouldn't matter: Writing. Dialogue. Acting. Etc.
This film is particularly weak on those counts. This isn't a "support group" like most film festivals are. This is the real world.
The film is amateurish on countless scales which have little to do with "budget".
It was ActiveX that almost single handedly drove users away from Internet Explorer. ActiveX was a massive security problem from day one and was always an incredibly easy venue for malicious code.
It's not clear to me whether this ability to execute code is intended solely for Chrome OS, or whether it is intended for all versions of the Chrome browser. If the intent is the latter, this has a good chance of driving users en masse away from Chrome as Google's security nightmare is probably just beginning.
Ok great. How would I go about reporting all users of Pinterest, including all employees of Pinterest, Inc.? Let's start this program out with a bang just to point out the entire absurdity of selective enforcement on the Web.
I think kicking it off with a million or so forced educational programs on the first day would bury this program pretty quickly.
Unlike some 'other' underprivileged folks I have one of those modern "cut and paste" operating systems.:p
Here is the important bit from the above link:
"Just like our fingerprints, the environment can change our DNA too. We all build up mutations in our DNA over time. Most of these DNA changes are harmless although some can lead to diseases like cancer.
Where do these changes come from? Some come from the stuff our body does everyday. For example, we all start out with a single cell and end up with somewhere around 50 or 100 trillion cells.
The DNA in all of these cells needed to be copied (not 100 trillion times but a lot). The machinery in our cells that copies our DNA is incredibly good at what it does, but not perfect. Occasionally, it makes a mistake that is not fixed.
Our DNA also changes in response to things like sunlight or the food we eat. Both can damage the DNA causing mistakes to happen.
Coming up with a genetic test looking for these changes is going to be tough. First, these changes are pretty rare. Everyone has about 100 new mutations in their DNA. Sounds like a lot but spread out over 3 billion base pairs, that is quite a needle in a haystack."
Will someone with a better understanding of genetics please explain how a genetic test is even possible?
My understanding is that identical twins -- arising from the same zygote -- are genetically identical. Not just "pretty much identical" as the article states.
What possible "genetic test" is being proposed that could differentiate between the brothers? Is the town being scammed?
And replace it with what? The atrocity also known as HTML5 which is not write once run anywhere, is an absolute bear to code and despite the hype is nowhere near suitable for gaming yet?
There's a reason Flash is the world's most popular online multimedia platform. It's not without issues, but it is lacking a worthy contender.
These kinds of decisions are obviously going to piss off customers. But Microsoft clearly feels they are untouchable.
This might be understandable if they weren't currently the not-so-proud parent of a dismally failing tablet, a disaster of an operating system and a serial failure in the online space.
One would think that just maybe they should approach customers on the basis of what the customers want, and not what some repeat-disaster of a CEO thinks is good strategy.
This will be the year of the "upset" IMHO. Ouya and Steam look set to overthrow the aging behemoths. I look forward to healthy competition.
I am not conflating *all* conspiracy theories with those which have been proven to be true.
You misunderstand my point. And by the way, I agree conceptually with most of what you wrote.
My issue is with the semantic definition of the term "Conspiratorial Thinking" to mean "Seeing little green men".
To be clear: In science we theorize and then we prove. Postulates do not carry the same weight as empirical fact, and should therefore be treated as such.
BUT theories are not "falsities" either until proven as such. And this is the problem with the tone of the OP. That "conspiratorial thinking" represents a "wrong" is as scientifically invalid as assuming the facts to be true. My point is that there is nothing remotely wrong with theorizing. In fact, we *must* theorize as it forms the basis of research.
The notion that "conspiratorial thinking" is "wrong" is a dangerous notion as it sets forth the premise that we should all agree with the prevailing facts as they have been presented. My point is that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the facts as presented are often false, and intentionally misrepresented as truth.
Given that we know conspiracies happen, it is in no way wrong-footed to theorize about who is engaging in secretive efforts, and how they might be benefiting.
Additionally: You asked "How can you know them to be true if you can't prove it".
Because we already have the proof of the crime. We simply do not have the proof of the criminal. This is the tree that has fallen in the forest. We discover the tree on the ground. It is not in question that the tree fell, only whether or not it made a sound (or what pushed it).
In the case of MF Global, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that $1 billion went missing from rehypothecated accounts. That this took some doing is clear. That this took some doing by multiple parties is also clear. (The transferral of $1 billion does not happen casually, without being noticed by the way). Ergo, we know that there was a conspiracy. What we cannot prove is who participated, or where the money went. But that there was a conspiracy goes without saying.
