Physicists spend their time actively trying to poke holes in the Standard Model. Climate scientists seem to start from a conclusion and then look for evidence supporting it.
As best I can tell, what's happening in the UX world is similar to what happened to fashion and hairstyles in the 1970s. (Almost) everybody just went crazy overnight for some reason. Some kind of brain parasite, maybe, carried by cats or birds.
The trend will eventually recede as quickly as it arrived, as plagues always do. Then we'll see functional, user-configurable interface design come back into favor. I've given up, personally. I'm just going to stop complaining and wait it out. It doesn't pay to be the only sane guy in the asylum.
Communist personality cults are just another religion. Don't agree? Go to North Korea and tell them they're "atheists." They'll send you home in a box.
Note that everything I said still applies if the IPCC is right but consistently unable to prove their case. Confounding factors are a massive hazard on geologic timescales as short as the ones for which we have genuinely reliable data. A ten- or twenty-year cooling trend could have the same effect as outright failure of the models.
Point being, we shouldn't put climate science and evolution in the same basket. They are not on equal footing. To pretend otherwise is to invite a cultural disaster.
h) The AGW "debate" in the USA closely resembles the Creation-vs-Evolution "debate", ie. a never-ending game of Whac-a-Mole against arguments that sound plausible but never stand up under scrutiny, no matter how convinced the creationists were when they were parroting them. One side has to spend vast resources to produce hard evidence, the other side doesn't feel they have any burden of proof whatsoever, they just make stuff up.
Actually it doesn't resemble the Creation/Evolution debate at all, and I get the heebie-jeebies when someone says it does. One of my favorite charities, the National Center for Science Education, has gone down this path recently and I wish there were a good way to talk them out of it.
Climate models are based on just that -- models. We could still wake up one day, slap ourselves in the forehead, and admit that our computer models are either grossly in error, or missing one or more key factors that would change their output drastically. The map is not the territory, science is not a democracy or a popularity contest, and climate modeling is not a "settled science." I don't care who says it is, and I don't care what percentage of climate scientists agree. It just isn't. Sorry, but that's not the way these things work.
On the other hand, we are absolutely not going to wake up one day and realize that we have the basics of evolution wrong. There is absolutely no possibility that we will discover that humans are not, in fact, descended from earlier hominids. There is absolutely no possibility that we will discover that we don't have ancestors in common with modern apes. That isn't going to happen. Too many independent lines of evidence have come together, making consistent predictions, providing confirmable explanations, and withstanding intense scrutiny.
My fear is that the global-warming thing will prove to be a red herring, as usually happens whenever "B...b...but 99% of scientists agree!!!11!" is the primary argument in favor of a theory. When that happens, it's going to be almost impossible to keep the Creationists and other assorted modern-day flat-earthers from gaining the influence over public education and popular culture that they've always dreamed of.
(Shrug) They're good multimeters. Unlike the Chinese toy knock-off, the safety certifications printed on the Fluke actually mean that they meet those standards, and the CE mark on the Fluke doesn't stand for "China Export."
To professional users and serious hobbyists, these factors are important.
That's not the point. The point is that the reason the loans were available to them at all was the government's decision to involve itself in the marketplace.
That's a bit of a double-edged comment, though, considering the subsidies Tesla has taken in the form of loans. When you encourage government to pick winners and losers, you can't be too surprised when they insist on doing both.
That said, good on Elon Musk for calling bullshit on this particular issue.
Oooh, I like car analogies. Difficulty: the car is three billion years old, nobody has seen the service manual, and the maintenance records for its first 2,999,990,000 years are missing.
Science is not a democracy. If I had a nickel for every time when "95% of scientists" believed something that was later proven wrong, I'd have at least 25 cents.
Here's a few changes that would reduce the intrusion of government into your daily habits: Quite driving on roads; drinking clean water; breathing clean air; eating food inspected for its safety; quit using products inspected for safety; eliminate from your thought process that if something terrible goes wrong you can just call the: fire department, police department, or other emergency responders; quit taking medications that have been tested for safety; quit using the post office, the internet, tv, cable, satellite services. It takes an especially egregious asshat to be such a hypocrite as fuckwads who don't recognize that they use government resources and services EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THEIR LIFE. You want to live like a antisocial inbred dipshit in a cave somewhere, give Ted Kaczynski a call.... he might have some tips for you. Oh wait... even he used the Post Office. I guess he wasn't quit the fuckwad asshat you want to be.
I love these sorts of posts. Long on paternalistic indignation, short on reasons why all of those wonderful government benefits need to cost three trillion dollars a year.
When pressed, the person making the argument usually ends up spluttering something about how I should move to Somalia or someplace that otherwise embodies the only alternative to the modern megastate. So the bit about the Unabomber using the Post Office is at least original, I'll admit that much.
Also, there are plenty of other third-party de-Metrofication solutions for Windows 8. I'm not sure that ClassicShell is the most popular, but it's the one I use.
True, and most important, useless to most corporate users.
Microsoft under Ballmer has earned its place in business school case studies next to Edsel, Circuit City, and the inventor of the 110-volt rubber duck.
Win8 + ClassicShell is fine. No drawbacks versus Windows 7 that I've run across. I've never seen Metro since the initial installation, it just isn't there.
Slashdot Mirror
Physicists spend their time actively trying to poke holes in the Standard Model. Climate scientists seem to start from a conclusion and then look for evidence supporting it.
We need things like regulations and unions because business has no morality; and left to their devices they will do anything they see fit.
