This is a cheap trick. My first job was at an ISP which was kind of a neverland for the company owners. They had free soft drink and it was relaxed and fun there, only paid McDonalds wages but hey, it was a foot in the door. Anyway, the owners were only paid at the same rate as everyone else, which stopped the peons complaining ("You want to be paid more than the company director? Who do you think you are?").
I only realised afterwards that on top of their pitiful salary, the company directors actually owned 30% of the company each. So for every hour of consulting work I did, their net worth went up by about $25 each (there were three of 'em). Hell, a lot of big-company CEOs are paid a nominal $1 a year. They get millions in bonuses and dividends, of course, but their official salary is only $1.
1.There is nothing reasonable or doubtful that thinking that two advils would do serious harm, or even minor harm to a 13 year old girl.
Exactly. It's prescription medicine, no mention is made of whether she had a prescription. If the school's "zero tolerance" drug policy forbade prescription drugs, that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard, and I've heard some pretty fucking stupid things.
"I'm sorry, Mrs Splodnatzki, your son died today in detention after we caught him trying to inject himself with Insulin. It was his blood testing kit and the prescription in his bag that tipped us off... They go bad so young these days, you really should consider your parenting. Just be glad he wasn't experimenting with Aspirin or antibiotics!"
WTF's wrong with these people anyway? This "cloud" thing has been used for decades, and it has a name. Us people who use it daily call it "the internet".
You know, online storage (like webmail) that you can access anywhere? Online services that you can use to perform common tasks? Communicating with other "internet" users? Really, I'm struggling to see what "cloud computing" gives us except another buzzword to describe what we already have. I'm looking forward to stuffing it firmly in a box along with "information superhighway" and "web 2.0".
But Newton's theory is not wrong, not by a long shot. It's just not right on the atomic scale.
Exactly. It's like when my wife asks me what the time is, I say "it's half-past 10" because it is, or fairly close to. Then she looks at the clock for herself and says "no it's not, it's 10:28". Sometimes we accept slight, unimportant inaccuracies if they greatly ease communication.
6. "Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me
That's exactly why evolution IS better than faith-based fabrications. It's criticizable, it's falsifiable, it's a scientific hypothesis that has been shown time and again to be borne out by events in the real world. Continual efforts *are* made to falsify new and 'best' theories, that's what the whole peer review process is for. That's also why science students continually redo basic science even when the results are well known. Partly it's to teach the students scientific method, but it's also partly because one time in a million, something might go differently and give rise to one of those "hmm... that's odd" moments that Asimov mentioned.
This is what I keep trying, usually to no avail, to drum into the heads of fuzzy-thinking non-scientists. Just because we call something "the truth" (aka "our current best approximation of the truth") doesn't mean we won't throw it out the moment it doesn't usefully describe our world. The essential difference here is that when evidence contradicts a scientific theory, we throw out the theory (or adapt it) and start again. When evidence contradicts faith, we throw out the evidence.
Sounds to me like he's one of those "everything they ask me to do is easiest done in Excel" guys. Access isn't rocket science, but when a one-page spreadsheet that prints out an invoice is all you need, then you'd have to be crazy (or very bored) to build an Access database for it.
To be fair, gravity, geometry and basic material shear stress limits etc. don't generally change every few years, and once they're determined it's pretty hard to argue about them. The fabric of your reality doesn't depend on the consensus a bunch of people to whom Sturgeon's Law almost certainly applies, and who have widely varying motives.
And this is precisely the problem with the DMCA. A large company who retain a team of lawyers on salary will have no problem firing off a few dozen such takedown notices. The cost of hiring a lawyer to screen them all for actual, valid complaints becomes rapidly prohibitive for the private citizen on the other end.
This is why the DMCA needs strongly punitive measures for repeat posting of unwarranted takedown notices for economic purposes.
Oh god, don't do that to me! I spent about 8 months maintaining a 10-year-old ColdFusion web app and I only just managed to escape by taking over our sysadmin's job. I still get occasional suicide notes texted to me by the guy who took over when I left.:P
Australia isn't. A few retarded monkeys in the government are still considering it, despite the number of times we've told them it's retarded in all senses of the word.
Do we have any means of reaching escape velocity without the use of propellants?
Nitrogen, or even just plain old air, are perfectly good propellants if we have a sufficient heat source to force them to expand rapidly. I don't recall us having any projected problems with lack of air in the immediate future.
Well, the water hadn't gone above boiling point, so the tritium MUST have been added to fake the experiment, right? Because fusion isn't possible at that temperature!
Sadly, science is not immune to the effects of religious thinking.
Shoulda been Feignman (one who pretends to be great at physics but really only appears so to people who don't understand the subject matter:P No relation to Feynman, despite what they'll tell you!)
Some students are modelers -- but these tend to be chemists.