Conspiracies are very often extremely real and extremely provable. HSBC was just found guilty at the highest levels of management of laundering money for Mexican drug cartels. LIBOR manipulation involved dozens of banks and hundreds of people and was the largest financial market manipulation in history. During the mortgage crisis we had robosigning and MERS which intentionally broke the chain of ownership (and the law) in the interest of securitization. We also had dozens of investment banks bundling worthless mortgages and assigning positive valuations to them. Bernie Madoff and his partners conspired to rip off countless pension funds and communities. Etc. Etc. Etc. These are all conspiracies involving billions of dollars and hundreds if not thousands of people. That's just the last 4 years. And those are the provable conspiracies.
And then there are the conspiracies we know to be true, but cannot prove: Julian Assange for example, who announced he had an upcoming Wikileak regarding the banking system, and the next thing you know he's wanted on rape charges for consensual sex but supposedly with an aconsensual lack of a condom. A crime supposedly so serious that apparently world governments are willing to abandon 500 years of international law and invade sovereign embassies. Is disbelieving the premise "Conspiratorial thinking" or just "not being an idiot"?
Or let's take an easier one: Jon Corzine and his firm looted private accounts and absconded with over $1 billion dollars. The money was transferred somewhere. But no one knows where. It's a magical mystery of the disappearing $1 Billion. If you believe that are you resisting "conspiratorial thinking", or are you the biggest idiot on Earth? Let's see -- JP Morgan underwrote MF Global's trades. Everyone knows where the money went. But no one can talk about it. Because if you claim that the money went anywhere but to "money heaven", you're engaging in "conspiratorial thinking".
We are surrounded by corruption, plotting, scheming and insane rapes of the public coffers every day of every year.
These schemes are nothing other than "conspiracies".
But somehow this study begins with the entirely "fringe" premise that conspiracies aren't real. That in itself appears to be a conspiracy.
Which party exactly is the party of limited government and civil liberties? It sure isn't the Democrats or the Republicans, and it sure isn't the Libertarians either as they are now thoroughly politicized.
There's one-party rule in the United States, and it comes in two subtly different flavors. No matter who you vote for, you're ultimately voting for the Banks, the Healthcare industry, the Military Industrial Complex and a few unions thrown in to make it all look fair.
There's no "should" in earnings. Some things make money. Some things don't. You can spend the next 8 years working on a book of poetry, and sell a mere 75 copies for $5 a pop. Would such low earnings warrant a Slashdot article on the "tragedy of working poets"? Would poets then demand more money from society with claims that one "should" be able to earn a living wage scrawling free verse?
This is a story about an "avant cellist". Of all the categories of music that don't make money, that sounds like it's right up there at the top of the list. Good music? Maybe! Maybe great music. But great music and a buck fifty gets you a cup of coffee.
How many readers here would rather be designing an indie game for mobile devices, or making a blog about their favorite topic? (Maybe you are doing that). Chances are that's not something you're doing with expectations of a living wage. It would be nice, but to "expect" it would be ridiculous.
This is a topic that is controversial only for soon-to-be disillusioned teenagers.
The community is already speaking loudly! Head over to YouTube and add your Thumbs Down vote. Let's get this thing up to 100k down votes. Maybe that will wake up FOX to the backlash they've created.
A larger problem however is the expectation of non-legal laymen to read and agree to what are ostensibly binding TOS contracts.
I have seen TOS contracts that (in non-digital format) would be dozens of pages long. Users simply click "Ok" with the assumption that "There's probably nothing bad in there". But this assumption is clearly false in a large number of cases when one considers privacy and security clauses.
I have seen "Digital trespassing" (which are protected by the DMCA) buried in the TOS carrying agreed monetary damage amounts.
Consider that a TOS could expressly forbid users to use AdBlock and consider all users of AdBlock to be digital trespassers. You say "Bollocks" (as would I, for the record) but that doesn't change the fact that a TOS can say whatever it wants and the law has already decided that online consent to contracts can be binding. (Not to confuse the greater issue with the legality of this one example of course.)
The issue ultimately comes down to: 1) The expectations of lay-people to understand and agree to complex, binding agreements, the vast majority of which are never read. 2) The binding nature of a click-to-sign agreement.