Yeah, unlike, say, unions and governments.
What in the fuck is going on?
As best I can tell, what's happening in the UX world is similar to what happened to fashion and hairstyles in the 1970s. (Almost) everybody just went crazy overnight for some reason. Some kind of brain parasite, maybe, carried by cats or birds.
The trend will eventually recede as quickly as it arrived, as plagues always do. Then we'll see functional, user-configurable interface design come back into favor. I've given up, personally. I'm just going to stop complaining and wait it out. It doesn't pay to be the only sane guy in the asylum.
No, not Enzo Ferrari, Elon Musk.
Circuit Cellar's still around, and not half bad, actually.
Communist personality cults are just another religion. Don't agree? Go to North Korea and tell them they're "atheists." They'll send you home in a box.
Note that everything I said still applies if the IPCC is right but consistently unable to prove their case. Confounding factors are a massive hazard on geologic timescales as short as the ones for which we have genuinely reliable data. A ten- or twenty-year cooling trend could have the same effect as outright failure of the models.
Point being, we shouldn't put climate science and evolution in the same basket. They are not on equal footing. To pretend otherwise is to invite a cultural disaster.
h) The AGW "debate" in the USA closely resembles the Creation-vs-Evolution "debate", ie. a never-ending game of Whac-a-Mole against arguments that sound plausible but never stand up under scrutiny, no matter how convinced the creationists were when they were parroting them. One side has to spend vast resources to produce hard evidence, the other side doesn't feel they have any burden of proof whatsoever, they just make stuff up.
Actually it doesn't resemble the Creation/Evolution debate at all, and I get the heebie-jeebies when someone says it does. One of my favorite charities, the National Center for Science Education, has gone down this path recently and I wish there were a good way to talk them out of it.
Climate models are based on just that -- models. We could still wake up one day, slap ourselves in the forehead, and admit that our computer models are either grossly in error, or missing one or more key factors that would change their output drastically. The map is not the territory, science is not a democracy or a popularity contest, and climate modeling is not a "settled science." I don't care who says it is, and I don't care what percentage of climate scientists agree. It just isn't. Sorry, but that's not the way these things work.
On the other hand, we are absolutely not going to wake up one day and realize that we have the basics of evolution wrong. There is absolutely no possibility that we will discover that humans are not, in fact, descended from earlier hominids. There is absolutely no possibility that we will discover that we don't have ancestors in common with modern apes. That isn't going to happen. Too many independent lines of evidence have come together, making consistent predictions, providing confirmable explanations, and withstanding intense scrutiny.
My fear is that the global-warming thing will prove to be a red herring, as usually happens whenever "B...b...but 99% of scientists agree!!!11!" is the primary argument in favor of a theory. When that happens, it's going to be almost impossible to keep the Creationists and other assorted modern-day flat-earthers from gaining the influence over public education and popular culture that they've always dreamed of.
(Shrug) They're good multimeters. Unlike the Chinese toy knock-off, the safety certifications printed on the Fluke actually mean that they meet those standards, and the CE mark on the Fluke doesn't stand for "China Export."
To professional users and serious hobbyists, these factors are important.
I'm sure quite a few Indian and Chinese automakers would love to see the franchised dealer-only model go away.
Actually you may have hit on the real issue -- these dealership laws are really just old-fashioned protectionism in disguise.
... does any of this have to do with NASA?
That's not the point. The point is that the reason the loans were available to them at all was the government's decision to involve itself in the marketplace.
That's a bit of a double-edged comment, though, considering the subsidies Tesla has taken in the form of loans. When you encourage government to pick winners and losers, you can't be too surprised when they insist on doing both.
That said, good on Elon Musk for calling bullshit on this particular issue.
Oooh, I like car analogies. Difficulty: the car is three billion years old, nobody has seen the service manual, and the maintenance records for its first 2,999,990,000 years are missing.
Science is not a democracy. If I had a nickel for every time when "95% of scientists" believed something that was later proven wrong, I'd have at least 25 cents.
I don't see a moral problem with it, as long as it saves more innocents from murderers than the innocents we execute.
Big "Dexter" fan, I take it? Because what you're saying is that you approve of a justice system that's indistinguishable from vigilantism.
How about Giordano Bruno? What'd he do, give the Pope a wedgie in the locker room after basketball practice?
The only downside i've really seen to the process is how they keep executing people who eventually turned out to be innocent
If that's not a dealbreaker in your opinion, there's something very wrong with you.
That'd depend on what the professor meant by "distance."
I love these sorts of posts. Long on paternalistic indignation, short on reasons why all of those wonderful government benefits need to cost three trillion dollars a year.
When pressed, the person making the argument usually ends up spluttering something about how I should move to Somalia or someplace that otherwise embodies the only alternative to the modern megastate. So the bit about the Unabomber using the Post Office is at least original, I'll admit that much.
They held a public funeral for the iPhone, too. How'd that work out?
Also, there are plenty of other third-party de-Metrofication solutions for Windows 8. I'm not sure that ClassicShell is the most popular, but it's the one I use.
True, and most important, useless to most corporate users.
Microsoft under Ballmer has earned its place in business school case studies next to Edsel, Circuit City, and the inventor of the 110-volt rubber duck.
Win8 + ClassicShell is fine. No drawbacks versus Windows 7 that I've run across. I've never seen Metro since the initial installation, it just isn't there.
Clearly, you have never purchased or rented a house that was rewired by a doctor.