I thought Psych and CogSci students were more likely to be modelers... at least she claimed it was "modelling". I thought modelling required more clothes and less dancing but what would I know?
Just to note, that there are other types of problem-solvers at Princeton as well, but they are not as common in the Physics department. In the Fine Arts, one finds "Lysergicists", in Liberal Arts one finds "Inhalors". Most dropouts are "Procrastinists", and if one is very luck, you can spot an "Osmosisist" on the green -- you can tell them from others by the fact that they always carry their books on their head.
Yes. That's one of the less worst among Apple's vacuous marketing terms, but it's still pretty bad. MMX loses points for trying to be cool by using an 'X' for extensions, but at least it's shorter.:P
In quantum mechanics, a particle is described by a wave. The position is where the wave is concentrated and the momentum is the wavelength. The position is uncertain to the degree that the wave is spread out, and the momentum is uncertain to the degree that the wavelength is ill-defined.
The only kind of wave with a definite position is concentrated at one point, and such a wave has an indefinite wavelength. Conversely, the only kind of wave with a definite wavelength is an infinite regular periodic oscillation over all space, which has no definite position. So in quantum mechanics, there are no states that describe a particle with both a definite position and a definite momentum. The more precise the position, the less precise the momentum.
(Emphasis mine). I read that as "the wave is the way our model represents the wave". Going from "the waveform in our model can be used to make predictions about the particle's behaviour" to "the particle is physically a wave" is the step I have problems with.
This is still a better explanation than "the maths says so *waves hands*", though.:)
Odd, I always thought you DID (I know I did when I was forced to use a Mac) and that's why you had so much time to pester us while we're trying to work...:P
Science graduates are to real scientists as burger flippers at MacDonalds are to a master chef.
I'd counter that burger flippers at McDonalds have experience with real-world issues (customer service, cleaning the grill etc) that science grads don't. Other than that I concur.;)
Slashdot Mirror
This is a cheap trick. My first job was at an ISP which was kind of a neverland for the company owners. They had free soft drink and it was relaxed and fun there, only paid McDonalds wages but hey, it was a foot in the door. Anyway, the owners were only paid at the same rate as everyone else, which stopped the peons complaining ("You want to be paid more than the company director? Who do you think you are?").
I only realised afterwards that on top of their pitiful salary, the company directors actually owned 30% of the company each. So for every hour of consulting work I did, their net worth went up by about $25 each (there were three of 'em). Hell, a lot of big-company CEOs are paid a nominal $1 a year. They get millions in bonuses and dividends, of course, but their official salary is only $1.
1.There is nothing reasonable or doubtful that thinking that two advils would do serious harm, or even minor harm to a 13 year old girl.
Exactly. It's prescription medicine, no mention is made of whether she had a prescription. If the school's "zero tolerance" drug policy forbade prescription drugs, that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard, and I've heard some pretty fucking stupid things.
"I'm sorry, Mrs Splodnatzki, your son died today in detention after we caught him trying to inject himself with Insulin. It was his blood testing kit and the prescription in his bag that tipped us off... They go bad so young these days, you really should consider your parenting. Just be glad he wasn't experimenting with Aspirin or antibiotics!"
WTF's wrong with these people anyway? This "cloud" thing has been used for decades, and it has a name. Us people who use it daily call it "the internet".
You know, online storage (like webmail) that you can access anywhere? Online services that you can use to perform common tasks? Communicating with other "internet" users? Really, I'm struggling to see what "cloud computing" gives us except another buzzword to describe what we already have. I'm looking forward to stuffing it firmly in a box along with "information superhighway" and "web 2.0".
But Newton's theory is not wrong, not by a long shot. It's just not right on the atomic scale.
Exactly. It's like when my wife asks me what the time is, I say "it's half-past 10" because it is, or fairly close to. Then she looks at the clock for herself and says "no it's not, it's 10:28". Sometimes we accept slight, unimportant inaccuracies if they greatly ease communication.
6. "Although this proposal, and the people behind it, are certifiable, the idea that a theory of evolution holds some special uncriticizable position because of the 'preponderance of evidence' is just as stifling to scientific progress as the dogmatic fervor with which academia held to Newton's theory of gravitation. A theory should always be accepted as necessarily conjectural, and all efforts should be made to falsify the accepted 'best' theory and replace it with a better theory." -Me
That's exactly why evolution IS better than faith-based fabrications. It's criticizable, it's falsifiable, it's a scientific hypothesis that has been shown time and again to be borne out by events in the real world. Continual efforts *are* made to falsify new and 'best' theories, that's what the whole peer review process is for. That's also why science students continually redo basic science even when the results are well known. Partly it's to teach the students scientific method, but it's also partly because one time in a million, something might go differently and give rise to one of those "hmm... that's odd" moments that Asimov mentioned.