The term "stealing" refers to a felony. And yet the practice you are referencing is a civil offense. Ergo, you do not understand "stealing" or the law.
See, when you're 35, you think that careful planning results in security. And in a perfect world, it should. But then there's your daughter with leukemia, and then the divorce, and then your carefully researched hedge fund investment shits the bed, and then your partner splits the business and takes your best clients, and then the housing market collapses, and then you throw out your back making long stints at a desk impossible, and then there was that patent lawsuit that sank your startup.
And so you find yourself at the age of 60, having to listen to some 35 year old douche lecture you about planning.
> " If I want to copyright my apples and sell them for 1 penny in China and $3000 in Canada, why should I have any further control over the people in China realizing my ridiculous pricing?"
Actually, the more compelling question is: Why would citizens of Canada continue to stay in Canada (or any other top-tier priced nation) where they are clearly being en-serfed under such policies.
The evidence is growing that the so-called "First World" is for suckers.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone who has read Nicholas Nassim Taleb's "Black Swan" will immediately see the problem here. Rare events are almost impossible to predict mathematically with a small statistical set.
Without a solid understanding of the underlying problem (which they still don't have) they are using "testing" to verify the stability of the electrical system. But testing will not and can not effectively assess risk.
This is a disaster waiting to happen. Nothing has been solved.
You could be using Tor, or surfing through a proxy, denying cookies, etc.
Why make it easy for them?
Statistics like. "85% of board seats are held by men, so clearly there's a long way to go" are highly misleading.
The underlying premise is that all things being equal, the seats should be 50% female. But that premise is silly.
If 75% of women elect to raise families and focus less on their careers (not a real statistic, just an example) then it would stand to reason that 25% would not hold equally senior positions to their male colleagues who pursued only career. And if women more frequently choose majors like psychiatry, French language, Art History and women's studies, then their lack of representation on boards of tech companies would also be justified.
This is the general problem with numerical male:female ratios: They discount the other options which draw women of their own free will, and misrepresent the existing ratio as "repression" of some kind.
The goal is NOT equal representation. It is equal OPPORTUNITY. If board seats were 50% women, that would likely represent male oppression as there are typically more men pursuing careers applicable to those seats than women. When women complain about unequal ratios they are demanding their cake while wanting to eat it too. They are actually demanding unequal favorable treatment for themselves at the expense of men.
Most of them are utter shit. And this one is really no exception. The issue here is that people grant enormous amounts of leeway for something that is "no budget", because they recognize that it's difficult. Lighting and good cinematography can be expensive. But there are workarounds.
There are also certain areas where budget shouldn't matter: Writing. Dialogue. Acting. Etc.
This film is particularly weak on those counts. This isn't a "support group" like most film festivals are. This is the real world.
The film is amateurish on countless scales which have little to do with "budget".
Turns out it's a standard parlor trick. The cat has a twin sibling.
The rest is all mirrors ... and ball bearings.
It was ActiveX that almost single handedly drove users away from Internet Explorer. ActiveX was a massive security problem from day one and was always an incredibly easy venue for malicious code.
It's not clear to me whether this ability to execute code is intended solely for Chrome OS, or whether it is intended for all versions of the Chrome browser. If the intent is the latter, this has a good chance of driving users en masse away from Chrome as Google's security nightmare is probably just beginning.
Ok great. How would I go about reporting all users of Pinterest, including all employees of Pinterest, Inc.? Let's start this program out with a bang just to point out the entire absurdity of selective enforcement on the Web.
I think kicking it off with a million or so forced educational programs on the first day would bury this program pretty quickly.
Ah. So there is a way. Thanks for the Google Fu.
Unlike some 'other' underprivileged folks I have one of those modern "cut and paste" operating systems. :p
Here is the important bit from the above link:
"Just like our fingerprints, the environment can change our DNA too. We all build up mutations in our DNA over time. Most of these DNA changes are harmless although some can lead to diseases like cancer.
Where do these changes come from? Some come from the stuff our body does everyday. For example, we all start out with a single cell and end up with somewhere around 50 or 100 trillion cells.
The DNA in all of these cells needed to be copied (not 100 trillion times but a lot). The machinery in our cells that copies our DNA is incredibly good at what it does, but not perfect. Occasionally, it makes a mistake that is not fixed.
Our DNA also changes in response to things like sunlight or the food we eat. Both can damage the DNA causing mistakes to happen.
Coming up with a genetic test looking for these changes is going to be tough. First, these changes are pretty rare. Everyone has about 100 new mutations in their DNA. Sounds like a lot but spread out over 3 billion base pairs, that is quite a needle in a haystack."
Will someone with a better understanding of genetics please explain how a genetic test is even possible?
My understanding is that identical twins -- arising from the same zygote -- are genetically identical. Not just "pretty much identical" as the article states.
What possible "genetic test" is being proposed that could differentiate between the brothers? Is the town being scammed?
And replace it with what? The atrocity also known as HTML5 which is not write once run anywhere, is an absolute bear to code and despite the hype is nowhere near suitable for gaming yet?
There's a reason Flash is the world's most popular online multimedia platform. It's not without issues, but it is lacking a worthy contender.
These kinds of decisions are obviously going to piss off customers. But Microsoft clearly feels they are untouchable.
This might be understandable if they weren't currently the not-so-proud parent of a dismally failing tablet, a disaster of an operating system and a serial failure in the online space.
One would think that just maybe they should approach customers on the basis of what the customers want, and not what some repeat-disaster of a CEO thinks is good strategy.
This will be the year of the "upset" IMHO. Ouya and Steam look set to overthrow the aging behemoths. I look forward to healthy competition.
I am not conflating *all* conspiracy theories with those which have been proven to be true.
You misunderstand my point. And by the way, I agree conceptually with most of what you wrote.
My issue is with the semantic definition of the term "Conspiratorial Thinking" to mean "Seeing little green men".
To be clear: In science we theorize and then we prove. Postulates do not carry the same weight as empirical fact, and should therefore be treated as such.
BUT theories are not "falsities" either until proven as such. And this is the problem with the tone of the OP. That "conspiratorial thinking" represents a "wrong" is as scientifically invalid as assuming the facts to be true. My point is that there is nothing remotely wrong with theorizing. In fact, we *must* theorize as it forms the basis of research.
The notion that "conspiratorial thinking" is "wrong" is a dangerous notion as it sets forth the premise that we should all agree with the prevailing facts as they have been presented. My point is that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the facts as presented are often false, and intentionally misrepresented as truth.
Given that we know conspiracies happen, it is in no way wrong-footed to theorize about who is engaging in secretive efforts, and how they might be benefiting.
Additionally: You asked "How can you know them to be true if you can't prove it".
Because we already have the proof of the crime. We simply do not have the proof of the criminal. This is the tree that has fallen in the forest. We discover the tree on the ground. It is not in question that the tree fell, only whether or not it made a sound (or what pushed it).
In the case of MF Global, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that $1 billion went missing from rehypothecated accounts. That this took some doing is clear. That this took some doing by multiple parties is also clear. (The transferral of $1 billion does not happen casually, without being noticed by the way). Ergo, we know that there was a conspiracy. What we cannot prove is who participated, or where the money went. But that there was a conspiracy goes without saying.
I'm utterly confused by the premise here.
Conspiracies are very often extremely real and extremely provable. HSBC was just found guilty at the highest levels of management of laundering money for Mexican drug cartels. LIBOR manipulation involved dozens of banks and hundreds of people and was the largest financial market manipulation in history. During the mortgage crisis we had robosigning and MERS which intentionally broke the chain of ownership (and the law) in the interest of securitization. We also had dozens of investment banks bundling worthless mortgages and assigning positive valuations to them. Bernie Madoff and his partners conspired to rip off countless pension funds and communities. Etc. Etc. Etc. These are all conspiracies involving billions of dollars and hundreds if not thousands of people. That's just the last 4 years. And those are the provable conspiracies.
And then there are the conspiracies we know to be true, but cannot prove: Julian Assange for example, who announced he had an upcoming Wikileak regarding the banking system, and the next thing you know he's wanted on rape charges for consensual sex but supposedly with an aconsensual lack of a condom. A crime supposedly so serious that apparently world governments are willing to abandon 500 years of international law and invade sovereign embassies. Is disbelieving the premise "Conspiratorial thinking" or just "not being an idiot"?
Or let's take an easier one: Jon Corzine and his firm looted private accounts and absconded with over $1 billion dollars. The money was transferred somewhere. But no one knows where. It's a magical mystery of the disappearing $1 Billion. If you believe that are you resisting "conspiratorial thinking", or are you the biggest idiot on Earth? Let's see -- JP Morgan underwrote MF Global's trades. Everyone knows where the money went. But no one can talk about it. Because if you claim that the money went anywhere but to "money heaven", you're engaging in "conspiratorial thinking".