This is what I keep trying, usually to no avail, to drum into the heads of fuzzy-thinking non-scientists. Just because we call something "the truth" (aka "our current best approximation of the truth") doesn't mean we won't throw it out the moment it doesn't usefully describe our world. The essential difference here is that when evidence contradicts a scientific theory, we throw out the theory (or adapt it) and start again. When evidence contradicts faith, we throw out the evidence.
Sounds to me like he's one of those "everything they ask me to do is easiest done in Excel" guys. Access isn't rocket science, but when a one-page spreadsheet that prints out an invoice is all you need, then you'd have to be crazy (or very bored) to build an Access database for it.
Ah yes, here it is. Rule 14: Do not argue with a troll, it means they've won.
Good game, sir! May I have another?
To be fair, gravity, geometry and basic material shear stress limits etc. don't generally change every few years, and once they're determined it's pretty hard to argue about them. The fabric of your reality doesn't depend on the consensus a bunch of people to whom Sturgeon's Law almost certainly applies, and who have widely varying motives.
And this is precisely the problem with the DMCA. A large company who retain a team of lawyers on salary will have no problem firing off a few dozen such takedown notices. The cost of hiring a lawyer to screen them all for actual, valid complaints becomes rapidly prohibitive for the private citizen on the other end.
This is why the DMCA needs strongly punitive measures for repeat posting of unwarranted takedown notices for economic purposes.
Oh god, don't do that to me! I spent about 8 months maintaining a 10-year-old ColdFusion web app and I only just managed to escape by taking over our sysadmin's job. I still get occasional suicide notes texted to me by the guy who took over when I left. :P
Australia isn't. A few retarded monkeys in the government are still considering it, despite the number of times we've told them it's retarded in all senses of the word.
Actually, if you substitute "using a vastly less efficient and ecologically friendly power source" for "breaking the window", it really is.
Do we have any means of reaching escape velocity without the use of propellants?
Nitrogen, or even just plain old air, are perfectly good propellants if we have a sufficient heat source to force them to expand rapidly. I don't recall us having any projected problems with lack of air in the immediate future.
There was never the Jones effect, or the Wang principle, it was always something the like "Heisenberg Principle" or something.
Watt?
Pretty sure it has. It's just not been made self-sustaining with positive energy output.
I, for one, would mod you a (-1, Eeeeeeew!) if I could.
Well, the water hadn't gone above boiling point, so the tritium MUST have been added to fake the experiment, right? Because fusion isn't possible at that temperature!
Sadly, science is not immune to the effects of religious thinking.
You've never seen a perpetual motion machine, have you? :P
Trying to be funny just makes you sounds quanceited.
...whoops O.o
Shoulda been Feignman (one who pretends to be great at physics but really only appears so to people who don't understand the subject matter :P No relation to Feynman, despite what they'll tell you!)
Some students are modelers -- but these tend to be chemists.
I thought Psych and CogSci students were more likely to be modelers... at least she claimed it was "modelling". I thought modelling required more clothes and less dancing but what would I know?
Just to note, that there are other types of problem-solvers at Princeton as well, but they are not as common in the Physics department. In the Fine Arts, one finds "Lysergicists", in Liberal Arts one finds "Inhalors". Most dropouts are "Procrastinists", and if one is very luck, you can spot an "Osmosisist" on the green -- you can tell them from others by the fact that they always carry their books on their head.
Pure gold, 10/10.
Yes. That's one of the less worst among Apple's vacuous marketing terms, but it's still pretty bad. MMX loses points for trying to be cool by using an 'X' for extensions, but at least it's shorter. :P
In quantum mechanics, a particle is described by a wave. The position is where the wave is concentrated and the momentum is the wavelength. The position is uncertain to the degree that the wave is spread out, and the momentum is uncertain to the degree that the wavelength is ill-defined.
The only kind of wave with a definite position is concentrated at one point, and such a wave has an indefinite wavelength. Conversely, the only kind of wave with a definite wavelength is an infinite regular periodic oscillation over all space, which has no definite position. So in quantum mechanics, there are no states that describe a particle with both a definite position and a definite momentum. The more precise the position, the less precise the momentum.
(Emphasis mine). I read that as "the wave is the way our model represents the wave". Going from "the waveform in our model can be used to make predictions about the particle's behaviour" to "the particle is physically a wave" is the step I have problems with.
:)
This is still a better explanation than "the maths says so *waves hands*", though.
Odd, I always thought you DID (I know I did when I was forced to use a Mac) and that's why you had so much time to pester us while we're trying to work... :P
;)
I keed, I keed!
Science graduates are to real scientists as burger flippers at MacDonalds are to a master chef.
I'd counter that burger flippers at McDonalds have experience with real-world issues (customer service, cleaning the grill etc) that science grads don't. Other than that I concur. ;)