We are surrounded by corruption, plotting, scheming and insane rapes of the public coffers every day of every year.
These schemes are nothing other than "conspiracies".
But somehow this study begins with the entirely "fringe" premise that conspiracies aren't real. That in itself appears to be a conspiracy.
Which party exactly is the party of limited government and civil liberties? It sure isn't the Democrats or the Republicans, and it sure isn't the Libertarians either as they are now thoroughly politicized.
There's one-party rule in the United States, and it comes in two subtly different flavors. No matter who you vote for, you're ultimately voting for the Banks, the Healthcare industry, the Military Industrial Complex and a few unions thrown in to make it all look fair.
There's no "should" in earnings. Some things make money. Some things don't. You can spend the next 8 years working on a book of poetry, and sell a mere 75 copies for $5 a pop. Would such low earnings warrant a Slashdot article on the "tragedy of working poets"? Would poets then demand more money from society with claims that one "should" be able to earn a living wage scrawling free verse?
This is a story about an "avant cellist". Of all the categories of music that don't make money, that sounds like it's right up there at the top of the list. Good music? Maybe! Maybe great music. But great music and a buck fifty gets you a cup of coffee.
How many readers here would rather be designing an indie game for mobile devices, or making a blog about their favorite topic? (Maybe you are doing that). Chances are that's not something you're doing with expectations of a living wage. It would be nice, but to "expect" it would be ridiculous.
This is a topic that is controversial only for soon-to-be disillusioned teenagers.
The community is already speaking loudly! Head over to YouTube and add your Thumbs Down vote. Let's get this thing up to 100k down votes. Maybe that will wake up FOX to the backlash they've created.
A larger problem however is the expectation of non-legal laymen to read and agree to what are ostensibly binding TOS contracts.
I have seen TOS contracts that (in non-digital format) would be dozens of pages long. Users simply click "Ok" with the assumption that "There's probably nothing bad in there". But this assumption is clearly false in a large number of cases when one considers privacy and security clauses.
I have seen "Digital trespassing" (which are protected by the DMCA) buried in the TOS carrying agreed monetary damage amounts.
Consider that a TOS could expressly forbid users to use AdBlock and consider all users of AdBlock to be digital trespassers. You say "Bollocks" (as would I, for the record) but that doesn't change the fact that a TOS can say whatever it wants and the law has already decided that online consent to contracts can be binding. (Not to confuse the greater issue with the legality of this one example of course.)
The issue ultimately comes down to:
1) The expectations of lay-people to understand and agree to complex, binding agreements, the vast majority of which are never read.
2) The binding nature of a click-to-sign agreement.
The term "stealing" refers to a felony. And yet the practice you are referencing is a civil offense. Ergo, you do not understand "stealing" or the law.
See, when you're 35, you think that careful planning results in security. And in a perfect world, it should. But then there's your daughter with leukemia, and then the divorce, and then your carefully researched hedge fund investment shits the bed, and then your partner splits the business and takes your best clients, and then the housing market collapses, and then you throw out your back making long stints at a desk impossible, and then there was that patent lawsuit that sank your startup.
And so you find yourself at the age of 60, having to listen to some 35 year old douche lecture you about planning.
> " If I want to copyright my apples and sell them for 1 penny in China and $3000 in Canada, why should I have any further control over the people in China realizing my ridiculous pricing?"
Actually, the more compelling question is: Why would citizens of Canada continue to stay in Canada (or any other top-tier priced nation) where they are clearly being en-serfed under such policies.
The evidence is growing that the so-called "First World" is for suckers.
England just jailed a guy for a Facebook post which sexualized Santa Claus.
Now tell me who the religious nutjobs are again?
I think you're in the wrong neighborhood, son.
Spamming Slashdot is a good way to get your site DOS'ed.
Yes but STATISTICALLY speaking, which gender is more likely to stop working at around the age of 30 and never return to work?
Risk bears cost. This is business we're talking about here. Not some utopian society.
Politically incorrect and proud of it.
Releases of new operating systems come with a large number of bugs, and that goes with the territory. In general, users are understanding and patient.
But these seem like alpha level bugs that should have been stomped out ages ago.
1080p displays are hardly unusual or non-standard. This does not bode well...
This news comes ironically as Baldur's Gate is being re-released. It was their finest moment.